Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Stop resisting!” the 501st trooper snaps, and tugs hard on Thire’s bound arms for good measure. Thire has no choice, no leverage; he goes where the trooper wants him to go.

He’s being marched down the hallways of his own prison. The building is swarming with Jedi and GAR troopers. It’s a weird reversal; the Coruscant Guard are the military police, and now they’re the ones being arrested. Dotted in the rainbow of armor colors are flashes of Corrie red, red like blood.

There’s blood on the floor, too, Thire notices distantly as he’s hauled through the chaos. It tracks straight to an armored figure in red, on his knees with his hands bound like Thire’s. More red paint than any of the other Corries, to make him the biggest target.

Fox.

Captain Rex stands tall above Fox’s hunched form with a tight grip on Fox’s ruined shoulder bell. He’s talking with Skywalker and a Coruscant Security Force captain, blithely ignoring the red seeping through the plates of Fox’s armor.

Thire doesn’t know how Fox is still conscious. During the attempted arrest of ARC trooper Fives, Skywalker had ripped at the shield generator he and Rex had been trapped under with the Force, severing it completely from the ceiling.

And then he’d thrown it right at Fox.

Thire will be haunted by the image of Fox screaming underneath the crumpled metal for the rest of his (probably short) life.

It’s shit. It’s all shit, this whole situation, and it’s only going to get worse. Thire doesn’t even know how they’re going to explain why the Corries had followed Palpatine’s orders so closely - not to Skywalker.

Skywalker was in Palpatine’s confidence. The Chancellor’s special favorite would never believe the Corries if they spilled about the threats, the decommissionings, the abuse. The Chancellor had always said so, and unfortunately, the Chancellor was almost always right.

“Fox!” Thire calls, and struggles towards his commander.

His brother twitches and turns his head, revealing two black eyes and a gaping laceration across his nose, where his helmet had buckled inwards. “Thire,” he says, through bloody teeth.

What is there to say? “We’re fucked, hope your decommissioning is quick and painless?” No. Thire falls back on the black humor the Guard has developed. “You should be lying down, Fox,” he teases. “Get some beauty sleep, you need it.”

It gets the ghost of a smile out of Fox, a brief flash of affection, before Captain Rex turns too. He signals at the trooper holding Thire, and snaps orders.

“Get him out of here, Vaughn.”

There’s no use resisting the implacable hands of the brother pulling him away, but Thire tries anyway. “Fox!” he yells, twisting against the binders. “Fox!”

“It’s okay, Thire,” Fox reassures, as Thire is dragged away. Fox pulls a little at Rex’s hand to keep Thire in view; Rex yanks him back down to his knees. “It’s gonna be okay.”

They both know he’s lying.

–

Fox is no stranger to his own cells - he’s been in them more often than he can count, whether it’s to introduce a prisoner or stay a night at the Chancellor’s behest. He knows the cold white running lights, the gray durasteel walls, the eerie silence of the soundproof cell.

It's worse now.

Now there’s no release date. Fox has no idea what’s going on outside the walls, only what he knew going in. That the entirety of the Coruscant Guard was being detained. That the officers were being arrested. That he’d-

He’d leveled his blaster at a brother.

Fox sighs heavily; the movement sparks a flash of agony in his chest. Broken ribs, most likely. Probably from when Skywalker had chucked an entire shield generator at him.

It’s strange. Skywalker and the Chancellor had always seemed so close, and with the ARC trooper’s attempt on the Chancellor’s life, Fox had assumed Skywalker would - 

Not be on his side, no. Not even Fox was on his own side. But he’d done what he’d had to do for his men, same as Rex.

He couldn’t risk failure again.

The last time the Coruscant Guard had failed such a high-profile mission, the Chancellor had sent every trooper involved in the chase back to Kamino to be reconditioned. Two hundred troopers, two hundred people, all wiped clean. Like they’d never even existed at all. Fox had every single one of their old names carved on the inside of his bracers - Hound, Fen, Jek, Rhythm, Drift, Pansy, Strife…

All lost. All lost, and it was Fox’s fault.

The Chancellor had been very clear on that point. It was why Fox hadn’t been reconditioned. Palpatine wanted him to remember this failure, remember that it had been the Wolfpack, not the Guard, who had eventually captured Commander Tano. 

Fox would never forget. His failure walked amongst the Guard each and every day in the form of troopers who didn’t answer to their names, who didn’t even remember the names of their own brothers, their own massifs. Fox had been forced to tell Hound - well, the trooper who had once been Hound - Grizzer’s name.

It had not been an option to fail this time. Even at the expense of one of Rex’s boys, Fox could not falter. He’d even given the ARC a chance, pleaded with him to lay down his weapons.

And yet Fox had found a way to fail anyway.

Amazing. The depths of his incompetence even surprises himself.  

He leans back against the cool steel walls of the cell and draws his legs up. The Chancellor had been right about him all along. 

“Disappointing,” his voice seems to echo in the dark recesses of Fox’s memory. “I find myself in disbelief, Commander, as to how such a pathetic failure of a clone managed to become head of the Coruscant Guard, directly under my command and tasked with the protection of this great city.”

Fox had groveled, he remembers, bloody and broken on the floor. He’d knelt there on the Chancellor’s fine floors and taken the beating and the vicious words and the thin wrinkly fingers in his hair, and then he’d stood and watched two hundred of his best men march away to every clone’s worst nightmare.

And he’d done nothing.

So when the Chancellor had summoned him and his best team and warned them to exterminate the ARC trooper with the greatest of prejudice, well.

Fox had not found it within himself to disobey. And he would live with that for the rest of his life - although that timespan was looking shorter by the minute. 

Fine. so be it. Fox sits there, bound hands in his lap, and bleeds on the floor and waits for either death by blood loss or death by an angry Rex, whichever came first.

Chapter Text

It ends up being Rex, in the end. The door slides open to reveal two blue-armored 501st troopers who haul Fox up between them. Agony spikes down his ribs and he laughs, breathless, as they cart him to his own interrogation room and install him at the table.

Wrist cuffs bound to the table. There’s a chain that connects the wrist cuffs to ankle cuffs threaded through the table, and then the ankle cuffs are bound to the floor. And then it’s time to sit back and wait.

Fox is no stranger to the interrogation treatment. Let a perp simmer for a while, build the tension, then come in when they’re looking cooperative.

There’s just no need for it. Fox is cooperative. He’s willing to give Skywalker and Rex anything they want, anything, if they just leave his Guards alone.

Still, they let him sit. The flow of blood from his ribs soaks through to the metal chair; at least the laceration across his nose bridge had clotted up. His hair itches, stuck to his forehead with blood and sweat. He’s scraping his head on the table to unstick it when the door slides open.

Fox jolts upright, ignoring how the pain lights up his ribs at the movement. The chain on his wrists clinks, loud in the small soundproof room. There's a spot of pinkish blood where his forehead had been.

How Skywalker manages to slam a sliding door is beyond Fox, but he does. Rex is with him, stone faced and grim. He’s never looked more like Cody than he does right then.

“Commander Fox,” Skywalker starts. “Please state your name and rank for the record.”

“CC-1010, Marshall Commander,” Fox replies, crisp as he can. 

“And what is your jurisdiction?”

“Commander of the Coruscant Guard. Military police, massiff units, and shock troopers, sir.”

“And will you recount for the record your actions taken tonight?”

Ah, shit. Fox swallows down the copper taste in his mouth and starts in on what will most likely be his last words. 

He tells them of receiving the call that the Chancellor had been attacked by a rogue clone. Tells them how the man had been adamant that they catch the culprit. Tells them of the hunt through the lower levels, of seeing the General and Captain Rex trapped behind the ray shield. 

HIs voice is hoarse and his chest is afire with pain, but there will be no quarter here. Fox keeps going. Tells them how the ARC trooper - “Fives,” Rex spits, “His name is Fives,” - how Fives had been given a chance to surrender and instead had leveled blasters at the Guard. How Fox had taken the shot.

“And then,” Fox says drily, “You threw a shield generator at my face.”

Skywalker chooses to ignore him. “And would you care to explain, Commander Fox, why your blaster had been set to kill?”

Because it was him or me, Fox wants to say. Because it was him or me having to watch as another battalion of men gets shipped off to be wiped or worse. 

He says, “Because I learned my lesson, sir.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Rex cuts off his commanding officer with a sharp slice of his hand, and shockingly, Skywalker falls silent. He doesn't even reprimand Rex for insubordination. Maybe it’s a previously agreed-upon hand signal, Fox decides. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

“CC-1010,” Rex says, and Fox’s eyes narrow. So he wants to play it that way, huh? Put distance between the GAR and the Corries, like always.

Rex continues, “You, along with the officers of the Coruscant Guard, are under arrest for misappropriation of justice and use of excessive force. The other members of the Guard have been placed on lockdown in their barracks, pending this investigation.”

That's - that’s hilarious, actually. Who’s going to run the prison? Who’s going to keep the Senate running smoothly? Torrent? The natborn idiots on the Coruscant Security Force? If Fox wasn’t about to lose every memory he’d ever had, he’d want to see that debacle play out.

Still. It’s fun just imagining it. 

“My officers have done nothing wrong,” Fox says. “They only followed orders that I passed down.”

“Passed down from who?”

“The Chancellor.” 

“You lie!” Skywalker explodes. “He would never - he was concerned about Fives, wanted to get him help! He would never authorize his termination-”

That’s - that’s just factually incorrect. The Chancellor had told Fox what would happen should he fail.

“I was acting on behalf of the Chancellor of the Republic,” Fox tries again. “The ARC - Fives posed a significant danger, and the Chancellor advised us to use lethal force-”

“Stop lying!” Skywalker screams, and the room goes suddenly airless. Fox’s hands jerk in their cuffs, trying vainly to reach for the crushing pressure around his throat. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe and he can’t move, locked in like he is.

He convulses in the chair. The ankle cuffs rattle.

“Sir!” Fox can barely hear Rex’s voice over the blood pounding in his ears. “Anakin, wait.”

“He’s gone rogue, Rex. I can’t believe a single word he’s saying.”

“Let's figure out why he’s lying first.”

The pressure around his neck abruptly disappears. Fox winds up face down on the table, coughing into his bound forearms.

So that’s the play. Rex just wants the answers, and then he’ll let Skywalker loose on him.

The only bright spot is that Fox seems to have drawn all the attention. His commanders should be safe, if they keep their mouths shut and let Fox handle this. Better him than them, and Fox had tried to live by that as best he could. 

The glimpse of Thire’s face back in the corridor jumps unbidden to Fox’s brain. They’d shared a dead glance of understanding, of acceptance, and Fox knows if it comes down to it his commanders would sink with him.

Rex manages to wrangle Skywalker out of the interrogation room with the promise of Torrent’s preliminary investigation results. Like those idiots could investigate their way out of their own armor.

It’s taking a while for someone to come bring him back to his cell, but that’s fine. Fox tries to find a comfortable position with both his hands tied in front of him (impossible) and attempts to strategize.

He fails. It’s been over fifty hours on his feet, from a double shift to the emergency search for Fives and then the arrest, the processing, the interrogation…

Fox falls asleep right on the cold metal table, his own blood cooling on the seat of his chair.

Chapter Text

Fox wakes up to the door sliding open - Rex, again?

It’s not Rex. A Torrent soldier with medic symbols on his shoulder bells shoves through the door, closely followed by a clone with a very unfortunate paint job of a republic cog right smack in the center of his helmet. 

Individuality is everything in the GAR, apparently, even if the Corries’ resident artist Thorn would be physically recoiling at the sight.

“Commander Fox, I’m here to treat your wounds,” the medic says, setting his bag down on the table and removing his helmet.

Makes sense. Fox’s own medics are in lockdown too. He’d seen Torrent troopers bring Remedy-

No. Remedy was gone, leaving CT-8847 in his place.

He’d seen them bring CT-8847 in, quiet and compliant like he always was these days, ever since Fox’s fuck-up with Commander Tano. His worst mistake, up until this one.

The Chancellor always did say he made more mistakes than he was worth.

Fox acknowledges the medic with a nod - he’s suddenly too exhausted for anything else. 

“Rude,” the trooper at the door scoffs. “Guess the ‘Commander Cunt’ nickname wasn’t a joke.”

“Shut up, Jesse,” says the medic absentmindedly, but it sparks something in Fox’s broken synapses even as he bares his teeth and snarls “Damn right,” at the little CT. 

Jesse. Jesse in the 501st, why does he know a Jesse in the 501st - 

Oh. Right. He’d been a batchmate of one of Fox’s men. Fen. Just a kid, really, who liked lizards and flying and always talked about his brothers in the renowned 501st.

Now he’s CT-8923, and he doesn’t remember how to like anything, much less a far-off brother who never called.

Fox can’t do much but tiredly glare at Jesse as the medic carefully strips him of his upper armor and hooks him up to an IV line to start pumping blood back into Fox’s veins. Jesse, apparently, does not care for this. He tells the medic - Kix - that he’d be better off not wasting time on Corrie traitors.

To his credit, Kix just hums and rolls up the bottom of Fox’s shirt, hissing at the black and purple bruising covering Fox's torso. Bacta patches are slapped on anything still bleeding, and Fox’s ribs are carefully wrapped, but not before Kix traces gentle fingers up the feathery, reddish-black scarring that wraps across Fox’s shoulder, up his neck and down his back. 

“What’s this?”

Fox grunts, “Scars.”

“Not any type of scar I’ve ever seen,” Kix says.

“Electrical burns,” says Fox.

“From what, a lightning storm?” Fox is silent, because even Fox doesn’t know where they’re from. Not for sure. But his memory loss isn’t something he can admit to his own CMO, much less a random 501st trooper, and the medic finally leaves it alone.

He packs up his bag with cold efficiency. The last thing he does is toss an electrolyte pouch on the table, and then both he and Jesse leave with Fox’s armor. 

It’s almost cruel to leave the pouch like this and Fox’s hands still bound. He manages to tear the pouch open, and hunches over like a wild thing to suck the water from the pouch as best he can.

All too soon it's empty, and he sets his head back down and settles back to waiting.

Eventually, someone comes for him, but it’s not to bring him back to his cell.

--

“Hello, Commander.”

The room goes unnaturally cold, dropping temperatures making the hairs on Fox’s arms rise and his breath condensate on the metal table where he’s resting. 

Fox doesn’t want to raise his head. He knows who it is. He knows. 

Like a prisoner sizing up the gallows, Fox raises his head and meets Chancellor Palpatine’s eyes.

Gone is the grandfatherly elder statesman - in his place is the man Fox has come to know, brimming with rage and barely-restrained cruelty. He sweeps towards Fox, looms over him to block out the light.

Fingers flash forwards, tightening in his hair, and Fox’s face is slammed harshly against the table with surprising strength. He’s held there, even as the laceration across his nose reopens and begins to ooze blood.

“You’re a waste of cells and credits,” says Palpatine, each word sharp and sibilant as a blaster bolt. “What use is a clone who can't even manage to kill one man?”

Fox stays silent. It wasn’t a real question. They never are.

“Your entire squad - failures, the lot of them.” The fingers in his curls tighten and Fox’s head is jerked back to stare up at the ceiling. The long line of his neck is exposed to the Chancellor; he forces down a shudder, wills his face to be still and expressionless.

“Their names,” the Chancellor bites out.

“Sir, this is my failure, I alone should bear the responsibility- ah!”

“I know where the fault lies, you pathetic fool,” he hisses, pulling Fox’s head further back. “Tell me their designations, now, and they may yet survive this.”

The message is clear - Fox himself will not survive this, either way. The Chancellor could easily find the designations of the squad - he just wants to make Fox say them.  

He lists the CT numbers of those unlucky troopers on his squad and forces back tears as he comes to the last. To Thire. His youngest commander had never been reconditioned - none of the commanders had. 

I’m sorry, Thire.

Palpatine releases him without saying anything more; Fox hunches silently and watches the blood drip off the bridge of his nose to add to the smear below. 

It’s quiet for a moment, until the Chancellor heaves a dramatic sigh.

“You’ve left me with quite the mess, 1010, haven’t you?”

“Yessir,” Fox says to the table.

Bony fingers trace across his neck, clamping down on his shoulder in a would-be friendly gesture. “It’s truly unfortunate,” the Chancellor laments, shaking his head delicately. “I never imagined things would end in such failure. I expected better, Commander Fox.”

Fox is nodding before he even finishes the sentence. 

It’s a common sentiment - Fox imagines Cody and Rex and Alpha-17, hell, his whole batch probably expected better from him. 

If he’s sent back to Kamino, maybe he could see Alpha-17 one last time before he’s decommissioned. Or reconditioned, maybe. Not like there’s much of a difference.

Fox opens his mouth, lips forming the familiar words of a groveling apology-

He never makes it.

Palpatine raises a hand and the room, the Chancellor, the table, even Fox’s awareness of his own broken body - everything disappears into electric lightning. 

His vision breaks into black and white static as every nerve is overwhelmed with unspeakable agony. He’s screaming, he knows he’s screaming, but he can’t hear anything over the ear-splitting crackling in his ears, burrowing into his chest and lighting him up from the inside out.

It seems to last forever, ages of Fox arcing in his bonds while mindless with pain. There is nothing else. Nothing but the white-hot agony bursting from every vein. He writhes, unaware of anything else, until finally it ends as quickly as it began. The last lingering sparks shudder down Fox’s body, and now he can hear the pathetic whimpering sounds he’s making, face flat on the table yet again.

Smoke rises from the arm he can see, the wrist bloody where he’d strained at the cuffs. Agony splinters though him at every shallow breath. 

His thrashing must’ve shifted the broken ribs, he thinks sluggishly, although it’s hard to focus on conscious thought over the echoing waves of pain suffusing his body.

Everything aches. He twitches, and there's a brighter stab of pain in Fox’s chest. He can’t - he can’t quite take a full breath. It just hurts too much.

How - how could the Chancellor do that? Was this some new technology, an upgrade from the electrowhips and staffs that the man had used on him in the past?

Palpatine circles him again. Fox tracks his movements with just his eyes, still sprawled over the table.

“Yes,” the Chancellor smiles, “Yes, that should do it. Take a deep breath for me, CC-1010.”

Fox tries.

It’s agony, pure and overwhelming. The manacles clink when he attempts to curl in on himself; spit or blood or both trickles from his mouth as he pants shallowly against the table.

Palpatine tilts his head consideringly. “Shouldn’t be long now. Goodbye, Commander.”

He sweeps out of the room with one last proprietary caress of Fox’s greying curls, leaving him chained to the table gasping like a beached aiwha, vision dimming down to blackness.

Chapter Text

“What a prick,” Jesse says. He dumps Commander Fox’s armor to the floor of the control room that Torrent has commandeered. It lands in a clatter of plastoid; Rex doesn’t even flinch. 

“Sure is,” he says. “Kix?”

Kix sighs. “It’s bad. He could use a bacta dip or at least a bonemender for those ribs, but he’ll live.” 

“Unfortunately,” mutters Jesse.

“Captain…” 

Rex can hear the reluctance in Kix’s voice; his eyes flick up from the surveillance cams for the first time since they entered. “What is it, Kix?”

Kix hesitates, but pushes through. 

“The Zygerria mission…when they had you and General Kenobi. Did the electrostaffs leave any scars?”

Rex goes taut as a trigger finger. He doesn’t like to think about Zygerria, and Kadavo, and the days spent toiling in chains and screaming in the dirt. “No,” he says, clipped. “Why?”

“Nothing important,” Kix says, shaking his head. He sets the rest of Commander Fox’s armor down on the table. 

“His armor, sir.”

Rex moves to the table and grabs a vambrace. There’s more scratches and marks than he’d expected for a Corrie’s armor. “Is it salvageable?”

“No sir, doesn’t appear to be. That generator got him good,” Jesse chuckles.

The generator had probably been overkill, but Rex shudders to think of what might’ve happened if the General hadn’t thrown it. Still, the screams had been - well. No one liked to hear another brother scream, even if they were a pompous violent asshole like Fox.  

Rex shakes his head and detaches Commander Fox’s comm from the vambrace, then tosses the piece of armor to Kix. “Put it in the evidence locker,” he orders.

Kix doesn’t move, staring at the vambrace in his hand. Craning his neck, Rex sees that the inside is covered in names. Hound. Drift. Pansy. Hemlock. Remedy. Dogma - hm, they must have a Dogma in the Guard, too. There were so many troopers, there were always repeat names.

“Sir, is Trooper Hemlock listed as deceased? CT-6120?” The words rush out of Kix before he can stop them.

Rex flicks through the datapad they pilfered from Fox’s office for a few seconds that feel like hours.

“No,” Rex says, and Kix furrows his brow at the vambrace. “Why? Do you know him?”

“He’s my batchmate, sir.”

“Can I see that?”

Kix passes over the vambrace, and Rex squints at it. Taps on the datapad a few more times, and squints again.

“None of these troopers are listed as deceased, why - why would Fox do this?”

Kix shrugs helplessly. “He’s a weird guy?”

“He is,” mutters Rex distractedly, still staring at the list of names, “But not weird like this.”

“We could ask him?” suggests Jesse.

Rex shakes himself out of his reverie, drawing himself up to full attention and dragging Kix and Jesse’s spines up on reflex. “Maybe later,” he says. Fox’s interrogation hadn’t gone the way he’d planned, and everyone needed some time to cool off. Anakin had left for the Senator’s office, which - hopefully she could manage to calm him down. 

Rex still has energy to burn and work to do. “I think it’s time we check in on the other Corries.”

–

He goes with Thire first, as the next highest-ranking clone who’d been at the scene, and has Jesse and Vaughn bring him into an unoccupied interrogation room. The Corrie commander sits heavily in the chair across from Rex and glares.

“Commander Thire,” Rex begins, “please state your name and designation for the record.”

Thire grinds the words out, then asks about Fox. 

“Commander Fox is in custody, same as you,” Rex says. 

“Has he seen a medic?”

“Yes, I had Kix look him over,” and Thire slumps in relief with a muttered, “thank you.”

Rex squirms a little in his seat, feeling guilty that he’d waited to give Fox treatment, but - Kix had been making sure Fives was stable in his medically induced coma, and the Guard medics were in custody. 

He clears his throat.

“Can you recount for the record the events of tonight?”

Thire’s story matches Fox’s, which is to be expected. After he’s done, Rex leans in over the table. 

“And is shooting to kill standard procedure for the Coruscant Guard?”

Thire’s face goes red, but his voice is impressively level when he responds. “We are authorized to respond in whichever way would deescalate the situation most efficiently.”

“And would you say that Commander Fox often chooses to respond in a lethal manner?”

Thire’s throat works silently, burning eyes locked onto Rex’s. “I would say that Commander Fox always tries to minimize casualties. Fuck’s sake, Rex, he asked your man to stand down. Twice.”

“He also shot at Commander Tano with a rocket launcher,” Rex counters, and Thire scoffs.

“Is that what this is about? You think Fox has it out for your battalion specifically?”

“No, but it sure looks like a pattern to me.”

“A pattern? Rex, we thought she’d killed troopers. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Or do the Guard not count as brothers?”  Thire’s voice is dripping with ice.

“Of course they count!” Rex says, flushed with indignation. “Of course they do. But Ahsoka hadn’t killed those troopers, and if you’d just done the bare minimum of investigation you would have known-”

“Oh, so now you’re calling us incompetent-”

“I’m trying to make sure I get the whole picture before running off and trying to kill someone!”

“Fives tried to kill the Chancellor!” Thire shouts. “He tried to kill him, he injured Guard troopers-”

“-in self-defense! Fives isn’t in his right mind, there’s some sort of sickness. General Ti is going to look at him-”

“So that makes it all ok then?” Thire’s breathing hard, lips pulled back in a snarl. It’s funny, actually, that Thire’s more agitated than Fox had been. Fox had been strangely complacent. “Because your special favorite Fives disobeyed orders, again, and you’re going to blame it on Fox just like you blamed it on Dogma-”

Rex’s blood flashes to ice. “What?” he says, dangerously soft.

Thire’s mouth snaps shut.

“What did you say to me?” Rex is shocked by the coldness of his own voice. It hits Thire almost like a slap; he cringes back minutely. 

“That was out of line, Captain, I apologize. Please strike that comment from the record.”

“I won’t. Thire, tell me what the fuck you mean. ” Rex knew that Dogma had been taken away by shock troopers, of course he did. He’d watched them load his trooper into the LAAT and known he could do nothing about it.

He hadn’t really made the connection that Dogma would be taken to Coruscant, to the GAR military prison that the Corrie Guard ran. He hadn’t even had the clearance to know what had happened to Dogma.

But it seemed Thire did. 

The Corrie commander’s face was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, now, and his eyes darted away from Rex’s. 

Clones were notoriously bad at lying, especially CT’s. CC’s were better at it, by virtue of their training with the ARCs. However. 

Thire hadn’t always been a CC. Rex knew from his file that he’d been CT-4477, until Fox had promoted him and filed the necessary paperwork to change his number. Technically, Rex should be a CC too, but - his General was notoriously bad at filling out forms.

“Thire. Tell me. Exactly. What you mean by that. Where is Dogma?”

On the table between them, Thire’s hands lace together nervously in their bonds. 

“He - Captain, I’m sorry, he-” Thire swallows loudly. “He’s been reconditioned.”

Sorrow sweeps through Rex like an all-consuming wave; he’s lost in it, swirling in eddies of loss and regret. He’d known this might happen, of course, when he’d watched them take Dogma away, but.

He’d hoped Dogma was just in a cell somewhere awaiting processing, and one day Rex would be called to testify and he could explain how Dogma just did what needed to be done, and he could look his trooper in the face and forgive him and forgive himself-

That could never happen now, and Rex aches with the loss. 

“I - I understand,” he manages. “Where is - can I see him?”

Thire shrugs a shoulder. “Sure, I mean, he’s probably at the barracks with the rest?”

At the barracks - wait. 

The name on Fox’s bracers - that was his Dogma? He was part of the Guard?

“Why does Fox have names on the inside of his vambraces?” Rex asks. “Are they his squad?”

It seems like an innocuous question, except for the way Thire’s face collapses into a mask of grief, breaking like a stress fracture. 

“No,” he whispers. “Not his squad.” 

Gently, Rex asks, “Then what? Who are they?”

Thire just shakes his head. The lines of his body exude shame, and Rex can’t figure out why.

The Guard has always been strange, closed-off from the GAR proper. Now that Rex is here in their territory they just seem even more strange. 

Something’s wrong on Coruscant, something rotten and festering, and Rex is going to get to the bottom of it.

Chapter Text

Fox had always known he would die for the Republic. They all had. Every clone on Kamino had known that their fate was to fight and die for a Republic that they were not a part of. They were not people, not really, but - 

They spoke, deep in their bunks late at night, of being protectors of people, and wasn’t that almost better? Wasn’t that noble, even?

Even Fox had once been caught up in the rush of heroism, of fighting and winning and fulfilling his destiny, because that was what he’d been made to do and he was good at it.

Then he’d come to Coruscant, and it had become horribly, blindingly clear that he would not, in fact, die for the Republic.

Instead, the Republic would kill him.

Gone were the dreams of protecting innocents - now Fox only dreamt of protecting his brothers. His brothers…innocents in their own way, maybe, but they weren’t allowed to think that way. 

They were men because they had to be. They were droids because they weren’t men. 

Once, a perp had snarled “fucking skinjob” while Fox wrestled him down. The words had echoed in his skull for days after. Skinjob. Created. Not a person.

Coruscant would kill him. 

His only battle narrowed to survival. The survival of his men, and of Fox himself, if only because he couldn’t bear to leave them to face the galaxy alone. He contorted himself into what Coruscant asked of him, what his brothers needed of him; straight-backed commander here, scraping cowering supplicant there. 

And always, always, the good soldier.

Blood spatters from his mouth onto the table when he laughs. Good soldier - what a crock of shit. He can’t be a good soldier and a good brother at the same time, and it’s probably because Fox, at his core, is not good .

A good brother wouldn’t have shot at Fives. A good soldier wouldn’t have let those droids in that bombed the Senate, a good commander wouldn’t have just - watched, as 200 of his own troopers marched away to get reconditioned.

Cody - Cody was a good commander. Fox has seen the stats coming out of his battalion: 10.2% less casualties overall, a 13.76% higher chance of success, and - 

Only one reconditioning. 

Fox’s vision darkens again, and it’s harder to force his way back to consciousness this time. His chest is one big mass of agony; every breath gets shallower and shallower. He can’t shout for help, even if someone could hear him. Kix is gone, and he won’t think to come back so soon.

It’s cold.

Fox pillows his heavy head on his arms and thinks of warmth, of his batch’s last embrace before they split off to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Thinks of Thorn and Thire leaning against him, asleep sitting up on the floor of his office. Of the rare occasions where he’d been able to join a sleep pile in the tiny rec room the Guards had rigged up from an unfinished basement. 

He shivers. The movement agitates something inside of him, sparking a fresh wash of pain, and he lets out a horrible pathetic whimper.

Not long now. He only wishes he could die on his feet, although-

It’s ironic. Fox has felt like his hands were tied ever since he landed on this planet. It’s almost fitting that they’re tied now.

He’s so cold.

Fox closes his eyes and hopes that somehow, somewhere, his brothers are ending this war, and they’ll come back for the Guard. He hopes his actions haven’t tainted his brothers, haven’t alienated the rest of the Corries past the point of brotherhood.

He hopes, selfishly, that the pain will end.

–

The prison is - weird, when Cody arrives. Every hallway crawls with Torrent troopers in blue; their paint looks strange and out-of-place, too cold under the white running lights as he makes his way into the command room that Rex has set up. 

Rex isn’t there. Instead Cody is received by a Sergeant Appo, who buzzes him into the glass-walled room with a crisp salute. 

The trooper is helpful and efficient, both qualities Cody appreciates. Rex had barely briefed him on the situation - all he knows is that Fox shot Fives and is now under arrest, along with Corrie command. Rex had thought it best to have a commander of equal rank to Fox looped into the investigation, and Cody’d been closest to Coruscant. 

Personally closest to Rex, too, and closest to Fives. He’d been at Fives and Echo’s ARC trooper graduation, even. He liked the kid; bit reckless, but smart, and with a good heart.

Cody still can’t believe that Fives had somehow gone rogue, that Fox had shot him to kill, that General Skywalker had taken this instance and the Commander Tano incident and decided to arrest Fox and the Guard for “misappropriation of justice and use of excessive force.”

But it’s all there, glowing back at him from the datapad Appo helpfully hands him.

“Where is Rex now?” he asks.

“Down at the Corrie barracks, sir. He said he was chasing a lead.”

Cody nods. “Where is Fox?”

Appo gestures towards a bank of security holocams. Fox is shown in one, his graying curls pillowed on his outstretched arms still cuffed to the table. 

Cody’s heart clenches at the sight. How did everything go so badly? How could Fox, his brother, his batchmate, his oldest friend - how could he fire on a brother? On Rex’s little brother? 

Cody thinks of Umbara. He thinks of Slick. 

If you loved your brothers, you wouldn’t put them at risk.

Cody loves his brothers. He tries desperately to reduce casualties and come up with strategies that ensure both victory and survival, for as many brothers as he can.

He can’t imagine that Fox feels differently, but -

The evidence is right there, in the form of a smoking blaster bolt in Five’s chestplate.

–

Appo leads him down the long corridors to the interrogation room where they’re holding Fox. Cody pauses in front of the door, just for a moment, and takes a breath.

It’s been a long time since he’s seen Fox, and these are - not ideal circumstances. 

He gives a sharp nod, and Appo keys the door open.

Fox is inside, collapsed onto his forearms, just like in the security cam. He doesn’t move at the sound of the door sliding open or Cody’s footsteps on the floor. 

“Fox?” Cody tries. No reaction. 

Is he actually asleep right now. 

Cody wouldn’t be surprised; the last batch comm call that Fox had actually shown up at had been cut short when he’d slumped over his desk and started snoring. Cody has pictures. Wolffe had teased Fox about napping on the job for weeks.

“Fox,” Cody says, louder, and comes around the interrogation table to shake Fox’s shoulder. “Fox, wake up-”

Ruby red catches his eye, a whole pool of it in the circle of Fox’s arms, under his head. Fox’s head tilts to the side when Cody, shocked, releases his shoulder. His face is devoid of any color; spatters of red blood shine on blue-tinged lips. 

For a moment the room goes airless. Cody isn’t breathing. 

Fox isn’t either.

“MEDIC!”

Chapter Text

Cody is a soldier. He has fought on countless planets, deactivated innumerable droids, won and lost and won again. He has held men as they lay bleeding. He’s pressurized wounds with his bare hands, felt the blood sliding under his palms as brothers gasped for breath.

Cody has seen much of war and blood and violence, but that never makes it any easier to see a brother die.

He hunches over Fox’s body protectively as Rex’s medic rushes in. Kix’s eyes go wide as he takes in the scene, and he starts snapping orders even as he rushes to assess Fox. Another Torrent soldier releases Fox’s wrists from the binders; his hands drop like dead weight to the bloodied tabletop.

“I-I need more medics,” Kix gasps, as the scanner beeps results at him. “Traumatic pnuemothorax, irregular heartbeat - he’s gone into shock. I need a stretcher, NOW!”

The Torrent soldier leaves the room at a dead run. “Corrie medics?” Cody says, and Kix nods. 

“The CMO’s here, Jesse’ll get him-”

Two brothers arrive with a hoverstretcher, and Kix snaps more directions. They have to unhook Fox’s limp body from the ankle binders, first, and then Cody helps lift Fox onto the stretcher. They place him down gently, and his brother’s head lolls back. Fresh red blood mingles with dried rusty-brown on the planes of Fox’s scarred face. Even the grey streaks in Fox’s hair are dyed red.

Kix straddles the rails of the stretcher as they move through the corridors, looming over Fox with a long, thick needle connected to lengths of tubing. He pushes up Fox’s bloodied undershirt and places the needle to the side of his purple-bruised ribcage.

Cody flinches forward in alarm - 

Kix wouldn’t hurt Fox. He wouldn’t. The needle sinks in; blood flows into the tubing and Kix curses.

They arrive at the surgical suite, where it becomes blindingly clear that Cody will only be a hindrance from now on. The space is small to begin with, and there’s already two Corrie medics scrubbing up in preparation.

Cody watches Fox’s unmoving body disappear into the room and stands, abruptly useless. He does not like to be useless; his hands itch to help Fox, somehow. His mind swirls with questions: why did this happen? Didn’t anyone give Fox medical attention? Will he live? How - how could they have let this happen?

The last question solidifies in his brain. He has, at least, a direction.

Cody goes to find Rex.

–

He finds his littlest brother in the speeder bay, fresh from his trip to the Corrie barracks. Rex spots his armor, a beam of gold in a sea of blue, and rushes forward.

“Cody!” he gasps, and tosses him a half-assed salute. “Thank you for coming.”

Cody greets him with a sharper salute - Alpha-17 trained things like that right into your bones. “Rex,” he says. “Tell me exactly, and I mean exactly, what has happened here.”

Rex straightens his spine a bit; his eyes flick back and forth searchingly. “Cody? What happened?”

He’s observant, Cody’ll give him that. “Fox is in critical condition. Kix pulled him into surgery not ten minutes ago.”

“What? How?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Cody says cooly, arching an eyebrow.

“He was fine - I had Kix look at him, he was banged up but he was fine-”

“I think you’d better start from the beginning.”

Rex does. He tells Cody all about Tup killing a Jedi, about Fives coming down with a strange sickness, attacking the Chancellor, escaping custody, and running amok over Coruscant. He tells Cody about the warehouse and the ray shield and his own DC’s in Fives’s hands. 

He tells Cody how Fox had shot to kill Fives, and only missed because Skywalker brought the generator down on him. That, in turn, had prompted Rox and his General to arrest Coruscant Guard command and place the rest under lockdown in the barracks while they investigated the Guard for misappropriation of justice and use of excessive force.

“Fucking hell, Rex,” Cody sighs. “Did you question him? Did he say why he did it?”

Rex nods. “I did. He was - it was strange. He said the Chancellor advised them to use lethal force-”

“Well? Did he?”

Rex drops his gaze. “I - we haven’t questioned the Chancellor, but I can’t believe that he would say that. He wanted to help Fives!”

Cody hasn’t had much experience with the Chancellor, usually just receiving orders with his general, but he’d always seemed like a reasonable man. Still, for Fox to turn on a brother like that - it seems so unbelievable.

And yet, here they were.

“If Fox said it, he probably meant it,” Cody says doubtfully. 

“I know!” Rex exclaims. “But he also went after Ahsoka with a rocket launcher, remember?”

Cody remembers hearing about that whole debacle, from Rex and Wolffe and even Obi-Wan. Fox, funnily enough, had never spoken about it. 

Rex continues, speaking fast and low. “And then, Cody, get this. I’m interviewing Thire, right? And he’s being a complete jerk about the whole thing, you know how Corries are, and then he says that Dogma’s here.”

“Wasn’t that the soldier who killed Pong Krell?”

“Yes! I didn’t know - I didn’t have the clearance to know, but somehow he ended up here in the Guard, and-” Rex takes a shuddering breath. “He’s been reconditioned.”

Cody’s stomach drops. Even though he’d known it was the most likely outcome for Dogma, it still makes his heart clench. The Jedi had done their best to stop reconditioning and decommissioning, but - sometimes there was just nothing anyone could do.

Reaching out a hand, Cody lets it drop to Rex’s shoulder and squeezes. “I’m sorry, Rex. Dogma was a good man.”

“Thank you, sir,” Rex says automatically. “I went to see him, just now, and - he has no memory of any of it. Didn’t even know when or how he was reassigned to the Guard. Didn’t know - didn’t even know me.”

“Oh, Rex…”

Rex shakes his head. “I want to see the records. Just to - I want to know why they didn’t bring him back to Torrent.”

“Might have to go to Fox’s office. I don’t know how much talking he’ll be doing.” Cody thinks again of Fox’s blue lips. Of the needle going deep into his side. His expression must darken, because Rex says quickly, “I swear to you, Cody, I had Kix look him over. I don’t know what happened.”

Cody stares him down for a moment, then turns on his heel to head back to the medical bay with Rex at his heels.

–

Fox is stable, Cody hears, and all the blood seems to rush back into his body. 

Fox is stable. Thank the Force. If Cody hadn’t walked in when he did-

“-he would’ve died,” says Kix blankly. The medic is on the floor outside the surgical suite, tucked up against the wall with his arms around his knees. His hands are clean, but Fox’s blood still covers the cuffs of his surgical robe. “Total lung collapse. Three of the ribs that were only fractured completely broke and penetrated the lung, and I - I don't even know how that happened.”

“They weren’t broken when you left him?” Cody knows his tone is accusatory, he knows, but he can’t stop seeing the memory of Fox, unmoving and chained to a table.

“No, sir,” Kix says. “And - somehow he has more scarring than before, these weird red scars that look like branches.”

“And his heart?”

Kix sighs and drags a hand down his face. “Stable, now. We lost him twice.”

Rex says, high and tight, “Lost him as in-”

“Flatlined. Yeah.”

Fuck.

“I want to know how this happened,” Cody snaps out, turning to Rex. “I want a full medical report from all parties, I want the surveillance tapes, I want every second from then until now accounted for. Is that clear?”

“Yessir,” Rex and Kix say in tandem, and then, more softly, Kix says, “There’s something else.”

Cody focuses his full attention on the hunched medic. “Yes, trooper?”

“My batchmate, Hemlock - he’s a Corrie medic, he helped with the surgery…” he trails off. 

Rex nods for Kix to continue. “He - He didn’t even know me,” Kix says miserably. “It was like he’d been reconditioned, or something, but he’s a medic and not even on the front lines, what could he have done-”

“Reconditioned.” Rex says slowly. “Hemlock. And Dogma.”

Kix lifts his head. “Dogma? Our Dogma?”

Rex doesn’t even seem to hear him. “Stay here,” he says, and turns to run off down the corridor.

“Rex?” Cody shouts, but Rex turns the corner and disappears.

“Fine,” he huffs, and turns towards Kix. “Can I see him?”

–

Fox looks - well. Fox looks fucking awful. 

They’ve managed to clean a bit of blood from his face, but all that did was expose the fresh lacerations scoring his face. His eyes are exhausted purple hollows, and an oxygen tube is taped to his nose. There’s all manner of tubes and sensors and machines hooked up to his body, making him look oddly small there in the center of the bed.
Cody covers Fox’s limp hand with his own, noting the bruised wrists from pulling on the cuffs. “Oh, Fox,” he mutters. “You always were the stubborn one.” 

The heart monitor beeps a reassuring rhythm. Cody stands there, holding his brother’s hand, and does not cry.

Chapter Text

Cody doesn’t know how long he stands there, holding Fox’s hand and listening to the heart monitor reassure him that his brother is alive. Memories flash through his mind - the first time they met, barely more than tubies, shoved into a makeshift batch together based on aptitude tests. Fox as a cadet, still called Ten-Ten, crawling into Cody’s tube at night after a hard day of training, spinning tales to Cody about the sparkling galaxy beyond Kamino’s seas. Fox hugging him goodbye after they got their permanent assignments, his arms strong and sure. 

Fox falling asleep on his shoulder the last time they managed to make it to 79’s. Bly had been offended, and Cody had too, at first, but - it had been a long time since Fox had let his guard down around them. It was - nice, to know that he felt safe enough with them to sleep. Even if he had drooled on Cody’s greys.

“Cody,” Rex says, breathless, and Cody almost flinches. His littlest brother is flushed and sweaty, with something that could be panic and could be pain in his eyes. From his tight curl on the floor, Kix raises his head.

“What’ve you got, Rex?”

In response, Rex offers up two red-painted vambraces. Fox’s vambraces.

The plastoid is cracked, obviously compromised; probably from the generator’s impact. The paint shows wear and tear, with tiny, almost unnoticeable patches of touch-up paint. Funny. Fox had never been the most fastidious of the five of them, not like Wolffe and his perfect, intricate paintjobs.

“Inside,” Rex says cryptically, and Cody turns them over. Carefully painted on the interior shell are names - hundreds of them in Fox’s tiny cramped script, marching down the curved plastoid in neat little lines.

Cody scans them quickly, then looks up to meet Rex’s eyes and says, very quietly, “Deaths?”

Rex shakes his head. “No. Looking at the personnel records, most of these troopers are still alive.”

“So what is this, then?”

“I think - I think maybe they’re troopers who’ve been reconditioned.”

The world seems to stop with Rex’s words. Cody glances back at the vambraces and cringes at the sheer number of names there. It’s impossible. Fox would never have allowed it, the Jedi would never have-

Belatedly, Cody remembers that the Guard doesn’t have a Jedi. Ostensibly, it’s because as many Jedi as possible were needed on the front lines, as well as the Coruscant Guard’s position as military police. Guard-but-not-GAR was the popular saying.

“There must be at least two hundred names here,” Cody says. “That’s - that’s unheard of, even back on Kamino it wasn’t this bad.”

How could Fox have let this happen? He always was such a hardass, and every time Cody had run into Guard troopers they’d been picture perfect soldiers, not a toe out of line.

“Reconditioned,” breathes Kix from the floor. “Fuck.”

“I know,” Rex says grimly. 

“How - how does this affect what happened?” Cody asks, gesturing to Fox’s still body next to them.

“I don’t know. I just - it’s weird. Something’s not right here, Cody. Can’t you feel it?” Rex’s voice is low and insistent; he keeps his eyes locked on Cody’s.

He does. Deep down in Cody’s gut, he knows something is wrong. Fox is clinging to life, and Kix seemed genuinely distressed at his condition. The vambraces, the investigation, Fox firing on Fives - it’s all wrong. 

It’s similar to the creeping suspicions he’d had on Cristophsis. But Cody - 

Cody couldn’t believe that Fox would ever hurt his brothers. Before Cristophsis, he couldn’t believe any clone would hurt their brothers. But he’d been wrong then.

He hopes to hell that he’s not wrong now.

“Ok,” he says. “Ok, Rex. We’ll look into this. But first I want those tapes. Medic Kix, monitor Fox and let me know the second he’s awake. I want two troopers at this door at all times. Rex, you’re with me.”

–

The security tapes prove unhelpful. Appo rolls them back to the start on a larger holoscreen in the command center. Cody watches a fuzzy blue image of Fox getting hauled into the interrogation room and secured to the table, still bleeding. 

Rex and Skywalker come in some time later; the Rex at Cody’s side leans forward and says “You can - maybe skip to after this?”

“No, I want to hear what Fox says,” Cody orders. The three talk for a while, and it’s all basically what Rex told him, until-

Until Fox starts choking in his chair. Rex shifts uncomfortably next to Cody as he watches, stonefaced. 

Onscreen, Rex pulls at Skywalker and they leave. After a while, Kix and Jesse come in to tend to Fox, then leave again. 

Fox appears to fall asleep on the table. The feed glitches and skips for just a moment, and then comes back online to show Fox still facedown on the table, where he stays until Cody’s own entrance some time later.

“What? But-” Rex starts, cut off by Cody’s flat voice. 

“What happened there, Sergeant?”

Appo’s voice is high and stressed when he replies. “I - I’m not sure, sir, it looks like the feed cut out for a few minutes, judging by the timestamps, but - there’s no reason that should’ve happened?”

“Roll it back.” Cody orders. They watch as the tape skips in the exact same place. Cody asks Appo to switch to the hallway holocams; the same thing happens.

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know what’s going on, this shouldn’t be happening -”

“It’s all right, Appo,” Cody interrupts. “You keep working on that. I want a timeline of this whole night, starting with Fives’ escape.” He turns to Rex. “Captain, with me.”

Rex follows him outside and down the corridor. As soon as they’re out of eyeshot, Cody whirls on Rex, flattening him against the durasteel walls with an arm to his chest.

“You want to explain yourself, Captain?” he says, low and soft and dangerous.

Rex can’t meet his eyes. “I - I don’t have an explanation, sir.”

“Mistreatment of prisoners is a war crime, Rex! Much less against Fox, your brother. What the fuck were you thinking?” 

Rex’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly. Cody barrels on.

“I know Fives is important to you. He’s important to me. But this?” he waves a hand behind him, gesturing vaguely. “This is unacceptable. And I’ll be speaking with General Kenobi about Skywalker, I have never - an unarmed, restrained, injured prisoner? What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I - I don’t know, Cody, I’m sorry.”

“Tell that to Fox,” Cody snaps. “When he’s conscious, that is.”

He turns and strides down the hall, not looking to see if Rex follows.

–

His steps bring him to Fox’s office door. Cody’s been here before once, early on in the war, to bodily drag Fox out of his office and out on the town with the batch. 

Fox’s code is still the same. Cody drags it from his perfect memory, and the door slides open to reveal a tiny room, no bigger than a closet. Fox’s desk is stacked tall with datapads; Cody slides around them and into Fox’s chair. 

His clearance code unlocks Fox’s mainframe workstation just fine. He pulls up the detailed personnel records, then demands, “Name,” to Rex, who’s hovering nervously in the doorway. 

“Um. Hemlock, CT-6120?”

Cody pulls up Hemlock’s file. Sure enough, right there in innocuous lettering: reconditioned. No reason, no justification. Cody marks down the date and moves on. 

“Next?”

“Uh - Drift, CT-6147?”

Drift’s profile has the same notation, right down to the date. Odd.

“Next?”

“Remedy, CT-” 

“-8847.” Cody finishes, feeling sick. He’d been in Ghost, for a time, but Cody had reassigned him to the Guard after a mission gone bad. He thought it’d be better there. Less stress than the front lines, at least.

Remedy had been reconditioned on the same date as the rest. Cody stares sightlessly at the screen for a moment, blue washing over his face like regret, and then dives in to look for any records signed on or around that date.

He finds it. A reconditioning request, listing two hundred Coruscant Guard troopers to be sent back to Kamino and wiped. The only reason given is for “showing substantial inability to serve”.

And there, at the bottom, is Fox’s signature.

Cody just stares blankly at the screen for a long moment. It’s impossible. Fox would never - no brother would ever condemn another to reconditioning. Even the deepest of feuds would never go so low. 

But there it was, in every sharp slash of Fox’s signature. 

It just didn't fit . Fox had changed during the war, but not like this. By all accounts he was devoted to his men. Sharp, sure, and demanding, but Cody had heard Fox talk about his Guards with affection ringing in every word.

And if he'd done it, if Fox had called for the reconditionings, then why was every single name painted on the inside of Fox's bracers?

It just didn’t fit.

“I don’t believe it,” Rex breathes. He’d moved from the doorway to over Cody’s shoulder, peering down at the screen. “Two hundred, all at once?”

“Looks like,” Cody says. “All the same day.”

“Wait.” Rex’s voice sharpens, and he leans closer. “Wait.” 

“What is it?”

“The date - that’s two days after Ahsoka left.”

Cody asks, “Coincidence?”

Rex shakes his head. “I don’t know for sure, but it seems suspicious.”

“And the names -”

Rex’s comm goes off, cutting Cody short. Turning away, he answers.

“Sir?”

Skywalker’s voice comes in over the comm. “Rex, hey. The Chancellor has some questions about the investigation and asked for us to report. Meet you at the Senate, soon as you can.”

“Yessir,” Rex says, and the comm shuts off. “Sorry, Cody, I have to report.”

“Do what you have to.” Cody pushes back from the desk as Rex snaps off a salute and leaves.

Maybe it’s time to call his own Jedi, if only to ask how the fuck 200 reconditionings went right under Shaak Ti’s nose. 

He activates his own comm. “General?”

Chapter Text

Rex has been to the Chancellor’s office only once before, with Anakin. The sumptuous hallway leading to the even more extravagant office had stunned him then, and it still stuns him now.

Secretary Moore ushers him into the Chancellor’s office without raising her gaze from her datastation. She’s always treated him like that - cold and off putting, but maybe that’s just her way.

Rex expects his general to be waiting inside. Instead there’s only the Chancellor, regally stationed behind his massive desk. Rex must be early. He clicks his heels together and comes to attention. “Captain Rex at your service, Chancellor.”

Palpatine smiles warmly, as always. “Captain Rex, always so prompt! An admirable quality. Would you report on the ongoing investigation, please?”

“Shouldn't we wait for General Skywalker?”

The Chancellor waves a hand. “Oh, no need. He sounded so busy on the comm, I told him you and I could handle this bit of…unpleasantness.”

Oh. Okay. Rex can handle that. “Of course, sir.”

“Excellent! Now tell me, Captain, how do things stand?”

Rex takes a deep breath and reports. “ARC trooper Fives is in custody in the Jedi Temple - they’re looking into the sickness that caused him to attack you, sir. Coruscant Guard command is in holding at the GAR prison facilities, and we are conducting interviews with all commanders. The rest of the Guard is still under lockdown in their barracks at the moment.”

“Good, good,” the Chancellor says. “And Commander Fox’s condition?”

“He’s recovering, sir. Somehow he rebroke three ribs in custody, and his lung collapsed, but the medics were able to stabilize him.”

The temperature of the room seems to drop, but Chancellor Palpatine’s eyes are warm. “That’s excellent news, Captain. There have been too many lives lost. Commander Fox is the leading cause of the investigation, correct?”

Rex nods sharply, because it was true. Anakin had called the investigation down on the Guard, and Fox was the Guard. They took their orders from him, and he took his orders from -

Fox took his orders from the Chancellor, didn’t he? That’s what he’d said in the interrogation.

But - Anakin trusted the Chancellor implicitly, and the man seemed shocked and disgusted by the excessive force that Fox had employed. And the reconditioning order…that had come from Fox too, hadn’t it? 

Unless…

“He is, sir,” says Rex, and mentions nothing about what he and Cody had found.

The Chancellor leans forward, blue eyes blazing into Rex’s. “Is that all, Captain?”

Rex opens his mouth almost automatically. The air in the room is so cold and heavy; it lays across Rex’s shoulders, pressing him down into plush carpet. He can’t look away from blue eyes, blue blue blue-

“No, sir,” he hears himself say. “Commander Cody and I found a reconditioning order for 200 troopers, signed by Fox himself. But - Commander Cody remains sure that Commander Fox would never do that to his men-”

“Oh, my boy,” sighs Chancellor Palpatine. “There’s nothing that Commander Fox wouldn’t do. Trust me.”

Rex does. He trusts the Chancellor, so much it’s overwhelming. He can’t even remember why he’d had doubts - everything has vanished into the cold. There is only the Chancellor.

“In fact,” Palpatine continues, “I miss my pet. CT-7567, execute Order 37. Bring CC-1010 to me, and arouse no suspicion. I’ll have Taun We register that he has been sent back to Kamino for study. His aggression inhibitor chip must have malfunctioned. ”

His mind slips into a sheet of ice, cold and crystalline-clear. The Order reverberates through his brain with a clear and cold certainty. He will retrieve CC-1010.

Rex is screaming, fighting, he won’t do this, he won’t do it-

“Yes, my Lord.”

–

Voices filter through the fog, familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

“- are you doing?”

“Captain’s orders. Get him up.”

“He’s in no condition to move-”

“I guess we could wheel him?”

Wait. Are they talking about him?

Fear snaps Fox’s eyes open. Blearily, he registers cold white walls and the broad form of a brother in front of him. That, paired with the achy ghost of pain, is unfortunately familiar - Fox is in the medbay.

He’s in the medbay - he’s alive.

The shock of it freezes him. Everything comes rushing back, like water flooding the lower levels of Kamino - Fives, and the arrest, the interrogation, the Chancellor-

He was meant to have died, Fox is sure of it. The Chancellor had electrocuted him somehow, aggravated his injuries to the point of death. He’d always known the Chancellor would replace him eventually, with how displeased he always was with Fox’s work, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. 

Still. Fox is meant to be dead. How is he alive-

Fox’s muddled thoughts are interrupted by hands on his arms. They deftly remove his IV before Fox can even flop his head over to see. He’s just in time to catch the snick of cuffs closing around his wrist, tethering him to the rails of the bed.

It hurts to speak. “Wha- stop,” Fox tries. His body is slow to respond, muzzy and heavy-feeling like he always is when he comes out of sedation.

There are so many troopers around him and not one is familiar. None of his Corries are here, just Torrent brothers milling about. Only Guards look out for Guards - it’s one of the first lessons of Coruscant, and Fox is alone in a sea of blue.

Another click, and Fox’s other wrist is cuffed.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” someone protests. Is that - Kix?

“Gotta keep him secure. Guess Rex doesn’t want another Fives scenario,” says another voice. “OK, we’re good to move.”

A sickening jerk, and they’re moving. Fox loses sight of Kix, calls out anyway. “Wha’s goin’ on?”

The trooper pushing his cot responds instead. “We’re bringing you to Rex. Kamino called. They want to take a look at you, Commander .”

Fuck. Fuck. Fox goes breathless with cold fear; it hurts deep in his lungs, but the pain is overshadowed by the all-consuming dread that blankets him. 

Kamino. Fox is defective.

The labs of Kamino are every clone's worst fear - not even a nightmare, because they’re real. Every batch has stories of cadets disappearing with a scientist and coming back wrong, or never coming back at all. 

What will they do to him? Experiments? Reconditioning? Fox has sent so many of his men to Kamino; it’s fitting that eventually he’d join them.

Laughing hurts his ribs, but Fox can’t help it. Deranged giggles bubble up from his aching chest - it’s just- it’s just-

He can’t do it anymore. Soon he won’t have to, he thinks, and laughs harder. Hot tears slip from the corners of his eyes. He can’t even care that the Torrent troopers can see them.

“Maybe he is cracked,” one of the troopers mutters to the other. 

Fox can’t find it in himself to disagree.

They load him into a LAAT/i where Rex is waiting. “I’ll take him from here,” he says, and the others disappear, probably. Fox doesn’t bother to crane his neck to look. He just stares straight up at the ceiling of the transport and waits.

Rex doesn’t speak to Fox at all. He just closes the doors and disappears into the cockpit. The flight doesn’t take long, but Fox isn’t unloaded into the GAR spaceport like he expects. 

They’re at the Senate landing pads. 

Why - why are they at the Senate landing pads?

He asks Rex. Rex doesn’t answer or even deign to look at Fox, just pushes the gurney forward. 

A new wash of fear sweeps through Fox. His worn-out body shivers with adrenaline, but he can only muster the strength to weakly tug at the binders. 

Then Rex pushes him into the service elevators and the pieces finally click together in Fox’s muddled brain. The Chancellor wants to see him before he's sent off to Kamino? But then - why did he try to kill Fox? Nothing makes sense. He can't think straight.

Silent and cold, Rex presses the button for the top floor. 

“Rex, don’t,” Fox tries, without much hope. “Rex. Please. I’m sorry.”

Begging has no effect; his brother just stares straight ahead. 

So that’s it, then. Rex hates Fox so much he wants him dead. Fox has gone too far, and now Rex is just another thing that Coruscant has taken from him. 

Fuck, he hates his job. 

Now Thorn will have to do it. Maybe he'll do better than Fox has done. 

The elevator doors swish open silently, and Rex pushes the gurney into the corridor and down, stopping in front of the dreaded doors. Fox lies still and silent and compliant. There’s no use fighting. He learned that early on.

The doors open. Rex pushes him through. 

“Ah! Captain, Commander. Lovely to see you both.”

Chapter Text

“I - I don’t know how this is possible,” Obi-Wan whispers. Cody watches his eyes flick back and forth, reading the reconditioning order over and over, like he doesn’t want to believe it.

Cody doesn’t want to believe it either, doesn’t want to acknowledge the sharp slashes of Fox’s signature at the bottom of the page. But it’s there. Kix’s interactions with his batchmate confirmed that the order had been carried out, without General Ti or Alpha-17 even noticing. 

Fucking long-necks. Probably had a secret landing pad hidden away on Tipoca City - the Kaminoans had never revealed all their proprietary secrets, not even to the Jedi. 

The question, then, was not only how, but why? 200 men sent for reconditioning was unheard of. Cody himself had only ever had to send one man to undergo the procedure, and he hadn’t even wanted to. Natborn officers had decided Sergeant Slick’s fate, not Cody, and he still bore a small grudge against Admiral Tarkin for it.

It hadn’t just been 200, either. Cody had taken the opportunity to meticulously comb through Fox’s personnel files, and he hadn’t liked what he’d found. More reconditionings, more death certificates - Fox’s fatality rate was unusually high. 

Not to mention the mess of notes scattered around Fox’s desk. Cody had perused a few of those, too, finding shift schedules with more double shifts than GAR regulations allowed and ever-expanding patrol routes into territory that should be covered by the Coruscant Security Force. Something to talk to Fox about, when he regained consciousness.

“There’s more,” Cody says, and Obi-Wan looks up from the datapad at Cody’s tone.

“More?”

Cody brings up the holorecording of Fox’s interrogation, and watches as Obi-Wan’s face slowly shutters as he watches his former padawan choke a restrained and cooperative Fox. The video stops but he stays silent, blue eyes looking right through the datapad to something far away, something only Obi-Wan can see. 

“This is…most disturbing,” he finally says, like every word costs him dearly. “I know that…Ahsoka’s loss has hit him hard, but that’s - that’s no excuse, it’s unacceptable.” Obi-Wan finally looks up at Cody; his face looks older, more lined, but his eyes are clear. “Please send the recording to my personal pad, Commander. I’ll raise this with the Council and speak to Anakin myself.”

“Of course, sir,” says Cody. “Will you be taking over this investigation?”

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. “It seems you already have it well in hand, my dear,” he says wryly, and Cody grins, dips his head.

“I’ll contact Shaak Ti and have her press the Kaminoans for information on her end,” Obi-Wan continues. “She is currently at the Temple, of course, with Fives, but when she returns.”

Cody nods. “In the meantime, we should speak to Commander Fox.”

–

Fox’s room is empty.

Cody stands there in the doorway. He can’t move. Can’t speak. He can do nothing but stare at the empty corner where the medical bed used to be. 

Where Fox used to be.

“Cody?” Obi-Wan’s voice is impossibly soft. So is the hand that slips onto Cody’s shoulder, but Cody can’t feel anything.

“Commander Cody?”

Cody turns to see Kix approaching down the hallway. “Where is Fox, trooper?” he grinds out, and Kix stops in his tracks at the look on Cody’s face.

Hesitantly, he says, “Commander Fox is en route to Kamino, sir. The Kaminoans believe that he may be malfunctioning like Tup. I thought - I thought you’d been informed.”

Kamino? En route to Kamino? To be sliced open by longneck scientists, taken apart bit by bit until they found their mistake? Cody’s mind supplies images of Fox in white surgical suites, Fox strapped down while the longnecks do something to his brain-

“No,” he breathes, “No, no - I haven’t even talked to him, they can’t-”

He stumbles backwards until he hits the wall, then slides down to a heap on the floor. Obi-Wan is at his side instantly, his warm hand a comfort on the back of Cody’s neck as he snaps at Kix,

“Stop the transfer. Use my clearances and stop it.”

“I can’t, and neither can you, sir.” Kix says in a tight voice. “I can’t even use medical overrides.  Because Commander Fox isn’t in the GAR.”

“What.” 

“The Guard isn’t the GAR,” Cody mutters from the floor. “They’re - they’re military police, operating outside of the Grand Army command structure. But - he’s under investigation by the GAR, they all are, doesn’t that take precedence?”

“Not until the investigation is concluded.” says Kix. “I tried that. Until there’s a verdict, he’s still under the authority of his direct superior.”

Cody thinks for a moment. The Guard doesn’t have a Jedi, so it must be-

“The Chancellor?”

“I’ll contact him immediately,” Obi-Wan says, and goes for his comm.

“Wait.”

Both Cody and Obi-Wan look up at the Kix’s snapped order.

“Kix?” Cody questions. From what he knows of the medic, he’s usually fairly laid-back. But now Kix is staring into space, one hand held out to stop the comm.

“Just - the Chancellor. The highest levels of the Republic,” Kix says, almost like he’s reciting something.

“...yes?”

Kix shakes his head and looks down at Cody, face set. “Something weird is going on here,” he says baldly. “And it started with Fives. He said - I thought he was crazy, but he said there was a conspiracy that went all the way to the highest levels of the Republic. I know he tried to kill the Chancellor, I know, but - that’s not Fives. He’d never do that. Not without a reason.”

“What are you saying? I thought Fives had a virus or something that made him attack, like Tup killing the General. They’re looking him over at the Temple now,” Cody says, and stands to his feet. “What does that have to do with Fox?”

Kix shakes his head again. “I don’t know, but - Fives tried to kill the Chancellor, and now he’s in a coma. Then Commander Fox tried to kill Fives, and he’s a direct subordinate of the Chancellor, and now he’s en route to Kamino. Fives said the Jedi and the clones were in danger, but from what?”

“From the Chancellor himself,” supplies Obi-Wan, with a far-off look in his eyes. “Dooku was telling the truth - he said the Republic was under the control of a Dark Lord of the Sith-”

His eyes snap to Cody. “I must call the Council. Contact Alpha-17 and have him meet Commander Fox’s shuttle at Tipoca City.”

Cody nods silently, his mind whirring. The Chancellor, a Sith? The elder statesman, leader of the Republic, was an evil Jedi legend? It couldn’t be true, but - Cody thinks of Fox. How he’d changed. How tired he always was. How he’d sent 200 men to be reconditioned, apparently on a whim.

But if it was the Chancellor, pulling the strings all this time-

Fuck. “Rex,” Cody says blankly. “Rex is with the Chancellor.”

–

Rex stands stiffly at attention as the Supreme Chancellor approaches. Fox knows there’s no point in trying to get away, but his exhausted body must have missed the memo. He flinches hard at the first touch of those wrinkled hands in his hair, making the binders rattle against the bedrails. 

“Oh, Commander,” Palpatine croons. “What will we do with you?”

“Probably try to kill me again,” Fox manages. Maybe this time it’ll take. 

“You’ve been a loyal dog, my dear, but-” he twists Fox’s curls hard, making him hiss, “Your latest failure has come too close to ruining it all. And after all that, you didn’t even have the decency to die.”

He releases Fox’s hair with one last sharp tug. 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Fox’s mouth says automatically. 

“No matter, we still have a chance to correct this. ARC-5555 will, I am confident, be permanently comatose in a matter of hours. And you, CC-1010, are thought to be on a transport to Kamino where you will be found defective and disposed of.”

Palpatine steps back and motions to Rex, who oddly hadn't even reacted to the news about Fives. “On its knees.”

Rex’s shadow looms over him, his face chillingly empty. The binders are removed, and Fox barely has time to brace before Rex pulls him out of the cot and onto the floor, a move that reignites the inferno of pain that is his body. Fox dimly notices Rex re-cuffing his hands behind his back. He’s too busy trying not to puke on the very floor he’s kneeling on.

The Chancellor paces back and forth in front of him. “I just can’t have you spouting off about how I told you to terminate that ARC trooper. I must say, I wasn’t expecting Anakin to be quite so upset about the loss of one of his clones - there’s thousands of you, after all - but he does get so attached to things.”

Skywalker? This is about Skywalker?

Fox doesn’t understand. 

“Tilt its head back,” orders the Chancellor, and Rex grabs a handful of Fox’s tangled curls and pulls, forcing him to look up into Palpatine’s cold blue gaze.

“Oh, the despair in those eyes,” Palpatine crows, grabbing Fox under the chin and tilting his face this way and that. “I’ll miss that the most, pet. It just pours off of you - proud Commander Fox, so capable yet so helpless. That’s how you build loyalty, you know - take almost everything away, and they’ll be desperate, grateful even, not to lose anything more.”

Fox bares his teeth and spits blood, but the Chancellor only laughs when red spatters onto his forearms. “Even now, there’s still something more you can lose.”

Fear builds in Fox’s belly - what more can he lose? He’ll die here, that much is clear, but - what else is there? Thorn and Thire and Stone are safe in custody. They’ll have to pay for his failings, and he doesn’t envy the next Marshall Commander, but-

“CT-7567? Hurt it.”

Rex doesn't even hesitate. 

Oh, Fox thinks, as Rex’s foot snaps out and catches him in the shoulder, knocking him down awkwardly onto his bound hands. He’s right.

The last thing Fox will lose is his life. The second to last thing is his brother.

Chapter Text

“Rex, stop,” Fox pleads, squirming backwards on the floor. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I shot Fives, but he’s not even dead-”

Rex advances. He is utterly unmoved by Fox’s begging; his face seems carved from stone. Fox stares up at him from his position on the floor and finds no trace of mercy in his features.

Fox has never seen Rex like this. Even back in the interrogation room he’d at least looked angry. He’d stopped Skywalker from choking Fox, even if it was just to get more information. But Rex had stopped. He’d even sent a medic. Fox hasn’t even had a chance to do anything else to piss him off, and yet Rex still stalks forward with violence promised in his stance.

He delivers a hard kick to Fox’s already abused ribs, forcing Fox’s breath out in a violent wheeze. Agony blossoms in his body for the hundredth time that day. 

Fox is tough, he’s been trained by the best Kamino could offer, but he can’t take much more of this. His legs pull up towards his chest as he curls around himself as best he can with his arms bound. Agonized breaths hiss through his teeth as Rex’s foot connects again.

“Oh Commander, you just keep trying,” Palpatine crows from his seat on the couch. He holds up a hand and Rex stills immediately. 

The Chancellor rises, stately as ever, and approaches Fox’s shivering form. His cold blue stare evaluates Fox from far above; Fox meets his eyes with as much venom as he can muster. 

Palpatine tilts his head with an amused smile. “It’s an admirable quality, I must say, and it was such fun to watch you scramble around, trying your very best to keep your precious Guards safe. But you never could, could you?” The toe of his fine shoe nudges at Fox’s cheek. “Answer me, pet.”

Fox keeps his mouth firmly shut. He’s going to die anyway - the upside of being dead is not having to answer any of the Chancellor’s stupid rhetorical questions.

His resolve lasts until Palpatine nods to Rex, and Rex lifts one booted foot and brings it down hard on Fox’s leg. A horrifying crack resounds through the room, and Fox screams. His breath comes in sharp heaving pants, trying to ride out the electric waves of pain.

“N-no,’ he manages, “you wouldn’t…let me…”

The Chancellor pushes at Fox’s shoulder with his foot until Fox rolls over onto his back. His head is a dead weight; he stares at the ceiling blearily as the Chancellor’s cultured voice continues to spew poison. Not the last thing he ever wanted to hear - it featured in his nightmares enough already.

“That’s right. You must obey your Supreme Chancellor. Isn’t that right, CT-7567?”

“Yes, my lord,” says Rex. My lord? Fox has never heard anyone but himself call the Chancellor my lord. Did Palpatine have something on Rex, something he was holding over Rex’s head, just like he’d used Fox’s Corries to keep him focused and obedient?

If so, then Rex’s Jedi must be in on it. Fox knows how close Skywalker and the Chancellor were. It had always made him worry for Rex, but Skywalker seemed to treat him fine. 

The Corries weren’t so lucky, but then again, when had they ever been lucky? They were here, weren’t they, suffering through an endless war grounded on Coruscant, while their brothers fought and died in star systems far away. 

His brothers…what would they say to the news of his death? Cody would probably side with Rex - they’d grown so close over the years. Wolffe would - Wolffe had his Pack, now. He’d be fine. Bly would cry. You could always count on Bly to cry at anything, soft heart as he was. And Ponds -

Fox would be seeing Ponds soon. 

He’s broken out of his reverie by a nudge to his aching side and a voice cooing his designation. “CC-1010?”

The Chancellor again. Wasn’t he done? Wasn’t it enough to have Fox bound and bleeding on the floor? He was really going to make Fox pay attention to his dumb grandiose speeches, too?

“I thought you were tougher than this, Commander. Perhaps your replacement will be more…hardy. I think I’ll promote that promising Commander Thorn. He’ll be loyal enough, once he finds out exactly what he can lose. Just like you, Commander Fox.” Fox’s name drips from Palpatine’s mouth like it disgusts him.

A noise soaked in pure misery forces its way through Fox’s throat. Thorn. His best friend Thorn. Brash, indomitable Thorn, who always had a smile, even on the darkest days. Thorn. Palaptine would crush the light out of him like with the first recon order he’d have to sign.

Fox grits his teeth. If he’s going to die, he’ll go out swinging. 

“CT-7567, kill it.”

Rex stalks forward, unholstering his blaster. He aims at Fox and-

Hesitates. Is he - is Rex crying?

The pause only lasts for a moment, but Fox takes full advantage. He rolls up from the floor in a move that floods his body with pain and headbutts Rex right between the eyes. Rex drops like a stone, losing his grip on his blaster as he falls. 

Fox whirls on the Chancellor. HIs broken leg screams in protest, but Fox forces it down. Alpha-17 had prepared them for every eventuality, even fighting with no hands, fighting through exhaustion and injury. If Fox is going to die anyway, he’s taking the Chancellor with him. Fox lunges-

And lighting bursts out of Palpatine’s fingertips, catching Fox in the chest and bearing him down. 

Fox only has time for one thought - it comes out of his hands? - before his world narrows to a shrieking lance of black and white static. Agony shoots through every nerve, every limb; Fox’s mouth opens in a silent scream and his back arches, taut like a bow. 

It stops, and Fox collapses into a singed heap. He can’t move, can’t lift his head; he can only lay there and shake, watching the hem of Palpatine’s fine robe sway forward. 

“You dare,” Palpatines' voice whips out, and the shattered blue bolts overtake Fox again.

It seems to last forever, even as Fox begs for it to be over as he writhes and twists. But there’s no escape from the white-hot agony. He’s trapped in an unending prison of his own body; limbs jerk and spasm white black and white flares of light obscure his vision.

Until suddenly, it stops. The last arcs of electricity shudder down Fox’s body; he shivers uncontrollably, unable to move from his place on the plush carpet. 

It can’t be over. Palpatine doesn’t ever do things by half. A shadow steps in front of Fox and he cringes violently, bracing for the next volley.

Blue light shines down on Fox, but it’s not the sick electric blue of the lightning. Fox blinks and tries to focus; he makes out the form of Cody’s Jedi, standing protectively in front of him and Rex with his lightsaber ignited, the blue blade catching the bolts of lightning meant for Fox.

“Master Kenobi,” Palpatine says. “What a pleasure. I’d been meaning to get rid of you anyway.” He drops the lightning and with one fluid motion unsheathes two lightsabers; they ignite with a scream of red.

Red lightsabers. Fox has only heard of them, never seen them in the field. He knows Wolffe’s dreams are haunted by red glowing light; knows that his brothers on the front scream warnings whenever crimson lightsabers appear in battle. He’s heard, once or twice, that only evil Jedi carry red sabers - Sith.

“Sidious,” says Kenobi, and Palpatine inclines his head. Then he screams, unhinged and terrifying, and leaps at Kenobi. 

Kenobi parries and pushes Palpatine back, away from where Fox lays twitching on the floor. It’s taking a lot of effort to try to sit up; something is wrong in his chest, and the pain forces him back down. Fox rolls over onto his side instead and tracks the battle raging in the room. 

It’s clear even to Fox, who has no Jedi, that Kenobi is outmatched. He puts up a great defense, but Palpatine is fighting with an unmatched ferocity, wielding his twin lightsabers with vicious finesse.

“You cannot hope to best me,” he sneers, and Fox hates to agree but he’s right. Fox swallows down the pain and starts worming towards Rex’s prone body - if he can just get to Rex’s comm, he could get out of the cuffs and help-

Rifle bolts shoot overhead, aimed right at Palpatine. He twists out of their path and laughs. “Reinforcements, Kenobi? What a shame. ”

The shooter fires another bolt straight at Palpatine; he blocks the bolt with a snarl and simultaneously swings at Kenobi’s feet, forcing the Jedi to flip backwards.

The room is awash with red and blue blades, peppered with the bright orange of rifle shots. Fox inches his aching body closer to Rex, closer and closer, until - there!

It’s difficult to unlock the cuffs with Rex’s authorization. Over and over it beeps a denial at Fox, until finally he smashes the comm with frustration and the cuffs pop open. 

“Hard reset,” he mutters. Rex’s blaster is lying nearby; Fox snatches it up and takes stock. 

He’s propped on one elbow in front of Rex as the battle rages around them. There’s more Jedi here, now - Fox recognizes High General Mace Windu’s violet blade. Monnk’s General is here too, slashing at Palpatine, among others. The arrival of the other Jedi seems to have turned the tide. Palpatine is on the defensive now. Whereas before he was all taunts and elegant swordwork, now he’s a savage whirl of red sabers and electric lightning, every move vicious and desperate.

“Fox!” 

Cody’s motioning frantically from his kneeling position in the doorway. A 501st trooper stands behind him, laying down blaster fire that honestly doesn’t seem to be doing much against the flashing storm of lightsabers, but at least he’s not shooting at Fox. 

Wait - is that Kix?

“Come on!” hisses Cody. He creeps forward under Kix’s covering fire towards Fox. A Jedi skids into the space between them, frantically fighting off a flurry of attacks from Palpatine. A blade sneaks through the Jedi’s defense and they slump to the floor, lifeless. 

“Commander Cody,” Palpatine drawls, “Execute Order Sixty-Six.”

Fox hears the words and knows them. The world drains of warmth; ice makes a home in CC-1010’s chest. His mind is a cold, flawless crystal - his orders are clear. He stands, ignoring the pain in his leg. Pain means nothing - there is only the mission.

Eliminate the Jedi traitors.

CC-2224 aims and fires straight at the Emperor, who blocks it easily. Windu dives in to engage the Emperor; he must die as well. CC-1010 marks CC-2224 as a traitor in league with the Jedi and raises his blaster. 

Traitors must be eliminated.

“Fox?” 

CC-1010’s hands are shaking. They should not be shaking. It should not be difficult to stand, to aim at the traitor and pull the trigger.

No. No, that’s my brother, I’ve killed too many brothers, no-

He drops to one knee; commingled blood and tears drip from his nose. The blaster shakes in his hand even as he levels it to aim at a sunburst chest. His trigger finger twitches-

The shot hits CC-1010 in center mass and everything goes dark.

Chapter Text

Cody’s exhausted. He thought the war had been bad - turns out ending the war was worse. He feels like he’s been running on empty for the entire week since the Chancellor died, and it’s not that far off.

He trudges into the Jedi medbay - Healing Halls, or whatever they called them - and collapses into the chair next to his brother’s bed with a huge sigh.

“That good, huh?”

Cody flops his head over and glares, unimpressed. “I’m not saying I miss fighting, but I could really go for a droid to punch.”

Rex’s lips twitch into a tiny smile. “Fight Wolffe,” he suggests. “He’s been going crazy over this whole thing, he could use a good spar.”

“In the state he’s in? He’d throw one punch and then start crying.”

“True,” Rex allows. “I’d do it, I’m itching to get out of here, but-” he gestures at his legs with a grimace. 

Rex’s right leg is heavily bandaged, and the left cuts off abruptly at mid-shin. There was nothing to be done, the Jedi said, except fit him with a prosthetic. The connection points had been set; Rex was still healing from the surgery.

But he was alive. At least he was alive.

Cody hadn’t ever felt fear like he did that day, when General Windu and a host of other Jedi had battled the Chancellor in his own office. The fight had been furious and brutal. Cody had watched in complete silence; he and Kix had offline all comms in their helmets, and the utter quiet made the battle eerily graceful. 

One Jedi had died; another had fallen through the broken window, but survived; and an unconscious Rex had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. While dueling with Windu, one of Palpatine’s blades had sliced through his leg and halfway through the other - there had been no saving it.

The Sith had finally fallen to the combined skill of Generals Windu and Kenobi. His body had barely hit the floor before Kix was racing for the two sprawled forms of their brothers, heedless of anyone calling him back.

Things had moved very quickly after that. Fox and Rex and an injured Kit Fisto had been transported to the Jedi temple, and hadn’t that been fun - medics trying desperately to stabilize Fox’s failing systems, Cody restraining Rex and trying to talk him down from killing Fox…he couldn’t understand it. Not until the Jedi had done a Force-augmented brain scan on Kix’s recommendation, and found the chips.

Fucking chips. Control chips, in all their heads. Cody’s stomach sank when he realized what Sidious could have - would have - made them do. What he’d already made Rex do. 

“Cody?”

He pulls himself back to the present, makes himself look at the very alive, very-not-mind-controlled Rex. “Sorry. Just thinking.”

Rex drops his gaze and picks at the sheets. “Yeah. About that. Cody, I’m sorry, I -”

Cody blows out a breath. Rex has apologized probably a zillion times by now. “I know, Rex. It’s going to-”

“Captain!” 

The boisterous voice is followed by its boisterous owner, Kix trailing behind wearily. “They released me! I’ve got a clean bill of health.”

“That’s great, Fives,” Rex says with a smile. “And you’re feeling ok?”

Fives throws himself into the chair on Rex’s other side. “Never better!”

“Really? Cody asks. “Because it was touch and go for a while there.” Fives’ smile dims just a bit at the memory. He’d been close to death when Shaak Ti had, apparently, hit the galactic had enough line and ordered Rancor Company to search and interrogate Nala Se’s offices. The scientist was unprepared, Commander Colt had managed to find the poison used in her labs, and here Fives was, alive and well.

“That’s not what Master Che said,” snaps Kix, “she said to take it easy and be careful to not overdo it-”

Fives waves a casual hand. “Yeah, yeah, I got it. But you’re here, what could happen?”

Kix opens his mouth, clearly about to tell Fives exactly what terrible medical thing could happen, and Fives hastily cuts him off. “Oh, right. Commander Cody, I meant to tell you - Alpha-17 is here, and he’s looking for you.”

“What?” hisses Cody, already shooting up from his chair. 

“He’s looking for all of you, really, I think his actual words were ‘where are those dumbass idiot cadets of mine, they never tell me anything-’ ”

“Okay okay noted!” Cody jumps to his feet. “You,” he points at Kix, “watch them.”

Kix salutes and Cody exits amid Fives and Rex’s protests that they don’t need watching, and heads off to find his own disgruntled older brother.

He catches up to Seventeen just as he’s leaving the Temple. “Seventeen!” Cody calls, and resolutely does not flinch as the alpha clone storms up to him with a face like thunder. 

“Cod’ika,” he growls, and then Cody’s wrapped in Seventeen’s huge arms. It’s nice, it’s so nice, and he relaxes into the hold, taking what feels like his first deep breath in days. Seventeen’s here. Seventeen will help.

He’s pulled out of the embrace, and two big hands land on either side of his face. Seventeen pulls him into a quick keldabe, then tilts Cody’s head to the side to trace over the scar on his right temple.

“They took it out first thing,” Cody says. “We’re not sure if the Alpha-class has them too…”

There’s a hot, unspoken rage in the way Seventeen sharply nods. “I’m sure we do. General Ti is overseeing the removal from all clones on Kamino, but - I had to come here first.”

Cody can understand that. Seventeen’s heard the story, both directly from Cody and from the Council debriefings, but that’s no substitute. 

And - maybe he can help.

“Where is he,” Seventeen demands, and Cody sighs. 

“C’mon, I’ll show you.”

–

Wolffe is outside the Guard Barracks when Cody and Seventeen arrive. He’s slumped against a wall covered in graffiti with his head in his hands, and every line of his body screams sorrow. Next to him are Boost and Sinker, napping on each other’s shoulders. They must’ve been here for as long as Wolffe has, and Cody could hug them for it. His brother has never done well alone.

He looks up as they approach, and shoots to his feet. Boost and Sinker are slower on the uptake, but manage a passable salute. “Alpha-17, sir!” they chorus.

Seventeen runs a critical eye over the three. “You two,” he points at Boost and Sinker, “You’re relieved. Go back to the barracks and get some sleep.”

They look at Wolffe; when he waves them off, they salute again, mutter a few thank-you’s, and trudge away. 

Wolffe gets the same treatment as Cody - hug, keldabe, scar examination. He squirms a little; Seventeen just holds on tighter. “Now,” he says, with one big hand clamped on Wolffe’s shoulder, “Anyone want to explain what the kark is going on here?”

“They won’t let us in,” Wolffe says, desperation clear in the strain of his voice. He gestures at the two Corries standing guard outside the doors. “Thorn is Acting Marshall Commander and he’s saying that it’s not our concern.”

“The Jedi-” Seventeen starts, and Cody shakes his head.

“The Jedi stabilized him. They did all they could, but they won’t go against medical authority, and since Thorn’s the one authorized to make decisions for him…”

“They’ve closed ranks,” Seventeen supplies. “Even against batchers?”

Wolffe snorts. “I’m not a marshal commander, and Cody won’t pull rank.”

Snitch. 

Cody stands tall against Seventeen’s disapproving gaze and tries to explain. “The Corries have been made to do so much against their will, I thought - I didn’t want to add to that. If you knew - if you knew what they’d been made to do-”

Cody trails off. He doesn’t know how to explain the abject misery that weighed down every single Guard he’d seen, or how they looked at everyone and expected the worst. Not even expected - accepted. Cody has no doubt that Thorn would obey command structure and let him in if he asked, but the idea of ordering the Coruscant Guard around after everything feels wrong.

“I just wanted them to have a choice,” he finishes lamely.

Seventeen’s eyes soften at that, and Wolffe looks away. “I understand, Cody. But - we need to see him.”

“Why?” comes a voice from the doorway. They turn as one, and there’s Thorn, back straight and arms crossed. His helmet’s on, but Cody can still feel the force of his glare.

“Why?” Wolffe echoes. “Why? He’s our brother!”

“He was Rex’s brother too.”

“Thorn, he was chipped!”

“Oh yeah? Was he chipped when he arrested us?”

Cody can’t respond to that. His throat clicks uselessly for a moment, and no words come out.

“Commander Thorn,” Seventeen says, and he’s using his calm voice - rare, for him. “I understand. What happened to the Guard was a mistake, and Fox caught the brunt of it. But we just want to see our vod .”

Thorn doesn’t move. He doesn’t go back inside, though, so Cody counts that as a win. It’s progress that he’s even out here - usually Cody and Wolffe are told to leave by the sentries.

“Or just news of his condition,” Wolffe pleads. “Anything.”

Seventeen steps forward. He says, “Please.”

The word hangs in the air for a moment. Tension hums for a long moment, until finally Thorn’s shoulders relax minutely. “Fine,” he snaps. “One hour.”

Wolffe lets out a relieved sigh, and Cody feels his heart pick up with anticipation. Seventeen nods silently, and at Thorn’s curt gesture follows him inside.

Thorn hustles them through the corridors of the Corrie base at a quick pace, made easier by the face that there’s no one in the hallways. They don’t meet one Guard on their way to the medbay. It’s clear that Thorn has called ahead, warning his men to clear out, but the fact that he felt it was needed is depressing.

The medbay doors slide open. Thorn steps through first, nodding to the medics on duty. When he spots a tuft of white hair on the one wearing glasses, it’s like he’s been pushed into Kamino’s frozen seas. It must be Remedy - well. Not Remedy anymore. Cody doesn’t know the other - could be Kix’s batcher Hemlock, could be some other Corrie medic.

There’s no time to find out, either. Thorn leads them to the back, where the Guards’ only two bacta tanks bubble eerily. One is empty. 

The other holds Fox.

He’s suspended in the murky liquid, hooked up to what looks like two dozen different machines that all beep and flash continuously. The only sound is the bubbling of the tank and the steady wheezes of the oxygen mask strapped to Fox’s face. Thorn steps back and the three of them crowd in close, almost touching the glass as they look Fox over. 

His leg is strapped into a brace, hiding the bruises and swelling that Cody knows lays beneath. Fox’s ribs are a mass of fading yellow and green bruising, and there’s a faint scar where Kix drained his lungs. The worst, though, are the scars.

Not the normal scars from a life spent waging war, although Fox has plenty of those. His back is covered in branching red lines, like the roots of a plant, crawling up his neck and around his ribs.
Force lightning scars, the Jedi had said. Too old to heal. 

Seventeen’s voice breaks the silence. “Why is he still in bacta?”

“He’s only in there three hours a day, to give his heart a break.”

“When - when he comes out, can we talk to him?” asks Wolffe. 

Thorn shrugs. “You can try, but - he doesn’t wake up.”

“Coma?” asks Cody. In the tank, Fox curls his arms to his chest almost protectively, and Cody’s heart aches.

“Jedi say no,” Thorn answers in clipped tones. “They said he’s not in a coma, he just - can’t wake up.”

“Or won’t,” Cody says softly, and Thorn echoes him. 

“Or won’t.”

Chapter Text

Fox wakes up. 

It’s a morning like any other. He jerks awake after too-little sleep and rubs the grit out of his eyes. Stone’s snoring floats down from the other bunk, and Fox creeps around the small room silently, armoring up as quietly as he can without waking Stone.

They all get too little sleep, these days.

He drains a cup of caf on his way to his tiny closet of an office, where he sucks down another cup and attempts to make headway on the towering stacks of datapads that weigh down his desk. Stacks have even migrated to the floor, lately. It just shows how much Fox isn’t getting done.

Even though he literally eats paperwork for breakfast.

The sound of footsteps outside in the hall jerks Fox’s head up - it’s Thire, with his own cup of caf. “Commander,” he says, and sketches out a half-hearted salute. Something’s wrong with his face - it’s too blank, too smooth, but his eyes are hard. It looks like Fox’s face, and even though they’re all technically identical, on Thire his expression just looks wrong.

“Thire. What’s happened?”

“The two hundred, they’re - they’re landing. Now.”

Now? Kriff. How could Fox have forgotten, how could he have missed this?

“On my way,” he tells Thire, grabbing his helmet and shoving it on with hands that refuse to shake. “Thanks, Thire.”

Left behind in the doorway of the office, Thire calls after him. ‘C’mon, ori’vod. You can’t do this to me.”

He’s not making sense, but Fox doesn’t have time to figure it out. He needs to be at the landing platform ten minutes ago.

Fox bursts through the doors to a sea of white. Two hundred troopers, all in freshly painted white armor, stand shining in the sun. Every trooper that had been involved with the hunt for Ahsoka Tano. Every trooper whose decommissioning Fox had been forced to authorize.

Every trooper whose name now lay inked into Fox’s vambraces, close to and carried against his skin - the very least he could do.

They’re all at attention, every last one, standing in orderly rows so precise as to be painful. “At ease,” Fox calls.

Nothing happens. His men stay eerily at attention. It’s like they didn’t even hear him.

“At ease, men.”

Two hundred white helmets stare motionlessly back, still as statues. 

Fox creeps forward, ruby armor almost vulgar against icy white. The closest trooper doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move at all, even as Fox’s gloves reach towards the helmet and pull it off in one quick motion. 

There’s nothing underneath. No body, nothing. Fox clutches the helmet and watches in horror as the armor in front of him collapses to the ground. Like a tipped-over jug of wine, blood pours from the crumpled form at Fox’s feet, flooding the red soles of his boots with a deeper crimson.

Fox jerks backwards in shock, away from the rapidly spreading puddle, but as he turns every single clone is folding forward, their helmets rolling away to reveal nothing beneath. He’s surrounded by a battlefield of stark white plastoid armor, stained red and raw.

The Coruscant Guard’s color has always been red. 

“Fox?”

He whips around at the sound of his own name - he’s on his knees in the puddle (when did he fall to his knees) holding the helmet, but Thorn’s gaze is impassive. 

“Yes?” Fox gasps out wetly.

“Chancellor Palpatine would like a word at your earliest convenience.”

“I-” Fox stutters. Stops. Looks again at the field of white armor shining like bones. “Now?” Despite his best efforts, the word still comes out pleading.

“Yessir,” says Thorn. Duty calls, and Fox always answers. He drags himself up off his knees and makes for the door. A hand on his shoulder stops him for a moment, and he locks eyes with his second.

Thorn’s face is grim when he tells Fox, “This can’t be how it happens, Fox. Please.”

Bewildered, Fox can only nod, and then he’s through the door, leaving behind the graveyard of his men. His responsibility. His fault.

The doors to the Chancellor’s office stretch tall in front of him. Fox can’t even remember taking the elevator, but that’s not unusual. His medics have told him it’s stress messing with his memories. They say it’s making him panic and lose time. 

Another defect in the flawless Kaminoan model. Fox figures they should’ve spent more time on the clone psyche pack, but then again, Cody doesn't have this problem.

It’s only Fox. Only Fox and his defects and his weakness and his failures-

Not the time. He can have a breakdown after seeing the Chancellor. Fox steels his spine and walks through, dreamlike. Dissociating.

Chancellor Palpatine is waiting behind his massive desk; he gestures to the spot beside his desk and Fox hastens forward to stand at attention. 

“Ah, Commander Fox. Prompt as always. Did you like the gift?”

“Sir?”

“Your two hundred troopers, better than new.”

Fox gapes silently, his throat making an awful clicking noise as he stares at Palpatine, who smiles with the coldest eyes.

“Well, Commander, if you don’t like my gift I’m sure I can return them-”

“No!” Fox gasps out. He’s said this before, hasn’t he? The words feel familiar on his tongue as he forces pretty lies through his teeth. “No. Thank you, Supreme Chancellor, for the - gift. I am not worthy of such generosity.”

The Chancellor smiles again, relishing the way Fox struggles to get the words out. The way Fox is forced to thank him for only wiping his troopers instead of just disposing of them. Like a satisfied cat, he leans back in his fine chair, quirks a brow and looks pointedly at Fox’s hands.

Oh, shit. He’s still got the helmet from outside-

Fox looks down and freezes. The helmet in his hands is no longer white; instead, he’s holding a battleworn bucket with blue jaig eyes carefully painted above the visor.

Rex’s helmet. Why - how does he have Rex's helmet-

“He’s too stubborn to die,” Palpatine says, but it’s Cody’s voice that comes out his mouth.

Fox stares, bewildered.  

Palpatine smiles that trustworthy, grandfatherly smile, the one that always promised pain, and promptly explodes. 

His body disappears in a maelstrom of dark smoke; it’s almost like a black hole has opened up where the Chancellor used to be, and Fox is being inexorably pulled into its orbit. He struggles to hang on, to not lose his grip on Rex’s helmet, but his boots slide through the plush carpeting and everything flashes to black. 

He wakes up in his own interrogation room. Wrist cuffs bound to the table. There’s a chain that connects the wrist cuffs to ankle cuffs threaded through the table, then the ankle cuffs are bound to the floor. And then it’s time to sit back and wait.

Rex’s helmet is gone, but the dark smoke still swirls lazily around Fox. He can almost hear strange whispers in the cloud; they grow louder when he lays his head down on the table, and louder still when his eyes droop closed against his will.

Sleep, they whisper. Sleep, and it will all be over. Everything could be over. Fox can’t help his brothers anymore, not from wherever he is - cell or Kamino, there’s not really a difference. 

The past few days are a blank, but that doesn’t matter. He’s done all he can in his years of service. To be honest, it wasn’t much. Guards were disciplined, guards were reconditioned, guards were dead. It doesn’t seem fair that Fox isn’t.

The smoke seems to agree, growing thicker, colder. Fox shivers in his bonds and tries to pull his legs up to his chest, but the manacles rattle and keep him still.

Aren’t you tired? Aren’t you cold, Fox?

He is. He’s cold and he’s tired and the Guard will be better off without his reputation staining them all red, red, red. He sucks in a final breath against the tabletop. Breathes out.

Aren’t you cold.

Chapter Text

“No,” Thorn says, the word ringing with finality. 

“But-” Cody tries, before being cut off by a sharp gesture of Thorn’s hand.

“No. What would be the point? They already tried.” The acting Marshall Commander’s voice is heavy with weariness, undercut with that mocking bitterness exhibited by every member of the Guard.

Cody can sympathize - the situation is abjectly hopeless. It’s been another week with no change in Fox’s condition. Cody’s brother floats in bacta for three hours a day, then lays unmoving in a medical bed for the other twenty-one. He doesn’t twitch or otherwise react to any stimuli - not squeezes of his limp hand or careful brushing through his curls or quiet pleads for him to come back to them, please Fox, come back.

Thorn lets Fox’s batch into Guard headquarters for an hour a day, and has been turning a blind eye when the one hour runs into two. Cody thinks it’s pretty generous of him, considering. He knew that asking for more would be pushing his luck with Thorn, but he had to try.

For Fox, he’d try anything.

Cody takes a deep breath, shooting quick glances back at Wolffe and Bly. His brothers nod back, eyes suspiciously wet and gleaming. Alpha’s hand squeezes his shoulder, and Cody forges onward. 

“I know the Jedi already looked Fox over, and I know they said he’s not in a coma, that he’s-” it’s hard to force the words through his throat - “that he’s not waking up for a reason, but they can’t go deeper without your permission. Thorn, please. You’re his medical authority, they can help him, Kenobi and Koon and Secura have all volunteered-”

“And I said no,” Thorn snaps. His eyes burn into Cody’s for a moment, but the moment breaks when Thorn rakes a frustrated hand through his dyed curls. “Don’t you think he’s had enough people messing with his mind?”

“Don’t you want him back?” Wolffe says in a suspiciously wet voice, before Cody can stop him. Alpha’s hand leaves his shoulder, reaching for his batchmate in an aborted motion.

“Wolffe-”

Thorn stays completely still, almost frozen, in that eerie way all the Corries have. “Do I want him back,” he muses, and his voice positively drips with condescension. “Do I want my beloved brother back. What a question.”

Someone shifts, and Stone steps forward from his position at Thorn’s right shoulder. His voice is quiet and strained, like he doesn’t speak very often. “We do. But it’s Fox’s choice, this time.”

This time. 

Cody doesn’t know everything the Corries have been through - just bits and pieces he’s been able to glean from the Commanders. Combined with the cautious, almost fearful reactions of the rest of the Corries to his batch, it all points to a miserable conclusion. 

Cody’s heart aches for his brothers, and not for the first time, he wonders how in the hell he could have missed this. He almost did miss this. If he hadn’t come to Triple Zero when Rex asked after the arrest, what would’ve happened? Would Fox even still be alive?

He’s broken out of his thoughts by Wolffe’s broken voice. “I-I know. And I want him to have a choice. I just - what if he doesn't know we’re waiting for him? What if he doesn’t know that we want him back?”

Wolffe, somehow, seems to have hit a weak spot in Thorn’s armor - the commander exchanges a quick glance with Stone, who tilts his head. Thorn holds his gaze in some weird wordless Corrie communication, and when he looks back to Wolffe his face is a little more open, like a break in the constant clouds of Kamino.

“Could your Jedi tell him that?”

Seventeen, sensing an opening, leans forward. “They can. They can tell him whatever you want them to.”

Thorn looks up at Seventeen with an unfamiliar look in his eyes. The expression is so alien on his face that it takes Cody a moment to realize - it’s hope.

–

In the end, it’s decided that both Generals Koon and Kenobi are needed to facilitate the connection with Fox’s mind. The two Jedi gather around the bed, along with Cody, Seventeen, Wolffe, and Thorn. Another Jedi Healer, Master Che, would monitor and boost the connection from the outside.

“Ready?” asks General Koon, offering a clawed hand to Wolffe. The six of them join hands, and both Jedi place one hand onto Fox’s forehead. The last thing Cody sees before he’s swept away by darkness is his brother’s still face, peaceful in sleep yet still lined and weary.

We’re coming, Fox, he thinks. Finally, he’ll be able to speak with his brother. I’m coming.

He opens his eyes to the same exact room. The six of them are in the Guard medbay, arranged around a cot, but - it’s different. The medbay is completely deserted, without a single Guard medic to be seen, and every shelf is empty. Every screen and every monitor shows a flatline, but that’s not the strangest part.

The strangest part is the names. 

The walls and floors are covered in names, all in Fox’s cramped script, all looking as though they’d been burned into the building with a lightsaber. The names repeat, over and over, blanketing every surface: Remedy. Hedge. Hemlock. Pansy. Cave.

But Fox isn’t here.

“Where is he?” asks Wolffe, and his general nods towards the door.

“Commander Fox’s consciousness is buried deep,” he says. Thorn shoulders around Cody and makes for the door.

“His office,” is all he says.

The rest of them trail after Thorn as he leads them through the dark corridors of Fox’s mind. There’s barely any color here, and barely any light. What little there is shines down on even more names cut violently into the walls. Drift, Hound, Fen, Jek, Rhythm, Dogma-

The names on Fox’s vambrace - the reconditioned troopers. Every one a deep cut into the very structure of his brother’s psyche.

“Oh, Fox,” Cody whispers, trailing a hand over the engraved name of a brother. Warmth settles over his shoulder, and he looks over at his Jedi. 

“Come on, darling,” Obi-Wan says softly, and Cody goes.

The temperature drops the deeper they delve into Fox’s mind, until their breaths come in puffs of white smoke. Somehow the halls have changed from the bare concrete of the Guard’s headquarters to the smooth durasteel of the prison, and their steps ring out and echo down the corridors. 

Once so steady and sure, Thorn’s steps falter and then stop entirely, bringing everyone to a halt. Cody edges around him and sucks in a breath of freezing air at the sight.

The floor and walls of the corridor ahead are covered in frost. The ice twines and branches in a delicate pattern identical to the lightning scars that cover almost half of Fox’s skin. They’re eerily beautiful as they sparkle in the cold white glow of the emergency running lights, but there’s something wrong, too, something that raises the hairs on the back of Cody’s neck.

“There is a Darkness here,” Wolffe’s general says, as calmly as ever even as Thorn rounds on him. 

“Fox isn’t Dark, he was just-”

“Peace, Commander,” says Plo, and Thorn snaps his mouth shut and drags his spine painfully straight. “I assure you, I do not believe this Darkness comes from Commander Fox, only that it may be affecting him negatively.”

Thorn lowers his head in a practiced gesture of submission. “I apologize, General, I didn't mean to imply-”

The general reaches out and puts one clawed hand on Thorn’s pauldron, shocking him into wide-eyed silence. “No apologies are necessary, my son,” he says warmly. “I am glad Commander Fox has such a stalwart champion. Your devotion may be needed to help free him.”

Thorn flounders for a moment, clearly off-balance. It’d be funny if it weren’t so fucking depressing.

“Yessir,” he says finally, then - “You think he - you think he’s trapped?”

“Perhaps. We must find him, first.”

Cody has a sinking feeling that he knows just where Fox is. These corridors look very familiar, and as they carefully follow the frost patterns to their center, his suspicions are realized.

These are the cells where the Coruscant Guard commanders were held after their arrest.

Thorn knows too, Cody can tell by the stiffness of his posture, and the way he only looks straight ahead. They’re close, now, and the air is getting heavier and colder, making their movements syrupy and slow.

A sound, to Cody’s left, and he and Seventeen are both too well-trained to jump, but their heads snap around in unison.

“...he’s lying…”

It’s almost too faint to hear. Cody looks back at Seventeen, who grimaces.

They go forward.

Voices hiss and swirl in the cold air, and if this is what the inside of Fox’s head is always like, Cody’s going to cry. 

“...waste of cells and credits…”

“....didn’t even have the decency to die.”

“....isn’t that right, pet?”

Wolffe makes a low sound drenched in denial; Seventeen reaches out and grabs both him and Cody, hauling them into his sides with an almost desperate strength.

They’re close now, Cody knows. The ice is thicker now, blanketing the walls and floors in shining sheets. Glimmering flakes float suspended in the air and melt on Cody’s face and lashes, stinging his skin with the chill.

“CT-7567, hurt it.” 

Cody’s going to be sick.

In the lead, Thorn and Plo stop in front of the doors to the interrogation room. Thorn’s shivering, and not from the cold - his eyes are glassy and unseeing. Wolffe’s general has him fully wrapped in his arm now, tucked close to his side like Seventeen with Cody and Wolffe. 

Thorn’s not resisting. He almost leans into the contact, then remembers himself and pulls back. “In there?” he asks, gesturing to the door.

Obi-Wan nods. “I feel his presence, but-”

“But what?” Seventeen growls.

“But he is surrounded by the Dark. Once inside, Master Koon and I will attempt to push it back, if we can.”

“And us?” Cody asks. Obi-Wan tips his head with the ghost of a smile.

“You should talk to your brother.”

The Jedi arrange themselves on either side of the door, with Seventeen, Thorn, Wolffe and Cody in the center. Cody sets his jaw and lifts his head like he always does before a fight. Not because he wants to fight Fox, no - at this point he’ll never even argue with his brother if Fox just comes back. 

The truth is, Cody is scared. He’s been scared since he came back to the medbay and saw that Fox was gone. He was terrified in the Chancellor’s office and terrified after, and now-

The war is over. The Sith is dead, the Separatists are scattered. Rex is alive, Fives is alive, Fox is alive. The chips are out, the Jedi are alive. The Coruscant Guard are alive, even if - even if they’re not all the same as they were. 

For the first time in Cody’s relatively short life, he can think about the future. After the war. It had always been a fantasy, some far-off, unreachable dream, but now it’s within his grasp.

But if the price of that future is Fox, if his brother can’t or won’t come into that bright future with him-

That’s what scares Cody the most.

The crackle of ice snaps Cody out of his thoughts; the sheet of ice shatters under the Jedi’s hands, falling like stars to the floor. 

The door hisses open, and Cody makes a punched-out noise of anguish.

It’s a horrific recreation of the first time Cody saw Fox - his brother is seated at the interrogation table, wrists and ankles connected and chained down. Just like before, Fox’s head is pillowed on his outstretched arms, his body slumped and still in the chair.

The entire room is covered in a thick sheet of clear ice -  Fox, his chair, and the table included. It encases Fox, freezing him in place just as efficiently as carbonite. His face is pale and still under the ice as Cody and his brothers rush closer.

“Fox?” Wolffe whispers. His fingers skate over the clear ice on Fox’s cheek. “What?” He whips around to look at his general. 

Obi-Wan and Plo Koon are braced in the doorway, arms outstretched and faces set in concentration as they work. With effort, Plo grits out, “There is great darkness here - he may have - ah - stopped fighting.”

No. No. “He wouldn’t,” Cody hears himself say. “Fox wouldn’t - he -” he turns wildly to Thorn for backup. “Fox wouldn’t have!”

But Thorn is - wilting, almost, like a dying flower, his eyes trained on the frozen shape of his commanding officer. “He - there was so much, and we were so tired…when the arrest came down, we knew it was the end.”

“No,” Cody says firmly, “No. It wasn’t the end and neither is this.” 

Cody’s listened to Obi-Wan talk about the Force for three years now, and one thing he knows for sure is that the Dark Side feeds on negative emotions - pain and suffering, sure, but guilt and misery and hopelessness, too. He doesn’t have to be Force-sensitive to know that the Coruscant Guard has dealt with more than their share of those, and Fox most of all. 

It doesn’t matter. Cody has more than enough stubbornness for both himself and Fox. 

He shakes his brother’s frozen shoulder. “Hey, asshole. We came all this way, into your head and everything, and you can’t even say hi?” His voice is suffused with tears, but Cody’s powered through worse. “You’re gonna make Wolffe cry.”

Wolffe chokes out a wet-sounding laugh and strokes Fox’s frozen hair. “Yeah, Fox, c’mon. Come back or I swear I’ll cry on you.”

Seventeen’s huge hands come down on Fox’s frozen shoulders, and his voice reverberates in the cramped room. “Never seen you give up, mir’sheb, and you can’t start now. Not my Fox.”

Cody glances over at the last brother in the room. Thorn is staring at them pensively, but he shakes it off and moves forward. There’s a crackling sound as he does - ice shards fall from Thorn’s ankles, where they’d started to wrap winding tendrils up his legs.

Thorn reaches across the table and gently covers Fox’s bound hands with his own. “Please, Fox, come back. I can’t - I can’t do this without you, Commander. The Guard can’t do this without you.”

Cracks are forming on the surface of the ice - Cody’s heart leaps, and he clutches at Fox.

“None of us can do this without you,” he pleads, and his brothers join in, pleading and begging and cursing in turn. 

“We love you, Fox,” and Seventeen says it like a dare. 

Cody says, “Come back, Fox.”

He says, “Please.”

The cracks spread; ice shatters and falls away in showers of sharp edges. Underneath, Fox is pale and bruised, but his skin is warm to the touch. 

The manacles fall away; Fox opens his eyes. 

“Cody?”

“Yeah, Fox, it’s me,” Cody chokes out, almost dizzy with relief.

“I’m cold,” Fox says, soft and confused. His eyes are open but hazy - Cody isn’t sure what he’s actually seeing. “It's cold. You - you should go.”

“Come with us,” urges Wolffe. “We’ll go together.”

Fox blinks slowly, so slowly, and shakes his head. “Can’t.”

“Don’t let him sleep!” shouts Obi-Wan from the door, his voice shaking with the effort. “He must resist!”

Seventeen nods sharply. “C’mon, kid, let’s go,” he orders, but Fox just sits and stares.

Heavy eyes drift to Thorn, who gives Fox’s hands a squeeze. “C’mon, Fox, we’re all waiting for you.”

“Why?” 

The word is soaked in self-disgust so strong that Cody almost flinches. “Because we love you, and we need you, and you’re our brilliant brother and we’re not leaving you behind again,” he says fiercely.

Fox seems to consider this for a moment. 

“If you say so,” he sighs, exhaustion in every syllable. 

Still. Cody will count any agreement, even agreement-by-defeat, as a win.

Thorn and Cody try to sling Fox between them until Seventeen huffs at them, scooping Fox up into his arms and striding out the door. The rest of them trail in his wake as ice melts down the walls and puddles on the floor.

The corridors brighten as they walk, until everything disappears in bright white light.

Chapter Text

He’s warm. 

He’s warm, and that more than anything pings Fox as wrong. Warmth, as a concept, isn’t something that Coruscant allows. The people are cold, the senators are cold, the barracks are cold. 

It’s a different chill than Kamino, but still one that leaches into Fox’s bones and settles there. The constant exhaustion and frequent pain doesn’t help. 

But his hands are warm.

Everything else feels heavy and somehow far away, no matter how Fox tries to claw himself back into his body. His eyelids are stuck shut. He can’t make a sound, and he’s so far out of himself that his lack of mobility isn’t even concerning.

“-gonna wake up? Did it work?”

“His mind needs time - the Dark side can only take. It cannot heal.”

“...Fox could probably sleep for a year straight, then.”

Low voices continue to swirl around him, but Fox doesn’t recognize the words so much as the timbre. Those are his brothers’ voices. He’s amongst brothers, and he’s warm.

The more he sinks back into consciousness, the more he can differentiate the heat sources: someone’s got a hand on his shoulder, big and heavy. Both of Fox’s hands are cradled in calloused fingers, and a warm weight presses against his legs.

He knows before he opens his eyes that he’s in medbay. There’s a certain antiseptic scent to the place, and people only hold his hands when he’s been hurt.

He forces his eyes open to the familiar sight of the medbay ceiling. Right on one.

“He’s awake!”

A flurry of movement follows this announcement, and a head leans into Fox’s vision, blocking his view of the peeling paint. It’s a familiar face, a brother’s face, but it’s not Thorn or Thire or even one of his medics.

“Seventeen?!”

“Welcome back, ad’ika,” says Seventeen, a rare smile on his scarred face. It’s his big hand on Fox’s shoulder, and he uses it to pull Fox up to sit while someone shoves pillows behind him.

His brothers blink back at him. Wolffe, Cody, Thorn, Bly, even Seventeen - they’re all here.

But they were all there, too, in the interrogation room. Weren’t they? They’d woken Fox up, or something, and now they were…waking him up again?

“Wh - what’s goin’ on?” he asks muzzily. 

Thorn bursts into tears.

Alarmed, Fox reaches for his second. “Hey, hey, no, Thorn, it’s okay,” he soothes, but Thorn just buries his head into the thin sheet over Fox’s thigh to muffle himself. Fox has to settle for rubbing Thorn’s back as he sobs, looking bemusedly at the others.

“You’ve been out for two weeks, you jackass,” Wolffe says hoarsely. He’s got Fox’s other hand gripped tightly in his, and doesn’t seem to be letting go anytime soon.

Two weeks? That’s not - no. That can’t be.

“But I just - I was just at work?” Fox tries. Thinking back, his memory is a bit - blurry. He was at work? Yes. He was at work, in the Senate Dome, but then the Chancellor - exploded? and then he was in interrogation-

Wait. He was in interrogation and then he was in the Senate Dome and then the Chancellor kicked him around and Rex- 

Rex-

Fives-

“Perhaps your brothers could fill you in, Commander,” comes a crisp Coruscanti accent, slicing through Fox’s burgeoning panic. General Kenobi steps up behind Cody, waving off Fox’s automatic salute. He looks - tired. They all look tired. And wasn’t Bly supposed to be in the Outer Rim?

Cody gives his Jedi a nod from his seat at the foot of Fox’s bed, and launches into an explanation.

He starts with the arrest of Corrie command, and how Rex had called him down. Cody tells how the first thing he’d found was Fox near-dead in a puddle of his own blood on the interrogation table.

“We’re still not sure what happened,” Cody says. “Medic Kix swears on his armor that he’d looked you over and didn’t see any sign of the traumatic pneumothorax, and the holotapes of the interrogation room are glitching, so-”

Try as he might, Fox can’t fully suppress his flinch. Seventeen feels it, and his hand tightens on Fox’s shoulder. 

“Fox?”

“Ah - Medic Kix did provide adequate medical care,” Fox says. He’s not sure - he has hazy, pain-filled memories of the fight in Palpatine’s office, but he doesn’t know if the Chancellor survived. With Kenobi here and alive, it seems unlikely, but - Fox has learned to hedge his bets.

“I received a visit from Chancellor Palpatine,” he continues, making his voice as dispassionate as possible. “During the course of his visit, I must have damaged my ribs further.”

Wolffe swears. “Fucking piece of shit Sith mother fucker- ”

Ok, so Palpatine had been a Sith. Fox hadn’t just - dreamed that, or something.

“So he tried to kill you because you didn’t kill Fives?” asks Bly. “Because Fives knew his plan?”

Wait. What plan?

They tell him about the chips, and the orders, and how Palpatine was playing both sides of the war. How Fives had found him out and escaped, and Palpatine had ordered Fox-

Had ordered Fox-

Fox is an excellent shot - top of the boards back on Kamino. If Skywalker hadn’t crushed him with the generator, Fox’s shot would have hit center mass.

His chest is too tight. 

His chest is too tight and he can’t breathe, and his batchmates’ voices are a cacophony of anxiety as monitors blare-

A huge hand clamps over the back of his neck. Seventeen exerts gentle pressure as his forehead comes to rest against Fox’s temple in a sideways keldabe. “Udesii, Fox, it’s all right. It’s all right.”

“But I - I almost - I would have-”

“It’s not on you.” The deep voice rumbles through Fox’s bones. “Understand?”

“But-” Seventeen’s hand shakes him gently by the scruff. “I-”

“You did what had to be done.”

Thorn’s voice cuts through the chaos, and Fox meets his eyes. Understanding passes between them - the only two Corries here. The only two who know what was at stake for the Guard.

But if Fox had known - if he’d known it was a choice between his Corries and all his brothers, every clone in the galaxy, every Jedi, the Republic itself…

Could he have made the sacrifice play? Could he have watched as hundreds more of his men marched away to be wiped clean?

It doesn’t bear thinking about. 

“The Guard?” he asks Thorn, almost gasping with urgency. 

“All present and accounted for,” Thorn tells him. 

“The - the charges?”

“Dropped. Although there is going to be an inquiry into Skywalker.”

Well. That’s unexpected. 

“Speaking of Skywalker…You said you’d learned your lesson,” Cody says slowly. “In the interrogation.”

Fox sets his jaw. “Yes.”

“Fox…” Cody’s voice is too soft. “What did the Chancellor do?”

The question hangs in the air above them all, like a sword waiting to strike.

Fox breaks the silence with a scoff. “What didn’t he do?” He barrels on, not waiting for a response. “So. I woke up strapped to a gurney and R-” He stutters, stops. “R-Rex took me to him. But how did you know?”

“Kix,” Cody says simply. “You were going to Kamino, we were about to call the Chancellor to stop the transfer, and Kix put the pieces together from what Fives had told him.”

Fox has to laugh; a joyless, harsh thing. “I wasn’t going to Kamino,” he says flatly. “Rex was supposed to kill me. And I-” he looks at Cody, into brown eyes that had once matched his, before they’d seen two different sides of the war. “I was supposed to kill you.”

Cody smiles, the idiot. “Good thing we were neck and neck for sharpshooting, then, eh?”

Fox kicks him under the blanket. “He’s dead, then?” he asks, and can’t quite keep the relief from his voice. 

“He’s dead, vod,” confirms Wolffe. “The war is over.”

“It’s been over for two weeks, for everyone else,” says Bly with a sharp grin. “Just like you to drag it out, Fox.”

“Was I in bacta all this time?”

His brothers glance at each other. “No-o, not the whole time,” Bly says, “But mostly you just - didn’t wake up.”

Fox tilts his head. “Comatose?” Had he been hurt that badly? Testing, Fox scans his body and feels surprisingly - good. Tired, but that’s situation normal.

“The Jedi think that Palpatine left some Darkness in your head,” Cody says. “We had to convince you to come into the Light.”

The dream. 

Flashes of it play behind Fox’s eyes - the Two Hundred’s empty armor. The succumbing chill of the interrogation room. HIs brothers, asking him to come back.

“That - that was real?”

“As real as the Force,” says General Kenobi. Mystic bastard.

Fox sits in shock, for a moment. The Dark Side. He’d always just thought Palpatine was a politician - sure, a slimy, evil politician, but just a man, in the end. But now, knowing his power…things are starting to make sense, slotting into place in a way Fox just couldn't see before.

“Fox-” and oh shit, Wolffe’s mismatched eyes are wet with tears. “In the dream, or the Force, or whatever. You - you didn’t want to come back.”

“I-” What could he say? That he’d known from the very first month that Coruscant would kill him? That after all Fox had done, all the reconditioning orders he’d signed, all his mistakes and punishments and time spent begging on his knees for mercy, he’d had nothing left?

His fingers fiddle with the bedsheet - a nervous tic. Unacceptable. He flattens his fingers against too-thin fabric and tries for truth.

“Coruscant is - a different kind of battle,” he says hollowly. “And no matter what I did, I couldn’t win - I couldn’t-”

Couldn’t save them. Couldn’t save himself. Couldn’t bear it, in the end.

Seventeen’s hand is still wrapped around the back of Fox’s neck. He pulls, just slightly, and Fox falls against his big brother’s bulk. Huge arms hold him close - Alpha-17 always hugged like he was about to grapple you to the floor. 

“You did win,” he says into Fox’s curls, even as Fox shakes his head in protest. “You outlasted that bastard.”

Cody eels himself into the hug on Fox’s other side. “You did. We all did,” he says in that oddly fateful way of his. “The war is over. You’ll see.”

It’s hard to believe: the end of the war. After months of misery, after the agony of the last days, the war is over, just like that. Fox can’t quite wrap his head around it. He’d been expecting the end the instant he and his commanders had been arrested, and his continued existence had been an extended coda to a swift, short life.

But here, surrounded by his brothers, the future feels almost real.

Fox closes his eyes.