Chapter 10: Shades Of The Past

Saturday 1830.

Four months and one week after.F.B.

If one had asked Coco half a year ago how her preferred office would look like she probably would have said: pompous and extravagant. Present-Coco would not quite share that sentiment. War has a way of grounding you, making you realize that functionality should always win over style and ego. Her present office would have made Past-Coco squeal in delight.

Located a bit off the main barracks compound were a series of bungalows, the fancy sort, one of them repurposed to serve as her office. Giving its design and original furniture, it was safe to say that an ordinary citizen would go bankrupt within five seconds of just looking at the structure. Vale Military Command deemed it appropriate to … appropriate the building since it was close enough to the barracks and therefore less expensive than constructing a more fitting building on the compound grounds. Coco hated every bit of that.

'Close enough' still entailed unnecessary distance to her troops, not to mention the risk of dampening morale because the fashionista needed her luxury. Not that anyone in the 7th Battalion would think that but why take the chance. All sentiments aside, she was used to sleeping close to her team, share the comforts and discomforts. She was the leader, but that did not mean special treatment. It was called team building for a reason, after all. However, her position as commanding officer brought with it obscene amounts of paperwork and documents that could rival the size of her old wardrobe. Apparently, that had to be stored somewhere else than underneath her bunk in the barracks. And since her superiors outright refused to construct a less ridiculous office, even though she offered to pay for it, Coco had given in. All of that had not stopped her from throwing out all the expensive furniture and everything else unnecessary. Instead, she used one of the rooms as a conference room for the officers of the 7th, one as her primary office room and another for … well.

Coco let out a pained sigh as her gaze drifted from the reports on her table over to the third room. Her desk was the only piece of furniture from the old building she did keep, since it was made of mahogany, because, you know, mahogany. Not that it did much to keep her attention at the moment. Her eyes locked on a series of pictures, meticulously placed around the room. There were small stands set side by side, each of them carrying several pictures. Some photos were of people in military uniform or armor, some clad in casual or dresses. Some people were pictured laughing; others had them in various states of happy embarrassment. Each stand had pictures featuring the same person, alone or with friends and family. And each of the respective stands had a badge with a date. The day that person died. She called the room the memorial room since it contained everyone that had been killed in the 7th battalion or at least had been associated with them for a while. There were way too many pictures already.

"You know, I appreciate the sentiment you are going for in that room, but this will slowly drive you mad. You have to let them go, Coco."

Coco did not even turn her head while avoiding the statement. "Calling me Coco, huh? What happened to 'stick to our new soldier personae and shut the feelings out', Fox?"

"You're telling me that, right now, you are shutting your feelings out?"

"No." Coco turned towards Fox. She was not wearing her beret or her sunglasses, not that Fox could see it, but he could guess since it felt like Coco was a lot weaker without them. Like she lost the barriers she so often put up towards everyone.

"I am not going to insult your intelligence by explaining again why we stopped using our real names since you know that better than the rest of us. It was your idea after all. It's just that it seems that we have somehow traded Velvet for you. She shows up at the barracks like nothing happened and you decided to disappear and hide in here with your work. I can't exactly feel like this isn't related, so spill it, Coco."

Coco grunted and pinched the bridge of her nose. "We … talked two days ago, while you were training with Yang and the others were out shooting. She poured her heart out, and it wasn't pretty. Neither was my breakdown afterward."

"Coco … do you want to talk about it?"

There was a heavy silence between them. For Fox, it felt like it grew more uncomfortable by the second. There had been a time where the two of them were close enough that he did not even have to ask if something was wrong. Coco would have come to him right away and told him. But that seemed a long time ago. Fox knew that Coco's concept of using other personae, so their real selves survive the war was only in place for everyone else but Coco herself. Fox had the ever-growing suspicion that the Coco he knew was already plenty tarnished.

"No. Not really." It took a few heartbeats, and a deep sigh before Coco put her sunglasses back up and straightened her posture. "So, you said Gadget is back from the hospital for good, Sly?"

The shifting tone was not lost to Fox, but he managed to keep his frustrations hidden well enough.

"Sure thing, Shades. After your talk apparently, she just joined the rest of us like she never left. Didn't say a word just got in line for the drill. Sticks to the routine ever since."

"Noticed anything weird about her? Like acting out of character or something like that?"

Fox had to think for a second. "Not really. Just plain old Gadget. She's a bit distant towards Xiao Long but then again so is everyone else. Why?"

"Nothing, just wondering. What's that about Xiao Long not getting along?"

"I didn't say that. I said she's out of the loop. I'm actually planning on fixing that tonight."

Coco raised an eyebrow, and since that was lost on Fox she added, "Oh? How so?"

"Well we're finally done with setting up the Chillaxing Zone, you know in the other pompous and extravagant bungalow in the compound?"

"Please tell me you folks aren't actually calling it that."

"Geez, of course not! We call it the LZ since it's the place we all want to crash."

Coco tried to facepalm hard enough so Fox would hear it.

"I honestly don't know which one is worse."

"You're just jealous that you didn't come up with it first. Plus you shouldn't be surprised. Have you seen the nicknames we come up with for each other? Because I haven't and I still know that they're bad."

"Did you just … honestly the last time I made a sight-joke you chewed me out for it. And yours wasn't even good!"

"That's because it's okay when I do it, but not when someone else does it. It's like calling Gadget cute because she's a bunny faunus, she can say that but we can't."

"Gadget being cute has nothing to do with her ears though. Also, I am fairly certain that she's a hare."

"Well … fair enough. Still, my point stands. Anyway, we're going to inaugurate the place properly, and I'm dragging Xiao Long in there so she can get drunk with the squad. I mean, figuratively. We totally did not smuggle alcoholic beverages onto the compound, ma'am."

Coco chuckled a bit at that. "Riiiight. Anyway, don't you worry about the prohibition for tonight, Sergeant. I believe the country will survive a few hungover soldiers. Not that I would be able to enforce the rules anyway, some of us don't have the leisure to relax while there are reports to go through."

Fox's face dropped a bit at that. For a second there, the light-hearted conversation they just shared took him back to their days in Beacon. How the four of them would joke around, not taking anything too serious, well until it was time to get serious, of course. Times like these almost made him believe that somewhere under those layers of military bravado and rank his old leader was still smiling at some of his antics. That there was yet some Coco in Shades. But, like now, it never lasted long. "Reports? Like, battle reports?"

Coco sighed deeply. "Battle is a strong word. If I hadn't been on Patch myself, I'd call you crazy for suggesting there's a war going on. Most of this is the usual. Less than the usual actually. The White Fang is suspiciously inactive ever since Atlas attacked. Likely they are waiting for both sides to thin each other out a bit more. Grimm and the normal police work aside all eight battalions are resupplying and repositioning in critical places. Atlas seemed to have overreached, hard."

"Well, they always struck me as arrogant enough to underestimate us."

"Apparently so. According to these reports, we don't know much, but it seems because of their losses they had to give up their supply lines to the Grimm. Which means their army in Patch is essentially stuck there. General Goodwitch has aircraft containing the island so there won't be any danger coming from there soon. Which also means that our time of rest is over. Officially we were here to respond to attacks from Patch, but now we'll be needed elsewhere. We'll get a new batch of recruits to fill our ranks on Monday and then we'll be expected to resume normal activities. Well, as normal as they can be. My guess is on boring police work and clearing out Grimm nests that are still active. On that note, how's Xiao Longs training coming along?"

"You know I expected you to yell at me for not doing that your way."

"Hey, I'm the first one to admit when I was wrong. So tell me, was I wrong?"

Fox shook his head and chuckled. "Pretty much, yeah. Fortunately, that awful fencing escapade that knocked you off was just a one-time thing. I am working with her on a more kick-heavy, more elusive style. Now that Gadget is back we can modify her gauntlet so it can be used better. You know, since pumping just one arm forward and backward looks stupid beyond comparison. It'll take a bit longer obviously, but if you need her against common thugs and Grimm, she'll do more than fine."

"Good, we should brief her on the equipment soon. Probably have to do that myself since Mouser will be the beast incarnate after he has to deal with a bunch of recruits."

"That sounds like we got no-one good."

"Best I got is a farmhand who may or may not have held a shovel before."

"Peachy. Well, I got to get going then. Party is about to start. You know, if you change your mind and find the time, we'd love to have you there, Shades."

Coco just smiles tiredly. "I'll think about it."

They both knew that was a no.