Chapter Text
I was uncharacteristically nervous getting off the shuttle, though I felt safer near Echo; the hangar was larger than anything I'd seen before. I remain a few steps behind fives and echo. I didn't understand how optimistic they were. It had been only a handful of days since Heavy and Cutup were killed, and they were acting like normal. Maybe I was just sensitive; I hadn't even known them all that well, but my mind was still fogged by the few memories I shared with them.
Stepping off the ship, I looked around. It was definitely different from Kamino. Everyone moved with a purpose here; if someone were to drop ddead I thought, no one would notice, they would just keep moving. I didn't get the warm, familiar feeling I had with the domino squad, who would risk their lives for each other; here, they had a job and a purpose that couldn't be hindered by worrying about others.
Echo and Fives looked giddy when the jedis began to talk to them. I found some cargo crates to lean against out of the way and observed Echo.
Echo was always quiet where I was loud, calm where I was rowdy, and gentle where I was rough. I notice him now, the same delicate demeanor of a disciplined soldier. He was so unlike the others and the same; he had a standard trooper cut, a basic uniform, nothing outward that inherently made him stand out; he was aware of this. But he also had to make up for his ‘unoriginality’ by exceeding. He was a model soldier because he couldn't afford to be anything less.
He stood impossibly stiffer when a red head jedi addressed him, but his eyes were bright and lively. He was excited. He was proud.
I decide to look elsewhere, moving my head. I catch the gaze of another woman standing by the clones, she lifts a hand in a wave, and I nod back. If I were a different person, maybe nicer, maybe less of a coward, I would have waved back, I would've started a conversation. But I wasn't a different person, and so I shrank back further, desperate to get out of the large hangar that was beginning to feel too small.
After the orientation, the strangers begin to disperse. Echo and Fives are still talking to each other when I walk up to them. Fives turns to me excitedly when he notices my approach and begins to talk rapidly about the size of the hangar, and "isn't Rex cool?”
I smile back at him because I cannot say that I hate it here. I do not tell him and Echo that I miss Kamino, miss the place they hated so fervently. I notice Echo watching me, studying me. He probably knows that I would take more time to adjust here than him. He was always aware. He walks towards me and squeezes my shoulder in a comforting gesture, and I smile back at him appreciatively.