Garrus, half paying attention, stepped into the elevator from the crew deck and pressed a button to have the doors close behind him. Skimming through his checklist, he marked off the tasks he'd already completed this morning before turning off his omni-tool and crossing his arms.
"EDI, mind taking me to the cargo bay?"
"Yes, Mr. Vakarian."
The lift descended and he counted the time it took for the doors to open again. When he stepped out, he saw Tali and Shepard engaged in small talk by the kodiak. Beside them was a table stocked with a variety of tools and spare robot parts.
"Hey." Garrus greeted as he walked up to them. They both turned around.
"Hey. Glad you came."
"…Just us three?"
"Yup. Thought it'd be a good bonding experience." John uncapped a cold beer and gulped some down before handing Garrus a dextro one from a small cooler by his feet. "Plus, it's harder for you to say no since you're on mandatory break."
He scoffed and accepted the bottle before inspecting the label with a wistful grin. Shepard still remembered his favorite beer. "Drinking during shift. Nothing wrong with that, right?"
"Nah." Tali gave him a dismissive wave of the hand.
"Okay then." The turian popped the tab, "Crack her open, Tali."
Tali pulled a lever and the kodiak's door opened to reveal the damaged mech inside. The still functioning survivors had been stowed away yesterday after the kodiak had docked. As per Shepard's orders, they left the less fortunate survivor to sleep on the floor so the three of them could fix it up.
They all stepped into the cabin with Tali already kneeling down to give it a long once over. John followed after and set his bottle aside.
"Let's take the chest rig off and disassemble the bad leg. Garrus? Mind rummaging through that white box over there to get a spare? Make sure it's a left one."
"Got it."
John hoisted the mech upright while Tali got to unbuckling the plate carrier.
"Thing's heavier than it looks." He huffed.
She moved the arms aside and agreed with him. "I can tell."
He loved watching her think. It made his lips crinkle in a smile.
"Thanks for doing this with me." He said.
"Why are you thanking me?" She asked, still transfixed on the mech's dirty shell, "This is more fun."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Because I'm here with you. And it's something different to do." She noticed the mech's back looked a little wet. Taking a finger and running it along the substance, she brought it close to her face and studied it. "Acid. Look like it might've taken some shrapnel to the battery pack. We'll have to get that replaced."
"We've got plenty of those."
They detached the rest of the rig's buckles and pulled it up and over the mech's head. As John set the mech back down onto its back, he took another swig of beer and moved himself over so he'd be sitting by her.
"Let's see how many rounds this poor guy took. Front plate first."
Tali tore the hook-and-loop apart before sliding out the plate.
"Four impacts." Tali counted, palpating each dimple with a pointer, "No penetration. Pretty good."
"That is good isn't it?" John ran a hand over the surface and furrowed his brows. "Still intact. Makes me think."
"About what?"
"Lukh. His cracked like a dinner plate on Horizon. I'm wondering why."
"Don't know." She shook her head, "Maybe it was just too brittle. Could be he just got unlucky and got issued one from a bad batch or something."
"I'm assuming whatever the Migrant Fleet issues is bought, right?"
"I don't know." Tali shrugged, "Regardless, it wouldn't surprise anyone if it was a quality control issue."
"Probably." John said in agreement, "You should have Olasie, Juel, and her squad swap out all her fleet issued plates just in case."
"Good idea." Tali nodded.
"Back." Garrus said, waving the lifeless leg around.
"Good." John nodded before looking back at Tali, "Let's check the back plate."
"Alright."
The same as the front, she separated the hook-and-loop and pulled the plate out from the rig's pocket.
She rose her brows and counted. "...Eleven. Wow. This thing really did its job."
"How many rounds this poor bastard take?" Garrus asked with an impressed look.
It's running tier three kinetic barriers. Took at least seven rounds before failing. We'll look into analyzing ballistics and outfit the ground crew more appropriately. But just by seeing this, whatever they're using isn't that special or all that different from what we're using."
"Did you forget their noodle gun?"
"No. I didn't forget. Should probably get around to stealing one of those." John grumbled. He got to his feet and stepped back so Garrus could get some room to inspect the damage for himself. After downing about half of his IPA, John decided it was a good time to finally bring up the issue that'd been bothering him.
He closed the kodiak door with them still inside and sighed. Garrus simply looked up while Tali gave John a perplexed stare.
"I've got something to tell you guys."
"Figured this wasn't just about repairing a mech." Garrus, going with his gut, knew it was something he wasn't going to be happy about. So he tipped his head back and drank some more of his beer.
There was a disappointing tune in Shepard's voice. "Yeah. It wasn't."
"What is it?" Tali sat in one of the chairs to prepare herself for John's news.
"EDI found out that the distress call from the turians wasn't genuine." John started, "Which wouldn't be a big deal by itself. But EDI figured that TIM should've known this as soon as he saw it."
Tali found herself staring at the floor and crossing her arms. "So… TIM made a mistake."
"—Which doesn't happen," Garrus said between Tali's pause.
"Or he led us into a trap without telling anyone." Tali finished.
"Yeah." John affirmed, "That's where we're at."
"I'm assuming you haven't talked to him since then."
"No. I haven't." John shook his head at the turian, "I will be though. Today."
"...We were about to go on that ship. And he didn't give us everything we needed to know." Her voice was hushed.
She kept her gaze on the floor and head low. It made Garrus and John glower.
"I'm going to get to the bottom of it." He assured her.
"Keelah." She groaned, putting a hand on her visor and giving them an unimpressed stare, "Incredible. When you talk to him, make him realize that if his life was in the fray, he would have played his cards a lot differently."
John gave her a single nod to show he would do just that.
"Cerberus being shifty." Garrus panned, "What do you expect?"
"Don't know," John stared at the leg back in Garrus' hands, "Never had expectations to begin with. At least positive ones."
"Is that all you have for us?"
"Yeah. That's it."
Garrus opened the kodiak's door and swirled his beer around to give it a head. "Well. Mine are low. That's why we can't entirely depend on anyone here except each other and the people we know. Outside of my squad and Olasie's? And maybe Mordin? We might all be in this together, but I often question how much we can trust everyone here with our lives."
It took John a while to reply to that. "Thinking like that is going to cause dissension among our ranks. Try to keep that to yourself for now."
"Had no plans of spreading that around, Shepard. Just... speaking my mind."
"I know. It's okay. I want your honest opinions. Observations don't come from a vacuum."
Tali, with an ostracizing stare, unlatched a hardpoint on the mangled leg and paused. "This is nothing like the old Normandy."
"No. It's not. We're all reminded of that daily." John agreed.
"When are you going to talk to him?" She asked him.
"Illusive Man?"
"Yes."
"When we're done here."
"He must have one amazing reason for doing what he did."
"I somehow doubt that, Garrus." John answered, even though he sensed his sarcasm.
"We all do." Tali said flatly. Detaching the leg entirely from the hip down, she set it aside before raising a hand to have Garrus give her the spare one.
"Here."
"Thanks."
"Well. Aside from this whole issue with Illusive Man, I think this is only the second time it's just been the three of us for a while." John said between a sip to start a new conversation, "At least with drinks involved."
"It has." Garrus agreed, "Always busy trying to keep this boat floating."
Tali agreed wholeheartedly. "Yeah. It's a full-time job."
"To keep some of these people from trying to kill each other, yeah." Garrus intoned.
"Is it getting any easier for you?" John probed Garrus for an answer.
"What do you mean?"
John rephrased. "Have you gotten any closer to finding a resolution with Jack?"
Garrus sat down next to Tali to get a closer look at the mech she was rebuilding. By helping her align the leg so she could insert the pins, he bought himself time to think over what his reply would be. After finding the right words, the turian faced John with a heavy stare. "Imagine working and living with someone who killed Ash and Kaidan... and did it smiling. Wouldn't be very fun for you or the rest of us, would it?"
John cast his now empty stare to the row of seats opposite of him and wrung his wirst. When Garrus saw John's grimace, he knew his point had been made. It took John a while to offer his reply.
"I don't pretend to envy you, Garrus. But she's not leaving the ship. Of everyone here, you would recognize how much of asset she is."
Garrus looked away and murmured. "Yeah."
John knew it was asking for a lot. He knew the story now. He saw the footage himself of Jack killing his guys. He was being serious when he said it: he didn't envy Garrus' position. At all.
"How far back does this all go, Garrus? You and Omega?"
He collected his thoughts while Tali attempted to comb out the kinks in the mangled mess of wires jutting out of the mech's new leg.
"It was months in after you died. Liara and I were getting ready to search for your body."
Tali's hands froze when she heard Liara's name.
"I left a short while after and headed to Omega."
"Why?"
"About me leaving to go to Omega?" He leaned into his question, "Because Cerberus got involved. I wasn't going to stop her. But I certainly wasn't going to help either."
"Hindsight's always twenty-twenty." John grinned with a simper, "Glad you were wrong."
"Yeah. Me too. But anyways; I got there. Saw the pisshole that it was, and started doing something about it. It didn't take long for me to start righting the wrongs I found. Didn't have to look hard either. Omega is lawless. Anything goes there. Murder. Rape. Torture. All of it commonplace. You'd see it in the streets a lot."
"Jesus Christ."
"I guess I shouldn't say it was completely lawless. There was some order if you were in the right place. Other than that, there was only one law you had to follow there."
"And that law was?"
"Don't fuck with Aria."
"Who the hell is that?"
"She runs Omega."
"Charming individual, I'm assuming."
"If you stay on her good side, sure."
"Ah. Well. Did you?"
Garrus immediately shook his head. "No. Never had a reason to. But if she did give me a reason, I sure as hell would have."
"You'd probably win."
Garrus just smirked.
"So how'd you get people to join your cause?"
The smirk was gone almost as soon as it had come. Soon enough, there was a low breath from him. "Killed a lot of people. A lot of bad people. Folks started to realize someone was spooking Omega's thugs. The locals gave me a name. Archangel. It's tacky, but it stuck. Then the copycats started. I found the best ones and recruited them to the cause. "
"And it almost came crashing down on you." Tali added, tightening some bolts with a ratchet, "Amazingly, Cerberus was in town to save you."
"Saved you?" John anticipated an explanation, "Don't think I got all the details on that part."
"Sidonis got bugged and didn't realize it. We were eating lunch at our main base when we found out. Guess we got too complacent." Garrus shrugged.
"Mm." John nodded. "I think I can fill in the blanks from here."
"It was an amateur mistake." Garrus grumbled.
"No. It's a mistake pro's make." Tali corrected, "Complacency never happens when you're starting out. You're too paranoid for it."
"I guess that's true." Garrus agreed. "Well. Enough about me." The turian crossed his arms and stared at Tali. "What about you?"
"What about me?" Tali gandered at him with a raised brow.
"I think it was called Fauner's." Garrus tried to remember, giving her context, "I called you. After the funeral. Drinks for everyone to say our good-byes."
"I remember." Tali spoke quietly. John just listened.
"You left the next day. Didn't say a word to anyone. Just up and left. Never asked why."
"Was kind of in a bind." Tali whispered, "I had to shoot at some people walking to Fauner's."
The look the turian gave her was a disbelieving one. "…What?"
"Walked into a really shady part of town, I guess." Tali recalled, looking up for a moment, trying to remember the details, "Shot one doped up dude and broke another guy's arm. Left the scene before C-sec even came. Just didn't care. No one ever came after me. Then I left the Citadel and… well. Nothing came of it."
John furrowed his brows heavily. "…in self-defense or…?"
"Keelah, John. Of course I did it in self-defense. I was a lone and they tried to put their hands on me."
John's face flattened. "What else do you have to tell me?"
"I got plenty of adventures that I've been a part of between you dying and coming back to life."
"…You never told me." Garrus whispered, face stone-like.
"Didn't want to concern anyone with it."
"C-Sec barging in the middle of drinks to cuff you would have made that night a lot worse. Leaving the scene was almost criminal."
"Wasn't going to stick around. The place was crawling with freaks and losers."
"What now, Garrus?" John asked him, "It's been years. Think they're still trying to investigate it?"
"No. No way in hell would a case like that still be open. They probably gave up a week in, if that. Kithoi has bad parts and it's obvious Tali was walking right through one." He gave her a disappointed look. "I even asked you if you wanted a ride and you said no."
All Tali did was shrug and it made Garrus shake his head at her. "Well. Take from it what you will. But fortunately for you, shootings happen daily between gangs in those parts. Obviously, you didn't kill anyone important."
"They didn't die."
"Point still stands," Garrus countered, "Most of them go unsolved and largely unpursued. Citadel tends to not invest a lot of interest in inebriated losers with bullet holes. You were lucky you shot them in the block you did. If you'd done it on the wrong street, they would have found you. And then they would have detained you. Self-defense or not, the Citadel has a bad track record of prosecuting would-be victims for the dozen other infractions you might have committed."
"Like what?" John wondered.
"Probably reckless endangerment. That one's the most popular. And revocation of her conceal/open carry permit you gave her." He pointed at Tali. "You should probably get that renewed by the way. It's probably going to expire soon."
John ran a hand through his short hair. Hearing what happened to Tali was giving him palpitations. "God. That's how bad it got after Ullipses?"
"Like you wouldn't believe." It pained Garrus to say it, "It was bad. Ullipses grounded everyone and everything."
"Yeah." There was a slight lilt in Tali's voice. "But you're back. And we have Cerberus to thank for that."
"And Liara." Garrus included.
"And her." Tali begrudgingly agreed, "Though I still struggle to find peace with what she did."
"I know." Garrus breathed, "I'm sorry."
Silence encroached them.
"Well," She clutched the side of her neck and felt the tool in her other hand go limp. The depression she had largely alienated herself from felt like it was coming back to taunt her. So she inhaled sharply to stifle the feeling of being smothered. "No need for me to be opening old wounds. Sorry."
"It's okay." Garrus stared down into his half-empty bottle as if he was searching for something. "We all have a little healing to do."
Stuck in their thoughts, the three of them worked in silence.
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"Shepard."
"Illusive Man. We need to talk."
"I'm aware. EDI informed me of your heated exchange with Miranda."
"Yeah. And it's going to stop. I have to trust you TIM. And that takes a lot of effort on my end. We can't continue this relationship if you're withholding intel I need to keep my team alive. You are setting a very dangerous precedent and I will not put up with it."
"If I didn't think you could handle it, I wouldn't have passed it along to you. But that's irrelevant. You deployed mechs instead of your ground team. There was no risk to you."
"And what if we hadn't received the shipment of LOKIs when we did? You briefed us within an hour of delivery."
"Telling you that it was a trap could have tipped off the Collectors in any number of ways."
John gave him a piercing stare. "Okay? Then write it on a piece of paper and FTL it if you have to. Stop tempting fate. Push it too far and I'll be dead and us no closer to winning this war."
TIM admitted an unlit cigarette into his mouth, set a flame to it, and took a deep drag. "You are asking for luxuries that we can't afford. There are two fronts to this war, and half of it is information. I recognize that I put you at risk asking what I did. But smart thinking and a little luck got you out. Utilizing EDI to the potential that you did saved everyone from having to step foot on their ship."
"That's not the point. Your ass isn't on the line like mine is. This crew is not expendable and I am not your puppet."
They both stared at each other and neither said anything.
"Are you done?"
"Yeah." John glared, "Really feel like I've cleared up the air between us."
The cynicism was palpable.
"Shepard," TIM did something John hadn't ever seen before: lean forward and clasp his hands together like a father would when he was giving a life lesson to his son. He drew in a breath and searched the air above him for words to put on his tongue. "This... war that we're waging is going to get a lot tougher. You recognize it and so do I. I did not ask you to risk your life unnecessarily and will do nothing in bad faith to you, the crew, or the Normandy."
John didn't say anything. And as sincere as The Illusive Man looked, it wasn't persuasive enough for him. They were just words. He was going to give him a piece of his mind, but he promised Miranda he was going to be civil. To John, this part of the conversation was already over. He made his point. So Shepard stepped back and didn't drop the off-putting expression he still had on his face. "What else have you gathered since we extracted the data?"
"We're still compiling reports, but the information is proving invaluable. Parsing through what we need is difficult, and what we're looking for is anything that relates to the Omega Four Relay, as I'm sure EDI has told you. We've also learned from the info EDI obtained that the reapers and collectors use an advanced IFF system that all relays recognize. We need to get our hands on one of them."
"How do we go about doing that?"
"An Alliance science team has been studying a non-natural geological formation called the Great Rift Valley on a planet called Klendagon in the Hawking Eta nebula. They've just recently determined that the Great Rift is an impact crater from a mass accelerator weapon." He took a sip from his scotch, "A very old mass accelerator weapon. I sent a team out to find either the weapon or its target and they managed to find both. The weapon was defunct, but it helped us plot a flight path to its intended target. A thirty-seven million year old derelict reaper. Found it damaged and trapped in the gravity of a brown dwarf."
"Was there anything else they found?"
"Unknown. We lost contact with them shortly after they boarded the reaper. Initial reconnaissance revealed nothing about their disappearances and we wrote it off because it was too risky to commit more resources and people. But we need an IFF. And that reaper has one. I'll forward the coordinates to Joker."
"How long has it been since they boarded?"
"Eight days."
Shepard sighed. "Then they're dead. Forward me everything you have about their mission. I want manifests of everyone that was supposed to board that reaper, the gear they had, and the ship they went in on. Did you order them to go and study it?"
"Yes."
"You essentially had them commit suicide."
TIM inhaled and ignored John's insinuating, but probably accurate, assertion. "Anything else?"
"No." John was hardly paying attention to TIM at this point and kept his stare focused on anything but the graphically depicted man in front of him, "That's all."
With a simple nod, TIM logged off, leaving John alone in his receding holographic circle. John stepped off the platform and stared at the cracked corner of glass as it rose up from the ground to turn back into a conference table.
Still couldn't shake how weird it was to have a table-floor thing.
"EDI, do the janitors clean this conference table every day?"
"Yes, Shepard. Three of the crew are scheduled to clean the conference room at 0600 hours every day as a part of their routine."
"Alright... inform the ground team that we'll be having a briefing at 1900 hours tonight."
"Yes, commander."
He turned on his heel and walked out, running both his hands over his face with total dread.
"Hasn't even been twenty-four hours since the collector ship and now we're about to board a reaper one. Jesus. Jesus Christ."
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1905 Hours
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4-9-2186
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"How was dinner, everyone?"
John received so-and-so answers. It made Tali smile because he used to ask that question back on the first Normandy before briefings.
"Yeah." John agreed with them, "The veggies could have been a little bit better. Not Gardner's fault. We're finishing off the last of those shit food supplies."
"I hate lima beans, man." Someone in the crowd said.
"They're good for you, Dan." Another called out.
Juel rolled his eyes. The number of times they complained about their food was too many. If they ate paste damn near every day like he and the other quarians did, they'd eat their goddamn lima bean things with a smile on their face. He glanced over at Olasie and figured she was thinking the same thing.
"I have good news, bad news, and more bad news. What do you all want to hear first?"
There were mixed replies from them all.
"Good news first, then. EDI got good data on the Omega Four Relay. She states that she can now confidently navigate through it."
There were a lot of nods.
"Now for bad news followed by more bad news. We're skimp on intel. Again. As you all know, that's pretty standard at this point. We also learned that we need an IFF of reaper origin. Coincidentally, a Cerberus science team found an old 30 something million year old reaper eight days ago. They boarded and haven't been heard of since." He scanned the room and prepared himself for the intense stares he would likely receive. "You all probably guessed it. We have to board that ship."
The murmurs followed soon after.
"We will be enroute in three days' time to give the forward battery team enough time to upgrade the Normandy's guns. When we arrive, we'll conduct reconnaissance and a forward element will deploy. Lucky for us, that will be EDI's responsibility. From there, we'll determine if we need to deploy en masse. This is not a rescue mission and we're not expecting survivors. However, ROE is as follows: reactive only. We will alter that as the situation dictates. In the event that we do have survivors, they are to be detained and jailed until further notice or until such a time arises in which we can determine that they are not indoctrinated."
John took a moment to collect more of his thoughts. "But like I said; expectation of survivors is highly low to non-existent. Eight days is a long time to be in a reaper ship, dead or not. Hedge your bets that these people are indoctrinated if we find any alive. There won't be anything you can do other than ease their suffering. Be prepared for that."
The whispers died down and they were left with silence.
"We're expecting close quarters, so prepare accordingly. Triple check your gear and swap out your plates if they've received any damage from Horizon."
John gave his tablet a cursory glance to skim over his bullet points. "Olasie, I want your team to ditch your issued plates and replace them with new ones. I don't want a repeat of what happened to Talukh."
Olasie gave John a thumbs up. "Got it."
"One last thing and this is for everyone. Re-update your wills if you have to. Make sure they're submitted by the eleventh of April at twelve hundred hours. That's it. That's all we have for now. Any questions?"
There were none.
"Dismissed."
A chorus of moving chairs and small talk began and the members of the ground team started to disperse. Tali walked up to John who was gathering his meager amount of papers together to put them away in his folder.
"Hey." Tali gave him a small smile.
"Wish we had more to go on Tali." John murmured, "Tired of going in blind like this."
"I know." She agreed. "Wasn't much different than the 'good ol' days' as Garrus says it. Us all running and gunning and making it all up as we went along."
"Yeah. We got away with a lot didn't we?"
"Having Wrex helped."
"Yeah. The bullet sponge was helpful, wasn't he?"
Tali gave him a soft chuckle. "At least we've got Grunt and Garrus' krogan now."
"I'm thankful for that, at least." John craned his neck to try and exercise a kink that'd been bothering him now for close to an hour. "I'm sure we'll be fine. Reaper ship or not."
"Yeah." Her voice was quiet.
He put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a tight squeeze. "Let's retire for tonight. What do you say?"
"Would love to."
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Forty minutes later.
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John handed Tali her freshly made tea and sat down next to her with his own mug.
She carefully breathed in the sweet notes and sighed. "I love my sleepy-time tea."
As she propped her feet up on the coffee table, he smiled and put an arm around her.
"And I love you."
She couldn't help but smile. "I love you too, huneey."
She took a slow sip and stared into her cup, a mild grin tugging at her lips. Utterly spellbound, he stared at the beautiful woman cuddled under his arm and felt like he was falling in love all over again. He found himself groveling over how lucky he was to have her. She might not have noticed the ogling since she was busily sipping her tea and browsing the extranet, but he was staring at her the way a man would when he knew he'd picked the right woman to have in his life.
"You're beautiful." He said. It came involuntarily.
Her cheeks flushed with color. "Oh stop."
"I could stare at you forever. I swear." His voice was low, smile still there.
She set her mug down and nestled herself a little more into his side before letting her lips touch his cheek, "I could say the same about you."
He played with a lock of her hair that bounced by an ear. "Yeah?"
"Mhmm."
He kissed her forehead and they held each other for several minutes with only the hum from their aquarium to keep them company. The quiet was inviting. But the quiet also made his mind drift like it wasn't even a choice. It made him reflect and think about everything that'd happened today. And there was a lot to think about. Reapers. Collectors. TIM. But that didn't top his list of priorities right now. Tali did. He didn't forget, even for a moment, what she had confessed to today. To say it didn't weigh heavily on his being would be an outright lie. Hearing what she'd told them earlier was like hearing the bones in your legs get crushed. His only saving grace was that Tali didn't seem all that affected by it.
But that didn't mean it hurt him any less. To everyone else, he might've looked normal and talked normal, but he was anything but right now.
"Tali?"
"Yes?"
"Can I ask you something?"
She played with the ends of his shirt. "Of course."
He chewed on his tongue and began to have second thoughts about even bringing it up. But he needed to know. "What happened on the Citadel?" Came his question, tone cautious and careful, "...when you shot those thugs."
She looked down, pressed her lips together, and glowered. "It was three of them. They were drunk. And high. Turian and two batarians. It was the turian I shot. He was lucky I didn't kill him." She swallowed and almost laughed nervously, "Maybe the follow-up shot wasn't really necessary."
She sniffled and itched her eye. "I broke the batarian's arm. Pistol whipped him across the face too." She blinked several times to starve herself of the urge to tear up, "I let the last one go because he was high and crying. Found out his name was Caleb. He was my cab driver the next day." There was another sniffle. "He dropped me off at the airport."
Hearing herself explain it made her feel like she'd used them as an outlet for all the grief she'd hoarded from losing John. She only realized it now, after she had told him the story. "Wait. That doesn't sound right." She furrowed her brows, "They put their hands on me. I defended myself."
"What were they trying to do? Were they..." He didn't say the word because he couldn't bring himself to.
"I don't know." She mumbled, "They wouldn't leave me alone."
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" He asked. There was a knot in his throat. The idea of Tali facing that alone made his stomach turn in ways he didn't think possible.
She drew in a lungful of air and let it all out before giving him a hesitant shrug. "...I'm trying to leave all of that behind me. Visiting it isn't going to do anything but make me feel worse about it. Though, after everything we've been through, putting up with that was pretty tame."
There weren't any tears from John. But his vision got blurry from them, even if it was only mildly so. "I'm so sorry." He whispered.
There was a sad smile from her. "Don't be. It was never your fault."
He embraced her tightly and he closed his eyes before bringing a hand out to lightly grasp the back of her head. He didn't say anything and he didn't have to. His touch alone conveyed everything she needed to know about how it made him feel. She rubbed his back as a way to coax him into relaxing while she took in his scent with a light sigh. "It's okay. I'm okay, John."
"Okay." He murmured. He took her word for it and tried to will away the pain he felt in his chest. She was strong. Incredibly strong. After everything she'd been through, he knew this was but a drop in what could only be an already full bucket. While her run-in with those degenerates on the Citadel was bad, he couldn't forget about all the other things Tali had dealt with. Peak Fifteen on Noveria came to mind. Or the embattled civilians on Feros. Or the showdown on Virmire. He remembered it all. Remembered how it had slowly sculpted her into the woman she was today. It was unfortunate that he wasn't there for her after Ullipses.
There was silence between them again, but this time, they held onto each other tightly, eyes lost in thought.