Chapter Text
Serra had been meditating for two hours when her stomach growled loud enough to break her concentration.
She opened her eyes, blinking at the chrono on her wall. 1847. She'd missed dinner. Or rather, she'd meant to take a short break after the afternoon briefing, and then one thing had led to another, and now here she was: cross-legged on her bunk, stomach protesting, with a novel abandoned face-down beside her and absolutely no memory of the last forty-five minutes.
"Okay," she murmured to herself, uncurling stiff legs. "Food. Food is a priority."
The mess would still be open for another hour. She could grab something quick, bring it back, finish her book. Simple.
She didn't bother changing. She was off-duty, the corridors would be quiet, and she'd only be gone ten minutes. Fifteen, tops.
She padded out of her quarters in her lounge pants and socks, hair piled in a messy bun that was already listing to one side, mind still half-tangled in the meditation she'd been doing and the novel she'd been reading and the vague, pleasant fog of a rare afternoon with nothing urgent demanding her attention.
She made it all the way to the mess hall before she realized what she was wearing.
Wooley saw her first.
He'd been in the middle of a sentence—something about recalibrating his helmet's HUD—when his voice simply stopped, like someone had hit a mute button. His eyes went wide. His mouth hung open.
"Wooley?" Boil followed his gaze toward the mess hall entrance. "What are you—"
He stopped too.
Commander Vey was standing in the doorway, looking faintly confused, wearing loose gray lounge pants and the ugliest orange sweater in the galaxy.
Her hair was up in a bun that looked like it had been assembled by someone who'd heard the concept described but never actually seen one. Wisps of light brown hair escaped in every direction. She wasn't wearing shoes. Her feet were in thick socks—the soft ones Boil had sourced from his contact on Corellia three months ago.
She looked like she'd wandered out of some peaceful domestic holofilm and accidentally ended up on a Republic warship.
She looked... soft.
"Oh no," Boil breathed.
Serra felt the attention before she understood it.
The mess hall wasn't crowded—maybe thirty troopers scattered across the tables, most of them finishing up late meals or lingering over caf. But every single one of them had gone quiet.
Every single one of them was staring at her.
She glanced down at herself, trying to figure out what was wrong.
Gray pants. Orange sweater with the stupid starfighter battle. Socks. Nothing was on fire. Nothing was inappropriate. She was just—
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh Force no.
The sweater. She was wearing the sweater. In public. And the lounge pants. And her hair was—she reached up and felt the disaster zone that was her bun—her hair was a mess.
She was standing in the entrance to the mess hall looking like she'd just rolled out of bed, wearing the most ridiculous garment in Republic space, and the entire 212th was watching her.
Heat flooded her face.
"I—" she started.
"Commander!" Wooley's voice cracked on the word. He was grinning so hard it looked painful. "You're wearing the sweater!"
"I didn't—I was meditating, and I forgot—"
"You're wearing the sweater!"
The mess hall erupted.
It wasn't laughter, exactly. Or it was, but it wasn't at her. It was something else—something delighted and warm and almost unbearably fond.
"Look at her socks," someone said, and it sounded like a man experiencing a religious revelation.
"Is her hair supposed to do that?"
"She looks so small."
"I would die for her."
"You'd die for anyone, Chip."
"I would die for her specifically and with great enthusiasm."
Serra stood frozen in the doorway, face burning, as thirty clone troopers collectively lost their composure over her loungewear.
Boil had his head in his hands. His shoulders were shaking. Waxer was patting his back with one hand and wiping his eyes with the other.
"This is the best day of my life," Waxer said, voice thick. "This is the single best day of my entire life."
"I'm going back to my quarters," Serra announced to no one in particular.
"No!" The chorus was immediate and surprisingly loud. "Stay!"
"You need to eat, Commander!"
"We'll get you food!"
"Sit down, sir, please, I'm begging you—"
Three different troopers were already on their feet, heading for the serving line. Two more were clearing space at the table nearest the heating vent—her usual spot, even though she hadn't been planning to stay.
Serra looked at them. Looked at the sweater she was wearing. Looked at the chaos she'd inadvertently caused simply by forgetting to change clothes.
"I'm never going to live this down," she said.
"No, sir," Wooley agreed cheerfully. "You are absolutely not."
She stayed.
What else could she do? Someone had already gotten her a tray. Someone else had already arranged the seating. A shiny whose name she didn't know had even produced a cup of tea from somewhere. So she sat in her usual spot, surrounded by clones who kept glancing at her and then quickly looking away, like they couldn't quite believe what they were seeing.
"This is very normal behavior," she said dryly, poking at her food. "Not weird at all."
"We're just not used to seeing you so..." Waxer searched for the right word.
"Casual," Boil supplied.
"Soft," someone else said.
"Cozy," a third voice added, with feeling.
Serra took a bite of her meal to avoid having to respond to that. The sweater was very warm. The heating vent was doing its job. The tea was exactly the right temperature.
She was sitting in a mess hall full of soldiers who were looking at her like she'd personally hung the stars, and she was wearing an orange sweater with starfighters on it, and her hair was a disaster, and she had never felt more at home in her entire life.
It was absurd and mortifying.
She was smiling anyway.
Cody arrived twelve minutes later.
He'd been in a meeting with the General—some logistics issue with their next deployment—and he'd come to the mess hall expecting the usual: a quiet evening, a late meal, maybe a few troopers playing cards in the corner.
What he got was pandemonium.
Or not pandemonium, exactly. The mess hall was actually quieter than usual. But there was an energy in the room—a barely contained electricity that made him stop in the doorway and assess the situation like he was walking into a combat zone.
Thirty troopers. All of them focused on something near the heating vent. Several of them appeared to be crying.
"What," he said flatly, "is happening."
Wooley materialized at his elbow. His face was doing something complicated.
"Commander Vey came to get dinner," he said.
"And?"
"She forgot to change first."
Cody followed Wooley's gaze to the corner table.
His brain stopped working.
She was wearing the sweater.
The orange sweater. The one she'd sworn she would never wear in public. The one she'd accepted with her serious voice and her smiling eyes and her—
She was wearing lounge pants.
Her hair was in a bun. It was falling apart. There was a strand hanging in front of her face that she kept blowing out of her eyes.
She was holding a cup of tea in both hands and laughing at something Waxer had said, and she looked—
She looked—
"Sir?" Wooley's voice came from very far away. "Commander? Are you alright?"
Cody couldn't answer. He was having some kind of medical event. His chest was tight and his face felt warm and his brain had completely abandoned its post.
Commander Vey chose that moment to look up.
Their eyes met across the mess hall.
Her cheeks went pink. Her smile became softer, more self-conscious. She raised one hand in a small wave, then seemed to realize she was still holding her tea and nearly slopped it over the side of the cup.
"Oh, he's got it bad," someone murmured behind him.
"Shut up," Cody said automatically, without looking away from her.
"Shutting up, sir."
He made himself walk over. He was a marshal commander in the Grand Army of the Republic. He had faced down Separatist armies. He could handle one Jedi in an ugly sweater.
(He could not handle one Jedi in an ugly sweater. He was becoming increasingly aware that he could not handle one Jedi in an ugly sweater at all.)
"Commander," he said, coming to a stop beside her table.
"Commander." Her voice was warm, a little embarrassed. "I, um. I forgot to change."
"I noticed."
"I was meditating."
"Ah."
"And reading."
"I see."
They stared at each other. Around them, the mess hall had gone very quiet. Cody was dimly aware that every trooper in the room was watching this exchange with the intensity of men observing a critical tactical operation.
"The sweater looks good," he heard himself say.
What was he doing.
Her blush deepened. "I—thank you?"
"The color suits you."
Stop talking. Stop talking immediately.
"I thought you said it was ugly," she said, and there was a hint of her usual humor breaking through the embarrassment.
"It is ugly." He couldn't seem to stop. His mouth was operating independently of his brain. "It looks good anyway."
Someone behind him made a sound like a dying animal.
Serra's lips twitched. "That's... a very diplomatic way of putting it."
"I'm a diplomatic person."
"You once told a Senator that his tactical suggestions were 'creative' in a tone that clearly meant 'catastrophically stupid.'"
"That was different."
"Was it?"
She was smiling now, the self-consciousness fading into something easier. More familiar. This was them—the back-and-forth, the dry humor, the way they could talk to each other without quite saying what they meant.
Cody felt his shoulders relax slightly.
"Permission to sit, sir?"
"Granted." She shifted over on the bench, making room. "Though I should warn you, I've apparently become a spectator sport."
"I'd noticed." He sat down beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. "For what it's worth, I don't think they mean any harm."
"Oh, I know they don't. They're just—" She gestured vaguely at the room full of clones who were pretending very hard not to watch them. "They've never seen me look like a disaster before."
"You don't look like a disaster."
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"You look..." He stopped, suddenly aware that he was about to say something he couldn't take back. "Comfortable," he finished carefully. "You look comfortable."
It wasn't what he'd been going to say. But it was true, and it was safe, and she was looking at him with those green eyes, and he was not going to make a fool of himself in front of the entire 212th no matter how much her falling-apart bun made him want to do something inadvisable.
"I am comfortable," she said quietly. "That's new."
"Good." His voice came out rougher than he'd intended. "That's... good."
They sat together for another hour.
The mess hall gradually returned to normal—or as normal as it could be, given that Commander Vey was still wearing the orange sweater and the lounge pants and the socks, and half the battalion kept finding excuses to walk past their table.
She didn't seem to mind. She'd relaxed into the bench, shoulder occasionally brushing against Cody's, trading stories with whatever troopers drifted by. She laughed more easily than usual. The strand of hair kept falling in her face, and she kept blowing it away, and Cody kept not reaching over to tuck it behind her ear because he had some self-control, even if it was hanging by a thread.
"I should go," she said eventually, stifling a yawn. "I have an early briefing tomorrow."
"I'll walk you back."
It wasn't a question. She didn't argue.
They made their way through the corridors in companionable silence, her sock-feet quiet on the deck plates, his boots the only sound echoing off the walls. The ship was quiet at this hour—most of the crew in their bunks, the lights dimmed for the night cycle.
"Thank you," she said, when they reached her quarters. "For not making fun of me."
"I would never."
"Boil took a holo."
"I'll have him delete it."
"No." She smiled. "Let him keep it. It's... nice. Being part of something worth documenting."
Cody didn't know what to say to that. He didn't think he could say anything without giving himself away completely.
"Goodnight, Commander," he managed.
"Goodnight, Cody."
She palmed open her door, then paused on the threshold. Turned back.
"For the record," she said, "I'm glad you saw me like this. Disaster hair and all."
"You don't look like a disaster," he said again.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true."
She snorted a laugh. “That’s really not true, but thank you anyway.” She held his gaze for a moment longer. Something passed between them—something unspoken, something warm.
"Goodnight," she said again, softer this time.
And then she was gone, the door sliding shut behind her, leaving Cody standing in the corridor with his heart pounding in his chest.
He stood there for longer than he should have.
Then he turned and walked back to his own quarters, and if his step was lighter than usual, there was no one around to notice.
Epilogue: The next morning
The holo made it around the battalion in less than six hours.
Commander Vey in the orange sweater. Commander Vey with the messy bun. Commander Vey looking small and soft and ridiculous, surrounded by troopers who were looking at her like she'd personally saved each and every one of their lives.
(Which, to be fair, she had. Multiple times.)
Cody found a copy on his datapad that afternoon, forwarded from Waxer with no message attached.
He looked at it for a long moment.
Then he saved it to his personal files, locked behind three layers of encryption, and never mentioned it to anyone.