22 BBY, Month 5
Crosshair
Crosshair walked down the hall, steps echoing in a steady rhythm. He had walked down the hall a million times before so why was now any different?
It was that new girl, he thought, scrunching his lip up distastefully. She had entered his life, spending time with his brothers at meal times over and over, ruining the homeostasis of his life—how long had it been now? A month? Already she had shifted his world around.
Crosshair scowled, a look he had perfected in his short lifespan. And now his brothers were worried about Rylann. She was a jedi, she could handle herself, so why the worry? It's not like she'd been missing for a month. It had only been three days.
Yet Crosshair found himself slowing his pace as he neared her door like the past few rotations, the urge to knock overwhelming him, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. What reason could he have besides his brothers' worry? And that wasn't sufficient enough an excuse. But still he paused in front of her door, letting out a breath.
He was about to knock when he heard a sniffle from behind it. His hand froze in front of the door as the muffled noises continued.
She was crying.
Panic coursed through Crosshair. Should he sneak away? Frowning, Crosshair stepped back, biting his cheek. He sidestepped, leaning against the wall of Rylann's room, recalling the last time he stopped here.
A month earlier...
Crosshair walked down the hall, head down as he passed nearby clones. They diverted their eyes, veering their path far from his. Crosshair sneered. What di'kuts.
He was walking to his quarters after a long day of tests. They once again were not happy with his ability to defy every order. This just resulted in more tampering with his mind.
Crosshair hated it. It made him vulnerable. It made him—feel violated.
As he walked, someone started pounding the wall, angry curses coming from the other side of it. Curiosity getting the better of him, he leaned against the wall as inconspicuously as he could. The pounding stopped. What happened? An angry young clone whining about mop duty?
In that moment he thought it would be funny to kick back, repeating the pattern. After he did it, he immediately regretted it because he knew he would soon be faced with an angry reg.
He slunk into a nearby maintenance closet, peaking through a crack in the door to watch. He had been expecting a grumbling young clone to exit, instead finding a young woman with a sour expression on her face. Her long dark hair was a mess down her back, rolling over her shoulders as she scanned the hall for him. But to no avail. She ended up returning to her room, door sliding closed with a hiss.
Who is she? His thoughts were cut off as the next room over to the girl's opened revealing a togruta woman. It was the jedi. The togruta walked over to the girl's door, pausing in front of it. She stood there for a moment before knocking slowly. There was no answer.
Crosshair watched as the woman turned on her heel, a sad expression etching itself onto her face as she walked towards the mess hall.
"The mess hall," Crosshair groaned, emerging from the closet to head the opposite way. His brothers were probably waiting for him. And he was wasting time in a maintenance closet when he could be eating soup.
Present...
Crosshair leaned against the door, kicking it a few times in a similar pattern as before with his heel. He heard scuffling in the room and the door hissed open, revealing a tear-stained Ry.
"What do you want?" Rylann asked sharply, wiping excess water from her eyes. Her hair was a mess and her cheeks were sunken. She looked exhausted.
Crosshair froze. What was he supposed to do? He was trained for many battle fields but never the emotional wreckages of feelings.
"So, you're not MIA," he said before thinking it through. Now that sounded callous.
Rylann rolled her eyes, smoothing back her hair. "You didn't answer the question, Gramps."
Scowling, Crosshair crossed his arms. "What is it then, am I an indignant toddler or rickety geriatric?"
"You tell me," Rylann shot back, leaning against the door frame of her room. "So, Cross, what's the angle?"
"My brothers miss you," he said, looking her dead in the eyes.
Rylann raised a brow, pursing her lips. "Why did they send you on the diplomatic mission, Mr. Smooth?"
"They didn't," Crosshair said quickly, averting his eyes to the ground.
"Oh," Rylann whispered softly, furrowing her brows slightly as she gazed at him further.
Crosshair quickly looked up, regaining his composure as he readjusted himselt to lean more comfortably on the wall. "Besides, my brothers don't know which room is yours."
Ry scrunched her forehead, frowning. "How do you—"
Crosshair kicked the wall with his back heel. "Sound familiar?"
"You're a real jerk sometimes, you know." Rylann pouted, standing up from the doorway. "Are you sure your defection isn't enhanced displeasure?"
"You think you're so funny," Crosshair snapped, standing up as well, arms still crossed over his chest. Why did she have to be so difficult?
"And you think I'm not?" Rylann smirked. "So Cross, what brings you to my end of the port besides your brothers missing me?"
Crosshair clenched his teeth. This was exactly what he wasn't prepared for. "Mess hall starts in twenty minutes. Was hoping you could come along so they'd stop talking about you."
Rylann's eyes softened at his words. "Oh, thanks," she said, taking a step back. "I need to get freshed up. Want to come in?"
Crosshair shrugged, trying to remain indifferent. "Better than standing out here," he snarled out, following her inside.
"Really?" Rylann asked, raising a brow at Crosshair as the door closed behind him. "I thought you enjoyed to lean in the hallways, brooding to your heart's content."
Crosshair rolled his eyes, scanning over the room. It was fairly neat minus the wrinkles on the bed and laser sword on the floor across the room.
He looked at Rylann who was in the fresher, braiding her hair in the mirror, door open. He could still tell she had cried.
"Why were you crying?" Crosshair asked, breaking the silence in the room like a hammer to the glass.
Rylann glanced at him through the mirror, brow raised as she took a pin from her mouth to turn her braid into a crown on her head. "Well, Mr. Smooth, usually if people are crying in their room it means they don't want people to know."
Crosshair smirked. "You really don't want to talk about it, do you?"
"Not unless you spill first," Rylann shot back, turning to look at him with her own eyes.
Now Cross was confused. "Spill what?"
"What your deal is," Rylann specified, using the force to grab her laser sword to clip onto her belt. "Your brothers are all a lot more chill than you." Ry carefully smoothed down a few flyaways from the nape of her neck. "Hunter can be uptight, but he's at least compassionate. Your exterior makes you seem compassionless."
How was she able to pinpoint everything about him so quickly. Crosshair clenched his jaw. "I don't want to talk about it."
Rylann shrugged, smirking growing on her dimpled cheeks. "Then I don't want to talk about my dirt either."
"You first and I might reconsider," Crosshair said, leaning on the wall by the door, narrowing his eyes at her.
"They should have called you the negotiator," Rylann stated sarcastically, before her eyes softened. "But alright then."
Crosshair bit back a quip, instead tilting his head at her. "So, why is a jedi padawan crying?"
"Because of the trials," Rylann whispered, sitting herself onto her bed with a plop. "I am so close to attaining knighthood but my saber skills are subpar. They never have been my forte, but I need to get better in order to pass."
Crying about graduation? Been there, he thought. Maybe not the crying part, but definitely the worry. His graduation was coming up as well, so he knew how she felt. "Why do you need to pass it?"
Rylann furrowed her brows. "Because it's the jedi way," she stated almost robotically.
"Why do you want to pass it?" Crosshair asked, brown eyes staring into her own. She needed to figure out why she was doing it—who she was doing it for.
"Because Shaak Ti—"
Crosshair held a hand up to silence her, standing up off of the wall. "Rylann, why do you want to pass?"
Rylann paused, looking up at him from the cot, many emotions dancing before her eyes. "I..." Ry bit her lip, unable to finish. Crosshair took a step closer, crossing his arms. "Crosshair, the thing is that I don't want to become a Jedi Knight."
Crosshair furrowed his brows at her comment. What padawan didn't want to graduate? "Why?"
They were left in a heavy silence.
"Because I never asked for this," Rylann finally spoke up, voice thick from emotion. "I was taken from my family when I was two, because I was strong with the force or whatever." Rylann's eyes watered as if recalling something. "As a youngling, I was excited. I enjoyed to learn. I felt powerful. I felt in control." Her face darkened. "But they started teaching me to let go. They tell me to push down my emotions yet search my feelings on something else. It doesn't make sense."
"Sounds confusing," Crosshair drawled out, pulling out a toothpick from his special belt compartment to place in his mouth.
Rylann nodded. "I am confused," she stated, not looking up. "I'm left with no choice but to move up and move on. Whether I pass or fail, only one truth remains the same: I don't want this." She paused for a moment as if ruminating on a thought. Her jaw clenched at something. "And we can't make attachments: lovers, brothers, parents... yet that's something I long for. Were we not made for relationships?" She looked up at Crosshair who just shrugged in response. "I just wish that Shaak Ti—" her breath hitched as tears formed in her eyes. "I wish she would comfort me and tell me it's going to be alright. I wish she could help me through my doubts but I feel she is just judging me for every mistake I make. I don't live up to the standards of a Jedi, yet I don't have a choice to leave." Rylann chuckled to herself as she stood up from the bed. "At least if I pass the trials, I get a little freedom as a knight."
Crosshair looked at her long and hard as he formed his thoughts. She was letting the Jedi create her into their trophy child instead of her choosing her own path. "Make your own freedom," he finally said, adjusting the toothpick in his mouth.
"Says the grumpy clone," Rylann scoffed, waving him off as she exited the room, holding her arm in front of the door to let him follow. "What are you trying to do, Gramps? Live vicariously through me?"
"Yes," he stated following into step with her as they head towards the mess hall. "Good plan, isn't it?"
"Psh!" Rylann scoffed, before quickly silencing herself. After a moment of silence, she looked up at the clone. "But what do you have in mind?"
Crosshair shrugged. He hadn't thought about it much. "Train with us," he offered, taking his toothpick from his mouth to examine it before replacing it. "Prove them all wrong."
Shock spread across Ry's features. "I'm not allowed to—"
"Didn't you just say you wanted freedom?" Crosshair asked, giving her a side scowl. "In the normal world if you wanted to train with friends you wouldn't be condemned for it."
"This isn't the normal world, Cross," Ry stated, clenching her jaw. "This is a time of war. There's little room for freedom."
Crosshair rolled his eyes. "Let the jedi walk the fine line they drew themselves, Rylann. Take a step of freedom and write your own path." Crosshair continued walking, but Ry stopped in her steps. He paused, turning to her. "What?"
A soft smile was on her lips. "You're kinda good at this," she said, rejoining him at his side. "But I don't know if I should."
"Are you gonna let them puppeteer you? Put you on a shelf like a doll?" Crosshair asked, praying she would get the bigger picture. "You're being trained for a reason, so just let us help you. If they throw a fit about it, show them your improvement."
"Alright," Ry said after a moment of silence. "Now, tell me what your problem is!" She said that a little too excitedly for his liking.
Crosshair didn't meet her gaze. "I'm too rebellious."
"So you weren't bluffing with the peptalks."
Cross sighed, looking down at her as they rounded the corner. "My first audience was me."
"But that doesn't answer my question," Rylann stated, a smirk growing on her lips once more. Why did she have to be so intelligent. Usually his brothers would've given up after he deflected a few times.
Flashes of the psychotherapy machine lights enter Crosshair's mind. He blinked them away. "Let's just say the Kaminoans take certain measures when it comes to making clones more—malleable."
Ry's face paled as if she had seen a ghost. "Cross, I'm so sorry," she whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder. He flinched at her touch, but quickly grew accustomed to the warmth that emanated from her. "They don't hurt you, do they?"
"Not intentionally," Cross said, bitterly. "But I've learned to close myself off enough so the brain tampering doesn't work like they want it to.
"That's that is horrible," Rylann said, removing her hand from his shoulder. He immediately missed the warmth. "And I'm sorry for being a jerk."
Crosshair also wanted to apologize, but pride caught the words in his throat. Instead, he decided to annoy her. "It's okay, doll."
Horror swept across her face as she staggered back. Crosshair chuckled at her only for Ry to push him playfully. "Please don't make that a habit." She pouted. "We were just becoming friends, so I'd hate to run a lightsaber through you by accident."
"Someone needs to remind you what not to be," Crosshair stated, sending her a wink which made her face scrunch in disgust. Oh, this would be fun.
"Alright, Gramps," Ry finally said, clapping him on the back. "Let's get to lunch."
...............................................
A/N:
Well, here is the next chappie! It's also a oneshot series, so if there is anything you want to see, let me know!
Per request of Ssmith_2005611 Cross now calls Ry "doll" and training will commence shortly.