When Garrus left, Jo went shopping. First, she bought herself a new omnitool. She had no doubt that everything Cerberus had given her was made to spy on her, especially her electronic communication devices. At least this one would be clean for a while.

Then she sat down in a café in the shopping zone and began all the filework that needed to be done to start a new life. The Council kept their word and reinstated her as a Spectre and before they told her she couldn't, she registered the Normandy as a war trophy that she kept as her own means of transportation. The Spectre funds were not quite as much as what the Asshole sent her way after Freedom's Progress, but at least they secured her crew's stable pay. If she needed anything extra, she would have to work for it. Normandy upgrades, armour and weaponry – she'd have to pay for that, but she could deal with it as long as her people were secured.

She contacted the N7 contractors for an updated model of her armour. She didn't trust the Cerberus copy of it, she needed and wanted the original. Their immediate confirmation felt like a balm on her wounds. She may have issues with the Alliance in general, but the N7 program was the one part of it she still respected and believed in. They made no distinctions regarding their operatives. Once an N7, always an N7.

Good food for all species present, her favourite apricot shampoo, Serrice ice brandy for Karin, new uniforms for the entire crew, a few supplies and upgrades – and the Cerberus money was almost gone. None of the crew resigned despite her initial offer to let those members go in peace who didn't like her renouncing the Asshole, so she needed to clean house, too. She let go of some hardcore Cerberus people and hired a few security officers, including a woman who would guard Miranda without getting distracted by her 'perfect' ass and a relief pilot that Cerberus for some reason forgot in the beginning.

Zaeed found her after completing his own business and returned her earpiece. He wasn't even surprised to see she had a new omnitool.

"What happened to the old one?" She asked him as they made their way back to the docks.

"Tossed it into a tank with acid."

"You knew I wouldn't need it?"

"I may only have one eye left, but I still see clear enough, Shepard. Cerberus wants to control you. Would be a damn shame if they succeeded."

"Is that a compliment?" She almost smiled.

"Take it any way you like, doll."

Jo was pretty sure that she'd kill anyone else who'd dare to call her doll. Except Joker, probably.

When everyone went to sleep that night, they were no longer tied to Cerberus in any official way. All that remained was a cosmetic issue. Next morning Jo ordered every person on the ship to the conference room. Miranda was escorted by her new guards, wearing handcuffs.

"As of last night we no longer have any official ties to the Asshole or to Cerberus," she declared without preamble. They already knew that. "Today we are addressing the final issue before we go on our mission. The Cerberus logo. We will return to the Citadel in a week to pick up our new uniforms that I ordered for us last night. Within an hour from now a Citadel repair crew will arrive and give our hull a new paintjob. The Cerberus logo is going to be painted over. We'll need a day for the paint seal to grip, so we're staying docked for twenty hours starting now. In this time I want every technician to hit our software and kill every single Cerberus logo anywhere inside our computers. EDI will be responsible for that. While the technicians are on it, the rest of you will grab the paint and tools you'll find in the cargo bay and paint over every single Cerberus logo on the ship, scrub the walls, seats, crates, everything. In that time Joker, prepare a course for Hourglass Nebula. Jacob, inspect the Spectre weapon shipment that is going to arrive this morning and give me full report on what we have. One final announcement: Garrus Vakarian is now my official XO. Jacob's status is overruled. What Garrus says goes as if it came directly from me. Questions?"

None came and she let them go do their jobs. Her own cabin needed to be cleansed just like the rest of the ship and Jo decided to do two jobs at once. She stopped at Engineering and asked Gabby to help her with the cleaning.

"Are you sure, Commander? I thought we were supposed to be purging the systems of that logo."

"EDI could probably do it by herself in a nano-second, she's just playing coy."

"I assure you, I do not play coy," EDI said.

"Then go on and do it."

"You really are an intense woman," Gabby said when they were in the captain's quarters.

"So everyone keeps telling me. Disappointed or encouraged?"

"You do a great job, Commander, and I'll follow you wherever you go. Ken and I are committed to your cause."

"You don't have to give inspirational speeches to me of all people, Gabby," Jo chuckled. "Well, let's get to it. I take the bathroom, and you can start with the monitors on my desk."

Jo forced herself into a conversation with the young woman. She needed to start building relationships with the crew she didn't know yet, and so far Gabby was the most bearable option of all. Jo forced herself because conversation of any kind took its toll on the grip she tried to maintain on the agony and voices, but she needed to try. Connecting with people was the only way to survive. And sucking all power out of Joker was not an option – she was not going to become an energy vampire to the man she loved.

After a while she realised she didn't mind Gabby so much. She was very nice, highly intelligent, highly capable and talented, and most importantly – she had real gumption. Of course, she was not the kind of fighter to take up a rifle and go shooting people for what she believed in, but she knew the importance of her work on the ship and wouldn't let anyone tell her otherwise. Jo respected that. They ended up talking about tech, and Jo realised that in her past life, in all those months she was a Spectre, she'd neglected self-education. She'd been happy then, no matter what was going on in the world, she'd had her perfect life. Now Jo was looking at another sleepless night in her cabin, alone and in pain, unable to keep the screaming at bay, unable to distract herself, unable to rest. Reading a book or two didn't seem like a bad idea. Gabby was more than happy to recommend Jo a few good tech books.


Compared to the dull routine of the last two years, things started to move with amazing speed with Shepard's reappearance. Joker had already taken his new baby from the capital of the Terminus Systems to the capital of Council Space, lost his Cerberus status, became a Council employee, explored all the new features of ground mission monitoring and declared a full scale war on the Thing. He couldn't shake the feeling that it was constantly watching him. Well, technically it was. Childish or not, he smeared grease on the Thing's cameras in the cockpit. In return it messed up the settings on his chair and deleted all his extranet bookmarks. It was teasing him all the time and he had a sickening suspicion that it was enjoying itself immensely. It still refused to let him into the security system and Joker begrudgingly had to admit defeat. No matter how intelligent and skilful he was, hacking a self-aware AI was probably beyond him at the moment. Sure, he could have taken the matter directly to the AI core with some advanced instruments and bypassing protocols, but then he would have to explain to everyone what he was doing. He let the issue be for the time being.

Ever since the day Shepard asked him if he would always flinch if she touched him, she'd stayed away from the cockpit. He saw her in passing when she headed out or in, or he heard her voice from the CIC, or he monitored the ground missions. That was it. After they left the Citadel again to go recruit Jack, they had almost three days to go and he hadn't seen Shepard in all that time. His shift began an hour earlier than hers (she personally appointed those times when she took over the Normandy) and he avoided dinner times with everybody.

He did listen to scuttlebutt, however. The girls whispering to each other after the lights went off in the dorm every night made sure everybody listened to scuttlebutt. At least they remained silent and let everyone else sleep in peace when Garrus was there – perhaps one good thing came out of Cerberus' xenophobia. But Garrus wasn't always there. Joker overheard that he was spending a lot of time talking to Shepard.

Every conversation on the ship seemed to revolve around Shepard right now. She was a legend to all these people, hero to many. They really couldn't have enough of talking about her. She was a lot quieter and calmer now than on her first day, didn't seem like a demon, but rather like a boringly normal captain. She spent several hours in Kasumi's room looking at books and paintings. She ate her every meal in the mess hall with everyone else, unlike most other COs they knew. She drank with Dr. Chakwas the other day but didn't even look tipsy when the doctor already snored away. She played Skyllian-five poker with Ken and Gabby and graciously relieved them of all their money. She sat all morning with Zaeed in the mess hall, listening to his stories with interest (her interest seemed very important to Kelly). She spent all afternoon with the techies making some changes in the cargo bay. Joker was surprised to hear that. The elevator stop in the cargo bay wasn't even available to most of the crew at the beginning, its lowest stop was Engineering. Only the tech team was allowed into the actual cargo bay for shuttle repairs, and the security officers who oversaw deliveries. Joker made a trip there to find out that the deck was now indeed available to everyone and the machinery was covered up. There was some room on the left now for sparring, a row of crates in the back with targets so small he could barely see them, and a small gym on the right. Joker knew that Dr. Chakwas would send him down there soon enough to make sure he kept exercising after his surgery.

Joker also heard that Garrus was putting fire under the techies in his quest to find every Cerberus spying device on the ship and already had a whole crate full of them. The turian took his new duties as XO very seriously and Joker saw a lot of him. Shepard however only seemed to exist in stories on the ship. Joker was fine with that. Really. She was the CO and he the pilot. What did they have to talk about? He knew that seeing her, being in the same room with her would make him feel things he really didn't want to feel. He needed to sort out his own head before he could deal with her.

Sure, he'd been worried about her when Garrus took a rocket in the face, but ever since the turian was out of surgery that day they seemed inseparable. So Joker stayed away. He'd seen the way they met on Omega. She'd fallen into Garrus' arms like he was the one she'd hungered to see all along. Joker thought: whatever. He didn't care. It was none of his business how much time they were spending together. He had his own life and he couldn't care less about Shepard's private affairs. Really.

Still, it irked him a little that the two of them often turned off their earpieces when they talked. What were they talking about? She used to trust him, Joker, with everything, she used to always keep her earpiece on, letting him spy on her through this official channel wherever she went. Was she keeping secrets from him now?

Why did that bother him so much?

He realised that his mood swung every few minutes, like a pregnant woman's, and he hated that. One minute he cared, the next one he didn't. What he really needed to do was deal with his own shit first. It was better to stay away from Shepard until he did.

He occupied himself by training his new relief pilot. Shepard had hired Hadley without consulting him, and he almost gave her an earful for that, but the guy's résumé did look impressive.

"It's such an honour to be a part of the Normandy crew," Hadley was saying to him on their last relay jump to the Purgatory. "You've been here from the beginning, isn't that true?"

"Eyes on the console, helmsman," Joker snapped. "If the Commander catches you sucking up, you'll be off this ship before you can say Reaper."

"Come on, you must have the craziest stories to tell!"

"There are times for stories," Garrus said, coming up from behind them. "And there are times for pilot stew. Come on, impress us, Mr. Hadley."

"Yes, Sir."

"Don't tell me," Joker grinned. "You've never had a turian XO either?"

"Uh, no."

"ETA at the relay: twelve minutes. Show me what you can do. She's yours," he took his hands off his console and Hadley took over. The approach vector was within acceptable parameters and the ship made the transit smoothly. Of course, Joker knew he would have done it better and with more style, but it was good enough.

Once they arrived on the other side, the intercom beeped.

"Joker, is everything all right down there?" Shepard asked with a little concern.

"Yes, Commander, all good. Just seeing what the rookie can do."

"Ah, I see. Carry on." She disconnected.

"What was that all about?" Hadley asked.

"She can feel it with her ass when I'm not the one flying. She's that good."

"The Commander is kind of spooky, isn't she?"

Garrus and Joker exchanged glances and said together:

"You have no idea."

"Well, you can handle the rest of the shift and I am under doctor's orders to get some sleep," Joker said. "If anything happens, anything at all, wake me up."

"I have been flying ships for almost ten years, just so you know."

"You've never flown the Normandy. I'll be here for a report at 07:00."

In hindsight, the comment about Shepard being spooky felt like a bad omen. When they arrived at the Purgatory, Shepard took Garrus and Zaeed with her, expecting the worst from even a simple pickup, and he leaned back to watch the feed. Two years ago he had video and audio, as long as the communications weren't blocked by some interference. Now he had a more stable connection, biometric readings from each battle suit and several cameras on each combatant, the feed from which was calculated into a 3D battlefield environment simulation on a separate screen with coloured dots for friend and foe. While each of them only saw what was in front of them, he saw the battlefield from all directions, like a god. Now he could give them better directions than ever before. This feature and the general curiosity about Shepard gathered a whole crowd of spectators around him as soon as the fighting started. Joker looked forward to this fight, too. When Shepard and Vakarian worked together, it was like a symphony.

Only this time it seemed very off key. Joker was not a trained marine, but he'd watched enough mission feed starring Shepard to know that something was off. While Zaeed and Garrus maintained a regular pattern of taking cover and working through their targets, Shepard didn't bother. She slammed incendiary rounds into her rifle and walked on like an unstoppable tank, never even taking cover. She didn't just kill her targets with a few well-placed shots, like in the past. She made them scream in agony as they burned up. She stomped on skulls, ripped arms and legs off and even impaled some poor sod on the muzzle of his own rifle. She didn't even bother to look back and see if her companions were fine. It was a whole new kind of music: a bloody symphony with only one soloist. In all that time her heartbeat was slower than normal, breathing even, brain activity reduced.

Joker looked at the red and blue spectacle with a frown. This was not his Shepard. He almost wished he'd looked away when she finally got her hands on Kuril. She deliberately kept him alive until she reached him. Then she grabbed his head and ripped it off in one smooth tug. Joker gagged. He'd seen her do a lot of things that would turn a lesser man's stomach, and even now he wasn't queasy because of all the blood. Rather he was sick from knowing what had become of her. Commander Shepard used to be brutal, but never cruel. The woman on his screens now was beyond all that, she had gone over the edge.

She stood there in silence for a few moments, looking at the turian head in her hands, as the blue blood streamed down the front of her armour, until Garrus and Zaeed caught up with her. She flinched when Garrus touched her arm, let Kuril's head fall and walked away silently.

They found Jack and the mission was over. But not for him. He shooed away all the spectators and sat still, lost in thought for a long time. Was this the new Shepard? He hadn't believed that she would kill Miranda on that first day, but he could see now that he'd been wrong. She was truly about to murder the dark-haired woman. She'd always joked about being a ruthless murderer in the past and it was always funny because whatever she was, Commander Shepard was not a ruthless murderer. Well, she was now. Truthfully, she scared him a little. A little? Hell, what he saw on Purgatory scared him more than seeing his Normandy destroyed. He didn't know if he could handle this new Shepard.


Jack had realised that they had information about her from Cerberus, so she threw a tantrum. Jo let her know who the alpha female was here, then graciously gave her access to any Cerberus intel she wanted on the ship. But that was the ending of the mission. The beginning and the middle of the whole thing were lost in a bloody haze. Zaeed didn't know her well enough to notice how off her fighting was, but Garrus was the guy to see everything. So, as Jack settled in the belly of the ship, Garrus asked Jo for a private word. He led her to the Main Battery and almost forcefully put her on a crate in the corner.

"There is no bullshit between you and me, Jo," he said seriously. "So when I ask you a question, you'll answer me truthfully, all right?"

"Yes."

"How are you?"

She looked up at him, tried to think. Garrus sat down on the floor in front of her and looked her attentively in the eyes.

"You went ballistic on that prison ship. No, not even ballistic. You went nuclear. I've never seen you so… evil, when he announced he wanted to capture you. And what you did to those guards, Jo, it was beyond anything I've ever seen you do. And I've seen a lot. And through all that you're not bothering to take cover anymore? Do you not care if you live of die? Tell me, what's going on with you? What happened to you? What did Cerberus do?"

Jo looked down at her hands.

"I'm fucked up, Garrus. Really fucked up. You should have seen me the day I woke up, I was a death angel, planning all the ways I would torture, dismember, skin, flail, disembowel Miranda, Jacob and the Asshole, I wanted to rip their hearts out and eat them while they were watching. I'm in constant agony, in my head there is constant hell raging, screams of torture, pain, death… I can't tune it out. All I can do is distract myself and try my best to keep a hold on it, because if I let loose for even a moment, I'll go all vengeful fury mated with torture machine on people around me. That's what happened to me down there. I got angry, and I let the hell take over for a while. I haven't slept even for a second since they resurrected me. I'm not hungry, so I force food down my throat. It's easier when I distract myself, but in the nights when I'm alone with my thoughts, I'm screaming my lungs out into my pillow. It's eating away at me. I don't know if I can beat it. I don't feel much of anything other than the need to take my rage out on someone, I don't really care who it is anymore. You have no idea how much it takes for me to keep it together. I'm tough, but this is beyond my toughness."

"Oh, Jo," Garrus sighed, took her hands in his and lowered his head to touch his forehead against her knuckles. "Can I do anything to help?"

"Maybe. I don't know, there is no handbook for this. But I do love you, you're my family, my pretty much only family, and when I think of that, when you're near me, I feel a little less enraged, I can get a better grip on the hell in my head, so the best and only thing you can do to help is just be here, be my brother."

"I'll always be here, Jo, no matter what happens to you. You can always count on me. If you need my strength – take it."

She nodded listlessly. He asked:

"Am I the only one who you feel better around? Because it's sure better if you had several people, it might help you sooner."

"Well, it's just people I already know. You, Tali, Joker, Chakwas."

"Tali? You met Tali?"

"Yeah, for a brief moment on a little recon mission before I got this ship. She headed back to the Migrant Fleet."

"So that's why you keep hanging around medbay so much? Why not the cockpit? You used to spend an awful lot of time there back in the day."

"Joker has his own demons to fight. He's here to work with me, but he made it clear he isn't comfortable with me being around him, so I'm not forcing the issue."
"Really," Garrus said thoughtfully.


Joker set course for the Eagle Nebula to pick up their new resident krogan. It was late in the evening, only the night shift was at work, but he was still in his seat. The mission on Purgatory just wouldn't let him be. Who was this woman that looked like his Shepard? Sometimes she was just like her old self, but sometimes…

"You really are a spoiled, selfish brat," a two-layered voice sounded from behind him and it took him a moment to realise that Garrus was actually talking to him.

"Excuse you?!" He spun his seat around. "A week on the job and already an ass?"

"Why are you treating Shepard like that?" Garrus fixed him with a deadly stare. Joker was pretty sure he had no idea what the turian was talking about, but Garrus was not known for pranks or false accusations.

"Like what? What did I do?"

"In the moment when she needs her best and oldest friends the most, you turn your back on her. Why are you back under her command if you can't stand being around her?"

"That is none of your business," Joker locked that door in his mind and swore never to open it. He turned his seat around, but the next moment it was forcefully jerked again to make him face Garrus. The turian had his fingers on his omnitool. Damn his new XO access to all ship's systems. "Look, she's not the same Shepard. I don't know if you've noticed, but she's different. Brutal. Evil. She kinda scares me and I'm not ashamed to admit it."

Garrus shook his head with what suspiciously looked like disappointment.

"You're the guy with the access to the security cameras," he said calmer. "How did you miss what's really going on with Shepard?"

"Mr. Moreau doesn't have the necessary clearance to access the security footage," the Thing spoke up. Joker only pointed at the blue orb and shrugged. He'd tried to get in but couldn't.

"EDI, I'm giving Mr. Moreau the Level Two clearance," Garrus said, surprising Joker. "Have a look. Main Battery, two hours ago."

With that he turned around and left. Joker was silent for a while, trying to make sense of what just happened. His brain was so confused that his first question was:

"EDI, what is Level Two?"

"There are three levels of access to the security system footage, Mr. Moreau," the voice said. "Level Three gives access to cameras in the CIC, comm room, mess hall, corridors, elevator and cargo bay. It is available to Mr. Taylor and Ms. Chambers. Level Two gives access to all cameras on the ship except those installed in the bathrooms and in Commander's private quarters. It is available to you and Mr. Vakarian. Level One access, previously also available to Ms. Lawson but now only to Commander Shepard, gives access to each and every security camera on the ship."

"So, uhm," he chose to ignore the fact that there were cameras in the showers. "Show me what Garrus meant. Main Battery, two hours ago."

Ten minutes later he was sick all over again and his hands shook like the day Shepard returned from the dead. He really was a spoiled, selfish brat. How could he have missed the signs? Oh, he knew how. He'd been too absorbed in his own little drama to notice that his Shepard was there all along, crying for help and getting none.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Brainless idiot. Fool. She believed that he didn't want to be around her. Garrus was right: he didn't deserve to call himself her friend anymore. He thought he was hurt and betrayed by her nonchalant reappearance from the dead that day, but now he could see how much it had cost her to keep herself together. How much it was still costing her, every minute of every day. And he, the one who prided himself on knowing the real Shepard beneath all masks, had missed the most obvious signs that she was anything but nonchalant. He added more hurt to her pain.

She used to trust him with everything and he pushed her away. He had been so absorbed into his own world that he missed her cry for help. She tried, she really did try to reach out, but he flinched at her touch, treated her with silence and ignored what she had to say. He could only imagine now what kind of effort she had to make to appear normal. He'd seen her turn full scale vengeful fury on Purgatory that morning and it sickened him to imagine just how much willpower it took her to constantly keep it under control.

But she was making the effort. For him, for Garrus, for all of them, one second after another, unless someone stupid like Kelly or Miranda poked her a little too deep. So… She wasn't the same old Shepard. She didn't come back like nothing was the matter, like everything was fine. Nothing was fine, as a matter of fact, but that was okay with Joker. She was affected, which made her human, normal, approachable. He could relate to pain and agony. He couldn't stand the thought of a calm, balanced Shepard after death and resurrection. That would have been too creepy, not human. That was what he'd seen all these days because he'd been too stupid to look deeper.

He couldn't curse himself enough. All those months of serving under her on the first Normandy he was collecting information on her. Facts were easy – hack long enough through firewalls and you'll find even her bra size. Character traits were harder – she'd shown a different Shepard to everyone and it was hard to pinpoint what combined them all. But what he'd really been after were things nobody ever knew. All the little things he learned and kept as his own little secret. How young she looked without mascara. How soft her hair was. How much she looked like a cat when she fell asleep in a chair.

He'd prided himself on knowing more about Johanna Shepard than anyone in the galaxy. That pride cost him dearly today. He thought he knew better than doubting what he saw. He believed he could see everything. It never occurred to him that she'd tried – she did try! – but after being rejected simply gave him what he demanded. She left him alone. There was no other way around it: he betrayed her.

When he went to the dorm that night, everyone else was already asleep. Garrus wasn't there. Well, at least Joker knew now that there was no budding romance between the turian and the Commander. She saw him as her brother, her only family. Joker tossed and turned on his bunk, unable to stop the hurricane of thoughts. In the security video she mentioned that she hadn't slept at all since being resurrected. Was she awake right now, up in her cabin, alone, battling her demons? Did she need him, like she used to need him? He remembered all the times after difficult missions when she would come and sit with him, often in silence, and then thank him for great company. Did she need him like that again? The thought that she did twisted his guts in a painful knot. The idea that she might not ripped his heart out and stomped on it. He wanted her to need him again, now more than ever.

Had he driven her away? Was Garrus her closest confidant now? Why could she tell Garrus the truth, but not him? He almost felt betrayed again, but inwardly slapped himself. Stupid, stupid shit. This was not about him. And not even about her. This was about them. All of them. Old friends from the first Normandy who lived through this horror together. Why hadn't it ever occurred to him that Dr. Chakwas was also hurting, deep inside? What gave him the right to think he was the only one in agony after losing her? What about Wrex and Tali? Even Alenko? They all belonged together and they had to fight this together.

After all, she didn't die on purpose. She'd been killed, torn away from them by hostile action. She was not the enemy here. Dear Lord, she was not the enemy even though he'd treated her like one. A big lump in his throat threatened to choke him. She was the victim. The most innocent victim ever. He started thinking about what he could do to let her know he was there for her. Apologise? Ask for a private conversation? Yeah, right, how would that sound: Hey, Shepard, you know, if you want to cry on my shoulder, I won't flinch. He kept thinking deep into the night but didn't come up with any good solutions.