Eighty Two
Marlo never did wake up.
She died peacefully ten days after crash landing on Scillal.
Stoyan watched as her force signature slowly ebbed away to nothing while Echo sat by her side, comforted in the fact that she was in no pain and not alone at the end.
Besides all his efforts to stay on top of his grief, Echo lapsed into a depression, the likes of which he had never encountered before. It was as if all he had fought so hard to achieve was taken from him in another cruel twist of fate.
He had stayed focused after he lost his legs at the Citadel and had begged for her to save him.
He survived the multiple surgeries and the physical therapy, hiding under beds and behind bacta tanks, knowing that one day he would gain the strength emotionally and physically to escape. His training had seen him through, but this was different. This was something he wasn't prepared for.
As Marlo slipped away, so did his resolve.
Stoyan couldn't help and watched as Echo spiraled to an all time low.
The older Fett tactfully removed the body, performing a quick Jedi blessing as he covered her with the rich Scillal soil. He then went back to the lake and stripped off before diving in, the cool water washing away the dirt along with the disappointment.
He then gave Echo some time to be alone.
Two days.
After returning from work one afternoon, he sat next to the young man in front of the fire. Together they silently stared into the flames flickering orange and yellow. Stoyan thought for a moment, the gentle crackling and the heat comforting considering the events of the past twelve days.
"Did I ever tell you about the time I met Anakin Skywalker?" It was an attempt to refocus the soldier, and bring him back to what he had been bred for.
Echo looked up surprised, "you knew General Skywalker?"
"Knew him," he nodded, "precocious piece of - ," he scoffed, then continued, "apparently he is the Chosen One. The little frink had Qui Gon and Obi-Wan convinced."
"But not you?" Echo flicked another stick into the fire and sat back. Stoyan had finally engaged him in conversation.
Good Echo, good.
"No," Stoyan bent forward and poured some caf into his mug, "You see, Yoda always thought I was the Chosen One."
Echo regarded the older man carefully. He liked Stoyan. He had tried hard to save Marlo, spending hours drawing on his gift to save the one person who had never given up on the ARC.
"So you're the man who is going to save us all? Restore balance to the universe."
"What?" Stoyan opened up his arms, "you don't think I'm up for it?"
Echo smiled and nodded.
Come on, that's the boy.
Stoyan continued. "In the time of greatest despair, a child shall be born who will destroy the Sith and bring balance to the Force," He repeated the ancient prophecy verbatim. "Yeah, the trouble was, the Jedi hierarchy were too caught up in this Chosen One that they lost sight of the power they have themselves. My theory was that united, the Jedi have that power to change and fight evil. To make a difference. Yoda and the Order he supports on Coruscant were too busy looking to one person to fill the prophecy, they lost sight of the power they had combined. Anakin became the golden boy and I was more than happy to stand aside and let him bear the burden. That was when I quietly left. I've had a bounty on my head ever since."
"How long?"
"Fourteen years."
Echo continued to stare into the fire. "But what if Anakin isn't the Chosen One, what then?" the ARC spoke frankly.
"You haven't understood a word I've said have you?"
"How can I? I'm not bred to think remember. We were made to fight in a war against machines, machines that are manufactured on an assembly line! I guess we're no better than them, grown in laboratory vats. They just rattle us out time and time again. Throw us in bacta to get fixed, send us back to Kamino if we can't." He stopped himself, regaining his control momentarily.
Stoyan smiled, he was getting the reaction he was after.
Come on. Fight. Fight back Echo.
"Didn't they ever think we feel, want, need?" His voice gaining strength, his eyes questioning the former Jedi. "Fek, I have a child out there. Somewhere," he threw his arm up to the sky. "We live, we breathe, we fight and we love. It's pathetic," he spat out, "we're pathetic."
"No, no you're not Echo. The Jedi have overstepped a mark. Creating an army of humans without thinking of the consequences. Ultimately someone has to be accountable, someone has - ,"
"What gets me," Echo cut him off, "is that we were created before the fekking war even started! How can that be? Answer me that? It does my head in!" Echo stood and kicked at the dirt, spraying the fire and sending embers floating gently upwards.
"You said you have a child ? Surely that's enough to want to go home and - "
"TO WHAT?" He broke down, his voice cracking as he turned his back, the emotion catching him unaware. "I'm dead remember," his face crumpled. "No one came back for me," he said, punching his fist into his chest, "there was no mission to recover me, not like the Jetii we were sent there to retrieve. Brothers be damned. I'm done! I HAVE NO FAMILY!" His sides heaving with the outburst.
"You have me," Stoyan said quickly as he stood and placed a hand on his trembling shoulder, "feeling sorry for your self will get you nowhere, and believe me when I say that."
Echo then let go of all the controlled emotion he held inside for so long. Stoyan felt the release, the sheer magnitude of pain, regret and anger explode from deep within. He held his true brother, and as one grieved for a family lost, Stoyan relished in the one he had finally found.
.
Gemma packed away the clothes and items she would take with her back to Oriis for the duration of her confinement. Rex watched as she threw items into a chest, and smiled.
They were so different; all he had in the world would fit into his pack.
He watched as she undressed and headed to the refresher to shower. Rex knew this would be the last time he would see her and thought quickly before following her in, taken aback immediately at what he saw.
"What are you doing?" Rex looked at her incredulously.
"I'm shaving my legs," she replied absently, preoccupied with the balancing act over her pregnant belly.
"With my razor?" Gem smiled and continued. Rex strode forward into the refresher and grabbed it from her hand.
"Hey?" She retaliated and moved out from the running water, "what are you doing?"
"That's my razor," it sounded childlike but he couldn't help himself, the words spilling out on their own accord, "it's mine, that's all," he said quietly regretting the outburst.
Rex instantly felt foolish as he turned back to look at her. Wet, her legs white from the shaving gel, and her ballooning stomach. He then looked at the razor in his hand, rubbing his thumb up the handle, stroking it as if it were one of his beloved hand pistols.
"Here," he held it out to her, his face meeting her steady gaze, "I'm sorry." She reached out and took it from his extended hand.
"Thank you," was all she said as she bent over to finish the other half of her right leg. "What? Now what?" She questioned him standing there watching, his razor glistening with water and soap.
"Nothing," he said fumbling for words.
Gem dressed and returned to the lounge area of her small apartment. He liked her in travel clothes, pants and a tunic. From behind, no one would have even known she was pregnant.
"What time is Reed coming to collect you?"
"He isn't, Fox is."
Rex spun around, his heart picking up the pace of his thoughts.
"Fox? Why?"
"Oh, I don't know," her voice dripping with sarcasm, "probably something to do with the fact that Olphina is coming to Oriis before the ceremony of lights on Naboo." She looked at him before adding, "what's up with you anyway?"
He smiled through the mental anguish and continued. "You will let me know if anything happens won't you?"
"You mean if I - go – into – labour – and – have – the – baby - ?"
The white elephant in the room.
It was mental torture.
His brain working in overdrive to keep up.
Gem was still angry at the whole Kenobi 'thing' as she referred to it, still not giving up on the fact that to her, he was still alive.
They had fought bitterly and Rex hadn't spent much of the cool down period in her company, which he regretted, citing the need to catch up on administrative duties while they were stationed. The men were growing restless as well. Rex had spent hours in the gym working out, and through, the frustration of being in such a compromised position.
She turned and picked up an elaborate bracelet, the yellow and white metal sparkling with clear stones. He watched as she became increasing agitated, swearing under her breath as it refused to clip, and chortled slightly when she began swaying her arm to try and catch the clasp.
"Here, allow me."
She stopped as he caught her wrist and quickly opened and secured it tight. "There all done." Rex moved his hands to where the small of her waist once was. "I don't like it when we argue," his face searching hers for some long overdue affection. She kept avoiding his gaze but he persisted, through dogged determination if nothing else.
"Gem, look at me." She hated that he could read her so well.
She could hold it back no longer. "He's gone, isn't he?" Her eyes pleading for him to lie to her about Obi-Wan. To tell her that she had been right all along, and that he wasn't lying in some cold chamber in the Jedi Crypt, but alive just as she sensed.
"I'm sorry Gemma, I really am." She moved forward, into his arms and cried, not softly like she had done in the past, but loud and aggrieved. Rex supported her, guiding her to a chair where he held her. "K'uur," he said softly, "udesiir cyar'ika." He kissed the salty water as she nuzzled into him.
"I don't want to go without you," she whispered.
"I know, I don't want you to leave either."
Rex held her for a long while, stroking the back of her head as she allowed the anguish to flow freely. He could always reign her in, like a wild animal, his hands could tame and his words always soothed. Rex had patience and true tenderness; he was a man of contrasts, considering the reason he was born, solely to fight.
Did the Republic know what they had done?
Did the Jedi?
The Jedi.
The thought only made her want to cry more.
Rex moved his hands down to the bump and cradled it gently, "I can't wait to meet this little one," he said. It was the first time he had related to the impending arrival of his child.
"I think it's a girl," Gem replied, exhausted from all the crying.
"A girl?" he said quietly, continually rubbing her stomach, "Hmmm, I hope she looks like you."
Gem couldn't help but smile.
"That's better," he said before she silenced him with her mouth. Softly at first, then slowly and sensuously their tongues sought out each others.
It was perfect.
There was no need for words, the kiss saying it all and symbolising so much; an 'I'm sorry kiss,' a 'goodbye, I'll miss you kiss,' and finally, an 'I love you kiss.'
Their last moment of intimacy broken by the sound of the buzzer heralding her transport. They pulled apart slowly, both their eyes closed and foreheads touching, regretting wasting time being angry over something out of their control.
Sometimes, the timing is just never right.
"That'll be Fox."
.
"Jess, don't you have somewhere else you need to be?" Kix was exasperated.
Jesse, like most of the 501st, was bored and restless at being back in the barracks for so long.
"Nope," he replied cheerfully. Kix smiled, he was just happy to be stationed somewhere where the casuality list was nothing more than a fungal foot infection or an ingrown toe nail.
"Did I ever tell you about the holovid that Reed and I watched on Oriis?"
"Jess, I really just want to get some sleep," Kix pulled himself up onto his top bunk.
"Oh, come on ner vod, it was great. Reed said it's what his girl - ..."
Kix grabbed the pillow and placed it over his head as Jess began a long winded rhetoric on something that he had little interest in hearing when Tup wandered into the room.
"Hey Hardcase, you'll - ," Jesse stopped mid sentence.
All three were silent.
Tup, frozen to the spot looked to Kix who had sat up perfectly straight and looked immediately to Jess.
"I haven't thought about him at all today," he said, his face looking as though he had committed some sort of crime.
Tup threw his data pad down on his cot, "I've heard about those 'chick flicks' Jess. An engi in the 41st showed me one once. Come on, you can tell me all about it over a caf in the Mess."
Jess looked back up at Kix, who nodded his head, intonating for him to take the heavy gunner up on his offer.
Kix lay down again when the call came through.
"Torrent Company fall in. Full kit. Gymnasium 4a."
"Fek," he grumbled, his rest would just have to wait.
.
"You noticed how the cap has been unusually quiet these past few days?" Jesse and Kix walked back from the Mess. They were tired and had just gone through another two hours of extensive training.
"Yeah," the medic replied, "you know Gem has gone?"
"Gone?"
"Back to Oriis," they turned together before Kix stopped and pressed the code to the infirmary. "Just keep an eye on him," he finished before the door swooped open and he stepped inside.
Jess took the medics request seriously, heading back to the gym where the captain had remained after their training session.
Rex moved from the salmon rack over to the bench press, upping the weight on either end of the bar. He was the fittest he had ever been, every muscle honed to perfection. He was toey as well. The waiting for General Skywalker to return from his vendetta against the death of his old master was beginning to take its toll. Rex wanted to move the men out and get on with fighting the war.
"Hey Cap, want me to spot you?" Rex stood straight, Jess noticed the sheen across his chest, his eye trailing to the ink on his left pectoral. Rex, aware he was looking at the tattoo moved his towel around his shoulders to cover it.
He studied the trooper in front of him and angled himself on his back before blowing out three long breaths and retracting his shoulder blades.
He nodded briefly, "lift off, two count. Ten reps, touch and go. Got it?"
"Yes Sir."
Jesse helped manoeuvre the weights off the uprights and continued to hold the bar until Rex had it balanced.
"It's all you Sir," he said as he waited for Rex to acknowledge he had full weight to let go.
Rex moved the bar up and down effortlessly. Jess watched and counted the repetitions. Rex got to eight when a soldier entered the gym and shouted "Captain Rex."
Rex grunted out "take," and Jesse moved forward to help guide and replace the weights into the uprights.
"Over here," the captain said wiping his face with the towel.
"Sir, this is just in from HQ."
Rex looked down and read the flimsie handed to him. He read it twice to make sure he had understood what is said.
Jesse looked at the reaction written across his CO's face and stepped forward slightly. "Sir, is everything alright?"
Rex ignored him, reading the message for a third and final time.
"Sir?"
"Yes," he murmured as he turned to Jesse in disbelief.
"Sir, what is it?"
"It's Kenobi. Apparently he's alive."
.