#clone feels

Ke'tayli Briik (Hold the Line)

Tracy'uur bal kad (Blaster and sword) Carud o'r prudiise (Smoke in the shadows) Gar ven dargana* (You will lose) Gar kovid bar kyrbej (Your head on the battlefield)

Gar eku bat gar (You choke on your) Kar'ta o'r gar uram (Heart in your throat) Gar aala sa (You feel like) Digu enteyo akaanir (You forget you've gotta fight)

Mhi nu lise trattok'or (We can't collapse) Mhi ven draar shuku (We will never break)

Ash'amur evaar'la (Dying young) Mhi tayli cuun kovide (We keep our heads) Mhi tal'onidi (We go the extra mile) Narir cuyanir (Trying to survive)

Kar'am o'r haalas (The breath in your chest) Dralshya gar or'trikar (Is stronger than your grief)

Vaab ra ash'am (Do or die) Al mhi oyayc (But we're alive) Vaal mhi olar (While we're here) Ke'tayli briik! (Hold the line!)

Ke'tayli briik! (Hold the line!)

Naas darganar* (Nothing to lose) Bic gar kyr'yc akaan (It's your last fight) Ke'burujai (Sound the alarm) Shi parjai ra kyr'am (Only victory or death)

Nu partayli (No remembrance) Nu parjir kote al (No winning glory but) Tran* yaimpa (The sun returns) Sha kyr be ca (At the end of the night)

Mhi nu lise trattok'or (We can't collapse) Mhi ven draar shuku (We will never break)

Ash'amur evaar'la (Dying young) Mhi tayli cuun kovide (We keep our heads) Mhi tal'onidi (We go the extra mile) Narir cuyanir (Trying to survive)

Kar'am o'r haalas (The breath in your chest) Dralshya gar or'trikar (Is stronger than your grief)

Vaab ra ash'am (Do or die) Al mhi oyayc (But we're alive) Vaal mhi olar (While we're here) Ke'tayli briik! (Hold the line!)

Ke'tayli briik! (Hold the line!)

Ke'tayli briik! (Hold the line!)

Ash'amur evaar'la (Dying young) Mhi tal'onidi (We go the extra mile) Ash'amur evaar'la (Dying young) Ke'tayli briik! (Hold the line!)

The sharp, shaky intake of air from Rex should have been enough of an answer. Rex shifted his gaze away from Echo, his entire face becoming twisted with something- something Echo had never seemed in his captain face before. It looked like pain for a moment soon it turned into anger, sheer unrestrained anger that shifted into pain as the captain bared his teeth and lowered his eyes.

The low light wasn’t low enough to keep the tears brimming in the captain’s eyes from glisten some, before he blinked them away. Rex lifted his gaze to Echo, wet trail drawn over his cheek.

“I’m so sorry.”

The period Echo had spent in cryostasis had been so cold. The invasive, forced surgeries performed by the separatists’ medical droids under General Grievous’ supervision had been so painful. For a moment throughout the process in whish Echo had been turned into something more machine than human, he had thought he had lost his humanity. His ability to feel anything other than the numb state of sedation and cold.

He had never hated to be wrong so much as he did now.

The pain seemed to cut through the circuits welded on his chest and into the soft, weaker flesh beneath.

“No.” he heard his own mouth say while his mind felt distant, detached from his body that wasn’t his anymore, hadn’t been since the explosion “No, no, it- It can’t be.”

Echo looked back and forth, brain trying to understand what Rex was saying. No. That was impossible. Fives was… Was the best of them. He couldn’t- he wouldn’t-

“No, no, no, it can’t be, it can’t be!” he speaks louder, like he can convince Rex to change what he had just said “No! He would wait for me! He wouldn’t just- He can’t have just-“

Echo reached forward, grabbing Rex’s chest plate and yanking him closer despite his weakened joints.

“Rex, it can’t be, Rex-“ a sob cut off his words, and Echo felt his eyes hot with tears that blurred his sight like the ice in the cyostasis chamber would and he almost felt like he was back in the cursed thing, trapped, breathless, freezing from the inside out “Rex, please, I’m begging you…!”

Rex wrapped his arms over Echoe’s, pulling his brother into a hug and Echo just slumped against him, shaking his head over and over. It was like the last shred of sanity he had been clinging on to – his brothers, his family, his home, his only sense of normalcy in this chaotic, wretched universe – had been torn from him.

“He died as a soldier, Echo.” Rex said, voice half-choked

Back in the Citadel, the impact of the blast aimed at Echo had knocked him back into the shuttle with such violence that his helmet slipped out of his head; his body had hit the back wall so hard all the air left his lungs as the explosion made everything turn into a spiral of scorching heat, and roaring fire. The concussion had been enough to make him barely feel the charred stumps of his right arm and left leg or the weight of the durasteel cargo crate that had crushed his right leg. The last couple of breaths he had taken before losing consciousness ached, both because of the smoke-filled air and his two broken ribs. Fainting had been almost a blessing.

Not much later the droids had forcibly amputated what was left of his three limbs after the explosion with no anesthesia, and Echo had trashed against the binds that kept him secured over a table, screamed himself hoarse, lost control of his bladder, begged for death over a thousand times. He then had wires and tubes connected to his spine, heart and lungs before the ice engulfed him and his mind was ravished, invaded, and every ounce of resistance was met with punishing agony

All that pain, all that torture, and cruelty and still, still-

This was the most painful moment of his life.

“Why?!” he sobbed, feeling Rex’s cheek wet with tears against his jaw “He had no right… He couldn’t leave me..!”

Echo wondered for a moment if he was upset at Fives for dying or if he was just jealous of him. The entire time he was away, his only wish had been that the separatists had let him die. And now he would have to live without his dearest brother.

“Isn’t fair… We should’ve gone together… Side by side, I would’ve… Would’ve been glad to march away with him…”

Rex ran a gloved hand clumsily over the back of Echo’s hair. It reminded him of the way older cadets would soothe their younger brothers when they would confess to be afraid to go to battle.

“I know you would. I know, Echo.” Rex swallowed down, not letting go of Echo “He loved you so much, brother. Never was the same after he lost you. Kept searching for meaning in all of this, kept trying to make sense of it all. Made sure to ensure all regs were being kept like he… Like he was trying to bring some of you with him wherever he’d go.”

Echo sobbed harder at that, clutching Rex like a lifeline. His legs whirred, weakened by the overwhelming feelings in his brain, and Rex kept him standing still. He would always carry his men whenever they’d need him.

“We all missed and mourned you at the base, Echo. We felt your loss, but the scar it left on Fives never healed. He fought and bled and struggled to protect everyone, you knew him. And this wish to protect us ended up costing his life.” Rex paused for a moment “It was all my fault. I’m so sorry.”

Echo pulled back some, trying his best to keep his legs working still, despite how much he wanted to just sink to his knees and rip the circuits off his chest to make sure his heart would finally cease to beat for good.

“You always said that, captain.” Echo sniffled, rubbing his eyes “I’m sure you blamed yourself over what happened to me, too. It wasn’t your fault. None of it is.

Rex raised his eyes to the ceiling, clearly trying to hide his tears as he drew a long breath and let it out sharply to then look back at Echo. His eyes were bloodshot and tired, so tired. Echo knew he wasn’t looking good at all after everything the separatists had done to him, but the captain seemed to have aged so much since the last time he’d seen him.

Was it their fate, all of them clones? To wither away, to be tortured and mutilated, to die in pain? Who could say the ones of them that survived were the lucky ones?

Rex opened one of the pouches on his belt, retrieving a small comm device from it and offering it up to Echo.

“Here. I’ll reach you through it soon.”

Echo looked at the thing with curiosity before placing it in his own pouch.

“That’s… nonstandard.”

“That’s because it won’t be used for standard communication. I need an outside line to you. Its signal is scrambled, and the communications through it must be kept short to avoid us being heard, understood?”

Echo gave Rex a tiny smile.

“Ah, yes. Breaking the rules. Now it feels like home. Fives would-“

Echo stopped himself. He couldn’t say his name. Not yet. Rex swallowed down, reaching for the same pouch again.

“Oh, and this is for you.” he held his hand up closed in a fist “Fives used to keep it on him always, but he left… his equipment behind before his last mission. I managed to retrieve it and kept it with me, and when I thought that we might finally meet again, I brought it with me so that you could have it.”

The captain opened his fingers, and in his palm there was a small piece of durasteel. Echo took it with his flesh hand, holding it close to inspect it. It was slightly blackened, and the shape of it made it look like it had been cracked off from a larger piece rather than crafted to be of that exact size, although it did look like someone had smoothened the edges of it some to make them blunt.

“What is it?”

Rex gave him a bittersweet smile.

“No one knew. He only told me what it was right before we… lost you. This is a piece of the Rishi Moon outpost, after Hevy blew it up. I figure it must’ve been a part of one of the reinforced windows.”

Echo looked back at the memento in awe, sight going blurry with tears again.

“Rishi Moon… it feels like forever ago.”

“Yeah…”

The two of them shared a moment of silence, and as Echo stared at the piece of durasteel, he thought of Fives. Of his funny quips, his chaotically improvised plans, of his laugh and his particular way to annoy Echo as a display his affection. And he knew Rex did the same.

Remembering a fallen warrior was the way to keep him marching beyond. If it was up to Echo, he would make sure that the memory of Fives would never fade away.

-

Echo laid down on his bunk, reaching for the crook of his neck and feeling the small silver chain to then tug gently at it until he managed to pull the small durasteel pendant from under his black shirt and over his chest – where it clanged softly against the plate over his sternum.

He shifted on the bed, still unused to the weight and lack of mobility of his prosthetic legs, thinking of the comm that Rex had given him, hidden under a few bundled wires of a compartment in his. Skywalker had made him a new prosthetic arm that lighter and more efficient, with actual jointed fingers and sensors over the digits and palm. What was it that Rex wanted to talk about, hidden even from their superiors?

Echo ran his fingers over the piece of durasteel hanging from his necklace.

“What am I gonna do without you, brother?”