So I have this headcanon that after Cody adopts this little mutated CT cadet with something to prove to be his official Little Brother™️ and Alpha-17 is just like “yeah okay so this is happening”, all the other CC class clones in Cody’s batch also end up adopting Rex to be the official Little Brother™️. And even though they aren’t quite as open about it, Fox, Bly, Wolffe, and Ponds are just as protective of Rex as Cody is but they’re better at hiding it. Fox in particular is a little gruff and a little rough with emotions so he doesn’t always know how to show he cares but he calls Rex “blondie” and smirks when the kid sasses Cody and Wolffe and stands in the background and glares at anyone, even the long necks, who tries to mess with his vod’ika just for being who he is. And it’s okay because Rex will smile that megawatt grin at him and Fox knows that he’s doing right by his brother.
And then after they all get their assignments, Fox has to deal with the anxiety and stress that comes with watching all his brothers go off to fight in the war while he’s stationed on Coruscant running the Guard and protecting the Chancellor. And of course it doesn’t help that he’s working directly under a Sith Lord, he sees the darker mechanizations that go on in the background, hears the words that are said behind closed doors, the plans that are made under the table, but what is there that he can do about it when he’s just a clone? Who would believe one lowly clone versus the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic.
Not to mention, Palpatine doesn’t need the chip in Fox’s brain to control him, not at first. The Jedi would never use the Force to get the clones to do their bidding, but Palpatine has no problem subtly controlling his commander, gaslighting him, making him question whether what he saw or heard was real or not, makes him forget long swaths of time where if Fox thinks too hard about it it just gives him a headache and makes his hands shake and his skin break out in a cold sweat. We saw the way Fox flinched back from Anakin in To Catch a Jedi not just once, but twice, and Fox doesn’t work enough with the Jedi to know that Anakin might be angry but he wouldn’t hurt Fox, especially when he’s seen how close Anakin is to the Chancellor. His only true experience with the Force is the Dark Side, even if he doesn’t recognize it as such.
Fast forward to an abandoned warehouse on Coruscant. He doesn’t really remember much about how he got here or what he’s doing. All he knows is that his men are stony and quiet around him and Rex, his little blondie, is on the ground clutching Fives, the fugitive, Rex’s vod’ika, sobbing into his chest where the blaster bolt wound is still burning and Fox is holding the smoking blaster.
He tries to talk to Rex, to figure out what the hell had happened, what the hell did Fox do, why wasn’t his blaster set to stun, why wasn’t his blaster set to stun—
Commander Fox, execute ARC-5555. Make sure he is not taken alive.
But his men are pulling him back, telling him they need to report back to the Chancellor, and Fox watches as General Skywalker leads Rex back to their speeder, gently pries Rex’s hands from Fives body as the Guard take the body away to be disposed of.
When he tells the Chancellor that Fives is dead the man looks grim but his eyes are bright with poorly concealed glee as he nods yes, it is good that such a dangerous traitor has been taken down and is no longer a threat to your brothers or the Republic and Fox’s head throbs and he feels like he’s going to throw up but he nods and leaves the office feeling like he’s missing something, something vital.
He tries to comm Rex but Rex doesn’t answer, even when Fox knows the 501st is back on Coruscant. He tries to talk to Bly or Wolffe or Ponds about it but they weren’t there, they don’t see it, they didn’t see the look in Rex’s eyes as he held his dying brother or the frown on his face when he looked at Fox as Skywalker led him away. He just needs time to process, they tell him, you know how much the twins meant to him and now they’re both gone. But it’s more than that, Fox needs to understand, needs Rex to understand that he would never do this to him on purpose, he would never hurt his little brother like that, would never betray the closest family and the only people he truly trusts in such a way and he doesn’t know why he did it.
Finally Fox gets an incredibly rare day off rotation when the 501st and the 212th are both planet side in the GAR barracks and he decides it’s time to pay his brothers a visit, it’s time to take action and take matters into his own hands. Except when he gets to the GAR and he finds Rex in the mess... Rex looks at him and suddenly looks so exhausted, so drained, so physically pained that it takes Fox’s breath away and he turns and leaves before Rex can open his mouth and say the words that Fox knows are coming but is too much of a coward to let himself hear.
And that’s how Cody finds Fox, dressed in civvies and curled up in a ball on the ground of his room. His body is shaking and his hands are clutching at his long curly hair and he’s hyperventilating near on the verge of tears. He’s so tired, he’s so done, he doesn’t know what to do, there’s nothing he can do—
I don’t know what I’m doing, I can’t keep doing this. I killed Fives. I killed Fives and Rex h-hates me, Rex’ika hates me, I can’t—
And Cody can’t do anything but hold onto him and try to assure him that Rex does not hate him, he’s just hurt and sad and he needs time to process it but he doesn’t hate Fox, could never hate his ori’vod.
But Fox just shakes his head because he knows, he knows something isn’t right and he hurt one of the people he swore on his life he would do anything to protect and he doesn’t know what to do anymore, nothing is right anymore, everything is wrong, it’s all wrong wrong wrong—
And months later, when Rex is flying off that Sith damned moon in his and Ahsoka’s Y-wing, he thinks about Fox, his ori’vod who served under Chancellor Pal— Emperor Palpatine, Lord Sideous — the dispassionate way he told the Guard to shoot down Ahsoka on Coruscant, the blankness in his voice when he told Fives to put the blasters down next to Jesse’s detached voice when he told the 332nd to open fire, the way Fox’s hands shook and the aborted step toward him when Rex walked away with the General, the ignored coms, seeing Fox that day in the mess when he ran before Rex could say anything, and his head throbs and his heart aches when he realizes all these little things, these tiny signs of deceit, of betrayal, had been right there in front of him the whole time, but he’d been too blinded by his feelings to see it.
