Chapter Text
The trip to the Senate Dome felt as though it took ages. Obi-wan stared out the window as Quin piloted with his usual recklessness and Cody bitched at him for it, the tall buildings and other speeders and transports blurring together into a meaningless stream of colour.
The bad feeling hadn’t gone away. In fact, it was only growing stronger the closer they got to their destination. The last time Obi-wan had had a bad feeling this strong, it had been just before Naboo, where they fought the Sith and Master Jinn had died by a red blade.
Obi-wan wondered what it meant even as he shored up his shields. Whatever was coming, he couldn’t be incapacitated by grief. His emotions could wait until later, until he had time.
Not that he ever really had time, what with the seemingly endless war.
When they finally did arrive at the Senate Dome, the trio made their way into the building, faces and postures careful masks perfected over years of necessity.
Cody and Quinlan flanked Obi-wan, and he appreciated the unspoken support as he nodded to various Senators and mostly just tried to keep moving.
Cody had a tracker on Fox, just as Fox did on him and both had trackers on their two Jedi. Said Jedi didn’t need the trackers, their bonds were strong enough that they were able to make their way through the maze of corridors and lifts to where they knew Fox was.
Obi-wan led the way in a light daze, focusing mainly on Fox to keep going, regardless of the fact that Fox still had his emotions locked down. Obi-wan wasn’t worried, they had thrown rather a lot of emotions at the poor man, and he wasn’t exactly allowed to leave work to come check on them.
The redhead huffed at the reminder of the clones’ lack of rights. He was working on a series of bills to pass through the Senate that would give them those rights without outright shouting across the galaxy. The repeated failures of the Senators’ Clone Rights Bill was evidence enough that that particular route would be highly ineffective in the corrupt Senate.
But, as with everything else, he never had enough time.
The trio had just stepped out of the lift and onto the correct floor where Fox was when Obi-wan’s focus shattered as his bond with Fox exploded with terror and rage.
Obi-wan cried out, clutching at his head, barely able to note that Quinlan seemed to be doing the same and that Cody was slightly more than mildly frantic.
When the initial shock passed, though the terror spilling over the bond had not abated at all, both Obi-wan and Quinlan broke into a full sprint, Cody following behind them without needing an explanation.
It was only several seconds later, when Obi-wan had slipped enough into a combat headspace to be able to compartmentalize the bond shrieking inside his head, did he notice the Force also roiling and shrieking a warning.
He ran faster.
As they got closer to where Fox was, less than a room away, Obi-wan noted absently that they seemed to be in the Chancellor’s office suite.
Then he noted, less absently, that they were headed straight for the Chancellor’s office, and that there were none of the usual guards or secretary within the outer room.
They burst into the Chancellor’s office to find pure and total chaos.
The room was absolutely trashed. Gouges and burns littered the walls, ceiling, and floor. Furniture was thrown about the room, crushed, and broken to pieces. Various decorative items were smashed and embedded in the walls. Obi-wan was fairly certain that the only reason the windows weren’t broken was because they were blaster- and shockproof transperisteel.
And there, in the middle of it all, stood Fox.
Over the Chancellor’s dead body.
Pointing a blaster pistol straight at the three of them.
Cody immediately stepped in front of the two jedi, hands out but stance wary.
“Hey, easy vod. Easy. Udesii, Fox. It’s just me; it’s Cody.”
Fox’s blank face tilted slightly so it was facing towards Cody, though his eyes remained unfocused. The blaster moved as well, but dipped, Fox seemingly unable to point it at Cody even in this state.
The fact that he could see Fox’s face hit Obi-wan with a shock. The man never took his helmet off within the Senate Dome, or while on duty. Never.
What had happened?!?!
A gentle nudge from Quinlan brought Obi-wan back into focus, just in time to be able to catch the string of impressions from Cody.
Worry-notsafe?-pleasehelp-eyesup
At his request, Obi-wan and Quinlan split up to search the room, both keeping a careful eye on the pair of clones, who had not yet moved much: Fox’s grip on the blaster still tight and Cody’s careful murmuring.
A search of the room only confirmed Obi-wan’s initial assessment of the damage done. The place was practically destroyed.
The streaks of blood littered throughout were significantly distressing.
As was the absolutely petrified shiny Obi-wan found curled up in the tightest ball possible in a corner underneath an upturned chair.
The half-second of shock brought an alert Quinlan moving over to his side, and the Jedi shared a weighted look.
Obi-wan settled onto his heels slightly more than arms’ reach away from the shiny. Panic was a brutal thing, and he didn’t want to add guilt or yet more fear to the roiling mass of terror that was the young clone in the Force.
“Hello there.”
Even through the tenseness of the situation and the building worry about their fourth partner, Obi-wan still felt the faintest echoes of Quin’s laughter at his opening remark.
The shiny only flinched.
Obi-wan’s heart sank. That was not a promising start. He opened his mouth to try again when a light touch to his shoulder redirected his attention.
He looked up to see Cody standing above him with Fox close behind him. Cody signed for him to move back, and Obi-wan followed immediately, trusting Cody’s judgement and assessment of his fellow clones.
Oddly enough, Cody stepped away as well, leaving a large empty space in front of the shiny that Fox moved in to.
When Obi-wan prodded at his bond with Fox, the warmth-and-constancy strand was still firmly muffled from Fox’s end.
It made Obi-wan’s heart ache and the low-grade fear that he couldn’t release into the Force flare up again, prompting a surge of comfort from Quinlan.
Fox crouched in front of the shiny and, without a word, reached out to tap on the other clone’s chest plate. The shiny flinched at the initial touch, but it didn’t deter Fox. He simply continued to tap at the plastoid in what was clearly a message pattern.
Obi-wan knew that the clones had formed their own tap-based language, and had respected that. The vode as a whole had so little that was purely their own, and the standardized sign language was sufficient while in the field.
He had never asked either of his partners to explain, never willing to ask them to bare the truth of what was clearly one of the few things the vode as a whole held close.
The room was full of a heavy silence, the only sounds the rapid breathing of the shiny and the tapping of Fox’s fingers against his armour.
Obi-wan was willing to wait as long as his partner needed him to.