Borrowed Time

T-minus thirty minutes till pickup

It was as if the entire world had exploded around her. Even through protective, temperature controlled environment of her suit, Tali could feel the heat discharging off of the blast as the concussive force threw the young woman's thin yet toned frame through the air like a ragdoll before dropping her limp body against the barren earth. When she hit the ground, the force of the blast was so fierce it actually caused her to roll before skidding to a stop, kicking up a small cloud of dust and dirt as her body settled.

She lay there silent and still amongst the raining debris; her shell-shocked mind momentarily unable to comprehend how she had ended up lying on her back, short of breath and with her heart pounding in her chest. Black pillars of smoke rose from the still-burning fires, marring most of the sky's red glow from the setting sun from her vision, but what she could see was almost beautiful. When you spent your years living out in the constant blackness of space it became so easy forget how much magnificence there was in something as simple as a sunset.

The fog that had settled in her mind, as thick and choking as the smoke that hung around her, suddenly lifted as the dire urgency of her current situation once again became clear.

She was still alive, bless the elders, but it had been close; had the grenade shell landed even a few inches closer to their position, the concussive force alone would have been enough to kill them, the wall of fire it produced could be called overkill. It was their hardsuits that had saved them. If Shepard and she had been unprotected there would have been no way-

Shepard!

His name rang through her mind clear as a bell, slapping what remained of her confusion away. Was he okay? For that matter, was he even still alive? He had already been hurt from taking several rounds to the chest from an assault rifle. His wounds had been bad, but not life-threatening. At least, not then. She had been getting ready to patch him up with what little medi-gel they had, all while firing on the advancing horde of foot soldiers as they charged. That was when there came the soft, dull 'thump' of a firing grenade. She had heard this sound and dismissed it in the same second. Right then she was too worried about Shepard's safety to care about much else. At that time all she could think about was him. It was as if she were wearing blinders with the entire world around her was cut out of view except for this one human laying propped against a fallen steel column before her. Shepard had heard the sound and understood it for the threat it was. Digging deep into a well of strength that Tali would have thought impossible for someone in his condition, the man had reached upwards and pushed her aside with as much power as he could manage.

Tali, not expecting the man to raise his arms under his own power, let alone use them to shove her, was not prepared the action. She stumbled sideways, arms helplessly reaching for something to catch her fall and getting only empty air. That was when the shell hit, that was when she had been thrown, and that was how Shepard had probably saved her life once again.

But what about this man who had exposed himself to the blast in order to save her; could he still be alive? She had to check, had to know.

With his name echoing through her head- Shepard, Shepard, Shepard- the young quarian began to push herself off of the ground, before immediately falling back down with a heavy gasp as a white-hot bolt of pain ripped through her right side. She laid there for several seconds, eyes wide and chest heaving, desperately struggling for breath as the agony gradually diminished into a dull throb.

Reaching out, she touched the wound, winching as it brought up another sharp spike. She didn't want to look, she almost didn't dare. Even the smallest of suit breaches could kill one of her kind if the invading bacteria was severe enough, but this. . . this was a level of physical pain she had never felt before. Slowly, she forced her head up and her hand to pull away. Tali let out a soft moan as she saw the blood that splattered her palm and waist like red dye. The initial explosion must have taken down her shields and what happened after that was the result of the worst kind of luck. Something had gotten her from the blast, shrapnel maybe, and it had sliced through her like a knife through warm butter.

Just as the fog had lifted from her mind, so too did the adrenaline. As she was coming down from the brief high it had given her, Tali became aware of just badly she had been injured. There were two additional breaches on her right side, or at least; she thought there were only two more. One of them was just above the storage packs attached to her arm. It wasn't deep, but a fair chunk of skin had been ripped open and blood was rolling down her arm. The third and lesser of the trio was at her elbow and was little more than a small cut. She had gotten breaches like this before and it was so shallow that it didn't even bleed.

There was something wrong with her mask's visuals as well. She could see a series a spider web cracks running along the glass, but it didn't explain why the right half of her vision seemed so much less focused than the other. Her suit's optics had allowed her to see with incredible clarity, but now. . . the blast much have done something to her systems, damaged them somehow on that side.

Without thinking she reached up to grab hold of her faceplate as if touching it would be all that it would take to make everything right again, and then felt her heart stop cold has her gloved had touched not the smooth plate of purple-tinted glass, but the soft, pale skin of her cheek.

"No," Tali whispered, "No. No, no, no, no." She repeated the word over and over again until it became little more than meaningless noise as her hand moved across her exposed face; feeling and searching, trying to determine just bad it was.

Almost the entire right half was gone save for a bit at the top ending just above her eye. The hole was in the rough shape of a backwards 'C', exposing her eye, most of her nose, and half of her mouth. As she franticly felt about her face she knocked several more small shards loose, causing them to collect in a pile on her cheek.

Tali was scared, almost hysterical. She was breathing unfiltered air. She was suffering from combat damage worse than she had ever known before. Everything had gone so wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen! Those things weren't supposed to be smart! They weren't supposed to know how to use guns! It was. . . it was all so. . .

The world that had once seemed like it was ripping apart around Tali now seemed to fade. Colors began to blend and blur, once sharp images became foggy silhouettes, and every noise dulled into little more than soft hums.

I. . . I think I'm fainting, Tali said to herself seconds before the darkness overtook her.

T-minus twenty-six minutes till pickup

The planet of Isis was a strange sort of world with an ironic name for any who knew human history. Its atmosphere was breathable, its gravity was nominal, and its climate was temperate, yet it was a dead planet filled with nothing but dust and rock. Since its discovery, there had been several attempts at colonization by different species, governments, and corporations, yet none would hold and the forgotten, crumbling, and often half-finished architecture stood like graves marking each failed endeavor.

Over the years, countless tons of vegetation had been transported to the world, each planted and tended with the care of a loving parent, but nothing would take root, not even weeds. It was almost as if there was something wrong with the soil itself, like the ground had gone rotten somehow.

Development shifted towards creating some sort of mining colony in hopes that, if the ground would not bare fruit, perhaps it would surrender precious metals. Mines, or at least attempts at them, had been dug at several suspected 'key spots' around the planet's surface, but the layers upon layers of hard rock and clay made digging slow work even with the most advanced equipment and what few holes in the ground that went deep enough to actually earn the definition of 'mine' yielded little more than junk ore of which the value as greatly surpassed by the cost.

At one point a group of batarian cultists had even attempted to build a church settlement on the world with the idea that all supplies could be shipped in from other planets. The project had lasted less than a year and cost the group somewhere near two million credits.

Isis was, for all intents and purposes, a dead place; one with the capability to hold life, just not the resources.

Still, sapient life is a resourceful creature, if nothing else. The Alliance had determined that Isis' breathable air but lack of flora or fauna made it an almost perfect weapons testing ground. The surface of the plant was sectioned off and categorized for different sorts of experimentation: small and heavy arms, missiles, orbital strikes, etc. The Alliance even managed to make a bit of income by renting specified testing zones to the militaries of other races.

With this income and government backing, the Alliance managed to do what that the batarians and many others had failed several years ago: maintaining a small population in a deemed 'safe zone'. The colony was made up almost entirely of Alliance recruits and officers. Almost every new Alliance recruit spent time the military base ADS132, lovingly dubbed 'The Dust Pit' by the men stationed there. It was a part of their training; an extreme lesson in surviving a hostile environment. Anyone that found themselves there was guaranteed seemingly endless weeks of grueling hell. It was a brutal lesson to learn, but rarely an ineffective.

Then it went silent.

A single automated SOS signal had been raised without any information regarding the incident and any attempts to contact the station met with dead air. After all attempts at communication had failed, a team of twenty-five Alliance soldiers were gathered and deployed with orders to investigate the scene and reestablish radio contact. Hours passed before word finally reached Alliance command. A single message had been sent from the team sent to Isis; the transmission was badly scrambled and nearly inaudible, but between the damaged message and the near hysterics of the soldier's voice two words came through clear: 'husks' and 'evolved'.

T-minus nineteen minutes till pickup

A heavy fit of coughing raised Tali back to consciousness. There was a dull ache developing inside of her head and every cough exaggerated the pain, making it feel as though her brain had come loose and was bouncing around inside of her skull. She felt ill and achy and far too warm, as if her skin were baking inside of her suit.

The woman began to sit up, but stopped as she remembered the shrapnel she had taken to her side. Looking down she saw the most of the blood had dried and caked around her waist and hand. In the back of her mind, Tali had prayed that she had been out for no more than a few seconds, but the position of the sun told her differently. It had moved quite a bit, meaning her 'seconds' were probably closer to 'minutes'

How long had she been asleep, breathing in the open air without a filter? If the way she felt was any indication, it had been long enough for an infection to take hold. Sensing the breech, her suit would have released an injection of antibiotics into her bloodstream as a safety precaution, but Tali didn't believe for a moment that it would be enough to fight off whatever nasty bacteria was coursing throughout her systems. She was going to need a sterile environment and some serious medical attention soon.

A new question rose inside her head, one that she should have asked herself the moment she figured out how much time had passed; how had she not bled out her in sleep? Her wounds had been serious and the amount of blood she had lost. . . it didn't make sense.

The answer, she found, was laying a few feet away.

Shepard was spread out on his back a few inches away, one hand still gripping loosely onto his assault rifle. Markings in the dirt mixed with a line of spent thermal clips and the corpses of several husks told the story of how he must have dragged himself along the ground, pausing only long enough to fire into the advancing horde before continuing on his slow journey to reach Tali's side. An empty container of medi-gel lay discarded in the dirt.

He had been fighting for her, defending her while she slept and when he had reached her side, he had applied the last bit of their medicine to the most serious of her wounds. A wave of guilt and shame washed over her as she remembered the way she had acted, how she had let years of tactical training be overridden by primitive emotion. Shepard was closer to the blast than she was and absorbed much more of its force, yet he had still acted to protect her. Crawling towards her, too weak to walk as he fired his weapon at the invading horde; the exertion must have caused the commander an impossible amount of pain, yet he had still kept his head where she had lost hers.

The young quarian couldn't believe he would do such a thing for her. She tried to imagine what it must have been like; Shepard dragging himself inch by inch on hands and knees while his own wounds bleed and hostile forces charged down on them in uncountable numbers. She tried to imagine such a thing. . . and found she could not.

Tali tried to push herself to her feet once more, but once again the agony brought her back down. Shepard had managed to stop the bleeding, but the pain was still here. The injuries were more serious that she had wanted to think; something that was going to require hospitals and trained doctors to properly heal. Not that Tali would dare diminish the sacrifice her commander had made for her, the way he risked his own wellbeing for her own. Without him she would probably be too weak to even move by this point. Still, she wasn't in the clear yet and unless she figured out a way to get up on her feet again, she was likely to either die from an infection or from another wave of attackers, whichever came first.

With every curse word she knew screaming through her head, Tali opened up her omni-tool and began to cycle through her options. Her display was blurry and erratic. Her omni-tool would hold its image for a few seconds then start to violently shimmer in and out of existence before coming back. It looked like she had taken a harder hit than she thought. The device was running on reserve power and if she wasn't careful, she would drain it dead. Whatever choice she made would have to be done fast.

The medi-gel was gone, the last bit used up on Shepard to heal his bullet wounds, for all the good that did. The best she could do was pump herself full of painkillers. It was a band-aid for the real problem, at best, but it was also the only choice. Pressing the button, a stream of the drug released into her system, filling her with a sweet numbness. Tali couldn't help but let out a soft, pleasant sigh as the stuff coursed through her body.

After giving the medication a moment to really do its work, the young woman attempted to stand one last time. It took some careful maneuvering on her part, but Tali managed to get back to her feet; a small victory, but a victory none the less.

Brushing bits of broken glass out of her face, Tali limped her way over to Shepard's side. As she closed in she saw the grey metal of his N7 armor was beaten broken. There were multiple places where pieces had been blasted off or smashed inwards, and the visor to his helmet was almost as cracked as hers, and just incase Tali didn't think that the fates were laughing at her enough, the glass visor of Shepard's mask had still remained in one piece. It also looked like he had taken another bullet to his left shoulder; a superficial wound all things considered, but still an unpleasant thought knowing that it was a bullet he had taken because of her.

"Shepard," she called to him as she carefully dropped to her knees next to him. "Shepard, talk to me. Are you okay?"

It was a stupid question. No, he wasn't okay, neither was she. Nothing had been okay since they had dropped here, but she had to say something.

A heat sink lay close by where she knelt, still glowing with a faint red hue. He had stopped here only recently, it seemed, and Tali tried to assure herself that was reason enough to believe that he was still alive.

And to think; Shepard was scared that he might get me killed one day, she absently thought to herself.

"Shepard," she called to him, her voice cracking slightly. "Can you hear me? Please say you're alright."

Gripping onto the sides of his helmet, Tali attempted to pull it off. Under the mask and armor, she couldn't tell if he was awake or asleep, if he was alive or. . . or not. The hunk of metal shifted slightly, but that's all it would do. Just like her omni-tool, it appeared that Shepard's armor had taken damage. The clasps had failed; either breaking or fusing together. It would break with a little prying, but she had neither the tools nor the strength to do it herself.

She could scan him, use her omni-tool to check his vitals, but doing so would almost certainly drain what little remained of its power and once it was gone. That would be it; no more painkillers, no more antibiotics, nothing. She would be completely on her own, and if Shepard was still alive and if the infection was as bad as she feared it was, than she would be left helplessly ill long before Joker could arrive to get them, unable to protect Shepard as he had protected her should another wave of hostiles approached.

Still, she had to know, she had to find out. Tali couldn't just sit here without knowing if the person lying next to her, the person she loved, was breathing. Maybe it wouldn't drain her power reserves completely. Maybe. . . maybe if she worked really fast, just took an instant. . .

No.

No, she refused to give into paranoia and fear. Not like she had after discovering the condition of her suit. She knew Shepard was still alive. She believed it with all of her heart. He was hurt and unconscious, but not dead. He couldn't be. He wouldn't just leave her. Not again.

A sickly, haunting moan rose out of the distance and not long after a figure came running out of the smoke. Humanoid in appearance (for a human was what it once was) the husk was a thin with pale white skin and a network of glowing blue colored tubes and cables worming its way in and out of the skin. Whoever this man had once been, whatever made him human, was long gone; replaced with mindless hate and an unquenchable desire to kill. There was no way to save them, no way to reverse the effect. The best that could be done for this thing that was once a man, was putting him out of his misery.

Tali took her shotgun off of her back and when the husk came within a close enough distance, she put the thing down.

The body flew backwards from the blast; a gush of brains and green fluid ballooning from where the creature's head had once been. It fell to the ground, twitched once, and then stopped.

At least this one had only been a charger. She could still handle those, even in her weakened state. Whatever process the Reapers had used to turn the soldiers on this station into these new breed of husks, ones smart enough to remember how to fire their guns had failed for that one. She hoped to remain so lucky should more return.

With a soft sigh, Tali lowered her weapon into her lap, but did not dare re-holster it. There would be more soon.

There were always more.

T-minus fifteen minutes till pickup

After losing their second team, the Alliance called upon their former commander for aid one more time.

The majority opinion seemed to be blowing The Dust Pit strait off the map. Burying with it whatever managed to kill an entire platoon of Alliance soldiers under a nuclear payload. The top brass at the Alliance, however, rejected this idea. The official story was that there was still a high probability for survivors and no orbital strike should even be considered until it could be determined for sure they would not be murdering half of their own.

When Joker had heard the official statement, he had made a comment; something a buying a bridge in Brooklyn. Tali hadn't understood it, but Shepard gave a soft chuckle. She just chalked it up as being some kind of human thing.

The real reason which Tali, and Shepard, and anyone else with half a mind believed was that the Alliance wanted to get their hands on whatever technology they could for study and, more than likely, private development. Something big had killed their men, and the Alliance wanted it for their arsenal.

Inevitably, Shepard had agreed to the assignment. Whether he really did mean to recover this new Reaper tech for humanity or outright destroy it, Tali didn't know. What she did know was that he was about to leave for a dangerous mission and was going to try and leave her behind again. That, she decided, was not going to happen.

Tali had found him stepping aboard the shuttle shortly after receiving the request, reading to venture off into the unknown without so much as a word to her, not even a goodbye. Ever since retuning from the Omega 4 Relay and the start of their relationship, Shepard started to treat the young quarian differently. For the most part the changes were quite pleasant. He often spoke in a soft, gentle tone that he seemed to save solely for her. In public he would sometimes give her arm, or waist, or back a soft caress from his fingers and each touch would send a flame of burning passion into her even through the suit; and when they were in private, she would often get to direct his hands towards more. . . 'intimate' places.

The man had often gone out of his way to make sure that she was always well supplied and cared for with the best medications and highest grade food he could get; no simple or cheap task for someone of her species.

She would always tell the commander that she felt guilty about how far out of his way the man would go for her, but each and ever time he would simply smile, pull her into his arms, and say that she had nothing to feel guilty for. He wanted to do these things, he wanted to take care of her, he wanted her happy and safe.

Shepard's beautiful words, his soothing tone, the kindness in his eyes; it made her melt every time.

Of course, Tali did not condone everything the commander did. After losing some good people fighting their way though the Reaper ship, and when the Commander barely saved Tali from falling to her death during their escape from the Collector Base, Shepard began to filter her out of any high-risk missions that followed. Where she had once been his almost constant companion, Tali was now a silent observer forced to sit at the sidelines.

Her patience had quickly worn thin and Tali knew her silence could not hold much longer. Overhearing the mission specs through second-hand information and seeing Shepard heading towards the drop ship had been the final straw. She cornered the man in the hanger and demanded an explanation from him, a reason for the coddling and deceit. Shepard had averted his eyes. His expression was that of a child caught in the middle of an action he knows to be wrong. His voice was more hushed and ashamed then she had ever heard, and it all made Tali feel guilty all over again. For all the things Shepard had done; all of the bravery, selflessness, aggression, and violence; it was easy to forget that he was still a flawed figure just as likely to feel regret, sadness, and shame just like anyone else. As the phrase his people had so eloquently coined went; he was only human.

"I'm sorry," he had said in a voice just above a whisper. "I just don't. . ."

"Don't want," Tali demanded, her building shame only adding to her frustration and anger. "Don't think I'm strong enough? That I can handle myself?"

"No, it's nothing like that-"

'Than why, Shepard? Why all the sneaking around? Why are you leaving me behind? What did I do?"

"Nothing. You didn't do a thing."

"Then tell me, Shepard," she challenged him, her fingers tightening up into fists.

"Because I. . . I don't want something to happen to you."

"W-what," Tali asked, confusion taking hold of the place where her fury stood just a moment ago.

The commander looked up at her. "I just kept thinking; 'what if I hadn't been fast enough at the Collector base?' What if I couldn't save you? I'm the one that almost caused you to fall. If something happens to you because of something I did . . how am I supposed to live with that, Tali?" Tali thought she understood. She didn't like it, but she understood. Command was not something to be taken lightly and was a difficult thing to live with; her actions on both Freedom's Progress and Haestrom had taught her that. The bodies of good soldiers and close friends had been shipped off of both worlds and each had fallen because of her. Sometimes it was hard to get their faces out of her head, they followed her like ghosts.

Perhaps they always would.

Tali could sympathize. Shepard was a man who was haunted, but by how many, she couldn't say. He had lost so many friends, family, and brothers-in-arms, all long before they had ever met, and lost more still even after they did. Shepard was a strong man, a natural leader. He made the tough choices that Tali believed someone like herself could not, and he lived up to the consequences. Shepard was good at his work. . . but people die. It was just the way life was. Any decision, even the correct ones, comes with a price to be paid in blood. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, but it was still how the universe worked and no force would ever change it.

Yes, Tali understood his caution. She loved him dearly and knew that he must have felt the same, and while she never wanted to do anything to upset him, she would also not allow their love to degrade into some kind of superstitious fear. She would not let the beautiful thing that they shared become a burden that weighted upon their hearts and minds. One day she would die; maybe quietly in her sleep years from now, maybe with a gun in her hand tomorrow. Shepard wanted to protect her just as she wanted to protect him, yet this was simply not an option for people such as them. Their place was on the battlefield where they would fight or they would fall.

Tali told him these things. They hurt to say and they hurt to hear, yet she said them, she made him understand.

"I'm coming with you," she added at the end of her speech. She could see Shepard getting ready to object, to give her a reason or perhaps a hundred reasons why she should stay behind, but she didn't let him.

Closing the space between them, Tali reached up and place a finger against his lips. "Don't speak, just listen. I am coming with you. I'm doing it of my own free will and there is nothing you can do or say that will stop me. I want to fight by your side. It's all I've ever wanted since I met you. And should something happen, not that I'm saying it will, but if it did; I want you to know that I fell fighting for what I believe in, fighting alongside the bravest man I've ever known. My spirit will rest easy, Shepard."

Tali closed her eyes and wrapped her arms tightly around his chest, trying to feed him all the comfort and affection she could through her suit and his armor. "I would never haunt you, Shepard," she said.

When he asked what she meant by that, Tali only smiled and shook her head, telling him that they had wasted enough time as is, that there was a base they needed to investigate and a mission that needed to be completed. As she stepped into the open doors of the drop ship, Tali turned to look over her shoulder and made one last comment to the commander:

"Besides," she had said. "You'd be completely lost without me."

While she meant everything she said, the last words had been said in jest; a way to lighten the dreary mood and bring a smile to her lover's face. She had succeeded in doing both and Tali couldn't help but bask in her accomplishment, all the while not knowing how ominous her words really were.

T-minus ten minutes till pickup

One after another they came screaming out of the smoke at her in the fading evening's light, and one after another Tali's shotgun answered their cries.

She felt so weak now, so tired. All she wanted to do was lay down and go to sleep. After awhile she had begun to waver on her feet to such a point that every kick of the shotgun threatened to throw her to the ground and her aim was suffering for it. Her weapon, which she had been with for so long that it was almost a part of her body, seemed to gain weight with every pull of the trigger and in order to line up a successful kill, she had to let the charging hoard move closer each time until it came to a point where she thought she could no longer stand under her own power.

Tali collapsed to her knees, feeling a twinge of pain pass through the barrier the painkiller had constructed in her head. Looking down at herself, Tali saw that at some point during the battle her stomach wound had reopened and was weeping its red tears once again. At least this time she couldn't feel it.

The same, however, could not be said for her fever. There were times when her body seemed like it would never stop shivering as if the temperature had dropped to freezing. This sensation would last for a period of time before she would suddenly become aware of sweat rolling down her face. Her cough was becoming heavy and ragged. She would sometimes go into fits that lasted until her eyes watered and her stomach ached. Over the last few minutes its contents had begun to lurch and heave inside of her. So far she had managed to keep everything down, but the urge to wretch grew stronger every minute. She had almost administered medication for the nausea, but in the end decided against it. She had already shot herself full of more antibiotics when a small break came in the middle of the attack and in doing so Tali nearly drained her omni-tool's reserve power dry. She couldn't waste what little energy it had left, and if that meant throwing-up, than so be it. Hell, it wasn't like she had a mask to get in the way.

With barely a moment to catch her breath, Tali looked up to see two more husks came sprinting towards her, both unarmed. It had been awhile since she had seen any 'gunners', as she had labeled them in her mind. That didn't mean they were all gone, just that there's been a break in their attack, which was lucky for her, she supposed. Her pistol ammo was completely spent from the battle before she had been nearly blown to bits, and the shotgun wasn't exactly a long range weapon. If anything tried to take her down from a distance, she'd be in trouble.

That, however, was a problem to worry about if and when it presented itself. It was hard enough to concentrate with the damn fever, she didn't need anything else causing her mind to wander. She had to keep fighting. She couldn't stop, not if Shepard was still alive. He would have fought to the death to defend her; the least she could do was offer the same.

Tali aimed the gun and fired, punching a hole in the chest of one of husks. It made one last feeble step towards her before gravity took over, dropping the creature that had once been a living, breathing human face down into the dust. Turning her attention towards her other target, the young quarian leveled the weapon with the creature's head and pulled the trigger.

Her only response was a dry click.

Tali cocked the gun and tried again and when she received the same result, she did it again, and then again until she finally understood; the last of her thermal clips had run out and her shotgun was now nothing more than a useless chuck of metal in her hands.

I'm dead, she thought. They're going to rip me apart. They're going to tear me limb from limb. I'm going to die. They're going to kill me. I-

Tali shook her head as if to clear it. No, they might kill her, and if not them than the infection most likely would, but she would not die babbling like a frightened child. She was a solider, damn it; a child of the Migrant Fleet and proud crewmember of the Normandy. If she died, than so be it, but she would die on her terms.

Throwing her gun aside, Tali ripped the knife attached to her ankle free from its holdings. It had been a weapon of sentimental value to her and never before had it seen real combat, but she had always kept it sharp, always kept it ready. Today was the day it would taste blood. That made have been a little over-dramatic, but Tali would be lying if she said she didn't like the idea or the way the words felt in her head. It made her feel. . . psyched for the battle to come.

Pushing off from her powerful legs, the woman propelled herself up and outwards. Bringing the knife out and thrusting up in one swift, forceful motion. The blade slid through the husk's throat with sickening ease almost as if she were cutting into a rotten piece of fruit. The force of her tackle knocked the creature off of its feet and onto the ground. As they fell together, Tali ripped the blade free, sending a fountain of green gore splattering across the dry earth. Now sitting on top of it, her weight holding it down, Tali continued her assault. The knife made a distinct sound as it stabbed through the husk's eye and penetrated into its brain. The monster, somehow still alive, attempted to continue its assault as if it didn't know or didn't care about the piece of steel that was penetrating its brain.

Reaching up, the husk began to claw at her, its nails catching hold and ripping the purple fabric of her veil. With a hard turn of her wrist Tali twisted the blade and pulled it free before bringing it down into the thing's skull again, and again, and again all with a scream of bloody triumph that would have made Grunt proud.

She was breathing hard, almost panting, as she forced herself to her feet, her breasts and shoulders rising and falling with every heavy gasp of air she took. She could still feel the illness, the wounds, the fatigue, but in that moment she cared about none of them. Shepard was all that mattered to her; a man who, even at this moment, she still believed must be clinging onto life. It was the only thought that she allowed fill her head.

Tali cast her eyes down at the horizon. In the distance several more husks came running words her, wailing their mindless cries.

She raised her arm, pointing at them with the blood-stained tip of her dagger. "I won't let you take him," she screamed through her dry mouth and burning throat. "You hear me? I won't let you! I won't! STAY AWAY FROM HIM YOU, BOSH'TETS!"

T-minus five minutes till pickup.

The ride to Isis had been quiet, a time for refection and preparation. Even though the interior of the drop ship provided plenty of room for the two of them, Tali sat very close to Shepard; something she had always tried to do even before she had known of his feelings. Shepard's helmet sat on the empty chair opposite of her, disregarded for the time being. In his hand he held a datapad filled with the information gathered about the mission as well as the settlement of Isis itself. As he read, Tali allowed her eyes to casually drift over to his face from time to time. She silently studied the lines there, the color of his eyes, the set of his mouth and she wondered what he was thinking. Shepard's expressions, for the most part, were difficult to read. Over the centuries her people had become relatively good at understanding the nonverbal language of others, they had to be since they spent most of their lives encased in environmental suits, but while it was a useful skill, it was not always effective when applied to aliens, as she was now being reminded. While Tali didn't stare for long for fear of distracting the man from his work, every time she did manage to steal a glimpse, she tried to find something that would explain his current mood, and was continually disappointed to find there was not.

The most obvious answer, she supposed, was that he was only studying the datapad and the information on it; however, Tali had never seen him stare quite so long or concentrate so hard on one report before, raising some suspicions. It was possible that he was merely using the device as a prop to create the illusion that he was busy. Tali didn't believe the silence was because he was angry at her as there really wasn't any reason to be, but rather because he was mulling over the things that she had said. She had given him a lot to think about, she understood that, but at the same time she did not regret her words. It needed to be said and the fact that she was here at all spoke a great deal about her effectiveness.

Technically, there was little Shepard could have done to stop her. As this was not a military operation it wasn't as though the man could 'pull rank' on her nor threaten her with any sort of demerit or punishment, but at the same time Tali knew just how convincing the man could be, how he always seemed to have just the right words to push his point across in an inarguable fashion. After all, she had seen these talents in action more times than she could count. If Shepard really didn't want her to be here then she wouldn't be. The thought that he trusted her words and skill enough to accept her help despite his reservations about her health. . . Tali found that quite touching, as well as annoying.

The drop ship landed softly down on one of the base's open-air landing pads; large hexagon shaped pieces of poured concrete each fitting with a glowing red ring in the center to clearly indicate safe landing zones at night. As the ship settled, Shepard closed the datapad and put it down in one of the empty chairs, swapping it for his suit's helmet. There was a soft clicking noise as it slid into place around his head.

Simultaneously the two stood up and made their way to the door. As they stood before it, waiting for the panel to side open for them, Shepard turned his attention over to her for the first real time since they started the trip. Even though his face was now just as masked as her own, she could clearly feel the weight of his eyes upon her; a sensation that still made her heart speed up and her body tingle. She would have given anything to have been able to see his eyes in that moment, to take one last chance to read his face. And as long as she was shooting for the moon; to press her lips against her his own once more. Disappointment, though, could sometimes be as much of a constant companion for a quarian as an envirosuit.

"Tali, I. . . I just wanted to apologize one more time. I should have trusted you."

She waved this off. "I know you were only trying to do what you thought was best. It was. . . sweet in a way."

"Promise you're not mad?" he asked. This tone was casual, almost as if he were playing around with her, but Tali believed she heard a hint of honest curiosity in his voice.

Reaching out, she took hold of on of his hands. "Promise," she answered.

"Then are you ready?" Shepard gave her hand a soft squeeze.

"Right behind you," Tali said and squeezed right back.

T-minus one minute till pickup

Quiet.

It was all so quiet now. No more screaming, no more gunfire, no more mindless moaning. All Tali could hear was the sound of her heart beating in her ears as she dragged her beaten and bloody self over to her commander's side leaving in her wake the fallen forms of several dead husks, each covered with deep lacerations and one with the broken off blade of a knife sticking out of its forehead like a horn.

Every inch of her body hurt and each movement she made sent bolts like fire into her skull, but she kept moving, kept dragging herself on. It was not until she had reached Shepard that she allowed herself to drop, resting her head against his chest. If it weren't for all the blood, they would almost look like they were engaging in a casual embrace, watching as the last thin strip of sun fall from the sky.

She wanted to call out to Shepard once more, but when she opened her mouth, Tali could do little more than produce a soft croak. She had screamed as she fought; a violent, angry sound as she released every last drop of her frustration, anger, and fear upon the husks. She was a fury of deadly grace; slicing and cutting and chopping and stabbing until she alone stood the victor. The woven cloth that wrapped around her body had been sliced to shreds from their grabbing hands and hung from her in tatters. They had ripped into her a couple of times, opening newer suit breaches and drawing more of her blood, but in the end she was still alive. Barely.

That was when she had fallen and dragged herself across the cooling earth until she had reached Shepard's side where she finally allowed herself to rest. She closed her eyes for a moment. She heard a heartbeat, but could no longer tell if it was his or her own. When she looked at him, Tali tried to tell if he had moved at all since she had first come over to him, but found she could not remember. Through his suit she could not see his face, nor feel his chest, nor hear his breath. She was either resting against her lover or a corpse.

And what if he was dead? What would she do then? The idea that Shepard could be gone was . . . unthinkable. He was all she had left. Her friends, her father, they were all dead. Shepard had been a rare bright point in her entire existence. He was the only person she had ever trusted enough to share herself with, the only person she knew would never hurt her or abuse her. Shepard was. . . her world and if that was gone then she didn't want to live. It was as simple as that. She had fought this far and this hard because there had been a reason, but if all this time he had already been gone. . . did that make it all meaningless?

Tali opened her omni-tool and checked the Normandy's ETA just before the image faded away for good.

One minute, just sixty seconds. That was all the time they had until the Normandy was supposed to land. There was some logical part of her that wondered why Joker hadn't hailed them yet. Perhaps their comms had been damaged in the blast as well, damn near everything else was.

The infection was coursing through her veins now, sapping all of her strength. Even if they got her into a sterile room in this exact moment, Tali thought she might have been too far gone. She had been breathing open air for a half-hour now and what was worse; she had multiple suit breaches; each acting as a direct line into her bloodstream.

Even if they did get her fixed up and the bacteria flushed from her system, what then? She had lost Shepard once and it had crushed her. If she lost him again, she would be devastated. Tali truly believed she would never recover. So what did that mean?

With great effort, Tali craned her neck to look at the man she so desperately loved and as she moved her eyes came across something still loosely clutch in his hands. Tali gazed at the assault rifle and as she looked at it up and down, she began to wonder.

The gun slipped easily enough from Shepard's loose fingers and after a moment of struggling, Tali managed to check the chamber. A single round remained. Tali contemplated this and an idea began to form. It was crazy, irrational, and realistically she understood that these thoughts were probably the child of despair and delusion, but she also knew that she didn't care.

Shepard was either alive or dead and that meant so was she. She didn't want to die here either bleeding out through her wounds or gradually losing herself to the infection. What she wanted were many long and happy years with Shepard away from the fighting and danger of their current life. She wanted a nice house somewhere, preferably on Rannoch. She wanted to sleep in late every morning and watch the setting sun each night. She wanted a simple life of laughter and love, of fights and apologizes, of retirement and calm. Tali didn't believe she was asking for much, just. . . a little bit of normalcy. Was it wrong to ask for a speck of calm and sanity in a chaotic universe?

She didn't have long. For a creature of any other species the danger would have ended by now, but for Tali the real threat was the air she had been breathing this whole time. It was an enemy that she could not flee, and could not kill. With each ragged breath, she was inhaling more toxins that would storm through her defenseless body. Where other races would have hours before serious complications would occur, Tali had minutes. If she chose to wait and the Normandy did not arrive on time, the most likely outcome would be her death after a long, slow, and painful decline to illness, either here on this rock or in some hospital room. She had seen it happen before to her people. . . to her mother. It wasn't a pleasant way to go. Tali could still remember how it had happened near the end, when the fever had taken over her brain. She had become delusional, sometimes talking with people who weren't there. Other times she wouldn't even recognize her own family when they came to visit her. It still hurt Tali to think about, and the idea that she could end up the same way. . . it wasn't even an option in her mind. Anything had to be better than that.

If today was to be her last, then let it happen on her terms. She could make it quick, painless, and close to the man she loved without condition. She had fought, suffered, and bled her entire life, all with a false smile of content on her face. She forced herself to go on when every bit of her body and mind screamed at her to quit. Tali believed in a better world, a better existence. She believed that all of the pain and torment came with a reward, with a reason. Now she was thinking differently.

She was tired of the blind faith, of the promises of a better tomorrow that never seemed to come. If there was fate, if there was reason, if there was a just and loving higher being of any sort, than let Shepard live! Let her live! Bring the Normandy from the sky and show her that life had meaning, that it wasn't just this mess of chaos and randomness.

Rolling over onto her back, ignoring the way her feverish body howled and her hands quivered, Tali pressed the gun under her chin; one hand resting on the barrel, the other on the trigger. Tears began rolling down the woman's cheeks. She was so scared, but so tired.

If the Normandy came, she would put the gun aside. She would continue to fight a little longer and continue to believe that salvation came to those who worked for it, even. . . even if it had to be without Shepard.

One minute, just sixty seconds.

Tali turned her attention to the sky and began to count.

cannedcream

6/21/2010