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The bacta tank glowed faintly, bubbles swirling in the thick liquid along the rhythm of the respirator.
Hawks sat in the nearest bed of the prestine medbay, slouching more than enough to rest his head in his hands. His sullen eyes tracked the moving bubbles, then laid on the face attached to the respirator. He never let himself look for more than a few seconds at the too many tubes linked to the body in the healing tank. Hawks couldn't. If he allowed his eyes to linger on the warm bronze skin, on the short dark hair, on the scar that covered half of the clone's face, he wasn't sure he could ever look away again.
It had been a year already. It still hurt. They barely understood what had happened, what took Trick from them. He wasn't dead, but sometimes it felt like it. Hawks avoided what had been–still was–the clone's space in the Den. It was too wrong. There were still some sabacc cards scattered here and there but most of Trick's belongings had been put in boxes. If he was tired enough, Hawks would sometimes catch a glimpse of the soldier, leaning on the table... but it always vanished. He longed to hear another joke he already knew, to have the solid presence of the clone on the battlefield, for them to bump shoulders and elbows. Just once more, he wouldn't ask for anything else.
Meevo had mentionned something about 'unusual brainwaves', which he didn’t understand much about–but he was grateful. Grateful to know that whatever had taken over Trick back then hadn't been him. That the clone wasn't in his right state of mind when he raised his blaster against Tel-Rea, against all of them. Hawks had been shot many times during his service but never in his life had it hurt so much. Returning fire had felt even worse. Trick had been his closest companion ever since he made Zero Company and even way back before that. His first hire, his long time friend, his closest confident.
It wasn't fair. Life never played fair and he wasn't the one who was the best at... tricking it. Hawks gripped his hair, jaw clenched as he sobbed a 'sorry'. A year after, they were nowhere near solving whatever forced them to keep the soldier in bacta, stuck in an inexplicable coma. A whole year and nothing. Nothing. Credits were scarce and they couldn't settle anywhere for too long with the Empire looming over them. Hawks dared glance at the clone trapped in the tank. A year for them was twice that amount for a clone's body. Their lifespan was already short enough for them to waste so much time with little to no results.
Trick had looked so young when Hawks first met him, blank white armor, bright-eyed and eager to serve the Republic. Now he would only need a few years to catch up to Hawks and they'd already wasted one of them. It was time that he and the clone could never spend together, could never get back.
No one really dared mention Trick anymore, or at least not directly but they all felt like something was missing. Not even Hawks would voice out how much dimmer everything had become, not to them. To Trick, he would. Hawks would come sit next to the bacta tank and let out everything that upsetted him. Just like old times, but only the slow cycle of the respirator would answer. Perhaps this was his attempt at normalcy. He'd tried to build a new 'normal' after Antine but it crumbled once more.
Hawks wouldn't accept a 'normal' where he became the incontested winner of game nights.
"Hawks," Runa waltzed in the room, her tone urgent, "you're gonna want to see that." He didn’t know one could slam an automated sliding door.
He opened his mouth to complain but the togruta grabbed his arm, pulling him up. "Nope, no. You can feel sorry for yourself later. You have to see that." Oh, so she was not giving Hawks much of a choice then. "So hurry up." Runa exited the room swiftly, were they in trouble or was it a really big offer ?
They've been running low on funds for a while now, scraping whatever ressources they could and operations were dangerous for those who had to use bacta sparingly. If Hawks expected a crime lord asking for yet another contract killing, seeing a clone's face on the holotable made his jaw drop. Weren't they all working for the Empire now ? This one looked a little different though, blond hair.
He introduced himself as 'Captain Rex' and dropped a bomb on them, figuratively. Clones working with Umbarans was already a little surprising but control chips ? That was outright crazy, but... reassuring in a way. His chest felt lighter, there was hope. Perhaps Trick would have a chance to wake up without an evil mind chip in his brain.
Hawks still couldn't quite believe it as he gathered the team that would escort the clone to his siblings, while he would assist Rex on Umbara.
The Caisson hummed, the engine coming to life. He felt restless, worried, his blood thrummed with anticipation. It had to work, or else Hawks didn’t know what he would do.