Star Wars The Bad Batch: The Runaway

Chapter 48 - Almost Kisses and A New Team Member

All too soon, the week of vacation came to a close. The night where Calli had her nightmare was never spoken of again, thank goodness, though she couldn't help but notice how Jace would ask her if she's alright at least once every hour for the rest of the vacation. And something shifted between them that night - more specifically in Calli. She still got nervous around him, yet that anxiety was coupled with something warm in her chest. The way he'd been so gentle and nice to her after the nightmare had left an impact on her and only added to the weird feelings, he made her... feel. Calli was too stubborn and just plain scared to deal with such feelings and instead kept her focus on Scruffy.

Try as she did, Calli did get super attached to the little tooka cat, so when the time came to let him go (he'd recovered well and was deemed fit enough to be released back into the wild) Calli almost asked Hunter if he'd changed his mind about letting her keep him. But she knew her brother, and what his answer would be.

The boys were totally not excited to be leaving, even if they did get up at dawn and began preparing for take-off without even having their morning caf first. Calli slept in until 09:00 regardless, and surprisingly she wasn't as eager for their departure.

In one word, Calli was bummed, which wasn't like her. She's always looked forward to being able to travel and explore new planets they were assigned to for missions, but this time around Calli wished she had a few more days of leisure time. For the first time ever, she was able to be her age and do what other normal sixteen-year olds do. Of course, Calli was not your normal sixteen-year-old and she came to accept that reality, even if she wasn't thrilled about it. But to hang out with another person her age - ok, Jace was a year or so older than her but whatever - was kind of ... nice? Perhaps because it reminded her of when she and Boba would do stuff together. And it was better once Calli got Jace to come out of his shell a little and be more expressive and such instead of the serene, basically emotionless Jedi persona he normally was supposed to have.

Calli was thinking of all this as she picked up things around the lounge while keeping an eye on Scruffy from the corner of her vision as he explored the lounge area, Calli having let him in there so he wouldn't get into things in the med bay.

So far Scruffy hadn't caused any trouble, though he did jump onto Tech's worktable a couple times. The first didn't bother Tech so much, and he calmly picked up Scruffy and set him back on the ground. Scruffy made a noise of protest yet appeared to understand that Tech did not want him on the table. A couple minutes went by, and as Tech packed his tools into a box, a screwdriver slipped from his hands and fell to the ground. The goggled clone stooped down to grab it, and when he stood straight once more, he was met with a pair of big, curious eyes.

Scruffy was on the table again. Ok, no big deal. Tech for the second time, with minimal irritation, lifted the small animal and deposited him back on the floor.

The third time Scruffy was smart enough to wait until Tech stepped out of the room before hopping back onto the table, and Calli was too busy gathering all the garbage on the floor into a container to notice, which again he took advantage of.

He sniffed at all the little parts and tools that littered the table and eventually his attention was zeroed in on the lightbulb near the edge of the table. His head tilted to the right curiously, something about the clear, round thing mesmerizing his little brain and cat logic told him to bat it. So, he did. It rolled a half inch closer to the edge, then stopped. Scruffy stared at the bulb for a second, then his little paw reached out and batted it again. He did this one, two, three more times before the lightbulb toppled over the edge and was sent falling to the floor, shattering upon impact with the durasteel.

Calli spun around quickly just as Tech hurried into the room upon hearing the shattering noise, and behind his goggles Tech glared at the cat that was oblivious to what he just did and was already batting at something else.