forgivetheinsubordination | IC Contact

[He nods in confirmation, not repeating Noh-Varr's name right now. His subharmonics are already obvious enough to her. She doesn't need to deal with them faltering over that.

Garrus finishes soldering the tear before he looks up and gives her a little shrug.]

I wouldn't rule out the elcor opera just yet. Maybe put it off to the side for now.

[It's funny, at least, and that's something he could use.]

Try out the arm, see how the suit feels?

I'll make the preparations. Just in case.

[She smiles, a little, and flexes her arm as Garrus finishes up. It feels... off, but not like it's going to tear any second, and that's all she needs right now. All it has to do is last until they're done here.

Simple, right?]

Yeah, it feels good - it should be alright for now. Thanks, Garrus. [She slumps a little on the stool for a moment, letting the relief wash over her - and then almost immediately, she's standing up, full of nervous energy as usual.] Did you want some water or something?

[Spoilers: there is no 'or something'.]

[Garrus nods. Sometime, when he's feeling better, he's going to rib her about having elcor opera, even if it turns out she doesn't. It's something that's deserving of teasing. For now he'll simply be relieved that the patching is going to work for now, and she's not already curled up with a horrible fever.]

You're welcome, Tali. And I'll take water, unless you've got something to be doing.

[He's already had a drink, and he doesn't need to use alcohol. Some of the edge is gone. That's enough. The rest he'll work on.]

Don't wanna be the dark cloud hanging over your head, or however that goes.

[When he gets around to teasing her for it, she'll know he's feeling better. For now, she bustles around the rover getting water for them both, rations for herself. When she sits back down again, she's trying not to eye him so carefully, so critically, looking for any cracks in his figurative armour. She slides a cup of water over to him.]

Here you go. And don't worry about dark clouds - I'm wearing a hood, remember?

[She picks at it and grins a little. Sometimes commiserating and talking it out is the best thing to do. Right now, she's not sure it is.] I was just going to eat, so...

[The haroomba, she notices when she looks around for it, is active and sitting on top of the weapons locker. She clicks her tongue as if hailing an animal, and it bounces over to her; she reaches to take it and put in her lap like the strangest pet any person ever had. Unpackagaing the rations - and somehow she manages to act like this is totally normal - she gives the food to the robot to sterilise.] If I take my mask off to eat, will you spend the whole time panicking about infections?

[Because she needs to eat, she needs to test that the haroomba can keep the air sterile, and besides, she'll be thinking about panicking enough without Garrus vocalising it.]

Yes. I'll panic and act like a quarian doesn't know what she's doing with her own mask.

[His voice is very dry as he lifts his glass of water in her direction before sipping His subharmonics aren't quite right, yet, but he can manage that, at least.]

Go ahead, Tali. I trust your judgement there. Can I eat too? Not your food. I've got some with me.

[And this way if the haroomba started messing up or not performing as expected, Garrus would be there to help check out the programming. Plus if things go really wrong he's got nanite shots. Garrus tucks away his soldering kit, pulls out the jerky, and checks the location of the nanites just in case before closing up his armor. It's the least he can do, keep an eye out for the crew.]

They seem a little less irritable this time. The haroombas.

[That's about as useful as talking about the weather, he realizes a moment later. And then a moment after that he realizes that no, it's worse, because Tali might find actual weather interesting seeing as she's quarian.]

Just making sure. [She's not sure what his reaction would have been to her just reaching up out of nowhere and plucking her mask off her face. So, fair warning.] Just don't cough on me and we'll be fine.

[Definitely don't do that. That out of the way, after waving at him to go ahead and eat his own food, she reaches up and unclasps the mask, letting the air hiss out as the seal breaks and lifting it off. She immediately has to clench her eyes shut hard against the lights in the rover, nose wrinkled and automatic tears starting in her eyes, and it's a moment before she can open her eyes properly and focus on Garrus again without the darkening effect of the visor.]

Really? [You're talking about tech, Garrus. That's a good place for small talk with Tali. There's a moment, though, after the first word she speaks without the visor, where she starts a little at the unfiltered sound of her own voice - and she has no inclination at all to hide the slightly confused look that passes over her features. It's a second before she goes on.] How bad were they before?

[He's surprised to hear her actual voice. He shouldn't be, he'd seen the mask come off just now, but it's never struck him that it's normally so... filtered. But of course it is. Everything is with quarians.]

Uh.

[Right, a question.]

The one we had before, in my rover, was a jerk. Aggressive, tried picking fights. I named it Javik, after the prothean. Before Javik himself showed up. He took it pretty personally. His people aren't exactly fond of synthetic species either, so he kept trying to convince the others in my rover to break the haroomba. They didn't listen. Thankfully. And then when I shared a rover with Liara we called her haroomba Glyph.

[...which, right. Garrus shakes his head.]

She winds up with an assistant VI in your future and my past. A pretty dumb one that she names Glyph.

[So there's a few seconds when the two of them are just sitting there in confusion at the sound of Tali's own voice. This is par for the course.

As Garrus talks, she picks up the pack of food from the haroomba and, instead of just eating the ration bar like a normal person, she's picking tiny bits of it off with her fingers and eating those methodically. As he gets to Javik trying to convince people to destroy the harooma, she finds herself grinning, with the slightest flash of sharp teeth.]

They're just VIs. Actually, I think they're kind of cute. [Yeah, theirs just kind of cleans up and doesn't do much else. Which she's more than fine with.] Although Sebastian's - Sebastian Michaelis, he's one of the new recruits - his rover's haroomba was trying to take people's clothes off. Although I think that was just a programming mishap.

With Sebastian, there's no way to know.

[He's getting to know the demon more and more, and at this point Garrus wouldn't be surprised by much of anything.]

Though I think he's more after souls than bodies.

[Funny. He'd never really realized quarians had sharp teeth too. Both species are dextro, digitigrade, with three digits, sharp teeth... If her people hadn't been mammals, he'd wonder if somehow turians and quarians somehow were related, billions upon billions of years back.]

And I like the haroombas some, personally. Useful. Funny when they glitch. And considering the amount of hair the human women in my rover leave everywhere, invaluable.

[Complaining about something he's not really bothered by is one of the safest conversations Garrus can have right about now.]

Hair? Nice. [Her face twists comically, lips pursing.] Well, it's three guys and me in this rover, so - not a problem.

[Tali doesn't really notice any difference in their interactions as she slowly eats the rest of the rations, but without the mask on, the way she communicates - or rather, how much she communicates, changes. From the way she chews lightly on her lip when she's listening, to the fact that even the mildest of reactions shows very clearly on her face, she's even more of an open book than before.]

[She furrows her brow a little as something belatedly occurs to her.] Wait, what do you mean about Sebastian? Souls?

[Gosh, Garrus, what could you possibly mean about that nice human?]

[It's fascinating to watch her face, and he's working very hard to not stare. For once Garrus doesn't rely just on her voice or the way she's shifting or moving her arms. He can see her expressions. ...And she's probably not that aware of them, he realizes. Why would she be? Most of her time is spent with the mask on.]

Which three guys?

[He hasn't paid a lot of attention to rover assignments that aren't his own, truth be told.]

And I mean souls. Tell me you're reading the files of people. That's what he eats. The good news is that it's people who willingly, stupidly enter into a contract with him, so it's their own choice.

Sasuke Uchiha... [She has to stop and remember the other two, brow furrowed, absently chewing her lip; she's barely met them yet... and she certainly can't pronounce their names.] Kouha Ren and... Nobuchika...Ginoza. I knew Sasuke already, but not the other two.

[At the mention of the files, she twists her face, managing to pull off both guilty and uncomfortable at the same time.] I didn't read that many of them. I know I should, but... I don't know, it feels like spying on people.

[Eating souls, though. That's... well, once you know some things, you can't unknow them.]

That's a... mix.

[He shakes his head, mandibles twitching slightly in amusement.]

Ren's one of mine. Good kid, odd point of view. Born to rule and all that, so there's a disconnect there. Sasuke, hah. Not what I'd expected. And I've briefly met Ginoza, when we were dealing with the butterflies and he was trying to not get sick.

[He leans back, content to take another bite of the meat before continuing.]

And the files are a shortcut. A useful one. We're already somewhat in the dark here as far as the CDC goes. Doesn't hurt to get a look behind what people will show.

[Tali doesn't have much of an idea of when to hold to eye contact and when not to - behind the mask, she can be looking wherever the hell she wants during a conversation and it doesn't make much of a difference to anybody. So there are points - like now - when Garrus is talking and her gaze on him is maybe a little too intense. It's not intentional - she's just concentrating on what he's saying and isn't thinking about what her face is doing.

She'll learn. Maybe.]

I'll keep all that in mind. And... I'll start reading the files. I promise.

[She raises a hand a little in something of a salute - a very half-hearted one considering she's using both hands to eat.] To be honest, though, I'm more worried about driving than I am about who I'm sharing this space with. I mean... [And she grins then, eyes crinkling into bright crescents.] If I mess this up, I can never make fun of Shepard again.

[Garrus chuckles and nods, meeting her so-intent gaze.]

At ease, vas Norma-Neema.

[He coughs, shifting where he's sitting and suddenly not meeting her eyes. Sometimes his teasing doesn't go exactly as planned, but why not try to hastily make up for it? Because she totally could have missed that. For once, the flood of Garrus' words almost rivals Mordin's for speed.]

If you need coaching with the driving, I did it last world. Can make sure you've always better than Shepard. Not like that's a hard goal to meet, but we don't want her to be able to make fun of you about that. Since then I could make fun of you for it too.

Edited 2015-03-01 22:13 (UTC)

[She might not have thought much of the slip up - maybe he forgot her ship name, it's an alien ship, it happens - but he goes on so hurriedly, so... totally unlike himself that she tilts her head, staring at him with frank curiosity.]

That would help... [She's speaking slowly, still very clearly confused.] We could probably go for a quick drive around here, nobody would mind - but wait... wait a minute.

[You're not getting out of it that easy, Vakarian, because that really sounded like...]

Vas... what? Normandy? [Despite herself, she huffs with laughter, assuming he just made a mistake.] Really.

[And then the dawning suspicion is so clear on her face it's like flicking a switch.] Wait, not... not really?

[Driving has been momentarily forgotten. Think of this as your comeuppance for getting around her questions about your poetry, Garrus.]

[It is better than being teased about his poetry by her. Too many already know about it - Warriorhead, Noh-Varr, Erin - and if it gets into her or Shepard's hands, there's really no point in living anymore.

Though Garrus really wishes he had any skills when it came to lying. It would make life so much easier. Too late now.]

Uh. So. I mean.

[He's shifting around in his seat like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and frankly that's not too far off from reality.]

You... serve. We're crew. Normandy crew.

[A beat, and then Garrus is closing his eyes and talking very quietly:]

And you might have almost gotten exiled from the Migrant Fleet.

[Can he still spin this to avoid talking about her father? More importantly, should he? Garrus has no idea.]

[The hesitation proves it. So, at some point, she really does change her name to vas Normandy, and there's confusion about why in the universe she'd do such a thing written all over her face. She's a quarian - why wouldn't she keep her quarian ship name?

And Garrus is just squirming and talking and not saying much of anything and not telling her...

His voice drops - and her heart drops into her stomach. There's a moment where her expression's just frozen, where she doesn't move, just stares blankly. She licks her lips - her mouth is completely dry all of a sudden.] Almost. But I'm not, right? It was... it was just a misunderstanding, right? I didn't do anything.

[Exile means treason, and that means putting the whole fleet in danger. She puts down the last of her food and, tapping her fingers on the table agitatedly, gazes at him intently. Her breath is shallow all of a sudden.]

[Life should come with warning signs, or ways to U-turn. It doesn't, though, and he started on this path when slipping up on the names. There's no way to turn back now. His voice is grim as he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.]

Tali... You were sending geth parts back to the Fleet. And your father was building geth so experiments could be run on them. On a sentient species.

[Slowly he looks back up. He can't blame her for her hatred, or for the experiments since she hadn't known. He's not angry. What she'd done had been for a good cause in theory. But the quarians had started the fight, and what had she expected to happen with the parts?]

The experiments were harsh, Tali. And once the geth got a chance, they took over the ship. One of the Fleet. It only isn't exile because the trial wasn't about your actions as much as it was the Fleet Admiralty using you to try to sway the quarians toward or against war, depending on the admiral and Shepard called them on it. You didn't know what the parts were being used for, but they didn't care about that.

[Today isn't going to be an easy day for either of them.]

[There's a long pause after Garrus is done talking. She'd stopped, stilled, let him talk because if she interrupted him now, she'd never stop talking and she'd never find out what happened. What will happen. What will inexorably happen because the damage is done - she's sent the parts already.

Finally, she takes a deep, deliberately calm breath.] I knew... that he was doing weapons experiments. That's what he does. He's a military scientist, and he needed geth parts to run tests on. You don't need functional geth units to run weapons tests. I just sent him back intact, non-functional pieces. Nothing active.

[But if you want to perform innovative weapons R&D, the kind that wins wars? The kind that made Rael'Zorah the leader of the Admiralty Board? You need more. As much as she wants to contradict Garrus, tell him he's lying... Her voice had started off slow and so deliberately measured, but now it starts to speed up, agitated.] He must have built dozens of them, must have been letting them network, otherwise they'd never be able to take a ship. And if there's enough of them to take one ship, they could have taken more, they could have taken security codes and destroyed a Liveship before we even knew what was going on, and I sent those parts - he didn't tell me anything, he just told me to send them and I did and--

How could he be so stupid?! [And on the last word, shrill and brittle, she slams a hand down on the table and stands, unable to keep still anymore. Pacing, momentarily oblivious to Garrus, she reaches up to press a hand to her visor and finds it touching her forehead instead; shocked, the sensation odd on over-sensitive skin, she yanks her hand back as if burned, barely aware of the whole motion.

It's a few seconds before she turns back to Garrus, and her voice is wavering. She's blinking no more than usual, but she's blinking hard, jaw visibly clenched to keep it from shaking.] What about my father? They'll have exiled him. Struck his name from the records. Where is he now?

[The idea of anything else having happened simply hasn't occurred to her. She gives the smallest huff of a laugh, but there's no humour to it.] They're probably already telling each other what a monster he is.

[There's no way he can hold it back. Not when she's asked directly. And really, it was only a matter of time all along. Sooner or later the topic would have come up. His words are slow, subharmonics low and gentle.]

Shepard's pointing out of what the admiralty was doing didn't just protect you, Tali. There's no black mark to his name.

[Garrus holds out a hand. Neither of their species ever seem particularly about touch - turians didn't bother with it much and the quarians were always wearing their suits - but the rest of the news is harder. Especially combined with how he's been trying to convince her that the geth aren't all bad.]

But the geth took over the ship completely. The Alarei.

[Where they'd been used and kept and tortured.]

I'm sorry, Tali. Nobody survived.

[Later, it'll amaze her how it didn't occur to her sooner. At first, before he's done, she even slumps in relief, face slackening slightly as she lets out a long breath. No matter how she feels - and she'll sort all that out later - they're both safe, and that's what...

Then Garrus reaches out his hand to hers, and for a second she simply stares at it. Turians aren't exactly known for being tactile, and quarians... well, if they touch it's about expressing emotion - there's no physical comfort in it. It's as she somewhat cautiously reaches out to slide her hand into his much larger one that an idea of the truth touches the back of her mind.

But even then, even when Garrus says it...] No.

[She shakes her head jerkily.] No, that...

[Swallows hard.] No, he can't be. He knows more about the geth than I do, they couldn't...

[Her grip on his hand is tight, and it's like a plea.]

[The relief makes the realization and denial even worse. He hates causing her pain, hates that he can't answer that plea. He can't even tell her that her father had given her any real last words. The final message had been about how to defeat the geth on the ship, not anything about her.]

I'm sorry, Tali.

[Garrus gives her hand a squeeze.]

He tried to make sure it didn't come back around to you. They wanted... They were looking for more materials, more working parts, and your father said no. That he didn't want you exposed to that.

[He looks down before meeting her eyes again.]

He was looking out for you.

[Maybe not by much. But Garrus can put aside his cynicism if it might bring her comfort.]

[If she was expecting some kind of reprieve, for Garrus to turn around and say that no, not really, he was joking all along, she'd be disappointed. But she wasn't expecting that, was she? Not really.

Her father is dead. No, worse - he will be dead, soon, and there isn't a single thing she can do to prevent it. It feels somehow like too enormous a thing to be possible - like Garrus has just told her the stars have gone out like lights. Her father is - was - a presence so huge it's like gravity. It can't just stop. And yet it has.

She presses her lips together hard to stop them from trembling, but the tears burn unbidden in her eyes anyway, then feel icy cold on her cheeks a moment later.]

It was always going to come back to me. [Her voice wavers.] I sent the parts. I would have been the first person they'd accuse. [She pauses, gives a scoff that's starkly devoid of humour.] I'm going to be the first person they accuse.

I was so careful, Garrus. [Her voice breaks on his name.] Nothing I ever sent back was viable, I thought he was running tests on the parts. [There's a pleading note to her voice then - a desperation to make him believe it.]

Whatever I think about the geth... I wouldn't have...

[She realises with a tiny, sickening jolt that part of the tears are for those geth. That someone managed the impossible task of making her pity the geth, and that someone was her own father, as he enlisted her help endangering the entire fleet to experiment on sentient beings, synthetic or otherwise. And he got himself killed. He's dead.

That's when the first sob bursts out of her.]

[He's only ever heard her voice waver twice before. When she told Legion that the answer to their question was yes, and when they found her father's body. Garrus isn't prepared for her to sound like this even though he should have been, and he stares at her wishing that there was something, anything he could give.

Then she starts crying.]

You wouldn't have. You wouldn't have, and we knew it. There wasn't a question. Even the admirals knew it, you were just a prop. A piece as some sought war. They didn't...

[Her helmet's off and he has to be careful. There can't be any contact with her face or skin. But Garrus can stand and put his free arm around her to gently bring her closer.]

I'm sorry, Tali. I'm sorry.

[She's always been strong, this tiny quarian. But strength doesn't mean you never face loss and you never cry. For as long as she needs him here, he'll be here.]

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the icons are a lie as of now :c

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