Mass Effect Another Man's Child

Wrex paced back and forth at the newly built Tuchankan space port while he waited for the S.S. Hoth to arrive. It had been over seven months since he'd seen her last, and that was right after she was released from the hospital. She walked with a crutch then and half her hair was still short and bristly after the doctors shaved it off to operate on the multiple fractures in her skull. On his first tour with her, he'd been appalled at how fragile the human race was. By the time the Reapers lay dead on most of the populated worlds of the galaxy and Shepard was pulled, breathing and alive, out of the ruins of the Citadel, he was impressed by their resilience. Shepard was a nutcase to take on all that she had, but she'd come out of it all more or less intact. As a krogan, he had to admire her strength of will.

Things had settled down on the home world (well, as much as it ever did, that was) and out of the blue, Shepard had messaged him to let him know she was dropping in for a visit. Actually, her exact words were, "I'm gonna be on Tuchanka next week and I really hope you're not doing anything, because you and I are going to be hanging out. You have to promise not to freak out, though." When he'd asked if she wanted to go out to a bar and get hammered like they did when they were on shore leave together, she got really vague before asking him about recent developments with the clans.

Finally, Wrex saw her ship gliding into the docks, and he was waiting by the doors when she came out. His first thought was that she'd gained a lot of weight over the past few months, but upon closer observation he realized that she was pregnant. His eyes went comically wide and she grinned at his expression, making a beeline for him and giving him a big, awkward hug with her huge belly in the way. He hugged her back in a sort of daze before holding her back at arm's length so he could take in the sight of her all at once.

"It's good to see you," she said, chuckling at the thunderstruck expression on his face. He recovered quickly enough and they started walking to the parking lot.

"Good to see you, too, Shepard. So . . . this is a surprise."

"I know. For me, too." She started to heft her bag over her shoulder, but Wrex took it from her so she could waddle unburdened.

"Mind if I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Is it Kaidan's?"

She sighed and shook her head. "No, it's not. We, uh, actually broke up. Back on the Normandy. I think it was right after he asked me if I was a Cerberus clone and implied I was a traitor for the umpteenth time."

"Mmmm. Well, good riddance, then."

"You didn't like him?"

"It's not that. Kaidan's a good man, but . . ." He paused, and Shepard looked up at him amusedly.

"You can say it. You're not gonna hurt my feelings or anything."

"All right. He's a soldier, but he doesn't have a warrior's blood. He may be a Spectre, but you can tell he actually has plans to retire. For him, the fight will be over someday."

"Not like you and me, huh?" Wrex shook his head and she patted his arm. "You know, that's one of the reasons we broke up. He wanted a family and a house, and I didn't think there was any room for that in my life. If he could see me now," she sighed.

"So, who's the lucky guy?"

"I have no idea. I was at a bar about three weeks out of the hospital and I met this guy—good-looking, funny, and he charmed me right out of my pants. I never got his name, or if I did I don't remember it. I was about six weeks gone before I realized I was pregnant."

They arrived at his truck, a smaller version of a Tomkah, and he helped her up into the passenger seat. He drove them back to the Urdnot compound while they made small talk and he drove about half as fast as he usually would have to avoid bouncing her around too much. He couldn't keep his eyes off the swell of her belly. Her shirt was stretched tight over it and she kept one hand resting on it protectively. He wondered what it felt like, but he thought maybe it was rude to ask so he kept quiet.

The camp was quiet as most of the Urdnots were out repairing the roads and clearing rubble to open up the western access tunnels. Clan Morthak lay that way, and Wrex wanted to open up a trade route between the two clans and any others that lay in that direction. He and Shepard made their way to his house and he was suddenly unsure if it would be up to snuff. There was a baby to think about now, after all.

"Sorry about all the mess," he said, gesturing to his simple two room living space. Shepard looked around the small stone building he called home with a satisfied smile. There were three benches grouped around a fire pit and a low bed shoved into the corner. The kitchen area, such as it was, consisted of a few small crates of dehydrated thresher steaks and some ration packs. There were other krogan who cooked, but Wrex was just fine with the bare minimum. There was a small bathroom behind a door on the far wall with a sand basin for cleaning. Although his house functioned well for his own needs, it fell woefully short of what a breeding female required.

"It's not messy, it's just . . ."

"Dirty."

"I was going to say 'on Tuchanka'. Dirt happens here, I'm not complaining." She hit him with her elbow and took her bag from him, then pulled out a granola bar and started munching away on it.

"I'll get some better food, too. The female camp has more provisions than we do."

"Wrex, stop it." She put her hand on his chest and made him look at her. "I told you, no freaking out. If I wasn't pregnant, would you be worried about me?"

"No, but you are."

"And I'll be just fine. I wouldn't have come if I thought I wouldn't be." His eyes had shifted back down to her stomach and she smiled. "You can touch, if you want. I don't mind."

"Yeah?" She nodded and took his hand, placing it on her rounded belly. He couldn't quite believe that the warrior woman he'd fought beside was carrying a child, or that the human body could stretch this much. He finally noticed that she was watching him as he ran his hands over her, and made himself stop.

"Do you know what it is yet?" he asked, and he was aware that the room seemed smaller and the air closer than it had before.

"A girl. I'm due in a little over a month."

"Well, for what it's worth, I think you'll be a great mom."

Her whole face lit up at that, and he could see for the first time just how much she was looking forward to being a mother. "Thanks, Wrex. That means a lot, coming from you."

"So, uh, did you have anything in particular you wanted to do first? Tuchanka isn't exactly a tourist destination."

"Is Bakara still around?"

"Yeah, she and the other females have been busy with inter-clan negotiations lately. She should be over there now."

The female camp wasn't far, and when they arrived Shepard was almost immediately swarmed by the women who ushered her over to the nearest seat. Wrex had to restrain himself from swooping in to save her from the estrogen tsunami, but Shepard seemed to be fine with it. He hung back and tried not to look like he was her hovering bodyguard while the ladies asked her a million questions about human gestation and childbirth.

About fifteen minutes in, he decided that one of the things females of every species could agree on was that becoming a mother was a trophy-worthy endeavor. The similarities between krogans and humans were more numerous than he'd thought, but when Shepard began to talk about labor pains and epidurals, he had to walk away for a minute and leave the girls to it. There were some things he just didn't want to know about interspecies anatomy.

Bakara returned while Wrex was wandering aimlessly around the camp and the two of them started talking business. It was nice to have someone as intelligent as she was helping to oversee everything. After the war, she and Wrex had come to the agreement that the krogan needed a lot of work to become a valuable part of the galactic community. Their warlike nature was well-known, but it had overshadowed the fact that krogan were also gifted strategists able to organize supply chains and large groups of people or soldiers with only a little effort.

The turians discovered this trait and were using it to help Palaven and other turian worlds. Wrex found himself being consulted by other species on how to best organize the rebuilding efforts on their respective planets, and even the salarians had reached out to him with hats in hands and profuse apologies. It was gratifying as hell to see their high-and-mighty frog knees on the ground while they asked for help. After the dalatrass refused to join forces with Shepard and the Alliance when the genophage was cured, the salarians quickly discovered just how enormous a threat the Reapers were, to their detriment. Even the asari came out better than the salarians did. Wrex tried not to be so pleased about it, but it was hard not to see them as the enemy anymore after all this time.

He wasn't aware of what he was doing until Bakara gave him a look, then glanced over at Shepard. "What?" he asked.

"You keep looking at her, like you're her bodyguard."

"I do?" He rubbed his neck and very pointedly didn't look at Shepard.

"Yes. It's natural for you to be protective of a breeding woman, Wrex. There's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I'm not embarrassed," he protested, but Bakara only smiled knowingly. "And maybe I am a little protective of her, but look at her for crying out loud. She doesn't have a hump or scales, and she's so _short_. I don't know why she came to one of the most dangerous planets in the galaxy and put her baby in danger—"

"Do you think she's in danger right now?" Bakara asked. "She's surrounded by ten fierce warriors in one of the best-defended camps on Tuchanka. Nothing is going to harm her, or the child."

"Yeah," he replied, unconvinced. "Shepard can take care of herself. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"As I said before, it's natural. Before the genophage was cured, our people defended their clutches even if it meant their deaths. You see a woman carrying a child, and your reaction is to protect the life of that child with your own."

"But it's not my child." They fell silent and the silence spun out between them as they watched those who were much younger than they were. "I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"I know."

"I shouldn't have said that."

"You didn't mean anything by it." When Wrex was about to protest again, she put a hand on his hump to silence him. "We are both of us growing old, Wrex. Our time for all that has passed. Let the young ones have their victory and their new lives and their children. It is what we fought for, after all."

"Mmmm."

Shepard looked over at him and gave him a smile that did strange things to his insides. He shot a glance at Bakara, who followed him back to the group. Shepard hauled herself upright and greeted Bakara with a hug. They talked about the evolution of the new krogan government but she had to excuse herself a few minutes in, saying that her back and feet were killing her. She and Wrex made their goodbyes and climbed back into the tomkah with a small crate of food for Shepard. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

"You all right?" he asked. Her head rolled and she opened her eyes to look at him with a tired smile.

"Yeah. This kid is taking a lot out of me. I'm so tired of being pregnant."

"I think it suits you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She closed her eyes again, the ghost of her smile still on her lips. When they reached his house, he had to lift her down and let her take his elbow to help her into the house. She lowered herself onto one of the benches with a relieved sigh and Wrex shifted his weight from foot to foot.

"Is there anything you need?"

"Sit down, big guy, you're making me nervous standing there like that." She patted the spot next to her and leaned over on his shoulder as soon as he was settled. Hesitantly, he put his arm around her and she hummed in approval. The house was quiet, lit only by a few torches in the creeping twilight, and Wrex was thoroughly enjoying the feel of a warm woman under his hand. It had been a while since he and Bakara had last been together, and he just hadn't had the time to issue a new breeding request. There was the fact that Shepard wasn't just any female, she was a battlemaster in her own right with a strong krantt and a warrior's heart. That she was also a breeding female only added to the feeling that made his chest tight and his blood run hot.

Shepard groaned and pressed a hand to her belly. "What?" Wrex asked, on alert. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, she's just kicking me kinda hard today. She's starting to run out of room in there."

"She's . . . kicking?"

"Yeah." She looked up at his perplexed face and elaborated, "Sometimes, human babies stretch in the womb. It's normal, but in the late stages of pregnancy it can hurt a little because the baby's so big."

"Aaahh."

She sat up and took his hand. "Here, you can feel it." She put his hand on the side of her belly and covered it with her own. They had to wait a few seconds until the baby moved again, right up against Wrex's palm. His eyes flew open and Shepard grinned widely.

"That's amazing," he said, and meant it. He pulled his hand back and cleared his throat. "So, uh, you can have the bed."

"Where are you gonna sleep?"

"Probably right here," he said, thumping the bench. She looked horrified.

"But it's made of rock! There's no padding at all."

Wrex rolled his eyes. "I'm a krogan, not a pyjack. I've slept on worse in my time."

"Nonsense, you can share the bed with me."

He opened his mouth to protest but there was suddenly a voice in his head that told him that this was probably another one-time-only deal, and he owed it to himself to take her up on it. "All right. You take the side near the wall."

They readied themselves for bed and Wrex turned his back so she could change into a loose tee shirt and shorts, his brain torturing him by supplying all kinds of images about what she might look like now under her clothes. She got into the bed first and he slid in next to her, then tried to get comfortable by lying on his back to stare resolutely at the ceiling and try to forget how much he wanted to touch her.

"Wrex."

"Hmmph."

"Wrex, look at me."

He had to roll onto his side to get down closer to her eye level, and she regarded him seriously. "Do you ever think about those days when we were fighting Saren?"

"Sure I do, but you sound like you're talking about one part in particular."

"I am."

"And which part would that be?"

"You know which one."

He did. It had been right after they'd recovered his family's armor. He'd been feeling sentimental and Shepard had come down for one of her customary chats. As it happened, they had a lot in common, and there was something about her that coaxed him out of his shell and got him talking about things he hadn't thought about in centuries. That night, she'd handed him a bottle of ryncol and she matched him shot for shot with her own bottle of tequila until they were both properly sloshed.

They'd started off trading lighthearted insults and taunts, but before long their jabs had taken on an edge of flirting. Her green eyes kept meeting his over her glass, and she smiled more than he'd seen her do before. By the end of the night, she was in his lap with her legs around his waist and he was trying to figure out how to get her clothes off without dislodging her too much because those little hands of hers were doing absolutely unspeakable things between his legs. He'd learned a lot about the things a human mouth was capable of, too. The next morning, she hadn't acted any different around him but she hadn't mentioned it again, either. He'd had no problem with it—krogan women were much the same way unless they were looking for a mate—but he found himself wondering if they could ever do something like that again.

"What about it?" he asked, his voice low in the gathering darkness as the torches began to gutter.

"Would you maybe want to . . . uh . . . I mean, if you don't that's fine, it's just that I-"

"Shepard." She bit her lip and looked up at him. "I want to."

"Even with me like this?" Her hand swept down her body in an all-encompassing gesture and Wrex nodded.

"_Especially_ with you like that." He put a hand on her stomach and kept his gaze there when he spoke. "Is that why you came here?"

"I missed you. I wanted to try again, with you, but then the Reapers hit and Kaidan came back and had me all confused . . . I don't know."

"You missed me."

"Mmm-hmm."

He curled his claws into his palm and stroked her arm with the back of his knuckles. "It's about time. I'm quite the catch, you know."

"And so modest." She scooted closer to him and closed her eyes when his touch drifted over her swollen breasts and back down to her belly. He laid his palm on her and she smiled. "You're really fascinated by my stomach, aren't you?"

"It looks so . . . different."

"Different in a good way or a bad way?" she asked, and she tried to hold on to the levity in her voice, but failed. Wrex pulled her closer and lowered his face to her hair. Her breath caught in her throat and she found herself surrounded by the dry, acrid, dusty scent of him, like sagebrush and guns.

"Definitely good. And Shepard . . . I missed you, too." He fingered the edge of her shirt and pulled it up just under her breasts. With one glance at her flushed face and parted lips, he ran his tongue out and trailed a warm, wet line up the slope of her belly. Shepard let out a shaky sigh and reached out to touch his face. "Uh, how careful do I have to be?"

"I'm not sure, I haven't been with anyone since . . . just be gentle and I'll tell you what works."

He nodded, his crest rubbing lightly against her skin. Her hands traveled over his hump and down his arms while he took his time with her. He mounded up her breast and brushed the nipple with his thumb. She rewarded him with a moan when he copied the motion with his tongue and a wave of heat spread down her body to bloom in her core. He nudged her head to the side to concentrate on her neck while his hand moved down between her legs to stroke her through her shorts. He started off light, but soon she began to move against him, demanding more with furtive whispers on her lips and hands on his neck. He took the hint and slid beneath her waistband to rub her with the back of his finger. Before long, Shepard took his wrist and told him to go faster as she ground his hand against her.

"Still impatient as ever, Shepard." She just huffed at him and sat up to take her clothes off. She rose up on her knees when he sat up to pull her shirt over her head, then watched while he took off his pants. Wrex wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his lap. She cupped his jaw in both hands and kissed her way from his ridged bottom lip to the corner of his mouth while he made senseless patterns on her back.

"Is it all right if I'm on top?" she asked, delving between his legs to cup his quad and stroke his hardening cock. He rumbled deep in his chest and nodded, then let her push him back onto the bed. She guided him between her legs until he was nudging her lips apart, then lowered herself onto him inch by steady inch. He craned his neck to watch as his thick cock disappeared into her, and held her hips steady when her thighs began to tremble.

Wrex ran his hands up her stomach to her full breasts, hanging heavy on her chest. She gasped at his touch on her sensitive skin and laced her fingers with his as he played with her. Her hips rocked slowly and he could feel her walls tightening around his cock every time his thumb brushed her nipple. Her breath quickened and hitched and finally she started to move, rising up on her knees and sinking back down in a slow rhythm.

Sweat beaded on Shepard's neck and rolled down her body. "Turn around," Wrex growled, his teeth clenched. His cock was aching and she was so warm and wet, he had to force himself to relax. Shepard shifted until she was riding him while facing his feet and he sat up to lick the sweat from her skin. Her hair smelled exactly the way he remembered, and it brought him back to the Normandy and the way she used to say his name when they were together and he was hilted inside her.

"Wrex," she breathed, almost as if she knew what he'd been thinking, and leaned back against him. "You feel . . . so g—good."

He traced the curve of her stomach down to the wetness between her legs. Her swollen clit was slick with her fluids and she turned her head to the side to whisper encouragement into his ear when he rubbed the tiny nub between his fingers. He'd found it hard to believe at first that such a small spot could make her react so strongly, but he'd soon learned to love it.

"What does it feel like to you?" she asked, and her voice had taken on a desperate quality that he knew well. "Tell me."

"It feels like . . . like—" _like I never want to be without you again_.

"Tell me." Her legs shook and she tightened her grip on his arm as he circled her clit. Wrex groaned and dropped his fore crest to her back, heat coiling in his groin. He was so close it almost hurt.

"Shepard, I—" He couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't reveal too much, but in the end it didn't matter. His fingers, flicking at her fast and rough, brought her over the edge and she bucked hard, her whole body wracked with the force of her orgasm. Her tight cunt clamped down on him and he held his breath for an impossibly long moment before his own orgasm crashed over him and he came inside her.

Afterward, Shepard relaxed back into his chest and he put his arms around her. She chuckled quietly when his hands returned to her belly and sighed at his touch.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Wrex."

"Who's gonna help you raise the kid?"

"I was thinking about doing it on my own. There are a ton of resources out there for single mothers. That wasn't always the case for humans, but the asari and their tendency to raise their children solo changed that." She turned slightly and tried to meet his averted gaze. "Why?"

"I was thinking . . . I mean, I don't know if it would even work out or if you'd want that sort of arrangement—"

"Wrex."

He finally brought himself to look into her eyes, so green, and always able to see straight into his heart. "I could raise her with you, if you want."

Shepard bit her lip, then kissed him with a smile. "That . . . might just work." She gave a jaw-cracking yawn just then, and Wrex helped her to lay down. He settled himself behind her and rested his hand on her hip. "We'll talk about the particulars tomorrow when I'm more awake, but for now, I really like the idea of you with a baby in your arms."

"Yeah," he said as sleep stole over him. _Me, too_.


End file.

Mass Effect, Friendship, Romance