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“Listen, I just think he needs a name that suits him. Lots of people call their pets weird stuff like, I dunno, ‘Nibbles’ or something.” Joker peered through his own reflection at the small, puffy creature; its weird, giant cheeks stuffed full of seeds or hay or whatever it ate; he’d never seen one up close before. It turned around, nose wiggling, whiskers flying around. “I just think it’s demeaning, you know? Should sound like he’s one of us.”
"Didn’t you suggest Wrex name his firstborn son ‘Sue?’”
“What? How’s that demeaning? That’s a serious suggestion with a lotta history behind it,” he said, shrugging. The steely look Shepard shot back made him bite down on his lip to keep in the snicker threatening to escape. “Look, after all the names he’s thrown at me lately, I figured he deserved a recommendation back.”
Shepard cocked her head to one side, nudging his shoulder before looking back at the little not-rat. “Oh yeah? What’s he giving you name recommendations for?” She asked.
“Ah, well, you know.” He rubbed at the well-worn fabric covering the bill of his cap. “A lotta krogan are a bit... fixated right now.”
“I can’t blame them. I’m sure they’re not alone, either.” Her sigh steamed up the glass, turning the little guy into a blur for a few seconds. “There’s a lot to rebuild,” she said, then fell silent.
Joker swallowed. This really wasn’t a subject he meant to bring up. He really hadn’t meant to have found himself listening with actual interest when Wrex was going on and on about the beauty and ferocity of krogan motherhood, either. He really didn’t mean to then visualise himself and Shepard painting the walls of a nursery, or teaching a tiny person with eyes just like hers how to say ‘all systems nominal.’ He certainly didn’t mean to grin sheepishly when Wrex clapped his headrest and wished him fruitful fatherhood. Thing is, it was only ever a thought - only ever a fleeting fantasy, and nothing Joker ever seriously considered for more than five minutes at a time. But, somewhere, deep down inside, a peculiar warmth sprouted in him whenever he thought about it. Like a seed. He shook his head. It was the wrong time to be thinking about warm seeds sprouting in people.
“How about ‘Henry?’” He blurted.
“Hmm,” she murmured, narrowing her eyes in thought. “Too plain.”
It’d never work. Could never work. As Shepard touched her finger to her chin in contemplation, Joker tried to imagine either one of them slowing down enough to even let something like that happen. Where would either of them find the time in all this? Hell, they barely found any time as it was. No way. Growing up with either of them as parents wasn’t realistic. Not unless both he and Shepard just… stopped. But how the hell do you just stop? He slid his arm around her shoulders.
“Jones?” She asked.
“Suits a cat better,” he replied. “Rheyn.” He said, nodding sagely.
“Maybe if he was a girl. You see those under his tail, right?”
“Sorta hard to miss. Okay… Nyher.”
“What?” She laughed. “That one of the ones Wrex gave you?”
“Yrneh.” He contorted his face. “Enyrh… Hryen?”
“… Wait. Are all your suggestions going to be Henry with the letters conspicuously rearranged?”
“It’s my dad’s name,” he said.
“Ah... I see…” She trailed off, the weight of her head settling against his neck.
“I guess naming a mouse after my dad is kinda weird,” he mused. “They only live like two years, right?”
“He isn’t a mouse.”
“I know my dad’s not a mouse, Shepard, jeez,” he replied with feigned irritation. Her lips tickled as they brushed against his neck. “... His callsign was Sputnik, you know.”
“Why?”
“On his first solo run, he smashed into a satellite,” he explained, grinning. “Man, he was the worst at Newtonian Flight.”
“Wow. Good the apple fell a little far from the tree there.” She said through a smile, tapping his nose.
“Yeah. Lucky for you.”
Her eyes, looking back up at him, were the only spaces in the room all of a sudden. Shepard’s arms encircled him, her fingers lacing together at the small of his back. Her lips locked with his, and for a moment, the expanse of his mind was turned into nothing but tingly static. Her fingertips danced along his skin and traced their way through his beard, and when she broke the kiss at last, he couldn’t do anything at all except grin like a total idiot.
“Whoa. What was that for?” He asked, barely above a whisper.
Shepard said nothing at first, just kept swirling her fingers in a way that made his eyelids heavy, and his lungs strain to take in more of her gentle, clean scent. The creak of her leather jacket seemed loud in a way he’d never noticed before; just so noticeably, unnecessarily loud. How good would it be to slide it down her arms and off her, onto the floor…
“Do you ever think about it?” She asked. “Rebuilding, I mean.”
“Uh,” he said, and cleared his throat in an effort to get at least some blood back into his brain. “Uh, yeah. I guess.” He nodded, mumbling, “I mean, no more than anybody else does.” Shepard was doing that thing where she stroked little circles on the back of his neck. It made it hard to concentrate. “Which is a lot, really… Kind of a big job… Dunno that stopping is an option… for us.” Her touch was like magic. He'd tried a few times to rub his own neck like that, but it never worked the same.
“We belong up here, and we both know it.” She replied, quietly.
“I like… thinking about it… sometimes…” He let his eyes close, leaning his weight on her just a little.
“Me too.” Shepard said, holding his face in her hands. Her forearms were so soft under his palms, he could sweep up and down them forever and never get bored.
“You do?”
“Yeah,” she said, pressing herself to him. “A lot. I always liked the name Rhiannon.”
The image of a little girl with eyes just like Shepard’s flashed through his mind’s eye again, this time pulling a kite through a park on the Citadel, or somewhere else very far away. A knot twisted itself up inside Joker’s throat. He swallowed hard. “Hey… you pointed his nuts out to me less than five minutes ago as a way to discount my amazing suggestion. You can’t name him that.” Shepard’s answering silence made that stupid knot in his throat get three times bigger at least. He nudged her. “You’re the one insisting on gendered names for the rat. Don’t break your own rules. Bad for morale.”
“He’s not a rat.”
“Mouse, then.” The gentle rustle of her head shaking side to side against his chest and the soft puff of air as she sighed at his apparent ignorance made him crack a smile.
The creature seemed to be listening, its round ears swivelled in their direction, big black eyes looking right at them. It touched a little pink paw to the glass. Trying to get a better look, he guessed.
“Hey,” he said softly into Shepard’s ear. “Rhiannon is the best name.”
She squeezed him around the waist. “What would we do with the last name?”
“Mmm, I dunno, I sorta feel like if you were gonna carry a kid around for nine months and then pop it out, you oughtta get top billing.”
“Could double-barrel it?”
“I don’t envy that kid, trying to learn how to spell all that. Just Shepard, I think.”
“I like Moreau.” She planted a kiss on the vinyl plating above his collarbone. “There’s a guy with that name I’m a little crazy about.”
“Heh,” he sniffed. “Y’know… I’m the last one, Shepard. Last Moreau standing, and it’s the one with the creaky legs. Universe has a sick sense of humour.”
“I’m sorry, Jeff.”
“I’m not. We did everything we could. If I hung around dwelling on every time the universe dicked on me, I’d never get up in the morning. But you know what?”
“You don’t get up in the morning,” came her dry retort. “Not if you can help it.”
“That… is true, and also detracts from my point, but it is true,” he said. “I was gonna say… Sometimes, a family is real big, or whatever. Like Wrex’s will be. Sometimes, it’s you, me, and a not-rat.”
Despite being strong enough to probably tear a hovercar in half, Shepard tightened her warm embrace without hurting him. “Any names you always liked?”
“To be honest, Shepard, I never really considered it much before I met you. Wrex made one good suggestion, though. Krogan tradition, first kid is always named after the dad’s dad.”
Her hand entwined with his as she nodded towards the hamster. “Yeah… … Sputnik’s perfect.”