Clonebi-Wan AU part 5
OB-1 woke up.
His first thought was that he could breathe through his nose again; he’d missed that. His second, accompanied by a painful clench in his gut, was that he needed to turn himself in for decommissioning as soon as possible. In the advent of his discovery, he was to remove himself from the Order so as to avoid implicating Master Jinn, and report to Kamino by any means necessary.
But the situation had changed. Master Jinn was long dead, which made it much easier to keep his involvement a secret. In fact, being mistaken for a Separatist plant could serve as an ideal cover story.
And yet... OB-1 found himself highly reluctant to admit to it. He’d already denied it countless times to... during the interrogation. There was good reason for that; he was currently playing an indispensable role in the war effort, so falsely confessing to espionage would throw the GAR into chaos. It would also prevent the Kaminoans from replacing him, even though he was still under warranty. The CIS would press the advantage, the Republic would falter even more than it was already, and countless soldiers would die.
OB-1 knew the lives of clones hardly mattered, in the grand scheme of things, but the troopers were a special case. They were vital for the defense of the Republic, and though the Senate might think they were easily replaceable, OB-1 knew they were not.
They were all individuals, distinct and shining in the Force. They weren’t created to be replacements for Jango Fett, but soldiers in their own right. Every Jedi could sense just how unique each of them were, and they took every chance they got to express their individuality.
No one had noticed there was a difference between OB-1 and the prime. It would have been the same for any of the other OBs, if they hadn’t been decommissioned.
OB-1 cracked his eyes open, squinting at his clean and bright surroundings after so long in a darkened tent. He was pleasantly surprised to find that they weren’t still swollen shut. Someone had wasted bacta on him, though considering the state his jaw had been in, it was probably necessary if they intended to continue with the interrogations. They’d also moved him. He was in a medbay; the one on the Negotiator, if he wasn’t mistaken.
“General Ke-- Sir. You’re awake,” someone said. Bones, clad in a white medical uniform. OB-1 never failed to marvel at how specialized the troopers were; he and the other OBs had always learned the exact same things at the exact same time, so as to better measure them against one another.
“Sir,” Bones said again. “Can you hear me?”
“Of course,” OB-1 croaked.
“There’s no guarantee after all the knocks to the head you got,” Bones replied grimly. He rounded on a group of trainees hovering in the corner that OB-1 hadn’t noticed until just then. Perhaps he wasn’t entirely alert yet. “Get the patient some water! And someone get the Commander.” He hesitated. “No one alert the other generals until he gets here.”
OB-1 lost track of things for a bit after that, focused solely on sipping water slowly through a straw that one of the junior medics (who he hadn’t met before and thus had not yet learned the name of) held to his lips. He’d ended up in the medbay often enough to know that it would be taken away if he drank too fast and risked making himself sick.
Despite Bones’s precautions, it wasn’t Cody who arrived first, but Vos. He must have been waiting nearby, or even watching the door. Another medic, whom OB-1 vaguely recalled was named Helix, attempted to stall him, but Vos bulled past him and parked himself at the foot of OB-1′s cot.
“General Vos, if you aren’t in need of medical attention, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Bones said levelly.
“Make me,” Vos replied through a grin that was more bared teeth than smile.
A muscle jumped in Bones’s jaw, a tic most of his brothers did not share. OB-1 sat up just enough to pat him reassuringly on the arm, head spinning just a bit. “We’d be happy to get out of your hair, Bones, let me just get my feet under me.”
“You’re not going anywhere, sir,” Bones began, but it was Vos who put a hand on his shoulder and gently pressed him back into the pillow. OB-1 stilled; his initial reaction was to jerk away, lest Vos’s psychometry revealed him to be a facsimile, but the ship had long since left orbit for that particular discovery. Vos did not look particularly thrilled to be touching him, either, but his thumb was rubbing comforting circles into OB-1′s collarbone.
“It’s fine,” Vos said. “I’ll help you explain. And if Skywalker lays another hand on you, I’ll cut it off, flesh or no.”
OB-1's mind whirled at that, as he absent-mindedly answered the formulaic questions Bones asked to check he wasn’t brain damaged from... the events of the past week. Explain what? How much did Vos know? How long had he known? Who else knew?
His mental spiral was interrupted by Cody bursting into the room, Rex at his heels. Bones shot them a glower as they too crowded around OB-1′s cot, but didn’t object as he had to Vos.
“Sir,” Cody blurted, standing ramrod straight, “I apologize deeply for my conduct. It was inexcusable.”
OB-1 opened his mouth to reassure him, not sure what to say but desperately wanting to wipe that anguished, self-recriminating look off his commander’s face, but was interrupted by Rex leaning down to press his forehead against his own.
In the sudden silence, his soft words carried easily: “I’m so sorry, ori’vod. I never should have doubted you.”
OB-1′s throat closed up. He found himself reaching up to grip the back of Rex’s neck, as Satine had done to him in a situation much like this, after one of the times he’d saved her life so many years ago.
He’d never thought of himself as a brother to anyone else but--
“So,” Vos said, once Rex had pulled back, “How long has this one known?”
“Since the first couple times I worked with him,” Rex admitted, and OB-1′s world would have crashed down around his ears, had it not already done so.
“Aren’t you Skywalker’s?” Vos asked sharply, gesturing at the blue paint on his armor. “What the kriff are you doing on this ship?”
“Where is Anakin, anyway?” OB-1 asked lightly, trying very hard to keep his voice from wavering. “I was hoping to clear up our… misunderstanding.”
“Skywalker is never getting near you again,” Cody growled, almost but not quite touching him. Rex was even closer, his hip pressing against the shoulder that didn’t have Vos’s hand on it. Bones sighed in annoyance from where he was hovering nearby, having commandeered the water cup and straw from his trainee. Cody continued, “I’m not letting him near Rex, either. He is not permitted on this destroyer anymore.”
Before OB-1 could formulate a response to that, Mace arrived. He didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the cluster around the cot, just sat himself on the empty one nearby. “Obi-Wan. How are you?”
“Don’t call him that,” Vos snapped. “That name’s not his.”
OB-1 finally flinched away from his touch, at that. Vos let his hand fall away, looking almost relieved. “What? We both know it’s true.”
“Then tell me how you know,” Mace ordered, sounding as if it was not the first time he’d said it.
“I want to hear it from him,” Vos said, gesturing at OB-1. “I want him to tell you and the Council exactly what that son of a bitch did.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” OB-1 whispered, through bloodless lips.
“Enough lies!” Vos said. The troopers in the room stiffened at his volume, at the anger in his voice. “I’ve been lying for you long enough. That bastard is dead and gone and you don’t have to obey his kriffing orders anymore. You owe us the truth. You owe it to Obi-Wan to tell the truth.”
“Upon discovery, unit OB-1 is to be decommissioned, in accordance with the contract it was manufactured under,” OB-1 recited, looking from Vos’s furious face to Mace’s studiously blank one.
“You—”
“Please, Quinlan,” OB-1 said. His voice finally broke. Rex put a gentle hand on his back. “He never wanted anyone to know. It would destroy Yoda, destroy Anakin. Just decommission me and be done with it. I’m still under warranty, you can replace me if necessary—”
“Who commissioned you, my friend?” Mace asked, cracks of growing horror appearing in his calm, reassuring mask. “What happened to the original Obi-Wan?”
“Tell us,” Vos snarled, springing from the cot in his rage, ignoring how Cody’s hand twitched towards his blaster and how Bones had started edging towards the cabinet where he kept the sedatives. “Tell us what he did and where you came from and what happened to Obi-Wan, or I’ll tell everyone what I think he did, including Skywalker.”
OB-1 was desperately trying to think of a reply when Admiral Yularen and several other none-clone officers entered the medbay, which had the capacity to hold hundreds of wounded but had never felt smaller.
“What is the meaning of this?” Mace demanded, jumping to his feet.
“Step aside, High General Windu,” Yularen said, eying the cluster of people around OB-1’s cot. More than one of the officers behind him was holding a blaster at the ready. “The clone posing as High General Kenobi is to be detained and transferred to the brig on the Resolute, where it will be held until its Senate hearing, by order of Chancellor Palpatine.”