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Fox should have known that this was where he would end up after Rosary hurried him out of his office for a ‘last minute meeting’. Little traitor.
“Don’t pout,” Nightingale grumbled, busying herself with the scanner. “I would also rather not have you in here, sir.”
“Then let me go,” Fox complained, barely resisting the urge to throw his arms up in frustration. “There’s nothing wrong with me!”
“Which is definitely the weird part, since Thire came running to me in hysterics that you’d fallen off a karking building and limped home like nothing happened,” she said dryly.
Fox shifted uneasily. “I landed fine. It must’ve looked worse from his angle.”
He’d actually snapped pretty much all his ribs and was definitely bleeding into his lungs for a hot second there, so he could understand where Thire’s concern had come from, but it had all worked out in the end, so.
“That’s not the point,” Nightingale sighed. She scrubbed at her face with one hand, looking utterly exhausted. “The point is that it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
“What, and just let the bastard take a shot at Hound instead?” Fox retorted, utterly offended by the implication.
“Of course that’s not what I meant, but – ” Nightingale said, a touch flustered, before she groaned.
“What did you mean, then?” Fox said stiffly.
Yeah, it was a risk. But it was a risk that Fox was far more equipped to handle these days. Nothing seemed to stick. Ever since that first meeting with the Chancellor when they landed on Coruscant (the meeting that Fox’s mind shied away from remembering, the meeting where he left with shaking hands and the faint taste of iron on his tongue), Fox had just… adapted. Or something.
The Clones’ natural healing factor had been enhanced triplefold, somehow, and he could shake off injuries in a way he’d never managed before.
And he was using it to his advantage! To help his vod’e, to help the war effort – shouldn’t that be a good thing?
“This would be a lot easier if you just stopped, Fox,” Nightingale said into her hands, voice muffled.
“Stopped what?” Maybe if he didn’t admit to it, she would get frustrated and kick him out of the medbay. Ideal scenario.
But instead of a flare of temper, to his great horror, Nightingale looked back up at Fox, her eyes shiny and wet.
“Just stop doing this,” she choked out, shoulders trembling as tears began to streak down her cheeks. “Fox, you’re scaring me.”
Fox went still, swallowing heavily.
“H-Hey, come on,” he said, patting his CMO awkwardly on the shoulder. “You’re tough, come on.”
The baleful glare she shot him only proved it, though she didn’t seem to appreciate the words.
“You shut the hell up,” she said, immediately validating his concerns. “I’m tough? Maybe I wouldn’t have to be so tough if my CO stopped throwing himself directly into danger like a concussed massif!”
“That seems like a bit of an unfair comparison – ” Fox began, but trailed off when Nightingale placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Fox, please, be honest with me,” she said, voice trembling. “Are you okay?”
Do you have a death wish?
That’s what she was actually asking, though Fox knew she would never actually say the words aloud. No matter how comfortable they had grown in the Guard barracks, no matter how much they trusted their fellow vod’e to keep their mouths shut, there are some habits that just don’t go away.
Fox softened, reaching up to place his own hand over hers, patting it briefly.
“I’m… Well, I’m the same as always, I can promise you that. No significant changes.”
It was true enough. He’d always been like this. It was only now, with his newfound… mutation that he was able to let this tendency grow to its fullest potential. If he let himself go racing off into the trenches and got killed for the trouble, that would destroy any possibility of saving more vod’e in the future. He knew how to conserve his resources, however much it troubled him.
Now, however, he had no such worries. He could go absolutely balls to the wall and it would be nothing more than a mild hiccup.
Seemed like a great idea to him! Honestly, he was a little bewildered by how worked up Nightingale was getting, though he would never say that to his vod’s face – just because he could heal from it didn’t mean that he wanted to deal with two broken legs.
Nightingale grasped his hand before he could pull away, squeezing tightly.
“No significant changes? Really?” she asked, staring at him with red-rimmed eyes. “I’ve received three reports this week of you engaging in deliberately self-destructive behavior, Fox. I know that our positions don’t always allow for anything else, but… If this isn’t significant I don’t know what is.”
Fox fought not to frown, mouth twitching.
On the one hand, he was not exactly happy that his troopers had been ratting him out (probably kicked off by Rosary, the little busybody), but this was also the exact type of behavior that he expected his men to watch out for, so he couldn’t really be angry.
Now he was just left floundering, wondering how to explain himself without actually giving anything away.
“I’m not… I still want to be here,” he said, slowly working through it in his mind. “I don’t plan on going anywhere, and I don’t want to. Sometimes I just have to take a risk. Sometimes I’m the only one who can take that risk, and like hell I’ll let someone else do it first.”
Nightingale swallowed, her gaze heavy.
“I admire that in you,” she said quietly, a solemn vow. “I always have. But Fox, you are not so easily replaced. It’s just not the same, even if it would be in a perfect world. We don’t live in a perfect world. We live in this one, and here, you’re needed as more than just a shield.”
Fox blinked, taken aback. “I… what? I mean, obviously I have my use and my expertise, but – ”
They could get another Marshal Commander. That was the point, that’s why they were all clones. None of them were irreplaceable.
(Even if he couldn’t imagine braving Coruscant without these vod’e at his side. It didn’t matter if another clone with the exact same face could pop in tomorrow. These troopers were his.)
“You have to make the choices that the rest of us can’t, Fox,” Nightingale interrupted. Her eyes were steely, dark and fathomless like the oceans of Kamino. “And sometimes, that choice is to live. Even when you don’t want to.”
“...I do want to live,” he said weakly. “That’s all I’ve been doing.”
“And all we ask is that you keep doing it,” Nightingale said, and she clutched his hand just the tiniest bit tighter. “For all our sakes.”
Fox, wide-eyed, could say nothing to refute.