Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect
Note: This is an OT3 fic, it's subtle, almost platonic but definitely there. If that's not your cup of tea skip this one. Or don't, I'm not your Mother
Commander Shepard awoke in a cold sweat.
Broadly speaking she probably wasn't alone in that. Waking up in a cold sweat these days really only meant you were paying attention. Unfortunately hers was accompanied by a blinding headache, what felt like spikes in her throat and a vague sense of nausea.
"Good morning Commander," EDI chimed from above as she had every morning since Shepard had set foot on the SR2.
"It is currently 0700 galactic standard time and we are in the Psi Tophet system,"
Seven? That was late, Shepard glanced at her bedside clock to confirm if EDI's morning spiel was correct and winced as the brightness of the display sent a stabbing pain through her eyes.
"Would you like me to begin your shower?" EDI asked as she always did. The groan Shepard gave was apparently all the AI needed in the way of the confirmation as with a hiss she heard her shower start. It was probably for the best, as the reminder that hot water didn't grow on trees was the only thing that had Shepard dragging herself out of bed and officially starting her day.
Not that she went about it as elegantly as usual. She found the lighting in the bathroom did nothing to help her head so kept her eyes shut. Which helped the nausea that popped up whenever she moved. Not that moving was high on the list of things she wanted to do, it was a lot more draining than usual.
But still she soldiered on, finished up her shower, getting dressed and making her way to the crew deck. Hoping like hell coffee would fix this somehow.
"Hey Commander," James greeted cheerily from the galley, followed almost immediately by a;
"Jeez you look like hell,"
As she shuffled rather than strode to the nearest mess table. Her normal route took her straight to the coffee maker but this morning that was just a little too far without a brief rest.
Which was what this was Shepard told herself. Just a little rest, just for a moment. Just till she got her breath back and the pounding in her head subsided. She closed her eyes to try and speed the process up.
When she opened them a gun was pointed at her forehead.
Panic had her reeling backwards and trying to get to her feet but her balance and coordination were so off it nearly sent her sprawling.
"Whoa, Lola," Said James, tree trunk arms coming out to steady her from behind and Shepard realised the gun was in fact a thermometer held in Dr Chakwas' neat hand. It beeped and she clicked her tongue.
"It's straight back to bed for you I'm afraid Commander,"
"What?" Shepard asked blearily, more than a little behind the eight ball.
"Back to bed, you're sick." Chakwas repeated.
That sounded and hell, felt, about right but it couldn't be. She was Commander Shepard, first Human Spectre, Saviour of the Citadel and a bunch of other things that sounded equally impressive that she couldn't remember just now. She probably had Cerberus filters built into her airways to weed out nasty pathogens and keep her oxygen clean as a Quarians. She didn't get sick and even if she did;
"I don't have the time to be sick," Shepard said. She'd meant to sound authoritative but somehow it came out weary. She blinked a little, chastising her vocal chords for betraying her body like that. Who'd given them free reign of the place?
"And I don't have the hands to handle a ship wide outbreak." Chakwas told her. Her vocal chords were under control, she sounded exactly as no nonsense as she intended.
"I'm sure this is just," Shepard began but a sudden full body sneeze had her nearly bucking out of James' grip and how had she not noticed he was still bracing her? Chakwas looked less than impressed as her nose dripped.
"You have two options," She said, "You can either see this out from the comfort of your cabin or I can invoke my rank as medical officer and have you confined to the medbay,"
Shepard tried to glare, she really did but the lights were just too much.
"Come along," The crisp efficiency she usually admired Chakwas for was a whole lot less admirable when it was manoeuvring her to her feet and to the elevator taking swabs as they went. Shepard could only feel the Doctor poking and prodding her with unknown instruments as the elevator ascended as the motion had her squeezing her eyes shut against the nausea.
"Right," Chakwas announced as the elevator thankfully slowed to a stop. "Back to bed and I'll run these swabs. I'm sure I don't need to tell you you're quarantined until further notice."
Her voice was exactly as no nonsense as it had been in the mess hall but then as she looked Shepard up and down her gaze softened and in a much gentler tone she said,
"Try and get some sleep, let EDI know if you need anything."
Then she was gone and Shepard was left in the space between the elevator and her cabin. What would serve, until she was better, as her own personal airlock. On another day she might have been able to come up with a quip about that, something related to Javik, but right now that was a bit too much.
Honestly everything was a bit too much so Shepard shuffled into her cabin and only pausing to take her boots off fell into bed and let it swallow her back into sleep.
She awoke an unknown amount of time later feeling no better but realising with sudden clarity that she wasn't alone.
"Go back to sleep Shepard," Came a voice, it was gentle and might have been soothing if it's electronic trill didn't have Shepard instinctively scrambling up the bed away from it.
"Stay away from me Tali," She ordered in a panic.
A small three fingered hand softly closed in around her arm stilling her.
"It's OK, I'm completely sealed in remember?" The hand drew away and Shepard watched as it gestured to the purple and black environmental suit the body it was attached to occupied.
"You can't infect either of us," Tali soothed.
"Us?" Shepard looked around.
"Me, Commander," Garrus stepped out from the alcove that held her desk.
"Viruses can't jump the chirality barrier so to keep the rest of the crew safe we're your caregivers," He explained coming down into the main cabin.
"The only other person who wouldn't be affected is EDI and she's already everywhere," Tali said.
"That is correct," EDI chimed from the ceiling.
Shepard looked between all of them blearily.
"I'm sick," She stated
"Yes, I know it's not fun," Tali spoke indulgently as she pulled the covers Shepard had dislodged in her mad scramble back up.
"With a virus?" Shepard elaborated. There was something to be clicked together here somewhere but she just couldn't figure out how or what and trying was making her head hurt even more.
"That's what happens when you half freeze in a diving mech and stay in your waterlogged armour for a full debrief with Hackett," Garrus' words were light, the sort of teasing banter Shepard would have expected of him. Except there wasn't a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
"It is fat more likely, according to the results of Dr Chakwas' tests," EDI explained without prompting, "That you were exposed to the pathogen on the Citadel,"
And then because she still hadn't quite mastered the art of human nuance yet she continued;
"There have been several outbreaks in the refugee centres of,"
"Thank you EDI," Cut in Tali.
"So what do I have?" Shepard asked visions of typhoid and diphtheria and all those other lovely micro organisms that loved to hang out among the desperate masses dancing through her head. They were probably getting personal revenge for that medical supply trade she'd brokered.
"A cold," Said Garrus.
"A cold?" There was no way a common cold, so common not even FTL and the relay network could separate it and humanity, could knock her this flat on her ass.
"You've been running yourself into the ground," Garrus told her, "Is it any wonder your bodies finally fighting back? Especially after whatever the hell went on down there with the Leviathan,"
He was like a dog with a bone over that, Shepard thought, he just wouldn't let it go. It had scared him. Perhaps not the Leviathan itself but what she had gone through to find it.
Which was why Shepard wouldn't be telling him what she had gone through to talk to it. She wasn't sure she even wanted to remember it herself. Remember how she hadn't heard so much as felt the ancient creatures words. Remember the sensation of something somewhere up in her brain simply giving way and how the blood that flowed from her nose after it collapsed was scalding against her face because she was so, so cold.
She was still cold.
"Garrus!" Tali hissed pulling the covers up to her chin as shivers wracked her body.
"He's right," Shepard managed to get out between her chattering teeth.
She had been burning the candle at both ends. The Leviathan had proven to be an especially non stop goose chase that had seen her pushing herself especially hard. And Rannoch before that had been no picnic. Not to mention running search and rescue galaxy wide.
"People get sick sometimes, it's no one's fault," Tali protested. A cultural stance Shepard supposed. Finger pointing and laying blame for illness on the Flotilla would probably get ugly fast.
"I don't get sick," Shepard said.
"Doesn't look that way from here Shepard," Garrus commented dryly. Apparently told by Tali and now safely back within the harbour of their teasing banter.
"How does it look?" She tried to match but the hoarseness of her voice didn't quite make it past the breakers.
"To be honest, you look like hell,"
Well that was rude, she'd been nice to him when he'd gotten half his face shredded.
"You're so white!" Tali agreed reaching out to brush a finger against her cheek, "Like snow,"
"If it weren't for the freckles we'd lose you in the sheets,"
That was more like it. Shepard let out a chuckle which quickly transformed into a rumbling cough. Garrus moved in to pull her up into a sitting position while Tali darted away and reappeared moments later with glass of water from the bathroom.
Garrus' talon braced against her back, the harshness of it muffled by the thick fabric of the hoodie she hadn't bothered to change out of, while Tali held the glass to Shepard's mouth so she could drink. The water soothed her throat at first but the spikes were back once she swallowed.
"Take this," Tali pressed the half full glass into Garrus' spare talon and darted away once more. She came back baring an incredibly organised medical pack. Dr Chakwas and Tali however apparently organised things very differently.
As while Shepard shook with the occasional stray cough and the absolute cold that had taken over her body now her torso was no longer under covers, Tali dug through the pack haphazardly. Pulling plicks of medication, reading the labels, muttering so her vocaliser lit but nothing was audible and tossing them to the bed.
"Here," She said eventually holding up a white pill bottle. She unscrewed the lid and shook two tablets into her gloved palm.
"Dr Chakwas said two of these every four hours for the fever,"
"Fever? I'm freezing," Shepard took the pills and Tali reclaimed the glass and held it to her lips nodding.
"That's the fever talking,"
With the tablets swallowed Shepard thought, hoped really, that she'd be lowered back down under the covers. Garrus seemed to have realised however that she was fully dressed and asked,
"Wouldn't you be more comfortable in sleep clothes?"
That's what her translator rendered it as exactly, 'sleep clothes', clothes for sleeping. Trust turians to not come up with fun words like pyjamas. Shepard would have been more comfortable in sleep clothes, unfortunately hers were in a sweat drenched heap in the bathroom.
"Don't have any," She said. She still felt ungodly cold but her limbs were no longer aching to the point she could physically feel her skeleton within her body. So that was something. She was content to simply know she had bones, she didn't need a reminder.
Garrus hummed and she could feel it vibrating through his talon into her back. Then he was propping her up and tugging her hoodie over her head. The cold intensified and Shepard could only watch through a slow muddle of confusion as goose bumps took over every inch of her exposed skin. God she really was white as a sheet.
Then Tali's hands were there yanking her shirt and bra off but before she could think to protest the hoodie was back on and she gratefully sank into it's warmth. It didn't last long as Garrus' next move was to pull the covers down away from her legs and this could not go unchallenged.
"Wha...?" Shepard managed to slur out just as Garrus' talons went to the clasp of her pants. He ignored her and pulled them off before replacing the covers.
"Comfier?" He asked folding her removed clothes with Hierarchy standard creases and laying them on the coffee table. It was actually. Extra pockets and zippers did not a soft surface make. But in just her hoodie and underwear the chill threatened once more.
"Shepard?" Tali looked down at her with clear concern.
"Cold," She mumbled. She didn't think she'd ever been this cold in her life. Not during ICT environmental survival training, not on the blizzard buffeted peak 15 of Noveria. If she had been this cold above Alchera she hadn't been conscious to experience it for long.
A blip of orange out of the corner of Shepard's eye had her abandoning her thoughts and turning her attention to where Tali had summoned her omnitool. She entered a few commands with neat and delicate taps, then to Shepard's surprise she crawled into bed.
Any vocalisations that managed to shove themselves to the front of her muddled mind were immediately stemmed as a thin arm draped across her waist. It was so warm. All of Tali, sliding up beside her, was warm. Heat radiated outwards from her suit broken up only occasionally where it was muffled slightly by her wraps.
"Is this ok?" She asked, "Not too hot?"
Shepard shook her head. It was bliss, the only way it could be better was if Tali were a hanar and had extra limbs. She lay wrapped in Tali's embrace for several minutes of blessed warmth before her personal space heater looked up to Garrus hovering by the couch and asked,
"Aren't you going to join us?"
"An invitation to join Commander Shepard and Admiral Tali'Zorah in bed? How can I refuse,"
"Bosh'tet,"
Garrus stripped off his armour leaving him in a thin under suit as he came to bed. Settling on the covers over getting in. Shepard didn't mind; without armour rounding him out Garrus was painfully angular and the duvet offered padding.
"Can you reach my hip pouch?" Tali asked, too wrapped up in keeping her arms around Shepard to reach it herself.
"Which one? I know you've got half a dozen tucked away," Garrus responded. Tali's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"How do you...?" She began before giving up that line of inquiry and continuing with, "The one on my belt,"
The bed shifted and Shepard rolled closer to Tali as Garrus reached for the pouch on her belt. He drew back with a small OSD.
"I downloaded the crews media library when Dr Chakwas told me you weren't well," Tali explained. Garrus rolled his eyes playfully, not a traditionally turian expression, something he'd picked up from the Normandy.
"And let me guess, you thought you'd offer me up as projector?"
"Well since you're here and your arms aren't busy," Tali said. Garrus let out a long but good natured sigh and holding his arm out synced the chip with his omnitool. His mandibles flared a moment later.
"Traynor has the full simulsim suite of Nekyia Corridor?" He balked, "How does she even have space on her tool for programs with that eating up storage?"
"The simulsim suite of what?" Shepard mumbled in confusion.
"Oh right, you were dead when it came out. It was massive across Citadel space and even made a smash in the Terminus. Some of my team on Omega snuck into Eclipse territory just to watch it," Garrus explained.
"There were quarians who bought copies of it back to the fleet as pilgrimage gifts. I had crew members request transfer off the Neema to ships that had it!" Tali added.
A lot had happened in the two years she'd been gone and even now all this time later and despite her best efforts Shepard still found herself playing catch up. She thought suddenly of the Mahavid miners, to her knowledge, still in quarantine. They had missed ten years and had come back to a galaxy in tatters. The thought of all they must have lost was nightmarish.
A shiver ran through her violently. Tali tightened her heated grip and Garrus made a noise somewhere in the back of this throat that very close to a coo in concern as they resettled.
"Oh there!" Tali nodded her helmet towards the list of vids displayed as they resumed browsing, "Fleet and Flotilla!"
"Fleet and Flotilla? Isn't the Commander suffering enough already?" Garrus pulled a face.
"Something else I missed?" Shepard ventured.
"No it's been around for years,"
"My little sister used to have a crush on Bellicus,"
"Who didn't?" Tali sighed dreamily
"What do you want to watch Shepard?" Garrus asked apparently vetoing Fleet and Flotilla, whatever it was. Shepard looked at the available collection. Movies had never been her favourite pass time and the plot lines of TV shows were all but impossible to keep up with when you spent as much time out of the comm buoy network as the Normandy did. But it seemed while she'd been painstakingly piecing together ship models her crew had been amassing a decent vid library.
There were several classic comedies she could assume were from Joker, sweeping old earth historical epics she had a sneaking suspicion came from Ash, the oddly disjointed array of documentaries were likely Liara's contribution. The baking shows, Tali informed her, were Gabby's. Ranting to Ken about runny meringues was how she de-stressed.
"I dunno, something mindless," Shepard decided, she didn't have the brain power to handle overlapping plots and complex themes at the moment. All she needed was something to make the four hours before her next round of medication to go faster and keep her mind off how godawful she felt.
"Last of the Legion it is," Garrus pulled the vid up.
"Can't get any more mindless than that," Tali agreed with an audible smirk in her voice.
Last of the Legion was exactly as mindless as requested, nothing but Turians going on about their honour in between explosions. But keeping her eyes on the hard light projection of Garrus' omnitool not only caused her headache to resurface it quickly ramped it up into a full blown migraine. Her companions noticed her discomfort when she had to risk bringing a hand out into the cold beyond her blanket haven to press against her forehead.
"Shepard?" If she had been able to withstand the glow of Tali's eyes for longer than a moment Shepard would have been able to see the concern there.
"Head hurts," She said turning away from Tali's visor. Garrus dissipated his omnitool display.
"You can keep watching," Shepard told them.
"We're supposed to be taking care of you. If you can't watch a vid we're not watching either," Said Tali insistently.
"So we're just going to lie here together?"
"Looks that way Commander," Put in Garrus.
"I could tell you a story to pass the time," Tali offered.
"A story?" On another day there might have been a playful note of incredulity in Shepard's voice but today she just couldn't shake the weary tone that left her sounding weak and tired.
"My Mother and Auntie Raan used to tell it to me when I was sick," Tali explained, "It always made me feel better,"
Shepard wasn't about to turn down anything that had the possibility of doing that. So she gave a little nod and settled down under the covers as Tali began with;
"Long ago in the time of the ancestors,"
She spoke about Rannoch as it had been before the war, before the Geth, before anything. About a group on ancient quarians, the first so the story went, wandering through the desert. They had come from a wall, a towering impassable face of rock. Where they had been before that not even the stories knew, some said they had been chipped off the face of the cliff, others that they had sprung up from the sand. The only certain was they were made of the world and the world was made of them.
They wandered through the endless sands just as modern quarians wandered through endless stars. Until they came across a vast oasis in the middle of the desert; a beautiful place filled with shade and sweet water. The first garden.
Tali's voice was like silk, musical and lilting as it swept Shepard along with it.
And before she knew it she was asleep. Literally knew it. It was the fever, it had to be. Only a fever dream could be like this.
She was lying beside a pool in an oasis with her head in Tali's lap.
And when she looked up at Tali her face smiled down at her. Shepard had seen Tali's face before, for a brief moment she hadn't been able to keep herself from stealing when she'd taken her faceplate off on Rannoch. She knew what Tali looked like, how absolutely beautiful she was behind that mask.
But while that beautiful face looked down at her now the body it was connected to wasn't Tali's.
Instead superimposed over where there should be an envirosuit was a rendition of the quarian she had seen in the recording the Geth had been broadcasting on Solcrum. The recording had been old, how old Shepard couldn't say. It certainly predated the Morning War but she didn't know if what the singer had been wearing was the fashion of the time or a part of the performance.
But since she was the only quarian Shepard had ever seen in anything other than a suit her fevered mind, with full conscious knowledge of how and why, had joined her body to Tali's to complete the setting.
"Not too hot?" Tali hummed as she stroked her hair. Shepard shook her head slightly rolling it against the top of Tali's thighs. She didn't know if it was historical fashion or a theatrical costume but Tali wore a voluminous skirt that pillowed out in the sand around them. It felt like silk against her cheek but it couldn't be her brain rattled off as though her thoughts were Alliance Codex entries; Rannoch had no insect life.
"Where's Garrus?" Shepard wondered looking around as much as she could. She wasn't sure how she knew to ask, she just felt that he should be with them somewhere.
"Here Shepard," Came his voice. Tali nudged a knee up so she could see him near the perimeter of the Oasis.
"He's keeping watch for us," Tali leant her face in close to whisper teasingly into Shepard's ear and she felt as a strand of dark hair slipped out from under her hood to brush her cheek.
"You know how he likes things at a distance,"
Shepard chuckled, of course. She knew, all of a sudden, with the complete certainty only a dream could provide exactly the sort of picture she and Tali were making for Garrus.
She liked it. Liked that he liked it.
Tali's knee settled back down against the fine sand and her hand went back to running through her hair as she hummed.
"You know," Shepard felt compelled to say, "We'll never get your house built at this rate."
"That's OK," Tali smiled sweetly down at her. "It's our house we need to worry about."
Shepard awoke all at once. Not so much with a jolt as a flip of a switch.
Her cabin was darkened. Tali was still in bed with her serving as a still much needed heater. From her position Shepard could make out the faint outline of backwards text scrolling down her dimly lit visor. She was too focused on reading to notice her renewed alertness of her bed mate but Garrus coming down the steps with a tray wasn't.
"Ah Shepard, awake just in time for dinner, Cortez just dropped it off,"
With a blink of light the text on the inside of Tali's faceplate vanished and she looked down at her startled.
"Shepard! How long have you been awake?"
"Not long, it's dinner?" Her voice was no longer quite so weary and instead was thick and clogged as she realised her sore throat had been 'solved' by a cloying layer of mucus that seemed to have set up shop in every passage her skull contained.
"It is currently 1700 standard galactic time, the first dining shift will begin in half an hour," EDI announced helpfully.
"Normally I'd be thrilled about getting in early but being first in line doesn't seem to have improved our chances," Garrus drawled as he placed the tray on the bed.
"I really thought having two dextros aboard would improve the fare," He sighed looking his ration pack over.
He picked up the tube of nutrient paste and tossed it to Tali. She caught it easily and slid it into a hidden pocket on her left arm. There was a slight whir as her suit sterilised and pierced the packet, a few seconds later she drew it back out completely empty and folded in on itself like a spent tube of toothpaste.
"It could be worse," Her tone was light but they all knew she was only partially teasing. With the turians losing worlds at the rate they were it was only a matter of time before they would be reliant on the Liveships and Rannoch for provisions and turian dining habits would have to adjust to what the quarians could produce.
"It definitely could," Garrus remarked dryly sparing a glance at Shepard's meal. If she had to guess Shepard would say some kind of vat grown beef stew had been on the menu and someone downstairs had had the bright idea of adding water to hers in an attempt to make soup.
At least she had the accompanying side of a packet of hard crackers, someone's excuse of a stand in for toast presumably. She decided, perhaps against her better judgement, to start with the crackers. Arguably the most appetising item on the tray.
Truthfully Shepard couldn't say she was hungry but she ate anyway, mostly out of duty. If she learned of anyone else on the ship not taking proper care of themselves she would arrange it so they did. And since she had a long standing policy of not putting her crew through anything she wouldn't do herself it was only fair she followed her own advice.
So she forced down the crackers, painfully dry and bland and ate her soup/stew without complaint. It wasn't bad, it wasn't exactly good but they were doing their best with limited supplies. The days of calamari gumbo were sadly long over.
"Oh by the way you got a card," Garrus said once the meal was over as he carried the tray with their used dishes to the elevator to be collected. He came back to the bed and handed her what was very much not a card. How could it be? There weren't exactly stationary stores in deep space and even with her distorted sense of time Shepard was sure they were a few days out from the nearest relay.
Instead what she held was a folded piece of paper, from the Alliance header likely from Traynor's desk. 'Get well soon Commander' was written on the front. A hodgepodge of messages from it seemed like everyone on the ship filled the middle. Someone had clearly either taken it round or left it somewhere public to be signed.
"You're very popular," Tali noted. Shepard gave a guilty shrug, the only people to sign Tali's last get well card had been herself, the squad and engineering crew. She had Privates she wasn't sure she'd said more than two words to wishing her a speedy recovery.
She was skimming through the messages when the realisation she was about to be sick hit her all at once. Shepard blindly cast the paper away and scrambled to the side of the bed.
She very nearly made it. Of course in her line of work very nearly didn't cut it.
Up came everything she'd eaten, everything she'd drank, some things she didn't even remember consuming, a round or two of stringy salivary bile when she ran out of solid stomach contents. And then to top it all off, what felt like an eternity of rib crushing dry heaves.
She shuddered, body spasming, trying to remember if that time she'd been poisoned on Omega had felt this bad. At least then it had been one of the shittier parts of the station she'd 'redecorated' Now she was in both ruined clothes and a ruined bed. Her hair hadn't managed to escape the onslaught either.
Another round of heaving had her doubling over and gasping in breaths as nothing more came up. Then she was plucked from the bed and carried gently to the bathroom. It took Shepard a disorientated moment to realise that Garrus was holding her.
She shook and shuddered as he set her down and began pulling her clothes off, too muddled between trying to remember if she had ever been this sick and gazing past him back into the cabin where Tali was stripping the bed to assist in any way.
Like a marionette she let him pull her arms and legs this way and that until she was stripped and placed under the shower spray. It beat down scalding hot against her but still she shivered.
"Rinse," Garrus ordered tilting her head back and it took Shepard a moment to realise he meant her mouth. She opened it obediently and let the water fall in until she had enough to spit down the drain.
Shepard heard Tali asking EDI to send Campbell or Westmoreland up with fresh linens.
A terrible sensation of viscous cold began to dribble down her head and Shepard, half jumping in sudden shock, belatedly realised Garrus had squeezed out nearly an entire bottle of shampoo on top of her hair. He hmmmed and ahhhed as he plucked at the clumped together strands and tried to figure out what to do next. Shepard might have found it funny if she didn't feel so goddamn awful.
Then Tali was there shoving Garrus aside with a tutting;
"Honestly!"
He sidestepped into about the only the space left in the tiny bathroom, ending up leaning against the sink. Tali meanwhile stood on tiptoes to lather Shepard's hair properly and rinse it.
Shepard used what little energy she had to half-heartedly wash herself with Tali's assistance. Military life had long since sucked any embarrassment she might have felt about being naked out of her but even if it hadn't she was well past caring.
EDI's voice came over the intercom to say new linens had been delivered and Shepard found herself bundled up into a towel and deposited on the couch. She shivered violently while Garrus and Tali remade the bed.
She was then helped into a fresh pair of pyjamas, who's she couldn't say but from how large the shirt was, definitely not hers, and carried back to bed.
Had it ever been this wonderful before? Shepard knew there had been plenty of times she'd been happy to see it in the past but now it was a thing of absolute beauty. She just wanted to sink into the cloud like mattress and never emerge. She couldn't however, as just as she was about to slip into what promised to be the most complete oblivion she'd experienced since her two year death nap she was being propped up and something was pressed to her lips.
"Sip this," Garrus said. She cracked her eyes open and forced them to focus on what he held.
A drink cylinder containing a pale green liquid, the measurement lines down it's length did not bode well. The first mouthful sent her spluttering, it was an electrolyte mix; vaguely salty, vaguely citrusy and entirely horrible. And as some pessimistic higher functioning portion of her brain had suspected she was not allowed to lie back down until she'd drunk to the first line.
A cardboard bowl was placed on the pillow beside her head and Tali, readjusting the heat output of her suit, crawled back into bed beside her.
"Get some sleep," She gentled as she began to run her gloves through her still damp hair to dry it. Exactly as she had in an imaginary oasis.
However long the next portion of her life took Shepard didn't know. She would sleep, doze and nap. Sometimes dreaming, sometimes not. Only to be awoken at intervals she couldn't measure or always remember and told to 'sip'. When she was done sipping she would be allowed to sleep again. At one point she must have stumbled to the bathroom, because she remembered going from warm to cold, the sight of her ghoulish reflection in the glass of the fish tank and that getting back into bed with Garrus and Tali was like coming home.
She felt moderately better the next time she was graced with full consciousness.
She wasn't up for facing a Reaper on foot but lying in bed doing nothing was starting to lose it's lustre. She'd kept the electrolyte mix down and felt actually hungry. Surely a sign the tide was turning on what she could honestly say was the worst bought of illness she'd ever had. As if sensing she thought she had the upper hand she sneezed so hard the whiplash caused her to buck off the bed.
"Charming," Drawled Garrus from the sofa at the resulting splattering of mucus coating her shirt and dripping from her nose. He did have the decency to stand up and offer her a box of tissues. Shepard took a handful and wiped her nose. Garrus left the box as another round of sneezes took over her in quick succession.
"Where's Tali?" Shepard asked when she was sure she could get a word out.
"Down in engineering, something came up,"
"Anything serious?"
"No, just something that needed another pair of hands. Or someone small,"
"What are you doing?" She asked before she was forced to blow her nose again. Her voice which had been weak and then clogged was now nasal.
"Double checking requisition forms, we're about to enter the Attican Traverse and could do with some supplies, " Garrus told her. Last Shepard had known they had been almost dead centre of the Terminus. They must have made several relay jumps to be in distance of civilised space.
"You know Cortez stays pretty well on top of things," Shepard said.
"Yeah but you always double check the forms anyway," Garrus smirked, "Figured as your XO I'd better step up,"
"You're my XO now are you?"
"Well I've tried to make it official but with a war on the paperwork's just not getting done. On the bright side you don't have to adjust the pay scale,"
"I'm paying you?" Shepard questioned blithely.
They were both teasing. Garrus had technically been her XO since the Collector days. Officially the post had been held by Miranda and while Shepard respected and had even grown to like the Cerberus operative, as well as despite the fact she had proven to be incredibly capable, the non human crew unsurprisingly distrusted her.
So while Miranda oversaw the Cerberus crew, with the exception of Ken and Gabby who reported directly to Tali, Garrus was second in command over the squad. If Miranda had had any issues she'd never said. Shepard liked to think she was self aware enough to realise her limitations and had stepped back.
"When the paperwork goes through you will be. Figure I'm due a year's worth of backlog," Garrus said and Shepard snorted.
"Hope you're not expecting Cerberus rates,"
"Shame we couldn't take more of their money when we had the chance, guess we'll have to settle for raiding their bases,"
"Knew I should have bought more fish,"
Garrus hummed and lay the datapad he had been reading aside only to pick up another.
"Now what are you doing?" Shepard snagged a tissue just in time to stem another sneeze.
"Reading reports," Came the reply to her question.
"Sounds riveting,"
"Hmmm," Hummed Garrus in sarcastic agreement not raising his eyes from the datapad.
Grabbing the tissue box and tucking it to her chest Shepard gathered the duvet around her like a cloak. She slid from the end of the bed to the couch as gracefully as she could. Which was to say, not at all.
"Cold?" Garrus questioned as she snuggled up beside him and was poked in the side by his hip joint for her trouble.
"Bored," She said reaching for one of the datapads littering the coffee table but it was snatched out of range.
"You're meant to be resting," Garrus told her
"I can rest and work," Shepard protested.
"I think you'll find those two things happen to be opposite eachother,"
"Like turians and a sense of humour," Shepard muttered darkly but Garrus merely chuckled
"Exactly," He agreed.
"Entertain me," Shepard ordered petulantly after a few minutes of Garrus reading silently and her sniffling, not so silently. She could be petulant. And whiny and weak and vulnerable and a whole host of other things she'd chew glass before she'd let anyone else on the ship see her as in front of him. Because he was Garrus and there was no one else she could be herself around like she could him. With the exception of Tali.
"Well I'd love to but since you pointed out how lacking we turians are in the humour department I'm sure you can understand we're not that entertaining,"
"You could tell me a story, like Tali," She was prodding and pushing a bit but that was OK. Garrus liked to be pushed and prodded Shepard thought. At least by her and Tali. Under all those plates and exoskeleton was a soft spot he left open for them. They teased, he indulged. It was sweet really and something else that fought back against the chill she couldn't shake with a fleeting surge of warmth.
"No, I uh," Garrus' voice trailed off into a subvocal hum as he spoke, before he cleared his throat and continued bashfully, "I'm not much of a storyteller. Not like Tali with her voice like silver,"
"Gold," Shepard corrected automatically
"Hmmm?"
"The saying is a golden voice," She elaborated to a chuckle
"For humans maybe, turians prefer silver,"
Gold was as far as Shepard was aware a galactic universal. Every species seemed to hold it in a similar regard as humans. It wasn't as rare as some other metals and elements such as Eezo but was far less volatile and had a broad cross species history that ensured it remained valuable and desirable. There were parts of the Citadel you couldn't move for volus gold exchanges and asari dominated wards were forever blasting ads for everything you could imagine in 24 carat.
"Is silver rare on Palaven?" Shepard wondered. She could swear there was a famous quote from Jon Grissom about Palaven and silver but her head was too stuffed up to access her usual recall. Which was a shame she was normally pretty good at remembering things.
"No it's everywhere. Turians could never do that thing humans do,"
"What thing?" There were a million and one things turians couldn't do that humans could and vice versa.
"How you organise your history by what material you used at the time," Garrus said and Shepard caught on.
"You didn't have an iron age, a bronze age?"
"Our entire history was the silver age, we measure time periods by conflicts,"
"Sounds about right," Shepard chuckled.
"Silver is important to us. There's a saying; Citizens must have a spine of steel but flesh of silver. It means we have to be both rigid and malleable; able to fit whatever mould the Hierarchy needs. It's even used as a term of endearment, we call the ones we love our bright metal," Garrus explained.
"Bright metal," Shepard repeated trying the words out and trying to see how they could be infused with affection. To her they just felt cold and blocky in her mouth.
"Well it sounds better in Palaven Standard, can I?" Garrus reached out uncertainly, talon hovering at her ear as though he were about to cup her face. Where a standard Alliance officer would have their translator inserted but as an N7 she had an advanced model, fully implanted and integrated.
Shepard bought up her omnitool and disconnected the unit.
"Ok," She said. Garrus' translator was still on so he should be able to understand her. He captured the hand still poised over her omnitool and drew it to rest against his carapace
"Wha...?" Shepard felt that warmth again, localised to her cheeks this time. She really hoped she didn't sneeze.
Garrus meticulously splayed her fingers with one talon while the other came up to grasp her wrist and hold her in place. He gave a little nod of satisfaction, looked into her eyes and spoke.
Shepard watched the way his mandibles pulled and flared as he enunciated each syllable, heard how his tone and subtone started on different registers but melded part way into a single harmonious note, felt through her fingertips the thrum of the words in his chest.
Garrus pulled her hand back and released it as he kept talking. His speech a low roll of growls and chirps that signified Palaven Standard, the only turian language since the end of the Unification War nearly a thousand years ago. When the Hierarchy had re-established control over the colonies they'd, in a mandate only the turians would be able to issue and accept, instituted a single species wide language and had everyone speaking it within a generation. The only ones who remembered or spoke older dialects were scholars and an ever thinning collection of asari matriarchs born to turian fathers.
"Hang on, hang on," She reconnected her translator, "OK what was that?"
"I said it's important to breathe correctly as you say it so the vibrations feel right,"
"So other species can't say it properly?" Shepard surmised, no other known species could match whatever internal acoustics turians had going on
"Hmmmm," Garrus pondered for a moment, "They probably could but the meaning wouldn't be as profound, it's meant to come straight from the lungs."
"Straight from the lungs? What is that," Shepard had to pause to sneeze, "Like straight from the heart?"
"Well I don't know what hearts have to do with it," Garrus trailed off. Shepard had to once more sneeze before she could explain.
"You know the heart. Where love comes from, supposedly."
"Oh!" Garrus' mandibles flared in realisation, "Is that why humans call people things like 'Sweetheart'? All this time I thought you just had cannibalistic tendencies,"
Shepard honestly couldn't tell if he was kidding or if he actually thought humans were casual cannibals who enjoyed hearts. Maybe Javik going round the galaxy pointing out how tasty other species supposedly were wasn't the outlier she'd thought it was and other species really didn't think anything of consuming sentient life. It wasn't exactly the type of thing you could bring up in polite conversation. It didn't help that Garrus' tone was, as usual, drier than vermouth.
"Uh, yeah," Was all she managed.
"For turians everything comes from the lungs, breath gives you life and life gives you everything else; strength, duty, love." Garrus explained.
That made sense Shepard supposed. It was one of those things that no one really thought about. It was easy to look at aliens and see their different anatomy but still assume they had a heart, or something that served a similar function and that it held the same cultural significance for them as it did for humans.
The door to her cabin slid open and Tali entered.
"Rough day at work?" Garrus asked casually noting the antibacterial cloth she was working between her hands.
"Ugh, I had to crawl through the shuttle bay maintenance ducts and realign half a dozen sensors. I don't think they've been cleaned since the retrofit. I've put in a request for a full decon when we dry dock at the Citadel and," Tali disposed of the cloth and withdrew a datapad from some hidden compartment and handed to Garrus. He dutifully skimmed it.
"You're requisitioning drone parts? You know they sell pre assembled cleaning drones and this is Cortez's department?"
"Why should we pay top credit for something I could build better and cheaper? And we all know Shepard double checks everything so I'm going straight to the source,"
"Aren't I the source?" Shepard wondered in a break between sneezes.
"You're not meant to be working." Tali told her
"I'm pretty sure if we get any more drones on this boat they're going to unionise," Garrus said.
"Fine, they can join the war effort and settle on Rannoch with us and the Geth when it's over. As long as they clean the ducts,"
"I can see their embassy now. You'll have to program a sash for Chatika," Shepard said making Tali laugh as she fell down beside her.
"How are you feeling?" She asked reaching out for Shepard's hand to clasp between hers. Quarians were on the whole a touchy feely species with almost no concept of personal space. But Shepard found she didn't mind it.
"Snotty," Shepard answered honestly, no use in trying to candy coat the reality of illness here. They'd watched her lose her guts a day cycle or so ago and she was pretty sure she'd sweated all over them as she'd tossed and turned in feverish sleep.
"She squeaks when she sneezes," Garrus said without looking up from his datapad, "It's pretty cute."
"I'm Commander Shepard, I don't squeak!" Shepard protested. Unfortunately she felt the need to sneeze almost immediately and to her eternal shame there was a noticeable squeaking sound at the end of it.
"That's adorable!" Tali crowed.
"This is why hearts make more sense than lungs!" Shepard told Garrus accusingly. Feeling personally victimised by the organ at the moment. Really her entire respiratory system could stand to get it's act together.
"What's this?" Tali looked between Shepard and Garrus with undisguised curiosity.
"Shepard and I were having the most enlightening conversation about where love comes from,"
"Well that's easy, the stomach!" Tali said very assuredly.
"What!?" They both turned on her sharply.
"You love with your stomach," Tali elaborated.
"OK lungs I can kinda get, breath is life yada yada," Garrus' mandibles pulled and flicked as Shepard waved a dismissive hand. "But what does the stomach have to do with love?"
"Easy! It's in your middle," As she spoke Tali gently prodded a slender finger against Shepard's midsection, "It's at your centre, like love,"
Her eyes shone up at Shepard as she rose her head.
"What do hearts have to do with love?" She asked.
That made Shepard pause. She'd never really considered it before. It was the type of thing that didn't need considering. It was just something everyone, everyone human at any rate, knew.
"They're where you feel things," She said eventually, "Not just love, everything. That's what humans believe and even though science says emotions come from chemicals in the brain it still feels like they come from the heart. When you love someone you feel it in your heart."
Shepard looked between Garrus and Tali as she spoke, feeling all of a sudden that maybe it wasn't just the love of someone you felt in your heart. Then she sneezed again.
"Lieutenant Vega has arrived with dinner,' EDI announced as Shepard tried to, unsuccessfully, re-gather her thoughts. Tali stood and pausing to wrap Shepard's duvet cocoon around her tighter from where it had begun to slip down, went to collect the tray
This time instead of a card Shepard received a note
Lola, it read,
Heard that vat grown trash didn't go down so well so made you my Abuela's chicken and rice soup. Guaranteed to make you feel better. Don't ask me where I got everything; Esteban likes his man of mystery aura, he's good though so maybe it works.
We miss you down here.
True to James' word this time instead of a poor excuse of vat grown beef stew turned soup, Shepard had the proper thing. She wasn't sure how either him or Cortez had swung it but the broth tasted real. Like it hadn't been reconstituted from powder and even more incredible, had been boiled out of actual bones instead of vat grown protein structures.
She wasn't the only one they went above and beyond for, the rations Garrus received came with a small packet of bright blue liquid.
"I thought we ran out weeks ago!" He said as though it were Christmas morning. He snagged the plastic on a needle like tooth to open it and spread the condiment over his meal. A salty, almost briny, scent arose.
"Someone's been holding out on us," He told Shepard.
She found she didn't mind so much if it meant she could be pleasantly surprised like this every once in a while. It was the first meal she had eaten in a long time that didn't make her feel like she was simply replenishing energy. Instead with each sip of broth and bite of rice and chicken it was as though her soul was being bolstered.
Her pillow was a little crowded that night; a box of tissues joining the cardboard bowl Shepard doubted she would need but wasn't about to risk going without. Garrus and Tali settled once more on either side of her but somehow that was the opposite of crowded, rather it just seemed cosy.
It occurred to Shepard, now that she wasn't feeling too sick, that they hadn't even mentioned alternative sleeping arrangements. Tali had obviously been serving as a heater while she struggled through chills. But now that the unrelenting all encompassing cold had passed she still slid up beside her under the covers and settled right in.
Shepard could see how that might be a quarian thing, she couldn't imagine any of Tali's kind giving up a nice soft bed just because they'd have to share. In fact if they were magically transported to the Flotilla this very second she'd probably find herself with half a dozen new bed mates, as room to roll over only meant there was room for one more.
But that didn't necessarily explain Garrus on her other side. Turians were the only bipedal species that didn't make use of flat beds, with the debatable exception of vorcha who had never developed furniture for any purpose and slept on anything. Rather, turian beds were shaped like a sideways and backwards S, titled up at one end to support their cowls and down at the other to accommodate their spurs. Flat surfaces were uncomfortable to them.
Yet here Garrus was, lying beside her without complaint. One talon next to her pillow ready to reach either the tissues or bowl should she need them, watching her back even in bed.
It was going to seem awfully big once she recovered and they were back in their own bunks. Shepard didn't think she'd ever sleep quite right in it again. Not when this was so perfect. She felt completely safe in a way she only did when Garrus and Tali were with her.
She didn't have to try and keep some part of herself somewhat alert. She could just drift and doze and dream.
And dream she did.
She was on Mindoir. She didn't know how she was on Mindoir, she just knew she was. Just like she knew she was nine. Without looking she could see herself. Shepard knew she made for an attractive adult but by God she'd been an ugly child; all freckles and gangly limbs with facial features she wouldn't grow into until she was twenty.
She sat basking under the sun in the back fields, content that all her chores had been done and there was nothing left to do today but watch the clouds roll by.
"Keelah Se'lai?" Came a hesitant little voice from behind her. Shepard turned around to see two alien children. That was strange. There weren't any aliens on Mindoir and there wouldn't be until she was sixteen.
One was a turian, a boy. She could tell because his face plate had started to sprout a fringe and she'd learnt at school that girl turians didn't have fringes. He wore a tunic that fell to his legging clad knees and did up on the left side, which school had said meant he wasn't a citizen of the Hierarchy. He was too young to be, her teacher had told them turians only became citizens once they had completed fifteen years of military service. She'd said they were lucky to be human because human children had rights when turian children didn't
This boy didn't look like the poor, helpless, downtrodden children her teacher had told her turians were, always having to obey every adult no matter what they were told to do. Even if they were ordered to do dirty things they couldn't say no.
He was lean and spindly but stood up tall and looked around not in fear and caution but curiosity. His catlike eyes seemed to take in everything all at once. Just like Garrus always did.
The other child was a quarian girl in a second hand envirosuit that was at least three sizes too big. It bunched at her wrists, elbows and ankles and sagged around her waist and shoulders. In an effort to try and make it fit tighter and keep the loosest parts from snagging colourful woven wraps criss-crossed her body. She looked like a ragdoll in a hazmat suit.
Humanity had never been at war with the Flotilla so her teacher didn't have anything to say about quarians. But if she did it probably wouldn't be positive.
She had little trinkety ornaments sewn to her hood and they clinked together as she peered owlishly at Shepard. Hands poised over eachother as she fought not to wring them, Tali's nervous tic even in childhood it seemed.
"What are you guys doing here?" Shepard asked them getting to her feet, she wasn't exactly confused they were. She was here and it made sense that Garrus and Tali should be wherever she was but it seemed she ought to ask anyway. Tali tilted her head and began to speak but all Shepard heard was electronically tinged garble. Garrus too tried to talk but all that came out of him were chirrs and squawks.
They didn't have translators.
Tali spoke khelish words Shepard had no idea as to the meaning of but she grasped from her tone that it was a question. When Tali saw she didn't understand she resorted to every quarians second language; gestures.
She spread her arms wide before drawing them back in to hug herself and looked at Shepard expectantly. Still not understanding Shepard titled her head. Tali, growing frustrated, repeated the motion arching her arms as far as she could as though she were trying to gather the earth and sky into them. She drew them back and theatrically snuggled into her own embrace and Shepard remembered. They were made of the world and the world was made of them.
"Where are we?" Shepard translated pointing down at the ground for good measure. Tali nodded enthusiastically.
"Mindoir," Shepard told her.
"Meendougharrr," Tali parroted. Garrus tried to say it too but it came out as a warbley rumble.
"Come on," Feeling inspired Shepard started towards the nearest hill. Shepard land was filled with them, rises and dips, hills and valleys. Only families who signed on with the company were eligible for flat land since it was the most productive. They had to pay them to farm it, but they also got equipment and housing at reduced rates and could buy out of their settler contracts if farming didn't work out for them. Her family were independent settlers, it meant they had to source everything themselves, had to take the second rate land the company didn't want and had nothing to fall back on. But as her Dad always said, it meant they were free. Their land was theirs and no one else's and they could do whatever they liked with it.
Garrus and Tali fell in behind her, exactly as they would as adults but instead of looking around on alert, weapons at the ready, they drank everything in with childish wonder. Tali in particular dawdled, stopping to inspect something every few paces, until a glider cut past her and she, unused to animals of any description, shrieked and ran to Garrus refusing to let go of him until they reached the top.
"See?" Shepard announced spreading her arms at the summit, showing off she knew, everything that was hers. Shepard land almost as far as the eye could see. Garrus mimicked her stance and said something with a flick of his mandibles, a gesture Shepard got the distinct impression was cheeky.
City boy, Shepard scoffed, she'd soon wipe that smirk off his face. Let him try and mimic this. She tucked her arms to her torso and with a whoop of laughter rolled down the hill. The world went topsy-turvy then righted itself in a kaleidoscope of greens, blues and yellows over and over as she spun.
She heard Garrus give a similar cry then he was tumbling after her, his spurs caught a little sending him careening on odd trajectories but he ended up at the bottom of the slope just like her. Heads still spinning and balance momentarily displaced any attempt to stand sent them sprawling against eachother and they stumbled to and fro laughing.
Garrus sent a chirping yell back up the hill and Shepard echoed in English,
"Come on Tali!"
The figure on top of the hill peered down the slope before gingerly lowering itself and copying the way Shepard had tucked her arms. Then it became a multi-coloured, multi-patterned blur as it came down the hill. Tali's eyes were practically spinning in her helmet as she came to a stop. Garrus and Shepard pulled her to unsteady feet and she staggered between them drunkenly vocaliser glittering with laughter.
Shepard raced them to the drainage ditch. It wasn't a proper stream but the water was clean enough for her and Garrus to wade in while Tali hugged the bank unwilling to join them. Garrus being cheeky again flicked water at her feet.
"Bosh'tet!" She cried yanking them away from the edge and slamming a hand down beside her to stand in for the pout they couldn't see.
"Tali said a bad word!" She sing-songed like the bratty child she currently was. Garrus chirred something in agreement and apparently still feeling spectacularly cheeky got her next.
The ensuing water war was brutal. Shepard had flatter broader hands, perfect for traditional splashing but Garrus had bony heavy limbs he could strike the water with to cut up swathes at a time. They fought long and hard. Tali cheered from the bank, for which one of them Shepard didn't know. In the end it was a tie, they were each as drenched as the other and retreated to the bank as allies.
As they dried Shepard showed Tali how to make daisy chains with the wildflowers that grew near the ditch. With her clever mind and quick fingers it didn't take her long to get the hang of it. She quickly finished three full crowns and after arranging hers on her hood, draped one on Shepard's head before moving on to Garrus. His mandibles fluttered at the scent of the flowers and he sneezed. Exactly as a kitten might.
Tali and Shepard blinked, looked at eachother and burst out laughing. She wasn't sure what Tali was comparing Garrus to, certainly not a cat as she was, but she was clearly saying he looked like something as she giggled. Just as Garrus had his hackles raised and was obviously telling them he didn't.
The orchard became their cubby. Under the green canopy of row after row of fruit vines they set up house. Tali removed one of her wraps and spread it across the grass as a substitute for a tapestry, something no quarian home could be without. Garrus gathered fallen sticks and branches and made a perimeter fence to protect them. Shepard hunted for fallen and not so good fruit for their food stores.
They lay on Tali's wrap and watched the sunlight twinkling down through the leaves. They talked about everything and nothing, about their childish hopes, dreams and fears. So different yet so similar to their adult ones. Not one of them knew what the others were saying. But they didn't need to because they knew what they meant.
They didn't need brains to understand eachother; they had stomachs and hearts and lungs.
Shepard was almost asleep when Garrus' talon swiped at her arm and with a dual toned shout he and Tali sprung to their feet and streaked away. Shepard didn't need to know Palaven Standard to know what he'd said;
"Tag! You're it!"
Shepard leapt up and gave chase. She was fast on lanky legs but Garrus was faster on lankier ones and Tali could turn and duck on a dime, zigzagging through the tress as though she were back on the crowded Flotilla.
As she ran Shepard found herself getting bigger, taller. But instead of lengthening her stride and making her faster she got slower. Garrus and Tali pulled further and further away from her easily. They ran closer and closer together, melding from one turian and one quarian child into a single glowing human one. The golden green canopy of the orchard dissolved away into drifting ash and skeletal trees loomed around her. Whispering that she knew it was the right decision and Shepard-Commander and Siha.
Shepard awoke with a start.
Her heart pounded in her chest, pushing the feeling of ice in her veins throughout her body. So different from the chills her fever had bought on and somehow worse. It never got any easier, that dream. And this time it had been even more horrible than usual. Content to no longer steal the voices of her friends and remind her of her monumental failures, it was now perverting her memories and imagination. Taking something that had been beautiful and casting it down.
With her heart still going like a rabbit's Shepard bought the heels of her hands to her eyes and pushed. The pressure was grounding but it wasn't enough. Shaky and needing the reassurance she stretched a tentative hand out to Tali, curled into a ball on her left. She slept like a cat, filling whatever space she was given to the best of her abilities and contorting in ways Shepard was sure was uncomfortable even with joints that didn't bend the way human ones did.
Shepard ran a hand down Tali's hood, the fabric was soft under her hands, worn but woven so expertly it hadn't begun to fray. The embroidery was cool to the touch, Tali had told her once it wasn't thread but incredibly thin wire she could unpick and use in a tight spot.
A purple sheen lit up the cabin wall as Tali gave a sleepy sigh that was more electronic buzz than anything else. She curled up tighter and buried into Shepard's side.
One down. Shepard turned to Garrus. He purred in his sleep, each inhale caught in his subvocals and rattled softly. She could feel it rumbling through the mattress and wondered if it was the turian equivalent of snoring. If it was she didn't mind it, in fact it was rather nice.
Shepard had reached for Tali's hood because she had thought she wouldn't feel it; she didn't know where to touch Garrus without disturbing him. She just knew she had to. Had to prove he was solid and real, had to know they both were. Solid and real and with her.
Gently with the barest amount of pressure she bought one finger to his scarred cheek, he'd confessed that he'd lost a fair amount of sensation there and she knew he was completely deaf in that ear. He had an aural implant to bolster his hearing on missions but he never wore it off duty, claiming it didn't alter pitch and made everything sound monotonous. Truthfully he was lucky he hadn't lost his eye too.
His skin was alternatively sandpaper rough where it was scarred and leather smooth where it was burned. Edged by the sharp edges of his cracked and melted faceplate. But apparently Shepard wasn't being as gentle as she thought as just as Tali had Garrus stirred.
He rolled with a bit of difficulty thanks to his cowl onto his side and stretched an arm out. It covered Shepard entirely reaching the curve of Tali's spine and he unconsciously pulled them both closer. His mandibles fluttered in and out.
"Bright metal," He breathed.
Shepard felt the words echo his chest vibrating through her entire body as it had her hand earlier in the day. The breath that hitched in her lungs had nothing to do with her respiratory systems earlier rebellion.
"Mmmmhmmm," Agreed Tali no more awake than Garrus.
It didn't mean anything, the most practical portion of Shepard's brain said. Garrus was asleep, he hadn't said it intentionally.
He could have been dreaming about someone. Shepard entertained vicious thoughts of a lithe and flexible hand to hand expert all hard edges and correct sub-pronunciation to match Garrus' better than she and Tali ever could.
He could have meant Tali and Tali alone. His talon still spanned her back holding her as close as he could with Shepard in the middle. She had heard them flirting over the intercom as she made her rounds. Maybe she had imagined or misinterpreted the way they always seemed to include her in their banter.
Maybe she was reading too much into this. Bright metal was what turians called their loved ones but love didn't have to be romantic. Shepard had no doubts that Garrus and Tali both had platonic love for her just as she had for them. Underneath all the something more between the three of them they were still her best friends.
The two people who had stuck with her through everything. Whether that was something as fantastical as being bought back from the dead or as mundane as a cold. There were no two people she'd rather have at her side and maybe she should tell them that.
Shepard thought about telling Joker and EDI to take a chance on eachother and how she'd agreed with Gabby about Ken finally speaking up. She wouldn't be the fair and level handed Commander if she didn't follow her own advice.
Shepard settled back down. Tali's head was on her shoulder, the glass of her faceplate cool and smooth against her skin. The tips of Garrus' mandibles caught in her hair as they twitched in his sleep. She'd bring it up tomorrow, she told herself as her thoughts began to drift. Let them know how much they both meant to her and what she wanted, what she hoped, they could have.
She felt better already.
OK so. I have shipped these three characters since I first started playing Mass Effect back in 2015. To this day they are my biggest ME ship. I love Shakarian, Talibrations and Femshali as much as the next shipper. But they all leave me feeling like one of them is is missing out. Hopefully this is just the first Shalibrations fic you'll be seeing from me. I have so much more in the works
Let me know what you thought, I accept criticism of my work I only ask that it be constructive.
Ari out!