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[myownprice]

[No cute away message here. Just a single sentence, slightly muffled by his helmet.]

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[myownprice]

[Boba doesn’t waste time. He makes a beeline for the table, eyes lighting up when he sees the book. Part of him is still waiting for this to be exposed as some kind of misunderstanding or trick—this place does have its share of both. But the second he picks up the holo, he knows what it is.]

No, [he says quietly, eyes still fixed on the blank, black cover.] It’s been a long time.

[Almost a year, at least. Maybe more? He suddenly wants nothing more than to activate the holo, with no care as to who sees or hears. Rex had already watched a little, hadn’t he?

Boba looks up at the clone, his thought process for once entirely transparent.]

I guess it’s no secret, [he mutters. A moment more and then, with no further elaboration, he opens the book.

Dim light flickers above the holo, gradually focusing into a familiar face, lined with sadness and a peculiar anxiety that Boba has never been able to place. The recording resumes where it had been paused mid-message.

”—more than a parent to you. Remember me, and remember that I loved you.”

Perhaps most kids Boba’s age would be embarrassed to hear affection so plainly expressed in front of their peers, but Boba doesn’t seem disconcerted at all. In fact, he smiles at the recording, for a moment seeming to forget that Rex is even there.]

The Porter must have rewound the recording, [he says, almost to himself.] That’s the first message it has on it.

[He doesn’t mention that someone had clearly watched the first few seconds before he got there.]

[ct_7567]

[ Rex had known that Jango had claimed a boy of his own as his son. To carry on his legacy, perhaps, to train in his own image in a way far more literal than any other father; god only knows that Rex has never, ever wanted to groom Martin in his image. There are plenty of reasons for Jango to have wanted to claim a son. For one of them to mean more than the rest, for one to be his very own. Rex had known this for years now. Every clone had known this. But he'd thought of legacy, of culture, of practicality, of someone to look over Jango when he was old, of every possible eventuality.

Somehow, he had never factored love into the equation. He stares at the holo, expression unreadable. It makes sense now, of course. Of course Jango had loved his son, as any father should. And of course Boba loved him back. That had likely hurt them both as much as it heartened them. That's what love does.

Had he loved any of them? Rex can't help but wonder. Had he looked at his own son's faces in the men that he had trained and felt nothing? Felt fine sending them in to be slaughtered? Or had he felt something more, and that's why he stuck around to train them as much as he had, had left those behind to give them a culture, to give them names, to give them some reason to keep marching on beyond the endless expanse of war ahead of them.

He can't say. He doesn't think Boba can either. But for all that Boba lacks, he had been loved. Not by the brothers that had been bred to love him. Not through proving himself. Not through scraping and clawing for it. Boba had been deemed worthy of love from the moment he'd been handed to his father. ]

I don't know how it got here, [ he says, voice a low rumble behind Boba. ] But it's good that you have it now. I never knew.

[ Stranger still is that through everything he thinks, through everything he feels, there's something that rises above it all: he should make something like this for Martin. This is what Martin deserves to hear, should he ever leave him. That's more important than any of the other rot.

He shakes his head, dispeling the thought. ]

How many messages are on it?