A deeper breath
Like my first fan fiction work, this one is based on my desire to wrap up, in my own mind, the end of a dissatisfying tale.
Based on a bog-standard Paragon, Soldier, Sole Survivor, Earth-Orphan Shepard.
Rated MA for future chapters.
Tali/Shep(m) is the basis for most of this – and a tremendous thank you to cellotlix for the idea of Jack/James Vega. Mr. Vega does NOT get enough appreciation!
I (again) claim complete ownership and concept of the Mass Effect world, setting, and characters, and let EA's legal team say otherwise.
*GASP*
Tali'Zorah vas Rannoch, ne` Normandy, just hours after the end of the Reaper War, as the Normandy lifted away from the jungle planet it found itself on, trudged away from the memorial wall, still grasping tightly in her three-fingered hand the plaque bearing a name which she could not, would not accept had left her alone and wretched. Despite her last cries to him, despite his promises, despite the bond she had thought they had – or perhaps in spite of it, fate had taken her love from her.
He had returned from the dead, saved her life, defended her honor, earned her love and given her his heart, then gave her entire race peace and a home to return to – he should come back!
Nothing had ever kept him from coming back, from charging into the teeth of anything, any danger, to help his crew, and especially to help her.
Tali'Zorah knew it was selfish to enjoy that fact – that she was more important to him than the other crewmen – but enjoy it she did. She knew that she would be his first priority.
Finally that thought brought tears to her eyes, as she slumped against the back wall of the ship elevator, and keyed the haptic symbol for the Captain's stateroom. If she was his first priority, where was he now, while she tried to patch the aching hole in her chest?
*GASP*
Garrus stood off to the side, watching Tali's posture finally collapse in on itself as the elevator doors closed. The fact that Tali and John Shepard were bonded was hardly a well-kept secret – and it was to her credit, he thought, that she didn't completely give in until she thought no one else could see Shepard's chosen mate give into despair. Garrus had seen, though – his sharp sniper's eyes caught many things others didn't. Like how Tali and Shepard ALWAYS wanted each other – but acted like the option just wasn't really open to them on the SR1, only looking after Shepard's untimely demise and resurrection. Garrus made to follow her… but suddenly knew that he could provide no true help to her, none at all. Platitudes in the face of Tali's utter despair would only make things worse. He reserved himself to sending a simple message to his second oldest crewmate – which simply said that, when she was ready, he was always there for her to talk to. He knew her pain, to some extent – he had lost his brother, his best friend in the same man. IT still seemed… unfinished, to Garrus. Shepard had always come off as indestructible. John Shepard shrugged off rockets to the face, devastating biotic attacks, hails of gunfire… well, everything, really. But nothing could have survived that detonation, the ring of red fire and energy that surged from the crucible out in to the galaxy, taking all the reapers along with it. Nothing could have gotten back to the surface as the citadel started destroying itself, taking 80% of the souls on it with it. Nothing could have survived in the fiery core of that mess. Nothing, and no one.
Tali stepped off the elevator and into his… their… no-one's cabin. EDI began filtering the microbes out of the air and water of the room, industriously feeding nano-tech into the sheets and couches, and quietly said to Tali via the intercom, "Ms. Zorah, the cabin is clean enough that you may remove your suit, if you like." Tali glanced up at the ceiling, and mumbled out a thank you. EDI acknowledged it, briefly, and then left Tali to her own thoughts.
Tali'Zorah's helmet and suit worked hard to keep her tears inside, recycling them into drinkable water. Unless she wanted to share her tears, her suit was far too good at conserving resources and keeping her alive. She felt no desire to strip, safe though it was, as the only person who she wanted to share her skin and face with was gone, forever.
"How could he? How could he leave me alone? He's never not come back, even from the dead. John is too hard headed, too stubborn to die now and leave… me… No, Tali, you can't, don't let it creep into your mind – be logical, treat it like an engine problem: he was in the center of the eye of the core of destruction, of the brutal wave which swept through the geth fleet, taking every program in a platform, pushing EDI out of her body. His synthetics must be ruined. He… MUST… be dead. NOTHING could survive that."
And with that final utterance to herself, Tali'Zorah wailed a cry of pure sorrow into the still, purified air of the cabin, and collapsed into a heap at the base of the couch, sobbing into her arms.
*GASP*
James Vega knew that it was not only himself, or the Alliance, or even humanity that had lost a great man – the whole of the galaxy suffered from losing him, every living soul suffered – although he suspected he knew of a Quarian who was suffering more than anyone else at this moment.
Vega did the only thing he could at the loss of such an earnest and honorable man, one who had, like every person he touched, brought out the best in James: he worked out. He maintained weapons. He fixed weapons' mods, he did pull-ups until the bar bent, he did pushups until he couldn't lift himself again – he lost himself in the routines drilled into him by the Alliance. It distracted him - but it did nothing to resolve the loss he felt. There were a limited supply of truly good men in the universe, and losing one of the best wasn't helping any. Vega probably would have been surprised that he was considered one of them by his crewmates – he knew he wasn't the person everyone seemed to think he was. N7, mi culo. He was charging along another street when the Normandy practically fell out of the sky on his head, sweeping him and his squad up, saving them from the fate of its commander by executing his last orders. He didn't save anyone. He didn't help any fallen men in that hour. He was nothing like what Shepard was. He was just a dumb, meat-headed Lieutenant, charging head-on into fire, leading his men into trouble.
That was, of course, what Shepard and N7 saw in him: the soldier willing to be the first man in and the last man out on every mission, the honesty and quality of character in him, his dedication to his men, his willingness to take a bullet for any person he served with. James Vega was a rare man indeed – but one living in his own shadow, and the shadow of a legend.
His inner critic, the one that told him he didn't deserve the chances he got, began to whisper in his ears the threads of his inability to save the man who had started to make him believe again. Even if he knew there was nothing more he could have done, he still felt like he hadn't tried hard enough. Doubt crept through him until the endless sit-ups no longer worked, no longer cleared his head, and he collapsed back, staring at the cavernous ceiling over his head, awash in feelings of impotence.