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Its designation is Captain Rex.
That wasn't always its designation, of course. It has a string of numbers in its arm, just every other clone in its unit, in its army. And for a time, it went by those numbers, just like all the other clones still do. If it thought of itself at all, it used those numbers.
But then it called itself by those numbers and General Vader had shaken his head. "That's not your name," he said, not angrily, but firmly. "Your name is Rex. Commander Rex. You call yourself Rex, remember?"
It attempted to apologize for the mistake.
"That's not..." General Vader scrubbed his hands through his long, dark hair with a sigh. Rex--if that was what it was meant to call itself--could see a faint burn up the side of his neck, one that looked to be faded by bacta rather than time. "It's not your fault, okay?"
"Yes, sir," it said, happy to please.
Then there's the armor. General Vader calls Rex into his office one day and shows it a gleaming set of armor, freshly painted in swirls of bright blue. "It's not the old stuff, I know," he says, sounding apologetic. "But it's the best I could get on short notice."
He gestures to the armor with a proud expression. "They tried to keep me from giving it to you. 'Against regulation,' they said, but I made them listen to me." He smiles a big smile, looking very happy. "Everybody listens to me now."
"That's good, sir," Rex says, and it is good. It's always good when the commanders are happy.
They stare at each other for a few seconds and then the general says, almost shyly, "Do you want to try it on?"
Do you want to, as Rex has come to understand things when it comes to General Vader, means you must. There's nothing wrong with the structure or even the comfort of its current set of plain white armor, but it obediently starts stripping anyway, noticing that the new armor has come with a fresh set of blacks.
"Rex!" the General says, sounding scandalized.
Rex pauses, blinking at him. "Is everything all right, General?" it asks. It's always been casual with nudity around its fellow clones, after all.
Not with natborns, a voice whispers at the back of its mind, so faint Rex thinks it must be imagining things. Natborns are different. Not safe.
"It's okay," General Vader says, voice calmer again, softer. "Carry on."
Rex obeys the command and keeps undressing, carefully ignoring the press of cold air--or General Vader's eyes--against its skin. It hurriedly pulls on the armor and fresh blacks, tucking them quickly into place and reminding itself to make more careful adjustments later, when it's safer.
"Everything okay?" the general asks. "It feels better, right?"
It feels precisely like the last set of armor did, but the general is not asking for the truth. "Yes, sir."
General Vader cannot afford to be magnanimous all the time, of course. They are at war, even if the official war is supposedly over, and sacrifices must be made. General Vader sends clones to die and leads them over the cooling bodies, he wipes out swathes of villages and fortresses alike, hands blazing with power. No one is safe from him, not even the surviving Jedi.
He is noble and powerful, and Rex must work hard to be worthy of his standards. Sometimes it does, and General Vader is pleased with him, sometimes it doesn't, and General Vader is displeased. It is the way of things.
Many of its mistakes come from a problem of memory. It doesn't laugh at jokes General Vader thinks it should find funny, it doesn't remember old strategies or tactics, it doesn't recall battles General Vader says they've fought in the past.
When it makes plans, even ones that work, General Vader is upset because they're not "like they used to be." Sometimes Rex could swear it's making the General angry by agreeing with him too quickly, illogical as that may seem.
General Vader's responses to this are varied. Sometimes he rolls his eyes or snaps a few harsh words, sometimes he rants about confusing things for what feels like an hour, sometimes he lashes out with stinging blows. Other times he sends Rex flying across the room and crashing into the wall with a flick of his fingers or looks at itin such a way that makes spikes of terrible pain and fear build behind Rex's eyes.
The general is frequently apologetic after these incidents, odd as that is for a natborn. He says I'm sorry and orders forgiveness in a small, tremulous voice; sometimes he even cries. Rex forgives him, of course it does. It's been ordered to do so and besides; the punishments could have been so much worse.
If there are physical injuries, General Vader will insist on tending to them himself, rubbing in stinging salves or tying painfully tight bandages into place.
Once, he's dabbing at Rex's face when he suddenly goes very, very still. Rex goes still, too, wondering if the Generals' Jedi Sith senses have picked up on danger nearby.
Then the general asks, "Can I kiss you?"
Rex only lets itself hesitate for a second. "Yes--" But the sir is crushed, painfully, out of its half-swollen mouth when General Vader kisses it hard, hands coming up to rake across its shaved blond scalp.
They stay pressed together like that for an uncomfortably long time and then the general pulls away, eyes shining. "Was that...okay?".
Rex doesn't entirely understand what he's trying to ask, but it doesn't really matter. "Yes, sir," it says.
It doesn't spend much time with its fellow clones anymore. It feels out of place in the dormitories and mess hall, among all that white armor and numbers, with its name and its armor and attachment to the general.
There's a feeling of isolation it's never experienced before, even when with its defective blond hair. None of the other clones say or do anything (they don't say or do much outside of missions these days), but Rex still doesn't quite mesh with them now.
So, it restricts contact with the others for battle and training. It eats and sleeps in its office or--more frequently as time goes on--the general's quarters. At first it still washes with the men, but it spends more of its time alone in the general's private shower.
Alone, that is, except for the general himself.
There's nothing particularly alarming about being available for the general's...use like this. Occasionally he gets rough, out of anger or excitement, but he always gets Rex bacta afterward. And he can be gentle, too, even making it feel good. He likes it when Rex feels good.
Rex occasionally hears itself moaning words in a foreign language it doesn't know, doesn't understand, strange syllables pushing out against its will. The general seems to find these noises pleasing, which is good (Rex does not want to think about what would happen if it were found too defective), but Rex almost wishes it knew what the words meant. Almost, of course, because clones do not wish for anything.
General Vader asks him to say I love you, and Rex does, even though it knows that this must be untrue because clones cannot feel love. It decides the disquiet in its stomach must be purely from that fact.
Sometimes Rex will lie next to the general, choking down the urge to run hide fight that usually only appears when it's outnumbered on the battlefield. Sometimes it feels like this is exactly where it belongs, and it would be foolish to imagine anything else.
The general has a habit of calling Rex by other people's names, words like Padme and Obi-Wan spilling from his lips in the heat of the moment. He never brings them up later and it never occurs to Rex to ask. It is not in the nature of clones to ask for anything or deny what is asked of them.
The general talks Rex about the glory of the war they are fighting, the importance of order and peace in the galaxy. Rex tries his best to listen politely and not fall asleep--it doesn't really matter why it's ordered to fight; it'll fight either way. It has no choice.
The general wakes up screaming from nightmares that send things crashing and flying around the room, his wide eyes blazing yellow. Sometimes he takes out his fear on Rex, sometimes he cries and needs to be comforted.
The general receives calls from the Emperor, sometimes, making Rex stay in the bed while he goes to kneel before him and talk to him. Afterwards he's angry and standoffish, mumbling words that would sound like treason from anyone else, but that Rex supposes higher-ups can get away with.
The general leaves bruises, sometimes, bite marks that drip red. The general pins Rex down with a supernatural force and sends invisible hands running everywhere, touching Rex's body to the point of overstimulation. The general turns every night into a hazy mix of good and bad, where Rex cannot tell where one ends and the other begins.
The general will break down sobbing in his arms, mumbling in a long, incoherent stream about love and loss and heartbreak and revenge. Rex strokes his hair, hands moving on automatic with the memory of stroking other heads.
(Only those memories can't be right, because in them Rex is all too certain that when he needs them, the people who own those heads will hold it just as gently in return. And General Vader is under no obligation to be gentle with it)
The general is strong and fragile in ways that Rex doesn't fully understand, and Rex must be there to take care of him. At some point, he stops being sure if he's ever done anything else.
When they return to Coruscant, the other clones go to the barracks, but General Vader prefers to take Rex to his apartments. It's...jarring to spend so much time in a space with so many things, so many pieces of seemingly useless art, so much space, especially considering the people literally under their feet who have nothing. Rex never knows what to think about it, so it doesn't think anything.
General Vader claims he used to share this place with his wife--he talks about her a lot, going on about her courage and beauty and wit, but never mentions where, exactly, she is. Rex wonders how she would feel about General Vader's use of it in this way. Perhaps she simply doesn't mind.
Sometimes General Vader leaves Rex alone in the apartments for hours on end, with nothing to do except exercise, work on papers, watch state-sponsored holovision, and try to nibble at the nauseatingly rich food in the pantry. A lot of the holovision involves General Vader himself, discussing the superiority of the Empire and the evils of the Jedi; Rex usually turns off the television when that happens.
Other times, they spend the whole day together; that is, Rex spends the whole day naked. If it had a preference, which it is not allowed to, it would probably prefer the alone days.
General Vader fucks him against the fine glass windows, murmuring soft praise and curses in his ear. He's drunk and, as he often does when he's drunk, mumbling something about putting babies into Rex, a biological impossibility on a good many levels (unless, of course, the General consults the proper scientists, but Rex prefers not to think about that).
"I love you," the general whispers in his ear. Rex stares across the cityscape at the Emperor's palace in the distance and quietly waits for the time when they get to leave Coruscant again.
The battlefield burns around them, the roar of blaster fire mixing with the screams of the frightened and the dying. All on the rebels' side, of course--Rex's vode fellow clones don't scream when they die anymore.
By now, they're really just doing cleanup. The rebels have pinned down and wiped out, with select units sent to pick off the last of the resistor. The surrendering soldiers and civilians kneel in rows before Rex and his soldiers, hands interlaced behind their heads.
Piles of the dead rise up around them, armored fingers brushing limply against the ground. The other clones will be left to rot; Rex doesn't look at them for too long.
It's swaying slightly, supporting itself on a propped blaster rifle. One of the enemy soldiers had winged it with a blow to the leg, another with a shot to the soldier. It had directed the medics towards the more injured clones, however, even though logic suggests that Rex should get preferential treatment due to its higher rank.
"Rex!" It turns to see General Vader crossing the field in unnatural leaps and bounds, landing before him with wide eyes. "You're hurt!"
"Everything is satisfactory, sir," Rex assures him. Frankly, the General has probably done greater damage to him in the past.
"No, it's not," the general whispers. "They hurt you." He rounds on the kneeling prisoners--some of them, particularly the civilians, flinch. "They hurt what's mine."
Rex does not point out that technically, all of the clones that had been hurt, during this or any other battle, belonged to General Vader. "Sir," it says instead. "We will need to sort out the captives for interrogation and detention--"
Bloody fire springs from the General's hand and his eyes flash yellow. He leaps out at the captives with a snarl, power humming from one hand as the other sends the blade slicing and jabbing through the air.
Rex goes off to deal with other matters. The screams ring in its head for a long time afterward.
"I've done terrible things," General Vader says. He knees at Rex's feet like a penitent, even though he could destroy Rex as easily from this angle as any other. His head is bowed, hair brushing softly over Rex's bare thighs. "I've hurt so many people. I feel so alone."
"It's all right, sir," Rex says carefully. "All will be well."
"Promise me," General Vader breathes. "Promise me everything will be okay."
"I promise, sir." Rex does its very, very best to make its voice reach the natborn approximation of sincerity.
"Can you forgive me?"
"Of course, sir. Always."
"I'm lost everyone else," the general whispers. His hands tighten on Rex's skin, hard enough to hurt. "I can't lose you, too."
"You won't lose me, sir," Rex assures him, taking light shallow breaths. "I promise."
Rex is alone when things change. General Vader usually keeps it close, but Rex's duties and the guerrilla tactics of the rebels sometimes drive them apart, like they do now. It should be nervous about not being backed up by its general, but something about leading a squad on its own feels what it would call freeing, if clones were capable of being free.
It stalks through the smoldering ruins of a rebel base, gesturing for its subordinates to cover the exits and wipe out any visible enemy presence, same as they've done a thousand times before. The place is mostly deserted, with only the smoldering corpses of rebels to greet them.
Then Rex rounds a corner and sees a small package resting neatly on the floor, lights flickering through its hastily assembled wires. "Bomb!" it screams, except the word comes out in the wrong language, the other language. Only that doesn't seem to matter because all of the other clones fling themselves back anyway.
Rex hurts the ground hard, ears ringing, fingers scrabbling uselessly as it pushes itself upright. It can see two figures picking their way through the shadows and swirling dust, outlines blurring in a way that makes getting an accurate shot impossible.
One of the figures stops suddenly, turning in its direction. Rex goes tense, wrapping shaking figures around its blaster, bracing itself for the end.
(It always rather assumed General Vader would kill it before the enemy could)
"Why the karking fuck," the enemy whispers, staring down at Rex through a battered, dented helmet. "Are you wearing that armor?" Even with a voice modulator, its shock is visible.
The question makes no sense--yes, Rex is wearing different armor, but none of its other opponents have taken the time to notice that before. It tables the question for later and lunges upright, going for the enemy's legs as it raises its blaster.
A whoosh of power plucks the blaster from its hand, and it has a heartbeat to think Jedi before a boot comes down on its head.
It wakes up, bruised and aching all over, hands bound tightly against its back. All of its weapons, even the hidden ones, are gone, and someone took off its helmet to wrap some kind of bandage behind its face. It can feel the distant rumble of an old spacecraft in transit through its bones.
Voices, speaking that language, mixed in with a bit of basic. Rex cracks its eyes open and peers through the shadows of a small, dusty ship, gaze shifting to two figures making their way out of the cockpit. One is a female Togruta, the other a humanoid male with his face hidden in shadow.
The man turns and approaches her, while the Togruta hangs back with an inscrutable expression. Rex stiffens its spine as its captor draws near, settling on the floor across from it with a grunt.
"Hiya, vod," he says. He's got his helmet off and the face looking back at Rex is bruised and more careworn, framed by dark curls instead of blond fuzz, but otherwise indistinguishable from its own.
A clone, then. Rex isn't actually surprised. The fact that the bomb was designed to evade their scanners, the way it was placed with knowledge of their standard entry procedures in mind, the fact that it seemed designed to stun rather than injure, all suggest one of the traitors it's heard its fellows whisper about. It regards the deserter levelly, determined not to show fear.
"Sorry about that," the deserter says, gesturing awkwardly to Rex's head. "I, um, we weren't exactly planning to grab anyone right then, but I couldn't help myself, you know? Call me biased." He laughs, even though he doesn't seem to find what's going on particularly funny, and neither does Rex.
"Now, I know you're probably feeling very compelled to toss me out of the airlock right about now, but I promise that things are going to be okay," the deserter insists. "We're going to take you back to a place where we can get you some treatment--which probably sounds ominous, but it's going to be okay."
Rex doesn't flinch, doesn't look away. All clones have a high tolerance for pain and fear, but Rex’s is particularly better than most after its time with General Vader. Whatever nefarious purpose it's been captured for, it will not break.
The deserter leans back with a sigh. "Soldier," he says, and his voice is soft. "Can you tell me your designation?"
That is...a strange question. No one really cares about a clone's designation outside of the battlefield; even the higher-ranking ones are useless as hostages. Rex's eyes flick from the deserter's to the Togruta, wondering what she can do, if she can rip open its head and find all the other secrets far more important than a designation, if she wanted to go looking.
They are allowed to give their designations after being captured--and only their designations. Some might say they are ordered to give their designations. And giving a designation might make this strange deserter happy for a little bit, give Rex time to get its bearings.
Its instinct is to give it the numbers, but it can't quite bring itself to do so. Even if General Vader is not here, his orders still stand.
Rex clears its throat. "Rex," it says. "My designation is Rex."
The deserter goes very, very still.
The Togruta claps a hand over her mouth.
For what feels like a solid minute, the only sound on the ship is the distant rumble of the engine, the inhabitants frozen stiffer than the dead.
"My name," the deserter breathes. "is Rex."
Well, what a fine coincidence, a voice snaps in the back of Rex's head, sly and sassy. It doesn't know where that voice comes from, or why the deserter looks so shocked--clones never really get the exact same designation, but it wouldn't be such a big deal if they did. Wouldn't it?
"They took your names," the deserter whispers. "You don't, you can't--this one wasn't your choice, was it? Someone told you to call yourself that."
Rex presses its lips together. The question seems harmless, but it's not allowed to answer anything more. "My designation is Rex," it says, trying and failing to sound firm. Something about the deserter's expression is throwing it off balance in a way it can't name.
"Was it your general?" Other-Rex asks. His eyes are sharp with anger, but they're not directed at Rex. "General Vader?"
Rex stiffens at the name. If General Vader heard Other-Rex speaking about him like that, he'd be so angry.
The Togruta makes a muffled noise in the corner. Her eyes are wide, and she looks younger than she must be.
"He replaced me," Other-Rex--or maybe First-Rex--whispers, dragging his hands through his hair. "He fucking--I guess that should make sense, after all the kark he's done, but..." He groans. "All those speeches of his on the holo, about attachment and all that shit, and he replaces me with--"
He squints at Rex, eyes narrowed. "Your hair, your eyebrows...you're a natural blond variant, aren't you?" The question seems rhetorical, and Rex would have no idea how to answer either way, so it stays silent.
"I can't believe it," First-Rex groans, dragging shaking fingers through his hair. "I...he didn't notice that I was bleaching? For years?" His voice splinters off into a burst of hysterical laughter. "And that was why, why he picked you. Because you reminded him of me. Because you're..." He frowns, sobering. "Who are you?"
No one asks a clone that, not even another clone, not anymore. Rex doesn't know how to respond.
First-Rex leans forward and Rex draws back. "It's okay," First-Rex says, soft like General Vader sometimes is (but somehow, Rex wants to believe him more). "I just need to look at your wrist." Rex is tense but holds steady as it feels its sleeve being slowly pushed up.
"2...1...7...8...." First-Rex sounds out. "I don't know you, I'm sorry. I don't know your name."
"My designation is Rex," Rex repeats, faintly.
"No, it isn't." First-Rex Is staring at Rex's wrist now--its bruised wrist. General Vader had been angry the other day.
"Does he hurt you?" he breathes, voice tight with horror. The Togruta sucks in a breath. "Does...did he touch you?"
The word "touch" makes Rex flinch back before it can stop itself. It's small, but he knows the deserter can see it. First-Rex's eyes widen in horror.
"No," he breathes. "No, no, no, I'm sorry, oh vod, I'm so sorry." He shakes his head. "I thought--I thought I knew how bad he could get, how much he could betray us. I didn't know... fuck." He staggers to his feet. "I have to--I'm sorry."
The other clone/the deserter/Rex/Other-Rex/First-Rex/the vod bolts for the fresher, not quite managing to kick the door closed behind him. Rex (or is it 2178, or that other name he can't remember) can hear him vomiting.
"I'm sorry." It turns to see the Togruta drawing near, face pale behind her markings. She drops to her knees heavily at its side. "I'm so sorry. I’ll help you get to sleep and when you wake up, you’ll…have the chip out, at least. We're going to help you, okay? I promise."
The words slip out before Rex can stop them, a level of defiance it's never shown to a natborn: "General Vader makes promises, too."
"Yeah," she says softly, reaching up and brushes a gentle finger across its forehead. "I know."
Darkness washes over her face, over the room, and the clone is falling into nothingness.