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commander-krios · 1 year

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Mass Effect Holiday Cheer gift for @jadesabre301! I saw you liked quarians, Tali, and Reegar and decided to make this. Happy Holidays!

Title: We're Only Stardust Among Comets

Summary:

Kal'Reegar knows loss. Every marine during wartime does. But he also knows what it means to live. To heal.

He hopes that Tali'Zorah came do the same.

Words: 1676

Rating: T

Relationship: Kal'Reegar & Tali'Zorah vas Neema

Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Quarians

Read on AO3

~~~~

“Vot.”

Tali’Zorah vas Neema dropped the geth memory core she’d salvaged, hands shaking. The hunk of tech landed with a loud clatter against the ground, drawing the gaze of some of the scientists on the opposite side of the room. She glanced over her shoulder briefly, noting the wariness of the others.

From his place a few feet away, Kal’Reegar recognized the telltale signs of distress: the tremors in her shoulders, the quick movements of her hands, the stiffness of her posture. She wasn’t panicking yet, but it didn’t appear far off.

“Are you alright, ma’am?”

Her purple faceplate turned in his direction, eyes glowing warily beneath. “I’m fine.” She paused, realizing how harsh her voice sounded, even through the modulator. A quiet sigh followed. “Thank you for the concern, Kal. I just… need a moment.”

She turned to pick up the memory core, inspecting it for damage before she returned it to the workbench. Hushed speech from the scientists interrupted the silence, the words nothing more than white noise as Kal’Reegar studied Tali’Zorah. She had changed since her time with that human Spectre… since Shepard.

Tali had acquired slightly more human mannerisms than he was accustomed to, not that it was a problem in most situations. In fact, some of her newer ideas had opened the quarians to a different way of thinking, of approaching issues that couldn’t be solved in the traditional ways. For someone who wasn’t a marine, her skills with a gun had vastly improved. She used her drone in fights and it somehow worked, distracting her enemies at the perfect moment.

But she drew suspicion from some of the others on the Fleet. They didn’t like integrating another species' ideas or tech. It made them paranoid, distrustful of her and whatever she brought back after the Battle on the Citadel.

Kal’Reegar wasn’t interested in the tech. Not that surprised anyone. He was a grunt, used to doing the dirty work others wouldn’t. No, he wanted to learn more about this human captain Tali’Zorah served with.

The one she had lost only a few weeks ago.

“You seem distracted, ma’am.” He managed to say without sounding like a total bosh’tet. Kal’Reegar was a marine, a fighter for a race of people that were lost to the stars, who didn’t have a planet to call home. Not for hundreds of years, at least. The geth had seen to that.

But he had an important job here with the scientists, and in particular, with Tali’Zorah. He traveled with them on research missions, protected them from the geth, or anything else that might try to harm them. Sure, it wasn’t fighting a war on their homeworld, but it made a difference. Their research helped further the lives of the quarian people, and by extension the Fleet. Then one day in the distant future, if he survived this war, he could retire, kick up his feet and appreciate the work he put in.

Tali laid her hands on the table, fingers spread against the metal as she tried to focus. “It’s… nothing. You wouldn’t understand.”

News of Shepard’s death had reached the Fleet at a slower pace than if she’d been on the Citadel, but everyone knew what had happened to Tali’s former captain, her former friend. She never spoke much of the humans once she’d returned. She was absorbed in her work like usual. But the news had been such a shock to her system that she’d fallen ill for days after hearing it.

Reegar didn’t know if she’d talked to anyone about it, her father or perhaps Raan. Even if she did, it likely wouldn’t do much for her grief. Losing someone who fought beside you, that you bled with and befriended in the fires of combat, that was a bond that no one could touch.

He approached cautiously, taking care to make sure she saw him coming. Standing beside the table, he stood with his hands behind his back, watching her out of the corner of his eyes.

“Ma’am, you would be surprised what a dumb marine like me can understand.”

She snorted, another human reaction he noted, and faced him. “Is that so? Keelah, you’re annoying.”

“Been called worse.”

A real laugh left her mouth and it drew the stares of the other scientists briefly. Kal pretended to not notice, waiting for the moment to pass before speaking again.

“Losing a friend isn’t easy. I’ve lost plenty in this short life and it never gets easier.” He let the words hang between them, letting the weight of them settle.

Tali made a small sound, something close to a strangled cry if he had to describe it. The turmoil in her soul wouldn’t ease for weeks, months, maybe even years. Reegar didn’t know how close she was to Shepard, but from her reaction, it seemed like one of the closest friendships a quarian could have to another being. His heart ached for her. No one should suffer a loss like that alone.

“How-” She paused, voice wavering as she tried to push down the wave of intense grief she felt. “How do you heal? Move on from something like that? I don’t remember much about when my mother left us, but it didn’t feel like this.”

“Grief feels different when you’re young. The finality of it doesn’t weigh as heavy as it does now.” He resisted the urge to reach out to comfort her as her shoulders shook. “You fought beside Shepard, knew her as intimately as our kind can. Your friendship will live on in you and the things you do.”

“That’s so… poetic.” She sighed, brushing a hand against her faceplate, almost as if she could wipe the tears away.

“I don’t know anything about poetry, ma’am.” He replied, keeping his tone as light as possible. “Like I said, I’m only a marine.”

“A marine with a love for poetry.” Tali teased back, tears still coating her voice, but she didn’t sound as broken.

Silence descended a moment later, but the melancholy seemed to have lifted. Kal’Reegar watched her again, detecting the subtle shift of her shoulders, the way her hands slid away from the memory core, holding them at ease in front of her.

“May I ask you about her?” He tried hard to keep the excitement ( maybe even longing?) out of his voice. “About Shepard?”

A warrior like Captain Shepard was a curiosity that the quarians didn’t see much of, especially when most were either stuck on the Migrant Fleet or off fighting geth. While Shepard might’ve been human, it didn’t take away from her enigma, her infamy. In fact, it made her more captivating. Especially to someone like Kal’Reegar.

Tali tilted her head slightly, in confusion or contemplation, he wasn’t sure but it was endearing. He was positive that she was grinning at him, all too aware of how interested he was. “I would be happy to. Talking about her… it might help.”

When she began to speak, she practically glowed with the affection she felt for Shepard. To Tali’Zorah, the human Spectre was a friend first, a hero second. She was a person with feelings, who made mistakes, who had love for the galaxy and every person she came into contact with. She was kind. She was strong.

It did little for his hero worship.

“There was this one time, keelah, she challenged Wrex to a fist fight.”

“That’s the krogan?” He asked for clarification, her old friends' names swirling into a blur in his mind.

“Yes. Wrex laughed at Shepard, told her she was a whelp for even thinking she could face a true krogan.” Tali paused to catch her breath before forging on. “When he turned to leave, she punched him in the face! With her biotics, of course, because she would’ve broken her hand otherwise, but it was… oh! What was the human word for it?” She spoke a few words in quick succession before exclaiming. “Oh yes! Insane. It was insane!”

She dissolved into a fight of giggles.

Reegar couldn’t imagine this small human he’d seen vids of punching a full sized krogan, but then again, she had done the impossible only a few months before. She had destroyed a supposed Reaper, stopped a geth invasion, and gotten humanity a seat on the Council.

The Admirals could take a hint or two from Shepard’s actions.

An old quarian saying popped into his mind as he watched Tali try to control her laughter. Something his mother used to tell him when he mourned another soul lost to the geth, a reminder that death wasn’t the end, but a beginning. They would all make their way back to the cosmos, to rest among the blanket of starlight and live forever as stardust.

“We’re only stardust among comets.”

Tali finally returned her gaze to him, laughter dying on her lips. “We are galaxies, united in our infinite sorrow.”

“We are solar flashes, beauty brief yet bright.”

“Esu se’lai, dear friend. We will meet amongst the stars once more.”

Tali relaxed, moving to lean against the workbench, her eyes still on him. The silence stretched on, but she didn’t shed any more tears. “Thank you for this. You didn’t need to help me, but you did. I… appreciate it.”

“Whatever you need, ma’am.”

Tali shook her head, crossing the small distance between them to lay a hand on his arm. She glanced up at him, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Please, call me Tali’Zorah.”

“Of course, Tali’Zorah. Ma’am.”

She tittered, squeezing his arm gently, a sincere and friendly gesture… something else to thank Shepard for, he supposed. “I’m glad you’re here, Kal.”

Reegar smiled beneath his mask, not knowing how to explain the feeling growing in his chest. Pride at helping her? Perhaps he was getting sentimental in his later years. A sentimental marine with a knack for poetry… His friends on the Fleet would tease him endlessly if they found out.

Somehow that didn’t make him upset.

“Me too, ma’am. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

#my writing #jadesabre301 #mass effect #mass effect holiday cheer #holiday harbinger #masseffectholidaycheer #mass effect fanfic #quarians #tali'zorah vas normandy #kal'reegar #friendship #grief #mourning #implied/referenced character death

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