Chapter Text
Every time waking jerks Echo out of the painless oblivion of unconsciousness, there’s a different group of people huddled around in bed. Med techs run tests and ask him probing questions, frowning and muttering to each other at every reading and hesitant answer. The engineers poke and fuss over his prosthetics, trying hard to seem confident in their judgements over an area they have almost no training in.
Whenever sleep tugs hard enough to pull Echo under he goes willingly, closing his eyes against the angry medbay lights, the stream of strangers surrounding him, and the hushed voices that rattle in his skull.
The painkillers make it hard to think.
He’s never under for long, waking up to more of the same. The conclusion is unanimous: he’s lucky to be alive and totally fucked. Only General Skywalker says the last part out loud crinkling his nose in disgust like Echo’s prosthetic limbs have personally offended him. He promises to make Echo replacements and then sweeps from the room leaving more space around Echo’s bed for someone else to slot into.
Echo might have dreamed that part.
Rex is the only constant, silent observer as the horrors of the last year of Echo’s life are spread out in front of all of them. He stands in the corner out of the way, arms folded across his chest, an imposing guardian who was able to snatch Echo out of one nightmare, but has to leave him at the mercy of this one. No one talks to him. No one looks at him.
Maybe Echo is dreaming him too.
He’s so tired.
The crowd disperses between Echo closing his eyes and finally reopening them, the final clone stepping out of the room with final orders for Echo to get a good night's sleep so he’s ready for surgery the following morning to remove the worst—but far from all—of the Techno Union’s monstrous work.
It leaves Echo the closest to alone he’s been since he woke up: just him, the beeping of machines, and the bright lights that float in front of his vision even when he closes his eyes.
And Captain Rex.
Rex steps stiffly away from the wall, like his body had been as convinced of his statue impression as Echo had, needing time to remember it’s flesh and blood. There’s no chair so Rex stands. This close he doesn’t look stoic, he looks exhausted.
“Hey.” Rex’s voice is rough, the effort of forcing air up through his throat clinging to every word.
“Hey.” Echo’s is worse.
Rex’s arm jerks towards Echo’s and for a second Echo thinks Rex is going to take his hand. Rex’s arm falls back uselessly to his side. Echo doesn’t have that hand anymore anyway. The lights on the ceiling glare from behind Rex’s head. Echo squints, his head throbs, and he looks away.
Why won’t Rex just say it? They both know what needs to be said. If Fives wasn’t dead, he’d be here.
Rex’s tongue clicks with that first syllable of word and then silence crashes back through the room.
Rex makes Echo ask.
“What happened to Fives?” The words scrape in Echo’s raw throat, the pain almost refreshing just for being different from the ache of the rest of him. The despair that rolls up through him in the wake of the question isn’t. It hollows him out all over again, seeping into every ruined bit of him, blotting out pain with something worse, with a consuming emptiness.
Fives is dead. Echo came back from the impossible, and Fives isn’t waiting for him.
“I’m sorry,” Rex says. “There was… He…”
Rex has had hours to decide what words he wants to use. What words would be enough?
Every breath Echo has taken since he woke up has been a struggle. It had been easier to ignore when he’d been moving. Confined to a bed, it’s all he can do to keep dragging air into his desperate lungs.
“What happened to him?” Echo repeats.
“Commander Fox shot him.” It hangs contextless in the air. Fox is a traitor? Fives had tried to stop him? Or an accident? Or… Or…
“Why?” Echo croaks.
Rex moves in Echo’s periphery, twisting and taking the first step of a familiar pacing before he stops, the light from behind him bleeding around the edges. “Fives tried to… That’s not…” Rex trails off again. He sighs, and when Echo manages to look up at the lights long enough, Rex isn’t looking back at him.
When Rex starts again, it’s rehearsed. “A clone called Tup contracted an infection that led to him attacking and killing a Jedi. He was taken back to Kamino for the cause to be investigated.” It’s a cold impersonal report, with all the important parts flattened into something to be read by superiors who never met the men whose deaths they’re learning about. “Fives went with him. We should have anticipated it, they’d been working closely together. Fives got sick too.”
Echo’s heart races, the rapid beeping of one of the machines matching the rushing blood in his ears.
“Tup died on Kamino, but Fives escaped. He insisted he’d uncovered something. He needed to speak to the Chancellor." Rex swallows, the sound loud and wet. “He wasn’t well.”
Echo can’t interrupt, his thoughts too heavy to form quickly enough. The sleep he’d surrender himself to so willingly snaps at his heels and fighting it back takes almost more than Echo has.
It would be easier to sleep. It would be easier to pretend this was just part of the nightmare too.
“He tried to kill the Chancellor before escaping into the city. He wasn’t well.” Rex repeats. “He kept insisting he’d uncovered something. He reached out to Skywalker and I.”
Finally Echo’s thoughts snap into place. “You were there?” he demands.
Rex says nothing.
Rex was there. Rex had tried to help him. Rex had failed to help him.
The weight is crushing, pinning Echo to the hospital bed, holding him in place as Rex drags the story to its doomed conclusion. “When we met with him, he was incoherent. The Guard had been ordered to track him down before he could hurt anyone. When they arrived, he pulled a gun and…”
And Commander Fox shot him.
It's only half a story.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Echo says. How can Fives be dead? How can Rex have watched it happen? What did he try to tell Rex?
“I’m sorry, Echo.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Echo sits up. He tries to sit up. He’s wasted away, but his body is so heavy. Pain flares through him, but it’s the weight that really slows him. Rex’s hand lands on his shoulder and presses him back into the bed. For the second Echo can stand to look at him, he looks devastated.
“You need to sleep, Echo.” Rex squeezes his shoulder and steps back. Echo is helpless to prevent it. “We’ll talk more about this once you’ve recovered.”
Rex turns the lights off as he leaves, and the darkness that slips into the room is a relief. The machines still cast unnatural glows, but that too is familiar.
Alone, sleep is even more demanding than grief, and Echo succumbs.
—
Echo used to care about punctuality; it was one of the fights he and Fives had had the most. Echo would be ready to go while Fives was still scrambling around. It usually ended the same way, with Echo leaving without him and Fives still sauntering up just in time. Fives was just born lucky, he’d said.
Echo spends the half hour leading up to lunch debating if he wants to be early or not. It’s the first time he’s been given a choice. He’s eaten every meal he hasn’t slept through with Jesse and Kix since being released from medbay, but they’d usually met him at his room.
Do they think he’ll get fucking lost?
If Echo leaves now, he’ll be far too early. Ten minutes from now and he’ll be more or less on time. How long after that until they’d come and find him? Could he be ten minutes late? Fifteen?
He rubs at the joint where his right leg meets the prosthesis, pressing hard enough that it hurts and then harder until the pain is almost relief. He could just go back to sleep, sidestep the whole decision. He’s always so tired.
As is so often the case, Jinx arrives to snatch that option away from him.
The door to their shared room beeps and Jinx steps in, hair messy despite clear attempts to neaten it back up again. At the gym or off fucking someone then.
“Hey,” Jinx says, smiling broadly even when Echo gives him nothing more than a lift of his chin. “Up to much?”
Echo grunts, shrugging with one shoulder, the one that connects down to the scomp.
“Eaten yet?” Jinx asks. His smile doesn’t waver. “I can grab you something?” Is Jinx always this nice? Is it why Rex put Echo in a room with him?
“No, I’m fine.”
“Already got lunch plans?” Jinx asks, an invitation threatening to follow. He leans in the doorway, making a space that never felt too small when Echo shared with Fives utterly claustrophobic.
“Yes.”
Jinx’s throat bobs, but he makes no further attempt to inject life into the rotting conversation. He keeps smiling—does it hurt his face to force it like that?—and turns to start pulling off his armour. The paint is scuffed a little on the inside of his left leg though the rest is neat and fresh.
When they first met, Jinx had made such a good effort at not staring it was obvious he’d been warned in advance. Echo hasn’t found it in him to forgive Jinx for that. He hasn’t decided if he’s forgiven Rex for it yet either.
Echo stands up from the bed, his legs shifting against the metal, not sore but unpleasant.
There’s enough space for both of them to get ready, but it involves being more in each other’s space than Echo is willing to be.
Jinx glances at him, and moves faster. He finishes with his armour, scrambling up the ladder to the top bed, leaving the strip of floor between the bunk and wall free. Echo has to sit back down to pull on his boots. Jinx swallows down… something? An apology? Assurance that Echo doesn’t have to leave? Frustration that he’s made to feel like an intruder in his own space?
Rex had offered to reshuffle people so Echo could bunk with Jesse instead of a stranger. Jinx had been in the 501st longer than Echo, but he’d been moved to Torrent after the Citadel mission. If he can’t have Fives, Echo would rather have a stranger.
Echo leaves without another word.
He’s early.
He’s through the queue and sitting before Rex, Jesse, and Kix even arrive. He has a bigger portion to get through anyway, and eats slower than before. He picks the end of one of the long tables, tucked into a corner, his back to the rest of the mess hall.
He tries not to think about his life as Before and After, but the labels creep in when he’s not looking and are increasingly difficult to remove. He cared about punctuality before, does he still care or does he still arrive early to prove he hasn’t changed? And who is he proving it to? Himself? Rex?
And if he chooses to be late to make a distinction, what does that mean? The before looms, perverting all his decisions, making them intentional even when they shouldn’t be.
Is the man he is now the same as the one he was before, or just a shadow trying to fit into the same armour?
His legs hurt.
“Echo, hey!” Jesse slides into the bench opposite Echo, dropping his tray down with enough force that his tea bounces over the edge, staining the edge of his napkin brown. Kix lifts a hand in greeting, but manages none of the cheer.
“Hello,” Echo looks behind them, but Rex is nowhere to be seen. He hasn’t been at any of the other meals, but Jesse had thrown his name out that morning, and Echo had thought…
“How are you feeling?” Jesse asks, like he does every time they meet. Often multiple times. There just aren’t any good answers to it.
Echo shrugs.
“Is Rex joining us?” Echo asks, Rex’s absence invoking the same mix of relief and resentment as it has been every other failed appearance.
Jesse looks at Kix who doesn’t look back.
“Rex is busy,” Kix says. He sits down next to Jesse, diagonally across from Echo. He doesn't look at Echo either.
“He’s always fucking busy,” Jesse grumbles. “They could at least give him the promotion if they’re gonna have him doing a CC’s job.”
Kix doesn’t shy away from looking at Echo when they’re in medbay with professional roles to protect them. He looks over Echo’s shattered body without flinching, once even meeting Echo’s eye with a sardonic smile and insisting he’s seen worse.
He might be one of the few people who has. Out of medbay, without clear defined roles, that ease of conversation dries up.
“You sound like Commander Cody,” Kix says, and doesn’t look at anyone.
“As if Cody doesn’t keep him as busy as General Skywalker.” Jesse smirks, revealing his intentions. Kix isn’t looking at him to notice. Echo doesn’t want to have to be the one to prompt him. Fives would have. Or Fives would have beaten him to the joke. Jesse manages without the prompting. “I’m just saying. Cody keeps Rex real busy.”
Kix smiles, but it’s gone before it can do anything to ease the tension. Echo doesn’t even manage that.
“Rex has had more to do since Commander Tano left,” Kix says, committing to flattening the mood.
Jesse manages to keep going anyway, waving Kix off. Did he always talk this much? “I’m just saying, Rex needs a break.”
“We could all use a break,” Kix says. He finally looks at something that isn’t his untouched plate, looking at Echo’s and the tiny dent he’s made in the meal. Echo almost pushes the food away, swallowing down the spiteful urge about as easily as the food.
He is underweight though. He needs to eat. He chews on a bland mouthful of protein and forces it down.
“Good thing we’re heading to Coruscant then.” Jesse’s tattoo is more faded than Echo remembers. It's just a little, but slowly the sun has stolen colour from the crest.
The venator they gave to the 501st after the Resolute was destroyed was brand new, still not quite finished by the time of the assault on the Citadel. Echo never saw it until Rex brought him back here. It’s exactly the same, a perfect copy. It shouldn’t have taken any getting used to.
The light over the end of the middle table had always broken as fast as it could be fixed, and there was a long scratch in the wall that had appeared the week after Fives and Echo had joined the legion. Everyone had suspected one of the cooks had crashed an overfilled supply card into the wall, but no one had owned up.
The light is on and the wall is clear.
And Echo doesn’t know the men moving around them.
“I know it’s not real leave,” Jesse says. “But we should do something.”
We. Echo suffers through the awkwardness of these shared meals while they all pretend that Jesse and Kix wouldn't rather eat with the friends they made while Echo was gone. They spend their evenings trying to include him in their scraps of downtime, more than they ever did before.
Echo used to spend his leave with Fives. He used to spend almost all his time with Fives.
If he says he doesn't want to join them, they’ll assume something is wrong. Something is wrong. They’ll assume the incorrect thing is wrong.
He lets Jesse talk, focusing his attention on his lunch. Eating with one hand is difficult. He used to read his datapad and eat at the same time, but he hadn’t considered the tiny adjustments he’d make with his other hand before going back to scrolling. He’s forced to consider it now.
He turns the fork on its side, pressing the flat of it down into a lump of green vegetable. It splits in half, but the end holds stubbornly fast. Kix is watching him. He presses down harder, sawing the blunt edge of the fork against the tray. The vegetable breaks in half. He stabs one half with his fork and moves it to his mouth.
His right arm sits on the table, the scomp on the end useless.
General Skywalker had repeated the vague promise about making him a new hand, disgusted by Echo’s prosthetics for a very different reason to anyone else. Echo finds he prefers Skywalker’s judgement of his new limbs' craftsmanship over many of the other reactions his new body has inspired.
Jesse’s still talking, succeeding where Jinx fails and charging straight through all awkward opposition.
“We should go to 79’s. They’ve put some work into it in the last year, I guess we’re good for business.”
Echo doesn’t even need to make a sound to keep Jesse going, leaving him to focus his attention on trying to use his fork as a knife. And to pretend he doesn’t notice that Kix isn’t eating, just shuffling food around his plate, eyebrows drawn together. The very edges of his tattoos peek out from under his hairline. He blends in more now, almost indistinguishable from a clone fresh off Kamino who hasn’t started exploring their options.
He was hotter with his hair shorter.
Had Kix examined Fives or Tup before they left for Kamino?
“What happened to Fives?” Echo asks, stabbing at a lump of protein.
The silence that seizes their table is louder for the nosy canteen pressing in on all sides. Echo does nothing to ease it, letting it fester. He’ll have to keep the question in mind for when he wants to shut Jesse up.
Kix finally meets his eye, holding it steadily, while Jesse fumbles for something to say. Jesse had been Fives’ friend rather than his. So had Kix. So had everyone who’d survived him. Everyone had loved Fives more than Echo, except Fives himself. Echo and Kix had been friends. Does that still mean anything?
“Rex gave us the impression that he’d already told you,” Kix asks. He’s more careful with his words than he used to be. Fives always said Kix was guarded.. Echo never saw it, but he sees it now, the friendly mask slipping and being replaced with something less convincing.
Jesse must have watched it happen and he managed not to see it.
“I wanted your version of events,” Echo says, and doesn't ask what else Rex is saying about him, storing the question away for later.
Rex had told him a stilted story that had ended with Fives dead and failed to explain why.
Kix keeps staring. Echo likes him better when he’s working, when he’s wrapped the medic so tight around him it’s impossible to see the man underneath. He thinks Kix might like that man more too.
“It was fucking aiwhashit,” Jesse blurts out, finding his voice. Kix looks back down at the untouched food in front of him. “He was sick and they treated him like a criminal.”
Sick like that other clone. Tup. Sick like Tup except the symptoms and timeline don’t match. And no one else had been exposed. And Fives had been well enough to corner Captain Rex and General Skywalker. And and and—
“I can’t believe they let that slimeball commander shoot him and not even drag him in front of a disciplinary,” Jesse says.
Disciplinary for what? If everything happened the way Rex describes it then Commander Fox acted under orders. Everything was above board.
Unless there’s things he’s not being told.
“Skywalker tried,” Kix says. His voice is soft but with enough firmness that it should close the topic.
“Not hard enough!” Jesse slams his hand down flat on the table. “General Kenobi didn’t back him up!”
“Jesse.”
“What?”
Kix’s eyes flick around them, and Jesse’s mouth narrows into a line, but he drops it.
Echo’s fork hovers over a too big piece of protein that he doesn’t want to have to battle to make smaller. He puts his fork down; he’s not hungry anyway.
There’s a loose thread, one that everyone is discouraging him from pulling on. Are they afraid he won’t like what he finds or that they won’t? He’s never been good at leaving things alone, but he’s not used to doing it alone. Fives would know how to solve the mystery of his own death.
“Anything you want to do on Coruscant?” Jesse asks.
Echo scoffs. Is he serious?
“We found some new food places that serve clones. I’ve won some credits we can use.” He just keeps going. Kix sips at his caf and continues to ignore his food.
Echo shifts, the hard bench digging into his ass. Sitting for too long hurts now. So does standing. He even wakes in the night in pain. The prostheses grind against his organic parts and shoddy wiring causing electrical sensations that his brain translates signals it doesn’t know how to interpret into pain.
He’s going to need to learn how his body works, how to care and manage it. He’s not sure where to start. He’s never been directionless before.
Jesse is still talking about their leave, still filling the silence because no one else will. If Echo is going to suffer through these meals, they can suffer with him.
“Who was Tup?” Echo asks, interrupting Jesse.
Tup’s name had come up in Rex’s little speech, and then Echo had found it again on his third night back still stuck in medbay. He’d started by rooting through the ship’s active roaster, counting names he recognised versus names he didn’t. When that hadn’t helped him sleep, he’d pulled up old reports, matching missing names to causes of death. Most of what he had access to were just lists of names attached to particular engagements, more details hidden away in files he didn’t have access to.
Ringo Vinda had been completely sealed and searching by Tup’s name across other engagements had led only to more redactions. Fives had gone to Kamino with him. Fives might have died for him.
Echo knew that the man was dead and nothing about how he lived.
Jesse stares at him. Kix doesn’t.
“He caught the same illness that Fives got,” Jesse says. “Didn’t Rex—”
“Who was he before that?” Echo asks. If Fives had lived, how would he have answered that sort of question?
Jesse rubs at the back of his head. “Well, you know…”
“They were fucking?” Echo asks. He’s not a cadet. He doesn’t need to be treated like this.
“That’s one way of putting it, I guess,” Jesse says. He looks to Kix for help and doesn’t find it.
It’s more or less what Echo had expected. They were involved, and Jesse and Kix think Echo can’t handle that. As if Echo has ever been jealous of anyone that caught Fives’ eye. How could he be jealous when Fives had so stubbornly crossed the distance Echo had tried to put between them in the first place?
“They didn't even meet until months after you died. He didn’t do anything for ages,” Jesse says.
Echo bristles.“I didn’t die.”
“Right,” Jesse waves a hand in apology. “You know what I mean though.”
“I didn’t die,” Echo repeats. He’d lived. This wasn’t a resurrection. He’d lived.
He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say it even though it burns on his tongue.
“What was he like?” he asks instead. Was he like me? Echo doubts it. Echo had been the exception to the sort of people Fives liked best.
“He was okay,” Jesse says, so neutral Echo can’t accuse him of lying though there’s no truth to it either.
“He was crazy,” Kix says. It’s something real, something Echo can try to fit onto the shape of Tup’s corpse. “He’d throw himself into danger without a second thought. Completely fearless.”
Kix had liked him. Jesse probably had too.
“Yeah.” Jesse shrugs, missing casual by several klicks. “One of the better shinies, I guess.”
Kix breathes out sharply through his nose, eyes flicking to Jesse and then back down. “He kept Fives on his toes.”
“I think you’d have liked him,” Jesse says, too obvious and too fast. Does he want Echo to say he’s glad Fives found someone? He is, Fives always needed people. He doesn’t want to have to say it for Jesse’s benefit.
“I get that you need time too, but if you want company…” Jesse trails off. Echo nods, unable to be stubborn about that offer. He’ll talk about Fives, he’ll drag Fives’ corpse up to the surface and make everyone remember, but discussing his sex life, or sudden lack there of, is a topic he doesn’t have the stomach for.
Jinx has offered too, the obligation behind the sentiment thick despite Jinx’s best efforts. Jesse keeps offering, casually and with just as much obligation as Jinx. They’d fucked a handful of times before, mostly when there was no one they liked better or because Fives had instigated. Jesse had been fun, always having a new trick up his sleeve.
He’d rather take Jinx’s pity fuck.
Kix hasn’t offered, even though Kix will fuck anyone. He has read the room better than Jesse, recognising that his advances aren’t wanted.
That or he’s a shitty coward.
Echo’s thought about it. Mostly at night, but sometimes when Jinx is clearly off fucking other people. He longs for a body pressed up against his. He’s brought himself off a couple of times, learning the new shape of himself, what still works and what doesn’t. It’s fine, good, better each time even. But it only scratches part of the itch.
He’s still alone in his bunk. He’s not sure he can stand anyone else touching him like that.
Would it be easier if Fives were here? The consequences of the answer to that is big to grapple with.
Would it be easier if Rex was offering? That’s almost as bad.
The conversation slides back to their leave, and Echo sips at his caf, letting Jesse juggle the conversation alone. Fives would have helped. Denal too. And Bite and Vector and…
They’d have talked with each other and the weight of the pressure to engage would have been removed.
But they aren’t here.
They’d buried Echo and by the time he came back, half of Torrent had rushed to join him, and the half that remained was a hollow shadow of its former self.
Echo flexes his mechanical feet in his boots, an impossible pain sparking up where he remembers his calf being.
They’re lying about what happened with Fives, but Rex started it.