ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
CHAPTER 2
12-6-2183
[ PYLOS NEBULA | ILLIKAH SYSTEM | ULLIPSES ]
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
Down she went. An awkward climb through the Normandy's crawlspace to reach the cargo bay to see how far along they were in excavating space for the Mako. When she finished her trek down the ladder, she turned the corner to see everyone from engineering working to establish a modicum of power to basic systems.
A thin and sooty film of fire retardant blanketed the floor, air still wispy from burnt circuitry and sharp ozone.
She found Adams, face buried in detangling a particularly stubborn loom of wire.
"Hey." Tali spoke, voice a sad ember while she waved and walked over, steps leaving behind a trail of powdery prints.
He stopped and looked up as he swept the back of his palm across a sweat-slicked brow. "Oh. Tali." He struggled to his feet after being knelt in a crouch for as long as he was, "Hey."
Oily grime, sweat, and a dried streak of blood that crowned half his brow and cheek was what she saw.
"You're hurt." She murmured sadly at his disheveled appearance. His standard issue undershirt was stained and damp at the pits, his jacket discarded somewhere in the fray.
"But alive." Adams said curtly to blunt what he expected was concern, "I heard you on the coms when you told us to brace. Couldn't believe it. You? Flying the ship? Pretty incredible, Tali. Good job."
The compliment was sincere, but his praise was cued by a small shower of sparks shooting out the end of a broken wire hanging loosely from the ceiling. Facing the comical timing, she frowned.
This did not feel like a good job.
"I don't know." She said with a languid shrug, "I wouldn't call this great."
"We're all still alive." He let that marinade in her head. "That is a good job."
"I totaled the Normandy."
"My dear," The chief engineer consoled her, "Don't be so upset. As much as it hurts, she was still only a ship."
Unwilling to agree, she only crossed her arms and had to shake her head at what felt like a situation of boundless absurdity.
They both took in their sordid view and Adams understood it enough.
"...I know." He said gently, though assuredly, "We'll take this how it goes. Like we always do."
"Oh, we got it!" Draven's voice echoed triumphantly from her corner, "Bay's got power!"
Everyone paused their tasks to look up, eyes trained on the massive doors. Indeed, a faint glow from the control panel confirmed that they were finally juiced.
"Everyone clear on the other end?" Draven called out.
A heavy pound from a krogan fist on the other side answered, reverberating through the metal. "ᵂᵉ'ʳᵉ ᶜˡᵉᵃʳ." Wrex's deep voice rumbled, though it was tinny from the door separating them.
"Alright. Here goes."
The Normandy's doors groaned as they shuddered. With a subtle pop, chilled winds cut through the oppressive heat inside and loose sand began to swirl inward. Warped and battered from the miles-long mudslide, they whined in protest as they continued to open. Darkness fading, the Normandy invited in beams of percolating sunlight that filtered through stringy sheets of cascading dust.
When they finally clanged to the ground, a body of cool air followed to the immediate relief of everyone that'd been sweltering in this unbearable heat. Without running a/c, the hold had become an oven, heat leaching in from a dead IES, their atmospheric entry, and their skid across the surface.
Those outside had made a surprising amount of progress. Everything under the Normandy's neck had now been excavated, leaving a space open enough to berth the Mako comfortably. Relieved and exhausted, their efforts were evident on everyone's faces.
"Nice," someone called out.
"Biotics did probably like 90% of the work," Hendricks added, setting aside his shovel with a weary sigh.
Garrus approached both Tali and Adams.
"You folks work fast." Adams said with a dry smile.
"You can thank Wrex and Liara." Garrus said, glancing momentarily behind him to the rest of John's misfits standing just outside.
Ashley came up to them.
"Hey," Ashley greeted with a wave to the quarian, "How's Shepard?"
Tali shrugged uncomfortably, uncertainty clouding her eyes. "I don't know. Chakwas doesn't want him anywhere but in a bed. So there's that."
"Well. Then we're going to have to go without him," Ashley stated matter-of-factly.
Tali raised a brow. "To where?"
"Ground zero," Ashley replied, scanning the bay for their loadmaster. "To see where the raining rocks are headed."
Williams spotted him consolidating scraps and patting his hands free of dust. "Tucks! Do us a favor and get the Mako ready?"
"Aye, chief," he responded, giving her a thumbs-up before setting off to disengage the chains anchoring the Mako to the floor.
"You should come with us," Ashley said, turning back to Tali while Tucks beelined by them.
Tali gave Adams a stare. One that was wondering if it was prudent to be leaving them all alone while they brought basic systems online.
Sensing her reluctance to say yes, Adams gave her a sway of the hand. "You should go. We can handle without you until then."
A slowly heaved sigh and a sullen nod. She didn't want to leave the Normandy and she certainly didn't want to be too far from John given his condition, no matter how favorable the prognosis was. Call it being oversensitive. Or overprotective. She just wanted to know he was going to be okay.
"Alright." She said simply.
"Stacker," Ashley called out to a bundled group of marines standing together just outside the bay, "We're leaving."
"Copy, chief." He brought a hand up and motioned for his picks. "Barry. Wallace. Come on."
Garrus yanked on the lever to the Mako's door and waited for the panel to allow them entry. Clambering inside, he whittled his way over into the driver seat and started to work through the motions to get the tank online.
"Alright," Garrus mumbled, eyes over the canopy of buttons and knobs while Tucks flashed across the windshield as he whisked away her chains that chattered across the floor, "It's finally my time to shine."
"What now?" Tali asked, securing herself a seat in the back.
"Oh, you know." Garrus gave the steering wheel a testing wiggle, "A chance to drive without -you know who-."
"What. You don't like John's driving?"
"Not particularly." Garrus said with a shrug.
"Hm." Tali didn't have anything to say.
Liara's head peeked through the Mako's hatch along Wrex's.
"You leaving?" Wrex asked, his giant gauntlets the size of Tali's head grasping the threshold, "You don't wanna help build us some trenches?"
Garrus did a little twist in his chair and put an arm around the headrest so he could get a look at the two staring at him. "Ehrm. I would. But. No biotics. Ask Joker if you need a hand."
"Hmph." Wrex breathed with an eye roll. The dinosaur walked off, but Liara stayed.
"Be careful." Liara siad with her soft smile, "Don't be gone too long." She blew them all a kiss and stepped away so Ashley and the other three marines could get inside.
"We won't. We'll stay in radio contact." Tali said, setting her digits up against her mouthpiece.
Tucks stood in front of the Mako and motioned they were free of restraints before stepping aside. With one last look beside and behind him to see if everyone was secured, Garrus eased into the throttle and felt a small jolt of torque that brought all six of her wheels into motion.
Crossing into that slopped plane of light from Ullipses' afternoon sun, they met earth and waved goodbye to those standing aside. When they turned and climbed the land and rock, the rain from space that stranded them here was brought into view.
"What do you think we'll see when we get there?"
"Nothing we'll like." Stacker answered Barry.
No one disagreed with his assessment.
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
John woke and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.
"Ugh."
His head.
It hurt.
His sinuses too. Blanched and pounding.
He perched himself up with elbows and studied the room before finally landing his eyes on a small shot glass with tablets inside and a cup of water beside. He didn't question why they were there. He took them.
Getting to his feet, he also realized they were missing shoes. He didn't much dwell on that. He dwelled instead on how disappointed he was he hadn't woken from what was supposed to be a simple nightmare.
"...Christ." His voice barely caught the word falling from his tongue.
This headache. Damn. He touched, lightly, the bandage splayed over his nose and grumbled at the tenderness and inflammation that was, frankly, wrecking his ass.
He tried to make a call back to the what happened before falling asleep. His brain was sending back empty.
Not worth brooding over what he couldn't remember, he went to find his boots so he could stumble out to meet the day ahead.
Glancing warily toward the sick bay, he crossed the breadth of the floor as subtly as he could and climbed the stairs to CIC to finally see Ullipses in all its grandeur himself.
The sun greeted him with its rays and he squinted, hand set upward to adjust himself to the brightness, steps hobbled as he walked far enough away to get a view of Normandy.
Tongue in cheek, he gave it all a long and castrating gaze.
"Oh, lord."
"Shepard," Pressly came up from behind him and forced a frown when he saw John's face, "My. You look like hell."
"Not as much as her." he said, looking back at what remained. They both stared. He saw a pair of crew walking atop the Normandy, OT's out and scanning its battered length.
"You okay, Charles?"
"No worse for wear, Commander." Pressly answered with a dry smile to dress it all up.
"Can you get me up to speed?" John asked.
"Well," Hands set on his hips, Pressly first turned to the men and women digging trenches with Wrex and Liara doing (understandably) most of the work, "we're shoring up defenses," then a hand to show the sky, "a team's heading out to see where they're headed," then back to looking at the pair investigating the Normandy's framework, "and a damage assessment to try and piece together what happened. Log box did report something weird. "
"Weird?" John raised.
"MagHyd hit off her port side. See?"
John's brows knit in the middle at what was now obviously damage from such a hit, "And? Is that true?"
Pressly sighed. "Analysis confirms that, yes."
"So someone shot us."
"It's looking that way, Commander."
He chewed that like a piece of gum and asked his next question. "...Who went out? I'm assuming they took the Mako."
"They did. Ash and Stacker. Took Wallace and Barry with them. Garrus and Tali too."
"What else can you give me?"
A quick review of his notes, "...Enough supplies to last us a few weeks? Dawson's still getting numbers. We're working to see if we can get our water recycler functional again. That should stretch us much farther."
"Still no SOS?"
"No. I'm hoping Ash and the others might find one of our spares while they're out there." Pressly said disappointedly, "Wish I could give you better news, Shepard. I'm sorry."
"Let's hope." John grit his teeth and, holding his facade, faced the man. "Keep holding the fort out here."
"Aye, Commander."
John went back inside and walked down the neck of CIC, mind wandering helplessly of what the future had in store for them. Of what they would discover out here. Of what would happen after they finally escaped this place.
Or if they would escape at all.
Whatever it was that lay ahead, his reign over Normandy was at its end. An obvious consequence given that his ship lay totaled.
Down the stairs he went to find the crawlspace he'd need to use to reach the deck Tali's room had been situated. His quartermaster and operations team had been combing through the mess and caught wind of the commander.
"Sir."
"Give me the run down, Dawson." John ordered, tone clipped and weary.
"It'd be easier to tell you what we still have." She intoned with a frown, "Food and water for a few weeks. More if we ration. Ammo and small-arms are fine. Medical is so-so."
They both took in the sorry sight.
"Shame this had to happen just a few weeks before Christmas. Was really hopping I'd get to see my grandkids."
"Let's pray that still happens." John breathed, "Keep it up."
"Sir."
He moved on, went down the short hall, and, tepidly, stepped inside of what little had remained of Tali's home.
Devastation. A space she'd breathed life to through her personality, the one he'd fallen in love with, was almost gone entirely. Hardly a thing remained.
A slow sweep of his gaze had eventually stilled over the remnants of her album atop her warped desk. The same one she'd shown him just a week ago, now burnt and broken. Brought into his hands, breath stiff and bitter, he stared on, face under a sharp shadow from a shard of light that seeped through the Normandy's split hull.
Grief. It was what he felt. Everything here had been reduced to residue.
Crippled pages grasped in his hands, he let it rest gently back where it lay, and vowed in his heart that someday, somehow, he would make it up to her.
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
A billowing trail of rugged dust behind the Mako as it traversed through the deserted tundra of Ullipses. A quietude between six souls as they crossed barren lands. Pensive thoughts and passive faces, the volunteer crew inside surveyed and searched for what little had survived from their descent to this empty world.
Twenty kilometers in and a mountainscape behind them, they forged ahead their path to the remaining half of their trip that would lead them up a vista to finally bear witness to the spectacle they sought for.
"Telemetry still pinging green?" Garrus asked, breaking the silence.
"Still pinging green." Ash reported, hand set over the display that gave her the same readout, "No change."
Another destitute crawl of silence.
"...Any good guesses, guys, what we're seeing?" Garrus wondered to try and spark a conversation.
"Reapers." Barry said, slouched in his seat and arms crossed, stare absorbed with the blank wall in front of him, "Strange phenomena? Pin it on them. They're a great goat for scaping."
"I second that." Wallace said, raising up a hand from where they were crossed as if anyone saw it, "Reapers."
A mishmashed chorus of "reapers" in the cabin and they were all convinced of the answer.
Reapers. The word echoed in Tali's head and it resonated with a cold and unsettling certainty.
Were they really behind this? Were they really responsible? A bombardment of half this world's face where its paths were precise and clearly guided?
Probably. An ancient, powerful, and impossibly advanced cultivator and reaper of worlds certainly fit the moniker.
Just look at it. The sight alone told everyone this was calculated. Intentional.
She brought herself back to the moment she'd handled Normandy's helm and 'landed' them here. Recalled the forces that had torn them from the sky. It felt personal. As if some malevolent force had singled them out. The logs reporting her hit port side didn't leave much room to interpret otherwise.
Her fingers traced the bracelet of her omni-tool absently, a habit formed from years of tinkering and problem-solving.
Hardly a byte of data to collect of their situation, but their natural senses told them enough that this wasn't something to explain through a conventional lens.
But, through the prism of Reaper involvement? The lines could easily be drawn right to them. That meant the meteors could be anything. A piece of some sinister puzzle they'd likely never get to the bottom of.
Her mind raced. Questions abound, she wanted answers.
If it was the reapers, what were they trying to do? To achieve? Was it just some weird test? Or was this the prelude to something far, far worse?
Uncertainty. She'd grown to be cope with it. Her entire year had been nothing but. She stole herself a glance to everyone else and wondered if, lost in their own thoughts, they felt the same as her.
Did they worry? Did they dread as deeply of what was to come? Or had they embraced the unspoken mantra that had almost become the Normandy's adage—'take it as this goes'?
She supposed that was all they could do. Clearly, this problem insofar wasn't a nail needing a hammer.
Truthfully, she wasn't even sure if there was a nail anywhere to find. They had one option. To sit and wait for rescue. All they could do in the meantime was observe.
Worry in her heart, something dark and black stirred her and she pondered, in a washed wave of trepidation, if this was to be, in the truest sense, the final fall of Normandy.
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
They were floored. Absolutely dumbfounded. Astonished even. And Confused.
Six bewildered pairs of eyes staring on at the top of this mountain at what no one understood.
No impacts.
No craters.
The meteors weren't crashing down to the ground.
They were going right through it.
Barry was the first to speak, posture rigid.
"...We're all going to die here."
No one said anything else for a few moments after. What were you supposed to say about rocks popping through FTL that went through the fucking ground?
Wallace had an idea. He pinched a cigarette between his lips, hands cupped over its tip to light it. He took in the deepest drag of his life and breathed out a smokey sigh. 𝔚𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔞𝔯𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔲, "lord in heaven."
Ash turned to the turian, "Range it."
Garrus perched himself against a boulder and got a sightline with his scope.
"Looking at... about a kilometer. Nine hundred-something meters."
"...Should we get closer?" Wallace rasped satirically.
"To the ominous rocks that pass through ground?" Ash didn't hide the discomfort in her voice, "How safe."
"Any input, Tali? You've been awfully quiet." Garrus motioned to her with a hand while passing his rifle off to Stacker who wanted to get a better view.
"...No." She said from where she stood, hands crossed tightly around her chest as she watched blankly at what unfolded, "I don't know what we're looking at."
She didn't want to ramble. But there had to be an explanation behind this. This wasn't magic. Something was happening here. There was no way these could truly be traversing through the planet's crust no matter how much it looked like they were. Why the slightly different sizes? What were they made of? What did they contain? What was their mass? Who was controlling them? Were mass effect fields somehow involved? Maybe they weren't passing through the ground. Maybe there was a tunnel they weren't seeing. Maybe it was just a simple trick of the light. A mirage from the ground? They were staring at it from a bad angle now that she thought about it.
A million questions. A million of them to remain unanswered.
As much of a joke Wallace was keen on making, she really wanted to take a closer look. But intuition told her that getting any closer than this was asking for trouble. Don't mess around with what you didn't understand.
They continued to watch them funnel into that concentrated column before disappearing into the ground.
As far as she was concerned, this was technology far beyond anything any of the galaxy's races could realistically conjure. So it probably was the reapers. Blaming them for weird shit was always the safe bet.
"Got enough video?" Ash asked, still standing and staring.
"Yeah." Garrus answered, "I got enough."
"Alright. Let's go then."
One by one, they made their way back to the Mako. But Tali remained steadfast. She stood there and stared out, despair pooling her chest.
"What are you." She murmured, voice lost to the wind.
"Tali, come on." Garrus' disembodied voice called out.
One final and fleeting look at doom. Then she turned around and began their small trek back to the Mako.
She took a place next to Garrus as they descended, his mandibles tight against his jaw.
"Don't like this, Tali."
"No one does."
A few trodden steps, pebbles and rock alike tumbling beneath their feet.
"Just needs saying." Garrus followed, "Was honestly hoping I could coax more thought from you."
She peered up behind her shoulder to the sky as if it could give her an answer. "...What's there to say?"
They reached the Mako.
"Don't know." He said with a shrug as he began his third round of checks to everything they'd found and secured. The Mako was filled both inside and out of whatever salvage they happened to chance across. Given how far the supplies had spilled across the surface, Tali was happy they'd found as much as they did. Crates and barrels galore fastened to the roof while whatever couldn't be hefted on top was placed inside. Luck somehow withstanding, they managed to find themselves a half-working SOS beacon. Confidence abound, Garrus was convinced they could finagle enough hardware from the first to get a signal off-world.
Without any room in the cramped compartment, half of them had to ride above the rest of the way back.
Satisfied everything looked snug, Garrus planted a boot on a wheel and sent himself up before offering a hand to Tali and Wallace who'd just about finished his cigarette.
"Ash, if you could give the stuff inside another once-over—" Garrus asked from where he sat as she was about to climb in.
"Stuff survived a several-mile free fall," Ash said, hands grasped around the port door, "I think it'll be fine."
"We got one shot at fixing that beacon. Let's not risk our only chance with your driving, hm?"
She gave him a look of what amounted to murderous intent. Or what looked like murderous intent.
Tali could hardly tell.
An exchanged stare between Garrus and Ash. Her glare didn't leave him. "Stacker. Do me a favor and... check the stuff in the hold?"
"Aye, chief."
Before she clambered inside, she gave Garrus a look that passed as a smile bereft of what a smile was supposed to be. "Eat shit, Garrus."
"Did this morning." He said with his green tongue.
Her engines thrummed to life and they began their long trek back to the Normandy.
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
2300 HOURS
12-6-2024
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
The remaining bend in this shallow canyon, they made it to the plains, dusk long since passed and a night sky taking hold, the ride having been carried in a wind-strewn silence.
They could see now in the distance Normandy's grave, her dead body now surrounded and dotted by fire and light as the crew began to rest. Appreciative of what was a coincidence, the days here seemed to match more or less the same as the Normandy's shift. Day was day. Night was night.
Enough distance crossed, they soon saw members of crew standing to meet their return.
Slowing her speed, Ashley eased off the throttle and took the bend down to take her back to the dug out bay. She waved to anyone that passed by her view and they returned the gesture in kind.
"Wow." Stacker mused as he got a view of the work, "Lotta landscaping."
"I'd say." Ash yawned. The crew had clearly toiled away and were nearly finished erecting defenses and a more permanent encampment. Foxholes with canopies and a number of carefully crafted trenches surrounding her bow, port, and stern, they left starboard open for her bay and its surrounding space as a sort of staging ground for additional supplies that might be found across the land. Piles had been made of wreckage (The wreckage that was mobile at least), and crates had been lined as orderly as they could.
"Hm. Uhm. Ash," Garrus chattered from the roof, "You're gonna have to stop. We're not gonna fit."
"Copy." Ashley slowed to a halt and the Mako hissed her brakes. Crew already surrounding the Mako to begin dismounting the hardware they'd scavenged, Tali, Garrus, and Wallace climbed down.
"Welp. That was fun." Wallace murmured, "See y'all around, I guess."
"Bye Wallace." Tali said with a meager wave. Garrus only gave the marine a nod.
"I'm freezing." Garrus muttered.
"We know." Ash said, pulling herself out from the Mako's little slot with Stacker and Barry just behind, "We could hear your teeth chattering over comms."
Garrus immediately fumbled with his bead with trembling hands and made a face.
"What's the news, guys?" Marcus asked to any of the six paying enough attention.
"You're not going to believe what we're going to tell you." Ash said loudly so everyone could hear.
A dozen or so turn to face the gunnery chief.
"They're falling into the planet."
A few slightly amused chuckles.
"No way." Crosby said, "Seriously. Where they going?"
"It's not a joke." Ashley said darkly. "They're passing right through the ground."
Exchanged glances from the crew as they tried to digest the absurdity.
"Does the Commander know?" Pakti voiced.
"We're going to tell him now." Ash tried to relieve them of their worries, no matter how futile, "Tali? Could you?"
"Okay." She murmured. She made her way passed the growing congregation and took the trench wrapped around her stern that would take her port side to the Normandy's front door as to avoid having to use the ladder and crawlspace.
After nodding to anyone she happened to pass by, she went down the stairs and knocked on his door because she figured he'd still be here.
"Come in."
She was right.
She entered John's cabin and caught him in the middle of changing.
"Oh. Hey." She felt her cheeks flush a bit.
"Hey yourself," He mumbled as he struggled to put on his shirt without touching his nose.
"Having a hard time?" She asked timidly.
"Yeah. The collar likes to snag on the bandage."
His head finally poked through and he smiled as soon as he saw her.
It didn't look like she was returning one.
"Far-fetched assumption that the news you're bringing me isn't good." He carefully felt for the white dressing on his face to make sure it was still in place.
"No." She murmured with a sigh, "I—They, uhm—...they're falling through the ground? At least— that's what it looks like."
A hand to shield her face, she couldn't bothered to look him in the eye when she said it. "I'm at a loss for words. We recorded it for you to see."
John took a deep breath, gave the ceiling a contemplative look, and sighed.
"Alright. Let me see it."
She showed him. He watched, eyes turning from inexpressive to a reserved frown.
"Yeah." Tali murmured, seeing his look. Having seen enough, he clutched the front of his neck and felt for his whiskers. He didn't say anything and she met his eyes with hers.
"Reapers make just about anything palatable." Was what came out of him. Hands now on his hips, he tried to think of a tangible explanation to it all but couldn't. If Tali couldn't in the hours it took to get back here, what hope would he have?
"Sounds like we gotta mystery on our hands, huh?" He raked two weary hands through his hair and grimaced. Here they were, stranded under probable peril of some kind of deranged planetary armageddon without a way to call for help because the Normandy was toast.
Lost in a momentary sprawl of feeling completely overwhelmed, he scowled. "Fucking shit."
She held her arms tightly together and nodded her assent, holding her head low.
Reacting like that wasn't doing either of them favors. He regretted letting that show.
He put his hands down.
"Ugh. Tali, I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
He slumped in his chair and took a breath to distance them both from his downtrodden outburst. "...How are you feeling?" He asked with a partly forced smile.
"I'm okay. I think." She answered as truthfully as she could before stepping up closer to him. She knelt down slightly and gave the man a small smile, happy to steer them away from their doom and gloom. "...Let me get a look at that awful nose of yours."
He obliged her and let her see. "How's it look?"
"Like you stared down the wrong stripper at Chora's Den." She said. It managed to gnab out a laugh from John and it made her feel minutely better hearing his sound.
"Ha. Well. Let's hope it heals right. Doc said it might not."
She frowned. "Oh no. It was such a nice nose."
"Naw, I jest. She set it straight. Almost like new." He interlaced his hands together tightly and sighed. "...We're in a big ol' pickle, aren't we, Tals?"
She gave him a subtle snort and tried to keep that smile up past the pain of their circumstances. "At least we're still alive."
His reply was instinctual. "Count your blessings."
"Count your blessings." She echoed with a mumble.
He might've said the platitude, but he couldn't bring himself to believe it. A few days more, they'd have been back at the Citadel for their their official call to disband. To where the non-alliance crew were slated to disembark and officially go their separate ways, Tali included.
But this happened instead. Stranded and alone and with no one to call for help.
A stroke of irony befell John. Months now he'd been wishing and hoping for a way to have her stay. To remain here and become a more permanent part of the Normandy. It'd been a thought that'd graced him more times than he could remember. A backdrop that never could be shelved from his thoughts.
In a sick twist, he'd been granted that wish. Just not in a way he was imagining. If the universe had ever bothered asking, he would never had chosen this path, even if it meant having her around a little while longer. She was in danger. His entire crew, in danger.
And with every esoteric revelation of their situation stacking against them, John wondered if they would even see the next hour, much less the next minute. A foreboding told him that every second on this outcast planet was time they were borrowing from the universe.
"Still," He muttered lamely.
"We'll make the best of it. Just like we always do." She offered as she swept the imaginary dust from his shoulders. He smiled at her comforting touch.
"Any good ideas in that head of yours?"
A yawn managed to escape her when she replied. "On my way back? Thought maybe... that maybe there's a barrier we aren't seeing. They fall into the same place. What they do after that, I just don't know. An explanation is beyond me. The sooner we're off this planet, the better."
He didn't forget about that yawn. "How you holding up?"
She sat in a heap at the end of his bed and didn't say anything which was all the answer he needed.
"Sounds about right," He nodded, "It's been a long day."
"Long day?" She rasped as she stared at her toes, "All you got out of this was a nice nap and an ugly nose."
"Suppose so," He said noncommittally with a bobbed nod, "But it won't be ugly forever."
Those eyes of hers flicked up at him into a subtle glare, though her face hadn't moved.
"It's me who's had a long day."
"Oh?"
"You wouldn't believe the commute I had to work this morning."
"Ah." He gave her a grin, "Bad traffic?"
"The worst."
After everything that happened, she was still trying to keep their spirits high. What should've made him feel elated only served to shrivel his heart instead. She didn't deserve this.
Her tone changed and she dropped the camaraderie to let him know she was being serious now. "I'm sorry about your nose."
"It's not your fault." He murmured.
She didn't say anything.
"Okay," He acquiesced with a shrug, "Maybe it's a little bit your fault."
She tossed her eyes upward at his stupid joke.
"Bosh'tet." She slurred lamely toward that smile of his.
Another bout of silence. He could see her eyes lazily narrowing.
"I think you need some sleep."
"My room's gone." Tali mumbled sadly, "Did you see?"
"I did," He murmured, lips pressed together and eyes leveled toward the floor, "Tali, I'm sorry."
She sniffed. "I'm going to have to find a sleeping bag."
It was his turn to not say anything. Having her rummage for some bag to sleep in on the floor was not a pleasant image for John to imagine.
When she didn't hear a reply, she grinned faintly to alleviate what she knew would be a burden he wanted to shoulder. But there was an undertone of sadness that she couldn't quite hide. "Hey. It was just stuff. I can always replace it."
"I don't want you sleeping on the floor, Tals. You should sleep here."
"Ten minutes and you're already inviting me into your bed..." She humored herself out loud and John scoffed.
She didn't protest. She kicked off her boots, took off her belt, and fell into the sheets. She was snoring inside a minute.
From his seat in the dimness of his cabin, a gentle smile splayed his lips and he stood to leave her to peace. Coat in hand and the door now closed behind him, he set out to see what needed doing.
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
0148 HOURS
12-7-2183
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
Twelve 'til.
He entered his quarters, room swathed in darkness, and, as quietly as he could, hung his coat and did his best to hold himself together. Hours of deliberating, thinking, and working with the entire crew, they'd made zero progress on figuring out what to do. So wait it was.
Nearing two in the morning, he'd finally retired for the night, leaving their dark shift's operations officer Waaberi to handle things until morning. Scarfing down a meal replacement bar far past its prime and expiry, he'd brushed his teeth after outside under the starry canopy before heading inside to be here.
Exhausted from his meds and events of what was now yesterday, his mind still remained rife even when sleep beckoned for his release.
The one snag that refused to let go was how unbelievably large space was. No one said it better than Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy—Space was big. You'd never believe just how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big, it was.
So how they had managed to get caught in the blinding volley of these rocks barreling through FTL was anyone's guess. Such occurrences were supposed to be so mathematically unlikely that they might as well be relegated to the realm of fiction. Things like this didn't happen.
But maybe, just maybe, they met that infinitesimally small chance of coincidence. It was technically, non-zero. Even if there were more zeros on the right-hand side of a decimal point than one could count.
Regardless, the math didn't matter. What mattered was that it happened.
All they knew was that they were strong enough to damage the Normandy and breach atmo, but delicate enough to pass through the ground of this stupid planet. Tali's suggestion that perhaps there was just a barrier they weren't seeing was the best idea he'd heard. What happened after was anyone's guess. Only god and whoever was responsible would know what this was all about.
All the other ideas he'd heard from the crew as they brainstormed weren't worth entertaining.
He watched Garrus' recording again. Watched them fall and disappear. Watched their brown and chitinous bodies surrender to Ullipses. He wanted to stop calling them rocks because they didn't look it. They looked like something else. There was an aesthetic uniformity to them. No two were the same per se, but the hunch they'd been assembled by something wasn't unfounded.
He sighed and neatly tucked away the thought. He was fried. There was no sense piecing together what you couldn't understand. Especially when you could barely think. Tomorrow would be a new day. He could take a trip there and see it for himself then.
Turning to look at Tali again, he watched carefully for the steady rise and fall of her shallow breaths and smiled. He hesitated, only slightly, at the thought of sleeping next to her. Figuring she wouldn't mind, he kicked off his own boots, crawled carefully into bed, and set his head carefully down on a pillow.
Warmth in his tone, he gave her one last look, a bundled silhouette of a beautiful woman dreaming.
"Good night, Tals."
His breath steadied into a quiet snore and, consciousness suspended, four hours passed by without either of them moving until she woke.
Her sleepy eyes fluttered open to the low light of John's quarters and, a little confused, blinked several more times to make sure she was seeing right.
She was. She was lying beside him. That confused face of hers softened into a lovelorn smile. She felt peace. A repose so strong that it was like a balm crossing over her crestfallen mood. He was still asleep. And this feeling of yearning and longing bubbled in her chest, as it so often did, while she kept her gentle gaze fixed on this wonderful man.
She watched the cadenced rise and fall of his chest that whispered of a future she dared to hope for. One where she could see this every day. Where she would wake up and have him be the first thing she would see.
Here, in silent communion of shared space, the anxiety of the days ahead waned. She was mesmerized by how comfortable and natural this all felt. She realized, even more, that her soul was made for him. Made for John. It had to be. Her feelings were so tender and so undeniably real that she no longer tried denying or hiding them from herself.
She wanted nothing else but to hold him close and to hear him dream.
But she didn't dare stir. She didn't want this to end. So her stare lingered, eyes soft, and indulged herself this moment.
This happy little moment.