Chapter Text
A week after Palpatine’s death the Negotiator came into orbit over Coruscant.
The presence of the High General and Marshal Commander of each system army had been requested by the Jedi High Council for a “what do we do now” meeting, but Davijaan was pretty sure Kenobi and Kote were the only pair who had decided to attend in person. Whether this was because they were close enough to make the journey or because they were more personally involved than any of the other officers, he did not know. He did not ask.
He did not meet the 3rd RSA representatives when they arrived at the Temple. Maybe he was a coward, for that.
***
Davijaan arrived at the briefing room early. It wasn’t anything like the briefing rooms on a Venator, but he wasn’t sure what else to call it. A high ceiling, walls of carved brown stone and reinforced windows. The round room was dominated by a round table, projectors and chairs spaced evenly around it. It was odd that such an important meeting regarding the war would take place in this light, open space.
He was in his armor, for the first time in weeks. Fox had brought it up from the basement, left it on his bunk, stark white and gleaming. It was a familiar weight; a familiar restriction. His hand hadn’t healed enough for a gauntlet yet, and hung limp and bandaged at his side. He’d clipped his helmet to his belt. Jedi preferred to see clones’ faces.
Even so little of his skin exposed to the sun and to the scrutiny of the High Council felt like too much. It was going to be a long meeting.
Fox slunk in soon after, soundless, also in his armor. And helmet. Davijaan doubted he’d take it off even if requested. He graced Davijaan with a nod and went from window to window, methodically checking seals and shielding.
Fifteen minutes from the appointed time, the Jedi started to arrive. A few members of the High Council, a few Jedi with medic’s emblems on their tabards, two masked guards—including the elder of the two who had almost prevented him from getting word to Windu.
Kote arrived with Kenobi and Vos.
Davijaan hadn’t visited Vos in the medbay. Maybe he was a coward for that, too. The relief at seeing the General well—moving slowly, but strong enough to walk under his own power—made his throat burn.
He’d missed the reunion, but he could guess how it had gone. Kenobi and Vos walked through the door side by side, each with an arm around the other’s waist, talking quietly, smiling. Happy. It was the most at ease he had ever seen Vos. Kenobi too, for that matter.
Finally, Davijaan turned to Kote.
Marshal Commander Cody was polished to a shine: sunburst freshly touched up, back straight and shoulders set, helmet at his belt, and not a hair of his regulation trim out of place. He paused inside the door, and his eyes met Davijaan’s.
Kote peeled away from his General—not that he noticed—and strode across the room, practiced professionalism giving way to something open and intent. Davijaan braced himself.
As Kote came to a halt he saluted, with his left hand. “Marshal.”
Kote flinched. In armor it was imperceptible to anyone but a clone. Guilt warred briefly with anger.
Guilt won. As he lowered his hand and opened his mouth to take it back, to apologize, to reach for his brother and damn the witnesses—
Kote’s expression shuttered closed, and he offered Davijaan a matching salute. “Commander. Well met.” His eyes dropped from Davijaan’s face to his right hand. “I was not informed you’d been injured.”
Davijaan shrugged. “I can still fly.” He’d gotten permission to test himself in one of the temple’s shuttles. He was stiff, his grip was weak, he didn’t have the control he used to, but he could adapt. He could improve.
“Good.” Kote dragged his gaze back to Davijaan’s face and let him see the anger and the relief. “That’s good.”
As Kote studied Davijaan, Davijaan studied Kote, looking for signs of change in the last month, everything he wanted to say sour on the tip of his tongue. Before the guilt could force him to speak, Kote sighed, and took a step back.
“Good,” he said again, and retreated across the room to the window Vos and Kenobi had stationed themselves under. Davijaan watched him go, and ached. He should have been there to meet him on arrival. They should have gotten this over with before the stupid meeting.
When Kote joined them, Vos noticed. He glanced between Davijaan and Kote, brow furrowed, but didn’t leave Kenobi’s side.
Windu arrived with Ponds, exactly one minute before time, and switched on the holoprojectors. Eight pairs of Generals and Marshals flickered into existence. The in-person attendees took their seats—Fox slipping into the chair beside Davijaan only after Kote sat—and the meeting was brought to order.
Instead of getting right into things Windu surveyed the table, and said, “As we gather on behalf of the living, so we gather for the sake of our dead.” The Jedi stood, and after a moment of hesitation so did the clones, and then Windu led the Jedi in reciting something. A prayer, maybe.
Davijaan had known Windu and Fox’s CT were the only survivors, besides Vos and Fox himself, but it hadn’t fully registered that General Yoda and General Drallig were dead until he heard their names listed along with Commander Thorn and the rest of his squad.
Death, yet the Force. It seemed to comfort Vos, whatever it meant.
The meeting proper began with a brief account of the events of Palpatine’s death. Davijaan could feel eyes on him during the part where he’d run to the Jedi for help, and did his best to ignore the attention. Thankfully, Windu skimmed over the part where he’d been mind controlled into attacking his own Jedi.
“I was not Sidious’ end goal,” Vos said, towards the end. “He wanted a new apprentice, and I was convenient; I was already half gone, I’d already killed Tyranus. But, I don’t have the power he was after. I think…” A glance at Kenobi, guilty but determined. “I recommend questioning Knight Skywalker about the nature of his relationship with the former Chancellor.”
Kenobi went pale. Kote stiffened. Beside him, Fox scoffed. Windu pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed out in a slow, frustrated sigh.
From there, the meeting mostly consisted of the Jedi discussing politics and the war. It was all up-coming elections and potential peace talks and how to shift from the mindset of waging the war to winning the war. Ending the war. Without Palpatine pulling strings on both sides, the GAR had the upper hand. If they could remove General Grievous from power through either political or violent means, the Republic and the Confederacy could be negotiating peace within a matter of months.
Months.
Ten years of training for it, three years of fighting in it, and the war could be over in months.
The biggest and most difficult obstacle to victory, or peace, or possibly both, was the GAR itself. Considering the whole… mind control chip thing.
“Were you able to resist its hold over you?” Windu asked, addressing Davijaan directly for the first time, serious and polite. “Would you have been able to break free yourself, given more time?”
“I didn’t…” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t try to resist it. I don’t know, sir.”
“I see.”
“Is this even a real concern, with Sidious dead?” Vos asked, and he tried to come off as curious but Davijaan could tell he was concerned. “The chip didn’t respond to any Jedi’s orders. How do we know he wasn’t the only one who could activate them?”
Windu waved to one of the medics, a Mirialan woman who hadn’t said a word so far. “Padawan Offee, if you would share your findings.”
She turned on a datapad and handed it, coldly, to the man next to her. Her voice was cold when she spoke. “The inhibitor chips are voice activated.”
Voice activated. Davijaan was going to tear his hair out.
“It’s only programmed to recognize and respond to two voices,” she continued, the datapad making its way around the table. “Chancellor Palpatine—Darth Sidious—and Jango Fett. Or, the standard vocal register for a clone. Any clone could activate it.”
Huh.
Vos’ eye twitched. “He didn’t want anybody else to be able to kill him and take over his army, but he also couldn’t be bothered to give individual orders to each clone.” He bared his teeth in what could be a smile or a snarl. “Perfect. Wonderful.”
“This is a problem, yes,” Windu agreed. “But it is one we can solve before it becomes exploitable, if we act quickly.”
Too many emotions crossed Vos’ face for Davijaan to follow, finally settling on shock. “We can’t make chip removal mandatory.”
“We can’t afford to leave it voluntary either,” countered Windu. He didn’t look at Davijaan, but the urge to throw himself into a black hole was overwhelming. “The Kaminoan government was in league with the Sith, there may be more to the chips than we know. And, clones have turned traitor before.”
“Mace. We can’t force millions of men to undergo brain surgery because of our own paranoia, we—”
“Inhibitor chip removal will be mandatory,” Kote said, cutting off the argument with the finality of an order.
The room fell silent. Every Jedi tensed. Every clone relaxed.
Davijaan was tired. He was so tired.
The silence lingered, but if the Jedi were waiting for Kote to explain his reasoning they would be waiting the remainder of their lifetimes. Face hard and set as stone, Kote ignored the rest of the room and addressed Windu. “Would it be possible to allocate Temple resources to resolving this issue? Healers, or surgical droids perhaps.”
“Of course.” Windu leaned back in his chair, considering. “It might also be prudent to purchase more medical droids, or to hire civilian surgeons on a temporary basis.”
The discussion moved to how best to organize the mass de-chipping of the entire GAR, not to mention the troops and cadets on Kamino.
Davijaan wanted to not be in this room. He’d contributed the little he had to contribute. He wasn’t of use anymore. He wanted to leave and go—somewhere. His room in the Temple. His quarters on the Negotiator.
Hidden by the table, he pressed his right thumb against the seal of his left gauntlet until it came undone, and he could slide his thumb against the woven band wrapped around his wrist, the texture a soothing reminder of thick wool and Fiddle’s worry.
He didn’t have the tracker scrambling bracelet on. He’d left it in his quarters, not sure what to do with it now he wasn’t officially dead anymore.
Fox shifted beside him. Probably wanted to leave as much as Davijaan did. Or maybe he was pleased Kote had taken his side, unknowing.
Allowing the rise and fall of voices to wash over him, Davijaan watched Kote and Windu discuss logistics. Two hours into the meeting and Kote was still holding himself perfectly straight, speaking perfectly politely, but once he had made up his mind he was immovable. Every clone would have their inhibitor chip removed and the Jedi could help or stay out of his way. It was good Windu wanted to help.
One of the medics joined in, an older Twi’lek woman, who spoke evenly and at length and with much gesturing to the various clones in the room. With her prompting the sullen Mirialan contributed short, sharp sentences. Generals and Marshals in holographic form spoke loudly, rough through the static.
Fox didn’t speak up. Neither did Vos or Kenobi.
They were holding hands under the table. He didn’t have to see to know, they were sitting too close to be doing anything else. Kenobi was pretending to be unaffected, but the tension that usually accompanied a debrief was totally gone. Vos wasn't even pretending, listing closer and closer to Kenobi’s shoulder as the discussion dragged on.
He wanted to be grateful Vos was still trying to give him a choice in this, but it was a bit late in the war to be worried about ordering millions of clones to risk their lives. It was a bit late in this mission for Vos to be worried about ordering Oddball to risk his life, trust or no trust.
Vos should have ordered him, before, and Davijaan was going to be angry about that for as long as he had the memory of those few formless minutes.
***
Holograms winked out one by one across the surface of the projectors, Jedi signing off with a bow and clones with a salute.
Davijaan stood as Vos and Kenobi stood, and skirted around the crowd to get to his General before he could leave with Kenobi. They weren’t holding hands anymore, and they walked far enough apart to keep up appearances.
Vos saw him coming and paused, turning to Davijaan expectant. “Yes, Oddball?”
“General Vos.” As he came to a halt Davijaan straightened to attention, more out of habit than necessity. “If you no longer require my assistance, may I request a transfer back to the 7th Sky?”
“Of course.” He glanced at Kenobi, confused. “I mean, yes, obviously my mission is over, but it’s not up to me—”
“We’d be pleased to have you back with us, Oddball,” Kenobi cut in, and he looked like he meant it. “In fact, I believe Cody has the paperwork ready.”
Relief that might have been exhaustion settled in his bones. “Thank you, sir.” He took a few steps back, clearing the way for them. Vos gave him an odd sort of grimacing smile, and they left.
Davijaan remained standing in the middle of the room as the rest of the Jedi and their commanders trickled out the door. Kote lingered, too.
Fox was the last to go, looking slowly between them and shutting the door silently behind him.
Alone for the first time in a month, Davijaan breathed deep and faced his brother. “Hey, Kote.”
“Davijaan.” Kote was already striding across the room, and this time he did not stop out of arm's reach but gripped Davijaan’s shoulders like a lifeline. “Davi, I’m sorry.”
Now they were alone he let the Marshal Commander fall away, and underneath Kote was just as exhausted and just as guilty as Davijaan. It was always so much harder to be angry with his brother.
“Eh, don’t be.” He tried to smile. “It’s over. I didn’t die. I’m back to the 7th Sky as soon as the paperwork is filed.”
“If I’d known—”
“You didn’t.”
Davijaan had known something was going to go wrong. Both of them had known. If either of them had had a clue as to what, would anything have changed? Would Kote have sent Crys or Gregor instead of him?
He knew the answer.
“I thought you were dead.” Kote’s grip tightened. “Turns out you were sneaking around with Fox.”
“Technically, Fox was sneaking around with me.”
“Davijaan.”
“I wanted to tell you,” he relented, meeting Kote’s eyes. “Vos wouldn’t let me.”
Kote’s expression twisted into something bitter and furious. “I thought you were dead. I didn’t want to believe it, I couldn’t fully believe it, but—”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
“Stop!” Kote shook him, hard. “Stop. Davijaan. I thought you were dead.”
They’d never found out what happened to the rest of their batch. It had been the two of them since they were seven, Kote and Davijaan, somehow still beside each other.
Over Davijaan’s years of waiting, watching for them, Kote had never shown outward signs of missing their batchmates. He used to wonder if Kote would even miss him, when he died. Here and now his brother’s anguish laid bare only made him ache.
“I thought I was going to die,” he admitted, soft. “I thought he was going to kill me.” All the fear of the last month, all the uncertainty, all the anger, came surging to the surface. Davijaan let himself slump forward, the ache catching in his throat, voice breaking. “I thought I was going to die, Kote. I thought I was going to die.”
His brother caught him. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”
Davijaan tucked his face against Kote’s neck and cried. Kote let him, and didn’t say anything.
He’d never seen Kote cry, and he didn’t cry now, but he clung to Davijaan as tightly as Davijaan clung to him, and together they shook.
***
Davijaan and Kote entered the hangar as unobtrusively as they could. Unnecessarily unobtrusively, because Vos and Kenbobi were at the far end, standing in the warm pool of light from the open bay doors, wrapped very tightly around each other. Probably Davijaan could have stabbed Vos again and he wouldn’t have noticed.
Fox was nowhere to be seen. Probably he’d left the Temple entirely, to avoid all the heartfelt goodbyes.
As they crossed the hangar, Vos and Kenobi untangled themselves, leaning in for one last brush of faces that could be shared breath or a kiss. Davijaan felt more than saw Kote twitch at that. The corner of his mouth curled up in a smirk, imagining what Kote would have to say in private about his horrible Jedi and his horrible double-crossing traitor of a lover.
Kenobi saw them first, pulling away from Vos completely and offering Davijaan a crinkly smile.
“We have a schedule,” Kote muttered under his breath, firmly placing his helmet back on his head. He picked up his pace, effectively abandoning Davijaan in the middle of the hangar to go remind his Jedi that there were standards.
Adjusting his pack, Davijaan slowed, and then stopped. It was fuller than it had been, when this whole disaster started. If Vos ever wanted that poncho back he could come all the way out to the Negotiator and retrieve it himself.
Between one breath and the next, Fox appeared beside him.
Davijaan did not jump. He finished fiddling with the straps. “If you’re trying to avoid Kote, it’s not going to work.”
“I’m not.”
“He’s not going to cut your fingers off.”
“I’m not avoiding him.”
If he did not want to be found, Fox would not be found, but Kote was persistent.
Fox watched him straighten the pack out. He did not have his helmet on, and it struck Davijaan, with a pleased surprise, that there was a reason Fox had come and found him here at the end of things.
Evenly, he regarded Fox. Suspiciously, Fox regarded him.
“I’m not going to miss you,” Davijaan said, matter of fact.
Fox’s eyes narrowed. “And?”
With a sigh, Davijaan leaned forward and draped himself against Fox’s front, looping his arms loosely around his waist.
Fox went utterly still. “What.”
“I want a hug. You owe me.”
In answer he received a strangled sound that wasn’t clear enough to be interpreted as either protest or outrage. Since Fox didn’t immediately shove him off, he decided it was bafflement.
“Oh, are we doing hugs?” asked Vos, from directly behind Davijaan. “Can I have a hug?”
Fox’s arms came up around Davijaan’s ribs. “Fuck off.”
“Aw, come on, I give great hugs!”
“Step on a detonator, Jedi.”
Davijaan snorted, but Vos laughed. The sound shocked him off-balance enough for Fox to slip out of his hold.
Free, Fox stepped out of arm's reach. One hand curled into fist before he forced it open.
Vos smiled, fond. “I take it you’re leaving as well.”
“Unlike you two, I have a real job.”
“Will I see you again?”
One eyebrow went up, and then down, the rest of his face carefully indifferent. “Maybe.”
“I’ll take maybe.” The smile spread into a big, smug grin, and then Vos bowed at the waist, smooth and formal. When he straightened, he said, “May the Force be with you, Fox.”
Fox blinked. Scowled. And then he turned on his heel and vanished back into the maze of docked ships.
And that was that.
“Well, Commander.” Vos turned to Davijaan, smile softening. “I bet you’re relieved to be back in steadier hands than mine.”
Past Vos’ shoulder he could see Kote waiting, probably counting seconds until their departure time, standing at ease beside a serene Kenobi. “Your friend, eh?”
A hum, noncommittal. “Obi-Wan and I are a lot of things.”
Davijaan raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Vos’ grin got even bigger and smugger, if that were possible.
He tried to reconcile the calm, joyful Jedi with the paranoid and unpredictable sort-of-traitor he’d been introduced to. It wasn’t quite coming together in his head. He wondered if Kenobi, if any Jedi, had ever been scared of Vos the way he’d been scared of Vos, those first weeks.
Probably the ones he’d killed. But, probably, considering—everything, there was more to those deaths than Davijaan was allowed to know. He asked, “Are you back to the front, when you’re recovered?”
Vos sobered. “No final decision, yet. Windu is split between putting me on the Shadow roster or sending me back to the 120th.”
For a moment he deliberated, but he did sort of trust Vos, now. At least with this. “Don’t tell him I told you, but Faie thought you were a good General.”
Recognition shifted to disbelief. “Really?”
“He had a lot of respect for you, even after you turned traitor.”
Vos grimaced. “So, don’t screw it up again?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Didn’t have to. But, don’t worry, I won’t. A lot has changed since I last worked with him.” His gaze became distant, unfocused. “The war will be over soon. We’re close.”
And where had Davijaan heard that before.
Still, he nodded. Months or years, the war would end eventually. Everything ended eventually.
Abruptly Vos focused back on him, brow furrowed. Davijaan froze. “You're not a coward because you're afraid,” he said.
Damn empaths. Davijaan hated that. Hated it hated it hated it.
Vos winced. “I'm not reading your mind. That's not how that works.”
Davijaan carefully crushed his hate into a tiny speck of annoyance.
Vos’ face did something interesting. “That's terrifying, actually. Good... job?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He hesitated, opening his mouth and closing it, and then glanced behind him to where Kote and Kenobi were still waiting. His eyes were soft when he faced Davijaan again. “It was a pleasure to work with you, Commander,” he said, and bowed, the same formal gesture he’d given Fox.
When he straightened, Davijaan looked him right in the eye and said, “Liar.”
Vos tipped his head back, his laughter loud and rich and belly-deep, his whole frame shaking. “May the Force be with you, Oddball.”
***
Davijaan did not need to fly back to the Negotiator. Someone with 104th grey teeth painted on their helmet was on shuttle duty. Davijaan stowed his pack under the bench and strapped himself in next to Kote.
Take-off was smooth. They left atmosphere slower than he would have liked, but there was heavy traffic on the shiplanes near the surface and getting free of it took some maneuvering. The pilot was good. Steady. But then, to wear that grey he would have to be.
He missed Wolffe.
Once they were out of atmosphere and in space, Davijaan relaxed. There was a porthole directly across from him, and his attention shifted from the cockpit to the view of Coruscant, drifting in the emptiness.
Space was more colorful than he’d thought, as a cadet. There was always something burning in the void; gas or debris wreathed in flames of green or blue or orange or yellow. White light so bright it cut through his visor shading. Grey clouds of dust and ice and stone. All against a black so infinite it terrified him.
He was scared of space. He always had been. Even with planets and stars to guide him, it was so easy to be lost, alone in the vastness of it. He missed flying, but more than flying, he missed being a part of a squad. Being surrounded by siblings made facing that emptiness easier.
Probably his theory had been correct, and it was the same for Vos. He’d needed to be around Jedi again to function properly, to face his own emptiness.
He watched Coruscant fall away, right thumb pressed against his left wrist, until only a golden curve was visible through the porthole. Maybe, when the war was over, he would have time to take Kote flying.