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The hour was late in the senate building on Coruscant, and Senator Organa ambled slowly back to his office. The normally bustling corridors were calm for once, and he relished in the silence, nothing to be heard save for the mouse droids’ quiet trills.
He’d been with Mon and Padme, ostensibly meeting to discuss yet another bill that would never pass. One that hoped to halt the chancellor’s ever-growing control, the control that no-one else seemed particularly concerned about, as if the other senators somehow hadn’t studied history or political theory and so weren't aware that dangerous politicians tended to amass power in times of crisis, using people’s fear as a buffer against any inconvenient questions. It infuriated him.
They hadn’t discussed the bill for long, however, and the conversation had soon moved on to less terrifying topics, their laughter flowing freely with the bottles of red wine Mon had bought to go with their meal. However much he worried, he had good friends, and he was glad of them and the evenings spent together, forgetting any troubles they had.
As he made his way towards his office in order to retrieve a datapad he knew he’d need for tomorrow, the slight warmth of the wine still gently flushing his cheeks, he thought longingly of the comfortable bed that awaited him back at his apartments. Soon, he could drift off to sleep.
Gradually, his ears picked up on the unfortunately-unmistakable sound of steps approaching from the opposite direction. He sighed internally. It wasn’t that he was unsociable, far from it in fact, but he had been enjoying the uninterrupted peace, and didn’t particularly look forward to having to nod politely at whoever rounded the bend, he would far rather have kept up the peaceful illusion that he was the only person in existence at this hour.
To his surprise (and relief), the person who rounded the corner was Commander Fox.
“Commander,” he greeted, smiling at his luck that the footsteps hadn’t belonged to someone from Orn Free Taa’s circle. Fox was always pleasant to interact with, professional, albeit a little strange and nervous at times.
Fox stopped dead and stared at him. He didn’t return the greeting.
A bad feeling started to settle in Bail’s stomach.
“Are you alright, Commander?”
Still, he didn’t speak, continuing to stare at Bail as if waiting for something, the only sign he’d registered anything the slight tilt of his helmet.
He didn’t have to be a jedi to know that something was very, very wrong here.
“Could you take off your helmet for me please?”
Fox took several seconds to process his request before complying, reaching up to undo his helmet’s seals with hands that had too much of a tremor in them for Bail’s liking.
What the removal of his helmet revealed was a patchwork of bruising and grazes, clearly fairly new, some still oozing trickles of blood, and far more extensive than the usual one or two injuries that Fox usually seemed to be sporting on the rare times he took off his helmet around Bail. Fox would always evade his questions over his everyday injuries, a slightly hunted look on his face, as if he’d forgotten that Bail could see his expressions when he wasn’t wearing his helmet. He was probably fine, Bail usually reasoned, quietening his concerns that Fox shouldn’t be injured when he had a helmet with theories about spars and roughhousing with his brothers that perhaps the Commander didn’t wish to admit to.
These injuries, however, were not the sort that he could just ignore, though they weren’t even the most worrying aspect of this situation. No, what concerned Bail Organa the most was the way Fox stared at him, face utterly blank of recognition, gaze slightly unfocused, as if he were a very basic droid in human-form, waiting for Bail to tell him what to do next.
The warmth of the wine seemed to have disappeared, leaving him feeling cold, and very, very afraid.
“Do you remember what happened to you?”
A small frown appeared on Fox’s battered face, and he appeared to focus more on him, but he didn’t move to answer.
Bail thought quickly. The Commander was either drugged or suffering from a fairly severe concussion, potentially both. Given the direction he’d come from, and that the direction he was headed was the guard barracks, he may well have been attacked by someone within the senate. Someone wanting information about the security of the building or other senators, maybe. Potentially even a separatist informant.
The whys weren’t what was actually important now, he could focus on them later. What was important was keeping Fox safe. He couldn’t be sure that Fox would be able to manage the walk back to the base, and that was without even considering who might find him if Bail just left him here. He didn’t like to think ill of others who worked in the senate (though this was incredibly difficult considering he spent many days working with them), but he had an awful suspicion of what some of them might choose to do upon finding Fox like this, quiet and compliant.
And, Bail thought as he studied Fox, so very, very young.
Often, with their quiet professionalism and air of competence, Bail forgot that the oldest clone was at most in their early twenties, but, looking at the Commander as he was now, he didn’t think it had ever been more horrifyingly obvious.
“You’re going to follow me,” he said. Fox nodded.
Bail’s head spun as he walked quickly towards his office under the dim glow of the corridor lamps, all thoughts of a peaceful late-night stroll abandoned as the commander followed half a step behind, matching his pace easily.
He’d need to call the guard, get a medic up here to look at Fox, tell them that Fox had been attacked and suggest they search any footage so that they might find the perpetrators.
Once his door had swished shut behind them, he told the Commander to sit on the couch and watched as he did so immediately, sitting still and stiff, staring into the distance and waiting. Nausea and relief warred within his mind, nausea at what could have happened had he not found Fox first, relief that he’d done so. Then again, who knew what had happened before Bail had found him?
He pushed the thought aside and opened a holocall to the guard. After he’d relayed the key details, he looked up to see the commander slumped unconscious on the couch.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Fox!”
The commander’s eyes flew open, and he looked around, startled, before his eyes landed on Bail. The momentary - dare he say - terror displayed on his face was immediately replaced with a blank expression, and Bail might have been afraid that Fox was returning to his previous state, only his gaze remained focused, and there was a slight frown creasing his forehead that would never have been there five minutes ago.
“Are you back with me?”
Fox pushed himself quickly to his feet, swaying slightly as he stood. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”
Bail Organa gaped at him, and it felt as if it took several seconds for him to regain the power of speech after the absolute absurdity he’d witnessed. “Sit down! Commander, you’re concussed.”
“Oh. Right, sir. Sorry, sir.” It took him several seconds to follow his directions this time, as if he wasn’t sure that he was hearing Bail right.
As Commander Fox stared down at the floor from his seat back on the couch, posture tense, fingers grasped together in his lap so tightly he wondered if it hurt, cogs started to turn in his mind.
“You don’t remember me telling you to sit the first time, do you?” he asked quietly. “You don’t remember how you got here.”
When Fox looked back up at him, his jaw was tense and serious. “Of course I do, sir,” he replied, voice unnervingly steady. “We met to discuss security arrangements. I’m just a little tired, that’s all. I know it’s unacceptable, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Bail sighed. “Good try, but that’s not true. I found you wandering the corridors, clearly unaware of what was happening around you. I brought you back here to make sure you were safe and called your medics to check on you.”
He watched Fox swallow, bite his lip. The fear from earlier, that he’d done his best to hide, slipping back through his mask. “Are you going to have me decommissioned, sir?”
He frowned. Decommissioned, as in… retired from the army? “I think that would be a little extreme,” he told Fox. “Considering it was hardly your fault you were beaten and drugged.”
He nodded, and seemed to relax some, but his white-knuckle grip remained.
“Commander Fox, do you know who attacked you?”
The commander remained silent, before shaking his head.
This was not good. What was worse was that Bail wasn’t sure he believed him.
“Alright then,” he grimaced, “what’s the last thing you remember?”
“Doing flimsiwork in my office, sir.”
Bail really wasn’t sure that he bought that, but he doubted pressing harder would get anything out of him. He’d just have to make enquiries himself.
Thankfully, at that moment the office doorbell chimed, and he walked over to let the corries in. He stepped back to allow the medic to pass, and then ushered the others towards his kitchenette.
“He was attacked and, I think, drugged,” he told them seriously, watching the medic shine a light inside Fox’s eyes. “Probably by someone in the senate building, which means either someone gained access, or it was someone who worked here. If the Commander allowed them to get close to him, I fear it was the latter.”
“That seems like a reasonable assumption, sir,” Commander Thire said.
“He wouldn’t speak. He did exactly what I told him, like he was a blank slate,” Bail continued. “It’s worrying. More than worrying. I found him in the corridor to the right of this one, and he was coming from the direction of the main offices, so that’s where you should start checking the cameras.”
“Checking the cameras, sir?”
Bail blinked. “Yes. For your investigation.”
“Investigation into what, sir?”
He was going mad. “Into whoever attacked Fox!?”
Even through the helmet, Bail had a sense that Thire was uncomfortable. “But he’s a clone, sir. The investigation wouldn’t be valid, and we’d never be able to prosecute anyone.”
Right. He now hoped he was going mad. That was a horrifying thing to hear, for several reasons. He glanced over at Fox, who was having his bruises prodded while he stared morosely at the medic who was checking him over.
“He’s the commander of the coruscant guard, brought here to keep us safe,” Bail said quietly. “If he’s not safe here, what hope does anyone else on this force-foresaken planet have? Besides, whoever attacked him may secretly be separatists, they may have been getting information from him. Surely, you have a duty to investigate this?”
“Even if you give us permission to investigate this, sir,” Thire replied, “what happens when we need to make arrests? The chancellor won’t be pleased.”
And well, if this didn’t just prove that the chancellor was corrupt. He supposed he would have felt satisfied to be proven right, in any other circumstance.
“The chancellor cannot impede a legal investigation.” Bail felt sure that all of the corries were staring at him dubiously through their helmets. “Look. If you don’t want to discover who attacked your commander, that’s fine. I’ll investigate it by myself.”
He glanced back at Fox, who was staring at him with open horror on his face, before he realised that Bail had turned to him, expression turning shuttered and grim.
“Or maybe I won’t,” Bail heard himself lying. “Maybe you’re all right. What do I know about senate corruption?”
The atmosphere in the room instantly relaxed. Bail couldn’t help but feel that was, in fact, a bad sign.
Later that night, or rather, very early that morning on three cups of caff and no sleep, found Bail Organa striding through the empty halls, R2D2 at his side.
What he was doing was, probably, (very definitely) illegal, but R2D2 had sliced into many separatist bases, anything Republic made should be a piece of cake, Anakin had assured him. (He’d thanked Anakin for the loan of his droid, and deliberately hadn’t questioned why he was half-dressed in Padme’s apartments at four in the morning).
After gaining access to the security holos, he traced Fox’s steps back from where he’d come across him last night, frown growing deeper and deeper as it became more and more clear that Fox had come in the direction of the offices of those who held the most power in the Republic.
Then R2 shrieked, and there was the footage of Fox, leaving the Chancellor’s office not ten minutes before he’d come across him in the corridor.
A heavy ball of ice settled in his stomach.
No. Surely not?
Thire’s words from the day before echoed in his brain. “The chancellor won’t be pleased.”
No, he told himself, that’s ridiculous. Why would the chancellor have beaten Fox? Have drugged him?
But what if?
He had R2 scan the footage for the time that Fox had gone in. It had been hours earlier.
And, when Bail had found him, the cuts and bruises on Fox’s face had been fresh.