Chapter Text
The crisp smell of caf is almost as sharp as the boiling heat given off by the cup he holds, the ceramic making the smallest of groans as Cody inadvertently grips it tighter.
The dark liquid within sways at his grip, splashing him with the scalding drink, drawing air into his lungs, fresh and painful.
Moving his left hand, then slowly his right, he lets go of the mug to wipe off his hand, but pauses, knowing he’ll just end up with both hands being wet. But between one measured breath and the next, a napkin is laid on top of the grey cup in his line of sight.
Breathing in – jagged, dry, dry like the deserts – only to exhale harshly, Cody takes the napkin and wipes his hands, disposing of it in the wastebasket to the left of his desk. He stays turned that way too long for it not to be suspicious, but at this moment it was better than looking across from him.
Still not wanting to meet her eyes, Cody reaches out for the mug and wraps his hands around the steaming cup again, sinking into the sensations that travel up his arms.
They sit in silence until it becomes unbearable for him.
The silence never used to faze him. It used to mean it was the beginning of the day on the family vhett’yaim (homestead) . That there was a moment of peace from overly loud vod’ike and an obnoxious ori’vod . It was hikes with Buir , and everyday watching the land change just a bit more until harvest. Vibrant and alive. It was the waiting for the next day to begin as the house settled in for the night, the promise of peaceful sleep.
That was until the Serreno Splinter War.
Now it was just a sign of the moments in between. The waiting with bated breath before the attack. The moment before he lost good men and women and was left in the aftermath of nothing left alive, nothing that could grow in the rubble and ash. The silence then was death’s breath, all destruction and sorrow, and it was seeping into him now, again and again.
Sucking in another harsh breath, Cody opens his mouth to speak, to say anything to combat the silence, but nothing happens. Hissing, he brings the caf to his lips and takes a scolding gulp, body twitching back at the heat, his lips pulling into an unfriendly grimace.
“Take your time Cody,” Dr. Boll says kindly – Always so kindly. It isn’t her fault that he’s come to hate it more and more that she tries to sound so understanding, but she didn’t know what it was like – “When you’re ready.”
‘Ready’ is apparently thirty minutes later, caf half drank and unfortunately lukewarm.
“Who was it?” He asks, eyes squinting at the rough tone his voice still held, like the gravel his boots would stomp over.
“It was Hera Syndulla. She came by with some flimsy reports and found you. Do you know what triggered you?” Dr. Boll asks in her gratingly calm voice.
It wasn’t fair to the doctor to describe her like that, her voice was very soothing, but it just didn’t sound right to his ears anymore. And he couldn’t get pass the thought that she pitied him.
Looking up, meeting the Bivall doctor eye to eye, Cody thinks back to what could have set him off. His day had started off typical enough. He had gotten up and ready for the day with his usual precision. Took the metro-mag from his off-base apartment, got here at 0800 hours, and began his day with going over reports on the reconstruction status of several planets and request forms. Most of that was important, but ultimately busy work, when …
“The intruder warning test,” He groans, dragging his hands down his face, “I knew it was being tested today too.” He says to himself.
I didn’t think anything was going to happen because I knew.
Dr. Boll hums affirmatively, “They were testing it because something was wrong with it initially when the components were being reviewed.”
“Something was wrong with it,” Cody agrees lowly, “It hiccupped and it sounded… It sounded just like the Jedha air raid sirens.”
“I see. Do you wish to speak about this?”
“I wish, doctor , that this would stop,” Lifting his eyes to hers again, “I can’t keep freezing up like this.”
For what it’s worth, she does look sorry, not pitying as he assumed she would. She scoots closer, the carpet protesting the smallest amount as she does.
“I understand that this is a hindrance to how you usually lived your life, especially with your prior experience, but every experience is something new for the brain and body to go through. Something small can cause a tick that follows you throughout your life, or you might have something horrible happen to you and you cope better than predicted.”
With a soft sigh, she leans against his desk, holding her own empty caf mug, looking into it, her headcrest paling from pink to coral.
“It is unfortunate, and I know telling you it will get better means nothing without results. I’m also sorry I cannot empathize with you as you need it,” Then looking up again, Cody knows what she’s going to say and hates that he doesn’t have the strength to interrupt her, “I believe going to the meetings will help.” She says, waiting for an answer.
But Cody stares her down until she looks away. Dr. Boll was getting better though, lasting a bit longer, and with six months of this under her belt it’s not a surprise.
“Do you feel well enough right now?” She asks eventually.
“I feel fine. Thank you for your help doctor.”
Hearing the dismissal, the base psychiatrist takes her mug and stands, walking to the door and not looking back until she’s standing in the door frame. Pausing, she turns back, her gaze harder than he was used to.
“Commander. You can’t get well if you don’t take the first steps to getting better.”
Tossing his other bag into his rented starship Cody glares at the luggage, like it had wronged him, when really it was his own fault for the situation he was in.
Four weeks after ‘the moment’ – the one Dr. Boll called a dissociative episode – his most recent one of seven, and the subsequent psych eval – which he passed – both General Typho and Admiral Yularen approached him separately about taking time off. They cited that he had been doing work since after the treaties were signed and they had all been recalled to Coruscant. How he had been pushing himself to be busy in the absence of fighting.
Cody won’t say they aren’t wrong, but it wasn’t the whole reason. He couldn’t put it to words, but being promoted at twenty-five to be the youngest Marshal Commander in the GRA and the first Mandalorian, after their long isolation from the Greater Republic, was astounding. But in some ways, expected.
‘If there were ever people who knew how to wage a war it was the Mandos’, He had heard some of his soldiers whispering after his promotion. It was true, but it wasn’t all he was. Wasn’t all his people could be.
Karking stars, he was supposed to help take over the family business at one point! Be a farmer and bring about life, not trying to rebuild and soothe the agony he brought with the salvation of his forces. But that is what he had become, being able to protect, but at the cost of consequences —
Slamming the trunk shut, drawing the eyes of other citizens around the renting lot, Cody stomps around to the front and slides in, dropping his forehead to the steering yoke with a grunt of frustration as the door closes and seals shut.
He knows his superiors are right about him needing a break, that Dr. Boll probably disclosed that he had more frequent ‘moments’ and needed a break as well. With them all in agreement it was inevitable that he was going to be forced to take his leave time that had accumulated in the last year and a half of the war, and be gently pushed to take them or have his access to reconstruction reports blocked until he did.
With that ultimatum Cody filled out his leave time and called Boba, asking if he could have his old room ready on short notice. Of course Boba said yes, but he was always a nosy ori’vod and asked why now, jokingly saying he didn’t put it pass some superior forcing him to take a vacation. Cody’s short enough pause and the way he’s sure his face scrunched up was enough to have Boba laughing uproariously – just like Buir – as a smaller voice on the other end of the comm asking if he was okay. After that small fiasco and getting reassurance that his room would be ready Cody cuts the transmission.
Was it a bit harsher as he saw there were two other notifications that popped up from Rex and Omega while he was still on the call? If no one was here to confirm it, it didn’t happen.
But after a week of getting everything together Cody is here, not pouting, but definitely irate with the coming two weeks.
Sighing he leans back, blinking at the harsh light of the afternoon sun gleaming off the towering glass spires of the Coruscant’s upper levels, the skyscrapers burned with the warm reds, oranges, and purples of the sun’s rays. The latent smog of the ecumenopolis made the glare sharp, quick, and painful as the linear swarms of speeders that crisscrossed the skyscape reflected the light off their chrome frames.
Looking back around he can see that a few bystanders were still looking at his starship with a wary expression. Cody rolls his eyes as he starts up the ship and hovers high enough to have the street towers clock his position and alert him into merging with the other traffic above. It takes him a good hour to get to the space dock entry way, some twenty minutes to clear atmo safely, and another hour before he has clearance to jump. By that time, Cody’s exhausted from waiting and settles in for the journey, sliding his seat back some and reclining it enough to rest comfortably as he dozes.
Cody jolts awake, his heart clawing through his chest, blood rushing in his ears, looking around for enemy ships, but only sees the haziness of something glowing, something definitely not landing hazard lights – too blue – and the sky isn’t black with smoke and stars, its… It is bland durasteel blue. Paneling to be exact.
Squinting at it, he tries to remember why that would be above him until it all comes rushing back to him. The ‘moments’, the forced leave, the jump he was in. Glancing at the chronometer, he was two hours into a six-hour journey, but that didn’t explain why he had —
Anomaly Alert. Anomaly Alert. The nav computer informs him with sharp short chirps that has him shuddering, Craft will be dropped out of hyperspace jump in compliance with Greater Republic law of 3000 AFR; The Intergalactic Creatures Welfare Bill. Anomaly Alert. Anomaly Alert. Exiting in 5……4……3……2……1.
The transition from the hyperspace to real space is smooth, dropping out within the remnants of a cracked open planet and the astrobelt that formed out of it. The space that counted as below was obscured by a hazy cloud of glinting dust in hues of pinks and purples as it leisurely undulates under the forces of gravity, lightly disrupted by the equally sluggish movements of the asteroids moving by. The shadows of the rocks that moved faster and slower to his eyes bleached the cloud of most of its colors as they moved over.
But what was more eye-catching was when they appeared.
A massive Purrgil glides in front of his viewport, a dizzying bright blue with teal streaks. Where most interspace creatures were dry browns or greys, the Purrgils were vibrant points in the dark void. And at that moment Cody vaguely remembers something of them being able to pick up or transmit electromagnetic waves, the reason for their glowing streaks.
The large creature is followed by a group of at least thirteen others, four of them calves, happily bouncing around, exerting more energy than the adults, their teal streaks flashing a bright set of signals as they play.
It’s a beautiful peaceful scene and it’s around the time a second pod begins to fly pass that Cody realizes he hadn’t tried to recalculate his nav computer to take him around the sight. He had just sat there in silence for almost forty minutes doing nothing but watching the nature in front of him. Cody huffs in surprise and some dismay. He can’t remember the last time he felt this comfortable with just sitting and doing nothing.
Maybe the vacation was a good idea. He thinks wryly to himself as he continues to watch the migration, Echo would probably love this.
That thought surprises Cody more than he expected, but it shouldn’t since he hadn’t talked to his younger cousin in almost… He hadn’t talked to him really since after his injury. He knows from Rex that Echo is doing well, mentally and physically, and that he’s been doing good work for that conservatory planet system.
It had been so long that it might be awkward to call, but if there was one person he could talk to about the issues after the war was won it would be Echo. Especially Echo, who was honorably discharged for his service from the Protector ARCs with the loss of his right forearm and some hearing damage in his right ear.
In recalculating his path, Cody sees he had nothing but time to call his cousin since the new coordinates only had two available options; the first added a day and a half to his journey, while the second was inaccessible due to a binary system having its quadrennial standard solar flares, neither of them favorable.
So it didn’t hurt to see if he could talk to Echo. They had all been so close, as Mandalorian families usually were, but had grown distant during the five years that became the war.
But that was no excuse , Cody tells himself, steeling himself against the concern of reaching back out and pulls up the holonet. Now what was it? Jeai? Jeht? Jedi! Jedi Conservatory System.
A quick search and Cody finds himself going thoroughly through the site, getting slightly off track with looking at the gorgeous scenes of the conservatory system’s different moons. Finally, he finds the contact for Analytics and dials the code given. The receptionist, whoever they were, easily connects him to Echo when he tells him he’s family and calls Echo by his birth name.
“Cody?” He asks cautiously, Cody’s stomach wobbling uncomfortably at the tone.
Clearing his throat, “Hi Echo.” Waving pathetically, even though it was a voice-only comm.
“Wow! It’s really you,” His younger cousin’s gravelly laugh filling the small cabin. His voice had developed a rough cadence from the mission, “When Aviry said I had a call from a Cody I wasn’t sure it was you. I thought it was someone else by the same name.”
“Yeah,” Rubbing the back of his neck as he tries to think of some conversation starters, “It’s been a while.” Squinting at the comm, even Cody has to admit that was arguably not his best.
“Yeah,” The vowels drawing out with some disbelief before clearing his throat, “But you called now. So how are you? I heard you had leave.”
Of course he heard already , Cody rolls his eyes.
“In a way,” Pinching the bridge of his nose and wondering why his family had such loose lips went they had some of the highest clearance levels in their field, “I’m heading back to the vhett’yaim , or was, but right now I’m stuck.”
“Planetary congestion.” Echo says with understanding, both of them knowing how particular Mandalore’s custom and boundary laws were.
“No actually.”
Taking a moment to look back out into the vastness of space and see the animals leisurely gliding under their own propulsion, Cody’s unintentional pause ups the ante, and he’s almost smiling when he finally says,
“Purrgils.”
“…Purrgils,” Echo repeats flatly, “There are no Purrgils near Mandalore.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Shrugging as he looks at his nav computer, “I’m in the Zwyer System right now. My rented craft dropped me out for a migration that’s happening.” Taking another moment to just watch as some of the Purrgils begin circling, vibrations from their calls shaking his ship slightly.
The natural beauty of such a scene almost makes him forget he was talking with his cousin.
Almost.
After not hearing anything for a few seconds he looks back to the comm, “Echo?”
“Did you say the Zwyer System?” Echo asks instead.
“…Yes.”
“How many have you seen?” Voice getting high, almost matching the cadence from before the mission.
Then the silent cabin is filled with distant noise from the other side of the call, not dissimilar to the deck of a venator before entering battle.
“Well it started with fourteen and I think I’m up to… To forty-five.” His answer hesitant as the comm goes silent.
“ Osik! ” Echo roars, “Robonino! I told you —” The rest of the rant was faint and rumbling as more voices joined at a distance.
Cody watches the speaker with widening eyes at the muffled shouting and harried noise being made, his throat tightening at having caused some issue for his younger cousin as the sharp shrill noises of consoles ringing permeated through the small craft again.
It continues for what feels like the longest dogfight, but as footsteps get closer to the comm, Cody focuses on it and notices it’s only been five minutes.
“Cody, about that —”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean —”
“Don’t you dare apologize!” Echo cuts in, “That was Group Fifteen and a new group that we’ve never seen before! We don’t have anything on our scanners, which means that none of them have been tagged and documented before! This is the best thing to happen since our oldest Del–Toro Otachi gave birth to twins last fall. We didn’t even know they were there, since the person monitoring them wasn’t paying attention.”
Echo’s breathless excitement cutting off into a hushed grumble, cursing this ‘Robonino’ under his breath.
“Oh … Okay,” Unsure what else to do about that, “That’s what all the yelling was about?”
“Yeah. Someone wasn’t paying attention, but now that we know – Well Billaba knows – she’s contacting someone who’s already out there who can document and tag as many as they can.”
“One person?”
“It’s a team, Vos’ actually, their latest rescue is listed as mild so him and his team will be handling this.”
Cody nods slowly, not fully tracking everything, “Well I’m glad I could help.”
“Sorry our conversation didn’t go as planned.”
“This is better than expected,” Cody admits, “I kinda just thought of you when I saw the Purrgil and thought ‘It’s been a while. It wouldn’t hurt.’ ”
“Glad to know my cousin thinks of me when he sees large fantastic beasts.”
The deadpan delivery pulls a startled laugh out of him, a sound Cody hadn’t heard from himself in months. Maybe years.
“I’ll have you know that I’m still very fit for working my not-so-cushy desk job.”
That kills his laughter in his throat, “Are you okay?”
“Oh! No. Yes!” Echo stumbles, “No, nothing is wrong. Yes, I’m fine.”
“And your arm?”
“It’s fine too… As fine as it can be,” His voice going soft, “Sometimes the sensors get weird and I can’t figure out why, and we don’t have anyone permanent so I go without it. And Anakin only visits so often so I can’t always —”
“Anakin?” Cody cuts into his cousin’s rambling, lips twitching up at how fond he sounded.
“Friend of the conservatory,” Echo says flatly, “But yeah, he’s a master at electrical engineering, and engineering in general. I swear he had to be born out of the pieces of an engine block he’s so in tune with machines, just knowing what’s up with them. You know?”
A lesser person would have been suppressing laughter badly, but Cody had an Mandalorian upbringing and years in the GRA to stay his laughter. But his lips do twitch up at how dreamy Echo’s voice got. It was definitely less a crush and sounded more like one of his academic infatuations.
Still fun to mess with, but not as much.
“Well you don’t sound too put out.” Cody decides on a neutral response, smiling to himself.
“How can I? I love it here,” Echo chuckles to himself before blowing out a relieved sigh, “I’m so glad that Padmé directed me this way.”
Cody’s smile slips into something more wooden as he remembers those first dark months when nothing seemed to work. How their whole aliit had been hesitant of Echo going to the senatorial job’s fair for veterans and occupational injury individuals that the GRA was advertising heavily. With the level of promotion they did for the event, Cody was sure that it was something shady and that Echo would be one of the nameless faces smeared across several thousand headlines, all in the name of the senator hosting it who was trying to ‘do good’ for publicity.
But in mentioning it, General Typho spoke out on the senator’s behalf. He had worked with her when she was an aide, before he enlisted into the GRA, but stayed in contact with her, sending some of his discharged soldiers to her to help them integrate back into society. He swore that anything Senator Amidala did would be closed to the media, only putting out a bulletin with all the facts to reach those that needed this help. Anything with the media was handled by sending statistics in hope of enticing more companies or groups to work with her.
“She really cares Fett. Very much so. She’s what you wish every politician would be and every good neighbor you wish you had. If you send your cousin there, he’ll make it out alright. I promise.”
And Typho had been right.
It had been very secretive and when Echo returned after the first day of three he had looked more alive than he had been in recent weeks.
“Then I’m still happy you found what you needed,” He tells him softly, “We were worried.”
He doesn’t mention, and never will, how Rex commed weekly and Fives constantly when Echo was in recovery, Cody using all his leave at the time to go see him. How it scared him to see Echo lack the passion he did for anything as he perfunctorily went about his PT or how angry he looked when Cody would have to leave for a meeting. When his leave was ultimately up and he had to go back to the front Cody asked after Hera, only a Private then, to keep an eye on Echo for them.
She did until one day she was reporting he was packing up to move to his new job.
Cody was shocked of course, not seeing the news until after finishing up a battle and having the time to check his messages the next day. Nestled between a req form for prefab tents and a memo for the Scarif campaign, was a short personal message from Echo about the ‘new chapter’ he was taking in working at a creature and plant conservatory, the last contact they had since.
Cody hadn’t ever been able to work out why he would make that move, but his family’s happiness was his first priority. So if Echo was happy with stepping away with this life – something that rattles uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach – then Cody didn’t have anything to say but good luck.
“I know. But I’m fine now. Or at least better,” Echo amends, “I have my meds for my arm and ear, and the two prescribed by my therapist, so I’m doing well. Better than most at least.” He says, voice verging on hollow.
Sighing heavily, Cody nods, forgetting again that Echo couldn’t see him, but the talk of a therapist sets him on edge when it has no reason too.
“I’m glad you’re doing okay. Really. And I’m sorry I didn’t reach out sooner.”
“You had a war to win, it’s not your fault.”
“Still. We’re family and that should mean something.”
A hum is Cody’s answer, the same hum – a little sympathetic noise – that Echo makes when he’s figured out a bigger problem no one else seems to see and —
“How long is your leave?”
“All of it,” Cody bemoans, Echo snorting and muttering ‘he’s not surprised’, “What are you thinking?”
“Well, you aren’t far out from the system. If you wanted, you could stop by here,” Echo hedges, “You could hang out, catch up again. I could show you around. Show you that I’m doing alright. And when that gets boring, I know we have tons of stuff for volunteers.”
It sounded like a good idea, but just like Echo seemed to be empathetic to a problem Cody was pragmatic.
“They haven’t been able to come see you yet.”
The silence is telling as is the heavy sigh that follows, “No. They've been so busy with everything else, and I don’t blame them, but I missed you all and I’ve only been getting a lot of messages asking about how I’m doing.”
“And you need big ba'ad Cody to help out again.” Hoping to strike some humor into the desolate moment.
“I mean Boba wouldn’t do it unless I procured Kavasa fruit or Ever-root for him,” Echo huffs, muttering, “Bargaining bastard.”
Snorting, Cody would always agree that that his ori’vod was a piece of work, but in the best way, “Buir would be proud of his extortion for the farm.”
“Ba’vudo Jango would be proud because he’d be getting another one over on Buir.” Echo shoots back.
“That too,” Remembering the entertaining family meals when Buir and Ba’vudo Arla got into it, “... So you really want me to come by…”
“Yes of course,” He says quickly, “Tell Boba you’re making new plans and get over here. I miss my favorite cousin.”
“I thought that was Omega.”
“I love her unconditionally. Never in question,” Echo deadpans causing Cody to laugh, but it’s true, “But you’re my favorite. And partly because you wouldn't lord it over me.”
It was hard to say who would in any case, their family forever a moving dynamic of friendly blackmail.
“Understandable.”
“Family is always welcome in the system as long as you follow the rules, and you do that the best… Well until you don’t,” Cody choosing to ignore that hearsay with an eyeroll, “It’ll be fine. As long as you want to.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” He answers just as quickly, “If it’s as pretty as this migration it might be a nicer change of pace than the vhett’yaim.”
Just then the comm beeps, and looking at it, it says it’s an attachment titled ‘morning view’. Opening it, Cody knows he could get used to seeing that for a time. The unending green surrounded by mist against the backdrop of a hazy dawn of pale yellow bleeding up into soft blues and creeping indigo.
It was much better than his apartment looking out over the hazy crowded skyline, drying clothes, and ladder walkways as no sunrise truly reached him. It had its charm of course, but having had dirt and not durasteel and concrete under his feet as he grew up had Cody longing for something more unstable, to have to work for each step, not push pass or through others in an easy stride to his destination.
With a soft grin, he types in the coordinates into the nav computer and finds that he was only three hours out from the system the conservatory claimed as its own.
“Alright, I’ll see you in three hours.”
“Perfect,” Echo cheers, “It’ll be time for me to get off around then. I’ll send you the codes you’ll need so when you drop out you won’t get held up by security.” He tells him, though with a hint of annoyance.
The Commander and the ori’vod in him wants to press on that, but he’ll have plenty of time to find out and learn about the supposed security when he gets there.
“Ret Cody.”
“Ret 'Echo.”
Hanging up, Cody calls Boba and gets a sigh of ‘I knew you didn’t love me’ before telling him his room should keep until he makes it out to them. And then, in a less gruff tone, tells him that he’s glad Cody was choosing something for himself.
Not trying to pick that apart, Cody pilots the craft over and around the Purrgils, wide enough not to disturb the creatures and makes it to the entry point of a hyperpath – the less used version of a hyperlane – to get him to the conservatory with no problem. Just then a large medical frigate drops out, smaller ships dropping from its undercarriage almost immediately after.
Cody may not know a lot about animal conservation, but he could appreciate a clean operation like this. And thinking on that, on the open green spaces and competent work staff, Cody thinks he might like his leave a bit more than he thought.
As he makes the jump he has no idea how right he’ll be.