First Time Reuinion
Also on AO3 [600w] @corrieweek - day 3: "you shouldn't be here" @ailesswhumptober - day 10: "you don't have to earn this" @clonefandomevents - CG Bingo: batch mates, 212th Bingo: awful first meetings
“So, you’re CT-3937 now?”
The voice is perfectly neutral, but Clarry still has to supress a flinch as she nervously turns to face the vode in blue and gold armour.
“That would be me.”
She has never met the troopers before, but she knows exactly who they are. CT-3936 and CT-3939. Keys and Flick. CT-3937’s batchmates. This is just another one of countless awkward reunions as GAR troopers finally come to check on their Guard batchmates, only to find that the numbers they are looking for no longer belong to the person they left behind.
“How does this work? Do we call you Zip too, or…?”
“No! No.” She shudders. “We reuse the numbers, but the names remain unless absolutely required.”
“Ok. That… makes this easier.” She watches as some of the tension drains out of them, the vod with gold accents stepping forward from their place at their partner’s shoulder.
“In that case, what is your name? We’re Flick and Keys, both he/him, but I guess you already knew that?”
“I’m Clarry, she/they. Originally Claret, for the red,” she gestures at her armour, “but then there was an incident a couple of weeks after I arrived and everyone started calling me Clarion instead.”
“What sort of an incident? If you don’t mind saying.” She blushes.
“It’s kinda embarrassing, but, well. I was in the freshers after my shift, indulging in my water ration before catching the end of latemeal, and the pipe breaks. So I’m standing there in just my skin, being blasted by absolutely freezing water, and swearing up a storm, loud enough-”
“-to be heard in the messhall. I remember Zip telling us about that.”
“Oh! So you’re ‘colder than a Hutt’s hind on Hoth’. The story went around just before the 501st had a pass through Mygeeto, and the phrasing caught on.”
“Really? I can’t believe… Anyway, just as I was winding up, Commander Thorn stuck his head in, complimented me on my diction and use of acoustics, and offered me a place on one of his riot squads. I couldn’t decide whether to be more flattered or mortified! The jokes lasted for weeks, but I decided to keep the nickname even if I mostly end up shortening it.”
Laughter rolls through the little group, and Clarry feels some of her own tension leaving. It is nice to know that she is not entirely new to them, that even gone, Zip is helping to smooth their first meeting.
She watches as the other two look at each other, a twinge of jealousy striking as an entire conversation is held in aborted gestures and flickers of expression. After a brief back and forth, the vod in blue, Keys, turns back to face her.
“Look. …oh Force this is awkward. But here goes. We knowyou’re not Zip, and you won’t ever be Zip – no-one can truly replace him. But according to all the records you are CT-3937. So that means that technically we’re batchmates. If… if you want to be?”
Clarry thinks about her own batchmates, lost even before CT-9845 ‘died’. She thinks about her inherited comm, with its group chat that she never quite had the heart to block; the way that watching Flick and Keys banter was a balm after a long shift, the way they still addressed the occasional comment to Zip even as she refused to message them in his stead. She thinks about how this is supposed to be a time of new beginnings and celebrating their survival.
“I’d like to try.”
