You are Madonna, you're Lady Divine

You are part Mother Theresa and a Valentine

Some man's pariah and a slippery slope

But to me you are the fire and I fly to my hope

(Jude: Madonna)

„Joker, notify me when our XO arrives," Captain Anderson told Joker over the intercom and disconnected before the pilot's confirmation.

"Who is the XO? Do you have the profile?" Alenko asked from the co-pilot's seat.

"Nothing more than Lieutenant Commander Shepard. Oh, an N7, just like the Captain. Are we opening a club? With jackets and everything?"

"Shepard… Sounds a little familiar. Wait, is that a man or a woman?"

His console flashed, as someone activated the link from the outside. Joker pushed the button:

"This is the SSV Normandy."

"Lieutenant Commander Shepard reporting for duty. Authorisation code…" A strong female voice rattled off a long number that matched the list exactly. While she was at it, Joker gave Alenko a does-this-answer-your-question?-look.

"Acknowledged, Commander. Welcome on board," he said and opened the airlock. While the decontamination sequence ran, he contacted Anderson.

The door finally opened and both Joker and Alenko turned to see the Captain intercept the new arrival right at the entrance. She looked nothing like what they expected. Okay, Joker couldn't say what he'd expected, but this wasn't it. She wasn't tall, but not exactly petite, either, just average height for a human female. She carried herself with deadly confidence and a grace of a tiger. He admired the way her heavy boots planted firmly into the floor, as she shook hands with Anderson. This woman could hold her ground against anyone. She wore a grey uniform and carried a surprisingly small duffel over her shoulder. But that was all secondary. What struck him most was her hair.

She was perfectly blond and wore it in a big knot on top of her head. If she let it down, it would have to be long enough to touch her butt. Blonds were a great rarity these days. About two hundred fifty years ago there were still a lot of blond people on Earth, but with racial intermixture and dark being the dominant colour, real blonds were now almost extinct. In fact, the only blonds Joker had seen were in old vids he liked, like Marilyn Monroe.

He was still thinking about her hair, when Anderson gestured towards the cockpit and she turned.

"Flight Lieutenant Moreau, Staff Lieutenant Alenko," Anderson introduced quickly. "Lieutenant Commander Shepard. Please, Shepard, follow me."

He hadn't given them a chance to greet her, or shake her hand. Both Alenko and Joker looked after them with regret. For the brief moment that she looked their way, he noticed radiant brown-grey eyes with long black eyelashes, a soft shimmer on her lips, and a slightly hooked, noble nose. She was beyond beautiful – she was a vision. And when he had a full view of her rear, he forgot all about her hair and her pretty face. What an ass! She had a great ass, a…

Suddenly he realised that Alenko was staring at the same spot he was, only even more mesmerised. Joker grinned to himself. Less than a minute on duty and she already killed a man.

"Did you see that?" Alenko muttered eventually, when the commanding officers were out of sight.

"I saw plenty. What did you see?" Joker was already running an extranet search for Commander Shepard, hoping for good pictures.

"How young she is? And she's an N7, too! Can you imagine how tough she must be?"

"She's also the sole survivor of the Akuze mission," Joker pointed at his screen. "How's that for tough? A thresher maw attack six years ago wiped out her whole unit. She was even younger then!" he teased Alenko, who dug his nose into the file.

"Almost unbelievable," he said.

"She must be a real hardass. Pun intended," Joker teased carefully. He'd only met Alenko two days ago, when they both reported for duty on the Normandy, and the teasing was only half-friendly right now. "An XO like that could be a real hell."

"She is beautiful, for sure," Alenko said to himself, looking at one particular picture he found. Joker enlarged the same one on his console. It was taken on the Citadel, probably a few years back, because she looked disturbingly young. She wore full gear and armour, without the helmet. In the picture she looked patiently into the camera, her torso half-turned, a gloved hand resting on a huge pistol on her hip, the hair in the same kind of knot she wore today, the arch of her eyebrows framing those shiny brown-grey eyes, not a trace of a smile on her lips. She looked like a lioness, too big and strong to touch a cub, or the photographer in this case – she could crush him with her little finger and she was fully aware of her strength. But that was all the courtesy she was willing to extend to the annoying pest.

"Yep, real hardass," Joker nodded.

Johanna Shepard was listening carefully to what the Captain was telling her, but she couldn't help noticing two burning hot glances following her from the cockpit. From the early childhood on the streets of Vancouver she developed this extremely useful sense of noticing when someone was watching her. Saved her life countless times. Gave her an advantage in every situation, like a pair of eyes in the back of her head. And she could feel a lot of attention on her person right now, walking next to Anderson through the CIC.

Anderson took her down the stairs and pointed her to the lockers where she could stash her duffel. He ordered her to get acquainted with the ship and the personnel immediately.

"Yes, Captain," she nodded and headed towards the lockers.

First day on duty. She had always had mixed feelings about those. She hated lustful looks men were giving her everywhere she went, and she was fully aware of her beauty. She had worked her ass off in the army so that she was physically able to deflect any unwanted attention, and it was almost always unwanted. No man was allowed to touch her without permission as long as she lived. She craved control in this regard and in every other aspect of her life. But on those first days with a new crew they still didn't know that and she had no control over their wandering eyes. She would have to be extra tough, professional and cold to quickly get these guys where she needed them to be. Under her heel.

It wasn't like she hated all men or was a virgin. Far from it. But Jo always picked her battles, and she picked her lovers. She had her own rules: never a guy she couldn't overpower and manipulate. But the older she got, the higher she rose in rank, the rarer such men caught her interest anymore. Lately she was more interested in accomplished, strong men, yet still pliable enough. Next rule: only on her terms. Last and final rule: no feelings attached. Jo was not the kind of woman to fall for someone head over heels and throw caution to the wind. She never dropped her guard and never relaxed. This behaviour had been hammered into her in the orphanage back on Earth and during all those years in a gang on the streets. That attitude helped her climb the military ladder. Frankly, Jo didn't know any better than constant wariness. She controlled herself best of all: her body was her tool, every move honed to perfection. She could turn off any pain, dizziness, weakness, she could even stop breathing and keep fighting, if she needed to. Her emotions were carefully contained and hidden, leaving no space for subconscious urges. She had been told she was a force of nature many times before, but truly, it came from her firm grip on herself. Jo needed to control her surroundings just as much – it was the only thing that gave her comfort.

Jo stuffed her duffel into the locker. She had no personal effects. All she brought with herself was the minimum of clothes, a toothbrush, and her N7 badge. Life was easy that way. She also brought no drama on board. No family, no friends, nobody out there cared if she lived or died. The Normandy would be another step on her way up, and Jo fully intended to make the very best of this opportunity. Next commendation would have to be a Captain of her own ship.

She downloaded the ship's plans to her omnitool and started her first round as the Normandy's XO. First was the med bay with a Doctor, Karin Chakwas. While Jo was talking to the elder woman, the ship undocked softly. Jo liked a pilot who knew what he was doing.

Leaving the med bay, she ran into the Captain again, who was followed by a turian. Slightly surprised to see an alien where she'd only seen humans so far, she checked herself. Turians helped build this ship, why not have them on the crew?

"Commander, meet Nihlus. He is a Spectre."

The turian offered her his hand for the handshake first, and she shook it firmly.

"Nice to meet you, Nihlus," she said, intrigued. A Spectre? She liked turians in general, but that fetish had no place in this conversation. He looked her down and up with great scrutiny, and Jo let him. He didn't look like a horny human male, he looked like he was assessing her abilities.

"Let's hope you are as good as your Captain claims," he said in the typical turian two-layered voice. Jo put her feet at the shoulders' width, locked her hands behind her back and spoke very seriously:

"I'm even better."

He made a gesture with his mandibles that she made a note to herself to look up in the xeno-encyclopaedia, but said nothing in return.

"Make a good impression, Shepard," Anderson said to her, as the turian walked off.

"I always do, without even trying. You know that, Captain."

She had served under his command a while back, right before she became an N7, and remembered him as a good, tough but fair CO, who had taken an interest in her career and sent a couple of commendations her way once she had the N7 badge. He had personally requested her as his XO on this ship.

"We need this Spectre on our side," he said to her.

A Spectre's presence on the ship put a question mark in Jo's mind. Why would he observe a shakedown run? Of course, the Captain would know the truth, and it would be, as always in the military, on a need to know basis. This was why Jo wasn't always comfortable with military in general. Too many secrets, nobody was allowed to know anything, and often this tactic crippled the Alliance from inside, creating information void, red tape and walls where loss of lives could have been avoided if people weren't forced to follow the rules. That was why she needed to be high up there, to know what was going on. It was too late to pursue a civilian career – she had no marketable skills for that.

Jo went to Engineering to meet the chief engineer Adams, and found him in the company of the Chief Navigator Pressly. Those elder men, she found, always had a little trouble at first seeing her as a competent officer rather than a cute little girl. For them she adopted the commanding voice. That helped them to accept the hierarchy and her place in it above them. She picked their brains about the ship and the crew, until the pilot's voice through the ship-wide transmission announced approaching the relay.

"I'll head to the cockpit, see how this bird flies," she excused herself from Adams and followed Pressly to the CIC. People were working eagerly, rushing this and that way, nodding to her in greeting. Nihlus was in the cockpit, watching the pilots. There was something oddly pleasant in the boyish voice of the main pilot, counting down to the jump. Then everything shifted for a second before they jumped. Nihlus commented on the drift and left the cockpit. Jo sneaked up on the two pilots and listened.

"Remember to zip up your jumpsuit on your way out of the bathroom – that's good. I just jumped us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead, so that's incredible!"

Jo grinned, but caught herself quickly. He was funny. That was his prerogative. But she had no business laughing. She didn't have to like her people. It was sufficient that they obeyed her orders to the letter. And yet… she did like the cockiness, the sarcasm, the bravado.

"Only the idiot believes the official story," Moreau was saying.

"They don't send Spectres on shakedown runs," she agreed with him, and both men jumped a little, turning to see her.

The pilot's looks matched his voice. A little boyish, extremely cocky, definitely overcompensating for something. She made a note to herself to find out what it was. His hands were almost a blur over his console even as he was looking over his shoulder at her. She respected the skill. Working with him wouldn't be a problem. She met his eyes briefly, letting him know she agreed with him and appreciated his concern. Voicing it barely a few meters away from the said Spectre and the Captain was bordering on insubordination, and she… kind of liked that about this guy.

Her look drifted to the other man, Staff Lieutenant Alenko. He looked at her with barely hidden awe. She observed him more carefully. He sure was handsome. Rich black hair, pretty face, and sad, soulful black eyes. She reserved judgement about him for the time being, though he made an impression of a dramatic hero.

"Commander," Alenko nodded.

The com pinged and Anderson spoke up roughly, calling Joker for a report. Thus Jo learned the first nickname on the ship.

"Better brace yourself, sir, I think Nihlus is headed your way," Joker said and Jo barely bit down another grin, when Anderson replied unnerved and asked for her in the debriefing room.

"You get that, Commander?" Joker looked up at her and she said:

"Great, you pissed the Captain off and now I'm going to pay for it."

She tapped him on the shoulder lightly, as she left. She had a good feeling that he would get her teasing.

Joker and Kaidan looked after her once again. Her duffel was gone, and she looked almost homey, the way she was so comfortable in her own skin. Why wouldn't she be? With a body like that… Joker looked down on his shoulder that she touched, and smiled with his eyes only. She had a sense of humour, and she didn't seem to mind his mild insubordination towards the Captain. This promised to be a very interesting job.

Once again he noticed Alenko looking a little smitten. Oh dear, was he really a goner?

Spectre. Jo was still rolling the concept this and that way in her head, as she stood over Nihlus' dead body. It was an unexpected, but not an unwelcome turn of career, which she was afraid she was about to kiss goodbye now. She let a Spectre die on her watch. Oh, sure, they were supposed to be tougher, more skilled than anyone else in the galaxy. Nihlus looked like a broken doll now. He sure could have used her protection just ten minutes ago. Jenkins could have, too.

No matter how well she hid her emotions from other people, there was always a moment when her heart tightened painfully when she lost someone under her command. She knew in those moments that it was better not to keep lovers or friends, because losing someone she truly cared about would be too painful. The only trouble was – she cared about the well-being of every single person under her command, friend or not. She sure played tough, but deep inside she never remained unaffected.

Next thing Joker knew was that something was happening very suddenly. One moment the Commander was talking to him on the com, asking for pickup, then she broke off mid-phrase. Shouting came, explosions, roars of energy. Joker's guts clenched. It sounded like a surprise attack, though without gunshots. Then the cameras in the cargo bay showed him the returning party. Alenko was carrying their new XO in a fireman's grip, while Williams, the stray from the colony, gave a report to Anderson. Shepard was unconscious, one arm hanging loosely at Kaidan's side. Joker put the ship in motion, heading for the relay, as he followed the activity in the cargo bay to the med bay, where Chakwas took over. What was going on? She was not dead, right? Right?

A few hours later Kaidan sat quietly next to him in the cockpit. Well, quieter than usual.

"So, how was the shakedown run?" Joker asked him. "You already got the priceless prothean artefact destroyed and rendered our XO unconscious, and we don't know if she ever wakes up. Do you feel proud of yourself?" Joker poked at the other man. He'd learned quickly what happened groundside. Alenko was pale and clearly not well enough to take the teasing.

"The beacon was already active, I didn't… It wasn't…"

"She's waking up," Ashley said, approaching them. In the few hours since Eden Prime they had gotten acquainted. "I'm headed to the medbay to talk to her. You coming?"

"Yes," Kaidan nodded and followed the new girl. Joker stole a look over his shoulder. Ashley was hot. Definitely hot. Clearly, there was never enough female hotness on military ships, and having two beauties at once was an unexpected bonus and a powerful boost to his morale.

Jo's gut was telling her that she just found herself mixed up in something big, but had no idea what it was. Tiny and helpless, like a rowboat in a storm. And she had a feeling the storm was only just beginning, the worst of it yet to come. The vision from the Prothean artefact made her extremely uneasy. Not just because it showed destruction. It was the fact that she had received it in the first place. It made her feel different than before. Jo couldn't tell how, couldn't tell why, but she was not the same woman who stepped onto this ship yesterday. A storm was coming, she knew it now. But until it did, she would have to go about her duties like every day, waiting, knowing and dying inside.

She told Anderson about the vision and calmed down her anxious ground team. Soon they would arrive on Citadel. Jo had never been there before.

Ashley flattened her nose against the window and gasped:

"Look at the size of that thing!"

Alenko felt the need to put in his own two credits:

"The Destiny Ascension, the flagship of the Citadel fleet."

Joker sounded a little annoyed from his seat:

"Well, size isn't everything."

Jo listened to them with a little smile and looked out of the window as well.

"Well, I'll be damned," she said to herself, but as a clear invitation for the guys to ask her what she was thinking. Joker did:

"What's up, Commander?"

"Well," she folded her arms on her chest, assuming a serious, analytic, even scientific voice and facial expression: "Most of the space ships ever built, even in fiction, are made in the shape of a penis. Even the Normandy looks like a penis with two pairs of testicles. So I always wondered: What would a vagina-shaped spaceship look like? Well, I'll be damned, because if I've ever seen a flying vagina, this is it," she pointed out of the window. "A life-long mystery solved."

Their jaws didn't hit their chests – they were too shocked even for that. All except Joker, that is. He looked straight at his controls, but Jo could see him fighting loud laughter, and not only at her words: Alenko's face was a stuff of legends, as far as priceless looks went.

A.N.: Welcome to my Shepard's story. It will be a long one, following the events of all 3 games and beyond. This is my head canon, the way I saw things as I played, so there might be opinions in here that won't agree with everyone, especially with Kaidan lovers. I'll let each of you decide for yourself if you can work with it. Joker and Shepard are my personal one true pair. I'm taking some time with this intro, but I'll move through ME1 events quite quickly.

I'd like to thank Jules Hawk for beta reading and for encouraging me to share this with the public.

Also, in my profile there is a link to my deviantart page where I posted a couple of pictures I made for this story.

Thanks everyone for reading!