Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It wasn’t even noon, and Riyo was already exhausted.

Not the kind of tired that rest could fix. This was the kind that stayed in her bones, dulling the edges of her thoughts. It clung to her constantly now, a weight behind her eyes, across her shoulders, at the base of her skull. It had been weeks since she last slept through the night, maybe not since the most recent surveillance sweep of her offices. Or maybe since her last covert meeting with Rex. Since another senator she trusted stepped down without a word and vanished from the public record.

She had been in meetings since dawn with the Pantoran Assembly. Then the ethics committee, or what remained of it. It had been gutted months ago. The security council followed, that session ran longer than planned, full of posturing, no new answers, nothing solid. Just more vague language and cautious gestures. Everything was calculated now, weighed twice before being spoken aloud. The same heavy truth sat with her through it all, none of it mattered really.

The Empire carried on. It still looked normal, if one didn’t know better. The Senate still met. Committees still gathered. Votes were still held, and public holofeeds streamed the illusion of democracy to the outer systems, but anyone watching closely could see it was theater. The real decisions came from somewhere else. The Rotunda felt quieter every time she walked through it. Everything had shifted.

There was a time when her work had meant something. Once, she had stood behind a podium and spoken for her people. She had fought with words. Negotiated trade deals. Debated relief shipments and sovereignty. She had stood for the Talz, even when it meant going against her own government. Her voice had carried weight, and she had used it.

Now, everything was obscured in coded language. Each new directive was framed in terms so vague they meant everything and nothing. The latest was a review of travel permissions and security clearances. On the surface, it aimed to protect interplanetary movement in a time of galactic uncertainty. She knew better. The moment she read it, she understood. It meant that people the Empire did not trust would no longer be allowed to move freely.

She had expected this. Her last public speech had gone too far.

She had stood on the Senate floor and spoken up for what no one else would, the destruction on Kamino. The purge of the clones. She had called out Rampart by name. The Empire hadn’t really minded that, he had already been cut loose, a sacrifice they were willing to make. She hadn’t stopped there, she’d laid out the bones of it, the way the clones had been used and discarded, called them on how loyalty was not something to be thrown away. That they deserved more.

She remembered the moment it happened, when she felt the narrative slip from her fingers. She’d known her words were being used against her in real time. The Defense Recruitment Bill passed. The stormtrooper program expanded. Her speech became another tool.

She hadn’t stopped but she had learned to move carefully.

Riyo no longer held any illusions. Her datapads ran hot more often than not. Her office had been swept three times that she knew of. Staff rotated too quickly. She chose her confidants with care.

Now, her clearance for the diplomatic mission to Keest was denied without explanation. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised.

There was reason or explanation given. It would be easy to stay quiet and not fight it, to bow out with excuses. Cite scheduling conflicts. Keest mattered though, it was a former Separatist world with strategic shipping lanes and resources. The Pantoran Assembly was heavily invested in those trade routes. It was best to address those interests in person.

All of that meant presenting herself at the Imperial Security office in person. That was the protocol now. Senators whose clearances were revoked were required to appear at the local spaceport for identity verification, accompanied by an assigned escort.

The Coruscant Guard no longer handled senatorial protection. Their presence in the Rotunda had thinned over the past year, until it vanished entirely. She had tried to follow the paper trail for a while, but even that had begun to disappear.  In their place came the stormtroopers. Men and women in white armor, mostly young and barely trained. The Empire had been boosting recruitment from Outer Rim worlds where the economies had never recovered from the war.

ISB officers made their appearances too, always in the name of security, checking offices, verifying credentials, ensuring the latest enhancements were in place. None of it made her feel safer.

She missed the Guard. They had once felt like a fixed part of the institution. Familiar names, at least to her. She wished she could have done more for them, somehow guaranteed them the same respect and safety they had given, day in and day out, to the people of the Republic they served.

Now everything was burdensome and overly bureaucratic, and in no way safer or more organized.

She filed the request for her security detail and waited. No time frame was given, just the standard statement, they would arrive when they could.

It ended up being two stormtroopers in unmarked white armor. The only difference between them was height, one stood slightly taller than the other. There were no identifying marks or insignia or even names given, no unnecessary words. They confirmed her identity and began walking.

They didn’t glance back to see if she followed. She adjusted her pace and fell in step behind them. It didn’t feel like an escort, she felt like she was being taken into custody.

Coruscant still looked the same, at least at first glance. Lights flashed, full skylanes, holoboards advertised luxury goods and travel destinations. Something beneath the surface had shifted. The noise didn’t feel bright anymore. The colors didn’t feel warm.

Propaganda posters covered the walkways, all messages about loyalty and unity, printed in half a dozen languages. Some bold, some a touch more subtle. At one intersection, the Emperor’s voice echoed from a public address speaker. She recognized the speech. Security, structure, order, he repeated those words often, flowery words over the unspoken threats. No one stopped to listen, beings kept their heads down and moved faster, carrying on with their daily lives.

She noticed the way people looked at the troopers beside her. One glance, then avoidance. Doors closed a little faster as they passed.

Up ahead, a checkpoint came into view. Her eyes caught the flash of red armor, and her steps slowed.

The Coruscant Guard.  Two troopers stood posted at the corridor entrance, flanking the express path to the spaceport. Their armor was the all too familiar red and white. The colors hadn’t changed.

She hadn’t seen that armor up close in months.  Once, the sight might have brought a smile to her face. Back then, helmets would tilt as she approached.  She’d get a nod or a quiet greeting. She had known many of them by name. They had all known hers. She remembered Cash shielding her with an umbrella during a storm, holding it steady while she gave a live interview. She remembered the ones who stood outside her office when threat levels were high, Rhys and Jek more often than not, but others too, Jam, Brik, Zeli, Ink…

She remembered every name.

Most were gone now, reassigned, transferred. Lost in the data. The few who remained had been folded into the Empire’s new system. This checkpoint was one of the last places they still officially held.

The two guards standing there now gave no sign of recognition. They might have been anyone, and that was the point, moreso than it had ever been before.

The Guard had respected her.  Quite a few of the younger troopers had been a bit smitten.  She never encouraged it. They were young, too young, and grew younger as the war dragged on. Always polite. Often a little shy or awkward. She’d been sent a holo once of a gunship with her likeness painted on the side. She had rolled her eyes. Fox had not found it nearly as funny as she had.

Their respect had meant something. She had fought for them on the Senate floor. She had spoken their names when others wouldn’t. She had defended their rights, their sentience again and again. They had remembered that.

How many had known about her and Fox was another matter. The Guard was a closed group, close-knit and disciplined. Discretion was part of the job, but she had always suspected there were whispers outside his inner circle. Fox had kept them in check, he’d been careful. 

A wall had gone up the night the Temple burned. No amount of connection had helped. No past friendship, or loyalty. They had been too close to the heart of it all, too entangled in the orders that followed. She had come to understand that, more than she ever wanted to.

It was something she had learned all too well while working with the underground. Reviewing files, arranging safe passage, pushing encrypted credentials through compromised channels. She had watched so many brothers choose freedom over safety, and still, the Guard remained just beyond reach.

She had mourned that too, quietly.  None of it had hurt the way losing Fox had.  Her throat tightened, and she pulled herself back from the thought before it swallowed her.

Her escort slowed as they reached the checkpoint. One stormtrooper moved ahead to submit her documents. The shock troopers scanned everything in silence. If they were communicating, it was happening through internal comms.

A third trooper stepped out from the control booth in the same colors. Something about the way he moved caught her eye.

She looked up, and her breath caught.

She hadn’t seen him in months, not even from a distance. Once, Marshal Commander Fox had been a constant presence in the Senate Rotunda. It had been a strange day when he didn’t make a sweep through the building himself, as if ensuring everything was in order.  Often they made time for a cup of caf, a quiet word.  On days where he was too busy, he still would find her, even if it was just a nod in her direction.

She had only heard rumors that he’d been reassigned to the Emperor’s personal security council. That he worked directly under Vader, the new enforcer who had appeared after the Empire asserted itself. No one seemed to know who Vader truly was. Some whispered he was a clone, or a former bodyguard. Others called him something else entirely, a monster in armor. His reputation was clear enough, absolute obedience and swift death to anyone who crossed the Empire.

She wasn’t sure she wanted the truth of any of it.

The man she had known had disappeared with the Republic. They hadn’t spoken since the lockdown eased. She had tried. He had responded like she was a stranger, just another senator being processed through a security checkpoint. As if they had never compared calendars over caf, as if he had never lived in her apartment or held her through sleepless nights.

Her messages had gone unanswered and eventually his codes changed.

That Fox, who could tell she was tired just from the sound of her voice, the one who had kissed her without needing a reason, the one who had broken down more than once in her arms, was gone. And yet, here he stood.

He looked the same, that was the hardest part.

His helmet tilted slightly, just enough to register her presence. He stood straighter than she remembered, still and rigid. She used to be able to read him at a glance, even when armored, but now there was nothing, no nod, no shift in stance, no minute little stretch, not even the familiar tap of his fingers on the datapad he accepted from one of the troopers.  He just checked it, and handed it back without a word.

The stormtroopers beside her didn’t react. If there was communication happening, she wasn’t privy to it.

“I’ll see to it myself.”

The voice came through a vocoder, clipped and cold. It took her a moment to realize it was his.

Before she could respond, the two stormtroopers stepped back and raised their hands in a brief, mechanical salute. Without a word, they moved behind her and fell into formation.

And just like that, she was walking beside him. The corridor stretched ahead, narrow and quiet, lined with lights and paneling. She had walked beside him so many times before, through the Senate, across, at public events. Back then, there had been ease between them, familiarity and trust. He had always matched her stride, never too far ahead, never behind.

Now, the rhythm was all wrong.

She spoke, if only to break the silence. “Commander.”

His helmet didn’t move. “Senator.”

She tried for levity. “Didn’t think Senate escorts rated your attention anymore.”

“Just ensuring orders are followed.”

Something in the way he said gave her pause.  “Is that so?”

The helmet turned slightly in her direction. It offered nothing, just her reflection in his visor.

The corridor curved ahead, running under and parallel to the upper causeway. She had taken the upper route hundreds of times, it had always been her preference. She liked the open air and light. This passage felt claustrophobic by comparison, dim and silent. Still, she understood the change. It was safer. At least, in theory.  Even so, she hated it.

She was still sorting through what, exactly, had her on edge when Fox stopped.

She took one more step before realizing he was no longer beside her. Turning, she saw him standing still, head tilted, one hand raised to his vambrace.

He stood listening, like he had caught something in his comms.

She started to speak, but the words stuck, her voice felt thick in her throat. “Fox, what—?”

Behind them, the two stormtroopers had stopped as well. Their stance was different now, no longer at ease. Their posture alone told her something was wrong.

Fox moved, his hand went to his holster, and before she fully registered the motion, the first shot cracked through the air.

The stormtrooper dropped where he stood, a clean hole burned through the center of his helmet.

Riyo's hands rose before she could think. She covered her mouth, stifling the sound building in her throat, a gasp, a scream, she wasn’t sure.

The second trooper shouted and stumbled back. His blaster came up and he fired. The first bolt missed entirely as Fox sidestepped, fluid and precise. The second shot grazed his shoulder bell, but it didn’t slow him at all.  He dropped low into a roll to avoid another shot, and came up with his second blaster already drawn. He fired twice.

The second trooper collapsed.  Smoke hung in the air, sharp with the stench of scorched durasteel and ozone. The scent stung her lungs as she forced herself to breathe. Her eyes stayed fixed on the bodies.

They had been walking beside her only minutes ago.

Her voice broke around the words. “What… Fox, what…”

He turned and finally looked at her. His blasters were holstered again. He stepped closer, reached out, and gripped her arm.

“We need to move fast. Understood?”

She nodded, but her thoughts were sluggish, her legs worse.

Without waiting, he pulled her toward the wall and opened a recessed panel she hadn’t even noticed. A maintenance door.

She stood still as he turned back and dragged the first body across the floor. The armor clattered as it was dropped behind the door. He did the same with the second. The door closed with a sharp click. She flinched at the sound.

“We need to move.”  His hand was already on her again, tugging her back into motion.

They moved quickly. He took them through access corridors she had never seen. He seemed to know where the cameras were, and more importantly, where they weren’t.

They ducked into an alcove just as two civilians passed through the next hall. She barely had time to breathe before he pulled her forward again.

She couldn’t keep up with what was happening. Nothing seemed to settle into sense.

By the time she realized they had stepped into a lift, the doors had already closed behind them.

The hum of the lift filled the silence.

She turned toward him. His head was lowered, focused on the display on his vambrace. His shoulders were tense. She could see where the shot had hit him, his shoulder bell was scorched, the edge blackened just beneath the insignia.

The scent of blasterfire still clung to them both.

She wanted to ask, demand answers. She wanted to know why he had killed two men who had been assigned to protect her, but she couldn’t find the breath to speak.

Her hand found the railing behind her. She gripped it, and focused on her pulse, her breath, anything to stop the lightheadedness.

“We have maybe an hour before I get pinged to check in,” he said. “I’d like to be at the safehouse and gone by then.”

His voice was flat, detached. He didn’t look at her. The helmet stayed forward, focused on the floor numbers as they ticked down.

She managed a whisper. “What safehouse? Fox, what is going on?”

He didn’t answer.  The lift doors opened. Noise and movement flooded in, too loud to speak over.

He stepped out first, pulling her with him.

Her feet obeyed, but only because they had no choice.

The level was crowded. People moved in clusters along the walkways, lights flickered above, and neon advertisements painted everything in shades of blue and violet. Somewhere below, a tram rumbled to life. She felt the vibration travel up through her shoes.

Vendors called out to beings around her. Feet shuffled, voices blurred into background noise. No one looked at anyone. Everyone moved with purpose, heading home, finishing errands, going to work or waiting for rides. Life carried on.

They drew stares.

Fox in full armor was enough to make people shift aside. A Pantoran woman in a formal cloak, wrapped in expensive fabric, in gold  jewelry, made them stare. And not all of them were just curious. Riyo felt their eyes on them.  Some of it was confusion, some suspicion. The rest was harder to name.

She didn’t speak again until they reached  the next lift.

This time, she stopped just shy of the platform. Fox keyed in a sequence on the control pad.

“I’m not moving another step until you tell me what is going on,” she said, tilting her chin defiantly. “I deserve to know what this is. You just killed two people and then you drag me into a lift. You say we’re going to a safehouse like I’m supposed to follow you blindly?”

His helmet didn't turn, she couldn't read him at all. “You can come with me. Or you’ll be dead.”

She stared at him. “What are you talking about? I have an appointment at the Imperial Security Office. If I don’t show, you don’t think anyone will notice? What about the two troopers you killed? Don’t they have to check in?”

Fox shrugged, his tone maddeningly even. “Like I said. About an hour. After that…”

“After that, what?” she snapped.

He turned then, and for the first time, there was emotion in the way he moved, agitation.

“Do you trust me?” he snapped.

Her mouth parted. No words came at first, but when they did, her voice cracked. “I certainly used to,” she said. “But I haven’t seen you in months, and now you show up out of nowhere and kill two men in cold blood, and you start dragging me through the streets without a word of explanation.”

She wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe she should have been. But it wasn’t fear that had rooted itself in her chest. It was that old pain that came surging back so quickly it made her breath catch. This wasn’t just about what he had done today. It was about the man who used to sleep in her bed, the one who shared breakfasts and made caf just the way she liked it. He had vanished, and now here he was again, turning her life upside down without even looking her in the eye.

She understood the chip. She knew enough, had worked with Rex and the others long enough to understand what most of the galaxy never would. She had listened to them speak about it, watched their faces when they remembered the ones they couldn’t save. She had seen the data. Had watched some of the surgeries, and the way they collapsed under the weight of what had been done to them.

She told herself it wasn’t Fox’s fault. That he hadn’t had a choice.

She still loved him. That only made it worse.

He didn’t speak right away. He just stared at her, helmet still, visor dark. Something was working beneath the surface, but it wasn’t breaking through.

Then finally, his head gave a single shake. “I just put a target on my back. They will kill me for this. I’ve got maybe an hour before that door slams shut. But if you want to stay, have a better shake at it, then by all means.”

The words landed hard. There it was, that edge of dry sarcasm he always carried. The tiredness under it all and his own brand of gallows humor she remembered. It was the first real sign of him.

Her next words came without thought. “Did you have to kill them?” she asked. “The two men?”

“Don’t you get it? If I failed, they were the failsafe. They would have killed both of us.”

“What do you mean, if you failed?”

He looked at her, really looked, and even with the helmet between them, she could feel it. The weight of it. She could almost see the expression beneath.

“Do you think you were ever meant to show up at that meeting?”

Her mouth went dry. The air felt too thin. It hit her all at once.

She had walked straight into a death sentence. They had sent him to carry it out.

It was sickening. Horrifying. And somehow, it made sense. Whoever had given the order… did they know?

“So why didn’t you do it?”

He shook his head once. “We don’t have time for this.”

She wanted to scream at that. It wasn’t enough. She needed him to say more. Needed something to hold onto, anything that proved he was still in there. But he gave her nothing. She wasn’t even sure he could.

The lift doors opened with a hiss. Warm, stale air rushed in, thick and choking. The light here was dim and unsteady, filtered through flickering grimy fixtures. The walls were streaked with old water damage, stained metal.  It smelled like fuel. Like damp metal and something sour that clung to the back of the throat.

They had reached the underlevels.

She stepped out slowly. Fox was already ahead, scanning the corridor. His hand hovered near his blaster. His pace was smooth and deliberate, silent.

He didn’t touch her this time, but she still felt tethered to him. There was something invisible pulling her in his wake. Her steps matched his, without thought.

This wasn’t a place for senators. This wasn’t a place anyone went unless they had nowhere else to go.

The walkway was narrow and caked in grime. Wires and piping hung exposed above their heads. Graffiti marked the walls in every direction, some in Basic, others in languages she didn’t recognize. Most of it had faded. None of it was kind.

They moved quickly now. The structure of the level shifted the deeper they went. The grid gave way to chaos. Walkways jutted out at strange angles. Layers of buildings piled atop each other. Trash collected in corners where even the cleaning droids no longer bothered. The lighting was so poor it seemed like the shadows moved, and maybe they did.

This part of the city was not dead, but it had been abandoned by anything familiar.

A few beings passed them, shoulders hunched and eyes averted. Their faces were drawn tight and wary. Some were hollow-eyed, others hooded and covered. No one lingered.

They rounded a corner. Riyo heard footsteps, more than one set.

Fox heard it at the same moment she did. Boots. Not civilians. Stormtroopers.

His gaze dropped to his vambrace, fingers flicking across a screen. His voice came low. “Of course there had to be a riot down here.”

His posture changed. He coiled tight, ready. One of his blasters was already in his hand.

They pressed back into the shadow of a wall. The patrol passed in a tight column, four troopers.

They didn’t see them this time. That meant little. If patrols were running, they might double back at any moment.

Riyo didn’t breathe until the last set of boots faded. Fox moved again without a word, guiding her down another walkway, past a hanging pipeline that hissed steam into the air.  It curled in every direction, hazy and disorienting. She stuck close behind him, her heart still hammering.

They were halfway down the next block when a low hum made Fox stop cold.

His arm shot out, dragging her sideways into an alley barely wide enough for two. Her shoulder hit the wall hard, and she nearly went down. He caught her, pulling her in tight, chest to chest, as the shadows swallowed them both.

The drone passed a second later. A sleek new security model. It hovered above the intersection, scanning with a red beam that swept through the darkness.

Fox didn’t move. She didn’t dare.

She could feel the rise and fall of his breath, even through the armor. She could feel the tension in his frame. He was warm through the gaps in the plates. She caught the faint, clean scent of his soap. 

She remembered being this close to him. Not like this, with her back against a wal, but in quiet places. Nights where it was just the two of them. His hands on her shoulders. The warmth of him in sleep. His breath on her skin. The stolen nights during the war, when there had been so little time.

This wasn’t the same, but it was close enough to hurt.

It had been more than a year since he had touched her. She hadn’t let herself think about that. Hadn’t let herself remember the sound of his voice in the dark, or the press of his fingers at her waist.

Now his gloved hand was on her hip, holding her still. All she could feel was how fast her pulse was racing, and how much of that had nothing to do with fear.

Fox stepped back the moment the drone drifted out of sight. 

“Come on,” he said, already in motion.

It took five more minutes to reach the building.

The apartment block rose from the shadows like something from an other time. Tall and square, streaked with rust. Metal panels patched the facade abstractly. Every window was barred. A few scattered lights flickered behind the glass, faint signs of life.

Fox climbed the stairs two at a time. At the third-floor landing, he checked the corridor before approaching a door. He punched in a code.

He looked back at her. “Safehouse.”

The word meant nothing. There was nothing safe about any of this.

Riyo followed him inside.

The apartment was small. Sparsely furnished, but clean. No signs of long-term use. A couch. A kitchenette. The basics, all in one room. The ceiling light sputtered before flickering on.

Fox closed the door behind them. He activated the manual bolts, securing them one by one. Then he scanned the room.  Riyo stayed near the wall, her hands folded tight in front of her. Her pulse had started to slow, but the rush of adrenaline left her shaky. She wasn’t sure if she was afraid or angry. Fox turned and took off his helmet.

He looked like himself, and he didn’t.

The scar over the bridge of his nose was still the same, the furrowed brows, the hard line of his mouth.  His eyes were shadowed. His cheekbones stood out more than they used to, as if he hadn’t been eating or sleeping properly for weeks.

His hair was regulation short. That, somehow, hit her harder than the rest. Fox had always kept it longer, enough for his curls to grow out on top. Just enough for her to run her hands through when they were lying in bed together. It had been one of his quiet rebellions. She had never seen his hair cut so short.

He had the beginnings of the beard, something more than stubble, or a few days growth. It dulled the sharp line of his jaw, shot through with the occasional grey.

It was his eyes that startled her most. They were cold. Usually, she could read everything in them, humor, exhaustion, the hollow sadness of long days, affection. Now there was none of that, except maybe a trace of anger, but mostly he just looked empty.

He didn’t look at her long. He turned toward the wall closet and opened it.

“You need to change,” he said. “Something neutral. Cloak with a hood if you can. No jewelry.”

Without the vocoder, his voice was rougher and raspier than she remembered. It sounded like it hurt him to raise it. 

Her mind was still trying to catch up. “What is going on?” she asked. “Fox, what is this?”

He exhaled. “There was an order from the ISB.” His eyes met hers. “To neutralize you.”

He said it without emotion.

Her stomach turned. “Do you know the details?”

He was already going through the contents of the closet. “They’ve been watching you for months. Building a case. I don’t know what they found, but whatever it was, it was enough.”

She stared at him. “And you got the order specifically?” she asked.

He nodded. 

She folded her arms and held herself. It wasn’t for warmth. She needed something solid to hold on to. None of this felt real. She wanted to believe him.

After a long pause, her voice returned. “So… the chip finally wore off? Is that it? Is that what stopped you?”

He had gathered what looked like a change of clothes and started removing his armor. His brow furrowed. “What chip?”

“The control chip. The one implanted in every clone.”

He snorted.

“The Kaminoans all but admitted it. The behavior modification chip.”

“Part of every clone,” he said flatly. “Same as the rest of the genetic modifications. It was meant to keep us mentally stable. That’s all.”  He sounded like he was repeating a training brief.

“It does more than that,” she said. “The night the Republic fell—”

“I don’t have time for whatever conspiracy theory you’ve picked up,” he snapped. “I’m trying to keep you alive, and what you are saying borders on treason.”

She flinched. Not from the volume, he wasn’t shouting, but from the tone. Like she was the problem in all this.

He turned back to his armor. This time, he pulled the shoulder bell free. He winced when it came off. She caught a glimpse of his blacks, burned and frayed. The skin beneath was raw. She hadn’t realized he’d been hit that badly.

He didn’t pause, just kept stripping the armor a piece at a time. Mechanical and detached, like she wasn’t even standing there.

“I don’t understand,” she said quietly. “Why help me if you still believe all of it?”

He looked at her. His eyes were flat, unreadable. But for a breath, something cracked. A flicker of something beneath the surface. It passed too quickly for her to name.

Then it was gone.

“We don’t have time for this,” he muttered.

He pulled out a few garments and tossed them her way without looking back.

“Get changed. We need to be ready to move in fifteen.”

“No,” she said. Her voice caught in her throat. She stepped forward, fists clenched.  “Not until you answer me. Look me in the eye and tell me the Jedi were traitors. You followed that order without question, didn’t you? You can’t really believe that. Can you?”

He turned halfway. It was enough. She saw the shift in his face.  “They betrayed the Republic,” he said. “I am a soldier. A good soldier. I serve the Empire. I followed the orders given to me.”

“You can’t tell me you believe that,” she said. “Ahsoka Tano? A traitor? She wasn’t even a Jedi anymore, but she was killed all the same.”

His jaw flexed. “She was on trial for treason once, wasn’t she?”

Riyo flinched. “Yes, alright, bad example. But that wasn’t her fault. She was exonerated.”

He said nothing.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi?” she asked. “Really?”

Fox exhaled sharply through his nose. Not quite a scoff, but close. “I’ve read the after-action reports. Hundreds of them. Any name you give me, I can give you a hundred instances of them breaking protocol. Going off mission. Interfering with the chain of command.”

“That’s not treason,” she said, her voice cracking. “That’s war. A war no one was ever meant to win.”

He turned to face her fully, and the air between them shifted. She couldn’t tell how far gone he was. Maybe he was still under it. If that was the case, she was walking a fine line. Familiarity wouldn’t protect her. She asked the only question that mattered.

“Why go against orders now?”

His mouth opened like he might answer. His eyes flicked to her face, something raw rising to the surface, something almost human, almost real. The mask came back fast.

His jaw locked. “Get ready,” he said.

“What are we going to do?”

Fox had stripped down to his blacks and was inspecting the burn across his shoulder with a wince. 

“Change,” he said, pulling on layers of civilian clothing over his blacks.

She turned stiffly and walked to the fresher. The door slid shut behind her. It was the first time she had been alone since the corridor.  She set the clothes down and gripped the edge of the sink. Her fingers curled tightly against the cold porcelain. Her breath hitched, and the shaking wouldn’t stop.

Just this morning, she was walking to the spaceport. Her datapad still had that morning’s schedule, talking points, appointments, clearance codes. Her thermos would still be warm. The apartment would still smell like new candles and fresh laundry. Her whole life still existed.

Now it was gone. Just like that. She would never see her apartment again. She was certain of it.

How did someone walk away from their life?  She closed her eyes, tried to breathe. The air caught in her chest. It wasn’t only fear. It was grief.  She couldn’t call her parents. Couldn’t send a message. Would she ever see them again? Her eyes welled. Her staff would assume the worst before anyone even realized she was missing.

Her hands shook. The room felt too small, her heart beat too loud.

Three soft knocks sounded at the door. She flinched, straightened. Wiped her face with shaking hands.

She turned toward the mirror. The woman looking back at her didn’t look like a fugitive. Her hair was still pinned with gold combs. Her earrings caught the light. She slipped the combs free. Her braid fell loose, hair tumbling down.  She combed her fingers through it as best as she could and tied it back quickly.

Next came the jewelry. The moonstone necklace from her parents. The gold knot earrings, a gift to herself after her first Senate speech. The rings, collected over the years, part of her image. She folded them all into a small pouch and tucked it into the side pocket of her bag, with her combs, the most valuable of them all.

Her fingers checked the bag’s contents. Datapad, credits, pain tabs, two fruit bars she’d never eaten, sanitary items, a few mints. Essentials. If he was going to practically kidnap her, she was bringing her bag.

She dressed in silence. The tunic was soft and well-worn. The leggings fit. The cloak settled heavily across her shoulders. The clothes were plain, ordinary.

She looked at herself again.  Now she was just a woman, with wide, frightened eyes. She breathed once more, trying to find steadiness.

When she stepped out, Fox was already dressed. His cloak was pulled high, the hood shadowing his face. A duffel was slung over one shoulder. It held his armor, judging by the bulk.

The beard worked with the hood. He looked ordinary. Not like a clone.

“Hand me the clothes.”

She passed them over.

He folded them without a word, stuffed them deep into the duffel, and closed the flap.

“We leave nothing behind that can be traced.”

She held her bag tighter. “I’m keeping this,” she said quietly, wrapping it around herself, under her cloak.

Fox glanced at it. “If you have a comm or datapad, it gets disabled. Now.”

She nodded, pulled the datapad out and disabled the comm settings. Erased her holonet access. What remained was just documents, photos, saved recordings.

Her voice was soft. “What’s the plan?”

He tapped the vambrace on his wrist. The screen lit, casting a dull red light across his fingers.

“I’ve been monitoring local channels. I cut the transponder, killed my comm, but this still picks up chatter. I want to hear it when they declare me a traitor.”  His mouth twitched, not quite a sneer, not quite a smile. She saw anger. She didn’t know whether it was aimed at the Empire or at himself, but it was real. For the first time since this began, she saw him through it.

He shifted the duffel to his uninjured shoulder.

“We need to go. We’re taking several trains across the mid-levels. It’s the fastest way to avoid the checkpoints. I’ve got a contact. If he’s still good, he might be able to get us offworld.”

Riyo narrowed her eyes. “Can we trust him?”

Fox hesitated. “If he’s anything like he used to be,” he said. “Sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t spoken to him since everything happened.”

She didn’t get a chance to respond. They were already moving.

Chapter Text

The train car was mostly empty, only a few scattered passengers hunched in their seats, shoulders slumped, eyes glassy with exhaustion or fixed on datapads. Night pressed against the long transparisteel windows, turning them into mirrors, broken only by the blur of lights streaking past as the car moved through Coruscant’s lower hemisphere. Overhead, a mechanical voice announced the next sector stop, but Fox barely heard it.

Riyo sat across from him, her head tipped against the panel between the seats, braid over her shoulder. She hadn’t said a word since they boarded, hadn’t looked at him. Her cloak was drawn close around her. Even in the dim, flickering light of the train car, she looked out of place, too elegant and regal. There was a fragility to her now that he had never seen before, and maybe that was the worst part of it all, knowing how much of it was his fault.

He watched her reflection in the window, and the longer he looked, the harder it became to look away.

The day had started normally enough, he’d woken early, gone through the motions, briefings, patrol logs, clearance reports. Everything dull and ordinary. He’d gotten used to monotony, found a strange comfort in it. Routine offered safety, rules were simple. Orders were everything. He had built his life around that in the ruins of what came after the Temple.

The memory lived just under the surface of his thoughts, haunted his dreams. That moment of hesitation, that one mistake. His own voice, giving orders he barely remembered, telling his men to stand down.  All because he hadn’t thought to account for a variable. The moment Vader stepped into view on the gunship, how pain lit up every nerve as he hit the floor, his lungs failed. The only thought that had made it through was that maybe, if he died, they would be spared.

He’d spent weeks in medbay afterward. A broken windpipe, damaged vocal cords, barely alive, a tube in his neck to help him breath. They told him he was lucky to be breathing, that he’d be able to speak at all, lucky he hadn’t choked to death on his own blood. He hadn’t felt lucky, only hollow.

When he was cleared for duty, he hadn’t argued. He’d come back sharper than ever. No hesitation, no mistakes. He proved himself all over again, efficient, disciplined, reliable, a good soldier.

And good soldiers followed orders.

When the directive from the ISB scrolled across his HUD via a secure channel, flagged as urgent, he hadn’t questioned it.

Target: Senator Riyo Chuchi.
Collaboration with known traitors.
Found aiding clone dissidents.
Neutralize discreetly.

He’d read it twice. Then again. He kept reading it, as if that might somehow change something.

He went to the checkpoint like he was supposed to. He issued the escort command himself, made sure she was routed to the corridor. She hadn’t noticed him at first. When she finally did, something inside him had stopped.

She had looked at him the same way she always had, like he was still someone worth seeing. like nothing had changed.

He should have drawn his weapon right then, should have completed the directive the moment they were out of view, just past the checkpoint, while her back was still turned, made it quick.

Instead, he’d killed the stormtroopers.

Now he was here.

He glanced at her again and saw the way her fingers tightened around her bag, the way she sat tucked into the cloak like she was trying to disappear.

He had made her vanish.

Her words from earlier were bothering him.  It wasn’t as if he hadn’t questioned things.  There were reports that didn’t add up. Brothers, good men, were disappearing.  Rampart’s briefing on Tipoca City was polished, cold, clinical, full of gaps. Fox had memorized every line. It never sat right. Cody’s last after action report and the subsequent report that he’d gone AWOL.

That’s when the cracks started perhaps, and the dreams.  Not the usual dreams and nightmares.  He dreamed of corridors full of blood. Stars overhead, too bright, so bright he couldn’t shut them out. Screaming he couldn’t stop. His gloves soaked, too heavy. And then her, Riyo, laughing. Smiling. Sleeping beside him the way she used to, one arm flung across his chest. The smell of her perfume on his pillow. Her voice in the dark whispering his name.  That first night in the barracks, when he hand’t been able to sleep, her bare skin practically glowing under the light of the moon. The way she looked at him like he was something more than he ever would be.

He’d locked all of that away. Filed it deep, didn’t, couldn’t touch it.

But seeing her again had ripped it all open. One look and it came crashing back, fast and hard, like surfacing from too long underwater. Now he couldn’t shut it off.

He turned to the window. The reflection wasn’t kind. The beard wasn’t new, but it certainly needed a trim.  The circles under his eyes looked like bruises. He hadn’t slept through in months.

He wasn’t who she remembered. But something underneath was still there. 

And it wasn’t the fact that he’d disobeyed an order that bothered him, it wasn’t even killing the troopers either.  The worst part was that he didn’t regret it.  Not even for a second.

#^#^#^#^#^#

The train car was mostly empty, the later it got. A few passengers slumped in their seats, some asleep, others feigning it. No one made eye contact. The air smelled recycled and stale. The only sound was the occasional announcement.

Riyo felt cold, though it wasn’t at all.   She had never taken public transportation at this hour. Never been in this part of the city. It felt like another world entirely.

Fox sat across from her, silent, hood up, duffel at his feet. He hadn’t spoken. His face was turned slightly away, but she could still see him glance at her occasionally in the window’s reflection. His eyes didn’t settle on anything. They moved like he was scanning for threats no one else could see. Whatever his vambrace was picking up, it wasn’t helping. He kept glancing at it like he was waiting for something to go wrong.

She watched him in the reflection, trying to reconcile this man with the one she used to know. The way he sat, alert, ready to move, wasn’t new. Fox had always been intense at times. Gone was the quiet confidence under the surface, the faint smile that she used to get when she glanced at him and he caught her eye.

His voice was different too, low and raspy, quiet. He’d told her once that clones didn’t get sick, and in all the times she had known him, he hadn’t. So what was it?  And injury? Something else? He hadn’t explained. She hadn’t asked.

She wanted to. Maker, she wanted to ask him everything, what he had been up to.  If he was alright?  Why he had gone silent. Why now. What the hell they were running toward, and if there was any plan at all.

She didn’t trust her voice. If she opened her mouth, she wasn’t sure what would come out.

They ended up getting off the train in an industrial sector. The air was colder here, thinner. Wind whined between alleyways and metal corridors like a living thing. Everything smelled like oil and rust, and the distant hum of machinery was loud. The lights overhead buzzed and sputtered. Old signs blinked half-dead above rusted beams and barbed wire fencing.

Her shoes slipped once on the uneven ground.  They weren’t made for anything like this.   She adjusted her cloak and fell in step beside him.

“Be honest,” she said. “Who is this contact?”

He gave her a glance. “Underworld. Gang-affiliated. We used to have an understanding.”

She frowned. “Used to?”

A humorless shrug. “Haven’t spoken since the Empire rose. Priorities changed.”

That was not comforting, but she didn’t press. She understood what kind of work he used to do. Any understanding he had with a gang wasn’t friendship, it was leverage and leverage always came with a price.

They moved toward a cluster of fenced warehouses. Floodlights lit the area and if not for them, she would have figured them for abandoned.

Two Nikto guards stood flanking the main gate, armed to the teeth by the looks of it. Their eyes tracked every step they took. One of them cocked his head.

“You lost?” He asked in heavily accented Basic.

Fox stopped. “Tell Darviros that Commander Fox is here. It’s urgent.”

The Nikto exchanged a look. One smirked. “You got a death wish, clone?”

“Tell him,” Fox repeated. His voice didn’t rise, but something in it cut through the air, steel under the rasp.

The smirk slipped a little. One of them tapped his comm, muttering into it.  Riyo’s stomach tightened. She glanced at Fox, he hadn’t moved, at all, just stood, staring down the two guards.

They waited long enough for her to start wondering if they’d be shot for being here at all..then the gate creaked open.

Darviros came out himself.  He was massive, even for a Houk. Broad enough to fill the doorway, his thick arms layered with scar tissue and muscle. His sleeveless coat was long and worn but looked expensive. His eyes landed on Fox with a glint of recognition and something like amusement.

“Well, well,” he rumbled. “Fox. Thought you were dead.”

“Been busy.”

“You got a lotta balls showing up here after all this time.”

Fox ignored the comment. “Didn’t come for nostalgia. I need a favor.”

Darviros barked a laugh. “That right? And what makes you think I’m still in the favor business? You don’t call. No message. Just leave me and my boys hanging.”

Fox tilted his head. “Because I kept your name out of every report I ever filed. And because I know which of your runs trace back to Black Sun accounts.”

The grin vanished. Darviros’s expression shifted.  “You trying to kriffing threaten me?”

Fox crossed his arms, head high and defiant.

The hit came fast. Someone that size shouldn’t have been able to move like that, but Darviros lashed out, one thick arm slamming across Fox’s chest. The impact sent him crashing into a stack of crates like he weighed nothing.

Riyo gasped and instinct pushed her to move, but Fox shot up a hand, motioning for her to stay back.

His other hand pressed to his ribs as he got up, slower than he should have. His movements were tight and guarded.

She wasn’t sure if he was just cautious, or injured.  His fingers hovered near where she knew one of his blasters was hidden. The air had gone from tense to dangerous in a blink. Both men locked eyes, daring the other to make the next move.

“Violence won’t solve anything,” Riyo said, forcing calm into her voice even as her heart pounded in her ears. “Perhaps there’s still an accord to be made.”

Darviros turned to her. His eyes swept her top to toe, slow and assessing. His lip curled.  “Nice looking gal. Real nice. Kinda looks like that hot Pantoran senator they keep showing on Imperial news. How much’d you pay for her, Fox?”

Fox’s shoulders tensed, a flicker of disgust and anger tightening his features before he shoved it down.

Before he could speak, Riyo stepped forward.  “What makes you so sure he paid for me?” she asked, voice cold. “Maybe I paid for him.”  She didn’t look at him, she couldn’t.  She hated the words, the implication, but she knew what language men like Darviros understood.

Darviros gave a surprised grunt, then burst out laughing, an ugly grating thing. The sound echoed off the metal around them.  “Well, shit,” he said, shaking his head. “Now that’s a story I wanna hear.”

He jerked his chin toward the warehouse. “Inside. Both of you. Maybe we talk.”

Riyo didn’t look at Fox as she moved. Her heart still hadn’t slowed.

The warehouse stank, oil, old smoke. The buzzing lights overhead were too bright after the gloom outside. The Nikto guards stayed by the entrance, hands still on their weapons.

Fox didn’t speak. His posture was stiff, unreadable, but Riyo saw the way his breathing was just slightly off, the barest hint of a grimace.  He hadn’t walked away from that hit clean.

Darviros circled them as they entered. He moved like a man used to being in control.

He finally stopped in front of them and grinned. “Well?”

Riyo squared her shoulders and crossed her arms. She didn’t like the way the guards kept looking at her. She didn’t like the way Darviros did either. 

“Enough,” Fox said, his voice low,  dangerous for its restraint. “I don’t have the time or patience for games. The question is whether we can come to a deal.”

Darviros chuckled. “You always did show up with shit timing, Commander. Figured you’d be dead by now. Like most of your kind.”

“We need transport,” Fox responded. “Offworld. Quiet.”

Darviros squinted at him, then let out another booming laugh.  “The balls on this man!” he shouted. One of the Nikto gave a dry, mean chuckle. “You think I’m running a kriffing charity?”

“I’ve got a working bypass code,” Fox said.

The laughter died.  The warehouse went still as Daviros considered that.  He narrowed his beady eyes.  “Military?”

Fox gave a tight nod. “Level-five freighter clearance. Gets you past standard inspections. Orbital routes only.”

“For how long?”

“They rotate every six months. This one’s still valid. Long enough to move a shipment or two.”

Darviros tilted his head. “Where’d you get it?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

The Houk stepped closer, testing the space between them. “And I’m supposed to take your word it works?”

“If it doesn’t,” Fox said quietly, “I’m sure you’ll find me.”

They stared at each other, unmoving. The tension in the air thickened, until Darviros finally grunted and waved one of his men forward.

A datapad was shoved into Fox’s hands.

He entered a string of code, then turned the screen toward Darviros with the raise of his brow.

Whatever he showed did the trick.

Darviros gave a sharp nod.

“Put them on the next robotransport. Leaves for Barbel I in a few hours.”

Fox’s jaw tensed. “Those aren’t usually pressurized. Or heated.”

Darviros grinned, slow and deliberate. “This one is. Special cargo.” His wink in Riyo’s direction was oily. “Don’t worry. You’ll be breathing.”

Fox didn’t answer. The look on his face said everything. He didn’t trust this, not even remotely.

They didn’t have better options. Riyo knew it too. If she could just reach a secure comm, maybe... but not now. Not here. She couldn’t risk trying to contact Bail. That door was closed. Fox had already burned one favor just getting them this far. There was no safety net.

Fox must’ve reached the same conclusion.

After a long pause, he gave a slow, reluctant nod and accepted the data chit.

#^#^#^#^#

They found the designated landing pad without escort. No one patrolled out here. Just dim, oil slick hallways, the distant sound of automated machinery.

Fox scanned the shadows out of habit. His ribs were shot, at least one was cracked, maybe two. He hadn’t had the chance to check. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway, there was no bacta, no time, no med kit. What mattered was getting off Coruscant as quickly as possible.  He wasn’t certain if Riyo’s disappearance would initiate any sort of lockdown.

He lowered himself onto a supply crate near the edge of the pad. He could feel his body compensating, muscles guarding the injury, breathing shallower, slower.  It would heal, with time.  Time he didn’t have.

Riyo stood for a time with her arms folded, silent. She wasn’t watching him just… thinking. Eventually, she moved to sit beside him, just barely brushing the edge of the crate. She broke the silence first. “He said a robotransport. Those are for freight usually, right? Unmanned.”

Fox nodded, gaze still fixed on the far wall. 

“They’re not designed with passengers in mind.”

“I know.”

She was quiet as she folded her hands in her lap. “You believe him? About it being pressurized?”

Fox exhaled. “If he wanted us dead, he wouldn’t bother setting up a transport at all. He’d just dump us in a gutter.”

That was the ugly truth of it.  Riyo’s eyes looked distant as she nodded.  She shifted again beside him. “Barbel I.”

He glanced sideways. “What about it?”

“That’s where we’re going. You caught it?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re not exactly known for their hospitality,” she said softly.

He turned the thought over in his head. “You think you’ll be recognized?”

“I think… if they find out who I am, they might.  They have senate representation.” 

“We’ll have to make sure no one’s announcing us then.”

“Still.” Her fingers picked at her cloak, nervous, not like her. “You’ve never been?”

“No.” Fox leaned back slowly. “I remember it from flash briefings. Harsh terrain. High radiation in some zones, not habitable for most beings during daylight hours. Underground infrastructure, jungle.”

Her head tilted. “Sounds like a miserable place to hide.”

He gave a faint nod. “Exactly why it might work.”

“We’ll need a plan,” she murmured.

“I’ll think of something.”

The wait dragged.  Time crawled like it used to in the aftermath of a riot, when leaving a post wasn’t an option, neither was showing weakness. The kind of waiting that hollowed one out with the vigilance of it.

Fox kept his thoughts moving. Thinking around the pain. It was easier to run risk analyses and entertain contingencies than think of how his ribs felt or…everything else at the moment.  His thoughts felt thick, hazy and sluggish.  Perhaps it was lack of sleep, or nourishment.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything.

The platform shuddered, a low, deep vibration. The sound of a transport docking. There was no announcement, just the hissing of hydraulics and rumble of engines.

He pushed upright, slow and careful as one of the Nikto returned, scowling.  He barked something clipped in Huttese.  Fox didn’t need a translation.  He stood and followed.

#^^#^#

The transport looked like it had been welded together from ten different ships. The cargo ramp was already down. Inside, a dim red light spilled out.

So did the smell.   It was rancid and sharp.  A wall of ammonia, rot, and blood. Riyo’s eyes watered instantly. She covered her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her cloak, gagging. 

She could hear shrill shrieks. Claws on metal. Thuds from deep inside. Fox didn’t even flinch. If anything, he looked resigned. He stepped forward like it was just another day, another miserable compromise.

The hold was lined with cages, dozens of them. Two rows deep, welded straight into the wall. Each one held a massive, womp rat, larger than any she’d ever seen, yellow eyes flashing in the dim lighting. Some hissed as they passed. Others threw themselves against the cages.

“Oh Goddess,” she breathed.  Really, she didn’t want to breath at all.

“Should’ve known,” Fox muttered, scanning the interior. “Darviros wasn’t lying. There’s air. Heat.”

“They’re… huge,” she said, unable to tear her eyes from them.

“They are.” He was already eyeing the locks, the welds, the cage bolts.  “I’ve heard of this. Underworld pest contractors. Some get paid to catch them alive.”

She turned toward him sharply. “For what?”

He shook his head. “Food.”

Her stomach turned. “What?”

Fox shrugged. “Protein is protein. Some species aren’t particularly picky. Population control too. They breed fast.”

There was the barest flicker of dry humor in his voice, the corner of his mouth twitched into the ghost of a smirk. “Would it be better if it was nuna? So you could dream about your meliroon poppyseed vinaigrette from Chev’s?”

“That’s not funny,” she muttered, but her mouth twitched too. She didn’t mean to smile. It just… happened. The teasing was familiar. It hit something buried deep in her chest and squeezed.  It was the first time he’d looked at her like that, the first spark of something so familiar and alive since she’d seen him.

Fox turned back to the cages. “Probably a delicacy on Barbel. Carnivorous species mostly. Nothing goes to waste.”

They kept moving.

One of the womp rats lunged at the bars as they passed, slamming its bulk into the metal. Riyo startled, stumbling back a step before catching herself. The cargo ramp hissed shut behind them making her flinch again.

“I’ve never seen one that big,” she whispered.

Fox nodded. “They don’t live topside, just in the undercity. We’ve lost anubas to them.”

She stared at him. “They can kill an anuba?”

“Amongst other things, if they’re hungry enough,” he said, shrugging, “Hive rats are worse. Hunt in packs. Three meters, some of them.”

She didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know how he knew that.

They passed the main hold, moving toward the cockpit, which was, of course, sealed. Automated transport, flown by an astromech.

Off to the side, a narrow hatch opened into a maintenance corridor. Fox keyed it open and ducked inside.

The passageway was tight, lined with exposed tubing, bundles of wiring. The floor vibrated with the hum of the engines. It was still loud in here, but the air moved better. The smell wasn’t so terrible. There were no cages. No eyes watching.

Fox lowered himself to the floor slowly, one hand braced on the bulkhead. He didn’t make a sound, but she saw the way he moved, carefully, controlled. His ribs, no question. She sat near him, curling her legs under her and drawing her cloak tighter.

“You didn’t look surprised,” she said.

Fox’s mouth twitched. “Figured Darviros wouldn’t let us go without some sting on the way out.”

“Womp rats though.”

He didn’t even look at her. “Could’ve been worse. There are worse things on Coruscant.”

She gave him a look, but he didn’t elaborate. Of course not.

The engine pitch deepened as the transport lifted. She could feel the motion.

Riyo leaned back against the wall, her head gently thudding against it. Her throat felt dry. She felt exhausted.

Fox sat still. Breathing slow, eyes closed.

“You should rest while you can,” he said quietly. “Both of us should.”

She watched him. “Are you injured? Would you like me to check?”

His eyes opened, the warmth was gone, cold and sharp again.

“Rest,” he said, flatly.

Riyo nodded. She adjusted her cloak and leaned her head back, gaze unfocused, eyes on the ceiling. The screech of a rat echoed through the hold.

They might be off Coruscant, but she was far from safe.

#^#^#^#^##

The hum of the engines droned, but she’d long stopped noticing it, it had blurred into background noise hours ago. Riyo wasn’t sure when she had fallen asleep. She hadn’t meant to, but exhaustion had crept up and pulled her under.

What pulled her back was the weight. Warm, solid, heavy.  Fox had slumped against her at some point, his head resting on her shoulder. His breath was slow and even. One of his arms was drawn tight to his chest, guarded, while the other draped near her knee, fingers twitching every so often. Dreams, maybe. She didn’t dare move.

He had been so guarded, so composed the entire time, he hadn’t let his control slip. Until now.

Now he was sleeping against her, and the difference was striking. The tension in his brow had smoothed. The set of his jaw had relaxed. Even his mouth, usually drawn tight, was relaxed in the faintest frown. It was the face of a man who had once curled around her in sleep.

For a few stolen minutes, she could almost believe none of this had happened. That they were on there way somewhere, some event perhaps. Or maybe he’d fallen asleep in the middle of watching some show, and she’d teased him for pretending he didn’t care. That she hadn’t fled Coruscant under threat of death. That he hadn’t been the one sent to kill her.

The ache in her throat was sudden and sharp.  She stared at the wall across from her, blinking fast. She couldn’t afford to cry, but the tears burned anyway, hot and bitter at the corners of her eyes. Not just from fear. From loss. From guilt.

She had loved him, still loved him. Even after everything. He had chosen not to kill her, to break orders. None of that erased what had almost happened, or made this safe. None of it gave them a future or brought him back to her, all of him.

She swallowed hard.

Fox stirred.  His breath hitched. The weight shifted from her shoulder, and then he was upright, alert in an instant. One hand moved toward his belt for his weapons. Reflex. His eyes locked on hers for half a second, as if surprised she was there at all, before sweeping the corridor.

A soft chime came from somewhere deeper in the ship.

“We’re out of hyperspace,” he informed her. He rose stiffly to his feet and crossed to the control pad on one of the walls, tapping quickly across the panel. His shoulders were hunched, jaw tight. He hadn’t rested enough. She could see it in every movement.

“How close?” she asked.

“Descent in under five. Nightside landing.”

Riyo stood, adjusting her cloak. “At least we’re not baking on the surface.”

Fox didn’t smile. He didn’t even glance her way. “We aren’t going to wait around. We find the ramp and get out before anyone gets curious.”

“Just like that?” she asked, voice dry.

He turned. “No.” His expression hardened. “We open one row of cages.”

Riyo stared. “You’re serious.”

“One row,” he repeated. “Enough to buy us chaos.”

“Do you really think that is a good idea?”

“They’re not going to care about us if there’s panic. They’ll scatter. That gives us time to get clear.”

“And after that?”

“We find another ship. Something fast, civilian transport, doesn’t matter. Anything that can take off.”

She hesitated. “Can’t we just… talk to someone? Bribe a pilot? Go into the city?”

Fox shook his head. “You’re too recognizable. If anyone finds out who you are, they’ll turn you in. Or worse.”

Riyo bit the inside of her cheek. “You don’t know that.”

“I know enough. This planet’s under Imperial thumb and they’ve got their own interests.  I’m not gambling with your life.”

She hated that he was right. 

“If we get caught during daylight?” she asked, quieter now.

He looked at her. “We don’t.”  There was a finality to it. A cold edge.

She folded her arms around herself, clutching her cloak. “You're still armed?”

He met her eyes evenly. “Always.”

The ship began to vibrate again, harder this time. The hull groaned. The rats above them shrieked and snarled.

She exhaled slowly, trying to steady herself.

“Fox,” she said. “What if we don’t make it?”

He didn’t answer immediately. He just glanced at her with those eyes, and he looked worn, but there was fire there too.

“That’s not an option.”

She wanted to believe him. She really did.

#^#^#^#

The latch clicked, and the cage door flew open with a hiss and a crash. One of the womp rats bolted instantly, claws scraping wild across the hold floor, then another, and another. Screeches tore through the air. Metal slammed. The stink was immediate and unbearable, tripling in intensity in the panic of it all. Somewhere in the hold, someone shouted, language unrecognizable, tone unmistakable. Panic, absolute panic.

Fox didn’t wait. The ramp was already lowered. The platform was tiny, clearly private, no other ships in sight. That was a problem. They wouldn’t find another here.

He grabbed Riyo’s arm, yanked her forward, and nudged her low through the hatch, sliding out behind her. His ribs screamed at the movement, white-hot pain spiking down his side, but it didn’t matter. One glance over his shoulder showed a barabel handler getting knocked to the floor by a rat, its tail lashed as it tore past. 

Then the jungle swallowed them whole. They didn’t stop running.

Branches slapped past, whipping his arms and face. Roots caught his boots, nearly snapping his ankle twice. The ground was uneven, damp under layers of tangled growth.

They ran for what felt like an eternity. Time had blurred into footsteps and breathing and pain.

Riyo staggered behind him.

“Wait…wait,” she gasped. “Just a moment. Please.”

He stopped. She looked like she was about to drop.  Her chest heaved with every breath. Sweat gleamed on her face, strands of hair clung to her brow. Her eyes were wide, unfocused. Fox gave a single nod, crouching low against a gnarled root, eyes on the jungle, from the direction they’d just come from. Every part of him burned. His shoulder ached, his ribs were on fire. He hadn’t eaten in what, two days? Three?

His mind couldn’t keep track anymore. His body was on muscle memory. Survival. Everything else was gone.

He scanned the trees. Massive trunks rose around them. The jungle was far from silent but he didn’t see or hear any signs of pursuit, but that meant little in an enviroment like this.

Riyo leaned against the nearest trunk, trying to calm her breathing. Her hands were shaking. She hadn’t trained for this, not this kind of running.

He thought about picking her up, carrying her. She’d hate it, would fight him, but he could manage, even injured.  His shoulder twinged again. His fingers were numb. Everything hurt.

His hand scrubbed down his face, trying to clear the fog. They were too loud. Too slow. Too easy to track. He had to—

He spotted movement, something just barely at the edge of his peripheral vision and froze.

It took him a minute to realize what he had seen through the foliage.  Just a glint at first of reflected light. Something too smooth to be natural.

Then he realized it was an eye.  Slit-pupiled, yellow-green. Watching him without blinking.

His heart felt like it stopped in his chest before the adrenaline spiked.

Every instinct screamed at once, something old and primal and deep in his very being.  A lesser man would have pissed himself or dropped in a dead faint.  Not a kriffing thing in his training taught him what to do here.

“Down!” he barked, diving hard as the trees exploded in motion.

A blur of movement, then the crack of jaws snapping shut just a breath from his head.

He threw his arm up to protect his face as he rolled. The jaws closed around his vambrace. Pain shot down his arm bright and blinding as plastoid crushed under the pressure, crushing down on his forearm. Something pierced flesh and gave.

Riyo screamed behind him.

He twisted, legs kicking, but the thing was massive, all coiled strength and muscle. A Barabel. The pressure of their jaws was brutal.

He reached for his blaster with his free hand, got it under their jaw, and fired point-blank.

Three red bolts lit up  the jungle around them.

The scales ate the blasts, absorbed them.

Of course. He knew this. Barabels were walking tanks with natural armor that was resistant to energy weapons.

Kriffing hell.

The flash of the blaster must have startled them. The jaws loosened just enough and Fox ripped himself free and hit the mud hard, slipping as he tried to get his legs under him.

“Run!” he shouted. He scrambled up onto his feet.

Riyo was coming toward him.

“Riyo, go!” he snapped, voice raw.

She didn’t listen. Of course she didn’t.

The Barabel was circling now, seething rage boiling in every flex of their, of her tail. She was easily over 2 meters tall, and livid. Her nostrils flared as her gaze locked on Riyo.

Fox lifted his blaster again, lining up for a headshot.

“I can at least take your eye,” he promised. “You make one more move, and your day gets a lot worse.”

“You!” the Barabel spat. “You cost me a full day’s profit. Those womp beasts were mine. You ruined me!”

Fox didn’t lower the weapon.

Riyo stepped forward, her hand brushing his arm. She stepped into the line of fire.

“Riyo,” he warned.

“Don’t,” she whispered.  

“I understand what we did,” she said evenly. “And I understand it cost you. But I can offer something in return. Compensation, but we need to be alive for that.”

The Barabel snarled, stalking a slow circle around them, tail twitching. “Your words are soft. Empty. You reek of fear. I should take your mate’s spine and feed it to my hatchlings!”

Fox opened his mouth to object. “I’m not—”

Riyo cut him off with a small shake of her head.

“We can pay,” she said. “Take us to the city. Name your price.”

The Barabel tilted her head.

Her tongue flicked between her teeth. Her pupils widened, narrowed again. Then she leaned in, slow, until her snout nearly touched Riyo’s.

Fox’s grip tightened on the blaster.

“Next time,” the Barabel hissed, “I take the mate’s spine.”

#^#^#^#

The Barabel didn’t look back. She just turned and walked, with a hand motion that clearly meant follow.

Fox didn’t lower his blaster right away. He stayed a few paces behind, weapon half-raised.  He didn’t trust her, would’ve been a fool to, but she didn’t give the impression she was leading them into a trap. She didn’t bother to check if they followed. The hard-earned certainty of someone used to being obeyed.

Riyo followed a few steps ahead of him. If she was shaken, she didn’t show it now. Fox knew she was running on adrenaline as much as he was, still, he had to give the woman respect where it was due, she’d handled it with a lot more finesse than he would have.  

The jungle folded around them again. The path vanished. The Barabel was nearly invisible, moving through the terrain easily.  She wore a rough, fitted vest and a wide belt stacked with tools, bone handled blades. Armed, but Fox was more than willing to bet they were the tools of her trade.

Any of Riyo’s early attempts of communication were ignored.  It would be another twenty minutes before she spoke.

“You’ve been quiet,” she said. Her voice was low, words guttural, and roughly accented.  Her Basic was good, Fox wondered if she’d been offworld. “Offworlders usually talk more. Ask many foolish questions.”

Riyo let out a breath and managed a faint, polite smile. “I’ve learned it’s better to listen first.”

The Barabel gave a hissing laugh. “Good. You are soft, but not stupid.”

“Shava,” the Barabel said, nodding once. “That is my name. You asked, before.”

“I’m Riyo,” she replied, then glanced back. “That’s Fox.”

Shava’s eyes lingered. “And he is yours?”

Riyo hesitated. “It’s complicated.”

The Barabel snorted. “It always is.”

She kept walking, and for a while, there was nothing but the sound of their footsteps. Shava tilted her head and spoke again, more conversational this time.

“Humans always in pairs. Always just two. You do not have clans?”

“No,” Riyo answered. “Not like yours.”

“We are four. Always four. Two males. Two females.”

“You mentioned hatchlings. How many?”  Riyo asked.

Shava’s tail flicked. “Ten. Four are mine. Six are my co-mother’s. We laid the clutch together.”

“That’s… a lot.”

“If they survive,” Shava replied. “Times are hard. There is drought. The rivers are low. Game is scarce. I hunt, that is my trade, but nothing to hunt. And the Empire—” she hissed, “—they tax everything. The food and medicines, even the power. We find ways around it.”

Fox nodded. “Womp rats. Imported through the underground gangs on Coruscant.”

Shava grunted. “Small profit. But it feeds the young.”

After nearly an hour of travel through increasingly rocky terrain, the jungle began to thin. A clearing opened ahead. There was the entrance a massive cave mouth in a cliff face. At first glance, it looked natural, until the durasteel supports became visible, the opened blast doors and flickering signage in multiple languages.

SARRAT STATION.

“The city is underground,” Shava said. “Radiation will rise with the sun. Lethal within minutes. You would have burned. Sun comes soon.”

Riyo shuddered. Fox exhaled. “How long before it’s safe again?”

“Sixty hours,” Shava replied. “Long rotation. You will stay here.”

As they stepped through the shield line, the temperature dropped sharply. The tunnel sloped downward at a steady angle, cut smooth into the stone and reinforced with durasteel. Emergency lights pulsed in red and blue strips along the walls. The passage eventually widened into the edge of what passed for a city.

It was more sprawl than structure, carved into the rock. A web of buildings, stacked levels, pathways. 

Fox scanned the square they entered. Barabels moved everywhere.  Families gathered near heated stones. Children, smaller and lighter in color, coiled together or raced through the crowd with makeshift spears. Traders barked out their wares from stands. Their scales ranged from deep black to vibrant red, yellow, green. It was a spectrum of life he hadn’t expected.

And there were far more other species than he expected. A Rodian haggled loudly at a stand. A Devaronian leaned against a crate looking bored. A twitchy human with bad cybernetics watched the crowd. All the familiar pulse of a city on a much smaller scale than he was used to.

Shava led them to a store front. A heavy security gate marked the threshold. Inside, a squat male Barabel leaned over a cluttered table, goggles pushed high on his brow. 

“This one is Ghrass,” Shava said. “He will not cheat you. But he will not be kind.”

Riyo’s jaw tightened. Fox saw it in her face as she dug the pouch out of her bag, and it became clear what she intended to do.  It pained her to have no other choice.

She stepped forward. “I would like to sell my jewelry.”

Ghrass blinked slowly. His forked tongue flicked once. “Show me.”

She unpacked the necklace first. Pale gold with the gleam of a Pantoran moonstone. Next came the earrings, followed by the rings, and finally the gold hair combs.

She set them down on the counter with care, reverence, a kind of quiet grief almost.

Ghrass examined each item with detachment. Ran each through a scanner. Made a show of looking at them through his goggles.  The first number he offered was insulting. Riyo didn’t hide her reaction. She scoffed.

They argued. Shava joined in, baring her teeth at one point. Fox stayed back, watching. Listening. Ready to step in if it came to that.

The second offer was better. Still low, but not obscene. Riyo turned toward him slightly, as if ready to leave.  She made a show of it, stepping back, gathering the jewelry.

Ghrass clicked in irritation and he offered again.

Riyo hesitated, then nodded. “Deal.”

She stared at the jewelry as Ghrass counted out the credits.  Closed her eyes and took a breath, gathering them up. 

“For your help,” Riyo said, offering a portion of the credits to Shava.

Shava counted the credits and handed some back. “Compensation. Nothing more. No thief.”

Riyo nodded, packing the rest of the credits in the pouch where her jewelry had been.  The pouch disappeared in her bag, under her cloak.  She thanked both Ghrass and Shava again.

Shava gave a last nod, heading toward the door.  She paused, turned her eyes to Fox, studying him.  Fox nearly bristled under the scrutiny.

“You fight well,” she said. “But not well enough to challenge here. Keep your hood up.”

And with that, she vanished into the press of bodies outside.

Fox exhaled, slow and shallow, nodding to Riyo.  

Sixty hours.  It was going to be a long wait.

#^#^#^#

The room was small and cramped. A single bed, no window, and just enough floor space to avoid tripping over each other. The lights flickered once when he keyed the panel, then steadied. It was the kind of place meant for short stays and no questions, cheap and functional, stripped of comfort or warmth. Anonymous. It would have to do.

They needed food, bandages, bacta, clean water. But before any of that, they had to clean up. Get the blood off, get their bearings. Fox didn’t like being cornered, not in unfamiliar territory. He locked the door behind them, a small comfort in a place that offered little.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The only sound was their breathing, the heavy in that way that followed too many hours of adrenaline and noise. He set the duffel on the floor with a thud. Everything they had was inside, and it still was not enough. There was so much more they needed.

“That went better than expected,” he muttered.

Behind him, Riyo let out an unsteady breath. “That was awful.”

“You didn’t run.”

“You saved my life,” she said quietly.

He turned toward her just enough to catch her expression. “So you save mine or what?” he scoffed.

She didn’t flinch. Her chin lifted, defiant, as if daring him to question it. Her braid had started to unravel, strands clinging to her temple and jaw. When she turned her head, the flash of tears caught the light. She blinked them back, refusing to let them fall.

He looked away. Not because he didn’t care, but because he did. Too much. And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Maybe there was something broken in him. Maybe there always had been. Some flaw buried in the programming, something in his wiring that made him keep choosing impossible things.

She stepped forward.

“You’re bleeding,” she said. “Let me see.”

“We don’t have time or supplies,” he said.

“We make time,” she snapped, already opening her purse. She pulled out tissues, hand sanitizer, a manicure kit with tweezers. She motioned to the bed. “Sit.”

He clenched his jaw and sat.

Her hands shook as she worked off the vambrace, though he helped her with the last stuck latch. The armor was wrecked, cracked and bloodstreaked. It peeled away with a sound that turned his stomach. His blacks were torn underneath, soaked with sweat and blood. She worked the sleeve up carefully.

Four punctures from teeth. One long gash where the plastoid edge had dug into his flesh. Blood still oozed from all of it, sluggish and hot. That wasn’t a good sign. Tiny splinters of plastoid were embedded in the gash. She pressed tissue to the wounds, wiped away the blood as best as she could, then soaked a folded tissue in disinfectant and dabbed it clean. He hissed through his teeth.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

He blew out a breath, slow. “Not the worst pain I’ve felt.”

She gave him a sharp look, flat and pointed.

He watched her hands as they worked. Her fingers were quick, nimble. Too delicate for this kind of thing. They should have been holding a datapad or stylus, not soaked in his blood. 

He didn’t thank her, though he should have. The words caught in his throat and stuck.

His mind churned hazily, mapping the city, estimating supplies, remembering every face and exit he had passed. But under all that noise, she was still there. The scent of her skin, the salt of sweat, no perfume now, nothing to hide behind, just her. The soft press of her knees against his thigh. The furrow between her brows as she concentrated. The faint pout of her lips.

He should not be thinking about her lips. Not here. Not now. He dragged his gaze to the ceiling, found a crack in the panel and followed it like it mattered.

“We’re lucky,” she said eventually, sounding resigned.

She had nothing to bandage with. The tissue was soaked red. The wounds were still seeping. It would have to do for now, the wound was clean at least.

“Not luck,” he said. “Barabels are practical.”

She looked at him and held his gaze.

He cleared his throat. “Those combs,” he said, eyes fixed on the wall. “They were heirlooms. Weren’t they?”

She blinked once, nodded.

A long stretch of silence followed, heavier than before.

She sat beside him on the bed, disinfected her hands, then drew her cloak close around herself. Her face was calm again, blank in the way only a practiced politician could manage. That mask was back. The one she wore for press conferences and Senate hearings. He hated that she felt she needed it around him.

“You should get some rest,” he said, pushing to his feet.

“Are you going to rest too?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I’m going to clean up.”

He unfastened his cloak and draped it over the back of the chair. His shirt was soaked with sweat and blood and clung to his skin. He peeled it off, grimacing.

Her breath hitched.

The bruises were worse than he expected, a sprawl of black and purple, from his side to up along his back.

She stood, reached out. Her hand touched his skin, cool fingers brushing lightly over the bruises.

He felt it like a charge across every nerve. Too much. Too close. “Fox. Let me check—”

“Don’t,” he snapped. “Don’t touch me.”

She froze, hands dropping. Her eyes searched his face, confused and hurt.

He turned away and swore under his breath. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I just… I need to clean up.”

She nodded, stepping back without a word and sat on the bed again, silent.

Fox stepped into the fresher, shut the door behind him, and turned on the water. He let it run until the steam started to rise, until the world narrowed to nothing but heat and pressure and the sting of open wounds.

He tried not to think about the look on her face.

Chapter Text

Fox stepped under the water and let it hit his back, let it sting. For a few minutes there was nothing but the rush of it in his ears, his own breathing, the slow swirl of blood-tinged water slipping down the drain.

Her hands had been careful, gentle, even when she had nothing more than tissues and tweezers to work with. He couldn’t get it out of his head, her fingers slick with his blood, the way he’d snapped at her. The look on her face. Hurt, confusion. She hadn’t deserved that.

He dragged a hand down his face and braced both palms on the tile, cold against his skin. What the hell was he doing?

She had traded away her jewelry, trekked through that jungle at his side. Bargained with a hunter who could have killed them. She had stood between him and death like it meant nothing. She had saved him, more than once now, and he had barked at her like she was the enemy.

It twisted in his chest. Control had always been his anchor. Tactics, command, protocols, regulations. None of that mattered here,  none of it told him what to do when the one person he couldn’t stop thinking about was looking at him like he was coming apart.

He tilted his head back and let the stream hit his face. He could still feel her hands on his skin, on the bruises. The jolt of it had nothing to do with pain. His body had answered before he had the chance to think, heat spiking through him, a memory of her laughter, her hand over his chest as she drifted to sleep, like she belonged there, her hips under his…

He clenched his teeth and turned into the spray. Not now. Not here. There was no room for that. They were stranded in an underground city, nowhere certain to go. He was wounded, she was exhausted, and the Empire wanted her dead. Him too, certainly. All of it traced back to him. Every decision. Every reckless choice. He had led them straight into this.

He scrubbed the cheap soap from the dispenser over his arm, jaw locked, scrubbing the raw skin around the punctures. It would scar. He thought of everything she had lost, her name, her place in the Universe, the heirlooms…and how she still looked him in the eye. He didn’t know how to meet that, let alone repay it.

When the water finally ran clear, he stayed until the ache in his ribs dulled and his head felt too light. He shut it off, dried fast, and pulled on his blacks. They still smelled of smoke and sweat, but they’d have to do. The idea of wearing just civilian attire without the thermoregulated blacks under them didn’t appeal to him in the face of so many unknowns.  He already felt naked without his armor.

He caught his reflection in the fogged mirror. The lines in his face, the scars, the dark circles under his eyes. He scowled at himself, as if the mirror could offer an answer. It didn’t.

#^#^#^#^#

Riyo sat on the edge of the bed, eyes fixed on the closed fresher door. He’d flinched from her touch like it burned. She hadn’t expected gratitude, but the rejection had stung all the same.

His body was vivid in her mind. The bruises along his ribs, across his back from where Darviros had thrown him. He’d taken more damage than he let on. He was thinner too. Still broad and strong, but when he breathed she could almost count his ribs.

And the scar at his throat, low and  puckered. The blacks had hidden it. She didn’t know what could’ve left a mark like that. A blade? Had he been shot? The thought made her shiver.

Her throat tightened. She’d lost everything in the span of hours, her work, her security, her reputation. Her parents didn’t even know if she was alive. And now Fox felt like a stranger beside her. She had always known in theory what the Guard did, but theory wasn’t the same as watching him kill without a flicker of hesitation.

She clasped her hands tight in her lap. Those troopers had been soldiers, but people all the same. Their deaths an unfortunate necessity. That was what she hated most. The sound of it wouldn’t leave her, the crack of blaster fire, armor clattering on duracrete, the neat clean hole punched through a helmet.

She couldn’t afford to unravel.  They had to survive this. He had saved her, and she had saved him. That was all they had, wasn’t it?  An uneasy agreement. She swallowed hard. If he couldn’t stand her touch, she wouldn’t touch him.

The door hissed open. He stepped out, dressed again in blacks. His face was set, unreadable. “We need supplies.”

She nodded, pushing to her feet. “Then we’ll get them. But first—” she gestured toward the fresher, “I need to clean up.”

#^#^#^#^#

The market sprawled around them, lit by light strips strung overhead. The air was thick with metal, spices, sweat, too many bodies pressed together. Traders shouted in half a dozen languages, their stalls stocked with everything from  toolkits, dried fungus, to power cells and faded fabrics.

They moved slow, careful not to draw eyes. Fox kept his hood drawn, always a step behind her, scanning the crowd like he expected an ambush from every shadow. Riyo didn’t blame him. Every shout made her heart skip. Every stare felt too long.

It took nearly an hour to gather what they needed. Drinking water. A pack of nutrient bars. A medkit with bacta that she checked twice for dilution. Not good quality, but passable. Extra bandages. Enough to keep them going.

On the way back, the smell of grilled meat cut through the haze. A vendor turned skewers over a fire, wrapping slices in flatbread, passing them out in paper.

Back in their room, Fox tore into his like a man who hadn’t eaten in days. Riyo sat on the bed and unwrapped hers more slowly. The bread was hot, the meat greasy, spicy enough to feel the burn in her nose. She ate half before her stomach turned, too tight with anxiety to stomach more. She held the rest out to him,  and he hesitated. She nodded, and he took it without a word.

The silence stretched, filled only by the hum of the ventilation and the sound of him chewing. Riyo folded her hands in her lap.

“Can I ask you something?”

He didn’t answer, but he glanced at her.

“I know why you killed them. I’m not questioning that. But I can’t pretend it didn’t…” She drew a shakey breath. “Didn’t affect me.”

“They were people,” she added. “I didn’t know them, don’t know if they were good people, but they had names. Lives.”

“They chose this,” Fox said flatly as he wiped his hands and face. “They signed up as volunteers. Nobody forced them. They knew what they were doing, what the risks were.”

“They were following orders.”

“And they would’ve killed you on orders. Do you really believe otherwise?”  He snapped.

Her jaw tightened, but she didn’t look away. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I can still feel sorry for them.”

He leaned back, eyes cold. “I don’t have the luxury.”

“But you see the difference, don’t you? They chose. You and your brothers didn’t.”

Fox let out a sharp laugh with no humor in it. “Some choice. Serve the Empire or die.”

“You had no choice at all,” she said softly. “That matters.”

“Matters how? Either way, they’d have shot me. Then you.” His voice was clipped, bitter.

“And yet here you are,” she said, tilting her chin up. “Making a different choice.”

His jaw worked. He looked away, paper crumpling in his fist. “So what, I should’ve deserted? Gone AWOL? That’s treason.”

“Fox, you’re already at that line. The only difference is admitting it.”

He shook his head. “The Republic was dying. The war gutted it. Corruption and decay. The Empire brought order. Stability.”

“That’s propaganda,” she said quietly.

His lip curled. “Doesn’t mean it’s a lie.”

“Really? Stability?” She asked sharply. “Chain codes, ration cards?  Closed ports and curfews? Citizens are being tracked like criminals. Whole populations are being relocated. That’s not stability. That’s control.”

His eyes narrowed. “People want order.”

“They want safety,” she countered. “Not chains.”

He tilted his head. “You talk like there’s another option.”

“There is,” she said. “There always is. Choices.”

He scoffed. “Choice. Easy for you to say.”

Her gaze softened, but her words didn’t. “That’s why they put chips in your heads. Because without them, you did have choice. You formed your own bonds, your own loyalties. They couldn’t risk that.”

Fox’s mouth opened, then shut.

“Why else would they force soldiers who respected the Jedi, who fought beside them, who trusted them, to turn around and slaughter them? Why else strip choice away?”  She pressed.  The words felt bitter in her mouth.

“They wouldn’t do that,” Fox said, but there was less fight and defiance in them, like he was trying to convince himself.

“You truly believe that?” Riyo asked. “That they wouldn’t control you? That they wouldn’t make you do something no soldier should ever be asked to do?”

He didn’t answer.

“They never considered you. Not once. You were created, trained, sent into war by the thousands. And they watched you die by the thousands.”

“It’s war,” Fox muttered.

“It’s exploitation,” she countered. “And now your brothers are disappearing, one by one. You know what’s happening. Even if you won’t say it.”

His jaw clenched.

“You saw Kamino.”

His shoulders tightened, eyes lifting fast, the fire back in them.

“You think they wouldn’t do the same to every one of you? Erase you. Replace you.”

“Don’t talk to me about replacement. You stood on the Senate floor and gave the speech that got the Recruitment Bill passed.”  He snapped, the tone of his voice almost dangerous.

Riyo flinched. “I know,” she said quietly.

Fox looked away, shaking his head.

“My words were twisted,” she went on. “What I meant wasn’t about replacing anyone. I was trying to win your brothers benefits. Recognition. Pensions. Something to acknowledge what you gave.”

He didn’t reply.

“I was fighting for you,” she whispered. “But I see now… that fight was never going to be enough. Not inside that system.”

Fox let out a bitter laugh. “It’s not like my brothers are lining up to fight for what they deserve.”

Riyo considered. She could have told him about the others. About Rex, and the network of medics, and the bases where clones were regrouping. But not yet, she couldn’t while Fox still had his doubts. Not when saying too much could cost so much.

The silence stretched between them.

Finally, Riyo drew a breath. “The night the Republic fell… do you remember it?”

Fox looked at her fully this time, expression searching.

“I spoke to you that night,” she said. “You’d just come off duty. We were supposed to meet later. You said you had a comm call and had to go.”

He nodded slowly. “I remember.”

“That was the last time I saw you. Before everything changed.”  She pointed out quietly.

He looked away, then back. “The order came through. The Jedi had tried to assassinate the Chancellor.”

“Do you believe that?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, but he looked…irritated, as if he were searching for the right thing to say.

“Were you at the Temple?”

He shook his head once. “No. I was at the Senate. We were told to lock it down. No one in, no one out. I coordinated the Guard. Made sure the perimeter held. No Jedi could escape.”

A cold weight settled in her chest.

His voice stayed flat. “I did my part.”  There was no pride in it, but no apology either.

Riyo looked down at her hands, then back at him. “And that part… was making sure they were silenced.”

He stared at her with that hollow gaze.  Something didn’t add up. Or maybe it did, and she didn’t want to see it.

“What part of that was justice?”  She asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

Fox exhaled slowly.

Riyo closed her eyes, drew a long breath, then another. The cold sat heavy like it was in her bones.  After a few minutes, she felt stable enough to look at him, to speak. “You should let me treat your arm. At least wrap it before it gets worse.”

Fox nodded, holding out his arm.

She grabbed the medkit, set it on the bed, and took a seat, ignoring how shaky and exhausted she felt. He didn’t flinch, though the antiseptic and then the bacta must have stung. She wound the bandages around his arm, layer by layer, tied it off and smoothed the edge down with her thumb.

Her gaze drifted before she could stop it, to his throat, the scar puckered and pale against his skin.

“Your throat. What happened?”  She tried to keep the question light.

His eyes flicked to hers, then away.  “I made mistakes. I paid for them.”

Her hands stilled. “Paid for them? Fox, if you made a mistake, you should’ve gotten a reprimand. Not—” She couldn’t finish it. Not that

His gaze stayed fixed on the wall, shoulders rigid.

Her throat tightened. He acted as if being hurt was just another part of his duties. She wanted to press, to get the truth from him, but the look in his eyes stopped her.

So she finished smoothing the bandage, then sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “No one should have to pay like that,” she said.

She busied herself with the wrappers and cloth, snapping the medkit shut. “That should hold,” she assured him, more to fill the silence than anything.

He still wouldn’t look at her.

“You shouldn’t have to question whether protecting someone you cared for makes you a traitor.”

His jaw locked, head turning away.

“I remember a commander who used to make hard calls. Who asked questions. And he was a good man.”

Fox rose at last. “We should walk the perimeter,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her words. “Check the town. Closest exits. Route to the pad. If we’re lucky enough to get a shot out of here, I want to be ready.”

Riyo nodded. She wasn’t sure if she had gotten through to him, if she would be able to tell.  She knew she needed to balance this carefully, not push too hard.  She pulled her cloak around her shoulders, watching the way he checked the power cell on his blaster, still a soldier.

She drew her hood up. “Lead the way.”

#^#^#^#^#

The edge of the settlement was full of narrower streets, and considerable less beings on them. Pipes ran along the walls, dripping condensation.  They walked in silence.

Fox kept to the edge of the walkway, shoulders squared, eyes sweeping each intersection, each alley, every shift of sound behind them. Streets were streets, patterns repeated themselves no matter the world. Choke points. High ground. Fallback routes. He moved like he always had, and still he felt off balance.

Riyo’s words echoed through his mind. 
You shouldn’t have to question whether protecting someone you used to care for makes you a traitor.  As if he didn’t still. As if he hadn’t made a hundred terrible choices that led him here.

She walked a pace ahead, cloak trailing, hood up. She didn’t speak, but her eyes tracked everything, vendors at their stalls, hand-painted signs, the ebb and flow of local dialects. She was tired, but there was something else in her face. Curiosity, quiet wonder.  He didn’t know how she still had it in her.

Life went on around them. A female Barabel sweeping her shopfront. A child chasing a ball across the walkway. An old Barabel asleep in a chair. Beings found ways to live, even under the shadow of the Empire. Fox didn’t feel part of it. He felt like a ghost following in her tracks.

They turned a corner. Riyo had just looked back to speak when a shape staggered from the shadows.

“Hey!”

Fox’s hand went to his blaster. The man was human, older, ragged, face flushed and leathery, a bottle in one hand. Clothes patched and stained. His voice was rough. “You,” he slurred, jabbing a finger at Fox. “You’re one of them. I know it.”

Riyo froze.   

“Move along.”  Fox said.

The man laughed, bitter. “Think no one remembers? I remember. I saw what you did. Killin’ kids. Marchin’ into the Temple like you owned it. Used to work there, I know.”  He jabbed a finger at his own head.  His words were sloppy but clear enough.

Riyo stepped forward, hands raised. “Sir, please. You’re mistaken—”

The man sneered. “Don’ lie for him. Don’ you dare.”

“We’re not here to cause trouble,” she said quickly. “We’re just passing through.”

He staggered closer. Fox shifted, placing himself between them without thinking.  He could smell the alcohol coming off the man in waves.

“Go home,” Fox snapped.  

The man didn’t move. His voice rose and cracked. “You think I don’ know? I saw it! You were there! All you karkin’ clones. You killed children!”

Passersby slowed, they were starting to draw a crowd. One wrong move and they’d be boxed in. A narrow corridor, nowhere to run. If it came to a fight, Riyo wouldn’t like the outcome.

The drunk raged on, spit flying in his grief and anger. Fox tried to read it, to gauge the angle, to find the way to cut tension without firing a shot. He used to be good at this.

Riyo moved, her voice low as she stepped beside the man. He didn’t catch the words, only saw her slip something into the man’s hand. Her other hand touched his arm. The man blinked down at the credits, startled. His voice dropped to a low rattle as he spoke. She nodded and muttered something else before she stepped back.

Her hand caught Fox’s elbow. “Let’s go,” she said with a smile meant for the crowd, graceful as ever, unhurried. She led him through the thinning onlookers.

Fox let out a breath only when they cleared the area.

He glanced at her. “What the hell did you say to him?”

“I gave him a few credits,” she answered. “Told him to get something warm to eat. Assured him my husband isn’t one of them.”  She shrugged.  “It’s a cover. He wasn’t listening to logic. But I convinced him he was mistaken, that we were merely travelers and you are my husband, and it broke through, I suppose.”

“Because no one believes anyone would marry a clone,” Fox said flatly.

Riyo held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. “Grief and trauma twist people. Warp what they see. What they’re willing to believe.”

He didn’t answer. Just turned forward again, jaw locked.

“Let’s check the landing pad,” he said. “Then head back. Keep our heads down.”

Riyo nodded and fell in beside him. Neither spoke again.

##^#^#^#^#^#

Riyo sat on the edge of the bed and tugged off her shoes off one at a time.

“You should get some rest,” Fox said, moving toward the chair.

She gave him a tired look. “You’re not going to sleep.”

“I’ll manage.”

She stared at him for a moment longer, sighed and wrapped herself in the blanket. The light clicked off.

Fox stayed in the shadows.  He waited until he was sure she was asleep, or close enough. Her breathing had slowed, soft and steady.

Sleep wasn’t coming for him, not tonight. There was too much buzzing under his skin, too much tension that wouldn’t bleed out. He sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled the duffel closer.

Inside was what little he had left of a life. His second blaster. Two vibroknives. A datapad. His armor.

He started with the blaster. Broke it down, piece by piece. Cleaned it. Reassembled it. Set it aside. Did the same with the second.

Then the armor.  He spread it out in order.  In this light the damage looked worse. Scoring, scuffs, burn marks. He cleaned each piece, checked it, wrapped it, packed it away again.

By the time he finished he’d cycled through a dozen contingencies. Three routes out of the city. Two fallback points.

Riyo stirred restlessly but didn’t wake. Her face was half-hidden by the blanket, her hand curled under her chin.

Fox watched her for a long time before leaning back against the wall. His body was wearing thin, but his mind wouldn’t stop.

#^#^#^#^#

The hum of the vent filled the quiet.

Riyo stirred, blinking into the dark. The overhead light was dimmed to its lowest setting, leaving the room washed in shadow. For a moment she didn’t know what had woken her. Then she saw him.

Fox was still awake. He sat against the wall, knees drawn up, eyes on the ceiling. His face unreadable, his posture tight.

“Fox,” she said softly.

He looked over.

“You need sleep.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” She pushed the blanket down and sat up. “You’re injured. You haven’t slept since we got here. Sitting on the floor all night won’t change anything.”

His brow furrowed. “I don’t want to crowd you.”

“You won’t.”

He didn’t move.  She sighed and patted the mattress beside her. “Come on. Just lie down. We’ll both rest better.”

Still he hesitated.

“I trust you,” she said quietly.

That shifted something. He stood, slow and stiff, and crossed to the bed. She shifted closer to the wall to make space. He lay down as far from her as the bed allowed. He didn’t look at her.  She didn’t look at him either.

She could feel the heat radiating off him. His body had always been warm, whereas she ran cold.  Pantorans always did.   It used to comfort her, now it only reminded her how long it had been since she’d felt that warmth.

She turned on her side, facing away.

For a moment she thought of speaking. Asking what he was thinking. Telling him she missed him. That she was scared. That she didn’t know how to fix any of this, but she said nothing.

She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the ache in her chest.

Behind her, Fox stayed perfectly still. His breathing was even, but she knew he wasn’t asleep.

She didn’t blame him.

#^#^#^#^#

The room was quiet when she woke again. The blanket had slipped down sometime in the night, and her arm was stretched across something solid and warm.

Fox.  Riyo blinked slowly, then stilled.

She was curled into him, front to front, her head tucked beneath his chin, one leg tangled over his. It must have happened while she slept, the old instinct of reaching for him in the dark. Her body remembered what her mind hadn’t dared to.

He hadn’t moved away, though.  His arm rested loosely against her back, unmoving. His breath was deep, steady. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest against hers.

It felt like nothing had changed.  Like they were in her flat on Coruscant. One of those rare mornings that had been theirs alone. As if there hadn’t been silence between them, like he hadn’t been ordered to kill her, and everything broken had somehow pieced itself back together in this room.

It was a lie and she knew it.

Her hand shifted up without much thought, her fingers brushed his jaw, the rough line of his beard. His skin was hot, too hot, even for him. Her palm cupped his cheek.

He stirred under her touch, brow furrowing. “You okay?” His voice was rough with sleep, low, barely more than a whisper.

“I’m fine,” she whispered. “You’re burning up.”

His eyes cracked open, still hazy. “M’fine.”

“Infection sets in fast.”

“I just run warm. I’ll change the bandages later. Bacta’ll hold.”  He assured her.

Neither of them moved.  It would’ve been so easy to stay like that. Her palm against his cheek, his warmth pressed into her, the illusion of safety for just a little longer.

He shifted, stretching slowly, the faint pop of his shoulder breaking the quiet. His eyes blinked fully open, focused now.  He looked at her, unreadable, and for a moment she saw the man she had known, the one she had woken next to a hundred times.

Her throat tightened. She pulled her hand back.

She tried to sit, pushing her hand under her for leverage, and in that shift her body pressed flush against his. Chest to chest, hip to hip. She felt him, hard through the thin fabric of his blacks.

Fox inhaled sharply, his whole body going tense. “Sorry,” he muttered, clipped. “It’s…morning.” He shifted back a fraction.

Riyo exhaled, a small smile tugging despite the heat in her face. “It’s fine.”

She pushed the blanket aside and sat up, heart pounding. Behind her she heard him move too, as he pulled the blanket discreetly over his lap. When she glanced back, he was turned slightly, hand rubbing at the back of his neck.

“We need to get a move on,” he said, his voice back to its usual edge. “Scope the landing pad. Figure timing. You can use the fresher first.”

Riyo nodded and stood. She crossed to the sink, brushing loose strands of hair from her face. Her reflection pale and tired, her pulse was far too fast and thready.

She turned the tap, water running over her hands. Behind her she heard him moving, reorganizing, keeping busy.

She could still feel the heat of his skin, still see that unguarded expression, still hear his voice asking if she was okay before anything else.

She pressed the damp cloth to her face, drew a slow breath, tried to bury the rest. They didn’t have time for feelings. Barely time to stay alive.

She couldn’t unfeel it. Couldn’t ignore the way he hadn’t pulled away. The way he had let himself rest next to her again.

Even if it meant nothing, it still meant everything.

#^#^#^#^#

The shuttle wasn’t elegant, clean or particularly well stocked but it flew. Fox had chosen well, compact, low-profile, silver-gray. Diplomatic courier class, no clear markings or identification. Some attaché’s or merchant’s ship no doubt. He got them inside fast, slicing the lock, killing the alarm.

Now he sat in the pilot’s chair, hunched, one hand on the controls. He moved like he’d done it a hundred times, not just trained for it.  Riyo strapped herself into the co-pilot’s seat, willing her hands to steady.

The engines revved louder and they were off the pad, jungle shrinking below, atmosphere turning to stars. 

He began hitting switches and she flinched as he smashed something under one of the panels.

“What are you doing?”

“Disabling sensors and relays. These have trackers, that’s standard. I can kill the outward transponder, but once it’s flagged stolen, we’ve got twelve hours. Fifteen at most before the manufacturer bricks it.”

“So we need to be somewhere by then.”

“Preferably.”

Stars spread across the viewport. Riyo leaned forward, checked the nav comp. “What about Rinn?”

He drew a sharp breath. “Frozen hellhole.”

“But it has a refugee center. Neutral oversight. Not Imperial.”

“That doesn’t mean they won’t report movement.”

“It’s still our best shot. If we make it to intake, we would blend in.  They don’t enforce identity checks.”

He seemed to contemplate that.  “Risky.”

“The other options aren’t good,” she said, quieter. “This whole sector’s locked down except Rinn. Maybe Thessa Prime, but that’s a mining world. There are checkpoints. You really want that risk?”

His exhale was long, then he nodded once. “Rinn it is.”

Two minutes later they were in hyperspace.

Fox leaned back, eyes fixed forward.  “We’re lucky,” he said eventually. “Off-world before sunrise. Fewer eyes. Fewer problems with anyone recognizing you—”

“For stars’ sake,” she cut in, sharper than intended. “You were the one nearly recognized. If he hadn’t been drunk—”

He turned, brow raised.

“You don’t get it, do you?” She asked. “The Barabels have a delegation. I’ve worked with them. They respected the Jedi. There were deep ties. If they’d realized what you were, do you think they’d just file a report to the Empire?” She let it hang. 

His jaw flexed, anger at  first, defiance. Then itt dulled, like the fight had drained out of him. He turned back, adjusted a switch harder than he needed to.

Riyo watched him in silence. Maybe he was starting to believe her, maybe the chip was loosening its hold.

She leaned back, head against the seat, eyes on the blur of hyperspace. Her fingers ached where she’d clenched them too tight. She forced her breathing into something calmer. She could almost trick herself into calm, almost believe they’d bought themselves a margin of safety.

Next to her, Fox sat rigid in the pilot’s chair, eyes fixed on nothing, jaw tight.

Safe wasn’t the same as free.

Chapter Text

From orbit, Rinn was a blur of white and gray, storm bands swirled over the surface. Beautiful, in a distant, dangerous sort of way, ice and clouds and ocean. Light fractured off the atmosphere, distant sunlight making it look glittery.

The scanners struggled to cut through the interference, but eventually the readings stabilized enough to register life on the surface. The refugee hub was clustered in the northern hemisphere, faint outlines of ships and prefab shelters. There were other settlements too, cities scattered toward the equator, a few dotting the southern coastal areas, but nothing near where they needed to land. All of them were too far without transportation.

They couldn’t risk setting down at the refugee camp, not in a ship flagged as stolen. If anyone came looking, they'd need to be long gone by then.

Fox leaned over the console. A sharp tone blared once, then again, and lights flared across the dash.

“Storm front’s heavier than the readouts said,” he muttered, fingers moving fast to adjust something. “One of the stabilizer’s cutting out.”

The shuttle jolted. Riyo braced herself against the armrests, breath catching.

“Can you bring us down?  Safely?” she asked.

“Working on it,” Fox snapped. The tone was rough, but it wasn’t what caught her. It was the look on his face, focused, but frayed at the edges. His jaw  was clenched tight. He looked… unsure. She wasn’t certain she’d ever seen that before.

He cursed under his breath, hands moving across the controls.

“Fox—”

“I’ve got it,” he bit out.

Another jolt rocked the ship, harder this time. A deep creak echoed through the hull as the wind shoved them sideways, the sensors howling in protest. Red alarms lit up across the dash.

Riyo gripped the armrest harder. She’d flown often, but never piloted. She couldn’t do anything but sit and watch, helpless.

Fox reached across her. “Panel, right side. Top green switch, hold it.”

She found the switch and pressed it down. She followed his instructions as he called them out, flipping toggles, holding levers, doing whatever she could to help and keep them in the air.

The shuttle dipped and bucked, the failing stabilizer barely compensating. Fox adjusted, tense with the strain. Outside the viewport, snow whipped in tight spirals. The clouds thickened fast; there was no visibility now, just a white wall beyond the viewport.

When the ship lurched again, it was so violent and sudden that for one disorienting moment, Riyo felt the floor vanish beneath her. She floated, stomach in her throat, harness the only thing keeping her in place.

Fox slammed a hand to the side panel, the other still gripping the controls. He snarled as he fought it back under control. The artificial gravity jolted back online, and she hit the seat hard.

“Are you okay?” he asked without looking at her.

She nodded quickly, breath short. “Yes.”

“Brace.”

She did.

The descent wasn’t smooth, but he coaxed the shuttle lower, keeping his eyes on the readouts. When they touched down, it was with a teeth-rattling jolt. The engines spun down slowly. For a long moment, Fox didn’t move. He sat motionless in the pilot’s seat, breathing hard, hands still gripping the controls. “Kriff,” he muttered under his breath.

Riyo turned to the viewport. Snow blurred the landscape so completely that she couldn’t see more than a few meters out. Somehow, they were still in one piece.

They had landed in a shallow canyon. Jagged rock walls rose on either side. Snow drifted in uneven piles along the base of the cliffs.

Fox ran the terrain sensors again, jaw tight. The readouts flickered. What did come through wasn’t good. No clear path. Just open terrain stretching endlessly in all directions.

“Two days,” he said finally. “Maybe more.” His voice was flat, his displeasure clear in the way his mouth drew tight. She could see the calculation behind his eyes.

“We don’t have a choice,” she said quietly.

Fox nodded once. Like he was filing the frustration away, somewhere deep, where it wouldn’t show.

They gathered what they could. The cold‑weather kit was stashed under a floor panel.  Two emergency blankets, a firestarter, three flares. Riyo handed him the pouch and he added it to his pack without a word.

In the rear locker, they found clothing. Civilian, a  man’s, left behind by whoever had owned the shuttle.

Fox pulled on the jacket. It was thick and quilted, but short in the sleeves and a touch tight across the chest and shoulders. “It’ll do,” he said.

“It’s not enough,” Riyo replied. She picked up one of the cloaks and handed it to him. “Layer this over it. Keep the heat in.”

He hesitated, then fastened it over the jacket and raised the hood.

Riyo added a second cloak over her own, then a third, wrapping it tight. Her shoes were all wrong for this, thin soles, narrow, meant for city streets. In the bundle, she found two pairs of wool socks. She pulled one on over her silk ones and handed the other to Fox.

“Take these. Use them for gloves.”

His brows furrowed. “Riyo—”

“You’ll need them,” she said, firm. “They’re better than nothing. And you’ll need your hands functional, especially with the sleeves being short.  Frostbite isn’t something you want.”

After a beat, he took them and pulled them over his hands, even as he opened the ramp.  The wind howled into the ship, dropping the temperature considerably in seconds.

She stepped closer, adjusted his hood until it framed his face. “Ready?” she asked.

Fox looked toward the canyon mouth where snow blew in horizontal sheets.

“No,” he said. “But let’s go.”

#^#^#^#^#^#

The wind came in bursts, sharp, sudden, and icy. Not like the gusts that swept across landing pads or rooftop levels on Coruscant. This wind cut sideways, slicing through the layers he wore, stinging his ears and face under the hood. 

Fox kept his head down and his feet moving, boots crunching over hardened snow and ice. Riyo walked just ahead, a steady flash of color in the white. Her cloak snapped around her legs in the wind.

The cold had settled into his chest by now. Every breath scraped down his throat. He tried to exhale slow, to keep from coughing, but the urge was getting stronger by the minute. The air was too dry. It burned going in and burned worse coming out. His ribs ached every time he moved wrong. His arm throbbed and his head wasn’t much better.

None of it mattered. He just had to keep going.

They followed the course mapped from the sensors, not a road, not even a trail. Just snow and the occasional jagged bit of rock to act as a marker. Landmarks, if you squinted hard enough. Enough to keep them oriented, if they were lucky.

His legs were already burning. Too little rest, probably dehydration. He knew the signs, recognized the drag in his limbs, the dull fuzz at the edge of his vision, the way pain pulsed behind his eyes when he blinked too hard.

Didn’t change anything. He kept walking.

“Do you hear that?” Riyo’s voice cut through the wind.

He paused beside her. Listened. A low groan drifted between the rocks, long, hollow, strange.

“Wind through the rocks,” he said. “Sounds like a power conduit on overload.”

She smiled faintly. “Or the rail lines on Coruscant.”

He nodded once, fell into step beside her again.

For a while, they didn’t speak. The storm filled the silence instead. Wind. Breath. The steady crunch of boots on snow. His own breath fogged the air in front of him. He blinked hard, trying to clear the blur from his eyes. They stung.

“Have you ever seen snow like this before?” she asked.

He glanced over. Snow clung to the edge of her hood, dusted her lashes. Her face was mostly hidden, but what he could see was flushed. Her eyes caught the light, twinkling, almost. She looked… not happy, exactly, but maybe enjoying this, in some odd way.

“No,” he said. “Kamino had rain. Storms. It got cold sometimes. But not like this.”

“And Coruscant only ever got a dusting,” she said, nodding.

He looked ahead again. The horizon was hardly there. Sky and ground had become the same flat white-gray. “It’s strange,” he said. “Quiet. Until it isn’t.”

She gave a small nod. “Pantora gets storms like this every few years. Mostly in the northern marshes. You can feel it coming, the air changes. Everything stills. But we prepare for it. Hot drinks. Closed shutters. You wait it out.”

He didn’t answer, but the image stuck in his mind. Her curled near a fire, storm muffled outside.  Soft light. He liked the idea more than he wanted to admit.

His limbs had gone numb in intervals, first his hands, then his feet, now the back of his neck where the wind always found a way in.  His face, most of it anyway.  The socks helped, but not much. He flexed his fingers inside the wool, just to make sure they still worked.

And still, he walked. One foot, then the other.

It felt strange, not leading. She kept just ahead of him, just enough to set the pace. To guide them. She pointed things out when she spotted them, small tracks in the snow, the glint of blue mineral in a cliffside. Little things. He chimed in when he could, just enough to stay present. 

The storm didn’t let up.

#^#^#^#^# 

By the time they found the cave, light was fading fast.

What passed for daylight on Rinn had never been more than a pale wash through the storm, but even that was dimming now. The sky had deepened.

The cave wasn’t deep, but it was dry, sheltered from the worst of the wind. The shift in temperature hit immediately. Without the bite of the wind, it felt almost warm. Riyo stepped inside and brushed the snow from her cloak. Her body registered the change slowly. Every muscle ached. Her shoulders. Her thighs. Her toes had gone half-numb and her feet hurt something fierce from her shoes.

Fox was kneeling near the entrance, lowering the last of their gear. His movements weren’t right, slower than they should’ve been. Sluggish. His hood had slipped back. His curls were damp with melting snow, so was his beard.

Riyo moved closer. “You need to eat,” she said quietly. “We should get a fire going.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” She wasn’t going to waste energy arguing with him.  He didn’t get to collapse halfway through the next day, not if she could help it.

Together they gathered what little kindling they could find, woody scrub half-buried in the snow, brittle roots near the canyon wall. Just enough to feed one small fire.  Thankfully the camping trips she’d taken with her father had imparted the knowledge of how to make a fire and she managed to get it going.

She handed him a ration pack. He took it without a word, sat with his back against the stone, and tore it open. He ate in silence, the motions almost mechanical.

Riyo sat nearby, cross-legged, an emergency blanket drawn across her knees. The fire crackled low between them. It wouldn’t last through the night, but for now it was enough to thaw the drink packs, to take the edge off the cold.

Fox didn’t look good.  Not just tired, pale. His skin had taken on a washed-out look she’d rarely seen on him. He kept shifting like sitting hurt. Jaw tight, eyes shadowed. She watched him for a while, saying nothing.  At least he managed the rest of the ration pack.

“I’ve read about this place,” she said. “The refugee center.”

He didn’t look up. “Hope the real thing’s better than the readouts.”

“It’s not meant to be permanent,” she said. “Just a processing point. They take in civilians. People displaced by war, disaster. By Imperial relocations. If you pass screening, you get assigned a destination world.”

“Assigned,” he echoed, flat.

She nodded. “Three cities on Rinn still run long-range transport. So that’s what we’ll say. That we spent the last of our funds to get here. That we’re trying to reach family. Or find work. Something better. Keep it vague.”

Fox stared into the fire for a long moment, eyes unreadable as he let that sink in. “And after that?”

She didn’t answer right away.  “One day at a time,” she said eventually. “That’s all we’ve got.”

He exhaled slowly. Unzipped the jacket and eased one arm out of the sleeve. She watched as he turned slightly, checking the bandage. His movements were guarded. His mouth pulled tight as he peeled the edge back.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“Fine.”

It wasn’t. He angled away from her, keeping the wound out of her view and that alone was telling. He pulled a clean strip of gauze from the medkit and began wrapping it again, using up the last of the tiny bottle of bacta.

“You should let me look.”

“I’ve got it.”

His voice was clipped, strained.

The fire had dropped to embers by the time they finished the water packs. They couldn’t afford another. No spare container to melt snow, no reserves.  They had to be careful to have any at all. Riyo folded the empty pouches back into the pack and tucked it near the wall, then reached for the emergency blanket again.

She shifted beside him, slow and careful, wrapping the blanket around them both, mindful of his arm. Her weight settled against his side, and he didn’t flinch or pull away.  They both knew they’d have to sleep close to keep warm.

They lay side by side, breath fogging between them. Her head tucked against his shoulder. Her fingers curled loosely near his ribs. After a long moment, his arm moved and settled around her back.

His body radiated heat.  The weight of the day pressed down and yet like this, she could almost imagine better circumstances. Neither of them spoke after that.

#^#^#^#

Sleep didn’t come easy.

At first, Fox thought it was the distraction of her, her warmth pressed close, the steady rise and fall of her breath, the scent of her skin. His body ached, and his mind should have found rest, but it didn’t. Something else kept pulling at him. His chest burned. His face felt hot, though the air in the cave was cold. He felt too hot and too cold all at once. Nothing about it made sense. The cave slipped sideways in his vision. Time distorted.

And then he wasn’t there at all.

He was on Coruscant, but not the one he remembered. The sky overhead was wrong. He couldn’t tell if he was running, walking, or falling forward. His balance shifted beneath him. His armor was gone, then back again. He felt its familiar weight and the security of it across his shoulders and chest, but the seal on his helmet wouldn’t hold. Smoke filled his nose.

“Marshal Commander.”

The voice echoed behind him.

He turned.

The rotunda of the Senate appeared around him in real time. The floor was slick, too reflective, washed red under the overhead lights. He didn’t want to look down. He already knew what he’d see.

A scream pierced the air.

Riyo.

He turned toward the sound, but the world shifted again.

Thorn stood in front of him, talking.

Fox couldn’t hear the words. Thorn’s armor was cracked through the chestplate, blackened and charred, the damage impossible to ignore. But his face was calm, and he was smiling, laughing even, like he was just about to check out after a long shift. Fox stepped forward, reaching for him.

And blinked, Thorn was gone.

The rotunda melted into another corridor, dark, somewhere outside the Senate.  People were screaming.

Blaster fire rang out.  Someone fell. Red pooled across the duracrete.

The words were his, he could hear them echoing. He had given the order.

Everything shifted.  He saw the ARC Trooper, Rex’s trooper, Fives.  He was on the ground, a neat hole through his chestplate, his voice too quiet to hear over the pounding in Fox’s ears. Rex’s face twisted in disbelief, pain and horror. Fox tried to reach them, tried to speak, to explain, but everything was fading. Like watching them through glass submerged in water. Like none of it had ever happened, but it had…

He pressed his palms against his ears. The comm was screaming static, louder and louder then…silence.

He stood in darkness. Breathing hard, body tense. Alone.

Another breath cut through, but not his own.  Inhale. Exhale. Repeating over and over, growing louder.

He knew that sound. It was the sound of death. Not just his.

Everyone’s.  He had to move. He had to save his men—

He woke with a gasp.

The ceiling of the cave swam into view.  The fire had died down. Wind whistled faintly outside. His chest was tight. His breath came hard and shallow. Cold sweat clung to his back.

There was a hand on his chest.

Riyo’s voice was soft, half-asleep. “You’re alright. Just a dream.”

Her head still rested near his shoulder. Her breath tickled his neck.

Fox let out a breath, long and unsteady. He turned toward her slowly, pressing into the warmth of her body. His arm curved around her back, holding her close. He tucked his face into the folds of her cloak, breathing her in.

Little by little, the tension bled out of him.

She murmured something again, low and drowsy, words he couldn’t make out, still half in her own dreams, ones he hoped were far more pleasant than his.  Still, they soothed him.

He closed his eyes. Let himself breathe again.

#^#^#^#^#

They didn’t speak much the next day.

The wind had eased a little, but the snow hadn’t. It came in bursts now, soft enough to seem harmless, until it began to stick again to their cloaks and hoods and eyelashes. Riyo kept her head down, walking with her chin tucked into the scarf to hold in the warmth.

Fox walked beside her. He was quiet. Too quiet.

He hadn’t said much since they broke camp that morning. No observations. Not even the dry commentary she’d grown used to. Just silence.

She noticed the way he moved, slightly uneven now. His shoulders were hunched. He didn’t complain about the cold, not once, which, in itself, was telling.

The cough was worse.

It had started the day before, low, the kind of sound someone makes just to clear their throat. Easy enough to dismiss. Now, though, it came more often in bursts he tried to stifle behind his arm, each one leaving him a little more winded than before.

By the time they found another rock shelf just wide enough to serve as shelter, she’d already made up her mind.

Fox dropped his pack with a dull thud and leaned against the stone. He sank down against the rock wall.

Riyo scraped together what kindling she could find. The fire caught after a few false starts, flickering weakly against the damp air. She handed him meal bar without a word and sat close, watching him from the corner of her eye.

He looked worse in the firelight. His skin had that drawn, waxy look of fever. He didn’t meet her gaze until he’d eaten at least half the bar she’d given him.

“These clones you’ve been in contact with, do you still have a way of reaching them?”  The question surprised her.

“Possibly,” she said, her tone cautious. “I have a comm channel. But I’d need a secure connection.”

“And you trust them?”

“I do.”

He watched her for a long moment, eyes sharp and calculating even through the haze of exhaustion. “And who are they exactly?”

“They went off-grid. They’re helping others now. They’ve found ways to reach the ones who start to question their orders, or need help.”  She kept it vague on purpose.

He didn’t respond, but she could see him considering that.

“Chip or not,” she said quietly, “some of your brothers knew it wasn’t right, what was happening. Genocide? The public executions. The protesters…”

Fox’s jaw tightened and he visibly flinched. He looked away, down at his hands. “There’ve been plenty that went AWOL. And some…” His voice faltered.

She didn’t move. “Some what?”

“There’ve been deaths,” he said finally. “Suicides. We covered it up.”  It looked like it pained him to say the words at all.

Her chest ached. She stared into the fire. “Then I can assume the chip stopped working.”

He didn’t look at her. “The ones that went AWOL… are they some of them, then?  They made it out?”

“Some,” she said. “Most.”

He nodded. “And what?  They disable this chip or what?”

“Through surgery.”

Fox stared into the flames, the light flickering across his face. “And there’s no other way?”

“Surgery’s the only safe one we know of.”

He nodded once, slow. “Figures.”

He was lost in thought for a long time, and she let him take the time, watched as he opened the pack, sorted contents, repacked it again.

Eventually, they began to prepare for sleep. Riyo shook out one of the emergency blankets for them to lay on.

Fox moved stiffly, his breath catching once as he lowered himself down. He stared up at the rock ceiling above them. “You should go on alone when we get closer,” he said. “You’ll move faster without me.”

Riyo rolled toward him. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s not a discussion.”

“You’re hurt, Fox.” Her voice cracked before she could stop it. “If I leave you, you’ll die out here.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.” He said it quietly, almost as if he believed it.  “You know I’m not going to pass screening,” he continued. “Even if we fake the paperwork, if they have bioscanners… I can’t go in with you.”

“Then we’ll deal with that when it happens.”

“Riyo—”

“No.” Her voice shook, but she didn’t care. “You don’t get to suggest I leave you in the middle of a frozen wasteland. You can decide what happens once we reach a real settlement, but until then, I’m not leaving you.”

Fox turned his head slightly, eyes fixed on the ceiling again. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I’m thinking just fine,” she said firmly. “You can argue about it tomorrow. Right now, I just need you to sleep.”

He exhaled sharply, the sound rough and uneven.  It was the way he let the breath go, the way he curled up without arguing, the way he was asleep in seconds that scared her.

Riyo shifted closer, curling toward him under the blanket. Her hand found its way to his head, fingers combing gently through his hair.

He didn’t stir.

She rested her forehead near his temple and closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry.

#^#^#^^#^#

Riyo didn’t usually mind the cold. It was in her blood. It all reminded her of home in a distant way. Pantora had winters that could freeze the marshes solid, storms that rolled in like living things.  But the cold also meant life and tradition, fond memories, sitting around a fire, warm broth, the sound of her mother’s voice as the wind howled.

This wasn’t that kind of cold.

Two days of it, trekking through open terrain, battered by wind, wrapped in damp layers that froze stiff had stripped it of any nostalgia. The wilderness here wasn’t meant for living things. She had seen tracks but seen nothing that had made them, not like on Pantora.  No birds, no kod’yok or deer, no snow mice, not even a vulptex.  It all seemed empty and barren and endless. Even she, with every advantage Pantoran heritage could give, was reaching her limit.

She glanced sideways.

Fox walked a pace behind, shoulders hunched, his cloak flapping in the wind.  The color had drained from his face, and when he coughed again, turning his head away, she saw it, the faint red that spattered against the snow before he straightened, jaw locked, pretending it hadn’t happened.

He was sick, and it was getting worse.

“Fox,” she said quietly.

No answer.

“Fox.”

He looked over at last. His face was tight, wind-chapped and drawn, his eyes were bloodshot, too bright, fever-bright.

“I’m fine,” he rasped.

“You’re not. You’re running hot, and you’re not hiding it well.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I saw the blood…”

He wasn’t alright. She knew it in the pit of her stomach, the same way she knew when details didn't add up during a hearing. Her instincts had never failed her, and they screamed now. She reached for his arm and he didn’t stop her.

He shrugged his arm out of his coat and she peeled his sleeve back carefully, her fingers clumsy from the cold. The bandages underneath were soaked through. The bite was swollen and raw, skin inflamed, edges dark and angry. Thin red lines crept upward along his arm, vanishing beneath the fabric of his sleeve.

Her stomach turned. “Stars…” Her voice broke on the word. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He made a weak attempt at a shrug. “Didn’t want to slow us down. I changed the bandage, used the rest of the bacta.”

“This is infected.”  Either the bacta had been too diluted or hadn’t been bacta at all.  Her stomach sank because there were no good options here.

“We don’t have time for this.  I’ll be fine.  I don’t get sick.”

“You’re not going to make it another day like this,” she said, her throat tightening. “If we don’t get you treated, you could lose the arm. Or worse.”

He didn’t respond. Just looked down the long, empty stretch of white ahead of them, as if sheer willpower could pull him forward, his instincts and training telling him to keep moving, keep fighting, no matter what it cost. But he wasn’t a soldier anymore, and she wasn’t willing to watch him die like one.

“Be honest. Can you keep walking?”

“I can walk.”

“Quickly?”

He huffed through the scarf around his mouth. “That’ll cost extra.”

She almost smiled at that.

Without saying anything, she helped him back into his jacket and unfastened the extra cloak and stepped closer, wrapping it over his shoulders.

He stiffened. “Riyo—”

“Don’t,” she said quietly. “Let me do this.”

She adjusted the fabric around his neck, tucking it carefully to keep the warmth in. Her fingers brushed the side of his face. He wasn’t quite shivering yet, but he was close. His breath came uneven, labored.

“You always were a little bossy….shoes off at the door.  Sheets done just right.  Towels folded just so.  Don’t know what I expected…”

Riyo blinked up at him.

He was smirking, barely, but it was there. The same kind of smirk he used to give her across a room. That half-teasing glint.  She saw him. Not the soldier or the shadow the Empire had made of him, but Fox. Her Fox. The man she’d loved so completely it still hurt to think about.

She stayed there too long, her hands still at the collar of the cloak, fingers resting lightly against his chest. His skin burned beneath the layers.

The smirk faded. He winced as he cleared his throat and she pulled herself from the moment and the thoughts that would do neither of them any good right now.

“You need care,” she said softly. “Real care. Not my patch jobs.”

“Soon,” he muttered. “We just have to keep moving.”

They kept walking, there was no other choice.

Riyo kept her eyes on the horizon, one step at a time. Every so often, her fingers brushed his, just a faint, fleeting touch, enough to remind him she was still there.

And each time, he let her.  He didn’t pull away.

#^#^#^#^#

By the time they reached the outskirts of the refugee camp, Riyo was half-carrying him.

Fox had insisted that he could walk, but he’d slowed down so much that she was worried he would drop where he stood. He had insisted all the way up the ridge, through drifts up her knees and gale force wind. That had been nearly an hour ago. Now he was slumped against her side, heavy and slow, one arm limp, the other looped over her shoulders.

He wasn’t talking much anymore.  His breath rasped beside her ear, short and shallow. She could feel the tremble in his body with each step.

The camp finally came into view. Fencing rose around it. Beyond that, rows of prefab shelters were half covered in snow. One transport ship sat at the edge of the pad, already warming its engines. The loudspeakers crackled overhead, repeating in several languages.

“Evacuation in progress. Priority boarding for women and children only. All others must register and wait for the next vessel. No exceptions.”

The message looped again and again.

It wasn’t until the third time that she really heard it.

Her stomach twisted.  Women and children only.

She slowed slightly, eyes scanning the perimeter. There were dozens of people, lining up. Huddled figures, cloaked and hunched, clutching bundles and blankets. A child crying somewhere near the rear of the line. Security officers in mismatched uniforms barked orders.

Fox leaned heavier into her.

“Riyo—” His voice was barely a breath. “Just go without me.”

She didn’t even look at him. “I know you didn’t just say that.”

“Can’t... slow you down.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Her jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.

She felt the decision came to her in a flash. A stupid, desperate idea.  The kind that just might work.

She turned toward the row of prefabs and dragged him behind one. They ducked out of sight, tucked behind a wall where the wind didn’t reach.

“Sit for a moment,” she said, easing him down.

He dropped with a low grunt. He leaned against the wall and let his head tip back.  “What’s the plan.  Do you have a plan?”

She yanked open the duffel. Her fingers were stiff with cold but she worked fast, pulling out her clothing from Coruscant, her cloak, the heavy wrap, the skirt. She stripped off the cloaks, working quickly in the biting air, leaving her in just the tunic.  She bundled the cloth, wrapping the scarf over the top and around again until it sat snug against her frame and pulled the tunic down over it.

It wasn’t perfect. She stepped back, threw the cloak around her shoulders, and glanced down.

The illusion might work.

Fox was staring up at her, bleary-eyed and confused. “What... the hell are you doing?”

She dropped beside him, tugged his hood back up, and pulled his arm over her shoulders again.

“Play along,” she said. “Don’t argue.”

“Riyo—”

“Trust me.”

He didn’t have the strength to protest. They moved together, one heavy step after another, toward the security gate. Every muscle in her legs screamed. The pack dug into her spine, and Fox sagged more with each step, his boots dragging in the snow.

A guard stepped forward, holding up a gloved hand. “Sorry, ma’am. Shuttle’s almost full. Only women and children now—”

“She’s pregnant,” a voice called out. One of the medics from the nearby tent approached. “Late term, from the look of it.”

Riyo nodded, breath catching. “Yes,” she gasped. “He’s my husband. We lost everything. He’s all I have left. He’s injured and sick, please. He can’t stay out here. I can’t do this alone.”

The tears hit fast and hot.  She didn’t have to fake them.

The medic stepped forward. His eyes swept over her, then Fox, then back again.

There was a pause that seemed to last forever.

Then the guard nodded. “Go. Last door. Bottom of the ramp.”

They pushed forward, staggering up the gangway, past families huddled together, past children curled into crates and blankets. The cargo ramp began to rise behind them, engines humming as the ship readied for lift.

She found a spot along the bulkhead and let the pack fall. Her arms were shaking as she helped Fox slide down beside her. He leaned back, head tipping against the wall.

“That,” he muttered, barely audible, “was one hell of a trick.”

She nodded, throat raw. “It had to work.”

He opened his eyes just a sliver, looking at her through the haze. “You think they’ll believe it?”

“You’ll have to keep playing the role,” she said softly. “Even if it’s hard.”

She looked away, fingers trembling. “I know what we had might not mean anything to you anymore.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper now. “But for what it’s worth... it still matters to me.  And if nothing else, consider us even.”

She hadn’t meant to say it, not like that, but she was too exhausted to filter her words or feelings anymore.

Fox shifted, his hand found hers.

His eyes were closed again, but his fingers tightened around hers in a slow, unmistakable squeeze.

Riyo exhaled shakily, then curled her fingers around his in return.

#^#^#^#^#

It took only minutes after takeoff for the medics to find them.

Riyo barely had time to catch her breath before one of the triage officers waved them over to a curtained-off section at the rear of the transport. She nodded, locking her arms more tightly around Fox’s waist as they moved.  He was burning up. She could feel it through every layer of their clothes. His breath was shallow, uneven. Every now and again, his breath gave a hitch through the coughing like he couldn’t quite take in air.

Inside the makeshift medbay, the head medic rattled off orders in what must have  been Ryl.  She was too tired to catch the meaning. Another, a human man, reached to steady Fox, but the moment his hand touched him, Fox flinched violently.

His arm came up, clumsy and slow, but with force. “Don’t touch me—” His voice cracked. He recoiled, panting, his eyes barely opened.

“Easy,” the medic said gently, both hands raised. “We’re here to help, friend.”

Fox wasn’t listening. He was on instinct, fighting off ghosts only he could see.

“It’s okay,” Riyo said quickly. “It’s me. You’re safe. It’s alright. They just want to help.”

His head turned toward her. His eyes were barely focused, but he seemed to recognize her voice.

“Ri…” he breathed.

The way he said her name, the nickname he had for her nearly undid her. She nearly snapped at him for it, for not using the name they’d rehearsed, for nearly blowing their cover. But the way he said it, soft and familiar, made her eyes burn.

“I’m here,” she whispered, moving to his side. She hooked her arm around his back, helped ease him down onto the cot, careful of his ribs. “I’ve got you.”

That seemed to break whatever tension was left in him. His weight sagged fully against the cot, and the fight went out of him.

The medics moved fast after that. Riyo helped peel away his layers, trying not to panic. When one of them reached for the shears, she shook her head. “Don’t. I can do it.”

She stripped his shirt off herself, then helped get him out of the blacks he wore underneath. She wouldn’t let them cut them. He shivered, lying there in nothing more than his briefs. She asked for a blanket, and they gave her one.

There were murmured words exchanged between them, none of them reassuring. A scanner beeped sharply. The sound felt like it echoed.

Fox groaned, tried to speak again. The Twi’lek medic looked over at her.

“How long’s he been like this?”

“A few days,” she said. “He’s been worsening while we traveled, started coughing blood. He’s got a rib injury, a bite on his arm. He normally… doesn’t get sick.”

“He’s not just sick,” the other said. “He’s septic. Systemic infection. Fever’s over forty. He’s severely dehydrated.”

Fox tried again to speak, something about antiseptin and a stim. The human medic gave a humorless snort. “You’ll  need a little more than that.”

They peeled back the bandage.

Riyo winced and looked away, even though she’d already seen it. 

“Was he bitten by an animal?”

Riyo nodded. “Yes. Before we got here.”

“What kind?”

She hesitated. Her mind raced.  “Does it matter?”

“It might if it’s venomous."

She swallowed hard. The real answer wasn’t an option.  Riyo had read something once about reptilian species secreting bacteria into wounds while hunting. Did barabels do that? It would explain the infection raging through Fox’s enhanced immune system. Her mind scrambled for something, anything.

“A massif,” she said quickly. “Local enforcement had one.”

The medic blinked.

She nodded again, a little too fast. “He was trying to protect me.”  That part wasn’t a lie.

One of them was already prepping an injector. She watched them inject the antibiotics, then another injection in the thigh. Fluids were hooked into a vein in his arm. Someone repositioned his legs. The worst of the wound was cleaned and re-wrapped.

A scan of his ribs confirmed what she feared, three fractures, though thankfully none had punctured the lung. But the infection had spread there. That’s what was causing the blood, the coughing fits.

“He’s stable. For now.”

Riyo sat stiffly in the chair they gave her, watching everything. She couldn’t stop touching him. Her hand moved through his hair without thinking. She brushed it back again and again, grounding herself with the feel of him.

The human medic stayed behind as the rest of the team moved on, checking his vitals.  His gaze slid to the scar on his neck.

“You know what happened to his throat?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Tracheotomy,” he said. “Well-healed.”

She nodded faintly, trying to hide her surprise. “He’s survived a lot.”

Her voice felt thin in her throat.

The man was eyeing her almost suspiciously now and Riyo knew she had to tread carefully.

“How long have you known him?” he asked.

“We’ve just reconnected,” she said after a pause. “We were separated… for months. We were together a long time.”  At least that was the truth.

The medic nodded slowly, offered a small sound of understanding. “You said seven months?”

She blinked. “Sorry?”

“The baby,” he said.

Right.

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Seven.”  Seemed as good a number as any.

“You weren’t injured, were you?”

“No,” she said fast, too fast. Then steadier. “Just tired. I’m fine.”

He hesitated, but nodded. “We’ll check back in two hours.”

He didn’t ask anything else and for that Riyo was grateful.  She was too exhausted to think of the implications, as if the man had seen right through their story.  She only hoped that he didn’t raise any issues.  They couldn’t afford that, not until Fox was back on his feet.

Riyo leaned closer again, turning back to Fox.

Her fingers brushed through his hair, slower now. His breathing hadn’t changed. She bent her head until her forehead rested against his.

“I’m still here,” she whispered.

He didn’t stir.  She stayed like that, breathing in time with him. Watching and waiting.

#^#^#^#^#

Two hours passed in a blur.

The medical bay was warmer than the rest of the ship.  It made her feel drowsy even if part of her felt chilled to the bone.  Every part of her ached ,  her legs from the climb, her shoulders from hauling him and the pack, her hands. She sat beside him, chin in her hand, her body slumped but her mind unwilling to rest.

Fox hadn’t moved much, but his breathing was steadier now. The fever had broken. The harsh flush in his face had faded to something less alarming. His fingers twitched in his sleep, a sign of life, of returning strength. She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until then.

The meds were working.  It should have brought relief. It did ,  but it came with a weight of its own, heavy and dizzying. Now that the immediate danger had passed, there was space for all the other thoughts to crowd in. The kind she’d been pushing down since they’d boarded the ship.  All the thoughts of what their next steps would be, what to do if someone recognized either of them.

She let the thoughts circle as she watched him.

Despite everything, the chaos, the near crash, the infection, he was still alive. Here with her, and that was something she hadn’t dared to hope for days ago.

She could see the all too familiar pieces of the man she remembered, that she knew so well.  The faint crease between his brows, the way his mouth softened when he finally slept. Beneath the bruises and exhaustion, he looked younger. Her throat tightened. She pressed a hand to her mouth, steadying herself.

The shift of the curtain drew her back. She straightened automatically as the medic from earlier stepped inside. He carried a small scanner, eyes down on his datapad.

He moved to Fox’s side, checking vitals.

Riyo stood when he reached for the fluid line. “Is the treatment working?”

He nodded, scanning the datapad. “It is. The antibiotics are holding. His fever’s dropping steadily, lungs are clearing. If he gets proper rest, he’ll make a full recovery.”

She hadn’t realized how close she’d been to breaking until then. Relief hit her so hard she had to sit back down, the air felt thin and she felt dizzy. She managed a quiet nod. “Thank you.”

The medic gave a small smile. “We’ll assign you a berth. It won’t be much, nothing fancy. Enough for a little privacy.”

Riyo nodded again. “That’s fine.”

The medic paused, glanced sideways at her. “You know,” he said quietly, “The antiseptin comment. That’s what tipped me off.  I almost didn’t realize it with the clothing and the beard…”

She froze.

His tone was thoughtful, almost wry. “I’ve worked with clones before,” he went on. “During the war. You start to notice patterns. What they say, what they reach for when they’re hurt. They don’t go down easy.”

Riyo’s chest tightened. Her instinct was to deny it, to tell the man he was wrong.  She opened her mouth to say something but he waved a hand.

“I know who he is. Or close enough. That’s not what I’m asking.”

Her voice came out quieter than she meant. “Then what are you asking?”

He met her eyes. “Whether you’re actually pregnant.  If you are, you need medical attention.  If you aren’t, you know running a scan is a waste of my time and resources.”

For a long moment, she couldn’t form words. Finally, she shook her head. “No.”

He nodded once, expression unreadable. “Smart cover. And convincing.”

Her lips twitched. “Desperate.”

“Desperation’s what keeps people alive,” he said. “And gets them through gates that should’ve stayed shut.” He made another note on the datapad, then looked at her again, softer this time. “I’ll file a basic intake record. Enough to match your story. It’ll hold up if anyone checks. But get off this route soon before too many questions are asked.”

She exhaled slowly. “I know. We won’t stay long, just long enough for him to recover.”

He hesitated a beat, “For what it’s worth… I owe more than a few of his brothers.”

She swallowed the ache in her throat. “Thank you.”

He glanced down at Fox one last time, and for a moment, something like respect crossed his face. “Let him sleep. I’ll be back before next shift.”

Then he left, the curtain sliding closed.

The quiet returned. Riyo sank back into the chair, her arms wrapping around herself. The adrenaline that had carried her this far had burned away.

She didn’t know what would happen next. She only knew that, for now, he was still breathing beside her and that had to be enough.

#^#^#^#^#^#

They led them to the sleeping section after Fox’s next dose of meds, just rows of curtained compartments stretched along the far wall of the hold. No real beds, just padded mats and blankets. Most of the makeshift quarters were already full.

Families huddled together, children curled into their parents or siblings, some tucked under coats or shawls. Couples with their heads resting on another, limbs tangled like they’d collapsed mid-embrace. Low voices from behind closed curtains. Babies crying, coughing.

Fox leaned into her as they moved down the aisle. He was awake now. His steps were heavy, his balance still off, but he was moving under his own power, if just barely. His shoulder brushed hers with each shuffle forward.

They reached their compartment. One of the medics wordlessly handed Riyo a second blanket, then tugged the curtain shut behind them.  He’d been kind enough to carry the heavy pack without complaint and set it just inside the curtain before he left with a nod.

Privacy.  Riyo let out a slow, shaky breath and turned to take in the space. It wasn’t much. A single padded mat, just wide enough for two people to lie side by side. One thin pillow, two folded blankets. The walls were partitions. The ceiling above was metal struts and mesh.

It was relatively quiet and it was warm.

She helped ease him back on the mat, easing his boots off.  She sat down beside him, close enough to feel the heat of him and began to pull off her shoes, fingers stiff. Every muscle screamed with fatigue. Her knees, her spine, her shoulders. And still, her mind kept reaching backward. To other nights. Simpler ones.

Nights curled beside him on Coruscant in his tiny quarters, in his narrow bunk. Nights in her apartment, wrapped in her silk sheets, tangled. Those little moments had always been a kind of shelter then, an escape from everything, for both of them.  It still felt like that now.

She lay back stiffly, staring at the metal grating above. Then she felt him shift beside her.

Fox moved groggily, slowly. His body rolled toward hers. She breathed in as he curled around her from behind. His injured arm stretched across her waist. His knees bent behind hers.  They fit. Just like they always had.

She exhaled shakily. Her throat was too tight to speak. Her heart aching.  It was warm enough that they didn’t have to curl together for survival.  This was a choice.

“Keeping up appearances.”  He asked right next to her ear.

She closed her eyes. Her lips pulled into a smile.

“Right,” she whispered.

But he wasn’t just keeping up the illusion, he was holding her the way he used to.  She let her hand drift down to rest over his, her fingers sliding gently over his knuckles where they pressed into the fabric at her waist.

Then he shifted slightly. His palm slid lower, resting gently over the padding wrapped around her midsection, patting almost experimentally.

“Wouldn’t be that squishy. Right?”

The sound that came out of her was half a laugh, half a sob. She bit her lip, swallowed it back. “No,” she whispered. “Probably not. But it sells the illusion.”

He made a soft sound, almost like he was amused. His face pressed into the curve of her neck, breath warming her skin.

But his hand didn’t move. He left it there, like it could be real.

They lay like that for a long time.

His voice was slurred and soft, nearly lost against her skin.  “I never stopped.”

“What?” she whispered.

“I never stopped… caring.  You told me to keep up the illusion,” he mumbled. “Even if it’s hard.” He paused, inhaled slowly. “It’s not.”

And then he went still again. His breathing evened. His weight settled heavier against her, arm slack around her middle. Sleep pulled him under.

Tears welled fast and hot. They slid over her nose, into the mat under her cheek, silent in the dark.

Her hand squeezed his gently.

“I know,” she whispered.  Her voice nearly broke. She closed her eyes, willing the grief to stay quiet just a little longer.

She pulled the blanket tighter around them both, let herself pretend, just for tonight, that he was still hers, because she had never stopped either.

Chapter Text

Fox woke in the dark.  Groggy and slow, in pieces, but enough to know the fever had broken.

His mouth was dry, tongue stuck to the roof of it, with that same metallic taste still clinging at the back of his throat. His arm ached, dull and pulsing in time with his heartbeat. The worst had passed, it seemed. He could breathe, but it had left him emptied out, wrung through. Even the relief felt brittle.

He stayed still, eyes closed, listening. Familiar and unfamiliar cues around him, ship engines, the ventilation, the shift of fabric beside him. Riyo breathing.

She moved, as if sensing the change in him. Her hand found his.

“You’re awake,” she whispered.

He swallowed before answering. His throat was so dry it burned.  “Yeah.” His voice came out rough, too thin. It sounded wrong in his own ears. “Water?”

She moved, sitting up, and something was pressed into his hand, a bottle. She helped him ease upright just enough to drink without choking.

He drank in slow swallows. It was tepid, with a strange aftertaste, but once his body remembered how to function again, it helped. 

“You need food,” she said, already digging through her bag. “Here.”

She passed him a fruit bar, unwrapping it.

The kind she used to eat back on Coruscant. He could picture it clearly, her standing in front of her office window, datapad in one hand, biting into one of those bars mid-conversation, not missing a beat.

She tore it in half and gave him the bigger piece.

“You need to eat as well,” he protested.

“You’re the one recovering from a bloodstream infection,” she said. “Just eat.”

There was something in her tone, the one she used in the Senate when she was making her point and knew she was right. 

He took a bite. It stuck to his teeth, too sweet, a little stale, but it was food. Real food. And his body needed it. He chewed, swallowed, and finished it. She gave him another without comment.

They ate in silence.

It was disarming, somehow. Too quiet. He didn’t trust silence. He expected something. Alarms, shouting, boots on the deck. His body was always half-braced for something.

She was watching him.

He didn’t look at her, but he could feel it, her attention, the tension in the air.

When he did glance her way, her eyes weren’t on his face. They were fixed just above his collar. Her hand rose, tentative, and brushed lightly across the edge of the tunic he didn’t remember putting on.

“That scar,” she said quietly. “The medic mentioned a tracheotomy.”

He exhaled, slow. Gave a small nod. “I suppose that’s what it’s called.”

There wasn’t pity on her face, but there was something close to grief and fear, not for herself, but for him. It made him look away. He turned his face toward the ceiling.

“You mentioned you made a mistake.”

Fox kept his gaze on anything but her.

“I misjudged a situation,” he said at last. “Didn’t see something I should have. And men died for it. That’s on me.” He swallowed, jaw clenched. “I took responsibility.”

It sounded like a line from a casualty report. Sanitized. Meaningless.

“I should’ve been me.”

Her voice caught. “Fox.”

“If I could’ve traded places…” He stopped, shook his head, rubbed a hand down his face. “Doesn’t matter. We’re all replaceable. That was the point. Someone had to take the fall. It was an example.”

“What happened?”

He could still feel it sometimes, the tension in his neck, the phantom weight on his throat.

“I was choked, I think. Can’t really explain it. Neck didn’t snap. Windpipe did.” He touched the scar unconsciously. “I remember the blood. Couldn’t breathe. They put the tube in when I passed out.”

Her voice was barely a breath. “Who would do that to you?”

His mouth went dry again.  “Vader.”

He heard her breath catch.

“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered.

“It does,” she said. And the way she said it made him look.

No fear in her face. Just anger. Grief. That grounded, measured fury she never raised her voice to express.

“You alright?” he asked, because he didn’t know what else to say.

She nodded. He saw the strain, the way she pressed her lips together. She looked exhausted. Too little sleep and too many days of pretending to be fine.

“You sure?”

“I’m tired,” she said quietly. Her thumb brushed over his knuckles, warm and slow. “But we’ve got time to rest. We’re in hyperspace for another couple of days.”

He nodded. “Did I miss anything important?”

She shook her head. “No. The story held up.”

He turned his head slightly. “What story?”

Her lips curved, faintly. “I told them you were bitten by a massif.”

“Good thinking. And the rest of it?” He leaned back slightly. “The cover?”

“It’s fine,” she said.  Something in her face made him pause. The slight crease in her brow.

She sighed as he narrowed his eyes.

“One of the medics recognized you,” she admitted. Her voice lowered, nearly a whisper. “That you’re a clone.”

He swore under his breath. His mind jumped ahead, sifting through what that could mean. Too many possibilities. Too many risks.

“He seemed sincere,” she went on. “He said he served with clones during the war. That he respected them. I believed him.”

Fox didn’t answer. Any shift in their safety required planning.

“He gave me a letter,” she added after a pause. “To support the cover story. Documentation, in case we’re questioned.”

That twisted something low in his stomach. Strangers were a gamble, even the kind ones. Especially the kind ones.

“I’m not thrilled about it either,” Riyo said. “We need to get off this refugee route as soon as we can. We'll come up with another plan.”

He ran a hand through his hair.

“We need to get our story straight,” she said quietly.

He nodded. “Our cover.”

“People are going to ask more questions soon.”

“Alright,” he agreed. “Where do we start?”

“Timeline,” she said. “And it’s best to keep it close to the truth where we can.”

He lifted an eyebrow, dry.

She smiled, but it was thin and weary. “We’ve been together for two years. Separated for a while after the Republic fell. You went missing, I didn’t know if you were alive. Then somehow, we found our way back to each other.”

The way she said it made something shift in his chest. That part was...the truth.

“You’ve been sick for a while, and things worsened recently,” she continued. “We tried to stay out of trouble. Heard the refugee network might help, so we got on a transport. Ended up here.”

He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the blanket, thoughtful. “Right. And the…” He gestured vaguely toward her abdomen.

“The baby,” she said. There was a flicker of amusement behind her voice, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “According to the letter, I’m about seven months along.”

He blinked. “How long is a pregnancy?”

“For Pantorans, it’s usually forty-two weeks. Humans are around forty. So… somewhere in between, I’d imagine.”

He ran a hand across his jaw, scratching absently at the growth of his beard. 

“Seven months,” he muttered. “So we got back together when? I wouldn’t have left if—” He cut himself off with a scoff, pressing his lips together.

Riyo looked down. “It’s your cover story too, so you have to be comfortable with it,” she said gently. “You didn’t know then. We were separated during the unrest. Let’s say I found you two months ago, and we’ve been keeping a low profile since.”

He nodded, slow. It was fragile, but believable. And close enough to real that it might hold, that they might sell it.

He looked at her again, taking in the curve of her cheek, the weariness behind her eyes. “Alright,” he said, voice quiet.

His hand rubbed at his eyes. His body felt heavy. Even his thoughts were sluggish, dulled.  It was probably whatever drugs they'd given him.  He didn't care as long as they worked.

“We should lie down,” he said finally. “Rest while we can.”

He didn’t look at her as he said it. He wasn’t sure if the words were for her or for himself.

Riyo nodded, already moving. She shook the blanket out, spread it over the narrow mat. Fox pulled it up over both of them, then lowered himself down, careful. Pain flared through his ribs settled a bit hard. He grit his teeth and waited for it to pass, then stretched out against the thin mattress.

They lay side by side in the dim light, not touching. He could hear her breathing. Awake.

Slowly, he turned to face her, not closing the distance, enough to feel how little space there truly was between them. A breath. A line.

They’d moved across that line before.

“Riyo,” Her name was barely more than a breath, and the rest never came. He didn’t know what it was supposed to be. An apology? A confession? A name for something he didn’t understand yet?

Her fingers found his in the dark. Warm. Light. Steady.

He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until it left him.

He exhaled, slow, and closed his eyes.

#^#^#^#

Processing at the camp had been dreadfully slow. It wore at their nerves by degrees, time dragging, until even standing upright felt like an ordeal. It had taken hours to get through the checkpoint lines. Hours more under harsh lights, hunched across terminals, answering questions she already knew wouldn’t matter to anyone, yet still had to be answered perfectly.

Riyo kept her voice steady as she told them they were displaced from their home after riots and unrest. Familiar and all too plausible, a narrative no one questioned anymore. Every question still felt like a test. The danger wasn’t what they asked. It was making sure their stories matched, that they were believed.

The officer at intake barely looked up. His face was drawn and gray, eyes sunken with exhaustion. That likely helped. He wasn’t invested. They were just another file.

They were assigned a prefab near the far edge of the compound at Camp Esk, one of many scattered across Tarnis, though no one called it that anymore. It was known as the Sink, a former cargo staging area at the edge of the foothills, the place was damp and cold year-round. Tarnis had been gutted by the war. The Separatists had stripped it of anything useful, and what remained of its cities were nothing more than a patchwork of camps for whoever hadn’t left, or whoever was brought here. There was nothing left to take, which in a way, made it safe.

Their prefab was just a sectioned-off part of a larger structure, streaked with rust and grime. The dented roof sloped unevenly. Inside, the air was thick with damp and the faint tang of burned circuitry. A single flickering light blinked overhead. No heat. There was a small water unit, a single wall outlet, a sink and a toilet. No bedding, just a floor mat, two thin blankets, and towels sealed in plastic. The walls looked slapped together as an afterthought, thin enough they could hear voices from the units beside them.

The camp itself was huge and scattered. Rows of similar prefabs and tents stretched across the basin. Footpaths had been worn into the dirt and mud where people walked daily, toward the food queues, the medical tent, the communal bathing houses. A makeshift school sat near the center, where children of all species gathered during the day.

Everywhere she looked, there were displaced beings. All different, from all walks of life. Some alone. Others in pairs, or whole families clustered around low, makeshift fires, baking what must have been bread, doing their washing, surviving because there was nowhere else to go.

Food was distributed near the camp’s central hub. There was a market of sorts, for those who had currency or something to trade, but most relied on the distribution lines. Riyo queued for hours beside a Mirialan and a Twi’lek boy who looked far too old for how little he was.

She was given two ration packs and a thin, rehydrated soup. It was barely enough for both of them. Maybe it was only meant for her, Fox had stayed behind, intake had sapped what was left of his strength entirely. She’d insisted he sleep, gather strength.

They shared what they had, ate together. The thick, tasteless paste was awful. Fox didn’t seem to mind as much. He ate without complaint.

That first night, they curled together. The cold cut through every seam of the prefab. Wind hissed in under the door, and they layered both blankets and their coats. The mat was so thin she could feel the floor pressing into her hips and spine.

Fox trembled through most of the night. The fever hadn’t fully left him. His skin burned hot, his body shivering in waves that came and went. She didn’t sleep much, holding him, arms wrapped around him, waking constantly to check his breathing.

By morning, the worst had passed. The fever had broken completely. His gaze was clearer. He wasn’t coughing. She gave him the final dose of his medication just after midday. The wound was still dry, no longer swollen or red. It would scar, but it would heal.

The second night, it rained.  It came fast and heavy, hammering the prefab in bursts that drowned out all other sound. Riyo had woken before the noise fully registered, already upright in the dark as the leak began. She moved their pack out of reach and slid a container under the drip. Fox didn’t stir. He slept harder than he had in days.

They didn’t speak much in those first nights. They were both running on fumes, but something had shifted between them anyway.

There was comfort in the way they moved around each other. The way he shifted to make room for her on the mat. The way she adjusted the blankets without thinking. Her hand found his forehead in the dark, just to check, to reassure herself the fever wasn’t back. And sometimes, when his breath hitched, when the dreams found him, or when her fingers brushed his by chance, his hand would find hers. Just a light squeeze. And she would squeeze back.

#^#^#^#^#

Riyo avoided medical entirely.

She kept clear of the volunteers with their kind eyes and datapads, the ones trained to see people. When she passed the med tent, she kept her pace fast, her expression neutral. One scan was all it would take. One flicker of suspicion in a medic’s eye, and the whole story could collapse. She didn’t know what would happen if it did, but she’d rather not find out.

She couldn’t be scanned. Not a bioscan, not a fingerprint. She was in too many systems from her former life. The risk of being reported was far too high. And Fox? That worried her more. He was doing better, truly, but what if it didn’t last? What if he needed help and she couldn’t risk taking him to get it?

Her cover meant no proper shower since they arrived.  She had to settle for a sponge bath at the sink. No change of clothes beyond what she could wash by hand and hang to dry overnight on the bit of rope they’d rigged near the back wall. By the second day, she’d stopped checking her reflection in the panel above the sink. It didn’t matter anymore.

The scarf became routine. A part of the day. Her disguise. Wrapped low and tight each morning with the same precision she once used to apply lipstick or fix her hair. She’d learned quickly how to carry herself differently. How to shift her weight when she sat. How to rest a hand across her belly in a way that looked natural.

Even walking the compound was a performance. She had to remember who had seen her, what she had told them. It was exhausting.

She avoided the gathering spaces, the communal fire pits, the makeshift caf meetings. Too many eyes, too much risk of attention she didn’t want. Meals were unavoidable. Everyone had to eat.

The food lines took time. Fatigue loosened tongues. Misery made people reach for contact.

And Riyo, apparently, looked like someone worth talking to.

One morning, a human woman, older, carrying a child wrapped against her hip, spoke up as they waited in line. “Must’ve been hell, traveling like that. Pregnant, I mean.”

Riyo gave a small nod.

Another woman, a Twi’lek, asked, “How far along are you?”

“Seven months,” Riyo answered.

“You look good for it,” she said with something almost like a smile.

Further up the line, a man turned slightly. “You find out what you’re having?”

She shook her head. “We didn’t want to. Figured it’d be better as a surprise.”

They always nodded at that. Always smiled, like they understood.

The questions were polite enough. Small talk. She understood.

“First child?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have anyone to help?”

“My husband’s with me.”

She kept her eyes lowered. She’d spent years spinning words into policy, structuring arguments, persuading committees. This wasn’t so different. Only the stakes were personal now, and far more fragile.

Fox had started coming with her once he was feeling better. He kept his distance, close enough to read as present, but never too near.

They asked him things, too.

“You ready for it?”

“First time for both of you?”

He answered in clipped phrases. Enough to satisfy and end the line of inquiry. People assumed he’d been through something, read the closed-off energy in his stance as trauma rather than hostility with his arms crossed tight over his chest, head low, the hood of his cloak drawn forward. Still, he was polite. He made eye contact.

Every time she glanced toward him, she saw it, that shadow behind his eyes that hadn’t lifted in days.

Smetimes, she saw a flicker, something that might have been a smile when their eyes met. Sharp at the edges. An old reflex.

But it never lasted.

And he always looked away.

#^#^#^#^#

He needed a wash.

Not a rinse, not a wipe-down in the sink at the prefab. A proper shower. His skin itched with the cling of sweat. His hair was starting to grow out and it felt greasy against his scalp. His beard had gone from disguise to something he resented, something that caught sweat and itched constantly and reminded him every time he touched his face that he didn’t look like himself anymore. He’d be glad when he could finally shave it off. But for now, it served a purpose. Helped obscure who he was. Made him look just different enough to avoid the worst kind of notice.

Hygiene had been drilled into them from day one on Kamino. Not just for health, though that had been part of it. Clean armor, clean kit, clean body. It was discipline and routine.

For Fox, it had always meant something more. He wasn’t just another trooper in the ranks, he’d been Marshal Commander. Commander of the Guard. His armor or uniform had to be sharp, his posture perfect, his appearance never once questioned. He had set the example.

Even after hours, even in pain, even when things were falling apart, he had been clean.

Now, every time he raised his arm, he could smell himself.

His ribs only ached now when he twisted wrong. The deep bruising along his side had faded to a barely there yellow-green. His arm, the one that had been infected, was healed more or less. The skin still looked raw in places, pink with new growth, but it was closed. No pull. No burn.

He was getting stronger.

That truth sat strangely in his chest. Because for how completely fucked everything was, how close he’d come to dying in that jungle, and on Rinn, how much they were still at risk, he felt better than he had in months. Maybe longer.

He was sleeping. Not great, not always through the night. But regularly. He ate twice a day, sometimes three. He wasn’t running on caf and stims and grit, wasn’t yanked out of his bunk for a shift change or an emergency while the world around him fell apart.

He used to tell himself the pressure made him sharper and he was good at it. That if he just worked harder, moved faster, he could hold the whole damn thing together.  Now there was nothing to hold.

And somehow, his body was thanking him for it.

That was what made it hard to swallow.

Back on Coruscant, he’d barely been functioning. He hadn’t noticed how bad it had gotten, not really, not until he’d stopped. Being Marshal Commander meant he worked until he collapsed, then got up and did it again. Now the silence forced him to hear his own thoughts.

Especially where Riyo was concerned.

He didn’t know how to think about her anymore.

They were playing a role. It was a cover that they were married with a child on the way.   Watching her move through it, seeing her eyes soften when someone asked about the baby, hearing the quiet ease in her voice when she said said the word husband did something to him.

They had been together before all of this. For two years, navigating what couldn’t be named. She was a senator. He was a clone with no rights. But somehow, they had found each other anyway. 

He had always known she wanted a family someday. Children. She was young, smart, beautiful. Some part of him had always assumed she’d move on eventually, after the novelty and thrill wore off.  He figured she’d marry someone more appropriate, someone with a last name, who could walk beside her in the Senate without people whispering.

And maybe she would tell her children about the soldier she once knew, someone else’s children.  He’d believed it, even hoped she’d find that. 

Because he’d never believed he’d survive the war.

Watching her now, listening to her speak like they’d built that future already, like she was carrying his child scraped against something raw and  he didn’t know what it meant that part of him wanted to believe it.

He didn’t know for sure if clones could father children. There were rumors, but nothing confirmed. He’d never asked. Never let himself think that far ahead. 

At night, with her curled against him under that thin blanket, it was worse.  He remembered the way she used to hold him after late shifts, how she always smelled faintly like her perfume, the tea blend she loved to drink at night.

Some nights it almost hurt, how easy it was to pretend it hadn’t all gone to hell.

There were the other nights.  The ones where everything in his head felt distant, muted, like static. Where the world narrowed to what was in front of him.  Survival, where everything else blurred at the edges.  Static in his skull, like the aftermath of a concussion.

Sometimes, when he felt that way, he wondered if maybe this chip theory of hers wasn’t so far-fetched after all. Part of him believed her. Part of him didn’t.

It came and went. The numbness and disconnection. The moments where everything that had happened seemed like someone else’s story.

But this was his life now. Whatever was left of it.

The last stretch of the war blurred together in his mind.

He remembered the events, the timelines, but the finer details were harder. Everything had bled together, threat after threat, one incident barely over before the next began. Bombings. Assassination attempts. Successful assassinations. Protests in the lower levels. Lockdowns in the Senate District.

Through all of it, he’d just kept moving. Kept working. Kept trying to hold it all together.

He wasn’t stupid. He understood the game better than most people ever gave him credit for. Years working alongside senators and dignitaries, managing the Guard, overseeing every corridor of the Senate District, he’d learned how politics really worked. How power shifted hands behind closed doors. How it was hoarded, wielded, weaponized.

He’d heard Riyo speak of it often. Not always directly. Sometimes just in frustration.

He’d read the reports. Security briefings. Summaries of floor debates. He remembered the discussions about emergency powers, the executive orders, temporary, they’d said. Necessary. He remembered the censorship orders. The new monitoring protocols. The increased surveillance, always framed as protection. Security for the Republic. There’s a war on, after all.

And he’d followed orders. Because that’s what he was made for. That’s what all of them had been made for.

But now, walking through this compound and keeping his head down like any other displaced soul, he couldn’t stop the question from surfacing.

Did the Republic fall, or had it simply been rebranded?

Had they helped bring it down from the inside?

Had they helped Palpatine finish the job?

He’d seen the cracks. Watched how some senators got richer while their systems collapsed. Watched relief shipments vanish. Watched entire units go without even the basics while politicians raised glasses of thousand-credit fizzwine at press conferences.

He saw it in how his brothers were discarded the second they weren’t needed.

And Riyo…

He hated how much of what she’d said had been right.

He’d listened, genuinely, but he hadn’t let himself believe it. Because believing wasn’t part of his job. Executing orders was.

Only now, he had no orders.

And that might have been the most disorienting part of all.

He stepped through the door of the bathhouse and slowed.

It wasn’t what he expected.  Voices echoed off the walls, men talking loud, laughing. Steam hung thick in the air. It reminded him of the showers on Kamino, except here, no one moved with urgency. No one scrubbed fast and left.

This was social. Like the mess lines. Like the supply depot.

People leaned against the walls with towels slung over shoulders, striking up conversations like they had nowhere else to be. Like time didn’t matter.

He’d never lingered in the Guard showers. You got clean. You got out. That was the rule. Banter could wait for the barracks. But these men were civilians. They treated it like a tapcaf, casually chatting about the weather or the ration schedule.

He kept close to the wall, eyes ahead, avoiding attention.

He wasn’t here to socialize. He just wanted to scrub the last few days off his skin.

He moved to a corner stall, head low. Stripped without hesitation. Stepped under the water.

Modesty had never been a concern. Not when you were raised in batches, stripped down for scans, for training, for deployment. When every man around you was identicle.

Even here, surrounded by strangers, he didn’t care.

He started scrubbing, tuning out the noise behind him.

But the voices didn’t quiet.

Civilians were strange. Some of it reminded him of his brothers, gripes about food, cold nights, long lines. Complaints and rumors. He understood that. Troopers vented, sure. They cursed, mocked regulations, bitched about their COs. Locker room talk was common, but it was mostly bravado. Bragging. A few crude jokes. It didn’t go further than that. There was respect he supposed. Why objectify when you didn’t have autonomy yourself?

Here, it was different.

There was an edge to it.

The way some of the men talked about the women in the food lines, like they were browsing a stall. Ranking them. Deciding which ones were worth a second glance. Another man bragged about a girl who owed him something, the implications made Fox’s skin crawl.

Predatory, that was what it was.

The ones with wives or partners were worse.

"Swear to gods, I told her if she didn’t shut her mouth, I’d shut it for her."

Laughter.

"You gotta teach ‘em early, man. Don’t let them think they’ve got the upper hand. That’s when they get ideas."

Another voice joined in. "Mine tried to cut me off last week. Said she was tired. Tired. I work twelve hours and still get it up."

Fox kept his face neutral. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard worse. The lower levels of Coruscant were full of it. The clubs, certain areas his men had patrolled, the “meat market” where sex was bought and sold as easy as any other commodity.

Plenty of senators didn’t hide what they thought, either.

Still, something about it settled wrong today.

"Hey. You’re the guy with the Pantoran, right?"  Fox had hoped to avoid this.

"What of it?" he answered flatly.

"I saw you in the food line. She’s easy on the eyes. Pregnant, right?"

He gave a short nod. "Yeah."  That should have ended it.

"Better enjoy it now," the man said, stepping closer like he was sharing wisdom. "Last couple months are the best. Hormones all over the place. Tits get bigger. They get real sweet on you until the kid’s out, then it’s a different story."

More joined in.  "Yeah, mine turned into a damn banshee after she dropped. Wouldn’t touch me for weeks."

"Some of ’em act like their body’s sacred now. Like it’s even the same."

"Know what my buddy did? Told the doc to throw in an extra stitch after the birth. Tighten it up, y’know."

Laughter, louder this time.

Fox shut the water off, hard enough to rattle the fixture. His face had gone cold.

"You can count yourselves lucky none of the women you talk about have cut your throats in your sleep," he said flatly.

"You should be grateful anyone touches you at all. Because looking at the lot of you, it’s not for your faces. And it’s sure as hell not for your charm."

He took his towel, dried off, dressed in silence, and walked out without looking back.

#^#^#^#

She noticed it before she could name it.  Something had shifted in him the past couple days.

He stood closer when they moved through the compound, matched her pace. He lingered when she stopped to speak with someone, watching especially around certain people. Sometimes it showed in a flick of his eyes, a thread of tension in the air, like a wire drawn tight.

They still had roles to play, the rhythm of it had become familiar. A touch at the small of her back, brushing fingers, glances.

But when they were alone... That was where she saw it most.

The quiet between them had changed.

He spoke more,  asked if she’d eaten. If she wanted more tea. Sometimes she caught the edge of a smile when she laughed at something. Faint, but there all the same.

And at night, when they lay side by side, he stayed awake longer. Still. As if lost in thought.

One night, after lights-out, with the camp finally quiet around them, he spoke.

“Do you talk to the other women here?”

She glanced at him. “Sometimes. In the food line. Or near the washing stations. Why?”

He didn’t answer right away. She could feel the tension working through him.

“Did something happen?”

He shrugged, the motion was too tight to pass for casual. “Heard some things. Some of the men. Talking.”

She studied his face, the set of his mouth, the way he didn’t quite meet her eyes. “What kind of things?”

“Nothing good.” His voice was quieter now. “The kind of shit you hear in the lower levels. Real fucking charming.”

Her stomach turned. “When?”

He shifted. “Bath house.”

That explained it, the night he’d come back tense and quieter than usual. He hadn’t said anything. Had just laid beside her.  She wasn't certain if he'd slept that night at all.

She rested her hand on his knee. “That’s what had you off the other night.”

His eyes dropped to her hand. He didn’t pull away.

He gave a small shrug. “I’ve heard worse. Doesn’t mean I want reminders.”

Riyo nodded.  “Certain environments… they bring out a kind of depravity. Even in people who once thought themselves decent.”

Fox huffed, low. No humor in it. “Yeah.  Not sure all of them ever were that, way they talk about their wives.”

“It’s not just here though,” she said. “It’s everywhere, behind closed doors, even with homes with staff outside pretending not to hear.”

He nodded once. “There was a senator. CorSec got called to his residence more times than I could count. Wife always said it was nothing. Or that she fell.”

“Did anything ever come of it?”

“No.” His mouth thinned. “Diplomatic immunity. Clearance. The usual shields. She eventually disappeared.”

Riyo closed her eyes for a breath.

When she reached for his hand, he didn’t let go.

#^#^#^#^#

They played cards one afternoon in the rain.

The prefab wasn’t quite warm but the wind had eased, and the patched wall panel was holding out against the rain.  It felt like the first real pause in days.

Riyo pulled a pack of cards  she had gotten a hold of and spread them between them on the mat.

Fox arched a brow. “Sabacc?”

She gave him a look. “No. This is Chintar.”

He smirked, faint. “Excuse you.”

“It’s a Pantoran game.”  She said dryly with an eye roll.

He scratched at his beard. “Don’t know that one.”

“Not surprised,” she said, a little smug. “Most offworlders cheat the first few times they play.”

“I never cheat at cards,” he said, settling back on his elbows like he had all the time in the world.

She snorted. “You don’t even know the rules.”

“Guess you better teach me, then.”

She did—calm, precise, with the same clarity she used when explaining legislation. He listened without interrupting, asked two questions that cut straight to the core of it, then nodded like he’d known all along.

The first hand was practice. She talked him through it, step by step.

The second, he beat her.

Her mouth dropped open.

Fox leaned back against the wall. “I’m sure you explained it fine.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You played me.”

He shrugged. “I’m new to the game.”   Smirked again, subtle, but definitely there. He reshuffled the cards.

They played three more rounds. She won one, barely. He took the others. He didn’t gloat, not outright, but the raised eyebrow every time he laid down his final card made her want to throw the deck across the room.

Riyo sat back after the last hand. “I’m beginning to think this is rigged.”

Fox laid his cards down, slow and even. “You think the GAR trained us for this or what?”

“It’s not off the table.”

He gave a low laugh.

She smiled too, then stilled. He felt her watching him before he looked up.

“What?” he said.

“You seem better.”

He tilted his head. “I am better. Fever’s gone. Arm’s healing. I can breathe again.”

She shook her head. “No. I mean... you seem more like yourself.”

He didn’t speak right away.  The smile faded.  He looked down at the cards in his hand, turned them over once, then again.

“Maybe,” he said at last. “I’ve had time to think.”

“Reach any conclusions?”  There was something soft in her voice, perhaps just a touch hopeful.

Fox exhaled through his nose. “Some things I might have to come to terms with.”

Her eyes stayed on him.

“That maybe you were right about a few things,” he muttered.  It came out rough, reluctant, maybe just a touch bitter but with no heat behind it.

She smiled then, small, but it reached her eyes. The light caught in the gold of them, and it knocked something loose in his chest.

He looked away before he did something stupid.

“Also reached the conclusion,” he said, dry again, “that you’ve lost this round. And that you’re terrible at cards.”

She gasped. “I am not.”

“You are,” he said flatly. “And you have a tell.”

“I don’t.”

His smile had too many teeth.

“Truth hurts.”

She tried to glare, failed. Her heart was pounding.

They played another round.

#^#^#^#^#^#

That evening, just before dusk, Riyo sat at the edge of the mat, pulling her fingers through the tangled ends of her hair, trying not to wince at every knot. She worked more slowly, more to pass the time.  Fox had gone out to get their rations, given her a bit of time to herself.

Her shoulders ached. A dull pull along her neck and upper back, the kind of tension that didn’t ease with stretching. She’d tried, but it hadn’t helped.  She was a bit lost in thought.  About earlier.  Playing cards.  The way Fox had seemed almost relaxed.  The way that smile, that look in his eyes, the little teasing comments had done to her heart.  She’d wanted to kiss him.  She hadn’t but it had been a close thing.  Distance was perhaps a good thing at the moment.  He would be back soon though and her heart was thudding at the thought of curling up with him.

Everything she wore felt slightly damp, like it had come off the line five minutes too soon. Even the blanket over her knees smelled faintly musty, not-quite-dry. They’d been able to wash her clothes every few days, but nothing ever dried properly in weather like this.

Still, she kept herself clean. Wiped down at night, scrubbed her underclothes. But she missed being warm. Missed the heat of a real shower, the way clean clothes felt when they were fresh from the dryer. Missed her lotions and creams.

The familiar pattern of his knock startled her.

Fox stepped inside, silent as always.

His hair was slightly tousled from the wind.  It warmed her heart that it was growing long enough again for it to be touseled, to curl over his forehead like that.

He carried a bottle of water, a clean cloth, and something small in his hand, a bottle of body wash.

He held the items out.

“I, uh…” He cleared his throat. “Figured you could use this.”

Riyo blinked.

Pale pink, some off brand product, but when she opened the cap she smelled it.  Flowers. Real floral scent. Subtle, but unmistakable.

Her gaze snapped back to him. “Where did you get this?”

There was a flicker at the edge of his expression. A tug of his mouth that might’ve been a smirk.

He didn’t answer.

She tilted her head. “Fox.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You didn’t—”

“No one’s missing anything.”

That wasn’t exactly an answer but  the scent hit her again and she didn’t care. Not even a little.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

He looked at her again, slower this time.  There was something steady in his gaze. Measured. A little warmer than before.

“I’ll be right outside,” he said.

Then he was gone.

She waited a moment before rising and undressed by the dim light.

The water was cold. She dipped the cloth, wrung it out, pressed it to her skin. The scent filled the prefab, like it had drifted in from another life entirely. She lathered her hands and paused, breathing it in.

She exhaled, the sound escaping before she meant to.

She scrubbed.  It wasn’t a shower but it helped.

When she finished, she dried off with the thin towel, hung it up and dressed again, tapping the door to signal it was safe.

And for the first time in days, she didn’t feel like she was surviving.   She felt like herself again.

Fox came back in just as she was smoothing her tunic back into place. The air shifted with him, colder for a moment before the door closed again.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said. 

Fox crouched beside the mat. “After everything…,” he said, then stopped himself. He cleared his throat, waved a hand slightly, as if to push the words away. “It’s nothing.”

She nodded. Sat down, adjusting the scarf again, aware of the way his gaze flicked toward the motion. He looked away almost immediately.

His face didn’t change, not really. But there was something different in the set of his jaw.

She looked down at her hands. Felt him beside her, close enough, where their arms brushed that his warmth reached her through the thin weave of her sleeve as he settled onto the mat with the blanket.

“Riyo,” he said quietly.

He was studying her face, unreadable.  He reached out. His fingers brushed her wrist.

It was barely contact, but it sent heat through her.

“I can’t repay what you’ve done for me,” he said.

She shook her head. “You don’t have to. Not when—” She stopped. The rest caught in her throat.

He opened the blanket slightly, a silent gesture. She hesitated only a heartbeat before moving closer. The cold in her bones made the choice for her.

His arm came around her without thought, pulling her in.

The prefab felt too small now. Too quiet.

She tilted her head up, just enough to meet his gaze. His eyes searched hers, uncertain, like he was waiting for her to draw the line. She didn’t. Couldn’t.

Her voice came out barely above a whisper. “Are we still pretending?”

He leaned in, close enough that his breath brushed her ear. “I’m done pretending,” he said.

There was something raw in his expression, fear, maybe, or something close to it, but none of the distance she’d grown used to seeing in his eyes.  He was right there, heat radiating against her.

She didn’t know who moved first.   Their lips met in a rush, soft at first, then deeper.

For the first time in too long, she stopped thinking.

She sank into the press of his mouth on hers, the weight of him against her. She moved with him, helped him strip back layers in clumsy, half-blind motions. He tugged at the ties of her tunic, and she pulled off his jacket in turn, shoving the worn fabric off his shoulders.

They didn’t bother fully undressing. Just enough, the necessary bits.

Her back met the mat as he lowered her down gently, one arm braced beside her head, the other hand trembling as it skimmed her side, under her tunic. His lips dragged along her throat, then returned to her mouth.

The scrape of his beard took some getting used to but his lips were the same as they had always been, warm and familiar, the way he nipped her lip, the way his tongue met hers.  She shivered as he found her neck again, the drag of teeth and his beard.

His voice was rough in her ear. “Tell me this is okay.”

Riyo reached for him, pulled him flush to her body. “It’s more than okay.”

Her hands shook as she helped him with his trousers, her leggings.  He pressed into her slowly, and the first stretch made her gasp, fingers clutching his shoulders at the way he filled her. The way his breath stuttered against her neck. 

He buried his face in her neck as he moved. At first rough, quick, but then slower, more careful, grounding himself in every moment, every breath.

She whispered his name, a broken sound against his ear, and felt him shudder.

“You feel the same,” he muttered. “Ri….”

Her hands moved over his shoulders, down his back, wishing she could feel his skin  “So do you,” she breathed.

He didn’t speak again after that.  Riyo clung to him, moved with him and let herself fall into the rhythm, into the heat low in her belly.  Her eyes squeezed shut through the pleasure, tears gathering there she couldn’t stop as she nearly sobbed in relief as she fell apart.

Fox wasn’t far behind. His forehead pressed against hers as he buried himself deep one last time and she felt the hot rush of his release as his body shook.

They didn’t speak at first.  Her tunic was still bunched up, his shirt hanging open, one of her legs hooked loosely over his as he rolled most of his weight off her. The air was cold against their skin, but neither of them moved to fix it. 

Fox exhaled hard, almost a laugh and she shivered as his breath brushed over her neck. “Can’t believe we just fucked in here. These walls are thin as hell.”

Riyo let out a low sound, half a laugh, breathless still. “Really not that different from your office.”

He huffed. “Or yours.”

She turned her head against his shoulder, looking up at him. “Mostly clothed. In a rush.”

His mouth curved faintly. “Really romantic, us.”

She smiled, tracing her fingers through his damp hair, slow and affectionate. “No one cares here. Even if they heard.”

“They likely did,” he muttered.

“They think we’re married and I’m pregnant, remember?” She nudged his leg with hers. “Best excuse in the galaxy. No one will care.”

His grin faded, replaced by something drier, darker. “Well, if you weren’t before…” He trailed off. “Good thing you’ve got the implant.”

The pause stretched too long.

He noticed, of course he did. His gaze flicked toward her. She saw him calculating, reading every flicker of her expression like a report he had to decode. He was frighteningly good at that sometimes.

Her throat tightened. “It expired,” she said softly. “I never got it replaced.”

He frowned, the line between his brows deepening. “What? Why?”

“In case you missed it,” she said, her voice quiet but steady, “the Republic fell. I’ve spent the last year trying to survive. Medical care wasn’t exactly a priority. And we weren’t—” She hesitated, eyes dropping. “We weren’t in contact. So it didn’t matter.”

He exhaled hard, jaw tightening. “Shit.”

He went still after that, staring up at the low ceiling. The tension crept back into his shoulders, undoing everything that had softened in him moments before. 

Riyo rested her cheek against his arm, studying him. “Hey,” she said gently. “I’m due to start my cycle soon. I’m not worried. And I’m not sorry.”

He didn’t look at her. His gaze stayed fixed somewhere above them, but she could see the storm brewing in his head.

“Fox…” she tried again.

He turned his head slightly. The distance in his eyes hurt more than she’d admit, the way his mind slipped somewhere she couldn’t follow. The faint pinch at the corners of his eyes, the quiet withdrawal that came with it.

“…That’s what’s been bothering you,” she said softly. “The fake pregnancy.”

He didn’t respond right away. Just stared at the mat, jaw tight.

“I know it’s not real,” he said finally, voice low. “But sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”

Her heart ached at the honesty. 

“I keep looking at you like that,” he continued. “Watching you talk. Lie through your teeth like it’s nothing. And I start thinking, kriff, I start imagining. What if it was real. What if this—”

He broke off, shaking his head.

She reached up, brushing her fingertips along his cheek. “Fox…”

His voice was rough. “Part of me wants it. I don’t know what that says about me.”  She saw the self-disgust flicker across his expression before he could hide it.

“Forget it,” he said, almost under his breath. “It’s stupid.”

Riyo knew the push and pull inside him. The part of him that yearned for something ordinary. And the part that couldn’t stop seeing the ugliness of what the world had made of intimacy, the way it had twisted power and touch and trust. He’d seen too much to take softness lightly.

There was a longing he’d never allow himself to voice. The same part of him that always tensed at the mention of home, family, anything that required him to imagine a future. He was still afraid of wanting things.

She ran her thumb gently along his jaw. “We’ll be careful,” she said. “We’ll figure something out.”

He huffed, humorless. “And if that’s not enough? We can’t bring a child into this. What if I just—”

She silenced him with a kiss. He tensed at first, then exhaled into it, her fingers sliding through his hair until his shoulders eased again.

When she pulled back, she smiled faintly. “Let’s try not to jinx things first.”

“It’s been messing with my head,” he admitted after a long silence.

“I figured.”

He frowned slightly, eyes unfocused. “Between that and feeling foggy sometimes…” He let out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know what to do with any of it.”

“You don’t have to yet,” she whispered. “We have time.”

Fox exhaled again, long and tired. Then he pulled her closer until their foreheads brushed.

“We need a plan,” he said eventually. “Time will run out. We need to figure out the next steps.”

“We do,” she agreed quietly. “But not tonight.”

He nodded, eyes closing. “Tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow,” she echoed, her hand settling over his heart.

The silence wrapped around them. Outside, the wind rattled, but the space between them stayed warm.

And for the first time in over a year, Riyo felt like she truly had him again.

And she wasn’t letting go.