When the Cavalry Comes.

XXVIII

"Let's go! Let's kriffing go!" Cav roared, looking over her charts. She wasn't at what she had been, but she was just barely above female natborn standards for fitness tests. Which meant; "Fives I want out of this medical wing right this kriffing second."

"We really need to discuss your language." He chided half heartedly as Cav kitted up in her armor with record pace and took off down the halls, still with a wrist ID attached to her arm from the medical wing. Fives laughed at her antics and followed after her.

"Cav, wait you need to get your... things..." he trailed off as she whooped and swung into one of the barracks where the newly returned 501st was stationed while on Corascant.

"Oya, vode! Guess who's back on their gundark kriff!" She yelled, laughing. Fives watched from the doorway as she was swarmed by other members of Torrent swarmed her, elated to see her conscious and talking, let alone yelling. She had come so far since they left.

Kix joined Fives at the door. "She didn't even clean out her medbay locker?"

"Nope."

"Got the go ahead and came back here?"

"Yup."

"We should probably leave her to get her own things."

"Yup."

"But we're going to grab it ourselves for her, aren't we."

"Of course."

Cav watched as Fives and Kix left from the crowd with her brothers, but let them go. Jesse cheered happily and scooped her up easily, lifting her above all the other's heads. There were also a surprising about of 212th men there as well, supposedly from Ghost company, who were their counterparts on Umbara. Gosh, had that only been a couple weeks ago? It felt like another universe.

She eventually was set down and most of the crowd dispersed, a few, Jesse, White, and a couple others she was closer with sat and filled her in on what she had missed. Including the whole Kavado scandal aside from her helping Kix with the wounded.

"And you know the droid, R2?" One brother said, Cryss. "Apparently he and that Senator's golden droid went on a whole expedition with the Wolfpack while we were stuck in that wreck of a cruiser."

Cav chuckled. "I thought they hated goldie."

"They do! But they lost the droids, and apparently the droids like overthrew an entire civilization of some small species before they could be found." Cryss wheezed. Cav laughed harder.

"Those two droids shouldn't be allowed in the same room I swear-" she cut herself off laughing.

"Can't put anybody together these days. Did you hear about the Captain and Commander?" Somebody else said, Cav recognized him as Leo, a hothead who had been transferred from Lightning company after Umbara. Cav felt so out of the loop, even though she hadn't been in medical for a super long time it had still been a month and a half since she had really spent time with brothers.

"No. What happened?" Cav asked, leaning forward in her seat to pay better attention. Leo snorted.

"They took a four week medical leave to heal up after the mess that had been Kavado, then disappeared half way though on some trip to Mandalore."

"Romantic getaway or work?" Jesse snickered.

"Both, apparently, but get this. The Captain and Commander come back and neither will speak to the other, or even look at them. The Captain's quite a sight too.  May as well be a corpse walking. I think something bad happened while they were away." Leo sat back, smug at this new gossip.

"Saw the good Captain at the gym yesterday, was arguing with Fives. Fives and Cody are probably the only ones who can talk to him at this point. They eventually started on a punching bag and I kid you not Cap tore the thing right open. Not even on a seam, I looked at it later. Straight through the canvas and sand was trickling on the floor." Jesse said lowly.

"There's no way he's just another clone. " Cryss concluded. "No way."

"I'll bet Skywalker made him a captain. There's no way he was just made a CC unit, given how often he goes along with Skywalker's complete disregard for protocol." Leo raked a hand though his hair.

"He's not." Cav piped up smugly. "Commander needed a blood sample from him before we left. I saw his file after. He's just another CT, believe it or not."

"No way. There's no way. Some experiment or something." Cryss said.  Cav laughed and shook her head.

"Nope, CT 7567. Just another clone." Her bread loosened at the movement of her head so she just let it down, combing it out with her fingers  before braiding the long mass over her shoulder.

"CT 5745 is another CT designation too, and we got the scary little girl here." Jesse snickered, patting Cav on the head. She made as if to bite his fingers and he yanked his hand back, laughing.

"I'm adopted, I don't count." Cav rolled her eyes.

"Do you mind telling your story, Cavalry?" Jesse asked eagerly.

"Yeah tell us!" Cryss chimed in.

"There's not much of a story to tell. I was left with Jango when I was two. He kept me for like four years until his son, Boba was ready for him and then he dropped me into a clone training squad." She spread her hands. "And here I am, after I graduated with the third squad that would take me because no matter how good I was I was not getting off that glorified puddle until I at least hit adolescence." She wrinkled her nose a bit.

"So how old are you? I'm nine." Leo said proudly. Cavalry motioned him over to whisper it to him.

"I'M FOURTEEN!" She yelled directly into his ear, making him fall backwards in surprise.

"Kriffing- don't do that!" He smacked her on the arm playfully. The others were too busy laughing at him for falling for probably the oldest prank in the book, next to reversing all of your neatly stacked armor plating so it was a mess to put on.

Fives and Kix chose at that moment to return, dumping Cavalry's things into her lap unceremoniously. Cav laughed.

"Thaaaaaaaank youuuuuuuu." She sighed dramatically, batting her eyes at the two of them.

"Yeah yeah, you owe us." Fives offered her his hand. "Wanna grab dinner in the mess?"

"Of course. I'm starving." Cav let him pull her to her feet. "Anybody else?"

"I'm in." Jesse said. "Cryss, Leo?"

"Oh yeah."

"Yup."

They made their way to the mess, talking and laughing the whole way.

~

Cav walked back to the barracks with Fives, talking quietly. They paused as they heard yelling from down the hall.

"-Death Watch, the leader walked in and he kissed me to keep me from blowing my cover. Then I have to fight a miniature army of mandalorians, Rex, and am hurt really, really bad. Not to mention that I can't call in the force because I had to close our bond after you got burned, and I karking felt that too, then I get back only for my mate to completely avoid me like I have the plague." Commander Tano's voice echoed.

Cavalry turned on her heel and walked back the other way.

"I think we'll take the long way back."

"Yeah no kidding." Fives grunted.

A/N - Am I back? Will I disappear again? Who knows? Certainly not me.