EDI's soothing, elevator-like chime resonated gently. Shepard's attention was roused from her cup of coffee, barely after she'd tilted the mug to her lips, but before she was able to drink any of the precious caffiene it contained. "Specialist Vakarian requesting to see you, Commander."

Shepard thought briefly, wondering exactly what this was regarding, and if she was in any shape for company, even official company—she was still dressed in her pajamas, a pair of dark green cotton pants with an elastic waistband, and a plain white shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a nubby ponytail at the nape of her neck and though she wasn't a fan of makeup, usually, her relative slouchiness at the moment made her embarrassed for not wearing any just the same. She looked either half-asleep or ready to go to the gym, and neither were reflective of the clean-cut image she liked to project. Finally, she sighed, and swiveled her chair towards the door, crossing her legs.

"Let him in, EDI. I'm requesting automatic refusal of visitors before oh-eight hundred from now on, though, unless it's flagged as urgent."

"Noted, Commander. Releasing locks."

The telltale clinking thump of Garrus' toe-first gait resonated, disrupting the artificial white-noise silence. He looked around, and then turned to Shepard.

"Nice digs. Being brass pays off, huh?"

"A little too big, " Shepard said, standing from the seat at her desk, "Not sure what to do with the extra space. What can I do for you, Garrus?"

Garrus nodded, acknowledging her down-to-business attitude, considering how early it was and how she was dressed. "I told you I'd return when we got a verdict in the case of the attack last night."

"They work fast," Shepard said, surprised. Garrus' mandibles twitched, almost imperceptibly, and he presented Shepard with a small, glowing data-pad. "Got some bad news."

Shepard balked; grabbed the pad harder than she intended, and whirled it around to read the report. "Are you kidding? Inconclusive evidence? We had two eye witness reports and DNA at the scene from both of them. Did they even investigate what happened?"

Garrus sighed, shrugged. "There's no victim; nobody's come forward to testify, and her DNA wasn't on the books, so they can't track her down for questioning. With no victim, it's hard to prove anything went on there besides a drunken fist fight," he said, "and with one of the races involved being a Drell, it's difficult to pin it on being a racially motivated assault, as least as far as humans are concerned. Open and shut case, to use bad vid lingo."

Shepard grimaced, and gave Garrus back his document reader. "I'm starting to see why you left that place," she said, taking a gulp of coffee.

"The whole system's rotten, right down to the core." He agreed, and tucked the reader back under an arm. "Anyway, I told you I'd relay the info as soon as I got it. Sorry it wasn't better news."

Shepard nodded. "Thanks for the update. Go back and nap off the rest of your booze."

Garrus chuckled. "Not a bad idea. See you at chow, Shepard."


The mess hall has commonly full of people, and today was no different. As soon as the elevator doors slid open, Shepard was greeted with the chatty, heady din of a cafeteria that was probably full to near capacity; with no pressing missions, previously imperative responsibilities were easily abandoned for these sorts of breaks. Not the tightest way to run a ship, but she could allow them their re-adjustment, considering what most of them had just gone through, survived, and returned from. All hands on deck was a good thing as this point in time, even if those hands were idle.

Shepard rounded the corner to a small swell of supportive, companionable cheering from a few of the crew. She waved, a way of acknowledging and saying it wasn't necessary at once, and scanned the hall—surely enough, there was a table parked near Chakwas' medical bay at the right, where a few members of her team were sitting, poking at plates of what looked like eggs, and some kind of fruit. Thane excused himself from the table, plate emptied; he placed it on the counter, and passed by Shepard with a courteous nod, having to turn his body to the side and dodge close to her to keep a polite distance from the crush of people in the mess bay. Shepard returned the nod, face impassive, ignoring the flap of his jacket as it touched her hip in these close quarters, and helped herself to a seat beside Jacob, who grunted, and pushed his plate to her, wordlessly offering to share his food. His eyes were bloodshot. From the way they were carrying on, prattling as normal, nobody had noticed anything out of the ordinary.

"Everything alright, Mr. Taylor?" She asked, eyebrow raised, and plucked a piece of re-hydrated cantaloupe off of his plate.

"My head's killing me," he admitted, "Not as young as I used to be, that's for sure."

Tali and Garrus were sharing a bowl of some kind of white fruit that looked almost fuzzy, and had to be peeled of its hard, spiny outer shell before consuming. Tali had a clandestine flap of sorts, which may have been better compared to a chute, in her mask that food could be fed through without breaking the seal of her antibiotic field. Garrus shoved the fruit into his gullet without grace, long, sharp teeth and hinged jaws chomping much like a dinosaur. Chewing with your mouth closed was apparently not only not a Turian custom, but may have been physically impossible. Shepard wasn't sure.

"You know, I haven't seen Mordin around," Shepard noted, looking around, "I don't think he came out last night, either."

"He's down in his lab." Jack said, eying her happily popping bowl of cereal with a breed of contemplation that might have looked more at home on a person much younger than she: it was almost a childish pout. "Hasn't left since we got back."

"I didn't see Miranda, either," Tali pointed out.

"Paperwork," Jacob's reply was almost a spit. He did little to mask his animosity. "Like always. Married to the job. That's the excuse, anyway."

Shepard shook her head. "Some people don't like parties, I guess."

"Or busting up criminal scum," Garrus added, knocking one of the spiny fruit against the table to loosen up the seam on its shell. "Always a crowd pleaser. Right after kareoke, of course."

"What happened there, anyway? You were gone for a while." Tali asked, tipping the bowl towards her. There was one piece of fruit left; she and Garrus exchanged a glance, and she quickly snagged the the fruit as it rolled in the basin. "I let you have that one," he mumbled.

"I went for a walk, broke up a mugging," Shepard replied, purposefully leaving out the gorier details when they weren't necessary to an accurate account of the story, or realistically corroborated. She caught Garrus looking at her, with a searching, halfway disapproving look, but one that was openly calculating—You know I'm going to have to lie to back this up too, now, right? It said. Shepard gave him an even look in response, as if to tell him to deal with it. "Citadel isn't as safe as it used to be, I suppose." She finished.

"All in a day's work," Jack sneered, poking at her cereal with her spoon. "Always some asshole trying to ruin the fun."

"And this time it wasn't Garrus," Tali quipped, elbowing him in the side.


There are some things that remain constant; on the Normandy, Yeoman Kelly Chambers' bright smile and insistently sunny outlook was one. She stood at the bank of computers in the center of the arrowhead-shaped room, looking distinctly out of place when stood against its banks of turret controls, holographic imagery, and busy people speaking in clipped, curt military jargon. As soon as Shepard disembarked the elevator to take a look at her private terminal in the Combat Information Center, Kelly turned from her keyboard, and gave Shepard a wide, friendly smile. The bright light from overhead caught the hues in her naturally auburn hair and turned it into a fiery, unnatural shade of orange that coaxed her freckles out darker than they normally would be.
"Commander," she said, and Shepard nodded her greeting. "You have 5 new messages. Both Samara and the Illusive Man would like to speak with you when you're finished. You're a popular woman this morning, Commander."
"Speaking of popular, you obviously got back alright last night," Shepard said, crossing her arms and leaning on the railing beside Chambers' terminal. "Am I to believe that you stumbled through the rough part of the Citadel by yourself, or did someone walk you back?"
Chambers nodded, beaming. "Grunt saw me back. He's really very nice, once you get past his excitable exterior. Did you know that he likes music?
"Can't say I did. Only you, Kelly," Shepard added, shaking her head in laughing disbelief and she entered her private terminal's password.
Shepard ran the pad of her middle finger down the screen, and selected the button for her Private Messages. She skimmed them, quickly filing them into mental folders; two junk mail (one about sales at a souvenir shop where she'd been granted a discount, and yet another about penis enhancement, once again invoking Krogan as the standard for male virility, which struck her as funny, and then profoundly sad, in an ironic way, and she felt bad for laughing.) She deleted both, and upon noting the name on the next message, her blood ran prickly, her stomach dropped.

Udina. She opened the message.


Commander Jane Shepard,

When it is convenient, you are to visit me at my office on the Presidium. Please call before you come. This is a matter of utmost importance.

"Fuck your utmost importance," Shepard muttered, and deleted the message. Kelly glanced over, surprised, and Shepard mumbled a half-apology.

The second message was titled "You Should See This".. Shepard scratched her eyebrow, and squinted, opened the message.

Shepard,

Bailey. I have something you should see. Come ASAP.

Bailey, a high ranking C-Sec officer, had developed something of a friendly working relationship with Shepard and her crew, mostly due to his penchant for giving away important information and favors. If prompted she couldn't say she trusted Bailey, but he was no-bullshit enough to only call her over for something important. He'd stuck his neck out for her; she could see what he needed, when there was time. Nevertheless, today was apparently The Day for cryptic demands and artless, demanding banter, who things which left a dry, pissed-off taste in Shepard's throat. Her tolerance for the obscured and for the mysterious was famously low; for one as persuasive and prone to talking her way out of situations as she was, she likened being given anything but the absolute God's honest whole truth to being strung along or jerked around, and she didn't like it. She was a busy woman, and hadn't climbed the ranks of the Alliance military by dallying in shades of grey or by giving half-truths, especially if something was of the utmost importance.

Shepard deleted the message, and called to Kelly to enter an appointment to visit both Udina and Bailey sometime in the next three days, and to forward a reminder to EDI in her personal chambers. It felt a little strange not doing that by herself, and a more than a little pretentious, but Kelly was paid to, and seemed to genuinely enjoy her work, so Shepard kept her complaints mostly to herself.

The last message was untitled, the blinking "new message!" icon calling her attention. She opened it. No salutation, no signature, but simply:

Look in your left pocket.

Shepard could feel a slight blush creep onto her cheeks, and was careful to keep her eyes on her terminal in case someone was watching via overhead cameras (most notably, the same person whose private message creeping was most likely the reason they were kept so barrenly short and bereft of the detail in the first place). After deleting the message, Shepard screwed up her face and closed her eyes, reaching into her left pocket and finding the folded note left there. She then mock-sneezed into it, wiping her dry nose against the paper, and excused herself to the restroom nearby. She closed the door, locked it from the inside, and leaned against the wall, opening the paper.

Next dock, clear 2 hours. Let me know when.
T.

It was definitely Thane's handwriting; small, clearly printed. It wasn't his jacket on her hip in the mess bay... it was his hand. That sneaky son of a bitch.

She couldn't help but smile, stomach fluttery, and gave herself a moment to daydream before someone started to knock on the door, and she pretended to wash her hands in order to complete the cover. The girlish, excited feeling was pressed into submission by a nagging thought that had popped to the fore of her mind when she'd read Bailey's message; was it about the attack last night? Most likely what he had to say to her was directly related somehow--the timing was too convenient. And if it was related to the attack, it'd be related to the groundswell of anti-human violence.

Udina's abrupt "matter of utmost importance" made a whole lot more sense, all of a sudden.

Fuck.

"Kelly," Shepard called, disembarking from the bathroom--a younger woman pushed in behind her, and immediately closed the door. "On second thought, contact Udina's and Bailey's offices and tell them I'm coming today."
"Of course," Kelly agreed, "Is everything alright, Commander?"
"We'll see," Shepard replied, turning to call for the elevator. She thought, a beat of contemplative but not uncompaniable silence, and then asked, "Any idea why the galaxy refuses to stay saved, Kelly?"
Kelly considered this, and then shrugged, half turned around from her terminal. "With all due respect--that's your department, Commander." WIth a laugh, "I'm really just a glorified answering machine. Way above my pay grade, ma'am."
Shepard sighed. "Mine too." She mumbled, and boarded the elevator.