Tali never left John's side the entire way to the ship sitting next to him in the medical bay hoping against everything that he would pull through one last time for her. She also knew though that if he did pull through this time she was going to force him to retire from the military whether he wanted to or not because her heart couldn't handle this kind of stress. She quietly laughed to herself a the thought, she knew he loved the military as his entire life has been focused on it as they were the ones who gave him a chance when the rest of his own planet didn't, but she was resilient and wasn't about to let him walk out on her again.
Tali heard the door behind her open and she turned to see Garrus and Dr. Chakwas walking into the medical bay, "How's he doing Tali?" Garrus asked as he walked towards her looking about as sad as a turian can. "He hasn't said anything to me yet but you know how stubborn he is," she said trying to make light of the situation both for Garrus and herself. Garrus didn't get to respond before Chakwas interrupted them, "I hate to break up any reunion but I need to try and keep him alive and I need everything off of him to do that,". Tali looked at the doctor with a questioning look, "But they already peeled his armor and underlayer off why would you need to take anything else off of him?" she asked feeling her cheeks warm up slightly at the thought of Shepard laying on the bed completely naked. 'Stop that, now's not the time' she thought to herself getting rid of those thoughts as quickly as they came, "Well I need to take everything off of him so he's ready to immediately go into surgery when we get aboard the other ship, he's in such bad shape I don't think we can chance taking any extra seconds we may need,".
Tali nodded and left the medical bay with Garrus as she decided it would probably just be best to see him on the human ship when they dock with them, after all, she did feel like she was being very selfish for making the engineering crew take over for her while she just sat there and watched Shepard. "I can tell what you're thinking and it's not selfish," Tali was surprised at this and immediately looked up at Garrus who was staring at her, "What?". "I said it's not selfish, so you don't need to think that it is, the whole crew understands what you're going through right now so taking a little break for yourself isn't something you should be ashamed of," Tali just looked at the floor. Everyone, even Shepard, has told her that it's ok for her to be a little selfish from time to time but she never understood why anyone would think that, all her life she has only known how to take care of others and push her needs down list so that the colony can survive.
Garrus took Tali up to Shepard's loft hoping that he could get her to get some sleep and rest her body, "Tali, I know you're worried about him, you have every right to be, but you know him and if there's any chance that he can come back then you know that tough son of a bitch is gonna make sure he gets back before dinner," Tali laughed a little at Garrus's comment but she then grew quiet for the rest of their elevator ride. When she got to the door to the loft she stopped and turned to Garrus, "Thank you for everything Garrus, I appreciate everything you've done for me and I owe you so much for helping me get Shepard back," Garrus smiled and nodded, "Of course, you're one of my few friends that have always been there for me," he then shooed her to the door with his arms, "Now you need to go get some rest before we dock otherwise Shepard is gonna get on my ass on how I let you keep yourself awake," Tali just laughed again but listened to his commands and entered the loft. Tali looked around the room reminiscing on everything that happened in this room not all that long ago, "You better not ever make me sleep alone again, you bosh'tet," she knew no one but EDI could hear her but she didn't care she just had to say something to calm herself down before she fell asleep.
Garrus was worried about Tali, she never seems to quit working and it's so difficult to get her to calm down and give herself a break. "One day I hope you can break her of that John," of course Garrus loved her hard-working attitude but he also knows that people need to take a break from time to time, otherwise they'll work themselves to death. 'Not much I can do to keep her from working though, I guess I'll just have to hope she listens to me,' he thought as the elevator dinged indicating it had reached his stop. He stepped out onto the CIC making his way towards the front of the ship to check up on Joker and see how much longer they have. "Joker!" he yelled as he was walking up the stairs to the pilot, "Well if it isn't the ugliest turian around," Garrus gave a light laugh at the jab, "Well at least my bones aren't made of glass,". "Man, really had to use the same joke as the commander huh," Garrus just shook his head, "How long do we have before we can get aboard a ship, Dr. Chakwas can keep him stable for a little bit but we seriously need to get him somewhere fast," Garrus knew how serious the situation was just as much as Joker did but he had told everyone that saw Shepard's condition to not let anyone else know how bad it was as to not cause a panic.
"Should be twenty minutes or less," Joker said before lowering his voice, "Do you think he's gonna make it?" Garrus paused for a second before he was ready to answer, "I think if he wants to pull through he will, we all know he's a tough son of a bitch," he said trying to lighten the mood and give a true answer. Joker only nodded at this answer thinking it over and seeming to accept it, "I'll take those odds,". Garrus gave the pilot a light smile before he turned and began his walk back to the medical bay, he figured he should go down and help as best as he could with Shepard.
When they were finally able to dock onto one of the few human ships left from the fleet they had already moved Shepard into the docking tube and were just awaiting the doors to open and the medical staff on the cruiser to take over. As soon as the door opened the medical staff did just that and immediately took Shepard towards their E.R. to begin all of the surgeries they would need to do. Of course, all of this had revealed what had happened to the commander but at the moment none of the crew were worried about the attention it was going to get, only for their commander to pull through.
Tali had followed Shepard and the medical staff all the way to the E.R. until they had to get someone to hold her back from going into the surgery with them. Garrus wasn't far behind Tali and was quick to take over on watching her and making sure she didn't try to sneak into the surgery. "Tali, everything is gonna be fine, you just need to let the professionals handle this," he was doing his best to calm her down but none of it seemed to calm the very, very worried quarian. "Well, what If he dies in there or if something goes wrong and I don't get to see him again or what if-," "Tali!," he knew she would cause herself to have a panic attack if she kept going into her own thoughts, "He's gonna be fine quit panicking about him and worry about yourself for once," he stared her down having grabbed her shoulders so she would give him her full attention. "Shepard needs you, so you need to be in your best shape but you can't be in your best shape if you keep worrying about him and not focusing on yourself," this seemed to get through to her as she nodded her head before she sat down with her head in her hands.
"I just don't know what to do," she said looking up at the turian who sat down next to her, "Well for starters you can go get some sleep and get back to full strength and then let the doctors here give you a quick once over and heal up so when he needs you to help him around after all those surgeries I won't have to come in and carry his big ass wherever he needs to go," this got a small laugh out of Tali but she nodded agreeing that she should probably get healed up so that way when he does need her, she can be there for him just like he was always there for her. "Alright, I'll go get checked out, and then I'll go get some more rest on the Normandy," Garrus gave her a smile, glad she was actually gonna take his advice "Good, I'll keep an eye on the commander and if anything happens before you get back I'll let you know,". Tali then walked away from Garrus to the front before getting escorted to one of the back rooms where they would be able to decontaminate the room so she could get checked out properly.
Garrus knew she didn't want to leave Shepard but he knew he could convince her if she would realize how much he's gonna need her once he's recovering from everything. 'I'm probably gonna have to help carry him around anyway but it's better to let her entertain the thought of being able to carry him around by herself,'. Garrus sat down in one of the chairs against the wall and decided if he would wait here until they gave him some news of Shepard, that didn't last all that long though as his exhaustion hit him like an angry krogan and he fell asleep before he could even stop himself.
(a.n.: sorry this chapter took so long to come out but I was having to finish up some stuff for school before I felt comfortable in focusing on finishing this chapter. Anyway I hope you guys enjoy it and as always if you have any suggestions please just let me know and I will take them into consideration. Thank you guys so much)
