The connection crackles to life, fuzzy and out of focus, but then Gunny's staring back at him, and Joker feels something loosen in his chest.
"Jeff? Why are you so blurry?" The signal's piggybacking off a merchant vessel in near space. He could have used the Cerberus servers, but just because he's joined them doesn't mean he trusts them. And he's certainly not going to use the public communication's room. Not for this conversation.
"It's good to see you, Hil. How are you? How's Dad?"
It's hard to tell through the static, but it looks like Gunny's frowning. "Are you in trouble? Where are you?"
Joker tugs the brim of his cap. "I can't say. I'm fine, though, promise."
"There were men here today, looking for you. Dad won't tell me why, but I can tell he's really mad."
Of course Dad's mad he's gone AWOL. A better back-planet-patriot you couldn't find. Nothing's more important to Dad than the Alliance. Joker just hopes Dad's unaware exactly who he's joined up with now.
They probably won't speak again. Joker wonders if his name will be cleared after the war, or if his dad will hate him long after this Cerberus ship is shot down by Reapers. His eyes sting.
There's noise on the far side of the door, crew coming back from liberty. "Listen, I gotta go. I love you, Gunny. Tell Dad- tell Dad I love him too."
"Wait, Jeff-" Joker flips the comm closed.
Joker stumbles into the cockpit bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived.
Patel's managed to not wreck his ship on the trip to Omega, but Joker'll be damned if he's going to let anyone else sit at the helm while Shepard's groundside. That Bradly and Williams cut his rest shift in half with their damned fight (over soap? Joker thinks it was about soap) is irrelevant. He really needs to thank Shepard for his new position. Really.
Eyes at half mast, Joker nearly misses the new addition to his work station. There, just outside the edge of the haptics, is a small mirror. He can see the back of the cockpit reflected in its surface, completely smooth except for where SR2 has been engraved in one corner.
Joker grins.
There's a tiny note stuck to the top. It's the first time he's seen Shepard's handwriting, and it feels strangely intimate.
Sorry I crashed your date. Saw this and thought of you. -S
Shit, she thought that was a date?
"This personalization of your workspace falls within Cerberus protocols, Jeff," EDI says. "The Commander would like to know when you plan on getting your ass to work. Do you have a reply?"
With a snort, Joker dials up the mission preliminaries. Looks like Shepard is planning on taking the whole damn crew. Even Kasumi, their newest recruit is listed to go groundside. It wouldn't shock Joker if Shepard were planning an overthrow of Aria's whole damned station.
When he sees his name at the bottom of the list, however, he chokes in surprise.
"Thought you might sleep through this one." Shepard has the grace not to comment on his continued coughing, though he can see the mirth in her eyes reflected in his new gift.
"So here's the thing, Commander," he says when he catches his breath. "I'm not questioning your no doubt sane decision to take me groundside. But by any chance were you drinking heavily last night?"
"Mandatory morale booster."
He quirks an eyebrow.
"Okay, so I'm parading out the crew that's only nominally Cerberus in an attempt to court our Alliance contact. Also, I heard a couple of ensigns took to fists to settle how much sugar to put in their coffee?"
Right, now he remembers. "Creamer, actually."
Shepard laughs. Joker glares, but she doesn't have the decency to look chagrined."Sorry," Shepard says. "Totally not funny." He quirks an eyebrow, and she gives a little half-snort, but keeps it together. "I'm just saying, seems like the kids could use a break. You ready to head out?"
"Easier to come with you than bail you out later, I guess."
"That's the spirit."
Shepard has the best ideas. Getting shitfaced with the crew in the bottom of Afterlife is definitely one of them. Even if they are technically on a manhunt for some AWOL Alliance idiot. Aria's sure this Vega plays cards in the bottom of her club, but so far there's been no sign of him.
The Commander saunters back from crushing Garrus at darts, face flushed with victory, and damn if the sway of her hips mid victory dance isn't one of the sexiest things Joker's ever seen.
"Is it hot in here?" she asks, pulling at the thin fabric of her shirt. Yes. Definitely hot.
Shepard shakes her head at Mordin when he tries to lure her away to some Hanar game involving far too many rings and leans over her long body over the table. They're trying to blend in, which means her Cerberus uniform has been traded in for something far lower cut. "What are you drinking, Lieutenant?"
"Anything with an umbrella." And if she keeps at it like this, he's going to need more than one.
The crew is scattered across the different floors and rooms of Afterlife, though Joker imagines very few of them still remember who they're looking for. At any rate, he and Shepard are all but alone when she returns with a beer and some lurid pink concoction, complete with not one but two umbrellas.
The first sip makes his head spin, but the second seems to settle it.
Shepard sits, but within minutes she's fidgeting in her chair, feet moving roughly in time to the music. Shepard, awful as she is, loves to dance. Joker wonders if he could dance now, with the Cerberus improvements.
Wonders at the risk/reward ratio of that particular endeavor.
Whether that question or the liquor loosens his tongue, it suddenly seems imperative that he ask Shepard about Horizon.
"Listen, Shepard. I know you and Kaidan-"
Yeah, so definitely the liquor. Note to self, don't let the iron-livered cyborg pick your drinks.
"Me and Kaidan what?" The Commander smirks, and Joker thinks he might have just stepped in something. Too late, though, really.
"You were close, I know." Joker tugs at the brim of his cap. "And, well, if you wanted to talk about it..." He is a fucking teenage girl. Awesome.
Shepard huffs a laugh. "We weren't dating." Takes a sip of her beer. "Or fucking." The Commander gets vulgar with alcohol. Vulgar and hot, not that he's paying attention.
"Right, no, wait, what?"
There's a gleam in her eye, and Joker's not sure if he should be terrified or delighted at being its cause. "Did you think we were?" Shepard takes a sip, a drop of beer spilling down her lip. Her tongue darts out to catch it.
Joker's face flushes. "Hell, everyone thought you were. What with the 'tell me more,' and the 'that must have been hard,' and the 'I didn't know you were a romantic, Kaidan!'" He flutters his eyelashes for good measure.
"What!" Shepard throws her hands up. "I get to know everybody. I'm friendly!"
"Nosy," Joker coughs under his breath.
Shepard smacks the brim of his cap. "Inquisitive. I ask all our crew about themselves."
"Yeah, but none of the rest of us called you beautiful and regaled you with stories of our childhood sweethearts."
"You're insane," Shepard says. "It was never like that with Kaidan. Besides, I don't sleep with subordinates." She peers down her nose at him in a spitting image of the old crone who narrates the Alliance sexual harassment vids.
Joker snorts. "You're kidding, right? We stole the damn Normandy, and now we work for a terrorist organization, but fraternization regs is where you draw the line?"
"I'm plenty willing to break regs to save the galaxy," Shepard replies as she swirls the beer in its glass container. "Or because they're stupid. But frat regs? Good. Idea."
The laughter's filtered from Shepard's voice, and Jeff feels suddenly uncomfortable. "I think as long as both parties are interested, no harm no foul."
"Back before Elysium, when I was just a little baby NCO," Shepard begins, and Joker sits up straighter. They're growing closer, he thinks, but it's still damned rare for her to talk about anything before Eden Prime. "I had this friend named Liz. Funny, crack shot."
All soldiers have these stories. Joker's spent enough years in Alliance blue to know by the tone of Shepard's voice that Liz isn't still among the living.
Shepard pauses just long enough to gesture towards the bartender for another round. "She fell in love with our CO, and he with her."
"Hell, Shepard, if you start on with some Fleet and Flotilla reenactment-"
She sighs, and Joker wishes he'd kept his mouth shut. "Long story short, Liz died and our CO put a slug through his brain."
"Shit."
"I was on the shooting range with him when he did it."
"Shit," Joker says again.
Shepard shrugs. "Frat regs are a good idea."
The somber mood leaves as quick as it came. Shepard drains her glass and starts on the next. She's dancing in her seat again. "Also, have you realized I don't have an office? If I started sleeping with crew, every time I invited someone to my quarters to talk they'd think I was trying to get in their pants." Her face pales. "No, they don't think that, do they?"
Joker remembers Kelly's shocked face when she returned from a private meeting with the Commander, virtue unsullied. "Of course not," he says. He won't be the one to shatter Shepard's illusion of professionalism aboard her ship.
But his grin must give him away. "Oh, hell," Shepard says. "Fucking hell." She swipes the drink from his hand and gulps it down. "But, but I invite everyone-"
Joker can't hold in his laughter. "None of us judge you, Commander."
"Ugh. I'm going to start meeting with people in the cockpit."
Joker splutters. "No. No. No." Not even Shepard can make that threat funny.
"Oh, come on. Think of the gossip you'd be privy to."
He lets out a low groan. "I am."
Shepard's answering laugh cuts off suddenly, her attention caught by something on the far side of the smoky lounge. She leans close, breath tickling his ear as she speaks. "There, on your seven. That look like our target?"
Shepard doesn't retreat back into her chair, so when he turns to look, her lips brush the shell of his ear.
There's a group of aliens, mostly Batarians, dealing out a round of what looks like Skyllian-Five but might be Camala's Fortune. There's one human among them. He's the size of a small bull.
"Looks like."
"Let's go," Shepard says.
Joker trails Shepard across the bar, dodging gyrating couples as they go. It's not until Shepard's shadow falls across the table that one of the Batarians glances up, four eyes narrowed in contempt. "Get lost, human."
That catches the human's attention, and it's Vega alright. His inebriation is obvious, eyes unfocused and never raising above Shepard's chest. "¿Puedo llevarte a tu casa?" He flicks his ante towards the pot. "Or maybe deal you in, Mamacita?"
Anderson's set them up with one of those assholes who turns their universal translator off and on for no reason. Wonderful.
Shepard smiles slowly, a grin only an idiot would take as interest. "Or how about I take you back to my place?" Vega smirks, and Shepard slides the datapad with Anderson's orders across the table. "But it's CO Shepard, not Mamacita."
The change is instantaneous. Rage mottles Vega's face and his fist comes down on the center of the datapad, cracking the screen into a web of black and blue.."Who the hell are you?" His chair clatters to the floor as Vega gains his feet. "This some sort of joke?" He steps towards Shepard, fists clenched.
A flick of her wrist sends him flying into the air. In any bar in Alliance space, that would be enough to have them bounced. In Omega it barely bats an eye. The Vorcha Vega was playing with pull their table to the side of the commotion and deal a new hand. Vega's stack of credits disappear.
"No joke, Vega. Can I put you down now, or are you going to start your time under my command with a drunk and disorderly?"
"Shepard is dead." Spittle flies, but the singularity keeps it contained.
"Not anymore." Shepard jabs a thumb in Joker's direction. "Recognize this one?" By the ever deepening shade of puce coloring Vega's face, Joker can tell he does. "Or that Turian, or maybe the Quarian he's standing with?" Shepard points across the bar and drops the biotic field. Vega crumples to his knees.
"0700, dock C37, don't be late." One step towards the door. "Oh, and Vega? If I have to come find you again, I can guarantee it will be far more painful for you."