#lithwrites

Kix was a veteran in a brand new war. He had woke up gasping and shaking, expecting more of the Separatists intelligence droids hovering and asking questions. Instead he found pirates, and a ship blowing up around him and everything was too fast, too bright, too much for anything besides giving in to the blackness encroaching with every too short breath in his chest.

The second time he woke was easier, the pressure in his chest was gone and the beeping of machines was soothing in a familiar way. The pirates were nicer than he expected, answering his questions and letting him break when he found he was too late.

The Jedi were gone, they said, the Republic with them, and the Empire that rose in it’s stead had used the troopers and spat them back out. Kix may well have been the last brother, the last vod, in the whole galaxy.

So he’d mourned, screaming and sobbing and yelling for Rex, Hardcase, Jesse, every brother he had failed to warn of the chips in time. For Skywalker, Kenobi, and Tano, shot down by men Kix knew called them aliit. Eventually he joined the pirates on their cavorting, wandering the galaxy from Core to Rim, memories and echoes his only companions.

There were new echos too. Men in white plastoid with different faces and terrible training that never recognized Kix’s face. There was a job, on some planet, where they ran into a trooper with blue on his arm and Kix’s heart had leaped into his throat and the pirates had looked at him a bit warily after the carnage he left behind.

Finding his General’s kids had been a breath of fresh air, a lifeline tossed to him when adrift in the galaxy, Senator Amidala’s face staring at him through the holo, flanked by a Skywalker who looked fresh as the first day he boarded the Resolute .

Kix knew his General had been with the Senator, everyone in the 501st had known, but to see the obvious product of the union staring at him with the same fire and brimstone determination he’d seen in the worst campaigns and over broadcasts from the Senate, all honey words and gauntlets thrown down was like waking up from a fog. The clones were made for the Jedi, and the Jedi were gone, but this piece, this raft at sea was enough to bring Kix to the lap of the Resistance.

He’d been a new recruit when he met General Organa, and over stuttering breaths and trembling hands, she’d told him what became of his General, the man he’d have died for in a time long gone. She’d looked at him then, all Amidala, and said the Resistance could use a medic, and Kix couldn’t say no, not to the last thread tying him to a galaxy that wasn’t his.

So he’d found his footing, and taken a careful step to make a place for himself, a med bay organized as he’d like, outdated machines he’d learned on in Kamino, and new faces who didn’t look like his own. His last mission had been simple enough, grabbing a low-level intel officer who’d been grabbed by the First Order on a small outpost after she’d poked her nose in too far. Easy in and out, no need for first aid, no need for the supplies he’d packed in his bag. He was in the armory now, sitting and going over the bacta patches and hypos in the pouch, taking out the extraneous stuff he’d packed for contingency’s sake.

A noise made Kix look up from his bag, there was a new kid hesitating in the armory. Kix clocked him as he refilled his med bag on the low bench running the length of the room. He was cute, but in a newest-shiny-in-the-battalion way. Or, well, new to the rebellion way. The twinge in his chest is familiar at this point, constant reminders of brothers lost and fighting for the Empire. Kix keeps an eye on the shiny as he dithers at the front of the room, clearly trying to decide something, but equally unsure of his decision.

Jesse would have laughed with him over the fussiness of new shinies. He always did.

Osik, Kix was gonna have to do something. Medics always took care of the battalion. Even if the battalion was a rebellion full of righteous ragtag groups from all over the galaxy.

“Hey kid, come over here, I’ll kit you out.”

The immediate snap to attention the shiny had was painful in its familiarity and something twinged in Kix’s heart. The startled look and salute further set something to curdle in his stomach.

Ka’ra, if this kid wasn’t a soldier before joining up then Kix needed to have a serious conversation with whichever natborns did this.

Motioning the kid over his way Kix gentled his voice a bit more as hesitant steps brought the kid closer.

“I’m Kix, kid. Who’re you?”

“FN-21-Finn. I mean, my names Finn.” Kix’s blood ran cold. He knew that cadence. He may not know the exact numbers that followed that designation, but he knew that tone, that slight disbelieving manner before shaky confidence overtook and reiterated a name. A new name, that hadn’t always been there before.

Kix took a deep breath and straightened up from the bench, the kid- Finn, his name was Finn- was still staring with a mix of determination and panic, and Kix sketched his own salute, a sad smile flitting over his face.

“Hello Finn, I’m CT-6116, named Kix, of the 501st Battalion.” Finn’s eyes were wide and amazed as he slumped back on heels, looking as if a strong wind would blow him over.

“I never knew there were more,” came the whisper from the Finn. “You were First Order too?”

That sad smile came back, and Kix looked at this kid, this soldier, this trooper who never should have grown up without a name, never should have felt kinship with an old relic like him.

“No, I wasn’t First Order. I was with the Grand Army of the Republic, during the Clone Wars. There was a mission, and I got captured and frozen in carbonite, then I wake up and it’s been 50 years, and my General’s kid is still fighting a war,” Kix looked away a bit at that, “I suppose I’ve always been a soldier and here was a war, how could I not join her?”

“Your general- wait, 50 years?”

“Yeah, 50 years in carbonite, let me tell you, not really that fun.”

“No, you were with the GAR? They were a- I was told they were a terrorist organization?”

Finn looked frantic to Kix’s trained eye, and someone so new to the resistance probably didn’t know talking treason was not grounds for a decommission. Haran, talking treason was practically a way of life for the Resistance, just how new was this kid? The terrorist ding lanced a pain through his chest, but Kix was well used to defending his brothers from ignorant di’kut here, and Finn probably learned all his history from whatever version of longneck they were getting to train their troops now. Kix was almost glad the Cuy’val Dar were all long dead, the Prime trusting them with training always struck Kix as irresponsible at best and negligent in the long run.

Finn was still looking at him like he’d get an immediate demerit in his files, and Kix reached over to put a hand on the leather jacket covered shoulder in a gesture he’d done for too many shinies to count back on the Resolute.

“You were First Order right? So your training was probably really skewed to their view. The galaxy is a lot bigger and more complex than whatever those shabuir trainers told you, okay?” a hesitant nod is what that gets him, but the kid is listening, obviously still not used to contradictory information, “The GAR fought for the Republic, under their Jedi generals.”

Finn’s head snapped his way at that piece of information, eyes still a bit too wide, and Kix’s heart was already breaking for this kid who’d been taught to have nothing, who’d found a name, who’d found a place he could be more than a number under a bucket.

“You-you knew a Jedi? No wait- you said you’re here for your general’s kid, There’s a Jedi here?” Finn’s face was terrified and trembling had started under Kix’s hand, the kid had obviously been raised on those ghost stories of terrifying monsters and heartless war machines Kix had heard from some Core-bred recruits.

It hurt Kix all over, that this new generation would never know the care General Kenobi gave to every sentient he came across, the laughter that crossed Commander Tano’s face when she saw a new planet for the first time, the heartbreaking tenderness General Skywalker had when dealing with those rescued from the Zyreggian work camps. The Jedi were stories now, used to scare instead of comfort, frighten instead of inspire.

“No, there’s no Jedi here. My general was a Jedi, but the kid I followed into this war is her own person now.” Kix shifted his grip, and directed Finn to take a seat on the bench, sitting down beside him. “How did a First Order trooper find his way to the Resistance anyhow?”

“Oh, well, Poe- Commander Dameron found me, and he brought me here,” Finn’s face had a soft smile as he relayed what was no doubt a markedly simplified version of his story. No one just leaves the First Order, after all, and a pilot commander finding him? Kix wonders just what the haran kind of Commander this Dameron actually is.

Finn looks down at his hands then, and Kix can still see a small smile working its way onto his face,

“He named me, y’know? I didn’t really know you could just do that, have a name, I mean. Then Poe just did it. Like it was easy.”

Kix shuffles a little closer to the trooper, sliding his hand around to grip the opposite shoulder and pull Finn into his chest a bit. The kid sighs, tension slowly bleeding out of his frame, and Kix knows he’s gonna be okay. He’ll make sure of it.

“They’re like that, outside of the army, they don’t always know what it’s like to have something that’s yours.” It took Kix shorter than most, laying claim to the med bay aboard the Resolute in a startlingly short amount of time, but some brothers struggled, hoarded, and didn’t always know what to do with things they’d picked up and decided to keep .

Finn is picking at the sleeve of his jacket now, some beaten down thing with rips and blaster burns, but he smooths over the creases and tucks the string as close to the seam he can, attention and care for something infinitely precious.

Kix leaned back a bit, and nudged Finn towards the wall of armor he had been looking at when he first walked in,

“C’mon vod’ika, lets get you kitted out, maybe splash some paint on that shiny face of yours huh?”

“What- what’s uh vod’ika mean?”

“It means little brother” Kix says as he levers himself upright and starts walking towards the plastoid section, the weight and feel would be familiar, and familiar was better if the kid was going into a fight. “We might not be batchmates, but us former numbers gotta stick together in this crazy galaxy.”

There’s no sound of footsteps following when he gets to the right storage bay, and Kix turns back to see what caught his attention,

Finn is still sitting there, staring at Kix with a quiet intensity, and then he breaks into a smile that lights up his face,

“Little brother?”