12. The Lottery
Author's Note: Credit goes to kali yugah for suggesting a 'win a date with Commander Shepard' scenario. Took me a while to get to it, sorry. Couldn't figure out the right way to approach it then figured a lottery would work. Evil things, lotteries :)
When the idea of a lottery with the profits going to the Widows and Orphans Fund was first put to her, Commander Shepard had been in favour of it. War was ugly and it left scars upon those who were left behind. Helping out by allowing the Normandy's crew to run a lottery was the least she could do, she decided.
Until she thought to enquire as to the nature of the prize in the lottery.
"Say Joker," she began, sitting down in the vacant co-pilot's seat, "About this lottery, what's the prize?"
Uncharacteristic silence from her normally caustically sarcastic helmsman. Shepard knew then that something was majorly fubar with the situation.
"Well?" she pressed, turning her head to stare hard at Joker. The Flight Lieutenant's face remained resolutely pointed forward.
If he's going to make me pull rank, he's going to regret it. Shepard gave Joker a few more seconds' grace before letting him have it.
"Lieutenant Moreau," she snapped and Joker flinched at the harshness in her tone, "I asked you a question. Answer it!"
Joker's upper body stiffened in his chair, the closest he could get to standing at attention and snapping off a salute. "Well Commander, it's like this. The officers and crew got together-"
"Clearly I wasn't a part of this get together," Shepard interjected. Joker decided it wouldn't be prudent to point out that interrupting another person when they were speaking was considered ill-mannered in most places.
"Well, you were ashore at the time, something about geth and Saren?" Joker shot a glance at Shepard, wished he hadn't. From the set of her jaw, the Spectre's teeth were grinding together. Briefly, Joker wondered what that must do to the enamel of her teeth.
"Anyway, we got together and bounced around ideas for suitable prizes - a week's shore leave in any part of Citadel space, free access to Spectre-issue gear-"
"Gee, and here's little old me thinking I was in charge of issuing Spectre gear," Shepard commented.
"Yeah, well, Kaidan shot that idea down pretty quick. Then somebody and I swear it wasn't me, came up with the idea of having you as the prize."
"I am not some piece of meat to be fought over, God damn it!" Shepard almost shouted, "A prize? Jesus Christ, Joker, what were you thinking?"
"Whoa, Commander, let me finish," Joker protested, raising his hands as though to ward off a blow, "The prize was meant to be a kind of date."
Shepard sat back in her seat, irritated. A date. A date? "A date? As in a boyfriend-girlfriend date date?"
"Uh yeah..." Joker answered sheepishly, suddenly finding something of immense interest outside the ship to look at, so he wouldn't have to face Shepard's eyes.
"Bloody hell," the Spectre breathed, staring out the cockpit windows. Outside, the stars were like diamonds scattered across a field of black velvet.
"So I suppose we'll have to come up with another prize?" Joker asked after a while.
"How many tickets were sold in this lottery?" Shepard asked, not really wanting to know, but, at the same time needing to know.
"Thousands."
"What? How?" Shepard's head whipped around to face Joker. She winced as bones in her neck popped.
"Well, when we announced the, uh, nature of the prize, everybody fell over themselves to buy tickets. Lots and lots of tickets. It was insane," Joker explained, shaking his head.
"Thousands...everybody bought tickets?" Suddenly, Shepard felt as though all the breath had been sucked from her lungs and gasped.
"Yep," the helmsman confirmed, blithely ignoring protocol and not adding 'ma'am.'
Shepard breathed deep of the recycled air. She had no idea she was that popular. "Even Wrex?" she asked with some measure of trepidation.
"Mmm hmm," Joker confirmed.
"That's just wrong on so many levels," Shepard flatly stated.
"I know but what did you think I was going to do? Tell him sorry, no tickets for you because you're krogan? Because, I kind of value my life, Commander and good luck getting a replacement pilot who can handle the Tantalus at full power," Joker protested, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the drive core.
"Bloody hell," Shepard said again, running a hand through her hair. This was wrong on so many levels. Bad enough that she suddenly found herself as the...prize in a lottery but the idea that everybody on the ship had paid who knew how many credits - credits, that, ultimately would benefit needy people. If Shepard pulled the pin on the whole thing, the Widows and Orphans Fund would be the real losers. Then she'd look like the evil bitch who killed Christmas. Great!
"Right," the Commander announced, and Joker turned to face her again, "Here's how things are: there are going to be conditions on this...date idea."
"Conditions?" Joker queried, sounding unsure of the idea.
"One, no inappropriate physical contact," Shepard went on, shuddering as she imagined the idea of her and Wrex...ewww.
"No touchy-feelly, got it," Joker made a note on the screen before him.
"Two, the date is over as soon as I say it's over," Shepard's gaze bored into Joker as he made another note.
"Anything else?" inquired the helmsman.
"Oh, there's plenty else, but it involves spacing whoever came up with this idea in the first place," Shepard muttered, making to leave the bridge.
"Hey Commander? I just want to say you're being awfully cool about this whole thing, it's neat."
"Oh, that makes me feel so much better," Shepard said with forced humour.
As she left the bridge and headed aft, Joker's words played in a loop through her mind. Thousands of tickets and everybody had bought them. The Spectre truly hoped he was exaggerating. Not that she didn't appreciate her crew and got on with them well but there were limits to how far she could go.
Bad enough that both Alenko and Liara had poorly-disguised things for her, but the entire freaking crew? How the hell did that happen? It wasn't as though she paraded around the ship naked giving her crew members come hither looks from beneath lowered eye-lashes. Although, looking down at herself, Shepard had to admit that the regulation ship-board uniform did hug her curves a little too closely. Just what was she meant to do about that anyway, get a boob reduction?
Hardsuit, full time, that was the ticket. Her customised Predator medium-class suit had exactly the kind of intimidation factor that had helped her out during so many tense negotiations with gun-toting hostiles. That would hopefully take care of the physical attraction people seemed to feel towards her but the Spectre knew there was more to it than that. It was that damnable 'open-door policy' established by Captain Anderson and carried on by herself that was the real problem, she realised. On the one hand, it was good for morale for her officers and crew to be able to come to her with any problems or concerns that they had about various issues. Which they did, frequently. But on the other hand, there had to be limits in place.
Take Alenko, as a for-instance. What he had gone through at Brain Camp was terrible and yes, Shepard felt for the man, she truly did but did he have to keep on about it? Some days, it was all Shepard could do not to take him by the shoulders and shake him. And Williams with her constant hang-ups about her family and never getting the recognition she deserved? Plenty of soldiers were passed over for promotion for one reason or another and Williams being constantly on edge about non-humans would only hinder herself in the long term. Which brought her to Pressly, who was about as xenophobic as a man could get. If he mouthed off just once more about turians while she was in ear-shot...
And speaking of turians, even the reliable and stable Garrus had a few issues - mostly revolving around bureaucratic nincompoops and too much red tape. Shepard agreed with the former C-Sec officer...to a point. As a kid on the streets, the sector police had been no friend of hers and she realised that certain situations called for methods that, at times, circumvented rules and regulations. But, as Shepard had tried to explain to Garrus on more than one occasion, one must first understand the rules in order to break them.
With a start, Shepard realised that pretty much everybody on board had some issue or other. That they had all managed to converge on the Normandy was strange in itself. That they all seemed to look to her to help them was stranger still. What was she, some kind of galactic saviour and emotional crutch for people to lean on? Hell, about the only person on board who didn't seem to have issues was Tali and she genuinely had reasons to have issues - her entire people hunted almost to extinction by the geth and forced into centuries of exile.
Although, if she were cruel, Shepard could point out that, since the quarians had created the geth in the first place, they were only reaping what they'd sown. But it'd take a really cold-hearted bitch to point that out and Shepard's heart wasn't nearly that frigid.
Days passed in a kind of blur as Shepard waited with grim expectation for the lottery to be drawn. She saw the faces of her crew in a different light now - was it Mike the requisitions officer who had the winning ticket? Was it Garrus? Shepard doubted he could tear himself away from the Mako's diagnostics computer long enough to buy a ticket, but anything was possible.
Finally, when the tension became almost too great to bear, Joker called her up to the bridge. Again seating herself in the co-pilot's seat, Shepard simply asked, "Well?"
"It's a surprise," the pilot replied, grinning.
"Don't jerk me around, Joker," Shepard ground out, feeling her blood pressure spike, "I'm really not in the mood."
"Hey, don't blame me, Commander," Joker protested. "Didn't I mention it before?"
"Mention what?" she replied, voice low, dangerous.
"It's a blind date," Joker smiled.
Shepard's head slowly rotated to face the helmsman. Again, she could feel the joints in her neck creak. "You seemed to neglect that when we spoke before."
"Did I? Whoops!"
"I'd brig you, Joker, but that isn't an option right now," the Commander stated, slumping back in the seat.
"Yeah," the pilot replied calmly, "Besides, who would fly the ship?"
"And that is your one saving grace, Joker. A blind date, somebody kill me now," Shepard muttered, looking out the cockpit windows. "When is this going down, because the tension is killing me," she asked.
Joker merely smiled to himself. "We're due to land at the Citadel in twelve hours, Commander. I hear there's a fancy restaurant on the Presidium with a reservation in your name." The helmsman handed an unbelieving Spectre a business card with the time of the reservation printed on the back.
Wordlessly, Shepard snatched the card and left the bridge.
As the Normandy approached its berth in one of the Citadel's numerous docking bays, Shepard stood in her cabin, fretting.
She was fretting over what to wear for her stupid blind date, of all things. Full dress uniform? Too formal. Shipboard fatigues? Not formal enough. Hardsuit? Yeah, turning up encased head to toe in ceramel plate with her shotgun and sidearm would send out entirely the wrong signal. The kind of signal that said, "I'm a praying mantis and I kill those I mate with."
Not that it would ever come to mating, no way, nuh uh.
Shepard tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling, venting a growl of frustration as she realised she'd need to do some clothes shopping.
For almost twelve years, the Navy had provided her with all she needed in the way of clothing and other equipment and before that, her life on Earth was mostly spent engaged in pointless gang warfare with little time for trips to the mall.
Shopping for clothes was a concept utterly alien to her. She window shopped whilst on shore leave and occasionally picked up a few odds and ends but the concept of having to purchase a new outfit for a social engagement was a wholly new concept. Not one she found particularly pleasant, either.
Sighing, the Spectre fished the business card out of her pants pocket. The booking was for 1900 hours, Citadel time. A glance at her chronometer told her she had ten hours to find what she needed, that and invent a truly creative punishment for Joker as well.
Whoever invented clothes shopping deserved a very special place in Hell, Shepard decided, pawing through racks of dresses with ever-increasing frustration. The dresses themselves were wholly inappropriate - little black numbers that were cut to emphasise the wearer's feminine charms to their fullest advantage, and it was her charms that were at least partially responsible for her being in this situation to begin with.
With a muttered curse, the Spectre wheeled away from the racks and made to leave the shop. She felt the need to put some holes in something and considered heading down to the C-Sec Academy and asking the range-master if she could use their firing range. Before she could leave, however, a voice called to her.
"Can I assist you with anything?" The voice belonged to the young saleswoman Shepard had noticed when she first entered the store. Upon entering the store, fully forty-five minutes ago, the young saleswoman had moved to assist Shepard but, catching Shepard's don't mess with me vibe had backed off. No amount of commission was worth the threat of bodily harm. Now, however, the saleswoman decided that the customer was in dire need of help.
Sighing heavily, the Commander turned to face the woman; identified as Libby by the name tag pinned to her blouse.
"OK, here's the thing: I've been set up on a blind date," Shepard's lips twisted as though the words were sour in her mouth.
"And I'm guessing from your tone that a blind date's a bad thing?" Libby replied.
"Like you wouldn't believe. Basically I need a decent dress but not something that'll have whoever the hell my date is staring down my cleavage or up my skirt all night, you know what I mean?"'
"Tasteful and feminine, not slutty and tacky, gotcha," Libby said, gesturing for her customer to follow her. With another sigh, the Spectre fell into step behind the salesgirl, briefly wondering how much this latest outrage was going to cost her.
1905 hours Citadel time saw Commander Shepard seated alone at a table for two at a Presidium restaurant called Il Ristorante. Shepard had picked up enough Italian to know that Il Ristorante literally translated as The Restaurant. But, she reflected, she had worse things to worry about than dodgy restaurant names. Like the fact that her date was five minutes late.
Fiddling with the stem of her wine glass, Shepard didn't know whether she should be relieved or mightily pissed off. On the one hand, she was feeling relieved because her date not turning up meant she wouldn't be forced to make awkward small talk with...whoever. On the other hand, she was feeling slightly bent out of shape by the thought of being stood up. She was dealing with disciplined military men and women, after all. If their presence was required at a certain time and place, then they should damn well be there.
Muttering and oath, Shepard checked the dial of the elegant ladies' watch she'd purchased as well. All up, the dress, watch, shoes, handbag (handbag, what had she been thinking?) and stockings had cost her well over five thousand credits. And for what? The time was now 1910 hours. Sighing, Shepard stared morosely down at the white tablecloth. She was going to kill somebody over this, oh yes.
The Commander looked up with a start as a small commotion flared up at the entrance to the restaurant. Craning her neck to see better, Shepard caught sight of a large number of Alliance military personnel in dress uniform all trying to force their way through the doors at the same time. The maitre'd seemed to be having a difficult time keeping order.
What the hell? Shoving her chair back so hard, it fell over, Shepard strode towards the group, tottering on her high heels. Whoever was responsible for inflicting those on generations of women also deserved a special place in Hell, preferably right next to the fire and brimstone.
"What's going on here?" Shepard barked, switching effortlessly to Commander mode.
"These...people are attempting to gain entrance to the restaurant without a reservation," the maitre'd sniffed in that insufferably snooty manner that seemed to be a pre-requisite to becoming a maitre'd.
"They're with me," Shepard said, shaking her head as she recognised the group as all being from the Normandy.
"All of them?" the maitre'd responded, taken aback.
Ignoring him, Shepard addressed Pressly, who was at the head of the group. Pressly's gaze kept flicking from his CO's face to her body and back again. "Pressly, what the hell's the meaning of this?"
"Well, ma'am, when Joker attempted to draw the winning lottery ticket earlier tonight, the sheer number of entries logged into the computer caused a cascade failure in the primary VI core."
"You're saying Joker's lottery lobotomised the Normandy?" Shepard asked, unbelieving.
Pressly shrugged, "Pretty much, Ma'am."
"So...who won the lottery?" Shepard had to ask, though observing the sheer number of uniformed officers and crew, she had a fairly good idea.
"Well, Joker decided that after everybody had bought tickets that it would be fairest if everybody turned up. Sorry we're a bit late, Commander," Pressly finished.
Looking into the faces of her assembled crew and seeing the respect and admiration beaming out from each, Shepard was suddenly ashamed by her earlier uncharitable thoughts towards her crew members. Sure, they had issues, but they were still her crew.
Turning to the maitre'd, Shepard said, "We're going to need a bigger table."
A/N: I couldn't decide who should be the winner of the 'date.' Kaidan and Liara are too obvious and that angle's been done a lot better in other fics by people who aren't me and I liked the idea of the sheer number of lottery entries crippling the Normandy's computer, so there you have it. Please, let me know what you think.