"You shit!"
Joker didn't have time to brace himself. He was forced against the wall in a wave of dark energy. His back connected against a strut, metal digging painfully into his flesh, and he heard the sickening crack of a rib.
"Grab him!"
"Stand down, Alenko!"
Joker slipped to the ground, doubled over in pain, hissing through his teeth and counting backwards – anything to ease the sharp pain slicing through his chest.
"Jeff, are you alright?" Dr Chakwas asked and kneeled next to him. Her hair was dishevelled, clothes singed and stained with blood.
Joker looked up and then past her. Garrus was restraining Kaidan, holding him back before he did anything he would hopefully regret. Their gaze met and Joker felt a shudder run down his spine. Hatred. No one had ever looked at him like that. Like they would carve him into pieces of meat. His eyes stung with fresh tears. He knew why Kaidan would glare at him like that. This was all his fault.
"Jeff, I asked if you were alright," Chakwas repeated, placing her hand on his shoulder. He winced and flinched backwards.
"Broken rib, broken arm…probably fractures in my legs and right ankle," he rattled off. He knew the drill. But he didn't look at her. He didn't see anyone anymore. Just space, darkness, the burning wreckage of the Normandy and… A shudder tore through his body and he brought his good arm to cover his eyes.
"I am so sorry…" he said, the words all tumbling out of his mouth. His breath caught in his chest, a painful knot of air that tore through his lungs. Everything seemed too loud, too bright, too much.
"You should be sorry!" Kaidan yelled and pulled at Garrus' arm around him. "He went back for you! You didn't obey an order and he died saving you."
The rest of the rescued crew – all that was left – turned to look down at Joker now. Crumpled on the floor, crying into his sleeve, on the verge of complete panic.
Tali wrung her hands together. She was dirty, her suit blackened in patches. "Is this true?" she asked.
Kaidan finally threw Garrus' arm off him, but made no further move to attack the fallen pilot. "Damn right it is. The Commander told me to leave so he could save Joker. You couldn't abandon a ship and now he's dead and you, of all people, are alive!"
Joker pulled his legs closer to his chest, ignoring the sting of pain from his ribs, the slight twinge that definitely meant he had at least a hairline fracture in his ankle.
"If Joker had not been at the helm we would have suffered many more causalities this day," Liara said. Even at a time like this her voice was so soft and calm. "Shepard would have known this. This is not Joker's fault."
"But it doesn't bring him back," Kaidan said. Everyone could hear the barely suppressed emotion in his voice as he tried to hold back his anguish. He shoved past Garrus, who let him go without word. There was no use in running after him. He needed time alone.
"Jeff, we need to get you to the medical bay—"
Joker groaned and rolled over. The room was in darkness. His legs ached from being crushed under him.
A dream. A memory. He rubbed his hand against his head as his eyes attempted to acclimatize to the darkness to little avail. The pleasant fuzz of alcohol was gone, replaced with the very, very unpleasant feeling of a hangover. He reached above his head and groped blindly for the cap that had fallen off his head at some point. It was dirty, smelled like smoke and sweat, but it was his and it was all he had left. Across the room his extranet terminal was awash with an orange glow, a message blinking across the screen. He groaned and forced his cap onto his head, but didn't get up. It would be the Alliance or Chakwas. Probably Chakwas. I'm worried about you, Jeff. You can't dwell on the past, Jeff. You have to move on; it's what he would have wanted, Jeff. Joker growled deep in his throat and curled into a ball, holding his hands against his ears. He didn't want to hear that now. It had only been a few months. In just a few short – very short – months everyone just forgot and moved on and ignored anything that ever happened and that the galaxy had lost the best damn hero they could ask for. Without him, they were all screwed.
But hey, the Reapers weren't coming, right?
If only he had listened. All Shepard had needed was a minute, a moment…a few seconds more. One less protest from Joker, one less smart arse comment and they would have been gone. Shepard would have slipped into the pod next to him, fallen against the seat as the ejection thrusters kicked in, and they would have watched the Normandy fall away to the planet's surface. Joker could almost imagine the warmth of another person next to him and the feel of the Commander's armour pressing against his arm.
"No, I won't abandon the Normandy! I can still save her." He could still feel the adrenalin burning through him at the thought. It had been like listening to a million conversations at once, as the haptic displays swirled and changed in front of him, emergency lights flashing, information bombarding his mind. But he was the best. If anyone could save the Normandy, if anyone could give the crew a few more minutes to make it to the escape pods, it was him.
Now it all seemed so stupid.
"The Normandy's lost. Going down with the ship won't change that. I won't lose you, too."
It had made Joker pause, long enough for sense and rational thought to get through. The Commander had come back for him. All he had left of his ship was large chunks of tortured steel drifting away from the hull. The unknown ship was turning again, the weapons charging. It would destroy them. He sighed and closed his eyes, nodding in defeat.
The huge vessel's weapon sliced through space, searing through what little remained of the Normandy's hull, cables hissing and debris whipping towards them before bouncing off the kinetic shielding that still protected the helm from complete decompression. Shepard had grabbed his arm. He was always fairly unceremonious when it came down to the wire. If he had been hauling anyone else up it would have been fine, but Joker had felt his bone fracture. If it had been anyone else, they could have made a run for it – Shepard wouldn't have needed to support them and their stupid creaky legs. If it was anyone else, Shepard would have made it, too.
Joker still remembered the feeling of his breath catching in his throat as Shepard helped him into the escape pod. Even then, he knew what was going to happen. Shepard had been so careful, supporting him as he ducked into the hatch. Shepard's armoured fingers had dragged across his side like a brand before the hull across the walkway ripped open. Ripped open to space, everything sucked backwards into the vacuum. Joker saw it too late. He reached out as Shepard snagged the side of the hatch with one hand. He could see Shepard's eyes behind his N7 helmet. The look of resignation, acceptance, as he thumped his fist on the eject panel before he was torn away, thrown against the bulkhead and flung into space.
"Commander!"
Joker felt his throat tighten. "Shepard…"
Behind him, he heard the chime of the doorbell. An incessant bleeping of the interface. He knew it was Chakwas. She was the only one to ever visit and she had the damn code. Joker wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and managed to pull himself up to sit as the door slid open, the apartment lights burning to life.
"Jeff Moreau." She didn't even greet him nicely. "You have missed your therapy appointments both last week and again today." She walked into the room, stepping down the stair into the lounge. He saw her nose wrinkle at the probably evident smell of alcohol and sweat, but she said nothing about that. "You can't keep treating your body this way. You know that your physiotherapy is important."
Joker mumbled something, feeling his dry, rough tongue drag over the roof of his mouth. He needed something to drink.
"You have unread messages," Chakwas said. Jeff just watched her go about his apartment, picking up garbage and trashing it, sweeping some crumbs off his desk, and throwing laundry into the other room. "Is that broken glass? What have you been doing? Get up. Good Lord, I can't leave you alone for a few days without you just about killing yourself. Go, go sit on the bed."
He felt his lips quirk into a small, yet warm smile. "Yes, Mom." He had always liked Chakwas, even if she did boss him around. Maybe he liked her because she cared. He grabbed his crutches from near the wall. Of course it was difficult to get up, between crutches and leg braces, but he would never accept help. He didn't need someone to help him drag his crippled ass up off the floor. He put himself there and he would get back up.
Chakwas sighed and began picking up the glass. "You really should be more careful, Jeff. The last thing we need is for you to fall into a pile of broken glass."
"I know, I know." He grunted as he pulled himself up, using the wall as a support. "The glass…slipped."
"Perhaps you should not have been drinking quite as much. It smells rather akin to a bar in here."
"I was just having a drink. Geez. It's not going to kill me," he snapped back. He leaned heavily on his crutches, his legs cramping as he tried to rest any weight on his braces.
Chakwas picked up the empty bottle and waved it at him. "This will get you killed, Jeff. And it certainly is not going to make anything better."
"Nothing will make it better!"
The Doctor stopped, lowering the bottle to her side. Jeff stood in the middle of the room, his arms and legs shaking not entirely from the effort of standing. "Jeff… The Commander and the Normandy are gone. There is nothing you can do to change that."
"Then what's the point?" Joker hobbled over to the bed and sat down, forcing the crutches away from his arms, letting them crash to the ground. "The Council are trying to pass Sovereign off as a Geth cruiser. Garrus, Liara, Tali? They're all gone. Alenko looked like he wanted to rip my fucking throat out and I don't blame him one bit."
"So you sit in this room with a bottle of alcohol and wait for death to catch you?"
"Why the hell not? No one's gonna miss me. I don't want to play space hero anymore. Let someone else do it if they think they can but without him we're dead in the water. The Reapers are gonna come, shoot the Earth full of lasers, destroy everything in the galaxy, then piss off again for another 50,000 years."
Chakwas dropped the large pieces of broken glass into the waste bin and then turned to face him. "Jeff… I understand what you are feeling—"
"Yeah, remember, we went over this shit. Survivor's guilt," he drawled, waving his hand at her. "And it's shit. It's not survivor's guilt if it's true. Shepard died because of me. That's a fact. Now we're fucked."
"Jeff! The Commander went back for you because he would not leave you behind. You knew the Commander…he left no one behind. Even smart mouthed pilots."
Joker ground his teeth, crossing his arms across his chest. "There's nothing you can say, Doc. Cuz we both know what happened. A few seconds. He just needed a few seconds. He would have been there next to me. Because of what? I couldn't let a dead ship die. I had to be a hero, had to prove that I was so great, couldn't even leave when I knew it was the only way. He just needed a few seconds." Joker raised his hand to his mouth, biting at the corner of one of his nails, the other arm still crossed over his chest. "There's nothing you can say that will convince me that it wasn't my damn fault he died. So just…leave me be. Just go, don't come back. Let me rot here."
The Doctor sighed. There was no use talking to him when he was in a mood. She had known Jeff Moreau too long – she understood him perfectly and knew there was no point in pushing him if he wasn't ready to take the step, either mentally or physically. He was stubborn, foul mouthed, pessimistic and arrogant – a lot of qualities that sometimes made up a very unappealing package. But in her own way, she loved him. Like a son, a grandchild, a burden she had to carry. Jeff found it hard to make friends, let alone allow anyone close to him. She knew in a few days time he would be in a better mood and she had a higher possibility of convincing him out of his dirty clothes and into the shower. Perhaps even outside for a walk and to the hospital for his therapy.
"I'll make sure that some meals are delivered for you," she said. She picked up the last of the broken glass with a damp cloth, dabbing at the ground. Across the floor lay the articles displayed on data pads and ripped out pages from magazines. Some looked like they had been splashed with water. She stacked them carefully and stood. Even in images Shepard was so commanding; the glint in his eye, the scar across his cheek and lip, the short, spiky black hair that was almost always covered in blood and grit. Chakwas smiled fondly.
"I believe these are yours." She handed the pile to Joker. He didn't immediately react and didn't look at her when he did reach to take the pile of papers and the data pads, bringing them into his lap.
"Thanks…" he muttered, barely audible.
"Jeff, sometimes events like these happen for very good reasons. Perhaps in your case it was to teach you the importance of acknowledging what we have before it is gone forever."
He didn't answer, but she never expected him to reply. Chakwas finished cleaning the broken glass, throwing away the cloth before she left. The door closed and the room dipped back into silence.
