Author's Note: I know that I said this would be a oneshot, but I lied. I was re-reading Order 66 during a blizzard, and this chapter was the result. If people like this, I might try to do something similar from Fixer's perspective. (What can I say? I guess I have a soft spot for Delta squad.)
Responsibility
If Boss had to select a squad psychopath, he would have chosen Sev in a heartbeat, but Sev wasn't around any more, and maybe Boss had unconsciously decided to pick up the slack. He had to be going insane. There could be no other explanation for him standing in the middle of a Mandalorian forest during the middle of a storm with the wind and the icy rain smacking him in the face. Fierfek, he hadn't even worn a helmet to shield him from the worst blasts. He was a crazy dikut. There was no denying that. After all, if he weren't, he would probably be inside and dry along with everyone else.
Luckily, he was dragged away from berating himself by a foul odor wafting toward him in another powerful gust of wind that might have sent a less strong man to his knees. Judging by the rotting smell, Mird the skrill was approaching him, and, since Mird rarely ventured outside without Vau, that meant Vau wasn't inside with those who had some claim to sanity.
Wonderful, Boss giped inwardly. Of all the people he wouldn't want to find him standing like a dikut in a thunderstorm, Vau was ranked above even enemy battle droids from whoever the enemy was supposed to be now that the Separtists had been defeated.
Maybe Vau wouldn't see him. Even as he thought it, he knew it was a wasted hope, and this assessment was proven correct when he heard a stick crack as Vau strode over to him.
"What are you doing out here?" Vau demanded as he reached Boss.
"Getting some fresh air, sir," Boss answered immediately, and then added, deadpan, "Mird isn't helping much."
"Mird does not smell nearly as much as everybody claims he does," Vau sniffed. "Besides, if you think that a storm is the best time to get fresh air, I think I have always given you far more credit for intelligence than you deserve."
"It's peaceful out here now, sir." Boss shrugged.
"You have an odd definiton of 'peaceful.'" Vau's lip curled. "Most sentients do not classify almost being swept up in a strong blast of wind as peaceful."
"Most sentients aren't elite commandos, either," pointed out Boss. Most sentients hadn't had a gun placed in their hands as soon as they could toddle around. Most sentients hadn't participated in live fire exercises when they were five. Most sentients hadn't faught their first real battle at the age of ten. Most sentients weren't born and bred to be perfect. Most sentients didn't fear failure as compulsively as Boss did. Most sentients hadn't killed. Most sentients hadn't lost a brother in battle. Most sentients hadn't been bred to fight someone else's war. Most sentients would have cracked up under a quarter of the pressure that he had endured in his life, and Boss wondered if maybe it wasn't such a surprise that he was finally going around the bend. Perhaps this had all been some sick joke devised by someone to see just how much it would take a deluxe edition of humanity to snap. "Anywhere that I'm not likely to be blown up is peaceful enough for me, sir."
"A very pragmatic if pessimistic view," Vau commented.
"I never really used to like the wind, though," Boss confessed after a moment of awkward silence. "Sev did, though, and that's probably why I enjoy it now. When we were in basic training on Kamino, he loved the powerful winds that we faced during outdoor exercises. He saw it as a challenge, and challenges made him feel alive, because he, more than anyone thrived off of the adrenaline rush provided by being in danger, and he enjoyed running against the wind. Thinking about that makes me remember all of our training exercises as though they happened yesterday, even though they really occurred almost a lifetime ago. I remember how we used to convince ourselves that we were invincible. I remember how Scorch, Sev, and I whispered to each other in our dorm late at night while Fixer tried to hack into the Kaminoan mainframe before you had the data terminal removed from our room. I remember all the obstacles that we surived in training together, and I remember how we longed to be the best. Looking back at all that, I can't help but wish that I didn't know now what I didn't know then. I wish we were all still that young and that strong, so that we could run against the wind together just one more time."
"You are still young and strong, Boss," Vau told him in a clipped voice. "Biologically, you are around twenty-six years old, and you are still in shape. You don't get to call yourself old until you can hear your knees creak when you walk. Until then, you are just being melodramatic, and I despise melodrama."
Reflexively, Boss straightened his spine, because, even after all these years, he was as terrified of displeasing Vau as he had been during his training. Yet, he couldn't stop himself from protesting, "I feel older than that, though, sir. I feel battered and worn out, and I have ever since Sev died. That's part of the reason why I came here. I just couldn't keep living to fight and fighting to live like we used to. I knew it would kill me, and I didn't want to die yet."
"Standing firm against the wind is just your way of showing that you still have some fight left in you, then?" Vau arched an eyebrow at him, and Boss could not determine what was going through his former training sergeant's mind.
"Maybe that's a part of it," Boss muttered. "That isn't all of it, though, sir. The truth is that when the wind roars like this, I feel connected to Sev. When I stand outside in a windstrom like this, I can tell myself that he is still running against the wind somewhere, and, since I don't know for sure that he is dead and can't perform the proper rites as a result, this is the best that I can do to commemorate him. I hope that if I stand out here and think about what Sev went through with us, the wind will somehow carry a message to him. It's sentimental, and I've been scoffing at sentimental ever since I could draw breath almost as much as Sev, but sometimes sentimental is all you have left."
Boss expected a cutting remark, and braced himself for it, but all Vau said was, "Have you discussed this with the rest of Delta?"
"No, Sarge." Boss shook his head rapidly, trying and most likely failing to conceal his amazement that Vau would pose such a question. "What would be the point of doing so? Fixer is an able soldier and second-in-command, but he has the emotional range of the vibroblades he is so obsessed with. If I tried to have a real conversation with him about what happened to Sev, he would probably just resort to two word responses while tapping away at a datapad. As for Scroch, I tried talking to him about it once. I promised him on the way back from Kashyyykk that we would return and find Sev, but he just snorted and replied sarcastically. Sarcasm isn't typical of Scorch, but he has been falling into it more and more since we lost contact with Sev, and, after he rebuffed me that first time, I can't bear the idea of breaching the subject with him again. I know that he blames me for what happened to Sev, and that's something I can't face right now."
"Not long ago, I spoke with Scorch about what happened to Sev, and I got the distinct impression that he blames himself more than he blames you or Fixer," Vau observed.
"That can't be right, sir," Boss dismissed this. "He said himself that he would never forgive either of us for abandoning Sev."
"People say all sorts of things that they don't necessarily mean in the heat of anger and in the heat of a battle," countered Vau. "With Sev gone, Scorch can't afford to block out you and Fixer forever, and he knows that."
"It would still be difficult to talk to him because I blame myself for leaving Sev behind," grunted Boss, feeling like hearing that Scorch didn't fault him for what happened to Sev wasn't much of a reprievie, since he couldn't stop blaming himself. It didn't matter if Scorch thought he was responsible, since Boss knew that it was his fault that Sev was MIA and probably would be forever more. "I was in charge, and I made the decision to leave Sev."
"You had your orders," Vau reminded him, his tone as dispassionate as ever.
"Everyone thinks I should have told our advisor in graphic terms where he could stuff his orders, sir," muttered Boss. "In hindsight, I'm inclined to agree with them. Orders aren't more improtant than a brother's life, and anyone who thinks that they are has been smoking hookah too long."
"It's standard operating procedure to place finishing the mission above getting your whole squad out alive," Vau stated, his face still expressionless.
"We'd already achieved our objective, Sarge." Boss shook his head grimly. "We should have gone back for Sev. Maybe we couldn't have rescued him, but we owed it to him to at least try. For days after, I couldn't recall why exactly I chose not to go after him, but now I think I know why—I decided not to go back for him because I was too fond of our reputation as the best special ops squad. I must have thought that disobeying orders for purely sentimental reasons would make us be seen as weaker back at HQ. Ever since I was a boy, I could never stand being anything less than the best, because being anything less than that meant failure. My reputation meant more to me than Sev's life. That makes me a failure as a leader, so, in a way, my fear of failure resulted in my ultimate failure."
"Don't psychoanalyze yourself, Three-Eight," commanded Vau. "Whenever you do that, you lose, and, besides, if you were to obsessed with being the best or were too afraid of failure, that is probably a byproduct of errors in my training methods."
"You've been hanging around with Skirata too long if you think that there are any flaws in your training approach, sir," Boss argued, stunned by the very notion that the giant of his childhood could ever make a mistake in anything pertaining to being a warrior, including raising fighters as hard and as focused on survival as he was. "The special ops squads trained by Mandalorians have the highest survial rates, and, of them, the squads trained by you lost the fewest members. That means that you were the most successful commando instructor."
"I am if we assume that survival ratios are the most reliable method of determining an instructor's success." Vau sighed heavily.
"What else could we judge by, Sarge?" Boss asked. "Every clone commando who hasn't got rocks rolling around in his head thinks that his training sergeant was the best, because the Kaminoans made us loyal soldiers if they made us nothing else. As such, survival statistics are really the only reliable method of finding out who was the best teacher. All the rest is just subjective, sentimental osik. I know that fortune favored me the day my batch was assigned to you for training. It was you that tough enough to survive. It was you who showed me how to be strong. It was you who taught me how to look out for myself and my brothers on the battlefield. I learned from you how not to crumble under pressure that would break most men, and it was you who taught me enough about being a Mandalorian to save me from being a dead man. You saved me and made me who I am today, because everything I have ever done in my life has been an attempt to live up to you. Any shortcomings that I have are my fault, and not yours. I know this because you taught me to be responsible and to not blame my screwups on others. I chose to leave Sev behind, and I take full responsibility for that. Fixer and Scorch can put all the blame on me if they want to because I was in charge, and I will accept their blame and mine for what happened."
"Very well, then." To Boss' surprise, Vau actually stretched out a hand and slapped his former trainee on the shoulder. "While you blame yourself, keep in mind, though, that the reason I selected you to be leader of your squad back on Kamino was because you continually did the best on your training exercises. I haven't regretted my decision since, and Delta would not have been as successful if you hadn't been a good sergeant. Every leader makes decisions that they would reverse if they could go back in time, and every sergeant loses some soldiers. It is unavoidable fact,and it is not wise to get torn up over it. Learn from your mistakes, Boss, and then move on."
"Yes, Sarge." Boss felt his lips quirking upwards slightly. "Sev would hate me if I didn't get a move on, after all. He was never a very patient man, you know."
"Oh, I know," Vau snorted, as they both started to make their way out of the forest and back toward the indoors where they would be able to dry off. "I was forever wondering if he had a mental aberration when I was training him, but the Kaminoans never were able to find anything in his brain that indicated that he was insane."
"They definitely didn't look hard enough then," said Boss. "Sev was a bloodthirsty psychopath, and he wasn't lying when he said that the best way to handle him was to show him the enemy and get out of his path so he could shoot. That didn't make him a bad person or brother, but it sure made him a nutcase."
