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Joker had never so much as seen a quarian, let alone talking to one until the first night shift since the Normandy had left the Citadel, practically stuffed to the brim with additional crew that weren’t even human. But that was absolutely none of his business. He was just Shepard’s glorified interstellar chauffeur. Any issues that would stem from having aliens on board would not come down on his neck, but Shepards. In other words, it was absolutely Not His Problem.
At least, that was his official opinion starting out.
The sound of approaching footsteps had caught his attention and he’d assumed that it was Shepard. Again. Likely to vehemently insist upon Joker getting some rack time. As if he wanted to do something as dangerous as walking that far and climbing into a bunk. No thank you. He’d gotten used to sleeping sitting up and it also meant that he could immediately jump to the controls if anything were to happen. Even if the seat made his bones ache.
Maybe he could just give Kaidan some credits to go out and pick him up some pillows the next time they were at the Citadel or literally anywhere that would have stores that carried pillows.
“Like I toldja half an hour ago, I’m good sleeping here, Shepard,” he grumbled at who he assumed was Shepard as he set the pad he’d been reading from down.
“I’m not Shepard,” a feminine sounding voice said, sounding almost synthetic, “I’m Tali’Zorah var Rayya.”
He glanced over his shoulder, seeing a small figure that was covered from head to toe in what looked to be an environmental suit. Ah. The resident quarian.
He’d never interacted with a quarian before, but had seen them at various docks he’d been to - either selling junk, trying to sell their mechanical expertise in exchange for a ride elsewhere, or just milling about. And every one of them were encased in suits for some reason. He’d naturally just assumed that they just were unable to breathe in oxygen, much like a few other species out in the galaxy.
“Call me Joker,” he responded as he turned to simply watch the screens, having set the autopilot hours ago. “Whatcha doing up here?”
“Just curious,” she stated, her tone sounding nervous as he noticed her shifting her weight between her feet in a way that made him think of Hillary, “this is the newest ship I’ve ever been on. I wanted to see as much of it as I could.”
“As long as you don’t touch anything, you’re free to take a seat,” he said, motioning over at the empty copilot’s chair next to him.
“Are… are you sure? I get the feeling that a lot of the humans on board aren’t exactly enthused about my being on board,” Tali said, definitely cautious as she inched toward the seat.
“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have offered and if anyone has a problem with it, they can take it up with me,” Joker said, unable to keep himself from imagining Hillary in Tali’s place.
Holding his pad back up so he could read, he heard the quarian settle into the seat next to him. She seemed to relax a bit once she was seated. Perhaps it was entirely because he’d somehow made her feel welcome despite him not being the friendliest person on board. That was Kaidan’s schtick. He was just the sarcastic ace pilot. Who apparently missed his little sister more than he’d thought since Tali kept making him think of said sister.
“Keelah. Here I thought the seats back at the Floatilla were uncomfortable,” he heard her grumble, causing him to actually chuckle.
“Tell me about it. You’d have thought they’d make some adjustments once I got the job,” he muttered.
“What do you mean?” she asked, clearly curious.
Ah, yes. She more than likely didn’t know about his disability. He hated having to do this song and dance, partially because he’d done it so many times and partially because he hated going from being seen as… well, a person to being seen as some kind of charity case, worthy of everyone’s pity. It hadn’t been pity or charity that had gotten him to where he was. It was being clever and willing to go as far as he could in order to force everyone to look beyond his brittle bones. And that usually meant working twice as hard as everyone else just to get seen beyond someone who couldn’t do most things everyone else could without his bones turning into dust. And that was after all the treatments.
“I was born with brittle bone disease,” he explained, deciding that she wouldn’t understand if he’d used the clinical name of the disease.
The quarian remained silent for a long moment before saying, “I don’t know how I should react.”
“You can just… not,” Joker offered with a shrug. “Just accept it for what it is and move on.”
He paused before asking, “so what’s with the suits you guys wear? Is it because you breathe something that isn’t oxygen?”
She tilted her head at him, at least as much as he could tell due to the suit before she said, “it isn’t that. We breathe oxygen like most species but we’re dextro rather than levo. It’s just that… ever since we left Rannoch, we lived almost entirely on ships and that tends to be a sterile environment. So our immune systems have become compromised.”
“Yikes,” Joker said with a frown, “that’s gotta suck.”
“It is rather unpleasant,” Tali nodded in agreement, “but there’s no real alternative. At least until we take Rannoch back from the geth.”
“You think that’ll happen anytime soon?” Joker asked.
“I think it’ll happen eventually. I hope that it’s within my lifetime since my father seems to think that he might be able to do something to help us regain our homeworld,” Tali said, “and since Saren seems to have taken control of the geth, I hope that means that if we can take Saren out and stop these reapers, enough of the geth have been dealt with that the fleet can push the remaining geth away from Rannoch.”
“So you’ve got just as much hanging in the balance as the rest of us then,” Joker responded, finding that he actually hoped that Tali and her people could regain their lost homeworld.
After all, everyone needed a place to belong.
He saw Tali merely nod before their conversation drifted to their mutual interest in ships with him sharing stories about all the others he’d flown in his past as well as the ones he knew about and her sharing information and stories about the ones she’d been on. Before Joker knew, the kid had fallen asleep in the co-pilot’s seat. When he noticed the small mutterings, he merely chuckled and shook his head before he settled into his own seat and went to sleep himself.