Shepard clicked on the virtual window feature of the Kodiak for a split second before he saw for his own eyes that they were in FTL. It wasn't the fact that he didn't trust the instrumentation, he just needed to see something tangible that confirmed that he was headed away from this cursed planet, away from Anhur.
The shuttle, reclaimed from the hangar, had departed half an hour ago and was now in the middle of a three-hour long voyage to reach the mass relay on the edge of the system. Once through, the craft would be able to rendezvous with the Normandy and its occupants would finally be able to get a decent night's rest on a real bed for once. Perhaps they could have something to eat that had a little more flavor than nutrient rations.
In the pilot's seat, he finished typing out his notes on his omni-tool, denoting the most important aspects from the trip so that he could present his findings to the Council as quick as possible. Words like "genocide" and "murder" were used liberally, while smaller details like Grevel's entire existence went unpublished. It was just a matter of organizing the information into bits that the Council was likely to act on. They would most likely find the existence of a lone mercenary and her death to be a waste of words and time, so Shepard decided to leave that part out, despite the fact that he was itching to tell the story to someone.
Perhaps it was best that he didn't think about it so much right now. Grevel was dead and Tali was safe. Everything had gone by so fast and he was still struggling to catch up. Although, every time he breathed in, it wasn't like he could forget the pain in his chest from doing so, every single injury he had accumulated flared with each inhalation. He wouldn't mind ignoring that for a little while. Chakwas was certainly going to give him an earful when performing her next checkup on him.
Dreading the doctor's stern tone, Shepard sighed and set the Kodiak's automatic pilot on before he gradually eased himself out of his chair. His joints ached and he winced from the actions, feeling more and more like an old man. With a sigh of relief, he walked out of the cockpit to the hold, where Tali was sitting on the bench in the back, her thumbs twiddling against the other. She saw Shepard approach her and instinctively scooted over so that he could sit next to her.
"You doing okay?" Shepard asked with a concerned look as he sat down. "Still got a fever?"
Tali gave a tiny nod. "Just…just a small one." She coughed, clearing her throat of a tiny bit of phlegm. "I'm still a little woozy from the toxin but I think I'll be fine."
"Well, I had to snap you out of that funk somehow," Shepard shrugged sheepishly. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"And it actually turned out to be one," Tali said. "A good idea, I mean. Of course, it would never have happened if I had just…had just…"
Tali trailed off as her voice began to crack. Shepard looked over and saw that Tali's body was shaking up and down as she started to cry, leaning over from despair. Shocked, Shepard gently put his hands over Tali's shoulders and held her close to him, subduing her trembling.
"Tali?" Shepard asked as the quarian continued to cry. "What is it? What's the matter?"
"It…" she sobbed. "It…it's just…"
"Okay, I understand. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."
"No," Tali mumbled, her voice a little clearer. "No…I want…I want to say this."
"Say what to me, Tali?"
She took a deep breath, her voice raw from her crying. "I'm so sorry, Sh-…John. I…I don't know how else I can express how badly I feel about what happened. It's all so unbelievable for me to even think right now. Keelah, I tried to kill you repeatedly! John…I-"
"Tali," Shepard gently interrupted. "You don't have to apologize for this. Never for this. I know that you would never try to hurt me under any circumstances."
"But I did!" Tali cried. "I did try to hurt you when I shouldn't have! I was manipulated, tortured, tricked, and finally forced to try to hurt you when that would have been the last thing I ever would have done! Are…are you even aware of how unacceptable that is for someone like me? Even under coercion, if I did that to a quarian captain, they would have no choice but to exile me for treason!"
"But I'm not a quarian," Shepard clarified. "And I understand completely of what you went through."
"But you don't understand what I'm going through now!" she sobbed. "John…I…I failed you. I tried to hurt my commanding officer, my friend. And I don't have much choice at what this means for me." Tali waited a few seconds for her to gain the appropriate strength. "John, I want…you have to dismiss me from the Normandy. I can't put you in that kind of jeopardy again by being around you. Not my friend…never my friend."
"The hell you say!" Shepard said loudly, sitting bolt upright. "No, absolutely not. Your request is denied, Tali. You are not leaving the Normandy."
"But John," she pleaded. "I hurt you! I'm too much of a liability if I could be swayed so easily like that, made to attack my own captain. Under quarian law-"
"-Of which I do not qualify for because I told you that I'm not a quarian!" Shepard proclaimed. "Tali, you're going to have to listen to me very carefully when I'm speaking to you so that you'll know that I'm telling the truth: I don't want you to leave the Normandy."
"I know you don't want me to leave!" Tali moaned. "I don't want to leave either, but I cannot accept the fact that you don't want to chastise me when I'm clearly the one at fault!"
Shepard's hand gently gripped Tali's arm. "But why should you be punished for something that was clearly out of your control? I cannot fathom any excuse at the moment, any possible shred that would give me a reason to dismiss you from the ship." Shepard looked into Tali's eyes, watching them water from his words. "Tali, I just can't, in good conscience, dismiss you from the Normandy when you and I both know perfectly well that happened was not your fault. You're better than this, Tali! Please stop blaming yourself for things outside of your control because it was never your fault. You're worth more to me on the ship because the crew needs a talented individual like you. And…and I need you too because I can't let a good friend slip through my fingers. I won't be able to let you go, Tali. I mean that."
"B-But…" she stammered, even as she was being pulled into a tender hug by Shepard. "But…it…it…"
Slowly, she dissolved into gibberish, laying her head into Shepard's shoulder as he held her. He slowly ran his hands along her back, feeling the quarian softly cry against him. He felt Tali's warmth from her fever through her enviro-suit and he squeezed her gently. Tali, drenched in tears, now began weeping openly, touched from Shepard's adamant stance on having her stay with him. His hand rose to the back of her head in response to her sobs, holding her close and easing her addled nerves.
They sat like this for half an hour, long after Tali had stopped sniffling. They never changed their positions, her head across his chest while he held her tenderly. The subtle vibrations from the craft was the only thing denoting that they were still moving and Shepard closed his eyes, feeling sleepiness begin to infringe upon him.
"John?" he heard Tali whisper after a few minutes had passed.
"Yes, Tali?" he said, not opening his eyes yet.
She swallowed, feeling a lump travel down her throat. "That…when we were like this in the cell back in the facility…when they put us together for those few minutes…I just want you to know that I had never been so worried and so happy to see you in that one moment. I'm…I'm glad that we made it out."
"So am I," he said, resting his cheek on top of her head sleepily.
"Do…" Tali continued. "Do you remember what I said to you, right as they were taking you away from me?"
He frowned, trying to mentally rewind his brain back to the point Tali was indicating. He remembered the sensation of being dragged, his unwillingness to leave, and Tali screaming something in hysteria while his beaten head throbbed in agony. Shepard bit his lip as he desperately tried to remember exactly which phrase she was referring to. He soon came up with a blank.
"No, I don't," Shepard admitted, his expression becoming more and more concerned at his lack of memory. "I…I don't think I heard it all that well. Was it something important, Tali?"
"I love you!" Tali screamed as she frantically tried to reach for him, a guard restraining her in the cell. She watched Shepard get carried out of her sight by the batarians, her howls of abandonment her only comfort.
Tali stiffened against Shepard, her muscles tensing in her arms. "No," she said quickly. "No, it wasn't important, John."
Shepard's face fell, hidden from Tali as the answer he had been expecting failed to come. "Oh," he shrugged. "Okay, then."
Two years later
Information. It was a glorious thing. Hundreds of tiny screens blared their contents around him, casting the shadows in all different directions. It was too much for any one person to process at once but when the little bits came by in a filtered flow, one could find the memory for such things.
It only took a network and an extranet access to gain control over all he could perceive. At his hands, he held the power to topple governments, dissolve unions, and declare war if need be. Trillions of zettabytes of information, all at his fingertips, all cohesively stored in the ever expanding cloud.
Information surely was a glorious thing.
Basking in the light, the enormous form of the yahg positioned himself on his chair so that he was more comfortable. He clasped his hands together, grinding his scaly red claws against one another. His three jaws grated together while his eight eyes blinked in tandem. As a yahg, he possessed a keen eye for movement, making him able to read the expressions of whatever aliens he had to do business with. They could never lie to him.
The role of the Shadow Broker had always been draped in mystery but the reality was a much more complicated puzzle. The majority of the galaxy was still blissfully unaware at the existence of the yahg at all, a circumstance brought on when his species had killed the Council surveyors who had arrived decades ago in order to establish relations. The downfall of the yahg was that they were obsessed with control. They considered no one else to be their equal for it was either them or nothing. And for their impudence, their isolation was their punishment.
But no one knew that their lives were secretly run by a yahg, one who had reached the ultimate pinnacle of control. They were unaware that the yahg had attained their revenge sixty years ago. Such was the penalty of ignorance.
The Shadow Broker closed all four pairs of his eyes and patiently counted to ten, feeling each cord of muscle on his enormous body tense in preparation. He was quite the impressive specimen as he had not a single ounce of fat on his body and he stood over a head taller than most krogan. He could crush a human's skull simply by pressing two fingers together. He could do anything he wanted. There was no one his equal.
After he had finished counting to ten, the door across the spartan room opened and a silhouetted figure limped through, their movements slightly halting. They stopped in the middle of the room, where an overhanging skylight to the electrified capacitor fluid sparked, raining down a pure white light. The illumination only beat down on the top of the person's head, casting their facial features into shadow. Neither of the two looked up, for this was a familiar scene for the both of them.
The figure dipped their head in acknowledgement. "You sent for me, sir?"
"Yes," the Shadow Broker rumbled. "Just for an update on your status. How has the therapy been treating you?"
"There are good days," the figure shrugged. "And there are the bad days."
"Which one would this qualify under?"
"Bad," the figure said with a small chuckle, followed by a rasping cough.
"Hmm," the Broker mused as he leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the figure's face, despite the darkness. They showed no other emotion besides a steely resolve, a loathing look of pure hatred (not directed at the Broker). They had certainly been trained well. "Would you prefer an alternative treatment? Something that would be a little less intrusive? If the pain gets to be too great, will you-"
"I've lived in pain for most of my life," the figure said with steel in their voice. "I can handle this. Was there something else you wanted to discuss apart from how I'm slowly starting to piece myself together?"
The Broker allowed his jaws to tilt upward in an unmistakable smile. They certainly missed nothing with the tiny little nuances between them. "I'm assuming you're referring to our little spat with Shepard's asari, yes?"
"T'Soni, correct."
The yahg nodded. "Then I'm sure it will come to you as no surprise that the asari managed to succeed in her quest. She retrieved Shepard's body."
"Fuck," the figure breathed, wilting at the news. "And the alliance with the Collectors?"
"Shattered. Of course, it was bound to happen eventually with the past string of events that have been steadily accumulating against our favor. They maintain that we allowed Shepard's body to be spirited away from them, naturally. I've been trying to repair relations in the meantime but I personally doubt I will be able to get anywhere with them."
"We should have never taken them up on any contracts, even if it was for their technology," the figure growled. "You should have sent me to oversee the exchange. I knew that Grizz would never be able to facilitate such a delicate meeting, the damnable salarian."
"You were not going to go, not in your current condition," the Broker admonished. "And I have it on good faith that Grizz did everything he could to prevent the loss of Shepard. He even managed to secure a hostage, the asari's drell partner. He is being transported here, so that we might pry loose the information he carries."
"What difference does that make? The asari would have made off with the body long before we discover where she took it. Hell, that's assuming the drell even knew where she was taking the body to begin with!"
"Oh," the Broker chuckled. "That's not an issue at the moment. I know where the asari took the body to. It is now in the hands of Cerberus."
"The pro-human organization?"
"The very same."
"And what would they want with Shepard's body?"
The Shadow Broker ground his claws together again as he anticipated the reaction from his words. "It's not that they want the body. It's the fact that they want the man."
The figure blinked for a second before a realization dawned on them. "No, that can't be true. Shepard is dead. He was spaced over Alchera, there's no way anyone could come back from that!"
"Cerberus seems to think otherwise," the yahg said mildly. "And after taking a look at what they have planned, I'm inclined to believe that they will be successful. Shepard will live again."
The figure stood perfectly still, their expression not changing in the slightest, but the Broker could see their nostrils flare with anger at the news, the only betrayal of intense emotion coming from them.
"Did…" they started to say. "Did you call me all the way up here just so you could gloat?"
The Broker shook his head with a tiny growl of satisfaction. "Not at all. Merely to show you what lies ahead in the future. To give you a purpose."
The yahg touched a button on his desk and an enormous screen flared to life in the middle of the room, projected by a small, electric blue helper drone that stayed out of the way. The figure walked around so that they could see the image, their back to the Broker. Standing just a few feet from the large desk, the figure looked at the image on the screen in awe, the Broker murmuring his approval at the person's reaction.
On the screen, a tiny room was shown but in the room sat a glass cylindrical tank, filled with a green fluid. The tank was lit up from the insight, washing the entire room in green and revealing what was contained inside the tank. The figure peered closer until their breath lodged painfully in their throat as they forgot to breathe.
"When did you start on this?" they whispered in shock, not turning around so that the Broker could see them. "How come I never knew?"
"I'm surprised," the Broker chortled. "After all, it was you who made this outcome possible for us. We are more than capable of producing the results you now see on the screen. Was this something you were not expecting?"
"Yes," they nodded, continuing to stare at the projected tank. "This could open up a wealth of new possibilities. The implications of this could…it could topple everything!"
"Which is why I'm placing the matter in your care," the Broker said. "When the time comes, you will be able to access the tank's contents. Rest assured, it will be ready for when you need it."
"When can I expect that to be?"
The Broker shrugged. "As soon as this business with the Reapers is taken care of. Like it or not, I am still in the dark of what difference Shepard's resurrection will imply with the approaching storm. He might just be the key that can unlock the secret behind the dark ones lying in wait. Whether or not he can convince everyone else is irrelevant. The masses are just one confused flock and Shepard is the one that guides the flock. He believes the Reapers will return and so do I. Their existence implies that a threat greater than we could ever conjure is lying in wait, which means that we should let things play out and not antagonize Shepard in his quest."
"But what if he decides to come looking for you? What if T'Soni will still hold a grudge?"
"The asari can learn a thing or two about my people," the yahg growled. "When the leader of a clan on my planet is bested, the loser does not bear a grudge and they are welcomed into the new clan – loyal to the new leader. But that damned asari will most certainly want revenge from our involvement and if she presses the matter, I will retaliate. It will be an outcome decided entirely by her and if she can hold off from her petty struggles, she will not find her long life span abnormally shortened."
"You say that as if you know they're going to look for you."
"I intend on it, actually. They will come for me and I will most likely get to meet them in due time. The outcome of the upcoming melee is uncertain, but I cannot put the plan in jeopardy in either case. That is why you will remain elsewhere, away from this place when T'Soni comes calling, ready to carry out the master stroke of the plan that has been set in motion after the resolution of the trifle with the Reapers."
"And that is?"
"Why," the Shadow Broker smiled, "killing Commander Shepard, of course."
The figure made a satisfied noise at that and turned around, the Broker clearly able to see their face for the first time today. They walked up to the desk, a hand outstretched, and plucked a long black coat off the surface, the Broker having set it there in preparation. The figure slipped the covering on, letting the material fall over their legs, obscuring their bowed calves and partially hiding their three-fingered hands.
Their bloodshot eye fixed on the Broker, the scarred face of Grevel relaxed and nodded, sinking into the coat's embrace like that of an old lover, a memory that had been thought lost. The female turian backed up a step, placing herself perfectly between the vidscreen and the Broker's desk.
Dipping her head down, Grevel said in a low voice, "What would you have me do, Shadow Broker?"
On the screen behind her, the figure submersed in the cylindrical tank twitched a finger.
A/N: You thought I was done there, didn't you?
That's right! After some deliberation, I can say for certain that The Disengaged will be getting a sequel! While writing this, it occurred to me that there was the potential for more with these characters in addition to the little hints I've placed throughout the story that will certainly be addressed in the next installment. I know that I mentioned that I wanted to make a trilogy at one point, but it turned out that I was not entirely on board with the idea and scrapped it. Therefore, there will only be a finale to this thread, closing up a few loose ends that I had in place.
The extended author's notes will be released in a day or so and then I'll take a short break before I get to working on the next story (it's actually all outlined, for the most part). Unless I happen to be hit by a bus or run over by a youth on a motorcycle, keep an eye out for The Reengaged in the upcoming week(s)!
Hope you enjoyed The Disengaged and I'll be awaiting to see you return in the sequel!
