There were three loud knocks on her cabin door. In this instance, calling them 'knocks' didn't seem to do them justice. It sounded more like someone was pounding a battering ram against her door. Shepard considered this briefly, then jumped to her feet.
"Door's open!" she called as she swept the books off her desk. She didn't need any of the crew to know that she was reading turian literature.
The door opened and she rolled her chair closer to it. Ducking through was her favourite tank-bred krogan, which surprised her a little. Grunt had never come up to her cabin before. He hardly ventured outside the cargo hold.
"Grunt?" said Shepard.
He appeared to be distressed. "Battlemaster," he started. "I have come to you asking for help."
Shepard struggled and worried internally with what he could possibly need help with, but replied. "Yes?"
He shuffled awkwardly - Shepard was sure she'd never seen a krogan look so sheepish - and presented her with a miniature model of an elcor.
"Grunt?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Is this Bubin action figure, from the Blasto series?"
Grunt averted his gaze. "Yes, Battlemaster."
"Ok. Just checking. What seems to be the problem?"
"His - it's - the arm. The arm won't stay in position."
Shepard turned the figure in her hands as she looked up at him. "I didn't know you had any action figures, Grunt," she said.
"No one knows, Battlemaster. That is why I brought him to you to fix. And because everyone knows you have those." He gestured to the dozens of ship models around her.
Shepard grinned. Sure, she had a hobby, nothing wrong with that. "Having smaller hands sure helps, too," she said. After a moment of checking the arm and the socket, she stood. "You know what? I've got just the thing for our officer, here."
Grunt looked up hopefully. Shepard crossed the room and opened one of the drawers under her bed. After shoving past the magazines, she got to her prize. She held it up triumphantly. "Clear nail polish!"
Grunt looked more concerned now than he did coming in. "That is for human talons, isn't it?" he asked.
Shepard grinned and jogged back to her desk. "Sure, but it has a much better use. Here, first we pop out his bad arm-" Grunt's eyes widened as she pulled Bubin's arm from his shoulder. "Don't worry, it'll go back in good as new. Now we just put some of this stuff in the joint…" she softly brushed the liquid onto the shoulder and the arm. "And now we wait. Might take about an hour, then pop it back in."
"You've done this before." It wasn't a question.
Shepard smiled. "Maybe once or twice."
"I should go back to the cargo hold," Grunt said after a moment. Shepard grabbed the pieces of Bubin and handed them back to him. "Can I come with? I'd love to see the others."
"How did you know I had others?" Grunt asked, nostrils flaring.
"Come on, Grunt, no one just gets one action figure."