A/N: Hello friends! I really enjoyed 9x15, but I'll admit that this is a short chapter because I had a really hard time figuring out a way and place to weave Shane in. It looks like next week he'll have a scene with April so yay! Also stay tuned for that AK2 (or is it Ak3 :P) update. It's a coming, I promise. Thanks for reading this and do please let me know what you think!

Shane stared at Dr. Shepherd, slack jawed. He wasn't entirely certain he could believe his ears. No way.

He gulped, taking a deep breath before he asked, "You want me to do what?"

"I want you to take this sharpie and I want you to draw on my face."

Biting his lip, Shane continued to stare. Shepherd was standing there, looking all frustrated. He had his hands on his hips and he tilted his head to one side.

"Uh, sir?" Shane winced, gesturing vaguely to his idol's head.

"The posters, Ross! I want you to draw on my face on the posters."

"Sir...I...that's vandalism!"

"I know," Derek Shepherd groaned and rolled his eyes, pulling a black marker out of his pocket and offering it to Shane. "That's the whole point!"

Shane swallowed and looked from the pen, to Shepherd's face and back again. He understood in theory what Dr. Shepherd was asking him to do. The older man did not like being used so blatantly as the face of the hospital, sure. But it was clear to Shane that underneath all of that, the small acts of graffiti would undermine not only the staff's confidence in the reorganization process under Pegasus, but the buyer's confidence in the hospital. It cut both ways.

And most importantly for Shane, it was taking a definitive position in this whole situation. Among most of the interns there were rumblings about where they as first year residents fit into all of this. Do they try to stay loyal and stick with the program even when it was clear that their standard of education was falling hard and falling fast? Or do they stick in the ranks, remain loyal, and resist Pegasus? Stephanie and to a lesser extent Heather and some others were very clearly keeping their eyes peeled for other residency options. Shane and Jo were less certain. If Shane did what Dr. Shepherd wanted him to, he would clearly be falling into line with the loyal side of things.

But he realized that he'd already sort of been making choices along those lines anyway. Sure, he was nervous about Seattle Grace's money woes, and potential buyers. And yeah, he'd helped out trying to find some money to keep the ER. And true, he had assisted in a rogue surgery. He'd already chosen his side, even if he'd never come out and said it.

"Look if you do this, I'll let you scrub in on as many surgeries as you want. You'll be my first choice intern."

"Really?"

"Yes. I trust you to do this, and I promise it will amount to something."

Shane looked at the marker one last time before tentatively reaching out his hand to take hold of the writing utensil. He swallowed hard and nodded. He could do this. For the hospital. For Dr. Shepherd. For the surgeries.

Shepherd smiled and nodded, clapping Shane on the shoulder, "I knew I could count on you, Ross."

Still holding on to the marker away from his body as though it was some sort of foreign object just excised in a surgery, Shane smiled uncomfortably. Today he might not be scrubbing in, but he supposed at the very least he could say that what he was doing was interesting.

"Hit as many as you can, Ross," Shepherd said, squeezing Shane's shoulder before walking down the hallway at a brisk pace. "Be vicious."

Shane took a deep breath as he started walking down the hall in the opposite direction, seeking one of the obnoxious posters to begin with. Okay. He could do this. He could. Graffiti time. He tried not to think about what Big Mama Ross would think about all this if she knew he was essentially 'tagging' the posters of his own workplace.

How many times had she sternly directed his gaze to the graffiti filled walls of his own childhood neighborhood? How many times had she told him in no uncertain terms that damaging what is yours, your own space, was tantamount to self sabotage?

"I best not be catchin' you tagging nothing Shanie child! I might be old but that don't I can't smack you right into next week. Just keep going to school, keep your head down, and stay on the honest path!"

For most of his life, Shane had done his best to abide by his grandmother's advice. It had gotten him far, out of their dilapidated neighborhood projects to the very pinnacle of academic and professional achievement. But now he felt like he was doing something he needed to do to help Dr. Shepherd and by extension his own career.

What Big Mama didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Taking one final deep breath, Shane whispered to himself, "Be vicious."

Vandalizing the first poster turned out to be a lot easier than Shane anticipated. It was a simple edit really. Black out some words here, add a few devil horns there and voila. "Aspire to Sellout". Complete with a requisite villain mustache. Vicious much? Marvelous.

Stepping back to admire his handiwork, Shane pursed his lips. It actually didn't look half bad. It was kind of like being a lone crusader, armed only with a sharpie, a mission, and a vivid imagination. He started to think about what the other posters said. "Compassion" would be a fun one to work with. And easy edit. There was one like that on the fourth floor as a matter of fact.

Shane was had his marker poised before the next poster, about to begin bringing the ass out of compassion, when it hit him. Oh dear god. He'd just graffitied something and enjoyed it. He'd started thinking about better ways to do his crime. Holy smokes, what was happening to him?

He froze at the sound of muffled voices coming from the OR door behind him, and ducked around a corner to avoid getting caught. Shane pressed his back flat against the wall, which made the voices he heard become more clear. It was his mentor, and of all people, Dr. Avery. Which was a surprise. As far as he knew, from Steph, snooping, and his friend Gloria P, the nurse from level 3, Jackson and April still did not often spend time together. Even for work, rogue surgeries aside.

Unfortunately, they seemed as distant as ever. Quite grotesquely as far as Shane was concerned, Jackson had been spending many a break in on-call rooms with Stephanie. And everyone at the hospital was growing accustomed to seeing Matt's ambulance bay parked out in front of the closed ER on mornings or lunch times. Kepner and Avery seemed to be moving on. Or, Shane thought, at least they were trying their damnedest too. However, the conversation he was overhearing was a little different.

"Won't care whether you're a virgin or not..."

Shane caught the sound of Jackson's voice, and his eyes widened. Oh my. This certainly was not the conversation he wanted to overhear. When they'd gone out to Joe's way back when, a drunk Kepner had told an even drunker Ross the barest details of her past with Avery, including the fact that...well, that Dr. Avery was the only person Dr. Kepner had ever been with. It was probably more then Shane had the right to know. It was probably more than he wanted to know. But he did know and he didn't spread it around. It was kept filed away in his mind. Another part of the puzzle that was the mess of Jackson and April, which Shane felt intrinsically involved in, since it loosely involved his own friend. And now this Matthew fella.

April's voice sounded small, but hopeful. "He won't?"

Oh dear. Oh dear. It seemed now that perhaps April and her all paramedic must be close to that...er that stage in their new relationship where stuff like your sexual history came up. The thing Shane didn't quite understand was that it seemed like April had come to Jackson for advice. About how to tell the paramedic she was a virgin. Even though she wasn't.

Then again, Shane figured she'd probably done one of those chastity pledge things you heard about. Or the whole ordeal with Avery had made her want to go back to the way things were before. Sex had turned out to be complicated, so Kepner might want to forestall dealing with that with Matt. Or maybe the paramedic dude was some unforgiving religious zealot who would care whether she was a virgin or not? The guy seemed a little too 'gee shucks swell' to be that unforgiving, but Shane had seen stuff like that before. It sucked.

Shane knew that Kepner and himself had a lot in common when it came to their lack of finesse with romance and all of that. He suspected that she was slightly less experienced than even he was (which was probably some kind of record) and it made sense that his mentor would have a lot of concerns about moving forward. Especially when it came to sex and all of that.

But the crux of it all was why ask Avery about it?

"He might be worried you're mentally ill," Dr. Avery answered. "Because it makes you sound like a nutjob."

Ouch. That was the thing though. Shane didn't know if he liked Avery or not. Most of the time he leaned toward the not side of things. But even so? Shane felt for the attending almost as much as he felt for his mentor. He was a guy, and he wasn't a virgin. Even in situations where he'd been perfectly happy to part ways with a particular lady, (well...the particular lady, but who was counting?) it never felt good to know, find out, or think about them getting it on, or worse getting serious with someone else. Wincing at the totally sexist nature of his thoughts, Shane posited that the only description for the feeling was territorial. He really didn't believe any guy had claim over a girl just because they'd slept together. It was just a feeling that came up sometimes.

And Shane knew without a doubt that this moment was worse for Avery because on top of that normal feeling of being territorial, the plastic surgeon had deep deep feelings for April Kepner. This conversation couldn't be easy for the guy. No wonder he kind of lashed out.

Shane sighed, and leaned his head back against the wall.

"Good to have you back pal."

Kepner's sarcastic reply came in an even tone, but Shane would guess that something in her expression gave Avery pause because the man quickly added, "Hey, I am kidding-"

"No, I know. See ya," Kepner opened the door and moved into the hallway at a brisk pace.

Dr. Avery tried to back peddle, "Come on! April-"

His words seemed to have no effect, as the red haired attending continued to move through the hallway, rounding the corner and running smack dab into Shane. He sheepishly realized that he'd gotten too caught up in eavesdropping to consider making a getaway. He hadn't even slipped his uncapped black marker out of sight.

"Ross!" Kepner said, barely able to stop short in time to avoid crashing into him. He could tell she was a little shaken up because of the way her chin was set and the way her eyes darted around. Shane new her well though, right now April wanted to hide that. He was an intern and she was in attending mode.

"What are you doing here?"

"Uh...I am on Dr. Shepherd's service!" Shane announced abruptly. It was the only thing he could think of to say. It wasn't a lie.

"What are you doing down there though? I thought he had that photo op."

"He does...he just...asked me to do some...scut for him in the meantime."

April raised an eyebrow, and flicked her gaze down to the marker in Shane's hand, "Scut work?"

"M-more like an errand, really," Shane tried to explain.

It was clear that his mentor did not believe him, but it seemed she was upset enough not to push the issue. Instead Kepner swallowed and held his gaze for a moment before moving to walk past him.

"Okay. Do your best to help Shepherd. This...this isn't the time to slack. Just because the hospital is...No matter what is going on, I don't want to hear anything about you interns being lazy."

Shane nodded, "You won't Dr. Kepner. I promise."

He almost wanted to say something more as he watched her retreat down the long hallway. He wanted to say something, anything, to make her downcast expression disappear. But he couldn't really just come out and say "I don't think you are a nutjob" because a) she would know he'd overheard everything and that would be awkward for both of them and b) normal people don't really just randomly bust out with comments like that. Shane also thought that his words probably wouldn't matter that much anyway, as earnest as they would be. He was pretty sure only Dr. Avery saying he didn't think she was crazy could make her feel any better.

After she left, Shane paused, staring at the poster he'd come to vandalize. Dr. Shepherd's giant grinning face above a simple word. A kind idea.

Compassion. The hospital probably needed more of that anyway.

He glanced across that hall and caught sight of Dr. Avery through the window of the procedure room. He was mid liposuction, but it was clear to Shane that the man was deep in thought. A scrub nurse brushed past Shane and poked her head through the door, giving some sort of message to Dr. Avery about his next patient. Shane noted that when the door was open Avery was starting at the sign.

The small action and the traffic around that particular poster made Shane reluctant to be vicious to it. There were other posters in better locations around the hospital. He didn't need to hit this one right now. Content with his decision he turned and made his way down the busy hallway, looking for the next poster to mark.