Kaidan headed out the next morning—he was helping with the refit of the Normandy, purchasing food supplies, and generally making himself useful, which Shepard appreciated. Before she could find herself too much at loose ends here in this cavernous apartment where there was so much to do she couldn't seem to settle on anything, she got a call from Liara, who asked if she could come up. Shepard agreed gladly, and waited in the doorway for her friend.

They had breakfast together—which Liara had thoughtfully brought along, assuming correctly that Shepard wouldn't have anything to eat in the apartment. Conversation moved in fits and starts as they both tried not to talk about work and realized that was all they could think about. Once they had eaten, Shepard shooed Liara into the living room while she cleaned up, feeling strangely domestic, and even more strangely protective of her plates and cups as she washed them. She'd never had dishes before, or anywhere to put them if she had, not really.

As she dried off her hands, she heard a melody from the living room, and looked up in surprise to see Liara picking out a tune on the unused piano. "I didn't know you played," Shepard remarked, joining her friend. Then again, she hadn't known Anderson played, either, and yet here was this piano, in pride of place in the living room. Maybe she needed to spend more time asking her friends what they loved to do.

Liara smiled a little. "I really don't. Just this one song. And I'm terribly rusty." She played the melody again, sighing. "There was always something more important to do—a ruin to uncover, intel to gather." She gave Shepard a sidelong glance. "A commander to save."

"Which I appreciate."

"So do we all."

"So you're saying you can't sit still long enough to learn more." Shepard gazed at the keyboard. The mechanics of getting music out of it were a total mystery to her. "I get that. Why this song, then?"

Liara played it again, softly, telling Shepard about a woman she'd met on an early dig who had carried a keyboard with her everywhere she went, and how one day when they were caught in a storm, she had taught Liara the little song. "I spend so much time chasing down knowledge," she finished, speaking almost to herself, "sometimes I forget there are things you learn by doing nothing. By just spending time with the people you care about."

"I never knew that in the first place, so you're ahead of me." Shepard put her fingers on the keys where Liara's had been. "Teach me?"

"I'll be glad to."

They practiced a bit until Shepard had one line of the song down. Then Liara called up her omni-tool and sighed. "I should probably go. I have reports to look over."

"Stay. I mean, I have to head out anyway. Take advantage of this big quiet empty apartment and do your work here." Shepard wasn't sure where Liara was staying on shore leave, but she suspected her friend hadn't taken the time to provide herself with a working space like this one.

"If you don't mind?" Liara asked doubtfully.

"Not at all. Stay as long as you like."

"Oh. Well, I will, then." Liara looked around here, seeming to feel less tense just at the prospect. "Thank you, Shepard."

"Don't mention it."

Shepard headed over to the Presidium and checked in at the Spectre office, where there was, for a wonder, nothing for her to do, and stopped in to see Commander Bailey, who told her Kolyat Krios had been asking about her. She felt immediately guilty—she had intended to contact Kolyat the first day, but the whole situation with the clone had thrown all her plans into chaos. She pulled up her omni-tool and typed out a quick email asking him about lunch before she could put it off another minute.

On her way to the elevators, she passed the elcor ambassador and stopped to ask him about their people. The Normandy had made a quick trip to Dekuuna, the elcor homeworld, to try to buy them some time to get their people off the planet, but she hadn't heard what happened after they left.

"Utterly sincere: Thank you for your assistance, Commander. This is not a debt we can repay," the elcor said in his slow, deliberate way.

"Were you able to evacuate any civilians?" Shepard asked softly.

"Yes." She didn't need him to vocalize his feelings to hear the pain in his voice.

"How many?"

"Not enough. Never enough. Still, more than we could have without your help."

"I understand. Your people will be with us when we take down the Reapers—those you have lost will be avenged."

"With sorrow: That will not bring them back."

"No. Nor any of those lost in this war. I wish it could."

"With resignation: As do I."

She took her leave of the elcor before they could depress each other even more than they already had. Back at the Strip, she went into the arcade, hoping the lights and sounds from the machines would cheer her up—and saw the last person she had ever expected, banging his fist impotently on the glass of the claw machine.

"Zaeed Massani versus the claw," she said, folding her arms and hitching her hip against a nearby table. "It'll outsell the next Blasto movie."

"This thing is fucking impossible!"

"Then why are you playing it?"

"There was a kid here, sniveling brat, spending all his credits, crying."

"So you thought you'd get a prize for him." It was a remarkably altruistic thing for Zaeed, of all people, to be doing, but stranger things had happened.

Staring into the machine, trying to manipulate the claw, Zaeed growled. "He asked. Looked simple enough. Goddamnit!"

Shepard looked around them. "Where's the kid?"

"What do I care?" He glanced at her for the first time. "Got any credits, Shepard?"

"Isn't there something better we could go do?"

Zaeed glared at her. "What could possibly be more important than Zaeed Massani not getting bested by some fucking kids' game?"

Shepard grinned. "You really want one of those plushy toys, don't you?"

"Goddamn right I do. Credits!"

"Even a bounty hunter's got to learn to use his manners once in a while."

Zaeed thought that one over before grudgingly saying "Please."

Shepard's grin widened as she loaded some credits into the machine and watched him as he tried again. And lost again.

"It's obviously rigged somehow. I'm going to hunt down the shit-for-brains 'inventor' of this crooked game and pull his inspiration out through his arsehole! Probably some smartass salarian bastard."

A couple of kids at a nearby console glanced over as Zaeed's voice rose, took in the situation, and giggled to each other. Shepard suppressed her own smile.

"I'm going back in," Zaeed announced, positioning himself in front of the machine. "Credits."

Shepard obliged, holding her breath while he managed at last to manipulate the claw over one of the plushy toys, grab it, and drop it safely into the hole for retrieval.

"All right," he said with satisfaction, plucking the toy out and tossing it in the air. Then he dropped it into the hands of an asari standing nearby. "Here you go, sweetheart."

"Where to now?" Shepard asked him.

"I don't know. What do you feel like? Apollo's? Casino? More claw?"

"Zaeed, will another victory ever match the one you just experienced?"

"Good point." He motioned toward the door with his head. "Come on. You're buying."

"Buying what?"

"The best goddamn steak on the Presidium."

He was out of luck, Shepard thought, following him out. Kaidan had cooked her the best steak in the Citadel last night … but she didn't have an objection to buying Zaeed the second best.