Noveria started out like any other routine mission. Jo said to the officer at the docks that she would gladly relinquish one bullet, but not her weapons. The confrontation ended before it really began. Jo was a little sorry about that. Despite some quality time in the cockpit with Joker she was feeling more and more frustration and tension building up in her and she couldn't find any obvious cause for it. Life was good, so what was frustrating her? So, the best way of working out tension was Ash's way. Kill some bad guys. Thankfully, there were some of those raiding Lorik Qui'in's office and they got to pay for Jo's darkening mood. Still, she met another person she took note of: Gianna Parasini. Jo loved a woman who could wear colour. That dress… It looked almost toxic, but it made the woman a real vision.
Then everything went to hell. She agreed to Garrus' suggestion to take Liara with her in case they would run into Benezia, but she had to compensate power in her team, since Liara really couldn't hold a punch. Wrex would have to do a double duty, and between the two of them they also had enough biotics to shift a mountain. Those biotics made the battle extra hard for Jo, however. She wasn't used to all the flashing around her, blue energy, people being jerked up and flying away. She needed to concentrate extra hard and was a bundle of tensed nerves when they finally repaired the train station, killed the rachni drones and found some crazed people locked inside. When those tried to kill her on Benezia's orders, Jo truly went berserk. She ripped someone's trachea out that day, and deliberately shot off someone's ears before putting him out of his misery. Eventually they found Benezia, and she said to them:
"Have you ever faced an asari commando before? Few humans have."
That finally blew the last lid on her patience. She demolished those famous commandos in record time in her favourite way, with incendiary rounds, and she couldn't care less about Liara's feelings when she emptied her pistol magazine into the matriarch. That done, she was finally ready to hear Benezia's last words about Saren's power to influence people. It was over soon and they were left with a huge problem in the room. An elephant-sized problem, really. Jo leaned against the tank glass to have a better look at the being inside, when one of the dying commandos suddenly got up and walked to the tank, speaking for the rachni queen. She spoke of the colourless musics of these low spaces. About singing for those left behind. She spoke of the new children, taken away from her by the scientists before they were taught to sing, now lost to silence. She asked Jo to kill them, poor fearful creatures, suffering without connection to the song of the rachni, with no songs of their own. Finally…
"We stand before you. What will you sing? Will you release us? Are we to fade away once more?"
Wrex stepped in, agitated:
"There are acid tanks above it. Set them off! Millions of my ancestors died to put these things down. Don't let them come back!"
Liara spoke out for a peaceful solution, but Jo only had ears for the rachni voice. She asked her questions and felt something inside her sing just as well at the answers.
"We only heard discordance, songs the colour of oily shadows. A tone from space hushed one voice after another. It forced the singers to resonate with its own sour yellow note. Then we awoke at this place, the last echo of those who came out from the singing planet. The sky is silent."
Jo turned to her team. Wrex was shaking his head, Liara was too dazed to think straight. But Jo didn't need their approval. She knew what she had to do, what she would always do in this position, the only right thing. It was easy.
"I'll let you go," she said to the queen. Wrex grunted:
"You'll regret it, Shepard, mark my words!"
She turned to him and gave him a smile full of serenity she suddenly felt.
"Remember, Wrex, somewhere, some time, one person refusing to do violence. An act of mercy, love and respect."
"For that thing?"
"Yes, for all things."
"You will do that?" The queen sounded hopeful. "You will give us a chance to compose anew? We will remember. We will sing of your forgiveness to our children."
"Great," Wrex was unconvinced. "Bugs are writing songs about you. Don't do it, Shepard."
"But Wrex, there is nothing else I could possibly do here," she said, setting the rachni queen free.
The decision caused controversy, it sent ripples through the team, and most importantly it caused a rift between her and Wrex. The Council almost bit her head off for it, but Jo couldn't care less about that. She was not committing genocide and she told them that.
She went on one of her usual rounds to talk to everyone. Generally, people were asking her if she was sure about the decision, and she told them yes. Wrex was not easy to talk to that night. He was angry with her, but at least he didn't send her away when she approached him.
"How could you do it, Shepard? So many of my people died fighting those things, and now you released them once again?"
"How could turians have released genophage upon your people, Wrex? Wasn't that cruel? Heartless?"
"It's not the same!"
"It's exactly the same."
"They're dangerous!"
"Said the biggest, nastiest, angriest, most battle-scarred krogan battlemaster in the galaxy."
He exhaled.
"I see your point."
"Look, Wrex. You of all people know that there has been enough damage done. Enough violence. She means us no harm. All she wants is harmony."
"You don't know that."
"I know it in my heart. I also know in my heart that you are a great man, that you truly care about your people, that your soul bleeds for their fate, that given the choice, you'd do the right thing. I have faith in you. I also have faith in her. Trust me, I killed enough of those I don't have faith in. Like the thousand of her drones down there."
He deflated even more and lowered his head.
"You're right. I'm sorry. It's just…
"No, don't apologize to me. I know you. I love you for it." She gently leaned her forehead against his and softly growled deep in her throat. It was a transcendent moment, just like what she'd wanted to do on the first day she met him. Back then she'd been afraid the gesture might be misunderstood. Right now she didn't care and Wrex didn't, either. He put his huge hands on her shoulders and returned the soft growl. She didn't know if in krogan culture this was a mating ritual or something else, but it felt like bonding with a soul brother. She spoke his language subconsciously and on the deepest, most animalistic level Wrex spoke to that wild, untameable part of her that always fed her battle fury but remained contained by her conscious mind. Wrex made her feel free and wild, he made her want to touch him to get to know him, and sure, there was some deep attraction between them. For the first time in her life Jo let go of control. She let that animal in her be as it wanted to be. There was no need to label feelings. No need to think about something. No need to sort, line up and contain. None of that. She simply let herself feel. And it felt good. It felt right.
She couldn't care less about their spectators, even though the scene sure caused all the people in the cargo bay to stare. Ash was especially torn between disgust and understanding.
After Noveria Shepard once again came to sit next to him for no apparent reason. Without preamble she flopped down into the co-pilot's chair, curled up and turned to her side to look at him. Joker hid a smile.
"Need some peace of mind, Commander?" he asked, plotting course to the relay.
"No, not really."
"Guess no matter what you did with the rachni queen, the Council wouldn't be happy."
"Guess so."
"And how do you feel about it? Aren't you afraid we'll regret it?"
"No," she said with a confident satisfaction in her voice. He realised she wasn't confused this time, she was happy and wanted to share her buzz.
"Oh?" he poked her.
"I've never made a decision in my life that felt so right."
"Man, I'm glad you feel that way, 'cause she sure looked nasty and angry."
"Trust me, to her eyes, you look even nastier than the nastiest of her drones."
"Not true. I'm handsome and charming, even the rachni queen would see that."
"Again, self-proclaimed."
"Aw, Commander, you really hurt my feelings!"
They were both grinning like mad by then.
"If you say something nice about other people, I'm sure other people will find something nice to say about you, Joker," Shepard said.
"Do you have something in mind like: Ash has a nice ass?"
"Aw, now that hurts my feelings!" She swatted at him with a little pout and he leaned away to evade her hand, laughing.
"Don't worry, Commander," he said, correcting the hat on his head. "You win that contest hands down." For a moment there he wondered if he went a little too far. He was commenting on his CO's ass, after all. But Shepard was not that kind of CO, and not that kind of woman.
"I know," she said with a satisfied shuffle in her chair. "Ash is nice, but I'm the killer. Anyone who disagrees is either blind, stupid or has a death wish."
"We are still talking about your ass, right?"
"Yes, Joker, we are," she gave him a killer smile.
This had nothing to do with any kind of professional relationship anymore, and they both knew it. She was too easy to be around and have fun with to be like other COs, and she got him completely. She was not like other women, either. This friendship developing between them, this easy banter was worth every trouble he could get in for it. He wouldn't trade it for anything.
Jo left the cockpit in high spirits and with a wide grin on her face. Her heart even skipped a beat when she replayed bits of that conversation. The last stop on her journey that night was Alenko. He basically jumped down her throat. First he told her she should have left the decision about the rachni to the Council. Then he carried on in tones she really didn't get:
"We've played it pretty close to the book so far, but we're a long way from backup. We've got some tough calls to make. I'm just saying: try to leave yourself a way out. I've seen what cutting corners can do and I'd hate to have that happen to you, Shepard."
Huh?
"I'm not questioning any decision you've made, Shepard."
I think you just did, she frowned to herself.
"It's just my experience that once someone lets something slide, it tends to pick up speed. You get my meaning?"
"I really and honestly don't. What the hell are you talking about?" she asked him forcefully. Whatever flirtation had been there before, it was gone now. He once again poured his heart out to her about his oh so difficult childhood at BAaT, about some turian instructor who bullied him. Jo couldn't hear those stories anymore. She'd had enough of those tearful recollections of his oh so miserable past. Irritation in her grew stronger and stronger, and when he said: "You either came out a superman or a wreck-" she knew exactly which one he was.
"So why are you telling me all this?" she mocked him in a not so friendly way. "Is there something I can do to help you get over it?"
He didn't get her mockery. The most annoying part was that he took everything she said so damn seriously.
"I'm thirty two, Shepard, you don't serve as long as I have without coming to terms with yourself. You also learn that if someone's special to you, you help them. Try to keep them from making mistakes."
Oh, she knew exactly that his key word was 'special', but she heard another word loud and clear.
"Mistakes?"
He was so caught up in his own speech, which he doubtlessly spent all day preparing, calculating her response, that he was thrown off when she didn't respond the way he'd expected. He blinked at her suddenly cold Commander face.
"You want to point out some mistake I've made? You want everything to be by the book? Do you know what the Council said about me releasing the rachni queen? They said that I shouldn't have done it, because she was too dangerous. Had we asked for their advice, they would have told me to commit genocide. I will not stand for that, Alenko. People write the rule books, not the God Almighty. They're our way to deal with the unknown. If you want some particularly interesting books to read, find yourself a medieval book called Malleus Maleficarum, which tells you all the ways to recognise a witch and all the rules about how to deal with her. Did you also know that at some point it was against the law and punishable by death or imprisonment to be homosexual? What I'm saying is that going by the book and through all the official channels doesn't always bring the right decision. And in any case, this is my ship, I'm the Captain, and this is not a democracy. You are not here to protect me from making mistakes. You're here to do your job."
He was pale by the end of the speech and snapped to attention, when she narrowed her eyes at him.
"Ma'am, yes Ma'am!" he saluted.
"At ease, soldier," she threw at him, leaving. He managed to kill all her buzz, even the good mood she had after talking to Joker. There was a pattern hidden here somewhere and she was just too stupid to see it right now.
There was something about the rachni queen that fascinated her, though. She spent some time before sleep listening to the audio log of the mission. The beautiful words about a singing planet, an eerie warning about a sour yellow note from the sky…
Damnit, she needed to clear her head. She needed to get away from all these people, all the expectations for a few hours. She needed to calm down, sort out her thoughts, ease the irritation, the dull sense of danger that settled upon her after meeting the rachni. She needed some quality time on shore leave.
Ask and thou shall be given. When she opened her computer in the morning there was an invitation to a training facility called Pinnacle Station. That was where she ordered Joker to fly them. Jo was so tense after all the conversations that she was really looking forward to doing something different. A day for herself was what she needed more than her next meal. A day away from her crew. Maybe some new face? Maybe a bar fight that wouldn't decide the fate of a colony but be just that – a bar fight? She couldn't stand looking at Alenko's suffering face every time she walked past him. She couldn't stand Liara's worshiping eyes. She felt suffocated by those two and it was unfair to be taking her frustration out on the others. Tali, Wrex and Garrus already suffered her wrath during sparring, and they truly had nothing to do with her frustration. Jo felt like Kaidan and Liara were both staking a claim to her, like they had the right to bind her to them with their demands and silly infatuation. She told Liara that she was not interested, but the girl heard only what she wanted to hear, and Kaidan was not any better. Even after she told him to can it the other day, he took it as their first lovers' quarrel and probably expected her to apologise.
She was not their woman. They had no claim to her, and she could do whatever she knew was right. She could be as cruel and violent as she needed to be without having to answer to some underling for her actions, she could be as generous and forgiving as she wanted, without having to justify herself to the Council. She was not in love with either Liara or Kaidan and she owed them nothing. In fact, she could fuck whomever she wanted. It was even long overdue. Her last one-night-stand was over eight months ago, before she was assigned to the Normandy. She needed to feel in control again: control of herself and the man she would allow to touch her. There was power in never seeing the guy again.
