by any other name
by starhawk
It didn't take long for him to think better of it. Hadn't Ziggy told him to be nice? Sneaking around behind her back probably didn't fall into the "nice" category. And it turned out, at least in preliminary trials, that Ziggy had been right: she actually was funnier when he wasn't deliberately antagonizing her.
The screens were still dark when they got back from breakfast, but the rest of the Rangers were up. Minus their visitors from the other dimension. They wouldn't be far behind, though, and the garage would wind up for another day. Controlled chaos and no time outside of training to ask the question he'd already tried to hand off to Ziggy.
Training probably wasn't the best time.
So he was standing outside the garage's second fire exit--the one only one person ever used--waiting for Dr. K to do a perimeter scan. He didn't know that she did one first thing, but he would. How smart was it to leave such an isolated, indefensible location without knowing what was on the outside?
He'd been there for twelve minutes when the door beside him clicked. "I assume you have a reason for being here?" Dr. K's voice said.
Arms folded, Dillon eyed the opposite side of the alley and told himself it was too late to reconsider. "I wanted to ask you something."
"Yes?"
That was it, just... curiosity? Impatience? When had he started trying to judge other people's reactions? Beyond threat or no threat, why did it even matter?
"Why do you go by Dr. K?" he blurted out.
"It's a strategically advantageous nickname," she said. "Why do you go by Dillon?"
He blinked. "I don't know," he admitted, after a brief hesitation.
"Is it your name?" she insisted.
"I don't know," he repeated.
There was a pause, and then she said, "My answer was more informative."
He turned, bracing his shoulder against the wall, and stared down at her. "How much do you care whether we know your real name or not?"
"The military prefers that I don't use it," she said.
He waited, but she didn't say anything else. "That's not what I asked."
"I've trusted you with my life," she pointed out. "The use of a nickname is intended to make me harder to find. It would also make weaknesses, if I had any, harder to exploit. Neither of these goals apply to the operators of Ranger technology."
"So if I asked you what your name is," Dillon said, "would you tell me?"
She raised her eyebrows at him. "Are you asking?"
His automatic reaction was to say no. But Ziggy would tell him to say yes. And Ziggy had been giving him pretty decent advice lately.
"Yeah," he said.
She shrugged, apparently unconcerned, and stepped back from the doorway. "You might as well come in, then."
