IV
First-Name Terms
In a way, Joker reminded Beth of Theo, the insanely bright kid she'd known the last two years she lived at the Hardins'. Theo had probably been a genius, but he was a little . . . off. Had a learning disability or was on the autism spectrum or something. He could do amazing things with numbers and music, but people were difficult for him. But he'd taken to Beth. Stace and Meg hadn't come to Beth's graduation. Said they didn't want to be bored to tears. But Theo had gone. Little eleven-year-old kid sitting all the way in the back, absolutely hating the enormous crowd, stiff as a board. But he'd wanted to be there for Beth, fought past all that with this weird, stubborn bravery. He hadn't even talked to Beth afterwards. But he'd been there.
The annoying thing about Joker was that he was exactly as good of a pilot as he said he was, so when he crowed his brilliance to the skies, no one could ever contradict him, just hate him a little more. He was the best, but he didn't wear his laurels gracefully at all. He used his talent like a weapon against those that might say he was incompetent because of the Vrolik's Syndrome, hit everyone over the head with it. The ironic thing was, Shepard hadn't even known about the disease or thought he was any different from anyone else before he'd mentioned it. She would have never thought to question his competence before he mentioned that despite his disease he could perform his duties better than anyone else, and would never have wanted to question his competence if he hadn't waxed on about his talent and pissed her off.
She didn't question him, though, because he was right. Even if she wanted to reprimand him, she couldn't really do so just because he was annoying when his piloting was perfection and everything was in line in the cockpit. Anyway, because of Theo, she did know how to recognize talent that just didn't work well with people. And it wasn't like Joker was going out in the field. By and large, he didn't have to play nice with others.
As obnoxious as he could be, though, he was slightly less obnoxious with Shepard, especially since she hadn't questioned his ability to perform his duties when he told her about his disease. He seemed to like chattering at her when she went up to the cockpit on rounds, and ever since she'd told him she didn't like taking the Normandy from Anderson, every now and then he'd make a clumsy effort to remind her that the crew was behind her. Ask her what her orders were, assure her he was right on the pick-up, or congratulate her on a successful mission just as he congratulated himself yet again on his amazing piloting. It was kind of sweet. As far as Joker could be sweet anyway.
One day she asked him about the nickname.
He scowled, and Shepard knew she'd hit another sore spot. "It's a lot shorter than saying 'Alliance Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau,'" he said. "Plus, I love to make little children laugh." He bared his teeth in a humorless grin.
"Really, now."
"Look, I didn't pick the name. One of the instructors in flight school used to bug me about never smiling. She started calling me Joker, and it stuck."
"Why didn't you smile?" Shepard asked him.
"Hey, I worked my ass off in flight school, Commander. The world's not going to hand you anything if you go around grinning like an idiot. By the end of the year, I was the best pilot in the Academy, even better than the instructors, and everybody knew it. They'd all got their asses kicked by the sickly kid with the creaky little legs. One guess who was smiling at graduation." He wasn't smiling now, though, Shepard noticed.
"Why do you still use the nickname, if you didn't ask for it? Do you even like it? I mean, that was years ago."
"I haven't been able to ditch it."
"That's not an answer."
Under his hat, Joker looked angry. He was retreating into his box, but Shepard decided not to let him. She leaned against the wall of the cockpit. "My first name's Beth," she told him. "Did you know that? They never say it on the vids. Even when I use it to introduce myself, I'm pretty sure people forget it in three days tops. It's 'Commander' this, and 'Shepard' that, left and right. All so military, you know? And that's fine. I'm a damn good soldier. I earned my rank, and Shepard is my surname. But I don't think I've heard someone say my actual first name in years."
It wasn't actually true. Her one-night partners, on lonely nights of shore leave, said 'Beth,' not 'Shepard,' but they didn't mean her when they said it, because they didn't know her. She didn't let them. Finch, too, had said 'Beth,' but he'd meant it as an insult. It was true that Beth hadn't heard her first name spoken by a friend in years.
Joker considered this. "Beth, huh?" he asked, rolling the name around in his mouth. "It's . . . nice. Pretty. It suits you." He looked up at her, made a face. "That's weird."
"That a pretty name could suit Commander Shepard?" Beth laughed.
Joker shook his head, incredulous that she would find his confusion amusing. "Well, yeah! I mean, you'd think 'Jane,' or 'Ellen,' or . . . I don't know. Something more like a badass N7, but it's Beth, and it's you. It's weird."
"Well, I was Beth long before I became a badass N7."
"Beth," he repeated, still somewhat surprised. He shot her a glance. "That's okay?"
"Just here," Beth told him. "Over the comm, in front of the crew, it's still Commander, or ma'am. Gotta be professional. But sometimes? It's good to hear your name, Jeff."
Jeff Moreau bent his head to the instruments panel, so it was hard to see that under his hat, he'd smiled.
A/N: Because I'm not military, but I imagine that it would get really impersonal being called by your last name all the time. And Joker really seems to hate his nickname in Mass Effect, and EDI later calls him by his first name before they ever think about getting involved, so I didn't want my Shepard to keep calling him Joker like she doesn't know better.
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LMS
