Rex isn’t Force-sensitive, would never claim to be, but sometimes, just before something terrible happens, a cold thing coalesces in his stomach like the pit of a rotten fruit and freezes him from the inside out.
Now, as Fox raises his blaster, he chokes on the ice. “No!”
General Skywalker grabs his arm, pulling him back from the edge of their little enclosure. Fives raises his blaster. Fox jerks like he’s been shocked and pulls the trigger.
The shot that comes out is live. Fox shot to kill.
The way he threw himself to the side as he fired is enough, though, and the shot goes wide, sparks off Fives’s shiny, unmarked shoulder guard.
Someone in the Guard hollers.
Fives shoots.
Fox staggers back with a burning hole in his gut.
Oh, gods.
The rest of the Guard raise their blasters.
Oh, fuck.
“Stand the fuck down!”
It’s Fox that’s yelling. Fox, who’s still on his feet, blaster in one hand and the other stretched out as if to hold his men back. “Don’t shoot!”
Fives is raising his blaster to fire again but Fox graduated top of their class on Kamino. He’s faster. He flicks the safety on the side of his blaster and stuns Fives. Fives drops. Fox’s arm falls to his side.
The length of a blink is all the time it takes Rex to get his bearings. Then, he’s turning to the shocked Corries. “Get us out of here,” he orders. “Now.”
One of them takes aim at the shield generator above their heads and disables it, freeing Rex and the General. Rex is already moving by the time it powers down, dropping to his knees beside Fives and pressing two fingers to his pulsepoint. Fast but steady. Minor blaster wound. He’s alright. Fives is alright and Rex has a chance to fix this.
“Commander.” Skywalker is approaching the Guardsmen, who are beginning to move towards Rex. Their footsteps echo in the quiet warehouse, cavernous and eerie now that it’s no longer a battleground. The knot in Rex’s stomach begins to thaw.
“Commander Fox,” Skywalker repeats. Rex looks up from where he’s drawn Fives’s head and shoulders into his lap. Fox is standing where he’d fired from, staring into the space above Rex’s head. He’s not moving other than to sway gently on the balls of his feet as if in a breeze. Part of Rex wants to shoot him through the stupid t-visor. Why had his blaster been set to kill?
One of the Guardsmen, the one who’d shot the generator, has turned his attention to Fox and Skywalker’s distinctly one-sided interaction. His kama and pauldrons denote his sergeant’s rank and the little symbol on his shoulder tells Rex he’s part of the K-9 unit. Huh. Rex didn’t know they had one of those.
“Commander Fox?” the K-9 officer asks, softer than Skywalker. “Sir?”
Skywalker is losing patience. “Commander,” he says, brusque and brokering no debate. He grabs Fox by the shoulder and Rex hands Fives off to the trooper who’s crouched beside him, getting to his feet. “Answer me.”
This is going to end well , Rex thinks, but then the sergeant’s hands are on Fox’s helmet and he’s breaking the seal and Fox’s expression is every bit as blank as his bucket: glazed eyes and a thin trickle of blood making its way towards his chin from his nose.
“Something’s wrong,” General Skywalker says. “Something’s– He’s under some sort of control.”
“What?” Rex pushes Skywalker aside, stepping in front of Fox, who still gives no indication that he’s aware of the proceedings. “Fox? Hey, ori’vod, you with us?”
He reaches up to tap Fox’s cheek, but a gloved hand grabs him by the wrist, none too gently. Fox’s eyes aren’t re-focused, per se, but he’s managed to make some semblance of eye contact with Rex through the haze. He looks… terrified.
“Rex,” he rasps. “Sorry. Sorry, I tried– Sorry.”
Then, his knees give out and Rex has just enough time to keep his head from hitting the duracrete before he starts seizing.
“Kark,” Skywalker says, falling to his knees next to Rex. “Everybody get back. Someone get us a ride to the Temple.” Anakin puts one hand on Fox’s forehead and the other on Rex’s thigh. “Okay, okay. Someone’s got a hold of him,” he mutters, and it’s impossible to tell if he’s talking to Rex or himself. “Who the fuck…”
Anakin trails off, eyes drifting closed and brow furrowing. “No, that can’t be– shit!” He jerks and for a moment, Rex is afraid he’s going to join Fox in seizing. His hand tightens on Rex’s thigh and he sucks in a harsh breath. “Shit, shit, shit, motherfucking son of a bantha, get back here!”
The air begins to take the charge of Anakin’s ferocity. It surrounds them like a bubble and Rex is only dimly aware of the shouts and clamor of Fives being strapped to a gurney and moved to a medical transport. Fox wheezes and slams his head back into Rex’s thigh plate. Rex holds on tighter.
“Okay, okay, hang on,” Anakin babbles, pressing his hand harder against Fox’s forehead. A bead of sweat drips off the end of his nose. “There. Fuck off.”
Anakin slumps back and Fox abruptly stops seizing. The air loses its charge. Sound rushes in all at once and Rex realizes that Fox’s nose has bled enough to run onto the floor.
“Captain?” It’s the K-9 sergeant again. “We’ve got the medical transport ready.”
Rex looks up at him and realizes he’s got nothing left in the tank. He just stares at the Sergeant, holding Fox close and trying to keep his eyes from unfocusing.
“Captain?”
“Rex,” Skywalker says, shaking Rex’s shoulder. “Let him go. They’ll take care of him.” Then, to the sergeant, “Redirect these transports to the Temple. I have to get the Council in on this.”
The sergeant blinks. “Sir?”
“Just do it, trooper.”
“Yessir.” The sergeant crouches down next to Rex and Fox. Distantly, as if it’s happening on a holorecording, Rex sees Skywalker get up and enter the transport containing Fives. The sergeant salutes him as he goes, then waves the remaining medics over. “Okay, Captain, let’s get the Commander on a gurney, yeah?”
Rex blinks. Blinks again. The sergeant takes one of Rex’s hands in his. “‘Lek,” Rex rasps. “Here, take…” He’s not sure what he’s trying to say, but he heaves Fox’s limp upper body towards the sergeant, who takes Fox easily, scooping him up off the ground and placing him on the gurney. They push him away and Rex sags against the floor.
Someone lifts him up and guides him into a transport. It’s not the one Fives is in, but he can hear medical equipment through the duraplast divider. A heart monitor, the rattle of an IV pole, calmly insistent voices. He rests his head against the divider and drifts to the sound of vode trying to stabilize Commander Fox.
He thinks, perhaps, that Fox doesn’t deserve it.
The Council’s been in an ‘emergency meeting’ for going on six hours by the time Fox begins to stir. All Rex knows is what Skywalker had managed to stammer out before Kenobi dragged him out of medbay, chiding him for being a chronic intelligence leak.
Someone, a Sith someone, had hitched a ride in Commander Fox’s body and tried to kill Fives. If Fox had been weaker or less fortunate in even the smallest amount, Fives would be dead instead of sleeping off a stun round and a toxin-flushing routine in the Temple’s recovery wing.
Rex can’t stop thinking about it.
His hands shake. He wraps them around Fox’s bedrail.
Fox is still in the ICU, hooked up to a fluid drip and an oxygen cannula and some half-dozen machines and sensors telling the Healers that Fox is majorly fucked up.
Fox shakes his head, frowning like he’s trying to dislodge the cannula.
“Commander,” Rex says. “Commander, wake up.” Perhaps not his finest bedside manner, but to say Rex is having conflicting feelings regarding Fox right now would be a gross understatement.
Fox thrashes once more, then jolts upright so fast he nearly headbutts Rex. At his beside, the machines voice their objection.
“Rex,” Fox rasps, shoving the cannula up and over his head and running his hands through his hair like he’s trying to smooth it. “Rex, did I…?”
Fox is resigned. Rex can see the defeat all over his face. Whatever Rex says, Fox will take it and pack it away and keep on being that sad, miserable bastard Cody loves to poke fun at. According to his heart monitor, though, he can’t keep that up for much longer.
“No, vod. He’s alive. You did it.”
Fox falls forward and Rex’s first instinct will always be to catch him, to catch any vod. Rex hauls him into a hug and feels something in Fox break. He sobs against Rex’s blacks, sobs so hard Rex thinks he’ll lose his voice from it.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry, Rex, I’m so sorry.”
Rex doesn’t know what to say, so he just rocks them back and forth and lets Fox cry against him until the Healers come.