Beep, beep. Beep, beep.
Messages. Now? Why now?
Beep, beep. Beep, beep.
Tali sighed and activated her omni-tool, knowing the thing would keep bothering her until she read the message. The little orange screen hovered over her forearm, and she tore her attention away from her engineering monitor to acknowledge the infernal beeping. As she tried to read, her eyes were weary and her arms shook as she lifted them to look at the device, the events on Haestrom taking their toll, but the signature on the message made her heart pound and eager to see the letter's contents.
Reegar…
She wanted to say the name out loud, to jump around the ship upon receiving evidence that Kal'Reegar had survived the many infections he must have gained from his shots on Haestrom, but the presence of Engineers Daniels and Donnelly forced Tali to restrain herself. And besides, she needed to remain professional. You know, at least a little. Her heart kept speeding up, and she became afraid that the other engineers could hear it through her suit. She was glad the others couldn't see her smile behind her mask as she read Reegar's message.
Tali'Zorah:
I'm contacting you to let you know I sent the data about Haestrom's sun and the geth to the Admiralty Board, and they sent it over to the scientists to check out, see what the hell's causing it. Soon as I got there I was already pretty delirious with fever, but still, the data got through. I also managed to get some medical attention before the infection killed me, and the docs said I'm gonna be fine eventually.
Assuming I have permission to speak freely, ma'am, I hope you're gonna be okay too. I know Shepard's probably the best out there, knows how to take care of you, but still, I've fought with you and you can't break a soldier's bond. Keelah, that sounded lame, but I really didn't have any other way to put it. You know what I mean though. Comrades in arms, I guess. Stay safe out there, and have fun on your new ship.
Kal'Reegar
"'Can't break a soldier's bond,'" Tali said softly.
"What was that?" Engineer Donnelly asked.
"Nothing, don't worry about it." Donnelly eyed her suspiciously, then gave a quick nod and glued his eyes to his monitor again. Tali glued her own attention back to the message and read it over and over again until she heard the door to her right open. Still focusing on the message, she tried to listen to discover who walked through the door.
"Daniels, Donnelly," a familiar voice greeted. Shepard… Tali turned her head just enough to see her new captain standing and smiling—always smiling—near the engineers, red hair messy as if he'd just taken off his helmet, blue eyes radiant. She loved when he looked like that. Then she remembered how she felt two seconds ago, Reegar's message burned into her mind and the thing that made her heart race. Now it was her human captain. Feelings were funny that way.
Bah, to hell with it, she thought. I need to choose, but not right now. I have all the time in the galaxy. She turned her head to look at Shepard again and noticed an almost faded scar along his jaw line, and realized that she didn't have all the time in the galaxy. She remembered watching Shepard die, watching Reegar limp into the observatory, and she knew that at any second all three of them—Tali, Reegar, Shepard—could die.
She looked back to her monitor and shook her head as if it would remove the frustration from her mind. Then, she thought of a compromise. Fine then, she thought, I'll choose. I choose... She looked at Shepard again. For a hardened war hero, he was so kind, so caring about the people he served with. Her mind went to Reegar. He was the same way. Instead of loving those features, Tali hated them. It made choices more difficult. I choose to let Future Me handle it. Future Me is much better at hard decisions.
She did her best to keep her mind off of making the decision as Shepard approached and spoke to her, asking about how she was after Haestrom. Tali pretended she hadn't been thinking about him and focused plenty of the conversation on Kal'Reegar. She figured it made it easier to balance the choices out.
After all, she had all the time in the galaxy.