Calibrations

"Shepard, EDI told me you needed the data on Sovereign again-WHOA!"

Garrus glanced back, frowning faintly. "Joker, is there a problem?"

"Uh...what are you guys DOING?"

Shepard glanced back over Garrus' arm, arching an eyebrow at the pilot. "Garrus is showing me how to calibrate the Thanax canon. What else would we be doing in here?"

Joker rubbed his forehead. "Right. So, where do you want this?" He was not about to ask the commander why she was standing in front of Garrus, and why the two looked like calibrations were the last thing on their mind.

"Just go ahead and put it down on those crates over there," she said, absently, and the console continued to beep.

Joker set it down, then backed out of the room. It was one thing to know that she was in a relationship with the Turian through rumors and hearsay. It was another thing entirely to see it confirmed by seeing them being all snuggly at the forward battery.

He shuddered. At least they weren't having sex-

Unless 'calibrating the Thanax canon was just some euphemism for-

And he was going to stop thinking along those lines right there before he needed a gallon of brain bleach to scrub his mind free of the mental pictures enough to look either one of them in the face again. He walked carefully back to the elevator and rode it up, then moved back to the cockpit. He glanced over at EDI. "Did you know what was going on down there before I went down?"

"I only knew that Shepard was at the forward batteries with Mr. Vakarian. Was that a problem?"

Joker pressed the palms of his hands against his eyeballs. "Uh...next time, wait until Shepard leaves that general area before telling me to get something to her..."

"I'd been trying to tell you all morning, Jeff."

"Right. Let's go find a star to fly into now, okay?"

"Jeff, I strongly recommend against flying into...you were joking, weren't you."

"Yep."

.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.

Shepard adjusted her clothing, then glanced over at Garrus. "I asked for that damn data six hours ago. I think Joker uses it as porn, because he always has it in the cockpit."

Garrus gave her an amused look. "First, think about the phrasing of that sentence. Second, at least I was behind you. Imagine what could have happened if I'd been sitting on the crates and you'd been sitting in my lap. It would have been a little obvious then."

She blushed a little, brushing her hair back. "Either way, next time, we're locking that door.

"Seriously, though. Calibrating the Thanax canons? You couldn't think of anything but that?"

She arched an eyebrow. "I don't want to hear it. Joker barging in nearly killed my mood, but you got MORE excited. I wasn't aware that you liked getting caught."

Now he looked embarrassed. "Are you saying it wasn't a little exciting? Getting caught in the act and fooling them into thinking that we weren't?"

"If you're that into it, maybe next time, we should just clear out engineering."

"You are aware that anyone on the ship could just look out the window in the Tech Lab and see us going at it down there."

She gave him a grin and his jaw dropped for a moment before clicking as his jaw closed and again as his mandibles closed tightly against his face. He coughed faintly. "Well, you name the time, and I'll make sure that no one's down there..."

"Fine, just make sure that the Thanax canon is ready." She gave him a wicked smirk and then turned, walking out of the room.

Garrus thought about that sentence for a long moment. Then, he thought about how she'd explained her presence to Joker and began laughing.