Guess I'll indulge myself now and posts a little something that has been lying in my notes for ages. Don't know if there are many F!Shepard/Tali fans out there, but if at least one of them reads it, this will not have been for nothing.
Timeline is the period between ME2/ME3 when Shepard is in incarceration. Written from the perspective of James Vega bc why not. ‘Three stolen days on the Citadel’ refer to another part of the fic that I may or may not post here in the future.
"I've got a letter for you."
"You're shitting me. Someone decided to write?"
Shepard's snark was not unexpected, but the cold acceptance in her voice was suddenly too much to handle. She must be thinking that everyone has forgotten, of course. Vega now found himself wishing he could tell her that there are dozens of letters waiting: letters from Tuchanka and Palaven, from friends on the Citadel and as far as Omega, that even half a year later they still don't stop coming. Not that he could tell her, of course: he was specifically placed next Shepard for his supposed effectiveness and lack of emotional attachment.
Normally, he wouldn't dare.
The letters usually came through a variety of extranet addresses Shepard has picked up along the years — the knowledge of some was common, others were more sophisticated, but nothing was out of the ordinary. Until a couple of days ago when a sealed paper letter reached the doors of the Alliance HQ.
Well, that was just crossing the line. He couldn't remember the last time he saw a paper later, wasn't even sure he ever did. There isn't any paper in their modern digitalised world — they have datapads and emails for that sort of thing, right? Not to mention the transfer would cost and the number of hands this letter had to change — the back of the envelope featured the name of a Migrant Fleet ship Neema and the sender. Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Raaya. He heard many rumours about the commander's private life and was inclined to believe all of them... But a quarian? Nah. No way. The letter in has hand proved him wrong, though. Not like it mattered.
"Yeah. Here."
He extended his hand to pass the envelope to Shepard. She looked at him and disbelief and took the later into her hands.
"What's that?"
Shepard has always been hesitant to show emotion, Vega didn't know if she could, really. But right now her voice, if not her face, was itching with surprise.
"A letter from some quarian with your name on it. Figured you should see it."
Shepard was fiddling with the letter, restless, fumbling and turning it over, tracing the scarce letters with her fingers. She must have seen the adress by now. And the sender's name. Not that it's any of his business.
"I'll be going now, then."
"Yes, you do that." She didn't even pay him a glance, eyes focused on the precious piece of paper. Until a couple monents later when she raised her head and said, "Thank you, James."
The first time she ever called him by his name. He nodded, turned around and left the room. He heard the rustle of paper the second the door closed behind him.
Shepard didn't seem to waste a single second.
"Hello, Shepard.
I'm doing alright. The weather has been kind to the fleet, and the quality of rations on the Neema has improved significantly since the time of my trial.
I wish I could speak about something than the food and the weather, though. Not that I can, especially knowing there is a high chance my letter will first see the Alliance command rather than you.
I don't know whether you've been receiving my letters but was unable to reply or haven't read any of them it all. Just as I don't know which would be more cruel — for you to slowly forget about my existence, or read my silent pleas unable say something in return. Maybe it'd be more mercifult for you to forget about me after all, to let the memories of us and the three stolen days on the Citadel to fade back into the distant recallations. Maybe I should have some mercy on myself as well, stop wasting my time on writing and cater fully for the needs of the Fleet. And yet I can't. The selfish, stupid part of me continues to write, and wishes you had read my letters, wishes you knew that I'm still among the stars. That I still miss you.
We will see each other again. And even if we don't, it was all worth it.
Forever yours, Tali"
What followed was a shriek, a high and desperate scream mixed sobs and muttering. James never knew a human could scream like that. I could come in, he thought. She could use a hug. Someone to tell her that it will be alright. The thought didn't linger longer than a moment. He didn't know Shepard well, but one thing was for certain: the Commander doesn't tolerate weakness, neither hers nor somebody else's.
He turned around and started the walk along the corridor.
Summary: Shepard finds that you can’t go home again - but you can get close.
For @fanfoolishness, who requested Tali + seascapes in this settings prompt meme.
Commander Bonnie Shepard relaxed into the hot tub, a beer between her fingers and a remote control in her hands.
She studied it intently. Perhaps a bit too intently, as the liquor had made her reflexes dull and her mind duller. Andersen’s hot tub had the most complex remote she had ever seen, worse even than the baffling, imposing one for the television, which had come with with a manual in not one volume, but two. She enjoyed tinkering with such things, but even she found it a bit intimidating.
She shifted down into the bubbles as she brought the remote to the light. Several of its commands were simple enough: heat the water up or cool it down; more bubbles or less; targeted jet areas; a cleaning cycle. Others seemed more foreign—olfactory target zones; species specific seating arrangements; landscapes.
She could guess what the first two were - a bit of a nice smell and seating that moved inward or out to accommodate, say, krogan bulk and quarian knees the same, but landscapes – that eluded her.
For the first six beers, she had left the button to itself, promising herself that she would look it up in the manual on her omni when she stepped out of the tub.
But now – now she was on her seventh beer, and impatient, and the combination of these two influences made Bonnie do something she would have hesitated to do when sober – and that was press the button.
“INSERT LOCATION,” a robotic voice said. It was an old-sounding synthetic voice; not quite as fluid as Avina, let alone EDI. Shepard wondered how old it was; it certainly had a volume far above what was, strictly speaking, necessary.
“Mindoir.”she said, swallowing a bit of beer. She wouldn’t be able to go home before this war was over, and hadn’t been able to bring herself go home in twenty years, yet the name was automatic on her lips.
“MINDOIR SELECTED. COORDINATES AND OR ADDRESS.” It could not be that old, she supposed, if it had a human colony that had been started (and burned) merely thirty years ago.
“Clarktown,” She said, then, unsure of how specific to make the request: “6505 Talsa Corridor.”
“AFFIRMATIVE. SEASCAPE FOUND,” The booming narrator said. “PREPARE TO RELAX.”
As if one could with that voice, she thought, but her thoughts were diverted by the suddenly shimmering of her childhood home into focus.
Her breath caught in her throat as the lights dimmed, and the brilliant shore of Odysseus rose around her. It was blue, as it had been in her youth, the icy-white waters softly lapping at the shore. The beach was unusually clear, and vivid; she could see almost every grain in the shore-line, tossed about the ebbing tide.
For a moment, she could not dare to look up, so enraptured by the tide. A mess of emotions tore through her – hope, that perhaps the homestead would still be there; fear, for what if it was; eagerness and loathing and longing, all coursing through her at lightning speed. Finally she swallowed, courage in her eyes, and dared to glance upwards.
It was there. An undignified sound escaped her throat, caught between a moan and a gasp. It had been so long since she had seen it, so long since she had dared to see it, even in her own mind, but there it was: the same three-room pre-fab that she had lived in nearly her entire childhood. It was still there, in the landscape; frozen in time, a perfect white and yellow home on the edge of the shore. There were no marks marring it; no indication at all that this planet had been all but burned by the Batarians, no corpses in the sand, no blaster wounds in the woodwork. It was exactly as it had been. She half expected her mother to come out and wave at her.
She felt a tear running down her cheek and jabbed at it, angry at the sudden overwhelming sadness she felt at the sight of it. It had been gone now, gone a long time. Why had she even thought to ask for it? It was foolish, a sappy bit of longing. And now she was crying, in a hot tub no less.
“Shepard?” Tali’s soft, slightly drunken voice trilled. Bonni looked up, startled; she had fallen deaf to the world around her, including Tali’s drunken plodding into her room. “Where are you?”
“In here,” she said, wincing as her voice sounded rusty. “Hot-tub!”
She knew she should probably get out of the tub, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the house, still spell-bound by the white siding, the yellow awnings. Tali didn’t need to be told twice where she was. Within seconds, Mindoir shimmered as one of the hot tub doors opened, and Tali stumbled in.
“Oooh,” Tali said, twirling as Mindoir projected itself onto her. Bonnie’s heart caught in her throat as she watched, the sands of Mindoir swirling across her girlfriend’s skin-tight bodysuit as she swirled, taking in her childhood home. “What is this? Very pretty.”
“Mindoir,” she said.
Tali stopped twirling, her still-slightly swaying body coming to a stop. Even through the mask, Bonnie saw her eyes widen. “Oh.”
She didn’t know what to say; that much was obvious. Tali stared around herself, looking at a world that Tali had never seen, but knew of. She traced the small house on the wall, her long Quarian fingers caressing Bonnie’s childhood home with a reverent tenderness.
“Come here,” Bonnie said, her heart beating faster at the thought of Tali and the house. She would have liked to have brought her there. Her father would have liked Tali; he’d never met a gearhead he hadn’t loved.
“Can I…?” She pointed down toward the water, and Bonnie shook her head.
“Sorry. One – one minute.” She fumbled for the remote, quickly selecting quarian/human. The water churned, a strong scent of disinfectant rising. She wrinkled her nose, but said nothing, accepting it as a small price to pay for togetherness.
“Okay,” she said. Tali nodded, her hands immediately beginning to disengage the suit, starting with her gloves. She watched in fascination as Tali unsteadily stripped; the helmet came off as quick as her gloves did, and she watched the long, black hair slowly appear as the helmet was placed to the side. She shook it lose and it fanned out across her shoulders. Tali’s glowing eyes caught her own and she smiled, then slowly gazed downward, watching Tali strip off the long quarian suit.
It was not an easy process. It took her the better half of fifteen minutes to free her soft, purple-tinged skin from it’s prison. Bonnie watched with adoring eyes as she reverently folded the square of purple and white fabric, placing it delicately on the table just inside the bedroom. Wiggling out of the suit took her longer, but was worth it, as was the sight of her soft, round hips shimmying out of the skintight fabric. This, too, was meticulously folded and left to the side, before Tali stepped into the water.
She took her place at Bonnie’s side in seconds. She held her arm around Tali and breathed deep. Tali’s hands curled around her shoulders, the soft quarian skin an entirely different experience from the space suit she wore most of the time. Tali nuzzled her cheek against Bonnie’s own, pressing the lightest of kisses to her temple. “It’s beautiful, Shepard,” she said.
They stood in silence for some time, watching Odysseus’ tides pull in. It was a comfortable silence; both focused on observing the lost world that bloomed around them.
“We could go, if you wanted.” Tali offered, several minutes later. She looked away from Mindoir for the first time, startled. “We could build a home there.”
The stunning admission – that Tali would give up Rannoch, would give up her people to live on a long-dead world – surprised her, to the point that it left her speechless. Tali patiently waited, her eyes still turned to her lovingly.
“No, I – “ She found her voice, at last, shaking her head. “I can’t. Not yet. Maybe someday but – ”
“Alright.” Tali wait, her long fingers caressing Bonnie’s side. Tali leaned in close, so close they were nearly one, and rested her head on her shoulder. “Would you tell me about it, then? Sometime?”
“Yeah,” she said. She took a small risk, leaning down to press a small kiss to Tali’s lips. “Sometime.”
I helped out with the MEFFW Secret Santa project and this was the other story I wrote.
- - - - - - - -
“Shepard, I'm glad you're here! I need your help!”
Shepard rounded the corner to the mess and stopped short at the scene in front of her: Tali, wearing a “Fleet and Flotilla” apron, covered from helmet to boot in flour with wet spots dotted around the apron. The mess itself was a disaster, with flour covering nearly every surface, egg shells all over the counter, and dirty dishes and open food boxes and bags scattered over what little free counter space there was.
The commander's hand flew to her mouth to stifle a laugh, since what she was seeing looked so much like something out of a sitcom or a commercial for a heavy-duty cleaner.
“Good lord, Tali, what are you doing?” she sputtered, losing the battle with keeping her mirth contained.
“I'm trying to bake a cake.” Shepard could hear Tali's voice waver a bit, like she was trying not to cry. It was a sound that sobered her right away. “Garrus's birthday is coming up and when we had parties for you and the other humans, he always loved the part where you blow out the candles. I wanted to do something special for him but I can barely cook and I've never baked a cake and I watched some vids and it seemed so easy...”
Shepard rushed to the young woman's side as she covered her face with her hands and broke down sobbing. “And all I've done is make a terrible mess that will take forever...”
“Tali, shhhh, it's ok,” Shepard soothed, pulling her girlfriend against her. “I'll help you clean up, ok? EDI, please make sure people stay away from here unless it's some kind of emergency.”
“Understood, Commander,” came the AI's reply. “Is there anything I can do to assist?”
“No, I think the two of us can take care of it,” Shepard answered, kissing the top of Tali's helmet and murmuring soothing words.
“Very well. Should you change your mind, I have instant access to 352,978 cake recipes that are dextro-friendly.”
“Noted, EDI. Thanks.”
It was several minutes before Tali was able to compose herself and pull away from Shepard's hug. “I'm sorry,” she murmured, her head hung as she sniffled. “I just wanted to do something special for him and I thought I would be easier than this. It's hard when there's only two dextro people on board, you know.”
“Well, let's get this cleaned up, then we'll look at the recipe, ok?” Shepard glanced around the disaster area that used to be the ship's mess and pressed her lips together.
“What? What's so funny Shepard?” Tali asked when she couldn't contain her laughter any longer.
“I don't think this is what people have in mind when they refer to the ship's mess,” she giggled.
Tali looked around and Shepard watched, still laughing as a glowing smile slowly spread across the young woman's face. “I think you're right, Shepard. Gardner would probably be a little upset with me right now if he were here.” she laughed.
“Maybe just a little.” The Commander was happy to see her lover wasn't as distraught as she had been moments ago. “So, let's get to it.”
Things in the dining area weren't quite as bad as they looked and the pair made short work of Tali's baking catastrophe. Fortunately, there were still enough dextro ingredients left for another go at Garrus's cake. Shepard patiently talked Tali through reading the recipe, showing her the different measuring cups and spoons and demonstrated how to properly fold ingredients together when they made the frosting. Soon, all of deck three was filled with the nose-pleasing scent of homemade, baked goodness and Tali was beyond ecstatic.
Once the cake was cooled and properly frosted, Shepard and Tali leaned back on the counter to admire their handiwork. An evil grin slowly crept across Shepard's face. “Tali, you said Garrus loves it when we blow out the candles, right?”
“Yes,” Tali looked at Shepard, confused. “Why?”
“Well, I've got an idea. There's this shop in Zakera ward...” Shepard's voice dropped to a whisper and she spelled out her idea.
“Shepard, you're an evil genius,” Tali laughed. “Remind me to never get on your bad side. And we do owe him for that joke he pulled when he handcuffed us together.”
“Well, that one wasn't so bad.” Shepard's voice dropped and took on a husky tone. “I saved those cuffs, remember.”
“And there is extra frosting,” Tali drew closer to Shepard and smoothed her hands down her chest. “But we'll have time for that later. Right now, we have some shopping to do.”
“Spoil sport,” Shepard grinned, swatting Tali's rear as she brushed past.
- - - - - - - - -
Read the rest on AO3 & let me know what you think.
marie didnt take much from mindoir but she took that bear. it felt v fitting to give it to tali, even if she’ll never tell her it’s history it’s still a cute present
Some moments were just so perfect, Imani never wanted them to end. This was a moment like that, sitting beside Tali, watching the sun sink below the horizon in a dazzling array of colors, upon a distant world at the farthest reaches of the galaxy. It was bittersweet, as all things were in such a time of chaos and upheaval; both women were deeply aware of the tremendous sacrifices so many had made. Somewhere behind them an enormous geth spoke with newfound clarity to Admiral Raan, in a voice that sounded all too familiar to them both, and all too painful to consider. Tali's words were especially poignant, then.
"I look at this picture of hope and peace, and all I see is everyone I've lost," she said. "My team on Haestrom, my father, even Legion. I'm mourning a geth. How crazy is that?"
"It's not crazy at all," Imani replied softly, and she understood it more than most.
A child of Mindoir couldn't help but understand.
"It is beautiful though, isn't it?" Tali mused a bit wistfully, rising to her feet to stand at the cliffside. Imani stood up to join her, standing at her side. The sky above them was utterly magnificent, painted in hues of rosegold and rusty ochre. Imani had never seen a sunset like that in her life, not even as a simple child on a rural farm so far from here. It was beauty enough to make her heart ache.
But it wasn't even the beauty of that sky that held Imani's attention, so much as who stood in the frame of her vision, basking in the glow of the sun's ebbing light for the first time. It was the light of a world Tali'Zorah could finally call her own, after so much pain and grief and loss, and she reflected it far brighter than even she could have ever believed. Imani smiled, soaking in that warmth for herself, and gazed at her with a profound compassion swelling inside her heart--and no small amount of admiration, for this proud young woman who bled for this world and her people in ways Imani could scarcely imagine, even after knowing her for so long.
"Yeah, it is," Imani said, and her eyes never left Tali when she said it.
Finding the joy abiding even amidst sorrow was something that had always seemed to define Imani's life, but never so much as then. Her heart ached for yet another placard to be placed on the Normandy's memorial wall, but even so, she was moved by the gift that sacrifice gave. It was what made this most perfect of moments possible.
Tali stared out into the distance for a moment. "It'll be years before we can live without our suits, but right now?" She paused, and to Imani's astonishment, Tali raised her hand to her mask, and released it from place with a sharp intake of air as the vacuum seals unlocked around it.
"Right now, I have this," she finished, and for the first time Imani heard her lilting, accented voice in perfect clarity, with none of the reverb it normally had--it startled Imani a bit, realizing it wasn't a quality inherent to quarian speech the way it was with turians. Tali's voice had been distorted by the electronics embedded into her suit for all this time, and Imani had never truly heard what she sounded like until then, in that moment.
But even that stunning realization was nothing compared to the revelation to follow. Imani's heart nearly stopped dead in her chest then, as Tali took a deep breath--taking in the scent of her homeworld for the first time, one completely unfiltered--and slowly turned to face her, to return Imani's gaze at last with one of her own, also unfiltered, unclouded by a haze of purple, no longer the shadowy silhouette that she'd known. Imani looked at Tali, truly looked at her for the first time, bathed in the light of Rannoch's setting sun, and her eyes grew wide in amazement.
She was one of the most beautiful women Imani had ever seen.
Her skin looked smooth, something like an asari's but in a rich shade of deep violet, with mottled scales in paler colors at her temples and along her jawline, pastel pinks and blues. To Imani's surprise, Tali also had thick, arched eyebrows, and her eyes glanced up to notice a dark hairline peeking out from her hood. There was a hint of textured curls similar to her own, if somewhat looser, but in a deepest shade of blue-black, just like her brows. It seemed that unlike every other species, quarians apparently had hair, just like humans did. What struck Imani to be so remarkable about Tali's appearance in general was how much her features wouldn't have looked out of place in the family holo archives of Imani's late Egyptian-Canadian mother.
More than anything else, Tali looked so much like a human woman of color remixed with an alien twist: she had impossibly high cheekbones, a large, aquiline nose not dissimilar to that of Imani's aunts, and thick, pouting lips in a shade of mauve. Imani was amused then, and wondered if that was why Tali found her so attractive--maybe Imani looked a hell of a lot like a quarian, to her. Perception was funny like that.
But it was her eyes that truly shocked Imani, more than any of the rest of her features. She'd always assumed the angular points of light obscured by the violet opacity of Tali's mask were some kind of optical illusion, a trick of the light reflecting off it, or some kind of function of her helmet. With nothing to obscure them, however, Imani was stunned to see that Tali's eyes really did have a faint white glow to them, enveloping large silvery grey irises. They were narrow and angular, deep set and upturned at the corners, framed by dark lashes nearly as long and thick as Imani's own, and rimmed with thick black lines--whether it was eyeliner or some natural quality of quarian appearance, she couldn't say, but it didn't especially matter. The effect was what mattered to Imani.
Everything about her was utter perfection.
"Mashallah," Imani breathed, overwhelmed by the sight of her. It wasn't just her beauty that took her breath away, though; it was equal parts the way Tali stared at her. There was a hunger there in those soft eyes, an unmistakable yearning. What Imani once suspected to be little more than infatuation and hero worship had deepened into something far more than either, and she'd been just as oblivious to it as she had toward her own deepening feelings. Imani had tried to dismiss them during the Collector mission, and thought she was simply overthinking things.
But gods, overthinking was the last thing on her mind then. All Imani wanted was to hold Tali. She settled for taking her hands into her own, entwining their slender fingers together, caressing the thick fabric of her gloves with the smoothness of her own thin gauntlets.
"After time adrift among open stars, along tides of light and among shoals of dust, I will return to where I began," Tali said softly, a hushed prayer spoken in reverence.
"And you did," Imani said, smiling like she hadn't in weeks.
"Because of you," Tali said. "I could never have done this without you. This journey began with you."
Imani stared at her, utterly unable to take her eyes off her face, but she was struck then by the memory of a conversation they'd once had seemingly ages ago, back on the original Normandy. "I thought y'all went masked even with your families," Imani said, quirking an eyebrow in curiosity.
"We do," Tali replied. "But I wanted to be the first quarian in three-hundred years to breathe unfiltered air on the homeworld. I wanted to see it without my mask."
"Why show me, though?" Imani asked. "I won't lie and say I haven't been curious about what you look like, all this time. But you didn't have to do that. It can't be a gesture made lightly."
Tali's eyelashes fluttered, and she lowered her eyes in embarrassment; Imani could see a darker shade of violet creeping across her cheeks then. "You're right--I mean, it isn't something we do lightly, it's like linking suits in that way, it's a gesture of deep trust. But you're the person I respect most, the person I--" Tali caught herself, blushing harder then, and her hands were trembling a bit; Imani squeezed them, and she steadied herself enough to continue. "I was never just a suit rat or some dumb kid to you, even when I was on pilgrimage. You saw past the mask, to see me for who I truly am. You believed in me, and stood by me through so much. I wanted--I really wanted you to see me, Imani. Here, on the homeworld. The way my people used to be, so long ago. The way I want us to be again, and the way we will be, because of you. I feel like I owe that much to you, after everything you've done for me."
Tears welled up in Imani's eyes then, her heart swelling, so moved and humbled she was by Tali's gratitude. "You don't owe me a thing, Tali," Imani replied softly, caressing her hands. "You've paid me back tenfold in ways you'll never know."
For as much as Imani had been there for her, the reverse was just as true. Not just in combat, the day to day fighting in the trenches. She couldn't help but think of Freedom's Progress, when she was scarred to within an inch of her life with angrily glowing cybernetics in her face making her look like some kind of sci-fi monster--flanked by a pair of Cerberus operatives no less. Despite all that, Tali had just the same unshakable faith in her as she'd always had. In a time when Imani felt trapped, uncertain, unable to trust anyone or anything, just plain lost...Tali showed up out of nowhere, a light in the darkness if only briefly, familiar and comforting. That was when things started to change between them, and maybe it took far too long for Imani to realize that.
Imani was a bit startled from her reverie then, as Tali leaned in close to her, glowing eyes half shut even as she trembled against Imani's lightweight armor. For a moment, a single moment, Imani lost herself and leaned in to meet her, her heart warm and eyes soft and filled with nothing but the woman before her. But she froze before their lips met, that warm heart pounding when it rose into her throat, and she tensed, bending every ounce of self-discipline she had to pulling back from Tali. She thought of the Alarei again, and the pain and frustration reverberating through the quarian woman's voice. A single kiss could put me in the hospital!
She shut her eyes, commanding back the tears forming at the corners of her eyes through sheer force of her indomitable will. She couldn't, they couldn't, no matter how much she wanted to--no matter how much Tali wanted to, no matter how brilliantly perfect the moment was, or how it would never come again.
They couldn't have this. No moment was worth losing her.
"I don't want to hurt you, Tali," Imani said, in a quiet but firm tone, her voice hollow. "And I meant what I said when I told you don't have to prove anything to me."
"This isn't about proving anything to you, Shepard," Tali said hotly. She leaned forward a second time, wrapping her arms around Imani's waist. "When I said that 'for now I have this', I wasn't just talking about Rannoch, you bosh'tet."
"But--" Imani's protest was silenced by a soft, gloved finger pressed against her lips. When Tali lowered her hand, her eyes grew wide in sudden embarrassment, and she chewed her lip nervously.
"Wait! Am I being too--I mean, you don't have to let me down easy or anything, I mean if you don't want--"
Imani couldn't help but laugh softly, lowering her eyes. "You're kinda killing the moment here, Admiral."
"Sorry. I mean, I do that a lot," Tali replied sheepishly. "I'm kind of a nerd sometimes, especially around beautiful women. I can't help myself."
"My favorite nerd," Imani said, hugging her tight.
"I won't tell Garrus you said that," Tali mumbled into Imani's hair. Her hands were trembling against Imani, and she squeezed her tighter. "But don't worry about me. I'm dosed to the eyeballs on supplements, anyway. All of the admirals have been on a vigorous regimen of immunoboosters for weeks now, to prepare for reclamation of the homeworld. Our biologists have said re-adaptation to the environment could take years, and that's time we don't have, not with Reapers on the loose."
"What a wonderful coincidence," Imani chuckled. She pulled out of the embrace and stared at her again. "You think I'm beautiful, huh?"
"Don't play coy with me, Shepard," Tali said archly, even as a deep violet flush crept down her face and neck.
Imani laughed again, and reached up to gently stroke her cheek with the lightest of caresses. "So are you. I always knew you were."
Tali's smile, although bashful, was still brighter than the setting sun. "Do you say that to all the girls?"
"Just the ones with pretty homeworlds," Imani said, cupping her cheek in her gauntlet. She was warm to the touch, and it made Imani's own smile that much brighter. "I didn't stop you because I didn't want it, for the record."
"Really?" Tali asked.
"Yeah. Really," Imani said, gazing into her silvery eyes. "I didn't want to hurt you, that was all. I needed to know you'd be alright, with everything at stake--if this is what you really wanted." She reached up to cup her cheeks within her hands again, both of them.
Tali returned her gaze with one no less faltering in its intensity, in its yearning. "All I've ever wanted is to kiss you. Even if it was only just once, just one time. I feel like I can't even remember a time before I didn't dream of it. And now--right now, I'm here, and you're here, and the sky is so beautiful, and everything is so perfect. My heart is breaking but it's perfect. It's not a vid or a dream--you're here with me and keelah, it's so perfect."
Imani drew her closer, so close she could feel her breath upon her own cheeks. "I'm not going anywhere unless you want me to," she whispered.
"I don't," Tali whispered back, her thick fingers sure and measured as they raised up to touch Imani's skin, her thumbs tracing the infamous cheekbones, still damp from exertion during the harrowing fight, but the adrenaline racing through Imani's veins had nothing to do with Reapers then. It was the rightness of everything, of looking into the eyes of someone dear and warming beneath her touch. She felt her lips part in an almost involuntary response then, an invitation extended.
It was accepted, when Tali's lips pressed against her own, soft and tender and not tentative in the slightest, when her thumbs drifted back along Imani's jawline and three-fingered hands reached up into her bright red curls. Imani felt herself whimpering softly against her and shut her eyes with a tilt of her head, as she felt Tali's tongue part her darkly painted lips and plunge into her mouth. It was like a dam had burst within Tali, years of hesitation and insecurity crumbled all at once, and a torrent of pent up, deeply buried emotion released; all Imani could do was wrap her arms around her, clinging to her, melting into her embrace, losing herself in sultry sweetness and returning it with her own heat as their tongues met and darted between each other's teeth.
Tangled in each other's arms, it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, but it didn't matter to Imani; nothing mattered but the softness of her lips and the fierceness of her embrace. The fingers of Imani's gauntlets curled and dug into the thick fabric of Tali's suit even as the quarian's fingers clenched into a fist full of red curls at the nape of her neck; Imani gasped with startled delight into her mouth at that, lost in the intoxicating sense that she was drowning in her. They pulled away from each other only briefly enough to catch a bit of air, noses brushing against each other as their heads tilted from one side to the other, and Imani's teeth caught Tali's bottom lip.
"My gods," Imani breathed hoarsely, her pulse racing as they rested against each other, brow to brow; an easy thing, given the way they stood tall at equal height. It had been a long, long time since she'd kissed anyone like that; Thane, maybe, the night before the Suicide Mission. Her blood ran just as hot now as it did then, and Imani silently cursed the fact that they weren't alone there. The way Tali's breath came so heavy against her face, Imani wagered she wasn't the only one cursing that fact.
"Keelah," Tali said, her long eyelashes brushing against Imani's cheeks. "We should have done that sooner."
Imani giggled softly, and stroked Tali's back. "No kidding."
"I didn't imagine it, did I?" Tali asked a bit wistfully.
"Nope," Imani replied with a gentle smile. "We could always do it again though, just so you're sure."
It was Tali's turn to giggle then. "You mean…?"
"That wasn't a one-off," Imani answered, tightening the embrace. "Not for me. Not ever."
"But what about Thane, and Garrus?" Tali asked, her voice suddenly very small. "Keelah, the reason I never said anything before is that I was so scared of ruining things for the three of you. I didn't want to cause any stupid drama like…well, what you dealt with before. And I heard about Horizon. I thought..."
Imani straightened up slowly, and gently took Tali's chin into her hands, lifting it so that she could look into her eyes; glowing silver met sunset brown then, and Imani's heart nearly stopped again at how beautiful she was. "I was oblivious for so long about us, in a way I almost never am. About you, and my own feelings. Me and the boys have something incredibly special, something that means everything to me--I've loved Thane and Garrus so hard and for so long I can hardly remember a time when I didn't. But you mean a hell of a lot to me too. Gods, Tali, I spent two years dead while the galaxy spun on without me, I came back and nothing was the same, I didn't know what or who to trust. I was so lost and alone, and you showed up in that dingy prefab like a bright star guiding me home. It felt like everyone in the world had abandoned me, everyone I loved turned their back on me--except Garrus, and you. I can't tell you what that meant to me, what it still does. That's why I went so hard in the paint for you when they put you on trial. I wanted you to know that I believe in you as much as you believe in me. All I wanted was to protect you from everything. I know I can't, I know you don't need it--but I need this. I need you. I love you. And there's a place for you in my heart if you want it, all you've got to do is ask."
Tali's eyes filled with tears then, and the relief on her face was palpable. Her entire body sighed, the tension completely slipped away. "It feels like I've waited my whole life to hear you say that," she whispered. "It's only been three years, hasn't it? But it feels so long."
"I'm sorry I made you wait," Imani said, and pulled her into another tight embrace.
They stood there for a long, silent moment, as if each of them were somehow afraid of ruining the power of that moment, and simply held each other, basking in the glow of the rising moon. Somewhere in the distance, Imani knew Garrus was waiting by the commandeered geth vehicle; and with him Thane, back on the Normandy. She wasn't afraid of what they'd say, not by a longshot--she knew them too well, and she knew Tali's fears where they were concerned were entirely unfounded. But polyamory meant sorting these things out, laying everything on the table. There would have to be time for thinking and processing all of this, what it meant for each of them, and how they might proceed from here. But not now. Now was for warmth and the simple pleasure of knowing what was right--of home, found not just in a place but in the ones you loved. Moments like these didn't come along every day, especially not in the midst of so much suffering and pain and strife.
But every moment had to end, eventually, no matter how perfect it was. They eventually pulled away from one another, and with one last smile at Imani, Tali reached down to pick her fallen mask up from the ground--it had dropped outer side down, thankfully--and replaced it snugly against her hood, the vacuum seals tightening in their whooshing sound. Imani extended a hand to her, and Tali grasped it, their fingers weaving together despite their disparity; the other reached up to the comm unit in her dormant sentry visor and pressed the holo button.
"Cortez, we're gonna need a pickup," Imani said, falling all too easily right back into work mode. "Everything's good to go down here."
"Roger that, Commander."
Imani lowered her hand from her visor, and tucked a stray ringlet behind her ear; Tali leaned into her side then, and she smiled. Hand in hand they waited for the shuttle, staring out into the darkening sky.
Everything else would come later. Tali was right: for now, they had this.
