Mass Effect: After the Smoke Falls

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The forest appeared in his dream, again. He wore his Rosenkov Armor, but saw that it was charred and falling away in peace’s, like when Harbinger hit him with the beam. Before him stood the boy, but he looked different. His skin had a violet hue and he only had three fingers on his each hand. The boy’s face seemed recognizable, almost like he met him before. Then he spoke and heard the voice of the Catalyst.

“Daddy!” The boy yelled. Shepard looked around, but he saw no one in sight.  Then it hit him. The boy meant him. Shepard was the boy’s father. That would explain the fingers and skin, because that meant Tali was the mother. But it was impossible for Dextros and Humanoids to mate and end up having a child. His ‘son’ ran into the distance, causing Shepard to chase him. He felt terrified, as though this was real. The boy cowered near a tree as Shepard reached for him.

Then the flames appeared. . .

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“NO!” Shepard yelled.  His body shot forwards, his hand reaching towards empty air. He looked around and saw he was back on the Normandy, in his quarters. He touched his face and felt a tear crawl down his cheek. It felt so real, real enough that he thought someone close to him died. The last time he had that feeling was on the Crucible when Anderson died. Shepard sighed and went into the bathroom, splashing his face with cool water from the sink.

“Commander, Tali would like to see you, she’s on the crew deck.” Said Traynor’s voice over the Comn.

“Tell her I’ll be down soon.” Shepard grunted, trying to hide how he really felt. He shouldn’t need to do that. The war was over, he didn’t have to seem like a total badass in order to have his crew follow him anymore. He went over to the elevator and pressed the button for the Crew Deck. The doors closed and opened to show his destination. He walked into the mess hall and saw Tali sitting at the table with Garrus and Robert. He sat down next to Tali, who gave him a hug.

“Hey.” She said.

Shepard smiled. “Hey.”

“Shepard, we were just talking to your clone.” Garrus said. “Surprisingly he hasn’t tried to destroy the “Cult of Shepard” yet.”

Robert scowled at Garrus. “Very funny, Vakarian.”

Shepard chuckled. “Calm down you two, Robert is ok, I trust him.”

“Well anyways, we were talking about your party and how, thanks to Lieutenant Bastard Tolan, it was ruined.” Robert said. “So Tali had the idea to have the party at her place on Rannoch.”

Shepard looked at Tali. “You sure you want to do that? You know how Krogan get at parties, and those two Krogan being Wrex and Grunt?”

“They’ll be fine, besides if they get out of hand, I’ll have Orion give them a few volts in their system to sober them up.” Tali said.

“Orion?” Asked Robert and Shepard.

“After the war, the remaining geth that were uploaded into the suits of volunteers went back into mobile platforms and started rebuilding servers and creating more geth.” Tali explained. “Members of the Admiralty board received geth bodyguards. I received Orion.”

“He’s a damn good shot, by the way.” Garrus pointed out.

“Almost like Legion?” asked Robert.

Tali nodded. “What were your memories of Legion, Robert?”

“He died during our assault on the Collector base; his VI programing helped us during the battle for Rannoch.” Robert said.