Chapter Text
The Jedi were traitors.
The certainty of it, the rightness of it, settled over him like battlecalm. Of course the Jedi were traitors. Quinlan Vos was a traitor. He was plotting against the Supreme Chancellor, plotting against the Republic; plotting the destruction of everything the GAR had been created to defend. Vos was a Jedi, and loyal to the Jedi. So of course the Jedi were traitors.
Davijaan was a traitor too. He’d gone through so much trouble to rescue Vos, when the right thing to do would have been to leave him to his fate.
The Supreme Chancellor knew exactly how to handle traitors. But, Jedi were hard to kill. A squad of six loyal soldiers against three traitor Jedi were not good odds.
To prove his loyalty to the Republic—to right his wrong—Davijaan needed to help his brothers kill the Jedi.
Before that realization fully resolved he was standing, leaving the shuttle, marching across the landing pad. As he stepped out of the wind and into the climate controlled lobby Davijaan registered that he felt the weight of his boots but not the impact of his footsteps.
Inside Grand Medical the blueprints came back to him, clean and precise. Through the comm still in his hand came the faint zing of blasterfire and buzz of lightsabers. Someone was laughing. Someone was screaming. He could not feel the comm. He knew he was holding it by the sound traveling with him, the pressure against his palm, the space it took up in his fist.
The halls of Grand Medical were not white. They were pale yellow and pale green. They were as straight and uniform as the halls of Kamino. They were empty. He marched steadily from yellow to green to yellow and he could hear the thud of his footsteps and the hiss of his breath but he could not feel his legs rise and fall, could not feel his lungs expand and contract.
A crackle of electricity through the comm, and then it cut to static.
He was marching into a firefight. He didn’t have armor. He didn’t have a weapon, aside from the knife Fox had given him.
His body jolted to a halt. His view of the hall shifted as he crouched, and thick folds of wool pooled around his feet. The poncho would prove cumbersome in a fight. Restrict his movements. The weight across his shoulders lessened as he drew it over his head and discarded it.
Limbs free, he removed the sheath from his boot, and the knife from the sheath. When he stood he did not have the comm in his hand.
The hilt of the knife was a weight and shape unfamiliar to him. He held it like he’d seen Fox hold knives, clenched in a fist. The metal blade shone silver in the stark overhead lights.
He marched, and gradually the yellow and green were overtaken by grey. His attention was split between the blueprints, the hallway, and his fingers wrapped around the hilt. He adjusted his hold over and over and over. His hand was steady. He’d never killed anybody but it wasn’t any different from disabling a droid. Aim for the central processor. Aim for the heart.
An alarm went off. It grew louder as he approached the Supreme Chancellor’s wing.
Davijaan rounded a corner. At the far end of the hall an office door slid slowly open, smoke billowing out. In the grey-red haze figures moved. At least one was a clone. His pace picked up.
Before the door was fully open two figures charged out of the smoke, carrying a third between them. Fox and Vos, carrying Windu. They didn’t so much as glance at him. They set the unconscious traitor down against the wall, out of the smoke, and wordlessly rushed back inside.
If Fox was working with Vos, then he was another traitor to kill. If Fox was working with Vos, if they were free to rescue the rest of the traitors from the fire, then his brothers had failed.
Again Fox and Vos forced their way out of the smoke, carrying a soldier in battered and blackened armor. Davijaan was close, now. Close enough they both noticed him at the same time. Shock eclipsed Fox’s anger, Vos’ pain.
They staggered to a halt. Davijaan advanced.
“Oddball?” Vos ventured, voice rough from smoke or screaming. His eyes skipped from Davijaan’s face to his knife.
Fox had been stripped of his civilian clothes, down to his undersuit. Vos was missing his gloves. His gloves and his boots and most of his shirt. The remains of it hung open, exposing his chest.
Aim for the heart. From the corner of his eye he saw his hand raise the knife. Vos shuddered, twisted, and Davijaan drove the blade into the traitor’s shoulder.
Vos did not scream. Fox did, a sound of rage so sharp it cut through the alarm. Davijaan’s hand was steady as he tore the knife from Vos’ shoulder and adjusted his aim.
Vos shoved the soldier into Fox’s arms, sending them both toppling with a crash and a curse, and kicked Davijaan in the stomach. Davijaan felt his breath leave his body but caught the traitor’s leg; slashed at his thigh.
"Oddball. Oddball, let go of the knife,” Vos demanded, breathless, slipping his leg free of Davijaan’s hold and dancing backwards. “Let go!”
Davijaan opened his mouth to tell him to fucking shut up, and no sound came out. He lunged again for the traitor’s heart.
Davijaan stabbed and slashed. Vos dodged and re-directed. Davijaan managed to draw blood again, on his arm, but the traitor would not hold still and he would not strike back. Any time he touched Davijaan it was to push him away.
It wasn’t until they were circling each other halfway down the hall Davijaan realized Vos was leading him away from Fox, from the other traitors. But, he was starting to falter. He was bleeding from three places now, half his chest a vivid red. His breath hitched and stuttered. He reeked of smoke.
Davijaan darted forward. Vos leapt back. And then Vos stumbled, and coughed, harsh. Once he started he could not stop. He kept moving, unsteady, feet dragging, lungs heaving, eyes glazed with panic.
Forcing himself in close, Davijaan forced Vos back and back and back until he hit a wall. Davijaan wasn’t big enough to pin him, but he didn’t have to be. He only had to bury this knife in the traitor’s heart.
Vos threw himself to the side, but not fast enough, not far enough, and the blade sunk in under his clavicle. The fight left his body with a low groan.
Instead of freeing the knife—and risking Vos freeing himself—Davijaan braced an arm and shoulder against the traitor’s chest and dragged the knife down. Widening, deepening the wound. It would be slow, and painful, but this duty would be done.
“Please…”
At the softness of that sound Davijaan glanced up from the knife, up to the traitor’s face. Brown eyes met brown eyes, wide with terror. Something about those eyes and something about that terror made him feel—
A buzz, a click, and burst of heat against his hand. His grip on the hilt broke, the force of the shot sending him reeling. The clatter of metal against duracrete, and then sudden warmth against his back, around his neck, catching his left wrist and pinning it across his waist. Before he could get his feet under him he was hauled backward.
He had to get free of Fox and kill him, kill Vos, kill Windu and the other traitor clone. Davijaan knew he was fighting from the way his view of the hall shifted; his view of Vos, slumped against the wall, breathing hard and bleeding steadily. He had to get free. He had to kill the traitors.
He couldn’t grip anything with his right hand, it slid uselessly against the arm around his neck. He couldn’t make the back of his head connect with Fox’s nose. The solid warmth of Fox’s limbs held firm, all tangled up with the void where Davijaan’s body used to be.
A deep, shuddering breath and Vos straightened, one hand braced against the wall and the other curled into a fist. Davijaan felt Fox’s breath catch.
“A little help?” Fox snapped, and he sounded angry but Davjaan knew he was scared. He should be. Davijaan wanted to tell him he was going to die for this betrayal, but he couldn’t make his mouth work either.
When Vos lifted his head his eyes were hard, but they were still brown, and that meant he was still a traitor.
“Hold him still,” the traitor demanded, and Davijaan writhed.
Fox lurched as Davijaan’s boot came down on his bare foot. “I can’t!”
A muscle in Vos' jaw twitched. The fist opened and closed. “If I try to—I don’t know—”
“Dark or Light, does it matter!”
Vos snarled, and flung out a hand, and—something scalding coiled up from Davijaan’s ankles to his neck; burning pressure cupping his nape like a brother’s hand.
Fox’s hold went slack, and then tightened. Not restraining, bracing. He heard his breathing pick up.
Vos left the wall and advanced, leaving red footprints on the grey floor. He raised one hand and pressed a red palm to Davijaan’s forehead, and the burning seeped through his skin and flesh to his bones. Fox adjusted his hold again and Davijaan knew his body was shaking.
Vos’ lips moved in a soundless mantra. His eyes slid closed.
In his head, something snapped. A burst of pain bright behind his eyes, and Davijaan fell back into his body with a scream.
Everything burned. Every muscle, every joint. His hand—
Vos sank to his knees, gasping, and Fox and Davijaan followed.
Davijaan screamed until he remembered how to stop. Then he rolled off of Fox onto his hands and knees and choked up bile. The alarm was still going off, shrill and urgent and it hurt, it hurt his ears and the smoke stung his eyes and his throat was raw and he wasn’t sure if the wetness on his cheeks was Vos’ blood or his own tears.
Before he could collapse face-first into his sick Fox looped an arm around his waist and hauled him up and more or less upright, and more or less into his lap.
“You idiot,” he hissed, clutching Davijaan to himself, fingernails pinpricks of pain on his side and arm. “You absolute fucking moron. I told you. I told you! You hollow-chested, empty-bucket, shiny-ass—”
“Wasn’t any worse than surgery,” he said, muffled into Fox’s chest.
Fox’s grip tightened. “I’ll kill you,” he said, conversational.
Davijaan giggled, high and hysterical. “That would take care of the problem, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ll cut it out of your head myself.”
“Should have aimed higher, put us both out of our misery.”
“Nobody is killing anybody,” Vos interrupted. “Nobody is dying. That is an order.”
He did not want to look at Vos.
Carefully, slowly, he eased himself out of Fox’s arms. Fox let him go without resistance. It hurt to move but he could kneel. He could stand, if he had to. He did not want to look at his right hand either, but he caught a glimpse of the charred remains of his trigger and middle fingers on the floor as he sat, leaning against the same wall as his General; as he settled the mutilated hand on his thigh. He’d never been so glad to be in pain.
Vos was still bleeding. As Davijaan watched from the corner of his eye the Jedi breathed in, and out, and the blood trickling down his chest from around the hilt slowed, and stopped.
Vos opened his eyes and he did not look at Davijaan. “Fox,” he rasped. “The fire.”
“Fuck.” Fox shot to his feet, and then hesitated. He glanced between Davijaan and the smoke-dark doorway to the office. “Fuck.”
Davijaan braced his good hand against the wall and managed to lever himself up. “I can—”
“Sit.” Fox shoved his shoulder and broke his concentration. His tailbone hit the floor with jarring agony. “You,” he jabbed his finger at Vos, “watch him. And you,” he shook his fist at Davijaan, “watch him. Watch each other.”
Fox turned on his heel and charged down the hall, away from the fire and the wounded and towards help. Davijaan watched him vanish around the corner and breathed.
He still couldn’t look at Vos, not directly, and he could tell Vos wasn’t looking at him.
He swallowed. Forced his mouth to open, forced his lips to form words. “I’m—”
“Don’t. Please.”
Davijaan nodded, blinking as the walls blurred. He was crying again. Or maybe he hadn’t stopped. He wasn’t sure when he’d started.
“The bleeding?” he asked, tentative.
“I’ve got it. Just takes some concentration.”
He nodded again.
Inside the office something shattered. Something creaked and groaned and crashed. The roar of the fire was starting to make itself known over the blare of the alarm. Davijaan wanted to ask if Palpatine was dead, or if he’d escaped. He wanted to ask if there had been more survivors his attack had prevented them from saving.
Davijaan sat just out of Vos’ reach and shook. He pressed his good hand against his side and felt his ribs curl around his lungs, under his skin, savored the grey and bitter taste of smoke on his tongue, and waited.
***
Fox returned with buzzing security droids and frantic medical staff and almost a dozen Jedi, terrifying in their grim intensity as they swept down the hall towards him.
Vos was levitated onto a cot, and pressure was put on his wounds. Davijaan did not pay attention to what was done to Windu or the clone, or how the fire was put out, or to Fox.
When he stumbled outside, out on the landing pad, leaning heavily on the arm of a strange Jedi, the false sun was rising. It was the first star he had seen in a month.
***
Palpatine was dead. Vos had killed him.
***
That first day Vos, Windu, and Fox’s salvaged CT spent submerged in bacta. Fox almost got dunked too, but argued himself into bedrest and an oxygen mask instead.
Davijaan received a standard post-combat check and a brain scan, and then watched closely as a Jedi medic cleaned and treated and properly bandaged his hand, annoyed the lost fingers hadn’t been recovered and could not be re-attached. Probably some maintenance droid was cleaning up roasted clone fingers that very second.
It had taken a full three years to get something shot off. He’d started to think he would be one of the lucky few. At least it was only fingers. He still had most of his hand. He could still fly.
***
The first night, Davijaan and Fox were assigned a shared room in the Temple. Neither of them spent more time inside than it took to wash and change into the soft brown tunics they’d also been provided with, both marching straight back to the medbay as soon as they were clean.
Davijaan didn’t know what had happened to his poncho and didn’t know who to ask; was too ashamed to ask.
***
The second day Windu was awake and aware and asking for reports, and Fox insinuated himself into sorting out the aftermath, as wary and sharp with Windu as he’d been with Vos.
Davijaan gave his report. Formal and in full this time, numb, half-expecting to be charged with treason for lying by omission, for knowingly endangering the life of his commanding officer, for attempting—for any of the choices he’d made in the last three days. But, when he finally came to the end of it, Windu only dismissed him with a tired wave of his hand.
***
The second night, as they both gave in to exhaustion and collapsed into the too soft bunks in their room, Davijaan realized Fox had not spoken a word directly to him since they’d arrived at the Temple.
***
The third day, Vos came out of bacta.
The only one in the recovery room was Davijaan. The medic wasn’t due for a vitals check for another hour. He froze as Vos’ breath hitched, as he blinked, fingers curling into the white blanket. When Vod had been placed in the cot the medic had slipped thin cloth gloves on his hands, a brown a few shades darker than his skin.
For a time Vos stared at the ceiling, breathing labored, gloved hand flexing. The monitor beeped steadily. Finally Vos groaned, and dragged the hand up to his chest to feel over the bandage covered stitches. Seemingly satisfied with their state, he braced the hand on the cot and levered himself upright, clear brown gaze skimming over the monitor, the pale green walls, the door, the window, and landing squarely on Davijaan.
“Hi,” he said, voice scratchy and strained.
Davijaan cleared his throat. “Hello.”
At least the General didn’t seem disgusted or angry to find Davijaan here. He’d stay until he was told to leave.
There was a glass of water on the little table between his chair and Vos’ cot. The medic had left it for Davijaan. He hadn’t touched it. He nudged the glass closer to Vos, who stared at it, uncomprehending. After a moment he frowned and picked it up, hand trembling. He drank the water slowly.
He tried to float the empty glass away, but his concentration broke, or something. Davijaan jolted and caught the glass before it could shatter, setting it gently back on the table.
Vos grimaced. Moving stiffly, he adjusted the pillows against the headboard and leaned back with a sigh. “How is Fox?”
Davijaan managed not to squirm. “He’s fine.”
“Really?” Vos’ brow furrowed in concern. “He’s not in bacta?”
“No. He’s fine,” Davijaan said. And he was fine; he was back to his usual paranoid and horrible self.
“Alright… And how are you?”
Davijaan had his misshapen hand tucked in a pocket and intended to keep it there. “I’m fine too.”
“Good.” Vos’ eyes fell to where Davijaan’s wrist disappeared into folds of fabric, but didn’t linger. “How long was I out?”
“Two days.”
He nodded, taking that in. “I assume it’s hit the news, then.”
“What has?”
The hand resting on the blanket clenched into a fist. “Palpatine’s death. The fire. The whole Sith Lord thing. How is it being spun?”
“Windu has a team managing everything. 1010 is involved.”
“The chips? The GAR? The war?”
“Haven’t been informed.” He’d stationed himself in Vos’ room to keep watch, and for the most part he’d been left alone. The only thing he knew for sure was that the war was not over. Lingering in the hall after giving his report he’d heard something about contacting officers, new strategies, new efforts for peace, and then something about testing the chip’s activation parameters. That was when he’d left. “1010 is involved in all that too.”
“Well if Fo—1010 is taking charge, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Definitely not.”
He wanted to ask what had been done to them, in those few hours Palpatine had them, for Vos to come to know Fox’s name. He could guess, from the electric burns across chest and shoulders Fox had re-bandaged the previous evening, pretending not to notice Davijaan staring. He wanted to ask why Vos didn’t have any.
Vos sunk deeper into his pillows, loose black locs slipping across the white covers, wheezing slightly. Davijaan was supposed to alert the medic if he woke up, a buzzer placed on the table beside the now empty glass. The medic would have more information, or be able to summon someone who did. But, when the medic arrived he might be asked to leave. He wanted to stay.
Before the silence could become heavy, he asked, “Can I apologize now?”
Vos groaned. He shifted onto his side to look Davijaan in the eye. “You don’t need to apologize, Oddball. This is not your fault.”
“It is,” Davijaan insisted, low.
Vos’ eye twitched. “Did you want to stab me?”
“I wanted to punch you, most of the time.”
“Oh I know. I deserved it.”
“That’s not why it’s my fault.”
At that, Vos went still. His eyes moved from Davijaan’s face to the side of his head. “You haven’t…?”
“... No.”
The first day, after the brain scan, Fox had tried to argue one of the medics into sedating Davijaan and just—doing it. She had flatly refused and almost threw Fox out of the medbay entirely when he kept insisting. That was about when Fox had stopped looking at him.
“What I did... I didn’t destroy it. Only isolated it. It has to come out,” he said, soft, almost apologetic.
Davijaan grit his teeth. “I know.”
The surgery was safe. He’d watched it happen. If Fox could go through with it, so could Davijaan. He would be fine. It wouldn’t kill him. It wouldn’t even hurt. He’d had surgery before, more than once. Clones usually had several growing up, some routine and some for repair. He’d survived it then and he could survive it now.
It would be easier if Vos would make it an order. If somebody would tell him: “This is going to happen to you,” so he wouldn’t have to think about if he wanted it to happen or not. And maybe he hated Vos, for deciding this was the line he would not cross. Vos, and Windu, and the medic. Because it wasn’t about what Davijaan wanted at all—it was about what the Jedi wanted from him.
But, Vos didn’t say anything more about it. He let his eyes slide closed, let his body go limp. Davijaan watched his chest rise and fall, listened to the monitor beep. After a moment he said, “I’m supposed to get the medic to check your vitals.”
Vos shrugged, one shoulder sliding up and down the pillow. “Not in a hurry to get poked and prodded.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
His eyes remained closed, but the corner of his mouth twitched up. “I don’t mind if you stay.”
That was not a yes or a no, but it was closer to a yes than a no, so Davijaan stayed.
Vos did not fall asleep again. He lay on the cot and every twitch of his eyelids and shift of the blanket and blink of the monitor insisted he was alive. Davijaan’s palms were damp and he knew it was only sweat but he had to fight the urge to check and make sure he hadn’t smeared red all over the pale wood chair.
“It’s Sidious' fault, if it’s anybody’s fault,” Vos said, and the abruptness of his voice shocked Davijaan back into the present. “My fault, a little bit, for being naive enough to believe I’d gotten away with betraying the Sith. For believing I was safe on Coruscant. The consequences always come when you stop expecting them.”
Maybe he would never be told what had happened during the hours they’d been in Palpatine’s hands, but he was starting to get an idea of a trap within a trap; a plot within a plot. Davijaan swallowed. “Were you ever—controlled, like with the inhibitor chip, when you were with the Sith?”
Vos’ eyes fluttered open, but he didn’t look at Davijaan. He stared up at the ceiling. “No,” he finally said. “Sith don’t take apprentices because they need puppets, they take apprentices because... Because the same reason they do everything. They want to cause pain.”
Davijaan hadn’t been hurt much, really. If Fox hadn’t shot him he would have come out of it entirely intact. When considered as a modification for expensive, perfect soldiers, the inhibiting aspect of the chip was not a terrible idea. A soldier that could not feel pain would be impossible to torture. And, removing pain from the battlefield would be useful. Pain was one of the few human weaknesses clones retained.
He used to be jealous of Kote’s ability to go out of his body when he didn’t want to be aware of what was being done to it. Now, thinking about not feeling something as it happened was—
Was not something he wanted to think about.
“Why did you agree to the undercover mission?” Davijaan asked. “You weren’t ordered. You could have said no.”
“Would you have said no, if your family was on the line?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated, but probably he owed the full story to Vos, at this point. “When I said I wasn’t a traitor… I guess I meant it about my brother.”
Admitting that out loud was a quick and easy way to get executed for treason, but Vos smiled. “Cody?” he asked.
“Cody,” he confirmed. “He assigned me to your mission because he didn’t trust you, and he trusted me to keep an eye on you. I was supposed to find a way to warn him if you turned traitor. But he didn’t ask, he ordered.”
The GAR was operating under a partial comms blackout. Essential transmissions only. Even if he’d been able to, he wasn’t sure he was ready to talk to Kote yet. There was—too much.
Or maybe he was a coward.
Vos’ smile faded, and Davijaan’s stomach twisted. But, instead of demanding why Cody had felt entitled to go behind Kenobi’s back and spy on him, Vos sighed, and said, “I’m sorry we dragged you into this mess.”
And with that, all traces of fear vanished.
“What an utterly pointless thing to say.” Davijaan glared. Apparently three days of worry were sufficient to forget how annoying Vos was, especially when he wasn’t trying to be annoying. “I wasn’t dragged into anything, you absolute—It’s your job to issue orders. It’s Cody’s job. It’s my job to follow them. That’s how rank works. I’m not saying—I just don’t know what I would do, if I had a choice about any of this.”
Vos blinked, and opened his mouth to say something even more annoying, and—
“Don’t bother,” said Fox.
Davijaan almost fell out of his chair.
“You can’t argue with that kind of stupid,” Fox continued, and Davijaan managed to twist around enough to direct his glare to where Fox leaned in the half-open doorway.
Vos sat up—too fast, judging by his muffled hiss—and looked Fox up and down with open relief. “Oddball says you’re doing fine?”
“I’m always fine.” Before Vos could ask the questions he clearly wanted to ask, Fox turned his attention to Davijaan. “The medic is on her way. I would leave if I were you, unless you want to get yelled at.”
He stood without thinking, mostly from the shock of being directly addressed after days of silence. And then hesitated. Jedi medics didn’t seem to yell much. Sure, he’d been given very clear instructions and had not followed them, but he could always blame Vos.
“It’ll be a standard post-bacta check-up,” Vos said, easing himself back down into his pillows. “Been through a dozen of them. You don’t have to stay.”
That was a dismissal, even if it wasn’t direct.
“Not sure how long I’ll be in here, but you’re welcome to visit,” Vos added. “You and—Both of you.”
Davijaan nodded, not sure if he wanted to visit or not when Vos was awake but not wanting to refuse outright.
His escape was blocked by Fox, still stationed in the doorway and now staring Vos down. Davijaan glanced between them and discovered it wasn’t only Fox. They were staring each other down; Fox’s eyes narrowed and Vos’ wide and hopeful.
Davijaan took a careful step back.
After several tense, silent seconds Fox rolled his eyes. “Fine. You can call me Fox.”
Vos’ pitiful attempt at pleading disappeared in a wide grin. “Well in that case, Fox, you should call me Quinlan.”
“Hm.”
Fox snagged Davijaan’s wrist and dragged him out the door and down the hall as footsteps began to approach from the other direction.
Once they turned a corner Fox released Davijaan’s wrist. His pace slowed as he reoriented himself, thinking through the shortest route back to the assigned room. To his surprise, Fox’s pace slowed to match. Instead of vanishing he seemed content to keep step with Davijaan back to their room.
Out of the corner of his eye he studied Fox as they walked, passing the odd Jedi but for the most part quietly making their way through pale brown halls. If Fox was in pain, he was hiding it well.
Davijaan was pretty sure the reason he’d been allowed to know Fox’s name was because Kote and Wolffe hadn't liked the way they fought. It had been a gesture towards civility for their brothers more than anything to do with Davijaan. And, Fox had been a bit more open about his name in the early days of command track. They all had. It had been the first time they’d been able to use them outside of the barracks.
“Palpatine knew my name,” Fox said, shattering the easy silence.
Davijaan stumbled. “What?”
“He was waiting for us.” Fox didn’t look at him, didn’t slow down. Now Davijaan was the one adjusting to match his pace. “Trapped us in a ray shield. Congratulated us on getting as far as we did, and called me Commander Fox, and that was when I knew we were fucked.”
“Huh.” If he’d had to guess which one would share bits and pieces, he would have guessed Vos. But, Fox wasn’t sharing for the sake of sharing. It was almost as if... “You could have told Vos not to use it. He might not understand, but he’d listen, probably.”
Fox did not respond. Davijaan huffed. “Do you even have anybody in the CG who uses your name? Anybody at all beside Kote and Wolffe?”
Fox did not respond to that either, and for a moment Davijaan thought he was going to be ignored all the rest of the way back to their room. But then, without a pause in his step or a shift in his voice, he said, “Thorn.”
“Thorn?” The name sounded familiar, he knew he’d heard it recently. Probably someone Fox worked with closely, probably an officer, maybe even a commander—Oh.
He returned his focus to walking. Neither of them spoke again.
The Jedi Temple was massive, all long halls of brown stone and arched windows, but because it was massive some attempts had been made to reduce travel time. They took a lift, walked down another hall, and were at their outdated wooden door.
Pushing past Davijaan, Fox strode inside, going straight to his bunk and collecting a brown bundle from atop the neatly folded blanket. Davijaan had barely stepped past the doorway when Fox shoved the bundle against his chest. “Here.”
Davijaan sputtered, fumbling to catch it with one hand. “What are you—What...?”
It was his poncho.
Carefully, slowly, he slid his right hand out of his pocket and got a two-handed grip, and shook out the folds of wool. It smelled faintly of smoke, but it was whole.
“Fox...” He couldn't ask how Fox had found it. “Thank you.”
When he looked up from the poncho he found Fox looking at his bandaged hand, face blank. “Fox?”
“I couldn't risk you pulling the knife out. Or shoving it in deeper,” he said, defensive.
“I understand.”
Fox nodded, a single sharp jerk of his head. And that was all the apology Davijaan was going to get.
The corner of his mouth curled up in a smirk. “You don’t have to be nice to me because you feel guilty.”
Fox punched him in the sternum.
Davijaan doubled over, wheezing and laughing so hard he almost dropped his gift on the floor.
Fox stalked to the door. Before he could disappear, Davijaan pulled himself together and called, “I touched your computers!”
“I noticed.” The door slammed.
Davijaan collapsed onto his bunk with the poncho in his arms and laughed himself to sleep.