Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Beeping is the only sounds echoing in the room. It seeps into Fox’s unconsciousness and rouses him awake, like the alarm he used to have during the war to keep him on track of his shifts.

He bites his tongue to muffle the groan that threatens to escape him, but considering the rustling beside him, Fox knows he failed.

A hand covers his own, or rather engulfs his own. Fox furrows his eyebrows at the feeling. While he might have been more bone than muscle, Fox was not a small man. There are very few people who could overtake him.

Fox twitches on the platform when his hair is smoothed back, nails scratching gently at his scalp. There is a puff of air above him at the reaction before words are spoken. “You can wake up, vod’ika. We won’t hurt you.”

The sound of the endearment passing through lips has Fox squeezing his fists in anxiety. His teeth scrape together and his ruse of being asleep still is already broken but that doesn’t make it any easier to open his eyes.

Not when he doesn’t know what he’s facing.

He turns his head to the side before blinking his eyes open. He yawns before he can’t stop it and the small “o my god” is the only preparation he has for the sight before him.

Thorn sits on the chair next to him. Fox wrinkles his nose at how uncomfortable Thorn no doubt must be in sitting in one of those medbay chairs.

Cody sits in a chair next to his, looking all too young in his 212th armor. The lines that Fox was used to during the last months of the war were gone, not yet formed from the stress of surviving.

A tightness forms in Fox’s chest and he’s not sure if it’s a yearning to hug his ori’vod, the last of his brothers to have died when Sidious forced the Red Commander to hunt down the Vod’e, or the urge to punch the bastard for not escaping when Fox gave him the chance to during their final fight.

He blinks the unbidden tears that form behind his eyes, and he glances up in an attempt to stop them falling. The action causes him to see Ponds, Wolffe and Bly standing behind the two Commanders and the tears do end up falling.

Ponds still looks as young as the day he died. It’s immeasurable cruel for his brain to remind him that he lived longer than his younger brother; nor was it necessary to process the fact that in the end Ponds had a better death dying for a Republic that no longer existed than being hunted by his aruetyc brother who couldn’t control the chip that laid in his head unlike his brethren who seemed to ignore orders so easily.

Wolffe on the other hand bears no scar no prosthetic eye that Fox was so used to. While his stare is still hard, the lack of injury softens his facial structure. It’s less intimidating, that’s for sure.

Bly stares curiously back at Fox, smiling brightly when Fox makes direct eye contact. It’s a stark contrast to the bitterness and resentment Fox remembers, all ties torn from being considered family. After the death of his General though, it makes sense that Bly hated him. He pushed everyone away, including Cody. He died fighting, sacrificing himself for brothers who end up dead not even a week later, though it was less for actually wanting to protect them and more for his suicidal ideations.

Rex stands next to Wolffe with arms crossed, his lips twisted downward as his eyebrow close together. His blond hair is cropped short, unlike the version he remembered where Rex cared less of up-keeping his smart appearance. Of course, being on the run does that to a man.

Fox squints a little more, scrutinizing his younger brother. Rex frowns harder while glancing at the others.

There’s something off with this version. Rex’s chin moves a little to the left as he squeezes his bicep in discomfort. Maybe Fox has gotten too used to Rex being more…more…what is so different?

“You’re uglier,” he says before a snort erupts. Fox glances to the sound, watching as Thorn presses a hand against his mouth, muffling his laughter while Cody smirks. It’s only a second later for the reactions to process in his brain why are they laughing? before he realizes he said that out loud.

The uneasy feeling that crawls in his chest and squeezes around his throat prevent him from meeting eyes. “Sorry,” he says though he’s really shouldn’t. It’s the truth.

A voice rises above the sound of snickers and mutterings. “You know I’m right when a cadet sees it to.” The slight gravel and beginnings of a Coruscant accent has Fox snap his eyes to the man.

The clone is young, with no scarring across his face, and bears none of the stress or terror that his job will inevitably bring. He smiles like it’s not a crime to do so, and jokes freely with his batchmates, as though it’s not him who eventually kills every single one of them minus two.

It’s horribly discomforting, enough to jolt him up from the bed he was laying on. The action stops the laughter, but Fox can’t stop staring at his doppelgänger. His torso burns in pain and one of his batchmates say, “easy vod’ika” with a hand outreach, but Fox swats it away.

“You’re not dead,” he says instead, hands squeezing the blankets that cover his bottom half. He’s supposed to be dead, Fox thinks and wonders where he went wrong on the spell.

“Not yet, vod’ika,” and Fox hates the word coming from the man’s mouth, as though he has any right to say it. As though they have any right to the Vod’e. His tone is joking, like he’ll one day get the privilege to die and Fox hates how naïve his younger self is to think that. He wishes he himself could grab it, keep it himself, and pretend that that’s all there is to life.

Fight. Serve. Die.

Fox glares hard, teeth grinding behind closed lips, and snaps, “Don’t call me that.”

His clone, quite literally in all sense of the word and Fox squishes the amusement that threatens to rise at the irony, just raises an eyebrow. It’s annoyingly condescending and Fox scowls at the sight. He wonders if this was why his own batchmates stopped talking to him.

“Sure thing, cadet.”

The insult has Fox bolting from the bed in lightning speed, jumping his doppleganger. Not!Fox falls from the impact and Fox takes his opportunity to hit him over and over again.

He screams the minute someone drags him off, holding him close to their chest. He breathes heavily as Ponds and Wolffe check over their batchmate and it’s wrong.

It’s wrong! They’re concerned about a murderer!

“Crazy” is the only word he picks up from Not!Fox and he struggles against the arms holding him. A soft shushing sound starts up as he kicks and screams and bites, soothing even though his fighting doesn’t nothing for him.

Fox slumps in the hold after a while, staring down as his feet barely graze the floor. He kicks a leg up, watching it swing up but…

It’s not his leg.

Fox tries to even his breathing as he fully takes in his legs. Small, short legs.

Cadet legs.

He throws a hand out, fingers spread out, and the arm is much shorter than his body should have. The fingers are tiny, and he brings them to his face, staring at them in horror.

“What the kriff?” is all he could think to say before he passes out in shock.