I Own Nothing except for whatever BW lets me own. I think for this story it's only Li.
Chapter 1: Love's Long Labor
It started slowly, she had been young only 22. Her mother had died and although she had moved on there was still that void in her life where he mouther's wisdom had carried her. Her father went deeper into his work, becoming in many ways consumed by it. She hoped that the data she found in the Geth's core would help her father and make a good gift. It was a doorway to something more. She had been young, almost gotten herself killed if Shepard had not shown up.
At first she just thought it was that Shepard had saved her life. When she was in the landing party with Shepard, although she joked about Shepard being in front of her, she knew that she would take a bullet for Shepard. She did too, more then once she had gotten hit while protecting Shepard's flank. In turn Shepard had taken more then one shot protecting her while she worked her techno wizardry, they bonded in a special way.
On the fleet you got to know everyone on the ship eventually. On the Rayya, Tali had known every single member of it's crew. It had been about the same size as the Normandy. Compared to the Rayya the Normandy seemed empty of people. Thirty people, plus the four non-humans. Despite the hectic pace to stop Saren, there was a lot of other things they had to do. Shepard assigned her to work with engineer Adams when she was not with him on a mission. She understood, everyone had to pull their weight, especially with the crew a fifth of what it had been on the Rayya.
Working with engineer Adams and the three other engineers was the first chance she got to really know the members of the crew. Adams seemed not to care that she was a Quarian, only that she was able to do a good job helping him. Once she proved that by helping dismantle a salvaged probe, he always made sure that the engine room was a place where she was made welcome. The other engineers Thompson, Li, and Goldstien quickly adopted their chiefs point of view.
They were all extremely intelligent and she loved working with them. Thompson had four kids back at base that he loved to death and he would go on about them whenever he had the chance. Li did not say much, but eventually Tali found out that he was an only child and his parents had been killed in a wreck last year. Tali knew how he felt, she had lost her mouther around the same time. Goldstein had once been stationed on Horizon, and wanted to retire there when his twenty years was up. Adams took Tali under his wing, teaching her everything that she wanted to know. It did not take long for the five of them to become very close. Tali felt they were like family to her.
Doctor Chakwas was the next member of the crew she got to know well. Doctor Chakwas cared deeply for her charges, wanting to help them out in every way. Chakwas spent every moment of every day trying to figure out how to keep her charges healthy. She loved studying Tali's physiology, but Tali never felt like she was Doctor Chakwas's lab rat. Chakwas was especially fascinated by Tali's immune system and worked on ways to help boost it in case she got hurt. She made Tali feel safe with her, the first non-Quarian to do so. Doctor Chakwas once told her about the bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy that she had been saving for a special occasion for the last ten years.
Chris, the Requisitions officer and Quartermaster of the Normandy took a liking to Tali. He had the most contact with non-humans of the entire crew. When he first got to talk to her he greeted her with the Quarian traditional, keelah se'lai. This surprised Tali to say the least. She eventually found out that he had only joined the navy a few years ago, older then most new recruits. For a time he had worked with a Quarian on Illium who had greeted him with that phrase every day when they went to work together. He had started answering with the same and the two had become close friends.
Kadian, Ashley, and the other marines who moved things too heavy for the engineering crew, were much slower to get to know Tali. Ashley did not trust her at first, and as she would later learn, in some way or other, aliens had hurt the other marines. Lieutenant Alenko was the first, he was the only one who saw that aliens were people too. It took some time for Ashley and then the other four marines to come around to not disliking Tali. Despite this, Kadian and Ashley were the only two marines that she became close to.
Tali and Garrus went on the mission to rescue Liara with shepard. Tali, Liara, and Ashley formed a unique bond. They were all female and newcomers to the crew. The rest of the crew had trained together and knew each other before the three of them came onto the ship. When it came time for 'girl talk' it was the three of them that got together. Ashley was slow to warm up to Tali but eventually they shared their secrets with one another. However, Tali had one secret she did not share with them, that she was in love with Shepard as well.
Tali was there when they were forced to fight Liara's mouther. It hurt Liara to do it, Tali could see the pain on the young Asari's face. Liara put up a brave face, but that night Liara had needed a shoulder to just cry on. Tali was there and able to comfort Liara because she had been there such a short while before. Liara was like a sister to her.
A lot of her getting to know the crew was around the mess table with Garrus. Garrus and Tali shared a unique bond because they were the only two that ate dextro-amino acids on the entire ship. Garrus seemed serious to Tali, however, after the two of them took down Doctor Saleon, he seemed more relaxed. Garrus and Tali grew closer after that. He became the big brother that she never had. She could trust Garrus with anything and listen to his advice.
She also enjoyed the company of the crew at the mess table. At first they seemed slight weirded out by how she ate without removing her helmet. However, they got used to it and eventually got into some good conversations. Hawthorne loved good food and often complained about how if he was the mess chief how he would do things better. Ghandi's father was a spacesuit design expert and she was always curious about how Tali's suit was designed. Tali answered her questions, she liked Gandhi, young and inquisitive. She had a future in the Systems Alliance fleet.
When Joker was at the table, it was almost a constant laugh riot. The first time they were together, Joker tried to make a joke about the fleet. Tali laughed so hard, but she actively suppressed her voice systems until she got in a joke of her own by turning and looking at Joker like she was some super serious alien. He started to apologize, but then her finger slipped off the mute and everyone laughed. Tali could not think of one time that she had spent with Joker that she had not laughed.
Wrex was a different matter. Tali had a hard time judging what he was thinking and he was always laconic. However, Tali got the feeling that Wrex liked her in his own was. It was never anything he said, but it was how when they were on a mission together, it was Wrex that stood between the bullets and her as she worked to bring down the enemy's shields. She had found his armor in the safe she unlocked. She felt that Wrex respected her as a fellow warrior.
Kadian once told her about a girl he knew at brain camp named Rahna, he had fallen in love with her but after he had killed their commander. She got scared of him and he lost contact with her. Tali did a little bit of searching and found Rahna's address. She sent her a message about Kaiden. Rahna had changed and indicated that she would like to meet Kaiden and apologize for running away from him. However, before she could give it to Kaiden, Vimire happened.
On Virmire she saw Shepard's pain when Shepard was forced to choose between Ashley and Kaidan. In some ways she was glad that the choice was not hers and that Shepard had not asked her. She had bonded with them both and wanted so much for there to be a third option. However, there was not. When Kaidan died, she felt as if there was a hole in her heart. Almost as if she had lost the brother she never had.
He had almost become a big brother to Tali and the loss hit her hard. It hit the whole crew hard, everyone had liked Kaiden. It was a lot quieter around the mess table until the day after they defeated Saren. It was almost as if by defeating what was responsible for Kaiden's death, they had avenged Kiaden's death.
Their vengeance came only days later, after Shepard, Garrus, and her had finally killed Sovereign. Shepard had pushed Tali to safety, and for a moment she thought that she had lost Shepard too. However, Shepard managed to do what he did best, beat the odds. The next few months there were more missions against the geth and she gathered more data. He had already given her more then enough at great risk, however Tali felt it was her duty to the fleet to stay and collect more data. That every small movement, every touch on the shoulder that lingered just for a moment longer, it meant so much to her. She loved John Shepard.
Garrus was the first one that she told about it. He had nodded, she knew that Garrus did not fully understand it, but he accepted it and loved her as a sister anyway. One day she was sending a message to her father with some geth parts, trying to explain what she felt for the other members of the Normandy crew. Li walked by and asked what she was doing. Tali tried to explain what she was trying to communicate to her father. Li taught her a word in her native Japanese. Nakama, it meant the family that you were not born into. For Tali, that described the Normandy's crew perfectly.
When Shepard was killed by the collectors, she was devastated. She mourned for him like she would have mourned over a lost lover. She regretted so many things, perhaps she could have done something more to save Shepard. However, it was mostly that she had never told him that she was in love with him.
Looking back, it was a good time. There was pain, fear, unpleasantness of all sorts. Tali was rarely fully well on the ship and when she got sick there it seemed to linger for a while longer then they normally did. What made it was a good time was not the missions, in some ways it was not even chasing Saren all the way across the galaxy and back. It was the people, it was them that made the Normandy the ship it was. It was Shepard's leadership that brought them together. In some ways Tali was happy that after the Normandy was destroyed, and Commander Shepard killed that they did not assign everyone to work together again. It would be like trying to put together a body without the head. They just drifted apart. However, Tali would always remember the crew of the Normandy. She would have died for any one of them and she was sure that they would have done the same.
Two years passed. She did not get into another relationship, the pain was still too fresh for her to love another. Then it happened, Shepard reappeared. Back from the dead, again. She knew it was him from the bottom of her heart from the moment she first saw him. He confirmed that he was really her Shepard by telling her about the data he had secretly given her. She had not even told her father where she had gotten the data. Her heart leaped for joy, then fell again as she realized that there was no way she could abandon the mission to Halestrom.
Every day that they were apart, she wished that Shepard was there. She even said so in her journal. As soon as the mission was over, she decided that she was going to do whatever it took to find him and stick by his side and never leave it again. However, she did not have to find Shepard. he found her. Everything had went wrong she was sure that she would never be able to tell him about her love. Then he came and saved her once again.
After that there was no way that she was going to leave Shepard again. It was like it was back on the first Normandy. Joker was there as was Doctor Chakwas, she made friends with the new ship's crew. The two engineers never failed to make her laugh as they worked together. They even invited her to poker, after she learned the rules of the game, she became decent at it. Once again she was able to guard Shepard's flank. She took bullets for Shepard, for every member of the team at one point or another. Garrus's and Tali's bond deepened and she grew to love every member of the crew like she would a sibling.
Jack seemed not to care that they shed their blood sweat and tears together. Although Tali could tell that Jack was starting to realize that this was a family that she was a part of now. A genuine family that wanted nothing from her but her. Samsara, Thane, and Zaeed seemed to think of her as their daughter and she looked up to them. She respected them as being wise people who she could go to if she ever needed help. They had shed blood together, The three of them were closer to Tali then her real father had ever been. Grunt seemed to view her as a sister. Jacob and Miranda both seemed to feel like she was their sister as well. Mordin viewed her as a valued college when working with tech, a protégé he could teach his wisdom too. Tali was there when Mordin lost his former protege. It effected him deeply.
She wanted to be more then friends with Shepard, however was scared to tell Shepard. One day they just happened to wander into the topic. She was slightly stick that day, taking it out on the core. One thing led to another and Shepard expressed interest in her. She was embarrassed and quickly made an excuse about needing to work on the drive core.
She went to Samsara, to try and get some advice from the old Asari. Samsara understood what she was going though. A few days passed, she still loved Shepard, but wasn't sure where to go with it. He deserved better, a human woman who wasn't allergic to him, who's flesh he could cress loving rather then the plastic and metal of a suit. It was selfish of her to love him, and she hated herself for it. She still did not know if he would be able to see past her faceplate to truly see her.
The next time they talked, she tried to apologize for being so selfish in loving Shepard. He encouraged her, told her that if anything she was too selfless. She admitted that she loved him, but Shepard deserved someone better then her. Someone who would not get sick if they tried to express that love. Perhaps even endanger the mission. It was then that Shepard first told her of his love for her. She tried to stammer out of it. However, she realized that he meant every word. They made a commitment to find a way.
Tali knew that the fleet was the best place to find the information she needed. However, there was no time to just stop by. When she was called back to the fleet, she decided that this would be a good time to tell her father about her decision. However, when they got to the fleet everything had gone wrong. They accused her of the one thing she would rather die then do, treason. It was even worse when she discovered the truth of what her father had done. Then to realize that her father, the man with a backup plan for his backup plans was truly dead. She hit a low point she did not know if she could crawl out of. In that moment, Shepard gave her a hug. It was more then just a hug. It was a sign that he would always be there for her. She cried in Shepard's arms. As she went back to the hearing, she felt horrible. Either she would have to accept the charge of treason and be exiled or her father would be. She knew that if she was exiled at the least, she might be able to do something to redeem her self or die trying. She resigned herself to her fate of exile.
Then he did it again. Shepard came though, gave a speech that told the board that Tali did not deserve what they were doing to her. That she had proved her loyalty time and again, even saved the galaxy from the reapers. The board took their vote, and she was not sentenced to exile. She could have hugged him at that moment and never let go. There was nothing that Shepard could do to make her love him the less.
They spent a few more hours at the fleet, Tali talked to the doctors and got a few herbal remedies and extra antibiotics. One even gave her some shots to use just before it happened to supercharge her immune system. There were a few more missions, a stop by the citadel where she got a few more immune boosting things.
The touches where more often now. Sometimes they would sneak a few hours in the captain's cabin to cuddle. Tali remembered the day vividly that he left a note in her sleeping capsule, "Why are you at your sleeping pod when you have a nice, full sized bed up on deck one? 'Come here' -S." She never slept in her pod again.
Then they investigated the dead reaper. It was quite creepy and she was glad she had her trusty shotgun by her side for the husks. It was there that she first caught a glimpse of Legion. He saved them, but was deactivated in doing so. It felt weird, having her life saved by a Geth. Garrus, Shepard, and Tali managed to get him back to the Normady before the reaper exploded.
In the AI core they debated if they should wake the Geth up. Shepard finally decided to wake it up and Tali would follow Shepard into hell if it meant they would still be together. The Geth, who they named legion told them about the rouge geth base and how there were two kinds of Geth. Tali was perhaps the only one who understood exactly what he meant. He told them that he had a plan to destroy the rouge Geth.
Shepard decided that following up on Legion's lead was a good idea. Legion, Tali, and Shepard boarded the geth base. After fighting their way though it, they discovered that they might have a golden opportunity to rewrite the virus and not have to destroy the Geth. Tali was conflicted about this geth. He called her creator, and seemed to pay special attention to her. She remembered one point during the battle that he took a missile to the chest for her. In turn, she began to wounder if peace could really happen between the geth and the Quarians.
Then he broke the fragile trust she was starting to have for him. She took her pistol and was going to destroy the geth once and for all when Shepard stopped her. He pointed out that if they had been doing the same thing to humans, he would want to tell the systems alliance. He helped Legion to see her point of view as well. In the end, she decided that if Shepard could trust the Geth so could she. They exchanged data that they hoped might help persuade their sides to come into a peace agreement. It was one of the many reasons that Tali loved Shepard. He had a way of building trust between very different people. People had been enemies for generations.
Then the crew was abducted and they were forced to go though the relay to stop them. It would take a few hours to reach their destination. Tali realized that this might be her last chance to spend with Shepard. They had no way of knowing if they would even survive the jump. She took the immune booster and went up to what was now their cabin. Tali was awkward at first, in some ways still unsure. Shepard did that thing he did. Made her feel confident in herself. Listened to her awkward ramblings.
Shepard took off her faceplate and for the first time their eyes met without anything between them. There was a moment's pause as she took in his face. Then she leaned forward and the two kissed with a passion. She straddled Shepard, kissing him passionately. It felt strange, but good. Piece by slow tantalizing piece the armor came off and she was able to feel more of him with more of her. Finally there was nothing between them. She was on top of Shepard and felt a little bit of pain as his body entered Tali's. However, it was soon replaced by the overwhelming ecstasy of feeling all of him with all of her which flowed into the first orgasm she had ever had with another being.
Afterwards the lay there together, simply enjoying the contact. Tali knew that the only thing that could come between the two was death. She drifted off to sleep, feeling safe in Shepard's arms. They were awakened by the thirty minutes until they reached the relay alarm. They dressed quickly, getting ready for battle. In some ways Tali regretted having to put the armor back on. It meant that they would be separated again.
Throughout the entire long battle, Tali never left Shepard's side. With Garrus they fought their way to where the crew was and rescued them. They had to send someone back, Shepard and Tali had a short argument with their eyes. Shepard wanted to send her back so that she would be safer. However, Tali would never forgive her self if something happened to Shepard or any of the team. So they sent someone else to guard the crew.
The reaper gave Garrus, Shepard, and Tali a hard fight. However they had brought down one reaper together already. This one was no different, when it went down and they escaped from the reactor that they set to destroy all life on the station, Tali felt exultant. They had survived, all of them. Despite it possibly being a suicide mission against everything stacked against them they all survived. They did not even lose a single member of the crew. They had a giant celebration in the cargo bay. Everyone enjoyed themselves. When it came time for the toasts Garrus and Tali had one toast. To Kaiden, a fallen comrade in a noble cause and to all that came before and all that would come later, thankfully none of them so far.
That night Shepard and Tali made love again. This time instead of being hectic and hurried like their first time, it was slower. They took their time to learn each other. What made the other scream in ecstasy and what was best to avoid. They also experimented with different positions. Discovering what they liked together.
The next few days sucked for Tali. She was running a fever, had a nasty cough, and her sinuses were filled with something she could not even describe. However, for the memories of the time they had together, and the thought of the times that they would have again in the future it was totally worth it.
In every life there are moments of greatness, even perfection, some solitary, others shared. On the Presidum, many people who knew and loved Tali'Zorah vas Normady vas Neema nar Rayya, soon to be Tali'Shepard, and Shepard were invited together two weeks after the defeat of the reapers to witness two people stand and declare their love for each other. Some said that they were a strange couple, others said they were a tale of true love. Only time would tell.
