Chapter Text
I.
One of the first things Shepard teaches Tali'Zorah is raw desire. It is an indirect lesson, delivered at what Tali normally calls an inappropriate time, but it strikes her with such ferocity that it alters the course of her entire life. She feels it even then, the slight change happening, the destiny altered, all because she experiences the tug of absolute carnal desire pulling at her.
On Therum, the Commander pushes the Mako too hard and suddenly it halts to an abrupt stop, refusing to move no matter how much she coaxes and strokes the dashboard. Caught in a narrow valley covered in red dust and lined with polished rock walls, Tali lays on her back as she works on fixing the broken propulsion. Small stones jut out of the dirt blanketing the ground, digging into her back. She moves with care, aware that they are sharp enough to cause a rupture if she snags her suit on one.
Shepard keeps peeking in, wisps of dark hair loosened from the bun and hanging in front of her face as she asks if she can assist.
“Not after what you did to your omni-tool.” Tali gives a gentle kick to shove her away, the flat of her foot pushing against the hard padding covering Shepard's shin.
“Hey, that was a design flaw.” Shepard gives a slight kick, ankle to ankle, then shields her eyes and looks off into the distance. “Chief, do you see what I see?”
To her right, Williams fires her sniper rifle, the low boom followed by a cheerful laugh. “Perfect headshot!”
“Don't get cocky,” Shepard replies, taking her own sniper rifle as they stand side by side. Just from listening Tali can guess which one of them doesn't respect the cool-down cycle of their gun, and more than once she hears a low swear as Shepard fires too soon and causes an overheat.
Williams snorts. “Biotics.”
“Careful, Ash.”
“I'm sure you'll get to impress us in less open terrain.”
They banter back and forth as they scan the perimeter, circling around the Mako, but there are no more hostiles in the vicinity. Tali continues working undisturbed, maintaing a better focus with no gunfire to distract her.
She has her doubts about what she is even doing there, though she knew the minute she got her hands on that vital piece of information that she was on a path leading into dangerous territory, yet it is far beyond what she could have dreamed up. The worlds they visit, the starship she temporarily lives on, they all seem like figments of her imagination. The Normandy is big and silent, and the humans look at her with curiosity and respect. It's strange to not be met by resentment: she was ready to argue until her voice was hoarse to be brought along, but Shepard was the one who wanted her there.
The galaxy isn't quite the horrible place she was told to expect.
Screwing the panel back in place she slides out. “It's done.” As she looks up she is met with Shepard blocking out the harsh sunlight. Sweat drips down the front of her chest, over the toned muscles and down, past where the fabric of the rolled-down suit begins. As she is pulled up on her feet and given a pat on the back, a peculiar shiver passes through her.
She's no stranger to desire, the undeniable tug and pull, but what stirs is so intense that she feels the pounding blood rushing in her veins. It grows to become a fever, the image rising up at the least welcome moments. As she stands around talking technicalities with Shepard who scratches her belly without thought, the little glimpse of skin is enough to derail Tali for a few seconds before she can go on.
It's just a stomach. Just a memory of a trail of sweat moving downwards.
She pushes the image away with a stubborn determination and moves on, but sometimes she freezes just a little when Shepard touches her. Sometimes she lingers a little too long and she feels ashamed and embarrassed, talking too much about things that don't matter, trying to cover herself up. Shepard just raises her eyebrow a little, the one with a scar slicing right through it, but asks nothing more.
II.
A credit chit with an unholy sum appears in her locker, taped to inside with a note from Shepard. 'Sorry, I know Alliance freelance pay isn't the best. Adams said he'd file a complaint to have yours upped to engineering consultant.' Tali does not know what to do, sending half to the Flotilla and getting a message back from Shala'Raan urging her to enjoy herself a little. When she decides what to spend it on – because the hours are lonely and the dull hours are many – she suspects it is what Shala'Raan meant.
The first time she tries to go into the store the turian shopkeeper chases her away. She curses him but is pushed out onto the street despite her efforts. A few levels down in the Wards she finds a shop where no one turns her away, but they overcharge her for an outdated upgrade. Finding some time alone to install it is harder, but when she does she leans back and suddenly all the effort feels worth it. The stimulation program moves like breaths across her skin and then suddenly it is a fingertip. She adjusts the sensation, flicking between different species until the touch is uniquely human. The soft pads press and stroke, and she bites her tongue, arching slightly as the program focuses its attention on her breasts.
She imagines that it's Shepard touching her thighs, fingers splayed wide, moving higher and higher until they brush against... A final shudder cuts her off, but in the few minutes it takes her heartbeat to slow down again she considers the thought, not concerned about the consequences, floating in the bliss of pure pleasure.
Afterwards she feels ashamed and deletes the program, shaking it off as a delirious fantasy. Still, she catches herself looking a bit too hard at Shepard, at the thin strip of exposed skin between her suit and hairline, wondering what it'd feel like to touch. Re-installing the program, she sets it to re-create the sensation of touching human hair as she strokes the back of a seat. It's... Different. Soft and tickling on the downstroke, coarse and rough on the upstroke.
III.
Curiosity is hard to sate, and there's time aplenty on the Normandy. The Tantalus Core handles flawlessly and only rarely does Garrus need help fixing the Mako, no matter how Shepard handles it. The lower deck is slow, nothing happening, and people begin leaving until there's just two of them left.
She stands in front of Wrex, arms crossed, for several minutes before he blinks and grins. “You were sleeping,” she says.
“What else is there to do?” Wrex rolls his head from side to side. “You should try it. Save some energy for the real fighting.”
“Some of us have to keep the ship functional.”
“Glad that's not my job then.” He laughs his slow, menacing laugh and leaves her alone in the cargo bay.
Normally she is not keen on solitude, but her mood as of late has necessitated a need for it. She pulls up a chair to the desk and gets to work sating the curiosity gnawing madly at her.
She searches the extranet for vids and find plenty. With one glance over her shoulder to make sure she's alone, she hits play and her breath hitches a little. The clothes gone, human females look just as vulnerable as quarians, but a bit softer, curvier. The hands move down, tracing across a stomach less muscled than Shepard's, parting the thighs. She feels hot as the camera zooms in and the fingers move across brightly pink folds. I could do that, she thinks and realizes the implication. Still she watches it to the end, and then she watches another and yet another.
She can't peel her eyes away, crossing her legs as she leans closer. There are subtle differences that she notes, but they are so small, so negligent. In the next vid, they are two, smiling at each other as one kisses a path down the chest, tongue circling as it dips lower. The other woman throws her head back and fists the sheets, rising up until she's only touching the bed with her toes and shoulders, thighs quivering.
“You're up late,” comments a voice right behind her. She jumps and tries to close the vid but a hand holds her still. Shepard's voice is low and amused. “Interesting night watching.”
“I...” All she wants is to melt through the floor, to vanish into thin air, but Shepard chuckles.
“Press play.”
Hesitating, she turns around to look at Shepard. The smile is hard to decipher, but she un-pauses and lets it play to the end. Now and then she steals a glance at Shepard, her full lips twitching with a smile. All the while, her hand is still on top, their fingers touching.
“Is that something you like?” Shepard asks when it's finished. Then she squeezes Tali's hand, shakes her head. “You don't have to answer that, I'm being too curious. Forget it.”
After a night of no sleep, of thinking that's risking too much – respect, a budding friendship, distracting from the mission – she is too sleep-deprived to do anything but act on it. In the cargo bay Shepard and Williams are preparing for a drop onto the planet below, changing into their combat suits with little care for modesty. Despite that, all Tali sees is the the scar going right through Shepard's eyebrow. The scar tissue itself wrinkles whenever the eyebrow moves, which it does when she has a question on the tip of her tongue.
Tali's presence causes the eyebrow to rise, and she can answer without needing to have it uttered. “Yes,” she says, a simple word, carrying so much weight. She smiles behind her visor, repeats it as Shepard stands dumbfounded. “Yes.”
Shepard smiles. “I'll keep that in mind.”
What she really wants to do then and there is pull on the silver chain around her neck, pull her so close she can feel the heat of her body through the suit, feel the muscles and flesh against her. What she does is nod and leave, her step light.
IV.
Days pass after the revelation and there's a look here and there, meaningful probably, but Tali is not good at deciphering human facial expressions. She goes on, pretending not to think too much of it but her head is racing. Did Shepard regret it? Did she pull out? Has something changed her mind, or did Tali simply misinterpret her words?
One evening as she comes up from the engineering deck she finds Shepard alone in the mess hall, everyone elsewhere or asleep. With her foot she pushes out a chair, telling Tali to come sit and talk.
“So how would this work?”
“Would what work?” Tali asks dryly.
“Sex. You, me, doing it.” She scratches the back of her neck. “I mean, I like the idea, but I'm not sure how you see it happening, with your suit and immune system.”
Tali stutters, not prepared for such frankness. “There's ways...”
“Exactly, but what do you see us doing?”
“I...” Tali lets out a small wail, unable to put together her words as she puts her head down on the table and covers it with her arms. “I can't believe I'm having this conversation.”
Shepard strokes her arm, though she sounds amused. “Better to have this talk before I overstep even worse. I'm good at that.”
Tali looks up. “Have you ever...”
“Yes.”
“... With a quarian?”
“No.”
She lowers her head again, too embarrassed to see Shepard's expression as she outlines the ideas she has, convinced they will be enough to scare her away, too outrageous or kinky or perhaps even taboo in human sexuality. So in the belief that everything she is saying is serving to push Shepard out of her reach forever, she lets it all pour out, every little fantasy or possibility she can think of. When she finishes, she is ready. She has laid herself and her intentions bare, and it is entirely Shepard's move – a move she expects to be withdrawal, horrified at what desires are harbored in a young quarian pilgrim bouncing her feet in nervousness under the table.
All she gets is one question. “So you'd rather not take your suit off, is what I'm gathering?” She doesn't look angry, just thoughtful. There's even a glimmer in her eyes.
“I'd prefer to keep it on.”
“That's fine with me.” She reaches out across the table and interlaces her fingers with Tali's. “It's all fine with me. I'll get working on making it happen.”
“Really?” Tali can't hide the surprise, her voice rising unexpectedly.
“Really.” Shepard's wide smile reveals the gap between her front teeth. “Sorry it took me a few days. I'm breaking a personal rule, and I needed to ask myself if I found this worth it. Found you worth it. I do.”
“What's the rule?”
“Don't shit where you eat.”
“That's... Disgusting.” Tali can’t help but smile a little.
“It means, don't get involved with people you work with.”
V.
She finds a gift in her locker the next time she pulls out her shotgun to come along for a bumpy Mako ride. An OCD with a superior suit application loaded onto it – she scans it in and installs, and a minute into the fray with geth she has to disable it, each sense overwhelmed. She feels each little breeze ruffling the billowing green fields of grass, and the leaves of grass themselves under her feet, the sharp sides tickling her skin; she feels the way Shepard pulls her down into cover as if Shepard was touching her skin directly, and it all leaves her head rushing.
Not until they get back to the Normandy does she enable it again and march right into Shepard's room where she is toweling off after a shower, wet hair slicked to her back. Tali takes her time, touching each slip of dark skin as Shepard reclines on the bed, her body tense.
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” Shepard pushes out between gritted teeth as Tali moves one edge of the towel to the side, revealing the smooth curve of a bare breast, the nipple hardening as she circles a finger around it. The touch, the sound, the improved scent all come together to create a heady sensation for Tali and it deepens when she realizes the power in mere touch. A little flick of the finger against the right spot and Shepard throws her head back, fisting the sheets by her head. A stroke and she moans. She marvels at the ease with which she turns the harsh Commander into a gibbering mess covered in sweat and repeating her name over and over.
“I like the way you say it,” Tali muses as Shepard kisses her from shoulder to fingers, the soft and flexible tongue wrapping around her long digits in an apparent celebration of what they can do. “My name. Your accent hitches in my translator.”
“Tali,” Shepard says, laughing a little as she repeats it, dragging the vowels out. A little later, she is crying the name, chanting it as a plea, and Tali is more than happy to comply.
Thus the second thing Shepard teaches her is power, something Tali never felt she possessed.
On the Flotilla she was the crafty kid with average academic performance and a potential that went unfulfilled. She preferred her attempts at impressing father after mother died, trying to peel him away from his secretive project vessels. Even when he was with her in body, his mind was elsewhere, and she knew that the little trinket or rig she showed off to him did little to impress him. Shala'Raan tried to make up for lost parental affection, especially after her own son died. Tali still felt like she was very much no-one: easily forgotten and overlooked, non-essential, uninteresting. She spent her time repairing engines and dreaming about her Pilgrimage drawing closer, preparing through reading everything she could get her hands about the world outside her insular bubble.
There were two guides for the Pilgrimage. The official one was updated every three years with various cautions and concerns, intent to prepare the young quarians of what awaited them in the galaxy. Simple, bare-bones, incredibly dull.
The unofficial guide was updated far more frequently, a digital copy passed around but rarely spoken of. It detailed planets, both the good and bad, attaching addresses and places that welcomed quarians and ones that didn't. There were entire essays for and against indentured servitude on Illium, what might be considered a decent gift to bring back to the Flotilla, how to deal with various races... In all manner of ways. It included extensive lists of how to 'interact intimately' without taking off one's suit, and Tali, given the go-ahead from Shepard to inform her of anything she thought might be a necessary acquisition, forwards a selection of the list. Partially to test the waters, still convinced Shepard is one slip of the tongue from backing out.
She doesn't. Instead, Shepard delivers. Everything she purchases is high-quality: toys in various materials and shapes, perfectly suited for Shepard's anatomy. Tali inspects them one by one, taking her time to pick and chose. The mask gives her one advantage in that Shepard can't read her face, leaving her at a mercy of curiosity and apprehension, a heady mix. Delaying the pleasure little by little, until Shepard let out a wordless noise.
Power, a rush Tali never felt before, turns out to be just what she wants. She can give Shepard untold highs, make her bite her own lip so hard it bruises, cause her to blush just as the mere motion of a finger as they finish a mission. She quickly realizes that Shepard is under her sway, surrendering body and desires to Tali. Instead of being taken aback she delights in it and finds her own satisfaction in it.
Ordering Shepard to touch her thrills Tali more than she likes to admit, to see the Commander on all fours on the floor as Tali spreads her thighs and the demand does not even need to be spoken. With the sensitivity of her suit nerve stimulation turned up, she can feel as Shepard presses her lips against Tali, moving further and further until Tali gasps. It's close, so close, not quite but it's more than enough. She grabs Shepard's hair and thrusts her hips against those lips. She comes, a subdued and muted orgasm, and she is almost disappointed enough to tear off her suit and press her naked body to Shepard's.
She decides against it. The mission they are on is unsure, each day revealing a new twist in the road. Falling sick is not productive. Instead she drags Shepard by her hair over to the table and pushes her down on it, one arm between her shoulder-blades as her hand moves between the thighs.
VI.
They keep at it, late-night meetings in the sound-proofed cabin, Tali in charge. She is the one who decides when, she is the one who makes the choice of what to do. Shepard smiles and does as she is told, willing and eager to let Tali explore herself through another's body, discovering what she likes. Early on, she learns that she loves the way Shepard smiles and stretches as she floats down from an orgasm, how her muscles become soft and her knees give way when Tali makes her stand up as she places a vibrator between the labia. Everything about Shepard is charming, and it's disarming to see the Commander naked and flushed so often.
Tali cannot help but ask, as she holds Shepard's hands above her head and secure them to the bed with a strong rope. “Do you really like this?”
“Yes. Don't you?”
“I do, but I worry... It's all just me, and nothing about you.”
“It's plenty of us.”
Tali picks up the strap-on, adjusting the harness in full view of Shepard who tries to press her legs together but can't, her ankles bound to the bed-frame as well. Touching the tip of the latex dildo, she runs her hand up and down the rubbery surface. “Is this what human dicks look like?”
“Not really,” Shepard says, slightly impatient. “Not that I would know.”
“You don't like men?”
“I haven't been with any human males.”
“Not what you're into?”
“I'm into people,” she says with emphasis. “I like personalities.”
“I'm as boring as they come,” Tali jokes, but Shepard shakes her head.
“You're more vibrant than you think.”
Tali straddles Shepard's hips and gags her with a piece of cloth. “That's enough talk for now.” As she finds room between Shepard's legs she does the only thing she can do, stroke and touch, tease and rub with her fingers until Shepard is frustrated enough to glare daggers at her. Tali grins behind the mask, sliding the dildo against the labia until the wet lips spread from the pressure. She keeps one thumb on the clit as she presses the tip against her entrance, watching it disappear inside little by little.
Beneath her, Shepard writhes and groans into the gag, pulling the ropes taut as she tries to move her hips. Tali continues to take it slow until she is fully inside, and there she waits, patient, until a sheen of sweat covers Shepard. Her chest is rising and falling with short breaths, and her eyes are half-lidded. A muffled moan is uttered when Tali pulls out a little before pushing in again, and though Tali struggles to keep the rhythm even, Shepard seems to enjoy it.
After a few minutes of thrusting, Tali feels her back aching and she lowers herself on top of Shepard. The skin is slick and hair is plastered to her forehead, and Tali strokes it away. Shepard looks up at her, half-there and half-not, and Tali suddenly gets an urge to kiss her. She grunts and slams into Shepard instead, who manages to dislodge the gag with her tongue. Instead of speaking though she reaches her mouth up and peppers Tali's neck with little kisses in-between moaning outright, the noise reverberating into Tali's throat.
Even Tali shudders from a strange sort of climax as Shepard comes.
As she unties Shepard, Tali says, “it's just a thing,” not wanting to promise her future to the rash Commander who takes charging krogans headfirst without flinching. She repeats, remembering how Shepard shot a man in the face when he threatened her with mere words – “it's nothing serious”.
“It's whatever you want it to be,” Shepard assures her, handing over even more power to Tali. For a few days, each time she leaves the captain's cabin she ponders the meaning of the statement, wonders if there is not a hidden meaning underneath. Then the thought dissolves as Virmire shakes the Normandy crew.
VII.
Shepard remains stoic in front of her subordinates, calm and collected as she goes about their daily affairs. Yet the first night Tali comes to the cabin, Shepard shakes her head and explains about her period, the bleeding and pain and how it hurts. She tells Tali that it'll be over in five days, but, as Tali notes, she does not say 'come then'. It makes her hesitate as the day cycles continue on, and she feels the need rising in herself.
With an overzealous dedication, Shepard flings herself at any assignment she can take, scouring the remote systems for signs of geth that she eradicates with a brutal dedication. Tali comes along and relays any coordinates of the slaughter left in their wake to her father, keeping in mind how little she has done towards giving him the geth parts he wants. The sight of so many geth, torn to pieces by Shepard's biotic attacks, sobers her up. She has neglected her duty towards father, and as penance sends him whatever she can.
He sends a note, reading only 'I was wondering if you had fallen ill when no deliveries came' and she works even harder to recover intact, perfect pieces, but he never explicitly thanks her. It’s an ungrateful job being his daughter, she thinks, and immediately regrets it.
After a long and arduous journey through the Armstrong nebula, they step inside what appears to be the final base for the geth incursion in the system. Barely has Tali gotten her bearings in the cramped space than she is knocked down by a hit that her shields only just manage to absorb. The impact knocks all air out of her and she gasps, only able to watch as Shepard flares an electric blue and unleashes a storm of crackling energy.
For a minute, all she sees is the blur of blue, feels the tug as the centre of gravity in the room is shifted. In the hands of Shepard, space bends just a little, and the static noises of the geth sound almost desperate.
When the last one falls, an eerie song comes in a sudden and short burst. It is a quarian lament, one Tali has not heard since she was young – a song her mother used to sing. The melodic accent is strange, and three hundred years has changed the way quarians speak, but she can make out one line: and when I come home, the desert kisses me welcome. As abruptly as it fills the silence, as soon it is gone again. Shepard is already in another room, and Garrus helps pick Tali up off the ground. He gives her a harsh pat on the back, and she punches his arm.
When Shepard comes out from the inner room, she brings with her an OSD disk that she throws to Tali. “Take a copy, but I need the original back.”
She copies the information she understands the enormity of the gift she has been given. If she wished, she could end her pilgrimage right then and there, head back and join whichever crew she desires. Though tempting to leave, particularly with Shepard in such a harsh mood, she stays because she needs to see it through to the end.
VIII.
She wants to do something for Shepard, whose pain becomes obvious to Tali yet everyone else seems to think she is coping well over the loss of Alenko. Tali realizes it's due to all the times she has observed that body, to figure out when she is pushing it hard enough or being too gentle. She sees it in the cheeks, the way the jaw is pushed out, the way she holds herself: as if she was carrying an empire on her shoulders. As the cold air of Noveria makes both Tali and Liara rub their arms to keep warm, Shepard shrugs even though the skin at the back of her neck prickles. She puts the lethal shot in Benezia, right in the stomach, and can't even look at the matriarch as she dies nor at Liara as she cries in the tram back. Tali tries her best to comfort Liara, awkwardly hugging her, but even she is at a loss on what to say. She tries to imagine, tries to relate, but instead chokes on the words.
Though it seems Shepard can keep up the cool distance forever… And then they return to the Citadel and the Normandy is grounded. Shepard storms back onto the ship in a furious rage, a biotic glow surrounding her body as she paces in the mess hall.
Unable to keep away from the suffering, Tali draws near, one hand raised to show she means no harm. “Shepard, are you alright?”
Shepard spins around, wild eyes lined with dark circles, her lips dry and cracking, and leans close to whisper: “Fuck me until I can't think. Please.”
It's wild and raw, pushing and pulling, almost like a fight as they tumble into the cabin. Shepard's clothes come off, the hems tear a bit under their clumsy fingers, and welts rise up on her back as Tali rakes her gloved fingers across them. She pushes Shepard onto the desk, spreading her legs further apart with kicks harsh enough to cause bruises. One hand on her neck, she pushes the dildo inside in one smooth move while Shepard's near scream dissolves into a frustrated moan.
She slams Shepard into the desk, pulling at her hair with one hand and using the other to reach around and circle the clit with harsh moves. Shepard screams, her sweaty palms knocking papers and data-pads off the table, and her back arches and shifts. When her legs give way and she slides down onto the floor Tali follows, thrusting into her despite how her hips ache. She feels a kind of tension building up in herself, a knot of threads tangling more and more and then coming undone as she tenses up and collapses on top of Shepard.
“Commander?” Joker's voice on the intercom. “I'm, uh, I know you're busy but Anderson wants to meet you at Flux.”
“Got it,” Shepard grunts, struggling with the words.
Tali is too exhausted to move. Below her, Shepard breathes a little, her chest shaking with a relieved laugh. “I take it you liked it,” she says with an exhausted sigh.
“Mind-shattering.” She remains on the floor with Tali for a little longer then eases out from under her, stroking Tali's back. “You can stay here and rest a bit if you want.”
Tali is too tired to protest as she is helped into the bed, Shepard undoing the strap-on harness and covering Tali with a blanket. Though sleepy, she watches Shepard dress, the sinuous body shimmying into an officer's outfit. Her legs still shake a bit, and Tali smiles as she dozes off, vaguely aware of the kiss pressed to the top of her head.
IX.
When she next wakes up, the engine hums with the tell-tale sign of FTL travel. Sneaking back down to engineering, she is met with an excited and nervous atmosphere. The impact of the crime makes Tali tremble slightly, knowing that she would be executed in the Flotilla for what they are doing.
Yet she has no doubts about where she wants to be: she is with Shepard to the very end of the galaxy. She is as ready as she can be, checking her shotgun with Ashley and adding a few modifications as they work together in silence. Wrex comes over, a lazy walk, pushing them aside as he shows them how to make a shotgun have that 'extra kick' as he puts it. It weighs a bit more than she is used to when he is done, but she thanks him nonetheless. His neck shakes with a rumbling laugh as he warns her about the recoil. “Might dislocate an arm if you're careless, but that's all part of the thrill.”
With Garrus she goes over the Mako, seeing if they can make any last-minute improvements with the limited supplies they carry. He manages to fine-tune the cannon while she adjusts the motion dampener – a little thing, but enough to offset the worst of Shepard's driving.
The hours tick by and she keeps busy. Slowly the open areas empty as people withdraw to catch some last-minute sleep, but she is too nervous. There is always something to do, a new algorithm to run to streamline a process down half a second, and she keeps going even as Adams asks if she doesn't want to rest up a little.
It's not until a familiar arm snakes around her waist that she stops and leans back. “Come on,” Shepard mutters. “Get some rest with me.”
To her grateful surprise, they do just rest. Her nerves are too tight-strung to take the idea of sex, and the idea that if she comes apart in bed she'll fly apart completely haunts her, terrifying. Together they curl up in the wide bed, Shepard with one arm flung over Tali's side as she presses close, face against the back of her neck. They talk a little, of inconsequential things, of important things. They joke and smile and Tali rolls around, curling up against Shepard's chest, one of her legs nested between Shepard's. It’s almost blissful, if not for the impending doom hanging over their heads.
X.
She runs on pure adrenaline for hours as they land on the ancient world. The geth resistance is heavy but she feels barely any fear, just the thunder of pulse as they rush onwards. Through the archives on Ilos and the long trenches following the water's flow, she is on the edge of her seat as she takes aim to shoot. As Shepard races past the massive geth colossi, she keeps an eye on the energy read-outs from the miniature relay. They make it with barely a second to spare, crashing out onto the Citadel and landing upside down.
Shepard is the first to crawl out and immediately she calls for Tali and Wrex to hurry, a shrill metallic noise and familiar sighed groan outside. Tali barely has time to slow her pulse in the elevator before it jams and Shepard shoots out the glass window, taking a step out before the mag-boots attach her to the tower exterior. As she adjusts her perspective, she looks up towards the top of the tower. The massive arms of Sovereign move and shake the entire structure. It's not long before they run into more geth, more barricades, but they push through. The processes of her suit and omni-tool are over-clocked to the point of shorting out, but she stays in the fight somehow. A little miracle among many, luck on their side.
It's only when a throwaway piece of Sovereign falls through the window and Wrex covers her with his massive body from the falling debris that she thinks luck has drained out. Her entire body aches, her head is pounding, her hands shaking. Wrex disengages her stiff fingers from the shotgun she is clutching to her chest, checking her for damage, but he says nothing. They both saw what fell on Shepard.
Her head reels as they try to shift the blocks of concrete and destroyed Reaper, but nothing budges. Wrex winces when he moves his arm, and she thinks she's broken a rib. They wait, but not for long. Anderson comes and pulls them out, and she is the one who shakes her head when he asks where the Commander is. She can't believe it either. A C-Sec officer slides his arm around her and helps her to limp towards the elevator, when she hears a rustle and turns around, expecting to see nothing.
Instead she sees Shepard, triumphant as she climbs across broken pillars, holding her arm at an awkward angle but with a smile on her face that defies death. The relief washes over Tali, intense and gratifying, and mindful of the ache in her leg she half-jumps, half-runs to Shepard and flings her arm around her. It hurts them both as they hug, but neither of them care.
It's the last time they touch before Tali leaves for the Flotilla. Shepard is engaged in important meetings and debriefings as Tali rests up in a sterilized hospital room specially dedicated for quarian usage. When she feels good enough, she is invited to a party where the Normandy crew are the guests of honor.
Upon arriving there, she stands out: everyone else is wearing official suits or long flowing gowns, and she is in her old and worn environmental suit. In the far distance of the room she sees Shepard, hair let down over her back and a glass in hand. She is strikingly beautiful, and Tali aches at the idea of saying goodbye. Making her rounds between the other crew members she says the terrible word over and over, but she keeps away from Shepard, conscious that she has no idea what to say. 'Thank you' seems so inadequate.
Her plan to sneak out unnoticed is foiled when she is intercepted in the lobby. “Heard you were leaving,” Shepard says, arms crossed, little bumps rising on her naked skin.
“I didn't want to disturb you.”
“These diplomats never know when to stop talking.” She tilted her head to one side. “You're unhappy.”
“I have to go back home, to the Flotilla,” Tali says. “What we have... It's been amazing. More than that. But I have...” She knows it was just temporary, just a stress release thing for both them even while it was an experience for Tali the likes of which she doubts she will ever have again. Yet she has to leave, and she assumed it would be easier because there were no firm words or promises between them. It hurts, though. It hurts so bad.
“It's okay. I got it. Tomorrow I have to pull my entire crew in from shore leave and head out into the Terminus again. Duty calls. Maybe I'll see you around in the galaxy.”
“It's a big one, but yes. I hope we do.”
“Have a good life, Tali'Zorah. And good luck.” Shepard smiles, eyes downcast, and she turns to go back into the party.
“Thank you, Shepard.” It's all Tali can say, and it is indeed inadequate. They part so simply, so easily, and all the way back to the Flotilla, hitching rides and spending the last of her credits paid by the Alliance on tickets, she replays the moment in her mind. No better words pop up, no better way comes to mind. It had to be done, there are no hard feelings, and yet...
She reminds herself that her loyalties ultimately lie elsewhere, and she reasons that her father would hate Shepard anyway. The Commander isn't exactly a girlfriend to bring home and show off. Shepard might even resent such a role, or just not care. Though she came so close to Shepard, she reasons that she has not learnt anything at all about her. That she is just as elusive and legendary as the news cycle is making her out to appear, even when one is fucking her into the mattress and making her shout one's name.