By the time he arrived at Cision Motors, Armando Bailey wanted to punch something. Or someone. He'd had enough time to stew, and reached the point of smoldering. One would think C-Sec was asleep. First Cerberus. Now this. True, the Cerberus thing had Council-level backing and C-Sec sleepers, but this?
He recognized that part of his anger was rooted in fear. He'd joked—but with slightly serious undertones—with Shepard about her capacity for damage. He'd never really considered her capacity to be damaged. That was his fault, subscribing to the popular impression. It took a Reaper-sized problem to injure a Reaper-fighter. Anything less didn't make sense.
Where was that damn med unit?
Feeling irascible, he located the proprietor (trying to scrub blood off one of the cars), then followed the blood trail. She was hurt bad, he thought as he considered how much blood she had to have lost. It always looked like more than it was, but still…
He shook his head, then entered the office beside which a very worried young woman hovered. He knew it was the right office: she had the look of someone who didn't know whether it was better to go in and be helpless where the injured party was or to stay out from underfoot and continue feeling helpless.
Shepard, attended by the other human Spectre and some fellow with medical training, lay on a couch in one of the dealership's offices, bruised and bloody. He wanted to look away. The two men had already applied a great deal of medigel, but that didn't make what he was seeing any less grotesque. The bruising was almost black, and Shepard had a career spacer's pale pallor which made it look worse. The rents in her skin defied rhyme or reason. Then again, she'd been dropped through a plastiglass floor. He'd be surprised if she wasn't bleeding.
He had no idea how she'd managed to get from wherever she landed beneath Ryuusei to here.
It said something about the galaxy beyond the Citadel. "Shit," he breathed, whipping off his cap and running a hand through his short hair.
Shepard's eyes fluttered from half closed to all open. Wincing, she tried to smile. "I know I promised."
"They dropped her through a fish tank?" Bailey demanded of the other Spectre—Alenko. That was his name.
"Yeah," came the terse answer.
Well, pardon him for asking a cop question. "We've got a med unit right behind me," Bailey announced.
"Survivors?" Shepard asked. They must have her on something; she was lucid, but just barely. Not something that'd put her out, though. Looking at the gashes all across her midriff and arms—not defensive marks, he noted in passing, more like she'd been hanging on something that shattered beneath her—he approved. Better if she couldn't feel all that. On top of the gashes and the bruises, she'd have all sorts of muscular pain.
"All the patrons. Your 'bot—"
"Her name is EDI," Shepard bit out, seeming to claw free from the haze before sinking right back into it.
"Dial back," Alenko remarked simply, earning a pained glare…and acquiescence.
"—took care of any you missed," Bailey finished, ignoring the snarl. He hated arguing with injured people. "Probably lucky—your guy looked pissed off enough to get creative."
Shepard didn't laugh or smile. "As long as he's okay."
"Compared to you he's in great shape."
Shepard gave a snort of amusement which ended in a wince and gurgle of pain.
The medic and Alenko exchanged looks, as if unsure whether amusement was good for Shepard or if she should refrain from laughing.
Carefully, the two men began cleaning the blood away with wet wipes. It looked as though this was more so they had something to do, because that was a lot of blood.
"She gonna need someone to top off the tank?" Bailey asked uncomfortably.
"Probably," the medic he didn't know answered. "I put in a call to Huerta once we got her settled, and got in touch with the right people. They'll tap the response crew. This whole case is being streamlined."
"Appreciate it," Alenko nodded.
The medic shrugged as if to say it was nothing, just sensible.
"Any word about all this?" Shepard asked.
He wished there was. "I've got people on it. When I know something, whoever's minding you will know it. You can chew their ass if they don't pass it on fast enough for you."
Shepard gave a wry grin. "That's very noble of you, Bailey."
"Tell me about it."
The sound of sirens indicated the arrival of the medical unit. The medic wordlessly left the room to meet them, while Alenko gathered up the bloody wet-wipes—which seemed to have made the mess worse rather than better—and dumped them into the nearest trashcan. He added his gloves to the pile, regarding it all morosely.
"I'm assigning her a couple of officers," Bailey addressed this to Alenko knowing Shepard would protest, which she did. "Put them outside her suite at Huerta or wherever."
"I don't need babysitters!" Shepard protested.
"Thank you, Commander," Alenko responded, giving Shepard a stern look. "It's greatly appreciated."
Her liking of officers being assigned to her didn't improve, but she seemed unwilling or unable to contend with Alenko's nonverbal admonishment that her opinion was compromised. Good.
"I'm guessing you're her minder for the time being?" Bailey asked quietly.
"Something like that," Alenko answered.
"I'll let them know to listen to you and not her." He was sure she'd love that.
Alenko simply nodded as the medic returned with two responders and a stretcher, onto which Shepard was carefully transferred.
Bailey crossed his arms, watched as the medics loaded Shepard into the vehicle, Alenko and the unnamed medic climbing in after her. The doors shut, and the ambulance pulled away, lights fluttering.
Shit.
There was only one thing to do: go back to the office and make sure this both was and stayed an isolated incident.
