Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect. This fictional story is not making me any money (unless BioWare takes note and decides to pay me).
A Hundred Memories for the Journey Home
Day Two
James Vega woke up when his head collided with the floor. He froze completely for a moment, waiting for the last vestiges of his recurring nightmare to vanish. He'd fallen completely out of his bunk, and managed to drag most of his bedding with him.
Once he was sure that he was himself, and that he'd woken no one else, the big marine got back up. His neck ached something fierce, but Chakwas had promised him it was just the final stages of the skin weave doing its job. His ribs were still sore, but at least he hadn't landed on them too heavily.
He sat back down on the edge of his bunk for a moment in the dark crew quarters, trying to calm his heartbeat. He hated that dream, but it seemed to be the only one that came around lately. It didn't help him with his sense of guilt, either. That was probably where the entire matter stemmed from, in actuality. Guilt over losing Shepard.
"She wouldn't want you to live this way, Vega," Esteban's voice said to him. James missed Cortez as if he'd lost a brother, and it hurt to go down to the shuttle bay when he knew he'd never again see his friend standing at the requisitions terminal or tinkering with the Kodiak.
With a quiet sigh, James grabbed a fresh shirt and carefully worked it on over his sore torso. He wasn't going to get any more sleep if he kept thinking this way. Better to get up and do something else. Maybe he'd get a drink from the lounge and then go work on...tuning something up. He'd bet his credit chip that Garrus was recalibrating something if he were to go look.
He slipped out of the crew quarters and headed for the port observation lounge, shaking off the skin-crawling sense his nightmare had given him. James wasn't one to let dreams get to him, but the lack of sleep was eventually going to run him down. He shook his head as the doors opened for him, and then immediately paused when he heard someone talking.
In the corner, Tali was curled up on one of the couches, speaking to the camera drone in her lilting, filtered voice. She didn't appear disturbed that James had interrupted her, so he ignored her and went over to the small bar, searching for something stiff, but not too strong. Kaidan had warned them all that it would be all hands on deck once they reached the Far Rim relay at approximately twelve hundred hours, and James was honestly looking forward to a little grunt work to take his mind off of things.
James settled onto a seat, trying to appear as if he weren't intruding as Tali recorded her message. From what he immediately gathered, Shepard had attempted to celebrate the quarian's birthday the first year Tali had been a member of the crew-when she was fresh on her pilgrimage. He listened as Tali unfolded the story.
. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .
Tali really hadn't been thinking much about what day it was-it was always odd the way the humans kept track of time. There were two separate clocks to consider, an adjusted calendar...it was a wonder anybody who didn't constantly check their omnitool could keep anything straight. Anyway, she'd been working on something for the Normandy's engines, under the careful supervision of Chief Engineer Adams (she couldn't exactly recall what at the moment).
Kaidan had come into the room. "Uh, Tali? I need you to come with me for a few minutes." His dark eyes had been shifty and although Tali wasn't very good at reading human expression yet, she could at least tell he was nervous.
"Can it wait?" she asked him a little plaintively. "My diagnostic is just about to finish for some of the tweaks I made to the drive core..."
He'd scratched the back of his head and looked off to the side for a moment. "Not really. Commander Shepard sent me...oh, I wasn't supposed to..."
Now Tali was openly suspicious. "Why wouldn't you tell me the commander wanted to see me?"
Kaidan sighed, and the way his mouth pulled down into a frown made it clear he was irritated. "I don't know, I'm just following orders. I'm not...very good at this." So he was irritated at himself, Tali surmised.
She decided to...how did humans say it? 'Give him a break.' Although not in the 'it needed to be fixed afterward' sense of the word 'break'. She had been very awkward back then, trying to fit in with a primarily human crew and not make an idiot out of herself. She had always felt as if she were all thumbs, but the more time she spent around the engineers, the more Tali knew that she had a unique opportunity to help. Her engineering background was just something all quarians had, out of the sheer need to maintain the Migrant Fleet. She saw the world differently, and Commander Shepard knew that. It meant a lot to Tali that Shepard valued her input.
"All right," she said. "Where are we going?"
"Just follow me," Kaidan said, straightening with relief. He guided her to the elevator and then to the port observation lounge. The instant the doors parted, a happy little chorus rang out:
"Happy Birthday Tali!"
Tali stopped dead in the doorway, looking around in sheer surprise. Her squadmates were collected in the room, all holding glasses and raising them in an honorific gesture. When it was clear that the quarian didn't know quite what to do with herself, Shepard stepped forward.
"I don't know how quarians mark the day they were born each year," the commander admitted, "but in the human culture, we have a little bit of a party with drinks, cake, and presents."
Tali's voice was awed. "But...how did you know?"
"I have my ways," Shepard said with a smile, putting a hand on Tali's arm and gently steering her into the room. "And I hope Kaidan didn't say anything too alarming to get you to come here."
"He's not very good with surprises," Tali replied honestly, and the commander snickered.
Now that Tali was in the center of the room, she could see that someone had draped paper ribbons over the backs of the benches, and some manner of colored, glowing bubbles or bags were attached to the ceiling in various places.
"I believe they're called 'balloons'," Liara said when she saw Tali gazing around in wonder. "A customary human decoration."
"Really hard to blow up when you have plates for a mouth," Garrus said wryly from where he was seated to the left. He raised his glass to Tali. "Courtesy of my recommendation, there are dextro-friendly drinks."
"I don't know what to say," Tali said slowly. "I wish I could express how unexpectedly wonderful this is."
"You just did," Garrus said, his mandibles twitching as he smiled. "And I hear Shepard went all out and made the cake for you."
"Cake for me? Does she even know how to make sure it's safe to eat?" Tali queried.
Garrus leaned forward as if imparting a secret. "I think the better question is: have you seen Shepard try to cook?"
"I have," Joker said from where he was sitting beside the turian with a glass of his own. "But I'll spare you the horror story of how they had to nearly vent the atmo on the last ship to put out the fire."
"But..." Tali protested slightly as she found a seat. "Surely operating human machinery should be easy for her. I mean, I would understand if she set an asari kitchen on fire..."
Liara handed Tali a tall glass, complete with straw. "I believe even Commander Shepard would find it difficult to do that, as asari no longer use open flames for food preparation."
The conversation was abruptly cut short when Shepard herself joined them, settling on the bench beside Tali. Her open, friendly gaze gave no indication she had heard any of the previous topic. Tali cleared her throat a little conspicuously and asked, "So, Shepard...what do humans do at birthday parties?"
"You mean when we're kids or when we're old enough to have alcohol?" Shepard asked with a grin. She shrugged. "I suppose it depends on how you were raised. I bet all of our human traditional birthdays are very different from one another."
"You mean you never played 'pin the horns on the salarian'?" Kaidan asked. "You missed out."
"Well, that sounds a lot harder than 'pin the tentacles on the hanar'," Ashley said. "But that way, everybody got a prize at the end, which is important when you have as many competitive little sisters as I do."
"What do you do to krogan?" Wrex asked in his rumbling voice from his seat near the windows. "Put their shells on?"
"Um...I think the only version I've heard of is 'pin the tail on the krogan'," Kaidan confessed after a moment. Ashley smothered a laugh behind one hand. "There aren't any asari, quarian, or turian themes in the human games that I know of," he hastily assured the other squadmates.
"Unless you count pinatas," Shepard said in a low tone that Tali was sure was meant to be overheard.
"'Pinatas'?" Garrus repeated.
Kaidan's face turned red. "Not my field of expertise; the Alenkos didn't play games that involved hitting things with a stick. It was far more common to get butter on your nose."
"Hitting-" Liara began.
"...with a stick?!" Tali sat bolt upright and looked around. "You mean you-" But then she realized that Ashley was doubled over with laughter, and Shepard's shoulders were shaking in silent mirth, even though she covered her expression with her hand. Joker was chuckling hard enough that he nearly choked on his drink. Garrus at least had the sense not to slap him on the back.
"No, no!" Kaidan said hastily. "Pinatas are made from cardboard and paper, usually stuffed with candy or something. I've only seen ones that look like animals." He glared across the room at Shepard, who had the temerity to wink at him. "Ah, I hate my life," he muttered, and slunk over to the bar to refill his glass.
"Needless to say," Shepard spoke up once she had wiped tears out of her eyes, "those are all games we play as children. As adults, we mostly sit around and talk, eat dessert, and give you presents." She gestured to a side table that Tali hadn't noticed before; it had an assorted collection of packages and containers on it. A few were wrapped in some manner of cheerful, bright paper (Tali guessed those were from the humans), one was covered in what looked like random sheets of paper, and the others were simply in unmarked boxes (although one had some kind of shiny, decorative sticker on top).
The door to the lounge opened suddenly, and Dr. Chakwas came through. "Apologies for my tardiness," she said by way of greeting. "I was finishing a long distance consult." She held up a medium-sized package of her own, this one covered in purple paper with a matching mass of curled ribbon on the top. Wrex and Kaidan pointed to the pile of gifts and she walked over to add hers.
"So how does your family celebrate birthdays, Doc?" Joker asked. "Tali here was just asking about human traditions, and we've covered kids' games so far."
"Hm," Chakwas said, nodding to Kaidan who handed her a drink. She sat down beside Liara as she thought about it. "I suppose one of the ones most memorable from my childhood was when my family lived in Switzerland. There's an ancient tradition of hiring an evil clown to torment the birthday boy or girl all day long, ending when the clown throws a pie in your face." The doctor smiled a little mischievously.
"What?" Joker prodded.
"Oh, well, it was amusing...it never happened to me, but to one of the school friends I'd made. I'd been with her all day, and when the time came to throw the pie, I stepped in front of her."
"Took one for the team?" Ashley asked with a laugh.
"Oh no. I caught the pie-I've always had quick hands-and I threw it back at him. He wasn't so lucky. And then Shannon and I ran for it, all the way to my house where we hid under my bed until it was time for her own party." Chakwas smiled at the memory.
"You humans are strange," Wrex finally pronounced, sounding mystified. "Krogan just like a good feast, maybe some brawling in between. Get the blood pumping."
"Since asari are so long-lived," Liara said, "we only tend to celebrate every few years after a certain age. I believe the last time I celebrated my birthday was when I turned one hundred."
The humans all stared at the resident Prothean expert. "I'm...I forgot about that," Shepard admitted after a moment. "You wear your age well." She lifted her glass suddenly. "To birthdays, no matter when!"
"Birthdays!"
"Natal felicitations!"
"Really, is that what turians say?"
Once she'd set her glass down, Shepard turned to Tali. "Well, you're the birthday girl. Presents or cake first?"
"I get to choose?" Tali asked. When the commander nodded, the quarian straightened enthusiastically. "Presents, of course!"
Joker and Ashley both let out whoops of victory and held out their hands to Kaidan. He rolled his eyes and passed them something that looked suspiciously like credits.
"Do you mind?" Shepard asked them, but easy expression on her face told Tali that she was enjoying herself too much to be taken seriously. "You've got it, Tali." She jumped up and began ferrying the armload of gifts to her abandoned seat.
"Can I go first?" Joker asked with a grin. "Tali, you know you wanna open mine first."
"Well...which one is it?" the quarian asked, inspecting all the packages. "Let me guess. The random sheets of paper."
Liara turned a little bluer around the tentacles. "Actually, I misunderstood Shepard when she mentioned wrapping with paper."
"Oh. Well, it's still nice," Tali said diplomatically.
"It's the one with green paper," Joker said. "Just don't look too close; I may have reused a wrapper from something else."
"'Salarian hot'n'crisp jerky'?" Tali read aloud as she tore the cover off of a square box. "Do I want to know what it's made of?"
"Is it salarians?" Wrex asked, sounding interested.
"What? No, Wrex! It's a combination of pork and...other stuff," Joker said defensively. "Would you let Tali appreciate the great thing it is that I've given her?"
Tali pulled the tabs on the edge of the box so that the lid parted. Inside was a tiny wooden model of a quarian ship; one of the larger ones like where she'd been raised. "Joker...I...how did you know?" she asked softly, turning the little ship to and fro so she could study it from all sides.
"What, you didn't think these magic hands could just fly, did you?" Joker teased. "It wasn't hard. I just looked up the ship from your name. Easy."
"Not easy for me," Kaidan said as Tali passed the ship around to those wanting to examine it. "Nice, Joker."
"Well, I want to go next," Ashley spoke up. She offered Tali a hesitant smile. "The pink one, and I promise it's proper wrapping paper."
Tali gently lifted the tiny package and opened it carefully. A small silver coin-like pendant was nestled on a piece of cloth. The likeness of a human was tooled onto it; it didn't look expensive, rather it looked...personal. "Who is it?" she asked Ashley.
"That's Saint Christopher," Ashley hurried to explain. "There's an old Earth culture that regards him as the protector of travelers. Think of it as a good luck charm."
"I will," Tali promised, tracing the small image with her gloved finger. "Quarians are nothing if not travelers." She looked up at the human woman and said, "Thank you."
There was a pause as the other people looked between each other to see who was going to put forth their gift next.
"Fine," Wrex grumbled. "I don't know anything about this 'present' business, so I just left it alone." He pointed to a silver container standing tall among the remaining packages.
Tali picked it up and handled it experimentally. She located a release button and depressed it. With a hiss and a little cloud of vapor, the mini-cooler popped open. "Is that...no. Wrex, how did you...!" Tali jumped up and hugged the krogan, who eyeballed her as if she were crazy. Well, she was likely a little drunk by now, but regardless... "Where did you get quarian ale at this end of the galaxy?"
"Shepard has her ways, I have mine," was all Wrex would say, but the skin around his red eyes crinkled in what Tali had learned was amused pleasure.
"I'm saving this for a special occasion," Tali said firmly, putting the precious bottle back inside the cooler.
"Okay, I guess it's my turn," Kaidan said, wincing slightly. "It's not original at all, Tali. Sorry." He pushed a package wrapped in simple brown paper to her.
The box was flat and thin, and Tali jiggled it a little cautiously before tearing the paper off. "Kaidan, it's perfect," she said with as much sincerity as she could muster. "Other species don't often think about what it's like to live in suits all the time. These are my favorite filters, I promise." Kaidan grinned at the praise, and straightened up a bit proudly.
"I can top that," Garrus insisted, setting down his cup long enough to point at the box with the odd, shiny sticker on top. No, it was a seal, Tali realized. The seal of one of the most prestigious omnitool making companies in the galaxy. "Now, before you go asking how, let's just say I had help." And here he winked at Shepard, who shrugged in mute conspiracy.
"It's...it's that model from last year, the best they've made for engineering..." Tali slipped the metal device out of its box and flicked it on. The new omnitool lit up and offered her the command setup. "Oh, I'll have to play with it later," she said with a small pout. But she leaned over and hugged Shepard, who had moved the last few presents out of the way in order to sit down again.
"I suppose I should give you my gift in hopes that you'll forget about the paper," Liara said, and Tali assured her it wouldn't change her opinion one way or the other. Inside the box were two data chips; both upgrades for the omnitool. She thanked the asari profusely until Liara blushed again.
Dr. Chakwas gave her the neatly-wrapped purple gift; it was a collection of dextro-friendly snacks and supplements, some of which Tali had never tried before. "Thank you," Tali told her. "It will be nice to get away from rations for a little while." She caught Garrus craning his neck to get a peek inside the box, and she held it away from him defensively. "These are mine, Garrus Vakarian. Go find yourself another doctor to work your wiles on." The turian flicked his mandibles at her in amusement.
"Okay, I know I went in with Garrus already, but this is just a little something extra," Shepard promised, handing Tali the last box. It wasn't wrapped, rather the box was made from a reflective paper decorated with little holographic sunbursts that shimmered under the lights when Tali turned it side to side. Inside was a book with hard cover. "'The Adventures of Relli, Asterus, and Sallena'," she read aloud. The picture on the front was of a quarian with an omnitool, a turian with some manner of simplistic weapon, and an asari obviously wielding biotic powers. All three were, judging by their size, late adolescents.
"I've...never heard of this book," Tali said, studying the text on the back.
Shepard grinned. "Figured you hadn't, as it's written by a human author. It's definitely good for some laughs, I promise. You'll see where I got my ideas about turians eating small wildlife pretty quick."
Garrus snorted. "We do not eat wildlife, Shepard. I don't care what you think the native Palaven animal ressin looks like."
"They look like squirrels!" Shepard exclaimed, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. "Big squirrels with sandy-colored fur!"
"Shepard, how would you know?" Kaidan countered. "You've never lived on Earth."
"I can still recognize a squirrel, Kaidan," she said with an eyeroll. "One step above rats."
"Cake!" Ashley interrupted before there could be an argument. "Shepard, this was your masterpiece; you have to do the honors for the birthday girl."
"Right!" Shepard said, getting up and clearing away some of the discarded wrapping paper and boxes. "And no jokes about my cooking."
"Too late," Joker muttered out of the side of his mouth.
"I didn't actually bake it; it's more of an ice cream cake," Shepard confessed, not having heard the pilot. She disappeared behind the bar for a second and then reemerged with some type of glass bowl. Inside were what Tali supposed had been layers of a cold confection at one time...but the dessert had somehow managed to solidify itself into prism-like structures. Very spiky, geometric structures.
Shepard's face fell as she looked at it. "I guess making sure it was processed to make it safe for quarians did something to it."
"I've never seen anything-" Tali began, but Liara cleared her throat. "-that looked so good," Tali finished smoothly. At the dubious look the commander gave her, Tali held up one hand. "If I'm to be this 'birthday girl' you've been talking about, then what I say goes. So stop feeling sorry for yourself and let me taste it." Shepard obediently dished up a bowl for her.
"Okay, those of you who know it, let's sing," Shepard announced, bringing the bowl over to Tali. "Kaidan, you're the least tone deaf."
Kaidan obliged. "Happy birthday to you..." Ashley, Joker, Dr. Chakwas, and Shepard all joined in. Liara hummed along, while Wrex and Garrus exchanged hangdog looks that plainly said, humans are strange.
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Taliiiiiii..." they held the last note; Ashley giggled.
"Happy birthday to you!" And they burst into a round of applause.
"And for those of you concerned, don't worry, I baked the levo dessert," Ashley assured the rest of the room. "You better like chocolate, that's all I'm saying."
"Sign me up!" Joker exclaimed as Shepard pulled another container from behind the bar. She beckoned for Liara to come help her, and the asari handed Garrus his own dish of the spiky, geometric concoction as Shepard cut up the triple-layered brownies Ashley had made.
The rest of the party was filled with good-natured joking, teasing, and more dessert and drinks. By the end of it, Garrus challenged Tali to arm-wrestle for the last of the dextro dessert, and then was seen licking his bowl with his long, slender tongue. Tali caught the moment on her new omnitool, along with Wrex nearly headbutting Kaidan in a mad scramble for thirds on Ashley's brownies.
. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .
"I never told you, Shepard," Tali said to the camera, "but later I learned that humans make wishes on their birthdays. Quarians do, too, although we're not superstitious about sharing them afterwards. My wish was that we would always be friends...and now it's come true. Thank you for my first birthday party, Shepard. I'll talk to you again soon."
When she shut the camera drone off and stood to take it back to the other lounge, James stirred himself and finally stood up. He'd lost track of time, sitting there imagining everything as it happened. He could still hear the refrain of the song faintly, and was briefly regretful that he hadn't known Shepard and her friends back then.
"Couldn't sleep, James?" Tali asked, tilting her masked face up at him. Her eyes glowed brightly behind the semi-transparent plating, and he gave her a half-smile.
"Nah, I've got some things to do," he said. "Getting to that relay later today and everything. Need to make sure the Normandy's squared away."
Tali nodded and they walked together to the elevator. "I'll see you in a few hours, then."
"You got it, Sparks."
Tali laughed. "If you had seen the mess I made of the kitchen, you wouldn't just call me 'Sparks'."
"So I hear," James said. "You can bet I'll be showing up for that story."
"As I plan to do for your food fight," Tali answered with mischief in her voice. "Someone's got to stand up for Donnelly."
James pointed a finger at her. "Is that a challenge?"
"We'll see, Vega. We'll see."