The ride back to C-Sec began uneventful and silent, punctuated only by her soft hiccupping sobs. But as the drive wore on, she quickly became more agitated. It had been a few hours since her last hit of red sand, and the withdrawal symptoms were starting to dig their claws in her nervous system. Eventually she sat up and starting fidgeting with her cuffs, until Kaidan shot her warning glare over his shoulder. She stilled at this, wary, but the anxiety and discomfort were starting to get the better of her. It was only a second later that she was shifting again, rolling her shoulders, unable to sit still.

Kaidan was worried this might happen. She was in for a rough ride if the symptoms were starting this early. He set the cruiser down outside C-Sec and opened the doors. She was itching to get out of the cramped car, and practically threw herself from the vehicle.

But Kaidan was pulling her up, and the momentum of her caused her to barrel into his chest with excess force. His arms came around her automatically, and suddenly she was too close, her face curved up to meet his. He could feel her breath, the scent of red sand lingering, ghosting across his face. Everything about her disarmed him, and he didn't like it. This was the woman that murdered Ashley in cold blood. He recalled Ashley's corpse lying upon her carpet. And he pushed her away, towards to door of C-Sec.

He guided her into an interrogation room, and unlocked one of her omni-cuffs, moved her hands in front of her, and cuffed them to the D-ring welded to the metal table. She sat down heavily in the chair, fidgeting. Her fingernails scratched at her forearms as best as they could with the cuffs hindering their movement, and it didn't take long for her skin to become red and inflamed. Kaidan watched her for a moment, after acquiring the proper paperwork on his omni-tool.

"Am I going to have to restrain you further?"

She looked up, startled from whatever memory she had been reliving. Her fingernails barely paused as they scratched, hard, at her forearms. There were red welts rising rapidly on her flesh.

"W-what?"

Kaidan gestured to her scratching. "I can't have you doing that."

Scratchscratchscratch. "I can't stop."

"You'd better try, or I'll sedate you."

Her fingernails halted, but didn't move from her forearm. They simply dug into her flesh without making actual scratches. She opted to rocking back and forth instead, staring out the barred window that overlooked the Presidium.

Kaidan sighed. This was going to be a lot harder than he thought. Best get it started. He opened his omni-tool and set up a recording program. "State your full name, please."

"Nora Alice Shepard."

Nora? The wounded man had called her Lola. He frowned. Maybe a nickname.

"Alright, Ms. Shepard." She made a noise at the name, eyebrows furrowed. She didn't look away from the window.

"Nora. My name is Nora." The scratching resumed. Kaidan did his best to ignore it.

"Alright, Nora. Can you tell me what you were doing last night around 11 p.m.?"

A vicious, unkind smile suddenly bloomed on her face. She tilted her chin up, but didn't turn it to face him. Her bottle-green eyes rolled back to gaze at him. He became intensely unsettled as she spoke. Her voice was barely a hiss in the quiet interrogation room, but his omni-tool recorder caught it, nonetheless.

"I was killing your little girlfriend, Ashley Williams."

Scratchscratchscrach.

Kaidan didn't speak. The silence dragged on, and she was content to scratch and rock and stare out the window.

"Why?"

His sharp voice cut through the silence like a whip crack. The rage had returned, and it was taking every ounce of self-control Kaidan had to keep him from hitting her. She turned her head sharply to look at him, and it was like looking into a mirror. The rage he felt boiling in his veins was reflected there, in her eyes. She stood, pushing the chair back with her thighs, and leaned forward as best as she could despite the handcuffs. Kaidan felt himself lean back just to be away from her.

"Why? Maybe you didn't know your little sidekick as well as you thought you did, Spectre." She spat the title as if it tasted badly on her tongue. Kaidan's eyebrows furrowed and now he was standing too, his palms flat on the table.

"What are you talking about?"

She laughed in his face – a short, mirthless bark.

"I'm not telling you shit."

Kaidan's hand lashed out and closed around her throat. He didn't squeeze, but he applied enough pressure to let her know that he meant business. Her livid expression faltered for only a second, but there was a definite waver to her lips when it returned. His teeth were bared in a snarl, and he brought her face close to his with a growl.

But before he could speak, Bailey's voice came over the intercom.

"Spectre Alenko, can I talk to you for a moment?"

Kaidan swore and pushed her away from him. She collapsed into the chair and drew her legs up to her chest. He didn't miss her choked sob when he left the room. He rounded the corner and entered the small room to the immediate left, behind the two-way mirror. Bailey stood, arms folded, a grimace on his face. Kaidan could already feel a migraine coming on after this chewing out.

"Three things, Alenko. One, I don't ever want to see you manhandle a suspect like that again. Am I clear?"

Kaidan grit his teeth and gave a silent nod, furious with himself.

"Two, I just received word from the officers that cleared Ashley's house – there was no second suspect there."

Kaidan's eyebrows shot up. "What?"

Bailey nodded, fixing his gaze onto the huddled woman in the other room. "Yeah, said they found a fresh patch of blood – they're running it through the system now. If he's got a record, we should have a hit by the end of the day."

Kaidan ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Perfect. Now he was itching to get back into the interrogation room. Nora had begun scratching herself again, but this time she focused her attention on the backs of her hands. Kaidan winced when one particularly bad scratch started to bleed.

"Three, we're gonna have to let her go."

Kaidan stared at Bailey, unsure if he had heard correctly. Let her go? "B-but I just got her confession! She just admitting to murdering Ash!"

Bailey nodded again and heaved a weary sigh. "I heard it. But we've got no more room on the Citadel for prisoners. We're already pushing maximum capacity in the prison as it is." He paused, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "We could always put her in Purgatory."

Kaidan made a disgusted noise, scowling. "You mean the slaver ship run by mercs? Where they regularly beat prisoners to death and sell them off to the highest bidder?" He gestured to the woman in the other room. Nora was staring vacantly at the barred window again, rocking back and forth with such momentum Kaidan was afraid she might tip the chair over. She scratched idly at her bleeding hand. Kaidan could see her lips moving, but couldn't hear her words through the glass.

"Look at her, Bailey. She's so addled by red sand she doesn't have any idea where she is half the time! She'd be killed in a day on Purgatory."

"I know, but what else can we do?"

An idea suddenly struck Kaidan. A crazy, stupid, possibly suicidal idea, but it was all he had.

"I'll take her. Release her into my custody."

Now it was Bailey's turn to look incredulous. He fixed Kaidan with a stare that said he was concerned for Kaidan's mental health.

"Why the hell would I do that? What if she goes nuts out and kills you in your sleep? She seems to have a special hatred for Spectres."

"I don't care, Bailey. She knows something about Ash, and I intend to find out what. Sorry, Spectre authority." Kaidan was backing out of the room now, hands raised apologetically. He turned and re-entered the interrogation room before Bailey could stop him. Nora seemed miles away, mumbling to herself, rocking, staring. Uncertainty crawled up Kaidan's spine. Should he really trust this obviously unwell woman in his house? His gaze settled on the bleeding red patches on her forearms and the backs of her hands, and he knew his decision.

He moved forward and uncuffed her from the table. Her hands fell limply into her lap and she looked up at him, lost and so painfully confused that he actually felt his heart ache. He had to remind himself that she had killed, and from her candid confessing to Ash's murder, she had done it more than once. He pulled her to her feet by her hand. She winced and drew back sharply.

"Come on, I'm getting you out of here."

"Why?"

He wasn't sure how to respond. He would have just left it alone and dragged her along, but she deserved an explanation.

"Because you need help. And I want to help you. It's my job to help people."

And he took her by the hand again, and she didn't pull away. He led her to his own car, instead of the police cruiser. He helped her into the passenger seat, and crossed in front to slide into the driver's seat. She was staring at him, her expression flickering between wonder and confusion and fear. He started the car, trying to ignore her unwavering stare. He felt he should say something, to reassure her that he wasn't taking her home to enact some sick revenge fantasy.

"Um…" Very elegant.

"She killed my brother, you know."

Kaidan was so taken aback by this statement that he had to look at her, and almost swerved into oncoming traffic. "W-what? Who?"

"That Spectre. Ashley Williams." Her voice was suddenly very small. She looked down at her hands.

Kaidan wasn't sure he believed her. He wasn't sure he wanted to. But there was something about the distant look in her eyes, the way the mentioning of her brother had made her suddenly still.

"Why?"

"Harbinger."

He blinked and tore his gaze from the sky before them to look at her. "What? What's a Harbinger?"

"Not what, who."

"Who, then, is Harbinger?"

She had begun rocking again, drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging them tightly. "Red sand dealer. Got Nathan involved in his business. Nathan was stupid and young and wanted credits and…" she trailed off, and Kaidan realized she had begun crying again. He fumbled for a minute in the pocket of his leather jacket. He produced a tissue and handed it to her. She stared at it, as if no one had ever handed her a tissue in her life, before taking it and wiping her streaming eyes.

"Nathan was your brother?"

She nodded and hiccupped. "Older brother. I had just started high school when he – " She choked back a sob and pressed her forehead to her knees. Kaidan tried to be patient, for her sake. Minutes ticked by in silence. Finally his burning curiosity got the better of him, and he spoke quietly.

"When Ash killed him." He finished for her, as gently as he could. "But why? Ash wasn't stupid. She would have gone after Harbinger. Why waste her time with someone just slinging the sand for the boss?"

Nora shook her head and looked up at him. "Nathan was selling red sand to her."

Kaidan groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. Of course. Ashley had always expressed an interest in biotics, had always been jealous of Kaidan's biotic ability. She had been purchasing red sand and using it to experiment, to feel what he and other biotics did. And she had to kill Nora's brother to keep the secret from spreading, to keep her reputation intact. If only Ashley had told him, two lives, maybe more, might have been spared. His grip on the steering wheel of his car tightened. Damn it, Ash.

Kaidan glanced at Nora sympathetically. She was looking out the passenger window, clutching the tissue and rocking gently back and forth.

"So how did you get… um… mixed up in the red sand?"

She sniffled. "Nathan wasn't too careful about hiding it. I was a dumb teenager." She lifted and raised on shoulder in a listless shrug. "Was only a matter of time. Don't even like using biotics." He detected a hint of bitterness to her voice there and couldn't help but smile a sad smile at no one in particular. Kaidan didn't particularly like them, either. Wicked bad migraines that crippled him for days weren't really a fair trade-off for moving things with his mind.

"So, um. I'm going to assume you don't… have a home?"

"Does under a bridge count?"

"No."

"Then no, I don't."

"What do you do for clothing, or food?"

"There's a few shelters in the lower Wards that help. I – We steal anything else we need."

She was referring to the other man that Kaidan had shot. Her tone had become accusatory. He flinched. "Well, that's not going to continue, understand? Spectre authority can't cover everything. I'll see if I can get you some clothes later." He could feel her gaze on him again, but he didn't want to look at her and see what sort of expression she wore.

"For now, we'll… get you clean and get some food in you. And you can borrow something of mine to wear." He felt a hot blush creep up the back of his neck.

"What else?"

"W-what?" There was that disarming voice again. He chanced a look at her. Her expression was strange, unreadable. She had lowered her feet to the floor and was leaning a little closer to him. He swallowed.

"What else are you planning to do to me?"

What, exactly, was she insinuating? "Nothing!" He said that a little too hastily. She arched a brow.

He cleared his throat and focused his attention back on the road. This was already feeling like a huge mistake. "We'll be there in a minute or two."

She didn't respond. But at least she turned to look back out the window instead of staring at him. She began to rock again.

Minutes later, Kaidan pulled the car outside the front doors of a medium-sized gated home. Nothing too extravagant, but Spectre pay was good. The rain had finally been reduced to at least a drizzle.

Kaidan got out the car and walked to the trunk. He opened a large duffel bag and produced a wickedly long syringe, filled with purple goo. He removed the protective covering on the needle, and walked over to her door. She had opened the gull-wing door of the car and was getting out when he stopped her. In the blink of an eye, he had grabbed her right wrist, pulled her forearm towards him and pushed the needle deep into her skin. She gasped in pain when he pushed down the plunger a little, depositing less than an eighth of the liquid under her skin.

"Ouch! What the hell!"

He looked at her patronizingly as he pulled the syringe from her arm and rubbed the skin with his thumb to soothe the wound. He noticed her arm was still red and raw from her scratching earlier. He'd have to fix that with some medi-gel. "Don't be a baby. It's just a transponder. So you can't get away from me."

She grimaced and allowed herself to be pulled from the sky car. He didn't release her hand immediately, merely looked at her grimy face.

"Come on. You're pretty beat up. Let's get those scratches looked at." He turned towards the front doors.

Without having much of a choice, Nora followed.