Chapter 35

Fives was dozing lightly, his feet propped up onto the side of Echo's bed. His brother was asleep. Fives never let himself fall into a deep sleep; not when he was watching over Echo. He'd gotten little sleep since coming here to ArmyMed. He could go a long time without sleep, but he could feel the weariness wearing him down and leaving him with a bone aching weariness. He'd been staving it off with caf, food and sex, but eventually he'd have to rest. Adrenaline could only carry a brother so far.

The sound of the door lightly sliding open snapped him to full wakefulness. He leapt to his feet, DC-17 in hand.

"Stand down, Fives, it's Coric," the 501st medic said, his voice was slightly annoyed as he gazed at the weapon in the ARC's hand.

Fives glared at him, getting annoyed at being told to constantly stand down when he was doing exactly what Rex had ordered him to do and watch over Echo. What the fek?

There was someone with Coric. A woman he didn't recognize. Kix followed, and immediately crossed over to Echo, taking his vitals as usual and checking all tubes and monitors. Kix handled all of his care on his own as his full-time assigned medic.

Fives regarded the newcomer with suspicion. Fives crossed his arms across his chest, regarding the newcomer warily. He stepped between her and Echo, blocking her access to his brother. "Who is this? Why is she here?"

Coric started to speak, but the woman introduced herself.

"I'm Director Valo. Although, in this capacity, you can refer to me as Doctor Valo."

Fives scowled. "Director. Doctor." He made an impatient gesture with his hand still holding the blaster, the move a barely disguised threat, never caring for titles. "Why are you here?"

"Fives," Coric said, with barely restrained patience, "put that away. She's here to help."

Valo stepped forward toward Echo. Fives moved to intercept her, not letting her getting any closer. He noticed she was carrying a durasteel case. "What is that?"

Coric pushed Fives aside, his own patience frayed from fatigue. The ARC hissed with annoyance. "We figured out a cure for Echo."

Echo stirred sleepily behind them, his voice cracking with fatigue before he coughed dryly. "A cure?"

Fives leaned in with a practiced move, lifting Echo's head enough so he could drink and bringing a pouch of water to his lips. Valo used this opportunity to slip around and get closer to Echo. Fives shot her a warning look, but could do nothing since he was cradling Echo.

Valo watched the two brothers interacting, taking it all in with great interest, and waiting patiently for them to finish.

Fives couldn't shake off the feeling he was being watched like a lab specimen.

He tried to warn her off with his eyes, trying to get her to back off, but she moved in even closer.

"Hello Echo," she greeted, leaning in to touch Echo lightly on the shoulder.

Fives stared at her hand, touching his brother, as if deciding whether to forcibly remove it. She left her hand there, lightly stroking the skin. Echo didn't object, and almost seemed to lean into her soothing touch. Fives scowled even more deeply.

With her other hand, Valo set down the durasteel case, Fives stared at it suspiciously.

"We're going to get you well again," Valo said.

"I'd like that, ma'am," Echo said politely.

Valo removed her hand from his shoulder, and used both hands to open up the case, revealing a half dozen wicked looking hypos.

Echo's eyes widened, paling at the sight of all the syringes. "Those are for Fives, right?" he joked weakly.

"Sorry, Echo," Coric said, pulling out an anti-septic cloth and cleaning Echo's arm. The ARC shivered, whether from cold or anticipation of all the shots, it was difficult to tell. "It is going to get a little worse before it will get better."

"How much worse?" Fives demanded, gripping Coric's arm and halting his motions.

"Fives," Coric gave the second ARC an annoyed look, "stand down."

"I will not fekkin' stand down," Fives growled, pushing Coric back. The two men were born identical in size, but at the moment, Fives seemed much larger. Coric was still malnourished from his time in the Kazzie dungeons. He had not regained all of the weight or muscle tone he'd lost. In his ARC armor, Fives had a definite size advantage, seeming to tower over him.

"Fek, Fives, stand down or I'll-" Coric started. He looked over to Kix for back up. The second medic was in the middle of replacing a fluid bag for Echo, and cast an alarmed look between his feuding brothers, hurrying to finish what he was doing so he could intervene.

"Or, you'll what?" Fives said, pushing him into Coric, using his broad chest alone.

Valo immediately slid between them. "Stop!" She grabbed Fives by his pauldroned shoulders. "This is accomplishing nothing." Her eyes blazed into his and Fives stepped forward right into her space, never one to back down from a challenge. For a brief moment, their faces were only millimeters from each other, before he stepped back, breathing heavily.

"Tell me about this treatment," Fives growled, still fuming.

"There are side effects to the treatment," Valo admitted, her cheeks slightly flushed, and looking flustered herself.

"What sort of side effects?" Fives demanded.

"Echo will experience intense nausea as his body purges the bacterium. It is to be expected. He will need to be monitored carefully throughout the process," Valo said.

"We'll constantly replace fluids and electrolytes," Kix said, speaking up for the first time, finishing what he was doing and coming over to stand beside Coric. The two medics presented a united front.

"I don't know," Fives said, facing off against the director.

She stared him down for a long moment before taking a deep breath. "Alright, which part do you object to then?"

Echo groaned. Fives whirled around to see Coric administering the first hypo.

"Hey!" Fives objected angrily. "I didn't agree to this, and you're already giving it to him!"

He swooped in and leaned over his vod getting between Echo and the medics. "Are you OK?"

"Hurts," Echo groaned, clutching his stomach.

"The cramping is normal," Coric said, his annoyance with Fives evident. "The vomiting will start soon."

Fives stared over at the case of syringes. "What if he's not strong enough for this treatment? You still have to give him all of those?"

"This is Echo's best chance of getting well," Kix said, he was less defensive than Coric, but he was firm in dealing with Fives. "I approved it. Last time I checked, I was in charge of all of Echo's medical care, and not you."

The words stung.

Fives shook his head, feeling fatigue making his head buzz. He could barely think straight.

He threw his hands up in frustration.

Echo started to gag.

"No, this isn't the way to go," Fives said angrily.

Coric and Kix moved in, pushing the ARC aside. Fives hissed in annoyance at being pushed away. Kix raised up the bed using the automatic controls, while Coric didn't even wait for the bed to finish and hoisted Echo into an upright position and slid a catch pan under his chin. He rubbed his back soothingly while Echo lost what little food he had in his system.

Fives bristled at being pushed back away and tried to move in to get to Echo again.

"Fives, take a walk with me," Valo said, pulling him out into the hallway.

Coric shot her a grateful look. Even as annoyed as he was, Fives couldn't miss the 'look' that passed back and forth between them.

No, that was impossible.

Coric never looked at women.

The director tugged harder on his arm, dragging him into the hallway with her.

"What are you doing?" Fives spun on her in annoyance as soon as they cleared the doorway.

"We're going for caf," she announced.

"I don't want-" he started, already aware he sounded like a petulant youngling.

"Yes, you do," she said, not even waiting for him to finish.

He was fuming, and while he normally walked silently, his armored boots clacked against the polished floor marking his steps with angry precision. They skipped the lift and took the stairs instead, the director sensing that Fives needed the exercise.

Later on, Valo would reflect the events that happened over the next ten minutes were some of the stupidest she had done in a long time. A very long time. She and the agitated clone trooper, Fives, walked together down the darkened stairwell. It was several flights down to get to the cafeteria, and she was already running late for her next meeting. But, for some reason, she couldn't simply walk away from this dark and brooding trooper. He now seemed like a priority over the staff meeting and filmsi work waiting for her. She couldn't explain it. They walked side-by-side, in silence, until Fives calmed down enough to speak. He stopped, and faced her, in the darkened stairwell.

"What exactly did you do to him?" he was calmer, some of the angry edge gone from his voice. But, there was still something about him in the uneven lighting of the stairwell that seemed dangerous. Maybe it was his battle-damaged armor. Maybe it was the way he carried himself. But, this one was different. And, Valo knew she'd be lying to herself if there wasn't something appealing about the whole package.

"I told you," Valo said.

"You gave me the simple explanation," Fives said, standing in his typical pose with his feet slightly spread apart and his arms folded across his broad chest. The move made his pauldroned shoulders flare out. "You don't need to dumb it down for me."

"Very well," Valo took out her datapad, and shifted her body position so she was beside Fives, adjusting her position to accommodate his armored shoulders. "Never did understand these things," she grumbled, glancing at the pauldrons.

"Sly, Kix and Coric were almost there with their research. The Kaz'harian bacteria is a toxin-antitoxin system." She pointed to the screen. "You can see the two specific proteins very clearly. They easily identified how the antitoxins neutralize the cognate toxins by forming tight complexes with them. But," she paused for dramatic effect," then it got a bit more complicated. The antitoxins were completely unstable due to degradation by cellular proteases, but the toxins were stable. And, no matter what combination we tried in the lab, we couldn't figure out how to counter it."

Fives chewed his lip thoughtfully, clearly seeing the problem as she outlined it on her datapad. She glanced over at him, and then halted, staring at his teeth moving on his lip.

"Are you alright?" a puzzled frown crossed his face. When he wasn't angry, there was something even more intriguing about him.

"Uh... yes," she struggled to complete her train of thought. "So, ah yes, the answer was simple, then."

Fives leaned in to see the datapad, then. She caught a whiff of him and never realized clones had a certain scent to them.

Fives pointed to the datapad, drawing their conversation back. "So, this was the part you figured out, then?"

"Uh..." she stared back down at the screen, trying to recapture her scattered thoughts, "... yes, the Kazzie bacterium were nothing more than prokaryotic organisms, and they are very simple to kill. You simply need something which can break down their cell walls so they can no longer stick to each other. Once you do this, they die."

"I'm impressed," Fives admitted.

"Come this way," Valo said, grabbing his arm and leading him down another two staircases. She pulled out her access key to enter a secure floor.

"The cafeteria is still eleven flights floors down," Fives said.

"We're not going to the cafeteria," the director said, her voice hitching slightly. Valo walked Fives through a section of ArmyMed he'd never seen before.

"Where are we going, then?" he asked, looking around at the unfamiliar area of the medcenter. The ARC portion of him immediately started mapping the area for future reference.

"My office," she said, "it's completely secure. We can talk undisturbed in there. All of my staff is in a meeting. I'll show you the rest of the research."

"So, you saved Echo," Fives confirmed.

"I had the missing piece," Valo confirmed, "Coric and the others were close, though. We make a good team. I haven't actually collaborated with clones like this before. It was... invigorating."

She walked quickly down a long hallway, her steps hastening as she went along. She slid her access key into a secure door, pushing him into her office and closed the door. The room was dark.

She turned the lights on, and started fumbling around for the rest of the research. But, even as she was doing it, she need she hadn't come here for research. She hadn't been with anyone in a very long time. She was always working. Admittedly, she'd felt a connection to Coric. But, what she felt now for Fives was pure... It went straight to her... She hadn't felt this way in a while. Too long. Others had little trysts. Why couldn't she? Just once?

Before she lost her nerve, she spun around and put her hands on Fives' pauldroned shoulders. She moved her body against his and kissed him.

She was such an idiot. It was by far the stupidest thing she had done in a very long time.

And, not only did she kiss him, she actually touched him. Even thinking about it now is enough to make her want to reach for a benzo-musclerelaxant. But, maybe, just maybe, as long as she avoided him and they never saw each other again, she could forget about the whole miserable incident.

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Fives shouldn't have been surprised.

Women threw themselves at him, all the time.

But, somehow, this did catch him by surprise.

Maybe it was the fatigue. Or, his mottled thinking.

But, he was so thrown off, he didn't respond at first.

"What the fek-" he said.

He was so surprised, her didn't respond. And, that was probably a first, too. She continued her kissing, which wasn't terrible, but certainly wasn't the best Fives had experienced. Not by a long shot. And, then she reached for him. A clumsy grab straight for his cod. She missed and simply knocked his codpiece aside. The armor was at least good for something.

The physical assault sent a shock of adrenaline racing through his system.

"No," he said.

He never said no. Not that he could remember. This was definitely a first.

And, there was that dark part of him that wanted to simply take her rough and hard up against her desk. Sex usually made him feel better. For about five minutes. Then, sometimes, actually most of the time these days, he felt worse afterwards. There was something getting more and more fekked up about him. And, everything about this was wrong. He was sure of it.

"No," he said again, pushing her back away. He stumbled to the exit, found the lift, and immediately made his way back up to Echo's floor. He was still dazed, half in a state of shock, and wandering what the hell had just happened.

It was quiet in Echo's room, although there was the lingering smell of vomit. Echo was asleep, extra bags of fluid hooked up. Kix was already passed out asleep in the extra chair.

Coric looked up when he came in. "Back from caf already Where's Director-"

Fives shook his head. "In her office," he mumbled. "Hopefully she'll stay there," he grumbled.

His eyes swept Fives, and then locked on his midsection. "Fek!" He glared at Fives angrily. "Couldn't keep it in your codpiece, could you?"

Fives looked down and noticed his codpiece was tilted askew. He reached down to adjust the errant armor piece, getting ready to explain the whole bizarre episode to his vode. He looked up in time to see Coric's fist flying at his face. There was enough force behind the unexpected blow to knock Fives off his feet. "This is the way you treat a brother," Coric hissed. "I knew you were self-centered, Fives, but this is low, even for you."

The medic was more furious than Fives had ever seen him before.

Kix leapt to his feet at the unexpected noise. "What the shab?"

Coric looked back at Kix. "Ask Fives. I'm going back to the barracks. I'm so overdue, I'm already likely AWOL." He glared down at Fives still down on the ground and shook his head with disgust, not acknowledging his brother anymore.

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