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arctrooper69 · 1 year

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Feels Like Durasteel

The former ARC trooper and his Jedi General grieve together.

Warnings: Season 2 finale spoilers. Discussion of death and dying. Mostly hurt with a teeny bit of comfort.

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She couldn't breathe. Her knees hit the durasteel floor with a thud. This couldn't be happening.

No. I refuse. Not again.

The all too familiar agony of loss had lain in ambush, readying itself for her journey to consciousness - then it attacked without mercy.

"Where's Tech!?"

"....General"

It grasped at her as she ran from the room, ripping and tearing into her with it's heavy, piercing claws. It's poison burned through her veins as she stumbled up the ramp into the Marauder.

"When have we ever followed orders."

Her mind spun faster and faster, replaying that moment over and over again until it reached such a speed that she couldn't keep up but it continued regardless. It filled her ears, blurred her vision, and constricted her lungs.

I'm a Jedi. I'm a kriffing Jedi! I could've saved him. I could've done something. Anything. Why didn't I?

The weight on her chest was suffocating. She could no longer feel the clench of her teeth nor the cold bite of durasteel beneath her knees.

"General!?"

Footsteps. Muffled sounds of metal against metal; a cold hand providing no relief to burning skin.

She recognized Echo, though he was as hazy as everything else that was slowly closing in around her.

"Look at me! Breathe."

I can't.

I don't want to.

It's too heavy and I don't have the strength.

Everything she'd been through. Everything she'd lost. Everyone she'd lost. It was all too much.

"Come on, General! Breathe with me."

***

A spider spun a beautiful web across a shelf of datapads. She didn't mean to kill it, but it startled her and she crushed it. Her first introduction to death and one of her first lessons as a youngling.

There is no death, only the Force.

Accept it as a natural part of life and let go.

Mourn them do not. Miss them do not.

For the fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side.

Maybe that's why she felt this way. Maybe she wasn't Jedi enough. Maybe it was somehow her fault. Maybe she could've done more. Made different choices. Chosen different words. Maybe she wasn't the leader they made her out to be.

Maybe she was cursed.

Perhaps the Force could tell that she formed attachments too easily - that she loved too deeply, and expressed herself too passionately.

Maybe that was why they were all dead. Because of her.

Maybe she deserved the horror that was to be left alone again. That was why she couldn't breathe. She was alone.

***

"That's it. There you go. Breathe."

She kept her eyes down, not wanting to meet his pitying gaze.

They sat in silence, the only sounds drifted faintly in from the city outside.

She felt her head tip and almost unconsciously lean against the hard plastoid of his shoulder. Neither of them said a word.

"I..." She spoke, voice barely a whisper. She couldn't make the words come. But he knew what she meant.

"I know...."

There were no tears, there hadn't been yet and there probably weren't going to be for awhile. They both knew how this played out - each in their own ways with the common ground of an all consuming numbness.

It was a feeling that made it easier to keep going until one day you couldn't take it anymore. But that day wasn't today. It never was.

It was a process that she had down pact - allowing just a sliver of grief to slip out, tricking her brain into locking away everything else.

"I miss him too."

***

Echo. Fives. Tup. Hardcase. Just a few names - barely a shadow of the sea of troopers she called friend.

Vivian. Rylah. Sari. Pol. Ben. Her creche-mates. Friends. Casualties of war. Brothers and sisters that she grew up with - fought with, ate with, and trained with.

None of them had seen the end of the war.

The Jedi died as battlefield heroes - faces and names to be memorialized forever in stone. The clones died for the sake of a Republic that only saw them as faceless numbers.

The clones were born to die. Why wasn't she? Things would be a lot easier then.

But they were all gone, leaving her alone again in galaxy too big to understand.

***

"It's too much, Echo..." She could barely hear her own voice.

He didn't answer. He didn't have an answer.

Pick up the pieces, dust yourself off. Move on. That's what he'd always told himself. That's what he'd tell himself this time too. Tech would want them to move on, right? To give meaning to his sacrifice?

He probably could - he'd been trained to do so since he popped out of the tube. But no matter the training, he was, at the end of the day, still human.

Was it the same for his General?

Most likely.

Grief had a way of disregarding the chain of command.

***

She didn't know if she would consider Echo a loss. He had come back to her, but the pain she'd felt was real. He was the first real casualty of war that she could name.

Hardcase was the first clone she'd considered her friend. He was kind. He was funny. He had tricked her into luring his Captain into a paint trap. It caught Kix instead and the medbay had never seen so much color - in both paint and language.

On Umbara, his force signature went out with a bang. Loud and explosive, just like him. He wouldn't have had it any other way.

Tup was young. Fresh-faced. He'd barely worn out the shine on his armor. He didn't deserve the way he went out - an unfortunate victim of a political ploy activated too soon. His force signature had always reminded her of the quiet calm before a storm.

She never got to say goodbye to Fives. The strong, handsome ARC trooper went out doing his duty. He died doing what he thought was right. He died trying to save his brothers. His force signature was full of light. Sometimes it flashed, pulsing like the strobe lights of a club. Sometimes it shone strong and bright with a fierce determination.

And then there was Tech...

***

The former ARC trooper and his General sat silently on the cold metal floor of the Marauder - each one slowly drowning beneath the weight of the galaxy.

"Did you know," she began quietly, "that everyone has their very own force signature?"

Echo was silent. He turned to look at her, blinking in a daze as though her voice had dragged him from the depths of an impossible whirlpool. Hearing her voice made it easier to breathe. It kept his head above the water - just barely, but that was all it took to keep from drowning.

The General's lips twitched in a fleeting, sad smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, oblivious to his silent plea.

Please keep talking. I can't take the silence. I don't want to be alone.

"Even clones," she continued. "You all feel so different."

Echo leaned his head against the wall. "Oh yeah?"

She was silent and for a moment, Echo feared that she hadn't heard him. Then she spoke again.

"Tech's force signature felt a bit like durasteel."

Oh.

"What do you mean?" he shifted so that his shoulder rested against her own.

"Always strong, no matter the situation it's put in. Cold, straight edged. Sometimes sharp."

She took a shakey breath and wiped away tears she hadn't even realized she'd been crying. "But durasteel can be worked with. It's reliable. It's adaptable. With time and warmth, it can be shaped into almost any tool or mechanical part. It holds heat well, making the most bitter cold into someplace comforting. It's just...always there. Without it..."

She stuttered to a stop, afraid that if she kept going, she'd start something that she had no power to stop.

Echo felt her shaking, curling into his chest. He didn't know if she'd meant to or not but it didn't matter to him. He shifted, allowing his flesh arm to rest, wrapping around her shoulders.

She took a breath, "Without it....our ship would be in pieces. It wouldn't fly." Her voice cracked. "It wouldn't be a ship at all."

Echo was silent, once again he didn't know what to say. She was right. It did feel like that. It did feel like their squad - their family - had lost too much to continue.

"I know..." He finally said with a gravelly whisper. "I know. I won't say that we'll be ok because I don't think we will be okay for awhile." He took a breath. "But we have eachother. We have the rest of our family. We have our mission." He paused, squeezing her shoulders, "and we have an Empire to make aware that there's gonna be Hell to pay."

I'm not sure if I like this one or not... I haven't written in third person for awhile... Does third person count as x reader if there's no name mentioned? And I'm not trying to beg for attention or anything, but if you liked this, can you leave a comment please? I feel like I'm kinda losing my touch...

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