"We already agreed you get to be called mum, why does it matter what our kid calls me?" Of all the potential traps, hazards and general concerns revolving around parenthood that they could have been stressing over, Nikki really didn't understand why Trish was so focussed on deciding their titles. Unfortunately her attempts to avoid or joke her way through the conversation hadn't gone down so well.

"Because 'the cool one' implies that I'm not cool."

"It was a joke! Besides, it's just one adjective. You can't let me have one decent adjective to myself when you've got the rest wrapped up tight? You're the clever one, the beautiful, drop dead gorgeous, sexy as sin one. And why the hell do all our arguments end with me listing bloody compliments about you?" Trish couldn't help laughing.

"Finished?"

"Arguing or complimenting?" Nick huffed, but her wife ignored her.

"You know, 'dad' is becoming increasingly popular among women since First Contact."

"Yeah normally when they're bonded to asari, neither of us are asari."

"That doesn't matter, there's no rule about who can use what terms, you can be called any title you like."

"Anything except 'the cool one' or 'the other one' you mean." Nikki clarified before suddenly coming up with: "What about bio-mom?"

"Bio-mom?" Trish chuckled. "It sounds like a weapon of mass destruction."

"Well... I am-" Nick started but was interrupted.

"Oh, no! You better not be thinking of referring to me as 'the carrier', I sense a growing theme that is rapidly sounding worse and worse. What are you planning on calling the child, Influenza?"

"Only if it's a girl." Nikki shot back without missing a beat. "Hmm, N-Strain if it's a boy."

"N-Strain?" Trish queried, momentarily too impressed by the speed of her partner's brain to immediately protest. At least, she hoped Nikki had come up with it on the spot, the name better not have had any actual time and thought spent on it beforehand.

"Yeah N-Strain, after all it's going to be an N-baby." Trish shook her head with a smile before realising something.

"You do know that we can choose whether to have a boy or a girl in advance if we want right?"

"Is this your way of asking me if I'd rather have a little Influenza or a gorgeous baby N-Strain?"

"I'm vetoing both those names by the way, but yes... do you want a boy or a girl?" Nikki went quiet, staring into the distance as she thought about it before suddenly shrugging.

"I don't care, I just want a healthy baby. What about you? Do you have a preference?"

"I'll be happy as long as it's yours."

"Well it bloody better be mine! I'm not going through all these needles for nothing you know." They shared a chuckle, cuddling closer as an easy silence fell around them. They continued basking in their shared existence for several minutes before Nikki softly offered: "What about Opie?"

"For a girl or for a boy?"

"No, for me."

"Hmm, Opie, I like it. Is it foreign?"

"Don't think so."

"Then what's it mean?"

"O.P... Other Parent." Trish sighed, playfully pushing her wife away.

"It's a good job we've got over nine months to think about this."

"What! I thought you liked Opie?"

"Well... It's the best idea you've had so far." The civilian allowed.

"No, the best idea I've had was marrying you."

"Flatterer. You're going to give me diabetes if you keep being so adorably sweet."

"Consider it payback for all the needles you keep jabbing me with." Trish couldn't help a giggle escaping her lips before she suddenly became serious.

"What are you going to do tomorrow when you ship out? Are you going to be ok giving yourself injections?"

"I don't know." Nikki answered truthfully with a shrug. "If not I'll ask doc to give them to me. She'll be keeping an eye on me and doing the egg retrieval when it's time anyway. I'll be honest, as excited as I am about having this kid, I'm glad we agreed to you doing the actual pregnant bit. Can you imagine suddenly developing a new craving in the middle of space? 'Joker take us into the Traverse, I have a craving for batarian rice conyap!' "

"I think your crew would be more worried about the mood swings. Hormonal spectre with a gun and immunity from prosecution sounds like a lethal mix."

...

The next day had started just like any other, Nikki took Jude for a morning run before coming back for a shower, breakfast and a jab from what had so far been called the needle of: magic, horror, doom, anti-romanticism, necessary evil, and baby-making-ness. She then changed into her dress blues and prepared for the shuttle to Arcturus station, although today included more luggage than the previous day trips.

The goodbye kiss also took longer. It would have to tide them over after all, and neither woman had any intention of rushing what would be their last kiss for several months. Eventually however it had to come to an end and Trish watched as the shuttle carried her wife away for yet another tour of duty. The feelings that flooded her were familiar, having suffered them ever since the spectre was a lowly corporal, but she did her best to wrap them away and focus on her own work day.

A task that was made harder when she arrived at the office to find a delivery from the local florist already waiting on her desk. The note that accompanied the bouquet declaring: [Missing you already :) xXx]

...

"Why am I not surprised?" Trish sighed at the image of her wife that popped up when she answered her omni-tool. Although she knew they wouldn't be able to talk every day, she was glad Nick had at least managed to call this first night.

"What aren't you surprised by?" The soldier responded warily.

"The moment there's no longer a risk of running into anyone who outranks you, you stop wearing your dress blues."

"That's not true! I'll have you know I waited three hours after leaving the Arcturus Stream before I changed." Nikki protested, earning a chuckle and a shake of the head from Trish.

"Where are you now?" She asked curiously.

"Space." The instant reply was met with an eye roll.

"Which part?"

"The boring part."

"Mhmm. I'm assuming that means you're not in the Terminus or the Traverse, otherwise I'll have to question your sanity in calling it that."

"Hey the Normandy's good but even she can't cross the galaxy that quickly... I will be heading in roughly that direction soon though. Your uncle forwarded a job to me."

"The classified kind?"

"Is there any other kind?"

"Of course, just be careful."

"I'm always careful. You can relax though, it's just a simple retrieval mission."

"Eden Prime was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission." Trish reminded pointedly.

"Yeah but that involved prothean technology. Protheans always mess things up. I even got forwarded the technical manual and instructions for the thing I'm picking up this time so it should be fine."

"Should be?" Trish repeated her words while throwing her 'the Look'.

"Yeah, why do you find that so hard to believe?"

"Because the question I usually ask myself these days Nick is: if it was simple, then why are they sending you?" The soldier found herself chuckling at that.

"In fairness I think this time they want my ship more than me. The object in question's not supposed to be out there. I tried telling them; 'build your own stealth ship', but they said 'we did, you're using it'. Anyway, I'll be in and out before anyone knows I'm there. Except Hackett of course." Nikki couldn't help noticing her wife didn't seem convinced.

...

Trish told herself it was probably a coincidence that an Alliance press conference was called a mere six hours after she received Nikki's brief text message: [5x5 told you I'd be fine. Mission was more than a success and the worst part of my day was still my appointment with the needle of eternal torment. Love you lots, talk later.]

After all there were multiple fleets worth of Alliance personnel, they had to be doing something and statistically some of those things must be newsworthy. Not everything in the galaxy revolved around her idiot. Besides, Nikki's mission was supposed to be classified, you didn't hold press conferences about things that were classified.

Two hours later the data feeds she'd set up in an effort to keep track of her wife went haywire with rumours. She was halfway through reading the third link when her omni-tool rang, she picked it up instantly when she saw who was calling.

"Really Nick?" Despite her best intentions the frustration in her voice bled through, causing the spectre's self preservation instinct to kick in as she responded with an immediate:

"It wasn't me!" There was a moment's hesitation as irritation gave way to confusion.

"What wasn't you?"

"Umm... Whatever it was you were about to accuse me of?"

"Ah so it was a different Spectre Shepard that took down Elanos Haliat, finally allowing the vengeful ghosts of the victims of Elysium peace, after seven long years searching for justice."

"Oh that! Yeah, well..." She distractedly rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm not entirely convinced about the bit with the ghosts... And technically the Alliance was searching for him for seven years, not me personally. In fact I wasn't looking for him at all. I just sort of stumbled on him accidentally like. I probably wouldn't even have recognised him if he wasn't waxing lyrical about the Blitz."

Especially given how preoccupied I was with the cave-in, and being trapped in a confined space with a nuclear warhead, particularly when said nuke was on a countdown timer... Of course that bit remained unsaid. That part of the mission was still classified after all, and even if it hadn't been, there were some parts of her job her wife simply didn't need to know about. She might be an idiot but she wasn't stupid.

"So... What was the other thing you were trying to hide from me when you called?" Trish queried.

"What thing?"

"The thing that wasn't you." It was easy to read the conflict in the commander's face as she debated whether or not to tell. A mischievous grin lighting up as she came to a decision.

"You promise not to tell anyone?" The civilian nodded. "Especially not your uncle. Or anyone else in the Alliance."

"I promise."

"Well... the Normandy may or may not have recently descended into a prank war."

"Isn't it supposed to be your job as CO to stop things like that? Not encourage or actively take part in it."

"No... It's not explicitly written in my job description that I must stop pranks. I read it twice, it doesn't mention acting like an adult either."

"Yeah, I think that's probably an oversight. They probably assumed it was't necessary to clarify that point."

"Meh."

"So anything good happen yet?"

"You know that N4 combat engineer Anderson assigned me to replace Tali?"

"Vaguely, not personally."

"Well he's been nicknamed Tals2 since he joined and someone replaced the emergency field rations in his suit with dextro paste tubes."

"You didn't? That could have been dangerous!"

"Hey, I never said it was me! Don't worry there's no way he could have ingested them by accident. Besides... Something tells me he'll get his revenge real soon." She glanced briefly at the time on her omni-tool. "Like in the next five minutes or so."

"That's a rather specific prediction. Wh-" Trish was interrupted by a muffled scream from the Normandy side of the call followed by multiple voices shouting.

"Or it could be sooner!" The commander declared with a delighted smirk. "I should probably go check that out. Apparently it's a CO's job to stop these sort of things. I might have to take pictures first though... just in case I need evidence for disciplinary procedures or something. Talk later, love you, bye!"

...

"Hi Nick." Trish cheerfully answered the call from the Normandy comm room's ID without suspicion. It wasn't the first time her partner had used the ship's tech instead of her personal omni-tool to communicate; the military equipment was able to manage longer vid call distances without experiencing lag issues.

Her good mood evapourated and she was hit with a sledgehammer of fear as she realised it wasn't her idiot on the other side of the call. "Garrus, what happened? Is she alright? How bad-" The turian raised a talon to halt the quick fire questions and Trish paused for breath. The worry still clear in her eyes.

"Relax she's fine." The human's eyes narrowed into a glare, she hated that word, besides if everything was fine he wouldn't be calling her. "That is, I mean... She's ok physically, she's not injured or anything."

"But?" Garrus was amazed at how one seemingly innocent word could be made to sound so dangerous.

"I don't know. Something about the last mission hit her pretty hard. Normally when we get back to the ship she does her rounds, goes and talks to everyone. She just ordered Joker to rendezvous with the Fifth fleet to offload our prisoner then head for the Citadel before disappearing to her room. No one's seen her since. I just... I don't know. I think it might help if someone talked to her but she's the commander you know? I mean-"

"It's alright, I understand." It was Trish's turn to cut off the other's rambling. "I don't suppose you know what happened down there?"

"Sorry I was outside providing sniper support in case of reinforcements. The others said something about it involving Akuze."

"Shit." The expletive dropped from her lips without thought. "I'll call her now. Thanks Garrus."

"No problem. Uh, could you maybe not mention the fact I told you."

...

"Hey babe." The voice that finally picked up on Trish's third attempt was apathetic and even without Garrus' warning she would have been able to tell something was wrong.

"Hey... Everything ok? It took you a while to pick up." In a way that was a blessing in disguise, it gave her an excuse to ask questions straight away rather than having to waste time making up a reason about why she called.

"No, I'm alright. Just didn't hear it ring, sorry."

"You sure? You don't sound alright." Trish was clearly skeptical.

"Honestly babe, I'm fine." Nikki lied a second time. "Do I need to send you a picture to prove it?"

"Last time you did that you photographed the wrong foot!" It was a testament to how down Shepard was feeling that she didn't smile as her wife took the bait.

"I'd sprained my left, the photo was clearly a left foot, you can tell by the position of the toes."

"It was certainly a left foot, it just wasn't your foot! And it wasn't a sprain it was a compound fracture."

"Pfft, mere details! I really don't know why you feel the need to drag that up again after all these years."

"Yeah, I'm nitpicking now. I don't even know why I thought about it." The banter between them was perfectly natural, expected even, but while the words were normal there was something about the tone of voice that was ever so slightly... off. It was hard to pinpoint or explain exactly, but Trish had years of experience navigating the subtle nuances of her partner's psyche.

There was a sigh before Trish spoke again.

"Nick, sweetie... you can tell me to sod off and mind my own business, or that it's classified or something, but please don't try telling me there's nothing bothering you right now. I'm not stupid."

"No, you're not." The silence stretched on into uncomfortable territory before Shepard admitted: "Tough day I guess."

"Tough day as in 'please distract me and help me forget' or 'tough day I really aught to talk to someone about but I don't want to burden you'?"

"I'm not convinced those are mutually exclusive you know."

"So the latter one then?"

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. So... what happened?" Again silence spread between them. Tense and uneasy. Trish gave her wife plenty of time to get her thoughts in order but it was evident the soldier had no intention of being the next one to speak.

"Nikki... I thought we had a deal? You don't have to talk to me but you do have to talk to someone, it's the same deal we've had for years..." She hesitated, she had the perfect opening, but without video she was pushing buttons blindly and if Garrus was right it could get pretty explosive. "Same deal since Akuze."

"Akuze... It always goes back to fucking Akuze." The soldier scoffed bitterly, but she sounded more tired than angry. It seemed most of the more volatile emotions had temporarily run their course. There was another pause before a quiet, broken voice offered: "That's the second time I've watched that man die."

"Which man?"

"Toombsey."

Her muscles ached as she 'made a tactical retreat' aka sprinted away from the giant monster, fully expecting a glob of acid to hit the back of her armour at any moment. Taylor was dead, his last horrifying moments burned into her memory, she suspected, for the rest of her life. However short that was currently looking to be. Badger had got separated from them soon after, and she could only hope he was still alive somewhere out there in the turmoil.

She threw herself into a large crater, nearly landing in the gruesome remains of Lieutenant Commander Trovsky, the wide eyed but still fighting Private Lambert sliding in behind her. Thankfully she still had her rifle and she continued to set an example to her fellow marine, rising out of cover to fire a burst at the monster before dropping back to comparative safety when her weapon needed to cool down. Other's in the platoon clearly had the same idea, the large crater hosting soldiers across 70% of its lip.

Unfortunately such a large concentration of prey proved too tempting to the worm and it surfaced right in their midst. Sheer chance saving Shepard as it surfaced on the other side, multiple marines ensnared in its coils. She wasn't hanging around to ID them all but she recognised the Ace of spades Toombsey had painted on his helmet as he was dragged back down below.

Nikki took a shaky breath before strengthening her voice. "Corporal J.A Toombs, 108th Marine corps."

She didn't even know what the J stood for, despite knowing he drank cider and claimed to have an asari girlfriend. He had two poker tells but you couldn't trust the thumb swipe across the lips because he'd realised he did it and had started doing it on purpose to hide a bluff.

He looked so broken standing there, eyes on the floor along with his pistol, as Ashley cuffed the scientist. Shepard should have seen it coming. At the very least she should have made sure he didn't have any more weapons after he dropped his gun.

"The vids say you were the only survivor of Akuze." Too late she realised what he had in mind as he reached for the shotgun on the back of his armour. "Who am I to argue?"

"NO!" She raced towards him just in time to be splattered with his blood, her momentum kept her going, belatedly forcing the weapon out of his lifeless hands as they crashed together to the floor. "No! You stupid bastard!"

The day had already been trying enough. She'd been wrestling with long buried memories and new found questions ever since Hackett first hesitatingly brought the situation to her attention. Now she lost her composure completely, grabbing her old comrade's corpse by the shoulders, lifting him up slightly before slamming him back into the ground with fury. It probably looked brutal but it wasn't like she could hurt him.

"You fucking idiot! Why?" She knew why. She couldn't even find it in her to blame him, not really. She let him go, closing her eyes as she struggled to control her breathing and calm her emotions.

"Shepard? Commander?" Her squad cautiously inquired. It had to be pretty worrying for them too, she realised. Seeing her lose control like that. They must have thought she'd gone crazy. Keeping her back to them she stood up, face blank as she ordered:

"See what you can find on those computer terminals, I want everything. And get a body bag over here from the Normandy, we're taking Toombs with us. He deserves a military funeral. Take that other bastard to the brig. We'll hand him over to Hackett but I don't want to ever see him again. I'm not sure I can stop myself killing him a second time."

There were murmured acknowledgements and footsteps as they obeyed but she paid them no heed. Attention still on the body in front of her. "I'm sorry Toombsey."

"I kinda lost it today." Nikki admitted to her wife. "Don't think my squad will be able to look at me the same way again. They must think I'm crazy."

"You might be surprised. They've got a lot of respect for you. I doubt even you could throw all that away in one day." Trish offered softly and Nikki chuckled, although there was no humour in the dark sound.

"I'm not so sure. You weren't there, I flipped pretty bad. Wouldn't be surprised if they're talking Chakwas into getting me a padded jacket right now."

"Maybe you should talk to Phil."

"Don't want to, I'd rather talk to you... Well... I'd rather not talk about it all." The soldier sighed despondently. "Do you know what he said?"

"Who?"

"The shrink. After Akuze. Every time we talk about it actually. He always says it isn't my fault. I mean sure, I know that, but then he said: 'sometimes bad things just happen and it's nobody's fault', except it fucking was someone's fault Trish. The scientists lured us there deliberately and let us die. Why? All that death and pain. For what? For fucking science? To study what the maws would do? They're bloody giant acid spitting worms, what the hell did they think would happen?"

"I don't know Nick." Trish answered gently. She wanted to weep, both at the pain in her partner's voice and the horrors she was revealing, but knew that right now it was up to her to be the strong one in the relationship.

"I mean I get doing bad shit for the greater good, or having to choose between two evils, but how does anyone justify something like that to themselves?"

"I don't know sweetie." How she longed to wrap the N7 up in her arms and hug her tight, soothe away the stress and heartache, but they were too far apart. She wished she knew the magic words to make everything better, but knew no such thing existed.

"I think I want my distraction now." It was a request Trish was more than willing to fulfill.