For some reason, Shepard was glad he was the first to the airlock. It gave him the chance to collect himself, wonder what the hell Ashley had in mind, and wonder why the hell he agreed to it in the first place. Of all the things he should be doing right now, standing around waiting was at the very bottom of that list. Garrus needed help, Thane needed help, and here he was, getting ready to go waste even more time. This was unnecessary, but if it kept Chakwas from trying to get him any help, he was all for it.

He didn't need help. Perfectly healthy, save the uncomfortable itching in his ribs. That was going to be irritating.

"You ready?" His head snapped up. "Or...are you gonna glare at your feet a little longer?"

Shepard smiled, albeit sheepishly, and shrugged. Ashley was standing a few feet away, wearing the exact same off-duty uniform most people on the ship wore. He was wearing it too, but unlike hers, his still bore the Cerberus logo on each shoulder.

"I was thinking," he said.

One of her brows went up and she turned for the keypad, punching in the required commands to get them off the Normandy. "About what?"

He shrugged again. "Nothing important. Just thinking." When she looked back at him, Shepard could tell she didn't believe him, and he rushed to change the subject, saying, "You let your hair down."

Ashley blinked, frowned. "...And?"

Shepard sputtered, rubbed the back of his neck, and gave an awkward laugh. "You...don't normally do that?"

"I already explained this to you."

He nodded. "No, I know, it's just..." He waved a hand and sighed, running it down his face. "It's different. In a good way, I mean." It was a lame attempt at salvaging whatever he'd been trying to say, but he was just glad it was over with. "Sorry. I guess I'm a little tired."

To his relief, all Ashley did was shrug and say, "Makes sense. Too bad I'm dragging you off to have some fun."

"Yeah," he agreed, sighing in a dejected way. "Too bad." She smacked his shoulder as the scanner ran them both over multiple times, and he laughed. "Oh, come on. You walked into that one."

"I have too much dignity to agree with you."

"You lost your dignity a long time ago, Williams."

She scoffed. "Please, Commander. Like you have the place to talk."

Shepard grinned and shook his head. "Didn't say I had any. I only said you don't."

Ash gave him a sideways look, but then snorted and looked away. "Fair enough."

The door buzzed and allowed them to step into the docking tube, and Shepard's eyes went wide. "Wait, did you just admit I was right?" She laughed, but didn't respond, and he added, "Can I record that, or...?" Ashley rolled her eyes as they walked off the ship, stopping at the end of the tube. Shepard frowned and paused, waiting, as she seemed to debate about something before joining him. "You all right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, fine. I was just thinking about how weird it is to not be stuck on an Alliance port."

"It bothers you?" he asked, brows shooting up. "I'd have thought you'd be relieved to avoid the brass a little longer."

"I am," Ashley said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking forward to what happens after...this, but if there's any way it'll get me back in an Alliance uniform, it has to be better than Cerberus." Her eyes lingered on the orangish logo plastered to Shepard's shoulder, but flicked back up to his before it got awkward. He held her gaze until she looked away nervously, gesturing to the rental Shepard kept at the dock. "We don't have all day. Let's go see what we can get ourselves into."

Shepard couldn't help grinning. "What trouble we can stir up, you mean."

"Getting arrested isn't high on my list of things to do."

He waved the comment aside nonchalantly as he led her towards the skycar. "You killed a couple cops while we were here last time and didn't get arrested. I don't plan on doing anything more drastic than that."

"Don't remind me," she said, groaning. As they climbed inside, he noted how she made a point of using the car's seatbelt and decided he should probably take it carefully. He wasn't great at driving, so he typically was careful when taking everyone down to the Wards, but not as careful as he probably should be. "So you got any plans, Skipper?"

His brows furrowed as the car came to life. "Me? Uh...no? This was your idea, Ash. I'm just along for the ride."

"It was Chakwas' idea, actually," she corrected. "I'd rather be worrying about getting Sarah home, but..." She shrugged and he fixed her with a surprised look, hand hesitating over the ignition. If she didn't want to be here either, maybe he could get out of it?

"But what?"

"But I figured getting off the ship would be good for both of us. Getting off and not getting shot at, to be exact. And besides, we're going to be docked for a while with Donnelly and Daniels integrating those upgrades you have them working on, so..." Ash waved a hand as she relaxed back into the seat.

He stared at her for a few seconds, frowning, as he tried to understand what was really going through her head. She seemed more nervous than she usually was, so, aside from the fact that she rarely lied, he decided she was telling the truth about this being the doctor's brilliant plan. Much like himself, Ash was about as serious as they came about getting things done correctly. Of course, whatever had gotten into him took out the part where he was worried about his crew more than the actual mission, but he was still just as dead-set on getting rid of the Collectors as she was.

That was why both of them were stuck doing something counterproductive, wasn't it? The man that had been awarded the Star of Terra cared about his crew. The man sitting in the car now cared more about beating Cerberus to the Collectors than how his people were doing.

Shepard swallowed, sent off a quick message to Miranda with his omni-tool, and turned back to Ashley. "And what's the real reason?"

She frowned. "Huh?"

"The reason you're sitting here. I'm not the kind of guy to recklessly throw everyone else's mental health to the wind just to get something done, but you are. You want this done. So why are you in the car, Ash?"

She looked back out the window, sighing. "Ordered shore leave?"

"I did," Shepard said. "So tell me."

"I don't really know," she admitted. "When we were on Virmire, Leng opened a channel with the Illusive Man and he told me he had seen everything we'd done, heard everything we talked about, and knew us better than our own families." He frowned. Why hadn't she mentioned that earlier?

Probably because I've been unconscious for the last eighteen hours.

"Maybe I just wanted to do something with you. Minus the extra eyes. I don't know. Chakwas thinks it'll help you, so why not?"

Shepard laughed once, shook his head, and pulled the car out of its small lot. "Chakwas thinks I haven't come to terms with you dying yet. Or myself, for that matter."

He saw her relax out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah, well...it's a big step, dying. You're supposed to stay dead." Shepard simply nodded his agreement. "Do you remember anything? From when you were under?"

"Uh...no. I don't. I remember watching the Normandy explode and fumbling to reconnect my oxygen, and then I remember waking up on that station. There's no in between. Why? Do you?"

"I was hoping you would because I don't. Just...darkness."

"Wondering about where we go when we're dead?"

"Yeah. It would be comforting knowing there was something waiting for us."

As he pulled the skycar into the line of traffic, Shepard stole a glance at her. She was staring out the windshield, expression blank, hands clasped firmly in her lap. No sign of what she was thinking about. "You're religious, right? You don't trust what the Bible says will be waiting for us?"

Ash hesitated. "I do, but... I want to remember, y'know? Like how I wanted to remember my life before you came into it."

"From what you've told me, you still don't remember that far back."

"If I really think about it, I do, but it hurts. So I try not to. Remembering much of anything before waking up that first time on the ship is a stretch."

"Did you explain what happened to Sarah?"

She laughed once, glanced at him, and laughed again. "I'm supposed to explain that to her? How? What do I say, that I blew up only to be brought back to life by the crazy people that kidnapped her? That those crazy people put a control chip in my brain and used me to kill Alliance soldiers? Or that a fleet of sentient machines are trying to indoctrinate me?"

He sighed. "Okay. Fair enough. Then what did you tell her?"

"She hasn't asked, not since I woke up in that cell with her. I don't think she wants to know," Ashley said. "She's not going to tell the rest of the family. About me, I mean. She wanted to, but after I told her what we were doing, she agreed it was kind of pointless to say anything if I end up dead on the Collector homeworld."

"You going back once we're done?"

"If we survive, yeah. Then Anderson's going to try working something out with Hackett privately, see if we can keep this whole thing with Cerberus quiet."

"Really?" That caught his attention. Just a couple days ago, she'd been adamant about running from the Alliance. He wasn't going to argue if she stuck around, but the sudden change of heart surprised him. "He's going to try and get you reinstated?"

"Keyword there is try. If I can give the Alliance useful intel on Cerberus, it'll be easier. There's still no way I'm getting away with everything I've done, but..." He heard her shrug as she shifted. "Who knows? This time next year, I might be in an Alliance uniform again."

"When did you figure this out?"

"About six hours ago, actually. Scuttlebutt's been busy trying to prove me wrong."

Shepard cracked a smile and decided to broach the topic he was slowly working his way towards. "And the Reapers? Do you plan to say anything about that?"

"You've been trying to get the Council to see the truth since Eden Prime, Shepard, and they're happy to ignore it."

"But not if you have anything to say about it."

"Exactly. But step one is getting back into the Alliance. Making myself, y'know, valid again. I just shot some of their cops because of Cerberus' bullshit; it's not like they're going to listen to me if I'm wearing their uniform."

"I don't know," he said. "If someone came up to me and said they had proof the Reapers existed, I'd listen to them."

"My proof would be classified as a mental breakdown."

Shepard shrugged. "The Council doesn't trust anything unless they can see it for themselves. Now that I think about it, you'd probably get the same response I did with the Prothean thing."

"Probably. And even if they did listen, they'd still dismiss the claims because they'd just assume I'd gone insane after everything Cerberus did to me."

"I meant make you a Spectre and throw you at the problem, hoping you could pull some galaxy-saving magic outta your ass."

She laughed. "If anyone offers to make me a Spectre, remind me to say no. You can bet the Illusive Man would be all over that connection, given the opportunity."

"Get that control chip out of your head and go through some therapy, and I think you'd make a good Spectre."

Ashley started to protest, and for a half a second, Shepard thought she just liked arguing with him. With all the more she agreed with him, it was entirely plausible. He'd met women like that before, but then again, Ash wasn't anything like those women. They tended to lie and use their "womanly charm" to get what they wanted. To Ashley's credit, she was honest, if blunt, and let her skills do most of her talking for her.

"Thanks...I guess."

Shepard laughed in disbelief. "What, no argument?"

"I was going to, but then I decided I should probably just accept the compliment. We argue enough about everything else that it's not worth it."

He laughed again, but it was something of amusement rather than surprise. "You're welcome, Ash."

For a while, they were silent, and Shepard just drove them around the Citadel, bouncing between lanes when he felt like it. There wasn't much point to it, let alone any pattern, and it was oddly relaxing. He was a man of action; pointless things rarely ever brought him any pleasure, but aimless, quiet driving with Ash was nice. It was a good way to get his mind of things. That being said, Shepard didn't forget who he was with, what he was doing, and why he was here.

"All right, Ash. You said we were gonna do something fun?"

"That's the plan."

"Then let's hit the streets and see what's going on."