A/N: Thanks to Buggirl and Nightodie, who both helped me with their input and advice. This is my attempt of telling Joker's story after the destruction of the Normandy. It's based on my Shepard from Darkangel, so Wrex and Ashley haven't survived and the old Council was sacrificed. All characters belong to Bioware!

Chapter 1

"And you're saying, you saw Commander Shepard die?" The Admiral asked.

"No, I'm saying, she hauled me into the last evac shuttle and then this other ship came back for another attack. When we were hit for the second time, Shepard was thrown back and the last thing she did for me was push the button to eject the rescue pod," Joker growled. "I already told you this. She's dead, okay?"

"I think, that's enough." Captain Anderson said before adding. "You're dismissed, Lieutenant."

Joker dragged himself to his feet and picked up his crutches. Slowly, he limped out of the office and down the stairs, silently cussing at not being able to put as much space as possible between himself and the presidium in the quickest way possible. He wanted to leave the members of the Alliance brass behind. Them and their insistent, repetitive questions over the past fourteen hours of interrogation. Not only was he confronted with three internal investigators, they were then joined by four Council representatives, Admiral Hackett and Captain Anderson.

They had doubted his story, had tried to pin him down with trick questions. He'd been smart enough to sail around all their insulting hints, but all that had only added to the guilt that was already eating him inside. Shepard had died because of him. If he had only followed her order, or gotten out of that chair the moment she had entered the cockpit, both of them would have been inside that damn evac shuttle long before the next wave of fire had hit them.

Joker came to a halt by a bench and sat down. He was out of breath. Walking just wasn't his thing. He was used to sitting in a pilot's chair all day, but staggering around the Citadel brought him to his physical limits. It reminded him once more that the best pilot in the Alliance fleet was nothing but a limping wimp, who tried to hide his insecurities behind that big mouth of his while his green eyes observed everyone and everything around him from beneath the bill of his cap. His hand snapped up to his uncovered head.

"Crap!" He hated being without his cap. Not so much for the feeling of being naked when not wearing it but for the lack of self-confidence it gave him whenever he took it off.

"You can do this, Jeffrey," the woman said to the five-year old boy that was sitting on a wooden bench in front of her. Tears streaming down his dirty cheeks.

"I don't wanna ever go back there, Ma," he sobbed stubbornly.

"This was only your first day. You can't always give up that easily," his mother said gently. "You'll like it there."

"No, I won't. Billy is mean. He called me a crippled cross-leg." Jeffrey sobbed again and pouted.

"I spoke with Ms Garner, and she promised me that she'll talk to them, all of them, but you have to go back there. You can't give up and stay at home. I thought you wanted to fly those big ships one day, hm?" the woman carefully petted his hand.

"I can learn that at home," little Jeffrey wasn't convinced yet.

"Okay, I make you a deal," his mother tried one last attempt. "If you go there again tomorrow, I will give you Daddy's cap."

Jeffrey's green eyes lit up instantly as he beamed at his mum. "The one with the big red eagle on it?"

"That very one," she nodded.

"And I can wear it to school every day?"

"You can wear it whenever you like unless Ms Garner asks you to take it off."

Jeffrey considered the offer for a moment. How often had he stood before the glass display in which the cap lay like a treasure. Once he'd taken a chair, climbed up and taken it out, his little legs shaking with anticipation when his hands touched the sacred piece. His mother had been so angry, all the neighbours must have heard her yelling. From that day on, the display had been locked and he could only admire its content from the outside. He knew, she was trying to bribe him and he didn't want to ever see this nasty Billy again, but this had been Daddy's cap and he wanted it so badly. This may be his only chance to ever possess it.

Finally, his tear-stained face smiled at his mother, "Okay, Ma, I promise, I'll go back."

"And you promise me you'll never give up again?"

"Yes."

"Give me a hug," she was glad she'd been able to convince her only son to give grade-school another chance and Jeffrey threw his little arms around his mother's neck to hug her tightly.

"You can achieve everything, sweetie," she said, rubbing his back. "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. And don't ever let anyone push you around because of your disease."

"I won't, Ma. I'm gonna be the best pilot in the whole galaxy," he mumbled.

His father's cap had eventually fallen apart thirteen years later. It had already had been frayed at the ends when his mother gave it to him. He sometimes hadn't even taken it off at night before going to sleep. It had been washed and dried at least a hundred times and by the day Joker had turned fifteen, the embroidered red eagle on the front had turned into a pale-brown, unidentifiable, something with wings and no beak where the twine had come loose. He had loved this cap. It was the only piece his father had left them and wearing it had made him feel strong and invulnerable. When it was too tattered to wear any longer, his mother had given him a new one the day he enlisted with the Alliance Navy. A simply dark-blue cap.

"If you find the place where you belong," she said, "Show it!"

And he had. He had fallen in love with the Normandy the first time he'd seen her. He had wanted to be the pilot from that very moment on. The night, he received his assignment, he hadn't been able to sleep but had limped through half of Arcturus Station just to find a shop that would embroider two letters and a digit onto his cap...SR1.

Twenty-eight years had had to pass for him to find his own place in the galaxy and now it was gone. Destroyed by an unknown enemy. Not only had he failed at saving his ship, but he also felt responsible for the death of the galaxy's biggest hero.

People of all species walking by jolted his mind back to the present. Five weeks had passed since Sovereign's attack on the station. The presidium looked as good as new but in other areas chaos and destruction still dominated the scene. On a normal shore leave he would have gone straight to Chora's Den, watched the dancers, paid a hooker or two if luck didn't send any other options his way, and spent his days drinking and enjoying himself. But the Den had been shut down. Going down to the Wards now resembled a nearly hopeless endeavour, at least for him. The old Rapid Transit wasn't going there anymore. Even if he took a transit shuttle, he still would have to climb down too many stairs. Although C-Sec officers were constantly present in every part of the Wards the crime rate had increased after the attack, another fact that wasn't quite encouraging for a man who needed crutches just to stand upright. It was draining for him to actually go anywhere by foot. Ten times more people going about their business, none of them watching where they stepped. More than once he had been knocked down or pushed aside by unobservant and uncaring pedestrians.

Grudgingly he got to his feet again. He needed a drink, badly, and the only place that was somewhat located nearby, was the Dark Star Lounge. It certainly lacked the Den's atmosphere that he had come to appreciate, like the dimly-lit small booths with your own dancer. Asari weren't necessarily his first choice but, especially when drunk, he had never been picky anyway as long as they had all the right spots in all the right places and didn't belong to the talkative kind. Yet the Dark Star had neither booths nor strippers. At least he would get some booze into his system, given he could reach it without breaking his legs. He sighed when he saw the crowd in front of the transit shuttle station. This would take a while.

"But this ship didn't look like a geth ship at all," a woman argued with a man next to her. The couple was standing a bit further down the queue.

"Since when are you a geth expert?" Her companion snarled. "The Council said it was Saren's geth warship. Why would they lie to us?"

She turned away and shrugged helplessly.

"Because they're a bunch of ignorant, limp-wristed cock suckers," Joker shouted angrily. The people in the queue fell silent and most turned their heads to see who had spoken. "Everything they told you about this large ship? Bullshit. It was a reaper. The geth aren't the real threat. The Reapers are."

"And how do you know that?" The man asked in a sceptical voice.

"Because I was there. I was the pilot of one of the Alliance ships when he attacked," Joker replied.

"Really! Which ship?" Someone else asked, no less sceptical than the man before.

"The Normandy."

"You're the pilot of the Normandy?" A turian next to him chimed in.

"Oh please, look at this guy. He can barely walk," the first man pointed at Joker's crutches and leg braces. "Do you really believe the Alliance would let a cripple fly one of their ships?" He snorted and shook his head, waving his hand dismissively before he turned back to the woman.

The crowd picked up their chatter leaving Joker standing where he was. He looked down, wishing he had both hands free to clench them into fists but those damn walking-sticks allowed him not even this small gesture of anger. He'd just been humiliated by some ignorant jerk whose ass he and countless other soldiers had saved a little over a month ago.

"Don't pay any attention to them." The turian was still standing beside him. "They rather live in a world of ignorance." His eyes were fixed on the human.

"My name is Joven," he said, when Joker made no attempt to speak.

"No need to feel pity for the crippled guy," Joker snarled.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean ... I wasn't..." he stammered.

Joker snapped out of his angry mindset and felt guilty. There was no need to take out his bad mood on this turian.

"No, I'm sorry. Jeff Moreau," he replied. "I'd shake your hand but I'd probably ram one of these," he nodded towards his crutches, "Into your private parts or something."

"Pleasure to meet you. You said you're the pilot of the Normandy. So you saw that Reaper?"

"Yeah, huge bastard. And fucking hard to destroy, too."

"Many good soldiers lost their lives in the fight. It angers me that the Council is trying to play it down. But they've always been good at this." Joven shook his head.

Both men waited patiently in line for a vacant transit shuttle, talking about the attack and the Council's ignorance. Joker was grateful for the distraction. Joven prattled on telling him about his work for Haliat Armory, a turian weapon manufacturer and the constant travels throughout the whole galaxy his job required. When a shuttle arrived, the turian held the door open and turned to him.

"I was on my way to the Dark Star. My ship to Ilium is leaving tomorrow and maybe you'd like to join me for a drink," he offered. "Unless you have other plans, of course."

"I wanted to go there anyway," Joker replied, glad that he wouldn't have to wait another hour for a shuttle. Although he would have preferred the company of a slightly buzzed woman over that of a turian business man, but after looking at the mass of people in the queue that were still in front of him, he decided that he could be picky some other time.

The shuttle took them from the presidium to level twenty-eight of Zakera Ward's mid-district. Once, Joker had climbed up all stairs, with much effort the turian noted, they entered the lounge and sat down at a vacant table on the left side of the entrance.

"Welcome to the Dark Star, Gentlemen. My name is Leanne, I'm your waitress for tonight," a young woman had appeared out of nowhere and was trotting out her greeting with a large fake smile plastered to her face. She wore a dark-blue top and a short black skirt that barely reached down over the upper half of her thighs. "Can I get you started with something to drink?" she asked while activating her datapad and looking expectantly first to Joven then to Joker.

"I don't know about my turian friend here, but you already got me started," the latter stated with a salacious look at her legs and a big grin.

"Sorry, Sir, witty remarks are out today," she replied coolly, "but getting kicked out by the bouncer is our all time special."

"Ouch, I think she just beat me at my own game," he grinned at Joven. "Alright, double scotch on the rocks for me," Joker finally ordered.

"Single malt or blended?" she asked while typing into her datapad.

"Single malt," he replied.

"And for you, Sir?" Leanne turned to the turian.

"I'll have a turian ale, please," Joven said.

"Of course. Anything else?" she asked but when both men just shook their heads, she added "I'll be right back," and disappeared again.

The next three hours passed by in a heated discussion about the Citadel, politics in general, the differences between human and turian females...

"Have you even been with a human woman before?" - "No but an asari's as squishy and that's nearly the same." - "Pah, you can't compare a real woman to an asari." - "I still prefer a turian's well-built fringe over any of your kind."

...about politics in particular...

"I really like your species, ya know? But that new councilor of yours? Big asshole." - "I agree. Keeps pressing charges against his own people. Politics have softened him."

...about the differences between human and turian food, life in the galaxy and eventually, Joven admitted defeat.

"My dear friend," he said after both men had emptied countless glasses of single malt scotch and turian ale. "Thank you for making this an entertaining evening." He rose from his chair. "But I'm afraid, I have to leave, for my shuttle to Ilium is departing early in the morning."

Joker suppressed a snort. The more the alcohol had affected Joven, the more plummy his talking had become, but he decided to play along.

"Bon voyage," he tipped an invisible hat and slightly bowed his head. He remembered an old blessing, his mother had carried around in one of these old notebooks. The ink had already started to fade away on the yellowed pages but those few lines were fixed into his mind because she had read them whenever they'd boarded a ship. "May the stars lighten your path, no obstacles in your way. May you reach your destination and find safely home some day." He raised his glass and toasted him.

Joven exaggeratedly bowed his head and then tottered towards the exit.

"Undiscovered poet, are we?" Leanne asked, appearing again and clearing the table of Joven's empty glasses.

"Sort of," Joker grinned. "Can you hit me again?" He motioned for her to take his empty glass and bring him a new one.

"You already had more then a couple of those," she raised an eyebrow. "You sure, you can take another one?"

"Well, what else can an undiscovered poet do than gloat over a beautiful woman and enjoy the blissful feeling of liquor pouring down his throat?"

She chuckled. "You're not really a poet, are you?"

"Nah," Joker laughed. "But I could be if that's the kind of guy you like."

"I prefer the adventurous type," she winked at him.

"Is pilot adventurous enough?"

"Of course you're a pilot. If I got five credits every time someone told me they were a pilot, I wouldn't be working here," she snorted.

"How 'bout I buy you a drink and you tell me your definition of adventurous," Joker had no intentions of letting her get off the hook that easily.

"And then what? You fill me up and then we end up at your cheap apartment?" She stood with one hand on her hips and glared at him.

"Well, yeah, that was my plan," he smiled at her, "But we would have to go to your place 'cause I'm staying at crew quarters right now and my bunk's not really made for two people. And you wouldn't want nine other soldiers watching us." His grin grew wider and his green eyes were fixed on her dark brown eyes.

Leanne shook her head, rolling her eyes, and turned away, making a disapproving snort sound.

"Hey, at least I was honest about my intentions," Joker yelled after her when she walked over to the bar. Was he imagining it or did she sway her hips more than before?

He leaned back in his chair and sighed. A beautiful woman was something that could really take his mind off things for a while. At least better, than a drunk turian could.

"My shift ends in an hour," Leanne said, placing a glass of Scotch on the table. "This one's on the house." Before he had a chance to open his mouth, she had disappeared again. Maybe this day wouldn't end so badly, after all.