DISCLAIMER: Mass effect and everything you recognize from it belongs to BioWare, I'm just a total sucker for the game and its lovely ladies.

AN: This is the beginning of an epic story where we get to follow Shepard as she makes one of the most important choices in her personal life along the events in Mass Effect 2. I'm not generally known to stick to the games and the dialogues in them, I prefer making up my own. Also this has got loads of femslash in it. If you do not like then... you really should try to! ;)

I know the first post is very short, but to be fair it's only a prologue. ;)

Please read and review, it's always nice to know if people are reading your work and what they think. Love it? Hate it? Did I miss something? Just make my day. And the list goes on... ;) Anyway, here goes! Oh and btw, first sci-fi fic ever... be gentle!

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I knew she was never really mine, that one day she would slip away from me. I always knew I would lose her. If not to the Reapers, then to the Normandy, maybe even to her duty as a spectre, the whole of the galaxy depending on her. But most of all I feared losing her to someone else. Not to just someone. To her.

PROLOGUE

SHE THOUGHT HER VOICE MIGHT crack, or get stuck in her throat. Fail her. That her shaking knees would not carry her weight any more. Fold beneath her.

"I'm sorry..."

Forcing herself to speak she spoke with as much calmness she could muster. "Don't worry Shepard, I... understand." Looking across the commander's shoulder she took a deep breath. "You should go, she's waiting..."

Her voice broke then and she covered her mouth with her soft, small hand to muffle an involuntary sob. Rue moved towards her, but she withdrew quickly waving her hands dismissively at the commander, clearing her throat. "No, don't... mind me. I'm fine, I just... I'm tired that's all."

Rue frowned, her blood-red hair falling stubbornly in her face. "Are you sure?"

She nodded numbly. "I'll see you around commander. I... hope the two of you find happiness." Sitting back into her chair behind her large desk she stared indifferently at the commander who nodded before retreating from her spacious office. The metal doors slid and closed with a faint hiss behind the commander as she left.

She wanted to call after the commander, beg her to stay, plead for Rue to return the heart she had given so solely to her. But she didn't. She was far too proud for that. Instead she picked up the electronic dossier that lay on the desk before her. She had turned it off when Rue had come to speak to her, but now she switched it on again. The blue screen flickered at her and her vision blurred with hot tears falling from her eyes landing with graceful splashes on the small screen in her hand.

Patient status: Pregnant.