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They were members of the 501st, fully-fledged ARC troopers, and they had survived the massacre on the Rishi outpost, they had fought alongside some of the GAR’s most respected soldiers on Kamino; they were strong, dependable, and beyond capable– everything he knew about themselves made the sight in front of him all the more puzzling.
There was a noise. Something was ringing, shrill and distracting, driving knives in his ears, reverberating around his helmet, echoing (Echoing?) until it got louder and louder, freezing him in place. There was a roar around him. There were people around him too, was that the sound? Or was it the wreckage of the shuttle, smoking, smoldering after the turret reduced it to pieces of flaming metal (it was covered in soot, charred, and where was the paint? He couldn’t see blue, he couldn’t even see white– just ashy gray).
He knew the explosion had knocked him off his feet, but he didn’t remember getting back up. His throat was raw, had he screamed? He must have, his bucket would filter out the smoke, so there was no other reason for it. But why would he have screamed?
(What was that? It looked like a helmet– but whose?)
The troopers around him were wearing gold, but– that’s not right. Gold, no, they shouldn’t be wearing gold. The 501st’s color is blue. It’s blue, and it should be complimenting ARC armor, but all he sees is gold, and yeah, that’s Cody, there’s another trooper, but. The troopers at his side should wear blue. They should wear blue ARC armor, just like his, but– where were they?
(That helmet in front of him looked so familiar.)
Everything was dark and smoky, even for Lola Sayu, and the only thing he could see (that was a helmet, wasn’t it) were the red lights, streaking past and around him. He heard someone give orders– Kenobi? Yeah, that sounded like him. Skywalker didn’t have that accent. And oh, oh, those were blaster bolts, weren’t they, and he heard Cody turn and retreat behind him. He stared at the smoking object, so familiar, yet his mind refused to wrap itself around it, refused to identify it. And oh, General Kenobi had called for everyone to go.
He stared at the empty helmet. He turned and followed the rest of the group. But he only heard his own footsteps– shouldn’t someone else’s be next to his?
(What a weird helmet.)
The training simulations on Kamino had been… well, they had completed them, eventually. Domino Squad had certainly struggled, but Fives looked back on his time on Kamino fondly. He remembered squabbling, fighting over command, yelling during simulations, swearing that he’d never talk to his squadmates again after they completed training, but he also remembered long nights talking with his brothers, the warm smiles 99 shot at them when the trainers weren’t looking, and the bonds between his squadmates weaving themselves into something secure, something airtight.
He remembered the citadel simulation (wasn’t that ironic?) and the associated struggle with varying levels of regret. He remembered yelling at Echo, telling him to shut up– their attitudes were quite different, back then. He’d been prickly, demanding Droidbait call him Fives instead of his designation, stopping mid-simulation to tell him this, despite his now-better judgment. Echo was prickly, too, but he was decidedly against his nickname; he snapped at Cutup, resenting the name, wanting to be known as more than a stubborn killjoy.
Fives and Echo. They’d always been together; even when they were ready to jump ship on Domino Squad (which had been so, so fleeting, hadn’t it), they had wanted to jump ship together. They were part of a five-man squad, it wasn’t just the two of them, but even so, Fives and Echo slowly morphed into FivesandEcho. To go anywhere without other Dominoes felt unthinkable. To go anywhere without each other was simply impossible.
(Why was he only hearing one set of footsteps?)
Droidbait, Cutup, Hevy– he blinked once, and they were gone.
They hadn’t had any real time to marvel at meeting some of the biggest names in the GAR (the Commander Cody! and Captain Rex!). The Rishi moon knocked them around like a training droid in a room full of eager cadets; droids, eels, droids– Droidbait, Cutup, Hevy. One moment they'd been listening to the radio, arm wrestling, reading up on regulations (one moment they’d been safe in their barracks on Kamino, dreaming of life beyond the walls of the facility), and the next moment everyone was gone.
Fives tried not to think of the Rishi outpost. It’s not that he didn’t want to remember it, remember them, it’s just– he didn’t want to remember how quickly they were gone. It was the after he preferred to dwell on; being stunned that (the!) Jedi General Anakin Skywalker had welcomed them into the 501st Legion, the praise from Commander Cody and Captain Rex, the new home they had been brought into.
They didn’t forget what happened on the Rishi moon, of course. They would never turn their backs on their brothers, nor the memory of them. Echo had memorialized the day, copying the handprint Rex had left on his chest plate with paint, and Fives wore Hevy’s name with pride.
(The paint on that helmet was familiar, wasn’t it?)
They’d been shinies when they were stationed at that listening post, but they were honest troopers by the assault on Kamino. They’d seen the front lines, they’d seen the effects of the war. Fives remembered being a cadet, wanting to see anything and everything that waited beyond the domes of Tipoca City, and being back in its halls unfurled a bittersweetness that had rooted itself deep in his chest. He hadn’t known war the last time he was on Kamino, not truly– none of them had.
Hevy had been itching to taste it, and he taste it he had, but it was only Fives and Echo who came back, and there was no one for 99 to return his medal to.
(And now there was no 99.)
Though the circumstance was unfortunate, they’d had the honor of fighting alongside some of the top officers in the GAR, alongside fresh cadets and alongside veteran soldiers. They’d defended their home and they’d been granted a promotion for doing so. Fives liked to think that all of them– Droidbait, Cutup, Hevy, 99– would’ve been proud to see FivesandEcho the 501st soldiers graduate into FivesandEcho the 501st ARC troopers. They’d be proud, he thought, and this was something he often reminded Echo, when he woke up late in the night cycle with the memory of 99’s blood smearing on his armor just behind his eyelids. It was something Echo reminded Fives of, too, when he caught him staring at something a little too long, waiting for some creature to spring out of the walls and snatch up one of their brothers, just like Cutup.
They’d lost all their squadmates, but Fives always had Echo, and Echo always had Fives. The Dominoes couldn’t be gone while FivesandEcho were still kicking.
Fives was glad he wasn’t an officer– he really didn’t think he could write up a report on the mission if he tried. He quite honestly didn’t remember leaving the Citadel. One moment he was– why was Rex looking at him like that?
He heard the low buzz of the Jedi talking rapidly amongst themselves, but he couldn’t focus enough on any of their words to make out what they were saying. Their conversation was just a hum in the back of his skull, right next to the roar of the transport’s engine. It fit in with the sway of the ship, the rocking under his feet, although it seemed he was the only one who felt it. Everyone else seemed far more steady.
He tried to take stock of everyone in the transport just to get his mind to focus. General Skywalker was there, of course. General Kenobi, and yeah, there was Cody (gold paint), he would never be far behind his general. Commander Tano had made it, she was standing there by General Koon; this was his transport, he thought. They’d gotten Skywalker’s astromech, and wasn’t there supposed to be another Jedi? Oh, that’s right, he hadn’t made it. And there was Rex. Rex was standing right next to him, and he kept looking at him. He wasn’t quite staring, but it was hard not to notice as his gaze unwaveringly gravitated towards Fives. He seemed to have missed whatever was drawing the captain’s (blue paint) concern. Blue paint.
Oh. Oh.
Skywalker, Kenobi, Cody, Tano, Koon, astromech, Rex. Fives. Fives. Fives.
Fives.
Fives.
FivesandEcho?
Rex was looking at him.
(A plastoid helmet, white with a blue arch on the forehead, smeared with ash and char, smoking on the ground. Empty.)
Oh, okay.
His fingers trembled where they gripped the straphanger.
Okay. Okay.
He blinked again and they’d landed, apparently, and offloaded the Jedi and the officer they’d rescued. He was in a medbay, if the sterile scent of disinfectant was anything to go by. He saw people walk by, he watched as a medic examined him, as is standard procedure– he knew the medic. Of course he knew him, it was– he knew him, he was their medic, and he was gentle and kind and though his mouth was moving, he didn’t seem to expect any response from Fives.
He came and he went, and he was left alone, and then he was in the barracks, sitting on a bunk. The room was dark, and there were other people, of course, this was the barracks, but he was encased in a silence heavy enough to suffocate. He didn’t remember sustaining any injuries, but stars how he ached.
(Oh, that had been Kix. The medic. The 501st medic. Kix. Of course. How could he forget Kix?)
He was underwater, but he wasn’t sure he was drowning. He was simply swimming under the surface, moving through space that was thick and cold and heavy, and he wasn’t quite sure what had happened. What people were saying around him. What people were saying to him. He just knew that everything around him was quiet, and it was empty. Was this what drowning felt like?
He blinked again, and Rex was there.
Fives was still in the barracks, still sitting on the bunk, though he couldn’t begin to guess how long he’d been there. His body was stiff, a fact he only registered as he tilted his head up to look at Rex. It felt like the first time he’d moved in hours.
He processed Rex’s expression with a particular sluggishness. His face was blank, but at that point, Fives knew him well enough to read him anyway. This was a neutrality that took every ounce of his strength to keep in place. If you looked just there, at the corners of his mouth– they twitched down every so often, but if you blinked you’d miss it.
“Fives,” Rex said. He’d never heard his voice so soft.
A shudder ran down his spine. Hearing his name had never felt so wrong.
(He wasn’t Fives; he was FivesandEcho.)
It was only when Rex reached for him that he realized he was still wearing his bucket. He let Rex take it off, and he watched numbly as he set it down next to him. The air was cooler than normal when it hit his skin, and when he reached up to touch his face, curious, his fingers came away wet. Ah, that explained it. Yeah, okay, he was crying. He looked back up at Rex, and saw his neutral mask break, softening into a face he’d only seen him use with troopers they knew weren’t going to make it.
There were shards of glass sinking into his heart, pushing inch by inch into the muscle, pouring out blood, thick and icy (icy?) into the hollow of his chest cavity. And it was hollow. Someone had reached inside him and torn something out, something important, something precious, something that made him him. He looked at Rex with a huge shuddering breath.
“Echo,” said Fives, the whisper ghosting over his cracked lips.
Rex, stars bless him, saw the moment Fives splintered, the moment he shattered. Before the first sob had even clawed its way out of his throat, he’d sat next to him, an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. He was a friend, a body, something warm to cling to, and stars, did Fives cling. If anyone thought anything of a fully trained ARC trooper sobbing onto the shoulder of their captain like a nat-born youngling, they didn’t make it known. Fives wouldn’t have cared if they did.
(Fives was alone.)
“I’m sorry.” Fives could feel Rex’s voice as he spoke, could feel the vibrations in his chest, and he could hear how he spoke to him, gentle, like he was a startled loth-kitten found in a back alley. But again, he didn’t care. He felt far more like a loth-kitten than a soldier at that moment, anyway. Rex’s chest hummed as he spoke, and Fives’s body quaked as he sobbed– huge, terrible things that made his stomach hurt, made his throat raw as he fought for air.
Echo was gone. Fives and Echo had grown up together, closer to each other than any other brother despite the size of their batch. They’d been through everything together– cadet training, Rishi, Kamino, ARC training, but– but not Lola Sayu. They’d shared fears, wants, hopes, dreams, thoughts, theories, speculations, barracks, bunks, brothers, friends, and now. Well.
(How could he share things with someone who wasn’t there?)
Echo was good. He was thoughtful, and he was kind, and he was a little uptight and a little neurotic but Fives loved him more for it. He had the unique privilege of being at Echo’s side since decanting, and so he got to see him grow into himself, to graduate from anxious rookie to confident veteran trooper. He got to be there for every success and every setback, every time he glowed with pride and every time he fought through a waking nightmare. He got to fight alongside him, to listen to his ramblings and have his own listened to in return. He got to say goodnight and good morning, he got to take his meals with him, to stay with him on and off the battlefield. And now Echo, high-strung, obsessive, perfect, wonderful, Echo was gone?
Droidbait, Cutup, Hevy, 99, and now Echo were gone?
Fives loved Rex, he did, but even as he sat there, holding him, letting him heave hideously painful sobs against him, he knew that he could never be enough. Rex could be close, but he didn’t know Fives like Echo did. He wasn’t there for every night terror, for every minor bruise or life-threatening injury. He didn’t know that he’d cried a little when he’d gotten his tattoo, didn’t know which flavor of ration bar made him nauseous, didn’t know that he still liked to wake up with the sun even when they were off duty. He knew that Rex wanted to be there for him, that he would help him try to put the cracked and crumbling pieces of himself back together when he asked, but he was Rex, not Echo. Half of Fives was gone, ripped from him, bloody, raw, and screaming, and they both knew there was nothing anyone could do to get it back.
FivesandEcho became Fives and Echo on Lola Sayu, where Echo stayed, alone and in pieces and gone. He wondered if Echo would’ve appreciated the irony of finally proving their worth as soldiers in the Kaminoans’ citadel training simulation, and Echo’s last battle being at the Citadel prison (and he would never know– he could never ask). Fives had watched him, had screamed his name before and after the turret blast, had been knocked to the ground and had watched as his helmet rolled away from the wreckage. He’d stared at it, frozen, locked inside his own head even as it refused to process what it was seeing. His empty helmet had been the last of Echo Fives ever got to see. The shock of seeing (dead) Echo’s (empty) helmet was too much, blocking the thought that he should take (dead) Echo’s (empty) helmet before they were (abandoning him) retreating. FivesandEcho became just Fives.
(He had nothing left of Echo.)