Tiptree, January, 2183 CE
Joker leaned his forearms against the steering wheel of his rental vehicle and took a deep breath. It might be a little farming colony in the ass-end of nowhere, but it always felt good to head back home. Powering down, he reached for the rucksack sitting in the passenger's seat and slung it over his shoulders before grabbing his crutches and getting out.
It was weird, but every time he visited, it seemed as if the farmhouse he'd spent half his childhood growing up in was smaller and smaller than he always remembered it being. The lawn was still kept meticulously mowed and the third step up onto the porch still squeaked under his weight, but the haphazardly grown flowers in the front flower bed were new, as was the colorful crazy quilt sitting neatly folded on the porch swing.
"Dad?" Like he had expected, the front door was unlocked. Crime was practically unheard of in a place where every neighbor knew the other by name and unless his family was off-world, the main entry never had a reason to be locked. "Hilary?" He walked down the hall and looked in the family room. A datapad had been left on the sofa, its contents still glowing. Probably Gunny's, he thought. The girl never shuts things down when she leaves a room. He slid his pack off his shoulders and left it propped up next to the sofa. Backtracking to the foyer, he hung his beaten up leather jacket on the coat rack. Without thinking, he hung his cap there as well. His mother had never let him wear a hat indoors, and it seemed as if that lesson in good manners had stuck.
In the back of the main floor, the kitchen seemed to be the only room recently occupied. The smells of good food greeted him as he walked through the doorway. Covered pots sat on the antique looking stovetop and a plate of cookies had been placed right next to the bowl of fruit on the kitchen table. Joker's hand hovered over the fruit for a brief second before he snatched up two still-warm chocolate chip cookies.
The kitchen door leading out to the back yard still creaked, just like it had always done. That creaky door had busted him on several occasions when he had managed to sneak out as a teen, and with a grin, he imagined that it would do the same once Hillary got a little older. He stepped out onto the back porch and scanned the area. "What the…"
Okay, rationally, he knew that he had grown up and left home. He was twenty-eight, for crying out loud. It still didn't make seeing his childhood tree house painted a retina-searing pink any easier. Are those lace curtains hanging up in my old lookout post? His little sister had always gotten his hand-me-downs, but this…it was going to take some getting used to."Anybody home?"
"Jeff!" A head popped up in the window. Jeff broke out into a huge grin as he watched his sister climb down the knotted rope – the winding access ramp that their dad had built for him to get up to his private fort was untouched, save for a few brightly painted flowers – and run across the lawn until she reached him. "You're home!"
He gave her a one-armed hug and ruffled her hair. "Good to see you too, Twerp. Where's Dad?"
Just as Hilary was pointing towards the greenhouse, their dad came out. Their mother followed, carrying a basket of produce.
"Jeff, welcome home," she said, giving him a tight hug.
"Hey, Mom. I didn't know you'd be here. I thought you'd be still working up on the Station."
She winked. "I took some vacation time." She patted his cheek. "It isn't every day that my son gets to come home for an extended stay."
"You're staying that long?"
His dad got up onto the porch and gave him a sideways hug. "Your mother got promoted. Now she has underlings to do her dirty work, so she can spend more time here at home with us."
His mom rolled her eyes. "They're called aides, sweetheart, not underlings."
"Aww Mom, I knew you had it in you to be an evil overlord." Stepping aside, he held the screen door open. "Are those parsnips?"
"Mmhmm. I'm adding them to the mashed potatoes. We're having pot roast, your favorite. Now go clean up; you're just in time to help set the table and wash some of these dishes."
Joker couldn't help the huge smile that split his face. "Man, it's good to be back."
Dinner around the Moreau table had always been an informal affair. Over the scraping of knives and forks against dinner plates, everyone seemed to talk all at once: their mother explaining how a bunch of the ladies at the Station had taken up quilting, their dad filling Jeff in on the fall's harvest and how well the new greenhouse model was helping to jump start the spring crops, and Hilary gushing about her newfound green thumb. Apparently the crocuses in the front flower bed were her doing.
For his own part, Jeff just sat back and took everything in. It had been a long time since he had gotten a chance to come back home on leave and he hadn't realized just how much he had missed his family. He kept in pretty close contact via messages and the occasional vid-conference, but there was something about being there in the same room with everyone that made a long-held knot of tension across his shoulders loosen. Before serving dinner, his mom had flipped on an old playlist of music. The violin strings from Pachelbel's Canon in D Major could be softly heard underneath the conversation. If this was the same playlist that his mother had always played during holiday dinners and special get-togethers with neighbors, then a piece by Wagner would be next.
"So, have you heard about your next assignment?" his dad asked.
"Yeah. I'm going to be the helmsman for the SSV Normandy."
His mother beamed. "That's wonderful news! We've heard so much about that project at the Station; it sounds exciting."
"It's still in the building stages, but I got to go on the bridge before I left. She's a beauty; I'm gonna make her dance." His chest puffed out at the memory of walking aboard for the first time. He'd never really believed in love at first sight when it came to ships, but the Normandy proved him wrong. "I've got two weeks before I have to report back and then a few months before she's ready to fly; I can't wait until we get to take her out."
"And Captain Anderson will be your commanding officer?"
"That's right."
Hilary piped up. "Is it true that Commander Shepard will be on board?"
He shrugged. "That's what the rumor is. No one knows for certain, but I guess I'll find out during our shakedown run."
She twirled her fork into her partially untouched mashed potatoes. "She's so awesome! I want to be like her when I grow up." She sat up straighter in her chair. "Do you think you can get me an autograph?"
"I'll try, but I'm not promising anything." In all honesty, he didn't know much about Shepard except that she was a huge war hero from the Blitz. The name sounded vaguely familiar, like someone had mentioned her to him years before, but he could be mistaken. All he really knew was that she was an N7 Infiltrator class Marine that had grown up on ships her entire life. He hoped that she wasn't like some of the other Spacer Brats that he'd run across that tended to look down their noses at Colony Kids like himself, but if she was, there really wasn't anything he could do about it but act professionally and keep his distance. On the shuttle ride to Tiptree, he had pulled up one of the interviews she had given right after the Blitz just to see what she had looked like. His first impression of Shepard was that she was pretty cute, even if she was bruised and had a still-healing cut bisecting her eyebrow and a gash across her cheek. She and another woman had looked petite standing next to two other Marines that were at least a head or two taller than they were, but her bio on the extranet said she was five foot five. There hadn't been much out there anyway; it seemed that while she had risen up in the ranks, she had managed to keep herself out of the media as much as possible.
Not that he'd done any in-depth snooping or anything. He was just curious as to who he'd be dealing with.
Since his mom had cooked and Jeff had helped set the table, tradition dictated that his dad and little sister would do the cleanup. Even though it was cold, Jeff found himself sitting on the front porch swing and staring up at the sky. It was a clear night; the stars were shining brightly overhead.
"Beautiful evening," his mother commented, handing him a steaming mug of hot chocolate. He had to smile at the marshmallows she had topped both their mugs with.
"It is."
She sat next to him. "It's so good to have everyone back at home. I've missed this."
He took a sip. "Yeah, me too." He leaned against her. "You ever think about retiring and coming back here?"
She scoffed. "Jeff, I'm only fifty. I still have quite a few years left before I can even think about retiring."
"Then what about quitting?"
She gave him a puzzled look. "Whatever brought this on?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. I've…" he cupped his mug with both hands. "I've always felt that I was the reason that you and Dad never had a proper marriage, why we've never been in the same room as a family for more than a few days at a time."
"Oh, honey, of course not. Sure, I took the job at Arcturus Station to help pay for your medical expenses, but we never thought that." She slipped her arm across the back of the swing and held onto him. "It was different at first, especially when Hilary came along, but it's worked out well. I love my job, your father loves his, and we have two wonderful children to brag about."
"And you don't regret anything?"
She shook her head. "Not one thing. If I had to do it over, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't change a thing." She paused. "Well, maybe that unfortunate shoulder pad fashion craze I went through during the 2160's, but other than that, I'd keep everything the same."
Jeff set his mug on the porch railing and hugged her. "I love you, Mom."
"And I love you too. Now tell me, what brought this up?"
He sighed. "I saw Becca at the Citadel." Even though they were sitting close on a two-person seat, it felt as if he had put a considerable distance between them. "She got married. She's pregnant, too."
"Jeff…"
"What the worst part was is that she saw me too." He remembered the look of startled recognition in her eyes at the way that he had good-naturedly waved. His hands curled into fists at what had happened after. "She looked…guilty, like she thought I'd be mad that she had moved on." She hadn't even returned his wave; she just quickly turned around and walked the other way.
"I never liked that girl."
He laughed. "Whatever, Mom. You were head over heels in love with her until you found out that she had dumped me because she didn't want her kids inheriting Vrolik's." Dump was too harsh of a word to use for what had happened between them. After explaining her reasons for refusing his marriage proposal, she had quietly gathered what little of his things that he had left scattered around her apartment into a box and helped him take it to a cab.
In the span of fifteen minutes, a two-year relationship had dissolved like it had never existed in the first place.
"How do you feel about that?"
"I don't know. At first I was pissed, but now…I don't really feel anything. I mean, we broke up five years ago; it's ancient history."
"And yet you've never mentioned seeing any other girl since."
"Maybe I'm playing hard to get."
"Son, I've known you for twenty-eight years. You've never been able to lie to me. Don't start now."
Jeff reached out and grabbed his mug from the railing. "What if I'm not meant to find anyone, Mom? I mean, look at my track record. I haven't been able to keep a girlfriend longer than six months before they jump ship. The two year thing Becca and I had was a fluke."
"If you keep thinking like that, then no, you'll never find anyone. And maybe if you started dating girls with more character, you'd see that not every woman is as shallow as the ones that let you go."
"Geez, Mom. Way to be brutally honest."
"I'm your mother, Jeff. It's part of my job description." She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. "You've got a good head on your shoulders, plus you're smart, talented, and handsome. Mark my words, one of these days you're going to find someone that will love you for who you are. And when that happens, she won't ever let you go."
"You really think that?"
"Of course I do. It happened for me with your father, and you're the spitting image of him. Flex that Moreau charm a little."
He smirked and hugged her back. "It really is good to be home, you know," he said.
"And it's good to have you home, even if it's only for a little while." Standing up, she held out her hand. "Come on, it's getting too cold out here. Let's go inside."
I was looking around the Wikia to see if Joker's parents had set names, but I couldn't find anything. Yay, clean slate to work with! I also saw that the timeline notes that the Alliance and the Turians begin building the Normandy the same year that the events of the first game occur. Maybe they've streamlined contract procedures and construction build times, but I'm thinking that less than one year for a state-of-the-art frigate is still pushing it. (Then again, shakedown runs are for working the bugs out of the system, so maybe that's still on point.)
