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There's something different about Shepard, since Tali has returned to the Normandy SR-2. They are all changed, Tali supposes, but Shepard most of all. After years of urging the Council to act, Shepard's warnings about the Reapers have been proven undeniably, devastatingly true. And her reward for being right has been to see her home world decimated in the first attack, and to be driven from Earth to find aid, forced to leave millions to their deaths.
A quarian can understand that better than most, perhaps.
It never fails to surprise Tali, how quickly she feels comfortable aboard the Normandy again. The last time she was aboard, the Normandy was a Cerberus ship. With a Cerberus AI. Nothing about that should have been comfortable, should have ever come to feel like home , no matter what turmoil raged aboard the Migrant Fleet.
There is a quiet aboard the Normandy that Tali once found unnerving—the near-silent engines and systems, the crew that felt skeletal compared to the Flotilla's packed ships. The first time around, she couldn't sleep until Kaidan told her about the white noise programs. The Normandy had several dozen in her libraries, and Tali could download them directly into her enviro-suit's onboard computer, play them inside her helmet without disturbing anyone. After that, she slept like a baby. Eventually, she got so used to the quiet that she didn't need the programs anymore. Now, the quiet seems to envelop her as she walks the corridors—calm, orderly, even peaceful at moments.
Strange, that she should find peace aboard the ship at the epicenter of the war.
To a quarian, "the war" by default means the war against the geth. Some of her people have always considered that war to be ongoing, whether in spirit or in actuality. To someone like Han'Gerrel, the war can only end with the reclamation of their home world. There are those who disagree, of course. The war could be history, a thing of the past, if their people could find a new world to colonize and make their own, and let Rannoch go. But now, the Fleet has once again engaged the geth, and they are at war in earnest.
For Shepard, there is only one war. The war with the Reapers has been Shepard's war ever since the day she touched the beacon on Eden Prime, a war ongoing and thousands of cycles old, this only the latest campaign. A war that can only be ended with the Reapers' destruction.
Incomparable in scale, and yet any war, when you live at the center of it, is all-consuming.
Shepard is consumed. It's in her face, her eyes, her ramrod-straight posture on the bridge, the hardening of her jaw. Tali thought she was absorbed before, but it's different now. Shepard has become the war. It's in her flesh and bone, as much a part of her as any quarian's enviro-suit. Cerberus claimed they'd brought Shepard back from the dead; Tali can't help feeling that it was the war itself that called Shepard back to life. If not by Cerberus, it would have done so by some other mechanism. Until the war is won, she cannot rest.
Tali hesitates only a moment at the door of Shepard's cabin, before tapping the intercom button.
War or no, Shepard is still Shepard. And since returning to the Normandy , Tali feels no doubt that what was between them is still there. Whether shaped by war or by themselves. (Or both? For what are they both if not shaped by war?)
The door opens so immediately that Tali jumps, not at the responsiveness of the ship's systems but at Shepard's attentiveness, as though she's been waiting for Tali to come by. Maybe she has.
"Tali," Shepard says, and smiles. Tali loves the expressiveness of her eyes, of human eyes generally—dark and nonluminescent, the pupils responding to the ambient light, the corners crinkling with a smile, the brows furrowed or lifted. Shepard takes Tali by the hand. "Come on in."
The cabin is quiet, no music playing, the only sound the constant cycling of the fish tank. Bright tropical species swim in the spacious tank that takes up most of one wall. Tali has never had a "pet," as they say, an animal kept for companionship. No quarian could justify using Fleet resources for a such a thing. For a moment she watches the colorful fish swim back and forth. They don't know they're on a war ship, fighting for the survival of every sentient species in the galaxy. They only know their safe little tank, and that their guardian feeds them faithfully every day.
She feels Shepard at her back, a gentle hand on her hip. "You always liked the fish."
"They're pretty." Tali turns away from the tank, and embraces Shepard, pulling her close. "Not as pretty as you."
Shepard scoffs gently. "I probably look like I haven't slept in a month."
"Perhaps," Tali says, a teasing note in her voice. "Still beautiful."
She tries to read the response in Shepard's face. Instead, Shepard almost looks as though she didn't hear the compliment, slipping back behind that invisible armor. "We'll be ready to infiltrate the dreadnought soon. I'm making sure all our anti-synthetic measures are upgraded, and—"
"Shepard, I know," Tali says gently. "This isn't the War Room. We don't have to talk strategy right now."
Shepard meets her eyes, finally, and looks at a loss, almost confused, and then lets out a laugh. "Sorry. I don't… I almost don't know how to talk about anything else, these days."
"I understand," Tali says, and she does. "Think you could take a shot at relaxing for an hour or two?"
"I'll give it a shot."
Tali hesitates a moment before adding, "I've taken my antibiotics." Immediately, she feels like she shouldn't have. Shepard's face says it all, and Tali adds quickly, "Just in case!" which doesn't make her feel any less stupid.
But Shepard shakes her head and draws Tali closer. "You know I would. God, would I. But I can't risk you getting sick. Not now."
"I've worked with a fever before."
"It might not be just a fever this time, you don't know."
She's not wrong. Quarians who regularly link suit environments eventually adapt to one another, and can have direct contact without getting sick. Shepard is human, of course, walking around without a suit, so there's no guarantee things would work the same way. But maybe, if they'd been together… regularly , all this time, they wouldn't even have to have this conversation.
But it's been months, with stars and space and wars between them.
In Shepard's arms, the space between them collapses to nothing. Nothing between us has changed, Shepard told her, Tali's first night back aboard. And incredibly, it really feels like it hasn't. Despite the war, despite everything.
"We've already lost so many," Shepard says quietly, over Tali's shoulder. "I can't endanger any member of my crew without a damn good reason. And you…"
She trails off, but Tali understands that it would only hurt more to argue. "Say no more. The suit stays on. But…" She trails a hand down Shepard's back, from the base of her neck and down her spine until her fingers rested in the small of Shepard's back. "That doesn't mean we can't relax."
She feels the tension in Shepard's body begin to relax, just slightly. "You do make a compelling case."
"There's always nerve stim programs, too."
Shepard lets out a gentle laugh, though she looks intrigued. "Those do sound interesting. Maybe another night?"
"Just say the word."
"I still want you here."
"You don't have to explain, Shepard."
"I mean it. I want you close to me. Now more than ever."
Tali lays one hand against the side of Shepard's face and meets her eyes through glass. "I am here."
Tali sits on the bed and watches unabashed as Shepard sheds her battle dress uniform for the day. It's always fun to watch her change her clothes. Quarian suits are made with a variety of modular aesthetic pieces for the outside that can be swapped out and customized, of course—they like to express themselves with their clothing, just like any other species. But it's different, watching Shepard unbuckle her belt and undo her shirt and shrug out of it, casually baring her skin. Watching how her muscles ripple as she stretches, briefly, rolling her shoulders, the strap of her undergarment slipping out from under the shoulder of her white t-shirt, Shepard automatically pushing it back into place. She stands for a moment in just her underwear and that white shirt, before selecting a pair of simple crewman fatigues from her closet and slipping them on. Tali understands that even now, Shepard is ready to shove her feet into her boots and run to the bridge at a moment's notice, buttoning her shirt in the elevator. In war, there is no true down time.
Even so, Shepard smiles as she turns, still barefoot, and joins Tali in her bed. Tali lies down with her, her back to Shepard, and Shepard's feet brush against hers, with all those funny little toes humans have. Shepard kind of nuzzles into her neck where Tali's hood dips away and her hand slowly traces the contour of Tali's body, the dip of her waist and the rise of her hip. The suit lets through a certain amount of sensation, though nothing like skin on skin. The mere memory of that latter, however, sets Tali's nerves alight.
Shepard's hand comes to rest on her thigh, and Tali covers it with her own gloved hand, her fingers resting in the spaces between all of Shepard's extra digits.
"I'm glad you came up," Shepard says, her voice husky and soft.
Tali rolls over to face her, all at once wanting to see Shepard, touch her. Feel her close. So it's not skin on skin, so what—she wants that, of course she wants it, but more than anything, she just wants Shepard. Wants to be here with her, with nothing to get in the way.
So she touches Shepard, as tenderly as Shepard touches her and even more slowly, letting the heat of her body come through the ultra-thin material covering her hands. Shepard's eyes close, and she lets out a long sigh.
Oh, Tali could do so much more to her. But this will be enough, for tonight. It must be.
She draws her hand down Shepard's back again, gently kneading around her shoulderblades where the tension always seems to gather, until Shepard lets out a quiet sound of pleasure. Her own hand is back to wandering, mapping ever curve of Tali's body with intent. With a kind of certainty, as though for a moment Tali's suit were not between them.
"Shepard?"
Shepard starts. "What?"
"You were staring at me," Tali says, amused.
Shepard smiles. "I'm always staring at you."
"Not saying I'm complaining."
Shepard's forehead touches Tali's faceplate. Tali can almost feel her dark, liquid eyes staring through the the composite glass tinted from the outside, trying to see Tali's face as clearly as Tali sees her. Then she closes her eyes, and exhales, and her breath fogs the plate. Tali exhales, and there is that brief moment of lag before her suit vents a faint, warm breath against Shepard's skin.
"I love you," Shepard whispers, her lips brushing the plate, leaving faint smudges. Tali would like to keep them there, marking the lower part of her vision. She won't, of course. She will clean the exterior of her suit as diligently as she always does. But she takes pleasure in it anyway, signs of herself that Shepard leaves with the touch of a kiss, the print of fingertips, a strand of her hair that clings to the outer mesh.
Shepard a part of her, as much as her enviro-suit is.
And Tali is a part of Shepard, too, she thinks, never so certain of that as now, with the way Shepard holds her close, the longing way she looks at Tali as though she wants to absorb a little of her into her own body. And the contented look when she closes her eyes, breathes—saying this is enough, for now.
Tali says, "I love you, too."
There will be time for more— Keelah , let there be time for more.
The war rages across the galaxy, and inside Shepard's soldier body and her ever-turning mind. Tali lies next to her encased in nanofiber, reactive gel, and circuitry. But she is here, and so is Shepard. And for the moment, nothing comes between them.