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Chapter 24: I Know from Experience

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Finished with the final portions of the pre-mission briefing, Wolffe sought Rasha out. He decided, after she left the bridge, that he wanted to see what she was made of before they arrived. He wanted to see her skill sets in person beforehand rather than just relying on a personnel file and his brothers' stories. Plus, he figured that it would be the best way to see if she was a typical civilian Officer.

Eventually, he found her in the barracks reading, “Skohl. Training in thirty.”

She jumped and started to answer but he was already gone.

Rasha was the first one to the room and silently watched as Wolffe pressed several buttons to bring the blocks in the walls and floors to their desired positions. She didn’t recognize the layout but didn’t think that it would matter. She figured that they, whoever her squad members were going to be, would know the presets and how to act better than she would. Several minutes passed before the rest showed up and the session began.

Wolffe was pleased with how quickly Rasha had integrated herself into the chosen squad. They worked as a team the second the session began. She let the clones lead and learned what each was best at before taking control, with them switching to follow her as quickly as they would follow him. She observed, planned, and acted in mere seconds - exactly what was needed in most situations on a real battlefield.

From working with so many in the past, Wolffe had learned that civilians tended to force their way through, not caring who was better at one skill or another. They would push their ideas and failing plans through his men’s skulls like a battering ram. Then he met Captain Rasha Skohl. The 501st’s lead medic and translation specialist. One of the two medical civilians working with them that were talked about almost nonstop.

Brothers told insanely exaggerated stories about her of things she may or may not have said and done. Some were told in a drunken stupor while others were completely sober. They had told him “how amazing she is” and that he “needs to meet her immediately.” Wolffe had always rolled his eyes at most of the stories and inside jokes he wasn’t privy to. And he only half-listened when a conversation with Rex or Cody somehow made its way to one of the two women.

When he had read what information had been available about the mission upon the assignment, he simply skimmed over her name and got to the other details of the mission. He thought that he’d be able to figure her out fairly quickly. Most acted the same, even down to how they carried themselves through the hallways and how they looked at him and his brothers. But it didn’t happen quickly, and, if he was being honest with himself, he still hadn’t quite gotten a complete grasp on her. He finally read more of her file the night he met her and the ship was finally in hyperspace because he didn't know what to make of the peculiar situation; he had expected her to be uptight and carry herself like she was above all of them just because they were clones.

Instead, she carried herself with an air of confidence - whether it was actual confidence or a facade, was yet to be figured out - yet none of his men seemed to feel disrespected or put off by her presence. They never gave any dirty looks or made snide comments under their breaths when she walked past or entered a room. They were cautious and watched her just the same as he did; everyone wanted to see how she would act, who she was, and what kind of attitude she had. Wolffe saw her first interactions with Boost, Comet, and Sinker from a few tables away in the mess on her first day aboard the ship and watched, waiting for her to get up. He waited for the poorly hidden looks of disgust and sneers, but they never happened. She didn't say much at first but eventually, she warmed up to the three troopers that had interrupted whatever she had been reading during her meal. By the time Sinker left, the group was laughing and she seemed to genuinely be enjoying herself. Everything went the exact opposite of what he had expected.

Reading up on and watching her, Wolffe wished he would've listened to some of his brothers’ stupid stories about her better. He couldn't believe that there was any way that the 501st would have been lucky enough to find someone kind and genuine enough for any of their stories to be true. Let alone have two civilians like that.

Turning his attention back to the room in front of him, he heard the squad’s communications. Quick and professional. Wolffe waited to hear the insistence from Rasha that her plan would be the best, ignoring all suggestions and new problems, and for her to force her way through. He still waited for her to be like a typical civvie; there had to be something about her. The arguments he expected never occurred. Just the simple disagreements that would happen in real situations that were quickly resolved.

“We’re a little stuck over here, Cap. Where did you two go?” Boost asked urgently

“I’m not sure how far away we are from you guys.” She paused and looked around the small path she and Sinker had been stuck in for several minutes. Wolffe watched her shoot at several droids and duck behind a wall she had been using as cover while trying to come up with some semblance of a plan. “Hey, Sinker, can I get you to cover me? I’m going up,” Rasha calmly asked through the chaos throughout the room.

He snapped his attention to her from the other side of the path. “Up? Up where exactly?!”

Wolffe scanned the room and saw the tower Rasha planned on scaling next to her toward the back corner.

“That wasn’t part of the plan, Cap!” Sinker insisted.

“Neither was us getting separated while they got surrounded. I can’t see enough to get a good shot and you don't really have anything to climb on. Or do you? I can't tell.” Comet chuckled but didn’t make any jokes for once. “I know you’re a good shot, but,” she grunted and tried dodging a blaster bolt, “unless you can find a way out or would rather have the other two stay pinned down… I’m open to other ideas but I’m not seeing any.”

Wolffe watched as Sinker looked around and answered her with silence. A small groan eventually sounded from him and Rasha took it as an agreement and started climbing, picking droids off so the others to recover when she got to the top.

She made her way back down to help Boost after she was satisfied. Nothing in any of the training weapons could potentially kill someone, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt like hell or knock the air out of you if you got hit. Boost had been shot in the leg and Wolffe knew, from experience, that he wasn’t feeling too good and that it would more than likely be numb for a few more minutes. He also knew Boost most likely didn't need any medical help but was pleased that she had quickly made her way over when finally possible, just in case.

Wolffe powered the droids down several minutes later, having been satisfied with the results. “Be back in one hour.”

Wolffe wanted to try out some presets he had been tinkering with during their next round of training. The dummy droids would act closer to his men than the training dummies on Kamino or the clankers. He was curious how the situation would pan out and if his tinkering had made much of a difference. They would work on programming nowhere near any of the standard run-throughs that everyone had become accustomed to. The last session had shown him some of what his tinkering had done, but now, he wanted to see the full extent.

The arena had been set to a new layout before everyone had come back. Once communications were reestablished and the group was armed and ready to go, Wolffe activated the droids and watched them, still paying particular attention to the only person in the room wearing blue-painted armor again.

“What are these damn droids doing?!” Sinker called out, “Did you do something to these kriffing things, Wolffe?!”

The droids dodged, shot, and “thought” like Wolffe had hoped they would, leaving the squad initially confused and forced to adapt. The group was forced to think and act how they would during a real mission, which was what he had been going for. He wanted his men to train and he wanted them to train hard. He didn’t want them just going through presets they had run hundreds of times - he wanted things to be different each time, whether the layout in the room was the same or not.

Shots continued flying left and right as Wolffe watched the squad’s plans fall apart and reform. He still waited for the civvie to force her ideas onto the group. He waited for an argument that could prove detrimental to their exercise and possibly indicate how she may act on the ground. But it never came. He only heard the continuation of information and orders thrown around as needed; no arguments or hard-headed stubbornness from Rasha. She even began suggesting and asking about changes to their current plan based on the evolving problems and agreed to ones that might work better than her own.

Ducking around one of the walls, Rasha disappeared from Wolffe’s view. “I, uh… I-” she was breathing hard through the comms moments later, “guys, I need some help over here!”

“On my way, Cap” Comet acknowledged.

A beat, then Wolffe heard Rasha gasp and shout repeatedly, “No, no, no!” Each word was punctuated by the sounds and sight of a dummy being shot multiple times.

“You might wanna get down here, sir! This doesn't look good!”

~~~~~~

Chaos and noise filled the air, barely clearing the pounding of Rasha’s heart in her ears. Blaster bolts flew in every direction over her head and lightsabers swung to counter them.

Blood-covered hands rushed between her pack and the soldier’s wounds. She wouldn’t lose him if she could help it, but she was running low on supplies and time. More men fell around her as they tried to protect her, civilians, and their injured brothers.

Ahsoka called out, "get up, Rasha! This doesn't look good!"

But the area was becoming overrun by clankers. Civilian soldiers and clones alike were falling back. Orders were yelled and mechanical voices were getting closer. Soon Rasha would be exposed and vulnerable.

She had a difficult decision to make.

Her patient was slowly fading with more blood flowing than she could catch. She apologized as he took his final breaths and retrieved his helmet.

Shooting back as she ran for cover, she could barely breathe. With the clone's name repeatedly running through her head, she forced herself to keep pushing.

~~~~~~

Lashing out, Rasha didn’t know where she was or who the person on the other end of her rifle was. Tears streamed down her face as she lowered her weapon, thinking that it was Fives anchoring her to reality like he did the last time she needed to calm down and breathe again. She saw hands try to remove her helmet and she squeezed her eyes closed. Those same hands rested on her shoulders shortly after and she barely heard a familiar voice trying to get through to her.

Opening her eyes, she saw grey-painted armor - not the familiar blue she knew and squeezed her eyes shut again. It wasn't the blue covering her own armor. Not the blue painted in so many different patterns that it was too hard to count, yet she knew each one by heart. She didn't see anything familiar; nothing from the boys that quickly took her in as part of their family. She didn't see anything to do with the men who had found a place in her heart, filling a previously unknown empty space.

Instead, she saw a grey helmet and started backing away desperately again but the man’s hands held her firmly in place until she stopped squirming and could finally focus on her surroundings and listen to who was talking to her.

You're not Fives or Echo. What's going on?

——————

Once Wolffe was alerted and Comet briefly reported what he was seeing, the rest of the squad stayed on the other side of the room, giving her space when he turned everything off and all but sprinted down to Rasha's location.

“She's not-” Sinker began.

“I know she's not hurt," Wolffe snapped, "you three need to go stand over there. I'll take care of this.”

None of them said anything and they were already in the area he had pointed to, having moved over upon seeing how urgently their Commander had come down the stairs. They didn't say anything amongst themselves. All three knew what was going on with Rasha, having experienced similar situations themselves, and silently agreed not to say anything to anybody who didn't need to know. Not that any of them would have to begin with, but each glanced between each other with a mutual understanding of one another's thoughts. The only thing in the room that hadn't moved was the block Wolffe found her leaning against, arms and legs moving like she was trying to get smaller and fit between it and the floor. She looked like she was trying to crawl inside of it if she couldn't get under it.

Crouching down, Wolffe softly called for her, “Rasha. Everything is off. Nobody is hurt.” He gently touched Rasha's shoulder to help bring her back to the present and waited for the panic to subside before saying anything else. Instead, it seemed to trigger something in her and she pointed the training rifle at his chest, hands shaking. Wolffe raised his hands in surrender until she slowly but willingly lowered it. He removed her helmet and, after several attempts, she finally decided to open her eyes and keep them open, blurrily looking at him through tears with fear still gripping her.

Eventually, Comet came over and offered Rasha her discarded helmet and motioned to Wolffe for them to move to a different room before others came in for other training. After she put it on, the two helped her up and guided her to the door, with Wolffe keeping a hand on her shoulder as they entered the hall.

Rasha blindly followed him as he directed her to a random room, praying that he wasn't going to report her to General Plo for something she wasn't sure even happened. She didn't think she did anything wrong after joining the Wolfpack. Trying to remember everything she had done since her arrival she couldn't think of what he could even want to talk to Plo about and held her breath when he stopped at an unmarked door and entered the code with it quietly sliding open shortly after. The first thing she noticed was that Plo wasn't in the room. Next, she noticed that it had to be someone's living quarters.

Had Wolffe taken her to his room? Did he want to reprimand her for what had happened during that training? She had too many questions and worries racing through her mind to realize that he was still behind her waiting to enter the room.

She stood close to the door after entering and looked around, avoiding eye contact with him. She looked at pictures of him and some of his men on several different planets. Some included the people they had helped, others were just him and a few other troopers. He was smiling genuinely in each one that he wasn't wearing his helmet in. It was a smile she had never seen on the man across the room before. Beaded jewelry and strung-together shells hung around the room, presumably gifts from locals or items he had found and decided to keep. Extra armor was stacked neatly on one of the two beds. Paperwork was on the table in the back where she would keep her drawings on The Resolute. Every second she was in the room was another second she felt like she was intruding. Whether he had been the one to bring her to the room or not.

“Well?” Wolffe asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“I- I can explain.”

“I asked if you were going to sit down or not,” he repeated, gesturing to the empty bed.

Opting to sit as far away from him as she could, she started rambling. “I'm sorry. I can explain. I- I can still run this mission. Just please don't take me off and keep me on the ship when we get there. I can do this. I-”

He shook his head and held up a hand, effectively shushing her. “I'm not taking you off.”

“You're not?”

“No.” He pulled a chair closer and sat down, “are you feeling better?”

“I- what?” She took a few deep breaths before trying again, “I guess so. I don't know.”

“I understand. Probably more than you realize, Rasha.”

Hearing him use her first name rather than Captain, Skohl, or the two together sounded weird for some reason. She had heard everybody calling her Rasha multiple times a day but he never did until just then.

“I probably realize more than you think I do,” she chuckled dryly, earning her a small smirk. “I know that all of you go through it too. I've heard some of your boys during the night and others getting up to calm whoever it was down. Mine do it too.” She finally looked at him and searched his expression. “And I know that you don't get help calming down in here unless you go looking for it because you're alone. I also know,” she shifted, getting more comfortable on the stiff mattress, and took another long breath before continuing. “that you won’t go looking for that help. Whether you need it or not. That you sit in here and try to force yourself to break out of it and calm down. That you tell yourself over and over that none of it is real. You whisper quiet comforts to yourself in hopes that it’ll work but it rarely does.”

She looked at some of the pictures behind him and felt him staring. Rasha felt like a hole was boring through her skull from the constant gaze. She could feel the confusion radiating off of the man before bringing herself to look at him again and saw him searching her expression like she had done with him not long before. She saw him looking for answers to questions he wasn’t going to ask.

“I especially know the last part from personal experience,” she softly added just above a whisper and pulled out her necklace to mess with it, running the crystal up and down the chain like she had so many times before.

“You told the General that you’re comfortable sleeping just about anywhere when you first joined us, correct?

“Um, yeah," she raised an eyebrow, "why?”

“Get your stuff and bring it back in here.”

“Why? I’m just fine out there with the rest of the men. I don’t really need to go anywhere.”

“Because you’re going to be sleeping in here for the rest of the mission. You don’t need to be alone when you get like you just were.”

She looked around the room more, confusion only growing. “I’m not alone in there-”

“Rasha-” She relented and stood, turning to leave the room but stopped at Wolffe’s pause. “-I’ve seen how some of those shinies look at you. Don’t need them getting any ideas.”

She chuckled and shook her head, finally doing what she was told, and made her way to her bunk.

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