Before Jo could give the order to leave the Citadel, she received a new message that made her rush off towards Huerta Memorial, but this time for completely different reasons. Someone very dear was waiting for her in the reception area.

"Thane," she breathed out, hugging the drell without reservations.

"Johanna," he hugged her back just as affectionately. "I tried to call, but I never got through."

"I was cut off from all communications back on Earth, and couldn't find you since I got away. You hide your traces well."

"Just hiding in plain sight," he shrugged. They sat down in front of a big window to have a talk. "I saw you visiting the biotic in the intensive care earlier."

"Yeah," Jo wrinkled her nose.

"We spoke. He seems an honourable sort. Your enemies may try to finish him off here. I will look out for him."

"Thane, do me a real favour, please. Don't. Don't look out for Alenko." At her words Thane raised an eyebrow just a little bit, but it was as clear a demand for an explanation as he was ever going to issue, considering his minimalistic gestures and expressions. "Alenko is not a friend. Just an enigma that keeps haunting me from old times. I wondered time and time again why he won't just die. Now Udina's grooming him for the position of the second human Spectre and I came here to try and prevent that from happening. Alenko can't become a Spectre. If your health allows it, and should he accept, would you please do me the honour of keeping an eye on him? He's going to mess up big, there is no doubt about that, but I can't be here to stop it. It would make me feel so much better if I knew you were keeping him in check."

"He made a good impression on me, but if there is one thing I trust, Shepard, it's that you are a good judge of character. I swear to you that I shall do as you ask until my health no longer allows it."

"Thank you so much, Thane. You really put my mind at ease," Jo said and she meant every word from the heart.

"Speaking of judge of character," Thane's voice softened as he looked up over her shoulder. Jo turned and saw another drell approaching.

"Kolyat," she got up to meet the young man. Last time she saw him was when she visited the Citadel before Bahak and before Vancouver. The last seven months turned the gangly boy into a man. "It's so good to see you," she bypassed his polite nod and wrapped an arm around his shoulders in a motherly hug. "You filled out," she noted. "Look calmer, more confident."

"Thank you, Commander. It is good to see you, as well. When my father told me you were coming to visit him, I hoped it would be acceptable for me to come and say hello as well."

"I would have been sour if you didn't show up," Jo smiled, looking him deep in the eye. "It brings me joy to see you and Thane have a relationship. You've come a long way from the boy I met all those months ago. It takes a great strength of character to own your mistakes and to work as hard as you did to make yourself a better man. That's why I like you, not just because you're the son of one of my best friends."

"You humble me, Commander." Kolyat cast his eyes down, reverting right back to the young boy he'd been not so long ago.

"Don't give me that, you know you always have my ear and my help if you need anything."

The three of them sat together for a while, catching up. Jo told them about the Council's reluctance to let her save the lives of their whole races, which made both drell simply sigh in resignation. Kolyat was proud to report that his work with Bailey was now reduced to simple small tasks now and then, while he had a regular job at the docks repairing the ships coming in after battle. There was no shortage of work at the moment. Thane sounded rather smug when he said that his favourite prognosis for his life expectance had been three months - nine months ago.

"I still wish I could take you with me to one of the deserts on Earth," Jo knew she sounded sad. She was. Her friend was dying and there was nothing she could do.

"I'm sorry that we couldn't do that before your planet got attacked. There won't be much left soon."

"Thing is, Thane, that the Earth will still be there, and so will the deserts. It's just us, the people, who won't. The planet will recover and probably only remember our brief existence in its dreams. Nature will take its course, even the Reapers can't stop that."

"In a different time, if you and I should ever live again, I would love nothing more than to go and see a desert with you," Thane bowed a little.

It was hard to leave the hospital. From now on every time she said goodbye to Thane could be the last. Still, people who needed her more than the two drell did waited for her out there and she had to give the order to leave the Citadel.

Half way to the summit with the salarians and the krogans Traynor came to Jo with the news about the Grissom Academy being under attack. It was almost on their way and Jo asked Primarch Victus to forgive her a few hours of delay while she dealt with the problem.


James couldn't help feeling like the odd man out when Lola and Scars took apart everything Cerberus was throwing at them on their way through the Grissom Academy. He had a choice: sulk and be jealous, or take this opportunity to learn from the best of the best. He chose the latter.

Shepard was in her element. She put both Joker and Cortez to good use distracting and evading Cerberus ships, then coordinated with Sanders, decimated Cerberus ground forces and calmed the scared students with a gentle, motherly hand along the way. Nothing could stop her, it seemed, until the moment when a strangely detached young man spoke up in a slightly creepy voice:

"The square root of 906.01 equals..."

Shepard's whole demeanour changed on the spot. She visibly paled, answering slowly:

"Thirty point one."

"Hello, Commander Shepard," the young man stepped forward and James almost felt Shepard shudder next to him. James couldn't help looking back and forth between her and this David, while she sent the other students off to the exit and Garrus exchanged greetings with the creepy guy. Were those tears in her eyes? Was her hand shaking? What was going on?

"I've been counting," David said.

"Anything in particular?" She asked. James knew she was tense, but her voice was incredibly gentle, not just attentive but really caring. Who was this man?

"The number of days you lengthened my life," David answered Shepard's question and she made a strange sound as she covered her mouth with her hand: half-sob, half-gag. Now James had no doubt: those were real tears in her eyes. She took off her hardened combat glove and offered her hand to David, open palm up. He considered it, then slowly ran his fingers down her palm in gentle acknowledgement before saying his goodbyes and leaving.

For a long moment after his departure Shepard stood still and quietly.

"Who was he?" James risked a question.

"James," Shepard began, still looking after David. "In my whole life there have been exactly three situations that have shaken me emotionally so deeply that I threw up. One was before I even joined the Alliance. The second - when I destroyed the Alpha relay and three hundred thousand batarians. And third - when I saw what had been done to this young man."

"It was Cerberus," Scars continued, rubbing Lola's shoulder. "David's own brother, to be exact."

"What that man did to David is the definition of everything inhumane in humanity and Cerberus. That kind of crime makes me ashamed that I'm human, too. Wasn't really my fault, but I can't stop feeling guilty when I look at him. No one can ever apologise enough to this boy for what happened to him. When I cut him out of that machine, I felt responsible and to this day I don't know how to right that wrong, how to fix it, how to undo what he had to suffer through... But he remembers me and he is grateful to me for making it stop... for making it quiet. That's the saddest thing of all."

"Why?"

"Because this young man has all the reason to hate everything and everyone human, he has the right to be angry, to take revenge. He has nothing to be grateful for, it is I who can never apologise enough to earn his forgiveness for what humanity did to him. And yet look at him - he's not bitter, not scared or vengeful. He is..." She sobbed. "He's counting days I lengthened his life. That is so sad and creepy and heart-breaking..." She shook her head, straightened herself, wiped away the tears, put the glove back on and grabbed her rifle, firmly walking off towards the security room David had pointed out.

"What exactly happened to that guy?" James asked Scars. He was intrigued now, but he also felt a chill in the back of his neck. What could be so horrible that Shepard started crying - honest to god tears! - in the middle of a battle zone?

"Ask EDI about David Archer later," Vakarian said. "Just brace yourself, it's really nasty."

Something changed on the ship when the tattooed biotic teacher, Jack, got on board after Shepard offered her a lift. All the old members of the crew came out of their hiding for one evening: Scars dropped his calibrations, Chakwas abandoned her med bay, Joker left his chair and Shepard stopped working for a few hours to have dinner with the little tattooed firecracker. Even EDI openly participated in the conversation in the mess hall. James sat with them and listened to their stories, watched the women laugh freely and openly, noted how Jack's colourful vocabulary was a point of teasing between her and Joker and how fondly Vakarian looked at her. If this wasn't a family reunion, he didn't know what was.

It was too bad, really, that Jack would only stay with them for one day until she caught a ride to the Citadel while the Normandy was headed to the rendezvous point with the salarians and the krogans. James knew that anyone who could make Shepard laugh so beautifully had to be a fascinating person. It wasn't even the way Jack looked at Shepard like at a big sister. It was the warmth in Shepard's face that fascinated him. He really wanted to be a part of that.


"I can't believe this is really happening," Jo bounced on the balls of her feet right behind Joker's seat. "My skin crawls! Right here!" She pointed at the back of her neck.

"A little excited, are we?" Joker gave her an almost pitying look as he approached the salarian and krogan ships.

"Oh, I don't know, I've only been dreaming about this my entire life!" Jo could barely hold back a squeal. "Ever since I was a little girl, ever since I learned what non-human species are and what happened at Shanxi, it was my deepest conviction that I was born to do it better, and I've dedicated my whole life to becoming the kind of person who would be able to handle these situations. Years in the Alliance, years training in the IC Academy, becoming an N7 and a Spectre - everything I ever did was just so that I could be here right now."

"And where exactly are you right now?" Joker sounded a little grumpy. He obviously didn't like all the hostility that was about to enter his ship.

"Both the salarian and the krogan leaders requested my ship as a neutral ground for our meeting. The turian Primarch is already on board. Finally the Normandy has become what she was meant to be from day one: a place where different races would come together and resolve their issues. It's my life-long dream come true!" Jo squealed, drumming her palms on the back of his chair. Annoyed, Joker swatted her hands away:

"I just hope we don't end up starting another war here."

"Don't you trust me?"

"I'm just saying, those are salarians, turians and krogans in one room we're talking about."

"And I'm Commander Fucking Shepard," she shook his shoulders from behind, trying to get him as excited as she was. Finally he turned his chair around and whatever he saw in her face softened his features:

"Yeah, after all you've accomplished, maybe you're the only one who can get those chuckleheads to work together. This is your moment to shine, so go and shine," he gave her a proud nod. "They're about to come aboard."

"I'll make you proud, just you see," Jo giggled once again before regaining at least an illusion of decorum to greet her guests. Joker might grumble, but there was real pride and love shining in his eyes. Jo was doubly excited about this meeting because she could share its fruits with the man she loved and nothing else in the world could be quite as satisfying.

The conference room was shaking from Wrex' heavy steps as he paced along the table, agitated by the Dalatrass' provocative words. Jo assumed her role as a neutral observer/human representative, even though her opinion was clear: politics could not decide about life or death of a whole species. Genophage had been a mistake from the start and needed to be cured. She was pleasantly surprised to see Wrex act like a skilled diplomat instead of a brute the Dalatrass wanted to present him as. Jo was even more thrilled to find an ally in Primarch Victus. She knew she'd liked him from the beginning.

The Dalatrass soon remained alone in the conference room, screaming after them:

"I won't forget this, Commander! A bully has few friends when he needs them most!"

Jo made a U-turn at that and got right in the salarian leader's face:

"Exactly. And that is why my friends and I are leaving together right now to right a wrong and help each other, while you stay here alone, bitter, screaming empty threats after me. A leader who would condemn her entire species to death by the Reapers just because she can't let go of a grudge that started 1400 years before her birth is not worthy of her position."

The elderly salarian woman gaped at Jo's audacity but Jo had more important things to do.

Everything happened too fast after that meeting. Wrex accompanied Jo to Sur'Kesh to get the females and the feeling of having him back on her team was almost overwhelming. He'd become a hell of a leader in the years since that stand-off on Virmire. During the summit he never even hinted at getting any special treatment because of their friendship. He acted like a smart and fair man, getting what he wanted directly from his opponents instead of putting Jo in an awkward position of fighting his battles for him. Jo was so unbelievably proud of Wrex that she started to consider ways to keep him on her ship longer.


James almost swallowed his tongue when the krogan leader joined them in the shuttle and Shepard introduced him as the King of All Krogans. So, he realised, all those times she spoke those words back in Vancouver, she'd been talking about this particular krogan? And damn if the guy wasn't impressive. James could swear that he'd never seen such a huge krogan before, and he'd seen quite a few in his time. Urdnot Wrex was a giant. He dwarfed not only Shepard (which wasn't difficult at all), but even him and Scars. And yet there was fairness and wisdom shining in his menacing red eyes. James was thoroughly impressed.

He was even more impressed when the impatient brute jumped off the shuttle to force his way to the females and the situation almost escalated, but all Shepard had to do to bring back peace was put a hand on Wrex' elbow. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen with his own eyes how easily she distracted Wrex from his confrontational mood into an easy, humorous banter and talked him into staying on the shuttle. Unbelievable.

This woman, the one he'd admired in the vids for her accomplishments for years before even meeting her, was tearing apart even his wildest expectations. She was stunning, and he wasn't even talking about her fighting skills. Reducing the king of all krogans to an obedient puppy licking her hands? Simply beyond belief. What Garrus said to him earlier in the kitchen suddenly made real sense: he almost pitied the Reapers because Shepard was going after them.

The mission parameter changed Shepard's fighting style. Protect the pod with the last female. That was exactly what she did, disregarding all personal safety. James's head spun as she rammed her way through a crowd of Cerberus troops and put herself between them and the pod, protecting it with her own shields, her armour and body even when an Atlas mech dropped from the sky.

She and Scars worked well together and James was curious what would happen if Wrex joined them in battle. Would it be another miracle to watch? And he'd already heard lots of rumours about the final member of the original Shepard team: a mysterious quarian named Tali. Scars seemed to have an odd reaction each time her name was mentioned, but otherwise everyone agreed: Tali was a badass in battle and a solid family member. What would happen if all four of these guys joined forces to fight together?

The krogan female was impressive, and a good match for Wrex with her sense of independence. The salarian that came with her, though, was really quite a number. Doctor Mordin Solus just took over half of the ship and everyone jumped to fetch whenever he needed something. Shepard told them to do that. James couldn't understand half of the mumbo-jumbo he was talking about, but he got that the Doctor's work was important.

Magic seemed to be happening on the ship and James was starting to realise that this was exactly what made Shepard the most famous human in the galaxy and why she'd been made a Spectre, why he admired her and why he'd wanted so desperately to be a part of her team.

While he was gracing the crew with a few recipes from his abuela, he'd caught Scars speaking to the Primarch a few times while the ship was on the way to find a krogan team on a rachni planet. The two turians watched Shepard bump heads for fun with the krogan leader, in the next minute talk genetics and ethics with Mordin, then fix some minor troubles within the crew and eventually engage in a flirtatious banter with Joker during dinner that ended in him calling her a bitch and her calling him an asshole. Dr Chakwas and the technicians found that banter exceptionally amusing. During all of these occurrences Shepard was completely at ease, both with humans and non-humans, dealt with people gracefully and yet never stopped being herself.

It was clear that the Primarch was wondering if Shepard had always been like this and Scars was proud to confirm. The Primarch, a soldier tossed into a diplomatic position, probably could learn a thing or two from her, and he knew that. He observed her closely.

James started to suspect that Shepard had a special relationship with krogans when they landed on the rachni planet and one of the present krogans landed half of his team on their asses in his eagerness to get to Shepard. He called her name and laughed in genuine excitement and Shepard cupped his face to rub her forehead against his plates. He grabbed her waist to lift her above himself and she seemed to purr like a cat when she spoke his name:

"Grunt!"

"Who's he?" James asked Scars but the turian shrugged:

"Wait for it."

"James, please, meet Grunt. My son."

James thought they were all making fun of him, but Vakarian's smug face, Shepard's glowing happiness and Grunt's eager approval of her words changed his mind. Her son. What? That was when James decided not to get surprised by anything anymore. He'd better just take it all as it was. A krogan son? Why the heck not?


At the end of the rachni tunnels Jo was faced with a choice: save the rachni queen or get Grunt's team out. As much as it pained her to send good fighters into death, she already knew that the choice was clear. She'd known it on Noveria and she knew it now: there was no way she could eradicate an entire species. But as the queen got away, Jo soon found herself facing an overwhelming force of drones and the only way to get past them was...

"Get outta here, Shepard," Grunt was already saying. He knew. Jo wanted to protest, fight alongside him, protect him, get him to safety, but then he caught her eyes and they shared a real look.

He was still so young, his headplates barely formed, his skin soft and untouched. She knew his birthday exactly and he wasn't even a full year old, technically. But in the dark tunnels on that planet she saw in his shining blue eyes that her baby had grown into a real man. She'd taught him everything he knew and even though it was not right for parents to outlive their children, Jo knew that her little boy had learned the one lesson only she could have taught him. Protect at any cost. He was a man now and that man had to do what he had to do. No matter how much she wanted to protect her child, she had to let him go and be what he was always meant to be. A hero.

And she did. His satisfied chuckle echoed in her ears as she and her team made it to the shuttle unhindered. Her baby was damn good at what he was doing. And the rest of her boys understood perfectly why she stubbornly stood in the shuttle door and watched the path, refusing to give the order to leave.

They understood the bond when Grunt reappeared, covered in blood, limping and wavering, but still walking. Jo almost carried him inside, her heart swelling with pride and love unlike anything else in the world. The pride and love of a mother.

Barely two days later Jo was faced with the tears of a father, and for the first time she was at a loss while dealing with a turian. Talking to Garrus was always easy, but Primarch Victus was someone else entirely. Jo could barely speak through the tight knot in her own throat after the mission on Tuchanka that ended in the death of the Primarch's son, but she knew she had to offer the father some sort of compassion, even if it was the human kind, instead of turian.

"What do I do?" She asked Garrus. "I can't just let it go like this, he's lost his son."

"Duty, sacrifice, living your life for the cause, society first, platoon first - it's all just expected of us," Garrus sighed. He was not unaffected, but he didn't seem to be taking Tarquin Victus' death as hard as she was. "His position as a public figure will not allow him to show any weakness in front of others. It doesn't mean that he isn't hurting. I know you want to offer him support in your human way, Jo, but the only way for him to accept it is in private."

Jo took Garrus' advice and asked Joker to give her and the Primarch some private time in the cabin later that evening. She was not sure Victus would accept, but he did. When he came in, he tried to look stoic, but Jo could see the lost, haunted look on his face.

"Please, Adrien, sit with me," she firmly bypassed titles and last names. This was a completely informal situation and the turian accepted that with a nod. Together they sat on the couch and Jo offered the man a stiff turian drink. "There is no need to put up a brave face, not here with me. Even if this is your only chance to allow yourself to feel what you really feel. No judgement is passed in this room."

"I'm fine," he tried to say, but Jo took his hand:

"No, you're not. It was your baby down there. Your flesh and blood. You will never forget the day he was born, the way you felt when you held him for the first time, when you knew that he was yours."

Jo felt her own heart break all over again, just like in the moment when she saw Tarquin take the plunge, but this was not about her. This father needed help. She still held his hand, when his firm facade started to crumble. A sad, broken man finally appeared from beneath the mask.

"I take it you spent most of his childhood in the military, right? Didn't get to see him much. But that never stopped the feeling of pride, knowing you had a son out there, your baby boy. Years of hard work to raise him, teaching him, worrying about his well-being. It's all yours. Others will see his sacrifice as a noble deed, so let them. They don't know the half of it. They don't know what you've lost. He was your child. We humans say that there is no tragedy worse than parents outliving their children. Your own people will expect you to keep up strong appearance, but I'm only human. Here with me you can allow yourself to mourn the loss of your child. Because I understand."

"How is it that you understand, Johanna?" Adrien asked quietly.

"Because just the other day I stood vigil waiting for my own baby to return from a certain death, where he went to save me. I remember his birthday, his first words, his every achievement, every second that he made me proud and frustrated me. In those few minutes of not knowing if he was dead or alive I lived through hell and I can't even compare it to what you feel now."

"Children," Adrien nodded tiredly. "They do take you on a wild ride."

Jo raised her own drink:

"To the bond between parents and children. Even now you know you wouldn't have had it any other way."

"You're right, I wouldn't."

They drank in silence, heavy and wretched, sad and burdened silence, but amicable and understanding nonetheless. And when the tough, hardened military man finally succumbed and buried his face in his hands, trembling heavily, Jo was right there with him to console him however she could.

"Why do you care about my son and me?" Victus asked after a very long while. "I haven't been honest with you all this time about the bomb, and you hardly even met Tarquin. Why are you here instead of with your friends and your lover?"

"Trust is not given, it's earned," Jo shrugged. "I hadn't earned your trust yet, so you had no reason to be honest with me. On the grand scale of things it doesn't matter that you haven't earned my trust either, I consciously choose to give it to you now because with time, I'm sure, you'd earn both my trust and my respect. I have a good feeling about you as a leader."

"I understand that your faith in the different races is what might ultimately bring us together and win the war. But on the grand scale of things my losing my son is nothing important, people lose their families all around us, people die by the millions. Why do you care about my insignificant tragedy?"

"There is no such thing as an insignificant tragedy," Jo shrugged again. "This is what the world consists of. You, me and every other person out there. The grand scale of things is nothing compared to your tragedy. Nothing is more important than where you are and how you feel about it. You're in a bad place right now and I just care, from person to person. Out there there might have been an ulterior motive, but in here we're just two people who understand and shrae this grief. If people didn't care about each other, we wouldn't deserve to live."

Primarch Adrien Victus looked at her closely for a while, as if to gauge her truthfulness. When he found nothing in her face to contradict her words, he silently nodded, before saying his thanks and goodbyes.

Next day Jo was riding in a tomkah with Mordin, Eve, Wrex, James and Garrus, and Eve was asking her why she was being so pensive. Jo looked around at her companions.

Wrex had changed in those few days since Eve had joined them. He had a youthful gleam in his eyes, something that hadn't been there when she'd first met him all those years ago. The prospect of reproducing would do that to a man, of course, and logically Jo understood. But still some part of her was a little jealous. Well, a lot jealous. Until Eve showed up, Jo could safely say she was the most important woman in Wrex's life. It was not a position she wanted to give up, even if she could never be that kind of woman to him. She'd made her choice to be with Joker. And yet...

And yet. But even her little jealousy aside, Jo wondered what would happen if she told him about the Dalatrass' offer. This new Wrex, the aggressive, determined, youthful and energetic warlord, wielded the most powerful weapon in the galaxy they had on their side right now. He could just as well turn against Mordin and the rest of them, just because. Jo couldn't help but doubt him a little bit at this moment. But the choice had to be made and it was not easy. On the one hand - a scheming, traitorous and backstabbing salarian leader. On the other hand - an old friend who wasn't free of mindless brutality. Both had their uses in the war and it was hard to tell which one would be more so.

But about ten years ago someone important to her made her understand: when in doubt, the right thing to do is always the right thing to do. And Jo somehow always knew what it was. Her heart was hardly beating when she opened her mouth and spoke. She played them her conversation with he Dalatrass and braced for the worst.

All Wrex said was:

"And she thought we wouldn't know better?"

Jo found herself speechless, breathless and ashamed. While Eve thanked her, Wrex spoke with utmost conviction in his voice:

"I told you we can count on Shepard."

"I'm so sorry," she exhaled and moved to stand directly in front of Wrex, one of her best friends in the whole galaxy. "I was afraid to tell you because I thought you would react violently. I'm so sorry for doubting you. You're a far better man that I gave you credit for and I'm endlessly ashamed of myself for expecting the worst of you, Wrex," she said. He looked surprised. "I'm really sorry."

For a few moments there was deep silence in the vehicle. Her team was surprised, Eve was confused, but Wrex regarded her for a few long moments with those menacing, glowing red eyes of his, looking into her soul in a way only he could.

"The man you've met four years ago when you went after Fist, he would have reacted violently, Shepard, so your concern is somewhat justified," he said eventually.

"But you're not the same man, Wrex, and I should have known better. Should have had faith in you."

"We have more important things to worry about right now and if it all ends well today, you're forgiven, Jo," he grinned.

Jo hid her trembling lip by leaning her forehead against his. He was sitting, so they were at the same level, and he gently put his hands on her shoulders in an old gesture of trust and affection.

When they were exiting the tomkah a minute later, he laid all her concerns to rest. He yelled at her:

"Shepard, keep the female safe!"

To Wrex, Eve was nothing more than a female, not worthy of being called by her name, whatever it was, a bargaining chip, a baby making machine or a piece of flesh.

To Wrex, Jo was the one he called by name, trusted with his most prized possession, fought by her side and called her a hero, she was still the most important woman in his life. That gave her a little smug grin, at least for a little while.

"Thresher Maws killed my entire unit on Akuze," she spoke up quietly several hours later, when her friends came up to her in the silence after the battle. "Hating them is in my blood, so I never would have thought I'd say this, but right about now I'd agree to populate every planet in the galaxy with Thresher Maws. That would give us a real chance to win against the Reapers."

They chuckled, but it was a sad laughter. The genophage cure was falling like sparkling ashes down on all of them, a new beginning for the krogan race, but each flake was also a piece of the man who made it all happen. Mordin Solus. The salarian who went with his conscience and did the right thing. A tear escaped Jo's eye at the pain of losing a great friend, but at the same time it was humbling to know that he would live on in every krogan baby to be born from this day on. Mordin's legacy would transcend time and space.

Having magnificent friends was the only way to be a good person, but hell, it would be tough to live up to Mordin's kind of glory.