What is Done and Yet to Come

Part II


Her hair grew fast now. While on active duty, Shepard never had a problem keeping her hair short, just to the edge of her jaw. Long enough to tuck behind her ears; short enough that wearing a helmet was never a problem. But now it swept the tops of her shoulders in a length she hadn't seen since she was a little girl getting scraped knees on the plains of Mindoir.

She blamed the pregnancy hormones. Pregnancy got a lot of the blame these days.

"Oof," she groaned, rolling over to her other side. But the pressure didn't go away. "Get off my kidney, squirt," she grumbled at her swollen belly. Predictably, the baby didn't budge; even seemed to do a little tap dance. She gasped in mingled pain and amusement; this kid was definitely Kaidan's. Sliding out of bed, one hand pressed to her belly, she paced for a bit, hoping the change in position would shift things around.

Her stomach rumbled.

"Fine," she sighed in defeat. "You win. I'm up. I hope you're happy." She glanced back at the bed as she pulled on a sweatshirt over her pajamas. It wasn't as if she was getting a lot of sleep anyway. Even when the baby was quiet, for the first time since she could remember, she felt… lost in bed.

It was strange; when Kaidan had regularly begun sleeping in her quarters, they had gentle squabbles about "space" requirements. Kaidan didn't need space; he liked being close to her, liked to cuddle, hold her as they slept. Shepard, on the other hand, needed her space. She liked to cuddle, but when it was time to sleep, she wanted to sleep with no extra arms or legs encumbering her. Kaidan claimed that she sprawled across the bed with such inexorable forward movement, he had to hold onto her or risk falling off. She would counter back that she wasn't used to sharing a bed with anyone, so of course she would try to maximize the space she had.

"You'd better get used to it, Shepard," he'd said, threading his hand through her hair. "Because I'm not going anywhere. This time, I don't have to obey your orders to abandon ship. And I never will again."

Shepard abruptly turned from the empty bed and navigated through the dark toward the mess.

The night guard outside the barracks nodded as she passed. It wasn't the first, nor would it be the last time that Shepard wandered the building when everyone else was still asleep. The sighs and snores of dozens of other soldiers filled the larger, common sleeping area as she carefully walked through. This building was a recent discovery of about two months ago; an office building that had several floors underground and they'd all survived remarkably intact. Even the bathrooms still had running water: a fact Shepard was extremely grateful for now that the baby seemed to ensure that she didn't go two hours without needing to seek out a toilet. It was humbling. Commander Shepard, savior of the Citadel, defeater of the Reapers… was a slave to the pressure of a tiny foot or elbow on her bladder.

After she finished in the bathroom, the pressure now a little less painful, she wandered into the mess, closing the door so she could switch on the light without disturbing everyone else. That was another nice thing about this underground building: electricity. In a utility closet, the first excavators had discovered several generators. Most they sent to Alliance HQ, the hospital, and the other building used to house refugees, but one they kept for what was affectionately being called the "Bunker," where Alliance personnel slept.

The night guard's pot of coffee still steamed quietly, so Shepard poured herself half a cup of coffee, just enough to get awake, and grabbed a couple of protein bars from the cabinet. She sank down into the bench next to one of the tables, ripping open one of the packages and taking a large bite. The baby moved, pain easing. She rubbed her belly appreciatively.

"There now, that wasn't so hard."

She activated her omni-tool, scrolling through some of the latest reports, frowning at a couple. Punching in the communicator, she waited for a moment as it connected, hearing a growling snort come from the other end.

"Shepard, you'd better have a good reason for waking me at an hour when even the threshers don't stir."

"Just checking in, Wrex," she said, sipping her coffee to wash down the last bite of the first protein bar. "Eclipse still giving you trouble? Cause I think we can—"

The krogan grumbled something.

Shepard frowned. "What was that?"

"I said, you're brooding. Leave me alone, Shepard. I know how to handle a gang of mercs. I've been doing it pretty well the past few months or have you forgotten?"

Shepard glared at the omni-tool. "I am not brooding!"

"You're pregnant. Pregnant females brood."

"Say that one more time and I'll come up to that hunk of junk you call a ship and kick your ass!"

Wrex chuckled. "And you probably could too, as big as you're getting." He spoke over her angry splutters. "Go back to bed and don't call me this early again." The connection blinked out.

"I'm not that big," she grumbled. But she glanced down, noticing that all the crumbs from her protein bar had landed on the shelf of her swollen breasts or stomach and not the table. Sniffing, she ripped into her second bar, and queued up another call.

"Hey, Shepard," Tali's voice chirped.

"Morning, Tali. Glad you're up." Shepard smiled. "I just talked to Wrex and he really needs his beauty sleep apparently."

Tali giggled. "It's mid-afternoon here. I just finished a meeting with the Admirals and the turian Primarch."

"Oh? How'd it go?"

"Not as bad as it could have. Our liveships are still producing enough food to feed both the quarian and the turian population. More of the turians, however, would like to return planetside on a semi-permanent basis. They've been talking with the Alliance. They want to be busy; clear rubble, help refugees, that sort of thing. They want to know if they can get a dextro-based food processor from one of our liveships to take to Earth."

"Let me guess: the Admirals are a bit nervous about it?"

"Yes," Tali sighed. "It's understandable. No one wants to risk running out of things to eat, but the Flotilla has made its own food for centuries. We know better than anyone what we can spare and what we can't. I'm getting ready to run some numbers now. When I come back with the proof that we can spare a processor, I'm sure the Admirals will be fine with the idea."

"We're keeping an eye out here, too," Shepard reminded her. "You never know if a turian café might be uncovered around here and the equipment can be salvaged."

"Right. I think the turians hope that might happen actually. We may eat the same things, but they have to be getting sick of quarian cuisine."

The line went silent for a moment. Shepard sipped the last of her coffee.

"Shepard?" Tali's voice came hesitantly over the omni-tool. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Keep from... succumbing to utter misery because he's there and you're here."

Shepard fell silent, remembering when she had accidentally walked in on Garrus and Tali sharing an intimate moment. "You take it one day at a time," she said in a soft voice. "Some days are better than others. On the good days you know you'll see him again and it gives you strength to go on. On the bad days you call up a friend, even if it's only to hear the sound of another person's voice."

Tali's chuckle sounded a little watery. "I guess you've had a lot of bad days then."

Shepard winced as her belly tightened; she rubbed her hand across it absently. "Yeah. There's just… so much he can't be here for, Tali, and it's…" She blew out a breath. "It's not fun." The tightening increased, and she sucked in a breath as pain accompanied the feeling.

"Shepard? What's wrong?"

Shepard couldn't reply for a moment, but the pain soon faded as if it had never happened. "N-nothing. Just a… cramp."

"Shepard, have you seen a doctor lately?"

"Yes," she replied defensively. "My knee still needs physical therapy and my arm too."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Shepard fiddled with the empty protein bar wrapper. "I… can't, Tali." She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. "I can't do this without him. I don't want to go in there alone and have them poke and prod and speak about our baby as if he wasn't part of it—"

"Then I'll come down there, and I'll go with you," Tali interrupted.

"No," Shepard countered. "You're busy; you have too much to do, especially as the ambassador to the turians. Everyone's anxious: your people; theirs. You can't just leave that situation hanging."

"Shepard, this is important."

"I know." She rubbed a hand over her face, through her hair. "I'm being idiotic. Chakwas would ream me a new one if she saw me." She paused. "I'll think about it."

"I'm going to bug you about this until you actually do something."

Wanting to change the topic, Shepard cleared her throat. "Admiral Hackett's promised to let me know when the Normandy drops out of FTL speed and gives us an update. I'll let you know when it happens."

"Thank you, Shepard. That means a lot. Listen, I need to go, but hang in there. Keelah se'lai."

"Keelah se'lai," Shepard echoed.

The call ended and the silence and solitude pressed in around her again. She needed to be busy; busy meant her mind couldn't trace the endless paths of "what ifs" and "maybes." Speed of any kind was nearly impossible in her state, but she managed to shower, pull her hair back into a serviceable bun, and get dressed all before the changing of the night shift into the morning shift.

A rumbling elevator took her to the surface and she stepped out onto the street, shivering as her breath clouded the air in front of her. Seven months had done much to clear away the worst of the rubble around Fort Anderson, the hospital, and refugee camp. Locals were now calling it "Haven." Even the fledgling European Union was based here, out of another building with underground offices about a block away. People could now walk sidewalks and streets, though most still needed repair to make them passable for ground vehicles other than Makos. Then again, there wasn't any traffic except for military vehicles these days anyway.

Cold as it was, Shepard was glad to be out of the stale underground Bunker. She checked the time on her omni-tool and frowned. It was still a bit early to talk to Hackett; the poor man got little enough sleep as it was. Hugging her sweater around her, Shepard instead walked toward the park. The "park" was a cleared space of ground that was probably someone's garden before the war. But once the rubble had been cleared away, some grass had started to grow. It wasn't long before people began flocking there just to see a glimpse of hope and soon benches made from pieces of buildings sprang up. When it was warmer, the sounds of children's laughter could be heard amid impromptu games of tag and hide and seek.

Shepard went there a lot these days. As her mobility decreased, it became a convenient rest stop and it gave her hope to see smiles on people's faces. Her usual perch already was already occupied. Shepard paused then sat down beside her.

"Good morning," Shepard said. "You're up early."

The older woman yawned into the back of her hand, smiling. "I could say the same." Her eyes darted down to Shepard's belly. "Little mite wouldn't let you sleep?"

"Nope." She rubbed her hand over her stomach. It was tightening again. "I think he revels in making me get up just as soon as I'm comfortable."

The woman smiled. "'He'?"

Shepard nodded. "I think so? I mean, I can't keep calling him an 'it' and a boy feels right. A son…" She drifted off, imagining a little boy with Kaidan's thick dark hair. Her throat tightened unexpectedly and she swallowed. Stupid pregnancy emotions. Trying to distract herself, she looked again at her companion. She'd met the woman, a refugee, a few weeks ago on this very bench. Somehow, they'd struck up a conversation and they'd met nearly every day since. She was older than Shepard by at least twenty years, though there was a natural grace to her movements unfettered by age, and only a little bit of gray at the temples of her curly black hair.

It was… strange, but oddly refreshing to talk about everyday nothings with the woman who'd only called herself Elizabeth. Shepard hadn't identified herself and the woman hadn't asked.

"Any news about your husband or son?" Shepard asked.

Elizabeth looked down at her hands cradled in her lap. "No. Still MIA, though technically they won't even admit that to me. I know they don't have an accurate… body count, but this awful not knowing…" Her voice roughened and she turned her head away. Shepard let her compose herself. Elizabeth had come to Haven since it was the location for Alliance HQ, looking for her husband and son, both of whom had gone missing. Shepard knew it was likely that they would never be found—both of them buried under rubble or among the countless dead drifting somewhere in the space above Earth. But she said nothing. Sometimes hope was all a person had to keep going.

"You look troubled." Elizabeth had recovered and looked back at Shepard.

Shepard nodded. "I… My family was killed when I was a teenager. With the wisdom of years of therapy and adulthood, I am able to see that I couldn't have done anything to save them. But for a large portion of my life, my only goal was to prove that I wasn't that weak little girl anymore. I needed to be strong enough to prove to the people who'd killed my family and destroyed my home that I wouldn't be scared the next time; that I would beat them."

She looked up at the park seeing a distant couple on another bench, not moving simply leaned in toward each other, resting on the other. "I didn't realize that I was pushing everything and everyone away. Kaidan…" She swallowed hard and Elizabeth stirred, but Shepard didn't look at her, continuing, "Kaidan made me realize that I am only as strong as the people around me—that I need people, not just as tools to complete an objective, but as friends, family. I need him and he needs me and that makes neither of us weak." She winced as pain rippled across her belly but it was gone in a blink. "I've never met an enemy I couldn't bash my way through, but I… I don't think I can do this… parenting thing without him, Elizabeth, and that scares the hell out of me."

"Commander?" An private hesitantly approached the bench, saluting. "Admiral Hackett would like to speak with you."

Shepard heaved herself to her feet. "Alright. Thank you, Private Granger. I'll walk with you." She turned back to say goodbye to Elizabeth and found the woman staring at her in open-mouthed astonishment.

"You're… you're Commander Shepard." It wasn't a question.

Shepard nodded. "Sorry for not introducing myself. But it was nice to talk to you." She turned and followed the private out of the park.

#

Other Alliance soldiers up early nodded as they got closer to Fort Anderson, some saluting. Her lips curved in a smile. She had never been more out of uniform in her life—the Alliance didn't have maternity wear—yet that boy back there with his overbite and hero-worship in his gaze was saluting so hard his spine might have cracked in two. The private escorting her was also straight-backed. Likely she'd brag to her buddies later about her escort of Commander Shepard to Admiral Hackett.

"Looks like you've got a fan," said Lieutenant Alenko, grinning as the blond-haired man literally jumped up and down, waving with embarrassing enthusiasm. Shepard gave Alenko a flat stare that had sent men of higher rank than his fleeing for the hills, but he simply smiled wider. "Maybe you should practice your autograph, ma'am, because I think he's going to ask for it." Shepard's flat stare turned into an appraised glance. So the quiet Lieutenant had a sense of humor underneath his handsome exterior—she clamped down on that thought, angry at herself. Regs, Shepard! But his smile remained with her the rest of the day.

Her stomach tightened again, but this time she had a hard time separating the pain of the contraction from the pain of the memory. She leaned against a disconnected wall of a building, breathing heavily until the spasm passed.

"Ma'am?" Private Granger stepped closer. "Are you okay?"

"F-fine," she grunted. The pain faded as before, but then almost immediately came back, worse than before. Shepard hissed out a breath.

"I… I'm going to go get a doctor," Granger stuttered, eyes wide, and raced away before Shepard could gather a breath to order her back. She soon returned leading a woman in BDUs that Shepard recognized from her time in the hospital.

"Commander," the woman said, coming over to put a hand on her shoulder in concern. "What seems to be the problem?"

Shepard could see that putting her off wouldn't get her anywhere, and blew out a breath in frustration. "I've been having… pains." She rubbed her hand across her belly; the last pain had receded. Already it seemed like it had never happened.

"How far along are you?"

"Seven months. Give or take a week or two." Shepard cleared her throat. "There were, um, multiple opportunities for conception."

A flicker of amusement crossed over the medic's face. "Are these pains frequent? Rhythmic?"

"Well they're happening more often than I would like," Shepard admitted. Fear clawed a ragged path up her throat. "This can't be happening," she said, releasing a shuddering breath. "It's too early. Kaidan's not back yet and—"

The medic clamped down on Shepard's shoulder, squeezing gently. "Get it together, soldier," she ordered in a firm voice. "I'm going to take you to the hospital because I don't have a maternity kit on my omni-tool, but Dr. Zhang does. To be safe, we need to give you a full workup. Got it?"

Shepard nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The firm voice of authority giving orders calmed her somewhat, recalling her back to her days before her own command. The baby stirred inside her. Just hold on, she told him silently.

"Come on, Commander. Let me know if you need to rest as we walk."

She swallowed hard and followed the other woman.

#

"No," Shepard said, fingers twitching toward her concealed sidearm. "I feel fine. I'm not going to let you… stab my baby with a needle or do any of this other crap."

Dr. Zhang looked a mixture of frustrated and wary. She'd likely dealt with many frightened pregnant women before, but not many of them were armed with both guns and biotics. "Commander, this is a routine procedure. It's necessary at this stage to check the embryonic fluid. It will help us determine if anything is wrong with the fetus—"

Shepard's biotics flared, making the baby swirl around inside her. "This is my baby!"

Dr. Zhang froze, fear flickering across her face.

"Commander Shepard, it's okay." A new voice entered the room. Shepard dragged her eyes away from the doctor and saw, to her surprise, Elizabeth standing in the doorway to the room.

"Elizabeth?" Shepard blinked in confusion.

The older woman stepped into the room, gently pulling the pistol from Shepard's hand. She hadn't even realized she'd taken it out. Elizabeth took Shepard's hands in her own and squeezed gently, static electricity crackling as they touched.

"It's going to be okay," she repeated, holding Shepard's gaze with her own. Her eyes were a caramel brown, dark and serious under stern black eyebrows. "They're not going to hurt you or the baby. I promise. If these pains you've been having are pre-term labor, ignoring it won't make it go away, but if we find out what it is now, we have the ability to fix it before it becomes dangerous to the baby. Right doctor?"

Dr. Zhang nodded. "As I was trying to explain a moment ago…" She wiped the back of her wrist over her forehead.

Shepard swallowed hard against the pain knifing up her throat, her biotic corona fading. "But I can't… I can't do this alone, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth tugged her forward into a hug, gentle yet firm: a mother's hug. "You won't be." She pulled back to look Shepard in the face again, this time smiling through tears. "I'm Kaidan's mother."


Author's note: So this one got away from me and spawned several mutant versions of itself before I finally wrestled it into submission. Some stories - like the first chapter - spring into existence fully formed. Others have to be carved into existence, like Michaelangelo and his block of marble.

I think there's one more story yet to come. Stay tuned.