Lost Fugitive
"Stand down, soldier. Stand down! Get on your knees."
"Get away from me!"
"Fives, no!"
"Get this ray shield down!"
"Stay with me, Fives. Fives!"
Fives is gone. He's gone and he's never coming back. Anakin squeezes his eyes shut, drawing in a shaky breath.
"Put your weapons down, then."
"I don't think so, Fives."
"Please, sir. Please, I'm unarmed."
"I need your help."
"I know you do. We know you're not well."
"I'm not crazy!"
"It's in here. It's in all of us, in every clone!"
The last moments of their interactions, the last conversation he's ever going to have with him again circle on a loop through Anakin's mind. He feels numb, frozen, as he watches the clones do the... ritual they always do to honor their fallen brothers. He's never gone to them before because it's something personal for them and it's not much more than a quiet honor because that's all the clones really can give each other but this is Fives.
His best friend, his –
The rest of the boys of the 501st are starting to disperse now. They're moving away enough that Anakin can see Fives' helmet again, sitting alongside the rolls of other helmets. Sitting in its final resting place.
Because Fives won't be needing it anymore.
"Get a medic! Stay with me Fives! Fives!"
He moves towards it slowly, the markings so painfully familiar. He has them memorized in their every detail.
"I'll be okay, Fives. We'll sort this out."
"You don't believe me!"
Anakin reaches out, hands closing over Fives helmet, picking it up. He can only feel the coolness of the armor in one hand. It feels so dead and lifeless. He can feel the echoes of Fives' pain and desperation and fear and confusion on it and it drives the gaping emptiness into his heart deeper. He wasn't wearing it when he died or Anakin knows he would feel every last detail of what Fives was feeling in those moments too. It feels like he ought to be able to feel it. Deserves too. It's another friend who did in front of him and he didn't do anything to stop it.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Not – not to Fives. He knows he can lose any of his boys any day. But Fives was one of the first who joined from the start, one of the ones he was closest with, maybe because he never minded breaking protocols. Because he was starting to realize the clones truly were slaves and that they shouldn't be.
He can't believe he's gone.
Fives who was always there to cheer everyone up when they needed it the most.
Who was there when Anakin and Rex struggled with Ahsoka leaving only weeks ago.
Who Anakin tried so hard to help get through Echo's loss.
Who never hesitated to joke with him, who Anakin told countless stories of his past, who he taught so much about the intricacies of fixing ships the same way he did.
Who was there countless times when Anakin just needed someone to talk too. And now he's never coming back.
He knew from the moment on Ringo Vinda that things were going downhill but he never expected to lose Fives.
Nothing can begin to describe the sheer panic he'd felt when he heard that Fives was on the run for trying to assassinate Palpatine. He still doesn't understand what happened. Doesn't understand how things led to the point where he started to lose his mind because there was definitely something wrong with him when he'd confronted him. Fives would never in his right mind attack the Chancellor. He's loyal. He always has been, even if he's loyal to his brothers first.
And Anakin had known that – They had to find some sort of proof to the give to the courts that Fives wasn't in his right mind or they'd execute him for what he did and it felt like Ahsoka all over again and he couldn't let that happen.
But Anakin still failed to save him. He failed, just like he did with his mother and with Ahsoka and with the countless clones lost during the war.
All he ever does is fail and now Fives is gone because of what. He could've tried to stop Fox from shooting him down, could have tried to get him out of there faster before the Coruscant guard got there, could have –
But all the regrets in the world won't bring him back any more than they'll bring back his mother.
Anakin's grip tightens on the helmet, the last moments he ever saw Fives wearing it – before he left for Kamino – replaying through his head again. He wishes he hadn't let him go there at all or maybe just something.
Anything.
Anything so that he wasn't holding the forever lifeless helmet in his hands knowing no one will ever wear it again. Because Fives is never coming back. This isn't just a mission where they're apart for some time. It's – it's forever.
He hasn't cried since it happened. It was too much and he had to be strong for Rex but no one is here in the dark room now when he sets the breaks down and cries, setting the helmet back in its final resting place.
He cries until his eyes are stinging and feel raw and even if its taken the slightest edge of the sharp cutting pain in his heart all that's taken its place is a gaping emptiness that feels even worse somehow.
He's never going to be able to hear Fives make another stupid joke again.
"Are your scopes Jedi-issue, sir?"
"Stay focused Fives."
He'll never be able to anything with him ever again.
Because he's gone.
"Stay with me, Fives. Fives!"
Anakin draws in a sharp shaky breath, trying and failing to stop remembering. But all he can see on repeat is Fives' last moments.
Movement in the doorway catches Anakin's attention. He stills, looking up through the shadows of the darkened room to see Rex standing in the doorway. He still looks gutted, like he was the one shot through the heart instead of Fives.
Rex's pain hurts far worse than his own.
"Rex," Anakin murmurs. His voice sounds as shaky as he expected.
"I thought I'd find you here, sir," Rex says quietly. His voice is surprisingly steady but it's a certain forced steadiness to it that Anakin knows isn't real.
"I should have stopped this," he says. He didn't mean for it to sound as broken as it does.
"We all should have, sir," Rex offers, staring fixedly at the helmet in front of him. His own helmet is held under his arm, so Anakin can see his face. Can see the way his dark brown eyes are shimmering with unshed tears again.
He wishes there was something, anything he could do to make him feel better but what could? Things are always easier when he's fixing things. But this isn't something that can be fixed.
"This isn't on you, Rex," is the most Anakin can offer him, even if it's little consolation. It wasn't Rex who could have done anything to stop it. Anakin's the one with the Force, could've seen it coming before Fox shot him, could've at least tried –
"Stand down, soldier. Stand down! Get on your knees."
"Get away from me!"
"Fives, no!"
Rex doesn't say anything for a long moment, nothing but his grief pouring into the Force. "Never thought he'd go out this way. Not by one of our own brothers," he says, the words coming out barely above a whisper.
Anakin's heart clenches violently and he steps closer, laying a hand on Rex's shoulder. It's the most comfort he can truly offer.
He can't believe Fox did that. He was just following orders, yes, but that was one of his brothers. That was Fives and –
"On Umbara, it almost happened once before." Rex's voice trails off, breaking somewhere in the middle and he goes quiet.
Anakin feels sick.
He knows what he's talking about.
Fives had been the one to tell him about his and Jesse's near execution.
"Krell was going to have us do it," Rex speaks up again, voice strangled, "I had to tell the boys to do it. I tried to reason with him but he wouldn't listen, and I – I thought it was going to be... Fives' end there."
Anakin's gut flips just remembering all of that. Fives was nearly executed by a Jedi there. Even if said Jedi was fallen, it's not something Anakin can ever forget. It's... not something Fives or most of his other boys ever forgot either.
It's not something Rex ever talked to him about. He talked about when Krell had the clones turn against each other but he never talked about this before. Anakin thinks he's only capable of it now because he's so out of it.
He twists around, pulling Rex into a hug. He can't make it better, can't take away the horror that he lived through but he can at least offer this.
Rex doesn't go rigid, taken by surprise, the way he once would have. He's still awkward about relaxing and returning the grip, but eventually he does, with a lot more fierceness than Anakin expected.
"That was never your fault, Rex," Anakin tells him quietly, "Krell wasn't given you much choice... and you're the one who stopped him in the end."
"But Fives still – It was still one of our brothers who did it."
"Stand down, soldier. Stand down! Get on your knees."
"Get away from me!"
"Fives, no!"
It's hardly any wonder he can't stop thinking about Umbara suddenly. Anakin doesn't want to know how paralleled that moment must have been for him.
He squeezes Rex a little tighter. Doesn't know what to say to that. Fives died thinking he was helping his brothers. And he died because of one of them. It's not fair. But none of this is ever fair.
He can feel Rex breathe in shakily in his arms, though he doesn't start crying again. Anakin suspects the pain has cut far too deep for him to even be capable anymore, like it has for him. The gaping emptiness feels like someone ripped his chest open and cut his heart out but he's somehow still alive from it.
"It's late," Anakin says finally even if he doesn't want to move, "We should... rest while there is time." He could go to see Padme since he's finally on Coruscant and that's so rare but he doesn't want to right now. His boys are the ones who need him. And Fives is dead. How can he just go to Padme's apartment to – to pretend everything is normal and somehow happy when his best friend, Rex's closest brother, is gone forever?
Rex nods a little as Anakin steps back, though he says nothing.
Anakin doesn't want to be away from him. He doesn't think he'll be sleeping in the slightest if he goes to his general quarters. Every time he closes his eyes all he can see is Fives' body hitting the floor and hear his pained gasps before he was gone.
"You can stay with me," Anakin offers.
He doubts Rex would have any more of an easy time sleeping, after all.
"Stay with me, Fives! Fives!"
"You... mean that, sir?" Rex asks a little awkwardly. He's still uncomfortable about things that break protocol sometimes even now, even if a lot of that changed after Umbara. After Fives starting getting so rogue and influencing those around him, too.
"Will you be able to sleep otherwise?"
Rex's quiet huff that sounds more like a sigh is answer enough. They make their way through the halls to the general's quarters – even if leaving that room with Five's helmet feels somehow like saying goodbye to him forever. He's never coming back. Never –
Wishes he'd stop expecting to turn around and see him standing somewhere next to him, making some stupid joke about the whole thing.
Neither he or Rex speak until they've maneuvered their way side by side onto Anakin's bunk. It's not really big enough for two people but they make it work. They've slept side by side all the time throughout the war, though usually that was with Ahsoka next to them.
Ahsoka who is also gone.
First his mother, then Ahsoka, and then Fives.
Everyone he failed to protect.
Who's going to be next? Who else is he going to fail before he's finally capable of being the sun dragon, the dragon with a heart strong enough to protect everyone he loved? His mother always told him that's what he was and he believes her but he's never able to live up to that. never able to do enough. Never has been.
Rex's silent pain next to him only drives the feeling deeper into his heart.
"I wish I could give you a life without... this. Something more than just war. I thought about what would happen after before. I thought... maybe I could find somewhere for you to live where you would not have to keep losing your brothers." But he thought Fives would be there with them. That goes unsaid.
But there were times when he saw the younger clones, that he wished he could give them something more. They're so young when they first come out onto the field. Only eight years old, even if they look like they're sixteen.
That's how old Fives had been when Anakin first met him.
He always wants to protect all the younger ones, to give them something more, to give them what he tried to give Ahsoka. Not that he was ever able to because it was war and he had to make sure that she survived, first and foremost. But sometimes he wishes he could have the chance to raise a child without all of that.
"This is all we've ever known, sir," Rex replies, staring vacantly up at the ceiling above them. "Without the war we wouldn't exist but... there are times I don't understand the point of all this."
He's had doubts before, Anakin knows, but he's never voiced them so clearly.
Anakin wishes he had an answer to that. "Everything we have fought for, everything we have lost will always mean something, even if it may not seem that way at the time. The Force will guide us, as it always has." He has to believe that. He has to think everything he's been fighting for all this will be for something.
Rex nods, even if Anakin doesn't think he believes it quite as much as Anakin himself is trying to. He doesn't know what else to say.
There's nothing that really can be said.
After a few moments of staring up at the dark ceiling just brooding, Anakin closes his eyes.
"Get a medic! Stay with me Fives! Fives!"
Yes, trying to sleep is not going to be easy tonight. Rex shifts just slightly closer to him and Anakin reaches down, taking his hand, interlinking their fingers. Rex returns the grip surprisingly tightly and they stay there together.
It's a very long time before either of them drift off to sleep.
When Anakin finally does, he dreams of Fives.
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