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“Still toiling away, I see,” The electronic voice of Tali sounded. “You’ve been working for three hours straight. I think you deserve a break.”
Shepard sat up on her heels, swiped a hand through the sweat on her forehead, and surveyed her work thus far. The kitchen was almost completely tiled at this point, and their cream color looked good against the dark wooden cabinets Shepard installed early that morning. “Yeah, I suppose this is a good enough place to stop.”
Shepard rose from her crouch and stretched out her back, hiding her wince at the ache in her muscles before Tali could see and accuse her of working too hard. The blast from the catalyst nearly broke every bone in her body, and even five years later, Shepard is still recovering. She had found the pace of her healing body extremely frustrating. After all, it had only taken her two years to get back into fighting shape after the Collectors destroyed the first Normandy.
And she had been dead that time.
Shepard spent the first year after the defeat of the Reapers in a coma. The next two years were spent in intensive physical therapy. By the time she was finally cleared for duty, Shepard was ready to climb the walls. She had never had so much free time in her life, and it was a huge relief to hear that she can finally get back in her armor and in control of the Normandy. At least until she actually arrived on her ship. None of her previous crew was on board except for Joker. And Joker wasn’t too pleased to see her.
Nobody alive knows what happened on the Crucible besides Shepard, and she wasn’t exactly truthful about what happened on board. Shepard related to Admiral Hackett the events resulting in the death of Anderson and the Illusive Man and described the AI who called itself the catalyst. She explained the choice it gave her, to destroy all synthetic life including their allies in order to be free of the Reapers forever or to not use the catalyst at all and let the Reapers harvest this cycle and hope that the next one would stop them. She kept the other two choices a secret.
Shepard didn’t want anyone to know. She held the future of the galaxy in her hands. In that moment, she was the most powerful being in the galaxy with the ability to change everything and everyone forever. It terrified her. The choice was too big for one person to make, but she was the only one present to make it. At the time of her debriefing, Shepard was unable to allow full disclosure even to Hackett, who Shepard knew would have backed her choice even if he personally would have chosen a different path.
Shepard knew everyone would have an opinion and would judge her for that choice. Shepard didn’t want the entire galaxy’s scrutiny. She couldn’t handle it. Not yet. Shepard knew most people would accept the choice she made if she coached it as either destruction of all synthetic life (and the mass effect relays) or annihilation by the Reapers. Even then, there were consequences. Joker was one of them.
He couldn’t even look her in the eye. Every time she tried to start a conversation with him, the attempt was shot down, harshly.
Eventually, the tension on the ship from Joker’s hostility and Shepard’s guilt was too much for everyone, and Joker asked for a transfer. Shepard was horrified and tried to tell Joker that she would rather leave and find a new ship than force him to leave the Normandy. Joker explained that he would never be happy on the Normandy so long as EDI wasn’t there. He had wanted to try for Shepard’s sake, but at the end of the day, he couldn’t get past her being the one to pull the trigger on EDI’s life, though it was the only choice she could have made.
She had choked back the words revealing the actual choice she made, and let Joker go without any more argument. She didn’t deserve his friendship anyway.
After that, the Normandy seemed hollow. It was a graveyard of memories that only caused Shepard pain and not comfort. She continued on though, and kept the peace in the local system. Mostly low risk work that kept pirates and gangs from taking advantage of the Reaper destruction and isolation from the other systems.
Shepard spent some time talking with Kaiden, trying to keep their romance alive. Kaiden had his own ship now and his own crew. He had, of course, offered to stay with her on the Normandy, but Shepard knew that would just be holding him back. Kaiden was a Spectre. He needed to prove his capabilities with his own command. Keeping him with her would be selfish. No matter how much Shepard wanted him around, she would have to make due with vidcalls. The distance put a strain on their relationship. Not unexpected but with the massive secret hanging between them, Kaiden could tell that something wasn’t right. Shepard thought later that maybe pushing Kaiden to get his own ship was selfish after all. If he had been onboard the Normandy with her for a lengthy time, Shepard wouldn’t have been able to keep quiet.
She had no idea how Kaiden would react. There was a chance that Kaiden would be horrified and offer her nothing but censure for her decision. After all, Kaiden had no problem abandoning her when she allied with Cerberus to take down the Collectors.
However, Shepard knew the more likely scenario would be Kaiden backing her choice completely. This would have only made Shepard feel worse. Kaiden would want to share her burden and make the weight on her shoulders lighter, and she needed to feel the strain of the billions of lives she chose to end. She owed them that. So, she kept her distance from her lover; no matter how much she longed for his comfort.
Shepard felt increasingly isolated and depressed and being on the Normandy wasn’t helping. So when the mass relays were finally prepared, Shepard immediately asked for a leave of absence and booked a trip to Rannoch on a ship not the Normandy.
Tali had fussed over her like a mother hen when Shepard first arrived after the mass relays that connected Earth’s system to the Tikkun System were finally prepared. Shepard knew some of that over-protectiveness was coming from a sense of gratefulness. Not for saving the galaxy (no, Shepard’s crew has gotten a little too used to Shepard’s amazing ability to save the day at the last minute) but for choosing to visit her first rather than any other member of her squad. Many of the other mass relays have been repaired, and there are very few members of Shepard’s crew that are still cut off from the rest of the galaxy.
Shepard honestly decided to come to Tali because Tali was easy. Tali wouldn’t push her about anything, and she would give Shepard work to do that would keep her mind off things. Work that would keep her too exhausted to blabber on about her problems. Besides, so many people had promised Tali a house on her home world. Shepard would like to be the one to make that promise true. A promise that wouldn’t result in the deaths of billions.
It felt good to build something instead of destroy. Shepard had forgotten how peaceful it was. Her childhood on the colony was spent building and farming. She had loved taking part in the growth of her home. Watching it all be destroyed had left her with a righteous anger that hadn’t faded until the exact moment the Reapers were wiped from the universe. Now, she needed that feeling of her childhood back to chase away the emptiness she felt.
“Would you like something to drink?”
Shepard gladly accepted the drink Tali offered and rested her back against the kitchen counter, pulling her thoughts back to the present away from the maudlin. “Thanks Tali. How’d the Admiralty board meeting go?”
Tali was constantly busy coordinating with the other admirals to keep the re-colonization of Rannoch running smoothly. They kept her so busy that Tali had had no time to build her own little place on her home world. She was so grateful that Shepard volunteered to construct it that she broke down and sobbed on Shepard’s shoulder. She was horribly embarrassed afterward, and Shepard, politely, didn’t bring it up.
“I think we’re actually getting somewhere. It’s moving slow, but-” And Tali launched into a description of their progress. Even though Shepard had made it clear when she first arrived that she didn’t want to be caught up in any politics (she had enough of that for a lifetime and couldn’t handle it on top of the other burden she bore), Tali still gave her a report of the main issues affecting the Quarian race. Shepard couldn’t help but be grateful. Tali was probably supposed to keep a lot of the information she disclosed confidential, but she trusted Shepard with it. So Shepard in turn granted that trust with the respect it deserved and listened attentively, even offering opinions and advice where requested.
Something, however, was different today. Tali was doing that thing where she wrings her hands and won’t look Shepard in the eye. Shepard let her go on for a while hoping Tali would get around to the thing she actually wanted to discuss on her own time, but eventually she lost patience and interrupted the spiel. “As interesting as I find the topic of septic systems, just cut to the chase. What are you not telling me?”
“I’m that obvious, huh?” Tali said, sheepishly.
“About as subtle as a Thresher Maw. Out with it.”
“Well, actually there is something the other admirals and I have been debating for a while. I kept it from you because I know you didn’t want to be dragged into our politics, and I also knew that this was one topic I think you’d go back into politics for. I figured I’d wait until I was sure it was even a possibility before I brought it to you.”
Shepard felt her breath stall in her chest and time start to slow down. She thought she knew what Tali was talking about; still she had to ask, “Until you were sure what was a possibility?”
“Rebuilding the Geth.”
All the air expelled from Shepard’s lungs in a harsh gasp, and she felt a surreal sense of being unmoored, as if she was no longer attached to the ground. “Are you sure?” Shepard managed, though her voice sounded strangled.
Tali looked at her in concern, but didn’t stop to ask if Shepard was alright. She knew she wasn’t. “I wouldn’t have brought this to you if I wasn’t sure. We built the Geth in the first place. I already knew we could rebuild them, but until today, I wasn’t sure we could keep the Reaper upgrade that gave them true life. The upgrade Legion died for. Now, I know.”
Shepard sank down until she was sitting on the tiles she installed just an hour ago, when she was surviving on nostalgia without hope. And now hope was beginning to grow again, and everything seemed brighter already. Shepard didn’t know if she was elated or terrified or just plain relieved.
The calling of her name brought Shepard’s attention back on Tali who was crouching in front of her to look her in the eye. “Shepard. I won’t ask you for help with this. You’ve earned the right to a life of peace. But if I know you as well as I think I do, peace isn’t actually what you want. You need something to fight for, a cause to live for. This won’t be easy. Just because it can be done, doesn’t mean it will be simple. Despite the fact that the geth were nothing but helpful to us, there will be many who argue that it’s too dangerous or impractical. It will take a lot of resources to restore the Geth. Resources that would otherwise go to recolonizing Rannoch. It will be hard to argue against that logic, but I plan to. I can’t think of Legion’s sacrifice without thinking of how much I owe him, how much he came to mean to me. And I will honor him by bringing back his people whatever it takes. It will be better for my people in the long-run too. Colonization will go much faster with the Geth’s aid.”
Tali took a deep breath and reached forward to grab Shepard’s hand. “I don’t need your help – I want it, and it will make things easier – but I can do this without it. Whatever your choice is I will respect it.”
Shepard smiled at the determination in Tali’s tone. Shepard spared a moment to be proud of how far Tali’s come and marvel at how well Tali knows her. Shepard came here because she thought Tali wouldn’t push her about what happened on the Crucible. And she was right, but Shepard was mistaken in thinking that Tali wouldn’t push her at all. Tali wasn’t pushing Shepard into the past but into the future. A future no longer filled with a gaping hole where only one type of a life exists, but a future where synthetic and organic life exist in harmony. This was the future Shepard pictured when she brokered a treaty between the Geth and the Qurians, when she convinced Joker to take a chance on EDI. She had thought that future destroyed by her own hand, and now her hands could help forge that future anew.
Shepard straightened her back and leveled her shoulders into a posture she hadn’t been able to manage since before arriving on the citadel to activate the Crucible. She felt lighter than air and didn’t feel guilty for it.
“Where do we start?”