Tali and Shepard were up late catching up on each other's lives. Tali's five weeks had been more eventful than Shepard's, but there was still some station gossip to hear. Tali's favorite bit of news was how Kaidan had crashed and spectacularly burned while attempting to ask out a maintenance technician near stationed in engineering. While many before had fallen for the attractive form and smooth talk of one Kaidan Alenko, this time he made the mistake of making a pass at the sister of a woman whom he was planning to meet for drinks that night. Needless to say, Kaidan was going to be sleeping alone for the foreseeable future.
They'd just finished laughing at their friend's indiscretion when Tali's omnitool beeped.
"Keelah it's already midnight, we have duty tomorrow."
"Shit, I totally lost track of time." Shepard said, also mad at herself for not broaching the subject she'd promised she'd discuss.
"Leave the dishes out Shepard I'll clean them up tomorrow when we're off duty." She said, brushing herself off and standing. Shepard stood and reached her arms up, stretching and yawning.
"Sounds good to me." Shepard replied, then downed the remainder of her beer, and discrded the bottle in the recycling container. When she looked at Tali, the woman stood there, wringing her hands, hesitating.
"Shepard?" Tali said.
"Yeah what's up?" She said.
"Um, nothing. Never mind. Goodnight Shepard."
"Oh, OK you sure?" she asked.
"Yes, sorry, good night." She repeated, reaching over for a quick hug before walking into her room and closing the door.
"Nice one lameass." Shepard admonished herself, retreating to her bathroom to get ready for bed.
"Nice Job, Bosh'tet!" Tali said to herself at losing her nerve at the last minute. She sighed, climbed into bed and activated her helmet's privacy features, and opened up her journal dictation program.
"Keelah I am an idiot. Today started out so great, Not only did I make Ensign right out of training, but Father, Auntie Raan and even Shepard were there waiting to congratulate me. I've never heard Father and Auntie sound so proud of me. Shepard was proud of me. Then we went home and spent hours just talking, until about five minutes ago today would have been the best day of my life. I almost built up the courage to ask Shepard out, but I lost my nerve. Why do I have to be such a coward?" she ended the entry there and tried to sleep, it would be a long time coming.
Life went on over the next week, things were much the same except now everyone on Shepard's squad except Shepard herself now saluted tali when she reported for duty. At first she felt awkward receiving such respect but came to realize that her squad mates didn't think any differently of her, they were simply following protocol.
Thankfully they were quite busy handling the needs of the civilians in their section, so she wasn't allowed too much time to think, and every evening when they returned from duty everything was great until they parted to go to sleep. Each night they both struggled to find the courage to ask the other, and each night they both failed, until Friday afternoon when the whole squad was off and they were scheduled to have the weekend off.
After settling a dispute between a residential block manager and a business owner over a rather garish advertisement overlapping their declared boundaries, Shepard gathered her things and found Tali off in a corner adjusting a relay near the section's main power input feed.
"You ready to rock?" Shepard asked.
"Yes, this will hold until the replacement comes next week. Let's head home." Tali responded.
"Tali, wait." Shepard said, suddenly her anger at her inaction outweighing her nerves and cowardice.
"Let's go get sushi tonight." She said.
"Oh, ok, that sounds good." Tali responded nonchalantly, not realizing the subtext.
"Uh, Tali. I mean, like as a date." Shepard said her face beet red, struggling to force the lump in her throat back down.
"Oh." tali said, frozen.
"Aw, dammit, I'm sorry Tali I shouldn't have asked, I thought you were.." Shepard stammered, trying to hide her broken heart behind false bravado.
"NO!" Tali yelled. "I mean, yes! Let's Go. On the date." Tali said.
"Really?" Shepard asked, her voice tiny, surprised and hopeful.
"Yes! I'd love to!" Tali said, grabbing Shepard's hand squeezing it to emphasize the point.
"Great! There's this place over past the alleys it looks out into space." Shepard offered, her head swimming. She was so happy she couldn't see straight.
"That sounds Wonderful." Tali said, thankful that her mask was hiding the undoubtedly goofy looking grin on her face. They both made it back to their apartment in record time, and Shepard raced to her room to find something decent to wear. She settled on a simple black dress that she'd picked up for the occasion the last time the supply ship came by.
While Shepard was doing her thing, Tali walked into her room removing a small plastic container from her bag and screwing it into a port on the left arm of her suit. She twisted it, breaking the seal and injecting her system with a moderate immuno boost cocktail. Tali was not planning on doing anything requiring an immune booster tonight, but she thought it would be better to be safe than sorry. She emerge and was stunned at the vision of beauty standing before her.
Shepard was a strongly built woman, that came not only from the physical training and genetic augmenation standard for N7 soldiers, but also some damn good genes from both parents' side. She stood at an even six feet tall, and in her BDU she was an intimidating sight, this dress however accentuated just how feminine and sexy a strong woman could be. It was amazing that a simple piece of cloth could accentuate her toned arms and shoulders, and just enough leg to remain tasteful while still showing off her feminine figure. She was an undoubtedly beautiful creature and Tali was left speechless.
"Uh, eyes up here Tali." She grinned as she noticed the Quarian woman ogling her.
"Right, uh sorry. Are you ready?" Tali stammered.
Shepard smiled and opened the door, gesturing for her to leave first. They arrived at the restaurant faster than expected, there was surprisingly little traffic on this part of the station. They disembarked their transport, and Shepard hooked her elbow around Tali's and escorted her in. They were seated, and began mulling over the menu.
"Thank you." Tali said to Shepard
"For what?" She asked.
"For asking me. Keelah I wanted to ask you for so long and I kept losing my nerve." She replied.
"Oh, you're welcome. Honestly I've been trying to ask all week, I kept chickening out too." Shepard responded. I'd had this planned since I talked with your dad when you got out of training." She mentioned.
"You talked to my father about us?" She asked, surprised.
"Well not at first. We were talking about you, and he told me a few things about you growing up, showed me some baby pictures, bragged over and over again about you." She said. "I think he was happy to have someone to gush about you with."
"Oh no not the baby pictures." Tali said, resting her visor in her hands
"Don't worry, nothing embarrassing, just you trying to break out of your bubble, and one the day you were born." She said.
"Oh the one with mother?" She asked.
"Yeah, she was beautiful Tali. I wish I'd had the chance to meet her, from what Rael said she was quite the woman.
"Oh yes, I miss her so much sometimes, it was so fun to watch her deconstruct Father's arguments. Sometimes she would convince him not only to believe the exact opposite of what he'd been saying before, but that he'd come to the conclusion he was wrong on his own. She loved to toy with him, but she loved him so much." She said.
"Oh that's amazing. I don't remember much about my dad, I was really young when he died." Shepard said.
"I'm sorry." Tali said
"Oh it's ok, he was a good man but my mom is a hell of a woman. Growing up on ships is tough, not that I'd have to tell you that." she laughed.
"Yeah nowhere to hide when they decide to embarrass you." Tali added
"Definitely. Eh we turned out alright though." She said Tali nodded as the waiter arrived and took their orders. Throughout the night they talked, and laughed and drank, getting to know each other even mor than they already had. Tali had a tendency to go off on tangents when a topic she was excited about came up, and Shepard found that painfully endearing. When the night drew to a close they paid the bill and headed home.
"Tali I had an amazing time tonight, I really want to do this again soon." Shepard said
"Me too. I, uh Shepard. One last thing." tali said, her heart pounding in her ears.
"Sure what's up?" Shepard asked. Tali reached up, lowering her hood, and popped the clasp of her mask off letting out a hiss of slightly pressurized gas.
"Tali don't! You'll get sick!" Shepard said, her hands flying up covering Tali's.
"I took an immune booster before we left as a precaution, just in case I wanted to do what I really want to do right now." She said, her voice wavering. Shepard lowered her hands, allowing tali to remove the faceplate of her helmet. Shepard was by no means a religious woman, but the vision before her was like looking into the eyes of a goddess. Tali's beauty was unrivaled, her perfect pale purple complexion marred only by the lines connecting her subdermal implants in fine, symmetrical rows, barely visible looking like faded tattoos.
Her blue hair, kept short out of necessity by her helmet's internal systems barely peeked out from the top of her helmet forming a perfectly symmetrical widows peak above her adorable pointed nose. As she noticed Shepard's frozen, slack-jawed spellbound appearance she smiled revealing surprisingly human-like teeth barring the elongated canines, likely an artifact of their species' evolutionary history of being nocturnal predators.
The feature that stuck out the most were her eyes. From a distance one would think them to be 100% pale silver sclera, but there was a barely visible cornea at the center of each eye with no discernible pupil. Both eyes glowed slightly, a trait adapted from their nocturnal ancestors, via some bio-luminescent mechanism that Shepard couldn't even come close to understanding. All that she knew was before her floated the most gorgeous face she had ever laid eyes on.
"Gah, um Tali. Jesus..." Shepard said, her inarticulate outburst causing Tali to giggle. The sound, unmarred by her vocal processors was like a Siren's song to Shepard, it was a sound she'd ache to hear again as much as possible.
"Goodnight Jane." Tali said, reaching up and taking Shepard's head in her hands, and drawing her down into a chaste kiss. She would later describe the experience as similar to fireworks in a lightning storm all happening in her heart and head. This dear sweet woman she'd come to care so much about was kissing her! This was the greatest feeling she had ever felt, and she was determined to feel it again as much as possible.
Tali reluctantly broke the kiss, winked at Shepard and replaced her face mask. She would probably get a little bit sick later but for that brief moment of ecstacy, and the possibility of what might lie ahead of her, it was worth it. Totally worth it.