A/N: I am saying in this ficlet that he was trained as an ARC like Cody and Bly, but there is no evidence to support that yet, according to wookieepedia.

In the darkness, the spindly legs of some sort of insect crept over the skin on his forehead. He swatted at the bug, trying to get it to go away, only to awaken and find the exact same bug had flown over to another body, lying adjacent from him.

Fox’s head ached as his eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight. Where am I? he wondered at first. Every muscle in his body felt like it was pulled tightly over his bones, almost to the breaking point. He felt old. Slowly turning his head to the side, his eyes caught the remains of his fellow troopers nearby. An animal was gnawing on Fixer’s arm. Fox reached for his blaster and shot near the creature to frighten it. The creature, thankfully, ran off.

Now he remembered where he was and what happened. They were on Toprawa still, near the jungle outside of Salik City where a small settlement cropped up in recent years.

Fox struggled to sit up, coughing. He reached over to pick up what remained of his helmet. It was useless now. He tossed it aside. Fox scratched the back of his neck and took his comm. from his belt. Recordings from hours ago played from his comm., alerting him to the news that the Empire would be back to finish this place off. Was that his brother he had been fighting?

All Fox could remember was the sound of blaster fire, explosives, and cries of terror and pain. The Empire had to seek retribution for the stolen Death Star plans. Most of these villagers were not allied with anyone except for their families and business unions. They were just living their lives before the Empire even decided to choose this planet to create the superlaser. They were raising families and tilling the landscape when the rebels showed up. Sure, Fox was no fool; he knew that there was a minority of people that joined the Rebel Alliance, but that didn’t include the many others who merely lived their lives in peace.

They were here originally to supervise the creation of the Death Star’s superlaser, but after the construction of the Death Star neared completion, their purpose was complete. They had nothing to do, but were not called back to Coruscant or reassigned elsewhere, so they had to remain. His troop quickly got tired of Toprawa and having to remain for no purpose whatsoever. They got lazy.

Some fell in with the locals. Vullo became involved with a bar owner and even stopped wearing his armour. Nob tried to pick up various local girls, but without any luck. The others continued to remain on guard, on duty, but their heart wasn’t in it. Fox’s impatience grew, but every time he tried to make contact with higher command, his messages were cut short or not allowed through for one reason or another.

But after awhile, in spite of their initial reluctance and resentment about being forgotten by the Empire, they all fell into a routine and became used to life here in Salik City. It was a chance to move on, to move past wartime, and to learn how to live like regular humans and not to be treated like a clone.

After the years spent on Toprawa, even Fox allowed himself a little freedom. He remembered conversations he had with Cody and Bly all those years ago on Kamino. It was during the final phase of their ARC training when they were in their bunks one night. Bly asked about life beyond the rainy planet, things they had studied and seen only holos of. No one knew just what that reality would be or how full of violence their destiny was. No one knew just how many of them would make it or for how long.

Slowly rising to his feet, Fox readjusted his kama and put his weapons back into their holsters. ‘Why do you wear that skirt anyway?’ he remembered Fixer teasing him. ‘It’s not a skirt; it’s a kama, a Mandalorian symbol of rank, you dimwit,’ Fox replied.

It was hard to believe that they had spent the last nineteen standard years on this planet and in all that time, Fox hadn’t once forgotten his heritage like the others. He wondered what became of his brothers, especially those he trained with. Where was Cody now? Where was Bly? Had they carved new lives for themselves or were they elite members of the Imperial Order? He had no doubt they were alive somewhere, changing the galaxy.

Fox lifted his head, placing a hand on his brow to shield the sunlight as he looked to the stars. There weren’t any imperial vessels now. Their revenge mission completed and they left, but without telling him what his orders were. The imperial troops left without telling him anything. They had shot at him. He had gone nineteen standard years without new orders, but now this resonated with him deeply. In the middle of this village outside of Salik, he stripped out of his armour, leaving him with just basic pants and t-shirt. It was really too hot here for all that get-up anyway. He took his gear and put it near the outpost he used to guard.

As he walked to the village, he looked around at the waste and destruction surrounding him. Animals, children, whole families…all slaughtered by the stormtroopers. Their damned explosive devices took out the whole outpost and trampled the village.

What he did not expect was to come upon the body of a young woman, one who had been his friend in these years. ‘Orea—’ he gasped, falling to his knees in front of her corpse. Her hair was matted down thickly with blood over what remained of her brow.

As he remembered the last time he spoke to her, Fox began seeing stars. He didn’t realise that he also had a head wound. He collapsed and succumbed to unconsciousness.

In his dreamlike state, he saw Orea the first time he met her. She was just a girl then, barely seventeen standard years. He didn’t know until she told him that she had been watching his troop, wondering why they were standing about all day. Day after day, she said she had been watching and as the weeks after the superlaser was removed and his troopers began dwindling, fewer and fewer returning to their post, she had decided to make his acquaintance.

‘I’m Orea. What’s your name?’ she asked.

Fox didn’t reply for a moment, surprised that this girl would address them. Wasn’t she intimidated by their weapons and imperial armour? He knew most of the locals detested their presence even after the years of becoming more accustomed to their presence. ‘Fox.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Fox,’ she replied, smiling sweetly at him. ‘I have to pick up my daughter from her minder’s house, but afterwards you are more than welcome to join us for dinner,’ she said.

‘I—You have a daughter?’ he asked curiously, barely registering her invitation for a meal, though he couldn’t say that he wasn’t hungry.

‘Yes, she’s two months old, Orea replied matter-of-factly. ‘So are you coming or not?’

Fox didn’t have anything else to do and the rest of those who had been on guard with him already left for their own evening plans, so he went along with her. This became a daily routine, one that he never tired of.

Orea was a fascinating young woman, whose life story sounded tragic compared to growing up with his brothers on Kamino. He was one of the earlier models whose growth was not as accelerated as the later clones. Cody, Bly and the other ARCs in his age group spent countless hours together and all shared a room to sleep in. They had each other. Orea, it seemed, truly had no one.

He explained to her why they were there and how they hadn't received any orders which was why so many deserted and made friends with locals. She explained to him that she worked in import/exports for several years, but after she became pregnant, remained on Toprawa. She was involved with a man from Corellia for awhile, but it didn’t work out, so she lived her alone while he was off wherever his fate took him. ‘We were fighting too much and I didn’t want her to grow up in that sort of environment,’ she explained to him. ‘It wouldn’t have been fair to her.’

The concept of family was foreign to Fox, but as the years passed and he got to know his friend better, he discovered the families that his brothers idealised were not always as ideal as imagined. He discovered that Orea’s family was killed in the early years of the war, before it was officially called a war by the Republic. Separatists invaded their village, wanting to use the land for a droid manufacturing plant. Orphaned, the planet’s leaders dictated which children would be placed where and Orea ended up in a family that already had two children. She was unwanted and unloved, though her adoptive father gave her gifts, trying to make her feel more at home. She was only three years old and couldn’t remember her other family, so this became her life.

Fox would never forget the time she told him about her discovery. Her mother told her outright in some fit of fury that she was not her daughter.

‘I was twelve at the time and I knew I couldn’t live there anymore. I couldn’t live in this house where I was resented. We were all in the kitchen. Father was saying something light-hearted about Mother. I said in a foreboding and sarcastic voice, using Mother’s proper name and saying that I believed she really would like it if I left. Everyone present stopped ad stared at me, shocked. I walked away and my plaited hair bouncing as I went to sit down. I knew these people were not my real family, that the government dictated which children went where. They had no choice.

‘Dad eventually came over, grasping my shoulder, holding me fast. He demanded to know what was wrong in order to punish me. I was so angry; I cried hot, bitter tears. “Nothing,” I told him. Older brother said it was because I was starting menarche. I was too young for that. His words caused a coldness to settle in. “When did you start feeling this way?” Father asked me.

‘“Earlier today,” I replied without giving further details. It was, in truth, when I had heard mother’s remark about me. She had always treated me with a cold indifference, her disapproving glares. Father never could see this in Mother. Or if he did, he didn’t believe it had anything to do with me. But today I could no longer contain the way this made me feel. “I was sitting in the garden…” I began to recall aloud, finally telling him the truth.

‘I could see it in Father’s eyes that he didn’t believe me. He thought I had been cursed. I thought maybe I had been cursed to live here, cursed to be eternally outside. I fancied myself a child of those ancient tales, the abducted child from another clan or the faeries, that my true family wasn’t dead. All of this life had been a lie to keep me from seeking the truth. There were such abductions in the past, were there not? Back in those days when clans warred against each to increase the size of their land, the abductions were an underground trade to enlarge their gene pool.

‘So after that conversation, I made up my mind to leave. I took whatever I could fit into a knapsack and sneaked onto a transport that was leaving the planet. But they caught me and made me get off at their next stop, which ended up being Toprawa,’ she continued. ‘A few years of piloting ships on the trade route led me to meet Eená’s father and the rest is history.’

At the time, Fox couldn’t believe that he had been living on Toprawa for five years and hadn’t seen Orea until she introduced herself to him. Then again, he hadn’t been looking at the locals as anything more than citizens to protect and to also keep away from the imperial operations.

Fourteen years later, Fox remained close to Orea and her daughter Eená. He even invited her to Vullo’s dedication ceremony with the bar owner, Hiram Dunn. After all the years of living together, they had finally decided to make it official and Fox couldn’t have been more pleased.

‘It’s about damned time!’ Fox announced.

Vullo laughed heartily and roughly patted his friend’s back. It had been years since he wore his official uniform, but for this ceremony, he asked his friends to help him clean it up in preparation for the ceremony. It was all they had left of their brotherhood and a reminder of the days spent on the battlefield in proper combat. ‘Thank you for coming, my old friend.’

That was only a few weeks before the Empire betrayed them.

‘He’s waking up!’ a young girl’s voice called out.

Fox groaned and slowly opened his bleary eyes.

‘Uncle Fox?’ It was Eená.

‘Eená?’ Fox asked, his voice rough and dry. ‘You OK? You’re not hurt?’

But the teenager was bounding out of the room, her plaited hair bouncing on her shoulders.

Fox slowly sat up, feeling his bandaged head and looking around the room. He recognised the holopictures on the wall and knew he was in Eená’s bedroom.

‘Fox!’ Orea exclaimed, racing into the room and settling on the bed next to where he lay. ‘I was so afraid that you weren’t going to—but you’re all right! Can I get you anything? Eená, fetch him a glass of water,’ she said to her daughter before turning her attention back to Fox.

Fox looked at her in disbelief. ‘Am I dead?’ he asked, but the pain in his head was an indication that this was real. ‘I saw you—I saw your body—’

Orea shook her head as she took his hand, giving it a squeeze. Eená and I were off-world when the attack happened. I don’t know who you saw, but it wasn’t me. Remember, I was with her school group?’

Now it was coming back to Fox and he quickly pulled her into his arms, sighing in relief. He didn’t realise just how tightly he was holding her until she whispered, ‘I’m all right. We’re all right.’ He relaxed a little, bowing his head slightly and avoiding her gaze for a moment.

There were no longer any orders, any missions, any purpose for the clones now. But as he slowly met Orea’s eyes once more, he knew now that this assessment was incorrect.

‘Fox?’ she asked as though she was worried that something was wrong.

He touched her cheek and a smile formed on his lips.

Growing up on Kamino, freedom meant something entirely different from what it meant now. Back then, it meant the ability to see more than the pale, sterile walls of Kamino. When the Empire forgot about them, it was a slow betrayal that ate away at their ability to identify themselves. But now, freedom meant the ability to make choices, to not have life perfectly outlined and dictated to one on a daily basis. Freedom meant Ilife/i.

Life.

Years later, when the Rebel Alliance freed the galaxy and became the New Republic, they conveniently forgot about the forested planet of Toprawa, the planet who made their revolution possible. As for the former Commander Fox, this was all right by him.