It had started with a message from Admiral Hackett. Considering that Isabelle "Ice" Shepard had never been on the best of terms with most of the Alliance brass beyond Captain Anderson—and Alliance personnel other than those on the old Normandy—it was understandable that she eyed it with a mix of wariness and suspicion. Still, despite her dislike of the Alliance—and she would admit freely that working for Cerberus wasn't much better, really—they hadn't ever handed her something without a damn good reason.
So, she opened it, and read. Slowly, emotions began to stir in her gut, and her hands tightened into fists on the counter, though not one whit of them were betrayed in her stance or her glacier-blue eyes.
They'd found it. The Alliance had found the Normandy's crash site. The seemingly cold-hearted Commander didn't know whether she wanted to jump for joy, or go drown herself in alcohol. Though she would never admit to it, the earthborn woman had considered the ship her home. Small, and cramped, but with a loyal crew, and nothing to want for doing, it had been home. Ice wasn't entirely sure about what she wanted to do…
So she closed the message, and wandered in a semi-casual way up to Joker's chair in the cockpit. She leaned lightly on the back of it, her signal that she wanted to talk informally, and waited for him to finish playing with the ship's information. After a moment, the pilot leaned back, tipping head and hat until green eyes met blue, and one eyebrow quirked curiously.
"Hackett found her," Ice's voice, normally filled with sarcasm or dry humor, was subdued. "Wants to set up a memorial for her, and for me to check around the site for any clues about what happened to the missing crew…"
"Well, you know Commander, I can't set a course unless you give the co-ordinates," the pilot understood her not-really-a-question, but with nosey EDI nearby, he wasn't really able to voice a comment that might set her mind at ease. "Might wanna hurry up and go poke the star map into submission."
She gave him a light, mocking cuff on the head, lips quirking in a familiar smirk that Joker had intended to produce.
"We're already in the main system," she told him, lightly pushing off his chair "Might as well get this crap done and over with. The last thing I want to start is more crap-assignments from the Fifth Fleet. You know they'd do it," Ice continued when Joker snorted in memory. "Seems like half the time all they wanted was a tame Spectre…"
The complaint masked the feelings Joker could tell she was hiding. After all, he was feeling similar trepidation over seeing his old baby in pieces on the ground. Ice had run that ship. If he could make the old Normandy dance, make her work, it was Ice would made him dance. Metaphorically speaking, anyways.
Minutes later, the co-ordinates popped up in one small corner of his multitude of screens. He looked at them, and nodded. With his skill they could be in that cluster by ship-clock bedtime.
Ice was secretly grateful that she'd won the argument with the stubborn ship AI about going down alone. She would have taken Joker if she'd thought about it, but by the time she did, taking anyone would have been giving into the damn AI's insistence, and the commander was nothing if not stubborn. Besides which, she didn't want to share this moment with anyone. Though it was like pulling teeth to make her admit it, the Normandy had been the first place Ice had ever truly thought of as 'home.' More than anything else, the ship had been hers. From hull to drive, everything and everyone on it had been hers. And that had made it home…. And then some.
And then those bastard Collectors had ripped the Normandy to shreds. They had killed twenty of her people, including Presley, and then blown up the ship. Ice wouldn't have had a bone to pick with them, but she sure as hell did now. No one blew up her home without getting her personal vendetta against them.
Because the ship had been her home more than the planet of her birth Earth, she cut all communications channels beyond the one for emergencies. No one needed to hear her rage, swear, and perhaps even cry, as she walked around the destruction.
As Ice stepped out of the shuttle, the first thing she saw was the hull of the ship. Normandy was half-buried in the white snow, scattered about a small area. Part of her was glad. Another part of her wondered what Joker would think about the mess. The rest of her raged. The rage then deepened into sorrow under the weight of memories. First seeing the Normandy in dry-dock. Standing at the CIC and sending information to Joker through the star map. Kaiden's station. The sleeper pods. The damn Mako. The cockpit.
As she collected the dog-tags, lost in memory, she found Presley's data-pad. Reading it, she both smiled and snorted as tears pricked at her eyes. She tried to focus on the humor; it was better than allowing the bubbling grief and rage loose with nothing to shoot but the damn crates.
Placing the monument was the last thing she did. She put it right in the middle of all the pieces. She had to grit her teeth hard as the bronzed replica of her ship shooting out into space set in motion a flood of memories, most of them leaving port to roam the stars, her stars…
Her hands clenched tightly as she turned to survey all the pieces one last time. And then she turned and walked towards the shuttle. The Collectors had a lot to answer for, and Ice was going to take them to task.
…Once she had a good hard drink.
As she stepped into the shuttle, and reestablished the comm. channels the first voice over the line was EDI's.
"Communications channels are to be open at all times, Shepard," the AI scolded. "Cerberus regulations state-"
"Hang rules and regs," Ice snapped back, fraying emotional control stretching thinner. "Just because I agreed to work with you doesn't mean I work for you."
Either the AI was surprised into silence—unlikely—or Joker had slammed down on the mute. Either way EDI didn't say another word to Ice the entire shuttle trip up.
Joker was not-so-subtly monitoring the commander's room after her return. She had gone straight for the elevator instead of dropping by his chair as she always did, and though he would never say as much aloud, that worried him.
Judging by the way she was sitting on the edge of the bed, head bowed, hand hands folded tightly in her lap, it was safe to say that the visit had taken a large chunk out of his commander's normally tough armor. And despite not being very good at expressing emotions beyond sarcasm, biting sarcasm, and, occasionally, genuine good humor, Joker couldn't help but worry about her. They were friends. Hell, at times there were moments where they might've been more. Whoever said 'opposites attract' hadn't met Ice and Joker, hadn't seen the way they understood one another because they were so similar.
Which was why Joker was worrying. Whatever Ice was feeling was hitting her hard, and he didn't like it. Half-turning away from EDI, he tipped his head lightly, accessing a private comm-line that he and Ice had set up a long time ago.
"I've got the brandy, if you've got the glasses."
Peripherally, he saw her head snap up in surprise, and had to work to keep from smirking. The brief flash of pain before annoyance covered it helped. Blue eyes narrowed in the direction of the camera.
"Spying on me again?" she snapped down the line, making him wince slightly.
"Well, if you want to sulk alone, I could let you do that," he drawled, trying to coax hr into better humor.
"Get your ass up here," was the sharp reply. "And bring the goddamn booze."
As she spoke, Ice had moved to her desk and gotten out two glasses, thumping them down and glaring back up at the camera.
"Yes ma'am."
Ice was half-sitting on her desk by the time he put the ship on auto-pilot, grabbed the brandy, and half-hobbled his way up to the commander's quarters. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her eyes snapped with the cold fires of anger and pain. The sight of the alcohol bottle eased the fire somewhat, and she unfolded long enough to proffer both glasses.
"One of those is mine, I hope," Joker said, keeping his voice deliberately light. "There's no fun n getting drunk alone."
"Not after seeing the wreck," she muttered, entirely serious. "If there was anyone else who'd need a drink after that, it'd be you."
Startled by her mood, Joker took the chair after filling and retrieving one of the glasses, setting the brandy bottle down between them. Grim reality settled over him, as he watched her down the first glass and then a second without bothering to take a breath in between.
"That bad, huh?" His voice had softened somewhat, understanding her pain. The ship had been her home as much as it had been his baby.
She slugged back another shot, then rolled the empty glass in her hands.
"Yeah," her normally vivacious voice was sad, pained. "Torn to pieces and scattered across a plain."
For a second, a bleak sort of humor crossed her face. It made the pilot wince to see it.
"Damn Mako survived though. Freaking indestructible pain in the ass that it is."
"Remember how much crap that thing got you through?" Joker had just poured himself a second glass, and smirked a little. "Those geth outposts… and the monkeys."
The reminder made Ice snort into her glass.
"Goddamn monkeys," but there was more humor than bleak sorrow or fury in her voice. "Goddamn data module getting shot down. Why the hell did Hackett send me down on some of those missions? I had better things to do than to complete their crap jobs. You'd've thought he'd have someone better than a busy Spectre to bother."
"You'd think," Joker deadpanned, "but obviously they didn't."
It got a sharp grin out of her, more a baring of teeth than a genuine smile, but she lifted her glass fractionally in agreement. Though Joker would hardly say as much aloud, he preferred to see Ice smirk—or smile, but those were rarer than a Prothean beacon—than to see her depressed.
"Hey… 'Belle," he was the only person who could use her given name and get away with it. It signified not only the level of trust she had for him, but also a shift in the seriousness of the conversation. "You really think this is gonna work?"
She down the last of hat had to be her fifth glass and started in on a sixth, stopping with a third of the liquid still remaining, as she thought about her answer.
"Hate t'admit it, but Cerberus is finding me some damned good bodies," and she studied the amber liquid in her glass as she spoke. Her voice was starting to slip back towards the slang she'd grow into as a kid, though Joker knew she was far from drunk. "At least accordin t'th dossiers I'm getting. No Alliance breathin down m'back, and the best damn pilot in the whole system make m'odds look damn high." Blue eyes turned cold, and her hands tightened fractionally around the glass. "Besides, I owe those bastards for our ship. Like hell I'm not going to collect!"
"Collecting from the collectors, Commander?" Joker raised an eyebrow, and got a reluctant half-smirk in return.
"Not d'liberate," she muttered, slinging back the rest of the drink. "Smartass."
Joker leaned back a little in the chair, and caught sight of a beaten and nearly broken data pad.
"What's this?"
"Used t'be Presley's," and her voice was soft again. "I found twenty dog-tags and that. Go ahead, read it."
The data was mostly damaged, but it was clear where Ice had been able to repair it. Joker read silently, briefly, and then set it down, and slugged the rest of his alcohol back.
"Yeah," Ice nodded. "S'bout how I feel."
Joker really didn't know what to say. Presley had been the most vocal of all the officers about the non-humans on board. To find out that, at the end of everything, her would be willing to take a hit for any of them?
Maybe it had something to do with Ice's personality. Rough and sharp, but strong and charismatic. And always, always with a good reason for everything she came up with. Turian on board? Hell of a sniper. Quarian? Knowledgeable about the geth's creation and a top-spec hacker. Krogan? Well, someone else needed to be the firepower on the ship, didn't they?
The point was, that while Ice could be as cold as her name, and twice as bitchy, she never did anything without a damn good reason. Her crew had known this, and while it had gone unstated, her crew had respected, and hell, in some cases, had loved their commander.
And she knew that. She wasn't good at showing affection, but she tried with her sharp jokes, and dry teasing.
"I'll take my ship and my crew out of their hides," she said in a soft, dangerous voice. "Come hell, high water or-"
"You're not dying on me again," he interrupted, looking up at her. "Like hell you're dying on me again."
She smirked sharply, rolling one shoulder in a manner that was neither agreement nor argument. He hated it when she did that.
The decanter was almost empty; Ice had taken most of it in her attempt to calm down. Joker poured the last of the amber liquid into her cup, and watched a touch warily as she poured the last of it down her throat. Finally, there was a subtle easing of tension in her shoulders. Good. She wasn't drunk, and honestly, unlikely to be pleasantly buzzed, but she was at least letting go of the cold fury that had gripped her. If he waited quietly, he'd probably get some much less guarded conversation.
Few people understood their working relationship. They'd enter into one of the snark-filled, sharp-tongued conversations and figure them to be friendly rivals, or just-barely-friends. They certainly would never have expected Ice to open up to Joker in ways that she could not do for anyone else.
Still, their unique relationship had come into being almost from the moment they met, and had lasted through Saren's insanity, Sovereign's plans, the near destruction of the Citadel, the months of hunting geth hold-outs... and everything since her resurrection at the hands of Cerberus. They were more than commander and pilot, more than friends, even more than almost-sibs. They hovered somewhere between the final designation and lovers, but neither had been quite willing to take that last step. Ice trusted slowly, and there was his brittle bone disease to worry about as well.
Despite that, they were close. They harassed each other, pranked the ship, and, when the other needed a listening ear, informally, they talked over drinks. And Ice needed to talk. Needed, for a few moments, to be vulnerable. To use names instead of nicknames.
"S'hard Jeff," she murmured quietly. "Not scared to fight th bastards, but ain't none f'us ready for it. This ship still ain't home, an outside Gar and Tals, ain't none of em feel like they fit. Well," a sharp smile crossed her face. "'Cept Mordin."
Garrus and Tali were the only ones from the past ship who had agreed to come with her. Liara and Ashley had refused her, in no uncertain terms. And while Joker didn't really like anyone besides Tali and Ice—though he did see a lot of Zaeed in his commander—he had to admit that it was disconcerting to not see familiar faces. Beside the Doc, obviously.
"I get why you didn't want to argue Ash around, 'Belle, but why didn't you try harder to grab Liara?"
She shrugged.
"They've had a couple a years t'get used to life without me. Hell, I didn't really 'spect she'd come as it is. And t'be honest, I don't want 'er. Nice t'see she grew a spine though."
"So what about this new bunch?" he asked after a minute. "You gonna make em family?"
She slid off the desk to the floor of the cabin, leaning uncharacteristically against his leg. It was a light lean, both in deference to his disease, and because physical affection was not her strong suit, but it was a lean nonetheless.
"Loyal, hells yes," she muttered. "But I don't know em, an I don't give half a damn 'bout the Cerberus pets. I ain't intendin t'do a damn thing."
"That's gonna be a small family," he began to joke.
"Yeah, an you lot 're damn kids," she scowled up at him. "But hell, small s'better. Less t'worry 'bout who can take care of their damn selves."
He was ready with a smart-ass comeback, then caught the brief flash of grief/anger/loneliness in her implant-tinted eyes. Joker wondered abruptly, what she wasn't saying to him, but outwardly shrugged and snorted in feigned annoyance.
"Maturity is overrated."
As he'd hoped, it made her snicker at his expense. After a moment she reached up and used the desk to haul herself to her feet. The expression on her face was mellow; a combination of drink, his help, and their shared sense of humor. After a moment, she leaned in lightly and bumped his forehead with her own.
"We ain't th best f'people persons, but we get on, don't we?"
Her voice was low, husky, and Joker found himself drawn to her eyes. Other than the brittle bones, he was a healthy male, and when Ice was pouring on the charm and charisma, it was pretty difficult to deny her what she wanted. His retort died unsaid as he started to lift his head in response to that not-so-subtle question.
"Commander?" Kelly's voice via the personal intercoms broke the moment like a soap bubble. "I apologize for interrupting you if you're busy, but there are some urgent new messages on your terminal, and Grunt is acting... odd. I think you should go down to see him."
Ice muttered a variety of profanities in a language that didn't automatically translate. Joker presumed it was Prothean, and even though he didn't understand the words, he agreed with the sentiment.
"Fine," she growled at last. "I'm on my way. Tell th krogan that if he breaks the ship, it's his hide."
"Of course, commander."
Commander and pilot shared exasperated looks. The moment had been thoroughly lost, and they both knew that trying anything now would just be stupidly awkward.
"Raincheck?" Joker asked, levering himself out of the chair as Ice stepped back.
"Raincheck," she agreed, stepping aside so that he could hobble past. "...and... thanks."
He paused, surprised by the gratitude, then gave her a smirk over his shoulder.
"Next time, it's your booze."
She mimed punching him, a smirk crossing her face in response as the door whooshed open, and then closed behind him.
"Jackass."