"Garrus mentioned something about you two having some fun the next time we're on the Citadel? Don't get into trouble"

Shepard laughed at the concern in Traynor's voice. "Like me and Garrus could into trouble on the Citadel. You worry too much Traynor." With that, Commander Shepard left the Normandy for shore leave.

"Specialist Traynor, are you awake?"

Sam grunted softly as she rolled over in her bunk in the crew area. "Well I am now EDI. What is it?"

"There is a message in your inbox marked 'URGENT'. It appears to be from C-SEC."

"What do C-SEC want with me?" Sam asked sleepily.

"I do not know." EDI replied, "I no longer make a habit of reading the crew's personal mail since Jeff and Shepard have both told me that such behaviour is inappropriate. Liara might know." a pause, "That was a joke."

"Thank you EDI." Sam sighed, "I'll take a look at it now." She clambered out of her bunk and made her way to the lift that would take her up to deck two, where she could access her personal terminal.

Recipient: straynor .ear

Sender: cororian .cit

Subject: URGENT – Detainee

Lt. Traynor

A human female was detained earlier this evening for several breaches of the peace and violations of minor citadel laws and conventions. An examination of her omni-tool identified you as her secondary emergency contact. If you could come by the Presidium C-SEC outpost at your earliest convenience, that would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Sgt. C. Ororian, Presidium C-SEC.

Sam swore under her breath. The only human female who might possibly have put her name down as an emergency contact was Shepard. Presumably Garrus had been Shepard's primary contact, but he had likely been arrested alongside her. But then, why hadn't Sergeant – she double-checked the e-mail – Ororian, mentioned Garrus, unless he was dead? No, no, no, Sam! Don't go there. Garrus obviously just hasn't put you down as an emergency contact, there fore C-SEC have no reason to tell you anything.

Having reassured herself that Garrus was highly unlikely to be lying in a back alley somewhere on the Citadel, slowly bleeding to death – heck, the man, turian, had taken a rocket to the face, and survived! - Sam headed towards the airlock, garnering some strange looks from the few members of the nightshift.

"Specialist Traynor." EDI's cool voice came over the PA, "If you intend to leave the Normandy, I would suggest changing into more substantial outerwear." Sam looked down at herself and swore again, she was still wearing the over-sized t-shirt covered in legomen designs that she was using as nightwear. She hurried back to her locker and changed into her Alliance standard BDUs.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for a Sergeant Oroan?" The asari manning the desk in the C-SEC outpost glanced at the monitor on her desk, then back to the slightly bedraggled looking human in front of her.

"You mean Sergeant Ororian, Ma'am?"

"Yes, that's the one, sorry, Turian family names always seem to get away from me." Sam nodded. The asari activated her omni-tool and snorted, "Sergeant Ororian? I've got a -" The Asari looked meaningfully at Sam for a moment before the Specialist realised what was required of her.

"Oh, Traynor."

"- a Traynor here asking for you." A pause as whoever was on the other end, Sergeant Ororian presumably, replied. "Yeah," the asari continued, "Human." Turning her attention back to Sam. "He said to go right on in. She activated a function on her monitor, and the door behind her slid open.

"Lieutenant Traynor? Thank you for coming so quickly." Sergeant Ororian turned out to be a particularly short turian with dark plates and skin, and red clan markings. "If you'll follow me, she was just starting to come round."

Sam followed the turian down a few corridor towards the holding cells. "She's in here." The Turian gestured with his arm. Sam blinked when she looked into the cell.

"Why is there a Krogan in there?" She demanded.

"Standard procedure Ma'am, we only have a limited number of cells, so, unless they are actively trying to kill or injure each other when we bring them in, offenders from the same incident get housed together." Sam looked back at the krogan, who appeared younger than the Urdnot Clan leader who had been aboard the Normandy for a while. He was also snoring. Shepard didn't seem to notice, and was in fact resting her head on the krogan's broad shoulders. Garrus was lying on the floor at Shepard's feet. Sam turned to the sergeant.

"Your e-mail was a bit light on details. What kind of incident are we talking about here?"

The Turian turned to her. "The kind that destroys two C-SEC shuttles and a bar. And breaks two noses."

Shit.

"You can ask your friend yourself." He gestured to the cell, where Shepard was indeed waking up.

"Oh shit, my head." Shepard was rubbing her hands over her black buzzcut. "Where the fuck am I."

"In a C-SEC holding cell, Commander."

"Sam? What are you doing here? The get you too?"

"No. I got an e-mail saying that they had detained you."

"Ugh, I feel like a pyjak shat in my mouth, and then I licked a krogan's armpit. I am never drinking Ryncol again."

"You were drinking Ryncol?" Sam was shocked, she heard of Ryncol, horror stories of what it did to non-krogan who tried to drink it.

"Yeah. It's the only alcohol that even has a chance at getting me smashed since I died."

If the sergeant found anything out of the ordinary about this statement, he didn't show it. At least, Sam didn't think that he showed it, her knowledge of turian facial expressions was admittedly somewhat lacking.

"Elshana!" Hopefully, the use of her first name would bring some form of focus to the discussion. It did.

"Yes?"

"How did you manage to destroy two C-SEC shuttles and a bar? And who is the krogan?"

Shepard glanced at the prone form next to her, seemingly noticing the other occupants of the cell for the first time. "That's Grunt. He's my son."

Sam was rendered speechless. She had thought that nothing about this situation could possibly have gotten more ridiculous, but no. Apparently Shepard had a son. And apparently that son was a seven foot krogan. Shepard seemed to realise what Sam was thinking.

"Not my actual son, that'd be a bit weird. He adopted me as his parental figure and battlemaster, and in turn adopted him as my son." She paused, "Not legally, and as a sort of strange, bloodthirsty, genetically-perfect organic rage-and-destruction machine son. But still my son."

"The shuttles, Shepard." Sam was starting to get exasperated.

"Right," Shepard grinned guiltily. "Well, me and Garrus went to the Darkstar lounge, on Zakera ward, for a few drinks. He was having some sort of weird turian brandy, I forget the name, and I was drinking batarian ale. Then this lovely human couple challenged us to vodka shots, they lost. After the shots, I started on the Ryncol. After a couple of tankards of that, I needed to use the toilet. When I came back, some turian bitch was making the moves on Garrus, and, being the utterly clueless person he is, Garrus had absolutely no idea." A pause, "Or he might already have been smashed by this point." She glanced at Garrus, still sleeping, "Lightweight. So anyway, I told the lady to fuck off and she swung for me. And I swung back and broke her nose."

"The shuttles, Shepard."

"I'm getting to that. So we left Darkstar and headed to the Presidium where we met Grunt and some of his friends. They'd broken him out of the hospital to celebrate what they believed was his 'birthday'. So we hung out with them for a while, saw the sights of the Presidium, climbed the Krogan Memorial."

"You did what?" Sam interjected.

"Climbed the Krogan memorial, it's this really neat statue on the Presidium, honouring the krogan contribution to the Rachni wars. Grunt and his friends wanted to 'reclaim it for the honour of the krogan', so they wouldn't let Garrus climb it. But I am a battlemaster and thanks to Wrex, an honorary krogan so they let me climb it... also I headbutted the first guy who tried to stop me. The others seemed impressed."

Sam glanced at the turian sergeant, searching for some indication that she wasn't the only sane one in the room. Fortunately, Ororian seemed to be at least slightly surprised by Shepard's antics.

"Then C-SEC showed up and Grunt threw his Ryncol at their shuttle and it caught fire. They all got out, there's no need to make that face."

"No, no need at all. The woman who is supposed to be saving the galaxy from the Reapers is climbing memorials and setting shuttles on fire."

"Hey! That was Grunt. Although, he is my krantt, and I am his battlemaster, so technically he is my responsibility... besides the point. Then another C-SEC shuttle turned up and Grunt rammed it with the first one."
"The one that was on fire?"

Shepard pointed at her, almost proudly, "That's the one. It's a benefit of having redundant nervous systems, he didn't feel a thing. Then we legged it, and I ran into an old friend of mine. Khalisah Bitch-Sinan al-Jilarsheole."

"The reporter?"

"That's her. She was being a cunt and making remarks about my relationship with Garrus, so, I punched her."
"You punched a reporter?"
"Right in the face. Then I overloaded her camera drone and Grunt threw it into a nearby sushi bar. Went right through this ornamental fish-tank they had for a front window. Fish everywhere."

"And that's when you got arrested."

"No. That's when the Ryncol finally overpowered mine and Grunt's vastly enhanced metabolisms and knocked us out. Then we got arrested."

"Shepard, how the hell do you expect us to pay for all this! Our budget won't cover-"

"I don't."

"Don't what?" Sam quieted, the wind taken out of her sails."

"Expect you to pay for this."

"Shepard-"

"Two words. Spectre. Authority." She grinned at the turian sergeant. "Elshana Shepard, SPECial Tactics and Reconnaissance. Now let me go."

"You got any proof of that?" The turian asked.

"Yes, I've got my ID on my omnitool. Ad you'd know if you'd bothered to check for anything beyond emergency contact details."

The turian pulled an omnitool out of a pouch on his belt. He checked some details on it.

"Shit. Okay Commander, you're free to go."
"Thank you kindly my good man. Of course," She gestured into the cell behind her. "These two are with me, so if you'd release them as well."

"Yes ma'am." The sergeant spoke through gritted teeth.

"We'll take the turian with us now. Obviously we can't lift a two hundred kilo krogan, so he'll have to stay here. When he wakes up, tell him battlemaster Shepard told him to behave himself or she'll kick his ass."

"Yes ma'am. Will that be all."

"Yes, that'll be all. Come on Traynor, you grab Garrus' left arm, I'll get the right."

Once Garrus was slung between the two women, they left the C-SEC station.
"Spirits, I love abusing my power sometimes."

"Commander-"
"Traynor, I know that tone of voice a mile off. Allow me to explain myself."

"You think you can explain this?"
"I am under a shit-ton of pressure Traynor. And yes, that is an Alliance-accepted unit of measurement. I have three ways of blowing off steam. I can either beat the crap out of James in the shuttle bay, and have the crap beaten out of me in return; I can fuck Garrus; or I can get smashed. Admittedly the third one usually leads to the second one, but still. This is my sanity check Traynor. This time it got out of hand, and I blame Grunt's influence for that. If I don't let it out in little bits like this, it'll all come out at once and that would be even worse. Okay?"

Surprisingly Sam found herself accepting this. "Okay."

They continued to half-carry, half-drag Garrus back to the Normandy.

"By the way, Traynor."

"Yes?"

"I'll buy you a Cision Pro Mark V if you swear not to tell Joker any of this."

"Cision Pro Mark V and some new sleepwear and you have a deal."

"Thanks Sam."

"Commander, why was I your emergency contact? Why not Liara? Or Alenko."
"Because I trust you Sam. I trust you not to go telling everyone about this."

The two women continued to walk in companionable silence for almost a minute before Shepard spoke again.

"Also, Kaidan's an ass."

"Ah."


A/N: This story marks my first successful foray into the realm of mass effect fanfiction. I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review telling me whether you did or not, and why you felt that way about it. Thank you.