As always, Kalros-Reaper hugs to my fantabulous beta Professional Tsundere, who agreed to beta a second story of mine because they are a super-awesome-sauce person.

"C'mon, Joker, we have to get out of here."

"No, I won't abandon the Normandy! I can still save her!"

"The Normandy's lost. Going down with the ship won't change that."

"Yeah...okay. Help me up."

"They're coming around for another attack."

"OW! Watch the arm!"

She barely had time to throw him into the evac shuttle before another series of explosions rocked the Normandy and sent Shepard flying through space. She managed to grab a part of the hull and halt her flight , but there didn't look like there was a way around the beam.

"Commander..." Joker called out to her as he dragged himself towards the evacuation pod entrance to…what, offer a helping hand and pull her in? The two of them were separated by the weapon that had torn the Normandy to shreds, and he could've sworn that her gaze was just as intense as the beam that separated them…

… as she pressed the shuttle launch button just before another explosion blasted her into space and well beyond his reach.

"SHEPARD!" he screamed as the shuttle door sealed shut and everything went black. "NO!"

"Shepard…no…"Joker muttered as he opened his eyes not to the burning wreckage of the Normandy, but to damp sheets and the early morning sunlight illuminating his detention cell at Alliance Headquarters. Groggily, he started to bring himself up to a sitting position and glanced at the clock. 0600. Nightmares as reveille. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Bad dreams again, chabron?" crackled an vaguely Latino male voice over the intercom. Ah, the ever-observing eye of the Alliance.

"Yeah…you could say that," he replied as he carefully slid and lowered his legs over the side of his bed.

"Anything broken?" the voice inquired as Joker's feet touched the floor.

Good question. Joker slowly flexed, extended, and rotated a few of his affected joints. If he'd broken something during the night, any lower leg movement typically resulted in severe pain. "So far, so good," he commented as he moved up to his ribs.

"Good to hear…oh, and heads up, your lady friends need you ready for the Normandy by oh-seven-thirty, so you might want to get a move on getting ready, amigo," he added.

Joker raised his brows and shot a questioning look at the Westmoreland and Campbell always gave him advance notice when they would be escorting him onto the Normandy, but they usually did it in person, and they never used anything other than his legal name. "Lady friends? Uh, in case you didn't know. those two ice queens won't even let me near the Normandy without anti-haptic gloves…" He looked down at his right arm, and part of the nightmare resurfaced. Or Shepard. He slid his fingers over his forearm and sighed.

"Something wrong with your arm?" the voice inquired again.

The voice reminded him that he was still being watched. "My arm? Uh, no…it's, I'm…fine," he finished lamely. "Seven-thirty, you said?" He pulled himself up to a standing position and started hobbling over to his bathroom.

"Mmhmm…oh, and Joker?"

Joker stopped and looked over his shoulder at the unexpected use of his nickname.

"Do us both a favor and pretend this conversation never happened," the voice finished as the intercom clicked off.

Joker stared at the intercom and brooded over the events of the past few minutes. Although he was no stranger to speaking to faceless voices behind an intercom, two happenings set this one apart: the use of his nickname (which he hadn't heard since before his arrest) and the fact that this particular inquisitor didn't want their conversation to become public knowledge..

He glanced at the clock. 0610. Come on, Moreau. Get moving.

As he disrobed and stepped under a blast of hot water, he let his mind wander back to one of his last conversations with Shepard prior to their return to Earth

With only himself, Gabby, Ken, Dr. Chakwas, and the commander remaining, every sound that the Normandy made seemed unnaturally loud. Hell, if someone had told him that he'd actually miss waiting to shower every morning due to the fact that there were at least five other people ahead of him, he would have called them crazy…but nowadays, he wished he could flirt with Yeoman Chambers on their excessively long elevator ride down to the third level or answer Mordin's seemingly endless questions about Vrolik's syndrome while waiting to use the restrooms. Hell, he even missed teasing Garrus about the stick up his ass…which, oddly enough, seemed to have been removed shortly after their successful return through the Omega-4 relay-

"Jeff, my internal cameras indicate that the Commander has left the main gun battery and is about to board the elevator," EDI announced as her violet hologram materialized into view.

Joker paused and turned to his left , his hand about to bring up the galaxy map. "Main battery? Why would she be in there?" he asked. In the past, EDI had mentioned that Shepard would frequently spend time at the forward batteries while Garrus was still aboard. When he asked EDI why Shepard spent so much time there, EDI told him that the Normandy's resident turian debugged the entire battery within minutes of taking up residence in it. (Truth be told, he secretly admired Garrus for doing so.) Initially, Joker had written it off as Garrus being paranoid, but sometimes he wondered if the subtle change in Garrus' personality was related to his pre-Omega 4 relay visit to Shepard's quarters…and if so, that would mean Kasumi hadn't been pulling his leg about Garrus' secret crush on Shepard-

"I do not know, Jeff. However, she did slip a spent thermal clip into the interior pocket of her casual Cerberus uniform. She has also selected the Combat Information Center as her destination."

Joker's expression changed into the same one he'd given EDI when she told him that enjoyed the sight of humans on their knees. "Ooookay…" he said as he brought up the galaxy map and re-calculated the time left until they reached the Sol relay. While he'd always kept an ear open for Shepard's light approaching footfalls, (the last thing he wanted Shepard to sneak up on him while he was streaming some of the more…risque… extranet vids from Azure) EDI had recently taken to warning him about her approaching presence.

"Elevator now arriving at level 2," EDI finished as she disappeared from view.

"Thanks, EDI," he said as leaned back in his chair and brought up solar weather reports from around the Milky Way. As he read up on solar storms in the Trebia system, he found himself repeatedly trying to clear his mind of images of his superior officer and her favorite sniper making the beast with two backs, and it didn't help that he already had a visual of Aurora Shepard sans uniform after he interrupted her and Kaidan before Ilos-

"How you holding up, Joker?" the commander greeted him.

Joker closed his eyes, shuddered, and forced himself to picture Zaeed Massani's scarred dual-colored eye staring him down instead of the unblemished blues of Shepard's. "Eh, just doing a few final checks before we hit the next relay," Joker began casually as he turned around to face her.

"How far out are we?" she asked as she shifted her weight to one leg.

"Less than an hour, ma'am…and speaking of which…" he began hesitantly, as he'd been wanting to ask her a specific question regarding the upcoming and possibly unpleasant event.

Shepard sighed as she crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. "Speak your mind, Joker…"

"Are we really turning the Normandy over to the Alliance?" he finished quickly before he could stop himself as he glanced back down at his toes, half-afraid to look her in the eye.

Another sigh from the commander. He looked back up to see that she who had now crossed her arms and now stared him down with narrowed eyebrows. "Joker, we've been over this: both Anderson and my mother agreed that turning over the SR-2 to the Alliance would prove that WE-" she added extra emphasis on the word before she continued, "-are loyal to them and not Cerberus…and like it or not, Joker, everyone one this ship-" (meaning Ken, Gabby, Dr. Chakwas, and him) "-left the Alliance to join Cerberus."

Joker briefly glanced at EDI to the right before he turned back and met Shepard's gaze. He wanted to tell Shepard that his dreams had been plagued by a mix of the Alliance ripping out the AI core and the Collector attack on the original Normandy, but he decided against sinking to that level of 'touchy-feely' again.. "I…, " he began hesitantly as he looked down at the toes of his boots.

"Yes, Joker?" Shepard's tone had softened. He looked up to see that her face appeared a little more careworn and exhausted

"I just hope we don't get burned by the Alliance again," he finished as he returned his gaze back to his toes. "And that's all I'm gonna say about that."

Shepard sighed again. "I hope so too, Joker…I hope so too, " she finished as she turned around and walked away back towards the elevator.

A drop of the Alliance's body wash/shampoo/conditioner mixture bypassed his eyebrows and dripped into his eyes. It wasn't toxic, but it stung like hell if it got into your eyes. As a few tears escaped and joined the flow of the shower head, he found himself unsuccessfully fighting back angry tears again. Looking back on that conversation, they'd both knew deep down that the Alliance would punish her and him simply because she'd been working with Cerberus at the same time she'd blown up a mass relay system and killed over three thousand batarians. He allowed himself another minute of bitter anger before adjusting the shower head to rinse away the last of the soap and dirt before flicking the switch over to "dry" and bracing himself against the blast of hot dry air.

With his shower complete, he hobbled over to his tiny closet and reached for a pair of the redesigned pants. Months after the Normandy attack that killed Shepard, some high-ranking Alliance official had felt that the current uniforms were too "plain" and that more embellishments were required on the daily wear uniform. The end result was a slightly more ornate uniform with a few more flaps and buckles, but breathed a bit better. In addition to this, some anonymous Citadel/Alliance egghead in R&D came up with the bright idea to design a uniform with built-in bracing capable of replacing the standard leg braces that Joker had used for years. Which reminds me, I need to head down to the infirmary and see if said egghead's new gene therapy has made it to Earth, he thought as he finished lacing up the reinforced boots.

He glanced at his clock a second time. 0720. Getting to his feet once more, he retraced his steps back to the bathroom and over to the mirror to complete his morning routine. As he made his finishing touches on his sideburns, he heard the doors of his cell slid open, the sound of footsteps entering his room and the familiar slurps of a woman finishing the last of her morning coffee. Bethany and Sarah, who has probably just finished inhaling her second cup. Privates Bethany Westmoreland and Sarah Campbell had spent the past six months escorting him on and off the Normandy. While they did their best to maintain a cool, formal indifference towards him, they had no reservations about discussing current events and gossip amongst themselves. (However, he did notice that they immediately cease any conversation regarding any of his former crew members the moment they came into hearing distance of him.)

Making an active effort to draw out the remainder of his beard trim time, he worked as slowly as he possibly could so he could overheard parts of their conversation.

"-probably too dull for him." Westmoreland trailed.

"Was that why he came back to Earth?"

"Well, -wait a minute…Moreau? Are you-"

"In the bathroom?" he stepped back from the sink so Sarah and Bethany could see him…and judging from their confused expressions, neither of them must have expected to see him out of bed yet, much less almost ready to go out. "Couldn't go back to sleep, so I figured I'd trim up the old face-warmer for once," he answered, hoping the mostly-true explanation was sufficient enough to explain why he was up so early.

Westmoreland raised her eyebrows at Campbell, but Campbell just shrugged as she took a sip of coffee. "Hm… well, no matter, it's a good thing you're up. We received orders at 0600 to have you aboard the Normandy no later than 0800," she continued from just outside the bathroom.

So he was telling the truth, he thought as he put his trimmer down. After checking his facial expression in the mirror, he shuffled himself towards Westmoreland. "Really…why?"

Another shrug from Campbell. "From what we understand, someone from the brass wants a tour of the SR-2-"Westmoreland continued.

"-and rumor has it that he was involved in the construction of the original Normandy-"Campbell interjected.

Joker froze. Aw, crap, Dillard's here? He's going to LOVE seeing me escorted on under armed guard. Hell, if it wasn't for General Invectus, I'd be in prison…speaking of turians, I wonder what Mr. Stick Up His Ass is up-

"-but he also requested that a former crew member be aboard..." Westmoreland finished. "Moreau, you okay? You look a little pale…did you break-"

Pull it together, Jeff. You've dealt with far worse than a pissed-off Alliance captain. "No, no, I'm good…let's get going," he sighed as he extended his arms towards Westmoreland so she could slip on the medieval-looking anti-haptic gloves which prevented Joker's implanted accelerometers from interacting with any of the Normandy's computer systems. The glove consisted of two layers: a chain mail outer layer attached to a battery and generator that ran a low-voltage electrical current that effectively prevented him from interacting with any of the Normandy's hepatic interfaces "Wouldn't want to keep the brass waiting..."

"Oh, I'm sure he'd make an exception for you, Joker," a familiar male Canadian accent chimed in from the doorway.

Joker snapped his head up and his jaw dropped.

Kaidan?!