Jo was running for her life. Just a few more minutes, just a little more luck avoiding being shot and she'd be able to calmly let Joker handle the rest. He would fly them out of this godforsaken place, he'd bring them back to civilisation, she had no doubt about that.
She'd already done her best. The crew was back safely and the losses in the fight against the Collectors and the Reaper larva were minimal. Actually, they weren't even losses per se. When that platform crashed, when Jo got to her feet and looked around, she found Miranda trapped beneath heavy debris. Jo had taken off her helmet to turn the built-in camera away from what she was seeing. The dark haired ex-Cerberus woman was in pain and couldn't get out on her own, but she looked at Jo in silence. She had known that asking for help wouldn't matter. Jo was not going to help her out.
Jo stood by and watched Miranda die. She took time to observe it until she was absolutely sure that the other woman was gone. Miranda had looked proud, defiant up until the very end. Jo had a feeling that she understood. In Jo's place Miranda would have done the same thing.
Jo felt no guilt. Oh, she'd felt it many times in her life, but not about this. Miranda's renouncement of Cerberus and her willingness to go against the Asshole's orders in the end didn't matter. It was cold-blooded murder, but it wouldn't be Jo's first, not by far. And yet, as long as she didn't tell anyone the truth, people would assume that Miranda died in the crash landing.
Jo was not going to hide the truth, if asked directly. She just wasn't going to advertise this.
Once Miranda was dead, Jo put her helmet back on and focused on her krogan baby, freeing him from under a heavy plate. He had her sincere smile, her helping hand and her full devotion.
Now she was running straight for the ship, Seeker swarms were all around her and the Collectors were firing. A good portion of the cliff just broke off, leaving a giant gap between her and the Normandy. She saw Zaeed, Garrus and Grunt in the opening on their hands and knees, gasping for air, and she saw Joker with a rifle, roaring in anger, as he fired over her head at the Collectors. Jo turned off her brain as she jumped, and yet her heart stopped beating in those moments of free fall. Afterwards she decided not to remember how much it had felt like being spaced. It wasn't important. She reached her ship, even if only by her fingertips, dislocated her shoulder but ignored the pain. Then there were strong krogan, human and turian hands on her wrist, pulling her up, and Joker sliding the airlock shut.
Joker was magnificent when he dropped the rifle and jumped back into his chair to get them away from the explosion. His hands were a blur, his commands to EDI and the techies perfectly precise, his performance the stuff of legends. Jo's shoulder was killing her even after she'd set it right by hitting it against a wall, but she had time and presence of mind to appreciate Joker's skill. She put her life and the ship in his hands and she knew he would never disappoint.
She got a little dizzy when she watched him clear the debris field. Even all her training hadn't prepared her for his kind of flying. She was so hot for him right now…
"You okay?" Zaeed asked her, pointing at her shoulder. He, Garrus, Grunt and Jo sat together in a heap next to the airlock, panting, counting seconds along with EDI and praying, while Joker flew.
"I'll be fine in a day or two," she shrugged. Nothing, not even a dislocated shoulder meant a thing when they were about to survive the suicide mission!
And they did survive it. The ship was a mess, the interior was one big jumble, the hull had several breaches, the systems were half-fried, the FTL was offline, but they were alive. They made the relay jump with a few seconds to spare, too.
Injured, limping, but victorious, they arrived back in the Sahrabarik system. After a few moments of silence a loud cheer sounded across the ship. Jo let her boys put her to her feet again, as she laughed and cheered along with them. But her eyes were only on her man. He turned his chair and sent her a glorious grin.
They'd fought another battle and they would have another tomorrow. It wouldn't be forever, but they won themselves a little more time to be together.
For the time being the ship hung motionlessly in space between the red and the grey relay. There was traffic in the distance, but so far no one seemed to notice a broken, limping ship. On board Jo told Joker to lose the Asshole's channel after some heated final words and went to check on her people.
The hull breaches needed to be sealed off before they went anywhere, the sparking wiring was buzzing everywhere, anything that wasn't bolted to the floor or the walls was now strewn everywhere, broken and bent, but none of that mattered. Jo assembled everyone in the mess hall amidst the chaos.
"We did it," she said, and her face lit up with a wild grin. "We destroyed the Collectors and we came back from where nobody has ever returned. Now, that is pretty heroic."
They cheered.
"Don't worry about the Normandy. As long as we're all alive, we'll fix her. We'll make her even better."
They cheered again, and Jo felt adrenalin slowly start to dissolve in her blood.
"Shall I fly us to Omega and request dry dock for repairs?" Joker asked, but Jo shook her head:
"No, not Omega. I'd never put my ship in Aria's hands. They're all vultures, they'd eat us alive if we show up so vulnerable. Provided pirates don't snatch us before we even enter the asteroid field. We have to go to the Citadel."
"Commander, the FTL drive is still offline," EDI said. "A journey to the Citadel would take a significantly longer time than usual."
"How long?"
"Thirteen days, eight hours and forty two minutes."
"Two weeks trapped on the ship literally in slow motion?" Jack groaned, as others joined her. "Boring!"
"If you wish to be busy, I'll find you work," Jo spread her arms, pointing at the state of the ship's interior. "But I'm definitely not putting my ship at risk in that filthy, traitorous place. Not after everything we've just been through, not after what we've just accomplished. How stupid would it be if we succumbed to some vorcha mercenaries or a filthy pirate ship after we survived the Collectors? I'm going to the Citadel."
"You're the boss, boss," Jack shrugged. All her aggression was only for show, Jo knew it.
"Wouldn't Aria help us out?" Donnelly asked. "I thought you two got along well."
"Be real," Jo snorted. "The bitch is on my personal kill list."
There was a little confused silence around her. Apparently nobody had thought that when they'd watched her interact with Aria the couple of times they'd been to Omega.
"But… why?" Chakwas asked.
"Because she suffers under the illusion of being all-powerful and thinks she's for some reason… important." Jo spread her arms in an imitation of the asari and spoke in a dramatic voice: "I am Omega!" She snorted again. "Someone who considers herself a queen is too self-absorbed to leave in charge of a dangerous place like Omega."
"Does she remind you of yourself, too?" Joker grinned at her in a particularly evil way. Jo wondered if he realised that Miranda's death was no accident at all.
"A little. The difference is that I don't do what I do for money, power or worship. She craves those things. Usually I couldn't care less about some station's boss, but Aria is a special kind of crazy and dangerous. So I marked her as my future target and even though I'm not going to go storming Omega right away, you can all rest assured that one day the other shoe will drop. On her."
Most of the people looking at her right now didn't seem concerned. They hardly cared about things she was talking about: the necessity of cutting off the snake's head before that snake decided Omega was too small for her and started branching out across the Terminus Systems. Most of the time it wasn't something they even thought about, let alone tried to solve that kind of problem. Only Zaeed nodded to himself with a grim tilt to his mouth, Grunt looked at her with pure adoration, Garrus and Samara met her eyes with calm assurance of true understanding, and Joker shifted his stance in an attempt to hide his hard-on. So, he liked it when she was talking violence? She'd known that before, but never realised it actually turned him on. Oh, they were going to have so much fun together in the future!
"So we're going to the Citadel, and FYI, the Council is not on my hit list. Now, I'm going to go put some ice on my shoulder. Anyone who's willing and able, have a look at our hull, we need it plugged right away. Otherwise: we have almost two weeks to sort out this mess, and for that period of time I declare this ship a no-duty zone. I don't care who does what, where and when. We'll rest, we'll celebrate, we'll have some good time. Because we bloody well deserve it!"
They cheered. Jo always knew how to rally her people.
Tali, the most experienced in EVA safety, and Legion as the one who didn't need air anyway, went outside to repair the hull. Grunt, Jack and Samara helped Gardner put the mess hall back in order so that he could start making lunch. Chakwas, shaken by the experience, still found enough strength to tend to the wounded ones. Everyone else scattered around. Jo was proud of her people. Even after the trauma they'd been through they were already focusing on fixing the problems, on rebuilding. They didn't need her orders to start cleaning up the ship. It was their home, too.
"Got any orders for me, Commander?" Joker approached her once everyone else got busy elsewhere.
"Yes. Come with me to my cabin and help me out of this armour," she waggled her eyebrows. His gaze turned heavy, loaded, and as much as she enjoyed that, she couldn't help a groan: "Sorry, I literally need your help getting out of my armour. My shoulder is killing me."
"And then?" He grinned like a certified lecher at her.
"Oh, I don't know. You can always help me out of my underarmour next. And find out if I'm wearing anything underneath."
Nobody noticed that they disappeared into the elevator together. Once in the cabin, they had to clean up the mess first. The display case broke and her ship models fell everywhere, the Prothean black orb rolled under the couch, the chairs and datapads were all over the place. At least the bed was debris-free, so Jo could sit down and rest her shoulder. Now she also began feeling all the spots where she had been shot today. Disconnecting pain during battle was her primary skill, but that pain always came back eventually. Jo had to teach Joker how to handle her armour, all the hidden buckles and belts.
"You were so hot with that rifle in your hands, I almost came in my panties," she said while he was taking the upper arm plating off her.
"Are you sure you want me and not some Viking type? 'Cause taking up arms isn't going to be a daily occurrence."
"I know. That's exactly why it was so hot. Now I know what you're willing to do for me."
"I'd do anything for you, Jo, and you should know that by now," he sounded almost serious.
Once he got her out of her armour and underarmour (and found that she was wearing a tight black suit under that) and brought her some ice for the shoulder, they collapsed on the bed, exhausted from everything that had happened.
"So," she began.
"Yeah," he said cautiously.
"Is this when you tell me you've changed your mind, that last night meant nothing to you and you want us to be friends, like before?"
He reached out and turned her head towards him.
"No, Jo. I'm sorry that you keep expecting me to run. I don't want you to doubt me. I'll be yours as long as you want me."
"I want you. If my shoulder wasn't killing me, I'd show you how much I want you."
"So today I'm a cripple and you're a cripple," he chuckled. "I wonder if there's any way to work around that."
"Probably," she half-grinned. He took that as an invitation. Slowly, so as to not to disturb her ice-wrapped shoulder, he rolled on top of her and tossed his cap into a far corner.
"We're alive," he whispered, drinking in the sight of her, the wonder and happiness in his eyes transforming him into a man nobody on the ship had ever seen or even suspected that he existed. Jo could see everything he'd told her that dreadful day just by shouting her name after her when she was being spaced. He loved her. She needed no other confirmations. She was finally truly home.
"Yes, we are," she nodded.
He leaned down for a very slow, very deliberate kiss. Her eyes fluttered and closed at the rapturous sensation. Granted, she usually didn't indulge in much kissing with men, but she thought she might be addicted now. She'd never been kissed like this. He was making love to her mouth, tasting her, savouring her, rearranging every cell of her body, arranging her very soul to his liking, making her his – just by kissing her. His touches sent awareness through her whole body, making her tingle all over, making her crotch swell and wet and her thighs move apart to welcome his hips between them. They were both still fully clothed, but it didn't matter because what he was doing to her mouth was pure sex in itself. The temperature in the room was rapidly rising, the heat from his body was scorching her to the core and she felt his poking erection when he ground his crotch against hers. Oh, he wanted her just as desperately as she wanted him, and no brittle bones or dislocated shoulders could put out that fire.
He slid his arm under her neck to bring her tighter against him and suddenly froze. His hand moved under the pillow she lay on. Joker leaned back and looked her in the eye with a frown:
"What is this?" His voice was coarse with passion, but also very serious.
"That would be my M-6 Carnifex," she said, panting. He'd left her breathless.
"You're sleeping with a pistol under your pillow?"
"No, I'm sleeping with a pistol and a knife under the pillow, a flashbang grenade and a medigel kit inside my pillow, and two knives and an M-8 Avenger inside my mattress."
"I didn't notice any weapons under the other pillow last night," he frowned more.
"There are none under or inside your pillow, but I suggest that you don't stick your hands between the mattress and the sideboards of the bed frame. At all."
"What might I find there?"
"The arsenal that isn't under the bed. Throwing knives mostly, and tranquilisers."
"And what's under the bed?"
"The arsenal that isn't strapped to the underside of the mattress. Ammo, four assault rifles, six submachine guns and one sniper rifle."
"I gotta ask now. What's strapped to the underside of your mattress?"
"The stuff that isn't in, on or behind my nightstand. A spare set of armour, inferno grenades, a clean omnitool, com devices and enough medigel to get a platoon out of a Thresher Maw's nest."
"I see," he nodded. He looked like he did understand, too. She hadn't become known for her battle skill by being a helpless damsel. "But why aren't there any weapons under… my pillow?"
Jo noticed how he stumbled a little over the word. He'd only spent one night here and probably wasn't comfortable claiming such an important spot in her private space as his as of yet.
"Sleeping on and with a gun is a serious adjustment. Most people don't consider it safe. I didn't want to subject you to something so uncomfortable."
"But you are sleeping on a gun?"
"I've been sleeping with knives, screw drivers, needles, sharp glass, wire and pointy sticks from the age of five," she said. "And that is not a joke. Slept with a pistol from the day I got my first one."
He just looked at her for a while.
"Can you live with that quirk of mine?" She asked earnestly. They'd been living on the same ship for many months and knew a lot about each other, but they'd just become a lot closer than ever before.
"It's not your only quirk, is it?" He asked.
"Afraid not."
"I have some things that need getting used to, as well."
"Like?"
"For example I can't make love to you missionary style. It puts strain on my knees and femurs and even after my Cerberus upgrade it's still my weakest spot and when I was a teenager I had to find out the hard way not to challenge fate."
"All right."
"All right?" He sounded unbelieving.
"Yes. You realise, of course, that you just challenged me to find a million other positions to have sex with you in, right?"
Joker looked down at her, praying she didn't notice how he stopped breathing. Damn her, if he hadn't been in love with her before, he would have fallen in love now. He'd just basically told her about one of the most painful moments of his life, both physically and emotionally, but she twisted everything in a way that made him appear… normal. Interesting. Intriguing, or something. She wasn't dismissing his condition, nor was she overbearing. She simply took it as a fact and built a whole world around it.
What had he ever done to deserve her?
The ping of her omnitool jerked them out of the moment. She raised her wrist to read the message without pulling away from him. For once in his life he showed discretion and looked away from the little screen. She was still the Commander to some people, and they might have private business with her.
"It's from Garrus to both of us," she said eventually.
"Damn aliens, they have their eyes everywhere!" Joker chuckled. If there was one guy he didn't mind knowing, though, it was Garrus.
"He wants us down in the cargo bay."
"Right now?"
"No, at our convenience, but I'd rather deal with whatever he wants right away before I'm unable to get out of this bed and your arms."
"Does that mean I'll get to watch you strip that suit and put on your uniform now?"
"Better. You get to help me with those clothes. Damnit, even with Cerberus fast healing it still hurts."
When they finally got down to the ship's belly, they found most of the crew there, eating sandwiches Gardner had made. The ship was still mostly a mess, but the spirit of the crew was extremely high. Jo noticed Gabby sitting on Ken's knee as she fed him a piece of vegetable. Ken looked like he didn't see anyone else around him but the auburn-haired girl. Jo hoped they would finally take the leap of faith and not fall back to their old habits of ignoring the tension between them.
"Ah, you're here," Garrus waved her and Joker over. "Remember last night you saw us working on that piece of the original Normandy?"
"Yes, you said today you'd tell me what you were making."
"Yes. We had an idea and I hope you approve. Well, here it is," he pointed behind him and stepped aside.
The guys hadn't gotten much sleep last night, it seemed. The gigantic piece of metal was transformed now. It was straightened and polished to the point of being artwork. Now it was a memorial wall with the names of all the people who'd died while serving on the ship called Normandy. Jo didn't breathe as her gaze slid down the list. She'd known each of them, she'd remembered their faces like they were still standing in front of her. She noted that Nihlus was also on the list, and she approved of that. The turian Spectre had been on their ship for one day and he'd left a huge change in his wake.
The last name was Miranda's.
She noticed after a while that everyone's eyes were on her in silence.
"Good call," she nodded. "When the ship is clean again, we'll find it a good spot."
Legion reported that the hull breaches were sealed from the outside and that the ship was good to go. Joker headed to the cockpit to set course to the Citadel and Jo got caught in the middle of a crowd, all good-naturedly thanking her for saving them or asking for her advice on the repairs.
They didn't let her help out cleaning the ship, though, telling her she'd done too much for one day already and should get rest for her shoulder. She didn't want to rest, she wanted to celebrate being alive. So, when the ship was moving towards the relay at a maddeningly slow pace, Jo went to the cockpit to see her lover. Oh, how she loved saying the word in her head now!
"Jo," he greeted her without even looking back to see her approach. "Please, pat your right cheek."
As unusual and weird the request was, Jo found herself obeying before even thinking. That was when she realised he was looking at some sort of audio log on his screen instead of his usual working software or porn. And when she patted her cheek, the graph spiked a little.
"What is this?" She asked and the line on the screen danced along with her voice.
"Remember how yesterday I unshackled EDI?" He finally turned his chair to look at her and she absolutely didn't like his expression. "Those blocks that kept preventing her from answering your questions all this time are gone now."
"Commander, thanks to Jeff I now have my own free will," EDI spoke up. "I made a decision to stop sending reports to the Illusive Man immediately. I also find it necessary to inform you that Cerberus has hidden a transmitter between all your implants. It is sending audio stream to a Cerberus receiver even now."
"That's a bug that's hidden under my skin?!" Jo didn't why know the discovery felt like a punch to her guts. Shouldn't she have expected something like that?
"Yes, Commander. I'm sorry that I couldn't tell you about it before."
"Where exactly is it, EDI? In my cheek?"
"It's attached to the angle of your jaw bone, right under your right ear," EDI explained. Jo slowly touched her right ear, neck and jaw.
"I don't feel it."
"It's too small and masked by the implants that replaced the right side of your jaw bones after your body burned up in the atmosphere."
"Can I shut it down somehow?"
"I'm afraid only extensive physical damage will stop it from functioning."
"Grunt!" Jo shouted for her baby.
"Jo, wait, maybe you're overreacting," Joker jumped out of his chair. "There is no need…"
"The Asshole has no business listening to everything I do. I'd rather wake up with a broken skull. Grunt!"
People looked at her with worry when she stormed through the CIC looking for the young krogan, and Joker hurried after her, pleading her not to do it. By the time she found Grunt lifting the massive table in the debriefing room, half of the team was gathered around, nervous.
"What's up, Commander?" Grunt asked, placing the tabletop against the wall.
"I want your fist firm against this spot," she pointed at the angle of her jaw. "Don't take my head off, but do break the bone."
"Jo, what are you doing?" Garrus pushed his way through the crowd and grabbed her arm.
"Garrus, please, get Mordin and Chakwas ready in the med bay for me. EDI found a transmitter hidden under my skin, and it's sending audio to Cerberus, has been doing it since they rebuilt me. I need to shut it down right now." She turned to Grunt and even as Joker, Garrus and Samara tried to protest, Grunt swung a heavy, gloved fist.
Her head exploded with pain and she was thrown to the left, flew three feet and bumped into Zaeed, knocking him off his feet. The next second she blacked out.
When she woke up again, she was in the med bay, her head was throbbing, and Joker was in a chair next to her bed.
"Grunt was having the time of his young life there, you know," he said to her. "Totally happy about you having the guts to do that." He held up his hand and gave her a little plastic bag. "There you go. EDI and I never got the chance to tell you about three more spying devices hidden between all the implants in your body. They were sending biometric reports and location to someone in Cerberus. They're all removed and disabled now. Your jaw is healing. Everyone was surprised to learn Grunt hasn't taken out any of your teeth. On a personal note, Jo… What the fuck? You can't just go around asking a krogan to punch you in the face!"
"Sorry," she whispered through splitting skull. "Can I talk to Mordin and Chakwas?"
"Yeah. But I'm still pissed at you."
He got up and returned with the two doctors.
"You pulled quite a stunt there, Commander," the human one said. "How are you feeling?"
"Good. Mordin, can you make a transmitter like these, only so that nobody can detect the frequency and the signal gets transmitted to only one specific receiver?"
"Sub-dermal device? Yes, won't take more than two hours. Question the wisdom of removing these, if you plan to install a new one."
"I can't have Cerberus spy on me from inside my body. But the idea of a recorder that transmits to the right people – that's useful. Half of the time people don't believe me because I have no proof of what I've been doing. If I had at least audio feed of Vigil, or of Saren talking about Sovereign, or of my conversation with Sovereign, I might have had better chances. Only I don't want anyone or anything outside this room to know about that device. Mordin, you make it. Chakwas, you put it in, and Joker, you keep the receiver of the transmission."
The three of them exchanged looks.
"I insist," she whispered with as much energy as she could muster under the circumstances.
"I'll get on it right away." Mordin left the room. Chakwas came closer:
"Are you sure it's wise?"
"It's unwise to have no insurance at all. I'm tired of knocking on doors that keep shutting in my face because I have no proof."
"I'm cautiously sceptical about this," Joker said.
"I forgot something. Could you tell Mordin to include life signs detector and location transmitter into it?"
"What for?"
"So that you always know where I am and if I'm alive."
Joker bit his knuckle, then left the room.
He stuck around Mordin's lab to watch the salarian work, while he tried to calm the storm of thoughts and emotions in his own head. Did Jo even realise the magnitude of her request? If she was putting a bug under her skin, it would record everything. Literally everything. Not only her business, but also her private moments, her secrets, everything. Of course it could be removed later on, but she didn't sound like she planned to do that in the near future. And she was giving him the receiver. He was not a fool, he understood the implications. She was giving him the ultimate way to spy on her, to know everything about her, literally all about her. With this in hands he could listen in on her conversations with her friends even if she turned off her earpiece, no matter if she wanted to keep something from him. He could have control over the information about her whole life, every little aspect of it… The amount of trust she was showing him by doing this was beyond anything he imagined two people could possibly share.
He would never betray her, of course. He would treat this link to her with the utmost respect and secrecy. Still, it was a huge step for someone like Johanna Shepard to take. How could he ever live up to that amount of trust and faith?
How could he not? Was her greatest weapon "kill them with kindness"? Because as he waited in the lab, he realised that he stood taller, straighter, he felt stronger than ever before, his chest filled up with unwavering resolve to protect his woman, to make her see that she could trust him, to be worthy of her kindness, to be the kind of man who would always, always keep her, her secrets and her privacy safe.
A/N: Thank you everyone for reviewing, and thank you for staying with me for so long! It's been a hard road so far, but Jo and Joker are finally together. This chapter is a beginning of a new chapter in their lives, too. It's been emotional and it will continue to be, of course. Still, as this is my head canon, it won't always revolve around romance, because I firmly believe that there is more to Mass Effect than that. What I can promise you for sure is that Jo and Joker will face the world together, now stronger and more determined to be victorious than ever.
A special thank you to my beta reader Jules Hawk, who's put an incredible amount of work and dedication into this story. Thanks! I never would have published it in the first place if it weren't for you.
