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The hand was a leaden weight on his shoulder. It dragged him forcibly from the beauty of the moment and back into the awful world that had become his reality. Almost snarling, Shades rounded on Wiley who stepped back, hands raised in supplication and a startled look on his face.

"Whoa there. Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. I take it you two know each other?" He glanced between Shades and Fib and raised his eyebrows questioningly. "Nice hair," he added, nodding at Fib's shaggy mop of bright red hair.

Fib stepped forward and peered over Shades's shoulder at the other clone, a speculative scowl on his face. "Who's the nosey interloper?"

Shades shook his head to clear it. "This is Wiley. He's in Quasar Company. And that," he gestured to the curious Noble who had come to join them, "is Noble, also in Quasar. Guys, this is Fib. He and I were… were in Renegade together." He had to clear his throat to dislodge the suddenly painful lump that had clogged it.

Fib's hand grasped his shoulder in silent support. Shades took a steadying breath and squared his shoulders.

Things were different now. The Republic was gone. The Jedi were gone. Everything that Shades had been taught to believe in and had learned to love was gone. His brothers were gone.

Edi was gone. Everything was darkness.

But he wasn't alone anymore. Now Fib was here, and a small light had come back into his dark world. He couldn't see enough to run, but maybe he could see just enough to fumble his way to the end one day.

Either way, he had hope again.

Things weren't easy. This new life Shades was struggling to understand was even more restricted than his old one. Armor with individualized markings was no longer allowed, tattooing was frowned upon, and unique hairstyles and colors were frowned upon. The Emperor wanted everything to be uniform, and the clones' little ways of showing individuality was a nuisance that he would ultimately see erased.

Many clones had complied with the new standards without complaint. Wiley's hair had been regulation cut and color the morning after the announcement had been delivered, not by Vader, but one of his many underlings. Shades's hair had always been regulation cut, and he'd never had much interest in changing its color. He wasn't an artist.

Despite the new regulations, some clones still kept their hair in their own unique style. Noble's head remained clean shaven. He maintained that he didn't like the itchy feeling of sweaty hair under a helmet. And Fib's hair stayed its bright, stubborn red. When Wiley bugged him about it, the medic gave the man such a quelling stare that he'd excused himself. Shades knew that no amount of regulations could convince Fib to change his hairstyle. It wasn't some stupid bravado about remaining an individual—his dead brother Grayson had given him that hair color. It was the only thing that Fib had left to remember him by. He'd never change it.

Along with signs of individuality, the clones' already limited freedom had been all but eliminated. Random excursions off base were forbidden. The clones now found themselves confined to their barracks, and as a result, turned to each other even more for entertainment and companionship.

Shades spent almost all his time with Fib. They ate together, trained together, exercised together. Fib was Shades's last link to his old life in Renegade, and even though the memories that he evoked were so painful that sometimes the sergeant couldn't bear to look at him, he would never give up the friendship they had. It was too important, too much an essential.

It had come to the point where Shades wasn't certain what would be left of him if Fib went away. They had grown together, intertwined and changed forever by it, like two trees growing side by side, coiling around each other until it was impossible to separate one from the other. Each had become so integral to the other that neither could exist fully as they were now without each other.

They needed each other, now more than ever. It was a very rare night that wasn't haunted by a nightmare. Shades had recurring dreams of Edi, her body charred by blaster shots and face half covered in blood, standing in front of him, asking over and over, "I loved you. How could you do this to me?" But when Shades tried to answer, he couldn't find his voice. He could only stand mutely in the dark as his dead friend asked again and again in a plaintive voice why he had betrayed her. In the end, she would simply crumble into ash that was scattered by a cold wind.

After he woke up, Shades could never get back to sleep. He usually ended up leaving his bunkroom and going to Fib's. There, he would sit on the floor and watch his brother sleep. It calmed him.

Wiley and Noble had become semi regular parts of Shades's life. The four ate meals together and trained together in group exercises.

Wiley got on Shades's nerves on a regular basis. He had a very annoying habit of draping an arm around the sergeant's shoulders as though they were longtime friends. The only person that Shades was comfortable with touching him these days was Fib.

Wiley had a tendency to chatter on about topics that Shades wasn't interested in. It was hard to have a conversation with the guy; when he got going, Wiley plowed right over anyone who tried to contribute. It was impossible to get a word in edgewise. Conversing with Wiley was more like being an audience to a dramatic monolog.

And then there was his obsession with Vader. Shades was a little alarmed by how devoted Wiley was, how hungry he was for the littlest word, the slightest show of acknowledgement. He took everything that Vader said to heart and obeyed it like scripture. Such unquestioning loyalty didn't seem healthy.

Despite all this, Wiley was an okay guy. He had a surprising sense of humor and came up with the strangest jokes that made you laugh for the sheer absurdity of them. And he had a real knack for rigging ingenious traps from spare parts he kept in a pouch on his belt. Wiley certainly wouldn't have been Shades's first choice of friends, or even his second, but he was learning to find things to admire, and even like, in the other.

Noble was as different from Wiley as a sage from a war monger. He was a quiet, thoughtful person, introspective by nature. He had trouble talking to people he didn't know well, and often came off as slow or dimwitted because of it. And since anyone he was talking to often had Wiley to compare him to, to most people he seemed downright stupid.

But nothing could be farther from the truth. Noble had an amazingly intelligent and analytical mind. Give him a scenario, and he could give you fifty likely outcomes in order of probability. He could perform complex math in his head and recite back word for word any conversation he'd ever heard. Shades was constantly amazed by what he could accomplish and told him so on a regular basis. It was painfully clear that Noble rarely received praise or encouragement for his abilities. He got this blank look when he was complimented, as though he didn't understand what had been said. Shades remembered what it had been like when praise was a foreign concept, and he was determined to change that for the other clone.

Months passed. The 501st was often sent on missions that Lord Vader deemed of top priority. The legion soon acquired a name that proceeded them to every planet and star system and made beings tremble with fear: Vader's Fist.

Shades and Fib kept to themselves in Quasar. The only people they associated with on a regular basis were Wiley and Noble. They let no one else close. It was too painful, and Shades didn't entirely trust his brothers anymore. He'd never been able to figure just what the Jedi had done to betray the Republic, but a little voice inside him whispered that however treasoness their attempt to overthrow Emperor Palpatine had been, the clones had done something far worse when they'd shot their commanding officers in the back, order or no order. If you betrayed someone once, you could do it again, and Shades wanted no part of it. Neither did Fib.

He sometimes wondered where his real brothers—his brothers from Renegade—had ended up. He tried to imagine Lieutenant Shmolt or Captain Thorn in the new armor, but he couldn't. They were frozen in time in his mind, forever garbed in their old style armor, helmets tucked under their arms, smiling. Well, Thorn was smiling; Shmolt was looking on with slight disapproval. He didn't think about them often, because he'd had as much crying as he could take for a lifetime or two.

He never touched his memories of Edi.

Shades knew about the five stages of grief; he'd learned about them in battle psychology on Kamino: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. The training sergeant had listed them out like a map of air taxi stops on the road back to "normal." What he hadn't said was that Shades would feel them all out of order or all at once. And he hadn't said what "normal" would be like once he reached it.

Will I ever reach it? And what's normal, now that Edi and my brothers are gone? Dose "normal" even exist for me anymore?

When he'd voiced these thoughts to Fib, the medic had looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Are you seriously thinking about that? First off, all psychologists are whack jobs with degrees that enjoy telling people how messed up they are. Don't listen to a thing they tell you. Secondly, no, the normal you're looking for doesn't exist anymore. Don't bother looking for it, because you'll only hurt yourself needlessly in the process."

Shades had winced at the harsh words. Fib never pulled his punches, and he never said anything unless he meant it. He saw doing anything else as a waist of breath. Then Fib had put a gentle hand on Shades's shoulder and given him a rare, tired and frayed smile. "All you can do is take it one day at a time. And you don't have to do it alone. Maybe we can make our own 'normal' together."

Together. Shades liked the sound of that.

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mad'ika