The atmosphere on the Normandy had changed. The crew had always known the mission was dangerous, but Horizon was a wake-up call of just how dangerous. While they all kept reassuring Kat that they had the utmost faith in her, everyone was now busy making preparations to tie up loose ends, just in case they didn't make it back from their trip through the Omega-4 Relay. She definitely couldn't blame them. And if she could pull it off without pissing off a certain hardheaded pilot, there was a loose end she wanted to tie up herself. She understood his reasons for not talking to his father and sister while he was with Cerberus, but on the other hand, he just stopped talking to them. There had never been closure.

She'd worry about that later. He didn't seem bothered by it, so he could wait. The rest of the crew, not so much.

Not long after Horizon, Miranda came to Kat asking for her help in resolving a family issue.

Family drama is my specialty, Kat thought bitterly.

As much as she loathed her Cerberus XO, the woman's father seemed like an absolute monster and making sure her sister was kept safe from him was something Kat could get on board with. The whole operation was supposed to take place on Illiam and the Normandy was scheduled to dock there anyway, to see about two more recruits for the crew. And as Joker pointed out, it was also the perfect place for the shore leave that had been interrupted by Horizon.

"Oh that is just wrong. So very, very wrong," Joker said as he and Zaeed walked into the Eternity nightclub. He'd just spotted three people who did not belong together.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Zaeed asked as they walked up to the booth shared by Kat, Miranda and Jacob.

"We're drinkin' 'til our internal organs start a rev'lution an' leave," Kat said in a slightly slurred voice.

Zaeed shook his head and sighed as he took her arm and pulled her to her feet. "Not with these two, you're not."

"'Parently, I'm goin' over here now." She waved at Jacob and Miranda as Zaeed and Joker dragged her to another table.

Joker pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers in move so reminiscent of her father that Kat nearly fell out of her seat laughing. "Why... just... why?"

"Why what? Why am I drinking?"

"Not what I meant, but sure, let's start with that."

She curled up in the seat, her back against the wall. "Just family shit."

Zaeed raised an eyebrow. "What did the jackasses do now?"

She shook her head slightly. "No, not mine. Hers," she said as she pointed back towards the other table.

"Why would you care about Miranda's family? You don't even like her." Joker said.

"O' course I don' like her. But she has a li'l sister," she said quietly. The look in her eyes was apparently lost on Zaeed, but Joker understood completely. It wasn't really about Miranda at all. And if he was reading it right, it was a bit about Kat's own family, that she missed how close she and Ryan used to be. But mostly, it was about Hilary. She missed her. He did too.

He sighed. "Next time we're on the Citadel, we'll go talk to your uncle and I'll ask him if I can use his vid-comm to send a message to Hilary and my dad, all right?"

Kat smiled. "Glad you can still take a hint. Thought it was gonna be a lot harder."

Joker rolled his eyes. "And if Miranda hadn't had a sister that needed rescuing, then what would you have done?"

"I..." She reached across the table and grabbed his beer. "Shut up."

Zaeed still looked confused. "Somebody want to tell me what in the hell just happened?"

To some, taking the two least sociable members of the crew along when trying to recruit new ones would be a mistake. Nevertheless, Kat was happy to have Zaeed and Jack's help while fighting through masses of Eclipse to get to Thane. While she could just imagine Miranda's disapproving glare, neither of them batted an eyelash when Kat decided to drop one of the Eclipse soldiers out of a window for being less than helpful. And it wasn't much later that she'd also brought Samara back to the ship.

Before she could act on the information she had for Liara regarding the Shadow Broker, Kat received an emergency message from Tali, saying she and a squad of quarian marines were stranded on a planet in geth space. She didn't need the pleading look from Garrus to convince her that Haestrom should be their next stop.

"Just like old times," he said, not for the first time, two days later, as they showed Tali around engineering.

"Not exactly," the quarian said with what they could only imagine was a smirk. "But it'll do for now."