05:00 with a hangover was just exactly particularly the opposite of Commander Anne Caroll Shepard's favourite thing, it turns out. She rises, sweating and stagnant from the exact place she'd fallen face-first onto her bed last night and noticed blood on her pillow. Her head fucking aches and is a painful reminder that no, she's actually alive and going to prison, as she feels a stiffness in her neck. Shepard is a marine, though, so being in a place where she must be fully functional after a bender is basically like going home.

She straightens up and sways as her brain tilts back in her skull like a rotten fruit. Jack had curled up beside her in the night and is naked in the sheets, which feels a bit like going home, too.

She hadn't even undressed herself, and unbuttons her pants with a wave of gastrointestinal distress, clutching her forehead as she makes her way to the cabin shower.

The bathing was less like bathing than normal, in the way that most hangover showers are. Cold water, large gulps from the spraying faucet, she loved EDI and the Normandy for it, the filters, the carefully regulated water temperatures.

The rumble of high-speed space noise and Jack's soft breathing are the only sounds as shepard combs her wet hair. She had known for a while now that once The Suicide Mission was over she'd be tried for war crimes and has since been letting it grow.

She dresses herself and dons the same non-conspicuous black jacket from the night prior over her dress blues, grabbing her sunglasses and a baseball cap off her dresser. She kisses a slumbering Jack on the temple, gets onto the transport shuttle, and leaves without a word to anyone aboard.

The ride over is painful and quiet. They haven't sent anyone to escort her, thank god, she's not sure she would be able to keep her cool if they had really assigned her a babysitter. It also gives her a chance to scroll through her omni-tool, which she'll be forced to 'give up' when she goes to prison. Luckily she isn't Jack, who has had her omni tool surgically removed or replaced, twice. She sighs. Thinking about Jack makes her stomach hurt. She opens her private messages and hums to distract herself. Thy are less melodic, though, more like pained groaning through pressed lips.

Garrus has messaged her twice. She closes the window and begins manually destroying documents. Technically she's still a spectre for two more hours, which means record keeping is fuck all at this point, deleting all things shady, personal, etc.

"EDI," she says, feeling more choked up than she meant to.

"Yes, Commander."

"Purge my files, wipe everything. Send encrypted data to Liara where relevant."

"Yes, Commander."

"Thank you, EDI."

"Of course."

The shuttle makes port first at the Citadel so she can get yelled at by a group of incompitent oligarchs, where she is stripped of her Spectre status, denounced by the council, and pretty much chewed out for twenty-odd minutes. When she leaves the 'meeting' she is with a pair of Alliance escorts who will take her to the Seattle Alliance Base Detention Center on Earth, where she will be booked, fingerprinted, photographed, possibly court martialed, discharged, and grounded for the foreseeable future.

The ride to Earth is tense and quiet. The sentry that is not operating the spacecraft sits across from her in the holding cell of the small ship, hands in his lap. The same cold vacuum of space that once lulled her to sleep on the Normandy seemed to wrap around her like the maw of some great beast. She shudders as she remembers death.

The hull is cramped with just the two of them but is still somehow freezing. The craft she's being detained in has its engine and thrusters in the front of the ship, a sleek oblong thing with a trailing hull that gets no warmth from any tutting machinery. She already misses EDI's climate control and the way she'd gently warm the captain's quarters right before Shepard's alarm would go off.

Shepard shoves her hands in her pockets and fingers the fleece, furrowing her brow when she feels a piece of crumpled paper with her fingertips. She unfurls it with both hands and squints. It's a gum wrapper, she scowls at the scribbles and raised it to her face. She snorts when she realizes what it is: a phone number. Shepard rolls her eyes and realizes she must have picked someone up last night despite her soon to be incarceration. 'Old habits,' she thinks, mocking herself. Rotating the paper in one hand, she spots a name scratched into the back in faded black ink.

"Jimmy," she mumbles, her head throbbing.

She fondly recalls her first time passing through the mass relay, then immediately regrets this fondness as she is hurled into deep space without the friendly snickers of a bemused Joker. Another wave of nausea as she thinks of her oldest friend and navigator, Earth coming quickly and suddenly into view through a port side window. "Jesus," she bemoans, holding her head in her hands. She can't tell if it's the hangover or the present situation but she's certain she's going to throw up. She does, and it is just bile, swallowing the small mouthful.

The doors open once they've docked and Shepard is handcuffed, escorted past a shrill group of protesters and paparazzi, and onto a secondary ground shuttle. The way the people are screaming at her is so confusing that Shepard blocks it out.

She is hardly even paying attention when she hears a familiar voice and straighten immediately.

"Admiral Anderson, sir."

"At ease, Shepard." The Admiral's face is solemn, almost pained at the sight of her. "Jesus, Shepard you look like shit."

"Thank you, Sir." She bursts with a sputter of laughter. It feels good to see him, especially now.

"Did you get in a fight?"

"I believe so, sir. Come to see me off?" Shepard asks wryly. She goes to touch her face with both hands, as they are handcuffed, and lets them fall into her lap with a clatter.

"Not quite, Commander."

"Sir?"

"You're not being tried, Shepard."

There's a brief pause. The truck they are in rattles.

"Am I going to prison, sir?"

"You'll be placed under private security at the SABDC, stripped of your Omni tool, retain your title, retain instatement in the Alliance, and be grounded for the foreseeable future."

Shepard starts to hiccup and then audibly snorts. "Sir?"

"Grounded."

Another long desert of a pause. The shuttle rumbles and she feels a familiar swimming in her stomach as she adjusts to the Earth's natural gravity.

"So a civilian?"

"You'll continue your enlistment, as I said. You'll be a resident of Earth's Alliance Military for the foreseeable future. You'll have the opportunity to live at the barracks-"

"No thank you, Admiral."

"Or other military-assigned housing in Seattle."

"You don't mean... Augusta?"

In the late 2130's there had been a resurgence of interest in water-only emission systems being built into housing for the Alliance in an effort to make Earth residence more sustainable for enlisted humans holding down the fort at home. Washington aided heavily in the effort. Engineers, Doctors, Scientists, Philosophers, Anthropologists, Etcetera. When the habitations were built they could be passed through families and eventually cycled through to be mostly Alliance educators or families with Alliance relatives. They had an air of leisure and a minimal neat styling about them with long man-made areas of flatness, perfectly irrigated and beautifully landscaped. They resembled neatly spaced holes on a sprawling golf course, each occupying its own level as they made flat shallow cuts into a long sloping hill, surrounded by lush groves of evergreens. Thus the colloquialism,

"Augusta."

Shepard whistles. "Luxury."

"With stipulations."

"And that's it? I can travel and do civilian activities no-holds-barre?"

"Not quite."

"Oh?"
"Parole checkups."

"How often?"

"Depends."
"On what?"

"He will explain it."

"He? My officer?"

"He's not just an officer, he is Alliance Navy and one of the top in his rank, following a similar path to yours, matter of fact."

"I got a scrub on my tail?"

"Shepard," he warns.

She scoffs and rolls her eyes "I'm just saying, sir."

"Shepard, you'll be expected to behave," Anderson says firmly.

"Fucking Jason Borne is my personal nanny, like..." he squints at her and she rolls her eyes. "Sir, I will be on my best behavior and be at the command of the Alliance Navy, Sir." The ground shuttle is like a big bus with benches and packed with military gear. It's been so long since she was on Earth the commander can't tell what model EATV she's riding inside of.

Anderson sighs and responds curtly, "You are wise to take this seriously, Commander. This is the first time you'll be publicly outed as a spectre. Everything you've done now falls to the Alliance, not just the council. The Human Race, Shepard. Attitudes will be strained and relationships tested, we cannot afford to be tending to you while dealing with the political fallout."

"Sir, I swear I will be good, Sir."

He sighs. "Shepard, just consider the alternative," Anderson rubs his face with a look of weary bewilderment. "A lot of work went into negotiating these terms with council space. Please respect that your status in the world involves a very complex and fragile web."

Shepard feels a twinge of shame, sighing.

"Apologies, sir."

"No need."

"I'll meet you today for the first time more formally inside, among a few witnesses."

"Thank you, sir."

He nods and the double set of doors shut between them as his ground shuttle pulls off. At the end of the short hallway another set opens with a mechanical heaving sound, Shepard snorts, taking her cue.

"Commander Shep- uhhhhhh... Shepard."

She raised her head to snort and snap at this Bozo who can't even get her name right when another wave of nausea passes through her body. An entire evenings worth of memories suddenly floods her and her face fills with heat. "No fucking way," she laments with a stab of irony, laughing as she looks up to the ceiling.