Mass Effect 1. Chapter 1- Just a shake down

**A/N: So this is my first OC fanfic, so if I get this horribly wrong I'm going to get you all coming at me with pitch forks and torches right? Please leave a review, it makes it so much easier to answer any questions you may have and to improve my writing. Thank you for listening to my pleas for mercy, now ON WITH THE STORY**

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The SSV Belgium sat in orbit around the Sol relay, waiting for the scouting party to come back from doing whatever it was that they did, Zack never really knew, he paced the ship, glancing around inside the occupied rooms and smiling as he saw that the crew were enjoying their down time. He couldn't really do the same, he had to file reports about the journey to where the ship was now, which was uneventful, which in turn made the report pointless, as usual.

The Belgium had left dry dock at Arcturus station a few days ago, this was to be her shake-down run, it was hard to take in really. A few months ago Zack had seen the ship for the first time, sitting in construction, covered in scaffolding and engineers. The construction had gone off mostly without a hitch, apart from that one day when the drive core almost blew up, and then there was that day where one of the chief engineers fell off of the highest bit of scaffolding on the construction, near where the bridge was now. That had been a fun report to write up, and a fun conversation to have with his friends at the bar later. They'd all congratulated him on his first command, saying it built character, but Zack had his doubts, saying he was 'free willed' would be an understatement, he made fun of officers while they were in the room and always turned up to briefings late, besides he was only a Lieutenant so why was he was doing this shakedown? There must have been a captain willing to take the ship out, even if it was just for one day or so, but then again the Alliance had been short handed recently, what with the attacks on the fringes or the Terminus and so on.

"Lieutenant, you might want to come up to the bridge. We're being hailed on an unsecure channel, patching us in as soon as you get up here", the voice of the pilot came through the intercom right next to his head, making him jump slightly.

"Alright Davis, I'll be right there", he sighed, this trip was just starting to get interesting too! The trip up to the bridge was uneventful, mimicking the rest of the journey, which had literally been so boring that the crew had resorted to playing baseball in the cargo hold, which Zack made a point to include in his report. On the way to the bridge Zack nodded or exchanged back slaps with various crew members who were wandering the halls, telling the more important ones to man their posts just in case anything happened. The bridge itself was bustling when he got there, members of the Bridge staff running this way and that, relaying important radio traffic to their superiors, or to somebody who knew what to do with the data.

"What's going on Davis? Who's hailing us?" Zack stared at the flashing symbol on the interface in front of his pilot.

"I dunno, sir. Patching it through", the pilot pressed a few buttons and a signal came through.

"SSV Belgium this is the Pluto, do you read over?" Zack rubbed his forehead before replying.

"Pluto, know that you are broadcasting over an unsecure channel, state your business", the line was quiet for a small time, causing the pilot to raise his eyebrows at Zack, who shrugged.

"We got an 800k drift when we came out of the Mass relay and we need help. We don't know where we are", the vessel was now coming up on long range scanners, it looked like a human freighter, Davis muted the comm.

"Wait did he say 800k? And now their lost? That's ridiculous, even the most advanced frigates drift up to fifteen hundred sometimes", he scowled at the interface before un-muting their end.

"Pluto, we may be able to guide you to the nearest station, stand by", Zack brought up the miniature galaxy map which was next to the pilots seat. "Alright Pluto change your coarse by a baring of 120 degrees starboard and keep going for two thousand kilometres, you'll hit the nearest civilian post orbiting earth", the other vessel was silent for an uncomfortably long amount of time, "Pluto do you copy?", no answer.

"Damnit where'd they go?" the pilot started tapping away at his interface, "Oh that's not good, sir the Pluto is coming straight for us, looks like a collision course", the pilot swore in Arabic and started up the Drive core, swinging the Dreadnaught around in order to face the vessel, but it would take too long and they both knew it.

"Damnit! Everyone all hands on deck, we have a possible hostile ship coming our way", the bridge staff behind Zack were working over-time, sending reports back to command and receiving reports back from gunnery chiefs and Engineers every few seconds.

The dreadnaught shook violently, causing some of the staff to stumble, dropping data pads, "Damnit they breached the hull, shields are down! How did they do that? Kinetic Barriers should still be up", Davis' hands were flying across this screen, kicking the craft into a sluggish evasive movement, brining the front of the large ship down so they could pick up speed while getting away from the smaller craft, which apparently had big guns on it. Another violent shake caused most of the bridge staff to fall, then gunfire erupted from the cargo bay, everyone on the bridge stopped and looked at the scanners, the Pluto had fired again at the Belgium and had created a larger breach in the hull, and then launched escape pods into the hole, smashing into the cargo bay and apparently offloading a load of troops into the ship.

"Everyone arm up! The hull has been breached and we have hostiles on board, lets tear them a new one guys!" the shouting could be heard without the intercom as the men in the crew quarters began to arm up and move towards the cargo area, "I'm going to have to take charge down there, yell if you need me back", Zack slapped the pilot on the shoulder before taking off out of the door, it hissed shut behind him, muting all the gunfire somewhat, but it was still audible.

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The fire fight was chaos, the Alliance men were backed up against the door, stopping the enemy from advancing outside, but the sheer number of enemy troops was overwhelming, and they were armed to the teeth with Military grade arms. Zack pressed his back into the wall and glanced around the corner, they enemy themselves were next to what looked like a load of burning escape pods, they'd crashed into one of the fuel canisters and had set half of the cargo deck on fire, there must have been at least fifty hostiles. Zack moved forwards to check on his squad leader, who was hunkered down behind a large Medi-gel crate.

"What's the verdict? Can we hold them?" the answer that came from the Squad leader was muted by a loud crash of to the right, one of the boxes containing spare engine parts had fallen from the shelf on the wall and had spilled its contents over the floor, which also contained some liquid based contents, "Shit, what happened to everyone else?"

"They got sucked out of the hole when the first escape pod came through, there's only twenty of us left down here and these guys are being patient, letting us ware ourselves down", the man finished, leaning out of cover and firing a few short bursts over towards the crates where the enemy were in cover.

"Christ, alright we need to keep 'em in here! How long do you reckon we can hold out?" the leader sighed and looked at the men, all of them were flagging, some of them were missing the crates completely now, opting to just suppress the enemy troops.

"Ten minutes tops, after that we're gonna have a serious man power problem", the squad leader looked to the left, behind Zack's head, "Ah crap, move it we're being flanked", as he finished one of the soldiers who had been behind a forklift truck screamed and fell sidelong as a bullet pierced his armoured leg, incapacitating him. A round to the head later and he could scream anymore.

"Everyone shift fire left, this is gonna get hairy!" just then one of the enemy troops hefted a massive rocket launcher onto his shoulder and fired, it hit the crate Zack was taking cover behind and sent him and the squad leader to the floor as it slid quickly backwards.

"We need to move! There behind that ordinance box!" Zack shouted while making a desperate sprint for the box, which then exploded, sending him flying backwards due to the shockwave and peppering him with white hot shrapnel. As he landed he could see the fire fight reach its inevitable climax, the hostile soldiers rounded the corner to the right hand side while the Alliance soldiers were looking to the left, completing a well carried out pincer move, the squad leader was the last to go down, firing his shotgun into the oncoming forces before he was hit in the chest, and then the head, and then the chest again. Zack couldn't move, even as the enemy started moving through the doors he couldn't stand up, or reach for his pistol which lay to his left, he looked up again, just in time to see a boot land on his face, knocking him cold.

When he woke he was in a room with a table in the middle of it, 'really? This is done to death in the old movies' he thought with a smirk, "You can come out now, standing in the shadows isn't getting you anywhere on my psyche", he said to the room at large.

"Ah but you have the wrong idea", came a voice, distorted in order to disguise it, "we aren't coming in the room, we are going to ask you our questions from here", the voice finished.

"Well that's so amazing isn't it? You're such a good host! Could I maybe have a beer while a wait or would that involve you moving?"

"Playing it smart assed is going to get you nowhere here, we suggest you co-operate and maybe we might let you leave this room alive", the voice paused and the sound of a data pad being activated could be heard over the comm. "Now then first question, what is your name?"

"What you mean you don't know?" Zack wondered aloud, "I thought you would at least have the idea to check my dog tags before dragging me in here, ass clown" Zack liked that insult, he resolved to use it later when the voice growled.

"Don't insult me! It will only result in pain on your behalf", the voice bellowed over the intercom, "Now I ask again, what is your name"

"Alright seeing as you asked so nicely, my name is Edward Peterson", Zack thought of this name on instinct, he couldn't figure out why though, before he could think over it further though a shock coursed through the chair he was sitting in.

"Do not lie to us either, it will lead to more pain on your part", the voice said as if this was an everyday occurrence. "Now we ask again, what is your name, truthfully this time".

"Alright, Lieutenant Zack Saunderson of the Alliance Navy", he decided that these people weren't worth messing with.

"Good, that answers our next question too. Now then, where were you born?" the question amused Zack greatly.

"What you couldn't tell?" a light shock hit him, "England, Oxford", he said loudly.

"Good, now then why don't you tell us what your age", the voice said with a slightly more controlled tone.

"Twenty one", Zack said without hesitation, he was also a little young to be captaining a dreadnaught, right?

"Interesting, and what class of soldier are you?" the voice sounded like it was leaning forward.

"What do you mean? I'm just a soldier, none of those freaky-ass implants", he hated the idea of some doctor putting something in his head.

"Yes we expected as much, no need for anything special on a dreadnaught correct?" it didn't sound like much of a question, the voice knew it was right.

"Yeah, it was only a shakedown run, which raises a question, why us? We only had new blood on board because we couldn't spare anyone experienced. Why not pick on a ship with experienced soldiers on it?"

The voice was quiet for a while, "well firstly we needed inexperienced soldiers because it's harder to manipulate veterans, also if you were inexperienced then you would be easier to quell and capture, it's a shame that you were the only subject we got out of that", the voice said with a dreamy tone to its distortion.

"Wait, back up. Nobody else survived?" This hit Zack like a ton of bricks, "They all died?"

The voice seemed to sigh, "An unfortunate loss indeed, we could have benefited from having more subjects to work with", the voice trailed away, fantasising about all of the tests they could have run at once, but now they were severally limited.

"When I get out of this hell hole of a room I'm going to find every single one of those close minded ass-hats and tear their arms out their sockets and feed them to my cat, you got that amp mouth?" Zack said quietly, growling almost, directly at where the voice was coming from hoping it had a camera too.

"Hmm, the question is more of the 'if' variety but a mute threat none-the-less, by the end of your treatment I doubt you will have the...free will required to achieve such a feat", the voice said with obvious humour. "I have heard enough, begin treatment now, let's get this done", the microphone squeaked loudly before there was silence on in the room, then a faint hissing sound began to make itself known, reverberating throughout the room.

Zack began to feel light headed 'ah crap, knock out gas? Really?' was the last thing he thought before slipping into unconsciousness.

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**So there we go people, hope in enjoyed and remember those reviews, Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2- discovery

**A/N Second Chapter...YAY! Please tell me how much I suck so I can improve**

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"Shepard, this is Hackett. We have reports of an unknown facility on the surface of Adagia, also we have Intel which suggests that there is a link to the disappearance of the SSV Belgium five years ago", Shepard looked down at Liara, who'd just come out of the briefing room after they'd come back from Noveria, who shrugged and looked blankly towards the galaxy map before hunching her shoulders and moving back towards the door. Shepard glanced after her briefly, resolving to go and make sure she wasn't going to off herself later before looking back over the galaxy map.

"Alright, sir. We'll look into it", she sighed, "Shepard out", then she started moving around the planets within the cluster they'd just entered, trying to pinpoint the planet Hackett had mentioned but without success at first, then she remembered that some planets in this cluster huddled around the gas giants, using them as shields from the fierce sun, and started checking more closely around said gas giants, then she found a signal on a remote planet which was nowhere near anything, she guessed that she'd overlooked it before and tried to boost the signal.

"This is the Adagia facility...broken loose...backup...tearing through the facility..." the transmition was reduced to static before playing over again. Whoever had recorded it had managed to set up the beacon, but there was interference of some kind.

"Joker, take us in. We'll drop in the clearing behind those trees and locate the facility from the hill next to it", Shepard was already moving towards her locker to arm up before the pilot replied.

"Taking us in, hey everyone Shepard isn't going to drive this time!" Joker 'joked' over the radio, even though everyone agreed that while Shepards driving wasn't that bad it almost always resulted in the Mako ramming something. Shepard rolled her eyes with a smile as she opened her locker, retrieving her Assault rifle and shotgun, she signalled behind her as Garrus tried to move past her unnoticed.

"Come on Garrus, you really think I can hear you 'sneaking'", she made air quotations, "back there, you can leave your precious tank alone for a while", she said only now turning around to face the Turian, who made an exaggerated sigh and threw his arms in the air dramatically before moving into the elevator, "Tell Tali to gear up while you're at it", Shepard shouted at him before the door closed, then she continued to gather her equipment.

-30 minutes later-

Shepard stood in front of her two person squad, she would have liked to have taken more but she didn't know what they were going to find on the planet's surface, so she wanted to play it safe until they knew what was up at the facility.

"Alright you two, I don't know exactly what we're going to find at the facility but I need you both at full alert, Garrus when we land I need you to scout out the landscape and find the facility we're looking for, it's an unknown so expect it to be well hidden. Tali you and I are going to start moving towards it as soon as Garrus finds it, the place could be up to three hundred metres away from the drop zone, so it shouldn't take that long for us to get there, Garrus wait back and cover us until we're there then follow on, got it you two?" Shepard smiled when her two squad members nodded and affirmative before turning to the opening cargo bay doors and walking down the ramp, Garrus and Tali taking up their customary positions behind her on the left and right respectively. Once the Normandy touched the ground Shepard stepped off the ramp and set about the task of scanning the perimeter of the landing zone, the trees were obstructing anything beyond the clearing from view but the sounds of native species could be heard.

Shepard pointed up towards the ridge and Garrus took off towards it at a jog, leaping up the hard pact earth and quickly reaching the highest point, he brought his scope up to his eye and looked about the landscape, searching for anything resembling a structure. A glint off to their right caught his attention so he moved his scope around, he could see a large wall of trees and then a clearing and then he could see a small white structure in the middle of the clearing, he called Shepard up.

"I got something, in the clearing over there", he pointed with one of his talons as he passed Shepard his Sniper so she could look through the scope.

"That's it? It looks a bit small" Shepard mused as she surveyed the landscape for anything else of interest, seeing nothing she sighed, "Well it's all I can see, let's go take a look", she said while moving back down the slope, Garrus looked after her for a second before bringing his scope back up again and looking for a rout.

"Looks like the quickest way there is to follow the tree line to the left and then swing back around, you avoid the thickest groups of trees that way", he paused and looked around the clearing they were in, "you still want me to stay here Shepard, I might not be that much use from all the way back here".

"Yeah you're right, come on then" Shepard called back to him while she and Tali moved down the tree line, Garrus ran to catch up and the group started to move a little faster as a whole.

-1 hour later-

Shepard swore as she shinned herself against yet another tree stump, the trees had been cut away to form the clearing around the lone building, she'd hit her shins on a fair few now simply because she was convinced something was about to come running out of the building towards the group and therefore wasn't looking at the ground, she gripped her Lancer tighter and began to pick her way around the stumps and towards the building once again.

Once they were closer they could see signs of damage on the structure, there were scorch marks on the walls and there were creepers growing up the walls, the most striking piece of damage however was the fact the structure had no roof to speak of, there was remnants of a roof but it had been blown off at some point, Shepard signalled for Tali to go in first with her shotgun while she came in afterwards, Garrus bringing up the rear, switching out his sniper for his Assault rifle. Tali and Shepard entered the building almost at the same time, scanning left and right for any sign of movement, for which there was none of, Garrus walked in behind them, scanning around the building for any sign of more buildings having been there, which there wasn't any of either.

Tali moved towards the centre of the room, looking around for any information on where the actual facility was, she was about to move back to Shepard when her foot snagged on something, looking down she saw a trap door.

"Shepard, I've found something" she said glumly, if it was a vent she wasn't going in, she'd stay here and guard the door. Shepard worked her way over, slipping on the floor every now and again due to the moisture which had collected.

"A trap door? Haven't seen one of these in a while", she bent down and lifted the hatch slightly, un-surprisingly it was pitch black inside, "Well I guess we go in, flashlights on" she said and with that she put two hands on the ladder and slid down, Garrus following her. Tali stood and stared at the hole with interest, 'who could be so enthusiastic about jumping down a dark hole?' she wondered to herself before shaking shuddering and swinging down the ladder herself, against her better judgement.

Shepard was waiting for her at the bottom with a grin on her face, "Nice of you to join us Tali, was afraid I'd have to come back up and push you down", she said with the grin never leaving her face.

"I was just...making sure there was nobody behind us" Tali stammered, not wanting Shepard to think she was scared of the dark, back on the fleet no lights normally meant a power failure, which meant everyone on the ship was in trouble.

"Sure you were, come on Garrus is up ahead trying to open a door" Shepard replied with a larger grin at the thought of Garrus trying to decrypt anything. She led Tali down the corridor which was also pitch black, so she had her flashlight scanning every aspect of the dark corridor. Garrus was standing next to a lock which, unlike everything else so far, had power and was trying to fiddle the lock into submission and wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"Let me take a look" Tali said eventually after trying to stifle laughter at Garrus' obvious lack of fines with a lock, she moved over to the door and powered on her Omni-tool, bringing up a programme which analysed the locks and then broke their core programming, in theory anyway. She'd picked the programme up from a shifty looking Volus merchant on the citadel.

She smiled when the lock flashed green and the door slid open, then the smile faded to a troubled frown when the door opened to reveal a well lit room, with a table and chairs in the centre, the smile was even further abolished when she saw there was another door which was already open, showing what looked like an operating table, she drew her shotgun and moved towards the door on her own, Shepard and Garrus were over at the Table in the first room looking for information on a assortment of Data tablets.

She stepped quickly through the door and turned a semi circle, checking every aspect of the room, seeing nothing she moved further in, missing the shimmering patch of air in the far corner of the room. There was a terminal in the centre of the room, next to the operating table, she stepped up to it and powered it on, she was just about to start sorting through the contents when she caught a shimmer of movement behind her, she tried to spin round but an arm closed around her throat and moved her away from the terminal and out of sight from the door, then she was spun around to face something that scared her half to death.

The man standing in front of her, or rather holding her against the wall was tall and thin, his eyes where dull but every now and again they lit up slightly, there was a full black beard adorning his face and his hair was long, covering most of his face. He wore white clothing with rips and tears all over it, and nothing on his feet, which were extremely grubby along with the rest of his skin, his hair didn't go all the way down to his mouth which was fixed into a feral snarl as the man glared at Tali, who was scared silent.

"Who are you?" the man asked with a voice which obviously hadn't been used in a while, it cracked and sounded gravely.

"I...I..." she was cut off buy more pressure being added to her windpipe.

"Spill it! Who are you and who do you work for Quarian?" the man demanded, allowing some pressure off of her windpipe, but only enough to allow her to speak.

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, and I don't work for anyone" she said hurriedly, the words slurring slightly because of the speed at which she said them, then she heard two sets of footsteps approaching from behind and let herself breath out. The man however didn't seem to worried, in fact he was grinning, he threw her back against the wall and spun around and fell into a crouch waiting for the other two to round the corner, then he disappeared again.

Shepard rounded the corner not a second later and looked around, her eyes falling on Tali where she'd slumped to the floor and was trying to regain her breath. When Shepard got to her she lifted Tali to her feet and was just about to ask what had happened when Garrus called out from behind her.

"Shepard behind you!" Garrus called while trying to catch the man who'd just become visible behind Shepard, the man span around Garrus' hand and pushed him face-first into the ground, the Turian cried a little as he hit the floor and tried to knock the man's legs out from underneath him, only to find the man wasn't there anymore.

Shepard had managed to draw her shotgun in this time but didn't want to fire in case she hit Garrus, but now that he was on the floor she could fire without fearing for his safety, the man had flipped sideways over Garrus and had now snatched up Tali's shotgun from where it lay on the metal operating table next to the terminal. Now they were locked in a stale mate as the man had the Shotgun aimed at Tali who'd just now got up from the floor, and Garrus didn't want to rush him either because he'd lost his rifle in the first clash.

"This must have been a trap Shepard, he lured us here so he could get off world, there weren't any ships outside" Garrus said while never taking his eyes away from the figure, who just stood and grinned.

"So? Did you send the distress call" Shepard asked through gritted teeth.

"No, but I helped..." the man trailed off and started to move slowly towards the door, "I see you're Alliance, so you may have come here to help the scientists. Well I'm the result of all of that, you may call me...hmm let's see...Alpha...call me Alpha...because I was the first and last person those scientists will ever harm, well apart from a few of them anyway", the man was standing right next to the door now, he then bolted through it, sprinting through the room with the table and chairs and then down the corridor.

"Crap, I'm going after him. Garrus help Tali!" Shepard yelled over her shoulder as she set off in pursuit of the man, Garrus bent down and lifted Tali to her feet, giving her a once over to make sure she wasn't too badly injured before setting off after Shepard, Tali following.

Shepard swung over the ladder and looked around, the man was nowhere to be seen. She was just about to keep moving when she heard a noise behind her, she spun around with her rifle in the air just in time to stop a swing from the handle of Tali's shotgun which had been destined for her head, she rolled to the side and circled the hole where the ladder was. The man was mirroring her, but instead of looking at her he was looking at the sky, filling his lungs with fresh air while spinning around.

"Ah, fresh air! You don't appreciate it until it's gone do you?" the man looked back towards her with a mad looking grin on his face, "I've been down their too long, as you can see it's treated me well however, I'm twice the man I used to be, but I still have my free will...oh yes I do. Ha! Thinking they could put a control chip in me was a huge mistake, they didn't know that I knew what I could do! It was satisfying killing that first scientist, it felt as if it was payback for all those years of torture" the man coughed "sorry I mean experiments, Ha!"

Garrus and Tali had emerged from the shaft now and were standing on either side of Shepard, the man looked at them all individually. "Strange, seeing a Quarian working with a human and a Turian, I wonder if you're actually Alliance at all, or maybe you killed an N7 soldier and stole their armour, luckily for the scientists I didn't get the pleasure of at least procuring their footwear" the man looked at the three again before looking up at the sky again briefly, in that time Garrus lunged at the man who moved to the side without even looking, then he pointed to the side of Garrus' head with his free hand and said "Boom" then he threw Tali her shotgun back and stood back and crossed his arms.

"So, are you just going to stand there like that all day? Or are you going to tell me what you're doing here?" the man asked with a strange glint to his eyes, Shepard looked at him, lost for words.

"And why should we tell you that?" Shepard asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, depending on the circumstances I could help you out" the man paused and chuckled slightly when Garrus growled "Don't act all surprised, the stress is so obvious to anyone who knows what to look for", the man walked over to Shepard who didn't flinch, Tali however backed away. "The way you stand, it's straight sure but not as straight as it could be, the way you hold your gun as if I'm about to sprout eight more arms" the man turned and looked towards the skyline before turning his attention back, "Also something has made you desperate, it's not every day you find a Human willing to work with a Turian, and a Quarian? Un heard of...unless something has drastically changed in the past few years" the man chuckled quietly before starting to work his way back around to Garrus, who was still on the ground, he hauled the dazed Turian to his feet shrugging slightly as Garrus brushed him off. "But the co-operation is admirable, you know we had a saying back home 'Having a helping hand is a good thing, but having a friend watch your back is better', now I'm not saying we're friends but I'm offering a helping hand", the man stood and stared at Tali who was wringing her hands together nervously.

"What can you do?" Shepard asked suddenly, Garrus' head snapped around to look at her.

"Shepard you can't possibly be thinking about this" he shouted, raising his voice in frustration.

"We need all the help we can get Garrus" Shepard said calmly "besides he's already proven that he's got talent" she looked back at Tali who was looking at the floor, still wringing her hands, "What do you think Tali" Shepard asked, causing the young Quarian to jump slightly.

"I...urrm...it's not my decision Shepard, I'll back you not matter what you decide..." she went back to looking at the floor again.

"Well I hate to interrupt but I don't believe I've answered your question yet and...despite living in a hole in the ground I still remember my manners" he paused when Garrus growled again, "is he half canine? I've never heard anyone growl so much", Garrus' mandibles clamped to the side of his face but to his surprise Shepard gave a snort, Garrus whirled around to face Shepard who gave him an honest looking shrug before clearing her throat.

"You were saying?" Shepard said causing Garrus to sigh, the man seemed like he was lifted from some sort of trance, he snapped his fingers and span to look at Shepard again.

"Oh right yeah, well for starters I expect I can out run all of you and keep up the same pace for maybe a day or two, secondly I can see in the dark, thirdly I'd give a krogan a run for his money in a fight buuuut...seeing as I don't have secondary organs I'd probably have to work at it, also I have an unusual combination of implants", he stopped there and seemed to drift off again, Shepard looked at him for what must have been ten seconds.

"And what would that be?" she asked, the man simply stared up the sky and hummed to himself before looking at the floor.

"Let's just say I can use my Biotics while cloaked", the man said with a sigh, Garrus scoffed.

"Impossible, you're bluffing. That would send your brain into overload, whatever little is left of it anyway", the man spun around to face Garrus and walked quickly towards him.

"I'm not insane, well I guess a little" he stopped a few paces away from Garrus, "But then again I'd like to see you come out of what I went through sane", Shepard cleared her throat at this point, causing both men to turn to her with expectant expressions on their faces.

"We're not going to decide anything here, Tali radio the Normandy and tell them to prep a room for him" she gestured with her thumb towards the man who still stood there looking at her.

"I said call me Alpha", he said with a grin, then he followed Shepard out into the clearing, patting Garrus on the back as he passed, the Turian was about to growl again but stopped himself.

Garrus then followed Tali towards the clearing.


	3. Chapter 3- Making amends

**A/N: A big thank you for the Favourites and follows that I got from the last two chapters, they're really motivational. Now I'm sure someone wanted a new chapter so I'm gonna get the ball rolling again, please review and tell me how bad a screwed something up!**

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-Back on the Normandy-

Shepard sat in the chair in her quarters, deep in thought. Their latest 'asset' had been put in the engine room for now, he seemed to know what he was doing down there but Adams had expressed concern about Alpha's mental condition, on top of that saying that Tali was scared stiff about Alpha being in the same ship as her, let alone the same room was an accurate assessment. Garrus hadn't said as much as two words to Shepard since they'd got back, although the thought of an unknown denting the Turians pride was amusing. Joker, for some unknown reason, seemed to like Alpha, when he'd been given a _Very_ quick tour of the ship Alpha had snuck up on the pilot, who'd been checking the critical systems at the time, and had mimicked an Alliance officer, calling Joker to shape up. To which Joker jumped out of his skin and had tried to stand up as fast as possible only to see Alpha hunched over with barely held hysterics, the two had actually been cracking jokes at each other all morning seeing as it had turned into some sort of competition.

Even Shepard had to admit though, getting Alpha to co-operate with certain members of the crew would be difficult so she was planning to keep him off the ground team until he'd at least tried to apologise to the two who'd been on the ground team to pick him up, and Kaiden. Shepard had almost laughed during the brief meeting between Kaiden and Alpha earlier.

-2 hours earlier-

"Kaiden! Come over here a minute and meet Alpha" Shepard called from the other side of the mess, Kaiden looked up and waved before finishing whatever he'd been doing and moved over to the pair, Alpha was now leaning against the table and rubbing his temples causing Kaiden to raise an eyebrow questioningly.

"Oh yes Kaiden Alenko!" Alpha cried suddenly, causing everyone in the mess to look over, "I'm surprised I didn't remember the one man who got BAat shut down! Ha! Now that was fun to read about!" Alpha was looking at Kaiden now with a massive grin on his face, it looked like someone had just hit him in the face with an axe.

"Yeah...I'd rather not talk about that" Kaiden replied, rubbing the back of his neck and giving Shepard a pleading look, Shepard just shrugged apologetically.

"Oh you don't have to talk about it, I'm just saying that the Turian had it coming to him. Even the few reports that got out suggested he had it coming, I'm just happy to say I met the one who gave it to him" Alpha replied with the same grin before sticking out his hand, Kaiden hesitated briefly before shaking, Alpha merely nodded before moving off towards the elevator, leaving Shepard who was trying to suppress a snicker while Kaiden just stared after Alpha for a moment before shaking his head and moving back to his corner.

-present-

That was one other thing Shepard didn't get about Alpha, he seemed to find being on star ships normal, albeit he was a little taken aback when Shepard explained what the Normandy was and how she was conceived. He also knew certain things which a civilian shouldn't, like how BAat was shut down which wasn't common knowledge, he also knew exactly what happened on Akuze and he seemed to know almost as much as Williams about how her Grandfather became disgraced. He also seemed to sympathise, but it was hard to tell with Alpha who guarded his thoughts like a poker hand, there was times when Shepard thought she saw something, like a deep sorrow in his eyes, which were again hard to read now that they weren't underground. They were a deep green but that wasn't the interesting part about them, the irises had small black circles all around them, symmetrically spaced. Also his pupils were a very dark yellow colour which made their appearance all the more striking. Every now and again they would lose some of their shine, it happened briefly in the cockpit and also in the cargo bay, Shepard resolved that she needed answers about his past including his real name, which he kept guarded as well.

She sighed and pushed herself out of the chair, where she'd been sat thinking for the best part of half an hour. She exited her cabin and nodded over to Garrus who fluttered his mandibles briefly at her before looking back to his meal, Shepard kept walking towards the elevator. The elevator moved at its usual infernally slow pace towards the cargo bay, giving her even more time to think about what she was going to ask and more importantly in what order, when she stepped out of the elevator the sight she saw made her stop and stare.

Alpha was locked in hand to hand combat with Wrex who looked to be actually thinking about what he was doing. Upon seeing Shepard Wrex seemed to double his efforts, moving at twice the speed he would normally but Alpha seemed to just flow around the Krogan's punches, often just moving to the side unnaturally quickly or spinning to the side at the same speed , sometimes he even ducked under the punches.

Wrex eventually became impatient and tried to biotically lift Alpha off the ground, what happened next was stunning. Alpha suddenly glowed blue and pushed against the ground, flying up into the air and catching the rafters of the cargo bay with one hand, then he biotically lifted Wrex into the air until the Krogan was hovering five feet above the ground, then Alpha moved his hand slightly and slammed Wrex head first into the floor before letting go of the rafter and falling back to the ground, rolling on impact. Wrex was just getting back to his feet, he stood and looked at Alpha with an unreadable expression on his face before nodding and moving back to his wall, Alpha patted himself down and smirked at Shepard.

"Did you just beat Wrex in hand to hand?" Shepard asked, slightly awestruck.

"Well not 'hand to hand' exactly and then again it wasn't easy" Alpha paused and looked towards Wrex who was regarding the Human with interest, "But yeah, I did just do that" Alpha looked towards Wrex and nodded before looking back to Shepard. "Was there something you needed Shepard?" he asked casually, leaning against one of the support struts.

"Yes there was actually, I need to know a little more about you if we're going to work together" she said quickly, looking at Alpha who was regarding her with interest.

"Alright Shepard I'll play ball, to know as much as I do about military grade ships means that I would have had to have worked on one correct? Well you'd be right to think that, I worked on some construction work for the Alliance briefly but...my carrier was cut short. Apart from that I was born on earth in England and I like cats, anything else?" Alpha asked, smiling slightly at the look and Shepard's face.

"There was one more thing yeah, Admiral Hackett mentioned that the facility we found you might have had a connection the disappearance of the SSV Belgium five years ago..." Shepard trailed off when Alpha looked at the floor and then back at her again, with a look of rage in his eyes.

"Yeah I know what happened, someone I knew was on that ship. And I don't want to talk about it, and don't try getting me drunk either because unless you have twenty bottles of Ryncol on tap", he said with a smile at the last part, he sighed and looked towards the ceiling, "If there's nothing else I better get back to engineering, I expect there's something that needs doing" he nodded at this and began to move towards engineering, he stopped dead when Shepard caught his shoulder.

"One more thing, you might want to talk to Garrus and Tali. Let's just say you didn't make the best first impression" Shepard said, when she got no reply from Alpha she moved in front of him, he was looking straight ahead, unmoving and she might have thought he wasn't breathing either if she hadn't seen his nose flaring.

"I will" he said simply before moving around Shepard and towards the corridor next to the elevator.

-20 minutes later-

Alpha stood at his console in Engineering, trying to get rid of some of the crap in the drive core diagnostics. It helped him clear his mind, and he needed to do that after his talk with Shepard earlier, it had opened his eyes a little to the fact that playing the Asshole all the time may have not been the best idea but to his defence he'd not been in contact with another person of any race for so long, and to find out the Belgium went down five years ago? The words 'sack of bricks' came to mind, but the joking around was in his nature and it was who he was.

He couldn't believe that he was trying to forget the Belgium for all this time and then suddenly someone he'd just met brings it back up again, all of those men had died and he couldn't quite shake the feeling that it was his fault, maybe if he'd just told the Pluto to go and shove its request they might have moved on, but his instinct to help others got in the way. Despite this he doubted making enemies was the best way to continue on this ship, he had to help them out. He could tell Shepard was stressed out like anybody else wouldn't believe, but she also carried a hint of confidence that would suggest she knew that she would succeed in whatever she was doing, but whatever that was must have been big.

Suddenly Alpha got the feeling he was being watched, that prickling sensation on the back of his neck that he always used to get when his drill sergeant used to watch him run laps every morning. He looked to his left just in time to see Tali look back down at her console, he sighed inwardly and stood back from his console, he stretched his arms and back, which was his in built reflex for when he was going to do something really awkward, and then sidled over to stand behind the younger Quarian.

"You know I can tell when I'm being looked at right?" he said suddenly, causing Tali to whirl around and step back so she was pressed against her console, he could have sworn that he could see condensation on the other side of her mask with his enhanced vision, 'is she...?'

"I'm...errm...sorry I was just..." Tali trailed off trying to look anywhere but at Alpha.

"Save it, you shouldn't be saying sorry to me" Alpha said with his hands up to placate her, at this she finally looked at him, he sighed "look about what happened back at the facility...you know how being locked up for...damn must have been three years on your own can make it hard to get back into the swing of saying 'hello' right?" Tali just stared blackly "Well I guess not, what I'm trying to say is...I'm sorry for attacking you but I didn't know what to expect...you're only the second Quarian I've ever met and...well...yeah". Alpha trailed off this time, rubbing his beard with the back of his hand, Tali was still staring at him "do you stare at people all the time or am I just special?"

"Nobody's ever apologised to me before...well nobody who isn't Quarian at least, it's just that...I'm not used to it", Tali was wringing her hands together so hard the Alpha had a feeling they'd come off.

"Well first time's never done it for anyone, but I can see what you mean...so do want to try this whole 'hello' thing again?" Alpha asked with a raised eyebrow, Tali gave a quick nod. "Well then, nice to meet you my name is Alpha and you are...?"

"Tali...uhrm...Tali'Zorah nar Rayya...did I do it right? I don't know what the custom is for humans..." she stopped when Alpha help up his hands again.

"You got it, a pleasure Tali" he said with a mock bow, "now I'm sure I've got a thousand other people to apologise to, so I better get to it" Alpha started to walk away from Tali who looked after him for a second before turning back to her console with a faint smile on her face. She sometimes loved her visor, it hid the furious colour her cheeks had gone, she wasn't used to aliens going out of their way just to apologise to her, most of the time they went out their way to insult her and try to get her in trouble. This was a nice change of pace.

-Meanwhile-

Alpha left engineering and scanned the cargo bay, he spotted out Garrus and made a B-line for the Mako where the Turian was standing, halfway there however he was stopped by an armoured arm across his chest, he gulped slightly and looked at Wrex, whom the arm belonged to.

"Hey Wrex, need something?" the large Krogan's mouth curled into a small smile briefly before he retained his previous hard-ass expression.

"Just thought I'd let you know that I enjoyed our little...sparring session earlier" the Krogan chuckled at that, "been a while since anyone's beaten me and they were all Krogan, I've never been beat by a human before, I'd call that a result if I were you, might not happen again, heh heh" Alpha crossed his arms and slouched casually.

"That so? Well maybe next time I can turn invisible to make it harder on you hmm?" he said with a smirk, the Krogan bellowed with laughter.

"Now you I like, you are defiantly a worthy opponent" the hulking Krogan slapped Alpha on the back which would have been a friendly gesture to another Krogan, to Alpha it took a lot of strength just to move as little as possible from the force. With that Wrex retreated back to his wall on the far side of the cargo bay and Alpha continued on towards Garrus, who'd watched the whole exchange.

"'Sup Garrus, thought I'd come and look at the tank" Alpha said with a smile, the Turian grumbled something about not scratching it and turned back to the windscreen, which had a large crack in it. "Well actually I didn't, I came to apologies for earlier" the Turian looked up at this and walked towards him menacingly.

"Did you really? And I suppose to a human that would be enough right? Well Turians have more pride than you lot do and being compared to an earth dog is defiantly pride denting" Garrus was breathing heavily by the time he'd finished, Alpha regarded the Turian and sighed.

"Ok well look at it this way, imagine being locked up underground for five years, and then think about the fact that three of those five were on your own. Then imagine that suddenly two aliens and a human just waltz up the front door and start demanding answers from you, how would you react to that?" Alpha stated simply, leaning back on the Mako. Garrus just stood in the same position he'd been in before, staring lasers into Alpha's eyes, then the Turian hunched his shoulders slightly and looked at the ground.

"I hadn't actually thought of it that way..." he trailed off, but Alpha wasn't done yet.

"Then you accuse _me_ of setting up the distress call as a trap so I could get of the planet? I know I can be a little mental but I'm not a monster, I had accepted the fact that I'd likely die down there long before you'd shown up, how do you think that made me feel about_ you_?" Alpha asked, looking Garrus dead in the face, not flinching when the Turian walked towards him again.

"I'm...sorry, I didn't think of it like that, and I guess you have a point" Alpha nodded and shook the hand which Garrus extended.

"Now why don't you tell me a little about the Mako, Shepard mentioned that it was something of an obsession of yours" Alpha smiled as Garrus' eyes lit up.

"Did she now? Well I guess you could say that" the Turian opened the hatch at the back of the tank and gestured Alpha inside before climbing in himself.

On the other side of the cargo bay Shepard smiled at Ashley knowingly, the Marine had called her down saying that it looked like Garrus was about to tear Alpha a new one, so she'd come down knowing already that it wouldn't come to that. She just wanted to make sure that she saw Ashley's reaction when it ended well, and it was worth it.


	4. Chapter 4- Citadel down time

**A/N: Hello there people of the forums, today I bring a new chapter with me. I hope you find it pleasing, now i'm going to calibrate my guitar...**

* * *

Alpha stood back in Engineering, he liked it here, it was quiet and secluded with a slight hum from the Engines, it was also warm and nobody was really passing through all that often. Occasionally Shepard would pass by to check on them, she seemed to spend a lot of time talking to Liara however so it was always a brief visit down to the grease deck. Alpha had been doing his best to communicate with other people, but it was difficult talking on a daily basis when the last few years of your life were spent alone, at least he and Garrus were kind of getting on now.

At this moment he became aware of a presence behind him, he took a deep breath and glanced over his shoulder, he caught a flash of purple before he looked down again.

"Yes Tali?" he asked without looking up again, meanwhile behind him Tali was starting to feel awkward.

"You've been running the same test all morning, you can take a break if you want to" Alpha smiled slightly at her concern before replying.

"Trial and error my friend, trial..." he moved some of the run times around "and..." then tried to up the output without success "error" he finished, pushing himself away from the console suddenly and rolling his neck, "does feel nice to stand up straight though, if I'm like this to long I might not want to bend over again" he turned to look at Tali, who looked away, "Do you always do that? Look away from people when they look at you? Or is it tradition amongst your people?" Tali jumped slightly and looked at him again.

"Sorry...I didn't mean to offend you, I can go back to my console if you didn't want to talk", she tried to move away but Alpha caught her arm.

"It didn't offend me, it's just a little odd is all. You avoid looking at me like the plague when you try and talk to me, and then you get afraid of offending me" Tali fidgeted slightly before, dropping her shoulders slightly and turning around.

"I didn't make a total fool of myself did I? Damn I must have looked stupid" she scolded herself quietly, looking up when she heard Alpha laughing.

"Sorry...I..." he doubled over, Tali could feel the heat in her cheeks again "Oh lord...you know you worry way too much right? It's really funny to watch" Alpha cleared his throat loudly and looked back at Tali who had returned to fidgeting, "And the fidgeting too? Again hilarious" he chuckled slightly when Tali seemed to clamp her hands together in an attempt to still them. "Anyway was there something you wanted to talk about, I'm sure me laughing at you is getting a little old" he said with a grin, which seemed to have become his trade mark, it wasn't far off ear-to-ear.

"I was just wondering where you learnt so much about engineering...It isn't as common among Humans as it is with my people" she said while doing her best to look at Alpha, he seemed to think about the answer.

"Well, a few years back...quite a few years back...I helped construct a dreadnaught, so I guess you could say I have an idea about what I'm talking about" he said with a shrug.

"But this is a frigate, and a really advanced one...you can't have known everything about this drive core because it's experimental and yet you can clean up the systems almost as well as..." she hesitated "well any Quarian" Tali said simply, Alpha regarded her with a serious look on his face, the first time he'd looked serious since he'd apologised to her yesterday.

"Don't sell yourself short" he said with a knowing smile.

" What? I wasn't talking about..." Alpha gave her a look and she gave in "I'm nothing special, we need to know about stuff like this on the fleet otherwise we're just a third wheel" Tali explained, she had gone back to wringing her hands again.

Alpha though for a moment before lowering his voice so only Tali could hear, "Mhm, so explain to me why Adams gives you all that praise then, you're a huge asset, Tali. No matter what you think we'd be a lot worse off without you around" Alpha stated before looking at the ground, he wasn't very good at this soft stuff. Tali was shocked, her eyes were wide underneath her mask, nobody had ever said anything like that to her before.

"You mean it? I...well I try my best...but Adams is very good at what he does..." Alpha put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"There you go again, just realise that you're good at what you do, and nobody on this ship could replicate half the stuff you do" he took his hand away and stretched again, breathing out while he did so, then he looked back to Tali who still regarding him with the same expression. "What? Don't you ever get compliments?" he said with a smirk.

"Not from anyone who isn't Quarian, and even then I have a lot of expectations to live up to" Tali looked at the floor, "being the daughter of an Admiral made sure of that" she finished.

"Wait you're an Admirals daughter? I would have thought you would have had it made, you know larger room and more money" Alpha said with his grin returning.

"What? No! Everyone on the fleet has to prove themselves, nobody 'has it made'" she put emphasis on those words, they didn't role off her tongue easily "every Quarian has to go on the pilgrimage regardless of their parents, it's only the expectations that change, and I've got a lot on my shoulders" she said with a sigh.

"Well I'm not the only one who needs a break then, next time we hit the Citadel meet me in the airlock, I'll show you something that's good for taking your mind of things" he said with a smile and a wink before spinning round to look at his console, "Now we should probably look busy at least, Adams might have our heads if we dawdle for too long" he said, raising his voice slightly so Adams could hear, the Engineer in question simply grumbled under his breath and continued what he'd been doing.

Tali looked at the back of Alpha's head for a second before turning to walk back to her own console, her head was spinning. Nobody had ever given her a compliment like that before, so far Alpha had been kind to her...well apart from their first meeting, but she could understand that, and the thought of relaxing a little was definitely appealing, she found herself looking forward to it.

* * *

- In orbit around The citadel-

Garrus stood in the mess and contemplated eating something, he was hungry...but then again he could eat something better on the Citadel, which would probably stay in stomach for at least a few hours longer. He may not even have to clean the toilet with his tongue afterwards. He sighed, resolving to wait until he found something in the presidium, it wouldn't take that long to get there either, maybe if he cut a few corners. He looked up when he heard talking behind him, Tali and Alpha were starting to make their way to the airlock, 'couldn't hurt to go with someone right?' he thought, then he made his decision and jogged up the stairs to catch the other two.

"Hold on you two", he panted a little when he caught up "thought I may as well come with you...at least as far as the Presidium anyway" he said with a subtle change in his sub harmonics which suggested it would probably be for longer.

"Yeah alright Garrus, you didn't have to beg" Alpha said with a grin, Garrus mimicked a mock offended stance.

"Turians don't beg, we normally just do, you're lucky I even told you first" he said with his mandibles flaring into a smile. Alpha laughed before turning.

"Yeah I bet you don't, now come on! Tali said something about Joker getting a better view of the citadel than you got in the Civilian shuttles, and I'd like to see if she was right" he said while moving towards the cockpit, leaving Garrus to shake his head to himself for a moment before following.

"Sup Alpha? Come to admire my wonderful flying?" Joker turned in his chair to look at the trio who'd invaded his personal zone.

"Oh yeah, of course. I'd love front row seats for when you accidentally fly into the Destiny Ascension" Alpha shot back, grinning when the pilot scoffed.

"Who the hell could even do that? You'd normally get stopped by flight path protocol before you get within twenty K of that thing" Joker said, now looking out the front again.

"Yeah there is that, but you know that an Asari flies that thing right?" Garrus chipped in from behind.

"What and she'd be paying attention? Hah!" Joker snorted loudly, the Normandy swung around a bit of purple space dust and came to face the Citadel, Alpha's jaw dropped. It must have been the way that light behind the station framed the Presidium ring so well, and the way the council tower stood proudly at the centre of it.

"It's not bad" he said eventually, which got a look from Tali which said 'that's it?' "well when I say not bad, it's kind of awe inspiring isn't it?" he said, looking out the view port and watching the massive station get closer. "Mind the Ascension Joker!" he shouted suddenly, the pilot swerved sharply to the right, thinking he'd been blind-sided, he only realised he'd been had when he saw Alpha trying not to laugh to loudly.

"Really? I just fell for that? Damn I need to brush up on my piss taking" he said with a grin which was almost as wide as Alpha's.

"Yes Joker, yes you do" Alpha finished, now gazing back out towards the Citadel again.

After completing the docking procedure the Normandy docked in the Alliance docking bay near C-sec and the crew and ground team arranged themselves at the airlock, waiting for Shepard to let them off. Liara arrived saying that Shepard gave them the go ahead and everyone made a rush for the doors, some of the younger members cheering when they disembarked making an immediate B-line for the elevator down to C-sec academy to see friends and some going down there because they didn't want to take a sky car.

Alpha, Tali and Garrus, however, did want to take a Sky car to the presidium, as they waited they engaged in trivial conversation about some of latest crashes Shepard had been in with the Mako, the most spectacular of which included a Geth colossus and a lot of Rocket troops. When the Sky car arrived they all pilled in, with Garrus taking the controls and directing the three towards the presidium. When they flew over the exit from C-sec Alpha pointed out the window towards the slightly shrunken Normandy crew making their way towards flux, some of them with off-duty C-sec officers in tow. Garrus smirked and put the Sky car down at the embassy reception, gesturing that the other two should get out.

"Where you off then Garrus?" Alpha asked with a large grin on his face "who's the lucky Cabal then?" Garrus scoffed.

"Even if there was one, it'd be none of your damn business, but seeing as you asked so nicely I'm starving so I'm going to go and fix that" with that he closed the door on the car, Alpha and Tali stood and watched him pull off.

"Touchy subject?" Alpha said sidelong to Tali after a while, she put her head in her hand and sighed sarcastically, that soon gave way to full blown laughter shared by both of them. Eventually Alpha tapped Tali on the shoulder and gestured towards the bridge which connected the Embassy district with the financial district and began to walk at a leisurely pace towards it, hands in pockets and relaxed in posture. Tali caught up easily before he reached the bridge, she gave him a questioning look which was completely lost on Alpha who couldn't see her eyebrow also he wasn't looking either, he was looking towards the 'sky' and breathing in fresh air, it was only when Tali coughed politely that Alpha looked down at her.

"Yes Tali?" he said, he sounded like a parent answering a child in the car, when the child asks 'are we there yet' or when said child pulls on the parents sleeve.

"What exactly is this thing you were going to show me?" she asked sweetly, trying not to sound like she was getting impatient, which she was.

"Hold on! Damn you are really impatient today" Alpha said loudly, seeing straight through her ploy, "Here" he said suddenly stopping half way over the bridge and leant on the rail, looking into the water below, Tali didn't understand what she was looking at.

"So is there...fish or something down there?" she asked, trying to see what Alpha was looking at, he sighed and pointed.

"Look at the water, then pick out a single ripple in the surface and follow it until it fades, then look at the sprinkler in the middle, watch the droplets hit the surface" he paused to let her take that in, "while you're doing this take deep breaths in, and then exhale through your nose and think about something you find calming, I like to construct a circle in my head but you might like to do something completely different" he finished, going back to looking silently down at the water.

Tali did what he said, watching ripples and droplets, she imagined taking apart something mechanical in her head and then putting it back together again, she did this while breathing slowly and steadily. She had to admit it was relaxing, she looked over at Alpha briefly to see if he was still doing the same, but he was looking straight ahead now with a distant look in his eyes, he looked almost on the verge of crying, but not distraught, more happy or moved.

"Is something wrong?" she asked despite of this, better safe than sorry, Alpha held up a hand to placate her but didn't look back, she didn't stop looking at him, a smile was slowly growing across his face, but she couldn't see why, she tried to see what he was looking at but there was nothing in front of them really, apart from a few trees and more water, eventually Alpha sighed and looked at her.

"I get this thing called earworm, it's when I can hear music in my head without listening to it, it's a phenomenon amongst humans, most find it annoying but I love it. If it's in my head then it means something to me, stirs emotion you know?" Tali had no idea, but she kind of understood, "it was about the only thing that kept me going for those years alone, there was this bit of surgical tubing in the room where you found me, I thought about hanging myself more than once, but my earworm kept me alive..." he trailed off, looking back out across the water again, it was obvious to Tali that he didn't want to talk about his time in the facility, she expected he would have done it already if he did.

She hadn't ever really had the opportunity to listen to any music either, there was the ancestral music of her people, which was played at gatherings but apart from that she didn't associate it to anything.

"When we get back I'll see if I can find what I was thinking of, if I sing it I'll break glass" he joked, standing up from the railing and turning to look at her. "For now though, I'm pretty sure we can find you something better than those nutrient paste tubes for you to eat" with that he moved off again, moving towards the sky car lot.

-Later-

The crew had returned to the Normandy a few hours ago, the ship having been refuelled and restocked with Medi-gel and rations, plus some nutrient tubes Alpha had picked up for Tali, Garrus had picked up dome Dextro meals for himself as well, fearing for his stomach if he had to keep eating the same crap day in day out.

Tali had returned to engineering as soon as they'd got back but she hadn't seen Alpha, he'd gone off to the mess with Garrus and Kaiden, they were talking about sniper rifles which wasn't a specialist subject of Kaiden's but to his credit he stuck with it, chipping in whenever he could.

Alpha was sitting at the long table in the mess hall, looking something up on his Omni-tool, Garrus was sitting across from him, nursing a drink mixed from some of the fruit which grew in Palaven's highest reaches. Eventually he spoke up, having watched Alpha scrolling for some time.

"What are you looking for? You've been at that for a while" he stated, taking a swig of his drink.

"Hmm? Well if you must know" Alpha looked up but didn't power off his Omni-tool "I'm looking for the words to a song I was thinking of earlier, I couldn't remember all of them" he said before getting back down to searching again, after a while he made a noise and started tapping on his screen, occasionally stopping on certain articles and pulling them up before going back again. "There we go! Damn it takes a while to find that, I forgot nobody has any taste anymore" he said with a scowl, Garrus flared his mandibles in a grin before downing the rest of his drink and standing up, stretching his back.

"You coming? I better get back" he said, already moving towards the elevator, Alpha waved him off.

"Yeah yeah, I'll be down in a minute" he looked up with his signature grin, "that Mako isn't going calibrate itself, am I right?" he said, Garrus threw his arms in the air and yelled out in mock frustration before rounding the corner, Alpha laughed at him and returned to the message he was composing, he eventually finished and smiled to himself.

* * *

-Meanwhile-

Tali was still in Engineering, finishing some work Adams had given her in order to prep the Normandy for takeoff, she was just finishing up when her Omni-tool beeped, she finished the process she was doing and brought it up. It was a message from Alpha, it read:

Tali,

You know what I mentioned earlier? About the earworm? Well this is the song that was in my head, well the words to it anyway, it's quite old by today's standards.

A vision of you there, standing tall

By the gate

Everything is new, Stare into

What is not, yet

As your bones grow, and you feel the pain

In exchange

Experiences hang, run round your mind

And collide

Hang your toes, over the edge

Cause you can

You can switch your place, Hide inside

If you try

You'll open up your eyes, realize, how you fit

In the wild

A lion is a lion, no apologies

And a leash, is a leech

In a corral, you're safe and warm

Pass it on to, Every Sheep

Time and time again, you stick yourself,

to accept, someone else

Give up the wish, let go of the dream

barricade, fantasy

Burn the dogma, let the fire

Overtake, the desire, to define

(I will find a way to keep this moment)What's raging

(For myself I will find a way)Out of control, Like a wheel  
(I will find a way)Like a storm(To keep this moment for myself)Like a virus(I will find a way)Like an ocean, Like a silence

(I will find a way)An emotion(To keep this moment for myself)Like a darkness(I will find a way)Like a chance  
An idea(I will find a way)Like a verb, like an outrage(To keep this moment for myself)Like a sunrise, like a monster(I will find a way)

Like a monster, Like a Mantra, Like a mantra

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**A/N: The song at the End there was called Mantra, from the Sound-city album.**


	5. Chapter 5-Feros

**A/N: Oh me oh my two chapter in one day? What is this?**

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"Alright crew Listen up, we're headed to Feros to look into Geth activity there" Shepard began "the colony we're going to is called Zhu's Hope, which is a part of the local Exo-Geni firm, I'm not sure what to expect so all of arm up, get you gear" Shepard took a breath and looked up at the ceiling "Joker what's the ETA?" she said waiting for a reply.

"Hitting Feros in thirty minutes, commander" came the reply.

"Alright you heard the man thirty minutes" Shepard repeated, at that the ground team began to file out of the briefing room, "Alpha, could you stay back I minute?" the man in question turned to look at Shepard and nodded, returning to the middle of the room.

"What's up Shepard?" he asked when he got there.

"Just wondering if you have your armour and weapons yet" she asked innocently, to which Alpha snorted.

"What? Do you think I'm half sharp or something?" Alpha smirked at the look Shepard gave him "Yes I have, I went to some dealers on the citadel yesterday, picked up enough to be getting on with, but it didn't bankrupt me" he finished, scratching a patch on his arm.

"Well then, go and grab whatever you bought then get back up on deck, I'm going to put you skill to the test with a team" Shepard fixed Alpha with a stern look "no lone wolf stuff, got it? You have to work with people here" She said, all business now.

"Don't worry about it Shepard, I wouldn't want anything to gyp Garrus now would I?" he said with a grin, which was replaced by a face-palm when Shepard raised her eyebrow, "We wouldn't want the horrible monsters to come and run off with him, now would we?" he said again, replacing the word Shepard didn't understand, She laughed softly before waving him off and turning away. She needed to plan a rout to the Exo-Geni HQ.

Alpha turned and left the room, smiling to himself, he'd been itching for a chance to test out his new gear ever since he got hold of it. He almost ran down to his locker, and he would have done if his excitement wasn't sapped away by the slow elevator ride, he exited the elevator and moved towards the rest of the ground team, who were arming up and checking their weapons one final time. Alpha jogged past them, nodding to anyone who looked his way and began strapping on his armour, it wasn't anything special but it wasn't any of that form fitting crap, it was black with two red stripes down the middle, for weapons he'd gone for a Reaper sniper rifle and a Kessler pistol, he'd been improving the sighting on his sniper rifle all night, it now had a thermal vision option on the scope and an optical zoom feature, which he tested a few times to make sure it worked.

Garrus sidled over to see what he was doing, groaning when he saw the thermal switch, "How the hell did you do that?" he paused before correcting himself "scratch that, how did you get the stuff you need to do that?" Alpha looked at him sidelong and gave Garrus a grin, then tapped his nose.

"For me to know and you", he poked Garrus in the chest, "to find out Vakarian" he chuckled and walked towards the elevator, giving Tali a one movement wave as he passed her. Garrus stood and watched him go, resolving to corner him later and make him give up his secret, he doubted it would result in much but it might make him feel better about it. He shook himself out of his daydream and jogged to catch Alpha in the elevator before he left, he couldn't be bothered to wait.

Alpha grinned at him when he entered at hit the button to take the elevator up with some force, when Garrus gave him a questioning look he said "Makes it feel like it's going faster". When the two arrived at the crew deck Shepard was waiting for them in full combat gear, she cocked her head slightly when she saw Alpha.

"Not bankrupting yourself eh?" she said simply, laughing when Alpha raised his arms in the air and mumbled something about equipment Nazis. The three of them moved towards the airlock together, Shepard was running through the plan of action with them: Alpha, Garrus and Ashley would secure the perimeter of the colony, making sure nothing got through while Shepard was inside, Shepard and Kaiden would take Wrex to the clear out the Geth inside the colony while Tali and Liara would help out the people in the colony in any way they could. Alpha had to say he liked the plan, and also admitted that he would get the opportunity to cause some mischief with Garrus, which would mostly be Garrus getting the piss taken out of him.

Once the rest of the team had assembled Shepard explained the same plan to them as well, everyone understood what they had to do by the time they reached Feros, Shepard went and stood behind Joker while he took them into dock at Zhu's hope. Alpha stood at the back at the group, who were all talking about what kind of resistance Shepard was expecting if she wanted to take all of them, he didn't like talking in big groups before combat, he liked to stand and think about stuff which was usually punctuated by earworm but that he could live with.

Shepard returned to the group when the ship was docked and told the ground team to get ready, the colony looked surprisingly desolate through the view ports, Alpha drew his pistol and checked the heat sync, everything was in place, the barrel extended properly and the firing mechanism was in the same prime it had been in yesterday. The airlock door opened and Shepard stepped out first, she moved down the walkway in an eerie silence, then footsteps could be heard from the other end of the walkway, steadily getting louder. The team got ready to deal with the docking officials when suddenly three Geth platforms appeared from around the corner, weapons drawn and red lights shining.

"Take 'em out!" Shepard shouted, already moving behind cover and drawing her assault rifle, to her surprise, and to the surprise of many of the team, Wrex and Alpha kept moving both picking up speed as they moved, Alpha moved underneath the first Geth's plasma fire and caught its rifle as it attempted to swing the rifle into his head, swinging its own rifle out of the Geth's hand and firing five shots into the platforms optical unit, sending it flying over the edge because of the close range.

Meanwhile Wrex was having fun with the other two platforms, he'd charged the closest one and snapped the Geth's gun in half against a metal box before picking up that very same Geth unit and hurling it into its brethren, he was just now stomping on the second Geth's flashlight to stop it from trying to claw at his leg. The hulking Krogan then turned to Alpha who was grinning like a maniac at him, he moved over and fist bumped the human before both of the them turned to look at the rest of the ground team who were just staring at the two of them, mostly Alpha.

"What?" Alpha said after the staring was beginning to get awkward, "never seen a Geth patrol get its ass whipped before?" he remarked with the same grin, Ashley spoke up.

"Yeah, but not like that" she began to examine Alpha from behind the safety of her crate, "where'd you learn to move like that" she asked with an expression only a confused Marine could posses.

"Well there's a funny story there" Alpha started moving towards Ashley before stopping and grinning "it involves being shut underground for five years" he said slyly, Garrus clicked his tongue.

"Damn and here I was expecting something interesting" he teased, mandibles flaring.

"Laugh it up Vakarian" Alpha replied with a grin.

"If you two are finished now, we'd better get a move on" Shepard interrupted before it went any further "come on".

With that the group began to make their way towards the colony itself.

-30 minutes later-

After fighting their way through a lot of Geth the team made it to the colony, as soon as the 'leader' of sorts gave them permission to come in the team set about the tasks they'd been assigned, Alpha and Garrus moved to cover the main entrance alone after Shepard decided that Ashley would be more useful helping the colony get underway again. They reached the outer wall of the colony and started a routine they planned of patrolling the inside of the colony until Shepard took the Mako out Exo-Geni, that way nothing would get in or out.

"Alright Garrus, let's get started, keep up the comm. Link and shout if you get anything" Alpha stated, when he got a nod from Garrus he gave the Turian a wave and started walking in the other direction. He walked around the inside of the wall, looking around at any hint of movement, he'd done this type of stuff before, coincidently it was the last time he'd been on a colony, his squad had been at it for hours until relief arrived, he hoped that it wouldn't be the case this time, he'd prefer to keep whatever little was left of his sanity.

He was outside the tower entrance when he caught a glimpse of movement inside the tower itself, he radioed the Garrus, or tried to. There was a communications scrambler active somewhere, he swore and moved into the tower, scanning every corner with his pistol before peering around the corner and up the stairs, there was nothing in sight and he didn't want to risk going up there without backup, he sighed and left the tower, continuing the way he'd been going.

He caught sight of Tali fiddling with a power cell next to a generator, trying to splice the two power supplies together to get the power back on, while she was doing this Alpha was pretty sure that Shepard and her team were just staring to make their way to Exo-geni HQ. He walked up next to Tali without her noticing and saw immediately what she was doing wrong.

"It might help if you used the right wire" Tali jumped out of her skin and looked up quickly, when she saw Alpha she felt herself blushing violently, 'how long had he been standing there?'

"Kellah...don't do that, you scared me" she said kicking Alpha in the shin, he laughed and lent back on his leg.

"So are you going to use that wire there?" he asked cheekily "or are you going to keep using that one" Alpha replied nudging the wire he was referring to with his foot, Tali looked at it and frowned.

"How can it be that one? It doesn't even go to the generator", Alpha laughed quietly and knelt down next to her.

"If that one doesn't go to the generator where does the one you're fiddling with go to?" he asked with his grin returning. Tali followed the wire she was using with her finger.

"I'm sure that this wire...goes...to...oh Bosh'tet!" she swore loudly, realising that Alpha was actually right.

"Told you so" Alpha teased, nudging Tali gently with his elbow, Tali made several frustrated noises before hitting Alpha on the arm.

"Go away before you can correct me on anything else" she said with mock anger, pushing Alpha slightly who then got his feet and started to move away, before turning back and lifting his finger.

"Just a suggestion, but why don't you turn the power cell around too" he said moving his raised finger to point at the power cell, Tali started to turn the power cell.

"There" she said once she'd done that "anything else" she said with semi-mocked annoyance, she paused for thought when she saw Alpha grin.

"Yeah one more thing, if you look up it says Gullible on the ceiling" he said with a straight face, then fell to his knees with laughter when Tali looked up and then realised she'd been had, and looked back at Alpha with a glare that could melt icecaps.

"Very funny...Bosh'tet" she mumbled before waving off Alpha who was just starting to regain his composure enough to stand up. He gave her an over-polite wave then bowed as he moved away, Tali watched him, shaking her head and sighing at his antics before continuing what she had been doing, with a different wire this time.

Alpha continued to move around the colony at the same leisurely pace, glancing around corners and nodding to colonists, he could hear shouting from the other side of the building he was walking next to. He picked up the pace slightly, hoping to stop whatever was going on before someone got hurt, he rounded the corner and smiled when he saw two colonists arguing about something, his smile disappeared when one of them spotted him and waved him over.

"Maybe you can help, there are Geth in the tunnels and they have a communication scrambler" the colonist reported, throwing in that last bit to make to the plea sound more genuine.

"Wait they have a scrambler in the tunnels? Can you tell me exactly where it is?" Alpha asked quickly, looking around to see if Garrus was visible, which he wasn't.

"No we can't there were way too many Geth down there for me to get a exact fix on where it is, you're going to have to go down there" the colonist was about to continue when Garrus rounded the corner behind them, Alpha waved him over.

"What's up Alpha? Debating with the locals" Garrus asked with mock interest.

"Yeah actually we were just talking about the weather, doesn't it seem nice tod-no I'm not ass-hat, there's a comm. Scrambler underneath us somewhere and we need to go and find it in case Shepard decides to tell us how awesome we are over the radio" he said quickly, not giving Garrus time to retort because this was important.

"Well alright then, you only had to ask" the look Garrus got suggested that now was no longer the time "well come on then, it's not going to disable itself now is it?" the Turian said while turning towards where he thought the tunnels were, Alpha called him back.

"Where're you going, tunnels are this way!" he called, Garrus turned around glaring back the way Alpha was now walking.

-Meanwhile-

Tali watched Alpha and Garrus enter the tower which would take them down to the tunnels, she wondered what they were doing. According to the woman she'd acquired this job from there was nothing in the tunnels, that same woman also told Tali to not go down there which was odd considering that they were there to help them. She finished installing the new power supply and stood up, she'd been kneeling there for a little while so standing up was a definite improvement.

She decided that doing Alpha's security patrols would be the most useful thing she could until the other two got back, she was sure Ashley would fine getting Varen meat on her own, it was only Varen after all. She pulled her shotgun off her back and checked it over, there was still nothing wrong with it, same as before. She hoped that Shepard would get back soon, some of the colonists were giving her funny looks when she passed, not looks of distain or anything like that, they were just staring at her, watching her.

She doubled her pace around the outer walls, hoping to get to a section of it where they couldn't see her, or at least she couldn't see them. Suddenly she heard a noise, it sounded like something old opening, like the noise you get from a disused airlock. Her curiosity sparked as she rounded the next corner and saw the colonists move away from the middle building with the power generator inside. She moved a little closer and saw something move inside the building, something green looking, it wasn't moving very fast either.

She drew her shotgun and moved closer, avoiding looking at the colonists who were now focusing their attention on her again, as she drew even closer she heard the mechanical whir of something being drawn, one of the colonists was holding a pistol and pointing it at her. She brought her shotgun around to point it at the colonist, only to find the others drawing weapons too, some of them even had assault rifles, she was so focused on the colonists that she didn't notice the shambling green figure closing in behind her until it groaned. She spun round, and almost froze up when she saw it and then something else occurred to her, 'if Shepards at the facility, and Garrus and Alpha are in the tunnels, and Ashley's getting Varen meat that makes me the only one up here!' the realisation caused her to start going back towards the tower that led back to the Normandy, slowly and carefully. She hadn't got more than three steps before the green figure growled and made a lunge for her, she pulled the trigger of her shotgun on instinct causing the thing to catapult backwards and into the same building it had come out of.

The colonists suddenly turned violent and opened fire, she had nowhere to go and no cover to run to, the arms fire was rapidly depleting her shielding and she still had no cover, she turned and ran back towards the docking port entrance where she knew there was cover, but she was too slow, one of the rounds passed through her shielding and struck her in the back, she screamed as she lost her footing and went sprawling, opting to drag herself into cover instead of standing up, she was just about to get behind cover when she felt another round go through her upper thigh, she cried out and pulled herself behind the nearest piece of cover available to her. She couldn't move, nor could she radio for help, it wasn't looking good. She was panicking now, she didn't even think to put Medi-gel on her wounds, she was losing blood fast on top of that. She was actually Blacking out but she couldn't think properly due to the blind panic she was in.

-In the tunnels-

Alpha and Garrus were just about to disable the scrambler when Alpha stopped dead and stopped Garrus with an arm, when the Turian tried to ask what was wrong Alpha put a finger over his lips and shushed Garrus. He went back to listening, gunfire! It sounded like gunfire! Who was left at the colony? Ashley and Tali, they'd need help if it was Geth, Alpha was already running before Garrus could ask him what was going on, he was about to follow when Alpha turned around so he was walking backwards.

"Something's happening back at the colony and there's only two of them left up there. Disable the scrambler and then come back, I can handle it until then" with that Alpha was running again, before Garrus could reply.

As Alpha ran down the corridors the gunfire got louder and louder progressively, he hoped that it wasn't the colonists turning hostile because the other two would never see that coming, he hadn't taken that into account until just then himself. As he rounded the last corner he caught his first glimpse of the crossfire he'd have to wade through, it looked awfully one-sided, the weight of fire coming from the left of the door was immense whereas the weight of fire coming from the right was...there wasn't any. Oh crap.

Alpha activated his cloak and started running at full speed towards the end of the passageway, pausing briefly at the end to look for the best route to cover, he spotted a good one. 'If I climbed over that rubble and over the building while cloaked I'd be safe from the crossfire, yeah that works' he thought before swinging into action, climbing up a pile of rubble to his right and pulling himself onto the building next to it, he ran across the top and jumped down the other side.

He scanned the cover in front of him for anything that resembled return fire, upon seeing none he moved forward again, looking behind every piece of rubble and behind every barricade, then he saw it. There was a blood trail coming from about ten yards away and disappearing behind a barricade on the other side of this clearing, timing his run perfectly he got across the open ground and dived behind a pillar which was lying on its side. The sight that he saw next made him stop for a second, Tali was slouched against the Barricade to his right, she was bleeding from two places and more importantly she wasn't moving.

"Oh fuck!" he swore loudly over the gunfire and slid over to the Quarian, already trying to rouse her by shaking her by the shoulder, "Tali? Tali can you hear me?" nothing "Damnit", he swore again as a round exploded against the piece of rubble next to his head. He had to get her out of here and onto the Normandy, she was in a bad way as it was. He applied Medi-gel where he could before dragging her away from the Barricade, before he reached the tower his cloak deactivated, the stream of fire now had a new target. He couldn't use his sniper while dragging Tali so he drew his pistol and fired a few rounds at the colonists in an attempt to suppress them, it almost worked as some of the colonists were forced down otherwise they would have a had a new mouth to work with.

When he got around the corner he picked Tali up carefully and carried her towards the Normandy, he could only just reach his earpiece and hoped Garrus was competent enough to disable the scrambler by himself, "Normandy this is Alpha do you read?" he said urgently down the radio hoping that A) it worked and B) Joker took the seriousness in his voice as a prompter to get his ass in gear.

"We read you Alpha, what's up?" Jokers voice came over the radio, Alpha was pretty sure he was an Atheist but even then he couldn't help but offer a silent prayer to Ghandi.

"I need the Med-bay sterilised and ready to take Tali, she's got two bullet wounds" he almost shouted that down the radio because he was doing three things at once, four if you counted talking.

"Got it I'll notify Chakwas, I'll open the airlock for you too" Joker replied, Alpha breathed a small sigh of relief and then went back to concentrating on not dropping Tali. He burst through the airlock a few seconds later, running towards the door to go down to the crew deck, he looked down into Tali's mask to see two white orbs looking back at him, they were wide and scared looking.

"Hey Tali, almost there, you're going to make it just" he had to take a breath because he was going down the stairs "hang on" he finished, he rounded the corner and saw that Chakwas and her team were already waiting to receive Tali, he ran through the door and placed her on the medical bed at the centre of the room. She was still awake when he put her down, "You'll be fine Ok?" was the last thing he said before the surgeons closed in a circle around her and began to try and save her life.

Alpha went and sat in the mess hall, he stared at the table and didn't notice as it seemed to be drawing nearer to his eyes, just before sleep overtook him he realised that it had been almost three months since he'd last slept.


	6. Chapter 6-Out of action

__**A/N: Hello everyone, how have you all been? Good? That's great, here I have a new chapter for you...yeaah**

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_He was falling, falling through darkness suffocating red lights...lasers._

_There were voices, their voices...but who's voices were they? He knew them but could not place them, blood in the dirt. Explosion...falling...scientist...sterile white walls, cold metal...wet floor, but not water...something else...something crimson, but darker than human, darker and belonging to someone, someone he cared for...but who would that be...the voices returning, whispering to him, fading in and out like the waves on the beach back home, but who's voices were they? _

_They drew closer whispering "What makes you so special, why you? What are you doing there? You should be dead, just like the rest of us...you left us to die, didn't you. You gave up and lived, we DIED FIGHTING" the whispering turned into a yell, sounding like it was right next his ear, "HOW COULD YOU LEAVE US, WE WERE YOUR CREW. YOUR'S TO PROTECT! YOU'RE A COWARD, YOU SHOULD BE DEAD!" the voice was deafening, cutting through the peace of his mind, breaking down his barriers, ripping through his head and into his eyes, now he could see them, the squad leader taking that last bullet, the young soldier taking a bullet to the head...playing over and over in his head without reprise._

_Then he saw his old friends, smiling at him at the bar they used to go to...on Earth. At home...he reached out towards them, to ask them to shield him from the torment in his head. His friends disappeared at his touch, leaving him alone...red eyes...glowing red eyes...more voices but this time inside his head...not outside it...a faint humming, like a bird back on earth...then a violent mechanical roar...no humming...silence...then another voice, familiar...faint, touch that wasn't inside his head...shaking...anger...hate...'resistance is futile...doomed to failure'...need to hurt...to kill...who was shaking him, talking in his ears? Warm feeling...happiness...new belonging...friend._

_He woke up._

Alpha slowly opened his eyes, the voices in his head were still there but he suppressed them with earworm, he was even more tired than he'd been when he fell asleep. Something else was wrong though, he couldn't place what it was, then he looked up and saw Garrus looking at him with a worried expression evident in his mandibles' stillness.

"You alright? You looked a little distant there for a second" Garrus said as quietly as he could, trying not to draw attention to them.

"I'm fine" Alpha said, standing up and stretching "you shouldn't worry about me so much Garrus, I'd start to think you cared a little" he joked feebly, Garrus chuckled along but even he could see something wasn't quite right, Alpha smiled at the ground before turning towards the elevator. "I'd better get back to engineering before Adams has my head, I expect Tali's been...covering for...Oh crap Tali!" Alpha whirled back around and faced Garrus, "is she alright?" he asked eventually.

"She'll be fine", Garrus replied, "but it'll be harder for the doctors to fix her up if they keep having to sterilise the room" Alpha continued to stare at Garrus who's gaze didn't waver , "don't worry, Chakwas said she'd make it" Garrus carried on regardless. Alpha stared at him for a tense second more, Garrus half expecting that he'd storm the med by regardless.

"Yeah, you're right" Alpha conceded turning and making his way back to the table, sitting on it and putting his feet in a chair and his head in his hands, rubbing up and down. Garrus took a chair next to him and sighed, leaning on his elbows, he could easily tell something was wrong. He hadn't know the man for that long, but he'd never looked this...distant before, even as he looked up at him Alpha was staring blankly at the wall in front of him.

"So, are you going to tell me what's up?" Garrus asked after a span of silence.

"It's nothing, a mistake I made" Alpha sat up, sighing heavily to himself. Garrus looked at Alpha sidelong, noting how deflated he seemed now. Just then the Med-bay doors opened again and Chakwas stepped out, her hands clasped behind her back which was, as far as Alpha was concerned, a bad sign.

"Tali will make a full recovery, but you can't come and see her yet" the older doctor smiled "I suggest you both leave her to it, we don't want to rush her. She's lucky you found her when you did Alpha, otherwise she would have lost too much blood" Chakwas finished, she looked at Alpha's downcast expression, frowning she looked at Garrus, who shook his head.

"I have reports to file" Chakwas excused herself and retreated back into the med-bay after a while.

"We better start working before Shepard finds us" Garrus slapped Alpha on the shoulder lightly, jarring Alpha out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, Adams will still have my head" Alpha replied, pushing himself off the table and turning towards the elevator.

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Adams wasn't particularly agitated by Alpha's absence, accepting that he was probably in the mess hall waiting for Chakwas to give a verdict, he hoped it wasn't bad. Tali was a damn hard worker if he ever saw one, always surprising him with her expertise with the drive core. But he didn't want to rush her recovery, and with the extra pair of hands the Alpha offered he was sure they would manage until she could return to work.

At that moment Alpha entered Engineering, walking quickly over to his console and starting it up, Adams walked up behind him and cleared his throat, Alpha turned his head to the side and inclined it when he noticed it was Adams.

"She's fine chief" he stated simply, now turning around to face Adams fully, "is there something else?" he asked, his voice neutral.

"Yes, can you cover for Tali as well? There isn't that much more for you to do on top of what you're doing already, but I'm sure you can handle it" Adams explained, Alpha nodded and turned around again.

"Yeah sure, just let me transfer some of her files and I'll get started" he said and started moving files around.

"Appreciate it" Adams said cheerfully, Alpha had just saved them a few hours work. He kept transferring the files, raising his eyebrows at some of the tests Tali had been running: Raising the peak draw levels, lowering heat emissions and trying to hide the blue shift, most of them were coupled together with notes, talking about successes and failures, adjustments she'd made and updates on progress. 'Well you've been busy...wait a minute' he brought up some of the diagnostics, moving some of her tests around, 'now let's see if you can take this' he started to fiddle around with the Blue shift emissions, raising the draw but re-routing some of the charge that resulted into the thrusters, that would mean that they would have to dump less, and more importantly less often. Alpha looked down at the screen, waiting for the results to come back, he almost laughed when they did, it had worked.

It occurred to him how close Tali had come to cracking it, 'trial and error' he thought with a smile, he called Adams back over, his grin returning.

"What's up Alpha?" Adams asked as he came over, looking over Alpha's shoulder to see what he was doing.

"Apart from awesomeness? Well I just lowered our Blue shift, but apart from that nothing really" he said with the same grin.

"What the...so you did...how did you do that?" Adams was dumbstruck.

"I didn't, well I did a bit but Tali did most of it, I was just looking through her files, saw that one of her tests wasn't far off working, and here we are. We can work it in next time we're out of FTL if you like" Alpha replied, smiling from ear to ear now.

"Well I'll be sure to thank her when I see her" Adams offered one of his rare smiles and returned to work, Alpha was still grinning.

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-One day later-

Tali had woken up a few hours prior to Alpha finishing his work in Engineering, Adams had eventually told him to go up to the crew deck after having watched Alpha fidget for the best part of an hour. Alpha left engineering and made his way into the elevator, still fidgeting as the elevator began its slow climb, it wasn't nervousness, more impatience that made him do so. The elevator door opened slowly, Alpha had to resist the urge to duck under it as it rose at about the same speed as the elevator itself. He walked briskly up to the Med-bay door and pressed the chime, wincing as the door opened and the decontamination cycle kicked in and caught him in the eye. He had taken no more than two steps through the door before Chakwas stood up and stood in front of him, baring his approach with the iron fist only a practiced doctor could posses.

"She's a little fragile at the moment, don't overwhelm her" she said carefully yet forcefully before sitting back down at her desk again, Alpha smiled and nodded before moving towards the prone form of Tali, she was surprisingly peaceful looking like this, not fidgeting or avoiding conversation, just lying still and looking up towards the ceiling. She hadn't noticed Alpha approaching yet, so he continued to do so quietly, grabbing a chair on his way. He set the chair down next to Tali and sat in it, settling down slightly now that he was here. He rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands out in front of him, "Hey Tali" he said eventually after deciding he'd sat there long enough, the silence was killing him.

Tali jumped slightly, turning her head to the side so she could see who it was, although she already knew.

"Hey" she replied quietly, Alpha smiled back at her, he was relieved that she sounded fairly normal, barring the change in dynamics.

"How're you feeling now? Took a hell of a hit on Feros" he said, keeping his voice down low, he could remember the blood trail, stuff like that was hard to forget though.

"I've got a fever, and my back hurts" Tali replied just as quietly, while trying to keep as much weight as possible off of her back, "all things considered I'm not all that bad really" she shrugged, Alpha looked at her with a strange expression on his face, then he started shaking slightly before breaking into hysterics.

"You're" he had to pause as another fit of laughter overtook him "not that bad?" he kept laughing before wiping at his eyes and snorting, "I wish HALF the marines I've met could take a hit to the back like that, and then just shrug it off" he finished, sighing happily before looking back up to Tali who was giggling slightly, although excess hysterics like what Alpha had just gone into would have probably been detrimental to her long term health.

"Well, with you and Wrex around" she laughed again, then paused and took a breath "thanks for coming by, I was starting to wonder if anyone would" Alpha made her start slightly when he grasped her forearm tightly and gave it a light squeeze.

"We didn't forget about you, don't worry" he said with a warm smile "Shepard asked us to get back to work and leave you to rest for a while, although by the sound of it" he laughed "it's lucky I have no regard for the rank system" he finished, letting go of Tali's arm. For a brief moment she wished he hadn't let go, it was nice to have someone around who at least cared a little.

"Thanks, that means a lot" she said, with a genuine smile which she hoped carried across in her voice, it seemed to because Alpha smiled back, before standing up, rolling his neck.

"Well I better get back to work, I have no idea how much grace Adams can give one person but I'm pretty sure I got my yearly allowance when he let me come up here" he said, moving the chair out of the way in case Chakwas needed to be on that side, "I'll come by later, I'm sure you'll be more 'up for it' then" he added with air quotations.

"Alright, sounds good" Tali replied, she could hear Alpha moving away, "And Alpha?" the footsteps stopped "thanks for coming by" she said.

"Anytime" Alpha replied simply, she heard the door shutting. She sighed and rolled over slightly, trying to take all of the weight off of her back, but only to find that now it was on her bad leg. She hissed and tried the other side, which was more comfortable but then she was looking directly at the door, she didn't want to look desperate. She eventually gave in and remained on that side, if anyone thought she looked desperate they could go to hell, they could try getting shot for a change.


	7. Chapter 7-Virmire

The team had been briefed already, the Normandy's crew and ground team knew what was at stake, they would be split into two teams, one team would go with Captain Kirrahe and the other would go with Shepard, Alpha was the sniper for Shepard's team. He would stay up high, providing cover fire when needed and staying hidden when the squad was moving inside.

The journey to Virmire had been un-eventful, there was the Mako drop which had become standard issue for the team now, there were Geth too. The amount of synthetics had staggered Alpha, Tali was even uneasy at their numbers in comparison to the STG team which had been depleted dramatically if the reports were to be believed. Shepard was just going the brief with the STG captain one last time before they set off, Alpha was sitting by the edge of the water, his helmet lying off to the side. He didn't like wearing helmets while in combat, but he had a feeling it would come in handy, he called it a hunch. Water was one of the many things Alpha found comforting, along with starry skies and long walks in the country, the second of those three was starting to get old however.

He looked up when he heard footsteps behind him, muted slightly by the sand but still audible, Tali sat down next to him and mimicked his gaze out over the water. He smiled at that, returning his eyes to the water himself, he thought of his friends back home, as he did every time there was a fight coming. They used to spend long nights by the river, talking about the everyday stuff, theorising about things, talking about all that was wrong with the galaxy. None of them understood prejudice, or why the Turians were blamed for the first contact war, it wasn't exactly Humanities fault either, but it was a mistake by both sides.

Tali sighed next to him, dropping her head to look down at the sand. A day earlier she was lying on a medical bed on the Normandy and now she was in a hot zone? Insane, by anyone's standards but nobody had protested when she said she was going to go with them. Alpha had given her a look though, she thought for a moment it was a concerned look but before she'd had time to think about it he'd dropped the expression and given her a nod. She looked at that same man now, he was humming to himself, she'd heard him do it before in Engineering and he would always have the same distant look on his face. Sometimes he'd be like that for an hour or more, but she knew he'd be ready when the time came to face the Geth, he always had been.

Alpha eventually breathed out and slumped backwards, lying on the sand and looking up at the sky, "Birds?" he asked, laughing in disbelief "they're stubborn, I'm surprised they haven't gone to some other part of the planet yet" he said, watching the birds circle and dive into the water in search of fish.

"I wouldn't know" Tali had only seen the birds on the citadel, and she had no idea where they'd come from "I haven't seen that many birds before" she admitted, Alpha threw her a look which she didn't notice.

"I can't imagine what that would be like, never seeing birds naturally I mean. They were everywhere around where I grew up, Red kites usually" his gaze grew distant again when he thought about home, Tali looked sideways at him 'he must really miss it' she thought, realising that she'd never seen Rannoch anywhere outside of vids.

Just then they heard a small commotion coming from behind them, Wrex and Shepard were shouting at each other but it wasn't the usual loud joking, it was something serious and everyone was looking at Wrex with worried looks on their faces. Then Wrex pulled out his shotgun and pointed it squarely at Shepard's chest, everyone flinched but nobody reacted. "Oh crap" Alpha said quietly he drew his sniper and rolled onto his stomach, raising the crosshair so it was level with the side of Wrex's head, he controlled his breathing and waited to see what was happened. Ashley was moving now, drawing her handgun while moving to stand behind Wrex, Garrus had his hand on the gun on his back to, Alpha could hear Tali shifting as well but he couldn't see her unless he moved his head. Shepard wasn't even flinching though, she stood her ground and spoke calmly while Wrex looked like he was about ready to tear a house apart with his bare hands.

"What is she doing?" Tali said quietly, it wasn't really a question. Alpha took another breath in when Wrex waved his arm around violently, Tali flinched but remained where she was.

"That Tali, is a good question" Alpha replied eventually, they didn't have time for this. Saren could at this very moment be readying his army of Krogan...'oh that's what he's so pissed about' Alpha realised, he was arguing about the cure for the Genophage which Saren had dreamt up. "Keep an eye on him, tell me if he moves" Alpha said quietly to Tali before standing up and moving around to his left, he needed a better shot on the Krogan's head if he wanted to kill him outright, which he didn't want to do, but this was bigger than one Krogan.

"Alpha!" Tali called from behind him, he span around and brought his rifle up to his shoulder. Wrex was moving towards Shepard now, shotgun still out and ready to fire, Alpha squeezed his trigger slightly while dropping down to one knee for stability. Wrex then roared and charged at Shepard, Alpha pulled his trigger at the same time as Ashley pulled hers, two rounds of varying velocity impacted at the same time into the back and side of Wrex's head, the Krogan fell instantly, dropping into the sand.

"Damnit! What the fuck was that?" Alpha shouted from the other side of the open beach. Tali was staring in disbelief and Garrus was walking towards Shepard, Liara came around the corner to see what all the commotion was and stopped when she saw Wrex, she looked at Alpha who was still holding his sniper and then to Ashley who was just now holstering her pistol. Alpha looked towards Tali who hadn't moved yet, he put his rifle on his back and approached her, putting a hand on her shoulder when he reached her. She looked at him for a moment, eyes wide, Alpha mentally swore at himself before pulling her in and hugging her, she didn't move or react she just leant her head on his shoulder and stared into it. Alpha couldn't help but feel a little awkward, but he didn't know what else he could have done apart from walk away, which wouldn't have been right.

"What was wrong with him? She asked after a while" pulling back from Alpha's shoulder, breaking the hold he had on her.

"I don't know, I don't think he could see past Saren's manipulation of his Krogan slaves" Alpha replied, spitting the last word, he sighed and looked at his right hand, clenching it and then opening it again. He didn't want to think he just had to put Wrex down, but he'd done it.

"Alright everyone, form up on me!" Shepard shouted from the main command post. Alpha glanced back at Tali quickly, giving her a nod before gathering up his helmet from the ground and jogging towards the Commander. Tali stared after him for moment 'did he just...' she kicked herself into moving before the thought went any further.

"Alright everyone, I know you're probably a little shocked by that, but we have to carry on. We're not letting Saren get away this time, we're going to corner him in there and we're going to end him. No stopping and no stepping back, we all have to do our part" Shepard paused, gathering herself up and putting her hands behind her back. "There's been a change in plan however, Kaiden I need you to go back to the Normandy with the nuke the Salarians just made" she stopped when she heard Alpha cough politely.

"Sorry Shepard, did you just say nuke?"

"Yes, I did" she replied, "Apart from that the plan stays the same, Ashley and Liara go with Kirrahe and his men. Alpha, Garrus, and Tali are with me, we're going to flank around and hit them from behind, clear a place for the Normandy to land and offload the bomb, that means disabling the AA guns in the base. Kirrahe and his men are going to disable one while we disable the other one, but before that they're going to provide a distraction by assaulting the base from the front " she nodded to her squad, who'd moved to stand in a group. "We all know what we're doing, so let's get to it, this ends now!" she hit her fist into her palm at that last part.

Shepard went to make sure Kirrahe and his men were ready to go, Alpha, Garrus and Tali went and stood to the right of the ramp the STG captain was standing on, watching the Captain rally his men together. Alpha stood next to Tali, keeping his voice down so only she could hear him.

"You alright?" he asked, glancing sidelong at her, Tali breathed in and closed her eyes before replying.

"Yeah...I'm fine" she said, Alpha chuckled quietly.

"Half of the marines, Tali" he said, making Tali blush a little.

The captain finished his speech and turned to Shepard, telling her he and his men were ready and with that the group split up, Shepard taking Tali and Garrus into the network of shallow rivers and streams that led to the bases flank while Alpha climbed up a rock face and swung onto the highest edge, taking out his sniper rifle and scoping in on the far end of the ravine that the others where currently in.

"Alright Shepard you're clear for now" he said "I'll keep you updated but if there's a time to start moving now's it".

"We copy, moving in" Shepard replied before jumping down into the water, drawing her rifle, Garrus following suit while Tali took out her Shotgun, just then Alpha caught something moving behind the corner the team was approaching. He zoomed in on the round edge of rock, waiting for the movement to occur again before he called it out, he was beginning to think he was paranoid when the water rippled, a team of Geth then moved out from behind the corner.

"Shepard, get to cover you've got a squad of Geth closing in" he said before examining the unit more closely "five standard units with one rocket trooper, hang on I've got it" he said, putting a round into the rocket troopers optic unit, "just five troopers now, they didn't notice me yet" he said, getting down on one knee to try and keep it that way.

"Alright, thanks. Keep us updated" Shepard replied before swinging into action herself, Tali and Garrus close behind her. Alpha lined up another shot, he pulled the trigger and nailed the Geth closest to Garrus in the chest, then he adjusted his aim to the one behind the one he just shot, pulling the trigger again and tearing a chunk of synthetic outer skinning from the Geth's neck area. Shepard filled the chest of another unit with Lancer rounds while Garrus put a precision shot into another Geth's central processer, Tali blasted the remaining Geth's chest to pieces from up close.

The squad kept advancing towards the corner, meaning Alpha had to move in order to keep Shepard and her team in sight. He jumped the gap between two ledges on the cliff and jogged up to a grassy spot directly behind Shepard and her squad, laying down he scoped in on the building they were approaching, it looked deserted until a Geth juggernaut appeared around the corner followed by around ten other Geth units, Alpha wasted no time. He took a long breath in and adjusted his aim, focusing on the lead Geth trooper's optical unit, he pulled the trigger and smiled a little as the flashlight exploded.

"A call out would be good next time!" Garrus shouted down the radio, Alpha smirked.

"Just keeping you guys on your toes!" he shouted back before continuing "there's a juggernaut in that group, watch your front" he said, before shooting the next Geth in line, sending it flying backwards into the one behind it.

"I see it" Tali replied "Hacking its shields", Alpha heard a whirring noise as the shields deactivated allowing Shepard and Garrus to fill the large Geth full of holes, the juggernaut fell to the floor with a splash before some of the exposed circuitry sparked on the water, casing Shepards Shields the short out.

"Damnit!" Shepard yelled, ducking behind a rock, "everyone out of the water, it'll short your shields" she called back to the other two, who shouted affirmatives before sprinting to the other side of the passage way they were in, out of the water.

"I've got you covered" Alpha called, shooting two Geth platforms with one bullet as one ran behind the other, resulting in a whoop from him "Oh hell yeah, you see that shot Garrus? Maybe I can hit three next time!" He called, he could hear Garrus groaning.

"Sorry I was too busy staying alive to notice, I guess I have to take you at your word" he said, standing up to shoot the final Geth platform while it was out of cover.

"Alright squad move up" Shepard said, not shouting now that there wasn't any gunfire.

"I'm right behind you, just let me move around a little" Alpha said down the radio, rolling his head inside his helmet as he stood up and moved towards the ridge above the next clearing.

-Twenty minutes later-

The group had pushed through all of the resistance, cutting several of the Geth's assets along the way to help Kirrahe's men, Ashley had said that the Geth had upped their assault but they were holding, "This would have been so much easier with Wrex" Garrus commented, the rest of the group agreed with him, an angry Krogan that wasn't trying to kill them would have been nice.

They reached the outer wall of the facility, Alpha was coming down from the cliff while Tali was looking through one of the consoles next to the door, "Alright we're in" she said stepping back from the console, and moving in front of the door with her shotgun out, Alpha splashed up behind them, no-longer caring for stealth. He put his sniper on his back and pulled out his pistol, grinning underneath his helmet.

"I bet you all missed having me down here" he said, Garrus made an affirmative noise.

"Yeah, I need something else for the Geth to shoot at otherwise...I can't do much" he said, flaring his mandibles out into a smile.

"If you two are done flirting, we have a base to destroy" Shepard called from the door, Alpha made a gagging noise while Garrus doubled over in fits of laughter.

While the group moved through the base they encountered little resistance, most of the Geth were focused on the frontal assault that the other group was staging, as far as they knew the other group was holding but it was only a matter of time before they couldn't hold on anymore. Shepards group picked up the pace, wanting to get to the centre of the base before that happened, there was still an AA gun to deactivate. The addition of Alpha to the squad helped the team advance faster, allowing them to efficiently cut through any resistance, which was still minimal due to the distractions elsewhere.

The group reached a door, lining up against the wall while Tali opened it, as soon as the door hissed open the group swung around the corner one after the other, all of them lowering their weapons when the only occupant was a petrified looking assistant, she stood up quickly which knocked her chair over backwards.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" the clerk pleaded, raising her hands to cover her face, Alpha stepped up next to Shepard.

"If she moves fast she could get away from the base before we blow it to hell" he said quietly, Shepard seemed to consider for a moment.

"Look if it convinces you I can open the door to Saren's office, there! Now can I go?" the woman looked like she was about to fall over.

"Fine, but you better start running" Shepard stated simply, moving past the woman who just looked at Shepard's back for a moment before running out the door.

"That was amusing" Alpha said from the back of the group that was now moving towards the unlocked door.

"I thought you enjoyed that" Garrus said from behind Shepard "I could hear your smile from here".

"Oh haha, can you hear me laughing too?" Alpha shot back, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

The team moved through the door and down the elevator, they got the Sarens office in good time, the four of them sweeping every corner of the room. When they saw nothing they split up in twos, Garrus went with Shepard down another level while Tali and Alpha stayed up on the top catwalk, Tali keyed up the console which was a different colour to the others in the room. It didn't take them long to figure out why, a holographic image of Sarens flagship appeared on the projector.

"You are not Saren" it said, 'the ship was speaking?' Alpha thought 'ah crap'.

"Tali...I don't think that that's a ship" he said, leaning close to the side of her helmet.

"Foolish carbon based life-forms, you cannot delay the inevitable" the ship said again, making the hair on the back of Alpha's neck stand on end, "Although I sense one of you has already seen glimpses of your destruction" Alpha froze, his dreams...was that what the red lights were?

"Alpha?" Tali squeaked from next to him, he was about to reply but the ship cut him off.

"You have witnessed your own destruction yet you fight anyway, commendable yet futile. The cycle cannot be stopped" the ship stated, Alpha could hear a faint humming sound from somewhere behind him, he turned around to see a bare wall, then he was seized by blinding pain. White flashing before his eyes...the floor...cold floor...Tali hunched over him...calling him...pain...headache...was his nose bleeding?

Then the pain faded as quickly as it had arrived, he shuddered out a long breath, he was still cold and trembling. His ears were ringing, he couldn't here Shepard talking to the ship but he could feel Tali shaking his arm, Alpha could feel his stomach churning. He had a feeling he was about to be sick, he tried to sit up but his back felt like lead, he fell back to the floor again. Then sound started returning to his ears, he could here Tali calling his name now, then she appeared above his head, white glowing orbs wide with fear of losing him. He nodded the next time she said his name, she released a breath she hadn't realised she was holding.

Shepard finished talking to the Ship and turned to the other two, Garrus was watching the door, Shepard was just about to say something when Joker came over the radio, "Commander I don't know what you're doing in there but that ship's interested. It's heading back your way now" the pilot said urgently.

"Copy that, we have...wounded, we're going to give him to you when you drop the bomb off" Shepard said back, looking at Alpha who was slowly getting to his feet, however Tali was taking a lot of his weight.

"Come on we have to"- Shepard was cut off by a loud booming noise, all of the glass in the room smashed, she looked around to Garrus who was shaking his head to try and get rid of the ringing, "We have to go, now!" Shepard shouted, slinging Alpha's other arm over her shoulder and nodding to Garrus as a signal to lead the way, the Turian nodded and swung out the door while the other two supported Alpha behind him.

The journey to the centre of the base was blurry for Alpha, it felt like his head and Stomach were both about to explode and he couldn't shake the humming in his ears. When they got to the centre Alpha could here gunfire, then he felt himself being lowered to the ground and his back pressing against something solid. He looked around, Tali was there giving him the same look as before, he tried to give her a smile but it came out as more of a grimace as another bout of pain laced through his body, Shepard had mentioned something about Indoctrination on the way down here, he was familiar with the term but had no idea why he would be.

He then heard a whooshing noise and looked up to see the Normandy swing into view, Tali looked up too, then she moved her head so her mouth piece was right next to his ear, and said softly "come on, get up. I'll take you to Chakwas this time" Alpha almost laughed but restrained himself after thinking of the pain that would come from it, he instead settled for a smile which actually looked like a smile this time. Garrus then came into view, he swung Alpha's arm around his shoulder and slowly stood up straight, trying not to put Alpha through too much pain. Tali was on his other side, trying to keep pace with Garrus who was taking strides half again the size of hers, as they approached the now open cargo bay doors they saw Kaiden stride out with a few marines who were carrying the bomb, the biotic walked straight over to Shepard and began talking about their plan.

The other three were already on the Normandy, Alpha tapped Garrus on the shoulder lightly and nodded. He could handle himself now, he could feel his legs enough to only have one person supporting him, the Turian slowly removed himself from under Alpha's arm which allowed Alpha to take full weight of one side again. Alpha winced a little when he took his own weight again, his stomach churning a little more violently, he looked at Garrus who nodded before jogging back towards Shepard again.

Tali spoke up, "what happened? You were there one minute then you were...gone...I couldn't even get through to you" she said, her voice slightly shaky.

"I don't know" Alpha gagged as he felt bile rise in his throat, he doubled over and emptied the contents of his stomach, falling onto his knees, he spat some phlegm out of the back of his mouth and shook his head.

Tali almost yelled when he fell from her grip, and almost threw up in her own helmet when Alpha did, she just looked away until she heard him spit, the bile was thankfully hard to see due to the darkness of the Cargo bay, Alpha was glad that his helmet had fallen off somewhere, he didn't want to know what throwing up in one was like. He rolled onto his back, trying to make sure he wasn't lying in his own bile but with the way he was feeling he honestly didn't care, that was the last thing he remembered though, he blacked out as soon as his head hit the floor of the cargo bay.

Tali was on her knees next to him, she felt the Normandy rise into the air through her knees and looked backwards to see the cargo bay door closing, she then dragged Alpha's dead weight towards the nearest pillar and leant him up against it, then she ran into the elevator and pressed the button for the crew deck, hoping to catch Chakwas.


	8. Chapter 8- Up so soon?

**A/N: Hello again everyone, I bring new chapters of great joy! However there may be mistakes as I'm about to go out and I keep forgetting to proof this chapter, please Review with your thoughts and happy reading!**

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Shepard entered the Med-bay with Kaiden's arm slung over her shoulder, the man had taken a nasty hit to the side and couldn't support his own weight but that wasn't what Shepard was thinking about. She couldn't believe that they'd left Ashley behind, but there wasn't any other way, if she'd left Kaiden back at the bomb site there was the chance that the Geth could have overwhelmed him and disarmed it. Kaiden had protested, but in the end there wasn't another viable option, it was either making sure the bomb went off or risking that entire operation. She leant Kaiden against the medical cot so he could swing on himself, then she made her way over to the next bed along where Alpha was lying. It seemed that everything they did resulted in a few wounds, but what happened to Alpha wasn't normal, it looked like something incapacitated him without being in the room.

Chakwas finished the scan she was doing on Alpha, holding her Omni-tool so Shepard could see it, "My scans have turned up no signs of outside influence, but his implants seem to be coming up as foreign bodies" she paused and flicked the scan across "the most interesting thing, however, is that his body should have rejected the implants, they shouldn't be there...or he shouldn't be alive, apart from that he's just a little shaken, and dehydrated" she added, closing her Omni-tool and moving over to Kaiden.

Shepard looked down at Alpha for a moment, it certainly didn't look like anything was wrong now, he looked to be sleeping rather then passed out. As it stood they were now three squad members down, she wasn't counting Kaiden, he'd pull through in time for when they confronted Saren again. Ashley and Wrex, however, weren't coming back, She had a feeling an angry Krogan would have helped. As it stood she had four people to work with, a powerful biotic, a tech specialist, a human biotic and a hot-headed Turian.

Shaking her head she left the room, she needed to check on everyone else as they all required as much attention as the two who were off their feet, now would be a time for mourning but they had to get back to work. Kaiden watched her go, noting the slight drag in her step as she walked, it would take time to get over Ashley's death, but killing Saren would at least make them all feel better.

-Meanwhile-

Tali stared blankly at her locker, she'd put her equipment away about ten minutes ago yet she didn't feel like moving. Ashley had such a big spirit, and was so driven that it shocked Tali that such a woman could just...die like that. Then there was Alpha who still hadn't woken up yet, to her knowledge anyway, he'd been in such a bad way when Chakwas had arrived to take him to the Med-bay that she couldn't stay to watch what happened next, so she came back down to the Cargo bay alone after helping the doctor take Alpha up to the med-bay and started putting her stuff away.

The two gaps left by fallen squad members wasn't lost on Garrus either, he wasn't really concentrating on preparing the Mako for the next drop, he was just staring blackly at the console in front of him, running the same calibration five times over without realising it. Liara hadn't said anything to either of them, she'd just disappeared off up the elevator and neither of them had seen her since. Shepard had helped Kaiden to the Med-bay when he'd come back with a gunshot wound to the side, Shepard herself was quiet too, saying nothing but words like 'get some rest' and things like that. the Normandy as a whole was quiet which made Tali all the more upset, the ship ran too quietly as it was.

She eventually shut her locker and made her way towards Engineering, she was already past the elevator when she heard it open, deciding that if it was Shepard she would come to her like she normally did. Tali approached her console and powered it on, bringing up some trials she'd been running before they'd left for Virmire. Even engineering was quiet, there was usually some light hearted chat going on between Adam's staff but now, it was stone cold silence, news of Ashley's death had spread quickly, infecting the ship like the plague, nobody really knew how it had spread so fast but spread it had. Tali then realised that she'd been staring at her terminal for some time, she shook herself out of the funk she'd gotten herself into and tried to take her mind off the day's events by working twice as hard as was healthy.

-Meanwhile-

Alpha slowly drifted awake, wincing as his head exploded with pain, he put his hand against his forehead and clenched his eyes shut, willing the headache to go away. Kaiden noticed the movement, he knew the pain Alpha was going through, his L2 implants made sure of that.

"Doctor, he's awake" Kaiden called from his cot, Chakwas looked up from some paperwork she'd been studying.

"Ah, so he is" she exclaimed, standing up and working her way around to Alpha, who was just now feeling his headache begin to recede. "How are you feeling?" Chakwas asked, bringing out her Omni-tool.

"Like someone hit me around the head with a large hammer" came the reply "and then ran it over with the entire second fleet" Alpha concluded, "need any more details?" he asked, looking over at Chakwas.

"No, that should be enough" she said, deactivating her Omni-tool before moving back over to her desk and hitting the intercom button, "he's awake, Shepard. I reckon he'll be fit for duty within the next few days" she said, Alpha grimaced at the mention of a 'few days' of Chakwas' loving care.

"Good, I might swing by later" Shepard replied, her voice coming out of a speaker somewhere within the room. Alpha grimaced again, playing twenty questions with Shepard wasn't at the top of his to-do list either. Kaiden went back to lying on his cot rather than sitting up, a side effect of getting shot was getting another Migraine and if he was going to have one, he'd rather take it lying down.

The door hissed open, causing everyone in the room to look up, Liara stood in the doorway silently, she looked between all of the faces in the room before moving through the med-bay and into the back room where her office was. Alpha and Kaiden watched her go while Chakwas hummed to herself, "I'm afraid she might have PTSD" she commented, Kaiden nodded slowly while Alpha just stared at the now closed door, 'life's a bitch huh?' he thought.

"Can't imagine why though, I mean sure it's not every day we have to put down that many Geth, and Krogan horde and 'friend' of the same species" he mused, attracting a look of surprise for Kaiden and another hum from Chakwas.

"You mean you didn't know?" Kaiden asked quietly, he wasn't sure how sound proof Liara's door was.

"Know what?" Alpha replied, what could possibly have happened to make that mission worse?

"Shepard left me and a group of Marines at the bomb site to defend it while she disabled one of the AA guns" Kaiden started, nodding to his wound, "I got shot soon after, while she was doing that Ashley and the group of Salarians were shutting down the other one but got pinned down by the Geth, I told her to go and get Ashley out of there but..."he trailed off, looking at the floor, just as he was doing that the door opened again to reveal Shepard, who was already approaching the centre of the room.

"But I came back for Kaiden" she finished, Kaiden grunted under his breath.

"Can't imagine why though" he muttered, Shepard still heard him though.

"Because if I'd have left you then the bomb might not have detonated, I couldn't risk the entire operation by rescuing Ashley, besides you're a fine soldier Alenko, never doubt that" Shepard said loudly, holding up a hand when Kaiden was about to protest further. She then moved to stand at the foot of Alpha's cot, standing with her hands behind her back, but still slouching slightly.

"No Shepard I don't know what happened" Alpha said sharply, he wasn't sure how to react to Ashley dying but it felt as if someone would blame him.

"In Saren's office? You mean you have no idea?" Shepard asked, raising her eyebrow.

"Not at clue, there was a slight throbbing in my head and then WHAM", Alpha put emphasis on that, "I can't move".

"And how do you feel now?" Shepard continued, leaning on the foot of the cot.

"Like ham and shit, but thanks for asking" Alpha replied, emitting a chuckle that turned into a groan.

"And do you feel like you can move around?" Shepard kept pressing, she was going somewhere but Alpha couldn't see where that was exactly.

"Shepard! I need to watch him to make sure that no more complications come up" however Chakwas seemed to catch on.

"Doctor, I need him on his feet and working, the same goes for Kaiden. At the end of this we're all going to have wounds but for now we have to keep going, so Alpha. Can you move?" Shepard asked again, turning to him while she said it.

"Can't hurt to try" Alpha murmured, swinging his legs over the edge of his cot.

"At least let me monitor his implants" Chakwas sighed, powering up her Omni-tool and standing next to Alpha, Shepard took up position on the other side, "alright, whenever you're ready".

Alpha put one foot on the ground, testing for feeling, he was rewarded with the usual sensation of 'that's the floor dumbass' from his foot, he put the other foot down too, then stood up. He staggered forwards a bit when his stomach did a somersault and a flow of pain started coming from his knees, apart from that he felt like he could stand. Chakwas recorded her findings and turned to Shepard.

"Well if you need him so urgently then he'll live, but if he tries to leave this ship I will be forced to sedate him" she said, her voice icy, Shepard chuckled and held up her hands.

"I'll get someone to keep him here, don't worry" she smiled, then turned to Alpha, "you know I wouldn't ask you to do this unless I needed you right?" she said to him, moving to stand in front of him with her hands behind her back again.

"Nah, It's fine Shepard, at least now I can hobble around with Joker" he said, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand.

"I'm sure he'll appreciate that" Shepard shot back, smiling at him, "Doctor, can you ask someone to help him down to engineering? I should check on Liara".

"Of course Commander, I'll ask Garrus to come up" she replied, moving towards her intercom.

-five minutes later-

The doors hissed open again, revealing Garrus who looked around the room until he noticed Alpha leaning against the desk next to Chakwas, who was running some kind of test on his legs. Garrus walked further into the room so that the door would close, looking for something to lean against also. He settled eventually for the side of a sink on the other side of the room from where Alpha was, he watched what Chakwas was doing as her Omni-tool blipped and chimed as red lights highlighted areas on Alpha's left knee, then did the same on the right.

"'Sup Garrus?" Alpha called, jarring the Turian out of his daydreams.

"Well someone reckoned that you'd forgotten how to walk, so I'm improvising" Garrus replied, shrugging as he spoke.

"Really now? That's interesting. You gonna lend me that stick from up your ass?" Alpha grinned broadly "I think I'll be alright if that's the case".

"Well I was going to" Garrus shrugged again "but I guess I can just make sure you don't fall over".

"Well then, I appreciate it" Alpha smiled, he looked back to Chakwas who was shaking her head at their antics.

"Go on! Let me make sure Kaiden's alright" she exclaimed when Alpha mocked the puss-in-boots eyes at her.

"Thanks doc" Alpha grinned at her and hobbled over to the door, "you going to help Vakarian? Or are you just going to stare at me?" Alpha threw over his shoulder at Garrus who shook his head and followed. The door closed behind him just as Alpha made it past the table in the mess hall, leaning against the wall as the pain in both of his knees started to take more of a prominent effect, but he was still moving.

"You do realise that you'll be standing up in engineering right?" Garrus had to ask, maybe this wasn't the best idea, the look Alpha gave him when he turned around said otherwise.

"Yes I do and no I'll be fine" he said answering both of Garrus' questions in one sentence, Garrus shook his head in response.

"You humans are arrogant aren't you?" he mused, supposedly to himself.

"Whatever it takes" Alpha said quietly, hobbling into the elevator, pressing the green button with some conviction when Garrus entered behind him. Alpha breathed out and lent back against the railing, wincing as he did so, "Something tells me that my knees aren't going to be the same ever again" he sighed, looking down at them.

"What happened to them?" Garrus asked, looking at them as well.

"When I collapsed in the cargo bay, I think I shattered both of the caps, the only reason I can walk at all is because of my implants and as you said, human stubbornness" if he didn't believe it before he sure did now.

"Damn, and you're positive you should be walking?" Garrus asked, glancing back up the shaft for no reason.

"Yeah probably not, but then again I'm not going to be on the ground team anytime soon so I might as well make myself useful" Alpha replied, still looking at his knees as if he expected them to explode at any moment, which they felt like they were.

"Well, I guess if you do fall over in there someone might catch you" Garrus thought aloud, Alpha had no idea what he was talking about.

"Oh? And who would that be?" he asked, looking up at Garrus who shrugged.

"I don't know, I think Adams would be sorry to lose such a dedicated worker to a fall don't you?"

"Oh I don't doubt it, but I don't think that's who you were talking about Garrus" Alpha pressed, he'd figured out who the Turian meant, he just enjoyed watching the Turian squirm.

"Oh come on! Isn't it obvious?" Garrus was starting to get frustrated now, and Alpha was enjoying it.

"Oh yeah, I figured it out a while ago, it was kinda funny watching you get all flustered like that" Alpha was trying not to laugh, and not doing a very good job of it.

"Really? You know it would be a shame if I were to accidentally tap your knee with my foot..." Garrus started raising his foot up so it was level with Alpha's knee, Alpha shuffled to the side while never taking his eyes off the raised limb.

"Hey, no fair!" Alpha had actually made a full circle around the elevator by the time it stopped, Garrus' foot following him all the way around. Alpha would have run out of the elevator if he hadn't remembered why Garrus had his foot pointed at his knee. "Well now you can at least get me down there" Alpha sighed when he remembered how long the corridor to engineering was, Garrus laughed and slung Alpha's arm over his shoulder and supported him the rest of the way.

When the door opened a few faces turned to look at who it was, and all of them sporting looks of surprise when the saw it was Alpha, the news of his injury had spread frighteningly fast too. Garrus started to feel like a third wheel with their gawping, he supported Alpha all the way to his console anyway, Alpha then took the rest of his weight and started his console up. The two of them looked over to Tali, who hadn't looked up yet due to nobody making any commotion when the two had entered.

"Well I better get back to it" Garrus said quietly "don't overdo it, I'd hate to carry you all the way back up again too" he finished, beginning his walk back towards the cargo bay. Alpha gave him a small salute, then he turned to his console and brushed up on what had been going on over the past day, which was just maintenance. He decided that the best thing to do was update the roster when he noticed that someone was covering for him, he winced when he saw it was Tali, who was still working. 'This might be awkward' he mentally kicked himself, because doing it in reality would probably hurt a lot, and added his name back in, he noticed a red light pop up on Tali's screen in his peripherals. She retracted from her console as if it had stung her and turned around to stare at Alpha's console, then almost fell over when she saw Alpha, she looked from her console to him and then back again before walking over to him.

"I didn't know you were..." she hesitated when she noticed how heavily he was leaning on his console "up, are you alright?" she asked, worry overtaking her rational thought for a moment.

"I'm still standing aren't I?" he asked, smiling at her "I'll be fine, don't worry about it" he finished, his smile turning to a wince as he shifted his weight slightly.

"Are you sure?" Tali pressed, she wanted to be certain.

"You don't see Joker making a fuss do you?" Alpha replied, the question was more of a statement but Tali shook her head anyway "then neither will I" Alpha said curtly, looking down at his console, he heard Tali sniff softly before she turned away, which he saw out of the corner of his eye.

"Tali!" he called, she turned around to face him, "I appreciate your concern though" he said with a small smile, she nodded and turned back around again. Alpha sighed and turned back to his console, he was right though, that was a little awkward.


	9. Chapter 9-Breakout

**A/N: Slightly shorter chapter this time, just a heads up here, I will be filling part of the two year gap between ME and ME2 but not all of it, that is the only hint I shall drop.**

* * *

The Normandy sat in dock at the citadel, doing nothing useful. Alpha was currently on the main deck, stood staring at the Galaxy map. Shepard had gone to see the council a few moments ago so the rest of the crew wasn't there, they were all off on the presidium drinking, or relaxing, or maybe even both. Tali had tried to stay on the ship with him, but he'd told her to go and have whatever fun she could, while she could, he doubted that they would be able to have any more before they ended Saren. Being on his own had given him time to think past that, what he would do, what everyone else would do, contrary to popular belief they were all normal people who'd been thrown into exceptional circumstances and had delivered time and time again. He however was a marine, nobody else knew but he would tell them when the time came, his current train of thought however could instigate them finding out sooner rather than later. He shook it off for now, he didn't need that baggage while he was recovering and he was sure that the rest of the crew didn't need him offloading the past onto them either.

The Galaxy map flowed around in front of him, occasionally he would highlight something and bring it up so he could look at it, he wasn't bored exactly, he was just impatient to be gone from the political hellhole that was the citadel. He'd never really enjoyed being there, but the lake on the presidium was relaxing to look at, he also enjoyed watching members of the other races go about their business.

Suddenly a loud beep echoed through the ship and a red light began to flash on the corner of room, Alpha could already hear Joker cursing before he saw the Pilot stand and make his way towards him. Joker wasn't exactly the fastest moving individual Alpha had ever met, but the speed the guy could move at when he was angry was intimidating, it was like he'd been possessed.

"We've been locked down!" Joker almost roared from next to Alpha, who started slightly when he realised how close Joker had gotten without him noticing. He jumped even more when he realised what Joker had said.

"What? Why?" He asked, not quite believing what he was hearing.

"I dunno, but whatever's going on a load of C-sec cars just showed up outside, they're guarding the door" Joker almost wailed, he didn't like the idea of someone taking his ship away from him. Alpha suddenly had an Idea, he slid past Joker and began to hobble his way towards the door. "Where are you going?" Joker called up to him from where Alpha had left him.

"To get this ship out of lockdown" Alpha said, cold determination setting his features into a grimace as he hobbled up the stairs and towards the airlock, heads were about to role and he was pretty sure his might be one of them. The decontamination cycle kicked in when he entered the airlock, when it finished and he tried to open the door a small red icon popped up in the corner, letting Alpha know that the ship was currently on lockdown and that he needed permission to step off. He was about to smash the lock into oblivion when it opened from the other side, he couldn't stop his fist however. Although the punch hurt him more than it hurt Garrus the Turian still wheeled backwards, holding his fringe while Alpha was hunched over holding his hand between his legs and wheezing. Before he could recover Garrus was back up, coming up and standing in front of him.

"Accident?" Alpha gasped as fresh pain flowed from his knuckles, then he nodded quickly between sharp breaths.

"Yeah, Damn Garrus" he winced again "you've got a face like a damn mountain", he took his out from between his knees and examined it, it was bleeding from roughly three different places.

"You may want to get Chakwas to look at that" Garrus said, leaning around to the side so he could see, "not many people can punch a Turian and come out unscathed. Don't feel bad about it" Alpha almost slapped said Turian before he realised how far that would get him.

"Yeah, thanks Garrus. I feel so much better" Alpha said through gritted teeth. Joker sidled up behind Alpha at this point, smirking at what he saw.

"So next time you try to break the lockdown, maybe you could avoid breaking your hand? Or were you trying to prove a point?"

"Don't make me tap you Joker" Alpha threatened, holding his un-injured hand in the air and retracting his fingers until only one was showing, Joker stepped backwards with his hands in the air.

"Alright, Alright, I'm just going to go and sit down now" Joker said before disappearing into the cockpit. Alpha grinned at Garrus, already moving towards the stairs to the crew deck.

"Where are you going?" Garrus called after him, Alpha threw his hands in the air.

"I wish people would stop asking me that! If you must know I'm going to grab some water" he threw over his shoulder before walking through the door onto the crew deck, moving towards the fridge. He picked out a bottled of clear liquid and examined it, it said 'water' on it, he shrugged and took a swig and sighing at the relief it gave him. He then walked over to the sink and poured some over his hand, cleaning the gash Garrus' face had left on it. Garrus sidled up next to him and leaned on the counter, drawing in his mandibles and looking at the ceiling.

"So what do you think the lockdown's for?" he asked, not looking at Alpha who sighed.

"No idea, maybe it's an emergency measure" he said, leaning back against the counter next to Garrus.

"For what?" the Turian asked, now examining his Talons.

"Damned if I know, maybe they're trying to get Shepard to take a day off" he mused, somehow managing to keep a straight face, Garrus snorted.

"Hah, yeah this is probably what it would take for her to do that", at that moment Shepard came through the airlock, the two in the mess could tell because of the shouting from upstairs. They looked at each other, Alpha grimaced and downed his water before throwing the bottle into the sink and following Garrus up the stairs, albeit a little slower.

* * *

Garrus almost walked into one of the CIC staff when he walked through the door, Turians aren't known for their grace so managing to avoid the man who'd been running past the door was some sort of result for all Turians. Alpha hobbled in behind Garrus, trying to keep pace with him but not quiet keeping up with the bow wave the Turian was creating so he would have to stop or avoid someone every few steps. Shepard was standing behind the pilots seat, arms folded and staring straight ahead, Garrus walked in behind her and threw a look at Tali who shrugged and nodded her head at Shepard. Alpha came in shortly after and sat down in the ensigns chair which was currently unoccupied, he didn't want to walk around anymore because his knees were starting to hurt like mad. He winced and rubbed them, not that it would do any good but it made him feel a little better. Garrus was talking to Shepard about what they were doing, what he could pick up was that an Admiral was going to hack the Human ambassadors terminal and release the lockdown. Even from what Alpha could pick up it sounded like a long-shot, but it might just work if they timed it right, he smiled at that, it sounded like his old drill sergeant talking about Ambushes.

Tali moved across the room to stand next to his seat, she shuffled a little bit, she would have been exiled from the fleet if the Admirals had known they were doing this. She controlled her fidgeting before anyone noticed, Alpha had caught it but he put it down to nerves and didn't call it out. He nudged her with the arm that wasn't engaged in rubbing his knee, she started slightly at the contact and looked down.

"So...what do you think?" he asked, she stammered a little.

"About what?" she eventually forced out, Alpha grinned at her.

"About the weather...what do you think? Can we pull this off?" he said, still grinning. Tali thought about it, she couldn't see any reason why not, the only thing that could go wrong is if Anderson was caught before he could disable the lockdown.

"It might work" she said eventually, Alpha chuckled.

"Real assuring, you should get into motivational speeches" he joked, earning a glare from Tali, he looked at her for a moment before laughing, she sighed and put a hand against her visor.

"I'm glad that fall didn't break your sense of humour" she said, deceptively sweetly. Alpha was still laughing, drawing looks from Garrus and Shepard who were both deadly serious now. Tali shuffled a little while Alpha shrugged at them both, trying to muffled his laughter with the back of his arm. Tali looked at him sideways, so he couldn't pick it up, there was something about the way he laughed... 'No Tali focus' she would think about it later, or not, that was probably better.

Then the red light disappeared and Shepard sprung into action at the same time as Joker, "Go!" she shouted and Joker swung the Normandy out of the docking bay as soon as the clamps were off, kicking the ship into FTL as soon as she was clear of the Citadel arms. Alpha leant back in his seat, some of the tension washing off him, he hadn't even realised that he'd been sitting forwards. Tali slumped slightly, some thoughts from before coming back, she tried to shove them to one side but it didn't work 'Bosh'tet' she cursed herself. Then she noticed Alpha getting to his feet and moving away from the cockpit, slowly, and towards the crew deck, she looked back at Shepard and Garrus who were engaged in a conversation about how they were going to go about Ilos. She sighed and followed Alpha, resolving that he'd need a hand somewhere, she drew level with him easy enough as he wasn't moving too fast.

"Come to give the cripple a hand?" he shot sideways, causing her stride to falter slightly, Alpha looked at her and grinned, "joke" he said.

"Well I did think I could...help you go...wherever it was you're going" she said, looking at the floor. Alpha smirked at her and tapped her shoulder.

"Appreciate it, might be a little boring though. I'm only going to get painkillers from Chakwas" he replied, Tali did seem to perk up a little.

"No it's fine, glad to help" she said, bouncing on her toes a little. The two moved towards the door, once through it they went down the stairs Tali slowing her step so she didn't overtake Alpha, who looked to be struggling more than usual, eventually he had to stop about half way down, leaning against the wall and wincing, Tali stood down one step from him.

"Are you alright?" she asked, scalding herself immediately for asking a stupid question.

"I could use a hand, or shoulder", Alpha waved his arm, "you know what I mean" he finished, wincing as he shifted his weight. Tali positioned herself so he could lean on her shoulder so he could take some of the weight off his legs, as a team they carried on down the stairs, occasionally Tali would stop to allow Alpha to draw level again. She could tell how much Alpha hated being so dependent on others, he usually did everything on his own and only asked for help with things that he couldn't do himself. Right now walking was turning into one of those things, he didn't want to admit it but Tali could see it, they reached the bottom of the stairs and Alpha stopped leaning on her shoulder.

"Thanks" he mumbled, continuing to walk towards the Med-bay, Tali followed him as before, keeping pace with him to make sure she didn't over take him. However Alpha didn't get more than a few steps before almost falling over, Tali put a hand on his shoulder from behind to steady him. It occurred to her that Alpha was actually quite short, he was about her height which was small for a human. She estimated at about six foot one or around there. Alpha then tried to carry on again, the result of which being similar to before, only worse.

Alpha stumbled to the left and put out a hand to steady himself against the wall, leaning against it heavily, Tali stood and looked at him for a moment before making a decision, she moved and stood in front of him. "You need to stop" she said, the look Alpha gave her suggested he thought otherwise, so she carried on, "you'll only make it worse" she said, softly so she didn't sound to confronting. Alpha studied her change in stance for a moment before pushing himself up again, he started towards the Med-bay again. She moved again and stood in front of him, he would have walked into her if she hadn't have stopped him with her arm.

For a moment he looked like he'd carry on again, but instead he sighed and nodded, Tali then supported him into the Med-bay and let him swing himself onto the nearest cot while she went to find painkillers. Chakwas wasn't there for whatever reason, so she did it herself, reaching into the cupboard and selecting the right box, she walked back over to Alpha was running his hands through his hair, he took the box and looked at it before breaking the seal and taking two of the tablets from inside. He swallowed the both down without water and almost gagged at the resulting feeling, Tali stood awkwardly next to him, her fingers twitched slightly as they tried to fidget, she managed to control them. Alpha sighed again, he looked at the floor and then to the ceiling, he hated sitting down for extended periods of time, he had to stand up during his friend's wedding ceremony to stop himself from moving around in the pew.

Tali was still standing off to his side, he hadn't said anything to her since she'd confronted him. Had she said something wrong? Offended him in some way? She felt stupid for possibly losing the person she'd come to think of as a friend because she thought she'd been doing the right thing. She heard Alpha clear his throat next to her, she jumped realising that she'd probably been standing there for a while, she looked at Alpha who was giving her a crooked smile. He looked at the box again briefly and then stuck it into his pocket, resolving to tell the doctor later, then he stood up and faced Tali.

"Well..." he stretched "I expect that Adams needs something doing" he said testing his knees, Tali stood and stared at him, instead of offending him he'd just ignore her?

"You shouldn't be down there, it's damaging your leg" she said, watching as Alpha's face contorted slightly, he sighed and stepped a little closer.

"I appreciate your concern, but they need me up, I can't lie there while you go off to fight Saren" he held up his hands when her mouth piece lit up "I'm not planning on going on the ground team, I just need to do something" he said, he was almost pleading, "you understand that right?"

"I do it's just that...you looked to be in so much pain back there" she started but Alpha cut her off.

"That's what the painkillers are for, I won't OD on them but they help me stand up" he said, tapping his pocket for emphasis. Tali sighed and watched him as he moved out of the Med-bay, with a notably smaller limp this time, he was arrogant and it might get him hurt. She followed him towards the elevator and stepped in next to him, fidgeting. She had to ask.

"I didn't...offend you...right?" she asked, cursing her stuttering. Alpha gave her a confused look, shaking his head.

"No not at all, I'm just stubborn" he said, Tali nodded, relieved that she didn't offend him, "like I said before I appreciate your concern, but I'll live" he finished. The rest of the elevator ride past in silence, it wasn't an awkward silence, more of a reflecting silence. They both stepped out of the elevator at the same time, Tali keeping pace with Alpha again, she didn't have many friends, and the ones she did have she liked to keep.


	10. Chapter 10- Discovery

**A/N: Another short chapter today, I promise the next one shall be longer**

* * *

The Normandy was quiet for the entire journey towards Ilos, nobody said as much as two words to each other, Shepard was nowhere to be seen and everyone presumed she was with Liara and left it there. Alpha and Tali were both in engineering, the silence that had fallen between them had been in place since their last exchange and it was mostly down to Tali not knowing what to say to him and Alpha being unable to move on his own. He leant heavily against his console, religiously popping painkillers every two hours to keep himself on his feet, Tali would catch him every now and again which would only deepen her concern for his safety. It wasn't long before everyone was called up to the briefing room, Alpha gave Tali a look which said 'tell me what happens will you?' as she walked past him.

She left engineering and entered the elevator, holding it for Garrus who'd been trying to be the first to get there so he didn't have to wait for it to come back. As the elevator ascended they talked about what Ilos was going to be like, according to what little information Garrus had been able to extricate from Liara it was an ancient Prothean ruin, filled with un-excavated technology and artwork. Tali had obviously been more interested in the tech, she had always wondered how Prothean Vis lasted so long. Garrus on the other hand was more interested in who'd they'd likely find there: Saren, Garrus had been thinking of a thousand different ways to kill that Reaper worshipping bastard and he was planning to test a few of them.

As the elevator reached the crew deck Tali and Garrus could hear raised voices coming from the CIC, likely Pressly and Joker going at it over the intercom. The pair walked up the stairs, which jarred some of Tali's more unpleasant memories, and Garrus went through the door. What was surprising was that it was Shepard, Liara and Pressly having an argument, Tali and Garrus looked sideways at each other before approaching, Pressly looked at them and seemed to relax a little.

"Hey" he said pointing at Tali "you can back me up on this, a beacon cannot stay active for that amount of time! It's preposterous!" he said, now looking back at Shepard and Liara who were standing notably close together.

"Well then explain why the beacon is time stamped to have gone almost a million years without being de-activated?" Liara shot back, folding her arms, Garrus' mandibles flattened.

"Did you say 'a million years?'"

"Yes Garrus, she did and Pressly here doesn't want to think about it" Shepard said, mimicking Liara's stance.

"Because it doesn't need thinking about! It's a malfunction and nothing more!" he raised his voice, causing some of the people around the CIC to glance over their shoulders.

"Well, we'll find out more when we get there won't we?" Shepard replied, nodding her head towards the briefing room and moving away, Liara followed with Garrus in tow, Tali stood and looked at them go, 'a million years?' she thought, starting the walk towards the room, 'this will be interesting'.

As she entered the room there was wide-spread chatter echoing across the room, she walked through it all and sat on her own on the left side of the room, she wished Alpha was there as the two would often talk during these minutes before the briefings, along with the whispered remarks Alpha would always send her way about how long Liara would gaze at Shepard.

"Alright everyone, listen up!" Shepard called, walking to the centre of the room, all chat stopped and the attention of the room fixed on her. "I called you all here because we've had a development, and I need everyone up to speed" she fixed her gaze on Tali who already knew the question was coming.

"He didn't think he could handle the stairs, I could ask him to come on screen if you liked" she said, shuffling her feet subconsciously, Shepard nodded an affirmative and Tali fired up her Omni-tool, sending a brief message and then shutting it off again, shortly afterwards the console at the end of the room bleeped and Shepard went to answer it, Alpha's face appeared on screen.

"What's up Shepard?" he said casually, he was a little close to the screen but nobody seemed to notice.

"Just needed you to hear the brief is all" Shepard said with a smile before returning her gaze to the rest of the group, "We've found a beacon, an old one. By all estimates it's close to a million years old" she said, some murmuring started between Kaiden and Garrus, "scans show that the planet it's on is covered in a dense forest, in the middle of it there's a clearing" a floating globe appeared in front of Alpha's face, "That's where the beacon's coming from, scans suggest it could be underground but it's hard to tell, as you can imagine the signal's weak" Alpha snorted at that.

"I'd bloody well hope so" he said, staring intently at the faint red marker just slightly beneath the planets holographic surface, it was fading in and out every few seconds.

"It must have had some sort of power source to last that long, can we trace that?" Kaiden piped up from next to Garrus, Tali shook her head.

"No, not without the proper equipment" Shepard said for her, "I've already spoken to Joker, he said it would be difficult to pin-point even then".

"So we're just going to go up and blast the surface open?" Garrus said, not seeing a better option.

"We're going to look for a door first, then we'll see" Shepard confirmed, noticing how Liara winced at the mention of blasting.

Alpha stood down in engineering and squinted at his console, "hey Shepard, could you enlarge the spot about two centimetres to the right of the dot?" he asked, straining his vision, it was hard to see something clearly through two projections. The spot became larger and Alpha saw what he thought he'd seen, there was a gap at the edge of the clearing, he pointed it out to Shepard who put a hand to her chin.

"Could that be a door?" she asked, watching every face in the room zero in on Liara.

"It's possible, or it could just be a hole in the ground. Either way it's out best bet" she said, leaning forwards. "Shepard I should come with you, I am an Archaeologist after all" she continued, Shepard nodded and turned towards the holographic projection of Alpha, who immediately shook his head.

"Not a chance in hell Shepard" he said sternly, much to Tali's relief. Shepard grunted and turned and nodded at Garrus and Kaiden.

"You two grab your gear, maybe some million year old secrets will give us the leg up against Saren" she finished, leaving the room with the other three on her ground team in tow, Garrus glanced apologetically at Tali who shrugged it off.

Downstairs Alpha terminated the link and stood up strait, there was no way he could go on the ground team without doing some serious damage, he would be more useful up here keeping the engines in check. He could hear the elevator descending due to the loud whirring noise it made, he would have like to explore some ancient ruins though, he remembered going to see Rome as a child and how he'd pretended to be a Roman legionary. As he worked he could hear footsteps behind him, he turned expecting to see Tali but was greeted by Shepard, he sighed inwardly 'she's really trying isn't she'.

"I already told you Shepard, I'm not coming. I can't unless I want to be crippled for the rest of my life" he said, folding his arms and leaning back against his console, he could see Tali approaching now, if he looked over Shepard's shoulder.

"Maybe you could" Shepard replied, firing up her Omni-tool, Alpha peered around the screen so he could see what she was looking at, there was some kind of Mech on the screen, with some schematics scrolling down the side. "Atlas Mech, it's an Alliance prototype. Somehow Anderson managed to grab us one and I need someone to pilot it, what do you say now?" Alpha considered, he glanced at Tali who was looking him dead in the face, he shook his head and sighed.

"How much strain would it put on me?" he said finally, noticing Tali deflate out of the corner of his eye.

"According to this not much, it's controlled by joystick and triggers" Shepard replied, not noticing Tali standing behind her. Alpha couldn't resist any longer, a prototype mech and an Ancient ruin? It was like his last five birthdays coming all at once, all of which needed making up to him.

"Fine" he said, trying to sound as if he had no other option, the tone of voice gave him away though, Tali deflated even more behind Shepard.

"Thanks" Shepard said, transferring some of the runtimes and functions to his console, "I'll let you study them for a few minutes, we'll be coming into orbit in about thirty so I'll need you to come to the cargo deck with your own armour and just make sure it works" she finished, already moving away, Alpha turned to Tali who was glaring at him now, he opened his mouth to say something but she just turned her back.

"Tali..." he trailed off, he knew she wasn't listening, it was likely she'd muted her ear-pieces.

-10 minutes later-

Alpha hobbled up to his locker, drawing a questioning look from Kaiden, Garrus noticed and began explaining what Shepard's plan was. Alpha continued towards his locker, to say he was nervous would be about right, he opened the locker and looked at his armour, as he did this it occurred to him how insane this all was, how every one of them could die from a single well placed grenade. It was less of a realisation and more of a gunshot wound to the head, as he stared at his armour and the sniper rifle he'd modified himself he thought that maybe this could be the last thing he ever did. He then vowed to do better because of this, strapping on the leg pieces of his armour carefully so he didn't move his knees around to violently. Then his chest piece, the white stripe down the middle was as much of a testament as the description suggested, he felt the padding on the inside of his helmet to make sure it was soft. He donned the helmet and looked through the visor to make sure that it was clean, then he took it off again.

This was his ritual, every soldier had one and this was his. It was calming and helped him remember that no amount of guns, no amount of ammunition or armour...made a man immortal. The more a soldier thought of that, the better a warrior he would be, he would take no risks and show mercy only when mercy was due, showing no mercy at all made you a monster, and war...made monsters of men.

This was the thought pattern Alpha went through with himself before every battle, and that was why he preferred to spend that time alone. Nobody had ever questioned it, which was a good thing because it wasn't a question he was prepared to answer. He only took his side arm with him from the locker, presuming that a ruin wasn't the best place for a sniper rifle but he knew the Garrus would have his if they did run into anything at range. What could there be to run into though? It had been deserted for many thousands of years, but caution was a good thing because if whatever made the beacon had technology that advanced, then the chances of the same race having Sentinant servants that could last the same length of time was high.

Alpha approached Garrus, who was cleaning his sniper rifle, the Turian looked up when he heard Alpha approaching and put down his sniper. The two of them looked towards the large mech that was being let loss from a box on the far side of the hanger, Alpha whistled when it came into full view, the thing was massive compared to a human and looked to carry the same amount of firepower, if not more than the Mako. Alpha wasn't expecting it to move as fast though, it was bipedal like a sapient and would therefore need to walk rather than wheel. Shepard, Liara, and Kaiden appeared out from the elevator and made their way over to Garrus and Alpha, the two of them exchanged nods and words of friendly greeting with each other, all apart from Alpha.

He leant against the weapons bench and stared at the far wall, he went through his ritual again in his head 'war made monsters of men', repeating some of the lines over and over again to make sure they stuck. He didn't notice Tali until she cleared her throat, he held up a hand until he'd finished the line in his head and then turned to her, when he saw who it was he breathed out and looked at the ground.

"I didn't ignore you" he said, fixing his gaze on a metal rung on the floor.

"What? I didn't come to say that...good" Tali said, stumbling because of how blunt Alpha was being.

"I'm going insane, sitting up here...well" he paused and smirked "more so than usual" he finished, continuing his study of the metal rung.

"So you're going to fix that by...testing a prototype mech inside a deserted ruin" Tali countered, looking at the side of Alpha's head. He chuckled and scratched his beard with his finger nails, tilting his chin up slightly while he did so.

"Pretty much yeah" he said, only now looking back at Tali, noting the slight downward tilt to her orbs, "I'll be fine" he continued, for whatever good it did.

Tali waited a while, drawing on some deep well of courage before speaking, "promise?" she asked, Alpha seemed a little taken back by the question but he still considered it.

"Yeah, I don't make promises I can't keep" he said eventually, again noting how Tali looked a little deflated after he said it, "but I'll try my best" he said, grinning. Tali couldn't help but grin with him, it was infectious. Shepard called everyone over to the centre of the room so she could run them through the plan again, Tali went back to engineering with the remnants of her grin still on her face, 'at least he's honest' she thought, shaking her head.

The ground team began to form around the mech, Garrus and Kaiden helping Alpha up into the mech, which was slightly folded up so that the pilot could stand on the mech's legs to get into it. Once Alpha was inside he pressed the button which said 'Hatch' on it, the amber coloured glass visor swung down and sealed into place. Alpha fired the mechs systems up, the machine whirring to life and standing up as it did so, Alpha then took control of the machine directly by moving the joysticks around, which in turn made the arms move. Once he was happy that all systems (including life support) were operational he moved the left joystick forward and the mech jerked forward a step at exactly the same time.

The rest of the ground team stood at a safe distance while Alpha got used to every control apart from the firing trigger, then it was almost time to go, the whole team assembled in front of the main door and waited for the green light. They could all hear the Normandy slow down and they could also mostly feel the Normandy stop moving, apart from Alpha who found it difficult to feel movement through the mechs legs.

"Get ready" Shepard said from the front of the group "Alpha you hit the ground first and rest of us will follow, got that?"

"Got it" Alpha replied moving the mech so that it was level with the cargo bay doors, then they opened to reveal a vast forested area which spread as far as the eye could see, the mouths of the ground team as a whole were agape at just how big it was. The Normandy then touched down and Alpha stepped off, sweeping from left to right with the arm gun of the mech while the others disembarked behind him.

"Let's go!" Shepard called from the right and the group began to move forwards


	11. Chapter 11-First contact

**A/N: Have a chapter, I spent many hours thinking this one up so enjoy! Leave a review to tell me what you thought!**

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Alpha led the way across the clearing, followed by the rest of the team who didn't even need to look at the mech to know where it was going because of how loud it was. All of the team had a vague idea where the hole in the ground was but only Alpha knew exactly due to it being marked on the mechs HUD, however that was all he had to go on as he couldn't see more than five feet into the dense forest which surrounded them. His HUD was pinning the hole just beyond the tree-line, he wasn't sure if that where exactly the case though because this planet was unmapped so he didn't know whether he was going to fall into a ravine at the next step. He stopped at the outskirts of the forest and looked around, he couldn't see anything moving but he didn't like how quiet everything was, he'd expected at least some form of native wild-life. Shepard stepped into his vision and followed his example by scanning the dark shadows which guarded the forest.

"This things got a light on its shoulder" Alpha called, his voice coming through a speaker so it sounded synthesised, "you want me to go first?" he said, looking down at Shepard.

"Yeah, don't let anything go uncalled though" she said, moving out of the way before Alpha pushed the Atlas forward again, he brushed some of the trees aside as he moved. Well that's what it looked like to him, to everyone else he was almost snapping branches that the rest of them would have had to duck under. They continued in this manner for a half hour before they eventually came across what looked like an Aztec pyramid, with some noticeable differences, chiefly because it was still standing.

The pyramid was made from stone, and was at least a hundred feet tall, it was also covered in the native equivalent of moss. Alpha stopped the mech short of the pyramid and opened his hatch so he could see it properly, the damn thing was massive and created the impression that anything in front of it was the size of an insect. The rest of the team drew level with the mech and followed Alpha's gaze, looking up and down the pyramid and off to the sides to see if there was anything else. Almost everyone could hear Liara squirming to get closer, so Shepard moved forward carefully, fully expecting there to be some sort of native species lurking around. Alpha closed his hatch and followed on behind the group, slowing his pace to make sure he didn't stand on Kaiden who was in front of him.

Shepard approached the pyramid, which was layered and had no stairs to the top, instead there was a large door, a massive door which could easily fit Alpha and five other mechs in at the same time. Alpha's light went out and the entire team jumped, they could all hear him swear from inside the mech.

"It's not responding!" he shouted, the mech was still standing and moving but some of the mechanisms weren't functioning, like the light and the flare systems. The gun still seemed to work though and life support was still online so Alpha eventually gave the all clear and waited for Shepard to try and open the door. As she approached the door, however, it began to light up a bright orange colour, the centre panel started to move, spinning in a circle and making the noise only rock grinding on rock could make.

The door slid open in an ominously slow manner which made Garrus want to push the damn thing into the ground faster. Once open enough for a person to walk through Shepard and the rest of the team apart from Alpha entered the pyramid, Alpha had to wait until the door had opened a lot more before he could follow on. What he saw once inside though was worth the wait, there was a large cavern like room with waterfalls cascading down each side, in front of them was rows upon rows of tombs and burial mounds surrounded by jagged pieces of rock, some of them with a red-paint-like substance smeared over them in the form of a smile.

Whatever had made this temple, it was either really big, or they had a lot of time on their hands. Liara was walking along the far wall, running her hand across some of the markings engraved into the stone. Alpha muted the mechs voice piece and dialled up the console next to him, he typed in a command and an ellipsis sign showed up, waiting to connect to the person he'd just called up. A few moments later Tali's face appeared on the console.

"Has something happened?" she asked, not panicking just worried.

"Yeah, we found some sort of Pyramid in the forest. We're inside now, take a look" he said, pressing a few buttons so the mech displayed the surroundings over the comm. Link. Tali looked in wonder at what she saw, she had heard of some of the ancient ruins that had been located deep underground on Rannoch but this looked even older.

"How old do you think this is?" she asked, her voice dragging slightly over the words due to how in awe she was.

"Yeah...I dunno. It's older than anything I've ever seen before I can tell you that much, and it'll be older than the beacon" he said, the group was moving further in now but Alpha kept the link open while he moved, he wired Tali remote access of the camera so she could look around. They were in a corridor now, which was huge by their standards and could fit the Mako inside it with ease, they didn't have their weapons drawn anymore either because there wasn't any sense in doing so. Down each wall there were carvings of varying nature, some depicted what looked a little like sacrifices and on the other side there were carvings of people dancing, or praying to some unknown deity.

The team got to the end of the corridor and came out into another large chamber, this time there was a large stone slab in the middle which was covered in more of the strange orange patterns. This time the colour was moving, it looked a like a snake was moving across the surface and whirling its way around the surface of the rock. Alpha stood back while Shepard and Liara went to take a look at it, Garrus and Kaiden were off by the edge of the stone surface they were on, looking at the water falls to try and find where they were coming from. Alpha turned the mechs upper half around in a complete circle, taking in every aspect of the surroundings, then he caught something moving back down the corridor, there was a shadow there. The shadow was standing still with its arms by its side, it looked humanoid from where Alpha was but he couldn't tell for certain, he could feel a shiver coursing down his spine.

The shadow then spread its arms out so they were straight to the side and howled, it made Alpha's stomach churn, it sounded exactly like the wolves back on earth. Everyone in the room heard the howl and turned to face back down the corridor, Garrus and Kaiden drawing weapons while Liara and Shepard tried to see what was going on around the Atlas which was blocking their view. Tali was practically shaking while she watched the camera, whatever it was must have followed them down the tunnel, she could tell that Alpha was priming the weapons systems because of the beeps she could hear through the link, also the Mechs arm raised so it was pointing straight at the shadow.

Garrus and Kaiden drew level with the mech and raised their guns at the figure, waiting for it to move while Shepard and Liara approached from behind them, Shepard reaching for her gun while Liara started to glow with Biotic energy. The shadow howled again, this time however it dropped its arms back down the side and started to move forwards at a startling pace, on all fours. Alpha powered up the mechs canon and levelled it at the shadow which was drawing neared, he loosed a shot at it, the creature jumped up against the wall and then bounced back off so it was running across the floor again. The rest of the team started to attack the creature simultaneously, firing a stream of rounds in its direction, the shadow then disappeared. Everyone stopped firing and stared for a moment, then the shadow reappeared on the mechs glass window, Alpha recoiled from his console while Tali almost jumped out of her suit, the shadow wasn't so much of a shadow now as it was in the light of the room. It looked almost exactly like an Earth wolf apart from a few defining features, it's eyes were a blood red colour and its fir was a bright yellow with a dark pattern adorning its face and back. What scared the team the most was large claws which stuck out of all five of its digits, they were about as long as one of Garrus' mandibles and were razor sharp, Alpha could have sworn they glinted as the creature razed one of its hands above its head and punched the glass claws first.

The claws went straight through the glass and stopped a few inches away from Alpha's face, the creature snarled and retracted it's claw before punching again, Alpha brought the arm canon of the mech up to the side of the creatures head with speed a machine shouldn't posses and fired an explosive round. It impacted with the side of the creatures head moments before it tried to hit the glass again, its head exploded in a shower of black gore, Tali recoiled from her console at the same time Shepard and Garrus jumped backwards.

"I'm alright!" Alpha called from the cockpit of the mech, "we should get out of here" he said, turning the mech to look down the corridor again, as soon as he said that a chorus of howls echoed around the room, the team as a whole looked around to see tens of the wolf creatures appear from corridors they hadn't seen originally, they turned around to see more creatures advancing down the same corridor they'd come out of.

"Shepard!" Garrus called, realising how impossible this situation was.

"Go, back to the entrance!" Shepard called, Alpha immediately launched a rocket down the corridor at the advancing creatures, killing a few and making the rest disappear like the first one had done. The team was already moving at a sprint down the corridor, Alpha's mech making the ground shake as it moved, as they moved down it some of the creatures reappeared around them, jumping towards them. Alpha shot three of them before they landed on the closest members of the ground team while Shepard dodged the one which launched itself at her and filled the creature with enough rounds to overheat the heat sync.

The team ran through the first room, looking up at the ledges to see more of the wolf creatures perching on the very edge, snarling and growling down at them. The creatures which had been following them then all disappeared at the same time, the team didn't notice this though and kept running, suddenly the creatures re-appeared in front of them, barring the exit. Alpha launched another rocket and kept moving, the rest of the team had stopped and were now trying to catch up to the Atlas, Alpha barrelled through the door and out into the clearing, he turned the mech around and started to cover the rest of the team.

Shepard was on the radio to Joker, telling to come back and get them, Alpha was still covering Kaiden and Liara who were the last ones out. It was then that they all noticed that the door was shutting, Liara slid underneath but Kaiden wasn't going to make it, Alpha then rammed the mechs arm underneath the door and tried to hold it up but it kept moving, but it did slow down enough for Kaiden to dive underneath it. Alpha removed the mechs arm and the door fell shut, locking the creatures inside, the whole team could hear them howling from outside.

"What the hell were they?" Garrus panted, hunched over with his hands on his knees.

"They looked like wolves to me" Alpha replied, Kaiden grunted an affirmative while Liara and Garrus looked at them both.

"Wol-ufs?" Garrus asked, "never heard of them" he finished, looking down at the ground.

"They're predators from Earth" Kaiden said "but those ones were standing up" he said, looking up at Alpha who'd raised the canopy of the mech.

"Ah, but they were hunting in a pack correct?" he said, grinning at Kaiden who shook his head.

"Trust you to turn this into a field trip!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air.

"Well I don't know about you but I see a forest" Alpha shot back, Garrus snorted and Shepard smiled as Kaiden glared at Alpha, who shrugged innocently. They then heard the sound of the Normandy approaching, looking up they saw the ship descend from the clouds and land in the clearing they'd been in originally, Shepard ordered them forward and they all began to move back towards the waiting ship.


	12. Chapter 12- Before the storm

**A/N: I'd like to point out two things at this point A) I don't write over weekends B) I wrote most of this chapter listening to Slipknot and managed to sneak a reference in somewhere, see if you can spot the lyric...**

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"Would someone please tell me what the hell that was?" Alpha yelled as he opened the canopy on the Atlas, everyone else in the room stopped and looked at each other.

"I've never seen one before" Garrus said quietly as he moved past the mech and towards his locker, the atmosphere in the room was so ridged that every pair of eyes in the room followed him as he did so. Everyone carried on depositing their equipment in silence, Shepard had gone back up to the crew quarters to do so with Liara and Kaiden, which only left Alpha and Garrus in the cargo bay. Garrus helped Alpha down from the mech as Alpha couldn't do so by himself, Alpha was breathing heavily when he had both feet on the floor which worried Garrus, he considered Alpha a friend and therefore was concerned for his well-fair. Tali emerged for engineering, doubling her pace when she noticed how much Alpha was leaning on Garrus, it made him look injured. As she drew closer she could hear Alpha's breathing, he was defiantly in a bad way, Garrus was moving him over to the closest wall so he could lean against something more solid.

"Thanks" Alpha said simply when he felt the solid wall behind his back, he noticed Tali had entered the room "enjoy the show?" he asked.

"What show?" she asked, having no idea what he meant half the time was a little frustrating.

"Oh you know, wolf people and ancient ruins...that show" he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"Well...are you alright?" she asked, her worry reaching dangerous levels, she felt like she would say something stupid if she didn't ask him.

"I'm fine" he said, waving her off, Garrus hummed.

"You didn't sound like it earlier" he said, looking at Alpha with a stern stillness to his mandibles.

"Well I'm fine now" Alpha raised his voice slightly "Jesus Garrus, you sound like my mother".

"Well maybe that's because you don't seem to tell yourself when to stop" Garrus punched Alpha lightly on the shoulder "So I'm telling you to stop".

"Me too" Tali said from the other side of Alpha, he looked at her and then at the far wall.

"Once we get Saren I'll slow down" he said after a few moments of silence, Garrus was about to protest when Alpha held up a hand, "I'm not going to sit here while you lot go off to save the galaxy am I?" he said with the first smile he'd had in a while.

"Humans!" Garrus threw his arms above his head and stalked back towards the Mako, leaving Alpha almost crying with laughter. Tali also watched Garrus go, but she wasn't laughing she was too concerned with how Alpha didn't seem to take this seriously, she didn't even notice when Alpha stopped laughing and cocked his head at her.

"OK?" he asked, she jumped and turned around.

"Sorry I must have...drifted off" she said, wringing her hands. At this point Alpha was starting to get a little worried about Tali's inability to speak to anyone without stuttering and fidgeting, so he did the first thing that he could think of doing which was grasping both of her hands and holding them apart from each other. Tali visibly flinched but didn't move away, she locked her gaze at her hands and stared at Alpha's which were still gloved.

"The fidgeting, you know how infernal it is right?" Alpha said with a small smile. Tali looked up at him and then back at her hands again, she could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, Alpha released his grip and leant back against the wall again. "Come on, we should at least look like we're doing something" he added, starting to hobble off towards engineering, Tali looked at the floor for a second before following, although she was only half there.

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-Five hours later-

The night cycle had kicked in, thanks to Pressly's good sense of timing, meaning that everyone was now running on the shifts that took place during the late hours. All of the crew members would rotate around so that everyone got five hours of sleep before the Normandy hit Ilos, Alpha and Tali were on the first shift in engineering. Adams was sleeping for this shift which meant the Tali was supposed to be in charge, however Alpha was calling most of the shots as Tali was in some sort of dream sequence.

When one of the engineers had asked about why they had to work the first shift a few hours ago everyone in the room had looked at Tali, who'd not registered anything being said, so Alpha had improvised by threatening to have the engineer in question framed for damaging the Mako in the night. Ever since then Alpha had been keeping everyone busy with trying to find a way to make the Normandy faster while not sacrificing the range of their fuel tanks, the engineers in the room had leapt at the challenge just for something to do.

Tali was still dazed from earlier, she kept working and didn't look up for the entire shift, she didn't even look up when the people on shift all cheered when the time came for them to raise the people who were currently asleep. The engineers all filled out of the room, leaving Alpha behind so he could log the shift out and catch some shut eye before the next day, he filled out a brief report to tell the next team that everything was good and logged off his console. He turned looked up and sighed when he noticed Tali was still working, he sidled over so he was standing next to her. She didn't even look up when he cleared his throat, so instead he nudged her in the ribs with his elbow, she jumped and turned looked up and noticed that the room was empty.

"So...nervous?" Alpha said, leaning against the railing, he hadn't ever know Tali to daydream for such a long space of time. Tali's mind started racing, she obviously couldn't say that it was what Alpha had done earlier, with her hands, that had jarred her into silence, so she had to find another reason and nervousness was the best option.

"Yeah, a little" she sighed and dropped her shoulders as a yawn escaped her. Alpha chuckled quietly next to her.

"Yeah, and tired. Come on, out shift ended" he said, standing up and nudging her again. She had to admit that sleep was a nice idea, maybe it would take her mind off the stupid thoughts she'd been having for the past five hours. Although she'd tried to think about anything else her mind had kept wondering back to what Alpha had done earlier, amongst other Alpha related topics. She shook herself again and shut down her terminal, she decided that sleeping would get her thoughts in order, as soon as she turned around and saw Alpha's expression she started having second thoughts.

"Damn, you can barely stand up straight" Alpha observed, noticing how she was slouched more than usual. Tali just nodded and moved past him, he turned and watched her go, he may be British but he wasn't that stubborn, he could tell when someone was trying to forget something. He sighed and followed her out the room, he caught her outside the elevator and stood next to her. Neither of them said anything said anything while they waited, Alpha looked sideways at her and saw that she was staring at the door in front of them. He sighed again and mimicked her gaze, he wanted to say something but not knowing what was on her mind made that difficult. The elevator arrived and the door slid open, both of them stepped on and Alpha pressed the button to take them up to the crew quarters, at that same moment he decided what he was going to say.

"So, are you going tell me what's actually wrong?" he said, to Tali it was out of the blue and seemingly aimed at nobody, she knew it was meant for her though. "Tali?" Alpha said her name, she'd been silent for a while. Tali stumbled a little over what to say, she knew nervousness wasn't going to work again.

"Like you said, I'm just nervous" she cursed herself for being incapable of coming up with anything better.

"Oh come on, I'm not that stupid Tali" Alpha said quietly, he wasn't angry but he was frustrated at her for not telling him what was wrong. Tali was silent for a while, which almost made Alpha want to shake her by the shoulders. "Alright if you don't want to talk about it that's fine" he said eventually, after the silence started to get awkward. Tali started to move out of the elevator when it stopped, she was stopped by Alpha though.

"But it would be better if you did" he said, she turned and looked at him, "better out than in" he finished, smiling. Tali looked at him blankly for a moment, she knew he wasn't going to let this drop, but she couldn't say what she wanted to, it was to childish and she didn't want to distract him. It felt like he was boring holes into her eyes with his own, they were still striking even through the purple haze of her visor, which she really appreciated sometimes.

"I well...it's silly and you have enough on your mind..." she trailed off, at that moment a stone wall of realisation hit Alpha, he removed his hand from her shoulder and stood in front of her, she was looking at the floor, he really couldn't blame her. He looked at her for a few seconds, considering what to say, she was nice to him, and obviously cared about his well-fair, a few words from the song 'Snuff' came into his head. Was he really was to dark to care?

"Tali...I" he stopped, trying to bring order to his thoughts, "didn't expect that" he finished, damning himself for losing his composure. At that moment Garrus rounded the corner from the CIC stair well, he observed the two and stopped, not quite getting the situation he carried on walking towards them after a moment, Alpha looked back at him.

"Hey Garrus" he said, his previous tone of voice returning to his voice.

"I wasn't interrupting anything was I?" Garrus asked, still not being able to get a read on the situation, Alpha shook his head.

"No, I was just going to turn in" he said, Garrus caught Tali looking up from the floor suddenly.

"Well so was I" he said, alternating his gaze between Alpha and Tali quickly, Alpha seemed to catch on to it and shook his head again. Alpha had a thousand different thoughts and various pieces of music going through his head, some relevant and some not.

"Give me a minute will you Garrus?" he said, he'd made a choice. Garrus nodded and moved away, Alpha made sure that nobody was watching and turned around to face Tali, who was now looking at him. He breathed in, rolled his shoulders, this was either a massive error in judgement or the right thing to do, either way it may be awkward. He caught her shoulder again and pulled her into him with one arm, he had no idea how this was going to turn out though. "Alright Tali, I need to think this through alright?" he said, holding her at arm's length again, while his old friends weren't prejudiced and neither was he, something like this had never occurred to him. It wasn't in his game plan.

"OK" she said, it was almost a squeaky voice, heavy with feeling. Alpha let her go and moved towards the sleeper pods, she watched him go until he was around the corner and dropped her head and shoulders. 'Stupid stupid, STUPID' she mentally slapped herself, she'd actually managed to break his composure and that wasn't a good thing.

She began to make her way towards the sleeper pods as well, realising that she could barely walk a straight line.


	13. Chapter 13- The final fight (Part One)

**A/N: Hello there, have a chapter. This is part one of the two I'm writing about the final fight(s) ENJOY!**

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The Normandy was fast approaching Ilos, the distance between them was slowly shortening and the ground team was getting ready. Well most of the ground team, Alpha was forced to sit it out. The team had come to a general consensus that if the situation arose he would drop in with the Atlas, but it was likely that he would be on the Normandy for the majority of the time. The rest of the team were currently piling into the Mako behind Shepard who would be driving, the drop itself would be tight but Joker assured them all that he could do it.

Alpha hadn't spoken a word to Tali since the previous night, not because he was shocked but because he didn't know what to say to her. He had put it aside because he wanted to focus on the task at hand, he hoped Tali would do the same but he somehow doubted it. He had made sure the Atlas was prepped for a drop even though the team doubted that he would need to involve himself, he had a feeling that something was going to come up and normally his hunches paid off. At that moment he was in engineering, as per usual, setting up the Normandy's engines for anything that came their way.

-Meanwhile-

Garrus looked around the cramped Mako, he knew that the drops were usually uncomfortable but having so many of them in the same cabin coupled with the scarce amount of space they had to make the drop in he reckoned that this one would be worse than usual. Shepard had given her grand speech and the team was ready to go, now all they could do was wait for the drop. A red light appeared in the corner of the cabin, the team as a whole strapped in to their seats, an amber light then showed up to signal that the cargo bay doors were opening. Then the green light popped up, for Garrus time seemed to stand still for a moment as Shepard put the Mako into forward drive and gunned the throttle, a few moments later the unusual feeling of weightlessness pulled at everyone's stomach as the Mako flew gracelessly towards the ground.

This time it was shorter than usual, less than two seconds, and they all collectively lurched forward as the Mako impacted with the ground. Shepard cursed and pointed out the windscreen.

"The basterd closed the doors on us" she said, smacking her fist against the wall to open the hatch, the team clambered out in single file.

"Can we open them?" Kaiden asked from outside once he'd straightened out.

"There will be a control panel somewhere" Liara piped up from the interior if the Mako as she was stuck behind Shepard.

"Then" Shepard grunted as she swung herself out "that's where we're headed" she said, brushing her hands together.

"It will likely be this way" Liara pointed back the way the Normandy had come from, no sooner had she said this when three Geth armatures dropped from the sky, the landed with a loud crash and unfolded.

"I guess Saren knows that too, huh?" Garrus said from behind the Mako's wheel when the Armatures began firing at them.

"Can we take them out?" Kaiden shouted from behind the pillar closest to the enemy.

"Shepard!" Tali shouted from the other side of the Mako "the underside of the armatures is weaker than the plating, maybe we could try hitting that".

"That would involve being able to look at them without having your limbs removed!" Garrus shouted back.

"No, it's too risky" Shepard called "we have to think of something fast, Saren's making ground!" she finished, looking around for a solution, seeing none because of the enclosed space they were in she shot Garrus a look, the Turian stared at her for a moment before nodding and brought a Talon to his ear piece.

"Ground team to" he snapped his head back as a round ricocheted off the wheel he was behind "Normandy, we have three Armatures blocking out path, can you send support?" he had to raise his voice over the gunfire.

"Roger ground team, Atlas mech incoming from inside atmosphere. ETA two minutes" Joker replied as he pulled the Normandy around and pointed it back towards the planet, he changed the radio channel. "Alpha, the ground team needs you" he said into the air, Alpha answered an affirmative and Joker changed the radio channel back.

-Downstairs-

Alpha dropped everything and half ran towards the cargo bay, the half run was because running might have killed him. He reached his locker and strapped on his armour, during this time he realised that nobody was around to help him up, so he would have to do it himself. He approached the mech, still putting his gloves on, and stood in front of it trying to figure out the best way to get up. Eventually he put his hand on one of the legs and the other inside the cockpit, then he pushed the ground with his feet while pushing with his first hand and pulling with the other. He then turned in mid air and sat on the edge of the open cockpit, then he pushed himself into the chair.

He smiled as he closed the canopy, mostly at the knowledge that he could do that by himself and also because he knew Garrus would have executed him for doing it without support. He manoeuvred the mech so it was standing in front of the door and waited, Joker came on over the mechs built in communication piece.

"You ready?" he asked, Alpha could hear the Normandy slowing down.

"Tell me 'jump' I say 'where to!'" Alpha replied, changing the old saying they used to chant in boot-camp.

"Alright then, opening the doors...you do know how to land that thing right?" Joker asked, it occurred to him that Alpha had never dropped out of the Normandy with this mech before.

"I'll improvise!" Alpha said cheerfully, adrenalin pumping around his body.

"Well okay then, you're clear..." the cargo bay doors opened "now!" Joker said, Alpha pushed the joystick of the mech completely forwards so the mech broke into a run. Then the ramp ended and the mech dropped off it, Alpha saw a large green button flashing and he pressed it, then the mech straightened out and started firing thrusters out of its feet. After a few moments of disorientating decent the mech hit the ground, or rather it landed on one of the three armatures attacking Shepard's squad. Alpha noticed this and grinned at how awesome that must have looked before turning the mech to the left and firing a rocket straight into the head of the Armature on that side, causing pieces of shrapnel the spray everywhere. Then he turned to right when he saw the Atlas' shields ripple, the other Armature was firing its pulse canon at him so he fired the Atlas' arm canon straight into its leg. From the range he was at the round past straight through the Armatures shields and blew the leg clean off, Alpha whooped and opened the canopy.

-A few moments earlier-

Shepard's team remained in cover while they waited for Alpha to arrive, they hadn't been able to say more than two words to each other over the gunfire, Garrus was almost out of wheel to hide behind and Kaiden was pressed against the wall hoping that the Armature next to it wasn't going to see him.

Tali was on the other side of the Mako and had been trying to shrink into the earth behind a fallen pillar, Liara was next to her and was trying to do the same. Tali chose that moment to poke her head up and almost fell over backwards when a large blue blur suddenly crushed the middle Armature, then the blur turned into the Atlas which fired a rocket into the second geth unit before spinning around again and firing a HE round into the thirds leg.

The ground team all poked their heads out from behind cover and all saw the same grinning face looking back at them, Shepard sent a nod at Alpha before taking Liara and Kaiden to go and open the door. The other three stood and kept watch to make sure that nothing happened to the Mako, Alpha still had the canopy open and was leaning with his elbows on his thighs and his chin in his hands.

"So did you guys see how awesome that was?" he asked eventually, swinging his legs back and forth a little.

"I was too busy keeping my head on my shoulders, how about you Tali? Care to fill me in?" Garrus replied, looking over at Tali, who squirmed a little. Both Alpha and Garrus noticed it and when Garrus sent a look at Alpha the human shook his head and shrugged, "Everything alright?" Garrus asked, Tali snapped her head up, her glowing orbs widening.

"What? Me? I'm fine!" she said, slightly louder than she intended, Garrus glanced at Alpha again, who once again shrugged. The three continued their awkward silence as they waited for Shepard to return, Alpha felt sorry for Garrus, who had no Idea why there was an awkward silence to begin with.

"So is there something I'm missing...or is silence today's trend?" Garrus asked, the silence was beginning to get frustrating.

"I don't know Garrus. Is the sky red?" Alpha retorted, Garrus hummed and looked up.

"Well if you catch the light juuuuust right..." Alpha groaned next to him.

"No, it isn't" he said, glaring at the Turian who held up his hands.

"Alright, no need to get all antsy with me" he said, leaning against the side of the Mako and taking out his rifle. Alpha looked at Tali for a second before climbing gently out of the Atlas and walking over to her, he lent back against the same pillar she was.

"Hey" he said, she turned to look at him with wide eyes having not noticed him approaching, "you alright?" Alpha asked, turning his head to look at her. Tali stumbled over some words when she made eye-contact with him.

"Yes I...I'm fine" she eventually managed to form a coherent sentence.

"Okay..." Alpha sighed and rubbed his forehead "Tali about earlier" he said, looking back up at her again. She seemed to straighten up a little when he spoke, "are you sure?" he asked, this took Tali completely by surprise.

"Wha...What do you mean?"

"I mean, is this what's best for you?" Alpha said, inclining his head towards her. Tali hadn't thought of it like that, but something told her to go for it anyway. She'd been right about joining Shepard, why couldn't she be right about this to?

"I..." she picked up a store of courage she never knew she had "whatever happens, I...really trust you..." she said, trailing off when Alpha scratched his beard and looked up at the sky.

"That feeling's mutual" he said quietly "you've been really kind to me Tali, this wreck of a man standing before you, you've helped me through some hard stuff, and I appreciate it...and I guess I really trust you too" the words made Tali jump, she hadn't expected that level of openness from him.

"Really? Oh..." she couldn't reply because words weren't coming to her.

"For lack of a better term" he said, grinning at the way the word 'trust' had been used. Tali stood and stared at the ground, "hey, come on. It'll work out" Alpha said, putting his hands on both of her shoulders. She looked up at him, then she tried what Quarians did as a showing of affection while suited, she leant her forehead against his, he didn't even flinch as he guessed that was what it was.

"I know" she lowered her voice, Alpha grinned at her as it sounded more like a squeak than he was used to hearing.

At that moment Shepard and her squad rounded the corner, Alpha heard the footsteps and turned to face them. When he noticed Shepard he looked back round at Tali and gave her a slight nod before moving back towards the mech, Tali stood and looked after him for a moment, she felt like she was about to burst. There would be someone to come back to after this was all over now, and idea she was fairly fond of.

The group all clambered back into the Mako, apart from Alpha who was manning the mech. As a group they moved into the bunker towards the conduit...and Saren.


End file.
