Alec

[ihateflying]

That first mission, when he'd chosen Alec almost on impulse, based on bare glimmers of ... an independence and kind of intelligence that set him apart, turned into more. Every time he was given an assignment that didn't involve an entire blasted army, he chose Alec - and chose him with increasing deliberateness.

The mission to Upatu to bring in Grievous did involve an entire battalion, but it also called for exactly one Jedi to go in alone, to find the separatist leader before ships landed or troops deployed.

So, he went in alone, he found and engaged Grievous. When the absolute swarms of droids were deployed and Grievous realized that - again - running away was the best option, ships descended and boots his the ground.

He felt them all as individual lives, but he was most aware of Cody... and Alec.

He stayed on Grievous, trusting the Clones to handle the droid army, and keep them off his back so he could do his job. It wasn't anything all that unusual up to that point. A lot of dodging, some near misses, a chase, and a brutal hand to ...cyborg fight that ended with him using a blaster of all things to finish Grievous off.

He made it back to the battle arena, gave Cody instructions to move the troops to the higher levels and had his fallen light-saber returned to him by Cody. It was all... perfectly normal.

Until it wasn't.

Until part way up the steep rock wall he became the target.

Of his own men.

There was no malice or ill intention to warn him. Just suddenly at the center of a hornet swarm of fire. He had just about enough time to register that his men were shooting at him before the rock ledge he was on was hit.


He fell, slamming hard into the edge of the cliff face on his way down.

That alone would have knocked him unconscious, but the feeling of other Jedi deaths across the galaxy tearing through his mind pushed him even deeper into unconsciousness.

He hit water, a small opening of an underground river by luck -

Which, really, ultimately, only meant that he was going to drown, since he was deeply unconscious.

Comments

[ihateflying]

Had he merely been knocked unconscious from physical trauma, falling into the water likely would have been enough to revive him. Maybe not completely, but enough to orient to the current of the water and to have a sense of which way was up.

He wasn't just knocked unconscious.

He had been loosely linked to the other Jedi since before he could walk. Some of those specific connections went back that far, and ran that deep. The death of a single Jedi was something he was aware of, felt, and found... uncomfortable. What happened with the execution of order 66 and thousands of Jedi at once was -

He managed semi-consciousness.

A very, very disoriented semi-consciousness.

He felt something brush against him, tried to fight away from it - or it away from him - albeit not very well.

And tried to breathe which was... not going to help that fighting thing.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Swimming was not something that really factored into the training curriculum for most clone troopers; not only was Kamina singularly ill suited to it, but on the scale of likelihood that they would ever be tapped for an aquatic battle, well. There's not a number for that honestly. But Alec had been, for a time, almost special and he'd received a bit of extra training to fine tune him for the solo missions he'd been tapped for.

So he can swim. Not extraordinarily well, but better than the average trooper, and so that's what he does: he focuses, and he swims as best he can, and he lets his anger carry him forward until he sees the dark shape of a body ahead of him and pushes hard to catch up with it against the current.

Be alive, be alive, be alive, he thinks to the pounding of his pulse, so hard that he's not even annoyed when his first contact means he gets punched squarely in the face. He keeps his hold, though, fingers twisting hard into the sodden fabric of Obi-Wan's robes, determined not to lose his hold. They're not to safety yet, but it starts here, and he's not going to give that up lightly.

He kicks off the next rock his feet brush, sends them further along with the current, trying to get as far from where they both went under as he can before they have to surface or die from something other than blaster fire. He swims as hard as he can, does his best to ignore the way the Jedi fights back against him, doesn't know how to pray that he doesn't have enough of his wits about him to hit Alec with the Force in any way; and when his chest is burning too harshly, when his vision is blurring from more than just the water, when he feels Obi-Wan starting to go still again, he kicks for the surface.

He shoves Obi-Wan ahead of himself towards the surface, and gasps for air when he finds it.

[ihateflying]

He is, at least, too disoriented, in too much physical pain, too far in flight or fight, too close to psychic shut down rather than just shock, to think of using the Force, much less to manage to do it.

He just struggles against what his addled brain thinks is killing him until he can't.

Then breaks the surface of the water in some underground cavern.

The moment that happens and he hears Alec gasping, even semi-conscious, his instincts swap over. He grabs hold of slippery, but solid stalagmite that water hasn't yet entirely worn away with one hand, and grabs hold of Alec and pulls him up and in toward the same handhold.

He's not with it, at all, but he doesn't need to be.

He is himself, and someone struggling cuts through everything else enough for him to respond and help.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec is light headed with exertion and oxygen deprivation, coughing and gagging on the mixture of water and air in his mouth, his throat, his lungs. He doesn't really recall the point by point process that has him clinging to a slick rock formation beside Obi-Wan, helmet ripped free, but he doesn't need to. He just needs to understand that he is, and Obi-Wan is, and there's no one attacking them right this second.

The current is strong enough that it's going to be a problem after too much longer, though, so as soon as his vision is blurry but steady, as soon as he's dragging in breath easily enough to think more or less straight, he pulls himself up a little further to look around. There's a slim shelf of rock not terribly far away, but his armor is waterlogged under the plates, the blows he took from the other troopers ache, and he knows he was hit at least once; he's not sure what kind of shape Obi-Wan is in, but he knows he can't get them both to it all on his own. He'll die trying, he'll try his damndest to do it if he has to, but -

"Can you get to the side there?" he calls above the echoing sound of water, trying to gauge how aware Obi-Wan is right now. "I'll help. Can you if I help?"

[ihateflying]

He is dimly aware that Alec is hurt. Not because he's had time to look, or check in any depth, but because Alec's injuries ache and that echos directly into him right now and there is not a blasted thing he can do about it.

He doesn't even try to verbally respond to Alec.

He does, however, lock eyes with Alec and nod.

He sets his jaw, grits his teeth and lets go of the rock formation with one hand. Then he grits his teeth, holds that hand out, makes a fist of it and -

manages to keep the scream locked in his throat and silenced behind his teeth, but only narrowly.

More usefully the current? Stops.

"Go," he grits out, voice hoarse. "Fast."

He'll worry about getting himself over there as soon as he's sure Alec is moving, because he cannot hold this.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec does not, has never, pretended to know anything about the Force or how it works. That's for the Jedi, for other people, for people. He has no idea what's happening, then, what Obi-Wan is about to do, what it's costing him, if it will somehow expose them, if, if, if.

What he knows is that Obi-Wan is telling him to go, and Alec has absolutely no intention of leaving him behind. He might have obediently gone, once, but that day is not today. Today, when Alec turned his back on everything he ever had, when he defied his orders and his brothers for this man who has stated before that it's his job to make sure Alec lives, even if it means he dies.

"Not without you," he throws back, and he means it to be stronger, he means it to be sharper, but the truth is that defiance is still defiance. He's not sorry, not really, but it still hurts, though less than the thought of reaching the shore and turning around to find Obi-Wan gone. Again. "Not without you," he says again, more firmly.

[ihateflying]

It won't expose them. There's no one here for it to expose them to. That's the good news.

The bad news is that what it is costing him is more than he has. He certainly can't afford the... anything - breath, words, concentration, energy, pain - to argue with Alec.

So, he simply grabs hold of Alec, by the arm, let's go of the rock they're clinging to and starts to slog through the water, as fast as he can manage it.

As soon as they make that ledge, the current roars back to life and Obi-Wan collapses. "How badly injured are you?"

Triage. Information gathering. He's trying.

[kissthatgoodbye]

It's not like Alec wants to drown, and it's not like he thinks Obi-Wan should really be doing whatever it is he's doing right now, but he knows he can't have it both ways. The moment the other man starts moving, Alec finds his feet too and moves with him, looping one arm around Obi-Wan's waist to help the best that he can until they're both on solid ground.

He's shivering by the time he drops to the ground beside him, still panting for breath although it's only partially from fatigue at this point. He hadn't had time to think, before, and he doesn't now but it's looming anyway, and now they're both soaking wet on top of that and he knows what shock is.

He shakes his head at the question. "I'm -" not, he was about to say. It was an honest answer, until he started to think about it, until conscious thought let the adrenaline-muted sting through to his awareness. He looks down at where one of his armor plates is scorched black, the melted black underclothing showing skin just behind it, and instinctively puts a hand over it even though it's not actually bleeding, doubling forward even though it's down his back and side.

He groans, but shakes his head again. "Moderate," he replies, trying to find his trained center of calm. "Yours?"

[ihateflying]

"Not badly." Physically, as far as he can tell. He means nothing immediately life threatening. They're both in danger here. From the troops on the surface, but also hypothermia and shock.

The only light making its way to where they are is indirect. He needs to see more of their location to try to plan, and to be able to look at Alec's injuries.

Using light is a risk, but it's one he's prepared to take.

He pushes himself up onto his knees, retrieves his light saber from his belt and ignites it. It flares brightly, and he takes that time to figure out where the actual shore of this river is, and the directions that it goes - and to glance at Alec's injuries.

[kissthatgoodbye]

By the time Obi-Wan has brought out his light saber, Alec has pulled in on himself instinctively, both to preserve body heat and to guard his wounded side. He winces against the light from the blade, but he's working on locking everything else down right now, on trying to figure out where to go from here, too.

The injuries won't be the worst of it for him either, he's only just beginning to realize. He's trained for that. He's not trained for the trauma of forcefully rejecting his conditioning, of mutinying, of leaping out into nothing and trusting he won't just die in the vacuum of space leftover when the Republic won't have him anymore. The last time he bucked the obedience chip was nothing like this: he hadn't actually rebelled, just held space for the day he might want to.

So now he looks up at Obi-Wan and shakes his head. "If they see us, they'll kill us. We have to stay hidden. We have to -" He coughs, clears his throat, tries to clear his mind. "We need to regroup."

[ihateflying]

"We have to stay here long enough for them to believe we're dead."

He turns the light-saber -and the light - off and struggles awkwardly and slowly out of his heavy wool cloak. "We can track downstream after that. There's... open space down there." He's got only foggy, vague, impressions.


"But until then we have to stay alive."

He's not actually coming back, exactly. His disorientation is real, he's still picking up a flood of everything from Alec, but he is nothing if not determined.

"And we're not dying down here." He moves nearer Alec, crawls really, and drops the cape over them both. It is wet, but unlike most materials it retains the ability to be warm while wet.

"What happened?"

[kissthatgoodbye]

"I really like that part of the plan," Alec replies drily, a complete turnaround from the last conversation they had - or tried to have. He's still surprised by the cape when it drops down over his shoulder, completely unexpected, but then again he doesn't have any real expectations past this point: they're both breathing, and that's as far as he planned. It had seemed a slim enough chance at the time to be sensible not to get too ambitious.

But now they're here, and he shifts positions just a little to be able to better see Obi-Wan - or, well, to see him when his eyes adjust again now that the light is out after being on - and frowns.

"Order 66," he says, like that explains everything. "They sent out the command to execute order 66. You're an enemy of the Republic, as far as the troopers are concerned."

He feels distinctly nauseous when he says it, but that's what happened, so say it he does.

[ihateflying]

Obi-Wan would rather do almost anything than lead an army or fight in a war, but he is not a High General because he has a nice beard.

He understands instantly not just what Alec has told him - enemy of the republic - but just how far back and how expertly this trap for the Jedi was set, and Alec isn't the only one who feels nauseated.

He doesn't make a sound. He actually stops breathing for a long moment. Doesn't move. Just understands and -

It was already bad. Now it's worse.

"It was executed everywhere. It wasn't just the 501st." Their group. He's not asking a question, he knows.

"When did you break your chip again?"

[kissthatgoodbye]

It's not that Alec doesn't understand this is bad, because he does. He absolutely does. It's that he doesn't know how to process the scope of it or, if he does, he's not capable of it just now. It's like shooting him in the leg and then telling him to run the length of a destroyer: he can still technically do it but not well, not quickly.

He registers Obi-Wan's reaction but he doesn't know what else to do about it right now, so he just reaches up to rub the cape along his shoulder, a warming motion that stops the moment Obi-Wan starts speaking again.

"I - " The thing is, the chip isn't the only thing that keeps the clones in line, it's just the thing that makes sure they can't disobey. There's plenty of conditioning around that to make them not want to, afraid to, resistant to it, and Alec is still susceptible to that. Still susceptible to a lifetime of fear of being culled for being able to do something like break the chip, so it takes him a moment to gather together the wits to answer Obi-Wan, and he does so quietly: "When they gave the order."

[ihateflying]

"Thank you."

That's all he says, simple and sincere and quiet, but there aren't words that truly cover the depth of his gratitude. He knows it can't have been easy.

He moves slightly, tries to figure out how -

"Would you rather be behind me or in front of me."

Back to practicals. Jerky, unsteady, still having to force himself to think and feeling -

Both everything and nothing.

But the practicals are all that matter now and now is all there is to matter.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Practical needs are easy, though, and it's something Alec latches onto, too. He's used to following Obi-Wan and he will, he would, if Obi-Wan said to get on his feet right now and follow him out of this cave, he would do it. But he doesn't. What he does instead is ask if -

"...I'm laying on my good side..." is what he ends up offering. He's facing Obi-Wan and he'd rather have them back to back, if he's honest, so they could watch both directions. But the ledge isn't that big, and his other side was hit by blaster fire, and he could roll over onto it - would, if he was ordered - but he doesn't want to do that either. This makes the most sense. This is, given the context, the most practical.

That's how long it takes him to process the first two words, ones that no one else has ever said to Alec outside of empty formality, to remember there's something to say in return. He should say you're welcome. What he says instead is: "Thank you for not dying."

[ihateflying]

He snorts inelegantly, and slides behind Alec, just a bit, because he can't continue to stay upright, right now, unless he wants to pay for it later.

He's going to need to be able to get up and move, later.

He pulls the cloak around both of them. The ledge is hard, and it doesn't matter at all because wet and cold is going to cause them both more trouble than any discomfort or even any injury either of them had. Especially when what they're going to need most of to get out of here are clear heads and energy.

After that? Well,if they get out they can deal with injuries and probable pneumonia, and if they don't it isn't going to be pneumonia that does them in.

"You're welcome; I feel like someone's clawed half my brain out, and done it through my skull." If you're going to complain, at least do so creatively. It also makes it harder to be taken seriously. "With some time I should be able to help you with at least pain." Some. Maybe. He hopes.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Alec trusts his system to take care of pneumonia, if he can keep it out of shock. He's taken blaster fire before, he's taken blunt force trauma, he's been exhausted. He's not worried about any of that, but there aren't words for what he is worried about. Is it pain, ringing in his head, sticking in his chest? Maybe. Is it hurt making his thoughts difficult to line up, skating around his skull like ricochet blasts? Maybe not.

He stays perfectly still while Obi-Wan settles, anchors the cape from the other side so they can make a better sealed structure out of the fabric for them both. And he breathes out.

"I'm okay," he answers, and he means it when he says it. "I came to help you."

[ihateflying]

"You are not."

It's very quiet, even gentle in the subtle lilt of his voice, but it somehow remains an awfully blunt, indisputable, statement of fact.

"You probably aren't horribly injured, but having resisted the order to execute me doesn't mean you're not still suffering repercussions."

Look, he used lots of words at once.

"You are going to help me. I'm going to need it. You're just going to need me to help you, so you can."

He is... not going to shock in a human - or clone - sense. He isn't shivering. He's just... fighting the urge to shut down.

Really shut down.

All the way down to something that would be a death sentence here.

[kissthatgoodbye]

Resisted the order. Alec swallows, listening to Obi-Wan's voice, ignoring the way he desperately wants there to be some kind of command there he can follow, something he can use as direct pressure on the hemorrhage ripping free of the chip like that has left behind.

It wasn't like this, before. That scares him almost more than the worst case scenario that the two of them are all alone in all the worlds now.

"I need you to stop talking about it," he says quietly. "For now. I -" He can't explain it to someone who isn't a clone. He can't explain the way they were conditioned to think of mutiny as worse than death, of an order not being carried out while they breathe as betrayal.

"I don't know which side makes me the traitor. It's all mixed up in my head. But I made this choice and I stand behind it and I don't want to think about what I should be doing if not this."

[ihateflying]

He takes that in and does not point out the magnitude of Alec telling Obi-Wan not just what he needs, but what he wants and what to do, albeit indirectly.

That alone may be what's making this harder, but there's also just the possibility of that directive being much more entrenched than simple obedience.

"All right. Then let's try this until I can try to be of more help. Can you feel me breathing?"

[kissthatgoodbye]

If he were thinking more clearly, he'd know the magnitude of it. He's not. He's already focusing on Obi-Wan, where he is, what he's doing, what he can read of him from here. He'd thought he wanted him at his back, and mostly he still does - the training is sound, the logic is sound - but now he can't see him.

Can you feel me breathing? "Yes."

[ihateflying]

"Good." There's a touch of a smile in his voice, somehow, or at least the warmth that would come with it. Somehow. He sounds steady, he sounds calm, he sounds warm.

"Now I want you to synch your breathing to mine. Exactly to mine."

Which was going to go from very regular to something involving varying intervals of inhales, waiting, and exhales just as soon as he was sure Alec was going along with the very simple.

Jedi non-sense, without the actual involvement of force. He'd learned this particular exercise when he was 6. But it was calming, it required focus, and it tended to at least slow minds down a bit. Simplify and clarify, by being if nothing else grounding.

[kissthatgoodbye]

And the most important aspect to Alec just now, beyond it being Obi-Wan in particular: it's an instruction. Not an order, no, but better. Direction that he can follow, while being open ended enough that he could conceivably choose not to follow.

As if he would. "Okay," he agrees, and it's simple after that. It's simple to focus where he's told to focus, to let himself fall into step with someone else, to not be alone and to know it.

It's seamless after that, and not far behind, the racing of his thoughts starts to abate as well.

[ihateflying]

"There we go," he murmurs, sounding unreasonably proud once he feels Alec's mind begin to slow down.

It's barely a murmur because this is knocking him down too, which is not ideal, but it's not as bad as it could be. "I wonder how many of those varying breathing exercises I can teach you in the next hour...." They're all varying degrees of boring as hell but requiring some focus and overall relaxing, so-

"Let's find out."

It'll keep him conscious, too.