So, I was intending for the 5th installment for this story to be all Rexie and RexSoka, but then, well this idea happened. Rexie and RexSoka will have to wait until next time I'm afraid.
This chapter is a bit more doom and gloom. You've been warned.
Also, send virtual cookies or something to Keep Calm and Be Ninja for having the patience to deal with my excessive love of commas and giving a few helpful (and bettering) suggestions for the Kix chapter.
Oh, another warning: excessive commas (but this time I really did it on purpose. Pinky promise).
Through the Eyes of Fives
Fives, like most clones, had near perfect recall. He remembered in vivid detail all his training, standard and ARC, and all his missions, and all his brothers, and all the deaths.
All except Echo's. Memory was funny that way.
He remembered the death, remembered the explosion, the screaming. He remembered, but not in detail. He remembered in snatches, brief glimpses, and maybe it was better that way, because if he could remember all that detail it might drive him crazy.
He remembered the rest of the mission and returning to Coruscant and Arca Barracks, and holing up in a room all by himself. He remembered ignoring a hailstorm of comm-calls, some from Captain Rex, some from Captain Maze, some from General Skywalker. He remembered wondering, for the first time in his considerably short life, how easy it was to desert.
And then she came, burgundy and russet and pale blue. He ignored the knocks on his door, but she wouldn't take no for an answer and used the Force to get past the lock, stepping into the room silently. Fives knew who it was without looking.
"I'm not good company right now, commander."
He couldn't hear her walking, but the air beside him moved as she settled on the floor, leaning back against the metal from of the bunk he was lying on.
"That's okay. Neither am I."
They sat in silence for what felt like a long time, seconds or minutes, or maybe an hour. She was there, simply there, in an unobtrusive way, and he wasn't sure whether he liked it or not.
"You shouldn't be in here. Off-limits for non-clones, particularly females."
His eyes remained fixed firmly on the bottom of the bunk above him, gaze focusing and defocusing. He heard the whispering rustles of clothing. "I'll be fine."
"Right."
They didn't say anything else, not for another long moment. Then Fives sighed, because he had thoughts, bad, dangerous thoughts, and she was there, and maybe she'd listen without judgement.
"You were stupid, commander. Why'd you want to come on that mission?"
He could picture her shrugging. "It was the Citadel. It was supposed to be an adventure." He could hear it then, that something had changed in her, something youthful, childish, innocent. Whatever it had been, whatever had been there, it was gone now.
"Well, did you have fun?" The words felt odd and heavy on his tongue, flat and caustic and bitter all at the same time.
She echoed his sigh. "Loads. Maybe we can go back during spring holiday."
"Clones don't get holidays."
"Shame."
He couldn't tell if she was being serious or teasing, if her mood matched his or if she was trying to cheer him up. He couldn't tell, and he didn't try to. They were talking, and talking was helping. Talking was making him think less.
Thinking, he was learning quickly, was suddenly a very dangerous thing for him to do.
"Fives?" He hummed acknowledgement, and she continued. "I can sense it. Talk to me."
She could sense it. He didn't know what it was, but it didn't sound all too great. And talking, talking was good, so he did.
"I had fun, too, commander. With all the electricity and the doors that cut one of us in half. Those commando droids were pretty great, too, and the anoobas? I've always wanted to see how quickly they could kill a man."
There. Words. And now silence.
She moved again, he could hear it as he counted and recounted the cross-beams holding the mattress above his head.
"I miss Echo." She was the first one to say it, to acknowledge that there was an empty space in the room that should have been filled.
And suddenly he could say it, too. "He was the better of us. He deserves a frakin' medal." His throat started closing, eyes burning, and he squeezed them tightly shut. "Did you know, commander, there's no word in Mando'a for hero? Jango Fett was Mandalorian, and in ARC training we were taught more of the language, and there's no word for hero."
"Shame." This time the word was breathed, a soft sound in soft air, cutting through the hard silence that was beginning to suffocate them.
He finally turned his head, looking at her for the first time since she'd entered the room. All he could see were the tips of her montrals, visible over the edge of the bunk. Cautiously, he moved his hand, brushing two fingers gently against the indigo and white, and she turned her head, tipping it back to look up at him.
Glassy blue, puffy and red-rimmed, and he patted the mattress beside him. Yes, he could do this, comforting her. He could comfort her, and focus on her, and then he wouldn't have the time to focus on himself or those dangerous thoughts.
She wasn't crying, not really, and a small smile curled on her lips as she crawled gracefully onto the bunk, settling against his side, stretching out. "Isn't this against the rules?"
"Probably."
She smelled good, clean, fresh and feminine, with hints of bacta and antibacterial. And she was warm, wonderfully so, the heat seeping through his bodysuit, through his skin.
"Echo might have saved the mission. There really should be a word."
He was quiet, trying to find his words, the right words, good words, and then he realized that this was Commander Tano - Ahsoka in this moment - and that good words didn't matter with her. "I should have stopped him. Or gone after him. Or gone instead of him."
She twisted towards him, reaching up a small hand, slender fingers sweeping along his cheeks and coming away moist. So the tears had managed to escape, and he just hadn't noticed.
"It's not fair." Even to him, his words sounded weak and broken, and suddenly he was the one being comforted.
Suddenly she was there, holding him, soothing him, making herself bigger than him in a way that should have been impossible for someone so small. Russet and burgundy were all he could see, warm heat was all he could feel, feminine and bacta were all he could smell, and he clung tightly to that, to her.
Fives wasn't sure what happened, exactly, after that. Again, the vivid details escape him. Again, he was left with snatches and glimpses. But it changed things between them. She was there, really there, whenever he needed, and he didn't have to say anything. She would know, and they'd sit and talk, and sometimes he'd cry and sometimes she would, and sometimes they'd remember Echo and sometimes they did their best not to.
Recollection let him keep most of itself, the good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly. But the most important bits, Echo and Ahsoka—because she was now more friend than commander—only came to him in pieces, fragments. Colors and smells, laughter and smiles.
Memory was funny that way.
It was a good way to remember them, though. Echo was kept alive and young, and she was kept brilliant and dazzling.
He had not, to this day, managed to figure out what it had been, that day in Arca Barracks, but he knew she'd saved him from it. She'd dazzled it away, and dazzled him back to sanity. She had been there when he didn't want her to be, russet and burgundy and watery blue, fresh and clean with bacta and antibacterial new on her skin, warm in a room that felt entirely too cold.
They had shared words that weren't good and weren't right, and that was okay. They had shared heat and broken rules, and that was okay, too.
Echo had been his life, his other half, and she was his something else, something that he didn't quite know but was very important, something that was more friend than commander.
Sometimes, he couldn't quite remember what it was like when she was more commander than friend, when Echo had been alive and beside him. But, that was okay, too.
Sometimes all he could remember was Echo, just Echo, soft and quiet and kind, quoting regulations.
Sometimes all he could remember was her, russet and burgundy and pale blue, indigo and white, bacta and antibacterial and heat. Brilliance and dazzle.
Memory was funny that way.
The part where it says 'they shared heat and broken rules' holds no sexual innuendos. No sex between Fives and Ahsoka, just simple, physical contact and comfort, and her totally disregarding the fact that she wasn't supposed to be there.
Idk, I really love this chapter in a different way than the more light-hearted ones. It's just so... *deep sigh*
Am I the only one who thinks so?
Kisses.