Chapter Text
Grey doesn’t even have a moment.
In one instant he’s helping tease the kid about his chatterbox of a mouth and in the next his comm is pinging and Caleb is leaping over the fire and tackling him to the ground.
Grey lays there, winded, and he feels Caleb scrambling for his comm.
“Padawan?” he hears General Billaba ask, and footsteps as she makes her way around the firepit, but Caleb ignores it, fumbling for the clasps on Grey’s vambrace. He’s a determined kid, single-minded in a way Grey would appreciate on any other occasion.
Grey still can’t really understand why Caleb’s so intent on taking off his wrist comm, though, and it’s worrying that Caleb hasn’t said anything. The kid loves over-explaining himself, making sure everyone is aware of what he’s going to do. The sudden radio silence is worrying.
“Do you need to answer that?” Grey asks, unsure but knowing it’d make a lot more sense if that were the case. He’d understand if the Force had told the kid he needed to be the one to take it. It still wouldn’t explain the sudden urgency. The kid had gone from zero to one-hundred in the span of a second.
“No! ” the kid outright shrieks, right in Grey’s ear, and there’s the sound of something desperate in his voice. Caleb seems to notice the volume level himself, as he winces and tries again, quieter, “no.”
That’s it. One word, said twice, and Caleb’s back to fumbling with the last clasps connecting his vambrace to its couter.
Finally, he gets it, and slides it forward until he realizes he needs to pull off the gauntlet first to get it off.
Grey lets him do it. Whatever’s wrong could be anything from an overreacting kid to the end of the world. Grey might worry about the first one, but Caleb’s never gone quiet like this. Something is very wrong here, and Grey needs to find out what it is.
He knows how to deal with cadets. He’d been on Kamino for months waiting for reassignment after Harrun Kal, and Rancor had started to let all battalion survivors help with training after they noticed it helped lower the “accidental” death count. Grey learned how to get answers out of a scared kid, and fighting him over this when he trusts that Caleb knows what he’s doing won’t do any good.
Caleb pulls off his vambrace and immediately launches it into the fire as hard as he can. Scrambling off of Grey, he settles beside the pit and watches the armor not quite melt, but soften. Even heat-resistant plastisteel wouldn’t last much longer under that kind of duress.
He still hasn't spoken.
Grey sits up and watches Styles slowly move to kneel down next to Caleb. Caleb either doesn’t notice or bother replying.
“Kid?” Styles asks, and Grey spots a flinch. The kid startles, jerking away from the sound of the captain’s voice, and that feeling in Grey’s gut that’s been telling him something’s wrong only intensifies.
General Billaba has been making her way to Grey’s side, is almost there when her face contorts something fierce. Her eyes screw shut and then pop open, breath leaving her lungs in a rush.
“What—“ she gasps, eyes losing focus. She stumbles, teetering dangerously towards the fire before Grey can jump up and catch her. He helps her slide gently to the ground.
He asks, “General?” before he notices she’s crying. A second more and he realizes her tears are pink. Water and blood.
Grey, now, is the one that can’t breathe, her tears a spitting image of when she’d lost against Grievous. “General? ” he asks again, and he’ll admit he goes from worried to terrified when she turns to openly sob against his chest.
She’s inconsolable, and Grey doesn’t know how to help her. A glance at Styles and he knows that Caleb isn’t quite sobbing, but his breaths are hitching and tears are running down his face. His only comfort is Styles, who is equally off-footed.
Some of the shinies are starting to come over. Grey isn’t even mad at them for abandoning their posts. If they’d been more experienced they’d have made their way much sooner.
“Commander? Everything alright over here?” Big-Mouth comes up, and clearly it is not but he just walks on over like both of the Jedi haven’t become the most indiscernible people in the world.
Big-mouth eyes Grey’s situation and gives some sympathy. He’s always been good at comforting commanding officers. Grey would know. The months waiting for reassignment after Harrun Kal had been long and hard.
The sergeant kneels down next to the General and pulls her gently towards his chest, wrapping his arms around her.
“There now, General, it’s alright.” His voice is deeper than the average clones, is easily recognizable in comparison, and he soothes away any worries Grey might have about being able to deal with the situation with a comforting hand on General Billaba’s back.
With that covered, Grey gets up and moves to Caleb. He’s still watching the fire burn, and it reflects ominously back in his bright, tearful eyes. The vambrace is beyond destroyed, the sweet smell of burning plastic permeating the air.
The kid is holding the holocron he’d dropped before he’d jumped Grey for his comm. Styles must have brought it to him. Styles and Soot are both awkwardly trying to get the kid to talk, though they quickly step aside at Grey’s approach.
“Caleb,” he says, sitting down next to the boy. He hesitates, for a moment, before he rests his arm on the kid’s shoulders.
Caleb tenses, but doesn’t pull away. His eyes are bright against the fire, but there’s something dark in them that Grey has never seen before.
“Kid,” he says, and if he expects a yelled “I’m no kid!” in response he doesn't get it. “Caleb, we don’t know what’s wrong.”
He has no indicator for if the kid can even hear him, no way to tell how out of it either of them are, but the kids eyes jerk away from the fire for a flicker before they’re back on the flames. It’s not much, but it’s more than what they had before, which was a whole lot of nothing.
The other troopers notice the movement too, if Styles' suddenly-hopeful eyes are any attestation.
“Caleb, it’s Grey,” he starts, and it’s a dirty trick but he thinks it might work, “Caleb, there’s something wrong with your Master.”
The kid’s head snaps sideways, eyes locking on the crumpled form of General Billaba. She looks exhausted and near-dozing on Big-Mouth’s lap.
Caleb inhales sharply, almost keens as he gets up and moves to them in a flash. Grey follows without even thinking.
“Hey, Caleb,” Big-Mouth says, and despite how deep his voice is it’s quiet and soft like a rumbling tooka. “Can you tell us what’s wrong?”
Caleb blinks at him, dazedly, then nods. “Gotta get rid of the comms,” he tells them sternly and collapses on the floor.
“Kark,” hisses Styles. Kark indeed.