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The first time Fox sets foot on Coruscant, his gut twists with a sense of foreboding that he can’t shake, even as his brothers around him gaze at the sights of the city with poorly disguised awe. He dismisses it as nerves. He has to meet the Chancellor of the entire Republic in less than an hour, and it’s only natural for him to feel some kind of anticipation.
There’s nothing to be afraid of in an opportunity like this.
—
“Commander CC-1010, was it?”
At Palpatine’s question, Fox gives a sharp nod. The Chancellor is not what he had been expecting. To be fair, if he’d have been asked, he isn’t sure that he’d have been able to give an answer in regards to what that expectation looked like - but it wasn’t this. The Chancellor is poised in his words and his presentation, sure, but he’s also kind, and more than happy to accommodate any questions that Fox has had. It’s a far cry from the strict military personality that Fox had been raised to follow on Kamino.
“That’s a bit of a mouthful,” Palpatine moves on, and Fox’s focus goes with him. “Do you not have any other name you use, or a shorter designation you prefer?”
Fox doesn’t even hesitate for a moment before he responds. Later, he’ll worry about this, but then excuses the lack of professionalism as a momentary lapse in judgement, understandable given the circumstances. It’s natural to want to make a good first impression.
“My name is Fox, sir.”
The Chancellor smiles. Fox does his best to rid himself of his nerves, but the sense of foreboding from earlier seems to be there to stay.
—
The first few months on Coruscant are stressful. Fox spends little time actually interacting with his fellow guardsmen, with most of his work focused on finding them a dedicated space for them to carry out their duties.
The Chancellor is very sympathetic, even as the majority of the senators and other natborns around him turn their noses up at Fox and his troops. Fox does his best to ignore the uneasy atmosphere, and gets on with his work. This might not be the battlefield he’d been trained for, but he still has a job to do. At the very least he can be the first line of defence between his brothers and the strange new metal city beyond.
—
“Do you have any ambitions, Commander Fox?”
It’s a strange question. What ambitions might a clone commander have, beyond their duty? Still, the Chancellor has posed many such strange questions over the past few weeks, and Fox, as always, is happy enough to entertain them. Honoured, even.
“Nothing specific, sir. I would like myself and my brothers to see this war through to its end, but other than that? Doing whatever the GAR asks of me to the best of my ability.”
From the Chancellor’s smile, it’s the answer he was looking for. Fox is equally pleased.
—
It’s a gradual, natural thing, Fox’s absorption into the Chancellor’s Office. He can’t pinpoint the exact conversation where the decision was made to alter his responsibilities and position in relation to the Coruscant Guard, but he does remember the Chancellor watching the comings and goings of various Jedi generals and their commanders, and making the comment of wanting one of his own.
“A commander, that is - not one of the Jedi,” he’d gone on. “They would be far too much of a risk to keep around, don’t you agree? Their kind invites trouble.”
Fox had nodded, not that he’d had enough experience with the Jedi to say. The Guard had never been assigned one, and Fox himself had never been on any escort missions involving one of the Generals.
The Chancellor often warns him to be wary of them, even after that conversation, and his advice is all Fox has to follow. So, wary he is.
—
Fox soon finds himself picking up more of the slack on the admin side of the Guard’s responsibilities. He attends more meetings between the Guard and the Senate’s pre-existing security forces, attempting to appease all parties when it comes to figuring out the Coruscant Guard’s jurisdiction, and attends less meetings that are between factions of the Guard itself. He becomes more of a mediator and less of a direct leader for his men, delegating such tasks to the other commanders.
He tries to quash his unease over the changes - if the Chancellor says that he’ll do his duty best like this, then he’s in no position to argue. It might be a different assignment than anything he’d been trained for, but Fox still knows how to follow orders, and follow them he does.
He’s offered a shiny new office at the top of the senate building, and thanks them for it.
—
With his removal from Guard spaces comes other restrictions. The first of which is his new sleeping quarters, closer to his office so he doesn’t have to travel far when he’s working late (and he is always working late).
The space is cold, and much different to the shared bunkrooms that he has used his whole life, but he knows that he’ll just have to get used to it. At the end of the day, it’s another show of generosity he can’t turn down. He doesn’t want to offend anyone by being seen as anything other than grateful for it.
—
The next change that Fox has to adapt to is his time being far more closely monitored than it had been in the previous months, with each hour now having to be justified and used wisely. ‘Wisely’ is something that’s defined by the Chancellor, but most of the time Fox is able to make a good guess at it.
He knows that the logic behind this extra scrutiny is sound, despite the fact that it makes him slightly uncomfortable; they are still at war, even as far from the front lines as he is, and they have little reason to trust him yet (despite the fact that he has impeccable training scores and the recorded experience to back them up). It makes sense that they want to make sure that he isn’t caught slipping.
“I admire your dedication to your work,” the Chancellor tells him one day, and Fox feels a sense of pride that makes the strict routine all worth it. “See that you keep it up.”
—
If his adaptation to that restriction has him bolstering his pride, however, the next one has him swallowing it.
The first time he tries to eat at the natborn canteen, it doesn’t go well. He leaves to the sound of reprimand, and he doesn’t try it again. It’s fine, he tells himself. They’ll warm up to his presence once it becomes clear that he’s here to stay, and in the meantime he can easily make the trip down to Guard HQ for his meals. He’s grateful for it, even - these days he doesn’t often get the chance to see any of his brothers outside of an official capacity. The evenings spent catching up with them away from his work are a welcome break.
That is, until the Chancellor calls him out on it.
“I understand that the canteens here can be selective in who they cater to, but I wouldn’t want to put you out of your way,” Palpatine begins. “I’ve organised for your meals to be provided through the Senate Guard’s supervisor. Their offices are next to yours. Much less of a journey for you to face at the end of a long day, hmm?”
Fox smiles and agrees, and doesn’t speak up about the fact that it was a journey that he’d been more than happy to make.
—
Days later, Fox is regretting his lack of action on the matter. Perhaps the Chancellor had organised for Fox to get his meals through the other supervisor, but he obviously hadn’t negotiated what those meals would be. Fox doesn’t blame him - he doesn’t think he’s ever discussed the fact that clones require rations of a different nutritional content to a baseline human - but it’s a problem nonetheless.
“We all survive off of this,” is the response Fox gets when he brings it up with the supervisor he gets his meals from. “We can’t make an exception for you. You get what you’re given, just like the rest of us.”
Fox goes to argue, then sees their hand drift towards their blaster, with that same mean look in their eyes as the natborns in the canteen. They’re reacting to him as if he’s a threat, and Fox can’t think of one thing he can do to change their pre-established opinion of him and convince them otherwise.
All Fox can do is nod stiffly and walk away. He considers bringing the issue up with the Chancellor, then dismisses that thought. He should know better than to bother the man with something so trivial.
He can probably survive on rations like this. It’s not like he has an active job anymore.
—
Without excuse of food, training, or quarters, his reasons to see the rest of the Coruscant Guard diminish. Every time that he goes down to the headquarters is questioned, and if his answers aren’t good enough there are consequences. It’s never explicitly said, but his workload will increase, or he finds himself stuck in his office for days with only his flimsiwork for company, and the connection is easy enough to make.
“I thought we’d discussed the fact that your priorities need to be re-examined,” the Chancellor chides him when Fox voices his worries that he isn’t doing enough for the Guard. “You have some level of duty towards the Coruscant Guard, yes, but your first priority needs to be your work for me. See that you don’t forget that.”
Fox can only nod and agree, and wish that he had his bucket on to hide any evidence of his shame on his face.
—
One day, the consequence of Fox’s missteps isn’t felt until he goes to pick up latemeal. It’d been after Fox had made an ill thought out remark about the Jedi that Lieutenant Thire had reportedly been in contact with. Fox had only made the suggestion that perhaps they could be more beneficial to the Guard if they had an active role within their ranks, but the Chancellor hadn’t shared his opinion at all. In fact, he’d gotten almost hostile about it all, and had dismissed Fox shortly after.
Then, when Fox had gone to pick up his rations, he’d found another stack of datapads waiting for him instead.
It wasn’t so different from Kamino, he thinks to himself in an attempt to justify the decision later that night. On Kamino, if they’d had to stay behind for remedial training, and that training had overlapped with their time slot for latemeal, then they went without latemeal.
Fox just needed to do better, and meet the different standards that were required here. If he was being trusted to work directly alongside both the Guard and the Chancellor, he needed to prove that this trust had been placed on the right person.
—
Fox completes the flimsiwork twice as quickly as he usually might. This earns him another compliment, but no additional rations until the following evening. That’s fine, though. He knows the stakes of his conduct, now.
—
Fox is sitting, staring at the ceiling of his office, and trying not to tap his foot against the floor too loudly.
One of the most difficult changes to adapt to in his work for the Chancellor is the lack of action. Even on the slower days of training on Kamino he’d had outlets for his energy - here, he has nothing. Sure, he accompanies the Chancellor whenever he goes on outings, but it’s rare that anything happens on such occasions.
Fox is left to channel all his energy into his work, and when that isn’t enough -
He returns to sitting and staring at the ceiling, with only the muffled thump of his foot against the carpet breaking the silence.
—
Even without doing anything, he’s tired all the time. Tired, and hungry. He finds himself slipping, despite his desperate attempts to claw his way back to alertness, and this eventually shows itself in a meeting missed with the Chancellor. The Chancellor is, for once, sympathetic. It’s a stark contrast to the usual corrections and well-meaning beratement, and irrationally, Fox finds himself all the more nervous for it.
—
Fox is given a droid to help him with his work. He baulks at the idea that he isn’t good enough to do the job on his own, but then very firmly clamps down on that instinct. If he’s not good enough, he’s not good enough. They’ve been generous to overlook his mistakes and provide him with assistance rather than a reprimand and retraining, and he isn’t going to turn down such kindness.
Except, the droid doesn’t just assist him in the office. It follows him around, no matter what he tells it to do, like a very determined massiff.
It doesn’t inspire the same comfort as a massiff. Even as it flicks through his flimsiwork and files any marked reports, it always has one of its cameras on him. Fox realises that the feeling of constant surveillance, something that he’d last encountered during his training on Kamino, has returned.
—
Fox is itching for a fight - for anything. The restless energy that has been building throughout his time on Coruscant is now almost impossible to ignore.
When he misses a shot during a tussle with a very hopeful assassin, he sees his chance, and opens up a discussion with the Chancellor about setting time aside for training. The Chancellor agrees, and Fox feels a brief sense of relief. He misses the company of his brothers, and this is the perfect excuse to see them again.
Then, Palpatine adds that his own personal guard would be more than happy to share their training space, and Fox finds his heart sinking. Irrationally, he reminds himself. They’re very generous to make room for him, a clone.
—
The training helps, despite the growing audience that Fox is acquiring, but his failures aren’t restricted to his skills in combat. The list seems to go on, and on, with more and more flaws being added to it each week.
“I expect nothing but the best from the people working under me,” the Chancellor tells him one day, after bringing up yet another issue with Fox’s composure that he noticed during one of his meetings. “This includes yourself, and I find your conduct increasingly erratic. I’m glad that you’re comfortable working here, but please retain some professionalism.”
Fox isn’t quite sure what aspect of his conduct it is that the Chancellor’s referring to, but he leaves the office determined to correct it.
—
The next day, the Chancellor laughs at Fox for remaining so uptight.
Fox finds his chest constricting. He must be missing some kind of cue in regards to how he’s meant to act, he’s sure, but even with a year of experience around natborns, meeting the Chancellor’s expectations still feels like an impossible task.
He misses Kamino. At least there, the standards had remained set in stone.
—
He misses his brothers, too. He only holds meetings with the other commanders over holocall, now, and most of the time they’re regarding some new restriction the Senate has decided to place on them. Fox shares in their unvoiced dismay, but then feels the lens of the assistant droid trained on him, and makes no comment on it.
—
Even when Fox does manage to find an excuse to return the Guard HQ, it isn’t the same. Hushed whispers follow him as he walks the halls, and he doesn’t meet a face that isn’t hidden by a bucket.
Fox makes a comment about it to Commander Thorn, who looks at him with a cold fury.
“Do you blame them?” Thorn snarls. “You’re sending them to their deaths over complaints about their uniform.”
—
Fox isn’t sure how he manages to make the trip back to the Chancellor’s office as quickly as he does after questioning Commander Thorn, but he’s in a meeting with the man within the hour. He struggles to coherently put the issue into words, still grappling himself with the realisation that decommissioning requests had somehow been mixed in with all the flimsiwork he’d been filing recently.
At the end of his explanation, the Chancellor looks back at him coolly. He barely seems bothered by the revelation at all.
“I spoke to you about this when we first encountered the issue,” the Chancellor assures him. “We agreed that it’d be added to your list of responsibilities. If you can’t remember filing the reports yourself, then perhaps they were among those you left to your droid to complete.”
The droid in question hovers next to him, and for a moment Fox is filled with nothing but rage at the thing. The urge to put a blaster bolt through its visor is almost overwhelming.
Like he had with his pride, he swallows his fury.
It’s not the droid’s fault if he made a clerical error. A clerical error! He’d made a clerical error that had cost brothers their lives -
Except, Fox is almost sure that he didn’t. He wants to believe that this would be a conversation with the Chancellor that he’d remember having. His memory at the very least is still supposed to be impeccable, even as his other skills are spiralling towards subpar - but he’s only almost sure. And the Chancellor seems very certain.
He shakes himself and turns his thoughts away from his self-beratement, but when he tries to make a case for decommissioning to be taken off of the table entirely, all he is met with is another cold glare.
“If a mistake has been made, then those involved need to face consequences. I thought we’d established this, Fox.” The Chancellor’s words match his icy expression.
Fox swallows. “Yes, sir, but in this case the error was mine. These men don’t deserve to be taken away from their duties when a simple reminder of conduct would suffice. They don’t deserve to face the consequences of my mistakes.”
“I see.” The Chancellor is silent for some time. “Well. As you wish.”
—
The consequences are no longer restricted to missing meals.
Fox wishes he could go back and throttle his past self for suggesting that he needed additional training, and for agreeing to do so amongst strangers. He’d swallow any amount of pride, let his skills slip as far as they could, if he could take his request back.
As the months go on, and he continues to make mistakes or arguments that the Chancellor doesn’t agree with, he leaves the practice rooms with increasingly severe injuries. None ever linger, thanks to the impeccable work of a natborn medic and their droids, but then this quick recovery seems to invite creativity even when he’s certain he hasn’t done anything to displease the Chancellor that day.
Any hurt is always inflicted under the guise of a training accident, and even if he wanted to, there’s nobody that Fox can report this to. His direct superior is the one endorsing it, most likely.
Besides, it’s really all his own fault, as the Chancellor often reminds him. He should be better, should be quicker, should be able to look after himself. If he can’t, who will? Fox hasn’t had anyone else to watch his back for a long, long time.
—
He still tries, once, to fudge the numbers on the decommissioning requests. He moves some of the files around while the droid is busy with some other reports, and quietly removes the brother from the list of those destined for Kamino.
He isn’t sure how the Chancellor finds out what he did, but he never again makes another attempt at it.
—
Sometimes, Palpatine doesn’t bother with the front - and it is a front he puts on, that kind, grandfatherly persona that he’s so well known and loved for. Fox can recognise that now, after spending hours arguing for the lives of his brothers and finding his every logical request batted down.
Sometimes he appears in the back of Fox’s training sessions, watching without commentary.
Sometimes he insists on overseeing the details of them himself.
He’ll look down at Fox with undisguised disappointment, and Fox can never do anything but agree with the sentiment. How the hell did he end up in this position? When did he become so weak?
—
Months go by. Fox notices a discrepancy in the finances coming out of the Chancellor’s office, but receives nothing but a reprimand and further punishment for pointing it out. The mistake was his, not theirs, of course.
He doesn’t bring such matters up after that, but does still make a careful note of them. It’s about the only small rebellion he can manage, with him trapped in the position that he is.
His thoughts of acting on the information are little more than distant daydreams. Somewhere during the course of the last couple of years, his world has forcibly become a lot smaller than he’d realised.
—
More than anything, Fox is lonely.
Away from his office, the senators and aides he comes into contact with offer little conversation. To them, he’s just another silent presence dedicated entirely to serving them, much like the droids that keep everything running.
Ironically, the one visitor he occasionally receives is dedicated to fixing said droids - they’re one of the newer maintenance staff members, and Fox wonders if they’re only bothering him given the senators’ frequent comments equating his status to that of the machines that they’re meant to be working on.
Whatever their motivations are, the new maintenance director is more of a worry than a comfort. They often try to strike up conversation with him, and occasionally attempt to slip him treats in the form of caff, but he’s always careful to turn them down. Fox isn’t certain of much, these days, but the kiffar’s apparent attempts at friendship seem like a trap. They’re quick to disappear, besides, and a week later Fox finds himself without visitors once more.
Again, he finds his thoughts drifting to the Guard Headquarters below, and even occasionally to his old training batchmates on Kamino.
He knows that he’ll find no comfort from any of them, but that’s understandable. He has failed them spectacularly, and will continue to do so. He might hate them too, if they were in his boots.
—
Fox finds himself thinking back on a conversation that he’d had with the Chancellor long ago. He’d been asked if he’d had any ambitions. Back then, his response had been that of the perfect soldier he’d been raised to be: his ambitions aligned with anything that might aid the Republic.
Now, he is far from perfect in any aspect of his life. It’s freeing, in a way.
He looks out across the city and finds that his ambitions have turned selfish. The pride he had taken in his work and in the Chancellor’s praise has long since faded to shame. Now, all he wishes for is the freedom that so many of his brothers below possess, and that it wouldn’t be one of them left to take his place should he ever decide to chase that wish.
—
It has been two years since he first arrived on Coruscant, and Fox now understands his place in the galaxy. If he does his job well he’ll receive food and care, and maybe his pleas for his brothers’ lives will be listened to. The guidelines for what constitutes a job well done change daily, but that’s only expected given the stakes of his position - and his position is at the Chancellor’s mercy.
In this regard he feels less like a person and more like a massiff, rewarded with scraps if it begs. He’s pretty certain that this is all he is to the man; an amusing distraction, there to do tricks on command. Fox certainly knows that the Chancellor wouldn’t hesitate to put him down like one, given a reason.
He doesn’t give him a reason. Fox sits, and waits, and follows his orders. He’s the first line of defence between his brothers and the city, and the only line of defence between them and their kindly leader at its top. He might not be good for much, but this, at least, he can do.
Fox endures.