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Doom thinks the mission is a bad idea from the moment he first hears about it.
Well, thinks isn't quite the right verb there. He does technically think it, but the truth is that it's more of an innate feeling drenched in certainty, knowledge he can't explain yet still somehow inexplicably has.
The mission his General and General Kenobi are going on, the mission to capture Darth Maul and prevent him from ensuring Mandalore goes to the Seppies— to what kriffing gain Doom is not privy to— is going to end badly. Disastrously, even.
Doom knows that's the truth, would bet his own non-existent freedom on it. It's just a feeling, sure, but what is just a feeling for Doom usually ends up being accurate. Especially if it's concerning events that haven't yet happened. Especially if those events are bad.
There's a reason he's named Doom, after all.
That feeling didn't make him popular as a cadet— the opposite, really. Young Doom knew he was right, and wasn't exactly shy about making sure others knew too, a trait his vode didn't exactly appreciate. A clone with an ability that differed from the rest, a clone who had an uncanny sense for when things would go wrong, and never learned to shut up until kriffing Geonosis— and a squad that was sick and tired of Doom telling them that he had a feeling their next training mission was doomed.
Which isn't the worst way to receive a name, per say, but it's not exactly the best either. Still, cadet Doom had grown used to it, has started responding to it, and once one started responding to something name-like on Kamino, it pretty much instantaneously became one's name.
So the feeling he has that his General's new mission with General Kenobi was going to end badly is a feeling that he doesn't just dismiss as worry, as fear. Experience has taught him otherwise in these matters.
(He'd had a horrible feeling about meeting up with the 501st. A worse feeling about the battle.
Those feelings had been horribly, horribly spot on.)
"I'll be careful," Tiplee reassures him when he pulls her aside to talk, and Doom forces himself to nod, to step back. To trust that she'll keep her word, trust that she won't let her grief overtake her.
(And that's— that's more than a little difficult. Doom nearly had let his grief overtake him when he'd lost Ponds, when he hadn't yet been assigned a new General and was still reeling from his failure and his loneliness. He knows his General must be in a similar place, can practically feel the sorrow permeating the ship, and— and he knows she's got a spine of beskar, but that sort of pain has a way of worming its way past the most sturdy of shields. Has a way of undermining promises and making the most honest men liars.
He'd know. It did so with him.)
"Good luck, General," he says instead, and swallows his worry down, strangles the part of him that wants to demand— something. *Something*. He doesn't even know what.
She'll be fine. She's brave, and talented, and skilled beyond measure.
(But so was General Tiplar.)
-----
He's on edge for the rest of the day, and the day after that, and the day after that one, and—
Well. One gets the picture at that point. He may be good at making sure his emotions don't affect his work, but he's on leave right now. He's on leave right now, and he's lacking his usual distractions, and he'd usually hang out with Stone, but Stone is busy and the Coruscant Guard is— well, reeling, from a series of events that had Doom's eyebrows inching their way up his forehead when he finally managed to needle an explanation out of Hound.
So it's not a surprise when Cody calls him, requests his presence at the Temple. It's not a surprise when he arrives to see both Cody and General Kenobi waiting for him, backs straight. On some level, he's been expecting it ever since Tiplee left, dreading it since he first heard where his General was going, felt the familiar cold tendrils of wrong enter his mind and latch on.
He marches into the Temple with his helmet on, head held high. General Kenobi looks apologetic. Cody's posture is picture perfect, and his helmet, so similar to Doom's own, stops his face from revealing anything. Doom feels his stomach drop, but doesn't let it show in his face.
You knew this was coming, he reminds himself, you prepared yourself for this. To die in battle is the greatest honor. You're a soldier, she's your General, you don't even have an excuse for this—
"Tiplee is alive, Commander."
What.
Doom feels himself freeze, and he barely restrains himself from moving forward, barely manages to bite back the words he wants to say. There's no way— none, not at all, Doom doesn't have luck like that, the General can't be—
"She's hurt, but alive," General Kenobi continues, and Doom hears the words, but fails to process them. Can't make his brain understand. Tiplee is—
"Alive," he says dully, fully aware that he shouldn't be reacting like this, not with superior officers around, not in the middle of the karking Jedi Temple. "She's alive," he repeats, needing the confirmation. Cody nods, sure and steady, as always.
"She is," Cody confirms.
Thank kriff. Thank kriffing hell.
"She's injured, though. Not fatally, but badly enough that there's a good chance your battalion will be reassigned."
The words wash over him, and— if his relief wasn't quite so stark, maybe it would hit him harder, but right now all he can feel is an overwhelming lightness. Relief, with maybe a hint for something else. A moment passes,, and Cody puts a grounding hand on Doom's shoulder, pulling him back to the present. Allowing his brain to push through, letting his mouth work to form words.
"Take me to her."
-----
When Tiplee first wakes up, she's relatively certain that she's dead.
She remembers Dooku, remembers the flash of a red lightsaber and Obi-Wan's yell, and—
Dooku may have been merciful towards Jedi he thought he could convert at the beginning of the war, but for all that the events of Ringo Vinda tested her commitment to the light, they're far from the beginning of the war now, and Dooku's not looking at the Order in his search for an apprentice. No, when Dooku grabbed her it was a death sentence, despite all she did to try and stop it, to try and keep her promise to Doom—
"General?" A familiar voice asks, cutting through her thoughts, and for a moment, Tiplee is certain this must be a dream. Because Doom should be safe on Coruscant, should be out of harm's way, so if she's hearing him, then she has to be imagining it. He can't be here.
"Gen-Master Che? I think the General is waking up," Doom's voice continues a moment later, and Tiplee feels her heart squeeze in her chest. He may just be a dream, but her brain has created a mighty accurate Doom regardless—
Wait. Can dead people dream?
Tiplee forces her eyes open, tries to sit up just to figure out that ah, no, she really shouldn't do that. Yeah, no, really shouldn't be doing that. Sith hells, that hurt more than she expected it to.
"Easy, Tiplee," Master Che says, and Tiplee is relaxing before she even thinks twice about it. Master Chr just has that affect on people who aren't Obi-Wan.
Wait.
"Master Che?" she asks, casting her eyes around a bleary medway, and if this is a dream then it is a damn good one, but if it's not, if it's *not*—
If she's in the land of the living but her sister is not but her promise isn't broken—
"Yes," Master Che's voice confirms as she steps into view.
"I'm not dead?"
"Not for lack of trying on Dooku's part," Doom says darkly, and she feels the corners if her lips curl up even though it wasn't a joke. Doom's presence just has that effect on her, she's learned.
"Commander," she greets, tries to smile. He's not quite in her— still admittedly pretty blurry— range of vision right now, and she briefly considers maturity, then mentally says kriff it and makes grabby hands until he gets the memo and walks close enough that she can vaguely see his form.
"Hi," Tiplee says, and she's only half breathless from exertion, from the strain that trying and failing to sit up had put on her body.
"General," Doom greets in return, and there's a ghost of a smile in his Force signature, comfort behind his usual shell.
Tiplee doesn't know when she'll be able to fight again. If she'll be able to fight again. What will happen to Doom in the meantime.
But he's alive. She's alive. They're both alive, both safe.
For now, she can make that work.