"I want you."
None of the people standing by got Jo's meaning. Except her. For the briefest moment uncertainty coloured her features, followed by a string of emotions she did her best to hide immediately. Still, Jo's declaration and a happy grin made her take a little step back and throw a quick, cautious glance around at her mercs.
Gotcha.
Once she had her composure back, she started swaggering about how the role of Shepard was filled by the wrong woman, how the Asshole had abandoned her as soon as he had Jo, how she'd woken up six months ago and learned to be human from neural implants and how she could never fool Jo's friends because she didn't have the same memories, so she'd decided Jo and her people had to die.
Wrex, Tali and the rest of her team on the upper levels seemed enraged, but Jo folded her arms on her chest and tilted her head, listening with a very happy smile.
She knew herself and right now she could see a lot of herself in this woman. What she saw, however, was not the psychotic maniac her team seemed to see. It was a scared little girl desperately asking for help.
Jo never told sob stories about herself unless she trusted the person absolutely, needed help or wanted to manipulate someone. She had no need to try and manipulate Jo - after all, she had Jo at gunpoint. Still, she made sure Jo knew the sordid story of her creation, of how she'd been treated like meat by her creators, how they hadn't bothered to even teach her how to be human.
Also, unlike any self-respecting identity thief, she conceded that she could never fool Jo's friends because she obviously wasn't the real Shepard. Jo looked at her pacing up and down, the stunning beauty of her existence blinding her and electrifying all of her nerves, and she couldn't help a smile. What she saw in front of her was a challenge, thrown in her face in true Shepard manner.
What she was really saying - and only Jo was getting - was: "We have the same DNA and hence the same potential. I don't have your memories, experience and skill, but I'm as good as you, damnit, and I'll prove myself, no matter what. I can be as great, tough, strong, influential, admired and feared as you, and even though I had the rest of the galaxy to conquer, I came to you because I want, no, need to prove myself to you. I need you to be aware of my existence because I need you - the great Commander Fucking Shepard - to tell me that I'm good enough. I'll be messing with you until I've earned your praise. And just because I'm trying to kill you, it doesn't mean that I don't love you. On the contrary, you're the only person in the world that I love because you're the only person in the world that I know. I am, after all, your copy. I want to have what you have and be what you are, the Original Badass, and you're gonna help me get there. I'm still learning and I'm putting on my best face for my underlings, but you can see that I need your help, and I know that you can see it. Still, I'll fight you tooth and claw before I let you help me, because you have to earn my trust first, too."
Jo wasn't worried about a thing. She knew that she was looking at herself at the age of maybe eleven, only stuck in an adult woman's body. Inexperienced and insecure, but biting and scratching like a wild thing. Trying to look like the toughest badass, defiant to the bitter end, and yet knowing not-so-deep inside that there was still a lot she had to learn.
Jo knew she would have to chase her down, tier her up and sit on her to get her to listen, but a sparkly, bubbling thought lifted her up to the sky above: this was exactly what younger siblings were like. And this one was hers, her own flesh and blood.
Thus, she happily accepted the challenge when she ordered her goons to kill Jo. In the course of her life Jo had invested a lot more effort into people worth a lot less to her than her own sister. This was a fight she never wanted to end, but still needed to win. And so the real game began.
"I never thought I'd say this, but I'm really looking forward to killing you, Jo," Tali said as they disposed of the mercs and pushed into the archives to follow the bratty blonde. The rest of the team went out of their way to come up with jokes about evil clones, but Jo didn't listen. She wasn't chasing after her evil clone. She was chasing after her little sister who desperately needed a spanking. Still, this was not the time and place to educate her people, as long as they didn't kill her. Jo let them be as she sent Glyph to look for her. A few minutes later the drone returned with a little message from her which made Jo smile. She really was a brat.
She rushed towards her other team members only to see that they were caught in a crossfire that didn't look so good.
"Move!" She shouted at Wrex and Tali, sending them up the ladder. "I'll cover you!" Bratty sister or not, Jo was not letting her other family members get hurt in this sibling rivalry match. She stood in the open and covered Tali's escape with her own shields and body. The mercs concentrated fire and tore her shields apart in a few seconds, but Jo stood tall and firm protecting her family when they were vulnerable. She stood tall even when the bullets started hitting her armour, sending excruciating pain through her torso. For half a second she panicked and called out for help when suddenly a wall of bullets from the upper level fell like a curtain between her and the mercs, shredding them to tiniest pieces.
Jo looked up and around and saw her entire team emptying all of their guns at once, shielding her from any harm. Her heart lurched and her eyes tingled with tears. She needn't have worried. She never needed to worry. As long as these people existed, she could let herself fall and she would always be caught. She would always be protected - very effectively so.
Love, more powerful than ever before, blasted through Jo's system. She loved her family and not because they were blood, but because they were always there for her. She didn't think it was wrong to want to share this experience with her sister. She would have loved for her to meet these people, too, and see for herself what it felt like.
"That's why I love hanging out with you guys," Wrex summed up the result of the shredding. "Why shoot something once when you can shoot it 46 more times?"
"I love you guys," Jo declared once she was up the ladder and on the same level with them. "Love you like crazy."
"We love you, too, Lola," Vega declared with a wink.
It didn't take long until she, Tali and Wrex reached the right place, only to be trapped in a vault.
She appeared again, this time with Brooks in tow. The obnoxious woman had finally shown her real colours, outing herself as a former Cerberus agent who had found the clone and woken her up. Jo shuddered at the idea of what it must have been like, being taught how to be human by some of the most inhuman creatures in the galaxy. Cerberus agents.
Jo got Brooks to talk easily enough. Like all wannabe villains who desperately needed approval, she shared all the details of her plan and work eagerly. Jo was not impressed. She hadn't trusted her from the start.
"The minute, the second I get out of here, I'm gonna take your head and mount it in the Normandy CIC," Jo finally said. If Brooks knew anything about Jo at all, she would be very worried. This was not a threat, this was a declaration of intentions and Jo was done playing games with the bitch. She needed to grab her sister and get her away from the bad influence. Too bad Brooks didn't know anything about Jo after all.
"That sounds very dramatic," she switched to a voice so obnoxious that Jo's skin crawled. "And if someone, like, Commander Shepard made the threat, I'd be worried."
Jo said nothing to that. Brooks was not worth her breath. Instead she watched her sister replace her handprint in the Archive. Well, baby girl, she thought, good thinking and good job. I am indeed proud of you. Too bad it won't last, but you deserve points for effort. Except for this whole pro-human idealism, we'll need to cure that ASAP.
"Refresh my memory," Wrex spoke up when the vault sealed them in. "Didn't we use to win these things back in the old days?"
"She said 'I should go'. Do I sound like that?" Jo shook her head, trying not to laugh. Tali was not amused.
"As long as I've known you, yeah," Wrex almost laughed himself. Tali was very much not amused.
It didn't take Glyph more than a minute to free her team and all the others. As soon as the vault was open, Jo went to the same computer her sister had used and changed her handprint record back to her own. Good effort, but the baby girl's reign hadn't lasted more than six minutes. Which meant that she still had a lot to learn about being an efficient badass and Brooks was the wrong person to learn from.
As they walked out of the archives, Jo tasked Tali, Liara and EDI with wiping all the footage within the archives and anywhere else on the Citadel that proved the existence of a Shepard clone. Jo wanted to keep that fact very strictly between her and her team. To make their job easier and more thorough she gave the girls her Spectre authorisation codes.
Very soon the team reconvened at the nearest parking lot.
A chorus of annoyed I'm-gonna-kill-hers and What-a-bitch's and Shepard's-evil-clone-needs-to-dies shook the air when Joker arrived in a cab, reporting that Brooks and the clone were stealing his ship. Her team started bitching louder than before. Okay, Jo decided. This is where we set the record straight.
"Guys, shut up," she snapped. "She wasn't trying to kill me."
"Uh... have you actually been here all night?" Liara sounded scandalised.
"If she'd tried to kill me, she would have at least pointed a gun at me," Jo said, climbing into the car with Joker. "Instead she sealed me into a vault with lots of time and possibilities to escape. Wrex, Tali, get in, but remember: you are not to touch one hair on the clone's head."
Jo knew they assumed that Jo meant to kill the clone herself and right now she didn't need them to know any differently. The Normandy was their first priority.
Joker dropped them off at the docks and a few minutes later they met Traynor at the airlock.
"What?!" She yelled. "You fired me! For conduct unbecoming! I barely had time to grab my toothbrush!"
"Seriously?" Jo just had to stop and think about that one. "The first thing you grab is your toothbrush?" Silliness like that was beyond her.
Two minutes later she was thinking differently, as they crawled through the duct after opening the hatch with Traynor's toothbrush. Jo decided to buy her a new one when this was over. Silliness like that was too crazy to actually work, but often it was just this kind of silliness that saved the day.
They quickly disposed of the goons in the CIC, but the pilot sealed himself behind shields and Jo decided to take care of the bitch first who had corrupted her sister. The Normandy wouldn't go anywhere now that Jo was on board. Next to the elevator she found a few crates with her hamster's cage on top. And her hamster was still in it!
"Please, send this to an animal shelter as a warship is not an appropriate..." She read the datapad on top of the cage. "Oh, this is NOT OKAY!" She suddenly fumed. Trying to kill her was one thing, but touching Jo's possessions - that deserved some serious ass kicking. "She messed with my hamster, guys, this is personal!" She touched the glass of the cage, trying to soothe the agitated furball a little bit. "Sit tight, little guy," she said. "Anyone gives you trouble - go for the eyes."
Wrex and Tali were suspiciously quiet on their elevator ride, until Tali asked very carefully:
"Jo, I've never found out... does your hamster have a name?"
"Yes."
"And... what is it?"
"Splinter."
"Why?" Wrex betrayed his curiosity.
"Human cultural reference. Splinter was a rat who lived with a martial art master and learned how to fight as well by always watching him. When I tell my hamster to go for the eyes, I mean it."
"O-kay," Tali and Wrex exchanged a glance that told enough to fill books.
A moment later it didn't matter. They were in the cargo bay and were attacked by Brooks and Little Shepard.
"Seriously?" Jo rolled her eyes when she saw her. "Blue stripes on an N7 armour?" She pointed at what her sister was wearing. "That's just wrong."
The com chatter burst into her ear when her team groundside disabled the jamming signal and suddenly she could hear all of them. Joker panicked about losing the ship, but it seemed that he and Cortez were up to something. She found out what when the ship rocked and shuddered, flying like a crazy person was at the helm. She even got her sister's com chatter and her idiot pilot's report that a sky car was blocking the Normandy's way, preventing it from jumping to FTL. She grinned. Good luck shooting that car, she thought, as she reloaded her assault rifle with new incendiary rounds and moved in on the woman. There was no escape now.
Little Shepard was a good fighter, too. After only a short grappling match they both rolled down the lowered ramp and clung to the edge. Side by side, in it together, just the way it was supposed to be, if only Brooks hadn't filled Little Shepard's head with stupid crap.
"Look at you," the blue-striped Shepard snarled, grabbing the edge. "What makes you so damn special? Why you and not me?"
Jo looked over at her. With one phrase the younger woman betrayed the very essence of her problem and the core of typical sibling rivalry. Jo was sooooo looking forward to teaching her everything she knew, getting to know her, maybe fighting side by side in the future. Jo looked over her shoulder at her sister and the joy of life that had been almost lost to her lately filled her whole body and soul like an orgasm. She looked in her sister's eyes and the whole world seemed brighter than yesterday, better. All of a sudden there was hope for the future in Jo, one she hadn't had for a very long time now, and this future entailed this snarling, tough, beautiful woman. A world with her in it was worth fighting for a lot more than without.
But first things first. The reason 'why you and not me' came running. Tali grabbed Jo's wrists and Wrex didn't think twice, he simply lifted Tali in the air. Jo, like a fish on the hook, came up along with her quarian sister. Next moment they all stood together at the edge and grinned, thanking each other. Jo saw Brooks inside the ship, though. The bitch looked at Jo's sister still hanging over the abyss with a little regret and walked away.
Jo looked down at the other blonde. There was betrayal in her eyes, but somehow Jo didn't think that it came as a surprise. Then there was resignation.
"And the clone?" Tali looked down as well. Jo decisively went down on one knee and reached out for her sister.
"Come on, take my hand," she demanded.
"And then?" The other woman shook her head and for the first time since the whole episode had began Jo felt a pinch of panic. The resignation she saw in the familiar face was more than just that. If Jo knew anything about herself at all, then she realised: her sister was about to do something drastic and final because she believed from the heart that she had nothing left to live for.
"And then you live!" Jo reached for her arm but it happened too fast.
"For what?" She sighed and pushed herself off the edge.
Jo almost jumped after her.
A moment later the falling person met a standing building and became less than a whole person, but Jo made herself not flinch. The look in her eyes as she fell superimposed over everything else Jo could see. Her sister had not believed in Jo enough. She hadn't trusted her to make everything better. She hadn't even accused Jo of being her sole problem in the end, she just gave up.
Because unlike Jo she didn't know any better. She didn't have a soulmate, a bunch of best friends or a galaxy full of allies. She never knew the feeling of love and trust Jo had felt several times today towards her chosen family. She hadn't believed that it was possible for her.
Jo simply hadn't had enough time to show her. No, she knew deep in her heart that this suicide was not her fault. She knew herself, damnit, and she knew she hadn't caused the resignation and pain in her sister's eyes. But she felt the loss deep in every cell of her body, just as her thoughts and emotions turned into stone.
She stood up slowly and waved her arm, signalling Joker and Cortez to stop playing with Brooks' shuttle pilot and get their car into the bay. The Normandy was still flying like crazy, but Tali's drones were already rounding up the merc survivors, including the pilot.
When the pink car approached the ramp and landed, Jo ran towards it.
"You," she pointed at Steve. "Park the Normandy. You," she pointed at Joker. "Back in the car!"
Joker and Cortez looked at her with identical frowns.
"NOW!" She shouted, grabbed Joker not so softly and shoved him towards the driver's seat.
"Ow, what the hell?" He protested.
"Fly back the trajectory the Normandy was taking," she ordered, closing the top of the car.
"What the shit, why?"
"I need to find her."
"Who?"
"My sister."
He stopped moving his hands and turned to look at her like she had finally turned completely gaga:
"You're kidding me, right?"
"Just fly. Now."
He got them in the air and plotted the course, still shaking his head.
"What happened up there?" He asked. Jo gave him a stony recollection of the events. She had forbidden herself to feel anything just now.
"I offered her my hand, but she said: what for? And let go. I need to find her before someone else does."
"You don't need to do anything of the sort. She just tried to kill you."
"Let's set the record straight: she never tried to kill me. She never even shot at me until I forced her right here in the cargo bay. If she wanted me dead, she would have killed me a dozen times over in the last ten hours. She didn't want me dead, and I didn't want her dead."
"And what will finding her body achieve?"
"It's me down there, as far as other people are concerned. I can't let anyone manhandle her. She's been through more horrors than you can imagine. She deserves some dignity preserved."
"Do you have to be the one to preserve it?"
"Joker, I don't hate her. On the contrary. It's my twin sister down there and I want to acknowledge that fact. Now, there! I recognise the building. Look for the impact zone."
The impact spot was easy enough to find. It was a hotel with glass walls. On one of the top stories there was a hole in the wall. Joker landed and tried to keep up with her as she ran ahead, flashing her Spectre authorisation to anyone standing in her way. She landed in the penthouse with a pool. It was that pool that stopped the falling body. The residents of the penthouse were now complaining loudly to the hotel manager, standing around the pool and pointing at the floating body inside, which was spreading blood in the water.
She was face-down and nobody was brave enough to jump in and fish her out. It was clearer than clear that she was dead.
Jo dived in as she was, wearing her armour and weapons. Joker explained to everyone that it was Spectre business while she was tugging the lifeless body to the pool side. The hotel staff and residents let her through while she carried the mangled corpse outside to the cab.
"Weirdest sight I've ever seen," Joker muttered under his breath, watching them.
Back on the Normandy the crew was waiting for her impatiently.
"Who's left of the intruders?" Jo asked, after Joker landed the cab inside the cargo bay.
"Just the pilot and her," Liara pointed at Brooks.
Jo looked the bitch up and down. The rest of the crew stood around, waiting anxiously for her judgement.
"I'll be more than happy to cooperate with the authorities," Brooks said in that slimy voice that made Jo want to shower for a week.
"Yeah, until you escape."
"Me? But I'm not a field agent!"
"Stop. Just stop. I don't know what you wanted to achieve with this, but you're rotten to the core."
"I was young and naïve," Brooks leaned closer. "Admit it, you'll miss me."
Jo turned around to take a deep, calming breath, but Brooks made it easy for her. She broke her handcuffs and made a run for it. Cortez tried to grab her, but she evaded him. One shot was all it took for Jo to stop the bitch.
A shot in the hip.
"Not at this range I won't," she said, putting her pistol back in its holster. Brooks squirmed on the floor, bleeding heavily but unable to get up. Her entire left leg was rendered useless. Jo slowly approached her and her cold, murderous expression made her crew take a few steps back.
"EDI, make sure you're filming this from every angle," Jo declared and let everything she felt about her sister's death seep into her voice. People who knew her shuddered. Brooks didn't know her just yet.
"Yes, Shepard," EDI reported.
"Brooks, or whatever your name is," Jo approached the bleeding woman and grabbed her hair. She ruthlessly tugged her up until the bitch was kneeling, well, more or less. "Do you remember what I said in the archives about what I would do to you once I find you?"
"You said you would mount my head in your CIC?" Brooks still managed to look and sound like a slimy skank. Good, that would give Jo a reason to feel even better about what she was about to do. Even though that shouldn't have been possible. Jo sauntered to her weapon rack. Up there, untouched by the whole adventure, hung the Cerberus sword.
"Indeed," she took the sword off the rack and balanced it in her hand. "Brooks, you impersonated an Alliance officer, hired mercenaries to perform terrorist acts on the Citadel, disrupted C-Sec activities, used C-Sec and Spectre codes without authorisation. You led the attack which destroyed the sushi place downtown, you murdered Elijah Khan, tried to steal my identity, infiltrated the Citadel archives to change my official records and then after attempting to murder me and my entire team you tried to steal the Normandy. In doing so, you ordered your team to shoot space combat cannons inside a civilian residential zone, causing deaths and property damage we don't even know the extent of, and finally you tried to escape my custody. Did I forget something?"
"Her being a psychotic bimbo who used to work for Cerberus?" Joker offered.
"Yes, that, too," Jo nodded and returned to Brooks. She showed her the sword: "Do you know what this is? A Cerberus weapon. I got it off the corpse of some Cerberus drone who almost gutted me with it. I'm keeping it to gut Kai Leng, but hell, today's a special occasion. Brooks, Tie your hair up high on your head. I don't want to damage your pretty haircut."
"What are you talking about?!" Brooks looked at Jo and then at other people. There was nobody even close to showing her compassion, even though everyone could see where Jo was going with her request. "No!"
Jo smiled at Brooks with a smile that finally gave the kneeling, bleeding woman a shudder. She was beat and she knew it. There was no chance to run and it was suddenly dawning on her that Johanna Shepard would not spare her life, proving to be a lot less of a wimp Brooks had believed her to be until right at this moment.
Obviously, Brooks refused to cooperate, defiant and strong in the face of death. Jo didn't mind. She personally tied her hair up and stood back, weighing the sword in her hand.
Many years ago a man wronged her by making her love violence for its own sake. She'd made a conscious decision to keep her psychopathic tendencies in check and conditioned herself to not revel in administering pain. It never meant that the love and hunger for sadism and brutality ever went away completely. They didn't. Sometimes, on special occasions, she vented that urge by letting herself enjoy killing someone who deserved it. Jo was the one to determine who deserved it and who didn't, but at this particular moment none of her spectators seemed inclined to contradict her.
She gave no more speeches, no silly lines. She remembered her sister's devastated look a second before she died, and Jo swung the sword in a beautiful, wide arch.
In the following silence a dead body hit the floor and a severed head rolled to the side. Jo flourished the sword to shake the blood off, then gave it to Cortez to put on the rack. She stepped to the lifeless head and almost lovingly undid the hair, restoring the nice haircut. Then she lifted the head with its lolling tongue and rolled eyes. Blood from the severed neck dropped all over the front of Jo's armour, and she enjoyed it.
"Give me that," she pointed at a broken piece of pipe on the wall. Garrus tore it off and kindly shortened it to spear length. Then he propped it firmly while Jo forcefully jammed Brooks' head on top of it, creating a gruesome, barbaric instrument of fear. A literal head on a spear.
"Listen carefully and pay attention," she addressed the people on the Normandy. "Liara, EDI and Tali are erasing any video and audio footage proving that my clone had ever existed. All of you know what really happened and you may share this information as a funny story with the rest of the crew and our closest friends, except Allers. As far as the world is concerned, though, this clone never existed. You will forget about her and never speak a word of her except strictly among yourselves. The story I'm going to tell to C-Sec and to the public is that Brooks was the one trying to steal my identity and that she was responsible for everything that's happened tonight. I hope I'm being clear about what will happen to the person who disobeys me on that."
Brooks' head was a powerful image.
"Why?" Garrus asked. "She's dead, what harm can come from her?"
"First of all: cloning is still illegal in most of the Council Space. I don't want to be publicly connected to any such thing, no matter that I didn't know about it. Second: If the public learns that Cerberus is cloning powerful and influential people to turn them evil and replace the originals, panic would break out. Third: If the public learns that Commander Shepard had been cloned, I'll always be under suspicion of working for Cerberus after all, and quite honestly, I've had enough of that. I'm having a hard enough time as it is convincing people to work with me. I can't afford becoming an instant pesona non grata across the galaxy because of this. Fourth: the galaxy is not big enough for two Shepards, even if one of them is dead. I'm a symbol of hope, an icon. People need to believe in my uniqueness like in a goddess that will deliver them from evil. We're at a critical point here, people, since we're about to make our last stand. The hope of the galaxy can not have a half-baked copy of her ghosting through people's minds."
"Okay, I see your point," Garrus nodded. His acceptance meant that the rest of the people accepted Jo's order. Good.
Like the chieftain of a savage clan she stepped off the ramp and onto the Citadel dock.
There was a whole crowd of people gathered around, most of them C-Sec, but a lot of tourists and a few friends, too. Jo could see Alenko, Samara, Zaeed, Jack and even Kolyat, all looking worriedly at the ship. Jo lifted her hand, carrying the speared head like a trophy down to the dock. The crowd fell silent.
She rammed the pipe between two floor plates.
"This is the head of the bitch who tried to steal my identity and my ship today," Jo declared loudly for the onlookers. "Let that be a lesson to everyone out there!"
With that she returned inside the ship, leaving her handiwork for everyone to admire.
Joker and the rest of the crew followed her in silence. Jo pointed at Brooks' body:
"That – out of my sight. That," she pointed at the cab. "To the med bay."
Vega looked inside the cab and whistled. Wrex and the others also gathered around the mangled female body.
"Uh… Commander?" Vega protested. "Are you sure?"
"Do as I say, Vega, before I consider truly proving to you that this ship is not a democracy."
"You're the boss, boss."
Vega carried the clone to the elevator past the maintenance guys who were cleaning blood and merc bodies off the floor. He chose to carry the body like a child in his arms, not like a soldier in a fireman's grip. She looked fragile and lost and very small against his chest.
Jo had him put the body on one of the med bay beds and shooed everyone outside except for Karin.
"What is happening, Commander?" Karin stepped closer and took a look. "Is that her? The other Shepard?"
"Yes," Jo busied herself with taking off the clone's armour. "Help me clean her up."
"What for?"
"What is it with everyone, questioning my orders? Because I fucking said so."
"Sorry, Commander." Karin fell silent, even if a little disapproving, and started helping with the armour. It was an N7 piece, even if only a Cerberus knock-off, not the real deal. A blue stripe, really? Who was that genius?
Soon the clone lay on the bed in nothing but underwear. There were dozens of glass splinters all over her left side, broken leg, hip, arm, shoulder, ribs and neck, and a crack in her skull. Jo sat down with some precision instruments and began pulling out the glass splinters. She worked silently, cold and menacing to the world. When she was more or less satisfied with the result, she sent the doctor for cleaning supplies. Together they washed the body, Jo even brushed her hair, before dressing her in some of her own clothes. When she was done, the woman on the bed looked less like a broken doll and too much like she was asleep. It wasn't a restful sleep, either. Even in death she seemed agonised.
"Commander, the shipment you ordered just arrived," Garrus came in and said carefully. "Says it requires your personal signature?"
"Perfect, bring it up here."
A few minutes later a big crate was moved inside the med bay. It was a cryo stasis pod.
"What is going on?" Joker asked, as the crew pooled in after Garrus and the crate.
Jo lifted the body from the bed and gently placed her into the pod. Then she sealed it and set the temperature on 'Sustain'.
"We are going to give her our respects."
"Uhm… why?" Joker asked, and immediately took a step back. "Sorry, don't bite my head off, but I think everyone is wondering."
Once the body was inside the pod, Jo seemed to relax. She turned to the dozen of curious, worried eyes and took a shuddering breath:
"None of this was her fault. She had to live through my worst nightmare. She woke up alone in some Cerberus facility, lost, without memories, traumatized by whatever they did to her. They kept her for spare parts for me, not as a person, but as a tool kit, like meat at the butcher shop. She had nobody to show her kindness, humanity. They used her, manipulated her, and she didn't know how to escape their claws. So she came to me. It was the only thing she could do. She came to me to take my memories, my life, as her own, she was in agony, on her own all this time, surrounded by vipers. And she had no time to find the answers to her questions. All she saw was everything I have, everything she never could have. You guys. Your loyalty, friendship, love, devotion to me. Your readiness to go above and beyond for me. When she saw all that, she let go, thinking she had no place here. None of it was her fault. I'm really sorry I didn't know about her, and I'm sorry she had to live through the nightmare I escaped. She is what I would have been without you guys. So, we will pay our respect to the woman who wasn't as lucky as we are, who suffered more than we know. She deserves respect for all her strength, even though it hadn't been enough to win. She has my respect and she deserves yours."
"You would have to be Commander Shepard to see it that way," Garrus shook his head a little, as he stepped forward to the stasis pod/coffin. He put his hand on the shiny surface: "May she find peace now."
One by one they came over to pay their respects to the woman they had been fighting against all night.
After that little ceremony the crew started a thorough cleanup. Adams and other techies raced onto the ship only a few minutes earlier, furious about having missed all the excitement. Ken and Gabby were still absent. As far as Jo knew, they were holed up in an expensive hotel on the Presidium with champagne and chocolates and a huge bed for at least one more day. She sent them off with her blessings as soon as they had landed and paid for all their expenses.
While everyone was busy, Jo personally moved the stasis pod to the cargo bay. Once it was nothing more than another box among many, she finally allowed herself to sit down and relax against its side. She felt like crying, thrashing around, ripping and shredding because once she stopped moving a hole opened up in her chest and it was worse than the hole her dead parents had left behind. The only thing keeping her together was a plan. A far-fetched, delirious plan that would never work because there were too many ifs involved, but hey, she had to hold on to something to keep going.
"Jo, there is a whole crowd of people who want to talk to you," Joker said carefully, appearing at her side. "Like, Bailey wants a report about all the destruction, and you said you'll handle the fallout, right? Then there are the guys, Zaeed and Jack and others. They're worried. Then there are some journalists, a couple of other Spectres, a Council representative and an Alliance official, and Kolyat."
"Kolyat? Couldn't categorise him?" Jo half-smiled.
"No really. Who do you want to talk to first?"
Jo sighed and pushed herself up again. Still she had trouble leaving the pod's side. Joker stepped closer and asked very quietly:
"Jo, you worked the others into submission easily, but I'm not one of them. Can you tell me why you kept the clone's body? Why is it in a cryo stasis pod on 'sustain' when, forgive me, the normal funeral procedure in space involves a whole different kind of tech?"
"I'm not ready to part with her yet," Jo said just as quietly, gently patting the pod.
"A better answer, please."
"She never had the time to write her own story. I'm not ready to give up on that. If your name is Shepard, death is only the beginning, isn't it?"
Joker stared at the pod for a full minute. Then he panned to her and - honest to god - grabbed her by her throat. His fingers bit painfully into her trachea.
"No." He declared.
"No?" Jo wheezed.
"You want to bring her back to life?" He spoke so quietly that the words were mostly mouthed, but the fury in his eyes was intense enough to make Jo tremble. "You want to find a way to get Cerberus to do to her what they did to you? You're keeping her body in as perfect condition as you can to make their work easier? No! You can't bring her back. She's evil, haven't you noticed? She believed in pro-human terrorism, killed innocent civilians left and right, she spent six months with Brooks and neural implants, do you think she can be a normal member of society after that? She wanted to take your place, and you want to bring her back, only to give her a chance to succeed? You're playing with the devil here! She's your fucking clone, capable of the same things! If she tries hard enough, she'll fucking succeed! She'll take all your power and use it for her own evil goals, and Jo, it is a lot of power! She can destroy the galaxy with a push of a button if she misuses your influence. She can destroy your name and all the good you've done! How can you even think about risking that? Or are you hoping she'll fall into your open, loving arms and you'll have a sleepover in pyjamas, talking about boys all night? She's not just damaged goods, Jo, she's... she's... A creepy piece of meat with not a hint of your personality and restraint, and she should never have existed!"
"We'll have to disagree on that," Jo pried his fingers off her throat.
"Burn her body and mourn her as is proper, and then forget about her," he demanded.
"No."
They eyeballed each other, both headstrong and unyielding.
"She's my project," Jo finally turned down the aggression, but stood by her decision. "My responsibility. Whatever happens, I give you my word that she will not affect the galaxy in any harmful way. I also swear to you that all consequences of her actions will be mine and mine alone. You will have no part in this project. Her existence, dead or alive, will not affect our relationship in any way."
"Promise me that if she isn't what you hope for, if she's truly evil, you'll kill her."
"If nothing else works - yes."
That seemed to placate him, even though he still grumbled and shook his head.
"Joker, this is all purely academic. None of us will probably be alive long enough to embark on that particular journey."
"Whatever. Go and talk to people. There's Kolyat," Joker waved his hand and turned away sharply. Jo let him go. After the night he had, he needed some time to cool down.
