"Did you find anything on the Alarei that could clarify what happened there?"

Hundreds of quarians stared down at Tali from the tiered benches in the Assembly Garden, but she didn't acknowledge any of them. Her eyes locked on Commander Shepard as he approached the raised dais where the Admirals presided. Tali found evidence, all right... indisputable, undeniable proof that her father was guilty of everything for which they blamed him. The Migrant Fleet would tear itself apart if the truth came out, not to mention what the Citadel Council might do when they learned Rael'Zorah resurrected research that sparked the geth uprising in the first place. It could be the end of the quarian people.

Still, Tali was only able to focus on Commander Shepard. Because of quarantine, he wore his combat helmet at all times. How odd that she had to to look upon him now as he always saw her? All that was visible of his face were his eyes; dark, sensitive, attractive, though non-reflective. She always liked the radial pattern in his irises that seemed to glitter in light. Even when she could see his face, she always focused on his eyes when they talked, especially in those moments when he looked into hers. Most aliens leaned in close and leered out of some twisted curiosity to see her face. Shepard just did it to make eye contact, like any quarian would.

Now those eyes were filled with pain like she had never seen before, and she was the cause. Shepard always went to any length to protect his crew, no matter what. That both comforted and terrified Tali, because now she needed him to do the opposite. During the flight back from the Alarei, Shepard tried feverishly to convince her to reveal the truth, promising to exonerate her without sparking a civil war in the Flotilla. But she couldn't risk it. There was too much at stake. Everything her father did had to die with him on the Alarei.

For Tali, it made sense. Her reputation, even her life was a reasonable sacrifice for the Fleet. But in Shepard's mind, he was sacrificing what mattered the most: honor, his and that of a friend. Ordinarily, he would die before giving up either. He looked at her, confused and hurt, but with the resilience of someone who'd done many unpleasant things because duty demanded it.

She held her breath as her Captain stepped towards waiting Admirals. Which way would that sense of duty take him now? She opened a private comm link. "Shepard, please..."

Admiral Raan's voice was calm. "Does Captain Shepard have any new evidence to submit to this hearing?"

Shepard clenched his fists at his sides. "We found nothing on the Alarei that we wish to submit as evidence."

Tali closed her eyes and let out her breath. The entire chamber fell silent. All of the admirals of the Board activated their omni-tools to cast their votes, except one.

"Tali?" Admiral Han'Gerrel stared at her in disbelief. Could the human captain be acting against her wishes?

Shepard looked over his shoulder at Tali. Her father's oldest and most trusted friend was giving her one last chance for her to tell her side of the story, to say what really happened on the doomed research ship. Take it, Shepard's eyes pleaded. Please!

"I have nothing to say," Tali was in a daze. She hardly even heard the words over her own thoughts, or noticed when Admiral Gerrel reluctantly keyed in his vote. The future of the fleet was preserved, but the only thing Tali saw was Shepard hanging his head, ashamed as if he had cast the deciding vote himself.

Tali leaned against the Kodiak's window and watched ships of all shapes and tonnages slip by. There was the Hartono, the massive elcor bulk freighter that had been converted to living quarters for over eight thousand quarian families. The Zaggorn, a hanar bioship, essentially a gigantic, cylindrical space-going aquarium which now stored water for almost a quarter of the Flotilla. Then they passed the Olionna, a passenger liner used during the earliest days of the Geth Uprising to evacuate Rannoch. It made dozens of trips to the surface and back, carrying countless thousands of quarians to what was supposed to be temporary refuge until the homeworld could be reclaimed. It had yet to make that final return voyage.

She shifted in her seat and kicked a worn fabric sack under her chair, the single memento from the Fleet she chose to bring with her into exile. Everything else that she could call her own was already on the Normandy. She looked aft, where a giant white crescent moon of Rayya receded behind them. Its giant sphere slowly spun, giving the massive ship the impression it was rolling through space. It might be the last time she'd see it in person.

Something tugged at her wrist. Garrus, seated next to her, was reaching her omnitool. He'd been talking for some time, she realized, but she hadn't heard a word of it.

"The Alarei was crawling with geth," Garrus said. "There's no way your father didn't know what was going on. You collected half a dozen logs. Surely you found something. Let me take a look. I don't know, maybe we can call for a mistrial or something."

Tali pushed his hand away and turned back to the window. "There's nothing in them."

"We can't give up," Garrus said. "Shepard, are you really going to stand by and let them do this to her?"

Shepard glared at the turian from the opposite bench. "It's out of my hands, Garrus. Leave it alone"

"But, Shepard-"

"I said let it go."

Tali looked at Shepard and their eyes met briefly. She mouthed 'thank you,' but he couldn't see it because of the infernal mask she was forced to wear. But it didn't matter as Shepard shifted his gaze out the window, his eyes empty and defeated.

"Well," Garrus patted Tali's knee. "For what it's worth, I'm glad they're letting you stay with us. The ship wouldn't be the same without you. You're a credit to the name."

"Thanks," Tali sniffed. Once again, she tried to meet Shepard's eyes with her own, but he stayed focused on the view out the window.

"Rolston," Shepard asked, "What's our ETA?"

The pilot sounded disappointed. "Ah, thirty-five minutes, sir. We're having keep it under max V because of Migrant Fleet navigational regulations."

"All right, don't get us pulled over." Shepard's brow furrowed as if deep in thought. "Excuse me," he said and walked to the cockpit.

Garrus shook his head, astonished, as the Commander left them. "What is happening here?"

Tali sighed and turned back to the window. The shuttle's trajectory had carried the Rayya out of view. She closed her eyes and exhaustion finally delivered a peace she knew she wasn't likely to find anywhere else.

When she opened them again, Garrus was shaking her shoulder. "Hey," he said. "We're back."

Tali blinked as Normandy's hangar lights blazed through the window. So begins the first day of exile, she thought. Though compared to others who suffered the same fate, she could have ended up somewhere much, much worse. She reached down to pick up her sack, then walked towards the shuttle's equipment locker in the aft compartment to retrieve her gear.

Shepard stood and rotated his right arm and shoulder. "Leave it," he said. "We'll get it later. I want to get out of this suit."

"Me too," Garrus sighed, sounding uncharacteristically defeated compared to his earlier fire. "Been a long day."

Tali opened the hatch. All she wanted to do was get back to her quarters, throw herself on the bed and cry herself to sleep. The last thing she needed was to break down in front of Shepard, or worse, Garrus. She'd never hear the end of it. She jumped down to the deck and hurried towards the elevator when a wall of sound stopped her in her tracks.

Normandy's entire company and crew stood in front of the shuttle, applauding. She turned around to see what they could possibly be cheering as Shepard put his arm around her shoulder and pointed upwards and aft. Across the pane glass windows overlooking the hangar deck hung a giant banner, written in two-meter tall khelish script: "Welcome Home Tali'Zorah vas Normandy"

"Keelah," Tali murmured. She clutched the bag to her chest as she was engulfed in open arms and smiling faces. The crew hugged her and patted her on the back, rotating as efficiently ships of the Migrant Fleet, until a harsh, piercing voice rose above the din.

"All right, everyone," Miranda shouted. "Stand at ease. At ease!" The throng around Tali opened in front of the Cerberus operative, and she approached holding a thin book in her hand. Yeoman Chambers was right behind her, a huge smile on her face.

"Tali'Zorah vas Normandy," Miranda said. "it is my duty as executive officer of the vessel whose name you now bear to officially enter your name into the ship's registry." She presented the book she carried to the quarian.

Tali took it into her hands. It was bound with stiff cardboard, with a mottled black and white pattern on its cover. She flipped it open from the back and leafed through dozens of pages of blank graph paper. When she got to the front, a taped-in page unfurled, containing a list of hand scrawled words in languages she couldn't begin to recognize, next to quarian labels translating them into names she would never forget.

Kelly smiled. "It's actually one of Mordin's lab books. It's the best we could come up with on such short notice."

Tali tried to keep her hands from shaking as she looked over the roster. "It's wonderful! Absolutely perfect!"

"Not yet." Shepard tapped the top of the page with a ball point pen. "It's not official until you sign in."

Five lines down the page was the name "Tali'Zorah vas Normandy" and a blank space. Commander Shepard, Joker, Doctor Chakwas and Garrus had signed above, all members of the original crew of the SR-1. Below were the rest of the SR-2 crew and squad in the order they joined.

Tali choked back a sob. "Of course you put me under Garrus."

"Where you belong," Garrus said. "I've got at least three day's seniority."

The echo of laughter died and the hangar fell silent as the quarian took the pen and signed into the makeshift ledger, then handed it back to Miranda.

The Cerberus XO inspected it as if she could read the alien script, then actually smiled. "Welcome aboard, Miss vas Normandy." She handed the notebook back to the stunned engineer. "It's yours to keep."

A deafening cheer filled the compartment, and once again Tali was surrounded by her shipmates hugging her and slapping her on the back. They came and went so fast she could hardly see who had grabbed her next, until one particular crewmate held on a little too long.

"Is your suit pressurized ma'am?" Kenneth asked as he caressed her back. "Because it feels very firm in the hind quarters!"

"Dammit Ken!" Gabby pinched the Scotsman's ear and dragged him back. "Don't ruin this!"

"Ach," Ken said, doubled over. "What're ya doin', woman? You'll pull the whole bloody lobe off!"

Gabby shoved her partner aside and gave Tali a solid hug, which the quarian tearfully returned. "I'm so glad you're back, boss!" The human gave a hearty squeeze. "I couldn't handle going back to just me and him!"

Tali laughed as she next found herself looking up into green skin and pitch black eyes. She used to find the drell's appearance frightening, but having gotten to know Thane during their voyage, she couldn't remember anyone as polite and urbane. "Miss vas Normandy," he said with a slight bow. "Your predecessor was truly irreplaceable. But I know you will do her, and your namesake, proud."

"Thank you, Thane," Tali said, not even attempting a hug out of respect for his need for personal space.

"Lame," said the next voice, and the debonair assassin was replaced with a pale, bald human. Jack chewed loudly on the strange rubbery pink material humans seemed to enjoy and snapped a bubble directly in front of Tali's face. "Shepard's making all of us do this. Welcome back, bucket-head."

Tali grinned. Even the thug's acerbic attitude couldn't bring her down as the crew continued welcoming her aboard. Joker, Chakwas, Mordin, Kasumi, Jacob... even the grouchy mercenary Zaeed came by to shake her hand, and the diminutive quarian squealed in delight when she disappeared into Grunt's giant krogan-hug.

As the last of the crew offered their congratulations, Shepard held his hand up to the waiting crowd. "Okay people, listen up! Quiet! Quiet, everybody. The Admiralty Board has given us sixty minutes after returning, to, and I quote, 'vacate the sovereign space of the Migrant Fleet.'"

A chorus of boos thundered through the hangar. Tali's smile disappeared from her face as she stared at the deck.

"So..." Shepard looked at his watch. "For the next fifty-three minutes and twenty-one seconds, the lounge is OPEN. Let's head up and drink a toast to our new Chief Engineer, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. I'm buying!"

Cheers once again filled the compartment, followed by a mad rush to the elevator and stairwells. It didn't take long before Tali was left alone with Shepard and Garrus in front of the Kodiak.

"Just for the record," Garrus said, "this was all my idea."

Shepard's exasperation hit a level reserved for talking to the Citadel Council. "Oh, get the hell out of here with that bullshit! You didn't do a damn thing."

"Well I would have, if I'd known about it!"

"You were too busy trying to hack into Tali's omnitool while she was asleep."

Tali stomped her foot. "Garrus!"

"He makes it sound so underhanded," Garrus said. "It was professional curiosity. The casework on this investigation was more than a little shaky."

Tali glared at him. "You touch my omnitool again and I swear they won't find all of you until this ship goes in for its hundred year refit."

Garrus harrumphed and headed for the line waiting at the elevator. "Good to have you back, Tali."

"Gods I swear he does this on purpose," Tali said through clenched teeth.

"Don't kid yourself," Shepard said. "He would've missed you more than anybody."

Tali looked back at Shepard. His face glistened with sweat and was covered with creases from his headgear, and his armor was pockmarked from the fighting on the Alarei. She couldn't stop herself. She opened her arms and pulled him close. Shepard returned the embrace, rocking her slowly back and forth where they stood. "I don't know what to say," she gasped.

"Welcome home," Shepard said, which made Tali squeeze hard enough he could almost feel it through his armor. She pulled back and almost tripped on the bag at her feet. Shepard steadied her and reached down to pick it up. It didn't seem very full. "This all they let you bring back with you?"

"What? Oh... No. Everything I own is already here. Um..." Tali took the bag from him and tried to hold onto crew registry book while she dug into the sack. Her hands shook as she tried to pull a large bulky item from within. "It's customary that when a new crew member joins a ship that she presents her captain with a gift. Ordinarily, this happens when you come back from pilgrimage, but we just came back from the trial and they were kicking us out and I didn't have any time to find anything really spectacular..."

The bag fell away, revealing a plain brown card-stock box. Shepard took it from her. "It's really nothing," Tali said, clasping the ship's registry in front of her. "But I know you like models, and..."

Shepard opened the box and produced a scale model of the transport ships commonly used throughout the Migrant Fleet. It was the length of his arm. Its painted metal was chipped and scratched, having been handed down for generations. He gave the thick vertical ring at the bow a tug and the carousel spun freely on its hub. "I love it, Tali. I've got the perfect spot for it. Thank you."

Tali's throat constricted so tightly she couldn't have uttered another word if her life depended on it.

Shepard hefted the model ship in one hand and guided Tali towards the elevator with his other. "Let me buy you a drink, Miss vas Normandy."