A/N: Enjoy guys and thanks for the reviews!
|Date: 10/03/2184|
|Location: Serpent Nebula/Citadel/Kithoi Ward/Karemein Suites/4th floor/Room D-18|
They were watching some broadcast on the vid screen. Soaking in some weird show about a dodgy law firm on Illium.
Tali blankly stared on to the two characters talking.
"—This one's told you the truth, Baxley, this one considers you a friend."
"I ain't your friend. And cram the hospitality, jelly, I ain't in the mood for it."
"Then what is this one to you?"
"A business partner. A real shitty one."
"That hurts this one's feelings."
"You know, I might've smiled at the idea of us being friends two months ago? But finding out about your downplay of involvement in the money laundering our competitors have been doing down the street isn't helping our situation any! I mean, f—k! What the hell were you thinking?!"
"Just as this one wondered what you were thinking when you hired Arisa as a lawyer. She doesn't even have a license for law."
"Yeah, I know damnit. But that's completely different than trafficking drugs, jelly. I mean, even for Illium? You're an idiot!"
"Either puts our jobs at jeopardy."
"I'm gonna grab those tentacles of yours and hang you."
Tali didn't really know where the story was going. Probably because the series was well into its third season and it being the first time she ever saw it.
Not that she cared really. She was never one to watch much TV. Understandably because she never had the time to.
Liara cast a glance at Tali and frowned. She didn't look all that well.
"Hey," Liara said to get Tali's attention away from the vid, "how're you feeling? You okay?"
"I'm fine." She mumbled as she kept her attention glued to the screen. The hanar mentioned it not having a neck before the two characters drew up fists and tentacles to start pummeling each other.
"When did you get the pendent John made for you?"
Tali immediately detached herself from the vid and faced her.
"... a while ago. Why?"
"I'm just glad that Garrus got it to you." Liara answered.
Tali clutched the piece and looked at it. "Me too."
She kept staring at the necklace before finally facing Liara. "I'm sorry. For being an ass earlier."
"I understand."
"But do you?"
"Yes, Tali. I do. You had every right."
Her gaze fell back to the necklace. "I'm not entirely sure John would've wanted to see me this way..."
Liara said nothing and Tali let her head hang low.
"Why'd he fall for me...?" Tali said quietly without the courage to look back up at Liara, "Why?"
"Because of who you are." Liara answered simply, "Of what's on the inside and not the outside, I think."
"...I miss him, Liara."
"I know." She answered before wrapping her arms around Tali and resting a chin on her shoulder, "It's okay."
"It's been so long... and it still hurts." Tali mumbled as she leaned into Liara, "He actually saw me. My face I mean."
"Did he?" Liara asked into her shoulder as she stared emptily at the wall. She could feel Tali's grief swell. It was nothing short of painful.
If you're going to do something Liara... now's the time to do it. Give to her what she deserves.
Tali nodded numbly and didn't say anything.
Liara then placed both her hands on Tali's shoulders before leaning in close to Tali's face with a sad smile.
Visibly confused, Tali felt the urge to lean back, but didn't.
"Wh—what are you doing?"
"Embrace Eternity."
...
There was a term John used back on the ol' SR1. Had to do with his visions and Liara going into his head to make sense of them.
He'd never told anyone in particular really. But he did share it with Tali.
'Total mind fuck.'
Tali didn't understand it much then. But she sure as fuck did now.
In every way conceivable, Tali felt completely and totally violated.
Hell, Liara didn't even ask for fucking permission. It was like kicking down the front door of someone's home before blasting every window open in the middle of the best shit storm a thunder god could've ever made.
She felt something crack and whistle and pop. Her whole brain felt like it was sitting under an ice-pick.
And just before Tali could scream at the mere idea of dealing with this for another second, it subsided.
Gone completely.
She opened her eyes and saw nothing but an inky void that surrounded her. There was light... but it was black.
There were colors... but there weren't any.
She could smell something now. It was sweet and bright. Cold and crisp like early morning air.
Her core felt warm too. And for the time being, she felt peace.
So this was what it was like, huh? Damn.
Tali didn't want to feel it, but she started to feel jealousy. Liara had done this to John every time she'd ever read his mind.
Ugh.
"No, Tali. I didn't." Liara said but didn't, "It wasn't fun. At all."
Tali whirled to the voice-but-not-voice. She could hear her think?!
"Yes. I can feel what you think." Liara affirmed as she appeared out of nowhere.
Tali turned to stare at her and blushed. "Oh... Nice robe... thing."
Liara walked up to her. "You're wearing one too, Tali."
Tali looked down to see she was wearing a white flowy looking robe. She could see both her bare feet standing on blackness. "Huh."
"Come." Liara offered a hand, "Walk with me."
"...Liara? I'm not exactly used... to this."
"I know." Liara whispered but didn't, "It's okay."
"I see my feet." Tali mumbled, "I'm assuming you see my face too."
"When we meld, Tali, we share experiences." She explained, "Your face is well known to you. And because of that, your face is well known to me."
"Ah." Tali murmured, fairly confused.
"I know." Liara nodded, "It's confusing."
"Confusing? I can't even hide what I'm thinking. Watch."
Liara's a giant asshole.
Liara frowned. "No. I suppose you can't."
They kept walking to nothing.
"Where are we going?"
"I'm taking you somewhere."
"Why are we even doing this?"
"I want to show you something."
The aimless path they'd been walking on stopped before fissuring. A set of steps rose to the air and a whirlwind of light spawned into existence. Tali didn't have to think too hard to think it was some kind of gateway.
"Keelah."
Liara stopped walking and pointed to the steps. "Go, Tali."
"...to where?"
"A memory."
With a second glance, Tali took the first step and climbed until she was face to face with the pooling of blue light. With a lot of thought, Tali finally stepped through.
...
She felt a torrent of frosty air spill over her. Chills crawled along her skin and the light consumed her a hundred times over.
Sparks fly and Tali suddenly is standing on dirt with a sky above and mountain ranges at the horizon. It took her moment to acclimate to the sudden change in scenery.
"...Where am I?"
"The past." Liara answered as she stepped up from behind Tali.
Tali started to recognize the mountains. Her face grew dark and she turned sharply to Liara.
"Why are we here, Liara. Why are we looking at Ullipses."
"...To see the last of your days with John."
Tali said nothing. And oddly enough, she wasn't taken aback. But she still gave Liara a long stare before turning back around to look back up at the sky.
She suddenly saw the Normandy. Saw its long trail of black smoke and flecks of paneling shredding off her beautiful body.
"That's you, Tali." Liara whispered, "Flying us to safety."
Tali kept staring at the Normandy and felt herself become stricken with anxiety. "God... I remember."
Just when the Normandy was about to make contact with the ground, the scene changed and the air grew cold again. Tali shivered.
She started to feel a fire. When she opened her eyes, Tali saw a memory of herself without her mask on, sitting next to John, closer than personal space would allow, talking and laughing together.
If Tali didn't have much to say when she watched the Normandy fall, she definitely didn't have much to say about what she was seeing now.
"You see this, Tali?" Liara waited for the memory of Tali and John to smile and laugh again, "It's beautiful."
Tali didn't say anything and kept watching him.
He looked alive.
Real even.
Just as lively as she remembered.
And as Tali stared into his eyes the same way she always did when she was stricken with love, she realized again how happy they were then.
Tali felt a tear welling in her eye.
"God, Liara... I miss him."
She watched herself and John leaning in to a kiss that never came. An explosion from somewhere far off interrupted them.
Liara ended the scene before they could see anymore.
"...Shame you two fell short of time."
"Had fate given me ten more seconds..."
All Liara did was nod sadly. "It's cliché isn't it?"
Tali faced her as the ground around them started to grow into steel walls. "What?"
"To have something always stop you."
"Story of my life, Liara. We were living inside a romance novel. I swear."
Liara laughed slightly when the setting was done morphing into John's quarters inside the Normandy.
Quietly, Tali looked on to John sleeping and spooning her under the covers.
"This is where he told me." Tali whispered faintly as she stepped up next to the bed to get a closer look, "He said: I love you."
Liara didn't say anything and Tali didn't need to turn around to know she was at a loss of words.
Moments pass and neither of them say anything. Tali's gaze eventually falter and she was left staring at her toes with tears starting to fall across her cheeks.
It looked so real. His gentle breathing. The warmth that radiated from him. She dropped to both her knees and kept staring numbly at her own memory.
However imaginary the tears that fell into her lap, they still felt real and painful.
"Liara... I— I can't." Tali choked, "I don't want to see this anymore."
Liara put a hand on her shoulder and gave her an understanding nod. "Okay."
Tali watched the room dissolve from view.
"...Thank you."
"Of course." Liara said coolly as they moved on. Soon enough, they were inside a collector ship with pods strung about in rows with people inside them.
"Remember this?"
"...Yes." Tali said mutely, "This is where we rescued them... the crew I mean."
"Look." Liara said simply as she swayed an arm.
Tali turned around to see herself covered in clumps of dried mud and charred dirt from head to toe holding an unconscious John in her lap.
It crushed her seeing how bad they both looked.
"Keelah." Is all she could mutter to say.
"We weren't at our best." Liara agreed quietly.
"Not at all." Tali whispered after finally looking away from her memory.
Tali was dreading what was coming next. Partly denial or not, she knew what this was leading to.
It was leading to the Denmark. It had to be. It's where this terrible nightmare ended… or for her, where it began. John died at the end of this memory. A lot of her friends on the Normandy died here. This wasn't anything she wanted a rehash of. At all.
"…What's next?" Tali asked timidly with a frown as the scene began morphing into something else, "If it's— if it's what I think it is… then I don't want to go there, Liara."
Tali turned around, but Liara wasn't there.
"…Liara?"
The scene kept changing and her skin crawled from the cool air around her.
"Liara?"
Tali whirled around desperately for something blue, but she couldn't find her.
"Liara!"
The collector ship soon turned into the Denmark.
"Liara… please. I can't relive this..." Tali whimpered desperately as she stood in front of the elevator in engineering, "Please!"
The elevator opened and she saw only herself step out.
John stayed in the lift.
"Go Tali. I'm going to get the crew." He said.
"What?" Tali heard herself say, "John. No. We are not splitting up again. Not now."
He placed two hands on her shoulders to calm her down. "Listen to me. It's only going to take a moment. Get the escape pod ready."
"John. I— I can't." The other Tali from the memory replied, "I just... can't."
"Yes, Tali. You can. It'll only be for a moment."
Tali watched herself take a hesitant step backward.
"Do your magic, hun," John said as he pressed a button for the hangar bay, "I'll be back before you know it."
Witnessing the end of John was going to end her.
"Liara!" Tali cried as she covered her ears to hold herself from hearing anymore, "Please! Please don't do this to me! God please don't, please!"
Tali fell to her knees and tears spilled from her eyes in waves, "No. No no no. I can't. I can't do this again. I can't."
She watched in total horror as the elevator doors close over John before leading him to death.
And as Tali screamed to recompense the mistake of letting John down to his grave all that time ago, she was swallowed whole by fire and flames of the Denmark being torn in two.
"Tali. Wake up!"
Tali realized she was lying on the floor. It felt as if the whole Rayya were on top of her.
Both her eyes stung and she struggled to open them. "Ugh…"
"Goddess. Tali. Are you alright? Are you okay?"
As Tali started to get her bearings, she felt her stare turn cold to the blue blot hovering over her.
"You son of a bitch."
"—What?"
"Why would you do that to me?!" Tali heaved with a snarl as she propped herself up, "Why!?"
"Tali— I don't know what you're talking about…"
"Don't know what I'm talking about?" Tali said with a forced laugh, "DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT?!"
Liara put two hands up in total disbelief of Tali.
"You pushed me out of the meld…" Liara explained even though she didn't really understand why Tali was acting the way she was, "Whatever you saw after the collector ship wasn't me… I swear."
"Get. Away. From. Me."
Liara did as ordered and backed up. "T—Tali… please."
"Don't you ever do that to me again." Tali intoned darkly, "Ever."
Tali got to her feet and brushed past Liara to her bedroom.
"I'm sorry…" Liara whispered with tears pooling in her eyes. "Please believe me… I'm sorry."
Tali didn't hear the apology.
-Meanwhile...
"Okay Juel. This one's twenty kilos. Right behind you. Care lifting that for me?"
Juel turned around and saw the weight. "Yeah. I can do that."
He bent down, grabbed the weight, and brought it over his head with his new hand.
"Excellent." His doctor said with a smile, "Now put it out in front of you. Full extension please."
Juel obeyed and did as he was told and grinned a little at how seamless it was to do that.
"Much stronger than your old arm. No doubt you can tell."
"Definitely. It's incredible." He set down the weight and pointed to his regular arm. "Should probably replace this one too then, yeah?"
All the doctor could do was laugh and Juel felt happy.
"You'll have to lose it first Juel. Sorry."
"I might just do that, doc." Juel said as he scratched an itch on the top of his head with his new arm, "I mean, it feels just like my old one."
"But it isn't, unfortunately." His doctor explained, "It's much stronger than what you think. You have to be wary of your new strength."
"How strong are we talking?"
"Strong enough to fatally injure yourself. It's easily capable of manipulating weights above 150 kilos. Fortunately, we've installed a VI that inhibits your strength as to not injure you or someone else."
"…Is it possible I bypass these restrictions?"
"Well, of course." The salarian said as he typed something into his computer, "You're quarian, Juel. I'm sure you could bypass anything. But legally, I'm supposed to tell you not to for your own safety. Otherwise you might hurt yourself. Badly."
"I won't push myself." Juel reassured, "I swear."
-Three hours later...
The bathroom's tiled floor was, like everything else in the apartment, creamed tan. The metal tiling that stretched across the room wasn't assembled as well as it should have been either. Likely built from some group of underpaid illegal-immigrated construction workers looking for a quick means of getting paid. Years of aging of this place didn't do it any good either. Poorly built bathroom or not, Tali sat on the floor anyways with her back against the long side of the tub with the door locked.
She stared emptily at nothing and couldn't stop the recent memories from lapsing across her vision.
Then she squeezed her eyes shut to try and keep away what practically amounted to a hallucination.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and cringed as she felt another wave of pain run across her when she saw the Denmark explode and her with it.
"God Damnit."
Spending three hours inside a bathroom no bigger the size of her cubicle back home wasn't helping her health.
Neither was Liara pacing just outside the door either.
"Leave me alone!" Tali demanded.
"No. Not until you get out of there!" Liara replied dully as she wiggled the door knob just to see if it had magically unlocked, "I'm sorry… how many times do—"
Liara didn't finished because Tali opened the door. Her glare tapered even more when she stared at Liara.
"…I'm going to check on Juel."
"Okay… I'll be here then." Liara said, sensing the lack of any invitation to come along.
"Good." Tali huffed before squeezing past Liara and going for the front door.
Liara kept her stare resolutely forward while listening to Tali's petite footsteps. About a moment later, she heard the front door open and close.
Sensing that Tali had exited, Liara felt her shoulders sag and her head fall.
"What am I doing…" She whispered to herself.
Her omni-tool started ringing so she answered it.
"…Hello?"
"Dr. T'Soni."
Liara felt her mind go blank and heart skip a beat or two.
"I—illusive man…"
"Have I interrupted anything, doctor?"
"No… just some thoughts."
"Are you free?"
"No. I'm not in the time or place right now to be having a conversation with you."
"You colleague left and you're alone."
"She not a colleague. She's my friend. There's an important distinction to make there."
"Doctor T'Soni. Believe me when I tell you that this is the time to talk. I wouldn't broadcast myself openly in a public building until I've been made very aware of where you are and the company you're with."
"You really know where I am, don't you?" Liara said with an angry grimace.
"Kithoi Ward, Karemein Suites, 4th floor, Room D-18. Karamein's amenities and creature comforts are a bit impoverished, wouldn't you think? It's been mentioned in several reviews to have subpar living conditions." He smiled sincerely and took a sip of his drink.
"Tali picked it." She remarked lamely.
"I'm aware. It says so on the invoice." He snuffed the cigarette he was holding into his ash-tray and kept his smile up before admitting another cigarette into his mouth, "Given Ms. Zorah's humble aptitude and reputable spending habits, it would come naturally for her to pick it."
Liara cut straight to the chase. "Why are you watching me?"
"A precaution, Dr. T'Soni. Protection not only for Cerberus, but for you as well. You've helped us, but you've garnered the attention of a very dangerous enemy. It's an obligation, if not necessity."
"I don't want to be spied on."
"And I will respect that. The personal parts of your life will remain anonymous and unmonitored. You have my word."
As much as Liara felt that wasn't true, she didn't want to argue the point.
Liara went back to the living room and went to the fridge for her leftovers from last night.
"…What did you need to talk about?"
"I have tremendous—" The Illusive man stopped himself from saying another word and, instead of continuing, took a drag from his cigarette. "Knock knock."
Liara looked up, and sure enough, a trio of small knocks on the front door was heard.
The Illusive man winked out of existence of his own accord and Liara decided to answer the door.
"Who is it?"
"…Tali."
Liara didn't hide the confused look on her face when she opened the door.
Neither of them said anything and they both stared awkwardly at each other for about two or three seconds.
"I forgot my keycard." Tali said quietly as she wrung her hands together at her waist embarrassingly. She brushed past Liara and quickly grabbed the plastic card sitting on the stand next to the door before rushing out with barely a mumbled goodbye.
When Liara closed the door, she waited until Tali's footsteps were long gone before taking a breath. "Too close."
The Illusive man came back and nodded. "Agreed. Would you like me to continue?"
"Please."
"Shepard has been awake and conscious twice now."
Liara felt herself at a loss for words.
"What…? I— that's incredible."
"That's not all." TIM said, "He remembers who he was, the Normandy, and all of you. To what extent however, has yet to be determined."
Liara still hadn't said anything.
"…T'Soni?"
"I'm sorry. It's just… that's a lot to take in."
"I fulfill my promises and I do not fall back on my word. Maybe someday you'll realize that we really are on the same side."
"…Maybe."