I Still Love you the Same

by Blue-Haired-Wonder

As young cadets on Kamino, Cody and Fox were as close as cadets could be. They had been together for as long as they could both remember, both were the at the top of their classes, and had a friendly rivalry during sparring matches. The Kaminoans objected to this and interfered, causing their relationship to deteriorate over the years.

2. Chapter 2- Coruscant (Part 1)

Me: *looks at the wordcount for this chapter* Huh, I guess I meant it when I said long chapters.

I'm gonna try to keep both notes short because this is long enough as it is. It wasn't intentionally this long, but I apparently just had more and more words to say. Returning readers may notice that the chapter count was increased to four from three; I had to split the Coruscant chapter. If you think it's long now, just know...it could've been worse.

As you read through this chapter, you will notice that some scenes are very similar to Amiko's art. This is because of how much of an inspiration it's been throughout this process. Amiko knows about this and she has given her permission. In the end notes, I will give credit to which scenes come from her.

Once again, the biggest possible thank you to Amiko! Talking with you about this story has kept me motivated to continue. Beyond that, you've also just been a good person, too, and it's definitely appreciated. Your art and headcanons have continued to be a major inspiration.

If there's anything else, I'll edit later to add it.

---

Coruscant was unlike anything Fox had ever experienced. To be fair, he'd only experienced two other planets, but still.

Even before following General Yoda to the Chancellor's office, Fox could tell that Coruscant was huge, and he hadn't even been to every nook and cranny of the city-covered planet, only having been on the landing bay and following General Yoda through the Senate Office Building to Chancellor Palpatine's office. Some of the learning on Kamino had been dedicated to learning about the capital of the Galactic Republic. He remembered learning that the highest reaching level of the planet was Level 5127 and lowest known habitable level was Level 5. Fox wondered how many of the levels he would get to experience.

Another thing: there were so many people, all of them distinct in small or extremely large ways. Fox hadn't been truly alone a day in his life—if he wasn't surrounded by brothers, there were undoubtedly Kaminiise or trainers close by. On Coruscant, though, Fox was astounded by how many different species there were, and he had only been on one level so far.

As amazed as he was, however, Fox noticed that General Yoda hadn't been quite right about fighting on Coruscant. Upon entering a different area of the planet, Fox always did a quick scan of the area with his gaze; while there didn't appear to be any Separatists around, there was still fighting on the planet—it was just amongst the civilians and senators.

Some of the fighting was hard to notice, angry, quiet whispers in the shadows that were hushed upon Fox and General Yoda passing by. Other fighting was heated shouting, uncaring about the other people around. There was one thing that seemed to cause unity for everyone, which was Fox's presence.

Most just seemed wary of him, eyeing his professional stance and armour with distrust. Others ignored him, not paying him or General Yoda any of their time. There was one type of gaze he noticed among the civilians that set Fox on edge, making sure he didn't get a false sense of security: the eyes that gazed at him with open hostility and disgust, reminding him of some of the trainers on Kamino. Fox tried not to let it bother him. He was used to not being looked at kindly.

Finally, they arrived at the Chancellor's suite and the door to his ceremonial office was guarded by men dressed in blue armour. General Yoda stopped in front of them, Fox pausing just in time to avoid running into him. Trampling the small general would not be a good way to start his posting. "Expecting us, the Chancellor is," General Yoda stated, addressing the men guarding the door.

"Please wait a moment, Master Jedi," one of the men replied, getting out a communicator and typing into it. It didn't take the guard long to get his response, as he stepped aside and motioned for the others to do the same. "You may enter, sir."

"Thank you." General Yoda made his way closer, Fox right behind him, and the door opened for them.

Once Fox got a clear view of the office, he was amazed by the décor of the room, a shade of red that he found he quite liked. There were a few statues and a large window that showed the city just outside. Perhaps the most eye-catching was the large desk that sat right in front of the window and the man seated at it. Fox quietly sucked in a breath as he gazed at Chancellor Palpatine.

He wasn't quite sure what he had expected the man to look like in person. The Chancellor was an older man, wrinkles lining his face. He still had hair, although most of it appeared to be grey or white, with only small sections of it still being a light ginger. He was dressed in red robes, matching the colour of his office. Fox only noticed the most startling thing about him when he raised his head to greet the two of them: the kindness in his eyes, something that had been lacking in every gaze since he had left Kamino.

"Ah, you two have arrived! Please, have a seat, both of you," Chancellor Palpatine greeted, gesturing at two comfortable-looking chairs on the other side of the desk. Like his eyes, the Chancellor's voice was kind and welcoming. General Yoda made his way to one of the chairs, pulling himself up. Fox cautiously made his way over to the other one, feeling uncomfortable as he sat down. When had he ever been allowed to sit with his superiors? "It is good to see you again, Master Jedi. I am so sorry for your losses on Geonosis."

"Many losses to everyone, there was on Geonosis," the general acknowledged.

"Yes, it was absolutely horrible," Chancellor Palpatine bowed his head—out of respect for the dead? Fox wasn't sure—then turned his gaze to Fox, who stopped himself from flinching in surprise. He had thought he would be ignored for most of the meeting. "And you must be…"

As the older man trailed off, eyes still kind, with an expectant smile on his face, Fox figured he was to speak up. "My designation is CC-1010, sir."

There was something odd in the Chancellor's gaze that disappeared before Fox could interpret it. The smile remained, if fell slightly. Fox felt a spike of fear go through him. What did he do wrong? "Yes, I saw that on your papers. Do you have a name that I can call you? If you don't feel comfortable telling me, I will use your designation."

Fox hesitated, thinking through his answer. On one hand, he and his vode usually kept to their designations if a trainer or Kaminii were with earshot. They didn't like them having names. On the other, the Chancellor clearly wasn't like them. He was the one who had heard of Fox through his actions on Geonosis and decided that Fox was worth something. His smile was genuine instead of mocking. His gaze was friendly and kind instead of distant and cruel. The closest thing Fox could compare the Chancellor's gaze to is the way Cody used to look at him, like he's proud of Fox and wants to see him succeed. He gritted his teeth in anger as the unwanted thought of Cody slips into his mind and berates himself for letting it happen.

Trying to reign in his anger, Fox made his decision. "I call myself Fox, sir."

Chancellor Palpatine nodded, his smile growing and relief flooding through Fox. "Fox," the Chancellor repeated, "welcome to Coruscant."

He nodded. "Thank you, sir."

"Please, feel free to remove your helmet. This is merely a simple discussion."

Hiding his discomfort, Fox removed his helmet and met the Chancellor's eyes. The kindness made him feel warm and Fox gave a tiny smile to the older man. Fox could admit that it was probably a bit pathetic, but the look of pride Chancellor Palpatine gave him was worth it.

"Well, let's get down to business, shall we?" the Chancellor asked. "Has Master Yoda spoken to you about the position I had in mind?"

Fox nodded. "Briefly, sir."

"Hear most of it from you, I felt he should," General Yoda added.

"You'll lead a division of men meant to protect Coruscant, its people, and the senators on the planet. As I'm sure Master Yoda said, the Separatists waging battle on Coruscant is unlikely, but we can never be too careful. I want you and your men to oversee defense of the planet, securing it and making it harder for unwanted people to invade."

"Yes, sir," Fox said when the Chancellor stopped talking. "My training included learning about the planet, and I can start as soon as possible, sir."

Chancellor Palpatine nodded. "I've heard your training was very thorough and after your splendid work on Geonosis, I have no doubt you'll continue that." Fox was barely able to restrain himself from smiling. "Additionally, even if the fighting never reaches our planet, there is the possibility of spies and bounty hunters trying to hurt senators and civilians. You and your men will help prevent this and catch these criminals. I would also like you to have shifts to guard me. I feel my safety would be in good hands with you."

"Understood, sir."

"Now," the Chancellor continued, "some of your men will be arriving on a transport not too much later than you did, including your two commanders. The rest will likely be arriving within a few days. Most of the clones coming in will be those who fought successfully on Geonosis; we need the best of the best here."

That made sense to him; the most important man in the Republic was on the planet. However, there was something Fox was confused by. "My two commanders, sir?"

Chancellor Palpatine nodded, briefly smiling at him. "Coruscant is a big planet with a lot of people, and it can be very overwhelming, especially at the beginning. Your two commanders should make things easier on you and your men."

"Will the three of us be co-leading, sir?" Fox asked, hiding the indignation that was rising. He could run his division on his own and he didn't need to other command clones getting in his way.

"You will be the Marshal Commander of the division," the Chancellor explained, "and the two arriving will be commanders under you." Fox nodded to show his understanding, calming down. "I believe it would be best to show you where you and your men will be stationed, Marshal Commander Fox." The Chancellor stood and Fox moved to do the same.

General Yoda jumped out of his chair, also getting to his feet. "Matters to attend to at the Temple, I have."

"Of course, I am sorry to have kept you here so long. Thank you for bringing me my Marshal Commander, Master Yoda," Chancellor Palpatine said, lightly bowing to the small general.

"Of course, Chancellor," the general acknowledged, then turned to Fox. "On your position, congratulations, Marshal Commander."

"Thank you, General Yoda," Fox replied, pulling on his helmet before moving to follow the other two out of the office. General Yoda went one way, towards the Jedi Temple, and Fox followed the Chancellor the other way.

The two moved in what Fox considered a comfortable silence, though Fox's definition of that was probably vastly different from the Chancellor's. The older man greeted most senators and their aides that they passed, occasionally stopping to talk to a senator. Fox remained silent; most of the senators the Chancellor spoke to paid Fox no attention, though a few would look at him with barely concealed disgust. They seemed more docile with the Chancellor nearby, though.

Eventually, the two made it out of the building and Fox's breath was taken away as he gazed upon the city. Fox hadn't been created to admire the beauty of anything, but he couldn't stop himself from thinking that the city was so.

Chancellor Palpatine led him away from the Senate Office Building, though they stayed on the same Level and weren't too far away. Soon, they stopped outside an average-sized building that had some workers coming and going. "This is where you and your men will be based, Marshal Commander," the Chancellor started, "I apologize for it being a bit small, but this is the best we could do on short notice. These workers have been working around the clock to convert this into a space for you and your men."

"We'll manage, sir. We always do," Fox replied.

Chancellor Palpatine smiled. "That's what I like to hear. Now, will you be fine learning the layout of the building yourself? I have much to do and I would hate to delay anything even more."

Fox felt brief panic rise in him. How much did he cause the Chancellor to delay? "Yes, sir, I'll be fine."

"Good, and one more thing Marshal Commander." Chancellor Palpatine rummaged through pockets on his red robes, before pulling out a communicator and handing it to him. "This communicator connects you directly to me. If there's an emergency and I need you immediately, or you need me, just use this."

Fox took the communicator. "Of course. Thank you, sir. "

The Chancellor smiled another one of his kind smiles before he began making his way back to the Senate Office Building.

Fox exhaled, turning to stare at his headquarters. He would admit, that hadn't gone anything like he'd expected it to. He thought the Chancellor would have been more like the Kaminoan politicians Fox had seen over the years, but he was extremely different. Not to mention, after the gazes Fox had received on his way to Coruscant and when General Yoda had led him the Chancellor's office, Fox had been positive Chancellor Palpatine would be no different. For the first time since Fox had been an innocent little cadet, he had been pleasantly surprised.

He always took his duty and orders very seriously; Fox was a good soldier after all. This would be no different, Fox decided, his opinion of Chancellor Palpatine high, and made his way towards his headquarters.

He'd have to make sure he knew every inch of this place before any of his men did.

---

No one could accuse Fox of sitting idle as he waited for the first of his men and two commanders to arrive.

After he had memorized the layout of the building, Fox had decided he was going to do everything he could do to make sure his men would be successful; he thought briefly about his men on Geonosis who would have followed him anywhere and ignored the pang in his chest.

So, he had done up a floorplan to give to his men once they arrived, so they knew their way around. He had made sure their mess hall was stocked with food and rations. He checked their medbay to confirm they had all the necessary equipment and supplied to care for his injured men. Fox had found a large area that had training mats and had added additional safety measures to ensure the area would be safe for training. He had inspected the main barracks, as well as the section that only had three beds—Fox assumed this was meant for him and his commanders. He also checked the offices; one had two desks with a chair on both sides of each desk and couch along the wall—this would likely be the shared office for his commanders—and the other was similar, having a slightly larger desk and a Coruscant flag hanging on the wall. Both offices had speakers on the desks. Finally, Fox had sat down, going onto his personal communicator to see that much command class had been added to a group so they could keep each other updated. He read through some of the previous messages, seeing that Wolffe had been assigned to General Plo Koon. Before he could stop himself, Fox continued scrolling until he found Cody saying he was assigned to General Obi-Wan Kenobi. Angry that he couldn't control himself, Fox shut off his communicator, beginning to plan defense plans for the planet and shifts for his men to patrol the planet.

Now, so early the next morning that the sky of Coruscant was dark, Fox was waiting in the landing bay close to their headquarters, his helmet off and holding the floor plans to give to his men. He had received a notification that the ship with his men had entered the atmosphere and was preparing for landing. Fox watched as the ship landed, standing stock-still as the wind attempted to throw him off his feet. He waited for his men to exit the ship, all of them wearing blank armour, the only two exceptions being the commanders, a symbol on their armour indicating their rank, who led the way. They all stopped in front of Fox, saluting him.

"Helmets off and at ease, men," Fox started, making his level and loud enough for all to hear. All helmets were removed, and Fox's gaze roamed over the faces of his men, quickly taking in the smallest of differences in them all. Some had slightly different hair, others had scars. When his gaze met that of the two commanders at the front, his eyes narrowed at the familiarity of one of them—longer than regulation-length and a bit shaggy—but he brushed it aside for now. The other commander was bald, and Fox didn't recognize him. "Welcome to Coruscant. I am CC-1010, Marshal Commander Fox. Our primary objective is to keep Chancellor Palpatine, members of the Galactic Senate, and the civilians of this planet safe. Is that understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!" all his men declared in unison. Fox suppressed his smile and violently crushed the warm feeling that arose inside him.

"We will be officially starting our duties a few hours from now, after I have caught my two commanders up to speed. After the three of us have finished, I will make an announcement for you all. Until then," Fox handed a part of the pile of floor plans to the two commanders and kept the other for himself, "here is a floor plan of our headquarters. Use this and learn your way around. I don't need any of you getting lost." He began handing them out, the other two following his lead.

Once they were gone, Fox motioned for his men to follow him to their headquarters. It wasn't far, but the distance was just enough that Fox had the chance to overhear the excited mumbling going on behind him. Upon reaching the building, Fox gestured for the two commanders to follow him to his office and the rest of his men split into smaller groups to begin learning the layout.

The three quickly made it to their destination and Fox shut the door behind him. With three of them now in the office, Fox noticed just how cramped it was. Nonetheless, he stared expectantly at the two in front of him.

The vod shaved bald seemed to catch on first. "CC-5869, Commander Stone, sir!"

The other commander quickly followed, "CC-3786, Commander Thorn, sir!" Oh, so that was why he had seemed familiar to Fox.

Fox stared at Thorn, his name causing a memory to briefly flash before his eyes: I figured I'd pay you back for being such a thorn in my side. His eyes narrowed. Had Thorn named himself after something Fox had called him?

A grin was climbing up Thorn's face the longer Fox stared at him. Fox guessed the younger vod knew exactly what he was thinking. "Everything alright, Fox?" Thorn asked innocently, although the mischief in his eyes hindered the look.

Annoyance was creeping up on Fox at Thorn's mischief and not addressing him correctly. "Everything is fine. Do not forget that I am your superior, Commander Thorn."

Stone looked like he was suppressing the urge to glare, but Thorn… His unabashed grin remained in place. "Of course, Fox, I'll do well to remember that."

Fox sighed, tired, and resisted the urge to rub his eyes. He guessed his lack of sleep was making him shorter. He would address Thorn's lack of respect for protocol another time. "Chancellor Palpatine has informed me that you two will help me keep this planet and our men in order, as Coruscant is huge, as well as having a large population. I am certain I'll be able to handle my duties on my own, but we'll find something for the two of you."

Both gave him odd looks. "If we're here to help, why not just let us help? Sir," Stone was quick to tack on. Great, now he had a commander under him who didn't think he was capable.

"I am the Marshal Commander and I need to be able to do my job on my own," Fox's reply was stiff. Stone and Thorn gave each other odd looks but said nothing. "As a matter of fact, I already have something for you two to do. We need a colour for our armour and a name for the division. Chancellor Palpatine is letting us choose."

The two couldn't hide their shock and Fox hoped he hid his surprise better. Thorn was quick to recover. "Well, the name's easy."

"Oh?" Fox questioned.

Thorn shrugged, casual. "Yeah, just think about it." Fox couldn't hide his scowl at the insinuation and Stone smirked. "We're on Coruscant. We're protecting the Chancellor, senators, civilians, and the planet itself. We're essentially guarding it from hostiles. We're the Coruscant guard."

Fox had been ready to turn down any name Thorn suggested out of spite, but he instead paused, thinking it over. It did have a nice ring to it…

"That is acceptable," Fox responded, giving a terse nod.

Thorn grinned at him. "Happy to help, sir."

The Marshal Commander sighed, feeling a headache coming on. This was going to be a long war.

---

After almost four standard weeks, Fox would finally that he didn't like Coruscant as much as he had hoped he would.

It had begun when the rest of the Coruscant Guard had arrived on the planet. Fox had taken one look at all his men and had immediately thought of where the fuck he'd put them all, because their headquarters did not have the space. Remembering the Chancellor's words and kind smile, Fox had considered seeing if there was anything he could do. Fox had decided against it. He kept up with the group chat consisting of all the command class and so many of them were reporting high losses of their men. The Chancellor's focus had to be on the men on the frontlines, not on the Coruscant Guard who hadn't lost anyone and didn't have enough space. After talking about it with Thorn, who seemed incapable of leaving Fox alone, Fox had simply ordered some bunks for the barracks and hoped it would be enough.

This feeling continued the more Fox did his assignment on Coruscant. When he'd stand guard for the Chancellor, Fox found it harder and harder to ignore the looks people would give him—disgust, hostility, and apathy were all commonplace looks directed at him. It was most of the natborns in the Senate Office Building; senators, aides, or other guards—who Fox had since learned were the Senate Guard, not that they guarded much. Fox had been quick to notice how useless they were and was glad the Chancellor had requested Fox have shifts guarding him. The looks had gotten so bad that Fox was worried someone might try something; fortunately, no one had had the chance. Either Fox was out of the way, standing by the Chancellor's door, or he was near the older man.

His patrols around the city-covered planet were also testing him and his men. They were all slowly learning their way around the planet, although some of his men were getting lost in the lower levels. It usually took them a few hours to find their way back to the Guard headquarters because most people were either scathing towards them or ignored them when they tried to ask for directions. Overhearing talk from his Guard and from his own experiences, Fox was able to gather that they weren't really welcome on the planet by the civilians. It had gotten to the point where none of the Coruscant Guard was looking forward to patrols around the planet.

Fox was getting ready to go on a patrol after coming back from guarding the Chancellor. Picking up his mug, which was simply white with his name written onto it, he chugged down the rest of his caf. Before he could put on his helmet, he heard a knock on his office door. Fox went to open the door and on the other side was Coral, the Guard's CMO and a skilled slicer.

Soft eyes and hair reaching his ears, Coral was kinder than the other medics Fox had experienced, having good bedside manner. He was forever patient with troopers that got sent to the medbay, never seeming to lose his cool. His main tactic to getting proud soldiers to listen to him as put on his sad tooka eyes in order to guilt them for not listening to his advice. Fox was grateful he was immune to such underhanded tactics.

It only took a single glance at Coral to realize he was struggling to hold it together. His body language was stiff and, while his face was devoid of emotion, his eyes were storming. "Sorry for the interruption, sir."

Not wanting to get on Coral bad side, and willing to postpone his patrol duty, Fox replied, "You're not interrupting. Is something wrong?"

Coral gave a short nod. "Sir, I require you in the medbay as soon as possible."

Fox raised an eyebrow but began following his CMO. He sent a quick a quick message to the troopers meant to go on patrol with him, telling them to wait for him to be finished. After all the scathing remarks directed at him and his men, Fox didn't want them down there without him. As their marshal commander, it was just part of Fox's duty.

The two were quick to reach the medbay. Upon looking around, Fox noticed a trooper laying, unconscious, in one of the beds. Fox strode over, Coral following, and anger burst inside him like an exploding star. The man in the bed was covered in bruises, black around both eyes, and his nose looked like it had been broken. The bruise on his throat looked to be in the shape of a handprint.

"What the fuck happened here?" Fox demanded, struggling to not raise his voice at the medic.

Coral gave an exhausted sigh. "Besides being seriously beaten? I'm not too sure, sir. The last squad on patrol brought him in, saying they found him in the lower levels already beaten like this."

Fox inhaled a harsh breath. "You and your medical team usually handle injuries on your own. What made you feel like you had to report this to me?"

He internally winced, realizing too late it sounded like he was criticizing the CMO for coming to him. Coral didn't seem offended, though, only gazing at the injured trooper with worried eyes and reached over to brush hair out of his face. "I'm worried about the men that get lost on patrol. A lot of them come back shaken and upset."

"This one is probably one of the ones who got lost," Fox added, catching onto Coral's train of thought, "we still have a few that haven't checked back in."

The CMO nodded. "This is the first time anything like…this has happened, though. I think we need to be more careful on patrol. I have a theory, but I really want to be wrong."

Fox's eyes moved from the injured trooper's still form and onto Coral. "Do you think there might be Separatists who got onto the lower levels? If you have any reason to suspect that, I need to know so I can take action immediately."

Coral pursed his lips, shaking his head. "No… I think it's the civilians in the lower levels that did this." Fox opened his mouth, but Coral barrelled right through, "I mean, we hear what they say about us, sir. I know you try to distract us from their words when you're on patrol with us, and we allreally appreciate it, but we still hear them. Is it that surprising that some of them would be bold enough to move on to violence?"

As Coral went on, his eyes seemed to start welling up and Fox found himself getting more and more uncomfortable. Deciding the best way to go was to copy what Wolffe would do, Fox reached over and awkwardly patted the other man's shoulder. "Don't cry."

The CMO snorted, raising a hand to rub the tears away. "Sir, yes sir." There was a small smile on his face that seemed to contain a hint of fondness. Fox filed that away to never think about again.

Now back in more comfortable territory, Fox was forced to admit that it wasn't a farfetched theory. He knew better than anyone in the guard, perhaps with the exception of the beaten up vod in the medbay, that they weren't well-liked on this planet. He was quick to start formulating an action plan. "When he wakes up, ask him about what happened. If I'm not on shift, send me a message and I'll get here as soon as I can. Until then, I'll warn squad leaders to not let their men out of their sight when on patrol."

Coral nodded. "Understood sir."

"Good." Fox checked the time and bit back a curse. "I have to get on patrol."

He moved to exit the medbay, not wanting to keep his men waiting any longer, hearing Coral shout after him, "Please be careful, Commander Fox!"

Fox can imagine the concern on the CMO's face and sped up, throwing a hand up behind in him acknowledgement.

---

As Fox stood on the platform with Chancellor Palpatine, he was glad his helmet hid the glare on his face. If Senator Burtoni, who wasn't standing too far away from him, could see the look on his face, he would likely be in huge trouble.

The Chancellor was preparing to give a speech to the people of the planet. A large crowd of citizens had gathered, and many senators were also present. Having anticipated a large gathering, Chancellor Palpatine had spoken to Fox during one of his guard shifts about having himself and a squad of troopers around just in case things went badly. Desperate to do something other than stand outside Palpatine's door—where his memories occasionally got foggy—patrol the planet or write up the occasional report about an incident in the lower levels, Fox had been eager to be at the speech. He was forced to consider that he had perhaps been a bit too eager, especially as he had to watch how the civilians and senators treated his men.

Fox had been growing less charitable of the civilians recently. This was only made worse when his trooper in the medbay had awoken, confirming Coral's suspicions that civilians had done him. The vod, who had introduced himself as Hive, told Coral that while he'd been on patrol with his squad, someone from the lower levels had appeared in need of help. When Hive had separated from his squad to see what the problem was, a group of natborns had surrounded him and beaten him, all while insulting him by calling him a meat droid and a waste of the Republic's credits. Both Fox and Coral had been furious, although they were experts at hiding it. Hive hadn't yet been cleared by Coral for duty, but Fox had gotten started right away on ensuring all his men knew not to separate from their squads no matter what.

For the Chancellor's speech, Fox had carefully positioned his men all around the outside of the Senate Building, along with some members of the Coruscant Security Force, always more than one trooper in the same position. The only exception to this rule was Sergeant Hound, who was the subject of much attention by senators and civilians alike as they waited for the Chancellor to begin.

Although Hound didn't have a brother with him, he had Grizzer, a tracking massiff. As soon as the Coruscant Guard had been given a group of massiffs to help with their duties, Hound had taken to them like a mother tooka. He was especially attached to Grizzer, and the massiff seemed to love him in return. Whenever the two of them were together, which was almost every time Fox saw Hound, the Sergeant seemed to only have eyes for the massiff.

This included right now, as Hound was bent so he could enthusiastically pet Grizzer's head. Even though there was a fair amount of distance between Hound and Fox, he could still hear him talking to the massiff, "Who's a good boy? Grizzer is! Who's my best boy? You are!"

Fox was glad he was so good at lying; Hound had asked him if he thought the displays of affection were cute and Fox had told him that they were absolutely disgusting. Unlike Stone and like Thorn, though, Hound seemed incapable of being offended by Fox and had simply laughed, telling him that he'd come around.

Almost as an afterthought, Fox wondered if he should be worried about Burtoni trying to do something to Hound. He decided not to; the Kaminiise would not lay a hand on his men.

All the natborns around them didn't seem to agree that it was cute, though. They were openly staring at the two with disgust and muttering about it, which led to Fox's glaring. Hound was happy, Grizzer was happy, Fox was getting free entertainment; what was their problem? Did they think the clone troopers were supposed to be incapable of being happy?

Fox wondered if his brothers on the frontlines had to face this because their group chat seemed to indicate otherwise. A lot of the commanders seemed to like their Jetii, including Wolffe. Whenever the two had the chance to talk, Wolffe was fighting a war after all, he talked so positively about General Koon that Fox had to assure himself that he wasn't jealous. Fox hadn't been able to stop himself from reading Cody's messages, trying to convince himself he wasn't worried. When he read them, Fox had felt glee run through him at Cody's exasperation at General Kenobi and his padawan's recklessness. Fox ended up telling himself that had been what he'd been looking for.

He was broken out of his musings by Chancellor Palpatine stepping up to the podium, gesturing for silence. It took a moment, but everyone was eventually quiet. Hound had stood up, standing guard, and all his men scattered around had straightened.

Once there was silence, Chancellor Palpatine smiled at the large crowd. "Hello and welcome everyone. I know you are all worried about the war waging around the galaxy, and I wanted to help ease your fears."

There was a light applause and Fox rolled his eyes. Why did they have to do that? Couldn't they just wait for the Chancellor to finish what he was saying?

"I have heard many concerns that the Republic is in danger. Let me assure you, our Republic is well protected. Thanks to the Kaminoans," he gestured to Burtoni, who nodded, "we have a clone army ready to fight for us."

Fox heard scattered mutterings from the crowd, most of which sounded hostile to him. The Chancellor, unaware or ignoring it, continued his speech, "We have Jedi fighting on the frontlines, assisted by clone troopers. On Coruscant, we also have our own clone troopers here to protect us, who are known as the Coruscant Guard!"

For a moment, it was absolute silence. Then, all hell broke loose. There was angry shouting and there was only so much Fox could make out.

"Get these things off our planet!"

"Stop the war!"

"Down with the meat droids!"

People were shoving each other, and Fox noticed a couple of those in the crowd throwing punches.

All his men around the crowd quickly jumped in, trying to calm the situation. The men in the CSF also tried to get in there, but Fox was forced to hide a scoff at how badly they were doing. Everyone simply ignored them, though a few threw punches at them for getting in their way.

Despite the protestors showing a lot more hostility to his Guard, they were making progress at calming some of the natborns and cuffing others that wouldn't back down from the physical altercations. Seeing that one of his younger troopers close to the platform, Rocker, was struggling to handle a group of civilians in a physical fight, Fox got down and moved to help him.

A rodian civilian moved closer to Rocker, shoving him and trying to rip his helmet off. Fox was quick to lunge at the rodian, pulling him away from the younger trooper by his arms and cuffing his wrists behind his back. "Are you alright, trooper?"

"I'll be fine, Commander," Rocker replied, his voice a bit shaky.

Fox adjusted his grip on the struggling rodian. "Have you got this handled?"

Rocker's stance became more determined. "Yes, sir!"

He began leading the rodian away, nodding in pride at Rocker. "Good man."

The rodian scoffed and muttered, "Man?" Fox ignored him; it wasn't his job to get hurt feelings from a natborn who was offended by his existence.

Navigating his way carefully to the edge of the crowd, Fox found a member of the CSF standing there, not doing anything. He made his way over, and then handed the rodian to him. "He got into a physical fight, refused to stop, and assaulted a member of the Coruscant Guard."

The other man took the rodian without reacting to Fox except with a glare of disgust. Fox turned away and headed back into the crowd to calm it, figuring the man was simply projecting his disgust onto Fox. After all, if Fox's men were performing as badly as the Coruscant Security Force was, he'd be disgusted, too.

Fox slowly made his way through the crowd, getting closer to the platform where he had left Chancellor Palpatine. As he made it closer to the front of the platform, Fox saw something that made him suck in a breath.

There was a togruta man on the other side of the crowd, a blaster aimed directly at Chancellor Palpatine.

Fox moves faster than ever, running to the platform and jumping onto it. He lands on his feet, just as he knew he would, and rushes to the Chancellor. As soon as Fox is an arm-lengths distance away, he reaches out and shoves the older man out of the way, taking his place. Barely a moment later, Fox heard a blaster shot.

His world was suddenly moving in slow-motion and everything seemed a lot quieter. He expected to feel pain shoot through him when he was hit, just like on Geonosis. To Fox's utter surprise and disbelief, he didn't feel anything when he was hit. He just saw a dart hit his chestplate with a clink, and then fell to the ground, doing no harm to him that surely would've happened to Chancellor Palpatine.

Once Fox came back to himself, he quickly snapped into action. The togruta was already on the move, having caught on to the failure of his plan. He moved to pursue but heard the Chancellor on the ground groan. Seeing that most of his men were giving chase and the crowd had mostly thinned, Fox focused on the Chancellor.

Fox moved to him, helping the older man stand. "Are you alright, sir? Did you get hit?"

Chancellor Palpatine was rubbing his head but smiled gratefully at Fox. "I did not, all thanks to you Commander Fox. Thank you."

Even though he felt pride at being thanked by the Supreme fucking Chancellor, Fox replied, "Just doing my job, sir."

"Yes, I suppose you were, Commander." The Chancellor brushed off his red robes. "What became of the man that tried to shoot me?"

"My men are going after him, sir. He'll be caught in no time," Fox replied.

Chancellor Palpatine smiled, looking behind Fox. "I see that."

Fox turned around, seeing that Hound and Grizzer were approaching them, the togruta cuffed. "Sirs," Hound greeted, nodding. "The assassin was caught."

The Chancellor smiled, pleased, while Fox said, "Good work, Sergeant Hound."

"It was mostly Grizzer, sir," Hound replied, Fox hearing the affection in his tone. Behind the safety of his helmet, Fox didn't bother hiding his exasperated eye roll, telling himself it wasn't fond. "He quickly caught up to him and dug his teeth into his leg to stop him from getting away."

Looking and seeing that Chancellor Palpatine seemed more amused than anything, Fox focused his gaze on Grizzer. The massiff stared back at him, his eyes happy and mouth stretched in what appeared to be a grin. "Keep up the good work, Grizzer, and you'll be promoted in no time."

Hound's body jerked, indicating to Fox that he was holding back laughter. Chancellor Palpatine chuckled lightly. "I see you and your men have been trained well, Commander Fox."

"Yes, sir," Fox acknowledged. There was no point denying it; it was just the plain truth.

"Will you be able to escort me back to the safety of my office Commander Fox? I would like to have a discussion with you. Besides, it seems that Sergeant Hound has a handle on things."

Fox nodded, hiding his worry. "Of course, Chancellor." The older man smiled at him before going over to talk to a few senators, likely asking if they were okay. He turned to Hound. "When you hand him over to the Coruscant Security Force, go with them to make sure he's secured successfully." He glanced disdainfully at the crowd, where members of the CSF weren't doing anything while his men did all the work. "They'll have to forgive me for not trusting their capabilities."

Hound nodded. "Aye, aye, Captain!"

He paused, staring into Hound's eyes with a deadpan expression that he knew the other man could read even with his helmet on. "Try again," he said, his voice as dry as Geonosis.

"Aye, aye, Commander?" Hound questioned, his voice a bit hesitant.

Fox shook his head, out of annoyance and definitely not amusement. "Better. Now get out of my sight."

Hound moved quick, dragging the togruta away. Fox made his way to the Chancellor, who nodded goodbye to the senators he was conversing with. Chancellor Palpatine made his way back into the Senate Building, Fox falling into step behind him.

They were quick to make it to the ceremonial office, Chancellor Palpatine moving fast and Fox easily keeping up. The entire walk, Fox was glancing in every direction, making sure that no tried anything to the older man in front of him. Perhaps it was a bit paranoid, but Fox wasn't considered the best because he wasn't aware of his surroundings.

Once they were in the ceremonial office, Chancellor Palpatine sitting behind his desk and Fox standing in front of him, they began. "You and your men were excellent today, Commander Fox, much more efficient than the Coruscant Security Force." Fox nodded; he was a bit relieved that the Chancellor had noticed the same thing as him. "And after today, I think it's been made pretty clear that there's a lot of rowdy and upset civilians; there's most likely going to be a lot more riots." The older man tiredly ran a hand through his hair. "Do you have enough men in the Coruscant Guard for riot control, Commander Fox? Right now, I trust you and your men much more to get the job done."

Fox didn't have to think about it for long. Things for the Coruscant Guard could get slow and, even though they kept it quiet, he could hear the mutterings about boredom from his men. They weren't made to experience boredom; it would likely eat away at them. "I have more than enough men, Chancellor. I can get started on assigning shifts for riot control right away."

The older man smiled softly. "I knew I could count on you, Commander." His eyes grew a bit thoughtful and hummed. "Speaking of rowdy and upset, there's been a few issues with one of the battalions that's been on Coruscant.

"Did something happen, sir?" Fox asked, worry growing at the thought of his frontline brothers.

Chancellor Palpatine waved a hand, "Oh, nothing too serious, Commander. A few of the clones just got drunk and created a small disturbance. When the Coruscant Security Force tried to put them in the drunk tank to sober up, they resisted and, well…" Fox understood. He and his brothers would always be stronger than those natborns, who Fox was pretty sure most just sat on their asses all day, intoxicated or not. "Would you and men also be able to handle this? You all will be better at this than the CSF and, who knows? Maybe they'll react better to other clones."

Fox… doubted that. Some of his men had been speaking to other battalions already, telling them of their duties on Coruscant. From what Fox had heard from his men, a lot of those in the frontline battalions were making jokes about the Coruscant Guard. If they started putting them in drunk tanks when they were just trying to get a break from the war, Fox had a feeling those jokes would not be so lighthearted anymore.

Still, looking at the Chancellor's exhausted posture and expression, Fox knew what he had to do. If any other in the command class had been in this position, Fox knew they would do the same. Especially Cody, Fox couldn't stop himself from thinking. Asshole or not, Cody was the other best and would do what was asked of him, whether he liked it or not. "We can handle it, sir. It won't be a problem."

The Chancellor perked up and Fox was amazed at how he could transform from the most exhausted man in the galaxy to the happiest. "Thank you, Commander. One less thing for me to worry about. Only one more topic, then I'll let you be on your way. I'm sure you have plenty of work. Do you have a colour to paint your armour yet? A lot of the other battalions have already picked their colours."

Fox thought of the Chancellor's office, thought of his robes. He looked at his kind eyes and smile. "My men and I will paint our armour red, sir. Our allegiance lies with you and the Republic.

"That is a wonderful choice, Commander Fox." Chancellor Palpatine smiled at him. Fox immediately picked up something odd about it, different from his usual kind, older man smile. Fox wrote it off though, the Chancellor was a busy man who often got exhausted and stressed. Of course his smiles would be weird sometimes. "Thank you for your time, Commander Fox. You are dismissed."

Fox nodded, "Sir." He exited the ceremonial office, briefly acknowledging the two Senate Guards that had been posted at the door. The two ignored him and Fox moved quickly back to the barracks.

He had cans of red paint to order.

---

After a week and a half, most of the men in the Coruscant Guard had their armour painted in beautiful, individual designs. No longer did many have blank armour, only differentiated by rank. All their armour had unique designs that told the story of who each man was as an individual. Even though Fox didn't consider himself sentimental, he found himself really enjoying the looks of happiness on his men's faces as they painted their armour Coruscant Guard red.

Fox himself really liked the way his armour turned out. Both his shoulder pads and vambraces had been painted red, as well as some lines on his helmet. His boots were completely red. Both his greaves were mostly red, though they had a small section in the middle left blank. Just above that paint, Fox had added a design that pointed downwards and would fit into the open space. He had also painted his utility belt and the edges of his kama. Finally, and what had been the hardest to paint, was the giant symbol of the Senate on his chest plate.

He wasn't sure if enough paint had been ordered for all his men, though. Some of them were really going all out on their armour. So, for the first time in two weeks, Fox made his way to the general barracks to see if more paint was needed. Upon his arrival, Fox had to stop at the entrance in shock.

All around the barracks, string lights were hanging up everywhere in the room; on the bunks, taped up on the walls, strung to the roof. When the fuck had this happened?

Some of his men had noticed him enter and jumped off their bunks, saluting. "Commander!"

Fox nodded at them, turning his gaze to the highest ranking vod in the barracks, Sergeant Karma, with her long hair braided. "What happened in here, Sergeant?"

Karma's face was blank as she replied, "This was my fault, Commander. I'll accept whatever discipline you deem necessary."

Sad that his helmet was off, Fox had to hide his eye roll. A couple of string lights didn't bother him; he just wanted to know what happened and where the lights came from. He hoped his men hadn't been stealing. "I appreciate the enthusiasm, Sergeant." Fox turned to the other troopers in the room. "Now, who's going to tell me what happened?"

It took a moment, but one of them stepped forward to stand beside Karma. Fox recognized him as Ram. He looked really nervous, but started his explanation, "It was me, Commander. When I was on patrol, I saw a natborn throwing all these string lights away, even though they still worked perfectly. It was such a waste, so I snuck them in here and a couple of vode helped me set the, up. I didn't do it without permission, though, sir. Commander Thorn said it was okay."

Fox held up a hand, and Ram fell silent, looking at the floor. "If you had Commander Thorn's permission, I don't see what the problem is. I just wanted to make sure they hadn't been stolen."

Ram's eyes widened. "I promise I didn't steal them, sir! She was throwing them out and I wanted something to decorate the barracks."

"And you made sure they were clean?" Fox asked. They had been in the garbage, after all.

The younger trooper's nose wrinkled. "Of course I did, sir."

Fox nodded. He hoped this was the right decision. The thought of what Cody would think of it was shoved to the back of his mind. "As long as it was being thrown out and you made sure they were clean, I think you're safe to continue as is."

A huge grin broke out on Ram's face, the other vode in the room started whispering excitedly, and a light smile appeared on Karma's face. Fox knew he made the right decision. "Thank you so much, sir!" Then, before Fox could react, Ram threw himself at Fox, wrapping his arms around Fox's middle in a brief, tight hug as Fox's arms quickly shot up to steady him. Ram quickly withdrew and made his way back to the group of brothers he'd been with.

Fox's arms were still in the air and he didn't know what his face looked like, but it must have been amusing, as Karma was quietly laughing at him. "He didn't break you, did he, sir?"

Lowering his arms and schooling his expression, Fox replied, "Of course no—"

The sound of his communicator cut him off. He pulled it out, not having time to suppress his exasperated sigh. The sound of Karma snickering at him followed him as he left the barracks. Once back in the hallway, Fox checked the code of the person comming him. Fox felt his lips quirk up as he recognized the number.

As soon as he answered, Fox was greeted by a familiar dry voice asking, "How's my precious vod'ika doing?" The bastard was smirking at him.

"Your 'precious vod'ika' will kick your ass when you're finally on Coruscant if you call him that again," Fox retorted, his eyes narrowed. "And I was doing fine until some bastard called and ruined my day."

Wolffe mockingly shook his head. "People these days… Absolutely no respect."

Fox snorted. "Believe me, I know."

His ori'vod's expression became more serious. "Are you free to talk, Fox? I need to talk to you. It's important."

"I'm free; just let me get to my office so we have some privacy." Fox was there in no time and when he opened the door, he was completely unsurprised to find Thorn lounging on his couch like he owned the damn thing. Fox supposed that since he'd been unsuccessful in getting Thorn to stop, the younger bastard did think that he had a right to Fox's couch. "Thorn," Fox greeted, his voice bland.

Thorn looked up from the datapad he'd been reading from. "Fox! Fancy meeting you here!"

Fox closed his eyes, wishing for strength. "Wait, who's Thorn?" Wolffe voice sounded from his communicator.

The younger vod looked at the communicator, and then grinned at Fox. "Hey Wolffe!"

Wolffe just looked confused and Fox sighed. "CC-3786."

A grin started to crawl onto Wolffe's face. "And he chose the name 'Thorn'?"

"I sure did!" Thorn cut in.

Fox rubbed his temple. "Get out, Thorn. This is a private conversation."

Thorn got up from the couch, grabbing his mug from the floor. It was the same white one as Fox's, the only difference being that he had his own name on it. "You got it, Fox. I'll be back later tonight!"

"Please don't!" Fox called back to him as Thorn left his office. Once the door was shut, Fox turned his attention back to Wolffe. His slightly older brother had an eyebrow raised and was smirking at him. "Don't even."

Wolffe shrugged. "I'll just use it against you later, vod'ika."

Fox scowled. "Just tell me why you commed."

"I hear you finally chose a colour for the Guard," Wolffe started.

"I did," Fox agreed. "And I've heard you haven't chosen a colour for 104th."

Wolffe nodded. "That's because I was waiting for you to choose, vod."

Fox froze, and then narrowed his eyes at the hologram of Wolffe. "Why?"

The 104th Commander's eyes rolled so far back that Fox was worried they'd get stuck. Fox was getting the distinct impression that he was being judged. "Because I want to match with you, vod'ika."

Waiting a moment to respond and making sure his voice wouldn't shake, Fox could only say, "Don't get sentimental with me, Wolffe."

Wolffe sighed, loud and sounding annoyed. "Do you not want me to paint my armour red?"

Shit. "I mean, if you really want to, who am I to stop you? If General Koon is okay with it, paint your armour whatever colour you want."

His ori'vod snorted, then smiled and shook his head. The smile was small, but it was there, and it was definitely fond. "Di'kut. So, how's—Ah, shit."

"What's wrong?" Fox asked quickly, worry mounting.

"Sorry Fox, General Koon needs me. We'll talk later, alright?"

Fox buried his slight disappointment. "Sure, as long as you don't ruin my day."

Wolffe rolled his eyes, his figure then disappearing from the communicator.

Putting the device away, Fox sighed heavily, gazing at the couch. He was suddenly wishing Thorn had stayed.

---

Fox speed-walked through the Senate Office Building, making his way to the Chancellor's office as soon as he could. His flimsi and datawork had started increasing and he had found himself with less time to do it.

Soon there, Fox stopped in front of the two guards at Chancellor Palpatine's door. "The Chancellor requested to see me."

"Wait here, clone," the one on the right said, his voice disdainful. He went into the Chancellor's office to confirm Fox's words. Fox didn't bother correcting them to his rank anymore; after he had a few times, Chancellor Palpatine had told him it was better to let it go because Fox was just wasting his breath at this point.

As Fox and the other Senate Guard waited, Fox could feel the glare the one on the left was directing towards him. He also caught the sneer on the other man's lips. Fox kept his body still, revealing nothing; after spending years in the presence of senators, the Senate Guards could likely read body language very well.

Finally, the Chancellor's door re-opened and the other Senate Guard stepped to the side. He didn't bother speaking to Fox again and Fox returned to the favour. Senate Guards didn't seem to hear him anyway and he had better things to use his voice for.

"You requested to see me, Chancellor Palpatine?" Fox asked, saluting respectfully.

"Yes, I did, Commander," the Chancellor replied, gesturing that Fox close the door.

He did so, a bit curious. The older man didn't seem to care if the Senate Guards overheard them before. He then moved to stand in front of the desk.

"I apologize for this being on such short notice, Commander Fox, but you've heard that the next senate session will be happening later today, correct?"

"I have, sir," Fox supplied in the following silence.

"Good. I would like you and your men to be there. After the absolute disaster of the last senate session, I feel that the Coruscant Guard could handle the pressure better than the Senate Guard. I'm sure you remember the last session," Chancellor Palpatine said, regretful, and shook his head.

Fox did remember. He hadn't been asked to be there, so none of the Coruscant Guard, but he doubt he could forget the fallout of that session. A bounty hunter had snuck past the Senate Guard and had gotten into the building. No one had known until too late, when they had tried to kill a senator, accidently killing one of their aides instead. The Senate Guard hadn't even been able to catch the bounty hunter; they had escaped out onto the streets of Coruscant and that's when Fox and his men had finally been called in. They had caught the bounty hunter in no time.

"I'll organize a squad of the absolute best, Chancellor," Fox promised, coming back to himself.

"Good to hear that, Commander," Chancellor Palpatine said, smiling at Fox. "I've heard the Coruscant Guard has been having trouble recently, making civilians and senators unhappy, so I'm happy to see that you're still giving it your all, Commander Fox."

Fox froze, confused and the slightest bit angry. The Coruscant Guard was making civilians and senators unhappy? They were making his men unhappy. If natborns had been hostile to his men before, they were being downright cruel now. The riots since the Chancellor's speech had been getting more violent, with injuries for his men getting more common and the body count was slowly rising. Those who hurt his men on patrol had been grower bolder; they were going after whole squads now. Random senators approached his men when they left their headquarters, making demands of them that weren't under their jurisdiction, and then yelling at them when they refused. Few made any attempts to remember their names, and Fox suspected that some were purposefully getting the names wrong; it made a pang of guilt go through him at the memory of calling Cody by a name he didn't like. Fox handled it the same way he and Cody handled everything: he worked his ass off and shouldered it all himself. When calls came in about a squad going missing, Fox was the one who answered and searched for them. When the complaints about his men from senators piled up, Fox refused to pass them off to Thorn and Stone, not wanting them to see the requests of sending troopers back to Kamino.

"Is everything alright, Commander?" Chancellor Palpatine asked when he didn't respond. He was primarily able to catch the worry in the Chancellor's gaze, but Fox couldn't shake the feeling that the older man knew what Fox had been thinking, just like with General Yoda.

"Everything is fine, sir. I will have a word with my men about their behaviour," Fox said, keeping his voice neutral.

Chancellor Palpatine nodded. "I'm happy to hear that, Commander. I'm sure both of us can agree that we'd hate for something to happen to your men." Fox stiffened. The Chancellor's tone had been slightly odd; was that a threat? He found it difficult to associate the older man with threatening behaviour. "Well, that will be all, Commander Fox. Thank you for your time."

"Of course, sir." Knowing he had been dismissed, Fox exited the office, not paying any attention to the Senate Guards. He was able to ignore the looks of disgust the senators threw at him; his higher rank meant he could get away with more than the average trooper and Fox would use that to his advantage for his men.

He was quick to make it back the Coruscant Guard headquarters. He commed Thorn and Stone, asking them to meet him in his office, as he knew they weren't on a shift yet. Thorn had just gotten back from a riot and Stone was just about to go on a patrol. He would have to keep this quick.

Arriving at his office, Thorn and Stone having gotten there before him, Fox opened the door and gestured them inside. Once they were all inside with the door shut, Fox turned to face them. "I just got back from a meeting with Chancellor Palpatine and he would like some of the Coruscant Guard to be at the upcoming senate session."

"Let me guess," Thorn started, "he was forced to admit that the Senate Guard is useless?"

Fox paused. "He didn't phrase it like that, but essentially, yes."

"I don't have another shift for a while, so I can be there," Thorn said. "I'll gather some men that'll be good for the job."

"Sorry sir, I'll be on patrols, so I can't be there. I can recommend someone, though," Stone provided. "Lieutenant Thire, sir. He shows a lot of promise and I think a job like this could broaden his horizons. I can contact him before I leave."

"Before you go," Fox started, trying to think of the best way to phrase this, "there's one more thing I need to talk to both of you about. You'll… need to pass this along to everyone in the Guard."

The humour drained from Thorn's expression and Stone's eyes narrowed. "Okay," Thorn said, drawing the word out.

Fox sighed. They were both going to hate him for saying this. "The men need to stop making the civilians and senators unhappy."

Anger flashed across Stone's face, and confusion on Thorn's. "What's that supposed to mean?" Stone demanded, stepping towards Fox and voice bordering on insubordination. Fox let it slide; he was a bit angry about it, too.

"Stone," Thorn murmured soothingly, in the same voice Fox had heard him use to comfort younger cadets on Kamino or younger men in the Guard.

Stone breathed in, visibly relaxing. His eyes met Fox's, still a righteous fire in them, and Fox continued, "The behaviour of the men has been upsetting the people of this planet. The Chancellor…implied that if it didn't stop, something bad would happen to them."

"The Chancellor said that?" Stone asked, scoffing. "Aren't you the one who said he was nice, for a natborn?"

"I did," Fox admitted, still struggling to figure out the Chancellor's intention with his words, "but that doesn't change the fact that behaviour needs to change."

"So, what do I tell the men?" Stone challenged, getting angrier by the second. "Do whatever shitty senators tell them to do, no matter if it's their job or demeaning?"

Fox violently squashed the mental image of his men from the factory on Geonosis. If it kept his Guard alive, if it stopped another Geonosis from happening, then it had to happen. "Yes," Fox replied, short.

Stone stare at him for a moment, his expression showcasing utter disbelief. Then he huffed, slammed his helmet on, and stalked to the door. Before he was out of earshot, Fox could hear him muttering to himself, "How in the fuck did that shabuir become a commander?"

A cruel laugh echoed in his head and he could hear Cody's voice;how can you possibly be expected to lead? His expression shuddered for no more than a second, but of course Thorn saw it. His younger vod slowly approached him, then placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Thorn leaned over and pressed his forehead against Fox's. Fox, missing Wolffe and Cody and desperately wanting Thorn stay, lightly pressed back.

"He didn't mean that, ori'vod," Thorn whispered. "He's just upset and the two of you think pretty differently." Thorn pulled away and smiled at him. "Stone's pretty loud about how much he cares and you…well you're…" he trailed off, gesturing at Fox sheepishly.

Fox almost laughed at the apt description of himself. "I know how it works with Stone, by now. He'll be upset for a few hours, then he'll move on."

Thorn nodded. "Besides, he's working his best with what you've given him to work with." Fox look at him in confusion, not understanding where he was going with that statement. Thorn just gave him a knowing look. "We both know you're hiding something about all that data and flimsiwork you've been getting recently, Fox. We can see it's upsetting you and we both just want to help. We can't if you don't tell us what's wrong, though."

He tugged his shoulder out from under Thorn's hand. "You don't need to help me because everything is fine. Now, go get your men and meet me at the Senate Meeting. Shut the door behind you."

Fox exited his office, ignoring Thorn's heavy sigh. He went around their headquarters, gathering his men together. When he had a large squad, he repeated what he had told Stone about doing what senators ordered them to do. Most of them seemed confused, but replied with an enthusiastic, "Sir, yes sir!" Fox took it as a win.

His squad fell into step behind him as they made their way outside of the Guard headquarters. They hadn't made it very far before Fox heard someone shouting behind him, "Commander Fox!"

He quickly turned to face the sound, noting that all his men turned in sync with him, seeing another Guardsman running towards them. With his helmet off, exposing the healing bruises on his face and neck, Fox was able to identify him as Hive. Fox had been keeping an eye on him since Coral had let him out of the medbay and he was sure Hive wasn't where he was supposed to be.

"Trooper," Fox greeted, crossing his arms over his chest and directing an accusing glare at him. "Last time I checked, this wasn't patrol with Commander Stone."

Hive's gaze fell to the ground, guilty. "That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about, sir."

Fox could hear the snickers of the rest of his men and each of them was quick to shut up when he rested a glare on each individual. He thought he had taught his men better. Turning his gaze back to Hive, Fox sighed. "Carry on to the Senate Building, men. I'll be right behind you."

His men slowly passed him, and Fox ignored the paranoid voice reminding him of what had happened the last time he sent his along without him. "I assume this is important, trooper?"

Hive nodded, slow, as if he was unsure of himself. "I think so, sir. It could impact the efficiency of patrols I'm sent on." Fox raised an eyebrow, concern growing not just for the job, but the man in front of him who was looking more and more nervous. "I don't think I'm ready to be on patrols, sir."

"CMO Coral cleared you for duty," Fox stated, a bit confused.

"Physically, I'm fit for duty, sir. It's just..." Hive trailed off, frustrated and ran a hand through his hair. "I tried going to the lower levels before I was assigned a shift, but when I got there, it felt like I was starting to...panic. I was having trouble breathing and it was so dark, and it felt like someone was ready to jump me."

"This sounds like a medical matter. Why didn't you go to a medic?" Fox asked.

Hive's gaze was lowered in a look Fox was very familiar: shame. "I didn't want to disturb them, sir. Ever since we've started getting more duties, the medics have needed to stretch out supplies and they've been so busy. Not that you haven't been, Commander," he backtracked. "And... This isn't a problem they can fix this time, sir. That's why I came to you instead."

Fox was more than a little confused about why Hive would think he could handle this better than a medic. Looking closely, he was able to detect a hint of tears in the younger man's eyes and Fox bit back his panic. He really didn't know how want to take care of a crying vod'ika and tried to formulate a plan before the situation worsened.

Staring at Hive, Fox was reminded of Cody, wandering into their barracks with a smaller blonde-haired cadet, about to be decommissioned for something out of his control. If anyone outside of the Guard caught on to Hive's situation, they wouldn't hesitate to claim he'd compromise them for something he couldn't help and didn't want to deal with. For the first time, Fox admitted to himself that he would love to comm Cody and ask him for advice, but Fox didn't have that privilege. After everything Fox had said to him, Cody wouldn't help him with anything anymore. Fox was on his own, but he could guess what Cody would do.

"Helmet on, trooper," Fox said. Hive's gaze darted up, confused. "You'll be with me in the Senate Session. We'll find you a better solution when we're not so short on time."

Hive sagged, relief visible. He wiped away his forming tears, causing Fox relief, though he hid it better. "Thank you so much, Commander Fox."

Fox nodded. "Hurry up, trooper. We don't have all day."

His vod'ika smiled at him, a heavy weight gone from his posture. "Yes sir!" He tugged on his helmet and followed Fox to the Senate Building.

As soon as it was in sight, Fox saw his squad waiting for him outside. He once again felt relief flood through him when there was no natborns in sight, all likely inside preparing for the session.

"Men," Fox began when he and Hive had reached them, "four of you will be positioned out here to guard from the outside and monitor the sensors. You will alert me if they go off during meeting; no one should be wandering about. After the session begins you let nobody in without talking to me first. Am I clear?"

"Yes sir!" all of them chorused.

"Charm, Stab, Heist, Parker, you four will be out here. When Commander Thorn and Lieutenant Thire arrive with their men, tell them we'll be in the Senate Chamber. The rest of you, with me." Fox entered the building and made his way to their destination, his men striding in a line behind him. Most of the natborns ignored them, too focused on their own problems to care about clone troopers. The few that did give them glares kept their distance.

Arriving in the Senate Chamber, a bit more crowded than the hallways, Fox was quick to think of the best positioning for his men to be placed. "Hive, you're with me and we're guarding the Chancellor. The rest of you, two of each will be posted at each entrance of these chambers. Commander Thorn, Lieutenant Thire, and their men will occupy the balconies that are unoccupied."

All the men got to their places, except Fox and Hive, who had to wait for the Chancellor. Thorn, Thire, and their men arrived not too soon later, and Fox gave them their instructions. About half an hour later, Chancellor Palpatine arrived and the session of the Galactic Senate began.

It didn't take long in his first senate session for Fox to discover how much he hated them. The constant back-and-forth that went ultimately went nowhere, making it seem like these senators were only debating for the hell of it, was making his head pound. The slick, oily voices of the politicians were making him feel like he needed to go straight to the shower after this. Fox would admit, a part of him wanted to zone out and completely ignore the talking but forced himself to listen. It was important to know everything about the planet he was sworn to protect, including the political atmosphere.

Fox was granted a reprieve when the comm connected to his helmet and all those in the Guard chimed, alerting him to a call request. He muted his helmet speaker to answer. "Yes?"

"This is Charm, sirs. The motion sensors in the hallways have gone off multiple times."

Karking brilliant. "Copy that. Men, be on the lookout." Fox only just suppressed a flinch of surprise when a hand rested on his right vambrace. He ignored the urge to shout in anger at being touched by some who wasn't a vod and pull away; he turned to look at Chancellor Palpatine. "Is something wrong, sir?"

"You seemed troubled, Commander Fox," the older man muttered to him. "Did something happen?"

Fox didn't ask how in the actual kriff the Chancellor would know that; he had been muted and his body language had been formal as always. He unmated his helmet and answered, "One of my men reported the motion sensors in the building alerting them to the presence of someone."

The Chancellor looked unconcerned. "I wouldn't worry about it, Commander. I'm sure it's just a senator or aide that's late." He turned his attention back to the speaking senator, Senator Noran.

His helmet hid Fox's look of disbelief. The Chancellor had wanted the Coruscant Guard here because he didn't trust the Senate Guard, but when Fox had tried to do his job, he was rebuked? Fox knew it wasn't a senator or aide that hadn't arrived; everyone who had been expected to be here was already here, the first thing they'd done was take attendance. Muting himself again, Fox connected to the comm again and said, "Be on the lookout, men."

They didn't have to wait long for something to go wrong. Senator Troy had just opened her mouth to address the others present when a loud blaster shot echoed throughout the senate chambers. Her mouth still opened, Senator Troy fell backwards, and her body was caught by two of her aides. The screams that rang through the chamber did nothing to drown out the next series of blaster shots. Hallway sensors going off multiple times, non-stop blaster fire: a team of at least two.

Snapping into action, Fox looked around the chambers, his gaze being drawn to one of the balconies a bit higher than the Chancellor's platform. A balcony that was supposed to be empty. Someone was turning around, trying to exit back into the hallways of the building. Fox's eyes narrowed.

Through the comm system, Fox addressed Hive as he pulled out his grappling gun, "Stay here and protect the Chancellor."

He aimed high above the balcony and fired. Tugging to be sure it was connected, Fox allowed instincts to take over and jumped off the Chancellor's platform. He soared through the Senate Chamber, focusing on his destination as he quickly approached it.

He cast a quick look under him just in time to catch sight of a second person aiming a blaster at him and Fox dodged the shot at the last second.

The railway to the balcony was then in reach and Fox grabbed on to it with one hand, the momentum of the swing causing him to slam into it. He didn't let it slow him down, grabbing on with his other hand, dropping his grappling gun, and flipping over the railing onto the balcony, landing on his feet. Adrenaline coursing through him, Fox kicked the door to the hallway open and saw someone's back disappear around the left corner. He shoved himself forward, not willing to let them get a huge head start. "This is the Marshal Commander of the Coruscant Guard! Surrender yourself!" The attacker kept running.

As Fox gave chase, the comm channel was going crazy.

"Pursuing target that tried to shoot Commander Fox!"

"Third target caught at the entrance!"

"Moving to cut off Commander Fox's target!"

"Chancellor is protected!"

"Grim is down!"

Fox tried to block it out as best he could; he had to focus on catching his target. He could check on his men later.

Moving as fast as he could, it didn't take long for Fox to catch up. He disconnected from the comm system and shouted, "This is the Marshal Commander of the Coruscant Guard! Surrender yourself!" The attacker kept running.

He pulled out one of his blasters and fired a stun shot. Here on Coruscant, they were almost always wanted brought in alive. His shot only just missed as his target threw themselves around the right corner and Fox grunted in frustration. If these people got away, they would be proving the Coruscant Guard just as useless as the Senate Guard and Fox refused to let that stain their reputation.

As he turned, Fox saw his target about to enter a senator's office. He aimed his blaster and was about to shoot a stun blast when a blur of red and white thrown on top of them. There was a grunt as the two hit the ground and the Guard, whose armour identified him as Button, attempted to hold the attacker down.

Watching the struggle, Fox sighed in exasperation. He moved closer to the duo and the attacker managed to break a hand away from the Button's grip. It moved to grab the blaster on their belt, but Fox aimed his and fired before the attacker had the chance. They stopped struggling, falling into unconsciousness as the stun shot hit them.

"Thank you, sir," his trooper said, rising to his feet with a hint of sheepishness in his voice.

"Was jumping onto them really necessary, trooper?" Fox asked, adding a bit of annoyance to his voice.

"Well, I thought they were going to get away and I didn't see you there, sir." Button's head was turned towards the ground.

"Be more aware of your surroundings next time, trooper and don't let them get a hold of their blaster." Fox gestured towards the unconscious heap on the floor. "Let's get him up and to the Senate Guard. The least they can do is get them secured."

Fox and Button picked up the attacker, each of them wrapping an arm to hold the attacker up. Having no trouble carrying the attacker, the two reached the Senate Chambers to see multiple Senate Guards standing outside one of the entrances. Fox stopped the scoff from escaping; once again, he and his men were doing all the work.

They handed the attacker over to two of the Senate Guards. "We caught one of the attackers. How many were there?"

"Two more, one other already brought into custody. A group of clones went after each one." Their reply was short, and the voice was hard. Fox just nodded in acknowledgement, not bothering to make himself angry by talking to the two. He made his way into the Senate Chamber, Button trailing after him.

Upon entering, there was slight chaos in the room. Fox noticed Coral and a few other Guard medics had been called in and were treating senators, aides, and troopers with wounds from the blaster fire. There were five of his men being treated, three senators, and two aides. There were six white sheets laid on the ground, bodies visible under them; Fox could see the edges of armour under two sheets. He forced himself to turn away and continue examining the room.

Hive was still by the Chancellor's side, guarding him like a watchdog. Thorn had taken charge of the situation, directing the men and making sure the remaining senators got to safety. Fox moved in Thorn's direction. "What's the situation?"

Thorn turned to face him. "All three intruders have been caught, sir. The second intruder tried to escape through one of these doors, guarded by our men. He was easy to catch. Lieutenant Thire took a squad after the one that tried to shoot you. He lost three in the chase and two were injured. This intruder was a lot more...trigger-happy. The building is secure; no one has gone in or out." Fox had to hand it to the younger commander. For all that Thorn joked around and refused to address Fox by any sort of position of authority when it was the two of them, and sometimes Stone, he was the perfect picture of professionalism as he spoke.

"Has it been discovered how they entered the building?"

"It was a window in a senator's office, sir. They smashed it to get in and the office had no alarm." Fox could feel the incredulity in Thorn's voice. Fox agreed with the sentiment; he'd have to look into fixing that.

"And the injured?"

"Natborns are being sent to private hospitals and our men are being transported back to the medbay, Commander."

Fox nodded. "Excellent work, Commander Thorn. You have a great handle on the situation."

He noticed a slight stiffening in Thorn's body language and was reminded of the stronger-than-average CC cadet that had looked at Fox with stars in his eyes. Pushing down the familiar uncomfortable feeling, he was about to continue when he noticed the Chancellor and Hive approaching them. "Sir," Fox greeted when the two reached him. "I apologize for not staying to protect you."

Chancellor Palpatine waved a hand. "Nonsense, Commander. Those intruders threatened many innocent lives and you had your own job to do. Besides, your trooper here did an excellent job by himself."

Fox looked at Hive, a feeling of pride rising in him. Not even a few hours ago, the younger man had looked on the verge of panicking, but there was now a slight confidence in his posture. The high praise of the Chancellor must have had something to do with it.

"Speaking of protecting me," the Chancellor continued, "is it safe to return to my office now? I heard all the intruders were caught and in custody."

"As long as you have a guard with you sir, I feel it's safe enough to return to your office," Fox replied, and Thorn nodded in agreement. "Would you like me to escort you back, Chancellor?"

"No, no, it's fine, Commander Fox. You have your own men to attend to here. Your trooper is surely capable." The Chancellor gestured at Hive. "Though, I do have one quick request for you, Commander. Today's events have proved a theory of mine, so I would like you to begin assigning your men shifts in the Senate Building and guarding senators. Essentially, I would like to give some of the Senate Guard's duties to the Coruscant Guard, which also gives your men a chance to prove themselves. You have enough time and men, correct?"

Fox hesitated to answer. The truth was, he didn't really anymore. The steady growth of duties the Coruscant Guard had to handle, and the hidden dangers meant a decline in time and troopers. About to tell Chancellor Palpatine that, Fox was stopped by the look on the Chancellor's face. It was mostly a kind smile, but there was something the slightest bit off about it. Something about that smile screamed danger to Fox, but he was confused as to why a smile by the Chancellor would equate to danger.

Nonetheless, he found himself replying, "I will get on it right away, sir."

The Chancellor beamed. "Excellent! Thank you, Commander." Then, with a nod at Fox and Thorn, he was on his way, Hive following right after.

The two commanders proceeded to busy themselves with helping the medics, getting all the injured onto transport beds so they could be transferred. Once it was just Coruscant Guards in the Senate Chambers and the senators and aides had been sent to private hospitals, Thorn, in a quiet voice, told Fox, "We don't have enough men for that. You know that, Commander."

Fox pressed his lips together, then replied, fierce, "I'll make it work."

Thorn breathed a heavy sigh, and then moved to help the final trooper onto a transport bed. When Thorn turned to move, Fox got a good look at his right arm and jumped back in surprise, letting out a yell.

There was a big, black, hairy thing on his younger vod's arm, just sitting there with beady little eyes. Thorn quickly turned back to Fox, panic evident in his body language. "Fox, what is it? What's wrong?"

"What the absolute fuck is that on your arm?" Fox demanded, trying and failing to stop panicking, as it was only making Thorn worse, too.

Thorn rapidly checked both his arms, recoiling in disgust when he caught sight of the same thing that Fox had. They both stood and stared for a moment, then the thing and all long, eight hairy legs started moving.

Both of them screamed and Fox's hands instinctively went to one of his blasters on his utility belt. He flicked off the stun shot mode and shakily aimed it at the thing still moving on Thorn's arm. Thorn was still making panicked noises, which were getting worse as Fox aimed his blaster at the thing and his arm started shaking.

"Stay fucking still and I'll get rid of it!" Pure panic was going through Fox, but the shaking slowed in Thorn's arm to where he could aim at the thing. The only problem was that now his hands were shaking.

Just when Fox thought he had gotten a good shot at the thing, he was abruptly pulled from his panic when his blaster was torn away from his grip and he was shoved to ground. Above him stood Coral, who looked furious. Fox would never admit to being scared of the CMO in that moment, but he had never seen Coral look that mad before.

"What the fuck is wrong with you di'kuts?" Coral demanded waving his arms around in pure anger. Fox stared in sick fascination as Coral lost control. The CMO stalked over to Thorn and pulled out a tissue. "It's just a fucking spider! You get rid of it by picking it up with a tissue," which he did, "and then letting it go off into the world to live its life!" He placed the tissue on the ground and the spider scurried away. "You don't try to shoot it, especially when it's on someone's arm! Why are you two fucking like this? Do you really think this is setting a good example for your men?" Coral gestured at the men on the transport beds, who were cowering in fear of the medic.

He stared at the two commanders for a moment before scoffing in disgust. He grabbed a transport bed and made his way to the door, muttering angrily to himself the whole time. Fox was pretty sure he heard something along the lines of, "I dedicate my life to these morons, and this is the thanks I get."

"Oh my God," Thorn said softly as the door shut behind Coral

Fox couldn't find it in himself to get off the floor just yet. "What just happened?"

Thorn didn't respond for a full minute, but when he did, his voice was horrified. "Fox, I think we just broke Coral."

He refused to believe it. "It can't be. He'll get over it."

Thorn gave him a look through the helmet, obviously judgmental, but made his way to one of the remaining transport beds. On the way, Fox gripped one of his arms and hauled himself up, ignoring the indignant voice.

Fox sighed, tired, as he grabbed his own transport bed. He was going to really need to work to make this up to Coral.

---

Fox wished he could take back his agreement to having his men in the Senate Building. Ever since they had started taking patrols and being private guards for senators, complaints from senators had started racking up, as well as requests for decommissioning. It was for the smallest and stupidest things. One decommissioning request came because a trooper had sneezed too loudly. As there were now a lot more troopers in the building now and Fox spent more time in the hallways, ready to intercept if a senator got in one of his men's faces. After all of this, Fox was honestly getting ready to tear his slightly greying hair out.

The only upside was that he got a bit more of a chance to work with Stone. While Thorn kept pushing his way into Fox's life, Stone and himself had kept a distance between them and tended to argue more often than not. A part of Fox definitely thought Stone didn't like him and even though he could get on Fox's nerves a lot, he could respect the other man. He fiercely cared about his men, trained with them, and Fox had seen him comforting one of the younger men after a bad shift in the Senate.

He was currently working a shift with Stone and a handful of their men, doing patrols around the building. Fox was about to report to Chancellor Palpatine for a routine check-in—not really looking forward to a foggy memory—when his helmet comm alerted him to one of the men trying to contact. He answered with a, "Yes?"

"Commander Fox, there's an incident involving Commander Stone and Tailor outside Senator Farrow's office. The situation is just escalating; Commander Stone and Senator Farrow are making each other angrier."

Fox bit back an angry sigh. "I'll be right there." He moved as fast as he could without running, willing Stone to calm the fuck down before he did something he couldn't take back.

When Fox arrived, there was a vicious back-and-forth going on between the commander and senator, Tailor behind Stone with her gaze downcast. Behind Senator Farrow was her ten-year old son.

"Ma'am," Fox greeted as he got closer. All gazes turned to him, Senator Farrow angry, Stone stiffened, and Taylor look relieved. "Marshal Commander Fox. What's wrong?"

Senator Farrow breathed deeply. "Your trooper," accused eyes turned to Tailor, "was harassing my son."

The little boy shook the senator's dress. "Mama, that's not tr— "

He was cut off by the senator roughly shoving a hand over her son's mouth. "Be quiet!"

All three of them visibly restrained themselves from moving closer to her, but Stone didn't hesitate to fire back, "Respectfully, ma'am, that's a lie and you know it."

Senator Farrow scoffed. "Then, instead of coming over here and disciplining his trooper properly, this commander started yelling at me!"

Her son shook free. "Mama, she was just being nice! She saw me crying and was telling me stories of her brothers to cheer me up!"

The senator looked at her son. "Darling, these are clearly men. Well, not men, but you know what I mean: war machines that have a male-like appearance. You need to stop projecting onto them; they're little better than droids, so they clearly can't be brothers."

With those words, Fox knew Stone's temper had snapped. He quickly put himself between his commander and the senator, stopping Stone from throwing a punch. "Ma'am, I sincerely apologize for both of my men. Both of them are relatively new to working in the Senate and haven't fully learned their place yet. I promise, I will make sure they receive the discipline they deserve."

Senator Farrow sniffed, getting close to his helmet. "You'd better. If I find out these two haven't learned their lesson, there will be hell to pay."

Fox nodded, glad he was wearing his helmet. "Of course, ma'am."

With that, the senator grabbed her son's hand and pulled him away, going back to office and slamming the door. Once they were out of sight, Fox turned to face his two troopers, looking at Tailor. "What happened?"

Tailor stroked a stray hair that had fallen from her bun out of her face."I was just finishing up my patrol shift when I heard crying. I went to check it out and I found Senator Farrow's son crying outside her office. I went up to him, but he looked a bit scared of me, so I took off my helmet to see if it would calm him down. He mostly stopped crying, but still looked really upset and I started telling him funny stories about my brothers to make him laugh. It worked, but that's when Senator Farrow came out and accused me of trying to hurt him. I promise I didn't, sir! I just wanted him to feel better."

Fox turned to Stone. "And you?"

Stone sighed, his posture still tense. "Tailor wasn't answering her comm so I made my way to her last known position. When I got closer, I could hear Senator Farrow yelling at her. I saw Senator Farrow in Tailor's face and Tailor looked really scared, so I put myself between them. I got so angry by Senator Farrow insisting she was right that I started yelling. Then you showed up." Tailor nodded at his words.

Glaring at the door the senator had disappeared behind, Fox said, "Tailor, you're free to go. Continue on with your duties."

Tailor hesitated. "Um, no punishment, sir?"

Fox turned to look at her, his lips twitching upwards for a second. "You should probably hurry along before I change my mind."

She smiled in relief. "Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!" Tailor put on her helmet and snapped off a salute, then was on her way.

Now just the two commanders, Fox let some of the irritation he was feeling seep through his armour. "Did you think showing your anger would help, Commander Stone?"

Stone bristled. "Well, being polite and trying to explain the situation to her wasn't working."

"That's because the senators don't care about that. They care about themselves, being right, and feeling like they're doing something," Fox stressed.

"So, what? I'm just supposed to ignore every piece of abuse they hurl at my troopers and promise them that I'll punish them when they're not in the wrong?" Stone asked, scoffing.

Fox fucking hated his life. "Yes, that's exactly what you're supposed to do. I'm glad you understand, Commander Stone."

Stone shook his head, letting out a bitter laugh. "You really don't give a shit about us, do you, sir? You care so much about taking the easy way out that you don't eat in the mess hall, you only train when no one else is there, and you never sleep in your bunk anymore! You'd rather appease these assholes rather than getting their behaviour to change. Don't you see how this planet is starting to weigh our troopers down? Verbal abuse from senators, verbal and physical abuse from some civilians, dwindling medical and food supplies... Our troops are really unhappy."

"Of course I notice these things, but there's only so much I can do. I've checked these things, Stone. I can't change anything because we're not legally considered sentient. We're property to the Galactic Republic. Misdirection is the best we can do; just be glad it isn't worse." Fox thought of all the decommissioning requests sitting on his desk.

That caused Stone to pause. "Wait, what do you mean by that?"

Fox shook his head. He had promised himself none of his troopers would know about the requests. "Don't worry about it, I've got it handled."

"Clearly, you don't!" Stone shot back. "Why don't you just let us help you? That's why Thorn and I are even here. Do you need to be the hero or something, Marshal Commander?"

"I don't. I can just handle it myself," Fox replied, voice tight.

"Whatever." Stone scoffed. "Just because you don't care enough to fight for our men, doesn't mean I'll stand by and let the people on this planet treat them like shit." He moved to walk away.

"Commander Stone," Fox called. Stone stopped but didn't turn to look at Fox. "You're done in the Senate Building. You can't handle it and your talents suit you elsewhere."

Fox couldn't see or hear if Stone responded to him, but the other man was certainly pissed off as he stalked away.

He didn't let himself slump against the wall as he checked the time. Fox quickly made his way to Chancellor Palpatine's office.

---

"Ugh," Thorn groaned, leaning his head over the armrest on Fox's office couch.

Fox raised an eyebrow at the display but didn't turn to look at him. "Yes, Thorn?"

"Why does data work have to be so boring, Fox?" Thorn demanded, still dramatically splayed on the couch. "Can't it be just a bit more interesting if I'm gonna be stuck doing it even though we weren't made to be doing it?"

He snorted as he picked up another datapad. "Tell me about it."

"Seriously, though, how are you so good at it? You can sit for hours doing this shit and I need to take a break what feels like every half hour," Thorn ranted.

Fox smirked, looking over to his little brother. "It's pretty simple: I'm just better than you."

Thorn whistled and slowly clapped his hands. "Wow, what a roast!" His smirk morphed into a smile when he heard Thorn laughing. "You know Fox, that one hurt my soul."

"Sounds like a you problem," Fox retorted.

His younger brother sniffed. "It is a me problem, thank you— "

There was a loud knock on Fox's door. Fox straightened up, wiping the smile from his face and Thorn moved so that he was sitting on the couch instead of draped across it.

"Come in!" Fox called.

The door opened and Fox saw it was Hive that entered. Fox noticed that his hair had been freshly dyed, red stripes running through his shoulder-length hair. "Sirs," Hive greeted with a salute, though he kept his other hand behind his back. Fox narrowed his eyes at it.

"How can I help you, Hive?" Fox asked, getting straight to the point.

Hive smiled, though his gaze was directed to the floor. "I wanted to give you something, sir, as a thank you for everything you've done for me. Coral has been really helpful, making sure I'm on patrols of this district, and I think I'll be ready to go back on lower level patrols soon."

After the disaster with Thorn, Fox had indeed braved the medbay to talk to Coral about Hive and his trouble with the lower levels. He had also felt the need to apologize. Coral agreed to forgive him if he didn't go work with Thorn again. Fox had caved, though reluctant because Thorn made his job much more entertaining.

"Gifting me something is unnecessary. It is good to hear you're doing better," Fox replied on autopilot, a bit stunned he'd have made that big of an impression. He was a bit disbelieving as well that Hive would've thought he cared.

"It's just a small something, sir." Hive moved forward, taking his arm out from behind his back and placing the gift in front of Fox on his desk.

Fox stared into the black eyes of the plush fox on his desk. Its pointy ears, nose, and all four paws were also black. Below its chin, on the stomach, and the tip of its pointy tail were white. The rest of the fox was copper. Thorn was also staring at it, something akin to shock on his face.

Trying to fill the silence, Hive explained, "I found him while I was on patrol in the Federal District. He made me think of you, so I picked him out of the garbage and cleaned him up."

There was a lump in Fox's throat as Hive spoke and he stared at the fox. Fox gently picked it up. It was so soft. He cleared his throat. "Thank you, trooper," Fox said. "It can, um, go on the couch. I'm sure it'll be more comfortable there."

"You're welcome, sir! I'm so glad you like him!" Hive replied cheerfully

There was a bit of an awkward silence before Fox spoke again, "You're dismissed, Hive."

The youngest vod nodded goodbye to both of his commanders and was soon out the door, shutting it behind him.

"Fox?" Thorn asked. Fox was silent. "Ori'vod?" This time, Thorn was a bit more insistent.

Fox's gaze snapped to Thorn. "Why would he think I cared?"

Thorn frowned at him, confused. "What?"

"Stone thinks I don't give a shit about all of you," Fox said, voice soft.

An exasperated sigh echoed throughout the room. "You two really need to always be at each other's throats, don't you? I think it's just because of the ways you express yourselves. You're a lot more reserved and you show you care through small ways, whereas Stone yells at senators."

Fox shook his head. "There has to be some truth to it. Stone's the second person to accuse me of not caring." Thorn tilted his head. "Cody," Fox whispered, gaze dropping to the fox he was holding.

"I used to see you two together all the time," Thorn said, sounding a bit cautious. "The rest of us never knew why you two stopped being around each other."

He let out a short laugh in return, just a bit hysterical. "Neither did I."

There was a pause. "Well, I don't know Cody that well, but I do know Stone. You two are just different enough that you have trouble understanding each other."

"He thinks I should do something to change people's behaviour to the Guard instead of just appeasing them to get out of the situation," Fox explained. "I don't know what I could do, though."

"You could talk to the Chancellor?" Thorn suggested. "You've always said that he's been kind to you. Maybe he'd be willing to step in."

"You think it'd be worth it?" Fox asked.

Thorn nodded. "Definitely."

Fox exhaled deeply. He pulled out his private communicator to the Chancellor. He called him and the response was immediate. "Is everything alright, Commander Fox?"

"I need to speak to you about something important, Chancellor, if you're not busy."

"Of course, Commander. Come right up." The connection was disconnected.

"Good luck, ori'vod," Thorn said, smiling encouragingly at him.

Fox hummed, standing from his chair. As he passed the couch, he handed the plush fox to Thorn, who gave a small laugh and cuddled it.

He left his office and made his way to the Chancellor's office in the Senate Building. Upon reaching the door, both Senate Guards just stepped aside to let him pass. Fox opened the door and shut it behind him, moving to stand in front of the Chancellor's desk, where the older man was sitting, surrounded large piles of datapads. The older man looked...stressed.

"Are you alright, Chancellor?" Fox asked, cautious.

Chancellor Palpatine looked up and smiled at him, a bit tired. "Everything is fine, Commander Fox. Just a lot of data work that I don't really understand. I actually may as well ask you this while you're here, would you mind taking some of it for me? You've been trained for this your whole life and a lot of this work will make it easier for you to keep an eye on your brothers of the frontlines. Besides, you can't have that much to do, right Commander? Coruscant isn't that eventful."

None of that was really...true. While Fox knew the paperwork, he hadn't been trained to sit for hours doing it. He wouldn't really be kept up to date with troopers on the frontlines; those reports treated them as simple statistics whereas the command chat—which, Fox admitted, he hadn't really had time to keep up with—was a lot more personal with their losses. While at the beginning Fox might've had time, he didn't anymore. Even when he wasn't on-shift there was always something to be done. Still, he needed to stay on Chancellor Palpatine's good side. "It won't be a problem, sir."

The Chancellor let out a relieved sigh. "Thank you, Commander. I'll get it transferred to you once we're done here. Now, what did you need to discuss?"

Here goes nothing. "Sir, the Coruscant Guard has started running low on supplies, food and medical. Myself and my CMO have tried sending in requests for more, but we're always denied. I was wondering if there was anything you could do. My men are getting incredibly stretched thin."

There was an apologetic look on Chancellor Palpatine's face. "I'm sorry, Commander, but the Coruscant Guard aren't anywhere near the highest priority. Any remaining supplies need to be sent to the frontlines, where they face actual battles and hardships. I'm sure you and your men will be just fine. Is there anything else, Commander?"

Fox swallowed the feeling of overwhelming anger, moving onto his next concern, though he didn't hold out much hope any longer. "My Guard has also been having trouble with the senators and civilians of this planet, sir. Many civilians have been physically and verbally abusive to my men. The senators see fit to yell at them even though they have little reason to and suggest harsh punishments that do not fit the offense."

This time, the Chancellor gave him an odd look. "I highly doubt it's that bad, Commander. Senators are good people and most of the civilians are, as well. Even if it was that bad, why wouldn't your men be able to handle it? I'm sure your trainers were tough on you, physically and verbally, so I doubt the people of this planet could do much worse. Either way, I wouldn't be able to do anything, Commander. I don't have enough influence over everyone."

"I see, sir," Fox said. He couldn't stop the feeling of bitterness that arose within him. For all that the Chancellor acted kind, he didn't bother to look any further into Fox's words. Fox hadn't been on this planet for a long time, but he'd been here long enough to see that most of the senators weren't good people and were only looking out for themselves. And the claim that they had too much influence for him to do anything? For being the most powerful man in the Galactic Republic, that was kind of pathetic.

Fox couldn't hide his flinch at the suddenly furious look the Chancellor gave him. After seeing nothing but a polite and kind older man, Fox could admit to being a little surprised. The look scared him, just a bit. It was like he knew exactly what Fox had thought "You're right, sir. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

The furious look was gone just as quickly as it had appeared, replaced with the signature, kind smile. "Nonsense, Commander! I'm happy we had this little chat... I can finally trust this work is going to be done properly. You're dismissed."

"Yes, Chancellor." Fox nodded, then made his way out the door. He didn't let any emotion show in his body language or in his voice. He was angry, confused, and feeling a little desperate. He didn't know where to go from here. He wondered if Cody would've done better than him.

Fox walked quicker. He hoped Thorn was still on his couch cuddling the plush fox.

---

It was extremely late—extremely early? Fox wasn't sure—when Fox stumbled out of his office, exhausted. He can't remember the last time he had fallen asleep, he has had so much to do, but he can't rest, yet. He had to get Chancellor Palpatine's data work to him by 06:00, which was only four hours away. He still had so much to do; he would need more caf if he was going to get this done.

He made his way to the mess hall, where the caf machine was. There was a few vode there, ones that had late shifts or were just getting back and stopped to eat before they got some sleep. There was a small line to the caf machine and Fox made his way to the end of it. A few of his troopers nodded at him, a few saluted, and Fox waved them off. He was too tired to care about small things like that right now.

He was finally at the front of the line. He set the machine to the setting he liked and then the sound of a voice from behind him nearly startled him out of his skin. "A bit early for caf, isn't it, Commander?" The voice was a bit hesitant, as if not wanting him to make him upset.

Fox turned to stare at Stone, trying to calm his pounding heart. He supposed he had no one to blame but himself for being so tired. Stone looked a bit meeker than usual, an apologetic expression on his face, likely about the argument. Fox gave him a small smile. It was okay. "Time is an illusion."

Stone snorted, sounding a bit shocked. "Fair enough, sir."

He opened the mug cupboard and grabbed the white one in front of him, barely paying attention. He placed it on the machine, letting it fill up. Forcing himself to listen to his surroundings, Fox was able to hear quiet snickering Stone's direction. He raised an eyebrow, turning to him again. "Is there something funny, Commander Stone?"

The bald commander's left hand was covering his mouth, so he used his right hand to point at Fox's mug. "I think you're a bit tired, sir."

Fox narrowed his eyes at the laughing commander, then turned to see the hilarity. When he got a good at the side of the mug Stone was looking at, he sighed. Fuck. He'd been so out of it that he'd forgotten to check the fucking name on the mug. In bold, black writing, was Thorn's name.

He considered changing mugs, but Thorn's mug was already full. It'd be a waste of water to have to wash two mugs instead of one. Instead, Fox moved the mug off the machine, placing it beside the machine to give Stone room to make his caf. Fox pulled out a red marker and crossed out Thorn's name. Under it, he wrote his name with the bright red.

"Thorn's gonna be upset," Stone idly remarked, staring at the mug with a smirk on his face.

Fox picked it up. "He can cry me a river later when I'm not so tired."

The sound of Stone's laughter followed him out of the mess hall.

He made his way back to his office fast. The time to do the reports was slowly dwindling. Fox turned, expecting to see just his door. To his utter shock, a familiar looking vod was leaning against his door. Fox almost dropped his caf upon recognizing him.

"Wolffe." Fox cursed his voice for being smaller than he would've liked.

The other commander's head jerked up and wow, he did not look good. There were bags under his eyes, his hair and uniform greys were rumpled, and Fox could swear there was the slightest hint of wetness on his cheeks. Fox's heart dropped. "Hey, Fox'ika." Wolffe's voice was soft and Fox only ever heard that voice when something was wrong.

Fox snapped into action, careful not to drop his caf, and moved to get the door opened. "What happened?" he asked, wanting to get straight to the point.

He felt Wolffe give him an odd look as he moved to set his caf on the desk before going back to help Wolffe into the room. "You… haven't heard? It's been all over the command chat."

He felt a pang of guilt go through him. Fox had been so busy, he hardly ever checked it. "I don't check it very often. I don't really talk to anyone in there except you and Ponds." Sometimes, I check on Cody and was incredibly proud when I found out he was a marshal commander.

Wolffe nodded. "Right." Fox helped him to the couch, where Wolffe collapsed onto it, then sat next to him.

"So, what happened?" Fox prodded, trying to keep his voice gentle. Wolffe looked like he was about to break.

His ori'vod let out a shattering sigh. "I failed them, Fox. I failed my entire Pack."

Fox was confused. Wolffe was a great commander, he didn't need to see him in action to believe it. Wolffe's men loved him, Fox had heard from his troops that had batchmates in the 104th that the entire battalion sang his praises. "What do you mean?"

Wolffe suddenly lunged towards Fox, pulling him snug to his chest. Fox hugged him back, still confused. His ori'vod's face was buried in his hair. "They're all dead, Fox'ika, all except Boost and Sinker and General Koon. They destroyed our ship and hunted down all the escape pods to kill off the survivors. We're all that's left."

He heard Wolffe's voice hitch and was pretty sure there were tears in his hair. Fox patted Wolffe's back, not sure how to comfort someone who had lost almost their entire battalion and blamed himself. "It's not your fault, ori'vod."

Wolffe let out a bitter laugh. "Sure, it's not." The two were quiet for a moment, then his brother continued, "Would it upset you if we changed out paint? I know I said I wanted to match with you, but now… Now we need to honour the fallen."

Fox almost scoffed. "Why the fuck would I care? Do what you need to do, Wolffe, for yourself and Boost and Sinker."

His brother held him more tightly. "Thank you, Fox'ika. Can we… Can we stay here for a while?"

He glanced at his desk, filled the brim with reports. He had less than four hours to get it in. What would happen if he didn't get it in on time? Would he get in trouble? Would his men? Fox almost slapped himself. Here he was, worrying about data work and himself while Wolffe was practically crying into his hair and clinging to him in a way that screamed he thought Fox would disappear if he let go. No wonder Stone and Cody thought he didn't care.

Fox squeezed his brother back. "Yeah, we can stay. Just for a bit."

Wolffe's arms loosened a bit, allowing Fox to get up to remove his armour. Once Fox was done, Wolffe tugged him close and they squeezed together on the tiny couch. His older brother's arm started to loosen as he fell asleep.

An hour and a half later, Fox carefully untangled himself from Wolffe. To replace him, he placed the plush fox in Wolffe's arms.

Fox eventually found the report about the search for a Separatist Superweapon and General Koon's request for an entire battalion's worth of men. They were buried under a pile of requests from senators, demanding his troopers to be decommissioned.

---

He couldn't stop the excitement from flooding him. Fox had only been on three planets his entire life and two of them were hated with ever fibre of his being. The third also being well on its way. Now, for the first time Fox had arrived on Coruscant, Fox was allowed to leave the planet, accompanying Senator Organa on a diplomatic mission to his home planet with a squad to protect the man. Being the only Guard Commander who hadn't left the planet yet—though Stone had worked with Representative Binks, so Fox couldn't say he envied the man—Fox though he had earned the right to be excited.

He was just finishing suiting up, only having his helmet left, when a knock echoed though his office.

"Come in!"

Both Stone and Thorn entered his office and Fox raised an eyebrow at them. As their work piled up—and just recently, the incompetence of the CSF had led to Chancellor Palpatine deciding they need to be in the prisons, too—it was becoming less common to see all the commanders together at once.

"What's wrong, you two?"

Thorn sighed, crossing his arms. "We're gonna have a problem with the amount of work when you're gone, Fox."

Fox frowned. "A fresh batch of shinies just came in from Kamino." A bit too fresh, all of them being under ten. Sure, they'd gotten the occasional nine-year old, same as the frontlines, but no battalion had gotten a batch of just nine-year olds. "Why will the amount of work be a problem?"

"We can make it work with the rest of the troops, but Thorn and I'll have a problem. Our regular work, added on with yours, and now having to work in the prisons… That's too much for the two of us. We'll be stretched too thin," Stone explained.

He ran a hand through his curly hair; he'd been worried this would be the case. Fox couldn't stay behind, Chancellor Palpatine had specifically ordered Fox on this mission. "Are there any command clones almost finished their training on Kamino?"

Thorn shook his head. "They're all too young or already have a battalion."

Fox sighed, glancing up at the chronometer in his office. He was expected to meet Senator Organa at his transport in twenty minutes. He thought in circles about how to fix this problem for his commanders, not wanting to leave them floundering. He'd sleep in our barracks, eat with us, train with us; he'd be a command class clone in all but designation. Cody's words about Rex floated to the front of his mind, causing Fox's mouth to tighten as he concentrated. "Lieutenant Thire's a CC, right Stone?"

Stone nodded. "He is. I'm not sure why he was sent here before his training was finished, though."

"But he's had some of the training done, right?"

"Without a doubt," Thorn confirmed. "I mean, have you seen him in action?"

"Then I have a solution to this problem." Fox pulled out his communicator and contacted the Lieutenant, not looking at the confused faces of his commanders. "Lieutenant Thire, this is Marshal Commander Fox. You are needed in my office, immediately."

"I'll be right there, sir," Thire responded.

True to his word, the three commanders didn't have to wait longer than two minutes for Thire to arrive. They saw him approaching, as Thorn had opened the door. Thire slowed as he got close enough to see all three of them in Fox's office. "Um, sirs?"

"Come in, Lieutenant. I need to leave soon. Helmet off, trooper," Fox directed once Thire was standing in his office. He obeyed, taking off his helmet to reveal a simple regulation haircut.

Fox kept his face blank as he stared at Thire. The younger man's body language grew more and more tense the longer Fox stared at him. Then, Fox surprised him by giving Thire a light smile. "Congratulations on your promotion to a commander in the Coruscant Guard, Commander Thire."

Thire's mouth fell open and Fox heard Thorn snort. "Sir? What are you talking about?"

He gave a light smirk. "We need another commander in the Guard and you're the best option. You know how the Guard works, the troopers look up to you and respect you, you've been very successful in all your missions, especially your escort with General Yoda, and you've had command class training, even if it's not done."

The youngest commander recovered quickly. "Thank you, sir. I hope to make you all proud. When will I be sent back to Kamino to finish my training?"

Fox shook his head. "You won't be. We need another commander right now and training on Kamino would take too long. Luckily for the Guard, Commanders Stone, Thorn, and myself have all finished our training, so we will be the ones to finish your training. Understood?"

Thire looked confused but nodded. "I understand, sir."

"Good. As I'm sure you know, I'll be on an escort mission with Senator Organa. While I'm gone, Commanders Stone and Thorn will begin teaching you the reins. I trust the two of you can work out your schedule for this?" He turned to look at his two older commanders.

"Yes sir," Stone responded, glancing at Thire with a small smile.

"Then I shall be on my way. I don't want to keep Senator Organa waiting." He picked up his helmet and, as he passed Thire on his way out, he placed a hand on his shoulder. "I look forward to seeing you succeed, Commander Thire."

Thire stiffened with pride. "Thank you, sir. I won't let you down."

Fox nodded, then exited his office. He could hear Thorn and Stone congratulating Thire, their celebrations quite loud.

Now that he had found a solution to the problem, and his Guard wouldn't have gone to disaster by the time he got back, Fox allowed a small bounce to his steps. He couldn't wait to get off Coruscant and see what Alderaan had to offer.

---

Fox was a bit sad that his escort mission to Alderaan was ending. Compared to the other three planets he'd been on, Alderaan was stunning. The nature scenery on the planet was refreshing after the bustling cities of Coruscant. The bodies of water shimmered with the sky. The air smelled sweet and pure, so different from the filtered air of the Federal District and the smog of the Underworld. Alas, Fox had a duty to Coruscant, and he had to return with Senator Organa.

After escorting Senator Organa back to his office and ensuring he was safe, Fox and his men were dismissed, and they made their way back to the Guard headquarters. Some of his vode went to the mess hall to eat, others went to the barracks to get some well-deserved rest—Fox's vode had done an excellent job—but Fox made his way straight the office shared by his three commanders.

About two days ago, Thorn had left him a comm message. His brother had been somber and his worry and panic about something had been evident. He had informed Fox of something horrible happening on Coruscant and that none of the commanders knew how to handle the situation with care. The comm had left Fox on edge, but he had been unable to get the time to comm back and order someone to tell him what was wrong.

Now, walking though the Guard headquarters to get to his destination, Fox was confused. The Guard headquarters hadn't been this quiet since Fox had been the only there, and that had only been for a few hours. Even with all the shifts that occurred around the planet, the headquarters were always loud, whether it be the chatter of the mess hall, the cheering in the training room, or the noises of sleeping vode.

Now, it was almost silent.

As Fox passed the barracks, he looked in and the sight made him pause for a second. The barracks were just as decorative as they had been when Fox had left, lights strewn across the room, posters on the walls, art drawn by his men hanging, but the sight that surprised him was his troopers. No one was in their bunks; all the mattresses had been taken off and were on the floor with troopers cuddled up to each other. There was the occasional massiff in the pile, as well.

His heart sank and he continued his way to the office, moving at a much faster pace. Some of his Guard were likely on shift and a good many of them had been in the barracks, but no one had been in the training room or mess hall. The numbers didn't add up. Where was everyone? What the fuck had happened? He hadn't been gone much longer than a week.

After an agonizingly long walk, Fox reached the office. He didn't bother knocking, going straight in. Thorn was sitting at his desk, head in his hands. Stone was leaning against his desk, expression tight as he clutched Thire's hand. Thire's lips were pressed together and his gaze was on the floor. All three of them were in their blacks.

Fox took off his helmet, fierce gaze turning to Thorn. "What's going on? Something is very wrong here."

Stone gave a bitter snort. "No shit."

Thorn gave Stone a look, then looked at Fox. He looked exhausted. His hair, longer than Fox's, which he usually wore in a bun, was hanging around his face and messy. The bags under his eyes looked to be weighing him down. The most prominent thing was something that Fox knew hadn't been there when he'd left: red scratch marks on his right cheek. "Almost half of the Coruscant Guard was shipped back to Kamino."

His breath stopped and Fox felt cold. "Why?"

"To be decommissioned." Thorn's voice was low. "Apparently, senators have been sending in decommissioning requests for a long time and nothing has been done about the behaviour in our battalion."

"The requests have to be approved. Why did you approve them?"

Thorn gave him an upset look. "None of us did, Fox. Those requests didn't go to us. We weren't deemed high enough rank to handle them."

"Chancellor Palpatine approved the requests, sir," Thire said, voice quiet. Stone gripped his hand.

Fox stopped. The Chancellor has sent Fox's troopers off to their deaths because of some words on a piece of flimsi? The same man who looked at Fox with kindness in his eyes. The man that let Fox pick the name of their battalion and the colour of their armour. I'm happy to hear that, Commander. I'm sure both of us can agree that we'd hate for something to happen to your men. He swallowed; Fox didn't know what to do, he'd been trying to avoid this.

Trying to think of something to say, he was stopped by Stone suddenly speaking up, "Why didn't you tell us about the decommissioning requests? Shouldn't we have been prepared for them?"

"I thought… I thought I had it under control. I didn't want you to worry about it." Fox felt like he was surrounded and wanted to run.

Stone glared at him. "We're supposed to help you, Fox. Maybe if you had let us, none of this would've happened!"

Something inside Fox snapped at Stone's words. Even after everything, Stone still thought he couldn't do his job. His breath hitched and he stormed out of the office, ignoring Stone's muttered, "Why is he such a karking asshole?"

Breathing heavy and barely controlled, Fox made it to his office, slamming the door shut and thanking fuck that none of his troopers had been around to witness him running back to his office. A collection of droids was standing around the bodies of five of his men. Fox had left them alone. Fox had left his Guard alone and now they're dead, just like his squad on Geonosis. He heaved out multiple breaths, rubbing his free hand over his face, trying to dry the tears on his cheeks.

Looking at his desk, Fox saw an unfamiliar datapad, perched innocently up to catch his attention. He walked over and picked it up. It was from Chancellor Palpatine. I'm truly sorry it reached this point, Commander Fox. Perhaps, now that the defective troopers are gone, the Coruscant Guard will operate at peak efficiency.

Fox clenched his fingers around the datapad, feeling anger rush through him. His vision blurs, but he isn't sure whether the tears are from anger or grief. Not wanting to answer that question, he squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to calm down. When that didn't work, his eyes opened to stare at the words on the datapad. Rage surged through him and, not even thinking about, he threw the datapad at the wall, hearing it smash.

He collapsed into the chair behind his desk, putting his head in his hands and trying to stifle his sobs. He failed his Guard. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to fix this. He wasn't good enough. He was all alone—

"Don't worry '10," CC-2224 said, placing a steadying hand on his shoulder. "As long as I'm alive, not even war will tear us apart. I'm sure I'll just be a comm away."

Fox gasped as the memory flashed through his mind. Cody would know what to do, he always knew what to do. Cody always knew had the best advice to give Fox.

He hurriedly pulled his communicator out and went to his personal contacts and read through them. Thire, Stone, Thorn, Ponds, Wolffe… No Cody. Why was—

"You really think you're that much better than me, Fox? Newsflash: most people here don't like you! You're arrogant, mean, and you don't care about anyone besides Wolffe! How can you possibly expect to lead?"

"You know how I expect to lead? You know how I'm that much better than you? Because the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic believes in my abilities. Something you seem to be lacking, considering you're still here in the medbay and I'll be going to Coruscant."

Oh. That was why.

Numb, Fox dropped his communicator onto the desk and leaned back in his chair. He stared, unblinking, at the door, except he wasn't seeing or hearing or feeling anything. He didn't feel the tears cascading down his face and onto his armour. He didn't hear the knock on his office door. He didn't see the door open. He didn't hear his name being called. He didn't hear the approaching footsteps.

He only snapped out of it when a hand curled into his hair. Fox jerked, but the hand stayed in his hair. Slowly, Fox was able to hear the soothing noises Thorn was making. The hand ran through his hair and he took a deep breath, turning his head to look at Thorn. The younger commander smiled at him, gentle and sad. "You back, ori'vod?"

Fox nodded, wiping the tears away from his eyes and cheeks. "I apologize for…that."

Thorn shook his head. "It's fine. You know, it's okay if you get upset. We all are."

He bristled, and Thorn took his hand away from Fox's hair. "No, it's not okay, Thorn. I'm your Marshal Commander; I'm supposed to be above this. Getting upset isn't going to fix this. I need to find a way to make sure this never happens again."

"We," Thorn said, voice firm.

Confused, Fox asked, "What?"

"We'll think of ways together, sir." Thorn looked more serious than Fox had ever seen him. This was one of the only times Thorn had called him sir and it hadn't been a joke. "The three of us want to help you and we don't want you doing this alone. Not anymore."

Fox was too tired to argue at this point. He tried to slump into his chair again, but Thorn surprised him by lifting him out of the chair. Fuck, still one of the strongest vode. "Thorn…"

"Armour off, Fox. We all need to rest and we're gonna do a vodpile." Fox swallowed; would he even be wanted after letting this happen to them? "And don't think you're getting out of it. I'll carry you there if I need to."

Wanting to retain some of his dignity, Fox quickly stripped down to his blacks. Then, Thorn grabbed his hand and led him to the barracks. Fox expected to be taken to the small room off to the side, where all commander slept, ignoring the fact that Fox hadn't slept there in a while, but he was led to a small gathering of mattresses. Stone and Thire were already there, the youngest commander curled into Stone's chest. Stone held him close and Fox could hear quiet sobs coming from Thire.

Not sure where to go, but considering Thire was the one crying, Fox figured he needed two brothers holding him. He laid down next to the youngest commander and pulled him close. Stone moved one of his arms to pat Fox's shoulder, then threw the arm so he was holding both Fox and Thire. To Fox's surprise, Thorn laid on Fox's other side and moved an arm over him and Thire to hold onto Stone.

Fox buried his face into Thire's hair, once again unable to stop tears from falling as he was boxed into a pile of warmth and…love. Thire moved an arm in what have must've been a very uncomfortable way to hold onto Fox. His breath hitched as he was taken back to the late-night warmth of Cody's pod.

He missed Cody.

---

Fox made his way to the medbay, a pang going through him when he saw a group of shinies with fresh, identical paint.

After waking up more well-rested than he remembered feeling in a long time, Fox and his commanders hadn't wasted time, getting straight to plan-making. The decommissionings had been accepted because Fox was the only clone on Coruscant with the authority to handle those requests, and with him gone, they had gone straight to the Chancellor. As much as Fox hated it, especially after his mission to Alderaan, he would likely never leave Coruscant again, for the sake of his Guard. The senators had been able to pick out everyone to make a decommissioning request because of the differences in their armour, showing their faces and the differences they had made to them, and giving out their names.

So, Fox and the others had decided that unless someone in the Guard was an officer, all armour needed to be painted the same. Members of the Coruscant Guard were cautioned about giving out their names to natborns; Fox had suggested only saying their designation if ordered to and couldn't get out of it and no names around natborns. The four commanders had stressed the importance of keeping their helmets on around natborns. Finally, Fox had emphasized the importance of following orders. Hearing some of the orders senators gave his troopers made Fox loath this rule, but if it increased the chances of his Guard making it through the war alive, he was willing to take it.

When Fox had gone over these rules with the surviving troopers of the mass decommissioning and the shinies, all the former had understood. They had just lost a great many of vode and wanted to stop that from happening again. On the other hand, a lot of the shinies had seemed confused and a bit angry. Fox had heard some of the survivors trying to explain it the shinies, so he hoped they were successful.

For now, though, Fox made his way to the medbay, intent on speaking to Coral. Their CMO would do anything to help his vode and Fox hoped it would extend to the last part of the commanders' plan.

Arriving at the medbay, Fox saw a bunch of junior medics scrambling around to treat their vode. Upon noticing him, one of them—Fox believed it was Loc—stopped to greet him. "Can I help you, sir?"

"I just need to talk to Coral, trooper," Fox replied.

Loc pointed toward the bacta tank and Fox nodded in thanks before making his way over. Coral closed the bacta tank and activated it before turning to look at Fox. "What's wrong, Commander? I don't have much time to stop, so unless you have another injured trooper or are finally agreeing to discuss your unhealthy habits, please move."

The number of troopers in the medbay had been drastically increasing as the Coruscant Guard had begun handling duties and Coral had suffered the most for it. His habits were just about as bad as Fox's were, staying awake as much as he possibly could, drinking unhealthy amounts of caf, and handling as much as he could alone. Coral's temper, once hidden behind sad tooka eyes and a smile, was now much easier to snap, especially since Tailor, who had been one of his squadmates back on Kamino, was sent away from decommissioning due to the incident with Senator Farrow and her son. Fox hated what this planet and the people had done to his CMO.

He couldn't help the light grimace at Coral's continued insistence that Fox talk to him. "I won't take up too much of your time. I need to discuss something important with you. It's about the…prevention plan for decommissionings."

Coral's eyes light up with awareness. "This way, sir." He led Fox to his desk, the closed the curtain in front of them. It was the closest they'd get to privacy in the medbay. "What can I do, sir?"

Fox took a deep breath. "As our CMO and a skilled slicer, you have the most access to medical reports and you can slice into trooper documents. Since denying decommissioning requests has proven to be…ineffective, every time I get sent a request, I want you to either fake their death in medical records or put in that they've been sent to Kamino. After their death is official, they will be given a new designation. Their new designation will be that of a Guard trooper whose death is not official."

"And because almost all armour is the same and no one is removing helmets or telling their names, it'll be easier to shuffle them around?" Coral asked, realization in his eyes.

Nodding, Fox replied, "Exactly." The Marshal Commander couldn't read the CMO's expression and worried briefly that he'd crossed a line. Coral also took his duties to be honest seriously. "Of course, I could find a way to manage them myself if makes you— "

"It's fine, sir," Coral interrupted. "If this is how I can best make sure nothing like that ever happens again, then I'll do it. It's just— "Coral hesitated, running a hand through his hair— "I know a lot of us aren't close to our vode on the frontlines anymore, because of the drunk tanks and we apparently don't have any hardships, but this could really upset them. Switching around designations like that... Sure, some of them will eventually get news about their squad and batchmates actually being alive, but others who thought their vode were alive..." Coral trailed off.

Fox had taken that into consideration, and it had been his main reservation about the plan. In the end, though, his Guard and their lives had to come first. "I have to put my Guard first."

Coral looked into his Commander's visor, seemingly trying to read him. "I agree, sir. If there's a decommissioning request, bring the vod here and I'll take care of it. Is that all, Commander, so I can talk to you about better strategies for dealing with your workload before you go?"

He tugged the curtain open and began making his exit. "I wouldn't want to take up anymore of your time. Dedicate it to the troopers that need it."

"Wait a second— "Coral's yell was cut off by one of the junior medics calling to him.

Fox bit back a sigh of relief at having avoided the medic once more.

---

People had always given Fox a wide berth in the lower levels.

Before the mass decommissionings, Fox's armour had been just another set of armour covered in red paint with unique designs. It had been the way he walked, spoke, and fought that had, in the end, saved him from the fate many of his troops met in the lower levels. He walked with purpose and knew what he was talking about. When he was forced to fight, he did so, so brutally and viciously that people knew to leave him alone.

Now, though, with everyone except officers having identical armour, Fox had made damn sure his drew the most attention. In the Senate Building, it made it more likely that his Guard on duty would get left alone and senators would go straight to him. In the lower levels, they recognized his armour from before and that his armour meant he was more important than the average trooper on Coruscant, thus more trained.

Walking through the lower levels, watching the shadows around him and listening to the noise, people still left Fox alone. He had a simple goal to accomplish and nobody in the lower levels would get in his way: find Hive's squad and get them home.

Hive had been deemed ready to return to the Coruscant Underworld and had had successful patrols with his squad. A day ago, however, the whole squad hadn't reported back from their shift and, not wanting to lose anyone else, Fox had gone on his own.

He had already looked where the squad's last known location had been, with no vode in sight. The only thing he had found was Stab's helmet. Fox had picked it up, staring at the cracked piece of his vod. He had marched onward, fury in his pace that anyone could sense. There was no sense in asking around, these people down here weren't his family or friends, and the only thing he could do was listen to the whispers from those who watched him the shadows.

The whispers would always be the most helpful thing in learning about the world of the lower levels. They revealed details that vode on patrols missed, they revealed what reports didn't deem important. Listening to them now, Fox had already gathered what had most likely happened. This area, and where Hive's squad had been patrolling, was home to a new gang. He hadn't been able to pick up what they called themselves, but he had been able to catch that they hated clones. They didn't reveal what clones had ever done to them, but Fox hadn't expected them to. People didn't need a reason to hate them, apparently.

"He gonna find them?" A voice whispered from his right.

"Don't think there much left for him to find," A voice responded.

Fox picked up the pace. They were talking about what information he needed, so he had to be getting close. Up ahead, he noticed a pile of armour stacked on the ground.

Reaching the pile, Fox counted eight sets of armour painted identically with the set on top standing out as Sergeant Fray's armour. Looking in all directions, the whispers had stopped, he noticed something up ahead and a little to his left that made his heart drop. Rushing over, Fox found nine of his vode strewn across the ground like dolls. All of them had been completely stripped of their armour, though six of them remained in their blacks. Three of them were completely naked. Upon a cursory glance, none of them appeared to be moving.

He took out his blaster and aimed it in all directions, so that if anyone was still watching him, they knew he hadn't let his guard down. Then, moving closer his Guards that he had let down, Fox began checking them over to see if any of them were alive.

Sergeant Fray had his face beaten in and both arms and legs broken, along with blaster bolts in his stomach and one in his heart. Two were beaten so badly that Fox couldn't find identifiable features and had to guess between who was Stab and who was Gab. Pro's blacks had been torn apart at the feet and all his toes had been broken, along with all his fingers. The three naked vode—Jackal, Crash, and Fatal—had injuries going so low on their bodies and Fox stopped his mind from thinking about the implications of that.

Fox was just finishing his check on the eighth vod, Fret, when he heard a groan come from the only one he hadn't checked. Hive. He rushed over and saw his vod'ika trying to shift around. "Stop moving, Hive," Fox ordered, kneeling next to him.

"C'mm'dr?" Hive mumbled, looking like it pained him to do so.

"It's me," Fox said, voice soft. He reached out a hand to run it through Hive's hair. He couldn't tell if the red in his hair was from the red hair dye or the blood coming from Hive's head. Fox turned on his comm. "Medic to my location, now."

Hive reached up with his left hand, which didn't look to be in as bad of a shape as his right hand, and lightly tapped at Fox's helmet. "S-sir."

Hesitating for only a moment, Fox took off his helmet and placed it on the ground beside him. "Can you open your eyes, Hive?" Slowly, and not that much, Hive's eyes opened. Fox forced himself to smile at his vod'ika's beaten face. "There you are. Just keep your eyes open. Help is on the way."

His breathing laboured and voice a whisper, Hive tried to talk, "T-tried t'help 'em, sir. Keep s-safe."

Fox swallowed, ignoring the emotion welling up inside him. "I know you did, vod'ika." Hive's eyes started to drift shut. "Hive!" Fox commanded, voice firm and unforgiving. His eyes slipped open again. Fox took a deep breath. "Do you remember asking me why I never you told my Guard stories about myself?"

"Mhm," Hive confirmed. After the mass decommissionings, many in the Guard had started inviting themselves into Fox's office and onto his couch. Fox supposed Thorn's behaviour had rubbed off on them like they were baby cadets. He'd had half a mind to tell them that it was an office and not a hotel room, but they'd all looked really sad and pathetic on his couch, snuggling a plush fox, that he'd let it go. Hive had been a frequent visitor, having lost almost all his squadmates from back on Kamino; the only one left was on the frontlines, in the 212th, if Fox remembered correctly. He hoped Cody was taking care of him.

"I'll tell you one now, if you can stay awake. Okay?" A slight nod was returned, and Hive's lips twitched up. "One of the other commanders was on shore leave with his battalion and general not too long ago. He managed to rope me into going to 79's for a bit."

"But y'don go out," Hive mumbled, sounding confused. Fox wasn't sure if it was from the story or the injury.

"I don't, but Ponds was going on about Ori'vod Privileges, so I decided to grace him with my presence." Hive let out a choked noise and Fox got the impression he was trying to laugh. "He told me about something Commander Cody and Captain Rex had told him when their battalions had worked together."

"Chaos," Hive mumbled.

Fox nodded, solemn. "I felt bad for General Windu. So, the captain and commander both took an interest in two shinies they, uh, claimed after the incident at the Rishi Outpost. In the end, I think the only reason they went to the 501st instead of the 212th is because the commander couldn't take anymore shinies that already had a problem with swearing." Hive's brow furrowed. "Commander Cody hates foul language. He's had a clean mouth for as long as I can remember."

"N't like y'sir," Hive said, something between a laugh and a cough.

Fox lightly patted his chest and couldn't get rid of the smile on his face. "That doesn't mean he doesn't still check in on them, though. I'm pretty sure there's a group chat that includes Commander Cody and Captain Rex, along with many members of both battalions. So, Commander Cody messages the chat to check in with them and Captain Rex says, do you think I can't take care of my fucking shinies, Cody? The commander replied, Stop swearing in front of your men, Rex. One of the others in the chat jumped in, No swearing, Captain! That's when Echo, one of the claimed shinies from Rishi said, Yeah, watch your fucking language, Captain!"

He forced himself to stop his recount when it looked like Hive's laughter was getting out of control and starting to hurt. After helping him calm down, Hive choked out, "Love th's, sir."

He gently ran a hand through Hive's hair. "Captain Rex practically yelled into the chat, who taught Echo the fuck word? Commander Cody gave the logical response, You guys use the f word all the time. That's when everyone in the chat started bullying the commander, remarking, do it Cody, say fuck Cody."

A laugh forced itself out of his throat, though it was slightly mixed with a sob. If things had been a bit different, if Fox hadn't done...whatever he'd done to make Cody start avoiding him back when they were cadets, maybe he'd have that kind of relationship with his brother.

Fox's gaze shot up when he heard the sound of a medical transport approaching. He raised a hand to indicate where they were and in no time, multiple medics were rushing over. Two of the came over to support Hive and the remaining medics retrieved the bodies of the dead vode.

"We've got it now, sir," one of the medics said. Fox couldn't tell who by the armour alone, but the slight accent in the voice indicated it was Polo. "Would you like to wait outside the medbay for news about Hive's condition?"

About to accept, Fox was interrupted by a pinging noise from his comm. Bringing it out, Fox was sure he went pale. A request from Senator Taa, which meant a complaint that would most likely turn into a decommissioning request. "I'll come and check on him after I've dealt with this."

He rode back to the Federal District in the medical transport and then made his way straight to the Senate Building. After dealing with the situation, Fox made his way to the medbay with Heist in tow to get his designation changed.

In the medbay, Polo informed Fox that Hive had succumbed to his injuries.

---

When Fox woke up, for once on his back instead of face-down on his desk, and blinding white surrounded him, he thought that everything had been a dream. He thought that he hadn't left Kamino after the First Battle of Geonosis.

It was only when he noticed the medic leaning over him, familiar worry lines on his face and familiar hair that went to his ears and was dip-dyed Corrie red, that Fox realized he was in the medbay at the Coruscant Guard headquarters.

Fox's entire body felt heavy, like he was drugged up. He rolled his head from side to side, trying to get a good view of his body. He was mostly covered by a blanket, but both his arms were atop of it, and IV attached to his right arm. Swallowing to wet his throat, he croaked, "Coral?"

Relief flooded the medic's face as he gazed at Fox. "Hey Commander. It's good to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

"Heavy," Fox rasped. "Thirsty."

"Do you feel okay enough to sit up? It'll be easier to get some water in you."

The idea of getting up already appealing to Fox, as he wanted to stop feeling so heavy and stop the feel of a sore throat. He shifted, trying to sit up on his own, but Coral moved to help. Once he was up and leaning against a pillow, Coral helped him drink from the bottle of water that he'd grabbed from the table beside the bed.

"What happened?" Fox asked after he'd drank most of the water.

Coral gently sat on the edge of the bed. "I was hoping you could shed some light on that, sir. You disappeared for almost two whole days."

Fox's eyes widened. "What? Is everyone okay? Did we get any decommissioning requests?"

The medic patted his leg. "Everyone's okay, sir; we were all just really worried about your whereabouts. What's the last thing you remember?"

Narrowing his eyes in thought, Fox tried to recall what he'd been doing last. "I'm pretty sure Chancellor Palpatine called me to his office for an in-person report after I caught the bounty hunter that had tried to assassinate him."

"Wait, you caught him?" Coral asked, looking uneasy.

Fox tried to look as stern as he could, but he figured the impact was lessened by him weakly sitting in a med bed. "What's going on, Coral?"

Coral ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Reports indicated they were never in Republic custody. The bounty hunter was found dead in the apartment of Senator Moore, along with the body of the senator. Both had evidence of torture on their bodies. Investigation was able to prove that Senator Moore had been the one to hire the bounty hunter to go after Chancellor Palpatine.

He rubbed his free hand on his temple, tired and confused. "What does this have to do with me being gone for almost two days?"

The medic inhaled sharply. "A squad on patrol found you wandering the lower levels. You were…covered in blood and had some minor injuries. When they tried to talk to you, you didn't respond to your name and would only talk if addressed by your designation. They called Commander Thorn, who had taken to trying to get your data work done, and he came to get me before heading down to get you. We managed to get you to the medbay without too much of a struggle, but when I tried to check you for what was wrong, you became aggressive and we had to sedate you. Commander Thorn's been here since then."

Coral pointed to the entrance of the medbay, where they had chair set aside for those waiting for injured troopers. Thorn was sitting in one of them, passed out, and piles of datapads on the chairs around him. Despite the situation, Fox's lips twitched upwards at the sight.

Soon, though, he and Coral turned back to face each other and had to deal with the situation. "I tested the blood I found on you," the medic started, "Some of it was yours, but most of it belonged to the bounty hunter and Senator Moore."

Fox felt the blood drain from his face. "Have you told anyone about this?"

Coral shook his head. "I took care of you myself." There was a pause. "Has anything like this happened before, Commander?" His voice was low and serious.

About to denying, Fox was suddenly reminded of his guard shifts for the Chancellor. Nothing this extreme had happened, but sometimes his memory got a bit foggy and he had trouble remembering every detail of the shift. Fox had assumed the zoning out was a symptom of him standing in the same place for hours on end when he was used to the constant moving around from training on Kamino. "My memory sometimes got foggy when I did my guard shifts for Chancellor Palpatine. It's never been like this before, though."

"So…Chancellor Palpatine is the common denominator for your memory problems," Coral stated.

Fox glared at him for saying it out loud. Sure, they were in Guard headquarters, but anyone important could overhear that and then they would both be in trouble. "My word against his, Coral. No one would believe a clone over the Supreme Chancellor."

The medic was dead silent for a minute. "We should keep this quiet. If any natborn found out about you having trouble remembering things, they'll think you can't do your job. Then you'll get sent back to Kamino…"

The commander nodded in agreement. Either he'd never come back from Kamino and some unprepared vod would be sent to replace him or he'd come back weird. They hadn't gotten reconditioning requests for anyone in the Guard yet, and Fox wanted to avoid that for as long as possible.

Figuring he may as well start catching up on everything he'd missed, Fox tried to get up from the bed. Coral gently pushed him back. "You need to heal before you can leave, sir. I want you to rest and get something in you that isn't caf."

Hypocrite. "No, I need to leave and get back to my duties. My three commanders have been covering for me long enough."

Coral inhaled, as if he was praying for patience. When he looked at Fox, he had sad tooka eyes and a sad smile. "Sir, I just want you to get better. You're not eating or sleeping properly and your best bet of getting better is to stay here."

Fox almost caved, only because he still had drugs in his system, but managed to keep his face blank and tone dry. "Cut the shit, trooper."

The medic's face transformed in an instant, becoming as blank as his. "Fine, you're staying here, Commander Fox. I don't think you're fit for duty yet."

The commander scoffed. "Oh, and what if I get called to the Senate Building? What if Chancellor Palpatine requests me? What if there's a decommissioning request to deal with? Face it, trooper, you need to let me get back to my duty and stop wasting the valuable resources in this medbay on me. We're running low on supplies as it is."

Coral's hand clenched into a fist and his expression tightened. He knew Fox was right. Point, Fox thought, smug.

The medic's hand came to rest on Fox's neck. He leaned forward and gently pressed his forehead to Fox's, who was once again confused at the shift in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, he pressed back.

A moment later, Coral responded to Fox's tirade, "Fine, you can do paperwork and light patrols, but only with another commander."

Fox considered arguing, acknowledged this was as much of a win as he was going to get from the CMO.

Coral moved away and began removing the IV from his arm. Fox sighed. "I suppose I'd better wake Thorn and tell him to return to his regular duties."

A smirk twitched at the medic's lips. "You might want to let him rest a bit longer, sir." At Fox's curious glance, he continued, "You remember that lost mug Commander has been complaining about for a while?" Fuck. "Imagine Commander Thorn's surprise when he went to retrieve your data work from your office, and he found a mug with his name crossed off."

When Fox's head fell into his hands, a slap echoed throughout the medbay.

---

Knocking on the door to Chancellor Palpatine's office, carrying a large stack of flimsi, Fox felt like a secretary instead of a marshal commander.

"Come in!" the Chancellor's kind voice called out.

At the beginning of Fox's time on Coruscant, the kind smile and voice of Chancellor Palpatine had made Fox feel welcome. Now, it made him feel nothing more than bitter and unsettled.

"Here is the work you requested, sir," Fox said as a greeting.

"Excellent, Commander," Chancellor Palpatine responded, taking the offered flimsi.

He started looking through it, likely making sure Fox hadn't made any mistakes. They both knew he hadn't, Fox had perfected the art of flimsi and data work. Still, it at least gave Fox the opportunity to ask the question he wanted. "Do you have a moment, sir?"

"Of course." The Chancellor briefly glanced up from the flimsi to look at him.

"Was my performance in our in-person report up to your standards?" Fox asked, his voice effortlessly bland.

Chancellor Palpatine gave him an odd look. "What in-person report, Commander? We had no such meeting."

Fox hid his confusion. "It was after my pursuit of the bounty hunter that tried to assassinate you, sir."

The look on the Chancellor's face was growing more concerned as Fox spoke. "Is everything alright, Commander? I would remember such a meeting taking place."

Realizing he would get nothing more from the conversation, Fox decided to attempt to reassure the older man. "Forgive me, sir. I must've just gotten confused."

Chancellor Palpatine nodded, but still looked slightly worried. Once, it would've made Fox happy that a natborn of high importance seemed to care about his wellbeing. The worried expression with eyes that shone with visibly fake concern just made him uneasy.

"If it'll be a problem, Commander, I'm sure we could find a suitable treatment for this defect," the Chancellor said, the false sympathy in his voice making Fox have to suppress a cringe in disgust. "I was discussing treatments used on Kamino with Senator Burtoni the other day and she mentioned something called reconditioning that was used for clones that had something wrong with them. Would a treatment like this help you, Commander Fox?"

Cold fear dug hard into him and he struggled to keep his composure at that word. "Reconditioning will be unnecessary, sir. I can perform above standard without such treatment."

Chancellor Palpatine nodded, smile filled with kindness that Fox couldn't believe in. "That's great to hear, Commander. I'd to hate lose you to Kamino, even if only for a little while." Then, he moved his gaze back to the flimsi work, dismissal clear.

Fox left the office, no outward sign of the cold dread he was feeling. He wondered if any of his command vode on the frontlines had been threatened with reconditioning yet. He wondered if there was anyone he could tell about this.

He wished he could comm Cody and talk to him like they had used to after a brother had been taken away on Kamino. Fox had destroyed his chance of that happening ever again, though, just like he wrecked everything else.

---

Fox isn't quite sure how he ended up on a patrol shift in the Senate Building with Thorn, but he's grateful it had managed to slip by everyone. After the spider fiasco a while ago, Fox had promised Coral he'd never be on the same shift as Thorn again, but everyone else who knew about the incident—which wasn't that many in the Guard anymore, most of them lost to decommissioning, killed during missions, or killed by angry civilians—had been as just as eager to not have them work together again. He was convinced that none of them wanted to deal with Coral that angry ever again.

Coral's rule that Fox not be on shift without another commander had worked in his favour, though. Being around Thorn made Fox feel the slightest bit lighter about the situation on Coruscant, not as much as Wolffe or Cody did, but Fox figured that had more to do with nostalgia and being a young cadet more than anything else.

Even if Thorn hadn't been as close to Fox for as long, the marshal commander knew that his younger brother had been watching him for a long time. Thorn hadn't said much about it, probably due to embarrassment about the amount of times he'd watched Fox with an awestruck look on his face, but Fox knew he'd looked up to him and put a lot of value in Fox's words. Why else would he have chosen his name after something Fox had called him once after a spar?

That watching had made it easier for Thorn to make Fox's life a bit easier. From the interactions Fox had had with vode on Kamino, Thorn knew that Fox did care, even if he wasn't quite comfortable always showing it. He knew the inside jokes that always caused Fox to crack a smile before he brutally suppressed it. He knew the movements that would cause the tense line of Fox's shoulders to relax.

Of course, not that Thorn could show any of this while they were on shift. Fox couldn't even begin to imagine the scandal that would occur if the senators or civilians discovered they had skills other than being their obedient lapdogs.

Regardless, his knowledge about Thorn seemed to be enough to lessen the weight on Fox's shoulders as they did their shift. Even if Thorn was still a bit upset about his mug. Fox didn't see the problem; he'd just crossed off Fox's name and put his own back on, anyway, leaving Fox with his old mug back.

The two were about halfway through their shift when both of their communicators started going crazy. When Fox pulled his out to check the messages, he realized it was from the command chat. As he was on shift, Fox elected to ignore it until he was between shifts. He didn't want to mute it in case he did get a message that was important.

Five minutes later, the command chat was still going, and it was beginning to get on his nerves. From the tapping of Thorn's fingers, his younger brother felt the same. Having been prepared to ignore annoyances, the two were going to put up with it despite their curiousness of their brothers messaging even though they were supposed to be fighting a war. It was only when senators they passed began giving them annoyed looks that Fox was forced to acknowledge that wouldn't work.

Not stopping his stride, Fox told Thorn, "Check your comm."

The younger commander was quick to pull out his communicator and pull out the command chat. He had more time to check it than Fox and had managed to remain more in the loop. Considering the tense relations between the Guard and the rest of the GAR, Fox figured it was a good thing.

Besides the pinging of Fox's comm, there was silence between them as they walked, and Thorn read through the messages. As the moments passed and Thorn's posture became tenser, Fox's apprehension increased.

"Fox..." Thorn trailed off, his voice sad and fearful. Fox's instincts were on edge and he knew something had to be wrong. For all that Thorn was an insubordinate little shit around their Guard, he only called Fox by his name outside of their headquarters if something was wrong. Thorn had been quick to catch on to natborns not liking them having names.

Something must've happened to one of the commanders on the frontlines, one that Fox cared about by Thorn's voice. Thorn knew about his closeness with Wolffe, having sat in on multiple comm calls and walked in on Wolffe cuddling the plush fox on his couch. He also knew that Fox and Ponds would talk sometimes, having been the one to encourage Fox to go to 79's with him. He also knew a bit more about his relationship with Cody, after the two had gotten drunk in Fox's office once a rough shift had been over and Fox had started ranted. Thorn insisted he had been crying, but Fox was positive it was only the alcohol fucking with Thorn's memory.

Before Fox had the chance to ask which of the three has been injured, Senator Farrow stalked over to the two commanders. Fox had to bite back his yell. "Can we help you, senator?" Wow, Fox's bullshitting voice was getting better and better.

Senator Farrow sniffed, disdain in the air. "You two clearly aren't doing the job required of you while you're on shift. This one— "she pointed at Thorn— "is playing games when he should be paying attention to his surroundings. And you—" she pointed at Fox—"don't seem to have any control over the things you're supposed to be leading. That's not even mentioning that you two seem more focused on calling each other your stupid nicknames instead of actually working!"

Fox gritted his teeth to bite back his snappish response to the senator. He still couldn't figure out why senators felt the need to complain about inconsequential matters when they had a war going on. Thorn kept his gaze on his communicator, allowing Fox to take the lead. Fox's communicator never stopped the incessant pinging "Forgive us, senator. The commander here was just getting a report from one of his men about an incident outside the senate building."

The senator's eyebrow rose. "And what of the nickname he called you instead of your rank?"

He kept his voice blank as he made up a lie on the spot. "My subordinate didn't call me anything, sir. He reported that the incident outside the senate building involved a fox, more likely a group of them. One of our troopers stationed outside managed to get a hold on the situation and was just letting his superior know."

Senator Farrow sneered in disgust. "How…fortunate we have you and your clones to keep an animal out of the building."

"We live to serve, sir." Fox's voice was cool, calm, and bland.

The senator eyed them for a moment longer, ultimately scoffing and walking away. Thorn relaxed a bit. "Let's finish this round, sir, and I can brief you on the situation. Then we can head outside and check on the situation."

The two continued their round, muting theirs helmets to the outside world on turning on the communicating system so they could speak in relative privacy. "What happened?" Fox asked, not wasting a minute.

Thorn didn't speak for a moment. "Commander Wolffe had a run in with Asajj Ventress."

Fox paled. He had read enough reports involving her that he knew how utterly dangerous she was. Hearing that Wolffe had been forced to deal with her caused Fox to panic nearly as much as he did every time he read a report about Cody facing Grievous. He was sure that a lot of his grey hairs came from the worry about Cody's reckless actions on the frontlines. "What happened?" It was the only thing Fox could force out.

"He lost an eye," Thorn started, and Fox felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. On one hand, Thorn hadn't said Wolffe was dead. On the other, the higher ups were going to see Wolffe as defective. Even if Wolffe didn't succumb to his injury, it was much too serious, and he'd get sent back to Kamino anyway.

"Fox!" Thorn barked, voice sharp, and Fox came back to himself. It was moments like this that Fox appreciated Thorn most. He could stop Fox from completely breaking down, especially since now wasn't the time for that. "He should be okay. General Koon made sure he wouldn't get sent back to Kamino. Wolffe's on his way to Coruscant to get treated at the Jedi Temple and get a prosthetic eye."

Fox let out a deep breath. Wolffe would be okay; he'd get through this, he always did. No matter the injuries or circumstances, Wolffe never gave up and always kept going strong. He had lost almost his entire battalion and had still pushed forward, welcoming his new shinies from Kamino as his new battalion, but the grey on their armour meant they'd always remember what had happened to the troopers before them.

Fox's ori'vod would be okay. He had to be. Fox had already lost so many and he didn't want to lose Wolffe, either.

---

Despite the knowledge that Wolffe would be safely on Coruscant to get treatment, even if no clone was safe on this planet, Fox couldn't stop himself from worrying about the situation. What if there was an unexpected complication? What if the prosthetic eye didn't agree with Wolffe? What if General Koon changed his mind?

The most Fox could do now was message Wolffe's comm, telling him to message back when his condition was stable. Wolffe hadn't responded yet, Fox hadn't expected him to, so Fox forced himself to go about business as usual. He didn't talk about it with Thorn. He kept his mouth shut when Thire would come to his office so they could do their paperwork together. He avoided the topic when he and Stone would do shifts together, moving their snarking conversations in different directions. He rejected Hound's offers to cuddle with Grizzer.

Beginning his shift with Stone in the drunk tanks, Fox's comm went off. Pulling it out, he froze when he saw Wolffe's name.

Wolffe: Jetti healer just said I'm okay to have visitors. You can come by if you're not busy.

Stone, right beside Fox, saw the movement. "What's wrong, Commander?"

"It-it's Wolffe," Fox answered, cursing the stutter in his voice. "He's been okayed to have visitors. He wants to see me."

His bald brother crossed his arms. "Commander Wolffe lost one of his eyes, right? I didn't know you two were close…"

The hesitation in the second part of Stone's words made it clear what he was meant to say. I didn't know you cared about him. Fox knew his and Stone's relationship was getting better, but there still seemed to be a fundamental disconnect between them.

Fox nodded, both to the question and statement. "Yeah, that's him." He resisted the urge to drop his helmeted head into his hands. "I've been really…I've been concerned about his wellbeing, is all."

Stone's helmet was tilted slightly to the side and Fox couldn't get a read on him. After a minute of silence between them, Stone said, "Then you should go see him, Commander."

He looked at Stone, shaking his head. "I'm on shift right now, Stone, and I'll have too much to do afterwards. What would happen to the Guard if I decided to just up and leave for a bit?"

Even though the helmet, Fox could feel the steel in Stone look. "You're worried about your brother, sir. Go see him and maybe it'll help with whatever problems you've been having the last few days. I'll handle this shift myself and whatever other work you have until you get back."

"They are my responsibilities, Stone. You shouldn't have to worry about them," Fox protested.

Stone sighed, heavy. "I want to help, sir. And… I think I was wrong."

Fox's protests died at the sound of discomfort and tiredness in Stone's voice, and it sounded like it had taken him a lot to admit that. Wrong about what? Fox could guess.

Not wanting to just walk out on his brother, Fox tried to think of what to say to him. Finally, Fox placed a hand on Stone's shoulder and tried to inject as much sincerity into his voice as he could until it became uncomfortable. "Thank you."

One of Stone's hands came to rest atop Fox's hand on his shoulder. Through their visors, they stared into each other's eyes and Fox felt like Stone had reached an unspoken understanding about him. Squeezing Fox's hand, Stone said, "Don't mention it, Fox."

They both removed their hands and Fox turned around, not mentioning it again, to begin making his way to the Jedi Temple.

There were currently two other battalions on Coruscant, the 501st and the 104th. This was the former battalions regular shore leave, while General Koon had arranged for the rest of his battalion to be on shore leave while Wolffe recovered. As Fox made his way to the Jedi Temple, he was met with different reactions from the two battalions.

Those in the 501st either ignored him or glared disdainfully at him. The 501st had some of the rowdiest troopers and many them always ended up in the drunk tanks or arrested by the Guard for causing a disturbance. Fox supposed it wasn't as necessary for the Guard to make sure the 501st didn't cause trouble on Coruscant; General Skywalker was the Chancellor's golden boy and likely wouldn't let anything happen to the battalion. Still, no matter how many times those in the Guard, often ones who had been close to vode on the frontlines, tried to explain why they had to tone it down, the 501st, along with many other battalions, never listened.

Most in the 104th who recognized Fox's armour nodded or saluted him respectfully. Overall, the 104th was one of the more well-behaved battalions. A small part of Fox had to wonder if part of the different reactions was because of his relationship with Rex and Wolffe. The Coruscant Guard and 104th had once had the same colour armour to indicate his and Wolffe's closeness and many knew that. Wolffe had likely passed on his views to his men. Fox was pretty sure Rex hated him, beginning after Cody had likely told him about their argument, and then Rex had unintentionally passed that along.

Fox couldn't blame him; he hated himself for that argument, too.

He inhaled as he arrived at the Jedi Temple, approaching the Temple Guards. They were quick to let him through once he explained who he was and why he was there, along with giving him directions to where Wolffe was being.

His nerves continued their gradual increase as he got closer to the medbay. Once he arrived, a Twi'lek woman approached him. "Can I help you, trooper?"

Fox pulled out his comm to show her the message from Wolffe. "Marshal Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard. Commander Wolffe asked to see me."

She gazed at him for a moment, then nodded sharply. "This way, please."

The Twi'lek led him through the medbay. In the beds were many natborns, Fox assumed they were Jedi, as well as some his vode from the frontlines. They seemed much more well-equipped than their medbay at their headquarters, but Fox would be damned if anyone other than another vod treated his men.

Fox's breath caught in his throat as he finally caught sight of Wolffe. He looked so much worse than he had after he'd shown up at Fox's office after the incident with the Malevolence. He looked so much more…fragile. Wolffe was laying in a medical bed under a plain white blanket. Across his right eye was a bandage, concealing either the absent eye or the prosthetic. Fox didn't want to know.

"I'll leave you two alone for now," the Twi'lek said softly. "Please do not stress my patient, Commander. He needs to recover."

Unable to talk just yet, Fox nodded. She walked away, leaving Fox somewhat alone with Wolffe.

After a moment, he laid his armoured hand upon Wolffe's and the older commander's eye shot open. His gaze turned to Fox and a tired smile flashed across his face. "You came, Fox'ika. I thought you would've been too busy."

After all that Wolffe had sacrificed for his battalion, Fox wasn't about to tell him that he'd left a shift to come and see him. "You got lucky. You caught me between shifts."

"Just my luck," Wolffe remarked tiredly. "Now I get you to myself. Come on, vod'ika, armour off."

As he stripped off his armour and neatly stacked it, Fox noticed that it was becoming a regular occurrence from them to do this after a bad mission for Wolffe. Once Fox was down to his blacks, Wolffe pushed himself up so he was sitting, and Fox crawled onto the bed beside him. He wrapped an arm around his older brother's shoulder, holding him close, and Wolffe slumped into his embrace.

They sat together quietly for a few minutes, just taking in the comfort for each other's presence. Fox was the one to break the silence. "I'm glad you have General Koon for a general. I was really worried that you..."

Wolffe grunted. "He wouldn't do that to any of us. General Koon...he sees us as people. I didn't think I'd ever meet a natborn to think like that."

Fox hoped he'd get the chance to meet General Koon before he had to leave; he wanted to meet a natborn that saw them as people. Keeping that thought to himself, Fox remarked, "At least we know that you're the best commander a Jetii could want."

Wolffe hummed, sounding curious.

He swallowed, thinking about all of his troopers that had been sent back to Kamino or died in their medbay. "You said that you were gonna be the best commander they could possibly want. The lengths General Koon goes for you and your battalions when others wouldn't... I think it says a lot about you. If I could give the longnecks anything, they got our positions picked correctly."

Wolffe had gotten a general that cared just as much as he did. Cody had gotten a general that appeared well-put together, but could be just as reckless as him. Rex had gotten a general that was a disaster; Fox figured that was more of a taste of his own medicine, considering the amount of times Rex had caused the command class worry. Fox had gotten the senate and politicians. Considering he was still alive, he had to be doing something right.

His older brother huffed. "I wish they would've done a better job at training us." He tightened his grip on Wolffe. "Remember all the tests the longnecks put us through?"

All the times he'd fought against Cody, a once friendly feel turned sour, having to lose brothers no matter how hard he worked, accepting that Cody would be his perfect replacement. "Hard to forget," Fox answered.

"All that shit...and nothing can prepare you for sith and war bullshit." Wolffe's voice was incredibly bitter and Fox thought it was well deserved after everything the war had taken away from him. "One second...you laugh with your brothers. The next one...you lose all of them." Fox thought of the Malevolence and the mass decommissionings. He swallowed, trying to quell the emotions rising in him.

Wolffe shifted slightly in Fox's arms, moving so he could look at his younger brother with his left eye. "At least I don't have to worry about you, because you're safe here, brother."

Fox's hand clenched the blanket. He thought of his troopers dying in riots. He thought of civilians hurting his Guard while they were on patrol. He thought of the decommissioning requests and the beginning of the reconditioning requests. He thought of the dehumanizing behaviour of everyone on this planet. He thought of the exhaustion that felt like it was so ingrained into his being. He thought of all the times he wanted to reach out to a fellow commander outside of the Guard and rant about his situation

He thought of Wolffe, slumped outside his office door. He thought of Wolffe, who lost his entire battalion except two other men and his general. He thought of Wolffe, who had battled a sith and had come out of it alive, but without an eye. He thought of Wolffe, laying in a medical bed and looking more fragile than Fox had ever seen him. He looked at Wolffe, who was still looking at him with affection despite the pain he was likely in.

Fox tightened his grip on Wolffe and shoved his face into his older brother's hair. "Yeah..." he trailed off. "Don't worry about me, ori'vod. I'm safe here."

Wolffe held him close and closed his left eye. Fox curled up with his older brother, attempting to get some sleep before he had to return to data work, the senate, patrols, the prison, the Chancellor, decommissioning requests, and frontline brothers that hated him.

---

"Is something wrong, Commander?" Thire asked him, worried as Fox stalked passed him in the hallways of their headquarters.

"Commander Thire, we need to find Aster immediately." His voice was tight and Fox didn't slow down to respond.

"What happened, sir?" Thire asked, rushing to walk beside him.

Fox swallowed his anger and worry. "A decommissioning request came in about him. I am...concerned about the reason for the request and I need to make sure he's alright."

Thire was quick to realize the direction they were heading in. "You think he's in the breakdown closet?"

Fox nodded. The breakdown closest is where troopers often went when everything got too much and Fox's office wasn't available. Aster was one of the younger troopers, so he wouldn't feel comfortable enough losing it in Fox's office.

As the two commanders rounded the corner to approach the training room, Fox was able to hear the sound of badly muffled sobs coming from the breakdown closet. Found him. They carefully approached the door and, looking at Thire through their visors, Fox knocked on the door.

The sobs came to an abrupt stop and the breathing on the other side of the door shuddered. "Who is it?"

Hoping to reassure Aster, Fox responded, "Marshal Commander Fox and Commander Thire."

Instead of calming like Fox had hoped, Aster's breathing only became louder and more rapid. The door knob started shaking, as if he was trying to open the door.

Fox didn't get the chance to wonder how to calm the young vod down because Thire took his helmet off, placing it on the floor, and placed his hand on the door knob. "It's alright, vod'ika. You don't need to come out until you're ready. We'll just wait out here until you're ready to see us."

Following Thire's lead, Fox took off his helmet and simply waited for Aster. A few moments later, the closet door was wrenched open and a blob of red and white threw themselves at Thire. The sobbing was back, a hysterical edge to it.

Thire had his arms wrapped around Aster, the younger vod's face pressed into his neck and running a hand through the regulation-length hair. "Shh, it'll be okay, vod'ika. Just let it out."

While Aster cried into Thire's neck, Thire gestured at Fox with his eyes to take action. Marvelling at how good Thire was at handling distraught troopers, Fox placed a hand on Aster's shoulder. The youngest tensed for a brief second, but relaxed upon realizing it was Fox. He then wrapped his arms around Aster from behind, hoping that he and Thire would be able to ground him.

Slowly, the hysterical sobs turned into sniffles. "I'm sorry, sirs."

"It's alright, vod'ika," Thire comforted, massaging Aster's scalp. "We know something bad happened. Are you okay to talk about it?"

For a second, Fox thought Aster would start sobbing again, but that thankfully didn't happen. Aster gently pulled away from Thire, movements shaky, and Fox let his arms fall away. Rubbing away the tears from his eyes and cheeks, Aster shifted to look at Fox. "I'm sorry, sir. I was just trying to follow orders. I didn't want to."

It was a struggle to keep his face blank at those words, especially knowing the claimed reason Senator Noss had made the decommissioning request. "What did Senator Noss order you to do?"

Aster started to tremble and brought a hand to cover his eyes. Thire placed a hand on his shoulder. "He, um... He ordered me t-to remove my armour. T-then he ordered me to remove my b-blacks and lay on the couch in his office." He wrapped his arms around himself. "I promise I didn't want to, sir. I did try to get out of it, b-but he kept insisting and I didn't know what to do besides follow orders."

Thire's expression was one of absolute horror and Fox knew he couldn't have looked much better. The worst part of this entire situation, Fox didn't even know if he could tell Aster he'd done the right thing. Maybe protesting more would've scared Senator Noss off, but it also could've made the situation even worse. Fox couldn't deal with that right now.

"Let's get you to the medbay, Aster," Fox said, trying to keep his voice gentle. When the youngest vod sent him a panicked look, he elaborated, "It's just to make sure you're okay. Coral is better at this stuff than both of us." Thire nodded in agreement, expression schooled when Aster turned to look at him.

"Yes, sir," Aster eventually responded, voice low and gaze directed towards the floor.

Fox sighed and began leading his trooper to the medbay, Thire keeping a steadying hand on his shoulder. Upon reaching their destination, Fox looked around for Coral, who had noticed their entrance.

The CMO ran a critical eye over the three, quickly realizing Aster was the reason they were here. His expression softened. "What's wrong, vod'ika? I know these two can be intimidating, but they can't do shit in my medbay."

Both Fox and Thire scoffed at that, but let it go at the sight of a slight smile on Aster's face. It was quick to disappear, though. "Um..." Aster hesitated. "I-I can't say it again." He turned to Fox. "C-can you fill him in, sir? Please?"

Coral made the decision. "Fox, over here. Thire, help Aster get settled in."

Once it was just the CMO and Marshal Commander, Coral demanded, "What happened to him, Commander? I don't think I've seen a vod that skittish since Hive."

Fox felt a stab of pain go through him at the name and Coral winced, giving him an apologetic look. After a moment, Fox couldn't stop the sigh. "I don't know the exact details, so you'll need to find a way to get them out of Aster if you absolutely need them."

Coral nodded in acknowledgment, gesturing for Fox to continue. "Aster was on shift guarding Senator Noss. The senator ordered Aster to remove his armour, then his blacks, and to lay on his couch. He didn't say anything else, but...I don't think he needed to."

The look on Coral's face was pure outrage. It was different from when he'd snapped at Fox and Thorn, more similar to the rage Stone expressed or the rage Fox buried when someone in the Guard was treated badly. "Will you deal with it?"

Fox rubbed his eyes, the bone-deep tiredness rising to the surface. Most of the time, he was able to ignore it, but now... "I can only do so much, Coral. We need to change fake a decommissioning for Aster, so I can make sure this doesn't happen to him again, but I can only do so much for everyone else. If a senator needs us, we have to be there."

Coral nodded, his eyes expressing the same tiredness Fox felt. "Wait, why do I need to fake a form for him, sir?"

"The only reason I knew to look for him was because a decommissioning request came in for Aster from Senator Noss," Fox explained, feeling his disgust rising at what the senator had pulled.

"Why?" Coral asked, his eyes as hard as steel.

Fox swallowed, unable to hide the bite from his tone. "Senator Noss reported that Aster had attempted to come onto him sexually and upon refusal from the senator, Aster had forced himself on him."

Coral inhaled multiple times, his right hand clenched into a fist. "That utter shabuir."

He reached over to grip Coral's left hand. "Vod," Fox said slowly, catching his attention. "Focus on what you can do here. I'll find a way to handle Senator Noss."

The medic gripped his hand back, smiling sadly at him. "I know you will, sir." Then, he turned around, expression of the ever-patient medic, and made his way back to Aster, who was sitting on a medical bed in his blacks.

As Thire approached him, Fox rubbed his eyes, lack of sleep and caf catching up to him. "What are we going to do about Senator Noss, sir?"

"I'll figure it out, Thire." Fox groaned. "I'm not paid enough to deal with assholes like him."

Thire gave him a surprised laugh. "We're not paid, sir."

"Well, fuck all of us then," he retorted bitterly, watching as Aster spoke to Coral with reluctance.

The younger commander said nothing in response, only reaching over to tap at Fox's hand.

---

In the following days, Fox took it upon himself to always be the trooper to answer if Senator Noss called for something. During these interactions, Fox was able to decide the best way, and pretty much the only way, to prevent that serious of a situation from happening again.

Despite his air of importance, Senator Noss was a coward and Fox was able to utilize that against him. The senator backed away from any real confrontation, which Fox's higher position in the Guard than the average trooper allowed him to subtlety fight back. As soon as Fox offered pushback and mentioned his rank, Senator Noss dismissed him.

So, Fox had concluded that the best solution was to make sure he answered as many requests from Senator Noss and others like him; Fox wasn't optimistic enough to think this issue would stop at him. Though Fox would forever hate it, he could not be everywhere at once. If Fox couldn't get away to respond, another high-ranking Guard member would go in his place.

He informed Thire and Thorn of his decision, Thorn having had the situation explained to him and Stone off-world for a senatorial escort, and both had been as equally angry as him about their inability to help more. In the end, though, both had agreed with his decision. They had agreed to spread the word to some of the lower officers and whoever saw Stone first would inform him, as Fox didn't want to discuss this over comms.

Fox had tried to plan to be the one to see Stone first, but he got called away to a meeting the Chancellor was having with a few senators. Thorn told Fox he'd handle it and Fox assumed that would be the end of it.

He was wrong.

Arriving back to his office, Fox had the chance to remove his helmet to begin his stacks of data work. Most of it wasn't even his; once senators, the Senate Guard, and even the CSF had discovered Chancellor Palpatine passed off his data work to Fox, he had had a sudden influx of work.

Signing off on one of the reports, his office door was slammed open. He dropped the datapad he was reading, gaze darting up in the direction of the noise. Stone had stormed into his office, helmet off and expression furious. It reminded Fox of all their previous confrontation and he immediately had a bad feeling about this.

"Stone!" Thorn called out, running into the office right after him.

"It's okay, Thorn," Stone said, his voice cold. "You told me enough. I can get the rest from the Marshal Commander." Fox narrowed his eyes.

Thorn placed a hand on Stone's shoulder. "You—"

"Thorn," Fox cut in as he stood up from his chair, voice sharp. Thorn pulled away, eyes wide as he looked at Fox. "Stand down, Commander. I can handle this."

Stone snorted. "You can handle me, but not some di'kutla senator?"

Fox resisted the urge to sigh when he realized what this was about. "What else would you suggest I do, Commander Stone?"

"Maybe not let our troopers be around senators that have already proven themselves to physically and sexually assault them? Our officers aren't infallible, you know. They could still be hurt."

Gritting his teeth, Fox forced out, "Do you think I don't know that? If I could answer every single call, I would, but I have other things to handle, too. Our higher-ranking officers have the best chance of getting out of those situations untouched. There's nothing else I can do."

Stone clenched his hands into fists. "You're just not thinking hard enough. At this rate, I'd do a better job at protecting the Guard."

Anger at Stone rising, Fox couldn't stop the bitter laugh that escaped him. "Right, because your method of screaming at senators in the hallways of the senate building worked wonders. You only made things worse for those you were protecting and painted a target on your own back. The only reason you weren't shipped off to Kamino is because of your rank, which partially protects you."

The bald commander's eyes had widened at the beginning, but by the end, it had turned into a glare. "That doesn't mean you're doing enough!"

Fox slammed a hand on his desk. Thorn flinched back, but Stone held his ground. If Fox wasn't so pissed off, he might've been impressed. "What do I need to tell you so you understand? As a clone, even with my rank, I can't do much of anything without a natborn and not a single one cares enough to help. They don't need to care, because we are their property and have no rights! I'm the highest ranking person who cares enough to try and do something, but I have to be careful how I go about it. "

Stone scoffed. "If this is how you show how you care, I'd hate to see how you act if you didn't. Face it, Commander; we all know the only one you care about is Commander Wolffe. I don't know how you possibly expected to lead the Coruscant Guard."

He couldn't stop himself from flinching as soon as Stone's words registered to him and Cody's words began ringing through his head. Fox tried to pull himself together so he could do anything, deny it, defend himself, say something worse, but his mouth wouldn't work. He could barely hear Thorn's accusatory tone yelling at Stone as he stormed out of Fox's office. He saw Thorn, expression soft, reaching to place a hand on his shoulder.

Fox jerked away and forced his mouth to work. "Go away, Thorn."

Thorn's voice took on a calming note, one he used to calm hysterical shinies. It only made Fox angrier. "Fox, it's okay. Stone didn't mean—"

"Leave!" Fox's voice was booming, and it echoed in the small office.

A hurt look flashed across Thorn's face and Fox could've kicked himself. "Yes, sir," Thorn mumbled, looking at the ground. He was gone soon after.

Fox collapsed into his chair, folding his arms on his desk and placing his head on them. Everything was going through his mind at once and it was giving him a headache. Stone's words and angry expression were mingling together until Fox couldn't tell the difference between them. He didn't know why he couldn't seem to care like his brothers did; Wolffe with his overprotective grumpiness, Thorn's cheerful demeanor, Thire's comforting, Stone's reckless protectiveness, Cody's...everything.

He angrily wiped away at the gathering tears in his eyes. No matter how hard he tried to show it, Fox always seemed to mess it up and it came out wrong. He didn't know what he could do.

Lifting his head, Fox saw the time and sighed. He could worry about this latter; Chancellor Palpatine wanted the rest of the data work within the next hour. He wasn't about to test what would happen if he didn't get it in.

---

Fox worked constantly and, apart from business, stayed distant from everyone.

Seemingly recovered from Fox's office, Thorn would incessantly try to get Fox to talk. Fox was barely able to avoid him. Thire had tried to approach him to comfort him; Fox had told him to go deal with upset shinies. Coral had come to speak Fox about overworking himself as a coping mechanism; Fox had told him to go use his HoloNet research somewhere else. Hound had tried to bring Grizzer to Fox's office, saying that cuddling the animal might help; Fox had told him to keep Grizzer out of his office. Stone and Fox had been mostly ignoring each other, their interactions solely business and otherwise leaving the room when the other entered.

A part of Fox wanted to comm Wolffe and tell him everything. The other part lectured that Wolffe had more important things to worry about, including fighting without his right eye.

Fox was reminded of Kamino during this time, back when Cody had started drifting away from him. He had spent most of his free time with Cody back then, and he'd been incredibly alone until he and Wolffe had grown closer. Fox wondered what Cody would think of him now, a failure of a marshal commander and a failure as a brother. He felt like Cody would've been overjoyed to learn that mean and arrogant Fox was now alone.

He had just come back from a patrol with a squad of shinies, with Thorn and Stone both about to leave for their own shifts, when his communicator went off. He pulled it out and answered, a hologram of Sergeant Hazel appearing. "What's wrong, Sergeant?"

"Commander, there was a riot at the prison. We managed to get it under control with minimal losses, but one prisoner escaped with a blaster and my men went after him before I could tell them otherwise. It was Zuros Auz."

Fox paled at the mention of his name and everyone around him fell silent. There wasn't anyone in the Coruscant Guard who didn't know who Zuros Auz was. He was the Trandoshan leader of the gang that had killed Sergeant Fray and his squad in the lower levels while they'd been on patrol. Fox had managed to bring him in not too long after Hive's death. Auz had admitted to personally handling the clone with red dyed into his hair. Hive.

Now, escaped from prison and with multiple Guard members chasing after him, Fox knew the answer to the situation. "Thank you for letting me know, Sergeant. I'll deal with this."

The hologram disappeared and Fox put it away, turning quickly to exit the building.

"Wait, Fox!" Thorn yelled

Loud noise had resumed in the building, but Fox had trouble catching anything, especially once he was out and speeding up his pace into a run. He had to hurry; he had to stop Auz from hurting anymore of his Guard.

The sounds of Coruscant made it difficult to hear something specific, but before he got too far from the headquarters, he heard Thorn shouting, "Fox, wait! We're supposed to be a team!"

Fox pushed himself to run even faster so he could get on the path that led away from the prison, the most likely one that Auz would take. Whether Fox liked it or not, Coruscant was his city and he knew how to get around. He knew how to carefully dodge around civilians and which shortcuts to take.

In this case, with crowds on the streets, the best shortcut would be on the rooftops. He shot his grappling hook, securing it on the side of a building. He pulled himself up, flipping over the ledge to get on the rooftop, landing on his feet. He continued on his way, jumping from building to building, using his grappling hook where necessary.

Keeping an eye on the streets below, Fox was eventually able to spot four sets of red and white identical armour. All of them were lying on the ground, none of them appearing to be moving. He jumped over the side of the building, using his grappling hook to slow his fall.

He ran over to his Guards and confirmed that none of them were moving. Looking up, he saw Auz sprinting away. Fox narrowed his eyes in anger. He sprinted after him, quickly catching up.

"Surrender yourself to the Coruscant Guard, Zuros Auz!" Fox commanded, taking out his blaster, which was set to stun.

He heard the Trandoshan growl. "Like hell I will, clone."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the stereotypical response, Fox fired. To his slight surprise, Auz was able to dodge his shots and pulled out the blaster he had stolen from the prison.

Fox lunged at the Trandoshan, hoping to take him out before he had the chance to shoot. He managed to grab hold of Auz, putting his weight behind a bunch to his face. Auz fell to the ground, grip lessening on the blaster, and Fox landing on top of him. The Trandoshan recovered quickly, shooting his head up to head butt Fox. His helmet took most of the damage, but it loosened in the process, falling onto the ground beside them. Auz, looking a bit dizzy from the head butt, couldn't stop the additional punch Fox landed before moving to get and handcuff him.

Suddenly, a blaster shot echoed in his ears and pain stabbed through his abdomen. Fox gasped in pain, bringing a hand to where the blaster bolt had found a gap in his armour and was now steadily leaking blood. Auz shoved Fox off of him, standing up. Fox was able to get to his knees before he had to stop.

"Apparently, you clones aren't as good as you think you are," Auz remarked casually as he stared down at Fox. The hand over the blaster wound clenched in anger. "I've taken down a lot of them, including a marshal commander. The Republic needs better soldiers if they have any hope of winning this war."

Fox's teeth clenched and eyes narrowed as he stared up at the Trandoshan. He moved his free hand as subtly as he could to a pocket in his armour, where he kept his vibroknife. Auz's gaze remained on Fox's face.

He saw the armour of the four just recently killed. He saw Fray, Jackal, Stab, Gab, Crash, Fatal, and Pro. He saw Hive.

"Fox!" a familiar voice screamed. At first, he thought it was just his imagination. Then, Auz's gaze shot to something behind Fox.

With a strength that surprised Fox, he took his chance. Ignoring the spreading pain and the blood dripping out of him, Fox lunged up with his vibroknife—Is this caring enough for you, Stone?—stabbing the Trandoshan in the eye. Refusing to risk it, Fox used his grip to swirl the knife around, grimacing at the squelching sound. He shoved Auz away from him and the momentum caused Fox to land on his back.

He tried to bring up a hand to press into his wound, but all his strength was gone. He didn't need to worry.

The sound of approaching footsteps stopped by Fox and he heard someone dropping by him. Fox forced his head to turn and was met by utter concern on Thorn's face. "Thorn," he groaned out, pain evident in his voice.

Thorn pulled Fox so he was sitting up and leaning on Thorn's lap. His vod'ika brought a hand to press into his wound. "It'll be alright, ori'vod. I've already called for a medical transport. Help is on the way, you just need to stay awake."

Fox hummed, tiredness quickly creeping up on him. He leaned his head back and his eyes slid shut. "Hey!" Thorn's voice yelled, sounding frantic. His eyes snapped open. "You need to stay awake, Fox!"

If Fox wasn't in such excruciating pain, he would've rolled his eyes. They were all hounding him about needing to sleep more, but the one time he tried to, he wasn't allowed? Life was unfair.

Distantly, he was aware that he forced his hand up so he could pat at Thorn's. He was pretty sure he was trying to reassure his vod'ika, just like Cody used to do for him after fox had had a bad nightmare. His arm fell, limp, and his eyes slid shut again.

"Fox! Open your eyes!"

Is this caring enough for you, Cody?

"Wake up, brother!"

I can't do this, Cody.

"That's an order, Commander!"

Thorn's voice grew quieter and quieter. Fox felt safe, for once, to disobey orders.

Fox fell asleep.

---

Please don't kill me for leaving it at that.

Scenes that come from Amiko's art: Fox, Thorn and the spider; the background incident with Thorn's mug; Fox and Wolffe talking after Wolffe loses an eye; the ending between Fox and Thorn. I believe that's all - Amiko, if you feel I'm missing something, feel free to let me know and I'll add it.

I once again apologize for terrible fight scenes. I'm also gonna apologize for any grammar mistakes. I also want to add that I have absolutely zero medical knowledge, so take everything injury-related here with a grain of salt. Finally, there's no such thing as a Star Wars canon timeline here.

AO3: BlueHairedGrace1010

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