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After the court martial, they put Fox away.
Just - put him away, up on a shelf like a little toy soldier. He’d laugh, if it wasn’t so fitting. They created him to do a job and he went out and did it and now they were done with him.
He wasn’t in his own cells on Coruscant. No, that would’ve been a conflict of interest, a security risk. He couldn’t argue - Fox knew his men too well. They would’ve tried to pull some idiotic, loyalist move spearheaded by that starry-eyed fool Thorn, and then the entirely of CG command would be branded traitors. It was better this way, better for Fox to be the only Guard in the line of fire.
Doing his job as an ori’vod , one last time.
No one quite knew what to do with him. He was, after all, the highest authority in the GAR military police besides the Chancellor, and the Chancellor hadn’t even bothered to show up to his trial. Probably trying to distance himself as much as possible from the Fives debacle and making sure all the blowback fell squarely onto Fox.
After the hearing where Fox’s counsel had forbidden him from testifying, after Fox had been found guilty, the Jedi had taken him into their custody. Technically he was “awaiting his sentencing”.
He wasn’t quite sure why they were bothering. Fox knew he’d be decommissioned eventually. Reconditioning at his rank would be too risky - everyone knew the reconditioned clones didn’t come back quite right.
Instead of the GAR military prison or Kamino he’d been sent to a myth. The Prism, way out on the fringes of Wild Space and kept by the Jedi, held the most high-security prisoners in the galaxy. Apparently by doing his damned job and shooting Fives, by obeying an authority that would’ve punished his brothers had he strayed out of line, Fox had made the cut as one of the galaxy’s most dangerous convicts.
He was almost proud.
It was a three day journey from Coruscant to the Diab system, where the prison stayed hidden in the shadow of the sixth moon, wracked by constant electrical storms. It was inescapable, self-sustaining, and absolutely miserable.
Cody had been the one to deliver him. Cody, his brother, his batchmate.
The one who’d court-martialed him and then carried him here to rot.
Even so, Fox missed him. He pressed on his cheekbone, sometimes, right in the spot where Cody’s fist had connected and shattered it.
Was that the last time Cody had touched him?
He hadn’t come near Fox during the trial, and not on the trip over. They’d spent three days in hyperspace, three days where Cody never came to see him, and then Fox was introduced to his new home.
“Introduced” seemed too friendly. Maybe installed was a better term.
The prison itself was a hollow atrium of honeycomb cells that rotated at a distance around a central command spindle, manned only by droids and one Jedi Master whom Fox had never seen. He’d been processed, cuffed on all four limbs, and flown up to his cell by droids, and it was a droid who shoved him in and activated the yellow ray shield. Then the heavy blast door. Then - nothing.
There wasn’t much to his cold little cell; featureless durasteel walls, with a featureless durasteel platform and thin mattress for a bed. A toilet with a tiny sink and drinking fountain. A small chute, longer than his arm would reach, where ration bars dropped in twice a day. And the Wall.
Fox hated the Wall. It was an innocuous, empty section of wall, with four connection points set into the steel. Once every day the ports would flash blue and a projected force field would erupt from each one, locking onto the cuffs on Fox’s wrists and ankles. He’d be gently, inexorably levitated towards the Wall, pinned into place while a droid came in with a portable sonic wand to clean both Fox and his cell.
At first he tried counting, keeping track of the rations and the cleanings. He worked out after the first ration bar and took naps and paced, wondering anxiously how Thorn was getting on as Commander of the Guard. Was he messing up as much as Fox had? Was Palpatine punishing Thorn the same way he’d punished Fox?
Or maybe Thorn was better at the job than Fox ever was. Probably hadn’t killed a brother, but give him time.
Life at the Prism was hauntingly similar to when Palpatine had taught Fox a lesson by locking him in solitary, just brighter, and colder, and much much longer. Fox knew from experience that it was best to stick with a schedule. He knew it was unhealthy to sleep too long, or pick at the scabs and scar tissue roping his body.
But knowing didn’t mean he could resist.
–
Eventually, as days passed in an unending parade of monotony, he did all the bad habits anyway.
Were they really days if there was no sun to rise?
The sun on Cody’s armor, the weak sun on Coruscant, both lost to him now. He existed in the yellow buzzing glow of the ray shield and nothing more.
Fox’s routine collapsed into sleeping constantly, and then not sleeping at all. Either way, Fox lost - when he slept he got constant nightmares, but if he didn’t sleep he was forced to exist as a conscious being and that was just as bad.
When he couldn’t sleep he paced, around and around and around in circles like patrolling the Senate Dome. 12 this way. Then 4. Then 12. Then 4. Steel, then the Wall, then steel, then the yellow ray shield. With every step Fox named brothers, of the Guard or of his batch, seeing how many he could list out. How many he would miss when they finally came for him.
Wolffe and Thorn and Cody and Stone and Thire and Ponds and Rex and Hound and Bly and Hedge and Bacara and Doom and Neyo and Fen and Dogma and Rhys and Jek and Fives, always Fives, FivesFivesFivesFives -
He deserved this. For what he did to Fives he deserved it all.
When he dug his nails deep into his forearm he could almost feel something. It was soothing in a way, took his attention from the painful buzzing in his brain and put it all in one spot.
Four little pinpricks of pain and his nerves lit up like a beacon. He pressed in deeper and rocked back and forth on the bunk, silent.
–
The next time he drew blood, little crescents of red marching down his forearm. Even just the sight of that bright Corrie red tugged at Fox’s heart. He watched as a bead welled up and rolled slowly down his skin, but the color didn’t last.
Someone must’ve been watching - a droid, maybe, or a program that recognized any unwanted behavior.
The bracelets flared to life and he was put back on the Wall. A droid came in and cleaned the tiny half-moon cuts, smeared them with bacta, and clipped Fox’s nails to the quick before exiting. When the Wall released him, Fox crumpled to the floor and stayed there for a long, long time.
–
He was never getting out. Maybe the Jedi had forgotten about him?
Maybe they’d won the war weeks ago and Fox was just a relic of an old system they didn’t need anymore. He’d always wondered what would happen to the clones after the war ended, even if he wasn’t around to see it.
More conscripted service? Freedom? Or would they all be decommissioned en masse, now that their purpose was served?
It had been - huh.
Fox didn’t know exactly how long it had been, he’d lost track. After a while it hadn’t seemed to matter how long he’d been in here, only that he was.
Months, at least. Maybe all the men who’d known him were dead. There’d be no way to know if any of his Guards or his batch had been killed in the time he’d been here.
Fox would see them again when he was allowed to march on, but - knowing would be nice.
–
12 this way. Then 4. Then 12. Then 4. Steel, then the Wall, then steel, then yellow. Steel, then the Wall, then steel, then yellow. Steel, then the Wall, then steel, then-
–
Most of the time, Fox huddled around himself on the bunk with the wall pressed against his back. He needed contact - all clones did, even him. Even cold, stuck-up Commander Fox.
He ached for the press of Thorn’s shoulder against his, or Bly’s too-tight hugs. Thire’s tendency to come into a room and collapse on top of Fox, armor and all.
He rubbed his hands up and down his arms in a parody of touch. It didn’t help.
–
Maybe he was dead? Fox figured he’d be able to sleep, if that were true. He pressed shaking fingers hard into his cheekbone - nope. Still there. Here? Wherever.
–
It was cold. It was just - really cold.
–
He existed then in a sort of waking dream; his eyes opened but didn’t see. What was there to see but durasteel walls and yellow, always yellow, blazing behind his eyelids?
Fox didn’t resist when he was put on the Wall again, limp limbs held fast in the miniaturized force fields. He let his scruffy chin drop heavy to his chest. Tomorrow already.
The ray shield went down, the blast door opened, but instead of the metallic sounds of the cleaning droid there were - voices?
“What the fuck?! Let him down from there!”
“Prisoners must be restrained for the ray shield to be deactivated,” recited a droid.
A muffled curse, then the voice said, “Fox? We’re gonna let you down, ok, vod ?”
Should he answer? He was Fox but he wasn’t a vod.
He couldn’t recollect how to answer. He did nothing.
The Wall powered off and-
Fox fell. Strong arms caught him, curled around his back and supported his weight.
Someone was handling him with care, for the first time in - Fox didn’t know when. His cheek ended up shoved into something soft and warm, and after an eternity of durasteel, Fox couldn’t help but nuzzle further into the comfort.
“You’re ok, Fox, you’re ok,” the voice said softly. The voice was familiar, even if the softness wasn’t.
“Wolffe?” Fox choked out. Oh. He could answer.
His chest felt tight. He heaved rapid breaths through his teeth that didn’t seem like enough to sate the aching in his lungs. Hot tears forced their way from his closed eyes, slipping down his face and onto the armor he’d latched his fingers into, tight like air pressure seals in a spacer suit.
“Yeah, vod, it’s me. I gotcha.”
“How - how long has it been?”
Wolffe’s arms tightened, a steady pressure that made Fox shake even harder. “Three months. I’m sorry, I shouldn't have let them take you, that hearing was so suspicious-”
Three months. Three months in the cell, and only now did someone come for him. Fox swallowed his panting breaths and pulled back, not without effort. Wolffe stared at him worriedly and didn’t move his hands from Fox’s shoulders.
“What.” His voice was raspy from disuse. Fox tried again. “What’s the verdict? Kamino?”
Wolffe’s face collapsed in on itself like a dying star; he shook his head, mismatched eyes shining, and said thickly, “No, Fox. You’re free. We’re all free. The war’s over.”