A/N: This is my gift to SparklyQuarians. Enjoy!
The night seemed endless to Shepard, the hours creeping by at such an agonizingly slow pace, time seemed to stand still. Under normal circumstances this would have been an excuse for her to do something fun for herself, but these were far from ideal circumstances as with each passing minute she was getting that much closer to a battle she was not sure she could win. This war with the Reapers was about to come to a head, the fate of the entire galaxy was about to be decided and she was the one who would be responsible for the outcome.
She had pulled together the people, made the vision they saw at the beginning of the war possible, and now doubt filled her mind as she wondered about how she could have done things differently. Maybe she should have sabotaged the genophage cure, which would have gained them the salarian scientists that could have built the Crucible faster and maybe figured out exactly what it did. Yet if she had done that, she would have been no better than the Reapers, condemning an entire species to continual death and pain. The krogans might not have a science background but their military expertise and hands on approach to war had proven almost invaluable for the turians. Without them, more would have died and there had been enough death.
"Why does it all feel like it's for nothing?" she wondered aloud as she gazed up at the stars above. "Maybe I was wrong and we should have just surrendered to the Reapers. It would have saved us the agonizing pain of all this death and destruction."
"True, but it's better to go down swinging than being walked on," said Joker as he entered her quarters. "Sorry to interrupt your brooding, I just had a feeling I should check on you."
Shepard smiled wryly as she sat up and looked at him, he always had an uncanny knack for knowing when she needed someone to talk to. "Were you spying on me?"
"No," he answered honestly as he sat down beside her. "It's just my Shepard sense kicking in, telling me that you need to vent about something. So, why do you think we should have surrendered instead of fight like you've been encouraging us to do since Sovereign?"
"It's just . . . it feels hopeless," she admitted, and she would only ever admit her doubts to Joker, no one else could be trusted. "We've been gathering all these resources, rallying thousands of soldiers to our banner, and we're still being decimated. Sure, we have the Crucible but who knows that it'll even work? It could be a means of speeding up the harvest for all we know, and I was the one who commenced its creation. I could have doomed us all."
"Well, we were pretty much doomed anyway," he said with a shrug and she stared at him blankly, unable to comprehend that he had actually said that. "If we hadn't fought against them, we'd all be dead. And since we are fighting against them, people have still died. Death is almost inevitable right now, at least if you look at it from a pessimistic view. If you're a hopeless optimist then you could say that thanks to you we have hope of surviving."
Shepard was a little skeptical about the route his logic was taking. "So what you're saying that fighting or surrender would still result in death but because of me, people can at least die hopeful?"
"Exactly," replied Joker simply. "Shepard, people were going to die anyway, at least with waging a war those same people have the chance to keep others alive. If we had surrendered then everyone would be lost, no one would have any hope of surviving. With this war, you've created the hope of at least someone living to see the next cycle. And much more has been accomplished with nothing more than hope."
"And people wonder where I learned how to deliver speeches," she said with a short laugh. "Joker, you really are something, and I'm lucky to have spent these last years with you."
Joker smiled as he took her hand in his. "So am I, Shepard."
They sat in silence for a few moments, their hands still clasped together as they waited for someone to break the stillness.
"Any regrets?" she finally asked, looking over at him to see his eyes were far away in thought.
"I have a few," he replied before looking at her. "What about you?"
She nodded. "A few. What's one of yours?"
"Never kissing you," he said, winking at her. "I thought about it plenty of times but never acted on the impulse." Joker let out a soft laugh. "I guess I always thought we'd be around longer."
"It's not too late," said Shepard gently and he looked at her bewildered. "You could always kiss me now if you want."
Part of Joker screamed with joy, really he had wanted to do this ever since they first met but had stopped himself because he was not sure of how it would work out. Now here she was, offering to give him exactly what he wanted and he was hesitant. "Look Shepard, as nice as the offer is, I don't want it," he said a little hurriedly. "What I mean to say is, I don't want something like that just to be because we might die tomorrow. If it were to happen, I would want it to at least mean something more than a spur of the moment, might as well do it now, kind of thing."
Shepard did not look as hurt as he would have assumed instead she seemed happy. "What if I told you that one of my regrets was never kissing you? That I've thought about it numerous times but didn't want to ruin our friendship? Would you change your mind then?"
Joker half expected her to tell him that it was a joke that she was just screwing with him, but something in her eyes told him that she was being sincere. "Shepard," he said, breathless as he leaned forward, their lips brushing against each other for a brief moment.
He was just about to pull away when she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close, pressing her lips harder into his as his arms tentatively went around her waist. Joker felt her tongue brush against his lower lip and he allowed it entrance, their tongues danced with each other as they went down onto the surface of her bed. The kiss was blissful and sweet, an escape from the thoughts of death that had been plaguing them both that night. Her hands were hot against him, burning through his uniform as she ghosted over his body so as not to hurt him, the heat acting as a balm and anchor. He would have happily died then, in the arms of the woman he loved with her lips on his and her hands on his body.
Shepard wondered if she was doing the right thing, giving in to this one desire that she had been selfishly holding onto for so long. She wanted to tell Joker that this was not something she was doing for comfort, as a way of distracting herself for a brief moment, but the words died before they could reach her voice. In hindsight it would be crueler to say that she loved him and then tomorrow go out and die than to have said nothing at all. No hope was sometimes better than false hope, at least without hope he would set his expectations accordingly and grieve over her with an appropriate mindset. This one time, she would be selfish and take what she wanted.
The blue light of the shield glimmered through the skylight above the bed, and Shepard watched it pulse, an indication that it was still working. She remembered when she first was brought back and Cerberus had installed this damn window initially, watching the shield pulse had been her way of reassuring herself that the shields were holding and that a passing piece of rubble was not going to come smashing through and space her again. Now it was a way of keeping her eyes occupied as she listened to the person breathing beside her.
Eventually though, she could not keep herself from not looking and she turned over on her side to look at Joker; his bare chest was clearly visible, the blanket that covered her was barely covering everything below his waist. She smiled a little as she pulled the blanket back up and covered him properly, being very careful not to touch any part of him as she did. It was not that she did not want to wake him, it was more that she did not want to deal with what happened after that: the questions, the expectations, and the possible future. No, she did not want to face that now when she was so uncertain of everything as it was, she would rather find a way of avoiding that inevitable conversation. As nice as it had been to be with him, it just seemed to complicate matters more than necessary.
With a resigned sigh, she turned over so her back would face him, she knew she would have to come up with a means of dealing with the fallout but right now all her mind and body wanted to do was sleep. Her eyelids felt heavy and when they closed, she felt the other side of the bed shift, and without even looking she knew that Joker had left.
