Chapter Text
Overview:
Ashe (pronounced “ash”), or CC-2222 is technically not the 212th's medic—he's the 7th Sky's Chief Medic. This means that all of the medics of sub-divisions under the 7th Sky, including those of the 212th and 501st, answer to him. He's the medical equivalent of Marshall Commander, and fittingly, usually accompanies Cody and Obi-Wan. This is why he's often found with the 212th, even though like Cody, he doesn't serve only them.
Ashe was deployed considerably later than most other clones in his generation. As Cody's batchmate, he's one of the "early development CCs" (Generation 0.9), a small group of CCs with slightly boosted initial aging who served as trials for the training and educational curriculums of later CC and CT troopers. Clone medics are usually CTs because their training curriculums allow for more specializations, and CCs have a much broader command-centric training that the Kaminoans feel are wasted in limited fields. That being said, they still needed a group to develop medical training with, and Ashe was selected as one of this small group of CCs. Nala Se personally oversaw the training of this preliminary test group of medics.
Ashe stood out in his medic training, and was exemplary in everything the Kaminoans wished to see. He was smart, obedient, deferred completely even to the most lowly of the Kaminoan staff, and didn't shy away from tasks that his peers balked at. He had a bizarrely clear understanding of Kaminoan values and priorities, something rare outside of their species, and even rarer among his Fett clone peers. Nala Se, who supervised him most closely, began to place far more trust in him than most clones, and other Kaminoans followed suit. Eventually, Nala Se began asking for his input on training modules and exercises for other clone medics, knowing that his CC training would give him a more practical military perspective that the Kaminoans themselves lack. After Ashe repeatedly proves over the years that he is able to replicate choices that Nala Se herself would make, she eventually makes him the Chief Clone Medical Trainer, as well as an advisor and editor for clone medic training modules, all positions that usually would have gone to Kaminoans.
When the war began, Ashe remained on Kamino while his batchmates and students went out to fight. Nala Se wanted him to continue training medics, especially when those out in the field performed better than expected. Ashe remained on Kamino for a whole year after the war had begun, long after the main body of the clone army deployed.
Then, a year later, he was suddenly assigned to go out onto the field. The assignment request was from High General Obi-Wan Kenobi, who requested Kamino's best medic on the front lines, and had been recommended Ashe by his Commander. Given that Ashe had trained a significant number of reliable clone trainer assistants by this time, Nala Se grudgingly allowed the request, and Ashe was shipped out.
When he was first sent out to the front lines, he was an uncomfortable and unwelcome presence to most clones. He always appeared cold, calm, and aloof, and his attitude and various physical ticks like walking slowly and rarely blinking reminded them eerily of Kaminoans. He even spoke like a Kaminoan—his accent wasn't like that of other clones, at least in basic—and all of this only reaffirmed his reputation of being the "Kaminoans' pet." Most clones believed he was a plant sent by Nala Se who reported back to her on all GAR activity. He never socialized, and seemed to avoid other clones, which they were all perfectly happy with; it looked like he was more interested in admiring his own reflection than talking with brothers anyway. As the Chief Medic of the 7th Sky, he rarely went out into the field and usually remained on the ships, performing administrative duties and only personally entering the operating room for the most difficult surgeries. Other clones assumed he thought himself too important to mingle with the masses.
As if being a wannabe Kaminoan wasn’t bad enough, an even darker nickname was associated with Ashe: “The Decommissioner.” Every clone had heard rumors that he'd personally decommissioned countless brothers, performing the dirtiest tasks for the Kaminoans. Many clones worried about what he discussed with Cody behind closed doors, and were terrified that if they were sent to him instead of a medic working under him, it was a death sentence. There was also a rumor that he collected the bodies of dead brothers for terrible experiments. The title of the Decommissioner followed Ashe even long after the majority of these rumors were dispelled.
~~
The true story:
When they were cadets, as Cody's close batchmate, Ashe is one of the first clones who joins Cody in establishing his underground network of trying to support fellow clones. He's confident in his skills and smarts, and hates when Cody, who is a small but significant two numbers younger, tries to shoulder too many burdens. When they see the valuable opportunity to get one of them involved in medical training, Ashe volunteers himself to prevent Cody from attempting to take on yet another burden.
Ashe and Cody decide that in becoming a medic, Ashe has three primary objectives: 1) Learn as much about the Kaminoans as possible, 2) Reduce the number of decommissioned brothers, 3) Prolong all of their lives as much as possible. Neither of them are under any impression that they'll be able to stop the Kaminoans entirely. Ashe's job is to gather information and try to minimize the damage.
Ashe spends years sucking up to Kaminoans. He learns their culture and habits, using the trust he gains to access more information. He researches past cloning projects, and past cloned armies the Kaminoans have made. He tries to understand how Kaminoans see the clones, so he can better predict which of his brothers are in most danger, and better prepare for the Kaminoans' future plans for them. He sucks up to the stupider, lower-ranked Kaminoans who enjoy his subservience enough to make more mistakes. And most importantly, he molds himself into the ideal obedient servant for Nala Se, who quickly identifies him as a potentially useful asset to develop. After all, Ashe knows that Nala Se alone holds the authority and keys to most of what he his seeking.
Ashe knows that in order to stop decommissioning, he needs to get closer to it. The rumors aren't wrong—he has participated in decommissionings, many of them. He knows all of the methods the Kaminoans use to end the lives of his brothers. He at first just stood to the side, pretending to be unaffected as the Kaminoans murdered his brothers, but eventually he has to actively participate in euthanizing—an experience that leaves him traumatized, but he forces himself to get used to it. After all, Nala Se must first trust him and his results before she can leave the entire process to him, and only then will he finally get the opportunity to deviate from the course to save lives.
Ashe carts his brothers' bodies to the cremation chamber, and watches their ashes get expelled into the cold, rainy Kaminoan sky. He names himself "Ashe," because he knows they'll all just be ashes one day, but he'll do his damn hardest to make sure that day isn't today.
He learns that the Kaminoans are definitely creating them with a policy of planned obsolescence—they want the Republic to think the clones are good enough to want more, but they also want the clones to die off at a fast enough pace that the Republic will have to buy more to replace them. It's all about maximizing profit, because the clones are, in the end, just products. This is reflected in the medical training that Ashe first receives; the Kaminoans planned to intentionally train their medics to mark brothers who might survive as too late to save, and have intentionally limited the tools and supplies they can access so that that the loss of clone lives remains profitable to them.
Given that it's all the training most medics would receive, no clone would know better. Ashe knows better, because he alone was given the privilege of accessing medical training from outside of Kamino as a part of his unique early training. And perhaps most importantly, he knows the Kaminoans. He slowly tries to incorporate himself into training module development. It's a painfully slow, delicate operation that requires Ashe to write in things that will hurt his brothers—the Kaminoans must believe that Ashe is helping them profit off of his brothers' planned deaths, after all—but he eventually makes a low administrator position, and works his way up. With ever-present Kaminoan eyes checking his work, the changes he can make to the modules themselves are minimal, but it lets him supervise every clone medic personally, and slip them additional "notes" during in-person training sessions. He teaches the medics the realities behind their methods—what kind of fatality numbers the Kaminoans want to see in order for the medics to be "successful" in their eyes, and why—and he teaches them how to fake both deaths and reports well.
Ashe despises Kaminoans more than most clones can imagine, and his hatred towards Nala Se is deeply personal. He knows so much about all of the Kaminoans and their practices, and he uses his hate to fuel digging ever deeper into them. His only hope is that one day, he'll be able to help get all of his brothers and himself off of Kamino, and away from them. But he's just one cog, and he focuses on managing his one specialized area, and continues reporting everything he can to Cody.
The war starts, and clones begin to leave Kamino. Ashe desperately wants to go too—actually saving the lives of his brothers on the field, because he can with his skills, seems an infinitely better fate than standing alone in pristine lab rooms, being complicit or actively murdering his brothers with his own hands when he can't save them. But Ashe has also come so far, and knows there are too many things that only he can do at this point. He decides to remain on Kamino, under Nala Se, to continue his operation for as long as he can.
While Ashe thinks he's gotten far in terms of medical knowledge, training, and even decommissioning, cloning and their inbuilt DNA is more difficult. Cloning is a different specialization from clone medic training, and the information is more difficult for Ashe to access and far more classified. He still tries, and bit by bit, he gathers potential information that might one day help them.
His position means that he can access more Kaminoan resources than perhaps any other clone, and eventually, he manages to synthesize what he hopes might be an antidote to their accelerated aging. He thinks it's the best he can manage, at least unless Nala Se herself decides to cough up information personally. Not wanting to test an unknown drug on another clone, he injects himself with his concoction.
The next day, his previously black hair is all white.
Ashe panics, and hides under his bucket as he goes to consult Seventeen, who has since returned from the front lines and is a trainer himself. Seventeen takes one look at him, and sends a transmission to Cody, asking him to get General Kenobi to pull Ashe out of Kamino and to the front. Ashe tries to convince him not to—he can dye his hair black again, he can try to continue being useful here—but he's terrified and Seventeen knows it.
Ashe doesn't know to what extent, but he knows that the drug he'd administered had somehow affected him on the genetic level. All Nala Se would need is to get suspicious enough to take one sample, and she’d know Ashe has been altered. If she finds out Ashe had done it himself (not many other potential perpetrators), she’ll decommission him. Ashe is far less worried about his own death than he is that in investigating him, Nala Se will realize that he's compromised every single clone medic, possibly more, and will then in turn decommission all of them.
And so, reluctantly, Ashe lets Seventeen boot him out of Kamino, and under General Kenobi's wing, who Seventeen says will protect him from Kamino. It's around a year into the war.
Ashe hates it. He feels that he's failed at all of his life goals. Not only did he kriff up and definitely not discover the cure to de-aging, but he kriffed himself up in the process, to the point he can't continue being useful in his previous role.
Cody, one of the few who's aware of everything he's been doing from the beginning, assures him that he's done enough. Just as Ashe tells Cody that he can't be solely responsible for saving his brothers, neither can Ashe. Ashe has done enough, and it's time for his assistants back on Kamino to carry on his previous role. Being a medic on the front lines is plenty enough hard work, and there will still be other things for Ashe to do.
Ashe wants to be a field medic, but he's also missed out on the entire first year of action, and now all of his active students have more field experience than him. Ashe is also too confident in his skills. He was practically on par with Cody in their early CC training, making them top of their class, but unlike Cody, he's rusty from dedicating the majority of his time to medic training and research. Combined with his frustration and self-loathing, he's far too reckless the first time he goes out onto the field, and Cody forbids him from doing it again until he's proven himself capable of not being self-destructive. Ashe's experience and knowledge is too essential to the clones as a whole for Cody to risk him getting taken out by a stray blaster bolt. Ashe is furious that Cody wants to keep him locked up away from the fight, denying him his right to die alongside his brothers, but can't do anything to convince him to rescind the order.
Ashe turns his frustration into desperation to save as many brothers as he can aboard their flagship. His methods are brutal. Clone bodies are usually supposed to be cremated, as they were taught as part of their training, and at this point in the war, it's become a solemn parting ritual for their dead. Ashe demands that things change so every clone body that can be salvaged in decent condition be brought back to the ship. He methodically strips bodies of healthy organs to preserve, sometimes entire limbs or whole bodies. They’re clones; almost all of their body parts can be swapped out for that of another brother's. Their blood, their organs, even entire heads to bodies with Ashe's skills. Give Ashe two clones who are about to die, and he'll usually be able to save one of them with the other's parts.
All of the clone medics who trained with Ashe know how to save their brothers’ lives using Ashe’s methods, but can’t, at least openly, without revealing that Ashe taught them beyond their strict Kaminoan-approved curriculums. In order for them to be “successful medics” in the eyes of Kamino, the mortality rates of their patients must remain profitable. But Ashe comes with the additional label of being Nala Se’s personally trained “best clone medic.” He alone is allowed to disregard the mortality rates and rules set for other medics, as his personal success is directly reflective of Nala Se’s personal capabilities as a trainer. And thus, he saves his brothers, as many as he can, often in the most horrible ways imaginable.
This does nothing to improve Ashe's reputation among his brothers, who hate how Ashe talks about them like their bodies are droid parts. They essentially are, Ashe thinks, from a practical perspective, and that's a good thing; few other groups of organics would have this many interchangeable parts at their disposal. But while it's true that a dead brother has no needs for body parts that another brother might use to live, Ashe is perhaps too used to thinking of clones in the Kaminoans' terms, and too emotionally distant from his brothers who just see him as someone who wants to desecrate their dead loved ones. Cody tries to warn Ashe to be more sensitive.
When he's being a medic is the only time Ashe feels fully confident, and he embraces it to the point of obsession once out on the front lines. It's a persona he's maintained almost his entire life, and he's genuinely confident in his abilities. After all, he's been a medic longer than any other clone, and has trained all of the others too. He was not only involved in the creation of the clone medic modules, but has also learned enough from outside of their Kaminoan curriculum to have unbiased galactic context for his skills. He also knows all of the secret Kaminoan administrator tricks that make their particular bodies tick. No matter what his brothers may think of him outside of the med ward, Ashe fully expects everyone to obey him while in he's in medic mode. He gets the medic symbol tattooed on both sides of his head, and makes sure his entire appearance screams "medic" like it's the entirety of his identity (the other parts are, after all, "spy," "traitor," and "decommissioner," none of which he can or wants to have out in the open).
Ashe has no idea what to do with himself when he's not actively being a medic. He knows what most clones think of him, having only seen him trailing like a loyal dog after Nala Se. Many of the rumors are genuinely true. He understands their fear for him, their disgust, their hate. He's practically a Kaminoan himself, a traitor to all of his brothers, and Ashe hates himself enough to agree. He pretends he's too important and busy to go to the mess hall or rec rooms, but in reality the idea of socializing with other clones terrifies him more than decommissioning. He will often hide in his office or private quarters, either obsessively trying to work out a medical challenge or just stewing in self-loathing. If people are too persistent in looking for him for non-medical reasons, he'll hide out in Cody's room or even lock himself in a storage closet so he can get away.
It's different with those who know him. Cody's inner Commanders circle, who know what Ashe has been doing since the beginning, interact with him like normal brothers. Ashe is also comfortable with medics, the vast majority of whom he has personally trained at some point or another. They might not know everything he's done, but they know enough to know he doesn't actually love the Kaminoans, and he can fall back on their established and comfortable role as trainer and students. That being said, there are few he trusts as much as Cody.
Ashe also has a habit of constantly looking at reflections of himself when he's not otherwise occupied. Most other clones assume it's because he's vain, a notion he doesn't discourage because it's better than them knowing the truth: that he's worried he accidentally accelerated his own aging. He's not sure what exactly he did to make his hair go white, but it wasn't what he intended, and he's not sure if there are any other side effects, like if he'll wake up one morning aged a decade. If Cody's around, he'll have them line up side by side, because they were decanted within the same second and should look the same age. The fact that they're both constantly stressed and look older because of it doesn't help his anxiety. If there's one thing Ashe is grateful for, it's that the greater variety of physical self-modifying in the active army makes it easy for everyone to assume his white hair is bleached. He keeps his hair white as a reminder to himself both of his mistake, and how close he came to finding a solution to their accelerated aging. Cody isn't sure if that's self-loathing or pride.
Other physical traits includes his left eye, which is cybernetic. It's designed to look mostly natural and is passable as such from a distance, but has default dark red irises, and pupils that will shift in color or light up as Ashe switches scanning modes. Ashe swapped out his own organic eye so he could have the more useful tools embedded in his own body, or so he claims.
Ashe also has far fewer scars than every other CC of his generation, as not only has he been out on the field for a shorter time, as a cadet he was pulled from more dangerous training simulations once Nala Se started focussing more on his medic training. What few scars he had, Ashe has healed with deep bacta therapy, as he knows Nala Se finds physical imperfections like scars to be distasteful, and he wants to look as perfect as possible to remain in her good graces. For the same reasons, he's obsessive about other self-maintenance as well, including perfectly trimmed nails, perfectly clean gear, and perfectly clean body.
~~
Relationships with others:
Cody considers Ashe one of his closest and oldest confidants, and also feels partially responsible for the difficult situations that Ashe has found himself in, despite Ashe's firm insistence that he chose this path for himself. Cody's still the one who gave him the initial idea, and he does his best to look out for him now. Although they're only two numbers apart, Ashe constantly insists that still makes him older. When they're alone together, Cody and Ashe will sometimes fall back on their early cadet-life nicknames for each other which they used prior to finding names. Between them, it's affectionate. Cody is "Toofor," and Ashe is "Fortoos."
The clone medics are fiercely protective of Ashe, especially around their peers who don't understand him. They know they can't exactly tell everyone that Ashe has been teaching them how to save brothers that the Kaminoans want dead—that information is too dangerous to let it get out, and is a medics secret. They understand that what happens in medic training, stays in medic training. They still do their best to project their absolute trust in him, to try to convince their brothers to feel the same, and will try to keep him company on the rare occasions he tolerates it. To the medics, he's both their extremely competent and reliable superior who risked everything to help them help their brothers, as well as their very awkward, anxious mess of an older brother who has fewer social skills than a feral tooka, who they have to coax out gently if they want to domesticate him. Ashe himself has no idea that they see him this way.
Obi-Wan is at first very curious about their new head medic. He has a strong bond with the 212th's chief medic, Stabber, and doesn't fully understand why Cody suddenly asks him to request another medic to make Stabber's superior, when if anything, he'd prefer to promote Stabber. But he also trusts Cody, and trusts Stabber when his medic eagerly seconds the request, and puts it through.
When the man himself arrives, Obi-Wan is taken by the severe gap between his outward presentation, and his inner emotions. He appears perfectly collected to the point of cold, utterly in control, and professional to the point of droid-like. But through the Force, Obi-Wan senses his fear, his stress, and his near-overwhelming frustration and disappointment in himself, coupled with a dangerous amount of all too familiar self-loathing—all traits that seem odd and potentially risky in a medic with as much responsibility as Ashe is going to be given. Cody and Stabber are both fully confident in his ability to handle the pressure though, and Obi-Wan defers to their experience.
Obi-Wan finds that he's very much as competent as Cody claimed—the 212th's casualty rates drop almost immediately with his addition. His methods are a little…unsavory, but Obi-Wan lets Cody handle the talking, since Ashe seems extremely wary of Obi-Wan. It takes months of spending time in each other's company, always with Cody and/or Stabber supervising, for Ashe to begin to trust that Obi-Wan isn't like a Kaminoan. Then, his curiosity about Obi-Wan's body (he's never worked with a non-clone before) as well as Jedi healing practices start to peek through the cracks, and Obi-Wan realizes he might have finally found an opening through which he can connect with the skittish medic.
Obi-Wan gradually earns Ashe's trust. He very slowly catches hints that Ashe has been doing much more for his brothers behind the scenes, but also knows not to let on that he knows. Obi-Wan finds it saddening that the medic seems to light up about learning new things, but immediately tries to discard it or looks ashamed when it doesn't have direct relevance to helping his brothers. Obi-Wan tries to encourage his curiosity, and makes the most headway when offering his own body for study, since Ashe can satisfy himself with the excuse that compiling data about his General's physiology has the very important practical use that it could potentially save his life in the future. Whenever they're alone together and trying to relax, it's common for Obi-Wan to let Ashe poke him with needles and scan him and run other little tests. It's the only way to keep Ashe from realizing that he's actually willingly participating in socializing.
It takes many months for the 212th to fully embrace Ashe, given that the medic seems to be actively encouraging his own terrible reputation. But enough slip ups while he's interacting with Cody or Stabber, and they eventually realize how much of his reputation is just a facade. Once they realize that, it's a simple matter of catching the man and dragging him into some forceful socializing. His petrified reaction to that only proves that he's no Evil Kaminoan Decommissioner, and they realize that they just need to convince him of the fact. It takes months, but eventually Ashe can be coaxed into being in the same room as off-duty clones, though he usually hides ineffectively behind either Cody or Stabber. They even eventually get Cody to convince Ashe to add some 212th gold to his armor paint, instead of clinging solely to medical red-and-white. Ashe only manages to put a little bit on the back of his hand plates, but it's a start.
The majority of the clones outside of Ashe's immediate circle of interaction continue to believe in his reputation until the full truth of his reasons is revealed. Ashe seems fine with most of his brothers hating him, but those who care about him aren't, and take it upon themselves to protect him.