Here we are at the final chapter! Thank you all so much for reading, I hope you enjoy!

The cold air moved like tendrils of toxic smoke. They reached out from the peaceful black space Fox had been floating in and snaked up his legs. No matter how much he tried to run or shake them off, their hold tightened, until Fox was anchored to the floor.

They crept up his body, foggy white arms against the darkness of his black bodysuit. He didn't even have his armor for protection.

"Get off me," he muttered as he struggled against them. Bending his legs was no use and soon they had twisted around his abdomen, his chest, and down his arms no matter how incessantly he tried to brush them off. Then, all at once, the tendrils pulled. Fox was forced to his knees, hands behind his back, head trapped to look at the nothingness that was the floor. Each smoking arm settled like ice against his body, burning a cool, steady fire through his blacks.

"Perhaps you are better like this," said an equally cold voice from the darkness. Fox couldn't even lift his head to look. Every struggle and flinch of muscle was rewarded with a new icicle buried in his flesh. "Less of a danger to your brothers, at the very least. Were you aware that the banks have been deregulated as a result of your mistake? Just think of what we can accomplish with those funds. We can afford to send clones to every corner of the galaxy to clean up Separatist skirmishes. All thanks to you, Commander."

The cold voice morphed into something slippery and sickly-sweet.

Palpatine.

"Your actions can't protect them, and neither can your stringent rules. You must see that. It is fruitless. You turn them cold in your futile effort to prolong their short lives."

Fox could practically feel him hovering just in front of him, but he couldn't yet look up. He grit his teeth.

"You are but one clone. You will never be enough."

The tendrils around his neck turned to ice, forcing him to look up. A dark, hazy silhouette of the Chancellor was indeed before him. His lips curled in a sadistic smile while his yellow eyes bore straight through Fox's soul.

"Though, I must admit, it is admirable to see you try, even though you know you will fail."

Fox did know that, in the long run. There was no way he could save all of his men, try as he might. But he could still do something. His rules did protect his men, even if they stripped them of their individuality for their own protection the moment they were outside the Guard buildings. But it had to be worth it in the end. It had to be. There were more brothers alive today than there would have been had he slacked off, or even simply done the work that was required of him, instead of taking on so much extra.

"Oh, Commander," Palpatine said, his mouth morphing into a grotesque frown. "We can't have any of that, now can we?" He raised his hand and lines of smoke shot towards Fox faster than he could turn his head away. They gagged his mouth and covered his nose and very suddenly, the black world began to get even darker.

Fox's chest heaved as he struggled against the icy binds, even as they put immense pressure on his ribs. He needed out.

He pulled with all his might, muscles screaming, trying to twist his neck even a centimeter more to find some relief. He yelled something incoherent against the gag. He refused to die like this, alone and silenced in his own mind. Fox continued screaming and felt the burn as the words clawed their way out of his throat and were deadened into near-complete silence by the smoke.

"—ox!"

Fox stopped struggling for a split second. Something that sounded almost like a muffled version of his name echoed throughout the space. The Chancellor never used his name.

"—p out of i—"

Palpatine moved in front of his face in an instant, like a glitching hologram. "They will not save you, in the end," he hissed. He moved too fast for Fox's eyes to track, putting his hands against Fox's face, sending the toxic fog straight into his lungs.

Fox continued to struggle, but the ice made him feel heavy. It solidified in his veins like duracrete and pulled him down towards the inky blackness. He didn't want to stop fighting, but there was no way out from under the immense weight.

He sunk and sunk and choked on his screams and—

There was a sudden, sharp pain across his face, but Fox hadn't seen Palpatine move.

"Fox!"

It rang throughout Fox's head, clear as a bell. A brother calling his name.

They sounded desperate. In need of help. His help. Fox had never ignored a cry for help before, and he wasn't about to start now.

He grit his teeth and clenched his hands as much as he was able. He moved his neck within its icy bonds to break Palpatine's hold on his face. With just a moment's respite, the icy onslaught dulled, and some of the blackness in the room faded.

Palpatine's face was still a snarl, but Fox could see a small amount of surprise in his eyes.

"No," Fox ground out, pure fury.

He felt another pain, this time across his wrist, and focused on it with all his willpower, as if that alone could melt the frozen shackles. He heard his brothers calling his name. He couldn't leave them, not yet. Not when there was still so much to protect them from.

A pinprick of light in the pitch-black ceiling drew his immediate attention and he clawed his way towards it, leaving shards of ice in his wake. He could feel the tendrils trying to snake back up his legs, but he was determined. They wouldn't get him, not again.

"It's futile, Commander!" Palpatine called after him.

Fox didn't slow down.

There was no calm coming back to awareness. Fox snapped into his body in a chaotic instant to the sounds of screeching scanners and brothers worrying over him. His chest convulsed as he gasped breaths of air in and harshly coughed them out, as if the movement would dispel the frozen crystals growing in his chest.

His hands flew to the obstruction on his face, but they were immediately batted away.

"That stays on, it's to help you."

Fox rocked his head back and forth. "No. Can't—get in again," he mumbled incoherently. He needed the lingering sensation of the hands off. He raised his arms again and they were subsequently pinned to his sides.

Fox opened his eyes at that, expecting to see brothers at his side, but all he saw through his rolling vision were amorphous shadows. He couldn't know they weren't Palpatine, that he hadn't followed Fox somehow. It didn't make sense, but it did. He couldn't risk it.

"He—you—won't get them," he spat and continued trying to get the damned obstruction off.

Finally, the pressure on his arms eased and the ghostly hands on his face were removed. He still couldn't get his breathing under control, but at least it was off. He was free. The tendrils couldn't get him.

It was at that point his body began shivering. There were words exchanged over him, cold compresses applied, but all that did was make more muscles spasm involuntarily. He felt as if he would shake apart, an ice sculpture that would topple and shatter into thousands of pieces against an unforgiving floor.

No matter how many times he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, the hazy shadow wouldn't leave his vision. It glitched between standing right next to his bed and watching him from the corner of the room. Fox couldn't move his eyes fast enough to track it. His heart was racing in his chest.

"Okay, this isn't working. Thorn, get under his other side, we need to move him to the 'freshers."

While Fox was aware of the words, they didn't connect to anything in his brain. All he knew was that there were suddenly hands on his arms again, and they hurt. Fox immediately flinched away and tried to bring his arms into his chest, but they were shaking so badly it made them almost impossible to control.

"Don't," he whispered between chattering teeth as he flicked his eyes between both shadows.

Surprisingly, both sets of hands stilled.

"Fox," one said calmly. It sounded like a brother, shrouded in a shadow that Fox couldn't clear. He wanted to believe it. "You're burning up. We need to cool you down."

Fox vehemently shook his head. He was freezing. He couldn't get the ice out of his lungs.

A gentle hand on his face jolted his attention back to the shadow. He wanted to flinch back. He wanted to lean into it. "You know I don't lie to you, right?"

Fox continued heaving breaths in and out. He couldn't get the poisonous arms to unwrap themselves from his mind. He wrenched his eyes shut and tried to focus on the hand on his cheek. It was firm but gentle, as was the other set of hands on his arm. Maddox didn't lie to him. Thorn was always steady.

Palpatine wouldn't get to them, too, Fox would make certain of it. They were supposed to be safe in the Guard's medbay, because Fox had done absolutely everything in his power to make it safe. For everyone. Including him.

"Yeah," he finally said in a rush, voice shaking along with the rest of him before he could think twice and take it back.

The hand from his cheek moved back to his arm. "Okay, 'freshers it is. Gonna get you up. Apologies in advance."

Fox kept his eyes closed and didn't bother asking anything further. The hands—Thorn and Maddox, it had to be—lifted him in one fluid motion and hooked his arms over their shoulders to support him between them. The movement pulled at every single one of his simultaneously frozen but fiery muscles and sucked the air from his lungs.

They moved down the hallways at a speed that Fox couldn't place and only blessedly stopped for a moment to lower Fox to the ground.

There was a conversation that Fox didn't pay much attention to, too focused on breathing and keeping himself tethered to the waking world. After a moment, a body slid between him and the wall and his back was pressed flush to someone's chest. It was too warm.

"Water on," one of them said. Fox, eyes closed so the nightmarish shadows wouldn't take the place of his brothers, couldn't place who it was.

When the water did come on, it stung in thousands of tiny, frozen needles against his skin. He tried to twist away, but he was blocked in by his brother's arms on either side. Not tight enough to feel restrictive, but tight enough to prevent him from moving out of the stream.

"Just a few minutes. You alright, Thorn?" the same voice asked.

"Aces." The chest behind him rumbled with the response.

Fox craned his neck back, trying to suppress some of the shivers as he did so. He cracked one eye open, fully prepared to slam it shut if the same creature plagued his vision. Through the water, he could make out Thorn's tan skin and worried face. His forehead always crinkled when he was concerned. The sight alone had him going slightly lax in relief. "Thorn," he whispered.

Thorn's face broke into a smile, a genuine smile, as bright as Tatooine's suns. "Yeah, Fox. You're going to be fine, like Maddox said. Just a few minutes." His hair was plastered messily to his face under the water, which had to be cold for him too. Fox had to keep blinking to keep the water out of his eyes, but he could've sworn that Thorn's eyes looked red.

Fox turned around and let his head thunk back against Thorn's chest. His arms tightened slightly around Fox's in response. "Maddox?" Fox asked, unable to see him clearly through the spray.

"Right here," the medic assured. "We aren't going anywhere."

Fox hummed. The water was too cold against his skin and Thorn was too hot against his back. But anything was better than the darkness. When Fox let himself focus, he could feel Thorn's heart thudding. He tried his best to count the beats while the water cascaded over them both and willed his own to match Thorn's steady beat.

Fox was surrounded by voices. They would come in and out of focus, like a comm that was having trouble breaking through an encryption. Even though Fox couldn't make out what they were saying, he could feel their presence, feel the care in their words. There was enough light in their deep timbre to chase away any remaining shadows. Every so often he would feel a light, comforting pressure, but never enough to make him feel panicked or boxed in.

When he was finally able to drag himself back to consciousness, it was to the dimmed lights of the medbay and the quiet sounds within. There were a few soft voices at the other end, but apart from that and the usual sounds, it was quiet. Probably the night cycle, then.

Fox took a breath—surprised that it didn't immediately claw painfully through his chest—and blinked to get used to the lighting. He very quickly found one of the sources of the pressure he had felt.

Maddox was sitting in a chair next to Fox's bed. His head, hair freed from its braid and covering part of his face, was pillowed on one folded arm on the bed. His other hand was clasped gently around Fox's wrist, his fingers against the pulse point.

"I told him to sleep in a real bed," said a soft voice off to Fox's other side. He rolled his head slowly and was met with Thorn, sitting in a similar chair. "Called him a hypocrite. You know what he did?"

He was watching Fox like he was actually expecting an answer. A test of his alertness, maybe. Fox raised his eyebrows in a question.

"Laughed, sat down, and proceeded to knock out." Thorn shook his head just a little while a fond look played across his face.

"Medic perks," Fox said. His voice came out a rasp and he frowned in discomfort. Thorn pulled a cup of water out of nowhere and tilted it so Fox could drink.

"Your fever broke about an hour ago, right before he sat down. How are you feeling? Honestly." Thorn looked wrung out, either one minute from dozing off himself or one wrong answer from being sent into panic mode.

Fox took stock of himself very meticulously. His head hurt but felt clearer than it had in a long time. His arms hurt, but not as bad. When he looked down, he was still bare-chested, and while there were still red lines snaking across his chest and arms, they didn't look half as angry as before. Aside from the bone-deep exhaustion—which was really only a step or two worse than how he normally functioned—he felt better.

"Improved," Fox said. The amount of time it took him to respond seemed to bolster his response in Thorn's eyes. Fox noticed his fellow Commander was back in his armor. He was pretty sure he had been in his blacks when Fox had last been conscious, but the whole ordeal was slippery to hold onto. "What time is it?"

Thorn looked at his chrono. "Just past 0200. Makes it about the 31 hour mark."

Fox sighed. He had really hoped to be on the shorter end of the recovery timeframe. That made it almost a full day since he had been brought to the medbay.

Thorn put a hand on Fox's shoulder, stopping his train of thought in its tracks. "Everything's under control. You didn't miss much, honestly. Maddox said it would probably take you longer to get back on your feet since you've been running yourself into the ground lately." He fixed Fox with a pointed look but it quickly softened. "Hound and Thire and some of the other vode have been sitting with you too. Maddox thought it would be best if you weren't left alone until the fever passed."

He could tell there was more to that statement based on the way Thorn's eyes broke from his for a moment. Thorn didn't elaborate.

Fox may not have remembered much, but he knew that his brothers simply being in close proximity to him had helped keep him tethered. He just hated being another thing they had to keep an eye on when they had so much else to worry about.

"And before you even think," Thorn started and raised his hand from Fox's shoulder to point at him, "about saying sorry, answer me this. If it were one of us in your spot, would you hear it from us? And no 'I'm the Marshal Commander' lines. Yes or no?"

When phrased like that, the answer was simple. "No."

Thorn raised his hands in a 'there you go' gesture and dropped them to his knees. "We can run the Guard for a time, Fox. Hells, maybe a long time. But not until the end of the war, not without you."

Fox was more than confident in their abilities to carry on without him. But he wasn't about to voice that to Thorn. He knew how even the thought of losing one of his brothers, let alone a Commander, tore at his soul, so he could begin to imagine what losing him could do to their collective morale. "I won't stop protecting you," he finally said.

"I'm not asking you to. Just…maybe in moderation? We can't keep doing this." Thorn sighed and scrubbed a gloved hand down his face. "You may be the Marshal Commander and an ori'vod to a lot of brothers here, but you're still a vod. And we look after our own."

And that was the heart of the matter, wasn't it? They were all each other had to depend on. A closed circuit. Losing even one of them hurt the Guard as a collective. Fox was part of that collective, even though he led it.

"And whatever's going on here," Thorn continued, not specifying but Fox still understood implicitly, "we'll figure it out. As a group." There was a note of hopeful uptick at the end.

Fox couldn't be the one to destroy that hope. He had to at least try. "Okay."

He could almost see the weight lift off Thorn's shoulders. He smiled at Fox, a fragile thing, shot through with exhaustion, but still bright.

Fox still fully intended to take all of the meetings with Palpatine. He'd still work overtime to ensure things were running smoothly. But maybe he could…delegate better. At least work on trying to ask for help. Progress had to begin somewhere. Maybe it would be worth it just to see fewer worried glances from his Commanders every time they looked at him.

"Did we have a breakthrough?" Maddox muttered from Fox's other side, suitably breaking the emotional tension. The medic didn't even bother opening his eyes or shifting his position.

"Seems like," Thorn said, his smile only growing.

"Fantastic." Maddox's fingers tightened subtly on Fox's wrist. Whatever he sensed must have assured him that Fox was no longer in danger, since he made no move to get up. "Don't even think about getting up. I am the cuff, got it? Maybe when I get up, you can get up. Maybe. Until then, lights out."

He said it all without raising his head, which Thorn seemed to find wildly amusing. He propped his boots up against the end of the bed and wiggled in his chair. "You heard him. Get comfortable."

Despite everything, Fox found himself smiling too. Thorn shifted again, crossing his arms over his chest and bringing his boots to rest gently against Fox's calf. Maddox was lightly snoring in no time flat, a skill he said he'd perfected on the front lines, being able to sleep anywhere, anytime if given the opportunity.

Thorn didn't look like he'd be sleeping, despite the exhaustion. When his boot lightly tapped Fox's calf, Fox shut his eyes. Progress. Small steps. Start somewhere. So, Fox took a breath that didn't hurt, focused on the sound and the comfortable presence of his brothers, and followed his medic's orders.

Vod(e): brother/sister/comrade(s)

Maddox: thinks he heard Fox gain some common sense
Also Maddox: has to check that Fox isn't still feverish and hallucinating

I like to think that after this, Fox will indeed use some of that common sense, and in turn, his Commanders and Maddox will experience 4% less stress, which is good for everyone. Thank you all for reading!