Chapter Eleven:
The ride to the hospital was a frantic, loud, and nerve-wracking experience. Shepard had refused to allow Liara to wait for the ambulance, insisting that she could drive to the nearest hospital faster herself. Liara had strenuously objected, arms wrapped protectively around her stomach and wincing through the pain. Eventually, Tevos, who looked more put together than the rest of them despite having been woken up last, came up with a compromise. She used all of her diplomatic skills to convince Shepard to stay in the back seat of their Skycar with Liara and Aethyta while Grizz drove.
Now, all of them were crammed into a small upstairs room at the hospital, waiting impatiently for news. Liara's doctor had taken one look at her after their harried arrival and rushed her off for emergency surgery, leaving the rest of them behind. Shepard paced back and forth, covering the entire length of the room with just a few long strides. Her hands were folded behind her back in a decidedly military fashion, and her face was knitted with worry at being separated from her bondmate. Aethyta looked slightly less distressed, but only just. She was sitting with her legs apart, elbows on her knees, feet tapping anxiously on the tile floor.
Aria watched Shepard pace, running her hand up and down Tevos's thigh in a soothing motion. So far, thanks to Liara's early labor and their frantic rush to the hospital, the two of them simply hadn't had time to talk about the events of last night. Aria wasn't sure whether to be thankful for the reprieve, or feel guilty because it was at Liara's expense. The expression on the doctor's face had not been promising, and she knew that they wouldn't have separated Liara from Shepard unless things were rapidly deteriorating.
Tevos put her hand over Aria's, halting it at her knee and giving it a gentle squeeze before standing up. "I think I'm going to get something to drink. Would any of you -"
"Coffee," Aethyta grunted before she could finish her sentence.
Tevos blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"A human drink," she said. "It's not so bad having a human for a daughter-in-law. You can even put alcohol in it. What do you think, Shepard?"
Shepard stopped pacing long enough to shake her head, and as Aria looked at her, she noticed that the Commander's hands were trembling. "I don't want anything. I just…" Her voice trailed off, lips pressed tightly together, and her eyes looked exhausted.
"Come on," Aethyta said, standing up from her seat to join Tevos by the door. "I'll show you." As she passed Aria, she bent down and muttered a low, urgent "Fix it," through the corner of her mouth, nodding her head in Shepard's direction. Honestly, Aria had no idea why Aethyta thought she was capable of fixing anything. Reassurance wasn't exactly one of her strong suits. To avoid making a scene, she gave Aethyta a brief, subtle nod.
Apparently satisfied with her answer, Aethyta opened the door and allowed Tevos to walk through first. Aria heard Tevos begin to ask Grizz whether he wanted anything before it shut and blocked off the rest of the conversation. She was grateful that her faithful bodyguard had taken a post outside the door, ready to intercept any nosey reporters when they inevitably figured out that the T'Soni-Shepard birth was happening several weeks earlier than expected.
Aria sighed, but made no move to get up when Shepard resumed her pacing. She felt some of the same nervous energy herself. "Thinking about what will happen if she dies?" she asked, knowing that Shepard would appreciate bluntness more than anything. With modern technology, death during childbirth was incredibly rare, but Liara had several risk factors already.
The question made Shepard stop. "Liara, or Athena?" she asked, her arms still clasped behind her back as she stared out the nearest window. It faced a wall, so there wasn't much to distract her.
"Either one."
Shepard was silent for a long moment. When she answered, she did not turn away from the window. "If Athena dies… maybe it's strange, but I'm worried about how Liara will handle it." She paused. "I wonder if that means I don't love her yet."
"You know that's not true," Aria said. "It just means that the thought of your daughter dying is so painful that your brain is forcing you not to think about it. But you can't not think about it, so you're focusing on Liara instead of yourself."
Shepard finally moved to face Aria, taking a few shaky steps towards the chair beside her and sinking down into it. She rested her elbows on her thighs, much like Aethyta had earlier, and stared at the ground. "I guess you're right. But if Liara dies… God, I don't know how I'll handle it. I'll blame myself. She wanted to have children right away, just in case… just in case Miranda and Dr. Chakwas were wrong about my implants extending my life. She wanted me to see them grow up."
Aria heard the tears in Shepard's voice, and she averted her eyes just enough to give her friend some privacy. Shepard continued speaking, unable to stop now that she had started. "And I'm upset about stupid things that don't really matter. I'm angry that Liara couldn't have the baby at home. I'm pissed that it happened before Tali and Garrus could get here. They're her Godparents… they were supposed to meet her as soon as she was born. And I keep thinking that this is probably how Liara felt every single time I went on a mission without her, and - and after I died. Like her heart was taken away, and there was no guarantee she would ever get it back."
"Do you think Liara regretted it?" Aria asked. "Being in love with a soldier predestined to save the galaxy?"
"I wasn't predestined to do anything," Shepard muttered. "I chose to do something because no one else would. And I didn't save the galaxy. My crew did that. The krogan army and the quarian fleet and the turian military and the geth armada did that. The beacon just happened to fry my brain instead of someone else's."
"But it was your choice to do something with it," Aria pointed out. "Just like it was Liara's choice to bond with you and have children with you. You didn't make her. This isn't your fault."
Shepard sighed, letting her head hang lower. "I don't know if I can do this without her, Aria. We were supposed to do everything together, as a team. Get married. Have kids. Grow old. Just… live. And - and I need her. I can't do this without her."
'I can't do this without her.' The words stuck in Aria's mind, looping over and over, changing and shifting until they had transformed into something that was the complete opposite: 'I can do this with her.' Maybe she had been right before - on her own, she wasn't a good parent. She had proved that with Liselle. But this time, she wouldn't be alone. She had Tevos.
Tevos would help her through those first few terrible years when she had to give up some of herself to take care care of a tiny, helpless infant. When she was older, Tevos would make sure that their daughter knew how to negotiate and speak on her own behalf with something other than a gun or biotics. And Tevos would give their daughter a far better moral compass than she ever could. After all, some of it had already rubbed off on her since the start of their relationship.
And there were gifts that she could give their daughter, too. Determination. Fearlessness. Confidence. And, of course, all the biotic training she could squeeze in. If her daughter couldn't take out an entire squad of mercs on her own by the time she was eighty, she would consider it a personal failure.
Aria felt the tightness in her chest finally start to fade. She turned to Shepard, who was still staring blankly at the far wall. "Shepard," she said, reaching out and giving her friend's forearm a brief squeeze, "Liara survived her mother's death, your death, the Shadow Broker, the destruction of Thessia, and more Reaper troops than most people could even imagine. She's going to survive this, too."
Shepard blinked, staring down at Aria's hand resting on her arm. Then, she raised her head, giving Aria a small, hopeful smile. "You believe that?"
"Of course I believe that. And your kid is going to be just fine. Her father came back from the dead twice."
That made Shepard laugh, and she sat up straighter. "Let's hope Liara managed to grab that part of my genetics, then."
A knock on the door made both of them turn, expecting to see Tevos and Aethyta, but a nurse entered the room instead. When Shepard caught sight of the scrubs she was wearing, she shot out of her chair and hurried over to her, eager for news. "My wife - my daughter… are they all right?"
The human term threw the asari for a moment, but she seemed to recognize Shepard's desperation. "Your bondmate is out of surgery and awake. Her blood pressure was dangerously high, but her vitals stabilized as soon as we delivered your daughter." She gave Shepard a reassuring smile. "She's doing just fine as well. She'll need to stay here at the hospital for a few days, but we won't need to keep her in the neonatal unit."
Aria could see the stress and worry seep out of Shepard as the stiff line of her shoulders melted. At the same moment, Tevos and Aethyta came back down the hall with drinks in hand, automatically speeding up when they noticed the door was open. As soon as they saw that Shepard looked happy, their faces broke out into relieved smiles. "They're all right?" Aethyta asked, directing the question to the room at large.
"Fine," Shepard said, pulling her father-in-law into a tight hug that nearly sent Aethyta stumbling backwards. When she pulled away, the matriarch looked a little dazed. "When can we see them?" Shepard asked the nurse, impatience quickly rushing in to take the place of her worry.
"Now, if you like."
She didn't have to say anything else. Shepard rushed past the surprised-looking nurse, out the door, and down the hall. Aethyta followed at a slightly slower pace, stopping to look back at Aria before she exited the room. "I'm going to wait outside the door, give them a minute alone," she said. Aria picked up on her meaning and nodded. She and Tevos could wait for a little while longer.
Suddenly realizing that they were alone together for the first time that morning, Aria and Tevos shared a nervous sort of silence. They fidgeted, trying to read each other, and a slow blush began to crawl across Tevos's cheeks beneath her tattoos. She tried to speak, but after a moment of indecision, she closed her mouth. Aria smiled and stepped forward, opening her arms, and Tevos gratefully fell into them, relieved that she didn't have to say anything after all.
"I'm sorry we didn't get to wake up together this morning," Aria said, running her hand up and down Tevos's back as she felt a warm cheek nuzzle into her shoulder, rubbing over the material of her jacket. "And - I'm sorry it took me so long to realize…" She paused, struggling to put all of her earlier thoughts into words. "I don't want to have children -" She felt Tevos tense in her arms, and stopped only long enough to press a kiss to the top of her bondmate's crest. "- not without you. Alone, I was a terrible parent. But with you… maybe I can actually do this."
"I don't think you were a terrible parent before," Tevos said, turning her face away from Aria's jacket so that her words would be audible. "You tried to do your best with what you knew then."
"I know more now." Aria smiled, gently letting go of Tevos and looking down at her. "And our kid is going to be amazing. She has to be, with some of you in her. And I won't be satisfied until I've trained her to kick Shepard and Liara's daughter's tiny blue ass."
Tevos laughed. "You never know. You might catch them kissing instead of sparring someday, if they're anything like us."
Aria covered her eyes with her hand and groaned. "Please. Don't say that. Don't even think that."
Taking pity on her bondmate, Tevos took her hand and began pulling her towards the door. "Come on. Let's go meet the newest T'Soni."