James was not surprised when things started happening in the next week. He got new orders about Commander Shepard being allowed to use the gym and the cafeteria along with the park. He told her about it but she shrugged it off, showing him clearly that she knew where the favours came from and how much she wanted them. James found it was a shame, really. She could have had more freedom, could have escaped daily routine, and refused it just because Major Alenko would certainly be waiting for her at those places, trying to talk to her. Refusing help out of stubbornness seemed like such a childish idea that James couldn't believe it was the real reason. He'd never met the man, didn't know the specifics of his and Shepard's fallout, thus he couldn't make any judgements.
Soon after that Admiral Anderson sent him a direct order to forward Major Alenko's mail to Shepard despite the more than strict order by the Defence Committee prohibiting her to have any contact with the outside. Alenko's email arrived soon after. True to his orders, James told Shepard she had mail. She rolled her eyes without even putting her book aside:
"Let me guess. Kaidan Alenko writes how sad it makes him to remember our times together and how he'd do anything now to try and win me back?"
Her estimation was so close to the original that James knew: Shepard's opinion on this Major was not based on a fleeting judgement. She knew him, truly did, and yet she deemed him unworthy. He also tried not to think about those "times together" she mentioned. That was none of his business, and he hoped he'd believe it one day if he told it to himself often enough.
"Pretty much," he said, vowing to himself to get her to have a better opinion of him than of Alenko, or to die trying.
"Consider me notified," she said nonchalantly and returned to her book. It was "Flora and Fauna of Thessia".
Two days later James was walking Shepard back to her room after another interrogation when his way was suddenly blocked. James had searched for Alenko's pictures on the extranet before, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that he was a little taller and a lot heavier than the real-life Major.
"Clear the way, Sir. Please," James decided to be polite but unrelenting.
"Lieutenant, I want to speak with your charge," Alenko spoke up.
"That is against orders, Sir. This is a special prisoner transfer. She is not allowed to have contact with anyone without a special clearance."
The Major's eyes darkened. He opened his omnitool and sent a file James' way.
"I have clearance, Lieutenant. Step aside, please."
James suddenly felt a small, gentle and very warm hand on the small of his back. The gesture sent his body into overdrive and his mind spinning. So far Shepard had stood still right behind him, completely hidden by his large frame. Now she touched him to get his attention and the gesture was nothing like any other time she'd touched him. This was almost... intimate.
On stiff legs he stepped aside, letting her face the Major.
"Shepard," Alenko sucked in some air, probably preparing himself to deliver whatever speech he had prepared, but she said nothing in reply. She cocked her head a little, regarding him like he was a slightly disgusting animal in the zoo.
"Major?" She finally said and her eyebrows rose a little bit. "Didn't realise you were promoted. Spirits help those poor soldiers under your command," she sighed out the turian prayer. "How is that working out for them? And you?"
"I, uhm, quite well, actually." Major Alenko was thrown for a loop by her reaction. This reunion was not going according to his plan and he seemed aggravated. James smiled to himself, remembering Joker's words: Alenko had put Shepard on a pedestal and was constantly surprised when she didn't act according to his view of her. James couldn't have wished for a better example of what Joker had meant.
"Why, have you reconsidered your position on always acting strictly by the book?"
The Major got his footing back and some iron seeped into his voice:
"Rules are there for a reason, Shepard. I always hoped you'd understand that, but maybe I've been wrong, maybe working for Cerberus... Well. At least the Alliance recognises loyalty and rewards it."
"So much older and not an iota wiser," Shepard sighed. "As a leader you have to make decisions that literally mean life and death for billions of people, Alenko. If you always have to consult your superiors or a guideline book, you're clearly unable of feeling in your gut what the right thing to do is. That's why you're not worthy of command. The galaxy is a gigantic place where your integrity alone decides what kind of person and leader you are. The only reason you've been promoted so high is because you're a blind and obedient pawn in someone else's game. The fact that you don't see it makes me kind of sad and insulted on your behalf, but then again you're not the one I'm concerned about. Those people under your command - that's who concerns me. Their lives and their health."
"Rules are there to protect us from becoming monsters like Cerberus! Disregarding rules is a sure way to losing your humanity, Shepard. I hoped you'd understand that, but perhaps I've been wrong."
"One of us is wrong for sure," Shepard shrugged. "History will tell which one." With that she put her hands on Alenko's shoulders, lifted him a little like a small child and set him aside. Once he was no longer in her way, she continued walking.
James knew he'd spend many days thinking about her words. He wanted to know if she'd always known what the right thing to do was, in every situation, with every decision. He wanted to know if she had regrets or was tortured by pain about something she'd done or hadn't done, but in the end he knew this was not about her. It was about him, his decisions as a leader, his regrets and the faces of all the people of Fehl Prime that haunted his sleep. He would have to come to terms with his own mistakes, Shepard had nothing to do with them.
The change in Shepard was unmistakable. Miraculous. For the rest of December Joker spread his 30 hours over 5-6 nights a week and James could hardly regret his role in this. Shepard looked like a whole different person after a week and by the end of the second week her facial scars healed considerably.
Alenko had stopped all attempts to contact Shepard and restricted his activities to the Normandy, driving Joker insane instead.
It was almost Christmas now and James was a little surprised that Shepard never mentioned it at all. Granted, the brig in the Alliance HQ building wasn't exactly the place for big celebrations. Soldiers were not the mushy kind. But still, how could you forget the holiday?
"The what?" Shepard sounded genuinely surprised one evening, when the three of them sat lazily on her two couches after a nice dinner, with Joker's arm possessively around her.
"You know, the little thing we call Christmas?" James grinned, thinking she was making fun of him, when he realised she was not. She looked a little confused.
"It's time for that already? Well, have fun then," she nodded at him, thinking the topic was closed. Not for James.
"Aren't you going to celebrate?"
"I never did, why start now?"
James sat back, realising that he'd just put a foot in his mouth. Christmas was the official term for family time, kids, presents, dinners at home, magic, stuff like that... Shepard never had a family to celebrate with. No parents to make an abundant dinner, probably nobody to give her a gift.
James' eyes shifted to Joker. The two men exchanged a long glance. Joker came from a real family, James knew that much. He'd celebrated Christmas all right. And for people in their profession, seriously, how often did they get a chance to celebrate Christmas on their home planet? Not an adjusted holiday on some remote colony, whenever it snowed there, but the real thing?
Well, if Shepard wasn't going to pay attention to the miracle of that, then he and Joker would have to arrange something for her. An understanding passed between the two of them.
"I am getting a bit restless, though," Shepard firmly steered the conversation to another topic, as if any mention of Christmas was unpleasant to her. "It's been too long since I was in a real, challenging fight."
"Oho, are you trying to insult me?" James grinned. "We sparred just yesterday and I distinctly remember almost winning."
"Key word being almost," she shrugged with an evil smile. "You still haven't wrestled me down even once, and I told you when we met: you can only really be my guard if you can defeat me. So far you haven't been a challenge. I'm longing for a real, tough opponent."
"Like?"
"The king of all krogans would be nice right now."
James remembered Joker saying something about "the king of all krogans" a while back and he still wasn't sure if it was some sort of an insider joke from the Normandy or if there really was a king of all krogans out there. Well, James couldn't bring krogans to the brig, no matter how lenient Admiral Anderson and the Defence Committee were being with Shepard.
"Are you sure I can't satisfy your needs?" He asked, incredulous deep inside at his own audacious choice of words. Neither Shepard nor Joker even blinked.
"I fight dirty and I fight ugly. Babying you is fun for distraction, but it's far from a real workout for me."
"Now you're really trying to insult me. I'm not that bad! Admiral Anderson picked me personally to guard you. Not another N7. Me."
"Just so you know, N7s are not in the business of guarding," Shepard winked at him. "Rather in the business of finding their way around guards."
"Managed to keep you safe so far, didn't I?" James enjoyed this easy banter a lot. He felt like he belonged, like Shepard considered him close enough to let her guard down around him.
"True," Shepard tilted her head. "You're right. Anderson picked you for a reason. He didn't just grab the first yahoo off the street, he knows what he's doing. So if you prove to me that you're good enough, maybe one day you'll set foot on my ship."
Vega grinned:
"Oh, I've been on your ship, Commander. Admiral Anderson picked me up on it from Omega."
Jo's face suddenly became an icy mask and she sat up straight. Joker frowned at Vega, taking his arm off Jo's shoulder.
"What." She dropped the word in a killer's voice.
"Yeah, a couple of days after you surrendered to the Alliance, he pulled me out of a bar fight on Omega and flew me here in a frigate called the Normandy, class SR2. I've seen most of it while I was on board. Your VI was driving the technicians crazy."
Jo turned to Joker, who was already on his feet.
"Find out if that's true. Find out how long, who, when and where," she hissed. Joker hurried out, not any less eager to know who had flown his baby while he was grounded. Jo turned to Vega: "And you – go and get Anderson here. Right now. Or else."
It took Anderson over an hour to appear at her door. When he did, followed my a rather pale and quiet Vega, Jo was ready to shoot someone.
"Shepard?" He greeted her. "Lieutenant Vega said you were angry. What's going on?"
Jo stepped closer to the man and put one hard finger on his chest.
"That kid tells me you picked him up from Omega?"
"That's right."
"ON MY SHIP?" She suddenly yelled, letting her fury out full force. Anderson swayed backwards.
"Calm down, Shepard. The Alliance had some diagnostics to run on her and I took her for a test run, nothing serious. To Omega and back."
"Hackett, the Defence Committee and YOU! told me she is grounded." The pressure from her finger made Anderson lean back.
"She is."
"How DARE you take MY ship for joyrides, and without even asking me first!"
"I'm sorry Shepard, I should have told you. I didn't think you'd be so upset."
"You treacherous bastard, Anderson."
"What's the matter with you? Don't you trust me?"
"Trust you?! That ship is my life! My home, my second skin. She is what stands between me and the rest of the world! How would you feel if your good pal entered your house and fucked your wife? And afterwards said: hey, she was just standing there in the kitchen with nothing to do, so I made sure she was well lubricated for you!"
Anderson took a step back. Vega and a few more guards stood right behind the open door and tried hard to appear invisible. Jo couldn't remember the last time she felt so enraged, so betrayed. She was probably fuming from her ears. And this man was calling himself her friend and protector?!
"You are exaggerating, Shepard. Have you forgotten that I was the first captain of the original Normandy?"
"The first one – maybe. For as long as the shakedown run lasted, and not a second longer. But this one – she is mine and mine alone. You of all people should know that a ship has a soul. If she's allowed enemies to take her over, it's treason. If she was flown by a different captain – it's as close to treason as it gets. I'll have to have a word with EDI about that." Jo leaned even closer and hissed into the dark face: "If you ever again try and pretend to be my ship's captain, you are a dead man, Anderson. Mark my words. That's a promise." She stepped back and watched with fury how the former Councillor shook his head and left the room. He almost ran into Joker.
"Anderson took her for one flight to Omega when the diagnostics team first ran their tests. Nothing else."
"Fuck, I've never felt this violated in my life," Jo couldn't stop pacing the room up and down.
"Commander, I'm sorry for dropping a bomb between you and your friend," Vega said, entering the room and closing the door.
"You did right, Vega. I needed to know what's happening to my property behind my back. It was not very friend-like of Anderson to do this to me. It's his fault, not yours."
"How could he not have realised that we'd go ballistic?" Joker frowned deeply.
"Perhaps he wanted to feel the glory of commanding a ship one last time, and not just any ship, but the Normandy herself?" Vega suggested.
"That had better be his only excuse. Until today I trusted Anderson. Now he's been moved to the list of people I'm careful about." Jo's hands were shaking. Military spaceships rotated commanders regularly, but the SR2 Normandy had never been a military ship. She had been made from scratch for Jo and Jo alone. This betrayal cut especially deep because it came from someone Jo thought would understand and have a little more respect.
Jo hardly allowed her feelings to show so openly in public, but the scale of Anderson's betrayal really threw her out of her comfort zone.
Bad things tended to happen when she was out of her comfort zone. She just knew she'd have a nightmare when she and Joker went to bed later that night, she was too emotionally shaken not to. It was Joker's presence alone that allowed her to fall asleep at all.
...something was disturbing her, pulling her out of the sticky liquid cobweb of blackness, lifting her up, yet also anchoring her. She tried to shake it off, but the alternative - the cobwebs - would surely suffocate her.
"Jo, wake up," a whisper touched her. "Jo, you're dreaming, wake up."
I'm dreaming? She thought, morbidly enjoying the feeling of her hands becoming filthy from the touch of the sticky black webs. Of course I'm dreaming, what else could this be?
Wait. I'm dreaming. I'm asleep and this is a dream.
The realisation propelled her right out of the dream and into a sitting position. Joker sat on the bed next to her, watching her closely with concern. Jo rubbed her hands and looked down at them. She remembered the feeling of filth on them, but not much else from the dream.
"Jo?" Joker asked carefully. "You good?"
She blinked, tore her gaze away from her hands and looked at him. He was dishevelled, one sleeve of his t-shirt rolled up to the shoulder, his legs seemed too bare without the braces. Jo looked at him and pulled herself back to reality.
It was the middle of the night. The only reason she could see him were the lights of the never ending night life of the city behind the windows. As predicted, the argument with Anderson earlier had brought on another nightmare.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Did I kick around?"
"No, but you scared the shit out of me. You were making noises like you were drowning."
"I was," she said. "I mean… I don't remember. I think I was."
"Wanna tell me what you saw?" He asked. "You always look and sound like you're dreaming of suffocation. Are you reliving your death?"
Jo looked at her hands and back at him.
"Perhaps," she whispered barely audibly. A big, unbearable emotion suddenly rushed over her and she sobbed, a lump tightening in her throat. Immediately Joker was at her side, pulling her into his arms:
"Baby, it's okay, you're alive and it's all fine," he chanted, stroking her hair. "You're alive and you're going to feel better tomorrow, I promise."
"Am I?" She pushed herself away from him just enough to look him in the eye. "Am I going to be okay? 'Cause right now I'm feeling like there is no end to that darkness."
He looked at her with such sadness for a second that she almost began crying:
"Jo, you don't have the slightest idea how much I wish to slay your demons for you. I would give anything to make you feel better," he spoke in deadly honesty. "If there is anything, anything at all that I can do to make you feel any better, tell me."
She leaned against him, suddenly cold.
"I need to tell you everything. I need to tell someone and you're the only one I've ever trusted enough. I know I refused time and time again when you asked me, but I wasn't ready. Now I am and I need you to listen and to understand."
Joker swallowed hard, rubbing his hands up and down her shoulders in a reassuring rhythm.
"I'll always be there for you."
Jo considered him for a moment, then lay down on the bed, making him lie next to her. In the semi-darkness of the big city night she began speaking and Joker knew that this was more than a confession. She was literally pouring out her soul.
"I'm a very messed up person, Jeff," she started. "I don't remember a time when I haven't been."
"That doesn't really come as a surprise to me, Jo. I know you have many scars."
"I'm only a woman in body, you know, not in spirit," she whispered. "I taught myself from a very young age on to not feel or to act like a girl."
"Yeah, I imagine it was a necessary protection when you were on the streets and in that gang of yours."
"It all started long before I got into that gang. It started in the orphanage. I come from a typical white trash family, from parents who'd been to young to care for a child, who didn't love me enough to stop taking drugs. Maybe their death was their own kind of mercy towards me, I don't know. All I know is that the first time I had to fight for my life was when I was ten months old. They were on a bender, forgot to feed me, the neighbours called the police, I was almost starved. They got me back, but police reports showed that it didn't get any better with them. So, at the age of two I finally ended up in the orphanage. Survival was already in my blood. The nurses told me that I threw my first punch on my third birthday when an elder boy tried to take away my birthday cake. He struck back. And that's what sealed my fate: I didn't cry."
Joker tried to imagine Jo as a toddler. All he could think of was a maddeningly cute girl with impossibly white hair, like a cherub child... with murder in her eyes. His heart broke at the picture.
"From then on boys made it a sort of sport: who can make Johanna cry? They'd punch and pinch me or prick me with needles or cut me with broken glass. I refused to cry. They probably felt that I wasn't really human, that I was a wild animal who'd rather die than show weakness, but the thing is - they're the ones who brought that animal out in me. The harder they tried to get a human reaction out of me, the harder I became. And the adults in the orphanage... They were just as unsettled by me as the other kids. Sometimes I saw them stand and watch while a group of boys would beat me bloody, and the looks on their faces... I remember those looks even now. Fear. They thought me unnatural, uncanny. I gave them the creeps. So by the age of seven I learned how to never rely on anyone else but me. You wonder why I have an arsenal under my pillow on the Normandy? I needed weapons ready at all times even in the orphanage, it meant a severe beating if I couldn't feel in my sleep that someone was approaching, if I couldn't go from sleep to battle in half a second, if I had nothing to defend myself with."
And that never changed for her, Joker knew. Civilians thought that this battle-readiness was a soldier's trademark, but it seemed that Jo found it so easy being in the military because that instinct was bred and beaten into her from birth.
"I acted like a boy, fought like a boy, I had no use for girls. I didn't even know what it meant, being a girl. Girls were weak. And then one day, when I was eight, I learned just how weak girls truly are. I was trying to climb a lamp post by the far end of the back yard. A blue balloon caught on it by its thread and I wanted to get it. That's when I heard those noises. Noises that I kept hearing for years in my sleep, noises I'll never ever forget. A tortured, rhythmical kind of moaning, like when someone's screaming into a pillow. They were coming from the unused dark shed at the very back of the property. I went there quietly and peaked through a window."
The word 'rhythmical' told Joker all he needed to know and he was already dying inside for the little Jo, for whatever happened next, but he knew that she needed to say it out loud. Acknowledge it. Own it.
"I saw one of the carers and an elder girl from the orphanage. She was lying on her back on a tool table, her hands were tied to a pipe above her, bloody from fighting, rigid in agony, her face was all swollen and bloody from the beating and her mouth was shut with duct tape. The carer stood between her rigid, jerking legs, his own pants down around his ankles, and he was moving so oddly. I had no idea what he was doing, I was only eight. All I knew was the look of an animalistic dominance, of hunger for power in his eyes when he slammed his hips into her again and again, and the agony, helplessness, defeat, horror and loss in her eyes as she tried to fight him but couldn't. The harder she fought, the harder he punched her, until she gave up. She gave up fighting, went limp and endured the rest of it with tears of helpless defeat in her eyes, she let him defeat her. Not only physically, but mentally as well. After a while he cried out, put his pants back on, cut her ties and told her that if she ever told anyone it was him, he'd do the same to her again and again."
Joker was shaking, his insides hard and cold like ice. The huge lump in his throat almost blocked his breathing and a tear freely dropped from the corner of his eye onto the pillow. Jo sounded harsh but a little detached. Perhaps that was the only way she could tell the story. She wasn't showing any emotions, but Joker didn't feel the need to hide his. What happened in front of her all those years ago was beyond horrible. It was unspeakable.
"I hid so that he didn't see me. I had no idea what was happening, but I learned the best lesson in that moment. I learned who my enemy was. The man. The male. Every male person. Because males, kids or adults, are always out to hurt females, subdue us, violate us. I knew then that I would do anything and everything to become strong enough to be able to fight off any male attacker who'd come after me. But more importantly: I knew that I would never stop fighting like this girl did. I'd rather die than surrender to a man. I'd rather kill myself than give in to a man and let him own me. I would never be weak-minded, no matter the cost. I learned that day what power meant and I vowed to myself to never give anyone power over me, ever. I also learned what weakness was. That girl never told anyone what that man did. She'd been transferred later, but he remained at the orphanage. She was too weak to make sure he got what he deserved. And I certainly had no use for weakness, even if she was the victim. I knew I would never be that kind of a victim."
So many things she was telling him explained Jo's character as an adult, though he'd never have guessed where they came from.
"So I started paying more attention to the carers in the orphanage. Since I was so small, fought like a beast all the time and stayed away from everyone, they hardly noticed that I was watching them. Sometimes I would see the way they looked at the elder girls. With animalistic hunger. So when one day someone in the dorm suggested running away and trying our luck on the streets, I was the first to agree. That's how and why I left the orphanage."
Now Joker could really understand why she'd never answered that question before, even though he'd asked her directly.
"That's not the end of it. It's only the beginning," she said in the darkness and Joker's heart sank. "That carer may have been the man who defined who I became, but he's not the man who wronged me the most."
Joker's heart sank again. After what he'd just heard, the only thing worse than witnessing rape would be living through it. Would she tell him something like that? God, he hoped not.
"Perhaps you remember the name. Gore Stanbury. When Finch found me on the Citadel, I asked you to remind me to pay a visit to Gore one day. Never came to be, though," she sighed a little. "Gore was the founder and the leader of the Tenth Street Reds. He found us when winter was about to get really harsh and we were nothing but a group of small kids living under a bridge, eating from garbage bins, finding our clothes the same way. He offered us a place to live: a warm and secure warehouse. To repay him for the kindness, we'd have to run errands for him now and then. We had little choice but to agree or die a miserable death under that bridge. I remained with Gore for the next ten years and slowly learned his deal. He started off as a small drug dealer and it was his biggest source of income. He also owned a strip club as a legitimate business front. Then he expanded to guns. He had many police officers on his payroll, a few politicians, a doctor who took care of bullet wounds after gang fights, even a school principal who enrolled us and legalised our stay with Gore. That warehouse was our official address and no one ever came to check on our living conditions. We didn't go to school, not regularly. I learned how to read at the orphanage, but in those ten years with Gore I've read exactly two things: the manual about how to use tampons and the Alliance recruitment brochure."
"But you read so much now," Joker couldn't hold back his surprise.
"Yeah, the Alliance changed that for me. But that came later. Gore used us as couriers. Cops didn't pay attention to children running around, and rival gang members always thought twice before attacking kids, so we were perfect for his drug deliveries all over town. That was how we repaid his kindness. But his kindness..." Joker felt her shudder next to him. "The warehouse was heated, and that's the only, I repeat: only kindness he'd shown us. He didn't give us clothes or food or money to buy anything. We always had to fend for ourselves. Sometimes he'd give us some food if we were at his club, but that was a rare thing. We didn't have beds. There were some wooden benches and they were better than sleeping on the concrete floor, so we had to constantly defend our positions. I had a bench, obviously, but boy, I had to fight tooth and claw for it. Gore practiced psychological terrorism, it was his way. He would constantly remind us how grateful we should be to him for his kindness, what a great man he was for being so charitable. That's his word, the only complicated word I learned in those ten years. If we did something wrong, he would beat us, then tell us he forgave us the betrayal because he was such a kind-hearted man. We didn't know any better, you know. To us he was the father none of us had. After a few years with him the kids would do anything, absolutely anything to earn his approval."
"But not you, I imagine."
"No, I was different. Sure, at first I wanted his approval, too. But those ten years are filled with more violence than you've seen me involved in during all my battles. Daily knifings, fights with other gangs, fights among ourselves for the best spot in the hierarchy, violence from Gore and his goons. Every single day of those years is filled with blood, broken bodies, death, fear, desolation and hopelessness. Kids like me fell left and right from me, killed by friend or foe. I had to step over their bodies and memories to keep walking. I would do anything to survive, and I learned how to move on when a friend died, how to not be bothered by blood and gore, how to love violence. At least I had a fair chance to defend myself. Gore liked it when we could prove ourselves in a fight. Truly, those ten years are the worst of my life because I've known real horrors of humanity on those streets, I've seen the deepest human nature, I've known real fear there."
She paused, thinking. Her voice was stronger now, the memories clearer and more focused than the early childhood ones.
"The one good thing I have to say about Gore is that he never went into prostitution."
"Not that I object, but why? Wouldn't that be easy money what with many available girls?" Joker dared to ask.
"Probably. I don't know why. Perhaps he liked to own his toys and didn't want to share. We were his toys. But then eventually I got older and things started to change. See, Gore kept us as his runners, but you could only enter his gang and receive the markings when you turned eighteen and could prove your loyalty. And by that time he'd emotionally terrorised us into complete and utter submission. Most of us would literally do anything to please him. Also, only boys were admitted. No girls. The girls ended up dancing in his club instead. Needless to say: I was not dancing. I wore baggy clothes, wore my hair messy and acted like a boy to keep anyone from seeing me as a female being. My nickname was The Beast and I earned that every day of those ten years. So when I was around thirteen, I knew that the time would come soon when Gore would have to make a decision about me. He'd never allow me to become a full gang member, and the authorities were all bought off, recognising him as my legal guardian. I had nowhere to go until I was eighteen, and even then I'd be lucky to get away."
Joker nodded. It made sense.
"The older I got, the more I saw around me. Gore liked his girls. He had his club dancers perform for him whenever he wanted, he fucked them whenever he wanted, too. He fucked all the girls, no matter if they were twenty or eleven. I was the only one he hadn't touched. I did all I could so that he didn't see me as a sexual object, and it worked, surprisingly well, actually. But I couldn't help but get curious. About sex. I knew not all sex was rape by then, of course, but all I could see were weak women who let men exploit them, diminish them, fuck them, own them. So when I was fifteen, I decided I needed to know what it was all about. So I basically grabbed a boy, another runner slightly older than me, tossed him on the bench, got rid of my virginity and tossed him out again, wondering why anyone would want to do that repeatedly. It cemented my belief that I had to protect myself from all male touch."
"Sounds like a very romantic experience," Joker snorted. "You're such a charmer."
"Yeah," she chuckled. "Anyway, a few months later me and a couple other runners got into a fight with a rival gang. One of them wanted to shoot my buddy, so I grabbed a stone from the curb, jumped at him and smashed it against his head. Then again. And again. He was dead when he fell to the ground, but that didn't stop me. I remember sitting on his back and hammering that stone against his skull, making mash out of it. I just left the eyes, they swam in that sea of brain, blood and goo like two swans, looking at me. I killed a man in cold blood, gruesomely, I made pulp out of his brain and I enjoyed every second of it."
Joker knew that, sexual abuse aside, this was one of the hardest confessions she would make tonight. She needed him to understand the violence inside her and the love for that violence that she couldn't help. And... he did understand. He knew it was a part of her. A part she had accepted years ago. She needed him to accept it, too.
"Gore was thrilled when he learned about it. He gave me my first pistol as a reward. It was too big for me, but it was a real weapon. I turned a guy's head to pulp and liked it, but a part of me felt like it was wrong to like it. So, not knowing any better and not having anyone else to go to, I waited for Gore's reaction. I thought: if he tells me I was too cruel and was never to do that again, that would be... right. If he encouraged that kind of behaviour, we'll officially part our ways. I wanted him to tell me what the right thing to do was, even though deep inside I already knew it, just wanted his confirmation. He failed the test. He was excited. And that is why I say he's the man who wronged me most in my life."
"But Jo, you didn't need some man to tell you what you always knew in your heart. That's why you're so amazing."
"Thank you," she sounded humbled. "Well. I was a deadly menace in those years. I was unusually strong compared to other kids, which simply came from a lifetime of violence and survival. I could endure pretty much anything: long runs, heavy load, lack of sleep, cold, heat, lack of food or digesting rotten food, the sight of my friends dying, the sight of blood and intestines, and most importantly: pain. I could take so much pain that even Gore thought it was not normal. But the truth was: every time I fought, I fought to the death. Surrender didn't exist to me. Losing was not an option. I either won or I died. It made me the ultimate survivor. Gore was starting to realise how dangerous I was when even his best goons couldn't hold me down anymore. He was starting to look at me with more and more attention and finally he decided to really put me in my place on my eighteenth birthday."
Joker knew that she enlisted in the Alliance on her eighteenth birthday, and now he would finally learn why. He wasn't sure he wanted to, but he needed to hear it as much as she needed to say it.
"See, my firm belief that all males were my enemies simply by having a penis never wavered, it only strengthened by watching Gore mistreating women. I lived every waking and sleeping minute waiting for some male to attack me, to try to rape me. My every interaction with any male human was based on the belief that he wanted to rape me. I lived and breathed that fear and expectation, knowing that there was no escape, it was bound to happen. So, when the midnight rolled on my birthday, Gore invited me to his private room in the strip club. He said he wanted to be the first to congratulate me. His goons remained in the corridor and we remained alone. I was suspicious, of course, but... Well, there is no excuse that would sound good enough. He offered me a drink and I may have had a choice, but under his heavy glance... I did drink a little."
"It was spiked, wasn't it?"
"Yes. I started feeling dizzy right away, and his smile turned exactly into the expression I've seen on the carer's face while he was raping that girl. It paralysed me more than the drink because the realisation hit: this was it. The moment I'd been afraid of for ten years. And I was weakened, dizzy, barely able to keep up my usual level of fighting, while Gore never was a small man. And then he got too cocky."
Joker wasn't breathing.
"He counted on me taking a bigger sip or on the drug working faster and better, I don't know. He started pawing me, telling me that it was a special drug that would make me willing while fully conscious, so that I would know exactly who owned me and in which ways. Or maybe he simply hadn't counted on my one true philosophy until then: fight or die, no surrender. I fought. I was dizzy and freaking out like hell, but after some attempts I managed to throw him off and break his wrist. Now, at my current age and with my training, if I man tries that on me, I won't lose my cool anymore. But back then... I panicked, truly freaked out. My single worst nightmare, the thing I was afraid of constantly, was happening and I was too dizzy to really stop it. But while he was nursing his wrist, I managed to slip outside the club through the secret door he'd built into that room for safe escape in case of a raid."
"So he didn't..."
"No. He didn't. And until this day I'm proud to say that no man has ever touched me sexually in a way I didn't want him to. But that day... I freaked, totally hyperventilated. I barely escaped when he sent his goons after me, ended up throwing up the rest of the night in the sewers next to rats eating a dead dog, then washed myself in the harbour and when the morning came, I headed to the Alliance recruitment centre. I ran as fast as I could from Vancouver, as far as I could and I never wanted to return. I have no problems with aliens. All my beef is with humanity and especially with this city, full of people like Gore."
Joker took a deep, calming breath. There was just one question that he wanted to ask.
"You said that Gore failed you by cultivating your cruelty. How was the Alliance any different? You are required to kill, aren't you?"
"By necessity, to eliminate hostile opposition and establish peace. You're not supposed to enjoy murdering people in cold blood in the Alliance. The Shepard you know was born that day. See, the Alliance gave me everything I have, literally. It made me a human being, it educated me, gave me normalcy, gave me friends and family, it was the first place where I felt safe. Leaving it was not a light choice, you have to understand. But I made it when I found out that some elements of it are just as rotten as Vancouver and its streets. "
"I can see how that betrayal would make you want to quit."
"Yes. Make no mistake, though. For many years after I joined the Alliance the man was still my greatest enemy. I trained like demons were chasing me, harder than any of my boot camp buddies. I spent my every waking hour making my body a perfect weapon, and I continued to do that, calculating my every interaction with men carefully, until that night before Ilos."
"Huh?" Joker raised his head to look at his woman, her skin glowing in the eerie purple and blue light of the nightly Vancouver. "Night before Ilos? When Alenko tried to kiss you?"
"That night, yes, but I'm not talking about Alenko. I'm talking about you. When we were done talking, I went back to my room, and on my way through the CIC I could feel your scorching glance on me, like you were undressing me with your eyes, devouring me, as if you had the right to do it. And for the first time in my life, literally the first time, I liked it. I wanted it, and I wanted more. You're the first and only man I ever willingly surrendered to, sexually."
"Phew," he exhaled. His head was spinning. "You're putting some heavy load on my fragile shoulders there, girlie."
"You have my full permission to brag about that on every corner," she nudged him gently and he heard a cheeky smile in her voice.
"Well, don't mind if I do!" He nudged her right back, but sobered quickly. "I'm still not getting why you're dreaming of drowning."
"Jeff, I'm going to tell you something I'm not comfortable telling anyone else. I remember even now what death and afterlife are like."
That sucked all good mood right out of the room.
"Go on."
"I returned to the source, for the lack of better explanation in human language. I was one with everything. I was happy and content, as far as the feeling can be described, since I had no body to feel it. Just my consciousness. I wasn't really Johanna Shepard, either, but something bigger, a consciousness, an awareness, and it was beautiful. I was one with the eternal peace. It was supposed to last forever, but then suddenly something weighed me down, yanked me back into a body that no longer fit, stuffed me in a meat bag way too small, too confining, it felt like I was stuck in a meat grinder, parts of me were chewed off so that I could fit into the body, but it was all wrong. It was agonizing. I was drowning in the unspeakable pain and agony, it was torture, worse than anything I have endured in my previous life. I felt nothing for a long time, cared about nothing. When my feelings for you returned, they anchored me down enough to remind me of who I am and why I care, but Jeff, it's still a hard battle each and every day."
"So you're not dreaming of your death, you're dreaming of your revival, when you thrash and scream at night?" His heart was barely beating.
"Guess so."
"Jo, I'm not a therapist. Someone else could give you much better advice. But I think what I want to say is: maybe you do have some unfinished business here. Maybe even something to look forward to. Not the responsibility of saving the galaxy or going against impossible odds. Just… I love you."
"I've been waiting for you forever. I'm happy you found me."
