Joker relaxed back into his chair and scrubbed at his face with one hand. He really hadn't gotten enough sleep. Nothing else could explain how unsettled he was by a totally normal conversation.

If having your CO offer a blanket apology for anything she may or may not have done while drunk is normal.

Normal for the Normandy, then. Normal for Shepard. Her forthright manner hadn't changed a bit. Though the drinking is only normal for the new Shepard.

And maybe that was why he was so bothered.

New, old. She hadn't changed much; considering. But the only reason she'd changed at all was that he'd killed her.

And she'd apologized for doing embarrassing things while drunk? Holy shit, one of them had a priority problem.

Probably me. Wouldn't the fucking shrinks love to hear me admit it.

Sometimes he wanted desperately to apologize – usually when she wasn't anywhere nearby, and there was no risk of it actually happening. When she was actually around he dreaded the thought. He enjoyed spending time with her, and the appeal of having it off his chest was overwhelmed by knowing that it could fracture their easy camaraderie. Shepard clearly didn't like to think about her death and revival; except for a few exposed moments she never mentioned it at all. Somehow he didn't think she'd appreciate him bringing it up.

Besides, when they were talking, he didn't feel so bad. It was only after she left that the guilt hit him like a concussive round.

EDI interrupted his thoughts. "It would seem you are unusually thoughtful, Mr. Moreau. Personnel files would indicate that you don't think much at all, so this has been marked as unusual."

He stared at her orb.

"That was a joke."

"Shit, thing. Leave the jokes to us flesh beings, okay? I'll have you know I'm fucking deep. Like an ocean."

"Or a black hole." She paused for a moment. "By which I mean you suck."

He took a deep breath.

"That was a joke."

"No, EDI, that was an insult. There's a fine line."

Damn the AI, anyway. He was a master of introspection. It went hand-in-hand with the pain-induced insomnia. Most nights he'd trade all his hard-won self-awareness in for the ability to get to sleep in ten minutes.

So, Mr. Know-Thyself, what exactly do you think about Shepard's quest to discover your tattoos?

It could be that she was simply asking about something too personal. Hell knows he'd admitted as much to her when they'd been working out, and she'd mostly treated it as a game since then… except that she'd clearly hung on his words at the time. She'd even gone out and gotten ink herself.

It could be that she was his commander, and that was just the kind of physical question it was unprofessional to ask. Not that he let that stop him most of the time; when there was actual flying to do his focus was perfect; who gave a shit about the other times?

He turned those ideas around in his head and discarded them. Sure, they made him a little uncomfortable, but… he liked it. He liked having her interested in something about him, whatever it was. He liked the attention.

No, when you got right down to it, the reason it bothered him was that he was pretty certain it was the only interest she'd ever show in his body.

He winced. That was painfully pathetic. Perhaps he was a bit more infatuated than he'd thought.

Possibly should have realized that when I started hanging around the mess late at night hoping she'd show up. Idiot. Someone like Shepard is not going to be interested in someone like you, even if you weren't responsible for her death.

She'd never even acknowledged his role in her death, which he was grateful for even as he hated it. He didn't know if it was a kindness, or if she thought him so inconsequential she didn't care. When she'd first come back, he'd almost asked if she remembered, but he knew better, now. If she remembered dying, surely she remembered the events leading up to it.

He remembered how he'd discovered that she relived it all, how he'd held her while she screamed. The nightmare didn't quite displace the memory of how nice it had felt when she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder.

He sternly reminded himself that that evening had ended in a broken arm. Without thinking about it, he rubbed at his shoulder where she'd laid her hand that morning. She'd only touched him three times, and the first two she'd broken bones. Shit, how much more warning did a guy need?

Maybe it would be best to confront her about those last few minutes of the SR1. He could be direct and apologize, and remind them both just what he was responsible for. He could get a burden out into the open, and Shepard… if Shepard was angry with him, maybe it'd be easier to stop thinking about her.

Two pyjacks with one over-powered krogan cannon.

That was it. He'd try to catch her tonight when the mess was empty.

He cued up some music, opened one of the interminable Cerberus maintenance reports, and started coming up with a plan to pick a fight with EDI. He needed something to distract him until Shepard decided to break orbit.

–––

Shepard wouldn't normally ask for mission advice from the ship's surgeon, but everything about Kasumi's proposal was unusual. She outlined the thief's plan (and its obvious flaws) while sprawled in the med-bay with a cup of coffee.

Chakwas gave her an appraising look. "I agree – Miranda would be the wiser choice."

Rhi should have been content to hear her opinion affirmed. Instead she was a bit dejected. Chakwas was as objective a second-opinion on the appearance issue as she could get. Stop being an idiot, marine.

The doctor continued. "You're still too well known. You might be able to count on aliens being bad with human facial recognition, but humans? Your holo has been shown far too often. Granted, most people are bad at recognizing others out of context, but in a party that size someone is sure to put two and two together."

Oh. Her sense of relief was as absurd as her earlier distress. I'll have to point this out to Kasumi –

"Nothing we can't handle, though."

"Excuse me?"

Chakwas clicked her tongue. "We'll just have to do something with your hair."

Aw, fucksicles.

Rhi wrinkled her forehead, trying to make some sense out of a world where catastrophic extragalactic invaders led to strategically important beauty advice and failing utterly. "Thanks, I think."

"Of course, dear." The doctor stood up purposefully. "How long is it, anyway?"

The chime of her omnitool was a welcome excuse to leave before the doctor starting doing arcane things to her hair. Rhi had almost forgotten her appointment to work on hand-to-hand with operative Taylor. Sparring was even better stress relief than shooting things.

The first time she'd asked Jacob to join her, he'd clearly been afraid of some hidden meaning. She'd kept it strictly professional, and he'd started to relax, comfortable within the strict behavior standards they both remembered from their alliance service. She couldn't really blame him for being twitchy. Anyone who'd worked with Miranda for any length of time could be forgiven for looking for ulterior motives behind every word.

It had still taken another hour of cajoling, orders, and goading before he stopped pulling his punches. You'd think he'd learn by the fifth time he hit the mat. Her skills were rusty, but she'd started learning before she'd joined the marines, and her teacher was still one of the top alliance hand-to-hand instructors. Granted, Geltz had called her a "disappointing brawler lacking in any finesse" on more than one occasion, but at least she was a disappointment to one of the best.

She'd sent Geltz a message while they were on the Citadel, and still hadn't heard a response. He probably thought she was a terrorist, if he believed she was alive at all. She shoved the thought aside. He was a fragment of her past she'd seen at most once a year. It didn't matter. Teaching some of his skills to Taylor did.

Jacob Taylor was as fit as any soldier she'd ever seen, but he clearly hadn't spent much time on hand-to-hand combat. It was considered a waste of time for most marines; 'normal' battles were fought at assault rifle range. But Shepard had been in the service for over ten years before the Collectors destroyed the SR1, and she knew that a 'normal' battle was unlikely to happen outside of a textbook. Safer to be prepared.

They often had an audience; usually she took it as an opportunity to teach. This time was no different, though Zaeed was conspicuous by his absence. He loved watching Taylor get thrown; he must still be nursing his hangover. Instead, Garrus lounged against a crate and Kasumi perched atop it. The thief pretended to be interested in technique, but the gleam in her dark eyes gave that the lie.

She must still be hoping Jacob would practice without his shirt on for once.

If she'd been pleased with Kasumi, Rhi might have taken the opportunity to demonstrate how easily a t-shirt could be pulled over an opponent's head to block their vision. Too bad for Goto. She shouldn't have suggested heels.

Jacob hit the mat with a grunt. She gave him a hand up and explained how he could have countered.

Miranda appeared as they were finishing up, ready to take some of the crew dirt-side to work on marksmanship. Shepard nodded a greeting and went back to stretching out her shoulder, trying to work out the place where it always knotted up.

"Why is it always the right one?" she muttered to herself.

Miranda heard. "Do you actually want to know?"

Oh, fuck. "You're going to tell me it's the one I landed on or something similarly charming, aren't you?"

Miranda smiled. "No, actually, the opposite. You landed on the other side; it had to be rebuilt from, ahem, the ground up. The one you have trouble with only needed slight repairs."

Shepard stared at her.

"Like Moreau said, Commander. Retrofits are always a pain in the ass."

As weird as it was, Rhi could only snort in agreement.

On the shuttle-ride down, Garrus was unusually garrulous, chattering away about unarmed combat techniques and sparring as stress-relief. She'd no idea he was so fascinated with it. She made a mental note to ask Mordin for turian anatomical charts. He seemed interested in joining the training matches, and she wasn't willing to fight him until she knew how to hurt him, and equally importantly, how not to.

Planet-side, she left Miranda with strict instructions to make the crew eat dirt if she saw anyone so much as thinking about breaking the rules of gun safety, and staked out a space some distance away with Garrus and Thane. The platforms on the collector ship had convinced her she needed at least one long-range weapon in her arsenal.

She stood at parade rest, facing her instructors.

"Okay, boys. Teach me."

Thane's eyelids blinked, once, and then they both started talking at the same time.

She held up a hand. "One at a time, please. You have me outnumbered."

Thane bowed graciously to Garrus, and the turian started to explain grip and position.

When Miranda took the shuttle back for a new group of FNGs, Shepard and her teachers were still hard at work.

She lined up for another shot, trying to keep the scope of the sniper rifle steady. They'd been planet side for hours, and dammit, she was going to get the hang of this thing.

"Steady, commander. Use the boulder if you need to – set up for the shot, every one counts. It's not like that SMG of yours." She swallowed a retort about just how much a shotgun blast counted. She was the student, here.

Garrus reached around her shoulders to correct her position, looking past her ear to follow her line of sight.

"Garrus, can we dispense with the training wheels? You don't get to steady my hand in combat."

"Agreed." Thane was standing on her other side a few yards away, dark eyes fixed on them. Garrus stepped back, and she was sure she could feel the heat of the two glaring at each other over the top of her head.

What in hell is going on here? Thane and Garrus had been circling each other like hawks all day. The tension was palpable. Maybe they should work it out in the ring, she thought, wickedly. Garrus has reach, but I bet Thane has flexibility.

"Shepard, why are you smiling?"

This time, she hit the target square in the bulls-eye.

Dusk was falling as they packed up and headed back to the kodiak, drell on one side of her, turian on the other. She'd never have the patience to be a sniper, but she had gotten used to tracking movement through the scope. She'd even practiced aiming while they took turns sneaking up on her. Target fixation got snipers killed.

On the Normandy she showered, threw on a clean uniform, and headed down to the command deck, where she was greeted cheerfully by Yeoman Chambers. Shepard winced inwardly. The bruise she'd given Kelly was starting to darken.

She quickly scanned the deck to see that everyone was at their station. Hadley, Matthews – she was distracted by a flash of cheery lemon-yellow. Huh?

She changed course for the cockpit, stopping short a few feet behind Joker's chair. She crossed her arms and rocked back on her heels, thoughtfully regarding EDI.

Joker hadn't spun around, but she knew he was watching her out of the corner of his eye, so she tried to suppress her smile. Damn him, anyway. It didn't make sense that his antics could cheer her up when the bad mood had started with him in the first place.

When her voice was under control, she said, "It looks good on you, EDI."

The AI's holographic orb flashed. "Commander Shepard. I would like to report a misuse of Cerberus resources."

Now Joker did spin around. He wasn't quite as practiced at hiding his grin as she was.

"No Cerberus resources used. The mono-filament was from Hadley." He shrugged. "Turns out he likes fishing. Who knew?"

Shepard felt the corner of her mouth twitch upwards, and firmly reined it in. "And the hat?"

"Chambers." He scowled comically. "You didn't think it was mine, did you? Come on."

"Of course not." She paused. "Yellow isn't your color."

"Exactly. I'm much more of a raspberry man."

They both turned to gaze at EDI's projection. The blue orb was topped by a floppy straw sunhat with a trailing ribbon of lemon-yellow gauze. The hat was suspended from the ceiling with fishing line at a rather jaunty angle.

"I was referring to Cerberus financial resources, to wit, the paid time of Helmsman Jeff Moreau." Whoever programmed EDI's voice-synthesizer had really outdone themselves on the 'controlled exasperation' setting.

"Well, Joker?"

"I was right here, on-call and ready for action the moment we needed some flyin'."

"Works for me." Rhi put a little steel in her voice and faked a stern look. "EDI, if this were a military vessel I'd have to site you for being out-of-uniform." She drummed her fingers against her arm. "You're getting off easy."

–––

Joker licked one finger and drew a line in the air in front of him. "Point for me!"

Under her hat, EDI flickered with bad grace. "You have hands. It is an unfair advantage."

"And you have eyes everywhere. It's an unfair creepiness."

"One you should remember. Perhaps the commander would be interested in knowing about your tattoos."

"Spying in the bathrooms, EDI? Not a good way to prove you're not creepy. Just a hint."

"I monitor the crew for safety purposes, Mr. Moreau. I am merely doing my job. Unlike some individuals I could name."

"Don't get jealous just 'cause I have so much skill to spare that I can do my job and have enough time to help you dress up." An alert lit up on his console. "Though why Chambers has a sunhat on a spaceship – oops, hold on a sec." He glanced at the CIC feed in time to see Shepard head towards the elevator and thumbed the radio.

"Stay put, Commander. Comm comin' through, real time. Comm room?"

"Here's fine. Patch it through, Joker."

Shepard turned back towards the center of the CIC. The space above the galaxy map glittered as the holoprojection formed.

The man who's image was now glaring over the CIC was no one Joker had ever seen, but the Commander had gone very, very still.

"Ahhh, the great Commander Shepard." The man spoke with an earth accent, something from the North American States, and his voice oozed sarcasm.

Joker enlarged the vid for the CIC so he could see the commander more clearly. Shepard looked so cool Chakwas could have prescribed her for fever.

"Trex."

"I sent you an invitation a few years ago, and you never even sent your regrets. That's impolite, Rhi."

"I declined. The RSVP was on the bullet I put in your messenger. Didn't you read it?"

"Ah, yes, poor Finch. So cruel to an old childhood acquaintance, Shepard. Still," he shrugged, "I'm a generous man."

"Generous? You're a grasping, petty criminal. And apparently an anti-alien bigot. At least that part's new."

"'Anti-alien bigot', says the woman standing in front of the Cerberus logo. Rich." He chuckled. "Stop being so alliance goody-two-shoes. Everyone knows you have new friends now. I'm suggesting you might benefit from some old ones, too. I just want to talk."

Shepard crossed her arms. "Stop trying to be smooth, Trex, it never suited you."

He leered. "You still prefer it rough, Rhi? Like you did behind Rourke's?"

In the stunned silence of the CIC, Chamber's gasp was clear. Joker felt his face grow hot with rage.

Shepard's only response was to raise one eyebrow.

"Seems we remember things a bit differently. As I recall you didn't get more than a grope before I kicked your balls up into your appendix." She smiled sweetly. "Have they dropped yet, or are you still waiting for that second puberty?"

The man's eyes flashed with anger. "As nice as this is, I didn't call to talk pretty with you, bitch."

"Then get to the point. Some of us have work to do."

"You're not the only one. I'm a busy man. Lotta people workin' for me." His grin showed missing teeth, replaced with sparkling alloy. "Lotta people. Some of 'em were lookin for you, but they found something better." He glanced at someone out of the field of view. "Refuse this invitation, Shepard."

And a new face was shoved in front of the screen. A young woman, her light-brown hair dyed with streaks of blue. Maybe pretty, but it was impossible to tell with the bruise that darkened one temple and the tape across her mouth.

Shepard's brow furrowed slightly, but her voice was almost disinterested. "Who is she?"

"Vanessa."

Shepard's expression didn't change.

Trex reappeared, his arm casually draped around the shoulders of the gagged prisoner. "You don't remember her, Rhi? I'm surprised at you! Of course, we were all so much younger then… how time flies." He pulled the girl back from the cam, yanked her skirt up to her hip, and shoved her back at the lens so that her bare thigh took up the entire screen.

It was a mess of old, old scar tissue, the kind of mark even marines didn't get in these days of nano-surgery and auto-routed medigel. Ragged raised edges surrounding a sunken pit.

Exit wound.

Joker saw Shepard's jaw tense, her eyes flash with recognition. The hapless girl was pulled away from the lens.

"Oh, I see you do remember her."

Shepard gave the briefest of nods. "Why?"

"Because I want to see you face to face, and you're a hard woman to find."

"You never were any good at subtlety." The commander never lost her even tone. "I assume this is the part where you make threats?"

"Threats? I'm making an offer. I'm sending you coordinates. Show up, alone, we'll have a nice little discussion about the ways we can help each other out, and the girl goes back with you. See? Friendly."

Shepard stared, waiting. In the projection, the captive looked on with wild eyes and tried to shake her head 'no', only to be dragged out of the image.

"And, yes, if you take too long, I'll have to start cutting on her. Just a bit each day. I don't want to, but it's your choice."

A faint frown appeared on the Commander's face, and she leaned forward. "Don't be an idiot, Trex." She scowled. "You're in the ass-end of nowhere. If I decide it's worth my while, it'll take me four days to get there!"

That didn't sound right – not the sudden display of emotion, or the estimate. Joker had started running numbers as soon as the coordinates transmitted; they were three relay jumps away from the cluster. Five or six hours to get out-system from Tuchanka, a long cross-system run from the mass relay… without running the numbers, he thought two days. Shepard wasn't a navigator by any means, but she had a better grasp of it than that.

The holo-image smiled nastily, showing the teeth again. "Too long. I'll transmit details of the exchange point in 48 hours, and expect to see you in 49. Otherwise," he pulled his hostage back into view, "I'll start slow. If you can't get here by then, don't worry. She'll still be alive if you wait four days."

The feed went black, and Shepard's air of relaxed disinterest vanished.

"Joker, estimated travel time to those coordinates?"

His fingers were flying over his console as Matthews sent him updated system information. The target would be on the far side of its orbit from the relay. Shit. "47 hours if we don't stop to discharge. We'll be damn hot when we get there."

"I need more time, Joker."

"Roger. Matthews, I need to see every other known body of earth-mass or above in that system, projected positions in the next 24 to 48." His eyes flicked over the display. Bingo. "Got it, commander. We can be in orbit within 43 hours."

"Good. Make it happen."

EDI interrupted. "Mr. Moreau's proposed route includes a gravity-well maneuver."

"Two, actually," he corrected distractedly. He was already prepping to leave Tuchanka's orbit, picking his trajectory to shave minutes off the trip to the relay.

"One of those planets has more than thirty mapped satellites. Entering its gravity-well at the speed you're proposing is highly discouraged."

Shepard snapped, "Your concern has been noted, EDI. Joker?"

"Wouldn't have suggested it if I couldn't pull it off, commander."

"If he says he can, he can." Shepard's orders were terse. "We run silent. All comm access is suspended. Not a blip is leaving this ship. Joker, engage stealth systems to the moment we exit the last relay. Chambers, I'll need Garrus, Kasumi, and Tali in the comm room in three hours."

As she turned on her heel to head for the elevator, Chambers finally voiced the question they'd all been thinking, her voice subdued. "Commander… who is the girl?"

Shepard's answer came in one harsh expelled breath, with no explanation.

"Nessie."

Then she strode off the bridge.