#srj

“Squeeze,” the kid says after another moment, raising her chin ever-so-slightly. There’s fire in those eyes.

A bolt of pain as cutting as any knife goes through Boba like a killshot. Squeeze. It’s barely a name at all, and it reminds him so completely of the clones that it threatens to overwhelm his composure altogether.

(When he was maybe just as small as this kid, Boba used to sneak out into Kamino while his buir was away on jobs. The long-necks always knew to leave him alone and sometimes, Boba could get some of the cadets to talk to him. There had been one boy, maybe only a head taller than Boba and still in his cadet-blues, that had been boasting about his freshly-chosen name in the only way that the clones could boast—utterly in secret, huddled around the bunks, their brothers pressed close and watchful in case one of the trainers or long-necks were around.

“You’ll call me Steady, now, ‘cause I’ve got the steadiest hand in the whole squad,” he had said with a covetous smile that still makes Boba ache, just a bit, all these years later.

“That’s not a real name,” Boba had interjected, absolutely affronted.

“Shut up, Boba, you don’t get it,” one of the other clones had hissed.

Steady had looked at Boba with eyes that were so impossibly heavy, made all the worse that they were coming from a face so similar, even if Boba had never had any difficulty telling the clones apart.

“It’s better than being just another number,” Steady had murmured, quiet and pained, and Boba hadn’t ever brought it up again. He’d always made a point to remember their names. It wasn’t a proper remembrance, but it was something.)

“‘Squeeze’?” He repeats, sounding strangled to his own ears. Boba hates it—hates that he’s called her that—but he can’t bring himself to begrudge someone with so little agency the use of their own damn name. “It’s a good name,” he adds, because it means something to choose a name, clone or slave (and really, all these years later, Boba can admit to himself that there wasn’t much difference between the two in the end.) 

She nods. “I know. It’s why I kept it,” and her grin is more a bearing of gap-toothed teeth than anything. She’s fierce. Scrappy. Has to be, if she ended up here with Skywalker, of all people. 

And Boba will get to that kriffin’ mess, he will. Because his friend has been all sorts of kriffed up for months--has lost his clan, shaken his creed, and surrendered his child--and Boba is furious for him because somebody has to be, and Force knows Djarin isn’t going to get angry for his own sake. But first, there is Squeeze, and Boba has a reputation to uphold. One that matters.

“You got a chip, Squeeze?”

“Yessir.”

(Boba hadn’t known about the chips until years after the end of the Clone Wars. He doesn’t know if it would have made a difference. He tries not to think about it. He’s got so much grief as it is, these days. Enough for a thousand lifetimes.)

“You can call me Boba, Squeeze. How’d you like to get that chip out?”

A fine tremor passes through her. Squeeze is young and skinny and has a far-too-haunted look about her. Her fist clenches hard enough that her knuckles blanch white under the dirt and grime. “Yes please. I’d like that more than anything.”

Yeah. The kid’s got spark.