DISCLAIMER: All of the characters in this fic are not mine. They are the property of BIOWARE. Hope you enjoy! Comments and complaints welcomed! :-)

Author's Note: Female Shepard will be talked about in this fic. Also, I will be attempting to avoid mentioning who this Shepard is in a romance with. We all know that both Kaidan and Liara had a crush on Shepard so I'd probably add a few lines on that, but any implications of who Shepard *is* with will not be mentioned. If this offends you press the back button now!

i

Wrex and Liara

i

In the communications room of her temporary ship and still feeling the buzz of excitement despite her earlier rambling to Garrus, Tali quickly selected the second person on her (admittedly short) contact list. Any who looked over her shoulder at the point in time would find themselves surprised to see that Shepard was not the first or the second on her speed dial list. She was instead on the third slot, a spot Tali had left her at since the first time they met at the back alley near Chora's Den. The top two spots were held by Garrus and Wrex.

Half of the reasoning came from the fact that - right after she was made Spectre - Shepard had sent her along to C-Sec with Garrus and Wrex. Wrex was meant to be her bodyguard, while she helped Garrus close the case on the Saren investigation. As even though it would've been easy to just throw the case in with the rest of the Spectre involvement cases, the human had wanted to at least attempt to ease away some tension between her and C-Sec. None of them expect it to work but they tried and they spent several days at it. This lead to a lot of meetings with just the three of them. Shepard didn't take part in those meetings in an effort to distance herself from the case.

She hated to admit, but the other half of the reasoning came from a little bit of racism on her part - humans carries a lot of germs after all and when she joined, she didn't know she would end up with a shipful of human crew members. Most Spectres she's read about worked alone or with a very small squad. She had assumed that Shepard's squad had consisted of just Wrex and Garrus. With only three people, Tali didn't think she would willingly go out of her way to interact with the newest Spectre especially not after Shepard's initial attitude with her. She was proven wrong and she was glad of it… she just couldn't be bothered to change it despite that. Although she did once debated on changing it so she could drop Garrus to being last on her list due to his incessant nagging/talking in the elevators.

After two rings, Tali could hear the connection being made and with a happy grin, chirped, "Hey Wre-"

["Your call cannot be completed as entered. User - Urdnot Wrex - is not available and does not have a terminal connection."]

Behind her mask, Tali wrinkled her brow then cuffed the top of her helmet lightly with the heel of her palm. She'd forgotten that Wrex's preferred mode of communication outside of face to face was by extranet mail. Pulling up a New Message template she quickly typed out:

[Subject: Shepard is Alive!]

[Body: Did you know about this?! Why didn't you tell me?!

Saw and talked to her on Freedom's Progress! Looks different now! Old scars gone, have new ones now that glows an evil looking red and doesn't seem to heal right. Kept bleeding and healing despite medi-gel. Poison?

Shepard's new mission: Hunting Collectors. Collectors probably working for Reapers. They're stealing people starting at Terminus Systems colonies. Watch attached vid! Shows Collectors have unknown technology that can stasis people longer then biotic stasis.]

Knowing she'd take too long to fix it up to something more civil and less salarian-like and too wired and impatient to bother with such things just yet, she quickly attached the Collector vid and hit send. She'll have to remember to try to set up a terminal for him if they ever meet again.

Turning back to her contact list, Tali hesitated on the next two names that followed Shepard's - Ashley and Kaidan. Maybe it's a bit of sentimentality on her end, but despite what happened on Virmire she couldn't bring herself to delete that name off her list. It was the same with Shepard after what happened to the Normandy. The people on her list were the first non-quarians who treated her as an equal and as a friend. Sometimes they treated her even better than her own people.

Before she could select her next contact, the dampeners shut off for a second and it caused a bit of shaking on the ship that shook her as well. Her omni-tool activated, revealing the call from Kal'Reeger.

"Sorry, ma'am! Everything's under control now." Kal called as he literally kicked two of his soldiers back into their seat one by one. From the looks of it, those two soldiers had gotten into the beginnings of a brawl. Tali could only nod.

"Understood. Thanks, Kal."

"Ma'am." With that, they disconnected.

This isn't a turian ship you bosh'tets! She grumbled mentally as she went back to her list - only to be surprised that the shaking had already attempted to make a connection to the second to last person on her list.

"You have reached Doctor Liara T'Soni's Information Office on Illium."

The face is familiar if a bit a darkened - though that may have just been the lighting - and the voice is its familiar soft tone, but unfamiliar as well. Either deliberate or a failed disguise is the coldness - Tali couldn't find any better word to describe it to herself - she could hear interlaced with it. The change was like a electric shock for the quarian, a reminder that it has been two years and that she'd made no effort to contact any of her friends after Shepard's death. Surprisingly enough, it was Garrus who started all the calls between them.

Some friend I am.

A long suppressed memory arose. During one of their own private parties in the armory, a drunk Shepard had once talked about what they would do after everything was over. She'd joked on how, as the most social person in the group, it would be up to Tali to keep the group together. Shepard had even "knighted" her with her beer bottle for the role. Granted it wasn't official without the human's sword - or so they say - but it was something she'd agree to.

Tali knew though - or rather reasoned with herself - that even if she did remember it during the time, it would've been too difficult for her. All of them had avoided each other at the funeral, each of them letting the loss fester. She'd avoid them because it seemed to hurt more when she looked at them… and because of guilt, wondering if it should've been her or one of them instead of Shepard. The same is likely true of the others.

"Hello? This is Doctor Liara T'Soni's Information Office."

Tali quickly shook her head out of her depressive thoughts as she'd realize that Liara had to repeat herself and that the quarian hadn't responded yet.

"Liara? This… This is Tali. Tali'Zorah vas Neema."

"Hello, Tali. It's been a long time." Liara's voice is unchanged - if you disregard the clinical, professional, and the make-the-quarian-feel-nervous tone that had Tali wondering if she should've done this.

"Yes, it has." The conversation stopped there - two old friends with bonds forged through battle seemingly unable to bridge that two year silence.

"Is th - "

Whatever Liara intended to ask is interrupted as Tali found herself blurting out, "ShepardIsAlive!"

The words, now out in the open, made her feel like a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Liara's quick intake of breath broke the asari's cold visage.

"What…?" The wall between them hadn't vanished but it was a start. "Shepard is… are you sure?"

Tali nodded, beaming a bit at being the deliverer of good news. "Yes! I saw her on Freedom's Progress. She's alive, Liara! And it is her as herself. Not a clone or a look a like or a pretender. At least I don't think. It's a good thing she didn't lose her memories or I might not have recognized her at all!

She lost that scar on her face and there's some sort of red incision scars in its place. Whatever it is, it looked really painful 'cause it kept bleeding and healing."

Remembering it made the quarian grimaced in sympathetic pain.

"It looks like she's with Cerberus now." Tali hastened to add, "- Probably not willingly! She seemed annoyed when Prazza - one of my men - asked why she was working with Cerberus. And you know that the colonies out in the Terminus Systems are disappearing right? Well, Shepard and her team was investigating them. You will never guess who was behind this: Collectors! One of my people on pilgrimage managed to get a good evidence."

The quarian quickly attached the document and hit send. "And I just forward it to you. It's… pretty terrifying. The humans couldn't even put up a fight. I think that's probably what Shepard's going to do now: Fight the Collectors."

"I see." The blasé response startled her and Tali frowned. This was the woman with the biggest crush on their Commander. Instead of looking as joyous as she, Liara's "mask" had returned though Tali thought she saw a flash of fear as well but she may have just imagined it. What would cause Liara to be scared of Shepard?

"'I see?'" She repeated, "That's it?"

"What should I say, Tali? I may not have been in the information brokering business for long, but I've seen too many times where one of my trustworthy sources was double crossed or fed false information.

So until her physical form appears, I dare not believe. Now, I must get back to work. Thank you for the information and taking the time to do so personally."

Tali could only stare at the darkened screen for quite a while after Liara disconnected. Her mind still reeling from the almost clinically detached way the asari had spoken - so very different from when they were on the Normandy. Despite her attempts to hide it, Tali had seen Liara's hands shaking and heard the slight break in her voice - both indicators of sorrow.

Sorrow not Joy.

Out of everyone, she thought Liara would be the person to jump for joy.

Ancestors… what has these years done to you, Liara?

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts she scrolled up slightly on her contacts list to pick the next name.


A/N: So I wanted to do a chapter with Wrex, but then I realized that when Shepard first meet him on Tuchanka, he was *very* surprised to see him/her. Had Tali really been the one going around telling everyone Shepard was alive then it didn't make sense that he wasn't told. I have a headcanon of the two of them having a sibling bond and that Ashley and Wrex were the ones that introduced Tali to her love of her shotgun. Of course the third game turned it into uncle + niece instead but that's okay.

I thought of doing another long-rambling!Tali Chapter but I think you guys are probably tired of that. Plus, my whole intent of Chapter One was in hopes that her message to Garrus was enough to get all of that rambly-ness out of her system. I've always pictured Tali as the long-rambly-talk-about-the-whole-mission type when she's excited but she gets better after the excitement dies down or after she's done the long-rambling thing once.

Also, with Liara, I conveniently sent Nyxeris out to lunch and dropped a bunch of work on Liara so that she's too distracted and busy to notice that the call is coming from her exclusive contacts list. I have a headcanon that Shepard's friends keep each other on such a list.

Sneak Preview of what's next:

Chapter 3A - Ashley

Chapter 3B - Kaidan

Chapter 4 - Engineer Adams