Next morning found Joker exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Shepard's shift started an hour after his, so they never met for breakfast, and on that particular morning he was happy about that. Very happy indeed, he told himself. Again and again. He'd spent most of the night tossing and turning in his bed, thinking. He still couldn't really believe that Commander Shepard was in love with him.

When she finally appeared in the cockpit (and he was not keeping his eye on the elevator, of course not!), she was her usual self. Or was she? Was it his imagination or did her eyes really look puffed and red?

Had she been crying last night?! That thought cut like a knife across Joker's heart. Shepard was not supposed to cry. And he was the one who made her. Guilt, hotter than any survivor's guilt, melted his insides. But she was strong. A few tears and she'd be over him, she had to be.

"Punch in the course for Serpent Nebula. We're going to help Kasumi. She tells me that her nemesis is having a party," Shepard said from right behind him. Having said that she turned around and left. Without tapping him on the shoulder. That told Joker that one: last night actually happened, and two: she was not unaffected after it. And it left him bereft. The tap on his shoulder had been there from the day they met, and now the tradition was gone, just like his sleep, like their easy banter and close friendship. How many things could be broken with just three words? Who was the idiot that claimed "I love you" were the words capable of mending anything? As far as he was concerned, those three little words were as destructive as Sovereign.

She stayed in her cabin until they arrived. It irked him. It wasn't like he wanted her to constantly watch him, or to be constantly reminded of last night, but he didn't know how to act around her now and he was hoping she would give him a clue or something. Well, maybe he also wanted to know she wasn't crying anymore. That knowledge wouldn't sit well with any man.

Kasumi waited for their arrival in the CIC, walking up and down, going visible and invisible. The young woman was nervous, Joker realised. She kept asking EDI about Shepard's whereabouts and if the Commander needed help. EDI assured her that Shepard was in her cabin and in no need of assistance.

"Help with what?" Joker asked the young woman.

"I gave her a little present today, something to help coax a pretty woman out of our fearless leader, but I don't know if she even knows how to wear it."

"Wear what?"

"A dress."

Joker's interest was piqued. He'd never seen Shepard in a dress. She didn't have any. Would it look as ridiculous as a cow wearing a saddle?

Then the Commander stepped out of the elevator and Joker's jaw dropped.

Shepard wore a tight black dress that left extremely little to imagination.

Then again, his thoughts suddenly went haywire. He imagined her leaning onto a table, imagined kicking her feet apart and pushing the hem of that stupid gorgeous dress up to her waist to find no panties underneath. He imagined unzipping and slamming into her without foreplay and her throaty, helpless groan of pleasure at his invasion. He imagined she would be better than any porn star, too. His mind provided helpful details. How she would scratch her nails on the table surface. How her knees would give in. How she would drool in complete abandon. How red her ass would become when he started spanking her between slams…

Her voice in his earpiece ripped him from his fantasy world and he realised he was the one drooling, as his painfully aroused dick threatened to make a hole in his pants.

"Joker, be ready, we might need a speedy retraction."

"Yes, Ma'am," he croaked. Right now he only thanked the gods that she didn't come to the cockpit to watch him approach the planet. She would have found him in a very distressed state of mind and body.

"Mr. Moreau, why…"

"Not a word, EDI," he snapped.

By the time Shepard and Kasumi were in front of Hock's mansion, EDI had already hacked into the house's camera system and he could watch the girls from all possible angles. He finally noticed more details about Shepard's outfit. She wore jewellery (very uncharacteristic), 6-inch-heels (extremely uncharacteristic) and her hair in an intricate braid that fell over her left shoulder. Those shoes and the dress exposed miles and miles of creamy, toned legs, but not the magazine cover model kind of legs. Not those bony mannequin stick figures. These were a real woman's legs and hips, and a real woman's ass attached to them. And that ass threatened to send him into another drooling fantasy if he wasn't careful.

Except… the woman he was looking at was not Shepard. Not any kind of Shepard he'd ever seen, anyway. This woman moved in those crazy shoes like she was born wearing stilettos. Her every step oozed grace, confidence and a killer sex appeal. She reminded him a lot of Miranda that way. Her whole posture seemed to scream that she knew perfectly well that the hem of her dress had climbed up two inches and it was her full intention. Every turn of her head was a show of elegance, every gesture of her hand a symphony of class, style and charm.

She fit right into the crowd.

He had wondered earlier why none of these well-connected and influential people should recognise her for Commander Shepard, but now his worries were laid to rest. Hell, he wouldn't recognise her.

Joker realised that he had never seen Shepard go undercover.

In her daily life she was not using her sex appeal. She tried to hide it, rather. Her favourite clothes outside uniform were soft, grey and formless. Nothing in her wardrobe suggested that she even knew how to walk in those crazy shoes. But that was only a small part of what he was seeing. Shepard was a soldier, an officer. Years of marching, standing at attention, saluting and being saluted – it created a certain kind of woman, and usually Shepard was that woman to the core. Her only grace was in handling her hunting knife. Her only class was in the firm, manly handshake. Her style was brute force. And he liked that about her. He'd had no idea that she could become Miranda on a whim. So how and why hadn't she ever hinted at this ability of hers? How hadn't he ever seen her remotely like… this?

Just what kind of training had she received in that infamous N-School? ICT, the Interplanetary Combatives Training, was enigmatic at the best of days. Even to get an invitation from the academy was prestigious for any Alliance officer. It opened doors and elevated people to a position of respect. Becoming an N1 could make an officer's career. But N7? Yes, just like everyone who ever served in the Alliance and/or knew any N-officers, Joker had read the ICT booklet. Their official statement said that they trained their people in zero-G fighting, parachuting, linguistics, trauma care for humans and aliens, stuff like that. The training was supposed to be brutal, extreme. There weren't more than a few hundred N7s at any given time. What made ICT so enigmatic was their extreme protectiveness and unwillingness to release any other intel except for that official statement. But weren't they training special forces? How special were they making them? The famous slogan – do whatever is takes – how literally did they take it at the academy? Was what he was seeing on his screens a direct result of the ICT secrecy?

He'd never seriously tried to hack the N7-classified reports. His interest so far had been focused on what Shepard could do on the battlefield and in politics, but what about her abilities in the ballroom? And… what else was she a master of without anyone knowing?

Now his imagination really did fly. And he promised himself: when this mission was over, he would let his fingers fly even faster. Time to learn who Commander Shepard really was.

Joker woke up in the middle of the night to warm fingers rubbing his bicep very gently. At first his sleep-dazed brain supposed it was Mordin again, waking him up this time to ask how many brains humans had. He groaned slightly, but the warm hand didn't disappear. He cracked one eye open and saw Shepard crouching next to his bunk in the dim blue environmental light of the dorm.

He was wide awake immediately. His heart jumped to his throat in real fear. In the millisecond before she spoke a hundred thoughts rushed through his head. He was shirtless. Her hand was still on his arm. She was in the dorm – she never came here, ever! Was she about to kill him?

"Hey, Joker," she whispered gently, very careful not to wake up anyone else. "I just got a ping."

She paused significantly, giving him time to collect his startled thoughts. Her hand was still on his bicep, but it was no longer lovingly gentle. It was firm, right on the verge of hurting.

He suddenly realised what she meant. The ICT security, which kicked him out of their system earlier that evening, sent her a notification and probably a warning, if not an outright order to kill him. Was she here to snap his neck? Her loyalty to the N-School went far beyond her loyalty to the Alliance, since she kept her badge even after dying and officially resigning from the military. If her N-buddies told her to kill the man she loved, would she do it? It was a scary moment when he realised that she was very capable of doing that and no amount of love would save him if she put her mind to it. His whole life flashed in front of his inner eye in one millisecond.

"Don't do that again," she said simply. Without any further word she got up and left the dorm, walking silently like a cat.

Actually, how did she know it was him? How did they know? It could have been anyone on the ship!

No, he supposed she knew that it couldn't have been anyone else on the ship. Nobody but him would get such an idea and nobody else would come anywhere near close enough to alert the ICT intelligence branch.

Next morning, after spending the rest of the night trying to calm down his heart rate and telling himself over and over that she wasn't going to kill him, he skipped the first hour of his shift to wait for her in the mess hall for breakfast.

"Commander," he approached her as she was pouring herself coffee.

"Joker," she sounded no different than usual.

"I'm sorry. You know. About the ping."

"If there is something you want to ask me, Joker, just ask me personally. That would be a lot less hazardous to your health," she really sounded like they were discussing prices for coffee beans. Uncanny nerves of steel, that's what she had.

"I just didn't know you could, well, that's gonna sound stupid and I don't mean it as an insult, Commander, I just…"

"Spill it out the way it is, Joker."

"You looked so different yesterday at that party. I didn't know you knew how to dress up. I mean! Not like I think you couldn't, it's just you don't give the impression of…"

"I can't dress up," she interrupted him with a calm and serious face.

"But…"

"Not for myself, anyway."

"What does that mean?" Some part of him wondered how he just got pulled into their usual banter after everything that had happened in the last two days. First she said she loved him, then he almost earned a hit on his head from the scariest organisation he knew (yes, scarier than Cerberus! He wouldn't bet on Cerberus even though only one N7 operative was going against them. After all, look where that landed Sovereign!), then she scared the shit out of him in the middle of the night, and now they were discussing things he knew for sure were a classified trade secret of hers. How did any of it happen? And most importantly, why was he still so fucking comfortable around her, after he rejected her and she cried?! Why was she even talking to him in the first place? She should be hurt, furious with him, offended, humiliated, or, well, he didn't know what. What if she was over him already? That easily? Indifference was truly so much worse than pain or rejection…

"If someone asked me out on a date tomorrow," she finally gave him a heavy sidewise glance. "I wouldn't know what to do with myself, how to wear a dress or how to move without my guns."

So, not so indifferent, after all. That one glance told him all he needed to know. She was hurting more than he realised. The fact alone that she allowed him to see the puffed eyes and the heavy sadness assured him she was by far not over him.

And why the hell did that make his heart soar so high?

"But yesterday with Kasumi…" He tried to get himself back into the conversation.

"N4 is basically a course on undercover work. If I go undercover, I can do anything and be anyone. But I can't do the same things in my daily life. I was never able to make that transition. Thankfully, the academy didn't deem that fact as a crucial lacking point."

The ICT brochure didn't say anything about undercover work. She'd just told him something he was not supposed to know and the significance was not lost on him, nor was the fact that she'd never voluntarily offered anyone information about her N training, but all he had to do was ask.

"How anyone could ever find you lacking is beyond me. So… did you do undercover missions often? 'Cause I don't remember ever seeing you do something like that before."

"Now and then, before I was assigned to the Normandy."

"Did you have to dress up like yesterday?"

"Sometimes."

"Temporary plastic surgery?"

"Classified."

"Dancing on a pole?"

"Joker."

"You said: ask, so I'm asking! Did you ever have to sleep with a target to complete the mission?"

He was joking. Except when she turned to look at him over her coffee cup, something in her eyes caught his breath.

"Be nice to me and one day I just might tell you." With that she finished the coffee and left him standing. It took him several moments to realise that… she never said no. Did she really?.. No. Not his Shepard. Not the woman he knew. She'd never fuck someone for information or on her superiors' orders.

Would she?

How nice would he have to be to her to get a chance of an honest answer?

And just how literal was their motto to do whatever it takes?

He had a hole in his guts as he watched her round the corner.

Damn her. She was playing him, obviously. He knew that much. She was the master of mind games when she wanted to be. After his rejection the other night she was using other ways to keep his mind on her, making him jealous. Sadly, it…

No, it didn't work. What did he care if Commander Shepard had fucked half the Terminus Systems on a mission? He didn't care even a teensy-weensy little bit.

He started after her and caught up before she reached the elevator.

"Commander, I gotta ask. How close did I get?" He wouldn't be Joker if he wasn't proud of his work.

If her twitching lips were any indication, so was she.

"They pinged me, didn't they?"

"Meaning?"

"Meaning," her voice dropped to a whisper and she leaned close to breathe the next words into his ear: "Cerberus didn't come as close as you did."

"No shit?!" A shiver went down his whole body.

Shepard shrugged:

"EDI, have you ever been tasked by Cerberus to break into the ICT personnel and mission archives?"

"I have a block that prevents me from answering that question," EDI declared. Shepard pointed at the speakers with a knowing look:

"Yeah, every time she says that, it means yes."

"Wow, Commander, I knew I was good, but I didn't know I was that good."

"Well, I did. But Joker, they only ping once. And I ask you nicely not to do it again only once, got it?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Totally. Completely. You can count on me, Ma'am." He nodded enthusiastically. Happiness bubbled in his chest. His life was spared, the whole N-School was impressed, he outdid the Thing and Cerberus, and his banter with the Commander was as easy as ever.

Damn, Jo thought. Had she only known what kind of interest a simple black dress would evoke! Why, oh, why didn't Kasumi come to her just one day sooner with that dress and those shoes? Had she worn them to Afterlife, the date with Joker would have gone differently.

Well, no, not really. She wasn't lying to him when she said she could become anyone for a mission, but had no idea how to dress up in real life. Had she owned that dress earlier, she would have left it in the wardrobe.

The next stop was the Citadel. Both Garrus and Thane asked her to help them out with some personal business and Jo went to Kasumi to ask for a favour. After everything she learned about Keiji's graybox, she was extremely curious about the intel on it. If revealed to the Council, it could implicate the Alliance? Jo had to know. The information was buried deep within Keiji's memories of his time with Kasumi, as the young thief had pointed out to Jo on the shuttle after the mission. There was no way to separate business from personal memories.

"I'm not sure how I feel about what you're asking, Shep," the hooded girl on the couch sounded enigmatic, as always. "These are personal memories, and while I understand your wish to learn the Alliance's secrets, these memories are important to me."

"All I'm asking is to borrow the greybox for one day. I do not care about Keiji's personal stuff, that's for you and you alone. I give you my word that when I come across something too personal, I'll erase it from my own memory. Besides, Kasumi, I've been in the military for many years, I've learned extremely well how to deliberately not notice things I don't want to notice, how to give people privacy. I give you my word that I will not remember your face afterwards, or anything else that's private. On the other hand, the information Keiji has collected could reveal important things, it could help me work against the Reapers and at the very least it can help me with leverage against the Alliance the next time they roll over me."

"So… if I lend you this for a day," Kasumi gently stroked the device. "Will you owe me a favour?"

Jo laughed:

"You don't have to bargain with me, Kasumi. Whether you let me see it or not, you can always count on my help, just because. No strings attached."

"I… like the sound of that. It's rare to gain real friends in my line of work. I'm not used to that."

"Well, sometimes it just happens. So, what do you say?"

Kasumi thought about it for a few more moments before she agreed.

Kolyat Krios became a point of interest for Jo long before she met the boy. Sure, Grunt was nominally her baby, but Kolyat was not only Thane's blood relative, he was a part of a family, he had years of memories and he was grown up enough to have his own opinion on those memories. Jo wanted to meet the boy really badly. He was about the same age she had been when she joined the Alliance, and he seemed to be at the same crossroads in his life. Jo wondered what would become of him, now that his father took notice of him at this crucial moment and engaged all his resources to help his child.

The parent-child-relationship unfolding in front of her was another point of fascination. She didn't remember anything and owned nothing of her parents', save some post-mortem photographs.

Bailey told her that the turian politician Kolyat was targeting was anti-human. It sounded a lot like the older officer was asking her to intervene in a way he couldn't. Do something he couldn't.

So, when they all ended up in Taleed's apartment, Jo took one look at the boy and personally shot the politician. Kolyat had the body of a grown man, half an inch taller than his father, well formed and trained. His eyes, however, were that of a scared child and there was no way in the world she would allow a child to commit murder.

It surprised her a little, but Bailey didn't say a word about the killing. He never even mentioned the body on the floor as Thane and Kolyat, deep in a private conversation, were escorted out of the apartment and back to the precinct.

"I'm surprised you're letting us all go so easily," she said to the officer. He lowered his head and said quietly:

"You think he's the only one who ever screwed up raising a son?"

That gave Jo a whole new world of information to adjust to, as she watched Bailey leave. Parents. Parents and children. Some parents screwed up and lived to regret it. Some parents screwed up and got themselves killed. In the first case there were grudges and regrets, but at least Thane and Kolyat had another chance. They could meet, talk, maybe mend things between them. Jo never had a second chance with her screwy parents, and judging by Bailey's face and voice, he'd never get his second chance, either.

"If I ever have children," Jo quietly vowed to herself once everyone left the apartment. "If I ever have children, I swear to God."

She didn't specify what she swore.

She also chose to ignore the fact that Joker was listening to her over the com. If he didn't want her, he'd always be left wondering if it were his children she was talking about here.

His loss.

She concentrated on helping Garrus next and eventually found herself in her best friend's crosshairs, shielding his target from him. She would lie if she said she was unaffected. There was that little chill running down her spine.

She'd tried to talk to Garrus on their way here. He was boiling inside. All the pain and hatred he'd been carrying around with him for weeks was coming to the surface and he was about to slip away from her.

Just like she needed to protect Kolyat from becoming a murderer, she had to protect her own family. She warned Sidonis and kept herself firmly between the two turians. She hated to use her power of persuasion on Garrus, of all people, but she had to do what she had to do. He let Sidonis go.

"I know you wanna talk about this, but I don't, not yet," he declared once they were reunited at the parking lot. He was even more agitated now, pacing up and down, too energised to sit in the car.

"That thing you're feeling right now, Garrus," Jo said, pointing at his frantic movements. "It's your body's way of dealing with all the energy that is filling the empty void in your soul. The void left by Sidonis and the loss of your team. You're healing."

Garrus stopped and looked at her.

"I'm not so sure I did the right thing, Shepard."

"If my opinion has ever mattered to you in any way, brother, listen to me now and understand: I have never been more proud of you than I am right now. Today you are my hero. More so than on other days, that is."

He looked at her sharply again:

"Really? That's your opinion? You think I did the right thing? I don't know… Not just for me, but for my men. They deserve to be avenged, but when Sidonis was in my sights, I just couldn't do it…"

"I know. You are Archangel, you're not a murderer. The fact that you couldn't do it says everything about who you really are. Trust me, your men are avenged. You found Sidonis and let him live. That debt is paid. You didn't do anything wrong, not by your men, not by Sidonis, and not by me. Give it a little time and that energy you're feeling right now – it'll help you heal. It's the only way."

He sighed.

"It'll be all right, Garrus, I swear."

Once they entered the cab, though, another thought crossed his mind: "Say, Jo, why did you kill Taleed but protected Sidonis? How do you make those decisions?"

"I didn't kill Taleed, I protected a child from becoming a murderer for no reason. And I didn't protect Sidonis, I protected you."

"You see the world in a very interesting way, Jo."

"And for some reason people just keep asking me to solve their problems my way. There must be something to it," she teased him, nudging him in his shoulder. He cackled, but said nothing. At least he was smiling. He would be all right.

Jo didn't know if she would, though. Keeping busy was a good way to not think about Joker and the disastrous date on Omega. She was hurt and desperate, hadn't slept at all in the last three nights, and every time she saw or heard him, her throat tightened. Worst part? Now that he knew she had feelings for him, she couldn't go on touching him like she used to. She mostly kept away from the cockpit since that night, staying there only as long as she needed to do her job. No more private conversations or relaxing evenings in his co-pilot's chair. She wanted to give him some space, but she missed him. His stunt with the ICT perhaps broke the thickest ice between them, but being around him was still incredibly awkward.

She needed to keep herself busier. So, as the rest of the crew went on shore leave to clubs and restaurants, Jo rented a tiny room in a cheap, lost hotel on the wards. She left all her electronics on board and changed clothes on the way to make sure she had no listening or tracking devices on her when she entered that room. There she lay down on the bed and spent nine hours sifting through Keiji's memories.

The man was truly gifted. He'd looked inside the Alliance's deepest, most hidden archives and walked away with tons of fascinating information. She didn't wonder that he wound up dead for it. The Alliance would have found him eventually, if the criminals hadn't.

The intel fell heavily on Jo's heart. There was so much the Alliance didn't want the public to know, and for a good reason. Secret raids on other species' colonies looking for Reaper tech and other dubious reasons. Secret facilities that did experiments worthy of Cerberus. In fact, Cerberus' origins within the Alliance, too. Assassinations of inconvenient individuals, promoting of others, more convenient ones. Staging incidents, falsifying information, association with the Shadow Broker and other questionable characters and companies. Money laundry. Even involvement of her fellow N-officers in covert cleanups of entire colonies that witnessed something the Alliance wanted hidden. But that was all worth nil and nothing compared to the one piece Jo found about the origins of the Alliance itself.

This bit was a little too big even for Keiji Okuda, but from what he found it was clear that the Mars archives had been, in fact, found a little earlier than the public learned about them. Jo shook her head. There were quite a few conspiracy theories circling around on Earth for many years now, saying that the Alliance staged the Mars discovery, that the unification of the Earth's nations had been too quick and smooth. Jo never gave those people any thought. Now she learned that there was truth to their claims and accusations.

The rapid unification of Earth's nations and establishment of a united political body, as well as founding of the Alliance Military had been negotiated, prepared and realised in secrecy by the greatest leaders of humanity at the time way before it was made official for the public. To keep this secret, the Alliance had to silence a lot of people who knew too much. One of such people was the man who actually found the Mars archives. Fenton Grigoritch was not a scientist, but a new variety of treasure hunter. As the colonization of Mars started, many adventurers set out to find caches of natural resources. Fate had landed this man on top of the alien Mars facility, which he mapped with his equipment and applied to stake a claim on the land. In her next step fate had landed the poor man lobotomized in a tiny facility for emotionally unstable in southern Africa, where he died only two years later without a visible cause, a broken, drooling man, peeing in his pants. He never lived to see his discovery hit the news. Instead, an Alliance-approved science team led by Mateus Silva took all the credit almost a decade later.

It shouldn't have surprised Jo that the highest-ranking officers in the Alliance were privy to this imformation. Hackett was one of them.

Jo lay on the bed, stared at the pictures, read the intel, and let the dirt, disgust and pain wash over her, like a shower. Yes, this was revolting. This was exactly what she believed humanity was, at its core. This was human nature in all its glory.

To think that she alone, or even with a group of friends, could change human nature would be naïveté of galactic proportions. To think that she was any better than any other human would be heresy. She was the product of humanity, born from the darkest, filthiest place, spit out, formed into a weapon to do its dirty work.

Only those who don't see their own mistakes can take it upon themselves to judge others. Jo had no right and no reason to judge humanity for what it was doing. It was what it was. She wasn't stupid enough to believe that any other species out there was cleaner than the humans. They all had their dirty secrets and none of them could claim more sophistication than humanity. They were all a product of their needs. Who could judge who in this chaos?

The one decision Jo had to make right there on the bed with Keiji and Kasumi still flickering in front of her eyes was:

Was this galaxy worthy of saving? Or would the Reapers do them all a favour by wiping them out, clearing the way for the next cycle?

The morning came unnoticed. The crew had to be back on the ship by now, preparing for departure. Jo turned off the device and got up from the bed. Bad or terrible, this was her galaxy now. Her people. She lived here, she lived now, and no matter how undeserving the galactic population was, it was her home, and right now was the only time she would have a chance to live here. She couldn't afford waiting for the next cycle. In fact, the next cycle would be just as dirty as theirs and as the Prothean one had been, she had no doubt. Here and now was her chance to make a difference. Otherwise the sacrifice of the Prothean scientists who locked down the relay chain and the Citadel would have been for nothing. The galactic population probably wasn't worth saving, but Jo would do it anyway.