Note: Sorry this one was one day late, I had trouble writing it, hopefully you like it though.
After their most recent bout of love-making, Tali and Shepard were laying still and at peace in their bed.
Shepard's hands were stroking her body, one along her arm, and the other petting her hair. His mind was on her entirely, while hers was focused on something else.
Tali had been trying to work up the courage to ask Shepard for children, but every time she tried he gave an insulting joke about kids, or mocked how they can never have any. Of course, if what Matthos said was serious, then they could have kids, but Shepard didn't know that.
Maybe he just doesn't want kids because he doesn't think we can have any. Tali thought, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Maybe if I tell him what Matthos said, then he'd change his mind. Or, he'd get mad at me, and we'd have a long strangely quiet discussion about having children.
Any time Tali thought about kids it put an ache in her stomach, turning her mood sour when she thought about all of the happy couples who have kids. If she ever did get a child through artificial insemination, it would replace her old ache for a new one. Though the new ache Tali would welcome, because it would result in her child—not some others child that was left at the orphanage—this child would be her's by blood, her's and Shepard's by blood
Shepard will appreciate that, won't he? He loves me, he wouldn't want to see me unhappy. Whatever I choose to do, I need to get this stuff fast, before it dies out. She thought, referring to Shepard's sperm, which was for the most part still warm and inside of her, some still around her area.
"You were quieter than usual." Tali said to him, lifting her gaze to his head which was just above her's as she rested on his chest.
He rolled his eyes and smiled. Yeah, you made up for my silence though. You were screaming like a banshee. He mouthed to her, receiving a shocked look from his lover.
"Shut up!" She yelled, slapping him with a hand on his chest. "You bosh'tet."
Bosh'tet, huh ? He asked, squinting at her. I'll show you what a bosh'tet is. He mouthed to her, moving both of his hands from her hair and arm, shoving them onto her stomach and brushing them around on her toned belly.
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" She giggled out, trying to push his arms away from her. "It tickles! Stop!" She continued her fit of giggles, cries, and pleas for an end. "My tummy's ticklish! Stop it!" With a smile froze on her face, she laughed without end.
Shepard smiled and continued his merciless attack on her stomach with his finger tips.
"I said, stop it!" She yelled once more, still playful, but pushing him harder now.
He flopped off the bed, taking the sheets to the bed and several pillows with him. Crashing into the ground with a thud, Tali rolled over to see him.
"You okay?"
He shook his head, his hands in between his legs for some reason, facing the floor.
"What's wrong? I didn't mean to." She spat out quickly, going to cry soon if she actually hurt him.
He held up a hand to silence her before she got anymore hysterical. He stood up slowly, holding his manhood with both hands, hiding it from her. I landed on my dick. His face scrunched up with pain, barely being able to mouth the words to her.
"Oh..." Tali said, laying across the bed with her hands holding up her face. She swung her gray legs back and forth unknowingly, and staring at his hands. "Maybe I could give it a kiss..." She suggested, looking up to him and smiling. "Take the pain away."
He smiled at that, but it faded quickly. He shook his head, walking away to the bathroom. He turned around before closing the door. I just remembered, Joker and the guys want me to spend some time with them while their still on Rannoch. So, I'll be out for a few hours. He mouthed to her, nodding and closing the door to tend to his penis in whatever way he could.
I hope I didn't hurt him too bad. Tali thought, looking at the closed door, a light shining under it from the bathroom. Oh, yeah! She flipped her body to face her drawer, sliding it open and pulling out an empty vial. I hope this works. It makes me feel so skeevy though, like an actual rat.
She ignored her inner thoughts, lifting the specially made vial to her eyes, feeling it's cold outside between the fingers she pinched it with. No going back now. She thought, putting her hands under the covers, and sticking her fingers inside the lips of her vagina.
Fluttering her eyes at the quick flashes of pleasure she felt, she got carried away with her expedition of her lower region, lightly moaning and sticking her finger deeper into herself. "Mmm." She let another moan escape her lips, rotating her hips and stretching her legs. Arching her back on the bed, she was about to finish herself until she realized why she was even down there in the first place. She pulled out reluctantly with a sigh, lifting her fingers to her eyes. Come on, Tali, get a hold of yourself.
With remnants of Shepard's juices on her fingers, she wiped it into the freezing test vial, plugging a clear cap on top of it quickly. There. Now I just have to get it to Matthos. But, he's probably surrounded by those kids of Davos'. I guess it couldn't hurt to try. She thought, crawling out of bed.
After getting dressed in a pair of white quarian specific pants, a white t-shirt, and a thin black zip-up jacket, Tali was prepared to head for Matthos and his lab. "I'll be out for a while, Shepard! See you soon!" Tali yelled through the sound of a shower in the bathroom.
She assumed he heard, nodding to the door he was behind, she left the house and made for the Seaworth estate in her car.
She could see the tip of a house in the distance. As her view cleared up, she slowed her sky car, examining the house before her.
This is where they live? She asked herself, looking at the tall and old house. I wonder if Kasumi pays them enough. After all, she said Davos is in her employ. Maybe they're just really loose with their money. She noted, hovering the car in an empty driveway. Yup. No one's here it seems.
The car touched down, and she was clear to exit.
Opening the door, pulling it up she stepped out, straightening her clothes before walking to the house. Hopefully it all works out. She started getting nervous, fiddling with the cold vial in her hands. What if Shepard thinks I cheated! I doubt he'd believe this child is actually his hybrid. What was I thinking! Unless I could get Matthos to help explain. Yeah, that'd work. Stop being so nervous, Tali.
She swallowed hard as she was a foot from the door, lifting her knuckles and rasping them on the door.
Hearing a tapping sound come closer to the door she got more anxious. Come on! Come on!
The door creaked open, revealing a kind old man with a shining black cane he leaned against. "Tali'Zorah. It's good to see you." He said smiling kindly with his old and sad eyes that made him seem so pure and innocent. This was what Tali wanted Shepard to be like in his later years: Always smiling, confident, happy, content, and peaceful. This man was what Tali wanted to be like when she was an elder. "I suspect you're here for the procedure?" He asked, hobbling out of the way of the door for her to enter.
"Ah... Yes!" She yipped out quickly. "Shepard didn't want to come along, he had business to attend to." She lied, smiling and nodding. Hopefully my little experience as an actress has paid off. If he finds out I'm lying now, and tells Shepard on me, I don't think Shepard would be so easy to trust me anymore.
"Okay, sounds fine to me. If you want you can head upstairs to my laboratory." He pointing a shaking and feeble finger up the stairs to an open door. "Just keep quiet. Allen is asleep, and he can be a light-sleeper."
"Where is the rest of the family?" She asked, taking his offer and leading up the stairs to his work room.
"Davos is out with your husband's friends, they're going to meet him soon. I assumed that was the business you were referring to?" He asked, slowly following her up the stairs, a hand on his cane and the other on the railing.
"Yes! It was." She blurted out before causing suspicion, though it may have drew more that she yelled. "So, it's just us?"
"Yes, Marya and the kids are at the museum for a trip, except Allen stayed behind because he was feeling ill. Just you, me, and Allen." With Tali at the top of the stairs now, Matthos was only halfway up, looking up at her with a quick smile he looked back down to continue his baby-steps.
"Are you... okay?" She asked, lending him a hand.
"That quarian got me good." He laughed. "Right in the gut. Though it was a small price to keep an innocent woman from death." He quickly hovered a hand over his stomach and then reached for Tali's hand. "Thank you."
"No, thank you. You don't know how much this means to me." He was beside her now, looking at her sadly.
"I know exactly how much it means. Most women don't want kids—For whatever reason—they don't have the strength you do. Most would rather not go through the pain of childbirth when they could just as easily go without children, or adopt. You're using science to put children in your womb... not take them out. You have more courage than any woman I know." He smiled down at her. She blushed at his kind words, a blush a daughter would get when her father gave her away on her wedding day, with a 'you look beautiful' accompanied with it—though Tali never got that from her father, not even when he was living.
"Thanks..." Dad. She responded and thought, a faint smile on her lips.
"It takes a lot to go behind your significant others back to get what you both want, but only one knows it." The last part caught her undivided attention.
He knows... He knows! I'm in so much trouble now! Her eyes found the floor quickly, looking down in shame. "I'm sorry. I-I-I-I..."
"You're doing the right thing." He tapped the floor lightly with his cane, bringing her attention back to his face. "He'll love you all the same, and you'll both love this child just as much." She nodded at his words.
"He will." She responded positively with a smile again.
"And, if he doesn't, you send him to me and I'll..." He lifted his cane and whacked it against the railing of the stairs. "Straighten him out." They both shared a laugh, and proceeded into his room.
"Wow. Fancy." She noted, seeing a single patient's bed to her left, and a kitchen like area with test tubes and other glassware containers and lab supplies.
"Now. The sperm?" He asked with a hand out to her.
"Oh... uh... yeah, here." She reached into her pants pocket where she recently stuffed the thing, handing it to his shaking hand.
"Now. You need to understand. Modesty doesn't exist in these confines." He said, waddling over to a stool by a microscope and other glass tubes.
"Okay. What's that mean?" She asked, walking over to the bed and sitting down.
"It means I'll need you to disrobe." He said, not paying attention to her and instead meddling with the vial of sperm.
"What!" She shreiked out in outrage.
"Be quiet." He hushed, whipping around in his chair and pushing an old wrinkled finger against his lips.
"Sorry. But, I can't do that." She protested, folding her arms over her chest.
"I'm not interested in your body, Mrs. Shepard. Even if I was, it'd take several pills and a lot of booze until anything started happening down there." He pointed to his crotch.
She giggled at his honesty, and he returned a laugh. "Okay, but can I put a robe on?"
He pointed to a clothes rack, with a patients robe on it. "I won't look, though I'll have to poke around your lady parts to get this stuff in eventually."
"So, that's it, just test on it and put it inside me and we're done?" She asked, pulling her jacket and shirt off and unclasping her bra.
"You'll also have to take some weekly supplements to keep the baby alive. Since it will feed on both dextro and levo foods, also I'll have to inject something in you, so the breast milk is safe for him or her to drink. I could bore you with the details, but just know it's safe."
"Okay." She unbuttoned her pants, tugging them off and neatly folding them with the rest of her clothing.
"And, for the sex?" He asked her, waiting until she was at least covered in the robe before turning to look. She slipped on the robe, tying the back laces quickly and clearing her throat as a sign to look.
He turned to her, waiting for an answer. "I... uh... surprise me."
"Are you sure? You don't want to know if it's a boy or a girl?" He asked, standing from his stool with shaky legs, quickly snatching his cane to support himself.
"Part of the fun is not knowing? Right?" She asked, laying down on the white bed, facing the bright white ceiling. She saw two strings with suction cups next to her, knowing it was for the heart monitor she helped herself and stuck them onto her chest, under the robe.
"I suppose." He said, making it to her side. "Don't worry. This won't hurt a bit." He said, raising a needle in his hands and putting the point on a vein of her wrist.
She let him do his work, sliding the needle into her skin, injecting a stream of clear liquid into her bloodstream. "I'm a little nervous." She noted, her breaths increasing to a rapid pace.
"I can see." He said, looking at a heart monitor that started to speed up slowly. "Just breathe, honey." He patted her hand with his, seeing her heart rate steady, but was still high. "Or, I could put you under for a bit, if that would calm you?" He asked, meaning to knock her out for the duration of the procedure.
"I think that would help. It wouldn't hurt the baby?" She made sure with a stern tone, already defensive of her unborn child.
He laughed once and held a smile. "No, he or she will be just fine." He held her hand in his, patting it and setting it back to the bedside. "Goodnight, don't let the bed bugs bite." He noted, grabbing a face mask with a tube attached to it, bringing it closer to her face.
"Wait... bugs?" She asked, narrowing her eyes at him, and bending her neck up to see her body and check for bugs.
"It's just an expression, honey." He said with a laugh following.
"Oh... I'm so stupid." She said, placing her head back down on the pillow.
"No." He said, placing the mask over her face and twisted a nozzle to pump nitrous oxide into her system—a refined amount, specially made to actually only knock you out, and not just to daze you and turn you loopy. "You're the smartest person I know." He nodded to her and she returned it, taking in the gas, her heart rate slowed to a normal pace and she was out of it.
One more thing to do. Matthos thought, sliding on a glove before going to work.
He reached to a small bowl, inside was a mixture of Shepard's sperm, and other liquids Matthos had concocted it with to make it work for levo or dextro. He grabbed for a thin but long rod, sticking it into the mixture, coating the end of it thoroughly.
"Should be enough." Matthos mumbled, walking to the end of the bed, lifting Tali's robes to reveal her opening. With her legs spread far enough to allow him access, he pulled the lips apart with two fingers of a gloved hand, and inserted the rod carefully and making sure he didn't hurt her.
After putting it in the appropriate length, he pulled it out, wiping the excess fluid with a cloth.
He discarded the rod and cloth into a sink, walking around to the side of the bed, and covering her with the robe again. "One more step." He said with a smile. He peeled the rubber gloves off and threw them into the trash can before proceeding.
He turned to a silver tray on a table, taking a needle filled with more fluid. He turned back around to her, putting the tip of the needle in the same place as last time, pushing it in slowly he pushed on the end of the capsule, forcing the liquid into her veins again.
He pulled it back out, and set the needle on a tray. "Perfect." He said smiling at his work. "You deserve it." He said to her unconscious body, brushing strands of hair from her face to behind her ears with his hand. It'll be a while until she wakes and until the fluids take full effect. He thought, turning from the bed and slowly making his way for the stool again, prepared to wait for her awakening.
The heart rate monitor started increasing in speed, turning erratic fast.
Matthos spun around as quickly as an old man can spin, squinting at the monitor, the white lines bouncing up and down rapidly and looking like a mountain now. "No." He whispered, hobbling back to the monitor, seeing the rate at 130 beats per minute. "No, no, no, no, no, no." He said slowly, looking down to her seemingly peaceful body, that didn't move. She was smiling, her hands resting at her sides, though she was hardly breathing.
The beats per minute started to increase by a beat every few seconds.
He looked back down to her, wondering what caused it. It's all my fault, I've killed her, it's all my fault. Was the only string of thoughts that ran through his head.
He turned to a drawer, filled with various drugs of different types.
Morphine...
No...
Aspirin...
No...
Where's all of my Antiarrhythmic medication! He yelled in his mind, feeling a need for the medication himself as his heart rate increased.
He trudged back to the stool he sat at before, whipping it out of the way and opening a drawer that used to be blocked by it.
He saw several packages of medicine, labeled: Beta Blockers; Anti-Anxiety Medication; Calcium Channel Blockers. Perfect! He cheered in his mind.
The heart rate monitor stopped it's random beats, and gave off the sound of a flat-line, one slow steady sound that ate at Matthos heart. No... I was so close! He didn't let it stop him.
He turned around quickly, with several packages of medicine in his hands, and with one misstep he was ruined.
The cluttered amount of medicine in his hands made him lose grip of his cane, making it slip from his grasp and join the ground, along with Matthos himself.
His stomach cramps were back at the worst of moments.
He grasped at his gut, clenching it and unable to move from the spot.
The sweat of salty water dripped from his brow to his eyes, covering the rest of his face and body and starting to cloud his vision. His arms started twitching, and his heart felt like it was punched or stabbed secretly as a voodoo doll with a pin. He was having a heart attack.
Matthos couldn't move or think properly anymore, with some of his last thoughts being. It's all my fault. Let it be me! Let her live! Let me die! Let it be me! Let it be me! I've never asked you for anything in my life, so I'm asking now, keep her alive. Keep her alive, and take me instead! He thought to God, starting to lose consciousness. Matthos and the Seaworth's were very religions, he would read the bible to his son every night for hours when he was a kid, trying to break Davos of his dyslexia, but it didn't work in the end. Matthos prayed Davos would overcome the affliction, but he never did, and still reads poorly to this day. Matthos hoped this prayer would prove more useful than his last.
He continued twitching on the floor, drool coming from the corner of his mouth, until he finally blacked out and stopped moving completely. With a loud flat-line coming from Tali, and the rest of the room dead silent, it was over, they were both dying slowly.