(A/N: Thank you for all of the comments and in case anyone has any questions, feel free to PM me. I hope you all enjoy the chapter.)

With no signs of the Separatists and the supplies all loaded it was time to leave the planet. The 501st and the 212th Clone Trooper Battalions packed up and were on gunships shuttling them back to their shared starship.

Dagger tried to hide in the back of the ship, bracing herself in the corner so she wouldn't have to reach for the handholds again. Embarrassment from the event, still fresh in her mind.

Even though she was doing her best to remain out of sight while everyone was loading up, someone still spotted her, "hiding in the shadows is more of the Jedi's job. Come on kid, you won't fall again. I'll make sure of it"

Dagger followed Rex to his spot in the carrier and held his arm as they started to take off. They were all in various states of armor and Rex's was mostly in his pack, he only wore his boots. Dagger could feel his arm tense and relax with small adjustments when the carrier shifted to and from.

Once again her cheeks heated up, she felt wrong touching his arm. She was never allowed to be near the males on Kamino. Not to mention she never was a touchy person. This mission was the most contact she has ever had with anyone physically. Between her Captain, Echo, and the rest of her company last night, she had more touch than she had ever experienced in her life. And she didn't want it to end, it was nice to feel the warmth of another person.

As the carrier started to descend back into the belly of the Resolute, she realized that she liked being able to feel something from another living being. Even after the ship landing her hand hovered after him once he started to walk towards the door. If Rex noticed he didn't mention it. Rather he transitioned seamlessly into giving orders for offloading their supplies and getting his unit settled back into routine on the Resolute.

~B~

A few days in hyperspace and all was going well. Dagger was still sneaking out at night to train on her own, she always made sure to make it back a few hours before wake up call to get in some sleep.

No one seemed to notice her slipping out of bed late at night. No one woke up when she returned, freshly showered, early in the morning. She had set a schedule for herself. Start working out before midnight and keep working till at least two in the morning. Not even Commander Cody, who shared the bottom bunk, noticed her climbing up and down the ladder at odd hours.

It was exhausting but she was getting a lot better at it. Most importantly she was starting to see some, albeit slow, improvement. Tonight it seemed like her head had just hit her pillow when she was startled away again.

Not an alarm, but something just as jarring woke Dagger instead of the normal "lights on" routine. A kazoo, out of nowhere, starts being played off key and really loud, as if being played through a megaphone.

Dagger shot up in bed to see Fives standing in the doorway. With a megaphone. With a kazoo. She just stared at him as he continued his crazed song. Everyone else was shooting up and making noise. Jumping around getting dressed and rushing into the hallway. She spotted Echo as he tried to run past her bunk, he didn't even have shoes on.

Dagger leaned down and grabbed him by the arm stopping him in his tracks, "what is going on?"

"It's our birthday!" he said with a wide smile.

"Where are you going?"

"To the mess hall. We get cake for breakfast," and with that he was gone.

Poor Dagger just sat there for another moment before laying back down in bed, it didn't seem like this was something that she would be partaking in. So she might as well get some more sleep while she can. She sighed and turned over onto her face. Helmet, as always, covering her head as well as most of her exhaustion. The stomping of bare feet faded as the clones rushed down the hallway to get to the dining hall.

After a minute or so there was a pair of footsteps that entered the room, she lifted her head to see who it was she saw Rex enter the room with two plates of cake. She tilted her head in confusion, conveying what she knew her face could not express.

The Captain seemed to understand her unspoken question, "I know you can't eat with the rest of everyone, but that doesn't mean that you should miss out on celebrating our birthday. I asked General Skywalker if he could get us cake and the locals on our last mission made us this. Something about thanking us for what we did."

He placed one of the plates of cake into her hands and sat on the bunk underneath hers, out of sight and unable to see her. She waited a moment to make sure he was going to stay there. When she was satisfied that he wasn't going to stand up again she glanced around the room one last time to be sure no one was watching, then she slowly took off her helmet.

Rex quietly waited until he heard the hiss of the helmet release and then began to eat. Then he decided to explain, "You just got out of Kamino recently so you've never had a field birthday before have you?"

He paused waiting for a response, but when it was obvious that he wasn't going to get one he continued on, "So humans do this thing where on the day they were born every year they have a celebration. Since there are so many of us if we did that we would be having multiple birthday parties everyday. If you even want to consider us being born instead of made. Either way, it wouldn't be possible to have birthday parties for everyone so we decided to have one celebration for all of us on one day a year. And that is today."

Rex paused to see if Dagger was going to say anything, but he was quiet as usual. He heard the sound of the fork scraping the bottom of the plate. Typical of most of the clones, trying to get every bit of sweetness off of the bottom of the plate. They didn't get treats all that often. He heard Dagger let out a soft sign and then the sound of the helmet being strapped back onto his head.

"It's actually the day that our host was born, Jango Fett. So it's like a day off for us where we get to have fun. Cody got to plan it out for our unit this year. You don't have to participate if you don't want to but you are welcome to celebrate with us."

"Thank you," Dagger responded, her helmet now firmly back on her head. She climbed down the ladder at the foot of the bed.

Rex looked up at her with calm, but hopeful eyes. She found herself wanting to participate in the celebration. To honor their host and her mentor. Also to be a part of the unit. They always did their best to make her feel included, but she still felt like an outcast because of what she is. She bit her lip and she wished that she could be just like them, another clone in the masses.

Dagger handed the plate back to him with a nod, "what's first?"

Rex smiled, she would celebrate with them. Maybe Dagger would have some fun, since they had gotten back from the mission he had been tense, always locked on and focused on training. Relaxing and partaking in the celebration might do Dagger some good.

~B~

"Pin the horns on the what now?" Dagger asked as Echo tied a black shirt around her helmet effectively blocking all of her vision.

"Pin the horns on the Tauntaun, you know those weird two leg fluffy lizard things on Hoth," he explained.

"I've never even been to Hoth. How am I supposed to know what a Tauntaun looks like," she asked, still very confused at the latest of many games they were playing.

They had played dodgeball with deactivated droid poppers in the hallway. She had never seen General Skywalker run away before, but when he realized he was caught in the crossfire he sprinted out of that danger zone. The troopers were notorious for their hand eye coordination as well as ruthlessly powerful throws. Blame it on grenade throwing drills.

Then they played capture the flag. Dagger still thought that it was cheating that Commander Cody had hid the 212th's flag in General Kenobi's robes. How were they supposed to get a flag from a Jedi, it was ridiculous.

Dagger had not stopped smiling for hours now. This was one of the best days ever. Now it was time for their latest game. Of course ,since she was the new addition, they had to make sure she went first.

"Eh you'll figure it out," Fives said with a snicker, he placed the piece in her hand telling her where the adhesive was and sent her off with a push.

She walked forward confidently. Of course she remembered where the wall was, she had just seen it a second ago. The blind fold couldn't throw off her depth perception that much. Right?

Wrong. She crashed headfirst into the wall smacking it loudly. The impact bounced her off and she landed back on her ass. Everyone roared with laughter. She huffed, ripping off the blindfold, "this game is stupid! How are you supposed to win if you can't see anything."

Someone pulled her up by the armpit, "nice one Dagger. Hey Echo, catch!"

Then she was pushed into the crowd of laughing soldiers. She let out a shout of protest as she stumbled into Echo who caught her, laughing. She almost thought that she saw his cheeks get red, but the thought was whisked away as he pushed her at someone else. Dagger tried to stop herself from spinning, but she just kept getting shoved around. Trying to plant her feet did nothing but set her off balance.

"Stop! Hey! Cut it out!" she shouted, her words lost in the laughing of the brothers playing around.

She couldn't get control of the direction that she was going. She tried to grab something, an arm, a hand, anything. She couldn't get a grip.

She couldn't control anything. She was at their mercy and didn't even know what had happened. Where had it all gone wrong? What if they decided that they wanted her helmet? They could take it and she wouldn't be able to do anything to stop them. Her world was spinning so bad the only reason she wasn't on the floor was because they kept shoving her around.

She had never been scared of her brothers before, but she was starting to get scared now. Never them, never scared of brothers. Scared of others, yes. Scared of reactions, yes. Never brothers, until now.

Suddenly an ear piercing whistle was blown. The room instantly fell quiet and the once laughing gaggle of clones paused mid action. Dagger, still off balance, crashed to the floor, sprawling out face first.

After her world stopped spinning, she looked up to see a hand extended down to her, an offer of peace. It was Commander Cody. Once she was standing again, he stepped in front of her towards the group, "is that anyway to treat your brother? Throwing around the smallest one of you like a toy, even when he is yelling at you to stop? You all are ridiculous. You are supposed to be playing games and celebrating together, but instead you are picking on each other. I thought the 501st had more class than that."

Cody was steaming hot. Every head in turn dropped to look at the floor. They hadn't realized that they were upsetting anyone they were just playing around. Now the Commander had come in and given them the disappointed mom talk. For boys without any mom, wow it worked. A few of them were mumbling to the Commander that they were sorry

"I'm not going to tell you who to apologize to, certainly not to me. But I think you all could have made Dagger's first field birthday a lot better than this shit show I just watched," with that he turned to look for the clone in question, but Dagger was gone. The door was already closed behind her.

Dagger rushed down the hallway away from that room, not paying attention to which way she was going. She knew she shouldn't be this upset, but she was on the verge of tears. It had scared her and she didn't like how everyone was laughing at her. She ducked into a room and closed the door. She sat against the door and took off her helmet. She pulled her knees to her chest while she hid her head in her arms. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

All she had wanted was to have fun with the unit and feel like one of them. The only thing she was feeling now was like an outsider. The same as it had always been, what was she doing wrong? Was it really just the helmet that didn't let them get close to her?

Her heart ached with the longing to belong with the others in her unit. They were all so close to each other and now they just make fun of her. Dagger had thought that they had begun to accept her into the group, but now she didn't think so.

She couldn't stop her lip from quivering. Dagger was hurting so bad and it wasn't from any physical injury. Those she could deal with. Now she was desperate and longing for some form of comfort that she could not attain.

Minutes went by, every time she heard footsteps she tried to be as quiet as she could, but nothing could really silence her soft sobs completely. She heard a lot of brothers rushing around it sounded like they were planning something. Probably another game or celebration for their birthday. Whatever it was she wouldn't go, she would just sit in her corner and wait for everyone to go to sleep. Then she could train on her own and in the morning everything would go back to being normal.