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Joker sat alone in his seat, watching the stars pass the windows as he allowed his mind to wonder. The quiet hum of the ship engines filled the empty space of the cockpit.
Though this ship shared a name with the original, there were certain details that reminded him that it was not. VI terminals filled the spaces where his comrades used to be positioned on the weaponry, the pilot seat no longer dug into his joints preventing him from falling asleep there and despite the improvements to the engine, there was a certain magic that he could feel was missing as he flew.
In spite of all the effort that had gone into making as exact a replica as possible, this wasn't their Normandy. Recruitment efforts led to the return of some familiar faces, but without all of the members of the mismatched family that they had previously assembled, it wasn't their crew.
And most importantly, the Commander who looked almost completely as he remembered, spoke with the same authority and worked on the basis of the same strong morals, she wasn't his Shepard.
Cerberus had done an exceptional job of rebuilding her. As a matter of fact, the end result was arguably too perfect. If you hadn't known her before, then you could easily believe that she had never died at all, but Joker knew better.
Over the years that he'd known her, he'd come to memorise every detail of her appearance. Sometimes, he was sure that he could even tell you the exact number of freckles that decorated her kind face and though he was relieved to find those still present, he had immediately noticed the things that were lacking.
In their efforts to revitalise her, Cerberus had healed the battle scars from years prior and in their place were fresh cracks in her skin that had a strange orange glow from beneath them. He could only imagine the scars that weren't visible to him from all that had been done to her, but for him, by far the most disturbing change was her eyes.
Before they'd always sparkled with strength, no matter the odds that they were facing, or the pressure that she was under. However, her death and the trauma that she'd endured since had dulled it, and now when he looked into her once mesmerising eyes, they felt hauntingly empty.
Joker had made every effort to bring it back. He always made sure to have puns ready for her visits, reminded the cook to collect ingredients for her favourite meals, convinced Kelly to care for her fish and never forgot a single movie night.
Since most of their crew was no longer around, it was a rather smaller occasion than before. After the gradual decline in attendance of the new crewmates, it was only the two of them that bothered now, but he didn't care. He knew that it was important to Shepard. A small slice of the routine that she remembered.
An alert pinged on his display indicating movement around the ship and he investigated to find that Shepard was leaving her quarters. It seemed that yet again, she had been unable to sleep, but this time she had actually given up on trying. He sighed thoughtfully as he watched her roaming the eerily quiet ship, whilst most of the crew was sleeping, until it struck him that she was heading in his direction.
