Re: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant 4/?
anonymous
March 6 2016, 21:52:47 UTC
Sparatus rose and went to the doorway where he barked out a series of orders. It felt like an eternity had passed, but when she glanced back down at her omni-tool she saw that it had only been a matter of minutes since she’d arrived in the chambers. Garrus was still connected to her but he wasn’t speaking. She could hear him trying to hail a skycar and wondered why he didn’t just take the elevator. Where the hell was he anyway? He’d started disappearing during their shore leaves on the Citadel and she’d been unable to locate him anywhere. When she’d asked him about it, he’d said he was helping the refugees but she hadn’t found him in the camp and Vega said that he hadn’t seen him around there lately.
The councilor returned a moment later and said, “I’ve sent my assistant to find some supplies. I’ve also made contact with a salarian doctor from the hospital and he says that childbirth across species is very similar. Judging by the rate of your contractions, I’m afraid that moving you now would not be wise. He also transferred a scanning application to my omni-tool that will allow an ultrasound of the fetus. I will send the results back to him for evaluation.”
“How did this happen?” she asked.
He shot her a look that was somewhat amused and said, “I imagine the same way it usually does.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, trying to force her breathing into a normal rhythm as the councilor passed his omni-tool over her. “I haven’t been with a human man in over four years and I was dead for two of those intervening ones. I haven’t been sexually assaulted. I haven’t been-oh gods.”
“What?” Garrus snapped over the comm.
“Aratoht,” she said. “I was sedated by humans for two days. That was nine months ago. What did they do to me, Garrus?” she gasped.
“Breathe, sweetheart,” he said soothingly. “I’m on my way. You’re all right. We’ll get through this. I’ll be there soon. Just breathe.”
“Hurry,” she urged, pleased that it came out as an order rather than a whimper.
Sparatus made a sound that was somewhere between shocked and considering and tilted his head. He typed in another series of keystrokes and she heard his talon tap against the floor. The door opened and he looked up. A turian entered with a stack of sheets and towels atop a small crate with the Huerta logo. The councilor accepted it and waved him back out with a terse, “No one enters this room unless they are a member of the Normandy crew or medical staff. Everything you see and hear from this point on is classified until I say otherwise.”
“Yes, sir,” the turian said and withdrew.
Sparatus leaned over so that he was visible in the comm window again and addressed his next comment to both of them. Shepard was so preoccupied with attempting to force her body to relax that she almost missed his statement. “It isn’t human.”
“What?” she and Garrus roared at the same time.
He tapped his omni-tool and a holographic image appeared of what looked to be a tiny turian curled up in a ball. Its eyes were tightly closed but she could clearly see the miniature mandibles and the nubs of fringe on its head and tiny spurs on the back of its legs. Its nose looked more pronounced than a typical turian and it had ten toes instead of two. The basic shape of its feet were humanoid but the angle of them was turian. She looked from the image to Sparatus to Garrus’ shocked expression in confusion. “How can this be?” she asked, her pain momentarily forgotten.
“I don’t know,” Sparatus said.
“Spirits,” Garrus breathed. “I wish Mordin were here.” He caught himself and said, “Damn. Sorry, Shepard.” The pain that crashed over her had nothing to do with her physical condition but that quickly reasserted itself. Garrus swore again and she heard a thud as he hit something solid. “Damn it. Why can’t this thing go any faster?”
Sparatus said, “Input this code,” and rattled off a series of numbers. Garrus did and she heard him thank the councilor as, presumably, the skycar gained additional speed. The councilor said something she didn’t catch and then she heard his omni-tool ping and a quick salarian voice begin rattling off what sounded like instructions. She felt a sheet being draped over her legs. “Pants off,” he ordered.
Re: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant 5/?
anonymous
March 6 2016, 21:55:03 UTC
She looked at him in dazed confusion as a hot knife of agony speared through her and her breath began to come in ragged gasps. He sighed and she somehow managed to restrain herself from hitting him as he reached below the sheet and removed her boots and pants. He arranged another sheet beneath her and rubbed his brow plates. “Spirits help me,” he muttered.
“You’re awfully calm about this,” she remarked when she’d managed to catch her breath.
“I’ve done this before,” he said. “Just never with an alien. When I told you I owed you a great debt, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
“I’m not naming it after you,” she groaned as another contraction hit.
He shuddered and said, “Thank the spirits.”
The salarian’s voice came over the comm again and she tuned it out as Garrus’ soothing voice talked her through the pain. Her eyes widened as she felt a sharp sensation of pressure and she repeated, “Garrus, hurry.”
“I’m almost there,” he assured her. “Ten minutes.”
“Time to push, Commander,” Sparatus said, drawing the sheet up and positioning himself at her feet with a long-suffering sigh. “I’m afraid this will be more painful than with a human infant. You aren’t shaped properly for delivering a turian child.” He turned his attention to his omni-tool. “She needs an emergency C-Section. Can you not spare even one room, damn it?”
“Performing an amputation on the hallway floor as we speak,” the salarian snapped. “No room means no room. No sedatives. No painkillers. No nurses. No supplies. Child may be unorthodox but human body adaptable and female body designed for childbearing. Commander’s condition concerning but not life-threatening.”
“It’s about damn time!” Garrus exclaimed. “Just hold on, Shepard. The doc’s on her way to your location now.”
His assurance was lost in the sudden demand of her body to bear down. She heard his keen as she grunted and curled up to help herself push. She could vaguely make out the sound of Sparatus counting before he tapped her ankle gently and she collapsed back onto the floor. Her head hit the tile with a thud and she shook it as the ridiculousness of the situation hit her. She, Commander Shepard, savior of the Citadel, hero of the galaxy, legend, ghost, was giving birth to a turian-human hybrid that shouldn’t even be possible on the floor of the Council chambers with Councilor Sparatus himself playing midwife. The laugh that ensued bordered on the hysterical even to her own ears.
There was a swish as the door opened and she tilted her head back, hoping to see her mate. The person who appeared was almost as welcome. Liara gasped, “By the goddess, it is true!” before sitting down behind her and drawing Shepard into her arms so that Shepard’s back was resting against Liara’s front. “I came as quickly as I could,” she said. “I don’t quite know what I’m doing but I did some research on the ride up. You need to breathe, Shepard.”
“I’m breathing, damn it!” Shepard grunted as she bore down again. One of Liara’s cool hands slipped into hers and the other gently stroked away the hair that had plastered itself to her brow in her exertion. Shepard squeezed tightly but the asari didn’t complain even when the bones of her hand ground together in a way that must have been uncomfortable. “I want Garrus,” she said miserably.
“I know,” Liara murmured soothingly. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Sparatus looked up at Shepard and said, “Turian infants are born feet-first in order to protect the spurs and hips. According to the doctor, this position is known as breech in a human birth and can be dangerous. Turian females are designed to remain open until the head is delivered. You, however, are not and there is a danger of strangling the child once the cowl has passed through the birth canal. I am afraid we are going to have to become very intimately acquainted in order to prevent that.”
“Don’t care,” she grunted. “Just…do it. But if you ever…tell anyone…about this…I’ll hunt you down…and mount your head…in the CIC…of my warship!”
Re: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant 6/?
anonymous
March 6 2016, 21:57:23 UTC
“I will probably let you if anyone ever finds out about this, Commander,” he grunted.
She felt the feet slide smoothly out but the hips presented a painful problem. Her body tried to clamp down over the baby’s smaller waist and she understood what Sparatus had meant when his hands slid alongside the infant to make room for its broader chest and shoulders. Liara, ever curious, leaned forward and lifted the sheet slightly. Shepard felt her intake of breath as she said, “I can see it, Shepard!”
Shepard groaned and dropped her head back against Liara’s shoulder, beyond shame or modesty, as she tried to catch her breath. Something pressed against her lips and she opened her eyes to see that her friend had brought a bottle of water to her mouth. Liara admonished her to take small sips and she did so obediently. She was grateful for the cool liquid and muttered her thanks before Liara removed the bottle as Shepard’s abdomen clenched down once more. Shepard shouted a curse as she felt something tear. Garrus shouted over the comm, “I’m almost there!”
She almost missed his entrance. Her entire being was focused on the wracking pain in her body and the sound of his booted feet pounding into the room was overshadowed by the string of curses that flowed from her lips. She distantly registered Liara moving away before a hard chest and long legs slid behind to brace her and his mandibles brushed her ear. “I’m here, Shepard,” he murmured. “You’re all right. I’m here.”
She collapsed back into him. “Garrus,” she exhaled. His arms came cautiously around her and she felt his chest vibrate soothingly against her back. “We’re having a baby,” she said weakly.
“Yeah,” he said, sounding as dazed as she felt.
Time and reality became flexible as Liara and Garrus allowed her to squeeze them while she pushed. She almost laughed at the small biotic barrier she saw glowing around their hands to keep her from breaking them as the baby’s cowl made its way out. There was a scraping sensation, presumably from the baby’s fringe, and then the pressure broke and the pain eased considerably. She felt as though she’d been chewed up by a thresher maw but at least it was no longer actively eating away at her. She collapsed back against Garrus with a heavy sigh and her eyes fluttered open.
Sparatus was swiftly wrapping what looked to be a thermal blanket around a tiny bundle. There was a look of wonder on his face that she’d never imagined seeing there. Liara’s eyes shimmered with moisture and she wore a beaming smile. Garrus’ talons were digging into her hips and his body vibrated with tension. The councilor looked up with his mandibles splayed widely and said, “Congratulations, Commander, Vakarian. You have a healthy baby boy.”
“He isn’t crying,” she said numbly. “Babies are supposed to cry when they’re born, right?”
Sparatus leaned forward and placed the bundle in her arms. She looked down in a daze at the impossibly small form. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked. “He’s too little.”
Liara said, “Turian females don’t have the elasticity that humans do. Their babies are born smaller than humans or asari. His size is perfectly normal.”
Re: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant 7/?
anonymous
March 6 2016, 21:59:19 UTC
Shepard couldn’t take her eyes off of the tiny baby. This all seemed so surreal. A part of her couldn’t accept that this creature was a part of her. The throbbing in her loins insisted it was. Hesitantly, she reached out and stroked a finger over its mandible. The baby made a sound somewhere between a growl and a purr and blinked up at her. His eyes focused instantly on hers with none of the sleepy confusion of a human newborn and she gasped in delight. They were deep-set like a turian’s but larger like a human’s and their color was a pale, crystalline blue like his father’s. His nose, as she’d seen in the holosound, was slightly more pronounced like a human but that and his feet were where the external similarities to her ended.
He was, in every other way, a miniature version of Garrus. A combination of love and sheer panic swept over her in a debilitating wave and she began to hyperventilate. She knew nothing about babies. She’d never had younger siblings or cousins or even friends with children. She knew even less about turian babies. She didn’t have the first clue how to care for one. He yawned and she winced at the idea of breastfeeding. His teeth were little more than tiny nubs but the idea of them latched onto her was terrifying.
To her distress, she realized that she’d never felt more helpless in her life. Give her a gun and a set of orders and she could save the galaxy. Put her in command of a warship and direct her at a relay no one had ever returned from and she would not only return but would do so with her entire crew intact. Force her to converse with a Reaper or form alliances between races that had been at war for centuries and she was right at home. Delivering a child that was more sharp angles and pointy spikes than the soft curves she was designed for without pain medication, no problem. This, however, was too much. She didn’t even know how to feed her own child, a child she hadn’t expected, a child she didn’t know that she could protect, a child that should have been a blessing but felt more like a curse.
“Hey,” Garrus said softly, gently rocking her and the baby. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Shepard. I know you’re scared but we’ll figure this out. I’m right behind you.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “I don’t even know how to hold him properly.”
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to teach you, then,” he said with more confidence than she could believe. “It’s been a while but I helped Mom take care of Sol when she was a baby and pregnancies within the turian military aren’t unheard of. I know what I’m doing. Mostly.”
She laughed wetly as he adjusted the baby in her arms and said, “At least one of us does. So what do I do now? How do I feed him? Please tell me he can take a bottle. I don’t really want those teeth on me.”
“You don’t seem to mind mine,” Garrus murmured teasingly in her ear, drawing a slight smile from her. He grew serious again. “Turians are born eating semi-solid food. You know how Earth birds feed their young?”
“I am not regurgitating my food!” she exclaimed.
“Of course not,” Garrus said. “You probably don’t have the right antibodies anyway. We synthesize it now and add it to their food using a food processor. Baby food isn’t much different from nutrigel.”
Re: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant 8/?
anonymous
March 6 2016, 22:01:11 UTC
The door opened again and Dr. Chakwas rushed in with the salarian from the comm by her side. Karin took Sparatus’ place at her feet and began to work efficiently. “I apologize, Commander. I was helping Dr. Michel with a difficult patient. I came as quickly as I could. It seems congratulations are in order.”
Shepard protested when the salarian doctor swept the baby from her arms but calmed when she realized that he was examining the infant. He glanced over at her and looked so much like Mordin that her heart squeezed. “Apologies, Commander. Dr. Solus. Believe you knew my uncle. Know you have questions. Need to run tests. Non-invasive. Won’t hurt baby. Hybrid infant. Fascinating!”
Despite his quick speech, his hands were gentle as he examined the child. Like Mordin, he talked when he worked. “Both turian and human external phenotypes. Majority turian. Genotype combination of species. Levo-amino acid based. Interesting. Lungs larger than average for turian. Closer to size of human. Lung tissue also present in bone rather than marrow as in humans. Heart size and shape of human. Digestive tract turian. Visual and auditory capacity turian. Appears to have best qualities of both species. Will likely be shorter than typical turian male, taller than average human. Greater muscle mass than turian. Bone density that of turians. Most importantly, completely healthy.”
“Hear that, Shepard?” Garrus asked. “We have a healthy baby.”
“Yeah,” she said softly as exhaustion overtook her.
Karin said, “We need to get the commander and the baby back to the Normandy. She suffered a significant amount of trauma during the delivery and has lost more blood than I like.”
Garrus reacted instantly, wrapping her in fresh sheets and lifting her gingerly off of the floor. He cast a glance back at Sparatus and she felt his subvocals rumbling in what she thought was appreciation. She tried to thank the councilor herself but couldn’t seem to form the words. Mordin’s nephew passed the baby to Liara with a string of rapid-fire instructions on his care. A few moments later, she heard the swish of the door and then everything went dark.
Shepard woke to the familiar sound of her aquarium gurgling quietly and the steady susurrations of the Normandy overlaid by a sound that was simultaneously ingrained into her very soul and completely foreign. She lifted her head to look in his direction and realized that Garrus was singing to their son. The boy stared at him with rapt attention and reached up to hook one very tiny talon over one of the scars on his father’s mandible.
In an instant, everything that had occurred before came rushing back to her and she blinked as she tried to absorb this new reality. She and Garrus were parents. She hadn’t even known she was pregnant, hadn’t known she could even get pregnant, and yet here they were. Judging by the look of adoration on her partner’s face, he was already madly in love with their surprise creation. She wondered what that meant for them.
Shepard and Garrus hadn’t made promises for the future. Theirs was still too uncertain. There was no guarantee they would survive the war even if they managed to win it. They’d committed to each other but always with the knowledge that forever might not be on offer and that they’d figure out what came after if it did. She felt a sudden spurt of anxiety. Dating a human, even loving one, was one thing but bonding to one was a completely different story. Turian bonding was a complex process which required the acceptance of the family and Garrus’ father hated Spectres. She’d overheard conversations between the elder Vakarian and Garrus but had never even spoken to the man directly.
What if Garrus didn’t want her as a bondmate? What if their relationship was based solely in war and, if they survived and peace came, he lost interest? What if he wanted her but his father refused? Would he return to Palaven? Would he insist on taking the child there to be raised by people who looked like him? Would the child even be safe on Earth or would he be forced to live aboard starships and never experience the homeworld of his mother’s people? Would Garrus try to take her baby away?
Re: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant 9/?
anonymous
March 6 2016, 22:03:01 UTC
He lifted his head as she shifted and beamed at her. There was no other way to describe the expression on his face. He cooed to the baby, “Look, Mama’s awake. I bet she wants to see you. Don’t let her fool you. She seems harder than a turian on the outside but inside she’s a fluffmallow.”
“Marshmallow,” she corrected with a small smile.
“See?” Garrus said. “She can’t take her eyes off of you.” He placed the baby in her arms and showed her how to support his neck and head. The baby’s eyes locked on hers once more and his tiny mandibles flared slightly and he began to purr. “He’s smelling you,” Garrus told her. “Fledglings imprint onto their mothers by both sight and scent.” She felt the bed dip as he sat down beside her and wrapped his arm around her. “How do you feel?”
“Sore,” she answered, “but not as bad as I expected. Terrified.”
Garrus said slowly, “I had thought for a little while that you didn’t want him or couldn’t bond to him because he doesn’t look like you. I’d been afraid that a turian-human baby was too much for you and that you were regretting not finding something closer to home. That isn’t it, though, is it?”
“Of course not,” she said. “He’s beautiful, Garrus. He looks just like you and he’s a part of us. I’d die for him in a heartbeat. It’s everything else that scares me. I don’t know the first thing about kids. He’s the first baby I’ve ever even held. I know how to take life. I don’t know how to nurture. There’s no instinctive understanding here. If you weren’t here, I’d probably accidentally kill or maim him in an hour.
“I don’t know what his sounds mean and I know I’m not able to hear all of them. I don’t know what he needs to eat or drink or how he needs to sleep or what his temperature and heartrate are supposed to be. I don’t know where I can safely touch him or how he’s supposed to develop. Your mouths can’t form many of the sounds in my language and I can’t form the ones in yours. I don’t know how to express my feelings to him in a way he’ll understand without words and we won’t even be able to understand those in each other without a translator. I can’t communicate with my own child, Garrus. I don’t know how to be a mother at all, much less a good one to him. That scares the hell out of me.”
“One step at a time, Shepard,” he said. “He may not be able to speak your language or you ours but the two of you can learn to understand each other’s. You can pick up on most of our vocal range with your augmented hearing so you just need to learn what the sounds mean and you can approximate most of them. Saying you can’t nurture is bullshit. You’re one of the most nurturing people I’ve ever met. You can learn the rest. Hell, I don’t even know all of it. We’ll learn together.”
“What happens when the war is over?” she asked, voicing her deepest fear. “What happens when I have to go back to Earth and you have to go back to Palaven? What happens when you or your family decide that it’s time to find a bondmate and settle down with a nice turian woman? Is your family going to insist on him being raised on Palaven? It’s the best option, you know. I have no family. He has no heritage with me. I just…I think maybe…maybe it would be best if Sol and your father took him until the end of the war. They can keep him safe. They can teach him your ways and…” she broke off, unable to continue as tears threatened to choke her.
The look Garrus gave her was pure shock. “What are you talking about, Shepard? I’d thought we’d settled this already. Did you change your mind?”
Re: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant 10/?
anonymous
March 6 2016, 22:04:40 UTC
“Change my mind about what?” she asked.
He groaned and ran a hand over his face. “I knew I should have done more research,” he mumbled. “Damn it, Shepard, the day on the Presidium when I asked if you were ready to be a one-turian kind of woman I wasn’t asking if you just wanted to be together until the war ended. Spirits, I knew I should have gotten a ring. I’ve just never seen you wear jewelry and I didn’t think you’d like it. I kept imagining it getting hung up in your armor or your rifle and you getting frustrated but feeling obligated to wear it. Joker told me to get a ring and to get on one knee but the whole kneeling thing just looked so ridiculous and not…not us. I should have listened. Shepard, I was proposing to you! I’m already bound to you. This couldn’t have happened otherwise.”
“Oh. Oh!” she said as a smile lit her face. She should have known. Of course he would be awkward and nervous about something that big. She could usually read him like a datapad but she’d completely misread his intentions here. “What about your father? And what do you mean this couldn’t have happened if you weren’t already bound to me? We haven’t gone through any ceremony.”
Garrus sighed and shook his head with a slight smile. “My father gave his blessing before I left for Menae. He’s an investigator. It didn’t take much for him to figure it out. I think he knew that if he didn’t, there wouldn’t be enough of a relationship left between him and me to save and now, how can he refuse the savior of the galaxy as a daughter-in-law? The bonding ceremony is a technicality. Bonding isn’t entirely voluntary. It either happens or it doesn’t.
“Turians evolved from pack animals. Family and clan are an evolution of that pack. There’s a reason single parents are unheard of unless one partner dies. We mate for life and we don’t breed until we mate. Casual sex and even sex between partners in a relationship doesn’t result in offspring. It only happens between bonded couples. A female turian left on her own with an infant wouldn’t have survived very long. Babies can’t be exposed the radiation on Palaven until their plates are fully formed. Therefore, the mother couldn’t hunt and they’d starve or she’d be forced to take the child with her and it would die from radiation sickness. This way, one partner can hunt while the other guards the child. If I weren’t bonded to you, I couldn’t have impregnated you.”
“I’m still unsure of how that managed to happen in the first place,” she said as he showed her how to stroke the baby’s fringe when he started to grumble and wave his fists angrily in the air. The baby settled and his eyes drifted closed. She leaned down and breathed in the scent of metal and rainforest that reminded her of Garrus. There was something else there, too, something all his own that sang straight to her heart and, for the first time since he was born, she dared to hope.
Re: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant 11/?
anonymous
March 6 2016, 22:06:48 UTC
“You’ll have to ask Dr. Solus about that. He tried explaining it to me but it went over my head. Something about the cybernetics used to put you back together and the upgrades you received. The bone weaves had something to do with it. They apparently use turian bone as the basis for the weave like they use asari skin cells for the skin weave and krogan tissue for the muscle weave. From what I might have understood, it was something about the nanites used to repair your body spreading turian genetic material that somehow allowed your DNA to become compatible with mine.”
“So…space magic,” she said with a grin, referring to their personal summary of almost everything Mordin had ever tried to explain to them given that he couldn’t put something into layman’s terms if he tried without launching into a technical explanation that would have required multiple doctorate degrees to begin to comprehend.
“Something like that,” Garrus agreed with a smile. “So, what are we going to name the little guy?”
“Humans generally have a first and middle name,” she said. “I think something turian and human would be appropriate. What’s your father’s name?”
“We are not naming the baby after my father,” he scoffed.
“Nihlus?” she suggested.
“Why Nihlus?” he asked.
“Remembrance,” she said. “It all started with him. If he hadn’t died on Eden Prime, we wouldn’t have known to go after Saren. We wouldn’t have found out about Sovereign until it was too late. You and I never would have met. This little guy wouldn’t be here. We owe everything we’ve accomplished since to Nihlus.”
Garrus nodded and asked, “What’s Admiral Anderson’s first name?”
“David,” she said. “Why?”
He shrugged and said, “I assume from your question about mine that it’s common practice among humans to name a child after the parent’s parent and I know you think of Anderson as a father figure. So…Nihlus David Shepard-Vakarian?”
She looked down at the sleeping baby in her arms and said, “That’s a mouthful even for a turian. Human babies take their father’s last name. Nihlus David Vakarian sounds good.”
“He should have your name,” Garrus insisted, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You did all the work.”
“How do turians handle name changes when they get married?” she asked.
“It’s kind of complicated,” he said. “The one from the lower-ranking family takes the clan name of the higher ranking one. If they’re equals, then other factors come into play.”
“You are my family, Garrus,” she said. “I don’t have a clan. My clan is the crew of the Normandy. So in this, you’d be the higher ranking one. It goes along with human tradition as well. The wife almost always takes the husband’s name. So if we name him Vakarian, he will have my name.”
“You’d take my name?” he asked and she heard a rumble from his chest that she could only describe as wonder.
“Of course,” she said. “I don’t have a middle name, so Shepard could take its place. No one uses my first name anyway. I don’t think I’d even realize I needed to answer to it anymore.”
“What is your first name anyway?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t you love to know?” she answered with a smirk. “I hate my first name. It’s too…generic and just reminds me that I’m a nobody. Shepard at least has meaning.”
“You aren’t a nobody,” Garrus said, pressing his forehead to hers. “You’re everything to me.” Nihlus opened his eyes and made a gurgly purr. “And so are you, little guy,” Garrus said with a laugh.
Shepard settled into his embrace and drew their child closer. Soon she would have to go back out and fight but for this one sliver of time, they were able to simply bask in the joy of something she’d never had before: a family to call her own.
Re: I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant 11/?
anonymous
April 1 2016, 14:11:51 UTC
This was lovely. I love it when people at least try to give some biological explanation. Also cultural differences are pretty much always interesting to read. Having Sparatus deliver the baby was delightful. I really should set my lj to show me the most recent updates instead of keeping things in order so I don't miss things like this. Only found this because I was going back through to pull things out to skim to pick for the peoples choice awards. Please keep writing.
The councilor returned a moment later and said, “I’ve sent my assistant to find some supplies. I’ve also made contact with a salarian doctor from the hospital and he says that childbirth across species is very similar. Judging by the rate of your contractions, I’m afraid that moving you now would not be wise. He also transferred a scanning application to my omni-tool that will allow an ultrasound of the fetus. I will send the results back to him for evaluation.”
“How did this happen?” she asked.
He shot her a look that was somewhat amused and said, “I imagine the same way it usually does.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, trying to force her breathing into a normal rhythm as the councilor passed his omni-tool over her. “I haven’t been with a human man in over four years and I was dead for two of those intervening ones. I haven’t been sexually assaulted. I haven’t been-oh gods.”
“What?” Garrus snapped over the comm.
“Aratoht,” she said. “I was sedated by humans for two days. That was nine months ago. What did they do to me, Garrus?” she gasped.
“Breathe, sweetheart,” he said soothingly. “I’m on my way. You’re all right. We’ll get through this. I’ll be there soon. Just breathe.”
“Hurry,” she urged, pleased that it came out as an order rather than a whimper.
Sparatus made a sound that was somewhere between shocked and considering and tilted his head. He typed in another series of keystrokes and she heard his talon tap against the floor. The door opened and he looked up. A turian entered with a stack of sheets and towels atop a small crate with the Huerta logo. The councilor accepted it and waved him back out with a terse, “No one enters this room unless they are a member of the Normandy crew or medical staff. Everything you see and hear from this point on is classified until I say otherwise.”
“Yes, sir,” the turian said and withdrew.
Sparatus leaned over so that he was visible in the comm window again and addressed his next comment to both of them. Shepard was so preoccupied with attempting to force her body to relax that she almost missed his statement. “It isn’t human.”
“What?” she and Garrus roared at the same time.
He tapped his omni-tool and a holographic image appeared of what looked to be a tiny turian curled up in a ball. Its eyes were tightly closed but she could clearly see the miniature mandibles and the nubs of fringe on its head and tiny spurs on the back of its legs. Its nose looked more pronounced than a typical turian and it had ten toes instead of two. The basic shape of its feet were humanoid but the angle of them was turian. She looked from the image to Sparatus to Garrus’ shocked expression in confusion. “How can this be?” she asked, her pain momentarily forgotten.
“I don’t know,” Sparatus said.
“Spirits,” Garrus breathed. “I wish Mordin were here.” He caught himself and said, “Damn. Sorry, Shepard.” The pain that crashed over her had nothing to do with her physical condition but that quickly reasserted itself. Garrus swore again and she heard a thud as he hit something solid. “Damn it. Why can’t this thing go any faster?”
Sparatus said, “Input this code,” and rattled off a series of numbers. Garrus did and she heard him thank the councilor as, presumably, the skycar gained additional speed. The councilor said something she didn’t catch and then she heard his omni-tool ping and a quick salarian voice begin rattling off what sounded like instructions. She felt a sheet being draped over her legs. “Pants off,” he ordered.
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“You’re awfully calm about this,” she remarked when she’d managed to catch her breath.
“I’ve done this before,” he said. “Just never with an alien. When I told you I owed you a great debt, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
“I’m not naming it after you,” she groaned as another contraction hit.
He shuddered and said, “Thank the spirits.”
The salarian’s voice came over the comm again and she tuned it out as Garrus’ soothing voice talked her through the pain. Her eyes widened as she felt a sharp sensation of pressure and she repeated, “Garrus, hurry.”
“I’m almost there,” he assured her. “Ten minutes.”
“Time to push, Commander,” Sparatus said, drawing the sheet up and positioning himself at her feet with a long-suffering sigh. “I’m afraid this will be more painful than with a human infant. You aren’t shaped properly for delivering a turian child.” He turned his attention to his omni-tool. “She needs an emergency C-Section. Can you not spare even one room, damn it?”
“Performing an amputation on the hallway floor as we speak,” the salarian snapped. “No room means no room. No sedatives. No painkillers. No nurses. No supplies. Child may be unorthodox but human body adaptable and female body designed for childbearing. Commander’s condition concerning but not life-threatening.”
“It’s about damn time!” Garrus exclaimed. “Just hold on, Shepard. The doc’s on her way to your location now.”
His assurance was lost in the sudden demand of her body to bear down. She heard his keen as she grunted and curled up to help herself push. She could vaguely make out the sound of Sparatus counting before he tapped her ankle gently and she collapsed back onto the floor. Her head hit the tile with a thud and she shook it as the ridiculousness of the situation hit her. She, Commander Shepard, savior of the Citadel, hero of the galaxy, legend, ghost, was giving birth to a turian-human hybrid that shouldn’t even be possible on the floor of the Council chambers with Councilor Sparatus himself playing midwife. The laugh that ensued bordered on the hysterical even to her own ears.
There was a swish as the door opened and she tilted her head back, hoping to see her mate. The person who appeared was almost as welcome. Liara gasped, “By the goddess, it is true!” before sitting down behind her and drawing Shepard into her arms so that Shepard’s back was resting against Liara’s front. “I came as quickly as I could,” she said. “I don’t quite know what I’m doing but I did some research on the ride up. You need to breathe, Shepard.”
“I’m breathing, damn it!” Shepard grunted as she bore down again. One of Liara’s cool hands slipped into hers and the other gently stroked away the hair that had plastered itself to her brow in her exertion. Shepard squeezed tightly but the asari didn’t complain even when the bones of her hand ground together in a way that must have been uncomfortable. “I want Garrus,” she said miserably.
“I know,” Liara murmured soothingly. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Sparatus looked up at Shepard and said, “Turian infants are born feet-first in order to protect the spurs and hips. According to the doctor, this position is known as breech in a human birth and can be dangerous. Turian females are designed to remain open until the head is delivered. You, however, are not and there is a danger of strangling the child once the cowl has passed through the birth canal. I am afraid we are going to have to become very intimately acquainted in order to prevent that.”
“Don’t care,” she grunted. “Just…do it. But if you ever…tell anyone…about this…I’ll hunt you down…and mount your head…in the CIC…of my warship!”
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She felt the feet slide smoothly out but the hips presented a painful problem. Her body tried to clamp down over the baby’s smaller waist and she understood what Sparatus had meant when his hands slid alongside the infant to make room for its broader chest and shoulders. Liara, ever curious, leaned forward and lifted the sheet slightly. Shepard felt her intake of breath as she said, “I can see it, Shepard!”
Shepard groaned and dropped her head back against Liara’s shoulder, beyond shame or modesty, as she tried to catch her breath. Something pressed against her lips and she opened her eyes to see that her friend had brought a bottle of water to her mouth. Liara admonished her to take small sips and she did so obediently. She was grateful for the cool liquid and muttered her thanks before Liara removed the bottle as Shepard’s abdomen clenched down once more.
Shepard shouted a curse as she felt something tear. Garrus shouted over the comm, “I’m almost there!”
She almost missed his entrance. Her entire being was focused on the wracking pain in her body and the sound of his booted feet pounding into the room was overshadowed by the string of curses that flowed from her lips. She distantly registered Liara moving away before a hard chest and long legs slid behind to brace her and his mandibles brushed her ear. “I’m here, Shepard,” he murmured. “You’re all right. I’m here.”
She collapsed back into him. “Garrus,” she exhaled. His arms came cautiously around her and she felt his chest vibrate soothingly against her back. “We’re having a baby,” she said weakly.
“Yeah,” he said, sounding as dazed as she felt.
Time and reality became flexible as Liara and Garrus allowed her to squeeze them while she pushed. She almost laughed at the small biotic barrier she saw glowing around their hands to keep her from breaking them as the baby’s cowl made its way out. There was a scraping sensation, presumably from the baby’s fringe, and then the pressure broke and the pain eased considerably. She felt as though she’d been chewed up by a thresher maw but at least it was no longer actively eating away at her. She collapsed back against Garrus with a heavy sigh and her eyes fluttered open.
Sparatus was swiftly wrapping what looked to be a thermal blanket around a tiny bundle. There was a look of wonder on his face that she’d never imagined seeing there. Liara’s eyes shimmered with moisture and she wore a beaming smile. Garrus’ talons were digging into her hips and his body vibrated with tension. The councilor looked up with his mandibles splayed widely and said, “Congratulations, Commander, Vakarian. You have a healthy baby boy.”
“He isn’t crying,” she said numbly. “Babies are supposed to cry when they’re born, right?”
“Turian babies don’t cry, Shepard,” Garrus mumbled.
Sparatus leaned forward and placed the bundle in her arms. She looked down in a daze at the impossibly small form. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked. “He’s too little.”
Liara said, “Turian females don’t have the elasticity that humans do. Their babies are born smaller than humans or asari. His size is perfectly normal.”
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He was, in every other way, a miniature version of Garrus. A combination of love and sheer panic swept over her in a debilitating wave and she began to hyperventilate. She knew nothing about babies. She’d never had younger siblings or cousins or even friends with children. She knew even less about turian babies. She didn’t have the first clue how to care for one. He yawned and she winced at the idea of breastfeeding. His teeth were little more than tiny nubs but the idea of them latched onto her was terrifying.
To her distress, she realized that she’d never felt more helpless in her life. Give her a gun and a set of orders and she could save the galaxy. Put her in command of a warship and direct her at a relay no one had ever returned from and she would not only return but would do so with her entire crew intact. Force her to converse with a Reaper or form alliances between races that had been at war for centuries and she was right at home. Delivering a child that was more sharp angles and pointy spikes than the soft curves she was designed for without pain medication, no problem. This, however, was too much. She didn’t even know how to feed her own child, a child she hadn’t expected, a child she didn’t know that she could protect, a child that should have been a blessing but felt more like a curse.
“Hey,” Garrus said softly, gently rocking her and the baby. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Shepard. I know you’re scared but we’ll figure this out. I’m right behind you.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “I don’t even know how to hold him properly.”
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to teach you, then,” he said with more confidence than she could believe. “It’s been a while but I helped Mom take care of Sol when she was a baby and pregnancies within the turian military aren’t unheard of. I know what I’m doing. Mostly.”
She laughed wetly as he adjusted the baby in her arms and said, “At least one of us does. So what do I do now? How do I feed him? Please tell me he can take a bottle. I don’t really want those teeth on me.”
“You don’t seem to mind mine,” Garrus murmured teasingly in her ear, drawing a slight smile from her. He grew serious again. “Turians are born eating semi-solid food. You know how Earth birds feed their young?”
“I am not regurgitating my food!” she exclaimed.
“Of course not,” Garrus said. “You probably don’t have the right antibodies anyway. We synthesize it now and add it to their food using a food processor. Baby food isn’t much different from nutrigel.”
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Shepard protested when the salarian doctor swept the baby from her arms but calmed when she realized that he was examining the infant. He glanced over at her and looked so much like Mordin that her heart squeezed. “Apologies, Commander. Dr. Solus. Believe you knew my uncle. Know you have questions. Need to run tests. Non-invasive. Won’t hurt baby. Hybrid infant. Fascinating!”
Despite his quick speech, his hands were gentle as he examined the child.
Like Mordin, he talked when he worked. “Both turian and human external phenotypes. Majority turian. Genotype combination of species. Levo-amino acid based. Interesting. Lungs larger than average for turian. Closer to size of human. Lung tissue also present in bone rather than marrow as in humans. Heart size and shape of human. Digestive tract turian. Visual and auditory capacity turian. Appears to have best qualities of both species. Will likely be shorter than typical turian male, taller than average human. Greater muscle mass than turian. Bone density that of turians. Most importantly, completely healthy.”
“Hear that, Shepard?” Garrus asked. “We have a healthy baby.”
“Yeah,” she said softly as exhaustion overtook her.
Karin said, “We need to get the commander and the baby back to the Normandy. She suffered a significant amount of trauma during the delivery and has lost more blood than I like.”
Garrus reacted instantly, wrapping her in fresh sheets and lifting her gingerly off of the floor. He cast a glance back at Sparatus and she felt his subvocals rumbling in what she thought was appreciation. She tried to thank the councilor herself but couldn’t seem to form the words. Mordin’s nephew passed the baby to Liara with a string of rapid-fire instructions on his care. A few moments later, she heard the swish of the door and then everything went dark.
Shepard woke to the familiar sound of her aquarium gurgling quietly and the steady susurrations of the Normandy overlaid by a sound that was simultaneously ingrained into her very soul and completely foreign. She lifted her head to look in his direction and realized that Garrus was singing to their son. The boy stared at him with rapt attention and reached up to hook one very tiny talon over one of the scars on his father’s mandible.
In an instant, everything that had occurred before came rushing back to her and she blinked as she tried to absorb this new reality. She and Garrus were parents. She hadn’t even known she was pregnant, hadn’t known she could even get pregnant, and yet here they were. Judging by the look of adoration on her partner’s face, he was already madly in love with their surprise creation. She wondered what that meant for them.
Shepard and Garrus hadn’t made promises for the future. Theirs was still too uncertain. There was no guarantee they would survive the war even if they managed to win it. They’d committed to each other but always with the knowledge that forever might not be on offer and that they’d figure out what came after if it did. She felt a sudden spurt of anxiety. Dating a human, even loving one, was one thing but bonding to one was a completely different story. Turian bonding was a complex process which required the acceptance of the family and Garrus’ father hated Spectres. She’d overheard conversations between the elder Vakarian and Garrus but had never even spoken to the man directly.
What if Garrus didn’t want her as a bondmate? What if their relationship was based solely in war and, if they survived and peace came, he lost interest? What if he wanted her but his father refused? Would he return to Palaven? Would he insist on taking the child there to be raised by people who looked like him? Would the child even be safe on Earth or would he be forced to live aboard starships and never experience the homeworld of his mother’s people? Would Garrus try to take her baby away?
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“Marshmallow,” she corrected with a small smile.
“See?” Garrus said. “She can’t take her eyes off of you.” He placed the baby in her arms and showed her how to support his neck and head. The baby’s eyes locked on hers once more and his tiny mandibles flared slightly and he began to purr. “He’s smelling you,” Garrus told her. “Fledglings imprint onto their mothers by both sight and scent.” She felt the bed dip as he sat down beside her and wrapped his arm around her. “How do you feel?”
“Sore,” she answered, “but not as bad as I expected. Terrified.”
Garrus said slowly, “I had thought for a little while that you didn’t want him or couldn’t bond to him because he doesn’t look like you. I’d been afraid that a turian-human baby was too much for you and that you were regretting not finding something closer to home. That isn’t it, though, is it?”
“Of course not,” she said. “He’s beautiful, Garrus. He looks just like you and he’s a part of us. I’d die for him in a heartbeat. It’s everything else that scares me. I don’t know the first thing about kids. He’s the first baby I’ve ever even held. I know how to take life. I don’t know how to nurture. There’s no instinctive understanding here. If you weren’t here, I’d probably accidentally kill or maim him in an hour.
“I don’t know what his sounds mean and I know I’m not able to hear all of them. I don’t know what he needs to eat or drink or how he needs to sleep or what his temperature and heartrate are supposed to be. I don’t know where I can safely touch him or how he’s supposed to develop. Your mouths can’t form many of the sounds in my language and I can’t form the ones in yours. I don’t know how to express my feelings to him in a way he’ll understand without words and we won’t even be able to understand those in each other without a translator. I can’t communicate with my own child, Garrus. I don’t know how to be a mother at all, much less a good one to him. That scares the hell out of me.”
“One step at a time, Shepard,” he said. “He may not be able to speak your language or you ours but the two of you can learn to understand each other’s. You can pick up on most of our vocal range with your augmented hearing so you just need to learn what the sounds mean and you can approximate most of them. Saying you can’t nurture is bullshit. You’re one of the most nurturing people I’ve ever met. You can learn the rest. Hell, I don’t even know all of it. We’ll learn together.”
“What happens when the war is over?” she asked, voicing her deepest fear. “What happens when I have to go back to Earth and you have to go back to Palaven? What happens when you or your family decide that it’s time to find a bondmate and settle down with a nice turian woman? Is your family going to insist on him being raised on Palaven? It’s the best option, you know. I have no family. He has no heritage with me. I just…I think maybe…maybe it would be best if Sol and your father took him until the end of the war. They can keep him safe. They can teach him your ways and…” she broke off, unable to continue as tears threatened to choke her.
The look Garrus gave her was pure shock. “What are you talking about, Shepard? I’d thought we’d settled this already. Did you change your mind?”
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He groaned and ran a hand over his face. “I knew I should have done more research,” he mumbled. “Damn it, Shepard, the day on the Presidium when I asked if you were ready to be a one-turian kind of woman I wasn’t asking if you just wanted to be together until the war ended. Spirits, I knew I should have gotten a ring. I’ve just never seen you wear jewelry and I didn’t think you’d like it. I kept imagining it getting hung up in your armor or your rifle and you getting frustrated but feeling obligated to wear it. Joker told me to get a ring and to get on one knee but the whole kneeling thing just looked so ridiculous and not…not us. I should have listened. Shepard, I was proposing to you! I’m already bound to you. This couldn’t have happened otherwise.”
“Oh. Oh!” she said as a smile lit her face. She should have known. Of course he would be awkward and nervous about something that big. She could usually read him like a datapad but she’d completely misread his intentions here. “What about your father? And what do you mean this couldn’t have happened if you weren’t already bound to me? We haven’t gone through any ceremony.”
Garrus sighed and shook his head with a slight smile. “My father gave his blessing before I left for Menae. He’s an investigator. It didn’t take much for him to figure it out. I think he knew that if he didn’t, there wouldn’t be enough of a relationship left between him and me to save and now, how can he refuse the savior of the galaxy as a daughter-in-law? The bonding ceremony is a technicality. Bonding isn’t entirely voluntary. It either happens or it doesn’t.
“Turians evolved from pack animals. Family and clan are an evolution of that pack. There’s a reason single parents are unheard of unless one partner dies. We mate for life and we don’t breed until we mate. Casual sex and even sex between partners in a relationship doesn’t result in offspring. It only happens between bonded couples. A female turian left on her own with an infant wouldn’t have survived very long. Babies can’t be exposed the radiation on Palaven until their plates are fully formed. Therefore, the mother couldn’t hunt and they’d starve or she’d be forced to take the child with her and it would die from radiation sickness. This way, one partner can hunt while the other guards the child. If I weren’t bonded to you, I couldn’t have impregnated you.”
“I’m still unsure of how that managed to happen in the first place,” she said as he showed her how to stroke the baby’s fringe when he started to grumble and wave his fists angrily in the air. The baby settled and his eyes drifted closed. She leaned down and breathed in the scent of metal and rainforest that reminded her of Garrus. There was something else there, too, something all his own that sang straight to her heart and, for the first time since he was born, she dared to hope.
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“So…space magic,” she said with a grin, referring to their personal summary of almost everything Mordin had ever tried to explain to them given that he couldn’t put something into layman’s terms if he tried without launching into a technical explanation that would have required multiple doctorate degrees to begin to comprehend.
“Something like that,” Garrus agreed with a smile. “So, what are we going to name the little guy?”
“Humans generally have a first and middle name,” she said. “I think something turian and human would be appropriate. What’s your father’s name?”
“We are not naming the baby after my father,” he scoffed.
“Nihlus?” she suggested.
“Why Nihlus?” he asked.
“Remembrance,” she said. “It all started with him. If he hadn’t died on Eden Prime, we wouldn’t have known to go after Saren. We wouldn’t have found out about Sovereign until it was too late. You and I never would have met. This little guy wouldn’t be here. We owe everything we’ve accomplished since to Nihlus.”
Garrus nodded and asked, “What’s Admiral Anderson’s first name?”
“David,” she said. “Why?”
He shrugged and said, “I assume from your question about mine that it’s common practice among humans to name a child after the parent’s parent and I know you think of Anderson as a father figure. So…Nihlus David Shepard-Vakarian?”
She looked down at the sleeping baby in her arms and said, “That’s a mouthful even for a turian. Human babies take their father’s last name. Nihlus David Vakarian sounds good.”
“He should have your name,” Garrus insisted, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You did all the work.”
“How do turians handle name changes when they get married?” she asked.
“It’s kind of complicated,” he said. “The one from the lower-ranking family takes the clan name of the higher ranking one. If they’re equals, then other factors come into play.”
“You are my family, Garrus,” she said. “I don’t have a clan. My clan is the crew of the Normandy. So in this, you’d be the higher ranking one. It goes along with human tradition as well. The wife almost always takes the husband’s name. So if we name him Vakarian, he will have my name.”
“You’d take my name?” he asked and she heard a rumble from his chest that she could only describe as wonder.
“Of course,” she said. “I don’t have a middle name, so Shepard could take its place. No one uses my first name anyway. I don’t think I’d even realize I needed to answer to it anymore.”
“What is your first name anyway?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t you love to know?” she answered with a smirk. “I hate my first name. It’s too…generic and just reminds me that I’m a nobody. Shepard at least has meaning.”
“You aren’t a nobody,” Garrus said, pressing his forehead to hers. “You’re everything to me.” Nihlus opened his eyes and made a gurgly purr. “And so are you, little guy,” Garrus said with a laugh.
Shepard settled into his embrace and drew their child closer. Soon she would have to go back out and fight but for this one sliver of time, they were able to simply bask in the joy of something she’d never had before: a family to call her own.
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Actually, that reminds me of that humour fanfic… “Blame the Hands” (hooray for Biology).
Also, this was so sweet and emotive and you went all out on cultural differences, too. You are awesome. I love it.
PLEASE WRITE MORE FILLS.
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Please keep writing.
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