Unfortunately I couldn't complete all the prompts this year but I did take a stab at 2. Enjoy the pain!
Whumptober Day #18: loss of identity
2224 offers the traitor's weapon to the Emperor.
"Keep it," the Emperor says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "The lightsaber isn't of any importance to me."
2224 does not know what to do with a lightsaber.
The Emperor sighs. "Perhaps display it as a sign of the Empire's victory over the Jedi," he suggests.
"I will take that into consideration," 2224 says. He bows, and then leaves quickly.
He goes to the bunkroom, to the bottom bed in the far right corner that he has been assigned to. He tries to imagine hanging the lightsaber on the wall in some sort of way. Is that even allowed? All the walls he has passed have been plain and blank or covered with Empire propaganda.
2224 frowns. It feels wrong, even with the Emperor's explicit permission.
It feels better to attach it to his belt, but there is no clip for it.
A lightsaber clip isn't part of standard trooper armor. He wouldn't be able to requisition one. He would have to get it custom-made, if he really wanted one.
He doesn't know why he had been expecting one.
The door slides open. He looks up to see 5683 standing there, eyes on the dangerous weapon in 2224's hands. He walks closer. 2224 tightens his grip on the lightsaber protectively.
5683 simply stares at him with furrowed brows as he grabs 2224's datapad. Perks of rank, he supposes, as most other troopers don't even have access, though his authority in the Imperial Army is sinking day by day.
5683 types rapidly, pausing intermittently to shake his head a little and frown. After a time, he stands up straight and walks calmly out the door.
He comes back with a clip that is the perfect size for a lightsaber. 2224 retrieves it, still warm from his hand. Its weight is familiar.
2224 decides not to ask.
The lightsaber hangs from his belt at almost all times, like it belongs there. One would think the added weight would encumber his movement, but 2224 adjusts easily (far too easily). He's always been adaptable.
Nobody questions the weapon's origins, nor why a clone of all beings has possession of it. They are afraid to ask, perhaps. Though he'd never admit it, 2224 is afraid as well, deep down in the recesses of his mind that he has blocked off. Because to be afraid is to show weakness, and to show weakness is to accept defeat, and to accept defeat is to sink completely under the weight of his guilt.
(Guilt over what?)
There is a warmth that tugs at his chest, his very soul, like an anchor, like a tether. He has come to associate this feeling with the presence of the traitor's weapon, and perhaps he should rid himself of it because of that, but he does not. He is selfish, probably. Weak. He's felt cold for a very long time.
A voice, in the darkness.
Cody, it whispers. Faint. It fades away with the wind, the torrent that is his mind.
2224 jerks awake in the transport, unsettled. None of the other troopers turn to look at him.
He looks down at his hands, gloves smeared with dust and dirt. He feels as if there should be blood as well, but the thought fades quickly. Like the screams of the innocents they had just murdered, like the voice in the darkness he cannot admit sounds kind.
7884 sometimes loses track of his bunk.
That's the only explanation for why 2224 occasionally wakes with 7884 curled into his side, body warm and oh so fragile, the lines of his face smoothed out in sleep, though sleep is hardly restful for any of them. 2224 runs a hand through 7884's cropped hair and wishes it were longer, wishes it somewhere deep inside himself, buried under his ribs.
He never reprimands him.
It helps, when he jerks away from some dream or vision or memory or combination thereof, mouthing words and names with no meaning (words and names he does not remember, anyways).
His head hurts.
3568 is his second-in-command, for all it's worth now that 2224 is barely allowed to relay orders.
He wouldn't want to be in charge, anyways. It wouldn't feel right. He's capable, just—
He wishes—
Clones do not have hopes, or dreams, or wishes.
This is what 2224 knows: He pulled the trigger, and received a lightsaber in return.
He lost himself in the process.
He doesn't have cold compresses to press against his forehead, nor warm blankets to wrap around his body and hide from the world. He doesn't have hot, steaming tea to stave off the headaches.
Hopefully, the lightsaber has magical healing properties, or something like that. 2224 puts it under his pillow to help with the migraines, like he would a blaster, which may be one of his more foolish decisions, since the lightsaber doesn't have a safety mechanism, as far as he's aware, but he's desperate.
(He's desperate to feel something, though maybe pain hadn't been the intention.)
(What else does he have?)
He wakes up the next morning feeling far, far worse.
He spends an hour staring at his datapad and getting no work done. When 3568 nudges him in the shoulder and takes the datapad from his grasp, he doesn't mind.
He sits up abruptly, gasping in the quiet, then swallowing back the urge to heave over the side of his bunk. He presses a hand to his chest, drags it slowly to his left shoulder, wonders what a blaster bolt would feel like around there, wonders why he would deserve it.
3421 frowns at him when he makes his way to the medbay.
"Please," 2224 whispers. Please make it stop.
3421's eyes drag down to the lightsaber clipped to his belt. 2224 has the urge to hide it from the prying eyes. It's only because he's protective of his prize, surely.
"I'm so tired," 2224 confesses. "I can't, I already—" Failed.
Failed what? Failed who?
3421 nods like he understands. Maybe he does, maybe he feels the same helplessness dragging him down that 2224 does.
There are unshed tears in 3421's eyes, he thinks. He's not sure. His vision is blurry. Maybe another symptom.
"Cody?" 7884 murmurs sleepily.
2224 closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep.
Vader comes to visit the Emperor. He does not visit often, and 2224 knows this time is only by Palpatine's command.
He is standing guard at the side of the throne room beside several other troopers. They are supposed to be inconspicuous; there is no reason to single him out.
Except, when Vader walks in, he pauses. He turns to look at 2224. 2224 stiffens imperceptibly, imagining Vader's eyes narrowing at him. After a few moments, Vader turns back towards the emperor, finishing his trek to the front of the room.
"The clone has his lightsaber," he says. Accuses, really.
Palpatine tilts his head. "Kenobi has no use of it anymore, does he?" He frowns at Vader. "Or are you suddenly feeling sentimental?"
"It's a liability," Vader grits out.
"The clones?" The Emperor laughs, like this is preposterous. 2224 feels, deep deep down, vaguely offended. "The chips in their heads ensure that they obey my every command. They won't do anything."
"Yet. The lightsaber—"
"I let it have the lightsaber as a trophy, of sorts. Poetic justice, perhaps. It wouldn't know what to do with a Jedi's weapon, especially when the owner is otherwise incapacitated."
"Dead," Vader says, something like pride lining his voice. "I saw to that."
The Emperor nods slowly. "Yes," he says simply. Vader doesn't seem to see it, but 2224 thinks Palpatine is mocking him.
After one of the Inquisitors reprimands 2224 for missing a target and letting them get away, he lays in the medbay, recovering from the flogging and his own flayed mind.
"But everyone knows you're the best shot there is," 3568 says to him, sitting by his bedside.
"Maybe I would be if we were allowed to practice in the shooting ranges," 2224 says back.
"There's no way you'd miss if you were a few steps away from the target."
"Right," 2224 says, nodding, something itching at the back of his mind. "I wouldn't miss."
"But you did this time," 3568 reminds him helpfully.
Yes. It's safer to think in this way.
6431 shakes him awake. It's the middle of the night cycle, he eventually registers.
"What?" he rasps out.
6431 stares at him. "I—" His eyes flicker down to 7884, beside him on the bunk, breaths even, chest rising and falling at steady intervals.
2224's hands itch for- for something. Something to do.
"Had a nightmare," 6431 eventually murmurs. "Can I—?"
There's not much space on the bunk. 2224 grumbles as he tries to make room without disturbing anyone else. 6431 has little space to relax, but he somehow manages to do so anyway, right next to 2224.
"I think…we were crashing, in a gunship," he whispers. "We were shot down." He presses his forehead against 2224's chest, right above his broken heart. "There were only the two of us left."
2224 takes a deliberately deep breath. "You and me?" he asks when he is able.
A pause. "No," 6431 says, shaking his head. And he does not elaborate.
"My head is going to kill me on one of these missions if I can't concentrate," 2224 grits out. "Do something."
3421 grimaces. Then, impulsively, he leans over to press their foreheads together. It's absurdly soothing. Something warm and cool at once flows over his mind like relief, like a long forgotten idea.
"You're not the only one," 3421 says.
2224 shuts his eyes tightly as pain lances behind them. "Something's wrong with all of us," he says, "and I can't protect us." I can't save—
"Wait it out," 3421 says simply. "What choice do we have?"
5576 goes MIA on a mission.
Dead, probably. No one says a word about it, though.
That's fine, 2224 thinks, like he's not losing it one by one. That's fine.
There's a civilian, with hair like fire, eyes like the sky.
It's familiar, does he know him? There's something—
"Go," he grits out.
"What?" he asks, voice high and terrified. Force, he's just a kid, he's just a kriffing—
"Before I regret it," he says, eyes tearing up from the pain ricocheting in his brain. He wants to dig it out, wants to dig out his heart while he's at it. He—
Cody wakes up in the medbay. Helix stands at the end of his bed, hands trembling at his sides.
"So...not dead," Cody says, eyes roving listlessly over the room. There's something, something he has to...
"2224, you- Cody, you kriffing idiot!" Helix says. Cody's eyes snap over to Helix, who has blood dripping from his nose down to his chin.
"Helix!" he says, rushing over to catch him as he falls, but he gets dizzy himself, and then they're both on the ground.
Something's wrong with us, Cody thinks. His eyes slip closed to the sound of running footsteps.
"Cody?" Obi-Wan asks. He sounds scared. Cody wants to hold him, wants to ward off whatever is making him sound like that. "Cody, what are you doing?"
Cody's hands are shaking. He- he's holding a blaster. His hands never shake when he's shooting. "Good soldiers follow orders," he says, all monotone and lifeless. He barely feels his mouth move at all.
"What?!" Obi-Wan says, hands held up. They are at the edge of a cliff, Cody finally registers, wind brushing through his hair. Why doesn't he have his helmet on? Isn't it the middle of a battle?
Why doesn't the Jedi have his weapon? Cody feels the curve of it in his other hand and wonders how he had disarmed him already without his own knowledge.
"Cody, whatever this is, we can fix this!" Kenobi says, begging. 2224 isn't swayed. The traitor reaches a hand out towards him, and neither of them take a step back or forward. "I can't- Where did you go? Cody?"
Who's Cody?
"The Jedi traitors must be eliminated," 2224 says, resolutely ignoring the tears in the traitor's eyes. Why? He should have expected this.
He aims his blaster at Kenobi's chest, right where he knows his heart to be. He can't possibly miss, not at this range.
He can't possibly miss.
He shoots. And the pain in his chest has never felt so strong, almost as if he'd shot himself.
He shoots, and the traitor falls.
Cody gasps, leans over the side of whatever stretcher he is on, and retches. All he can see is red. Red, red, red. Blood on the ground, spraying into the air, on his hands and in the creases of his armor. There shouldn't be this much. There shouldn't be any of this blood spilled. Cody is supposed to prevent that from happening. Or he was, because he can't do that anymore, because Obi-Wan is—
"Kriff," he says, voice rough, blinking back the moisture in his eyes. "Kriff, oh Force. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
He continues this mantra until a hand lands on his shoulder. He looks up to see Helix, lips pressed together as if trying to keep all the pain in.
Cody immediately feels guilty for deigning to let his own out. He straightens, grasps Helix's hand. "We have chips in our heads," he tells him, desperately.
"It wasn't your fault," Helix says immediately. And Cody's not touching that with a ten-foot pole.
"We have to get them out."
"I think you broke mine."
Cody can hear the underlying thanks in the statement, and he flinches despite himself. He never got to say, he never got to tell Obi-Wan—
And now he won't ever, and it's his own damn fault. "I think the General's lightsaber broke mine," he says, scrambling with one hand to grab hold of it, still hanging securely from his belt, as if just waiting for Cody to hand it back, like many times before.
But Cody doesn't have anyone to hand it to.
"Brain surgery," Helix says after a few seconds. "I'll figure it out."
Cody takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Brothers to save, no time to freak out now. "Great," he says. "Dechipping first, then escaping, preferably with a ship. If we're able to stage a coup and/or take down Palpatine in the process, I wouldn't be opposed."
Helix nods, taking it all in stride. "We have to act like we still have them in, though. Like we're still...under their control."
"We'll figure it out," Cody says. He swallows back the lump in his throat. We'll always figure things out, Obi-Wan had said once during some campaign Cody doesn't remember the location of anymore. You're by my side, after all. I'm sure we can think of something that'll work together. "We don't have a choice in this, either. We figure things out or we die."
Maybe dying is preferable, he thinks, but does not say, because Helix would kill him himself.
Wooley cries into his shoulder after he wakes up from the surgery. Cody rubs circles into his back and only lets himself cry once he resolutely walks into an empty room.
Boil finds him there eventually. Cody lets himself fall apart in his arms.
"I killed him," he says, voice muffled in Boil's chest, hands gripping the back of his blacks. "I killed him, I killed him." I loved him and I killed him.
He's grieving three years too late, he desperately loves a dead man, and he never admitted it until now.
Boil sighs. "Cody..."
"The fight's not over yet, but I just—"
"Let it out, Vod. No one blames you for it." There's maybe the slightest hint of pity in his voice, but it's enveloped by the grief. They all knew Obi-Wan after all.
"I blame myself. Nothing you say can change my mind."
He'll convert this stubbornness into saving all of their lives soon. He'll try to put himself back together soon.
(Only the General himself would be able to change his mind.)
They never found the body.
Cody doesn't know if he would have broken long before now if they had.
The lightsaber seems to pulse every so often now. Cody would like to think it is expressing its happiness, though he has no idea why.
"I killed your master," he mutters to it, cradling it in his hands. "Why aren't you angry?"
He doesn't know how a lightsaber would express anger. Exploding into a million pieces, maybe? He'd deserve it.
"I know I sound like an asshole, but we can't do this without you. Please snap out of it and help us with this plan for tomorrow," Boil tells him, shoving a stack of flimsi towards him on the bunk they are both on. "What do you think of this?"
Helix is asleep on the floor, and everyone else is asleep in various other bunks in the room, which are all bolted to the ground, so they couldn't pull the mattresses down and form a huge sleeping area in the center of the room.
Cody runs a hand through his hair, mussing it up further. "I think this is the best we're going to get," he says. "Palpatine's a Sith, for kriff's sake."
Boil nods. "The element of surprise is all we've got. And once it's gone..."
"Then we have to make it count."
He is tired and worn out but determined. They have to see this through.
Spring the trap.
Your lightsaber is your life, Obi-Wan had said often, even when he'd lose it and Cody would have to hand it back to him. He never minded, though. Obi-Wan had always given him that rueful, charming smile in return.
His lightsaber had been his life. And Cody had taken both in one fell swoop.
He uses the General's lightsaber to cut off Palpatine's head. Retribution, and all that.
"We've boarded a ship in Hanger D," Crys says. "Supplies have been packed, just waiting on your team, Commander."
It's a team of two, consisting of him and Boil.
"We got Palps," Boil says, glaring at the dead body. "Vader's off-base."
"Turns out we make up most of the Empire's firepower at this facility, so there's little to no security," Cody says, trying to focus on this itch in the back of his mind. He looks down at the lightsaber in his hand, having just been powered off.
He feels Boil's eyes on him. "What is it?" he asks.
"I think it's trying to tell me something." There's a tugging in his gut, as familiar as it is not. He wants to follow it. "The secondary mission objective has been fulfilled. You should get to the ship."
Boil shakes his head vigorously. "No way, not without you."
Cody sighs. Boil's as stubborn as he is. "You have permission to take off if there's the tiniest hint of danger. I mean it. Better to be safe than risky," he tells Crys.
"What are you doing if not risky, then?" Crys asks incredulously, but Cody ignores him.
"Follow me," he tells Boil, and then they are off.
Cody remembers a battle. Running through the halls of the Imperial Palace reminds him of many battles, but he's thinking about one in particular, about a quarter of the way through the war.
At the end of the battle, he'd pulled Obi-Wan's arm over his shoulder.
"Really, Cody. I'm fine," Obi-Wan had protested lightly, like he had been wont to do, giving him a smile that had been more like a grimace.
"You have a probable concussion," Cody had bitten out, "and at least four broken ribs. It's either this or carry you off the battlefield." He hadn't mentioned the fact that he'd been supporting probably 70% of Obi-Wan's weight.
Obi-Wan had grinned, as if that hadn't been a very real threat. "Either way, I'll be safe in your hands."
And Cody had smirked, something warm settling and curling up beneath his ribs, something there to stay. "If the Seppies try to get to you," he'd started to say.
"Again."
"When they do," Cody had amended, "they'll have to go through me first."
Obi-Wan had raised an eyebrow at him then, the beautiful sight only marred by the blood streaming down the side of his face. Cody's hands had twitched with the urge to wipe it away. "Is that a challenge, Commander?"
"A promise."
There is a cell, deep in the bowels of the building. A figure in chains, inside. Hair matted and dirty, and his eyes are closed, but Cody can imagine it...
Hair like fire, eyes like the sky.
Body broken, numerous cuts and bruises. Hair longer than Cody'd ever seen it.
"General?" Boil whispers in disbelief.
Oh. Cody isn't hallucinating, then.
His chest shatters open, stabbing him with jagged shards of hurt. He feels himself break apart, all over again.
He hates breaking promises.
The thing about Cody's love is that it had been a choice, during a war that had been killing more and more of his brothers by the day.
People say that love comes in and sweeps you off of your feet, that it is a sudden fire you only realize exists after a long while unconsciously stoking the flame.
But Cody's love had been a choice. His silence about it had been a choice, too. And both had been taken from him.
My made up clone trooper numbers:
5683 = Crys
7884 = Wooley
3568 = Boil
3421 = Helix
6431 = Trapper
