Joker's Commander was hopefully alive somewhere on the Citadel and the rest of the ground team was on board getting treated for their wounds. Since there was no more reason to go back to the planet's surface and all communication with Jo had been lost the moment she stepped into the beam, Joker saw no reason not to join the fleet in battle. Technically, Jo had left Tali in charge of the ship for as long as she herself or Garrus were indisposed, but after they left Earth and Jo behind everyone was shaken and petrified, even the young quarian. Javik, however, stepped up after all the months of being a useless douche bag. This was what he was truly good at: killing the Reapers. It was his strategy that gave Joker several opportunities to deal crippling blows to a couple of Reapers. Not long after that they teamed up with a few other fighters. Who knew vorcha could fly formation?

Joker still kept one eye and one ear on the console that was supposed to be showing data from Jo's helmet camera, suit sensors and audio from her earpiece. There was nothing at all, like Jo was not connected in any way. Joker ignored the possibility of her death. She was alive, the data from the minipad in his breast pocket showed steady life signs, and besides - he could feel it in his heart.

He was proven right when the Citadel's arms started opening and the Crucible got the chance to dock. Everyone who saw it held their breath. Hell, thousands of people had participated in the project, but nobody seemed to know what the Crucible would actually do. Would it be a useless heap of metal and wasted resources, or would it become the magic weapon they all dreamed about?

When nothing happened for over a minute, the tight knot in Joker's gut slowly unravelled. The Crucible didn't work. There would be no magical solution. Their fleet against the Reapers, right here and now, that would be it. And they would lose. There was no longer any reason to worry, to agonise about the future, to be frantic, panicked or hopeful. There was no more reason for anything. They'd lost. All they could do was go out with a bang.

Joker's hands slid off his console. What was the point? Tali sobbed right behind him, obviously thinking the same thoughts. Javik grunted in agony. Liara swayed, barely able to stand. Joker looked out of the window and finally gave up.

Jo had always believed him to be so strong. He had swallowed his insecurities and weaknesses many times over to carry her to wherever she'd needed to be, but now it was over. He couldn't help her anymore and there was nothing left for him to fight for. He was done being strong. He was done being, for that matter.

Something happened then, a kind of shudder that went through the Reapers on his screens. It was like they paused for a second in what they were doing before resuming their activities.

"Jeff," EDI called to him from the co-pilot's seat. As Joker looked at her listlessly, he was surprised to find the mech looking frantic. Panicked, almost hysterical. "Jeff, you have to find her!"

He frowned. He'd never seen, had never even imagined that it was possible for a mech to look like this. What was going on with her? She often conveyed her emotions (yes, EDI had real emotions and anyone who claimed otherwise could eat a bullet!) by the tone of her voice, but he had no idea that she could manipulate the mech's face in such a way...

"Jeff!" EDI snapped at him, breaking him out of his stupor. "You need to find her! Promise me that you'll find her!"

"Find who?" He blinked numbly, not sure what she wanted from him.

"Promise me!" EDI shouted. That was unheard of.

"I promise!" He snapped back, thinking that she couldn't possibly mean anyone else but Jo. She wanted him to find Jo.

"Thank you," she calmed down immediately. She sat back in the seat, relaxed and smiled at him. "Thank you for everything, Jeff."

"What's going on?" He frowned. He was confused, but didn't have the time to ask more questions. EDI took over the ship. Her voice sounded in all speakers:

"Crew of the Normandy, strap yourselves into your seats. We are in for major turbulence."

"EDI, what are you doing?" Tali exclaimed, but a message from Hackett came through at the same moment, telling the entire fleet to disengage from the Reapers and to fall back to the rendezvous point.

Joker probably should have been the one steering the ship, but after giving up all hope a few moments ago he was still too numb and exhausted to take any action. He just looked at EDI as she took over the ship, kidnapped everyone on it and headed away from the bulk of the Reaper forces, to the outer rim of the system. The rest of the galactic fleet went straight for the mass relay, but not EDI. She headed for the empty space between the systems.

"I will make sure you are safe while I still can," she said to Tali with cold determination in her voice. "The Crucible is active and about to fire."

"What?!" Many voices sounded at once. People in the CIC looked at their screens, verifying the news. Indeed, the Citadel had opened up like edelweiss and a ball of red energy started building up in its middle.

"Jo is still there," Joker breathed out. The device's activation meant that she was still alive, still doing something. And that meant that he still could dare to hope, that he couldn't give up. He also couldn't leave her there. He had to go back and find her.

"Shouldn't we rendezvous with the rest of the fleet?" Tali asked.

"You need to stay close to the system and to Earth to get repairs done as soon as possible and waste no time finding her," EDI said quietly, while it was clear that she was concentrating all her processing power on bringing the ship into an ideal position. Joker didn't know what she was talking about, exactly, and how she knew what would happen once the Crucible fired, but there was no more time to question her.

The red energy around the Crucible finally reached the threshold and fired. The wave was slow at first, but the further away from the Citadel it moved, the faster it became. Joker and everyone else watched in shock as the Reapers got caught up in the wave, flamed up brightly and died, drifting motionlessly in space, bumping into each other. The Citadel itself started burning in many places, barely holding together.

And then the wave hit the relay. Barely a quarter of the ships had made it through when the massive contraption lit up in the same red colour and started spinning uncontrollably.

"Fuck!" Joker gripped the console again when he realised that the last ships to enter the transit mode before the relay got hit were being sent through space in random different directions, regardless of where the relay was supposed to lead. Just when it looked like the worst was over, the relay shook from an explosion and started its own red wave, which overlapped with the one from the Citadel. Several Alliance ships were caught in that overlapping zone and got tossed away. Almost immediately the inner rotating rings of the relay broke off. Without its navigational system the relay just kept sending approaching ships away to unknown destinations while it rotated completely out of control. "FUCK!" He roared, when finally the two red waves hit the Normandy almost at the same time and the relay turned their way, too. He gripped controls but the ship suddenly went dark.

There was a massive hit, followed by another and another. The ship got swept up in the waves like a piece of paper in a hurricane. The systems didn't respond and Joker had no way of steering somewhere else, when the relay shot one more time and the blue energy beam caught them full force.

The transit began. One that they hadn't planned for or initiated, one that EDI had tried to avoid. She couldn't have predicted that the relay would start spinning and shooting like a crazy Catherine's wheel. Everything was out of Joker's control, it seemed, the ship was still dark except for the sparks and fires from broken tech all around the CIC. Even the hull groaned and he heard and felt it crack like a nutshell.

And then the turbulence suddenly stopped. Immediately Joker started pushing buttons to get the ship under control. Lights came on, a ship-wide fire alarm sounded, and Joker's console came back to life. ...in blue instead of orange.

"What the fuck? EDI?" He looked at her, but her mech sat motionlessly in the seat like a broken doll. Her face was once more expressionless, her eyes dull and empty.

"SR2 Normandy is online," an unfamiliar voice spoke up through the speakers, startling Joker. "I am the ship's VI. How may I be of assistance?"

"We have an actual VI here?" Liara groaned, operating a fire extinguisher. The whole CIC, no, the entire ship was a minefield of small and medium fires, but at least none seemed critical.

"Transfer ship's controls to the first pilot's console!" Joker yelled. Thankfully, the VI obeyed. Once Joker had the power back, he realised that the ship was still spinning like crazy from the hit they took and they were flying at too high a speed right towards a sun. In an unfamiliar solar system.

You have to take care of them.

You need to find her.

The voices of the two women sounded in his head, reminding him of the two promises he had made, as he watched the appearing and disappearing sun flash in their windows periodically. They entered a solar system and were spinning towards its sun at almost FTL speed. EDI was offline. The long forgotten VI was online instead, and Joker was the only one who could save the ship and the crew now.

He slowly closed his eyes and took a breath. Then he took the minipad out of his pocket and checked Jo's vitals despite knowing exactly what he would see.

There were none.

But he had known that already in his heart, known it the moment the red pulse had hit them. She was dead.

She was gone.

Joker squashed down all feelings that threatened to surface. He would not succumb to grief when the ship and twenty nine people, one hamster and eighteen fish on it depended on him. He would honour Jo's last request and take care of the crew, even though he had no plans to stay with them for long. He would get them to safety before he would join his woman, wherever she was now.

With new determination he opened his eyes and reached for the console.

It took some fancy flying, but he managed to steer clear of the sun and set course for one of the two life supporting planets in the system. Still, they were coming in at a high speed that would result in a crash landing and there was nothing Joker could do about that. He barked orders at the VI and the navigators and some part of him realised that while those obeyed him perfectly, Tali, Liara, Garrus and the remainder of the team just stood behind him in silence, letting him work just like Jo always did. They knew there was no point in asking questions or making suggestions right now. He needed to fly and they needed to stay out of his way. Jo had always known that and these people had learned from her.

The landing was anything but smooth, but he'd managed to slow down to a non-lethal speed and found a clear patch in the middle of a gigantic forest they were headed for. With a final groan in all joints the Normandy skidded and came to a standstill.

Joker took his hands off the console and sat back.

It was done. He was done.


James hobbled into the CIC right before everything went to hell. He'd escaped the doctor by insisting that he could take a little pain from the bruised ribcage but he needed to know what was happening. The elder woman let him go with just a tight bandage, which spoke volumes about her own condition.

On the screens and through the windows of the CIC he saw how the Crucible fired a wave of red energy, which killed all Reapers and hit the mass relay. In the middle of transiting a bunch of ships, the relay spun out of control, lost its alignment and started sending those ships in wrong directions. Then the red wave hit the Normandy, followed by a collision with whatever the relay had just sent their way, and the Normandy got caught in the hurricane. Everything tumbled, people fell and rolled, equipment broke left and right, but a second later they transited to another system. James got back to his feet despite the pain from repeatedly abused ribs and made his way to the cockpit. Garrus, Liara, Tali and Javik were there, silently but tensely watching Joker work his magic. Their lives, the whole ship depended on him right now. But as the others watched the pilot's hands and his console, James tried to get a glimpse of the man's face. Shadowed by his hat, it was a stone mask. Not a single emotion showed.

Joker did his job right. The landing wasn't smooth, but they were still alive and the ship seemed intact. Silence spread across the Normandy. They'd all seen the Citadel burn. They all knew Shepard had been there. They were all smart enough to realise that whatever just happened with the Crucible - she'd paid the price for killing all the Reapers. There had never been another way.

They all knew what that meant and Joker's pointed silence on the matter safely removed all hope James might have had.

Johanna Shepard was dead.

He was the only one who dared a look at Joker right now. He found the pilot slumped in his seat and there was a single tear slowly crawling down his cheek. James was at a loss. What could he do? He'd lost the woman he was in love with just now, but Joker had lost much more than that, he'd lost his woman. For the first time he could feel real sympathy for the guy, he could see the strength Shepard told him about the night before. Joker was dying inside, but he had still done all he could to save the ship and the crew.

Collectively, the Normandy crew refused to speak about Shepard right now. It's not true if you don't say it out loud, right? So, a few minutes later they forced the airlock open and one by one stepped outside. Exploring their surroundings was better than thinking about what happened to Lola.

Lost in his own shock and grief, James nursed his ribs and watched Joker as the older man went groundside alone and walked a little further from the rest of the people. James dared to approach him.

"Hey, man," he began, but Joker just jerked his head:

"Not now."

"Let's go a little further," James suggested and was almost surprised when Joker listlessly followed him into the trees. The rest of the crew was spreading around the ship, talking, but the two of them walked on in silence. When they were far enough not to be heard by the others, Joker leaned against a stone and slid down to sit on the ground. Right before James' eyes he let go and fell apart.

Tears streamed down his face, a silent scream distorted his features and convulsions shook his whole body. James had been among tough people most of his life, rough guys who sometimes succumbed to pain when they lost someone, but never had he seen devastation like this. James pressed a hand against his own mouth, trying and failing to stifle a sob. Watching the end of a man's world like this, watching him fall apart so utterly, knowing that he never would have showed emotion under any other circumstances... James' own pain at losing the colonists of Fehl Prime and every other person he'd ever lost before today suddenly seemed like a trifle.

There was nothing he could do to help because the loss was absolute and it tore at him as well.

For a long time they sat there together, shedding tears for the woman they both loved.

When there were no more tears, screams or tremors left in Joker's body, he just sat there, fumbling with two objects, James realised. One of them was a mini datapad, the other one - the engagement ring Lola had been wearing this morning at breakfast.

"What's that?" James asked the pilot and jerked his chin at his hands. Joker looked down at what he was holding, considered the items for a moment and gave Vega the ring to have a look at. James read the engraving carefully.

"Jo and Joker?"

"Last night, when I asked her to marry me, she said she would marry me after. She couldn't wear a ring into battle, it's a hazard, she could break a finger, so she gave it to me to keep safe for her return."

"Oh, man…"

"We had a lifetime together," Joker spoke on, not really looking at anyone or anything, just lost in his thoughts. "In fact, we had several. One in which we'd been heroes. One in which we'd been lovers. And one where we grew old together, had three children, twenty seven great-grandchildren, and died on the same day. I can never love anyone like I love her. And now this is all I have of her."

James didn't know what Joker meant by growing old together, he couldn't even speak through the knot in his throat when he gave Joker the ring back. They couldn't talk or move, grief crushing them both.

And suddenly the datapad in Joker's hand beeped. They both jumped at the soft sound, and stared at the device.

"What is that?" James asked, and Joker suddenly gripped the little thing so hard that he almost crushed it. The sound repeated, doubled this time. After a few seconds it repeated again, then again more frequently, and then James realised what it sounded like.

A heartbeat.

He saw Joker's face, a sudden change in him, going from rigid pain into rigid… something else, the dark, intense look in his face, the cramped body.

"What the hell is this?"

"Life signs detector," Joker finally replied, not even blinking, just looking at a thin line on the screen that jumped in regular intervals.

"Hers?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"A long time ago she had a device installed under her skin, it transmits her position, audio stream and life signs. Back in Vancouver, that's how she communicated with me, you must remember. I receive the data through this datapad."

"Why would she… Nevermind. Does this mean she's alive?"

"Fucking YES," Joker snapped. "And now I'll turn the whole universe upside down to find her."

"I'm right there with you," James said, got up and offered Joker his hand to help him to his feet.


Once they were done explaining to the rest of the crew the significance of the steady beeping, there was a little commotion on the meadow where they'd gathered, right under the Normandy's wing.

"Why didn't I know about this transmitter?" Garrus asked coldly, clearly offended by the lack of trust from Jo.

"I didn't know, either," Tali grumbled. The rest of the crew confirmed that Karin, Gabby and Ken were the only ones who knew besides Joker and Vega.

"Because that thing is potentially the most dangerous source of information in the galaxy. For you not knowing means plausible deniability, and quite frankly, you slept better as long as you didn't know," Joker shrugged. "But now all of you do, and you will all swear right now on Jo's life not to tell anyone else. Even Wrex and Jack and Samara and other former team members. It's a worse kind of secret than that about the clone. Are we all clear?"

People nodded. They all knew the score. Besides, the transmitter was not their most pressing matter right now. A heated debate started.

"I'm definitely going!" Vega was saying.

"Normandy is in no flight condition right now," Tali was trying to explain. "We have huge hull gaps, for starters!"

Joker interrupted the shouting sharply:

"Stand down, everyone," he snapped and turned to Garrus: "Vakarian, you're Shepard's second in command. Get captaining."

Everyone slowly fell silent, all of them turning to look at Garrus for orders.

"Spirits, I hoped the day would never come that I'd be Normandy's captain," he rubbed his face.

"Temporarily, it's just temporarily," Joker spoke up.

"I need a status report," Garrus said. The navigators opened their omnitools and Traynor summed up their observations:

"The ship has sustained substantial damage and needs repairs before she is space-worthy. There are two big hull breeches in the cargo bay and seventeen small ones on the sides and in the tail section. The batteries are only half charged and would sustain life support for only three days and fourteen hours. The food supplies have not been renewed since we left the Citadel six days ago. The Commander had not deemed necessary to have large food supplies. With the current crew number, the food will last only eleven more days. Our fuel tank is full. The long range scanner seems to be broken. And EDI... She's not responding. When the pulse hit us, she went offline and the VI was activated. It seems nobody even knew we had a VI here. I mean, why would we..." She sobbed but composed herself quickly. Garrus took over:

"All right. Adams, do we have the equipment and the materials to seal the hull breaches?"

"Only the small ones. The two big ones in the cargo hold require special materials only available on the Citadel. It's a miracle we hadn't lost all air during transit to this system. EDI must have activated the energy field around the whole cargo bay to keep it in before she... Well. Yeah." Even the elder man looked pale and shaking as he thought about what everyone realised had been EDI's last attempt to make sure the crew survived before she died. Something told Joker that whatever the pulse had done to her was not reversible. Joker couldn't imagine how she'd known she would die, and he would have been hurt and worried about it if he wasn't already dying with worry about Jo. He only had the strength to worry about one thing at a time and saving Jo was the most important thing in the world.

"Tali, can you have a look at EDI's servers and find out if there is any way at all we can bring her back online?"

Tali nodded with a little sob.

"Can we recharge the batteries?"

"We have solar cells," Kenneth said, looking at his own omnitool. "They seem to be mostly intact, but the connection to the battery has been broken. They will have to be unfolded manually and reconnected."

"All right, people," Garrus stepped onto the ramp to overlook the entire group. He didn't really need to do that – there was no one taller than him on the Normandy. It was the small, slight, blond Commander who always needed help getting taller than the men surrounding her. Fuck, everything would be a reminder of her, it seemed. Everything. "Adams, you're on the hull breaches. Ken, take a couple of your engineers and start working on those solar cells and the small hull breeches. Vega and Javik, take two teams to explore the surroundings. Find out if there is water and see about any kind of food you can find. Take guns but don't shoot unless attacked. Tali, you're on EDI. Gabby, have a look at the long range scanner. Doctor, you start with a base camp. Rodney, Copeland, help the doctor. Campbell, go around the ship and turn off every unnecessary system and device to save the power. Traynor, join me in the war room."

As Vega and Javik began assembling people for their teams, Joker spoke up:

"What about me, Garrus?"

The turian turned to him and asked earnestly:

"Will you follow an order? Or has becoming Shepard's fiancée elevated you from such formalities?"

"Garrus, don't be stupid, you're my CO. For now."

"Then come with me and Traynor to the war room."

"So, where the hell are we?" Garrus asked the VI, once the three of them were assembled around the holographic table.

"Inconclusive. This is an uncharted region."

"Does this solar system have a mass relay?"

"Unknown."

"The Sol relay transited a ship when we got hit. Did it enter the system with us or was it destroyed?"

"There is no data available."

"I miss EDI," Garrus sighed.

"About EDI," Tali entered the room. Her voice made it clear that even though one heartbreak had been averted for the time being, another heartbreak was certain. "I looked at her servers. They are completely destroyed. Some parts are melted so profoundly that I can only assume those were related to the Reapers somehow. The molten clumps crumble when touched. I wish I could..." The young woman kneaded her hands as she took a shuddering breath. "I'm so sorry!.. I can't fix that. Nobody can. EDI is... well. She's gone. Even the mech. Its insides are one big lump, only the shell remained."

"I suppose that was the whole point," Joker could only nod as his chest constricted. "Whatever the Crucible did, it affected all Reapers and everything based on their tech. It's just... fucked up."

"EDI wasn't the only part of the Normandy based on Reaper technology. There are countless spots all around the ship where the tech melted in the same way. Many systems will be affected. The pulse that hit us was uncompromisingly thorough."

"And it raises the question: what happened to Jo's implants?" Garrus mused.

"It explains why she was dead for thirty two minutes," Joker looked at the minipad again. "But she's mostly organic, still, so she came back. She's a fighter." The magnitude of what happened, of all he just lost and all he still could lose suddenly dawned on him, crushing him under its weight. A tear escaped his eye as he fought for breath: "She's my fighter."

A hand settled on his right shoulder. Then another on his left. Garrus and Tali stepped close to him in a show of support and friendship they'd never had the need to display before.

"As long as that heart beats," Garrus pointed at the minipad. "We have an unfinished business. But didn't you say that this implant gives you her location, audio and a full spectrum of life signs?"

"It did, until the pulse hit and we got transited. I don't know if it's damaged on our end or on hers, maybe it's because we're in an uncharted system without any com buoys or even a relay, fuck, I don't even know if those thirty two minutes of silence happened because she was dead or because the signal was lost. All I know now is that I get nothing but the heartbeat on this thing."

"We'll find her," Tali squeezed his shoulder gently. "Whatever it takes."

"All we need to do right now is to get the ship space worthy and find out if this system has a relay and if it's still working," Joker concluded.

"Well, start on getting the navigational systems back online," Garrus said. "Tali, coordinate the rest of the repairs in the CIC. I'll check on the others."

The sun set soon after that and two moons rose high in the sky: one faint blue, the other dull green. The hunting parties returned just before sunset, and by that time the solar panels had been unfolded, reconnected, and even caught the last sunlight to begin recharging. The hunters brought all kinds of vegetables and plants with them, and even caught a few animals that looked like snakes with very short feet and covered with hard spikes on their backs. No sign of civilisation was detected so far.

All of them sat around a campfire in the late evening, eating whatever they could get, which proved problematic for Tali and Garrus. They had to stick to the ship's rations. Dr. Chakwas deemed only three sorts of vegetables edible for humans, and dissected one of the animals. She'd found the usual muscle tissue, stomach and lungs under a very hard skin, but the rest of the inner organs puzzled even her.

Joker was observing all of the activity with only one eye. Half of his attention was always on the steadily beeping minipad that he carried around in his chest pocket.

"This is the deal," Garrus spoke up eventually. "We can recharge the batteries eventually. We can fix the small hull holes. In fact, some of them have already been repaired. We can re-route some power to the freezers and store some of these vegetables. We can not patch up the hull breaches in the cargo hold, however. We can not find any food for me and Tali right away. We can not repair the long range scanner. We don't know if there is a mass relay in this system and if it has been damaged, and even if it's fine, we're positive that the relay in the Sol system is broken and out of alignment. We know that Jo is somewhere out there and her heart is beating steadily. Sadly, the transmitter doesn't send any other intel. Perhaps it's been damaged, perhaps we're too far to receive. We have to devise a plan how to get back to Sol and save her, preferably within ours and her lifetime."

"What about our FTL drive core?" Liara asked.

"It's undamaged," Tali said.

"Will we have to use FTL to get to the Sol system? How much time would that take?"

"Impossible to say without knowing where we are, but it would be at least several standard decades, perhaps centuries."

"Unacceptable," Joker said. "We will have to do better than that. It's our Jo we're talking about."

"Do you have any suggestions?" Javik asked him with an evil gleam in his eyes.

"I'd say we move the ship to the day side of the planet to recharge the batteries right now, we seal off the cargo bay until we can repair those hull breaches, we take skeleton crew to prolong our survival in space as much as possible, turn off life support in every room we don't need, and try our luck looking for the mass relay in this system."

The 'non essential' crew exchanged glances. Everyone knew that in order to fly the Normandy Joker only needed two techies. He'd done just that when Jo had been sent to investigate Dr Kenson.

Well, he had only needed two techies when EDI was helping him. Fuck, getting used to her absence would take a while. He didn't want to get used to it.

At once a tumult broke out. People were talking, gesticulating, trying to be heard. Joker was silent. He looked over at Garrus, who would essentially be the one to make that decision. Garrus looked back at him for a moment. Joker was by far not as good as Jo at reading this turian's facial expressions, but he imagined a trace of hate there.

"Calm down, people," Garrus said eventually, but most of the arguing people hadn't heard him. "Be quiet!" He spoke louder and added: "Or do you want me to go all Shepard on you?!"

People shut up immediately. Each of them had a very good idea what going 'all Shepard' could entail. They had no doubt that her oldest friend would know exactly how to do it. They sat down quickly.

"We're all going," Garrus declared. "We're the Normandy crew and we don't leave anyone behind. Leaving a handful of people on an unknown planet in an uncharted world equals leaving them to die. We're not that desperate yet. We go together or we don't go at all. Joker is right, though. The only way to lift off is to seal off the entire cargo bay and cut off life support in non essential areas of the ship to save the power and fuel. That means we'll all have to cram together more than usual. No more private apartments, no more lounge, bar or starboard observatory."

"We can reduce the room to the second level, if needed," Cortez said. "We can move the beds and facilities to the war room – we don't really need that anymore, do we? Move the kitchen to the conference room. The rest of the ship is non essential on this kind of a mission, and anyway, it can always be accessed with suits."

"Now you're talking," Garrus nodded. "Tali, how would that increase our power?"

"The power drain on the battery would be decreased by 76%."

"Very well, we will start the project tomorrow first thing. Get some rest now."

"We're not tired," Adams declared, and the rest of the technicians agreed. "We'll go continue the work on the fixable hull breaches."

"I'll go pack the medical supplies and relocate the necessities to the CIC," Dr. Chakwas said.

"I'm going to go start on those beds," Vega said despite his paleness and quite obvious pain in his ribs. "Who's with me?" Several people went with him, some others went to help Chakwas, others went to gather the necessary stuff from around the ship and bring it to CIC to refit the big room for all purposes.

Joker looked at this late night activity of people who had fought the battle for the galaxy's survival in the morning and didn't want to sleep in the night because they had their Shepard to save. A little knot of gratitude tied in his throat. He didn't notice Garrus until the turian came over and bumped his shoulder:

"See, Joker, we're all in this together. We all love her, and we'll all give anything and everything to get her back. Just hang in there."

Joker nodded quietly. A terrible sadness came over him. All this activity – and Jo was not there. Usually, she would be right in the middle of it, the first to organise efforts. He missed her so much, it was almost like acid burning away his soul.

When they were ready, Joker moved the ship to a different spot on the planet's surface, a desert where the morning just started. The batteries recharged within hours and by that time the techies had sealed off the fixable hull breaches. The rest of the crew worked hard on moving the beds, the kitchen stuff and freezers as well as the medical supplies to the CIC. The thought of rest never entered anyone's mind.

Every now and then they would check up on Joker in the cockpit, where he was trying to get some failing systems to function, and ask him if Jo's heart was still beating. It wasn't until several hours later that the even pulse had suddenly changed. It quickened, beating like crazy. Joker sprinted towards Chakwas:

"Doc, what's happening?!"

She couldn't tell him, she knew as little as he did. Still, she patted his arm and said:

"My guess is that when her heart began beating again, she was in a coma, and now she's waking up."

The change could mean any sort of thing, but he was grateful for her explanation. It meant hope. Still, after a little while the heartbeat levelled out again.

Javik and a hunting party brought a few crates with edible vegetables and skinned some animals to add to their food supplies, but they didn't need anything else from this planet and as soon as the batteries were charged and the hull fixed Garrus gave the order to lift off.

It was eleven hours and forty one minute after Jo's heart started beating again.

They were working against time here and their only hope was that this system had a working relay.

The new situation was intense. With thirty people, one hamster and a bunch of fish crammed into a very small space, with piles of equipment and stacks of crates everywhere, even a breath of fresh air was a luxury. Still, nobody seemed to care. Discipline was unshakable even when Jo was not around. The navigators worked like bees to help Joker fly while the rest of the crew planted their asses on their relocated beds and shut up, waiting and staying out of the way. No one would ever complain on the Normandy.

"This is really happening," Garrus muttered from behind Joker as the ship lifted off. "I'm the Normandy's captain. This is just too strange."

"Focus, Vakarian," Joker retorted.

"All right, take us up, Joker."