It took Shepard only one call on the holocomm to get the attention of the quarian Fleet.

Though her presence was at first met with enthusiasm, the Admirals quickly became less enthused when she asked if they might be willing to spare her the use of one of their colony ships for a short period of time. The Fleet, it seemed, was in the middle of a rebuild effort, like everyone else after the War, and so the idea of parting with one of their ships when they were working so hard to regroup their assets seemed almost unspeakable, from what she could tell. "It's foolish," Admiral Koris had said. "Not to mention a waste of precious resources. The Fleet does not just split up on request." The holocomm call had been disconnected not long after that, leaving Shepard to worry that she might have blown her only hope by being too vague about her intentions. She considered calling the Board back, determined to try her luck again, only to decide it was not worth it – there was no way to override the Board's decision, even if she had Tali on her side, and so, turning away from the holocomm, she had started to head up the stairs again, trying to figure out another way to gain access to a Clean Room.

Less than a week later, she found herself being sought out by the Minuteman Station's VI to inform her that an unfamiliar vessel of unidentified origin was requesting to dock with the station.

Miranda was already waiting at the docking lock when Shepard arrived, seeming anxious and alarmed by the new, unexpected arrival, her good hand propped against her hip as she paced back and forth in front of the airlock. "I should have masked our signal," she fretted, shaking her head and letting out a short, hard huff. "I should have known this would happen eventually. It's what always happens with these things. Scavengers see a station like this and they can't help themselves. Uncivilized brutes." Stopping momentarily in her pacing, she peered out the window overlooking the docking arm, frowning as she caught sight of the approaching ship again before turning away and beginning to pace once more. "Maybe if I put the station into lockdown now, they'll just go away," she figured, running a stressed hand back through her hair. Then, looking up at Shepard again, she stopped in her pacing, her agitated frown deepening. "Aren't you worried?" she asked, frustrated. "Or do you know something I don't know about this?"

Shepard hesitated, unsure how to answer, before moving over to the window to peer out at the waiting ship as well. There was nothing about it that marked it as quarian; if anything, it seemed to be a volus ship, a compact, portly-looking vessel with low-set wings and a ring of round, porthole-like windows that one would have to crouch to see through. "I think I know," she finally said, leaning back from the window again. "But I can't be sure unless they dock. If I'm right, this is what we've been hoping for."

"And if you're wrong?" Miranda asked, folding her arms, unconvinced.

"If I'm wrong, then we're dead," Shepard answered, straightforwardly. "If we die, you can blame me. How about that?"

Miranda's frown deepened at this sarcasm, unimpressed, before she finally let out a surrendering sigh, letting her hands drop back to her sides as she shrugged her shoulders, defeated. "Not exactly comforting," she conceded. "But it will have to do." Then, moving over to the docking panel, she put in a code, waiting for it to accept it with a flash of green, before taking a step back from the lock as it began to whir and crank noisily, preparing to allow the adjoining ship to sync up with the station.

The doors hissed loudly as the heavy lock released, a trickle of hydraulic steam passing through the cracks, before, moments later, the station doors opened to reveal a long, thin passageway. Two familiar figures stood at the end of the passage, and Shepard grinned as she recognized the newcomers, taking a few steps forward to meet them as they began to make their way onto the station. Reegar walked behind Tali in step, offering Shepard a respectful salute as soon as he caught sight of her, only allowing himself to relax once she had returned it and nodded her thanks. Coming to stand in front of Shepard, Tali gave her a quick once-over, before reaching out to pull her in in a tight, unapologetic hug. "I missed you so much," Tali told her, gleefully, before letting go of her to examine her again. "I almost couldn't believe it when you called the Fleet to ask for help. I hadn't heard anything from you since Earth… I thought maybe something terrible had happened after the attack on London." Pausing then, she reached up to Shepard's face, brushing her overgrown bangs from her eyes before letting her hand fall back to her side again. "You look like you haven't been sleeping," she told her. "But tired is better than dead, I guess."

"Just a little," Shepard conceded, giving a soft, weary laugh of her own. Then, pulling Tali into another hug, she held onto her tightly for a moment, barely wanting to let go of her friend, as if afraid she might never see her again. "I didn't think you would be coming," she admitted, finally allowing the hug to lapse. "This is a huge surprise. How did you convince the Admiralty Board to let you take the ship?"

Tali hesitated at the question, seeming unsure how to answer at first, before finally taking a little breath in and letting it out with a soft clearing of her throat. "It… wasn't easy," she answered, honestly, causing Shepard to frown a bit, concerned. "They generally would not have allowed us to take a ship like this out of the Fleet formation. Rebuild efforts and all that… you know." Pausing again, she took another quick, antsy breath, her helmeted gaze dropping to Shepard's shoulder. "In fact… they didn't let us take this one," she admitted. "We staged a ship-wide breech to clear it, and then we… kind of… hijacked it. We figured… it was worth whatever penalty they decided to give us. We needed to help you, and if they weren't going to let us, then we were going to do it for ourselves."

"You stole a ship?" Shepard hissed, alarmed, taking hold of Tali's shoulders and causing her to look up into her face again. "Tali, you're an Admiral! You could get in real trouble for this—"

"I know," Tali answered, quickly, holding up her hands. "But it was for a good cause. The Board will understand. And… if they don't, you'll just have to do them a big favour to make up for it."

"A favour?" Shepard asked, half-incredulous, the anxiety still apparent in her voice. "Killing that Reaper on Rannoch wasn't enough of a favour already?"

At this, Tali shrugged, giving a soft, uneasy chuckle, before letting her hands fall back down again. "Just one little Reaper?" she asked, teasingly. "Shepard. You should know better than that. The Admiralty Board is never satisfied with just one."

Letting out a heavy sigh, Shepard dropped her hands from Tali's shoulders, running a hand back through her shaggy hair before letting it rest at the back of her head. "This is a big risk, Tali," she told her. "You could get in serious trouble for this. You've already been almost exiled once—"

"But we couldn't just leave you in your time of need, Shepard," Tali argued, cutting her off, quickly. "I don't know what you need a Clean Room for, but it doesn't matter. You're our friend, and that's important. The Board was thinking about our people, but… we needed to help you. So we did what we had to do." Shrugging then, she crossed her arms, cupping each elbow in the opposite palm. "Besides," she added, matter-of-factly. "The Board should have seen this coming. We Zorahs have never been very good at following rules."

"And that's the ship you came on?" Miranda asked, frowning as she looked out on the vessel, causing both Tali and Reegar to look over at her, surprised at the interruption. "Isn't that craft a bit small, you think?

"Small for what?" Tali asked, taken aback. "Shepard said she needed a Clean Room. Who cares what size the ship is?" Letting out a soft, affronted breath then, she turned, glancing back towards the ship she had come on, before propping her hands stubbornly on her hips and returning her attention to Shepard and Miranda. "It is a small ship," she conceded, cooperatively. "In fact, it's the smallest ship in the Fleet still deemed an acceptable size to house a Clean Room. But we figured that wouldn't matter, considering that's the important part." Then, turning her attention to Shepard, she raised her helmeted chin, curious. "So, Shepard," she said. "Now that we're here, what do you need the Clean Room for?"

"I need it for a birth," Shepard answered, frankly. There was no use hiding anything from Tali anymore – if she wanted her help, she would have to be as straightforward as possible about her situation.

Tali faltered at this explanation, her glowing eyes narrowing a bit in a frown as looked curiously between Miranda and Shepard, her fingers drumming thoughtfully against her hip as she considered asking the obvious question. "Which one of you is pregnant?" she finally asked, causing Miranda to give a soft scoff in return.

"Me," Shepard answered, unconcerned.

Tali seemed surprised at this, giving her another quick once-over. "Well, Shepard, you look incredible," she told her. "Must be a human thing."

Shepard faltered, taken aback, before quickly raising her hands again and shaking her head. "No, Tali, it—the baby is in a gestation tank," she explained, quickly. "Like a clone, except… not exactly."

"That makes more sense," Tali conceded, nodding. "And that makes things a bit easier as well. Tank births are simpler than natural births."

"You've had a tank birth on your ship before?" Shepard asked.

"Not personally," Tali answered, fairly, the puckish smile evident in her voice. "But it's not unheard of. We're scientists, you know."

Shepard smirked, grateful for her friend, before looking up again to watch as Reegar came to stand behind Tali, tucking his hands dutifully behind his back as he waited for the women to finish speaking. Noting the lapse in the conversation, he cleared his throat gently, preparing to speak, before offering Shepard a respectful little nod of salutation. "The Clean Room is almost ready, Ma'am," Reegar reported, causing Tali to glance back towards him eagerly at the news.

"Good," Tali answered. "Let's bring in the tank, then." Turning her attention to Shepard again, she motioned for her to follow behind her, heading back towards the docking passage before starting to make her way in the direction of the adjoining quarian vessel. Glancing over her shoulder behind her, Shepard watched as Miranda indicated for Reegar to follow her, before the two of them began to disappear in the direction of the Minuteman Station lab, but her attention was quickly drawn back again as Tali began to speak once more. Jogging a few steps to catch up, Shepard listened as Tali began to explain the concept of the Clean Room, tucking her hands in the pockets of her hoodie as she tried to keep up with the quarian's eager gait. "First, we need to get you changed out of those clothes and into something sanitary," Tali began, seeming excited to share her culture with Shepard. "Quarian Clean Rooms are specifically designed to be as hygienic as possible, so as to minimalize the risk of infection or contamination during medical procedures. We can't risk introducing foreign bacteria into the Clean Room environment, considering how vulnerable most quarians out of their exosuits are. Especially newborn infants."

"Of course," Shepard answered, distracted by her surroundings, only hearing a fraction of what Tali was saying. She had never been to this part of a quarian ship before, and even though she had been brought here by invitation, she still could not help feeling she was invading on something extremely personal. "I understand completely."

"Once your baby is artificially born, it will be transferred into a Bubble," Tali explained, leading Shepard down a long hallway before stopping to marshal her into a room three doors from the end of the hall. "Just like any of our babies would. Once its immune system is determined to be up to par, you'll be able to take it home with you, but until then I recommend leaving it in the Bubble to make sure nothing goes amiss." Moving up to the wall of the room, she ran her fingers over a line of squares making up the pattern of the wall, before pulling up a holographic keypad with a wave of her hand and inputting an unlock code. Taking a step back from the wall, Tali watched as the wall square gave a soft hiss, a billow of steam wafting out as the square popped open to reveal what looked to be a heat-sealed locker. Pulling a warm pair of neatly-folded white scrubs from the locker, Tali closed it securely again, turning her attention back to Shepard and watching as she began to hesitantly undress, seeming a bit taken aback by the unusual storage system. "You can never be too careful with these things," Tali told her, matter-of-factly. "With quarian newborns, even one little bacterium can put their life at risk. We don't want to take any chances when it comes to your baby. Not after everything you've been through already."

"You want me to leave her here? With you?" Shepard asked, unzipping her hoodie and tossing it aside in a corner of the room. "How am I supposed to get her back? Do I come to live with the Migrant Fleet?" Pulling off her shoes as well, she tossed them aside to join her hoodie, followed by her socks and then pants, unfastening them and dropping them unceremoniously in a pile in the corner. Tali watched her pull her shirt up over her head and toss it aside as well, before holding out the scrubs for her to take and watching her start to pull them on instead.

"You would be taking the Bubble with you," Tali explained, obligingly. "When your baby's immune system is strong enough, then you can return it to us. No mother should be forced to be separated from her child for that long. That would just be cruel." Seeing that Shepard had finished changing her clothes, she beamed at her through the glass of her helmet, her glowing eyes narrowing into eager slits as she motioned for Shepard to follow along. "Kal should be finished prepping the tank for extraction by now," she said. "You still have one more disinfecting step before you can enter the Clean Room, but after that, it's just a matter of outsmarting the tank. If I'm not mistaken, Kal will have already hooked it up to a power source in our Clean Room to access its main computer, but it still needs to have an override key put in to convince it to re-do the scan to ensure the environment is clean and sterile enough to proceed."

"Miranda said she could get the key," Shepard put in, helpfully.

"Right," Tali agreed. "If everything goes according to plan with the override key, then all we'll need to do is drain the amniotic fluid and we'll be ready to initiate the birthing sequence." Stopping in front of another door, she put in a short code, allowing the door to slide open with a hiss, before indicating for Shepard to go in ahead of her. "This is the last step in the sterilization process," she explained, moving into the room after Shepard and allowing the door to close behind them. "It's a bit like the decontamination chamber on the Normandy, only this one is programmed to target bacteria specifically harmful to quarians in addition to common foreign germs. It's a bit more thorough than a generic decontamination chamber in that way." At this explanation, Shepard looked up towards the ceiling of the room, curious, but no sooner had she done so when the vents on the ceiling gave a loud hiss, a wave of steam billowing down from the pumps to engulf them both in a thick, dewy cloud of sanitizing mist. Shepard coughed as she waved the haze out of her eyes, watching as Tali cleared a streak of condensation from her foggy visor, before a low rumbling sound began to come from the vents at their feet and the steam began to slowly dissipate, disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared.

"You and Miranda will have to wait outside the Clean Room," Tali warned her, allowing the door in front of them to slide open before moving through as if nothing had happened. "Even with your disinfected clothes and prepping, you still may not be quite sanitary enough to satisfy the machine's sterilization sensor."

"What about my baby?" Shepard asked, now worried, sliding her hands aimlessly across the material of her scrub top, looking for somewhere to put her hands, only to find nothing there. "Will I get to see her? How am I going to get to hold her if I can't come in the Clean Room?" She faltered, clenching her hands at her sides, realizing how much like a worried, doting mother she was already starting to sound. If she had heard herself fretting like this barely six months ago, she would have cringed, but now she could not help her short fingernails from digging into the flesh of her palms as she followed anxiously behind Tali towards the Clean Room, staying barely a step behind her like an overeager show dog waiting for a command.

Tali sighed as she reached the Clean Room, turning and holding her hands up to stop Shepard in her tracks, causing her to nearly run into the quarian as she stopped short, running on anxious momentum. "Shepard, don't worry," Tali told her, reassuringly, speaking slowly to quell her nerves as she shook her helmeted head. "You'll be able to come in and see her once we don't have to worry about the tank anymore. As long as the baby is in the tank, it would probably be best if you weren't in the room." Letting her hands drop down again, she let out a soft sigh, watching as Shepard fidgeted anxiously in front of her, still seeming not entirely at ease with the thought of not being present for her own child's birth. "I promise I'll take care of your baby in the meantime," she told her, more persuasively this time. "But, do you really want to risk the tank sealing itself again? You already had one close call with that."

"Which is one too many," Shepard agreed, letting out a heavy sigh of her own. Making a face, she twisted her hands together, anxiously, before dropping them purposefully back to her sides, instead tangling her fingers in the material of her scrub pants as she glanced towards the broad, plexiglass window spanning the room beyond. "Will I be able to see you working through there?" she asked, pointing to the window, hopefully.

"Absolutely," Tali assured her, giving another affirming nod. "Miranda and Kal should be down any minute now. Then we can begin the procedure." She paused, considering this for a moment, before looking up at Shepard again, unable to keep an obvious little smile from pinching the corners of her glowing eyes. "This is so exciting," she added, breaking her professional stiffness for the first time, causing Shepard to remember suddenly just how young she still was. Tali had been barely more than an awkward teenager when she had first joined Shepard and her crew aboard the Normandy SR-1 during her pilgrimage, but in the nearly four years she had gotten to know the quarian, she had grown from an eager, confused little upstart to a poised, esteemed Admiral of her Fleet. Somehow, it still surprised Shepard to think that she was barely out of her teenaged years, though she figured it made sense that she would forget, as most of the things Tali had dealt with since Shepard had known her were hardly things suited for teenagers to handle, especially with as much grace and level-headedness as Tali had managed to do.

Just then, the sound of the decontamination chamber opening again caused Shepard to turn, and as she watched, Miranda and Reegar entered the room, followed by a quickly-dissipating trail of hazy condensation. Miranda wore the same type of sterilized scrubs Shepard did, but it seemed the steam from the decontamination chamber had caused her usually pristine hair to act up, and she frowned as she absentmindedly went over it with her good hand, trying to get it to lay flat again. Reegar wasted no time in making his way over to where Tali stood, tucking his hands behind his back as he came to stand dutifully beside her at the door, waiting for her to open it and allow the two of them inside. "Miss Lawson is prepped and sterilized, Ma'am," he reported, matter-of-factly. "The tank is hooked up and ready to go in the Clean Room. The draining system is already in place." Then, turning to look towards Shepard and Miranda again, he offered them a reassuring nod of his helmeted head, before indicating towards the Clean Room through the large plexiglass display window. "The procedure shouldn't take more than a few minutes," he told them, doing his best to sound encouraging. "After that you're welcome to come inside. We just can't take any risks while the procedure is underway, you understand."

"I already informed Shepard," Tali assured him, pulling up a holographic keypad on the Clean Room door and starting to enter a bypass code. The keypad flashed yellow as the code was accepted, letting out a series of sharp beeps before the door unsealed with a jarring hiss, allowing the quarians to pass inside. Reegar moved through the door without hesitation, but Tali paused to look back towards Shepard and Miranda first, holding up a hand to get their attention. "We're going to be removing our suits," she warned. "Don't be alarmed. It's normal for quarian birthing rituals. Quarian babies' skin is very sensitive and the material of the suit has a tendency to agitate it. It's why we allow our children's immune systems to develop into adolescence before giving them a suit of their own." Glancing back towards Reegar in the Clean Room, she watched as he activated the gestation tank, pulling up the options screen and starting to type something into it. "It still creates an irritation upon first being donned, but their immune systems are much better equipped to deal with it after a few years of development," Tali went on, seeming distracted, as if waiting for some sort of signal from Reegar to join him in the Clean Room. "The material and the wards built into the suits stave off a good deal of infection, however, so we figure a bit of irritation is a small price to pay. I don't know if your baby's skin is similarly sensitive to our children's, but we figured it was better not to take any chances."

"We're good to go, Ma'am," Reegar reported, holding up an affirming hand. Tali nodded, understanding, before offering Miranda and Shepard one last reassuring smile and turning to join him in the Clean Room. Once the door had shut behind her, Tali reached back, pulling down her hood, before starting to unlatch her helmet, pulling it up and off her head before letting out a heavy sigh of relief. Setting her helmet aside on a nearby table, she turned then to Reegar, indicating for him to help her out of her exosuit. Reegar was dutifully quick to comply, unfastening a clasp Shepard could never have figured out, before the rest of the suit began to come off easily, allowing Tali to remove it on her own. Reegar was next to shed his helmet, and then his suit with Tali's help, revealing what looked like some sort of skin-tight thermalweave diving gear underneath. The fact that quarians wore undersuits beneath their exosuits surprised Shepard for some reason, though she was not certain why – she always wore an undersuit under her armour, so it stood to reason that Tali and Reegar would, too. She supposed she had come to think of their suits as something singular and self-contained, so the idea that they were merely an exterior layer over something even more basically functional seemed odd and out of place. Still, she kept this thought to herself as she watched them fold their suits carefully on a side table, before they began to pull on sterile medical masks and gloves instead, making sure to cover their bases adequately before starting in on the procedure.

Shepard had never seen a quarian outside of their suit before, but now that she saw what they actually looked like, she was not sure what she had been expecting. Tali's skin was pale, translucent like the skin of an axolotl, but with just enough iridescent pigment that it appeared a deep, watery lavender in the bright white lights of the clean room. Shepard could see her delicate veins through the thin membrane of her skin, and for an instant she considered taking a step back from the glass, as if afraid she might endanger Tali simply by standing anywhere near her. Reegar, too, had the same translucent-looking skin, though his seemed a bit hardier than Tali's, and Shepard could see what looked to be a toughened scar on the edge of his jaw from where an infection had started and healed. Their ears were scalloped, pointed and nearly humanoid in their shell-like shape, but pressed so closely to the side of their hairless heads that they had fused almost entirely with the rest of the skin. Their noses were nearly flat, though Reegar's was more pronounced than Tali's, with the bridges best visible from a profile view, and their nostrils were barely more than slits in their elegant, otherworldly faces. Their slanted eyes were pale blue, nearly white, and gave off a soft, luminescent glow as Tali turned her gaze towards Shepard, the organic markings in her face giving a soft flicker of bioluminescent light as well as she took a few steps forward, addressing the Commander.

"I'm going to initiate the birthing sequence," Tali explained, and Shepard had to hold back a look of surprise at how different her voice sounded without the filter of her mask. The burbling, digital-sounding double-tone was gone, replaced by a clear, bright, if somewhat nasally voice, but Tali did not even seem to notice the difference as she pointed towards the large, drum-like amniotic tank. "You might hear some loud noises, but don't worry," she told Shepard, who frowned at the forewarning. "That's just the draining system. Your baby isn't in any danger."

"Are you sure?" Shepard asked, pressing a worried hand to the glass.

Tali smiled at her worried expression, offering an understanding bob of her head. "Our draining system is no different from yours, Shepard," she told her, honestly. "I promise you. It's just a gentle vacuuming device, that's all. It's just going to remove the liquid keeping the organ buoyant so we can begin the removal process." Finished with her explanation, she turned away from the window again, moving over to what looked to be a sleek silver drum and trailing a foldaway hose out from its base to attach to a valve on one end of the cylindrical gestation tank. Turning the appliance on, Tali took a step back, folding her arms as she watched it work, seeming almost detachedly interested in the vibrating roaring of the machine. The sound of the drain set Shepard's teeth on edge, and she had to clench her hands into fists to keep from biting through her tongue in anticipation of the awful noise ending, until finally, with one last, grating suctioning sound, the machine began to power down. The hose spanning between the containers went limp as the process ended, and Tali paused a moment, making sure it was done, before giving a satisfied nod and moving to detach the silver suctioning reservoir from the main gestation tank.

Reegar was next to move up to the window, tapping the glass with one finger to get Miranda's attention, causing both women to look his way as he cleared his throat, gently, preparing to speak. "We're going to need the override key," he told Miranda, straightforwardly. His voice, like Tali's, was much different without his helmet, though his was less nasal than smooth and quiet, vastly different from the almost clipped-sounding tone the filter on his mask gave him. Miranda nodded, understanding, before quickly pulling up her omni-tool and sending the information his way, and Reegar returned the appreciative nod as his tool gave a soft beep, confirming the transfer. Turning to head back to Tali at the cistern, he passed his tool over the override monitor, causing the monitor to flash green as the key was accepted. Then, with a soft hissing sound, the tank door popped open, allowing Tali to lift the flap, accessing the space inside.

Picking up a scalpel from the small side table, Tali rotated it anxiously between her fingers, turning her attention back to the gestation tank and reaching into it with her free hand to steady the organ inside it, preparing for extraction. Her hand remained steady as she began to cut, taking her time with tiny, delicate incisions, making her way from the top of the organ to the bottom as she sliced her way through the tender, pink membrane. Then, having finished, she set the scalpel aside again, reaching into the tank with both hands to pry the organ open and remove the lifeform from inside. Reegar was ready with a soft, white blanket as Tali pulled the tiny form out of the tank and into her arms, quickly transferring it into the cloth as she began to gingerly wipe it down, cleaning the excess fluids from its delicate, purple-looking skin. Its pigmentation was still off-colour from the time spent in suspended animation, making it nearly impossible to tell what skin tone it actually had before it was relocated into the blanket and wrapped for safety and warmth.

Shepard held her breath as she watched Tali pick up another tool from the side table, this one a long, syringe-like apparatus with a bulb on the end, which she was quick to slide down into the folds of the blanket, squeezing the end and watching it fill with liquid Shepard assumed had come from the baby's breathing tract. This was the moment she had been waiting for, the final, definitive, telling moment that determined whether all their hard work had paid off, the moment she finally got to know whether her baby had turned out healthy, as Miranda had promised, or if the other daunting, unthinkable alternative were lurking just on the other side of the sterile glass. Tali emptied the syringe into a bowl, getting rid of the liquid from the baby's lungs, before returning it to the infant's mouth, filling it up with liquid again. The silence that permeated the Clean Room at her actions made Shepard weak, her arms feeling like cold, weighted lead, her legs like numb gelatine, her fingers curling fearfully against the glass as she held her breath, waiting for an answer. Then, finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the quiet, weary, muted sound of a baby's cries began to filter through the glass, causing Shepard to give a soft sob, raising her hand to cover her mouth to keep from startling the newborn. She could feel tears filling her eyes as the sound of the baby's cries grew stronger, still not quite as loud as she was expecting, and she turned to Miranda, letting out a relieved breath, unable to keep a smile from overtaking her face.

"My baby," she told her, hardly able to breathe, too stunned to form a complete sentence. "That's— my baby…!"

Miranda beamed back at her enthusiasm, before reaching forward to pull Shepard in for a tight, disbelieving hug. She could feel Shepard shaking through her thin sanitary garb, wound so tightly from joy and relief she could barely contain herself, and as Miranda pulled away from the hug again, she could see that tears had begun to stream down her face, but Shepard was apparently too overwhelmed to even notice. Turning back towards the Clean Room again, Shepard pressed her hands against the glass, barely stopping herself from pressing her face against it as well as she watched Tali pick up a pair of medical scissors, her hand sliding up the umbilical cord before making one clean, decisive cut. Having finished extracting the baby from the tank, she swaddled it up in the blanket again, making sure to cover every bit of its delicate body with soft cloth, before turning to Reegar and bouncing the baby gently in her arms as the two of them fawned over it, unable to help themselves. Then, satisfied that her work was done, she turned away from the window again, making her way to a corner of the Clean Room where there sat what looked to be a large, domed plexiglass incubator.

The incubator, or whatever it was, floated independently from the ground, the slow, gentle rising and falling set to imitate a mother's breathing, with a sheer white bedding padding it along the bottom and a series of round, filtered ventilation modules set into the base. Shepard had never seen a quarian Bubble before, but she had to figure that that was probably what this apparatus was. Making her way back over to the Clean Room window, Tali waved to Miranda and Shepard, smiling out at them before pointing to Shepard and indicating for her to come inside. Shepard let out a hard, shaky, excited breath, reaching down to squeeze Miranda's hand in anticipation before turning to head towards the door of the Clean Room, waiting for Reegar to clear her inside, feeling her entire body shaking beneath her, her legs feeling numb, her hands prickly and cold, her face glowing and overwarm. Reegar handed her a sanitary mask and a pair of gloves, which she was quick to slip on, before he took a step back, allowing her to pass by him as she made her way towards Tali and the Bubble.

Coming up on the Bubble, Shepard hesitated, almost too nervous to even look inside, before finally pressing her face against the dome, her gloved hands leaving eager prints against the plexiglass as she peered in at the swaddled bundle. She could barely see the baby past the sheet that surrounded it, but she could just make out a tiny, moving, greyish hand peeking out from the folds of the blanket, and she smiled wider at the sight of the tiny appendage, barely able to keep from losing her knees beneath her as she dragged a finger along the glass, gesturing in silent adoration to the baby inside the Bubble. Coming to stand near Shepard's elbow, Tali looked in on the infant as well, turning her attention back to Shepard as she let out a deep, adoring sigh, watching the baby take hold of the edge of the blanket, aimless and innocent.

"Congratulations, Shepard," Tali cooed, speaking in barely above a whisper so as not to disturb the newborn infant, causing Shepard to look up at her at the commendation, eager and proud. "He's beautiful."

Shepard's expression instantly fell at this, and for a moment she could only stare at Tali, startled, wondering if perhaps the quarian had misspoken and might catch her own mistake and correct herself. "'He'?" she finally asked, trying hard not to sound too disconcerted. "Are you sure it's a boy? Not to doubt your expertise, but… Miranda and Liara both said it was a girl."

Tali faltered at this, seeming surprised, herself. Then, after a moment, she shook her head, letting out a soft, silvery laugh, before reaching forward towards the Bubble and starting to unlatch the safety door. "Of course Miranda would think that," she said, sliding her hands gently under the swaddled bundle. Lifting the baby up from the padded floor of the enclosure, she passed him through the circular door hole, careful not to jostle him too much as she moved, before gingerly sliding him over to his mother, making sure to support his fragile head as she passed him into her waiting arms. Shepard shifted the tiny bundle against her chest, hooking one finger into the soft material to peek in at the baby's genitalia, and had to stifle a soft laugh, half embarrassed, half relieved, when she saw the familiar carapace and slit that Garrus had in his own underregion. It had not been a fluke that everything up to then had projected the baby would turn out to be a girl – only that neither Liara nor Miranda had ever seen a turian's genitals before, and so neither had thought to look for internalized genitalia, rather than the externalized human kind.

"It is a boy," Shepard confirmed, laughing, looking up at Tali again and beaming too widely to stop herself. Then, looking back down at the small miracle in her arms, she let out a soft, shaky, contented sigh, barely able to keep a pair of tears from escaping her eyes at the sight of her new baby. Despite what the doctor at the hospital had said, her baby appeared to be perfectly formed, with two arms and two legs, three fingers and a thumb on each hand and three toes on each foot, and a beautiful round head with a precious, gently-featured face that appeared at first more human, and then more turian, making it difficult to tell which parent he resembled more strongly. His skin was still soft from utero, though she could tell it was also somewhat papery, like sharkskin leather, the texture not quite like either of his parents, but more of a combination of both. "He's beautiful," she breathed, her words catching lightly in her throat as she choked back a soft, thankful sob. "My baby boy." Letting another tear roll down her cheek, she reached forward, gingerly brushing the baby's fine wisps of dark, down-like hair to one side, and in return, the infant huffed and burbled at her touch, still too young to process a definitive reaction. Shepard could not keep from beaming down at him at the response, completely and utterly in love.

"What are you going to name him?" Tali asked, eagerly, causing her to look up at the quarian again.

Shepard paused, thoughtful, before slowly shaking her head and turning her attention back down to her baby, fixated by the tiny child in her arms. "I don't know," she admitted, honestly, still in a daze. "I hadn't really thought about it before now. I… wasn't expecting to make it this far." Reaching down with a gentle hand, she petted back the few wispy strands of the baby's dark down, her finger trailing, mesmerized, along the ridge of his ear, her smile widening in disbelief at the sheer splendour of her child. "I also expected him to be a girl," she added, more as an amused afterthought than anything else, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb the infant. "I had an idea for a name for a girl, but… I have no idea what to name a boy." Tali nodded, silently intuitive, before shifting a bit closer to rest her head against Shepard's thin shoulder, staring down at the baby in her arms and considering him fondly. Shepard stared down at her new baby as well, rocking him gently against her chest, watching as he curled up against her, nestling his head against her breasts as he yawned, preparing to fall asleep.

"You know…" Shepard suddenly spoke up again, considering her words, causing Tali to look up at her again, attentive. "I never thought I would have what it takes to be a mother. Even when I was actually pregnant, I always felt like the world would look down on me, like they'd judge me if I were to tell anybody about it. Not because I was pregnant, but because I was… me." Pausing in her gentle rocking, she frowned a bit, the look of adoration on her face wavering momentarily as she thought back to the months she had spent doing everything in her power to keep the members of her crew from finding out about her pregnancy. "Every time somebody found out about it, I… I felt embarrassed, almost… ashamed," she admitted, a faint tremble in her voice as she continued on. "Like being pregnant was something I wasn't ever meant to do, or something I didn't deserve. Like I was doing something… dirty, for me. Something unseemly. Like I was taking it away from someone else, someone more deserving of it than I was."

Pausing again in her explanation, Shepard's brow furrowed a bit deeper in thought as she gently brushed a few dark, flyaway strands of hair off her baby's sleeping forehead, distracted, her expression distant. "There was only one person who I felt… right, telling about my pregnancy," she finally said, her voice quiet, barely loud enough for Tali to hear. "More than my mother, more than any of my friends… more than Garrus, even. Someone who made me feel like it was something I was meant to do, like… that it was an act of love. Someone who… told me they were proud of me, and assured me… despite my uncertainty… that I would be a great mother." She stopped again, her voice choking up, before shaking her head in disbelief, wetting her lips as she watched her unbelievable baby slumber. "He's perfect," she said, her voice trembling with affection. "And I know what I'm going to call him." Taking a deep, shuddering breath in, she smiled down at her baby's sleeping form, running a doting finger over his cheek as he began to yawn again. Suddenly, he reached out a tiny hand, curling it protectively around her finger, and she let out a soft, adoring sob as she pulled him forward to press a tender kiss to his forehead. Letting him settle back again, she let out another, devoted sigh, before looking up at Tali once more with a resolute smile spread across her face.

"David," she told her, determinedly. "His name… is David."

[ End of Pt.1 ]