I tapped a couple of buttons on my omnitool, ending the message. Ally would wake up soon, but I'd managed to leave before she did. Or, at least, I assumed she was still sleeping. For all I knew, she could have left way before me and was standing on the docks listening to my message in confusion. Oh well, I'd jump that relay if I got to it.

On the way I passed some other C-SEC officers and we nodded in acknowledgment of each other. Some were going home after a long shift while others were stating their morning. I recognized most of them; I used to be assigned to that part of the Wards, before I was shot.

The young salarian broke my train of thought when he popped up next to me, tapping away at his omnitool, and commented, "The human is not here this morning."

"Nope. She's going shopping for human things today," I said. "And her name's Ally."

"Naming pets forms attachments to them," he deadpanned, smirking a little as he got on the elevator. I sighed and followed him in, electing to say nothing.

A reporter droned on about the Reapers through the elevator's speakers, citing rising death tolls and costs to maintain the fleets. I attempted to tune them out while Tectis' face seemed to fall at the numbers being listed off. He stared blankly at his omnitool's screen for a moment before lowering it all together. "We do the most good here. Logical to stay," he said, sounding more like he was talking to himself.

I replied anyway. "We do. We make sure that everyone has a safe place to run to when everything goes nova."

"Doesn't seem like much in the face of everything happening out there," he said, still listening to the incoming reports.

"If you look at it that way, no one's doing much of anything, besides Commander Shepard," I said, still trying to drown out the reports.

"Simply wondering if I'm doing what I can to save the most possible."

For once I was thankful the elevator rides took so long because it gave me time to think of a response. "All we can do," I started, "is do our jobs and try to help where we can. Neither of us would make very good soldiers."

He snorted, "We both know you didn't, but that doesn't mean I couldn't be."

I flexed my mandibles in mock indignation. "I was an excellent soldier! I just didn't like ships very much. Too cramped."

The elevator doors opened, revealing the Docks and we got out. The reporter faded to a drone, then nothing as the door shut behind us. "And lacking in humans."

I sidled up close to him and leered down at his returning grin, "What makes you think I didn't miss seeing salarians everyday?"

"Planning to invite a salarian home and give him money to shop with?"

We were nearing the security checkpoint. I put a hand to my heart in a dramatic fashion I'd seen asari in particularly bad movies use before. "Is that an offer to move in with me? All my dreams are coming true at last!"

The turian officer that waved us through seemed appalled, but his asari partner looked sad. I waved to her as we passed and she forced a smile and mouthed something that my translator told me meant, "Good luck."

"You've ruined any chances you had with her," my amused partner informed me as we reached our desk, looking back towards security. "I've been reliably informed that she found you highly attractive."

I glanced back in her direction as I got a Tupari. "I swear, dear, she meant nothing to me," I joked. The truth was, I'd never really understood the attraction of such a squishy species.

Good mood restored, we started in on our morning paperwork before going on our first patrol of the day. The night shift manned the desk while we went out. Things were always quiet during that time of the morning; it was too late for the rush of refugees, who were still sleeping, and too early for the criminals, who preferred to ply their trade when no one else could see them do so.

The peace of this morning, however, was broken by the angry yells of a baratarian and a human who were glaring at a human who was built like a krogan with a slightly smaller head. The two smaller aliens were so enraged that I couldn't even tell what they were saying, but the cards and credit chits spread across the table told their own story well enough. The burly one leaned back in his chair, waiting for them to finish their tirade. He was the only one to look our way when we stopped by.

"Alright, what's going on here?" I asked, not really because I felt confused, but more because that's what we always asked in situations like this. I was prepared when they turned towards us, still making angry, jerky gestures in the direction of the triumphant looking one and talking too incoherently for my translator to pick up on. I nodded every once and a while to placate them while Tectis began cataloging the scene.

After a while he came up next to me and said, "Small human." I nodded.

He had his cuffs on the smaller human before he was even aware of what was happening. I had the batarian in a similar predicament. But while his arrest had gone silent with shock, mine had gotten even more irate, if that was possible. He squirmed, trying to hit me as I subdued him, my knee pinning his lower back to the floor. I stayed put while Tectis left his quarry and approached the larger human, who held out his hands and grinned, saying, "I think I'd rather do this the easy way."

The baratarian finally began to stop bucking, and coldly said, "I demand to know what the charges are."

"Illegal gambling," my partner replied for me.

"And you're getting resisting arrest," I flatly informed the alien as I hauled him to his feet. He began to struggle again, but I was able to keep him moving without too much trouble. The two humans, one in shock and the other amused, followed Tectis without incident.

We'd figured out early on that thanks to our understaffed conditions it was more productive to have only one of us filling out incident reports at a time while the other continued patrols. It was his turn to do the paperwork, so I dropped everyone off at security and returned to the desk. The night shift gratefully retired, giving me cheerful, if tired, waves good-bye.

A few people came up to my desk, mostly asking for help with their processing paperwork, but occasionally lodging a complaint. One grievance in particular caught my attention: someone was stealing refugee food supplies. It seemed like something two people should work on and it was nearing lunch anyways, so I decided that Tectis and I would handle it later in the day if nothing more urgent came up.

Though it was my break, I didn't leave my station. It didn't feel right to leave it unmanned, even for the half hour, even on such a relatively quiet day. Instead I grabbed a prepackaged lunch from the vending machine and fiddled with my omnitool, bored. I surfed through my contact list at random, and spotted Ally's name. It occurred to me that she was probably free to talk, so I called her.

She picked up a few seconds later. "Hello?"

"Hey," I said awkwardly. I never understood the human habit of saying 'hello?' at the beginning of a call. Even if caller ID couldn't identify someone, I'm pretty sure that seeing them on the screen gave them away. It must have been a cultural thing. "So, how's the shopping going?"

She smiled, "Great! I picked up some groceries this morning; they're already back at your house. I'm getting some clothes and shampoo and stuff now. Thanks." She sounded almost shy at the last part.

"Not a problem. I'm glad to hear it's going so well. I wasn't sure you'd be able to find everything," I said, leaning back in my chair.

She gestured excitedly with her free hand at the Wards around her as she said, "I know, right? But the selection here is amazing. Did you know that elcor use shampoo, too? They have the best sense of smell. I feel like I'm in an expensive perfume shop in their cheapest section."

"That's not surprising. They communicate emotion through scent," I informed her.

"Is that why they all talk like robots?" She looked like she was lost in thought for a moment before looking back at the screen. "See, someday I'm gonna catch you doing something all weird and alieny."

I felt my mandibles flare into a smile, "What if I don't ever do anything that you think is weird?"

"You have metal plates on top of your skin and your voice is all flangy. You have to do something odd at some point."

Tectis popped his head over my shoulder. I nearly fell back in surprise, letting out a short yell and flailing my arms wildly. He steadied the back of my chair before coming around to stand in front of me and commandeering my wrist. "You must be Ally," he said.

"Yes? Who are you?" she asked, peering at him curiously.

He looked up at me. "Haven't told her about me? I'm wounded."

I pulled back my wrist, frowning at him. "He's an awful influence and if you ever see him in person you should yell 'stranger danger' at the top of your lungs until he goes away."

"But really, who is he? I saw C-SEC colors." she insisted, twisting her screen as if that would give her a better view of him. "Is he your partner? I think I've seen him with you before."

"Tectis," he introduced himself, leaning in over my omnitool. "Dellix is my partner, yes."

"And we've got to go now. Bye!" I said, tapping the button that ended the call.

He looked up at me. "You don't want us meeting."

"Not until you stop calling her a pet. She's still adjusting to just being on the Citadel and without her parents. I want to let her adjust before exposing her to your eccentricities."

"So protective. Almost as if she were your own young." He looked at me thoughtfully. "Ever considered settling down?"

"Yes," I answered promptly. "But between my hours and this war that's not happening any time soon."

"Is she a replacement?"

"A replacement kid? No. Just a naive kid who looked like she could use the help," I said.

"Hmm," was all he said, still looking thoughtful. "If I promise my best behavior, can I meet her?"

I considered it for a moment. "Sure. You can come over for dinner tomorrow night, but only if you promise."

"Deal," he said, looking serious.

We sat there for a time while he ate his lunch and did something with his omnitool. To this day, I don't know what he was always doing on that thing. For all I know he could have been doing anything from coordinating one of the Citadel's new militias to playing Skyllian Five on the extranet.

After a while I remembered the complaint about the missing refugee food and showed the report to the equally curious salarian sitting at the desk with me. We decided to call one of the officers from the security desk to come field any complaints or questions while we investigated.

We questioned all the volunteer leaders of each camp separately. Each one reported similar problems, but no one had any theories about who had done it. I expected the batarian leader to blame the humans, or vice versa, yet they didn't. It was a pleasant change, don't get me wrong, but it didn't leave us with any leads.

It was by pure chance, as we were passing the turian food storage, we saw a group of young turians, their carapaces still soft and their mandibles not yet grown in, loading their arms up with rations. We all looked at each other for a split second before one of them yelled, "C-SEC!"

They all scattered. I reached for the nearest one on instinct, but she managed to skitter away, my talons barely brushing her. She followed another pair ducking into a nearby duct. The rest had all disappeared.

Tectis jumped down from the crates he'd been scrambling across attempting to catch one of them. "Duct rats," he said, sighing.

I echoed the sentiment. It wasn't like we didn't sympathize with their situation. They were hungry and suddenly they'd found a part of the Citadel storing large quantities of food with little means of protecting it. The problem was, they weren't the only ones who needed that food.

There was nothing we could do about it either way, though. Duct rats fell out of our jurisdiction. Protocol dictated that we return to our desk and file a report on them for Juvenile Services. It required obscene amounts of paperwork, even more than the average ridiculous amount. On the way back to our desk my partner reminded me that it was my turn to do it.

I stumbled home that evening with eyes that were bleary from a computer screen, hands that were cramped from typing all afternoon, and a sore ass from not being able to get out of one of the most uncomfortable chairs I'd ever sat in for hours.

But instead of arriving home to the empty apartment I was used to, I arrived to Expel 10 drifting through the house from the living room where Ally sat, redoing her nails.

"Hey kid," I greeted her.

"Hey. You want me to do your talons when I'm done with my nails?" she offered, now sporting a dark purple paint.

I relaxed into the couch, letting the music wash over me. "The red still hasn't faded," I informed her, pulling off my gloves to let her look.

"I could get it off with some nail polish remover, if you wanted," she said.

I shrugged internally. "Sure, why not?"

A very tired author's notes: This chapter was inspired by TvTropes' Buddy Cop show page. It showed up when I hit random on the homepage a week or so ago, and so this chapter was born.

Oh lordy, this is long. You guys have no idea what it was like to write that much in a single chapter. It took forever. It was fun, but I don't think I'll be doing it again any time too soon.