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You had died on a spring day in the soft glow of the dying sun. You shouldn’t have, and yet you did. You were so young, full of life and love for him; the light went out of his life, and he was left with only memories of you. CT-5597 always knew the risks of being with him, a clone trooper, one of millions throughout the years. You both knew the risks of loving someone in his line of work, but you never anticipated that it would be you who would pay the ultimate price, the period at the end of the relationship. He knew now that he had always loved you, and that he would never stop loving you.
He had just wished he told you that day.
On that serene spring day, the light was warm and inviting as the sun began to set, casting a beautiful glow over everything in its path. CT-5597 was set to ship out to Cato Neimoidia and you wanted to have a picnic before he left. You wore your favorite dress that day, and CT-5597 had been too excited about the fight ahead to notice. You had packed his favorite meal and his favorite dessert that you had slaved over, pouring hours of effort and love into it, and he didn’t eat a single bite. You had wanted to share one last moment together, and that desire was trumped by his eagerness to be somewhere else.
After his second tangent about his excitement to leave Coruscant, you had slammed the picnic basket closed, glaring at him with fury in your beautiful eyes.You tried your best to remain calm as you told him how you felt being ignored, but CT-5597 didn’t want to hear it. He had stood, bared his chest, and claimed that what he was doing was important work. His life was for the Republic. You stand too, and ask the question that now haunts his soul.
What about you?
And the last thing he had said to you was “what about you?”
Your lips had trembled as you snatched the basket from the ground, sniffling as you gathered your things. “I had said I wanted to be with you forever for a reason.”
He had watched as you left quietly, letting you slip away without another word to each other. He should have called you back, told you to stay. But it was too late now, and he had to bear the consequences of his actions.
Instead of spending time with him, you had picked up a shift at the Jedi Temple, and CT-5597 went to war.
The battle wasn’t memorable, a moment in time that his mind doesn’t seem to care to remember. All he knows is that he fought, his brothers died, and the Republic had won the day. He returns to Coruscant to find that the Jedi Temple had been bombed. He remembers the icy panic as he scours the list of the dead, and it is a moment that would forever be etched into his mind. The letters on the cold, impersonal memo sneered at him mockingly as he read them. And there, in the middle of the list, was your name.
It was a Jedi who did it. A farking Jedi. A traitorous, murderous bitch who decided that the Republic wasn’t worth fighting for–that YOU weren’t worth fighting for–and she had killed you to prove that Jedi are not meant to be military leaders. He planned that Jedi’s death for weeks, but then the Jedi hid her away. They saved her from him, and that was something he could not forgive.
As the call for Order 66 echoed in his helmet’s receiver, CT-5597 didn’t fight back, for he had waited years to exact his revenge on the Jedi. For years, he had simmered in rage, harboring a seething hatred for them. They had taken everything from him, snatching away the ones he loved and leaving him alone in his anger and grief.
So when the order came to kill them all, he didn't hesitate. They took you from him, so it was only fair he killed them all for you. And so he fought, not for the Republic, but for the pure satisfaction of seeing them all fall. The anger pushed him forward, fueling his every move, as he prepared to take them all down, one by one.
CT-5597 gritted his teeth as he watched the Jedi slip through his fingers, panic lacing his veins as images of your merciless murder flooded his mind. The cracks in the metal floors of the Tribunal beneath him seemed to reflect the brokenness he felt inside. The Jedi couldn’t get away, not after the tears he had shed. He jumped over the cracks in the broken metal floors of the Tribunal, leaping over his fallen brothers. The thrusters burned his hands, but he refused to let go, determined to see justice served. But as the starfighter takes off, his grip slips and he hits the deck hard. He scrambled to his feet and chased after the Y-Wing, ignoring the condensation building in his helmet.
He has to catch the Jedi. He has to kill her. For you. It’s all for you. It’s what you would have wanted. He has to… it’s their fault.
It’s their fault.
It’s…
He collapsed to his knees as he watched the ship escape the destroyed hangar, numbly removing his helmet to stare at his reflection in the visor. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was worn from desperate revenge. He felt as though he had failed his brothers, failed the Republic, and worst of all, failed you. And then, as he takes one final glimpse at his men falling out of the Tribunal’s rapidly-disintegrating hangar, it hits him like a ton of bricks. All you had ever wanted from him… was him. But all he had given you was death and revenge in your name.
And as the unnamed moon gets ever closer, his mind replayed your last conversation over and over again, searching for what he could have done differently. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he was simply wrong. He had failed you, and it was a weight he would carry with him for his final moments. His actions that had led to your death. And your actions have led to his.