A series of short AU vignettes about Echo if he had returned to the 501st instead of joining Clone Force 99 during the closing months of The Clone Wars.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. I am simply a lifelong fan with a wondering mind who likes to write.
One: Insomnia
Dozens of brothers loudly snored round him. The racks, three beds high, ten rows deep lined either side of the room. Fifty-nine clones of Jango Fett slept. Echo was awake. He slept for almost two years after the Citadel, caught in a drug induced haze during the painful violation of his body and mind. If that hadn't been enough, when they were done, he was stuffed into a cybernetic coffin to exist not quite alive but not fully dead, at the disposal of his captors.
No, he didn't enjoy sleep much anymore. Gone were restful nights. Gone were REM cycles. Gone were the sweet dreams of Twi'lek dancers dressed in strips gossamer and strings of glittering beads, twisting and bending in mouth drying, seductive poses, penetrating his soul with deep eyes from behind thinly veiled faces. What he wouldn't give to experience those dreams again. To have a body capable of those sensations again.
When he did sleep, he either experienced a blank void of nothingness or plaguing nightmares. The void wasn't really so bad once he got used to it. It wasn't sleep as much as running on low power. He gained the necessary rest for his organic side but his cybernetic side remained aware of vast emptiness of his mind. He imagined it was akin to floating in space. Regardless, the void was preferable to the nightmares.
His brothers weren't sure what to do with him those first nights. Instinctively they'd rouse him, which only spurred his adrenaline fueled terror. He'd lash out violently while trapped between waking and sleep where reality blurred with imagined. The jarring experience not only left him drained and confused, but disrupted the entire barracks. His brothers quickly tired of his sleeping issues.
Kix began sleeping in the bunk below him with Jesse above. After some trial and error, they found a method that worked. Together they would coax Echo from the nightmare without waking him. Talking quietly to reassuring him the transport was arriving or that he was no longer captured. Reinforcements were inbound, just hold the line a little longer. With gentle motions and confident words, they encouraged him through the battle in his mind and eventually it would pass. The subconscious comfort soothed his fears and he woke in the morning with little memory of the sleep disturbances. As the weeks melded together, the nightmares became less frequent.
Still, he struggled to find sleep and spent long hours awake at night, staring at the underside of Jesse's bunk. It was during those times he wondered if he'd made the right decision in returning to the 501st or if he should have joined Clone Force 99 after all.
Just like old times.
What did that even mean anymore?
The phrase started as a joke with Fives. A cathartic jab at the nature of their existence. Their struggled to stay alive, fighting in an endless war that they never seemed be winning or losing. Trying to find themselves while standing in formation with a million copies of a single man few of those left alive had ever met. The phrase used to give him levity in the face of impossible odds, but alone in the darkened barracks, he wondered what 'old times' they were referring to when they said it.
The times when 99 was alive to give the sage wisdom they so often needed? The times at Rishi Station when all his brothers were still alive? The times when he and Fives fought side by side as ARC Troopers? The times when Commander Tano was General Skywalker's padawan? Those indeed felt like the old times, despite being only a couple years ago. He was the last of Domino Squad. 99 was gone. Fives was gone.
Ahsoka was gone.
He hadn't realized how fond he was of the feisty Togruta until he felt the abundance of her absence on the Resolute and how everyone who knew her had changed. Her spirited, youthful, at times argumentative energy was infectious. She was their commander, but she was felt a little sister. Although she hadn't been killed in action, for which he was grateful, the way the air left the room at the mention of her name, it certainly felt like they were being haunted by her ghost.
The lines on Rex's face were deeper than they used to be and it wasn't just from their accelerated aging. The stress of leadership and death were slowly eroding his unflappable captain. General Skywalker was still the same energetic presence at the front of the field, but even he was different. Part of him had hardened since the Citadel. There was a burr on the edge of his cutting wit, like a blade that wasn't sharpened evenly. At times his tone had a raw edge that wasn't there before. Was it Commander Tano's decision to leave that hurt him so deeply or something else?
He recognized so few faces in the battalion anymore. The significance of the thought wasn't lost in its irony. It meant little had been done to stem the hemorrhage of clone troopers by the Grand Army.
How many first generation clones were even left?
His eyes burned as suppressed tears gathered through clenched eyelids.
How many brothers had he helped kill as a Separatists weapon?
They're just clones. That's why they exist, right? To fight and die.
For The Republic.
Just like old times.
Yeah, sure.
Author's note: These musings are my take on a character and my be different from yours. I welcome constructive feedback for the sake of growth, but please refrain from just commenting about not liking the story or my interpretation. Rather than complain, feel free to write your own. I'd love to read it.