Undertow

The times Joker had to wait on the edge of his seat, ready to whisk the Normandy out of harm's way at a second's notice, or to swoop down and rescue Shepard and the others from the very clutches of death itself, were the worst. He couldn't occupy himself with drinks or food or dirty vids or extranet news during those times. He just had to wait, and be ready.

And this time, with that damn ship – still unidentifiable by Alliance records but completely recognizable to him and everyone else who'd been on the SR1 that day – just sitting down there gathering up paralyzed colonists, and Alenko supposedly down there too – possibly already paralyzed and aboard that damn ship – and Shepard tossed into the mix of it and taking Lawson with her, of all people….

Good God, he felt like he might actually have a heart attack.

They knew now it had been the Collectors that had sliced through the original Normandy like warm butter that day, but that still didn't explain why they had attacked so suddenly and seemingly at random. After all, the Collectors hadn't gone after any other Alliance ship at any other time. Except the Normandy. On that one day.

Were they really just trying to kill Shepard? That might explain why they had suddenly appeared in such numbers again so shortly after she'd been resurrected. Were the attacks on these colonies just supposed to be bait to draw her out so they could try to kill her again? If the Reapers really were working through the Collectors as had been speculated in the last mission briefing, that seemed possible. Shepard had managed to rally a fleet that had taken down one of them… maybe that had just really pissed them off.

Maybe they figured if they could get rid of her, the galaxy would go down without much of a fight.

That was probably more true than he would have liked to admit.

"Mr. Moreau, it is inadvisable to lessen your nail plate's free edge to such an extent," EDI stated suddenly, startling him. "It can cause infection."

He glared at the blue ball, spitting the remains of his mangled nail in her direction. "What are you, my mother now?"

"That is impossible, considering that –"

"Wow, okay EDI, someday we need to have a chat about common human expressions."

"That would be satisfactory," she replied. "Such information would statistically increase my chances of becoming more fully accepted by the crew."

"Not sure that's really going to do it," he muttered. "I think you still have a long way to go with some people before that happens."

There was the briefest of pauses. "That is unfortunate."

Joker took his eyes off the displays in front of him again to look at her, but the blue ball was always the same. Faceless, blue, round. Staring blankly at him, emotionless. Still, he could have sworn he heard regret in her tone.

He was about to ask her if she really had feelings when a flashing red box on his planet-side readouts caught his attention. He snapped back around to the front, his fingers already flying over the controls. "Shit, EDI, get ready, that ship is taking off."

"Stealth systems are engaged, Mr. Moreau," she said. "And we are on the far side of the planet."

"That thing saw right past our stealth systems last time," he shot back, "I'm not taking any chances."

"The ship's trajectory suggests it is heading straight for the relay."

Joker kept his hands over the controls just in case, watching the SR2's sensors track the alien ship and map the route on his displays. EDI was right, it headed straight for the relay. Those anti-ship guns must have done a damn fine job of scaring it away. He keyed the comm to Shepard's hardsuit. "Shepard, you there? What's going on?"

No answer.

His heart shoved into his throat. "Shepard, do you read?"

More silence. He flipped the comm over to the party channel just as EDI spoke up.

"Shepard's hardsuit transponder is still located on the planet's surface, Mr. Moreau. As are Vakarian's, Taylor's, Lawson's, and Grunt's. Their vitals are elevated but stable."

He felt only mildly relieved. "Garrus, do you copy? That ship is high-tailing it out of here… What's going on down there?"

"Not a good time, Joker," the turian's gravelly voice came back, and the clatter of assault rifles echoed in the background. "Cleaning up the rest of the ground forces. Everyone's alive. Shepard found Alenko. Well, Alenko found Shepard, more like."

Joker straightened in his chair. "Oh."

"Standby." And then Garrus clicked off.

Joker huffed a sigh, drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair. For once he kind of wished he was down there, if only so he could see how the Shepard and Alenko reunion would go. He imagined it'd be something worthy of a soap-opera script.

Shit, he really hated waiting…

"Commander Alenko is not on the list of potential recruits for this mission," EDI said into the silence. "I am curious as to why Commander Shepard feels it necessary to approach him for enlistment. Given his history within the Alliance, current rank and assignment, and psychological profile, it is unlikely he will accept her offer."

"Uh… yeah." He still found it creepy how much EDI seemed to know about everyone, including himself. He especially did not like it when she suggested certain vids he should watch "based on his previous selections." What the hell was she doing paying attention to his previous selections anyway? That was really her second job, he'd come to find out. Or maybe her primary function, in truth: spying on everyone for Lawson and the Illusive Man. Joker had never really wanted to disembark his ship before, always being content to stay aboard even during times everyone else left to enjoy a little shore leave. But lately he'd been feeling a little like a bug under a microscope. Next time they went to the Citadel, he might actually want off.

"It's complicated," he said, not really wanting to get into details with the Cerberus AI. She already knew too much.

He watched the Collector ship jump through the relay. Still he waited. Still silence from the ground. Until he couldn't stand it anymore and keyed Vakarian again. "Garrus, seriously. I'm dying up here, what's going on?"

"Tell Dr. Solus to shuttle down," was the short reply, and this time Joker could hear an unfamiliar male voice swearing and ranting something about letting the ship get away. He frowned. "Okay. What about Alenko and –"

"Not now, Joker." And then he was gone again.

Joker clenched his fists and rolled his eyes. Damn turians. Always so damn efficient. Never any time for gossip. He moved to activate the PA in the research lab, but EDI stopped him.

"I will tell the professor he is needed planet-side," she offered.

"Fine." He waved a hand dismissively. Her avatar winked out, he presumed to reappear over the holo-hub in the research lab. Not that she couldn't have had an avatar present at every holo-hub at the same time throughout the entire ship, but she'd explained that she found the crew seemed to respond better to her presence when she pretended not to be ubiquitous. Naturally.

He sighed again, rubbing his hands over his face. Waiting would be the death of him, he was sure of it.

Shepard came back to the Normandy first, alone. According to EDI, who accessed various video feeds and tracked elevator movement at Joker's request, the commander went straight to her quarters. And as painful as her silence was, he just couldn't bring himself to try paging her. The fight on Horizon had been long and hard, and he knew better than to bother her with non-urgent matters so soon after a battle.

The others didn't return until a very long forty-seven minutes later, bringing an excited and as-always talkative Dr. Solus back with them, their arms full of strange-looking guns and several clear vials of who-knew-what. Joker watched the bay's video feed EDI had so kindly temporarily forwarded to his datapad, but Kaidan never got off the shuttle.

Alenko hadn't come back with them.

Had the man actually said no? To Shepard? Really?

Joker couldn't quite comprehend it. He dropped the datapad into his lap, leaning back in his chair and feeling remarkably disappointed. How completely and utterly anti-climactic. How could EDI's estimation of this have been right? Sure, she'd had plenty of surface information to draw a conclusion from, but there were so many factors she couldn't have known…

Factors no one could have known unless they'd served with both Shepard and Alenko during those four months of hell chasing Saren.

Maybe those factors just didn't exist anymore for Kaidan.

Joker shook his head, still finding that hard to accept. Surely not. Not after that fucking look that day at the lieutenant's apartment…

He shut down the datapad. Well, he'd wait just a little longer, wait for everyone to get settled back in after whatever the hell had happened, wait to get his new course laid in, and then he'd go searching for answers. Because he was going to get answers, damnit. It was bad enough he had to wait in agony throughout every ground-battle. He wasn't going to be left in the dark, too.

Three hours later, while en route to Ilium, Shepard called a mission debrief. She had taken to including everyone on the briefs and debriefs; those who could not actively attend or watch via live video feed received a written transcript at their terminal not more than a half hour after the meeting's conclusion, courtesy of Operative Lawson herself. Joker wasn't entirely sure why Shepard had taken to doing this, it wasn't always completely necessary for Mess Sergeant Gardner to know the details of every skirmish, after all, but he thought it probably had something to do with Shepard trying to keep them all together and on the same page.

Maybe something to do with the fact she didn't quite trust all of them yet. Something to do with the saying "keep your friends close and your enemies closer", perhaps.

Regardless of her reasons, he had taken to greatly appreciate being included. It helped him know what to expect. Helped him plan when he could afford to make trips down to the Port Observatory and when he'd better as hell stay sober. Helped him get to know the rest of the crew, too – while Shepard talked, he watched them. Joker was good at reading people. He had been surprised at the beginning of this mission to see so much raw admiration and respect and downright awe on so many of their faces… not exactly what he'd been expecting from a Cerberus crew.

But so many of these people were former Alliance; just Cerberus in name now, really. They'd answered the Illusive Man's call simply so they could take an active role in stopping the colony attacks – simply so they might have the opportunity to serve with Shepard.

The looks on their faces hadn't changed much in three and half months. They still watched her with rapt attention, drinking in every word, some even taking notes on their omni-tools. Except for Lawson, of course. The woman always stood in the back corner, attentive but somehow also looking like a teacher grading her student's oral presentation. Jacob Taylor lacked the awe-struck appearance of some of the other crew, but his respect for Shepard leaked through every pore of his being when he was around her. And Garrus, well. Garrus was Garrus. He'd taken quite well to becoming Shepard's XO. It had been some adjustment to get used to a turian giving orders… Vakarian still tended to fall back upon his militaristic culture in almost every instance in which Shepard didn't give him direct instructions, but Joker had to admit the crew was even more efficient now than they had been before.

At the moment, Chakwas looked thoroughly rattled by some of the specs Dr. Solus currently displayed on the holo projector. Something to do with the new kind of husks they'd seen planet-side and the portable stasis field generators the swarms of bugs implanted into you when they stung you.

Joker shuddered. Fuck that. He'd stay aboard and chew his nails off waiting any day…

His eyes drifted to the psychotic criminal known as Jack, who paced a tight line along the side wall. The woman was always pissed, always glowing blue with barely restrained biotics, and Joker made a point to steer very, very far away from her on a regular basis. The briefs and debriefs were the closest he ever got to her, and even then he usually watched via video. If he hadn't of been so damn curious for any mention of Alenko, he wouldn't have shown up in person this time, either.

How Shepard had managed to get the crazy bitch to listen to her, he still didn't know. He thought maybe it'd had something to do with the shearing gravitational forces that had nearly ripped a hole in the SR-2's hull the day after Jack had come aboard – he knew for a fact Shepard had gone down to the engineering sub-deck that day to have a "chat" with the destructive psychopath – but he wasn't going to ask about it. There were some things he was just better off not knowing. For now it seemed Jack was on their side, and that's all that really mattered.

"The presence of husks on Horizon seems to imply Reaper involvement," Shepard was saying, and Joker turned his attention back to her. "Although there were no Dragon's Teeth within range of our sensors," she continued. "As you all know, the geth used the so-called Dragon's Teeth as a means of converting humans into husks. And the Dragon's Teeth technology has been confirmed to be of Reaper origin. Given that we have no evidence of Dragon's Teeth anywhere on the colony, we are assuming the husks and… other creatures… were actually brought with the Collectors. Unless there is some other husk conversion technology that we are thus far unaware of. But from what we saw first-hand, and from Dr. Solus' preliminary studies of husk remains, it appears they arrived with the Collectors. This would, of course, point to a direct interaction between the Collectors and the Reapers."

Silence followed this statement, broken only by the steady thrum of the drive core.

"We still don't know why the Collectors are attacking," she said, her hand lifting to absently run along the scars across her jaw. He'd caught her doing that often lately. A new nervous habit. "We're going to continue with our recruitment efforts while Dr. Solus continues his research on the husk and Collector remains. Hopefully that will tell us something more about them. We're still sure the Collectors come from beyond the Omega 4 relay, so that's still our end goal. We're going to find a way through, follow them right back to their little hidey hole, and then, we're going to obliterate them."

Murmurs of approval broken with a few enthusiastic "hell yeahs" answered her this time.

"Any questions?" she asked when the commotion had died down a little.

No one raised a hand.

"Dismissed."

Joker didn't move. He kept his seat and let the mass of bodies file past him, taking care not to look Jack in the eye as she stalked past him close enough that her biotics made his skin prickle. He rubbed his arms after she'd gone, trying to smooth the hairs back into place.

Lawson tossed him a curious glance as she left, her omni-tool lit, probably already sending out transcripts of the debrief, but he simply gave her a placating smile and to his relief, she left without bothering him.

Garrus spoke with Shepard quietly for a moment, and Joker took the chance to study her intensely, searching for any clue as to what might have really happened on Horizon. She still seemed tired… more tired, even. But not as tense, perhaps. Just exhausted. Not on the edge of tears. Not at the precipice of a mental breakdown. Not like she had just met up with her one-time lover who had thought she was dead for two years, but who she felt she'd just left a few months ago. But then… she was Commander Fucking Shepard.

The most upset she ever got was at the injustices of the galaxy, innocents being put in danger or being taken advantage of, or sometimes in the very rare instances she'd gotten stonewalled by political bullshit or cut off from a resource, and couldn't complete a task or a mission as quickly as she'd wanted. He'd seen her angry, annoyed, frustrated… but always under control.

Even her rage was controlled.

Which just made it all the more terrifying, in his opinion.

He'd even seen her on the verge of hopelessness once, after the Normandy had been grounded. That was the closest he'd ever really come to seeing her truly distraught, he realized suddenly, but even that had been such a brief, transitory glimpse, it was almost as if it had never even happened.

He'd heard in a round-about way, from a few of his casual chats with Alenko before Alchera, that Shepard was indeed human, and actually had normal human emotions beneath that Commander Fucking Shepard shell. Joker had guessed that, of course, given the few smiles he'd managed to pull out of her with some of his jokes, but as a general rule it had seemed Alenko was the only one actually exposed to her real, real self.

Joker had to admit he'd been a little jealous. Commander Fucking Shepard was pretty fucking amazing… he could only imagine what the real woman beneath all of that was like.

He shook himself from his thoughts as Garrus finished his conversation with Shepard and moved for the exit, giving Joker a nod as he passed.

Now he was the only one left. Shepard stood at the front of the room, her posture relaxing, her shoulders dropping. She sighed heavily, closing her eyes. She didn't look hopeless though. Or distraught. Just tired. He waited.

"Do you need something, Joker?" she asked into the quiet, not opening her eyes.

He leaned forward in his chair, resting his arms on the table in front of him. "Do you?"

Her eyes opened and she frowned. "What?"

"I mean… well, with all due respect, Commander, you look like shit. If you're not careful you're going to have both Chambers and Chakwas breathing down your neck, telling you to share your feelings and get some rest and drink some herbal tea or some crap."

Shepard lifted an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Is that your way of saying you're worried about me?"

He shifted in his chair, shaking his head. "Course not. You're Commander Fucking Shepard. But Chambers and Chakwas… they seem to think you're actually human."

She pursed her lips, an action he'd learned meant she was mildly amused, but unwilling to admit it. "I'm fine, Joker."

He waited for more, but she offered nothing. He tapped a finger against the tabletop. "Soooo, about finding Alenko –"

She snapped a glare at him and the words got stuck in Joker's throat. He coughed. "Bad idea?"

The anger left her face as abruptly as it had come, leaving only the impassive exhaustion once again. She sank down into the nearest chair, fixing her gaze on the far wall. She sighed again. "No. I… needed to know. Wanted him to know…" She shook her head. "Well, anyway. At least I know he's alive, and not taken by the Collectors. I think… I think he'll be stuck on Horizon for awhile, sorting out the aftermath of the attack. Hopefully we'll have kicked the Collectors' collective asses by the time he has another chance to put himself on a target colony again." She rolled her eyes.

Joker winced. "That sounds… tedious. To be honest, Commander, I thought for sure he'd come back with you."

Her eyes dropped to her lap, her expression darkening. Joker braced himself for another angry look, but instead she simply sat, still and quiet, for another long moment. So long, in fact, that he wondered if he shouldn't get up and excuse himself.

"Jeff," she said suddenly, very softly, and the use of his real name gave him shivers of foreboding. "Does the end justify the means?"

Her tone told him it was not a simple question to be answered lightly with a joke. Her tone told him there was a great deal of… something lurking under there, just below the surface, like a large and languid river hiding a deadly undertow in its depths.

He cleared his throat. "Um, well... as a general rule of thumb, I'd say no. But I'm also a firm believer in the saying that there's an exception to everything."

"And this?" she asked, just as softly, looking around the room they sat in, splaying her palms upward as if to encompass the entire ship. "What is this? Is this the exception, or the rule?"

"I'm pretty sure this is the exception, Commander."

She eyed him doubtfully, so he began ticking off the list on his fingers. "We have a turian XO on a Cerberus vessel, a krogan bred in a tank, a completely psycho, biotically super-powered criminal, a veteran mercenary sporting more scars than Wrex, a mad salarian scientist – who sings, no less – a smokin-hot master thief, and let's not forget the favorite pet of the Illusive Man himself, Operative Lawson… all shoved together in this flying tin can. And yet somehow we're all still alive. I'd say that's definitely exceptional."

Shepard hissed a breath through her teeth, propping her elbows on the table and dropping her head into her hands. "It's just… I'm helping the man who orchestrated the thresher attacks on Akuze," she mumbled, her voice partially muffled behind the short curtain of dark hair. "I'm helping the organization that wiped out my entire unit. That murdered Admiral Kahoku. That… turned all those colonists into husks…"

Shit. He suddenly wished he hadn't decided to stay late. He took a deep breath and did something he didn't do often – considered his words carefully. "Shepard," he said finally, putting every bit of confidence he could muster into his voice, "you are not helping him. You're using him. There's a really big difference."

She picked up her head to look at him. "Is there?"

"Yes! Look… once this Collector problem is dealt with, and you stop the Reapers again – because you will, that's just what you do – are you going to stick around and run more errands for the Illusive Man?"

Her eyes narrowed. "No."

The one little word carried a tremendous amount of hate in it. Joker lifted his hands as if she had just proved his point. "See? If you were really helping him, you'd want to stick around and do more for his cause. But you're not. You're using him and his information network and his ship and his people to do what you need to do and then discarding them. Like a tool when it's not needed anymore." He glanced around the room, realizing with sudden chagrin that it was very possible Lawson and therefore the Illusive Man might be hearing this conversation. But Shepard didn't seem to share his concern.

Ah hell, it was too late to take any of it back now, anyway. He cleared his throat. "That's what Cerberus is for you right now," he continued, much more quietly. "A tool."

Shepard contemplated his words. "I don't know… sometimes I feel like I'm taking the easy way out. Like there's another way to do this. The right way. Without using Cerberus."

Joker snorted. "I think you and I have a very different idea of what's easy, Commander. That would hardly be the word I'd choose to describe the past three and half months."

She mustered a weary, half-hearted smile. "Thanks Joker." She leveraged herself out of the chair. "I'm going to…"

"Go rest?" he suggested hopefully. She looked like a soft breeze would blow her over.

"Sure. That sounds nice."

"Good. Well then, nighty night, don't let the bed bugs bite."

"Night, Joker."

She left, the door whooshing shut behind her, and Joker frowned.

All right, so she wasn't exactly her normal self, that was certain. She wasn't exactly okay, no matter what she'd said. But of course she wouldn't be. She was human, beneath it all. She needed time to process stuff, just like everyone else. And she'd had a whole lotta stuff to process lately.

But it was okay. She was Commander Fucking Shepard. And she had been before Alenko. Long before Alenko. She could do it again, without him.

Joker stood laboriously from his chair and exited the empty briefing room, heading for the Port Observatory. He really had no idea anymore if his whole plan to reunite the two had been for better or for worse, but he thought maybe a few hard drinks might help clear it up.