Chapter Text
Crosshair left after the third redressing of Hunter´s wound finally made him satisfied with the result, and Hunter stretched out on his bunk. The migraine had subsided and his senses, though still dulled, had already started picking up different stimuli. He took of his bandana, running his fingers through his hair, feeling the knots and sweat. He was in dire need of a good shower. His eyelids began to droop when a voice interrupted his mere ten seconds of peace and quiet.
“Hunter?”
“Yes, Tech?” Hunter groaned into the pillow.
“I´ve retrieved the data you have asked for.”
Hunter faintly remembered asking the technician for any information about Echo´s Fives as the Marauder lifted off. He hadn´t expected Tech to deliver it so soon. But in the hindsight, he should have. As soon as Hunter sat up, Tech shoved his datapad into Hunter´s hands.
“Here is everything I could find regarding CT-5555. Strangely, most of his file seems to be classified. I have managed to bypass a few of the firewalls, but the rest of the encryption is beyond the scope of my expertise. If the information I have provided is not sufficient I could ask Echo for help, he might--”
“Don´t ask Echo!” Hunter barked out a bit too quickly.
Tech´s interest seemed to have been sparked as his eyebrows quirked and his head tilted to one side. “I thought the information was for Echo.”
“It is,” Hunter breathed. “Just…not directly?” He offered a nervous half-smile.
“That is…slightly unusual,” Tech said skeptically.
Hunter scrolled through the blacked-out sections until his eyes landed on a photo of two clones he recognized and two he didn´t. He zoomed in with his fingers and studied the faces of Rex and Cody and the two ARC troopers who proudly stood next to them. “Who is that?” Hunter mumbled pointing to the one with a goatee, Rex was leisurely leaning on.
“That would be CT-5555.”
“And the one next to him? The one with the handprint?”
Tech´s brows furrowed and he lightly shook his head in disbelief. “Hunter, surely you know…”
“I don´t Tech,” Hunter hissed a headache once again forming behind his eyes.
“That´s CT-1409.” Tech gulped down audibly.
“But that’s—” Hunter gasped.
“Our Echo,” Tech said matter-of-factly as if none of this surprised him. And knowing him, it probably didn´t. He had surely accessed the Republic´s database on Echo the first time Rex uttered the CT-number in the Separatist outpost.
Hunter just stared at the trooper, who stood tall with his kama and pauldron on display, his hand squeezing the brother he seemed even prouder of than himself. Echo and Fives. This was Echo´s Fives and Fives´ Echo. From the same batch. The cadets who raised each other. Their Echo. But this Echo had hair and he was tanned and strong and just so whole. This Echo had traveled different planets and earned hundreds of medals. Hunter´s eyes scanned the battles listed under Fives´ CT-number. Rishi Moon, Tipoca City, Lola Sayu, Umbara, Ringo Vinda. Hunter´s jaw hung open as he skimmed through the list which could have just been the record of the most critical points of the entire war. Echo had a brother he loved before all this. And it wasn´t just a brother, it just might have been one of the most legendary troopers in the entire GAR.
Hunter had previously refused to read anything on Echo and opted to get to know him through his actions and their conversations. Yet, Echo didn´t seem to speak much about his past, aside from the times he mumbled names from nightmares or occasionally shared a funny story from his cadet days on Kamino. But everyone on the squad had come to know the name Fives. Whether through Echo´s delirious screams or through the rare nostalgic moments Echo seemed to have at sunsets. To Hunter, Fives had always seemed more of a concept than an actual person. A faint memory Echo sometimes brought up, nothing more. Now his entire being ached as he saw the face behind the name. He was no cannon-fodder or rule-parrot as Crosshair loved to call them. This was a man who lived the most extraordinary life. This was a man who left a legacy behind.
The whole squad had joked about the regs. From Crosshair´s spiteful insults to Wrecker´s lighthearted teasing. They were all guilty of tearing them down. Hunter could see it now so clearly. Echo was a reg. He grew up with them, fought with them and lost them. Echo was a reg. And for the first time, it didn´t seem like an insult. Echo was a reg and he was loved by regs and loved them back. Echo was once a reg and he may look different now, but he was still one of them. Just as he was one of Hunter´s men.
As much as Hunter wanted to ignore the past and move towards the future, he couldn´t just pretend it didn´t happen. Because Echo had carried the scars. It might have been a year, but to Echo it was less than a day. He simply burned and then woke up to a different life. He was still the Echo who loved Fives. He was still the Echo who raced through the hallways at Tipoca city with just his socks on. He was still the Echo who had stopped the first Separatist attack on Kamino and the Echo who helped quell the second one. He had lived an entire life before joining them.
Echo´s loss wasn’t something to just get over. Echo had opened up about his pain and given a part of himself up in the process and Hunter had made him feel weak for it. Echo had been made to feel like a charity case who endangered the mission and the safety of others, just because Hunter wasn´t man enough to face his own fears. Now he knew that the difference between him and Echo wasn’t that Echo was overly attached, they had both loved like they had nothing to lose, only Echo had actually lost someone. He had lost over and over again and still stood up to fight. Now, it was clear like it has never been before, there was no Echo without the regs they so despised. He had to make it right.
His planning was suddenly interrupted by the sharp smell of credits and rust. Blood. Hunter straightened, his eyes immediately scanning Tech´s form in front of him.
“Teeeech,” Hunter drawled.
“Yes, Hunter?” Tech seemed unfazed as he pushed his goggles up.
“Are you by any chance hiding an injury?” Hunter squinted his eyes in his most menacing version of the feared “sergeant look”.
Tech´s hands immediately flew up in surrender. “It´s not me, I swear!”
Hunter raised one eyebrow, knowing Tech had a history of lying to him.
“Even if I wanted to hide an injury, as you suspect me of doing, it would be impossible since Echo had already checked me out, quite aggressively if I may add,” Tech argued.
“Cross!” Hunter shouted so Crosshair could hear him in the cockpit.
“Not me!” he yelled back, already knowing the question Hunter was going to ask.
“It´s not me either sarge,” Wrecker huffed as he came into the room, plopping himself down onto his bunk.
Echo. Hunter immediately realized. He had been in the fresher for a while now, but Hunter wanted to give him some space after the mission, especially after what had happened between the two of them. To hell with Hunter´s epic plans of making everything right. Echo needed help and he needed it now.
Hunter shot up a bit too fast, realizing his mistake as the room spun in front of his eyes. Then the room actually tilted as Tech almost banged his head on the doorframe. “Tech, go take over the ship from Crosshair,” Hunter ordered.
“Gladly,” Tech mumbled, already headed towards the cockpit.
Hunter´s entire body ached as he came up to the door of the fresher and knocked softly on the metal door, knowing better than to startle Echo.
He could hear the ARC clearing his throat. “Yeah?”
“Everything alright?” Hunter raised his voice, knowing damn well it wasn´t.
Hunter heard Echo swear under his breath as the faucet turned on. “Yeah, I’ll be out in just a moment, sir. Everything alright out there?”
Hunter sighed loud enough for the cyborg to hear as all patience seemed to leave him at Echo´s attempt to pretend everything was okay and at the use of the formal “sir”. “Echo, I can smell the blood. You have twenty seconds to make yourself decent. I am coming in.”
Hunter counted up to twenty in his head, then grabbed the nearest medkit from the wall and unlocked the door manually from the outside. It whooshed open and he immediately scanned Echo for the evidence of what his smell already told him to be true. He´s eyes jumped between the residue of blood in the sink and Echo´s pink cheek rubbed raw from the rag he was squeezing.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Hunter muttered grabbing his arm to maneuver him to sit down.
“I’m fine,” Echo spat, tearing his arm from Hunter’s grip a bit too aggressively as his heartrate spiked.
Hunter ran a shaky hand through his tangled hair. “I am sorry,” he breathed. “I’ve made a mistake and I know you warned me, and I still made it.” He dropped the medkit into the sink and braced one hand on the counter.
“You didn’t trust me,” Echo mumbled, refusing to face the sergeant’s piercing gaze. “Is It because I am a “reg”? Or is it because I am damaged?”
“Force, no,” Hunter recoiled.
Echo threw the fabric into the sink and shrugged his shoulders, chin pointed defiantly. In this pose he reminded Hunter too much of the trooper from the picture. “Then why? What do I have to do to prove myself to you?”
“No, Echo, stop, please just stop,” Hunter whispered. “It wasn’t about you, it was about me,” he admitted.
Hunter could hear the breath catch in Echo´s throat. Something within him stilled, like the raging waves on Kamino coming to a standstill every morning. The peace seemed too fragile and Hunter felt like a Massiff gulping water from a Corrie’s cupped hands after an endless pursuit. Because Echo now fully looked at him, his brown eyes lighter than on the holo, but still so alive and expressive. He felt some of the broken pieces scattered between them merge together at the apology. Hunter would never speak to him the way he did at the outpost. He ordered him around like the Mandalorian trainers barked at the cadets. He would never repeat his mistakes. An equal to an equal. Paper-skin against paper-skin. He was ready to be vulnerable.
Echo side-stepped him and turned to leave the cramped space of the fresher.
“Where are you going?” Hunter tried to reach for his arm again, but Echo dodged it.
“I’ll rather not discuss this sitting in Wrecker’s piss!” Echo announced loud enough for the culprit to hear.
“Oh, come on!” Wrecker grumbled. “We’ve all missed at one point.”
“Well, yes, but only with Crosshair piloting the ship. There is no excuse for you this time,” Tech chirped as he half-turned in the pilot seat.
“Men up, you bunch of cowards,” Crosshair drawled as he entered the now-vacant fresher with a towel slumped over his shoulder. “Don’t blame your tragic aim on me.”
Echo smirked as Hunter ushered Wrecker into the cockpit. The bunk room doors closed, leaving the two of them alone in the silence filled only with the whooshing of the ventilation systems.
“Sit down,” Hunter said pointing at his bunk and Echo hesitated. “Please.”
Echo gently lowered himself onto the edge of the thin mattress, moving aside a spare bandana. Hunter plopped down right next to Echo, who seemed startled by the action. Their legs and shoulders awkwardly brushed together as Hunter maneuvered to sit up, back leaning against the back wall. Echo followed suit and they both leaned their heads to rest against the cool steel as they sighed in tandem.
Hunter watched Echo as he ran a palm over his face. His breath evened out and Hunter could smell the levels of cortisol slowly dropping. With his hair messy and uncombed, bandages bulging from under the shirt of his blacks, deforming the republic symbol, Hunter suddenly felt exposed. He couldn´t hide behind rank, couldn´t straighten his back and give an order. He had to be strong, but in an entirely different way.
Hunter could hear the gentle hum of Echo´s spinning scomp link as he fiddled with it. He reached out to release the ports of the headpiece, when he heard Echo´s heartbeat speed up. The air smelled of panic, the unmistakable stench of fuel and earth, and the vibrations crackled like sparks of electricity in a faulty circuit. Hunter had previously noticed Echo´s mental state having a stronger effect on surrounding wavelengths, but now it seemed unmistakable. The scomp spun harder and harder digging into Echo´s flesh hand.
“Shit.” He removed his hands and seized all movement. “I am sorry.”
Echo froze, squeezing his eyes shut and focused on his breathing. Hunter could hear his body relax, muscle by muscle as the tension in the air slowly evened out.
“I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry. You hear me, Echo?” Hunter said, not hiding the panic creeping into his voice.
Echo just nodded.
Hunter backed up to give him some space. “Just wanted to help you take the headpiece off.”
“It’s fine. Just a little warning next time,” Echo breathed angling himself to give Hunter access to the processor.
Hunter’s fingers gently traced the release mechanism and Echo shivered, as the device snapped off. He sighed in contentment and scratched his scalp. The sound of nails scraping skin filled the room.
Hunter huffed a laugh as he lowered the headpiece onto Echo’s lap. “You should take it off more often, you know.”
Echo rolled his eyes. “Spare me the lecture, Tech already gave me one. It was…quite extensive to say the least.”
“Then why don’t you?” His eyes met Echo´s and he understood. “Of course,” he mumbled, anger and frustration lacing his tone.
Echo shifted nervously, his legs creaking a bit with the movement. “It’s just inconvenient, with the scomp and everything.”
Hunter remembered seeing Echo hover above Tech´s bunk multiple times after his watch shift ended, before shaking his head and heading to sleep, headpiece still on.
Hunter dug his palms into his eyes and groaned. “All you have to do is ask.”
“I know, it’s just everyone is always busy or asleep and I don’t want to—”
“What? Bother anybody? Be a burden? Is that what you think of us?” Hunter snapped.
Echo stiffened, and Hunter could see the tension in his jaw as he spoke. “That’s exactly what you made me feel like.”
Hunter would have preferred if Echo had punched him square in the jaw. It would have hurt less than the truth now suspended in the air. For Echo was right. Hunter had fed Echo´s biggest insecurity and now he had to live with it.
After a few agonizing moments of silence, Hunter spoke up. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know,” Echo said harshly.
“It’s just, all this, it is not easy for me.” Hunter gestured around the room.
Echo’s eyes followed the motion, scanning the disarranged room full of armor pieces, med-supplies, half-eaten ration bars and fluffy blankets, before realizing that wasn’t the point Hunter was making. He turned to fully face the sergeant, refusing to hide the hurt in his face. “What? Me being on the squad?”
“No, not that,” Hunter shook his head, his messy hair swaying with the motion. “Me trusting anyone else with the safety of my men.”
Hunter expected Echo to retort something like “So, you really don’t trust me”, or “what is your problem with me?” or “Haven’t I proved myself enough already?”, but instead, Echo just straightened his mechanical legs in front of him and half-turned towards Hunter. “What happened?”
Hunter’s chest rose and fell and rose and fell and then he began: “Kamino wasn’t really our home, the way it was yours. The regs weren’t very welcoming, if you know what I mean, and you already know about the experiments Tech and really all of us underwent.”
The images of Tech coming back nonverbal, Wrecker coming back weeping or Crosshair learning to bite his tongue filled his mind. He tried to blink them away.
“Yeah, I know.” Echo lowered his chin into his chest as watched his scomp twirl. “I just kind of always thought you guys were privileged. Growing up special and all that.”
Hunter scoffed at the word “privileged”. For being Nala Se´s lap pet and the regs´ punching bag was anything but that. “We knew we were safe as long as we were useful. Nala Se would save us from the regs, from decommissioning, from disciplinary action as long as were worth more than the cost to keep us alive.”
“Like on Skako Minor,” Echo whispered, the hollowness of his cheeks even more prominent within the shade of the bunk.
“What do you mean?”
Echo´s lips pressed into a thin line as he took a few breaths before speaking up again. “I knew I would survive because there was still information, they could pull out of me. As long as I still had something to give, I knew they wouldn’t…” Echo let the unfinished sentence hang in the air as he absent-mindedly ran his fingers over the scars on his chest, all too prominent through the thin fabric of his shirt.
“Yeah, something like that,” Hunter smiled pursed his lips. “Everyone had it out for us. We couldn’t trust the trainers, the Kaminoans, especially not the regs. It was us against the galaxy.”
“Am I the us or the galaxy in this equation?” Echo asked and Hunter could see the hurt in Echo´s attempt at a smile, which never reached his eyes.
“You shattered the equation. As did Cody and even Rex,” Hunter admitted and immediately got rewarded for his honesty as Echo´s eyes widened in awe at hearing his Captain´s name. “Sometimes it is hard for us to remember you were once one of them. We didn’t know you like that.”
Hunter though of the picture once more as Echo straightened. The posture was still there. So was the spark.
“They were my family, but so are you now.” Echo rubbed the back of his neck to hide the fact he was dodging eye contact, but Hunter had noticed. “I am sorry for what I said about the regs hating you.”
Hunter would be lying if he said he hadn´t had those exact words running in replay in his head since the argument. The torment both he and his brothers had received from some of the regs was one thing, for Echo to have implied they´ve deserved it was another. The voices stilled hearing Echo´s apology. It had hurt to be ostracized for being different, and Hunter knew the child in him had still not healed, but he knew he was old enough to start mending it. He had carried the hate far enough and it was growing heavier every night.
Hunter reached for Echo’s hand and tightly squeezed it. “Your brother, Fives, he was a class act.”
“The best there ever way,” Echo gulped down.
Hunter stretched his legs in front of him and gently looped an arm over Echo’s shoulder, pulling him closer. “On Umbara, he was the first to speak out about Krell. They all knew something was wrong, as they later recalled, but only Fives said it out loud.”
“He’s always been like that. Rex called him “loud-mouth” for years,” Echo mumbled into Hunter’s blacks.
And Hunter imagined Fives as a kid, chin out, standing up to the Kaminoans. Echo had once said Fives had spent his first night at the brig at just biologically five, after cussing out a Mandalorian trainer for pushing Echo too far. Sometimes Hunter wished he´d been that brave, other times he wondered if any of them would even be here if he had.
“He had this crazy plan and he just had to go through with it,” Hunter continued feeling the cold radiating from Echo´s body, so he reached out and threw a blanket over both of their laps. “Krell disagreed, but he and two other guys went through with it anyway.”
“Stubborn little shit,” Echo breathed like a tired captain whose troops just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
“He was right though, his plan worked and he saved a lot of lives that day, which Krell wasn’t obviously too happy about,” Hunter said leaning to take a look at Echo’s face.
“Iba’shabuir,“ Echo spat, agressively pulling out loose threads from the cut-off hem of his sleeve above his scomp.
“Was that mandoa?”
“Yeah, don’t speak it?”
“No, none of us really learned. What does it mean?”
Echo huffed. “I am not sure you really want to know.”
Hunter thought of the time he had heard Tech whisper something similar as his tools scattered across the floor. He had blushed then, as he noticed Hunter standing in the doorway. Now, he finally knew why. “Tech has been picking it up from you.”
“Careful there, sarge. You should probably call his mother. Or wash his mouth out with soap,” Echo giggled.
“You are worse influence than Crosshair is,” Hunter chuckled, and heard both their laughs join into one as the melodic sound bounced off the walls of the enclosed bunk.
“Always a pleasure to outdo that bastard,” Echo grinned.
“Careful, you might start a war,” Hunter smiled back.
“I think the Separatists may have beaten me to that.”
Hunter playfully punched Echo’s shoulder, and heard the amused exhale and he felt the vibrations of Echo trying to conceal his laughter, which made everything even funnier, so he burst out into a chuckle.
After taking a moment to compose himself, Echo cleared his throat and prompted Hunter to continue.
Hunter moved Echo’s head into a more comfortable position on his shoulder and began: “Krell placed him in front of a firing squad, both him and the other surviving trooper. The report said he gave a very impressive speech on always doing the right thing. All of the executioners misfired. On purpose.”
“He should have been a politician,” Echo tried to joke.
“Nah, way too honest for that,” Hunter retorted, waving his hand dismissively.
Echo had chuckled then, his voice rich and deep, and Hunter felt warmth spread in his chest. He watched him, smile to himself, with that one-sided grin that was often plastered on his face when bantering with Tech. He felt moisture gather in his eyes, for now he could see not only what was, but all that has ever been. Echo wasn´t born the day they pulled him out of that terrible chamber, he had lived a life full of heartbreak, tragedy, but most of all brotherhood. The soft lines around his eyes spoke of all the laughs he´d shared with his batchmates and the 501st. He could see him now. Bulky and young, running his hand over his hair, as he drew battle plans with Rex in the officer´s tent. He could see him lanky, still growing into his frame, hiding behind Fives´ back. He could see him studying the hardest for every test. He could see him as an ARC trooper, scaling walls and saving Fives´ ass over and over again. How much had Echo left behind as he boarded the Marauder? He had never once complained, but Hunter had caught him flipping trough holos of Kix, Rex and Jesse.
Hunter was suddenly overwhelmed by everything Echo had been through. He couldn´t even fathom the amount of loss Echo had experienced throughout the years. And yet he chose to live again, and yet he chose to love again. He felt his heart squeeze at the thought. Their Echo, his Echo. And Hunter could hear all the reg voices echoing within the ARC trooper just as much as he could hear his original one. For he had always had one, no matter how hard he tried to deny it sometimes. And that same voice had guided Hunter out of the darkness. The gentle, but firm whisper. The hand in his as Hunter fell apart and Echo continued going.
“I’m sorry,” Hunter breathed, looking away, at the skulls he´d carved out into the walls of his bunk. “You were right. I don’t understand what you went through.”
Echo laid his flesh hand on Hunter´s shoulder startling him. He raised his eyes to meet Echo´s and saw no malice in them. Instead, they burned with insistence, and as the light hit his face, all his features seemed to soften in something resembling absolution. “I hope you never will.”
Hunter could hear everything unsaid within the sentence. Tech, Crosshair, Wrecker. Let them always come home safe. Let them be like sailors, cruising the Kaminoan oceans, away from everything they were made to be, onwards towards destiny. Let every blaster shot miss. Let no one ever lose their kindred spirit. And if we are to someday go, let us all go together.
Hunter pulled away from Echo only to cup his cheek and touch his forehead to his. “I trust you, Echo. I trust you with their lives and mine too. We need you.” Hunter’s voice trembled. “I need you. I can’t do it alone any longer.”
Ever since Echo took charge in that battle, something within Hunter had gone silent. For years he´d believed that the constant all-consuming pressure which kept telling him to be prefect, was just a part of his personality. It was gone now. Instead, there was serenity and the thought that they still had Echo, that he still had Echo. Echo who had wild ideas that always somehow seemed to work. Echo who could move mountains with his will alone. Echo who could always tell when one of them was hiding something. Echo who always stood up to Hunter when he knew he was making a mistake.
Echo pulled away startled. “What do you mean?”
Hunter cupped Echo’s cheek, feeling the stubble scratch against his palm, and tilted his head upward to meet his gaze. “I want you as my official second-in-command, Corporal Echo.”
“I almost shot Tech!” Echo blurted out, retreating out of Hunter´s reach.
Hunter immediately withdrew his hands, lifting them both up in surrender. “I know. It wasn’t your fault.” Hunter wouldn’t let Echo´s fears get the best of him. Not now, not ever. “You´ve saved me out there. You´ve saved us all.”
“I am a liability, I can’t risk that ever happening again, you have to understand—” Echo blabbered until Hunter’s movement interrupted his swirling panic.
The mattress dipped as he shifted to half-kneel in front of Echo, keeping his hands where Echo could clearly see them. “I am not going to tell you it will not happen again. It just might. Yes, you are a liability. And so am I, so is Cross, Wrecker and Tech. Despite what the Kaminoans may claim in front of their clients, we are not perfect soldiers, but we are damn good ones.”
Echo stared dumbfounded. “That’s…weirdly comforting.”
Hunter knew Echo had already heard his fill of “you are strong”, “you won’t fail” or “just believe in yourself”. He needed the truth, which was, that no matter what some of the senators claimed, they were human. You could alter and mold the DNA into a perfect cocktail however you wanted, the truth remained. His brothers burned and loved and broke just like the natborns.
Hunter settled back against the wall and shook his head in disbelief. “You are a leader, Echo. I don’t know how no one saw it earlier.”
Echo huffed. “Let’s just say I was more of the following type.”
“So was I once, so was I,” Hunter murmured, remembering the frightened child he´d once been.
“I…thank you,” Echo exhaled.
“Now let me finally treat that bloody ear you have there,” Hunter said already scavenging through the med-pack he had pulled into his lap.
Echo scoffed, and pointed his chin towards Hunter. “Only if you let me re-do the atrocious bandage job you did with your shoulder.”
It already seemed like a pact against death. The acknowledgment of how terrible they both were at taking care of themselves, and a promise to look out for it. Vulnerability for vulnerability. A promise that whatever may come they would both keep reaching their hand out to the other one and be ready to be pulled up.
I see you, Echo. I see who you are. I can see it so clearly now. I´ll learn your tells the way a river learns it´s bed. Carefully and then all at once. Until hearing the stream seems like the most natural thing. Because it is. There is nothing more right then the way you fit with us.
…
Echo walked into the 79’s and shielded his eyes from the bright lights. The drumming of generic pop songs, which they used to smuggle on data sticks on Kamino filled his ears and he felt a migraine building up from the assault on his senses. If this is how Hunter feels every day, he is one brave bastard. As he fully stepped into the room, it felt almost unnatural to be here without Fives. It was impossible for this place to still exist when he wasn’t sitting in the booth at the back, his favorite strawberry flavored booze in hand, and that damn smirk contorting his face, flirting with the waitress, or flirting with the waitress on Echo’s behalf. It was all a mirage, a vision of a different life, some other Echo had lived for years, before all of this, before everything. For a second Echo was sure he saw Hevy dancing on the table, until the clone fully turned, and his Corrie red pauldron reflected the green flickering lights. A thousand faces with the same features and yet none of them familiar, not even those wearing the 501st colors. Everything went on without him and suddenly he wanted to go back to the Marauder, he wanted to go to bed, watch a holomovie with Wrecker, or finally eat something resembling a meal. He should have never agreed to this.
Echo forced a smile unto his face as he squeezed the helmet in his hand tighter. He stuck out like a bantha on Hoth, in his dark armor, but at least it hid most of his cybernetics, most of what happened to him. But some clones still stared.
Echo took a moment to compose himself before he set out towards the boxes at the very back of the club, wading through the mess of identical bodies swaying in the rhythm, or in their own special rhythm, or just swaying. Echo squinted and scanned the tables until his eyes landed on the giant Republic emblem covering a clone trooper’s face. Jesse. Jesse was here. Just as he promised. Echo latched onto the sight, a survivor among replacements, another ghost among the living. Echo remembered it as if it was yesterday. They were fresh out of their training, preparing for the final simulation, when Fives proposed another one of his crazy bets.
“I bet I can find a brother with the craziest tattoo,” he said as he cleaned the barrel of his rifle, one leg swung over his cot, rhythmically bumping into a ladder.
Echo barely looked away from the manual. “Define craziest.”
“Well, I don’t know,” he chuckled and Echo rolled his eyes. “But I’ll know it when I see it.”
“That bet is pretty unfair and depends entirely on your subjective interpretation,” Echo complained highlighting a paragraph about droidekas. “There is just no way for me to win.”
“Oh, aren’t you a smartass,” He climbed over into Echo’s bunk as he did ever since they were children and flopped down dramatically onto Echo’s legs. “Come on, killjoy, you can try to find one too and we’ll let Cutup decide.”
Echo untangled himself from Fives and climbed down the ladder.
“Oh, come on! Where are you going?” Fives called after him.
“I’ll meet you here in thirty minutes,” Echo replied before breaking into a run.
“You sneaky little bitch!”
Echo had scouted the entire building before finally spotting him in the mess hall. The cadet with the balls to tattoo his entire freaking face before even shipping out on his first mission. He grabbed him, mouth still full and dragged him towards their rendezvous point.
“I am Jesse by the way,” he grumbled, mouth full of whatever mush was served that day, as Echo half-led and half-dragged him.
“Echo.”
“Well, you owe me a lunch, Echo,” the trooper snarked as they entered the barracks.
Echo silenced him by pulling a bucket over his head for dramatic effect.
“I have a complaint,” Jesse huffed, his voice muffled.
“Take it up with the Chancellor.”
To his surprise Fives was already there, arguing with his own victim. “Hey, Echo! Meet Kix, a grumpy cadet who wants to be a medic and won’t shut up about what an asshole I am.”
Echo looked at Kix, who just shrugged. “He summed me up pretty well.”
Kix sure had an interesting tattoo of different patterns and a text in Auberish.
“Kix, why don’t you read the text to our curious friend over here,” Fives quipped, pushing Kix closer towards Echo.
“The only good droid is a dead one,” he announced proudly.
Echo dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Slightly prejudiced, but totally badass.”
“So? What have you got there?” Fives strained his neck to get a better view of the mystery man Echo had brought; a self-satisfied smirk plastered on his face.
Echo smirked back, slowly peeling the bucket off the progressively more and more annoyed clone’s head. “Meet Jesse, the clone with the craziest tattoo on Kamino.”
Fives just stared and Cutup laughed as he emerged from the fresher. “What do we have here?”
“Stop staring like a herd of banthas and karking tell me what is happening,” Jesse gave them all a death stare, but for Echo and Cutup it just made the situation even funnier.
Echo had won that bet. Sure Kix’s tattoo was impressive, but as Cutup reasoned, it could be covered by letting his hair grow, which made it slightly less crazy, while Jesse was stuck with his banner-like face for as long as he lived.
As he got closer towards the table, he noticed another head poking out of the booth, regulation abiding haircut, already proving Cutup’s words, but Echo would know that pauldron anywhere. It was the red cross he searched the battlefield for and prayed he wouldn’t bleed out before it found him. It was what he woke up to after passing out whether from injuries or from trying to take on Fives in a drinking contest. Kix. Kix came too. He said he didn’t know if he would be able to, but he came. Kix who patched him up a thousand times and stitched him back together when he came back to life.
Echo remembered when they discovered they all got assigned to the 501st. Their provisional tents stretched across the valley and Echo had just found Fives vomiting from a concussion he’d tried to hide, so dragging a mumbling and delirious Fives through the field he entered the medical tent. The sight of two clones with very familiar looking tattoos greeted them. Kix was desperately trying to keep Jesse from escaping his cot. Both wore blue and it seemed Kix had in fact become a medic.
Fives, even in his state, immediately noticed and started to laugh as he slurred: “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the two crazy tattooed bastards from Kamino.”
Jesse immediately sat up. “Well, if it isn’t dumb and even more dumb!”
Kix sighed as he attempted to bandage Jesse’s shoulder. “It’s called dumber, you stale ration bar.”
From then on it has always been Fives and Echo and Jesse and Kix. They had sat at this exact table a thousand times before, the four of them. Now, they still had each other, and Echo’s other half was already marching somewhere far away. It felt wrong and something deep inside of him felt like it should have been Kix or Jesse lying dead. The thought frightened him, but it wouldn’t go away. He wanted someone else whose life fell apart, someone else who had lost just as much. It was wrong that they still had each other. It was wrong and it made him happy and it made him sad, and he wouldn’t wish this on anyone and he wanted everyone to know what it’s like. And he was alone and he just wanted everything to end and yet begin again.
His spiraling was interrupted by Jesse jumping out of the booth, hands outstretched as he saw him approach. “Eyayah!”
Echo´s heart skipped a few beats at hearing his name spoken in Mandoa. It seemed softer this way, more real. The last time he´d heard it was from Fives´ mouth. Mandoa wasn’t just a language the way the galactic basic was. They did not learn it from holos or lectures. It was passed on mess hall napkins and smuggled inside of supply crates. It was taught in the showers and at nightime on the bunks. It was their secret language, none of the Kaminoans could speak. Mandoa was the silent truth inside all of them, it was the warrior’s heartbeat. A promise of honor both on the battlefield and outside of it. It was their creed, their love language. It’s soothing whispering brought them back from the edge of death and accompanied them once it finally came. They were not born from rich lands, haven’t been nursed by mountains and tribes who have lived there for millions of years. They were tube-people, Kaminoan side-project, but this was their way of becoming a nation, of seizing history and ripping their destiny out of the long-necks’ hands.
“Oh, look at him, Kix!” Jesse shouted. “Look at you, Echo! You look like an absolute badass!” He said pointing at his armor and smoothing over Echo’s kama.
Kix’s eyes widened as he took Echo in. “Force, Echo. That is the sleekest design in the entire GAR!”
Jesse proudly patted Echo’s shoulder. “You should see his helmet.”
Echo just smiled sadly, afraid to speak, as not to reveal any sorrow in his voice, any cracks in his armor.
Kix’s eyes narrowed slightly and Echo knew he was under scrutiny. The tears threatened to spill and his heart ached and he wasn’t even sure why. There was something about the familiarity, that was distant, like a foggy memory, from so long ago, you weren’t even sure it was yours. Kix slowly approached him, wiggling out of his seat, his brows furrowing into concern. Then the medic’s arms enveloped him and something deep inside him shattered as the first whimper escaped his lips.
Echo quickly pulled away and tried to wipe his face. “I’m sorry.” He looked around but the music still thundered around them and clones still danced drinking their little drops of freedom fully in. No one noticed his world falling apart, just as he didn’t see their ruins, the names they had tattooed all over their bodies. This entire place was a cemetery, how many tables used to have one more chair? He noticed a glimpse of grey armor, how many of the Wolfpack were even left? Everyone in this room understood. Everyone pretended not to. These were the regs the Bad Batch hated; these were the regs who were just like him.
“No,” Kix said, ushering Echo and Jesse into the booth. “No apologizing.”
Echo squeezed next to Kix as Jesse took the side opposite them. Kix pushed his already half-drunk “Naboo special” to Echo motioning at him to take a sip.
“Thanks, but I’ll actually like to order the sweet shitty thing Fives always loved,” Echo smiled and Kix and Jesse chuckled, remembering.
“We already ordered one,” Kix winked. “Just like old times.”
“Hey, Echo,” Jesse began.
“Hmm?” Echo whipped his head towards Jesse a bit too quickly as if startled.
“Did something happen?” Jesse squirmed in his seat struggling to put his thoughts into an acceptable sentence. “That bunch of cocky little pricks aren’t giving you trouble, are they?”
“Jesse no,” Echo sighed. “Don’t call them that. Yes, they are different, but it doesn’t make them bad.”
“Oh no, Echo,” Jesse slapped his hand over his chest. “I did not call them pricks because they have some defects. I called them pricks because they act like it.”
“Ah, I see,” Echo huffed. “So, you’ve met them.”
“We did,” Kix sipped his drink, raising his eyebrows above the glass.
“They take some time getting used to,” Echo admitted. “But once they take you in, you are family.”
“Family,” Jesse mumbled staring mindlessly into the black swirling liquid he chose to call a drink.
“Shut up, Jess,” Kix pierced him with his infamous look which immediately disappeared as he turned to face Echo. “I’ve heard about your last mission.”
“Let’s not get into it now,” Echo decided he did, in fact, want a sip of Kix’s drink, if it meant delaying the conversation. So, he took it from Kix’s hand and took a gulp, his face twisting at the too-sour taste.
“I’ve heard you were amazing!” Jesse leaned forward on his elbows and grabbed Echo’s free hand lying on the table.
He tore out of his grasp nearly spilling Kix’s drink in the process. Something within Echo just snapped and he spoke before actually stopping to think. “There was nothing amazing about it,” he gritted through his clenched teeth. “Nothing! There is nothing exciting about hearing that my brother not only lived through the biggest horror of this sith-cursed hell, but faced a kriffing firing squad made up of the 501st! There is nothing fair about the fact that you two sit here like nothing ever happened as the other half of my soul rots in a karking Kaminoan lab! What did you two even do when that Shabuir slaughtered the men you lived with, the men you fought with? Why did it always have to be him! Why did he always have to be the one to stand up for everyone?! Why did no one ever stand up for him!” Echo screamed, only now noticing he wasn’t sitting anymore and his fist was hurting from slamming into the table. “Where were you, when he needed you?” Echo whispered wiping the tears gathering in his eyes. It was embarrassing. He was embarrassing. But he was just so tired of everything.
“Right next to him,” Jesse whispered, his voice incredibly small for such a loud personality. Echo’s mouth snapped shut as Jesse stood up, face twisted and fists clenched. “I stood there ready for a blaster bolt to pierce my skull! All for Fives karking plan! Don’t you dare pretend like you are the only victim of this war, Echo. Don’t you kriffing dare! Hardcase gave his life for that forcedamned plan! And I nearly did too.”
And suddenly Echo realized how much he understood this anger. He´d lived with it and gulped it down for Fives over and over again. Fives was the one who flew too close to the sun, never paying any attention to who got pulled in with him, who caught fire. Echo had always been the ocean, and the one who flew too low, shattering upon the rocks. Fives the loud-mouth who spoke even if you begged him not to. Fives who needed to tell the truth even if it got everyone in trouble. Echo could remember the time he´d pleaded with Fives the entire night not to get him in trouble with the trainers when they were still children, but Fives still snuck out first thing in the morning to confront them. Echo had to endure their wrath for the rest of the year, for “letting someone else fight his battles”. Fives had always been the one to burn things down, and Echo had always been the one to clean up the ashes.
“The other trooper,” Echo whispered under his breath. “Of course.” He was so ashamed of himself. Of course, it was Jesse. Jesse who always outplayed them all in sabac and always gave the hardest dares. Jesse, who Echo disliked at first because of how well he got along with Fives.
“No, Echo, not of karking course. You weren’t there! You weren’t kriffing there, when Fives couldn’t sleep for three nights straight after the Citadel! You weren’t there when he drowned in alcohol and his own kriffing tears!”
“Jesse,” Kix began reaching for Jesse who slapped his hand away.
“Don’t kriffing “Jesse” me, Kix! He wasn’t here, okay?! He died or got captured or whatever and we had to clean up the mess! Who do you think Fives turned to then? Who do you think held him, fought with him and loved him? He was our brother just as much as yours. Don’t you dare assume we didn’t mourn him, don’t you dare assume we don’t mourn him still. And don’t you dare assume hearing about Umbara is as kriffing bad as living through it!”
I am sorry, Fives. I am sorry. I am both jealous and glad. I should have known you would find other friends. You were always so likeable. I would leave you for three forcedmaned minutes in the bar alone and you’ve had already formed a friendship for life with the first person to sit next to you.
Echo looked around to see if the commotion had attracted any attention, but it seemed everyone just assumed it was another drunk yelling battle or brawl as they continued to down drink after drink and laugh like some of them won’t march to their deaths tomorrow. He turned back just as Kix slapped his helmet on and shot out from his seat, barreling through Echo, almost shoving him to the ground in his haste to get away.
Echo recognized the reaction. It was the panic of a caged creature. It was the look of not knowing where you were and what was happening, just knowing you had to get out of there, regardless of where “there” was. “Kix…” he began, but Kix was already a blurry shape wading through the crowd. “Wha-what?” Echo turned to Jesse.
“You haven’t read the Umbara report, have you?” Jesse had partially calmed down, his anger morphing into panic as he pushed himself out of the booth.
“I…I tried. It’s classified.” Echo grabbed Jesse’s arm to stop him from following after the medic. “What’s happening?”
Jesse stopped to stare straight into Echo’s eyes, faces just a few inches apart. “Kix was on that firing squad.”
“I..didn’t know.”
“Of course, you didn’t. Because you weren’t there.”
The music seemed to stop and nothing was moving. A chasm opened and seemed to swallow Echo deeper and deeper the longer he stood there. The sentence sent shivers down his spine as he imagined Kix taking aim at Fives, or at Jesse, the brother he followed around since they were biologically five. Kix who retched for days the first time he killed a sentient. It seemed a form of blasphemy, to have a medic ordered to take out the men he swore to save. The galaxy was truly turned on its head. He wanted to throw up or faint. He couldn’t decide which, so he did neither.
As Jesse ran after his closest friend, Echo was left standing there. He lowered himself onto the bench, banged his head down on the table and swore into a pool of Jesse’s spilled liquor. He tightly gripped the table, turning his knuckles white as his heartbeat drummed in his skull. He focused on catching up his breathing to his ravenous need for oxygen.
The images kept on coming. Kix nursing Echo back to health for months. Wiping his tears, whispering promises during brain surgeries, helping him stand. Kix’s proud smirk as Echo took his first steps with the new legs from general Skywalker. Kix aiming his karking rifle at Fives’ head. Kix breaking into tears as he stitched Ahsoka’s first blaster hit, because he couldn’t handle the way she sobbed. Kix following an order he damn well knew wasn’t right as Fives begged for his life. Kix hiding Hardcase’s personality quirks for years to save him from decommissioning and taking him under his wing only to see him die following Fives’ ideas. Kix never once telling Echo what happened. Kix missing the shot on purpose, prepared to face Krell’s wrath.
Because you weren’t there. The words burned and ached at the deepest place of Echo’s illogical yet ever present regret. He should have been there next to Fives, getting him out of trouble, as he always did. He should have been there to stop the madness whether at Umbara or Coruscant where Fives was shot down. Instead, he just ached and screamed and pitied himself as more and more brothers fell because of his treacherous mind. Everyone told him it wasn’t his fault. But deep-down Echo knew it was. It was. He should have killed himself. Yes, he did not have many opportunities, but surely, he could have thought of something. Attacking Tambor, drinking fuel, frying his brain by overloading the central computer. But he didn’t. And it was all because of Fives. For buried within the hollow bones and machinery, burned the smallest hope of all. The hope that they would see each other one last time. Even if it was just for a moment, before Echo passed away. Echo’s love was always slightly selfish. Ready to burn planets to keep one single fire alive. And what a fire it was. It was wrong and so karking right at the same time. The truth was, Echo didn’t survive because of his will to live, or unwavering spirit, he survived because he was selfish. Because he loved to the point of destruction and then further just to keep moving. Echo had ended many brothers with just his memories. The only difference between him and Kix, was that Echo´s shots did actually hit their marks.
Echo wanted to go home. He wanted to lay in his hammock and enjoy the sacred silence as the Batch went out that day. He wanted to play music and cry in the fresher as he went through holos. Echo stood up to leave, but a pang of guilt stabbed him in the chest so much it physically hurt. Echo wanted to have a new life, he wanted his new squad. He wanted to pretend he wasn’t the same cadet who loved going here and always ordering the most disgusting drink for Fives to ask to finish it. But now, it couldn´t be clearer. There was no Echo without those who´d named him. There was no Echo without Kix’s hands hauling him up after he got too drunk after the Rishi outpost mission. There was no Echo without Fives who ran from his cover to bait a sniper into leaving injured Echo alone. There was no Echo without Jesse’s laugh, without Hevy’s sacrifice, without Cutup’s jokes, Droidbait’s creative insults, Rex’s gruff voice guiding him home. They were his brothers. And he couldn’t simply be anywhere else than the bathroom floor next to them. This was the pain Echo understood well, the pain Echo loved to pretend no one else felt.
So, he walked, dodging flailing limbs and flying drinks as he traversed the same path he did many times as he ran to throw up. The door was sticky and Echo could already smell piss and puke, but he still entered. He nearly gagged at the smell, but quickly composed himself as he took in the scene. Kix sat curled up against the wall covered with anti-separatist graffiti and the likeness of senator Amidala. Jesse kept wetting his glove in the sink and running his hand over Kix’s forehead and hair.
Just the very image was enough to heal something within Echo. This tenderness didn’t seem like pity, it didn’t seem humiliating. And the claim Echo had come to accept as truth, the fact that he was the only one ruined, shattered at the sight. Because Echo wasn’t the only grieving ghost among thousands of whole men. He was just the most obviously broken. But the truth was, they were all scarred and scared and weeping. They had all lost and shattered and lived despite it. They were a whole nation of dead people assembled back the wrong way. His suffering was never just his own. It was all of theirs. It was the pulsing bleeding heart of Kamino. It stained a thousand planets and haunted the galaxy. They were never perfect soldiers, but always perfect brothers. No one died for the Republic. They died for their brothers who became a synonym. Being a soldier was never about being functional, it was about being feral enough. And that kind of wildness only came from a place of love. Echo was alive because of Fives, but Fives was alive because Echo still was. And Hardcase was alive because Kix still was and Tup was alive because Fives once loved him enough to try to bring the Chancellor himself down. The Jedi could move things using the force, but the clones could move history using just each other.
Echo wasn’t the odd one. He was ruined and born again, and then ruined and then once more born again. Sometimes a thousand times in one day. But so were they. And so was the Bad Batch. This was what being alive meant. Not the jedi banthashit about serenity and peace and freedom from emotions. It was about burning with every color and then lighting the hearth again. And Echo was ready to burn again. But first he had to tend to his ashes.
He took a hesitant step forward, his armor creaking as he kneeled down next to the two clones.
“I’m sorry, Echo,” Kix whispered, eyes glassy and unfocused.
“Why, Kix? Help me understand.”
“It was horrible,” Kix visibly shuddered at the memory, his skin incredibly pale, mirroring Echo´s. “Kriffing horrible. So many brothers, lost.”
“I’m sorry,” Echo murmured, laying his palm on the medic’s knee.
“I tried to help them, I did. I swear. I tried to save them, all of them.” Kix hiccupped shaking his head wildly. “I couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me. You hear me, Echo? They wouldn’t let me!” Kix was becoming frantic now.
Echo didn’t know what compelled him. If it was his own pain or Kix’s, but he slowly slid to sit next to the medic, not paying any attention to the stains and dirt that covered the walls and floor as he enveloped his brother into the kind of bone-crushing hug, he thought only Wrecker and Fives were capable of. The armor clanked together as they awkwardly folded around each other, like carbon freezed sentients trying to sit.
“I didn’t want to,” Kix cried as Echo ran a hand through his regulation haircut. Echo missed the tattoo.
“I know,” Echo whispered as he felt himself detach from his own hurt and jump into the gnawing black void where everyone seemed to merge into one. And Echo couldn´t remember which battle he was a part of and which just left a scar through another brother. They were two flies trapped in a web clinging to each other. Not knowing how to move, where to move and how to get out, just knowing they were once alone and now there was another one. It was sick and it was beautiful. Because now they were both doomed, but doomed together. All they had left was the hope that even a spider may recognize kinship. That the galaxy may just for one single time have mercy on its children, who never had enough warmth from the sun, but always had enough from each other.
Jesse was watching, standing above them, leaning his hip onto the sink, his arms crossed as he tried to decide whether to still be angry or join in.
“Forgive me,” Kix whispered, his voice broken and soft. And at that moment he sounded too much like Fives to ignore. The same rasp Fives always had when he apologized.
“What did Fives do?” Echo found himself asking.
Kix half-smiled, but it never reached his eyes. “He said that he didn’t believe I´d missed on purpose. That I was just a terrible shot.”
Echo stiffened.
“He was joking,” Jesse added.
“And then?”
Kix shook his head in disbelief. “And then he just hugged me.”
“Then you are already forgiven.” And he was, because it wasn’t Echo’s deed to forgive. It hurt to admit Fives wasn’t just his brother. That Echo might have belonged to him a lot more than Fives belonged to Echo. Yet, it was right. Fives lived a life without Echo in it and Echo was ready to live a life without Fives. He didn’t want to, but he had to. Just as Fives did. Echo was both a Domino and a Bad Batcher. Crosshair, Hunter, Wrecker, Tech. None of the were Fives. But they were never supposed to be. Echo loved them and it didn’t mean he loved Fives any less.
Jesse squirmed where he stood and Echo met his eyes to compel him to speak. “I am sorry, Echi’ka. For saying you weren’t there.”
“You were right. I wasn’t.”
“But it wasn’t your fault.” Jesse motioned to the floor space next to Echo and he nodded, so Jesse slowly lowered himself, joining the two cuddled clones. Two soldiers clad in white and blue and one odd one, who used to wear those colors too.
“You were right,” Echo repeated.
“I know,” Jesse groaned laying his head onto Echo’s shoulder pad, which must have been uncomfortable, but Jesse didn´t seem to mind. “I just don’t want fight anymore. We barely see you these days.”
“I am sorry, I should have figured you mourned Fives’ death too,” Echo admitted.
“Yeah, you should have,” Jesse mumbled as his eyelids drooped.
Kix stirred where he laid in Echo’s lap. He quickly pushed himself up to be level with Echo’s face. “We mourned yours too, you know.”
Echo shivered under the piercing gaze of the medic, leaning back to make some space between them. “What do you mean?”
“Not everything is about Fives.” Kix gently grabbed Echo’s face in his hands, studying his face. “You were our brother too, Echo.”
“And you still are,” Jesse chimed in, awkwardly running his fingers through the cracks between the tiles.
Somehow Echo forgot, he had died too. In his own weird way, but for Jesse and Kix and Fives, he had been dead for a year. Not everything is about Fives. Not everything is about Fives. But it had always seemed like it had been. In strategy classes, Echo always whispered the answers to Fives, who was the one to raise his hand and receive the praise. Echo never dreamed of being an ARC trooper, but Fives had dreamed that dream for him. Echo had wanted to apply for the officer´s programme opening up, but couldn´t trust Fives to keep out of trouble. Everything has always been about Fives and now that it wasn´t, Echo wasn´t sure what to do with it.
“We missed you.”
“Missed me?” he whispered more for himself then for them. Somehow in the emptiness Fives left behind, Echo had forgotten he´d lived too. They missed him. They realized he wasn’t there, even when they still had Fives around. It felt impossible and utterly logical at the same time.
And he did. Over and over and over again. It was Echo who didn’t want to believe it. Because everything has always been so easy with Fives by his side. But he had always been his own person. Even then. They had missed him. They had mourned him.
“Do you know how karking happy I was when Kix told me they´ve found you?” Jesse chuckled bumping his shoulder into Echo’s. “I literally grabbed general Kenobi and spun him around.”
Echo laughed at the image his mind immediately supplied. “You spun him like a bride in those shitty romantic holomovies?”
“I think they are legally married now according to the Alderaanian ones,” Kix´s eyes widened in mock realization.
“Shut up!” Jesse tried to slap him as Echo tried to keep them apart giggling like a cadet himself.
And he was happy. He was actually happy. Like legit happy. It wasn’t the happiness born from lightness and flower crowns. It was stitched and birthed and forged from scratch and bonds and shared grief. It was of dreams and hope that wasn’t naïve, but still trusted.
“I am so karking angry Fives didn’t get to experience that moment. Imagine what he would do,” Jesse chuckled, but was the kind of nostalgic laugh that both hurt and tickled the heart.
“He would have run to Anaxes, his feet moving so fast he would´ve entered lightspeed,” Kix slapped Echo’s knee gently.
“He would have kissed grandmaster Yoda himself,” Jesse smirked.
They´ve almost met each other. Fives had been dead just a few weeks when Echo had been found. To Echo “almost” has always been a fragile word, bittersweet and rotting. Echo had once chastised Fives for coming back for a data stick when blaster fire raged all around them. Fives came back holding the intel between two fingers and he smirked like the bastard he was as Echo pulled him behind cover, looking him over for injuries. “You almost died, Fives,” Echo had stressed, but all Fives did was laugh, high on adrenaline and euphoric from having survived the impossible. “The world is not made of almosts,” he said winking at him. And he had said it again and again as Echo came time and time again to pick him up from the medbay grumbling about the near-death experiences his brother seemed to attract. Today, “almost” almost tasted like rain, like being washed clean.
In truth, there has always been a small part of him that found relief in the fact that Fives didn’t have to see what became of his Echo. That he was no longer the person he loved. That he was tortured and haunted and woke up screaming. That he wasn’t brave enough to end it. That the body he cuddled with for warmth since they were children, was now metal and aching. “I am glad he didn’t have to see me like this.”
Kix recoiled, as if Echo had straight-up punched him. “Don’t say that,” Kix whispered, mouth left slightly open. “Don’t you dare karking say that, Echo.”
It wasn’t often Kix swore, but when he did, that’s how everyone knew he was serious. Someone was either dying or seemed to have a death wish. Hearing the medic swear as he kneeled above you was terrifying. So was hearing Kix curse you out for trying to escape the medbay or hiding an injury.
Echo tried to back down. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Oh, you did,” Jesse shook his head, lips pressed into a thin line as the entire Republic symbol scrunched up with his disapproving expression. “We know you enough to recognize that.”
“You didn’t mean to say it, but you damn well meant what you said,” Kix added, expression wounded.
Echo threw his hands up in defeat. “Then what if I did?” he said softly. “I am so horrible, for finding solace in the fact he still loved me when he passed? That he didn’t have to see me gutted and torn apart? That he didn’t have to see his brother turned into a monster in separatist hands?”
“You are not horrible, but you are so damn wrong it hurts.” Jesse inhaled sharply. “How can you not actually see you are in the exact same situation? Wouldn’t you have given just about anything to have him back? Wouldn’t you rejoice if he came back without legs, without sight? If he did kill the Chancellor and brought down the Republic, wouldn’t you still fall to your knees in the haste to get back to him? Because I know I would. And I feel the same way about you.”
He would. Force knows he would crawl through the swamps of Nal Hutta, through the hottest sands of Tattooine, just to get one last glimpse of him.
“Don’t you dare assume, he loved you any less than you loved him,” Kix said in his sharp voice that was both loving and strict. “He doesn’t deserve that, and neither do you.”
Echo wiped at his face, trying to hide the effect their words had on him. Because they were right. Because they had read Echo like an open book. For years he had assumed and lived as if his bond to Fives was stronger than Fives’ bond with him. Not because he thought so little of Fives, but because he thought so little of himself. “I am sorry.”
Jesse pulled Echo’s hands away from his face. “It’s not us you owe an apology to, but him.”
“Honestly, I hope he whoops your ass in the afterlife for this. You do deserve it,” Kix deadpanned. “You are not capable of becoming anyone Fives would not love,” he said with so much tenderness in his eyes.
Jesse picked up Kix´s helmet from the floor, where it must have rolled over as the medic had barged into the room. “You know,” he snorted, half delirious both from liquor and from the heavy conversation they just had. “He used to bring your spare helmet with us here.”
“No,” Echo cracked up, welcoming Jesse’s attempt to lighten up the mood.
“Oh yes,” Kix smirked. “We made it sit at your spot and on bad days even ordered it that atrocious beer you always had.”
“Oh, no. Compared to you, I may actually be well-adjusted,” Echo sniffled, and chuckled through the tears. “Do you have the helmet here now? Do you still sleep with it?”
“Oh, no, no. We buried it with Fives,” Jesse huffed as if Echo was being ridiculous.
Echo’s blood ran cold. “What?” he stammered.
Kix’s face fell. And so did Jesse’s as he saw Kix’s.
“Listen, we didn’t want to rub salt into the wound,” Jesse tried to reason.
“You buried Fives?” Echo gasped and pulled free from both clones. “I…I thought he was dissected in a Kaminoan lab.”
“We were never going to let them do that,” Kix said resolutely.
“Where is he?”
“Here on Coruscant,” Jesse quipped. “I think you would love the place!”
“He is here?” Echo gaped at them, mouth hanging open.
“Well, not literally since he is dead and all, but—” Jesse began
Kix reached over Echo and lightly smacked Jesse’s bald head. “He knows that you Gungan!”
Echo wanted to be angry, but somehow, he couldn’t. Because Fives wasn’t scattered to feed the Kaminoan sea life, he wasn’t ripped apart by Nala Se. He had his own place in this earth to rest in. He marched far away, knowing he was safe. That the long-necks would never find him there. Those two bastards have somehow managed to do the impossible and Echo loved them for it.
“Would you maybe want to go see him?” Kix asked hesitantly.
Echo tried to speak, but then immediately closed his mouth with an audible snap. Because he wasn’t sure. It seemed like too much of a risk when he was doing so well lately. Yet, he longed to get to say goodbye one last time. He didn’t want to slowly drift away, slowly forget. He wanted a ceremony. He wanted to honor his brother in death, just as much as he´d honored him in life. Fives always dreamed of having a funeral. It seemed like something the natborns did, so he wanted one too. And Echo would give it to him.
Echo realized he couldn´t be angry at Fives anymore. He had dreamed up a thousand realities, where Fives was able to leave everything be, and in that dream, he´d lived. Echo had always known Fives had been hanging over his own grave since the day he was biologically ten. But Echo had always been there to pull him back. Until he wasn’t. And Fives had finally reached the sun and as it turned out, the sun that scorched his brother alive, was the head of the republic he had spent his life trying to save. But Echo understood. Fives had lived at the edge of destruction, but he´d loved beyond it. And maybe there was no other way of this ending.
“I would. I think I am ready,” Echo admitted both to them and to himself. It felt both like a betrayal and setting an animal free. “As long as you two are there with me.”
“Ironic. We had a ceremony for you too, at the same spot,” Jesse huffed.
“I hope you at least didn’t sing that atrocious natborn mourning ballad,” Echo raised his eyebrows in question.
“Damn right I did,” Jesse chinned up proudly. “It was very emotional.”
“Oh, I am sure Kix cried, or at least his ears did.”
“Don’t be rude, Echo. It wasn’t that bad, just a little aural bleeding,” Kix smirked. “Nothing my extensive medical knowledge couldn’t treat.”
“But in all seriousness,” Jesse spoke up. “You should have been there as we laid him to rest. It feels wrong you weren’t.”
“It’s not like you guys could have known I was still out there.”
“But we do now,” Kix replied. “And it’s time to make it right.”
Jesse laid a hand on Echo’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “So, just say when, and we’ll be there.”
“How does right now sound?”