Wrecker paced his cell again. And again. AND AGAIN.

It's been two weeks since these people had taken Tech. What were they doing to him? Were they experimenting on him? Were there Kaminoans here? Was that why they were locked up? Was Nala Se here? WHERE IS OMEGA?!

Question after question spiraled around in Wrecker's head. Each having no answer of its own.

Wrecker growled in annoyance; the sound amplified by the emptiness of his cell.

Walking around in circles, he got dizzy and had to lay down. Then he got impatient and started pacing again.

Days and days and DAYS went by, blurring into his subconscious until he was unaware of how long he was in the cell any more…

Interlude

Lovi went straight into panic mode when she looked into the bottle of fever reducers only to find it empty save for three tablets. She could have sworn she'd bought a new bottle only to find one in the garbage bin. Did he really go through an entire bottle of fever reducers that fast?!

Ten days ago she could have sworn his fever had broken, only for it to come back with a vengeance.

Crosshair was currently laying in her bed with the air conditioning cranked up higher than it's ever been. Lovi was even wearing her winter clothes by now.

Despite his discomfort, the clone seemed eager for the cold environment as he compared his state to being "boiled alive" and Lovi took it as anything but a good sign, a really bad one in fact.

Getting the easily almost six-and-a-half-foot tall clone up her stairs seemed challenging, but his light weight terrified her. He was extremely under-weight and could barely even lift his head up, meaning he was dead weight in her arms and she could still haul him up a flight of stairs. A really bad sign. Lovi opted to research meals that could at least put some meat on his bones.

Lovi returned to the room to see the clone had liberated his upper body of his blacks, making her freeze in shock. Well, he was skinny as hell but still pretty well built? Well she did only remove his armor… GAH! Dammit.

Lovi shook herself out of that trail of thought as she approached the clone. " too much… please…" Crosshair whimpers out, sweat beading on his forehead despite the freezing coldness of the room.

"Crosshair." Lovi says as she used a soft towel to wipe away his perspiration, "Cross, I need you to wake up and take this…" she coos to him again and this time he opened his eyes minutely, "I already am…" he choked out through a sore throat.

Lovi gave him a fever reducer and a bottle of water. After dry swallowing the pill, the clone eagerly took the bottle after and drank every last drop.

"What are you doing…" he managed as he panted while giving her back the empty bottle, "I'm dead meat anyway, this fever's gonna kill me. Best take my blaster and be done with it." He rasped on and Lovi caught on to what he was saying.

Kill him and put him out of his misery.

"No. I'm going to help you get better." Lovi said sternly with her best doctor's "no shit, no trouble" voice. "Why? How can you help… this?" Crosshair panted as he gestured to himself, "I'm a lost cause. Defective was gonna get me killed someday…" Crosshair had shared much of his old life with Lovi in his feverish lethargic state and well… He thought he was dying.

"You're NOT a lost cause you stubborn SOB." Lovi snapped as she seemingly produced yet another water bottle seemingly out of nowhere to which Crosshair perked up at.

Lovi handed the second bottle to the clone who'd drank it faster than the previous one. "I'm dying, might as well go out with a shot." The stubborn clone croaked out after drinking the second bottle.

Lovi's face then turned to an expression of annoyance. "Oh, what the hell is it with you men?! It's a F.L.U. You're not dying!" she muttered as she exited the room.

The moment she made it to her living room however, she broke down. She knew this wasn't a flu, the fever was just too high. This was what she'd seen at the hospital where she'd worked and her pointing it out almost got her fired.

And now, the sickness that nearly made her lose her job is now going to kill this poor man who thought that taking his own life was justified to being taken by a fever…

?Flashback? six months ago

Lovi steered around a fellow nurse pushing a gurney out of the ER. Saint Mercy's Hospital had been rather busy today, Lovi had to change twice as many sheets than she normally did. There were many patients who had strangely high fevers, many had to be restrained because of the hallucinations and fever dreams.

Lovi had seen one of these fever patients. A little seven-year-old girl named Annie. The child was so bright despite her failing condition. The girl seemed to like to make up stories and tell them to the Doctors and Nurses that tended to her while her Grandmother had to be away or was asleep. Lovi liked to hang around for those stories because Annie was one of those patients that made her job worthwhile.

Annie was diagnosed with a flu, nothing serious, so Lovi told her and her Grandmother she'd be alright. But then her fever picked up, and her Grandmother began to not feel well too. The head doctor of the pediatric ward said the Grandmother had caught Annie's illness, but he also said they'd be back on their feet soon.

Then the next day, the head doctor of the burn ward didn't turn in for work. Not even a call. Then, that same day, Annie's Grandmother's fever spiked and she passed out. She woke up again in a hospital bed away from her granddaughter. The woman demanded to see Annie, but no matter how hard she tried, the head doctors told Lovi to remember her place.

The Grandmother's fever then spiked and she became lethargic, muttering she wanted to see Annie over and over again, until her last breath that night. Lovi had been there to see it. She wanted to tell Annie, she did, but the head doctor ordered her against it.

The next two days were painful for Lovi. Annie kept asking every single person who entered her room where her grandmother was. Nobody answered her. The little girl's bright spirits were killed when the realization dawned on her. She refused to talk to anyone, to eat or take medicine and within the day she was gone.

Lovi cried herself to sleep that night. The last thing Annie told her was that she wasn't afraid to die, that she was happy to be with her grandmother again. Seven years old and happy to die.

Lovi didn't return to the hospital the next day…

When she did return, she was talking to her coworkers about how Annie and her grandmother's sicknesses didn't make sense. One of the head doctors caught her and told her to shut her mouth.

Then, on one weekend in her apartment as she was unpacking her weekly groceries while the TV was on in the other room, she got a call from the head doctor of the burn ward. Her brother's best friend, Doctor Matt Lazuli.

"Matt?!" Lovi stuttered, "What happened? You didn't show up to the hospital!"

"L-L-Lovi… listen to m-me…" the man on the other end of the line stumbled over his words before breaking down into a coughing fit. "This flu they say is going around, don't listen to them. It's not a flu, Lovi."

"Matt what do you mean?" Lovi called into her phone.

"The f-fevers… they're t-t-t-too high… Good God I'm freezing…" Matt paused to catch his breath, "This isn't over, Lovi, these cases are all over the world, b-b-but the G-Governments are covering it-t up… I-It's-s s-s-spreading L-Lovi… M-My wife… she caught it a f-few days before I got sick and s-s-stopped coming in to work…" Matt paused yet again, "S-She died Lovi… B-But she c-came back! S-she bit me…"

"What? Matt what do you mean? Your wife died and came back and bit you?" Lovi asked in confusion.

"I tried t-telling your brother but he wouldn't listen, n-nobody would…" the doctor stammered before speaking more clearly, "It's a virus Lovi"

The word 'virus' echoed about in her mind, virus, virus, virus, virus, virus…

"Matt, what is happening?" Lovi asked him sounding scared

"Lovi p-please, b-before the stories start, pack up your t-things… Get out o-of the city Lovi…" Matt's voice trembled, "when they start saying that d-d-dead walk, that they're k-killing people, E-EATING people, don't b-be scared…"

"Matt I'm already scared, you're scaring me" Lovi whimpered

"I know and I'm s-sorry…" Matt sniffed on the other end of the phone, "b-but listen to me… y-you're strong and s-smart and so s-so brave… Y-your mother would be proud… and I kn-know that your f-father is… g-goodbye Lovi… Godspeed l-little s-s-sister…"

Lovi flinched hard when the call went silent with a deafening BANG!

Just then, a newscaster brought up an apparent fake news account of murderers eating the flesh off their victims…

After that Lovi moved like a flash. She left her apartment, quit her job and bought a house in the urban areas away from the city. She started looking into conspiracy theories and began to see the Zombie-Apocalypse rise in popularity. She would have scoffed and discounted it if not for Annie's sickness, Matt's phone call and the rising cases around the world.

Then one fateful day, as she was driving home from a hefty withdrawal from the bank, when she climbed into her car and as she started it up, she could hear heavy breathing in the backseat.

"You know if you wanted a free ride, you could have asked." She piped up

The black-armor-clad man startled "H-How did you?"

"I could hear your breathing before I even got close to the truck." Lovi said, keeping her voice to a matter-of-fact tone

In the corner of her eye and in the rear-view mirror, the man made sure she could see his gun "Listen Lady, I don't want to hurt you, but I just need a ride, that's all"

Lovi merely kept her eyes on the road "You don't look like any military I've ever seen. I don't even recognize the model of gun you're holding." She simply stated to which the man replied with a hissed out "Good."

?Flashback? present day

Echo couldn't help himself any longer. He dug into the food that was given to him, his already weak body relieved to finally have some sustenance but also pained to having so much food in it after not having eaten for so long.

Echo groaned as another cramp filtered through his abdomen, causing considerable discomfort.

The clone sat on his cot as he waited for the cramp to pass, taking a sip from the water bottle he'd been provided. With nothing to occupy him, Echo's mind drifted to happier times, Domino Squad, Fives, General Skywalker and Commander Tano, Rex, then The Bad Batch and Omega.

Anakin…

Echo briefly wondered if he'd survived Order 66. He was crazy resourceful at best, terrifyingly resourceful at worst. He could have survived, Ahsoka too. She'd learned from him, she was as strong as him, maybe even stronger for leaving the Jedi order.

He wondered what had become of Hunter, Tech, Wrecker and Omega. Were they being questioned? Tortured? And the imperial shuttle that chased them into the wormhole. Was Crosshair on that ship? Or had the Empire killed him after Tipoca City? If Crosshair was on that shuttle, what happened to him when they went through the wormhole? Was he in charge of what was happening to them here? Was he probably torturing Wrecker, Hunter or Tech for information? Or was he in one of these rooms himself?

Echo's brain began to spin at the thousands of questions that spun about in his head. lying down on his sad excuse for a bed, the cyborg drifted off to sleep.