"Confirmed, Filmore. This is the Malinor. We will hold station at this position, awaiting your signal to continue." Garrus sighed loudly. Looking over to the other chair in the cockpit of the vessel, he watched Tali work her omnitool with her usual blazing speed. Garrus simply watched her work, practically hypnotized by the display. He had no idea what exactly she was doing. He cleared his throat, trying to subtly get her attention. He knew they had some time to kill, and she'd been attached to her omnitool ever since they'd left Earth. To him, she looked…stiff, he thought. It was hard to place. She looked like she was trying too hard to look calm. She looked unnatural, the tapping of the keys of her omnitool were too rhythmic, too precise.

Like she was overcompensating.

"Tali, everything all right?"

When she didn't respond, he asked again.

"Hmm? Oh…yeah. Keelah, sorry Garrus. What's going on? Are we there yet?" She'd looked up at him with an off-putting twitchy head movement.

Definitely overcompensating.

He let out a little laugh, shaking his head. "It's okay. We're just waiting for the Filmore to clear the last of the debris before our final approach. So, uh…we've got some time to kill."

She shook her head. "There's always something, right? At least it's not Reapers." She looked around and saw that it was just the two of them. "Where's Liara?"

The turian looked toward the back of the ship, shrugging his shoulders. "She said she was tired. Decided to take a nap."

"Hmm. I hope she's okay."

"I'm sure she is. It's tough being the…what did Shepard call me all the time when it was the three of us? The 'third wheel'? I mean, I'm piloting, you're doing…whatever the hell it is that you're doing -"

"Preparations, Garrus."

"Right. 'Preparations'. Is that anything like my 'calibrations'?" She laughed a little while shaking her head. He was clearly not convinced. "And she's just sort of…here, I guess."

Tali sighed. She felt badly, and she knew that she was not being a very good friend right now - to either of them. But she felt like it was impossible for her to be. She was trying very hard to keep from showing just how much pain she was in. She felt, for lack of a better word, incomplete.

And it was manifesting itself in unexpected ways.

To Tali, it felt quite a lot like the times when John would get an itch in the middle of his back. He'd groan in annoyance, at first flailing comically as he tried to bend his arms in ways that were clearly unnatural. Then he would huff in defeat, and she would come to his rescue after she heartily laughed at him. She felt like that, but the only person who could scratch this particular itch was John, and the itch was located inside her head.

Keelah.

On a simpler emotional level, she felt remorseful. Leaving Shepard at the hospital felt, for her, like how she imagined that John had felt when he shuffled her back onto the Normandy. The comparison was fundamentally ludicrous, of course. She knew that it was a completely stupid thing to think, but keelah, how her heart hurt. I don't care what anyone back home thinks about us. This pain could only come from being away from my saera. In some ways, this pain made her feel better; like it was just another affirmation of the depth and truth of their love.

Validation, in a peculiarly painful way.

"Garrus, I'm sorry. I'm being so…distant. And aloof." She turned to look out the window, watching the slowly spinning wreckage of what looked like an Alliance destroyer. She sighed. "I'm just distracted, Garrus. And I'm trying to stay that way so I don't have to think about not -"

"Being with him?"

She turned back to him, before letting out a sharp exhalation. "Yeah. It hurts me so much."

It was perhaps more than she had intended to share, but it was Garrus. He knew her almost as well as Shepard did. He thought about asking her more about this, mostly to satiate his own curiosity. Instead, he let the subject drop; and both were content to let silence prevail for a time. Tali stared out the window, while Garrus started playing Freecell on his omnitool. It had been yet another human pastime that Shepard had introduced him to.

This is harder than I expected it to be. Not even the stuff I read prepared me for this. I feel so…empty. She produced a rueful smirk. Auntie Raan could have at least warned me about -

"By the way, I'm sorry, Tali."

With no warning nor fanfare, Garrus had broken the silence once more.

The sound of the turian's voice had shaken her from her contemplation.

Garrus was still idly moving the playing cards - which had oddly-turian characters on the face cards - around, not really getting anywhere with 3 of his 4 cells occupied.

She narrowed her eyes in concentration and confusion - thinking that she had missed something obvious that he would be apologizing for. She shrugged, convinced that she hadn't missed anything. "Hmph. What for?" She returned to her own omnitool doing Spirits-knew-what, and she did not look up either as she replied.

The turian sighed as the screen informed him that he had no legal moves available. Instead of looking at his quarian friend, he was looking down at his controls absent-mindedly. "For being, as you and Liara are so fond of pointing out, an ass."

Tali looked up at him and started to reply when he abruptly cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"And don't try to make me feel better by telling me that it's okay. You'd think that I was Liara herself the way I wrote that. Could I have possibly been any more vague? And besides, I was still in-system near Palaven. I could have vid-called you instead. Had a real conversation. Mitigated my tendency to be an idiot." He looked up from the controls and looked at her. "Instead, I let you and Shepard worry about us, when you two had enough on your minds already." He checked the navigation display. It would still be at least another few minutes before they could resume regular cruising speed. "Speaking of which, how is he? How is he really?"

So much for taking my mind off him. Tali smiled ruefully. She stopped for a moment in thought before deciding on how to continue. "He's better, Garrus. On both fronts, I think. Physically? Keelah, he is much better. He still needs the cane, and his breathing is not great, but Miranda says that it's 'good enough'. Hmph. She always says that with this…tone in her voice. I'm usually very good at picking these things up, but I sometimes can't read her."

He chuckled. He hadn't cared for Miranda when he'd met her, and despite her care for Shepard during this recovery, he still held reservations. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"Mentally? Emotionally? He - we - did have some…things to work out, but we got through them. He's…there's going to be some pain there, I think. It's not ever going away, but I think he can at least live with it now."

He felt a tremendous sense of relief. He thought back to the conversation he and Shepard had had before he'd left for Palaven. It was obvious then that he had been shouldering a lot of pain, and that Shepard had been struggling with it mightily. A turian smile touched his face. "That's good. That's…very good. I was worried about him - and you too - when I left Earth. I figured that you would work it out."

He didn't press for details. When the time came, if he was willing to talk, Garrus would listen. He knew that that time might never come, though. Spirits knew that there were some things from his time on Omega that he hadn't shared. Some things were too painful, too raw, to say out loud. The sting of some things was too much like an exposed nerve, there was no need to keep poking at it.

"Yeah, well…there were things that he helped me work through, too."

He sent her a quick, somewhat surprised glance, before reverting to his standard stoic demeanor, checking the display again. "Well, no one came out of this without scars, Tali." He checked his nav display. "And of course he helped you work them out, too." He shot her another look of obviousness. "You two were made for each other. I would have expected nothing less."

Tali didn't really know what to say. She thought about replying - telling him about how she'd felt while he was still in surgery. She thought better of it. Some things would remain solely between she and her seara. Instead, she nodded before beginning her own probing interview. "So, Garrus. Now that the war is finally done, what is going on with you and Kasumi?"

The turian stiffened at the mention of Ms. Goto. It had been fairly well-known (and it had even been brought up from time to time among the three of them) that she and Garrus had had…something going on during the mission against the Collectors, but after they split up (once again without Shepard holding everyone together, Tali had ruefully noted), no one really knew what had gone on. But by now, he figured that Tali of all people deserved some kind of an answer.

Besides, Tali and Kasumi were friends. If Garrus hadn't filled her in…well, Kasumi likely already had.

"Tali, it's complicated. There was something there, but after the Collectors mission, I had to go to Palaven to try to get us ready for the Reapers. And she…well I didn't really know where she went. At least until she popped up on the Citadel." Once again he checked the nav display. "I told her to keep in contact, but that we couldn't pursue…anything further until the Reapers were dealt with."

Tali was incredulous. If her time with her friends had taught her anything, it's that time is fleeting and guarantees aren't even worth the breath that they're uttered with. She gesticulated animatedly as she spoke. "Garrus, why? That doesn't make any sense. You can't just put those things off! You two should have -"

Garrus shot her a look - he wasn't quite furious, but he was hurt by her implication. His mandibles twitched.

"Tali, correct me if I'm wrong here, but did you not do something similar with Shepard when it was your people hanging in the balance? What did Shepard say about 'glass houses'?"

Keelah, did that sound familiar. Immediately, her face flushed with the chastisement. She nervously played with her fingers.

He was right of course, and Tali hated it as she was once again reminded of how she had left Shepard - completely cut him off, in fact. Furthermore, she had touched a nerve with her friend, and had done so clumsily and painfully.

"You're…you're right, Garrus. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you were…that is…that I was somehow…"

Whatever she had planned on saying was cut off by her sigh of embarrassment.

There was no use in wallowing in the faux moral high ground of a stabbing "I told you so". Instead, he pushed forward the olive branch. "It's okay, Tali. I get it." He sighed. "To be honest, I don't even know if she's alive."

Sadness was evident in his voice. It was nestled in tightly with regret. So often they were comfortable bedfellows, which made Garrus quite uncomfortable.

"If who is alive?"

The soft and inquiring voice had come from behind them, and it could have only belonged to one other person. Liara had clearly awakened from her nap.

"Kasumi." They both had replied in unison and in a very understated way that Shepard would probably have found hilarious. As it was, there was no reaction for a moment.

Crickets, Shepard might have thought.

Liara looked at them both, moving her head from one, back to the other, considering. She was about to open her mouth to say something when the radio cut her off.

"Malinor, this is the Filmore. Please be advised that your path is clear and we are leaving the area. If you encounter any problems, please use the designated emergency frequency for Alliance Control."

"Copy that, Filmore. Thanks for clearing the way."

And with that, the conversation was over.

None of them had ever before been this close to a Geth ship without fear of destruction. Not even after Shepard had secured peace had they been alongside any of their ships like this. The cruiser was huge, and even amongst the other lifeless husks floating through space, it stood out. Aside from the Citadel when Tali had found Shepard amongst the ruins, this ship was likely the largest single graveyard any of them had seen.

No amount of pontificating would dissuade any of them from knowing that the Geth were indeed corpses.

"Goddess, that is a big ship." Liara intoned; her eyes wide as she ran her them along the vessel's hull. Hackett had been right about this particular vessel - it had been relatively out of the way, and it appeared to be nearly completely undamaged. Occasionally, she would spy a small dent or scratches along the side of its brilliantly white hull. With its barriers down, the hull itself had been exposed to all manner of debris in this pocket of space. Seeing no major damage or apparent hull breaches, it would appear that luck continued to go their way. Finally, Garrus was able to pull their small ship alongside the docking hatch and airlock.

Docking with the Geth ship was easier than any of them would have thought. It appeared that the Pulse (they were all calling it that now, it'd become a proper noun) had not affected any change of inertia. It had been just a simple matter of getting the docking clamp aligned and then let the ship's computer do the rest. Garrus knew that Joker would have given him no small amount of shit for what he considered to be "cheating", but the turian was, after all, not a pilot by trade. Hearing the click, thud, then hiss as the pressures equalized, Tali hacked the controls, opening the doors in a sudden and loud motion.

Immediately, two inert Geth units rolled out and onto the airlock floor.

Three gasps of surprise were heard as a result.

"Keelah…"

Tali knelt down, giving them a quick inspection before moving into the ship proper. They stepped gingerly, reverently around them.

They entered carefully in the dim haze of faintly red emergency lighting. As Tali scanned the ship, two things were apparent: main power was offline, and there were no internal signs of weapons damage. There were no burned out consoles or scarring from fires. It was apparent that what had happened here was significantly different from what had happened to the Reapers. Whereas the Reapers had succumbed noisily and with explosive fanfare, there was no evidence of that here.

The Geth had departed with nary a whimper.

Stepping further into the room (whatever it was), they found Geth units of all types - from standard foot soldiers to the hulking Primes - ghoulishly non-functional. Some were slumped over consoles, others lay prostrate on the floor; all of them looking to all the world as inoperative as the rest. The eeriness was palpable.

Tali felt a shiver run up her spine. It was one thing to simply state to a man like Hackett - correcting him - that the Geth were "dead"; it was another thing entirely to see their corpses firsthand and to have to step around their lifeless forms. With a deep breath to clear her head, she spoke to the others.

"All right, fan out," Tali stated over her external mic to the team. "Let's inspect the Geth themselves. Maybe we can learn something, or maybe…reboot them?" Tali had spoken with authority and decisiveness. Her words demonstrated that yes, she was worthy of command, but also that she did not hold out much hope for what remained here aboard this floating monument to the dead.

They each scanned a separate Geth unit - each had the same result. A flicker of light at the center of each head - for that brief instant each held a strange mixture of hope and trepidation - but both the feeling and the light itself disappeared just as quickly. Looking over at Garrus, who shook his head ruefully to show that he'd had no luck either, Liara let out a sigh.

"I guess that answers that, then." She stood from her crouched position, tapping a few buttons as her omnitool's menu winked out.

They met back at the center of the room, which upon further inspection appeared to have a power flow monitoring station. Tali was once again working her omnitool in front of the monitoring console. She shook her head.

"Okay, main power is definitely down, so we'll have to get to main engineering to try to get it back up and running again before we can even start to sort through data." She looked up at them. "You guys good with a little climbing?" They answered her in unison.

"Yes."

"No."

Tali laughed at their answers. Liara had almost sounded excited. Garrus…not so much.

"Damn it," he muttered. "Do I have a choice in the matter?"

"Umm, no Garrus. You don't."

Liara clasped a hand gently on his shoulder as she walked past him, chuckling as she did so.

Engineering looked very much like the rest of the ship that they'd seen so far. The slight haze, the dim red lighting, and of course the Geth corpses were all present here as well. Which of course did nothing for the mood.

Fanning out, they each found separate consoles, hoping that something would still be operational. Tali tried tapping a few buttons on the console that appeared to control power flow, fuel matrices, and other assorted information.

The quarian admiral called up a specially-designed diagnostic protocol on her omnitool after Liara and Garrus had both confirmed that they only had minimal success. As in, the terminals worked, but they couldn't do anything with them.

After a few moments when she watched the display intently, she finally got the scan results. "Bosh'tet. Of course it's that."

"Of course it's what, Tali?" Liara had moved to stand beside her, fascinated by the protocol that the quarian had been running.

"Two of the power relays leading from the drive core are misaligned. They're stopping power from getting to the rest of the ship and the other systems."

"Can we fix it from here?" Garrus was clearly irritated now, and had joined them in front of the dimly-pulsing drive core. He wasn't a huge fan of the oppressive atmosphere himself, and walking around this dead ship with its dead crew was beginning to wear on him.

"No, unfortunately it looks like they'll have to be realigned manually." She studied the floating display of her omnitool. It appeared to be showing a schematic layout of main engineering. "There's a maintenance shaft here," she pointed first to the display, then to an access port a few meters away, "that should get me to the misaligned couplings."

He frowned at the prospect. He didn't like having Tali go in by herself, but what choice did they have? "Hmm. Okay, what do you need from us?"

Tali glanced around the room again. Spotting what she was looking for, she paced over to a terminal on the far side of the room. Tapping a few buttons, they watched it light up. "Hmmm…yes, this should be it." she glanced up at the turian, "Garrus, I'll need you at this station. This should be the control console. When I'm inside, I'll need you to monitor this station. I may need you to make external adjustments once I get power flowing."

"And what should I do, Tali?"

"Liara, be a second set of eyes on that console over there. And, um…keep an eye on me?" The way her voice pitch rose at the end of the question was a clear indication of how nervous and unsettled Tali was to be going in there. Liara gave her a curious look. "I'm going to be inside a maintenance shaft on a Geth cruiser and fiddling around with their drive core. I know a lot about them, but not that much." She let out a nervous laugh.

Liara touched her shoulder reassuringly. "Of course, Tali."

A few minutes later after checking her suit's HUD and recalibrating Chatika, she was inside the maintenance shaft with Garrus and Liara at their respective stations.

Keelah. Just calm down Tali. It's just a maintenance shaft like the dozens of others you've crawled around in hundreds of times.

There was a nervy silence as they each watched their displays. The air, despite being a near-vacuum, felt thick and oppressive. Garrus's grip on the console was excruciatingly tight.

"Okay, I'm opening the hatch to the first section."

"Acknowledged, Tali," came Garrus' reply. Liara remained quiet, studying her monitor.

As she crawled forward, she took notice of just how simple everything looked in here. There was simple metal grating for a floor, simple smooth walls lining the shaft itself. If she didn't know better, she wouldn't have been able to tell that this was a Geth ship - well, based on this one maintenance shaft, anyway. But keelah, she did know better. The further in she went, the more her mind wandered. Tali thought of the many times that she would be doing this exact thing in the Normandy - crawling around inside a maintenance shaft. She tried to convince herself that this was the same thing - just a maintenance shaft aboard another vessel. She let out a shuddering breath, trying not to focus on the fact that she was crawling around inside a Geth vessel, and that that vessel was a veritable tomb. She felt like the tunnel was growing just a little bit tighter around her. She thought of -

"Don't you dare, Tali. Not that, not here. Not now."

Over her intercom came the soft but concerned voice of Liara. "Tali, is everything all right? I heard you talking -"

"I'm fine Liara," she said with a huff. "Just…reminded of something from the Normandy, that's all."

"Uh, you wouldn't be thinking about 'Charlotte' now, would you, Tali?" Garrus' gravelly voice was teasing.

"Damn it, Garrus, don't you dare!"

He starting laughing while Liara just stared at him with a confused look.

"It was on the SR-2 during the Collectors mission, Liara." Garrus was still laughing. "And poor Tali here was crawling -"

"I told you to shut it, you bosh'tet!"

Garrus shrugged off the interruption. "In one of the maintenance shafts and was driven back to the safety of Engineering -"

"Garrus!"

The evil, mirthful grin was plastered on his face now. "By a spider."

Liara at first made no visible reaction, as if she was trying to process the entire scenario. Eventually she did start to laugh. "Tali, I am sorry. But it is quite -"

Even Tali let out a laugh now. "Yes, I know it's all very hilarious now, but -" Tali cut herself off. "Okay, um, I'm at the first power junction. I'm going to start calibrating it now."

Liara responded first, wearing her own devious smile. "Tali, watch your language. You're going to make Garrus very distracted. I can see him right now, I think his eyes are already glazed over." This elicited a strain of giggles from both Liara and Tali. Immediately, she felt much better despite her tight surroundings.

Tali replied in a teasingly seductive voice. "Oh Garrus, I forgot how much you love calibrations. I should have let you play around in heeeere." She drew out the last word in a clear attempt at mocking innuendo. She giggled again at him.

Garrus simply rolled his eyes, with a smirk.

Then Tali was all business again. Her tone was serious. "Okay, guys, I'll be a few minutes. Just…talk amongst yourselves or something, but please, watch your monitors."

"Acknowledged, Tali," came the response from Liara.

For the next few moments, they simply watched their monitors in silence. But something had been bothering Liara, and she now figured that it was as good a time as any to broach the topic.

"So, Garrus…" The asari had switched to a private channel with only the turian on the other end.

"Hmm. Yes, Liara?"

"About Kasumi."

She looked up to see his back straighten noticeably. He let out his breath in a huff. "Liara, what about her?"

"Garrus…I know where she is."

The turian did not move at first. He simply…stared at the display, not even raising his eyes to meet Liara's. He closed them for a moment, and when they shot open again, he looked at Liara with an expression that she could not place.

"Where…is she?"

She was immediately apprehensive; such were the undertones in his voice. She knew that it needed to be said - he needed to be told.

"Garrus, she's on Earth." Then, more quietly, "Has been for a couple of days."

He nodded slightly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it was not my place to," she said forcefully, "and there were other things going on, Garrus. Like Shepard and Tali." She continued before he could interrupt her. "And I thought that she would reach out to you in her own time, in her own way. If that was what she wanted."

He began to formulate a reply, but stopped short as he spotted something on his monitor. He switched to their shared radio channel. "Tali, I'm seeing a minor spike in power junction…uh, your overlay is interpreting it as 'D3'."

"Okay." A few seconds pass. "How about now?"

"Yeah, everything looks good again."

"Good. Thanks, Garrus. I'll just be a few more moments on this one. Stand by."

"Got it, Tali."

Again, silence descended on them. For Liara, she simply waited for Garrus to process what she had said. She had expected a response such as the one she received. The turian was stoic, sometimes stubborn, occasionally funny, but when presented with reason, he almost always would agree - or at least understand. She expected no less from her friend.

"Liara…" he started, then stopped. The way he had said her name made her wish that she was half as good as Tali was at perceiving the little things in movement and sound that helped her to perceive so much about others. She decided to be assertive, for once.

"Garrus, I am sorry. But it was not my -"

He looked up from his monitor. "Liara, it's…okay. I understand. It wasn't your place to interfere." He paused, considering. "But thank you. For telling me. It's good to know that she's at least okay."

She gave him a somewhat uncomfortable smile in response. It stayed there just a moment, then was gone.

Over their mics, Tali informed them that she was moving on to the second relay.

—

"Okay, and that should do it." Tali had given a few more taps to her omnitool and recalled Chatika, the combat drone that she had repurposed for maintenance for this part of the mission. As she pocketed the drone, she heard a low groan coming from within the shaft. On cue, Garrus was in her ears.

"Tali, there's a problem. The power flow is back, but it's unbalanced. It's starting to overheat your area. I'll try to fix it, but you need to get the hell out of there."

She studied the readings on her omnitool as he had told her this. "Got it, Garrus. I'm coming back now."

The seconds ticked by as once again she felt the familiar time warp that only heightened stress can achieve. How long had it been? Seconds? Minutes? It was impossible to tell. She could hear her heartbeat booming in her ears, as she crawled as fast as she could to get out. The only sound was the steady click-whoosh as her knees would strike the grated metal floor, then their push forward would immediately follow.

Her engineer's voice began a conversation.

What could have caused the unbalanced power flow? One of the matrices was misaligned maybe? If it's that, even I would have a hard time realigning them quickly. So how will Garrus be able to -

The steadily beading sweat that was beginning to form on her forehead brought her attention back to her current predicament. Grunting, she pushed herself harder, trying to ignore the incessant pounding of her pulse in her ears.

This is bullshit. All of that effort to get back to John. She huffed in desperate annoyance. Crawl faster, Tali! You cannot leave him!

Liara watched as almost all of the readings were turning a dark orange. She felt her own heart race. "Tali, the temperature is reaching critical levels." Liara tried to remain calm, tried to keep her voice that way. Her own hands were wringing furiously.

"I know, Liara! I'm going as fast as I can! Garrus, where are we on the power levels?"

Liara closed her eyes in frustration and fear.

Garrus worked his hands over the controls furiously and with singular purpose. Checking each junction for even the smallest misalignment was no small feat for even a trained engineer. Unfortunately the one that they had was the one trying to escape. He would have to do.

"We'll get her back to you," he whispered in shameful anger. He wasn't sure if he could live with himself if that was one promise he failed to keep. With renewed pace, his fingers flew even faster.

"I'm almost there, Tali. Keep moving!"

She huffed. "Keelah, Garrus. Like you need to tell me!"

Inside her suit, Tali was now drenched in sweat - it was more than the suit's moisture recyclers could keep up with. Her chest heaved as she continued to move, but inexorably, her pace was slowing. Her arms and shoulders were aching, as they bore the brunt of her furious pace. More than once, they threatened to collapse under her weight and her mind was starting to waver. She looked up - she was so close to the exit. She just had to keep moving. And then she thought she saw Liara standing at the end of the tunnel.

Ancestors…please…just let me…

Liara had indeed moved to the exit of the maintenance shaft, and watched with determination and cool calculation. The familiar blue glow of biotics began to form around her hands, which hung at her sides with tensed muscles as she moved into a low stance with bent knees. She looked ready for a fight. Perhaps she was.

"Tali," she growled, "come on! Move just a little bit closer to me!" She looked over at Garrus worryingly, then got angry. "Damn it, Garrus! Hurry up! She's being cooked alive in there!"

Garrus did not respond. He was furiously working the controls, but the Geth systems were not as familiar to him as they were to Tali. But he was getting there. He just needed a little bit more time.

Inside her suit, the HUD inside her visor was beginning to flicker. The electronics within it were not designed to work in such an environment. Tali herself was grunting now, she was exhausted, soaked in sweat, and she thought that she could feel her feet beginning to burn. Her tears were mixing with the sweat now, and she couldn't tell one from the other.

Her arms gave out from under her and she clumsily fell forward, the loud clang of metal on metal was striking as her helmet clashed against the floor.

She whimpered.

This isn't fair…

Through desperate, shallow breaths - shallow because she couldn't breathe any other way by now - Tali released one sad and regretful plea.

"Liara…I can't…please tell my saera…that I'm so sor-"

Liara, furious and determined, was having none of it.

"I will do no such thing!" It was a growling yell that she let out as she unleashed her formidable biotic abilities.

"It's a beautiful place you have here, Miss vas Normandy."

She looked around at the sweeping vistas, the clear blue sky, the tall and staggering red cliffs that surrounded them and couldn't help but agree. At the end of the path before them sat the shimmering lake that they hadn't yet named.

They were captivated by its beauty.

"Beach front property, Tali. It's a buyer's market."

Overhead, a bird that she hadn't yet been able to identify circled lazily overhead.

It was late in the day, and Tikkun was inching closer to the horizon. Its faded orange light was deepening as it did so, drowning the world around them in a beautiful sea of citrus.

Shepard gently placed his rough hand on her bare chin and turned her face to his. "Better get it while the getting's good."

Keelah, humans and their phrases.

But he was so perfect; she could forgive the occasional bit of nonsense that came out of his mouth. Without warning, he put his other hand against her cheek to hold her in place as he pressed his lips against hers. Gently at first - after all, there was no rush anymore. But then the quarian pressed hers back with more force - her soft and pillowy lips against his, which were slightly drier and a little chapped. She was desperate to feel him on her. Moaning into his mouth, she reached to pull his head into hers. Their tongues danced with each other; tasted each other. Her eyes were closed, just focusing on this feeling. This intimate touch, the sharing of each other - even if only by way of their mouths - was so perfect in this place. This home.

Her home.

To catch her breath, she pulled away from him. Her breath caught in her throat, for as she pulled away just for a second, it didn't stop there.

"John?" He was reaching for her now, a panicked look on his face. "John? Saera? What's happening?" She kept gliding away from him, her bare feet were meters off the ground. He took a couple of steps, trying to keep up with her, but he was in no shape any longer to put up much of a fight. Comically, his arms reached in front of him as he attempted to grasp her once again. But he couldn't. And he was screaming her name.

"Please, Tali! Please, don't leave me behind!" He yelled to her, yelled for her.

She was leaving him. She was being pulled from him -

It was the sudden weightlessness that yanked her from what were inexorably going to be the last thoughts of Tali's life. Groggily and through blurry, tear-distorted eyes she thought she saw the slight blue tinge to her surroundings that only a biotic could create. Before she even remembered where she was, in a flash her body was yanked from where she had fallen. Her arms and powerful legs hung limply as she was powerless to stop herself from being pulled.

Not that she would have had the strength to try anyway.

The world moved in a blur as her stomach clenched tightly at the sudden force and speed of her movement. She flew through the tunnel, and before she knew it -

THWAP!

She had flown directly into Liara, hard, and they both were sent reeling backwards, flailing wildly in a mocking dance of chaos. It appeared that Liara had had only one thought - and it certainly wasn't for her own safety in retrieving Tali from a certain painful and heartbreaking end. When their rolling finally came to a stop, Tali found herself laying completely on top of Liara, straddling her with her head nestled neatly between her breasts. As they had come to a stop, Garrus yelled that he had finally gotten the balance right as the door to the maintenance shaft closed loudly behind them.

Dumbfounded and still confused, Tali felt five-fingered hands against her back, holding her tightly against this other body. They rubbed her there reassuringly, but these were not John's hands against her. Opening her eyes, she realized something else: John did not have breasts. And then realization hit like an entire block of ice.

These were Liara's hands.

Sure enough, she lifted her head slightly, and saw the blue skin of her asari friend behind the glass of her clear visor. She saw tears in those eyes as well, and a small reassuring smile.

And then she began to shake in her friend's embrace. Tali was realizing that she had come perilously close to leaving John alone in this universe; that he would have to try to live on without the rest of himself that he had found in her. The hot tears streamed freely down her cheeks, she didn't try to stop them - she couldn't have even if she wanted to.

Spastically, she tried to speak. "Liara…oh keelah…thank you…I almost…almost l-left him…"

Liara held her even more tightly to her. She was not going to let her go. "Shhh, Tali. It's okay. You're okay," Liara cooed to her. Her own tears were forming now. "I've got you, okay? You're safe now." Garrus had joined them, simply placing a hand on Tali's shoulder. "We've got you. You'll get back to Shepard, okay?" Against her chest, Liara felt her friend simply nod her head.

Around them, there was a loud, deep thruuum as main power came back online, reengaging the lights one by one with a steady click.