Reverse Aging AU
ok but listen:
Obi-Wan ages really quickly compared to most of his friends, right? hell, in TPM Qui-Gon was around the same age that Obi-Wan was in ANH. Bail Organa looks exactly the same in Rogue One as in ROTS. And I know that everyone puts it down to stress, sun, and sand, BUT
you know who does age just as fast?
the clones.
so what if, one day, Obi-Wan heard someone mention that their advanced aging put their natural lifespan at MAYBE forty years, even if the average age of death was 10-12. maybe, at that point in the war, Obi-Wan wasn’t expecting to live much longer, either. maybe he WAS, but he couldn’t bear the thought of being left behind. not again.
anyway, the war was stressful for everyone. no one would think that the new wrinkles, the sudden gray in his hair, were due to anything more than stress.
maybe Cody wonders, a little, why the constant ache in his bones from rapid marrow production and replacement he’s been living with since the tubes subsides. maybe he sees the gray at Wolffe’s temples, the lines on Rex’s face, and worries. maybe he doesn’t.
maybe CC-2224 pauses one day and realizes that he hasn’t seen another clone in years. maybe he has, but their faces are so aged that he hardly realizes that they’re supposed to be identical. maybe he runs into an armored bounty hunter on a star destroyer and realizes, with a chill down his spine, that if he took off his helmet then they would actually LOOK to be the same age for the first time, even though they always have been.
maybe he sees an old man face down Darth Vader and wonders, in the back of his mind, where he’s seen him before.
maybe he searches through a crumpled, discarded cloak, and sees an oddly familiar hilt.
maybe he picks it up.
-
maybe CC-2224 is transferred before the rebel scum attack the death star, though he doesn’t know why.
(Lord Vader has always treated him strangely. CC-2224 has been Force strangled more times than anyone else in the Empire, and yet still lives to tell the tale. he’s always dropped like so much trash once his vision goes dark and he stops struggling, no matter how angry the Sith gets. he’s learned to count his blessings.
after all, Vader might have snatched the saber from him, but he’d let CC-2224 keep the cloak.)
he closes his eyes once he realizes he’s the last clone serving the empire. the bounty hunter nods at him, just once, when they encounter each other in the halls of Cloud City, and goes back to ignoring him.
and then he apparently gets eaten by a kriffing sarlacc. CC-2224 thinks, I’ll add him to my list of names, but falters when he remembers Fett was the only clone who had one.
that’s what he believes up until he’s captured by rebel scum on Endor. an ewok triumphantly yanks off his helmet–
–and another agonizingly familiar old man (not a clone can’t be a clone clones aren’t traitors) whispers, “Cody?”
-
there’s a lot of yelling, after that. the other rebels, especially the smuggler, want him dead. the princess watches, clutching her arm, eyes darting to his left and squinting as if there’s something there she can’t quite make out. the old man alternates between snarling threats at them and calling him – calling him –
“my designation,” he gasps, head throbbing, pain radiating from the same spot it always does, “is CC-2224.”
the old man’s face crumples, and even the smuggler subsides a little at the tears in his eyes.
“please, princess,” he says at last, “let me help him. i’ve proven myself – my loyalty – you’ve read fulcrum’s briefings, you know about the chip – ”
she hesitates, looks again to CC-2224′s left, and nods just once. CC-2224 admires her effortless command over her fighters. even the smuggler doesn’t argue, though he looks like he dearly wants to.
-
the empire falls. the empire falls and CC-2224 is a failure. defective, like all his brothers the other clones. he remembers, how in the first few days-weeks-months after the emperor’s rightful ascent to the throne, so many had terminated themselves, gibbering madly about good soldiers and orders and i killed my general i killed my commander oh force i killed the little ones.
CC-2224 had not. after all, his general the traitor was a wily one. he’d been presumed dead before. but he wasn’t gone; CC-2224 could feel it. so he’d spent his time hunting down clones so defective that they hadn’t followed orders at all, carefully not thinking about how quickly they all aged compared to him.
he always kept his helmet on, because sometimes his brothers defective clones looked at him and called him Fett or even Prime. CC-2224 hated being called by the wrong name any name at all; names were for organics, and he had no need of such useless luxuries. his designation was all he ever needed – all he ever was.
the traitor was gone now. he had been for years. CC-2224′s main purpose for existing had died with the jedi the empire. there was nothing left to fight for. he’d never seen the appeal of self-termination before, and yet–
he looks at the old man. the traitor clone, sleeping on the ground outside his makeshift cell. several rebel scum have come and gone, eager to extract vengeance on an enemy captive as part of their festivities, but the old man turned them all away with a pointed hand on his blaster. something deep in his brain itches. this one hadn’t called him Fett, despite his (deceptively?) youthful appearance. this one had called him–had called him
C̷̨̯̻̜̙͖̖̹̐̋͆͂͌̽̌͑̄̚͜ơ̮͎̻̪͈̳͔͚͗̋͂͌͊̊̈d̴̨̝̪̺̣̦̔̌͂̚̕y̨̜̮͔̘͓̟̑͛̌̌̈́͛́̓ͅ
-
the jedi visits his cell. CC-2224's vision goes red, and he lunges, throwing himself against the makeshift bars of his cell. the traitor clone jerks awake and yells at the jedi to get away, before he gets hurt. CC-2224 shouldn't be surprised that a traitor is helping a traitor, but it stings, all the same. they're still fellow clones. the old man shouldn't be shielding their most hated enemy.
the jedi's blue eyes are wide, but they're not looking at him. like the princess, they keep straying to his left. "ben? do you know what's wrong with him?"
it's at that moment that the wooden bars of his ewok-constructed cell splinter, and CC-2224 lunges, grasping for the boy's throat.