Joker makes it home the day after his mother's funeral, and only then because he knows half the shuttle pilots in the Alliance.
Gunny meets him at the door, and her eyes are bright and brimming with tears. They cling to one another in the open doorway. Gunny muffles sobs into his chest, but Joker finds his own eyes curiously dry.
"Jeff." Dad's voice is rough, and he looks years older than the last time Joker was home. The lines around his eyes and mouth have been carved deep. Even his skin looks tired. They embrace, and Dad thumps his back, too hard.
"Sorry I- sorry I'm late."
"The Alliance didn't tell you?" Dad asks.
Joker shrugs. It seems the Alliance is keeping a lot of need to know from people these days.
The house feels empty. Which is stupid, since Mom was just as much a visitor to Tiptree as a resident. That was Joker's fault, of course, born with a condition that made her take a job relay jumps away. Jeff wonders what Mom would have been like as a farmer, as a colonist. He can't quite picture it.
They sit down to dinner, and Joker can't keep his eyes off the back door, waiting for Mom to come in from the garden, basket of flowers in hand. She'd always liked lilies, and Dad always planted some just for her.
Gunny, he thinks, is taking it the worst of all of them. She breaks into tears without any provocation, and doesn't eat, just moves the reheated food around her plate.
"You look like mom, you know?" Joker asks when Gunny's tears won't seem to stop. His little sister, still a kid, and now half-orphaned.
Gunny rubs at her eyes. It streaks her mascara, and when did Dad give permission for makeup? "Yeah?"
"He's right," Dad agrees. "Same smile." Gunny's lips curve, just a touch.
"And before she went gray, Mom had hair the same color as yours." His sister drags a hand through her hair.
"I never saw."
Dad pulls himself to his feet, cooling dinner all but forgotten. "She went gray early. There are some old datapads with pictures, let me find them."
The three of them huddle together on the living room couch to look at pictures of Mom. And it's not okay, and the ache in Jeff's chest is deep enough it'll never be covered, but together, it's just a little easier.
The shuttle comes in from Horizon, and Shepard hits the bridge before the docking protocols are complete. Her guns are even still strapped to her back, and Joker wonders whether Jacob or Miranda will be more upset about that breach of protocol.
"Plot course for Alchera."
Joker startles at her voice so close behind him. "Shep-"
"You can take that as an order, Lieutenant Moreau." There's stone in her voice.
Joker discards one, two, three real comments before he replies, ignoring the command entirely. "I was thinking of installing some lava lamps. Maybe Christmas lights for ambiance? What do you think?"
Shepard doesn't laugh, and for once Jeff's glad not to have his requested mirror in the cockpit. He's not sure he could handle the look on Shepard's face. Vrolik's has done away with most of Joker's more violent impulses, but he'd be willing to shatter every bone in his hand if it meant bloodying Alenko's nose.
"Alchera," Shepard says again.
There's a wormy guilt in his gut at the thought of Alchera. "You don't wanna take a shore leave first? I hear there's a new nightclub opening in the wards, we could go get shit-faced." Alenko has ridiculous hair. Too poncy for a woman of Shepard's caliber.
"Lieutentant-"
And honestly, the way he carries on about the difficulties of being a biotic. You'd think he wasn't able to move things with his damned mind. "Asari dancers, Commander. You remember Liath from Chora's Den? She's working there now."
The Commander drops into his co-pilot's seat, lets her head fall back against the leather headrest. "I'm your CO, Joker."
"Never let it bother me before."
"Right."
Shepard closes her eyes, mustering her strength, and Joker finds he doesn't want to be someone she has to force to follow her. He sighs. "Fine, fine, we'll head to Alchera." The name catches in his throat, just a bit. "But if you think you're going down there alone-"
"Deal," she says, and Joker tries not to startle at the win.
Shepard rests her head back, and within minutes, she's asleep beside him. It wouldn't be noticeable if not for the bio sensors in the armor she's still wearing reporting a drop in heart rate and brain activity. No tension drains from her body, she doesn't snore or mutter in her sleep. If EDI's to be believed, it's the first time she's hit REM in the last three days.
Joker dims the console lights.
He pings Garrus, and the Turian is willing enough to go groundside with Shepard, but that still leaves her shore-party one short. There's no way in hell she's going back to her grave with a Cerberus approved escort. Which eliminates everyone besides-
Though really, it's not as though Shepard will be facing hostiles. She doesn't exactly need a third. Or maybe Chakwas? Cowardice tastes like bile in his mouth.
Crutches and ice do go so well together.
Shepard sleeps the whole three hours they're waiting to go through the relay, only startling awake when they slow on the other side of the jump.
"Hey, sleeping beauty," Joker says once he's done congratulating himself on another bit of excellent flying.
Shepard snorts and rubs the heel of her hand against her eyes. "We there?"
" 'nother couple minutes."
She nods, and heads towards the docking bay.
If Shepard is surprised when he and Garrus meet her at the shuttle, she doesn't show it. "Leaving your baby, Joker?"
"Ensign Patel is currently at the helm, Commander Shepard," EDI says. "Analysis indicates that she will be adequate to the tasks of planetary orbit."
"Adequate," Joker agrees with a scowl. Shepard smiles.
The descent is... awful. The Kodiak, of course, is equipped with windows to let in the sight of ground rising up to meet them. He's well secured and the flight is gentle, and his eyes are fucking not tearing up.
He chides himself. He's here to support Shepard, not freak out like a damn child.
The debris must have been hot when they fell through Alchera's atmo, hot enough to melt the permanent layer of ice the Kodiak now lands on, hot enough to half bury themselves in frozen ground.
Garrus has weaponized Joker's crutches with tiny blades that give him better purchase in the ice, but he's still slips precariously. Shepard slides an arm around his waist.
"Sorry, Shep," he says. His throat feels tight. "Damn, I'm sorry." Whether she hears the catch in his throat, or if she just knows, Shepard doesn't think he's apologizing for slipping.
Joker's glad he can't see her face when she responds. "If it hadn't been you, Joker, it would have been Grenado or Crosby, maybe one of the Draven sisters, Tucks... Pressly." She doesn't say the rest aloud, but Joker can feel the whisper of their names, wonders if they'll find the dog tags they're after on the necks of corpses. "There's a reason a captain goes down with her ship."
Captain, a promotion the idiots at Alliance command didn't see fit to give her, even after she saved the galaxy. No, fucking Alenko, him they'll promote to Major, but the woman whose coattails he rode in? Let her rot. Didn't even recover her damn body. Not that he can be wholly sorry for that.
"Oh, captain, my captain," Joker begins in sing-song. Shepard rolls her eyes.
"Shut up, Moreau."
They find the first set of tags, Emerson's, wedged under a crate whose contents must have burnt up in atmo. Shepard hits her knees. The chain cinches tight around her fingers, and her lips move like she's praying.
Joker looks to Garrus, desperate for some clue as to what he's supposed to do. Garrus drops a hand to the Commander's shoulder.
It's fucking horrible. But they do their duty, and there's something honorable about finally gathering the remains of these marines. Someone should have done right by their families long before now. Of course it's Shepard who's bringing them home, who else would it be?
Shepard is digging the last set of tags, Pakti's, out of the ice when he sees it. The red stripe looks like fresh blood.
Joker's breath catches in his chest.
He can't tear his eyes away, not even when Shepard pulls her pistol. The safety clicks, and Shepard unloads an entire heat sink into the broken helmet. Only fragments remain.
"Let's head out," she says.
It's not his shift to fly, and they're headed back to Citadel space, so Joker absconds to the crew quarters for some much needed rest. He's not hiding. Sitting at the card table feeling sorry for himself, maybe, but not hiding.
Not hiding well, at least, since less than an hour passes before Shepard comes through the door. Fucking EDI probably ratted him out. He grabs at the datapad laying on the table, tries to look busy.
Shepard looks bright and fresh and beautiful.
Joker grunts out a greeting, not looking up from the open copy of... First Contact: Who Needs It? And really, who the fuck is reading Riven on an interspecies mission to save the universe? He sighs. There's never a Fornax when you need one.
Shepard kicks his chair, and it spins to face her. "Alright," she says, "this one's on me." He doesn't look up, so she plucks the book from his hand. "We should have talked about this sooner."
Joker can feel dread pooling in his gut. She's going to ask for a new pilot. She's going to have him dismissed. She's going to-
"So you're the best damn pilot the Alliance has ever known?"
Shit. Does it sound that egotistical coming from his mouth? Does he care? It's true. "Fuck, yes," Joker answers. "Ma'am."
There's a grin crawling up Shepard's mouth. "I wondered how you fit your head through the airlock the first time you ever said as much to me."
"You have a point, Commander?"
"You weren't wrong. Your scores are the highest to ever come out of flight school. Both paper and practical. You took down a Reaper. You destroyed a Collector dreadnaught singlehandedly. So tell me, Jeff, if the best pilot to ever hit a relay couldn't escape that night, what standard are you holding yourself to?"
She doesn't understand. "I killed them. Me. It was my job, and-"
"No, you didn't. You're not the one who lead them to the edge of the Terminus systems on a wild goose chase. Not the one who the collectors called out by name." Well shit, there's something they haven't talked about.
It doesn't matter, she's not at fault. "Shit, Shepard, you can't think- Everyone on the old Normandy knew exactly what they'd signed up for. We all knew the dangers-"
"You all accepted the risks of first contact with a species bent on our destruction?" Shepard takes the chair beside him. "So what you're saying is that one individual can't be held responsible for the deaths of those fighting the unknown enemy?"
His face burns. He swivels his chair back around, but he can still feel her eyes on him. "It's not the same."
Shepard doesn't respond, just props her feet up on the table. Inspects her nails.
"If I'd left when you gave the order-"
"Have I ever told you about Elysium?"
It's a rhetorical question, because Shepard has never told anyone about Elysium.
"The Batarians had locked down communications before we even knew they were there." Shepard closes her eyes and leans back in her chair. "It must have been the third day, and we were losing ground in the city's market center."
There's a pause Jeff doesn't dare interrupt.
"I called a retreat to a group of buildings we could barricade. Good tactical choice, excellent sight lines, functioning well, food supplies." Shepard taps her fingers against the table. "A couple of shop keepers refused, said they'd lose everything to the Batarians. Good men. Fathers. Worried about feeding their babies."
Maybe it's just the low lighting of crew, but the Commander looks young and unsure. "We retreated, left them to defend their stores as best they could. They died, of course." She sighs.
"What I'm trying to say, Jeff, is that I can leave someone behind when they disobey orders."
"Then why didn't you?"
"Because your call? It was the right one."