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Numbers
He really hates numbers.
Especially 2224.
They are his curse. His own personal, fucked up curse. And most of all a reminder.
A reminder that he is but a number. One of many. Disposable and replaceable.
Like a machine. Important when playing it's part, doing it's job. A convenience to those operating it. Taking away the hard works of doing the labor yourself.
But easily disposed if needed to be.
He remembers a time in which he wished to be just that. To not be so human anymore. A foolish thought really. He was so naive and foolish back then.
Once , all those nights ago he was even more foolish and spoke it out loud. Made a wish into the dead of night when no one was listening. Screaming at the stars above.
"It's cruel!" he started in a whisper, "They made us to play our parts. Fighting in a battle we had no business starting. Watching our brothers die day by day. Each time the number of the fallen ones just grows."
He had tears in his eyes as his whisper turned to a scream of despair. He remembered the tremble in his own voice. How he felt so vulnerable and helpless.
"Why?" his voice broke, and his knees gave in. "Each time I see a brother die they just cross out his number. Send a replacement. Order more of us to be doomed in this fate. Each day we fight machines and yet, we are treated as if we are the very thing we fight against. We are but machines playing our part in this war. " he remembered the sobs running through his body.
The tightness in his chest was suffocating.
"Why didn't they make me a machine then? Why do I have to watch my brothers die? Feel the pain for their loss grow bigger and bigger. Why do I have to bleed out my everything. And why- why do I have to fall for him, when I can't be with him? "
And finally he made a wish. As foolish as he was he made a force forsaken wish.
" I wish they made me one. I wish I were nothing more than the machine they want me to be. I wish I wouldn't stand by his side, longing for something I will never have. I wish I didn't know what that pain of loosing your family feels like, and how numb it gets when it becomes the normality. I wish for it all to just end. "
That night he stayed alone in the storage unit. Trembling until he no longer felt the cold that surrounded him.
When the next day came his wish was fulfilled.
The day was burned into his mind. Consumed him. It became the only thing he knew.
On that day he was ordered to execute order 66.
On that day he gave the order to kill the man that sparked all those cruel feelings inside of him.
On that day Obi-Wan Kenobi died. And Cody died with him.
Cc-2224 became the machine he was made to be. CC-2224 followed nothing but his orders and cody watched it all happen.
Cody still existed. Somewhere in the middle of it. Yet he watched himself do the most unspeakable things he ever witnessed. He watched himself kill unarmed civilians without mercy. He watched himself order the deaths of innocent people.
And worse of all, he watched how he ordered the death of his Jetii.
Now CC-2224 follows his orders without question. He doesn't cry for his brothers anymore. He never shakes in anger for they way they were treated as merchandise. He never spoke his opinions anymore.
All he does is work, work and follow as he screames in his own head until it becomes deafening.
A few months ago he found his loop. As time went by and the years went on the people around him became more careless in their orders. Gave him more freedom. Enough to make him realizer that Cody exists
As long as he doesn't hear any orders, he exists and its terrifying.
So he waited. Waited for the moment his orders became lenient enough. When cody became more than a screaming in his head again. And then, he ran.
At first he didn't know where to go. He was lost. And the very man who made him exist was the first man he killed after he lost himself.
He couldn't do anything to change that.
So he did the one thing he could do. He returned to Utapau. The very place he stopped existing in. And he mourned.
Every day he mourned.
He build graves. Day by day for a long time that was all he did. Making graves. Each and every one had a name to it. A brother he fought along. A jetti he served and followed.
He mourned for each of them, talked to them, confessed his guilts. It was all Cody could do now. His only reason he found for existing.
There was one grave amongst the many, he found himself talking to the most.
It was the grave of the very first man CC-2224 ordered to kill. The man that made Cody wish he was but a machine. The man he fell in love with.
He would tell Obi-Wan about his crimes. How he did cruel acts for the empire, followed his orders so blindly. He never asked him to forgive him.
On other days he would talk about their adventures together. Swaying I memories of happier times, well as happy as war could be.
But most of the times he just cried. Obi-Wan would never answer to him. He couldn't anymore.
The only response cody would get was the white noise that accompanied him ever since he started existing again.
It was a safety measure. He had to make sure he couldn't hear any order no matter how small or insignificant it may have been.
He had to make sure he didn't stop existing again.
So he put the speakers to his ear and cranked that white noise up until it drowned everything around him. Until it consumed him. He was fairly sure it damaged his ears. But it didn't matter.
It was a comforting reminder that he exists as cody dug another grave, for another one lost in the war and the purge that followed.
Then, a week ago, a bunch of stormtroopers landed on planet, and Cody had to flee. He left the grave he called his home. And once again he abandoned his brothers and his Jedi.
That's how he got here. Standing in the middle of a desert surrounded by sand. Twin sun's burning his skin as he keeps walking forward towards towards Mos Eisley.
He needed a job to keep going. And once he found his way to keep himself alive he would return to the one thing he was living for now. The only reason he kept existing and didn't end himself before something went wrong and 2224 returned. He mourns the dead and give them a grave to find peace in.
There are still many more graves to build.
He enters a cantina, signing to order a drink. Then he turns to watch the people surrounding him. Watching their body language, reading their lips until he finds someone that he was most likely to get a job from.
A new man enters and the white noise seemed to halt to utter silence. Time was slowing and cody watches the new arrival take of his hood.
He is older than he remembered. More tiny scars found their ways onto his beautiful face that is now framed by his white beard instead of that charming red he knew. The sun left his mark over the years and cody could see the little marks they left on his skin.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is as beautiful as Cody remembers him to be. Obi-Wan Kenobi stood in front of him. Obi-Wan Kenobi is alive.
Alive
And Cody started crying. His love is alive.
The love he killed was alive and breathing.
He is alive.
Alive!
The sole reason he exists stood in front of him, turned to look through the cantina and finally after a long, long time Cody found himself drowning in his eyes once more.
The clone does the only thing he could.
He runs away.
It was the right thing to do. Cody needs to create as much distance between him and the Jedi as possible. The fear of what would happen if he doesn't was suffocating. He was terrified. Terrified of what he, himself could do to his love. He wouldn't survive killing this man a second time.
Not again. Not this time.
Cody runs until his feet hurt and the every last bit of strength leaves his body. He runs until his body gives up and collapses onto the endless, hot sand.
The white noise over his ears becomes a cage closing in on him. Like walls pressing onto him from every direction. Air doesn't reach his lungs anymore, the world started to spin.
His body is shaking, his face stained in tears, sand sticking onto it's wetness. And his mind is consumed by one single sentence. 'Not again'.
The heat of the suns is consuming and Cody is ready to stop existing along with CC-2224.
He is ready to give up now.
It would ensure that CC-2224 would never hurt anyone again.
Now that he knows that the man he lives is alive he had to make sure that it stays that way.
The thought of death is strangely comforting now that he feels himself fading more and more.
He sees his love one final time before the World goes black.
The first thing a realizes as consciousness returns to him is that Cody didn't stop existing. No he is still very much alive.
The next thing he notes, or rather doesn't note is even more terrifying. The white noise was missing. His only companion since he fled the empire was gone. The one thing keeping him in check was taken away from him. He can hear again.
Cody hears his own breath. He twitches a finger and hears the noise it makes against the soft surface he was laid on. And finally he hears a rhythmic notice approaching him. If takes a moment for him to realise that it these are steps approaching him.
He wills himself to fully wake, find something to stop his hearing, make sure he can drown himself out again but all he manages is to open his eyes. The rest of him is paralysed.
Fear washes over him with each step getting louder until finally they are joined by a whispering voice.
He can't make out the words. Is it because his consciousness still didn't return fully or because the white noise damaged his ears? Cody doesn't know.
But he knows the voice. He knows who it belongs to even if it is nothing more than a whisper.
Cody's vision blurs again. He doesnt think he ever cried as much as he did now.
Obi-wan was beside him and whispering. He sounds incredibly sad as he does so.
Hands find their way to his face. A gentle touch wipes his tears for him and for a while they stay like this.
Cody silently crying and obi wan whispering and wiping his tears.
Until the clone finally wills himself to move away from the touch. His common sense returning when he presses his palms against his ears.
He looked at his Jedi with pleading eyes while he presses his body into the corner furthest away from him. Hands never leaving his own ears.
"Please" Cody whispers towards the man looking at him with caring eyes "Please, please, don't make me do this again. I'm not - I'm not safe please. Please run. You have to run. Please run."
His frantic pleas fade as Obi wan approaches him. Cody watches him as he comes closer. Eyes ever so caring.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" he could hear his own voice replace the white noise. Finally cody breaks down completely.
Obi wan is hugging him now. Carefully stroking his hair.
Kind, gentle hand find his own, carefully pulling them away from his ears.
A voice that isn't his own finds him. A voice that he was longing to hear. And the words it speaks are ones he would never even dream of.
"It's OK" it speaks and it's the most beautiful thing cody ever heard "I know, its not your fault. It's OK. I forgive you."
Loving eyes find his own again. And suddenly his own whispered apologies stop as saft lips find his own.
Cody felt the curse that was upon him start to crack.
Cody exists. And the man that gave him a reason to exist is existing beside him.