Work Text:
“Shepard,” Tali says, blushing furiously under her helmet as she has him sit on the other side of the now-sealed decontamination chamber’s door. “You really don’t have to do this.”
“Hey, I’m the captain now, or so they tell me.” Shepard pauses, and Tali tries to stay busy by measuring the thin cut in her armor; her suit breach was minor, just a pot-shot from a geth that broke through her shields, but they can’t take a chance of making even one minor error with Saren. “It’s my job to make sure everybody stays safe.”
“This is really routine for my people, Shepard,” Tali says, her strong accent a strong reminder of exactly what this means. Tali is quarian, and well used to being thought of as little better than vorcha. That Shepard seems not to care about these things is unnerving; not bad, but weird. “I mean, we quarians have to do suit repairs all the time.”
“Wait, really?” Shepard sounds confused, and she imagines the way his face must contort as he says it. Human faces are wildly expressive, and sometimes Tali wishes that her own people could bend their lips and dart their eyes in all the various ways humans do. She has a hard time keeping up with Ashley, Kaidan, and Shepard, who all use their eyes to communicate seemingly everything. Somehow, they can communicate sentences as varied as ‘you’re joking, right?’ (a head ruefully shaking, shrugged soldiers, a soft chuckle) to ‘Oh ghosts of the ancestors, Wrex and Garrus are arguing about the genophage and we are staying out of it’(wide eyes, a sudden tendency to look toward Shepard for help).
She tries to imagine what confusion looks like on a human face – on Shepard’s face – but fails, unable to accurately picture it.
“Yes,” Tali says idly, distracted by her mental picture of Shepard. She decides that pursed lips are probably the signal for human confusion. “Any time there’s a possible rip or tear, it has to be replaced.”
“Seems like a lot of extra work.” That’s a line she’s heard before, but it sounds less judgmental coming from Shepard. She imagines his eyes widening, curious, wondering; not like the snide asari or salarians, who would whisper that’s a lot of work while looking for all the world like the quarians deserve their weak immune systems.
“I mean, I can’t even think of the last time I had to repair my hardsuit, Tali.”
“Well, it’s very routine, so it goes fast.” Tali laughs, a bit too fast. Shepard really isn’t like other aliens, she thinks; he’s so unfailingly polite, so curious. To quarian men, it would signal a type of intent Tail isn’t sure she’s ready for. Human men are a lot harder to figure out. Shepard just chuckles, misses the finer tremble of her voice in a way no quarian male would.
“What exactly do you have to do?” Shepard asks, voice curious but not malicious. There’s something softer, something more genuinely interested in his voice; he’s not like Garrus, who glares at her and sniffs that he hopes her people are contrite. Nor is he like Liara, who kindly insists that Tali is mistaken when she says quarians are often refused at Illium, as there are many quarians who live there.
(Tali does not point out that those quarians are slaves, kids who got in over their heads on their pilgrimages. She is sure they would only be seen as a mistake, too.)
She suddenly realizes that she’s been quiet for far too long as Shepard coughs behind the doorway that seals her sterilized environment.
“It’s not difficult, is it?”
“Oh no, it’s nothing much.” She squeezes the command for medi-gel on her omni, and sighs as the familiar tingle courses over her skin, a sanitary measure for when she’ll have to remove the entire arm of the suit. “Just a couple of steps.”
“Can you tell me?”
“What?” She startles, fumbles as she tries to unwind her mother’s last gift, the purple cloth she wears to remind herself who she is. “W-Why?”
“If you get hurt in the field, first aid might come in handy.”
“Oh.” She is glad that he cannot see the blush that tinges her cheeks. She doesn’t have the heart to tell him that most people would leave a quarian to die, doesn’t have the heart to tell him that quarians aren’t quite as universally respected companions as the asari or the turians are.
“Well, first we suffuse medigel throughout the suit.” She rolls her eyes at the flutter in her belly, an all-too-familiar reaction around Shepard by now.
“…Are you hurt, Tali?”
“No, but we need to use medigel every time, purely for sanitary purposes. Quarian immune systems are very weak. Any rogue infection could kill us.”
“Oh,” Shepard says. “Sorry. I knew, but… I guess I didn’t realize the stakes were that high.”
“There aren’t a lot of us. We’re used to taking precautions.” She triggers the command on her omni-tool that undoes the sleeve, the rest of her suit automatically initiating a quarantine with a soft click.
“Tali, what’s that noise?”
“It’s my suit, sealing against the breach.” She breaks the pressure seal and pulls off the sleeve, staring at the sight of pale skin, permanently pink from a lifetime of being sealed away from any star system’s sun.
“Oh. Didn’t know your suits did that. That’s cool.”
“It’s the only practical way to deal with infection.” Tali reaches into one of the suits many pockets, pulls out a small package of adhesive. It’s the second of the seven that she has, and she knows once she reaches three – or maybe four – she’ll need to go back to the flotilla, or risk infection. It’s not a prospect she savors, not in situations as dangerous as theirs.
“That happens a lot then?” There’s something soft in Shepard’s voice: not quite pity, but a growing knowledge of the frailness that infuriates her so. She doesn’t want to be labeled by yet another alien race as less capable simply because her immune system isn’t as robust as theirs. She folds out the dark arm of her suit quickly, pressing the tacky side of the sterile adhesive down on the small rip.
“Only in combat or accidents.” She presses the adhesive toward the breach, watches with amusement as it fills in the hole, binding the fabric. “We’re a careful people, and it doesn’t happen often.”
“I know that.” Shepard is quiet for a moment, and she stops thinking about what that might mean and instead concentrates on the final task – re-affixing the sleeve. “I’m just impressed you guys still go out there, knowing the risks.”
“That’s not something a lot of quarians hear,” Tali says, suddenly aware of how warm she sounds and how long its been since she’s had occasion to use that particular nuance to her voice. The familiar click sounds as she moves the suit-sleeve back into it's proper place, and Tali sighs – another successful patch job complete.
“It should be,” Shepard says, with a matter-of-factness that fills her with pride. “You guys are really badasses.”
“Of course,” Tali drawls as she stands up, brushes off her knees and affixes her glove. “Can’t be shy when your people are the second most hated people in the galaxy.”
It’s quiet on the other side of the door, and for a moment, she thinks he’s walked away now that the threat is over, but then she opens the door and Shepard is standing there, his eyes defiant and mouth pursed.
“They shouldn’t hate you, Tali,” he says, softly. “You’re amazing.”
“I know that,” she says, with a shrill laugh that would raise her father’s eyebrows clear up to his hood if only he could see her. But then, Rael'Zorah isn't here, and Shepard is.
Shepard gives her a soft smile, warm and sweet. “Do you think you could tell me more about quarian culture sometime??”
“Yes,” She says, and punches him on the shoulder in the awkward way she’s seen some of the other Alliance troops do. “It’s a date.”