Treasonous Family Business
There was a certain advantage of having established a pseudo family amongst the original members of the Normandy. When things had to be hush hush, it really could be quite secretive. Arguments were kept strictly private. The ship never knew just how close the mission nearly derailed on several occasions.
Like when Tali, Garrus and Shepard embarked to pick up the Reaper IFF and ended up with Legion. Tali had steadfastly argued against taking the geth while Garrus argued that this one was clearly different. Shepard had sided with Garrus and Tali didn't speak to him at all for the next month. Tali still sent all of her engineering requests through Garrus instead of Miranda, but she didn't tarry like she normally did whenever she made visits up the crew deck.
While the crew didn't know what they were fighting about, they had figured out that Garrus was in the varren house. Naturally, Joker set up a betting pool to see how long Garrus would stay there.
Things didn't get any better once Legion was activated and tried to send data about the Migrant Fleet back to the geth. Since the Gunnery Controls are closer Garrus got there before Shepard.
Now Garrus had never really cared one way or the other about synthetic life like the geth or AIs but he did feel that Legion was just doing what anyone else would have done. That is get information on someone that tried to kill you and try to send that information back to his people.
Tali hadn't taken kindly to Garrus seemingly taking Legion's side and Shepard arrived in time to see Tali pointing her pistol at Garrus who didn't happy at all. Everyone was sent to their respective rooms and Shepard made sure to keep Tali away from Garrus and Legion.
It was during this down time that Legion and Garrus started to get along. Apart from Shepard, Legion worked best with Garrus and so the two were often paired up. Given how close some missions had been and how large the shuttles were, Grunt of all people had pointed out that they could take more people on missions then just three.
After laughing about how foolish that sounded until the simple truth of it sank in, Shepard decided that Grunt was in fact right. You can fit more than three people in a shuttle. So Garrus was made second team leader and often got to work with Grunt and Legion, since they really only listened to Garrus apart from Shepard. Shepard took advantage of the expanded team and would take other people she normally didn't take like Jack and Kasumi.
Of course with such a large team, everyone had unfinished business to tie up and that's what brought Garrus and Tali back together. Tali had been accused of treason and Shepard had gone racing off to defend her friend. At first it was just Shepard and Tali dealing with the charges until the call came in for him to grab a weapon. Tali was still mad at him but this treason business was a family affair and he was still family.
Only Shepard, Garrus and Tali know what happened on that research ship. Garrus hadn't even comforted Tali when they found the body of her father. The situation was still dangerous at the time and someone had to keep their guard up. Garrus did keep his mouth shut just like Tali wanted even though he wanted to shout the Admiralty Board down. Shepard managed to play the crowd and get Tali acquitted that way.
Back on the ship Tali paid a visit to Garrus for the first time in a month. She just walked up behind him, and clung on to him as she finally got the chance to mourn her father. For his part, Garrus stopped the calibration he was doing and just held Tali and provided the support she needed at the time.
"Thank you." Tali murmured into Garrus' chest. She was curled up in his lap while he was on the floor, his back against the wall. It really couldn't be all that comfortable for him but Tali really felt that she needed physical contact. Or as close as she could get anyway.
"For what?" Garrus asked.
"For staying quiet during my trial. I know that couldn't have been easy for you. And for respecting my wish that no one knows what happened on the research ship."
"You should be thanking Shepard. She's the one that played the crowd to get you acquitted."
"Even so, thank you for being here for me." Tali gave Garrus a squeeze to emphasize her gratitude. "And I'm sorry for not respecting your opinion about Legion. I guess I just assumed you would take my side on the subject."
Tali wasn't proud that she had given Garrus the cold shoulder over the whole Legion incident. Garrus knew of her opinions on synthetics because she always went to him to complain about her latest fight with EDI over something in engineering. It had honestly never occurred to her that Garrus might have a differing view point on the subject. Somehow the fact that they were dating made Tali feel like he should have her opinion and she had felt betrayed when Garrus had taken to Legion's defense.
After seeing her father's obsession with finding a way to kill the geth, Tali had taken some time to step back and look at the geth issue again. Maybe the quarian people were nursing a grudge against the geth. An understandable grudge but it was long overdue to lay it to rest. And maybe it was time to start treating the geth like another race instead of just machines. From the security recordings that Tali had hacked into, Garrus was certainly treating Legion like any other member of the crew and as such, Legion responded to Garrus the best.
Tali felt Garrus nod by way of accepting her apology. "Part of being in a relationship is respecting others opinions. And you can't respect those opinions if you never ask and just assume what those opinions might be." Garrus chided. Garrus knew that Tali was cringing behind her mask. He didn't like having to say it either. Mostly because it made him feel like he was scolding his daughter but it had to be said.
One of the toughest parts of their relationship was how little relationship time there really way. Yes they had said they would give things a go but it's far easier to say than do. When you are part of a crew that is trying to stop galactic mass extinction there isn't much private time. Even Shepard only managed that one stop in Illium to see Liara, and that was only because they had potential recruits there. Though Garrus was sure Shepard managed to get laid after being dead for 2 years while he hadn't seen any action sinceā¦.
They were always busy. Tali kept the ship running and he kept Grunt, and now Legion, in line as well as did most of the tactical planning to all the ground missions. It's not like they didn't try to get together to be a couple. They had their lunches but those couldn't get very intimate when you have the entirety of the ship within earshot. And particularly after missions Garrus was dead beat.
So it had taken Legion to spark off their first couple interaction in a while, which turned out to be a major spat that ended with Tali in his lap as he sat on the Gunnery Control floor. There was something good that came out of the whole debacle; even if they were mad at each other, they still could depend on the other to be there. If only they knew how much more that bond would be tested and soon.
A/N: Yes I know it has been a while since I last updated anything. I really did try to do something over winter break. And I did managed half of this chapter over break so there is that. Let's see, my excuse would have to be playing an RTS so much I'm ranked top 1% in the world at the time of this writing, 19/1/11. So that is my excuse. That and school and having made a half baked chapter of the List. Goal is to get that out by Singles Awareness Day on Feb 14th. Review minions!
