It started in a London hospital. Shepard had been there for the better part of a month, scanning the news networks and keeping in contact with Alliance command about the state of her ship. No one seemed to have any answers—communications were down across the galaxy, and it seemed anything that was even remotely related to the Protheans (which was a remarkable amount of tech) had decided to shit the bed the day the Citadel went down. When the short-range comm came up, Shepard wasted no time badgering Admiral Hackett night and day about her missing crew.

One month into her recovery, the word came in—they had found the Normandy, crash landed on some remote jungle planet. No word on casualties, no details, just that the ship had been found. The few days it took for the survivors to arrive were the longest in her career. She convinced the nurses, using her best scary commander voice, to allow her to be on-scene when they were brought in. They graciously (and a little nervously) agreed to her request.

Most everyone had gotten away with minor bumps and bruises, nothing Chakwas couldn't fix, but Joker hadn't been harnessed in when the ship crashed and he was beaten up badly. His injuries hadn't stopped his constant stream of sarcasm, though, and when he greeted her with, "Now, now, Commander, no need to stare. I know I make broken legs look sexy and all, but you're embarrassing me," she almost started crying. He was a twisted wreck from the waist down, and he was still covered in fading bruises. It took a team of surgeons two days to reconstruct his skeleton, replacing much of it with synthetic material. By the time they were through with him, he had almost as much metal in him as she did. He suggested forming a club, and was gracious enough to let her be President of the "I'm A Cyborg" club since she'd technically been a member longer.

Jane Shepard had never been one for casual socializing. She had about five really good friends that she liked to hang out with on a semi-regular basis, and that was all she needed. Joker was much the same, his attitude driving away all but the most stalwart of companions, and Shepard was happy to count herself among that number. During their convalescence, they spent nearly all their time together, catching up and just hanging out in general. It was nice, to be able to just talk without having to plan or strategize. It was during those days she discovered he was a fan of Firefly, and from then on it was really just a matter of time.

After the triumphant return of her crew, and once the Reapers were confirmed to be destroyed, those left behind began the long and difficult task of clearing the debris and rebuilding their respective home planets. Garrus had returned to Palaven with the promise to return as often as he could to visit, Tali was having a blast constructing her very own permanent residence on Rannoch, and Liara had gone to Thessia with an enormous cache of resources and the asari government had wisely decided not to ask about how she had acquired them in the first place. Out of their human crew members who had been aboard when they'd hit London, Vega and Cortez wound up rooming together as unofficial yet completely transparent boyfriends, and Kaidan had gone his merry way, Majoring around with the Alliance.

That left Shepard, who was home again on Earth at last with varying feelings about the situation, and Joker, a native of the colonies who'd retired from active duty to become a surveyor. His new job entailed long hours in the air, taking scans and holos to assess the scope of the damage and help the main coordinators organize the clean-up effort. He loved the work for its solitude, and the fact that he got to fly. It was a good life. Shepard, on the other hand, was among those on the ground, running the huge machines that did all the heavy lifting while others searched for usable salvage, or bodies.

There were a lot of those.

Joker had coincidentally (he swore up and down it was a coincidence, and Shepard was too busy smiling and nodding to contradict him) found a little two bedroom house near hers. Well, right next to hers, actually. It was a good arrangement for the two of them, who had gotten so used to seeing each other and talking in the cockpit over the years that neither of them wanted that to end. Although he'd never in a million years admit it aloud, she had managed to crack through the walls he'd erected around himself, becoming his closest friend in the galaxy. He thought she felt the same way, too, but both of them were too violently opposed to all those squishy "feelings" to come out and say it.

After climbing out of his small ship at the end of the day, he took a minute to check his messages before hopping (well, maybe "hopping" still wasn't in the cards for him, but he was significantly more spry than he'd ever been thanks to his mostly metal skeleton) into his car. Shepard had started sending him "random fact of the day" texts, and the one waiting for him now was entitled "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." He snorted; they'd started working their way through the old vids in Joss Whedon's oeuvre, beginning with Buffy and eventually working their way around to Firefly, which she'd never seen. It had taken exactly five minutes for Shepard to start calling him Wash.

Random Fact of the Day:

Spike was originally supposed to have a Southern accent. Like Bill, that vampire from True Blood. Wanna come over tonight?

Joker smiled to himself and quickly shot a message back saying that he'd be there soon bearing dinner. As he slid carefully into the driver's seat, one of the guys in air traffic control gave him a questioning look. It wasn't until he was halfway home that he realized he was wearing a stupid grin plastered on his face. He cleared his throat and got himself under control before he arrived, landing as gracefully as ever in the driveway. Shepard was outside, sitting in a lawn chair with a cup of something (probably water, he thought—she never drank anything else after 5:00) in her hand. She waved to him and called:

"So where's dinner, flyboy?"

"I'm getting it, hold your horses." He ducked inside just long enough to grab a few things out of the fridge, stuffed them in a bag, and carried it over to her house. "I present to you—leftover night."

"My hero." She smiled and gave him a hug before taking the bag from him and leading the way inside. Her house had taken on a life of its own since her departure from the Alliance. At first, she'd kept it Spartan and meticulously clean, a byproduct of a decade of military training, but after a few months she bought a poster. It was a big poster from Blasto 3 that had been sitting out behind the theater the last time they'd been out to the movies, and Joker had taken (read: stolen) it for her, claiming that she needed something to put on the wall. Since then, the poster had been joined by another, a vintage remake of the Return of the Jedi movie poster, which snowballed into more and more decorations until her entire house screamed with domesticity.

The new knick knacks and bookshelves, posters, and paintings weren't the only new changes. Since being released from the hospital three months after being dragged from the wreckage of the Citadel, Shepard had started to smile a lot more often. It had come as a surprise at first to realize just how little she smiled back on the Normandy, but now it seemed like she was genuinely happy a lot of the time. She still had her dark days—they both did—but being around each other, a reminder of the old days and a promise of a future after the war, was better therapy than a thousand head-shrinkers could ever be. The same way she could galvanize her crew into throwing themselves headlong through an unmapped relay, so she could also lighten the mood without even being aware of it. She brought out the best in everyone around her, and—

Oh hell, there he went getting all sentimental again.

"Are these . . . homemade cookies?" she asked, arching an amused eyebrow in his direction.

"Huh?"

"There are chocolate chip cookies in here, and they didn't come from the store."

"No, I made those."

The thought of Joker, her unflappable asshole of a pilot, baking in his kitchen was too much and Shepard started laughing. "Really?"

"Yeah," he said, making a big show of being offended. He snatched the bag of cookies away and took one out, holding it up like an exclamation point. "I wanted a cookie, but I didn't have any and the store was closed, and I deemed that shit unacceptable. Now as you know, I am not easily thwarted by such trivial things as closing times, so I got on the extranet and looked up how to make them. Through much trial and error and airing out of smoke, I finally baked the most awesome cookies that ever were." He bit into the one he was holding and offered the bag to her, and she took one for herself.

"I'm gonna buy you an apron."

"I'm sure it'll look really good in the back of my closet."

She looked at the cookie in her hand, now with a crescent-shaped bite mark in it, and nodded appreciatively. "These are some damn good cookies, flyboy."

"Told ya. I'll give you the recipe if you want it."

She snorted and held a hand over her mouth to keep the crumbs contained. "Are we going to be like those housewives who exchange recipes and do bake sales? Because I think that would actually top your Galaxy at War obsession for the nerdiest thing ever."

"You're just jealous of my mad baking skills," he said, limping over to the couch to take the weight off his legs, which were getting creakier by the second.

"Hell yes, I am. Send it to me when you get home."

"See, was that so hard?" He met her scowl with an innocent grin, which looked out of place on the scoundrel's face. He tilted his head in the direction of the television and said, "Still stuck in Nibelheim, I see."

"Yeah, I can't figure out the damn piano puzzle. At least it's easier to see what I'm doing in the remade version—Final Fantasy 7 is a great game, but the original graphics looked like hot garbage."

"Hey, they were revolutionary for the time," Joker retorted, always the defender of all things of vintage Earth-craftsmanship. "For the first 3-D Final Fantasy game ever, it was amazing."

"You have a point," she conceded. "Let me just save my game, and we can start off season five of Buffy."

While he waited, he started divvying up the food and finally leaned back against the couch with a sigh. Shepard glanced at him out of the corner of her eye trying not to show too much concern; he joked about his new implants, but his spine was still part of the original model. The added weight of all that metal had taken some getting used to, and sometimes he still had a hard time with it. She noticed that sometimes he looked more pale and drawn after a long day, and wished he would just retire altogether. It wasn't as though he didn't have the resources—the Alliance had decided to provide for the entire Normandy crew for the rest of their days, at Shepard's urging (one could call it shouting, were one so inclined)—but she knew what his reasoning was. He was a pilot at heart, and he'd always been more at home in the sky than on land. The fact that he'd willingly gone civilian at all had surprised the hell out of her, but she was grateful for his company. Between the nightmares she still had from time to time, her own recovery from her injuries, and the solitude of semi-retirement, she feared what she'd become if left to her own devices.

"You feeling okay?" she asked, as nonchalantly as possible.

"Just achy. I haven't been in for PT this month, and it's starting to get to me."

"I could give you a massage, if you want."

It was meant to be casual and friendly, but she immediately regretted the offer when he raised an eyebrow at her. "You want to give me a massage?"

"Forget I said anything."

"You want to get all up on this?" He started shimmying around, rubbing his chest like a drunken Chippendale stripper, and she had to bite her cheeks to keep from laughing.

"Shut the fuck up, Joker," she said, the effect totally ruined by the goofy look on her face as she suppressed the giggles that bottlenecked at her throat.

"Go ahead and turn all this sexy man-meat to putty in your hands."

"I swear to god, if you say anything else, I'll . . ." She stopped, unable to think of a suitable punishment that didn't involve sending him home (which would leave her alone and bored for the rest of the night) or breaking him.

"You'll what?" He scooted a little closer and looked at her expectantly.

"Nothing." It was right about then they both realized that they were maybe six inches away from each other, which changed the mood from playful to somewhat awkward in roughly one-tenth of a second. "Let's just, ah . . . let's just get the show started."

"Yeah, okay." He moved back over to his original spot and tried for casual, but didn't quite make it.

The show started and they went quiet for a while. Every time he caught himself looking in her direction he forced his eyes back to the screen, but he was still overly aware of her presence at the end of the sectional sofa—her legs stretched out in front of her on the long cushion, crossed at the ankle, with a plate of chicken and mashed potatoes balanced on her thighs.

Joker didn't even realize that the show was over until the Mutant Enemy monster shuffled across the screen going, "Grr, arrgh." His shoulders were so tight that he thought they would just climb right up over his ears, and he stretched with a groan.

"So, Buffy has a sister apparently," Shepard said, skipping through the opening theme song to get to the next episode, "and no one's commented on how fucking weird that is yet?"

"I know, right? You'd think someone would have mentioned the teleporting teenager by now. It's so weird seeing Buff do the whole sibling rivalry thing." He tried to cover the wince that contorted his face when a bolt of pain shot up his neck, but Shepard saw it anyway. She didn't say anything, just watched him with the question on her face.

"Are you done?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"With your dinner. I'll take your plate to the kitchen."

"Oh. Uh, yeah, go for it." She took it and he turned back to the television, debating over whether he should stay for the whole thing or part of it or just leave when she came back, sat down, and patted the spot in front of her.

"Get over here, Joker."

"I'm going to PT tomorrow, Mom, I promise."

"You and I both know that if you don't work your neck out now, you'll be useless tomorrow. Now, carry your ass over here." He couldn't argue with that logic, and wasn't even sure he wanted to. He hauled himself up, lurched the three steps over to her side of the couch, and sat down in front of her crossed legs. She started with his shoulders, gently at first to ease his aching muscles into the stimulation and he rolled his head back so far his hat almost fell off.

"You know, Shep, I was kidding before about turning me into putty but damn, you're pretty good at this."

He could hear the smile in her voice when she said, "I've had a bit of practice over the years."

"I still maintain that you just wanted to get your hands on me."

"And what if I did?" She was trying for playful, but there was something else there, too, a timidity that sounded strange in her voice. He did his best to play along with the charade, but he thought that at least a small part of her was serious about just wanting the chance to touch him. It was flattering, really, and he had to admit that he liked it. Probably more than he should.

"I could hardly blame you," he said, "I'm probably the most devilishly handsome guy I know."

"And so modest, too."

"It's a gift."

She slowly moved from his shoulders to his neck and took off his hat, her fingers weaving into his short, thick hair as she massaged his scalp and the spot behind his ears where all his headaches seemed to originate. Those nimble fingers of hers sought out all the knots of muscle and rubbed them smooth again and he closed his eyes, melting into the sensation. Her arm slid around him and pressed against his sternum to hold him in place while her other hand massaged his lower back, her legs out to either side of him.

Buffy had ended and defaulted to the menu screen, and the quiet that descended over them was serene, precious in its rarity. When she finally stopped, his legs had turned to lead and he couldn't bring himself to leave the warmth of the couch to go home just yet. She seemed to understand, and pulled him back against her with her arms around his waist. It was the closest they'd been in a long time, and he was having a hard time finding any more justification for friendzoning each other as hard as they'd been.

The welcoming aura of her house, the way she never got offended by his snarky attitude, the fact that they knew each other so well after all this time together, her silly messages and the way he looked forward to seeing her every night . . . they both knew the potential was there, but they were both too socially inept to make the first move. It came with the territory, he supposed—badass fighter pilot and supernerd with a penchant for 20th century Earth music who couldn't flirt his way out of a wet paper bag. It would have been funny if it was someone else.

For now, though, he was content to push all the heavy thoughts aside and lace his fingers with hers over his stomach. She murmured something to him, but it didn't work all the way through the fog of sleep threatening to overtake him.

"Hmm?"

"I said are you planning on staying over? I have extra blankets—you can camp out on the sofa if you want."

"I might have to take you up on that, but only if I get to keep using your chest as a pillow."

"You're such a letch. I give you one massage and suddenly you're commenting on my boobs." One of his hands went to her leg and lightly stroked her calf, and he turned his head to the side to hear her heartbeat, thumping fast only an inch away.

"And yet, you keep hanging out with me."

"What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment. So are you staying over?"

"Probably not," he said apologetically. "I need to do a few things at home before tomorrow, and I should get to it pretty soon so I can start checking my eyelids for light leaks."

She laughed softly, his head shaking in the process. "'Checking my eyelids for light leaks.' I'll have to remember that one so I can use it later."

"Just as long as you credit me."

He sat up, albeit reluctantly, replaced his hat, got to his feet, and stretched. The tension that had been riding him all day was gone, and he felt like he might actually get eight solid hours tonight. Shepard walked him to the door and held it open while he collected the now-empty containers he'd brought over. The cookies he left on the counter.

"Same bat-time, same bat-channel tomorrow?" she asked.

"Sounds like a plan." He started to go past her but paused at the last minute to look at her, take in her green eyes and red hair and the tiny freckles dotting her face. After arguing with himself, he said Oh, fuck it, and kissed the corner of her mouth, lingering on her warm skin for just a moment before pulling back to gauge her reaction. Her eyes were wide and surprised, but her lips twitched up in a small smile.

"Goodnight, Joker," she said warmly.

"'Night, Shepard." He went out into the deep blue night, following his shadow that stretched out into the grass encased in the glow of her living room before she shut the door behind him.