Something is… different today. Tali wasn't sure what it was, but everybody seemed to be on edge today. The usual friendly bickering and bantering between the engineers which she became so used to was completely forgotten today and everybody seemed to be working faster even Adams with his usual quirky attitude. The usual lunch-breaks in the mess hall were now instead taken in the cargo bay today, even Kaidan seemed to prefer chatting with Ashley instead in the cargo bay in favor of working at his usual spot on the upper deck.

Normally such things wouldn't turn her suspicious but the fact that Shepard didn't invite her to join him for lunch today made her wonder just what was going on. It was always the highlight of her day, not that she would tell him that, when he invited her to eat, talk or the occasional work they did together. She used to think he was just making sure that she wasn't stealing anything until she realized after a few conversations with him that he genuinely seemed interested in her long explanations of the flotilla and always seemed lost in a memory when she was talking about the pilgrimage. He surprised her when she started talking about quarian culture and he revealed to her that he had some knowledge about how they were before the Geth uprising. She even managed to catch him uttering a quarian curse every now and then to her astonishment. One day she asked Shepard how he knew so much about her people and immediately regretted it when his eyes glazed over and a longing expression crossed his face, it took him a second to compose himself and he told her that she wasn't the first quarian he met but refused to talk about it. She decided it was best to let the subject drop before she overstepped her boundaries and he got mad. A few conversations later she told him that her father was an Admiral on the admiralty board and he decided to call her princess from that moment forth even after she told him repeatedly that it wasn't the same thing.

After making a mistake in her calculations Adams told her to take a break and she decided to ask Dr. Charkwas why everybody was acting so strange.

She walked to the medical bay hoping to find Dr. Chakwas there, who was in the middle of a conversation with Liara. She crossed the med-bay and Chakwas looked up at her as she approached who gave her one of her motherly smiles that always made her think back at her own mother. "Tali, what can I do for you?" She asked.

"Well.." she started nervously. "Today everybody seems to be acting a little… different than usual. Half the crew seem to take their lunch to avoid walking in the mess hall and those that are eating in the mess hall try to be as quiet as possible, I also haven't seen Shepard outside of his quarters all day, and I don't know why but everybody else seems to know and I'd like to know what it is before I make a mistake or make a fool out of myself and you always know what is going on so I was wondering if you umm.. if you could tell me? Unless your too busy of course. Then I can just come back later if that's better."

"I was wondering the same thing." Liara chimed up, "Do you know why perhaps?"

"Oh dear." Chakwas sighed "Don't you two know what happened eleven years ago?"

"No..? Did something important happen on that day?" Tali asked.

"Eleven years ago Batarian slavers raided his hometown on Mindoir." She said remorseful. "His parents and everybody he knew either died or got enslaved by Batarian slavers."

"By the goddess" Liara whispered

"I was stationed on the SSV Oriziba when the Alliance responded to the distress call. It took two days before the Batarians were fully driven away but by the time the Alliance managed to drive the Batarians away they managed to take off with almost the whole colony." Tali gulped. "When they found John he was passed out from blood loss surrounded by 15 Batarian corpses and destroyed one of their assault vehicle."

"He took on 15 people and a tank by himself?" Tali asked in disbelief. "That's suicide."

"I think," she admitted wistful "that that was his intention dear." A moment of silence overcame Tali as she tried to imagine how horrible it the situation must've been, Chackwas sighed and continued. "When they brought him into the med-bay for treatment it turned out that his implant was fried from exertion. When we tried to find a replacement implant on the ship the only one we could find was an experimental L3 implant."

"I've never heard of implants overheating before, I didn't even know it was possible." Tali pondered.

"It's not completely unheard of," Liara replied "but to have such powers at that age is remarkable."

"You're not the only one who thought that." Chakwas muttered darkly. "The Alliance immediately wanted to start experimented with his new implant until I managed to drive them all off and promised them they could chat with him after he was in top medical condition"

"Anyway when he woke up he refused to speak to anybody about what happened on Mindoir, the only sound he made was when he woke up screaming from his dreams for someone named Lana." she said remorseful "After his injuries were healed he asked me if they found a green box near him and brought it with them when they transported him to the Oriziba. It took me a few hours before one of the marines, Private James at the time, reported finding a box and dropped it off. When I asked him why he took it he told me that the chest looked like it contained something valuable so he decided to take it for himself instead of leaving it there."

"He stole the box while Shepard was bleeding on the ground?" Tali asked aghast, "That's.. that's terrible!"

"Oh you weren't the only one who thought that." Chakwas grinned at her. "At the time we didn't realize John had woken up already and overheard the conversation. Before I even know it Shepard was on him and managed to hit him pretty good before we were able to sedate. It turned out he broke James's nose, two ribs and his right arm."

"Good" Tali muttered.

"When Captain Anderson received the news of John's attack in the med-bay he had Pvt. James removed from his ship in an instant."

Before Chakwas could continue her story Tali's omni-tool beeped with an incoming message from Adams:

Tali,

Can you bring today's status report to Shepard he needs to know we need to ventilate the cooling units today or our stealth systems will cause the core to overload and then we'll have a serious problem.

~Adams

"Just great" she muttered.

"What's wrong Tali?" Liara asked.

"I have to inform Shepard that we need to let the ship vent it's heat." She informed and stood to leave. Behind her she could hear Liara ask Chakwas to continue her story.

She walked back to the elevator and once again noticed the unusual quiet in the mess hall as everybody tried to eat as quick and quiet as possible unlike their usual behavior. As the elevator descended the ship she couldn't help but feel uneasy at the idea of disturbing Shepard with whatever he was going through on a day like this, she still remembers the pain she feels when she thinks of her own mothers dead and can't comprehend how he must feel. Adams gave her an apologetic smile as he handed her the OSD with the report which did nothing but increase her uneasiness. "Make sure he looks it over or we're in trouble"

As she stood in front of Shepard's quarters a moment later she could feel the rooms eyes on her probably wondering what she was going to do in front of Shepard's quarters. She knew that there were rumors going on about a relationship between her and Shepard because of the time they usually spend together, and anxiously standing in front of his quarters did nothing to diffuse those rumors.

She gathered her courage and took one final breath and clicked the intercom button next to the door. Tali started shuffling her feet when he didn't answer the intercom, she debated leaving but deciding against it as she pressed the button again.

This time he did answer but it wasn't his usual welcoming voice but a tone normally directed at people standing in his way, "What do you want, I'm busy."

"I umm…" She started, "Adams asked me to update you on the engine status."

She could hear him exhale deeply and regretted coming here."Fine. Just umm, give me a moment." On her right she spotted Chakwas behind the med-bay window looking at her with her motherly smile and a mix of worry, caring and encouragement written all over her face. Suddenly the door opened and Shepard looked down at her as his eyes got used to the light . He looks like a mess, she thought. His eyes were red and she could see that he hadn't shaved and showered like he usually does. "Right come on in princess." As he spoke her suit sensors detected a heavy concentration of alcohol in his breath. He stumbled into his room and walked with much effort to the chair by his terminal and grabbed another chair for her to sit down on. She sat down in the chair and looked around the room noticing a battered green box opened on his bed with an old and deactivated combat drone lying next to it. He noticed her gaze and immediately closed the box. "So what's wrong with our engines princess?"

"What?"she asked, "Oh umm here's the report" She handed over the OSD to Shepard who took it with a sigh while rubbing his eyes to clear his vision. After skimming over the list he handed it back to her and nodded.

"Anything else I need to know about?" he asked "or can I go back to my depression?"

"Are you alright?" she asked before she could stop herself.

He exhaled, "I'm drinking alone in my quarter wallowing over a girl I lost eleven years ago. How do you think I am?" he slumped in his chair and put his hand in his hands "God I'm pathetic" He grumbled.

"I think it's sweet," She replied, he looked up at her like she just grew another head and she couldn't suppress a giggle. She composed herself again and folded her arms on top of the table as she stared directly into his sad green eyes. "I'm here if you want someone to talk to Shepard.."

He snorted, "What good does talking do."

"What good does drinking do?" She replied with a grin.

The corner of his mouth and twitched and she could almost swear she saw him smile but it was gone before she could blink. "Touché princess." He admitted, and looked pensively at his hands "Alright you win." He opened his desk and fished out another bottle and poured himself a shot. "I'd give you a drink but I don't want to poison you." He downed the shot and shaked his head to clear the buzz. "Can I get you something, a drink or paste.."

"Shepard" she scolded "stop stalling already, I'm fine. It's you I'm worried about."

"Fine, fine, just trying to be nice here no need to get upset."

"Shepard…"

He exhaled and looked pointedly at her, "Her name was Lana'Maru nar Mindoir."

Tali blinked, it wasn't often that she was caught off guard but when he uttered those words she was unsure if he was being serious or not. Her mind was racing a thousand miles per hour as she tried to wrap her mind around the idea of Shepard dating a quarian when he was young. She blinked again as she put two and two together about Shepard's longing look and how his mood was immediately soured when she asked about his quarian knowledge. A thousand more questions came to mind, Is she a quarian? How is that possible? When did it happen? How did it happen? All she managed to utter was a dumbfounded, "How.."

"She was the only person that didn't hate me" he reminisced as he looked at his shaking hands. "Everybody on Mindoir hated me because I was a biotic." He snorted "abomination, freak, witch, demon, pest, you name it I've been called it." He looked back up at her, "Everybody and I mean EVERYBODY blamed me when something bad happened. 'Oh it's storming, blame the witch he cursed us', 'Oh I failed my test, the demon cursed me', 'Oh somebody went missing, the freak killed them.', 'A child died at birth, blame the witch.' And so on and so on." He sighed.

Tali, for the second time in 5 minutes, was dumbstruck. She couldn't fathom how that must've felt, the only thing she could come up with were the looks of suspicion and unfair treatment she received on the Citadel but guessed that was probably only a fraction of what he must've felt like. "What about your parents?"she asked solemnly.

"They hated me the most" he snorted his tone laced with disgust, "every time I used my biotics or sneezed the wrong way he beat me while my mother prayed to god to remove the demon child from their family." He poured himself another drink and downed it again. "I was living in hell for sixteen years." He added bitterly.

Tali was unsure what to do, she wanted to comfort him so very much, just place her hands on his to soothe his anguish, but wasn't sure what he would think so she just remained passive. "How did you meet her?" she asked.

He smiled longingly and poured himself another drink. "Not that different from how I met you to be honest," he said, "although the roles were reversed back then."

"How so?" she asked.

"Well" he started, "sit back and I'll tell you the whole story from the beginning."