Chapter Text
Waking up in complete disorientation, without any understanding of what you had been doing before you lost consciousness (and the three days before that), was nothing new for the command of the Coruscant Guard. It was something most of them had already come to terms with and accepted as a simple fact. Not without a fight, of course — because it's hard to realize that even your body and mind don't belong to you. What should have been the basic minimum for sentient beings had been taken from the clones' cold hands while the Senate openly declared them rights-less and unreasonable.
Pretty bitter, isn't it?
They came into being for those citizens, were created solely for the Jedi. Every single day, they, kriff, trained until their bones shook and their lungs ached — for those naturally born. Those who couldn't stand them.
Perhaps the Republic Army was unaware of some political subtleties. They fought alongside respected Jedi — peacekeepers and those who, in some corners of the galaxy, were nearly elevated to the level of deities.
Hell, on Kamino, they drilled absolute obedience to the Jedi into their heads, extolling the skills and strategies of the Jedi, which were detailed in many old records on datapads. It was easy to believe anything when all you'd ever seen was your brothers' blood, the trainers' cruelty, and the cold, empty ocean around the station.
You just wanted to believe in it. Hope that somewhere out there, there were good people. People who would stand up for them, help them go into battle, fight shoulder to shoulder with experienced commanders who would protect them from blaster fire and save the situation.
And most still believed in that. But not Fox. No, he had stopped believing in it while still a young cadet, when Priest pulled him out of his pod in the middle of the night to beat him thoroughly and slam him against a wall. Later that day, while reading yet another datapad about the Jedi, he started feeling nauseous. If these people were so good, why didn't they come here, right into this hell? Why didn't they come and stop this mass decommissioning that thousands of his brothers had been subjected to? Everything said about them sounded too perfect, and perfection doesn't exist even here on Kamino.
That left only one conclusion: either they were lying about the Jedi, or his brothers' situation really was that dire.
When he told his batchmates about this, they just told him to go clear his head and stop talking nonsense. Even Wolffe, his mean and feisty twin brother, snarled and bit his hand: "Stop spouting nonsense, vod'ika, and turn your brain on."
It stung a little, but their reaction was understandable. When someone close questions what you sincerely believe in, you want to protect that faith and cherish it. Still, they never brought up that topic again. They had other problems back then, besides doubting the Jedi and their abilities.
Especially when the war truly began.
To say Fox hated the Jedi even more than before would be an understatement. They didn't reach the level of his hatred for the Chancellor (or the damn Sith Lord, thanks a lot), but he wouldn't mourn their "lost innocence" or the fact that they had become weapons in the Republic's hands. They don't understand what they're saying. They don't understand what it's like to be a real weapon — without will, without rights, without the ability to say a single word in your own defense without the Red Guard beating you under the pretext of "training." The Jedi don't see how they themselves begin to go against their precious ideals, sacrificing hundreds of clone lives for a failed strategy.
How many times had Fox, while reading another stack of forms with Republic Army mission reports, seen a ridiculously ill-conceived strategy that not a single remotely qualified commander or captain would ever approve? Hard to count. Especially when, in response to the question (written on the Chancellor's behalf) about why that particular strategy was chosen, they answered: "It is the will of the Force."
It is the will of the Force.
Fox hates the Force, despises it, just as he despises any other higher powers they talk about in the galaxy. If the will of the Force is for his brothers to die by the thousands because of Jedi who refuse to listen, then the Force disgusts him. And all those who send soldiers to their deaths even more so.
He protects his brothers, even if they end up hating him.
And they certainly hate him. Fox is the head of the Coruscant Guard, its face and its foundation. Each of them is condemned to their face, called a fake soldier, an office worker, and many other words containing far more curses. Or, as Wolffe once called Fox: "a senator's doormat." And he wasn't wrong. Unfortunately. Behind the walls of dignified people's offices, many disgusting things happen, and with 90% probability, you'll find that those things happen to a Coruscant Guard soldier. Shiny or not, commander, lieutenant — it doesn't matter. If you leave someone else's office with only a whip-lashed back, consider yourself lucky.
Not everyone is that fortunate.
And, oh, how he hates it — the constant dates with the fucking Sith Lord Palpatine, who looks like a kind, awkward old grandfather with a paternal gaze and wise advice. Palpatine, who filed thirty-six decommissioning forms for his Corries just because of a couple of senators' complaints. Palpatine, who made him sign every last one with a shaking hand, signing the death sentence of unsuspecting vode.
The Chancellor is an actor, and Fox had long realized that he played his role better than Fox did.
Who would people believe, even if the Guard published all the evidence they'd dug up (and there wasn't much yet. Kriff, that slippery sith) — some pathetic clone or the widely respected face of the Republic? The answer was obvious.
And what could they even show in their defense? "Look! We're being controlled! We're being abused! We're being raped! Help us!"
Because that's all that would come out in the end. And that's if they were lucky. They can't say a word about the Guard's real situation and their hardships. Even if they tried. Not a word about the Chancellor playing both sides of the war like a chessboard, and the Jedi being literally doomed to die at the end of this circus.
Yeah, they're all doomed.
Fox's eyes barely opened, as if someone had poured glue into them and sealed his eyelids shut. His head hurt. A throbbing pain shook his temples and crept down his face, descending to his spine. His ribs and the rest of his torso felt like an entire tank and a squad of battle droids had run over him. Hell, had he fallen off a building again? Last time, his head medic nearly tore him apart on the spot, especially when he'd snuck out of the medbay without telling anyone and ended up passing out in his own office.
Good times.
After two minutes of struggling, Fox finally managed to become sane enough to assess the situation. First, he was sitting on something even harder than his cushionless chair. Second, his hands were badly numb from the cuffs attached to a massive metal table on which his head rested.
Even from the slightest movement of his foot, he heard the quiet clinking of chains against the chair legs. So wherever he was and wherever this mission had gone, his kidnappers were competent enough to properly immobilize a prisoner. Not that it did him any good. But this turn of events would give him at least a few more hours and a valid excuse not to sit with a mountain of other people's documents. A questionable plus, but a plus.
The cold surface of the table soothed his throbbing headache a little, so Fox closed his eyes again and pressed his forehead against it harder. He couldn't move anyway and had no idea where he was. The best thing to do was to grab that rare moment and sleep until they came to torture or interrogate him.
From the quiet but perceptible hum around the small cell, he guessed it was some kind of starship, quite large. Or maybe it was a factory? He didn't know. Fox had rarely managed to hear the sounds of a ship from the inside, considering he'd only been on one once, when he flew from Kamino to Coruscant with his brothers. That ship had been large, but it wasn't a Venator-class and was smaller. He only knew the sounds of that ship. Not these.
In any case, the chances of him being on someone's starship were extremely slim, since all those "secret assignments" Palpatine gave him were mostly conducted on the lower levels of Coruscant. Sending him somewhere too far would be problematic for everyone — he was the Chancellor's "favorite" and had to always be by his side.
But it was still possible. The Corries might just not remember taking a shuttle and leaving the planet for a few days. Such cases had happened before, though Fox thought they'd pass him by.
Maybe he was wrong.
Feeling his dirty curls falling over his head, he noted for the hundredth time the absence of his helmet and regretted that he couldn't stretch his hands chained to the table. Since he'd woken up, they seemed to have gone even more numb, and the feeling wasn't particularly pleasant. Getting comfortable in this empty, gloomy room was difficult.
Fox didn't think much time had passed since he'd fallen asleep the second time when, finally, from behind the soundproof walls, a click sounded and his field of vision was flooded with light. Kriff, his migraine only got worse from that.
Squinting as hard as he could, the commander finally looked toward the door, which had already closed. Two stocky young men entered the room... No, wait, it was Wolffe. His twin. His orivod. What was he doing here?
To Fox's dismay, his sharp tongue seemed to have gone numb in his mouth, and he just stared at the expression on his batchmate's face.
And he didn't like it.
Cody, Rex'ika, Bly — they had all long stopped looking at him with warmth in their eyes and care in their hearts. Since that fateful day when Fox opened the datapad and saw where he was being assigned. At first, it was just jokes and harmless teasing, without malicious intent. But later, it got worse. His orivods were losing their soldiers on the battlefield; they mourned and were angry. And who better to take it out on than the Coruscant Guard commander, whose job was "purely paperwork"? T̶h̶e̶y̶ d̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ k̶n̶o̶w̶ t̶h̶e̶ t̶o̶r̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ h̶e̶ w̶a̶s̶ s̶u̶b̶j̶e̶c̶t̶e̶d̶ t̶o̶,̶ t̶h̶e̶y̶ d̶i̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ k̶n̶o̶w̶.̶
But he had never seen such an expression on Wolffe's face. At least not directed at himself.
After that incident when his twin brother lost almost all of his soldiers, when only about four men remained from an entire battalion, Wolffe had been in bad shape. Plo Koon, their general, decided to drag the survivors to the Temple to give them time to recover their strength and morale. One smart move from a Jedi, in Fox's opinion, though all those losses could have been prevented entirely.
Fox remembered the first and only time he stood in front of that ivory temple, without armor, only in a light jacket stolen from Thorn so as not to attract attention. How he quietly crept through the halls (though he was officially expected — Plo Koon had seen to that), carrying a bottle of strong liquor hidden under his clothes that his guys had procured not long ago.
Fox remembered how they awkwardly chatted about various nonsense for a while, and then the conversation turned to something that caused the platinum to crash. His orivod grabbed him with all his strength, leaving painful bruises on his back and shoulders, and Fox tried not to flinch under the pressure on his fresh wounds.
"There were shinies there, Fox, they'd just arrived," Wolffe whispered, staring blankly into the distance, and Fox only hugged him tighter at that moment, knowing it wouldn't take the pain away.
"They were so young, so young.. I saw the desire to prove themselves in their eyes. So similar to us.. And they all died. No one was spared. We were all smoked out like some kind of..!" His brother's speech broke off abruptly when he hid his forehead in the crook of Fox's neck, embarrassed to show tears to anyone. But Fox understood. He really did. So he bit his tongue so as not to provoke Wolffe's anger. He knew that when Wolffe was upset, he became even more hot-tempered if you weren't careful.
He carefully ran his hands over his brother's trembling back, humming something softly under his breath. Letting him fall apart in his arms, so that later he could pick up the bleeding pieces and wash them, putting them on a shelf. Fox couldn't fix anyone — he had been broken himself for too long to be able to. But he knew that his brother had people who were ready to do it for him. And he was grateful to them.
At that moment, Fox could just smile faintly at his orivod and pull out the bottle from under his jacket, earning a crooked grin from Wolffe.
It wasn't the first time he'd seen tears in the eyes of such a strong and capable soldier as his twin. When they were cadets, they both had moments of weakness, when they liked to hide away together in someone's pod and curl up in the cramped space. Nice, quiet days.
And now, Wolffe looked like he was holding back angry tears, with coldness on his face and a faint snarl on his lips. Directed straight at Fox.
Fox flinched. What had he done wrong this time? Their relationship would never be like before, but Fox hadn't thought it was that bad. Had he hurt Wolffe? No, Fox would never..
Unless he was ordered to.
He swallowed hard. No, harming a commander of the Grand Army of the Republic made no sense. Palpatine didn't even consider them sentient beings, so they couldn't pose a threat, right? Right?
With incredible effort, he managed to part his dry lips, and his own hoarse voice from long silence (or screaming) frightened him.
"Wolffe.. What are you doing — "
"Shut up, Fox! I don't want to hear a single word from your lying, slimy mouth!" Wolffe snarled through clenched teeth, boring his eyes into Fox's. Only now did Fox notice how he was clenching his fists at his side and the helmet attached to his belt. The creak of his gloves was audible even from where Fox was chained.
After that, silence fell.
Flinching slightly, the Coruscant Guard commander bit his lip, feeling a sense of dread spreading like a black hole in his stomach. He didn't like this. Not at all. Fox didn't understand why he was here, didn't remember what he'd been doing before, but somehow he had made the only brother who kept in touch hate him.
..what had he done?..
Wolffe took a deep, noisy breath, as if trying to calm himself. Fox didn't know his orivod had learned to control his rage — Wolffe had never been ashamed to show it. His rude behavior was something natural, something that had always been with him.
Fox wanted to be yelled at, beaten, have his arms broken, and have the most hurtful words spat at him. But not silence. Silence was the worst.
R̶e̶m̶i̶n̶d̶s̶ h̶i̶m̶ o̶f̶ t̶h̶a̶t̶ t̶i̶m̶e̶ h̶e̶ w̶a̶s̶ l̶o̶c̶k̶e̶d̶ i̶n̶ t̶h̶e̶ "̶B̶o̶x̶.̶"̶
Carefully, he raised his gaze as his twin stood directly opposite, looking down at his broken, handcuffed-to-the-table body. In the other's brown eyes burned rage — so familiar and yet not.
Pulling a distant chair over to the table, Wolffe sat down, and they began staring at each other. As if the other commander was trying to find something in his eyes, something that would give him an answer. But Fox didn't understand what they wanted from him.
Clasping his hands together on the table, Wolffe spoke — not in the loud tone he had just snapped with, but in a quiet, serious one.
"Fox.. I'm not going to play these games with you. Not again. I'll speak now, and you'll answer." His back straightened, and his shoulders squared. He could almost block Fox from the small amount of light still in the room.
Wolffe had always been a centimeter taller than the other clones — not much, but when you all have the same face, it was noticeable. Fox, in turn, was five millimeters shorter than the rest — an even smaller difference, but his orivods never hesitated to remind him of it. It usually annoyed him but also amused him.
Now it looked like a threat.
He stayed silent, not wanting to provoke the other into shouting. Fox knew how to walk on thin ice. He'd done it many times.
So he just gave a weak nod, feeling his mouth go dry.
This was bad.
Frowning and narrowing his mismatched eyes, Wolffe took his weak nod as an answer and pulled a datapad from inside his tunic.
"State your motive, CC-1010, and explain what prompted you to try to shoot the High General."
..What?..
The floor seemed to disappear from under him, and he fell into the dark void of space beneath him. Honestly, in his situation, that would be even better.
No, no, that couldn't be. Jedi had never been the target of Fox's missions. He had never been sent after them or other high-ranking military personnel.
They were too elusive for a clone, too strong and too smart. They could sense a living being before seeing them because of their connection to the Force. And that's not even taking lightsabers into account. Sending a clone after a Jedi made no sense!
But Palpatine wasn't an idiot. He had a purpose for all his little pawns.
Perhaps Fox might have a slight advantage, considering he constantly endured "dates" with the Sith Lord — his shields had been trained, had become stronger. Most Jedi felt uneasy around him when they couldn't sense anything from him but dead silence.
But that didn't change the facts. As far as he knew (and it wasn't much), the Chancellor's plan hadn't yet reached the stage where it could be safely executed. And what was the point of that plan if the Jedi, seeing Fox's sad example, became wary and more cautious?
This couldn't be true. At least not entirely.
But what could be true when even your own mind didn't belong to you?
Wolffe, apparently, interpreted his heavy silence as refusal, and a moment later his fist slammed down on the table with a crash.
"Answer, Fox! Damn it, if you do this, it'll be better for you!" Throwing up his hands, Wolffe frowned, his eyelid gloomily lowering over his cybernetic eye. Fox had never seen him with it in person — only on holograms and in supplementary material in reports. The last time they'd seen each other, the right half of his head had been tightly wrapped in bandages, under which was a lightsaber wound. From Ventress's saber — that slimy woman Fox only remembered from those few fragments of memory he had left after all those "missions."
If Cadet Wolffe could see himself now, he'd probably call himself "damn cool with that scar."
Clenching his fingers, Fox sighed quietly and looked away.
"I don't know," he whispered tensely, because nothing louder than a whisper came out of him. His throat constricted on its own, robbing him of the ability to speak. Hell, just not now..
Wolffe stood up abruptly, knocking over the metal chair with a clang.
"You don't know? You don't know?! What nonsense, di'kut! Answer, CC-1010, who talked you into this!? Why did you try to kill Master Plo Koon?! And don't you dare lie to me, shabuir! This time you won't talk your way out of it!" His twin was breathing heavily, his hands clawing at the air in front of him. Fox could imagine the other commander picturing himself squeezing his throat.
His orivod calling him not by name but by the CC designation was like a punch to the gut. He knew it was done deliberately, to unsettle him and provoke an emotional reaction. When someone close says something like that, it hurts a lot.
Fox mechanically flexed and extended his fingers, trying to form something worthwhile in his empty head to answer, but it was useless. Thoughts raced at breakneck speed through his throbbing head, not letting him gather his strength.
Come on, we need to squeeze something out. Some excuse. Anything!
His mouth opened, wanting to assure his brother otherwise, to somehow wriggle out of this situation, to try to blame a mistake. But again, nothing. Fox wanted to grab his throat in despair and strangle himself.
He couldn't say anything. He just couldn't.
"I'm doing what I have to. Good soldiers follow orders." He hated this. How his body moved on its own, how he said things he didn't mean. It was absolutely awful. Nothing belonged to him. Not his body, not his mind, not his will.
P̶l̶e̶a̶s̶e̶,̶ o̶r̶i̶v̶o̶d̶,̶ t̶a̶k̶e̶ m̶e̶ o̶u̶t̶ o̶f̶ t̶h̶i̶s̶ h̶e̶l̶l̶.̶ I̶'̶m̶ t̶i̶r̶e̶d̶,̶ p̶l̶e̶a̶s̶e̶,̶ d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ h̶a̶t̶e̶ m̶e̶.̶
Fox looked up, and his eyes widened at what he saw. Wolffe looked stunned — the anger hadn't completely left his face, but it was partly overlaid with clear shock. His lips and jaw were tightly clenched, his fists unclenched. He stepped away from the table, stepped away from Fox, as if he couldn't stand him anymore.
His brother was in pain. Because of him.
In the silence, through his own heavy breathing, he could hear Wolffe's ragged inhales over the other humming sounds. As if Wolffe was pulling air through gritted teeth, trying not to give in to emotion.
Fox felt sick. He was tired and didn't want to be in this place. He wanted to go back to Coruscant and find out how things were there. Whether everything had gone to hell. Whether his vode had fallen under the heavy hand of senators or the Chancellor. Whether they had enough medical supplies to keep the wounded alive. Were Thorn and Thire resting? And Stone? How were things going in the prison? Had there been any riots?
At least his emergency comm was silent. Though, given the circumstances, that might just be because he was being jammed.
Wolffe raised his head and bored into him with a look full of disbelief and malice.
"I couldn't believe the rumors when I first heard them. I didn't believe what they were calling you. I didn't believe the truth of what you'd become. I, kriff, told Cody to go to hell when he complained to me about what you did to Rex's ARC!" he began, and each word sank like a knife into mutilated flesh. This was the moment when the only remaining one from those he used to know would disown him.
"But now I don't recognize you, Fox. You're really a damn — "
Fox didn't want to hear what his twin would say. What conclusion he would reach. What name he would call him. What the Wolfpack would now call the Coruscant Guard commander? What words would he hear again and again in the drunk tank behind his back after a 72-hour shift?
He'd had enough of what was already there.
But Wolffe cut himself off, not finishing those hurtful words, at the sound of heavy door locks opening. The door slid aside with a screech, and the light momentarily blinded Fox's sensitive eyes. Damn it.
Through the light pouring from the doorway, he made out the characteristic flowing robes of a Jedi and hands with long claws. The face behind the breathing mask was turned toward the other commander, forehead slightly furrowed.
Good, at least Plo Koon was alive and healthy enough. Fox still had a chance to salvage his relationship with his brother.
"Wolffe, son, you need to calm down. I could feel you from the other end of the ship." Surprisingly, even though it was essentially a reprimand, the Jedi's voice was warm and kind. Not as cloying as Palpatine's, but.. Fox still found it hard to believe his sincerity. Not after everything the Jedi had done to him.
The Coruscant Guard commander tensed imperceptibly all over, feeling stabs of pain from the movement. His brother had given his name to the general freely. That wasn't good. Fox himself, though he had told the Chancellor his name (under duress), was mostly called only CC-1010 — Palpatine didn't consider clones capable of having the right to choose even something as banal as a name.
To his surprise, his ori'vod noticeably relaxed his shoulders from their defensive position, the snarl disappeared from his face, replaced by a weary grimace.
Fox didn't understand this behavior. His general, his superior, was seeing Wolffe without his helmet, which was already a regulation violation, and the display of dissatisfaction and the fact that they'd disturbed the Jedi were already enough grounds to file a complaint.
Though Fox thought that if anyone was getting a complaint today, it was him. Ah, yes, a complaint and a court-martial.
A wonderful day.
"General Plo, you should be in the medbay resting. Sorry for disturbing you," Wolffe rasped, pinching the bridge of his nose as if suppressing irritation. Irritation at a Jedi. A display of insubordination. Did the Republic Army not know how to behave with a high-ranking superior?
To his surprise, Plo Koon just chuckled softly and walked over to his brother, placing a hand on his shoulder. T̶a̶k̶e̶ i̶t̶ o̶f̶f̶,̶ s̶h̶a̶b̶u̶i̶r̶,̶ d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ t̶o̶u̶c̶h̶ m̶y̶ o̶r̶i̶v̶o̶d̶.̶
"Wolffe, we both know it wasn't that bad. The medics have already examined me and put in stitches; I'm fine. The Force saved me," Plo Koon said quietly but confidently to his commander, releasing his shoulder.
Wolffe rolled his eyes.
"Sure. At least you're not as bad as Kenobi. I heard Cody drags him to the medic by the scruff of his neck," Wolffe grinned, baring his teeth, making his general laugh softly.
Fox saw the connection between them. They were.. close. He didn't know how or why, but he wasn't blind. Such casual behavior without immediate punishment was either a game followed by a beating, or just.. friendship? Could you be friends with a higher-ranking being? He didn't understand.
"Son, I'm still far from Master Obi-Wan's level. You can give Commander Cody my sincere condolences." Their voices faded, and Fox swallowed blood mixed with saliva as he felt their gazes on him.
If Plo Koon looked at him with something akin to.. interest, then Wolffe had hardened again and taken a defensive position in front of his general. As if Fox were a threat.
General Plo Koon tilted his head to the side, silently asking Wolffe to step back a little so he could come closer, and the other obeyed.
The Jedi sat down in the seat his twin had occupied earlier, tilting his head slightly. Kriff, he needed his helmet. Where was his helmet?
"Commander, I've heard a great deal about you. I'll be honest, I didn't expect our acquaintance to take place in such.. unexpected circumstances." The alien's voice was soft, as if Plo Koon was walking on thin ice (which Fox's mental state indeed was). As if he didn't want to press something wrong, but such behavior made no sense. Fox was doomed. Either they would wipe his personality and turn him into a living corpse, or they would decommission him. Neither option looked particularly rosy.
"And from your reputation, I gathered that you're not one for beating around the bush." The Jedi took a deep breath, as if gathering his courage. Excuse me, the Force. As if this decision was hard for him to make. For him.
Fox drilled the other man with his gaze from under several hanging locks. (He should have gotten a haircut a month ago, but there was no time for such delicate procedures. Now his hair constantly fell into his face when he wasn't wearing his helmet.)
The commander maintained a deathly silence. He didn't dare open his mouth unnecessarily, because he knew nothing would change from his attempts. No point in wasting the energy of his sore throat. His lungs constantly hurt when he did it, too. He didn't want to think about the possibility that one of them might be pierced by his ribs.
Looking at him with a compassionate gaze, General Plo Koon asked:
"What did I do to upset you so much, son?"
Fox recoiled — just barely, but from the other's gaze, they noticed. He hadn't expected Jedi to take everything so personally. Palpatine had said many times that they were compassionate beings whose pity made them vulnerable and weak to manipulation.
That was why Fox's shields were so strong.
He pressed his lips together, hearing Wolffe's protesting words that his general had never even met Fox and couldn't possibly have offended him, but the Jedi raised a hand, politely asking him to be quiet, throwing an apologetic look his way.
"I can feel your distrust, your anger, your grief and bitterness, even when it's barely noticeable. Your shields are strong, but an experienced Jedi can sense something through them if they try." And again, getting into his head, huh? Damn, Fox was so tired of this. He wanted to say it all to their faces, voice the grievances that had accumulated over years of being ignored. However, that was unlikely to help his situation.
Though what difference did it make if he was already dead? If he was going to die, at best, in three days, while they made it back to Coruscant? Fox was doomed, and no one would save him. The Guard might try, but they were smart. Thorn, Thire, and Stone knew when not to take risks.
"What do you care, Jedi? Go, gather your Council in your ivory tower, and prattle on about how the Force is dark within me and I should be cut out like a tumor." Fox tasted blood on his lips — so oily and thick — but he still grinned, looking into the Jedi's closed eyes.
"That's all you do. Just look down on us, throw us into battle like cannon fodder, ignore everything we say. And you're so blind to —" A terrible cough interrupted him, making him choke on the blood in his mouth as he spat it out. Damn, he couldn't speak anymore. Apparently, he had crossed the line Palpatine had drawn in his mind, beyond which his speech stopped working.
Grabbing his throat and spitting out a clot of blood, Fox clenched his teeth and spat out his last words, after which he immediately lost consciousness.
"..You're so blind to the sith at the head of the Republic.."
Wolffe watched as the one with whom he had grown up shoulder to shoulder, with whom he had shared a bunk and who had comforted him during dark times, went limp like a doll while strapped to the table.
Fox, his vod'ika, the one with whom they had dreamed of becoming commanders together and helping each other's battalions in times of need. A dream shattered so cruelly and quickly. Like everything on Kamino.
His younger brother (whom he was older by a whole week) looked as if he had spent the entire war not in the wealthy center of the galaxy, but in a heavy blockade on the Outer Rim. He didn't recognize those jagged scars all over his face, standing out vividly against his skin, looking suspiciously fresh. Almost no untouched patch remained on his face, which seemed strange.
It was hard to guess what had caused them. They resembled lightning, but electro-staffs didn't leave marks like that. As far as Wolffe knew.
Wasn't Coruscant supposed to be safe?
He suppressed the urge to lean over and brush the too-long strands from the other's forehead to see his brown eyes. Inside, contempt and distrust for this man still raged. Why attack them when they had just returned from a hard battle where many of Wolffe's vode had lost their lives? What was Fox trying to achieve? He had never been the type to crave recognition or anything of the sort. His brother wouldn't act like that for such a stupid goal.
Then why were they in this situation?
He flinched slightly at the familiar feeling of a warm, paternal hand on his shoulder. Plo Koon shouldn't be standing so close to his potential killer so soon. He'd been shot in the shoulder — nothing vital was hit, but there had been a lot of blood. A lot. Wolffe was ready to admit that for that brief moment when his general — h̶i̶s̶ b̶u̶i̶r̶ — fell to the ground, he had been paralyzed with terror.
That man who had helped him heal after Ventress and the loss of his entire battalion had fallen under his vod'ika's fire. The only naturally born who treated clones not as things, but as living beings capable of rejecting an idea and choosing something of their own. Plo Koon had become one of his closest friends in such a short time.
And if he had died... Wolffe wasn't sure Fox would ever have been able to find his forgiveness.
He leaned slightly into the comforting warmth, to feel that the man under the robe was alive and standing next to him. That he, though not entirely okay, was no longer on the brink of death.
"Your brother is scared. And I understand him," Plo Koon said quietly, tilting his head slightly toward Wolffe. His clawed hand hovered over Fox's cuffed hands, not daring to cover them, so as not to disturb the wounded soldier. They all had a tendency to wake up instantly, ready for battle.
"In the Force, he feels very cold. Distant. Quiet. His shields are excellent. I don't know any other clone better at it than him. But that's not the only thing I don't like." Removing his comforting hand, the general hovered over Fox; in his gaze was deep regret and pity. Wolffe swallowed. Whatever he said, he didn't like Plo Koon's tone. He didn't like the concentration with which he looked at the Coruscant Guard commander.
Touching Fox's pauldron, the Jedi quickly pulled his hand back, pressing it to his tunic.
"'A sith at the head of the Republic.' That's what he said. And I'll be honest, that phrase is not without merit." Claws gently traced the jagged lines crossing Fox's too-pale face, slightly contorted with pain. Wolffe didn't like this. He felt sick. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't.
Coruscant had always been considered a safe haven among Republic Army soldiers. On all their rare, short leaves, they went there to have a good time at 79's or to meet up with their batchmates. Everyone considered the Corries office workers, pampered senators' pets, and the Chancellor's favorites. No one took them seriously, nor their few complaints. Senators acting inappropriately? Go lie down in a trench and see how the droids do it.
Wolffe wouldn't lie and say he was any different. He had argued with Fox, his twin, many times, complaining that Fox had gone soft on Coruscant and gotten too arrogant to spend time with his orivods and Rex.
They had a few really bad fights. Cody and Ponds had to separate them when Fox lost it and lunged at Wolffe after one biting taunt.
"..Enough, Wolffe, I'm not going to continue discussing this with you. You're drunk and out of your mind.."
"..Me? Out of my mind?! Says the senator's doormat! What, you want to go suck another dick? Go! I'm not keeping you here!.."
Honestly, right after he said it, he bitterly regretted it. That night, it had come out too loud, too harsh, too public. Damn it, lots of soldiers passing by had heard them. After that, the rumors couldn't be stopped.
Wolffe sincerely hoped that after his drinking binge, he would forget that night, forget how Fox's fist had crunched into his nose, how his vod'ika's face had contorted with anger and grief. He had hated himself at that moment. He hadn't had the strength to fight back, strange as that might sound.
After that, the chasm between them grew noticeably wider. On his next visit, Wolffe mustered his patience to come and apologize, which Fox accepted, and they didn't speak again.
And then Fox disappeared for three months.
"General, what do you mean?" Wolffe forced himself to ask, hoping everything would turn out simpler. But nothing could be simple anymore, after Wolffe's lieutenant spotted a sniper on the mountain, after Plo Koon had been shot.
Wolffe wasn't naive. He was smart and had survived largely because of that. But that didn't mean he couldn't hope.
"Those scars. They were caused by Force lightning. I recognize them. Obi-Wan Kenobi got similar ones after his first duel with Dooku." Rubbing the lower part of his breathing mask nervously, Plo Koon answered, moving his claws away from where the lines looked red and irritated. Painful.
Wolffe sucked in a sharp breath. He had dealt with sith, if Ventress could be counted as one. She was merciless, ruthless, cold-blooded. She had gladly driven her lightsaber into Wolffe's face, listening to his hoarse scream of agony and his subsequent fall. And he knew from his general's stories that she wasn't even the worst example. There were worse — more unstable and bloodthirsty, for whom power meant absolutely everything.
If his younger brother could have encountered someone like that, then he couldn't blame him if he was acting under duress. Damn it, they shouldn't forget that the Guard didn't have a kriffing Jedi!
"We've long known that a sith is hiding somewhere in the Senate, fueling corruption. However, something tells me Commander Fox knows far more about it than anyone else," the Jedi Master continued, shaking his head occasionally. Wolffe could feel an aura of seriousness and concern emanating from him, even without being Force-sensitive. He could feel his own body tightening with anxiety and discomfort.
Finally, he turned to face his commander to ask a question:
"I know your relationship has been strained for a long time, and I have no right to interfere, but.. Has anything suspicious happened lately? With the Guard or with him specifically?"
Wolffe swallowed the lump in his throat and looked away from the motionless body in the room, focusing on the wall.
"The last time I saw him was about five months ago, on our last leave. I was picking up my boys from the drunk tank, and he was on duty there at the time. There was tension between us, but we talked, and I think we resolved something. I'm not sure. Fox and I maintained our connection at a distance as best we could — we could go weeks without talking, but we always ended up contacting each other. But.. He disappeared for three months. Complete radio silence. I thought he'd just lost his comm or something. But the Guard itself said he was on a secret assignment and couldn't provide any information about its completion." Wolffe ran a hand over his face and exhaled tiredly.
"I don't know what that mission was or what he did there. I'm seeing him now for the first time since his disappearance. But I clearly remember he looked much better. There were three times fewer scars; he was healthier. Certainly not as skinny. Like he'd been sitting in his own prison, honestly," Wolffe tried to joke, but his own words struck him. "Like he'd been sitting in prison."
Vod'ika, what happened to you..
Plo Koon nodded sharply and straightened up, slightly supporting his injured side with his hand.
"I can't ignore this. I won't treat your brother so inhumanely. He's definitely being coerced, and probably by the sith in the Senate. We need to discuss this. I'm going to convene the Council." Taking confident steps toward the exit, the general paused for a second and turned to face Wolffe, his brow ridges softening. He looked simultaneously incredibly caring and ready to go kill someone. Jedi strangeness number seven.
"Take care of your brother, Wolffe. Better call a medic for more qualified help. I think he'll be calmer if he wakes up next to someone familiar." Wolffe didn't bother correcting the Jedi, saying that Fox would most likely be anything but calm next to him. He would deal with his twin himself.
When the door clanged shut, he pressed the button to call for medical personnel, not marking it as urgent but still asking for someone. He tiredly moved the battered chair to sit not across from Fox but next to him, leaning against him sideways. In armor, it was quite uncomfortable, but Wolffe didn't complain. He'd endured worse.
Closing his eyes, the commander squeezed his twin's shoulder, wanting to feel him with his fingertips.
They still had so much to sort out..