"Tuchanka ETA ten minutes, Commander." Joker, the Normandy's pilot, informed Shepard over the intercom. "And you should probably take a trip down to the Crew Deck in the mean time. Guess who's arguing down there?"

"Oh for the love of..." Shepard muttered under her breath as she stepped away from her terminal in the ship's CIC and towards the elevator. "Thanks Joker." She said clearly and sincerely in the direction of the intercom while stepping through the elevator doors.

"When I get my hands on you, I am going to tear off every last one of those tattoos and burn them. Then I'm going to gouge your eyes out with spoons. Then I'm going to take you back to Pragia and I am going to lock you up there and make a vid of the wild varren eating you alive you brat!"

Just once, Shepard would have liked to have been greeted by silence when she got out of the elevator. Just once, she'd like everything to be nice and calm and quiet. But instead what she got was Miranda threatening to kill Jack. Then Shepard rounded the corner to the Mess Hall and saw why Miranda was so upset; Miranda's left cheek was covered in a picture of a flying cartoon varren that looked distinctly like a tattoo, and Jack was stood a few feet from her holding a tattoo gun in her hand.

"Shepard! I want that thing" Miranda continued, this time addressing the Commander but gesturing to Jack "Off this ship. Now!"

"What the hell, Jack? I assume this is your doing." Shepard gestured to Miranda's face and focused her gaze on the younger biotic woman, who was looking extremely smug and very pleased with herself.

"I figured that since she tried to take my tattoo gun last night then she must want one of her own, so I decided to give her a tattoo as a surprise gift while she was sleeping. I don't see what the problem is here." Jack said in a tone that suggested innocence, although the widening grin on her face said that she was probably anything but.

"And you, as a 24 year old woman, thought it would be a good idea to give Miranda, of all people, a tattoo on her face, against her will and while she's sleeping?" Shepard had to fight to stop her tone from becoming too condescending. However much it felt like dealing with a group of toddlers, Jack and Miranda were both adults and should be treated accordingly.

"Well, I guess when you put it like that it sounds worse than it really is." Jack replied with a shrug.

"You defaced my body you bitch!" Miranda screamed, and Shepard realised it was the first time she'd seen Miranda truly lose her patience. "Shepard, she needs to get off of this ship, permanently."

"I'm not sure how many times I'm going to have to tell you, Miranda, but this is my ship, I decided what happens on it, not you." Now it was Shepard's turn to lose her cool. "But Jack, this is beyond a joke. I don't have the time or the patience to babysit you two." At this point Shepard was interrupted by the sound of males laughing. Shepard turned to see the aging mercenary Zaeed Massani listening in with two of the Cerberus crew members, and could have sworn she heard Zaeed mumble something along the lines of 'Those two don't need a babysitter, they need a goddamn hotel room!'.

"Keep your panties on." Jack was interrupted by a bout of laughter from Zaeed and company. "Oh shut up. Anyway, the 'tattoo' isn't real, I drew it on. It'll fade in a day or five. I just wanted to see you piss your pants over it, Cheerleader."

"You are absolutely-" Miranda started to shout at Jack but was interrupted by Shepard.

"ENOUGH!" The Commander shouted. "Miranda, that's the closest you're going to get to an apology so just accept it and move on. From now on I want you two to stay away from each other at all times. If I catch you in each other's quarters-"

"I'll be there to watch!" Zaeed interrupted once more but was quickly shut up by Shepard's death glare.

"-If I catch you in each quarters at all, or if I even find you in the same room at the same time without me having ordered you there, I'm locking you both in the Cargo Bay until we go through the Omega 4 Relay, understood?" The Commander finished. Miranda and Jack nodded and murmured in agreement. "Now, if you've all had enough of behaving like children, I have an actual child to take care of." Shepard announced, then turned back to the elevator and descended to the fourth floor.

Upon arriving Shepard walked to the entrance to Port Cargo, knocked on the door and waited for a response. After a moment she heard some shuffling, and then Grunt spoke from the other side of the door.

"Who is it?"

"It's Shepard. We're landing on Tuchanka, Grunt, I want you to come with me." The Commander called back.

"Uh, now isn't a good time, Shepard." Came the reply from Grunt after a short pause.

"Please Grunt, it's important. I want you to come and talk to Wrex." Shepard expressed her concern for Grunt through her voice.

"I'm...I'm busy. I'm not coming out." The tone of Grunt's voice was almost child-like.

"You don't have a choice, Grunt. You're coming with me." Shepard became more forceful, knowing that the krogan would follow orders, but apparently she was wrong.

"I'm not coming out and you can't make me!" Grunt gave his final reply.

Having grown up on military ships herself, Shepard knew the pressures of going through puberty with little to no privacy, so rather than push the matter further, she decided to try a different approach. If she couldn't bring Grunt to Wrex, then maybe she could bring Wrex to Grunt.

"I see you've upgraded since I was around. Not many captains lose a ship and get rewarded with a bigger one." Wrex teased Shepard while they walked onto the Normandy. Fortunately it hadn't taken much for Shepard to persuade Wrex to come on board the ship to talk to Grunt. Just a bottle of Ryncol, an arm wrestling match and a reminder of the number of times she'd saved his life 2 years ago. "Oooh, and an elevator that goes the whole way through the ship. Classy. Remind me to work for Cerberus some day."

"With Cerberus, Wrex, I work with Cerberus." Shepard responded quickly. The truth was, she hated Cerberus and was only using them for their resources. As soon as she'd completed the mission she was on, she was going to hand the ship and as much intel as she could get her hands on over to the Alliance.

"Touchy subject, huh?" Wrex enquired.

"Would you like it if I accused you of working for terrorists?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow at Wrex.

"Probably not. But I'm not in charge of a Cerberus ship now, am I?" The ancient krogan Clan Chief replied, sharp as ever.

"Touche, Wrex. Anyway, this way, that's his room there." Shepard and Wrex had arrived on the Engineering Deck, and Shepard led Wrex to Grunt's room, Port Cargo.

"Wait, he has his own room? I never had one! This is discrimination!" Wrex teased Shepard some more.

"We didn't have one big enough for someone as large as you back then." Shepard teased back. Before Wrex had to chance to pretend that he was offended, Shepard changed the subject to the matter at hand. "We'll take the gentle approach, I don't want to frighten him. Let me talk first."

Wrex let out a low chuckle. "Frighten him? He's a krogan!"

"Just humour me, ok?" Shepard then knocked on Grunt's door.

There was some shuffling and banging on the other side, then Grunt yelled, "Leave me alone!"

Sighing, Shepard called back, "Grunt, Wrex is here. Me and him really want to talk to you. Is there any chance you can open the door now?"

"No. I'm...I'm...naked. Yeah." Grunt hollered.

"Open. The. Door. Grunt." Wrex's eye was twitching, the tell-tale sign that he was losing his temper. Unsurprisingly, he wasn't experienced in taking a gentle approach to getting the job done.

"No." Came the reply from the younger krogan.

Shepard could see that Wrex was about to lose it, so she spoke up again. "Ok, Grunt, we'll do it your way. Look, I'm very worried about the way that you're...developing...and we just want to see you and check that you're ok. You can't stay locked in there forever."

After a few moments of Grunt not replying to Shepard, Wrex re-joined the conversation. "Screw this. Grunt, open the door. I am your clan chief and if you dare to deny me then I will charge in there, grab you by the quad, haul your ass out into the fierce Tuchanka sun, and-" Wrex was cut off when the door opened and revealed an extremely haggard looking Grunt, hastening to close the fastenings on his obviously very recently put on clothes. Behind Grunt was a wall of crates, concealing the view to the rest of the room. "By our Ancestors, Grunt, you stink like a varren!" The old krogan exclaimed.

"Grunt, when was the last time you bathed?" Shepard jerked her head back at the stench that was emanating from Grunt's room. "Look, anyway, this...exploring you've been doing isn't healthy. Especially with that huge bite you've given yourself on your arm, and-"

At the mention of the wound on it, Grunt tried to quickly hide his arm behind his back, but quick as a flash the older krogan grabbed hold of it. "He didn't do this to himself." Wrex said slowly. "This is from a varren. And that isn't a lack of Grunt's personal hygiene that I can smell, it's an actual varren." Wrex let go of Grunt's arm and charged through the wall of crates, which were no match for the head of Clan Urdnot. The crates tumbled to the floor and revealed a large varren sitting patiently in the opposite corner of the room. "There's your problem."

"What...Oh my...Wrex, I didn't tell you...Grunt...I looked at his Extranet search history, he'd been searching for 'krogan mating with varren'. There's been an outbreak of scale itch on the ship, Mordin said it's a sexual disease carried only by varren...Oh dear Lord..." Shepard's expression was a mixture of shock and horror, and she couldn't take her eyes off of the animal sat in the corner.

"This is worse than I thought." Wrex face-palmed, then addressed Grunt. "Look, I can understand that maybe whatever Okeer taught you about sex and mating got screwed up. But listen. Mating with your hand is acceptable. Mating with a varren is most certainly NOT."

"Mating with my hand?" Grunt bellowed in confusion and horror. "Mating is something to be done with females! And I would never try to mate with a feral beast such as this. What is wrong with you two? I'm not the one who has something wrong with them, you two are!"

"We are your Clan Chief and Battle Master and you will never talk to us like that again you pyjak!" Wrex growled back.

"Wait, wait. What's been going on in here for the last few days Grunt?" Shepard asked.

"When you said I couldn't have a varren on board, I decided to try and prove my idea was right. When you were off fighting with the Salarian I went to get us a varren. I found this one with that guy Ratch. Ratch said the varren's called Urz and doesn't have a home so I took it with me, put it in a crate and smuggled it on board, told EDI the crate was full of food supplies I bought for myself. He's been living in here, but he's a bit...wild. He keeps trying to mate with my leg, he's been scratching the walls, he's been making loads of noise, he ripped up blankie- I mean, my blanket. I don't think I can control him. But I assure you, I was NOT trying to mate with the thing. That's disgusting." Grunt explained, his face souring at his last line.

Shepard slowly nodded. "Ok Grunt, but that doesn't explain why you keep grabbing your quad like it hurts."

"He keeps biting me there. I don't know why and I tried to make him stop, but he won't." Grunt looked over at Urz, who got up from the corner and bounded towards Grunt and lept up at him, attempting to lick his face.

"Do you understand now why I told you that you can't bring a varren on board?" Shepard asked in a tone of voice that reminded her of her mother,

"Yes Battle Master." Grunt replied.

"Wrex, can you take Urz back with you?" Shepard turned her attention to the older krogan.

"No, let me keep him just a little bit longer? Please Shepard? I'm sure I can train him-" Grunt pleaded, but Shepard put her hand up to silence him.

"Grunt, I told you before, this is a war ship, not a flying zoo. Urz doesn't belong here and I'm sorry but he's going to have to go back to Tuchanka." Shepard said in a voice of authority. Grunt was visibly upset but didn't put up any more of an argument.

"Right, come on Urz. And, ha, Shepard, I always tell you that you worry too much. But Grunt, you disobey your Commander again and you'll have me to answer to. Understood?" Wrex bore his eyes into Grunt's, who meekly nodded in reply. "I'll see myself out. Hey, this thing...stop it from humping my leg!"