Curious Jealousy- a F!Shenko Fic

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Gravity

Kaidan slowly made his way up to the helm as the shuttle departed the Normandy. He nodded to the suspicious crew and opened the doors to the helm and had his pistol in his hands in an instant, pointed at the metallic bitch with her hand on Joker's shoulder.

"Back up!" he ordered it. When the robot looked up at him, he tightened his hands around his pistol. "Last time," he warned. "Back. Up."

The robot regarded him with surprise. "Good afternoon, Major Alenko," it said as though it didn't have a gun trained on her chest.

"Oh, shit!" Joker said suddenly, spinning around. "No. This isn't that Doctor Eva chick, Kaidan! This is EDI!"

Kaidan kept his pistol trained on the robot's chest and frowned slightly. "This is definitely the thing that sent me to the hospital."

Joker sighed and shook his head. "EDI is in the body of the robot that kicked your ass. She's not a threat to you or anyone on this ship."

He narrowed his eyes as the robot remained perfectly still. "You sure?"

"I would sacrifice myself for the life of anyone aboard this ship," EDI informed him kindly.

Kaidan pursed his lips and then nodded, slowly putting his pistol back onto his side. "Is everything from the…former owner…of the body gone?"

"I assure you, Major, I am alone in the possession of this body." She looked at Joker and nodded before exiting the helm without a spare glace at Kaidan.

Kaidan slowly made his way to the co-pilot chair and eased himself into it as Joker smirked at him and said, with a bit of taunting in his voice, "That's my co-pilot."

Without skipping a beat, Kaidan fell back into their old manners aboard the SR-1 and said, "Well, I guess since you can't get a real woman, an AI is a good substitute."

"Damn!" Joker chuckled, adjusting the screens in front of him and sent one of them over to Kaidan (the one that he knew that the other man would want. "Still better than you, though. At least I have a woman."

Kaidan forced a laugh. "If you call a program a woman, sure."

"You've been practicing, haven't you?" Joker cackled.

"You do realize that you pressed into my private comms when you started your jokes, right?" Shepard's voice informed them over the comm.

Joker about fell out of his chair laughing at the look of horrification on Kaidan's face. "Sorry, Commander. You've got to admit, though, the Major has improved in his smart-assery."

Shepard chuckled over the comm. "Just what I need- another smart ass aboard my ship. Between you, Garrus, and James, I don't think I could handle another one."

"You forgot one," Kaidan said suddenly, not thinking before the words came out of his mouth.

"Oh?" she sounded vaguely curious.

Kaidan smirked at Joker. "Yeah- yourself."

That sent Joker into a violent fit of laughter- clutching his ribs. "One point Alenko, Zero Shepard," Joker managed between fits of laughter.

Shepard was silently for a long time and Kaidan began to get nervous. "You're only saying that because you can't think of anything that clever when we're face-to-face," she informed him.

"Damn!"

This was a different part of Eden Prime than she had seen the first and only time she'd been there. It made it…slightly…easier to be there.