"I've got it, I've got it," Nan said, shooing Del away from the stove and the rapidly bubbling pot.

"Nan, I told you I've ordered enough food. You don't need to be doing this!"

"I want to do this," she said. "I'm not going overboard, I promise."

"At least let me help you."

Nan gave her a look over a steaming pot. "Del, the last time you helped me cook we ended up having to order pizza. I do have a surprise though. One that I will let you do. Take a peek."

Giving Nan a wary glance as the older woman gestured at the refrigerator, Del wandered over and pulled it open. She blinked.

"Real cream cheese? How the heck-"

"Liara," Nan said with a smirk. "Though I did not tell her why I wanted it. Does she know?"

"I don't think so," Del said. "Not much opportunity for it to come up on ship."

Shepard's grin turned wicked as she pulled the cream cheese out and began gathering some other ingredients. Nan smiled to herself as, for the next half hour, Shepard strode around the kitchen, muttering to herself and rattling pans. Del had just closed the oven when a voice called from the front door.

Liara had just arrived with rest of the food. Most of it had been ordered directly from the chef at Ryuusei- the restaurant was still closed thanks to all the damage, and the chef had been more than delighted to cook up a banquet for Shepard and her crew. He'd wanted to do it free of charge, but Shepard had insisted he be paid well for it- her only way to really apologize for what had happened there.

She helped Liara get the food in and set out, the asari scenting the air. "Nan, whatever you are making smells absolutely delicious."

"Thank you, sweetheart."

"I tried to stop her," Del said with a shrug. "But she insisted."

"With the number of mouths to feed more is probably better," Liara said. "Wrex alone could probably eat his way through most of this. And Vega-"

"Vega's a bottomless pit with a mouth," Del said. "We've only got about thirty more minutes before people start arriving. I should-"

Her omni-tool started to buzz, and she lifted her brows. Seeing the ident she gave a confused look to Liara then answered the call. "Bailey? Aren't you still in Huerta?"

{Until tomorrow morning,} he replied. {Sawbones won't let me go until at least then, no matter how much I complain. We've had a bit of excitement here, however. Figured I'd call you in person.}

"Excitement? What happened?"

{Some officers of mine are down at a noodle shop just outside the Silver Sun. You might want to pop down there, have a word. Got one of your boys with them.}

"One of my crew?" Del asked. "Has someone on the Normandy crew been giving your officers trouble?"

{My officers will explain. I gotta go before the doc catches me, I'm supposed to be resting. Good luck.}

The call ended, and Del looked up at Liara. "One of the crew is causing C-Sec problems?"

"I cannot imagine who it could be," Liara said. "I will come with you-"

"Nah, that's all right. You and Nan finish up here. I won't be long, the Silver Sun's less than five minutes' walk from here."

"As you wish. However if you break another restaurant or end up with yet another merc group chasing you, you are on your own. I am exhausted."

Del laughed, leaning over and giving her a quick kiss. "You know I can't promise anything. Nan, I'm stepping out for a few minutes. I should be back before Joker and the others arrive."

Stepping out of Tiberius Towers on the ground floor felt almost like stepping into Las Vegas. Shepard had only had occasion to visit Vegas once and it wasn't particularly to her taste.

Casinos, arcades, shops, neon, and bustle was everywhere. Heading down toward the Silver Sun, she did her best not to look around. A few days before, when Del had gone to talk to Aria in one of the larger clubs on the Citadel, she'd been irritated to see how many people were there dancing. Joker had pointed out that at least now they were dancing with desperation.

People these days down here among the clubs and shops were taking the war far more seriously; but they were still dancing- desperation or no.

In the din, she didn't hear her name called at first, only pausing and lifting her eyes when the third 'Del!' broke through.

"Miranda?" she blinked. "What are you doing here?"

"Passing through," Lawson said, getting to her side. "With my father gone I don't need to keep quite as low a profile. What happened to you?"

Shepard touched her face. The bruises from the sky car hit were mostly yellow now. Far fresher were the ones that been imprinted over them from being punched and hit over the head with a bind cuff.

"Oh, same old," Del said with a lopsided grin. "Merc group tried to kill me, got hit by a sky car, infiltrated a casino, got locked up and left to die in a vault, and barely stopped said mercs from stealing the Normandy. Then got punched some more and nearly thrown out of a prison transport by my own clone. You know, the usual."

"Your own clone?" Miranda looked scandalized. "How did that happen?"

"Man named Rick Carter. You know him?"

The moment she said the name Miranda's scowl turned black.

"I do," she said. "He was with Cerberus. Helped put together the dossiers when we were looking to stop the Collectors. He once tried to pinch my ass."

"I suppose that didn't go over well?"

"I broke his arm," Miranda said. "Are you telling me that Carter stole some of your genetic material from Lazarus and used it to clone another you?"

"No," Del told her. "From what I understand, the Illusive Man cloned another me in case Lazarus failed. You didn't know?"

"I knew that we used some cloned materials, obviously," she said. "Liver, heart, other organs…but I had no idea they cloned an entire 'you' and held her in reserve."

"Apparently so," Del told her, and shrugged. "He used implants to educate her quickly. I guess the idea was to quietly get rid of me and have her take my place. They were going to kill those of the crew that wouldn't buy the idea, replace them with their own, and play off any unusual behavior as grief."

"Shepard, I-"

"You don't need to apologize, Miranda. I know you didn't know, and it's handled. I'll fill you in on the whole story later."

"What happened to her? To Carter?"

"Both dead. Like I said, handled. Listen, I've got to go meet someone from C-Sec just down the street. You're welcome to tag along if you're not busy- apparently one of my crew has been causing some trouble."

"I've got to meet someone in a few minutes," Miranda said. "I'll have to take a rain check."

"How long are you here?"

"Until tomorrow evening," she said.

"Great. We're having a party tonight. Penthouse of Tiberius Towers. We'd love to have you there. Oriana too if she's around."

"I may just do that," Miranda said. "Thank you, Shepard."

"Of course, Miranda. We'll see you there."

They parted ways, Shepard continuing on toward the Silver Sun. Only a minute or two later the crowds moving along the street started to slow and clog up a little, and she could see smoke, smell the unmistakable chemical odor of fire foam.

"What's going on?" she asked herself in exasperation as she worked through the crowd. "What now?"

Three C-Sec officers were standing outside of a noodle stand, beside one of their wrecked cars. The car was coated in fire foam, and so was the krogan sitting on one of the stools. He had a huge bowl of noodles in his hand and was eating them without concern. Other officers were keeping the crowd back.

"Grunt?" Del said, breaking through the crowd finally and being waved in by one of the officers. "Grunt, what the hell?"

"Shepard!" he beamed at her, then lifted the bowl to his mouth. Slopping down the rest of the noodles, he set the bowl aside on the counter and got to his feet.

"Captain Shepard," the officer closest offered his hand to her. As she took it, he added, "Officer Manning. Bailey said he was going to get you down here."

"What's going on?" she asked, taking the hand briefly.

"Your boy had a bit of a wild ride," he said. "I'm finishing up the report now. I'll need you to sign some things."

As he turned back to his data pad, Del folded her arms and regarded the krogan. "Grunt, aren't you supposed to be in the hospital?"

"Didn't feel like staying. I'm all right," he said, rolling his shoulders a little. The fire foam on his head had congealed into a sort of lopsided beret.

"What did you do?"

"Some friends broke me out. Didn't go quite like they planned."

"They tried to rappel him down eight stories from his room," Manning said. "Broke the window. He fell about three stories too. Fortunately he landed in the lake, and not on top of someone."

"Oh Jesus," Del groaned.

"What? It's just glass. No harm done," Grunt said. "They fished me out of the lake and to celebrate my birthday we took pictures on top of the statue."

"The big krogan statue on the Presidium?" Del asked, then waved a hand a little. "Wait, your birthday? It's not your birthday."

"Course it isn't," Grunt said. "That wasn't the point."

Shepard sighed and looked at Manning. "What damage to the statue?"

"Some scuff marks only. And its pride might be ruined," Manning said, smirking as he tapped on his data pad.

"Then what happened, Grunt?" Del asked.

"Well, C-Sec showed up to chase us down, so I took their car."

"This car?" Del asked, jabbing a thumb at the smoking wreck.

"Well, yes."

"And you crashed it."

"Uh huh. Four krogan don't fit in a little car like that very easy. I couldn't see."

"What happened to your friends?"

"They took off down the Presidium, but your boy here apparently got peckish," Manning said.

Grunt shrugged. "I wanted noodles."

Manning handed her the data pad and, barely glancing at it, Del signed. "So you broke out of Huerta, climbed on a statue, stole a cop car, crashed it, and then wanted noodles."

"Well, yeah," Grunt said with another shrug. "Have you had hospital food?"

"And how did you get covered in fire foam?"

"I was on fire," Grunt said.

She sighed, gave Grunt a look, then turned to Manning. "I'll pay for the damages."

"That's what you just signed," he told her.

"You going to have to take him in?"

"Believe it or not, this is actually pretty tame for some of the krogan birthday parties that have happened on the Citadel," he said. "No one got hurt, and…well, he's one of yours. If that doesn't earn a bit of a wink in times like this, I don't know what does. I don't think we'll have to take him in, but if this happens again I can't make promises."

"Understood. Grunt, I want you to apologize to Officer Manning for wrecking his car."

"What? Oh. Yeah. Sorry for wrecking your car."

"And I want you to promise this won't happen again."

"Do I have to?"

"Grunt!"

He glowered. "I'm sorry for wrecking your car and I promise it won't happen again."

Manning nodded, and as the C-Sec officers started to clear the wrecked car and the mess with the fire foam, Del looked back at Wrex.

"Were the noodles at least worth it?"

"Actually, they were a little spicy," he said, and Del laughed.

"Boy, you're lucky I love you. Come on."

"Where are we going?" he asked, falling in at her side as they started back toward the Towers.

"Well, clearly you are all healed up, and it is just as clear that I can't let you wander around the Citadel right now. You're coming with me, and then heading right into the shower to clean that crap off of you. We're having a party tonight up at the apartment. I would have invited you but I thought you were still in the hospital recovering."

"A party?" he asked, narrowing his eyes a little. "Who's going to be there?"

"Almost everyone from the crew," she said. "Miranda too, and Wrex."

Seeing his eyes narrow as he thought this over, she interrupted his question before he could ask it.

"Yes, there will be ryncol."

He broke into a wide grin. "Can I invite the boys?"

"No, Grunt, you cannot," she said. "Without even a drop of ryncol you managed to break a hospital, wound the pride of a statue, and set a C-Sec car on fire. Your friends are apparently a bad influence on you."

"I don't think they're the bad influence," he said and grinned at her. "I heard you broke a restaurant and made several things explode."

"Oh no, they're definitely the bad influence," she said. "If I'd been with you, the hospital would have exploded, the statue would have exploded, and the noodle stand-"

"Would have exploded?"

"Yes, but the noodles would have been just the right amount of spicy. Honestly, I don't know what they're teaching krogan boys these days. A birthday party and not a single explosion. Pussies."

He roared a laugh.