"Shit, fuck, piss, bitch, goddammit!"

The first thing Miranda heard upon stepping through the front door was Jack's raised voice from the back of the apartment somewhere. The second thing was a loud crash, and the third was yet more cursing.

"Hanar crap!" Biting back a chuckle at the first fruit of Jack's attempts to clean up her mouth, Miranda set her bag aside and began methodically stripping out of her clothes, dumping them into the hamper left just inside the entrance. As per their agreement, Jack had given up smoking and drinking and Miranda had given up clothing inside their home.

"Jack?" she called out, picking up the mostly-full hamper and carrying it across to set on top of the laundry machine in the kitchen, "Is something-" She was cut off by another crash, and then Jack's voice floated out to her again, sounding angry with just a hint of petulance.

"There you are, you fucking cheerleader," Jack growled, although of course the 'cheerleader' in question wasn't the least bit intimidated. "Get your ass back here, and I swear if you're wearing clothes I'm gonna… shit, I'll probably fucking cry or something. Goddammit, just come here."

Miranda had heard enough. She padded through the apartment on bare feet, heading for the bedroom. It seemed a logical assumption, considering Jack's frequent amorous moods and her voiced demand for nudity, that the other woman would be waiting for her in bed. She wasn't.

"Jack? Where…?"

"In here," came the now-soft voice of her wife from their en-suite bathroom. When Miranda poked her head inside, she was greeted by a sight equal parts sad and heartwarming. Jack sat on the floor by the side of the empty bathtub, surrounded by fallen bath products and the shelves that had once held them, looking tired and frustrated and very, very pregnant. The former operative fought the temptation to make a joke about her wife's ponderous belly - she had not even a glimmer of her sister's joke-making ability, so any attempt would be more likely to infuriate Jack than jolly her along. Instead, she knelt next to the tattooed woman, shifting bottles and such out of the way until she could wrap her arms around the still-thin body.

There was a moment of stillness, then Jack sighed, a sharp sound that would have seemed angry to most anyone except Miranda. She turned into the older woman's embrace, nestling her face into bare breasts.

"This is all your fault," the ex-con growled irritably. "I just wanted to take a fucking bath, but between your product," she hissed the world like a curse, "And your spawn," she slapped one hand lightly against her rounded belly, "I can't even do that!"

Miranda, having learned her lessons thoroughly and well early on in this pregnancy, didn't say anything. At times like these, there was literally no sequence of sounds she could string together that wouldn't just make it worse. Instead, she simply held Jack tightly, ignoring the complaining of her knees on the tile, until the other biotic's grip finally weakened, her need for comfort assuaged for the moment. Then she slipped gently out of Jack's arms.

She started the bath running with the touch of a button, and while that was going she carefully put both shelves back up and began sorting and replacing fallen bottles, all in complete silence.

"I love you," Jack said suddenly, her voice still angry but sinking into sadness. Miranda paused and glanced down, blue eyes locking with brown, and her heart contracted with sweet pain.

"I love you too," she murmured, setting down a bottle of conditioner so she could lower her hand to run her fingers through Jack's loose hair. The tattooed woman opened her mouth to speak, but Miranda beat her to the punch, forestalling the self-deprecation that she knew was forthcoming. "Always and forever," she added in a firm voice that brooked no argument. "At all times without fail, until every star in the universe has gone cold, and right now more than ever."

There was a brief pause, and then Jack burst into tears.

Miranda froze in a blind panic. Angry Jack she could handle. Petulant, moody, ravenous, clumsy, nit-picky, and horny Jack were all things she could deal with. But crying? She was out of her depth, especially since there was every indication that she'd been the one to set the other woman off.

Squatting down again, she was just about to take Jack into her arms again when the tattooed woman flung herself forward first, clinging to Miranda's neck and crying into her shoulder.

"I'm gonna be an awful fucking mom," Jack sobbed. "What am I even doing?"

"Jack," Miranda began, only to be cut off - and nearly choked out - when Jack just tightened her hold and cried harder.

"I love you so fucking much," the pregnant woman managed to get out between sobs and hiccups, "And I love our baby so fucking much, but what the fuck do I know about being a mom, Miri?"

Miranda had barely opened her mouth to reply before Jack started talking again, her words stumbling all over themselves and her tears dripping down the older woman's chest.

"Nothing! I don't know one goddamn thing about being a mom, but I'm gonna be one any day now, and I'm gonna ruin our kid and-"

Firm hands on her shoulders pushed Jack back, and she looked up, startled, to meet Miranda's eyes. The ex-operative was frowning sharply at her.

"Now you listen to me," she began, laying a finger with unexpected gentleness against Jack's lips when the crying woman thought to protest. "Just listen. Do you think I know any more about being a mother than you do? I never had one, didn't think I could even become one for so long, and I have no bloody clue what we're going to do, except for one thing. You and I are going to love this child with everything in us. Between you, me, and a small army of aunts and uncles, she will never, ever doubt that she is loved. I think that'll be enough to make up for a crooked diaper or some rough language here and there, don't you?"

Jack just stared silently at her for a moment, the tears slowly drying on her cheeks - luckily, she hadn't bothered with mascara. Eventually, slowly, she nodded, then fell back into Miranda's embrace without another word, nestling her face in the crook of a pale neck and holding on tight.

They stayed that way for a while, just holding each other, until the bathtub chimed and drew them out of their reverie.

"Your bath awaits," Miranda said with a soft chuckle, and Jack rolled her eyes but couldn't help but grin in reply.

"Help me in?"

"But of course." Miranda cheated a bit, using her biotics to help her gently lift the smaller woman up and into the steaming hot water, but considered it a fair trade for the overall lack of injuries or splashing.

Settling in with a loud sigh of relief, Jack held out one hand with a salacious little grin.

"Join me?"

"We're going to make a mess," Miranda warned, even as she slipped in behind Jack, molding her front to the other woman's back and resting both hands on the swell of her stomach. Jack promptly moved one of them to points slightly higher, pressing down to ensure her point was made.

"Good."

She must have blacked out for a few seconds, because Miranda was jolted awake in the cooling water by Jack's sudden death-grip on one of her wrists and the opposite thigh.

"Jack, what are you-"

"Good fucking going, Mom-to-be," the ex-con hissed, her grip tightening even further before slowly beginning to relax. "Now I have even more reasons to scream that this is all your goddamn fault, 'cause that last orgasm you insisted you could wring out of me? Yeah, I think it just kickstarted labour. So you may wanna get me the fuck out of here, now."

Only two words came to mind as Miranda practically leapt from the tub.

"Oh fuck."