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Chapter Text

Coruscant was awakening rather sluggishly this morning – or maybe it only seemed that way to Quinlan Vos because he had already been awake for so long, or perhaps because of the copious amounts of caffeine he had consumed to do so. At this precise moment, he couldn’t exactly recall how long or how much either had been, but he vaguely knew it had been more than could be considered healthy, in both cases.

He was clearly aware, however, that hardly any other being in the galaxy would have agreed with him about the city. Most visitors to the gleaming ecumenopolis were astounded by the speed at which life proceeded on the city planet; even longtime inhabitants were aware of how cacophonous their home world could be, how grating, blinding, even maddening the pace of Capital life could be to those who weren’t accustomed to it.

Speaking of blinding… The Jedi mentally grumbled and squeezed his eyes shut briefly as the bright streams of light radiating from the sun overhead were reflected off the countless transparisteel panes that made up a nearby, towering skyscraper and shone directly into his eyes. That was another problem with coming off of these long stints of no sleep and tons of caffeine, besides the short-term memory loss and the sensation of jittering along through a slow-motion world – the headaches. Maker, he hated the headaches.

He could have dulled the throbbing ache at his temples with the Force, but he refrained. Besides the fact that Obi-Wan had gotten on him about that last time – “the Force shouldn’t be used to heal your hangover, Quin,” even though it wasn’t exactly a hangover and Quinlan thought that the Force didn’t mind healing those anyway – and he could still hear his friend’s voice in his head sometimes, which was annoying, the headache was actually serving a purpose of its own, in a way. When the person he was going to see was an expert at calling bantha crap, a real problem might make him appear more deserving of compassion.

And what was Fox if not compassionate?

His own sarcasm drew a chuckle from the Kiffar’s lips, one that ended in a cough as he reached up to press a hand to his temple as his brain tried to explode. His eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their aching sockets, and he was pretty sure that if he blinked too quickly, his brainpan would shatter. Bruises had settled into dark purplish crescents beneath his glinting brown eyes, and the hand that he held to his head was wrapped thickly with cloth that, having once been a strip of his tunic, had recently embarked on a new career as a blood-soaked bandage.

Oh yeah, he thought, a mischievous smile flicking up the corners of his mouth as he turned the street corner, maneuvering away from the shiny skyscraper and toward the Senate District. Good luck telling me to ‘beat it’ now, Fox, you secret softie.

No one in their right mind would have labelled Fox a softie, be it secret or otherwise. But being in his right mind was something Quinlan had never been accused of, so he walked on, bypassing the throngs of senators, lobbyists, and other political persons with whom he had no desire to mingle, until he could see the dull gray shape of the Coruscant Guard barracks.

Though the building was huge, lunging up like a giant metallic wave born from the alloy plates beneath, Quinlan had often thought it looked…lonely. It stood near the other dignified and sometimes elaborate portions of the districts, but it was quite clearly not like them. It had a look of stoic efficiency, of pure usefulness that disturbed him and ate at the nerves that ran beneath his dark skin.

He knew why it bothered him so, and that somehow made it worse. The structure’s frame had existed as a warehouse for only a few years before it had been stripped down to the bones and redesigned as a base for law enforcement, and the barracks themselves had been created even more recently, just like the clone troopers that they were meant to house. Quinlan didn’t like to linger on the strange, disquieting thought that some of the younger troopers – the shinies, as their older siblings called them – were actually younger than the vote that had seen that building constructed, that they had been alive for less time than those voting Senators had been in office, but it was true. It was also true that most of those natives, the Senators, the tourists – that pretty much everyone on Coruscant saw the men who lived in the barracks precisely as they saw the barracks themselves – efficient, necessary, even useful, but objects nonetheless, as soulless and unfeeling as the metal beneath their feet.

And while thinking of that certainly made Quinlan forget about his damaged hand, it also made his blood pressure skyrocket and sent his pulse hammering even louder in his ears. He grunted against the intensified pain and soldiered on toward the barracks, ignoring the looks he received from a polished group of lobbyists who were lingering on the outskirts in the Senate courtyard, apparently aghast that a person such as himself – bloodied, travelworn, and squinting like an angry massiff – was allowed to walk past their dignified personages.

He fought the urge to stick his tongue out at them and focused on forcing his sleep-deprived brain to recall the location of Fox’s office. He thought it was on Level 3, but it could have also been on Level 3.5. The commander was rarely in it, so Quinlan didn’t have to go there very often, but today he might try looking for him there first before he started waltzing around the compound.

Besides, Thorn had recently replaced Fox’s cruddy desk chair with some sort of recliner thing. Granted, it was a castaway the determined commander had dragged out of the trash and plunked directly into his ori’vod’s office, but it still looked nice and fluffy, or at least it had in the picture Stone had sent him while he was away. Either way, Quinlan couldn’t see a downside in going to Fox’s office first – if the commander was in, he didn’t have to scramble around the place trying to find him, and if he wasn’t, he could snatch a nap in the chair. Fox would likely threaten to kill him in a variety of violent ways if he found him asleep in his chair, and dirty and wounded and bleeding on it at that, but Quinlan expected that reaction. He knew Fox was a cranky sort of devil, until you got to know him and realized that he was a caring cranky devil, and he simply accepted the commander’s attitude as the price of friendship.

Actually, he realized, closing in on the thick metal door that guarded the entrance to the Guard’s home on Coruscant. I think I even missed it.

And when he stepped inside the building and felt dozens, hundreds of familiar signatures glowing around him with a warmth that felt like home, still able to feel the echoes of one particularly sharp presence that seemed to ripple the light around it, he knew he had.

Chapter Text

Even as Quinlan snuck into the barracks, ducking his head a little as he moved along, he didn’t expect to get very far without being noticed. He was, after all, a Kiffar in a building full of clones, and a rather rumpled Kiffar at that.

He had expected to make it past the first corridor, though, which did not happen.

He had barely gotten both feet across the threshold, the door just beginning to hiss along the tracks to snap shut behind him, when he heard a voice ring down on him like a peal of thunder.

“Hey!”

If Fox had yelled at him like that, in that annoyed of a tone, Quinlan might have genuinely been in fear for his life. Instead, the Jedi just straightened abruptly to his full height and frowned at the wall ahead of him.

The person obviously wasn’t Fox, but it wasn’t anyone else he knew, either. While everyone else might feel justified in considering the clones just so many tools, droid-like implements instead of individuals, Quinlan had never heard of a Lightsider who could entertain that notion for even a second. The clones might have had the same features, the same voice and the same DNA, but in the Force, each and every one of them was unique. Each man among them was his own speck of light against the vast backdrop of the universe, equal with all other sentients, his soul shining as brightly as any star, as recognizable as a rare gem.

The clone who had barked at him was certainly unique, and in some ways he seemed almost too bright and shiny, like he could be blinding if Quinlan lingered on his signature too long – but he didn’t feel familiar. The Kiffar prided himself on knowing each Corrie’s name and personality in addition to their Force presence, and yet he drew a blank when he tried to place this one.

“Hey,” Shiny Trooper said again. His voice was not quite as sharp as before, probably since Quinlan had frozen when he’d called to him the first time instead of bolting. “You with the hair.”

Quinlan snorted and turned his head ten degrees, enough that he could just glimpse the trooper from the corner of his eye, but not enough to send his hurting eyeballs popping out of their sockets. The man’s armor was reduced to little flickers between his thick eyelashes, but the Jedi thought it was mostly white, which was strange for the Guard. “You couldn’t see anything else that might be more helpful in that statement?”

The trooper laughed softly, and the ivory smudges shifted as he seemed to relax. “Yeah, well, that was the first thing that came to mind. Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” At least this one laughs. Quinlan usually had to wait for weeks before a new trooper, especially one fresh from Kamino, felt comfortable enough to laugh around him. He decided this soldier must be a shiny anyway, though, because of his signature – he was so bright because he was new. “Can I turn around, or…?”

“Oh. Yes, sir. Sorry about that.” Movement clouded the edge of Quinlan’s vision and he heard the clunk of combat boots sound twice against the floor, and then the trooper was standing in front of him.

Quinlan blinked and stared at the clone. Then he blinked again and tried to come to terms with what he was seeing.

For one thing, the man’s voice might have sounded relaxed but it didn’t match his posture, which was ramrod straight and stiff, almost like he was struggling to exist in a new place and wasn’t exactly comfortable yet. For another, most clones had curly hair before they were shipped out and cut, dyed, or shaved it, but this one had a head full of the kinkiest black curls that Quinlan had ever seen. They weren’t long enough to fluff around the trooper’s forehead and ears, but when he moved his arm to clip the restrainer back over his blaster, a few bounced anyway, as if they were all coiled to spring at any moment.

His armor was indeed a stark, unvarnished white, completely undecorated by the Corrie Guard red that the other troopers used to liberally adorn their own protective plating. Painting one’s armor with the colors of a new regiment was important to the clones, Quinlan knew, and he had never seen a new Corrie without at least some crimson splashed onto his white shell by the Corrie’s self-proclaimed armor painting experts, Slip and Sunny. The Jedi had always assumed that those two had left Kamino with built-in new-trooper detection, so if they hadn’t gotten their hands on this one yet, he must have arrived not long before Quinlan had walked through the door.

So this one is really new, he thought. Like newborn new. A little baby shiny.

It wasn’t that far-fetched – the baby part, at least. He had heard Obi-Wan, Mace, and a host of other Jedi mourn the fact that their new troopers were being shipped out younger and younger, some as young as nine compared to the original eleven or twelve, but this clone didn’t even look nine. With that mop of curls and the filled-out, smooth cheekbones, and those stinking big brown eyes that were blinking curiously back at the Kiffar, this trooper looked like a crecheling.

A very squishable crecheling, with bright tooka-eyes that would make Shaak Ti melt like an ice cone on Tatooine.

He should probably introduce her to this one next time she comes to Coruscant. There’d be no time for a new little shiny to grow jaded and weary in the Lower Levels if there were an extremely maternal, slightly frightening Togruta dogging his steps every inch of the way. If half of what Obi-Wan had told him about her mothering her cadets on Kamino was true, Shaak would have this poor doe-eyed thing swaddled in a heated blanket and nibbling a grilled cheese before he realized his blaster was gone.

“Yeah, uh–” Quinlan tried to restart his brain and his mouth at once, but he couldn’t quite untangle his tongue and the attempt just made his temples throb harder. He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them and tried again. “It’s cool. I’m Quinlan.”

Usually, telling newbies his name helped them loosen up. Despite what Fox may tell his troopers about the “delinquent Jedi” he had once pulled out of a dumpster, most of the Guard liked him and passed news of his alright status on to the younger clones who shipped in from Kamino. This one, however, didn’t react at all. The only change in his expression was a faint twitch of his left eye, and that seemed to stem more from trying to decide how to respond rather than recognition of any sort.

He finally decided that reciprocating the greeting was the most logical thing to do. “I’m CT-4747,” he replied.

After being around the clones for as long as he had, the Jedi was so used to having to ask the next question that it was leaving his lips before he even thought about it. “Yeah, but what’s your name?” He winced when he heard how rough that sounded in his sleepy, gravel-filled voice. “Not that you have to tell me – I just don’t like using the numbers. Feels wrong.”

The shiny’s eyes widened a little in genuine surprise – good Force, how could they get any bigger? Quinlan had seen newborn bongo fawns with less endearing faces.

“Silver, sir.” The trooper reached up and swept his palm over his hair, brushing it back from his face in what had to be a nervous gesture, judging from the little spike of uncertainty that rippled through the Force around him.

“Nice to meet you, Silver.” Quinlan felt his teeth vibrate as he spoke and realized that his hand was throbbing now, too. Funny – he hadn’t even noticed it over the thumping in his skull. “Say, uh, you know where Commander Fox is?” That nap in a commandeered recliner was sounding even better than it had before.

“If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, I think you might need to see a medic before the commander,” Silver ventured. “You’re, um, bleeding on the floor.”

Quinlan glanced down at his injured hand just in time to see another crimson drop splatter to the tile, with another one threatening to do the same as it clung to the very tip of his tightly bound fingers.

He huffed in annoyance. That strip of tunic was going to have to find a different career.

 “You mean Stitch?” It was strange to hear someone call the redheaded clone a medic. He hated being called a medic – he preferred the term fixer, for some reason. Probably too many mafia movies, Quinlan thought, though with his eyes about to cross, he forgot to mention that to the shiny. “Yeah, Stitch might be better, actually. I’ll talk to Fox later.”

“Oh, that’s the medic’s name?” Silver looked down and turned his arm out, revealing the small comm unit that was nestled on the inside of his gleaming white vambrace. His curls bounced back forward again, rebelling against his earlier attempt to push them back, and the way his nose scrunched when he concentrated on the minuscule blue screen made Quinlan think of a frustrated gerbil.

“Stitch…” he muttered, almost as if to himself, typing on the tiny keypad on his gauntlet as Quinlan watched on in confusion. He glanced up when he felt the Jedi’s eyes on him and gave an embarrassed shrug. “I found his number in the roll, but I’m trying to learn everyone’s name, too,” he explained, clicking another key and then letting his arm fall back to his side.

Quinlan quirked one eyebrow up in confusion. “You don’t know Stitch?”

“No, sir. I got here right before you did. Reassigned from my original post.” Silver was looking at him funny. Quinlan couldn’t figure out why until he saw the wall tilt a little to the right and realized he was swaying just a little bit. “Sir, I really think you should go to medical.”

“How ‘bout –” Quinlan frowned at himself for slurring the word, but his brain was having a hard time catching up with his disappointment. “Why don’t I introduce you to Stitch, and then we go find Fox?” That sounded better than yes, that’s a great idea because I can’t feel my head anymore and I need a baby to help me walk ten steps.

At the sound of the Commander’s name, Silver drew himself up even straighter than before, as if he were trying to add every bit of height to his stature he could. Quinlan almost snorted at the shiny’s eager expression, but remembered at the last moment that it would probably be impolite.

He really needed something for this headache.

“Yes, sir!” Silver closed the distance between them with a single stride and, without another word, slipped an arm around Quinlan’s chest to help hold him up. The Jedi squinted at the arm for a moment, then simply accepted it. This kid was friendly and open, but at the same time there was a kind of shadow hanging around him, something…murky. The initial burst of brightness Quinlan had felt from his presence in the Force had drawn his attention away from the dark spot for a few moments, but it was palpable now, even though the glow was still there. It felt heavy and sad, almost like…

Grief?

Before Quinlan could dig deeper into that, Silver was turning him away from the front desk and down the corridor. The certainty that directed the shiny’s step was weirdly confusing, given what he had just said about his recent arrival.

“How do you know where medical is, if you haven’t been here long enough –” Quinlan’s vision clouded up and made the hall look funny for a second, but he managed not to trip. “–to meet Stitch?”

“I’ve been studying the roll and the building schematics,” Silver answered brightly.

The Jedi gave an impressed grunt. “Smart kid.”

“Not really.” Quinlan could sense Silver’s grin as the shiny turned left and steered him into a shorter offshoot of a hall that ended in stainless double doors. “I was so busy memorizing the blueprint that I got lost on the way here like, six times.”

In spite of the pain that was hammering between his ears, Quinlan chuckled and felt his wincing grimace twitch into a smile. “Sounds like something I’d do.” He had been holding onto Silver’s ivory pauldron with his left hand, but now he flattened out his palm so he could give the shiny an affectionate shoulder pat. “I think me and you are going to be great pals.”

Silver’s signature was back to the almost too-bright shine. “I hope so, sir.”

Quinlan's smirk turned into a beaming grin – then Silver pushed open the double doors and all the happy was completely sucked off the Kiffar’s dark face, melted into oblivion by the gruff and irritated bellow that was immediately blasted in their direction.

“Quinlan karking Vos!”

Quinlan felt Silver flinch at the echoing roar and latched his fingertips into the groove beneath the shiny’s pauldron. He didn’t want to sacrifice an innocent, but he also didn't want to be left alone either.

Holding onto the soldier, the Jedi took a deep breath and infused his voice with as much cheerfulness as he could muster with numb fingers and a bruised and aching head.

“Well, Silver the shiny,” he quipped. “Meet Stitch.”

Chapter Text

Quinlan was just a little disappointed. He had expected Silver’s bright doe eyes to widen until they looked like saucers when he heard Stitch’s outburst, but to his bafflement, the shiny simply shook off the initial surprise and met the other clone’s gaze with admirable calm.

“Hello,” Silver greeted the other clone meekly. These new shinies must be hearing about the famed tempers of their medic brothers before they left Kamino, the Jedi realized, a quick mental pout turning his thoughts. That had to be it – there was no other explanation for the recent months’ lack of new recruits crashing out over Stitch’s booming voice and off-putting attitude. He would have to find a new source of entertainment. “You must be Stitch?”

He posed it as a question, as if he were hoping for a response instead of the silence that could follow a mere statement.

Stitch wasn’t accustomed to silence, though. Quinlan knew he would have rebounded with something anyway.

“I am.” The medic was still glaring at Quinlan, his flaming shocks of hair just a little disheveled and taking just a little attention away from his menacing scowl. “You’re drafting in shinies to do your dirty work now?”

Quinlan blinked at the medic, a tiny bit of shock seeping into his hurt expression. “I just walked in the door!” he protested. Were the lights always so bright in here? They were making his eyes burn. “Silver was just…there. Good kid, by the way.”

He swayed a little to the left and bit back a sudden burst of nausea. He was beginning to think he had hit his head way harder than he had thought.

Silver’s arm tightened around his chest, and the young trooper jumped to his rescue. “That’s right, sir,” he told Stitch. “At first I thought he was lost, or maybe a little drunk when he stumbled in, but it turns out he’s hurt. I didn’t think he could make it here on his own, sir.”

“Oh, drop the sir. I’m only mean to him.” Stitch huffed as if he were annoyed, but he reached to the left and snatched up a roll of gauze from a nearby shelf. “Alright, Vos. You know the drill.”

Quinlan hummed his appreciation as he slipped his arm off of Silver’s shoulders and staggered to the nearest white cot. “Thank you, kind medic,” he deadpanned back. “Whatever would I do without you?”

Stitch snorted. “Oh, you hit your head really hard.”

“Yes, but I actually mean it. I’m sure you can be an angel when you want to be. Which is obviously rare, but still.” The Jedi scooted farther onto the cot, careful not to put too much weight on his bandaged hand, and then flopped onto his back with a loud sigh and snuggled back into the familiar, clean-smelling pillow.

Six months ago, Quinlan would have avoided the Guard’s medical bay like the scarlet plague if he had been hurt. If he had been wrangled inside its white, gleaming walls – and he would have had to have been wrangled in the strongest sense of the word, probably dragged in by an angry yet caring Fox or a well-meaning, even-more-caring Thorn – he would have been climbing walls to escape and keep Stitch from using valuable medical supplies, things the Corries needed and never had enough of, on his stupid, injury-prone self. But that was before he had figured out how to smuggle in enough supplies to make up for the usual deficiency and keep up with his own need of them, so now he relented. The last “care package” had been dropped off last week, so there should be replacements for whatever Stitch decided he needed.

Also, the redhead liked tranquilizing him, for some reason. Sometimes Quinlan saw it coming, sometimes he felt a sharp poke and woke up sixteen hours later, staring blankly at a ceiling and a smug medic.

It was safer to go ahead and sit down on his own, before the hypos came out.

At his declaration, a dry smile briefly turned up the corners of Stitch’s lips, but then it quickly vanished into a frown as his keen brown gaze scanned over his new patient. “Seriously, what did you do this time?” he asked again.

“Oh, I don’t remember.” Quinlan waved his unbandaged hand in the air like a cue for dismissal. “Concussion, y’know.”

“Vos…”

“Is this a regular thing, then?” Both men turned to look at Silver, who looked even more confused now than he had when Stitch had known Quinlan’s name.

“What, him getting hurt and crawling back to me to patch him up?” Stitch turned back to make a face at the Kiffar. “Too regular.”

Even as he said it, though, he was turning Quinlan’s hand over in his, examining the inadequate bandage. He raised a questioning eyebrow at the bulky, loosening knot.  “For someone who gets beat up so much, you’d think you would be better at treating wounds by now.”

Quinlan blinked up at him, all innocence and helplessness. He ignored the twinge that crackled in the nerves near his knuckles as Stitch’s fingertips pressed against his finger joints, deciding to look more closely at the sutures tattooed around the medic’s wrist instead. He hadn’t noticed before how thin the lines were, or that the stitch that was inked over the medic’s pulse point was red instead of black. “Isn’t that what I have you for?” he asked, mimicking Silver’s reserved tone.

Stitch rolled his eyes as he started unraveling the cloth from around the Jedi’s fingers. He grimaced as he peeled away layers of blood-soaked, grimy fabric, and Quinlan could already see the medic’s fingers twitching for the disinfectant spray. “One day, we’re going to dump you off at the Temple doorstep and leave you there.”

“Oh, no, don’t do that,” Quinlan groaned, only half faking the plea that wavered in his voice. “Yoda still treats me like a youngling.”

“Maybe that’s because you act like one,” said a gruff, stony voice that swept in from the hall.

Stitch didn’t even look up from his task, but both Quinlan’s and Silver’s heads snapped up immediately at the sound of the new speaker, though for entirely different reasons.

The Kiffar’s brown eyes lit up when they landed on the red-and-white figure who filled the doorway. “Hiya, Fox!”

The dent between Fox’s brows deepened as he squinted in the Jedi’s direction, a subdued curiosity glimmering in his eyes as he took in his rumpled appearance. His gaze flickered over to Silver and melted into something a little softer as he glanced up and down the shiny’s starkly white armor, something Quinlan knew was half recognition, half regret. Fox never liked starting shinies out on the Guard – he would rather his younger brothers take their chances on almost any of the bloody battlefields that crisscrossed the star systems than here in the capital world, the center of it all.

That, Quinlan knew, said far more about Coruscant than it did about Fox, but no one was ever really willing to listen to that. No one who could change it, anyway. He still held out hope that after the war was over, the Jedi would be able to change the Senate’s minds about the clones and secure their rights as citizens – that if the people in power wouldn’t listen, new people could take their place.

But the war was turning out to be a long, weary thing, and Quinlan wasn’t even sure he’d live to see the end of it, at this rate. He had become less reckless since meeting Fox – it was hard to throw yourself off a cliff when your best friend might need you to fight for his life after the Senate thought his usefulness had run out – but if this stars-blasted conflict stretched on for much longer, he might be driven to resurrect some of that drastic action he used to be so fond of taking and change a few things himself.

The Kiffar was brought out of his musings by the hiss of the door as it shut behind the commander, who had stepped into the room and was somehow at the foot of Quinlan’s cot already, despite the fact that Quinlan had not heard him move. Sometimes he thought the rumors of Fox being not quite humanoid were correct, after all – surely it was hard to move that silently in armor.

The commander gave one of those irritatingly responsible, long-suffering sighs that told Quinlan he was wondering once again why he put up with his nonsense. “So, what have you been up to now?”

The Kiffar snorted in a mix of derision, amusement, and bone-weariness. “Chasing an informant, capturing an informant. Mentally cussing out Mace Windu for sending me after an informant. You know how many slimy little beach bars there are on Edherria? Because I think I do, now. At least thirty-six, if you don’t include the little moonshine joint where the roof was rusting to bits into your cup while–”

“At what point in this captivating story did you get your fingers sliced off?” Fox seemed far more interested in Quinlan’s injuries than in his adventurous tale. Probably because he already knew about seedy places meant for excessive alcohol consumption – once one spent time in Coruscant’s Lower Levels, one could very believably claim to have seen it all.

“They are not sliced off.” Quinlan scrunched his face so much in defiance that it bunched up the golden tattoo that ran across the bridge of his nose. “They’re just…sliced.”

“To the bone,” Stitch grumbled.

Quinlan saw him move just in time, and braced himself as the medic let his trusty disinfectant (which Quinlan was pretty sure was a component in mining explosives) attack the grime and germs that had inevitably made their way into the deep gashes that were gouged into the Jedi’s brown fingers. “Ow-uch,” he said dramatically.

“Hush. You’re lucky you’re keeping them.” Stitch huffed and reached for the bacta next. “Look at this filth. What did they use – a rusted butterknife?”

“It was actually quite clean, to be honest,” Quinlan hummed. “I had considerate would-be murderers, this time.”

Fox tilted his head slightly to the left and zeroed in on the injury, looking more like a falcon than a canine. “Looks like a cleaver wound to me.”

Quinlan made a face at the commander and was about to quip something smart about being a know-it-all – then he sat up quickly, making Stitch hiss in annoyance.

“Forget about my hand,” he said, squinting narrowly at the commander. His vision was still screwy, but now that he had been lying down, it wasn’t so blurry that he should be seeing that. “What happened to your nose?”

The other man grunted, his hand drifting to his face so his fingers could brush the pinkish streak of a still-healing scar. It appeared the wound had been long and shallow, gashing a mark that grazed the top of the commander’s high cheekbones and ran across his nose, from the corner of one eye to almost that of the other. “Some punks tried to rob an antiquities galleria. When we repulsed their little shopping spree, they tried to make a getaway in a stolen air taxi.”

“Fox shot it down,” Stitch supplied cheerily. “I think Stone still has the helmet cam footage of that – and when they steered the falling chunk of metal right onto someone’s head.” He gave the commander the kind of glare that made the worst look he’d shot at Quinlan look like a mother’s smile. “Because someone didn’t move.”

Fox rolled his eyes and glared back at the medic, but his index finger still subconsciously scratched the edge of the scar, as if he could maybe rub it off.

Quinlan frowned at the once-wound again. Surely Fox had been wearing his bucket – it was balanced at his hip now, upside down and gleaming red and white, but the Corries usually wore their helmets all the time if they weren’t in this building. “What about your helmet?”

“Cracked on impact. It was a big taxi.” Fox turned his head to the left and cracked his neck with a loud pop that made Silver jump.

“A sheet of plastoid cut down into his face like…” Stitch held up Quinlan’s now thoroughly bacta’d fingers, his other hand hovering nearby with a good length of gauze. “Well, like this. He’s lucky he didn’t lose an eye. Or his nose.”

Fox huffed, ready to be done with the conversation, but Quinlan grinned.

“It adds to your mysterious aura of scariness,” he assured him. “Besides–” He pointed with his uninjured hand to the tattoo that graced his own nose. While it was a bit more symmetrical than Fox’s new face decor, the general effect was the same. “Now we match!”

“Oh, good Force.” Fox shook his head as if he were annoyed, but the Kiffar was fast enough to catch the glint of amusement that glowed in his eyes for a split second.

That glimmer was gone the next instant, though, and by the time the commander had turned his attention to Silver, still standing quietly off to the side, he was all business again. Still, he wasn’t as stiff as usual, or at least it seemed so to Quinlan.

It would appear that the shiny didn't know any better, though. Silver was doing a commendable job of keeping his face relaxed as Fox’s eyes seized onto him, but Quinlan felt the spike of anxiety that tinged his presence in the Force, saw the way he swallowed hard and tried to pour even more discipline into his already rigid posture.

Fox might have noticed that the kid was new, but that didn’t mean he would take it easy on him. “Who’s your shiny?” he asked Quinlan, maintaining eye contact with the younger clone.

Silver gulped and risked a glance at Quinlan, one that very clearly said help.

“He’s really yours, I guess,” the Kiffar replied. He muffled a yelp as Stitich tied off the bandage with what was surely an exceptionally secure knot, then quickly composed himself. He couldn’t act like a youngling in front of the little guy, after all, no matter if Fox agreed with Yoda or not. “I just found him when I came in.”

“I actually found him, sir.” Silver remembered how to operate his tongue and returned Fox’s intimidating stare with an attempt at one of his own. “CT-4747, reporting for duty, sir.”

Fox’s face remained precisely as it was, but the Jedi sensed hints of respect already mingling with the faint mirth that was swirling around him. Not many shinies would correct a superior to their face on their first day, and while Fox kept the Guard running on regulation for their own safety, he appreciated troopers who were tough and not afraid to stand up for themselves. It was another part of survival on Coruscant, and if they didn’t already have that kind of steel in their bones when they arrived, they soon gained it. They had to.

“Well, kid.” Fox held out his hand – the one not holding his helmet – and waited for Silver to take it, which the shiny did after a brief hesitation and another glance toward Quinlan. “Welcome to the Coruscant Guard.”

Chapter Text

“All done,” Stitch announced, just as Silver and Fox’s hands met each other in a firm shake. It wasn’t quite a commando grip yet, Quinlan noticed – Fox kept his fingers wrapped around Silver’s wrist, and the shiny just copied the motion, unwilling to reach for something that wasn’t offered yet, that hadn’t been earned.

It wouldn’t be long, though. The Jedi felt a streak of raw potential curling around the younger trooper’s presence in the Force, and knew Fox and the other clones would eventually find it as well. Silver wasn’t going to be a shiny for long.

“You got a name already?” Fox asked the shiny, ignoring the medic’s declaration. “Or do you still go by your number?”

“Yes, sir.” Silver’s head bobbed up and down in a nod, then froze abruptly as he tried to decide which question he was answering. “I mean, no, sir.” He blinked rapidly and recomposed himself by sucking in a quick breath. “My name’s Silver, sir.”

Quinlan had to force back a chuckle. That answer was far more enthusiastic than the one he had received when he had asked the same thing, but then again, most shinies seemed to be absolutely in awe of their older, trial-tested brothers. Fox certainly fit the description of a growly veteran ori’vod now more than ever, since he had a nice, frightening scar to bolster his characteristic aura of ruthlessly feral competency. They were siblings, after all, and Quinlan knew something about that bond himself. How many times had he followed Obi-Wan and Bant around when they were all padawans, like a little lost puppy who was all too tail-waggingly eager to gain their notice? The clones weren’t very different. The Shadow supposed he should have been more surprised had Silver not been animated by his older sibling’s attention.

Fox’s semi-smirk morphed into a full version of the expression, one that even managed to climb its way to his whiskey-copper eyes, and the Kiffar very nearly fell off the cot in shock.

Fox was smiling. Correction: he was grinning like an idiot, like he had completely forgotten Quinlan was there while he was focused on the new baby brother who had suddenly appeared on his doorstep – or rather, in his medical bay.

Now that was more surprising than anything the Jedi had planned on seeing this week.

“Oh, so you’re a smart aleck,” was all he said. But the way he quirked up his left eyebrow – the more expressive one, in Quinlan’s experience, as he could usually gauge the commander’s mood by how much he allowed that eyebrow to rise before he shouted – in a conspiratorial arch made the Kiffar realize he was being left out of an inside joke of some kind.

“No, sir.” Silver blinked again, looking just a trifle offended. “It’s just my number is 4747, and Copper – one of my batchmates – called me that, and it stuck.”

Stitch chuckled, obviously in on the joke Quinlan was being so meanly left out of. Then he must have heard the Jedi’s soft huff of annoyance, because he turned back to him with a glower. “That’s silver’s atomic number,” he hissed. “Forty-seven.”

Quinlan tilted his head at the medic in confusion, and was belatedly delighted when the entire room didn’t seem to go with it. Whatever Stitch had given him in that IV – the one he hadn’t even noticed him start, due to his shock over Fox’s new appearance – must have run through his veins like lightning, because for the first time in over twenty-four hours, he could look sideways without feeling like his stomach was following his eyes. “Do you all have atomic numbers?” he asked innocently.

“No, moron.” The redheaded clone’s hand twitched eagerly, but he remembered his patient’s condition just before the urge to bop him in the head took over. “It’s the metal’s atomic number. Good kriff, what do they teach you in Jedi school?”

“Pottery sculpting, bantha riding, how to be a pain in the a– Oww!” Quinlan might not be eligible for a smack, but he did feel a sharp sting in the crook of his elbow that made him jump.

“That’s enough liquid energy for you,” Stitch told him flatly, winding up the IV tube like he did it every day of his life, which he likely did. “I only meant to rehydrate you to average mobility, not give you enough juice to be stupid.”

Quinlan tried a pout, but Stitch was mostly immune to those, so it didn’t work.

“Copper and Silver, hmm?” Fox’s scar wrinkled as his smile grew and softened into something understanding, almost nostalgic.

“Yes, sir.” Silver smiled back, but it turned into a kind of aching, faraway expression, and his presence in the Force was suddenly overshadowed again by that heaviness that Quinlan had noticed earlier. “It was me, Copper, Cobalt, Titan, and Uri – for titanium and uranium, since those were too long to yell.”

Stitch snorted.

“We each had part of those numbers in our own, so it kind of just made sense.” Silver shrugged. “We were fourth years and just wanted names, I guess. I think Titan actually thought of it first. He and Uri used to argue about that, though, so I’m not sure.”

“They’re all good names,” Fox agreed, but Quinlan saw the commander’s eyes narrow just the slightest bit as he considered the implications of the past tense. “You were a bomb squad, I take it?”

“Yes, sir,” the shiny answered proudly. “We trained individually until fourth year, then they started us as a squad. We were good, too – or at least, I thought we were.”

Fox nodded, but tilted his head minutely to the side in a question. He was used to his Corries reading his expressions for most communication, but when Silver just blinked at him, he seemed to realize that he needed to use actual words with the new trooper. Just as he began to open his mouth, though, Quinlan beat him to it, his endless curiosity nudging him on.

“Why weren’t you stationed with them?” he asked, then flinched under Fox’s searing glare that swung toward him like a scythe. Perhaps the commander hadn’t been about to ask that, after all.

The heaviness fell around the shiny like a dark cloak to mask his bright gleam, and Quinlan instantly understood he’d said something wrong. But Silver just turned his head to look at the Jedi with a puzzled expression, as if he had assumed that he was already aware of the answer.

“I was, sir,” he said evenly. “But they died.”

Stitch had joined in Fox’s glaring and Quinlan felt himself shrink under the deserved, silent scolding. “I’m sorry. I –”

“Oh, no, don’t be.” Silver shook his head quickly to interrupt the apology, and to Quinlan’s surprise, the movement seemed to dissipate some of the black shroud, allowing more of his glow to shine through again. “I don’t mind talking about them. It could have happened to anyone, really – and I guess it does, doesn’t it? Brothers die every day, and we have to keep their memory because that’s all they’ve left us. I just…” A blush reddened the shiny’s too-young face, color washing up his neck and a little past his jawline. “I just thought that Jedi – you know – read minds, and…stuff.”

Quinlan couldn’t help but grin. “I wish.” Then he remembered some of the people he had met both in usual life and while a Shadow, and how many times he had been glad that he’d worn the thick pair of gloves to prevent even the slightest hint of their doubtlessly unseemly memories from echoing into his brain. He shuddered. “Kriff, you know what? I take that back.”

Fox’s glare sharpened at him again, as if he were already adding a tally to his mental – and no doubt completely inaccurate – record of Quinlan’s corruption of his little brother. Silver still looked a little embarrassed from voicing his misconception, but forged ahead.

“Anyway, we shipped out last month to Felucia to sweep for mines before General Secura’s forces continued their advance. It was supposed to be a pretty quiet assignment. You know, shiny stuff.” He cleared his throat, and even though it sounded as though he had recited the story a thousand times aloud or in his head, Quinlan could tell he wasn’t unaffected by retelling it once more. “But it, um, it wasn’t. There was a whole sector full of pressure mines and IEDs that were pretty simple, but about halfway through a disarm, Cobalt realized one of them was part of a wire spider.”

He clocked Quinlan’s confused blink. “A cluster bomb,” he explained. “It’s a bunch of smaller mines, usually different kinds, that are connected so that if one of them is triggered, they all blow at once. They’re great for taking out convoys, and uh–” he swallowed. “–entire squads.”

Quinlan felt sick, and it wasn’t because of the concussion. He wondered if all of Silver’s squad had looked as young as he did, if all of them had blazed in the Force like he did. The certainty that he would never know left him hollow and unsure how to respond.

“I was running comms that day, coordinating movements from the rear.” The shiny glanced at the tile briefly. “So…I’m the only one left, now. The new squad that transferred to take our place was fully manned, and I think they knew I wouldn’t perform as well without my batchmates, since I’d trained with them for so long. So when Commander Bly asked if I would like to transfer, I said yes. And I guess there was an opening here.” He flashed Fox a grin and his soul flickered back to a brighter hue.

Fox cleared his throat, something Quinlan couldn’t remember him doing before. His own signature was always well-guarded, but now he had pulled his shields in even tighter to prevent any nosy Jedi from detecting his full reaction. “Where were you before Felucia?” he asked.

Silver colored again, and this time the blush crept up to his cheekbones. “Kamino, sir.”

Stitch broke his silence with a shocked curse that made him the next victim of Fox’s murderous stare. “How old are you, kid?”

Silver tilted his head a little to the left, his eyebrows drawing down and together in confusion. “I’m eight, sir.”

Maybe even younger than the original building. A jolt of surprise laced the thought, even though Quinlan had guessed that was the case from the start.

“So you’re a baby baby,” he summarized bluntly.

Quinlan usually tried to angle his words for maximum effect. This particular declaration caught an eyeroll from Fox, a snort laugh from Stitch, and an adorable scowl from Silver, so he thought his aim had been pretty spot-on. Said baby shiny opened his mouth to deny the claim, but was cut short by a loud meow.

“See, Rat agrees with me,” Quinlan announced triumphantly. He found the critter in question exactly where he expected, high on a shelf near the door and stretching out of his comfortable resting place between two rotund jars of bacta. “Hi, Rat!”

The purple and cream-colored tooka crooned at him in greeting, but otherwise ignored him as usual, choosing instead to devote his attention to weaving through the shelves stacked with medical paraphernalia. Once he was close enough to Fox, he executed a graceful leap down onto the commander’s armored shoulder and curled around his neck like a fluffy, living scarf.

Fox rolled his eyes again, but reached up to scratch the tooka’s creamy chin. “He doesn’t like you, remember?” he drawled back to Quinlan.

“No. You wish he didn’t, and that’s not the same.” The Kiffar chuckled at the way Silver’s eyes bulged in their sockets and how his jaw dropped in what could only be described as thrilled shock. “You okay, shiny?”

Silver didn’t answer – he was too busy staring in awe at Fox’s newly acquired neckwarmer.

“Is that a tooka?!” he blurted. For a moment, all traces of the soldier he’d been created to be were masked, revealing the wide-eyed boy he still very much was. “You have a tooka?”

Fox nodded, then jerked his head toward Rat. “Go ahead,” he told the shiny. “He doesn’t bite anyone but Grizzer.”

For a second Silver looked like he wanted to ask who Grizzer was, but that thought and all others promptly left his head as he ran his fingers gently over Rat’s purple flank.

“We have more than one.” Stitch frowned at the saucy creature, and it looked to Quinlan like Rat frowned back at him in return, not forgetting his daily grudges just because someone new was giving him pets. “We’re practically infested with the things.”

“Oh, and whoever could be leaving out food for them?” Quinlan wondered aloud, swinging his feet off the edge of the cot and smiling as Silver stroked Rat’s ears and beamed.

Stitch and Fox both levelled intimidating daggers of glares at him, and the Kiffar grinned. He had expected only the medic to respond to that, but now he knew Fox had been written into the “feed-the-tookas” schedule, as well. Which was interesting, because at Quinlan’s last visit, the commander had still been trying to reinforce his wavering front of disliking the strays that wandered in from grimy dumpsters and squalid alleys, attempting to pretend that Rat was the only exception.

“Ooh, is Rat jealous yet?” This was just too good. He had come in with a head injury and would be leaving with so many more ways to rib the commander – a good trade, in Quinlan’s vaunted opinion. “Are you jealous, Rat? Your person has been consorting with the common street tookas!”

Rat just purred more loudly, as if to say he didn’t care, and butted the commander’s hand for ear scritches. Fox huffed, his fingers shifting to obey. “Oh, shut up, Vos.”

“He wasn’t a fan to begin with,” Stitch answered in Rat’s stead. He stepped past the tooka and his commander to straighten the box Rat had slid too close to the edge on his little trek, trying his best not to smirk when Fox let the creature lick his hand. “But now he’s fine with them – as long as they don’t get too comfy with Fox.”

Suddenly there was another, smaller meow, and Stitch froze. Quinlan assumed the sound had come from Rat, but the medic glanced around, confused until he finally chanced a look into the helmet that Fox had been holding upside down against his hip for a suspiciously long time.

The redhead’s loud laugh was cheerful, but it still made Silver jump. “Which means he probably won’t like this little tyke, then!”

Quinlan stopped halfway through pulling his hair back into a ponytail –something about concussions made him not like it on his neck. “Huh?”

“A little one?” Silver peered around Fox’s polished chestplate and into the inside of the helmet, apparently not noticing the commander’s defeated sigh and the betrayed glare he threw at Stitch, who simply smirked it off.

The shiny’s eyes grew even wider, if that was possible. “Oh, it’s a little little one,” he breathed out reverently.

Quinlan let the hair tie go and heard it snap with a pop. He shook his head to make sure it would hold – his thick ropes of hair were not kind to poorly crafted hair ties – then jumped to his feet to investigate.

He peeked over the rim of Fox’s helmet, ignoring the commander’s defensive hiss that was probably involuntary as he got too close to his newest little recruit. “Aww,” he cooed. “It’s an orange one.”

Two hazel eyes blinked up at the Kiffar with innocent curiosity, staring out from what appeared at first glance to be just a spiky orange ball of fluff, but upon further inspection was actually a very tiny, very adorable tooka kitten.

Stitch hummed in agreement, bending close to see the kitten and getting a mouthful of Rat’s tail for his efforts. Quinan thought the tooka might have been disappointed when he got no reaction. “Where’d you find it?” the medic asked. Then he grinned knowingly. “Or did it find you this time, Mr. Stray Magnet?”

Fox scoffed and cradled the helmet to his chest. “Keep it down. It doesn’t know you yet.”

“So there are a lot of strays that come here?” Silver asked hopefully. He was still petting Rat, but he looked like he wanted to scoop the kitten out of its comfy abode and squeeze it like a stuffie.

“Oh, certainly.” Fox pinned Quinlan with an annoyed look that only thinly veiled his amusement. “He’s one of them.”

Quinlan stuck out his lips in a pout. “I am not a stray,” he insisted.

The commander scoffed. “I pulled you out of a dumpster.”

“Yeah, but then Stitch patched me up and fed me and microchipped me or whatever,” the Jedi pointed out. “So I’m not a stray now. Once you feed me, I’m yours. That’s the rule.”

Fox could roll his eyes remarkably well, due to practice, and it seemed to Quinlan that he was doing it a lot today. Silver’s fingertips brushed his neck for the fifth time and the commander finally just shrugged Rat off his shoulder and into the shiny’s waiting arms. Silver looked like he had just won the lottery. “Can I somehow break this rule?”

“Only through death,” Quinlan said solemnly.

“Oh, don’t tempt me. That would be such a headache remedy.”

“Not my death, yours. If you die, I can’t do anything to you. But if you kill me, I’ll haunt you. Believe me. I’ll Force ghost my way into your comm and drive you mad.”

“As if I’m not already.” Fox looked down at the kitten in his helmet as if he’d just had a sudden thought, then flicked his gaze back to Silver. The banter had loosened his shields a little, and Quinlan felt a glimmer of sympathy and regret flash through the cracks in the armor, a knowing pain that resulted from the kind of loss the commander undoubtedly knew all too well.

“Here.” Fox slid one hand deftly beneath Rat’s overfluffed belly and plucked him out of the shiny’s arms. Then he reached into the helmet, cupped the kitten carefully in his palm, and gently deposited its quivering form into the younger trooper’s hand. “Trade.”

Silver stared down at the kitten in surprise, and Quinlan felt him wavering between joy and uncertainty. “What…what do I do with it?” he asked, almost whispering. He looked up at Fox as if his every word was gospel, like he could tell him the next step to take.

“Well, it’s tiny, so you’ll have to feed it milk,” Fox told him. Rat was happy to have his person back and rubbed his head beneath the commander’s chin. Fox didn’t even blink, calmly returning his helmet, now relieved of its cargo, to his hip in a relaxed fashion he only displayed within these walls. “I’m sure we can find some. But it’ll have to stay with you when you’re not on patrol. Rat doesn’t like to share his bed.”

“You mean your bed,” Stitch muttered, still resituating the shelves to his liking. Quinlan was pretty sure Rat hadn’t messed up the organization enough to warrant all that, but maybe the medic was just trying to make a point to the rotten tooka. “Like that spoiled thing sleeps by himself.”

Silver didn’t hear him. He was too busy looking at the rust-colored kitten like its golden-brown eyes held the secrets to the universe. “Can–” he swallowed. “Can I name him?”

Quinlan frowned at the seriousness of his tone, and then it dawned on him how important names were to the clones in general. Being responsible for giving a name was an honor indeed.

“Sure you can.” Fox smirked. “But it’s a her.”

“Oh.” Silver blinked again at the little creature who was now making herself right at home in his cupped together palms. “Well, she is orange.” He cleared his throat softly, and something in the way he did made even Stitch turn away from his shelves and glance back at him.

“You’re… going to name her Orange?” Quinlan ventured. He doubted it, but he didn’t like the silence and all the weight that draped the air around them.

Silver shook his head and rubbed his thumb over the kitten’s head with infinite care. Almost instantly, she closed her eyes and began to purr. He smiled down at her, his soul bursting into the brightest glow Quinlan had felt from him yet.

“Copper,” he said. “I’m going to name her Copper.”

Rat crooned from Fox’s arms as if he approved, and if the commander’s satisfied grin – the kind he wore when a plan had worked – was any indicator, so did he.

Chapter Text

Level 3.5 had been christened with its illustrious name by Thorn’s drawling, dry observation that the fourth floor of the Coruscant Guard’s building wasn’t tall enough for half a clone to stand in, much less a whole one. The claim wasn’t exactly accurate, but Quinlan understood the sentiment from which it sprang.

He also knew, however, that over time, Level 3.5 became every Corrie’s favorite floor in the entire complex. Virtually no natborns were ever allowed to enter that area – or had the desire to, the Jedi mused – and so it had quickly become a safe place for the soldiers who lived there, a haven where they could take their helmets off and truly be themselves instead of the dehumanized units they were expected to be on Senate grounds. Behind the apathetic, stolid exterior that was presented to the rest of Coruscant lay what Quinlan knew to be a vibrantly comfortable sanctuary. Initially intended as little more than a cramped bid for extra square footage, Level 3.5 was now the one refuge, the one welcoming haven that the Guard troopers had carved for themselves out of a world that was all angles and sharp edges, the quiet resting place that shielded them from the endless noise. For Fox and his brothers, it had become home, and Quinlan would never take for granted that he was trusted inside.

The Jedi felt an extra spring twinge into his step as he wound his way past senators and their hangers-on, buoyed by the knowledge that, as long as he didn’t have another assignment from the Council, he could make this walk far more often than he had been able to in the previous weeks. His spirits lifted even as he weaved past those whose souls were so shadowy and gratingly selfish in the Force that if it weren’t for his staunchly cheery plane of stubborn existence, he’d already be nursing another headache. Between whatever had been in that Stitch-concocted IV and a good night’s sleep filled with dreams of fluffy orange tooka kittens, he had finally warded off yesterday’s migraine and he was not eager to repeat the experience.

For one thing, he despised headaches as a general rule, but for another, he knew for a fact that by the time he arrived at the Guard’s offices, all the strays that Fox pretended so adamantly he did not like would all be basking in the early morning sunshine that streamed in from Level 3.5’s eastern-facing windows. One of the best perks of visiting the Guard was the opportunity to slink off into the common room where a dozen or more multi-colored tookas gathered every morning like clockwork to drape themselves over the mismatched and repurposed furniture, the comfy beanbag chair whose origins Quinlan would never know, and even the clones were off duty so they could spend hours in the warm, sleep-inducing sunlight. The prospect of such a morning combined so many of the Kiffar’s favorite things – petting tookas, chatting with his friends, irritating Fox if he got the chance (and he usually did) – and he did not want to have it ruined by something as trivial as another migraine. Plus, he had a pack of powdered pet formula in his hand, a very baby shiny to give it to, and an even babier kitten to cuddle while Silver read the instructions. So he tried even harder to ignore the dreary signatures around him and simply pushed on toward the Guard complex.

If he hadn’t been so eager to guard his mind and encourage the lesser murkiness to bounce off without sticking, he might have been more attuned to the heavy shroud that seemed to hang off of the Corrie who was striding toward him on the walk, a quiet form in a red-and-white armor. But he was, so he didn’t – he merely attributed the trooper’s vague feeling of disquiet to the presence of so many potential unfriendlies on the Senate grounds.

Even if he didn’t realize what was wrong, or even that something was, Quinlan recognized the man’s soul immediately. “Good morning, Freckles!” he greeted warmly.

To his surprise, Freckles didn’t respond. The trooper just walked right past him, his entire body held stiff and tense beneath his armor as if he were afraid to put one toe out of line.

“Freckles?” Quinlan pulled to a stop, the worn soles of his sturdy leather boots catching on the smooth duracrete with a soft crack.

The clone halted just in front of him, his hands at his sides, benign and unthreatening. Quinlan quickly pulled down any shields he had up and suddenly realized that Freckles’ presence in the Force was shivering with hesitation, wondering how to respond to even a simple greeting. No, not merely wondering, the Kiffar corrected himself with a jolt – agonizing, as if it were supremely important to be sure before he spoke. As if whether he did was a matter of life or death.

Is it? A cold, ruthless hand closed around the Jedi’s heart as the thought penetrated his mind. How much could have changed in the mere twelve hours that had passed since he had left for the Temple?

And yet something had changed. He could feel it now, a biting undercurrent shuddering beneath the ground, threading through the air, a kind of depression or sorrow that draped his surroundings, surroundings that looked unaltered from the day before but still felt different in some way, muffled, as if cloths of mourning black had been spread invisibly over every surface.

Something was wrong. He just had no idea what it could be.

His quickly wheeling thoughts were only twisted into an even more distressed corkscrew by Freckles’ quiet, delayed reply.

“Yes, sir?” the private asked in a flat, lifeless tone that was very unlike his usual robust one. He was still icy inside his protective shell, hiding behind every shield he could possibly manage to sustain with the insecurity that roiled within him.

Why? Quinlan wanted to scream, suddenly overwhelmed by the bad new feelings and their implications, but he forced himself to release that frustration and fear into the Force right before he spoke.

“Are you okay?” he asked, managing to sound halfway normal.

Freckles didn’t physically move, but his Force presence flinched back. “Yes, sir,” he replied in the same frightening monotone.

Well, Quinlan did not believe that in the slightest. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sir.” Freckles shifted his weight ever so slightly from one foot to the other, his hands struggling to remain flat near his thighs as he turned his head and surveyed the area.

“Well, something’s wrong.” The Kiffar followed the private’s gaze but saw no one, nothing that raised any red flags. “What happened?”

Freckles’ face was completely hidden by his bucket, but Quinlan got the distinct impression that the trooper swallowed hard before he trusted himself to reply. “You’ll – you’ll have to speak to the commander, sir.” He stepped around the obstacle that was Quinlan’s muscled frame and cleared his throat on his way past, still uncomfortable. “Excuse me, sir, but I have to get to my post.”

Quinlan stood there for a few seconds, listening as the clunking of Freckles’ combat boots faded into the more generalized racket and clutching the bag of pet formula, his grip on the package growing tighter by the moment.

Because of all the answers Freckles could have given him, that one sounded the worst.

~~~~~

Quinlan expended most of his concentration as he walked into the complex, reaching out as far as possible to feel out the troopers who were milling around on duty or moving between posts. He tried to keep his touch on their souls as imperceptible as possible, but it didn’t matter – most of them had their shields up anyway. Those who didn’t weren’t hostile, just…

Sad.

No one stopped him in the hall this time; the few Corries who shared the corridor with him simply slid out of his way as he meandered past. By the time he reached the end of the passage, he was so pained by the unexplained sorrow around him that he scratched his plan to catch Fox before he left his office and just turned toward medical. The commander wasn’t in his office all that much, anyway, and Stitch would likely be the next best source of information.

The clone medic usually banished all forms of dark feelings or brooding from his domain, calling them as much a medical danger as infection or blood loss, but to Quinlan’s dismay, a barely suppressed blackness struck him in the chest as soon as he opened the heavy double doors. When he stepped inside, he didn’t have to look very far for the source.

Stitch was standing near one of the medical cots – the same one Quinlan had been lying in the day before, where he had been bleeding and joking and exchanging verbal blows with Fox. Except now, everything was different. Fox wasn’t there, Silver wasn’t there, Rat wasn’t even there, and for what he realized abruptly was probably the first time ever, Quinlan saw Stitch completely still. Not even his hands were moving, though he held a cloth and a spray bottle and looked as if he had at least thought of cleaning. The clone’s flame-red hair was as bright as before, but his eyes were dull and distant, fixed on the white sheets of the cot before him as if he weren't even aware of their existence.

Quinlan felt a flicker of recognition as he stepped closer, but other than that, there was no reaction. Stitch wasn’t supposed to be standing still like that – he was supposed to be disinfecting things that were already disinfected, or bullying Corries into the treatment they needed, or rearranging his shelves for the millionth time or cursing Quinlan for invading his space again but he was definitely not supposed to be hovering near an empty cot, his snapping eyes dead and lifeless and not even looking at him. It was so wrong, like all of this was wrong.

The Jedi wanted to reach out and touch the medic’s shoulder, wanted him to acknowledge him and that something was wrong, but he restrained himself and fell back on a simple “Stitch?”

The medic looked up at him, finally, but if anything, that was worse than the blank staring, because now Quinlan could see into the depths of weary, hurting brown that acted as a window to the clone’s soul. There was pain and sorrow and confusion, a swirl of heartache and bone-deep exhaustion that chilled the Jedi to the soul. What could have possibly happened to swathe every Corrie in this weighty grief?

His breath caught in his throat as a new thought battered its way into his mind. Oh, Force, is it Fox? Freckles had said he needed to talk to the commander, but what if that was because he couldn’t think of a way to tell Quinlan that Fox had been hurt? Hurt or worse and maybe –

The Kiffar’s free hand shot out to grasp the sheets of the cot Stitch had been looking at so forlornly. He closed his eyes and willed the memories from the fabric to flood in faster than usual, faster than was probably healthy…

Blood dripping off white armor, grime tracked up from the lower levels…. Soldiers coughing and gasping in fresh oxygen from masks Stitch forced over their faces, forcing out the toxic air of Coruscant’s dark underbelly…. More blood, more grime, more soul-rending hurt when a brother couldn’t be saved…

But he didn’t see Fox. His best friend wasn’t in the crowded, cloudy, spinning memories he read from the fabric.

But that didn’t mean he was okay.

Stitch was blinking at him when he opened his eyes, confused, but as soon as he saw Quinlan’s half-comforted expression, he understood and shook his head. “No, it’s not Fox,” he assured him. His voice was like his eyes – tired and struggling, bearing the burden but stumbling beneath it despite trying so hard not to. “He’s on a mid-level patrol.”

Relief flooded through the Kiffar’s soul and he immediately felt guilty. “Sorry, I –”

“Nah.” Stitch shook his head, his crimson locks flopping over his forehead. He didn’t brush them away. “Every time we hear about a Jedi, he’s worried it’s you. I swear you two idiots were meant to be twins and got misplaced.”

Quinlan hardly had the wavelength to process that incredible statement with the barrage of questions that were hammering to be first out of his mouth. As it happened, though, Stitch beat all of them to the punch.

The medic spotted the formula packet that was still being strangled by the Jedi’s firm grip and nodded toward it. “That for Copper?” he asked.

Why was there such a sting in his soul when he said it?

Quinlan swallowed and blinked down at the package blankly, trying to reorient himself. He was quickly being swallowed up by the emotions around him, and it was strangely unbalancing. He was used to shutting out others and keeping his own soul guarded against by those around him, but this wasn’t just anyone. This was Stitch, and Freckles, and Chopper and Steel and Thire and Thorn and Stone and Fox and now Silver – these were the clones. These were his friends, and they were obviously, deeply hurting.

“Yes,” he answered, and winced at the rasp that had snuck into his voice. He cleared his throat. “I thought it’d be better than just milk. You know, since she’s so tiny.”

Stitch nodded, but he shifted his eyes back to the cloth in his hand and his spirit wound up tighter in a defensive ball. “You’ll, uh, have to give it to Hound. He’s got the little thing at the moment.”

Quinlan nodded, then noticed he was gripping the package so tightly he was straining the paper wrapping. He set it on the counter for safekeeping until he could find Hound.

“Why Hound?” he asked. “Where’s Silver?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, it was as if the air had been sucked from the room. Stitch looked back at him, and while the fire had returned to his eyes, it wasn’t his characteristic, snapping sparks of life and resilience. This was anger, hot and smoldering and barely restrained, burning with a hurt that made Quinlan’s heart stutter in his chest.

“The kid’s gone,” Stitch ground out, the cloth twisted into a knot around his fingers. “He’s been decommissioned.”

Chapter Text

Decommissioned.

Quinlan’s shields went up immediately at the word, giving his stunned mind a reprieve in which to filter through everything he had heard about that dreaded term. Just the way it hissed from between Stitch’s teeth, the way it seemed to darken the very air within reach once it was spoken, would have told anyone that it was a terrible thing, but unfortunately, the Kiffar knew a bit more about decommissioning than he would have liked to.

He had first asked what it was right after he had met the Corries, when all of them were still unsure of the strange Jedi whom Fox had dragged half-drugged out of a dumpster on Level 20, who liked their pet strays and never actually seemed to leave after that initial incident. One of the first troopers he had met suddenly wasn’t there anymore, and when none of the missing clone’s brothers had wanted to talk about it, he had put all his investigative skills into finding out why.

His search had been mostly fruitless until he had returned to the Jedi Temple, exhausted and confused, and had mentioned the incident to his fellow Masters. There was no real way for a Kel Dor to go visibly pale, but as soon as the word had fallen from his lips, Quinlan had felt Plo Koon’s presence in the Force go strangely, furiously cold and still. It had startled him, that feeling, more than he had cared to admit. Ever since he was a youngling, Master Koon had always been a steady stream of strength and courage in an unstable universe, but at that moment the entire world had shifted and he had become a river roiling beneath a thin coating of ice, an enraged force of nature that was just barely restrained by some law that existed outside of itself.

Not understanding the sudden switch, the Kiffar had been wary and on edge when the older Jedi began to answer his question, but his confusion had quickly melted into a furious horror when Koon’s low words sank in. The Kel Dor’s soul had thrummed with indignation alongside Quinlan’s as he informed him of how easily clone troopers could be sent back to Kamino for either reconditioning, recycling, or decommissioning. Reconditioning, which sounded very much like a mind wipe or reeducation, was the Kaminoans’ method of “resetting” units they considered faulty or ineffective – or, Quinlan realized quickly, erasing the memories of troopers who for some reason were seen as troublesome or a threat. Recycling, a barbarity Quinlan would never have even imagined existing, involved the corpses of clone troopers who were recovered from the battlefield or who died in Kaminoan medical facilities. Apparently, Jango Fett’s DNA alone was not up to the demands levied by the Republic’s need for an ever-expanding clone army, so the longnecks had formulated a way to harvest and reuse the components they could strip from the poor, dead soldiers.

Quinlan had very nearly lost his lunch when they got to that part. The clones already gave so much for the Republic – their lives, their blood, their brothers, all for a war they had not consented to fight, to protect a galaxy to which they owed no fealty – and yet somehow, the Senate thought it was acceptable to take even more, to rob brave men of a decent burial and their very genetic code in order to push the war effort forward.

But even with all that in mind, decommissioning seemed worse. At least with recycling, the soldiers were past fear and the knowledge of the horrors that were done to their now-empty bodies. At least with reconditioning, as horrible as it was, the trooper was left alive, returned to his brothers with the possibility that he might remember who he was before, that he would maybe regain the memories that had been stolen. Since Plo’s explanation, Quinlan had heard of at least one instance of a Jedi helping to restore a clone to who he had been before reconditioning, so even though it was uncommon and required a long process of meditation and recovery, it was possible.

No such chances were left for decommissioned clones, because as far as Quinlan was aware, there was no possible recovery from being murdered.

That was what decommissioning was, Master Koon had told him: the killing of clones who were considered too injured, too traumatized, too anything to bring any further profit to their creators or the Republic. It had almost happened to Wolffe, the Kel Dor’s own commander, which is how he had learned of the practice in the first place. It had very nearly happened to a few 212th troopers, as Obi-Wan informed him later, except Cody had alerted him to the danger in time to stop their transfer back to Kamino. It had happened to Scuffle, Quinlan’s first Corrie friend, because the Jedi hadn’t been told in time to stop it.

Quinlan didn’t blame Fox and the other Guard troopers for not telling him – how could he, if that was what outsiders had the power to do to the clones? He hadn’t known what to do at the time, since Scuffle was already gone and Fox wasn’t talking to him, obviously trying to keep himself and his other brothers away from increased scrutiny. So he had simply stayed in his quarters at the Temple for two days, mourning the trooper he hadn’t been able to save, wishing he had found out in time, and hating the Kaminoans, the Senate, the war, and the galaxy in general.

Now, though…

Now it was happening to Silver. Silver, who had taken one look at a bedraggled, bleeding Quinlan and helped him to medical, no questions asked. The shiny who had survived so much loss and grief and somehow still had a sparkling kind of hope in his big brown eyes. Silver, with his kinky-curly hair and a heartful of love for an orphaned kitten, who hadn’t gotten his commando handshake yet, who hadn’t even gotten a chance to live.

And now, Quinlan knew.

“When?” Quinlan’s brown eyes glinted in the harsh light from the LEDs overhead and his voice was practically sandpaper, rough and demanding as it echoed in the quiet medbay. But the hands that reached out and gripped Stitch’s arms trembled, dark fingers closing around the white-and-crimson uniform and holding on too tightly, clinging to the medic like he was hope.

Stitch didn’t even flinch as the Jedi’s digits pressed urgent dents into his biceps. “0500,” he answered. Anger still tinted his words but the defeat was back again, the brief flare from a moment before all but played out.

“Where?” Quinlan felt like his tongue wasn’t working right. His words sounded sluggish on their way out of his mouth, as if time itself was speeding up to try and stop him from fixing this, if it was possible.

But it had to be possible. His voice rose a little in volume and he realized he was shaking the medic. “Stitch, where did they take him?”

“You think they tell us?” the redhead snapped. Quinlan blinked in shock as Stitch’s anger roused again, aiming its flames at him this time. “They snatched him off a patrol and now he’s off to Kamino, or maybe somewhere here – who knows?”

Quinlan knew of one person who might, someone who regularly knew things he wasn’t supposed to and who had proven time and time again that he would do stupid, terrifying things for his brothers. “Where’s Fox?” He was already backing up toward the door, feeling for the edge of the counter with one hand as he kept his eyes on Stitch, as if looking would make the answer faster in coming. “What level was he going to?”

Something flickered through Stitch’s eyes, but it vanished so quickly that Quinlan couldn’t have determined what it was if he had had time to worry about it. “The route starts on 1580, but he doesn’t follow –”

Quinlan didn’t hear what the medic was trying to tell him, because he was already out the door.

~~~~~

How could Silver get decommissioned?

The question kept repeating itself in Quinlan’s mind, slicing through the strings that supported his thoughts and turning his brain into a whirling mass of confusion as he ran to the nearest turbolift. But no matter how many times it rotated, offering another angle, another facet, he couldn’t formulate an answer.

The Guard’s newest recruit had only been onworld for a few hours by 0500. How much trouble could a shiny actually get into in that amount of time, especially with someone as conscientious as Fox practically smothering him until he was ready to patrol on his own?

But Stitch said that Silver had been on patrol. That didn’t make sense, since Fox was religious about making sure shinies didn’t go off on their own until they knew the dangers of both Coruscant in general and the Senate specifically, not after what happened with Scuffle…

Quinlan suddenly realized that he had never found out why Scuffle was decommissioned. The silver-eyed trooper had just been there one day and gone the next, and no one had ever spoken about him again.

Something hot and black and angry was heating up inside the Kiffar’s angrily pulsing heart.

He did not plan on letting the same thing happen with Silver. He would find Fox and they would go together to keep the shiny from being taken to Kamino or this mysterious wherever that may or may not be on Coruscant.

Which would be a karkton easier if he could raise Fox on his comm, an action that the entire universe seemed to be conspiring against at the moment. First the reception was spotty on his way to the lift station. Then his comm sparked when he tried to activate the private channel, just to remind him of how many times and how hard he had fallen on top of it during his last assignment. On the third attempt, the call finally went through.

Fox just didn’t pick up.

“Come on!” Quinlan smacked his palm against the communicator and swore when it didn’t help. “Fox, just answer!” Silver surely didn’t have much time, if he had any left at all.

The lift was halfway to the level Quinlan had dictated when the comm finally crackled in with a successful connection. “Fox!” he shouted desperately, the word echoing in the alloy coffin he was currently in.

But it wasn’t the commander’s voice on the other end. “Quinlan Vos, where are you?”

Maybe it was the way the question was asked with such concern, when there were far more important things than Quinlan’s own whereabouts to worry about. Maybe it was that he simply did not want to hear Stitch’s voice in the place of Fox’s at the moment. Either way, the Kiffar’s reply came out in a snarl that would have drawn an answering hiss from Rat himself.

“Going to find Fox,” he growled. “I’m trying to raise him now, so if you could hang up—”

“There’s nothing you can do, sir.” Stitch’s voice was sad and low, much different than usual, but that wasn’t the strangest part of that sentence. Stitch had never called him sir, not even when he had first met him. Funnily enough, that voice didn’t sound like Stitch at all – it was more like someone was impersonating the medic, using his voice to say things Stitch would rather swallow his own tongue than utter. “What’s done is done, and –”

“No!” Quinlan’s head jerked back as if he’d been slapped, his tightly tied braids snapping in the lift’s stale air. “I’m going to find Fox and we’ll get Silver, and then I’ll call the Council, and –”

The dully glowing indicator above the lift door – the only bright thing in the worn, condensation-streaked box that ferried cargo from one level to the other – shifted boredly from 762 to 763 and killed something deep in Quinlan’s heart.

He would never make it in time. There was no time. Silver had been taken over three hours ago, and even if he found Fox, even if Fox knew where to go – and Quinlan had no idea if he did – whatever was happening to the shiny would be over by the time he made it back to the surface. He would be too late again.

He blinked and glanced upward just as the shining numbers altered themselves again, so that the display read 770, and changed his mind.

He was already too late.

“Vos?” Stitch’s voice reverberated strangely through the comm speaker, but somehow Quinlan felt it in his fingertips more than he heard it. He hardly realized that the medic had switched back to using his name rather than the honorific. “Can you hear me?”

No longer held back by adrenaline and rage, a wave of grief struck the Jedi in the chest and sent him stumbling backward, eyes wide open and fixed on nothing. The hard alloy wall pressed up against his shoulder blades, a chill seeping through his tunic and making him flinch out of reflex before he just…fell.

“Hey, if you're still there…”

The hilt of Quinlan’s lightsaber screeched over the rest of Stitch’s question as the Jedi slid down to the greasy durasteel floor. He couldn’t catch his breath, all of a sudden – it seemed that with every ticking, too-slow number that cycled past on the indicator, more air was being siphoned out of the lift and into the crevices of these lower, increasingly seedy levels, escaping into the bowels of this dirty, blackened world.

Coruscant was a planet full of darkness and filth, a labyrinth of unpleasant, headache-inducing souls that were selfish and unfeeling and unburdened by any sort of light or joy. Quinlan hated it – had always hated it, especially as a youngling, when he had been afraid to touch anything outside of the Temple for fear of letting some of that darkness into his mind and feeling its snatching, grabbing hand clutching at his soul. There were only a few bright, unblemished lights on this entire kriffing world, only a few things that made it look redeemable in spite of its flaws.

And now one of them – one of the brightest Quinlan had ever felt – was gone.

The Kiffar bit back a groan and let his body sway forward, catching his forehead with the heels of his palms as he hissed between clenched teeth. A heavy silence fell around him, sending the rest of the world – the squeaking lift, a buzzing lightbulb overhead, Stitch’s voice – into muffled dimness as if he had draped his cloak over his head. If he had had his cloak, he might have done just that. It was easier to hide in the dark. Easier to cry.

He wondered if that’s what Fox was doing on the lower levels – hiding, keeping to the shadows so he could mourn another brother alone and in peace. He knew that Fox had once had a close brother – a batchmate – who had been decommissioned on Kamino, but only because he had heard the commander call out the name in the medbay once, when he was in and out of consciousness after a life-threatening head injury. That had happened long after Scuffle, after Quinlan found out about decommissioning, so he hadn’t asked Fox about it. Instead, he had asked Shaak Ti.

Kar’ta had been hurt during some kind of training, was pretty much all that the Togruta could uncover about the incident. There were scant records of anything of that kind on Kamino, at least that she could access, and when she asked Commander Colt, he hadn’t wanted to talk about it. She had promised to keep searching, but two years later, all Quinlan knew about Kar’ta was that he had been born on Kamino, that he had been injured and decommissioned there, and that years later, Fox still cried out for him when he was in pain.

Fox might put up a thick shield to the rest of the galaxy, but his brothers and now Quinlan knew that it was less genuine than a politician’s smile. The commander loved every one of his brothers dearly, and he certainly never forgot them. Quinlan had sensed the grief that still stung its way through Fox’s soul when he had said Kar'ta’s name, had been shocked at how much it hurt.

How was he supposed to face Fox if he found him, when that kind of wound was raw and bleeding and partially Quinlan’s fault, because he had been too kriffing late?

The lift was passing Level 920. The Jedi wondered distantly how far down this one went, at which one of Coruscant’s depraved layers it would finally dump him out if he didn’t get off at 1580 and just kept going.

He had dropped his comm unit when he slid to the ground and had not tried to catch it when it rolled away. Eventually it had come to rest in one of the shallow grooves that split the floor into eight even squares, which is why it didn’t start rolling again when another voice vibrated through the speaker and cut into the Kiffar’s quiet grief.

“Quinlan?”

Quinlan looked up at the sound, frowning minutely. Fox wasn’t supposed to sound like that, worried and…and soft. The commander’s usually gruff tone had been polished down to a low rumble, one that broke through the fog that had drowned out Stitch’s words long before.

“Quin, I know you’re there.”

That sounded more like Fox – knowing, slightly annoyed, even though the words were still too sanded and rounded for Quinlan to quite believe they were coming from the commander. Half-curious but still moving mechanically, the Jedi roused himself enough to reach for the comm.

“Hey.” That was all he could say. His throat was clogged and his eyes burned, and the dark heaviness was dripping through his skin and into his bones.

“Come back here,” Fox ordered. He usually told Quinlan what to do, so that wasn’t out of the ordinary, but the ring of resolve in his voice was and it was weird. He sounded even more tired than usual, which was a feat in itself. “I need to show you something.”

Quinlan didn’t care if the commander had somehow managed to find the Darksaber or dug up the Codex from some rotten Sith tomb. “Fox, I’m sor—”

“Just get back here, alright?” That had almost pulled out some of the commander’s usual snap, which was good, Quinlan supposed. At least he hadn’t lost it all somewhere. That would be unthinkable. “I know, and that’s part of it. Just…”

Quinlan’s thick eyebrows drew together in a shallow v of concern. Fox didn’t hesitate like that, ever. It just wasn’t part of being Fox.

“Just come back,” the commander sighed, after a long moment of nothing but breathing. “I’ll explain when you get here.”

Quinlan swallowed. “Where?” His throat was scratchy and cracked the word down the middle. “I thought you were on patrol.”

“I’m at the Guard. Level three.”

Fox didn’t offer any more information, and Quinlan didn’t request it.

“Okay.” The Jedi licked his lips and considered asking about Silver. He wanted to know why Fox hadn’t called him when the decommission order came through. He wanted to know when it had come through. If Kar'ta and Wolffe had been injured supposedly beyond saving and Obi-Wan’s shinies had been deemed defective in some way, then what had Silver done to be murdered? Why had he been singled out?

Then he remembered the weariness in Fox’s voice, and clicked off the channel.

He forced himself to take in and then release a deep breath before he raised the hand that still held the comm, his first two fingers stretched out. When he imagined pressing the return option on the door’s keypad, the Force didn’t exactly press against him, but he felt cracks in the energy around him, fissures that matched the ones splintering through his focus.

The return light switched from a dead black to a nauseously bright green and the lift slowed to a halt. Quinlan listened to the clicking and humming of the engine above him recalculating, then lay his head back against the wall and closed his eyes when it began taking him back up toward the surface, toward whatever Fox needed to show him.

Toward a world that was one light dimmer, and much, much harder to find worth fighting for.

~~~~~

Quinlan spent half of his walk back to the Senate grounds convincing his feet to keep to their path, and the other half wondering what he could possibly say to Fox, or Stitch, of whichever of the clones he met first on his way into the Guard building. He hadn’t come up with a solid answer by the time he stepped inside and let the heavy durasteel door hiss closed behind him.

And that was probably a good thing, because whatever words he might have formulated would have puffed into vapor along with the rest of his thoughts as soon as he felt a familiar glow sidle up next to him.

The dense mist of grief and regret had followed him up from the lower levels, hanging around him like a misguided cloud as he meandered back to the place he had bolted away from not long before and blunting his perception in the Force with the distractions it carried. That was the only explanation he could think of for why he didn’t feel it sooner.

“Hey,” said an annoyingly cheerful voice from his right, just to his side and behind him. “You know, you might not be bleeding this time, but you still look awful.”

The trooper’s soul brushed against his and electrified Quinlan’s nerves, the recognition shocking enough that his eyes shot open, his jaw loosening into a shameless gape as he spun on his heel to stare at the clone. His eyes swept over the soldier in a rush, his confused brain and deadly certain soul battling for dominance.

The soldier’s armor was painted with a kaleidoscopic design of Corrie red, with hardly a single square inch of white left whole on the entire thing, and his voice could have technically been mistaken for that of any other clone’s. The changes would have certainly passed the inspection of any Senator or civilian, and maybe even clones who hadn’t gotten the chance to know him beyond a name.

But Quinlan was a Jedi, so he never just learned someone’s name. Whenever he met a being, he met more than their outward appearance or whatever fronts they might put up – he met their soul. And this trooper’s soul was achingly bright, shinier than shiny…almost as if it would blind him, if he lingered on it for too long.

He tried to speak but couldn’t, the word he wanted to say dying in his throat as he stared into the regulation-black visor that shielded what he knew were bright brown, doeishly big eyes.

“Commander Fox is in his office,” Silver told him from behind the protection of the helmet, his words clipped in a way that spelled amusement to Quinlan’s utterly confused, elated senses. “Did you want to speak to him?”

Chapter Text

“How can you just do that?”

Fox sighed quietly, keeping his frown mostly hidden behind his cup as he inhaled another long sip of strong caf. Quinlan Vos was never really a quiet sort of person to have around, but at the moment his clipped words seemed just a tad too loud and snappy to handle before another dose of caffeination. This time of morning was already considered late in the day for the Guard, so the commander had already consumed enough caf to kill a bantha, but sometimes the Jedi he had accidentally acquired required an extra measure of liquid sanity.

Sometimes Fox wondered if his life would be easier if he had just left the Jedi that night, if he had simply been like everyone else and convinced himself to walk past the red shimmer of blood he’d noticed trickling from the dumpster drain. He could have done it, just strode on past. No one could have faulted him, really, if he had simply ignored another splash of crimson on the pavement of one of Coruscant’s most unsavory lower levels. Especially since the case he had been working – a blackmailing scam directed at a Senator – had not been helped along by an entire night dedicated to fishing a half-dead Kiffar out of takeout wrappers and other unrecognizable rubbish and then dragging him back to Stitch, or by the entire next day that he spent trying to figure out who the unconscious man was before someone from the Jedi Temple – Tholme? He thought the man’s name had been Tholme – had shown up and said they had sensed one of their fellow Order members inside the building.

Fox had wanted to ask why the older man hadn’t sensed the Kiffar getting beaten half to death, but he’d refrained. He had been good at that back then, at keeping his mouth shut.

He wanted to do that now. He wished he could just clamp his jaws together and not say anything at all. But that almost-dead Kiffar had eventually become not-so-almost-dead  – Jedi healed remarkably quickly, apparently – and he’d wormed his stupid way past Fox and his brothers’ stupid defenses, and now trying to not answer one of his stupid questions was like saying no to a shiny. Unthinkable.

But that didn’t mean that Fox couldn’t evade the question for a little longer, to allow himself a few more seconds to decide how much he could tell the Jedi.

He threw back the rest of the steaming caf in one hit and felt it burn its way down. “Because I don’t have any taste buds left,” he replied, a tad crossly.

The Jedi’s huff was sharp and impatient. “Not that,” he snapped. “How could you….” He growled when the words didn’t come and finally just swung one arm out toward the trooper standing quietly next to him, red-and-white helmet hugged to his hip and thick curls bouncing free. “This!”

Fox levelled a look at the Kiffar that should have dropped him dead. “That is a who, not a—”

“Fox!” Quinlan snarled.

The commander didn’t respond. Instead, he reached over and plucked the cup of caf that the silent trooper had just poured for Quinlan up from the counter. His own mug was ceramic, but this one was disposable, the kind that tried to melt as soon as a hot beverage touched them. Fox tried not to crunch the flimsy walls into origami as he tossed that caf down his throat, too, draining the whole cup in one go.

When he looked back at the Jedi, he was satisfied to see brown eyes no longer burning at him, just surprised and perhaps a bit concerned. Quinlan had a temper but he didn’t usually stay angry, especially if his attention was diverted elsewhere, like awe for his friend’s gastrointestinal fortitude.

Or maybe that gleam of faint horror was concern, not awe. Fox had always had a hard time telling those two apart.

“That’s really not good for you, you know,” Quinlan reminded him. There was still a raspy growl underneath his words, but it wasn’t exactly threatening anymore, simply lingering. “You’re going to have a heart attack.”

“I can withstand an inhuman amount of mental stress, physical trauma, and caffeine,” Fox retorted. “Clones are engineered that way.”

“I actually don’t think we are, sir,” the other clone piped up, coloring a little when the commander sent a deadpan look his way. “Not for that much.”

“See, Silver agrees with me.” A hot glitter flamed its way back into the Kiffar’s eyes. “Which, by the way, it would have been nice to –”

“That’s not his name,” Fox told him bluntly. “We don’t use that name anymore.”

“Well, I’m not calling him by his number.”

The growl was back, and Fox rolled his eyes. He actually might need to brew a third cup, if they went on at this rate. “You don’t know that now, either.”

The Jedi felt an angry flame flicker higher in his chest and quickly smothered it, releasing the anger into the Force and trying to absorb peace in return. But it was harder than usual – far too hard. The despair he had been drowning in just moments before had frozen over with shock when he had felt Silver’s presence, and right now that thin layer of ice was all that was holding back a roiling flood of confusion, joy… and anger. He was confused about what had taken place, about why this entire ordeal had started; he was overjoyed to see Silver, ecstatic that somehow the order had been disobeyed; but he was still angry, not just because of the circumstances or about the fear he had sensed from his friends, but at Fox.

Because Fox had to know about this. He had to, because Fox knew everything that happened with his Corries. He had to have known that Silver was still alive.

But he hadn’t told Quinlan. And while everything else had been relatively easy to push to the side to await further explanation, the thought that his friend – his best friend – had kept something of this magnitude from him sank like a dagger into his heart and ached.

“What I want to know,” he began again, trying to keep his voice calmer this time. He could hear Tholme’s voice in his head, telling him to regulate his emotions before he let them leave his mouth. It was good advice, Quinlan knew, but difficult to follow. “Is why I just ran halfway across Coruscant and almost cried my eyes out in a public lift because Stitch told me Silver was dead, just for you to call me back here and tell me he’s not.”

“Not Silver, sir.” The shiny grinned shyly. He looked strangely too small for the deceptive armor he was wearing.

“Stitch never told you he was dead,” Fox clipped back flatly. “And I never said he wasn’t.”

Quinlan blinked at the commander for a full five seconds, trying to decide which would be more satisfying – ripping his head off or throwing him off a balcony.

Not that there weren’t significant problems with both options, at least if he didn’t call on the Force to help him murder the commander, an action which the Force probably wouldn’t like very much. Both required getting close to Fox and, like most of his brothers, the soldier was a beast at hand-to-hand combat. There was a reason the clone template had been Jango Fett, the Mandalorian who was known for killing Jedi with his bare hands.

Then again… that didn’t sound like a great reason, since the clones had initially been intended to work with the Jedi, not kill them.

Right?

Quinlan stared blankly ahead, suddenly realizing that he didn’t know why Fett had been the pick for the clone template. Not that Sifo-Dyas had left much information for his fellow Jedi anyway, and Obi-Wan hadn’t uncovered anything helpful on Kamino, either. In truth, no one knew much about the clone army, other than that it had been ordered, trained, and then discovered at the perfect time, which seemed… suspicious, now.

Why hadn’t that bothered him before?

“Sir?”

The Jedi blinked when Silver’s voice jolted him back. No. Not Silver, he grumbled to himself. From what he was gathering from Fox’s non-answers, this was supposed to be a different shiny, even though Quinlan knew it wasn’t, as well as he knew the ground was beneath his feet, as surely as he felt the Force glowing in his own soul, hovering around him and waiting to be called upon.

Strangely, it seemed to be hanging around Fox, too. Quinlan could sense the weighty pull that followed the commander’s guarded presence, pulsing in time with his heartbeat, and silently repeated the question it felt like he had asked a thousand times in the last twenty-four hours.

Why?

The Jedi forced himself to focus, not on his smoldering temper or even the more benign confusion that was coiling steadily more adamant around his brain, but on Fox. The commander’s mental shields remained firmly in place, locked seamlessly into their stations, but it only took an instant to probe the Force around him, the layer that soaked up the emotions that seeped from his signature and were much, much harder to conceal.

Quinlan almost choked on the muddle of emotions that reluctantly met his reaching mind. Fox’s soul now felt very much like Stitch’s had before; regretful and stinging with a sharp sorrow, aching as if some old wound had broken open again, refusing to be numbed.

But most of what he sensed from the commander was exhaustion, plain and unpretentious. Even without pressing farther into Fox’s personal space, Quinlan felt the other man’s tiredness trickle past his own half-constructed shields and into his bones, leaching away his energy and the frustration that had been directed at the soldier just seconds earlier.

Fox wasn’t just tired – the sheer magnitude of his weariness was too much to be explained by bodily depletion. He was tired of this, of whatever had happened to Silver or almost happened, of the thing that Quinlan was mad at him about.

Except suddenly Quinlan didn’t feel so mad anymore.

When his brown gaze snapped back to Fox’s steely one, it was much softer than before, as was his voice. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

The metal in Fox’s eyes quivered as if the words had been a bomb. His shields didn’t fall, but they creaked.

“Too many times,” he finally answered, and then turned to glance out the window, his index finger coming up to stroke absently over the scar that ran across his nose.

Quinlan had been around the Guard long enough by now that he had become acquainted with a variety of Fox’s moods and facets – he had thought that between gentle nudges with the Force and his characteristic curiosity, he had peeled back most of the soldier’s tough, often mystifying layers.  But this was a new side of the commander that he hadn’t uncovered previously, one he didn’t have a name for, one he wasn’t sure what to do with.

But he was quite certain that he needed to do something. Almost on instinct, he stepped backwards and toward the caf counter, passing Silver on the way and letting the shiny’s steady presence ground him even more.

“Okay.” Quinlan glanced at the caf pot, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was still half full. He carefully slid it out from beneath the brewer and turned to Fox’s mug that had been abandoned empty on the countertop. He refilled the cup without speaking, then replaced the pot to its warmer and held the steaming drink out to the commander.

Fox looked at the cup, then back at the Jedi, and frowned.

Quinlan wondered how hard Fox had to work to keep his shields in place. He was a clone commander on a world that officially considered he and his siblings property, trying to maintain order while protecting his brothers, both from the dangers of Coruscant itself and, as Quinlan saw now, hidden threats that even the Jedi weren’t completely aware of.   

Fox was extremely competent, calculating, and incredibly resilient, but even he had to barricade his deeper feelings and thoughts away from the light just to make it through each day – feelings and thoughts that he wasn’t supposed to have. When they first met, Quinlan had been unconscious, so his first impression of the commander had been skewed by blood loss and whatever drugs Stitch had pumped into his IV, but the first thing Tholme had said after picking him up was that Fox was a puzzle. That he had reminded him of Quinlan.

Quinlan took another, longer look at the scar that sliced over the commander’s face. Even without the markings on their faces, they were far more alike than not.

He pressed the cup into Fox’s hand and released the last of his irritation and worry into the Force, relaxing as they were gladly drawn away and scattered into oblivion. “Tell me about it.”

Chapter Text

Quinlan decided against pouring a cup of caf for himself – without knowing how long Fox’s explanation would take, it was probably best to leave the rest in case the commander needed a refill – and picked out a seat instead, despite the restless nerves that were still quivering under his skin like something alive. If he sat down, Fox would eventually stop frowning by the window and follow suit, and the commander certainly looked like he needed to get off his feet.

Silver, or whatever his name was supposed to be now, was already settling into the overstuffed couch that was squeezed within an inch of its life between the counter and the far wall. The cautious way the shiny moved, paired with the look of utter bewilderment when he was all but swallowed by the plush cushions, confirmed Quinlan’s suspicions that the young trooper had never had a seat so comfortable. He decided to give him room to stretch out and enjoy it and made his own way to the beanbag chair.

Thorn and Thire had found this particular addition along the course of their furniture rehabilitation efforts, but it had been in the Corrie lounge long enough that Quinlan felt safe sitting in it without fear of being bombarded by foreign memories. He reached out to brush away a blanket someone had left balled up in the corner of the seat, then jumped back when the fabric hissed at him. 

“Well, say something next time.” He frowned, narrowing his eyes at the cream-and-purple culprit.

Rat blinked up at him from the bunched-up mound of blue and showed his long white teeth for good measure.

Quinlan crossed his arms and huffed. “I thought we were friends, buddy.”

Fox watched the exchange from his position near the window and cracked a faint smile. “You might be his friend any other day,” he admitted, raising the steaming caf to his lips and not even flinching when he took a sip. Quinlan winced in his stead. “But not when you’re messing with his baby.”

Quinlan glanced back into the heap of blankets, and saw a tiny tuft of orange peeking out in the middle of the coiled fur that was Rat. 

“Oh, hello!” he chirped cheerfully, mentally beaming at the exasperated eye roll his high pitch pulled from Fox. He reached down and scooped up the entire bundle – Rat, tagalong, and all – and then plopped himself into the beanbag. “I didn’t even see you in there.”

Two eyes blinked back up at him as Copper stretched her way out of her bed of Rat’s fluffy belly. She meowed loudly at him, echoed by Rat’s warning hiss.

“He’s stolen her.” Silver frowned at the cat in Quinlan’s arms, and it looked very much to the Kiffar like Rat glared back. “He hasn’t even let me pet her since, uh…” The shiny looked at Fox, brown eyes questioning, as if asking what he could share. His shields were much less heavily fortified than Fox’s, so Quinlan felt the flicker of uneasiness pass over the trooper’s mind and quickly attempted to soothe it away. 

“Maybe it’s the armor,” he suggested. “He might not recognize you.” 

He continued running his long, dark fingers over the small curve of Rat’s skull, stroking the purple fur and humming lowly in the back of his throat. The tooka made a valiant effort to stay irritated, but he melted under the attention and finally let the Kiffar reach for Copper. Quinlan’s fingers found Copper’s soft, tiny ears, and he grinned when the kitten instantly erupted into a volley of purrs. 

Fox shook his head. “No,” he began – then he cut himself off and clenched his teeth, the line of his jaw turning to stone as he stared ahead. Quinlan tilted his head to the left and opened his mouth to ask if the commander was alright, then abruptly realized that he was holding back a yawn.

The Jedi blinked. Who could be yawning after that much caf? Who could be standing still after that much caf?

He was beginning to rethink his previous considerations of Fox’s origins. There had to be non-humanoid DNA mixed in his genome somewhere – Rancor or Mythosaur, surely.

Fox blinked, then continued as if nothing had happened. “The rescue armor’s been around since before Rat. He knows what it looks like.”

“Stitch says he’s usually nicer to troopers wearing it.” Silver shot the patchwork tooka another annoyed glance. “But that’s apparently not always true.”

Quinlan frowned thoughtfully and peeled Copper away from Rat, risking the older tooka’s ire as he cradled the kitten to his shoulder and continued stroking her soft fur. “Rescue armor?” he repeated.

Fox nodded at Silver’s dizzyingly decorated plating. “That one. We keep the bits and pieces of old armor anyway, so Thire was able to scrounge together a whole set, the first time we needed it.” 

Copper was trying to climb onto his shoulder now, her tiny little claws poking like needles through his light tunic. Quinlan boosted her up so she didn’t rip his collar to shreds – he hated sewing, and he wasn’t sure how many more patches this shirt would tolerate, anyway. “I take it it's specifically for this kind of rescue?” he ventured.

Fox’s reply was a grunt. He was restless, his dark eyes skimming over the room as if he were looking for something, but he still made no move to sit.

Quinlan huffed and narrowed his eyes at the commander. Either he was even more bothered by the explanation he was attempting to give that the Kiffar had first assumed, or this was the one time he was unaffected by his attempt at getting him to relax. No matter the reason, it was getting irksome.

The Kiffar finally hissed in exasperation. “Would you just sit down?” he asked, trying to keep the irritation out of his tone and mostly failing. “You’re making me nervous.”

“No.” Fox struck him with a glare that could have curdled blue milk. “I’m immune to your manipulations.”

“I’m not manipulating–”

“You usually hate sitting down,” Fox interrupted. “You would rather jump off the roof or walk on the ceiling than sit down in a chair like a normal person. The only time you ever sit down is when you want me to sit down, and I don’t want to sit down.”

Quinlan slumped forward, half in defeat and half in shock. He hadn’t expected to be found out at all, much less so… completely. “Well, why?” he demanded, in the nicest tone his stubbornness would allow.

“Because I’m fairly certain you still want an explanation,” Fox shot back. “And if I sit down, you’re not going to get one because I will be asleep.”

“I just watched you drink a bathtub's worth of caf. How are you still tir–” The Jedi stopped abruptly, afraid to even ask. “Fox, how long have you been awake?”

Fox thought about it for a few seconds, which was far too long for the Kiffar’s comfort. Then he reached for his comm. “Stitch?”

“What’s wrong?” The voice that answered had returned to a more normal existence since Quinlan had last spoken to the medic, and Stitch sounded like his usual self now – competent and irritated. 

The commander shifted uncomfortably, as if he didn’t want to say. Quinlan noticed he was still holding the empty caf cup, cradling it in his palm as if it were comforting to hold even though it had been drained of any true benefits. “How long have I been awake?”

A tremendous sigh blew across the channel, and there was a pause as if Stitch were checking his answer before giving it. The Jedi’s bad feeling about the situation increased with each passing nanosecond.

“Sixty-seven hours, eighteen minutes, and forty-seven seconds.” 

Quinlan’s jaw dropped as alarm spiked his heart rate to an unhealthy patter in his chest, and he felt Silver’s bright soul flinch back in shock. “Fox!”

The commander glowered at him, brown eyes snapping. Quinlan was gratified to see he had been correct in his previous assessment of his friend’s new scar – it indisputably added to Fox’s generally terrifying aura – but he was not so happy to have that angry look aimed at him. 

Oblivious to Fox’s death glare, or very likely assuming its presence and simply choosing to ignore it, Stitch continued his spiel. “So, according to our written and witnessed agreement, you’re only four hours, forty-two minutes, and thirteen – no, twelve now – seconds from getting a sedative dart to the neck and a forced twenty-four-hour nap. Grizzer has also agreed to sit on you this time, so you can’t escape.”

“I met Grizzer!” Silver’s big eyes lit up at the massiff’s name. “She’s great. And so is Hound,” he added quickly, seeming to realize that he should probably appreciate his brother as much as he did his brother’s dog.

Quinlan was so stunned he couldn’t even react to the slight on Hound’s behalf. “What the kark?” the Kiffar blurted. “I thought we fixed that. You said you rearranged the shift schedule –”

Fox turned and gave the Jedi another terrible look that made Quinlan’s stomach twist. 

“For everyone else.” No wonder the commander looked and felt so exhausted. Now Quinlan was wondering how he hadn’t fractured into a million pieces already. He tucked a still-purring Copper beneath his chin and slumped down in the beanbag, letting the kitten scratch at the thick bandage that wound around his fingers. His hand had begun to throb again, but he could hardly spare any attention for his healing injury when he was calculating how close to death or sedatives his best friend was. “Fox…” 

“I was going off shift,” Fox growled back. He did not appreciate being nagged about his sleep schedule any more than Quinlan liked the fact that it was nonexistent. “But that’s when the issue started.”

The Coruscant Guard’s commander was many things, but subtle was not one of them. When Fox changed the subject, it was as if he clamped iron hands around the topic and forced it in the direction he wanted. Usually, the topic in question was related to health or wellness, and Quinlan would fight him on the sudden veers.

This time, though, he gave in, and followed Fox’s gaze so that they were both looking at Silver, waiting.

The shiny slouched down into the couch and kicked one foot uncomfortably, the toe of his boot creaking against the tile floor. “Uh, I was on patrol –” he began slowly.

The Kiffar started as if he'd been zapped with a prod. “He was on patrol?” he repeated. 

“Routine shiny stuff.” Fox prowled around the counter toward the caf brewer, but didn’t move to pour himself another cup. Yet. “Just a walk around the Senate grounds, late at night when no one’s there. It’s the best way to start them out because it’s usually quiet.”

“It really was,” Silver nodded. Rat saw an open lap and immediately abandoned Quinlan, who had so rudely stopped paying attention to him in favor of coddling the new baby. “Quiet, I mean, or as quiet as I guess Coruscant gets. I was just following the route, going through my checks, until I was about halfway through and heard two people talking about credits and votes – and favors.”

Quinlan's tattoo wrinkled with the severity of his nose scrunch. “What kind of favors?” 

Silver tilted his head at him curiously, brown eyes glinting. “What do you mean?”

“Political ones,” Fox growled. “For kriff’s sake, Quin. Don’t try to corrupt him.”

“I’m not!” Quinlan insisted. If he had had articulating ears, they would have folded back. “I was just curious!”

Silver glanced between the commander and the Jedi, thoroughly confused. “What other kind are there?” he asked innocently.

“I’ll tell you when Fox isn’t here to blush.” Stitch walked in and closed the door behind him, then plunked himself down into the closest chair, a hard, wooden thing that looked positively uncomfortable. Quinlan had never actually seen a guardsman sit in that chair, so he assumed it was Stitch’s personal seat - a hard chair for a hard man. 

And right now, a man whose presence was threatening to restoke a bit of the Shadow’s anger. The fear and overwhelming sorrow from the declaration in the medbay suddenly washed through him again, and he had to mentally leave the room for an instant to focus on giving those emotions over to the Force. He wasn’t really angry at Stitch, even if that was how his conflicting feelings were trying to manifest themselves in the moment. He was confused, and maybe hurt, but not angry.

He would try to remember that.

Fox frowned at the medic. “Why are you here?”

“To check on the kid, and hope Vos doesn’t kill me.” Stitch grunted and crossed one leg over the other at the knee, sinking into his usual rest position. Quinlan still wasn’t sure how he managed that in full armor. “Because I’m assuming I’m the scapegoat.”

The commander’s glare narrowed, but Quinlan cut him off before he could speak. “How did you know I was here?”

The medic rolled his eyes. “Because Fox called to ask how long he had been awake, so someone wanted to know. The boys don’t need to ask because they keep track.”

Fox growled. “For the GAR gossip chain?”

“No, for the bets,” Stitch replied solemnly. “If you stay awake for just four more hours, I win the satisfaction of tranquing your ornery shebs and permission to hide Thire’s stars-blasted flute for three days.”

Quinlan snorted, then flashed a grin when he saw Silver’s jaw drop. Fresh off Kamino and having been stationed with only his squad, the Corries were probably turning all this kid had been taught about military hierarchy on its head and giving it a shakedown.

“Also I heard a thunk over the comm before Fox snatched it from me. I was hoping you fell and hit your head hard enough to forget about this, so we could avoid the entire mess.” Stitch ran a hand through his flame-red hair and sighed at the Jedi. “You’re a real pain, you know.”

“Well, yes, but ow.” Quinlan gave the medic a wounded look that was mostly genuine. “I’m not the one who told me Silver was dead, though, so...”

“I didn’t say that.” The dent between Stitch’s dark eyebrows that definitely did not match his hair deepened. “I said he was decommissioned, and he was. Technically,” his stern gaze grew pointed, “Silver still is.”

“How am I supposed to know what to call him?” Quinlan said defensively. “I haven’t been clued in on the new name yet.”

“New name and number, sir.” The shiny grinned, flashing bright white teeth and a glowing soul at the Jedi. “It’s Nickel. CT-2828.”

Quinlan blinked, then threw his head back and laughed. 

“How do you like that, Copper?" Quinlan looked up from the fluffy creatures and squinted at the shiny. “Or did her name change, too?”

The young trooper shook his head. “Nope. Still Copper.” He leaned back into the couch experimentally, as if bracing for it to consume him entirely. After a moment of consideration, he seemed to decide the furniture was trustworthy and relaxed into the cushions, swinging his feet back and forth subconsciously, as if he were enthralled that he could. 

Stitch crossed his arms and huffed. “No one tried to get rid of the kitten,” he groused, trying to redirect the conversation again.

And Quinlan would allow that, after he got one more answer. “You also said Fox was on patrol,” he reminded the medic.

“Oh, yeah.” The redhead flashed a grin, his tense Force presence mellowing immediately when he realized Quinlan wasn’t angry with him. “I lied.”

The Kiffar clutched Copper to his chest and gasped dramatically over her protesting mewl. “How could you?” 

“Quite easily, actually,” Stitch chuckled. “Don't know why some of these other knuckleheads have such a hard time with it.” He pointed an accusing finger at Fox. “He’s even having a hard time telling the truth.”

Fox gave the medic the worst look yet, one that Quinlan immediately committed to memory as the ultimate portent of you’re dead that he should avoid at all costs, then yanked over the second beanbag chair and sat down heavily.

Quinlan blinked at the commander in fright and Nickel’s hands tightened on Rat’s thick fur until the tooka rumbled a soft complaint. Stitch looked like a man who realized he had just lost a bet.

Fox’s gloved fingers tightened around the paper cup, bending five shallow creases in the walls as he swept his free hand through his hair and made his helmet-flattened curls stand up again. There had always been a smattering of gray around his temples, for as long as Quinlan had known him, but when had it started to streak through the rest of his hair? Had it even been there the day before?

“Nickel was on patrol at 3:05 when he heard the bribery conversation between two senators.” The commander blinked rapidly, and Quinlan wondered if he was already having trouble keeping his eyes open. “I was closing out of my comms and preparing to hand things over to Thire at 3:16, but we were alerted to a transmission regarding a clone en route near the courtyard. The call came from Orn Free Taa’s Senate console, which should not have been active at that time, so I sent Thire to –”

“You’re patched into senators’ communications?” Quinlan gaped at the commander, making Copper squirm when his fingers stilled in her fur and stopped rubbing her tiny head. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“If it was, you’re certainly one to talk about illegal activities.” Fox’s scowl should have been more severe than it was, but the dark circles beneath his eyes dampened the effect. “The Guard is supposed to monitor all communications inside the Senate building, as well as all those made within three hundred meters of the exterior, by order of the Chancellor,” he explained dryly, as if he had repeated those words a million times. “The bugs were already there. Rys just slipped in an extra code or two, so we could catch these things in time.”

The commander flexed his right hand, stretching each finger as if the bones themselves were stiff. “Anyway. After the alert came through, I sent Thire to find the troopers on duty in that sector and get their reports on anything out of the ordinary. Nickel hadn’t checked in yet, but Thire found him before he completed the route and heard his side of the story.” He kept half-reaching to touch the scar on his nose, but managed to pull back before he ever did. “Stone took over the patrol, Thire got Nickel back here, and Rys had new CT-tags ready to rewrite the old ones in his chips before I received the order to collect the unit in question.”

Quinlan hoped he never gave Fox a reason to snarl at him with the sound that those last three words morphed into. He shifted his gaze down to Copper and ignored the way Rat hissed at him when he held her at arm's length. She passed the dangle test with flying colors and a barely audible squeak. “So how do you hide that you didn’t actually decommission him?”

“Reconditioned was the word on the form.” Fox’s voice slipped just a little. “Which is worse, in some ways.”

Rat, proving once again that he could sense when one of his chosen troopers required cuddles and comfort, promptly left Nickel’s warm arms and leapt from the couch to the commander’s lap. Quinlan flinched when the tooka skidded on the flat armor, but Fox had foreseen the fluffball’s arrival and caught him deftly before his claws lost purchase on the smooth thigh plating. The way Rat flattened out to let his person squeeze him would have been comical if the creature’s desire to help hadn’t been so clear in his big, liquid eyes. 

“Six months ago, it would have been a decomm, though.” The legs of Stitch’s chair scraped against the floor as he sat back and scowled, and Nickel flinched. “I guess even the Senate is beginning to realize they can’t keep wasting credits on new troopers when they can recycle.”

“We stuffed him in the rescue armor and changed the paperwork. So far, no one has checked up on the orders we’ve received - honestly, I think they believe we just obey them without question, even if it would mean harming our own brothers. Good soldiers follow orders, you know.” Fox yawned and crunched the paper cup into a ball. “It’s amazing what can be hidden in plain sight, especially when all of us look the same.”

“I can tell you apart,” Quinlan reminded him. “Even with your buckets on.”

“That’s because of your Force nonsense.” Fox tossed the crumpled cup at his head, and for the first time in their acquaintance, Quinlan witnessed the commander miss his target. “Thankfully, the people we deal with don’t have it, and won’t look twice at a familiar trooper as long as they see different armor. We usually make them dye or cut their hair, though, to cut down on the risk of being recognizable.” As much as he looked like he was about to fall asleep sitting up, the commander still found the energy to give Nickel a serious ori’vod stare of disapproval.

To Quinlan’s surprise and joy, Nickel stubbornly returned the glare. “No, sir,” he said flatly. “I will wear a helmet for the rest of my life, but I will not cut my hair.”

“That’s what he told Sunny, too.” Stitch smiled proudly and winked at Quinlan. “I thought he was gonna bite him if he got any closer with those clippers.”

Fox rolled his eyes, then cupped his hands around Rat’s belly and lifted him to his shoulders. “You’re almost as bad as Hunter.”

Quinlan’s attention swerved back to the commander instantly. “Hunter?” he repeated.

“Who’s Hunter?” Nickel tilted his head, looking totally lost. 

“Another little brother.” Fox and Rat were both squinting at Quinlan now, two pairs of suspicious brown eyes locked onto him. “Which Hunter do you know?”

The Jedi grinned because he had a feeling Fox was not going to like his answer. “The one that can smell a gnat halfway across Corellia.”

Fox’s groan of dismay made Rat hiss at Quinlan again. Somehow he always knew when the Kiffar was responsible for his favorite person’s frustration. “Dear Force, how do you know them?”

“Accidentally. Weird mission, long story. But the look on your face made every second of putting up with Crosshair worth it.” 

Fox snorted. “Not unless he was asleep the whole time, it didn’t.”

“Shut up - stop talking about them!” Stitch leaned back and covered his eyes. “Or my Tech-induced migraine is going to come back.”

Nickel looked far more excited than appalled by the descriptions of the Bad Batch. “They sound fun." 

“Fun and crazy.” Quinlan chuckled. He let the comfortable silence reign for a moment, thankful that the tension in the air had completely dissipated, and dropped his eyes to Copper’s now-dozing form that was curled up in his hands. But something was nagging at his thoughts, a question he hadn’t thought to ask earlier. “When did the reconditioning order come through?”

Fox glanced at the brewer as he answered, as if he were gauging how many more minutes of vitality he could squeeze from the caf that remained. “About ten minutes after the transmission from Taa’s console went out.” 

“That was fast.” Way too fast. Quinlan frowned at the tile, trying to connect the dots that were forming vaguely, begging to be strung together into a coherent shape. “Who did Taa contact?”

Fox cut his second big yawn short to stare at the Jedi like he had grown a second head. “What do you mean, who?” He squinted beneath drooping lashes and must have seen the blank look on Quinlan’s face, because he rushed right into the second question. “Who do you think signs off on these orders?” 

“A committee or… I don’t know, some kind of Senate officer?” He really should spend more time on Coruscant, Quinlan decided. He had spent most of the wars so far flitting from one crisis to another, embedding himself in dozens of conflicts when the primary one he should have been focused on was here, at the heart of the Republic. Sure, he sent the occasional crate of medical supplies, but how could he expect to truly help the Guard if he didn’t even know the depth of the threats they faced?

Stitch laughed. “Can we call the Chancellor an officer?” He shook his head. “I don’t think he’d like that too much.”

Quinlan’s mind went numb like the time he’d been caught in a stun net. “The Chancellor?”

Chapter Text

Now it was Quinlan’s turn to stare at Fox. His voice was louder than he had intended and caused Copper to jump in his hands, her rusty fur going spiky as she started from her nap. “The Chancellor has been decommissioning troopers?” 

Fox nodded, his sharp gaze slowly melting into confusion as he returned the Kiffar’s quizzical look. “I thought you knew that.”

Quinlan gaped at him. “You thought I was okay with this?”

“No, I thought you were aware of it.” Fox’s voice was lower than before and strangely monotonous, as if even that part of him needed to recalibrate after this new information. “We thought all the Jedi were.”

“No!” There was a different kind of fire flickering in Quinlan’s chest now, one that threatened to burn right through his heart if he wasn’t careful. “Master Koon could hardly explain the word to me without going on a rampage, after what almost happened to Wolffe! And he’s on the Council, so there is no way the other members know about it, either.”

Fox slowly tugged Rat from around his neck and settled the tooka in his lap, making a point not to meet Quinlan’s gaze. “Hmm.”

“Well, there’s a lie gone to waste.” Stitch scowled at Fox, but Quinlan wasn’t sure if it was due to the truth of the statement or because the medic was trying to mentally will his brother to keep his eyes open. Punch-free opportunities to tranquilize a marshal commander came few and far between, after all, and Stitch was quite fond of them when they did. “You mean we could have just told him?”

“Yes!” Quinlan nodded ferociously, his thick braids whipping the air. Copper seemed to decide that his warm tunic was no longer worth the health risk of sitting in an agitated Kiffar’s lap, and went hissing into Nickel’s arms with a leaping dive that would have made Grizzer jealous. “How can the Chancellor just strike off clones like that on his own, anyway? So quickly?” He frowned, his tattoo wrinkling with his eyebrows. “Does he even have the authority to do–”

“What authority doesn’t he have?” Fox snapped, struggling to sit up straight in the shifting embrace of the beanbag chair. Rat’s whiskers twitched minutely at the sharp words, and his fluffy tail batted at the commander’s face. 

Fox clamped his lips together just in time to avoid getting a mouthful of disapproving fluff, but Quinlan grinned anyway. As grumpy as Rat might get with the Corries' resident Jedi, the tooka certainly had his own ways of defending him, even if it was only for the purpose of keeping his own person’s blood pressure at a healthy level. He was smarter than most people gave tooka brains credit for.

Then again, that might be why he stayed irritated with Quinlan, too.

Fox carefully brushed Rat’s tail out of his face and scratched the purple ears as a distraction. “In case you haven’t noticed, Palpatine has virtually become a dictator,” the commander informed him flatly. “Throughout the war, he’s accumulated emergency power after emergency power, and with the way things are going on the front lines, it doesn’t look like that’ll come to an end anytime soon.”  

Well, Quinlan couldn’t argue with that logic. He seemed to remember Tholme having similar things to say just a few weeks before, when he and his former Master had been at the Temple at the same time – a rare occurrence, these days – just after a new bill had been put forward to expand the Chancellor’s already bloated power. A few dozen senators, with Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, and Padme Amidala as their leaders, had tried to resist, but their resistance had ultimately crumbled in the face of the opposition. 

Tholme had remarked on the headline about the bill’s passage, then quipped dryly that now Palpatine was practically everything except the Senate plumber.  

“I don’t think he’ll be clamoring for that title.” Quinlan had scoffed, silently adding Sheev Palpatine to the host of other corrupt leaders that were kept on a blacklist in his brain. After his years as a Shadow, there were far too many dark names on that list, and not nearly enough had been displaced. “His list of them is certainly growing, though.”

He remembered how Tholme had looked out from the western tower, his too-green eyes glinting as they raked across the Coruscanti skyline, the dimness of the unlit hall shrouding the face beneath his hood. 

“Yes,” Tholme had replied at last, after Quinlan had given up hope of a response. “It is.”

He had remained there for some time, the Master of Shadows gazing upon the shining capital that had never gone dim, a ghost keeping vigil over the World That Never Slept. Quinlan stayed with him, his reasons twofold. For one thing, he was reluctant to leave his former master when they had seen so little of each other in the past months, especially in the uncertain, death-ridden times in which they found themselves. And for another, he had gotten the distinct impression that Tholme had been about to say something else. 

Whatever it had been went unspoken, though, by the time they had left the tower together. Those three words had been the last thing Tholme had said before they gave their goodbyes, but Quinlan had been sure there had been something else, a concealed thought lingering behind the one that had been deemed safe enough to disclose. Just before they had parted, the Kiffar had nearly asked what it was, but the stern set of his master’s features had convinced him to refrain.

Now, glancing from Fox to Nickel to Stitch and back again, Quinlan read the answer in three pairs of tired brown eyes, in two souls that were weary beyond comprehension and another whose bright belief in a cause had faltered when its leader tried to kill him.

When will it stop?

In his head, Tholme’s voice formed the words, but when Quinlan blinked, it was Nickel who was staring at him, his luminous eyes matching Copper’s when she looked up from licking her tiny paw. 

“I mean, he’s got to stop at some point, right?” the shiny repeated. “Eventually there’ll be another Chancellor or something, or the Senators’ll stop arguing about what goes to whose planets and realize there’s a bigger problem?”

Fox gave the younger trooper a look that bordered on pity. “Natborn politics aren’t as logical as year four made them sound.”

“Sounds like the natborns aren’t, either.” Nickel’s hand stopped stroking Copper’s fur, and he glanced at Quinlan. “No offense, sir,” he said quickly.

Quinlan gave him a reassuring grin. “None taken.”

“He doesn’t count as a natborn.” Fox yawned, and Rat’s tail made a suspiciously swatting motion toward his face again. “The Force conceived him from impatience and exasperation.”

Stitch’s chuckle turned into more of a choke when he saw the horrified expression that flashed over Nickel’s round face at the word conceived. 

“My parents’ names were Quian and Pethros, not Impatience and Exasperation.” Quinlan watched Nickel cringe and shudder, and gave a very undignified snort of amusement. No matter how much they were forewarned about their medic brothers, at least that was one thing that would never change about new troopers – their utter disgust of conversations that even brushed the subject of non-cloning reproduction. 

“My point being,” Fox went on steadily, outwardly unflustered though Quinlan could feel his signature flickering with silent laughter at his younger sibling’s predicament. “That on the list of the Chancellor’s abilities, the capacity to control the Guard is one of the most undisputed and most ignorable. He can decommission, recondition, or reassign individual clones virtually at will, or en masse through the power of a domestic planetary order. He can do what he wants with us…and he does.” 

“That’s ironic.” Nickel shuffled his feet in the air, still half-eaten by the couch cushions as Copper preened in his arms. When he realized the three older men were looking at him, waiting for him to continue, he tried to sit up, but the couch wasn’t having it. “I mean, we were created for the Republic, so we didn’t sign up for this, right? Technically, we don’t have a choice but to obey the Chancellor, or at least make it look like we are.” 

He glanced down at the bright plates of vertiginous armor that had saved his life and frowned.  “Senators who vote for these emergency orders don’t realize that they’re going to end up with the same kind of control, except they’re volunteering.”

Quinlan grunted and laced his fingers together, trying to keep from fidgeting now that he had been ostracized by the tookas. He forced himself to pause before asking his next question, to fully consider whether he wanted to reopen old wounds. But so many secrets had already been spilled today that he didn’t think there would be any harm in asking about another one.

“Was he the one who sent Scuffle away?” He glanced up at Fox, fully expecting to be looked at funnily for mentioning such a long-ago incident. “Has he had this kind of power for that long?”

Fox shifted in his chair and Quinlan noticed his gloved fingers were twitching again, as if they were protesting the fact that they were not holding a cup. The caf was still on the counter, but if Fox had clung to any hopes of rising to get it, Rat had firmly shredded them the moment he had curled up in the commander’s lap. Now Fox was stuck in his seat, and as weary as he felt in the Force, with his eyes constantly trying to flutter closed despite the seriousness of the topic at hand, Quinlan decided that was a good thing. 

And no, Quinlan reminded himself stubbornly, I will not go and get the caf for him, either. He’d already seen the commander drink enough to overenergize a Wookie, and that was just since he’d entered the room. If he was truly going to embark on a new investigation that included going before the Jedi Council and confronting the Chancellor of the entire Republic, he preferred to have his co-instigator alive and well enough to stand, not jittering into the fourth dimension because he thought eight cups of caf was an acceptable breakfast.

The commander redirected his anxious hand back to Rat’s velvety flank and exhaled as if he were emptying his lungs completely.

Quinlan started at the abrupt dip that Fox’s soul made, as if something final had just been swept from beneath him.  

“Partially.” Fox’s other hand came up to rub at his nose scar, and his eyebrows drew together in a v. “The Chancellor approved the decommissioning order, but it wasn’t exactly random. Scuffle was reported for showing a, quote, dangerous level of aggression toward an elected official.” 

That didn’t sound like the quietly bright clone Quinlan had known, whose soul had rippled constantly with the laughter he didn’t allow to bubble to the surface. “Was it justified?”

“The order or the aggression?” Rat’s purring increased in volume as Fox’s scratches worked down to his belly, and the commander had to raise his voice a bit to avoid being drowned out by the rumble.

Quinlan tilted his head. “Both, I guess?”

Fox shook his head, his gray-dusted curls scattering sunlight from the window, but even the movement didn’t conceal how hard he was biting back another yawn. “Well, for one thing, Senator To'sha'r can hardly be said to have been elected, judging by the protests that are still breaking out on his home planet. And that ‘dangerous aggression’ was necessary, since he had just sicced his bodyguard droids on some kid who got in his illustrious way at the wrong time.”

 “Chakaar.” Nickel groused. Copper meowed her agreement and batted at the shiny’s fingers. “I hate politicians already.”

Stitch cracked a slim grin. “I told you, you’re going to fit in wonderfully.” 

“To'sha'r didn't like getting roughed up in public by a clone, obviously.” Fox’s blinking was taking longer now – Quinlan could practically count the seconds between when his eyes closed and when they reopened. “So he submitted the complaint, and the order came the next day. Normally there would have been an investigation, even though attacking an official is theoretically a final offense, but it was waived. So he might have promised a few votes for the example to have been made more quickly than usual.”

“So it still could have been a hit.” Quinlan tried to suppress the growl, but it escaped anyway. “You couldn't… I mean, were you…” Somehow, he didn't quite know how to ask. “Did you have the rescue armor, then?”

Fox glared at him. “Scuffle is decommissioned. Period.” He carefully disentangled two of Rat’s sharp claws from the blacks that were visible between his plating. “Tussle, on the other hand, has been kept on a night shift, lower level rotation when you're onworld to keep you from mistaking him as Scuffle.”

Joy surged up in the Kiffar’s heart. “Scuffle’s alive?”

“No. Tussle, his replacement, is.” 

Quinlan didn’t know if he should be surprised or frightened by how much Fox had been able to hide from him, even when he was certain he’d cracked the commander’s code. He saved the decisions for later and resorted to simply being impressed.

“Guess we can change the schedule now.” Stitch gave a low chuckle. “I think Tussle’ll appreciate not having the gas mask patrol for the rest of his life.”

“Did you know then?” Quinlan spun toward the medic, wincing and unlacing his fingers as they began to throb again. “That Scuffle – Tussle –” he corrected quickly, feeling Fox’s needle-like glare at the back of his neck. “–was okay?”

“Yeah.” Stitch gave him a wary side eye. “We all did, because we all had to make sure it worked out. It takes more than you think to recreate a person, even if it’s just on paper.”

“But I felt you all in the Force. It was…” Awful. Painful. Quinlan inhaled and tried to keep his emotions in check. “With Scuffle, you were all so sad and angry that even when you wouldn’t tell me why, I went to Master Koon.” He chanced a glance back at Fox. “Does Freckles know about Nickel?”

Fox met his gaze, then nodded slowly.

“Then why couldn’t he even look at me when I got here this morning?” The Jedi’s attention returned to Stitch, who glared back as usual. 

The redhead had stiffened just the slightest bit against the wooden back of his chair, and his spirit was flickering with – was that frustration? 

“Because it does make us angry,” he answered gruffly, tone bordering on defensive. “Because we don’t always stop it in time, and it –” Stitch leaned down to rest his elbows on his knees and ran his fingers through crimson hair. “Imagine if someone was doing this to Jedi, turning them in for slaughter.” Eyes half-lidded and haunted flicked up to bore into Quinlan’s. “Even if you managed to intercept before it happened, how would you feel?”

Quinlan didn’t have to imagine. He and his crechemates had been knighted long ago, and few of them had chosen the more secure, Temple-based paths of the lore keepers and instructors. He had lost count of the times he had heard that Bant had found herself in trouble on a Search for the dwindling number of Force-sensitive younglings, or how often Luminara commed in to tell him of a battle in low, falsely steady words. Obi-Wan was in constant danger, owing to his rank and reckless desire to save everyone he ever met. When Quinlan had heard that his childhood friend was being held in a Zyggerian prison, left with no confirmation of whether he was alive or dead and a terrible feeling that he was hurt…

The Kiffar hadn’t exactly flown into a rage, but he had definitely had some deep meditations to do when he’d found his way back to serenity.

“I just wish you had told me,” he said softly. Trusted me were unspoken, but he had a feeling they were understood. “I’m a shadow. I live on secrets. I might have been able to help.”

Stitch grunted a response and swiped a hand over his hair again, making it stick up in the opposite direction. Nickel looked between Quinlan and Fox, gauging the commander’s reaction before deciding on his own.

Fox gave a resigned sort of sigh and rubbed his temples with the hand that wasn’t petting Rat. It seemed to be an unconscious movement at this point, one that Rat was not complaining about. 

“I didn’t know that then. And later it was just…easier to maintain the situation instead of altering it.” He huffed and resituated in the chair, the beanbag thwarting his every attempt to find a stable balance. “Secrets are like bodies. You don’t dig them up after you spend so much time hiding them.”

The Jedi’s eyes narrowed. While he saw the logic, he did very much want to ask whose bodies Fox was talking about. “Don’t you mean burying?” 

Fox gave in to a yawn that threatened to dislocate his jaw, then shrugged. “Same thing.”

“Uh, no, actually. Normal people say burying. You said hiding.” Quinlan was torn between concern and amusement. “Those are very different words.”

The commander turned an unimpressed expression his way, one that was not quite a frown but implied that one would be appropriate. “Most of the bodies I have to hide end up that way by being ridiculous when I’m sleep deprived,” he clipped back. 

Nickel started, but Quinlan just grinned. 

“You wouldn’t kill me,” he rebounded, far too confidently for Fox’s taste. “Stitch said you worry about me.”

Fox scoffed in his gruff Fox way, but his shields flinched back toward their guarded positions so quickly that the Kiffar knew he had struck a chord. Quinlan would have been content to leave the conversation there with the barb successfully launched and received.

But for once, whether it was due to the hours he had been awake or the startlingly vulnerable conversation they had just had, Fox was not.

“I worry about all my brothers,” the commander said flatly. “Especially when they're stupid.”

Quinlan's jaw dropped, and he tried desperately not to gasp - mostly because Nickel was still in the room, and he couldn’t let the shiny think he had completely lost his dignity. “That's how you see me?”

“As stupid? Of course.” Fox picked Rat up and cradled the purring tooka to his shoulder, looking very much like he was praying for a tail to the mouth at the moment. “I was fairly certain we'd established that.”

Quinlan hardly heard him. The effort of containing himself was redirecting capability from his ears. “But you see me as a brother?” 

“I have millions of brothers, Quin,” Fox shot back. “You're not special.”

But even the biggest tooka tail in the world couldn't have hidden the squirmy, embarrassed glow in Fox's soul, or the grin that lit up Quinlan’s face.

Chapter Text

Quinlan was prepared to let the fraught silence hang in the air for a few moments more just to watch Fox emotionally writhe behind Rat’s floof for as long as he could.

But Copper had other plans, and before the Kiffar had even processed that Fox had just verbally, sober and before witnesses, admitted to adopting him, the tiny tooka was already pouncing for Rat’s now-twitching tail.

Rat just turned his head and blinked down at the kitten like she had grown a second head. Fox was the one who hissed.

“Copper…” he said warningly. He shifted his foot to the right, trying not to bump the kitten or catch Rat’s long tail beneath the sole of his boot as it brushed over the tile in a subtle attempt to escape the baby’s claws. 

Copper just meowed back and stretched up on her back legs so she could bat at the older tooka’s retreating tail with a white-toed paw. Once again, Rat merely swished his fluffy cauda out of the way, but Quinlan could have sworn the creature rolled his eyes.

“She’s been so calm!” Nickel stared in surprise at his new pet. “What’s that about?”

“She’s a tooka,” Stitch drawled. “They’re all crazy.” He leaned back in his chair again and pretended to check his comm, but the Jedi saw his hand steal discreetly toward one of his belt compartments instead. He drew something out to hold in his hand but before Quinlan could identify the object, the medic caught him watching and quickly closed his fist around the item.

Quinlan threw a glance at Fox, but the commander was currently occupied with a kitten attacking his shoelaces and a Rat climbing to his shoulder and sticking his claws into the exposed neck of his blacks. The Kiffar looked back at Stitch and mouthed his question silently.

What is that?

Stitch’s brown eyes were like scalpels when they narrowed like that, the Jedi realized. Buzz off, the clone mouthed back.

Quinlan gave him a hurt look, but obeyed. If Stitch didn’t want to share, fine – it wouldn’t hurt his feelings. Much. 

Besides, all those vague little threads that were spiderwebbing from Fox’s explanation and Nickel’s story were beginning to form a pattern, some semblance of a plan, and he was going to need the medic’s help in convincing the commander to go along with it.

“So,” he said loudly. “I’m beginning to think that we may need backup on this.”

Fox grunted as Rat headbutted him in the chin, then glared at the Kiffar with a healthy dose of suspicion. “On what?”

Quinlan wondered if Fox and Obi-Wan’s commander had compared facial scars yet – Cody’s scar was jagged while Fox’s had been carved almost evenly into his face, but the Coruscant commander’s was more noticeable right off. He doubted Cody cared if his scar was noticeable, though. For a guy who openly called his battalion’s color sunshine orange, he had absolutely no chill that Quinlan had ever seen. A better color for him would be wet blanket blue. 

Fox’s scar, on the other hand, seemed to meld perfectly with his overall aesthetic of don’t mess with me red and added to the severity of his already disapproving frown. Quinlan looked back at Stitch and hoped his plea for assistance came through in his eyes.

“On the situation with the Chancellor?” he ventured. “As in, taking him down for this?”

Rat was kneading his paws into the armor that covered Fox’s shoulder and collarbone, but the commander didn’t even flinch at the screech of claws on plastoid. He just stared at Quinlan, eyes falsely muted as if he were hiding surprise. “What?”

Quinlan felt the flare of a bright, guarded thing in Fox’s soul and belatedly registered that it was hope. The jolt of seeing how fragile that spark was, how protective Fox was of it, spurred him on. “I mean, I’d love to walk into his office right now and drop him off a balcony –” 

Nickel choked and gripped the couch cushions in surprise.

“But I won’t.” Quinlan had to pause so he wouldn’t laugh at the shiny. “Until I have some proof.”

“Proof of what, exactly?” Fox and Rat both gave him a deadpan glare.  “I just told you. It’s legal. One order and he could legally decommission every Guard member on the planet.”

“Believe me, I’ll find something on him.” The Jedi granted Fox the most disarming, innocent grin he had in his arsenal. As expected, it was ignored. “He’s been a politician forever, so he’s got to have some dirt stashed away somewhere, or at least a few grimy little secrets that would take him down a few notches.”

The commander reached up to brush Rat’s paw off of his pauldron, but Quinlan saw the hesitant shift in his eyes and knew he was carefully weighing the suggestion, deciding what box to put it in. Fox had to do that a lot, he realized silently – make hard decisions, balance ethics against consequences, not just for himself but for the entire Guard. 

Quinlan knew it was hard for Fox to live in a society that didn’t want him, that excluded him and his siblings from everything except the express purpose for which they were created – taking orders and dying for a cause that would never reach them. He had the opposite problem himself, still walking the line between being a Jedi and a Vos, decades after he’d left his home world. He had too many people who wanted him to be part of their world, and Fox didn’t have nearly enough. He had spent years on the Jewel of the Core Worlds, and every single day was mired down by the burden of making sure his brothers stayed alive. Quinlan had always been able to sense the cloud of responsibility that hung over the commander like a choking fog, but he had never figured out how he didn’t suffocate under it.

Maybe it was simply because he knew he couldn’t.

Only a couple of seconds passed before the commander raised his head again, all trace of his inner turmoil erased from his gaze. “And this will accomplish…?” he let the question trail off, giving Quinlan a chance to answer.

“Something. Politics is a funny business – sometimes scandals stick, sometimes they don’t. But as unpopular as the Chancellor is in select corners of the Senate –”

“You mean Mothma, Organa, and Chuchi’s corner.”

“There are more,” Quinlan insisted. “Anyway. The people who don’t like him already can be just as loud as those who do, if they have the right reason to be.”

Fox still looked skeptical – and sleepier than ever – but Stitch sat up straight, his presence in the Force lighting up like his fiery hair. 

“Maybe.” He clocked the eyebrow that Fox raised at him and shrugged. “Even a krayt dragon can be taken out with the right kind of ammo.”

“Precisely,” Quinlan beamed. “I just have to find it.”

“If there’s anything to find.” Fox hummed thoughtfully and ran his hand through his hair. Nickel and Quinlan noticed the purple strands of Rat’s fur clinging to the commander’s graying curls at the same time, and simultaneously fought back snickers. “With the blackmail logs Stone keeps, I’m sure he’d know about it if there was.”

“I’ll check with him, too.” That wasn’t the first Quinlan had heard about the "insurance scrapbooks," and he frowned at himself for forgetting about them. He sat back in his beanbag and huffed. “I wish Tholme were on world right now,” he muttered. 

The name seemed to trigger something in Fox’s brain, but the Kiffar couldn’t determine what it was. “Your teacher?”

“Yeah. He loves this kind of thing.” Quinlan held up his hand and aimed it at Fox like a gun. “All we’d have to do is point him in Palpatine’s general direction, say please, and we’d have everything we needed in a few hours.”

Nickel’s squint was just a bit disbelieving. “Sounds frightening.”

Copper abandoned Fox’s bootlaces for Rat’s tail once more, but it was plain to see that the older tooka was growing tired of the younger one’s antics. He detached his claws from the tiny sliver of Fox’s collar that he had pulled from beneath the armor, his ears twitching as he waited for the kitten to scootch just a little closer to the chair…

He bided his time until the little orange fluffball padded right beneath him, then he pounced. 

Copper squeaked in alarm, but Rat snapped her up by the scruff before his feet even flattened on the floor, executing his careful strike with all the ease of a creature who routinely stole treats from beneath Grizzer’s good-natured nose. He shook out his fur and then headed over to the sunniest spot on the floor, his creamy nose twitching as his tiny captive expressed her displeasure and squirmed.

Nickel jumped at the kitten’s first squeal, but relaxed as soon as he saw that she wasn’t in any danger. He looked on with a grin as Rat lay down in the sunspot that beamed in from the window, tucked his front paws around the kitten’s small body, and started licking her ears with a practiced paternal air.

Fox groaned as Copper squawked again, shouting the injustice of her situation to the entire floor. “I don’t miss that part,” he grumbled. “Rat was a quiet kitten, for the most part.”

“Insane little lint ball.” Stitch snorted and shook his head at the pair. “It's just a bath.”

The tiny glare Copper adopted at the statement seemed almost targeted, and conveyed all the vehemence she couldn't quite muster with her squeaky mewls.

Fox rolled his eyes until he was looking at Quinlan once more. “If Tholme is your Master, don’t you know where he is?”

Quinlan shook his head. “I’ll see if I can contact him, but he’s probably been put on radio silence. That’s how it’s been on most of his assignments lately.”

“Is there anyone else?” Nickel asked. “Another…” He wrinkled his nose. “Shadow person?”

Fox scoffed, the sound tired but fond as he directed it at the younger trooper. “Sure, let’s call up the backup freelance blackmailer.”

“Mine’s not even freelance.” Quinlan grinned. “He’s just free.” 

Fox’s hint of a smile melted into another frown. “Someone you’re blackmailing?”

“Blackmail the perfect and flawless Mace Windu?” The Jedi snorted. “It would be easier to embarrass a rock.”

Nickel perked up, his curls bouncing as he shot to attention. “You know General Windu?”

“Of course. He used to chase me through the Contemplation Gardens at the Temple when I was little.” Quinlan chose to ignore the way Fox slumped in his chair and rolled his eyes, presumably at the thought of another Jedi hanging around. The commander should be grateful he was suggesting someone as mature and collected as Windu and not a Jedi more like Anakin or Plo Koon, the former being extremely impulsive and the latter liable to adopt every clone and tooka in sight. “Granted, I was usually skipping classes.”

“Being a…” Fox yawned widely.  “...nuisance as usual.” 

When Quinlan turned to disagree with him, he didn’t, because he caught the involuntary nod that the commander tried to hide behind a cough. Fox looked almost disoriented, his eyes choosing to close without his permission, and he appeared quite lost without the cream-and-purple tooka who was usually sprawled across his lap or at least in his close vicinity. The Jedi was beginning to wonder how many fingers he’d lose when Fox woke up if he did a sleep suggestion right now. Stitch would be irritated at missing out on a tranquilizing opportunity, but surely Fox would understand…

“I was an angel,” the Kiffar sniffed indignantly, and could almost hear Tholme laughing in his head. “But Master Windu practically lived in the Archives as a child, so we can’t blame him for being close-minded regarding recreational extracurricular experiences.”

“Oh wow,” Stitch grinned. “Big words.”

Quinlan swatted at him with his bandaged hand and immediately regretted it when the torn and healing skin began to burn from the movement. He tried to conceal the wince, but Stitch, like every clone medic he had ever had the misfortune of meeting, had a sixth sense for spotting a sham.

“Don’t do that, stupid!” he chided. “I’m not patching you up again.”

“Liar.” Quinlan rubbed his knuckles and frowned at the soreness. Being a Jedi meant that he was healing faster than most humanoids would have, but faster had never seemed quite fast enough. “As I was saying, I think we should ask Master Windu to help. He doesn’t like politicians any more than I do, and Palpatine is already high on his avoid list when he has to deal with them at all.”

“I don’t…” Fox’s voice faded softly into silence.

Then he snored.

“Fox?” Quinlan twisted in his seat to check on the commander and stared at the sight that greeted him – Fox lying back in the beanbag chair, his head resting on his chest and his eyes closed.

“Did he just…” The Jedi felt his jaw drop and tried to shut it again. “What just happened?”

“He fell asleep,” Stitch grumbled. He shot the Kiffar a glare that should have dropped him dead on the spot, and held up the small object he had been shielding in his hand. The square timer read three hours, fifty-two minutes, and four seconds. “And I just lost a kriffing bet.”