Commander Fox Week 2021 Family/Time Travel
Jango Fett was a cold, cocky bastard who thought himself nigh invincible. Unfortunately for him, Fox had once hunted an identical brother through thousands of other identical brothers and the lower levels of Coruscant, so hunting a single bounty hunter through the Outer Rim really wasn't as hard as Jango thought it would be. A carefully aimed blaster bolt was all it took in the end. Afterall, his armor was similar enough to the armor Fox had worn day in and day out.
Fox hated, still hates really, how much like his brothers Jango looked when he peeled off that priceless armor and swiped a vial of still warm blood from the man's rapidly cooling corpse. How much like Fives he looked. He reminds himself again, and again, that this is the man who willingly let millions of his clones be created to die, who chose exactly one to acknowledge as his own. Tries to hold onto the resentment and anger and jealousy he felt as a cadet.
One day, Fox will hand the beskar pieces to Boba and tell him that it was his father's armor. Boba will try to correct him, say that it was their father's armor, and Fox will shake his head and say, no, yours and yours alone. On that day, Fox still won't know if he handed the armor over to apologize to the Boba he once knew for taking his father from him again, or to Jango for denying him his son.
Fox still isn't sure where the moral line falls for purposefully going out of his way to clone his brothers again versus never giving the brothers he knew and loved a chance at life, but he knows which one he prefers. A bit of slicing and a cryptic message, and Fox had a decent idea of where and when Sifo-Dyas could be found.
Which is how he finds himself in a bar, still in the Outer Rim, and for a place in the Outer Rim, the bar is fairly clean. Fox can't find any suspicious smudges on his glass, or any glass he takes a glance at, and the bar counter isn't greasy or caked with dirt. The windows are set in the wall in such away as to show only the sky, which this late at night makes it look like the place just opens out into starfield. There's also a comfortable amount of people, not too many to be crowded and loud, not too few for conversations to echo all over the place.
One day, Fox will walk into a newly opened bar on Coruscant that is always crowded and loud and smelled of sweat and grime. He'll buy a round of drinks and sit at a table by himself with a drink at each empty seat. "I'm not busy now," he'll whisper, "but it's too late for that isn't it?" The night will grow late, and he'll leave a tip and a collection of untouched drinks meant for brothers he turned down in favor of paperwork, only to never have another chance again. He'll have no intention of ever returning.
Fox slams his drink back and gestures for a glass of water as Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas makes a fairly subtle entrance, for a Jedi. He's quiet and weaves through the people and tables without anyone noticing him, well, except for Fox who had been keeping an eye out for Jedi robes. Grabbing his glass, Fox makes his way to the table by the window that Sifo-Dyas chose.
"Evening," Fox drawls and slides into the seat across without bothering to ask for permission. He wraps his hands around his water glass. "Rumor has it that we can help each other out."
"Can you now?" Sifo-Dyas hides trembling hands in the sleeves of his robe.
Fox… doesn't know what to say. A thousand angry, resentful, vindictive words claw at his throat, but the man in front of him looks nothing how he imagined. Lined face with brown eyes not quite as dark as the clones' he would order. Long mostly silver hair with patches of dark, almost black, brown pulled back into a bun that's falling down. Trembling hands, how he keeps using the reflections in the window to watch what's happening behind him, just like how Fox's brothers would when they came back from the frontlines.
Fox almost pities him. Almost wonders how he got to this point.
One day, Fox will walk into the Jedi Temple on Coruscant for the first time, for the five hundredth time. He will stand at the foot of a white infirmary bed and look down at an older Sifo-Dyas who will be unsure about whether his smile would be welcome. One day, Fox will hold this man's hand and be among the people he asked to be at his bedside when he breaths his last, and then he will stand with his hands clasped behind his back at the funeral. One day, Fox will wonder about this man he never knew and regret never allowing himself to consider knowing him.
This is for his brothers, he reminds himself. Brothers this man bought and paid for to fight a war he didn't bother trying to stop. "I can deal with your Sith problem."
That gets Sifo-Dyas' full attention. "What Sith problem? The Sith have been dead for a thousand years!" he hisses, leaning across the table.
"You're the seer, you tell me." Fox leans in as well.
For a moment, neither move. Neither speak. They sit there, mere inches apart.
Sifo-Dyas sighs and leans back. "I see a war, not the Sith," he says. "I see the end of the Jedi, and selfishly, I want an army that will never turn on them."
For a moment, Fox burns. For a moment, Fox is numb. His men, his brothers, created for the Jedi, for the Republic they served, and something made them turn on both those things. Something that was supposed to ensure their never-ending, never-dying loyalty to people who gave varying levels of 'don't give a shit' about them. Something that he didn't even realize happened until he woke up over a decade in the past, thinking it was a dream.
"Your plans will bring about the destruction of the Jedi. Your army. My brothers." The words fall from his mouth like bombs.
Sifo-Dyas flinches. Fox pretends the grief on his face is at least in part for Fox's brothers. One day, he will wonder if it was.
"Though," Fox takes a sip of his drink and looks out to the stars, "technically, it's most likely the Sith's plan now."
"Who are you?"
Fox laughs and laughs for a while, until he's almost sobbing. He wishes he had something stronger than water now. "The poor fuck who watched his brothers die," he says. He closes his eyes, takes a breath, and looks at Sifo-Dyas again. "So my deal is this: I deal with your Sith Lord problem, and you pay the Kaminoans to clone every, single, one of my brothers. No strings, no army, no ties to the Republic. If any of them want to fight, it will be their choice and their choice alone."
One day, Fox will hold every, single, one of his brothers. One day, he'll teach them how to walk and talk and sing and laugh. He'll watch them run through meadows he didn't quite believe existed for a decade and swim in peaceful lakes instead of endless storming oceans. One day, he will teach them how to do so many things from repairing ships to sewing clothes to cleaning weapons to planting crops. And one day, he will wake up each morning with the knowledge that his brothers have a future. That his brothers are free.
To his credit, Sifo-Dyas takes the deal, no questions asked outside of hammering out the exact details. When the contract is signed, he stands and looks at Fox for a moment. He whispers an apology that Fox doesn't acknowledge, not now, and leaves without another word. Fox doesn't care. He's had enough of the Republic and enough of the Jedi.
The blaster shot that takes Sidious down is infinitely more satisfying than the one that took Jango.