Read it once on Ao3 and read it again here
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Walk Me Home: Chapter Twenty-Eight
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Word Count: 9.8k
Rating: Explicit (18+ only)
Chapter Summary: After over a year apart, Wolffe and Cherise have finally reunited. Now it's time to see what dawn brings.
Warnings are listed at the end of the chapter
A/N: HELLOOOOO IT'S BEEN MONTHS BUT I'M HERE! had to split this guy into two (maybe three) chapters -- the next is already sitting at 8.5k and it's not even fully drafted yet OOPS. pinkie swear we will not have three months before chapter 29 <3
Wolffe doesn’t sleep.
Last night, with Cherise finally in her rightful place tucked into his chest, he thought he’d fall asleep if he closed his eyes longer than three seconds. He hasn’t slept since he reached Amaronthe, which was… two days ago? Three? He’s lost track. His body has been wracked with tension ever since he left Corsin, hoping the next clue would bring him to Cherise. Finding her was supposed to fix it. The relief of seeing her, of knowing she’s safe in his arms, should have been enough to pull him into a deep sleep.
And yet.
He gave up on sleep after the first hour. If he was going to just lie here, he wasn’t going to waste time with his eyes closed — not when he could look at Cherise.
She’s here. She’s real. More than once, Wolffe wondered if he actually had fallen asleep, and that Cherise’s sleeping form was just another dream. But a dream could never feel this solid beneath his palms, nor could it be so soft and warm against his bare chest. He had really found her. She was really here.
The room eventually lightens with the slow rise of the Amaronthe sun, and Wolffe gets his chance to look at her in earnest, uninterrupted. She’s curled up on her side, legs tangled with Wolffe’s but face far enough away for him to be able to focus on it.
He wants to examine the scars on her cheek — but the left side of her face is smushed into the pillow, so he settles for the scar on her chin. Whatever caused it just barely missed smashing into her jaw, instead just slicing the fleshy bit at the very edge of Cherise’s chin. It’s not a straight line, but it’s not entirely jagged either. The diagonal lines extending from a single point tell Wolffe that the object — weapon? — must have been either curved or angled. Any further examination would risk waking her, so he ghosts his thumb along the scar and leaves it at that for now.
The scars on her arm are both harder and easier to pin down. Harder because they’re fainter than the ones on her face, and Wolffe can’t exactly get a full view of them in this position, especially with the soft light. Easier because the blotchy, uneven pattern reminds him of so many scrapes he’s had before. But even with his accelerated healing, he can’t recall having one as bad as this one looks. When he runs his fingertips along her arm, he’s pleased to find that the skin is smooth, that the scars aren’t so bad that they indent into her skin.
He leaves her hair untouched. He’d have to reach over her to do it, and he still doesn’t want to wake her. And anyway, she tied it in a loose bun before bed, and while a fair amount has slipped free during the night, he still won’t be able to run his fingers through her curls.
Instead, Wolffe contents himself with resting his hand on her waist — but it only reminds him of how thin she’s gotten since he last saw her.
Where he could once feel the soft fat of her curves and belly, he can now feel every single bone. Her hip slightly juts out into the outer edge of his hand, and his fingers brush over the faint but distinct ridges of her ribs. Even her face looks gaunt compared to how Wolffe remembers her, full cheeks painted purple as her face flushed at his teasing.
Wolffe swallows hard. It’s not healthy.
He looks at the circles under her eyes, darker than he’s ever seen them. She must be stressed. Not for the first time, Wolffe wonders what the hells has happened since they last saw each other.
Since the night they fought. Since Wolffe walked out.
He swallows again, willing himself to breathe. They’ll have to talk about it — about everything — tomorrow. Later today, really.
Wolffe tucks her closer to his chest, mind drifting to how he’ll explain the past year. He gave her a short confession of the worst of the worst last night, but there’s so much more she needs to know.
He circles it in his head for a long while, trying to come up with a plan of action but only succeeding in making himself anxious.
Cherise makes a soft noise and nuzzles her face into Wolffe’s chest. He notices how his grip on her waist has tightened, and relaxes back into its gentle hold. Maybe he should think about something else.
There’s no shortage of questions that come to mind. How does she know about the chips? What happened that made her flee Coruscant? That made someone trash 79’s? How did she end up here?
And, annoyingly persistent: who the hell is Cane?
“Cane? Why aren’t you at home? Is the baby okay?”
He hears her exact words over and over again. There’s so much to unpack, and all of it makes Wolffe sick to his stomach. She said home — was she referring to this house? She couldn’t be. Considering they walked into the empty house and got… distracted, and she certainly didn’t keep things quiet, it has to be somewhere else. If it was just that question, Wolffe wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But…
“Is the baby okay?”
The baby.
What baby?
Is it hers?
…is it theirs?
After some quick math, Wolffe decides that theoretically, the timeline would check out — she would have given birth five or six months ago. Wolffe’s heart quickens at the possibility, but he dismisses the thought as quickly as it came. For one thing, Cherise wouldn’t have waited to mention that. He’s sure of it. For another, if Cherise had a baby, they would be sleeping in this house, which they clearly weren’t. Even if her implant had somehow malfunctioned, Wolffe knows the baby in question isn’t his.
But… does that mean it could still be hers?
She would have had the time for a full pregnancy and birth since the end of the war. Suddenly, an image flashes in his mind and refuses to leave: Cherise, hurt and alone and on the run, finding comfort — safety? — with someone else… getting pregnant… parenting with Wolffe’s replacement.
Cherise shifts in her sleep again, and Wolffe is distinctly aware of how all of his muscles have tensed up.
As he forces himself yet again to relax, he decides it isn’t true. It still doesn’t explain why the baby isn’t in the house. If that nightmare scenario somehow did happen, Cherise and the father — Cane, presumably — weren’t together anymore.
It doesn’t make him feel much better.
Deep down, he knows that the baby Cherise mentioned earlier isn’t hers. He knows that she wouldn’t have moved on so quickly, even after their fight. A thought pops up that maybe she got pregnant, but not by choice… Wolffe shudders and pushes that terrible, terrible possibility out of his mind. He thinks back to last night, to how easily she welcomed his love, his touch, his devotions…
Wolffe looks away from the empty wall and back at the woman in his arms. All the doubt, all the fear melts away. He’s working himself up with the worst case scenarios for no good reason. He’s overtired, and seeing Cherise again has activated every single emotion that’s possible for him to have.
He takes a few deep breaths, the same as he taught Daisy to do when she started meditating, and touches a feather-light kiss to Cherise’s forehead. With her face half-buried in the pillow and nestled against his chest, he thinks she might be smiling.
Sun peeks through the window, and Wolffe closes his eyes. It’s okay that he hasn’t slept. Everything’s okay now that he found her. And his accidental all-nighter just means he’ll get to watch Cherise wake up in his arms. His chest warms at the mere thought that maybe, when she wakes up, he’ll get to watch her realize that he’s still here. He imagines her face lighting up with the reminder that none of this was a dream — that he’s really here.
Then thunder rumbles and shakes the entire house.
Wolffe frowns, but as the thunder continues, he realizes that it’s something else entirely. Someone is knocking — pounding — at the front door. Cherise looks like she might just sleep through it, which would be more than fine by him, until a new sound breaks through.
Is that… barking?
Cherise’s eyes snap open.
“Shit.”
She’s crawling over Wolffe and off the bed before he can react. He turns to see her scrambling to find something to pull over her naked body, settling for a pair of shorts and baggy shirt. He pushes down the pang of annoyance of not getting the peaceful morning haze he was hoping for, and Cherise bolts out of the bedroom while still pulling the shirt over her head.
The knocking only stops when the door opens, but the barking continues until someone speaks sternly. Wolffe can’t make out the words — just the vague sound of Cherise talking to a stranger — a stranger who does not seem happy. But it’s not long before the door closes, and Wolffe rolls over so he can watch Cherise walk back into the bedroom.
Instead, a canine bursts into the room and jumps right on Wolffe’s stomach.
“What— oof!”
The barking continues at full volume and the dog continues to dig its paws into Wolffe’s guts. He tries to push it away, but the mutt seems nearly as big as a full-grown massiff, and his efforts only get him a growl in response.
Then Cherise calls something to the dog, and it’s gone as quickly as it came.
A few seconds later, she walks into the room, dog trotting beside her. Wolffe can’t tell if it’s black with gold blotches or gold with black blotches, but it certainly looks harmless with its tongue hanging out of its mouth and its eyes beaming up at Cherise. She gets the dog to sit, then lie down, its tail wagging wildly.
Cherise finally meets Wolffe’s eyes and tries for a small smile.
“Good morning?”
He blinks.
He lets out a soft chuckle.
“Mornin’.”
Cherise crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed. She places a hand on Wolffe’s cheek and leans down to kiss him, soft and slow and everything he wanted when she first woke up.
Then the dog is back on the bed. This time, its attack consists of nosing and licking at Wolffe’s face.
Not the kisses I’m looking for right now.
Cherise pulls the dog back and scratches it behind the ears. It licks her face a couple times, but seems to know her limit.
“Wolffe, meet Whisky,” she grins. “Whisky, meet Wolffe.”
“Oh, we met,” Wolffe grumbles.
Cherise looks at him, semi-apologetic. “It’s not his fault. You’re a stranger — and you’re in his spot.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You let a dog sleep in your bed?”
Cherise gives him a wicked grin, one that takes his heart back to a long time ago.
“I let you sleep in my bed, didn’t I?”
Wolffe grunts, but can’t help how his mouth quirks up in a one-sided smile.
The dog — Whisky, apparently — jumps off the bed and out of the room. He returns a few seconds later with some kind of colourful toy, which he drops at Cherise’s feet. Whisky sits, staring up at her, tongue lolling out of his mouth.
“He’ll settle down,” she says to Wolffe, idly stroking his arm. “He’s used to my schedule. We don’t usually get out for our first wa— um, our first w-a-l-k until midday.”
“Where was he?”
Cherise looks away. “...At a neighbour’s.”
Wolffe raises an eyebrow, like he always used to, and Cherise sighs her relent, like she always — well, usually — used to.
“He’s still a puppy, even though he doesn’t look it. More and more, he’ll spend the day with me at the bar, but most days I drop him off at my neighbour’s — zher dog is Whisky’s mother, actually. That’s how I got him. Anyway, I usually pick him up after work, but…”
Wolffe raises both eyebrows now, amused. “You forgot about your dog?”
The pinch to his arm doesn’t surprise him — it just makes him smile.
“I was a little distracted,” Cherise huffs. She rolls her eyes in a way so reminiscent of the first day they met, and Wolffe can’t help but reach for her.
“C’mere,” he mutters. He brings her in for a kiss, then pulls her over him and back into her rightful spot in his arms. There’s a sudden dip at the end of the bed when Whisky jumps up, but to Wolffe’s relief, the dog circles the space once and flops down on its belly.
There’s just enough space between them for Wolffe to focus on Cherise’s face. He forces himself to keep his eyes open when she rests her hand against his cheek, and the way she brushes her thumb over his cheekbone almost tempts him to melt into her completely. But closing his eyes would mean he wouldn’t be able to see her face, and he’s not giving that up so easily.
Despite the abrupt wake-up, there’s light in her eyes and warmth in her smile. Wolffe kisses her. Then again. And twice more for good measure.
“You sleep okay?” she asks once he rests his head back against the pillow.
He pauses too long to tell her anything but the truth.
“...Not really.”
Wolffe can see every wrinkle that forms in her brow, and he just wants to kiss them all away. To convince her that she doesn’t need to be worried about him.
“Not a big deal,” he says. “Just… y’know. Adjusting to the planet. Some adrenaline. And… lots to think about.”
Cherise’s brow relaxes, but only a little. “Do you want to talk about it? We still have a few hours.”
It’s his turn to frown. “Before what?”
“I have to go to work.”
She says it so casually, and somehow, that makes it hurt even more.
“Oh.”
She frowns again. Wolffe really, really wants to stop making her do that.
“Wolffe?”
“It’s nothing.” He kisses her forehead and tries to tuck her into his chest, but she knows exactly what he’s doing. Her hands press against his chest as she pushes herself back, refusing to let Wolffe hide from her. Her eyes flit over his face, taking in his discomfort, and the concern is back in her brow.
He doesn’t want this — doesn’t want to worry her. Doesn’t want to feel hurt at something so small.
“Wolffe,” Cherise says again. Soft as her voice is, he can feel it crack the walls that he’s thrown up so hastily.
He shrugs as though he can convince himself that it doesn’t matter. “Just didn’t think you’d be going in today.”
Wolffe sees the moment where the worry in her eyes turns into guilt. “I’m sorry. I’m— I just—” She sighs. “I have to. I wish I didn’t. I can explain later, it’s—”
“—a long story,” Wolffe finishes.
He closes his eyes and curses himself silently for how bitter he sounds. He didn’t mean for it to come out like that. He doesn’t want to feel bitter. He doesn’t want the morning to be going this way. But everything just feels out of his control.
He won’t cry. He won’t.
Cherise tucks a stray strand of hair behind his ear, then rests her hand on the back of his neck.
“Wolffe.”
The love in her voice brings the tears even closer to the surface.
She doesn’t say anything until he looks at her again, biting back the hurt that has somehow settled in his chest.
Her breath is warm on his skin. “There’s nothing I want more than to stay in bed all day with you.”
She means it.
Wolffe exhales heavily and drops his eyes to the space between their chests. Again, he forces his hands to slowly unclench the sheets. Instead, he fiddles with the string on Cherise’s shorts — not to undo it, just to give his hands something to do.
“Could I… I could come in with you,” he murmurs. “If that’s okay, I mean.”
“Of course.” She says it like a sigh of relief, washing over him like an ocean wave.
Wolffe’s eyes fall closed again as the knots in his stomach start to unravel.
“Of course it’s okay,” Cherise says again. Then he can hear a smirk in her voice: “Can’t promise I won’t have to introduce you to anyone, though.”
Wolffe grumbles under his breath, and he waits for Cherise to laugh at him. When the sound doesn’t come, and he feels her shifting in the bed, he opens his eyes again.
She’s propping herself up with one elbow and looking down at him. She knows something’s up. The problem is, Wolffe doesn’t really have words to explain it.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” she murmurs, and it’s so gentle that Wolffe thinks his heart is going to explode.
What is wrong?
“It’s nothing.” He wishes it was true.
Cherise just looks at him, and he knows he’s a goner. He’s been on the receiving end of this look many times. It’s worry and love, a plea and a request all at the same time. He doesn’t want to worry her. He doesn’t want to complain.
But he’s too tired to even try to resist it.
She lets him turn her onto her other side and press his chest against her back. The little spoon to his big spoon. It’s easier this way — not needing to look at her and see the concern or disappointment in her eyes. This way, even in his most vulnerable moments, he can just tuck her into his broad body and feel that she’s safe. And when she’s safe, Wolffe feels safe too.
“I… I just want you,” he says against the top of her head. “I didn’t— I didn’t sleep at all. My mind just… kept spiralling.”
He takes a deep breath as the tears he pushed down earlier finally prick at the corners of his eyes.
“I wanted to watch you wake up,” he whispers. “I wanted to see you look at me.”
Cherise raises her hand and tries to reach back to Wolffe. Without even thinking about it, Wolffe slips his hand into hers and lets her pull it close to her chest. Her free hand traces invisible patterns on Wolffe’s skin, and she just waits.
“I don’t want you to go,” Wolffe says. He’s not even sure if Cherise can hear it. “I don’t want you to want to go.”
“I don’t want to go in today,” she says. “I don’t. But I really have to. I’m so—”
“Don’t be sorry.” His voice is thick in his throat. He feels ridiculous. Is he so pathetic that he can’t bear to be without her for a few hours?
Yes.
Cherise turns her head so Wolffe can see her profile. “I can get us a few days to ourselves. I’ll make it work.”
Suddenly, Wolffe is exhausted. His eyes are heavy as he exhales all the breath in his chest. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She squeezes his hand, still held to her chest, and he squeezes back. There’s still something unsettling him, but he just focuses on the moment. Cherise is warm against his chest. He can hear his own heartbeat. The dog sighs heavily at the foot of the bed. Cherise adjusts a little, then fully relaxes into the mattress.
“I love you,” she says.
Wolffe thinks he gets the words out before sleep finally, finally overtakes him.
When he wakes, Cherise’ warmth is gone. So is the dog. He’s alone in the bed, alone in the room — and he has a feeling he’s alone in the house too.
The sun no longer shines through the window, and Wolffe guesses it must be only a few hours since their rude awakening. He looks around for a chrono, and finds none. He’s not surprised. His initial assessment last night was that Cherise didn’t have much furniture. Now, in the full light of the day, he can see that he still underestimated just how empty the room is.
There’s no dresser, no shelving, nothing on the walls. The only piece of furniture besides the bed is a small bedside table that’s definitely seen better days. This is where Wolffe finds the note, scrawled in Cherise’s hand and set on top of a pile of folded clothes.
Tried to wake you up. You were NOT having it. Here’s a change of clothes. Meet me at the bar whenever you’re ready — or I’ll try waking you up when I get back.
Love, Cherise
Scribbled beside her name is the double heart — the very same one written on the note from 79’s, still tucked away in Wolffe’s pack.
It’s almost enough to offset the pang of disappointment in his heart from waking up alone.
Almost.
Before Wolffe gets up, he lets himself sink into the mattress again. He’s not looking to fall asleep again, he just wants to surround himself with things that smell like Cherise for a few more minutes. For months, he’s been relying on the fading scent from her pillowcase and the small jar of her hands cream. They kept him going, but neither of them were nearly as good as tangling himself in her sheets. A few deep breaths is all he needs to feel more relaxed.
The clothes she left are virtually the same as the ones she left for him on Zeltros — the shirt is brown instead of black, but that’s it. He doesn’t bother looking around her room. There’s nothing to see.
As he heads downstairs, he passes his duffel bag, and his clothes from yesterday folded neatly on top of it. Cherise clearly just tossed her old clothes into a pile at the bathroom door.
In full light, Cherise’s house shows itself to be just as plain as her room. The walls are… he doesn’t really know how to describe the colour other than old. The living room houses a run-down couch, and nothing else. Even though the kitchen has the advantage of counters, cupboards, and drawers, he finds that most of them are empty. The conservator is as barren as the rest of the house: a handful of protein bars, a hunk of butter, a half-full bottle of some sauce, and a jar of vitamins.
Wolffe almost feels sick with how wrong it feels for his Cherise to be living in such a lifeless house, but he forces down a protein bar anyway. He sits down — knees knocking against the kitchen table as the singular chair creaks under his weight — and looks for any sign of life. Honestly, he would fully believe that the place was abandoned, if not for the few colourful dog toys scattered on the living room floor.
He’d hoped he could piece together Cherise’s life on Amaronthe from what she has in her home. Instead, all of his knowledge comes from the lack of belongings, which leaves him confused, wary, and ready to leave.
Miraculously, he doesn’t encounter anyone on the short walk to the bar. There are a few people hanging around the repair shop, but he doubts they even notice his presence.
Whereas the house was lifeless, the bar is the polar opposite. Even when he walked in last night, before Cherise popped up from behind the counter, he felt his heart clench with familiarity. He once told Cherise he could see her fingerprints all over 79’s, and while this bar looks completely different, everything seems to have an essence of her.
It annoyed him last night — like salt in the wound. Today, it’s a comfort. The metal decorations, the music, the sign, the atmosphere are brand new to Wolffe, but it’s the sense of place that tugs at his chest and whispers that he’s home.
Unfortunately, it’s also packed to the brim with people. Wolffe settles into the only open booth, still littered with empty beer glasses, and takes in the scene. Despite only being in the late morning — well, he assumes it’s late morning — most of the customers are seated with a drink. There’s a lineup at the bar, behind which he can catch the occasional glimpse of scarlet skin and silver hair. If he listens closely, he can sometimes hear her voice peek through the rest of the noise.
Most of the people are dressed in clothes that look to be designed for working in Amaronthe’s farms: sturdy boots, thick pants, and basic shirts. Some of them have scarves hanging loose off their necks or stuffed into a pocket. Wolffe spies only a few patrons who are clearly not dressed for manual labour, but even they have the sense to keep their collared shirts and slacks muted and inconspicuous.
A weird-looking droid rolls through whatever empty space it can find. Its head is stacked with empty glasses as it retreats behind the bar, then reemerges a few minutes later with full drinks to deliver. It beeps at Wolffe once, but leaves him alone when he holds up a hand in refusal.
He must wait about twenty minutes for the line at the bar to end and for him to finally catch Cherise’s eye. After handing off the last beer, she sets her hands on her hips and takes a slow look across the room. When she notices Wolffe, her face lights up just like he imagined it would when she woke up this morning. That moment, stolen by Whisky’s arrival, comes in full force with a glowing smile.
But her face falls as two of the more sharply-dressed patrons pull her attention away. One of them hands his nearly-full drink back to her and folds his arms across his chest. Wolffe recognizes the expression on Cherise’s face — it looks civil enough, but Cherise knows it as her I’m-only-doing-this-because-you’re-paying-me face. Her eyes flick over to Wolffe for half a second, and he thinks he sees her decide that it’s not worth it to argue. She pours the man another drink and slides it across the counter with her customer-service smile, rolling her eyes at Wolffe when the men have turned their backs.
Wolffe’s smile doesn’t last long. Every time Cherise is about to walk over to him, someone else needs her attention. It’s another ten minutes by the time she finally slides into the seat across from him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t wake you,” she says as she sits down, “but you were dead to the world and I knew you needed it. Honestly, I had to check to make sure you still had a pulse.”
Happiness overtakes him — all annoyance and disappointment completely forgotten when Cherise’s voice hits his ears.
“It’s alright,” he chuckles, and he means it.
Cherise lets her hair down to redo her bun. “We’ll get another rush pretty soon, based on the transport schedule. They’ll be here in less than an hour, I think, but then we can— oh, gods, you’re probably starving.”
She’s up before he can protest, but thankfully no one stops her before she returns to set a brown bag on the table in front of him. Inside are two rolls, savoury-smelling and the size of his hand. Cherise was right — he is starving, but he’s still surprised when he ends up gobbling down the buns faster than he can ever remember eating.
Cherise is smiling at him, though, so he can’t even be embarrassed.
The droid, holding four empty glasses on its top, rolls up to Cherise and lets out a series of beeps and whirrs. Wolffe’s binary is decent enough, but he can’t quite make out the words — but from the way Cherise’s face falls, they can’t be good.
“What’s wrong?” Wolffe asks as the droid rolls away.
Cherise blinks at him, then looks down at her lap.
“Cherise.” He aches to reach out his hand, but something tells him to hold off.
She blows out a breath and doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “There’s… there’s something I need to show you.”
Wolffe’s stomach twists. “Okay.”
“It doesn’t have to be now, if you don’t want to. I know you just got here, a-and this is probably a lot to take in.”
She says it too fast. She’s avoiding something.
“I’m fine,” Wolffe assures her. This time he does reach out a hand, palm-up on the table between them.
She rests her hand on his, but says nothing. Wolffe lowers his voice a little and leans in so she can hear him.
“Cyar’ika, what’s the matter?”
Cherise squeezes her eyes as though she’s bracing herself for a hard blow to her chest. “I just… I don’t want you to be mad.”
Wolffe frowns. His early-morning thought spirals — the mysterious baby, the mysterious Cane — prod at his mind.
He treads carefully. “Why would I be mad?”
He’s too slow to grab her hand when she pulls it away, watching as she sighs and gets to her feet.
“Because I should have told you last night.”
Stomach twisted in knots, Wolffe follows her through a locked door into a storage room. Once they’re out of sight from the rest of the bar, Wolffe reaches forward to take her hand. To his relief, she easily takes it. As she leads him through the storage room and down a set of stairs, he’s not sure if he took her hand to comfort her or himself.
The basement is dimly lit and unfinished. There’s a maintenance room, some kegs, and a few shelves on the wall.
No place for a baby, he thinks weakly.
But Cherise keeps walking, taking Wolffe across the room and around a corner Wolffe didn’t notice at first. She stops awkwardly in a cramped space that vaguely resembles her office at 79’s. A desk, a couple datapads, some sheets of flimsi in a messy pile.
She pulls her hand away from his to idly fidget with her fingers. Wolffe doesn’t even think she’s doing it consciously.
“I’ll explain the whole story when we get a chance,” she says in an uncertain voice. “But… Well… I…”
She turns away to glance at the shelves on the far wall, and Wolffe can’t take it anymore. His chest tight, he steps forward, takes her by the shoulders, and kisses the top of her head. Cherise doesn’t relax, necessarily, but he can feel a little of the tightness leave her muscles. He takes a deep breath, and whether she realizes it or not, she breathes with him.
His voice is quiet. “Last night, I was scared you wouldn’t want anything to do with me anymore. Whatever you have to show me… it’ll be okay.”
Cherise doesn’t — can’t — look at him, but she nods. Then, she steps away, grabs the edge of the shelf with two hands, and yanks it back. The wall swings open, and Cherise steps into the darkness.
Wolffe follows much less gracefully. He knows he’s lost weight, but he still has to turn sideways and duck through the doorway. By the time his eyes adjust to the lack of light, Cherise is sitting at some sort of computer. She still doesn’t look at him, so he doesn’t ask questions — just watches as she touches a series of keys on the terminal in front of her and navigates through screens too quickly for Wolffe to follow.
After a long minute, Cherise pulls her hands away and pushes the chair away from the computer. She glances at Wolffe, then back to the screen in front of her. Wolffe has to lean in to read the text on the screen.
CC-3636
Occupation: none
(formerly) military commander, 41st Elite Corps
Notes: unit discharged to CORSIN after failed operation on SERENNO.
Location: CORSIN
Wolffe grits his teeth. A sour taste fills his mouth at the sight of the words “41st Elite Corps.” He rests a hand against the top of the monitor to keep his balance. The memory of what happened on Serenno flushes him with utter rage and despicable shame — so much so that it takes him far too long to understand what he’s looking at.
“Cherise,” he says, and he doesn’t know if it’s a question, a warning, or just shock.
She still doesn’t look at him.
“This is how I knew when you were discharged. It… it has basic account access to every registered Imperial citizen.” She swallows. “Clones included.”
Wolffe’s legs threaten to give out, so he kneels down beside her. Finally tearing his gaze away from the screen, he rests a hand on Cherise’s knee and looks up at her. Things are starting to click together — the database, the trail to find her, the place in the middle of nowhere — but he’s not processing it fast enough.
“What—?”
He breaks off when he sees the tears shining in her eyes. She’s finally looking down at him, her arms clutching herself as though she might fall apart.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I should’ve told you right away.”
Every Imperial citizen.
Clones included.
He could find every single one of his brothers with this.
What the hell did she have to do to get this?
Did she do all of this for him?
And why is she so upset?
At a loss for words, Wolffe offers his hands to Cherise. When she takes them, Wolffe gently pulls her into him. She’s shaking as she slides off the chair and joins him on the floor, but Wolffe is as steady as a rock now. She needs him to be. He has no clue how to comfort her, so he just holds her, rubbing slow circles into her back.
“It only takes CT numbers for clones,” Cherise says suddenly. “I only know yours.”
Wolffe nods.
“I wanted to look for them, Wolffe, I swear.”
Her voice breaks, and even through his shock and confusion, Wolffe knows what she needs to hear.
“I’m not mad,” he says.
Cherise pulls back.
“It’s okay if you are,” she whispers.
He shakes his head. “I’m not. Not at all. I’m just…”
Shocked. Processing. Fucking terrified.
Wolffe buries his face into Cherise’s neck and breathes her in. It’s her turn to wrap her arms around him, to hold him steady through his quivering breaths. She combs her fingers through his hair, slow and careful, as he tries to come back to himself.
The implications…
When Cherise pulls away, she studies Wolffe’s face carefully. He has no idea what she sees.
“Do you want to be alone?”
Wolffe doesn’t nod, but he doesn’t shake his head either.
A year. A year since the war ended. Since he last saw the rest of his Wolfpack. Even longer since he saw Fox — or Cody, or Rex, or any of his batch. He wasn’t even able to track them when he was an Imperial commander. He’d long given up hope on ever finding them again, knowing that they were lost to the galaxy.
But he thought Cherise had been lost to the galaxy, too. And here she is.
Cherise must see something in his expression, because she pushes herself up off the ground.
“I can go grab us some food,” she says slowly, waiting for Wolffe to react. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he nods.
“Here, I’ll show you the—” Cherise gestures to the screen. They both know Wolffe doesn’t need her help to figure it out, but Wolffe nods anyway.
He pulls himself into the chair while Cherise reaches for the controls. She pauses, then looks at him over her shoulder and asks: “What’s Rex’s number?”
Wolffe’s voice sticks in his throat. He knows it — of course he does. But what if… what if…?
“He’s alive,” she says softly.
Wolffe clears his throat. “How do you know?”
“He… he’s been here.”
“He found you before I did?”
Cherise huffs out a laugh. “I guess. But not like that. It’s…”
…a long story.
Wolffe swallows. “CT-7567.”
Cherise taps it into the terminal, and sure enough, Rex’s profile pops up.
CT-7567
Deceased
Occupation: none
(formerly) military commander, 332nd Division
(formerly) military captain, 501st Legion
Notes: MIA; assumed dead after destruction of Star Destroyer Tribunal, Imperial year -1.
Location: N/A
Wolffe chokes on nothing.
Deceased.
“That’s not true,” Cherise blurts out, but Wolffe almost doesn’t hear her through the sudden ringing in his ears. His eyes have already seen the word. His heart already feels it.
She spins around to face him and grabs his hands. Her body is blocking the screen, and all Wolffe can see are her eyes.
“He’s alive,” she says firmly, and Wolffe squeezes her hands so hard it probably hurts, but she doesn’t even flinch. “Wolffe, I promise you. I promise. I talked to him less than two weeks ago. He survived, and he’s in hiding.”
Wolffe nods wordlessly. The conviction in her voice is making its way through his nervous system, but he can still feel his heart beating in his chest.
Deceased.
“I’m sorry,” Cherise says, shaking her head. “I should have remembered that he— that his profile would say that. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he says.
He releases one of her hands when she wipes her eyes. The silence draws out for what feels like hours. Wolffe still can’t see the screen, but the glow of those green letters are etched into his memory:
Deceased.
He’s not sure how long they would have stayed like that if there hadn’t been a rumbling overhead. Cherise looks up at the ceiling and curses under her breath.
“The next rush,” she mutters.
“You have to go,” Wolffe hears himself say.
She squeezes his hand. “I don’t have to.”
The thudding of feet gets louder, and Wolffe can even hear some loud voices as the group enters the bar.
Cherise rests a hand on his cheek. “I’ll stay if you want me to stay.”
In truth, Wolffe doesn’t know what he wants. But he knows he doesn’t like seeing Cherise like this: uncertain, scared, guilty. And right now, his heart can’t decide what to feel, torn between wanting to comfort the woman he loves and fearful curiosity at what he might see on this screen.
“Go,” he chokes out. The hoarseness of his voice makes him sound harsh, so he tries again. “You go on. I need… a moment.”
Cherise nods. She fixes her bun — which doesn’t need fixing — with shaky hands. “Take all the time you need. I’m sorry. I’ll come back with some food, and— and we can—”
She doesn’t finish her sentence — or maybe Wolffe just doesn’t hear her. He’s staring at the screen again.
Deceased.
When he finally looks away, Cherise is gone.
It’s just Wolffe.
Wolffe and his millions of brothers.
Deceased.
If Cherise says Rex is alive, he believes her. The timeline makes sense — the Tribunal was a 501st ship. He knew that some of the 501st were redirected to Mandalore, which explains the 332nd division. The profile also says it crashed in Imperial year negative one. The chips activated before Palpatine declared the Empire, so it’s more than likely that Rex’s supposed death happened during, or just after, the chips activated. And if Cherise says she saw Rex only weeks ago, then the account on the screen in front of him can’t be true. Rex’s Deceased status — it’s a lie.
That’s not the problem.
The problem is that it’s going to be true for so many of his brothers.
Wolffe empties his lungs. It’s fine. This is how it was always going to be. Some would live, and most would die. He knew that before he knew his own goddamn name — because he was always a number before anything else. Numbers. That’s all they were, and that’s how it was meant to be. The Senate demanded greater numbers of clone troopers, because then there were more who could die. And those deaths were acceptable — necessary, even — if it meant they won the war.
The Senate did win the war.
The clones lost. Like they were always going to.
So this was inevitable. Intended, even. Every single clone knew this before they stepped off Kamino.
Then why can’t Wolffe type in a number?
He knows who he’ll look for first. There’s no question about that. But his hands are shaking when he lifts them from his knees.
“C’mon,” he grunts, alone in the room. “You owe them.”
And he does. He owes them for being the one to survive and the one to escape, because there’s no good fucking reason for it. He’d have given his life in an instant for any of his brothers. He’d have died to keep any of them safe. But he didn’t.
They got to die, and he has to live with it.
The least — the absolute fucking least — he can do is find out what happened to them. He abandoned the Wolfpack. He never found out what happened to his other batchmates — except for two.
He reaches for the terminal.
C… C…
Gree, he knows, is dead. Wolffe had taken his place with the 41st. And what did he do? Nothing. And none of his soldiers ever brought up the name of their old commander. None of them asked what had happened to him. Not that Wolffe knew — but it was easy to imagine. He knows what it’s like to be struck by a lightsaber. He knows what it’s like to see that flash of light, that rush of heat that you can’t stop. He knows how Gree’s skin would have sizzled and cooked, because he remembers what it sounded like when Ventress carved his eye out of his head. When Wolffe fell to the floor, all that time ago, he thought he was dead. Dying, at least.
Did Gree know he was dying? Did he think he could make it? Did he try to get back up?
Or was he dead before his body hit the ground?
1…
Ponds is dead too. Has been for a while. Shot in the head by a bounty hunter just to get Windu to act. A pawn, nothing more. All because of Boba fucking Fett. Wolffe swore that he’d kill that little prick if he ever laid eyes on him. So much for blood. So much for brotherhood.
But what kind of brother was Wolffe now anyway?
0…
Wolffe bites down on his own lip until the metallic taste of blood fills his mouth.
Blood.
If his brothers died by lightsaber, they wouldn’t have bled. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it was better to get a quick death than to bleed out, knowing that they would never get up again. They wouldn’t have to think about the fact that they were dying by their Jedi’s hand.
But there are so many other ways they could have died. In the last year, Jedi stopped being a threat to the clones. Most of the Imperial army turned its focus to different dangers. It could have been bombs. Shrapnel. Something far more cruel than the quick slice of a lightsaber or a blaster bolt to the head.
1…
Wolffe squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe. He needs to know. He owes it to them. He owes it to him. He owes it to Fo—
0…
His hand falters over the final key — the key that will bring up his brother’s profile. His best friend. The fox to his wolf.
What if he’s dead?
Wolffe squeezes his eyes shut. His hands clench into fists imagining that those green letters — Deceased — might underscore Fox’s name.
The next thought, unbidden, turns his body to ice.
What if he’s alive? What if he’s okay?
What fucking then?
Wolffe scoffs at himself. Of course he wasn’t fucking okay. Fox hadn’t been okay for months leading up to the order. Hell, hadn’t been okay when the war even started. But those last few times Wolffe saw him…
Fox called himself crazy. Wolffe didn’t want to believe it at the time.
But Fox had been losing his memory — long stretches of time where he couldn’t recall a single fucking thing. There were people he didn’t remember killing. Missions he didn’t remember leading. Days gone by in mere seconds.
Maybe it had been the chip. All of it, or some of it. Wolffe’s chip had been damaged by Ventress, but Fox’s had been fully intact. Maybe he never had a chance of fighting it off. And regardless of if his chip was active then, it definitely was after Order 66.
Maybe he doesn’t even remember who Wolffe is.
There is no good option: Fox is alive, braindead under the control of the chip; Fox is alive, aware but unable to escape; Fox is alive, escaped the Empire, and Wolffe will never find him; or Fox is dead.
And what can Wolffe do about any of it?
Something smacks against his knees. The room tries to swallow him whole, and gods, he wishes it would. The air, cold and thick, refuses to enter his lungs. There’s no light from the other room. There’s no door, no escape. There is only him, curled up like a wounded animal, unable to die.
The walls start to close in and the pressure pushes Wolffe fully onto the floor. His ears pop and all he can hear is a high-pitched scream. He’s cold, so cold — every single cell in his body is either cold or numb.
Is this what it would be like to be sucked into space?
That’s what should have happened. He should have died at Abregado, like nearly all of his men. He should have been with them — shaking in their escape pods until the machine sucked them into the empty vacuum of certain death. Why the fuck did he survive — the armourless, helpless coward?
Something yanks on Wolffe’s hair and he makes no move to stop it. The pain is good — it’s what he deserves — it distracts him from the static in his head and the ringing in his ears. It’s his own hands, he realizes, taking fistfuls of curls and trying to pull them out of his skull. Salt touches his tongue, and it doesn’t matter that he can’t open his eyes. He doesn’t need to see the tears landing on the cold, concrete floor.
Cold. Cold. So cold.
His lungs gulp for air without his permission, but there’s nothing left. The room wraps around him like it’s swaddling an infant. Everything is pressing in from him on all sides.
He doesn’t fight it.
Blood fills his mouth. The floor slams into his head, and if he had any control over his body, he would do it again. But he’s not in control — and it’s just like before, just like the order, and they never took the chip out of his head, and he’s so fucking lost.
“Wolffe?”
His name has him choking on his own raw, ragged throat.
“Wolffe!”
The floor stops scraping against his head and he sobs at the loss of the pain.
“Soda, call Farren, now! Wolffe, I need—”
He hears the words, but he forgets them as soon as they’re said. His body is made of ice, and he wishes he would shatter.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck—”
And then his hands are melting.
Cold, cold, everything is cold — except for his hands. His hands are warm. He loosens the grip on his hair to see if his hands are still real, and the pain in his skull eases a little. His hands. His hands.
His hands are on his face — no, not his. Other hands. His skin starts to thaw on his face. It travels down his chin, down his neck.
“Wolffe, can you hear me? Please, please—”
Cherise.
Wolffe chokes again, but then he can breathe. He can breathe, and warm air fills his lungs, melts him from the inside out.
“—please, Wolffe, don’t— I just got you back.”
Cherise.
This time he feels his mouth say the word.
“Oh my god, Wolffe, can you hear me?”
He nods — oh, how his muscles ache, his head throbs, his limbs shake — but he nods.
“What’s wrong? What— what—?”
He shakes his head, finally finding the strength to open his eyes. Cherise — he knows it’s Cherise, even though all he can see is red and a faint flash of silver — is right there, right in front of him, and fuck, he can feel her panic in the air as it seeps back into his chest.
“Not hurt,” he rasps.
“What do you— oh, Farren, thank gods. I don’t know— I came down and he was just—”
There are other hands on him, hands he doesn’t know, hands he doesn’t want. He reaches in the direction where he saw Cherise, trying to say her name, desperate for her touch.
Then a hand is in his.
Come here, he tries, and somehow, it works.
He tries to pull her closer, but he can’t — he’s trying, and he’s trying, and he’s so fucking tired of trying.
“Breathe, love. Please.”
He’ll do anything that voice says.
“There, that’s it. That’s it. Oh, god. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Things accelerate after that — unfolding like a flower blooms. His muscles stop seizing up, and he’s not sure if he can move. But it doesn’t matter, because Cherise is holding him. She’s stroking his face, tucking his hair away, and he can feel the rise and fall of her breath. Soon, they’re breathing in unison, and the world starts to come back into focus.
“Cherise,” he says, voice slurred. “‘M sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she soothes. “It’s okay. Are you— are you hurt?”
“No. No.”
“Okay, that’s good.” Then, so quiet he can barely hear: “Thank god.”
“I want to take his vitals,” another voice says. It’s unfamiliar, and Wolffe winces. He’s coming back to himself, and has just enough lucidity to feel embarrassed.
Cherise’s voice is back. “Wolffe, can you try to sit up?”
He allows Cherise to help him up until he’s leaning back against her. Somehow she was able to pull him towards the open door, just a little, and when she leans back against the wall, they’re halfway out of the console room already. Cherise holds his hands and whispers into his ear while someone else touches his forehead, his neck, his wrist, the back of his hand.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. I love you. We’re okay. I love you.”
There’s a man kneeling beside him, strapping something to his arm. He seems to notice Wolffe’s attention, because he says: “Just taking your blood pressure. It’ll only take a minute.”
“And everything else?” Cherise asks.
“All fine,” says the man. Wolffe feels the cuff tighten, then relax. “Blood pressure’s fine.”
The man stands up to go, then hesitates. He meets Wolffe’s eyes, then flicks up to look at Cherise. His mouth opens, then closes, and opens again.
“I’ll be right back,” Cherise murmurs to Wolffe. “That okay?”
He nods and tries to shift forward to let Cherise get up, then leans back against the wall. Cherise and the man step just out of sight around the corner, but Wolffe can still hear a few words here and there.
“Don’t tell...”
“...back door.”
“... Nel...”
“...anything happens… call.”
Then Cherise is walking back towards him, and Wolffe would rather melt into the floor rather than see the pained expression on her face. He can’t deal with pity. He absolutely does not need to be babied.
But Cherise just joins him on the floor and wipes the few remaining tears from Wolffe’s cheeks. She offers him a canteen of water, which he gladly takes, and she doesn’t stare at him while he drinks. She doesn’t push, doesn’t pry — just waits for Wolffe to make the next move.
He should’ve known that Cherise would know what he does and doesn’t need.
He grunts softly and presses his palms against the floor. “Need to get up.”
Need to get out of this room.
Wolffe closes the shelf door after he stands up, as though he could forget what happened if he can’t see the inside of the room anymore.
Cherise pushes some things around her desk then lifts herself to sit on it. She gestures for Wolffe to take the chair, and he does — but he pulls it forward so he’s close enough that he decides to rest his forehead against her knee.
“I couldn’t do it.”
Cherise weaves her fingers through Wolffe’s hair. With her palm on his head and her thumb smoothing back and forth, his aching scalp throbs a little less.
“I owe it to them,” Wolffe says, the frustration pointed only at himself. “I should be able to.”
His hands find her thighs, and he squeezes lightly, grounding himself.
“What if they’re dead?”
She takes his hand, but stays silent.
“What if… what if they— but— I can’t—”
“What if they’re alive,” Cherise says, finishing the thought that he can’t speak aloud. “What if they’re still with the Empire. By choice or not.”
Wolffe shudders, hands gripping her thighs a little tighter.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “That.”
“I think about it all the time,” she says quietly. The ache in her voice feels like it was taken right out of Wolffe’s own chest.
Of course she’d understand. She would’ve spent months wondering if Wolffe was still under the chip’s control — and even longer thinking about all the reasons he hadn’t found her yet. But she knew clones, too. Thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of clones passed through 79’s. Cherise knew many of them by name, and formed friendships with quite a few. The difference is that she couldn’t check on them — not without their CT number — and that Wolffe just isn’t.
A quiet thump makes Wolffe look up. Cherise’s head is tilted back against the wall, and her eyes are closed.
“I’m sorry,” she says without opening her eyes.
“For what?”
She’s quiet for a couple breaths. “I should’ve stayed.”
“I told you to go.”
“I know.”
She takes a shaky breath as tears start to gather against her closed eyelashes.
“I should’ve stayed anyway.”
Wolffe hears the echoes of her voice when she found him lying on the floor — the sheer terror in her words. The fear is probably still racing through her body.
“It’s happened once before,” Wolffe mumbles. “The… episode. I had one on Corsin.”
Also because of Fox, he thinks to himself. It had come on so suddenly — Daisy innocently mentioning the name at dinner and shocking Wolffe’s system into panic. This one had crept up on him more, but was all the more devastating.
Cherise makes a noise of acknowledgement, but doesn’t push at all. They both know he’ll tell her about it eventually. Neither of them could handle that conversation right now anyway.
Exhaustion catches up with Wolffe once again — the few hours of sleep he had this morning wasn’t nearly enough to help him process the emotional overload of the past day. The panic attack was about as clear of a sign as he could get that his nerves were still running ragged and hot, and that he needed to recover. Everything over the last twenty-four hours had been excitement and anxiety, all adrenaline without a break — now, his heart feels heavy enough to pull him into a deep, deep sleep.
Even so, when something crashes upstairs, Wolffe’s entire body resists the notion of letting Cherise go. Her hand tightens around his, but other than that, she doesn’t move a muscle.
Wolffe steels himself. “You’ve got customers.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be okay.”
She finally looks down at him, and two tears fall from her beautiful brown eyes.
“I know.”
She still doesn’t move.
He could stay here. If he stayed like this, head practically resting in Cherise’s lap, he knows she wouldn’t move. But even if he didn’t have to worry about a crick in his neck when he woke up, Wolffe knows he can’t keep them both like this. He needs to sleep, and as much as he wants to be selfish and bring her with him, he won’t do that to her.
He clears his throat. “I think… I might go back to the house. Try to get some more sleep. If that’s okay.”
“Of course,” Cherise says. “Wait— food. I was supposed to get you food.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Wolffe says as he peels himself off of Cherise’s legs and into a sitting position.
The look she gives him makes it clear that she is going to worry about it, and that Wolffe has no choice in the matter.
“I’ll grab you something from the store before you go.” She slides off the desk and presents her hands to Wolffe. He takes them, letting them steady him as he pushes himself to his feet.
He’s not sure who initiates it, but their arms are suddenly wrapped around each other, and Cherise is gripping him so hard he might have bruises later. When she starts to shake, Wolffe knows what he needs to say.
“I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“Fucking terrified, you asshole.”
Wolffe breathes out a chuckle and kisses the top of her head.
“I thought…” Cherise’s voice breaks against his chest. “I thought…”
“I know,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.”
Cherise holds on for another long moment, then steps away from the embrace. She wipes the tears from her eyes before Wolffe can even raise his hands, but when she scowls at him, he knows he’s forgiven.
“Never again,” she grumbles. “I’ve had enough of being scared for your life.”
Wolffe nods. “More than your fair share, I’d say.”
“And I’d agree.” The softness in her face doesn’t match her voice, and when Wolffe cups her cheek with his hand, she practically nuzzles right into it.
“Give me a few minutes to grab you something before you head back.”
Wolffe nods. Looking as tired as he feels, Cherise pulls away, but Wolffe catches her by the wrist.
“I love you,” he murmurs, leaning down to reach her lips.
She kisses him first, so slow and soft and sweet that Wolffe is tempted to ask her to just come back with him.
“I love you too,” she says once she pulls away. “I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
The sting of watching her walk away is soothed by those words — by the promise of home, of a place that is no longer just hers, but that is theirs. And so he lets her go, knowing that he’ll sleep alone, but that he won’t stay alone for long.
header art by @purgetrooperfox
beta and hype duties by @spacerocksarethebestrocks and @baba-fett
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chapter tags: angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, panic attack, death mention, grief, anxiety
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Friendly Fire
This is the longest thing I've written yet.
I started this right after episode 14 came out early Wednesday morning.
Enjoy my little Echo ficlet/Prophecy
HEAVY SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 14 OF TBB SEASON 3
When they finally make it inside Tantiss, Crosshair's hand is shaking worse than ever. He had tried everything he could to not return only for his worst nightmare to happen. He’s back and Omega was there because of him. Because of his misfire. He had hoped that he wouldn't have had to even talk about Tantiss again but here he is. They run through corridor after corridor simply taking out whatever stormtroopers they come across, they can’t afford anything going wrong.
“We have to find Echo!” Crosshair calls to Hunter and Wrecker as they keep up their search. They had gone completely com silent so they have no idea where the reg could be.
Emeri had led Echo to the vault. Despite her warning him, he’s shocked at the conditions the children are being held in.
They walk in together and another female doctor walks up to Emeri looking at her with thinly veiled disdain
“Doctor Karr you are aware that stormtroopers aren't allowed in the vault with the specimens. I shall have to report this to Dr. Hem-,”
Before she can finish her sentence Echo is astounded when Emeri pulls her arm back and knocks out the other doctor in one hit.
“I guess you really are a clone!” He comments as she uses the incapacitated doctor’s datapad to turn off all the security measures.
Omega, seeing Emeri take action, immediately jumps on top of the medical droid and reprograms it telling it to shut down. She then jumps off and rejoins the other children moving to stand between them and the man in a stormtrooper uniform in front of her.
Echo sees Omega standing in front of four other children as if she's guarding them. She’s watching him suspiciously and he realizes he’s forgotten to take off his helmet.
“Echo!” Omega almost sobs before throwing herself in his arms. When he wraps his arms around her, Omega notices he has two hands holding her. When he lets go she grabs his robotic hand and twists and turns it trying to get a better look at it.
“This is new,” Omega comments and starts to ask but Echo just shrugs.
“It grew back on its own,” Echo says with a straight face making Omega arch her eyebrow at him.
“Suuuure” Omega says, rolling her eyes and grinning at him. She turns to Emeri,
“So you finally decided you wanted to help us?”
Emeri looks down at the floor frowning and then back up at Omega
“I- I am a clone like you. I realize my actions have been counter to what I should have been doing, but I swear I’m ready to do better” Omega smiles at her and gives her a quick hug, shocking Emeri
“I have…never gotten one of those before.”
“Better get used to it” Echo quips, turning to the rest of the kids in the vault.
“…Hello. Are you guys ready to get out of here?”
The kids look at each other and nod apprehensively. The Pantoran girl holding the baby moves closer behind the green boy, hiding.
“We’re just kids, how are we supposed to help get us out?” she asks in a quiet voice. She's scared, they all are. Echo can see clearly. He remembers a similar situation on Kamino; while these kids weren’t soldiers, they still had something about them. Echo just had to make them see that.
Echo kneels down to see eye to eye with the kids.
“You guys are here because there’s something special about you right? Even the Imps could see it. They needed you for a reason, just like right now I need you to be brave. I need you to have courage. Be strong. You have the hearts of clones and the strength of the Jedi. Whatever it is that makes you special was in their blood and is in your blood. It’s in Omega’s blood, which I'd say is close enough to make you honorary clones. You aren’t some helpless children, you are strong and have heart! Now we need to get out of here!”
Echo starts to herd all of the kids plus Emeri to the doorway to get them out of there.
“Wait!” Omega stops Echo. “I know a way we can get out of here. I have a distraction planned.”
”Do you?”
“Uh huh. The Zillo beast that they have in one of the containment areas, we can free it and let that distract the rest of the base.”
Echo just stands there for a moment and grins “You know, you remind me so much of someone that it almost scares me. He came up with these hair-brained schemes all the time too”
Omega stands up just a little straighter. “He sounds like fun”
“He was.”
Echo turns to Emeri “You take the kids to the hangar and wait for us there.”
“Ok I’ll try. Come along, we have to hurry!”
They run out of the vault together before Emeri points Echo and Omega in the right direction to go before urging the children to walk faster in the other direction.
As they run to the Zillo beast enclosure, Omega can't help but ask,”Where are the others?” She fears the worst but is relieved when Echo slows, “They are here…somewhere. We've gone com silent since we got here,” Omega nods at this, understanding the need to be untraceable. They fall into silence as they run through hallway after hallway with no interruptions.
“After this…I want to be done. I want to find somewhere even more remote than Pabu and just stay there. Maybe we can find wherever Cut and Suu went! You and Rex can even join us. I'm sure Hunter wouldn’t mind,” Omega says to break the silence.
“...Omega, We-”
“You have your mission, I know. I just want us to all be together again.”
“Rex and I won't be done until all our brothers are free. If I'm honest even after that I don't know if I'll stop fighting for what I feel is right. There are the makings of a larger rebellion against the Empire, maybe I'll join them. I’m a soldier, ’Mega, it’s what I’m made for.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Listen, after we get you out of here we can talk more about it but we need to find the beast and your brothers first.”
Crosshair, Hunter, and Wrecker knew that they needed to find Omega then Echo, and fast. They run through the hallways and corridors turning corners and shooting the stormtroopers with barely a second glance. “Nothing from Echo?” Crosshair asks yet again. “Nothing!” Hunter answers as the men keep running, finding fewer troopers as they get deeper into Tantiss. Echo guides Omega through the halls keeping his new hand on her shoulder, his real hand holding his blaster.
Crosshair is starting to panic. Omega is nowhere to be found and Echo hasn't checked in yet. He must have gotten off the ship and be somewhere in the facility.
Omega and Echo are running towards a corner.
Crosshair comes to a T in the hallway
They turn the corner.
Crosshair sees a stormtrooper with a blaster in one hand and Omega grasped by the shoulder in the other.
Crosshair acts on instinct and doeswhat he had been doing the whole time they were running through Tantiss.
His sister is in danger again. This time he wouldn’t fail her.
His aim is sure and his hand steady as he immediately raises his rifle.
The stormtrooper raises his hands as if to try and stop him but Crosshair has had enough, he briefly notices the strange stiffness of the trooper’s right hand but his mind is moving too fast to stop on that thought.
He just wants to get Omega, find Echo, and get back to Pabu
He wants to leave Tantiss and blow the place to the Maker.
All these thoughts run through his head in a split second.
Crosshair does what he does best: he shoots.
And this time. He doesn’t miss.
Hitting Echo in the chest. Directly over his heart.
Crosshair watches the stormtrooper collapse.
Omega screams and pushes Crosshair away when he runs to grab her.
He doesn't understand.
Until she takes off the stormtrooper’s helmet.
Crosshair can only watch in horror as Echo’s face is revealed. Somehow he is even paler than before. He lies on the ground and Omega puts her hand over his wound desperately trying to help.
All three clones rip their helmets off, dropping them to the ground.
When Crosshair tries to step forward to try to help, Omega yells at him to just stay back. She sits on the ground beside Echo, he’s practically in her lap
Just this once Crosshair wishes that his hands had shaken.
The one time he wished he could have…Crosshair didn’t miss.
Echo knows he isn't going to make it.
He can’t help but chuckle to himself over the way that this had occurred. It sounded all too familiar to what Rex had told him so long ago on Anaxes after he had been brought back.
Rex walks into the room where Echo is getting a final look over by Kix and the other medics. Echo looks up at his captain, his brother. “Finally decided to tell me huh?” Rex can only nod and raises his hand to the back of his neck, his nerves all over the place. “Echo listen, I-,” Echo puts his hand up stopping him. “I know. You can tell me how but it won’t make a difference. He’s gone. He would've been here if he wasn’t. Just, just tell me he went down fighting,” Rex grimaces and brings his hand down putting it on his shoulder. He makes eye contact with Kix who moves to clear everyone else out of the room before leaving himself. “You know Fives, was there any other way?” Rex and Echo chuckle remembering Fives’ personality. “Tell me Rex…” Echo says seriously after a moment. Rex sighs but moves to sit next to Echo on the bed. “In the end…Fives didn’t die on the battlefield. I’m sorry Echo, but he was killed by a brother. By Fox. At the time we had no idea about the chips, but somehow Fives found out. We- I didn't believe him, I was there when it happened and he- well he died in my arms,” Rex says this without looking at Echo. When he finally does he sees Echo’s face not filled with anger as he suspected, but with sorrow? Even a bit of pity. “It isn't your fault Rex. You had no way of knowing, not even the Jedi knew and they were supposed to know everything.” Rex had looked at him and nodded. Echo had wanted to say more but couldn't, internally reeling about how Fives had been killed by a brother, and how he had died assuming he was the last domino to fall.
Returning to the present, Echo’s eyes focus back on Omega and her hand on his chest. Once again reminding him of another blond clone who had left their handprint on his chest.
Echo’s eyes move across the room and land on Crosshair, who can’t even look at him. “Hey Cross… I’d say that intel earned your hug.” And suddenly all the men are surrounding Echo and Omega. Crosshair has his hand on Echo’s scomp. He leans over and puts his forehead to Echo’s and whispers “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, I would've done the same thing,” Echo says firmly and hopes that Crosshair believes him.
Crosshair can’t look at Echo as he stands up and turns away from him, wiping his hand across his eyes. Erasing the tears that Crosshair would refuse to say came. Hunter and Wrecker can’t even say anything. It’s Eriadu all over again. This time they are in a medical facility without their medic, and they can’t do anything to save Echo. Both take their turn to say goodbye and to put their own foreheads to Echo’s as the tears stream down both their faces. They’d gotten so used to crying around each other they barely even noticed it anymore. Unlike Crosshair who was still hiding his face.
Omega looks up just above where Echo is lying. Tears streaming down her face she swears she feels a familiar presence, one she had felt years ago as a young child back on Kamino. She looks back down at Echo who is looking at the same spot, a slight smile on his face.
“Took you long enough you Di’kut,” Echo chuckles wincing. “You know, Fives, I never thought I'd be the last Domino to fall. Can’t say I’m glad for it.”
Omega is the only one to hear this. Her other brothers stay back knowing that there is nothing they can do. She looks at them, scared, “Who is Fives?” The men all freeze. They all feel their stomachs drop. She looks back down towards Echo who is already watching her. The rise and fall of his chest is slowing. “Vod’ika, I-I’m… I don't want to go but, My brothers, they’re here. Fives, Rose, Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait, 99... They say I can march with them.” Echo’s eyes are glistening, unfocused. He wants to go with them but he has so much to do here. Omega can see his struggle and pushes her feelings away.
“It’s ok Echo. You are done fighting, you can march with them. We will be ok.” Omega’s eyes are full of tears but she doesn’t let them fall. She lays her head on Echo’s chest holding his hand in one of hers and putting the other hand on his chestplate. Feeling as his breaths grow shallow, his heartbeat slows and eventually fades away. Echo’s hand slowly lets go of Omega’s but grabs onto his twin’s. Echo barely notices the lack of metal weighing him down as Fives helps him up, grinning as he pulls Echo into a hug before he turns and leads Echo away with an arm around his neck.
Omega looks up at Echo’s face. She doesn't think she ever saw him look this peaceful before.
The final domino. Fallen. But rising to join his brothers as they march on to forever.
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