"Get off my back, Ingly. I haven't been to the Citadel in years."
"Obviously."
"You be quiet. I'm not here to see you anyway."
"You wound me, Whisper!"
Whisper turned her attention away from English and back to Shepard, who was still staring with his mouth agape. "Not jumping to my defense anymore, Puppy?"
Shepard blinked hard, and seriously considered asking English to pinch him. "I thought you were dead."
"That's all the greeting I get after all these years?" she asked with a click of her tongue, sarcasm shining through in her grin.
"I…this is a lot to take in," Shepard returned, leaning back against the wall just from the impact of seeing her again.
"Not really. It's just me," she responded as she began to saunter towards the two men. "I'm not that big a deal."
He barely even noticed her movement, and didn't necessarily care either. "You were in HQ when the police did their bust. There were gunshots. I buried you in my mind a long time ago," he listed, ticking off each point in his head. "I'd say you being alive is a pretty big deal."
"I'd agree that he's past due for an explanation," English chimed in, trying not to laugh as Shepard regarded Whisper almost like he was afraid of her. His entire form had gone rigid and he was speaking in a low and serious tone. It was hard for English to imagine he would think like that about his girlfriend, even if had believed she was dead.
"Why don't you tell him then?" Whisper countered, sticking her lip out in a pout as she closed the gap to Shepard and reached for his hands. "Puppy still hasn't given me a proper greeting."
"Whisper, it's been more than ten years," he responded almost apologetically, allowing her to take his hands but trying not to reciprocate much.
"So? We never broke up, did we?" Whisper asked with a cheeky grin.
Shepard raised an eyebrow. "You seriously waited all this time?"
"Well, no," she answered with a shrug, still smirking at him. "But now that we're both here," she trailed off with a wink.
Shepard sighed, and would've pinched the bridge of his nose if his hands weren't occupied. "Whisper, I'm married."
"Happily?" she asked sarcastically without missing a beat.
A chuckle involuntarily escaped his lips. "Yes. Didn't you meet her?"
"Nah, that was only me," English answered first, actually causing Whisper to jump in surprise like she had forgotten he was there. "She only ever talked to me; I just assumed she wanted me to invite anyone else."
"Ok, then I definitely need to let her know," Shepard stated, slipping his hands away from Whisper's to go for his omni tool.
Before he got too far though, his vision was obstructed by Whisper's head as she went up on her toes and softly pressed her lips against his. Shepard froze. His brain told him not to kiss back, but with her touch came a flood of old memories. It was essentially instinct to return her action.
She was smirking at him again when she pulled away. "Still want to let her know?"
Shepard did something, and as soon as he did his mind screamed in protest, but it was already too late to fix. He hesitated. But he still wasn't swayed enough to change his mind. "Yes. She doesn't know you're here, and I don't want to keep it that way."
To his surprise, it was not Whisper, but English who responded. "Since when did you become the boy scout?"
"I can't pinpoint an exact time," he answered half seriously as he sent Tali a quick message asking her to come back to the apartment.
"Seriously? You're not interested at all anymore?" Whisper asked with a dramatic pout as she crossed her arms over her chest.
Shepard felt like pulling his hair out. He was bringing Tali back because he was interested. But telling Whisper that would basically be the equivalent of suicide; she would be relentless in her pursuit if she knew. He didn't want to tell Tali about those feelings either, but that was something he had to debate more. Better for her to find out directly from him than any other way, but that didn't exactly mean it would be easy for him to tell her.
"I can't tell if him now answering is a good sign or a bad one," English laughed while Shepard delayed as long as possible on his omni tool.
"What? Sorry, I was doing something," he eventually countered as he looked up with a sarcastic grin.
Whisper promptly rolled her eyes in response. "Fine. I'll have to drag a straight answer out of you later," she relented, much to Shepard's temporary relief. She skipped over to the couch in the apartment and jumped into the middle of it. "So come tell us what you've been doing!" she called, swinging her legs up and laying them sideways in front of herself. Shepard and English glanced at each other, and then trailed over, taking seats on opposite sides of her.
"Well, all the big stuff has been on the news or the extranet," he started with a mild shrug.
"That's all boring," English instantly scoffed. "Like I watch the news anyway."
"Yea, tell us the good stuff!" Whisper agreed enthusiastically with a slight bounce.
"Like what? You're not giving me much of a starting point here."
"You did always have some trouble taking initiative," Whisper reminisced with a wink.
"That was way back," Shepard answered, doing his best not to sigh in annoyance. His old friends weren't exactly being cooperative. "But I don't have anything to go off of right now."
"I dunno, you did join the Alliance," English countered with a teasing smirk. "Plenty of orders to follow there."
"So do you guys even need me here to bash me, or can I go?"
"Alright, alright. Sorry," Whisper apologized, placing a hand on his leg near the knee. Shepard couldn't explain it, but all of his frustration seemed to melt away with her touch. "So I've always wondered, what did make you join the Alliance?"
"I was done with earth," Shepard answered simply, making sure to keep an eye on her hand. "I ended up hating that place for a long time. The Alliance was the quickest way off the planet at the time."
"He took it all hard," English added in. "Like I told you, we even lost contact because he wanted to get away so bad."
Whisper nodded understandingly. She knew the story about his parents and the orphanage; the HQ was only more bad memories. "I can see that," she stated, earning a grateful smile from Shepard. "But then why go through all the effort you did to save earth?"
Shepard sighed deeply, putting his forehead in his hands. "I wanted to stop as many people as possible from going through what I did," he replied. There was a stunned silence for a surprising amount of time. Shepard himself had to speak again to break it. "What? No boy scout remark?" he asked sarcastically, his head still down.
"No," Whisper answered directly as English shook his head, causing Shepard to look up at them with mild surprise.
"Thanks," he mumbled after a much briefer period of quiet. "We taking turns with this question thing, or what?"
Whisper smirked. "Go ahead if you've got one."
"How did you survive?" he asked in response, immediately and fairly bluntly.
"Rat Trap shot me in the leg," she answered remarkably casually. Shepard stared back with a blank expression, not sure what to make of her statement. "You want more?" she laughed, and his head bobbed promptly. "Let's see, a bunch of us were arguing. The cops had just started the bust, and Trap was yelling at me that we didn't all have to go. He said I could run or hide or something while he held them back. Naturally, I told him to fuck off, that he wasn't going to make a stand by himself. He kept insisting, but basically nobody agreed with him. I guess the only option he saw was to shoot us. He got me in the leg, and a few others in the arm or wherever before Princess tackled him."
Shepard couldn't help but chuckle as he remembered Princess. He never learned their last name, mostly because he had never worked up the courage to question the 250 pound man that was built like a linebacker.
English laughed a bit as well, and Whisper waited for them to finish with a small smile. "Anyway, the crazy fucker's plan actually worked. The police thought we were prisoners or some shit, and took us all to the hospital. We still ended up sneaking out when we were not quite fully recovered, but yea, that's about it."
"She and I met up a few months after she got out," English threw in. "I had to stay low for a while, but we got back to work soon enough, just in a much smaller-"
"Shepard?" a familiarly accented voice rang through the apartment, cutting English off. "Oh, there you are," Tali said as she came into view around the corner.
Whisper's face twisted into a look of confusion as Shepard stood to greet Tali. "I think you have the wrong place," she said flatly, probably expecting Shepard to show her out.
Tali raised an eyebrow, an expression only Shepard could read. "Who's this?" she asked, holding back a few choice remarks.
"Tali, meet Whisper," he introduced as casually as he could manage, making his affections clear to both women by giving Tali a quick kiss where her cheek would be. "Please play nice, we can talk about it later," he whispered into her ear before turning to face the couch again and slipping his hand into hers. "Whisper, meet my lovely wife Tali."
The lovely wife in question just stared on, fairly dumbfounded. Whisper? The Whisper? She had not been expecting that in the any way, shape, or form. Tali had asked Liara to find English, based on his last name, age, and location. She hadn't even mentioned Whisper, and Liara hadn't said anything about the woman either. Tali didn't know if she wanted Whisper to be around, there were so many bad possibilities and implications.
"Well, this is awkward," English spoke, breaking the eerie silence Tali hadn't even realized had settled in and set up camp. Whisper hadn't spoken a word since the introduction either.
"You married a Quarian?" she eventually asked, in a tone that sounded like she was dragging the words out of her mouth.
Tali opened her own mouth to respond, but Shepard beat her to it. "Is there a problem with that?"
Whisper's eyes went wide. "No, of course not! You never mentioned it is all, and it wasn't what I was expecting."
"I wasn't exactly expecting you either," Tali found herself saying, her grip on Shepard's hand tightening subconsciously.
Shepard cast a look over at English. "You forgot to bring up a lot of stuff," he chastised playfully with a chuckle.
"What do you want from me? I've never been detail oriented," English answered nonchalantly, smirking wickedly as he leaned back and laid his arms on the back of the couch.
"If this devolves into a soap opera, I'm blaming you," Whisper laughed, casting an almost nervous glance over at Tali.
"Soap opera?" she asked quietly into Shepard's ear.
"Old vids on earth, that revolved around relationship drama," he explained.
"Why would there be drama?" she returned. Was she missing something having to do with Whisper? Was Shepard interested in her again? Was she pursuing him? Was-
"What are you two being all secretive about?" English asked, breaking away from his argument with Whisper.
"I could tell you, but then you'd be all jealous," Shepard answered with a smile, pulling Tali along to the couch. English laughed, and Whisper cracked a smile too. But it was all too easy to tell that it wasn't genuine. Shepard offered Tali his old seat, but she motioned for him to take it instead, and then jumped into his lap. No way in hell she was separating herself from him when Whisper was around.
The mask turned out to be a blessing, as she could freely grin with malicious glee at Whisper's almost invisible cringe at their display of affection. "Hi, I'm Tali'Zorah vas Rannoch!" she greeted with sarcastic cheer as she extended her hand.
"Nice to meet you, I go by Whisper," the other greeted, taking the offered hand and shaking it, to her credit.
"So wait, you didn't take Pup's name?" English asked, oblivious to the hidden emotions of the two women.
"No, our wedding was pretty small, we don't want to risk being some couple that's the center of gossip," she explained.
"We get enough of that separately, without people knowing we're bonded," Shepard added with a wink at his old friends.
"It's not like a secret or anything though, right?" Whisper asked.
"Not necessarily, just not common knowledge," Tali answered, trying to determine any ulterior motive to her question.
"With how much Pup likes his PDA, I don't know how it could be a long lasting secret," English chuckled.
"Just because I like it doesn't mean I can't control it," Shepard defended with a cheeky grin, putting an arm behind the couch.
"I guess, but barely," Tali teased. "I remember more than a few times I had to remind you we were trying to stay low on the Normandy."
Shepard's grin was still present. "I can't help it. There's no way I can stay away from…this," he said, running his hands up Tali's sides.
"Shepard!" she exclaimed, her face lighting up under the mask. She started squirming and curling up into a ball as his fingers skimmed her ribs.
"I see you haven't changed," English managed to get out through his laughter. Everyone was too distracted to notice Whisper's discontent grimace. "Well, at least not in that area."
"Bosh'tet," Tali growled, now hugging her knees and tucking her head under his jaw to prevent him from continuing. She knew why he was doing it, Whisper being as close as she was. But that didn't mean she had to enjoy being embarrassed. Shepard began rubbing at her lower back, whether the main goal was to be soothing or apologetic she wasn't sure. Maybe both.
"So is that how you two met?" English asked when the mood had calmed. "On the Normandy?"
"Yea. That was back before we were well known, even," Shepard answered.
"For taking out that guy Saren, right?" Whisper questioned.
"Yes, so how long has it been?" Tali replied as she turned her head up towards Shepard.
"I want to say almost five years. At least four for sure."
"And you've been together that whole time?" Whisper checked, somewhat impressed.
"Well, no," Shepard responded sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck. "It took me a while to see what I was missing."
"I see that hasn't changed either," Whisper teased, poking Shepard in the leg.
"Come on, I haven't changed all that much," Shepard returned with an eye roll as Tali shot an unreadable glare at Whisper. Well, unreadable to the recipient anyway. Shepard could tell what it was all too well, and he had to work to keep himself from frowning.
"Believe me, you've changed plenty," English argued with a grin. "The Pup I knew wasn't exactly this humble or philanthropic."
"Where'd you learn a big word like that?" Shepard poked with mock incredulity.
"University of Fermi. We called it FU," English answered, holding up his middle finger. He earned a proper laugh from Shepard, and a couple of eye rolls from the ladies. "Can we get back to your stories now?"
The next couple of hours went by in a flash for Shepard. Stories were exchanged back and forth, and at the end he barely felt like his old friends were caught up, or that he was caught up on their lives. There was just so much to cover. Especially with Tali there; she would correct him or expand on his tales, come up with questions Shepard didn't think to ask, and offer up some of her own anecdotes when English asked. Not that Shepard was complaining; it was great to see the love of his life and his oldest mentor get along. What concerned him was how well she got along with Whisper. The two women almost never talked directly to each other the entire time.
The opportunity he had, though, was too much to risk ruining by addressing the issue right there and then. "What do you think, beautiful?" Shepard asked, nudging a more sprawled out Tali who was still seated in his lap. "Should we invite them over for dinner?"
"Sounds good to me. What are you making?"
Even Whisper giggled at that one as Shepard rolled his eyes dramatically. "I was thinking we could just order in, even if it's not room service."
Yes, I'm alive. School and stuff has been eating me alive. I probably won't be updating as often in these next couple months, but don't worry, I'm not going away permanently anytime soon.
