Chapter Text
The kid was, in fact, as bad as Hound said. He did everything that Fox asked, but he did it all while staring. And asking questions. So many questions.
“Why do the Guard only get two hours of sleep a day?”
Fox sighed and passed him another datapad. Creepy he may be, but at least he could forge a decent signature. “We don’t have enough men to cover every shift. Because of that, we all have to pull doubles and triples.”
“Why haven’t you put me on a patrol, yet?”
The kid looked so earnest. His hair was regulation-cut and there was nothing distinguishing about him. In most aspects, he would be perfect for senate patrols. Except for his eyes. They were calculating. Fox understood now why it freaked Hound out so much. Luckily for him, Cody had the same look when he was trying to figure out a particularly difficult problem.
“Because you’re not ready.”
“Why not?” he asked, voice raising just a little. Fox raised an eyebrow, watching as the kid deflated. “I just wanna help,” he mumbled, signing another one of Palpatine’s forms.
“And you are.” Deciding that his newest vod’ika could use a bit of positive reinforcement, he patted the kid’s hand. “You should’ve seen Thorn’s face when I told him you were going to be helping me. Looked like lifeday had come early.”
CT-4222 huffed, a small smile on his face. “Okay.”
“You’ll be out there soon enough, vod’ika,” Fox lied. “Don’t worry.”
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Unfortunately, Fox wasn’t able to keep ’22 off of patrols forever. What he could do, though, was keep him away from the senate. They would eat him alive.
The first time ’22 went on a patrol, Fox was almost beside himself with worry. “Calm down, ori’vod,” Thorn said, patting his shoulder. “The kid’s gonna be fine.”
“They’re a target.”
“They’re a Guard.” Stone gently reminded him. “We all knew this was going to happen sooner or later, and Thire’s with him. Nothing’s going to happen.”
And nothing did. Nothing happened on the second patrol, either. Or the third. Finally, Fox was forced to split ‘22’s time between working with him and lower-level patrols.
But it couldn’t stay like that forever.
“Fox?”
“Wh’t?” he mumbled, face still stuffed into his pillow. He was twenty minutes into his three hour rest break, and Force help whoever had the nerve to wake him up.
The vod sounded apologetic. Good. “It’s the kid.”
Those three words were enough to send a wave of adrenaline rushing through his body. “Where is he?”
“Medbay,” Slice answered, following his ori’vod through the halls of the barracks. “We bumped into a group of 212th at 79’s. They said something about the Guard, and the kid took it personally. Got in their faces trying to defend us, and you can guess how well the front liners took that.”
Slapping open the door of the medbay, Fox zeroed in on ‘22’s cot. Bandages made up of ripped sheets were wrapped around half of his face. But that wasn’t what had Fox worried. No, it was the lack of emotion in the vod’ika’s uncovered eye. He stared into the middle distance, not even caring about the medics bustling around him.
“Kid,” he ordered, “talk to me.” There was no response. “Kid.”
Stitches pulled him away from the bed. “He’s dissociated. I think it’s safe to say that he was 212th before coming to us, and he was probably close to those di’kuts that did this to him.”
Fox nodded. “Alright. I’ve got him.” Silently grateful that he wasn’t wearing his armor, he slid into the bed beside his vod’ika, wrapping his arms around him. Thorn could handle his schedule for a little while, this was more important.
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He was warm, and someone was talking to him. They sounded muffled, like that one time Cody had been too close to a detonator when it went off. Slowly, though, the words began to make sense. “And then he decided that the best thing to do was adopt the little CT that had followed him around for the past week. The little menace bit everyone that tried to touch him, still does if you get him drunk enough.”
Wait. Was Fox telling him a story, about him? Well, not ’22, but Cody. “Commander?”
“There you are, kid.” He felt Fox move from where he sat behind him. Wait, why was he propped up against Fox, anyway? And why was he in the medbay? “I was worried about you there for a second.”
“What happened?” He reached up to feel the bandages surrounding his eye, but Fox gently slapped his hand away, grabbing it and forcing it into his lap. If Cody wasn’t so confused, it would be nice. He hadn’t been this close to Fox in ages.
Fox sighed. “You got in a fight with some di’kuts from the 212th.”
Memories began to flash in Cody’s mind. Waxer, Boil, Crys, and Wooley were standing outside 79’s. They had said something, Cody didn’t remember what except that it was insulting, so he stopped to tell them to kark off. The rest was a blur.
“Don’t worry,” Fox continued, “I’m not going to put you on a patrol going past 79’s again. You won’t have to deal with them anymore.”
“Why-why do the GAR hate us?” Cody wished that he could say he was acting, but that would be a lie. Living like the Guard for the past couple of weeks had put him through the ringer. He had no idea how Fox was still standing, let alone running a battalion.
His brother squeezed him tightly. “They don’t hate us, vod’ika. The frontliners just don’t understand what happens here on Coruscant. They have their battles, and we have ours.”
If Cody closed his eyes, he could almost believe that they were back on Kamino, before things got confusing and Cody stopped checking in on his vod’ika. In a quiet voice, he asked, “Is that why you don’t talk with your batchers?”
“What makes you think that?” Fox’s voice had gone cold.
Cody tensed, quickly realizing that he may have just compromised himself. But then Fox began to rub circles into the back of his hand, something that he used to do for Rex after performance exams. “Sorry, vod’ika. My batchmates are….a sore subject.”
He was afraid to ask, but he needed to know. “I heard that they still comm you, but you never respond.”
The fingers stilled. “I’ve never gotten any comms from them, not in months. And every message I’ve sent to them has gone unanswered.”
That couldn’t be right. Why would the messages not go through? It wasn’t like opsec would stop them.
The messages were the final straw. As soon as he was released from medbay, he was going straight to his general. The Guard didn’t have rations, medicine, or sleep, and that was going to change. Cody wasn’t going to rest until it did.
“Hey,” Fox said, lightly thumping him on the nose, “stop thinking so hard. You’re giving me a headache.”
Cody blushed, turning his ears bright red. “Sorry, commander.”
“You’re fine.” He settled back against the pillows, pulling Cody closer. “I still have two hours left before I go back out on patrol, so how about we both get some sleep, okay?”
Helping the Corries was going to have to wait until tomorrow. Right now, Cody leaned against his brother, making a silent promise that he was never going to leave him alone again. Fox’s breaths evened out quickly, and the sound of his brother’s heart helped him fall into a dreamless sleep.