within the flesh a force resides - vaporeon_ninja - Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) (2024)

Fives wakes up.

Immediately, this is wrong. He’d been shot. His heart had slowed, his breath had rattled, and his lungs had mustered only barely the strength to whisper a few words into Rex’s ear. He’d been shot. He had died.

The distinctive chill of durasteel against his back tells him that he is very much alive indeed. A prelude of a question to a question—if he’s alive, is the question how, or why?

Opening his eyes, he is greeted painfully by an unforgiving light that seems to dig itself right into his retinas, which elicits a truly wretched sound from—Force, was that from him? His lids crush closed before he can even begin to process anything beyond the burning white.

“Oh, no, no, no,” a voice says, warbling and odd, as if he’s hearing it underwater. The statement is hurried, but the speaker is slow—a distinctly kaminoan pattern of speech. “Do not hurt yourself. Do not rush.”

What happened, he tries to ask, but upon attempting to open his mouth, he finds that it is a far more difficult task than it should be, which leads to an immediate spike in panic in his chest. He tries again— where am I? This time, there’s another wet, pitiful sound, assumedly from his own mouth, but still nothing close to words. The panic rises further.

“Relax,” the kaminoan says. “Fear accomplishes nothing. Accept this, and remain calm.”

There are a good number of choice words Fives would like to say to him right now, but even if he could get his mouth to work, his lungs are tight and his chest feels crushed and the light blinding him straight through his eyelids is starting to make his head throb. So, blow to his pride that it is, he tries to do as the kaminoan says and force himself into calm.

He focuses on what he knows, what is in his control. He is alive, there is durasteel under his back, and there is a kaminoan in the room. These knowns lead to unknowns— how and why is he alive, where is he, and who is the kaminoan who stands with him— but focusing on what is out of his control will do nothing to help. If he wants to relax, he must trust that information will come with time. Plus, the more panicked one is, the more details they miss, and Fives cannot afford any losses here.

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.

This mantra of knowledge and repetition of breath goes on for a solid few minutes before he finally feels as if he’s regained a semblance of control. “That’s good,” the kaminoan says from somewhere to his right. “Yes. Very good. Let us not pop our lungs again.”

“Again?” Fives wheezes out, and blinks in surprise, because his voice actually worked this time. Thankfully, his accidental blink isn’t met with another flashbang—either the light has been dulled, or his eyes have adjusted. Either way, he can see and speak now, albeit both far weaker than he’d like them to be.

His hazy vision reveals the kaminoan standing in front of what at Fives’s supine angle appears to be a medical tray. A doctor, then? Would make sense, sort of. Fives was shot—theoretically speaking, he could have survived, had he received medical treatment. There’s just the whole…everything else-part that makes him think they simply wouldn’t bother.

The maybe-doctor hums with what sounds like approval at Fives’s question. “Yes,” he replies, in the same droning voice as before, though thankfully, he sounds somewhat clearer now. “Your heart and left lung were punctured—it was a lethal hit. Repairing the damage was…delicate work.”

He says it so casually, were a kaminoan to ever speak casually, anyways. A punctured lung. A punctured heart.

“You seem frightened again,” the doctor says with a tilt of his head.

“Where am I?”

“Kamino.”

“No, where am I?”

“Kamino,” the doctor says again. “Is that all?”

Fives is so momentarily stunned by the blank repetition that he cannot respond. The doctor hadn’t sounded rude, nor snide, nor anything of the sort—he simply answered Fives’s questions, with seemingly no awareness that he was answering them in both the most useless and quite possibly the most infuriating of ways.

“Why am I here?” Fives tries instead. He attempts to push himself up with the question, to sit as to get a wider view of the room, but everything below the neck feels like dead weight. There’s still surface-level sensation—enough so that now that he’s calmed, he can feel cold durasteel against his wrists and ankles as well—but his muscles refuse to respond. Another pit of panic begins to open in his chest, but he beats it back as well as he can. Information first, reaction second. Sensation means that his lack of movement is most likely due to some sort of drug, not an injury, meaning that it is likely not permanent. How long he is to stay like this will probably be reliant on this doctor rather than his own body healing. “What happened?”

The doctor nods, just the slowest, slightest tilt of his chin, and turns back to the tray at his side to pick up a tablet. “Better questions,” he replies in an almost distracted tone. “Good. Cognitive functions are beginning to return in full…” As he talks, he types, long fingers gliding across the holoscreen with a speed that Kaminoans must reserve for their hands, for it is lacking in everything else but their mind. Fives waits, encouraged by the statement, but the anticipation sinks with each passing second of silence. The doctor seems completely uninterested in answering anything no matter how good Fives’s questions are. Finally, though, he glances up from the screen as his fingers still. “What is your last memory?”

Fives swallows.

Thing is, it would be ridiculous to lie now, and he knows it. If this doctor is to be trusted, which—well. Knowing what Fives knows now, nobody on Kamino can be trusted. However, he can probably be trusted to be correct about their location, at least. If he’s truly back on Kamino, then he’s back in the very place that he was running from. The place that wanted to wipe his mind, rid him of himself, all to protect what may very well be the galaxy’s most poisonous secret. Thus bringing him right back around to the question he’s had since the moment he awoke— why, after seemingly finishing the job the Chancellor had sent his brothers out to do, is he still alive, and still equipped with the information he was killed for having?

“Elevated heart rate,” the doctor mumbles under his breath, typing again. “Questioning elicits anxiety in the subject…response to pressure in general or topics at hand…?” His musing slows as his typing quickens, before he finishes and focuses back towards Fives. “What is your designation number?”

“What?” The question disarms him. “You don’t know?”

“I do,” the doctor states. “What is your designation number?”

Is this a test? “CT…8601,” he says, attempting to school both his voice and expression.

The doctor blinks passively. “Conscious enough to lie…” Damn. If it was a test, Fives thinks he might’ve failed. “Your chosen title?”

If the doctor knows his number, then he probably knows his name, too—at least, it likely would’ve been in one line in the file somewhere, before the rest of it reverted back to only referring to him by designation. Most likely that these questions have little to do with any actual intrigue on the doctor’s part, and more to do with how Fives responds to them. “Fives,” he says, giving up on the lie.

More typing. “Anxiety response due to topic, not pressure…” He lets out a small sigh as he makes a few swipes on his screen. Whether it was a sigh of annoyance, relief, or simple tiredness, Fives couldn’t say—kaminoans have always been inscrutable in emotion. “What is your last memory?”

He knows Fives’s number, name, and injuries. There’s no way he doesn’t know what happened preceding Fives being dumped on his operating table. So, then—is he asking this question to simply assess Fives’s memory of the incident, or is he asking because Fives shouldn’t remember?

“M’not sure,” he replies, playing up the exhaustion in his tone. “I was…in a battle, I think, or…maybe Kamino? It’s all a blur…”

The doctor looks at him, large eyes blinking slowly. His expression doesn’t change.

“Did you say I got shot?” Fives tacks on.

Another blink. His gaze drops back down to the tablet, swiping up on the holoscreen. “Subject’s memory appears to be nearly fully intact.”

Fives’s heart sinks. Deception was never his forte, but he’s certainly better at it than a good portion of the rest of his brothers. He’d thought that maybe this whole experience would’ve made him a better liar. Apparently, he hasn’t had enough practice to make perfect.

“I was shot,” he says dully, letting his head hang towards the side the doctor stands on. “Is that good enough? Why am I here?”

“You are here because I wanted you to be,” the doctor replies idly, not even sparing him a glance over the screen that Fives is already beginning to loathe.

“The hell does that mean?” His voice nearly rises into a snarl. “Wanted me?”

Again, the doctor nods. Again, the doctor refuses to share anything further.

Fives’s anger sharpens into a searing heat. “Tell me!” he yells, throwing his head back against the steel. “Why am I here?”

“Subject is prone to anger…” The doctor’s voice trails off as he presses a button on the tablet, and the blue glare disappears from his eyes. Then, he pulls a rod out from one of his many assorted pockets—a recorder, Fives thinks, one that, given the steadily blinking light, has been on this whole time. “Excellent progress was made today. We will continue at a later date, when the subject is less volatile.”

“The hell—?” The doctor turns towards the tray once more, extending a hand towards something that Fives can’t see from where he’s laying. “I answered your questions! Tell me what’s—”

Click.

________

“...attempt thirty-seven of conscious interaction with the subject…”

Fives squeezes his eyes. His head throbs.

“...period of regaining consciousness has been getting shorter by a steady…with luck, the pattern will continue…”

Someone is speaking, slow and placid. Kaminoan. The doctor.

Fives wakes up.

The light is still disgustingly bright, but this time, it’s not nearly as painful. Kix has done worse to him when checking for a concussion. A cursory glance around tells him that he’s still in the same room, or at least, a very similar, very unadorned room, and it is indeed the same doctor sharing the space with him. He’s standing further away this time, mumbling into his recording device things Fives cannot hear, and he seems to be gathering a few items from a sleek metal cabinet. He pulls them out, one by one, placing them down on something next to him, and belatedly, Fives realizes that he’s setting up the medical tray that had been right at Fives’s left last time.

The doctor turns back towards Fives with startling speed. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have time to pretend that he’s still asleep, so they make eye contact. Fortunately, the doctor barely pays him any mind before turning back to his device. “Subject has regained consciousness.”

Fives lets his eyes slip closed, listening as the tray rolls over on oddly squeaky metal wheels, the doctor’s slow steps in tandem with its approach. He didn’t even realize anything on Kamino had wheels anymore. He thought everything was high enough tech to float around.

“You making a log?” Fives ventures to ask. “What’s that about?”

The doctor ignores him. Instead, he tucks the recorder back into his pocket, then uses one hand to pry open Fives’s right eye and the other to shine a pinprick of light into it. “What is your designation number?”

Again? “CT-8601,” he replies stubbornly, flinching against the light that has already retracted. “What happened?”

The doctor opens Fives’s left eye. “What is your chosen title?”

“Yoda,” he says, even more stubbornly. “What was that yesterday? What did you do? I don’t—”

“What is your last memory?”

“Stop ignoring me,” Fives growls.

The doctor frowns down at him, though frustratingly, it appears to be more confused than anything else. It disappears in the blink of an eye anyways, melting back into that same infuriating passiveness. “Subject regained consciousness eighteen percent quicker than yesterday,” he says, as if talking right through him. “Memory appears to have remained intact this time as well. This is a big step forward.”

A chill goes up Fives’s spine at his words. Maybe he’s crazy, but the doctor almost sounded…excited, for a moment there.

He continues to poke and prod at Fives’s head, sticking things in his ears and using a few different scanners—one of them looked regulation, like Kix’s, but the others, he couldn’t recognize—before moving down to examine the rest of Fives’s body. It’s strange to watch him work down there. Fives can sort of feel what he’s doing, but it’s muted, almost as if he’s swaddled under thick layers of blanket and the doctor’s working at the very top.

“What did you do to me?” Fives asks, straining to try and move his head. No luck. He can duck his chin, just barely, but he can’t turn it beyond flinching and letting gravity do the rest, and he certainly can’t raise his chest up. “Why can’t I move?”

“Partly precaution, partly recovery,” the doctor says, startling Fives into silence. He’d wanted an answer, most certainly, but he hadn’t actually expected one at this point. “Your body isn’t ready to move yet. Reversing the process of rigor mortis is not easy, and I would prefer you do not ruin my work with any temperamental fits.”

Too much in that statement to even begin to process. It’s forced, but it’s also not? Insulting him without even changing tone? Rigor mortis?

“You said I’d been shot lethally,” he says, voice thin.

The doctor glances up at him from where he’s bent over his knees. “Was that not clear?”

“Why— how am I here,” Fives tries again, reduced to begging. “What did you do?”

For once, Fives seems to have said something that gives the doctor pause. He stops whatever it is that he’s doing with his tools, lowering them slowly down on the table, before extending to his full height and walking to stand next to Fives’s shoulder. His face is still perfectly passive, just as before, but there it is again. That miniscule glimmer of excitement, swimming in his enormous eyes. “I conducted an experiment,” he says. “And so far, it has been a success.”

Fives feels sick. He wants to ask—he needs to ask—but suddenly, the simple act of opening his mouth feels far too daunting. He just sits, staring up at this man, this doctor who cannot, Fives realizes now, be acting with full permission, because if he were, then Fives would be dead. Dead and gone and nothing, or, at the very least, an empty husk. His body would be here, but Fives would be dead. Fives should be dead.

Apparently, the doctor took Fives’s lack of response as an opportunity to get back to work, because that is exactly what he does, exchanging tools this way and that, performing tasks that Fives cannot see, and suddenly doesn’t want to. His curiosity has waned considerably in the last few moments. “Subject’s iliotibial band on left leg is considerably tighter than the iliotibial band on the right…not restoring at the same rate.” He clicks his tongue, revealing the only significant sign of annoyance so far. “Could be an issue with precedence…” Tilting his head towards Fives, he asks, “Have you experienced any pain or discomfort in your left leg, prior to this?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Subject cannot provide clarity in this moment,” he mutters while fiddling with something at Fives’s leg. “The ligaments all seem to be up to par, no further degradation…quadriceps are healthy, muscle loss appears normal given the period of time…”

“How can you tell all that?” Fives asks, unsure if he wants the answer but unable to stop himself from asking.

The doctor doesn’t look up from his work, but he does deign to reply this time. “A combination of deep-tissue scanners and surface-level incisions.”

Fives’s mouth goes dry. He does not like the sound of incisions. “You—you’ve got blades down there?”

He hums in confirmation, though notably, he does not display any of the supposed blades for Fives to see. “Bacta works to seal the incisions,” he adds. It sort of sounds like he added that for himself and not Fives, but that’s…good to know. He hadn’t thought about it not working, actually, but good that something he hadn’t been worried about at all is cleared up. Would be great if the good doctor could clear up, well. Quite literally anything else.

“When can I move?” Fives decides to try asking after a length of time in which there is nothing but silence and mumbling. He’s been getting a tad luckier with his questions while the doctor’s distracted. “You said earlier, ah. Precaution and recovery?”

“Once I have deemed that there is no more residual damage or continuous degradation due to the long-term effects of being post-mortem by technicality, then we will move on to controlled exercises.” He keeps saying things like that, post-mortem by technicality. The picture he’s painting is getting all too clear, and Fives feels the pit in his gut churn harder.

“What kind of exercises?”

No response this time.

“Doc?”

Nothing. Some indiscernible muttering, clearly not for Fives’s ears.

“Look, if you’re cutting open my legs and not answering my actual questions, least you could do is answer—”

With a sigh, the doctor reaches behind him, not even looking up from his work, then there’s a click, then.

Then.

________

Then Fives wakes up.

It’s a violent wake this time, a heaving, shuddering breath, his body fighting against the drugging and the physical restraints just for some semblance of reaction. Without the release of movement, the energy roils in his chest, trapped within his ribcage and settling into a white-hot pain under his sternum.

“Help—” he gasps out, barely aware that he’s saying the word. “Help—I need, I—”

“Oh,” the doctor says. There are no steps, no movement. There is no help. All there appears to be is the note of mild surprise in the kaminoan’s voice. “Subject is displaying a physiological reaction to the previous trauma the body endured.” He leans down closer, tilting the recording device towards Fives’s cheek. “Were you dreaming?”

Fives manages to shake his head no. “H-hurts,” he pants out. The word is hard to get through his chattering teeth, and there is the taste of salt in his mouth.

“A phantom pain, then?” the doctor muses to himself.

Fives throws his head back against the steel as hard as it will go, which isn’t as hard as he’d like, but it does make an echoing bang, and his ears begin to ring. “Help me,” he chokes. The blinding pain is making it hard to think clearly, words and vision slipping together, but the one thing that is perfectly clear is that the burn in his chest is no longer just pain. He’s been reduced to a garbling doll, and the doctor stands back and watches.

The burn is rage.

“The pain will pass,” the doctor says, ignoring Fives’s glare as he turns around, walking over to a place out of Fives’s periphery. “It is simply your body reminding you of the damage it took.”

“A-and you can’t—” He takes a heaving gulp of air. “You can’t fix it?”

The doctor’s long neck tilts back into view, just enough that Fives can catch a glimpse of the same infuriating blank expression. “It is your mind,” he replies. “And I am curious how this will proceed.”

“You’re not a f-f*cking doctor,” Fives manages to say. As horrid as it is to admit, the kaminoan is right—the pain is beginning to recede. It still hurts, obviously, like—well, like he’s been shot. He’d been shot in the leg once, and the pain of that is easier to recall than the pain of Fox’s shot. When Fox shot him, that had hurt too, but he’d mostly felt cold. Even as Rex had held him, he’d felt cold, absolutely, incurably cold. But getting shot in the leg— that hurt like a bitch. This feels a little more like that, except move the hole to his chest and layer on the fact that his lungs feel like flimsi and his heart’s working double time.

The kaminoan comes back to Fives’s side, carting a new tray of various tools with him. As he sets them down on the rolling table, he says, “Oh?”

“You’re a Force-damned—scientist, or something—” It’s hard to talk through the haze, but it’s getting easier. His skin feels clammy and slick, and the sweat makes his head slip too easily back and forth on the table when he tilts it.

“Interesting,” the scientist says. “The subject appears to find comfort in accusations. Perhaps related to its temperament?”

“Stop talking to that machine and talk to me,” Fives spits out. “Who. Are. You?”

“Subject’s heart rate remains elevated, but its breathing has stabilized. Whether or not the pain reduction is correlated with the distraction or time, though…” He hums, frowning thoughtfully for a few moments before shaking his head. “It will require more observation.”

“Who are you?”

The scientist regards Fives with something akin to interest, with a disquieting addition of eagerness. It makes Fives wish that his body would work again so that he could run. “I am Dr. Mir’e Chell,” he says, leaning over him so that his long neck and head are near parallel to Fives’s own. “You are CT-5555, chosen name Fives, a clone soldier and an ARC trooper in the 501st battalion. You were a traitor to the Republic and subsequently executed for your crimes.”

Fives’s throat closes. Any words he might have thrown all turn to ash on his tongue.

“Ah,” Chell says, leaning back once more into his full height. “Direct address and confirmation seems to have subdued the subject. Perhaps now it will be more agreeable during conscious examinations and tests.” Reaching back behind him, he plucks a small metal instrument off of the tray on the rolling table—a light, the same one he’d used before to examine Fives’s eyes.

Lethal shot. Rigor mortis. Executed. Fives should be dead.

Fives is not dead.

Chell approaches, light in hand, and says, “Examination begins.”

________

They fall into a rhythm after that. Not like Fives has much of a choice in the matter.

For a period of time, which he assumes is somewhere closer to weeks or days but feels like mere hours due to his minimal wakefulness, Fives will come to, always to Chell murmuring into his recording device. Usually, he is still sorting his tools, pulling them out from one of the cabinets—once or twice, Fives thought he caught the sound of water, meaning that there’s a sink somewhere in here that he can’t see—but most of the time now, the doctor is ready at his side. He will then begin his examination, first on Fives’s head, then move downwards until he’s completed his investigation of Fives’s entire body. Occasionally, Chell will ask questions as he goes; he’s particularly interested in Fives’s left knee, though as for why, he’s not sure. From the snippets he’s caught of Chell’s mutterings, he thinks something is wrong with one of the muscles there, or a tendon. He’ll ask him every time some variant of the same question— did you have problems with your knee before? And every time, Fives replies with some variant of the same answer— no, I don’t know, maybe. Chell will then go on to ask a round of observational questions, if Fives is in any pain, if he’s noticed any difficulty with breathing, hearing, seeing, things like that. He’ll ask if Fives feels comfortable with his heart rate.

Such a strange question, that one. Fives is never quite sure how to respond to it. The first time he’d been asked, he’d inquired right back what the hell that was supposed to mean. At Chell’s simple repetition of the question, Fives had decided it wasn’t worth it to argue.

A lot of things don’t feel worth it anymore.

Once the questions are over, so is the examination, and Fives will be put under again until the next one. He’s still unclear on how exactly Chell is controlling that—there’s always a click, then Fives is down, only to blink awake to Chell at his side, recorder in hand. There’s a horrific idea teasing the edge of his mind, but something in him is blocking him from thinking on it further. He barely has any time to think for himself these days. Given the option, he’d rather spend the minutes he gets awake in a space of his mind anywhere other than here in this room.

Today, he blinks awake to Chell’s warbling voice saying, “...sixteen of routine examination. I am hoping that this examination will let us begin stage two.”

That’s…new. Ominous.

“Stage two?” Fives says, a touch groggy in waking.

Chell nods as he approaches. “Your return to consciousness was nearly immediate this time. That is a good sign.” Lately, Chell has begun to reply to Fives’s questions more often. Fives suspects that it has nothing to do with seeing him as a person and everything to do with liking the sound of his own voice. “Do you remember the exercises I had mentioned during consciousness attempt thirty-seven?”

Not by that name, but considering that he’d only ever mentioned them once, Fives nods, saying, “No degradation, then?”

Chell’s eyes glitter with fascination. He always likes when Fives repeats his words—if he had to take a guess, he’d say it’s either that he hadn’t expected Fives to be smart, or pleasure at the fact that his memory remains intact. Could be a mixture of both. Either way, it keeps Chell talking, so Fives plays along. “Progress has remained steady,” he replies. “I believe after this examination, we will be able to begin the controlled exercises without any fear of damaging your system.”

The way he says system makes Fives’s skin crawl. Like he’s some kind of droid.

With that, Chell commences the routine, shining his light in Fives’s eyes, sticking a cold rod in his ears, opening his mouth, the same thing he’s done every time. As he goes down his list, his eyes get brighter and brighter, closing in on what Fives would almost call manic, were he not a kaminoan. Still, his hands remain steady and he never gains or loses speed. The scientist may be mad, but Fives has gathered that he’s quite skilled.

After what could probably be called an hour, Chell’s hands retract from whatever they’re doing down at Fives’s feet. He picks his tablet up off the rolling table quickly—Fives has to crane his neck as much as he can to see what’s going on.

“Subject has sustained under five percent of permanent damage,” Chell relays to his recorder. His voice has that same strange rushed quality to it, that odd way that kaminoans sound when they’re trying to speak faster than their vocal cords let them. “No further degradation has occurred. These results are satisfactory enough to conclude that I am ready to begin stage two of the experiment.”

Fives’s breath catches in his chest; for once, it’s not out of fear. He’s been laying here for so long, disconnected neck to toe with barely the power to move his own head. The very prospect of being able to move is nothing less than exhilarating.

“For stage two to begin, I will first need to turn off the subject’s—”

________

“—a resounding success. After tomorrow’s brief examination, I will conduct another round.”

Fives blinks, attempting to orient himself. He feels—wrong. Like he’s standing up sideways. His head hurts and his eyes pulse beneath the lids, and he has the strongest urge to dig his fingers into his nose bridge to relieve the tension. As soon as he tries, though, he finds that his limbs are slack, wrists still confined under durasteel clamps.

Something is wrong.

“W’happen’d,” he slurs, tongue thick and throat oddly scratchy. “Wha’, wait—stage two?”

Chell walks leisurely over to his side, setting down a few different tools in a heap on the rolling table’s tray. “The first trial of stage two was successful,” he says. His voice brims with excitement. “It is a shame that the second trial must wait until tomorrow.”

“But—but you…” Fives wracks his brain, searching for any explanation and finding none. “I didn’t—”

“Subject appears disoriented,” Chell murmurs. “It is not simply a return to consciousness, so perhaps it is due to the activity…?”

“There was no activity,” Fives stresses. Alarm bells blare in his brain, loud and sharp enough to hurt. There’s a spike of pain behind his eyes, which elicits a hiss, and he tries again to lift a hand to his face, and again, his body refuses to respond. “You said I’d be moving,” he grits out, “why am I not moving?”

The scientist had begun to move tools from the tray back somewhere beyond Fives’s field of vision, but pauses briefly at his question. “You were,” he says. “That is why it was a success.”

Horror crests over Fives in a wave. “What did you do to me,” he gapes, using every bit of muscle he can manage to find to try and resist the shutdown of his body. “You—the chip, it’s gone, I—”

“Subject’s state has elevated from disoriented to distressed.”

“Answer me!”

“Further research and observation is required, but for now—”

Click.

________

When Fives wakes up this time, his chest immediately tightens with fear.

How long has he been out? What did Chell do while he was asleep? Was he asleep? What happened last time? And, perhaps the most pertinent—what in the name of the Force did Chell do to his head?

“Subject’s return to consciousness remains at a steady 5.08 seconds,” Chell’s voice sounds to Fives’s right. Turning as sharply as he can manage to look, he sees the scientist seated on a stool next to the table. This is the first time he’s ever been seated in front of Fives.

“What did you do,” Fives spits out in a mangled tone.

“Will knowing what I did subdue you?”

“Subdue?”

Chell does not seem to pick up on the disbelief in Fives’s voice. “Yes. I am able to control your heart rate to an extent, but when your emotions are heightened, it becomes difficult to maintain control.”

The statement is so horrific that all Fives can do is laugh.

“Subject appears to find humor in topics pertaining to its management,” Chell mutters to his recorder.

“You—my heart rate—” Fives laughs again, and it comes out broken, a wet crack in the air. “Are you working for the Chancellor?”

“No.”

“Then what is this? What are you doing? Why?” His voice wavers at the end, quieting as he adds, “Why me?”

Chell appears to actually consider the questions, which is something Fives had not expected in the slightest. He’s not sure whether or not it's a good sign that for once, he’s sort of being listened to. “I have presented ideas which my superiors have found,” his lip curls in disdain, “distasteful. Going forward with my research, it became clear that it must be conducted in secret.”

A solo project. Conflicting emotions wrestle within his gut over how to react to this. On the one hand, if Chell is acting alone, then whatever it is that he’s doing has nothing to do with the war, or with the conspiracy that Fives has discovered. On the other, if a single man’s ambitions go so far as to raise the dead, then there lies something very, very dangerous within that man.

“Your selection was purely by chance,” Chell continues. “I had been planning my project for quite some time, and I needed a body. Yours happened to enter Kamino’s morgue at the right time, with the perfect amount of tissue damage—that is to say, very little.”

“The chip,” Fives urges.

“You took it out.”

“But you put it back.”

For the very first time, Chell outright sneers. “That implant is a one-note piece of code and tissue that does little more than subject one to a change in behavior,” he sniffs. Fives tries, and fails, not to stare—he’s never seen a kaminoan show any emotion so flagrantly before. “My work is so much more than that.”

No. No, no, no. This can’t be happening. “You made one of your own,” Fives says with a hollow voice.

“I made something better.”

Laying here, trapped in the black, empty eyes of a madman, he recalls his last words to Rex. The mission, the nightmares, he’d said. They’re finally over.

“Hypothesis confirmed,” Chell says. Fives barely hears him. “Awareness of the project has subdued the subject.”

The mission may be over, but his nightmares have only just begun.

________

Wake. Examine. Sleep. Wake. Examine. Sleep. Wake. Examine. Sleep.

The minutes blur into hours blur into days. Fives has no concept of how long he’s been under Chell’s control, and he can’t bring himself to care anymore. None of it matters. He thought he’d finally escaped—he’d rid himself of the chip, gotten killed when he couldn’t run any longer—but here he is again, someone’s fingers in his brain choosing if and when to pull the trigger.

Chell still hasn’t told him what the purpose of any of this is, and Fives has given up on asking. They don’t talk anymore—Chell will still talk at him, but Fives no longer replies, staring listlessly up at the grey ceiling and his saucer light. The scientist doesn’t seem to mind. When working, Chell is either dead silent, or able to carry on a conversation with a brick wall. The only time they exchange words is during the end of his checkups before he begins the trials. Still the same questions, still the same answers. Every day is the same.

Fives has no clue what the trials consist of. As soon as the questioning is over, there is a click, then he’s gone, only to wake up with Chell introducing the next checkup. He’d almost think nothing were happening at all, but that certainly isn’t true.

Every time he blinks awake, there’s some new exhaustion overtaking him. His muscles ache, his eyes burn, his throat is dry and it hurts to swallow. How unfair is it, that he can’t feel his body enough to control it, but he can feel the fact that it hurts. Whatever it is that Chell is doing, he must be getting results, because he looks more and more visibly pleased by the day. He’s started talking about a stage three.

Occasionally, Fives will come to in the throes of another one of those fits, the ones where he can feel the hole in his chest clearer than anything else around him, and those are the only moments that the numbness recedes enough for Fives to truly hate Chell. The pain forces through a sort of clarity that he cannot access at any other point in time, and when he watches Chell through watery eyes, standing there at his side, he remembers how much he hates him. He hates this man, this man who took his peace, his release. He hates this man for what he’s become. He hates that he never helps, not once. All he does is watch.

“You should count yourself lucky,” Chell says once, standing at Fives’s bicep with a device that looks somewhere between a laser and a knife. “Your…brothers, as you call them, are forced to watch themselves kill. I was kinder to you.”

Kindness has never been and will never be a factor in anything Chell does, Fives is sure, but that’s not the part of his statement that catches Fives’s ear. “Are?”

“Yes.” He wipes a finger on the surgical napkin around his neck, leaving a smear of red. “Order sixty-six was executed eight rotations ago. The Jedi are now traitors to the Empire.”

For a few moments, all Fives can do is stare at the ceiling, waiting for Chell’s words to break through the wall of nothing that his mind has built. Order sixty-six. The Jedi are traitors. The Empire. The single sentence runs a rut through his brain. Sixty-six. Traitors. Empire.

“They’re killing our generals,” he rasps.

“And they are fully conscious while doing so.” To his left is a small tub of bacta, and he scoops a glob of it onto gloved hands. “In a year’s time, many of their implants will degrade, and their minds will skew. Loyalties will be split, and soldiers will be broken.” He works the bacta gently into Fives’s arm. “You will not break.”

Chell doesn’t care about the war, about Jedi or Sith, Republic or Separatists, or whatever this Empire is that now has control, Fives knows. Whatever his role in all of this is, it has nothing to do with loyalty.

These affirmations offer up little comfort.

“Interesting,” Chell says. “There is no physical pain, and yet…” He screws the lid back on his tub of bacta. From how Fives is tilted, he can taste salt at the edge of his mouth. “Subject has displayed the ability to secrete tears without provocation.”

________

“Get up,” Chell says. “Get up, now.”

Fives’s eyes shoot open, finding himself face to face with Chell. He’s far too close—he tries to shrink back, but his head meets the table, resulting in a loud clang.

The urgency in Chell’s voice overrides any desire to immediately attempt an escape. He shifts, briefly forgetting how it feels to be in control of his limbs, but instinct takes precedence over any manual control. His torso jerks up, chest first, before he manages to lean forwards on unwieldy elbows. “What’s happening?” he demands. “Why’re you—”

“No time.” Chell pulls him by the shoulders roughly, sitting him up in full, before turning him towards the edge and swinging his legs down. “If you want to live, you need to listen, and more importantly, you need to walk.”

A sharp bark of laughter escapes Fives’s mouth before he can stop it. “Live?” he says incredulously. “I’m already dead!”

Chell rolls his eyes—another action he’s never seen displayed by a kaminoan. “Do not disregard my work. You are very much alive, and I will keep you that way. Stand up.”

He gives Fives little choice in the matter, sliding his hands down to his biceps and pulling him forwards and up off the table. For a moment, his legs completely refuse to work—they’re jelly beneath him, boneless slabs of meat—but as soon as he starts to fall, the muscles kick into gear. He ends up catching himself in an aborted heap. “Coulda’ tried catching me,” he mutters, grasping the edge of the table clumsily.

“I cannot support your body weight.”

“Of course you can’t.”

If Chell notices the slight, he doesn’t mention it, swiveling his head behind him towards a table. “Help me with those,” he orders.

‘Those’ appear to be two boxes, next to which is a large, oddly shaped bag. It has a short back and a wide-set frame, with narrow shoulders that wouldn’t fit over any clone, and Fives puzzles at it before realizing that it’s a bag made with Kaminoan measurements in mind. A quick sweep of the room shows that every other surface is barren—finally seeing the lab he’s been trapped in, he finds that he is completely and utterly underwhelmed. The walls are simple slats of grey, with grey cabinets and a grey table inset to the wall that would’ve been at Fives’s left while he was laying down. In the inset table is a large sink with a deep basin, and the stains surrounding the drain paint a picture of age and mess. It’s all just grey and stain.

“The hell is this?” Fives mutters. He’d known that Chell was working in secret, but for Kamino, this room is decrepit. He’s never seen anywhere on Kamino other than a clone’s bunk that is anything less than spotless.

“Do you want to talk or do you want to live?”

“I want to know what the hell is going on!”

Chell’s hands slam down on the counter, a more forceful action than Fives has ever seen him do, and he opens his mouth as if to shout but closes it at the last second. For a tense few beats, there is only the sound of his breathing. Fives’s own breath has stopped completely. “Get those boxes and I will tell you,” he finally says. “Walk and talk.”

Fives puts on the shiny helmet and complies. The boxes are heavy, weight startling in their measure but nothing more than he can carry. His arms creak in protest from ache and disuse.

Clinking metal tells him that the occupants of the box are probably Chell’s various tools, along with whatever else he’d had stowed away in this room. He’s not sure how much had been stuffed on the shelves and tables before, but it can’t have been too much if it all fits in two boxes and a bag. Fives himself would probably be tucked in a box had he been the right size. The only things left inside are a mop and a bucket tucked into one of the corners—he hadn’t even had a mouse droid.

“Out with it,” Fives huffs as soon as they’re through the door. The hallway they enter into is dark, with only a few dim LEDS near the floor illuminating its length. The facility works ‘round the clock, but it is also very big and, Fives would guess, very costly. Wherever they are right now must not be worth the expense to keep fully lit. Given that the LEDS are low to the ground in comparison to the upper level’s higher lights, he assumes this is either an older wing or a wing with a different purpose.

Chell struggles to keep up, long legs making for an equally long stride, but gangly limbs making for a cobbled rush job of a walk. “You are familiar with Nala Se,” he begins, voice deathly quiet despite them being alone.

“That’s a word for it,” Fives growls, matching Chell’s volume. He’s not sure he can ever forget Nala Se. The look on her face when she’d ordered him be reconditioned…no, he’s sure he couldn’t.

He nods, then jerks his head left when they hit a fork in the hallway. “Lama Su as well?” At Fives’s nod, he continues, “My research is not condoned by either of them. I have managed to keep this project a secret for two hundred and thirty-two rotations, but they have finally noticed my diversion of funds and acquisition of supplies.” He tries for a derisive snort, but it comes out like a puff of air due to his attempt at speed. “We are about to approach an elevator. I have a shuttle in hangar six for precisely this purpose.” His voice turns to an irritated grumble under his breath, saying, “I knew the day was coming, but so soon…terrible timing.”

“So they’re on to you.”

“Yes.”

Fives stops starkly in front of the elevator doors.

Chell doesn’t notice his pause at first, but as he gets in and Fives doesn’t follow, he frowns. “What are you doing? Get inside.”

“They’re onto you,” Fives says again.

“I believe I made that clear. We must get going—”

“Why should I help you?”

Fives looks at Chell, at the man who’s held him captive for well over two hundred rotations. The man who ripped his peaceful ending away from him, stripped him of his body and mind, and knew his name but never said it more than once.

The hole in Fives’s chest twinges, and yes, there it is. The hate.

The doors begin to close on Chell, and he presses a button quickly to keep them open. “Do not be mistaken,” Chell says in a frosted tone. “They want me because they want to put an end to my work. You are my work.” His enormous eyes narrow, pupils flickering over Fives’s form. “If we are caught and lucky, they will terminate you. Unlucky, and they will use my project for their war. Do you understand?” At this point, his voice is nearly a shout, and he slams a hand into the button again to keep the door from closing. “You will join your murderous brothers. You will kill your Jedi friends. You will kill brothers who step out of line. You will do all of this and more, and you will never break because I made you.” Panting, he leers forwards, forehead nearly touching Fives’s own. “It is in your best interest,” he says, voice deadly quiet once more, “to comply.”

Fives swallows down his fear. “You could’ve made me comply,” he replies. “Could’ve puppeted me to your shuttle. Why not?”

Chell’s brows furrow in frustration. “Stage three,” he explains, “carrying things was in stage three. Now will you or will you not comply?”

“Where’s your controller?”

“My what?”

“Your controller. The thing that goes click.”

“My pack. I don’t see what that has to do with—”

Ah, f*ck it.

Before Chell can yap his top off any longer, Fives throws the boxes into his chest, causing the kaminoan to topple over like a tower of sticks. He shrieks, but it gets cut off as he hits the ground, wind knocking out of him.

“Hh-hah,” Chell gulps, probably meaning to say something like, what are you doing, or, stop that, but Fives doesn’t care in the slightest. He bolts into the elevator and knocks his elbow into the button to keep the door open, then flips Chell over, lifting him by the chest, and strips him of his backpack. “Nn-no,” he hacks out as he hits the floor. “No, wait—”

“How many times,” Fives says darkly, picking up Chell once more, this time by his slender neck. “How many times did I say that to you?”

“You n-need me—Lama Su, Nala Se, they will—”

“I’ll take my chances.”

More than anything, his hands itch to crush the man’s windpipe, but having a dead kaminoan in the elevator would ruin his plan. Instead, he shifts his grip, lifting Chell by one bicep and one toothpick of a leg, and swings as hard as he can. Chell flies in a short arc through the elevator doors— not far enough, Fives notes with alarm, something else!

Thinking fast, he grabs one of the crates, aims and chucks it at Chell just as he’s started to push himself up. The crate lands squarely in his chest, causing Chell’s body to roil backwards, and Fives kicks out the other crate in tandem with pressing the button to keep the doors shut.

“Come on, come on,” he mutters, pressing it again and again, watching as Chell retches, attempting to bring any air into his lungs, and begins to arrange his legs beneath him. “Come on!”

“Get back here,” Chell groans, then launches himself forwards, long legs coiling like a grasshopper beneath him. “Come back!”

The elevator doors close on Chell’s eyes, enormous, black, and hollow.

The elevator ride is silent from there on out. Passing the first two floors, he feels nothing, just the rapid beat of his heart against armor he hasn’t worn in over half a year. By the third floor, his legs have begun to shake, left leg absolutely burning, and on the fifth, they give out beneath him, falling to his knees and heaving a shuddering breath.

He’s out. He’s out. Maybe not off Kamino, not yet, but he’s away from him. Chell and his black eyes and empty words. He’s out.

The elevator stops suddenly, six floors off from where he needs to be, and Fives manages to pull himself up to standing just as the doors open to another trooper. His armor is shiny-white, just like Fives’s, but there’s a few scuffs on the knees and shoulders.

Fives waits. Does he know? Is he about to be arrested already? He’s not armed, he doesn’t have a blaster, if this brother wants to kill him then he’s already dead-

But the trooper walks in, simply giving a nod and pressing a button for his floor.

Not facility-wide known then. Either that, or their exact location was unknown, because there would surely be troopers monitoring the elevators had they known where he and Chell were.

“Longneck’s bag?” the trooper next to him asks.

Fives nearly startles at the question—it’s been a long time since he’s heard his own voice in the mouth of a brother. “Uh—hm?” He looks down at his hands where the other trooper is looking, then remembers that he’d peeled the bag off Chell’s back. “Oh, yeah, yeah,” he says quickly, then clears his throat. “It’s, um, delivery.”

The other clone nods. Two more floors pass.

“How’d you get on delivery duty?”

“Oh, uh…” He huffs a laugh. “Caught sleeping on the job.”

The other trooper lets out a hiss of sympathy. “Tough.”

“Eh, I deserved it.”

“Still. Bet the first part was nasty.”

“First part?”

He co*cks his head quizzically. “Of your punishment,” he clarifies. “I mean, that’s a damn near reconditionable offense. You must have a good officer.”

“’Course,” he coughs. “Yeah, first bit was, um, grueling.”

Another floor. Two floors left.

“Hey, who is your officer, anyways?” The clone shifts his shoulders, cracking his back. “Mind hooking me up? I’ve been thinking ‘bout requesting a transfer.”

“It’s…” One floor. “It’s, uh…”

The other trooper stares at him. “It’s…?”

Ding.

“It’s my floor!” Fives yelps, bolting through as soon as the doors open. “Nice chat, hang tight, good luck!”

“Oh, uh, sure,” the other trooper says, giving a half-hearted salute in goodbye. “Wait, didn’t you say you were delivering—”

The doors close shut on him. Thank the force, Fives thinks, turning tail as quickly as one can when they’re trying not to look like they’re running. That was too close. He’s out of practice, far, far too out of practice. His left leg stumbles a touch beneath him; there’s nobody immediately around to notice him shake it out.

Approaching the hangar bay, it occurs to him that while he knows he’s on the right floor, he has absolutely no idea which shuttle is the right one. There’s five that he can see—two are being loaded, so that rules them out, but three are untouched. Gamble, or inquiry?

There are some troopers milling about, but there are also human officers, four of them. Two for each loading shuttle, or unrelated number? He could try asking them which one is Mir’e Chell’s, but there’s a chance that they might be aware of Lama Su and Nala Se’s directive.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, even he’s not sure how much anybody knows. It’s entirely possible that Chell had caught wind that the two of them were building suspicion, and was so cowardly that he decided to up and leave before even trying to throw them off his trail. He’s also not sure how long that diversion will work for—he’d knocked the wind out of him, sure, and thrown two heavy crates, but it’s not like he killed him. And there’s no way that Chell doesn’t know that Fives is aiming for his shuttle.

So. Limited information, limited amount of time. Quick judgment and gamble it is.

The three shuttles are equal in design, but one of them is startlingly clean. That one probably isn’t it, then—as far as Fives knows, Chell isn’t going off world much, if at all, and he’d have no reason to routinely clean his shuttle. The shuttle Fives is looking for should look as if it’s been sitting in this hangar getting no use for at least half a year. This leaves the other two, which seem near identical from where Fives is standing. He needs to get closer.

It’s harder than it should be, feigning normalcy. His steps feel awkward and unsure, and the weight of Chell’s bag throws his gait too far forward. Not to mention how naked he feels without so much as a single blaster, nevermind his paint and kama. It was admittedly smart of Chell to stash away shiny armor as a disguise, but Fives finds that he’s missing the confidence and authority of his armor rather fiercely.

Thankfully, aside from a few quick glances, nobody pays him any mind as he pads closer to the two shuttles. They’re just as identical as he’d thought, at least at first glance—he’s never been as good with aircrafts as Echo had been, but he’s not as bad as Tup was. There’s a few different linings of metal near the bottoms that indicate that the two shuttles might be slightly different models. Other than that, though, he can’t see much of a distinction.

God. Echo, Tup. Hardcase, too, and even earlier, Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait. He thought he’d be seeing them, back when he’d been shot. He thought he’d finally see his brothers without war on their faces.

He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes closed. No time to think about that. Better they’re dead than puppets.

“Excuse me,” a voice barks, startlingly close behind him. “Trooper, what are you doing?”

Fives turns with a jolt, bringing him face to face with one of the non-clone human officers who had been next to the other two shuttles being loaded. The human is tall, with a sleek grey uniform not unlike the uniform clone navigators would wear. His facial features are mostly obscured by the low brim of his cap, but what is visible is the clear downturn of the corners of his mouth.

Fives opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, the officer says, “The cargo is being loaded onto those two shuttles,” he says primly. “Why were you not here with the others when the loading began? We did not request extra help.” His chin tilts down as he looks over Fives with what he can only presume is disdain. “Especially from a rookie who cannot keep his head on straight.”

“Oh—no, sir, uh,” Fives grits his teeth. What he wouldn’t give to grab this guy by the collar and demand who the hell he thinks he’s talking to like that. Unfortunately, even as an ARC trooper, he was still a clone, meaning that all responses to natborns were yes sir ’s and no sir ’s. He’s got to play it especially dumb, since this guy is buying the shiny look. He props up the bag helplessly. “I was asked to bring this to a different shuttle, but I can’t remember which one is which. Do you,” he wets his lip, sweat beading down. “Do you happen to know which shuttle is which over here?”

The officer narrows his eyes. “No,” he says shortly, “Kamino’s affairs are for Kamino. We are only told where to land and when. Who ordered you to bring that cargo?”

“It was, ah,” Think, think, think! “One of Nala Se’s underlings, she—actually, I think I do remember which shuttle it is now, so I’ll just—”

“Which of her underlings?” He begins tapping on a small tablet, curling his lip in irritation. “I will contact them for clarification and report your incompetence.”

“Oh, no, really sir, it’s—”

“Was this for her, or for the underling specifically?”

“It, ah—I’m not sure, they didn’t say.” He shrugs, attempting for all the world to look like Kamino’s most naive shiny, and probably failing. Failing to anyone familiar with clones, anyways. This officer is decidedly not. He lifts a brow at Fives’s act, but continues to type. “They don’t usually tell us details we don’t need to know,” he tacks on helpfully.

The officer does not reply, clearly unamused. “Hm,” he says after a short moment. “Nala Se is not responding. Perhaps she is busy at the moment.” He looks down his nose at Fives, eyes half-lidded with boredom, and asks, “Are you sure you cannot recall the name of the underling who made the request?”

“It, uh. No, sir, but—”

From behind him, Fives hears the faintest sound of an elevator door, just as the comm in his helmet crackles to life. “Attention all troopers,” he hears, and the moment the words begin, he starts backing away, because he knows, he knows.

“There is a kaminoan scientist accused of illegal experimentation attempting to make his way to Hangar bay six. His name is Mir’e Chell. He will be the only kaminoan present. If spotted, pursue and arrest immediately.”

“What’s going on?” the officer asks, just as other troopers begin to hold their blasters at attention and Fives makes a break for it. “Trooper—?”

No more time for judgment. Fifty-fifty, one or the other, if he picks wrong, he deals, sorry, random other person who needed their shuttle, because Mir’e Chell is here on this floor and he can’t waste any more time.

He bolts towards the shuttle closest to the hangar doors, and, realizing that the lock pad is too high for him to reach—made for kaminoan proportions, of course, of f*cking course—he throws the backpack at it and crosses his fingers for it to open.

Miraculously, it does. The ramp begins to lower with a creak, and Fives grabs the tossed bag, vaulting both it and himself over the side of the ramp as soon as it’s within reach. He’s inside the shuttle now—if he can just get it to start-

“What’s that trooper doing?” someone calls, and someone else yells, “Hey!” Fives takes that as his cue to punch the control pad to close the ramp, even though it’s not done lowering yet. Luckily, this appears to be a model that doesn’t require being fully closed or opened to start the process again—the ramp begins to close, and Fives tears through the shuttle’s tight walkway down to the co*ckpit.

If this is Chell’s ship, then it’ll also be the one that he’s heading towards. He also won’t need to throw a damn bag at the control panel, which means that Fives’s time is dwindling further and further.

A brief scan of the co*ckpit gives him no indication of who this shuttle may belong to, which, considering it appeared to have one purpose only, may actually be a good sign. He sits down in the pilot’s chair and gets a look at the controls. Little different than what he’s used to, but nowhere near as bad as the ships on Umbara. He just needs to get it to start.

Okay, he thinks, popping open a control panel underneath the buttons and wheels, then says aloud to himself, “Okay!”

Hotwiring is a tricky thing, but even his square, blunt fingers can be dexterous. They have to be, considering some of the tasks and maneuvers ARC troopers are meant to do. A bit of fiddling here, a tear of the wire there, then he’s just gotta connect…the blue wires, right? The blue wires?

There’s a creaking sound far behind him, and oh, force, someone’s lowering the ramp again. No time, no time!

He connects the blue wires.

Immediately, the shuttle springs to life, light flooding the co*ckpit and panelings. No time for relief, either, though he’s sure he’ll faint with it sometime soon—the moment the buttons light up, he hits the engine, pulls up on the handles, and he’s in the air.

“Close the hangar doors!” someone shouts—Fives hears it through the comms, too. A brother.

“Sorry vod,” he says through gritted teeth. “Not up for debate.”

From the window, he can see the tiny forms of other troopers on the ground, some seemingly trying to get behind the shuttle, and he presses a button that he hopes controls the ramp from the co*ckpit. Another mechanical groan, and it seems like he got it. The hangar doors are beginning to close, and Fives only has a few seconds—he’s going to clip it, he’s definitely going to clip it, oh god, he’s clipped it-

He clips the wing, and he can’t tell how bad the damage is, but his ship’s not falling and he’s out the doors, into Kamino’s storming skies. He made it.

“I made it,” he breathes. “Oh my god, I made it.”

There are already ships coming behind him, but it’s too late for them. As soon as Fives breaches the atmosphere, he puts in the first random coordinates he can think of, and throws himself into hyperspace.

He made it.

________

The first night, he spends entirely awake, sat in the co*ckpit on high alert. Theoretically speaking, you can’t be pulled out of hyperspace, but he doesn’t know how much has changed since he’s been under Chell’s ‘care’. It had only happened that once. For all he knows, being pulled from hyperspace is a regular occurrence now. Wonders of technology, and all that.

The second night, he nearly spends the same way, but after a single cough makes his throat feel bloody, he realizes that he probably needs to drink something. Eat and drink.

The thought stops him in his tracks. He hasn’t…he hasn’t actually eaten or drunk at all since waking up in Chell’s lab. It hadn’t occurred to him, since every moment of being awake felt somewhat like coming to in the middle of the night and trying to go back to sleep, but yes, now that he thinks about it, he hasn’t consumed anything through his mouth in two-thirds of a year. Assumedly, he’d been hooked up to an IV or something, but the thought is still majorly discomforting.

He clicks his jaw experimentally. It doesn’t feel especially out of use, though he supposes he has technically been moving it. His stomach clenches when he considers the possibility that he has eaten and simply doesn’t remember it due to it being a ‘trial’.

Whether or not that is the case is besides the point. Food and water have become the main priority.

Scouring the ship reveals a hold in which he finds a few rations, though admittedly, not any kind that he recognizes, and, thankfully, water, but there isn’t much. He’s going to have to land somewhere soon to do some actual stocking. He’s eating while thinking about this, and the moment stocking comes to mind, he freezes, causing him to choke on the bar.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he mutters, digging through the hold he’d found the food in. Nothing. Grasping Chell’s bag, he attempts to find a zipper, only to realize that it’s more like a medic’s bag, thick latches with deep grooves. Probably easier for kaminoan fingers to open. Prying the first latch apart, he is met with a small tube of bacta and a roll of gauze. “Helpful,” he mutters under his breath. It’s with the second latch that he’s finally able to breathe—credits. Not much, but any credits are better than no credits. “No way he thought this would be all we’d need,” Fives snorts, thinking, probably had the rest in the other crates?

There’s still another latch on this bag.

The last latch opens the biggest compartment, the part that Fives assumes contains the important things Chell kept close to his chest—the tablet, the recorder, any other sorts of files, and, crucially, the controller. The controller is the only reason why he’d kept the damn thing, though now, glancing at the bacta and the credits, he supposes he’s glad that there were a few other basic survival items. You forget all the things you’re gonna need in an escape, when it’s out of nowhere and life is on the line.

“Well then, Chell,” he murmurs, fingering the latch. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

The moment he opens the third latch, there is a spill of flimsi down the front. It actually makes him startle, embarrassingly enough—he hadn’t expected it to be so stuffed. Which, in hindsight, is ridiculous. Chell was always doing something with anything he had his hands on, and he seemed to acquire new tools by the day. Of course he’d be a hoarder like this.

Pushing the flimsi stack out of the way, he finds a couple more binders filled with flimsi, thankfully in neater stacks, and the tablet at the very back. Fives whistles, letting a rueful grin take over his face. “Bet you’re missing that one,” he says. “Let’s see, recorder, controller…ah, here you are…” The recorder is in a small pocket inside the large compartment, padded so as not to break it. He’s sure the thing is durable enough, but the bag is extremely full, and Chell always seemed to take caution with the oddest things. “Now, controller…”

He empties the big compartment. Then the second. The third. Digs through their pockets, finds every single hidden flap and notch in there. He even finds out that the bag has a secret bottom to it, which is filled to the brim with randomly strewn rations and another stack of credits.

The controller isn’t in there.

“No,” Fives says, “no, you've gotta be f*ckin’ kidding…”

Digging around more is completely fruitless. There are no more compartments, no more pockets, no more secret bottoms. The controller isn’t in there. He’d kept it on him, tucked to his chest in a pocket Fives hadn’t seen. He had lied.

If they ever meet again—if Chell had managed to escape too—he will take Fives again, and this time, he won’t let him go.

________

He avoids sleep for some time after that. How can he possibly sleep, knowing Chell could be right on his tail? There’d been the smallest hope that since he’d been sleeping so long, he’d be able to stay awake longer, until he reached his random coordinates, even, but that’s not how sleep works and he knows it. After about his eighth time of jerking awake at the helm, he admits defeat.

There are four tiny bunks in the shuttle, two on each side of the cramped walkway, and Fives nearly crawls into one of the bottom ones and falls asleep right there before remembering that he should probably strip his armor off first. Removing it is easy, rhythmic and familiar—even after all this time, his hands haven’t forgotten the motions. He’d thought that peeling himself would make him feel worse, unarmored and closer to that shell he’d been on the table, but it ends up being very grounding.

He considers whether or not to throw off the top half of his blacks as well, but decides against it, opting instead for the nostalgic snugness it brings. Many a night was spent scratching at the hems of his blacks before the material would finally soften and settle. These blacks, too, are new, but the scratchiness is merely a reminder that he can feel things at all. It’s a comforting thought to help him slip into sleep.

There’s something under his sleeve. Later, he thinks, vision crossing with exhaustion. Check it later.

________

"—consciousness, as stage two progresses from simple automated movements to full control. Luckily, the transition remains seamless.” There are four clicks of metal. “Are we ready, subject?”

Its eyes are made to blink.

“Facial control is progressing well,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says. “We will delve into finer control at a later date, of course, but eyes and mouth are improving in their delicate movements.”

Its mouth opens and closes, smiles and frowns.

“Today we are trying something new,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says. “It is the beginning of stage two. We are moving on from simple facial actions to simple full-body actions. Let me see you nod.”

It is made to nod.

“Excellent,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says. He smiles. “Our first course of action will be raising your right hand. Let me see…” He presses tiny buttons on a black box. “That should do it.”

Its right hand is made to raise.

“Good!” Dr. Mir’e Chell exclaims. “Incredible. Let us try the left hand.”

Its left hand is made to raise.

“Marvelous. We can try a tilt of the right foot next…”

Its right foot is made to tilt.

“Left foot tilt now.”

Its left foot is made—to tilt—

Dr. Mir’e Chell frowns. “It is a benefit of yours that you are able to act through pain, but I wonder if I should find a way to limit that in such early stages.” His hand grazes its left thigh. “This leg has been giving me nothing but trouble.” He retracts his hand and pulls out his recording device. “Subject has succeeded at moving the hands and feet,” he says. “I will next move on to the forearms and knees. Subject,” he says, addressing it now, “You will be bending your right arm at the elbow, up at the ceiling.”

Its right arm is made to bend at the elbow, up at the ceiling.

________

Fives comes to accompanied by an all-too familiar burn in his chest—he gags, shooting up in his bunk, and only barely misses braining himself on the bottom of the bunk above him. “Dammit,” he gasps, eyes already burning, and he clutches at his chest uselessly through his shirt.

In the midst of the pain, he can’t tell if it’s better or worse that he can finally move, but he can certainly tell that with or without movement the pain is still there. It also makes him hot— his hands slide against both his blacks and each other as he tries to dig his fingers into his skin through the fabric, and he can feel the mattress growing damp beneath his head. The sweat is what brings it from terrible to horrifically claustrophobic. In a last-ditch attempt at comfort, he strips the shirt off and throws it as far as it can go, then collapses against the bunk to stabilize himself and try to breathe.

Even after having these fits more than a few times, he’d never truly figured out a way to fix them other than waiting them out. Chell had been completely unhelpful—always watching him writhe with hungry eyes, curious about the reaction and what it could mean. Personally, Fives doesn’t give a damn what it means—he cares more about what it does, which, currently, is making his heart feel wildly out of rhythm and his lungs empty faster than he can fill them.

Distraction, he thinks, mind trudging through mud, be distracted.

But distracted by what? He has no recent memories that would be good or even entertaining to look back on, and he can’t remember if he dreamed before this or any other night previous. He’ll have to draw on something in the present—except of course, he’s holed up in the most uninteresting shuttle he could possibly be on. Older memories, then? Something funny, something distracting, something, something-

“The trainer said to do one hundred sit-ups.”

Fives’s heart catches in his chest. Not that memory. He’s not ready for that one, not now.

It’s too late. He remembers Echo sitting next to him, in line with Hevy, Cutup, and Droidbait, though at that point, none of them had their names. Fives had rolled his eyes, saying, “Heard ’im the first time.”

“Well, sure,” Echo had shrugged as he began the exercise. “But it doesn’t hurt to say it again.”

“Do you gotta repeat everything they say, or are you tryin’ to get a job as an echo?” Hevy had snarked. Echo had frowned sharply, even as Cutup had laughed and Droidbait had chuckled.

“I want to make sure I get everything right.”

“I think you want to make sure everyone thinks you’re a di’kut.”

Cutup had straight-up cackled at that one, his form for the situps slipping. “Lay off, 782,” Fives had sighed, though admittedly, he’d been stifling his own laughter. “There are worse things than an echo.”

Echo had looked grateful back then, not even realizing that it was Fives who had accidentally sealed his fate on his name. If he hadn't said anything, Hevy probably would’ve forgotten about it, but he’d gone ahead and made a point of calling it out. That only spurred Hevy to use it more. Had Echo known that the joke would never be let go from then on, Fives has a feeling Echo wouldn’t have looked nearly as grateful at his defense of him.

Fives always wondered whether or not Echo grew to like his name—he’d made jokes with it later, but in the beginning, he’d always asked people to stop using it, or frowning at them when they wouldn’t. He hopes Echo liked it by the end. Personally, Fives had always found the name rather pretty, if you ignored its context. Though pretty is perhaps not what Echo would have chosen either, even if it is better than poor Droidbait, who was fresh out of luck in either department.

The pain has dulled to barely a throb by now. The memory hurts more than the hole in his chest.

Brushing his fingers along his chest where the phantom pain is, he’s surprised when he comes upon raised skin—he hadn’t expected there to be a scar, though now that he’s thinking about it, he’s not sure why. He’d just sort of assumed that Chell would’ve gotten rid of those kinds of imperfections.

When he glances down to look at it though, he freezes.

Of course there’s scar tissue where he was shot. A big knot of it, thick, nearly centered on his chest but not quite, and perfectly circular like a coin. He’s seen blaster scars before—this is consistent with every other one that he’s seen. It’s not the blaster scar that steals the air from his chest. It’s the others.

Two thin lines, one on each pectoral, come down his chest in the shape of a V, meeting in the center and continuing in one line downwards. Vivisection, his mind supplies helpfully as his body is stuck. Autopsy scars.

They aren’t the only ones. Each limb has a single vertical line that extends from the very first joint to the very last. The lines are so faint that if you didn’t know what you were looking for, you wouldn’t notice them, but Fives had seen the line on his wrist last night. Check it later, he recalls having thought, and he huffs out a laugh that sounds nearly hysterical. He certainly is checking.

Is this what Chell had been doing this whole time? Cutting open each limb, on the same fine white line, every single day? Every exam? How many exams would he perform in one day? What was the point?

Wait. He has Chell’s tablet.

Tearing out of his bunk, he storms into the co*ckpit where Chell’s bag is discarded, dutifully ignoring any glances at his own skin that he takes and focuses solely on the slim electronic. He flicks through a few of the flimsi files manically, but they seem to be concerning finances, which has absolutely nothing to do with him. The tablet is the key.

Turning it on immediately greets him with a prompt for a passcode. Small hurdle—he’s hacked things before, he’ll hack things again, starting with this. He sits down and gets to work.

________

It takes thirty-two hours for Fives to accept that he cannot hack the tablet.

He tries everything that he can think of—different password combinations, fiddling with the tablet’s mechanics, plugging it into the ship to see if he can access it manually—nothing. He’s blocked from every direction.

Admittedly, his optimism at being able to hack the tablet on his own had been mostly bravado. He never was amazing with technology, not like Echo, who would consume books on just about anything he could get his hands on, and thus had a handful of knowledge about machines and code that Fives never had. Even in the events leading up to his own death, much of the computer work had been done by AZI-3. He’s no hacker. Just happened to get lucky a few times.

The urge to smash the tablet is particularly strong, but he refuses, instead choosing to throw it and everything else in that force–damned bag into the hold where he’d found the rations. Out of sight, out of mind. Course, he’d pulled out the useful stuff, but everything else, he just—he can’t think about it right now. He needs to not think about it.

Kaminoan shuttles must be fancy or something, because while the ship is small, it does have a refresher with a sonic. Meaning, as long as he stocks on fuel and food regularly, this place should function as a home until he’s found a safe place to settle. Somewhere far away from this ‘Empire’ Chell refused to share more information about. If they’re the ones in control of his brothers, he needs to make sure to never encounter them again. He’d come far too close back there on Kamino.

The sonic is proportionately small to the refresher and the ship as a whole, but it’s also tall, meant to accommodate a kaminoan’s stature, meaning he has no trouble slipping inside. A brief glance in the mirror shows that he’s gotten thinner since being shot. Makes sense, table and muscle loss and all that, but it still feels like a low blow. He’ll need to take care of his hair and face as well—Chell had kept it somewhat maintained, but not the way Fives likes it to be. Looks more like Chell would just shave everything once there was too much of it rather than sticking to the original style.

He tries not to think about the scars on his torso as he lets the sonic do its work. Tries not to think about what they mean. It’s impossible not to.

It’s just—he knows that he died. He knows that. But he doesn’t…as much as he liked the barbed feeling it gave to throw around being dead in Chell’s face, he doesn’t actually feel dead. And, as much as he misses his brothers, and despite how awful and numbing the days with Chell could be, now that he’s alive and free, he doesn’t really want to die again. He has a chance to live—were any of his fallen brothers here, they’d tell him to take it.

The scars, though. They’re very real reminders of what happened. Of what he is.

It shouldn’t have to be said that if scientists as disturbed as Lama Su and Nala Se were opposed to Chell’s work on ethics code alone, then there’s no way to call what’s been done to Fives a miracle. He’s an abomination, a mess of invisible tech and sunken code, and who knows what else. Chell never said how he’d gotten Five’s heart to beat again—how had he replaced the tissue? How had he jumpstarted his brain? Which had he focused on first?

“Stop it,” he groans into his palms. He’s not thinking about it. He will not think about it.

He just needs to stock up, learn the new lay of the land, and find a place to lie low.

Exiting the sonic and entering the co*ckpit, he hears the mechanical notification voice of the ship say that he’s received two transmissions. “What kind of transmissions?” he asks, before remembering that the ship isn’t actually AI and cannot answer him.

Checking the screen, he finds the first one to be an encrypted message sent around an hour ago. He must’ve been in the sonic longer than he’d realized. The message won’t tell him what system or ship it comes from, but de-encrypting the text isn’t too much work. He’s nearly made it to the coordinates he’d punched in when he finally gets it.

From: Unknown Sender

To: SC-T873

That is a bad place to start.

Ice spreads from the base of his neck all the way down his spine, heartbeat getting louder in his ears each time he rereads the sentence. Chell knows. Chell knows where he is, he knows where he’s going to land, and he knows that he’s stolen his shuttle. He must have a tracker in his shuttle, or maybe in his tech—he can’t get rid of the tech, not until he figures out a way to hack it, but he might be able to dump the shuttle off somewhere, steal a new one? There’s no way he can afford to buy a new one, but stealing is always on the table. He already stole this one.

Once he’s able to breathe somewhat regularly, he checks the second transmission. This one, in contrast, is not encrypted, and it comes from the planetary system that Kamino resides in. It is extremely blunt:

From: SC-T126

To: SC—T873

I do not know who you are, but you have stolen my shuttlecraft. Surrender the ship at once and you will be treated fairly. The craft is being tracked and you will be apprehended if you resist.

It’s not Chell’s ship.

Just as that begins to sink in, the shuttle exits hyperspace, coming to a stop in front of Geonosis, of all places. It had been the first place he could think of that wasn’t Coruscant—he’d have gone straight there, but Coruscant is—the Chancellor is there, and it’s where Fives…he’s not going to Coruscant.

Chell was right, though. This is absolutely not a good place to start.

Above him is what looks to be a Venator-class Star Destroyer, along with several smaller transports that outsize his shuttle by miles. Geonosis looks sicker than it ever has, surface dull and lifeless, and somehow, Fives feels that this ‘Empire’ is to blame.

The clones are now property of the Empire. It stands to reason that all Republic property has met the same fate.

Fives punches in new coordinates, and before the transmission can even crackle to ask him what he’s doing in this space, he engages the hyperdrive once more.

________

He hadn’t expected that routine to last as long as it has.

He should’ve, really, but he hadn’t. Perhaps not all of his optimism has been sucked out of him. Or at least, back then it hadn’t. Now, he’s not so sure.

Over the last two years, his life has been a blur of hyperspace and pit stops. Nowhere is safe enough to stop for long—he’d managed to destroy the part of the ship that let Kamino and his tracker know his location, but as long as Chell’s tech remains on board, Fives must keep moving. There is no rest. There is only flying and pausing for food and fuel.

Chell has sparsely contacted him in the months since that first message. Ironically enough, he only seems to message if Fives is about to head into a particularly dangerous area; it’s become clear that while Chell would greatly prefer to find Fives, he still doesn’t want him being caught and used by the Empire.

Doesn’t make much sense to Fives. They seem evil enough to let the madman do whatever he wants.

He’s managed to learn more about the Empire during his two years of hiding, though with how out of sight he stays, it’s admittedly very little. During his pit stops and supply runs, he’ll listen in on gossip from locals, or whatever the screens and radios are saying. It all paints the same picture—almost every planet in the galaxy is under the Empire’s hand, and it is hellbent on making sure that the rest will follow. Most of the places Fives ends up stopping are occupied by the Empire’s forces, but they’re quieter, less trouble. He’s heard murmurs of a resistance—hasn’t caught sight of it himself so far, but just the thought of it fills him with both hope and fear. Hope, for the obvious reasons of not knowing much about this Empire but wanting it gone, and fear, because, well. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who the Empire’s soldiers are, and who the resistance would be wary of.

A good disguise is hard to come by, but he makes do. Masks are too distinctive; he’d mark himself as some kind of bounty hunter, and while that might turn away civilians, he doesn’t want to get caught up in any nasty business, Empire or otherwise. Mostly, he utilizes hats, cloaks, and goggles, with the addition of a longer hairstyle and beard. He’d love to cut it back to normal, but regulation cuts seem to only be worn by soldiers these days. Plus, small comfort, but the longer hair hides his tattoo. Not that anyone in the Empire or out of it would know what the tattoo means, but If Chell saw it, or someone Chell had hired, they certainly would.

His life has become a series of smaller and smaller boxes that he fits himself into, all for the purpose of staying alive. The prospect of spending a single year more this way, much less the rest of his life, has begun to drain him.

At least he has his jobs. Bounty hunter, while something technically within his skillset, was completely off the table, so instead he makes his meager credits freelancing. Most of his jobs come by while landing for a refuel, as he’ll generally ask as soon as he lands if anyone needs any extra hands for a couple of credits. Sometimes he gets lucky and sometimes he doesn’t—it’s all the same to him.

He’s had to resort to theft a couple of times. He's had to resort to a lot of things.

The planet he’s on right now was a score for him, which is good, because he’s been running low and people are getting less and less likely to hire the first random stranger they see. He’d done his usual plan—land, negotiate for fuel, dump the last of his credits, then ask around about any jobs—and the seller had shaken her head. She hadn’t known, she’d said, but he might find some luck in the center.

It was then that another woman approached. She was tall, dark-skinned, with a thick set of locs banded with gold. Her smile was sharp and her eyes glittered with wit as she’d said, “You’re asking about jobs?”

He hadn’t liked the idea of her eavesdropping, but she’d cleared it up, thumbed behind her towards her own ship where a large modified power droid sat next to an open ramp. She’d been refueling her tank, and was about to leave when her droid had alerted her to the conversation Fives and the seller were having—apparently, she’d been looking for a bit of muscle to help her transport and unload some cargo.

The job sounded flimsy, but he was desperate. She traded him the name Anne and his job had begun.

It wasn’t a difficult job, and, honestly, he’s sure she could’ve handled it herself, but he felt a bit safer taking it since she hadn’t required he board her ship, only load the rest of her cargo and follow her to the correct coordinates. Still a risk—could’ve been a hire of Chell’s, could be a plan to lure him somewhere and take him out when he least expects it—but he’s got a blaster now, and his rank may be dead, but he’s still an ARC trooper in his bones. He’s not going out without a fight, and he can certainly beat a stick-thin kaminoan who can’t even run.

The coordinates ended up being to Lothal. Dangerous—there’s Imperials crawling all over around there—but their landing was outside of the city, away from the Empire’s prying eyes. It was a camp, though it felt somewhat more like a garage sale, and the only occupants were a tall devaronian man, a handful of youths sorting things in boxes, and several IG-RM thug droids.

“My cargo!” the devaronian had proclaimed with an unnecessary amount of glee once Anne and Fives had touched down and exited their ships. “Phee, have I ever told you that you’re a woman of many talents?”

“He’s a charmer,” she’d snorted to Fives over her shoulder, completely glossing over the name the man had used. Her last name, maybe? A fake one? “Vizago, you don’t gotta tell me anything I already know.”

“Ah, but then I will have no words to say!”

“Now you’re gettin’ the picture!”

They’d shared a raucous round of laughter, during which Fives had not quite known what to do with himself, but Anne had sobered quickly and directed him to start unloading. She seemed to know where to put all of it, but there were a few specific ones Vizago wanted with the youths instead.

“His newest batch of help,” Anne had murmured, a touch of pity in her smile. “They never last long here.”

A chill had gone up Fives’s spine. “Are they in danger?”

“What? No!” Another bark of laughter, though thankfully contained enough not to jostle anything in the box. “They just get tired of him and his damn droids. Soon enough, every kid on Lothal’s gonna know not to take a job from the Broken Horn.”

The job was over soon enough after that. Anne and Vizago had shared some more banter, then quieted as he’d handed her something that she tucked away in a pocket of her leather jacket. Then his volume had risen once more, they said their parting words, and it was over.

Back at the ramp of her ship, she sighs, leaning against the slanted metal from the ground. “Trades aren’t my favorite kinda job, but they make do,” she says. “Gets me what I got to get. Though,” she tilts her chin up, looking over him appraisingly, “I’m sure you don’t gotta be told what that’s like, huh?”

“No,” he agrees. “Speaking of, I’m sorry to be blunt, but my pay—”

“You said your name is Fives,” she interrupts.

“Yes. Does that have to do with, uh—”

“Funny name to give a kid. ‘Fives’.” Her eyes, still crinkled with a grin, are now sharp. His hand shifts unconsciously towards his holster. “I’d wager to guess no parents ever gave you that name?”

She knows. “Look, I don’t know what you’re getting at—”

“You’re not a faster draw than me, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” she continues, grin widening to her canines. “But you don’t gotta worry ‘bout that. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“I’m having a hard time believing that.”

She shrugs, looking for all the world as if they’re talking about something as mundane as the weather, and Fives’s hand weren’t fingering his blaster. “Believe it or don’t,” she says. “I’m just wonderin’ what a clone’s doing out here, all goggled-up and scruffy. Did the others kick you out or something?”

Fives swallows, mind turbulent among the blaring alarm of SHE KNOWS! SHE KNOWS! SHE KNOWS! “I’ve never worked for the Empire,” he says, taking a step back towards his ship. “They didn’t have to kick me out.”

“That’s great,” she says. “Not what I meant, though. Y’know, the others. The group of rebel clones…?” The longer he stays silent, the longer she stares at him, understanding dawning on her all at once. “Oh, damn,” she breathes. “You’re not from Tantiss?”

He takes another step back. His chest is starting to hurt. “The hell is Tantiss?”

“It’s—nevermind.” Her voice turns to a mutter. “We can get to that later. It’s over now.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she leans forward, scrutinizing him openly, and when he steps back once more, she takes a step forward. “How long have you been on your own?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Shockingly, she leans back, gives him another shrug and says, “Guess not. But it might be your brothers’ business if you wanna see ‘em.”

Yes is the instinctive response, then no, because for the past two years, brothers has equaled enemy. He needs to think above the panic, though— rebel clones. A group of rebel clones.

A final step back, and his left leg flares up, eliciting a hiss and nearly making him buckle. He hadn’t been careful with it today, what with the cargo loading and unloading.

Anne peers at him with mild concern. “You alright?”

“Fine,” he grunts, pulling himself back up straight. “You said—these clones are rebels.”

“Chips out and everything.”

“You—” Mouth agape, it is him who steps forwards this time, too eagerly, but Anne stays where she is. “You know about the chips?”

Her brow raises, and the grin returns, a touch sly but not unkind. “Sure I do,” she says. “I’ve known a few of your kind. They helped me out, I helped them out…” She tilts her head left and right for emphasis, then lets out a puff of air. “Lotta fun, that group. Lotta fun.”

It’s dangerous. Unwise. Risky and unsure. It goes against everything Fives has told himself for the past two years.

But Fives is also desperate, and he’s tired.

“Inside,” he mutters under his breath, and leads her into his shuttle.

Upon entering, she whistles, scanning the white and grey walls, minimal bunks, and rows of seats flush to the sides. He hasn’t done much to the interior in his two years of having it, but he’s tried his best to make it feel at least somewhat livable. The dartboard at the end of the hallway is probably his favorite piece of decor.

“Never been in a kaminoan shuttle before,” she says. “You stole it?”

“Yeah, I—” He pauses at the door of the hold. “How’d you know it’s from Kamino?”

“I’m a pilot, I see things!”

Probably not the truth, but he doesn’t really have time to think about it. He has to do this before the simple panic at someone recognizing him for what he is overtakes his drive.

Inside the hold is Chell’s bag, along with every bit of his work that Fives had dumped in there on his third day here. It’s started to gather dust—he hasn’t opened the hold since then. Just another thing to add to the list of what he’s given up on.

A quick look at her face shows no recognition of the items, but Fives doesn’t doubt that she’s skilled at schooling her expression. Still, the blank look is promising. “Is this supposed to be something, or…?”

“I need a hacker,” he spits out quickly. “I want—you said I could see my brothers. I want to. But I can’t until this is all taken care of.”

“And this is…?”

“It’s—” Careful. He can’t trust her, not yet. Bits and pieces. “Someone has been tracking me—following me,” he starts, “using this tech.”

“Mm-hm.” She purses her lips together. “And you haven’t gotten rid of the tech ‘cause you need—”

“‘Cause I need what’s on the tech, yes.” It all comes out in a rush—he feels flayed, suddenly, talking about it after trying not to even think about it for so long. “If someone can hack this tech, then I can get the information from it to—to fix something, and then I can stop running.” He looks out the wayfinder at Lothal’s dusty surface, at Vizalgo’s shrunken camp. “It can all be over.”

Anne is quiet for a few moments. Her crossed arms have gone from loose to a bit tight, and her bottom lip catches between her teeth as she mulls over whatever it is in her head that she’s thinking about. “This guy that’s following you,” she says slowly. “He dangerous?”

“To me,” Fives replies, closing his eyes. “I don’t know about anyone else.”

“And it’s just one guy.”

“Far as I know.”

“Alright,” she says, nodding her head softly, before giving one more affirmative nod. “Alright. Here’s the plan. I’m gonna give you some coordinates. You land, find a man named Shep Hazard. Tell ‘im Phee sent you. Ask him for a clone named Hunter. Tell ‘im what you told me, and he’ll get you in contact with that rebel group.”

“I—but, the tracker—”

“Trust me,” she says. Her eyes glint in the dim light of the ship, catlike grin full of pride. “These guys know their stuff. Hell, woulda been an easy job for just them before, but…” The grin dims for a brief second before lifting back up. “Well, like I said. It’s over now. More than one hacker in that group.” She leans her shoulder against the doorframe of the hold, then reaches into one of her pockets and pulls out a rod, extending it in the space between them. “Sound like a plan?” she says, and he’s absolutely sure it’s the same way she would say, we have a deal?

The rod hangs between her fingertips.

After a few beats of hesitation, he grasps it, pulling it towards his chest with no resistance from her. “Yes,” he replies determinedly.

“Now that’s what I like to hear.”

It’s only as she’s at the very bottom of his ramp, about to depart to her own ship, that he remembers how their conversation started.

“Wait,” he calls out, causing her to turn. “Uh—my pay?”

“Oh, right!” she laughs, then digs something out from the inside of her jacket and throws it in a neat arc up the ramp. “Catch!”

Instinct kicks in, and he does, helped by her precise aim. She’d thrown him a bag—opening it, however, he frowns, shifting the credits inside before yelling, “This is only half!”

“Precaution!” she shouts back. She’s already halfway up her own ramp, damn her. “I’ll give you the rest once I know you haven’t gotten my friends killed!”

With that, Anne, whose name may very well not actually be Anne at all, disappears into her ship, and she’s gone only mere moments later.

Fives pulls the rod back out and rolls it in his palm.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up. He really, really doesn’t. But old habits die hard, and he’s always been an optimist.

This might finally be the start to the end.

________

The planetary coordinates lead to one of the most remote planets Fives has ever been. It’s beautiful, a large, blue expanse, with dottings of land on the surface, but he doesn’t have time to explore anywhere else. The surface coordinates guide him to a particularly tall island that is mountainous in shape, with sloping rings down the sides that become more visible the closer to landing he gets.

Speaking of landing, he’s not entirely sure where to do that. There’s a flat space right on the tip of the island that might work, but there’s structures, too, and tiny dots that are probably people. He has no way of communicating that he’s going to land—sure, most people would clear if they saw a ship, but he’s not gonna bank on ‘most’.

He directs the ship down towards the beach instead, where there seems to be plenty of space, but it’s rather rocky. The landing will require a delicate touch—luckily, he has a small ship, so it should be easy.

After the sixth maneuver of lift, turn, lower, turn, lift, turn, lower, he finally manages to touch down on a tall rock with a relatively smooth top. Good enough.

“Had some trouble with that?” a voice calls, as soon as he’d finished lowering his ramp and climbing down the rock to the sand below.

The voice came from a woman, older, short and square with a net full of fish draped across her broad back. He flushes at her knowing smile and raised brow— teasing, that’s what her tone had been. She’s teasing him.

“Maybe a little,” he replies, scratching the back of his neck where the heat of embarrassment is the worst. “Sorry, I’m, uh—not accustomed to beach landings.”

“Most of us aren’t,” she agrees. “Name’s Meira.” She gives him a brief once-over, then asks, “You a clone?”

No judgment in her voice. Anne had said that this place had met their fair share of them. Pushing down his nerves, he says, “Yes, I—I was told to find a man named Shep Hazard?”

“That makes sense,” she says. “C’mon, I’ll show you to the town square. He's usually out and about around now.”

As they walk, Meira explains a few things: the planet is called Pabu, Shep Hazard is the mayor, and yes, there are plenty of clones.

“Lot of you took refuge here after that whole,” she’d shuddered, “well, you know.”

He hadn’t, but based on that, he’d decided to save the questioning for this ‘Hunter’ he’s supposed to meet.

By the time she’s led him to the town center, he can already understand why so many clones—so many people, of course, but clones especially—would make this place a home. It’s beautiful, with stone-cobbled streets and blue skies, warm air that smells like salt. This place is surrounded by water in the exact opposite way that Kamino was. Kamino’s waters had been storming, its structures impersonal. It had been a lonely smudge of metal in the ocean.

Pabu is anything but lonely. People are everywhere, and once he’s not so overwhelmed, he’s sure that he’ll find that comforting. There's no doubt in his mind that a clone seeking refuge would be in awe of a place such as this. “Is that—is that a cadet?” he asks at the end of their walk, watching as a young boy runs by with a face Fives is absolutely sure he’d seen in his own mirror years ago.

“A clone kid?” she asks. At his nod, she replies, “We’ve got three of them here. You probably spotted Mox—he’s taken to trying to get up on the roofs.”

Anne really did take a risk with this. He’s starting to understand the halved pay.

The man puts a steadying hand on the shoulder of whoever he’d been talking to and says something to them—they nod, backing off, and he watches them recede for a moment before turning towards Fives and Meira.

Kind eyes, is the first thing Fives thinks when he sees him. Everything about Shep Hazard is inviting—the soft slope of his face and shoulders, his easy stance, and the warm smile he greets Meira with all display an air of openness that Fives cannot find it in himself to be suspicious of yet. “Meira,” Shep says. His voice is just as warm as his smile. “I think the term is ‘guest’.”

“Stray suits him better,” she says as she claps his back, pushing him forwards. “Go on then, you said you needed to talk.”

“Right. Yes.” He glances between Meira, Shep, and the center, trying and failing to get his brain to stop cataloging every surrounding person and to instead focus on the man in front of him. Tries harder to remember exactly what the instructions were that Phee gave. “I need to, uh—” Wait, did asking for Hunter come before or after telling Shep about ‘Phee’? “I was—Phee sent me?”

“A friend of Phee’s is a friend of ours,” Shep says. “Are you a defector from the Empire?”

“No, I—I’ve never been a part of that.”

His brows raise a touch. “You’ve been on your own, then?”

“Yes. She said—I need help, um—specialized help. She said you could direct me to another clone named Hunter?”

At that, Shep chuckles, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “Always those boys,” he sighs, opening his eyes halfway and looking past Fives towards the horizon. “Thank you for bringing him up here, Meira. Sorry to distract from your fishing.”

She waves a hand dismissively. “He can make it up to me later by helping me with my load. I could use a young boy like him for things my back says no to.”

“I’m sure he’d be happy to,” Shep says, then turns back to Fives. “Why don’t we go meet the boys first?”

________

First look: Hunter is not a clone.

Second look: Hunter has a clone’s nose, but he is still not a clone.

Third look: Hunter has a clone’s nose and eyes, but he definitely can’t be a clone, right?

“Shep,” Hunter greets, standing in the open doorway of a small stone structure near the base of the island. Hunter’s voice sure sounds like a clone’s. Still, though—is he really? “Who’s that with you?”

“A friend of Phee’s,” Shep answers. Fives is starting to catch on that Anne is probably the fake name, not Phee. When Shep turns back towards Fives, there’s a flicker of surprise across his face, followed by a guilty smile. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I forgot to ask your name.”

Hunter’s eyes flick towards him. His eyes are slightly lighter than the standard clone’s, but that’s a relatively common defect. Is he a clone?

“Got one then?” Hunter prompts again. Fives realizes he’s been silent just a tad too long.

“Yes,” he says, then, “right, yeah, it—it’s Fives.”

Hunter levels a gaze at him, brows lowered. “Fives,” he repeats.

Fives swallows. Something is wrong.

“He said he needed help,” Shep says, oblivious or uncaring to the sudden cold the air has taken on. “Specialized help. Phee sent him to you.”

“She said you could get me in contact with the rebel clones,” he says, choosing his words carefully. His chest starts to throb with the echo of an ache, and his fingers itch for his holster.

After a few beats, Hunter’s expression smooths, rippling back to the same laid-back face he’d had the moment he’d opened the door. He steps back and to the side, extending a hand past the doorway into the house, and says, “Thanks for bringin’ him, Shep. We’ll take it from here.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Shep says kindly. He places a large hand on Fives’s shoulder, and says, “If you need anything else, you know where to find me, alright?”

Fives nods. He doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he might be walking right into a trap. Best not to worry the locals, anyways—if he has to fight this maybe-clone, then he’ll do it as quickly and cleanly as he can, then leave. The people of Pabu don’t need Chell to disrupt their peace.

“Come along then,” Hunter says, gesturing once more through the door. “Fives.”

Breathe in. Breathe out. Act normal, and play along.

Fives walks inside.

The interior of the stony house is exactly what one would expect a house to look like, if a bit more barren. Smooth tile floors, a small couch, a counter with various supplies and utensils scattered about. No wall decor, though there are a few hooks where things could go. As far as spy bases or bounty hunter lairs go, it appears to be an extraordinarily normal house.

Hunter closes the door on Shep as soon as Fives is through. “Take a seat,” he says, gesturing to a round table by the window. There are six chairs, so Fives picks the one closest to the wall, where he has the best view of both the door and the rest of the room, along with the window in his periphery.

As soon as Fives sits, Hunter snorts. “What?” he asks. He can’t possibly need to be defensive over a chair.

“Nothin’,” he says, sitting in the seat across from him. “Just, ah. Later.” The softer expression his face had taken with the laugh sobers immediately, before deepening further into a downright intimidation tactic. “Who are you?”

Fives opens his mouth, then pauses. That’s—not the question he was expecting. “What does that mean?” he asks. His fists tighten and release rhythmically against his knees.

“It means,” Hunter drawls, “that Fives is dead. And I know a couple people who really won’t like someone parading around wearin’ their dead friend’s name.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he starts. “I’m not—I mean, I was, that actually is part of the problem here—”

“You were what,” Hunter counters, “you were dead?”

“You make it sound impossible!”

“It is impossible!”

“Clearly not!” Fives throws his hands in the air, more frustrated now than wary. He thought he’d be dealing with an impersonation of a good man, not someone thinking that he’s the impersonation. “How can I prove that I’m him? I can tell you about the battles I was in? I’ve got my tattoo, here.” He pulls down his hood and lifts a chunk of hair off of his forehead, just enough to reveal the 5 at his temple. “That good enough?”

“I’ll admit, it’s not every day a fake comes along and claims they came back from the dead, rather than just saying they lived,” Hunter mutters. “But I still can’t say I believe you.”

Fives scoffs, trying very hard to resist the impulse to stand up and shake Hunter by the shoulders. “And what about you, then?” he asks. “They said you were a clone. You don’t look like a clone.”

That gets a laugh out of him, but it’s not a nice laugh. More shocked than anything. “Haven’t heard that one in a while,” he says. “Maybe you aren’t lying. Most of the regs get it by now.”

“So, what, then? You are a clone?”

“A defective one,” he confirms with a nod. “Me and my batch, we were defective with advantageous mutations. Heard of Clone Force 99?”

He hasn’t, but. But.

“Ninety-nine,” he repeats, tracing a line in the wood of the tabletop. “Good choice.” Another fallen brother. Arguably the bravest of them all, considering the odds stacked against him. “So there’s more of you?”

“Let’s get back on topic,” Hunter deflects, not even trying to hide it. “You’re claiming that you really are Fives, and that you’ve come back from the dead.”

“Well when you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous.”

Hunter raises a brow at him.

“Okay, it is ridiculous,” Fives admits, dragging a hand through his hair. “I knew it’d be a long shot, but you try explaining this sort of thing.”

“You first,” Hunter drawls.

“I am. I’m just not sure where to start.”

“Well, why not with the ‘how’?”

This man is really starting to get on Fives’s nerves. Probably unfair, considering the fact that were their positions switched, Fives would’ve just called the guy mad and kicked him out, but still. Hard to be rational when there’s the itch of autopsy scarring right under your shirt.

Taking a breath, he starts from the beginning, saying, “After I died, I woke up on a table in a lab.” He searches Hunter’s face for any sign of reaction, but he finds none. He’s better than most brothers at keeping a poker face. “A kaminoan called Mir’e Chell had taken my body and experimented on it. He’s the one who brought me back.” An unconscious hand drifts to his chest, picking lightly at the fabric over his blaster scar. “He’s the one who’s tracking me.”

At that word, Hunter shoots forwards, hands slamming down on the table with his weight. “You’re being tracked?”

“That’s why I need help,” he stresses. “Chell, he—he did something to me, something—I don’t know. I don’t remember. He’s tracking his tech, I think, and I’ve tried scrambling the signal—”

“Throw out the damn tech!”

"—but I can’t throw it out yet, because that tech is the only thing that can tell me what he did.” The hand in his hair tugs and pulls, a habit he’s picked up after wearing it long. The sharp prick of pain brings his mind back into focus. “Anne—er, Phee, she said it was a risk, sending me here, but she knew about the tracking and she said the rebel clones could help.”

“Did you tell her about the whole being dead part?”

Fives winces. “That—” Alright, Hunter has him there. He doesn’t have a good defense for that one. “If I’d told her that, she’d have called me crazy. Plus, it’s—I mean, it’s not like I go around telling everyone. It's personal, yeah?”

He kind of deserves the look Hunter gives him after that one.

“I just need to find out what’s in that tablet, then I can trash it,” Fives insists. “The second we crack it, it’s gone, and Chell’s gonna be off my tail.”

Hunter’s fingers drum on the table. “You’re sure it’s the tech he’s tracking?”

“I—I mean, yeah, I think so.”

There’s a long stretch of silence where the only sound is fingers on wood. With each second that passes, Fives loses a little more hope, thinking of Chell in his stupid shuttle, getting closer and closer every minute he spends sitting here doing nothing. He’s never been so close—he’s never been this far.

Finally, Hunter sighs, leaning back in his chair enough to make the wood protest. “I can’t say I believe you about the zombie ordeal,” he says, making Fives snort humorlessly. “But I do believe that you believe that you’re Fives, and that you need help.”

“So you’ll—”

“I’m going to contact them,” he explains, raising a flat hand. “I can’t make any promises on what they’ll be able to do. And,” his brows furrow again, intimidation only offset by the large and, frankly, ridiculous skull tattoo taking up half his face. “If they find out you’re lying, and pretending to be their dead brother for some damn reason, well. I can’t promise what’ll happen with that either.”

Fives collapses back, body going boneless with relief. “Thank you,” he says. He scrubs both hands over his face, pulling at the tight skin around his eyes and wiping away the nervous sweat that had gathered at his temples. “Really, thank you.”

Hunter merely sighs, replying quietly, “Don’t thank me yet.”

It is then that the door creaks open, letting the last of the daylight spill through, and suddenly, there is chatter—a lot of chatter. Before Fives can react, three people enter the room, a girl first, somewhere around twelve years old, followed by a behemoth of a man who’s crowing loudly about a fish, and the third is a man who seems to be entirely made of bone and sinew. All of them look different, and yet all of them sound exactly the same.

The girl notices Fives first. Her eyes, standard clone brown, catch his, and she frowns curiously.

“Hunter, who’s this?”

________

“This will be trial seventeen of stage two.” Dr. Mir’e Chell walks to its right side. “We have affirmed full functionality of each separate limb, torso, and vocal functions. Today we will begin testing multiple functions at once. Subject,” he taps the black box, “the command I am inputting will have you use both of your arms to push yourself up into a sitting position. I will also have you reply with, ‘Yes, doctor’.”

“Yes, doctor,” it is made to reply. It is made to use both of its arms to push itself up into a seated position.

“Absolutely incredible,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says. “Since trial thirteen, I have pre-programmed several phrases that will work as automatic responses if I am at too far of a distance for control, but I am also able to trigger them manually. Let us try one of the automatic responses.” He clears his throat. “Excuse me.”

“Oh, sorry,” it replies automatically.

Dr. Mir’e Chell clicks his tongue. “Delivery could be more natural, but it works,” he says. “Another—do you have the credits?”

“Yes, here,” it replies automatically.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“What is your name?”

“Fives,” it replies.

“What—?” Dr. Mir’e Chell snaps his head up from the black box. “That is not the correct response. One more time—what is your name?”

“Fives,” it replies.

Dr. Mir’e Chell steps back. “Well,” he says. “That is frustrating. One moment.”

He goes quiet.

He goes quiet for a long time.

It blinks once. “There,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says. “Again. What is your name?”

“Nova,” it replies automatically.

“There,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says. He smiles. “That’s better.”

________

Hunter said it would take at least one full rotation before the rebel clones would arrive. The time is almost up by now, and he’s still yet to tell Fives exactly who it is that’s coming.

“Is this some kind of test?” he’d tried asking, and when Hunter hadn’t responded, he’d said, “Oh, you’re definitely testing me.”

“He’s testing you,” Omega had confirmed cheekily.

He’s spent the hours of waiting passing the time by getting to know the clones of Clone Force 99.

“Sounds so official,” Wrecker had cringed when Fives had asked about the name. “We’re the Bad Batch.”

He’d said it with this huge grin, voice dangerously lowered to inspire fear and admiration, but Fives didn’t have the heart to tell the poor lug that Clone Force 99 was not only more official, but simply a much better name, and that ‘The Bad Batch’ sounded, well…stupid.

Wrecker is kind, at least, and gets over his suspicions rather quickly once he sees the tattoo on Five’s head. He’d been the most ready to physically throw him off the island, actually, but after that, he’d calmed down. Quick-to-anger, quick-to-calm type, Fives figures. Realizing how much he reminded him of Hardcase with his jokes and of Hevy with his talk of weapons had made Fives warm up to him considerably faster as well.

Crosshair, the skinny one, refuses to let up on him.

“You just gonna keep staring, or are you gonna say something?” Fives had challenged once, when he’d caught Crosshair blatantly glaring at him from across the yard, where he’d sat perched on the patio in the shade.

Crosshair had taken his time with a response. The man’s missing a hand, but in its place is one of the most peculiar prosthetics Fives has ever seen. It must be some sort of multi-functional device—this had become apparent when he’d used the tool to pluck a toothpick out of his pocket, and replace the one in his mouth. “I don’t trust you,” he’d said plainly.

Fives probably should’ve said something else, but the only thing he could think to say in the moment was, “Why didn’t you just use your other hand?”

Yeah, that hadn’t gone over too well. Good thing he’s plenty accustomed to moody rookies who like to storm off.

By far the most interesting one is Omega. He’d heard Skywalker briefly talk of the young clone Boba Fett, but he’d never seen the boy himself. Looks like there’s another Jango clone who differs from the rest.

“Sorry you’re stuck here,” Omega had said after walking up to him alone for the first time. “Hunter just wants to be careful.”

“I know,” he’d sighed. He’s on what Wrecker had affectionately deemed house arrest— essentially, he’s in the batch’s eyeline at all times until the rebel clones arrive. “It’s not so bad.”

She’d nodded, fists gently curling into the grass they’d sat in. “Ignore them,” she whispers, not bothering to clarify who ‘they’ are. She hadn’t needed to—Fives could feel their eyes on the back of his neck through the window like hawks. “They’re always like this.”

“Eh, I’ve had worse.”

“You don’t have to live with it.”

He’d let out a snort of laughter, which had made her grin—something about the way she held herself, the straight set of her back and the confident upward tilt of her chin, had reminded him bizarrely of Echo in that moment.

All in all, they’re a bit of an odd bunch, but nothing he can’t handle. It’s nice to be around other clones again, even if they are all either somewhat or completely convinced he’s planning to…kill them? He’s not really sure what they think his goals are. Infiltrate the rebels?

Whatever it is they think, he understands the why of it. He just wishes that he could make them understand that his story’s all true.

“Okay, example,” he’s saying to Hunter, forced to tag along while he goes to an area of the island lined with food stalls and marketplaces. “Say I’m, I dunno, a clone of a clone, or a reprogrammed clone, or whatever.”

“Alright.”

“Why the hell would they do that?” He watches as Hunter exchanges a few words with the grocer, piling some fruit into a bag, before continuing. “Why so complicated? Pick an infamous clone who died under mysterious circ*mstances, make new clone think he’s that clone, then make new clone deliver the most ridiculous story possible to other clones?”

“It is strange,” Hunter says, surface-level agreement completely offset by the fact that he’s clearly distracted by some dried meat in the window of a butcher’s shop.

Fives pulls his hair back into a ponytail, mostly just to give his hands something to do—Hunter won’t even let him hold any bags, that’s how low the trust here is. “And why not have me just want to join the rebellion or something? Why put all this effort into a story that ends with me f*cking off somewhere else?”

“What if the story doesn’t end with you f*cking off somewhere else? Oh.” His attention’s on the dried meat again, walking through the door of the shop. “Elir! How much today?”

“On the house for you lot,” the person behind the counter says. They’re butchering a fish, but put the knife aside briefly to say, “Wrecker helped me unload my stock yesterday, so I owe him one!”

“Lucky break,” Hunter whistles. “Help me get these down.”

“Fine. But like I was saying—” He tugs at the meat on the string, not entirely sure what he’s supposed to do with it, before watching Hunter untie the knot and pull out a woven bag that seems reserved for the meat. “Like I was saying,” he says again, untying the knot this time, “It just makes no sense! And why would I give you some story about being tracked! Doesn’t that make me more suspicious, more dangerous?”

“Ah, and he almost gets it.”

“Hunter.”

“I know, I know,” he sighs, waving a hand to Elir as they exit the shop with their haul. “Look, Fives, I hear what you’re saying—but I already believe that you believe what you’re saying. Why’re you trying to convince me of the other stuff?”

“Well, it’s also for him,” Fives grumbles, thumbing behind his back. A few feet away, Crosshair is watching them in the crowd, tailing them in such an obvious fashion that Fives is sure it’s on purpose.

Hunter lets out a laugh. “He’s not a bat.”

“He definitely put a listening device on at least one of us.”

A shrug from Hunter, but it’s not a surprised reaction in the slightest. “That’s Cross for you,” he says.

There is a way to get them to believe you, a tantalizing, awful little voice in Fives’s head whispers. You can show them your-

A beep from Hunter’s side interrupts his train of thought, and he swallows, glad for the distraction. He’s not—no. They don’t need to see those. That’s a last resort.

They pause in the street so Hunter can check his comm, and Fives’s left knee clicks unpleasantly with the sudden stop. “They’re landing soon,” Hunter says, voice dropping back into a serious tone. “Let’s meet 'em up top.”

Fives tilts his head back, and back, and back, back as far as it’ll go so that he can see the tallest point of the island. His knee clicks again, feeling hot under his pantleg. “Great.”

________

The walk all the way back up ranges from ‘mildly annoying’ to ‘absolutely excruciating’, all depending on the changing elevation of the winding path.

Hunter had frowned down at his leg during a point in which the road was particularly steep. “You alright there?” he’d asked.

“Fine,” Fives had spat. “M’fine.”

If this leg thing is Chell’s fault, and they ever do have the unlucky fate of meeting again, Fives is absolutely going to kill him. Well—he’d sorta been planning on killing him in that circ*mstance anyways, but it’s just another nail in the frog’s coffin.

The top of the island is just as beautiful as it was yesterday, and just as bustling. He’s glad he hadn’t tried to land here himself—as soon as the ship appears in the air, everyone starts shouting, Hunter hollering to make room, and Wrecker, who had just made it in time along with Omega, picking up two kids in the ship’s blindspot. Crosshair doesn’t shout, but he does wave for people to move, which is probably decent enough of him.

“You’re clear,” Hunter says into his comm once the space is emptied enough to fit the heap of metal.

He watches it land with an indiscernible feeling welling up in his bones. Excitement is part of it—his brothers are here, just a few feet away, and, going off of Hunter’s hints, brothers he knows. Brothers who know him. He'd been so preoccupied by the adrenaline rush of Hunter’s agreement that he hadn’t really had time to process it then, but now, watching the ship touch down, it’s hard to believe that it’s really happening. Could any of his closest brothers really have survived? Jesse, Kix? Rex?

There’s more to it, though, there’s—fear, maybe, or apprehension. These brothers are coming in with the same suspicions as Clone Force 99, and perhaps, due to their supposed connection, even moreso. It will be difficult to convince them of his innocence, not to mention his reality.

That’s where the deeper fear lies. Hunter is testing him here, he knows it. What if Hunter’s test proves Fives wrong?

“He what?” Hunter says into his comm suddenly, then pinches his eyes closed, bringing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and pressing harshly. “That damn…well, did you tell him?” A pause. “Are you serious?”

Fives is about to ask what’s wrong, but then the ship lands, Hunter puts his comm away, and, after only a few moments more, the ramp begins to lower.

Two clones—one clad in armor of white and blue, the other, red and black. They get closer, and Fives realizes, even before he takes the helmet off, who it is that’s walking down, who’s coming towards him with dual blasters at his sides and kama brushing his knees.

“Rex,” Fives breathes out. Hunter’s lips press thin.

He looks the same as he always has, standing tall and firm with a military glare. His hair is still shaved meticulously, face still bare with only the slightest hint of stubble grazing his jaw, and no new scarring marrs his skin. The only difference between then and now is deeper bags under his eyes and filthier armor.

The other one sticks right to Rex’s heels, a bit to the left, and the closer he gets, the more Fives’s heart sinks.

He has absolutely no idea who the other clone is.

Hunter is right about you, his traitorous mind hisses, but he squashes that down immediately. Fives knows what happened to him. Fives knows it’s real. This is just—it’s a mishap, or something. His brain’s been f*cked with twice-over, he’s bound to have some memory issues.

Seriously, though, the longer Fives looks at him, the more sure he is that he’s never seen the man before in his life. Ghastly pale, for one thing—hair, eyes, things like that, those would all vary between clones, but skin tone seemed to remain rather consistent. He’d seen the odd few with albinism, a couple more with vitiligo, but this…this is not that. This doesn’t look natural.

There’s strange buds on his head too, little grey knobs that circle all around his scalp, and, perhaps most strikingly, he’s got a droid’s scomp for a right arm. A man this distinctive, Fives is sure he’d remember. Maybe a new friend of Rex’s just tagged along?

The two of their feet meet the ground, and Hunter starts walking forwards, which means that Fives starts walking forwards, to meet them in the middle. He hadn’t expected to feel nervous, but seeing his captain, still strong and armored and clean-cut, suddenly makes him very conscious of his sh*tty clothes and even sh*ttier leather armor he’d managed to buy. A piece of unkempt hair falls out of his tie and into his eyes.

His nerves aren't helped by the fact that the last time they’d seen each other, Fives was literally on death’s door, and Rex was begging him to stay alive. He’d also been half-mad and paranoid, driven by improper surgery and too many hours awake, not to mention Nala Se’s drug. The urge to make a good impression grows stronger.

“Rex,” he says, standing as straight as he can manage with his leg on fire. “Captain.”

Rex levels him with guarded eyes. “This is him,” he says flatly, directed at Hunter but never taking his gaze off of Fives.

“Yeah. But, uh—”

“Who?” the other clone asks. He steps forward curiously, arching a brow at Fives’s long hair and scruffy beard. “You didn’t tell me it was another pickup.”

“I…” Rex shifts where he stands, guards dropping for a single moment, long enough to see the unease that Rex himself is trying not to show. “Look, it’s—it’s complicated.”

“Rex,” he says, drawing out the name long and slow. His eyes, mostly standard clone color but oddly filtered, like they’re behind a milky film, narrow dangerously. “What aren’t you telling me? Why didn’t you want me to come?”

Rex looks to Hunter desperately, who looks back at him just as desperately, if not moreso. Neither of them want to break the news to him. Maybe it has something to do with his story? Given this clone’s condition, there’s no way in hell he hasn’t gone through something absolutely mental. Perhaps they’re in similar boats.

Well, no clone’s ever done well with being patronized. Looks like it’s up to Fives to break the ice.

“Name’s Fives,” he says, sticking out a hand in greeting. “They’re probably bein’ cagey ‘cause I died.”

The other clone stares at him.

Actually, they’re all staring at him.

“What did you say?” the other clone asks. His voice is so quiet, it might as well have been a thought.

“It’s, uh, pretty weird,” he says, trying for a grin and failing miserably. Those milky eyes bore into him like drills, and his hand goes unshaken. “Guess it’s a lot to drop on someone—”

“No,” he interrupts. “Your name.” His voice gets louder as he says again, “Tell me your name.”

“Echo, wait—”

Before he can respond, the clone’s hand is on him, using his metal forearm to brace himself as he rips Fives’s hair out its tie and away from his temple.

“What the hell?” he snarls, jerking back, but the pale clone holds firm, using Fives’s imbalance to kick a heel to the side of his knee and force him to the ground. “sh*t—”

“f*ckin’ liar,” the other clone spits venomously. “You’re lying, you’re a goddamn liar, f*cking lying-!”

“Echo, stop!” Rex shouts. He comes up from behind and pulls the clone’s arms away, and the other clone stumbles back on shaking legs. His eyes are completely wild, lips pulled back far enough to see the gums, and-

What had Rex called him?

“Did you know about this?” the clone demands, attempting to tear his arms from Rex’s grip, but he holds firm.

“Yes,” Rex answers bluntly. “This is exactly why I didn’t want you to come.”

He whips his head towards Hunter. “You didn’t think to message me? Let me know about this—this f*cking—” His hand spasms in Rex’s grasp, tilted as far in Fives’s direction as it can go. “About this?”

“You need to calm down, soldier,” Rex says. “That’s an order.”

“Tellin’ me to calm down when there’s a damned—”

“That’s an order.”

Fives watches the clone swallow down his anger, watches the way his chest rises and falls, watches as he screws his eyes closed and counts to ten before yanking his hand away a second time, and this time, Rex lets him go. He watches the clone stand on unnaturally steady feet.

“Echo?” Fives asks softly.

The clone finally looks at him, at him, not through him or at his temple where his tattoo would be.

It can’t be.

It can’t.

Echo is—Fives saw-

His tongue feels glued to the roof of his mouth. “You died.”

Echo’s lip curls into a sneer—that’s the same face he’d make at tactical droids giving them trouble, or Hardcase when he’d tried describing a lewd book he’d pick up on Coruscant in far too much detail. Echo’s face of disgust is unmistakable. “Don’t tell me who did and didn’t f*ckin’ die,” he mutters.

“What happened to you?” Fives asks. Horror dawns on him as he takes it all in again, the sickly white skin, the missing arm, the plugs in his head and the disorienting stillness of his legs. He’d looked at this clone and figured immediately that he’d gone through hell— Echo went through hell.

Echo doesn’t respond, ripping his gaze away, and folds his arms over his chest. “I can’t,” he says under his breath, “Rex, I can’t—right now, it’s—”

“I know,” Rex sighs. “I know. Do what you need to do.”

Given permission, Echo stalks off, leaving Fives still at his knees on the ground. Hunter watches him go with something like disappointment etched into his face, but not as cruel. Pity, maybe. Omega tugs at his arm and whispers something in his ear, but he only sighs, shaking his head. Her eyes turn downcast as she nods back.

“Stand up,” Rex says, and with a start, Fives realizes that he’s talking to him.

He pulls his legs back under him as quickly as he can, replying with an automatic, “Yes, sir.”

Looking back towards the others, Rex waves a hand, saying, “You can take a walk. Hunter, I’ll comm you as soon as it's done. You and me,” he says, turning back towards Fives and angling his head towards the ship he’d arrived in. “We’re gonna have a little talk.”

________

“Tell me again.”

“It’s gonna be the same thing, Rex.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“What more’s there to tell?” Fives throws his hands up in frustration, accidentally hitting the wall of the ship and flinching when it makes a bang louder than he’d expected. “I died. I woke up. Chell brought me back to life.”

Rex narrows his eyes. “And he never said how.”

“No!”

“And now,” Rex says, resting his chin on clasped fingers, “now, I’m supposed to believe that you’ve got another, completely different chip in your head, and you also don’t know what that does or why it’s there.”

“Yes,” Fives grinds out. This is absolutely grueling.

He’d thought that the hardest part of Rex’s interrogation would be the emotions run high, the ‘I-don’t-believe-you’s, the ‘how-is-that-possible’s. Turns out, Rex doesn’t interrogate like that. Throughout the whole story, both times that he’s told it and verging on a third, Rex has remained entirely detached and cool. His words are clipped and his questions are to the point and nothing more.

“Why’s it so hard to believe that I could come back if Echo did?” Fives asks. It’s a childish question, but his nerves are completely frayed at this point. He’d been prepared to relay any and all information, but what he hadn’t prepared for was the complete curveball of Echo is back. Hard to focus on Chell and his monotonous exams when all Fives wants to know is how the hell Echo was standing right in front of him—standing right there, after being dead halfway through the Clone Wars—and why nobody will tell him anything.

Alright, well, he knows why nobody is telling him anything, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it.

“Echo didn’t die,” Rex replies simply, and provides no more, same as all his other answers. “Why did Chell want you?”

“He didn’t,” Fives says, trying not to scream in Rex’s face something like, that shuttle exploded RIGHT in front of my eyes! “He said I’d just been good timing. I was dead, and he needed a body.”

“And he didn’t care about why you’d been killed?”

His teeth are going to be dust by the end of this. “I told you before,” he grinds out. “He didn’t care about the war, or Jedi, Separatists, anything. All he cared about was his own work. The fact that I knew about the chips was…entertaining for him, if anything.”

Rex’s brows furrow. “Explain.”

“Just that he liked when I knew his big words, s’all,” Fives says, feeling the way the corners of his mouth curl down automatically at the memory. “He liked not having to explain simple things.”

“So he did talk with you.”

“Only when he thought I needed it.”

“And what made you ‘need it’?”

That’s…not really something Fives wants to talk about. Rex doesn’t need to know how fast his heart had beat on that table, how his lungs would contract and expand at a rate that his body couldn’t keep up with. He doesn’t need to know about all of Fives’s weakness there.

The worst part is, Chell was actually kind of right. Knowing more did help Fives calm down, and, in those early days at least, before stage two began, the simple act of talking had felt necessary. Shame burns in him now as he thinks back on the times in which he felt like he needed Chell to respond, the goddamn near- elation he’d felt when he would. He thinks about the emptiness he’d felt when stage two began, and how it had almost felt like betrayal.

A heavy sigh from Rex brings Fives out of his trance. “I want to believe you,” he says, “I really do. But you’ve gotta be honest with me here.”

“I am, Rex. There’s just—there’s some things that are…”

Too hard. Force, he’s such a coward.

Rex’s eyes pinch closed for a moment before he opens them again, and this time, his gaze is the slightest touch lighter. “Fine,” he says. “We can address that later. Tell me more about the tablet.”

That, Fives can do. He relays the basics again—how Chell always had it on him, either in his hands or next to him, and how everything he did went straight to the screen. How when it came to the confrontation in the elevator, he knew that he needed to get Chell’s bag so he could get the—the tablet, and the recorder. They were the key to understanding what had been done to him.

Rex’s mouth goes thin with sympathy as Fives describes his struggle with hacking the tablet, and how he’s thought every day about just throwing them out so that he could be rid of Chell once and for all.

“Except you knew you wouldn’t be,” Rex says, and Fives nods.

“I’ll never have him off my back ‘til I know what he did,” he murmurs. “I just need to know, then I’m gonna break his damn screen myself. Then I try and fix…” He waves a hand over the length of his body, pausing at his head and swirling it loosely. “All this.”

“The chip.”

“Right.”

Rex sits with this information for a moment. Fives knows the look on his face, has seen it plenty of times in the war room. The draw of his brow, the way he cups a hand over his mouth and chin—a bit like Kenobi, but less delicate. It’s the face he makes when he’s comparing the lay of the land with the information he has. Essentially, it’s his gameplan face.

It may be a leftover of war, but Fives finds himself missing that face regardless.

“I…” Rex starts, then sighs again. Much of this conversation has been short words and Rex’s sighs. “I watched you die, Fives.”

Fives’s shoulders curl in on themselves. “I know, sir.”

“Seeing you, sitting in front of me—I tried to prepare myself.” He stands up, pushing himself off his seat with his hands, before crossing the distance between them and planting one knee on the ground. “I thought, this scumbag, who does he think he is, right? Impersonating my friend.”

“Fair enough,” Fives says with a breath of a laugh.

A smile flickers in the corner of Rex’s mouth, though only briefly. “I want to believe you,” he says quietly. “I don’t, but I want to. We’re gonna try and help.”

“Wait—really?” Fives draws back in surprise. “But you just said—”

“I’d rather be right and deal with a threat than be wrong and turn away one of the best men I’ve ever served with,” Rex states, voice solemn. “Fives needed me once, and I failed him. I won’t let that happen a second time.”

“Rex…” The name falls out of Fives’s mouth like air. “You never failed me.”

“If you’re a fake, you’re doin’ a bang-up impression of him.”

The joke, however much it stings, still manages to startle a laugh out of him, a real one. Nothing like the pathetic little breath from before.

He hates knowing this—knowing that Rex blames himself, that he still doesn’t see Fives as Fives, that he was the one to burden his friend with a death like that—but more than anything, he’s desperately glad just to hear his voice as a comrade instead of a holder. Of course he’s spoken to people in the two years since he’s escaped, hundreds, maybe even over a thousand at this point, but every word exchanged was out of necessity. For the first time in so long, he feels like he’s actually talking.

Force, he missed him. He missed all of them.

“You really know a hacker who can help?” Fives asks.

Rex’s eyes skirt away as he stands back up, hands planted on his hips. “Well,” he starts, word drawn out on his tongue, “knowing him isn’t gonna be the problem. It’s the part where I get ‘im to agree to it.”

“Who is it then? Do I know him?”

“Fives,” Rex murmurs, the weight of his gaze heavy, “it’s Echo.”

________

Rex and Echo have been arguing for nearly an hour now. Between the large stretches of silence, their volume continues on the rise, and Fives is starting to wonder whether or not the whole island can hear them at this point.

“You must be out of your mind,” Echo snarls from behind the metal walls. His voice is so much scratchier than it used to be—at first, Fives thought he was just choosing to speak in a lower register, but now he’s not sure. Easier to think about that sort of thing than the topic of their argument.

“What would you have me do, kill him?” Rex yells back.

Omega, who’s just walked up the ship’s ramp, flinches. “Are you… sure you wanna be here while they do this?” she asks. A loud slam causes the both of them to startle.

“Think I gotta be,” Fives replies, once Echo and Rex have slipped back into silence and he can settle back against his seat.

She glances between the door and the row of seats where Fives is waiting for a moment, before fully entering the ship and planting herself down next to him. “Then we can talk,” she announces with a nudge to his shoulder.

“Why not,” he says. Been a long time since he’s chatted with a cadet—usually, he’d only pass them in the halls of Kamino, and once he’d been made a part of the 501st, he hadn’t had much of a reason to go back there often. Cadets went from a regular occurrence to something rarely seen. “You got questions?”

“A few,” she admits. “I just thought I might be able to help with something.”

“You?” he asks, response automatic, before clamping down on his surprise. “I—sorry, it’s just—er…”

“‘Cause I’m a kid?” she finishes for him. The accusation couldn’t be clearer in her voice, were it not already clear in her squinted eyes and single raised brow.

He pauses, off-footed, before she bursts into a fit of laughter, rocking into his shoulder again.

“Relax,” she says warmly. “I’m just kidding. I know it’s a little hard to believe.” With that out of the way, she peers up at him, large eyes brimming with curiosity. “You said it was a kaminoan who did this to you,” she says. “Who was it?”

“Mir’e Chell,” he replies. Where is she going with this? “Not sure how you’d know ‘im though, I don’t think he was very, ah…popular.” Nevermind the fact that most clones barely interacted with the kaminoans themselves at all. They had trainers and droids, but actual kaminoan contact was sparse.

He doesn’t even finish his sentence before her eyes are off him, gaze sharpening with focus and mouth moving with silent words. She slips into it like it’s nothing—maybe it is for her. Cadets are well-trained to adapt their minds, but the speed at which she transitions from an easy smile into mission-ready concentration is too practiced to be simple training.

“Mir’e Chell,” she repeats, finally looking up from the wall. “What did he look like?”

“Uh.” To be frank, he’s never thought much about what Chell looked like, other than ‘a kaminoan’. “Tall, skinny, grey…?”

She scoffs at him lightly. “That could be anyone.”

“He…had a head fin…?”

“Not much narrower.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Her eyes skim towards the ceiling of the ship, and as another loud yell from Echo comes through—he thinks he says something like, damn thing didn’t even, before trailing off—she doesn’t even flinch this time. “Did he ever say why he did this to you? In secret, I mean. Like—why he was hiding you?”

“That’s part of the ‘unpopular’ bit.” His lips stretch into a rueful grin. “Apparently, even Nala Se and Lama Su didn’t like zombies.”

“Okay. Good. I think I’ve got it.”

“Got what?” he asks, but she’s already slipping up off the bench and walking towards the door. “Wait, what is it?”

“Don’t worry,” she says, throwing a wink over her shoulder. Then she opens the door and slips through, closing it behind her. After a brief shout from Echo that appears to be just, “Omega, what the hell—” followed by something unintelligible, the conversation in the room beyond quiets to a level that he can’t hear.

Well. That was…weird.

He plants his elbows on his knees, setting his chin atop folded hands so as to keep himself from nervous fidgeting. One of the most basic unspoken rules of a soldier—never let your nerves look the part. Even if there’s nobody around to see it, assume at all times that you’re being watched. Exposed nerves lead to known weaknesses, and known weaknesses are a death knell.

More than anything, he wants to know what she’s brought to them, but he can’t. Somehow, he’s absolutely sure that if he were to go up to the door, they’d know it, and any flicker of trust they might’ve had in him would be blown out. Even if he tried to explain it as simple curiosity, he knows how it would look. Secret clone spy listening in on private conversations. It would take an incredible amount of restraint on his part not to point out how loud their supposedly private conversation had gotten, and at that point, he’d probably be saying goodbye to Pabu.

So he sits, and he waits. He has to trust Omega. He has to prove that they can trust him too.

After several more minutes, the door slides open again, revealing a rallied Rex and a stone-faced Echo, with Omega trailing behind.

Fives starts to stand, but pauses midway when Echo stops in front of him. His eyes bore into him much the same as they had hours before, but this time, Echo’s clearly locked his emotions behind a wall.

His jaw flexes. “Show me the tablet,” he orders, then turns down the ramp without giving Fives the chance to reply.

Not that he could’ve done so if he’d wanted to. The statement alone leaves him speechless.

“Thank the force,” Rex murmurs under his breath, motioning for Fives to follow. “To your ship, then.”

The direction reminds Fives that he’s currently only half-standing, and he straightens out quickly, nodding with a, “Yes, sir,” rolling off the tongue. As they follow Echo’s path, he turns to Omega, asking, “How the hell’d you do it?”

Her eyes crinkle with a grin. “You already know,” she says, “Nala Se didn’t like zombies.” Before he can even think of how to react to that, she’s pushing him forward with a parting, “Good luck!”

What an odd kid. Appreciates the words, though. He certainly needs it.

Uphill walks are always easier than downhill walks, and while he knows that he’s made the right decision, he still finds it in him to resent the self from the previous day who had chosen to land all the way down at the beach. Resents him even moreso when he remembers that his ship is on top of a rock, which means he has to also climb up. He can already hear his knee screaming.

“Keep up,” Rex says from the top, the first words that have been spoken during the entire walk. It’s not said unkindly, but his face still burns with shame when he can’t lift his leg high enough for the next foothold.

He grits his teeth, raising his hand in a vague wave. “Could you, uh—”

“Need a hand?”

“Thanks.”

Rex’s grip fits exactly as it did nearly three years ago now. As he’s pulled up to the flat rock, he catches Echo watching in his periphery, eyes darkening. He tries not to linger on it, or think about the hurt. Echo will understand soon enough. He will.

“So this shuttle isn’t actually Chell’s,” Rex says while Fives lowers the ramp—he’s got a long rod that he keeps on his belt now, with a thick stub at the end to hit the switch.

“Stole the wrong one. Which ended up being good,” he replies, walking up as soon as the metal hits the ground. “‘Cause that meant I didn’t have to steal a new one. It was, uh,” he turns to Echo to explain and has to strongly resist the urge to immediately look away when Echo’s cold glare greets him. “Being tracked. By the guy who I actually stole it from. I dunno if Rex told you that part.”

“That’s a lot of tracking,” Echo grunts.

Alright, four words. Better than none.

Opening the hold reveals exactly the same picture that he’d shown Phee—Chell’s bag, a load of strewn flimsi and binders, and the tablet tucked haphazardly into the largest compartment. Looking at it now, another wave of embarrassment washes over him, as he realizes that the mess is far too revealing of the state he’d been in when he’d torn through it. He’d always meant to clean it up, but he could never bring himself to open the hold again after that. The disappointment after the failed hacking was too great, not to mention how he couldn’t find the—

Couldn’t find the—

He couldn’t…he couldn’t find something, but—

“This it, then?” Rex asks, slipping past him and tugging the tablet out of the bag.

Fives blinks. What was he doing? “Yeah,” he replies. “The recorder should be in there too, though I dunno how much use it’ll be.”

“Probably just relayed everything back to the tablet,” Rex agrees. “How’s it look, Echo?”

He hands the tablet over, and Echo tilts it around, looking at its various buttons and sockets. It has a relatively sleek design, but everything from Kamino looks sleek to Fives. He has no idea if there’s anything special about it or if it’s messed up in some way.

“Looks modified,” Echo says slowly as he maneuvers it.

“You think you can work with it?”

“I know I can,” he sniffs. “I still don’t know if I should.”

Rex sighs, clearly preparing himself for another long-winded argument, and stands to face Echo in the doorway. “We talked about this,” he says in a low voice.

“What if I get lost in there?” Echo hisses back. Lost? “What if there’s a—a virus, or something? What if that’s part of the plan?”

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Rex affirms. “You’ve gotta trust me, vod.”

His hand tightens around the tablet as his eyes screw shut. “I do trust you,” he mutters, “it’s him.”

Fives looks down at the floor, at the strewn flimsi at his feet. His chest is starting to hurt.

“If you trust me, then you’ll believe me when I say that this is the best course of action as of now,” Rex continues, gripping Echo’s bicep lightly. “Alright?”

Three tense beats pass before Echo breathes through his nose, hanging his head back so that it thuds against the doorway. “Fine,” he relents, “fine. Let’s get this over with.”

“Thank you,” Rex says seriously, turning his grip into a clap before letting his hand drop. He turns back to where Fives is stood, watching their camaraderie and feeling the hole where he used to fit. “You got a computer system on this ship we can run this through?”

He does.

It doesn’t take too long, finding the cables to set it up so that the tablet’s screen is projected on the ship’s larger one, but it does manage to feel ridiculously taunting to see the demand for a passcode take up so much space. The blinking cursor is genuinely making him angrier than some droids he’s come face-to-face with on the field.

The other two pull out a strange looking cable that Fives has never seen before, or at least, not the one end. The other will plug into his ship just fine, he thinks, but he’s never quite seen a socket that’ll fit the first end.

Rex plugs the ship-end socket in, then hands the strange end to Echo. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he replies with a roll of his eyes. He rolls the plug between his fingertips, examining it the way one might examine a bullet, then he-

Then he plugs it into his head.

“What the hell?” Fives shrieks, clutching at the back and sides of his chair before shooting out of his seat. He’s pretty sure his vision blacks out for a moment, because in a blink, he’s at Echo’s side, hands hovering at the cable. “Rex, we gotta—”

“Whoa, hey,” Rex soothes, pushing him back and out of Echo’s space. “Fives, relax.”

“Relax? He just—”

“What’s he on about?” Echo grouses from where he’s kneeling. Fives is pretty sure his whole brain comes to a halt.

Echo does not, in fact, appear to be in any pain from sticking a plug in his head, and now that Fives isn’t in as blind of a panic, he can see why. The plug went into one of the strange grey knobs on his head— in his head. His eyes, solid and cold only seconds before, are now nearly rolled back to the lids, and flicking side to side rapidly.

“He’s—he’s got—” Fives doesn’t even know what to call what Echo’s got. “You didn’t think to warn me?”

Rex shrugs, though he does, at least, appear at least the slightest bit guilty. “It wasn’t really my place.”

He almost admonishes Echo, opens his mouth to grill his brother like he absolutely deserves, but manages to stop himself at the last minute. He’s not—they aren’t there yet, not right now. Echo needs what’s on the tablet just as much as Fives does. Soon, he’ll be on his ass, but not yet. Soon.

Fives can wait for soon.

The screen changes suddenly, passcode request blinking away along with the damned cursor, revealing a file system with a mass of folders. “I’m in,” Echo says. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”

They both turn to Fives—well, Rex turns to Fives. Echo’s head kind of lolls in the right direction, but he shoots a bit too far, landing his unseeing gaze somewhere between Fives and the wall.

“Uh,” Fives falters. “You—you’re in? Just like that?”

“Yes,” Echo says, frustration rising in his voice. “What am I looking for?”

“Oh.” Truthfully, he hadn’t really prepared for this part. Not that he hadn’t had hope in the prospective rebel clones, he just…hadn’t thought that he’d actually get this far. Leave it to Echo to surprise him. “Uh, well—anything that mentions trials, or, stages, I guess. Any recordings you find would probably be the live,” his throat catches on the last word, and he swallows. “Tests.”

Echo doesn’t respond at first, but his eyes do continue to shift rapidly back and forth. His lips twist into a frown. “Some of these are more deeply encrypted,” he murmurs. “But I’ve got a few audio files ready here.”

As Echo speaks, the screen moves, and it feels like a slap in the face when Fives realizes that it’s Echo moving things around in there. It’s hard to even conceptualize, but he’s—he’s actually in the computer, or something.

So that’s what he’d meant by lost.

One of the folders opens up, displaying a number of audio files with titles that don’t make much sense. Probably some kind of code, or method of memorization for Chell, maybe. Well—they could also just be in the kaminoan language. That would probably make the most sense, actually.

Oh, he really hopes the audio files aren’t mostly recorded in kaminoan.

The first one is highlighted. “Good to go?” Echo asks.

Rex looks to Fives questioningly.

This is it, then. He’s here. All those days spent under Chell, and the years passed running from him—here, now, he’s finally going to know what the hell it was that the damn madman had done to him.

“Play it.”

The recording begins. First, there’s nothing but a slight hint of static, but then there’s a voice. Unmistakable, of course. Fives would recognize that drawling tone anywhere. “Log one,” Chell says. Even through the computer, his excitement is palpable, energy making his words seem to vibrate. And, thankfully, the words are not in kaminoan. “This is Dr. Mir’e Chell, and in this log, I will be recording the progress of Project Vita Nova.”

“He never even told me the name,” Fives mumbles to himself.

“I have had this project in preparation for quite some time,” Chell continues. “But today, I was able to acquire the perfect specimen. A defective clone trooper, executed for attempted assassination of the Chancellor.”

The scar tissue under his shirt begins to itch where it scratches against the fabric. Defective.

“It fits the criteria exactly—single life-threatening wound, no extra damage, no irreparable deterioration, as it has only been dead for—” He pauses as if checking something, and in that pause, Fives feels himself fall back into the chair he’d been sitting in before. "—Seven hours. Rigor mortis has set in, but I have time before it peaks. The only significant damage other than the death wound is to its brain.”

Fives’s fingers brush against the side of his skull, finding the thick scar where the chip had been removed from. He knows that the others have had their chips removed, but none of them were in the state that he and Tup had been in afterwards. Something about how theirs had gone must’ve been botched.

Better botched than none at all, but still.

“What?” Fives whispers.

But Chell’s voice is unrelenting, continuing in that same drawling, amicable tone. “It will be delicate work, but I hypothesize that its amateur removal has given my insertion and rewiring process a smoother opening.”

There’s the sound of metal against metal and clinking tools, and suddenly, Fives understands what exactly it is that they’re about to listen to. “No,” he says, lifting his head from where it had fallen against his chest. “No, wait, you don’t have to listen to this part—”

“I will now commence the revivification surgery.” Barely audible over the background static is the sound of something sharp cutting into meat. “We begin with the heart—the body must be in perfect condition before I revitalize the brain cells. My coworker Elo Sar revolutionized the field of cell and tissue regrowth. My method for repairing the heart and lungs launches off of her work, but it has been altered to work on dead cells as well.” Another cut. Fives feels it, the diagonal line on his left pectoral. The third is a line of fire down his stomach. “Opening the chest cavity now…”

“Echo, pause it,” Rex interrupts. “Fives, did you wanna—?”

“No,” he manages to spit out. “Keep it playing, I—I need to know. You can leave if you want.”

“Absolutely not,” Rex replies, seemingly scandalized by the very suggestion. Eyes widening, he turns, then says, “Echo, are you—?”

Echo cuts him off with a scoff. “Don’t go soft on me, Captain.” His voice is firm, but there are beads of sweat along his brow. Fives doesn’t need to be a genius to guess why.

He resumes the recording.

Much of it is actually silence, which is a relief, because that means they’re able to skip through parts of what they soon realize is an hours-long recording, consisting of heart surgery, lung surgery, and autopsy all at once. Chell’s voice will chime in to relay what action he is taking, but then he will quiet, only speaking again to inform the recorder that he is finished and moving on to the next action.

Occasionally, his pauses will be accompanied by a light click. Echo theorizes that during the procedure, he was taking photos of his progress, and that the images are in one of the more encrypted folders. The idea had made Fives’s nausea go from mild to crippling in a matter of minutes.

He hangs onto each and every word that comes out of Chell’s mouth, no matter how visceral they get. Every word is important. Every sentence could reveal something new. Each action that he takes, each cut of the knife, each peel of his flesh, could be a hint as to what it was that Chell had been doing all that time.

After a long bout of skips and a selection of the next audio file, as Chell had to wait for the tissue regeneration to progress, Echo unpauses it at, “I will now begin the procedure for the insertion of my implant.”

“Here,” Fives gasps, lurching forwards. “This. This is the big one.”

Before Chell speaks again though, there’s a new sound. At first, Fives doesn’t recognize it—it’s sharp, high-pitched and droning, somewhat like the brief sound a droid’s legs makes when they decant and whirl open. The thought of spinning is what places it.

A bonesaw.

“With a generous supply of bacta, this should not scar,” Chell says dully, as if he were cutting through wood and not Fives’s skull. “Minimal body scarring is acceptable, but clean facial scarring could elicit questions.”

Hands raising to his forehead, he feels along the lines of it for any sign of raised skin, even the notion of a scar, but he finds none. The skin is as smooth and unblemished as the day he’d died.

His fingers come back trembling.

The saw works for a few minutes more before Chell finally speaks again. “This will only be the first step of the full-body insertion,” he relays. “Once I have confirmed that the subject is alive, I will begin implanting the receptors into its limbs.”

Rex turns to him sharply, question clear in his eyes, but he shakes his head. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what any of that means.

They listen as Chell narrates, but the longer it goes on, the clearer it becomes that he’s not going to inform the listener of everything the chip actually does. Either he assumes that whoever is listening has the supplemental files that explain the technology behind it, or this was never meant to be documented for anyone else—Chell very well may have been making a diary all for himself.

The recording ends after Chell completes the insertion. Compared to the quiet beats between Chell speaking on the recording, the silence that follows afterwards is completely engulfing.

“Maybe that’s enough for today,” Rex murmurs.

“No,” Fives objects immediately. “We haven’t even gotten to how he brought me back!”

“Fives, it’s been hours.” His hands scrub over his face, pulling the skin around his eyes back for a moment before he lets them fall. Gesturing to the front windshield and the dim light beyond, he says, “It’s late. You must have known we couldn’t get through this all in one night.”

“But—”

“And,” he continues sternly, “Echo can’t stay in there that long. It takes a toll on him.”

Fives snaps his mouth shut, rescinding all objections that had begun to gather on his tongue. He expects Echo to retaliate—to roll his eyes, or snap back with an I’ll be fine, sir, but he doesn’t respond. When Fives looks him over, he seems…empty.

That’s all it takes for him to give in. “Okay,” he says. “How do we, uh…”

As Fives points towards where Echo’s slumped against the wall, Rex stands and walks over, kneeling next to him and placing a ginger hand on his shoulder.

“C’mon, buddy,” Rex says softly. “You with me?”

Echo’s eyes flutter. “...Rex?”

“There we are. Gotta unplug now, alright?”

“Rex, where…” His gaze rolls, sweeping the room, but even from where Fives is sitting, it’s obvious he’s not really seeing anything in here. Recognition sparks in the lines of his face, but his eyes are still glazed over. “Right. Okay. Fives. Not—not there.” Taking a deep breath, he sits up, back straightening out into a more recognizable posture. His hand searches the back of his head for a moment before he finds the plug and pulls.

As soon as it’s out, life returns to him—his body shudders and the breath releases, eyes blinking until they’re back in place and set straight. He shakes his head once and coughs.

“Better?” Rex asks.

“Yeah.” He cracks his back, and Fives hears the way his whole spine pops down. “Haven’t done it for that long in a while.”

Fives wants to say something. He wants to ask— how did you do that? He wants to know— what happened to you? He wants to tell him— thank you.

He wants his brother to look at him.

“Echo,” he manages to push out, but Echo is already standing, making his way towards the walkway to leave.

He pauses in the doorway to the co*ckpit. “We’ll go again tomorrow,” he says shortly. His head is turned to the side, but he won’t look, eyes glued to the floor below him. “You need to sleep first.”

Those are all the parting words Fives gets before Echo is gone, leaving him and Rex alone in front of a blinding white screen.

“He’ll come around,” Rex says. He puts a hand on Fives’s shoulder, and only then does he realize that Rex hadn’t touched him at all before now, other than to help him up to the ship. This is the first time that he’s touched him without necessity. “I think what we’ve heard up until now is a good indicator that at least part of your story is true. He just—he’s,” Rex frowns, mulling over his words before settling on, “complicated. It’s complicated for him.”

Not like Fives needed to be told that. It takes one look at Echo to see that something like this might be complicated for him.

Still, he finds himself asking, “Did he really not die?”

Rexs huffs out a sigh. “No.”

“Then what…?”

“Fives, it’s not my story to tell,” he says, having the decency to sound apologetic. “He’ll tell you when he wants you to know.”

Neither of them state the obvious.

“Echo was right,” Rex says softly. “Get some sleep. We’ll be back tomorrow to go through more.”

“Alright,” Fives concedes. “Just—tell Echo thanks for me, yeah?”

His eyes crinkle with the smallest bit of humor. “You’re no coward, Fives,” he says. “I think that’ll be a good thing to start with tomorrow.”

________

“This will be trial thirty-one of stage two.”

It is made to sit up.

“Good, good,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says. “Subject’s collective movements are getting smoother by the day. Subject,” he says to it instead of the recording device. “I am going to have you stand up.”

It is made to stand up.

“Excellent. As expected, its stance has also begun to appear more naturalistic as well. Things are progressing smoothly. Today, we will be resuming endurance testing.”

It is made to walk the length of the room.

It is made to walk the length of the room.

It is made to walk the length of the room.

It is made to walk the length of the room.

It is made to walk the length of the room.

It is made to walk the length of the room.

It is made to walk the length of the room.

It is made to walk the length of the room.

It is made to walk the length of the room.

It is made to walk the length of the room.

“No—wait,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says. “That input was supposed to be one hundred, not ten.” He clicks his tongue. “Let us try this again.”

________

The next day, Echo shows up at the ship alone.

“Oh,” Fives says once he sees him in the entryway, immediately cringing. Oh? He’s got to do better than that. “Where’s Rex?”

“He’ll be here,” Echo says, then stops. Levels him with a gaze.

If Fives were to be optimistic, he could say that this gaze, at least, feels cool, not cold, as the others before it have. Optimism has been harder and harder to reach for though, and lately, he’s been feeling more like a realist.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Echo. Far from it, actually—he’s been hoping to talk with him since the moment he’d realized who he was (since the moment the damn di’kut nearly pulled his hair out). He’d just expected that he’d have to be the one to manhandle Echo into a chat, not that Echo would surprise him like this.

It never used to be a surprise, talking with him.

“Did you, er…” Fives says, looking around Echo’s shoulders to see if any of the 99 crew were spotting the cliffs. “Did you need something?”

“I need to know what the hell you’re playing at.”

This again. “I’m not playing at anything, Echo, honest.” Swinging an arm back towards the interior of his shuttle, he says, “All that yesterday was new for me too.”

Echo nods, still wearing the same guarded expression. “Maybe so,” he agrees. “Maybe you really are him.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. Or,” he continues, and ah, there it is. “Maybe you’re a fake, and the recordings are faked. Or they’re real, but my friend is gone, and all that’s left is you.”

It’s odd. He’d known that whatever Echo was about to say would hurt, and it did. It stung him right in his little punctured heart. But there’s something else. There’s a heat, an anger licking his bones that he hasn’t felt in a long time. An indignation.

“How many times do I have to f*ckin’ say it,” Fives growls, crossing his arms over his chest to keep his fists from balling. “That doesn’t. Make. Sense.”

“Then make it make sense,” Echo snarls back. He takes a step forward, threat implicit in his form, and Fives’s anger burns hotter.

“Why can’t you give me a chance?” Fives shouts, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Rex believes me!”

To that, Echo smirks, the lines of his face brittle. “Rex doesn’t believe you,” he says, “he misses you. He misses Fives.”

“And you don’t?” Fives demands. It comes out like a beg, and he hates it, he hates the fire in his skin and he hates the look in Echo’s frosted eyes. “I missed you! I missed you every goddamn day. I watched you die!”

“I. Didn’t. Die.”

“What if you’re the fake, huh?” Fives throws out, regretting it the moment it leaves his mouth but unable to keep the rest from tumbling out. “How am I supposed to trust that you’re just back, like nothing happened, like I didn’t watch that shuttle burn—”

He hears the echo of the slap before he feels it.

“Don’t you ever,” Echo says, deadly quiet, “ever. Say that sh*t to me again.”

Fives swallows. His throat feels like sandpaper, and he remembers waking up with the pain on Chell’s table. “Sorry,” he says. The heat has dulled. All that’s left is an ache in his chest where his heart had stopped. “I—sorry. I didn’t mean—”

A rhythmic beep comes from Echo’s comm, and Rex’s voice crackles through, saying, “Echo, where the hell are you? We gotta go down.”

There’s a pause where the two of them stare at each other over Echo’s arm, neither willing to make the first move, before Echo finally clicks the button to open the channel. “Coming, Captain,” he replies. His voice gives away nothing of what just occurred. “I’ll be right there.”

________

When Echo returns with Rex, it’s as if nothing had even happened. Fives isn’t sure if he’s grateful or not for this.

There’s a part of him that keeps waiting for Echo to snap. To reference Fives’s accusation, or start drilling into Rex about how he shouldn’t believe him. He never does. Echo remains as perfectly cool and stoic as he’d been the night before, setting up the tablet again and pulling out the cable. He’s so meticulously put together that Fives is willing to bet it’s a point of pride, more than anything. Or, rather, another test—seeing which of them will break first.

Well, Fives might not be as angry as he’d been in that moment, but he’s still got his own pride to think about. He’s not going to let his ass of a brother win.

Rex, for his part, either doesn’t notice the chill, or deliberately pays it no mind. “We’re onto the third recording,” he says. “Out of…”

“Five hundred sixty-seven,” Echo confirms, once he’s plugged in. “Data shows that the first three were recorded and uploaded the same day, then two per day following that.”

So Chell had been experimenting on him twice a day, not just once. Delightful.

“That’s…a lot of tracks,” Rex says after a beat.

“If it helps, the rest aren’t nearly as long as those first two”

“That’s still five-hundred and sixty-five tracks, so, no. Not really.”

Echo shrugs. “I tried.”

Fives drums his fingers on the ship’s control deck, resting his chin on his other hand as he thinks through a game plan. sh*t to admit it, but as much as he wants answers, even he’s daunted by the number that Echo had relayed. Sure, he’d said they were shorter, but Fives remembers the examinations well enough to know that they felt both horrifically long and, after a while, horrifically boring. After stage two began, they were just an expanse of numb time.

“Oh,” he realizes with a start. “We won’t have to listen to all of those.”

Rex co*cks his head. “Why not?”

“Well, I was awake for a good sum of them. Chances are, once you’ve heard one, you’ve heard the rest.”

“Good point. Do you know how many you were awake for, though?”

He tongues the inside of his cheek, trying to think back on it without thinking about it. Futile, given what they’re all doing here today, but it’s been what he’s been trying to do during the recordings as well.

Hasn’t been as effective as he’d like so far, but. Well. Practice and all that.

“Not sure,” he admits. “I know once stage two started, I was only conscious for the exam part. The trials, I was…” He waves a limp hand around his temple. “Those are the recordings I wanna find.”

Rex nods, leaning down next to where Echo is seated. “Alright. Echo, let’s start on the third recording and go through a few of the following ones, then search for the first trial of stage two.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Echo replies with a drawl and a lazy salute. Rex scoffs at him, mumbling something about respect, but he can’t hide his smile.

Chell took this from you, is Fives’s first thought. He swallows it down harshly, then bites down on his cheek when he realizes that the thought isn’t even correct in the first place. The Chancellor took this from him. Kamino took this from him. The chip in his goddamn brain took this from him.

Hell, without Chell, he wouldn’t have this at all.

His bite becomes harsh enough to taste iron. No. No feeling grateful, not to him. Chell could’ve released him to his brothers at any time, and he hadn’t. Whether or not the man brought him back to life, he was still a prisoner, a pet. A project.

No feeling grateful.

“Log three of Project Vita Nova,” Chell’s droning voice cuts in—Fives hadn’t realized they’d started. “The preparations are complete. It has been sixteen hours since the time of death. It is now time for the most important part of stage zero—revivification. This will confirm whether this subject has the potential to be a success, or if it will be another failure.”

“Wait, what?” Fives starts. “He never said— another?”

“We’ll look into it,” Rex assures, though the draw of his face is grim.

Chell’s pace is relentless. “I will begin with a low-level electromagnetic wave to, in layman’s terms, ‘spark’ the brain. The ‘spark’ will come from the implant—once the brain cells have begun to regenerate at a rate that indicates the chance of survival, I will run a stronger electronic pulse throughout the body to jumpstart the heart. I will repeat this until the heart is able to beat on its own.”

“Wish we had Kix here,” Rex murmurs. “He’d be able to tell me how banthash*t this sounds.”

Kix was the last person he’d tried to warn about the chips before he’d gotten caught and killed. A stone sinks in his stomach as he asks, “Did he…?”

Rex shakes his head. “Went MIA,” he replies.

That’s pretty much all the confirmation Fives needs, and right now, he’s too much of a coward to tell them that it’s his fault. Sorry, Kix, he thinks, closing his eyes in silent prayer. I’m so sorry.

“Electronic pulse from the implant will begin now,” Chell says.

The resulting few moments are rather anticlimactic. Since the reaction is happening inside his brain and not outside his body, it makes sense that they wouldn’t hear anything, but it’s still a bit of a letdown when Chell says something like that and there’s no tangible evidence of anything actually happening. Still, once he starts speaking again, he manages to draw them in.

“The brain cells are beginning to regenerate,” Chell relays. For once, he actually sounds nervous. The only time Fives had ever heard him nervous before this was the day of his escape. “The implant appears to be holding up…”

Rex’s eyes are wide as he listens, body taut with rapt attention. Even Echo, who’s been doing a remarkable job of being unaffected, sits a little straighter. It’s not horror this time that drives Fives to clench his pantlegs in his fists—this time, it’s pure anticipation. Chell may have already laid it out, but now they’re in it, finally getting an answer to one of the biggest questions Fives has had since waking up to the scientist’s words.

He’s finally going to know how he’s back.

There’s the sound of something heavy thunking on metal. “They have regenerated to a satisfactory point,” Chell explains hurriedly. “I must restart the heart now, before the electronic stimulation loses effect and the cells die again due to oxygen loss. This is the step at which the last subject failed—the timing here is crucial.” The sound of a high-pitched whine comes through, which, if Fives had to guess, is probably the sound of the defibrillators (or whatever the equivalent he may be using is) charging. In the few times he’d seen Kix have to use them, they’d made that same sound. “Let us hope this subject does not fail.”

This time there’s a reaction. A whiplike crack of static, followed by a few rapid spasms of meat against metal. A two-minute pause.

“Again,” Chell says. Again, the static, and again, his body seizes. Again, a two minute pause. “Again.”

He repeats this four more times.

“It’s not working,” Fives mumbles to himself. “Shouldn’t it be working?”

“Subject’s heart is refusing to stabilize,” Chell pants. “I will take a risk and increase the voltage.” There are loud clicks of a dial, then another, even higher-pitched whine than before. “Once more—!”

The recording stops.

“Unpause it,” Fives demands. “Echo, unpause it!”

Echo’s nose wrinkles. “I didn’t pause it, di’kut,” he says, throwing his scomp arm in the general direction of the screen. “That was the end.”

“The hell you mean that was the end?”

“I mean that that was the goddamn end.”

“Boys,” Rex barks. Fives snaps his mouth shut, but doesn’t lose his glare—not like Echo can see it right now anyways. Echo’s lips stay curled into a sneer, but he, too, clams up. A cadet-level scolding. It’s almost nostalgic, in a funny way. He’d feel rosier about it were the circ*mstances any different. Once Rex has observed that the both of them are holding their tongues, he turns to Echo and asks, “You’re sure that’s the end?”

“Yes,” he replies in a clipped tone. “You can see the timeline on the screen. Clearly.”

Sure enough, the timeline is displayed there, having finished its run and accompanied by an ‘replay’ button. “But—but it can’t,” Fives stutters, staring at the screen until his eyes begin to burn. “What happened?”

“I’m sure he’ll explain in the next one,” Rex says, an attempt at reassurance. “Probably just a tech issue.”

“But we were so close.”

“Tech issues don’t really give a damn whether or not you’re close,” Echo sighs, then holds his breath for a few moments before huffing a laugh. Fives doesn’t get the joke.

The file closes, and the next one gets pulled up to the screen.

“Log four of Project Vita Nova,” Chell says, voice strained with exhaustion. “There will be a gap between this recording and the recording previous, as the defibrillation shorted out the circuits in the room. I was barely able to salvage the recording, but anything post-short circuit has been lost.”

It feels as if a weight’s been dropped on Fives’s shoulders. Of course. Of course the one recording, the most important one, would be lost. All because of Chell and his refusal to take precautions against short circuiting, even though, apparently, this was the step that he’d failed with the subject before Fives. It seems that no matter when or where the damned scientist is, he continues to ruin Fives’s life without even trying.

“Well, that answers that,” Echo mutters. Rex frowns down at him, but only Fives can see it.

There’s a different sound behind Chell in the recording. It’s sort of…wet, a gasping, uneven thing, like a fish on land. “I had to resort to drastic measures, which, for the sake of convenience, have been recorded in my written reports,” Chell continues. “I have also been forced to acquire a new recording device, as the short circuit caused my previous one irreversible damage. Minor costs—stage zero was, for the first time, successfully completed.” The pause that Chell leaves gives the three of them more space to hear the discomforting sounds behind him. “...I admit, I feel a cautious excitement,” he says. “Attachment would be unreasonable to presume, but I find myself in awe of it.”

Fives’s skin prickles, heat flushing up the back of his neck as both Rex and Echo turn to him. Rex is armed with a raised brow, and Echo’s eyes darken even in their unseeing state.

That doesn’t make sense. Chell had never—in all their time together, all those days, not once had Chell indicated any sort of attachment. Even in the latter days of stage one, when their rapport had been the highest, Chell was only really speaking at him, and Fives was only playing along. Nowhere in any of their talks had been the cautious reverence that Chell is displaying here.

It is then, when the wet gurgles morph into a cough, that Fives finally realizes what they’ve been listening to. “Oh, hell,” he mutters under his breath. “Are you kidding me?”

“Before I proceed with the limb-lining neural transmission beacons, I will be executing a perfunctory examination of the subject’s baseline mental capabilities,” Chell continues. “This will help me to gauge how long until I can expect the subject to be fully conscious and competent.”

A glimmer of a memory peeks through to Fives—the first time he’d woken up, Chell had told him to relax. He’d mentioned something about…about cognitive functions?

“Attempt one of conscious interaction with the subject. Subject,” Chell says, assumedly to the Fives that is laying on his table. “What is your designation number?”

There’s a low moan, followed by another cough, but no words.

“Unclear whether or not the subject understands that it is being spoken to,” Chell murmurs. “It does not appear capable of speech yet.”

He tries a few more questions—chosen name, most recent memory, battalion, age, things of that basic caliber, but none of them get much more than the first one. The more Fives is forced to hear his own pathetic whines, the further and further he sinks into his seat, attempting to hide as much of his flushed face in his bundled-up cloak as he can. The complete and utter humiliation of having both his Captain and his closest living brother hear him gurgle like a tubie might actually kill him again.

Finally, though, Chell relents, just as Fives was sure it would be too much. “Subject appears to be at least somewhat conscious that it is being spoken to, or at least, is conscious that there is another living being in the room. Its eyes routinely attempt to track me, and it will look to wherever sound is coming from. However, it is completely incapable of speech.” He hums, and footsteps can be heard echoing over the recording—it sounds as if Chell is beginning to pace. “This is a lower baseline than expected, but nothing I cannot work with.” The sound of Fives’s struggling breathing suddenly comes to a halt. “Before I address any of that, I will now insert the limb-lining neural transmission beacons.”

“Hold on,” Echo says, pausing the recording. “Did you hear that?”

“The, uh, limb-lining thing?”

“No. You, in the back—you just shut up. How’d he do that?”

Fives’s head feels thick. How had he done that? Had he even done anything? “I think I,” he starts, then stops, frowning deeper. “He had…”

Had what?

Something nudges at the back of his mind. It’s right there, he’s sure of it, but he can’t…he can’t think, can’t find his way around it. There’s some kind of block.

“He had…?” Rex repeats, brow raising slowly.

“Nothing,” Fives replies. That’s not what he wanted to say, wait. “I think I might’ve just fallen asleep. A sedative, maybe.” Wait, wait. No. This is all wrong.

“Oh, bullsh*t,” Echo snaps, closing the file suddenly. “Captain, you heard it, right? That wasn’t natural.” When Rex doesn’t respond, he urges, “Right?”

Rex glances between the two of them for a moment, clearly stuck.

“Rex,” Echo stresses.

“I hear, you, Echo, I do, I just…” He sighs through his nose, folding his arms over his chest and stepping up to Fives. “Would you give me a minute with him?” he asks, angling his head back towards Echo, who rips the connecting cable out of his head with bulging eyes.

His mind feels like it’s slipping. What was he mad about again? “Uh—sure.”

It’s impossible not to feel a little bit guilty as he walks out of his own co*ckpit, Rex hitting the button to close the door behind him as Echo shouts, “Are you serious?” He’s not sure what it was that got him so riled up, but what he is sure of is that he probably wouldn’t be nearly as wound up as he is had Fives not provoked him earlier.

Alright, yes, Echo had also provoked him, and he’s not about to lie and say that he’s totally over that, but still. There’s clearly more going on with Echo than Fives understands, and he’s touched a landmine today. He needs to work on building their trust back to what it was.

He leans back against the door, sliding down until he’s sitting on the dusty metal below him. What happened to the two of them? Him and Echo, they were like two hands of the same person sometimes, that’s how in tune they could be. They were the last Dominoes standing. Is a little death really all it takes to come between them?

Apparently so. Echo seems to think so, anyways.

From behind the door, Fives hears their murmurs, and this time, he gives in to the childish instinct to eavesdrop, tilting his head so his ear presses against the metal.

“...some grace,” Rex is saying.

“You have no idea how much grace I’m giving him,” Echo shoots back. “A sedative? Seriously? Sedatives don’t work that fast, you know he’s—”

“I know,” Rex insists. “The hell do you take me for?”

“If you know, then why’re you in here grilling me instead of him?”

“Because he—” There’s a pause, and Fives can hear the deep inhale, the way that Rex is trying to calm himself down and lower their volume before it raises. “Because right now, he’s compliant,” he says lowly. “And we need to get a full scope of the situation before accusing anyone of anything.”

Another beat. This time, the silence is filled by Echo, who lets out a humorless snort. “That what you and the guys did for me?” he asks. “Wait and see?”

Rex’s reply is an inaudible murmur, but if Fives really strains, he thinks he can make out, “...not like that, we…”

Did for him? What does Echo mean by that?

Wait. Is this part of Echo’s story? The thing that Rex can’t tell him about?

Lurching away from the door, he stumbles up and into a seat, feeling a bit sick with himself. Some show of trust he’d just displayed. He’s curious, force, he’s curious, but he can’t—he can’t do that, not to Echo. He can’t take that from him.

The force must be looking out for him in one way or another, because mere moments after he’d launched himself into a seat, the co*ckpit door had slid open, Rex standing in the entryway. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he says, a touch sheepish. “We’re good to keep going.”

________

The remainder of the recordings they listen to that afternoon are, by and large, uneventful. The only interesting one is the one that they’d already been listening to, and had resumed once they regrouped.

That second half was where Chell inserted the ‘limb-lining neural transmission beacons’, as he’d called them, and Fives now knows why he has the long, thin scars along his arms and legs. “Once inserted, I will check and adjust them periodically, as the subject grows stronger and more in-tune with the implant,” he’d said.

What he hadn’t said was what they do, but the implications are haunting enough. Doesn’t satisfy him, though. Implication isn’t enough—he needs to know.

They only just make it to the first one Fives thinks he might remember when they’re interrupted by a small blond head poking through the door.

“Hello,” she greets, talking over the Fives in the recording who’s demanding to know where he is. As soon as she speaks, Echo pauses it.

“Omega?” he asks quickly. His eyes flit about for a moment before his hand finds the cable in his head, and he unplugs, body giving a shudder before adjusting. “What’re you doing here?”

“Hi, Echo,” she says, which isn’t an answer, and jumps down from the doorway to the floor, landing right in front of him—the perfect angle, apparently, to throw her arms around him and pull him into a hug.

“Hah— What’s that for?” He lets out a startled laugh at her embrace. In all his time of being here, Fives hasn’t seen Echo actually smile at…well, anybody. He knows her?

“Didn’t get to yesterday,” she responds simply as she pulls her arms back into her pockets. “Hunter said I should get you guys for lunch.”

Echo’s face immediately turns apologetic, and he turns between Rex and the screen, already saying, “Ah, Omega, we would, but we’re…”

“Don’t you dare say you’re busy,” she threatens.

“Would ‘held up’ work?”

“Echo…”

He laughs again, softer this time, and it becomes apparent that yes, Echo very much does know her. As a shiny, he’d been sort of nervous, somewhat shy, but he’d grown more and more self-assured as they’d found their place in the 501st together, especially once they’d been promoted to ARC troopers. That distance he’d put between himself and others, though—that never went away. Everyone he knew was to be kept at an arm’s length, both physically and emotionally. The only person he’d bent that arm for was…well, Fives.

There is no trace of that distance between him and the kid. Everything, from the curve of his body to the ease of his smile, indicates familiarity, and more than that, comfort. He doesn’t just know this girl, he’s friends with her.

“I think we could do with some lunch,” Rex announces, causing a victorious grin to immediately break out across Omega’s face.

“Yes! See, Echo, now you gotta, ‘cause Rex said so.”

Echo starts to stand, but pauses halfway, asking, “You sure? There’s a lot of files to go through, and we don’t…” His eyes land, finally, on Fives. “We don’t have that much time.”

“If Chell wants to crash lunch, that’s his problem,” Rex affirms. “Come on, then.”

They start to leave, Rex first, then Echo, and Fives starts wondering which of his rations he’s got left when he feels a tug on his arm.

Turning with the pull, he finds himself looking down at Omega, who’s frowning up at him curiously. “You’re coming too,” she says, as if it’s a given.

“Ah, kid,” he starts, “I dunno if I…I mean, I’m not sure if—”

But Omega is relentless, continuing to lead him by the forearm, and he doesn’t have the heart to resist her. “Wrecker already set your plate, so you have to,” she announces. Her grin shows that she knows it’s a flimsy excuse, and she doesn’t care.

Ah, well. He guesses owes her, after she somehow got Echo to agree to the hacking. Why she’d cash in on a simple lunch, he’s not sure, but he can accept it.

A thought occurs to him. “Where’s the setup?” he asks as she speedwalks to catch up to Rex and Echo.

“At our house,” she replies. “Why?”

Their house had been closer to the base of the island. Not beach-level, but certainly not as high as the top. He’s not sure if he can do that walk two days in a row, not anymore. “No reason.”

“Y’know, ‘no reason’ is what people always say when they have a reason.”

“That’s rather antithetical, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I always thought.” They catch up to the other two, who still clearly have a soldier’s stride. Rex looks mildly surprised to see him in Omega’s tow, and Echo frowns, but clearly accepts it, continuing his steady march forwards. “But people still say it.”

The walk to their place is short, but clearly, not short enough, not after the past two days’ treks. His knee is throbbing by the time he’s trudging up to their door, and it feels hot and itchy under the fabric.

Omega catches him massaging it while Echo and Rex are distracted with the door. “Don’t worry,” she murmurs, “I can show you where the doctor is, if you want to get it checked out.”

Contempt for his failing knee and relief at the prospect of a fix swirl into a co*cktail in his stomach, one which can apparently only be expressed through an embarrassed grunt. Thankfully, Omega doesn’t push it.

The interior of their home is just as it had been two days ago, though now it feels far more crowded. Hunter and Rex clasp forearms in greeting, while Wrecker yells to Omega about helping him take out the fish they’d caught together. Crosshair, who had bristled at Wrecker’s booming voice, approaches Echo and asks him something that he can’t hear, pointing at his own prosthetic—asking him to take a look at the mechanics, maybe? The place is absolutely bustling.

Bustling, and yet Fives finds himself completely uncertain of what he’s supposed to do.

He takes Hunter beginning to sit as a sign that it’s fair game to take a seat, so he finds the chair he’d sat in before, the one right against the wall with an expansive view, and grabs the top.

Fives isn’t the only person with his hand on it.

Hunter snorts, and Fives sighs, looking up from Echo’s glove to Echo himself—Fives is vividly reminded of when they were cadets, how the two of them would race for a seat that had the best view of the room. His expression, squinted eyes, furrowed brows, sans the meat that used to fill his bones, is a perfect replica of the childish annoyance he’d get when they’d shove at each other’s shoulders for it.

“Fine,” Fives says, rolling his eyes, and Hunter’s snort turns into a laugh, one in which he tries to disguise with a cough. He takes the seat over instead.

In retrospect, probably a bad move.

To his credit, Echo does sit down, though he does so with much hesitation and a healthy helping of daggers in his glare.

“Play nice,” Rex orders from the counter. He’s helping Wrecker and Omega set up the food, with him carrying the side dishes and the two of them carrying the platter with the fish between them.

“Always do,” Echo mutters, then his eyes go comically wide at the enormous fish platter that clanks down upon the table. “Did you catch a mutant?” he gapes.

Omega grins, throwing a punch to Wrecker’s open hand, which he catches and returns. “Wrecker had to hold me steady, but I reeled it in!” she crows, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she throws another punch.

“I’m telling ya’ she’s a natural,” Wrecker says. He glows with pride—fishing must be ‘his’ thing.

“I think the whole island could eat this, and still have leftovers,” Crosshair drawls, plucking out his toothpick and flicking it into an open bin.

It’s delivered as an insult, but Omega only smiles wider, responding with, “And you’re just gonna take one bite and be full!”

His eyes narrow dangerously. “Those are fighting words.”

“No fighting at the table,” Hunter says firmly.

“Aw, really?”

“Well, Wrecker, when you offer to go to the carpenter and tell them why we need a third new table in under a month, then you can make the rules.”

Domestic. That’s the only word for what this is. He hadn’t known clones could ever be domestic, much less all together. They make it look so easy—how long have they been out of the fight? And they are out of the fight, they must be. None of them wear armor, for one thing, though they do each have a touch of something, like Hunter’s bracers, or Wrecker’s kneepads. For another, they’re all just too…settled. He can’t imagine any of them packing up and leaving to trade blaster shots with some Imps anytime soon.

Any of them but two, that is.

Rex and Echo sit with only slightly less posture than they would have in the war room, and even though their smiles are easy, their feet under the table are light. Trained to be up in a moment’s notice, clones are. All the more impressive that the batch before them seems to have managed to uncoil themselves from it.

Fives himself hasn’t been in the fight since he died, but that was out of necessity, not choice. He finds himself wondering two things while observing the two different dynamics at the table—one of them he keeps to himself under lock and key, not even wanting to begin to address that question, but the other, he decides to voice.

“How’d you all meet?” Fives asks, once everyone has gotten their food and is in pleasant talks. “I’d never heard of Clone Force 99 before this.”

The table conversation dies down considerably, which feels like a bad sign. Echo chews his food slowly and methodically next to him and refuses to swallow.

“Er,” Wrecker says with an awkward grin. “He not tell you yet?” He points his fork lightly, and who else would he possibly be pointing towards? Fives is going to slam his head into the wall.

“No,” Echo replies for him shortly.

“Were you…gonna?”

“I don’t know.”

“Right…” Wrecker nods, cogs visibly turning inside his brain, before leaning down to where Omega sits next to him and whispers in her ear, “Wait, was it a secret?”

“Let’s talk about something else,” Hunter says, before anyone can make anything worse. Fives is grateful for the interference—he says anyone, but honestly, it would most definitely be him. “Rex, how’ve the relocations been going?”

“Good, so far.” Rex seems eager to have an excuse to talk about something that won’t have Echo going glacial. “We got a few who wanted to stay with our group, but a couple had planets that they’d gone during occupations that they wanted to go back to.” He takes a bite of his fish, then asks, “How’re the boys settling here?”

“Also good,” Hunter says. “Geo was real excited that there’s a jewelry shop that works with rocks, Bucket’s been taking it slow, and Helix—oh, Helix told me to tell you, she’s a lady now.”

“Oh! Good for her.”

“Yeah, she’s been apprenticing with the butcher. I think she likes it there.”

For a moment, watching them talk, Fives forgets where he is, forgets the new boundaries he hasn’t gotten used to. Leaning over to Echo, he asks quietly as they trade words, “These the clones from…Tantiss?”

“Yeah,” Echo replies through a mouthful of salad. After swallowing, he remembers himself, turning sharply to say, “How do you know about Tantiss?”

“I don’t,” he says honestly. That single brief yeah is the closest he’s gotten to his Echo the entire time he’s been here. “Just something Phee mentioned.”

Echo’s eyes grow cold, but after a few beats, he shakes his head and sighs. “Worry about Tantiss later,” he says. “You have more important things to worry about.”

Translation: I don’t trust you, and I absolutely am not going to tell you about this ‘Tantiss’ until I am one-hundred percent sure you are not a fake or a spy or a clone of a clone or blah blah blah.

At least he’d said it slightly less confrontationally this time.

After the lunch, as the batch gathers the dishes from the table and Rex and Hunter carry on their discussion of the rescued clones’ rehabilitation, Fives watches as Omega playfully boxes with Wrecker outside through the window. They’d done a facsimile of it before, but the food must have given them a burst of energy, because they’re doing a lot more than light punches at open hands.

Fives tries very hard not to notice that Echo is also watching, but it’s frankly impossible. “She’s got good form,” Fives says lightly.

“Mm.” Echo nods. “I taught her.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes.”

It’s hard to imagine—Echo, with his reg manuals and wagging finger, trying to teach a rambunctious kid how to fight—but then again, Fives supposes that he’s thinking of an Echo years old now. This Echo, sterner, colder, but softer with her…yeah, Fives thinks he can see it.

“Hey, Echo,” he says suddenly. “Let’s spar.”

________

An impulsive suggestion on his part, but one that, now that he’s standing across from him on the sand, he doesn’t regret.

“I still don’t understand why you’d suggest this,” Echo mutters, peeling off his armor to match Fives in his thin tank. Putting his hands on his hips, he twists, causing his spine to crack in that horrible way that it had before.

“I don’t understand why you agreed,” Fives laughs. “I’m glad, though.”

Echo scoffs. “I only agreed so I could get through the rest of today without clocking you.”

“You have better self control than that, I think?”

A wry smile flits across his lips. “Maybe.”

Fives laughs again, letting it come easy, even if it does cause Echo to sour once more. “Seriously, though,” he says, “watching them, it occurred to me— we trained together, yeah? We used to spar all the time.”

“I did,” Echo acknowledges begrudgingly. Fives does not miss the way that he avoids the use of we, and tries to brush it off.

“Well, I know you’re not sold on the recordings,” Fives continues. “I wouldn’t be either, if I’m bein’ honest. Only reason I am is, ‘cause, y’know.” He uses both hands to gesture at his chest. “It’s me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What I’m saying,” he sighs, exasperated at this point, “is that you might not trust those, but you do know the way I fight. Let me show you that it’s still me.”

Echo’s eyes narrow. “That’s a stupid reason,” he says.

Fives nods. “Maybe,” he replies in imitation.

They both fall into ready stance.

Circling each other, Fives lets his world narrow, focusing only on the opponent in front of him. Echo’s always been an excellent defense—to land a hit, usually Fives needs to overwhelm him to get him to open up his defenses. This time, though, he’s got a few unpredictable factors. He’s got the scomp for a right arm, which shouldn’t affect how good he is with his leading arm—all clones are trained to utilize both hands, but Echo is naturally ambidextrous. It might, however, affect how he structures his defense. Right now, he’s leading with his left arm and leg in front, with the right guarded across his stomach instead of pulled back for an immediate reverse strike.

He’s also got, which Fives had only suspected before, but can see clearly now, a set of cybernetic legs. Those aren’t gonna tire easily, and tripping him’s gonna be a no-go, unless he really gets leverage. Cybernetic legs are too sturdy to trip in the easier methods, like going for the sides of the knees. If he wants to go for a trip, he’ll have to do a low, two-leg sweep, or, conversely, lift Echo off the ground completely. The legs might be heavy, but Echo was always a little slighter than Fives. Now he’s nearly the same as Crosshair, all taut muscle with little to nothing else. A lift over his hip wouldn’t be difficult, but getting Echo to attack him from behind might be.

It’s enough of a scan for Fives to throw the first punch, an easy left jab to the face, just to see if Echo’s reaction times have changed at all. Predictably, the hand is batted down the moment it’s out, and Echo shoots forward with the scomp to compensate for the opening immediately. Fives, also not one to miss an opportunity, uses his right arm to block Echo’s scomp, twisting into his space from behind and launching an elbow to his gut.

He can’t have his back to Echo for more than a second—as soon as the elbow lands, he turns back forward, throwing a right punch to Echo’s ribs, but Echo manages to block it with his scomp. The metal is jarring, denser than human skin, and with that opening, he’s able to land a sharp uppercut to Fives’s jaw, causing his teeth to clack.

“That scomp’s so not fair,” Fives grins, using the momentum from the uppercut to headbutt Echo as he comes down.

Echo’s forehead cracks against his own, causing him to slide back in the sand. “No such thing as a fair fight,” he growls, shooting his scomp towards Fives’s face as a distraction, then roundhouse kicking him in the ribs.

The metal lands hard, but Fives takes the chance to catch Echo’s leg in his elbow, sliding forwards and pulling up, causing Echo to go off-balance.

This is the opening he’d been hoping for; as soon as he’s in, he uses his right arm to cross Echo’s chest, then steps behind Echo’s left leg to take him down to the ground. The move works—Echo swings downwards, weight nearly completely supported by Fives’s arms, but he has more stability in that left leg than Fives thought. As Fives takes him down, Echo pulls flush to his chest, making Fives overshoot his landing and causing his left leg to slip in the sand.

“Banthash*t,” he gasps as his knee crunches into the ground. Echo gathers his legs underneath him to launch up and sideways, leaving Fives’s back in the sand instead. “Sneaky asshole—”

“The hell’d you do to your knee?” Echo asks as he catches Fives’s attempt at a reverse elbow to the temple.

“The hell’d you do to your knee?”

Echo cracks him across the cheek for that. “Stop asking questions,” he snarls.

“No!” He takes a risk and slips his hands away from his face, leaving it defenseless, to jab both thumbs into Echo’s kidneys. That gets him to lurch off—as soon as he’s up, Fives is up too, headbutting him in the stomach this time to bowl him over. “Stop acting like I’m some stranger!” Echo splays out on the sand, but doesn’t waste a second in using his right foot to dig into Fives’s left knee. The pain is immediate and jarring. “f*ck!”

“I’ll stop acting like you’re a stranger when you prove you aren’t one,” Echo hisses.

“How are you not getting it by now! I am Fives!” He throws a punch at Echo’s face, but it’s useless—once Echo had taken out that leg, he’d flipped him back over, straddling him. “The recordings! The files! The memories! How are you still this stubborn? It’s all me!”

“I can’t know that,” Echo pants over him.

“You weren’t even the one who watched me die!”

His spit flies into Echo’s face, which, with that, is stunned into a stupor.

“Rex watched me go,” Fives continues, malicious victory twisting in his chest. “Rex watched, and even he’s listening! Why can’t you?”

“Shut up,” Echo whispers.

“Do you know what I thought of when I died?”

“Shut up—”

“I thought of you! You, and Tup, Hardcase, the Dominoes—I thought I’d be seeing you again, but instead I woke up on a table—”

“Shut up!”

Echo comes at his temple with his scomp-

________

“Fives, wake up.”

His leg hurts.

“Wake up.”

Everything hurts.

“Fives, you need to wake up now.”

He doesn’t want to. It hurts, it hurts-

“Wake up!”

The slap that cracks across his face is much cleaner than the ugly punches that had been thrown just moments ago.

Fives shoots up, spitting sand out of his mouth in hacking gulps. His chest burns, burns where it always burns, and his overgrown nails catch on his skin and scars through his thin tank top. “F-f*ck,” he gasps, heaving for air. “Not—now—”

“It’s okay. Fives, you’re okay. Tell me what’s happening.”

“Shot,” he rasps, eyes spotty from lack of air. “Hurts—heart, lungs—”

“Come on, straighten out.” The other person pulls his chest back up, straightening his shoulders and lifting his arms. “You can’t breathe when you’re curled up like that. Expand your chest.”

He tries, lacing his fingers at the back of his skull, raising his chin and counting deep, shuddering breaths until his lungs feel less like they’re about to pop.

“Better,” the other person says, and.

Wait.

“Echo?” he asks, squinting at him through still-hazy eyes.

“Yeah. C’mon, keep at it.”

“You—what happened?”

His blurry face twists into a grimace. “We’ll get to that,” he says. “Can you breathe?”

“Yeah, I—yeah. Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” he mutters.

Fives runs a hand over his chest, smoothening the distressed fabric, and he doesn’t miss the way Echo’s eyes catch on the thick scars that reach out from the sleeves and begin at the tops of his pectorals. He doesn’t have it in him right now to be self-conscious—not like Echo doesn’t know what happened, recordings and all. As soon as Fives is able to breathe in full, he says, “I mean it. Thanks.” Looking down at his hands, he adds, “Never known what to do during those.”

“Not great with them myself either,” Echo admits. “Not exactly something they teach you how to handle on Kamino.”

Five lets out a breath of a laugh. “You too, then?”

“Not like yours, but. Yeah.” He lifts his right arm as evidence, whirs the scomp a little bit. “She’s a fun one.”

“Oh, damn. How’d you deal with those?”

“Like I said. Not great.”

He laughs louder this time, tired out even though the spar was barely a minute or two. He falls back against the sand to watch the lazy blue sky above.

“What happened?” he asks again, after a few clouds pass.

Echo is quiet. When Fives rolls his head to look at him, he sees his brother staring off at the rock where Fives’s ship is docked, where the rest of their day is waiting. “I hit you with my scomp,” he replies.

He lets out a whistle. “Low blow, Echo.”

“I hit you—hard.”

He rubs at his temple experimentally. There’s a bacta patch there, along with the surrounding skin being tender to the touch. “I can tell.”

“I think we need to talk to Rex.”

Wait, what? “Why?” Fives asks, pushing himself back up to a seated position.

But Echo doesn’t answer, merely standing up and dusting sand off his legs. When he goes to collect his armor, Fives sighs, figuring that this is yet again something to add to Echo’s list of reasons not to trust him, even if he was being somewhat more amenable when Fives first woke up.

They redress in silence. Clone trooper armor is more breathable than the leather stuff Fives has outfitted himself with, and watching as Echo armors himself in the old set, he finds that he rather misses his own white and blue shell.

Thenn, remembering the blaster hole in it, he thinks, maybe not.

It’s when they’re both fully suited and about to walk back to the shuttle, Echo having contacted Rex to come back down, that Echo finally speaks to him again. “You were right,” he says.

“About?”

“The sparring.” He turns to face him, eyes resolute. “You fight like him.”

He doesn’t say anything else on their way back, but he doesn’t need to. That was more than enough for Fives.

________

The first thing Rex says as soon as he lays eyes on them is, “I told you to play nice.”

“He started it,” Fives mutters, at the same time as Echo says, “Rex, we need to talk—” He pauses to shoot a frown back to Fives. “Did not.”

“That shot to my knee wasn’t what I’d call playing ‘nice’.”

“We were sparring, am I supposed to ignore when you have a weak point?”

“Sparring is different from fighting, it’s not—”

“No, no, ‘cause if you don’t spar right, then you won’t fight right, that’s one of the most basic—”

“Argue over who started it later,” Rex interrupts firmly, causing the both of them to snap their jaws shut. “Echo, what d’you mean? What’s wrong?”

Instead of immediately reply, Echo cuts across the co*ckpit back to the cable, plugging himself in before even sitting down. The screen starts moving rapidly—he’s taken them out of the folder with the recordings, moving instead to a folder full of encrypted files. “I think we need to get a better idea of what that thing in his head really does before we keep listening,” Echo says. “I also think we need to start offloading the data from the tablet before we go through it all so that we can get rid of this thing as soon as possible.”

“You don’t think Fives’s scrambled signal will give us enough time? There’s a lot of data here, Echo.” Rex leans over the control panel, studying the screen closely as Echo continues to de-encrypt quickly. His eyes squint at the unintelligible pace, the intermingling of numbers and text and code. “We have no idea how much of this is necessary, or if anything on it is dangerous.”

“I’m not sure we have the luxury of time here,” Echo says. “And I don’t feel like risking it after what I saw on the beach.”

“Well, what did you see on the beach?”

Fives would quite like to know the answer to that as well. He’d thought, at first, that Echo’s sudden change in attitude had come from accidentally slugging him too hard, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that this is not the case. That scomp must really pack a punch if it did something to change Echo’s mind.

At Rex’s insistence on answers, Echo finally pauses his work, letting a few progress bars load in the background as he turns to the two of them. “I think I made the chip glitch for a moment.”

“You what?” Fives exclaims, fingers immediately finding the bacta patch at his hairline. “How?”

“Are you seriously the one asking that?”

“No, I mean—I get that you hit me, but it’s not like you got to my brain.”

Echo sighs, wrapping his hand around the tip of the scomp and rubbing it against his thumb. “I think Chell’s chip might be a lot more sensitive than ours were,” he explains. “The hit was sharp, and I broke skin. Might’ve hit a nerve or something, I dunno. Maybe it jostled it.”

“We’ll get to the how later,” Rex decides as he straightens out of his lean. “What’s more important is what happened after.”

“Right.” Echo’s eyes may be connected to the tablet, but they turn uneasy nonetheless. “Once I hit ‘im, he sat there for a few seconds ‘fore he just—dropped.”

“He was sitting down?”

“I, uh, had him pinned.”

Rex sighs. “Of course you did,” he mutters, barely audible. “‘Course.”

“Anyways,” Echo continues, clearing his throat and sitting up straighter, “when he dropped, it wasn’t like, y’know, a faint. He woulda’ blacked out the second I hit him, right? But he didn’t. And his eyes didn’t close.”

Fives shudders, picturing himself pinned under Echo with a bleeding temple and glassy eyes. “Creepy.” Then he replays the sentence in his head and frowns, saying, “I think I did black out right when you hit me, though.”

He holds his scomp tighter. “That’s your end. On my end, you stared at me and blinked a whole bunch ‘fore dropping like a weight. Then, I…” He trails off, grimacing for a moment, before going on with the rest. “Well, if I’m being honest, I didn’t pay much attention at first. I needed to cool off.”

“You left him?” Rex gapes. “Echo, that’s—”

“No! I wasn’t gonna leave him, have a little faith,” he replies. A blush darkens his sickly cheeks, purpling them instead of making them redder. He used to blush easy; part of why he liked his bucket so much. Well, he’d never said so directly, but Fives had just assumed as much, given how often Echo’s helmet would slide on directly after he’d said something in meetings. “I just walked a few feet to kick a rock.”

“Isn’t that bad for your legs?”

“Sir, with all due respect, if I have to have clanker legs, then I’m gonna use ‘em.”

“Fair enough,” Rex concedes. “What changed?”

Echo shrugs. “Nothing. He didn’t get up.” One of the progress bars on the screen finishes loading, but displays a red error message, which elicits a disdainful click of his tongue . His eyes flicker back and forth for a few moments before the loading bar pops up again. “When I walked back, he was still just layin’ there, staring up at the sky. That’s when I realized he was bleeding.”

At first, Fives is a touch offended that Echo hadn’t realized immediately that he was bleeding, but as he opens his mouth to say so, he realizes that if Echo had known, that would actually be even more of an affront, considering the actions taken directly after knocking him out. Instead, Fives asks, “How’d you not see I was bleeding before?”

“Your hair.” Echo smirks, running his hand over his own shorn head, then says, “Couldn’t tell through that mop.”

He feels the back of his neck heat up at the way Rex eyes his ponytail, no doubt comparing it to the old regulation standard. “It’s to hide the tattoo,” he mumbles, though at this point, that’s only half true. After having it long for so long, he’s come to sort of prefer the look to his old cut. Gives him something to do with his hands. He likes to think it makes him look rugged—under Rex’s eyes, however, it feels neglected and ill-maintained.

Rex, for better or for worse, doesn’t reply to Fives’s halfhearted defense.

“So I see that he’s bleeding, and I—I mean, the optics of a bleeding head and a stare like that don’t look good, so I, y’know, I kneel down, ask ‘im if he’s alright.”

“And?” Rex prompts.

Echo works his jaw, mulling his words over like he always does before replying. “His eyes just snap to me,” he says, “like, fast, Rex, it was—I dunno how to describe it. But he looks at me, and he just says, ‘Yeah, I’m fine’.”

“And that’s…bad.”

“Rex, you weren’t there,” Echo stresses. “You didn’t see it. Didn't hear it. It was like—like there was nothing behind his eyes, his expression didn’t change, but his voice, it sounded normal. No strain, no discomfort. Not a single indication that we’d been sparring, or that I’d just shanked him.” His eyes squeeze shut for a moment, and during his pause, the loading bar on the screen finishes again, this time without any errors. The completion of whatever that was seems to provide Echo with a bit of relief, as he opens his eyes again with a short breath out. “I know you think I’ve been paranoid, but you gotta believe me, Rex. It didn’t look right.”

Rex furrows his brow as he looks between Echo, Fives, and the screen in front of them. Every second that passes seems to draw another line on Echo’s face. “‘Course I believe you,” he finally says, landing a hand on Echo’s shoulder. “You know I trust your instincts.”

“Thank you, sir,” Echo says, words tinged with relief.

Fives, meanwhile, wracks his brain in a futile attempt to locate the memory that Echo is describing. He already knows that he won’t find anything, but a simple, stubborn little voice in his head tells him that if he just thinks hard enough, it’ll come back to him. It’s his brain, after all, his voice—why shouldn’t he remember something he did, something he said?

As predicted, it’s futile. At least he can lend some credence to Echo’s argument; the blank space of time is one-to-one with the empty stretches he’d have with Chell. If Echo is right and the chip did glitch, then this could actually be the biggest hint so far as to what Chell was doing with him during the trials.

“What happened after?” he asks, braiding his fingers together in his lap. “Did you go right into slapping me?”

“No,” Echo says as he rests his chin in his palm. “I asked what the hell was wrong with you, and you didn’t reply to that one, then your eyes bugged out, you spasmed, then you fainted.” He curls his fingers over his top lip, finishing with, “Then I put that bacta patch on, you started hyperventilating, and then I slapped you.”

“Ah.” That’s where his memory begins, waking up with the blaster aches. “Thanks for the patch.”

“Don’t thank me,” he says, same as he’d said on the beach.

How can he not, though? Echo’s wanted to kill him since the moment Fives had stuck out his hand for a shake after he’d landed, and he put the patch on him anyway. Head wounds don’t even really need that much attention, what with how much they bleed over such little damage—there was no real reason for him to help, but he did. He helped with the patch, he helped with the tablet, he’s helping right now to de-encrypt files Fives never would’ve had hope of getting to without the hacking.

Don’t thank me. What a ridiculous thing to say. Force, does Fives miss him.

“What about this made you want to go along with a total offload?” Rex asks. “It does sound like a glitch, but what changed?”

“The glitch makes me think that whatever Chell’s got going on with him, it’s not something that’s conscious,” Echo explains. “My guess is that the chip completely shuts down the parts of his brain that make him ‘him’. Given that there’s also ‘neural transmission beacons’ all over him, I’m gonna go ahead and make another guess that Chell basically made him a human automaton.”

Fives skin feels a bit too tight all at once. “A what?” he asks, scratching at his wrist, at the very base of his scar. “What’s that?”

“He made you a meat robot,” Echo says. “One that he can make walk, and talk, and blend in with everyone else around you. Not like our chips, not an influence—I mean total control.”

On the surface level, this is not shocking news. He’d already known that Chell’s trials included something like movement and puppeteering. Theoretically speaking, this shouldn’t be anything new to him. But Echo’s theory—that he is not merely being influenced, but controlled, yanked around by some kind of—

Some—

—yanked around by Chell’s whims, makes for the worst sort of nausea settling deep in his gut.

The screen empties of progress bars, and Echo sighs, detaching the cable from the back of his head with a wince. “This is why I think we need to move as fast as we can,” he says as he blinks his eyes back into place. “We have no idea how any of this works. How far can his control go? How precise is his tracking? It’s too dangerous.” His gaze lands on Fives, and for once, it isn’t callous. It’s just heavy. “I don’t want to risk the day where Fives walks off ‘cause he says he’s gotta take care of something, then never comes back. Or worse, we’re mid-conversation, and he suddenly up and kills us.”

“I wouldn’t,” Fives says before he can stop himself.

“And he’s not saying you would,” Rex assures. “What he is saying is that Chell might, and I agree. I think we need to download everything off the tablet as quickly as possible, then destroy it and the recorder for good.”

“But the files—”

Rex puts up a hand, silencing him gently. “We’re still gonna go through them,” he says. “As soon as we can, we will. We just need to take care of this first.”

More waiting. More pauses, more roadblocks. More time spent not knowing anything about Chell and his stupid plans, more time spent in a skin he hasn’t understood for nearly three years.

Well. He’s waited this long.

“Alright,” he agrees. “Let’s get his sh*t off there.”

________

They decide to download the files onto the computer on their own ship, which is still docked at the highest point of the island. It makes sense—their ship has much more room for data storage than his shuttle does, and they promise to send him any files that they deem crucial. He’s not against that part of the plan.

He is, however, against the walk.

It doesn’t even take him a quarter of the way up to give into Omega’s suggestion of visiting one of the island’s doctors, and he manages to slip away as soon as they reach their ship. Rex tries to ask him what’s wrong, but Echo, who he’d sparred with on the beach merely an hour before, cuts him off. Another thing for Fives to be grateful for.

The walk down elicits a much sharper pain than the walk up had, and he ends up having to take several breaks, which he disguises to onlookers as admiring the late afternoon view. Not that he technically needs to disguise it, nor that the view isn’t anything worth admiring, but it’s the principle of the thing. He may not be a soldier anymore, but he’d spent two years in a war where his presence was a symbol of strength and security for civilians. If even one person on this island still sees clones that way, then he must do his best to uphold that image. They don’t need to know that their help has such a glaring flaw.

“There’s a few doctors, but I’ll take you to the one my brothers and I go to,” Omega says, after he’s found her shooting arrows at targets down by the beach. “He’s not far!”

She’s correct about that, thankfully. The little hut she leads him to is a mere quarter-loop around the island, and given the size, it seems less like a home and more like an office. It’s got a sign made from glued-on seashells hanging by the door— AZ, is all it says.

“I made that sign,” Omega relays to him with a puff of pride.

“As a gift?”

“‘Course,” she grins, “he’s my friend. And he’s helped us a lot.” Leading him inside, they land in what is essentially both a lobby and a medical office, far homier than on Kamino but still very well maintained. “AZ!” she calls out, “Are you home?”

From a small cutout door in the back, there’s the sound of clutter falling, then a voice carries back, “Just a moment!”

That voice…Fives knows that voice.

Before he can come up with even an approximation of something to say, a little grey droid floats out the doorway to land in the air in front of them. Sure enough, it’s him—the large yellow lenses, the cylindrical head, the torso that would be far too small to support it had it any legs to stand with—“Omega!” the droid chirps brightly in greeting. “What can I do for you?”

“AZI-3?” Fives blurts out.

He must be dreaming. He must be, there’s—there’s just no possible way that he’s here. He can’t be, right? He can’t be.

And yet, the droid who most certainly cannot be AZI-3 floats in front of him, co*cking his head curiously in exactly the same fashion as he’d done three years ago. His yellow eyes dim and flicker as if he’s blinking. “Yes,” he says, “that is an approximation of my designation. My full number is AZI-34521—”

“Oh- kay, AZ, thank you,” Omega says, cutting him off with a laugh. Turning to Fives, she asks, “You know him?”

“Do I know him?” he repeats, stepping up to the droid and grasping his tiny shoulders. “You—you survived! I thought, after I’d gotten on the transport—”

“Er,” AZI-3 says, “Transport—?”

“I was sure you’d be scrap metal! How’d you make it?”

The droid looks between Fives and Omega helplessly, eyelights flickering once more. “I do not know what he is talking about,” AZI-3 states, apology clear in his tone.

Fives’s enthusiasm sinks. “You were reprogrammed,” he murmurs.

“Oh, yes. This is true. I was reprogrammed two years and two-hundred and eighty-six rotations ago. I was restored to a previous backup, which had taken place two weeks before my reprogramming.”

He drops his hands off AZI-3’s shoulders, suddenly embarrassed at his outburst. Of course he’d be reprogrammed—how could Fives have thought anything else? There’s no way AZI-3 would’ve survived this long and retained everything the two of them had learned.

Omega’s fingers brush against his bicep, nearly grasping him like she would one of her brothers but hesitating at the touch. “You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good, kid.” He takes a deep breath, then stands himself back up as straight as he can, ignoring the flare from his hip down to his knee. “Let’s get this appointment started, yeah?”

In retrospect, he’s not sure why he hadn’t asked Omega to leave, but he hadn’t asked, and she hadn’t brought it up, so she stays as AZI-3 guides him to one of the three cots he’s got in his homemade office and sits him down. He scans the length of his leg, asking him various questions along the way, like when the pain started (he doesn’t know), how long he’s been aware of it as a problem (since about halfway through stage two of Chell’s trials), and where it hurts, when it hurts, and for how long after (hip and knee and occasionally ankle, anything to do with moving it at this point, and for a while).

The assessment takes longer than Fives had thought it would, which makes him antsy. Echo and Rex are probably still downloading all those files. What if they’ve found something important? What if they delete something, and don’t tell him? What if they keep something that they find, and decide not to tell him? Oh, force, what if—what if their ship gets a virus? What if Echo gets a virus? How would that even work?

“I have a tentative diagnosis,” AZI-3 says cheerfully, breaking Fives out of his questioning loop.

“Let’s hear it then,” he says, pulling his mind back together as quickly as he can. Now’s not the time to be spiraling. Actually, the preferred time to be spiraling is never, but especially not now. He needs to soldier up.

In response to Fives, AZI-3 pulls up the scans he’d taken of Fives’s leg on the small holopad in his hands. “Your iliotibial band—that is a tendon that resides on the outside of your thigh, stretching from your pelvic bone down to your patella—is far too tight, resulting in quite a lot of pain and inflammation. This is known as iliotibial band syndrome.”

“Alright, great,” Fives says with a clap of his hands. “So how do we fix it?”

“Oh,” AZI-3 says, shaking his head. “We do not.”

“The hell d’you mean, ‘we do not’?”

The droid zooms in on the scans, narrowing in on his left patella. “Your condition has gone untreated for far too long,” he explains, circling what certainly must mean something to him but nothing to Fives on the scan that shows his tendons and bones. “This has resulted in you likely having developed patellofemoral pain syndrome, which has a longer recovery time, and both conditions, once developed and especially once left untreated, are likely to return multiple times in one’s life.”

Fives stares at him, barely comprehending what he’s saying and not liking the things he is comprehending at all. His stomach clenches as he asks, “What’re you saying, then?”

“I am saying,” AZI-3 replies, mechanical voice gentle, “that I will treat it, but that this is very likely not a problem you will only face once.”

________

Fives leaves AZI-3’s clinic equipped with three things—a bottle of anti-inflammatory pills, a file containing a physical therapy regiment, and a knee brace.

“I don’t want to be wearing this,” he’d muttered, but AZI-3 had been insistent.

“You will need to follow the instructions given if you want your pain to ease.”

It hadn’t mollified him, but he had put it on.

“I’m sorry,” Omega says as they part ways, her going back to her home, Fives going back up the island to where Echo and Rex are waiting. “I know that probably wasn’t what you wanted to hear.”

She’s certainly right about that. However, he’s not about to go and dump all the curses that have been building up on his tongue since the moment he’d heard the words iliotibial band on a kid. Especially not one who’d gone out of her way to help him, has been doing so since he’d landed. So instead, he smiles, scratching at the back of his head through a knot of hair awkwardly. “Ah, s’not your fault,” he replies in an easy tone. “Just the way things turn out sometimes.”

“True.” A blunt answer, but a respectable one. “Still, I hope your knee feels better.”

“I’m sure it will. AZI-3’s the most capable droid I’ve ever met.”

“He is,” she agrees, though her the smile she gives him falters. “I wish he remembered you. I had no idea he was the one who helped you in the facility.”

He’d been preparing to step back and start on his way up, but he stops starkly at her words. “You—you know about that?”

“Of course,” she replies, brows furrowing quizzically. “Nala Se was not happy.” At Fives’s lack of response, her eyes widen, and she smacks at her forehead suddenly. “Sorry! I completely forgot, you wouldn’t know.”

“Wouldn’t know—?”

“I was Nala Se’s lab assistant,” she explains. “She kinda, um, raised me, I guess?”

“What?” Fives draws back, unable to withhold any shock. “I— you?”

Nodding, she continues, guilt washing over her expression as she says, “Sorry for how she treated you. She…she didn’t know about the Empire, I promise. She didn’t want all of this.” Her voice quiets further. “If she’d known, she would’ve let you go.”

Banthash*t, is the first word to bubble up. Absolute, straight from the ass, banthash*t.

It hasn’t been something he’s focused much on, considering the living hell that Chell has made for him, but Fives hasn’t forgotten Nala Se and her relentless desire to see him dead. How she wanted, more than anything, to stop him from saving his brothers, the Jedi, the galaxy, all for—for what? A paycheck? He still doesn’t know. But he remembers the insistence all the less.

You were created in our laboratories, she’d said, ignoring his anger, ignoring his evidence, and ignoring his humanity. You are Kaminoan property.

But Omega isn’t speaking like someone who hopes for the best. She also, in Fives’s short time of knowing her, doesn’t seem like the type to make empty promises.

“What happened to her?” Fives ends up asking.

“Tantiss,” Omega murmurs in reply. “She gave her life for me. For us.”

At some point, he’s got to find out who or what or where this ‘Tantiss’ is. Seems like it was some kind of turning point for everyone on Pabu.

The idea of Nala Se giving her life for someone—a clone, no less, several clones if he’s been keeping track of things right—is downright laughable. He simply can’t reconcile the woman who had begged Shaak Ti to let her terminate him in the name of being defective property with the selfless actions that Omega is describing. It’s just not in him.

But it is in Omega. After all, she’s the one who saw it.

“How’d someone like her raise someone like you,” he wonders aloud.

“Lots of lectures,” she says, allowing a small grin to return. “Medical equipment, droids, and lectures.”

“Now that sounds like her,” he snorts.

The two of them part with a wave, and Fives tries his best to not let this new information rattle him. At least one thing makes sense now—Omega was Nala Se’s assistant, which means, however close or distant they may have been, she must have talked with her about some things. One of those things must have just so happened to be Mir’e Chell. Specifically, her annoyance with him and his ridiculous projects.

He can see it now, actually. Nala Se, working in her lab, ranting to Omega in a droning, tired voice about the over-enthusiastic madman who she wishes she could fire. It’s such a vivid picture that Fives could almost laugh.

Knowing of her apparent heroism does nothing to help him forgive her, and knowing that she raised Omega raises age-old alarm bells that warn him of duplicitous action. How can he trust someone raised by the person who tried to have him killed? Who succeeded?

Omega’s not asking for his trust, though, and so far, she’s gone above and beyond to earn it. He needs to put Nala Se behind him. She’s dead and gone—that’s enough for now.

Once he makes it up to Rex’s ship, it’s nearly dark, sun sinking over halfway down the horizon line and only getting lower. The appointment had taken longer than he’d thought, and the walk, even longer. He’s absolutely sure AZI-3 will chide him later for making the walk at all.

“Sorry for the wait,” he says, pulling himself into their ship’s co*ckpit by the railing to disguise the slight limp he’s developed. “How’s the downloading?”

The two of them are seated at their ship’s controls—as Fives approaches, he is met with twin expressions built on grim lines and anticipation. “We got everything off,” Rex replies. “Right now we’re wiping the tablet before we destroy it.”

“Why d’you gotta wipe it?”

“Can’t risk anyone somehow putting it back together,” Echo answers for him.

That makes sense. Even if they break the tablet into thousands of tiny pieces and bury it under bedrock, Fives can feel the shadow of fear on the back of his neck at the idea of someone putting it back together. A man got cut in half and came back alive—it seems like science knows no bounds in this galaxy.

Fives and Rex watch in silence as Echo deletes the files, Chell’s work down the drain, bit by bit. When he deletes folders instead of files, their eyes are glued to the progress bar. Fives counts the percentages under his breath as they go up. It’s agonizing, like watching a thousand pots going to boil, but every time a folder disappears, he feels his shoulders lift a little higher.

It feels like hours until the last file blinks from the screen. It feels like seconds.

“Done,” Echo croaks out, ripping the cable out of his head haphazardly. “We’re done.”

Were Fives not already sitting down, he’s sure his knees would give out in relief. As it stands, he drops his forehead into his hands, digging his fingers through his hair with a shaky breath.

“Hey now, brother,” Rex says, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Not over yet. Still gotta wreck that thing, and its little buddy.”

Right, the recorder. Fives had nearly forgotten about it in his haze. “More files?” he asks through his palms.

“Nah, it wasn’t a storage device. Just went straight to that old thing.”

His shoulders sag further. “Okay,” he manages to say, then, lifting his head back to face the two of them, he continues, “okay. How’re we busting that thing?”

They decide, after some deliberation, to let Fives shoot it a couple times with his blaster. Once it’s riddled with holes, they’ll tear the thing apart, maybe even burn up the pieces in a bonfire.

“Is the burning really necessary?” Rex asks, leaning against a tree near the edge of the cliff.

“Probably not,” Fives admits as he pulls out his blaster. “It’ll feel damn good, though.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

Echo’s holding up the tablet at Fives’s eye level a few feet away, stood much like they’d been as cadets during target practice. During training, though, they certainly hadn’t held it bare-handed.

“You, uh,” he calls, lowering his blaster, “you sure you don’t wanna tie that to your other arm, or a branch, or something?”

“Eh,” Echo shrugs. “What’s another hand?”

It’s not a joke made without threat—Fives can see the slight edge to his eyes even from here, meaning, if you actually shoot my hand off I’ll f*cking kill you— but it’s a joke nonetheless, and force, has Fives missed Echo’s jokes. He never made as many as Fives would, which would often make people think Echo didn’t have a sense of humor. That was never the case. He had a great sense of humor; he just also happened to be a bit of a stick in the mud. Thus, his jokes tended to be made in private or under a layer of sardonicism and critique, usually leading to Fives being the only one who got them.

He’s still a stick in the mud, but Fives is glad to see it when Rex barks a startled laugh.

“Whenever you’re ready, then—”

There’s a hole in the tablet before Fives even knows he’s pulled the trigger.

Rex whistles, saying, “Good shot, mate,” as Fives pulls again, and a third time. The screen shatters, smoke curling from the blasts, and on the fourth one, a large section in the middle cracks all around and falls to the ground with a thud. Echo takes the opportunity to crush the discarded glass and metal under his heel.

“Runnin’ out of target,” Echo calls from where he’s standing. “Are we good?”

“Just a little more!” Fives implores.

Echo sighs, eye roll felt more than seen, but straightens his arm back out to let Fives get a couple more in. By the twelfth shot, he’s basically got a scrap triangle dangling between his fingertips. When Fives shifts to get a better angle on it, he feels Rex’s hand on his shoulder pulling him back.

“I think we’re good now,” he states firmly.

Fives’s arms, he realizes, are shaking, and he holsters his blaster before Rex can notice. “Right,” he says, “right, yeah, ‘course.”

His cover isn’t fast enough—Rex’s eyes catch on his hands, then trail over towards where Echo is stomping more of the scrap into dust. “Why don’t you gather all that up, yeah?” he asks, then to Fives, he says, “Nights are gettin’ colder here. How about that bonfire?”

Fives was right. It does feel damn good, watching it burn.

He can’t take his eyes off it—the flames are thick, engulfing the shattered remains so much as to obscure them from view, but the air smells of smoldering metal and that’s evidence enough for him that it’s working. Tomorrow, when the fire’s gone out, he’ll make sure it’s all gone, but tonight, he settles for watching it go.

The Batch had been kind enough to help them with the wood—apparently, Hunter’s taken a liking to axe-work, which completely tips him over the edge of the woodsman look he’s got going on, despite living on an island. Wrecker had bemoaned being left out of the smashing of it all, but Crosshair replied that were Wrecker involved, Fives wouldn’t have even gotten a shot, which he’d admitted as true. Omega had passed him a bundle of sticks and sugar squares.

“For the fire! Like a party,” she’d said. He’d been kind enough to punch Echo in the kidneys before he could tell Omega that it would probably be a bad idea to eat anything cooked in a fire along with a burning tablet.

They did end up eating a few of them, though neither Rex nor Echo seem to care much for sweets. Fives will never understand that about the two of them—having enough credits to splurge on a bit of sweet now and again was Fives’s go-to both during the war and after it. Tup hadn’t gotten it much either, but Hardcase was practically an addict.

He misses them, Fives thinks, squishing one of the squares between his thumb and forefinger. Force does he miss them.

“We should probably head back,” Echo says suddenly, soft voice cutting through the night air. When neither Fives nor Rex respond, he asks, “Rex?”

The two of them glance to the third member of their circle propped up against one of the beach’s various rocks, whose chin hangs limply against his chest. A soft snore escapes him.

“Ah,” Echo says.

“To think,” Fives snorts, “he used to get on our asses all the time about stakeouts. Who’s sleeping now, huh?” He raises his sugar square in salute towards their sleeping captain before popping it in his mouth.

Echo pulls his knees closer to his chest, resting his arms on top of them loosely. “He’s had a rough go of it,” he murmurs. His gaze falls back to the fire, and Fives watches it reflect in his paled eyes. “Resistance work, settling the others, tracking down Wolffe…”

“Wolffe’s still out there?”

“With the Empire.”

“Oh.”

It’s another few moments before Echo chooses to speak again. “...He’s been doing his best, keeping up with it all. I do what I can to help.”

Fives nods. There’s a question at the tip of his tongue—the same question that had unfurled in his chest at lunch, the one that he buried before he could even put words to its form—and he swallows it back down. “He trusts you,” Fives says instead, setting Omega’s bag of sugar squares back on the sand at his feet. He’s not that hungry anymore. “He couldn’t ask for a better right hand.”

Echo scoffs, but there’s no heat in it. “Save that for after we’ve got through the files.”

“Still don’t trust me, then?”

“No.”

Blunt as always. At least he’s not glaring. Much like Fives, he just continues to gaze into the fire, watching the smoke make its way up towards the sky. “That’s alright,” Fives says, pushing away the twinge in his chest as he says it. “I trust you. Always have.”

Echo doesn’t look at him, but Fives smiles anyways, knowing that he’s being seen in his brother’s periphery. They have time now to build it back up. The fire playing in front of them is the proof—no matter what they find in those files, no matter how bad it gets, Chell’s hands might as well be ashes, because there’s no way he can find Fives now.

It’s been two years since he’s escaped, but for the first time, he feels free.

Fives inhales a breath of air, savoring the smell of burning wood and melted metal, and—

________

—it breathes out.

Within its head are coordinates. The same coordinates, repeating over and over. From what it remembers of the coordinates given to it by the woman known ambiguously as both Anne and Phee, they are close. It is likely the coordinates lead to this planet’s moon.

“You shouldn’t,” the clone known as Echo says. It thinks that he is speaking to himself, but he continues more directly towards it. “You don’t—you don’t know what I’ve done, I…”

It does not have a reply to that.

He breathes in through his nose sharply. “I’m making up for it,” he says, “I’m… trying to make up for it. That’s all I can do.” After a pause, he says, even more quietly, “Who else is going to?”

It does not have a reply to that.

“Sorry,” the clone known as Echo says suddenly. He looks up at it over the bonfire. “Look, I—I want to trust you, I do.” He frowns as he adds, “f*cker who sent you knows I do. But I need answers first. I need to know that you’re not…” His jaw flexes. “Compromised.” After a beat, he asks, “Are you sure Chell was tracking the datapad?”

The implant’s defensive mechanisms employ automatically, having it respond with, “Yes. Chell can’t track anything else.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes.” For additional deception, the implant employs it to take advantage of the trust the clone known as Echo has in it, and it adds, “I promise, Echo. It was coming from the tablet.”

There are a few moments in which it is held in an unblinking stare.

Finally, the clone known as Echo releases a sigh at its response, indicating that the implant’s defensive mechanisms were successful. “Good. Good,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “And I…I didn’t say it earlier, but I’m sorry. About your knee.” He takes a long drink of something in a can that is sitting next to him, then wipes his mouth with the heel of his hand. “And for stabbing you, I guess.”

The additional aspects to the sentence are not ones that it has a reply to, but I’m sorry is located as one with a response. “It’s okay,” it replies automatically.

The clone known as Echo squints at it. “You…alright?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” it replies automatically.

His eyes remain squinted for a period of six seconds before they return to normal. “Alright then,” he says. “If—if you’re sure.”

It does not have a reply to that.

“G’night,” the clone known as Echo says. “See you tomorrow?”

It does not have a reply for that. Statement indicates that a reply is expected. The next best basic matching reply is chosen—“Okay.”

Conversational patterns indicate that the exchange is over. It turns and walks back towards its shuttle, pulling itself up the rock it is docked on. The climb elicits a pain reaction in its knee—it makes note of this, but does not react or halt, as it cannot do so.

The clone known as Echo remains on the beach behind it. It closes the ramp to its shuttle, and waits until both he and the clone known as Rex have departed.

Then, it inputs the coordinates within its head, and takes off, flying until it reaches the moon of Pabu. The surface coordinates lead it to another shuttle, of nearly the same exact make and design.

The surface of this moon does not have a breathable atmosphere. Looking through the shuttle’s hold, it finds the discarded unpainted clone trooper uniform it had escaped in the two years before. This helmet and armor should suffice until it reaches the other shuttle—it is not space-faring armor like many other clone trooper armor models, but even the ground-stationed armors and helmets were designed to be able to withstand the vacuum of space for a brief period of time.

It equips the armor, then exits its shuttle, walking up the other ramp as it opens for it.

“There you are,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says, turning in his pilot’s seat as it approaches the co*ckpit. “Hello, subject.”

“Hello,” it replies automatically.

Dr. Mir’e Chell stands, crossing the room to face it. His height causes it to tilt its head back as far as it will go. “I believe it is finally time we got to stage three.”

________

—breathes out, relief washing over him in a wave. The night might be cold, but next to the fire, it feels…

It also feels cold.

Fives opens his eyes.

“No,” he gasps, barely seeing anything beyond the bright light above him and sterile grey walls. “No, no, no—”

He writhes against the restraints that he already knows are there, but it’s useless. From his neck down to his ankles are several restraints, and while he can still feel his body, can feel his fingers slide against the slick metal beneath him, he’s too restricted to move. His temple cracks against the table with how hard he turns it, and he screams, throwing his skull as hard as he can backwards.

“Careful,” Chell warns, approaching from his left side. “If you keep up with that, I will paralyze you.”

Mir’e Chell, to his left, looming above him. The same grey skin, the same empty eyes, the same droning, emotionless voice. One of his hands rests behind his back, and in the other rests a small black box, one that could fit in a pocket.

“The controller,” Fives whispers. Horror floods through him—he’s known about the controller almost as long as he’d been Chell’s project. How could he have forgotten about it? How could he not have warned his brothers, told them what it could do? “What did you do—” he snarls, craning his neck as far as he can against the bar across it. “What did you do?”

“Your implant has several background defense mechanisms,” Chell explains, running his thumb over the controller’s buttons languidly. “One of them being that the longer you are out of contact with me and my controller, the more your forward-presenting mind will forget about its functions.”

Fives feels his head begin to shake without his volition, a cold sweat already beading down his brow. “No,” he pleads.

“Yes.” Chell walks over to Fives’s feet, where a new rolling table sits, and atop it, a new tablet. “You forget about it all—the control, the neural transmission beacons, the tracking.”

“We destroyed your tablet,” Fives insists, “I watched it burn—”

He co*cks his head atop his toothpick neck. “Interesting,” he says. Tapping at the tablet screen, he says, “Subject’s implant defensive mechanism appeared to have taken a unique approach in regards to its suspicions on being tracked. Instead of simply forgetting that it was being tracked at all, the implant diverted all thoughts of tracking to the tablet, and not itself.”

“No.” His voice is nearly a sob now. “You can’t do that—you’re lying, you’re a goddamn liar—”

“I have lied to you once,” Chell spits.

“f*cking liar!”

“I do not understand what you gain by refuting me,” Chell says, massaging his temple with a slow hand. “Screaming will not change anything.”

“I was out,” Fives whispers, “I was out, it was over. Let me out!”

“I cannot do that.”

“Then f*cking— kill me!” he shouts, voice breaking at the end, falling quiet with, “Just kill me. Please. I can’t…” He swallows, pinching his eyes closed at the admission. “I can’t do this again.”

“I cannot do that either.” One of his hands finds a tool on the tray—a handheld bonesaw, same as he'd heard on the recording only the day before. He rolls the device between his fingers. “What a waste that would be, now that you are back,” he says, seemingly to himself. Then he blinks, tilting his head back towards Fives, and asks, “Do you know why I am telling you this?”

He shakes his head, though whether it’s as an actual response, or an unconscious trembling, even he doesn’t know. This can’t be happening. Not after everything, not after today. He was just starting to get Echo back—he just found out that the closest brother he'd ever had is alive.

“Stage three ends with a full shutdown of your autonomous thought and action,” Chell says. He delivers this news, this news that steals all the air from Fives’s lungs, the same way one might tell you the weather that morning. “Alternating between autonomous thought and full implant control was vital to the recovery of your brain and body, but I believe that you have had more than enough time to heal. This means that we are on a much faster track.”

“f*cking kill me,” Fives begs again.

Chell drags the bonesaw over his skin as he walks back up to his face, but he does not use it to puncture his heart. “You surprised me,” he begins, ignoring Fives’s pleas, “when you escaped. I should have expected it, but I did not. This was a failure on my part.”

The saw taps against Fives’s chest, right at the point where his autopsy scars converge.

“I was…angry,” Chell says. The way he delivers it, it sounds as if it’s the first time he’s realized this himself, or the first time he’s said so out loud. “You made me angry. You did.”

Tap, tap, tap.

“At the time, my controller’s area of effect was far too short,” he sighs, then tucks the black box against his chest. “As you can see, since then I have expanded it considerably. This,” he glides the bonesaw down Fives’s chest as his hand sweeps the length of his body, “was not to happen again.” He drops his hand and lets the bonesaw clack against the table sharply. “And it will not. Not now that you have stopped on a planet long enough for me to unscramble your signal and locate your exact coordinates.”

Fives’s lungs constrict, aching from lack of air, and his heartbeat is far too loud in his ears. “Tell me where we are,” he demands—he tries to demand. It comes out so pathetic and feeble that he could melt the table with shame.

“Does that matter?” Chell asks.

“Yes.” No. Maybe. He doesn’t know. “My friends—”

“Your friends will not find you,” Chell chuckles, pushing a lock of hair out of Fives’s face. “You have already told me everything that happened preceding you coming back to me. In their eyes, you had a bonfire, and then you went back to your ship to sleep. By the time they wake, we will be long gone.” The finger becomes a full-handed grip, digging tightly into his cheeks and pulling him as far forward as his neck restraint will allow him to go. “You will be long gone.”

Something in Fives’s brain just—shatters, watching his entire field of vision be swallowed by Chell’s hollow eyes. His body gives out. He stops fighting.

Chell holds him there a little longer, tilting his chin from side to side, before finally letting his head drop with a clang. “Good,” Chell murmurs. “Subject has accepted the terms of stage three.” He straightens up, closing his eyes as he says, “I will be back momentarily to commence the preparations. First I must launch us into hyperspace.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, and Fives doesn’t give him one. Even if he was capable of it, what would he say?

A whole two years. A whole two years of running. And now it’s over. His mind and body will belong to Chell, and he won’t even know that it’s happening. He’s going to die, except this time, he’ll keep walking.

He’s so tired of dying.

Before Fives can close his eyes and let full catatonia set in, the shuttle lurches, rattling the table and causing the rolling tray to slide across the floor and bang into one of the walls. The tools atop it scatter at the impact, and the tablet richots off towards the ground.

The hell, is all his hazy mind can conjure, before Chell is storming through the door again, slamming at the keypad. “You,” he snarls, lips curling back so far that Fives can see his gums. “What. Did. You. Do?”

Fives opens his mouth, but closes it as the shuttle rocks again, causing Chell to stagger where he stands. “I don’t—” he starts, “I don’t know what you—”

“Do not play dumb,” he hisses, grasping at the table with both hands so as to balance himself. “Your friends, you contacted them somehow, I know that you did—”

With another blast comes another stumble for Chell, and this time, the ship lets out a creak, then a long, awful moan, before careening onto its side.

Chell screams, tripping over his long legs as the room tips sideways, and he tries to catch himself on the railing lining the wall. Instead, his hands slip, and he misses, being thrown into the wall along with his rolling table and various tools. His sharp elbow lands on one of them with a crack.

And then Fives’s restraints click open.

His fall to the ground is not graceful, nor is it easy—Chell had bolted the table down, so he’d been level with what now constitutes as the wall of this room. The restraints had lifted all at once, but his limbs slip out of them in a disordered, ungainly fashion, as much of a mess of arms and legs as Chell. It is him, however, who recovers first.

He army crawls along the wall-ground, pulling himself closer and closer, until his legs feel less like flimsi beneath him and he’s able to stand above the heap of Chell, his table, and his tools. Amidst the pile of tools is the handheld bonesaw.

Chell coughs, sputtering awake, and his half-lidded eyes shoot wide open when he sees Fives above him. “Wait—wait,” he hacks out, “How did you—”

“Shut up,” Fives growls, sinking to his knees. He grabs Chell’s neck—his thin, bony neck—in one hand, and his fingers wrap all the way around to his windpipe. When one of Chell’s hands comes scrabbling to his chest pocket, Fives uses his other hand to pluck the controller out.

The thing is surprisingly complex in its make. From afar, and from Fives’s continual underside view, it had looked to be a simple black box, with one or two buttons protruding from it. Now he can see that there are many buttons, all in a neat grid, and all the same black as the box they’re built into. The only button actually visible to most would be the largest one at the top, colored grey instead. All of the buttons except for the grey one have tiny bumps on their shelling, each in different patterns, which Fives assumes Chell has memorized the meaning of.

He throws the controller across the room.

“No-!” Chell shouts, extending a hand to catch it, only to spasm when Fives grips his neck tighter.

One knee shifts, placing it on Chell’s sternum, and the other keeps his balance as the ship groans softly once more, tilting them further to the side. The tools roll across the ground, and Fives catches the handheld bonesaw before it’s out of reach. Chell’s eyes land on the implement in Fives’s hand, and under his fingers, he feels the scientist’s pulse begin to race.

“Why did you do it,” Fives asks, voice still.

“I—I—”

“You ‘don’t care’ about the Empire,” he sneers, “you ‘don’t care’ about the Jedi, you ‘don’t care’ about the Sith. Do you care about the resistance?” A laugh bubbles up in his throat, ugly and bleeding, and he digs the tips of the saw’s blade into the first layer of skin under Chell’s chin. “I bet you don’t.”

“I do not,” he agrees, gasping silently for air.

“Then why,” Fives begs. “Why? What was the point? What was all this for?”

Chell’s mouth works for a few moments, where all that can be heard is the drawing of his breath. “Is that truly all you want to know?” he asks.

Somewhere outside of the shuttle, there’s the sound of slamming, then blaster fire. The ship creaks ever further.

“Just tell me before I cut your f*cking throat out!”

His eyes—empty, hollow, black—lose all feeling, all trace of panic, all lines of fear. He looks exactly as he did when Fives first laid eyes on him. “No.”

Fives lets out a shriek, then turns on the bonesaw, driving it up Chell’s chin and through his jaw, right under his tongue.

His blood spatters across Fives’s hands, his face, and into his open mouth, and he keeps f*cking pushing because maybe, if he drives the goddamn saw in deep enough, maybe the man will spill, rescind his stupid answer and come clean. But the deeper Fives pushes, the quieter Chell goes. His pulse goes sluggish under his fingers, petering out as the slick blood makes his grip harder to maintain.

“Tell me!” he screams, “f*cking tell me!”

Footsteps sound behind him, and someone shouts, “In the hold!” before reaching the tilted doorway. “It’s here! I f*cking knew it Rex, I knew something was wrong! He’s in—” The footsteps come to an abrupt stop. “Oh, god.”

“He won’t tell me,” Fives chokes out. “He won’t—he won’t—”

“Fives, that’s—that’s enough,” the person says. They come up behind him slowly, placing a firm left hand on his shoulder. “It’s over, you got him. Turn off the handsaw.”

The saw is so deep in Chell’s chin that his hand on the hilt is starting to sink into the hole he’s made. It's the first time that Chell has ever felt warm.

“Fives, turn it off.”

“H-he—” he swallows, then sobs out, “he couldn’t even—”

“Alright. Alright, here.”

The left hand encircles his own on the saw, guiding his thumb to press the button that powers it down. A thick spurt of blood covers both of their hands as the saw stops, before continuing to flow in a lethargic river down his neck.

“C’mon, up,” the person says, tugging at his hand gently. “We have to go now. This…this all needs to go.”

“The—the controller,” Fives whispers, voice trembling as badly as his hands.

The person behind him curses. “Rex, see if you can find anything that looks like a, uh, controller,” he says.

“Echo?”

“Yeah, vod. It’s me.”

“Echo,” he moans, collapsing back into his brother’s chest. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“What—?” He releases Fives’s hand to pull at his shoulder instead, detaching Fives from Chell’s neck as they slide further away. “Rex, you find anything?”

Rex’s soft footfalls land next to where Fives is sat on the floor, and he kneels down, holding the small black box in his hand “This it?” he asks.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s it.” Before Rex can stand to walk away, Fives grabs his arm, pulling him close, and asks, “Rex? He—he won’t tell me. Make him tell me, please, I know you can.”

“I…” Rex trails off, eyes pinched, before looking over Fives’s shoulder to Echo behind him. “Echo, take him out,” he orders. “I’ll make sure there isn’t anything left in here, then we turn this thing into wreckage.”

“But you’ll make him?” Fives begs, pulling Rex’s arm again insistently.

Rex lays a hand over the one Fives has on his arm. “I’ll try,” he promises, before nodding to Echo.

Echo pulls him up under the arm, hand splaying across the scars on Fives’s chest, but he doesn’t remark on them. The blood coating his hand leaves a print on Fives’s right pectoral, just above the blaster hole. He is reminded briefly of Rex’s blue hand on Echo’s chest, all the way back on the Rishi station, and he closes his eyes, wanting to stay in that memory for longer than it holds him.

“Time to go,” Echo says. This time, he leaves no room for argument.

________

“I am going to have you walk towards me.”

“Yes, doctor.”

It is made to walk forwards.

“Now,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says, “we will perform a simulation. Assume I have tasked you with buying a new piece of machinery. It looks like this—” He displays a small chip, one that the doctor has explained is obsolete in function. “In this simulation, I am the merchant with this machinery. You are aware that you are supposed to buy it for me.”

“Yes, doctor.” It relaxes its posture into the more naturalistic form that is meant for social interactions. “Hey, how much is that?” it asks, pointing to the machinery.

“Oh, this?” Dr. Mir’e Chell holds it up. “It is two thousand credits. This is a hot item, you know.”

“Dr. Mir’e Chell says that that is an obsolete piece of technology,” it replies.

“No—no,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says. “Remember, this is a simulation. This is only a stand-in.” He clears his throat, then says, “Again.”

“Hey, how much is that?”

“Oh, this? It is two thousand credits. It is a hot item, you know.”

It is made to search for any credits Dr. Mir’e Chell has equipped it with. “I have one thousand credits,” it replies.

“Ah, well. Better luck next time.”

It looks up at the doctor. It does not have a reply for that.

“When faced with this situation, and I have given you direction, but I am not manually controlling your movements, what do you do?” Dr. Mir’e Chell asks.

“I buy the machinery,” it replies.

“But you do not have enough credits. So, what is your solution?”

“I—” Its tongue falls flat. It does not have a reply for that.

Dr. Mir’e Chell sighs, placing the chip down. “Your autonomous problem solving skills are taking longer to develop than I’d anticipated. That is alright, though. We have time.”

It does not have a reply for that.

“May you pass me that glass?” Dr. Mir’e Chell asks as he rubs at his forehead. “Work was…exhausting today. I apologize for not being as engaged.”

‘As engaged’ does not have an automatic response, but ‘I apologize’ does. “It’s okay,” it says as it passes him the glass of water.

“Thank you, Nova,” Dr. Mir’e Chell says after a drink. He smiles at it.

It smiles automatically in response.

________

Fives can’t remember much of the trip back.

He knows that Echo helped him to a ship—he knows Clone Force 99 was there, and he knows Wrecker was holding a large box of explosives. He knows that Rex came back and dug through those explosives before carting out ones that made even Wrecker pull a face. He knows that Omega pulled his hair back out of his eyes, and helped Echo and him clean off their hands.

Other than that, though, it’s all a blur. They don’t take him back to his shuttle, which he later finds out was piloted back to Pabu by Hunter, but they don’t take him to Rex and Echo’s ship, either. In fact, when he wakes up, it feels like he’s in a natborn’s bed.

Then he sees the helmet on the shelf, and it hits him.

“You’re awake,” Rex says, alerting him to the fact that his Captain is seated by the window. He pushes himself out of his chair and walks over to the bedside quickly. “How d’you feel?”

“Take the chip out,” Fives says in lieu of an answer.

Rex’s face pulls into a wince. “Let’s try some food first, yeah?”

Fives throws off the covers, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “No,” he says, even as Rex extends a hesitant arm, like he wants to push him back down but won’t touch. “Where’s the controller?”

Before Rex can answer, Fives spins around, checking left and right, which—alright, it wouldn’t make any sense for it to be on the bed, but he just woke up, sue him—and doesn’t see it in either direction.

“Rex,” he demands, “Where—”

“Easy, Fives, easy,” he says, holding his palms up in the air in surrender. “The controller’s still in our hands, it’s fine. Echo’s got it. He’s up in our ship, trying to go through more of Chell’s files.”

He’s trying to placate him with that, but all it does is raise his hackles further. “I need that controller, Rex,” he insists.

“I know. And you’ll get it back. He’s just got it up there for safekeeping.”

“But Chell—”

“Chell’s gone, Fives,” Rex interrupts gently. “You remember, right?”

“I—yes, I—” He remembers Chell’s table. The way the ship had swayed, and Chell’s perilous fall. He remembers kneeling over him, hand enclosing his windpipe, and he certainly remembers the bonesaw. No, he—he knows Chell is dead. He remembers. “I killed him.”

There’s a clattering from what Fives assumes is the kitchen, followed by an angry shout, which itself is followed by another, even angrier shout, then another clatter. This clatter is followed by a shriek.

“Sounds like dinner is going well,” Rex says. “Feel up to it?”

“No. I’m gonna go to AZI-3.”

This time, when he stands up, Rex doesn’t stop him, but he does let out a soft sigh, saying, “Fives, c’mon—”

He doesn’t listen. The insubordination makes his stomach clench unpleasantly, but Rex doesn’t understand. This isn’t something up for debate, and it absolutely isn’t something that can wait any longer, especially with that goddamn controller still working.

As he exits the hallway, Rex catches up to him. “Fine. Fine,” he says, “but I’m coming with you.”

“Tell Echo to come too,” Fives says. “I need the controller.”

“You think it’ll be necessary for the surgery?”

“No. I mean, maybe. That’s not it.”

It’s certainly part of it—he knows the controller and the chip are intrinsically connected, and that there may be a need for the controller during the removal process. But the bigger, more glaring issue is what Chell had told him about it while he’d had him captive.

He can’t believe he hadn’t realized. How could he have possibly forgotten? Why the hell would he have cared about Chell’s bag for the tablet, he hadn’t given a damn about Chell’s work back then. In that moment, all he’d wanted was to be free, and that controller had been the key. And he f*cking forgot.

The implant, too. It feels insane to think about, the idea that he wouldn’t even consider the damn thing to be tracked, but even now he can feel his mind rebelling against it. There’s no way it could be tracked. The implant couldn’t be tracked. It must have been something else. These thoughts absolutely bombard him the moment he thinks of implant and tracked in the same sentence.

This is why he needs to get it out now. No waiting, no setbacks. Not even dinner.

Entering the living room, he finds himself exactly where he’d predicted he’d be—the house of Clone Force 99. Currently, Crosshair is bitching at Hunter over something—it looks like a salad, which is just a baffling image—and Hunter is snarking back, placing rolls on a plate. Poor Wrecker is at the stove dejectedly starting on cooking a raw fish, and Omega is crouched on the ground, sweeping up what is most definitely a fallen first fish.

“Oh, he’s up,” Hunter says, briefly pausing his snide back-and-forth with Crosshair to greet the two of them. “Dinner’ll be ready soon, but we, uh—”

“Hunter knocked over my salad,” Crosshair sneers.

“I wouldn’t have knocked over your salad had you not been standing right in front of me, in a moving kitchen—”

“Aren’t you the one with magical senses? How could you not—”

“Both of you, shut up,” Wrecker scowls. “Because both of you knocked over my fish.”

Omega grins up at them from the floor nervously. “I told ‘im we’d still eat it off the floor, but he didn’t like that idea very much,” she says, dumping a particularly large piece into a trashbag next to her.

“No floor fish,” the three men say in unison.

“See what I mean? No winning with them!”

The torrent of domesticity he’s walked into is hard to face at first. The last thing he remembers is blood caking his hands—now, they’re making fish and dinner rolls.

“Sorry,” he mutters, ducking his head as he walks to the door. “Can’t join. Would love to, but, ah.” He lays a hand on the doorknob, then swirls the other in a circle around his temple. “Gotta take care of this first.”

“What, now?” Omega says, crinkling her nose.

Rex sighs. “He’s insistent,” he explains.

From behind the counter, Hunter raises a brow, resting on his elbows as he stops his roll placement and leans forward. “You’re sure?” he asks. “It might take a while. Could at least take something with you.”

“I…”

The combination of Omega’s pleading face and Rex’s weary eyes cause his resolves to crumble, just a bit.

“Fine,” he concedes. “I’ll take something up. But I’m still going.”

“That’s all I ask,” Hunter says.

They send both him and Rex with a roll and a few strips of dried meat, since they wouldn’t be staying long enough for the new fish to cook. Rex eats the roll on the way up—Fives tries to do the same, but his stomach rebels as soon as the food touches his tongue.

“Not hungry?” Rex asks.

“Guess not.”

Rex had commed Echo to meet them by AZI-3’s clinic, so thankfully, very little uphill or downhill was required from this particular walk. He’s sure that his speedwalking isn’t really helping things, but nobody ever saved time lollygagging.

They might save their knees though. Force, it’s on fire in the short time it takes to get to the hut.

“Hello, Fives!” AZI-3 greets as they walk through his door. “Do you have any questions regarding your PFPS? Would you like another demonstration of your exercises?”

“Er, no,” Fives says, watching the way Rex mouths, PFPS? out of the corner of his eye. “This is different. Way more important.”

“Oh, but very little is more important than the lasting health of your knees,” AZI-3 says as he floats towards them. “For humans, joints in the lower body are critical to keep healthy, especially as they age!”

“Uh-huh,” Fives says. “Look, AZI-3, I know you don’t remember, but—”

The droid co*cks his head. “I remember everything. My memory banks are flawless.”

"—Before you were reprogrammed, you and I, we had a stint at Kamino. You helped me get a chip outta my head.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

“Oh. I do not remember that.”

Fives sighs, reigning in every last bit of patience he has left in him. “I know,” he grinds out. “But that’s how I know that you’re capable of doing it. Do you think you can do it for me again?”

At the question, AZI-3’s eyelights flutter, less like a blink and more like flurry, and he takes a few seconds before saying, “I do not think I can remove something that has already been removed.”

Do not bang your head on the wall. Do not bang your head on the wall.

“What he means,” Rex cuts in, stepping in front of Fives lightly, “is that a different guy put another chip in there. Do you think you can take this second one out, even if it’s different?”

“Oh,” AZI-3 says, understanding dawning in his tone. “I do not know. I can certainly try.”

“You’re not gonna wanna try without these,” a voice calls from behind them. Turning to the door reveals that Echo has made it down, flipping a rod in his hand.

Fives crosses over to Echo immediately. “The controller,” he stresses, “do you—”

“Right here.” He passes off the rod to AZI-3, then digs around in his pocket until he pulls out the black box, which, for some reason, is encased in a larger, clear box. “That was, uh,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “So that there wasn’t any accidental button-pressing.”

“Appreciate it.”

Echo looks, for lack of a better word, exhausted, The bags under his eyes are twice as dark as usual, and there’s a pallor to his already rather pallor-heavy skin that wasn’t there before. His fingers keep tapping against his belt.

“You…alright?”

“Are you alright?”

The question causes Fives’s frown to deepen. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m good.”

“Good. So am I.”

Rex puts his face in his hands.

Holding the rod that Echo had given him, AZI-3 floats over to the third cot on the left, motioning for Fives to lay down. For a moment, he cringes—getting right back up on a table after he’s just gotten off of one doesn’t feel all that great—but if he wants the damn thing out, then he’s got to man up and push forwards. He can’t chicken out because of a table.

Besides, AZI-3’s cots are far more comfortable than Chell’s metal slab, and they don’t have any restraints. Already a huge improvement.

“These are the files on the chip?” AZI-3 inquires, plugging the rod into his computer.

“Yeah. Those ones should just be the ones on its construction, at least from what I could tell. I also put all our notes on the inhibitor chips—the one that you’d got out of him before. If it’s not substantial though, let me know and I’ll pull a few more.”

The droid flies through the files faster than the three of them ever had. Droid processing power is better than a clone’s, he supposes. “Unnecessary,” he concludes. “These appear to be correct.”

“Did you already read them all?”

“Oh, no. I simply scanned for keywords throughout them all, and compared the amount of files to those on devices of similar complexity.”

Fives snorts a laugh. “He was always goin’ on about how this damn thing was sooo complex.”

“Indeed,” AZI-3 replies gravely. “There are nearly four times the amount of files in comparison to devices of similar construction.”

“...Oh.”

The serious tone disappears almost immediately. “I will begin the operation!” he chirps, rotating his body 360 degrees. “According to these notes, those who have undergone this operation were only under for a few minutes, so that should be plenty of time for me to open you up and take a look while scanning through the documents to make sure that I am doing everything right!”

Somewhere over to his right, he hears Rex mutter, “Why the hell were we even botherin’ reading all this if he could just do it in seconds?”

“Information acquired in the easiest manner is most often the least reliable,” Echo replies, rolling his eyes.

“Put those Jedi proverbs in a sock and stuff it.”

To his left, AZI-3 holds up a hypo, then cradles Fives’s head with one of his hands. “You will only be under a few minutes,” he says again.

“That’s what you said last time,” Fives murmurs up at him.

“I do not remember that. Was I correct?”

“Yeah,” he says, then, “you saved my life, y’know.”

The hypo is mere centimeters from his neck, but AZI-3 pauses. “I was under the impression that you had died.”

“Well, yeah, but—before that.” He closes his eyes, feeling the needle of the hypo graze his skin. “Just wanted to say thank you. And, y’know, sorry. About being reprogrammed.”

AZI-3 hums lightly before patting him on the cheek. “That is alright. I am sure I would not have blamed you. Goodnight!”

Well, that was abrupt, is his last thought before going under.

Waking up feels like the longest blink of his life.

“...not gonna be happy,” someone is muttering—Rex, he thinks.

“Let me,” another—Echo, that’s definitely Echo—replies.

“You sure?”

“I owe him, Rex.”

“Who owes wha’…?” Fives slurs, pushing himself up onto his elbows.

Opening his eyes, he finds Rex seated next to the cot, and Echo leaning against the wall, with AZI-3 floating between them, wringing his hands. He’s scanning rapidly through the files again—did the droid miss something in there, or is he brushing up on it?

Running a hand along his head, he finds the shaved patch where the surgery took place, and he scoffs lightly, remembering how silly Tup had looked with the bald square right at his hairline. It had been the briefest of funny things, before everything else that happened right after.

Look here, Tup, we match, Fives thinks. Maybe he’ll shave the rest of that side, so it doesn’t look as ridiculous. He’d shave the whole thing like last time, but again—he’s grown rather fond of the length.

“Please do not get up yet!” AZI-3 startles, pushing Fives’s shoulders back down onto the cot. “I am making sure that I did not disrupt anything vital to your systems, so I would like you to remain completely still.”

Fives is just about fed up with people pushing him back into bed today. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he says, waving a hand. “Now that that’s over with, let’s get rid of that controller—”

As he raises himself into a full seated position, his stomach suddenly rebels viciously. There is practically no time to do anything other than cover his own mouth before he’s spitting up bile into his lap.

“Oh, sh*t,” Rex says, leaping up with a trashcan. “Fives, di’kut, when the droid says stay down, stay down.”

Got it, he tries to say, but instead, what comes out is a vague, “Hh,” then he’s clutching the offered trashcan and coughing up more of the acrid sh*t.

“Easy, brother,” Echo murmurs, having walked off to who knows where, and coming back with a towel. “Take it slow.”

“The—the chip,” Fives heaves, gagging into the bucket in his lap. His stomach’s completely empty, but it still clenches painfully like it would throw up more if it could. The nausea curls upwards into a splitting migraine—he’s not sure which came first, but what he does know is that the two-hit combo is making him wish he hadn’t woken up at all.

AZI-3 looks between Rex and Echo, and even though the droid has no face, his body language still reads as uneasy.

“What,” Fives says. “What is it?”

It’s Echo who comes forward, taking a sharp breath in through his nose to steady himself as he uses the towel to wipe off Fives’s legs. “It can’t be removed,” he answers, voice clipped, movements monotonous.

Fives’s lungs stop working.

“That…that can’t—no.” Whipping his head towards AZI-3 makes him dizzy, but he blinks through it, voice cracking as he asks, “What does he mean, it can’t?”

“I am sorry,” AZI-3 says. He’s never heard a droid sound this guilty in his life. “I tried my best, but it is simply impossible to extract Mir’e Chell’s implant from your system.”

“But the other chips—”

“They were not nearly as advanced,” he continues. His tiny hands continue to wring, and he spins himself in a circle again, far tighter this time. “They also did not have the added element of sensors across the body to allow for manual motor control. His implant was truly a one-of-a-kind device. Clone inhibitor chips were made to be replicable by the millions—Chell made only four, each improved from the last.”

“Four?”

AZI-3 nods. “And only one succeeded.”

Another failure, he remembers. Chell had tried his project on other clones—none of them had ever made it past stage zero. One of them had failed right at the heart restart.

“But if it can’t…” As he trails off, Rex pries the trashcan from his hands, letting them fall limp atop his thighs. “If I can’t take it out, then what…?”

Silence overtakes the room.

“I am sorry,” AZI-3 says again.

Fives doesn’t respond.

________

Hunter had parked his shuttle back down on the beach, same as before. He’d even managed to get it on the same rock.

Fives isn’t in his shuttle right now, but he is sitting next to it. The slick surface below his legs chills him through his thin pants, and the chill is only worsened by the night getting colder. He should probably go inside.

He does not go inside.

Instead, he sits, feet dangling off the edge, staring into the black water. In his hands is the small box with the controller—were it not for the moonlight reflecting off of the glossy case, the controller would be a perfect match for the water behind it.

Black controller, black eyes, black water. All a force he seems to be swallowed in.

“Not good to sit out on these rocks so late,” a voice calls out from behind him. Echo. Always Echo.

He doesn’t respond, even as he hears his brother walk up behind him and take a seat.

For a moment, the only sound is the crash of waves against this side of the rock. It’s a large one, with half of it rutting into the sand, and half of it stretching into the water. It’s large enough that from where they sit, they could jump in and not feel the bottom below. They might, however, feel several more rocks. Fives isn’t sure quite how rocky the terrain of this beach is.

Echo kicks his right leg out over the ledge, folding his left leg up closer to rest his elbow across his knee. The hand hanging in the air is fidgeting. “...When the shuttle exploded,” he starts, words so slow that at first Fives doesn’t really understand what he’s saying. Once he does, he holds his breath, sure that a single puff of air would stop him from what he's saying. “I didn’t know what had happened. I heard you call my name, and then there was nothing.”

“I’m sorry,” Fives whispers in a hoarse voice. “If I’d known that you lived…”

“Nobody knew that I’d lived. I didn’t know that I’d lived.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth. “My memories after that are pretty vague, but I know that I woke up on a table. The seppies had got me—salvaged my body and screwed on some droid bits.” A soft huff of laughter escapes him, and Fives can see in his periphery that Echo’s eyes are on his scomp. “Guess they thought I could still be of use.”

“They did all that to you?”

He shakes his head, then taps at one of the grey plugs on his head. “Seppies were the legs and arm. Then they sold me to the Techno Union—they’re the ones who did all this brain sh*t.”

It’s hard to imagine it, Echo, strewn out on a table like a lab experiment, mangled and burned from an explosion that very well should have ended his life. He’d been brought back from the brink of death, only to be chopped up and sold to the highest bidder. “Why?” Fives asks, brushing his thumb across the box in his hands. “I know the Techno Union’s crazy, but…”

Echo’s brow furrows, cheeks thinning as he bites down on them—there’s one Echo habit that hasn’t gone away. “They wanted to make a tool,” he says. “f*ckers liked to say they were neutral, but we all knew the truth. Take a clone, plug a computer in its head, and suck the battle plans out of it, and you’ve got a real nice new product for the seppies to drown their credits in.”

“They used you against the Republic,” Fives realizes, and suddenly, much of the past four days come into clarity. “They used you against us.”

“I’m not telling you this for pity.” His tone becomes a touch sharper, both defiant and defensive at once. “I’m telling you because you need to understand how it all looked for me here.”

A thin cloud passes over the moon, briefly obscuring the highlight of the box around the controller. Within it, the controller disappears between his fingertips. “I told you before,” he says. “I trust you.”

“I don’t know how you say that so easily.”

“I don’t know how you don’t believe it.” He swallows, and it feels like sand going down his throat. “You were right not to trust me.”

Echo swats at Fives’s shoulder with his scomp. “Stop that.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Try for me.”

“I can’t.” His facade of control begins to crack. The corners of the box dig into his hands where he clutches it tightly. “It was all supposed to be over, all over, but he ruined it.”

“He would’ve come for you anyways—”

“Not that,” he croaks. “The chip. I got it out, and I—I couldn’t save everyone—I couldn’t save anyone— but I saved myself. I got away. And then,” his chest swells, and the blaster wound aches with his age-old hate. “And then Chell took that away from me.” Forehead to his knees, his arms push out in front of him, fingers going limp. The box dangles precariously in their hold.

Through his knees, the black water kisses the rock. He doesn’t know how rocky this beach is. How sharp it is under the surface.

Echo is quiet again, and Fives is out of things to say. They used to make so much noise. Even though Echo was a stickler and Fives was a hardhead, they still managed to make an empty room feel like a band, that’s how great they used to be.

If Fives had just died when he was supposed to, that would’ve been the picture he’d taken to the grave. And yet now he’s here.

“You did save people,” Echo says, breaking the silence.

Fives grits his teeth. “You wanna ask the dead and dying who exactly I ‘saved’?”

“Rex,” he continues. “Ahsoka. Every clone who was able to survive because Rex got their chips removed.” He traces a fine white scar on his grey scalp. “Me.”

“But..the order, I—”

“It was ‘cause of your warning that Ahsoka was able to get Rex’s chip removed,” Echo insists. “You started this. All of this. The clone rebellion—that’s your legacy.” He turns to face Fives fully so that his hand can meet Fives’s shoulder, digging his thumb in so hard that it hurts. “And maybe I’m selfish, but force, Fives, I’m sorry for what Chell did, but I—I am so, so glad that you’re here.”

The facade breaks completely.

“What am I supposed to do?” he sobs, hands shaking so badly that he brings them back over the edge. “I can’t—I’m a liability, I can’t fight, I can’t help, and my banthash*t leg—” Thinking of his leg, of the tendon currently adding a new layer of hell to his life, he lets out an ugly cry of a laugh. “He knew it was a problem from the beginning! He knew it wasn’t healing right. How do you bring a guy back to life but you can’t fix a f*cking tendon?”

He doesn’t notice until his feet are on the ground that Echo’s pulled them both back from the rock’s cutoff. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “To—to all of that, I mean. I really don’t know. But Fives, it’s been, what, sixteen hours? Since Chell died?” He folds his hand over Fives’, where the box still resides. “Give it a bit of time. You don’t need to know all that yet.”

Fives sniffs, pulling one of his hands away to try and rid himself of the evidence of his tears. He’s doing a shoddy job of it—they just smear everywhere, and dry into an itch that is not relieved at all by the other tears that fall after, and the picture of himself in his head is so ridiculous that he lets out another strangled laugh.

“Rex would court martial me for this,” he chuckles wetly.

“Trust me, he’s seen me worse. Hell, he’s looked worse.”

“Really?”

“Don’t tell ‘im I told you.”

His laugh this time is stronger, more of a real laugh than just a sob with a hint of one. Just like before—Echo and his hidden sense of humor. Fives is grateful that he’s allowed to miss it this time without the fear of never seeing it for himself again.

“There’s so many things nobody’s told me,” he sighs, finally tucking the stupid controller box into his pocket. “I get why, but you have no idea how frustrating it’s been. I feel like I’m missing at least a hundred different inside jokes.”

“I can try filling you in,” Echo smirks, “now that I know you’re not a spy.”

“Ooh, careful with that offer. We could be here a while.”

“Try me.”

“Alright,” Fives starts, smudging the last few tears out from under his eyes. “First off, then—what the hell is Tantiss?”

________

The next two weeks are…peaceful.

Fives isn’t sure he’s ever lived with ‘peaceful’. Honestly, he’s shocked he recognizes it; he’d thought that it’d be such a foreign concept, that once he finally had peace, he wouldn’t know he’d found it. But no, instead, peace creeps upon him like a lichen, one that, while strange, he doesn’t necessarily want to be rid of.

Echo does tell him about Tantiss. He tells him about a lot of things—the fall of Kamino, the day they got their chips out, the arrival of Rex. He implies some duplicitous behavior from Crosshair, but refrains from expanding on it. Much like Rex had said about Echo and Skako Minor, it’s ‘not his story to tell’.

He tells him about Tech. Fives hadn’t even realized—the batch has seemed so whole, but the entire time, there’s been a glaring missing piece. When Phee finally comes by and confirms he hasn't gotten everyone from Tantiss killed and gives him the latter half of his pay, it finally occurs to him that Tech was the hacker she'd been thinking of. She’d called him ‘brown-eyes’, according to Omega afterwards when she shows him the spot on the shelf where his broken goggles lay. Fives gives a silent prayer for him. Maybe he hadn’t known this brother, but he still gave his life for people that he cares about. He doesn’t forget that kind of valor.

One of the best parts of the week is meeting the clones who took refuge on Pabu after Tantiss.

Visiting Geo at the jewelry shop he’s started working at lands him with a delicate necklace of leather with a white coral pendant—“On the house, ‘course,” he’d said as he’d placed it in his hands. “I, er, heard what you did. On Coruscant, I mean. Wasn’t hard to put two and two together after the war.”

They catch Helix in the middle of her training, which, in her enthusiasm at seeing Echo and Rex suddenly in the doorway, lands the three of them covered in blood and ambiguous meat juice as her cleaver strikes down far too hard. “So sorry,” she’d said, a hundred times at least, handing them napkin after napkin to wipe down their faces. “I am— so sorry. Would you—um. Would you like some of our fresh cuts…?”

Bucket is by the shore more often than not. “How’s the search going, Bucket?” Rex had asked the first time they’d seen him. “Find anything that catches your eye?”

He’d shaken his head slowly. “I’m sorry,” he’d murmured. “I just don’t feel…nothing’s clicking for me like it is for them.” He’d stared down at his empty, calloused hands, which, after Fives pays attention for a moment, he realizes are afflicted with a rather strong tremor. “The only thing I was good at was being a pilot, but now I can’t. I don’t know what to do.”

They’d tried to sympathize, but it hadn’t been until the fifth day of the second week that Fives had replied with, “Me too,” that Bucket had listened.

“Yeah?”

He’d nodded, sitting next to him in the sand, and said, “Not the pilot part, but. The fighting. The war. It’s like a listless feeling, right? Like, ‘where do I even fit here?’”

“And everyone else already seems to fit,”Bucket had continued softly. “And the piece you used to fit in—”

"—Doesn’t anymore.”

“...Yeah.”

Fives had waited, mulling over his answer, before finally saying, “Maybe we can just stay on the shore for now.” Digging into the sand, he’d managed to find a piece of seaglass, which he’d pressed into Bucket’s hand. “I bet we can help each other find something.”

That had been the moment that Fives had realized that he was staying on Pabu.

It was a shockingly easy decision, one that, while having been cemented by Echo’s speech about the clone rebellion being his ‘legacy’ and taking his time to figure things out, has truthfully been sitting in his chest since that first lunch with the Batch. Sitting there at that table, next to his brother and across from his Captain, amidst a family who was raised for the same war they were and yet behaved nothing like it, he’d realized that he didn’t really miss the war at all.

Flying across the galaxy, hopping from place to place without any rest, doing jobs that crossed nearly any line he’d had for himself in terms of pride and dignity, as long as the job wasn’t ‘bounty hunter’—somehow, that had been even harder than the war, and twice as exhausting. He’s had his fill of high-stakes missions and taking starships into hyperspace. The only thing that was in the war that he hadn’t had for those years, nor the year before it, were his brothers. All he wants is his family, and they’re right here on Pabu.

Most of them, anyways.

Echo is quiet when Fives tells him. “I figured as much,” he says after a few moments. “You pretty much spelled it out for Bucket there.”

“I just—I can’t do it anymore, Echo. Even if I wanted to, I can’t. I’m too much of a liability.”

His jaw flexes minutely. “We could work on that.”

“I don’t think we could. I’ve got a gimp knee and a glass head—you saw what your scomp did to me.” He nudges Echo’s shoulder, tacking on, “And I don’t think I want to spend the rest of my life figuring out how to be useful again.”

He draws back from Fives’s touch, leaning back against the wall of Fives’s shuttle instead as he asks, “What does that mean?”

“Do I have to spell it out?” Fives sighs.

“Spell what out?”

Guess he does. “I think you should stay with me,” he says. “Maybe not forever, or maybe not all the time, but—c’mon, Echo. You can’t fool me.”

Echo’s eyes set wide, and the lines of his mouth are drawn taut. “I don’t—”

“You think I haven’t been talking with Rex?” he insists, and when Echo doesn’t reply, he continues with, “You think he hasn't talked about the others? Gregor? Howzer? Dozens of other clones, capable, trustworthy men, all working right by his side?”

“I—” His expression hardens as he crosses his arms. “That has nothing to do with this.”

“It has everything to do with this!”

“How?”

Fives groans, dragging his hands down his face roughly. “I can’t believe I was worried you’d changed,” he mutters. “You are exactly the suicidal di’kut you’ve always been.”

The veins in Echo’s forehead are actually beginning to bulge, face flushing with clear anger. It’s certainly been a while since Fives got that kind of reaction out of him.

‘I’m not—” Echo sputters, “That’s not—what are you talking about?”

“You’ve always been like this, but the whole Skako Minor thing has made it so much worse.” Echo tries to interrupt, gawking, Skako Minor ‘thing’? But Fives barges forwards. “This whole, ‘it’s my duty, this is my purpose, I must save them all’ thing.”

“That’s not a thing,” Echo scowls, “we’re clones. This is our purpose.”

“So I’m not doing my purpose, then?”

“I—”

“Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair? Omega? Want to tell Geo and Helix and Bucket that they’re not fulfilling their purpose?”

“It’s our literal purpose!” he cries, throwing his arms out in exasperation. “Not every clone has to follow it! Not all of us can! But I—I can, and I need to, ‘cause—”

Fives sticks his pointer finger in Echo’s face. “See, there it is, that you need to. Why do you need to, but I don’t?”

The finger gets slapped down, but Fives pops it back up, only for it to get swatted down again. “Stop being a tubie,” Echo snaps.

“Sure, once you tell me why you’re really doing this.”

“Our brothers need help,” he grits out, listing out a one with his finger. “I owe it to them to set things right,” a two, “and if we don’t help them, who will?” A three.

Fives nods along nonchalantly, layering on a thick, innocent tone when he replies with, “So, one of those is just a statement, and the other two are exactly what I meant by ‘the Skako Minor thing’.”

After that, Echo nearly storms out, making it halfway down the ramp before Fives is able to catch him by the elbow.

“Echo, wait,” he says, sobering quickly. “Listen. Please, just listen.”

His back is still turned, but after a long, heavy sigh, Echo replies with, “What.”

“It’s hard to put into words,” Fives starts. “But you—you and I, I mean—we’ve done it all. Been through the wringer. If anyone should get to rest, I think it’s you.”

He can’t see the expression on Echo’s face from behind, but judging by the way his chin hangs, it isn’t good. “I can’t.”

“But you want to.”

“It…doesn’t matter what I want.”

“It matters to me.” Pulling his elbow around, he turns Echo to face him, finding his eyes flat on the ground and his jaw clenched so tightly that his teeth might as well be cracking. “Echo, I—I just got you back. I don’t know if I can…”

You’re no coward, Fives.

Force, but does he feel like one.

“I don’t know if I can do this without you,” he blurts out, all in one exhale. “I’m f*ckin’ scared, vod.”

At the confession, Echo’s eyes widen, snapping up to meet his gaze where he stands. His fist goes limp at his side.

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Long enough for Fives to think that he’s made the wrong choice.

Then Echo says, “Okay,” and it’s such a shock that Fives is absolutely sure that he’s heard him wrong.

“Okay?”

His lips purse. “Not—not completely. I won’t leave our brothers—I won’t leave Rex— for good. If he needs me for a mission, then I go.” Then, the lines of his eyes soften, and he says, “But I’m not leaving you either.”

“Thank you,” Fives gasps, grasping his brother by the shoulders. Before he’s even realized it, he’s pulled him into a crushing hug, the kind he used to give him after only the best and the worst campaigns. “Thank you. For everything.” For helping him, for trusting him, for listening. For staying.

“I didn’t…”

“Don’t even say it.”

Echo snorts, then coughs, spitting out over Fives’s shoulder. “Your hair got in my mouth,” he complains, and Fives laughs, loud and deep and harder than he has in the last three years. Echo, who is thoroughly bewildered, asks, “The hell’s so funny?” but Fives only shakes his head.

It’s just—for a moment there, only a moment—his voice had sounded exactly like he had back on the Rishi moon station.