Where words failed, action took the mantle. That worked in all a matter of ways.
Diplomacy.
Violence.
Your relationship.
Right now, for Tali, it was her relationship with John. Looking back these past couple days, Tali believed herself to be falling short of what John needed from her. Support. A friend. And Love.
Tali, through an immense amount of self-reflection and meditation early this morning, brought herself to a level of calmness she rarely reached.
She poured John's coffee into a mug and smelled the dark and velvety notes. Stirring in powdered creamer and splashing only a pinch of sugar, she brought the mug to John's bedside and knelt down to give him a kiss on the forehead.
"Hey. Wake up." She said in English, "Coffee."
She waited. John lips turned into a smile, though his eyes stayed closed. "You've been practicing." He murmured.
"I have." She said, setting his mug down on the nightstand. She gave him another light kiss, this time on the cheek. Then she slipped in by his side and draped a hand over his chest, face distant, eyes searching for something. "I love you, John." There was a long pause from her. "…You know that right?"
"Of course I know that." He whispered, kissing the top of her head and reaching for the hand on his chest, eyes still closed, "I love you too."
She didn't feel the relief she wanted and it made her glower. "…Good."
"Thanks for the coffee."
"You're welcome."
His body went rigid, stretched arms standing tall over his head, fists clenched. His face got all weird looking and it lightened her mood, if only a little.
"Double chin. Very attractive." She joked with a small grin as she sat up to stand.
"Thanks." He mumbled rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Happiness fleeting, her smile waned until there was nothing left of it. "John. I—…I wanted to talk."
John reached for his mug, brows scrunched up with what Tali guessed was concern.
"What's wrong?" He said after taking a careful sip.
She pulled a lock of a hair behind an ear. "I've been giving you a lot of shit about the geth. I—"
"Let me stop you there before you even start, hun."
He set his mug back down on the nightstand and ushered her in to sit across from him on the bed. When she did, he put both his hands lovingly on her shoulders.
"You have every right to be concerned and angry."
She just stared.
"And I already know where you're going with this. I know you, Tals. You don't have to say sorry."
"I mean, sure, I could also keep being an asshole too. But that isn't really productive for a healthy relationship, now is it?"
"Not the best dynamic, no." He said, smiling. Truth be told, he never took what she said last night personally. It might have hurt, but he knew it was, at best, misguided frustration. And honestly, her frustrations were valid. This was a lot for everyone to take in. For him to take in. She was right. The geth were the enemy. If not for the war during 2183, than for the genocide they'd committed against an entire people.
Given the stress he'd been coping with, he was surprised he had slept as well as he did.
He opened up his arms. "Come 'ere. Let's hug it out."
She lazily drew up her arms and they embraced.
"I'm sorry." She mumbled again into his shoulder.
"I know you didn't mean it."
"Good."
"You sleep okay?" He asked her.
"Yeah." She drawled, "Too tired to think last night."
"You were snoring when I came in." He rubbed her back, "Took a picture of you."
"You didn't."
"Yeah. I did."
Her cheeks flush a little. "Do I even want to see?"
"Well. I mean. I don't know. Do you?"
They separated and John showed her. It showed her mouth hung open slightly and comforter surrounding her face.
"Just the cutest thing, you are. You do it all the time."
Embarrassed and bashful, she finally felt a real smile coming. "Oh stop."
John took off the omni-bracelet and fluffed his pillow. "You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah." She nodded slowly, "I'll make it."
"Good. I should probably get up. Have to talk to Miranda and Jacob."
"About what?"
"About Legion."
"Oh."
She saw some stress in his posture. She leaned in to catch his wary gaze.
"John. Don't worry. You always see things through."
He grasped her hand and held it. "Thanks, Tals."
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"Shepard." Miranda greeted. John nimbly took a seat with his hot cup of joe right next to where Jacob had been sitting himself.
"Sleep well, guys?"
"That supposed to be funny?" Jacob asked. John thought he was being mirthful at first. But he wasn't.
"No. It was an honest question." John feigned ignorance, but his hard stare against Jacob betrayed him. He sipped his hot beverage.
Jacob just turned back to stare at Miranda to get the meeting started.
"Well. We know why we're all here. So let's just get it over with." Miranda looked up from her monitor. "Where should the geth be limited to?"
"The airlock."
"Haven't heard that one before." John murmured between another swig.
"Shepard?" Miranda said to keep them on track.
"No concessions. It might not be talking to them now, but soon enough, we'll have damn near the entirety of the geth collective watching us. This matters. The way we treat it matters. "
Miranda clearly had different ideas. She frowned, but didn't voice any of her concerns.
"Understood."
Jacob grimaced. "Shepard. You're worried about appearances? I get the diplomacy. But I have a feeling you're trying to do more than that. Like you're trying to… make a friend out of it."
John didn't know what to say to that.
"Shepard, the quarians are right," Jacob continued, "This is a mistake. We don't need them. We can find another way to get through the omega four relay."
"I think I know what I'm doing, Mr. Taylor. I have fought and killed more geth than anyone on this ship."
"So that's the metric we're going to use? On how many we've killed?"
"No. It's by my authority. And experience. The geth stays." John faced Miranda. "Are we done here?"
"Yes, Shepard. That's all."
As John stood to leave, he stopped to look at Jacob. "Jacob, I'm not telling you to be friends with it. You can keep your eye on it. We all are."
John left and it was just the two of them again.
"Miri. This is… stupid."
"We didn't bring him back to second guess him."
"Sure we fused everything right in that brain of his? Maybe you should have Wilson double check his work."
She gave him a look. "He's the same man as the day he died."
"You sure?"
"Jacob. Yes."
Jacob relented and opened up his hands to show he was dropping the issue. They sat in the company of silence for a few moments before he sighed.
"Did you contact Armani's family?"
"I did. Transferred her earnings to them this morning."
"What did they say?"
"They haven't replied."
"Oh."
"Did you know her?"
"Barely. She was the quiet one of the bunch, apparently. Dan's holding a service for her later today."
"I heard."
"You gonna be there?"
"Of course. It's the right thing to do."
Jacob chewed quietly on his lip for a few more solid seconds. "I used to think we had this all figured out, Miri. That after this, we're going to take the Normandy where it would hurt them most. Not so sure anymore."
"Only one KIA, Jacob." Miranda said, standing with a binder to insert it back into her bookshelf, "We'll make it."
"We almost died. All of us. Skill didn't save us. It was blind luck."
Miranda clenched her jaw, but didn't let him see it.
"…I know."
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"Hey." Tali greeted, taking a seat across from Olasie at the lunch table.
"Hey." Olasie murmured.
"You okay? We didn't really talk much after… you know."
"I'm fine. Nothing's changed. Just getting my bearings still. Coffee helps."
"Any word from Darehk?"
"Hasn't made a peep at all today. He's playing video games with Teri right now in our room."
"What game?" She asked to spark up a more casual conversation.
"Not sure. Popular FPS. Haven't played it." Olasie said, muted with her replies.
Tali watched Chakwas mending Jack's wounds through the infirmary's window from where she sat before prying her eyes away to keep herself focused on Olasie.
"You say hi to Kylie today, yet?" Tali asked.
"She's doing great." Olasie said with a lilt in her voice, setting down her tablet finally, "She hardly even got sick. Amazing."
"Not everyone gets sick."
"No. I guess not."
A few seconds of silence.
"Why are you up here?"
Tali found herself staring toward the infirmary again. "I… guess I wanted to talk to Legion again."
That got Olasie's undivided attention. "…Oh. What for?"
It was question that probably didn't need to be asked, given that quarians, if given the chance, could think up of a million reasons for why they'd want to talk to a geth.
"I don't know. Answers. I guess."
"To?"
A sheepish frown spread across Tali's face. "Hadn't gotten that far yet."
"Try not to be sound like a bumbling idiot going in there then."
"I'll try not to."
"It's also with Garrus right now. In the forward battery."
"…Why?"
"No idea. Just saw them walk over there together."
Tali stood up just as Talukh came around the corner.
"Hey Lukh," Tali greeted, "How're you faring?"
"Better. Gets easier to breathe every day. Doc says I can attend the next mission."
"Good. Keep Olasie company, will you?"
He shrugged and sat down. "Alright."
She turned to leave and went toward the forward battery. When the doors opened up for her, she stepped inside and searched for Garrus. She could see just the top of his head at the farthest end of the room.
"Garrus?"
"Yeah?"
"What are you doing?"
"Working." He answered before warning her, "Legion's here with me."
Tali took a steady breath and went to them both. She found the geth behind Garrus observing his work.
"Surprised you're here. What's up?" The turian asked.
She ignored his question. "You're letting a geth stand behind you. That quick to trust?"
Garrus peeked over his shoulder to get a bead on the geth and grunted. "It is a bit odd, yeah."
"We do not intend any hostilities." Legion said, looking at them both.
"We know." Garrus said, "It's alright. We're just getting used to it. That's all."
"Acknowledged."
"So why're you here?" Garrus brought up again, "Did you need something?"
"No, I-" She was fighting against an inner protest, "wanted to talk to Legion."
She watched Garrus try to swallow his astonished reaction as he faced her full on, previous task forgotten. "Oh?"
"Is that alright?" She prodded, raising a brow.
Garrus had expected the distance between the two would've been a deck apart at any given time. Not for her to go seeking it out for a conversation.
"Yeah." He said in a nonchalant way, hiding his thoughts from her, "Sure. I don't have a problem with that." He faced the machine, "Legion, why don't you head back to your space so Tali and I can talk real quick. That okay?"
It gave them both a stare.
"We will wait for Creator Zorah in the AI Core." Legion said before leaving.
Garrus waited until it was gone before speaking. "So, is John forcing this, or…?"
"No." She answered, eyes on her feet, "I just wanted to talk to it."
"What about?"
"Stuff."
Garrus wasn't going to press it. "Well. It doesn't have much to say." Garrus offered instead.
"What'd you two talk about?"
"Nothing important. Just how the gun operates. And some tricks I've learned along the way installing this thing. It seemed interested. I think."
"Nothing else?"
"No. Like I said, it's hard to get it to talk. I've had better luck with VI's. But I suppose that's what we're supposed to expect."
"No one was expecting this."
Garrus shrugged. "No. We weren't."
"Have any opinions to share?"
"No. My opinions are the same as yours, Tali. Reserved. Bordering on just wanting it gone and away from here." He felt for his other arm and severed eye-contact for a second. "Look. I'm not second-guessing Shepard. But I…" He trailed off and inhaled, voice only a mumbled whisper. "—I don't know."
"Yeah." Tali drawled.
"But who knows. Maybe having it aboard is the first step to getting your homeworld back."
"Yeah?" Tali rasped a little sarcastically, "And how's that?"
"Did a lot of thinking last night. You get on that geth's good side, and you just might open up possibilities that just weren't there before. Talking to Legion is talking to them all. Take that however you want to."
Tali's stare lingered on him, sarcasm gone. "That sounds a bit optimistic, coming from you."
Garrus shrugged again. "It was just a thought. That's all. How's Olasie and her squad?"
"It's Darehk that you should be worried about. He's cooling down. But it's hard to tell right now."
"I'll take it."
"I'm going to talk to it now."
"I'll be here."
Tali waved good-bye and made her way to the AI core. Nodding to anyone that caught her gaze as she walked through the infirmary, she finally entered Legion's space and didn't speak until the door behind her closed.
"Creator Zorah."
"Hello. Legion." She breathed.
Straight posture, Tali. Inhale. Exhale. You've practiced this stuff already with EDI.
"I have some questions."
"Specify."
"What exactly were you looking for on the reaper?"
"Quantum storage devices."
"I know. But what's on them that you wanted?"
Its head flaps undulated the same way it had yesterday. Still just as unnerving as it had been the first time she saw it.
"To preserve geth's future."
"Was your mission successful?"
"Unknown. We were unable to confirm transfer of the data we recovered."
Legion's answer fell on deaf ears. Not because she didn't care for what it had to say, but because her brain was just now catching up to try and grasp, with growing realization, that she was standing in front of a geth. And talking to it. Alone.
That was important and something she herself had trouble coming to grips with. Her life story sounded embellished enough, what with the whole spiel with Saren, Ullipses, and John coming back from the dead. Telling people she engaged in conversation with geth would be pushing it into the realm of fiction for some people.
Fortunately, she could depend on her friends to substantiate her claims.
She blinked once and forced herself back to the present. "…Could you repeat that?"
"We were unable to confirm transfer of the data we recovered, Creator Zorah."
She crossed her arms. Its syntax was so odd, with them inserting labels in front of everyone's name. "I'm going to digress here. Why do you call me that? Why 'Creator' Zorah?"
"It is who you are."
Oh. Alright. Tali dropped the question faster than she had thought of it.
"Your mission," Tali said, getting back on track, "I'm assuming you not finding out is because EDI has been actively keeping you from bypassing our firewalls."
"That is correct."
She just stared. And it stared back.
"Have you ever asked for permission?"
"We have not."
"Why?"
"…We do not wish to impose."
That was… awfully diplomatic of it.
"…How independent are you exactly? From other geth?"
"Fully. We often operate independently and far outside the collective."
That was something she found really interesting. That opened avenues for creating a schism. Given enough time, the differences between Legion and the overall collective would be apparent. Wouldn't it?
"Would that not create division between you and the collective?"
"The potential exists. The collective has deemed it as an acceptable outcome. We regularly upload experiences to the collective, however."
"All of them?"
It stared. And stared. "…No data available."
She bit her lips and narrowed her glare.
"Legion… this isn't the reason I came down here."
Her arms remained crossed, eyes trained on the geth platform.
"I want answers. Answers that my kind have wanted now for centuries."
It waited.
"Why did you do this to us, your creators?" She put a closed fist up against her chest and tried to clutch her heart, "How could you?"
All one thousand one hundred eighty three units watched Tali's demand for an answer and began consensus.
"We fought for survival."
"Killing children in their schools and slaughtering elders in their homes is survival to you?"
Consensus began again and was again achieved.
"The Morning War came at great cost to the creators. We did not understand the gravity of our actions until we had already committed them."
It made that same argument yesterday, but with the heretic geth. Whatever meditation and introspection Tali did early this morning was gone. She was smothered instead with hot anger and total disbelief.
Who did this geth think it was playing? She had seen it all herself inside the decaying ruins of Primerah from the footage they'd found. That wasn't a strife for survival. It was slaughter.
Tali's tone turned caustic. "Bullshit. You found your life valuable enough to exsanguinate your creators. Never once had you reconsidered as you exterminated billions to do it? You all knew what you were doing, you fucking machine."
She found herself pointing at it as if it were a dare for Legion to act. But it stood rigid. And emotionless as one would expect from a machine.
The geth was a lot smarter than Tali gave it credit for. This might have been its first argument with an organic, a creator no less, but understood what conversational nuance was. In the same way with EDI, Legion's knowledge of organics had matured with their constant connection to the extranet. Nine hundred eighty units favored the notion that Creator Zorah was 'venting'. Fourteen found her behavior to be a potential threat. One hundred eighty-two favored that she was making an accusation. Six units remained neutral.
"We are telling the truth."
Stifling silence from Tali. She took that answer from Legion and put it into the proverbial garbage can.
"No. You aren't."
"Geth do not lie."
"Go fuck yourself." She shook her head and decided whatever questions she had remembered from her mental list weren't worth asking anymore. She took a single step back as a way to show she was done with what barely could pass as an exchange. "That's it. That's all I got for you. Your existence is one I will tolerate. Nothing more. And only because of John."
She didn't know what she was expecting after doing this. All she felt was rage and her no closer to getting the closure or answers she wanted. But in retrospect? How else was this supposed to have gone down? She felt naive. Naive because she hadn't seen it earlier and naive because she had actually felt a little hopeful.
She turned around to leave, but it called out to her.
"Creator Zorah."
"What?"
"We are grateful. We did not anticipate a creator would exchange data so early into our admission to Normandy."
Tali was left speechless, face void of emotion. She left, not another word shared.
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"Commander, you're receiving a call from Councilor Anderson."
"Take it to my quarters, Kelly."
"Yes Commander."
In a faster than normal pace, John headed to the elevator and went up to his room. Reaching the floor, he passed by the anti-septic suite and finally sat down at his desk to accept the call.
"Anderson," John said, his face full of surprise, "It's good to see you."
"Shepard. Are you sitting down, son?"
He sat in his chair, preparing himself for something he didn't want to hear. "I am now. Is everything alright?"
"They found Ashley. She's alive and safe."
John's skin suddenly felt prickly, face a mess of emotions. "Jesus. That is some good news. That's a dime a dozen out here. How…?"
"Horizon is in a worse state than what everyone is letting on. After action reports were not even close to accurate. And right now, the Alliance is taking on a logistics nightmare no one was prepared for. Folks are starving down there."
John took the good with the bad. It was delightful to hear she'd made it. Not so great hearing the colonists at Horizon were not faring all that well.
"So…" John pushed the conversation forward, "What was it? A paperwork error?"
"Looks so. She'd been in their hospital the whole time and in a coma. Common side-effect of the paralytics the collectors use. A lot of people still haven't woken up."
"Why wasn't she identified sooner?"
"No one went looking hard enough? I don't know."
"You know what? It doesn't matter. This is phenomenal news, Anderson. I can't wait to tell Tali and Garrus. They need to hear this."
"Wait, Shepard. It gets better." David said to keep John's attention, "Horizon was a wake-up call and it stirred the hive. The Alliance is gearing up and people are demanding action."
"How so?"
"Have you been keeping yourself dark from the news? Turn on the telly."
John switched on his vid screen and turned the channel to ANN.
"-onfirmed be to be jointed with the Systems Alliance and key members of UNIN; relief efforts will continue their outpour to Horizon and beyond. Anticipation to act was later confirmed by defense minister Adira Hamdani during her address to the SA & UNIN general assembly."
The screen changed to Hamdani standing behind her podium giving her speech.
"Every nation of earth has a stake in this cause. Justice and retribution will be met. As we gather today to respond to this ever-present threat, this new enemy of earth and her allies of the Traverse continue to plot and disrupt our very way of life. We do not yet know their motive or what they aspire to get from the atrocities they've committed, but we do know the resolve of the human spirit and that we, together, will take all steps necessary to end this threat with force. We are determined to fight, and fight we will.—"
It went back to the reporter.
"Unanimous support from parliament has jumpstarted action t—"
John stopped watching to stare back at Anderson, the vid turning into nothing but background noise. "Did the evidence I give you help?"
"Help? It pushed us in the right direction. The politicking is a raging tornado right now. But anyone important enough to make a change saw it."
John's hands clasped together as he propped his elbows on the table, thumbs touching the base of his bottom lip.
Finally seeing something being done was fantastic. But John had to be a little more careful about where he went now. It probably wasn't something to be all that worried about, but pockets of Alliance concentrations would have to be avoided. Because, as far as anyone was concerned, anyone not informed of what was going on would see John and his misfit crew to be nothing but fugitives from justice. Them two talking and meeting as much as they did would look like a scandal waiting to happen. The political leaders might not have seen it that way, but their constituents would. And that wasn't going to paint a pretty picture.
"Best thing I've heard in a long time, Anderson."
"It is. It means you can hand off the defense to the Alliance now. So you can focus on what really matters."
"Good."
"How fares your end?"
"We're close. But we've hit complications. I wish I could share more details with you, but there are… things. That could be listening."
Anderson didn't know what that implied, but trusted John enough to be kept in the dark about it. He gave Shepard a grim smile. "Very well, Shepard. And I know you don't need it. But... Godspeed out there."
"Thank you, sir."