Hi! Me again, I am not waiting so long to update the story this time. Thank you very much for your review, TriGemini ! Please, if there is someone else still reading this- I would be really happy if you left me a review! Reviews make my day...

This is just a little Wedge vignette while the long Hobbie story is still work in progress, but it will be finished soon. In the meantime, I hope you like this oneshot.

-Sachita (-;

The little things

Yavin IV, 0 ABY

It's the little things, Wedge thinks, as he, steps heavy, enters the small room that Jek and Biggs slept in. It's not in the big things- it's not the big memorial ceremony that is going to be held just before the festivities tomorrow- something that makes him always smile bitterly. It just seems wrong to celebrate when they have lost so many.

But how would he know? He has seen many friends and comrades fall, that much is true, but apparently it will get different over the years. He remembers going to Commander Garvin Dreis with the same complaint, a few months ago. "It does not seem right to celebrate when we mourn so many," he had said. The Commander had looked at him in his gruff way and Wedge had almost thought he would get brushed off, but then he had been taken aside: "Son, you are still young," the Commander had sighed. "I have been doing this job for long years now, and I am telling you, it won't get any easier. But you have to appreciate the little moments of joy and celebration in-between, honor them for what they are, because by honoring them you also honor the memory of the fallen."

Wedge had looked doubtful.

"But-"he had said, yet the Commander had simply shaken his head. "You will understand in time."

Now, the Commander is dead. As are Jek Porkins and Biggs Darklighter, along with nearly the entire Squadron, save for him and Luke. Still, there are many more to name who perished.

Now, standing in the room and looking at what is left of two of his friends, Wedge just feels empty. The guilt will come later, he knows as much. Young he may be, but he already knows that guilt, that choking unforgiving companion that will come to him in silent moments, whispering "If you hadn't pulled out maybe Biggs would still be alive." "I had severe engine damage!" is what he will retort, yet the voice will not be silenced: "Are you completely certain that there is nothing you could have done? Didn't you pull out too early? Maybe you could have done something, how would you know?"Wedge exhales and shakes his head as if he wishes to shake off bad memories.

The beds are unmade. A small statue stands on the night-desk- "I won it in a pod race," Biggs had said and for a moment Wedge can see him- the black hair and the mustache, twisted in a smile. On the other night-desk are Jek's gambling cards. Wedge often tried to beat him in a game, yet he never succeeded. "It's the cards," Jek had commented with a wide grin. "It's all because of the cards- they are my lucky charm." Really, another night they had used other cards and Jek had lost.

Wedge sits down on one of the beds, something sharp in his throat. It's the little things, he thinks. The little things- a name crossed out from the duty roster, a pair of boots sitting abandoned in a corner, a holo showing a smiling mustached youth and his family….

It's the little things and somehow the little things are the big things, the things that leave your hands shaking and your eyes burning. He wonders how on Coruscant he is supposed to deal with so much loss, so much death without going mad and stifles a sob as it hits him again. It feels as if something heavy is sitting on his chest. He remembers another question he once asked the Commander.

"How can you deal with so much death?"

The Commander had looked partly sorrowful, partly impatient and Wedge had wondered how often he had been asked that particular question.

"Like I said, it never gets easier, but eventually you will form your own coping strategies. And with every death, you get more used to the losses. You learn to appreciate the days when you lose no-one."

"But I don't want to!" Wedge had replied heatedly, enraged. "I don't want to get used to it!"

And now, here, sitting on the bed of his dead friend, with shaking hands, a pounding heart and tears running freely, he wonders whether he wishes to get used to it or not.

He doesn't know the answer and somehow, that makes him more afraid than anything else.

-fin-

tbc