They put him in solitary confinement. Aiding and abetting for sure, they said, and there’s no telling what you’ve actually done.
Fox sat there and blinked as they told him because they’re right, there is no telling. Not even from Fox. He blinked because there was nothing else he could do, and his eyebrow itched and he couldn’t reach up to scratch it, not with his hands chained to his ankles.
“I understand,” he rasped. His throat still tasted like blood. Can you tear something screaming?
The trooper from the 501st sneered. “Tch. Come on, get up and get moving.”
It’s very quiet in solitary, and the lights are always on, so he doesn’t know how long it’s been. When food comes, it’s just ration bars, and he’s sleeping too much of the time to see if they arrive on a schedule.
That’s one nice part, actually. The sleeping. Fox has been so fucking tired, and in solitary, there’s nothing to do but curl up on the mattress and sleep. It’s a bit chilly, and very bright, but Fox has been so tired for so long that it doesn’t really matter. He wishes he had sheets, though. Or a pillow. He’s on suicide watch, the most intense protocol. He should be glad they let him keep his clothes.
There must be a camera in here. Would they come in and stop him if he tried anything? he wonders. How would he do it? How many options does he have?
He’s run through all possible permutations of the three obvious ways and moved on to laying on his back and trying to get creative when the next meal shoots through the slot in the door.
He actually screams, he’s so startled.
Fox has always been proud of his gallows humor. What can he say? He’s a hard man to beat. It’s all funny.
It stops being funny around the thirtieth time the food comes. He hasn’t been sleeping well lately, though he’s still as tired as he was when they dropped him in here, so he’s been paying enough attention to work out a pattern. He thinks they’re feeding him twice a day.
Twice a day, one thousand kilocalories a meal. He’s memorized the ration packaging.
It’s been fifteen days. Maybe fourteen or sixteen.
The rations are heavy and sticky, and he drinks all his water trying to get the first few bites down. He looks up at the camera and the slot opens with a woosh, depositing another litre bottle.
He’s been losing weight. They’ve been trying to make him eat.
It’s funny how subtle communication can be. Somewhere back there, there’s a sentient watching him. Maybe a brother. Or it’s a coincidence. The water doesn’t always come when he looks. They probably don’t watch him twenty-four hours a day, though. They have algorithms for that, sophisticated things that’ve been fed enough hours of cell footage to set off an alarm if you so much as twitch wrong.
Somewhere around day seventeen, the insomnia lets him go and he collapses on the bed, semiconscious. His eyes won’t focus.
He sleeps and wakes and dreams, but not all at the same time. One at a time? Two? Someone speaks, but it’s between his ears, ricocheting from side to side, so he ignores it. He should get up, maybe work out some more. He’s so tired.
The mattress is so cold. If it was warmer, maybe he could sleep. Wake up? He’s doing too much of something.
“Hey, Fox.”
“Mm?”
“Hey, yeah, it’s me. It’s Thire.”
Fox jerks upright. Where, what, did he…?
“Easy, ori’vod. You’re done with lock-up. They sent me to come get you.” Thire’s hands hover over his shoulders. His hair’s even curlier than the last time Fox saw him, and his eyes hurt. “Fox?”
Oh. Done. He’s done with… lock-up. Solitary. He was on suicide watch. He’s cold. “How long have I been in here?” Words feel strange after so much silence.
“Sixteen days.”
“Oh.” His count was pretty close, all things considered.
“They dropped all charges against you,” Thire says, shifting to sit cross-legged in front of the mattress. “And the Order got them to pay damages. Five hundred thousand credits. I didn’t even know Jedi could be lawyers.”
That’s a lot of money. That’s more than they paid for Fox. That’s even more they paid for those other…. Cody’s boys. The fuck-ups. “Probably couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t practice, what with the…” He trails off, waving a hand vaguely.
Thire ducks out of the way before Fox hits him. “Yeah, probably.” He takes a breath. “You ready to go?”
Fox glances over Thire’s shoulder. The door is open. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Come on, up.”