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He had to admit– he’d gotten caught up in the thrill of it. The adrenaline of a fight, of punching Crosshair in the face, of breaking into the tower, of escaping on the backs of the local fauna (something Skywalker seemed to have quite an affinity for), of the ensuing battle. He was riding the high of relief, of being right, of finding Echo, of Echo being alive, of fighting at Echo’s side once again.
Seeing that stasis chamber had been…well, he’d had a mixed reaction. He’d known that whatever was inside, whatever that door was hiding, couldn’t have been good. It had to be something painful, something raw, abused, but it would be something. It would be someone. The opaque door represented every one of his hopes and his fears in that moment. It could be Echo. It could be someone else. It could be empty.
Then Tech detected a life-form, and Rex’s heart kicked into double time. He almost wanted to close his eyes, to look away, to let Tech tell him what they found instead– if he saw for himself, it would be real. It would be over, there would be no more possibilities, no more hope. Every member of the Domino Squad would be gone, and if Echo wasn’t there– would he or Fives be the last member he had failed?
Would it be worse if he’d left Echo for dead, to die alone on Lola Sayu, or if he’d left Echo for dead and he had lived?
Would it be worse if he’d left him there? Left his– his corpse, left it on that planet, to rot, to be thrown away? If they’d escaped, leaving with a meager fraction of the men they’d come in with, and nothing of those men to honor? If he’d watched Fives fall apart, watched him crumble, splinter, collapse, and known he had no way to put him back together? To have wanted to help, to be a shoulder to cry on, and know that he wouldn’t be enough? To know that he’d welcomed Echo into the 501st, had watched and encouraged him, had seen him graduate as an ARC trooper, and had seen him for the last time as the shuttle he was on went up in flames?
Or– or would it be worse if he’d taken Fives, if he’d let him cry, let him sob and scream, held him after nightmares, listened to him talk about Echo for hours and hours, while he was alive? If he’d been out there, broken and abandoned, but still breathing? If he’d been alone? If he’d been alone with a family of hundreds who had given up on him? A family who had failed him?
He didn’t want Tech to open that chamber. He had never needed anything more.
Tech opened it. The person inside fell out. They were just feet from Rex’s face. His heart beat in his throat, not his chest.
“Echo,” he said. “Tech. We have to get him out of here.” He climbed up onto the control panels, and unplugged him from what he could, from everything he was sure wouldn’t hurt him. When he caught him he was so light, so small. He should have been the same height, weight, color as Rex but– but he was tiny, he was air, he was gray, he was cold– but it was him. Millions of brothers shared their face, but this couldn’t be anyone but Echo.
He set him down as gently as he could. He looked so fragile, so frail, and he was terrified that one wrong move would mean he was lost again. If he hurt Echo, hurt him more than he already had, Rex would– Rex would…
What wouldn’t he do?
Rex took his own bucket off and set it aside. Echo’s eyes were unseeing for the moment, but when they were, when his biological systems were online rather than the technological ones he’d been subjected to, Rex wanted him to see a familiar face, not a cold, uncaring room full of the same machinery that had hurt him.
When Echo came to life, when he mentioned the Citadel, when he thought he was still there– it was only Tech’s presence and the surrounding danger that kept tears from springing to Rex’s eyes. His hand flew to the back of Echo’s neck, protecting it from hitting the solid panels behind him as he cried out, as he fought and struggled. The only part of Echo that was warm was the fear that burned in his eyes.
“Echo, it’s Rex. I’m here.”
For another few, terrifying moments, Echo looked lost. He squeezed his eyes shut, and stars only knew what he was seeing. He may have survived, but Echo had definitely been caught in that explosion, had been hurt, had been torn to pieces by fire and shrapnel. Echo was missing limbs, he was more scarred than any brother he’d seen, and he’d had things done to him that Rex couldn't bring himself to think about. Echo was a ghost.
But he opened his eyes again, and when they met Rex’s, the fear died down, faded until it was gone. A warm glow took its place, full of affection, of trust. Rex was going to be sick.
“Rex? You– you came back for me.” Echo gripped Rex’s arm, but he barely felt it.
He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. He heard General Kenobi calling for retreat, saw Skywalker and Ahsoka following. He saw the fiery hell of the planet below them from a LAAT/i that was distressingly empty. He saw Echo’s helmet, covered in ash and char, and he saw how it had stayed on Lola Sayu.
“Yes. Yes, I did,” Rex said, because how could he tell Echo that he hadn’t?
And then Echo’s panic had set back in, and all Rex could do was clutch his hand and promise him that he was safe now. He was safe. He’d take him home.
And then Echo had helped them get out of there, because of course he had. Even after all that time, Echo was as sharp as ever, and he’d helped save all their collective asses. They’d escaped the facility on the backs of the planet’s resident flying wildlife, and Echo was not just alive, but full of life. His smile reached his eyes and he laughed, he cracked jokes like he used to, and Rex hurt so much he could barely speak for it. Echo stood a proud soldier and he fought with his General and his brothers like he had so many times before. Then the battle was over, and they’d won.
They’d won, and Echo was alive. And Rex had found him.
He was so caught up in it all that he had forgotten.
Rex had swallowed his guilt, had shoved it down as far as he could when Echo thanked him for coming after him. It felt like lying through his teeth when he told him that’s what brothers did. Because Rex hadn’t. Not when he should have. His apology for it felt cheap.
He told Echo he hoped it could be like old times again. He knew that was impossible– too much had changed, but it was the only thing he could think to say. He should’ve thought about it more.
He heard Echo repeat the phrase behind him as they boarded the ship, but he dismissed it. That was his second mistake.
His first was forgetting who Echo was. What he was a part of.
Echo followed him up the gangplank, and they were on their way. He’d had a brief discussion with Skywalker about their next move and the Bad Batch had disappeared, gone off to do whatever it is that they did, but soon enough, Rex was alone. The adrenaline of the day hadn’t yet worn off– he still wasn’t thinking.
“Rex?” Echo said. “Speaking of old times, um, where is Fives?”
Yeah. Where was Fives. It wasn’t often that Rex was uncomfortable in his armor– it was like a second skin– but at that moment, he’d never felt anything so restrictive. He could feel each clasp, each hard plastoid edge, every point of contact between it and his body, keeping him trapped inside. Limiting his lung capacity. Reminding him of exactly who he was in this war effort.
He’d gotten so caught up in the possibility of finding Echo, in keeping him alive when he did, in the crushing knowledge that Rex had let this happen to him, that he’d just. Forgotten.
“Rex?”
He’d lost Echo, and Fives had remained. Then he’d lost Fives, and he’d found Echo. But he wouldn’t be finding Fives. Rex had held Fives in his arms, and he’d still lost him. Fives was gone.
“Echo,” he said. The way his voice splintered wasn’t very fitting for someone of his station, but he wouldn’t have stopped it if he could. Fives hadn’t been whole since they’d lost Echo. He didn’t know why he thought that Echo might be whole without Fives. They were FivesandEcho, the last Dominoes, and Fives and Echo were inseparable. Yet they’d been separated twice over.
And now it was just Echo.
“Rex.” There was a new edge to his voice, something raw in his throat. How could Rex have done it? How could he have told him that they were brothers, have lied and said he had come back for Echo, that he hoped that things could be like they had been, then turn around and tell him that Fives was dead?
Echo already knew what he was going to say. Rex just had to say it.
He swallowed, swallowed down his guilt and regret, and he swallowed broken glass, swallowed flaming shrapnel and laser bolts. “He’s gone.” Rex cleared his throat. “Fives is dead.”
Echo was silent. When Rex finally turned to look at him, he was struck by a sight so familiar it nearly collapsed his knees. Empty, faraway eyes, silent tears, a body so still he could have been a carbonite statue– he’d seen this before, just in someone else; someone with a little more color, fewer scars, and a tattoo on his temple. He swore he saw him, then he blinked.
“Oh,” was all Echo said.
Rex wanted to cry, too. But he didn’t have that right. He’d lost it when he’d dragged Fives away from Echo’s smoking helmet. When Fives had bled out in his arms.
“What–” Echo sniffed. “What happened?”
Rex still wasn’t sure. Fives was a good man, he was sure of it, one of the best, but the circumstances of his death, the situation he had been in just before– how could Rex explain that? How could he tell Echo? Rex couldn’t explain it to himself.
“He knew something he shouldn’t have. I don’t know what it was. They shot him.” Rex felt the warmth leave Fives’s skin, felt his blood beneath his hands. “I was with him when he died.”
Though the fingers of his flesh hand covered his mouth, there was no sound for them to muffle. Echo’s shoulders gently shook as his tears kept falling, pouring down his face, never slowing or stopping. Something had broken in Echo. Rex was surprised that he’d had anything left to break.
Rex laid a hand on Echo’s shoulder, and Echo didn’t move. He didn’t crumple, he didn’t collapse, not like Fives had. He didn’t dissolve into painful, heart-wrenching sobs, he didn’t turn to Rex, didn’t curl into his side and cry until his body couldn’t anymore. He didn’t continue to shake when his tears ran dry, didn’t sit for hours in the barracks, begging any god he could think of to bring him back. Echo just fixated on one spot on the wall, and his gaze did not deviate from it.
“So Fives is dead.” The words were calm, and they were even, but they sounded like they gutted Echo all the same.
“I’m sorry.”
“Things can’t be the same, Rex.”
“I know.”
“He– did he…I–”
Rex squeezed Echo’s shoulder, desperate to feel the flesh and blood, the life under his fingertips. Desperate to feel that one of them had survived. “You stayed with him, Echo, even if you weren’t there. Nothing could have made him forget you.”
Echo laughed and wiped at his tears, but it did nothing to stop them. “Fives is dead,” he repeated, then turned to Rex with a sad smile. “I can’t stay, Rex. There’s nothing for me.”
He knew. He just returned the smile. “I’m so sorry, Echo.”
They were quiet. It was like a memorial, a moment set aside for grief, for cursing all that had happened, for mourning all that never could. “I know. I’m sorry, too.”
And it felt final. It was over. Everything was.
The Domino Squad really was dead. Every last one of them– Rex had only really gotten to know Fives and Echo, but he’d heard stories about the rest. He’d been there for Hevy’s sacrifice. He’d seen the armor that Fives and Echo had painted in their honor. Then he’d lost Echo, then Fives, and he’d found Echo, just to lose him all over again.
Rex had lost the right to cry over any of them, but Echo still leaned against him when he did.
Rex had told Echo he’d take him home, but he didn’t really have one. Not anymore.