Summary: Shepard is no stranger to danger, but the situation on Rannoch brings back jarring memories that push Joker toward an idea that's been festering at the back of his brain—held at bay by his concern over her level of stress and obligation.
a/n: Happiest of holiday seasons to a dear person who has inspired me for a few years now. spacemomnephmoreau you actually are one of the people who got me hooked on this ship. There is simply not enough Shoker in the world. I hope you enjoy this. The art for this piece was created by the lovely and talented an-amethyst-moon, and a special thanks to her as well for her help with this holiday shoker fest.
Crossing the Line
-1-
The bombing run was textbook, or at least it would have been if anyone would have realized what they were really messing with.
"Ah, fuck!" Shepard's voice echoed in one ear. Joker's breath whooshed from his own lungs in sympathy when she hit the ground with a grunt.
"EDI told you to get clear," he muttered. Only the AI heard it, he didn't have his channel open. But the feed from her armor camera sat in a corner of his HUD, as always—his own way of being on the ground with her. And also, as usual, the images that flashed over his screen in the rare moments when he glimpsed at it did nothing for his tightly coiled nerves.
"Reaper!" Traces of concern tempered the usual confidence in her voice. "Everybody get to the ship! Move!"
He could hear it all—the surprise, the stoicism, even the traces of fear that hid beneath the solid timbre of her voice.
"How are we supposed to fight that thing?" Tali yelled, every breath echoing in the helmet of her environmental suit.
"I was hoping your fleet might lend a hand," Shepard stated.
The fact that she already had a plan forming alleviated one curling strand of tension, but only one. As he saw it, out flying reaper-enabled geth was one thing. This, whatever she is doing, is something else entirely, though he couldn't even fathom what. And watching the woman he loved trying to outrun a full-sized, planet-killing, genocidal monster AI, well, that ranked as something far outside the normal operational capabilities for Joker—even if he were to tally up all the next level crazy bullshit Shepard or he ever pulled.
"Yeah, this takes the cake," he mumbled.
His hands moved with as much precision as the commander's rounds. Eyes darting away from the sensors to find that the ground team on the move once more. Good, he thought. Careful not to let his thoughts escape his lips. Legion's got them. The quarians are ready with a strike. Or so the information flitting across his console confirmed. We can handle this. His breathing came easier as Shepard and her infiltration team gained ground.
His attention focused on the geth trying to get a weapons lock on the Normandy. The chatter on the comms barely grazing across his mind as the orbital strike hit its mark. His relief distracted his attention from the commander, focusing back on the dogfighting all around him.
"We may escape before it recovers," Legion said in their distinctive digital warble.
"No. Pullover!" Shepard ordered with steal in her tone.
"What?" Joker shouted at his console, his tension ramping up tenfold with those two words.
"Shepard-Commander?" Legion asked, seconding the unheard pilot's thoughts.
"If we run away, the geth stay under reaper control, and the quarians are dead. This ends now. EDI, patch the quarians to the Normandy's weapon system. I want the targeting laser synced up to the whole damn fleet."
"Understood."
Joker threw the Normandy AI's physical form a glare. She ignored him. Of course, she did. Shepard gave an order. He knew deep down that if she'd given him that order, he would have followed it as well, even as every part of him screamed in opposition to it. His heart raced in his chest, blood thrumming through his veins.
"Do you need assistance?" Legion offered.
Yes, Joker thought. You distract it.
"Just stay down, Legion," the commander said. "I'll take it from here."
Fuck. Of course, you will. Joker's lips thinned into a tight line beneath his beard. He knew the futility of arguing with Shepard. She was as stubborn and bull-headed as they came.
"Shepard-Commander … good luck."
Good luck, he scoffed. Much success, Joker thought. He knew that Shepard didn't count on luck for anything. She relied on skill, that she trusted more than some twisted toss of a coin or wisp of a percentage point.
"Acknowledged," the geth infiltrator replied like a good soldier.
Joker stared at the feed. The reaper, still spewing fire from the first bombardment, waved its claw-like feet. That low groaning yell sounded in his ear, like it was crying out in pain. But clearly not enough pain, because it was still moving. The taste of iron swathed his tongue, his own teeth having broken the thin skin on the inside of his cheek, which he'd clamped down on when he saw that thing climb out of its burrow like some pissed off spider from hell.
Christ, and she's walking toward it.
"Jeff," EDI said quietly.
His attention focused on the AI for a moment, but with a tip of her head, he realized that he'd unintentionally left the Normandy in her hands completely. He focused or tried to. It wasn't as easy to split his attention in that situation as it could be in others. The geth were far superior opponents than those he usually faced in aerial confrontations. And escaping their attempts to hone in on the Normandy proved quite consuming.
"Shepard to Fleet. I'll paint the weak spot. Link up with the Normandy and be ready to fire on a target lock."
Joker managed to fight the urge to stare at feed, but Shepard did not make that an easy choice for him.
"C'mon you bastard." Her yells were punctuated by explosions that sounded tiny in comparison pulsing of the reaper and shearing of the rock-melting laser.
In his peripheral vision, the reaper kept getting larger and larger as it closed on the cliff Shepard chose to make her stand upon. It left his heart pounding against his ribs—each pulse ached like it might just burst out of his chest. Eventually the thing collapsed again, after too many rounds of concentrated fire, he thought. It did little to calm his anxious body. And he couldn't even try to blame it on the dogfight anymore because the geth stopped firing, stopped pursuing, they were just … floating there, defenseless.
"It fucking worked," he breathed, his back curving into the leather of his seat. Of course, that just opened up a whole new can of worms. Once she agreed to the upload of the Reaper code to the geth, the Normandy, once more, sat smack dab in the middle of a potential war zone. Admiral Gerrel seemed intent to push the quarian fleet into a confrontation once more.
"All ships, this is Commander Shepard."
"Fuck, I hope this works," Joker mumbled.
Shepard always had possessed a way with words; she could be eloquent or as brash and foul-mouthed as any other sailor. But even with all his faith in her, Joker could not know how the quarians might respond to her call for them to lay down their arms. The seconds ticked by, each loaded with more tension than the last. The Normandy's sensors still read weapons online in the quarian fleet as Legion laid out his new plan for dissemination of the code.
It almost seemed to happen at the same moment. The quarian weapons went cold as the geth fleet came back online. Cut it closer next time, why don't you?
Joker slumped against the arm of his chair. One hand tugged off his cap as the other rustled through his sweaty hair; pushing it backward, then he fitted the cap back on just so. But heading off a war didn't bring the kind of relief to his tension that he expected. The geth and quarians both offered help—in terms of ships and personnel—but Joker couldn't shake the images from his mind. He even went far enough as to torture himself by rolling back the footage to see what he'd missed when his own ass had been in a sling.
Her return to the ship didn't help either. When he noticed her, armor dusty and blood trickling from a gash at her hairline, he froze. They just stared at one another for a moment, maybe two, and then she clomped down the length of the bridge to answer a page from Dr. Chakwas in the med bay. He didn't follow.
That would cross the line—their line. The one they agreed to maintain after Ilos and Sovereign's attack on the Citadel, after she literally fell into his lap. "Christ," he grumbled, adjusting his hat and turning his attention back to the damage report.
Work. Yes, that would do the trick. Or at least it would keep him in the cockpit where he should be. Of course, convincing his heart that's where he should be was never quite easy. A part of him wanted to be the guy who could walk into medical, hold her cheeks, and inspect that head wound even if he couldn't do more than press a kiss to her forehead in hopes that it might help in some tiny way.
Why are we even still doing this? That was the million-credit question, but he knew the answer. Could pull it up on his screen on a whim. Shepard's metabolic scans showed something he could read at a glance—this war had her stressed beyond anything she had experienced in the past. The last thing he wanted to do was add to it. They knew how their relationship went. On the ship, she was the commander and he was her pilot. Off the ship, everything changed. But here, he reminded himself, it stays professional.
In the beginning, there were regs and rumors. Neither of them wanted that. They'd both earned everything they got and didn't want that to come into question. Then with Cerberus, well, the Illusive Man not only had the ship wired for sound and video, he had his moles infiltrated deep into her crew. So, of course, once things started up again, they kept it off the ship and became quite adept at cloak and dagger, clandestine escapes together. The thought of it curved his lips with a tender grin.
Then came the Reaper attack on Earth, they were on the Normandy together once again, and just fell into old habits—sneaking off the ship, sending encrypted messages. But why?
The question persisted in the back of his head; repeating and repeating until he finally got to his feet. "You have the helm," he said without even looking at his co-pilot. Then on aching legs, he walked toward the CIC to reach the lift. He didn't know where she might be, but he knew eventually Shepard would make her way to the loft, to her quarters.
Maybe he wouldn't even ask the question. Maybe he wouldn't have to.
-2-
The chime rang through her utilitarian room. She let the towel she had been drying her hair with drape over her shoulders with a sigh. "Seriously?" she asked her reflection, before stepping out of the bathroom. "In."
She continued tousling her bright red hair as she leaned against the corner of her desk. "Jeff?" she said, shaking her head at the slip. She hadn't been expecting him, not there, not then. "Uh, Joker. Is something wrong?"
His presence, in her quarters of all places, caught her off guard. Even more so when she noticed his gaze pinpoint on a hellish bruise that seemed to surround her shoulder. It was matched in vibrancy by the one forming under the cut on her forehead, which is where his green eyes alighted to next.
"It's fine. I'm fine," she said, trying to ease any worry. "Did you need something?" She straightened with the question, moving toward her console in case maybe there was a message she missed.
"I … I can't keep doing this."
Her blood ran cold instantly, her head snapping to the left so hard she thought she heard her vertebrae pop. Her eyes widened as a vice wound around her chest. "What?"
"No." He took a step toward her. "I don't mean this," he said, gesturing between the two of them emphatically.
She shuffled back a step. Her breathing labored as her mind raced to understand—what he was doing there, what he meant, and why he needed to say it right then. "Then what exactly do you mean?" Her voice sounded cold even to her own ears, and she only stared when it made him flinch.
"Fuck," he grumbled. It was one of his frustrated fucks—he had a few of them. He pulled his cap off and scratched his fingers through his mussed hair before replacing it. She saw the decision-making process play out on his features from the purse of his lips to the shift in his brow. Then he just squared his shoulders and blurted out, "I don't want the line anymore."
Her eyebrows drew together, the tight crease above her nose made her injury throb with a dull ache.
"Us, off the ship versus us on board. I just want us all the time," he said, his words coming faster.
"We were both reinstated." Shepard really didn't know where the thought came from and didn't think about it until after it tumbled from her lips.
He stared at her a moment, looking almost as confused as she was by it. Then he shook his head, meeting her gaze again with that defiant fire she adored. "Fuck the Alliance!"
A gruff laugh broke free of her tight lips.
"I'm serious," he said, and he sounded it. She could only remember him using that same stoic tone a few times—when they talked about the Collector attack on the Normandy and when he finally admitted how he really felt about her. "Everything is coming apart at the seams. And what? There's seriously some pencil pusher somewhere worried about two consenting adults finding a little respite with one another?
"Isn't there bigger issues on the horizon than whether or not the officer at the tip of the spear swaps a little spit with her dashing pilot on the bridge, or not?
"I mean, fuck!" He realized he'd yelled it and took a moment to breathe.
As she opened her mouth, he beat her to the punch. "Rannoch was a roller coaster ride, huh?" His voice softened, taking on more caution. His eyes sparkled, and she knew it wasn't just a trick of the harsh lights in her quarters. Staring into his pained expression, her mind started to sift back through what happened on the quarian homeworld.
"I was stuck up here watching, listening. Luring geth or not, I was aware of what you were doing. Going toe-to-toe with a reaper? Really?"
"Jeff," she said, reaching out toward him.
"Fuck me, but all I could see when it fired on that cliff face was the collector's beam slicing through the Normandy. Cutting us off again. Cutting you off … taking you from me."
His words, the look in his eyes; they gutted her. Her hand slipped into his, as the other brushed away the streak on his cheek.
"Shepard."
"Not now, EDI!" they barked in unison.
"The window for contact with the Crucible is open for 4 more minutes."
"I—" She started to say that she should go but couldn't bring herself to finish the statement.
Jeff seemed content with that fact for a beat. "Just once. Put us first. This is important."
"I know. But so is this report." Her thumb brushed over the apple of his cheek once more. "Four minutes. And I'll be right back. Because you're right … we are important. The most important."
The distance opened between them-every step, her doing. And it was she who let go of his hand, turned her back.
"It's a simple choice," he said as she reached the door.
Once more her brow pulled tight over her eyes as she looked back at him. A question lingered in his gaze, one that haunted her. A chill rushed beneath her skin and she shivered as the door of her quarters slipped shut.
-3-
Hackett could hang for all Joker cared, but he knew the stringent protocols for communication with the Crucible fleet as well as Shepard did. If she didn't connect then, it would be another 48 hours before they could reestablish a link. And maybe she was right. Maybe Hackett did need to know that the geth headed his way were allies, strange as that sounded.
Glancing around, Joker realized he'd never been in her quarters. He'd seen them, of course, but it wasn't a place they ever spent time. His jaw tightened, teeth clicking against one another as he rocked it back and forth. There was no escaping the feeling that he shouldn't be there. It was her sanctum, not a place they shared.
He scratched at the whiskers on his chin and walked out to the lift intent on making his way back to his domain. He'd said his piece. She knew how he felt, though he didn't know what he might do if she wanted to keep the line intact.
The idea of it made him scowl. One of the young officers at the sensors shrank away from the look he shot toward her console as he passed.
Joker tried not to think about her argument, or the way she didn't really say anything. When the transmission from the asari councilor came through, he queued it to the QEC. It would certainly end up another reason for her to have to put them off again. He let himself get lost in the minutiae—engine readings, temperature scans, repair reports.
"I thought you were going to wait?"
"Hmm?" Joker asked, glancing up from a report about pressure loss in a sub panel near the cargo bay. Shepard's hand rested on his chair. "Yeah, well, you said four minutes."
"And you sent the councilor through anyway?"
"Figured it would be another excuse—"
"It wasn't an excuse, Jeff. It's vital."
He sighed through his nose. He knew that. Just in that moment, right then he didn't care as much as he might have if he hadn't almost lost her again, for the umpteenth time. It never got any easier, seeing her put herself on the line scooped out his soul every time. And it happened all over again because he had to swallow his worry, his concern, his desire to comfort her until they weren't on the ship; it ate at him. The feeling compounded since the reapers' appearance. With every attack, the spread of reaper forces through the Milky Way systems, with every lost colony, the situation felt more and more dire.
"It's all vital, isn't it?" he replied
"Now, you're just being petulant."
"So, what, if I am? Maybe I deserve a moment to brood." He turned his gaze back on the console, but only for the effect. "Don't women find that sexy?"
Shepard chuckled. "No," she said. His attention went back to her when her fingers traced over the backs of his. "Not usually." The tender touch almost tickled, but not in a giggling way, just in a comfortable, soothing way. He watched their hands, his finger lifting to brush along the side of her index finger. "Jeff."
She didn't say his name as much as breathed it, the same way she did when they were in bed. It wormed its way up his spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He looked up at her.
"Scoot over," she said.
"Is this a yes?"
She chuckled quietly. Her fingers curled around his chin and she planted a soft kiss on his lips before she moved to sit beside him.
"Say it," he insisted. His arm circled her waist as she curled up in his lap and draped her legs over the arm of his chair. "I need to hear the words."
She laid one arm over his shoulder, then stole his hat, setting it on the back of her head. "Consider the line erased." When she inched toward him, Joker started to close some of the distance as well, but then she pulled back. "But I have something to ask, too."
"Shoot!" he said, still leaning toward her in case she moved close enough to steal a kiss.
"Would you move in with me? Here, I mean?"
His pulse quickened as a smile he couldn't have stopped spread across his face. "Try and stop me," he said, his hand slipping up to the back of her head, to pull her into an impatient kiss. She felt amazing in his arms, even more so than the first time she'd ended up in his lap at the helm.
"Does this mean I get to use your shower of great renown?" he asked against her lips.
"Only if you scrub my back."
Joker chuckled. "That is a hefty price indeed. I might have to think about it."
She jabbed him in the stomach with a single finger, earning a groan.
"Okay. Okay, I give. I'll be your sex slave."
Her laughter proved the balm his overtired soul needed. "Finally!"
He grinned, a gentle chuckle in his throat as his fingers traced the line of her jaw to her chin. His eyes searched hers. "I love you."
"Me, too," she agreed, leaning forward to press her lips against his.
She didn't move or leave for some time, just rested her head against the curve of his neck, going over work of her own on a datapad, as he reset the course of the Normandy for the Citadel. He was her pilot after all. And the asari councilor, like sour cream in a sauna, wouldn't keep long.