When he'd first met them, he thought that the Jedi couldn't feel.
Looking back, that was a foolish thing to think, but at the time, he didn't know any better. His training on Kamino had led him to believe that the Jedi were mystical, infallible creatures who always did the right thing. Their orders were to be followed without question because simple clones like himself couldn't possibly know better than a Jedi.
He saw through that ruse quickly enough.
After months of assignments and missions, after months of sharing in the highs of victories and the lows of failures, after the horrors of war and the loss of comrades and the days consumed by nothing more than sweat and blood and the sour stench of death - he had come to learn that Jedi weren't incapable of feeling. No, it was just the opposite. Jedi were just as vulnerable to emotions as everyone else; sure, maybe they tried to control them more than others, but even they got it wrong sometimes. They could feel joy as well as sadness. They knew about love and anger as well as anyone. They knew about jealousy and anguish and doubt and betrayal.
Betrayal. The word echoed in his mind, stinging like an old wound reopened. The mental floodgates that he had worked so desperately to keep locked were now open, and he flinched as the memories rushed in. Bracing large hands against the cool tile of the shower stall, his head sunk, icy water splashing against his neck and careening in plump rivulets down his face.
Chapped lips parted and he breathed out her name with a tremble.
He wasn't sure when she ceased to be "General Secura" and had instead become simply "Aayla." That was one thing about the Twi'lek – she never stopped surprising him. Even right until the end, she took him by surprise more than his treachery did her.
She hadn't said anything when Order 66 buzzed into his helmet and he and his boys had carried out their orders with the mechanical efficiency of a Clanker. She didn't cry out in pain, didn't curse them with her final breath as he surely would have done. She just...fell. Sudden streaks of blue brought the still air to life and she toppled to the jungle floor, spinning as the barrage of gunfire assaulted her delicate frame. And for just a moment her eyes found his and only his and she didn't need to open her mouth to communicate what she was thinking.
"Bly? What are you doing? Bly?"
He had given her an honorable and quick death, as any great warrior deserved.
But that didn't make him feel any better about it.
The soldier took a heavy breath, disorientation making his head spin. He twisted the nozzle as cold as it would turn, skin shivering even though his body felt as if it was burning.
"Six months." It had been sixmonths since Order 66 – since the rise of the Galactic Empire - and still every time he lifted his rifle and put that damned bucket on his head he saw her pretty face, adorned with a confused grimace, flash momentarily in his T-visor. "It's time to pull yourself together, soldier."
He straightened, scowling, suddenly wishing for his armor. He could tuck himself away from the galaxy in that armor; he could go back to being just a number and a mask. He could go back to being a soldier with purpose, instead of...this.
A broken man with nothing.
When he'd taken his armor off at the start of shore leave two days ago, it felt as if he'd torn away the only thing that was holding him together. It was a shell. It was safe. Standing here naked, he just felt vulnerable. He felt vulnerable and weak.
He shook his head to rid himself of the thought, drops of water splattering the walls. Bly was a soldier, through-and-through. If he could survive a war, he could survive this. With effort, he could shove Aayla back into a proverbial strongbox and keep her hidden in the far corners of his mind.
He had to focus on the present, now. He had to figure this out. There was a half-naked Jedi sleeping in his bunk...lying where Aayla should be...
What was he going to do with her?
The better part of him hadn't been thinking very clearly last night – or, more accurately, at all – when he'd decided to knowingly let that Jedi infiltrator waltz into a nightclub filled with hundreds of soldiers that were celebrating the deaths of her friends. He wasn't thinking when he decided to brush off his duties in favor of enjoying his shore leave. He wasn't thinking when he allowed her to single him out, when he bought her a drink, and then another, and then countless more until suddenly he was on the dance floor...dancing. His hands found her hips infinitely more appealing than the green liquid sloshing in his cup and he discarded it immediately, enjoying the way her small frame pressed against his sturdy one, the way her lower-half gyrated in a uniquely pleasing way, and then...
Kriff.
Still, what could she possibly have hoped to gain from romancing a few drunken troopers? He was off-duty. He'd done nothing wrong.
The guilt that tugged on the edges of his mind proved otherwise.
Stepping out of the refresher with a newfound resolve, Bly wiped at the foggy mirror with his palm and then gave it a determined stare. Serving the Republi- kriff, the Empire, was all Bly had ever known, and shore leave or not, he was going to turn that girl in.
He froze, realization hitting him like a brick of ice.
Infiltration wasn't her goal. She'd seduced him – specifically him – with a purpose.
"Shit."
...The datastick.
Quick Little Author's Note: Hey! Thanks for reading. So we know who our mysterious Clone now is, but who's the Jedi girl? Oooh ;) Reviews are appreciated, of course =)