AN: My Beta rocks. Yay Alilypea! BTW I don't own Mass Effect or anything in it...just wish I did.

Shepard winced as she walked down the hallway towards the med bay, they had retrieved Jack. Big surprise that Jack was a crazy FEMALE biotic, who knew with a name like Jack that it would be a woman. Shepard wondered if it was short for something, and made a mental note to ask when the biotic wasn't so angry about being on a Cerberus ship. Shepard craned her neck to look at the back of her shirt, the blood on her shirt had dried to a sickly brown color but the stabbing pain right next to her spine reminded her that the piece of metal from the exploding canister was still in her skin. Hopefully could get it out without any damage to her C5X implants that were making up for the pieces of her spine that hadn't been recovered. The door to the med bay opened and Dr. Chakwas was on her before she even got a chance to blink.

"Commander!" Dr. Chakwas had always been the mother that she never had, and she took this opportunity to nag her just like she thought she would, "you should have let me know that you were injured! You've been back for hours now why wasn't I told?"

Ushering her over to a table the Doctor quickly cut the wasted shirt off leaving Shepard sitting there wearing nothing but her under armor pants which looked pretty much like spandex leggings, and her sports bra not the most glamorous look but hey at least they matched.

"Sorry," Shepard moved to shrug but the sting of pain in her back stopped the action short "Miranda didn't give me a second to alert you before she was yelling at Jack about following procedure or something, and then I had to wipe down my armor before it rusted." Shepard winced as the doctor started to press on her wound.

gave Shepard the best 'I'm seriously disappointed in you' look she could muster before walking over to the cabinet to retrieve the medical supplies she would need to extra the metal.

"Are the results back in from the tests from the morning?" Shepard watched the doctor pause at the cabinet, mid reach for the medi-gel. Ah...bad news. "No one? Not one person on this ship matches?"

Dr. Chakwas shook her head. "I'm afraid not commander, the metal in Joker's legs that help ease the strain on his bones has changed his body chemistry slightly, making it very hard to find a match."

"How'd Joker take the news?" Shepard could imagine the disappointment

"Not well I'm afraid, he's been locked in the cockpit all day, he won't let anyone in and he has overridden the door. I've tried to get him to come out but he won't even answer me. EDI refuses to open the door for me; I don't have the proper clearance she says."

"No problem, I'll swing by after you're done," Shepard heard the sound of a bit of metal hitting a tray and sighed as the doctor started putting medi-gel on the wound. It's soothing effect immediately noticeable.

"Wait a minute, I wasn't tested," Shepard looked over her shoulder who had stopped wrapping the bandage around her waist. "Problem?"

"Well yes commander, Mordin and I decided that it would be best if you weren't tested," resuming the wrapping the Doctor looked fixed at the table, as if reading herself for an argument, "given that your C5X implants make you immune to most pain medications we thought that the surgery would be too traumatic for you."

"Test me," Shepard caught the eye of the Doctor as she looked up in surprise, "the only person who can make that call is me."

"If you're sure Commander," Chakwas grabbed a swab. "Open wide, I assume you will want to wait here for the results?" Shepard nodded, unable to speak with the offending swab in her mouth

"You know," The doctor looked up at her before placing the swab in a little machine with a lot of lights that Shepard didn't recognize "You're going to have to tell him about your feelings for him sometime, you can't just leave it to him to figure it out."

"I know," Shepard looked down at her feet, swinging them back and forth. "I just don't know if I'm ready to be shot down just yet."

"What makes you so sure that you're going to be shot down? Joker admires you, respects you and more often than not does nothing to hide his….admiration of your assets." Chakwas grinned at the blush creeping up the Commanders face. She couldn't help but think that this crush was something deeper than a passing phase and it was nice to see the Commander act like, well a woman.

"That's just Joker though," Shepard sighed. "He views me as a friend, nothing more. He's kinda a perv too," shrugging her shoulders Shepard looked at the Doctor. "He looks at everyone's "assets". You should see him around Miranda."

The machine on the counter let out a ding that caused Shepard to jump, a long piece of paper came out and the Doctor quickly read the response shaking her head. Shepard's shoulders slumped forwards.

"Well, it was worth a shot. I better go let him know."

"Commander wait," Chakwas looked up from the paper "It was positive, you are a match. I was shaking my head because of the slim chances that you of all people would be the match."

"What?" Shepard snatched the paper and looked at it only to be met with a bunch of medical mumbo-jumbo that she didn't understand. "Really? Oh man I have to tell him!"

Bouncing out of the med bay she shouted over her shoulder, "thanks for patching me up Doc!" totally missing the Doctor shaking her head.

Grabbing two beers from the fridge Shepard made her way to the elevator, practically skipping with excitement. She was a match, and she could finally help him get better. No more flying all over space for "test trials" of new meds that caused Joker all kinds of terrible side effects. Maybe when he was well she could actually take him on missions, if he wanted. He could be a fully functioning solider.

The CIC was empty, and down the hall the unwelcoming red holo of a locked door stared back at her. Making her way to the cockpit she started to think of a plan to get Joker to open the door.

"EDI," Shepard looked at the ceiling

"Yes Commander Shepard?" The reply came from nowhere, it was really annoying when she didn't have the blue ball to direct her gaze at.

"Turn the intercom on between here and the cockpit please." Tapping her feet she knew this would be a challenge.

"Ready."

"Joker, open the door," Shepard leaned against the wall next to the door

"No," the reply was short, and she could tell by his tone that he was really not doing well.

"Well Joker," Shepard grinned at herself, she was going to have some fun. "The way I see it is you can either open the door and let me in, or I can override the circuits and make it so your door doesn't close at all."

"You wouldn't…" She could hear the unease in his voice, he knew she would

"Oh yes I would, it's a Cerberus ship…I'm okay with breaking things." the holo flashed a yellow and then green as the door unlocked. Pressing her key code into the keypad she watched it spin before opening.

"EDI!" Joker shouted at the blue ball beside him "You let me down!"

"I'm sorry Joker, I couldn't risk damage to the ship." The blue ball disappeared, not wanting further argument.

Walking up to Joker's chair she looked down at him, he was looking hard at the holo in front of him, not looking at her.

"Hey," she said placing a hand on his shoulder which was quickly shaken off, "hey now, don't get mad at me or the crew. It's not their fault they don't match, they all tried to help."

Handing him the beer she sat on the floor next to him not looking up. The silence stretched for a long time between them before he trusted his voice to say anything.

"You said there would be a match…" Joker cursed under his breath at how much his voice wavered with his anguish. It wasn't her fault; he just wanted to take it out on someone. Have somewhere that he could direct his anger that wasn't himself.

"Yes," Shepard looked at him, his eyes were red and swollen. He must have been crying. He still hadn't looked away from the screen in front of him even though he wasn't actually working on anything. "And there is."

"What?" he glanced at her now noticing much to his embarrassment that she wasn't wearing much, her toned body was barely covered by the under armor that she was wearing, and he noticed the large bandage wrapped around her midsection. "Are you hurt?" feeling guilty that he didn't let her in sooner when she probably needed to sit after today's mission. He looked her over noticing something he had never seen before. "Wait, is that a tattoo?"

Shepard glanced over her shoulder at her back, she must have never shown him the large wings that spread down her back she smiled and looked up at him.

"I just told you that there is a donor for your bone marrow and you're asking about my tattoo?" she chuckled. "Got your priorities a bit mixed up there Hun."

"You mean there actually is a match, as in you've found one or you mean there is one somewhere out there," he gestured towards the window and the stars beyond it.

"I've found one." She smiled at him taking a sip of her beer and drawing out the good news as long as possible.

"Dammit woman, don't keep me waiting. WHO?"

"Me." She watched Joker's expression as the news settled in. He seemed to be taking the news in slowly, just staring at her.

"You…?" Joker pointed at her.

"Yep, me." Shepard looked at the window smiling.

"This is actually going to happen?" Shepard nodded. "And you have a huge freakin' tattoo on your back" Shepard nodded again laughing.

"Chakwas and Mordin are just gathering the supplies needed and then the surgery is a go." Shepard stood up, stretching out her injured back "I just have to heal this first, although I'm sure with all of my upgrades it's probably not looking so bad now."

Shepard tried to reach the edge of the bandage but Chakwas had placed it right where should couldn't reach.

"Little help?" Shepard backed up towards Joker pointing at the edge of the bandage. "This thing is so itchy, and then you can get a better look at my ink."

Reaching up Joker hoping that Shepard wouldn't notice that his hands were shaking, having Vroliks he didn't have much…who was he kidding…any experience undressing women. While removing a bandage wasn't exactly sexy, this was the closest he had ever been to Shepard in any state of undress. Slowly unwrapping the bandage he let it fall to the floor and sat back in his chair to get a better look at the piece of art that covered her back. The wings were partially obstructed by the sports bra on but he could see that they took up most of her back. They were black and grey with a few highlights of blue throughout them, coming out from her shoulder blades they followed her form before disappearing into the spandex leggings she wore. In between them was an angry red line, which is what he assumed she was all wrapped up for and four bright yellow lights running down her spine. They didn't seem to be evenly spaced out and he wasn't sure what they were, upon closer inspection he saw that the lights actually sat underneath her skin.

"They're beautiful," Joker tried to implant the image to memory. "How far down do they go?" Reaching a hand out he traced a finger down the hollow of her spine and he watched as her skin came up with goose bumps and she shuddered.

"Sorry," laughing uncomfortably she turned around, "it's been a long time since anyone who wasn't a doctor as touched me. How far does what go down, my tattoo or my C5X implants?"

"I was talking about your tattoo, but what the hell are C5X implants?"

"Well, when my body was recovered it was very… damaged," Shepard shrugged trying to play the sensitive topic off, "the armor I was wearing was not designed to survive entry to a planet's atmosphere. So parts of me were…missing."

Shepard sat on the floor next to him before continuing, "So when they started to rebuild me I was missing parts of my spine, the C5X implants fill in the parts that I was missing."

Joker stared at her in shock, just how much did Cerberus do to her to get her up and running again? He had to snap back to reality when he realized that she was still talking. "As for my tattoo, maybe one day I'll show you just how far it goes." Shepard got up and turned towards the door.

"Sleep up Joker, surgery will be soon and you'll need your energy." Turning to walk back to the elevator she heard Joker limping behind her, turning around she was immediately surrounded by him, as he pulled her into a bone crushing (at least for him) hug. Taking a second to react she latched her arms around his waist breathing him in.

He buried his face into her hair. "Thank you Kai," her heart did another backflip. "First you save my life, and now you're giving me a chance to have a normal one. I don't know what I did to deserve you but I'm…" he stumbled over his words, trying not to give away his true feelings, "…overwhelmed I guess."

Shepard reluctantly broke the hug to look at him, "Joker, you have stood by me through thick and thin." She grabbed his hand feeling how smooth it was compared to the calluses that decorated her own. "There is nothing I wouldn't do for you."

Joker chuckled. "Well Commander," he saw her wince at her title, causing all kinds of questions in his mind. "That could be interpreted in a lot of different ways ya know." He winked at her.

Shepard turned to walk the rest of the way to the elevator, gently dropping his hand. Joker turned and started to make his way back to the cockpit.

"Hey Joker," he turned at her call, "maybe I meant it that way." With a wave she backed into the elevator and left a very stunned Joker staring at the door as it closed behind her.