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One week.
That was how long he’d been in this wing of the medical ward, the cloying scent of bacta long since turned numb to his nose. The Jedi healer designated to his care was kind in a distant way, harried by the dozens of others under her care, and couldn’t spare the time beyond a handful of sentences regarding his care.
His care.
A trembling hand reached up to his hair, tracing over the shaved patch where they’d pulled something from his brain. They thought it might help with the shaking.
It didn’t.
They said it was from extended exposure to Sith lightning- the Darkness lingering long after the event. He didn’t understand any of it, but he knew what it was doing to him.
There were days where he couldn’t even get his fingers to respond properly.
He knew that his healer was trying to be kind, telling him they were looking into options, but he knew what happened to clones who weren’t useful. Who couldn’t pull their own weight.
Perhaps the others knew this too, for he hadn’t had a single visitor since he was admitted to this small room at the end of the hall. The guest chair was still against the far wall, and his singular side table beside his bed contained the lonely datapad his healer had given him after the third day of sitting quietly between operations and tentative mystic therapy. A datapad that half the time he couldn’t even use.
He knew the other rooms had their share of visitors. He could hear their voices echoed softly down the hallway, the sounds of doors opening and closing. Muffled laughter. Sometimes sobs. He’d even heard Thorn just a few hours ago yell “YOU BASTARD” at the top of his lungs that had sent his heart racing, shoulders straight and hands quivering in his lap as he waited with baited breath for the Commander to appear in his doorway.
He never did.
He dropped his hands down to bed, picking at the fraying hem he’d been worrying since he woke up days ago, fighting with his hands to even grasp at the tiny thread.
The war was over. Things would be bumpy for a little while, but the others… the others would move on. Get jobs. Live on distant planets.
But there would be no place for him. He’d been Fox, the ninth to hold that name, but there was no need for a Fox of any number now. Yet he didn’t know how to be anyone but Fox, didn’t have anything else to his being. No name, no number. And now he didn’t even have useful hands, failing to even pluck at strings of a blanket.
…Where would he go? Would he even be able to go? Maybe he’d done a grievous infraction for impersonating a Marshal Commander. He knew there were regulations against impersonating an officer in the GAR regulations, but that was mostly for clones trying to impersonate natborns, not other clones. Maybe it would be a personal punishment, whatever Fox’s real brothers would lay on him.
He didn’t think Thorn or the other Guard Commanders would stand up for him. They’d probably be happy to see him go, finally having time to grieve for a dead man, a dead brother and friend, whom they were forced to see a mere shadow of for months. And while he stood up for the other troops in the Guard like Fox the Original would’ve, redirecting attention and punishment, he knew the others would be far too busy reconnecting or healing to care for what happened to him.
The empty room was proof of that.
Fox the ninth to use that name couldn’t cry, even as the need burned in his chest. Fox the Original wouldn’t have, so he had to keep his emotions locked up and stuffed down. No one would want to see him cry, anyway. What would he be crying for? Himself? How pathetic he’d be do that.
No wonder he was so unwanted, being so self-centered. He should be happy the others are now free, healing and recovering out of harm’s way, not wallowing in self-pity. Boohoo. No one loves him. So what? He could still do his job-
…Except… except he couldn’t, he realized, staring down at his trembling hands. He was having what his healer called “a bad day”, but any day where his hands shook was a bad day. He couldn’t convince anyone he was still useful, even without a name or number or even armor to wear, if his hands refused to cooperate. He couldn’t write, couldn’t hold a blaster, couldn’t even put on his own damn clothes some days.
The burning was crawling up his throat. Every swallow was like coals settling further into his chest.
Useless. Obsolete. Broken beyond repair.
Unloved. Unwanted. A waste of resources and time.
A nameless, numberless clone.
A knock jolted him out of his thoughts, head snapping upward so he could catch a golden gaze staring back at him.
Just from the legplates and kama, he knew he was looking at a Commander. He was built like an Alpha-class- the upper blacks stretched over his broad chest and clung to dear life on his arms- but he was of the standard height of any clone produced afterwards. He somehow owned the bacta splint across his nose, and he still smelt of blasterfire and burnt droid oil. His lower armor pieces were also splattered with dried, crusting mud and indiscernible fluids- had he just come back from the warfront?
Even if he were standing, he would feel miniscule under the sheer, intimidating presence the man exuded.
“Sir-?”
His heart was hammering in his throat as he forced his shoulders back to impeccably straight. This was it, wasn’t it? He didn’t recognize this particular Commander, but a Commander was a Commander, and they seemed to have been friends with Fox the Original. He was going to have his judgement laid out before him raw and painful- why else would a Commander show up here and now?
“Don’t,” was all the Commander stated, waving a hand at the locked spine and squared shoulders as if to brush away the mandated respect. The golden eyes slid across the room, from the empty floorspace by the bed to the lonely chair in the corner, assessing without a single hint of what he was feeling.
But when they settled back to him, that intense gaze almost… softened; the stern curve of the corners of his mouth no longer so sharp and the harsh set around his eyes easing.
The Commander… he didn’t look angry.
“You must be the one who’d been pretending to be Fox.”
“…Yessir,” he managed to get out of his throat, his tone so thankfully sounding reserved and not trembling like his hands as he watched the Commander grab the singular chair from its corner and carried it with one hand to his beside. He positively loomed over him, blotting out the entire room with his bulk before the Commander set the chair down with surprising gentleness and made himself comfortable in it.
Up close, he could catch wisps of grey along the Commander’s temples, peeking out from a dye job that was on its last legs. His eyes were also very non-human- molten pools of golds and flecks of orange with narrow pupils that constricted before rounding out on him. Taung eyes- he recalled in the back of his mind with only a touch of hysterics.
Cosmetic defects were- while still rare- were more common as the war progressed. It simply cost too much to achieve proper perfection, and in armor, no one would notice nor care anyway. There had been several younger Guard who sported natural discolorations- himself included, with eyes unnaturally cobalt blue. But this Commander was certainly from an older batch, perhaps even one of the first variants from standard.
He tried wracking his brain to see if he could remember hearing anything about it, but kept finding himself empty-handed.
Those golden eyes were watching him now, pinning him in a similar way Commander Cody’s dark amber gaze seized him. It made him feel impeccably small despite being the same height if they were standing, his hands trembling in his lap as he tried folding them to hide it. The movement only drew attention to his hands, the eyes flickering downward for all but a fraction before settling back onto the unnatural blues.
“It seems that I’ve missed a lot in my absence.” The Commander was leaning forward, elbows on his knees as he continued his vibrant, terrifying stare into his very soul. “Radio silence is a bitch long-term. I’ve heard a few things between then and now, but I want to hear it from you.”
“I-“ He hated how his voice cracked a little in his throat, his hands tangling and untangling in his lap. “Where would you like me to start, sir?”
A strong, calloused hand reached out, plucking up the trembling ones in his lap. The Commander’s hand was warm, shocking his fingers into uncurling. They were immediately sucked into the gentle hold, a scar on the left thumb scraping across the back of his knuckles.
He could pull them out at any time. But he couldn’t, not when this was the first kind touch he’s had since…
Since...
“Let’s start with your name,” the Commander murmured lowly, and he felt himself nodding dumbly, staring at the hands holding his own even as his fingers twitched and quivered on their own.
“My-my name is Fox,” he began with a slight stutter. “I’m the ninth to hold that name-“
It all came pouring out after that, falling from numb lips and heavy tongue as he told the Commander everything. The fallen Foxes before him, the file where he learned everything about Fox the Original and his mannerisms. How he lied day in and day out to the Original’s batch and friends and all he loved dear. The times he failed to save the ones sentenced to decom no matter what he tried. The pain of punishments upon his shoulders that he bore for the others, because it was something the Original would’ve done, even though he knew it would be a thankless endeavor, because he wasn’t the Original Fox, and everyone was expecting him to never get back up or go missing like the rest.
No one wanted to get attached to a dead man walking. But he tried, he tried so hard, because that was his job and good soldiers followed orders. He wanted to alleviate any further pain from the others, because they had suffered enough. Many had been suffering for years before he ever graced Coruscant, and he didn’t want to contribute to it by doing a bad job.
The hot coals in his chest returned with force by the time he rounded up the sudden meeting with Cody and the resulting aftermath. He swallowed them down, letting them burn all the way down his throat. Now wasn’t the time to wallow in pity or tears. He’d done his job, whether it was good or bad. It was done, and now… now he was obsolete.
The hands holding his were stroking thumbs across the back of his hands- large, soothing circles that eased heat into his damaged nerves. The shaking almost seemed to lessen under the other’s administrations, although he could still see his fingertips tremble from between the gentle cage.
“Thank you.”
It was the first thing the Commander said since asking for an explanation.
The words tugged his gaze upward, confusion causing his brow to furrow. The Commander’s eyes were kind and warm as his hands.
“Not gonna lie, kid,” the Commander continued. “You got given the shittiest hand ever to grace the GAR- much like the others before you- but you gave it your best shot. And those knuckleheads out there-“ He tipped his head towards the doorway behind him in a vague gesture. “-They never thanked you for all you did for them, did they? You busted ass, accidentally resulting in ending the war in the most bizarre fucking way possible, and you can’t even get even one of them to pull their moping heads out of their asses and admit to their guilt. So, considering I have to do karking everything ‘round here- thank you.”
Those warm hands squeezed the trembling ones- gentle despite the rough language the Commander was uttering. It conveyed the heartfelt depth of his gratitude where words could not.
The coals were suddenly right behind his eyes, and it took all his willpower not to tear up in front of the Commander.
“Just did my job, sir.” He was so thankful that his voice didn’t come out watery.
“That you did,” the Commander agreed. “But now that your job is over, what are you going to do?”
The scalding heat in his chest immediately turned to ice.
He dropped his eyes from the golden ones, going back to looking at his hands still held between calloused palms. The scar on the thumb began to scrape across the thin skin on the back of his hand again, the Commander waiting patiently for his response.
But he didn’t have an answer.
“I-I don’t know,” he admitted weakly. “I don’t need to be Fox anymore, but I don’t know how to be anyone but Fox.”
“You didn’t have a name before you went in?”
He shook his head, unable to get the words to come out. It had been another thing his Jedi healer thought would magically fix itself once he’d gotten the chip or whatever it was out of his brain. But just like the shaking never going away, anything that could be used to pinpoint an identity, a batch, something so he could be thrown at someone else to be their problem, there was nothing but vague memories of Kamino and being just as alone there as he was here.
“Hmn.” The Commander leaned back slightly, the chair creaking, but never once did his hands shift away. “Well, a new name is a good place to start as any.”
A… a name?
He found himself staring at the Commander, genuinely lost. He… he didn’t have to be Fox anymore. Other clones picked their own names, or had others bless them with one, but he’d been bestowed a curse of a heavy weight on his shoulders from the expectations of merely being Fox. He’d been nothing but Fox for several months now, and as he said before, he didn’t know how to be anyone but Fox.
But… but…
“I…I like the name Fox,” he couldn’t help but confess, mumbling to his hands that he still couldn’t bear to pull away. Fox was a good name, by itself, without the baggage that came to being the Fox. Vulpines were crafty, smart creatures. They were known to being sneaky, being pretty and nimble and all sorts of things. Almost every culture that lived on a planet with a vulpine species had stories about them, and the sentient Amarans embodied just as much and more as their non-sentient counterparts.
It was a short, simple name, and he liked it for its simplicity, even though he wasn’t crafty or smart or pretty or anything else vulpines were. He used to be bulkier, back on Kamino, but he’d lost a lot of fatty padding since coming to Coruscant, and the musculature he once had from hours upon hours of being on his feet would surely be lost by the time he was let out of the healing ward with still shaking hands.
The Commander let out an amused snort.
“It is a good name, isn’t it?” he hummed, his mouth curling into a wry grin and his eyes glittered in the light. “How about something related? It can be a placeholder until you are in a better mindset to decide on your own, but you can’t be nameless any longer, and as much as I’d love to see Cody have a coronary, I don’t think Fox is cutting it for you anymore.”
He wanted to wring his hands, nerves creeping with panic trailing along right behind it. Names to clones were supposed to be special. Mean something. Even though changing names happened on occasion, it wasn’t exactly common either. But he wasn’t changing his name, technically. He had just been… gently borrowing the name. Like a pair of blacks when supplies ran so low they didn’t have any spares. But he didn’t know how to be a proper person outside of pretending to be Fox- and a terrible version of Fox at that. He was an empty slate that was already broken and rendered useless- did he deserve to even be named?
Warm fingers squeezes his own, the warm pressure gently tugging him from sinking deeper into the black pit that was his own head.
“How about this,” the Commander mused, throwing a life line to the clearly silently drowning man in front of him. “There’s a story I heard during my extended mission of spirit foxes.”
“…Like… ghosts?”
“Eh.” The Commander shrugged, tipping his head back in forth in a “so-so” gesture that he couldn’t do with his occupied hands. “It’s complicated. Think of them as… weird embodiment of the Force. Or Jedi if they could turn into animals.”
He gave the Commander his best blank-faced “really?” expression- Fox edition, which caused the other man to smirk.
“Anyway, spirit foxes,” the Commander plowed on. “See, they have their hierarchy, where the more tails you have, the more wise and respectful you are. And they can get tails from various things, like age, or ferrying souls, or other things, depends on the region and not entirely part of what I’m getting at. The thing is that the wisest of them all have nine tails, and well, you’re the ninth Fox. Nine Foxes. Nine tails. So, Kitsune.”
He stared at him.
The Commander shuffled slightly in his chair.
“…Look, you can change it if you want,” he muttered. “It was just an idea. You don’t even have to- hey, no-“
That hot coal was back, and it was burning with a vengeance as his chest stuttered around a breath. He didn’t know how it happened, but one second he was there and the next he was sobbing. Every single hurt and heavy weight that he stuffed away for the eternal later decided that now was the time to come out. And now he was falling apart, his hands finally pulling away from the warm hold, if only to try to rub at his cheeks and eyes as tears stained his skin.
“I’m sorry,” he hiccupped. “I’m sorry, I-I don’t know why I’m crying-“
“It’s alright.”
Those warm hands were back again, dipping in to gently tug and pull him closer. The bed he’d been on creaked and groaned as blankets shuffled, dried mud flaking off into the folds as the Commander decided the best tactic was to situate himself onto the bed with him.
He found himself pressed into the Commander’s chest, folded into a warm embrace as he sank against the other man, uncaring how the lower leg armor dug into him as he buried his face into the Commander’s blacks. His trembling, shaking, ruined fingers managed to fist themselves into the fabric, locking in and unable to let go as his chest heaved.
A heavy palm smoothed over his spine, the Commander’s words rumbling deep in his ears as he laid out against him, wrapping him in warmth that no blanket could ever emulate.
“It’s alright, it’s alright, kid. Kitsune. It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it? Just let it out.”
And so he did.
It had simply been too much. The Commander’s kindness, his understanding and silent forgiveness while going through the lengths to simply bestow him with a name- it was all too overwhelming. He’d been expecting and prepared for anything else- punishment, yelling- a whole lot of yelling- the general air of disappointment. But it was soft touches and gentle praise that broke him, shattered him into a million little fragile pieces.
He wasn’t Fox, because Fox the Original wouldn’t cry. But he wasn’t Fox, he was tentatively this new unknown, this Kitsune that was a gaping maw of void- perhaps Kitsune was allowed to cry.
And Kitsune cried. Cried and sobbed and hiccupped, wringing himself dry and beyond as every bottled up hurt and sorrow came flooding out. He wept for the ones who came before him, he wept for the ones who didn’t make it to see the end, and most importantly, he wept for himself.
“I am going to hit Cody the next time I see him,” the Commander whispered into his hair, his hand still stroking along his back in soothing circles. “And Thorn- twice. I know guilt is a bitch but karking fuck. I wouldn’t have left his mini-me all on his lonesome. But don’t worry, Kitsune. I’m here. I’ll clean up this mess for you. Us Foxes have to stick together, after all.”
Kitsune, with his wet cheeks pressed into Fox the Original’s chest and soaking salty tears into his blacks, felt for the first time in his life, a little bit loved.