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canarhys · 5 years ago

Text

to riven & mend

read on ao3.

In the days following his court martial, Dogma’s cell was in total silence.

The steel gray wrapped around the walls like a cocoon, almost threatening to suffocate him as he sat on the singular bench adjacent to the back. The only sets of furniture in the isolated room were a slab of metal he dared to call a chair and a long rectangular rest area he dared to call a bed. Gray, gray, gray. No color besides the deep brown of his skin, contrasting with the hueless environment he was thrust into both before and after his trial with the Senate. No color, not even of the blue paint that was only beginning to chip off, his armor stripped until he was left in his blacks, practically naked. He was becoming a part of the dullness around him, sapping his life force until he was like the room itself — colorless. Useless.

His legs were curled up into the fetal position, his hands clutching them like a vice as he buried his face in his knees. He wasn’t crying, no, he had wasted all his tears in the days following up to his court martial. In these moments he was as calm as a traitor could be when captured, clutching to anything that would remind him of the person he was in the past. But now he’s a vessel without a soul, the armor that had made him him ripped from his grasp, his blaster that he held with a sort of dignity discarded with his other weapons. The only thing that even remotely kept his identity intact was that damn tattoo, something he wishes he could claw out of his face.

He’s barely eaten in the months he was in captivity. If he had eaten bare rations before, he had received strikingly less than what had even been accepted of him. Punishment, he thinks, as he receives a small bar that can barely even be considered a ration. With every day he gets less and less, learns to eat less and less until he could barely stomach more than one snack a day. The troopers that guard his cell and the others surrounding him sometimes sneak in against orders, smuggling him some snacks or other foods that Dogma wouldn’t be able to eat anyway. He guesses he appreciates the gesture. He never eats the food, only stuffing it beneath the bed once the guard was out of sight; he won’t admit that he wouldn’t eat it also due to the looks they drove into him, filled with a sort of sadness that felt undeserved.

Dogma lives out his days alone for the most part, only coming into contact with other sentients when they needed more pieces of his story to determine his fate. He knew the puzzling case. A Jedi goes rogue and kills many of the troopers under his command, with one, who was previously extremely loyal to him and even conducted a failed execution in his favor, shooting him in the back. The clones were property, not sentient according to the Republic no matter how much the Senate tried to appear benevolent towards them. They would not believe the words of men who could barely think for themselves. Dogma took the fall, knowing that in all scenarios of Umbara, he would always be the guilty one. It’s better him than anyone else. He couldn’t stomach the idea of any of his other brothers being stuck in this empty cell, touching forbidden and food scarce, slowly going insane from the strangling loneliness of it all. Better him, he thinks when yet another Senator stands outside the ray shield door, asking him questions he had become tired of answering.

There’s not much to do. Sometimes he walks around the cell to pass the time. Sometimes he stares at the walls trying to form shapes outside of them, picturing the world outside that would no doubt see to his decommission on Kamino. Sometimes he just sits or lies down on the slab of a bed, observing the ceiling with wearen gravings, a ceiling that had never before been present above another trooper save for the traitor back on Christophsis. How pathetic. He’s starving to death in a barely cleaned cell, waiting for the day when he’ll be left here to the monster of his stomach or the firing squad that no doubt would take his head off. This is no way a soldier should die.

Then again, Dogma could no longer be considered a soldier.

So it’s a surprise, one interlaced with dread, when two guards enter through the deactivated shields and flank one of the senators on both sides. The Senator of Naboo, he realizes, her dark locks pulled up into buns on her head and held intact with golden and crystal flora. Her dress ruined the dreadful atmosphere of Dogma’s cell, a beautiful ripple of violet woven with swirls and gorgeous patterns. Dogma’s never seen anything beautiful since he’s been taken into custody by the Republic he swore he would never betray. She looks at him, a different expression than what the other senators held whenever they entered his vicinity. They stared at him as if he were a defective animal. She looked at him with soft eyes as if she were instead speaking with a cadet.

“Clone Trooper Dogma?” she asks him, tone gentle as she approaches him. She steps no further when Dogma flinches once she’s but a foot away from him, careful not to startle him. Hesitantly, Dogma nods, the words of “Yes, sir!” dying in his throat. He didn’t deserve to say those words to superior commanders who no longer wanted him by their side, didn’t want to say them to a person so influxed with the war yet not on the front lines like so many of his brothers.

Senator Amidala gives him a calm, hopeful smile that seemed to light up the cell he was in, albeit just mildly. “Come along, Dogma. You’re going home.”

It takes a while for Dogma to process the words. “Home, sir?” His voice is ragged and hoarse from unuse, the last time he used it to the fullest when he was screaming at Krell with tears in his broken eyes. You made me kill my brothers. He feels his throat tighten at the remembrance of his own words. He hides it though, as he’s grown accustomed to over the years thanks to his training on Kamino and the cost on the battlefield.

“To the 501st,” Senator Amidala responds, voice still like a calming wave over the screaming agony that was all that was left on Dogma’s soul. “The Senate has decided to let you go, free of charges. I’m sorry it had taken so long. They thought that you were too dangerous to be released immediately, and the vote to even free you had taken longer than anticipated.” On her last sentence, her tone shifts. The gentle calm suddenly bubbles like a caldera, her voice becoming clipped and disgusted. She glances away from him for a brief moment, eyebrows furrowing in frustration for reasons Dogma doesn’t know how to register. He is already too busy taking in the news.

Before he can think much of it, however, Senator Amidala returns to her kind and sweet exterior. She steps back to allow Dogma some room to get up, two of the guards by her side stepping closer in case of something happening. “Now come. Your captain and general are waiting for you.”

Dogma looks at her bewildered, but her expression and tone seem finalized and stubborn in Dogma following her, and he doesn’t want to disappoint more than he already had. So with shaky legs he stands from the position he’s been sitting in for hours upon hours in his cell. He can’t even feel shame when they immediately give out beneath him, the former trooper nearly crippling to the ground if it weren’t for the two guards who quickly caught him by the armpits. They hoisted him up and forced his arms around their shoulders. He thought he had heard one whisper to him, something in a language he remembers but can’t decipher from in his swimming head at the moment, only knowing that Senator Amidala looks at him with such pained eyes. She begins to walk back to the main hall, and Dogma has no choice but to follow her on trembling feet. The guards tighten their hold on him, though not enough to hurt.

When doors to the outside hangar opens, Dogma is blinded by white light. The gray he had been residing in for a lifetime is overflowed with the glare of an intense beam he realizes is sunlight. It hurts, he notices, as his face and hands, the only thing uncovered, seemingly sizzle in the heat of it. The spots dance around his vision, everything in his sights becoming a combination of swirling shapes and dark triangles. “We’ve got you, vod ,” one of the clone guards whispers to him as he’s hit with a dizzy spell.

It’s terrifying that the word nearly passes by his head devoid of all meaning. He hasn’t been called that since Umbara, and the memories hit him like the roughened waves back at Kamino. Vod . Brother. Dogma never deserved to be called that.

Blinking rapidly, he regains his vision after a few moments in subject to the brilliant and horrendous light. The sun, already beginning to set in the sky, casts the world in an ocean of marigold and peach. The buildings of Coruscant tower over Dogma like looming giants, with sparkling windows reflecting off the beams of the sun and colors that formed gorgeous tapestries along the sides of apartments. Dogma stares at the sight, beautiful and precious, the outside world a gilded masterpiece that he barely even remembers. He’s hit with nostalgia accompanied with dread. These aren’t the grays he had become so accustomed to. This isn’t the darkness he should be enveloped in and killed by.

There is a wall of troopers that line the two sides of Dogma, staring straight ahead of where they face. However, some catch a glimpse of him. Others whisper to those beside them, nodding to Dogma as he walks with aching limbs down the pathway as if he were some sort of war hero. He’s not. But he doesn’t have time to self-loathe when he sees the backs of two men overwatching the busy highway that was the Coruscant highways. The figures turn around, and Dogma forgets how to breathe, his legs freezing up like a loth-cat in headlights once they reach the end of the guard lines.

One, a Jedi, with long brown hair that had fallen now to his shoulders, a dark scar running through his right eye, both his pupils a weary blue. His cutting edge and confident expression seems to fall as he sees Dogma in front of him, a smile rising at the sight of the trooper underneath his command returned, nearly calming the wave of paranoia that hit Dogma upon the lightsaber clipped to the man's belt. The one next to him a clone, the same face and voice and body of Dogma just like the rest of their brothers. He’s got the same dark amber skin Dogma has, the same eyebrows that were trimmed and cut, the same aura of a soldier they were destined to be on the battlefield. He, though, has blond hair shaved close to the scalp, no tattoos save for a small nick on the chin. He wears armor of cerulean while Dogma is left nude in his blacks, his identity intact while Dogma’s is barely latching onto anything.

And his face. Dogma watches as his stoic and calculated facade descends into shock, then painful sadness, and finally lands on irreplaceable joy. He watches the worry lines fade from his captain’s face, eyes losing their glassy exterior and softening to the pupils, tears beginning to collect at the ducts of his eyes. The gaping of his jaw is quickly replaced with a smile, relieved in ways that no other than a clone could understand. The captain’s never let his facade drop, never let his guard down and became vulnerable before another trooper’s eyes. Now he stood in front of the now free clone, grinning at him with eyes filled with a mixture of exuberance and grief.

“Dogma,” Captain Rex begins. The name is alien on his tongue, a discordant note in Dogma’s ears. He doesn’t process it fully. He feels his own throat bob up, choking back on a cry. He wouldn’t cry. He swore he wouldn’t.

“Captain,” Dogma says.

That’ll all it takes for Captain Rex to lunge forward and hug Dogma with a force enough to crush him. The two guards back away at the sudden action, staring at them underneath their helmets no doubt with surprise. General Skywalker, next to Senator Amidala, looked at them with heartfelt eyes as Rex tightened his grip on Dogma. As if he were afraid he were going to fade away, as if he would dissolve into dust and would be lost once again in the tides of war. And Dogma stands there, tears falling despite his oath to never cry, before his hands reach up and grip Captain Rex’s arms. Then he sobs uglily, closing his eyes as the pain and grief hits him full force, his hollow chest now filled with too many emotions for him to keep within himself. And he lets Rex hush him with teary eyes, guiding him to the crook of his neck where Dogma cried. He didn’t think he could cry that hard, but that day was already so full of surprises.

The hanger is quiet as everyone watches Captain Rex hold Dogma, gripping him like a lifeline with the only noise being the whir of ships and Dogma’s whimpering. Coruscant is quiet in the midst of a reunion that had never seemed so far fetched til that moment. Dogma buries his face in Rex’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of his brother that reminded him of Kamino waves, salty sea sprays and lightning skies. And through Rex, Dogma remembers what home felt like.

The transport had set down at its designated landing zone on the Coruscant base, a little closer than other ships of their height which would have been odd if Dogma wasn’t the reason for it to be this way. Rex had told him about the crowd that had already been forming among the 501st, gathering along the entrance to the base of Coruscant. He had said that after they had landed, Dogma would be taken directly to the medical facility, where he would receive a check-up and receive a couple of visitors. He would stay there for a while before he would be accustomed to the large crowd of clones. Rex knew Dogma’s feelings about crowds, combined with his isolation in the dreadful cell he’s been locked inside for so many months, and was relieved when Dogma nodded in understanding. Albeit occupied.

It was hard, seeing Dogma like this, sitting uncomfortably in his chair as Rex and Anakin spoke. He may as well have been a scarecrow, skin clinging to bare bones that made his wrists thin and his stomach near nonexistent. If he looked closely, Rex could see that beneath the backs that his belly constricted tight around his ribcage, the arrangement of bones visible through the suit. The baby fat on his face was no longer present, dark brown tightened around cheekbones that had become more prominent during his arrest. It made Rex’s fists clench, made him grit his teeth in barely suppressed anger at the thought of his own trooper, his own brother , starving in that cell with no clue what was going to happen to him. He takes in a steady breath, trying to calm himself down and aiming to ignore how scrawny Dogma looked. This was not how a soldier was supposed to look like. Soldiers weren’t supposed to have shadows grown beneath their eyes, soldiers weren’t supposed to be locked in cages for doing what is just.

“He’ll be fine,” Anakin told him, resting a comforting hand on Rex’s shoulders. He looked just as pained as Rex when he gazed at Dogma’s brittle bones, different than how Rex viewed him but similar regardless of their status. Rex exhaled shakily as Dogma continued to stare at his feet, picking at the indents in the chair.

“He’s so skinny,” Rex said off-handedly, voice coming off grieved and angry. “They barely fed him in there. There’s barely any muscle left.”

“I know.” Anakin looked equally as perturbed. “The Senate refused any visitors other than themselves. Some of the guards told me they’ve been sneaking him some snacks, but during cell clean-up they found all of them stashed beneath his bed uneaten.”

“Kriff.” Rex uses all of his power not to jump out the carrier craft, march right up to the Senate, and smack each and every one of them upside the head with his blaster without a moment’s hesitation. How dare they treat his vod , one of the many brothers he has left in a war they are forced to fight in, with such disrespect. He might as well have been a common thief or criminal. At worst, a traitor of the Republic. Rex doesn’t even want to think about Chancellor Palpatine up in his mighty chair, more amused than concerned over the life of a man who did nothing wrong. Rex has become more bitter over the course of the months. He can’t help but think the war is responsible for it.

“Don’t worry, Kix’ll get him fed right as he gets to the medbay,” Anakin told him, giving his shoulder a little squeeze. Rex knew that Anakin was feeling just as much rage and sadness as he was feeling, but Rex knew that his pain did not come close to the pain that Torrent Company felt when being updated on his court martial and his solitary confinement. They had been waiting for it, waiting for the day he would either be released free of charges or decommissioned by firing squad. They’d all have been torn apart if it weren’t for each other and some of the Jedi like Mace Windu and Plo Koon, who valiantly advocated for his release. This was something no other sentient could ever experience. The fear of losing another brother, the fear of losing an innocent who only wanted to be a good soldier.

Rex had asked the closest of his vode to wait until Dogma was in the medical bay to approach him. He knew that out of all of their brothers, they were the ones to be hit heavily by his arrest. They deserved a personal moment with him, because Force damned did Dogma need one at the moment. His face was hollow and broken, so uncharacteristic to the trooper with a stoic face and a goal to fight. He needed them just like they needed him.

Rex leaves Anakin to return to Dogma just as the ship comes to a halt, still digging his fingers into the steel of his seat. “Hey,” he says, his commandeering voice softening to a gentle tone which only seemed to come out in the presence of a brother. “We’ve just landed. There’s going to be a lot of people there, so if you’re ever uncomfortable, just tug on my wrist.”

Dogma nodded slowly, eyes still refusing to meet Rex’s. Rex retaliates by hovering his hand over Dogma’s arm. He sees no rejection, so he takes him by the hand and massages his fingers. Dogma’s limbs are tense, painfully reminding Rex of his rigid posture back on Umbara whenever he came around, and they begin to ease due to Rex’s ministrations. Then, like holding glass, he pulls Dogma up on his feet. The boy’s legs are shaky like how they were when he had arrived out the prison, trembling as Rex guided him to the opening hangar doors. But he’s persistent, the stubbornness Rex had both admired and cursed at evident in how he stands as upright as he can be, letting Rex lead him down the ramp to the ground.

The crowd was certainly more packed than Rex had anticipated. Luckily, some of the clones had resorted to keeping them back, forming a little barricade to prevent anyone from approaching the guilt-free trooper. But Rex saw the expressions of those whose sunbonnets were discarded on crates and beneath their arms, staring at Dogma with a mixture of emotions. Some were still pent up in shock, wide eyed almost like a shiny’s as Dogma passed them on the way. Others had offered him a kind smile and nod. Some refused to look him in the eye. There was tension in the air as they entered the base of Coruscant, every eye like daggers into Dogma’s back, words left unsaid and hanging in the air like heart missiles.

Rex nearly misses it when Dogma tugs on his hand for the minuscule of a moment, but that’s all Rex needs to pick up their pace and take them through the open doors. They begin their route to the medical bay, Rex’s hand curled around Dogma’s waist in both protection and comfort, the inside not as packed as the outside save for a few shinies and vets. Dogma’s head whipped back and forth around the base that would have given him whiplash. He seemed to be in the midst of an overload, taken aback by how much changed and by how much did not. It hit Rex with the memory of a rookie Dogma, standing in front of him and looking as if all the stars had aligned right before his eyes. He tugs Dogma a little closer as General Skywalker leaves to attend to other matters and they make their way through one of the base’s many corridors.

He’s memorized the base by memory at this point, knowing where to turn and where to stop, easily finding the medbay at the end of a hallway. The room is empty, reserved for those in urgent care and furnished with basic equipment but only a single bed. He guides Dogma to it and has him sit down on the edge, making sure he’s not uncomfortable and such. Dogma seemed to be doing alright despite the way his limbs were pencil thin and his eyes were darker than most.

Rex tapped on the comm, sending a message to Kix and the others that Dogma had made it safely to the medbay. “They’ll be here in just a moment,” he told Dogma. The other’s large face tattoo crinkled along with his features, confusion settling on him.

“They?” His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. Opposite of back when he forced it to be deeper and louder when commanding troops. On the medical table, he never looked so lost and alone, causing Rex’s heart to wrench terribly. He’s been stripped of everything that forged his identity, all of it ripped to shreds. All because of that fucking shit of a general.

“Your vode ,” Rex says, pained that Dogma does not remember who he is referring to. “All of them. Kix, Tup, Fives. They’re all coming to see you.”

Dogma sets an unreadable look on him. “Why?”

The words understandably have him stagger back a little. Why ? He had not expected that to be Dogma’s reaction to all his brothers who had seen him off, his voice skeptical and deprecating and so hoarse from silence. But Rex remembers how Dogma had looked after he had nodded to Rex, stoic expression falling to a miserable and sad truth. He remembers how Dogma had stared at him stunned like he never expected Rex to even be there in front of him for his discharge from his prison. He remembers how he curled around himself under the stares of millions of men, watching him pass by and attempting to disappear. And he remembers the way he flinches when Rex touches him, as if expecting him to hit him. Dogma blames himself.

Rex tries not to falter, attempting to sound less shattered than he already was. “Because they missed you, vod . They missed you so much.”

Dogma eyes him warily, not knowing how to process the information. Before Rex can convince him that he was telling the truth, however, the doors to the medbay opened. A clone, holding a datapad that was hastily held up in their arms, entering the doors to the facility apologizing for something happening down at the mess hall before freezing up. His dark hair was shaved to the scalp with intricate patterns, wearing dirtied armor that had the red medic symbol painted onto his left pauldron. Along the shaven fuzz of his hair was a tattoo with the words a good droid is a dead one in Aurebesh. He met eyes with Captain Rex before they focused on Dogma, who might as well have been a ghost with the way that Kix’s hard-edge broke at that moment.

“Dogma,” he whispered. “It’s you.”

Dogma was frozen as well, clinging to the edge of his seat with aghast eyes. Captain Rex couldn’t help but smile, gently rubbing Dogma’s back. “It’s okay,” he said. “Remember him?”

“Kix,” Dogma breathed out. His throat bobbed with a suppressed gulp. Tears had begun to gather in Kix’s tear ducts, a flurry of emotions hitting him upon seeing his vod for the first time in months. He slowly approached Dogma, hands shaking as he set the datapad down on a nearby table and stood in front of him with eyes swimming and glassy.

“Oh my…” Kix sobbed. “It’s really you. You’re really…” He touched Dogma’s shoulders gently to warn him of what he was about to do, and when receiving no answer, he pulled him into a full hug. Unlike Rex, Kix held him like shattered glass, whispering comfort in Dogma’s ears as he held the younger. Dogma melted, laying his head on Kix’s shoulder, shaking desperately in his arms. “You're really here, kriff. I’m here vod , okay? I’m right here.”

“Okay,” Dogma responded, voice shaky and weary.

Then, outside the doors was a loud sound, accompanied by yelling and the crashing of something that sounded more expensive than Rex would have liked. But he managed to forget it when the doors slid open once more and a new trooper had arrived. Younger than all of them, the youngest of their close group in Torrent Company, with hair tied up in a hasty topknot and a teardrop tattooed beneath his right eye. He had only stepped a foot into the room before he stopped and screamed out in the most relieved and agonized voice Rex thought a trooper could yell, “ Dogma! ”

Kix had skillfully let go just before the tsunami wave known as Tup barreled toward Dogma, throwing his arms around the boy with no care in the world. Dogma had barely managed a squeak before he was fully enveloped inside of Tup’s grasp, arms gripping onto his waist like a lifeline. “Dogma, vod , fucking…” Tup fumbled for the words to say, near breathless and his throat closing in on itself as tears had begun to stream down his face in canals. “Dogma, shit.” He buried his head in Dogma’s chest, crying into it as he held his long lost batchmate and brother with trembling limbs. Dogma was frozen before he felt himself let go once again, this time tears beginning to collect. They fell without consent, and he barely managed a sob before running his fingers through Tup’s long locks, accidentally undoing the hasty bun it was forced up into. Tup didn’t care in the slightest, pulling back to stare at his vod in the eyes. He ran a shaky hand over Dogma’s cheek, inspecting his hollowed face with grieved yet grateful eyes. He pulled him close until their foreheads touched gently, initiating a kov’nyn that should have been shared months ago, smiling brighter than he'd ever had.

Rex and Kix stood to the side while the two batchmates held one another, shaking and trembling as they attempted to speak despite one’s speechlessness and the other’s stuttering. Their eyes were shut tight, refusing to let go of one another, Dogma leaning into Tup’s embrace and starving for any sort of contact he could find. They were batchmates, decanted besides one another and trained with one another, surviving all odds. Out of everyone, Tup had taken Dogma’s arrest the hardest. He deserved this.

There was quiet save for the sniffling of the youngest vode of the group, before the bay doors opened yet again . This time however was not due the presence of a single person but of three. Rex saw all of them enter with one another, hastily squeezing through the door that did not support the size of the group. Rex didn’t need to inspect them for more than a second before he recognized them. A Republic cog decorating the side of one’s head; lines carefully drawn along another’s head and underneath a chin in gentle blue; and one with a five tattooed on their temple and a goatee hanging down his chin. Fives, Jesse, and Hardcase. Three of some of his closest vode , eyes going wide at the sight of Dogma with Tup still wrapped around him, their hearts may as well having ceased to beat in the moment.

“Dogma!” Hardcase exclaimed and immediately ran over to pick both Tup and Dogma up with arms that have become muscular from toting around his minigun on the battlefield for so long. He lifted them both up into the air, grinning with fervor as he heard Dogma’s cut off yelp and Tup’s overjoyed laughter. Rex nearly walked over to break it up until he saw Dogma lean into the embrace, allowing for Hardcase to place a sloppy kiss on Dogma’s cheek. He could see Dogma flush in embarrassment, though there was something close to a smile on his face when Hardcase had offered the show of affection. The whole scene, Tup never let go of Dogma so that all three of them were close knit.

Hardcase had set the two down. He was teary eyed, something rare when it came to Hardcase, who never cried even after long weary battles and only ever teared up when laughing with his whole body or losing another close vod . His smile was radiant as well, the grin of a loth-cat stretching ear to ear with shining pearly whites, mouth open in a laugh. “Oh, that felt good!” he exhaled, hands curled around Tup and Dogma’s shoulders in a protective and loving stance.

Dogma seemed to be almost overwhelmed with the excess amount of affection. He’s barely come into contact with anyone during his isolation, the guards had told Rex and Anakin, and he would need a while to get used to it. But though Dogma’s body was trembling, there was something in his eyes. Something that told Rex that he would be fine despite his shaking.

“Okay, back away both of you!” Jesse orders out, gently pulling Tup away while simultaneously pushing Hardcase back with the force of a bantha. Hardcase made an offended noise but Jesse ignored his cry, opting to place his hands on Dogma’s biceps which were brittle and weak. Fear flashed across Dogma’s facade until he caught sight of the sad smile Jesse was giving him, relieved and jovial despite how much calmer it seemed than the rest of them. “Hey, brother,” he whispered carefully.

“Jesse,” Dogma voiced, legs nearly giving out from beneath him if it weren’t for Jesse propping him up against him. Jesse’s breath seemed to hitch at the call of his name, and he gave a small chuckle before tucking Dogma’s face into his shoulder, combing a hand through his hair when Dogma was situated against him. The vod’ika ’s breath began to steady as Jesse caressed his head.

“It’s good to have you back, vod ,” Jesse told him, trying to seem strong out of all of them despite how his cracking voice betrayed him. “It really is. Karking miracle if I believed in that shit.”

“Jesse,” Kix scolded, raising an eyebrow for the curse. Jesse only laughed, shoulders relaxing as he petted the boy’s head and listened to his breathing.

“C’mon,” Jesse said. He hesitantly pulled away. “Someone’s waiting for you.”

Dogma frowned at the cryptic statement until he caught a glimpse of the last clone in the room, still standing at the door. Fives. The one whose pain was enough to rival theirs at the reintroduction of a vod long thought dead. He seemed to be trying to steel himself, to appear intact despite wanting nothing more than to come forward and wrap his arms around his younger brother. Tup and Jesse guided Dogma over, who was staring straight at Fives, still frozen at the entrance to the medbay and seeing a ghost. They were soon face to face with one another. Neither knowing what to say.

Dogma had only started to speak Fives’ name before the older shut him up by pulling him close, tucking the younger’s head beneath his chin. Fives let the water fall from his eyes. “I knew you’d come back,” was all he muttered, pressing gentle kisses along the top of Dogma’s head. Rex saw Dogma’s back stiffen at the shower of affection before he began crying again, though this time he was silent as he gripped Fives’ waist, letting the older pepper his hairline with tender kisses.

That seemed to be the catalyst for the others. They all came close and wrapped their arms around each other as they formed a circle around Fives and Dogma, petting the younger’s back and hair and making sure that his trembles did not get any worse. Dogma was new to all this, still new to all the affection he had not been expecting when he had arrived at the base. But now here were the brothers that had begged General Skywalker and Senator Amidala endlessly for him to be freed, the brothers that never believed such a blessing could come to them at that very moment. Willing to sacrifice everything for the vod they should have saved before he was turned for the worst.

Rex came closer to smile at Fives, who nodded with a smile back to him. Their brother was back.

Dogma was shattered and broken beyond comprehension. Krell’s betrayal and Dogma’s misplaced actions had led to pain that no other battalion could ever suffer in this hell of a war. Umbara was a wound still open and unhealed, shown in how Dogma’s arms can barely hold onto Fives as they tremble, how he’s so scared and hesitant and terrified of this world he was suddenly brought back into. A shadow of who he once was. But there’s hope now. They have him back. He was alive and that was all that mattered. He was back rightfully in their arms. No matter what happens, they would make it through this.

And, picking up his pieces, they begin to put Dogma back together.

#i'm so tired and gay and i can't shut the fuck up can i #star wars #sw #the clone wars #tcw #fic: to riven & mend #clone trooper dogma #captain rex #arc trooper fives #clone trooper kix #arc trooper jesse #clone trooper tup #clone trooper hardcase #anakin skywalker #padmé amidala #writing #*eggman snapcube voice* i miss my clone filoni. i miss him a lot.

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