Interlude - 2 A.M.
Despite the fact that he'd been waking up there more often than not since he and Johanna had gotten together, James still found it strange to wake up in her cabin. For one, it was huge and he'd gotten used to living out of a locker next to a matchbox-sized sleeper pod in the crew quarters. Actually, his stuff was still down in that locker. They hadn't talked about him moving things in, hell, they hadn't had time to go on a real, honest to god, date yet, so they lived as far apart as any two people could on a frigate - her in the captain's cabin and him down in crew quarters. It was a hassle, though, having to drag his ass downstairs. He could shower in her cabin, after all, the privilege of being Commander afforded her her own private bathroom, but he still had to drag his ass downstairs for a change of clothes. Maybe one day he'd be able to call her cabin home, but for the moment, things would just continue to roll along as they were. Oh, and the skylight? Well, it made him feel like he was floating. Not the most comfortable feeling in the world to wake up to but with Johanna in his arms, he couldn't even complain.
It took him a second to find his bearings but when he did, he tightened his arm around her as she lay asleep and glanced at the nearest monitor for the time. The ship was well into the night cycle and, to his surprise, the shutters on the skylight were closed - the only light in the room coming from the fish tank. He shifted his weight, careful not to wake Johanna, and and smiled as he looked at her. She looked so peaceful when she slept, something she hadn't been doing enough of lately. During the day, she may be the one and only, galactically famous Commander Shepard, the woman who brokered alliances and who tried her damnedest to bring a reluctant galaxy together but at night? At night, in his arms and without all of her armour and weapons? She was just Johanna the woman, and a beautiful woman at that. Slowly, he untangled himself from her and reached over to pick his shirt off the floor. He needed a drink so a trip to the mess was in order. He stood, pulled his shirt on over his head, pulled on his pants and crossed to the door - hopefully she wouldn't wake while he was gone.
The mess was deserted, or so James thought, but then the only person who might even be awake at the hour was Joker. He always seemed to be awake. Oh, and EDI, but she was she damn ship so she didn't count. He pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and sat at the closest table. Would it be completely out of line for him to fix himself a little post-midnight snack? No? New plan! A swig from the bottle later and he was pulling some bacon from the fridge, too.
"Better make sure that's not the dextro crap," came a voice from behind him, making James jump, "I ain't cleaning up after you when you take the shits."
"Shit, man," James laughed, "You scared the shit outta me, thought I was caught with my hand in the cookie jar, y'know? Well, the fridge. Whatever. Feel like a snack?"
"Hell yeah," Joker sat down, a cup of coffee in his hand. "You come all the way down here just to eat? Figured Shepard had a whole lot of food just stashed away up there, it's more a palace than a fucking cabin, after all."
James froze for a second - how the hell did Joker know about his relationship with Johanna? Sure, he knew that Cortez knew about the two of them because he'd been the one to tell him. Oh, and they'd made out in the shuttle bay while he was working on the damn shuttle. So much for being discreet. He supposed Kaidan would know soon enough, either from Johanna telling him herself or through figuring it out whenever he got back to duty on the Normandy. But Joker?
"How the hell did you know about me and Jo..Shepard?" Damn it. He'd slipped up. It was too late to play dumb about it all now. Smart.
"Jo, huh? Wow. You got it bad. I've known her to beat the shit outta guys who've used her name," Joker laughed, "But you walk like you still have your balls so she must really like you." The pilot paused long enough to take a sip of his coffee. "And I know because EDI knows everything. Come on, man, you had to know that she has access to all the camera feeds on the ship." Joker laughed but quickly quieted when James spun around. "Except for the ones in Shepard's cabin, of course. She almost tore EDI a new one back when we first got this baby, the woman likes her privacy. Now I know why."
"So EDI saw us in the shuttle bay?" It was a stupid question, James knew it, but he had to ask anyway. "Please tell me you're the only other one who knows about that?"
"Well, not just the shuttle bay," Joker stood from his place at the table, "Remember the night when Garrus came aboard? The little get-together you all had in the lounge?" He finished his coffee and quickly rinsed out his mug, "That night that went for, nought to six hundred in about a nanosecond? She saw that, too. All the way from the lounge until you both disappeared past her cabin door. I can't believe you didn't know that she monitors the cameras in the public areas of the ship. She's an AI, not just a sexy robot decoration."
"I can hear you, you know, Jeff," came EDI's disembodied voice but Joker didn't even flinch.
"I know, I know," he stepped toward the elevator, "Just proving a point to Lieutenant Dumbass right here. If I were you, I'd drop the whole discreet thing and just own it, man. Shepard's hot." The elevator pinged, "I'd get back up there before she realises that you're gone." And just like that, Joker himself was gone and James had definitely lost his appetite.
No midnight snacks for him after all...
Johanna tossed and turned, her mind showing her images that she'd rather not see. A boy running through shadows, a forest on fire and the whispers. Oh boy, the whispers. People she had loved and lost, all of them whispering to her. Her mother and father who she'd lost all those years ago back on Mindoir and then Ashley who she had lost on Virmire - they all seemed to have a message for her. And then the boy from that building in Vancouver, he'd gotten out of the frying pan only to jump right into the fire, literally, when the shuttle he'd climbed onto had been blown out of the sky. She hadn't known him, though, he was the odd one out in all of these nightmares and he always died in the flames right before she woke.
Just like always, Johanna woke with a start, shooting bolt upright in bed. "Bullshit nightmares," she fought for a second to regain control of her breathing as her heart rate slowly began to return to normal. "Holy shit," she clutched the sheet to her chest, still not even noticing that James wasn't beside her. "Why do I keep having this same god-damn nightmare?" She sighed and turned so she was sitting on the edge of her mattress, her head falling forward into her hands. If the galaxy could see her now, they'd wonder why they were trusting their fate to a woman who couldn't even get a decent night's sleep thanks to some stupid, stupid dream. She raked her hands through her hair and then glanced at the monitor, the bright figures blinked two am. Too late for anyone apart from the skeleton night shift to be awake but far too early for her to head to the command deck.
"You awake, James?" She waited for his to answer but silence was the only answer she got. "James?" Johanna turned to look over her shoulder but James was nowhere to be seen. Where the hell had he gone? He'd been there when she'd fallen asleep, she'd taken some comfort in the fact that she could fall asleep in his arms but why had he just vanished in the middle of the night? "I don't snore that loudly, do I?" Shepard thought out loud, with nobody else there, she could talk to herself and totally get away with it. Hell, even EDI couldn't hear her in her cabin unless she specifically asked for her.
"EDI," Johanna called, suddenly remembering that EDI would know where she could find James. "Where's Vega?"
"Lieutenant Vega is in the mess, Commander. He has been there for fifteen minutes," EDI replied. Johanna frowned, he'd left her in bed to go sit in the mess? What the hell was that all about? She stood and then bent over to scoop her clothes from the floor.
"And what, exactly, is he doing down there?" She dressed quickly, trying not to let her growing bad mood get to her too much. It was too early to be in a foul mood.
"He is current talking to Jeff, Commander. They appear to be discussing relationships." Johanna couldn't help but laugh. Talking about relationships with Joker? They only relationship the man had was with his extranet account, it was the only thing, besides the ship, that he ever spent any meaningful time with. From what she'd heard, he had quite the collection of vids; as Commander, she could access his files if she wanted to but she never had, too afraid of the weird shit she might come across in there. Some things were better off left unseen.
"Thank you, EDI," Johanna thanked the AI as she entered the elevator, making the very short trip down toward the mess. When she stepped off onto the crew deck, she noted that the place was deserted but why would it be busy so early in the morning? Everyone sane would be asleep, she definitely wished that she was. Preferably with James. And she would be before very long if she could get him to go back upstairs.
"James, you still down here?" She called as she rounded the corner toward the medbay and and there he was, just standing and putting what looked like bacon back into the fridge. "Bit late for a snack, is it not? It's two in the morning."
"Shit, Lola," James jumped, not for the first time since he'd ventured down to get some water. "Don't sneak up on a guy like that. What brings you down here?"
"I could ask you the same question," she crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned her hip against the kitchen countertop, "But I asked EDI instead and she said something about you talking about relationships with Joker. You do know he's useless with real relationship advice, right? I mean, sure, ask him about the best extranet sites for kinky shit and he's your guy but for anything else? You'd be better off asking that bacon."
"I wasn't asking advice," James tossed the bacon back into the fridge and threw it closed with a little too much force, the whole things wobbled where it stood. "He knows about us, y'know, he knew about the shuttle bay and he knew about what happened after the poker night. Apparently EDI has access to all the camera feeds in this place, all the public ones at least."
"I could've told you that," Johanna shrugged, it wasn't a big deal to her but, then again, she'd had a longer time to get used to the fact that the public areas of the ships were under surveillance. "I could also tell you that EDI used to send the feeds back to the Illusive Bastard so he could keep tabs on his most expensive toy. I could tell you that the crew quarters and my cabin are all completely private. I like my privacy."
"Yeah, Joker said something about that," James stepped toward her, his hands finding their place on her hips, "He also said that we should drop this bullshit discreet act and just own the fact that we're together. I think I like that idea. Especially since EDI knows." he paused. "And Cortez and Joker. Hell, I only came down here for some water"
"And Liara," Johanna threw in, sure that Liara would have figured it out by now, she was the Shadow Broker after all, information was her business. "I mean, I haven't told her or anything but she's the Broker. She knows everything about everyone. In the morning, she'll know that you came down here for water and she'll know that I came down here to look for you because I couldn't sleep." She frowned again, "Bullshit nightmares."
Just like that, James burst out of his little bubble of thought and was inwardly kicking himself. He knew about the nightmares, ironically, she had told him about them in the damn shuttle bay. "They're back?" She nodded and he reached for her hand, pulling her back toward the elevator. "You need to sleep, Lola, you ain't gonna be any use to anyone if you're so tired that you start screwing your head on ass backwards." It was another very short trip back to her cabin.
"Just promise me one thing, James," Johanna thought back to that last nightmare, a moment of vulnerability, albeit a private one. Surprisingly enough, she didn't mind showing him her more vulnerable side. It took her a while to get to that stage with Kaidan but with James, she didn't know what it was, she just found it so easy to trust in him.
"Anything," he pulled her back into her cabin and sat on the edge of the bed.
"When I wake up next, promise me you'll still be here," she fixed him with a searching gaze, hoping to find that he wasn't about to up and leave because she actually, maybe kind of needed him.
"Always," he smiled and lay back, pulling her in close, "Now sleep."
Always ... now that date he had up his sleeve really had to impress.
A/N :: This was the interlude I lost along with the last chapter so this one had to be done over from scratch. I actually think that I like this version of it better. Speaking of these interludes, I've decided to post the here as part of the main story rather than having them set aside as separate, non-sequential one shots. Instead, they fit in quite nicely over here as little breaks from the main plot and I like to think that they'll help show more of Johanna and James, both together and apart!
As always, thank you to "Skylark16," "Katschaba," and "Zee," for the reviews on the last chapter. You guys are great!