This takes place shortly after chapter 25 of The Long, Long Walk. Said chapter actually comes out this Wednesday, but there are few major spoilers in this, so you should be fine.


Tali hadn't been too enthused to learn Shepard had brought the 'blue zombie'- with a seemingly AI companion- from Eden Prime aboard. Less so when she found out about the neural link the two shared. And the whole 'unkillable' thing? Watching Glint 'rez' him after Jack's little experiment had been one of the most unnerving, unnatural things she had ever witnessed, and it had only solidified her misgivings about the pair.

So, she kept them at arm's length, and kept a careful eye on them as well. The more she learned about them, the more uneasy she became, and more... confused. Not in that she didn't understand, as if anything Glint provided too much context, both in conversation and the little 'codex' he and Crow had put together. No, how human, how organic Glint was; that was confusing.

He was code woven and twisted with something otherworldly, something that didn't exist here or perhaps anywhere in this universe. It was like some secret ingredient, some answer to the riddle of 'how do we make them like us, truly'? The age-old question behind AI sciences, one that every species who had pioneered in it asked at some point. How did you make a computer feel? Empathize? Understand and value the weight of a sentient life?

She had come to know that Glint was a blurred line between AI and something other that could do all those things. She's seen him nervous, seen him offer comfort to the distressed, even mope around if he was told off for disruptivly scanning things. And he was... nice. Like one of those annoying nice people who you never told off, because an annoying nice person is better than an annoying bosh'tet. The kind of person you could trust, and she had found herself slowly coming to trust him and Crow without realizing it. Slowly starting to see the Ghost as a person, because it was becoming increasingly obvious that he was beyond AI, whatever he was.

The downside in this constantly updating viewpoint was that it made the concept of someone taking Glint apart and putting an explosive device inside him even more disturbing, not helped at all by an off-hand question posed by Garrus in Shepard's cabin, the night the Commander had read them in on the problem.

"I mean, imagine if someone did that to one of us while the others watched? Rigged one of us to blow and used it as leverage?"

Depending on who it was... Tali didn't want to think about it too hard. Considering the other things Shepard had needed to tell them to provide context, maybe, to Crow, it had felt like watching the world burn; watching what mattered get melted, scorched and twisted, all the while wondering how much of what was treasured would be left afterwards. She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to place herself in Crow's shoes.

But it was becoming harder, especially in the last week, during which they had worked almost non-stop on the transmat project, and let a geth help them with it, a geth that Crow had approved of bringing in on it. Knowing what he had been through was making it incredibly difficult to be as angry at him as she should be for letting Legion into Engineering every day for the past week.

Having to spend more time with him and Glint in relation to the project also didn't help with her crisis of trust... nor did Joker's insistence that 'team transmat' do 'team building exercises', as half an excuse to have proper movie nights on board the Normandy, half because he probably knew it both annoyed her to spend time with Crow, and that she also couldn't resist hanging out with the pilot and the others.

Today's such exercise, despite the fact they had already succeeded in their construction and integration of the transmat system, wasn't one of Joker's silly pre-ezzo human sci-fi flicks that he so enjoyed. No, after nixing their original plan of finding a firing range so Crow could cut loose with his Light(turned out that giving him caffeine was a bad idea, and that firing ranges didn't appreciate spontaneously combusting shooters), and maybe letting Gabby empty a few mags, they had discovered Crow lacked a certain life skill, and decided to correct that.

"Go easy on the break." Joker instructed when they all lurched forwards. "Go again, and then just press it slowly, gently. Pretend there's an orange under the pedal and you don't want to bruise it."

"Don't forget to keep an eye on attitude control." Tali gave her input without really thinking. "We aren't far off the ground now, but it never hurts to develop the habit."

"O-okay." The Awoken nodded, muscles tense and jaw set. Apparently, he wasn't a fan of skycars.

"Buddy, relax, it's an empty landing lot, not morning traffic." The Normandy's pilot assured him, slapping a hand on his shoulder. "Driving tense will just lead to mistakes."

"Like?" Crow prompted as he coasted them slowly around the edge of the lot. From a bench at the closest end, Tali saw Ken offer a nervous thumbs up while Gabby slept on his shoulder, apparently finally crashing after what Chakwas might consider a coffee overdose.

"Startle at the smallest thing and put it into a spin." She told him bluntly. Crow inhaled deeply, and when he exhaled, a flurry of static particles followed, small flashes of electricity arcing between a few. She had never seen him channel electricity before, though she knew he could do it in theory.

They continued to have the Hunter drive them around, tried him on ascent and descent, and, when Shepard sent her a message inviting her to join the Commander and Garrus, who were going to fetch Liara from her apartment for dinner soon, they began the hardest lesson; landing.

"No, nope." Joker protested when they were dropped unceremoniously onto the landing pad. Crow winced.

"Sorry." He apologized.

"Nope, take her back up." The pilot shook his head.

"Joker..." Tali groaned. If she knew him at all, he wouldn't be able to leave until he had gotten Crow to land smoothly. And if it didn't happen quickly she would be late.

"Just take her back up and try again." And so he did. Once, twice, thrice, and again Crow tried to land gently, and each time, he failed. On the failure of the fifth try, Tali was about to lose her patience, but Crow lost his first; lightning twisted between his fingers as he gripped the wheel tightly, and arced up his right shoulder. It burnt the seat.

"Crow!" She warned. "Stop channeling."

"Sorry!" He apologized again, and the lightning stopped.

"You know what? Let's try this when you aren't all sparked up on caffeine. " Joker conceded, patting his shoulder. The Awoken let out a dejected sigh, shoulders stooped.

"Yeah, you're probably right." He admitted, shutting the machine down. "I was always bad at landings anyway."

"Go get Ken and Gabby, we'll drop Tali off and go back to the Normandy." Joker told him as they both undid their seatbelts. "We can totally fit everybody if the skinny people go in the back."

"Being...?" Tali challenged, and he looked back to grin at her.

"Just a fact, you and Gabby are small women, Crow is still a bit of a twig." The Awoken in question sighed as the pilot spoke and he himself climbed out.

"I'll get the others." He stated, and Joker extracted himself from the vehicle before limping around to get in the driver's seat.

"Hey, thanks for helping with this." He said as they waited on the others. "I know you still got problems with him."

"Yeah. I'm... trying." She shifted uncomfortably. The door on her left opened, and a yawning Gabby stumbled into her seat, grumbling as she strapped in, before Crow got in on the quarian's right and Ken took up the passenger seat.

"Got the address?" Joker asked, and Tali sent it to his omni-tool. Crow settled in beside her, and she now thought she could feel the nervous energy sparking and snapping off of him. Squished in the back seat of a skycar together, she noticed for the first time that he was unnaturally warm, she could feel him through her suit. Others had mentioned the side effects of his Light, a higher body temperature among them, particularly when he was channeling.

She leaned back and tried to relax, trying to ignore the living heater that was currently pressed against her side, and failing as he tensed up when they took off. Didn't he lose control of his Light when he was nervous, hence warming the air? The way his face was set, the way he gripped the side of the door...

Was Crow afraid of flying? She couldn't help but wonder at the oddity of it if it was so; a being that defied the natural order as boldy as a rebel child was afraid of flying. He never seemed to have a problem on the Normandy, or on the Kodiak, but then again they were usually all experiencing pre-mission jitters on that shuttle, so it could be mistaken as that.

"Hey." She says quietly, finding herself giving him a nudge as they enter traffic. She doesn't know why. He looks at her, and for the first time she realizes that his eyes have changed since they first met; no longer a pale yellow, but a molten gold that lit up his cheeks with a slight, warm light. They are currently fixed on her in an expression of trepidation. "Joker's never wrecked a skycar and never will."

At this, he actually let's out a snort of amusement. "That's exactly what he said on my first trip to the Citadel."

"I hate to say it, but it is true." She finds herself placing a hand on his forearm hesitantly; his muscles are as tense as steel cables on an old bridge. "It'll be fine. Just, relax, and turn the temperature down a bit."

"Sorr-"

"And stop apologizing." She cuts in. "Just take my advice."

"Okay." Gradually, the Hunter relaxes. After a few moments, she can no longer feel him through her suit, and after about a minute more of staring ahead absent-mindedly, she realizes her hand is still on his arm. Face hot, she removes it, slow enough that it isn't mistaken as rude, fast enough that it hopefully amended any discomfort it had brought him. He wasn't big on contact.

Tali leans back, tries to relax, and tries not to think about why Crow disliked contact.

Because her feelings on the whole situation would get more complicated if she did, and right now, she just wanted an evening out with her oldest friends.


So originally this was going to be part of a chapter, but a sudden Tali POV didn't feel like it fit, and as much as I wanted to write Crow a driving lesson, it felt more like a fluff bit than something that would be part of a chapter; more like a few passing paragraphs, if it got mentioned at all. So, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and do it as an N7 day one-shot. I'm basically giving you all two chapters this week, since this is technically long enough for me to count it as a short one.

Fare Thee Well!