He was encased in blue fire. He felt his pulse racing, pounding like a cannonade in his ears at the effort. Part of him wanted to find Tali, to lock eyes with he to let her know that he was fine. If he looked away, if he lost focus for even less than a second, then he would be done. He could not allow that to happen. Somewhere inside him, the biotic powerhouse that he once was strained to come forth from its cocoon. It longed to erupt, to show them all that he was still a force to be reckoned with - that those that challenged John Shepard should not do so lightly.
And yet, here he was.
"Is…that…the best…you've…got?"
Shepard was straining, his eyes were wide, sweat ran down his forehead and his jaw was clamped shut in concentration. Around him, the blue glow of biotics encased him in a protective sheath that Liara was incrementally trying to break down with her own onslaught against the former Spectre. The asari watched him keenly, trying to find the balance of challenging him without hurting him from the strain. At the far end of the gym, Tali watched on and tried not to be overbearing as she ran steadily on the treadmill (15 kph, thank you very much), and barely pushed her heart rate above "resting". She had to watch them; she knew that Liara would not hurt him, that she would test him just enough.
But keelah, she was worried. She couldn't help it, really.
Perhaps "worried" wasn't quite right though. She supposed that she was very much "aware" of what was going on, ready to intervene if needed. It wasn't that she was concerned that Liara would go overboard. No, it was John that she had those concerns about. She knew all about his determination and his will, and was rightly aware that he may try to overdo it.
Liara must have sensed it as well, because against the backdrop of his strained grunts and without any warning, she simply stopped. She exhaled and let her hands rest at her sides as the blue light of biotic energy crackled softly as it dissipated.
"That is enough for now, Shepard," she stated calmly, clearly in better shape to handle the strain of biotics than Shepard was. She grabbed two towels off the railing beside them as she walked over and tossed him one. He took it and hastily dabbed the sweat off his brow.
What Tali noticed next was that John looked like he was fatigued; more than she'd seen from him at least since the end of the war. He was doubled over and his face was red as he rested his elbows on his knees. He still wheezed every so often.
"Fuck. Liara…were you even trying?"
She gave him a sympathetic smile. "I was not, how do you say? 'Going all out'. But I was putting forth effort."
He staggered against the wall, then promptly slid down with a grunt and a meaty thud as his ass hit the gym floor. Far more gracefully, Liara sat beside him, knees pulled up close to her chin.
"Yeah, I didn't think you were." He took a quick gulp of the water beside him before dabbing at his face with the towel again. He shook his head. "You know, it wasn't too long ago that I might have been able to actually test you." He shook his head again, frustrated. "Now I don't think I'd last even five seconds against you really trying."
"That is true, Shepard. But you're not supposed to, at least not yet. And you are getting better. Perhaps you do yourself a disservice - I think you would last at least 7 seconds." She gave him a playful smirk as he laughed at his current state. "Besides, it is likely that you still handle a weapon better than I do."
Both of them looked up at the sound of quarian boots approaching. Tali, as gracefully as ever, sauntered over and sat down beside Shepard, who had watched those graceful hips the entire time.
"Keelah, I watched the whole thing," she looked over at Liara, "thank you for not going overboard with him, Liara."
She replied with a nod and soft smile. "Of course. I know that using biotics like that can be taxing, even at peak physical condition, and clearly -"
"I'm not at 'peak physical condition'. Don't I know it."
Liara looked at Shepard blankly, then over to Tali, then back to him.
"I have a lot of work to do." He looked straight ahead at the floor between his feet.
There was a pause as each of them simply rested, drinking from time to time. Shepard looked deep in thought when he broke the silence.
"Thank you, Liara."
She gave him her standard look of mild curiosity. "For what?"
"For," his voice was very low and very soft, "for saving my life. At least twice." Tali reached over and put a hand back on his knee. She shuffled over to sit right next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Shepard, what do you -"
"Well, Cerberus may have put me back together, but you found me. Recovered me. From what I remember you telling me, you saved me from the Shadow Broker."
"But that was -"
He quickly and quietly raised his hand to indicate that he wasn't yet done. "But…before Earth. All the time you spent with me…doing this." He lifted his hands to indicate that he meant the training that she had just put him through. "You showed me how to…" he frowned, sighing as he did so. "You taught me how to do all of this…this stuff that I can't fucking do anymore." He spat out the last sentence, clearly angry at his diminished state.
"Shepard, with time, you know you'll get better."
"Yeah. Maybe."
He took Tali's hand in his.
"You know, I told Kasumi that it was a hack that she showed me that let me send out the signal that you all picked up."
"Was it?"
"Yeah, it was. She showed it to me, and Tali here forced me to practice." He chuckled mirthlessly. "Good thing, too."
Liara and Tali shared a quick glance, both wondering (and worrying) where he was going with this.
For a moment, Shepard stared out across the gym, but his mind was elsewhere.
"Liara, I uh…just wanted to say…"
Stuck. Motionless. Burning lungs. Searing pain everywhere.
Head pounds. Throat dry.
I need to move. I need to -
I need her. I need to get up.
I'm going to die here.
I can't die here.
I wonder if this still works?
"Shepard you don't have to -"
"Damn it, Liara! I do!" His voice held surprising force and…aggression. Yet it wavered with emotion. The sound of his outburst made all three of them flinch. The heads of a few others in the gym turned in their direction. More quietly, he reiterated. "I do. Please, just let me say this."
The asari gave him a quiet nod. "Okay, Shepard."
"I have to thank you, Liara. Because you continued to train me, against my protests." She frowned. "I think your words were 'I believe a certain Miss vas Normandy would be quite thankful'."
Tali flushed at the mention of her name in a situation such as that. She knew that Liara had trained him to be a more powerful biotic, and truth told, at the time he was nearly as strong as she was. She hadn't known that Liara had sacrificed more of herself to help him, against his protests, and had invoked her own name to motivate him.
"Yes, well…"
"Liara, that's at least two lives I owe you for. I couldn't have gotten myself off the pile of rubble, as much as I wanted to, if you hadn't taken the time to make me better at this." Tali wrapped both of her arms around him. "I couldn't be here without you. I mean that sincerely. So just…thank you."
"Shepard…" it felt like there was more for her to say, but she said none of it. "Shepard, you're…you're welcome. I am glad that it worked."
Admiral Shepard now sat quietly in the cabin, staring only at the blank monitor. He'd been doing so for, what? The last hour or so? Maybe less, maybe more. He couldn't really tell. All he knew was that right now, he felt horribly. He felt like a betrayer. He felt unworthy - again.
In short, he felt like a murderer.
Again.
"Was it worth it?"
He shuddered in his chair for what was probably the hundredth time, and put his head in his hands.
After he and Tali had taken a shower (Thank the ancestors for the decon unit that comprised the entrance to the cabin) and wound up doing…other things. Afterward, Tali had gone down to engineering to hang out with Ken, Gabby, and Adams while he spent some time catching up elsewhere. It had begun innocuously enough, he thought.
But then he had made the decision to visit Joker on the bridge.
To tell him what happened; to apologize to him if he could.
When he strode onto the bridge, Joker was sitting in his customary chair, watching his displays and making the occasional adjustment to his instruments. Before Shepard could say anything, the pilot called out.
"Hey EDI, could you -" he stopped suddenly, as he was again reminded of what - who - was missing, and he let out a low sigh. "Fuck."
Shepard stood there for a moment with his mouth hanging open, looking for all the world like a fish out of water. The words that were in his throat to say did not come; they were held back by…fear. Whatever he had intended to do was no longer an option in his current state.
Curious.
Without any warning that he would do so, the admiral abruptly turned on his heel and paced his way back to the elevator. He was sneaking - skulking - away from this conversation. He ignored some of the looks that he got - the smiles turning to looks of curiosity then turning to expressions of actual concern - as he did so. If he had been spoken to, he did not hear them. If he had heard them, he would have ignored them anyway.
And now he found himself here.
Staring into the darkness of a powered-down computer screen.
There was a chime at the door, which indicated that whoever was outside the door was decidedly not Tali. She would not have bothered with the doorbell.
For less than a second, Shepard contemplated ignoring the chime. Maybe he would pretend to be asleep.
Fuck me, is this what I've fallen to? Pretending? Like a damn child?
He stood up, and before the chime could ring a second time, he gave permission for whomever it was to enter.
In stepped the form of one Doctor Karin Chakwas. In her hand was a bottle of…something.
"Doctor!" Shepard was genuinely pleased to see her, momentarily forgetting his own self-serving sorrow. When he had meandered his way through the ship, he bypassed the medbay because she had been seeing a crew member. He figured he would make his way back around at some point. Guess she beat him to it. Noticing the bottle, he continued. "Is that…Serrice Ice Brandy?"
She held the bottle up, looking at it as a sheepish grin spread across her face.
"You know, command-," she caught herself, "admiral, I said that we would do this only once a year. But, these are special circumstances, I think." She took the few steps down to the main area. Catching a glimpse of a photo of Shepard and Tali that had been taken on the Citadel, she smiled. "Do you still have the glasses in here?"
The admiral frowned. "I'm not, uh, sure…" he glanced around the room, looking somewhat panicked. "It's been a while since I actually lived aboard here, ya know?" Chakwas huffed a small laugh and smiled.
"Maybe try the drawers there?" She pointed to the small cabinet next to the desk. When he opened it, he looked at her with a smirk.
"You knew they were in there, didn't you?"
"Now, Shepard. Who do you think put them there in the first place?"
He laughed.
"Yeah, good point."
After she filled both their glasses, he gestured for her to have a seat.
"So, doctor. What brings you by?"
She started as if to say something, but instead swirled the light blue liquid around in her glass for a moment before setting it on the table.
"You know, Shepard, I never thought we'd be doing this again. I was convinced that one of three things would happen when we got to Earth: you would die and the Reapers would win, you would die and the Reapers would lose, or we would all die right then and there and it wouldn't matter a shit either way."
He blinked a few times. He had no idea what to say to that. He said nothing.
"I've been your doctor for longer than I care to admit to most people. Not that I'm ashamed, of course. Quite the contrary." She finally looked at him. "But because of that, I've learned a great deal about you - and from you, I should add." She finally took a swallow of the brandy, making a satisfied grimace on her face. "Something terrible happened to you. Tali has done a wonderful job of putting you back together, that much is obvious."
Suddenly, he felt defensive. As if what he and Tali had just gone through to get him back on his feet was somehow not good enough? It was like he heard the unstated "but" at the end of her statement.
"Doctor," he began, his tone giving away his rising anger amid his defensiveness, "if you're somehow saying that what Tali has done for me is not -"
She cut him off with an angry wave of her hand.
"Shepard, do not pretend that that is what I'm saying. You know better than that." Another quick swallow. "And I love Tali'Zorah. She is wonderful for you and is damn near as perfect a person for you as I could have ever hoped. But there are some things that I was…privy to while you were in surgery on Earth. And I think that you may still need to talk about those things."
Damn it. What dumb shit did I say while I was out?
That's when it dawned on him - he had a feeling he knew exactly what he'd been muttering about. The low snarl of an unchained monster belied to him its grip on his stomach. He felt it pull, twist, pinch his insides into thorny little knots. Along with it came the portent that he now had a damnable inkling about why Chakwas had chosen this opportunity to meet with him privately.
It wasn't just the brandy, it would seem.
With that realization, his eyes bore holes in the floor. Closing them as he did so, he took a heroic gulp of said brandy, savoring the burn on its way down his throat.
"Okay, doc. Out with it."
She closed her eyes for a moment, acutely aware of how badly this conversation could go.
"We need to talk about EDI. And especially Joker."
He sighed. "God damn it."
In the space of less than a second, the images crashed into his mind once again like so much water ripping through an overtaxed dam. Shakily, he put his not-quite-empty glass on the table. He wheezed an unsteady breath; he did not look up.
"What do you want to know?" It was a croaking whisper of a question.
With a sympathetic expression, the doctor put her hand on his for just a moment, before pulling it back. "Shepard, I'm not going to ask you what exactly you had to do. It's plain as the brandy in our glasses that it was terrible, and that it took a hell of a toll on you." She took the final swallow of the liquor from her glass. "I can only presume that it involved EDI's death, and based on the mutterings I heard, it didn't sound like you had much of a choice. But I do need to know what you plan on telling Joker. He is my patient and my friend, and I mean to take care of him. So, I need to know."
Shepard shook his head. "That's just it. I don't know what to say to him." He brought the glass to his lips, but stopped just short. He slowly put it back on the table, his eyes narrowing. "You know I tried to tell him earlier?" She shook her head that she did not. It was a soft, barely perceived movement. Her head felt heavy just doing so. "How do I explain to him that, in killing the Reapers, I killed the woman he loved? That I killed my friend? And I fucking knew that it would happen. Even if it was to destroy the Reapers," he paused as he took in and released a shuddering breath, "how can he forgive that?"
Karin had no idea what to say to that. Not at first.
So for a time, neither said anything to the other.
Chakwas leaned back in the couch, crossing her arms in front of her. "Maybe he won't, John." She stated this matter-of-factly. "But he deserves to know as much. And you need to tell him, based on the look on your face. Besides," she was pleased to see that Shepard had finally been able to match her gaze with his own, "I think that he'll come around eventually. He may not at first, but I think he'll understand."
"Do you think we'll ever -"
"Be friends? As you were before?" She shook her head sadly, dismissively. "No, I don't think so. But is the price you'll pay for pretending not steeper than the price you'll pay for your honesty?"
That was food for thought, and they both realized that there was very little else to say now.
After they hugged their goodbyes, with a sigh, Shepard called Joker up to the cabin.
"Uh, you wanted to see me, sir?"
"Yeah, Joker. Have a seat." The admiral's unease was apparent.
"Okay…"
The pilot gingerly ambled down the short set of stairs and, just as gingerly, sat down on the end of the couch farthest from the admiral.
"So Shepard, what's this all about? Why call me away from the bridge? You know Steve doesn't know how to handle this thing. I mean, I like seeing other parts of the ship and all, but -" his eyes widened - "is that the fucking fish tank?" Shepard couldn't help but laugh despite the grim circumstances. "I remember everyone said that you had one up here, but I've never actually seen it."
"Yeah, clearly when Cerberus built this thing they had no idea that I'm not really a…fish person."
The pilot laughed. "Yeah, I can believe that. Don't think I've forgotten how you destroyed the restaurant…" He trailed off then, realizing that the shore leave incident happened a lifetime ago. The restaurant's destruction was the least of the concerns. "Ah, fuck."
Shepard rubbed his forehead.
"Yeah, I know."
"Shepard?"
"Yeah, Joker?"
"How did you survive that?" Clearly, he did not mean the restaurant debacle.
"Cerberus. Again."
"You're kidding."
"About a lot of things? Yes. This? No."
"Christ."
There was a long pause.
"I'm sorry about EDI."
The pilot shot him a pained look, redness around his eyes. "Yeah, so am I."
"That's not what I meant, Jeff. Let me tell you a story."
As he explained what happened on Earth -
You've got to get out of here!
Don't…leave me behind…
And then on the Citadel proper, the pilot listened with rapt attention. Like so many others, he hadn't heard this story from Shepard.
Then he got to the Catalyst. Its choices. His choice.
"Jeff, the damn thing didn't give me…I…didn't know what else to do." The man sounded as defeated now as he had then. "I couldn't risk something like the Reapers still existing. I just…I couldn't. I'm sorry."
There it was. The monster - the monstrous choice that he'd made - was finally out in the open.
Joker, through blurry eyes, caught those of the former commander.
"So, you…?"
"Yes."
There was silence again, and Shepard watched him clench then unclench his fists.
Shep- Admiral…I don't…" For a few seconds, the pilot said nothing. He held his breath before letting it out in a sad sigh. "Fuck."
He put his head in his hands and cried quietly.
Shepard did not move. Instead, he kept his eyes trained on the floor between his feet.
"It's not fair. You know that, right?"
He looked at Jeff, the tears still lingering on his face. "Yeah. I know."
With a hard swallow and deep breath, Joker bolted upright. "Listen…I get that…you weren't really given a choice. No matter what, someone was going to…be grieving."
The other man simply nodded his head.
"But you didn't fucking see her, man. When we were…when we were trying to outrun the wave, she was working so hard. I looked over at her, and her fingers were a fucking blur. She was…she was trying…" Joker choked on his words again. "Did you know that she apologized to me?"
John simply shook his head that he hadn't.
"Yeah. She stopped working the controls, looked dead at me, and said 'Jeff, I'm sorry', then that was…she just…" He cleared his throat. "She just stopped as the wave pushed us out of FTL and down to Eden Prime." He took a deep breath. "But respectfully, fuck you, sir. You can keep your apology." John nodded his head forlornly. "I get it, man. I really do. But I can't forgive you for this." Joker's body remained incredibly still as he spoke. "At least not yet."
Somberly, John nodded his head again as the pilot, with some difficulty, rose to his feet and left without another word.
Shepard did not watch him leave.
"And you managed to keep the port side capacitor functioning? How?"
"Well tha' was th'easy part, Miss Tali! I ended up jus' pulling the power from the bathrooms."
She stared back at Ken dumbly. Surely this was a joke?
They were hanging out in engineering, the four of them - Adams, Ken, Gabby, and Tali. The soft pulsing hum of the drive core was their only discernible background noise. Adams snorted a laugh. Apparently he'd heard this story before.
"Keelah, what was the hard part?"
The Scotsman looked down at the floor, looking to avoid the scathing glare that he was receiving from the laser-eyes of Gabby.
"Explainin' t' Gabby why the shower…and the lights cut out while she was in the middle of -"
"Ken, you did not check to see if they were in use?"
He shook his head dumbly.
"Bosh'tet." She turned her attention to the young woman to his left. "Gabby, tell me that you reprimanded him appropriately!"
Chief Adams was laughing now. "Well Tali, I don't know about 'reprimand', but I do know that she didn't speak to him for three days."
The quarian put a hand up to her visor as she laughed unbelievably at her obtuse idiot of a friend. "Only three days? He deserved more!"
"Yeah, I know. But you should have seen him, Tali. He was so sad." Gabby had pitied him, and regarded him now with a look that said as much.
"I'm sure he did, but…that was…" she pointed a finger at them both. "It was too easy. You needed to show him that you were really mad at him!"
"Oh Tali, I know! But he gave me those stupid puppy dog eyes, and well…"
The quarian actually got the reference. There had been plenty of instances when John had teased her one too many times, and she had gotten truly mad at him. She would start off with the best of intentions - to show him that she, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, was the one in charge - but then he would say that he was sorry. He would give her that damn sad face, he would tell her that she was beautiful (keelah did he mean it though), and she would forget why she had been mad at him in the first place. She didn't mind it as much when he teased her now, though. Ever since their reunion while retaking Rannoch, she found that not only was she better able to withstand his ribbing, but the young (but now seasoned) quarian woman was much more capable of firing right back at him.
"Gabriella," Tali began seriously, "you have to be strong with the bosh'tet. Especially if you're going to be with the idiot."
That stopped the two human engineers in their tracks. They both looked at her with looks of mildly frightened and dumb surprise.
"How did you -"
"How did she -"
"Know?" It was Adams that stopped their surprised questioning. "Guys. She's quarian. Not only is she extremely intelligent, but she's observant. And," he glanced to Tali, "I'm pretty sure she knows what it looks like."
"What…'what' looks like?" It was Ken's Scottish drawl that asked the question.
"'Love', you idiot!" Gabby punched him in the shoulder. "God, you're insufferable!"
After the laughter died down, Tall had to ask the serious question. "So…since you are clearly getting married, do you know what you'll be doing with the Alliance?" She turned to Adams. "I would think that the Alliance would have some rules about bondmates - well, you know what I mean - serving on the same ship and department."
Ken tried to argue. "Well, what about you and Shepard? You were on the same ship!"
Gabby laughed at him, shaking her head. "Ken," she began condescendingly, "just when did Tali join the Alliance?"
He closed his mouth without another word.
"Well, I'm sure that if you talk to Ashley about it, she could probably pull some favors. She's a Spectre, so she may be able to make an exception, right?" Tali looked over at Adams, hoping that maybe he would have a better idea about the actual regulations. He shrugged.
Big help he was.
"Keelah. Somebody needs to ask. It's not going to be me, either. I have enough to do." Tali laughed at the whole situation.
She turned her attention to Adams. "And what do you have planned for -"
Her omnitool buzzed before she could finish the question. There was a new message from Shepard.
Tali, I'm sorry. Please come up to our quarters.
And that was it.
She looked up apologetically. "I'm sorry. Shepard needs me for something. But I'll be back!"
Ken turned to Gabby with a sly grin. "Right. 'Needs her'. I'll tell ya wha' he needs 'er for…"
The quarian froze before she even got to the doors. Turning around slowly, she glared at him. "And just what do you think that would be, Donnelly?"
His eyes widened and he took a visible step back. She had not called him "Ken".
He only mustered a convoluted non-reply.
Tali grinned mischievously, knowing that he'd have no idea that she wasn't entirely serious. She stalked toward him. "That's what I thought. Now how about you keep your dirty little thoughts to yourself, you bosh'tet, and I'll go do the actual dirty things with my captain." Then she stalked off as easy as you please. As she exited the adjoining hallway, she heard laughter as Ken stammered a reply that was 30 seconds too late.
Tali had entirely expected to be attacked as soon as she entered the cabin. She'd been preparing for it, giving her system a quick shot of immuno-boosters on her way up (old habits die hard - another of his idioms she thought with a smile). So when the doors slid open and she was not immediately wrapped in a tight hug, she paused to assess the situation. The lights were dimmer than normal for this time of "day" (it was just 1436 shiptime), and there was some soft piano music coming from the speakers. She knew it was old; John had a thing for the soft, muted keystrokes. If she was honest, she was gaining an appreciation for it as well. It was a nice contrast to the bass-heavy beats with the te'nir overlays that had influenced her so much. While she enjoyed the soft melody, she knew that it likely meant that her captain was not in a great mood.
She found him lying on the bed, right forearm draped across his eyes. He was still fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, his left leg fully extended, and his right bent at the knee.
"Saera? Is everything okay?" Before he could answer, she pulled off her mask and removed her helmet along with the interlocking clasps around her neck, draping her realk behind her head. Pulling herself to lay beside him, she put an arm across his chest. When she gave him a soft kiss on the cheek, there was wetness there.
He shook his head in answer to her question, but turned on his side to face her.
"Hey there. Sorry about that." He coughed softly.
Tali ran her fingers through his hair. "It's okay. Don't apologize for needing me, John. You know how I need you."
"Okay," was his mumbled reply before he buried his face in her neck and hair, inhaling deeply.
She almost squeaked at the touch, the sudden attention her sensitive skin was receiving surprised her. Her right arm managed to go completely around his back. She pulled him more tightly to her.
"So what happened?"
"I talked to Joker," came the muffled reply.
Already? She was surprised by the timing. Maybe he just wanted to be done with it.
"And…?"
He sighed, still buried in her neck. She felt him shake his head against her, forcing her to stifle a tickled giggle before he pulled his face away.
"I couldn't, Tal. I'd been talking to some of the guys down in the mess, was going to pop into Medical to BS with Chakwas for a bit but she had a patient. So I thought, on a whim, I'd go try to talk to Joker."
"It did not go well?"
"It didn't 'go' at all. I panicked. Then I turned my panicked ass around and came up here."
Shepard sat up, swinging his legs around the edge of the bed. He felt movement as Tali crawled along beside him, laying her head in his lap and looking up at him.
"There has to be more." Of course there had to be.
He nodded. "Chakwas came up to talk to me herself. She had brandy."
She laughed at the plainness of the remark. "Keelah, again? What was the occasion?"
"I survived." He paused in thought. "We all survived."
So much for levity.
"And she knew what happened…what I had to do…what happened to EDI." Idly, he ran a thumb across her cheek. "Apparently I talked during surgery."
Tali reached up, grabbing the hand that was still against her cheek.
He continued. "She told me…things that I already knew. Like stuff that Joker needs to know - and not just for his sake."
"For yours, too."
He gave her a small nod. He still had not looked down at her.
"Yeah. That too."
"You called him up here after that, didn't you."
"Yeah."
"How did it go?"
"Better than I expected; worse than I'd hoped."
He looked down at Tali then, bending down to kiss her forehead.
She gave him a sympathetic smile, reaching up to slide her gloved fingers along his cheek.
"I'm sorry that you had to do this, saera. But remember that I love you with everything that I am…and that you've already paid your price."
"And what if I lost a friend as well?"
She shook her head sadly. "I…well…you still have me?"
He laughed at the remark. "Yes, I do have you. And at least that's done." He ran his hand through his hair. "Maybe we can move on now. Really move on."
Finally.