keelahselai | stuff and things

She wasn't quite sure she believed it yet. One trip to Medical and...an entire lifetime of being on tenterhooks, fearing for her life every time she so much as sneezed - gone. Just like that. The CDC could reverse indoctrination, manipulate time and universes, but somehow it still hadn't quite sunk in that they could do this one thing.

Tali left Medical caught somewhere between nervous and excited, fidgeting and unable to keep still even for a second. The visor in front of her face had only rarely been this claustrophobic before, and she was acutely aware that there was a world of vivid colour and fresh air on the other side of it. And it could be hers if she could just get over the nerves.

...She maybe lasted ten minutes before contacting Shepard. Voice call, not text, words tripping over each other - Tali needed to meet her, talk to her about something, it was really important, nothing wrong just really important, she was outside on the edge of the lake, see her in five.

The five minutes or so between the call and the familiar sight of Shepard's figure appearing in the distance was spent alternatively pacing back and forth and rocking on her heels, fiddling with the pockets of that N7 hoodie she had on and forcing herself to take deep, even breaths.

She was fine. Totally fine. ...Just nervous as hell for so many reasons.

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It doesn't really matter that Tali had spent half the conversation reassuring her that everything was fine - everything was totally normal - this wasn't an emergency-- she's still buzzing with nervous energy, sharp itch of paranoia dug deep between her shoulder blades as she makes her way down from the facility. A year of double talk and playing stupid (and, let's be honest, smart) will do that to a person; she's been on the receiving end of enough suspicious comm calls that ended in bad news that she can't help but be wary of this one. So Shepard's got the gun with her, gauss rifle slung by its strap across her shoulder as she cuts through the scraggly trees to get to the waterline. Can't help but be hyper aware of the space - not after what had happened with Attano - as she points Tali's ID on the personnel tracker. Jangle of gunmetal against her side, all standard issue CDC uniform and that now familiar Ajna jacket, battered and stained and disturbingly well worn.

She spots Tali at a distance through the spotty foliage - drops down to the stone and shale bordering the water where there aren't any trees blocking her path and moves in at a clip. The lines of her expression are drawn taught, mouth thinned, a severe set to her jaw and brow. And while she knows the CDC has plenty of ways to listen in - that the wrist cuff is really the problem - she still waits until she's very close to say anything.

"What's going on?"

She's not sure Shepard got the 'everything's fine' sentiment - or at least, she disregarded it totally, and Tali's not sure she blames her. How often is everything fine with this crew, really? She's definitely not surprised to see the gun, or the generally on-edge air rolling off the commander like a heat wave.

"Maybe I should have just come and found you." And given Shepard less time to build up the paranoia that had settled into her. (And in fact, given Tali less time to pace around and build up her nerves. Everyone wins! Or they would have, if Tali had thought of that before now.)

"I just got my mission reward, that's all." And, because her nerves won't let her keep quiet, "I didn't think they could actually do it, not until Garrus showed us that video he got of what they did for those turians, but...they did something over at Medical."

And then she grins, the smile spreading over her face helplessly as she says it. "I think they might have actually fixed my immune system."

She can't see much of the smile through the reflective sheen of Tali's helmet, but she can hear it in the Quarian's voice clear as day. And that's-- something. Strips the latent unease from her skin, has the uneasy hovering of her weight over the balls of her feet shifting - settling - rocking back onto her heel. Shepard's chin quirks up, a mild inclined angle like a nonverbal question mark. But she can't help herself. "Hold on might?" Not exactly the most promising wording, but she's willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Kind of. "Is this the part where we test it and if something goes badly, I haul you over my shoulder back to medical?"

Because Tali, they could probably do it a hell of a lot closer to the CDC's basecamp facility if that was the case. Seemed like a far way to run if something didn't go as planned.

At least Shepard relaxes...a bit. But then she brings up the obvious and awkward problem with the whole thing. If this is doesn't work, and Tali's immune system is as nonfunctional as normal...taking her mask off is going to be a disaster, and it's a worry in the back of her mind as well. But...

"I thought about staying inside when I called you, but..." It's hard to find the words for a second, and her hands fidget together in the moment's silence. "This isn't my planet. I'm never going to see that now. But it's a planet - and I wanted to see it properly when I took this off. I didn't want to be in there with..."

She wanted this to be outside, and private. No personnel, not even most of the crew, not for this. But she'd rather not drop dead out here either, so...

"How about I take my mask off and we walk back?" She folds her arms, a hint of teasing in her voice. "So if I collapse, you don't have to sprain anything carrying me so far."

It draws her up, shifts the line of a her shoulders by a few marginal degrees. Nothing significant - maybe a flicker on her face, a sudden unexpected knot of homesickness unraveling in her gut -, and then Shepard straightens out the lines of her expression and the angle of her shoulder and heaves out a sigh like Tali's asking her to do work.

"Yeah alright, I can live with that plan." All drawled edge of humor to make up for the jangling of nerves for this whole plan. Not that she doesn't trust Tali, not that she isn't all for the possibility of her immune system being slightly more useful than a wet paper bag. But at a remove, she has the luxury of thinking 'better safe than sorry', a kind of sterile sensibility that isn't really on board with the whole pollen and dust and airborne bacteria crap that's definitely floating around out here.

But screw it. If there's one thing reliable on this gig, it's usually medical. And she still has that epi-pen stashed away for a rainy day. So she turns, leading with her shoulders, and starts the slow walk back up from the water's edge.

She can see Shepard's hesitation - has learned to read her body language well enough. Well enough to see that Shepard's trepidation sort of mirrors her own - she knows it's a little bit stupid. Maybe a lot stupid - trusting to CDC to have changed her very physiology the way she wants it.

But part of her wants this too badly. And it's a big part.

They start to walk, and nonetheless, it takes Tali a few moments to reach up at all. She's learned over time, over years of learning through watching friends and family die, through her own sicknesses, that doing this is suicide. And now it's time to unlearn.

"So...here goes," and there's a slghtly higher, thinner tone to her voice than usual as she reaches up to unclasp her mask - the customary hiss of escaping air that means she can't go back now - and she pulls the mask off.

The sunlight is immediately over-bright in her eyes and she screws her face up against it, blinking hard. But the next thing she notices, taking a slow, deep breath, is the very texture of the air as she takes it into her lungs. It's thick with moisture, and she can't even begin to describe the scent of it, just that it's all so unlike the sterility of the inside of her mask - and even the clean(ish) rooms she's taken her mask off in - that she doesn't know what to make of it at all.

"Well..." Even her voice sounds strange - resonating in an entirely different way. "I haven't dropped dead straight away, that's a good sign."

A joke, if a feeble one, covering up the sheer sense of wonder as she looks around, taking deep breaths, turning to walk backwards for a secon even as she takes in the vivid colours of everything around them.

Tali reaches for the clasps on the mask and Shepard can't help but do the mental math - the camp is, what, a few kliks north? She can carry Tali that far across her shoulder without much issue, but it's not going to be a fast trip. Halfway, she thinks. Get her halfway and then plug her with the hypo needle from Ajna and hope the boost to her immune system is enough to get her the rest of the way to medical. As long as someone's still manning the rover instead of screwing around the basecamp (and she's willing to bet credits at least Anders is - the workaholic), it'd be fine.

The hiss of the mask releasing sharpens her to the present, attention crosshair locked. She lengthens her stride the whole half step required to get slightly out in front of Tali - to give herself a clear vantage of her friend's face in case something in her expression shifts or drops or, hell, in case her face balloons from some kind of allergic reaction. Whatever. And it's-- weird. Seeing Tali without the mask, all pale flesh and thin drawn lines, eyes all ghostly bright without the dense material cutting down on how reflective they are.

"You look fine - as far as I can tell, anyway." Would she be able to recognize it if Tali didn't?

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i could wait a day and make this a solid month of failure

my life tbh