Goddess, I hate you Shepard.
"You knew what you were getting into when I asked you to help." Shepard said, a smirk on her lips and her hands on her hips.
"Goddess I hate you, Shepard." Aria replied, wrestling the tiny blue being in her arms for dominance as it wailed inconsolably.
"There are three bottles in the refrigerator, usually one will do, but sometime she gets hungry. We just changed her, so no need to worry about that for now. Remember, bed time is 7:00 and she likes it if you sing to her." Liara said, getting her things together.
It had been months since Shepard and Liara had a chance to spend an evening, just the two of them and they were eagerly looking forward to the dinner and movie date they'd planned for the evening. After the war, Shepard had been put on light duty due to the excessive injuries she'd suffered during the Battle of London and one of these duties involved a diplomatic dispute with the Pirate Queen of Omega. Apparently an alliance ship had been relieved of its eezo, weaponry and bizarrely its toilet by a group of Batarians on Omega, and Shepard offered her services to go visit her old friend and ask about the situation.
When she arrived, the weapons, eezo and toilet were sitting in the docking bay awaiting pickup along with a contrite looking Bray. Apparently it had been his job to inform the Batarians that they were not to exploit this particular ship as it was part of an aid mission to Thessia, and was picking up a few specialists. Shepard thanked Bray but still asked to See Aria since her superiors (of which there were very few due to the war and her subsequent promotion to rear admiral) would need answers.
"Look, I gave your stuff back, I even found the damn toilet what's the problem?" Aria asked as soon as she sighted Shepard.
"You know what the problem is. After the war, you agreed, no attacks on aid ships docking in Omega for repair or refueling." Shepard said.
"I know, it's being dealt with. Look, surely there's something I can do to... make this go away..." The Asari said in a sultry, seductive voice while gently tugging at the edge of her collar exposing more than a little of her ample cleavage.
"As a matter of fact there is..." Shepard said, a wicked smile forming on her mouth.
Four months later, Aria T'Loak, the feared, murderous, cunning she-bitch pirate queen of Omega, was having her ass thoroughly handed to her by 15 pounds of baby Asari.
"What do you even want?" She asked the baby, who responded by crossing her arms and pouting. "Even at this age you're a defiant little brat. You must get that from your father." She said, swaying back and forth trying to calm the child. When that didn't work she placed the baby on the floor and used her biotics to levitate a few blocks to the child who immediately perked up and started laughing.
"Ah, so that's what you wanted." she said, thinking the child wanted the blocks but as soon as she dropped the mass effect field, the baby started crying again. Aria rolled her eyes, and sat down on the floor in front of the child who looked up at her with a trembling lower lip which would have been cute except for the terrifying enraged look that immediately followed. Oddly she was not glaring at Aria, but the blocks, ands he started waving her fists up and down from a seated position on the floor. Aria took the hint and with her biotics held the blocks up in front of her, eliciting a delighted squeal. She reached out and grabbed one of the blocks, and put it in her mouth.
"Holy shit teething already." aria said. She stood up and walked over to the counter, rummaging through it for a moment always keeping an eye on the baby until she found what she was looking for, a small unopened can of medigel. She washed her hands and then returned to the baby. She gathered a small amount of medigel on her finger, looked at the baby and with an air of authority said "Open."
Shockingly the baby acquiesced, and Aria rubbed her finger all over the child's gums. At first she seemed confused about the gooey stuff in her mouth, but realized that the pain had gone and that caused a smile on her face. She gestured with both hands up to Aria, asking to be picked up.
Aria, not wanting to provoke another screaming fit, indulged the child and picked her up, carrying her to the living room area and putting on a children's show, which immediately captured her attention.
"Thank God, I thought you'd never shut up." Aria grumped at the happy baby. For the rest of the day the child was good as gold, making happy noises, listening to Aria griping intently and playing with her blocks on the floor. They were sitting contently when an alert appeared on Aria's omnitool. Apparently the Eclipse mercs had encroached on Blood Pack territory and Bray had no idea how to handle it.
"Ugh!" Aria groaned loudly. "Goddess why can't those idiots handle things for one day it's not fair." She whined, but stopped immediately when she realized that the baby was looking at her with a concerned expression.
"What?" She asked. Suddenly the baby reached out and levitated one of her blocks to her hand, then reached up and stuffed it in Aria's mouth. She should have been offended by this. Nobody touched Aria without her permission, but this sweet gesture from an innocent child who thought her friend was in pain and tried the only thing she could think of to soothe it nearly broke her. It had been centuries since anyone other than her lover, Councilor Tevos and Shepard had tried to help her without expecting something in return. In fact the last time was this very child's father who even though she'd been offered ships, troops and a mountain of eezo in exchange for helping her recover the station, she knew she'd have helped even without it. Evidently selflessness was a Shepard family trait. She smiled down at her and wiped a tear from her eye.
At this point the doorbell went off, normally that would have produced a defensive reaction involving kicking the door into whomever was there and shoving a pistol in their face, but she was anticipating it, she had asked Tevos to meet her here when she was free, so she scooped the baby up into her arms and answered the door.
"Oh Goddess she's adorable!" Tevos Squealed, the baby liking the attention as well as being entranced by her many facial markings giggled and reached out, Aria handed her over and guided them back into the Shepards' home.
"Has she given you a lot of trouble?" Tevos asked.
"Only at first, seems like she's teething. Funny Shepard failed to mention that." Aria grumped.
"Oh hush, love you seem to have made it with everything intact." Tevos said, smiling her glance never leaving the adorable blue child in her arms. The baby yawned, and reached over for Aria again, which stunned both of them. While Aria had experience with children, having had a daughter, Liselle, who was cruelly taken from her. However, as a baby she had spent most of her time with her Father, another Asari whose name Aria refused to even conjure into memory, so the situation was relatively unknown to her. Aria held the baby and began swaying back and forth.
"What's her name?" Tevos whispered over to her.
"Rila" she replied. "She's named after Samara's daughter, the one that died at the Monastery."
"Oh, my." Tevos said, her eyes watering at that. She was always the sentimental type.
"She's asleep, I'm going to go put her to bed." Aria said, and slowly made her way to the child's bedroom. She placed her as carefully as she could to avoid waking her, but just as she walked through the doorway she heard a whimper.
"Crap." She said, walking back to Aria who was putting up a valiant fight against the sleep that would soon claim her. Aria then remembered she liked being sung to. She looked in Rila's eyes, then closed the door behind her.
"You tell anyone I did this and I'll maroon you on an asteroid." Aria said to Rila. Rila grinned in response to the obviously empty threat. Aria then started to softly sing a wordless Asari lullaby. There were no lyrics, just a melody sung with vowel sounds, but it was done so in a sweet, beautiful soprano that would have shocked Tevos if she'd have heard it. Within minutes the child was asleep, and aria just stood there watching her.
"You know you're a real pain in the ass worming your way into my heart the way you have." She whispered. Carefully opening the door then closing it behind her. When she returned to the living room she met by Tevos, who seemed to be crying, Liara who was looking at her confused asthough she had three heads, and Shepard who was crossing her arms and looking unforgivably smug.
"What?" she asked. Shepard lifted a small plastic box from behind her back with a blinking light and a speaker in the front.
"Baby monitor." She said, barely holding the snicker in. They'd all heard her singing to the brat. Wonderful. Suddenly the monitor lit up and the three could hear Rila giggling softly in her sleep.
"Son of a goddamn bitch." Aria swore.
"Woah, nice sailor talk there no more hanging out with Jack for you." Liara giggled.
"Yeah yeah, your brat is teething so I put a little medigel on her gums, she ate and I played with her. Little monster levitated a block and shoved it in my mouth." Aria said, getting them up to date.
"Wait, what?" Shepard and Liara both said.
"She levitated a block.." she continued, but was cut off.
"Rila used biotics? Oh goddess I was five before I was able to use mine!" Liara said.
"Is it really that weird?" Aria asked.
"Yeah, all the books I read suggested that Asari children usually don't manifest anything until four or five and even then it's totally uncontrolled." Shepard said. "And you said she put the block in your mouth?"
"Yeah she tried chewing on one that's how I figured out her mouth was bugging her, then after a while I got a message from bray that I started groaning about I guess she was just trying to shut me up." She explained. Liara, Shepard and Tevos understood the reality of what had happened, and spared her the embarrassment of explaining about it.
"Wow, looks like you're Rila's new favorite Auntie." Shepard said.
"Shut up and die." Aria responded. Tevos swatted her hand in admonishment.
"Well it was a pleasure to see you both, now if you'll excuse us I'm going to get this baby home before she gets cranky." Tevos said, hooking an arm around Aria and leading her out.
Later that evening, Tevos was laying in bed, with Aria beside her reading an OSD.
"So you didn't kill Rila, that's good." Tevos said, gently mocking her.
"She's a cute kid." Aria offered, going back to her OSD.
"I want one." Tevos said, Aria responded.
"Goddess I hate you Shepard.