Almost a month passed since Captain Mbala's visit. It was only the 6th of March but the weather in Vancouver became decidedly summery. James was in a good mood when he entered Shepard's room in the morning. Last night they had sparred again and he not only got away without too many bruises, he didn't even lose. He didn't win, either, but a draw against Shepard was a huge success in itself. It was almost exactly six months since he'd met her and his hand-to-hand skill skyrocketed in that time. He hoped to get a rematch today and see if he could repeat the result.
He found her and Joker dressed and standing by the balcony window, looking outside with great interest.
"What's so fascinating?" He asked.
"Come and have a look. See that kid down there?" Joker pointed at a roof of a lower building a few blocks away. There was a young boy playing alone in a little garden. "We're trying to guess what model that toy ship is he's playing with. I'm betting on an XT 7.5, Jo's betting on SD 28. Want to place a bet?"
"What does the winner get?"
"One wish, of any variety."
"What if there are no winners?"
"Then no one gets anything, simple as that. I've got a binocular app on my omnitool, so place your bet and we'll resolve it."
Vega squinted at the playing kid and said:
"I'll put my money on an SX3 model frigate."
"Right-o. Let's break the tie." Joker pointed his omnitool to take a picture as the kid put his toy down on a chair. Then he magnified the picture. "Hm," he commented and held his wrist out for Shepard and James to see.
"Interesting," Shepard said. "I must be losing my touch."
"What, I won?" Vega was a little surprised after consulting the picture. It was a lucky guess.
"Looks like you did, stripper," Shepard nudged him. "What's your wish?"
James asked carefully:
"Any kind of wish?"
"Why don't you ask Jo to lose to you once?" Joker suggested. "Might be your only chance."
Vega produced a dirty smile and said:
"I wish for everyone to see you in a bikini, Shepard."
For a second deep silence hung between them. Then her fist snapped forwards and connected with his nose.
"That's for even going there in your head," she nodded with satisfaction. "Now down to business: define 'everyone'."
"It was a joke, Commander," he held his throbbing nose with one hand. "I'd never…"
"You named your wish, you can't back away from it," she said sternly.
Joker grinned:
"Oh, for all the times you wiped the floor with his face, babe, payback is a bee-atch!"
James' omnitool chose that moment to ping and he opened it to read the message.
"Sorry, Commander, looks like it's urgent. The Committee is demanding to see you right now."
Joker leaned in to kiss her:
"It's OK, I should be on my way to the docks anyway. Have a great day. Think about bikinis!"
"I have a feeling you'll think about bikinis enough for both of us," she grinned.
They parted ways at her door. Joker and his gossiping guards went to the car bay while James and Shepard went to the courtroom. It didn't escape James' attention that there were more people than usual in the corridor and everyone seemed to be in a hurry. They bumped into Admiral Anderson on the way and he confirmed his suspicion. Admiral Hackett was mobilising the fleets. The look that Shepard threw at James almost stopped his heart.
This was it.
Doomsday.
She looked grim, all joy of having spent the night with her lover gone in a second. She put force in her steps, hurrying towards the courtroom.
When they arrived, Shepard turned sharply and forced James a few steps away from Admiral Anderson.
"This is it, Vega," she said to him quietly. "We've been dancing around it for six months because there was no point, but now it's time. I could use you on my ship. I don't know what intel the Committee has for me, but the Reapers are here and I'm walking out of this brig today. If you're on my ship when it leaves Earth, you're with me. If not - I won't be coming back for you. Make that choice right now and act on it immediately. We don't know if we have weeks or seconds."
James was stunned. The Reapers could be on top of them any moment, which was a blow in itself, but Commander Shepard was also offering him a place on her team. His knees went a little wobbly. Then a familiar voice called her name. Shepard took a deep breath before turning.
"Alenko," she sighed and quickly added a quiet word to James: "If you're with me, you better not take orders from that one."
James stood still, stunned by what was happening, as he watched Shepard and Admiral Anderson walk into the courtroom. Major Alenko approached him:
"Something tells me the sky is about to start dropping Reapers on us. I'm heading to the Normandy. If you want to be a part of this fight, so should you. I'm sure the Committee will release Shepard."
It was an unbelievable feeling - to belong. James knew that Commander Shepard wouldn't have extended an invitation to someone she considered unworthy, so that put him a lot higher in her opinion than Major Alenko. Which in turn gave him the right to fuck with the other man a little bit:
"You have no authority to invite me to the ship that doesn't belong to you. But Shepard just did. Go on, head to the Normandy, but I'm staying right here, at her side. I'd never abandon her. We'll be coming to the Normandy together even if I have to break her out of the brig."
Major Alenko looked properly slapped in the face and was about to say something when the building started vibrating. Everyone noticed it. The vibration was getting stronger and stronger as it came in waves, only a few moments later James realised it wasn't just a vibration. It was a sound. Deep, loud and entirely not human.
"Oh, God, what is that?" Someone pointed out of the window and James barely had a moment to curse when a black shadow descended on the plaza and a red beam sliced across the Alliance HQ.
Within seconds the world became a battlefield. Soldier's instincts took over when the explosions sounded and pieces of glass and concrete flew in all directions. James ducked some debris and yanked a young officer away from a gap in the crumbling floor, while he tried to orient himself. It only took him a few moments to realise that the beam had cut right through...
...the courtroom.
"No. Nonononono..." He started for the door that had locked behind Shepard just a minute ago. She couldn't be dead, not like this! Not before the fight even began! She couldn't be dead, period!
Screams, Reaper noises and explosions were everywhere. Someone grabbed James' shoulder but he didn't listen. He needed to get into that courtroom, needed to get Shepard out of there and no force in the world would stop him.
"Lieutenant!" Alenko yelled into his ear, barely audible over the noise of total destruction. "We need to get to the Normandy!"
"I won't abandon Shepard, she's still in there!" James tried to shake the Major off while tossing away the debris blocking the door.
"She wouldn't have wanted..."
James almost slugged the other man for giving up on Shepard so easily, but at the same moment Alenko's omnitool signalled an incoming call. Just a few words from Admiral Anderson came through the interference, but they changed James' whole world.
Shepard was alive and on her way out of the building with the Admiral.
"Coming?" Alenko asked him when the call broke off.
"You bet," James nodded.
It was a harrowing journey. The Reapers were a lot bigger, stronger and nastier than anything James (or anyone else on the planet except for the Normandy crew, for that matter) had expected. They dropped husks and other deformed creatures James knew nothing about all around them and James had to fight alongside Major Alenko to make any progress towards the car bay. It seemed everyone had the same idea. People fought the husks and each other for a ride. James got lucky to get into a car, but when they finally arrived at the docks, the Normandy was gone.
"What the hell?" Alenko looked at the empty hangar with growing panic.
"What did you think, that Joker would sit around and wait for your orders?" James couldn't help a little snigger. He opened his omnitool and called Joker directly.
"Is she with you?" Was the first thing Joker asked when he answered.
"No, but she's escaping the Reapers along the bay. Alenko and I just got to the docks. Can you pick us up?"
"Got a car?"
"Yes."
"Meet me on the roof of the World Peace building in two and a half."
As promised, two and a half minutes later the Normandy swooped down from the clouds and carried him and Alenko off the tall building. For the first time James was on the Normandy as a part of her crew, not as a tourist. Amidst the Reaper invasion that fact still deserved recognition.
Major Alenko ran towards the elevator, shouting orders left and right, but most people on the ship seemed shell-shocked and didn't listen.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Joker's voice in the speakers carried over the noise. "This is the day we've all been dreading. Grab something to hold on to because it's going to be a rough ride. We're picking up our Commander."
It only took Joker a few minutes to locate Shepard and to descend on top of her. Flying a ship of such size in atmosphere while evading the Reapers demanded a master's hand and Joker delivered on all his promises.
The loading ramp lowered, inviting Shepard and Anderson inside, and James hurried to help her.
"I'm not going," Anderson said.
"Of course not. Well, then," Jo said and turned to go further inside. Alenko, who alongside Vega watched her exchange with the former human Councillor and her former friend, grabbed her arm in horror:
"Shepard!" He couldn't imagine her treating the famous human this way.
"I'll stay here and organise the resistance," Anderson kept talking. "You need to go to the Council and convince them to help us."
"You're telling me what to do?" Jo almost laughed. "Look around you, Anderson. I've seen this in my dreams for years now. Whatever I have to do, it's for the sake of the galaxy, not for humanity."
"We will buy you some time, then," Anderson must have realised she was still pissed at him for taking the Normandy and found it was not the time to push her. "And Shepard! Consider yourself reinstated!" He tossed something her way. She caught the item and realised it were dog tags. She hadn't worn any since the day she died, so these must be new ones.
"Keep dreaming," Jo said. "If you had a whole crate of dog tags pressed just on a wee chance that I'd accept, you're plain naive. I'm never coming back to the Alliance. My allegiance and duty are to the Council and to the galaxy now."
More transporters arrived and Joker, knowing his cues better than actual orders, pulled away from the landing zone. The ramp started closing.
Jo's eyes caught something strange. The little boy, the one from the roof this morning and the same one she'd seen earlier hiding in the ducts, was climbing into one of the shuttles. The boy wasn't strange. What threw her for a loop was the fact that there were over a dozen adults around him but nobody cared to help him on board, nobody even seemed to notice that the child was there. Jo had seen enough vids about multiple personalities, about schizophrenia and other conditions of a troubled mind to trust her guts when they warned her about something odd.
"Vega," she said quietly, beckoning the young man closer.
"Yes, Shepard?"
"Look over there," she pointed. "Do you see a boy? The one we saw on the roof earlier?"
"A boy?" Vega frowned, scanning the scenery. "I don't see any children at all."
"Right there, on the step of that Kodiak. I'm pointing right at him." Jo stretched out her hand to make sure they were looking at the same spot.
"Nope, no boy."
"Are you absolutely sure?" Jo whispered.
"Positive." He turned to her with worry in his eyes. "What's going on?"
Jo felt the floor tilt under her feet and it had absolutely nothing to do with Joker putting the Normandy through her paces to evade three Reapers at once.
"Look at this scenery and memorise as many details as you possibly can. As long as you're absolutely positive that there is no boy, we'll have to put our heads together and reconstruct the image in a holo later. I'm counting on you," She whispered with all the urgency she felt inside.
She was indoctrinated. She knew the signs. She'd been waiting for something like this to happen ever since she woke up on Kenson's asteroid after two days spent right next to a working Reaper artifact.
"Don't mention it again," she motioned at Alenko, who stood nearby and looked like he desperately wanted to be in on their conversation. Vega nodded in understanding. Jo had to reach out and grab his arm to ground herself a little. Vega was real, solid, and he was right there in front of her. The boy... The boy was proof of everything she was afraid of.
The ramp closed and the ship was in orbit. Jo looked at the dog tags still in her hand and dropped them on the floor.
"I keep telling them I'll never serve again, but nobody ever listens," she muttered.
Kaidan looked down at the pieces of metal by her feet. He realised that they would fall off the ship the next time this ramp opened. He gave her a look of terror that she ignored. Jo was on her way inside already, though she thought she saw Kaidan pick up the dog tags before he rushed after her.
She finally looked around the cargo bay. Oh, her beloved cargo bay… It was in ruins. Crates, cables, crap, new consoles, cases, strange people… At least her weapons had been organised on a beautiful rack.
"What the hell is going on?" Vega trailed after her. "Where are we going?"
"We're leaving. Going to the Citadel to talk to the Council."
"We're just gonna leave Admiral Anderson here?"
"He knows what he's doing," she said. There was a new, improved version of her N7 armour on the table. Probably a present from Hackett. Well, he was due, after all the shit he put her through.
"We can't just abandon him and all these people!" Vega was in her face the next second. "We have to fight, we have to help!"
Jo turned to face him. In the middle of all this chaos she hadn't had a chance to shake off six months of incarceration just yet. She was rather grateful to Vega for resisting her. It gave her the much needed push to spread her wings, to find the Commander inside her:
"This isn't a democracy, LT! We're going to the Citadel. You want to go back – you can catch a ride from there."
Vega recoiled from the power in her voice, and so did Alenko and all the strangers in her cargo bay. Jo immediately felt better.
"Welcome on board, Vega," Joker spoke in the speakers and Jo could tell he was smiling. "Congrats. You just met the real Commander Shepard."
Jo could imagine what he meant. She was in charge on her ship and tolerated no disobedience. It was time Vega learned that. Playing footsies was over.
She was about to start asking serious questions about the state of her ship when Joker patched through a message from Hackett. So, they were going to Mars.
She needed to assess the situation on the Normandy immediately, so she took the elevator to the CIC. Vega and Alenko came with her.
"Joker, ETA to Mars?" She demanded.
"Seventeen and a half minutes, Commander," he sounded so cheerful and pleased as if his birthday and Christmas had come all at once.
"What's on Mars?" Alenko asked her when they were in the CIC.
"Don't know. I hope it's not one of those missions from Hackett that make me destroy a solar system. What the fuck are you doing on my ship anyway?" She asked briskly. He stopped, as did everyone else in the CIC.
"I'm joining your team, Commander," he said, giving her that vacant look above her head he always did when something unpleasant came up.
"Like hell you are," she said.
"Shepard?" Alenko sounded surprised. Bastard. Everyone was silent around them. The stars of their home planet's sky became a blur, when Joker engaged the thrusters.
"You're not on my team, Alenko. The only courtesy I owe you, for old times' sake, is to give you a lift to a destination of your choosing. So, what will it be? Citadel good enough?"
"I'm here to join you on your mission, Commander," Alenko said, but her cold gaze made him recoil: "If you'll have me."
"No. You've betrayed me and you've betrayed the cause the moment you accused me of all the deadly sins. I can't have people on my team if I don't trust their judgement."
"What was I supposed to think when you showed up after two years, like nothing happened, working for Cerberus?" He asked, finally looking her straight in the eye. Jo snapped:
"What were you supposed to think?!" She stepped closer, barking in his face: "You know what Joker said? He said: We are your team, so hell yeah I joined Cerberus, to fly with you again! Doctor Chakwas said: I don't work for Cerberus, I work for you. Garrus said: Shepard, you haven't changed a bit. Tali said: I assumed you're undercover, and if that's the case, I'll loan you a grenade. Wrex said: All the shit you do for your team, Shepard. That's what my real friends said. You betrayed everything the Normandy team works for, so don't even think about weaselling your way back into my good graces."
"Actually, Shepard," Alenko said bolder and firmer than ever before. "You're a civilian, and this is an Alliance ship, which makes me the highest ranking officer here."
Well, hell.
Jo didn't pause for even a second. She turned her whole body from the hip and kicked Alenko straight in the chest. It sent him flying across the room and his head hit the bulkhead.
"What did you just say?" She walked to him slowly. "Repeat."
He coughed, shaking his head, no doubt trying to get his vision right, and said nothing.
"Didn't think so. Now," she turned around to look at everyone in the CIC. "I need my earpiece, immediately."
"Here you go, Commander," some tan, brown-haired girl hurriedly brought her the device. Jo attached it to her ear and pushed the button.
"Joker?" She said with a little smile and looked over to the cockpit. Instead of the man she loved she saw a wall. No, a closed door.
That gave her a moment's pause. Jo looked around and realised that her entire ship had been rearranged. Walls where none should be, doors in odd places, open consoles, wiring hanging from the walls and ceiling, and most importantly: scared, confused, panicked faces of technicians everywhere. Nobody with the knowledge of how to fly a warship.
Oh, hell...
But she had no time for any of that right now. Crisis management was her strongest suit and there was nothing she could do about the state of her ship and the crew in the next twelve minutes or so, until they arrived on Mars. There would be time later for getting her home back in order.
"Joker, patch me through to a ship-wide transmission."
"Aye aye, Commander," his cheerful voice took the edge off her anger. The man really had a superpower when it came to centring her, giving her a solid ground under her feet.
"This is Commander Shepard," she spoke energetically. "And this is my ship. I realise that hardly any of you know me and most of you aren't qualified for long term service on a space vessel. I have no time to sort through personnel files right now, so until we dock somewhere with a decent port, there is one thing you need to know: I'm the goddess divine here and my orders are your gospel truth until I release you from my command. Until then... You, what's your name?"
"Communications Specialist Samantha Traynor, Commander," the tan girl from before almost stuttered.
"Traynor, you'll be in charge of cleaning up the ship until I'm back from Mars."
"Commander, that can't be done in an hour!"
"I think all you need is a very good incentive. If you succeed, I won't kill you. How about that?"
Traynor paled and gulped, but Jo wasn't looking at her anymore. She took in her surroundings. Joker's guards were there, looking at her with wide eyes. A dozen other people shuffled their feet, trying hard not to attract her unholy attention. Alenko stood quietly and rubbed his chest where she'd kicked him. Vega was the only one who saluted her with no uncertainties. Aside from Joker, he was also the only one who could be certain not to be tossed off the ship at the next port. She'd invited him on her team only an hour ago.
"Vega, Alenko, suit up for the ground mission," she said. "And trust me, Alenko, if I had any other choice, you wouldn't be going."
She turned to the elevator to go back to the cargo bay. All her weapons and armour were there now and with Mars mere minutes away she had to suit up as well.
"Jeff," she spoke into her earpiece quietly. "Sorry, I can't come up to see you right now, but I'll be there as soon as we're done on Mars, I swear."
"Yeah, I know," her beloved man sounded cheerful and confident. He, Jo and the Normandy were back together and everything would be fine as long as things stayed that way.
When Jo and the boys left for Mars, all eyes turned to Joker. He couldn't do anything useful for the mission anyway, since the sandstorm was blocking all communication with the ground team, so he indulged the confused and scared crew.
"She wouldn't really kill me, would she?" Traynor came to him, distressed. He was the only one on the ship right now who actually knew the Commander. There was Adams, of course, but all he could claim was some service time three years ago. For months these people had waltzed around the ship, wondering about the legends of Shepard but not really believing in them. With the Reapers' arrival they were all tossed into a different world, and in this world Joker was no longer a moody, snippy, conceited little cripple boy with a mouth too big for his own good and no juice to back up his claims.
In this world he was a veteran hero who'd saved the Commander's life many times, who'd earned his title of the best pilot in the galaxy by performing miracles on daily basis, who knew the legendary Shepard for years and was the only one who could safely assess her intentions right now.
Joker would have laughed at the situation if he were a little younger. He was used to people seeing him for less than what he was. But he was no longer the same young man who revelled in sticking it to other people. He was a man who'd just spend six months under guard for genocide by association, six months of separation from the woman he loved, six months of seeing everything he believed in being ripped to shreds by media sharks. He couldn't find the energy inside himself to care about petty technicians believing the worst of him. Truth was: he was Commander Shepard's personal hero while all these undeserving rats would be tossed off the ship at the first opportunity.
This was the world where he was a king, and all it took was the arrival of the Reapers.
"You know, I wouldn't bet on that," he said to Traynor. "I'm not joking, she actually might. Seeing her ship in this state, especially after the Alliance messed with the layout, wouldn't make her happy. So if I were you, I'd grab every available body for help and start working."
"You think she'll drop us off somewhere just like that?" A soldier asked him next, one of those guards from the hangar who were not really supposed to be on a space ship anyway.
"Show her you're worthy of keeping and she might keep you."
"How?"
"Go and do something. Everyone here pulls their own weight. She'll have no use for a jarhead who only knows how to hold a rifle. Help Traynor, show initiative, make yourself useful."
"Do you really think she'll start shooting?" Traynor wouldn't let it be.
"Yes, she might really do that."
"You are our new XO, right?"
"Hell, no, I'm the pilot. Shepard will reappoint her XO when she finds him again. So don't try to cosy up to me, it's pointless."
"I still can't believe I'm on Commander Shepard's ship. She's a legend!" Campbell almost hiccupped. Joker never actually submitted to her and Westmoreland's authority and now they lost all pretence as well. The girls were nobodies on his ship and they knew it.
"Go do something useful, dollface, 'cause wide-eyed worship won't get you anywhere."
As Joker looked at the empty screens, he thought about the quick and radical change. Prisoners, despised, feared and condemned one moment, he and Jo had become respected heroes the very next. He'd always known it would happen just like this, but he hadn't realised how sad it would make him feel. All those people who kept pouring dirt and shit on Jo's name for six months in the vids, all those 'experts', 'consultants' and 'analysts' talking their tongues numb trying to analyse the behaviour of the psychotic mass murderer - they were all nothing but cattle that she would have to save. Meat. Number of heads to be saved or sacrificed in war. Joker didn't know how Jo still managed to find enough faith in humanity and other species to fight for them, to give her own life for them.
Instead of filling his head with useless thoughts of betrayal he put the time he had to use and looked up the Alliance reports about the Reaper invasion. Emily Wong seemed to be broadcasting from the surface, finding out first hand what he and Jo had known for a while and had been trying to tell everyone while nobody listened. The husks, the Dragon's Teeth, the relentless, uncompromising force of the Reapers. Joker left the journalist to her fate when the report about Arcturus Station came up on his screen.
