Chapter 46: Dog food and The Paparazzi

It was a peaceful night on the Normandy, with only the skeleton crew working the ship. On the crew deck was the resident ship varren, Urz sleeping peacefully. It took some time for the some of the Normandy to get used to the fishdog, but after while they gotten used to him. A loud grumbling sound woke Urz up, he was hungry and went to the special food dispenser, the engineers set up, it would scan the varren and release the food into the large bowl, or at least that was what it is suppose to do.

Urz grunted, a sort of varren version of whining, at the empty bowl, his stomach growled he had to have some food in his stomach. The varren sniffed the air, a new scent that he didn't recognize; the fishdog followed the smell until it led him a door. The door opened and Urz went in. He sniffed the air, the smell was stronger in here, and he followed it and saw a black mass in the corner of the room. He didn't know what it was, but it smelled good, he licked his chops and chowed down on the mass. It was tasty, very tasty, but that wasn't saying much for Urz, to a varren everything was tasty. After a while, Urz had his full, his eyes grew tired and went to the side to sleep.

The next day, Shepherd and Tali went down to the crew deck for breakfast, it was good for once to get up in the morning and not have a mission to worry about, they had almost forgotten what it was like. Maybe they would have another uneventful day, as they got out of the elevator they could hear arguing. Shepherd sighed, so much for that second uneventful day, they turned the corner and saw as usual Miranda and Jack at each other throats again. The spectre pinched his forehead in annoyance, he would have thought after Pragia, they had come to some sort of understanding, but it was too much to hope.

"You better watch where you're throwing accusations, bitch!" Jack growled. "I don't how the mutt got into your room!"

"Bullshit! This is just the kind of juvenile crap you would pull!" Miranda yelled. Both of the women's biotics started to flare, and crew got really nervous until Shepherd whistled and got their attention.

"Hey, what the hell is going on?" Shepherd asked. Miranda and Jack went silent. Shepherd crossed his arms. "Well?" Urz came and walked around the crew deck and Miranda pointed at him.

"That thing came into my room and ate my shoes, look!" Miranda held up some black and red tatters, Shepherd couldn't even tell they were shoes until he saw the heel attached to the tatters. He saw his fishdog on the side, wagging his tail happily when he saw the tatters.

Jack scoffed. "And Cheerleader here, thought I had something to do with it" she said. "Like I would waste my time…"

"Huh, strange…Urz never did anything like this before…" Tali said walking over to his bowl. She checked the compartment where Urz's food is stored and found it was empty. "So that's why…" Urz came up to Tali and rubbed his head on her hand, grunting. Tali sighed. "I know you were hungry, but you shouldn't have done that" Urz lowered his head.

"Shepherd, do something about your varren" Miranda said. "Or we will"

Shepherd sighed. "All right, all right…Look we're approaching the Citadel, we need to restock anyway." Miranda and Jack walked away, to cool down for a bit. Urz came over and licked his hand. "Don't try to butter me up, you're in big trouble" Urz grunted.

The Normandy docked at the Citadel for fueling and static discharge, as well as for its retrofits. Shepherd, Tali, and Miranda came out of the ship. To not cause any trouble, Urz was confined to the cargo hold and fed scarps Rupert left over from cooking, something the varren didn't mind. Once they got cleared of security, they went on their separate ways. The pet store was fairly close to the docks, and looked like the stores back on Earth. They had a great assortment of animals, most of them animals from Earth. Tali went over to the puppy cage and absolutely gushed over the dogs, and the puppies moved over to see Tali, their little tails wagging happily at seeing her. Tali picked up a black puppy and scratched his tummy, dog squeaked happily. Shepherd chuckled; even aliens weren't immune to the cuteness of earth mammals.

"Keelah, they're so cute…" Tali said hugging the puppy.

Shepherd looked at the price tag for the puppies, fifty-thousand credits for one puppy, although it was no surprise, Earth animals are considered exotic to aliens. "Yeah, and so expensive…back on Mindoir if someone had puppies, they would just give them away…" Tali looked at him in confusion, she had never heard people giving things away for free, the fleet had always taught her to earn everything they get, because nothing was for free especially to quarians. Shepherd chuckled. "Takes me back…"

"Did you have pet as a child?" Tali asked.

"Me, nah, pets were too much trouble for my family" Shepherd said. "But Emi, had loads of animals due to her family owning a farm" He smiled at the memory, spending the summer playing with her family's dogs, feeding the other animals, and helping Emi's mom with the birth of a new life on the farm. "Urz is pretty much the first pet I ever had…the varren drives me crazy at times, but I wouldn't trade him for the world"

Tali grasped his hand. "Neither would I…" Shepherd smiled, and went over to the clerk for some varren food. It was not much in the back shelf but a few brands, though it was understandable, varren were not really considered pet material. A few hundred credits, for big bag and they were on their way, but not before giving the store his little endorsement. The clerk activated his voice recorder and….

"I'm Commander Shepherd, and this my favorite store on the Citadel" The couple left, to find something eat before meeting up with Miranda again. As they walked to a restaurant, they could hear the dozens of endorsement he's given to the stores he shopped to. "Ah, the beauty of fame…" Shepherd said with a smirk.

Tali shook her head. "Just when your head couldn't get any bigger"

"Hey, if you got it, flaunt it" Shepherd said. "I can't help if I'm famous" Tali sighed in annoyance. As they got close to this new restaurant, the Dark Orbit, a woman came up to them. She was of Arabic descent, wearing a tight blue dress, popular with the asari. On her side was a camera drone, looking at the couple.

"Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani, Westerlund News" She offered her hand, and Shepherd looked at her with a raised brow. She cleared her throat. "I interviewed you, two years ago, after you became spectre…"

"I don't remember you…" Shepherd said. Tali spoke up.

"But I do, you tried to smear his name" Tali said with crossed arms. Khalisah paled and walked back slightly, all of a sudden it came back to Shepherd. It was during Shepherd and Tali's first date, the woman ambushed them and started her questions, but it became apparent from her that she was appealing to popular human opinion; she is critical of the Citadel Council, believing it treats humanity as a "poor relation". Al-Jilani continued to push for answers that 'prove' that Shepherd was a shill for the Council until Tali got angry and came close to punching the woman out before Shepherd stopped her. Ultimately her hit job didn't work as she came across as a raving idiot, but it looked like now she was back for round two, that is…if Tali stopped scaring the woman.

"Shepherd, tell your quarian friend to back away, I only want to talk to you that's all" She said. "I'm just doing my job…" Shepherd noticed that the camera droid was on; recording every potential embarrassing thing that could happen, the spectre now knew what Tali meant.

"Sure I'll talk…" Tali looked at him with surprise, and the spectre winked at her and the interview started.

"Glad you can see reason, Commander" She said. "Sources said you were at the heart of the presidium during the Battle of the Citadel, it's fair to say that the battle hinged on your words"

"If true you told Admiral Hackett to assist the Destiny Ascension at the cost of human lives and assured the continued dominance of the Council"

"I don't see it that way, Sovereign and Saren was a threat to everyone, human and council races" Shepherd said. "The turians lost twenty cruisers, my guess with a crew of three-hundred, the Destiny Ascension, had a crew of ten thousand…civilians included, how do you think humanity and the Alliance would be seen if we didn't help our neighbors?"

Al-Jilani flinched. "But surely the human cost…"

Shepherd frowned. "I am well aware of the human cost, Ms. Jilani, we lost eight cruisers Shenyang, Emden, Jakarta, Cairo, Seoul, Cape Town, Warsaw, and Madrid" he said. "Those men and women are heroes, without them we would have never gotten a seat to the Council, in fact we would be dead"

"But Commander…"

"The Alliance owes them medals, and the council a lot more than that" Shepherd said. "and so do you" Shepherd grabbed Tali's hand and walked into the restaurant, leaving the speechless reporter.

"Not bad" Tali said with a smirk.

"I try" After they eaten, they went back to dock to meet Miranda, who was ordering the delivery people around. They were lined up trying to get into the Normandy. Shepherd wondered how many shoes she buy, one of the men fell and the box almost fell of the dock.

"Hey, careful with those boxes, they cost more than you!" she yelled.

"Wow, you think you have enough shoes, Miranda?" Shepherd asked sarcastically. Miranda scoffed, as the delivery people were finished putting her package in the Normandy. Back on the Normandy, Miranda revealed her purchase, shoes to replace the ones she lost along with a special locker so Urz wouldn't have another midnight snack. Shepherd put the food in Urz's canister, and the varren came to eat, luckily it would be a while before Urz ran out of food. Despite the fact varren can eat almost everything, they surprisingly eat very little. Shepherd chuckled. "This was fun; we got to do this again more often"

Tali hugged Shepherd and smiled. "A lot more often"