AN: Hi, everyone! I'm sorry for the interruption in updates. Life threw a working marathon at me as well as another writing project. It looks like I'm having a book published, and that takes a lot of work as well. But things have calmed down a bit now, so I should be back to posting regularly now. Thanks everyone for reading and staying around!


A day later Jo and Joker stood side by side in a hangar, looking up. The Normandy loomed over them, shiny and clean, gleaming invitingly in the floodlights. Vega, Ken, Gabby and a bunch of other techies stood aside, giving them some privacy. Something tugged unpleasantly at Jo's heart. Dread.

Joker must have felt the tightening of her fingers in his because he leaned in to ask quietly:

"So, what do you think?"

"I'm scared," she admitted. "What if I go inside and everything reminds me of how I felt for the last few years? What if the feeling returns? You know, the constant feeling of doom and certain death of everything we know? Despair, destruction... desolation? And EDI..."

Joker didn't laugh at her fears. He gave them some thought.

"I think she'll understand. The Normandy, not EDI. This is your ship, babe. She's your heart and soul. She will be there for you no matter what happens. She will always work for you, never against you, to the best of her abilities. Now that we're turning over a new leaf, she'll be there for us in this new life, I'm sure."

"And what about you? How will you fly without EDI?"

"It'll be difficult to be in the cockpit without her, but I'll manage. I still have two of my girls. You and the Normandy. As for flying, well, you'll just need to hire the specialists and the navigators EDI had been replacing all this time. That means we'll have seven or eight new jobs to fill."

They both let that thought go through their minds. EDI was not easy to replace and Jo had a feeling that Joker was as reluctant as she was to look into getting a new AI.

"Ready?" Joker asked. Jo wasn't, not by a long shot, but she couldn't stay down here forever, she had to step onto her own ship eventually. She took a deep breath and let Joker lead her up the loading ramp.

They stepped into the cargo bay and Jo did a double take. This was not her ship. It was, and yet it wasn't.

"What the fuck?" She muttered. On the left side stood two Kodiaks: one of them old, the second one completely new, replacing the one destroyed in the Alps the other day. That was familiar. On the right side was a beautiful, fully stocked gym with a sparring space and place for people to sit down and watch the combatants. Before it, close to the loading ramp, stood a car. It was under a tarp, but there was no mistake: it was the car EDI had chosen as a gift for Joker. The sinfully expensive baby was patiently waiting for her owner to claim her again. Further towards the elevator there was a closed-off section where Jo could train Vega without them being overheard or overseen. Next to it was a pretty decent bedroom, an upgraded version of Vega's bunk from before. Then there was a shooting range. To the other side from the elevator there was the armoury with all the weapons that had survived the war.

Most of the stuff was familiar, of course, but it all looked as if someone had taken the half-finished conditions from before and arranged them properly. The biggest change, however, was the low ceiling. It looked as if the space had been cut in half, extending the engineering deck over the entire cargo bay. The window on the upper deck, from which the cargo bay could be observed, was no longer visible.

Jo tugged Joker to the elevator, eager to go exploring. She noticed the techies standing back with wide grins, all of them obviously pretty sure that she would like the changes.

It turned out that she was right: the Engineering had been expanded into a whole bunch of private cabins for the crew. The first door actually had a name on it: Donnelly. Jo looked inside the cabins to find each fitted for two people. The bunks could be used as single beds or pushed together to make a double bed. Jo smiled at the idea. Someone had gone and eliminated the need for the private room in Jack's former hidey hole. Now everyone who wanted could have a cabin for themselves.

The old dorm room was turned into officer quarters and guest rooms for all the civilian crew members.

The rest of the ship was mostly the same, except for the CIC. The war room was gone. Instead there was a bigger conference room with a sort of a lounge at one side to entertain the high and mighty of the galaxy who would certainly come for a visit now and then. On the other side there was a big room with not one but two quantum entanglement communicator pads. That way people wouldn't have to drop their projects whenever Jo got a call. There was also a research table in the room, where news feeds from across the galaxy ran for analysis. Jo knew: if she ever ran out of jobs, she could come here and have a look at what was going on in the galaxy. Something would certainly pop up that demanded her attention.

The rest of the CIC was mostly the same, but someone thoughtfully put in ten new work stations and consoles for the additional navigators and specialists Joker mentioned earlier.

"Who approved the changes?" Jo asked. All the new stuff on the ship seemed so intuitive to her, as if someone who knew exactly what Jo wanted and the Normandy needed, took the half-assed job the Alliance had done before and corrected everything that needed correcting. The ship was now absolutely perfect for the kind of missions they usually took.

"Garrus, of course," Gabby said with a smile.

"Of course," Jo nodded. Her throat grew tight. "God, I love the guy."

"Apropos," Joker grinned from the pilot's seat. "Guess who's on QEC?"

Jo beamed, looking forward to seeing her best friend. When she looked around, though, she noticed more people around her: not only the Donnellys, Adams and Vega, but Westmoreland, Campbell, Chakwas, Rodney, Liara, Traynor, Zaeed and Link.

"Okay, people, let's have a big reunion!" She declared.

"Happy to, Commander!" Traynor bounced ecstatically to her working station and started making calls to add more people to the meeting. In the meantime Jo moved everyone, including Joker, to the new conference room. There people started appearing on the newly mounted screens. Garrus and Wrex stood together, obviously aboard the same ship. Jack came on pretty soon, then Samara and Tali.

"Hi, everyone," Jo couldn't stop a huge grin as she looked at her friends. At the same time she couldn't stop a flinch at the realisation just how few of them were still alive. Mordin was gone, as were Ashley, Thane, Legion, EDI, Anderson, hell, even Miranda. If it hadn't been for the Reapers, those people would still be alive. If it hadn't been for the Reapers, Jo would also never have met any of them.

"Shep, I could break your neck for dying on us again," Jack sneered, but there was no heat in it.

"That would be slightly counter-productive," Tali teased.

"She'd just get resurrected again, what's the big deal?" Wrex laughed.

"Okay, okay, you can all take turns killing me later," Jo sat down at the big conference table and relaxed. "Talk to me, guys. Where are you, what are you doing, and where is the rest of the team?"

"Wrex and I just finished our mission," Garrus began. "The last two known Leviathans are dead. Right now we're on our way home."

"Tell her," Wrex nudged the turian, who suddenly looked entirely uncomfortable.

"Tell me what?"

When Garrus failed to answer, Wrex sighed:

"The damn scar-face got promoted."

"I didn't get promoted!" Garrus protested. "Look, Jo, it's kind of embarrassing. I'd say it's not a big deal, except... it is. Or... it could be."

"Just spit it out!" Jack lost her patience first.

"Okay, look. When we picked up Primarch Victus from Palaven back in the day, the succession line for the position had been recalculated, taking into consideration how many people were even still alive."

"Yes, Primarch Victus told me you were number twelve in that succession line," Jo nodded. Garrus looked up sharply:

"He told you that? You knew?"

"Yes, I just knew you didn't want to talk about it, so I never mentioned it again. What happened?"

"Well, my race suffered big losses during the war, and while hunting down the Leviathans we've lost several more people."

"Where are you now on that list, Garrus?" Jo asked gently. Everyone looked at the turian, intrigued into complete silence.

"Number one," Garrus finally admitted. "When Primarch Victus resigns or if something were to happen to him, I'm his successor."

Several people whistled. Jo slowly exhaled. Tali looked away from her camera as if to hide her masked face even further.

"That's big," Jo admitted. "I believe your people couldn't possibly wish for a better leader than you, though."

"Thanks for saying that," Garrus looked embarrassed. "It's just..."

"You don't want it, don't want the attention, the responsibility, the pressure, the stress, the hard decisions, the ties, I know. You're incredibly modest in all the ways that truly count. But that's exactly why you're such a great leader. Power wouldn't go to your head. You would never forget that you don't move chess pieces on a board but real people. You won't make decisions lightly, but you'll still make them. You would be fair and noble to a fault. I know that the turian society is all about duty and sacrifice, you already have that in your blood. What I will tell you though, is that you don't have to sacrifice yourself completely. First and foremost: you can always be who you are. Nobody is infallible, nobody knows all the answers. We just try our best and hope it works. Cut yourself some slack and trust me: your instincts and your integrity will do most of the job for you. You also don't have to spend yourself taking care of others. Don't be afraid to say no if it gets too much, don't be afraid to take a break. Joker and I did that and nobody could say no." Jo smiled mischievously. "Look at Wrex. When I first invited you both to the Normandy, could you have imagined that grumpy old merc as the king of all krogans?"

Everyone chuckled and Wrex huffed at Garrus:

"Be careful what you say now!"

"Wrex surprised me," Jo continued with a proud smile. "But he never disappointed me. Neither did you. And you can always call me and the rest of your friends for help if you need anything at all."

"I... thank you, Jo. It means the world to me to know that I can count on you."

"Always and without any strings attached," Jo nodded with a little tear in her eye. "Okay, guys, what about the rest of the team?"

"Javik sort of disappeared a month ago," Vega reported. "At first he was helping Rodney and me with some missions, but last I heard he asked for passage on one of the asari ships and left, destination unknown. Maybe he's looking for a noble death, maybe he's helping people out in the colonies rebuild, I'm not sure. If he wants to be found, he'll appear."

"I talked to Kaidan yesterday," Jack took her turn. "He and the cheerleader's sister are organising help and coordinating the refugees on Benning."

"Kasumi Goto is on Earth somewhere, could be in this very room right now," Zaeed grinned. "She's helping around, far as I know."

"Steve's flying supply shuttles between Sol and Arcturus."

"Jacob Taylor is a father now, he's still helping those Cerberus scientists," Karin said. That was when the reports stopped, however.

"Where is Grunt?" Jo asked and when people looked at each other in confusion, she turned a very heavy glance to Wrex: "Where is my baby?!"

"I don't know, Jo," the giant looked down like a beaten dog. "He was on Earth with the Hammer forces and the day of the battle is the last time I saw him."

"Anyone else?" Jo looked around, which made everyone squirm. Nobody knew anything. How could one of their own fall through the cracks like that?! Jo planted her fists on the desktop and rose to her feet. Fury uncoiled inside her chest and it made all her friends shrink back from her. "I want my baby found, is that fucking understood?!"

"I'll get right on it," Liara said quickly. Traynor nodded eagerly, as did Vega, Chakwas and Rodney. Jo sat down again and rubbed her face.

"Okay. Allers? What happened to her?"

Another uncomfortable silence fell.

"Jo," Garrus began. "We left her on the Citadel the last time we were there, when the whole episode with Brooks happened. That was merely a day or two before the Reapers attacked the station and moved it to Sol."

Jo closed her eyes and lowered her head. They'd left Allers on the Citadel, Jo knew that. She should have known that, but the information hadn't been present in her mind until Garrus reminded her. She was clearly not entirely in touch with all her memories after the second resurrection. Damn.

Just like that she spaced out, the room and the people disappearing around her. Memories rushed through her head like they've been doing for a few days now and Jo couldn't quite figure out what was real and what wasn't until she felt a touch of gentle fingers at her neck. She jerked, coming back to reality. If anyone noticed anything, they didn't say a word. Jo gave Joker a small smile of gratitude before looking at the others again:

"Has there been any news from her since?" She already knew the answer before people started shaking their heads. "Fuck. I almost enjoyed working with her, too. Annoying or not, she did a good job." A minute of silence honoured the journalist. "What about you, guys? What are you doing?"

"I was in Cairo, working as a surgeon in a clinic, but now that you're back, I'm at your service," Karin said.

"We never left and we never will," Ken declared, rubbing Gabby's hand between his two. Adams nodded in agreement.

"I'm taking care of my guys," Jack smiled when her students came up. "We're on SSV Elbrus right now, headed towards the Terminus Systems. Pirates are once again a plague."

"I was on Rayya while the ship was still in the Sol system, but then I relocated to Earth," Liara said. "To a city called Barcelona."

"I'm on Omega at this moment, helping wherever I'm needed," Samara said next.

"We help out Vega when he needs us," Rodney pointed at himself, Campbell and Westmoreland. "But mostly we're with the Alliance, going on search and rescue missions."

"I don't go out much, my allergies won't let me," Traynor sighed. "I helped Admiral Hackett set up a communication centre at his base camp and several big outposts."

"I'm on Rannoch," Tali concluded the round. "Helping my people and the geth in any way I can."

Jo could hear in Tali's voice that the young woman was not happy where she was. Jo hoped it had something to do with Garrus being half a galaxy away from her, but she couldn't be sure. She'd spent so much time and energy trying to make these two understand that they were made for each other, but things never progressed further than a half-serious date and an awkward vid night. Before the final battle they had both been adamant that starting a relationship in the middle of war was a bad idea, and at some point Jo gave up trying. They had their own brains, hearts and reasons. Even if everyone else knew that they should be together, neither force nor persuasion could help in such a stubborn case.

"So, what are we going to do now?" Jo asked her friends.

"You're getting married, or so we hear," Garrus jumped at the change of topic. "Have you already made plans?"

"We're thinking in two weeks on Ilos," Joker said. Everyone started mentally adjusting their calendars.

"Is it going to be a traditional human ceremony like the Donnelly wedding?" Tali asked curiously.

"We haven't decided the specifics yet," Jo shrugged. "But one thing is clear, Tali. I would be honoured if you agreed to be my maid of honour."

"Oh, of course!"

"And Gabby, I'd like you to be a second bridesmaid. Matron. Whatever it's called when you're already married."

Gabby chuckled:

"You got it, Jo."

"Karin," Jo turned to Chakwas with a sheepish expression: "Would you give me away? You're the closest thing I have to a parental figure in my life."

"I'll be honoured," the doctor nodded and her voice hitched. The elderly woman had no family to speak of, she'd dedicated her life to ships and soldiers. But they would both be liars if they claimed that there was no connection between them. After years of surgeries, patch-ups, therapy and shared bottles of brandy Jo could imagine nobody else stepping in as a surrogate mother at her wedding but Karin Chakwas.

"Guess it's my turn to ask?" Joker rubbed his knuckles over Jo's back affectionately. "Garrus, I'd like you as my best man, and you, Ken, to help him with that."

The men easily agreed, which settled the matter. Then Liara produced a datapad.

"Well, this means I have an early wedding gift for you," she said to Jo, giving her the device. Jo activated it, looked at the numbers and felt all blood rush away from her head. With a shaking head and a suddenly foul mood she gave the datapad to Joker.

"Do you still want to marry me?"

He calmly took the pad, looked over the intel and read it for everyone:

"One point two billion credits."

"You're a billionaire, Shep?" Jack whistled, and so did the others. "Liara, I should hire you as my financial advisor, you seem to have magic fingers."

"Why are you so pale, Jo?" Karin asked.

"Over a billion, Karin," Jo almost snarled. "No matter how you turn it, it's money made on war. And it's a huge responsibility! I don't need it. I never had any worldly possessions. This kind of money is just... crazy."

"It's nothing," Joker said, pushing the datapad away across the desk. "Vega's already spent a chunk of it building the safe houses for the orphans and creating that database. Earth needs more of that, and it's going to cost you a lot. Then I'm thinking you won't want to stop at Earth, right? Once you start pushing the idea on other planets, the billion will be gone in an instant."

"Hm," Jo felt the tight grip on her heart loosen a little. "I could also set up some labs where war veterans who'd lost limbs can have then cloned and restored. I mean, partial cloning was basically approved when they grew parts of my body in the Greenland lab, so as long as we're not cloning whole people, only replacements for lost limbs for the veterans, the galaxy should be fine with that stipulation, right? I could even fund some research teams..."

"I have contacts to the richest and mightiest people in the galaxy," Liara said. "They're all contributing to the cause, but if you show your face in public, supporting what Mr. Vega started, a lot of money will start flowing your way from thousands of sources. It's not the question about funds, only about the right face for the right cause in public."

"Well," Jo leaned back in her chair, into Joker's embrace. "It looks like we all have something to do once again. There's a wedding to coordinate, and aside from saying yes, I'm not sure I know what has to be done..."

"Commander," Traynor smiled. "I think you should check your messages. You might find some inspiration there."

On that note the meeting ended. Liara offered herself as a wedding coordinator and Jo left her to it. She and Joker went to the CIC together to look at the messages Traynor had mentioned.

"I guess making a public announcement got us some attention," Joker frowned a few minutes later. Jo's inbox was full to the brim with messages from various wedding planners, bakeries, dress designers and famous location managers offering their services organising and hosting the wedding.

"This one," Joker pointed at one message from a designer offering to make Jo's dress. "I still hate the idea with a passion, but if you're adamant about getting your clone back, then this is your chance. This designer is in the Athena Nebula and that's on the way to where the clone's pod is hidden. I'll organise you a Corvette, which you can fly alone and get there in just three days. You'll be back here in a week and nobody will wonder why you're flying alone, since the groom isn't supposed to see the dress before the wedding and all that shit."

Jo was genuinely surprised to have his support in this, when she knew how much he hated her obsession with her sister. Still, it seemed that he would always have her back, no matter what shit she came up with, and that was why she trusted Joker so completely.

True to his word, Joker organised an Alliance ten-man Corvette within a few hours. Jo contacted the designer and sent him her measurements. He promised to have the dress ready for the final fitting by the time she arrived in three days. As Joker predicted, nobody questioned her solo trip, even if Vega offered to go with her as her bodyguard. She declined and left the Sol system. Her team could keep their mouths shut and she appreciated it when no curious journalists followed her.

Joker's calculation turned out to be spot-on. It took Jo just under three days to get to the colony where the designer was stationed. She took one day to stand still while a team of eight asari and salarian seamstresses fussed around her, then headed back to Earth, taking a small detour to retrieve her sister's body.

With the pod hidden in the cargo bay and a dress in gorgeous peach colour - because Jo refused to wear the white of innocence - stowed in a box, Jo came back to Earth ready to face the future.

First she stopped at the Greenland lab, where Link met her. Together they moved all the needed equipment to one of the lab rooms, brought the clone's body in and Jo sealed the door against intrusions. This way the rest of the facility could be used to help veterans get their missing limbs back and nobody would be the wiser about her little side project. Only then did she return to the Normandy and stashed the dress in Ken's and Gabby's room. After all, the groom really wasn't supposed to see it before the wedding.

Liara was on a roll. In the week of Jo's absence she'd organised everything else and even brought Jo a datapad with all the intel she could find on Grunt. The leads were vague at best, but they pointed north of London. Not knowing what they would find, Joker and Vega each took a Kodiak, Jo took Rodney and his team, and everyone geared up for battle.

They had to land in several small villages before they narrowed down their search to Steeple Bumpstead, basically a village of six crossroads, a church, a school and a postal office. It looked like life around here hadn't changed since 1800.

Upon their approach it seemed that they were headed into another Kochel situation, only worse. They were greeted by two knowledgeable missile launcher operators, who knew how to shoot down shuttles. Despite some fancy flying Vega's shuttle got caught in a missile's shockwave and landed harshly in someone's back yard. Jo opened the door of her shuttle and when Joker passed over the church, she sniped down the two women handling those missile launchers. Someone else took over quickly and Joker had to start another approach. There were several bandits in the church and in numerous houses around the village, all of them shooting at the Kodiak. Jo and Campbell however kept them under fire while Joker flew, so that no bandit could safely go to Vega's shuttle and investigate. That gave Vega, Rodney and Westmoreland a chance to infiltrate and secure the church. When Joker landed and Jo walked into the ancient building, no bandit inside was alive. There were eleven bodies on the bloody floor amidst a whole arsenal. All the weapons and ammunition crates had Alliance seals on them and Jo tried not to imagine how many soldiers had died for this.

There were still lots of bandits hiding in the houses in the village and Jo knew they couldn't get any intel on Grunt or leave the place without cleaning up first. It took them several hours of fancy, coordinated work and everyone was exhausted, sweaty and hungry by the time the last bandit died. They were taking no hostages and no informants this time. During all the fighting Jo hadn't seen a single civilian. Just like in Kochel, these people knew when to hide.

Jo was not going to bury the dead bandits' bodies. Apart from the fact that there were thirty four of them and it would take a week to dig a grave big enough, Jo didn't care about their final resting place. They were enemies who didn't deserve her compassion today.

Night fell late in the summer, and Joker directed the Kodiak's light at the church while Jo and the team sorted through the weapons stored inside the building. The village remained quiet until almost midnight. Then a lone figure appeared at the edge of the church yard. It was a young man, a civilian, who probably had to take one for the team and approach the violent group that had eliminated the bandit plague so efficiently.

"Hello there," Jo addressed the man. He squared his shoulders and walked closer, as if heading towards his own execution.

"Who are you and what do you want?" He asked grimly.

"I am Commander Shepard and I want Grunt," Jo said simply.

"Grunt?" The young man frowned in confusion. "What's that?"

"He is a young krogan," Jo said. She stood calmly, while Vega and Rodney continued to work through the weapons, paying the young man no attention. That seemed to calm him a little, especially when Campbell and Westmoreland took off their helmets and he saw pretty girls' faces. Joker was totally right: it sure paid to be cute, no matter how hard a warrior you were otherwise.

"We have no krogans here," the villager sounded confused and scared of Jo's reaction to his words. He would have loved to help her if he could, she saw that much.

"After the big battle in London seven months ago there have been reports of a young krogan matching his description travelling this way with people from your village. I followed the lead here, so he's either dead, or someone's holding him secretly. Think hard. Did the bandits have prisoners or hostages?"

"Yeah, me and a couple other men from around here. In the vault under the postal service building. We were freed thirty minutes ago while you were here. There was no krogan there."

"What's your name?"

"Jonathan Patil."

"Jonathan, I didn't come here to cause trouble, all I want is my son. Yes, the krogan is my son, but don't worry your head about the logistics of that. If I have to search one house after another until I find him, I will. If someone stands in my way, I will remove them. It's in everyone's interest if your village found my baby before I get angry. So please go back to the others and ask around. Someone must know something. I'll be here until dawn. Then I'll start breaking down doors."

Jonathan turned around and walked away quickly, disappearing into the night. It didn't take long before someone else appeared. It was an old woman, moving slowly. Her gnarly hands shook a little, but not with fear, just from old age.

"Do you know Grunt?" She asked Jo.

"Yes, he's my baby," Jo answered.

"How did that happen?" The woman demanded sternly. Jo sensed that this was a kind of test.

"He was bread in a tank by a scientist who wanted to create a perfect krogan. When the scientist was killed, I got the tank to safety on board of my ship and released Grunt from it. He named himself and I trained him as a part of my team for months after that. But it's more than that. He imprinted on me and I will always consider him my very real baby, no matter what species he is."

"And what would you do to get him back?"

"I'm his mother. What would you do to get your child out of danger?"

The old woman nodded and waved her hand, beckoning Jo to follow her. Campbell remained with the shuttle, while the rest of the team followed Jo and the lady.

They turned the corner and approached a house with lit windows. There were several people milling around, Jonathan one of them. In silence the woman led Jo inside the house, then to a secret hatch in the floor, which led them to a damp, dark basement. In the narrow space the woman turned two corners and gestured at an ancient, dusty wine rack. Jo pushed her shoulder against it until it moved aside. Behind the rack was a hidden door, which led them into a tiny room that only had space for a narrow cot and two persons to stand next to it.

"Spirits," Jo cursed under her breath as she landed on her knees next to the cot. Grunt lay on it, unconscious, pale, sweaty, growling and gnashing his teeth at some nightmare.

Grunt, or whatever was left of him.

He'd been caught by a Reaper beam, Jo realised as tears started flowing down her cheeks. He was missing almost his entire left arm, most of his left leg, and the right leg beneath the ankle joint. His right hand was clawing at the mattress, looking for a weapon even though he wasn't conscious.

The Reaper's beam had left clean cuts, it seemed. It burned down the wounds, sealing the flesh and stopping infection. Was that a blessing in disguise?

"My baby, my poor baby," Jo whispered in horror. The last Reaper died over seven months ago. Did that mean that Grunt had been in this condition, suffering in pain all this time? Jo gently ran her hands over him and asked the old woman: "What happened to him?"

"My two grandsons were in the Alliance. They were stationed in London during the big battle. Their entire division was destroyed by a Reaper that was guarding some sort of a beam. I don't know the details. Your Grunt saved my boys from being killed, too, but the Reaper got him instead. Sliced right through him. My boys didn't want to leave him to die on the battlefield and there was no chain of command anymore... something like that. They found a moving vehicle, loaded the krogan on it, and slowly made their way out of London. They headed here, home, but there were still those husks around, so they hid whenever they could and moved carefully. Took them almost a week to get here."

Jo nodded when the woman paused and gestured for her to continue.

"They came here at night and barely had time to move him into the house, when Stella showed up. She was the leader of that gang you killed. She took my boys' weapons and locked them up with the other men under the postal service. I couldn't do anything until Grunt regained consciousness for a few minutes. I dragged him down here. And I've been tending to him ever since. Me and my boys never told anyone about him. Stella would have killed him and all of us if she found out we were hiding a soldier here. He's stable, mostly, but he only gets lucid for a few minutes a day, and then he gets grumpy. Sometimes he mutters something unintelligible about tank-breeding, about battlemasters, spicy noodles, varren, sharks... All kinds of nonsense."

"Not nonsense," Jo protested. "His memories. Ma'am, I'll forever be grateful to you and your grandsons for saving and taking care of my baby for so long, knowing it would have cost you your life. If you ever need anything, just call me. But now I'll be taking my baby out of here and to a real medical facility."

"Yes, he needs it," the woman nodded.

By the time Jo and Vega carried Grunt's unconscious body out of the house, there was a whole group of men on the street, all dirty and unshaven, but sporting grim expressions and armed with the weapons from the church. They must be those who had been locked up all this time. Jo paid them no heed. Two of them had to be the woman's grandsons and Jo was not stupid, she realised that they were technically deserters who'd run for safety during the battle, but she couldn't care less. They'd saved Grunt and that was all that mattered to her.

As they loaded Grunt into the Kodiak, more villagers stepped from the darkness to wave goodbye to their saviours. Jo didn't know how soon the next bandit gang would descend upon this village, but she hoped they would call for help if they needed it. For now she had other worries.

An hour later Grunt was sedated inside a tank with regenerative fluids, breathing through a mask while machines were working on removing the burned tissue from his stumps. In a separate room new limbs were already being cloned. It would take about a month, but he would be as good as new eventually.

"Well, fuck," Joker exhaled when they retired to their bedroom that night. While at the Greenland lab, they stayed in the same room where Jo had regained consciousness a few days ago. "That was intense."

"We found him and he'll be fine, that's all I care about. I can't lose anyone else," Jo curled up on the bed and hugged her knees. Joker climbed in and spooned against her from behind. He wrapped his arms around her, but didn't try anything else. Jo shuddered a little as the heat of his body chased away the chill of everything that had happened that day. They hadn't done anything more than kissing since her second resurrection and Jo appreciated Joker giving her some space to fully return to her new body. She needed the time before she felt comfortable enough to have sex.

"What did you do on the Corvette while you flew to get your dress and back?" Joker asked her quietly.

"Meditating, mostly," Jo said. "I needed some peace and quiet to sort myself out, and the trip gave me a perfect chance."

"What did you meditate about?"

"The fact that I no longer feel the murderous and sadistic darkness inside me. I wonder what happened, how and why I lost it. I came to a realisation that being free of it might make my life easier. I also tried to reconnect with this new body. Once again I'm free of any marks and scars. Smooth like a new-born baby. Never thought that I'd ever have a problem keeping my scars. I don't feel the pain of resurrection this time around, nor do I hear tortured screams, but I was dead for a few minutes. I needed some time alone to get clear on that, to look inside myself and to realise that I'll always be longing to go back to the ocean, but for the time being I'm very motivated to stay here as a drop and live a lifetime experiencing all the things I couldn't before. Get married, explore other career possibilities, have fun, life for myself, actually own things... It's a whole new world for me and I needed some time to wrap my mind around the idea. It did me very good to be alone this week."

"I noticed you're more coherent now. You haven't zoned out even once since you came back. That's good," he buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too," Jo admitted, slowly drifting off to sleep.