Scars (Commander Wolffe x Jedi Reader)

Part 4

The sterile halls of Tipoca City did little to comfort (Y/N). A foreboding sense of dread attacked her when she stepped off her shuttle. At first, she'd brushed it off, reminded herself she was a Jedi Knight, sent there for a reason. Still, despite her best efforts, the anxious feelings only seemed to grow the more she walked the tangled halls of the city. The bright white lights, lack of color besides black and white, and the constant echoing of footsteps only seemed to remind them of the past events she wished to forget, erase from her mind completely.

Shaak Ti, the mother of clones, noticed something was off immediately. With little hesitation, she identified the problem, choosing to offer both comfort and distraction in the form of a tour of the facility and speaking of the cadets set to be part of the enhanced commando unit. Together, they walked across the bridges through the nearly empty mess hall and the large lab holding all the tubies as they grew. Their final stop was a training facility that had been locked and sealed off to others.

"I made all the preparations for your return," announced Shaak Ti, briefly glancing at her datapad. The smallest of grins flashed across her lips the second she looked at the device, although it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. "The cadets are waiting for you in their barracks," she added before handing the datapad over. The motherly Jedi Master placed a comforting hand on (Y/N)'s shoulder before leaving. Allowing the Dathomirian time to think before committing to her next step.

"Clone Force 99," voiced (Y/N), her voice echoing around the small control room. Her attention briefly turned to the expansive training facility before blinking a few times and scanning the large area. She could have sworn she had seen something moving between the gun towers, a shadow wisping past. However, the moment she allowed herself to focus and silence the intruding thoughts of the past, she was met with emptiness and the sound of the constant rain pelting the sloped roofs of the city structures.

Quietly (Y/N) left the training facility, regretting it the minute the blind white walls and shiny onyx tiles assaulted her eyes. Once again, she recalled the memories of the past. The hurt that still lingered in the back of her mind, the hurt that never truly healed, instead forming the mental scars that haunted her. The same scars she tried so hard to hide from others, if only so another wouldn't exploit the hidden pain.

As she walked down the sterile halls, (Y/N) began to think, allowing her mind to wander, even when she acted like she was reading the profiles of the cadets she was charged with training—the profiles of the Commandos already out in the field, or at least what was left of them after the first Battle of Geonosis. Despite her best efforts to push away the fear, it only seemed to grow in power, even more so when she felt so out of place.

She was a Dathomirian with no home among her people, a Jedi outcasted by so many, a knight without a Padawan, a general without a legion. Once again, she began to doubt herself, her abilities, and her worth to those around her. She began questioning who she was, if not a magnet for pain and the princess of the galactic underworld. The war raging across the galaxy almost seemed ironic to her, a physical manifestation of the war she was so often battling with herself, only with real consequences and lives at risk.

"They don't have names," whispered (Y/N) with sadness upon reading the files of the four cadets properly. Only identification numbers were given, 9901 to 9904. They had no individual name personal to them or a name to call their own, as the commandos did—the same commandoes who fought in the cruelest battles across the galaxy. More sadness seemed to shimmer in her eyes; Shaaki Ti had personally made the files; she had done so with so much care but hadn't given the four names. Was (Y/N) expected to do that? Couldn't they choose their own names, as regular troopers like Fives, Rex, and Cutup had done in the past like Commander Wolffe had done long before stepping foot on the grueling battlefields?