A/N: This one's very, very short, but I thought it ended well where it did. Hannah Shepard's maiden name in these stories, Macguiness, is my own decision, as is Shepard's father's first name, Jim/James. We've only heard from one parent, so he's...more or less an OC.
Also- thank you for the feedback and favorites!
If there was one thing you needed to know about Hannah Macguiness, the very first thing you should have learned about her, it was that she was not a woman to be trifled with. She was stern, stiff, and demanding, with a reputation for getting things done. Those who followed her orders were rewarded, and those who disobeyed her were met with swift punishment.
Ask any man or woman on her crew about her, and they would give you a description roughly matching this one. Invariably, though, something would happen. They would glance around, as though looking for eavesdroppers, then turn to you and ask if they could tell you something off the record. He or she would lean in, and their voice would lower to a conspiratorial murmur. "Sure she's a bitch," they would acquiesce. "A huge bitch." And here their smile would stretch across their cheeks. "But I wouldn't trade her for any other commanding officer in the Alliance."
When Jim Shepard first heard about Commander Macguiness, he wrote her off as just another military ice queen. He had met enough of them to be able to identify them from a brief glance or description, and he was sure this one was no different. Jim had an old friend from basic who served under the woman, and when they managed to get together for drinks the conversation would invariably shift to the tough woman. They would laugh and trade stories about their respective superior officers, but over time his friend stopped laughing about Macguiness. Eventually he admitted his grudging but glowing respect for the woman, and Jim gave him a look of disbelief. His friend shrugged and said that he couldn't really explain it, which only served to further baffle him.
Intrigued, Jim started asking around whenever the ship Macguiness served aboard made port. Every time he got the chance, he asked a different member of her crew to tell him about the woman, and every time he was met with the same response: a full admission of everything that was wrong with her, then the glowing respect tucked away out of sight. His only explanations were either Stockholm Syndrome or the concept that there was something truly remarkable about Commander Macguiness. And whichever it was, he knew that he had to meet her to judge for himself.
And so it was that Jim Shepard trifled with Hannah Macguiness.