Chapter Text
Fox lunged for the gauntlet. Davijaan steadied Vos.
For a moment the three of them stood frozen in the wreck of white armor, the acrid tang of vomit mixing with the sharp sting of bleach, gaze darting between each other and the gauntlet clutched in Fox’s hands.
Davijaan laughed. He couldn’t help it, the noise forced its way out of his body, high and cracked and maybe a little hysterical.
Fox shot him a glare that would melt steel, and he slapped a hand over his mouth, choking the rest of it down. His throat burned.
Vos cleared his throat, and cleared it again. He was squeezing Davijaan’s shoulder hard enough to bruise. It was a little terrifying, the way submerging himself in the memories of a few dozen dead clones had affected him.
“I didn’t—I need to see it again,” he said, rough. “Only caught enough to see it was Fives. Or, to see it was someone you killed.” He jerked his chin at Fox.
The backing plates creaked in Fox’s grip. “I don’t go around shooting my troops in the chest.”
“I know.” Vos released Davijaan’s shoulder and straightened; meet Fox’s eyes without the shield of a visor. “Give it to me.”
That didn’t seem like a good idea, at the moment. “Sir?” Davijaan stepped a little closer, putting himself slightly between Vos and Fox. “I can get you some water, and you can sit down, you don’t have to—”
“I said. Give it to me.”
He swallowed hard and took a step back. Vos ignored him, intent on Fox, on the gauntlet.
Fox’s eyes flicked over Davijaan’s face, but he offered up the gauntlet. Vos took it in both hands.
Davijaan watched him turn it around and around, studying smudged white and matte black, jaw clenched. The gold of his ring glinted in the stark overhead light. A sharp inhale hissed through his teeth. Davijaan watched every line and curve of the Jedi’s face twist into a warning, and caught the flicker of yellow in the corner of a brown eye as fingernails scraped against plastoid.
Wordless, he grabbed Fox’s wrist and dragged him out of range, out of the armor, out of the aisle. Fox allowed it until Davijaan dragged him out of the room, and then yanked them both to a halt in the hall.
“Why are we leaving him alone?” he demanded.
“So he can throw things around with the Force that are not us.”
“So he can destroy my storage room?”
“So we don't get strangled!”
Fox raised a single unimpressed eyebrow. Davijaan took a deep breath and reminded himself that Fox thought he was invincible, and Fox hadn’t seen Vos when he was drawing on the Dark. “Leave him alone for now. He'll clean it up whatever mess he makes. Probably.”
Fox twisted his wrist out of Davijaan’s grip and turned on his heel.
“If you scream, I'm not coming to save you!”
Fox flipped him off and walked past the storage room entrance, to his computer room. Another deep breath, a glance at the shadowed entrance, and Davijaan followed.
***
“He's not destroying anything,” said Fox, sour, flicking through camera feeds. “He's sitting. The gauntlet is levitating in front of his nose but that’s it.”
Not what Davijaan had expected, but as long as he left the storeroom intact, whatever Vos did was fine. He picked at the splintering edge of the broken crate he’d sat himself next to. “Can you see his face?”
“No. Not angled right.”
Probably too far away to see what color his eyes were, anyway. And there was always a chance they were closed.
A cut off sound of surprise drew Davijaan’s attention to Fox. Fascination was quickly overtaking scorn.
“What’s he doing?” Davijaan asked.
Not so much as a twitch in acknowledgment. Davijaan hauled himself to his feet and stomped over to the computer desk.
Vos sat on the floor crosslegged, back to the camera. The gauntlet was indeed levitating in front of him, but it had been joined by every other piece of armor they’d scattered around in their search.
For a moment Davijaan thought that was the end of the storage room, but, as they watched, helmets and vambraces and pauldrons detached one by one from the floating mass and stacked themselves neatly on the shelves, exactly where they’d been swept from.
Davijaan scoffed. “You’ve been watching him levitate things all week.”
Fox elbowed him in the side. And, he was right. Moving a crate across a room wasn’t the same as precisely re-shelving thirty full sets of armor. Still.
Davijaan returned to his crate, slouching down on the floor in a huff. “Told you he’d clean up after himself.”
“No, you said—That’s the last piece. He’s putting on his gloves. He’s standing.” Fox closed out the camera feeds. “Unless he’s planning to leave the building he’s headed here.”
Vos appeared in the open entryway as Fox finished shutting the computer down, brown eyes clear and shoulders slumped. Davijaan and Fox both straightened to attention, but he strode past them and laid the gauntlet carefully down on their makeshift table.
“It's mind control,” he said, voice still rough, but measured. “The biochips are mind control.”
Mind control.
Mind control?
Davijaan blinked. “We... already knew that?”
“Explain,” Fox demanded.
“I don't know everything.” Vos would not meet either of their gaze. “Fives didn’t know everything. He was drugged on the transport down, but he was focused enough to—Palpatine is more involved than I thought. The chips aren’t regulating hormones. They aren’t even active. When activated, they—” he broke off, hand clenching into a fist. Something almost pained, almost guilty, weighed his features.
“They inhibit the ability for higher thought. For decision making. For self-control,” Vos forced out. “They make it impossible to refuse an order. The Sith activates these chips and the whole GAR will be unquestionably under their control.”
Silence, shattering.
Davijaan felt another laugh building in his chest. “That’s it? That’s the evil Sith plot? Mind control?”
Beside him, Fox had gone still. Shoulders curved, balanced on the balls of his feet. “They’re not currently active?”
Vos still wouldn’t look at them. “No.”
“But you thought they were.”
“I thought… I thought Dr. Se was telling the truth. Some of the truth.”
“You thought clones were so bloodthirsty we had to have part of our brains switched off so we wouldn’t go around murdering Jedi.”
Davijaan flinched.
Finally Vos turned to face them, abrupt and anguished. “Every clone I’ve ever met has had this—this violent intent towards me, towards other Jedi. I’d almost convinced myself it was paranoia, and then I started investigating the Sith connection with your creation, and then Tiplar was shot point blank by a clone with a faulty chip.” He spread his hands, pleading. “As soon as I got the report on Fives’ death my initial theory fell apart, I knew there was something more going on, but—”
“But you still thought we were in on it.”
“The highest ranking officers, at least. It was the only explanation that fit what I knew. The Sith bought the clones and gave them to the Republic, to the Jedi. The Sith want the Jedi dead. How could you not be in on it?”
Once, Davijaan had been shot out of an orange and yellow sky, and the release for his viewshield had jammed. He’d been trapped inside the cockpit as his ship spun down to the surface for eleven breathless seconds before he kicked the glass out. Whatever he was feeling now was a lot like whatever he’d felt then; weightless and numb and utterly helpless.
Fox’s voice cut through the memory, poised to draw blood. “It never occurred to you that some of that violent intent is because you own us?”
Heart in his throat, he grabbed Fox by the cuirass and dragged him out of Vos’ face. “Stop. Don’t turn this into a fight. Please don’t turn this into a fight.”
Fox shook him off. “I want that thing out of my head.”
“Yes.” Grim, Vos turned to the entryway. “We’ll get them out. I’ll be back in two hours. Is it possible to access your medbay?”
“There will be a room ready.”
Vos left.
Fox stood in the center of the room and breathed, rage sharp in the line of his shoulders, in the set of his jaw.
He kicked the table over. The door crashed to the floor and splintered down the middle, the crates scraping against duracrete as they scattered.
He turned on his heel and stalked into the hall, beckoning Davijaan after him.
***
Once more Davijaan found himself sneaking through the dim halls of the CG building in the early hours of the morning, this time trailing Fox as he dodged his own patrols. This time there were too many thoughts whirling through his head to focus on any one of them.
Medical wasn’t bustling, but it wasn’t empty either. Fox lurked outside the open doorway until a clone in scrubs passed too close, and then darted forward and caught the poor medic by the arm and hauled him into the hall. The medic didn’t so much as stumble.
“Commander,” he said, mild, as he uncurled Fox’s fingers from his upper arm. “Good morning. How can I help you?”
“I need a room. A bed, surgical supplies, and a window.”
The medic gave Fox a quick once-over, raised an unimpressed eyebrow, and gave Davijaan the same treatment. “Are you going to tell me what for?”
“No.”
“Hm. Exam room three is empty. You know where the supplies are. Keep your voices down.”
The medic offered a sharp salute that conveyed casual disregard for his CO’s casual disregard of his person, and stepped back into the controlled chaos of medical.
Fox waited for a break in the flow, and led Davijaan into and through the crowd. They wove through curtained off cots to a supply closet and collected bandages and sheets and a sterilization solution.
The closet was the first of a long row of doors, flimsi labels denoting offices and exam rooms. Fox slunk into room three and locked the door behind Davijaan. Instead of grey, the walls were the stark white of every exam room he’d ever been inside. No cameras, and Fox’s quick but thorough bug sweep came up empty.
They set their supplies on a counter, and Davijaan went to work sterilizing the exam table. “How long?” he asked, nose wrinkling from the smell.
“He’s got an hour and a half left, if he bothers to come back.”
The single window was high on the wall and sported a yellowed shade, a wide sill, and three locks, two of which were recent additions. Fox unlocked it but left it closed.
Davijaan was no medic, but he’d gone through the standard first aid training. He knew how dangerous brain surgery was. He knew how dangerous field surgery was. He wanted to ask if Fox knew what the fuck he was doing but Fox had gone through the same training. Fox probably knew better than he did.
Vos came through the window five minutes shy of the two hour mark, a powered down medroid wrapped tight to his back. Shiny and spindly, a surgery specialist by the look of the hands. The thing wasn’t too happy when it woke up to realize it had been removed from the Jedi Temple.
“Jedi Vos,” it whined, high and pitched to set Davijaan’s teeth on edge. “I have patients to attend—”
“Come on S, this will only take a few hours, and you owe me.”
The droid met the Jedi’s pleading gaze unblinking and unfeeling. “Jedi Vos. This is a breach of our agreement. You were informed—”
“That I had to give you two days notice, yes, I know, but this is an emergency. Please, S?”
The droid’s thin glinting fingers clicked menacingly, but apparently its programming was up to standard. “What procedure do you wish me to perform, and on whom?”
“You’re going to take a chip out of my brain,” Fox cut in, and the droid’s attention swiveled to him.
Davijaan cringed as long silver legs stalked across the room, but Fox stood his ground.
“You are the patient?”
“Yes,” said Vos and Fox in unison.
“Very well. Sit down, and I will begin preparations.”
Fox sat on the edge of the exam table, not taking his eyes off the droid. A chest panel opened and a scanner extended, positioned over his head.
Vos watched. Shifted his weight. “If you need—”
“Get out,” Fox ordered.
He climbed back onto the window sill. “I’ll be around,” he threw over his shoulder, and between one second and the next he vanished into the dark.
Part of Davijaan wanted to follow, to leave this white room before it started to smell of bleach and bacta and blood.
“Don't let Vos in here until I’m up.”
“What?” He blinked back to himself to find Fox staring straight at him, scraping his knuckles against the table.
“Don’t let Vos come back in here until I can stand,” he said, hard.
“What if something happens?”
“This bucket of bolts will be able to do more than Vos can. Or would.”
The droid tried to poke him and Fox caught its arm with a snarl. “Don’t.”
“I suggest you refrain from insulting the surgeon about to cut into your thick skull,” it said, and if droids could be annoyed, this one would be.
Davijaan closed and locked the window, knowing thick glass and new locks would do nothing against a determined Jedi. The illusion seemed to make Fox feel better, some of his tension easing as Davijaan pulled down the shade.
Fox removed his upper body armor and grudgingly let Davijaan set it on the counter. From the back of the droid’s head, a thin wand extended, casting a harsh blue sterility field over Fox and the table.
“Lie down, please.”
With one final assessment of the door, the window, and the droid, Fox lay back, his gaze flicking to Davijaan before he closed his eyes. The droid pressed a hypo to the side of his neck, and he went limp. Not unconscious, not for brain surgery. Paralyzed.
The surgery lasted minutes. Davijaan forced himself to watch, knowing Fox would never forgive him if he didn’t. Vos’ droid worked smoothly, steadily, and precisely. He focused on what he was seeing—razor across skin, scalpel through flesh, laser through bone—and let the rest of the sounds and smells of surgery fade into the white space closing in around him.
He caught a glimpse of the chip as it was placed in a sample container. It looked like any other particle of brain matter.
When Fox’s head was stitched up and the boneknitter was doing its work, he inhaled, suddenly lightheaded. He gripped the edge of the table, and he hadn’t noticed himself stepping closer but now he stood at Fox’s feet, studying him for signs of life.
“Your friend’s oxygen levels, blood pressure, and body temperature have remained stable,” the droid said, folding away its knives and needles. “Do not be concerned.”
“I’m not.”
The droid made a low buzzing noise that almost sounded like displeasure.
The paralytic wore off all at once and Fox lurched upright, eyes wide. The droid caught him before he fell off the table. Fox shoved it away. The particular panic on his face was so familiar it was almost a comfort, if not for the strangeness of it over Fox’s features.
Cautious but quick, Davijaan sat beside Fox and took his wrist and squeezed. “You didn’t die. You’re fine.”
He didn’t get punched in the nose or pushed off the table for his efforts. Concerning, but a concern that could wait. The droid stayed out of reach as the boneknitter finished up, and Davijaan kept a tight hold on Fox’s arm as it taped a bandage over the stitches and did a final vitals check.
A scraping sound at the window; a boot against stone. The droid ignored it, busy packing up. Fox straightened, grimaced, and removed his arm from Davijaan’s hands. “Pass me the vambraces.”
Only when he was armored up to the neck and standing, braced against the table, did he nod for Davijaan to open the window. Vos slipped inside with an eerie grace and slid the window shut behind him.
Davijaan stationed himself next to the table, not sure if he intended to prevent Fox from trying to walk or Vos from trying to get close. To his relief, Vos hovered in front of the window.
“The surgery was successful?” he asked, glancing between his droid and Fox, brow furrowed. “I can feel…”
The droid buzzed a “Yes,” as Fox snapped, “Stop that.”
Vos winced. “Shouldn’t you be laying down?”
“Jedi Vos. You will return me to the Temple and to my patients.”
“Soon, S.” If a droid could pout, this one most certainly would. “How are you feeling, Commander?”
“Fine.”
“Liar. Are you dizzy? Nauseous? Enraged?”
“No more than usual.”
“Good.” Vos hesitated, and squared his shoulders. “And. I’m sorry.”
Fox ignored that. Vos nodded to himself, accepting the dismissal. “How long do we have this room for?”
“Until I give it back to my CMO.”
“Excellent. Oddball?” He turned his full attention to Davijaan, uncomfortably differential. “Do you want me here for yours?”
Davijaan startled. “Mine?”
“Your surgery. I can wait on the roof again, if that would make you more comfortable.”
“Why do I need to get the surgery?”
Silence.
All at once the attention of the entire room was on him, stunned and disbelieving. He resisted the urge to shuffle his feet. “What?”
Fox’s lip curled in disgust.
“Did you not hear the bit about mind control?” Vos asked, intent and a little bit frantic. “The Sith activating your chip and forcing you to follow their orders?”
“We don’t even know how they activate.”
“Which is why we shouldn’t take chances!”
Panic wrapped around his ribs like ice, like that first taste of the Dark. “You didn’t say I had to get the surgery! You never said—”
“I assumed—”
Fox took a step forward, leaving the stability of the table to snarl, “You’re a liability if you don’t get it out.”
“A liability?” He scoffed. “A liability for what? What is your brilliant plan to end the war? What role could you possibly have for me? What does any of this change?”
Fox opened his mouth, but Vos cut in. “If the Sith discover we’re on to them, then—”
“They could make me turn on you? As if I’m any kind of threat.”
“This isn’t about threats or liability! It’s about your control, your choices,” he insisted, all earnest concern. “You really want to run the risk they could be taken away?”
“My choices? My choices.” Davijaan was struck by a sudden and intense desire to punch Jedi General Quinlan Vos square in the jaw. “You are an idiot.”
For a split second Vos gaped, shocked. Something viciously satisfied sparked in Davijaan’s chest, and—and then the General collected himself; jaw snapped shut and eyes narrowed. “Oddball.”
And that low tone was a warning, that clenched fist was a threat, but he was too angry to care. He’d take being choked over being—
“I don’t want surgery,” he said, desperation making him loud, making him reckless. “I don’t want—” my head cut open and sewn back together, I don’t want pieces of my brain removed and examined, I don’t want that droid anywhere near me, I don’t want “—to have the surgery. I don’t want to! I don’t want to get brain surgery! Mind control.” A laugh or a scream forced its way out between clenched teeth. “That is the stupidest possible thing—fucking mind control. What difference does it make?”
Fox took three heavy steps across the room and gripped his shoulders, teeth bared. For a moment he thought Fox was going to rip his throat out. “You know as well as I do it makes every difference.”
“An order from a being with a lightsaber is an order from a being with a lightsaber.” No clone needed a damn control chip to ensure they followed orders. Whoever had the power had the control, and if the Sith had as much power as Vos feared, well. Mind control chips were a waste of a perfectly good plot.
“There is a difference between following orders from a superior officer and being an empty body for a Sith to puppet.”
“What difference? You’ve never made a single choice for yourself. None of us have. None of us can.”
“I chose not to kill you.” Fox sneered. “It was a pretty significant choice at the time.”
“And if you were ordered to kill me? Ordered to kill anyone?” Davijaan pressed his hand against the red center of Fox’s chestplate. “You would choose not to, and that would be that?”
Fox released him with the abruptness of a flinch. He stumbled, but suddenly Vos was across the room, not touching but holding him upright with an open hand.
“If it doesn’t make a difference, then get the surgery,” Fox demanded.
“No.”
“You’re getting that thing out if I have to hold you down myself.”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“No,” said the droid.
The attention snapped from Davijaan to the droid. It stood next to the table, observing.
Davijaan’s relief was swiftly replaced by suspicion, but the little metal thing whirred, and drew all of its arms together in front of its chest, almost as if it were crossing them, defensive. “I will not perform an invasive and unnecessary procedure on a patient who does not consent fully. Jedi Vos, you will return me to the Temple now.”
Vos studied the thing for a long, aching moment, and then turned to study Davijaan.
He tried not to tremble under the weight of that gaze. It felt like being looked through. Not the way a natborn looked through a clone as if they didn’t exist, but intent, knowing, like Vos was looking inside him. He breathed, and held steady, and tried not to think about everything the Jedi was probably sensing from him right now.
“Alright, S,” Vos said, mild. “Let's get you back to your ward.”
Fox hissed. “You’re not going to make him?”
“No. No, I am not.”
Slowly, carefully, with every dip and sweep of his hands visible, Vos lifted Fox a few inches into the air. Fox tensed, but Vos only floated him across the room and sat him gently on the table.
“You should get some rest, Commander.” A cupboard opened, and a stack of sheets drifted out and settled themselves by Fox’s hand. “Probably not a good idea to be walking so soon.”
“This is the line you won’t cross,” asked Fox, flat and disbelieving.
“I guess so. S?”
The droid walked primly across the room and allowed Vos to fold it up and tuck it into the wrap again, making a noise that sounded oddly like a long suffering sigh.
Half inside and half out, Vos paused on the window sill. “When I get back, we’ll discuss where to go from here. Until then,” he glanced between the two of them, seething in their separate corners, a smile or a grimace twisting the ribbon of his tattoo, “try not to kill each other.”
Vos left, and Davijaan stood with his back to the door and breathed and breathed and breathed and felt like he couldn’t get enough air. He felt like he did after a battle, surprised and triumphant and so exhausted he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stay on his feet. He felt—He wanted—
Fox shoved the sheets to the floor, stood, snatched up his helmet, and stalked out of the room without so much as a tremor, shouldering Davijaan aside.
Davijaan stayed in the quiet and kept breathing, and breathing, and breathing. Eventually his legs gave out and he ended up on the floor, still breathing.
If Vos had agreed with Fox about the chip being a liability, then—
The door hissed open behind him, and he jerked, stumbling to his feet. He turned and found the medic Fox had snagged. The CMO?
“Saw the Commander slip out, but didn’t see you,” the maybe CMO said, stepping inside and letting the door slide shut behind him. “You alright, soldier?”
Davijaan cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t look like he believed Davijaan, but that was fine, too.
“First shift is starting soon,” he said, apologetic. “If you’re not using it, I need the room back.”
“Of course.”
He tried to slide past, but the maybe CMO caught his arm and drew him to a halt. “Do you need anything? You don't look so good."
“No. Nothing.” He twisted his arm out of the loose grip. “I said I'm fine.”
“I can find the Commander for you? If you don’t know your way around, this place can be a bit of a maze.”
“I know where I’m going,” he lied, and marched out of the makeshift surgery suite and back into the grey.