AN: Another little Shenko fluff that popped into my head. Enjoy! ~Kassy

Bioware owns all.

Joker was bored.

They were in between missions, parked at some space station. Commander Shepard had given the crew shore leave while they stocked up on supplies and refueled.

Joker had filed away the last mission report, performed a full ship diagnostic – twice – and had even gone through all of the surveillance cameras. Not that there was anything good on the cameras. Everyone was out enjoying their shore leave.

Well, everyone except him. He always opted to stay on the Normandy. He only left his baby under dire circumstances – such as circumstances involving alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. He usually got Ashley to take him out (bribing her with some embarrassing recorded image of her or something), but he had come up blank this time and Ashley had gone off with the requisitions officer, weirdly enough.

Well, seeing as he was alone, he might as well browse through the extranet. There was a new site he had been wanting to visit and now was a good a time as any. No prying eyes, no Shepard watching over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't looking at stuff he wasn't supposed to. Who was she, his mom? He was free to enjoy the wonderful naked bodies of asari women as they – what the hell was that?

Slight movement on one of the camera images caught his eye, and he quickly straightened up. He brought up all the cameras on the lower level straining to see the movement again. He went through the images one by one. The area where the requisitions officer usually stood was empty. The guy was probably on his fifth drink by now, lucky bastard. The Mako area was deserted as well. Garrus and Tali had gone off together to God knows where. His eyes scanned the table where Ashley cleaned the guns, also clear. Lockers, clear. The wall where Wrex stood, clear. Wrex had gone off on his own, probably in search of a good fight. Joker continued to the next image – aha!

He should've known he wasn't the only one on board. Shepard had a habit of staying in during shore leave. This time she was down in the hangar opening up boxes of supplies and equipment. No wonder he hadn't seen her. She was hidden behind one of the big crates. She's going to be there for a while, he thought, grinning to himself.

Well, as long as he kept an eye on her and made sure she stayed down in the hangar, he would be able to watch whatever he wanted in full screen. Oh yeah, he was sooo looking forward to seeing those blue bodies press against each other and – what the…someone else is on board?

No. Freakin'. Way. It hadn't even crossed Joker's mind to check the med bay cameras. Kaidan was making his way out through the med bay door.

Joker rubbed his hands together as a plan began to form in his devious mind. This was too good to be true. Shepard and Kaidan had been making lovey dovey eyes at each other ever since they met. The whole Normandy crew knew that they were madly in love. Too bad Shepard and Kaidan were too stubborn to realize it themselves. There was even a betting pool going around to see who would fold first and finally admit the attraction and when.

Faint footsteps shook Joker from his thoughts. He quickly took down the camera images and turned his chair around. Kaidan was walking up to him.

"Don't you ever get out of that chair?" Kaidan asked, getting closer.

"No need to," Joker said with a grin. "Going out?"

"Just hungry. Anything on that station will be better than the military rations here." Kaidan's eyes turned suspicious. "Why?"

Joker shrugged casually as he turned back to his screen pretending to run another diagnostic test. "I was just surprised to see that me, you and Shepard are the only ones on board."

"Shepard's here?"

Cha-ching. Joker maintained a straight face as he turned back to Kaidan. "Yeah. Down in the cargo hold. Been down there for a while, she's probably starving."

Kaidan's face turned thoughtful, and his brow creased. "She's down there…alone?"

"Yeah. You know Shepard. Always preparing for the next mission. Never taking time for herself. Probably hasn't taken a break in hours." Joker gave an exaggerated sigh. "I would go help her but, you know, crutches."

Kaidan raised an eyebrow as a sign of skepticism, but Joker knew he had already taken the bait.

"I'll go see if she needs anything," Kaidan finally said walking away from Joker.

Joker chuckled to himself. That was too easy. "You go do that, big guy."

He waited until he couldn't hear the footsteps anymore, looked over his shoulder to make sure Kaidan had actually gone and then set to work. Fingers flew over the controls in front of him. Shepard and Kaidan needed a push in the right direction, and Joker was going to help them. He was their friend, after all. Not to mention his day in the betting pool was coming up.

He gave another chuckle as he brought the cameras back up. This was going to be the easiest money he ever won. And he was going to have some fun doing it.

Shepard sat back on her haunches as she reviewed the datapad in her hands. She was finally on the last supply crate, thank God. She double checked the numbers to make sure they had everything they ordered and punched in the last few numbers in the pad. Groaning, she moved to stand up and tossed the pad into the crate.

She had maintained the same position for at least twenty minutes, and her body was begging for a break. She rolled her head on her neck, then stretched her arms over her head and arched her back. God, that felt good. She turned when she heard the elevator and was surprised to see Lieutenant Alenko stepping out.

"What are you doing here? You should be out enjoying your shore leave," she said, now stretching from one side to the other.

He laughed softly. "I should be asking you the same thing. You should practice what you preach."

Shepard shrugged and finally brought her arms down. She pointed to the shipping crates. "Doing inventory. I wanted to make sure all our supplies were in before we headed off again. You?" she asked again. She was genuinely surprised to see that anyone else was on board. The crew had practically stampeded to the airlock as soon as she had mentioned shore leave.

"Migraine," he explained. "I was in med bay when you announced shore leave."

"Feeling better?"

"Much. And hungry. I was about to head out for something to eat." Suddenly he looked embarrassed. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at the floor. "Are you hungry?"

Shepard's heart skipped a beat. "I – yeah. A little." Almost as if on cue, her stomach grumbled. "Or a lot," she said laughing as she placed a hand over her stomach. "What did you have in mind?"

Kaidan finally looked up at her. His warm eyes penetrated her soul. Deep brown eyes that she could stare at for hours and never get bored. Her heart fluttered inside her chest, and she could feel a blush creeping into her cheeks. Tut, tut, tut. You should know better than to flirt with your subordinate, Shepard. But he is so handsome! And that butt of his…grawr! She could also stare at that butt for hours and never get bored. Of course, she would prefer to see it without anything covering it. The corner of her mouth twitched into a smile as an image of Kaidan's butt flitted into her mind. She suddenly realized that she was staring at him with her head tilted to the side and her mouth slightly open. She quickly shook her head and tried to pay attention to what he was telling her.

"…but I hear they have great steaks. So, I'll leave it up to you."

Shepard frantically searched her mind for something to say. She had no idea what he had been talking about. "Uh…" Dammit, Shepard, say something! He's going to think you're an idiot. Her mind rapidly processed their previous conversation. Hunger. Invitation to eat with him. He was probably talking about restaurants. "Wherever you want is fine."

He gave her a shy grin that melted her heart. "Oh, okay. Well, I guess we can go to Coppia's. It's on the other side of the station, so at least we won't run into anybody," he said before his eyes filled with alarm. "N-Not that I don't want anyone to see us. It's not like we're hiding something. I mean, we both need to eat, right? There's no harm in going out to eat."

Shepard smiled up at him. "Of course not. Just two friends going out to eat," she agreed.

They moved toward the elevator, and Shepard pressed the button to go up. She usually hated the long elevator rides, but for some reason she didn't mind it so much this time.

She was about to lean back against the wall when suddenly the elevator car lurched violently. She lost her footing and fell to the floor. Kaidan had thrown out his arms to balance himself and managed to remain on his feet. Alarm and panic rushed into her body. The elevator gears groaned and grated in her ears as the car came to a complete stop. What the hell just happened? The elevator had never malfunctioned. She was about to pick herself up from the floor when the lights flickered feebly until they finally turned off.

Shepard and Kaidan were left alone in a pitch black broken elevator.