Authors Note: Yeah, I'm late to the Mass Effect Fan Club. This is my view on what could've happened after ME3. This is a Male Shepard and Tali pairing. I made Shepard 3 years younger in this story. Mass Effect and its characters are owned by Bioware, not me.
She was a nervous wreck, and when she's nervous, she can't help but start wringing her hands. She thought back to what seemed like the last time they will ever see each other. The sheer pain at the memory only made her wringing worse.
Come back to me.
She repeated this thought over and over until it felt like the only words she knew, and again his words prior her plea kept coming back to her. She let a small tear fall from her luminescent eyes, hidden from the world by her purple visor.
Go back to Rannoch, build yourself a home.
She remembered the lack of an answer from him when she reached out her arm, hoping against hope that he would change his mind and leave with her. But she knew that wasn't John Shepard. He would never leave a task unfinished and, as much as the thought pained her, would never make a promise he couldn't keep.
No! He has to come back, it would never be a home without him! I already lost him once, I can't lose him again, not after all we've been through. Ancestors, please protect him!
She was leaning against her Turian friend, Garrus Vakarian, as they were both led to the Normandy's medbay. She must have let out a small whimper, because Garrus started to rub her shoulder, trying to put in as much comfort as possible, "Shh...shh, he'll be alright," he whispered, trying to console her as you would a small child. After all, the two were like siblings. "He'll be okay, I'm sure."
"How?" She quietly sobbed, "how can you be so sure?"
"Are you kidding?" His mandibles twitched, "we're talking about the one and only Commander Shepard here! Two time galaxy saver, and he's doing it a third time!"
She let her other eye release a trickle of water, "But we were there WITH him, Garrus! He's all alone now!" She sniffled as she remembered him dashing off toward the battlefield, looking all alone, helpless, relying on nothing but the armor on his back and the gun in his hands. She buried herself in Garrus's arms, letting a sob wrack her body. "I know..." Garrus trailed off in thought, but picked it up again a few moments later, "but I like to think that he isn't alone, that we're in his heart, he's thinking of us next to him as he runs off to save us all, I bet Thane and Mordin are with him, as well." She hugged Garrus tighter, "Keelah, I'm just so worried." She started to cough, they have arrived to the medbay.
Doctor Chakwas looked up, Tali knew she returned to the Normandy shortly after attending to other medical business on the planet. She was reluctant to leave, of course. Leaving what seemed like billions of wounded to other medical staff. But it seemed all of those thoughts dropped once the Doctor laid eyes on her. She knew Chakwas left because she expected the Normandy to have wounded, but she could tell that she was one of the last few Chakwas wanted to see.
"Disengagement and Evacuation in 3...2...1..."
Joker counted down over the intercom and the shift of movement told the crew that the Normandy was going into space. Clearly it was no easy task, as Joker was dodging other ships and the vibrations coming from their guns didn't help.
"Oh dear, bring her over here." Chakwas motioned to a bed. She struggled to keep the worry out of her voice and instead tried to lace it with soothing, as a mother would. "Lay her down carefully." Garrus obliged and picked up Tali, she refused to put her arms around his neck, something she reserved for John, and also doing so would be pretty awkward. So she settled by resting her helmet in his shoulder and her hands in her lap until Garrus set her down onto the bed, sheets tight so they wouldn't get in the way.
"I'll bring myself back, but right now I have duties to do," Garrus said with force. He wasn't as bad off as Tali, but he was in bad shape nonetheless. Blueish blood coated his armor. Chakwas started to protest but Garrus already left the room. She yelled after him, "Be back ASAP!"
Chakwas quickly scanned the young Quarian Admiral and saw multiple suit ruptures, red blood oozing from the skin tight rubber. Some soaked into the tattered purple cloth wrappings, turning it into a sickly maroon. Shrapnel imbedded into her skin in some of the ruptures, quivering with every cough that Tali made. Chakwas finally showed signs of fear, making Tali uncomfortable.
She took a scan of the body underneath the suit, red glowed where infections started and dark cobalt where her body wasn't touched. It seemed like she was littered with red ants, growing a colony. She checked the surface and felt hard indents. The Quarian had already locked down sections of her suit. "Good..." The Doctor simply said. She next held a tool up to her head, red glowed and human numbers appeared. Chakwas was alarmed as the number had three digits, but Tali quickly activated the cooling system, encasing her head with sudden cold, and the Doctor relaxed as the numbers slowly crossed the bridge to two digits, threatening to return to the other side. Tali guessed that she should be alright, but only should.
"Thanks for doing a part of my job Tali, I appreciate it," Chakwas said with humor, trying to lighten the mood. Tali sneezed with a laugh. "Bless you," the Doctor replied warmly and turned away to look for more medical supplies. Tali raised an eyebrow, her eye wider than the other. She heard John say the same phrase before to her and she asked why, only to have his answer be that he himself didn't know other than it was a human tradition. She couldn't tell if she made a suitable questioning look through her mask. But the Doctor answered her without even turning around. "Human tradition, it is believed that the soul escapes through the nose when someone sneezes, so they say, 'bless you,' to keep the devil from capturing it. Another belief was that the heart stops momentarily, saying the phrase welcomes the person back to life," Chakwas found what she was looking for and tossed it into the medkit next to her, picking it up and turned around towards Tali, "but now we generally say it just to be nice."
Tali smiled weakly. "The only thing that's captured my soul is John." Her mind wrapped in happy memories as she thumbed a certain rock in her pouch. "Makes sense, that man is what we humans might say, 'devilishly handsome,'" Tali's ribs hurt from her laugh and Chakwas smiled. Tali thought it was odd, to be having a lighthearted conversation as if it was any regular day while the galaxy was at war on the planet below them, where guns blazed and bodies fell, never to emit another beautiful song of laughter, instead, horror was permanently scarred on their cold, empty faces. "I hear some even call him, 'the devil of the battlefield.'"
The comment reminded her where he was now, and the promise he didn't make, the words he said to prepare her to be separated from him for the rest of her life. Her mind burned with worry, "John..." Then absolute terror. "John!" Chakwas was at her side in an instant to stop her from getting out of bed. "Hey, hey, hey!" She started wheeling the bed over to the recently installed decontamination chamber, only to pause to look Tali in the eyes with steel in her irises. "He'll be okay, but right now I need you to slow down your breathing, you're only going to make things worse for yourself."
"I can't, he's in danger! You don't understand, I might not ever see him again!"
"Tali, calm down! That's a doctor's order!" Chakwas roared.
Tali gasped at the the Doctor's sudden surge of anger. Chakwas took notice of this and she sagged like a deflated balloon. "I'm sorry, but I need you to remain calm, you're going to lose a lot of blood if you don't." Tali's tears returned to replenish her dry cheeks. "But John," she started as she crossed the threshold to the decontamination chamber and it went through its protocol of cleaning. "He said to return to my homeworld, to build myself a home, he said it like he was going to die!"
Chakwas cursed under her breath. "I'm going to kill him myself." If he comes back. Tali finished sadly.
Doctor Chakwas prepped Tali for cleaning. Taking off the bloodied purple hood and cloth and hooking an oxygen tube to the port underneath Tali's helmet and putting an oxygen mask over her own face to keep her germs away from the Quarian. She snapped on two blue latex gloves and revealed a syringe with some fluid inside and a needle protruding from the other end. Tali rolled her arm over as in second nature, but gasped as pain shot through. Chakwas found the port made for injections, and slid the needle into her arm, pushing the odd fluid into her body.
Tali immediately felt numb. She couldn't feel anything, not even the needle that quickly left her. "That should both lessen the blood loss and numb the pressure," Chakwas explained, turning around and latching a bag of fluid into her system, "and this should make sure that you are gaining rather than losing blood." She grabbed another needle and held it up for Tali to inspect, "I'm sorry, Tali, but I'm going to have to give you a mild sedative, should only make you sleep for an hour, don't worry, it's perfectly compatible with the numbing shot."
Tali wasn't worried about the sedative, she had complete trust in the older woman. Instead she feared for the man she loves, knowing that no one was there to help him, no one that protected his back with shotgun fire, knowing that she wasn't there to pick him up if he fell down. Not wanting to be aware of her worries, Tali looked at the needle, "Knock me out, Doc."
With that, the Doctor poked the port on her neck and darkness washed over Tali's vision like the gentle lapping of waves on the shores of Rannoch.
Somewhere on the Citadel, the man she wanted to share those shores with struggled to launch the Crucible to save all life from the destruction of Harbinger and his family of uninvited reapers.
Authors Note: This is short, but it's just the introduction, I promise for longer chapters in the future. Also, I'm very new to this so bear with me. Thank you!