Smile
Dominoes.
The bunks were all empty.
Echo turned to Fives, after looking at the empty pair of beds, and shrugged. Fives sighed, looked from the lower rack to the upper, and tossed his duffle onto the top one. Echo, in turn, set his on the bottom, the black canvas material barely making a dent on the tightly tucked grey blanket.
The racks were like every other pair, either built into the walls or bolted to the floor in case of an emergency loss of gravity. They were neat, and they were grey, with small hard pillows set at the end of each thin mattress. The barracks here were much like the barracks on Rishi; simple, plain, but with a few scattered posters on the walls, some of speeders, some of propaganda, most of underdressed females of various species, printed fantasies for men who'd never met a woman to begin with.
This would be, hopefully for a long time to come, home.
"501st," Echo said, looking around the room, placing a hand on his chest, over the eel-blood handprint left by the Captain only a day ago. "We're in the 501st."
Fives made a grunting sound, low in his throat before bowing his head in remembrance. "Hevy," he said. "Cutup. Droidbait."
Echo bowed as well, the two of them standing silently for a moment, in the empty barracks. After a moment, Echo added, "Ninety-nine."
"Him and us," Fives agreed. "Last of the Dominoes."
Echo nodded, grimly. He turned and reached into his duffel, rummaging for a moment before he found the right pocket inside, and pulled out the small medal he'd been given on graduation of basic training. Fives looked at it for a moment, nodded once, and went into his own duffel, pulling out a matching one a moment later. Magnetized, it fixed itself easily to the durasteel bar attaching the upper bunk to the lower. Echo stuck his to the bar just below Fives'. The pair of medals hung there, small and bright against the grey of the room.
Echo said, with a determined smile, "Better make sure we don't fall."
This takes place shortly after the episode Rookies. This was actually one of the first ficlets I wrote when I started Smile, and wrote it about a week or so before "Counter Attack" (Season 3, ep 19) aired. It was meant to be a 'determined smile' story, but it's kind of depressing looking at it now. Seriously, I'm ignoring "Counter Attack" forever. ECHO LIVES!
~Queen