After.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Morning
Joker's eyes slid open, sending a shock-wave of confusion through his system. It took several seconds before he realized he was within Shepard's bed. That weight on his shoulder – which was starting to turn into a dull ache – was the woman herself. The small amount of weight on his stomach was the still nameless kitten, who had decided he was a better bed than the bed itself.
Using his free hand, he stroked the kitten's ears – causing it to stir in its sleep slightly. The pilot idly smiled, before scratching his beard out of habit. Glancing down, he noticed Gaz already awake – though she appeared to be concentrating quite hard on something, before she suddenly relaxed and smiled at him.
"Morning," he greeted, brushing it off as her feeling as confused as he, after waking up.
"Morning..." she sat up, pushing off his shoulder slightly, as she rubbed her eyes. Joker flinched, feeling the ache turn into a throb within his shoulder. Having the woman rest her head on his shoulder all night did not break his bones – but he was still not exactly 'durable'. Perhaps it was just sleeping in a strange position for him – or maybe it did have something to do with his break-ability. Either way, he didn't plan on saying a singular peep to his Commander.
"I'm going to go shower," she decided aloud, before slowly sliding out of bed – taking a moment to watch her fish, before she stood.
As she disappeared behind the hidden bathroom door, Joker rubbed his shoulder and stared at the ceiling. Why was she so nervous? This woman had stared death in the eye several times over and didn't even hesitate. Yet this trial? Well – she was quite clearly shaking at the knees. He knew she thought she was getting away with the 'calm and collected' bullshit, but he knew her better than that. Shepard was genuinely scared. The thought of that alone frightened him.
"Cappa requires your assistance upon the bridge, Jeff," EDI's voice chimed, causing Joker to groan – his eyes sliding over to Shepard's bathroom.
"Do I have time to change, EDI?"
"No."
"Shower?"
"No."
Swearing under his breath, Joker located his hat on the floor beside the bed, before carefully standing and limping towards the door – swearing every few steps. He tapped on his omni-tool as he entered the lift.
"Cappa wet himself. Sorry for poofing while you're naked. I won't make that mistake again ;)
-Joker"
Laughing under his breath, he leaned back in the lift with his arms crossed, waiting for it to slide down a singular floor to the CIC.
–
Shepard turned off the water – her gaze distant as the final few drops fell atop her short auburn hair. Grabbing a towel, she quickly dried herself off, before staring at the strange cabinet that lay within the bathroom which Cerberus called a 'closet'. Her light-brown eyes studied her few choices for clothing.
'Should I wear something comfortable until we get to Earth, or just put on my dress-blues now?' she pondered, thumbing her Alliance formal-wear. Choose the later, she carefully slid on her hardly-used Alliance-blues – a soft smile brushing at her lips. Shepard missed the Alliance – and honestly hated whenever people bitched at her for them 'putting up too much red-tape'. Nearly everyone on her current crew was ex-Alliance, and had nearly the same complaint. Rules were there for a reason, and she knew it. While Gaz had been on the other side of the law many times within her life, she always respected the reasons why each law was carefully put there. It wasn't simply designed to piss people off – it was for protection and order.
Then she became Cerberus. There really wasn't any rules with this black-and-white-colored group. You could fuck anyone, do anything, and basically be fine. All you had to do was firmly slide your nose up the Illusive Man's asshole, and you're fine.
Straightening her uniform, she ran her hand over her fogged-over mirror, studying her appearance slightly, before popping the mirror forward to grab her toothbrush and makeup.
After a few more moments, she exited the bathroom – expecting to see Joker in her bed. Perhaps he'd be playing with the cat or fallen back asleep. The thought caused another smile to rise upon her lips. However – the bed was empty. Frowning, she glanced around the room, before noticing her console attempting to attract her attention. Her eyes slid over his message. Hopefully no one noticed his absence in his bunk – or things were going to get awkward quickly.
"Dammit Joker – get him housebroken already.
-Gaz."
Hitting send, her eyes fell to the picture of Kaidan that still lay upon her desk. Lifting the frame within her hands, she studied the image. He looked so much older now. His face wider – hair starting to get bits of gray. It wasn't the same man in the picture anymore. Placing the frame back on her desk face-down, Shepard headed for the lift, her mind buzzing.
–
"Crisis averted. And I'm fucking banning you from flying her again, Cappa," Joker's words filled with more venom than he would have preferred.
"Fuck off," Cappa snarled, not making eye-contact with the other pilot.
"I'm not on shift for several hours Cappa. I don't want to have to fix your fuck-ups when I could still be sleeping."
"Sleeping with who? You weren't in your bunk when I got up for this shift," Cappa's eyes slid over to Joker – his expression dark.
It was unusual to see the young pilot doing anything other than being annoyingly optimistic with his own share of sarcasm. This entire morning just felt...unreal.
"What do you care?" Joker asked, desperately craving fresh clothing, a shower, and coffee.
"Considering you've been yelling at me since you got your ass up here, I figured you owed me a bit of an explanation."
"I owe you? Fuck, Cappa, I just saved us from crashing. You owe me."
"Technically, every living entity aboard this vessel, owe me their lives," EDI chimed in.
"Remember that talk we had about being creepy, EDI?" Joker asked, sitting in the co-pilot seat, as Cappa stared blankly at the console in front of him.
"I was simply contributing to the ongoing conversation within the bridge, Jeff," EDI retorted, causing Joker to shake his head. He liked that fucking AI far too much for his own good.
"Right...well I'm going to shower and wake myself up. Try not to kill us all, Cappa?"
"Suck my dick," Cappa sighed, as Joker exited the bridge.
Kelly – who had previously been absent when Joker attended to the problems caused by Cappa – watched as the Helmsman limped toward the lift.
"Good morning, Joker," she greeted, taking a few steps to block him from his destination.
"Morning Kelly. I need to go-"
"Are you okay?"
Joker blinked, "Why?"
"You left last night and never came back," she shrugged, eyes darting to the ground, "I thought maybe I-"
"It wasn't your fault I left, Kelly," Joker assured, feeling oddly sorry for the Yeoman.
"Alright...I should let you go. I'm always here to talk, Joker," Kelly smiled, as he limped his way to the lift – nearly running into Shepard as the doors parted.
"Commander," he greeted, "must feel weird being in Alliance-dress-blues," he added, moving to the side so she could pass him.
"Weird but good..." she trailed, as he slowly disappeared into the lift.
–
AN: A lovely short chapter. Cranky Joker is cranky. Scared Shepard is scared. Flustered Cappa is flustered. AND I AM SO EXCITED TO GET TO EARTH. I kept coming up with all these things to happen then I realized 'hey I should have that on Earth'. So yeah. They'll be on Earth soon and we'll see the trial soon and all that shit. ALSO – Mass Effect 3 comes out in a few days, and will most likely make everything I happen on Earth super-duper non-canon. Whatever. It's a fanfic. It's all AU and it's fun for those reasons. Anyway – to all the people who keep adding this under their Story+ Alerts – I love you all! It's great to see how many people are enjoying this weird little story I decided to write. Thank you. I genuinely mean that.
Rated M for: Language, future sexual situations, future violence, and so I can have freedom without fear of scarring a teen for life.
Oh – and I don't own anything ever.