Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jaster had been busy, very busy, preparing to leave so they could launch their attack on the Death Watch’s base on Concordia, so when Riune took him aside the day before they left and expressed a concern of hers, he made a note of it and then put it at the back of his mind to worry about later. 

“Food’s been going missing from the pantry,” Riune had told him, a frown on her face, “Not a huge amount, but it’s been happening for a while and I thought I’d bring it to your attention.”

Of course that was certainly something to worry about, Jaster didn’t know why anybody would bother to steal food from the kitchen for one thing, not when anybody who happened to be in the house was welcome to as many servings as they wanted at meal times, even if they didn’t live there. Jaster had made sure all his people knew that, that if for whatever reason they needed a hot meal they could always get it at his house. So it didn’t make much sense to him, but in the grand scheme of things Jaster had bigger problems to worry about.

The matter didn’t come back up until they were on their way back to Concord Dawn after they’d successfully routed the Death Watch and freed their slaves. It would have been about noon at his place on Concord Dawn when Jaster received the message and it was from one of his housekeepers. Doma was their name, and they’d sent him both a message and a video. The message read:

‘ Mand’alor, while cleaning the Little Soldiers’ room I found one of the floorboards had been pulled up and then laid back down without being nailed in place and when I pulled it up I found this. ’

The attached video was obviously from Doma’s helmet and showed them first pressing down on one of the floorboards, showing how it shifted, and Jaster agreed, it had obviously been pulled up and then laid back down in the same place. It was what Doma revealed when they pulled the board up that surprised Jaster. Beneath the floorboard was a cache. Doma pulled each item out of it and set it on the floor surrounding the secret compartment that had been made in the floor of the Verd’ike’s room. The first thing they pulled out was a tub of walnuts, the kind that’d probably be used in baking; then a box of crackers; a can with a label that read ‘shuura slices in syrup’; multiple cans of bluefish; a bag of jerky; a bag of trail mix; numerous small tubs of applesauce; a container of dried fruits; and then finally a box of cereal.

By the time Doma had pulled everything out and set it on the floor Jaster was baffled. It wasn’t like he was shorting the Verd’ike on food, he wasn’t denying them anything or making them skip meals. They ate with him three times a day without fail and none of them had ever been shy about eating, none of them had ever left without eating, although now that he thought about it, none of them ever asked for seconds or for snacks in between meals the way Jango had when he was their age.

He spent a couple moments thinking about it before sending a message to Doma to put everything back in the cache as it had been and put the board back to cover the hole in the floor for now. Jaster didn’t know why the Verd’ike had been stealing food and hoarding it, but he wasn’t about to take it away from them if they felt like they needed to have it.

For a long moment he just sat on his couch and stared up at the ceiling, thinking, before he decided he needed guidance and activated his comm.

“Lidya,” he asked when the line connected, “I need to talk to you about the Little Soldiers, can you come to my quarters?”

“Of course, Jaster,” Lidya replied mildly, “I’ll be there in just a moment.”

So Jaster waited, staring off into space and thinking the whole thing over some more, and then when the panel on his door let out a chirp he went over and let Lidya in.

Jaster sat back down on one end of his couch and Lidya took a spot on the other end, turning halfway so she was facing him and taking her helmet off to set it in her lap.

“What do you need to talk about?” she asked him kindly. Jaster had known Lidya would be a good fit for the Verd’ike, she was patient and level-headed and nothing ever seemed to upset her or knock her off balance, all traits that would be needed when dealing with the veritable circus of horrors that was the kids’ life experiences so far.

“Well Doma sent me this,” he said and showed her both the message and the video. Lidya read the message and then watched the video with a placid expression and then let out a short quiet breath.

“I can’t say I was expecting this exactly,” she said, “but this sort of behavior isn’t uncommon for foundlings, especially ones who come from unstable or abusive situations.”

“They’ve been eating all their meals,” Jaster told her a little helplessly, “And of course I’ve never told them they couldn’t eat if they wanted to.”

“I think in this case that is not the issue here,” Lidya told him, her voice gentle and calm, “It’s less about what you’ve done and more about what their past experiences have been. This is a sign of food insecurity, which is a feeling of uncertainty around when one will be able to eat next or how much. If they came from a situation where they weren’t given enough food or were forced to compete for it, then that can easily lead to this sort of behavior. I don’t believe you’ve done anything wrong, Jaster, in fact I think you’ve been doing well by sharing meals with them every day. Routines like that help fight these sorts of anxieties, but it also takes time. I do think you should talk to them though, you need to tell them that you know what’s going on, but aren’t angry, and then offer them a solution other than stealing and hoarding food.”

Jaster nodded and let out a sigh, “Alright,” he said, “I’ll talk to them.”

“Be sure to emphasize that they aren’t in trouble and that you’re not angry,” Lidya advised and Jaster nodded again.

So that was something to consider. Jaster gave himself a few minutes to figure out how he wanted to handle this once Lidya had excused herself, then got in gear and went to go talk to his bu’ade about this latest development.

They weren’t in their - formerly Montross’s - quarters so Jaster commed his kids and Jango informed him that the kids were with him and Arla in Arla’s quarters watching a movie.

Jaster changed course and made his way to his daughter’s quarters instead and as promised there he found all nine of his ade and bu’ade sitting on the floor, on the couch, and in Omega and Arla’s case, sitting on Arla’s bed.

All of them looked up when Jaster walked in and he was sure to give them a smile, but he could see the kids instantly knew something was on his mind as the little ones tensed and Howzer frowned at them before looking back at Jaster.

“Something up?” The clone captain asked and Jaster let out a sigh and nodded.

“We need to have a family meeting,” he said, “Can you pause that, Jango?” 

Arla and Jango glanced at each other, but Jango nodded and paused the holovid.

Arla patted an open spot on her bed and Jaster walked over and sat down, with everyone else in the room turning to face him.

“I guess…” Jaster started hesitantly, “I guess I should start this out by saying I’m not angry and nobody is in trouble.” Both Arla and Jango winced at that, and the clones seemed to tense ever so slightly.

“What happened?” Omega asked him curiously. 

Jaster looked over his kids for a second; Wrecker, Jango, and Echo sitting on the floor in front of the couch that had been placed perpendicular to Arla’s bed, so the holoprojector could be seen from either piece of furniture; Tech, Hunter, and Crosshair sitting on said couch with Pup snoozing on the floor at their feet; and Howzer half-perched on the arm of the couch, all having turned to look at him.

“One of the housekeepers found the cache in the floor of your bedroom while they were cleaning,” Jaster finally came out and said it. Just like he’d known they would, the Bad Batch all went rigid, although Howzer simply sighed.

“I told you this was going to be a problem,” he grumbled, but Hunter shot him a wrathful glare and the captain just raised his hands in surrender.

“I’m not angry,” Jaster reminded them, “And you’re not in trouble.”

“Then what do you want?” Hunter asked him cautiously.

“Just to work this situation out,” Jaster replied in as mellow a tone as he could muster, “I want to know what you need.”

Hunter seemed a little taken aback by that and glanced uncertainly at his brothers.

“We did not steal it,” Tech said when Hunter had turned his attention back to Jaster.

Jaster raised his eyebrows, “Then somebody has been giving it to you?”

“Oh that was me,” Arla told Jaster blandly, patting him on the shoulder, “They seemed anxious about it, so I didn’t tell anybody.”

“Don’t get mad at her,” Wrecker pleaded, “It’s my fault, I eat too much an’ I asked her for that stuff.”

The Mand’alor couldn’t help but frown, “You don’t eat too much,” he told Wrecker, “If you wanted more at meal times you could always ask for seconds, and if you want snacks in between meals you can ask for that too.”

Howzer sighed again, like this was something he’d told them that had been summarily ignored, while the Bad Batchers all looked a little surprised.

“I told them they were worrying about this too much,” Howzer told Jaster dryly, “But Wrecker does need to eat a lot more than a normal person and before we got ahold of them they only had enough food for each of them to get two rations a day, so Hunter, Tech, and Crosshair would split theirs with Wrecker so he had enough. All of them were underweight up until a few months ago when we started supplementing them.”

“We?” Jaster asked him, nodding along.

“Rex and I,” Howzer supplied.

Jaster couldn’t help but sigh. Rex was gone, they’d said that more than once, and being reminded of that hurt despite the fact that he’d never even met Rex. “Right,” Jaster said after a moment, “Well if you need more, Wrecker, you can have seconds or even thirds or fourths at meal times, and…and how about I give you a chest or something for your room and stock it with snacks, make sure it’s always stocked, so you can have that too?”

Wrecker looked like he was about to burst into tears and Echo patted him on the arm while Crosshair shoved his foot into his brother’s back in a way that seemed almost like him being a pest but Jaster suspected was actually a sign of solidarity.

“Is that okay?” Omega asked him hopefully.

“Of course it’s okay, I just suggested it, didn't I?” Jaster told her, confused, “Why would I suggest something and then tell you you couldn’t have it?” 

“It wouldn’t be the first time somebody has,” Crosshair said darkly and Jaster just sighed.

“Fair enough,” he allowed, “But I’m not going to do that.”

“Yeah that’s certified asshole behavior,” Jango agreed, “None of us is gonna do that.”

“Alright,” Jaster said, “when we get back I’ll see about getting you a snack chest…please don’t pull up any more of my floorboards though.”

Wrecker gave him a slightly guilty grin in response and Jaster wasn’t even remotely surprised given Wrecker was probably the only one strong enough to do something like that without some sort of pry bar. 

“We’ll try not to,” Echo said cheekily as his siblings all seemed to relax a little now that they could see they really weren’t in trouble.

“We’re watching The Great Destroyer Returns 2,” Arla piped up.

“He’s returned twice?” Mereel asked her wryly, glad that that whole ordeal was apparently dealt with for the time being.

“He returns a third time in The Great Destroyer Returns 3,” Jango replied, a crooked grin on his face, “Wanna watch with us?”

Jaster let out a huff of laughter and pulled off his boots so he could shift to sitting cross-legged on Arla’s bed next to Omega and his eldest ad rather than how he’d been sitting with his feet on the floor before, “I don’t see why not,” he said and Omega, Wrecker, and Jango cheered.

So that was that for now at least. 

When they made it back to Concord Dawn not that much later, Jaster dug through his closet and pulled out an old chest that he’d just been using to hold some of his books, emptied it carefully - lest he damage said books, Manda forbid - and then carried the chest to the Verd’ike’s room.

Omega let him in and he set the chest down against the far wall, next to the strill shaped night light that he’d gotten them a while back so they didn’t have to leave the lights partially on at night. Jaster opened the empty chest and stepped away from it and while the Verd’ike hesitated for a moment, Howzer and Echo got them moving when Howzer walked over and pulled up the board that hid their cache and then he and Echo started pulling everything out and putting it in the chest while their siblings watched anxiously.

Once everything was in its new home Howzer dropped the board back in place and smiled.

“I’m going to the market,” Jaster told them, “If you kids want to come with me you can pick out more snacks to fill the chest all the way up.”

The Verd’ike glanced at each other and then when they looked back at Jaster they nodded, so together they went to go shopping. They came back with their canvas bags laden with snacks and again the younger kids watched as Echo and Howzer put everything in the chest until it was full. Once they’d stepped back Jaster pulled one last thing out of his bag and held it out to Hunter, who took it hesitantly.

“A lock?” he asked as he accepted the little padlock.

“So you don’t have to worry that anybody is going to take anything from the chest,” Jaster explained, “I’m sure Tech knows how to set up a passcode for you all on that sort of lock, so even I won’t know it. The only people who will be able to open it will be you.”

The younger kids looked up at him with something that seemed halfway touched and halfway confused, but Howzer and Echo just smiled.

“Let me know when I need to get more to put in it,” Jaster told them, “We can go shopping together or you can write me a list of what you want and I’ll get it for you. Sound good?” 

The kids nodded hesitantly and Hunter handed the lock to Tech, who immediately popped it open and then put it on the chest. Jaster excused himself so he didn’t accidentally see what passcode Tech set into it.

The next day Wrecker ate three portions during all three mealtimes instead of the single portion he’d been having before, and a week later, when Tech handed Jaster a list of things to buy to replenish what they’d used from the chest, he decided to consider it a success. 

Chapter Text

Tech had been watching Mereel’s interactions with his people with interest ever since they’d first met the man. Tech had read many books about kings and queens, about warlords and the heads of crime syndicates, about leaders in general. He had seen some first hand of course, he had met several different generals during the war and had met multiple commanders and marshal commanders. He hadn’t made a spreadsheet of their various qualities, although now that he was watching Mereel he was tempted to do so, just to compare and contrast the various leaders he had seen and the ones he had read about.

The Jedi had been very different from each other in some ways and very similar in others. General Obi-Wan Kenobi often maintained an air of serenity, and yet he was almost as impulsive and unlucky as his former padawan, General Anakin Skywalker, who was all wild ideas and often foolhardy optimism. General Plo Koon was even more serene than General Kenobi and yet he was also unerringly kind and patient. His reg troops had loved him dearly.

Tech supposed that there were some common threads between most of the Jedi, the wish to approach things rationally, the attempts to keep their emotions from overpowering that rationality - although some were better at it than others - and the care they seemed to show for their troops. Sometimes Tech wondered if he and his brothers had been regs, if he and his brothers had been under one of the generals rather than an independent team, if they’d have been loved like that, like the regs and Jedi loved each other.

But regardless, Mereel. Mereel was very different from the Jedi in many ways, he had none of the caution the Jedi carried about feeling strong emotions, he held onto his and let them drive him rather than pushing them away. Mereel did everything he did passionately. He fought furiously, he loved his family unapologetically, and he was determined to crush his enemies into dust. 

Tech was still gathering information before he could come to a final conclusion about Mereel, but from what he had seen the man truly did consider them part of his family. The fear he’d shown when Crosshair had fallen unconscious in front of him with no warning while they were traveling back to Concord Dawn had been real. The rage he had been trying to hide from them when he asked about Rampart had been real. The way he had smiled at them with pride when they’d completed the placement exam had been real. Tech would never claim to be a master of identifying and categorizing the emotional states of others, in fact that was one of his greatest weaknesses, but Mereel had been so obviously genuine with his emotions that even Tech could see they were real.

So Mereel meant it. Tech wasn’t really sure what to do with that information, other than turn it over in his mind like an interesting stone, examining it idly. Mereel was different than all the leaders Tech had read about as well; he was less opulent than kings and queens, more level-headed than warlords, and more merciful than crime bosses.

Mereel’s people loved him, had chosen him themselves and followed him devotedly. Anytime something happened in the town, be it somebody falling ill, somebody recovering, somebody getting hurt, or somebody getting married, somebody passing their Verd’goten or somebody coming to visit, no matter what it was the people who lived in Mereel’s town told Mereel about it. 

The Mand’alor held court everyday in the war room, which was when his people came to tell him these things. Generally Tech and his siblings didn’t get involved in Mereel’s court, they amused themselves elsewhere during the day, but sometimes Mereel called them in when he wanted them to meet somebody new who had arrived from elsewhere, which is what Tech assumed was happening when Mereel called them all to the war room one afternoon. They’d been in the gardens at the time, doing their homework outside in the sunshine rather than indoors. It was a nice day outside and Captain Howzer had proposed the idea when Omega complained about being inside when the weather was so nice.

Of course when Mereel called them back they all packed up their work and dropped it off in their room before walking through their adoptive ba’buir’s house to the war room.

“What do you think he wants?” Omega asked as they walked.

“Something pointless and stupid probably,” Crosshair griped from where he was walking a step behind the others with Pup trotting alongside him merrily.

“Little grouch,” Captain Howzer teased and Crosshair hissed something Tech didn’t catch back at him in irritation.

“Most likely somebody new has come to visit their family in town and Mereel intends to introduce them to us,” Tech told his siblings blandly, “He has done this twice before already.”

“Dunno why,” Wrecker said, although he was smiling.

“Maybe it’s some kind of formality,” Echo hummed, “Since he’s their king or whatever.”

“Doesn’t really matter why,” Hunter eventually put in. He was frowning, but he often frowned when Mereel was involved in anything. Tech knew Hunter had changed his opinion on Mereel to some extent, but old habits die hard and Hunter was naturally cautious.

When they made it to the war room the door was open, as it always was when Mereel was holding court, and there were people spread across the room, many of them clustered in small groups and talking to each other. Mereel was sitting on his throne on the slightly raised area that took up the farthest back part of the room, with Jango sitting off to the side in a more regular chair, sitting in as Mereel taught him the skills to take over the role of Mand’alor when it was time. Tech didn’t know why Arla wasn’t the one learning, given she was the eldest, Mereel didn’t seem like the type to feel that women couldn’t lead or hold positions of power. Perhaps Arla had told him she didn’t want to inherit the position, Tech personally could see that happening. Arla didn’t seem like the type to want that much responsibility.

“There you are,” Mereel said as the seven clones walked into the room. The Mand’alor gestured them over and they came.

There were two of Mereel’s Mandos standing in front of the throne, not on the raised platform, but obviously they were the ones who’d been interacting with Mereel most recently. Tech would have assumed that one of them was the new person, except he recognized them both. It was Doma, one of Mereel’s house cleaners, and their husband, Ryle, who worked in the kitchen.

When Tech and his siblings and Howzer had stepped up onto Mereel’s platform and turned to see both him and the other people in the room, Tech saw that Doma was holding a cloth bundle in their arms.

“Verd’ike,” Mereel said in a light voice, “You know Doma and Ryle Cresh.”

The seven of them nodded, all confused, but Mereel gestured to Doma and they looked back at them. “Their clan has a new member that they wanted to introduce.”

“Where?” Omega asked confusedly, “It’s just them.”

Mereel laughed quietly, and tilted his head, “The ik’aad, Om’ika.”

“Ah,” Tech said, understanding what had happened. “They have a tubie in the bundle.”

Understanding settled across the faces of the other clones and Echo and Hunter nodded.

“A tubie?” Ryle asked, tilting his head as his brows furrowed.

“A tubie,” Tech confirmed, “I believe…that the nat-born term is a ‘newborn’?”

Doma gave Mereel a slightly confused look and Mereel glanced down at his adoptive bu’ade. “This is clone terminology?” he asked.

“Yes,” Tech informed him, “A tubie is a clone who has either yet to be decanted or has been decanted recently. For this one to be so small means it would have been decanted recently, no?”

This time Mereel let out a genuine laugh and reached down to put his hand on top of Tech’s head. Tech allowed it because Mereel did not appear to be intending to ruffle up his hair. “In Basic they’re called babies, and for us ik’aad, like I said. They stay small for a while, but you're right, this one is a newborn. She was born last night.”

Tech nodded again. Definitely still a tubie then, if it was less than one day old. Doma looked up at Mereel, a question in their green eyes that Tech couldn’t decipher. Jango was grinning, when Tech looked, and Mereel nodded back at Doma, who subsequently stepped up to Mereel and the clones and knelt down, tilting the bundle in their arms carefully as they pulled part of the blanket away to reveal the tubie’s little face. Tech and his siblings and Captain Howzer all leaned forward a little to look at the tubie. Tech didn’t know about Echo and Captain Howzer, but he and his brothers had never been to the decanting rooms or the nursery. Those places were always full of Kaminoans and regs and they hadn’t felt safe when surrounded like that.

Thus Tech examined what he could see of the tubie with curiosity. It was littler than he’d expected and it’s skin was a more red color than he’d seen on a human before, with the exception of the times when one of them had gotten a sunburn. It’s face also had a slightly squashed quality to it and it’s hair was light colored as well as thin and wispy. When the tubie opened its eyes and looked at them, its eyes were a very light blue. Curiously Tech glanced up at the two adult Mandos. Both had light skin, but neither of them had blond hair or blue eyes. Doma’s eyes were green and their hair was auburn while Ryle had brown eyes and brown hair.

“You must both have a set of recessive genes for it to have blue eyes and blond hair,” Tech observed, much to the confusion of his siblings.

Doma laughed and Ryle smiled, “My hair was blond when I was a baby and my eyes were blue. They’ll darken as she gets older I’m sure,” Ryle told them.

“They change color?” Wrecker asked, his voice surprised.

“Sometimes when babies are first born they don’t have all the melanin they’ll have later on and they have to develop it over time. Not all babies are like that, but some are,” Doma explained patiently, “Would one of you like to hold her?”

Omega’s eyes lit up and she nodded vigorously, “I held a tubie once!” She exclaimed, probably referring to Crosshair, Tech figured, “So I know how.”

Mereel and Doma both laughed and Doma leaned a little closer and then held the bundle containing the tubie out carefully. Omega stepped forward to meet them and then took it with just as much care as she cradled it the same way Doma had been. She smiled down at it and then crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out. To Tech’s surprise, the tubie let out a burbling giggle. Omega grinned and then made another face, which elicited a second giggle.

Wrecker was the first of them other than Omega to unfreeze and come closer to see the tubie. He glanced at Omega for a second and then down at the tubie before using his fingers to pull his lower eyelids down and then stuck out his tongue much like Omega had. The tubie let out a peel of giggles and Wrecker grinned triumphantly. “You wanna hold her?” Omega asked him and Wrecker nodded. Their little big sister grinned at him and then instructed him how to hold his arms as she carefully transferred the tubie. Wrecker cradled it like it was made of glass as he looked down at it with wonder in his eyes. After a second Wrecker knelt down next to Crosshair and let Pup see the tubie. The massiff tilted her head and sniffed at it with interest before giving it a careful lick on the cheek, which made the tubie squeal with delight.

“Her name is Moi,” Ryle told them with a smile.

“How do you know that?” Wrecker asked him curiously, much to the confusion of all the adults present.

“We named her?” Doma responded in a confused voice.

“She doesn’t name herself?” Hunter asked, equally confused.

“Names are usually given by one’s parents when a person is first born, Hunt’ika,” Mereel explained jovially, “It’s a gift from the parents to the child.”

“Oh,” Hunter said a little lamely.

“What if they don’t like the name?” Echo asked next.

“There’s a way for them to change it on official records once they’re an adult if they really don’t like it or if it turns out they want to transition,” Mereel explained further, “But most people keep the name they’re given when they’re born.”

“Why that name?” Captain Howzer asked as Wrecker stood back up and offered him the tubie to hold. Hesitantly the captain accepted the tubie once Omega and Wrecker told him how to hold it. “It’s not a Mando’a word…usually for us a name gets picked because of something we do or a quality of ours…although sometimes it gets picked for other reasons, like mine. One of my trainers said I reminded him of an old friend he had named Howzer…so that’s my name now.”

“It was my mother’s name,” Doma explained, “Sometimes names are passed down in a family line to honor one’s ancestors. Moi is a name that’s been in my clan for centuries.”

“I like that!” Omega said as she watched Howzer hold the tubie. Of course then it was passed to Echo, who had to adapt the hold position a little to work with his scomp, given he only had one hand, and then once Echo had decided he had held it long enough he coaxed Hunter into holding it. Hunter made a confused face once he had the tubie in his arms, “It smells different,” he said after a second, “Humans don’t normally smell like that…”

Mereel and the two other Mandos laughed again, “Yep!” Ryle said cheerfully, “She’s got that new baby smell!”

“That’ll wear off,” Doma assured him with a smile.

Hunter looked over at Crosshair and held the tubie out just a little, but Crosshair just flicked his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and said, “Hell no.”

Mereel let out an amused snort and then Hunter looked to Tech instead. After a second of thought where Tech weighed the pros and cons - cons: it might throw up on him or he might accidentally drop it, pros: it was a new experience and a learning opportunity which might be potentially beneficial should they run into a situation in the future wherein Tech was required to hold or protect a tubie - he nodded. Mereel smiled at him encouragingly as Hunter repeated the directions he’d been given for how to hold his arms, unnecessarily given Tech had heard them repeated multiple times now, and then transferred the tubie into Tech’s arms. 

The bundle was heavier than Tech had expected, but then again he was smaller than he used to be and it was often hard to judge how comparatively heavy something was going to be these days. Tech held the tubie to his chest and saw it look up at him with its curious blue eyes.

“Do you know that your name is Moi?” he asked it, largely for lack of anything else to do with it. The tubie looked up at him uncomprehendingly, but he supposed that was alright. It’d understand eventually, when it was old enough. Hesitantly, he shuffled the tubie upwards and tilted his head down to tap his forehead against the tubie’s own tiny forehead. He’d read somewhere that newly decanted tubies needed skin to skin contact, that not having it could cause both physical and mental health problems. Tech had always wondered whether this need was neglected entirely by the Kaminoans due to practicality concerns, given the sheer number of tubies they were always decanting, or if they purposely had somebody go around and touch them all. If they did it was probably a reg they had do it, Tech couldn’t imagine a Kaminoan giving anybody a sign of affection like that, even if it had a practical purpose. 

The tubie’s skin was hotter than Tech’s, which he reasoned was probably due to the greater ratio of surface area to body volume that a small creature has compared to a big creature. Greater surface area meant more heat was lost, which was probably why the tubie was wrapped in the blankets even though it wasn’t cold out. After a second he pulled back and looked down at it again. It was smiling at him, which caused some odd tangle of emotions to pulse in his chest. Tech knew already that he wouldn’t be able to unravel them even if he tried, things like that rarely made sense to him.

“You do not appear to be defective,” Tech assured the tubie, “I believe you are healthy, which is good.”

The three Mandos shared a concerned look and Mereel said, “Tech,” and when Tech looked up at him the man’s expression was solemn but with anger hidden in the corners of it, “ Nobody is defective.”

That was just demonstrably untrue in Tech’s opinion, although he supposed it would be harder for a nat-born to be defective than a clone, given they didn’t have to match a template, but Tech also suspected that Mereel assumed he was making a value judgment by saying such a thing when really he wasn’t. Tech was defective, at least on a technical level, and it didn’t make him less of a person or less valuable, in fact his deviation from the template, the very thing that made him defective in the first place, also added to his value, it made him more useful. So being defective didn’t mean Tech was bad or wrong, it just meant he had to work harder than somebody who wasn’t defective to be seen as acceptable.

Regardless, Tech didn't feel like it was worth arguing with Mereel over the semantics and he simply nodded in acknowledgment. After another second of holding the tubie, Tech offered it back to its parents and Doma accepted it with a smile. “Perhaps,” Ryle said lightly, “When you’re all older, old enough to be verde, you’ll fight side by side.”

“She’ll be brave,” Mereel agreed with a smile, his earlier displeasure apparently gone, “She has strength in her face.”

Doma and Ryle both beamed with pride and nodded. They exchanged a few more words with Mereel, but not long after Tech had returned the tubie, the two of them left and Mereel ushered the seven clones closer. “You did very well,” he praised, “Especially you Tech. It’s important to give ik’aade physical affection and to speak to them, just like it’s important for adiike.”

Tech nodded, “Yes, that is what I have read.”

Mereel smiled at him again. “What do you think of her? Has any of you other than Omega ever held a baby before?”

“I picked up Hera a couple times when she was little,” Howzer supplied, “She was the daughter of the leader one of the groups of people we were helping during the war. She wasn’t a tubie then, but she was pretty little.”

“I can’t speak for the entirety of Echo’s experience,” Tech added, “But the rest of us avoided the areas of the facility that housed the tubies, we felt it would be risky for us to be there and there was no incentive to do so.”

That made Mereel frown and after a second he sighed, “I already know I don’t want to know how that whole operation worked.”

“That is fortunate,” Tech replied, “Given we don’t know that information either.”

“Actually I was on nursery duty a couple times,” Echo told them, “The…the scientists dealt with all the feeding tubes and such, but they had us rotate through duties there so there’d be somebody to hold the tubies and give them attention so they didn’t develop problems. The one we just saw seemed happier than the ones I spent time with there though.”

“Feeding tubes…” Mereel grumbled, familiar anger in his tone, but he shook his head and seemed to put it out of his mind, “I’m glad they didn’t just leave them there and they had somebody paying attention to them.”

“I had not been certain that they did,” Tech agreed, “But I am not surprised, the scientists were concerned with the quality of their product and as such would have been motivated to take measures to ensure the health of the tubies so they weren’t a waste of time and resources.”

“I’m going to need you to stop talking about that, Tech,” Mereel told him with a tired sigh, “or I’m going to have an aneurism.”

“Try not to drop dead in the middle of holding court, old man,” Jango teased, although Tech could tell that there was a stressed quality to the words.

“Ka’ra I’m trying, Jango,” Mereel sighed, kneading his brow for a second before looking back down at the Batch and Howzer, “Regardless, you did good. That was all I needed from you right now, so if you want you can stay here or you can go back to whatever you were doing before I called you.”

“We haven’t finished our homework,” Hunter told him, “So we have to do that before we can do anything else.”

Mereel smiled at him, “If only Jango had been so responsible at your age.”

“Hey!” Jango protested, “I wasn’t that bad! Literally nobody wants to do their homework, Buir, they’re just weird and you know it!”

Mereel laughed and waved them all off, “Sure sure, go finish your homework, Verd’ike, and then come back if you want.”

“Alright,” Hunter said and they excused themselves. 

“So you’ll carry around a puppy but not a tubie?” Captain Howzer teased Crosshair as they walked back towards their spot in the gardens. Pup was trotting along at Crosshair’s heel like always, but when Howzer said the word ‘puppy’ she let out a curious sound.

“The massiff isn’t going to throw up on me,” Crosshair griped as he idly scratched her on the top of the head, making Captain Howzer, Wrecker, and Echo laugh. Tech suspected that was part of it, but he also suspected that Crosshair had been afraid he’d do something wrong, like accidentally dropping it, and had foregone holding it for that reason as well.

They made it back out into the gardens and the sunshine once they’d retrieved their homework and they all sat back down in a nice patch of sun to finish their work. Tech had already completed his, which was always drastically different from the rest of theirs. This time all he’d been required to do was read a paper that compared modern art to the more classical forms and then expound upon its merits in an essay, which of course he’d done in less than twenty minutes. He spent the rest of his time fielding questions from his siblings about their own work wherein he tried to explain concepts without actually giving them the answers to the homework questions they were being asked. Between these questions Tech sat with his face turned up so the sun was shining on him. He felt like a tooka, soaking it up, but it had been cloudy since they’d come back from Concordia and this was the first sunny day in several weeks. 

The sunshine was warm and idly Tech remembered how warm the tubie’s skin had been. He suspected its parents would care for it better than the Kaminoans had ever cared for any of them, but that was a good thing. Maybe the tubie would grow up to be a brave warrior like Mereel had said, but it’d be a long time before that would happen. Not for the first time Tech was flabbergasted by the possibility that if they no longer had their rapid aging they’d be small for years, would grow for years, and would live for decades. He’d never wanted to contemplate their lifespan before, it had always been too grim a subject to waste his energy on, but while he hadn’t yet tested to see if their rapid aging really was gone, he let himself hope that it was, just for a few minutes. He wanted to live a long time, he wanted his siblings to live a long time, the way that tubie probably would. Maybe the universe would at least give them that much, if they were lucky.

Chapter Text

Blackout had originally gone to Coruscant at Rex’s behest to chase down a rumor about the Corries. One minute he’d been in a back alley on the surface searching Fryface’s pack for some stashed credits so they could pay a contact for intel, and the next Blackout woke up sprawled out on the street on one of the lower levels, bathed in the perpetual dusk that was brought on by being so far underground. His first action had been to check on his team, who thankfully were splayed out on the ground with him as if they’d all gone binge drinking and had just passed out in the street. 

The fact that they were all little cadets was so weird that Blackout immediately classified it as Jedi osik, the only explanation that he could think of even if he didn’t know how it could have happened. Whatever that silver ball he’d found in Fryface’s pack in lieu of credits was, it had to be some kind of Jedi thing, because Fryface definitely hadn’t had it before that very moment. Regardless, he dismissed it. Weirder things had happened during the war due to Jedi nonsense and Blackout would just have to run with it until they could figure out a way to reverse it.

So he’d woken up his team, who had all been groggy and confused, but recovered quickly. Blackout wouldn’t let this hiccup sideline their mission, so he called the contact he’d just been about to pay, only for the call to never connect. He swore, but then decided that they should regroup in the location they’d been staying at, an abandoned factory on level ten, and figure out what to do next.

Of course when they went to the factory they found it very much not abandoned, which made no sense at all. Blackout swore again and then decided that finding a new place to camp out had to be their highest priority until they could work out what had happened. When they made it back to the surface they found Coruscant similar, but not the same.  Some of the buildings were missing entirely, the skyline a subtly different shape, and Blackout had no explanation for that shit at all. He was tempted to call Rex, but they’d been told to maintain radio silence as long as possible given most transmissions on Coruscant were tracked by the Empire, communicating was a dangerous game when it might lead the enemy straight to Rex’s base. 

They couldn’t risk it.

Blackout and his team went back down to the lower levels, casing the area for some place for them to set up shop until they could get back on track. Eventually they found a store that was long since abandoned, its front windows completely boarded up. Blackout, Shark, and Spark stood guard while Boxer, Fryface, and Jinx busted the front door open so they could all check the building out and make sure it really was secure.

“Clear, Commander,” Fryface reported over comms. Blackout gave him an acknowledgment and had the rest of his team leave their positions, the three of them hidden unobtrusively in the shadows of the surrounding buildings, their gray armor helping them become invisible in the gloom. The store was a hovel of course, anything abandoned for years always was, but it’d serve for now. 

For the next several weeks they went on scouting missions into the various areas of Coruscant, cataloging all the differences. It was Shark who figured out they’d gone back in time. He’d sliced into the planet’s digital security, looking for the imperial facilities and patrols that had thus far been completely absent, only to find that the security was not only far more lax than they’d ever seen it, but that it was actually complete and utter trash. There was no sign of the Empire having ever existed as well and Shark suggested the harebrained theory while the six of them were sitting in a circle in their temporary hideout, trying to brainstorm ideas for what the hell could be going on.

All of them had laughed at Shark’s absurd idea, except for Blackout, because the more he thought about it the more that became the only thing that would explain everything they’d seen. “Check the holonet,” he ordered Shark, “The current date shouldn’t be too hard for you to pin down.” Shark did as he was told and then showed Blackout the screen of his datapad, which displayed in no uncertain terms that they were a whole thirty five karking years in the past.

“Fuuuuuck,” Boxer said while Blackout just sighed. 

“What the hell do we do now?” Jinx asked, scowling down at the cracked duracrete floor they were all seated on. 

“Survive,” Blackout told them, “Until we can find a way to get back.”

“Should we ask the Jedi?” Spark asked hesitantly. “They’re alive right?”

Blackout shook his head, “We can’t do anything that might cause a problem, what if we accidentally erase ourselves from existence or something?”

“Can that happen?” Spark gasped.

“No idea,” Blackout told him honestly, “But if it can I’d rather avoid it.”

“The Jedi are going to be the only ones who would be able to send us back though…” Shark pointed out.

“We don’t have to talk to them, we just have to get access to the Archives,” was Blackout’s response. “Surely they’ll have something about this kind of thing in their records.”

They did not.

Blackout and his team broke into the Jedi Temple in the dead of night, seen by nobody and without having to stun or otherwise incapacitate any of the Jedi, and found to their dismay that even after searching the Jedi Archives top to bottom there was no ghost of a shadow of a hint of anything related to time travel. They snuck back out as silently and invisibly as they’d snuck in, but it was with an air of defeat.

For a few weeks they just coasted, committing petty theft to feed themselves and brainstorming ideas that ultimately led nowhere. They were stranded over thirty years in the past with no way home and no idea of how they’d gotten there in the first place, they might be stuck forever, how does one handle that kind of situation?

Of course it was Rex who ended up solving their problem, because he just suddenly called Blackout out of the blue in the middle of the day.

Rex gave them a direction, a mission: make it to Melida/Daan to provide assistance. That they could do, and if all the clones were being dragged back in time, then getting back to their original time didn’t really matter did it? There had been nothing for them in their time but each other, so if the rest of the clones were all being pulled back with them they had no reason to fret over their situation at all did they?

So first things first: getting off of Coruscant. If they’d been in their own time it wouldn’t have been a task at all, they had after all come there in their own ship, but now that ship was gone, which meant they needed to acquire a new one. The six of them packed up all their stuff, put their gear on, and then headed for the surface as soon as night fell. 

Even though Fryface still had the credits they had stashed, nobody was going to rent out a speeder to a gaggle of teens and children. After all, Blackout, their oldest, didn't look a day over thirteen and their youngest, Spark, looked like a goddamn little kid. If they tried to rent a speeder they’d probably end up getting the security forces called on them to be ‘sent back to their parents’ at best and more likely than that somebody would try to sell them to slavers. Coruscant was a cesspit after all.

Thus theft was their only avenue, not that Blackout was particularly bothered by that. If it meant he could complete a mission he’d have stolen General Yoda’s gimer stick out from under his wrinkly old claws. So acquiring a speeder wasn’t hard, all they had to do was hang out in the shadow of an alley in the bustling downtown area, with its kitschy tourist attractions and restaurants, and then when they saw somebody park a speeder Jinx slunk out of their hiding spot, picked the owner’s pocket, then slipped back into cover with his brothers, brandishing the keys.

It was Boxer who piloted the speeder once the six of them had all loaded up into it, he and Shark tended to trade off who piloted any given vehicle, since both of them were good pilots. Without any fuss or muss the six of them were in the sky speeding towards the spaceport. They ditched the speeder when they were done with it, leaving the keys on the seat. Somebody would steal it and make a few credits before long, not that it mattered any to Blackout.

The spaceport was more of a challenge, there were members of the Coruscant Security Forces stationed here and there to make everyone behave and prevent the exact sort of thing Blackout and his brothers planned to do.

“What do you think, Commander?” Boxer asked wryly, “Front door or back?”

Blackout considered that for a moment, surveying what he could see of the port with macrobinoculars from their vantage point up on the top of a roof that overlooked it. “Neither,” he decided after a moment, “We’re pretty lanky these days, I bet we could fit in the vents.”

His brothers laughed quietly, “Sure sure,” Jinx agreed, “But if anybody’s gonna get stuck it’s you, boss, you’re the biggest.”

“I’ll manage,” Blackout replied calmly as he stowed the binocs and he gestured for them to follow him back to the ground. It took a little surreptitious scouting to find a vent that they could pull open and climb into, but Blackout had been right, they were small enough, even him. They made it through the maze of vents quickly but quietly. Every now and then Blackout had Fryface flick down his rangefinder, using the infrared setting to mark where they were in relation to the security officers as they peaked out through the grates that covered the entrance to each shaft. 

It took multiple stops and checks before they made it to a point where Blackout felt it was safe to exit. He dropped out and down to the ground first, silent as a cat’s paw, and then gestured for his brothers to follow. Fryface dropped down beside him a second later, equally quiet, followed by the rest, with Spark dropping down last, leery of what to his little ten year old body looked like a long drop.

From there they curled between the looming silhouettes of parked ships like smoke, silent and invisible as they kept to the shadows, relying on their armor to disguise them in the dark. “There,” Blackout said quietly, indicating a ship that sat at the end of the platform. It was a small shuttle, one with little in the way of guns, but would at least be fast and quiet. It was out of the immediate sight lines of the security officers and Blackout dashed across the gap between the ship they’d been lurking behind and the one he had chosen. 

Shark was the second of the six to hurry over to their target ship and as soon as he had, he plugged his datapad into the control panel next to the ship’s closed ramp, slicing into the mechanism to lower it.

One at a time the rest of Blackout’s brothers followed them, waiting for an opening when nobody in the port was looking in their direction and then dashing across. Again Spark was last and Blackout signed for him to wait as a security officer walked past on his patrol, then once the coast was clear Blackout gave him the go sign and Spark scurried over to them as fast as his little baby legs could take him. He wasn’t a shiny anymore, hadn’t been for a long time, but he’d always be the baby in their squad, now he just looked the part.

“Got it,” Shark whispered as the panel beeped and the ramp let out a hiss as it lowered to the ground. All six stealth troopers hurried up the ramp and Shark quickly closed it behind them, then he made his way to the cockpit and took the pilot’s chair. Blackout sat down in the copilot’s chair while Shark started the ship’s engines and lifted them off the ground.

There was a span of anxious silence as they rose through the sky and escaped the atmosphere into space, but when nobody came after them the clones all let out a relieved breath.

“How far is Melida/Daan?” Spark asked curiously as Shark pulled up the navicomputer.

“It’s in the Cavadine sector,” Shark told him as he plotted a course, “the whole-ass other side of the galaxy pretty much, so about a week and a half if nothing goes horribly terribly wrong.”

“So longer than a week and a half,” Jinx teased.

“I know you’re obligated to jinx it,” Blackout said in a dry voice, “But don’t.” 

***

Of course Jinx was right, Jinx was always right. Things went smoothly for five days while the six of them played sabacc, napped, maintained their equipment, and sparred to pass the time. On day six everything was normal until suddenly there was a jolt in the middle of the night cycle. 

The shuttle had a bunk room with four bunks, which the four lower ranking of Blackout’s team slept in while he and Fryface slept in the pilot and copilot’s chairs, so when they suddenly dropped out of hyperspace to the sound of something in the shuttle's engines rattling threateningly, Blackout was there in time to turn said engines off before whatever was wrong with them blew up the entire ship.

For a moment they sat dead in space, both Blackout and Fryface silent, then their brothers piled into the cockpit, “We about to die?” asked Spark, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Might have been for a second,” Blackout supplied in a bland voice, “if we left the engines on we’d probably be tasting plasma before long, but I shut them off.” Fryface nodded along, reticent as ever.

“Great,” Shark sighed, “I’ll go take a look I guess. Boxer, help me out.”

“Sure, vod,” Boxer agreed easily. Even though he hadn’t asked for them, the rest of them trailed after their two brothers and waited anxiously as they both dropped down through the maintenance hatch in the floor and started digging around in the shuttle’s innards.

“Jinx jinxed it for sure,” Shark said after a second as he popped his head back up out of the hatch, “She’s slag, dead in the water, we need to make a distress call, boss.”

“And what? Get karking kidnapped?” Jinx huffed.

“Take a lesson from Fryface and stop talking, Jinx,” Boxer said irritably.

“If we make a distress call and somebody finds us then we’ll have to steal their ship,” Blackout told his brothers calmly, “if they’re nice we’ll drop them off somewhere inhabited and if they’re not we’ll kill them.”

“Good enough for me,” Shark sighed as he pulled himself back out of the hatch onto the deck and then gave Boxer a hand up. “I’ll go set out a distress beacon.”

Blackout got out of Shark’s way as the trooper headed back to the cockpit. Fryface gave Blackout a dry look and Blackout rolled his eyes. “You worry too much,” he told his second in command.

Fryface just raised his eyebrow skeptically. Brat.

Not five minutes later Shark announced “Distress beacon deployed.”

“Sabacc anybody?” Jinx asked jovially.

“Food then sabacc,” Blackout chided as he walked across the deck and into the shuttle’s tiny galley. It wasn’t well stocked exactly, but it was stocked. They’d be alright for a few days.

“We’re not going to have to eat each other are we?” Jinx asked as Blackout pulled all the various rations and food supplies out and laid them out on the tiny little table.

“Maker shut up, Jinx!” Shark hissed, exasperated.

“Not it,” Spark said quickly.

“Not it!” Boxer agreed.

“If we have to eat anybody I vote we eat Jinx,” Shark grumbled, “This is his fault.”

“Is not,” Jinx complained, “I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re existence is bad luck, you broke the engine just by being within ten klicks of it,” Shark shot back.

“If we have to eat somebody we’ll each give up an arm,” Blackout told them seriously, ending the argument more because it would escalate if he didn’t than because he felt they actually were going to have to resort to cannibalism.

“Jinx first though,” Shark pressed. 

“Fair’s fair,” Blackout agreed and Jinx whined loudly and dramatically.

Fortunately for the time being they did have food and Blackout handed each of his brothers a dry ration pack. When they had first opened one of the ration packs a few hours after stealing the ship they’d all been surprised to find it full of little pouches, but after reading the instructions on the various pouches they managed to rehydrate the food and all six of them had been delighted by the nat-born rations. They were way better than the GAR rations. Now they all knew how to rehydrate and heat the various pouches and once they’d eaten they settled back in to play sabacc as they waited for either rescue or scavengers to arrive.

It took thirteen hours, by Blackout’s count, before a ship dropped out of hyperspace nearby and hailed them.

“Hello friends!” said the jovial voice over the comm line, “You are in distress no? We will board you, help you out, and then take a tiny fee in return for our kindness.”

“Pirates,” Blackout told his men blandly from the pilot’s chair and they all nodded.

“Figures,” Boxer said with a sigh.

“We’ll wait for you to board,” Blackout replied over the comms, not lying exactly, just not pointing out that it was them who’d be stealing something valuable and not the pirates.

“Very good! Very good!” the pirate replied cheerfully and then ended the communication.

Blackout stood from the pilot's chair and faced his brothers, “Bait and switch,” he told them and they all nodded and found positions to hide.

The pirate ship, which was a fairly small gunship that look battered but still in good working shape, approached them silently and then docked, connecting to the small port in the airlock of Blackout’s stolen shuttle. His team waited in silence as the port was connected to the one on the pirate gunship and then it was opened and a band of Weequay crossed over, all armed and grinning. At the head of the group was one Blackout would have guessed was around seventeen or eighteen, but more importantly the clone commander recognized him. Hondo Ohnaka, the pirate that had repeatedly given GAR forces trouble during the war, General Kenobi especially. 

Blackout’s team waited in silence in their hiding places while Ohnaka called out “Hello? We are here to help you!”

When he got no response he turned to his crew mates and said, “Search the ship.” They nodded and split off into groups to search the galley, bunkroom, and cockpit. Ohnaka stayed in the cargo hold, waiting with a pleasant expression on his face. Fryface flashed a hand sign at Blackout, who shook his head. His second had asked if they were using lethal force, and Blackout decided that it might be unwise when Ohnaka was ostensibly rather an important historical figure.

Blackout made the go sign once Ohnaka was the only one in the cargo hold with them and all six of them broke cover at once. Ohnaka opened his mouth in surprise, probably about to call for his crew, as he raised his blaster rifle, but Blackout was fast and he closed the distance, twisted Ohnaka’s rifle out of his hands, then kneed him in the gut as hard as he possibly could with his little thirteen year old body.

Ohnaka’s breath left him in a whoosh and he dropped to his knees as Blackout bolted past him and his brothers followed, running through the docking bridge and onto Ohnaka’s ship. Unfortunately Ohnaka was quicker to recover than Blackout had expected and the clones heard him shout for his crew. “Get to the cockpit,” Blackout told Shark and Boxer, “We need to release the docking port.” His brothers nodded and hurried down the halls of the gunship while the rest of them stayed and pointed their guns at the docking port that was still connected to the now pirate filled shuttle.

Said pirates appeared on the docking bridge a moment later, their weapons up, only to be met with Blackout’s team holding them at gunpoint.

Ohnaka pushed past his crew members, his rifle hanging loosely at his side. “We didn’t mean to scare you, little ones,” the pirate said in a voice obviously meant for children. Blackout and his men didn’t react and Ohnaka cocked his head, “Where are your parents? You were the only ones on the shuttle weren’t you? You know we could bring you back to them for a tiny fee!”

Blackout rolled his eyes, although it wouldn’t be visible with his helmet on. Ohnaka was known for being in the kidnapping and ransom business and he probably expected that parents would pay a lot for their children, only clones didn’t have parents.

“Put your weapons down,” Blackout told them calmly, “or we’ll fill you full of holes.”

Several of the pirates snarled, but Ohnaka waved them off. “No need for hostilities,” the pirate captain said, “Lower your rifles, gentlemen, then these fine young boys can lower their rifles and we can have a good chat.”

The pirates hesitated, then did as they were told. Blackout’s team didn’t lower their weapons in turn.

“Come now,” Ohnaka said, “We can be civil.”

“Commander,” came Shark’s voice over Blackout’s comms, “We’ve got a situation.”

“Report,” Blackout replied and Shark went on.

“Another ship just dropped out of hyperspace,” Shark supplied, “a frigate, bristling with guns, they just gave us a surrender or die ultimatum, my guess is even more pirates.”

“Friends of yours?” Blackout asked Ohnaka dryly, but the Weequay shook his head.

“You know,” Ohnaka said, “You seem like competent kids, maybe we could pull a trick on them. You want a ship, yes? Your ship is broken, so if we get the frigate, you can have this one free of charge, a favor for a favor, yes?”

Blackout considered that, he knew from the reports of General Kenobi’s multiple dealings with Ohnaka that the pirate was both a liar and a man with a sense of honor and fair play, he’d rip you off, but he wouldn’t backstab you so much that you couldn’t recover from it. Blackout spent a moment thinking over whether they could deal with a large force of pirates by themselves and decided that they probably could, but it would be hard to do while also having to deal with Ohnaka’s men being hostile.

“Deal,” he eventually said, lowering his weapon, much to the surprise of his brothers.

“He’s a liar, Commander,” Spark said, still pointing his weapon at the pirates just like Jinx and Fryface were.

Ohnaka put his hand to his chest as if aghast, “I would not lie to young children!” He protested, “This is a good deal, you see that, Commander…” he paused and Blackout considered for a second before saying anything.

“Commander Blackout,” he responded calmly after a moment.

If Ohnaka felt his name was strange he made no show of it, “Young Commander Blackout,” he finished, “You seem sharp, you know a good deal when you hear it.”

Again Blackout considered the situation. Ohnaka was a liar, yes, but if what he wanted was the frigate and all the cargo that was likely to be on it, a definite step up from the gunship he had, then he had little reason to backstab Blackout and his vode.

“You can keep all the cargo in both ships, except for enough food to last us two weeks, and you can keep the frigate if we get this one,” Blackout decided after a moment.

A cheerful smile lit up Ohnaka’s face, “I knew you were a smart young man! A very good deal I think, since we both walk away happy!” Blackout nodded and gestured for his brothers to lower their weapons.

“You sure about this, Commander?” Jinx asked, his voice quiet.

“If he backstabs us then we’ll kill him,” Blackout replied blandly.

Ohnaka gave them a winsome smile, “That will not be necessary,” the pirate assured them. “We’re friends now, I do not backstab my friends.”

Blackout rolled his eyes again, knowing that Ohnaka had a reputation for backstabbing anybody if he thought there was something in it for him. 

“We don’t have parents,” Blackout told him as an afterthought, “Nobody will give you a ransom for us.”

A small frown crossed the pirate captain’s face, “You are all orphans?”

“We’re brothers,” Blackout told him, “and we have no parents.” It wasn’t a lie and he could see Ohnaka believed him. He continued to frown for a second and then let out a huff.

“Well Hondo Ohnaka is always there to help the needy,” Ohnaka said in a way that was almost earnest.

Blackout snorted and then commed Shark, “Are they docking with us?”

“They’ve ordered us to release the port from the shuttle so they can dock with us,” Shark replied, “I think they might blow us up if we refuse.”

“Can’t have that,” Blackout said, “Do it, we’re going to help Ohnaka steal their ship so we can have this one.”

“That sounds like an awful plan,” Shark grumbled, but then said, “Yes, Commander, releasing the docking port now.”

The Weequay pirates took that as an indication to scurry the rest of the way across the bridge before they ended up sucked out into space and they just made it as the port closed and the ships seperated with a hiss.

“Docking port released, their ship is coming around now,” Shark reported.

Blackout gave both his team and the pirates a rundown of what they were going to do and while the pirates looked to Ohnaka for confirmation, Ohnaka just chuckled and said, “A gallant plan! I knew you were wily kids.”

So they pulled the same shit they had before, all hiding and waiting for the larger ship to dock with them. Boxer and Shark stayed in the cockpit, intent on ensuring that nobody took the gunship out from under them. There was a span of silence and then the docking port opened and a group of new pirates crossed the bridge. Blackout waited until they had walked away from the port and further into the gunship’s hold before he gave his brothers and Ohnaka’s pirates the signal. As one they all broke cover and caught the new pirates in a hail of blaster bolts. Once all of them were dead Blackout led the way across the docking bridge onto the enemy ship.

From there, Ohnaka’s men and Blackout’s team split up, with the pirates intent on securing the stern of the frigate while Blackout’s team took care of the bow. That had been a purposeful decision on Blackout’s part, because he didn’t trust Ohnaka not to try and pull some trickery if he was allowed to take the bridge.

The four stealth troopers leaned into their training, stalking silently through the ship and using the vent systems to ambush its crew from behind before gunning them down or stabbing them to death. It took a lot of repetition as they cleared each hallway, but when they made it to just outside the bridge they stopped and Blackout gestured again to a vent in the wall and his brothers nodded. Like they had before, the group of clones climbed into the vent and made their way silently upwards, then dropped down into the middle of the bridge and opened fire on the pirates manning the various stations as well as the captain standing in the center. With the element of surprise on their side they cleared the room in less than a minute.

“We’ve captured the bridge,” Blackout reported to both Shark and Boxer and to Ohnaka.

“Splendid!” came the pirate captain’s reply, “we have cleared out the stern, your crafty little plan caught them all by surprise!”

Of course it had, no pirate ever expected their prey to board their ship in return and take it over, especially when the prey was obviously and severely outnumbered.

“We are headed to the bridge,” Ohnaka informed them and Blackout gave him an acknowledgment.

When the pirates made it to the bridge they looked around with interest at the carnage and Ohnaka smiled, “Commander Blackout, my friend, you and your brothers are definitely very competent, maybe orphans like yourself would like to join us? We make good money! And we have benefits!”

Spark sniggered into his hand while Jinx laughed outright, “A tempting offer,” Blackout replied blandly, “But we have somewhere to be.”

“A shame,” Ohnaka said, “but we can still be friends. You said we could keep our cargo from both ships?”

Blackout nodded, “We’ll supervise as you load it and then stay on the gunship.”

Ohnaka grinned, “A very good and sound plan, let’s go, we’re burning daylight!”

Given they were in space nowhere near any stars and thus daylight, Blackout took this to be a joke, although he didn’t respond. Instead he and his three brothers escorted the pirates back to the docking port and the gunship and then supervised as they loaded all their crates and various stolen junk onto the big ship.

“A pleasure doing business with you, Commander,” Ohnaka told him wryly once they’d finished. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”

Blackout just nodded and watched them cross the docking bridge one last time, then the port was closed and the two ships separated. Blackout told his team to jettison the dead pirates’ bodies, then when they were finished he made his way to the gunship’s cockpit with his brothers following behind and looked out the view screen at the pirate ship, “Aren't you worried they’ll blow us up?” Jinx asked quietly.

“I’m gambling,” Blackout said, they’d gotten a new ship out of it and Blackout had ensured they had enough rations, water, and fuel to make it to Melida/Daan, so as long as Ohnaka didn’t turn uncharacteristically murderous at the last second they’d probably be okay. Nonetheless the six clones waited in breathless silence until the frigate jumped to hyperspace. Once it was gone all of them let out a sigh. “Alright,” Blackout huffed, “We’re back on track, Shark get us back en route to Melida/Daan.”

“Yes, Commander,” Shark responded as he pulled up the navicomputer and put in the hyperspace coordinates.

A moment later they left realspace and Blackout was able to breathe a little easier. Ohnaka hadn’t felt the need to backstab them because he was getting a demonstrably amazing deal and the clones didn’t have anything he wanted. It had been a gamble, but Blackout was good at gambling.

***

They dropped out of hyperspace in the Cavadine sector a few days later and Blackout commed Rex to ask for exactly where they should bring the ship down. Rex greeted him cheerfully, gave them coordinates for an LZ, and assured them that while the Elders would probably fire on them with anti-air guns, once they got past that to the no man’s land his troops would cover them while they landed in the clones’ makeshift hanger. Boxer piloted them down to the location Rex had given and as they’d been told they were pounded with flak on the way down, but Boxer was a skilled pilot and with Shark in the copilot’s seat they made it down and landed the ship in the open hanger/garage Rex waved them over to from the ground.

Once they’d landed, Boxer cut the engines and the six of them all headed to the ramp so they could meet up with their brothers. Both Rex and Wolffe were waiting for them and the two commanders each gave Blackout a slap on the black.

“You made pretty good time!” Wolffe told him with a grin, “and that’s a nice gunship you swiped, any problems?”

“Nothing important,” Blackout replied blandly as he gave the two commanders a pat on the shoulder. “So how can we help?” he asked and Rex let out a huff, then turned and gestured for them all to follow him. Blackout and his team did, ready for their next mission.

Chapter Text

Hunter didn’t know what was happening, but he knew something was wrong. He knew from the second he woke up, because as he sat up in his bunk and looked around he was met with silence. No sound of his vode breathing quietly in the night, no sound of their hearts beating. Aside from Hunter, the bedroom was empty. Fear raced through his limbs immediately and he jumped down from his bunk to the floor rather than using the ladder to climb down, landing nimbly on his bare feet. 

For a frightened second Hunter stood in the center of the room and tried to think. Where would they have gone? Why hadn’t they told him they were going somewhere? Why had they left him?

After a second of aimless panic Hunter shoved the biting scrabbling emotions down into his chest so he could clear his head. All he had to do was find them, and he was good at finding people. He knew what his vode smelled like without having to find any of their clothes to refamiliarize himself with them, he had long since memorized their scents, so Hunter marched over to the door with more confidence than he actually felt and opened it so he could step out into the hall. 

Something else was wrong, Hunter was certain of it, something about the building he was in, it was recognizably Mereel’s house, but it felt off, too big, too empty, each hallway and room looking almost identical as Hunter walked, following his vode’s scents. It was like being trapped in a labyrinth with only his sense of smell to guide him. 

His vode didn’t smell right either, they smelled afraid, and Hunter could smell that Mereel was with them. Had Mereel done something to scare them? Hunter walked and walked through endless identical halls and rooms, searching and becoming increasingly scared as the journey seemed to be neverending, like somehow Mereel’s house was kilometers wide. 

Hunter eventually ended up in front of a door he didn’t recognize, but he didn’t like the smell that was coming from the room behind. It smelled like antiseptic, like chemicals, and Hunter’s stomach churned, but this was where the scent trail had led and he needed to find his siblings, so he pressed on the control pad and the door slid open with a whoosh.

The room inside was so bright that Hunter had to shield his eyes for a moment until they adjusted. The chemically smell had increased a thousandfold, along with a new smell that made his heart pound. This room smelled like blood, just a trace of it beneath the antiseptic, but it was there, was unmistakable.

Once his eyes adjusted Hunter dropped his hand and looked around, only for his breath to catch in his throat. He sprinted across the room, yelling his brother’s name, as he found Echo hooked into some kind of machine in the wall. He looked horrible, even more sallow and thin and sickly than he had been when they’d first rescued him from the Techno Union. Echo didn’t respond to his name and Hunter was afraid to touch him, but when he made it across the room to stand in front of him he found his brother was completely limp, hanging from tubes and wires that were attached to his cybernetics, that had been shoved down his thoat, and hooked into his abdomen and arms. His eyes were open when Hunter gingerly held Echo’s head in his hands and tilted it up so he could see his brothers face. His eyes were open, but they were blank and empty and somehow Hunter knew intrinsically, on some deep horrible level, that Echo was dead. Even though his heart was beating and he was breathing tiny quiet breaths, he was dead, it was just the flesh and the machine that was left.

A sob shuddered its way out of Hunter’s chest and he buried his face in Echo’s shoulder. All this time he’d sworn he’d protect them and now Echo was gone and he hadn’t even been there when it happened. A noise from behind him jolted Hunter out of his spiraling thoughts and he jerked around, letting go of Echo, only to discover something just as bad. There were enclosure-like tubes built into the wall, ceiling, and floor of the opposite side of the room, two of them, and inside them were more of Hunter’s vode.

It was Omega he saw first, she was kneeling inside one of the clear transparisteel tubes, he knew it was her, even though she looked nothing like herself. Omega looked old, ancient, like the Kaminoans had applied the rapid aging to her at a rate so much higher than everyone else’s, even theirs. Her once soft golden locks had gone thin and gray and they just barely covered a withered scalp and almost skeletal face, her flesh was splotched and sagging and she pressed her spidery hands against the transparisteel separating them.

“Hunter,” she wheezed in a tiny fragile voice, “Don’t…Don’t look…” an almost silent sob shivered out of her and she closed her eyes as thin trails of tears slipped down her almost mummy-like cheeks.

Hunter shook his head, “I don’t understand,” he told her shakily, “What happened, what’s going on?”

“Don’t look,” she repeated, but then there was another noise and Hunter turned his head, only to see exactly what she had to have been warning him about.

Tech and Wrecker were in the second tube, but they…they looked almost like they’d been mutilated and then sewn clumsily back together. Hunter tasted bile as he stumbled over to their tube and stared in horror. Two of their arms were gone, had been removed maybe, and their torsos were stitched together with Wrecker on the left and Tech on the right, their remaining arms had been sewn together at the hands and elbows and their heads had also been stitched together. On top of everything their eyes and mouths had been sewn shut.

Another sob tore itself from Hunter’s throat as he put his hands against the transparisteel and rested his forehead against the tube. He couldn’t reach them to comfort them, even though they must be suffering, they couldn’t even see him, couldn’t even ask him for help. The two of them let out a noise from behind their sewn shut mouths and they clumsily leaned forward to plonk their foreheads against the wall of the tube, like they were trying to be close to him.

“I’m sorry,” Hunter sobbed quietly, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t here, I couldn’t…I couldn’t protect you…”

“Hunter,” old Omega said urgently, “He still has Crosshair…”

A bolt of lightning slammed through Hunter’s body and he straightened back up. Almost on cue there was a scream, long and loud and agonized, like it was shredding apart the owner’s vocal cords. Hunter recognized Crosshair’s voice, Crosshair’s screams.

He didn’t want to leave the others, but he had to save Crosshair if he could, he couldn’t leave him again. Maybe he could stop at least one of them from being…being mutilated, and then he’d break the others out and he’d figure out what to do to help them. He just had to save Crosshair first.

Fueled by terror and blind rage Hunter ran across the room to another door at the back he hadn’t seen earlier, from behind which the scream had come. When he pressed on the pad it didn’t open, it was locked, but Hunter always carried the sheath with his vibroblade on his wrist even when he was out of his armor and he pulled the blade out and slashed apart the locking mechanism. The door slid open and Hunter was slammed with the smell of blood and antiseptics so strong he doubled over and retched.

He might have done it again if not for a second scream that snapped him back to the situation at hand. Hunter dragged himself back upright and ran into the room. It was a lab, just like Nala Se’s secret lab. He knew that sort of space immediately, but the table in the center of the room was occupied. On it lay Crosshair, his tiny body strapped down at the wrists and ankles with his arms over his head and his legs outstretched. He was in the process of being vivisected, with his chest butterflied open and his ribs sawed apart so the totality of his organs were on display. Hunter saw his heart pulsating rapidly and his lungs contracting as he screamed again, an ear-shedding bloodcurdling scream of pain. His eyes were…gone, carved out of his skull completely.

Crosshair wasn’t the only person in the room though, because there was somebody else there too. Mereel. He was standing off to the side, wearing a lab coat over his armor as he stood in front of a workbench and screwed the lid onto a jar that contained Crosshair’s severed eyes floating in formaldehyde. Mereel set the jar down on the desk and then turned, only to startle a little when he saw Hunter. His helmet was off and his expression visible, so Hunter saw the gentle compassionate look on his face.

“It’s not your turn yet, Hunt’ika,” the Mand’alor said in a kind fatherly voice. “I’ll be done with Cross’ika in a half hour maybe and then it’ll be your turn.”

“Wh-what’ve you done?” Hunter whimpered, “W-why are you doing this?”

Mereel let out a cheerful little chuckle and put his hands on his hips, he was soaked up to the elbows in blood and it left handprints on the pristine white of his coat.

“Well you’re interesting,” Mereel explained gently, “I wanted to see how you ticked, if you were really human or just fakes.”

“We’re not fake…” Hunter said in a tiny voice, “You did this for a dumb reason like that?”

The Mando cocked his head to the side, “It’s not a dumb reason,” he said, “You’re supposed to be my bu’ade aren’t you? It’s my responsibility as your ba’buir to take care of you, I have to know how you work to take care of you don’t I?”

Tears slipped down Hunter’s face as he stumbled over to the table where his baby brother lay blind and writhing in agony. “Please,” Hunter whispered, “Stop. Fix him and leave us alone. We’ll—we’ll go somewhere else so you won’t ever have to see us again, just please…please don’t hurt them anymore.”

Mereel let out a sigh through his nose and then strode across the room and knelt down in front of Hunter, somehow the smell of blood and antiseptic was even stronger as it clung to him, but underneath that was the biting smell of the formaldehyde he’d just been playing with. Mereel stroked his blood-drenched fingers through Hunter’s hair, leaving it sticky and clumped in their wake. 

“This is your home, Hunter, you don’t have to go anywhere. Don’t worry, I’m almost done, then it’ll be your turn.”

“No!” Hunter sobbed, “No! Please! Please just let us go! Please stop!”

Mereel gave him a kind gentle smile, “You don’t need to be afraid, Hunt’ika, I love you. I would never hurt any of you. I’m doing this for your own good.”

Behind them Crosshair let out one last gurgling agonized scream and Hunter jerked awake. 

Their bedroom was dark and Hunter sat in his bunk and sobbed silently, but even then he strained his ears, listening, and when he found the sound of his vode’s calm even breaths, their slow sleepy heartbeats, he felt like he should feel better and tried to stifle his tears. He had to check. He had to, so Hunter climbed out of his bunk and peaked through the dark into Wrecker’s bunk below his own. Wrecker was laying on his back, snoring. It was dark and Hunter couldn’t see his brother’s face clearly, so he reached out and touched his face, skimming his fingers over Wrecker’s closed eyes until he reached the edge of his open mouth. There were no stitches and when he turned he could see Tech was also in his own bunk, across the room from Wrecker rather than sewn to his body. 

Hunter let out a shivering breath and then went to check on Crosshair and Omega. They smelled normal, looked normal from what he could see, there was no blood, Omega’s cheeks were full and round and her little face still looked as young as it should. Crosshair wasn’t making any sort of pained noises and there was no scent of pain as he lay half buried under both Omega and Pup. Lastly Hunter went to check on Echo, who was also sleeping peacefully, his breaths deep and even, nothing like the tiny weak inhales he’d been making in…in Hunter’s nightmare. It had been a nightmare, just a dream. His vode were fine.

Just to be sure Hunter also checked Howzer and found the Captain facedown in his bunk, his arm hanging over the side while his chest rose and fell. Also fine but dead asleep. Hunter ended up sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, trying to stifle another round of sobs, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to do it, so he bit his lower lip to keep himself quiet and then hurried over to the door and let himself out into the hallway.

That looked normal too, none of the eerie or distorted quality it had had in the dream, and Hunter ran down it, looking for someplace he could hide and cry. Eventually he ended up in the library, it was empty, with all its floor to ceiling shelves creating an almost enclosed atmosphere in the dark that made Hunter feel a little safer. He wove his way between the plush chairs and wooden desks, then curled up in the corner, under a small table, and finally let himself cry, his sobs echoing in the empty dark room.

He cried and cried and cried until he felt tired, but he was afraid to go back to their room, afraid his brothers wouldn’t be there anymore or at the very least that if he went back to sleep he’d have another nightmare. He was still trying to decide what to do when the lights suddenly flicked on. Hunter let out a hiss and flung his arm up to cover his eyes. He heard some footsteps and then a familiar voice called “Hello? I heard somebody crying in here, are you okay?”

Hunter tucked himself a little further into his hiding spot, humiliated and hoping Jango wouldn’t find him, but unfortunately Hunter had never had good luck and when Jango had walked around the room aimlessly he came to stop in front of the table Hunter was under before ducking down to see.

“Oh,” he said quietly, “It’s you, I was expecting…well I actually don’t know who I was expecting.”

Hunter had curled up with his knees to his chest while he had cried and was still in that position, but he tucked his chin against his knees, looking away, shamefaced.

Jango let out a sigh and sat down on the floor, but made no attempt to reach under the table or to get Hunter to come out.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Jango asked him patiently.

Hunter grimaced and pressed his face into his knees, wrapping his arms around his head so he didn’t have to see or smell Jango and so his hearing was a little bit muffled, hiding because he was humiliated and still shaken.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jango said dryly.

There was a long moment of silence where neither of them said anything, but when it went on too long Hunter looked up and realized Jango had pulled a book from one of the shelves and was sitting crosslegged with it open in his lap, reading silently. 

He wasn’t going to interrogate Hunter, he wasn’t going to demand to know what his nightmare had been about or offer him meaningless unhelpful platitudes like ‘it wasn’t real’, instead he was just silently keeping him company, offering his body as something of a shield between Hunter and the rest of the world, but without blocking Hunter’s only exit.

“Mereel…” Hunter said quietly, the name just slipping out of his mouth.

Jango looked up from the book at him, frowning slightly, but he didn’t say anything and just waited for Hunter to either continue or think better of it.

“Does…” Hunter forced himself to ask, “Does Mereel…is he interested in…in science?”

For a moment a confused look crossed Jango’s face, before a flash of realization whipped across his expression, followed by horror, only to land on resignation. “No,” Jango told him, “Buir’s a history nerd. He’s never been good at science or math honestly, trying to get help from him with my homework when I was your age was totally hopeless. He got more questions wrong than I did. I think he might actually have that one disorder, the one that’s like dyslexia but for numbers, he couldn’t turn a list of ingredients into a chemical formula if it killed him.”

Hunter listened carefully to Jango’s explanation, paying attention to his heartrate, his breathing, and how he smelled, but Jango wasn’t lying, Hunter could tell he was being honest, and he wasn’t babying Hunter either, when he spoke it was matter of factly and without condescension. Hunter could only let out a sigh and wipe his face with the sleeve of his pajama shirt. 

“I’m being stupid,” he grumbled, but Jango shook his head.

“Everybody has nightmares, Hunter,” the Prime replied in an honest voice, “And everybody is afraid of the things in them, even if they’re not real. The fear is real and you’re allowed to feel it.”

Hunter rested his chin back on his knees, but didn’t say anything.

“Wanna raid the kitchen?” Jango asked him, a mischievous smile on his face, “Food always makes me feel better personally and I’m guessing you don’t want to go back to sleep right away.”

Hunter looked up at Jango for a moment, examining the earnest expression on the teen’s face, trying to understand the honesty in it, but after a second he just nodded.

Jango got up and put his book back while Hunter came out from under the table.

“What should we look for in the kitchen?” Jango asked him as they started towards the library door.

Hunter shook himself out, trying to shake off the remaining fear and pain and sadness from the nightmare, reminding himself that his vode were okay, that he’d checked on them and they were fine, before looking back up at Jango and saying, “Uj cake.”

Jango laughed, “Sure, we always have some of that around, Buir is obsessed with it.”

Thinking of Mereel made Hunter nervous, but he reminded himself of what Jango had said, Mereel wasn’t a scientist, he wouldn’t do the things Nala Se had done, he wouldn’t be interested in doing that. In the dream, Mereel’s familiar gentle mannerisms had only made everything scarier, but now reflecting on it Hunter remembered how protective Mereel was, how angry he’d been about what Rampart had done. Somebody like that wouldn’t hurt them, Hunter was pretty sure of that, more sure than he’d ever been with any other nat-born even if he wasn’t 100% certain. If Mereel hurt them it would be by mistake, he wouldn’t experiment on them to figure out how they worked, he wouldn’t torture them to ‘toughen them up’, if anything he was babying them like mad.

Hunter reminded himself of all that as he followed Jango out of the library towards the kitchen, it was fake, it was a dream, and Mereel wasn’t like the Cuy’val Dar or like Nala Se. He was a different sort of person, like Howzer, like Rex, like Cody.

They were safe. They were safe.

Chapter Text

Stitch had always worried about his brothers. He was, essentially, trapped in the medbay in the Coruscant Guard headquarters after all. He ran the whole medical facility, which meant that he rarely ever left the base. The only time he made it out was when there was a major emergency and his skills were needed, but even in those cases he usually was passed up to go for somebody with fewer responsibilities. His place was in the medbay, so he couldn’t help his brothers unless somebody brought them in or they came on their own. 

He tried to make up for it by being proactive, by trying to prevent problems before they occurred. Commander Fox was his most pressing concern much of the time. There were troopers who didn’t take care of themselves and Stitch hassled them when he could, but Fox was the worst of the lot, something that was exacerbated by the amount of responsibility Fox had to deal with and by his god-awful personality.

A lot of the time Stitch felt like dealing with the commander of their legion was at least 60% of his workload, because the man never slept, rarely ate, and worked himself into the ground on a good day. It was absolutely infuriating.

Fortunately Fox had learned that Stitch would gut him if he came and asked for stims instead of sleeping, but unfortunately, rather than just going the fuck to bed, the commander instead drank his weight in caf and Stitch was left constantly having to take it away from him before he ODed on caffeine and karking died.

So Fox was a work in progress, had been for the entire time Stitch had known him, which was years. Then the Order happened, Order 66, and their whole world got turned upside down. Stitch was gone and in his place was a droid made of his body. He had the wherewithal to feel wrong when he was ordered not to help somebody, when he was told it wasn’t worth his time and that he should just let them die. Something inside him, something deep and angry that was caged in his heart, screamed with fury when he was supposed to let somebody die. Fought and shrieked and clawed at him until he could barely think about anything else but how wrong he felt. 

He marginally did as he was told, but somehow he knew he wasn’t doing his job right, that something was wrong with him. He didn’t know what it was, didn’t know how to fix it, so he tried to ignore it and follow orders. When Commander Fox, or at least the man that had used to be called by that name, was killed, Stitch didn’t find out until a day later. The commander was never brought to the medbay, he’d been killed by Lord Vader, so nobody had bothered to help him. They’d just let him die. When he heard the news, Stitch felt like he was the one who was dying. He felt like somebody had reached into his chest and ripped his heart out, ripped it apart right in front of him, and then had left him there empty and bleeding out just like they’d left the commander. He didn’t know why he felt that way, Lord Vader was perfectly within his rights to kill him, Commander Fox had made a grievous error that could have cost the Sith his life, so it should be alright shouldn’t it? Stitch shouldn’t have cared, but he did and he didn’t know why.

Somehow he got even worse at his job. He could barely concentrate, he felt like he was moving on autopilot, just barely alive, but then something else happened. Every single Guard just passed out, the lot of them dropping like flies, and then when they woke up they were younglings, their base was gone, and the damn cursed Jedi were back. Stitch was part of the assault, because their new leader, Commander Thire, had brought every trooper he had to bear against the Jedi, but it wasn’t enough.

They lost.

Stitch sat, bound at the ankles and wrists, and cursed at any Jedi that appeared in the prison where he and the other Guards had been locked up. When a little group of traitor clones, led by the commander who should have been dead, showed up, walking through the halls and stopping occasionally to talk to them, Stitch could only stare. The group stopped outside his cell and the commander, who was in a wheelchair now,  but was still very much alive against all odds, gave Stitch a solemn look. Looking at the shitty wheelchair the commander was sitting in made Stitch very much want to destroy and replace it with something better for reasons beyond his understanding.

“You alright, Stitch?” the commander said in a tired voice.

“That’s not my name,” Stitch told him listlessly, automatically, and Fox just smiled at him ruefully.

“It will be again soon enough, vod,” the commander promised, “We’re going to get you fixed up.”

Stitch struggled for a minute to get to his feet, but the binders were in the way and he just ended up scooting forwards across the floor until he was right in front of the ray shield, him and the commander only a few feet apart. “I’m broken,” Stitch told him helplessly, “Something’s wrong with me but I don’t know what.” He didn’t know why he was telling somebody who was very clearly and undeniably a traitor, but something about seeing the commander alive soothed his heart. 

Fox gave him an even sadder look that he felt should have made him feel indignant, but didn’t. “You’re alright,” Fox told him, “You’ll be better soon.”

“You’re sure?” Stitch asked him hopefully and the commander smiled at him, even if it was a tired smile.

“I’m sure, I promise, vod’ika,” the commander assured him. 

Stitch could only let out a shaky breath and nod. He hoped the commander was right, that even though he was a traitor he wasn’t lying. The wrongness in Stitch was overwhelming. He was angry, furious, but he didn’t know why or at whom.

“Just hang tight,” the commander said, “You’ll be better soon.”

“Okay,” he breathed, “Okay.” 

The commander smiled at him again and the other traitor clones said a few words to him that were more of the same. Stitch bared his teeth at the Jedi when they tried to speak to him and they gave up. The little group moved on and left Stitch alone in his cell. The loss of them felt almost overwhelming, but he didn’t understand why, he didn’t understand anything.

Later that day a pair of Jedi younglings came and one disengaged the ray shield long enough for the second to enter before reengaging it once they were inside. Stitch snarled at the Jedi when she approached him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said quietly. She was a human with brown skin and two beads or piercings of some sort on her face, one on the bridge of her nose and one on her forehead. Stitch snarled at her again and shuffled away from her until his back hit the wall.

“Be careful, Depa,” the Jedi on the outside of the cell warned, that one was a male Kiffar with a gold clan tattoo and dreads.

“I will be,” the first Jedi promised, her attention still on Stitch. She had a tray in her hands with food on it and now that Stitch had nowhere to go she approached him again, still moving slowly.

Stitch snarled once again when she knelt down in front of him and set the tray down on the floor. “I’m sorry we can’t take the binders off,” she said, “but you need to eat. I’m here to help you.”

“Fuck off!” Stitch hissed and she let out a heavy sigh before picking up a loaf of bread, ripping off a piece, and then using it to scoop up some of the spicy smelling yellow goop in a bowl on the tray. She held it up for him, like she was going to feed it to him, and Stitch kicked her in the chest with as much force as he could muster. She dropped the bread and goop and just barely caught herself before she could land on her ass.

The Jedi let out a shaky breath and looked unhappily at where the food she’d been holding had splattered on the stone floor.

“I’m not sure this is going to work, Depa,” the Jedi outside the cell said, his voice dubious, “Maybe we should think of something else.”

The first Jedi turned to look at him, her expression solemn, before she looked back at Stitch, who was still pressed against the wall and growling at her.

“Please cooperate with me,” she begged, “You have to eat.”

Stitch said nothing and she came back over to the tray where it sat on the ground and repeated the motions of ripping off a piece of the bread and using it to scoop up the goop. She started to hold it up again, but then looked at the snarl on Stitch’s face and hesitated. “Quin, should I maybe use…?” she asked the other Jedi, looking over her shoulder at him.

“Do you know how?” the second Jedi asked and the first one nodded at him.

“Master Windu taught me a month ago,” she replied and the Kiffar let out a sigh.

“Alright,” he agreed, “Worth a shot right? He’s obviously not going to cooperate on his own.” Stitch scowled at the two of them, not understanding what they were talking about but still not liking it.

When the Jedi in front of him turned back she screwed up her face in concentration and then waved her free hand in front of Stitch’s face. “ I am trying to help you,” she said and somehow her voice seemed heavier, the words sending echoes bouncing around inside Stitch’s brain.

“You’re…trying to…help…” he mumbled back listlessly.

The Jedi smiled brightly and then went back to concentrating, “You will cooperate with me.”

“I…” Stitch started. The echoes were so loud in his head, bouncing back and forth. She was trying to help, he should cooperate, but…but she was a Jedi wasn’t she? They were traitors…

The Jedi frowned and tried again, “You will cooperate with me.”

He should, he should cooperate…that was the right thing to do wasn’t it? When someone was helping you, you should cooperate. But she was a Jedi. She was a traitor. Cooperation with traitors made one guilty of treason.

Stitch looked at her helplessly and she held up the food again. He should cooperate, she was trying to feed him and he should just let her. He should, but…something was wrong. Something was wrong with him, with this. He didn’t like it.

When she brought her hand close to Stitch’s face, he reacted on instinct, lashing out because he knew she had done something to him, even if he didn’t know what, and summarily bit her hard. She let out a yelp and dropped the food again. Stitch took the opportunity to kick the tray, sending it skittering across the floor and then colliding with the ray shield, splattering the goo everywhere as the bread rolled across the floor.

“She’s trying to help you, asshole!” the Jedi outside the cell snapped as the one inside clutched her bleeding hand to her chest, her lower lip wobbling and tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

The echoes cleared out of Stitch’s head and were replaced by fury. She’d tried to manipulate him, had tried to force him by twisting his mind out of shape. Furious, Stitch spat the blood in his mouth in her face and she finally fled. “Little shit,” the Jedi outside growled as he dropped the ray shield to let her out, reengaged it, and then gathered the other Jedi in a hug.

“It’s not his fault,” the girl whimpered, but the boy led her away.

“Good fucking riddance!” Stitch yelled after them before collapsing against the wall behind him, feeling hollow. He was still all wrong, even without the echoes in his head. The commander had said he’d be better soon, but maybe he had been lying after all. 

They came back later, four Jedi this time, although they all looked as young as the first two. The Jedi Stitch had bitten had bandages wrapped around her hand now and the Kiffar had a scowl on his face.

“You wanted to do this the hard way,” the Kiffar Jedi said, “So now we’re going to do it the hard way. I hope you’re happy.”

Again Stitch bared his teeth, but this time three out of the four Jedi came into the cell. One was the girl from last time, one was a male Irridonian Zabrak with long black hair, and one was a male Iktochi.

Stitch snarled at them and tried to kick the nearest one, the Iktochi, in his stupid face when he came within reach, but the boy grabbed him around the torso. Stitch tried to wriggle free but the Jedi was bigger and stronger than him and it did no good, so he bit him on the shoulder, just as hard as he’d bitten the girl, but the Jedi didn’t let go. The other boy, the Zabrak, caught Stitch around the head and forced it to the side, opening up his neck as the girl drew a hypo out of her robes. 

“Let me go, you fucking psychopaths!” Stitch howled at them, terrified and trying to kick the Iktochi in the knee or somewhere hard enough to get him to let go. He didn’t know what was in that fucking hypo, it could be anything. They’d already proven they were willing to manipulate him with their powers, were willing to twist his mind completely out of shape to get what they wanted from him, so Maker only knew what the fuck they were trying to inject him with.

“I’m so sorry!” the girl cried, tears in her eyes, “I promise this is for your own good! It’s just a nutrition shot, you need it if you’re not going to eat!”

“He’s not listening, Depa,” the Zabrak grunted as Stitch kicked and screamed and struggled, “Just get it over with.”

“I’m sorry,” the girl said again as she pressed the hypo into Stitch’s neck. He tried desperately to jerk away, to avoid it, but he could barely move with the two Jedi holding him and it was no use.

The girl stepped back with the empty injector, biting her lip as she put it away and then pulled something else out. “Okay,” she said in a shaky voice, “the supplement next and then we’ll be done.”

The two boys worked together to get Stitch down on the ground and then held him down. “Leave me the fuck alone!” he screamed, “I swear to the Maker I’ll fucking murder you for this shit! Let go!”

The two boys both shared an unhappy look, grimacing, and then the Zabrak mumbled an apology as he pinched Stitch’s nose shut. The girl said she was going to give him something else, some other drug or something that she was lying and was saying was just a supplement, they wanted Stitch to open his mouth, but he tried not to, tried to keep it shut even though he couldn’t breath. By the time his body forced him to open his mouth his face was soaked with terrified tears and the girl hurriedly put the pill in his mouth and the Zabrak let go of his nose only to clamp his hand down over Stitch's mouth so he couldn’t spit the pill out.

The three of them seemed to be at a loss for a second because like hell was he going to swallow the fucking thing and they couldn’t make him, only they could, because the three of them glanced at each other and then the Zabrak adjusted his grip on Stitch so the Iktochi could lean back slightly and swipe his hand across Stitch’s face with more of those impossibly heavy words.

“You will swallow the pill,” he commanded and with Stitch already half out of his mind with panic, his body just did as it was told before he could stop it and swallowed the damn thing down.

The two Jedi let go of him all at once and Stitch was left shaking and holding back sobs on the floor. His hands and feet were still bound, but he somehow managed to maneuver himself so his back was against the wall and he was able to curl into a small shaking ball.

“We’re really sorry,” the Zabrak told him softly, his voice remorseful, which only served to make Stitch angrier.

“If you were sorry you wouldn’t have done it!!!” He screamed at them and the three of them hunched their shoulders and skittered across the cell to the ray shield so they could escape while Stitch screamed a barrage of swears and threats at them.

Once they’d left him alone, Stitch curled in on himself and sobbed. He didn’t know what they’d given him, he didn’t know if he was about to die or what and he was scared, terrified, even if he’d never admit it, but then he heard the trooper in the cell next to his start hollering as the Jedi moved on to him and Stitch's breath got caught up in his throat. Whatever the Jedi had forced on him, they were forcing it on the others too.

“Leave them alone!” He cried, scrambling as best he could across the cell to the ray shield. “Leave them the fuck alone!”

He was ignored and the Jedi just went down the line of cells while Stitch could only listen as his brothers tried and failed to fight back. 

***

Hours later, he was in the back of his cell, leaning his back against the wall and drifting. He was tired, but he didn’t want to sleep, was afraid to. It wasn’t safe here, that had been more than proven to him by now, so he didn’t dare let himself doze off, even if he had to smack his head against the wall to wake himself back up.

Eventually more Jedi appeared and Stitch went rigid with fear, it was two adults this time, one was the dark skinned one that had been with the traitor clones and the other was a paler skinned man, also human, with long blond hair.

The dark skinned one dropped the ray shield long enough for the other one to step inside and Stitch took a shaky breath, he was going to keep fighting. He’d lose, that was obvious by now, but he wasn’t going to just let them do whatever they wanted to him, only when the long haired Jedi looked down at him he did that same motion, waving his hand and saying, “You will cooperate with me.”

The echoes this time were a thousand times more powerful than they had been before and Stitch found himself nodding listlessly. He wanted to fight, but he shouldn’t, he was supposed to cooperate.

“I’ll cooperate with you,” he promised and the Jedi nodded before pulling out another hypo.

“I’m going to give you this hypo,” the Jedi said and Stitch nodded again. There was a scrabbling shrieking noise in his head, trying to fight the echoes, but it wasn’t strong enough and Stitch sat and let the Jedi approach him and inject the hypo into his neck.

The last one hadn’t had any noticeable effect on him but whatever they had given him this time, it really was a drug, because Stitch’s exhaustion increased a thousand fold and after a moment he slumped over, barely conscious. The long haired Jedi picked him up and carried him out of the cell while the other Jedi dropped the ray shield. Stitch’s head lolled against the man’s shoulder as the two of them took him somewhere, but he couldn’t think straight anymore, could barely do anything at all, except think that this must be what decommissioning was like. Maybe that was what they were planning on doing, decomming them all. The idea was terrifying, but Stitch didn’t have the energy to struggle and he could only watch helplessly as they took him to their medbay and strapped him to a table, with a blue Twi’lek putting a mask over his face. 

That was it then, they were decomming him. 

Tears slid silently down Stitch’s face until somebody else leaned over him. It wasn’t a Jedi, it was one of Stitch's brothers, the one who used to call himself Sawbones, one of Stitch’s subordinate medics.

“It’s okay, vod,” Sawbones said in a gentle reassuring voice, “You’ll be okay. I’ll make sure they don’t hurt you alright? You trust me, Stitch?”

That wasn’t his name anymore, he wasn’t supposed to have a name, but Stitch nodded. He trusted Sawbones, so if he was there Stitch knew Sawbones wouldn’t let anything happen to him. 

“Good,” Sawbones said quietly, “Just go to sleep and let me fix you okay, Stitch? I promise you’ll be okay. I’ll give you to Fox when I’m done.”

Stitch let out a shaky breath and nodded again, giving Sawbones a wobbly smile in return when the medic smiled at him and brushed his hair back. He didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, Sawbones wouldn’t let him be hurt and neither would Fox. Whatever the Jedi wanted from him, Sawbones would make sure it wouldn’t hurt him. 

The exhaustion was suddenly overwhelming and Stitch shut his eyes. Listening to Sawbones give him quiet reassurances until Stitch was finally gone.

***

Sawbones hadn't been lying and neither had Fox, because when he woke up it was to his brothers and he was himself again. He could have cried from relief, but Hound jumped right into being a nuisance and the subsequent conversation had Stitch finally understand what had happened, what was going on. It was such a relief to talk to Fox again, to see him actually alive, even if he was clearly even more of a wreck than he had been the last time Stitch had seen him, both physically and mentally. 

Fox looked awful honestly, he was thin, even thinner than he’d been before, and there were deep dark circles under his eyes. He also looked like he’d been crying, which was a big deal because Fox wasn’t a crier, and his hair was an absolute wreck. When Stitch finally got Fox to explain he was only that much more worried. For him to have had a meltdown about his hair of all things, something Stitch had never seen him care about in the slightest before, he knew Fox wasn’t handling things well, that he needed help. That worry had him distracted enough to forget about his ordeal with the Jedi for a while at least and the further explanation Fox gave him of everything that happened only served to exhaust Stitch when his head was already killing him and his body felt like lead. Eventually he just crashed and didn’t wake up for nearly ten hours.

When he did finally wake, everyone else was asleep, except, of course, Fox, who never karking slept. Stitch sat up in bed and Fox looked over at him for a moment and then carefully wheeled himself across the room to his CMO’s bedside. Again Stitch was struck with loathing for his commander’s wheelchair, not the fact that Fox needed it, but with the fact that some fucking moron had given him something so absolutely shitty. It was clearly much too big for him, Stitch could see the awkward way Fox had to move to push the thing around that he knew was going to give the commander pain and possibly injuries if he did it for too long. If it had been the right size, or at least had been adjusted so it was close to the right size, Stitch might not have been so mad about it, because that sort of wheelchair was only meant to be temporary, so Fox would only need it until Stitch could get him a better one, but it wasn’t adjusted, and when Stitch really looked he could see it wasnt even made to adjustable in the first place. It was utter crap in every possible way and he wanted to set it on fire with a flamethrower and then shoot it into space.

As if he didn't already hate the Jedi enough, this was the kind of garbage they allowed? Even if Fox had gotten the wheelchair somewhere else, which Stitch highly doubted because where the fuck would he have even gotten it, they had still let him use it in front of them without offering him something better. Assholes. 

Stitch had never liked the Jedi, had always hated all nat-borns because all he’d ever seen them do was hurt his brothers or take them for granted or take advantage of them, but after the bullshit they’d pulled over the last couple days he was absolutely not going to let them do jack shit without his supervision from now on.

“How’re you feeling, Stitch?” Fox asked him quietly, obviously trying to avoid waking everybody else up.

“I feel like I want to burn this fucking temple to the ground with all these shithead Jedi inside it,” Stitch bit out and Fox frowned at him.

“They’re helping us, Stitch,” the commander told him, “I don’t like them either, but they have helped.”

“You don’t know how they’ve been fucking treating us, do you?” Stitch asked him bitterly and Fox’s face fell. Of course he hadn't known, Fox wouldn't have stood for that behavior for a single goddamn second if he’d known about it.

“What happened?” he asked his CMO urgently, “Did they hurt you?”

Stitch took a shaky breath and then described how the Jedi younglings had tried to force him, had forced him, and then how the older Jedi had used that same goddamn trick to twist his mind into obedience. Fox’s face darkened steadily the longer Stitch talked until he looked about ready to set the temple on fire himself.

“I’m an idiot,” he hissed, pulling at his hair until Stitch tugged his hands away and held them. “After everything, I trusted them,” Fox said despondently, “I left them to take care of you. I should have known better. I…I’m so stupid, Stitch, I’m so sorry.”

“You picked a bad time to start trusting nat-borns,” Stitch grumbled, “But you didn’t really have a choice, we’ve got no other way to get the damn chips out.”

Fox seemed to take a minute to think about it and Stitch could see him only getting angrier and angrier, “I’m going to rip their guts out,” Fox growled and Stitch nodded. 

“I’ll go with you,” he said, but Fox shook his head.

 “You just had surgery, you have to stay in bed until Sawbones clears you.”

Stitch snarled despite knowing Fox was right, he didnt want to stay in bed while the fucking Jedi could be doing more of that shit to his brothers that were left in the psycho prison they had in their basement. “I’ll call General Windu here,” Fox said and Stitch’s hackles lowered slightly.

The commander did as he said he would and then the two of them waited in silence until the door panel let out a chirp and then whooshed open to admit the general. He looked rumpled, like he’d only woken up a few minutes ago and had just thrown on the first thing he got his hands on, but his expression was infuriatingly serene. 

“What has happened?” the general asked them calmly. Fuck him for getting to act like nothing was wrong. Maker Stitch wanted to smash the shithead’s face into the floor until it was mangled and couldn't make that annoying karking expression anymore. 

Fox took a deep breath that Stitch knew was him schooling himself to keep from yelling at a nat-born, which could get him killed, no matter how appealing the idea of giving them a piece of his mind was. “I don’t know if you’re aware of how your people have been handling my troopers, but it's utterly unacceptable.” Fox said, his voice icy.

The Jedi frowned and glanced around the room at the sleeping troopers. “What are you referring to exactly, Commander?” he asked and Stitch snarled, but Fox put his hand on Stitch’s arm in an order to shut his mouth, so the medic did, although unhappily.

Stitch listened while Fox explained, in just as much damningly agonizing detail as Stitch had told him, the whole ordeal he’d been put through the day before. When he was finished Stitch could tell it was only Fox’s considerable self control that was keeping him from cursing and yelling, because Windu’s expression had barely changed. He didn’t look angry, he just looked solemn and it was infuriating.

“I’m sorry my padawan and the others chose to approach the problem that way, but your brothers are not cooperating with us, they’re reacting to us with violence. There’s only so much we can do in this situation,” the Jedi told them and Stitch saw as much as felt the way Fox’s hands clenched into fists. The only reason Stitch hadn’t ripped the Jedi a new one was because if he was killed there would be nobody to take care of his brothers, so he sat and seethed and let Fox handle it. Fox who was much better at this sort of thing than Stitch.

“That’s a pitiful excuse,” Fox snapped, “My brothers are sentients, even if we have to do some things to control them when they’re like this, you can't treat them this way. It's unacceptable. I want your people to leave them alone and let the rest of us handle feeding them and taking them to surgery from now on. We’ll figure out a way to make it work, you've proven you can't be trusted to do it right.”

General Windu scowled, but took a breath and let it out, then bowed his head in acceptance. “They are your brothers,” he said, “Even if we were doing our best, if you feel it’s not enough then it may be better for you to handle them, as you said. We’ll step aside.”

“Good,” Fox bit out and didn’t thank the Jedi or otherwise give him anything even remotely positive in response. Stitch could tell Fox was still furious, so he wasn't surprised when the commander dismissed Windu in a way that was so close to rude without actually being there that it was almost funny.

Once the Jedi had left, Fox let out a shaky sigh and turned back to Stitch, holding out his hands, which Stitch took and gave a squeeze. “What should we do?” Fox asked him, “How do you recommend handling this?”

“Use Tallow and Sawbones. None of us saw them cooperating with the Jedi, so they’ll be able to say they’re captives too and just have been made to help us because the Jedi can’t be arsed. Not everybody is going to be willing to eat or cooperate, but it'll give us a better chance to convince them,” Stitch told him and Fox nodded.

“And if they refuse?” Fox asked.

“Then we have to let them and just hustle them into surgery as a priority, get the most uncooperative ones first before their health can decline,” Stitch answered and Fox nodded again.

“Alright, I’ll brief Sawbones and Tallow in the morning, sound good?” Fox said and Stitch let out a heavy sigh.

“I’m taking over the surgeries,” he replied and then interrupted when Fox opened his mouth to protest. “Shut up, Fox, Sawbones can’t do it all by himself and obviously you and the others can’t help, you wouldn't know if the Jedi were fucking it up without somebody telling you. If Sawbones didn’t fuck up my surgery, which I doubt he did, then I should be able to supervise at least, even if I can’t do the surgeries myself for another day or two.”

Fox let out a sigh and then finally capitulated, “Alright, Stitch,” he said, defeated, “But only if you agree to let Sawbones evaluate you first.”

“Done,” Stitch agreed instantly and Fox rolled his eyes. He didn't trust the Jedi either, or at least whatever small amount of trust he’d had before was now destroyed, so he understood the urgency of their situation. They had to get everybody dechipped and then get the kark out of here as quick as they could. They couldn’t afford to stay when the Jedi could do whatever they wanted to them. It was too dangerous.

“Alright,” Fox said again and Stitch eyed him. 

“Get up here,” the medical officer ordered sharply and Fox looked up at him with confusion. “On the bed,” Stitch clarified, “You’re sleeping, you look like shit.”

He could see for a second that Fox was about to argue on principle, but then the commander stopped himself and gave Stitch a pained look before he folded and arranged his chair next to the bed in such a way that he could transfer himself over. Stitch didn't know if he was cooperating because he felt bad that he’d let this whole ordeal happen, that he’d let Stitch be put through all of it, but whatever the reason was Stitch wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead he dragged the commander down to lay next to him and glared at him until Fox let out another sigh and closed his eyes obediently. 

The two of them were still and silent for a while, but Stitch was relieved when he could tell Fox had actually finally fallen asleep, even if the sleep seemed fitful. Stitch rested his forehead against his big brother’s and closed his eyes, holding onto his hands as Fox mumbled in his sleep. Stitch was so relieved to be back with him, back with somebody he’d thought he’d lost and hadn’t even had the presence of mind to understand why he was mourning. He was relieved to have his mind again, was relieved that Sawbones had been there to give it back to him. Stitch would make sure everything else was taken care of; he didn't have his medbay anymore, but that just meant that now he was on the frontlines of care with his brothers and could help them even when they couldn’t come to him and ask for it. He was going to make sure they were all alright, that they all were safe, and that included Fox, who always seemed to be so dead set on destroying himself. Stitch would protect them, all of them, and then when they got the chance they’d get the hell out of here and figure out somewhere they could go in this new time, somewhere safe. 

He’d already slept for long enough, but Stitch tried to sleep some more, so he’d be in good enough shape to take care of everyone else when he woke up. They were going to be alright. He’d make sure of it. He’d protect them all.

I recently did some art of Stitch, so here's the boy pre-Snapback taking a second away from treating sick and injured brothers to wolf down a ration bar before somebody fucking dies without him there to save them.

Chapter Text

Clan Wren were the keepers of Krownest, that was their stronghold and had been for a long time. Myj Wren was the younger of two sisters, the elder of which, Loa Wren, was the current clan leader. Myj had always been the black sheep of the family. She’d been a hellion when she was young, always causing trouble and rarely respecting her elders, and then she and Loa had fallen in love with the same man only five years after Myj had passed the Verd’goten. The feud between the two of them that had come of that lasted almost sixty years, even after the object of their affection - who had eventually been won by Myj and had given her her ade - was killed in battle, it still pitted the two sisters against each other. 

Loa wanted nothing to do with her younger sister and frankly Myj felt the same. Even now that she was an old woman being on Krownest chafed at her. She wanted to get the hell out of there, she wanted to take her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren with her, but her son and two daughters and their respective riduure had been resisting for years, claiming they couldn’t just uproot everyone when they had nowhere to go, even if they held the scorn of the rest of their clan thanks to the branch of the family they had been born from. 

Myj rose early as a matter of habit and she always turned on the news while she did her silver hair in the complicated twists of braids she preferred, so it was while she stood in front of her fresher mirror in her bathrobe, fresh from a scalding water shower that soothed her aching bones, that she heard the message sent to the Mandalore system by the man who had finally won the title of Mand’alor. 

Jaster Mereel was a good man, from what Myj had heard, an honorable and just man, mandokarla, deserving. Myj had been vocal about her support of him and his right to the title. Traditions had value, yes, Myj lived her life by many traditions, but some old sword shouldn’t be enough to make somebody a ruler over a man who had been chosen by the people. That was her opinion anyway, one she’d loudly proclaim to anybody who could hear her. She had never met Jaster Mereel, but she approved of his politics, so when she heard his voice for the first time, she paused in her braiding, hairpins held in her mouth while both her hands were busy, to listen.

“People of the Mandalore system and all its planets and moons, my people,” came the voice of the Mand’alor, a strong confident voice that spoke with surety and gravity, “As you may well know by now, Tor Vizsla is defeated, dead, but I’ll tell you the truth. It wasn’t myself or my commandos who killed him. It was a child sniper. The details of where this child came from and who he and his siblings are is a deep complex rabbit hole that I won’t get into now, but with the death of Vizsla and the appearance of these children, we True Mandalorians have been dragged into a whole new conflict on a far off planet. Here children were hunted by their parents and hundreds of trained child soldiers from the same origins as my child sniper fought to defend them.”

Myj let out a gasp and dropped her hairpins in the sink, swearing to herself and trying to hold her braids together with one hand so she could retrieve them while still listening to the broadcast. Children hunted by their parents, hundreds of child soldiers. The galaxy was corrupt, Myj had seen more than enough to know that, but this was a new low.

“They were at war,” the Mand’alor continued, “but together we have ended that war. All the adults of this planet were worthless scum who’d rather kill their own children than put aside their feuds and we are ridding the planet of them, but that leaves this planet as one populated solely by children. It needs help, so I’m calling on all of you for that help. If you can, if you want, I invite you to come to the Cavadine sector, to Melida/Daan, and help the children rebuild so they can finally be safe and happy and healthy. I know this is no trivial request and uprooting yourself and your loved ones is daunting, even if done for a righteous cause, which is why I also offer an incentive. Any Mandalorian who comes to Melida/Daan to make a new home will be given their own land. It will be yours for however long you want it and there will be no taxes or tithes on it, the only thing you will have to give in exchange is your assistance in rebuilding this war-torn world. My warriors and I will be waiting for you with the children. I know you will come through for them. May your journey be safe.”

With those words the broadcast ended and the talking heads on the news started in on discussing the message, wondering about the situation and how it had come to be, who the child sniper was and how the Mand’alor had ended up all the way on the other side of the galaxy in another war. Myj was barely listening anymore as she hurriedly finished her hair and then dressed herself in her kute and gray and black armor. 

This was it! This was what she needed to get her silly ade to agree to get the kark off of this wretched planet once and for all!  A righteous cause! 

***

They ended up bickering over it for several days, but all three of Myj’s ade had ade and bu’ade of their own and when faced with the fact that there was a whole planet of children who had been abused and attacked and killed by their own parents who now had to try and rebuild their world after winning the war was enough to convince them. Parents could only ever be parents, and no good Mandalorian could leave a child in need when they had the means to help.

Myj fluttered around her family, overjoyed, helping them prepare, sitting for her bu’ade as they all resigned from their jobs and then helped them as they started on packing up their lives into boxes to be moved. 

There were thirty two of them with Myj herself included, but fortunately being the daughter of the previous clan leader was not without perks, even when you were socially ostracized, and she did have a nice big ship that could carry them all to Melida/Daan.

As they rose out of the atmosphere of Krownest, Myj sat at the viewport and watched the planet get smaller and smaller, “Good riddance!” she cackled once they jumped to hyperspace and one of her great grandbabies, Pon, who sat in her lap, let out a burble of agreement as she tried to put the end of Myj’s braid into her mouth.

Myj’s mood stayed light even as her ade and bu’ade fretted. Her eldest daughter had always been the anxious sort and Myj had to sit her down almost every day and reassure her that they were in fact doing the right thing. Usually she reminded her of the children’s plight and that settled it, and when that wasn’t enough she reminded her of the Resol’nare, that the Mand’alor had called and they were bound by creed to rise to the challenge.

They all had children already, Myj’s three ade and their riduure collectively had six children of their own, and those six children had grown up, found their own riduure, and birthed another twelve, but Myj’s ade and bu’ade were grown and the most children any one of them had was four, so Myj was confident all of them could handle another child or two, which meant that their clan would be expanding, if these homeless children accepted their vows that is. She hoped so, Myj wanted her side of the clan to have more members than her sister’s and if those children were ones they took off the battlefield and gave new lives then all the better. It would be a win-win situation in her mind. 

It was a relaxing two weeks of travel for Myj as she watched the babies crawl around the deck of the ship while their older siblings played sabacc and their parents and grandparents fretted and fluttered. Myj shushed them all whenever they came to her worrying themselves sick, telling them that they had to be calm for the sake of each other and their children. She had been around a long time and had known many children and parents, she knew the sort of anxiety to expect when one was walking into a situation where a child was in danger or had been hurt, so she soothed all their troubles by cooking heaping helpings of tiingilar and telling them stories about the love of her life and how she had won his heart over her sister despite all her tricks.

Much to the relief of her family, they finally arrived in the Cavadine sector and hailed the comm channel the Mand’alor had left in his notice. Once they’d been given clearance to land and instructions as to where, Myj watched out the viewports with her eldest great grandson, Tuk - who had passed his Verd’goten only two months ago and was still waffling over what colors to paint his armor - as they flew over the war-torn landscape of the planet.

“This is worse than I had feared,” Myj said more to herself than the boy as she looked the place over. She had seen war zones before, but whatever battles had been raging here had been going on for a long time. There seemed to be no part of the planet untouched by the war, the landscape was universally scorched and crumbling. 

“What are we going to do, Nona?” Tuk asked her anxiously as he pressed his little face against the viewport.

“Work hard and fix it,” Myj told him patiently, “If you work as hard as you can and are stubborn as can be then you can fix most anything.”

Tuk pulled his face away from the viewport and looked at her with his soft brown eyes, “Okay,” he said quietly, he’d always been more gentle of a soul than was good for him in Myj’s opinion, but that was why she believed a Mand’alor like Jaster Mereel was better than one like Tor Vizsla. There was more to the world than pure strength and more types of strength than martial prowess, not that Tuk hadn’t proven himself to have the requisite skills. His buire had raised him well and Myj had been the one to help him put his new armor on for the first time, proud as could be while his buire took holograph after holograph to commemorate the occasion.

When her son landed the ship, it was just outside a crumbling garage that, when Myj looked, appeared to contain two starfighters and a gunship. The place was awash with children, and all of them looked filthy and ragged. The thing that struck her the most though when the ramp lowered and she stepped into the open air was that the children were not only all boys, but that they were all identical, like somebody had made copies of the same child and just sized them differently. 

“What in the galaxy?” her younger daughter asked as she also stepped down the ramp. “They’re like twins but…but there’s loads of them.”

“They have blasters,” Myj’s eldest granddaughter pointed out gravely.

Indeed the boys did have guns and two of them approached the group, their expressions serious and their eyes steely even with their young faces covered in dirt. These, Myj concluded, must be the child soldiers the Mand’alor had mentioned. They did not have the air of children playing verde. There was a hardness to them that made her think they had already been tested.

“You’re here at Mereel’s request?” The older looking of the two boys who had approached them said, looking them all over as they disembarked the ship.

Myj bowed her head in polite greeting and agreed, “I am Myj Wren, matriarch of this branch of Clan Wren, and we are here to answer the Mand’alor’s summons.”

“This way,” said the older boy while the younger nodded, then the both of them turned on their heels in almost perfect unison and walked away, obviously expecting the Mandalorians to follow them, and they did move to follow after a startled jolt.

Initially Myj had been so distracted by the children that she hadn’t noticed the adults, but while the building they all stood around and seemed to be guarding did have a perimeter of children manning it, there were also other Mandalorians, all with the Haat’ade’s sigil on their pauldrons, these were Mereel’s warriors, could only be.

The Haat’ade nodded politely as the two identical boys among many others led them into what appeared to be a derelict subway station. The place was dark and dingy, lit only by storm lanterns, and was filled to the brim with even more identical children, some with strange white armor and some not, but all armed.

“I feel like I’ve stepped into a dream,” one of Myj’s granddaughters said as she ran her fingers idly through Pon’s hair where the baby was strapped to her chest, soothing herself and the child both. 

“The Mand’alor said he’d gone down a long and complicated rabbit hole,” Myj pointed out, “I expect he’ll tell us what exactly is going on here when we meet him.”

“I hope so,” her son agreed gruffly, a scowl in his voice as he looked over the absolutely abysmal living conditions they were walking through.

The two identical soldier boys led them through the station onto a train platform, where a man Myj had seen only in holographs was sitting surrounded by children who weren’t identical and eating dry rations. 

“Mereel,” one of their soldier escorts said, and the Mand’alor looked up, then got to his feet when he saw who had been led to see him.

Myj knelt at his feet, bowing her head, and her children and grandchildren did the same, while their adiike floundered for what to do in this situation before mimicking their parents. She had come to the Mand’alor’s aid at his request and he had her loyalty, she recognized him as the ruler of all her people and herself, so she showed him the respect he deserved. She was pleased though when he asked them to stand rather than talk to him on uneven ground. It made her think that he wasn’t so arrogant a ruler as Tor Vizsla was known to be.

“I’m Jaster Mereel,” he introduced politely, speaking Basic rather than Mando’a for reasons Myj didn’t know, maybe for the children’s benefit, if she were to guess, “and these,” he said, gesturing the gathered children over to him as well as two adult Mandalorians that had been with them, “are my ade, Arla Fett, Jango Fett, and Captain Howzer,” he went on, tapping each of them on the head to indicate who they were. The one he’d called a captain was one of the identical boys, one in white armor that had been painted with turquoise markings, while the one he’d called Jango also looked strikingly similar to the boys, but he was obviously older than all the others and was clearly a Mandalorian, although what that could mean Myj didn’t know. The three of the Mand’alor’s children nodded their heads politely in greeting while Mereel went on to indicate the younger non-identical ones. 

“And these ones are my bu’ade: Crosshair, Omega, Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, and Tech.” again he tapped each child on the head as he said their names and the children nodded politely. Myj was starting to see some of what had happened here. Even though these ones weren’t identical, they were part of the same group, were also child soldiers. Even the youngest littlest one carried a hand blaster strapped to his hip and a rifle on his back. He had to be the child sniper that had killed Vizsla and Myj recalled Mereel referring to him as ‘my’ sniper. Mereel had obviously met the children and adopted them, only to then discover that there were hundreds more just like them. 

Myj didn’t voice any of her conclusions and simply greeted the children politely before introducing the members of her family in turn while Mereel and his children listened and nodded along.

“Well met,” the Mand’alor said once she had finished, “I take it you’re here because of my summons.”

“Correct,” Myj told him, “We are of Clan Wren, from Krownest. You called and we have come.”

“I’m glad,” Mereel said with blinding sincerity, “You’re the first. Welcome to Melida/Daan. I imagine you have questions.”

“You imagine correctly,” Myj’s son said maybe a tad bit too harshly, and yet the Mand’alor took no offense at his tone and nodded.

“I’ll tell you then, just give me a moment,” Mereel said and then turned to his children and grandchildren, “Go finish eating,” he ordered, and then looked at the little sniper, “And don’t give Pup the rest of my ration, I’ll come back to it later.”

Crosshair rolled his eyes in an immensely sardonic fashion that made Myj snigger, she liked him already, spunky little thing. If she were to guess she’d say Pup was the massiff puppy that was sitting surrounded by abandoned rations and yet was restraining itself from eating with what looked to be every ounce of fortitude in its tiny body.

Obediently the gaggle of them returned to their food while Mereel watched them with a fond smile. Myj could see how much he loved them and was pleased. For a man to have adopted so many foundlings was a sign of good character and for him to adore them so much was another.

“Alright,” the Mand’alor said in Mando’a once his family had left him with Myj and her clan, confirming her suspicions that he’d been speaking Basic for the children’s benefit. “Well I’m guessing you’ve noticed all these children are identical.”

“We’d be blind not to,” Myj’s son said blandly and Mereel gave him a commiserating look.

“As you say,” he agreed, “They’re clones. This is going to sound absurd, but it’s all the explanation I can give you, because it’s all I have myself. These kids haven’t been especially forthcoming with any of us, they’ve got a lot of secrets they’ve been keeping fiercely, but what I’ve managed to get out of them is that a group of people they’ve refused to name cloned them from a DNA sample of my son Jango, possibly acquired from my former second in command who turned traitor.”

Mereel waited until Myj and her family nodded before he continued speaking. It did sound ridiculous, but there was no denying that the children were identical and no explanation other than cloning would make any sense. “These people had a war they wanted to fight, but no soldiers, so they made them themselves and all these kids are the result,” the Mand’alor explained and Myj felt herself bristle with anger. Before she could say anything though, Mereel went on. “They’ve been trained their whole lives to fight and have fought an entire war, one they lost badly because their superiors were using them as tools in some convoluted plot. Most of them were euthanized after that plot came to fruition and it seems that only a few hundred have survived. As of right now we’ve found this group and have heard of two others, but we don’t know how many more clones are scattered around the galaxy.”

Myj spluttered in fury when Mereel mentioned the children being euthanized, but settled slightly when she saw the fury in the edges of his expression when he explained. He was angry too, as he should be, and that was enough that Myj was able to let him continue without interrupting. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know the details of who these people were fighting and why,” Mereel, said, sounding deeply frustrated,  “the kids won’t tell me anything. All I know other than that is that it’s all wrapped up with the Sith and the Jedi and their fucked up Republic. I have theories, of course, but these children have been so damn reluctant to tell me anything that I can’t confirm any of them.”

“How did they come to be on Melida/Daan?” Myj asked when he seemed to have finished his thought, “Do you know?”

“There’s some kind of Jedi artifact involved,” Mereel explained bitterly, “Crosshair and his batch, which is how clones that were raised as close siblings refer to each other, came across it and it seems as if the thing got activated and has flung all the clones to the far reaches of the galaxy. I found the ones I adopted on Korda Six, they saved my life and, as I said in my message, Crosshair killed Vizsla. For a while the ones I found thought they were the only survivors until they were contacted by Commander Rex. He told them about how they’d gotten mixed up in the war on this planet and we offered to help them, hence why we’re here now.”

“Commander Rex?” Myj’s youngest granddaughter asked curiously, again stroking Pon’s hair as the baby watched them all talk uncomprehendingly.

“The leader of the group of clones on this planet,” Mereel explained. “My kids fought alongside him during their war and he called them for help. He and his older brother Commander Wolffe run this group and there’s another commander, Commander Blackout, who is a spec ops soldier and has a team he uses. My grandkids were also spec ops, while Howzer was one of Commander Rex’s captains who had been accompanying my grandkids on the mission where they encountered the Jedi artifact and all got scattered.”

“You certainly weren’t lying when you said you’d gone down a rabbit hole,” Myj sighed and Mereel gave her a wry smile.

“I wasn’t,” he agreed, “Follow me and I’ll introduce you to the commanders, they’ll want to meet you I think, if you’re going to be walking around in their base. I’ll warn you in advance though that they’re both horrendously stubborn and don’t seem to appreciate the idea of us babying them even a little. They expect to be treated like adults, I’ve been trying to do that, but it’s easy to forget when you’re looking at them. For what it’s worth the commanders do appear to be of age, even if the others aren’t.”

Myj nodded her head, “I expect you can’t reasonably take on any more of them,” she said, “but we can take some.”

“If they agree,” Mereel warned as he started walking and they followed behind him, “Which I think many of them won’t. I welcome you to offer it to them, they deserve to have homes, but don’t be surprised if they turn you down. They turned all of us down and I suspect they have interpreted the offers as condescension. They don’t see themselves as children who have been used and abused and deserve normal lives, they see themselves as soldiers who already have family in each other.”

“We will ask anyway,” Myj declared, “But of course if they deny us we will not force them.”

“Good,” the Mand’alor said as he let out a sigh, still leading them through the sea of children and his verde.

“How many are there here?” Myj’s son asked as they walked.

“Somehwere around eight hundred, they aren’t the only children about though. There are also the Young, the children of this planet who were fighting their parents that Commander Rex and Wolffe got involved in the war to protect. I think if you’re looking to adopt, the Young will be more likely to accept than the clones. They’re staying in the crypts below the city. This place is full of underground tunnels that the kids have been using through the war to operate without being fired on.”

“Clever things,” Myj said.

“A shame for them to be hiding underground like mice,” one of her grandson-in-laws grumbled as he adjusted the straps on the harness that kept his baby boy, Hawe, safely strapped to his chest much like Hawe’s sister Pon was to her mother’s.

“It is,” Mereel agreed with a nod, but then turned his attention to a pair of older clones that were standing with their heads bent as they talked to each other quietly in a storeroom. “Commander Rex, Commander Wolffe,” he greeted and the two boys looked up.

“More of your Mandos?” The one with hair that had been shaved close to his head asked. These two were just as filthy as the rest and Myj couldn’t tell what color their hair or skin was, although if they were clones of the boy Mereel had introduced as his son then logically their hair should be black and their skin brown.

“Not Haat’ade,” Mereel said, “but of my people. These are the first to answer the summons I sent, I figured I should introduce you.”

The two boys nodded, “I’m Commander Rex,” said the one who’d spoken before while the one with the scar on his face said.

“Commander Wolffe.”

For the sake of politeness, Myj introduced all the members of her family again, although she could see neither boy was particularly interested. She could already tell that Mereel was right, these children were much more aloof than a normal child, but nonetheless she would make them the offer.

“We’ve come to help rebuild this planet,” Myj told them once they’d all been introduced and Mereel nodded along, “But we’d be happy to give some of you homes and clan of your own.”

“We have clan,” Commander Wolffe said sharply, “And we’ll have home soon enough.” 

Myj nodded solemnly, that was what Mereel had warned would be the response, but nonetheless she wanted them to know the offer was open. “If one of you, or more even, wishes to have us as clan we’d accept them. Will you give the offer to your…brothers?” she asked, hesitating slightly on what words to use.

“The answer will be the same,” Commander Rex told her blandly, “but we’ll spread the word. I recommend you focus on the Young, they’re the ones who’ve lost their families. They have nobody.”

Myj nodded and Mereel spoke up again in Mando’a. “Speaking of, I’d like to introduce you to Cerasi, Kenobi, and Nield as well, the leaders of the Young. Kenobi is a Jedi padawan whose master left him on this planet after an argument and the Jedi have said they’ll take him back, but the others, like Commander Rex said, have nobody.”

“Do the Jedi deserve him after leaving him in a warzone for such a stupid reason?” Myj asked Mereel sharply and he let out a sigh.

“No,” he said and Myj’s hackles lowered slightly, “but he’s thirteen and we have to respect his wishes. He wants to rejoin his order so we have to let him.”

“I see,” Myj grumbled. It was a reasonable response, if the boy was thirteen then he could make his own decisions, even if they were bad ones. “Very well, we will meet these Young then, if you would be so kind as to guide us.”

Mereel nodded and told the two commanders that he’d talk to them again later, which had both of them nodding.

“These children aren’t going to stay here in this ruin indefinitely are they?” Myj asked Mereel with dismay, “If they’re refusing to be adopted then where will they all stay?”

“The commanders have been looking at various buildings around Zehava, trying to decide what would make the best base of operations. From what I understand the best candidate right now is a prison not far from here that they’re thinking of renovating, but nothing’s decided just yet,” Mereel told them with a huff, one that sounded like he wasn’t happy about it.

“A prison is no place for children,” Myj’s son said in a harsh voice.

“No,” Mereel agreed again, “But they won’t hear anything I have to say on the matter and to get them to do anything else we’d have to physically subdue them and force them to go somewhere else as captives, which I’m not going to do. They’ve proven that they can care for themselves and each other, so the best I can think to do at this point is just offer them my resources and help to make whatever place they choose livable.”

“They sound most stubborn and difficult,” Myj’s younger daughter observed.

“They are,” Mereel grumbled, “For now we’re trying to round up the rest of the scumsucking adults of this planet and exile them, and then when that’s done the clones will be coming with us to collect the two other groups of their brothers we’ve located before coming back here. My hope is that by the time we all come back we can have this planet a little more livable for them.”

“Will they still be acting as soldiers?” Myj asked, “Are they intending to be the army for this planet?”

“They want to,” Mereel said irritably, “I’ve been trying to talk them out of it, but they’re stubborn, like you said. Hopefully I’ll figure out some way to convince them to stand down. I don’t want this to turn into a confrontation, so maybe we can reach a compromise, something acceptable to all of us.”

Myj let out a huff, she had never come across children so willfully stubborn before, you’d think if they were soldiers they would be willing to follow orders from a superior, unless they simply didn’t view the Mand’alor as their superior, which she supposed was possible if they weren’t Mandalorians themselves. “These children are not Mandalorians?” she asked just to be sure.

“Personally I’d say they have every right to identify that way,” Mereel told her as he hopped down the side of a train platform and led them into a tunnel, “given they were apparently raised and trained by our people, even if they were pathetic excuses for Mandalorians, but while the ones I adopted have agreed to be part of our people, the others don’t seem terribly interested.”

“If they were to be Mandalorian they would know to do what you say,” Myj sighed, “Unless they were never taught the Six Actions.”

“They weren’t,” Mereel informed them bitterly, “After talking with mine and having them undergo some placement tests, it seems the only things they were taught were things that their trainers deemed important for them to know as soldiers. Anything they deemed irrelevant they left out, including important life knowledge like the Six Actions.”

“Bastards,” Myj’s son snarled and she nodded along in agreement.

“Do you know who these people are?” she asked hopefully, surely if he did he would have punished them already, but Mereel shook his head.

“They won’t tell me. They’ve given me a couple names, but they never give me a whole name and I haven’t been able to track anybody down. The whole project was apparently shrouded in secrecy and it shows. It’s like these people just don’t exist…which pretty much explains why the kids call them ‘those who no longer exist.’ The name seemed ominous when I first heard it, but it’s self evident why they’re called that really, now that I’ve been trying to find them.”

“I see,” Myj said. The tunnel Mereel was leading them down was dark and winding, but not so dark she felt the need to switch on her helmet’s night vision, thanks to grates in the ceiling letting in the sunlight from above that were interspersed every few meters. “If there is any way we can help with these children, tell us and we’ll do it.”

“I will if it turns out there’s something you can do,” Mereel vowed, “but in the meantime all I ask of you is to pitch in with helping rebuild this planet, and maybe take in some of the Young, if the clones all refuse you. Part of why we’re going to talk to the Young now is to ask them what land to give you.”

“Oh,” Myj said, “I suppose that is sensible, given it’s their planet.”

Mereel nodded and then they turned a bend and found a low door with a little boy standing in front of it. He had a blanket draped around his shoulders like a cape and he held his hands up. “Halt!” he said with an affectation of an adult’s authority.

“Hello again, Lyle, your leg still feeling better?” Mereel greeted and the boy, Lyle, gave him a gap-toothed grin and nodded.

“Hi!” he chirped, “my leg doesn’t hurt anymore since the lady used that machine on it.”

Mereel nodded and smiled at him, “The bone-knitter,” he corrected, “And I’m glad it’s still good. Will you let us talk to Nield, Cerasi and Kenobi?”

“I’m supposed to ask you who all these people are before we let ‘em in,” Lyle told him almost apologetically.

The Mand’alor gave him another patient nod. “These are Mandalorians from Clan Wren, some of my people who have come to help rebuild the planet. Did your leaders tell you about that plan?”

Lyle bobbed his head up and down in an enthusiastic nod, “Yeah, but we didn’t think people would actually wanna come help! They’re really here to fix it?”

“We are ad’ika,” Myj told him seriously.

The little boy beamed at her and then stepped away from the door, “Okay! You can come in then!”

“Thank you,” Mereel told the boy with immense gravity as he ducked under the low doorframe and led Myj and her clan into the crypts. This place was also filled with filthy bedraggled children, but unlike the clones they were more like how Myj would expect them to be. Some of them were playing games with each other, a group had used chalk to draw a hopscotch grid on the floor that they took turns skipping across while chanting numbers, and others were running about and dodging between sarcophagi to evade the ones chasing them, all laughing and joyous even if they looked like hell. 

Myj couldn’t help but smile at the sight of them, she was happy that despite the horrible ordeal they had endured, they weren’t so changed that they could no longer be children. The sea of them parted for Mereel and his guests, although the Mand’alor had to nimbly dodge a couple kids that weren’t looking where they were going and would have plowed straight into him if he hadn’t been so quick to get out of their way. “Be careful!” scolded an older girl with hair that might have been red beneath the dirt.

“Sorry, Cerasi!” The two kids that had almost collided with Mereel chimed and Cerasi sighed in exasperation.

“Sorry, Mereel,” the girl said as she stood up from where she’d been sitting on a sarcophagus, setting the book she had been reading aside.

“It’s fine,” Mereel assured her, “I’d just be worried they might get hurt if they banged themselves on my armor.”

Cerasi nodded and shot the kids in question a disapproving look, although they’d long since stopped paying attention. “What do you need?” Cerasi asked.

Mereel gestured to Myj and her family as he explained, “These are some of my people from the Mandalore system, Clan Wren, they’ve come to help you rebuild.”

The girl’s dirty face lit up at those words and she clasped her hands against her chest in delight. “Thank you so much for coming!” she told Myj and her family enthusiastically, “It means so much that you want to help us!”

“Of course we came,” Myj told her gently, “We couldn’t leave you to rebuild a whole planet by yourselves could we?”

“There will be more on the way, I think,” Mereel added and Cerasi seemed to tear up a little.

“Any help is welcome,” she said, “Even if nobody else comes we’ll be better off than before.”

“Where are Kenobi and Nield?” Mereel asked her, “I imagine they’d want to be included.”

“Yes,” Cerasi agreed, “They’re sleeping, but I’ll go wake them up, I’ll be back in just a second!”

Mereel leaned his hip against the sarcophagus that Cerasi had been sitting on as she ran off and Myj took that as an invitation for her to take a seat. Several of her family members also sat with her, but the others remained standing.  

“These children seem much more normal,” Myj’s middle daughter noted and Mereel nodded in agreement.

“They’ve been through a lot, but they seem to be bouncing back pretty well,” he said, “With the clones it seems to be the fact that they were raised believing their entire purpose was to fight that has made them so serious, that and that developmentally they seem to think more like adults than somebody their age normally would, while these ones were at least allowed to be children to some extent.”

“The clones were never allowed to be children?” Myj asked, she wasn’t surprised to hear that really, it was obvious from the way the boys had acted, but even so she hated to hear it.

“No,” Mereel said with a scowl, “it seems as though they started their training as soon as they could walk and understand what they were being told. Not one of them has had a childhood.”

Myj grumbled under her breath and then sighed, for now it seemed there was nothing to be done about it. Mereel was already doing what he could on the matter and if he needed their help he would ask them for it.

Cerasi returned only a moment later with two sleepy looking boys trailing after her. They were just as dirty and ragged as the other kids, but Myj noted the jetii’kad on the hip of the boy that seemed to be wearing tattered Jedi tunics. That one must be Kenobi, so the other boy was Nield.

There was another round of introductions and then they all sat down to discuss the situation. Myj let the kids debate over what parcel of land could possibly be big enough to give a whole thirty plus people, before she took pity on them and suggested that instead of trying to find one big piece they choose several smaller pieces. That seemed to work out better and before long Mereel had used his comm to project a map of the city so the kids could show Myj and her family where the homes and land they were being given were located. The final conclusion was a house for each couple in the family, six houses for Myj’s grandchildren and their ade and riduure, then another three for Myj’s children and their riduure, and then finally one for Myj. All of them were in the same district of the city, so they would be close enough to visit each other every single day if they liked, even if they were walking on foot. 

After that was decided, Kenobi offered to take them to each location so they could get settled and Myj agreed. The boy Jedi hopped back to his feet and started leading them all back through the labyrinth of tunnels (with Mereel wishing Lyle well as they left) until they reached a grate that Kenobi pushed out of the way and climbed out into the city proper.

“It’s still a little dangerous to walk around above ground,” Kenobi told them conversationally as he trotted down the cracked streets of what appeared to be a more suburban neighborhood, “Since not all the Elders have been exiled yet, but we can give you a copy of our tunnel map so you can travel underground until it’s safe if you like.” the boy said and then stopped in front of the first house. It had what had once been a garden, although it was long since overgrown, and the windows of the house were boarded up, but all in all the roof was intact and the building looked stable enough. It needed to be renovated, but it was by no means a hovel. Myj and her family talked amongst themselves to decide who would take this house and then once it was decided Kenobi led them back underground to the next location a block away.

It took several hours to show them all ten locations, and once they were done Mereel released Kenobi back into the custody of the other kids, although not before Myj told him, “We want to give some of you kids homes, will you offer it to them when you go back and tell us if any of them is interested? I’ll give you my comm code.”

Kenobi beamed at her and nodded, “I already know a few who have been miserable to be sleeping in the crypts with no homes. I’m sure they’d jump at the chance to have a home and family again. I’ll talk to them and then get back to you about it.”

Myj thanked him and then watched him split off to go back to the crypts while Mereel led them back to the clone’s base so they could relocate their ship and start moving their possessions into their new homes.

“I’ll give you all a salary of course while you’re working on rebuilding everything,” Mereel was telling them as they walked through the winding tunnels, “I’ve already talked to the clan leaders and they agreed to me setting up a fund to devote to these efforts to rebuild. You’ll be working for me so you can make a living until a new government and economy can be set up on this planet and you can find more normal jobs. I’ve called in many of my contacts to open up new supply lines for things like food and such, but I’m told there’s plenty of farmland outside the cities, so if we get more people coming here with an interest in doing that we’ll be able to set up more internal supply lines rather than having to import everything.”

Myj nodded along as he talked, pleased to hear how much thought he had put into this. “I’m sure there will be people interested,” she assured him and he smiled and nodded. 

“I know our people will come through,” he agreed and Myj nodded a second time, again pleased to hear that he had so much faith in their people.

Once they were back to the ship, Mereel wished them well and gave Myj his comm code, telling her that once they had gotten settled and were ready to start working he’d give them something to do. All in all this situation was atrocious, but Myj knew it’d be fixed, they’d all work together to fix it, so she spent a few days helping her family get settled into their new homes and then commed Mereel that they were ready to get to work.

Chapter Text

Now that they had joined back up with Rex and Wolffe’s battalion, Howzer was faced with a decision. He’d been thinking about it a lot over the last couple weeks, since the war had ended. He’d watched quietly as the Bad Batch helped Rex out in small ways, assisting the Young in smashing the propaganda in the Halls of Evidence, Tech tracking the call from Cody, and numerous other small tasks, and the choice he had to make sat there in his gut, especially when it was quiet.

Would he stay with Rex, as one of his captains, like before, or would he stay with the Bad Batch?

He didn’t know the right answer, because the Bad Batch had of course functioned perfectly fine without him pretty much their whole lives…well for a given value of fine, but now Howzer felt obligated to keep them out of trouble. He had never said the gai bal manda for them, but he had been thinking of them as his kids for a while now. They had needed somebody and that was why Howzer had started looking out for them in the first place, ever since they’d rescued him, but now they had Mereel and Jango and Arla, so did they actually need him there? Would it be better to stay with Klacks and Skroll and their other brothers on Rex’s base?

And of course there was Rex himself. Howzer owed him a lot, owed him everything, and while he knew Rex would never hold him to that debt, would never consider that debt as something that existed in the first place, Howzer still felt it. 

He was torn between two groups of brothers and frankly he didn’t know who to choose, who needed him more. 

Howzer eventually decided he should talk to somebody about it and the person he went to was, of course, Rex, who had been his confidant ever since he’d finally let him in, had accepted him as his ori’vod, a few weeks after the Bad Batch had left him on Rex’s doorstep.

Rex was always busy, he had a lot of people to manage and not a lot of time or resources to keep them all afloat, so the only time when he was free enough for them to have a talk about something unrelated to their duties was during mealtimes. Howzer had already eaten with Mereel and the Batch, but he hoped to catch Rex before he went back to running around managing everybody.

He did find him in the place he always seemed to be during mealtimes, which was sitting on the subway turnstiles with Wolffe. Howzer approached them hesitantly, worried he was interrupting something, but when Rex looked up and saw him hanging back anxiously he said something to Wolffe and the other commander patted his little brother on the back and left him alone with Howzer without a fuss.

“Hey, vod,” Rex greeted as he waved Howzer over, “You look like you need something.”

Howzer walked over now that he’d been invited, and sat down on the turnstile next to his ori’vod. “What’s eating you?” Rex asked him gently, and Howzer let out a breath and scrubbed his hand through his hair.

“I—” he started and then stopped, not sure what he should say. Rex didn’t rush him, he just took another bite out of his ration bar and waited patiently for Howzer to figure out how to explain. “I…” he tried again, “I have to make a call and I’m not sure what I should do,” he eventually managed.

Rex gave him a searching look and Howzer got the impression he was trying to judge how serious this was, “Tell me about it then,” he suggested after a moment, apparently deciding that this was important, but not a disaster, as he took another bite of his ration bar.

Howzer sighed again, “Mereel adopted us,” he said to start, figuring it was as good a place as any, “The Bad Batch obviously, but me too. I accepted his vows.”

“Are you thinking of going back on it?” Rex asked him and there was no judgment in his tone. Howzer might have been surprised by that if he hadn’t seen how Rex and Mereel butted heads almost every time they interacted. Rex didn’t seem to hold actual animosity towards the Mand’alor, but Howzer could tell he found the man deeply annoying.

“Not exactly,” Howzer said, “but…I can’t be in two places at once and Mereel’s not going to stick around here forever.”

“Ah,” Rex said as he understood what Howzer was getting at, “You’re not sure who to stick with.”

Howzer nodded and looked down at his hands where they rested in his lap, although he looked up when Rex put a hand on his shoulder. “Whatever you choose is fine, Howzer,” Rex told him kindly, “I can’t say I wouldn’t miss you or worry about you, but I understand why you might want to stick with the Mandos, especially since it seems like the Bad Batch is going to stay with them too.”

“They don’t need me really,” Howzer said after a moment, “They managed alright before I showed up.”

“Like hell,” Rex responded in a bone dry voice, gesturing at Howzer with his ration bar, “They were a dumpster fire, Howzer, having somebody watching out for them can only improve things. At least then somebody can point out when something they think is normal is actually the most toxic thing in the galaxy.”

Howzer couldn’t help but laugh at that, “Yeah maybe, but they do have Mereel now.”

“So?” Rex asked him, “Don’t get me wrong, I can tell Mereel is a good guy and he’s doing his best, but he has opinions on how things should be that don’t always match reality. Not only that but he doesn’t know us, not the way we know each other. You know what it was like on Kamino, you know what the war was like, you know exactly the sort of stuff the Bad Batch has been through, or at least you know enough to be able to estimate, but he doesn’t know any of that. Good intentions can only get you so far.”

“You sound like you want me to stay with them,” Howzer observed and Rex tipped his head in acknowledgement.

“I’m not telling you we don’t want you here, Howzer, I wouldn’t because it’s not true,” Rex told him earnestly, giving Howzer’s shoulder a comforting squeeze, “We have a place for you, we always will, because you’re valuable to us and we love you, but those kids don’t have a support structure like we do. If you stick with the Mandos nothing will fall apart, our chain of command was designed so that when one person is taken out somebody else can pick up the slack, that’s just inherent in the structure, but the Bad Batch doesn’t have a replacement for you.”

Howzer smiled ruefully at his ori’vod, “I think I get it, and you’re probably right. Mereel doesn’t know enough about us to know when he’s about to step on a landmine.”

Rex nodded, “I’m not trying to make this decision for you, I’m just laying out my observations. You can stick with us or you can stick with them and I’ll support you either way, vod’ika, but if you’re asking who needs you there more, it’s the Bad Batch.”

“They don’t listen to me,” Howzer pointed out and Rex snorted.

“They don’t listen to anybody,” he griped, although he was smiling, “but bossing them around is only half the point.  A little bossing around is good for them, especially when they get out of line, stop eating or whatever like Crosshair did, but the other half of it is that they need a translator between them and Mereel, so when he inevitably steps on a landmine it doesn’t blow everything to smithereens.”

“He hasn’t yet,” Howzer argued, but he knew what Rex was going to say even before he said it.

“The thing about walking around in a minefield is that the longer you do it the more likely you are to step on something,” Rex told him, just as Howzer had known he would, “The fact that he’s made it this far is good, but eventually he’s going to fuck up and the real test will be to see if he can recover from it. If not, if he screws up so badly that the kids can’t stay, we’ll take them back. I'm sure we can find them a ship to replace the Marauder so they don’t have to stay in the barracks and I know we’ll be able to keep them occupied, but if that doesn’t have to happen it’s better that it doesn’t.”

“So I’m looking out for Mereel as much as the kids,” Howzer concluded and Rex smiled at him crookedly.

“I think he’s good for them,” the commander explained, “More than anybody they’d benefit from a stable environment and they’re young, much too young to be running around fighting all the time. If anybody still has a chance at being semi-normal it’s them, it’s too late for the rest of us, far too late, but I think they have a chance.”

“You might be right,” Howzer eventually said.

“How about this,” Rex said, “I’ll give you a mission. Keep those kids and Mereel from blowing up the first chance any of us has had at a peaceful life. If you need something from me I’ll give it to you, no questions asked, and if you need to talk then call me, I’ll be here.”

Howzer laughed, “You’ve made up my mind for me,” he said.

“You asked me my opinion,” Rex said with a shrug, “You don’t have to accept that mission, but I think it’ll be a good one for you and I know you’d just worry about them if you stayed here anyway.”

“You’re right,” Howzer said, smiling, “Damn you for being right all the time.”

“I’m talented like that,” Rex teased and took another bite of his ration bar, “Then again I think we should talk with Mereel about this…if you choose to stick with him and the kids.”

“I can’t argue any point you’ve made so far, ori’vod,” Howzer told him wryly, “At this point I’d be stupid to not take on that mission.”

“Operation Buir,” Rex told him with a crooked grin, “Alright let’s go brief Mereel. I wouldn’t put it past him to never think to ask you for advice, given as far as he’s concerned you’re just as much a youngling as they are.”

“Alright,” Howzer agreed as the both of them hopped down off the turnstiles and Rex wolfed down the last few bites of his ration. Howzer had eaten lunch with the Mand’alor only a half hour before, so he was pretty confident Mereel hadn’t had time to run off just yet, and they found him easily enough. The man was leaning his back against a pillar in between two platforms, talking to Myles about something or rather, but just like Rex had, when he saw Howzer and Rex approaching he said something to Myles and the Mando nodded and walked away, leaving Mereel to turn his attention to the clones.

“Something going on?” the Mand’alor asked them as they stepped up to him. Rex leaned his weight on his back foot and folded his arms over his chest, his expression stern and serious, much more so than it had been when he was talking to Howzer.

“I’ve given Howzer permission to stick with you when you eventually take off,” Rex explained and Howzer snorted, because Rex hadn’t so much given him permission as he had told him it was what Howzer should be doing at length.  

Mereel glanced from Howzer to Rex and then back again, “I wasn’t aware that was an issue,” he eventually said, “but…but I guess if you really wanted to stay with your brothers I wouldn’t stop you, Howz’ika.”

Rex seemed to soften slightly, just for a moment, but then his stern expression locked back into place, “If you fuck him up you'll answer to me and I don’t care if you’re a king, I’ll bury you.” Rex warned, his tone deadly and Howzer choked. Rex gave his little brother a bland look before turning back to Mereel. “Do you know what happened to him?”

The Mand’alor nodded, his expression somber, even though Rex was blatantly threatening him. “He told me about the brothel, and that he was a slave, but not the details.”

Rex let out a huff, “That’s fine, so long as you know. Howzer doesn’t like people touching him suddenly or having things touch his neck and don’t do anything to restrain him, which includes holds in grappling if you spar or catching him by the wrist when you need his attention. Don’t push his boundaries even if you think he’s improved. He’s always acting like things that bother him don’t, so don’t expect him to tell you when you’re pushing it either. Keep an eye out and if he seems uncomfortable you stop whatever you’re doing then and there understand?”

“Rex…” Howzer complained, but Rex just raised an eyebrow at him in challenge and Howzer really couldn’t argue, he knew Rex was right on all accounts, even if it was embarrassing.

Mereel nodded along, “I understand,” he said with utmost gravity, making Howzer’s face burn.

“If you run into a problem and don’t know how to solve it then talk to him,” Rex ordered, still looking up at Mereel with deadly severity, “Howzer’s not a tubie, he can talk out his problems, and if he’s being an ass and won’t talk to you about it then talk to me and I’ll see what I can do. He’s my little brother and if I need to talk to him you better tell me.”

The Mand’alor nodded again, matching Rex’s seriousness, and Howzer put his head in his hands. Honestly at this point he wouldn’t be surprised if Mereel took out a datapad and started taking notes.

“The reason I want Howzer with you though,” Rex went on, changing tack, “Is because you don’t know jack about us and your ideas are stupid. Eventually you’re going to fuck up with the Bad Batch, those kids have been through too much and they have too many triggers for you to never stumble over one. When you do, you ask Howzer for help. He knows them better than you do, and he knows what they need better than you. If he tells you you’re doing something wrong you better kriffing listen to him, because if you screw those kids up worse than they are already I’m taking them away from you.”

Mereel blinked at Rex in surprise, but instead of bristling over the threat the Mando just nodded again, “If I were to screw up that badly then they’d be better off if you did,” he said and again Rex seemed to relax when Mereel didn’t argue or challenge his authority.

“Alright,” Rex finally allowed, “You have my comm code and I’m trusting you with my brothers. Howzer is your translator, so make good use of him to smooth things out. He was parenting those kids long before you showed up.”

“I figured as much,” Mereel said and then looked at Howzer, “Did you ever say the gai bal manda?”

“No…” Howzer admitted hesitantly, but Rex seized control again.

“Whether he said it or not changes nothing, Howzer has been keeping those kids from spiraling and he doesn’t need some formality like that to be their buir. Just because you said it and he didn’t doesn’t make you more their parent than he is.”

Mereel shook his head, “I never meant to imply such a thing,” he said, “The reason I took the title of ba’buir and not buir is out of respect for their relationship. He doesn’t have to say the gai bal manda to have that with them.”

Rex nodded shortly and then turned to Howzer and held his hand out, when Howzer didn’t protest, Rex put his hand on the back of Howzer’s head and pulled their heads together into a keldabe. “If you need help I’m here, always.”

“I know, ori’vod,” Howzer assured him as Rex held them together for a moment before releasing him and stepping back. 

“Keep an eye on the brats for me,” Rex said, the crooked smile reappearing on his face and Howzer laughed.

“Somebody has to,” he replied and Rex nodded.

“My point exactly,” the commander agreed before turning back to Mereel.

“Don’t forget you can make mistakes,” he warned one last time, “And when you do, don’t think you don’t have to make up for them.”

“I understand,” Mereel told him earnestly, “All I can do is my best, but if something goes wrong and I need help, then I’ll ask for it.”

“Good,” Rex said then then patted Howzer on the back, “Good luck on your mission vod’ika, it’ll be a long one.”

Howzer smiled at him and saluted, which made Rex snort before he returned the salute and then left the two of them with a lazy wave and, “Talk to you later.”

The captain let out a huff and looked up at Mereel, “Looks like you passed.”

Mereel chuckled and once Howzer had nodded at him, he ran his fingers gently through Howzer’s hair, “I’m glad you have such a good ori’vod. Getting the shovel talk is a good sign in my opinion and he's right, if you need help I can’t give you, or if I screw up, you should talk to him.”

“I will,” Howzer said, “And I’ll help you with the Bad Batch if you need it. You’ve done good so far, but Rex’s right, even a saint would make a mistake eventually, so I’ll help you out if I can.”

“Thanks, Howz’ika,” Mereel said with a smile as he patted Howzer on the top of the head, “Last I saw they were helping Kenobi survey the areas of Zehava we cleared of Elders to see what’s salvageable and what’s going to need to be rebuilt from the ground up, if you want to join them. I sent Arla and Jango with them, but an extra pair of eyes would make me feel better.”

“Sure,” Howzer said, “might as well.”

Mereel smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder before Howzer excused himself to go join his charges to, as Rex had emphasized, keep them out of trouble.

Chapter Text

Howzer had been a little surprised to hear that Klacks and Skroll wanted to leave the battalion just to stick with him and Crosshair, but then again he wasn’t all that surprised, given how hard of a time Rex had said they’d been having when they’d all been separated. Either way, Howzer didn’t mind and he supported them regardless, so while the Bad Batch were off helping Rex survey the area around their prospective base for security risks (with an escort) Howzer collected Skroll and Klacks and went searching for Mereel. 

Since they’d won the war Mereel was busy a lot of the time hunting the remaining enemies down like the dogs they were, but Howzer had seen him a few hours before, when the most recent strike team had returned, so he suspected the Mand’alor was around somewhere.

In the end the three of them found him tucked into a corner, power napping against the wall. He’d been working hard so Howzer felt a little bad that he’d have to wake him, but now was as good a time as any since the only time Mereel wasn’t working these days was when he was eating or sleeping. 

“Mereel?” Howzer asked quietly, Mereel had his helmet on so his face wasn’t visible, but Howzer saw how he started slightly when Howzer spoke. He hadn’t been completely asleep then, given Howzer hadn’t said his name very loudly, but he’d been dozing at least.

“Howz’ika,” Mereel said, sitting up slightly and pulling his helmet off. He looked tired and Howzer felt another twinge of guilt for waking him, “What do you need, ad’ika?” 

Howzer turned and ushered Klacks and Skroll forward and the two of them came a little hesitantly, not shy exactly, but slightly wary. They didn’t know Mereel. “This is Klacks and Skroll,” Howzer introduced, gesturing to each of them when he said their names. “They’re the two brothers I told you about. The ones who were slaves with me.”

Mereel’s expression cleared in understanding for a second before becoming slightly pinched, an especially unhappy shadow falling over it when he looked at Klacks in particular, which Howzer understood. Klacks was so little and he had such a cheerful and kind personality that it was especially painful for it to have been him in the brothel. The Mand’alor let out a sigh and then smiled at the two of them warmly, “I’m glad you two were alright after all,” he said.

Klacks and Skroll both nodded, so Howzer went on, “They don’t want us to be separated again,” he explained, “So they were hoping they could come with us when we split off, rather than staying with Rex. I’ve already talked to Rex about it and he said he didn’t mind.”

If anything Mereel seemed to light up a little, the edge of tiredness in him softening slightly, “Oh!” he said, looking at Klacks and Skroll again, “Well I don’t think I could manage any more kids myself, nine is a lot, but there are plenty of us who’d take more and I know a pair who can’t have their own, but have been wanting an ad. I’m sure they’d be open to taking you both.”

Both Klacks and Skroll seemed to slump slightly in relief and Howzer gave them each a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder; they'd been worried about being shot down, even though they shouldn’t have. They didn’t know the Mandos well enough to know that they’d pick up pretty much any kid they could find.

“Sounds good to me,” Howzer said, “You can vouch for their character?”

“Of course,” Mereel agreed, finally hauling himself to his feet and dusting himself off, “both of them are honorable and I think they’d make good parents. I’ve known them for years. Follow me and I’ll see if I can find the one who’s down with us here, Sujok. He’s one of my warriors. His riduur, Loni is an engineer so she’s still up with the carrier.”

The three clones nodded and trailed after Mereel as he started walking, watching silently as the Mand’alor talked to the various Mandos they passed and asked after his warrior.

As it so happened, Sujok was eating with a small knot of other warriors, part of that same strike team that had returned only a few hours before, Howzer suspected.

“Sujok!” Mereel called once they’d found him. Howzer was a little surprised to see that it was the absolute giant of a man that he’d seen around Mereel’s camp ever since the Bad Batch had rescued the Death Watch prisoners on Concord Dawn. He was almost as big as Wrecker had been before and his armor was heavy plate painted red with blue accents. Howzer recalled the Twi’lek Mando who had run up to him, sobbing, when he’d first returned to the camp, that must have been his riduur. At the time her armor had been gray and gold, which made sense; gray to grieve her lost husband and gold to promise she’d avenge him, but since Sujok had returned Howzer had noticed she’d repainted her armor to green and blue.

“Jaster,” Sujok greeted and then stood up when Mereel gestured him aside, away from the others. “You need something?” the Mando asked and Mereel smiled at him, his helmet under his arm.

“More that I have some good news for you,” Mereel replied, “These two,” he said, indicating Klacks and Skroll, “have decided to take us up on our offer so they can stay with Howzer and Crosshair rather than being separated again when we leave. The four of them seem to have been through a lot together, which means they need somebody to look after them, but I’m afraid if I take on any more kids I’ll keel over dead.”

Sujok let out a surprised and delighted laugh, “No kidding?” he asked brightly, “I had thought all the clones wanted to stay here.”

“Not all apparently,” Mereel said, glancing down at Skroll and Klacks, who both nodded.

“Let me call Loni real quick, just to check if she’s alright with it,” Sujok said, “I’m sure she will be, but I wouldn’t want to leave her in the dark.”

Mereel nodded placidly and Sujok stepped away, putting his helmet on to use his long range comms.

“He’s one of the ones we rescued,” Howzer observed and Mereel nodded again.

“You rescued him?” Klacks asked and Howzer nodded.

“From the Death Watch,” Howzer explained, looking back at his brothers, “a bunch of honorless cowards that Mereel’s people have been fighting for some years. They’d taken him and a bunch of kids prisoner, possibly to try and brainwash them.”

Mereel nodded, “They’ve been trying that sort of thing for a while now, since they’re running low on troops that are fighting fit. They tried it with Arla too.”

Howzer couldn’t help but frown, he hadn’t known she’d been held captive like that, but he supposed it would explain her zealous animosity for the Death Watch.

Sujok returned a moment later and pulled his helmet back off, “She’s onboard,” he declared cheerfully and then knelt down in front of Klacks and Skroll, “You’re sure about this? That you’d want to be our ade?”

The two of them glanced at each other again, slightly hesitant but then Skoll got a hard look about him and nodded to Klacks before turning back to Sujok and saying, “Yes, so long as you promise we’ll get to stay close with Howzer.”

Sujok let out a huff and scuffed his hand through his hair, “If that’s what you want we’ll keep to it, Mereel is our alor anyway, I wouldn’t be going anywhere unless he told me to and Loni has all those starfighters and dropships to take care off, they’d fall apart without her and then where would we be?”

“Okay,” Klacks said, but then hesitated for a second before looking up at Sujok with his jaw set in a firm line, “You have to promise.”

Sujok smiled and nodded, “I swear on my honor we won’t separate you from your brothers so long as you want to stay together with them.”

Skroll and Klacks seemed to slump slightly in relief, reassured, and then Sujok said, “Why don’t we talk first, so I know you and you know me before we take any vows.”

Howzer’s little brothers looked at him hesitantly and Howzer said, “I’ll stay too, if that’s alright.”

Again they seemed relieved and Sujok nodded. “I’ll leave you for now then,” Mereel told them amiably, “maybe I’ll be able to catch another hour or two of sleep before something else pops up.”

“Sorry for waking you,” Howzer told him guiltily, but Mereel shook his head.

“You were right to,” he said, “this is pretty important.” With that Sujok and Mereel said a few words to each other and then Mereel split off and Sujok ushered the three clones over to sit in front of him when he sat down at the base of a pillar.

After a second of thought he asked, “Any of you have a portable holoprojector?”

Howzer nodded and pulled his out of his belt and handed it over, with Sujok taking it with a grateful nod and keying in a number. There was a short moment of buzzing and then a projection of Loni in her full armor appeared.

“Lek, Cyar’ika?” she asked and Sujok adjusted the projector’s input slightly and set it down in the center of their gathering. 

Loni seemed to startle and then pulled off her helmet, her eyes a little wide. “These are the little ones?” she asked and Sujok nodded.

“I’m Captain Howzer,” Howzer told her, although he knew she already knew who she was. “These are my vod’ike, Klacks and Sergeant Skroll, who are hoping to come with us.”

Klacks held up his hand in an anxious greeting, but Skroll just nodded his head. There was something slightly wary in his expression, but Howzer wasn’t surprised by that, between Klacks and Skroll, Skroll was much more cautious and suspicious of people than Klacks. He’d been at war for longer than the shiny and it had hardened him.

“I’m Loni,” said the Twi’lek Mando, “I am…maybe not the best in the social skills department,” she admitted, “but I’ve wanted my own family since I was small.”

“Mereel said you can’t have children,” Howzer said, not asking exactly but something sidelong of that.

Loni sighed and nodded, “I was ill in my youth and had to have a big surgery to save my life, but at the cost of no longer being able to get pregnant.”

“We’ve been hoping to find a foundling for us for a while, but so far we’ve had no luck,” Sujok told them. Skroll and Klacks both nodded, and Sujok took the reins of the conversation, “Tell us about yourselves?” he requested and Skroll and Klacks glanced at each other again.

“We uh…well you know we’re clones…” Klacks started a little shyly, “I was in the 81st infantry. I uh…I’m nine.”

Loni and Sujok both frowned when Klacks mentioned his division number, but didn’t interrupt.

“I was with the 327th Star Corps,” Skroll said with less shyness and more surety, watching the two Mandos like he was waiting for them to do something aggressive. “Under Marshal Commander Bly, I’m twelve. Did Mereel tell you about the fiasco with the chips?”

The two Mandos nodded again and for a moment a furious look crossed both of their faces, but it passed quickly, “Yes he told us,” Sujok grumbled, “You were mind controlled?”

Skroll shook his head, “Both our chips were broken. Neither of us knew what the hell had happened, just that suddenly everybody seemed to have gone crazy and started following the most shabla insane orders given to them by people who hadn’t been our superiors the day before. I…was told to help burn down a village of people that were trying to resist our new superiors from taking over, but I…th-there were kids and nobody had done anything wrong so I…I helped some of them escape, but I got caught and they threw me in this prison with a whole bunch of other clones who’d disobeyed orders…and then they sold some of us into slavery and Klacks and Howzer ended up in my lot and we got bought by the same person.”

Loni and Sujok listened to the whole story with expressions that held a mixture of righteous fury and somberness, nodding along. Skroll had stopped talking before mentioning the brothel and Howzer knew he wasn’t comfortable talking about it, so he didn’t mention it either, letting his brothers do the talking and sort out what exactly they wanted to tell their potential buire about themselves.

“I um,” Klacks started up again once Skroll had finished, “My brothers all just suddenly turned on our general and killed him, but I didn’t understand why and I panicked and ran away…when my captain found me he had me arrested for dereliction of duty. I was in the prison for a while and then we got sold off, like Skroll said…”

Sujok sighed and asked, “How long were you slaves?”

Howzer’s little brothers both frowned, their brows furrowing as they tried to calculate the timespan, but Howzer took pity on them, “About three months,” he said, “None of us ended up at the prison at the same time and we didn’t meet each other until we were sold off. There were a lot of brothers there, most of the clones Rex has here are from the prison.”

“There’s more than eight hundred of them though,” Sujok said, “That many of you had faulty chips?”

“No,” Howzer said, shaking his head, “five hundred of them were in the prison itself, two hundred more are clones we subdued and took captive during Rex’s prison break so we could take their chips out, and the remaining hundred or so are from other legions that Rex has helped rescue from other places, about half of those were sent to us by Commander Cody, who was undercover trying to free brothers and get them to safety.”

“Who bought you?” Loni asked, her frown so deep it was almost a scowl.

Skroll and Klacks both winced and again Howzer came to the rescue, “We don’t feel comfortable talking about that…just yet. Maybe later.”

This here was the test, if the two of them pushed, Howzer would want Mereel to find somebody else to adopt Klacks and Skroll. He didn’t want them stuck with somebody who didn’t respect their boundaries, but after a second where the two Mandos glanced at each other unhappily, Sujok sighed and said, “Alright, maybe you can tell us when you know us better.”

Howzer let out a breath and then smiled at his brothers, who also seemed relieved. “We’re honored that you’d be willing to let us take you in,” Sujok told them kindly once they had relaxed, “We will work hard to honor your trust.”

Loni nodded, obviously the less talkative of the two of them. Klacks nodded his head hesitantly and Skroll gave them both a calculated, hard-eyed look, searching for deception if Howzer were to take a guess, but when he saw none he relaxed and nodded. “Keep your word and we’ll stay,” he said after a moment.

Sujok nodded immediately, but Loni hadn’t been there for the promise so she looked at her riduur in confusion. “They had me promise that we wouldn’t separate them from Captain Howzer or Crosshair,” he explained and his wife’s expression cleared.

“Oh,” she said, “I see no reason why we ever would unless Mereel ordered us to go somewhere else and even then he likely wouldn’t order us anywhere he wasn’t going himself, not the both of us.”

“Keep your word and it’ll be fine,” Skroll replied and they both nodded again.

“We will keep our word,” the two of them said and then Sujok smiled, “you’ve told us about your history, but not yourselves. What are your favorite things?”

The question seemed to take both Klacks and Skroll off guard, and they were silent for a moment as they thought about it. “My…” Klacks started hesitantly, glancing at Howzer with a look of anxiety that settled a little when Howzer gave him an encouraging nod, “My favorite color is blue?” he said and Skroll snorted then ruffled Klacks’s long hair when the shiny pouted at him.

“Blue is my favorite too,” Sujok told them kindly instead of laughing, which Howzer was pleased by. Klacks didn’t need to be made fun of, he was shy enough as it was. “What else do you like? What do you like doing?”

Klacks twisted his little fingers together as he thought about it, then looked back at Sujok and smiled shyly, “It’s dumb,” he said and Howzer was about to scold him for putting himself down, but Sujok beat him to it.

“Whatever it is, it’s not dumb. If you care about it, then it’s not something stupid, no matter what it is,” the Mando said with utmost seriousness.

“He’s right,” Howzer told his little brother, with Skroll giving an approving nod.

Klacks gave them the tiniest of smiles and then looked down at his hands self consciously, blushing slightly, “I…I like birds…”

“Birds?” Loni asked and Klacks winced a little, but Skroll slung an arm over his shoulders and Klacks relaxed ever so slightly.

“What do you like about birds?” Sujok asked him kindly, sounding genuinely interested.

“W-well there’s a lot of different kinds…” Klacks started, still looking down, “most life-supporting planets have birds…and they all look different, some of them are really crazy looking,” he elaborated, shedding his shyness a little and getting more excited the more he talked about it, “Some of them are really intelligent too! There were these crows that lived outside the first base I was stationed at. I used to pick acorns on patrol and leave them on the windowsill when I got off shift and the crows would come and eat them and since I did it at the same time every day they’d sit on the roof of the barracks waiting for me when my shift was almost over! It was just one at first, but then they started bringing their families, even the fledglings! Did you know fledgling crows have blue eyes instead of black ones? And then when I’d been feeding them every day for six months they started bringing me stuff and leaving it on the windowsill where I put the acorns. One of them even brought me the firing pin from some poor sap who was cleaning his blaster outside, it just swooped down and stole it right while he was sitting there! Can you believe that?” By the time he was done Klacks was speaking exuberantly and waving his hands, but once he’d finished he blushed bright pink and stumbled over his words, “S-so yeah um…I like birds…”

Both Sujok and Loni were smiling and Loni said, “Well there’s a tree outside our kitchen window at home. We could put up some bird feeders if you want, then you can sit at the kitchen table and watch them. There are lots of birds on Concord Dawn.”

Klacks lit up like a firework and nodded furiously up and down, “There’s over five thousand species of birds on Concord Dawn!”

Loni and Sujok laughed in delight, “I bet somebody’s written a guide on them we can get you,” Sujok said, “Many people like animals, including birds.”

“And what about you?” Loni asked Skroll, who had largely been silent to let Klacks talk excitedly.

“What about me?” Skroll asked her with a frown and Sujok smiled.

“What do you like?” he asked.

Skroll furrowed his brow and glanced at Howzer, who gave him an encouraging smile. Skroll was not an especially trusting person to begin with and he also rarely talked about himself or his opinions with others, usually choosing to focus on Klacks or Howzer rather than himself. It wasn’t shyness, not the way Klacks was shy at least. Howzer was pretty sure Skroll secretly considered his own opinions and feelings to be unimportant and just rarely expressed them for that reason, assuming nobody would want to hear them. Howzer had been slowly working on getting him to express himself more, but it took a lot of work and it had been a slow process over many months.

“I don’t know,” Skroll eventually said.

“Well what’s your favorite color?” Sujok prompted, which made Skroll furrow his brow even more.

“I don’t have one. I don’t get why people do, they’re just colors,” he said after a moment.

“What about your ships?” Howzer asked, coming to Loni and Sujok’s rescue, because he could see they needed the help.

“What about my ships?” Skroll asked with a frown.

“Ships?” Loni asked, perking up. Mereel had said she was an engineer who worked on starships, so it made sense for them to be a topic of interest for her.

“Skroll collects model ships,” Howzer explained when Skroll said nothing, “He makes them himself out of cardstock based on blueprints he finds on the HoloNet, or he did back before everything went off the rails. He had a light box and a bunch of drafting tools to measure and cut everything the right way so he could put it together and have it be accurate.”

“Really?” Loni asked, “Do you have them still? I’d love to see them.”

“I don’t have them anymore and they’re not important anyway, it’s just a thing I do when I have empty hours,” Skroll said dismissively, but Klacks shook his head.

“They are too important, you had so many and you built them all from scratch and it took so much work to make each one. How many hours did it take you to make the LAAT?” the shiny argued fiercely.

“Twenty…” Skroll eventually admitted.

“See! Anything you spend that much time making is important!” Klacks told him firmly, “Isn’t it Howzer?”

Howzer smiled at him and then put a hand on Skroll’s shoulder, “It’s important. Maybe once everyone’s settled we can get you more stuff to remake the ones you lost.”

Sujok and Loni both nodded, “Drafting tools aren’t hard to come by and I can get blueprints for any kind of ship that’s been in use for the last fifty years. There’s a database we keep on them that I have an access code for, so I can download any of them whenever.”

Skroll didn’t light up exactly, but Howzer could see the way that sparked his interest. If he were to take a guess Skroll was running through what models of ship that would include in his head. From what Howzer could tell, Skroll knew everything there was to know about most of the ships that had been in use during their time, so maybe he’d have fun learning about the ones that were in use now as well.

“If you want,” Skroll eventually said, his tone noncommittal.

“That’s a yes,” Howzer informed the two Mandos wryly. If they were really going to be Skroll’s buire they would learn how to interpret the things he said eventually, but Howzer saw nothing wrong with giving them a leg up.

“Good,” Sujok said, “Do you feel like you could accept our vows? Now that we’ve talked a little?”

Skroll and Klacks shared yet another glance and then they both looked to Howzer again, who sighed, “Don’t ask me,” he told them, “I’m not the one getting adopted here.”

His little brothers both let out a huff, before seemingly having a silent conversation then Skroll looked back at the two Mandos and nodded firmly. Sujok and Loni both seemed to let out the breath they’d been holding and they smiled.

“Okay,” Sujok said and then went on in Mando’a, “Ni kyr'tayl gaise sa'ade, Klacks, Skroll.” Loni repeated the same phrase once Sujok had finished. 

The two clones both let out a breath and Klacks gave their new buire an uncertain smile, with Sujok and Loni smiling back. Howzer was pretty sure he saw tears pricking at the corners of Loni’s eyes. Carefully Sujok got up into a crouch and coaxed Klacks and Skroll over. Klacks went less hesitantly than the sergeant, although after a second of pause Skroll went as well. Once they were close enough, Sujok scooped the both of them into what looked to be an absolutely crushing hug before releasing them just enough to tap their foreheads together in a keldabe.

“We will make sure you are safe and happy,” he promised, “This is our duty and we accept it.”

“Okay,” Klacks said quietly, obviously touched, while Skroll looked positively shell shocked where Sujok still had a big hand on his small shoulder.

Howzer grinned at them, “I’ve got other duties today that Rex will ream me for if I slack off, will you two be alright if I leave?”

Klacks nodded and after a second Skroll agreed as well, “Might as well get to know our…our new buir,” he said, his voice wry, if not still slightly hesitant.

“Might as well,” Howzer agreed before giving both his brothers a reassuring pat on the back. They’d be alright, Sujok and Loni seemed to be on the up and up, they hadn’t pushed when a boundary was set, they had been supportive and hadn’t made fun of either Skroll or Klacks’s interests, had even suggested ways to encourage them, and Mereel had vouched for them. Howzer had a good feeling about this. 

Once Sujok had said a few parting words with Loni, she signed off, the projection of her flickering and disappearing, and Howzer was given back his projector. “Have you eaten?” Sujok asked his new ade and when both of them shook their heads he let out a huff and ushered them ahead of him as he brought them back to the knot of warriors he’d been eating with before so they could eat together. Howzer watched with a slight smile as Sujok introduced them as his kids and the warriors all cheered raucously, before going off to do his own work, glad that for all that he’d been willing to let Klacks and Skroll stay with Rex, they had chosen to stick with him instead. Being separated had been hard and it was nice to be together again, especially since it seemed like this arrangement might potentially end up as more than just one of convenience. 

So it’s not them as kids, but I did do some art of Klacks and Skroll during NLB so I figured I’d attach that here for you guys, just so you’d see sort of what they looked like before they got kid-ified.

Chapter Text

The Jedi had failed. Fox had known they would, but still the news that Palptine had escaped hit him like a kick in the chest and knocked all the air from his lungs. Palpatine had escaped and Maker only knew what he was going to do now. There was a high pitched ringing noise in Fox’s ears that almost drowned out what High General Koon was saying, but Fox managed to get the gist. All he wanted at that point was to sit in their quarters and try to get his breath back, so when the General was done, Fox simply left.

He wheeled himself through the Temple on autopilot, not paying attention to anything around him, and did eventually end up back in their quarters. He sat in silence in the center of the empty room for a moment, but his heart was racing in his chest, his breath coming in short hiccuping gasps, and he curled into himself, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and yanking on it as hard as he could.

It hurt, but it didn’t clear his head, not like it should. Fox sat in his wheelchair and pulled his hair and sobbed in frustration until somebody suddenly pulled his hands away and held them. Fox tried to stifle his sobbing, but he couldn't seem to stop, although he recognized Thire when his little brother knelt down in front of him, holding his hands and speaking to him in soft Mando’a. He must have come in without Fox hearing him.

“You’re okay,” Thire said to him in that comforting language, “You’re okay, Fox, just take a breath, can you do that for me?”

Fox tried, sucking in a shaky breath and Thire smiled and nodded. “Good,” he said, “One more, okay?” So Fox tried to draw in another breath around his hiccuping sobs and Thire praised him and asked him to do it again. It took about fifteen minutes of this for Fox to finally be able to breathe evenly, for him to finally stop crying, and Thire praised him and encouraged him the whole time.

“Better?” Thire asked him gently once he was left quietly hiccupping and Fox nodded, pulling one of his hands back so he could scrub at his face with his sleeve. “Good,” Thire hummed, “Tell me what happened?”

“Palpatine…” Fox’s breath hitched again and Thire gave his hand a squeeze, waiting patiently for Fox to continue, so after a moment of trying to fight back more uneven breaths, Fox went on, “The Jedi tried to arrest him, but they let him escape. He could be doing anything…”

Thire let out a breath and nodded, but then reached out to run his fingers through Fox’s hair. “Okay,” he sighed after a moment, “Well…this isn't all bad is it? They ousted him from the Senate right?”

“I–I guess,” Fox mumbled and Thire nodded along.

“That’s not nothing,” he said, “If he’s no longer in the Senate then he won’t ever become Chancellor, he won't be able to start the war, or prolong it, or use us as weapons. The fact that he’s still on the loose isn’t great, but this isn’t all a loss, yeah?”

Fox took in another shaky breath and Thire went on speaking, “The Jedi said they wouldn’t mention we were involved either,” he pointed out, “So he won’t target us, he won’t know where they got their intel.”

“Just because they said that doesn’t make it true,” Fox mumbled and Thire just nodded.

“Let’s check then,” he suggested and then pulled Fox’s portable holoprojector out of the pouch that Fox had attached to one of the armrests of his chair. “There’s no way the news isn’t talking about it, if the Jedi snitched on us, then it’ll be brought up.”

“You’re right,” Fox sighed, his breath still shuddering a little in his lungs, “They’ve been all over the idea of clones running around and attacking the Jedi, if they know we’re involved they’ll be talking about it.”

Thire nodded and flicked the projector on before tuning it to the news and then setting it on Fox’s knee. The image that it displayed was a human woman and a Twi’lek man at a desk talking. “–left a chaotic scene at the Senate today,” the woman was saying, “as the Jedi presented evidence of Senator Palaptine having committed the crimes of kidnapping and child abuse. The clip they showed on the Senate floor also included proof of him being a Force-user and they claimed he was a Sith. Perhaps Palaptine could have disputed this, but the fact that he ran was pretty telling, don’t you think, Mar?”

The Twi'lek nodded his head and looked back at the woman, “Yes I agree, if he wasn’t guilty he wouldn’t have torn his way out of the Senate the way he did. Reports are saying that he killed seven Coruscant Security officers on his way out. The Jedi gave chase of course, and it seems they managed to kill him. Those same reports say the Jedi were fighting him on a damaged speeder, moments before the speeder crashed. The Jedi came out unscathed, but I think it’s safe to say that nobody could have survived a crash like that once the speeder hit the ground.”

“Yes,” the woman agreed, “A charred body was found in the remains of the speeder as well, so it seems he didn’t make it.”

“We’re going to cut to the footage of the Senate floor now when the Jedi confronted Palpatine,” the Twi’lek said.

The footage changed to a recording of the Senate and Fox and Thire watched in silence as the Jedi showed the evidence they had and then gave chase when Palpatine booked it.

“There, see?” Thire told Fox gently, “No mention of where they got the intel. Palpatine won’t have any way of knowing we’re involved, he’ll have reason to go after the Jedi, but not us.”

Fox could only nod and scrub at his face again with a sleeve, trying to breathe evenly. “I have to tell my batchmates,” he said and Thire just nodded. 

“I’ll stay,” Fox’s little brother told him kindly, squeezing his hand again, and Fox nodded gratefully. They spent a moment sitting in silence as Fox gathered his nerves, but then he shut off the news broadcast and dialed in Rex’s code. The line buzzed for a moment and then an image of both Rex and Wolffe popped up.

Wolffe frowned and glanced at Rex, “You’re right, he does look like hell,” Fox’s ori’vod sighed and Rex just nodded.

“Hey, Fox. Hey, Thire,” Rex said, “Something happen? You don’t look so hot, Fox.”

Fox just nodded and took a breath, running his hand through his hair and only just resisting the urge to pull it again, “Yeah, I got some bad news. High General Koon and his master went after Palpatine, they showed the evidence they found of him hurting Maul to the Senate and he ran. They chased him, but he got away. The news is assuming he’s dead, but the Jedi said he escaped.”

Wolffe let out a curse and Rex sighed, “Damn,” he grumbled, “That is bad news.”

“Was General Plo alright?” Wolffe asked Fox urgently, but then relaxed when Fox gave him a tired nod.

“He didn’t look hurt,” Fox told his ori’vod, and Wolffe let out a relieved sigh.

“Does Palpatine know you’re involved in this?” Rex asked as soon as Wolffe seemed sufficiently reassured.

“It doesn’t seem like it,” Thire spoke up, “We checked the news and they haven't mentioned us, plus when we saw footage of the Jedi confronting Palpatine they didn’t mention Fox telling them about Palptine’s dirty deeds, they didn’t say where they got the intel at all.”

“Good,” Wolffe said with a huff, folding his arms across his chest, “That’s not nothing.”

“That’s what I said,” Thire agreed, “He’s been ousted, that means his whole evil scheme is ruined, even if he’s still alive.”

“The Jedi will find him,” Rex assured them, which just made Fox’s stomach turn over. Thire let out a huff, but didn’t argue, even though Fox knew he didn’t believe that any more than Fox did.

“This also means Bly and the others probably won’t be able to get in touch with him,” Wolffe pointed out, “If he’s gone to ground they’ll have to find him first if they want to get in touch with him, and I think they probably won’t find him before the Jedi do.”

“One can only hope,” Fox grumbled and a solemn look came across Rex’s face.

“We’ve left for Haruun Kal,” Rex told them, “We’re going to arrive tomorrow, so Maker willing, we should be done soon and be able to come get you all. You’re safe already with the Jedi, but once we’re all back together we can handle whatever comes our way, even if Palpatine does somehow figure out what happened, we won’t let him hurt you again, Fox.” 

Fox could only nod. He wanted to believe that, he really did, but he knew Palpatine. He knew that if Palpatine wanted to kill him, or worse, his brothers, that they wouldn’t be able to stop him. They were just clones and the Sith had cut through them like wet flimsi during the war, the only ones who had been able to stand toe to toe with the Sith were the Jedi, and yet Fox didn’t have much confidence in them either.

“I guess this means the Empire is pretty thoroughly fucked sideways though isn’t it?” Wolffe said, obviously trying to cheer Fox up, “It seems like the cloning project is already scrapped, just based on what the Bad Batch have told us, so if the war even happens at all it’ll go differently, no chipped troopers to slaughter the Jedi with, and without Palpatine as Chancellor he can’t turn the Republic into the Empire. You’ve totally screwed him over, Fox.”

“I guess,” Fox mumbled and Rex let out a sigh.

“I know this isn’t the best news, ori’vod,” Rex told him kindly, “but try not to focus on the bad stuff, it’ll just make you feel shitty. Palpatine has been ousted, the Empire won’t ever rise, and the whole damn plot is ruined. You did that. The Jedi might not have ever found that intel without your help, but you gave it to them and now they’ve ruined his plans, you helped save the Republic. That’s not nothing, vod.”

Fox nodded listlessly. “Hang in there vod’ika,” Wolffe said, “We’ll be there soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Fox sighed and both Rex and Wolffe smiled at him. 

“Alright, was there anything else?” Rex asked and Fox shook his head, so his brothers told him again to hang in there and that they loved him, then sighed off. Fox ran his hand through his hair again once the light from the projector had flickered out, tugging on his curls lightly, but Thire pulled his hand away again.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” Thire told him gently, “This is just a setback, we’ll overcome it, I know we will.”

“If he finds out we were involved, he’s going to tear us to shreds and nobody will be able to do anything, Thire,” Fox mumbled, looking down at the ground rather than at his vod’ika. 

“He won’t find out,” Thire assured him, “Nobody who knows will tell him.”

Fox just nodded listlessly and Thire reached out to pull him forward a little so he could tap their foreheads together. “Stitch is still performing surgery I think,” he said as he sat back on his heels, “but if you want, we can go to the training room and try out some of those exercises he came up with. I noted them all down so we could try them even when he was busy.”

“Sure,” Fox sighed and Thire gave him an encouraging smile and stood back up.

“Alright, I’ll comm everybody else and let them know what happened while we’re there, okay?” Thire offered and Fox nodded again, stowing the projector back in its pouch and then turning the wheels on his chair, heading out into the hall with his little brother trailing behind him.

He still felt awful, his nerves shivering with anxiety, but maybe Thire was right and some exercise would help. If nothing else there was a punching bag in there, so Fox could punch it and imagine it was the stupid Jedi’s faces. That might help a little. He would have imagined Palpatine, but he knew even in his brain he wouldn’t be able to imagine hitting him without some horrible consequences befalling him, it had just been too ingrained in his body by now that any slight against Palpatine, any step he took out of line, would destroy everything. He couldn’t do it even if it was just pretend.

Even so they headed to the training rooms and found a couple brothers there sparring on one of the mats. They paused to smile and wave at Fox when he entered and he gave them a smile and a wave back as Thire led him over to the racks that held the weights. 

Exercising had always helped Fox in the past, so he just hoped that Thire was right and this would help settle the pit in his stomach and the way his nerves buzzed under his skin. There was nothing else to be done about it, Palpatine had gotten away and yet again they had to rely on the Jedi, not that Fox had much hope for that. For now he just had to try and manage so he could still function, but he had Thire there to help him, Thire and his other brothers, who he knew would offer him comfort in their own ways once they found out. For now that might be enough.

Chapter Text

Echo woke from a nightmare in a cold sweat and sat up in his bunk, looking around the room Mereel had given them on the carrier with his breaths shuddering in his chest. The rest of his vode were still asleep, thankfully he hadn’t woken any of them this time. As much as he was comforted by Crosshair or another of his vode coming to sit and talk with him after his nightmares, this latest one had left him feeling raw in a way they usually didn’t. Normally his nightmares were about his time with the Techno Union, about waking up on the table, or about being plugged into Tambor’s machines, reduced to nothing but numbers and stratagems, but…this one had been different. 

He’d been searching through Tipoca city, stumbling on shaky metal legs he hadn’t gotten used to yet, his limbs still burning where they were connected to his body the way they had for the first few months he’d been out and about. He was in pain and confused, he couldn’t remember why he was like this, or how he’d gotten to Kamino, where anybody was, so he’d been searching the blank white halls, calling for Fives and getting more and more distraught when he failed to find him until he fell to his knees with a metallic clang and sobbed, only to wake up with a start.

Waking up wasn’t a relief though, because with it came the knowledge that Fives was gone, that he’d never find him, that he’d never see him again, that he was the last Domino standing. Echo took another hiccuping breath and wiped the tears from his eyes, trying to stifle the sobs so he wouldn’t wake anybody. They lessened eventually, but the grief was still there, raw and bleeding in his chest. He’d accepted that Fives was gone a long time ago, but at times like these all those feelings came back and hit him like a kick right in the face, knocking him flat all over again.

Echo had been told what had happened to Fives while he’d been held captive, Rex had patiently explained how he’d found out about the chips, how he had tried to tell them, how nobody had believed him because he’d sounded more than a little sick and crazy, and then how the commander of the Guard had shot Fives dead.

The fact that that commander was Rex’s own batchmate had to hurt. Rex and Fives had been close, so Echo knew it had to have been painful for Fives to have been murdered by his ori’vod, for his brother to be a vod-killer. And yet…and yet Rex hadn’t disowned him, didn’t seem to have done anything at all about it, and now he and the other commanders were going to take that vod-killer in like he wasn’t a murderer, like he’d done nothing wrong. 

Thinking about it made Echo sick with anger, how could Rex have done that? Didn’t he care? Why had he picked his murderous batchmate over Fives, over Echo? Why didn’t he care? It hurt. It hurt.

Echo threw his blankets off and stood up, shivering from the cold that always seeped into him through his implants and prosthetics. After a moment of hesitation he picked the blankets back up and wrapped himself in them before he took one last look at his sleeping vode and then padded out of their room silently. Hunter would be pissed if he woke up and Echo was gone, but…he needed to talk to Rex, and as much as he loved his new squad, this was none of their business and Hunter would have insisted he bring somebody with him.

The empty hall outside their quarters was brightly lit and it made Echo’s stomach churn as the memory of searching through Tipoca city came back to him, the photographic memory granted by his implants bringing it back to his mind with crystalline clarity. Echo overrode that process forcefully, shut it down, and the images dissipated back into the stream of code that always ran in the background of his mind, even though the grief still burned in his chest. He started walking.

It was the middle of the night cycle and Echo might be bothering the commanders if they weren’t already awake, but he couldn’t stew in this any longer. He needed answers, so he walked, still wrapped in his blankets, to the room the commanders shared, and knocked on their door.

Commander Wolffe was the one to answer and he looked severely annoyed, glowering down at Echo, his expression as fierce as ever. “Do you have any idea what kriffing time it is, trooper?” he demanded, but Echo wasn’t in all that great a mood either, so he raised his chin defiantly, uncowed, and talked back.

“I need to talk to Rex. It’s important.”

Wolffe’s scowl deepened, but before he could snarl anything at Echo, Rex appeared behind him with a yawn. “It’s fine, Wolffe,” Rex said and Wolffe gave Echo one last deadly look before relenting and letting Rex step past him out into the hall. Echo waited until the door shut behind him to actually look up at Rex, and he saw the worried frown that crossed the commander’s features.

“You alright, Echo?” Rex asked him quietly, “You look like you’ve been crying.”

“Why are you bringing Commander Fox to the base?” Echo demanded, ignoring Rex’s question and setting his jaw stubbornly.

Rex looked taken aback, before a somber expression slipped onto his face, “This is about Fives?” he asked, his voice weak and thin.

“Of karking course it’s about Fives!” Echo bit out, “Commander Fox murdered him in cold blood, right in front of you, he’s a vod-killer and you’re just letting him come back to the base like nothing happened?! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“It’s not that simple, Echo,” Rex sighed, scraping his fingers across his scalp and down his face, looking suddenly exhausted.

“It couldn’t possibly be simpler!” Echo snapped, “He’s a murderer, Rex! He killed Fives, my last batchmate, your vod’ika, and you’ve done nothing!”

Rex shook his head, “I know he did, Echo, I was there remember? Just listen to me for a minute.”

Echo clenched his jaw angrily, but let Rex talk. He’d come there to hear Rex’s justification, so it’d be stupid for him to not even listen to it. 

The commander let out a shaky breath, “It’s…like I said, it’s not that simple. You know Fox stopped taking my calls halfway through the war, how he stopped taking anybody’s calls?” All Echo could do was nod silently, just a short jerk of his chin meant to get Rex to keep explaining, which fortunately, he did. “There was something rotten going on on Coruscant and none of us knew about it. We…the Corries never told us, were scared to, but…the Senators were hurting them. They…they could have murdered them and never be punished for it, because clones have no rights, we’re not legally sentient, there wouldn’t even be a trial.”

“That’s not right!” Echo protested automatically, because that was awful. He’d known there were nat-born officers that were abusive, Rex had told him about the events of the Umbara campaign and that was just them, who knew what happened in the other legions, but still…they had been fighting on the behalf of the Senators, of the Republic, and those same people had been hurting their brothers this whole time? It was sick! “Why didn’t they tell us? We would have helped!” he demanded. 

Rex shook his head again, “Like I said, they were scared, Fox told me if anybody found out then the Senators would have retaliated, that clones would die over it, so they kept it a secret.”

“That was Commander Fox’s decision too?” Echo spat bitterly, “You’re not convincing me, Rex, you’re only making him sound that much worse.”

Echo’s ori’vod sighed, “I’m not done,” Rex said, “Palpatine…he was torturing Fox, Echo, literally torturing him, like shooting him with Sith lighting over and over. He’s just covered in scars from it, and when Palpatine found out Fox had figured him out, he killed Fox’s vod’ika, Thorn, to punish him. Then when Fives uncovered the chips and confronted him, Palptine used Fox as a weapon, he threatened to kill Thire, Fox’s other vod’ika, if he didn’t get rid of Fives. It’s no excuse, I know it’s not. But Fox didn’t kill Fives on a whim, he didn’t do it for no reason. He was scared, he was being manipulated, and he didn’t see any other way out.”

For a long moment Echo was silent, glaring daggers at the floor, thinking that over. Rex was right, it was no excuse. There was no excuse for killing a vod, none at all, certainly not on purpose, but…Rex hadn't been lying, it was more complicated than Echo had thought.

“Does…” Echo asked after a moment before looking up and fixing his glare on Rex, pinning his brother in place, “You talked to him about this?” Rex nodded, so Echo asked his next question, demanding an honest answer from his ori’vod, because he deserved that. He’d lost Fives, he deserved to know this. “Does he even care? That he killed him?”

Rex’s expression softened, “He’s a wreck, Echo, literally falling apart at the seams. He’s…completely different than he was the last time I talked to him, killing Fives…destroyed him.”

“Did he ask you to forgive him?” Echo growled, but Rex just let out a sigh.

“No, but he still apologized. He wasn’t expecting anything from me, he...he thought I hated him.”

“You should,” Echo bit out, but Rex gave him a sad look that made something in Echo’s gut twist, like he was being unfair.

“He’s my ori’vod, Echo,” Rex told him softly, begging Echo to understand, “My original batchmates tried to kill me, they pushed me off one of the platforms into the sea and if Cody hadn’t heard me fall and jumped in after me, I’d be dead. Fox and the others, they took me in, they protected me. Fox let me cry all over him when everybody was telling me I was defective and should just die already, he told me they were wrong about me and offered to help me prove it, he helped me get my marksmanship scores up to the highest in my class, he taught me how to fight off my bullies, he shared his food with me when my batchmates took mine and threw it away. He was always there for me, Echo. I couldn’t hate him if I tried…and I understand why he did it, because I would have done it too. If somebody had tortured me, had killed you to punish me, and then threatened to kill Fives too if I didn’t do what I was told…I would have done anything to keep him alive, so it’s sick, it’s completely fucked, but I understand him.”

Echo worked his jaw angrily, but he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t irrational either. If it had meant keeping Fives alive, would he have done the same thing? Echo wanted to say no, because it was wrong, it was wrong to trade people’s lives like sabacc tokens…but he didn’t know for sure if he could have held his ground, not with his twin’s life on the line.

“Did you forgive him?” Echo managed to bite out after a moment and Rex sighed so heavily that Echo knew the answer before he’d even spoken.

“Yeah,” Rex said, “I forgave him.”

For a moment, Echo just glared down at the floor, but his vision blurred and he had to scrub at his eyes to wipe away the tears. Rex tutted and then reached out to pull Echo in so he could hug him fiercely.

“You don’t have to forgive him, Echo,” Rex told him gently, cradling the back of Echo’s head, just below the implant, “If you want, I’ll make sure you never even have to be in the same room with him, you won't ever have to talk to him if you don’t want to, but he’s my ori’vod and he’s suffering, I can’t abandon him. We never leave our brothers behind, no matter what.”

Echo sniffled against Rex’s shoulder and nodded, because what if it had been Fives? What if Fives had been coerced into killing another vod? Echo knew he’d have stood by him, that he would have understood, even if he’d never condone his actions, because Rex was right, brothers didn’t leave each other behind, not for anything. 

“I won’t forgive him,” Echo grumbled bitterly into Rex’s shoulder, “He killed my only batchmate and I don’t care why he did it. Fives is dead and I’ll–” Echo choked on a sob and had to stop to try and get his voice back, but Rex let him, he just held Echo against his chest and mumbled comforting words in Mando’a until Echo had found his voice again. “I’ll never see Fives again,” he bit out, “because of him. I’m the only Domino left, because of him. I’m never forgiving him.”

“You don’t have to,” Rex said, “And Fox would never ask you too, he knows the gravity of his actions, and nobody else will ask you to either. Nobody could expect that of you.”

Echo just nodded, still sniffling, his tears still soaking into Rex’s blacks while he stood swaddled in blankets and cradled against Rex’s chest.

“I miss him,” Echo choked out around another sob, “He would have thought this was so cool, going back in time, he’d have been so fucking annoying about it.”

“We’ll see him again,” Rex said quietly, “He’ll be there when we march.”

Echo sniffled and buried his face in Rex’s shoulder, shuddering as he cried himself out in his ori’vod’s warm embrace. Echo was still angry, so angry, that Rex was on Fox’s side, that he’d forgiven Fox, and he knew he was going to stay angry, but at least nobody was forcing them to be friends. Rex had said he’d help Echo avoid Fox if he wanted to and that was better than nothing.

“He’d be proud of you,” Rex told him quietly, “You’ve grown into a good man, Echo, I’m sure he’s proud, even if he would want to be here with you too.”

Echo could only nod and Rex tugged on him until the both of them were sitting on the floor against the wall next to the door, with Echo partially in Rex’s lap as he still held onto him. For a few minutes they just sat in silence while Echo sniffled and hiccuped, wiping his eyes over and over to brush away the tears.

“You wanna stay with us tonight?” Rex asked him gently when the tears finally stopped and Echo sniffled again and looked up.

“Hunter would have an aneurism,” he said, trying to make it sound light, and mostly managing it, even if it came out a little strained.

Rex let out an amused huff, “That kid really needs to relax, none of us are going to jump you guys in the hallway.”

“We used to,” Echo said, the bitterness coming back into his voice, “He’s not like that for no reason, he’s just trying to protect us.”

“I know,” Rex sighed, “You want to stay here longer or should I walk you back?”

“I should go back, in case Hunter or one of the others wakes up, they’ll be upset if they don’t know where I am,” Echo grumbled and Rex nodded and gave him another tight hug before pulling him up to his feet and helping him rearrange the blankets so he was still covered.

Rex kept his arm looped around Echo’s shoulders as he walked him back to the Batch’s quarters and then stopped outside the door.

“You can talk to me any time,” Rex told him patiently, “Even if all you need is to have a good cry, I’ll be here. You’re not alone.”

“Okay,” Echo mumbled, nodding, then Rex pulled him into a keldabe and held it for a moment before he let him go. 

“Comm me if you need anything, okay?” Rex requested and Echo nodded again and turned to open the door. Hunter sat up at the sound of it whooshing open and then closed, blinking sleepily, and Echo could see him automatically doing a headcount before he concluded everyone was there and flopped back over on his bunk, immediately asleep again. 

It was enough for Echo to smile, Hunter hadn’t even been fully awake and he was still protecting them, he was a good vod. Fives would have liked him, would have liked all of them, once he got used to their idiosyncrasies. 

With a huff, Echo spent a moment wiping his eyes and looking around at his vode in the dark, listening to Wrecker snore, and then he laid back down in his bunk. For a while he just lay there in the dark, unable to go back to sleep, but then there was a shuffling sound and Crosshair appeared at his side, draped in one of his own blankets, a scowl on his small face.

“Move,” he grumbled and Echo just snorted and scooched over so Crosshair could climb into the bunk with him and rest his head on Echo’s collarbone, bringing the extra blanket with him and dragging it over them both. A moment later Pup jumped up on top of both of them and curled up.

It was easier to sleep with Crosshair and his massiff there, with a physical reminder that Echo wasn’t alone sinking warmth into his chest and side where they were snuggled against him. Rex had said he’d be there too. None of them were Fives, they could never be Fives, but Echo loved them anyway. He reminded himself of that as he was starting to doze off again. He had Rex, he had the Bad Batch, he had all these people, he wasn’t alone, and he’d see Fives again some day, once he’d lived his life. They’d be together again eventually. Echo fell asleep and dreamed of sitting in the Marauder surrounded by his new vode as they laughed and played cards, and for a little while it didn’t hurt.

Chapter Text

Fives didn’t get a funeral. Funerals were not a thing afforded to clones. When clones died, their bodies were burned, the ashes mixing freely with that of a thousand others before being disposed of, and then their armor and equipment was sent back to Kamino to be reissued. Never in his life had Rex felt more like he was caught in the gears of a massive machine that was crushing them all, crushing all the people he loved, to dust. He had sat with Fives’s body for as long as anybody let him, but Skywalker had pried him away eventually, speaking soft sorrowful words Rex couldn’t remember now. Fives was gone, so much dust and ash and burned blood, and Rex would never see him again. He’d never see his vod’ika again…and it was his closest ori’vod who had taken him away. 

Rex would have given Fox a piece of his mind if he hadn’t just fucking bailed the second he’d finished shooting his own brother dead. Fox had turned and left and Rex had been too distraught to think to stop him, he’d just turned around when Skywalker pulled him away only to find his batcher gone. There was no explanation, no apology, nothing. Fox had killed Fives and walked away like it didn’t matter. 

In all his years, Rex had never wanted to hate one of his own batchmates more…and yet, for as much as he wanted to pound Fox’s face into the dirt, his heart cried out for that soft safe time when they were together as cadets, when Rex could crawl into Fox’s bunk after a nightmare and Fox would just wrap him in his warmth without Rex ever having to ask, without him ever having to explain himself. Fox had been able to take one look at him and simply know, and then always gave Rex what he needed.

He hated himself for how he couldn’t hate Fox, no matter how hard he tried, because those soft memories, the kindness and gentle patience Fox had given Rex so freely when they were cadets always wormed its way between the cracks in the hatred Rex had tried to build, undermining it, making it crumble all over again so only the hurt was left.

There was no explanation, and Rex didn’t see Fox again after that either. Even before that though, with one sole exception, it had been nearly two years since he’d last spoken to Fox and even longer since he’d seen his brother’s face. Fox had dropped off the face of the galaxy with no warning, had simply gone dark, and the only reason Rex even knew he was alive was because whenever one of his troopers got arrested for drunk and disorderly behavior on Coruscant, the missive came with Fox’s signature on it.

He’d tried going to the Corrie base, but was never let in, was only ever told that Fox was too busy to see him. He tried messaging him, but was met with silence. He tried everything he could think of, but Fox simply never responded. Rex didn’t know what they’d done wrong, none of their batch knew, but there must have been something. Fox had always been so open about how much he loved them, he used to comm them every day at the end of his shift, and yet one day the comm simply hadn’t come and he was just gone without a trace, without a word, and nobody would tell them why.

The Corries had always worried Rex, there was something distinctly weird and off putting about them, from their identical armor to the empty way they all spoke, like they were only one step removed from droids. If Rex didn’t know better he’d have thought the entire legion was made up of nothing but soldiers that had been reconditioned, but he knew that couldn’t be it.

So Fox had been a non-entity for nearly two years…until a bomb went off in the Temple and Ahsoka was blamed. Then Rex had seen Fox, the two of them thrust together out of necessity, and yet even then, Fox barely talked to Rex and when he did it was always in a professional capacity. When Rex tried to talk to him about anything even remotely personal, he simply changed the subject, doggedly refusing to acknowledge that he even knew Rex at all. Not only that but he never once took off his helmet, not even when it was only Rex there to see, no matter how many times Rex suggested it, no matter how many times Rex tried to coax him into it. 

It was like trying to get blood from a stone, like Fox simply wasn’t a real person anymore, like he was just a machine with no real thoughts or feelings or personality. Rex had already known something was wrong, because that was the only reason Fox would just cut them off, something had happened, they’d done something or said something and Fox was too hurt to talk to them…or something, but even if he hadn’t, the lifelessness of Fox’s behavior would have been enough of an indicator.

Fox had arrested Ahsoka, had blamed her, hadn’t looked deeper, and she had nearly been executed for something she didn’t do. She’d left the Jedi order, had walked out of all their lives after the betrayal, and Rex had nobody to blame but Fox, who hadn’t believed them no matter how many times they told him she was innocent. And once the case was closed Fox tried to do like she had done and walk out, but Rex wasn’t going to let him, not without a fight. He’d already lost one of his best friends, his little sister, he wasn’t going to lose his older brother on the same day.

“Fox, wait!” Rex had shouted, but his ori’vod’s blood red armor vanished around yet another corner in the twisting maze of Coruscant’s decrepit streets. He gritted his teeth and pounded after him anyways, vaulting over a pile of rusted, leaking barrels that blocked the alleyway with ease and darting down it. “I know you can hear me!” He shouted, the words echoing off the cold durasteel walls as he frantically searched for a sign of where his brother had gone next. “Dammit Fox, I just want to-”

There was a flash of silver in the corner of his vision and the words caught in his throat. Rex dodged it quickly, rolling with his momentum and spotting a vibroknife in a hand, and took his shot. It hit true. The knife flew from his would-be assailant’s hand, and at the same time, a stun ring collided with them in the dark.

“You still don’t pay enough attention to your surroundings,” Fox suddenly scolded from right behind him. Rex hadn't even noticed the Commander reappear in the wretched alleyway at all, nevertheless so close. He wheeled to face him as Fox’s helmeted head moved up and down, like he was already scanning Rex over for injuries, like a kriffing cadet. “Are you okay?”

Rex stared back at his brother incredulously. There were so many things he wanted to say, but that question left him scrambling. There was unmistakable concern in his brother’s voice that he hadn’t heard the whole time he had been here, and now Fox just stood there, frustratingly rooted in place, as if ten seconds ago he hadn’t been avoiding Rex like a curse. 

“Am I okay?” Rex repeated, practically under his breath. “I - I know how to handle a moron with a knife, Fox, you made sure of that, but I just lost my Commander! Is that ,” he spat, ripping off his helmet and jabbing a finger at the unconscious thug on the ground, “really what you just came back for?!” 

Fox didn’t say anything, but he turned and took a step away.

“Don’t you dare,” Rex snarled, marching up to him swiftly till he was just out of arm's reach. “Don’t you dare run off again, vod, you’ve been avoiding us for nearly two years now and I want answers, I - I don’t understand what we did wrong but - Fox, you’re our brother. We miss you, would you just…talk to me? For five kriffing seconds like a real person?!”

Fox didn’t move again. If anything he seemed unnaturally frozen, but his voice was even and flat and nothing like the Fox he knew when he spoke again, like it could be any clone at all under the bucket instead of his own ori’vod. 

“It’s nothing personal.”

“Banthashit,” Rex seethed. “I know you better than that. There have been so many things I’ve wanted to tell you Fox, so many times I…” His hands balled into fists and he took a steadying breath, trying hard not to let his voice break. “I’ve lost so many brothers. I never got to tell you about the Domino twins, or - or the Kadavo mission, or Umbara. We killed our own men, Fox. Our brothers. And when it was over I…I couldn’t talk to Cody. I had his men’s blood on my hands, I didn’t want to face him, I needed you. ”

“You don’t need me,” Fox said firmly through his helmet.

“You don’t get to tell me that,” Rex articulated each word with clipped, deadly sincerity. “You know what I felt when I heard Commander Tano was in your custody? I was relieved. I knew she was innocent and I thought you’d believe me. I thought I’d get to see you again. I thought you’d figure it out, you’ve always been clever, I thought with you there, it would turn out okay…”

“I followed protocol,” Fox said in a voice full of nothing.

“Fuck protocol!” Rex cried. “Do you even hear yourself?! Open your eyes, Fox! Look where protocol got us! Ahsoka was innocent and she was almost executed! Your real terrorist almost walked free-”

“You were right. Is that what you want?”

“No! That’s not the point!” Rex lamented, raking a hand down his face. “My legion lost our Commander. Our friend. And all I want is to know why, so whatever we did wrong that’s made you push us away like this, we can fix it-”

“There’s nothing to fix.”

“That can’t be true. I’ve been at your side again for days, vod,” Rex said slowly and deliberately, but despite his best efforts he was failing to stop the shaking in his voice anymore. “And you haven't even looked at me face to face.”

That finally made Fox move again. He took a single step back and made a quick, jerking motion with his arm, pressing his fingers against the side of his bucket and clenching them hard like…like he did as a cadet. Rex recognized that motion. It was the same one he made when he used to pull his hair out by the roots…

But Fox recovered from it quickly, if he even realized he had done it. “Removing helmets outside the barracks is prohibited,” He said in a voice that was deceptively normal, but Rex narrowed his eyes. He knew what he saw. He’d hit a nerve.

“Fox?” Rex exhaled, forcing some gentleness into his voice even as his stomach twisted itself into knots. “What’s going on?”

“We need to report back. Now . This has wasted enough time-”

“Stop,” Rex demanded, closing the rest of the distance between them in two strides and clasping Fox firmly on the shoulder, and…he may have imagined it, but for a second, it seemed like Fox’s posture softened as he did. “Just…stop, vod. Take off the bucket, let me see you.”

“No.” 

“It’s just me-”

“That means nothing,” Fox said in his most deadened tone yet, and he shoved Rex off of him with so much force he slammed hard into the duracrete wall. Rex braced himself on instinct and pushed back off to retaliate, but it was too late. Fox was gone again, vanished into the shadows, leaving Rex alone with his brother’s voice still ringing off the walls.

That means nothing.

“FOX!” Rex shouted into the darkness, blinking back the burning in his eyes and swallowing it in his throat, but there was no answer. No flash of red to follow and no other criminal in the night for his ori’vod to try and protect him from. Nothing.

Nothing.

“Yeah, sounds like he’s got problems alright,” Fives had huffed later that night after finally badgering Rex into telling him what the hell had put him in such a state. Everyone else seemed to just assume it was the deal with Commander Tano and kept their distance, but Fives was always a pest, and he seemed to pick up on these things better than most. “ But…I dunno. That’s a karked thing to say, but do you really think he meant it?”

No. Rex hadn’t thought he meant it. Not at the time, anyways.

“I’m just saying…I’m the last of my own batchers. But if I knew any of my brothers were out there, I’d keep going after them, no matter what. I wouldn’t let them get away with that kind of osik if I could help it,” Fives said with a heavy, troubled sigh, draping an arm over Rex’s shoulders in solidarity. 

And Fives had a point. Rex had agreed…but then Fox had stolen the last of the Dominoes from him. He’d stunned the uncoordinated thug that lunged at Rex in a shadowy alleyway but killed Rex’s own vod’ika from behind that fucking helmet, then walked away, like it was nothing, and after that…

The memory of it now made it difficult to even breathe. He’d lost his sister, he’d lost his vod’ika, he’d lost his ori’vod, and worst of all he’d lost them to each other. So Rex tried to hate Fox, but he couldn’t and he just ended up hating himself instead, hated himself for whatever it was he had done, whatever it was he hadn’t done, that had let this happen.

And then the war ended, the world around him crumbled to ash, everything he’d ever fought for, everything his brothers had died for, had been a lie and Rex just wanted it back, wanted those soft quiet moments of his childhood back, wanted his batch back, wanted his family back…but he had to move forward, to push through. Maybe he’d find them, he couldn’t let himself believe they weren’t still out there somewhere, so he kept going, kept pushing, kept doing the only thing he knew how to do: fight.

He fought and he managed to find Wolffe, managed to save him, then he found Cody, and even if Cody couldn’t join them, at least Rex knew he was alive, knew he was free. They hadn’t found Bly, and Rex…he didn’t know what was happening with Fox, he had no idea, and he was afraid to try and find out. He’d laid in his bunk at night, safe in his secret base on Dantooine, surrounded by all the brothers he’d saved, and tried not to let it keep him up at night. But Fox’s words still pounded through his head, the sound of his voice, so cold and hard and lifeless, how the facade had cracked for a split second and he’d gone to pull his hair like he had only ever done when he was distraught. 

The more Rex thought about it, the more certain he was that there was something he wasn’t seeing. There was a reason Fox had been acting like this, he knew there was. Fox was smart, but he was above all kind, loving, gentle. He’d have never hurt them on purpose…unless it was to protect them. After almost two years of those memories, of those actions, swirling around in Rex’s head in the spare moments when things were quiet, that was the only conclusion Rex came to. He was protecting them from something. That had to be it, because Rex couldn’t think of any other explanation that made sense. He knew Fox, he knew him, and his love for his brothers was his defining feature, was the thing that drove Fox. Rex couldn’t imagine him without that. 

He had known that since they were cadets, because Rex had seen how hard Fox worked, how he pushed himself, how he seemed unable to rest, unable to sit still for a single moment. Rex had seen it as a cadet, but had never seen what was behind it, had only been able to identify the thing he’d seen in Fox’s eyes when he missed a shot, when he fumbled a punch, when there was even the slightest trace of failure, once he was an adult. It had been fear. Fox had been terrified, even back then, had been too scared to sleep, had been so scared of something that he’d pushed himself to the limit, and yet even though he was at the top of his class, the fear had still been there. Rex had seen him get a 99% on an exam once and remembered the stubborn tears in his eyes that he’d hidden behind a smile once he’d noticed Rex was there.

Fox was a liar, had always been a liar, and it drove all of them crazy, because he was so good at it that the only way to know for certain he was lying was to catch him before the mask went up, before he covered up what he really thought behind smiles and laughs and friendly teasing.

So he was lying now, had been lying about something the entire time Rex had been working with him on Ahsoka’s case, and he had to be doing it because he was afraid of something, because he was trying to protect them from it. Rex wanted to say if he could just figure out what, then maybe he could break that mask, could reach his brother underneath everything he’d done to make himself into an unfeeling machine, but Rex didn’t even know if Fox was still alive at this point. Coruscant was too dangerous for them to take operating there lightly, and going anywhere near the Coruscant Guard was like sticking your arm in a hornet’s nest.

Fox was out of reach…for now, so Rex made himself focus his attention, his resources, elsewhere. And then everything had been turned upside down, they’d been dragged thirty five years into the past, had been thrust into a new war, but at the same time, the past was kinder and they’d been able to reach across the galaxy to find each other again.

Cody had been rescued so now they were a batch of three, all together in one place…and then Fox had reappeared, had answered the comm Rex had sent with a hope and a prayer that he’d finally stop pushing them away…and he had. He came clean, he gave Rex the apology he’d so desperately needed, he’d explained everything. He’d finally broken open after years of stubborn refusal and shown Rex that he’d been right this whole time, that the brother who he had known and loved was still alive in him.

There had only been one or two times in his life Rex had been so relieved, and yet at the same time the anger, the hate, was back in full force, only now he had an actual target, somebody with whom he had no soft little memories. Palpatine had ruined everything. Rex knew that now. He’d ruined all their lives, all of them. He’d tortured Fox, had tapped into the fear that lived in him that was so strong he’d do anything to save his brothers from it, even push them away, hurt them, kill them. 

Rex hadn’t been able to see Fox during that call, Fox hadn’t activated the visual display in his comm, it had been voice only, and that worried him too, because that made him think there was something about him that Fox didn’t want them to see, but even so, Rex had listened to him. He’d listened to the way Fox’s voice shook as he explained it all, the despair in his tone, the crushing guilt when he talked about Fives, the terror when he mentioned Palpatine, the defeat he tried to hide with irony when he told them he’d been paralyzed. 

This whole time Rex had thought Fox was safe on Coruscant, but he’d been wrong. Fox had been suffering just as much as they were, had been just as scared, only where Rex and his brothers had faced the Sith with the Jedi and legions of brothers at their backs, Fox had been alone, had been purposefully isolated by the most powerful Sith of all so he could be manipulated and twisted and molded into a weapon to be used against the people he cared about most. All those years Rex had feared they'd done something wrong, all those years where he’d tried so hard to reach his brother, the durasteel wall he’d been met with was only there because Palpatine had manipulated Fox into believing it would protect them. 

It hurt, it hurt to hear, and it hurt to hear Fox talk about it on the other side of the galaxy where Rex couldn’t wrap him in his arms and hold him until things were better, until he could really believe Rex didn’t hate him and never had. And then he’d spoken to Fox a second time, this time with visuals, and he saw what Fox had been hiding for all those years. He wore the marks of his abuse on his face, clear as day. He had hidden them from Rex, had hidden his face, because if Rex had seen, the jig would be up, he’d have known Fox was being tortured, would have dug into it in an attempt to save him that might have cost him his life. That was what Fox had been hiding and why. 

The scars, but also everything else. He was so thin. It hadn’t been obvious when he’d been in his armor and Rex had to wonder if he’d been this thin back then too, whether he’d been starving when they had worked together even as Rex had full rations three times a day. If he’d known, he’d have shared that food in a heartbeat. He’d scolded the Bad Batch for splitting their rations, for starving themselves, but when he saw Fox sitting in the chair wearing blacks that hung off him in a way they never should, Rex had understood. He’d have lived on half rations too if it had meant Fox could eat, to do anything else would be wrong, even if it wouldn’t have been healthy for him.

And then it got worse, Fox admitted that it wasn’t just him that had been tortured on Coruscant, but that they’d all been suffering. He told Rex that the men all of them had discounted as pencil pushers who sat on their ass all day in a cushy posting eating luxurious nat-born food and going to parties had been getting hurt just as bad as those on the battlefield, that they’d been raped, that they’d been tortured, that they’d all been starving. 

Somehow the last tiny piece of the illusion Rex had still believed about the world shattered before his eyes. There was no brother who hadn’t suffered for the war, the cruelty of the enemy was mirrored in the cruelty of their own allies, their own superiors, and they’d only ever been tools in the eyes of the galaxy. The frontliners had been weapons and the Guard had been toys. None of them had ever been people.

But it wasn’t going to be like that anymore, not if Rex had anything to say about it. They belonged together, all of them, and he’d see them reunited come hell or high water, even if it meant making use of the infuriating fucking obnoxious Mandalorians that belittled them just like everybody else always had, who treated them like children. Rex had not fought a war, had not seen his men die in front of him, to be treated like a fucking toddler by somebody whose ass he knew he could kick without breaking a sweat.

That said, Mereel had a ship, and Rex needed it.

They rescued Cody, they made it to Coruscant, they found Fox and held him like he’d shatter any moment, because he looked like he might. Rex had listened to the torment he’d endured, had hated how casually he spoke about it, like it didn’t matter, like his pain and suffering was just a given or even worse, like he’d deserved it. He’d listened until it was too much and he had to beg Fox to stop. Hearing about it was one thing, but hearing about it like that was too much for Rex to endure after everything.

Mercifully, Fox had humored him and dropped it and Rex settled down beside him the way he had longed to for years…only for him to be gone again when Rex was woken up. Fox had nearly died, after everything they’d survived, he’d nearly died for Fives, for the guilt he felt for what he’d been forced to do. Rex knew Fives wouldn’t have wanted that, he knew that Fives would have understood why Fox did what he did, even if he wouldn’t have forgiven it, and he knew Fives wouldn’t have wanted Fox to die for him, for the guilt he felt over something a Sith had made him do.

Rex sat in the chair beside Fox’s bed in the infirmary and held his hand. His brother was sleeping, although his expression looked stressed. Rex couldn’t help but worry he’d have another nightmare like the one that had driven him out of the Temple and back to a place that nearly killed him, but there was nothing he could do but keep a careful eye on him so he could wake him up if he seemed like he was in distress. 

With a sigh, Rex leaned forward and rested his head in his arms on the edge of the bed. Fox had said he’d talked to Fives, had said that Fives told him Kix hadn’t marched, and Rex didn’t know whether that was real or not, but…he wanted to believe it was real. 

“Thanks,” Rex said quietly to a brother who wasn’t there, who was long dead, but who might have saved Fox’s life, because Fox had seemed a little less tormented when he’d talked about what Fives had said to him. Like Fives had given him some kind of closure, some kind of relief. “Thanks for understanding, vod’ika, I know it must have been hard,” Rex mumbled into the blankets. Wherever Fives was marching, Rex doubted he could hear, but he needed to say it, it needed to be said. “I’ll take good care of Echo, and we’ll find Kix, wherever he is, so rest easy, vod, and know that I’m not letting Palpatine get away with this. I’ll make him pay for what he did to us, all of us, so take a load off and I’ll see you later, when I’m old, because I’m not dying for his war or his plot. We’re going to live and we’re going to bury him in the dirt to get eaten by the worms like he fucking deserves.”

Fox stirred slightly and Rex reached out for him, smoothing his hair back, tracing the new scar on his scalp from where he’d cracked his head open. It was hard to see amongst his curls, but Rex had noticed it when he’d been cuddling Fox after he’d first woken up, had felt the slightly raised texture of it when he’d been combing his fingers’ through Fox’s hair. 

Rex had survived the frontlines of two wars without ever receiving even a quarter of the scars that littered Fox’s body, maybe because for all that the enemy had been trying to kill him, he’d at least been able to fight back, while Fox had only been able to stand there and take it, to use his body as a shield to protect his men. 

Fox furrowed his brow in his sleep and Rex made up his mind and climbed into the bed with him for the second time in so many days, burrowing into his side like he had done when he was small, and like Fox had always done then, he shifted to give Rex room and then clung to him like he’d shield him too. Rex knew Fox would shield him just like he’d shielded his own men if he let him, but Rex wasn’t a tubie anymore. For all that he’d been created for and had fought for a lie, Rex was a soldier and he could protect himself, Fox had taught him how, so this time instead of Fox shielding him, they’d stand together and carve out a world where they could live as more than objects to be used and discarded, as more than toys to be played with and tormented for the entertainment of others, as more than weapons to turn on the only people who had ever treated them like they mattered. Now that they were in the past, they had a future, and Rex wasn’t going to let anybody take that from them. 

Not this time.

Chapter Text

Snowball hadn’t needed Commander Fox to point out how much he missed Fireball, he missed him a lot, all the time, but Commander Fox was right about more than that…and maybe it had needed to be said.

Fireball wouldn’t leave him alone, but Snowball hadn’t been able to see it as anything but his brother being overbearing, trying to pry. He didn’t want to talk about what happened, he didn’t even want to think about it, so having to be reminded every time Fireball tried to talk to him was agonizing. Every time Fireball asked him to come drinking, to come party, without understanding anything, it all got dragged back up…so Snowball just cut him off, just stopped reading those messages, just stopping thinking about Fireball, just tried to cut Fireball out of his heart with a shard of that same glacial ice that filled his mind and his heart with frost. 

And yet.

And yet Fireball wouldn’t go, wouldn’t leave him alone, no matter what Snowball did. No matter how thoroughly he ignored Fireball, his comm always beeped with a message everyday at noon, everyday for three years straight. Snowball didn’t look at any of them, not a one, not even enough to delete them.

He’d been avoiding Fireball for years, but now they were on the same base and Fireball got even more stubborn. He’d been trying to track Snowball down from the second they’d all been brought up to the carrier and it was only because Snowball’s brothers in the Guard knew he didn’t want to talk to him and always sent Fireball to the wrong place when he demanded to know where Snowball was that he’d been forestalled even this long.

Unfortunately even that wasn’t enough, because Fireball stopped asking the Guard where his brother was, he figured out that they were lying to him, and when they’d gotten to the base Fireball had knocked on every bunkroom door in every barracks until Snowball had opened the door, only to immediately shut it again in Fireball’s face.

Fireball hadn’t gone away even then. He’d called to Snowball through the door while Snowball pretended not to hear him, curled up on his bunk with his teeth grit and his hands over his ears. Eventually one of the Guard that shared the room with him called for their sergeant and the man came and reamed Fireball out so thoroughly for so long that Snowball almost felt bad for him.

His batchmate retreated, finally, and Snowball let out a relieved breath and thanked Sergeant Gus profusely when he came to check that Snowball was okay. 

Unfortunately it was only a temporary retreat on Fireball’s part, because he was back the next day, not yelling through the door, but parked outside it. The only times he wasn’t there was when he was on shift or after lights out. He even brought his food from the mess and ate it outside Snowball’s door.

Whenever Snowball had to come out to do anything Fireball trailed after him, trying to talk to him, standing outside his stall in the showers blathering or waiting stubbornly on the ground below the watchtower Snowball was posted in. The only reason Fireball didn’t sit with him in the mess was because Snowball’s brothers didn’t let him.

They were frankly Snowball’s only defense against his batchmate. They knew what had happened, they knew how Snowball felt, after all, many of them had endured similar experiences, so they backed him up.

It was suggested more than once that they get Fox involved because no matter what they did, Fireball just wouldn’t leave! Snowball had shot it down every time it came up. He knew Fox was trying to mend fences with the GAR and Snowball felt bad that he was causing their commander trouble, he didn’t want to make their poor commander’s life even harder than it already was, so he resolved to chase Fireball away himself.

That was how the fight started. Fireball had been trailing after Snowball when he’d finished his shift, telling Snowball about his day as if Snowball had ever asked, and he just…couldn’t take it anymore. He rounded on Fireball and told him the cruelest thing he could think of. He loved Fireball, he did, but he just wished he would go away, would go back to his GAR buddies and leave Snowball alone so he didn’t have to remember, so he didn’t have to be reminded every minute that Fireball didn’t know, that for Fireball to understand Snowball would have to tell him. 

So he said the cruelest thing that came into his head, and, as Snowball had known would happen, Fireball got mad. Their brothers had to drag them apart and then Commander Rex showed up before the Guard could hide Snowball somewhere safe. They’d been certain Rex was going to punish them, was going to come down on them, but…he didn’t, not really. All he did was give Snowball what he wanted and told Fireball to finally stay away from him.

That said, Snowball should have known Fireball would just ignore that order like he’d never received it in the first place. And then things got even worse, because Fox did get involved.

Snowball was honest with him, because he knew Fox would understand, even if he’d never wanted to cause his commander all this trouble…and Fox did understand…and Fox pointed out that Snowball loved his brother and that if he really did tell Fireball what happened, maybe things would get better instead of worse.

Fox was smart, Snowball knew that, and he’d said his own batchmates had understood when he’d talked to them, even when he’d been sure they’d reject them…so maybe Fireball would understand after all…if Snowball could just explain. Maybe it was worth it, if nothing else then maybe Fireball would finally leave him alone. Would finally abandon him and stop doggedly shadowing him everywhere he went.

Snowball resolved to do it, to talk to him, even though the thought of that conversation made anxiety vibrate through his nerves. He trusted Fox, trusted him with his life, because Fox had been the one to save him that night. Snowball had been too drugged to call for help, to do anything to defend himself, but he’d had just enough awareness to know he needed help, and he’d hit the SOS button on his comm, the automatic distress signal that Fox had put in all their comms. Fox had come…Fox had saved him, had stolen him away from Senator Fo, and had brought him home…only for Fox to end up in the med bay himself the next day because Senator Fo had strangled him over it. Fox hadn’t been able to talk for a week after that, not when they’d been out of bacta and he’d had to heal without medicine, but he’d still taken Snowball out of the Senate rotation, had stuck him in the prison guard instead, where he would be safe, while Fox went back to the Senate like nothing had happened to get hurt over and over again anyway.

So yeah, Snowball trusted Fox, could only trust him, and if Fox thought it was a good idea…well if anybody else had suggested it, Snowball probably would have refused, but he had absolute faith in Fox, in Fox’s judgment. He knew Fox would never let him get hurt if he could help it, and he also knew that if Snowball did get hurt, Fox would come rescue him. Fox had said he should risk talking to Fireball, had told him it might help, might not make things even worse, even if it hurt to do it…so Snowball would talk to him, because Fox had said so…and because he did miss his twin, deep down in the pit of his stomach.

Snowball followed Fox to the door, smiling weakly back at his commander when Fox gave him a reassuring nod, and then watched him wheel himself down the hall, before turning his attention to Fireball, who was on his feet, his expression blindingly hopeful.

“You wanted to talk,” Snowball sighed and Fireball nodded his head so rapidly that all Snowball could do was sigh again, “Fine.”

Fireball sucked in a breath, but followed him into the bunkroom when Snowball turned and retreated. For a moment Fireball hesitated, but when Snowball sat back down on his bunk, Fireball ended up sitting across from him on Stellar’s bunk, instead of next to him on his own. Snowball had to laugh, it was ridiculous that now Fireball was finally giving him space, only after he’d already caved.

“You–” Fireball tried, but Snowball interrupted him.

“Shut up, Fireball,” he grumbled, “You wanted to hear it, so you’re going to hear it, but that’s all.”

Fireball’s expression flickered with hurt for a second, but then he nodded, somehow managing not to get angry for once, maybe just happy that Snowball wasn’t pretending he didn’t exist anymore. Snowball let out a third sigh and tugged anxiously on one of his curls. How was he supposed to explain this? He’d never had to before.

“Why won’t you leave me the fuck alone?” he asked instead, “I’ve made it really clear I don’t want to see you.”

“Because I know something’s wrong,” Fireball answered him instantly, “If it was just because Commander Fox told you not to talk to us, you’d have reached out again when that order was rescinded. We used to talk everyday, Snowy, but now you won’t even look at me…that and…and the commanders told us what was happening…that people were hurting you. Somebody hurt you right?”

Snowball could only laugh, but the sound was devoid of all happiness, it sounded like shattered glass, like his shattered heart, “Yeah,” he sneered, “Yeah, Fireball, I got hurt.”

“How?” Fireball asked him urgently, almost desperately, and finally Snowball saw how his brother’s hands shook where he’d balled them into fists on his knees, as if somehow he was the one in pain here.

“How…” Snowball repeated, his voice deadpan, but he smiled, something cruel, something so much angrier than he’d ever been at Fireball, “It was during your favorite activity, a party. I was standing guard and Senator Fo offered me a drink and I was stupid enough to accept it. I was new, shiny, and I didn’t know any better. I thought all Fox’s rules were just there because he had a stick up his ass, I didn’t believe anybody when they told me the rules were to protect us. So I took the drink…and it was drugged…and Senator Fo fucked me in his office while I drunkenly begged him to stop, then Fox saved me and got fucking strangled for it the next day…so of course you spent the next three years begging me to party with you and your stupid moron brothers, when frankly I’d rather get shot in the head than go to another kriffing party. The last time I so much as smelled spotchka I threw up all over the floor…so call me a stick in the mud, but I dont want to fucking party with you, Fireball, and I don’t want to drink with you, and I don’t want to be your fucking backup plan when you’re bored.”

Snowball laughed at the look on his brother’s face, he laughed because the only other option was crying and he’d cried enough, but Fireball stared at him, his expression lost, confused, and horrified…until finally the anger came, Fireball’s go to, his famous bad temper. He lurched to his feet and let out a yell as he turned and kicked the frame of Stellar’s bunk. He kicked it over and over, swearing and cursing and crying, and Snowball watched him passively, grinning like a madman, only to stiffen when Fireball turned on his heel and flung himself on top of him, wrapping Snowball up in the most crushing hug he’d ever experienced in his life…and then Snowball cried, all the anger crumpling in his chest like a flimsi bag. Fireball didn’t let go of him, even as they both sobbed into each other’s necks. Fireball just dragged Snowball sideways and curled around him, burying his face in Snowball’s hair until the both of them had cried themselves out.

There was a long silence where the both of them just breathed shakily, hiccuping, and then Fireball snarled into Snowball’s hair. “I’ll kill him! He’s a dead man!”

“Like hell, stupid, he’s a Senator,” Snowball huffed against Fireball’s chest, only to laugh when Fireball shot right back.

“I don’t kriffing care!” 

“No I guess not huh? Consequences were never your strong suit,” he teased and Fireball grumbled under his breath. ”How are you gonna kill him then?” Snowball asked him lightly, another laugh in the edge of his words, a real laugh.

“I’ll–” Fireball started and then stopped, obviously thinking it over, his voice low and angry, “I’ll drug him like he drugged you, and then cut his dick off and make him choke on it.”

Snowball let out a hum, “Creative,” he praised after a moment, “Maybe if you ask Fox really nice he’ll let you.”

“I don’t need his permission,” Fireball bit out, but Snowball just snorted.

“Yeah you do,” he replied, “Cause you need my permission and I say Fox has to clear it. If Fox says it’s not safe then you can’t.”

“You really love him huh?” Fireball mumbled, some of the heat in his voice simmering down.

“He saved me,” Snowball reiterated, “I broke his rules, I was stupid and did the exact thing he told me never to do…and he still saved me. He got hurt because I was stupid, but when I told him I was sorry after he got punished for it, he told me it wasn’t my fault and that he’d much rather get hurt himself than see me get hurt.”

Fireball let out a breath and nodded, “Me too,” he mumbled, “I wish it was me who got sent there and not you…”

Snowball couldn’t help but snort, “You’d have karking died two days in,” he said, “You can’t control your temper worth shit, you’d have gotten killed before Fox even had the time to reassign you.”

“Still,” Fireball huffed and Snowball sucked in a shaky breath, feeling like he’d just been punched in the solar plexus.

“You—you can’t die on me,” Snowball told him sharply, “You’ve been an asshole to me for three years straight, you better make it up to me first.”

Fireball mumbled an apology and hugged Snowball even tighter. “You–you shoulda said,” Fireball told him shakily, “I would never have—I woulda–if you’d just told me I wouldn’t have asked you to party I just—we could have done something else, there’s like aquariums with fish and shit on Coruscant right? Maybe we could have gone to an aquarium instead…”

Snowball snorted again and hugged his idiot brother a little bit tighter, “They don’t let clones in places like that.”

“So?” Fireball argued, “The fish are still there when they’re closed right? We coulda broke in!”

“You’re a moron, you know that?” Snowball told him dryly and Fireball let out a huff of laughter.

“Yeah, but I’m your brother too,” was his reply.

“You don’t…you don’t hate me?” Snowball asked him after a long silent pause, the words coming out thin and scared, but Fireball let out the most offended totally irate noise Snowball had ever heard.

“No!” he snarled, “Now who’s the fucking idiot! Why would I hate you?!”

“Because I–” Snowball breathed, but Fireball cut him off.

“No! You didn’t do anything wrong! That freak tricked you, he took advantage of your trust, that’s not your fault! And even if you had somehow done something wrong I still wouldn’t hate you!”

Snowball sniffled, but nodded and buried his face in Fireball’s chest. The last time they’d cuddled like this had been the night before they were deployed, before they were split up…but it’d been a lot harder to fit the both of them in Snowball’s bunk back then, when they were big. Now that they were small they probably could have fit a bunch more brothers and still have room…maybe it would be good to introduce Fireball to his squad, maybe they’d get along after all, then Snowball could cuddle all of them at once, the way it should be.

“Fox said you wouldn’t hate me,” Snowball mumbled, “He said telling you would be worth the risk, he said I had nothing to lose anyway.”

“I’ll have to thank him then,” Fireball huffed, “He coulda reamed my ass for disobeying a direct order from Rex too…but he didn’t. Maybe he’s not as uptight as everybody says.”

“Oh he is,” Snowball laughed, “but not for no reason. Those of us that survived this long did because of him, but even if you try and thank him, he’ll just brush it off, the bastard.”

“Maybe if I give him a present?” Fireball proposed hopefully, but Snowball just snorted.

“He’ll give it away. He’s an asshole like that.”

“What a dick,” Fireball grumbled and Snowball laughed.

“Yeah,” he sighed, “Th–thanks…for not giving up on me…even though you’re an asshole too.”

“You’re my twin,” Fireball snapped, “‘course I wouldn’t give up on you. And if you weren’t so karking stubborn I wouldn’t have had to be an asshole.”

“My bad then,” Snowball allowed and Fireball just let out an angry snort.

“Tomorrow I’ll ask Commander Fox if I can kill that Senator. That way I’ve got as much time as possible to plan it.”

Snowball couldn’t help but laugh at that and he nodded against Fireball’s chest, “Okay,” he sighed, “I’ll go with you.”

“Good,” was Fireball’s response, “You can help me kill the guy.”

“‘Kay,” was all Snowball could think to say, “I’m tired, I’m gonna nap.”

“Sure,” Fireball sighed and hugged Snowball that much tighter.

Fox had been right…and Snowball was glad he’d trusted him, because….because now he had his twin back. He didn’t have to try and chase him away anymore, even if Fireball was still an annoying asshole. Snowball closed his eyes and let out a breath, listening to Fireball’s heartbeat against his ear. He’d missed him…so much…but now he was back, now it was solved and they could be together again. When everybody got off shift Snowball would introduce Fireball to his squad, so his brothers would know each other. Snowball hoped they could be friends, even after everything.