What is Done and Yet to Come

Part 3


Shepard took a deep breath as the decon cycle ended, and took her place a step behind Captain Anderson as they entered the Normandy SR-1. Anderson had forwarded pictures of the crew to her personal datapad earlier that week, urging her to go over the information so she'd know who she was working with for the duration of the shakedown cruise.

Immediately through the airlock, the crew—lined up from the cockpit to what looked like the CIC—stiffened into salutes. Anderson stopped in front of a balding older man that Shepard recognized.

"Commander, this is—"

"Navigator Charles Pressly," Shepard said with a smile. "A pleasure."

The older man blinked in surprise at her knowing him by name and face already. "Welcome aboard, ma'am."

Anderson chuckled. "Should I let you give the introductions, Shepard? Seems like you know the crew already."

Shepard grinned. "I'll do fifty push-ups for every one I get wrong, sir."

"Deal."

They walked down the line of straight-backed Alliance soldiers—with the exception of Flight Lieutenant Moreau who stayed hunched on his crutches before being permitted to sit back in his pilot's chair—Shepard greeting each by name.

"Doctor Chakwas."

"Commander. Welcome."

"Engineer Adams."

"Ma'am."

She paused. The next face stared at her with calm expectation. It was a face she'd come back to over and over again: the marine detail commander, Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko. She'd be working closely with him. She offered her hand and they both jumped as static electricity sparked between them.

"Sorry—" They both said at the same time. Lieutenant Alenko hid a smile with a polite cough. "Excuse me, ma'am. I'm a biotic. We, uh, need to be grounded before shaking hands. I should have known better."

Shepard smiled. "Actually, Lieutenant, I don't know if we can prove who the instigator was here." She flared her biotics, the aura crackling faintly, then let the field dissipate. She didn't normally overly display her abilities except on the battlefield, but Anderson had suggested she find an opportunity to display them to the crew. He said it would do them good to get used to a biotic being in charge. No reason to coddle them.

Lieutenant Alenko's caramel brown eyes widened. She smiled again and moved down the line.

Shepard opened her eyes, expecting the cool lighting of the Normandy and seeing only the dim light of one of the office spaces in Ford Anderson. Grimacing, she stood, hands resting on her swollen belly. She'd just closed her eyes to rest them and had fallen asleep it seemed.

She dreamed about Kaidan lot these days. Sometimes they were memory dreams, like that one. Other times, the dreams seemed to be in the present, as if he were there with her and he'd smile and her chest would ache at the look in his eyes and they'd talk or simply lay together, his arms holding her close.

Thirty-seven weeks. Her life seemed to live by numbers these days. Thirty-seven was the most important. Thirty-seven weeks since the Reapers were destroyed. Thirty-seven weeks of surviving in a world blown back technology wise at least two-hundred years, of proving that they could survive. Thirty-seven weeks since she'd discovered… The baby moved. It was a different kind of movement than two months ago, less fluttery and more like someone shifting around in a too-tight shirt. There were also times now when the baby didn't move. That had scared her breathless until Elizabeth assured her that this far along, the baby was actually sleeping at times, behaving more like a newborn.

Names, too, were running the gambit through her mind. Initially, Shepard had told herself that she and Kaidan would name the baby together, but if she was honest with herself, she was already set on David, after Anderson. The late Admiral was as different from her actual father as could be, but he'd been a significant part of her life: from her time in the Ns where he was an idol to emulate to the last time she spoke with him, when he'd told her how proud he was of her and what a good mother she would be.

Shepard rubbed her belly. I hope you're right, Anderson.

She left the office where she'd been going over some reports as the noise of people entering the room outside began to filter in. Excavators, all of them dusty and tired looking, shuffled into the common room outside of the offices. Elizabeth and a few of the other refugees immediately took the boxes and began sorting. Anything medical related, like medicine or bandages, went into the hospital box where a medic was doing his part to sort through the wreckage too. Foodstuffs went in another, salvageable tech in another, and so on.

Thirty-seven weeks in Haven. Shepard scratched at her belly—the skin itched a lot now. Dr. Zhang had said it was because the skin was stretching so quickly. At least the contractions hadn't gotten worse—what had the doctor called them? Braxton-Hicks contractions. "False alarms." They had gone away for awhile, but now they were back. Still, now that she knew what they were, she didn't worry. Now she just had to worry about other things… like what to wear if she got any bigger.

Excavators had to go a little further in their radius of search now—an oddly comforting thought. It meant that progress was being made. In any case, salvage was important. From canned foodstuffs to clothes to batteries; they were always running low on everything. Not dangerously low, but low enough that the number of excavator teams kept growing and were kept busy around the clock, digging through the rubble of houses and stores. Shepard had her own reasons for waiting for the teams to return. She heaved herself to her feet and lumbered over to the nearest, a Chief Petty Officer Richards, if she recalled correctly. He looked up as she approached and shook his head before she could even ask.

"Not a lot of baby stuff, ma'am. Some jars of baby food that survived, but not many."

Shepard frowned. "No diapers, no… cribs or… other baby things? Nothing? Not even maternity clothes?" She plucked restlessly at the ugly jumper thing that she'd been forced to wear for awhile now. She'd outgrown her last pair of pants. The only thing she had left of her old clothes was her N7 hoodie. Steve had found it wedged between the bench seats and the wall in the shuttle, which had recently been recovered in the wreckage of London. She hugged it around herself now.

"What you see is what you get, ma'am," returned the Chief with a shrug.

Shepard felt her anger start to boil, and she leaned close to the dirt-streaked man. "Listen here, Chief. The Normandy will be returning to Earth any day now and we need to be ready. I need to be ready. If we don't find the things we need—"

"Commander Shepard, a word if you please."

Shepard looked up, as did the rest of the Alliance soldiers, giving salutes around the room as Admiral Hackett stepped through the door. Shepard cast a look back at the Chief as she walked toward Hackett; he looked relieved. Hackett gestured her through the door and she followed. They walked through the dimly lit corridors of the underground building.

"Seems like you're here with the excavators every day, Shepard. You've done a good job organizing them, but," he said, raising an eyebrow, "you've been working too hard." He held up a hand to forestall the protest he saw on her face. "Even heroes—especially pregnant heroes ready to give birth," he added dryly, "need to take breaks. I'm removing you from active duty. Consider yourself on maternity leave."

"I'm fit for duty, sir," she bit out, ignoring the fact that she had pee again and her back was starting to hurt. "Let me have something to do."

Hackett's gaze softened a fraction. "Shepard, you aren't going to be doing anyone any favors by working yourself to the bone. I've been telling you that for the past eight months and it hasn't worked, so you've left me with little option but to order you to relax. If that means tying to you to a chair and a desk job, so be it. The press will have a field day if something happens to you."

"I need something to keep myself occupied, Admiral." She took a deep breath. "I can't just sit here and do nothing while the Normandy is in transit. People need help."

They reached the mess and went inside. Hackett poured himself a cup of coffee, offering the pot to Shepard. She shook her head, instead reaching for a nutrient bar in the cabinet to munch on.

Hackett eyed her. "You're not going back on duty." She started to protest and he raised a hand. "That's an order, Commander."

Shepard bit into her bar, fighting a ridiculous urge to pout. Hackett was, perhaps, the only person in the Alliance who wasn't intimidated by her and could call rank on her without batting an eye. It was one of the things she appreciated about him usually, but right now it made her want to shoot something.

"There's another reason I wanted to speak to you, Shepard." Hackett said after a pause. "Maybe you should sit down."

The bite she'd just eaten turned to sawdust in her mouth. The baby stretched inside her and she pressed a hand against the push protectively.

"What is it?" she asked, staying on her feet.

"The Normandy hasn't reported in. Major Alenko had planned to at least make one scheduled stop out of FTL to update us on their progress, but we've been waiting for weeks and there's been no word. I think you should prepare yourself."

Shepard heard Hackett the first time, but he must have thought her silence stood for deafness because he repeated himself.

Somehow, she managed a "thank you, sir" past her numb lips, turned and left the room.

Elizabeth found her outside staring at a brick wall and when she asked what was wrong, it was if the thin thread of hope that had kept Shepard going the past thirty-seven weeks snapped. When she came to, Elizabeth's arms had engulfed her in the kind of hug that only mothers can give and both their faces were wet with tears.

#

A week later, Shepard ignored the tentative knocks on the door to her room, staying curled up in bed. There weren't many individual rooms available, but being pregnant and a hero had its perks. Her stomach cramped with hunger but she didn't move, couldn't move. It was as if a weight the size of a krogan had settled onto her chest, making it hard to breathe.

She knew what this was. When she was sixteen her family had been murdered by slavers and only therapy, a regimen of antidepressants, and the care of her aunt and uncle had brought her out of a depression so deep she couldn't see a way out. To be staring in the face of that pit again was draining and… tempting. It would be so easy to just give in, to let the bleakness when she thought about Kaidan adrift in space take over….

A tiny movement inside her made her open her eyes, and she let out a shuddering breath. No. She couldn't give in. She had to fight. Slowly, she raised herself up to a sitting position, sucking in lungfuls of air in an effort to dispel the weight in her chest.

"Andie?" Elizabeth's voice came from outside the door. "Are you okay? Your friend Tali'Zorah said you haven't been answering calls."

Shepard glanced at her omni-tool, only then noticing that she had a dozen incoming calls, none of which she'd noticed.

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah," Shepard finally managed to reply, her voice hoarse.

The door slid open. Elizabeth was carrying a tray of food, wearing a concerned expression.

"You haven't been out," she commented.

"Only to use the head," Shepard said, shrugging.

Elizabeth sat the tray down on the bedside table and sat next to her on the bed.

"Andie, you have to fight this. I miss him too, but your baby needs you." The older woman gripped Shepard's hands. "I need you . You're as good as family to me, and I won't lose you too, you hear me?"

Shepard nodded, feeling her throat constrict. "I'm trying," she whispered. To prove it, she ate everything on the tray, though she was uncomfortably full by the end of it.

As she ate, Elizabeth proposed an idea.

"I think we could both use a change of scenery. My husband's family owns an orchard and vineyard in Okanagan, British Columbia. It would just be a quick visit, before the baby arrives. I was there before I came to London and there should be some baby things in storage. My mother-in-law always kept a few mementoes and a stash of baby things should family visit and need clothes or diapers that they didn't bring themselves."

"That would be useful," Shepard admitted, taking another bite of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"If there's anything left of it, it should be beautiful this time of year," Elizabeth said. "All the trees will be in bloom. We used to go there a lot when Kaidan was younger." Her voice grew wistful. "He used to love climbing the trees…"

Shepard agreed. She didn't think she could stand the sight of the familiar rubble fields of London any longer. Steve volunteered to fly them, plus a few other Alliance officers that needed a drop off in Vancouver.

"Hey, Shepard," Steve said, looking up as she approached the shuttle the day of the departure. She managed to nod in greeting, but couldn't quite muster the strength to speak. Steve must have seen the look on her face because he put down his datapad and came over and put his arms around her. She closed her eyes. It's almost the same, a distant part of her thought, the strength of his arms, the rasp of stubble against my cheek…

"Shepard, you with me?"

She nodded, but he held her by the shoulders, his vivid blue eyes staring her down. "Don't make him an anchor, Shepard," he said a low voice. He put his hand over hers, which was resting on her belly, and squeezed gently. "Uncle Steve plans to teach little David how to be a pilot. Can't let his jarhead heritage ruin him early on."

Shepard managed a shaky smile that felt more like a grimace, but Steve nodded and squeezed her shoulder again.

"Come on. Let's get you and Mrs. Alenko comfortable. It'll be a long trip."

It was a long trip, made longer by the awkward silence the Alliance officers insisted on keeping for part of it. The next part of the trip they seemed to reverse their opinion and tried to fill the silence with as much conversation as possible. Elizabeth made something of an effort to reply to their overly polite inquires, but Shepard did not.

Steve turned on the vid screens on the inside of the cabin so they could at least see some of the passing scenery. They flew over ruined cities and downed Reapers, but they also saw that not everything was destroyed. They saw a few remote towns that looked untouched, pristine. One even still had a church steeple standing tall and gleaming white. Shepard watched it as they passed, her eyes haunted.

"What more do you want of me?" she murmured. Elizabeth looked at her but didn't say anything.

"Er, did you say something Commander?" asked one of the officers.

Shepard closed her eyes and didn't reply.

#

Shepard walked around the colonial common house on Chasca as Kaidan stood at a console, omni-tool aglow, and Wrex poked through the scattered crates. She stepped closer to the body of a husk they'd downed earlier in the firefight, mouth twisting in distaste. There'd been some debate among the ground crew on what to do with the bodies of husks—after all, they had once been human: someone's friend or parent, a son, daughter, lover. It seemed disrespectful to the memory of what they had been to leave them laying there, but neither could they spare the time to bury them. Shepard made the decision after the second time they encountered husks to drag the bodies into a pile and burn them.

She turned away from the husk, heading to the back room. It opened at her approach revealing what must have been a lounge for the colony common house: a meager bar, a few chairs, a vid screen showing only static now, and… Shepard ran her hands over the haptic piano interface, the keys singing their tunes in response to the chips implanted in her fingertips. She hesitated, then set her fingers down in a minor chord that sounded through the speakers, a brief mournful note for those that had passed here.

"You play the piano?" Kaidan's voice at the door brought her up short. "Ma'am," he added belatedly.

Shepard hesitated. "I used to," she admitted, unable to keep the wistfulness out of her voice. "My mother paid for the lessons when I was a kid. I was… pretty good by the time I was a teenager. Won a few local contests."

"Really? That's impressive for a kid."

Shepard shrugged, smiling. "On a colony of less than 1,000 settlers and only a few hundred of those settlers children? I didn't have a lot of competition."

Kaidan watched her a moment, perhaps seeing the way her fingers lingered on the keys. "Do you miss it?"

Shepard curled her gauntleted hands away from the piano, the holographic keys winking off.

"It doesn't matter. We have a job to do." She looked up. "Let's go."

A few days later, after a visit to the Citadel for supplies and to update Udina and Anderson on the hunt for Saren, the requisitions officer delivered a package to Shepard's cabin. She opened it, puzzled as to who would have sent her something and felt her breath catch in her throat as she saw what it was: a haptic piano interface adapter for "any standard computer."

She stepped out of her cabin, the hardware adapters in her hand and saw Kaidan at his usual post beside her cabin, trying to fix the glitchy food processor that refused to make coffee at a proper scalding hot temperature. No one else was around.

"Kaidan—"

He looked up and saw what was in her hands. "Oh, looks like some new tech. Want me to install it for you, Commander? I've about had it with this thing."

She opened her mouth, intent on returning the gift, on gently letting him know he couldn't give things like this to her. But there was a stubborn set in his shoulders along with a carefully innocent expression. He'd refuse to take credit for the gift, she could see, and she might end up hurting him for no reason if she persisted. She found herself shaking her head instead. "Alright, Lieutenant. Yes, I would like some help."

He walked over, taking the pieces from her, his fingers brushing hers. "Happy to help, ma'am."

#

"Andie?"

Shepard woke with a start, her fingers flexing as if she were holding something, handing it over to someone that wasn't here. Elizabeth squeezed her outstretched hand. "We're here."

The shuttle rocked gently as it set down.

"Are we in Vancouver?" Shepard yawned.

"No. You slept through that. We're at the house in Okanagan." Elizabeth stood, gathering her bag and stepping from the shuttle.

Shepard grimaced as she stood, a dozen new aches blossoming all over her. Steve stepped out from the pilot's chair, catching her arm as she stumbled.

"Sorry," she muttered. "Feet swelled a little."

"Sorry, Commander. Should have woken you up when we got to Vancouver so you could walk around, but you looked like you needed the rest…"

She squeezed his arm reassuringly. "Don't worry about it. Let's go outside now."

Shepard expected to find the orchard in ruins, like everything else seemed to be, but this part of Okanagan was rural enough that the Reapers hadn't taken much notice. The nearby town had been burned and looted by frantic survivors, but the outlying farms and fields seemed relatively untouched. When Shepard stepped out onto grass, she almost wept. Haven now had grass in a scrappy little park that the Alliance soldiers had painstakingly uncovered for the benefit of the refugee children, but this… this was a marvel. Undulating waves of green stretched in every direction, only broken the sliver of blue in the distance. The lake. Shepard remembered Elizabeth mentioning it as a favorite place to visit in the summer.

The house was a modest-sized structure with an attached garage for a ground car. Just beyond the house were rows and rows of trees filled with blooms of flowers swaying in a gentle breeze. An outbuilding lay off to the side, housing the harvesting equipment, Elizabeth explained, and above all of that, the Rocky Mountains, their sides furry with green trees.

Steve went before them to the front door of the main house, weapon drawn, and motioned for the women to stand back. Shepard did so, but kept a hand on her sidearm, even as muscles spasmed across her belly in painful waves. She really should have gotten up sooner and walked around. Elizabeth had explained that her husband's parents had passed on just recently before the war started. The house had been closed up until they could go through everything and they'd never gotten the chance. Now they had to be careful. Looters and scavengers might have found a way inside.

Steve keyed his omni-tool with the access code that Elizabeth had given him and the door popped open. He disappeared inside but soon reappeared, holstering his weapon.

"Looks clear, ma'am. A lot of dust, but no one inside."

Elizabeth led the way then, gesturing them all into a large, homey kitchen so they could get something to eat. Rural as it was, Shepard noticed that the kitchen at least had all the modern conveniences: an auto-chef among them.

"Kaidan spent a lot of shore leave making things more comfortable for Gran and Pop," Elizabeth said smiling as she filled Shepard's water glass. "Their health was declining pretty rapidly these past couple of years. Fixing up the house gave him an excuse to spend more time here."

Shepard excused herself to the bathroom a moment later. The shuttle's last stop for a bathroom break had been hours ago. Exiting the washroom, she paused as a glint of something in an open room down the hall caught her eye. The door had been opened by Steve looking for intruders, and now she could see that it seemed to be a spare bedroom. Nothing fancy: a bed, a computer, a chest of drawers. An arm of a ragged blue sweater hung out of the drawers as if it had been hastily thrown in. Shepard felt her stomach clench painfully. It was Kaidan's. She picked up the sweater, poking her finger through one of the holes with a smile. He'd worn this sweater in the hospital when they were both recovering from injuries sustained in the Battle of the Citadel. It had been one of the first times she'd seen him outside of BDUs.

"You clean up nice."

Kaidan smiled crookedly. "Mom told me I'd need a sweater. This is my favorite. Had it since boot camp." His smile faltered and he ran a hand through his hair. "Shepard... uh, maybe this isn't the right time, but I don't know how long we have before the brass and the press descend on us and I wanted to know if... if you would want to have dinner with me? I know an almost secluded table in the hospital cafeteria right next to the fizzy drinks."

Shepard blinked and then laughed. "You do know how to seduce a girl." She adjusted the sling on her arm and threaded her good hand's fingers through his. To her surprise, he leaned over and kissed her, fingers teasing the hair she had tucked behind one ear.

"I've been wanting to do that for awhile," he said in a low voice that made her knees wobble. "Might be last chance before we're back in uniform."

"Well, we'd better take advantage while we can," she said and kissed him again, relishing the warmth of him through the sweater, the taste of him on her tongue.

Shepard sat down on the bed, clutching the sweater, the hollow ache in her chest seeming to yawn wider. After a moment, she rummaged through the drawers again, finding a pair of gray sweatpants folded neatly in the bottom drawer. At least she could have this. Shepard changed out of the hated maternity jumper and pulled on the sweatpants and Kaidan's sweater. For the first time in awhile, she didn't feel like one of those rachni pods ready to pop. Also, the sweater apparently hadn't been washed since the last time he'd worn it. In the closed room, stuffed into a drawer, the sweater still retained a faint hint of his aftershave. Her throat closed up, and she rubbed her belly for reassurance. She would get through this, like everything else. She had to. Even though she felt as useless as a ship drifting through space... Shepard lifted her head as something... an idea sparked into existence in her mind. In that hollow space something stirred. Not hope—not yet—but purpose.

#

"I'm going to find Kaidan," she announced, coming back out to the kitchen. Elizabeth looked up, blinking in surprise at Shepard's new attire. Steve had a glass of water poised comically at his lips, mid-sip.

"What?"

"After the baby's born, I'm going to head a rescue operation," she said with firm conviction."The Normandy can't be far. Maybe it just ran out of fuel so they're drifting. There's no reason to suppose that anything... horrible happened. They just need help and I'm going to do it."

"Count me in," Steve said, setting down his glass and grinning. "Nice to have you back, Commander."

"But what about the baby—David?" Elizabeth said, worry furrowing her brow. "You can't just leave a newborn behind... a trip like that could take weeks."

Shepard nodded. "I'll take him with me."

The kitchen fell quiet. Shepard could see that Elizabeth wanted to argue, could almost see it come to her face, but instead the older woman took a deep breath and nodded. "Then I'm coming too. You'll need my help... and I want to find Kaidan as much as you do."

They spent the rest of the day searching the house for the fabled trove of baby things. Shepard had to force herself to rest. The physical activity had triggered more of the contractions and nothing seemed to ease the discomfort.

At last, they did find a box in the basement labeled "baby" containing a goodly horde of blankets, tiny clothes, socks, and even a few toys. Best of all, however, were a large stack of cloth diapers
Steve hauled the box out of the basement, and Elizabeth ran a load of laundry. They decided to stay there for the night and head back to London in the morning.

#

Shepard awoke in the middle of the night to an odd popping feeling. Then she felt urgency pressing against her bladder and a sharp pain in her lower back. Stumbling through the dark, unfamiliar room, cursing once as she stubbed her toe against something unseen, she made it to the bathroom. Through the grogginess of sleep she didn't realize what was wrong until she flipped on the light. The sweatpants had been soaked through all the way to her socks. Another sharp pain rolled like a wave over her stomach and sudden pressure increased in her lower abdomen.

"Oh." Shepard breathed in and out, leaning against the sink. Elizabeth and Dr. Zhang had been coaching her on the signs... this was it. Her baby was coming whether she was in London or not. Feeling strangely calm for the first time in weeks, Shepard finished her business in the bathroom and took a quick shower to clean up. After changing into fresh clothes, she timed the contractions with her omni-tool. Still about fifteen minutes apart. She had time before she would need to wake Elizabeth.

Needing to be occupied, she went back out into the kitchen and flipped on the auto-chef for coffee. She wouldn't have any, but Elizabeth and Steve would probably need it. She was pacing through the kitchen, hissing out a few breaths through another contraction when a yawning, rumpled Steve wandered into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.

"Commander? What are you doing up at this hour?"

"The baby..." Shepard bit her lip as the contraction ended and exhaled. "David's making an early appearance." She rubbed her belly. The skin had gone soft again.

Steve's eyes widened, all signs of sleep fading from his face. "Do you... do I need to boil water or something?"

She laughed. "No, but... since you're up, if you could fly into that town we passed yesterday and see if there are any doctors around?"

Steve hurried out of the house, shrugging into his uniform as he ran, half spilling the mug of coffee she pressed into hands.

"Don't kill yourself, Steve!" she called after him as he started preflight for the shuttle.

"Are you kidding?" he yelled back to be heard over the noise of the engine. "Major Alenko will kill me if anything happens to you. I'll be right back!"

Shepard kept up the pacing, then retrieved her sidearm from the bedroom and cleaned it, the familiar motions soothing. She also sent out a quick email via her omni-tool to her friends still in the system—Wrex, Tali, Hackett—letting them know what was happening and that she wouldn't be returning to London as scheduled.

The contractions started getting closer together. Shepard waited until the last one passed and went to wake Elizabeth.

The next few hours were a blur of painful contractions getting ever-closer until they almost seemed constant. Shepard was no stranger to pain; she'd been charged by enemy krogan, pistol whipped by mercenaries, biotically flung through a wall, and had more bullets pass through her body than she wanted to remember. But it all seemed to dim in comparison with the feeling of trying to pass a freighter through what Tali would have called an "emergency induction port."

The doctor showed up finally, sleep tousled but alert, and took at look at the business end of the birthing bed. Steve hovered in the background, looking pale and fretful until Elizabeth told him to get the blankets from the laundry. They were going to need them.

"You're fully dilated, ma'am," the doctor said, pulling on gloves from his medical kit, "On the next contraction, I want you to push."

The universe seemed to shrink in those horrible, pain-filled moments. A Reaper could have come out of the darkest reaches of the galaxy and she wouldn't have noticed, wouldn't have cared. Nothing mattered except for the doctor's voice urging her on with words she couldn't quite understand but felt the meaning of. Steve was there too, holding her hand, letting her squeeze his arm so tightly she left bruises. She had enough presence of mind to realize that he shouldn't be there, that he was standing in someone's place, but the pain came again, bringing its startling focus on only the now and not what should be.

And then hours later she could feel an end: the baby sliding out of her with an almighty push, and she fell limp against the pillows propped up behind her. Something in the room was screaming. She looked around blearily. Instead she was surprised as the doctor deposited a wet, squirming, limbs akimbo baby into her arms and it was this thing making all the noise. A pair of gummy dark eyes stared at her from beneath a heavy fringe of slicked down black hair.

"Hi," Shepard said softly, touching a downy red cheek. It was David and he was here and he was safe. Beside her, Steve was wiping his eyes. Kaidan's absence lurking in the back of her mind wanted to come forward, to reopen that hollow ache, but she pushed it back. David. He needed her and she needed him. Let the world come crashing back tomorrow, for now, everything was good.

#

Kaidan.

Shepard opened her eyes and found a pair of caramel brown ones looking back at her. A Kaidan dream. They were in the Normandy, in their bed. She could feel the subtle hum of the engine and the room was dim as it usually was. Smiling, she reached out and touched his cheek. "Hi."

He kissed her palm, sending a tingly sort of pleasure all the way through her. Shepard raised an eyebrow. Was this to be an especially good dream then?

"I'm sorry I didn't get here in time. But you were supposed to wait on me," he chided with a smile.

Shepard glanced over at the bassinet beside the bed. David had been in her dreams too lately. "Sorry. Your son doesn't listen to orders very well."

Kaidan chuckled. She could feel the sound under the fingertips she'd rested against his chest. "I may have made it if you hadn't come halfway across the world. No sooner than we land then Hackett's running around telling everyone you're giving birth. I've never seen him so animated—must have been as nervous as I was."

Shepard frowned. This... this was a little too close to home for a dream. Her Kaidan dreams had been good ones; memories, or, on the really good nights, fantasies. Time to take control of this dream. She reached out, kissing him with a ferocity that surprised the both of them.

"Shepard," Kaidan murmured against her mouth, when they parted for air, "it's not that I don't want... this—you... but is it really a good idea? I mean, you did just have a baby." As if in response to his words, a mewling cry began from the bassinet.

No, no. This wasn't right. This was a dream. Her dream Davids never cried. She didn't even know what dream-David looked like. Slowly, she turned around, sitting up and looked into the bassinet. A tiny pink baby with a tuft of black hair standing on end squirmed in his blankets, face screwed up with frustration.
Shepard turned back to the man in her bed and began to realize details that had escaped her before: the line of a window, the unfamiliar dark shapes in the room, the absence of the soft blue glow of the aquarium, the new worry lines that had appeared at the corner of Kaidan's eyes. What she'd taken for the hum of the engine sounded instead more like a washing machine running in a distant room.

"Kaidan?" Shepard whispered, touching his face with trembling fingers, tracing his eyebrows, touching his stubbly cheek. "You're real? You're not a dream?"

His gaze searched hers, and he kissed her again, slowly this time, tasting her.

"Yeah. I'm real; I promise."

She breathed him in, concentrating on the feel of his hand wrapped around hers, the pressure of his forehead leaning against hers, the sound of him breathing.

"I was going to rescue you," she said into the stillness.

Kaidan huffed out a laugh. "You've saved my bacon more times than I can count. Least I can do is not need rescuing once in awhile."

Shepard pulled back slightly. "Does your mother know you're here?"

"Not yet. I got here late, when you were all asleep. Steve's the only one who saw me. Pointed a gun at my head when I stepped into the house; had to biotically shove him away before he would believe it was me."

"Have you held the baby?"

Kaidan shook his head. "I took a peek, but he was sleeping and I was bone tired, so I crawled in here and you know the rest."

Shepard turned around and lifted David out of the bassinet, trailing blankets. His little legs curled up, shivering, as she passed him to Kaidan. His face had an expression of wonder as he cradled the infant close to his chest, his fingers counting ten fingers and ten toes before wrapping the blanket around the baby more securely.

Shepard leaned on his arm as Kaidan gazed at the baby.

"I know I should probably say something profound about now," he said, voice more husky than usual. "But all I can really think of is… wow."

"He looks like you," Shepard commented, fingering the fluffy black hair atop the infant's head.

"Have you thought of any names?"

Shepard nodded, eyes still on the baby. "I thought… David."

Kaidan looked at her. "After Anderson?"

She nodded. Kaidan smiled as David yawned and flailed a tiny fist.

"Yeah, it suits him. David…" he said, trying it out, then looked at her again. "What about a middle name?"

Shepard shook her head. "I couldn't think of one off the top of my head, but the doctor did want a last name for the birth certificate—"

"A birth certificate? They still care about something like that with the state of things?"

Shepard shrugged. "It was via an application on his omni-tool. Probably just habit." She hesitated. "Kaidan, I hope you don't mind but for the surname? I gave him Alenko."

He looked up at her, eyebrow raised. Shepard shook her head. "I'm not burdening our child with my name. Half of your mother's job in London was keeping the paparazzi off of me."

He laughed. "Guess we have a lot to catch up on."

Shepard scooted closer, resting her head against his shoulder, finger playing with the thick tuft of hair on David's small head. "Yeah, we do."

-end-


A/N: Thank you so much for all the reviews and favorites. I really appreciate every one of them.

Side note, I referenced early on a mention of Anderson telling Shepard she'd be a good mother. This actually happens in cut dialogue from the game. If you haven't already, YouTube the conversation on the Citadel before he dies and you can listen yourself. Bring tissues!