She sat on the bench, arms crossed glaring daggers at Fives, not that he could see it anyway. Did you know that Coruscant jails had specific holding cells for clones? Because Dagger hadn't known that before tonight nor had she ever needed to know that information.
Apparently they were too skilled as well as too valuable to be kept with any other law breaking citizens. Too skilled but evidently not smart enough to not get arrested in the first place. Also the local police had no authority to punish them because clones were technically government property. With that rude realization aside, their time in jail was basically the trio in time out until someone came and got them.
So she just sat there, tapping her fingers on her bicep as Fives fidgeted in his seat. Echo, who was straddling the third bench in the middle, was uncharacteristically unbothered by their situation.
"Look I'm sorry Dagger," Fives had finally broken down.
She gestured vaguely, "For what? Hiring an entertainer to embarrass me? For starting a fight for an unknown reason? Or was it for getting us arrested for said fight?"
"First of all," he held up a finger, "I was trying to be nice and I didn't know she was going to hurt you. So I am sorry for that," another finger went up, "Second, I didn't attack him for an unknown reason. He insulted you and implied that you were deficient. I will not tolerate people making fun of my brothers, especially not you. Dagger, you are one of my best friends."
His third finger went up, "Getting us arrested was not in the plan so I am sorry for that too. However, I think that as far as first nights out go, this has been a pretty legendary first night out."
She leaned forward and buried her helmet into her hands letting out a sigh, "Fives why are you like this?"
His grin was wide as he winked at her, "Just made that way."
"He's right though Dagger, no one insults our brothers and gets away with it," Echo chimed in.
"If you knew what I was you would not be defending me right now," she muttered.
"Now that right there is what we are not gonna do," Fives said pointing at her angrily as he sat up straighter, "There is nothing wrong with you and nothing in the world could make me change my mind.
She leaned forward and her voice rose higher, "You haven't even seen my face. For all you know I could be a monster."
Fives jumped to his feet, fully yelling now, "You are not a monster and I don't need to see your face to know that. You could be anything in the universe, but never a monster. I've seen how you behave, I've seen the things you fight for. I may not have seen your face, but I know who you are!"
Dagger sat back, startled by the aggressive confidence he had in her. Someone believed in her and it was hard for her to believe it herself. She looked at Echo to see if he agreed.
Echo nodded his head at her silent question, "Fives speaks for all of us. We don't care what you look like, we care who you are inside."
She crossed her arms and turned her head away from them, tears pricking at her eyes, "I don't like being on leave, I have cried far too much and it's not fair."
Fives laughed lightly and walked around the bench, he extended his arms and she stood into his embrace. He patted the back of her helmet, "I've got your back kid. I always have, I always will."
Dagger broke away and rolled her shoulders signalling that the conversation was over, "So, how dead do you think we are going to be when the Captain finds out?"
Echo tapped his chin, "I think that the important question to ask right now is how do we get out of here?"
Fives laughed, "Ye have little faith in Jesse's perseverance and Hardcase's dumb luck. We will be out of here before the sun rises."
"Which brings us back to my original question."
His face fell, "Well we won't die in prison, but from Rex? That is a high possibility."
Dagger sat back down on the bench with a huff and let out a low sad whine. Echo came and sat next to her. He almost put a hand on Dagger's back to comfort him, but thought better of it recalling the reaction he had to Marian touching his back earlier. Instead, he just planted his hand next to his on the bench, their hands touching but not overlapping, "What's wrong?"
"I promised Rex I would stay out of trouble while he was gone."
Fives scoffed from where he leaned against the cell bars, "I tell Captain that I will stay out of trouble all the time, but that never stops me."
Dagger lets out a strangled sound and Echo glared at him. Fives held up his hands in surrender and Echo spoke, "Hey, hey. Don't freak out. It will be ok. Captain won't get mad at you. If anything it is our fault because we were supposed to look out for you and we only got you into more trouble."
"Dagger, what did you mean when you said Marian hurt you?" Fives asked, unable to hold the question back anymore.
"She touched my back. I," she hesitated, "I have scars and they hurt when anything touches them."
His face turned at the information, "But you fell from the high bars, right onto your back."
"And it hurt like hell."
Echo was hunched over slightly, his head turned towards Dagger and Fives, "Do they always hurt?"
"Everyday of my life," she responded seriously, "Doctors on Kamino said I have nerve damage."
"How did you get them?"
"I wasn't good enough, so the Madam punished me until I was good enough. Until I met her standards."
Echo fought to not go into a rage at the information, he stayed calm and put his hand on Dagger's thigh, "Dagger, you know that is not right? Don't you? No one should be beaten just because they didn't meet a training goal. She was wrong, wrong to hurt you and wrong about you."
Dagger looked at him, eyes sad under her helmet, "How do you know?"
"Because you are my brother, my partner, and my best friend."
Fives sat down on her other side, mirroring Echo, "And there is no deformity or deficiency that will ever change our minds about that."
She smiled and grabbed their hands, "Thank you guys. I just don't know how to believe that. I'm trying, but I was always taught to hide myself from everyone. It's hard for me to believe that you would still say those things if you knew what I was."
Fives bumped his shoulder into hers playfully, "You say that as if we would hate you. Dagger I swear if you are actually a Gungan, I will freak."
"You say that like you haven't seen any of my skin. How would that even be possible?"
"Exactly," Echo followed up, "So there is nothing that could ever make us hate you the way you fear. But that doesn't mean you aren't allowed to be afraid. We will always be here, as long as it takes for you to be comfortable in your own skin."
"Well this is all and good, a little deep talk session in jail," came a voice from outside the bars, "but y'all wanna come home now?"
"Wolffe!?"
"In the flesh. C'mon losers I'm taking you back. General Plo Koon is signing your release forms now," he said, there was something about the devious smile on his face that made Dagger feel better. Anything it was better than waiting here until Rex got back and bailed them out.
"How did you do that?" Echo asked.
"Get you out?" Wolffe clarified, as he opened the cell door, "Well, Jesse came to get me. Honestly I was gonna leave you all in here 'til morning for waking me up in the middle of the night, but he threatened to leave the other one, Hardcase, with me all night. So I figured if I was gonna be awake anyway I might as well come get you now."
Dagger was the first to walk out of the cell, eager to get out of there. Wolffe crossed his arms over his chest as they stood face to face, "I should have known you were a trouble maker little Loth Wolf, but getting yourself arrested…"
She hung her head, "I'm sorry sir."
He let out a burst of laughter and her head snapped up to him, he slapped her on the shoulder plate fondly, "I'm just messing with you kid. Leave ain't fun if you don't get arrested at some point. Let's go, you guys."
General Plo Koon had driven the speeder himself to go get them. The trio thanked him profusely for getting them out of jail. The jedi didn't seem to mind that they got arrested at all. When asked about it, he said that it wasn't his place to yell at them so he wasn't going to. That had surprised Dagger but she was very glad that they wouldn't have two sets of officers breathing down their throat. She even suspected that General Plo Koon's troopers got arrested more often than the 501st did.
Dagger didn't recognize where the speeder was going, but the General seemed to know where he was headed. Dagger was smushed between Fives and Echo in the backseat with Wolffe in the passenger seat. It was oddly reminiscent of when she was in trouble last time. Oh boy, she really needed to avoid getting in trouble if she didn't want to be squished in the back seat of speeder cars.
Plo Koon pulled up to a window and started talking to a person through an intercom. Dagger couldn't hear what he was saying over the racket that Echo and Fives were causing. They were arguing over which of the bands they were talking about were better. Dagger really had no clue who was winning.
They fell silent when the was General passed paper bags through the window. He handed all of them to Wolffe, who then in turn handed three bags back to them. Food?
General Plo Koon had just bought them food! There was a chorus of thank yous from the back seat. He smiled back at them, "Anytime boys."
Fives and Echo dug in and Dagger just happily sat with her bag on her lap. She could smell the food through her helmet and the fried potato sticks smelled great. She was very excited to get back to the barracks to eat.
She could tell Echo was getting tired because he was slumped on her shoulder as he ate. He grabbed a fry from his bag and tried to feed it to her helmet. She giggled and pushed his hand away, "Thank you Echo, I'll eat when we get back."
He put his head down on her shoulder and whined, "You gotta eat, you're so tiny."
"Echo, I'm not that tiny," she insisted, turning to Fives to ask him what was going on.
"When he gets tired he turns into a big ball of mush. I've never seen it in the field so that's good, but he won't remember any of this in the morning. It's best to just be gentle with him," Fives explained.
Echo kept trying to feed her fries and she sighed, she would have to wash her helmet tonight. When they arrived at the barracks she gently lured him out of the speeder by promising to eat if he got out. He followed her like a little puppy and clung to her arm as they checked back into the barracks.
"You're pretty Dagger," he said in the elevator ride up.
She looked at him, "How would you know that Echo? I could be ugly."
He shook his head resolutely, his short hair swishing slightly, "No, you are pretty. I know you are. Your helmet's almost like mine with the stripe. Pretty blue."
"I know . C'mon we are at your floor, let's get you to bed."
He planted his feet as soon as he got off the elevator, "You're going to leave us.'
She could hear the tears in his voice as he continued, "You promised earlier that we could move the mattresses together and stay the night."
"How about I go to my room and eat. You go and get out of your armor and then we can do that. Does that sound good?"
He nodded enthusiastically and let Fives pull him away to go get showered up. She smiled and was as quick as she could be going to eat and shower in her room. Even with all the activity her mind was buzzing from the events of the night.
Honestly, she wasn't all that mad about any of it. It was a crazy night, going to a club, getting into a fight, then even getting arrested. But her friends believed in her and that made all the difference in the world. They had insisted that they would not hate her, no matter what she was.
For the first time, as far back as she could remember, she almost wanted someone to know. She might, in the future even tell them about herself. The thought gave her goosebumps and made her muscles go tight. She had never in her life thought about wanting to tell anyone. It wouldn't be soon, but she decided right then that she would tell them, eventually.