Blessed with Stupid

A little fun and some techno-babble.

Liberties taken with Citadel: Snap Inspection.

Liberty. Downtime. Off duty.

Thank God.

When they arrived at the Citadel the day before, Shepard and Pressly announced that the Normandy was undergoing an inspection by Rear Admiral Mikailovich and his engineering crew. It would take a few days for the inspection to be completed. The crew had Liberty until inspection was complete. Mikailovich had already arranged accommodations for the crew at Hawksmoor. Shepard had been livid. Kaidan could tell by the way she stood, the way her coppery-green eyes had flashed when she spoke to the marine and alien ground teams in the Comm Room, though her voice had been neutral, only stating the facts.

Kaidan's final shift before Liberty had ended thirty minutes ago, and he had carefully packed his belongings in his sea bag, leaving his extra service weapon and rifle in his locker. Inside the sea bag were one set of civvies, his service and formal dress uniforms, five extra service uniforms, his Scorpion Light hardsuit, and other essentials—everything he owned that wasn't at his home on Earth.

There was no way Kaidan was staying another night on board when he knew that the officer's quarters at the Systems Alliance Hawksmoor Barracks in Bachjret Ward were much more accommodating. He was an officer, but single, so he wasn't expecting his own room. At least at Hawksmoor, there was more privacy, he had a place to store his gear other than a locker the size of a urinal, and the chow hall was decent with a real cook and not a ration dispenser. He toyed with the idea of getting an apartment on the Citadel, but the paperwork alone wasn't worth the hassle to transfer his primary base and housing pay from his home in Singapore to Hawksmoor.

Shouldering his sea bag, Kaidan heaved a sigh as he stepped off the Normandy's lift on the Quarters Deck and made his way up the stairs to the Command Deck. Strapped to his belt was his Kessler. Inside his boot was a military-issue talon. Alliance Regs did not permit off-duty military personnel to bring any ordinance heavier than a pistol to Hawksmoor. He didn't particularly care. He was a biotic, after all. A living weapon and an ordinance much larger than a pistol. It should have bothered him to think about it in those terms. But for the first time since Brain Camp, he was looking forward to breaking a rule.

Shepard had seemed calm when she made the announcement to her ground crew after calling them to the Comm. Room. However, her voice had been clipped near the end of the debriefing. Kaidan hadn't pressed the subject, knowing his commander's mannerisms enough not to do so. It had surprised him that, after the debriefing, she asked both he and Williams' their opinions.

Kaidan had given his CO a shrug. "I think that, after this month of chasing Saren around and the crap on Feros and Edolus, the crew probably needs a break, ma'am."

Williams had bobbed her head. "Fredericks is still going on about the thresher." She shuddered. "Poor kid."

"We aren't any closer to finding Saren," he added, "so Liberty is a good morale booster."

And then Kaidan was blessed with stupid once again.

"Besides, I owe you a beer anyway, Commander."

It was already out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He froze, then swallowed, looked at Shepard hesitantly. I didn't just say that. Technically, he'd just asked his commanding officer out in front of a subordinate. Technically.

That… wasn't planned. Sure, he liked his commanding officer, she was… well, she was Lieutenant Commander Shepard. Who wouldn't like her? But that? That was just idiocy. She was his commanding officer. There were Regs. Why did he have to get this way around her? He was thirty-two years old, an officer in the Alliance and not a love-struck, hormonally-challenged teenager.

He'd just placed his damn career on the line if she interpreted his comment wrong.

Williams had watched the exchange with a grin, the same grin she wore when she had caught him staring at Shepard as she ate; and the same grin Williams wore when she had told them that she would walk drag on the Citadel after stupid had fallen out of Kaidan's mouth the first time.

Shepard had only tilted a brow at him. "For what, Alenko?"

Grateful that she was giving him a way out, he thought fast and was rewarded when his brain decided to work.

He managed to shrug and say, offhandedly, "Eden Prime, ma'am." It was true. He was an L2 biotic. If she hadn't pushed him out of the way of the beacon's impulse, there wasn't anyway anyone would believe him about the images that were burned into Shepard's brain. At least the Commander had some influence behind her name. She was a respected officer and a stable biotic, had survived the Raid, had saved a colony and ate threshers for breakfast. Influence.

The L2 movement was picking up speed faster than ever as the initial exposures grew older and more unstable. Hell, just before they arrived at Edolus, he'd received a coded message from someone calling himself Father Kyle urging him to join an L2 commune. Like that would ever happen.

She studied him a moment, assessing him frankly. There were times when he wished he was a telepath just so he wouldn't feel so damned uncomfortable around… well, it was only her. A trickle of sweat ran down his spine at the intenseness of her odd-colored gaze. Then she snorted indelicately a slight frown drawing her manicured brows together. "After all the trouble the damn beacon and the damn Cipher have put me through, I think you owe me at least two."

"I think I can handle that, ma'am," he'd said with a surprised laugh. A little voice in the back of his brain congratulated him on a job well done.

Williams had crossed her arms and leveled him with a look. "What am I, LT, chopped liver?"

Good-naturedly, he played along. "I don't know, Chief, aren't you from Amateratsu?"

Something flashed in the Chief's eyes that he couldn't interpret, but it was gone as fast as it had come. Maybe he would ask her about it; maybe he wouldn't press the subject.

"Aw, have a heart, Lieutenant," Shepard spoke up, smiling for the first time since discovering the remains of Kahoku's men. "Williams just earned her assassination badge. We need to celebrate. You've already volunteered for the first round."

"And the second," the Chief had supplied cheerfully.

The smile that was playing across the Commander's plush lips warmed his blood, and, for the oddest reason, so did the smile that brushed up against Williams' generous mouth. He opened his mouth to object, but closed it quickly before more stupid fell out. "I'm not going to win," he realized aloud, crossing his arms, "am I?"

The response had been in unison. "Nope."

Kaidan's thoughts were drawn back to the present when he saw Joker hobble through the Command Deck door at the top of the stairwell.

Liberty. Downtime. Off duty.

Kill me now.

Joker hated downtime. It meant that he actually had to get up from his seat. Sometimes when the second pilot relieved him, he was too tired to argue and ready for chow and sleep, but for the most part, he hated it. Downtime was synonymous with therapy time. Because before he could eat or sleep, he had to visit his favorite place in the whole galaxy-the infirmary. Yay. Go me. So he found something to occupy his mind while he refastened his leg braces flicking the switch to the mini-mass effect generator, grabbed his crutches, and gave a lewd gesture to the helmsman relieving him.

"I don't think we have time for that, sir," she remarked, her fingers running over the panel as she logged her time in.

Despite himself, Joker found himself grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Aw, Hendricks, you wound me."

"I will if you don't get the hell off my bridge," she told him archly. Then added, "Sir."

Because the Systems Alliance was a pain in the ass when it came to things like rank or ratings, Joker only outranked the red haired Lieutenant Rebecca Hendricks when he was sitting in the chair. If they weren't on duty or weren't in the chair, they were essentially the same rank, but he had more flight hours. And that accounted for absolutely nothing in Grand Scheme of Things that was the All-Mighty Systems Alliance Bureaucracy unless it was evaluation time. Only then could he rub it in their faces that the creaky-legged cripple was the best.

Seeing that Hendricks was going to be a bitch—he knew she wanted to run to port before he did, and by mysterious circumstances he was getting to go first—Joker hobbled across the bridge and down the gangway, grumbling under his breath all the way off the Command Deck, nodding to the various techs that looked overeager to be off the boat as they saluted him. He had half a mind to give them more duties just for the hell of it—he outranked most of them, and it brought about a certain satisfaction that only came with knowing he had the power to make someone else miserable.

He'd learned the hard way that allowing any modicum of weakness meant that someone with stronger legs was going to replace him, no matter how good he was behind the helm. Just because his leg bones were diseased, didn't mean he was defenseless. War was more about politics than it was about actual fighting. It was nice to be able to access the ship's communications systems and have something to exploit on someone other than himself. He wasn't about to allow anyone any advantage over him just because of his disease. And the techs could bite him for all he cared.

Downtime also meant chow time. And that meant he got to spend quality time harassing Alenko, Williams, or one of the little engineers that got in his way. Sometimes he even managed to harass Navigator Pressly, but the Chief Navigator had taken to ignoring him as of late and so Pressly was added to the "No Fun" list along with Wrex, Commander Shepard, Chief Adams, and Garrus. He suspected that if he had very many more snarky remarks for Tali, she would be added to the list too. She snarked back.

FYI (AKA - geek snippet): Nicholas Hawksmoor is (was) the architect of Westminster Abbey.

Bachjret Ward: One of the Wards of the Citadel named in ME2