Chapter Text
The second time Fox died, the chancellor was trying to kill him for good. Or at least that's what Fox thought, brain feeling like a boiling pot of tar under the barrage of sith lightning being pulsed through his body, Chancellor Sithspit cackling all the while. Every inch of him felt like it was burning and freezing and everything hurt and-
Then he died. Again.
Mab was there when Fox stumbled back in that night, after having been dragged away from his ever so valuable office and flimsiwork that was forced upon him.
Mab's first honest thought was that the commander looked like shit. Their next thought was that he shouldn't even be walking, period. The guard was accustomed to walking in the back door near the medbay covered in all manner of filth, blood included, and armor torn to shreds, but the state Fox was in was somehow the worst the CMO had ever seen. (A lie of course, Fox's chest plate wasn't inverted into his chest cavity, nor his legs or arms torn off, but something about seeing their commander like this would always sit as the worst in Mab's head.)
"Commander?" Mab questioned, voice stony. They got no response. Fox simply stood inside the back door entryway, statue-esque, armor splintered and shattered and covered in presumably his own blood. Mab truly hoped for some other poor bastard's sake that it was Fox's blood.
Mab walked up to him slowly. This wouldn't be the first dissociative episode Fox had ever had. They took him gently by the arm, moving him gently to the med bay doors, guiding him into his normal private area with a practiced ease.
"Alright Commander, lets get you looked at." They hummed out softly. The baby shiny voice they had perfected came from moments like this. The curtains drew closed automatically and Mab flipped a switch at the bedside. Fox had to be maneuvered into sitting on the bed, armor clattering with all the pieces chiming a different plastoid screech as Mab went about removing Fox's armor from the outside in.
The guard had very, very specific ways for removing things from their armor. Gauntlets and greaves always went first, helmet dead last. It was the one thing that they had to feel safe with. The armor they could probably go without. It's not like the plastoid saved them anyways from the violence of coruscant anyways. The helmet kept them anonymous. They were safe if they were anonymous.
When Mab removed Fox's helmet, that was when they realized just how wrong this situation was. Mab knew every scar and blemish on every guard's face. Fox was no exception. Everything was right where it should be, but his normally brown eyes.
His eye color- no, his eyes were all wrong.
Blank, rotten green colored eyes met theirs when the bucket came off. Or, what Mab could approximate as meeting theirs. Fox's eyes had no pupil, no scalera. Mabs swallowed minutely at the change, having seen the horrors of triple-zero scaring off any stronger reaction that the problem should have conjured.
"Commander?" Mabs asked, voice still soft, "Fox?"
Fox shook his head lightly. Mab swallowed again, but went on with the check up as normal. Fox sat still the entire time.
Injuries that littered Foxes torso should have killed him. He should be dead.
At that moment Mab realized Fox wasn't breathing. Hadn't been breathing. They took Fox's wrist with a shaking hand, searching for a pulse. There wasn't one. But still, Fox's hand flexed in their grip as it tightened.
By all known laws of nature, Fox was dead.
Yet here he was, slowly sinking to lay down on the bed all while looking at Mab.
Mab could only look back.
"What happened?" Mab asked in a small voice.
"Too much." Came an equally small voice. It was Fox's of course, but there was something else there. Mab raised an eyebrow to whoever was in front of them now. Because Fox wouldn't have deigned an answer past a soft groan.
"Fox?" Mab asked once more, getting a shaken head as an answer. "Then where is he?"
"Resting."
Mab stood abruptly, taking in the situation. Something wearing Fox's face and body like it was a suit had brought it back to the exact place he was meant to be after being dragged away from his work-except said body was about as dead as dead could legally be pronounced- and they were sitting here. All they were doing was, was. Sitting down. Having a little chat.
Fury grew in Mabs' chest. Force osik may be written all over this situation in the chancellor's old cryptic handwriting, but it didn't stop the CMO from forcing Faux-Fox down on the bed with one hand pinning it there.
"Where. Is. He?" Mab asked pointedly.
Faux-Fox regarded him with pity written on Actual-Fox's face. It was an emotion that had never been, and never should be, on Fox's face. It made Mab nauseous.
"He'll be back, we promise. Give him time." It responded, in the same small Faux-Fox voice. Mab wasn't a very trusting person. But they'd take what they could in the moment, praying to the small gods that Faux-Fox wasn't a liar.
It wasn't.
According to everyone, the second time Fox died, he came back as somebody else. Then back to himself a few days after. It was like he was possessed by a ghost.
Mab said it wasn't possession, really, after corralling the poor bastard into the medbay. Nobody quite believed that Mab wasn't lying. But they all stopped questioning it.
Besides, they all knew Mab was a terrible liar. Especially after the other ghosts started turning up.
The first time it happened nobody understood how or why.
CT-6652 was young, shot down in a store robbery in Coco town weeks prior to the incident. He died on the table later that night. Fox was there when they incinerated the body.
Three weeks later, the poor vod stumbled back into the base, right into Fox's waiting arms.
This kept happening. More vode that marched away more than often marched back. Living Vode would ask Fox about their lost brothers. Most times, the vod that was asked for would return home. Those that didn't, Fox gave a few words. That they were tired and earned their rest. Nobody asked for those vode after that.
The ghosts walked about amongst the living, oftentimes walking right through them, forgetting the others' mortality. It was all very strange, at first. Then it was simply another day at the Guard.
The GAR however did not take to it well.