Go to Tali 50%
Fluttershy thought for a moment about where she should go first but in the end, there wasn't a question who she should visit first. Tali had been there when she had hurt herself and also was the one who had carried her to the medbay, Joker would come after she had spoken to the quarian. She took the slow elevator down to the garage and walked through the entrance to engineering.
Work in the engineering bay next to the drive core seemed to be continuing as usual but there were a couple of engineers that shot her a nervous glance. Tali was standing in her usual spot, typing away at the console in front of her.
“Uhm, Tali?” Fluttershy said, not getting a reaction from the quarian. In the corner of her eyes she could see a couple of engineers subtly leaving the engineering bay.
“I-I just wanted to apologize for breaking o-”
“Apologize?!” Tali shouted, “I know you broke orders, but that’s Shepard's problem. What I’m angry about isn’t because you broke those damned orders you bosh’tet. What do you think it did to me when you just fell over bleeding!”
Fluttershy couldn’t find a good answer to the point Tali had brought up and just let the quarian rage at her.
“I was so scared that you had died right then and there, Fluttershy, and I had just let it happen on my watch,” Tali continued, Fluttershy felt her heart sink when she saw tears clinging to the inside of Tali’s visor as she crouched down. Without warning the pegasus was pulled into a tight hug by the quarian. “Don’t you ever do something like that again,” she sniffed.
Fluttershy returned the hug feeling tears coming up to the surface herself. “I won’t, I promise.” The two sat unmoving for a minute before Fluttershy’s omni-tool started beeping, indicating an incoming call, Doctor Chakwas’ ID was displayed on the holographic screen.
“Fluttershy, I think I’ve made an important discovery regarding your stare. Could you come over to the medbay please?” the doctor immediately asked after Fluttershy picked up the call.
“Uhm, okay? Is everything all right, doctor?” Fluttershy asked, concerned by the urgency Doctor Chakwas had spoken with.
“Yes, though I’d like you to get here right away,” Chakwas pressed before cutting the connection, Fluttershy looked up at Tali who also seemed confused as to the doctor’s behavior.
“Would you mind if I came along to the medbay?” Tali asked Fluttershy who shrugged.
“I promised Shepard that I wouldn’t keep secrets from him so you’d find out what doctor Chakwas has found eventually,” the pegasus said as she got up and made her way back to the elevator. Garrus was also waiting for the elevator to take him up to the CIC where he would join up with the ground team.
“Hey Fluttershy, did Shepard allow you to roam the ship again?” He asked as he noticed Tali and Fluttershy come around the corner.
“Oh, uhm. Yes, he did” Fluttershy said, her cheeks becoming a slight shade of red. The elevator door opened and the three of them stepped inside. Garrus pushed the button that sent it back up.
“Good. By the way, if you ever have trouble sleeping again don’t be shy about asking me for help,” he said offhandedly, Fluttershy felt her blood pumping into her wings but managed to keep the appendages firmly clamped against her body.
“I-I will, thank you,” she awkwardly stuttered.
“Good, We should be back in an hour or two if everything goes smoothly,” Garrus said as the elevator stopped and opened back up. “See the two of you when we get back,” he called over his shoulder as he walked off towards the ramps that led to the CIC.
Tali and Fluttershy made their way over to the medbay, the intercom calling out that Shepard had left the Normandy and XO Pressly had the deck. As they entered, they found Chakwas looking at a hologram of a brain, Fluttershy assuming this was the active scan they had made when Fluttershy had used the stare on her.
“Tali, do you need anything? Antibiotics, immuno-boosters?” Chakwas asked as she noticed the quarian alongside Fluttershy.
“She was interested in what you found, doctor. I’m not hiding this from the commander so she’d find out about it anyway.” Fluttershy told the doctor.
“Oh, okay. In that case come on over and look at this.” Chakwas pointed at the hologram. “If you hadn’t guessed this is a scan of my brain and what you’re about to see is what happens to it when it’s under the influence of Fluttershy’s stare.”
“Wait, what do you mean by Fluttershy’s stare?” Tali asked in confusion, the answer almost immediately coming to her. “You didn’t...”
“We needed the readings if we were going to study the ability, Tali. I was the one who suggested it,” Chakwas told the baffled quarian before letting the hologram run its course. The moment Fluttershy’s stare hit the doctor the entire brain lit up but in particular the section dedicated to the fight or flight response. “As you can see here, the moment the stare hits me my brain goes into panic mode and my fight or flight instinct activates. The thing is that I wasn’t able to react to the signals that part of my brain gave me as the stare blocked most of the connections going through.”
“So the stare is just a really complicated way of temporary paralysis?” Tali asked, Chakwas shaking her head.
“No, it’s way more complicated. There’s dark energy interfering with my brain pretty much everywhere and as you can see here by this scan-” Chakwas pulled up a new hologram of her brain that showed less, but still some strange activity indicated by red. “-there seem to be semi-permanent changes within my brain which, since this is probably part of a biological defense system, are most likely making me more agreeable to anything you ask of me.”
“Oh my, I… uhm, are you fine with this doctor?” Fluttershy asked meekly.
“You didn’t know and the due to the suddenness of the changes, my brain seems to be mending the faults which are already minute at best. Though if the stare was of low enough intensity and administered over a longer period of time I think the changes would stack up and actually be permanent and you’d effectively be able to indoctrinate someone.”
Fluttershy didn’t feel good about any of this, she never wanted to permanently harm anyone and now it turned out the stare she had been using on disobeying animals might have harmed them.
“Would you mind if I stepped out for a moment?” She asked the doctor.
“No problem Fluttershy, this is everything I wanted to tell you anyway,” Chakwas told the pegasus who looked like she felt increasingly disgusted at herself.
Tali followed the pegasus as she stepped outside the medbay, Fluttershy thinking up something she could do to distract herself.
1. Apologize to Joker
2. Ask Tali for the lesson on cover
3. Call Shepard to report this immediately