On June 14th the scientists took Jo off her sedatives. Once she was unhooked from the machines, Joker insisted on getting her into a shower. He knew first hand how it felt to wake up after a difficult surgery with greasy hair, covered in sweat, antiseptics and other unholy stuff. He didn't want that for Jo. He also wouldn't let her wake up on a cold and hard lab table.

A geth Prime unit helped him move her to a shower and then back to the lab onto the table, which had been turned into a soft, clean and comfortable bed in the meantime. Then the scientists retreated to the adjacent room to monitor her vital signs over their screens and sensors, giving Joker at least an illusion of privacy with Jo.

She looked so peaceful now, as if simply asleep. Sitting on the edge of her bed and holding her hand, Joker marvelled at how someone so spectacular, so larger than life, could appear so small. And in return how someone so small could be so strong and important.

After seeing her as a piece of meat on the table for so many months Joker took his time looking at the end result and willed himself to start seeing her as a person again. The only way for him to let a team of strangers touch her and see her naked all this time was to try and see her as a project as well. But now he could finally allow himself to see the person, the wonderful and amazing Commander Johanna Shepard. She would open her eyes in just a few hours and her miraculous presence would once again grace the galactic community. They would not know how exposed and vulnerable she'd been all this time. Joker didn't want the galaxy to see her in such a state. She would return to them strong and beautiful, as always. Even the Normandy crew stayed away on this day as per his request. Vega respected it, too. The journalists had been locked out.

Joker sat with her quietly and held her hand, watching for any sign of returning consciousness, but several hours passed before her fingers finally jerked for the first time. A minute later she stirred again and squeezed his hand.

"I hope this isn't like the first time came back," he said quietly. "I hope this is easier, somehow. I'd give my right hand to make this painless and smooth for you, love."

Her hand jerked again, and he held it up to kiss her knuckles.

"The whole galaxy is holding their breath right now. You have no idea how many people love you and want you back.

Her eyes fluttered open for a second, then shut again. Joker's heart jumped to his throat when she moaned and turned her head. He reached out to touch her face gently, but suddenly her right hand shot up like a snake and forcefully grabbed his wrist. She opened her eyes and looked at him for a few seconds without recognition. Joker's heart stopped beating. Would she even know him? The question had never crossed his mind before, but the look in her eyes…

"...urt," she whispered.

"What?" He gasped.

She tried again, but her dry throat betrayed her.

"…rink," she croaked and he reached for water. She took a careful, slow sip and let her head fall back onto the pillows, exhausted.

"I'm hurting all over," she said to him. "Don't touch me right now."

"Oh, Jo," he gasped, let her hand go and put his face in his hands, crying with relief and bewilderment at her rebuke. "Don't you ever die on me again, you have no idea what I've been through."

"Do I know you?" She whispered very seriously, and Joker's head shot up. He looked at her with such horror that she couldn't keep a straight face:

"Can't you take a joke?" She gasped. "Kiss the pain away, will you?"

Joker was crying and he didn't care how many people were watching, he didn't care about anything. Slowly, he leaned over and gently touched her lips with his. By the time he sat back up she was asleep.

A scientist came into the lab.

"You did a good job, Mr. Moreau. Her vitals are very strong, she's in deep, healthy sleep. She'll recover in no time."

"She made a joke, Doctor," Joker wiped away the tears and smiled. "She'll be fine. We'll be fine. Thank you for all you've done."

"We could do no less for her and for you, Mr. Moreau."

"You and your team and everyone else who has been involved in this have my eternal gratitude. I mean it."

"You're welcome," the salarian said and left them alone again.

She was asleep for a very, very long time. Doctors kept telling him that it was normal sleep, even if it lasted for twenty seven hours. In that time he insisted on moving her from the lab into a decent room with a bed, lamps, a chest of drawers and a window letting in daylight. He knew how much she loved daylight. She was still hooked to some sensors, but they were merely checking her vitals. Otherwise she was finished, healthy again and only waiting for the implants to settle in and be accepted by the organic tissue.

It was a big bed. When she woke up again, Joker was lying on his side on the other half of it, watching her.

"Did I die again?" She asked.

"You've got to be Shepard to have the right to ask that question," he grinned, relieved beyond belief at how normal she sounded.

"I don't feel like I died."

"How do you feel?"

"Like every cell in my body just got a shot of some nasty medicine. How long was I dead this time?"

"Thirty two minutes and fifty one seconds."

"What? Not even a year?"

"No, your heart kept beating the rest of the time. We've spent seven months rebuilding your body again. Sorry about that. Docs say you'll get used to the new implants and the pain will go away within a few days."

She looked at him groggily, but he could see thoughts forming in her head as her face lost its sleepy confusion and regained the hard edge that made up Commander Shepard. Then she tensed to get out of bed and Joker moved. He rolled on top of her, caught her hands and straddled her hips.

"Lie still," he said. "There is no need for you to jump up."

"I have to start working out to get back in shape," she said, but he could tell: the hard mask may be returning, yet she had no real steel in her voice. She was somehow different than she'd been before.

"Not right now you don't," he shook his head, still pressing her into the mattress.

"But… but…" she almost whined, then slumped onto the bed: "Is there no crisis waiting for me?"

"No, Johanna. No crisis. No war. No obligations. Nothing. We are free, we have won, and you have the rest of your life to get better. Relax."

It took her about two minutes of silence and tension to digest his words.

"No crisis," she repeated eventually.

"Nothing that would need your particular skill set."

"No war?"

"Nope, that's all done."

"What happened?"

"Well," he sat back and let go of her hands. "You know better than anyone what happened on the Citadel and let me tell you, the whole galaxy is dying to hear from you about that. All I can tell you is what happened to us." When she nodded, he continued: "The last we spoke you asked me for a joke, so I told you my best one and you jumped into the beam. Nothing happened for a while, so we kept fighting the Reapers until the Crucible docked. But it didn't work, so... I kind of gave up." He slid off her to lie on the bed next to her instead of on top of her. Side by side they looked at the ceiling. "Then EDI started demanding that I promise to find you, no matter what. She took over the ship and tried to get us into a safe position at the rim of the system, probably so that we could get to you quickly, but then the Pulse hit and the mass relay spun out of control. It kind of shot right at us and sent us tumbling to some unknown system. EDI... Well, whatever the Pulse did, it... And half of the ship's systems along with her. Your heart wasn't beating so we presumed you dead, but half an hour later it started again. That motivated us to work through several sleepless days repairing the relay and getting back to Sol, where we found you eventually, and all the scientists available had put their heads together to rebuild your body. They perfected the cloning procedure by now, but you're still full of tech on the inside. Sorry about that."

"No problem," Jo exhaled like she couldn't care less, which was a relief to Joker. "EDI is definitely dead?"

"Yeah."

"Fuuuuuuck," she suddenly moaned, covered her face with her hands, curled up in a foetal position and started shaking.

"What?!" Joker grabbed her, worried that something was wrong.

"I just remembered it, all of it, what happened on the Citadel..." She groaned through clenched teeth and sobs.

"Tell me."

Jo uncurled and shakily returned to looking at the ceiling as she spoke.

"I stepped into the beam and lost communication with you. But Anderson was still in my ear, or at least someone who sounded like Anderson. There was no way he could have gotten to the beam before me, so I had a reason to doubt it was him."

"I have an explanation for that, but please, continue."

"I landed in a bio-waste chamber. Bodies everywhere... It was like a meat grinder. Anderson was talking to me but I wasn't listening. I walked out of that room and found another chamber, big and pretty. There was a console and Anderson was at it. That's when the Asshole appeared. He talked like he was indoctrinated to hell. He said he could control the Reapers, but it was clear that they were controlling him. That was when my geth baby came in handy. It filtered indoctrination out of my head and allowed me to move freely. The Asshole and Anderson kept talking at me, stalling, so I had to do something to get to the console. Really, the way they spoke, it felt like they were both indoctrinated and someone was pulling their strings, so one logical explanation was that they were a hallucination. I shot them both, opened the Citadel's arms and watched the Crucible dock. But nothing happened and I felt like I was dying, my body shut down and there was nothing I could do about the Crucible not firing anyway, so I think I collapsed. When I woke up again, I was in a different chamber and you're not going to believe what I saw."

Joker raised both eyebrows. Knowing Johanna Shepard, it could have been the Lord Almighty himself.

"The Intelligence that controlled all Reapers," she stated coldly, as if speaking about it was too painful. "The thing that the Leviathans said killed them all, remember? It was right there, seated in a console in the middle of a holo circle. A hologram appeared to me in form of that blasted boy I kept dreaming about, and we had a chat. I thought I would have to talk to it for a while to understand its mind set, but it was actually easy. It wanted to survive at all cost. So it kept pushing visions into my head, but my geth baby filtered them out, thank heavens. The Intelligence gave me a choice: destroy all Reapers and all AIs along with them, take control of the Reapers and become the new Intelligence, or initiate a melding of synthetic and organic life into a new life form, a synthesis of both. The Intelligence wanted desperately for me to pick that option, but my geth baby sort of hacked into its console and found out that pushing that particular button would have only destroyed the Crucible and me. And while it was at it, the geth in my head hacked the Intelligence completely. Suddenly there I was, connected to the collective mind of all Reapers."

Joker forgot how to breathe. How to blink. How to move a single muscle.

"I felt them all. Heard them speak. They all spoke to me. Free from the AI's control for the first time, they demanded that I kill them all and put them to rest."

"They... asked to be killed?" Joker's head was spinning so hard that he wasn't sure he was still even on the bed. Nobody could have dreamed up that kind of craziness, so he had to believe Jo. Even when the things she spoke about seemed utterly unbelievable.

"Demanded it, actually. I said: no way, not committing genocide, especially since the geth would die, as well. They offered me a solution. I could control the energy pulse across the galaxy, identify each unit about to be destroyed and if it had a geth signature, the geth in my head would be able to pick it up and the Pulse would skip it. In that case I had a chance of survival, but EDI would die. She had no geth affiliation, but a very real Reaper signature. Other options were to become their new Master by giving up on my physical existence, or returning to the Normandy to look for a way to protect EDI from the Pulse, but in that case the harvest would have continued and we'd never have gotten another chance to end the war. So I made my choice. I wanted to live, I wanted to come back to you, so I chose the option in which EDI died and the geth lived."

Joker stared at his woman, his heart twisting in agony. But Jo wasn't done.

"I retched, I think, but then I got up and activated the console. There was this energy beam that caught me and allowed me inside the AI. I sent out the pulse and I'm not sure how long it was for you guys in the real world, but it felt like eternity for me. My mind followed the Pulse's progress across the entire galaxy, identifying each AI and skipping all the geth I found. I tried to find EDI, but couldn't. In the end, I suppose, she had too much basic Reaper coding in her. So I killed her. And then there was oblivion, and then I woke up and saw you sitting on my bed."

Joker exhaled slowly when it became clear that Jo was done with her story. He felt like he desperately needed something: a breath of cool air, or maybe a jog around the complex to burn some energy, or to cry in a pillow, or maybe a headshot. Before he knew it, he jumped up from the bed and started pacing up and down.

"Let me see if I'm right. You had two options that you were seriously considering. One: let go of your mortal body, transfer your mind into that console, become the new Intelligence and take control of the Reapers. That way you could have ordered them all to fly into a sun and their death wish would have been fulfilled, but you'd also be sort of dead, right? And the second option was to activate the Pulse, save the geth and hope like hell that I found your body in time. In the first case EDI would have survived. In the second case you would have."

"Correct."

"So you chose to risk it and stay alive, sacrificing EDI instead."

"Correct again."

Joker slumped against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor, as a few tears escaped the corners of his eyes before he could stop them.

"Fuck," he cursed, thrown right back to November 7th, to the moment when he finally realised that EDI was gone forever. The pain of loss slashed at him once more with renewed force.

Jo pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and hid her face. The slight trembling of her shoulders told him that she was crying. He wanted to comfort her, of course he did. But at this particular moment too many emotions tugged him in too many different directions. The loss of his very best friend in the whole universe, the awe at the idea of communicating with the Reapers, the thrill of having Jo back with him - his head spun so hard that he barely knew himself.

They sat silently for a while: he at the wall, she on the bed, working through their emotions. Joker tackled things one at a time. Meeting the source of the whole cycle-based galaxy-wide disaster and speaking with the Reapers? Well, he could get over that. He had been shocked when she entered the geth consensus, but now speaking with the Reapers was nothing ground breaking.

Jo was back and that was what gave his existence meaning. He could finally breathe again, now that she was alive and aware, in the same room with him. Yes, he could hold on to that.

But illogical as it might be, there was still a nagging feeling of guilt and betrayal somewhere in his chest. He hadn't realised how guilty it would make him feel, to be happy with Jo when EDI was dead, especially now that he knew that those two circumstances were so directly connected. Jo alive - EDI dead. EDI alive - Jo dead.

Sure, the biggest part of his soul knew that if the choice had been up to him, he would have cursed himself into oblivion, but made the same decision Jo had made. Still, it was a nasty, unexpected sting, to know that Jo had chosen to kill off his best friend. She had sacrificed herself for many people, for him, for the rest of the galaxy, but not for EDI. Why not? Was EDI somehow less deserving?

He looked at Jo, her long blond hair falling in a tangled mass around her shoulders as she cried, and concluded: it hadn't been about who deserved what. Jo had made an ultimately selfish choice simply because she loved and wanted him more than she loved EDI. Had it been Garrus' life on the line, she would have done the same because for the first time in her life, at the most critical moment of her whole existence, she thought not only of the greater good, but also of herself. She was saving the galaxy one way or another, so why not carve a piece of it out for herself?

And then one more realisation hit him: she hadn't been only thinking about herself. She'd done it for him. Just like hurting her was unthinkable for him, she was unable to hurt him. And her death would have destroyed him. She'd known that her death would have driven him to a swift suicide, they'd made that pact long before that fateful battle. She'd known that and did whatever she had to do to save him from the pain. She hadn't been only thinking as Commander Shepard in that moment, and not only as a person who wanted to live. She'd been thinking as a part of this unit, a half of the whole, where the other half depended on her as well.

So, logically he knew why she'd done it. But it still hurt like a bitch.

"EDI must have known what you would do," he finally remembered EDI's last minutes. Her frantic demand that Joker find Jo, her persistent attempts to get the ship into the perfect position to return to the Citadel quickly, her determination and even the way she thanked him for everything, as if saying goodbye - all spoke for the same thing.

"Harbinger said that she was connected to their collective mind in a way and that she was probably listening in on my conversation with them," Jo nodded with a sniff. "Maybe she didn't know exactly what I would do because I only made the definitive choice after I disconnected from them, but she must have suspected."

Joker got up to his feet, took a deep breath and released it. It hurt like hell to know that EDI had to die in order for him and Jo to be happy together, and it was devastating to realise that he agreed with Jo's choice. He didn't know if that pain and guilt would ever go away. However, he did know one thing: Jo was here to stay and he wouldn't let her go under any circumstances. Never again.

"Hand," he demanded and when she lifted her hand to him, he got her engagement ring out of his breast pocket and - finally! - put it back where it belonged. On her ring finger. "I kept this safe for you for seven months and seven days. There's no chance I'm letting you go ever again."

Jo slowly raised her hand and looked at the tiny diamond. A thoughtful frown marred her forehead.

"I remember this," she said slowly, as if fighting some foggy confusion.

"I sure hope so."

"No, you don't understand. This has happened before, the first time I died. When I was resurrected, my memory was foggy and I had to think about something specific before my memory of that thing would become vivid again. So I suppose I really did die this time, too. I mean, I don't feel like the last time. But I remember this ring... I came back for it," she fisted her hand and held it against her chest like a cherished treasure. "I guess last time I died a good death and didn't want to come back but Cerberus forced me. This time I fought with everything I had to come back, I didn't want to die, and this ring was the symbol of everything I fought for. I came back for it."

"So you will marry me, right?"

"I just told you I came back from the dead to marry you."

"Just checking if you have any second thoughts," Joker exhaled with relief and sat down on the bed next to her. "This is such a mess."

"No. The last time was a mess. This? A walk in the park in comparison. Though I'm not sure a walk in the park is so easy for two spacers like you and me to achieve, you know..."

"Shut up, Jo," Joker said and a slow grin lit up his face as he looked at his woman again. She was back and together they should be able to beat even this.

Jo tugged at him until he lay flat on his back and she was curled up against his side.

"Jeff," she whispered. "What if I'm not the same person I was before?"

"How do you mean?"

"I don't know... I don't feel like the old me. Not really."

"What's different?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe it's because I've just woken up and feel weak and emotional, maybe it's because I just relived that sordid day again and remembered that I killed one of my best friends, I... Jeff, I used to make these decisions easily. I've sent friends into death before and I have buried their bodies afterwards. It's the way of every commanding officer. I've never felt so... dead inside. I'll... I'm never going to make those kinds of decisions again."

"What exactly are you saying?"

"I'm saying..." She made herself very small against his side and whispered barely audibly: "I'm done being a hero. I'm done with sacrifices. The next time the world goes under - I don't have the strength to fight anymore. I've lost it. My fight."

Joker's heart hammered in his temples. He'd never thought he'd see this day, never thought he'd hear those words. Commander Johanna Shepard was giving up the fight.

"Let's just wait and see. Maybe after a good meal, a thorough fuck and a long night's sleep you'll long for your assault rifle again. But even if you don't, I'll still be here and I'll still want you."

"Good. Thank you."

Those words, spoken with quiet uncertainty, broke Joker's heart. He suddenly realised that she wasn't kidding or exaggerating. The woman who could spread a nuclear winter with just the tone of her voice, who could stand in front of a krogan giant and make him appear like a small puppy, the woman who inspired billions with just one glance - she was gone. Broken. Wasted away. They brought back her body, but the pressures of the war had finally taken their toll on her spirit. The person everyone knew as Commander Shepard was shattered.

He suspected she could recover a lot of her authoritative demeanour by remembering her training and she could fake it for a long time based on her reputation, but the core of her, the unbending, uncompromising backbone that made her so special, was probably gone for good.

It didn't matter. Broken or not, she was his woman. He'd been with her through everything that caused this meltdown, he knew what it had taken in the end and he knew that nobody else could have done what she had done. Even if only a shadow of her former self, she was and would always be the strongest person he knew.

"Talk to me, Jeff. Where are we? What's happened while I was dead? Where are our friends?"

"We're on Earth, in Greenland. Liara organised a lab here and the scientists worked day and night on you. They were led by a brilliant salarian, a famous STG member who used to know Mordin. The quarians and the geth brought the Normandy to Rome and repaired her. Ken and Gabby were with her last time I checked. The rest of the crew is scattered. Tali was helping with the broken relays, but they're fixed now, so everyone went home months ago. Garrus and Wrex are across the galaxy destroying the Leviathans as we speak. Chakwas is in Cairo, Vega will show up soon and tell you all about his adventures. Don't know much about the rest. I haven't exactly kept up with the world in these seven months. I've spent them in the lab with you."

"Why? I'd have thought it would be excruciating, to sit there helplessly and watch them work on a piece of meat. You could have spent the time flying, helping other people."

Joker disentangled himself from Jo and got up from the bed.

"You know I don't do mushy," he said sternly and pointed an accusing finger at Jo. "So listen here, listen good and remember this for the rest of your life. And any other lives you may get. Without you I'm incomplete. I only exist when you're looking at me. The first time you died proved that I can't live without you and the only reason I haven't killed myself this time is because your heart started beating again. The world without you in it isn't worth living in, Jo. I don't want to exist if you're not around. What was the point going out and socialising when the guy sitting in that lab was just a placeholder for the real me? Only you see me and I only want to be when you see me. I want your opinions, your input, your craziness, I want to be a part of this unit, or not be at all. So I didn't even want our friends to see the placeholder. You were not in the world all this time and I removed myself from it, too. I don't care about helping people or flying. There is only one thing I care about, and that's your eyes, looking at me, seeing me."

Jo swallowed and wiped away one more tear.

"I'll remember," she said and beckoned him back to the bed. When Joker was calm enough, he followed her invitation. With her head on his chest, she suddenly tensed: "Wait a second, did you just say that Garrus is killing Leviathans?"

"I did. When it became clear that the scientists would be able to bring you back just fine, he sat us all down and laid down the rule. He said we couldn't wait for your return only to dump another problem on you. We had to solve our own shit because we're capable. So we pooled resources and he had an army at his disposal almost right away. Then he did what you would have done. There was one Leviathan left after the battle, so he approached it and had a chat with it. They recorded it, I suppose, but I never watched that footage. All I know is that by the end of that chat the fleet opened fire and destroyed the giant cuttlefish. Then they took off to find their home base on that planet where you jumped into the ocean to talk to them. There was a lot of fighting, which ended in a nuclear bomb obliterating the whole planet. But two smaller Leviathans escaped. Right now Garrus and Wrex are chasing them down. It won't take long. It looks like those two are the last of the species."

"Smaller ones? As in - children?"

Joker hesitated.

"...maybe. I don't know."

Unexpectedly, she cuddled into him:

"I love Garrus. Hope you don't mind me saying so. I love the guy. Only the truest of friends would go off to commit genocide to spare me the heartache. He's always like that. So modest and subtle, but there's a dangerous fire raging inside him. I never asked him to, but he always made sure that our crew was on board with all my plans. I'm sure nobody really notices, but Garrus very often asks me questions about my decisions that he already knows answers to, and he does it in public, so that everyone else gains understanding. He's exceptional. And those Leviathan kids could cause a lot of trouble after we turned on them after the war, so it's more practical to eliminate the threat now before they cause real damage. I'm just glad that I'm not the one launching rockets at them this time. I'll love Garrus forever for what he's doing."

Joker grinned. Oh, yeah, Jo may lose her fight, but she'd never, ever turn soft.

They lay in silence for a while, but Joker knew that the scientists outside their room were going crazy, wanting to know if she woke up "in full control of her mental abilities" or some shit like that.

"So, are you ready to face the world?" He asked gently. "I know the scientists will want to poke you a bit, but they're good guys and after the effort they put into you it's only kind to let them admire their work for a bit. You can let them fuss over you while we eat at the cafeteria. Plus, the journalists are probably breaking down all doors. The public wants to know about your return."

"Oh, god," Jo whispered. "I'm alive again. "There will be no end to this public circus. Not now, since everyone probably considers me a hero."

"You have no idea, babe. A messiah. There are Shepard religions popping up all over the world. Come on, let's eat and I'll tell you all about it."

The scientists ambushed them in the cafeteria, as he predicted. Some of them were already packing their stuff, but everyone pooled into the common room to meet the new, improved Commander. Even the security team came, barricading everyone inside to keep the reporters out.

The doctors fussed over her, scanning her body and firing a million questions at her while Joker brought her some food and put it in front of her. It looked like she needed a moment to remember what hunger was and how to eat. The adjustment period wouldn't be easy, he had no illusions about that, but it would definitely be smoother than the last time.

There was so much to talk about that he didn't know where to start. The salarian team leader, Horat Farin, took care of the conversation, explaining to Jo all the work that had been done on her. He gave her a list of all implants and educated her on possible side effects of some of them. She took it all in stride, though she had no other choice about it, right? Joker saw a spark of interest when Farin explained the perfected cloning procedure and this facility's advanced machinery capable of cloning specific body parts. When the examination was done, Farin shook her hand and declared that he and the rest of the team would head to their homes now.

"Thank you, Doctor," Jo said. "You have my deepest gratitude for your work."

"No gratitude needed," he smiled. "Loved the challenge. Would have enjoyed it even more if you were actually dead."

Joker barely stifled a chuckle: this man clearly knew Mordin and had the same kind of dry humour.

"I'd like you to leave this facility as it is," Jo said thoughtfully. "Something tells me there are thousands of injured and disabled soldiers out there who could use a cloned replacement for a leg or an arm or an eye. We could at least start offering those who are stationed here on Earth this kind of medical attention from here."

"Of course, Commander," Farin nodded. "Will see to that."

Oh, she was good, Joker realised, shaking his head. A small chill ran down his spine. She dressed her request in patriotic colours, but Joker knew exactly what Jo needed this facility for, now that she was back. And it had everything to do with a certain coffin flying in an asteroid field in a distant solar system. Damnit, even after death she was still set on the idea of bringing her evil clone back! Would nothing dissuade this woman? He seriously considered clubbing her over the head and hoping that she'd lose her memory.

Meanwhile Jo singled out the geth Prime in the team asked it to speak privately later.

"Commander, the reporters are going crazy out there," the security chief said. "Should we clear the premises or let them in? Or would you like to just show your face and make a brief statement?"

"I don't want to tell the same story about what happened on the Citadel again and again," Jo sighed dejectedly, her eyes cast down. "Tell them that I'm back, I'm fine and that I will speak to my friends first and then schedule a conference with the Council. Or whoever is in charge these days. They'll have to wait until then to ask their questions."

"Yes, ma'am," he nodded and left. The scientists continued to pack and Jo led the geth unit to a private room. Joker followed.

"I need a geth body," she said. "An empty shell without an AI inside, but fully functioning. Do you think you can get me one here, quickly?"

The Prime blinked a few times, staring down at her. Joker would probably never get over how huge the Primes were. He was also extremely curious about what she wanted an empty geth for.

"I just ordered it from a junkyard in the London area, it will arrive in forty seven minutes," the Prime reported and changed its footing, resembling Legion that way. "May I inquire what you need it for?"

"When I was inside the geth consensus, Legion planted a geth seed in my brain. It's been with me all this time and saved my life that day on the Citadel. Now it's time to place it in a real geth body and let it gain consciousness."

Joker almost pumped his fist. Finally! At least one of their little problems would go away. Literally, on its own two legs! The Prime, however, almost staggered:

"May I request permission to be present during the transfer? It would be the closest any geth ever came to... a birth."

"Of course. I'll need your help arranging the interface anyway," Jo smiled fondly. Joker's heart tightened at that smile because it made him fall in love with her once more, or at least it reminded him of how much he already loved her. Stubborn, sometimes stupid, sometimes over the top, always taking over wherever she went, Johanna Shepard was the most fascinating, the most beautiful and exciting woman he'd ever met, and she belonged to him. He just hoped the pain caused by EDI's death wouldn't mar the way he saw Jo now.