Shepard poked at the food on the tray in front of her, but didn't consume any of it. Instead, she simply pushed it around, drinking her mug of the human beverage called coffee.
Thane admitted he didn't know much about how a human's metabolism functioned, compared to that of a drell—especially a human with Shepard's cybernetics—but he was fairly certain she needed to eat something. She looked the worse for wear, his siha. And it wasn't just the bruises and other small injuries from her battle against the Collectors; she was thinking too much, was allowing the situation to overwhelm her.
"Siha—" he began, as the door behind him whooshed open.
He turned as Shepard shook her head.
"Miss Lawson. Good morning."
"Thane." Miranda nodded, her greeting perfectly polite. "Shepard. There you are." She walked further into the room, her heeled boots clicking slightly. "I do hate to intrude, but…."
"Miranda, I'm not even halfway through my first cup of coffee," Shepard groaned, rubbing her eyes. "Can we skip the song and dance?"
The Cerberus operative smiled. "But of course, Shepard. As you wish. Since you have decided you no longer work for the Illusive Man…."
Shepard's eyes flashed warningly and she clenched one hand into a fist. "I never 'worked' for him. He may have spent absurd amounts putting me back together, but I never asked for that. That was his decision and I didn't owe him a damn thing. If he wanted a loyal pawn for a hero, he should've found someone else."
Miranda didn't blink. "Since we've severed ties with the Illusive Man and Cerberus, we no longer have access to the funds and resources that he provided. Your concern has been finding funds to repair the damage we sustained during the assault on the Collector base."
"Yep." Shepard gulped a mouthful of her coffee. "My old contacts in the Alliance want nothing to do with this, unfortunately. And I don't even need to be in Citadel airspace to tell you the Council's response."
Miranda grinned, her eyes brightening. "As your XO, I received a message from one Admiral Steven Hackett this morning. He's offering to have the Normandy re-commissioned as an Alliance ship under your command, and the Alliance would see the repairs completed."
Shepard looked startled to say the least and set her mug down carefully on the table. "I'm pretty sure I was discharged when I died. Even if I wasn't, they probably stripped me of rank and discharged me when I surfaced again. I'm no longer an Alliance officer. They can't give an Alliance vessel to someone who isn't Alliance. They wouldn't. They don't trust me."
"This news gets better, Shepard. Admiral Hackett and Alliance Command are offering to reinstate you and the Alliance personnel that resigned to follow you, with no repercussions."
Thane watched his siha bow her head, one hand going to the back of her neck, but not before he caught the surprise flickering across her face.
"Who the hell died over there?" she asked, finally raising her head. "For them to do this, someone must've. Several someones. I was a regular navy brat, Miranda—my parents are officers, and I grew up around the Alliance military and their politics. I know how they operate. They don't do this."
"They would be likely to make exceptions for someone as heroic as you," Miranda suggested.
Shepard shook her head resolutely, shoving the long-ignored breakfast around her plate with her fork. "No. They wanted to arrest me and interrogate me, when you first brought me back to life. There's a catch here. They want something. They offered my mother a Rear-Admiral's star to make her forget about me. They would've preferred if I'd stayed dead; they wanted get me in the ground and wash their hands of me so quickly that they wouldn't even wait for my father to arrive groundside."
She stared at the wall of the far side of the room, before continuing. "It was nice when things made sense. They don't trust me. I'm a liability, I know too much, and I'm supposedly a Cerberus pawn. Why are they offering this? What the hell do they want in exchange?"
Miranda leaned her hip against the low table, looking down at her commanding officer. "Perhaps the Alliance doesn't want anything, Shepard. Liability or not, most of the galaxy still sees you as a hero. Humanity especially. Maybe they'd prefer you on their side."
Shepard rubbed her eyes and growled in frustration. "It's too damn early for politics. Especially the Alliance's brand of politics. But—this is the only option we have. And maybe this time they'll listen to me. I'll call Hackett, and find out where the catch is."
"Shepard, as your XO…."
"Yes?"
"May I respectfully suggest you take a break, Commander? And maybe stop drinking that toxic sludge?"
Shepard rolled her eyes and lifted her mug once more. "Cybernetic organs," she countered, "and I'd like to see you tell Gardner his coffee's sludge. Speak freely, Lawson. Tell me I look like shit. I can hear you thinking it."
"You do, Commander. We're docked—Joker says there's a quiet little spaceport out there, no danger in sight. Take a holiday, Shepard. I didn't spend two years of my life putting you back together for you to try to kill yourself by working to death. I can handle this."
Thane watched his siha consider the suggestion. She would have never taken such a suggestion from him seriously, would have brushed him off with an insistence she was fine, but maybe from Miranda….
"I can't very well take a break and leave everyone else to work."
"Give the crew shore leave. We can arrange for some of the smaller repairs here, and then, if the Alliance's offer is suitable, we can get the Normandy into dock on the Citadel."
"All right, Lawson. You win—they do deserve a break. EDI?" Shepard turned to the AI.
"Yes, Commander?"
"Can you patch me through to the intercom? I've got some news for the crew."
"The intercom is open, Shepard."
She walked to the AI's terminal in the corner of the room and cleared her throat. "Attention all personnel. Operative Lawson has suggested that we all could use a break. Consider the next three days shore leave, to do as you wish. Behave yourselves. Shepard out." She turned away from the AI and eyed her executive officer. "I take it you won't be taking a shore leave?"
"No. I've got work to do, Shepard. Leave it to me."
"You'd swear," she muttered once the door had slid closed behind Miranda, "that she was happy about this."
"Miss Lawson does seem to handle politics with more ease than you do." Thane set aside his own breakfast tray and glanced at her. "I will accompany you, if you like."
"Miranda was genetically engineered to be perfection. She could probably negotiate in her sleep," Shepard said, shaking her head a little. "Me? I am—I was, before Cerberus got their hands on me—plain old human with just the Alliance-standard gene mods. I'm a soldier, not a diplomat; I was trained to kill things, not to sit and make nice with them over tea while they pretend not to insult me. Did I ever tell you that I really hate politics?"
He tried not to laugh and masked it with a cough. "I had gathered as much, siha."
"Good. You're paying attention." She grinned at him, having caught his amusement. "Do you feel up to going ashore with me, seeing what's down in that quiet little spaceport?"
"Always. Shall we?"
"I don't know how Miranda expects me to 'take a holiday' when there's so much to be done, but… it'd be nice to have food that didn't come from a tube."
"Indeed, siha." He got to his feet and stretched, well aware of her appraising eyes on him.
"And maybe things'll make sense."
He kissed her cheek and held her close to his side for a moment. "Very little seems to make sense around you, my siha. Are you not used to this?"
"No. I'm military, Thane. I don't like things that don't make sense—I don't know what to do with them."
"Then perhaps it's for the best that you allowed Miss Lawson to deal with this situation."
"Maybe—since she seems to enjoy that sort of thing."
"Commander?" Joker's voice came from the cockpit and Thane heard the sounds of the pilot's chair swivelling around. "Miranda was serious about you taking a vacation?"
"Contrary to what some of the crew believes, Joker, I am human," Shepard fired back, her voice changing in tone and pitch as she slipped into the easy camaraderie she had with her pilot. "Yes. I don't know if you should call it 'vacation', but I am getting off this damned ship. You should, too."
"Hey, Thane? You're going with her? Take pictures."
"Mr. Moreau, these incessant requests for photographic imagery…"
"EDI, shush."
"I was merely—"
"Shush!"
"Very well, Mr. Moreau." If an AI could pout, Thane was certain EDI would be.
"Perhaps not, Joker," he said, conversationally. "Photographs or holograms do make sufficient blackmail material. They are unnecessary for my people."
"It's rare enough we see Shepard in civvies, never mind actually taking a holiday. Pictures would be great," Joker continued. "And the rest of us don't have that memory the drell do…"
"Joker." She turned back towards the cockpit, one hand braced on her hip.
"All right, all right." Joker held up his hands in a gesture of innocence. "Whatever you do on shore leave's your business. Nobody'll know about your secret shoe shopping habit or whatever it is. Permission to show these Cerberus folks what real navy personnel do on shore leave, ma'am?"
She grinned, seemingly finding the banter with Joker relaxing. "Permission granted. Just—don't destroy anything."
"Aye aye, Commander. I think I can remember that one."
"If you get arrested, I'm not rescuing you," Shepard warned, shaking her head a little. "Consider this your only warning."
"Aw, Commander, c'mon! You'd miss me!"
"My bank account would miss your bail money more."
"Hmm, yeah. That." Joker swivelled his chair halfway around and then spun back to face them. "You'd still miss me. Better get out there taking that holiday, Commander, before Miranda comes chasing after me for keeping you from it. I don't want her up here again."
"We're going. Enjoy, Joker. And one more thing. Ask Garrus about the night we went to Flux a couple of years back; me, him, and Liara."
"You-what?" Joker's startled query followed them out the airlock, and Thane was relieved to see his siha throw her head back and laugh when they stepped onto the docking bay.
"I like messing with Joker, every now and then," she explained, still smiling. "It keeps him on his toes. He thinks I'm a hero and he forgets that I was an ordinary marine; that I partied on shore leave with the best of them."
Hearing her laugh made him feel better and Thane was surprised to feel her hand slip within his. Previously, she'd been very private about their… affair; he understood, given her fame. In some larger spaceports, she was trailed by the media wherever she went. She couldn't go out to a nightclub with her crew or out to dinner with him without being spotted and her actions becoming news and it only served to irritate her.
She glanced at him and then down at their joined hands. "Let them talk. A port this size, they might not recognize me… and if they do, I don't care. They're not going to interfere with getting the job done and I'm so tired of hiding and avoiding them."
"Yes, siha. While my name is known, very few know my face."
"'Commander Shepard seen with mystery drell'… I like it," she teased, as they made their way down to the port from the docking bay. "Confuse them. Give 'em something to run in the gossip column."
"If you find that possibility amusing, siha—"
"—I do."
"Then I shall be all too happy to serve as your mysterious companion for the media."
She smiled broadly and kissed him for the first time in public. "You're more than that and you know it. But come on, mystery man. Let's go find some real food."