There was a lot of voices coming from my front door. Loud voices. Grunt's voice was also in the mix and that worried me.

"I'm gana check on Grunt." I informed the group though they weren't really listening. Somehow the conversation had turned into a 'Who's done the most badass things with Shepard'. I couldn't obviously play along and poor Traynor just seemed in 'aw'. I was personally torn between Garrus taking a rocket to the face and Mordin surviving Tuchanka. I'm probably biased since I've never caught a rocket with my face or lived through an exploding tower that fell on me.

Mordin, as always, was paying attention to multiple things at once and DID hear me. "How parental of you."

I smacked him half-heartedly in the arm. "Shut up." Was my intelligent come back.

Mordin was convinced I thought of Grunt as my son. Just because I maybe worry about Grunt a little more than the rest of my crew didn't mean I'd adopted him. Grunt had been new to battle. Of course I was going to check him over for injuries, and remind him to eat when I myself forgot, and searched high and low for a kickass shotgun (I was pleased when I saw he was still using it and said it was his favorite), and helped him clean said shotgun, and…okay, maybe a tiny piece of me did think of Grunt as my son…

Grunt was at my front door dictating who was and wasn't allowed in. I had my own krogan bouncer.

"I heard there's a big party in there! Can we come in?" A man's voice came over the speaker.

How the hell had people heard about the party?

Grunt's deep voice answered. "No, you can't. Go away."

"How's it going over here?" I asked smiling.

"You can't come in." Grunt growled at the monitor before answering me. "It's going good."

"I see that. Anyone interesting trying to get in?"

"A volus came claiming to be your half-brother, Sheppy."

"How would that work?" I tried really hard not to imagine a human and a volus making the beast with two backs.

A batarian showed up on the screen. "No." Grunt dismissed it.

"Good call on the batarian. They're usually trying to kill me."

"I would rip out any batarian's spine that tried to.

"Lovely image." I gestured to the screen. "Can I try that?" It was my apartment, but Grunt looked like he was having so much fun. I didn't want to take it from him if he didn't want to.

"Sure." Grunt had the biggest grin I'd ever seen on his face. "Press this button and say 'no'."

"Hello?"

"Is this Commander Shepard?" A loud female voice shrieked. "Oh my god! Oh my god! I can't believe it's you!" Several more shrieks joined the first.

I pushed the button in rapid succession. "Fangirls. The only thing scarier than a Reaper."

Grunt gave me a curious look. "How is a flock of women a bad thing?"

"It is when you don't want to sleep with any of them."

My answer didn't seem to help any, but then his confusion cleared and he nodded. "Right, the salarian."

"Huh?"

"Wrex told me most humans have one mate at a time and for some reason, you've chosen Mordin as yours."

"I didn't." I lamely protested. "I mean." I sighed.

"It's okay, Shepard. It doesn't make sense to me, but I agree with Wrex."

"About?" I asked fearful and curious of the answer.

"You've got quads. Your quads have quads. You're the only human that headbutts krogans and lives to brag about it." I've never bragged about it, but okay. "You kill giant Reapers for fun. You battled a clone of yourself. I'm not stupid enough to judge who you mate with."

I literally had nothing to say to that. Though when did Grunt get an opinion on who I did and didn't sleep with? Emphases on the didn't.

Change of subject time. I pointed at the screen. "Is that…"

"Fake lip-hair doesn't fool me, salarian. No."

"Tell him our salarian quota for the party is already met."

"It's just the one."

"And that's all any party ever needs."

Grunt chuckled.

"I'm selling cookies." The salarian tried, his 'mustache' slipping slightly.

"You're selling cookies? Uh…well… No, I shouldn't let you in." Grunt looked so disappointed.

Free cookies seemed like a better incentive to me.

"There's cookies in the kitchen." I jerked my thumb in that direction. I made sure there'd be plenty for Grunt.

"Really?"

"Oh yeah." I reached over and turned off the door monitor. So many you'll puke."

"Ever seen a krogan drink so much they get sick on your floor?" Grunt chuckled going for the kitchen. "I'm about to make sure that dream comes true!"

Great. Thank God I'm getting a cleaning service. I wonder if they'd charge more for krogan made messes?

"Oh, before I forget." Grunt turned back to me and without warning, headbutted me.

"Son of a!" I pointlessly rubbed at my forehead. "What the actual hell?"

"That's for letting me believe Garrus about human war paint."

Human war paint?

Oh!

Garrus and I had taken Grunt to the Citadel for his very first time. He noticed a lot of women, and some men, wearing make-up and wanted to know why. I had every intention of telling him the truth, but Garrus beat me to it. He told Grunt it was human war paint. I'd know Garrus long enough to know that was his attempted at humor. Grunt on the other hand totally believed him. Turians don't have a sense of humor so Garrus must be telling the truth. Of course Grunt then wanted to know why I didn't wear war paint. Garrus had an answer for that too. "Shepard's scary enough without war paint. If Shepard wore it, the fight would be over before it even started." To this day I'm still not sure how to take that statement.

In the end, I'd decided not to correct Garrus. It was harmless.

I thought.

Sometime later, Miranda approached me informing me that her make-up was missing. I had a sickening feeling I knew what had happened. As I suspected, Grunt had it.

I smiled despite myself. "Come on, Grunt. It was too funny to correct you." And adorable as hell, but I don't think krogan like being called adorable or any variation of it.

Grunt glared at me.

"Okay, okay I shouldn't have told the rest of the ship to go along with it or let you leave the ship wearing it, but riddle me this: if the roles had been reversed, wouldn't you have done something similar?"

"No."

I raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"I would have made sure it was permanent"

Somehow, I already knew he'd say that. I returned the headbutted wincing. "Your battle master orders you to fill up on junk food and booze then puke."

"Name my target and it will be consumed."