They're in the air for a while before either of them says anything. Shepard occupies herself by finding the controls for her seat and reclining it as far as it can go, which isn't far. Still, she's vastly more comfortable than she was in the back. She puts her hands behind her head, closes her eyes, and sighs.

Once the car enters traffic proper, Shepard asks, "So where to now? Another hostage situation? Serial killer? Terrorist bank robbers attacking an asari corporate starscraper?"

Garrus reaches over and turns off his radio. Shepard smirks. Eventually, he notices.

"What?" he says. "It's late. I'm tired. I got shot. I want to go home and sleep."

"You sleep, Boy Scout?" Shepard says dryly. "Figured you just sat in a chair and waited for shift change."

Garrus laughs. A short, barking laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Shepard takes this as an invitation.

"You got shot?"

Garrus nods. "Right thigh, upper back. Body armor stopped both slugs."

"Nice."

"Not really. Hurts like hell."

"You say that like I don't know that."

He glances at her. Shepard smiles again, but she puts a little less edge into it this time. He won't believe her otherwise.

"Brave thing you did back there," she says.

Nothing in his face changes, but the way he turns back to the controls and shrugs off the compliment says he knows it's genuine. "Most people would call it stupid."

"Oh, it was stupid," Shepard agrees. "Crazy, even. Downright idiotic and insane."

Now he smiles. "Thanks."

"But you knew what you could do. You knew what you were capable of."

Shepard turns and looks out of the cockpit. All this honesty is thoroughly unlike her. She consoles herself with the idea that all she's doing is voicing a fact.

"When you know yourself like that, you can tell the difference between a stupid risk, and just another day on the job. Even if it doesn't look like it to anyone else."

A silence hangs in the car. Shepard can't tell if it's a comfortable one or not, but doesn't much care. She watches transports speeding past the window, freighters big and small jockeying for position at the docking bays, warships going out on patrol or stopping for shore leave.

The little voice in the back of her mind wonders if she can still make it back to her ship before they impound it. Wonders how fast this skycar could go. Wonders how far her hands are from Vakarian's gun.

"So what's your real name?"

Shepard spins her head a little too fast and has to work to control her expression. "What?"

"Your real name." The smug bastard is smiling again. "Don't tell me it's Shepard."

"So what if it is?"

"Then you're not a very good criminal if you don't have an alias."

She scoffs. "Oh, I've got aliases."

"Do you?"

"Sure." She takes her hands from behind her head and begins to count off her fingers. "Captain, Chief, Commander, Major—"

"Military ranks? Isn't that a bit obvious?"

"It's not about staying hidden. It's about building a brand," she explains. "Thieves and assassins keep low profiles. Bounty hunters? We're all flash."

"That explains a lot."

Shepard strongly considers hitting him, but he's still piloting the car. She sighs and settles further into her seat. "Cops."

"Thought I'd earned a bit more than that."

"Really? At what point? When you cuffed me the first time, or the second time?"

"You're up front now, aren't you?"

"Oh, yeah, the front seat of a C-Sec skycar. Exactly where I've always wanted to be. How did you know?"

"Whatever happened to gratitude," he echoes, and this time she really does hit him, in the shoulder, with both hands. He laughs, and she laughs too.

"Yeah, well, if you think you're getting any out of me for throwing me in the clink, you really are an idiot," Shepard says, slipping her hands back behind her head again. "I don't care how cute you are."

She's watching his face when she says it, expecting a stronger reaction than she gets. Garrus blinks several times in rapid succession. He pauses a moment before he speaks, clearly choosing his next words carefully.

"I am not cute."

Oh. Well then.

Shepard smiles, big and wide. It's the most honest one she's shown anyone all night. Garrus responds by giving her a look of stone-faced disappointment.

"Actually," she says, "maybe I do care how cute you are."

He rolls his eyes. "Oh, please."

"What? I've been around. You think I've been from the Perseus Veil to the seat of galactic civilization without developing some cosmopolitan tastes? Or am I making you"—she leans in and whispers the next word—"uncomfortable?"

Garrus doesn't rise to her bait. He doesn't even react to her proximity. "I've got no views whatsoever on dating outside one's species," he says, matter-of-fact.

Shepard sneers and settles back into her seat. She's a little disappointed he's not going to play along, but that's fine. "Have you ever?" she asks.

He shrugs. "Thought it was gross when I was twelve."

"I meant dated outside your species."

"No, but I know people who have."

"Oh, so, 'some of my best friends are deviants,' is what you're saying?"

"How did we even arrive at this subject?"

"I called you cute."

"Oh, yeah," he deadpans. "I remember now."

Shepard puts her feet up on the dash. Garrus glares at her boots, but says nothing. She smiles, and smiles harder when he does too.

The guidance system pings twice as they approach the C-Sec precinct near the base of Shalta Ward. Garrus gently glides the car out of traffic and down towards a private docking bay, slowing briefly so the scanners can check and recheck his ID tags. The doors ahead open, and he guides the car into one of the garages C-Sec uses to store police transports and impounded vehicles.

While Garrus looks for a spot to land, Shepard is looking out the window. The little voice in her head says her ship might already be impounded, might already be in this very garage. The rest of her knows that even if it is, they'll have ripped out the guidance system, and she'd have to fly it out manually.

You can do that, the voice says. You've done it before.

Yeah, and I didn't have a way to plot a lightspeed course then, either, she tells herself. Flying blind through the Serpent Nebula is an awesome way to get myself killed, if the Citadel's defense cannons don't get me first.

But she still keeps looking.

The skycar settles onto dark concrete, and Garrus shuts it down. He hesitates for a fraction of a second, hands on the controls, staring out the front of the cockpit, but then he opens his door and steps out. Shepard opens her own door and gets out on her own, and he politely shuts it behind her.

Garrus keeps one hand on her back as he leads her toward the elevators. Shepard doesn't shift, doesn't waver. She walks where he guides her and says nothing. She's not smiling anymore, but she's not complaining either.

The little voice keeps telling her there's still a way out, there's always a way out, as long as you're willing to fight for it. Shepard has to will it to shut up. This is the best move, the smartest move, and she is going to make it.

The elevator ride seems to take even longer than it did last time she was on the Citadel. And when the elevator leaves the shaft and presents them with a full view of Shalta Ward as they rise to C-Sec's incarceration level, her breath catches in her throat.

Shepard has always hated cages, and she always will. She's had more than enough of them in her life, of one kind or another. She once swore she'd rather die than be caged again. But then she had to go and live long enough to realize that she hated her fear even more than the cage. She'd given up swearing vows by then, but she knew that she couldn't let her fear define her anymore.

Run, it says. Run and get away, get out, get free.

Shepard forces stale, recycled air into and out of her lungs, and savors the view of the stars.

Nah. Better luck next time.

The view disappears as the elevator re-enters a shaft. Shepard feels a pang of something in her chest, and ignores it.

The cold grey wall blurs past the glass until the elevator stops and the doors open behind them. Garrus guides her out. It's a short walk down a busy hallway to a desk, with a single turian behind it, and a sign emblazoned across the front that says "PROCESSING" in ten different alien languages.

They wait for their turn. Shepard shifts on her feet as numerous C-Sec officers drag prisoners this way and that, while still others sit and wait in chairs along either side. Nearly every species is represented, some looking morose and sorrowful, while others are not-so-quietly furious. A volus is kicked along past the desk by a human officer, while an elcor is herded through the crowd by three turians with hands on their weapons.

The line ahead clears, and Garrus pushes Shepard forward. The turian desk clerk doesn't look up from his work, fingers flying across one terminal screen, then another. He looks busy and put-upon and tired of everyone's crap. Shepard can relate.

"Name," he asks curtly.

"Shepard," she says.

"Full name."

"Commander Shepard."

Garrus coughs. The clerk looks up and glares at her, then over her shoulder. "Picked up another one, did you, Garrus?"

He nods. The clerk clicks his tongue loudly as he returns to his work. "Going to break a precinct record if you keep this up. This one going to be trouble?"

"No," he says with certainty. "She won't."

"What're the charges?"

"Possession of illegal weapon modifications, possession of unlicensed firearms, bounty hunting without a license."

The clerk types it all in. When it becomes clear that's all Garrus is going to say, Shepard turns and gives him a look of honest surprise.

"That's all?" the clerks asks, stealing the words from her mouth.

"She was also a witness to a hostage situation in district B13 earlier tonight," Garrus says. "The primary on that will want to take her statement."

"Non-violent offenders down the hall to the right," the clerk says simply. "You know where the interrogation rooms are."

Garrus nods, and starts her down the hall behind the desk and to the right. The crowd tapers off almost immediately, and after they take a couple turns and pass a pair of investigators heading back out, they're alone in a pristine and unmarked corridor.

"What are you doing?" Shepard asks.

"My job," Garrus replies.

She almost doesn't believe him, like this is another smart-ass joke of his. One last laugh at her expense. She weighs her options, and decides she has to ask.

"Whatever happened to 'assault' and 'manslaughter' and 'reckless endangerment'?"

"Fist went for a gun. You were defending yourself. And as for reckless endangerment, I'm not sure I'm in a position to make that call."

Shepard glances over her shoulder. "Because you were reckless, or I wasn't?"

Garrus shrugs. "You tell me."

He stops her outside one of the interrogation rooms. There are chairs outside, probably for detectives or witnesses waiting for a line-up. He motions for her to take a seat, and she does.

"An investigator should be up shortly to take your statement," Garrus says. "Then, depending on how you plead and how quickly your arraignment goes through, you'll get between six and nine months. Three, if you behave yourself."

"My ship will still be impounded," Shepard says.

"And it'll cost a fair bit to get it back," he says with a nod. "But as I understand it, you've got some money in the bank. And if you need any more, you can always pick up a few bounties. As long as you get a license this time."

Shepard nods slowly. She's starting to get the picture. "And how do I get one of those?"

"By filling out a lot of boring forms, taking the interminable departmentally-mandated training and discipline courses, and making sure to be in constant contact with your sponsor."

A grin splits her face that she just can't help. "Is my sponsor cute?"

Garrus smiles. Then he starts walking back down the hall.

"You're just leaving me here?" she asks.

"I think you'll stay put," he says.

She slumps low in her seat and watches him go. Garrus doesn't look back once.

Shepard is looking at a minimum of three months of incarceration, three months spent in the thing she hates and fears most, and she just can't stop smiling.

Or checking out her arresting officer's ass.

Reluctantly, she tears herself away from the view and props her head back. Legs crossed and hands behind her head, she considers the night's events and comes to the conclusion that two things are true: things could be a lot worse, and, for once, the galaxy had let a good deed go unpunished.

"Garrus Vakarian," she says quietly, testing the name on her tongue. She almost laughs at how dramatic it sounds, but finds that she likes it.

Oh yeah. Shepard knows exactly where she's going to be in three months time.