Chapter Text
Jek had cleaned his blaster three times already, sitting in the mostly empty commissary because he couldn't think of anywhere else to still be awake without also annoying all his vode. Even though the whole ship was deep into the night cycle, some clones and nat-born officers both still needed their caf for the night watch.
It hadn't been so bad on Kamino.
When he'd gone back for the training, it had itched under his skin, the silence aside from the storms raging outside, but at least it had been nostalgic too. Sure, none of his vode had been the same as when they'd been growing up there, and he was in a whole different section of the city than he'd been raised in, but it was still Kamino, still familiar in the way a scar was.
He never had made it back to see their old training rooms, wasn't even sure he'd been allowed to if he'd tried.
But the storms that had once lulled him to sleep felt different, after months on Coruscant.
Now, the Venator-class ship just sounded empty, the distant hum of the engines a poor substitute for what he knew. Putting the disassembled parts of his blaster down, he tapped the edge of his comm, trying to remember the time difference between the ship and Coruscant. He missed Rys, he missed Thire. He even missed Commander Fox, who he'd rarely spoken to, except when things had gone really wrong.
The sort of really wrong that got him reassigned for training, rather than risk keeping him on Coruscant.
He'd gotten some strange looks during training, the clone scout troopers sideways of the ARC training running several hallways down. Apparently he was one of the first Coruscant Guards to come back to Kamino, and that earned him a share of looks.
Looks he had no intention of dealing with, because the last thing he wanted was to talk about Coruscant with all its glittering knives and silk lies to anyone who hadn't been there.
He tapped the comm again, thought about Rys, and picked up his blaster to clean it again, grinding his teeth in the silence made up of silently murmured conversation and humming engines.
A mug landed in front of him, and he almost jumped halfway off the seat, embarrassed as he looked at the clone across from him. The embarrassment only increased exponentially when he realized Commander Gree sat on the other side of the table, his own mug in one hand, pulling his datapad off his belt with his other.
“Sir—”
“I don't think titles apply at the ass end of the night,” Gree said, sipping from his mug, already turning the datapad on.
Jek's eyes flickered from the mug in front of him to the Commander, and back again. “Alright?”
When he looked up, the corner of Gree's mouth had turned up, though he hadn't looked away from the datapad. “Can't sleep?”
“No,” Jek said.
“First time on a Venator, hm?” Gree said.
“Long term, yeah,” Jek settled for, and finally pulled the mug closer to him. They had different caf from the Guard, and he couldn't tell if it was better or worse, or just different.
Which had actually been about his reaction to everything since leaving Coruscant.
“You?” he asked cautiously, meaning why Gree wasn't tucked into his bunk. Commanders didn't have much as far as quarters went, but they weren't the rows of bunks troopers had onboard. They could have had their light on all night if they really wanted to, without anyone else to bother.
“Some nights just aren't for sleeping,” Gree said, which technically said nothing at all, but Jek sipped from the mug instead of calling him on it. “Have you ever heard of the Killik?” he added, after some silence had passed between them.
“The Killik?” Jek repeated, slower. “Is that some sort of disease?”
Gree finally looked at him, but he didn't look annoyed that Jek hadn't known, corner of his mouth still turned up. “No, it's a race.”
“No, s—” and he cut himself off before he called Gree sir again. “Uh. No, I haven't heard of them.”
“They're pretty wild,” Gree said. “They may have originated on Alderaan, long before humanoids stepped foot on the planet.”
“So they're not humanoids?” Jek asked, taking another sip, Gree seeming to settle more comfortably in his seat.
Jek almost wanted to ask, almost wanted to say there were others in the commissary despite the hour. Surely someone like Commander Gree would have someone else to while the night away with.
But Jek didn't, too new to the Rangers to turn down any company, let alone the comforting warmth Gree seemed to be offering with his presence and the mug of caf. He pushed the bits of his very clean blaster away with one elbow, and then leaned forward with both his elbows on the table, cradling the mug between his hands, and listened.
He listened, Gree's voice almost taking up all the space Coruscant might have on a slow night.