Chapter 13
Miranda and Joseph were in the middle of one of their morning love making sessions. "Mmmmmm Miranda, just like that" he moaned as she rode him senseless. Rapidly approaching their climax as he leaned up to kiss her neck holding her tightly. Right before the heat sink popped EDI interrupted.
"Mr. Shepard" she said
"Damnt, yes EDI" he groaned still deep inside Miranda as she laid her head on his shoulder, clearly pissed at the AI's interruption.
"The commander would like to speak with you in his cabin immediately" she informed.
"Tell him I'll be up in a minute" he gritted through his teeth as Miranda began moving again grinding her hips into him.
"I think he does this on purpose" Miranda whispered in his ear keeping a steady pace.
"Maybe, maybe not, but I'm not leaving until I see you well satisfied" he said as he rolled on top of her.
Twenty minutes later Joe stepped into the cabin "what's up Johnny" he said clapping his brother on the back.
"Hey Joey, how are you feeling, I'm sorry again about yesterday" he said turning from his computer looking at his brother.
"I'm fine kiddo being well taken care of" he told his brother "where's Ashley?"
"She's in the armory working on upgrades with Jacob" John replied "sit down I have to show you something" he told him.
"Ok, what's up man" Joe said wondering what was on his brother's mind.
John opened up his omni tool showing Joe a picture of the little girl Jessica. "Cute kid, whose that" Joe asked.
"That's your daughter Joseph" John said seriously.
Joe busted out laughing he thought John was kidding, "that's hilarious Johnny seriously what did you wanna talk about" he said in between laughs.
"I'm serious Joe, that's your baby I saw Ana that last time we went to the citadel, for gods sakes she looks just like you Joey, I didn't get her age but I'm pretty sure and Ana didn't deny it" John yelled at him.
Realizing John was serious Joe grabbed the omni tool again staring at the girl. Tears began to stream down his face "why didn't she tell me" he whispered out.
"I don't know man but I had to let you know, I was hoping she would of contacted you but I guess she really doesn't want her to know" John said rubbing his brother's back.
Joe stood up wiping his face standing to his full height, "well I guess we should honor her wishes, thank you for telling me Johnny, send me that picture" he said turning to walk out of the cabin.
"I'm sorry Joe" John said watching his brother leave pain written all over his body.
Down in the Normandy lounge Joe was on his second bottle of brandy, Kasumi sat back quietly staring not knowing what to say. She got up and left doing the only thing she could.
'Knock, knock" she tapped on the door.
"Enter" Miranda's voice came through.
"Miranda I need you to come with me now" Kasumi said.
"There's a lot to do Kasumi is it really important" she asked seemingly uninterested in what the thief wanted to show her.
"To you its extremely important" Kasumi said becoming annoyed with Miranda's disinterest.
Miranda stood up leaving the office following Kasumi to the lounge ," GET THE FUCK OUT" Joe's voice came through the door as crewman Hawthorne scampered out of the room headed straight to the men's room.
Miranda rushed into the room quickly finding Joseph with his back turned to her staring at his omni tool. She walked over and took a seat next to him "whose that" she asked looking at the picture of the girl.
"Apparently that's my daughter, and looking at her I'm inclined to agree" he said taking another swig from the bottle.
"You didn't know" she asked rubbing the back of his head.
"No, and according to John her mother never wanted me to know" he replied.
"Do you want to meet her" Miranda asked.
"I would love to meet her, but she doesn't know me or anything about me, I don't wanna mess up the life she already has" he said looking down ready to take another swig when Miranda grabbed the bottle putting it away.
"I think you've had enough Joseph, come on" she said pulling him up throwing his arm over her shoulder dragging him back to her room. "Lay down now, sleep that god awful liquor you were drinking off, and we'll talk more when you wake up" she said laying him in the bed pulling his boots off.
"I love you Miranda" he said half passing out.
Miranda stared at him for a moment, no man ever said those words to her not even her father when he was pretending to be a good dad. She turned and sat at her desk to finish her reports for the Illusive Man, they were on route to retrieve Tali from Haestrom. This was all happening so fast, she didn't know how she felt, yes she cared for Joseph, but she didn't know if she loved him just yet. Things were getting complicated, Miranda didn't like complicated
John stepped off the elevator to the crew deck storming his way to Miranda's office. Walking in the door not needing to knock being the captain of the ship.
"Commander what can I do for you" , she said looking up from her desk.
"Joseph get the hell up, NOW" he said with all of his authority.
"Commander let's talk outside" Miranda said beckoning him out of the office with her in an attempt to not disturb the sleeping form of Joseph Shepard.
John followed her out of the office, "I heard he's been down here disrespecting the crew" he said to Miranda standing by her door.
"All he did was chase Hawthorne out of the lounge, who had no business being in there anyway as he was suppose to be working at the time" Miranda came to Joe's defense.
"I don't care, I know he's upset but he can't act like this. We all get upset at times but we can't take it out on each other" he explained to Miranda.
"I understand Commander and I agree, but I think we should give him some time to process all of this new information" she said back to him.
"I was hoping to have him on my ground team to retrieve Tali" he told her.
"I don't think he's cleared for combat yet Commander, Doctor Chakwas wants to run more tests before she clears him for field work" she explained.
"When he comes out of his drunken slumber see to it that he gets it taken care of immediately" John said walking away back towards the main gun battery to see Garrus.
John walked in the door greeted by Garrus, "Shepard what can I do for you".
"You have a minute Garrus" John asked.
"Yeah just finishing up some calibrations, what's on your mind" Garrus asked.
"It's Joseph I'm worried about him, you heard he made Hawthorne piss his pants earlier" John asked Garrus.
"Yeah, I did hear about that, Kasumi said she never saw him move that quick, not even when Jack threatened to stick his 'Admiral Winky' up his ass" Garrus said chuckling.
"You think we should take him to the citadel, see if we can get Ana to change her mind" John asked his bestfriend.
"That would be nice if you could, I actually have some business I need your help with on the citadel" Garrus told him.
"What do you need me to do" John asked.
"Remember when I told you about Sidonis, I got a lead on him, all we have to do is find a forger named Fade" Garrus informed.
"Where do we find Fade" John asked.
"I'm not sure maybe you can get Bailey to help us out" Garrus suggested.
"Consider it done Garrus" John said.
"Thanks Shepard" Garrus said gratefully.
"Joseph get up, the pity party's over" Miranda said waking Joe.
"Five more minutes mom I swear" he replied still sleeping.
Miranda biotically lifted him off the bed slamming him back down, "get up now Joseph"
"Sweet mother of god, what the hell was that Miranda, jesus my head is killing me now" he groaned rolling off the bed looking at her.
"You can be sad and upset all you want but you will not lay in bed all day feeling sorry for yourself, now go see Chakwas and get checked out, John wants to take you down on Haestrom with him" she told him.
"Yes mom, whatever you say" he said walking towards the door.
John stepped into the cargo bay with Joseph in tow. "What are we doing Johnny"Joe asked looking around as his brother cleared the center of the cargo bay.
"It seems there's a lot of frustration on this ship that sex isn't helping, so we're taking a page from your favorite movie here" he said grinning at his brother suspiciously.
"Cmon John we don't have to do this" he said not really in the mood to deal with his brother.
"Joe what is the first rule of fight club" John asked seriously.
"Seriously Johnny cut it out" Joe said.
"JOSEPH...WHAT IS THE FIRST RULE OF FIGHT CLUB" he yelled out kicking off his shoes.
Joe sighed kicking off his shoes, "we do not talk about fight club" he answered.
"What is the second rule of fight club" John asked taking of his shirt.
"We do not talk about fight club" Joseph answered doing the same.
They stood in the middle squaring off before charging and proceeding to beat the living shit out of each other.
In the captain's cabin Ashley was having a well deserved nap, she had been working hard on upgrading guns with Jacob for two days now and it was finally catching up to her.
"Chief Williams" EDI's voice came through.
"Yeah EDI," she responded groggily.
"Your presence is requested in the cargo bay immediately" she said.
"Why what's going on" she asked.
"The commander and Mr. Shepard are having a fight.
With that Ashley jumped out of the bed and into the elevator to see what was going on.
Meanwhile Miranda was in her office on a call with the Illusive Man giving him a progress update.
"Uhhhhhh Miranda" Joker called out to her.
"What is it Joker, I'm on call" she said with irritation.
"The Shepard boys are re-enacting Fight Club in the cargo bay maybe you should get down there" he replied.
"What the hell is Fight Club" she asked.
"It's a popular movie from the late 1900's or early 2000's where these guys started a club to kick the living shit out of each other" he answered.
"Shit" she said jumping up running out of the room towards the elevator. Pushing the button stepping on as Ashley Williams was headed down as well.
"Did Joker call you as well" Miranda asked.
"No, EDI" Ashley said seething through her teeth.
"They are so dead" Miranda said folding her arms.
"Oh yeah" Ashley agreed.
Down in the cargo bay John and Joe were literally covered in bruises from head to toe. Squaring off again as the entire crew made it down to watch them duke it out.
"Alright I got 50 creds on Convict Shepard, kick his ass Joe" Jack yelled out. Donnelly was running around taking bets on the fight while Kasumi was secretly recording the whole thing.
"I got 100 on Hero Shepard" Garrus shouted out.
Before they could attack again Miranda and Ashley broke through the crowd staring them down.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON" Ashley yelled.
"Really, Joseph now we've resorted to some stupid bare knuckle brawling" she said biotics flaring.
"Hey, hey, hey Miranda calm down ok I can ex-" he was cut off by the warp that sent him across the room.
"You forgot one Miranda"Ashley tapped Miranda on the shoulder.
"With pleasure" she said as she threw a warp that sent John flying with his brother.
"Owwwww, damnt John can you not get me in trouble for once in our life together" Joe complained debating on getting up, not wanting to get warped again.
"Excuse me, I'm down here with you, shit remind me to not get on Miranda's bad side" he said about to get up.
"Noooo stay down" Joe whispered looking around without making too much movement." She's pissed she might do it again" he warned John.
They heard the sounds of heels clicking walking over to them.
"Shit I'm sorry John, she's comin around for another attack, make sure history remembers me brother" Joe said anticipating his imminent death.
Standing over them were Ashley and Miranda looking down at them with pure annoyance and disgust.
"You take yours first chief, I'm going to have a conversation with Joseph" Miranda said looking down at Joe Shepard with a raised eyebrow.
"Alright, let's go John, Ashley said reaching out to help John up.
"No Johnny don't leave me here with her, no man left behind Johnny, no man left behind" he pleaded with his brother.
"Sorry Joey, I'll make sure the kids of tomorrow hear good things about you" John said reaching up to grab Ashley's hand as she lead him to the elevator. Before he got on he turned and gave his brother one final salute before Ashley grabbed him yanking him in to take him up to the medbay.
Joe looked up at Miranda with all the love in his eyes "hi baby" he said with a wide smile showing his bloody teeth.
"Oh god Joseph, what the hell is wrong with you, why would you think this was a good idea" she asked sliding down taking his head into her lap.
"Would you believe me if I told you I said the same thing, it kind of turned into a kill or be killed situation" he replied throwing John under the bus.
" I understand sparring to relieve stress, but that was not sparring, you two were trying to kill each other" she said fuming.
"No babe, I promise we would of stopped before it got that bad" he said trying to ease her worry.
"Look at you" she said rubbing his badly bruised face, "Collectors aren't enough you have to kill each other too" she asked.
"I'm sorry Miranda, it really wasn't suppose to get out of hand, I don't know how the entire crew ended up down here" he explained softly.
"How could the entire crew not know with Kasumi on board, she's a damn walking news paper" Miranda joked.
"Yeah your right" he said chuckling "I wonder if she got that on tape" he asked genuinely.
"I'm sure she did Joey" Miranda answered.
"Can we get up now, I think I need to see Chakwas, I can feel my liver moving...I don't think that's suppose to happen" he said looking up at Miranda.
She stood up helping him up to the elevator so they could go see Chakwas for medical attention.
Up in the medbay John was receiving his own verbal ass kicking from Ashley.
"Really John what the hell were you thinking, you know we have to get Tali, whose to say if you two are gonna be fit for duty when its time" she said with fury lacing her tongue.
"Shit Ash, I'm sorry, I wasn't really thinking about it at the time" he said head hanging low while Chakwas was scanning him.
"No you weren't, we can't afford for you to not be thinking right now" she said.
"I know Ash, I said I was sorry" he said giving her his best puppy dog eyes.
"Don't give me that look, John Shepard, its not gonna work,not today" she said looking away.
"You seem to be ok commander, no strenuous activity for the next few days, and yes that includes sex" Chakwas said with a grin.
"Damnt John, even worse let's go" she said storming out the medbay with John in tow. Walking past Joe and Miranda who were headed to the medbay, Ashley and Miranda just shared a look that said it all.
"Come in Mr. Shepard, have a seat on the bed" Chakwas said getting her scanner ready for Joe. He received the same diagnosis as John and the same instructions, as if he and Miranda were gonna actually follow them.