Author's note: I do not own Mass Effect, etc I claim nothing. This was from a prompt on mass kink requesting a story where Shepard reverts back to a younger age while on the Normandy. I made it to take place in ME2, no spoilers really. Spacer background.
Pairing is light Joker/Shepard
Have thoughts of doing a second chapter if there's enough interest.
"So…What are you trying to tell me?"
Garrus awkwardly shifted about the cabin, scratching at the back of his neck, searching for the right words to say.
"I'm saying, about that accident, Chakwas seems to have her stabilized, at the very least she's…slowly regaining her senses as it were. It's difficult, apparently the Commander believes it's the year 2171..or round abouts at least."
Joker laughed loudly, his shoulders shaking as he leaned forward to adjust himself in his seat, his sharp mind did the mental math, taking it to mean that if he had his facts semi-correct, Shepard thought herself anywhere between the ages of 15 and 17. At first he'd been worried, Shepard had come through the ship slung over Grunt's back reeking of chemicals and ozone, the mine that had collapsed on the pair from a controlled explosion had knocked the commander unconscious The second burst had caused a hole in her air supply and cracked her helmet, requiring the shore party to remove her mask for her to breathe and make a run back to the ship. The reports, as Miranda had told him, were all sound. It really had just been an accident, old hardware, canisters that they'd never seen, but when Shepard wasn't regaining consciousness the crew became restless. Joker as well; it was only when Garrus came up to the cockpit that he felt relief.
"Yes, well as funny as that may sound to you it does pose a problem. She keeps asking for her mother, thinks this is an alliance vessel. Tali, Grunt and I have been told to…er, excuse ourselves for the time being."
"I bet. I—"Joker paused, leaning past the Turian to look down the bridge, eyes wide. "Speak of the devil."
Kelly Chambers was leading the Commander around the upper deck by the elbow, speaking in a soothing fashion to the wide eyed young woman at her side. "Well shit, Garrus, better toss yourself out the airlock." The Turian rolled his shoulders and stepped off to the side, hopefully just out of view.
Joker didn't know exactly what he was expecting; at first he didn't notice anything new or different, beside her critical eye and closed off stance. Her arms were folded over a large oversize, unmarked black sweatshirt that she wore over the lower half of a jumpsuit, the sleeves tied around her waist. She looked every bit the part of a spacer brat that he knew from the wharf on Arcturus where he grew up, his heart beat a bit more quickly than usual.
Kelly gave pause when Shepard stopped to stand behind one of the crewmen, examining the console with narrowed eyes. "That's…extreme."
"Ah…yes. Reynolds why don't you tell Miss Shepard a little about what you're doing, excuse me I need to speak to the pilot quickly, then we can head back down to the crew's quarters."
Shepard's glassy eyes looked up for a moment, her shoulders rising in a defiant gesture. "I'd prefer to stay up here on the bridge to wait for the Captain. You said she took a shuttle…I..can't remember."
Joker placed a hand across his mouth to stifle all manner of inappropriate noises threatening to creep past his lips. This was just unreal, he looked to Garrus for support but the Turian merely shrugged and leaned into the bulkhead. It was then Shepard saw the pair of them ogling and he wished, and would have bartered his entire vid collection, for a mirror to see his own face and a snapshot of the Commander as she gave him a lukewarm appraisal and salute. Groaning into his open palm he witnessed Garrus shaking in silent laughter from the navigator's console.
The rest he couldn't hear, he was too busy mentally punching himself into a state of complete control. He peeked through his fingers when he heard his name quietly uttered and he lifted his eyes to look painfully at the yeoman.
"What is she doing up here?" He asked weakly, Garrus taking over for him. The Turian's voice was rough with disapproval.
"I thought you said you were going to keep her in the crew's quarters."
Kelly's hands were tense as she wrung them, her voice low and strained.
"I tried, but Grunt got in the way around the medbay. Miss Lawson smoothed things over before the commander could panic and claw her way through the floor. She got her to believe that she's on a research vessel for the alliance, and since she knows nothing of Cerberus…Well, this ship is more high tech than she would have been used to. It's not a far stretch."
"That was…smart, of her." Garrus nodded, folding his arms. "But that doesn't explain why she saluted us, does she know about the rest of the aliens onboard?"
"I believe so, yes; she took it well at least. Seemed eager to see you in fact Garrus, b-but the problem is explaining why she's here in the first place. We can't get a hold of her mother and even if we could what would we tell her? That her deceased daughter is alive, momentarily traumatized, on a Cerberus vessel, and thinks she's 17 years old again? And then what?"
Joker chuckled, repeating the number seventeen under his breath. The yeoman gave him a beseeching look and he motioned in defeat.
"So what, she just thinks she's on a tour?"
"No. Not exactly. Doctor Chakwas explained that Hannah Shepard and several other crew members are onboard while their ship is undergoing routine maintenance to their life support systems, and that Hannah left the ship that morning to check in. It was shoddy, we didn't have a lot of time and we didn't wish to sedate her, Doctor Chakwas seemed to think that it wasn't worth the risk after she hit her head. We didn't give the details, and it didn't seem to matter; the Commander isn't entirely…there. She seems to be compensating by filling in the details for herself, agreed with the doctor and greeted the crew outside the medbay like she recognized them. It's complicated."
An uncharacteristic laugh brought their attention back around to the Commander who was standing between two nearby work stations while the two inhabitants pointed out various aspects of their work albeit a bit uncomfortably. It was Shepard's laugh that had caught their attention, it was light and cheerful, and though her face was difficult to read and her eyes not quite focused it was clear that she was having a good time regardless. Chambers frowned, her hands continuously flexing and twisting.
"This isn't…Permanent is it?" Garrus asked in what he thought was a casual fashion, Joker couldn't help but mirror the man's troubled expression.
"No, she's been steadily…er…regaining memories, not all at once, but enough. She knew Chakwas for example without even needing to be reintroduced, but she didn't know me at all. Sometimes she'd repeat herself, and forget everything just like that. Like I said, it's complicated but she won't sit still or stay in one place despite the concussion and inhalation, she must instinctively sense something is wrong and desires to be around something familiar, I thought bringing her around the ship would help jog something and calm her down."
"This is surreal." Garrus interjected, his eyes following the Commander's motions as she pointed out various things across the board with a questioning gleam in her eyes.
Her posture, her attitude, it was all so different even from where they sat Joker could recognize that. It was fascinating in a sick, voyeuristic sense of the word. He felt like he was looking in on something completely inappropriate and private but physically unable to turn away.
He still felt such intense guilt over what happened 2 years ago, no longer able to justify the time he spent trying to keep the Normandy afloat as it took on damage. That it wasn't just the Collectors or the Reaper threat that set the invisible weight across Shepard's shoulders, or stunted her forced laughter and smiles, but his arrogance that had gotten her killed.
Now though, watching her move effortlessly, and dare he say, blissfully? It was…a dream; it momentarily cleansed his guilt, even if what he was seeing wasn't real. The Yeoman's voice broke through his reflections, shocking him back to reality.
"She's really interested in the ship at least; I thought maybe I could leave her up here with you for a while. Maybe you can…'teach' her something about it."
Joker balked, pulling himself up straighter in his seat, a wry grin forcing itself across his suddenly stony features.
"N-no, I'm not babysitting the commander, Chambers."
"Why not Joker? You seem like you'd be good with kids." Garrus crooned softly in amusement, gesturing to the pilot.
"Ok first of all, teenagers aren't kids. I was one, and second do you honestly trust me not to screw something up? What if I start talking about thrust capacitors or she asks about the readings and they rip a proverbial hole in her mind."
"That's not how it works, Joker. So far she's been very accepting of the advanced technology, we're only so lu—"
"Miss Chambers?" An embarrassed voice muttered behind the yeoman, causing her to jump.
"Ye-yes, com-, Shepard?"
The dazed woman's eyes widened before shooting to the ground, a small blush creeping across her cheekbones. "Ah, no one really calls me that…"
"Oh, I…uh, What would you like us to call you?"
"Well, my name is—" Shepard started, before she was interupted.
"Miss Chambers, Miss Lawson would like to see you in her office." The computerized voice of EDI proclaimed behind them.
The yeoman sighed, "Yes, er. Thank you. I will. Why don't you stay here, I'll be back shortly. Joker?"
Before the man could argue with her, the red head's frame danced back down the bridge almost a bit too happily, free from the complicated burden that was their commander. Garrus and Joker looked at one another, unsure of what to do now that she'd been entrusted to them. He took the moment to get a good look at her, see if there was anything he missed. He had been processing the distinct roundness of her face when Garrus' cleared his throat, turning her attention to him.
"So…."
"May I…Sit someplace?" She asked, sheepishly clutching at the hem of the sweatshirt she'd been leant. He wondered where Chakwas had unearthed that thing, it reminded him vaguely of what she allowed him to wear when he spent the night in the cold dry medbay overnight if asked, and had the sudden panicked thought that it was in fact the same one. Adjusting his ball cap anxiously he signaled to the largely empty cockpit.
"Park it anywhere, Skipper." He mumbled, Garrus taking a seat somewhere in the back while Shepard took a step forward in front of the console to his right. She cautiously leaned against it, patting the computer with the palms of her hands carefully.
"Skipper" She mouthed with a laugh. "I think someone used to call me that once."
A deep pang of guilt struck him through the chest, he grunted.
"What are your names?" She asked in her distinctive deadpan making him wonder if she'd always been such a serious child, or if that was just the Commander leaking through. He didn't bother to look up, knowing if he did he'd probably start laughing and then never be able to stop. The ridiculousness of the situation was quickly catching up with him as the shock wore off, this all felt like a giant game of make believe. It felt like she was testing his limits, a cruel punishment as it were. Garrus' distinct flanged voice came somewhere behind him, answering the question for them both.
"Well, I'm Garrus Vakarian aaand this is Joker."
The pilot was glad for the gunnery chief's apparent interest in the Commander's convalescence and let him take the reins.
"You're a Turian," Shepard remarked, unabashed.
"Well spotted." Joker couldn't help himself and snickered, and true to character the Commander chose to ignore him, pressing on.
"On an alliance vessel."
Now completely engrossed by what he hoped would become an awkward first-encounter Joker spun his chair around to look pointedly between the two.
"Yes, I'm…working closely with the alliance to develop…better relations with the humans."
"And you're a scientist?"
"That's classified." He quipped, holding his hands up. Joker cupped his mouth in his hand, observing their interaction. He hadn't been aware Garrus was able to lie so…conventionally. He really had to give the man credit as they started a back and forth on the subject of his work and race, it was easy to see how he'd been able to spend the bulk of 2 years living secretly as a vigilante. You didn't survive by being an idiot, but when the tables turned and it was Joker's turn to answer questions, he was unprepared. Shepard had to ask twice to fully capture his attention.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I asked if you had any brothers or sisters, you look familiar."
"Oh, yeah. A sister."
"Oh, never mind then, you just remind me of someone I sorta knew by face at the docks back at the capital. Always hanging around."
"What was he like?" Garrus asked, a teasing note to his inquiry. Shepard snorted.
"Can't say, don't talk to them. You don't talk to the capital kids anyway. No point."
The fluttering in his chest returned, there it was, and that something that was bothering him since she came onto the bridge in that get up. He knew why it flustered him; it was just as he'd remembered. There on the wharf, watching ships slowly coming together. Now and then a ship would reach port and someone closer to his own age would disembark. Although it was rare he could recognize each and every one of them. Unsociable, strange, isolated creatures who never saw the world outside alliance vessels and the occasional station. They would skulk about for no more than a few days. They were alright, and never gave him any trouble, but they weren't interested in the ships the same way he was.
"Yeah…" he muttered, facing the console and tweaking the ship's were currently still adrift and Miranda hadn't given him any coordinates yet. She'd given him permission to run silent for the time being. Probably for the best, seeing as their illustrious commander was in no shape to even be near a gun let alone shoot one if they were boarded. He checked the date beneath an analogue clock display, earth standard they were somewhere in the middle of may.
"You're usually back in space before you can lay the groundwork for friendship, most don't even try. It's probably been a while since you've last been docked." Joker muttered vaguely.
"Why, you askin' soldier?" Much to his surprise Garrus, who never quite got the hang of human colloquialisms or innuendo, seemed to track the Commander's tone and found himself laughing along with the woman himself. Perhaps, he realized as he garbled words in indignation, Garrus was instead laughing at Joker's reaction. His side nearly snapped as he turned to look, horrified, at girl currently in a fit of hysterics.
No, he corrected himself, woman.
"W-what?" He shrieked, wild green eyes searching ever crease and fold of Shepard's closed eyes, her mouth open in a silent laugh, crouched over and holding her sides.
"That—that's terrible. And that's not what I meant! And where are you going?" He asked sharply, now annoyed as Garrus stood up to stretch, walking towards the rest of the CIC.
"I…better get back to my 'research'. Everything seems fine up here; I'll catch you up later flight lieutenant. Miss."
He saluted the pair and stalked off, leaving Joker with his mouth hanging open and suddenly terrified of being left alone with this new side of the Commander. He couldn't even handle teenage girls back when he was a teenager himself, what was he supposed to do now?
"I'm sorry," She chuckled, sliding down to sit on the floor beside him staring straight up through the windows. They were quickly passing over the surface of a large blue planet, and the light up ahead told him they were about to be greeted by an alien sunrise. "You sure sound like you know what you're talking about, don't sound too much like someone from earth or the colonies. Where you from, LT? You got a missus squared away somewhere on deck?"
Joker snorted, shoulders squared and leaning forward to focus on his work, he was finding the task quite difficult. One wrong move, one incredibly direct, specific move and he could have them hurtling towards the planet's surface into crush depth. Where was Chambers?
"Arcturus, and no, no I…I don't date crew."
Her tone became solemn as she crossed her legs and leaned back to look up through the windows.
"Probably for the best."
"Your folks are both alliance aren't they?"
"Sort of the point, it's not much of a marriage when they barely see one another or their kid."
Joker tugged at his collar, was it starting to get uncomfortable around here or was it just him.
"Nahh, can't be all that bad. At least you're out here in the great wide open, hopeless, nothingness of space. One hullbreech away from a cold empty death."
To his surprise Shepard laughed, but it wasn't the same one he'd heard just a while on the bridge. It was the familiar, mournful one he'd grown accustomed to since her revival.
"You sound like those kids. Stability isn't something you miss until it's gone. Besides, lately it's started to feel like the gallows, very few who start out on a ship ever leave. They enlist; it's the only life they know. Me? I'm thinking of enlisting in the next year or so."
Joker laughed, the humour of what she'd said striking him somewhat odd.
"What's so funny?" Her voice cut across, fist connecting with the chair in a playful agitated sort of way.
"Nothing, nothing, I just..know of your mother." What else was he supposed to say? He didn't really know her mother, knew of her perhaps but the idea of -the- Commander Shepard telling him she was thinking of enlisting, he didn't think there was a word in any known human languages that could describe what that made him feel.
"Huh, right. Yeah she doesn't think I have any passion or discipline. Not after I threw some punches last time we were dry docked…" Joker raised a brow at this admission of guilt. Shepard? An unruly child? This he had to hear, and document, in triplicate.
"What happened?" He asked, looking down briefly to see Shepard playing with the drawstrings of her sweatshirt. She was so candid it was becoming difficult to see the line drawn in the sand, and when he wasn't looking at her it was easy to believe they were just two…kids, shooting the shit, and for a moment he felt like a kid again, leg braces, crutches and all. In his mind they were sitting on two crates in some out of sight area of the main port, it was a Sunday and most of the traffic was comprised of small freighters and shuttles, just watching the ships go in and go out. He closed his eyes with a small smile as she told the story.
"It was some big event ya know? Graduation week for some of the schools, tech or…basic, I was waiting outside one of the buildings for my folks, can't really…remember why. There was this group of recruits, got their hands on some spare parts for this drone but couldn't get it to work. Took some talkin' but they let me help fix the controls and work on a quick firing algorithm so it wouldn't start shooting rapidly and lock up. They took me around the building to test it on some students in the commons. When…I found out the kid they were going to test it on had something wrong with him, well I may have gotten physical with them."
"You're lying, you didn't take on a group of full grown marine recruits with your bare hands."
Shepard laughed. "Didn't say I used my hands, I still had the main controls, I fired on the group and took a run for it. While three remained behind to subdue the machine without any weapons, the other 2 caught up with me back at administration. It was… a terrible brawl, mostly teeth and nails. That's when one of the Admirals with several navy brass, including my parents walked outside…and well."
Joker hid behind his hand, suppressing a laugh.
"Well, that explains why they let you fire a gun and work on machines." His mock tone of surprise ended when he heard the woman just next to him groan.
"Guns?" She asked, squeezing her eyes shut, rubbing the heels of her palms into her forehead, ducking her head between her knees.
"I-I mean…."
"Joker, my sensors indicate I should inform you that our current angle is too steep, and that there is a strong probability that we will be experiencing this planet's equivalent to a sunrise in just under a minute."
"Sunrise?" The voice below him perked up lightly, pulling herself up onto the console as though to save herself from drowning. There was a light sheen of sweat decorating her brow, and in the light of horizon he could make out just how young the Commander was. Not just mentally, rather, but physically as well. There were no lines of tension; she was tranquil, hopeful, excited.
"Yeah, Shepard. Sunrise." His brain gagged at the softness in his voice, but he turned to watch it as well.
"I've never seen one from the bridge…They never let me up here. Just a kid…Too risky."
"Shepard…" He was starting to grow worried, the hand that crept to her chest was shaky, and her voice was starting to weaken. Was she about to pass out? Go into cardiac arrest? But as the sun finally broke and they saw their first peek of it's bright illuminant alien body she choked out a laugh, Shepard's face breaking out in pure unadulterated bliss.
"I love space. I want to do this; this is why I want to join. To see this every day it'd be worth it. They can't take the sky from me."
The rhythm that had been furiously cracking a hole through his chest since she arrived on the bridge had finally reached a crescendo. The familiarity of that jumpsuit, the casualness of the encounter, even the banal and tiresome artificial sunrise, all of it had contributed. And now he was seeing his Commander as something else entirely. He knew that when it was all over and Shepard recovered she wouldn't rightly recall the same feeling. When she looked down briefly into his eyes he could see a flash of melancholy
reflected in her blue ones.
"But, somehow I feel like I've seen it all before."
Jesus. The hole that had been left behind was beginning to cave in. A large part of him didn't want to say goodbye to this older, and at the same time younger side of Shepard. The Shepard who still saw something in a flash of solar light bending across a planet's surface. His voice cracked, hands working the angles in front of him trying to convey some deep metaphysical ….thing.
"I-it's all in your perspective really, even if you have a-and will, it'll always be here, and you'll never truly forget this experience." He babbled.
Shepard laughed in that strange, irregular way she had earlier on the bridge. He was glad for that; it wasn't something he'd believed would work, even he didn't quite understand it.
Joker himself still saw some beauty in the galaxy, even if most of that beauty had died with the Normandy and Shepard. Slowly he'd been able to recapture some of that joy and thrill he'd felt when he first began flying starships. And now, in the cabin with Shepard watching the sliver of blue and white fill the cabin awash in bright light he could see even more. The warmth coming from the sun mixed with the warmth of Shepard's body as she came in close, blocking his view with a tuft of curly brown hair, her lips planting a kiss just at the corner of his mouth. He was so stunned he had no time to react, his hands were frozen over the console controls and when she finally broke away he had a difficult time meeting her own creased gaze, hand held above her brow to block out the light still poring into the cockpit.
"Thanks LT, that was beautiful."
"Shepard?"
The pair jerked, Chamber's figure walking back into view holding a datapad under one arm and oddly what looked like a syringe just above it. She relaxed when there seemed to be no fuss coming from either of them.
"Kelly." She muttered, taking a step towards the Yeoman.
"Your mother will be arriving in just an hour or two; she'll meet with you down in the crew's quarters. Let's go see if we can't find something eat in the meantime, alright?"
"Yeah, yeah…See you LT. Thanks again."
"Yeah. Anytime."
He mumbled sullenly watching the pair retreat, thinking he may have seen the syringe disappearing into the woman's hand, the same one guiding Shepard towards the elevator. Taking a hard swallow joker disappeared back behind his leather seat, noticing a new set of coordinates ready to be input and he set course immediately, one hand on the console, the other at the border of a deep flush, ending at the corner of his mouth.