Chapter Text
Davijaan woke to the scent of burning.
Rough hands were grabbing at his arms, yanking him up and out of the wreckage of his ship. His head spun, and he opened his eyes expecting to see the blue and white of 501st troopers– they should have gotten off the ridge General Skywalker had said they were off the ridge but who else was close enough– and found himself blinking in the glare of the Umbaran Militia’s illuminated visors.
Lovely, he thought as he was hauled to his feet, and then a wave of dizziness and nausea pulled him under.
***
He woke up again as two Umbaran soldiers dragged him by the arms down a set of stairs. He’d been stripped of his armor and weapons, and each thump of his legs against stone sent jagged bolts of pain through his head. He grit his teeth and forced himself to breathe.
“Hey, it’s awake,” said a voice from over his left shoulder. “Shift around.”
He was hauled onto his feet and frog-marched down the rest of the stairs and into a dimly lit hall. He tried to get a look around but the brightness of the ray-shields after the dark stairwell made it difficult to make out more than the spacing of the cells and the looming shape of a guard.
“What’s this?” the guard asked.
“New prisoner,” responded the voice on his left. “One of the Republic’s clones. The Colonel will want to talk to it, but for now we need to stash it.”
“Don’t have an empty cell, but I–”
“Then find one that isn’t as full, bugs for brains!”
“Hmph. No need to be snappish. This way.”
The frog-marching started up again, but he couldn’t keep his feet under him, and the bastards started twisting his arms up in knots trying to get him to move faster. He was tempted to tell them they might as well tow him by the ankles for all the difference it made, but he was pretty sure if he opened his mouth he’d throw up.
Stars, he hated crash landings.
They came to a lurching halt, the buzz of a ray-shield fizzed into nothing, and he was thrown on his face on cold, hard stone. A flash of sky-blue caught in the corner of his eye before the world went dark again.
***
When he woke for the third time, he was arranged on his side on something soft. He lay still for a long while, eyes closed, trying to remember what had happened and where he was.
The Umbara campaign. Bombing the ridge. Shot down just as he cleared it by one of those damn hover tanks. Not dead. Captured by the local militia and taken… somewhere… and shoved in a cell. A Colonel was going to come “talk” to him at some point.
That was fine. Absolutely fine. Kote would come as soon as he realized his shadow was missing.
Might take him a minute, what with storming the Umbaran capital. But he would come. Davijaan was an officer and a damn good pilot; someone had to come. If they didn’t…
Don’t think about it.
Cloth rustled on the other side of the cell.
Davijaan rolled up into a crouch before he remembered that he’d fallen out of the sky a short while ago and his body wasn’t happy about it. And right, he hadn’t been put in an empty cell. Freezing absolutely still so he didn’t do something ridiculous like throw up or pass out yet again, he studied his cellmate.
The natborn civilian sitting against the far wall studied him back.
She– maybe? he wasn’t great at guessing gender but “she” seemed a safe bet– was of a similar height to him, and sturdy built. She was Pantoran, with her dark blue hair and light blue skin, and the row of three interlocking gold rings tattooed across each of her cheekbones. She wore some kind of matching jacket and pants outfit that looked like it had started out nice but was now rather worse for wear.
As his stomach settled he sat, surprised to find the soft thing he’d been lying on was a worn pallet. Thoughtful of those bastards to toss him on the pallet instead of the floor. Except he remembered hitting the floor…? Eh, he’d probably been too out of it to register details.
The cell was small, maybe three meters by three meters, stone except for the ray-shield that acted as a barrier to the hall. It was dimly lit, which was a relief for his eyes. There was a bucket in the corner, the single bare pallet he was sitting on, and an empty tray that must have held food at some point. All in all, not the worst place he’d spent time in.
Once he was settled he forced his face to relax into a smile. Tentatively, the civilian smiled back.
Kote would come eventually. And in the meantime, Davijaan wasn’t alone.
Which was just fantastic, actually, because that meant instead of sulking in a corner and baiting the guard by turns he was going to have to keep up what Kote called his “civilian smile.”
Most clones had learned quickly during their first leave that civilians were– if not outright terrified– highly suspicious of clones. Things had changed a bit as clones became a more common sight in the lower levels, either bar hopping on leave or patrolling the streets in Corrie Guard red, but the underlying fear was still there, if better hidden. Most clones had learned just as quickly that the best way to put civilians at ease was to smile.
Davijaan had lots of practice smiling.
Which was going to come in handy, because he really needed this particular civilian to be at ease around him considering the length of time they would potentially be sharing this cell.
“Hello, ma’am,” he offered, trying to sound friendly and non-threatening instead of grumpy and disoriented. “Sorry about all that. You just startled me.”
She rewarded him with a wave, and didn’t correct the “ma’am,” so that had probably been a good guess.
“Hello. Um. That’s ok.” She tilted her head, taking him in. “Are you…?”
“A clone? Yes.” He batted his eyelashes. “Whatever gave it away?”
She blinked. “Well I was going to ask if you were alright– you were out for a long time– but. That’s good to know.”
She sat up from her slouch against the wall, studying him more intently. He braced himself. “Huh. The only footage in the news has you all in full armor. You're shorter than I expected.”
He snorted. “I’ll be sure to file a complaint with the manufacturer on your behalf.”
“Shit! That was unbelievably rude,” she sputtered, cheeks flushing, waving her hands as if to fan away her words. “It just slipped out, I’m so sorry! I promise I usually think before I speak, it’s just been a really long week. I’m– I’m Loren.”
“I go by Odd Ball.”
She relaxed a bit, and her smile returned. “Nice to meet you, Odd Ball.”
“Pleasure’s all mine.”
He scooted off the pallet and leaned against the wall, the cold stone against the back of his skull doing wonders for his head. “Long week, eh? Seems like a bit of an understatement.”
Something in her face shifted, the lingering embarrassment and concern disappearing in favor of indignant frustration. “Oh, you have no idea.”
Aha. There we go.
Civilians loved to talk about themselves. All he had to do was ask questions and supply the correct listening noises and he could just sit still and regain his equilibrium until she talked herself out.
“I’m sure it’s quite the story. You seem like you’re a long way from home.”
Apparently that was all the nudging she needed, because she threw her hands up, furious. “So I’m with the Coruscant News Network, see? And as soon as we got news of Senator Deechi’s death– and we get news like that immediately, in my office– my boss told me to get my ass to Umbara and report on the senatorial election, and work on a spec piece about planetary and galactic political overlap, and I figured I’d spend a day wandering around in the dark and whip up twelve hundred words of war-related drivel and be done with it! But no! Because just as we entered atmo we got news of the election results and the withdrawal and the Separatists fleet!”
Davijaan coughed, trying to stifle a laugh. She wasn’t a half-bad storyteller. A passionate one, at least. Maybe it came with her job.
She shot him a mock glare, hands on her hips. “Do you think this is funny?”
“A little bit.”
“Well, it’s not,” she said, decisively. “Because apparently, according to my esteemed pilot, it was too late to turn back– he had some ridiculous notion about refueling– and we had to land. So we landed. And we hadn’t taken two steps off the damn ship before we were arrested! On charges of espionage! Do I look like a spy to you!?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I have a press pass!”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Anyway.” She slumped back against the wall with a huff. “I’ve been here for a week, I think. Stuck in this cell. Just. Waiting.”
He nodded, and when it became apparent she’d said what she wanted to say he switched tracks. “Are we in the capital?”
If they were in the capital, then the 212th was already outside the gate, and it was just a matter of waiting.
“Yup.” Well then. That was one problem solved. “We docked at the landing port just outside the city proper. That damn pilot is probably in one of these cells, goddess bless him.”
“Wow. Damn him and bless him in the same breath.”
“I have a fickle heart.”
Davijaan did laugh at that, though it sent new spikes of pain through his temples, and she smiled grimly from her corner of the cell. “I have nothing against him. He was perfectly lovely for the whole flight. I just wish I’d been able to convince him to turn around.”
“Well,” he cleared his throat. “If he needed to refuel before he made another jump, he probably didn’t have a choice.”
“I know. But I could have told him how to jerry-rig his hyperdrive to get the most out of the remaining fuel. Maybe it wouldn’t have been enough to get us back to Republic space, but maybe it would have.”
“A reporter and a mechanic? I’m impressed.”
“Oh, hardly. My mother’s a pilot, that’s all. I grew up around ships.”
“Huh.”
He’d never met a civilian pilot, but all of a sudden the concept felt a bit more real. Loren’s mother was a pilot. Somewhere in the galaxy was a woman who maybe had blue skin and gold tattoos and was a pilot. Not because of the war, just. Because.
He cleared his throat, focusing back on the situation at hand. “So you’ve been here for a week. What kind of schedule do the guards keep?”
***
The rest of the afternoon passed like that; Loren sharing what she’d observed of the schedule and the guards, and then with some prodding describing the article she would have written about the situation if she hadn’t been arrested. She asked once more if he was alright, but Davijaan waved her off. By the time their evening rations were dropped off he was feeling as well as he figured he ought to be, and happily ate his portion. It tasted just about the same as GAR rations.
The lights never dimmed, but Loren started flagging shortly after they’d finished the rations, and he insisted she take the pallet and try to sleep. She gave in eventually. He spent the night dozing in the farthest corner, his undersuit keeping him plenty warm.
The morning started much the same, with divvying up rations and attempting to get her started talking again.
In stark (and baffling) contrast to the day before, she put up steady resistance.
“It isn’t very interesting, and besides, I spent hours talking about myself yesterday,” she said, sheepish, in response to a question about her work. “And I am sorry about that. I was nervous, and I tend to ramble when I’m nervous, and– Oh shit, I’m doing it again. Anyway. How did you end up in here?”
For a moment all Davijaan could do was gape at her, and he was saved from having to either come up with an answer or redirect a very direct question by the arrival of two guards.
“The Colonel's very excited to see you,” Bastard No. 1 sneered as he tightened a set of cuffs around Davijaan’s wrists to the point of bruising.
He bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Is that supposed to be an intimidation tactic? No wonder the GAR’s walking all over you if this is the best the famed Umbaran Militia has to offer.”
No. 1’s face twisted in fury, and he balled up a fist that was clearly intended for Davijaan’s nose, but Bastard No. 2 caught his wrist.
“Wait,” he said, cold and inevitable, and Davijaan barely hid his flinch.
***
As he was forced to kneel and let them chain his ankles loosely to the floor in the center of a musty room– a handy drain just behind him– he did a very good job of not thinking about the various objects laid out on a table. Mostly because the Colonel was the most terrifying thing in the room.
He was taller than Bastards 1 and 2, and wore the standard black Umbaran armor like it was a second skin. His face was as unreadable as the helmet he’d set aside as he stood in front of Davijaan, looking at him but not really looking at him.
Davijaan breathed deep and even and regarded him calmly. He’d known exactly what was going to happen. He’d trained for this. He could face this.
The Colonel didn’t speak until the Bastards finished and settled at attention on either side of their prisoner. His voice was scratchy and thin and set Davijaan’s teeth on edge.
“I know from the ship you were in and from the markings on your armor that you are an officer, and so I will assume you can respond intelligently to questioning.”
“Thanks,” said Davijaan, dry.
“I am not concerned with the GAR’s strategy, and don’t have time to waste,” he continued in the same steady tone, not even registering the interruption. “So I will keep my request simple. I need you to tell me what the GAR knows about the settlements surrounding our capital city.”
“No can do, unfortunately. That questions’ a bit too complex for my tiny clone brain to respond to intelligently.”
The Colonel raised a brow, surprised. The corner of his mouth twitched. “Hm. Yes, I believe it might be.”
He gave a sharp nod. Bastard No. 1 punched Davijaan in the mouth, and his head snapped to the side.
Head spinning, pulse thudding in his ears, he forced himself to face forward and met the Corporal's gaze, and smiled; slow and bright and bloody.
“That’s what you’re starting with? I’m disappointed by the unoriginality, sir, really,” he said, and braced himself for the next blow.
***
The Bastards brought him back to the cell, eventually, minus most of the skin off his back. But that was alright. That was fine. He was still alive, and still conscious even.
Loren gasped and dropped to her knees beside him where he’d been thrown on his face, hands sort of fluttering over his back. Even the movement of the air stung, and he had to suppress some hysterical giggles. Wouldn’t do to scare the civilian any further, no sir.
“Are you– are you–”
“Alright? Um. Not really. I think I’d better–” he tried to get his arms under him and bit his tongue as white-hot pain flared from his shoulders to his hips.
“Need to sit,” he managed to force out.
They hadn’t bothered to take his uppers off properly, just cut right straight through to the skin. It dulled the edge of the blade. Infection was more or less inevitable, but staying in the same sweaty, grimy undersuit would absolutely make it worse.
She reached for him again, hands steady this time, and didn’t shy away from the blood as she helped him up. Once he was sort of situated, sitting cross legged with one hand braced against the wall, he plucked uselessly at the hem of his uppers, fingers too stiff to get a grip.
“Do you– do you need to get that off?”
He stilled. “...Yes.”
Her hands were cool and smooth– so different from a clone’s calloused palms– as they carefully slipped his uppers over his head, guiding his arms out of the sleeves and pausing every time he winced. She kept up a whispered litany of some kind, but he was too out of it to pay attention.
When the tattered remains were tossed unceremoniously in a corner, he gathered himself enough to ask, “Water?”
“A little. I was saving it for– Are you thirsty?”
“Need to wash it. Or. Try.”
“Oh, right. Ok. Ok, I can do that. Give me a moment.”
Davijaan closed his eyes and focused on breathing. He heard cloth rustle, and tear, and water slosh around, and then something damp and rough pressed against his back and he grit his teeth to keep from screaming as Loren carefully wiped away the blood and dirt.
He couldn’t exactly see it, but he could certainly feel it; the wide shallow cuts and then the welts and bruises on top of them, the odd patch of skin torn away entirely. Definitely more than one cracked rib, as well as the bruising on his face and wrists and the strain in his shoulders. But nothing he couldn’t heal from in the long run.
That was probably a bad thing. That probably meant they intended to keep him here for a while and didn’t want him too broken to talk back after the first round. But then again, they hadn’t given him any kind of medical treatment. If you wanted your prisoners to last you gave them something.
Don’t think about it, he told himself, stern. You’re alive. Don’t think about anything else.
“There’s nothing for bandages, sorry, but you could put this on. It’s clean. Sort of.”
Davijaan blinked until his vision cleared and he saw Loren was offering him a shirt. She still had her jacket, so it was whatever she’d been wearing underneath it, so probably it was clean. Ish. One of the sleeves had been torn off, but it wasn’t his arms that were an ugly mess of open wounds.
Cleaning him up was one thing– she still had to look at him after all– but taking clothes from a civilian felt like it was crossing some kind of line. He glanced up, a refusal on the tip of his tongue, and got a good look at the stubborn set of her jaw. He swallowed it down. Too much time and effort. “Sure.”
“Hope it fits. You’re quite a bit, uh, muscly-er than me.”
He managed a half-smile at that.
She helped him put her shirt on much the same way she’d helped take his off. The fabric rubbing against the cuts stung, but if he held still it wasn’t too bad. The pain was starting to level off into a steady throb now that the injuries weren’t being aggravated, and his head was starting to clear, and as she knelt in front of him to do up the buttons he realized she was crying.
“Hey, you alright? They hurt you?”
“I’m–” she choked on a sob, hand rising to cover her mouth. He shifted his gaze on the floor to give her some privacy.
“What if– What if you die? What if–”
“Oh, don’t think too hard about it,” he interrupted, trying to keep his tone light. “Right now, I’m alive. I’m alright.”
“You are not! ” she snapped. “You are not alright, and your back is going to get infected, and they could come in here right now and kill you if they wanted, or kill me, and–”
“Hey. Look at me.”
It took her a second, and then damp yellow-gold eyes met his, flashing with anger and fear and helplessness.
“Do not think about it,” he said. “No, stop. I’m serious. Don’t. It makes it worse if you think about it. I’m alive, and you’re alive, and that’s what matters. Nothing else matters. Whatever happens– if my back gets infected, if you get hurt, if one of us gets killed– we’ll face it when it happens. If it happens. Alright?”
Shinies got like this sometimes, when they got a taste of their own mortality. He’d faced death too often on Kamino to be phased by it in war, and he’d been surprised (and a little annoyed) to realize that was not the case with the majority of his siblings.
Oh, every batch lost one or two. That was normal. But watching someone disappear down a white hall and getting their blood and guts all over your hands were two entirely different experiences. He’d been lucky enough to face the blood and guts bit early.
“What the fuck am I supposed to think about instead?” she demanded, glaring, finally composed enough to respond.
“Anything,” he said, hoping she was too wound up to hear the exhaustion and pain he couldn't keep out of his voice anymore. “Literally anything else.”
He didn’t think he had the brain power left to joke around and ask questions and distract her or entertain her or whatever. All his reserves had gone into that little speech and he wasn’t sure what was going to come out of his mouth if he opened it again. Still. If that was what she needed to keep from totally breaking down he’d at least try.
But when he focused back on her face something in her expression had shifted.
“Come here,” she said, voice steady, and with a careful grip on his arm and around his waist she helped him stand, and walk to the pallet.
“Can you lie down on your stomach, or is that–”
“Yes.”
She got him settled, and then sat near his head. “Do you want me to talk or be quiet?”
“... Don’t care.”
As long as he didn’t have to steer the conversation he was fine with her talking. Background noise was great for not thinking.
Instead of either talking or sitting quietly, she started humming.
He kept his breathing deep and even and didn’t try to pay attention to the tune, just let the rich sound wash over him. After a minute he felt a tentative hand on his head, brushing his curls back. He sucked in a breath, surprised, and the hand stilled, then started to pull away.
“Wait. ‘S nice,” he said, and the hand returned.
He was in too much pain to sleep, but he dozed, listening to Loren hum a song he’d never heard before and focusing as much as he could on the sensation of her cold hand in his hair.
***
He had no idea how long they stayed like that, but at some point she helped him sit and drink the water that had been delivered with their evening rations. He forced himself to eat his portion of the food, and was able to make use of the bucket without help, which was a small relief. Afterwards she got him to lie down again, but he didn’t let himself get comfortable this time.
Very shortly Loren’s humming started to be interspersed with yawning. Slowly and carefully, he got his hands underneath him and tried to sit.
Her song cut off abruptly. “What are you doing? Do you need–”
“You’re tired.”
“I’m– yes?”
“Have to get up.”
She helped him stand, frowning, and caught his wrist when he tried to walk away from the pallet. “Where are you going?”
“Find– find a place to lie down.”
“The pallet seemed like a perfectly good place to me.”
“Your turn.”
She tugged him around to face her, her jaw set once again, stubborn and more than a little annoyed. “You will not sleep on the floor,” she said firmly. “We’ll share.”
“Eh. Got to lie on my stomach. Not enough room.”
Letting go of him, she marched back over to the pallet and sat down in the center. “Come here, you silly man,” she said, patting the spot next to her.
Davijaan took a single step forward, and then stopped. His head was very foggy but he was aware enough to know this was skirting a line.
She frowned. “If you’re really, truly uncomfortable, I’ll take the floor. But you will not lie on the cold stone all night in the shape you’re in.”
She made to stand, and he quickly took another few steps forward. “No, no! Stay there. I’m coming.”
Apparently he was too tired to make good decisions. But he’d slept curled up around others before. Quite often as a younger cadet, actually. It shouldn’t be a big deal.
Never with a civilian.
Well. He’d been in more than one civilian’s bed, he’d just never been invited to stay the night.
But this was a totally, completely different situation and should not be thought of along the same lines at all, he told himself sternly as he knelt on the pallet.
Once they got themselves situated it was actually pretty comfortable. She lay on her back as far to one side as she could go without falling off, and he lay half on top of her and half on the other side of the pallet. His position didn’t pull at his back too badly, and while she wasn’t exactly warm he could admit this was much nicer than the floor.
“There,” she said, freeing a hand to awkwardly pat his head. “That’s not so bad.”
“Mhm.”
“Good night, Odd Ball.”
“Night. Loren.”
His last thought before he drifted off was that this was the first time he’d slept all tangled up with someone since he’d been assigned officer’s quarters a month into the war.