A/N - Wow, this chapter was hard to write. It was one of the first I had planned, and one of the ones I saw the clearest when I planned it out, but still, I put off writing it. I love Joker, he's one of my favorites, and although I firmly believe the destroy ending is the only one my Shep would ever consider, the heart wrenching guilt I feel everytime makes it a bittersweet choice. Hopefully, I have done the man some justice and given him some peace. Please R/R :-)
Kaidan glanced at the door distractedly, still embroiled in his thoughts after Liara's visit and fully expecting to see Tali, she was next on the roster, and then he did a double take when he saw Joker standing in the door, clearly hesitant to actually enter the room. This visit, he thought grimly, was not gonna be easy, nor would it be resolved by telling a touching story. As far as he knew, this was Joker's first visit to Shepard's room since she had been cleared for visitors; he had not even asked to be added to the roster.
Kaidan respected Joker's pain too much to question the reasons, and he was sure they were myriad and multitude. Shortly upon rejoining the Fleet, they had been informed that the same malfunction that had permanently disabled EDI had affected the Geth as well, and the rare known instances of AI. Although the only person who could shed light on the situation was currently lying comatose under the watchful eyes of her lover, it didn't take rocket science to draw the conclusion that whatever had happened in those last moments on the Citadel before the Crucible had fired had affected not just the Reapers but all synthetic life.
Joker was far from dumb and Kaidan knew, at least on some level, that he had already made the connection that the woman he had followed through hell and back had in some way – deliberate or not – been responsible for the death? termination? of the pilot's um, girlfriend.
Although he didn't consider himself closed-minded per se, Kaidan realized that perhaps he wasn't the most modern of men. He accepted that people found love where they could, and he even thought it should be encouraged where possible. But he had never understood Shepard's dogged insistence that Joker and EDI had a real, meaningful relationship that could rise above the level of man and his hot mech sex toy. He had respected EDI, even liked her, and had seen signs toward the end that she was evolving, but a romance? That strayed a little far away from the traditions and values that Kaidan still clung to at his core.
Still, he mused, the pilot had definitely exhibited the signs of grief over the last few weeks, and he should know. Kaidan considered himself an expert at grieving after the loss of love, so perhaps he had been wrong, or at least, not ok, open-minded, enough to see the relationship for what it had been. Either way, Joker was a friend; an original member of the Normandy family; and he liked and respected the man enough to allow him his feelings whether Kaidan could make that leap or not.
"Are you gonna stand there holding up the doorframe or come in and see how uncomfortable these chairs really are?" he questioned the man, falling on Joker's own medium – humor – to break the ice that seemed to forming in the room. Joker started and limped forward, lowering himself into the chair opposite Kaidan in silent response.
"Guess she'll get to figure out what it's like to walk a meter in my shoes soon." Joker said, gesturing to the casts swathing Shepard's arms and legs.
Kaidan winced at the remark; thinking it wasn't one of Joker's finest moments, and the words, "How can you say that, looking at her like this?" seemed to fall from his lips in heated tones, almost without his permission.
Joker looked up, sharply, eyes narrowed and his green gaze pinned Kaidan in place. Anger, definitely, but there was sorrow and even some resignation there as well. None of the emotions surprised Kaidan, but Joker's next words still cut through him with burning precision. "Sorry, Major, I failed to consult the 'so your girlfriend killed my girlfriend and now she might die too, what do we talk about now?' manual before I got here."
Kaidan found his biotics flaring, his temper boiling, and every instinct within him that made him a predator screamed to him that he should smash that look off Joker's face. Instead, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and repeated his mantra alive alive alive alive until he felt the moment of gratitude and pity that indeed, his love was still alive, he was sitting here holding her hand, while the man across from him would never do that again with his.
"Joker," he sighed softly, "what do you want me to say? I'm sorry? Because I am, truly. Sorry for your loss. But I won't now nor will I ever be sorry or feel guilty that she's alive," he gestured at Shepard's recumbent form, "and EDI is not. I won't ever feel sorry that the Reapers are gone and EDI is too. There are no words to tell you how much I'm sorry for the pain you feel, but if you ask me if I think the cost was too high, then I'd tell you that no cost was too high. I'd tell you that if the cost had been Shepard's life, I would live in constant agony for the rest of my days but I'd honor and celebrate her for the sacrifice she'd made."
Joker stared at him, eyes still hot and piercing in anger for about another ten count then he sighed and dropped his gaze in weary resignation. "How do you live with yourself if you're glad the person you loved is dead?" he asked quietly.
Brutal way to put it, but Kaidan understood what he meant. He didn't think there was any response he could make that would come close to helping Joker, and he knew the other man didn't expect one.
"I think I've spent three weeks being angry at the wrong person," Joker said, almost too soft for Kaidan to hear.
He got that too. He had once lashed out at the only person that didn't deserve it. Anger was a shield but it was also a crutch. The difficulty was figuring out when to embrace it, and when to fight against it. He figured Joker had just taken his first steps in the right direction.