A/N: For everyone who has reviewed, followed, or favorited this story: THANK YOU. Your comments truly do motivate me to continue working on this crazy idea of a cross-over fic!
"Not sure if turian heaven is the same as yours, but if this thing goes sideways and we both end up there-"
Meet me at the bar, Rathnait Shepard half-opened her eyes to find herself slumped over a bar with her head in her arms and feeling like she'd spent the night challenging Wrex to ryncol shots. Wherever she was, this place clearly wasn't going for the "dimly-lit bar" atmosphere, as the bright white light forced her to close her eyes again. So much for the afterlife being painless, she thought sleepily as she yawned.
"Looks like you've been through hell, little graceful one," an unmistakably familiar voice chided in front of her as she heard the sound of a glass being set down beside her and the sounds of a bottle being unscrewed.
It can't be…Shepard's eyes shot fully open as she lifted her head a few inches and looked up to see the pale skin and dirty blonde figure of former Tenth Street Red Talitha Mcleod pouring a measure of what smelled like whiskey over ice.
"Tess?" she began as she slowly became more aware of her surroundings. She'd been correct in her initial assumption that was seated at a bar, but it wasn't the modern ones of the Citadel constructed of metal and synthetic materials: this one had been built centuries ago with polished wood and mirrored shelves behind the liquor bottles. A bright white fog that obscured anything beyond a few feet of her location. (Although come to think of it, she'd heard stories of bars like these from Finch where cigarette smoke had been about as thick.) Tess also wasn't clad in the revealing mini-skirt and midriff-revealing top that seemed to be the unwritten dress code of every other establishment that she'd had worked for; instead, she wore a soft, long-sleeved, cream-colored sweater dress.
The tanned dirty blonde with chest-length hair and green eyes smiled back at her. "Glad to know you still recognize your old guardian," Tess answered as she placed one of the glasses in Shepard's hand and leaned back against the shelf with the other, gently swirling it while Shepard took her own and wrapped both her hands around the it as a myriad of unpleasant memories surrounding Tess' final days prior to her departure to Basic-
"-you're getting on that flight tomorrow, Rathnait Shepard," a sunken-eyed Tess snaps from her bed. It's the most animated she's been since that specialist up at the Clinic told her that she only had weeks to live a month ago-
A door opened and a bell jingled faintly in the distance. "I'm sorry, Tess," she said after a prolonged silence.
Tess cupped her hand under Shepard's chin and gently tilted it up so that they faced each other. "Don't be, Little One" she said as the sound of footsteps came closer to them. "After all, I've heard nothing but glowing reviews from your turian friend here-" she added with a quick jerk of her head at something just to Shepard's left.
Shepard's heart swelled at the word "turian." "Gar-" her voice rose as she swung around to face the newcomer, but her last syllable fell when saw not the familiar blue-upon-silver colony markings of Garrus, but the ornate cream-on-maroon ones of Nihlus Kryik, the turian Spectre who'd put her name forward for Spectre candidacy. "-lus," she finished weakly as Nihlus continued up to the bar with what Shepard assumed was a nod at Tess.
"Expecting someone else, dear?" Tess asked with a slight tilt of her head and a sympathetic glance as she poured another drink and slid it down the polished wood to Nihlus, who caught and downed it in one smooth motion.
"I…" Shepard stammered again as she watched Nihlus' every move, her heart aching.
"To answer his question, yes," Nihlus began without pleasantries as he turned his head and their green eyes met. "But I highly doubt you'll meet him here, Commander." His tone softened as their eyes met and he placed his hands on her shoulders. "And you know why."
For perhaps the first time since she'd arrived in this place, Shepard felt her heart stir within her and tears began to cloud her vision. She broke eye contact and looked down at her feet as a tear fell and struck her boot with a quiet plop. "You know, you and Garrus would have made quite the team," she said in attempt to lighten her mood.
A derisive snort from the other side of the bar. "Who did you think watched your boyfriend's six for the past three years?" Tess muttered in a barely audible voice as she dried the inside of a glass with a rag.
A raised eyebrow from the red-haired member of group. "He's been wha-AHHHH!" she screamed as pain exploded throughout her entire body and knocked her off her stool and to the floor, where she landed on her knees on the floor at Nihlus' feet. When she opened her eyes again, her arm had gone from solid to translucent, and was quickly becoming more so. The hell?
"Looks like her thirty minutes are up, Nihlus…" Tess' voice echoed distantly from overhead as a clock chimed.
"May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead." Garrus' words to her prior to their final ground assault on the Reapers. I should have known that'd I'd be sent to the renegade afterlife destination.
"So it would seem," Nihlus answered pensively, just as distant.
"What's…happening…to me?" Shepard gasped in horror as parts of her skin turned to charred, black flesh and burning pain wracked her body once more. Memories of dying after destroying the red capsule rushed through her mind. No, she thought, it can't be possible…I died on Earth
Nihlus dropped to his knees and held out his gloved talons, which Shepard grabbed and held as tears began to slide down her face and onto her knees.
"Please…make it stop," she gasped, breathless from the pain as she made eye contact with Nihlus once more as she forced herself to a kneeling position. The light that once surrounded her now faded to a hazy darkness.
"This will all be over soon, Commander," Nihlus' subvocals hummed soothingly as he cupped her face in one talon precisely as Garrus had done before she had surrendered him to James and the Normandy. "But you're going to have to do one thing before you go."
Tears streamed over her face as she whispered back "What?"
"Breathe," he answered as he touched the tips of his talons to her index and ring fingertips.
She closed her eyes, and a vision of Garrus and Joker standing side-by-side in a tropical jungle floated over her mind as she summoned the last bit of her willpower to inhale through fractured ribs. Take care of him, Joker, was her last thought before she felt herself being sucked from this world to the next.