Dedication: To the Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Warning: If you are homophobic in any way, shape, or form...please pass this story over. This is sheer fluff (for the most part) and the rating of "T" still holds. However, if the idea of two men loving each other makes you uncomfortable...spare yourself the indignation and spare me the unnecessary commentary.

The Knightly Virtues: Fidelity

In which a taciturn clone captain makes a solemn vow to remain faithful to all that he holds dear.

"Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind."

Marcus Tullius Cicero

They sat in silence, like they usually did. Korbin sipped a tasteless broth out of his issued canteen cup and watched the sun slip lower toward the rim of the Derelkoos Desert. His companion chewed thoughtfully on a piece of spiced nerf jerky and stared off into the distance as well. The silence was comfortable - neither one was a man of many words and they both accepted that in the other.

The ARC captain had learned long ago how to dissolve his ration cube in hot water and drink it like a particularly flavor-less broth. Hot water was usually hard to come by in the field, but Korbin had discovered during a stint on Ryloth how quickly water could boil if left alone in a durasteel cup in desert temperatures. In the merciless Klatooine sun, it was an easy thing, then, to drop his ration cube into a cup of torrid water and drink it down like some strange tea.

A man could not live on ration cubes alone, however, no matter how much Kaminoan scientists insisted otherwise. Korbin was rather fond of food - any food, really, that didn't try to eat him first. So, he never went anywhere without a sealed stash of jerky, or other small bits of illicit munchies with which to augment his more meager rations.

His companion didn't even have ration cubes, thanks to an abrupt encounter with a mob of angry Klatooinians. Even Jedi were subject to the tasteless Kaminoan inventions, but General Tharen had lost his belt pouches in the course of their unexpected altercation.

So, Korbin shared his jerky with his Jedi, and willingly. The two of them had shared many things in the course of their three years of fighting together. Just the night before, they had shared a bed, their bodies. Korbin was certainly not about to begrudge a few strips of jerky. Not if it meant that Kian wouldn't go hungry for the night.

Kian, Korbin turned the name over in his mind.

There was great intimacy in the pronouncement of a first name. In the course of the last two years, Korbin had said that name boldly in the private moments between them - he had shouted it, growled it, laughed it, whispered it, moaned it. The laconic captain would always remember the first time he had dared to speak his lover's name - they had only just met and "General Tharen" was a mere Padawan, a newly-minted "Commander."

Regardless, Kianhad outranked him. But, there was something about the ever-rebellious Corellian that had inspired Korbin's own daring. Maybe it was because Kian had never once called the clone by his designation, by his numbers. It had been "Korbin" from the start - no rank, no numbers, no stiff formality. When faced with such openly offered intimacy, it was hard not to give it back.

Korbin had said Kian's name that first time casually, with confidence - what Korbin would never admit, was that he had used the Jedi's first name intentionally, to gauge his reaction. To see if the man who would dare to lead him, an ARC - and much more, to boot - was a man worth a soldier's respect.

Then again, Korbin mused as he took another sip of his dinner, he probably never had to admit such things. There was much Kian knew, without Korbin ever having to say a word. The Jedi healer was naturally empathic and there wasn't much that ever missed his quiet notice. Korbin was fairly certain that Kian knew when the clone captain tested him - Kian had his lover's undying regard, however, because he never let on what it was he did know.

He never took any chance to be "superior", or to hold his rank and titles over the junior captain. Korbin had been undercover on a mission in the Mid Rim, when he had heard word of Kian's Knighting. At that time, just mere months into the War, they hadn't yet become lovers. They were "just" friends - sparring mates who had trained together at the Temple in a special program initiated by the Chancellor. Korbin had enjoyed their training and had enjoyed their easy camaraderie - a rare thing to find with a Jedi. At the word of Kian's Knighting, Korbin had worried that the end had come to that friendship, that rank and title would change the easy-going Corellian.

When their paths had crossed again, several months later, Korbin found the same friendship with "General Tharen" as he had had with "Commander Tharen." They stayed in touch, through their various missions and various adventures. Several months later, they had found love in a hopeless place.

Korbin treasured it, treasured stolen moments like the one they were currently sharing. What they had found between them was more than the ARC had ever hoped for; it still amazed him that the Jedi chewing nerf next to him had so gladly returned his own intrepid advances. They were breaking at least a dozen rules - most notably, fraternization on Korbin's end and the Jedi Code on Kian's part. Neither one of them were allowed attachments and most certainly not to each other.

And yet...here they were. Sharing a humble dinner together, their legs dangling over the edge of a Klatooine plateau, where high savannah gave way to barren desert. They had fought back-to-back just hours earlier, against an angry mob of sentients who, individually, nearly weighed as much as both of them put together. Afterwards, Korbin had gotten them out of the city in one piece and Kian had bandaged the clone's right shoulder, which had been clawed into bloody ribbons during the fray.

Korbin would have more scars to show now; he was also short a pauldron, since it had been ripped off his body early on in the battle. Klatooinians were brutal creatures and at the moment, the clone nursed a rather grudging ill-will toward their species as a whole. He knew that was best kept to himself, however, as Kian's master had been Tarados Gon, a Klatooinian Jedi killed at Geonosis.

Korbin could relate to the misery of grief and loss. So, while Klatooinians were not currently high on his list of favorite species, he could spare sympathy for his lover. Kian's experience with and knowledge of the Klatooinians was why he had been sent on this intelligence-gathering mission in the first place. Korbin had never been asked to revisit Geonosis; he couldn't fathom the true depth of Kian's current emotional state, but he knew it was conflicted.

He knew that from the night before, when they had shared a simple plasti-foam pallet together and stared up at the stars. Kian had quietly admitted his struggle with the Dark Side, how difficult it still was not to be overwhelmed with anger over his master's death. In some ways, he struggled with his own compassion, with the Light Side, as well. Korbin had felt something in his Jedi weep earlier, as he had turned his lightsaber against members of a species he had been raised to respect. At the moment, Korbin knew that Kian was mourning, a part of him there with him, but a greater part lost in a past they didn't share.

So, they sat in silence, and Korbin drank his broth.

Kian startled him, when he spoke.

"It's beautiful, don't you think?" the Jedi's voice was gentle, as he waved his hand toward the sacred site that glittered in the distance before them.

Korbin squinted and considered the gigantic fountain that dominated the horizon. Its seemingly frozen spout shimmered in the dying sun, reflecting brilliant shards of coral, peach, amber, and blue. The clone swallowed the last of his dissolved ration cube and considered the scant array of information he had about the planet.

They were sitting on the edge of the Morivian Plateau, looking down below their feet at the sprawling Derelkoos Desert. About twenty kilometers or so away stood the Fountain of Ancients, a site revered as holy by the Klatooinians. The Fountain itself was a geyser of wintrium - a liquid substance native to Klatooine, which reacted to the heat and solidified into a glass-like form at the surface of the desert.

Korbin considered the reflecting rainbow of color that danced and shimmered in the distance. Then, he glanced slyly to his side and paused a moment to consider the handsome features that belonged to the Jedi to his left.

"I think you're beautiful," he shrugged and silently appreciated the way the setting sun glinted off of Kian's long dark hair.

A smile quirked the corner of Kian's mouth, but the Jedi continued to direct his attention toward the horizon.

"So you tell me and rather often at that. But, surely you can spare some of your admiration for mere nature."

"I suppose so," Korbin felt himself smiling too, as he glanced casually in the Fountain's general direction. "But, I usually find a deeper appreciation for the view if you're included in it."

Kian laughed; it was a soft sound, not hearty like it usually was with him. There was still a great sadness in him and Korbin stifled a sigh.

Not exactly the best time to be flirting, he reprimanded himself, as he shook the last drops of broth out of his canteen cup and twisted around to put it back in his pack.

He winced as a jolt of pain shot through his upper torso, from shoulder to hip. He tried not to begrudge the Klatooinian who had tried to use him like a Togorian scratching post.

"You fill a great emptiness in side of me, Korbin," Kian spoke again, his voice as gentle as his healing hands.

Korbin paused - he could sense that something of great significance was about to be said. There was still a deep sorrow to Kian, but now determination layered over the grief. He had decided something, in their moments of silence.

Not to mention...it was rather startling to hear such blatant words of genuine affection from a Jedi. True, they had whispered forbidden words between them, in the stolen breaths before a kiss, in the throes of passion. But, deeper words of love hadn't been uttered, not yet. Not in moments like this, when the physical need to make up for months apart wasn't fueling their words.

"You keep me from the Dark Side."

Korbin suddenly hung his head and looked down at his dangling feet. He was humbled by Kian's words and didn't know what to say in response. It was a great responsibility to love a Jedi, he was discovering. It was a great honor, too, and an even greater humility.

"Thank you, sir," he finally settled on the only thing he could think to say, since it didn't feel right to remain so silent.

The words felt awkward in his mouth, and the clone captain felt suddenly small and humble. He didn't quite know to return Kian's great honor, except to acknowledge it and to hope like haran that he never betrayed it.

"I hope you know the affect you have on me when you call me 'sir'," Korbin risked a glance just in time to see Kian's usual roguish grin return in full.

It made him grin, in response. Desire stirred lazily and he could feel it quicken in Kian as well. The two shared a brief look; Korbin enjoyed the way Kian's eyes had darkened to a shade that matched his forest-colored robe.

"I've been told it's rather sexy," the clone leaned forward to rest his elbows on his thighs; his tone was cocky, confident, just a touch arrogant.

"It is," Kian purred in response and the two men laughed.

It was good to be in love, Korbin decided. Kian kept him from the Dark Side, too - the clone was different from the vast majority of his brothers, of all except those in the limited batches created in ultra-secrecy of Timira City, in that he could feel the lure of the Dark Side. He was no different than the Jedi in that - it was this, Korbin's greatest secret, that they shared in common. It was what had brought them together.

"I have a feeling that's what will always keep us together, you and I," Kian read Korbin's thoughts, but the clone was used to that by now.

He didn't have his defenses up - he never did, around his Jedi. There was no need for it - except, of course, for that one thing... That other secret he kept. The one he couldn't ever share. The one that turned his blood cold at night, sometimes, when he was able to hold Kian close and enjoy his warmth.

Korbin looked away from Kian, before the Jedi could read the truth in his eyes. The moment turned solemn and the sun finally disappeared behind the desert's distant edge.

"You still won't share your darkness with me, will you, Korbin?" Kian sighed - it was an old argument for them.

"No, sir," this time, Korbin used the title as a means to keep his distance; this time, there was no note of flirtation to be found in his rough voice.

"Kilia found me in a dream last night," Kian seemed to the change the topic, but Korbin was wary; conversations with Kian had a tendency of doubling back on themselves when the clone least expected it.

"So, that's why you were so restless," Korbin mused, mostly to himself; he shrugged, suddenly abashed, when Kian fixed him with a curious gaze. "You always thrash about when your sister shares a dream with you."

"Ah," Kian just nodded and looked away.

There was a long moment of silence before he spoke again. Korbin finally finished putting away his canteen and turned his face out toward the desert. He considered the first winking stars of the evening, as his lover's voice drifted over the tranquility of the twilight.

"She says that she saw darkness spread out across the galaxy, hidden in the center of a million bright lives. She told me that the darkness would break open and overwhelm us all. That it would destroy the brightness, destroy those lives. That it would destroy us."

"And you think this darkness is in me?" Korbin didn't dare look anywhere but straight ahead.

"I don't know, Korbin," a hand bridged the distance between them and settled on his forearm.

The captain glanced down at that hand and studied the long, strong fingers that rested so gently against his own green-striped white armor. He had seen that hand heal; he knew how tenderly it could dress a wound, how confidently it could channel the Living Force. He had seen that hand fight; he knew how those fingers could curl like bands of steel around the hilt of a humming lightsaber. He had seen that hand give pleasure; he had felt that unmarred palm press warm against his cheek, moments before a kiss.

Korbin shifted and leaned back; he laid his own hand on top of Kian's. The warmth of his lover's skin seeped through his gloves, through his gauntlet. It touched him, even in that cold, dark place he wouldn't share.

It gave him hope in a place where there was none.

"Promise me one thing?"

Korbin looked up in to earnest emerald eyes.

"If I can," his answer was equally earnest.

"Don't let your darkness overcome you, Korbin. Don't let it destroy you. Don't let yourself be used against me, against the Republic, or against your honor."

He knows, Korbin shuttered his thoughts automatically, as his heart suddenly stopped. He knows about the Order...

Kian continued talking. If he felt Korbin shut his mind against the Force that flowed between them, then he didn't show it.

"Fidelity is a Corellian's watchword. If the darkness comes, Korbin, please...be faithful to who you are," the Jedi's fingers squeezed his captain's hard forearm. "Be...faithful to love. To the truth. They will make you strong."

"Be faithful to the Republic? To the Jedi...?" Korbin's voice trailed off as he realized the full implications of Kian's words.

He searched his lover's eyes. He couldn't know...the Jedi couldn't possibly know... Korbin took a deep breath. His secret was still safe...but now, at what cost to himself?

"Be faithful to us," Kian seemed to suddenly lose the ability to speak in anything louder than a whisper; his eyes were suddenly bright.

Korbin squeezed his hand. He couldn't say no. Didn't want to say no. His secrets be damned...

"I want to grow old with you, Korbin."

"That won't take long, Kian," the clone snorted bitterly - at 12 chronological years of age, he was already 24 years old biologically.

He was younger than his lover, but physically, they were practically the same age. In another year... Korbin winced. He'd be older than Kian. And it would only stay that way.

"I don't care," the whisper was ragged; Korbin could only sit in awe, meek in the face of his Jedi lover's audacity.

In the face of his fidelity.

"I plan to leave the Jedi Order when this War is over."

Kian's admission stunned Korbin to his core. The clone sputtered in the interim silence, but a smile only lit up the Jedi's face and a peace settled over him. He had made up his mind and his heart was sure of what he wanted - Korbin didn't need to be Force Sensitive to feel that.

"I want to fight my way through this War with you. I want to be with you on the other side of all this death, and dying, and blood, and destruction. I want to face the coming darkness with you. I want to triumph over it - together."

"You're...not afraid of this...darkness?" Korbin asked carefully, his words almost brittle.

Kian's eyes were brightness, they were hope.

"No."

Korbin felt his own hope rise. He still couldn't speak of the darkness in him. Still couldn't admit the things he knew. Still couldn't share the truth of what he'd been created to do. But...

Against all odds, he had fallen in love with a Jedi. And that Jedi had fallen in love with him.

"Fidelity is a soldier's watchword, sir," Korbin leaned toward his lover; their moment was sacred and the clone could feel a great weight lift from his shoulders.

He had his secrets. But, he knew what he would do.

"You have my word, sir. Always faithful."

One Year Later
Medstar Five, Felucia Orbit Space

He ignored the Chancellor, as he ran through Medstar Five. He defied Order 66, as his armored boots thundered down a deserted hallway, toward the private room where a nurse had told him General Tharen was resting.

She had told him that nearly five minutes earlier. Order 66 had come through just two minutes after he had turned away from her desk. He was now three minutes late; Korbin prayed he wasn't three minutes too late.

He rounded a corner and saw the door - Room 66. The irony wasn't lost on him.

The door was open. He heard shots and suddenly he felt a great emptiness yawn inside of him. Korbin stumbled as something that had been inside of him, alive and aware, was viciously ripped out of him. He lost his breath and for a moment the world was black.

The Dark Side opened up before him as he realized what had just happened, as his mind scrambled to identify the painful nothingness that bled through his soul.

Kian!

Kian was gone. His light, extinguished. His life, eradicated.

Korbin practically clawed his way to the door; he stumbled over his own leaden feet and grasped at the wall in an attempt to stay upright. Nausea overwhelmed him and coincided with grief. His heart was gone, his soul raw. He was a wounded beast, dumb and blind and enslaved to a visceral, murderous rage.

The two troopers who stood over his lover's bloody bed were not Force Sensitive. They couldn't feel his anger, his pain, his sudden sorrow. They only saw an ARC captain step into the room; they snapped to attention and Korbin silently crossed the distance between them.

They stepped aside, assuming, no doubt, that he was there to make sure that they had obeyed their order. Korbin stared down at Kian's dead body; his fists clenched at his side, white-knuckled and desperate. The Klatooine sunset flashed through his mind -

"I think you're beautiful."

Kian's long hair was unbound and flowed in a frozen pool around his pale face like Klatooinian wintrium. Korbin uncurled his reluctant fingers and reached out to touch a single lock; it slipped through his fingers like it had a hundred times before. But there was no sigh of pleasure to accompany it; Kian could no longer turn his face into his lover's calloused hand; there was no smile of delight or whispered yearning for more.

Korbin's fury burned as hot as the tears that flowed silently down his cheeks, safe behind the anonymity of his helmet. He closed Kian's eyes first; he tried to make his hands as gentle as he remembered the healer's being; he brushed his fingers against the cooling heat of his Jedi's unshaven cheek.

Korbin then lifted his hand toward the door, fingers spread out. He looked down at Kian's face, but the peacefulness he saw on his late lover's face refused to reflect in his seething heart. The door slid shut with a solid bang and he saw the troopers to his right and to his left jump.

They had never seen another clone do that. Korbin's lips curled into a snarl as he opened his other hand and reached both out toward the lightsabers that had fallen from his lover's fingers to the floor.

Kian had taught him much in their years together. He had seen Korbin's potential and had encouraged it. They had broken the Jedi rules of celibacy. The brash young Corellian hadn't thought twice of breaking Jedi rules of apprenticeship, either. Korbin had never been formal, his learning had never been truly dedicated - but it was enough to close a door. To wrap his fingers in familiarity around lightsaber hilts without having to bend over to pick them up.

He thumbed them both into a blazing green light. Fury fueled the force of his attack, but it was unsatisfying in its brevity. Weapons and headless bodies clattered to the floor as Korbin made short work of his lover's executioners.

He was empty and his fury froze in a hardened core deep within him. He had kept his promise to Kian...

And he had come too late to save him.

Korbin fell to his knees. The lightsabers clattered, forgotten, to the floor. He reached for Kian's lifeless body...

And wept.

Two Years Later
Pro Victoria, Anobis Orbit Space

Korbin crossed his arms over his black-armored chest. His green stripes were gone; he had sacrificed his identity to the namelessness of the Empire. He hadn't worn green since Medstar Five, since Order 66.

He also hadn't killed a single Jedi, regardless of the fiercesome reputation he had made for himself as a clone assassin-turned-interrogator. And, he wasn't about to start.

He glared mulishly at Commander Appo through the safety of his helmet and tried to figure out a diplomatic way to say "no." Unfortunately, diplomacy had never been Korbin's strong suit and he was coming up short on creative methods of getting out of his current assignment.

Meanwhile, Appo seemed to interpret his silence for obedience.

"...We now know that there's a Jedi on that freighter. The Daa'sun's Kryst'shun is registered to a Lepi by the name of Rowin. Our reports tell us that there is only one known Lepi by that name abroad outside of their native home world and that same Lepi partnered with Jedi Knight Kilia Tharen during the Wars..."

Appo kept talking, but Korbin had stopped listening at "Kilia Tharen". His whole world reeled and something stirred to life deep within in. Something that he had forgotten in his darkness, in his anger, in his hate.

He'd known Kilia - Kian's twin sister - was alive. The Wanted Lists had told him that much since the aftermath of Order 66. But, he had long ago given up hope of finding her. She had disappeared into the ether; he had assumed with the help of the Lepi, Rowin. He remembered Kian's tales about her - the Lepi had Bonded to her and the two were inseparable as a result.

He'd tried hunting down the Lepi, but like most of his species, the biped space-rabbit was a wily pursuit. A year after Order 66, Korbin had exhausted the trail and frustrated by dead ends and near-misses, he gave up the chase. He turned his attention and talents to other things - to meting out what grim justice he could on deserters and rogues who had participated in the Order. He seethed in anger and resentment; he had plotted quietly for months on a plan to take down Appo and his star destroyer from the inside.

Appo, who he blamed for destroying the bulk of the Jedi Order. For burning down the Temple at Coruscant. For leading the unjustified slaughtering of innocents.

But, now...

Kilia was in his grasp - in Appo's grasp. Korbin blinked at the colored holo-projector that the commander had initiated. Kian's deep green eyes stared back from a different face, from a female face.

Their smile was the same. Korbin's heart ached.

"...I want to face the coming darkness with you. I want to triumph over it - together."

Kian's voice echoed in his ears. Korbin clenched his fists.

Kilia was alive and she was in Appo's cross hairs. They had already captured two from the Daa'sun's Kryst'shun - a clone deserter named Boil and a Pantoran scientist by the name of Chiyou Lyang.

Korbin would not allow Kilia to become Appo's next acquisition. His next victim.

"You're...not afraid of this...darkness?"

Korbin hadn't grown afraid of the dark, but he had grown accustomed to it. He had reveled in it, in the depths of his still-bleeding heart. He still felt the ache of Kian's loss resonate through his flesh, through his marrow, through his soul.

He stared at Kilia's holo-picture and studied the look of hope that been captured in her eyes. It was the same as the hope he had seen burning bright in Kian's face, in that Klatooinian twilight.

"If the darkness comes, Korbin, please...be faithful to who you are."

Korbin clenched his fists.

"Do you want me to find her, Commander?" he didn't know if he had just cut Appo off; he didn't care.

"I want you to do more than find her, Captain. I want you to kill her."

"Yes, sir," Korbin's voice was toneless, but his heart rebelled.

"Be...faithful to love. To the truth. They will make you strong."

He could never kill Kilia Tharen, flesh and blood of the man he still loved.

But, he could kill those who hunted her with him - he would kill Appo, Bly. Every clone on the ship. He would finally have the courage to do more than lurk in the darkness and seek his revenge.

He would be faithful.

He would hunt Kian's sister down; he would find her; he would throw his lot in with her, with her crew.

And he would show them how to be faithful, too.

He would teach them how to rebel, so that they were hunted no more.

Author's Note: Korbin is an Original Character - I've been inspired by the writing of the lovely laloga and decided to try my hand at an original clone character (which I haven't done so far). For those of you reading A Thousand Suns: Rebellion, Korbin is about to become a major character. Yes, by the way, he's Force Sensitive - I did some research on clone assassins and decided to play with the idea a bit. After all...if you've created a whole super-secret-squirrel group of clones to specifically fight/hunt down Jedi after Order 66...it makes sense to me that they'd be Force Sensitive. I also decided that such a group of clones might be aware of things that their other brothers would not necessarily realize - such as Order 66 - which is why Korbin knows about it and wrestles with it.

Is it canon? Heck no. Not by a long shot. But, it's not excatly "not" canon, either. This is one of those gray areas where I decided to exercise some creative liscence. That, and Korbin wouldn't leave me alone. .

So many people have reviewed this while it's been on hiatus and have encouraged me during the time that I wasn't writing. Much love to all of you...thank you for your support, your awesome reviews, and your patience. :) I couldn't do it without each and every one of you!

Love it? Like it? Hate it? Lemme know...!