Archive of Our Own

In all his years of training, Rex had been trained to take on many jobs on the frontlines of the war; however, babysitting was not one of them.

He mentally cursed himself for laughing and getting stuck with this chore, all while the youngling – Ahsoka Tano, she had introduced herself – chattered on about whatever seemed to cross her mind, occasionally asking questions to which he gave a somewhat halfhearted answer.

Still, it had been amusing watching her talk back to the General. While none of his men dared to do so (at least not to the General’s face, that is), he wasn’t unused to that kind of sass being given by General Kenobi, but to see it coming from the mouth of this scrawny brat, whose montrals were nothing more than nubs and who walked brazenly into a warzone wearing hardly anything in the way of armor, now that had been something special.

But was it really worth it? Sure, “Skyguy” was going to be the new favorite nickname in the barracks for their general when he was out of earshot, but having the responsibility of making sure this child wasn’t killed shoved onto him wasn’t necessarily how he had planned to spend his afternoon. “A lesson in respect,” his General had called it, probably not only for her, but for him as well. If Tano was to be believed, she was General Skywalker’s new Padawan, despite the General stating over and over that he never wanted one (he was very vocal on how he wasn’t fond of children), and that meant, sooner or later, he might have to refer to her as his Commander.

Of course, he knew that any Jedi, regardless of size or age, was a force to be reckoned with and deserving of respect, but looking at her, he saw almost none of the qualities of the Jedi that he had observed in his time serving beside them, apart from the lightsaber strapped to her hip. (He wondered briefly if she even knew how to use it yet.) She was brash, hyperactive, stubborn, a practical whirlwind of emotion that even his General, for however unorthodox he was, knew how to stamp down when the situation demanded it. There was no sense of mysticism surrounding her that all of the other Jedi seemed to carry through their connection to the Force. With little Ahsoka Tano, what you saw was what you got, and what Rex saw was a child, one who definitely didn’t belong on the battlefield.

“…Captain?”

“Hm?” He realized a second too late that she had been trying to get his attention.

Irritated, and with a touch of hesitation in her voice, Ahsoka continued, “Have you thought about moving that line back, Captain? They’d have better cover that way.”
“Thanks for the suggestion,” he said, stiffly. While it wasn’t a bad idea, the thought of being ordered around by a youngling rubbed him the wrong way. “But General Skywalker thinks they’re just fine where they are.”

He had hoped this might shut her down for at least a second or two, but she moved on to the next topic like it was nothing. “So,” she began, a teasing edge to her voice, “if you’re a captain, and I’m a Jedi, then technically I outrank you, right?”

Rex nearly groaned aloud. He might as well take this moment to actually teach her something about respect in the 501st. “In my book, experience outranks everything.”

Ahsoka appeared thoughtful for a moment. “Well, if experience outranks everything, I guess I better start getting some.”

She beamed up at him, and he couldn’t help but return with an appreciative smile. Perhaps the kid wasn’t completely hopeless. Reckless and rough around the edges, sure, but Rex knew that a willingness to learn went a long way, if one lived long enough to do so, that is. And there was something else, something behind her eyes – blue and wide and looking up to him eagerly. A thirst to prove herself.

She was about to get her chance. “What’s that?” Ahsoka asked, pointing ahead.

Rex followed her gesture to the rapidly approaching dome of red static. “Not good,” he replied grimly, and for once, Ahsoka grew silent. “Got an energy shield. It’s gonna make things damn near impossible.” He glanced back over to her. “If you wanted experience, little one, it looks like you’re about to get plenty.”

(He really hoped she knew how to use that lightsaber.)

Of all the skills Ahsoka was taught at the Jedi temple, babysitting was not one of them.

She had to admit, the little huttlet had his moments of cuteness that made her feel like this assignment actually meant something, but it still wasn’t how she had expected to spend her very first day of Padawan training. And what a long day it was, especially when her new Master felt the need to criticize every little thing she did.

“You missed one.”

“I told you to stick close to me!”

“Why don’t you go secure your little huttlet friend?”

And of course: “Ahsoka! What are you doing holding your lightsaber backwards?”

It took every ounce of her patience not to remind her master that it was called the Reverse Shien grip and it was a perfectly acceptable form of lightsaber combat, thank you very much. She was certain he probably knew that (though at times she couldn’t help but doubt his intelligence when he pulled yet another one of his nerf-brained stunts) and was probably just looking for some way to vent his frustration at the whole situation by nitpicking her. Even she had to cut him some slack due to the fact that their introduction had been less than ideal.

At least the whole ordeal was over with now, little Stinky having been returned to his father and the hyperspace lanes governed by the Hutts now open to the Republic. She felt an odd sort of relief after rejoining the 501st, almost like coming home, even though she’d only known the clones for a few days. There was an easy camaraderie among the men that was so foreign back at the Temple, and in spite of her youth (even if she and several of the clones were actually around the same age), they gathered around her, listened to her, laughed at her jokes. It was nice.

She decided that, at least for the next few hours, Skyguy could do without her presence. Despite the fact that she was eager to continue her Jedi training as soon as possible, her Master had been in a foul mood ever since they had landed on Tatooine, waves of hurt and anger steadily leaking from him into the Force until even she couldn’t keep up a smile, and no amount of prying on her part could get him to explain to her why. She would keep her distance until he calmed down, and until then, a trip to the refresher sounded splendid. If there was one thing that she could agree with Master Skywalker on, it was the fact that the sand on Tatooine was horribly unpleasant and snuck into the most uncomfortable of places.

It was on her way there that she quite literally ran into Rex, of all people, seemingly just returning from the ‘fresher himself and dressed in only his black suit, the Republic cog branded on his chest on full display. It struck her suddenly that she hadn’t seen him since the battle on Teth, and that this was the first time she had ever seen him out of armor, still easily recognizable by the lightness of his hair, short as it was. (She wondered if he dyed it or if it was some sort of mutation.) She had been worried about him earlier, despite Master Skywalker’s multiple assurances that he would be fine, and she felt bad that she had let her exhaustion after almost being killed push that from her mind.

“Sorry, Kid,” he said, seeming unbothered by her bumping into him. “Kid” was better than “youngling” or “little one,” at least.

“Captain! How are you?” she asked before he could rush off to the barracks.

The question seemed to puzzle him for a moment. “I, uh, yes. I mean, I’m fine, thank you,” he replied somewhat awkwardly, edging around her in the narrow space of the hallway.

Ahsoka didn’t know what to do with an awkward Rex, and it seemed to be contagious. She wasn’t quite sure what about her question had caught him off-guard. “That’s good to hear. After Ventress, I just wanted to make sure…” She trailed off. Even her brief interaction with Dooku’s assassin had nearly killed her, and it had to be some sort of miracle that Rex had made it out alive.

Rex only shook his head. He offered up a tired smile, and his next words were spoken so easily that they almost felt rehearsed. “It was nothing. There’s no need for you to worry about me.”

“Oh, okay.” Ahsoka felt a little stupid. Captain Rex was a soldier, so of course he was used to stuff like this. And if Master Yoda had caught her worrying like this, she was sure to be in for another lecture on attachments and learning to let go. You’re a Jedi, she scolded herself. Act like it.

By this point, Rex had managed to shuffle completely around her, free to disappear down the hallway. Still, he hung around, unsure of whether to end the conversation or continue it. Finally, he cleared his throat and asked, “So, how was your first day as General Skywalker’s Padawan?”

“Well, I definitely got my fair share of that experience you were talking about,” she joked, and to Ahsoka’s delight, Rex chuckled.

“Yeah, spending any amount of time with the General will do that.”

She continued, “I certainly wasn’t expecting to get stuck with watching over a whiny youngling. You wouldn’t have any idea what that’s like, would you?” Ahsoka wasn’t stupid, not in this case, at least. It hadn’t been hard to gauge how her captain had felt towards her initially.

He took her jab in stride. “I dunno. Constantly getting into trouble, never knowing when to shut up,” Rex said, a wicked curve to his grin, “Sounds a lot like having to keep up with General Skywalker.”

Ahsoka snorted loudly before quickly slapping a hand over her mouth and looking around to make sure no one heard. Rex, too, looked a little wary about what he had just said. “Now, don’t go telling him I said that,” he added.

“Don’t worry, Captain. Your secret’s safe with me,” she said, still trying to stifle her laughter. Privately, she wondered how she could twist his joke into something she could use against her Master one day.

“I’ll leave you to get some rest. I think you’ve earned it, Kid.” Rex took this opportunity to turn and start back down the hallway for his own well-deserved break.

Ahsoka wasn’t quite finished, yet. Whatever the Jedi Code said, he at least deserved to know how grateful she was to him. For what, she wasn’t entirely sure. For his service? For tolerating her? For not looking half-bad in drab Republic issued jumpsuits?

“Hey, Captain?” she called out, causing him to pause and look back at her over his shoulder. She meant to say something meaningful then, but what came out instead was, “I’m glad you’re still alive.”

Rex smiled and nodded. “Me too.”

When the bomb went off, Rex’s first thought was to find Ahsoka. The little one had already survived so much; it wouldn’t do to have her die on him now. Luckily, she seemed to have been looking for him, as well, a handful of other troopers at her side. They wasted no time with words but kept moving together as the toxic cloud of Blue Shadow Virus crept ever closer behind them. Doors slammed shut on either side of the hallway, and the door to the safe room just up ahead was only a few feet away from locking them out to die.

We aren’t going to make it, he thought grimly.

He and the other troopers made it to the door first and made an effort to prop open the door with their blasters, but it was no use. “Don’t worry!” he heard behind him, and for the first time, he realized Ahsoka was no longer by his side. Rex turned just in time to see her reach out, using the Force to hold the doors open just long enough for the troopers to slide in through the gap. He paused; having one of those moments he’d had so often lately where his mind could not reconcile the spunky young girl with the Jedi she was meant to become.

“Get inside, Captain!” she shouted, her voice straining with the effort. He snapped out of his momentary stupor and dove in through the gap. Ahsoka followed soon after, the noxious cloud at her heels, diving through the opening just as the blasters broke and the door locked down.

They had made it. They were safe. So why were the alarms still going off?

“No. No! NO!” The trooper checking the scanners slammed his fists on the console in frustration. “Some of the virus got in here. We didn’t close the door fast enough!”

Rex muttered a string of curses under his breath too low for his helmet to pick up. If he hadn’t hesitated at the door, maybe…

A glance back at Ahsoka, grappling with her own composure, quickly shut down that train of thought. They had done all they could, and there were more pressing matters at hand.

“We may be dead men,” he said, with the ease of someone completely used to risking their life and had come to terms with that long ago, “but we can still stop those droids.”

Ahsoka gave a determined nod, whatever doubts she may have had squashed for the time being. “Don’t worry,” she said. “My master will find a cure for this virus. We’re not dead yet!”

She grinned, and if there was one thing Rex preferred in serving with her than with her Master, it was her genuine optimism. Her smile was warm and lit up the room; it was like a quiet, sunny day after long weeks of battle. It reassured the men better than anything he or General Skywalker could say, and despite their initial apprehension, the entire 501st had become quite fond of their little Commander.

They managed to push through their rapidly declining health, and after reuniting with Senator Amidala and Representative Binks, they destroyed the last of the droids trying to break out of the bunker and unleash the deadly virus onto Naboo. But now that was finished, and with no word on the progress of Generals Skywalker and Kenobi, there was nothing to distract the men from their imminent demise. Senator Amidala, now without her protective suit, was using her marginally better strength to tend to the soldiers and make them as comfortable as she could, but nothing more could be done.

All around him, Rex saw the faces of his brothers – his own face – pale and dying in the dim glow of the emergency lights, and he knew he didn’t look much better. The sound of painful, racking coughs echoed in the room and filled his ears, and he itched to escape, to be anywhere but where he was in that moment, but he was pathetically unable to do anything. Ahsoka must have felt the same way, because she stood suddenly, swayed on the spot for a moment, and announced, “I’m going to do one last sweep of the halls, make sure we didn’t miss any of those tin cans.”

She turned to him, and as if reading his mind, she added, “Captain Rex, with me.” She didn’t have to tell him twice. He tried not to appear too eager as he followed her out of the room, but somehow, she still managed to keep ahead of him at a startlingly brisk pace, stumbling every couple of feet. He was about to recommend that she take it a little slower, as she was no less sick than the rest of them, but she suddenly stopped and let out a heavy sigh once they were a significant distance from the rest of their group.

“I’m sorry, Rex. I…I just needed a moment,” she said. While she and General Skywalker had never been too big on protocol, the lack of his title caught his attention. She leaned heavily against the wall, and Rex caught his first glimpse of her face since they had left the others. Her smile was gone, and he felt cold dread creep in at the unnatural sight.

“Are you alright, sir? Perhaps we should rejoin the others.” He offered his hand in case she needed any assistance to get moving again, not that his waning strength would really do much good.

She waved off his concern. “No. No, I’m fine. I just wanted to get away for a bit. I…” She bit her lip, not sure whether she should continue. “I didn’t want the others to see me like this. I didn’t want to worry them any more than they already are, but Rex, I’m so, so tired.” Ahsoka half-slid, half-collapsed onto the floor then, hugging her knees to her chest.

She continued, “But the thing is, I also didn’t want to be alone. I’m sorry, Rex. It was selfish of me to drag you out here.”

Unsure of what else to do, Rex sat down on the floor beside her and removed his helmet. “Don’t be, Commander,” he insisted, emphasizing the title, as hearing anyone use it was usually enough to put a smile on her face. He was still getting used to calling her that, even though it had been a long time since the position had become official. It had been a lot easier than he expected, however, and she had gone a long way towards earning it. “I’m here to support you, no matter what.”

There was the faintest quirk of a smile on her lips as she muttered her thanks, but her eyes were far away. “When I die, I know I’ll become one with the Force,” she said. Normally, he wouldn’t allow this kind of talk of giving up in his men, but he knew better than to argue with Ahsoka once she had made her mind up about something. “It all sounds so pretty when they talk about it at the Temple, but right now, it doesn’t make me any less afraid of dying.” She made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, but she continued to do an excellent job of holding back tears.

“What about me?” Rex asked, surprising both of them. Truthfully, Rex had never given much thought to his death until this moment. He had accepted it as an eventual inevitability, as all his brothers had, though he hadn’t imagined going out quite like this. In the back of his mind, he’d always pictured himself on the battlefield, pulling off one last act of heroism and leaving the universe in a burst of fire and metal, not quietly passing away from illness in a forgotten bunker on a relatively peaceful world, not when there was so much more he knew he could do. “Will I…I mean, will we clones also end up there after…after this?”

“Yes, of course!” she said immediately, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. She grabbed his hand urgently, as if to convey that this was the most important thing he needed to understand in that moment, and maybe it was. How was he to know?

“Of course, you will,” she reaffirmed. Like always, her optimistic words set him at ease, and he understood what she had meant by the idea of it sounding “pretty.” He had spent too much time around Jedi to have any doubt in the Force, but this was another one of those impossible things he found himself sincerely hoping to be true.

“Well, then.” Rex held up their joined hands. “Just like in any other mission, we’ll go together.”

If Rex never saw the sun again, at least he had this moment, and Ahsoka Tano’s smile.

Well, she didn’t die, but with how terrible she felt after waking up in the hospital, Ahsoka wasn’t sure that was a plus. Her entire body ached worse than if she had spent a week doing saber drills, her throat felt as if she had been swallowing sandpaper, and her head pounded so hard that she couldn’t see straight for several minutes.

Slowly, she inched her way up into a sitting position, and after some trial and error, managed to stand on wobbly legs. The hospital on Naboo was like any other Ahsoka had seen (and she had seen too many during the war) with one noticeable perk: the scenic window views of the rolling meadows just outside the gleaming capitol city. She’d read something about the belief that being surrounded by nature encouraged healing, but Ahsoka was never one to sit still and enjoy the scenery. Mustering all her strength, she emerged from the curtains separating her bed for privacy.

There were several other beds in the room aligned in rows against the wall, most of which were curtained off and containing patients, and medical droids moved methodically between them. Dodging the droids, Ahsoka discreetly peeked through several of the curtains, hoping to spot a familiar face. She came across the few clones who had also survived the virus, all sleeping off the medication, and she quietly thanked the Force for each of them and left them to their rest until she finally came across Rex, who thankfully, also seemed unable to sleep.

She slipped through his curtains right as a medical droid scuttled by. “Sir? What are you doing here?” he asked, not unkindly but with a hint of disapproval.

“Oh, you know. Making the rounds. Checking on everyone,” she replied nonchalantly, but even those few words had her stifling a round of coughs. “You’re looking better.”

“Better” was stretching it if she was being honest. Though faded, the blue veins from the virus were still prominent beneath his too pale complexion, and looking down at the sorry state of her hands, Ahsoka was certain that her own appearance was none too pleasant.

“Thank you?” he said, still skeptical of her presence.

“Have you seen Master Skywalker?” she asked. She hadn’t spoken to him since before she was airlifted to the hospital, and there hadn’t been nearly enough time to give him an earful for taking so long.

Rex nodded. “The General came by earlier, but with most everyone resting and in recovery, there wasn’t much he could say or do. I believe he left for Senator Amidala’s room.”

“What? Padme gets her own room?”

“Well, she is the representative for this planet.”

“I know, I know.” Ahsoka rolled her eyes, but the action set the room spinning, and she struggled briefly to maintain her balance.

This did not go unnoticed by Rex. “Kid, I think you ought to lie back down and rest.”

Not one to be bossed around by, well, anyone (especially one who called her “kid”), Ahsoka shot back, “Fine, then. Scoot over.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I want to keep talking to you, and I don’t want to have to do it from across the medbay.” Ahsoka sat down on the bed and nudged him aside before he could protest any further. Eventually, she was able to force a space on the small cot just large enough for her to squeeze in beside him.

But now what?

Sure, she had been stubborn and gotten her way, but well, she hadn’t exactly thought this through. Her new position was quite uncomfortable, being wedged between Rex’s large body and the railing of the hospital bed, and just a tad too warm. They must both still be running fevers.

Rex cleared his throat and spoke first. “This is highly irregular.”

She did her best too look up and smile at him, though it was hard with how close they were pressed together. “Since when have you known me and Skyguy to be regular?”

Ahsoka could feel Rex’s laughter reverberating in his chest. “You’ve got a point there, Kid.”

She rolled her eyes at the nickname but continued, “Honestly, Anakin’s probably being the same way in Padme’s own personal room. You know, I bet she has a bigger bed, too. Way more comfortable.” Ahsoka shifted position awkwardly, making a point to lightly jab Rex in the ribs for emphasis, but he had gone quiet. Too quiet.

Ahsoka gasped loudly and shot up, inadvertently shoving Rex into the railing on his side of the bed. “You know something, don’t you?” She had been skeptical of Anakin’s friendship with the senator since day one of her apprenticeship. Sure, they could claim childhood friends all they wanted to, but Ahsoka was pretty sure friends didn’t look at each other that intensely, or have secret pet names for each other, or hold hands when they thought nobody else was looking. How was it fair for her to get lectured on attachments when her own master apparently broke that rule whenever he saw fit?

“Not really,” Rex grumbled, rubbing his arm.

Ahsoka was not so easily dissuaded. “Tell me!” she insisted. When Rex refused to answer, she grabbed him by the shoulder and started shaking him. “Tell meeeeeeee!”

“Alright, alright!” he relented, swatting her hands away. “Just keep it down, will you?”

Ahsoka shifted around until she found a more comfortable sitting position where she could also watch Rex’s face. Gossip was spare in the Temple; it was not an activity that the Jedi generally encouraged among their own ranks, but Ahsoka had learned that it was almost a sport among the clones, and the best information usually came from those who participated in it the least. Rex glanced around, wary of anyone else overhearing, before finally sighing and getting on with it.

“Look, I don’t know anything,” he began, “but the General will occasionally hang out with me and some of the troops, off-duty, of course, and after a couple of drinks, he tends to talk. A lot. About Senator Amidala.”

He looked reluctant to continue, but Ahsoka urged him on. “Well? What does he say?”

A splash of crimson spread over Rex’s pale face. “Ah, you know, random stuff like ‘the angels cannot compare’ and ‘her smile is brighter than the desert suns,’ ‘her hair smells just like the wildflowers that grow on Naboo,’ ‘her skin is as soft and as smooth-‘”

Ahsoka threw her hands up over her face to hide how red it had gotten. “Ack! Gross! I get it. Sorry I asked.” She felt the bed shake and peeked through her fingers to see that Rex was laughing again, despite his own embarrassment.

“Yeah, we, uh, tend to change the topic pretty quickly when he gets like that,” he admitted.

“So, are they actually together, or is Master Skywalker just being creepy?” she asked.

Rex only shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t really know anything.”

“Then we have to find out!

“Do we have to?” Rex groaned.

“Yes!” Ahsoka struggled to maneuver out of the cramped bed so that she could stand as tall as possible. “As your Commander, I order you to help me uncover Master Skywalker’s secret relationship.”

“I really don’t think-“

“Too late!” she interrupted. “That is your new mission, Captain. No getting out of it.”

Just then, she heard the approach of a medical droid just outside the curtain, so she offered Rex a parting salute and started to sneak out the back. “Hey, Commander,” Rex called, causing her to pause and look back over her shoulder at him one last time. “I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“Me, too.”

Sometimes, it was all too easy for Rex to forget just how young she was.

Commander Tano had proven herself a more than equal companion to the older General, matching him stride for stride, wit for wit. This was a girl who had faced off against Grievous, Ventress, and several other of the most terrifying creatures in the galaxy and hadn’t even blinked. But here she was, small and defeated, a startlingly empty look in her eye.

Rex knew that look. He was used to seeing it on Shinies after their first battle, gaping at the remains of their brothers strewn out before them. It was the look of pain so great that the body and mind simply couldn’t comprehend it and shut down, the look of being shocked into oblivion. Sometimes, despite being programmed to withstand more psychological damage than the average being, men never recovered from that. He really hoped she wasn’t that broken.

Her first official command had gone terribly, horribly wrong. She had lost nearly her entire squad, and the fleet’s forces had been reduced by half during the failed attempt to get through the blockade over Ryloth. Rex had spotted her and the General arguing about it all day – her about being unwilling to risk more men, him about how the Twi’leks could not wait until they were able to get reinforcements. Their clashes eventually resulted in Ahsoka being sent to her room like a bratty youngling as punishment, and Rex winced. That was not going to sit well with her.

Then suddenly, without any warning for Rex (or for Ahsoka, judging by her panicked expression), General Skywalker was once again leaving her in charge while he embarked on another one of his idiotic schemes that was sure to work but would have gotten any lesser men killed. “Commander Ahsoka will fill you in on the full plan,” he promised the men.

“Master, wait!” Ahsoka hissed.

“Good luck.” General Skywalker cast a wink at his Padawan as he hurried onto his ship before she could say anything more.

Ahsoka looked ready to scream, but Rex interrupted before she got the chance. “Awaiting orders, Commander.”

She froze, giving the men around her yet another one of those empty, horrified stares. “I’ll be on the bridge,” she said hollowly, slowly making her way out of the hangar.

Dumbfounded, the clones could only stand and watch her go before Rex chimed in. “Well, you heard her, boys: back to work! Come on! Move it! Move it!” Only once the last of his men had scattered back to their duties did Rex follow Ahsoka out. He knew better than to leave her alone like this.

He found her pacing in a lonely section of hallway, and she didn’t pause even as she acknowledged his presence. “What is it, Captain?”

“Just wanted to ask about the details of the plan, sir.”

“There is no plan,” she muttered bitterly.

Rex wondered briefly if he had heard her correctly through his helmet. “I’m sorry? There has to be a plan.”

Ahsoka threw up her arms in frustration. “Well, there isn’t! My Master’s gonna slam the Defender into the control center, and we have to pick up the pieces.”

“How do we do that?”

“I don’t know! He didn’t tell me!”

Rex was grateful that his armor obscured any emotion. He wasn’t sure that he would have been able to mask his rising anxiety about the situation, and the last thing Ahsoka needed was for him to panic, too. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Commander.”

“Don’t say that, Captain. I don’t deserve it. I don’t know what to do.”

Suddenly, she straightened, as if struck by an idea. “But you do! You should take command. You have way more experience with this stuff than I do.”

She offered up a pleading smile, and for the briefest second, Rex wavered. She had a point, and perhaps at one time, he might have considered it, but no. This was something she had to confront. “I’m sorry, but I believe General Skywalker’s orders were clear: you’re the one leading this mission.”

“But I can’t do it! I’m not ready!” she shouted. “You saw what happened out there. All those men are dead because of me!”

“And we will mourn them!” he yelled back, startling Ahsoka into silence. Rex was stunned at himself, too. He certainly hadn’t meant to raise his voice at his Commander, and he had to take a moment to breathe and reign himself back in. “But not now. Not when what they died for is within reach.”

She didn’t get to fall apart over this. Not when Rex and his brothers were expected to move on like it was nothing. Not when nobody else like her had.

“We’re fighting a war. People are dying all the time, good people, and I don’t think anyone is ever really ready to face that, but that’s the reality of command. All you can do is keep going and try to make sure you won’t have to mourn anyone else tomorrow,” Rex told her.

Ahsoka took a deep breath, and when she looked back up at him, he caught a glimmer of her usual self in her eyes. “You know, you sounded just like my Master there for a minute.”

“Well,” he chuckled, “even he has his moments.” She didn’t quite smile, but she let out a puff of air that could have been a laugh. It was something, at least. “I’ll be waiting on the bridge to hear your brilliant plan, Commander.”

“I’ll be there,” she said, uncertainly, “when I come up with it.”

Ryloth wasn’t so bad, Ahsoka thought, when it wasn’t a warzone.

Once the blockade was dealt with and reinforcements had arrived, she and Master Skywalker had descended to the planet’s surface to provide aid where they could, mostly by air cover for Master Kenobi’s and Master Windu’s ground assaults. They had been at it for days before finally recapturing the capitol city, and Ahsoka had loaded up on stims in order to stay alert and awake all that time. Of course, the downside to this was that now she was allowed the opportunity to rest, she found herself unable to. Jittery and itching for some kind of distraction in the quiet following the battle, Ahsoka gave up on sleep and left her tent.

They had camped out on the rocky outskirts of the city, allowing the locals to shelter within while they kept watch for any rogue droids that might still be lingering. She passed a handful of clones still huddled around the fire in the center of the camp, snacking on rations and drinking whatever it was that the locals had offered to them. They beckoned for her to join them, but she declined and kept moving.

She passed by Master Skywalker’s tent next, where he said he’d be meditating, but Ahsoka could have sworn that she heard snoring. Glad to know someone’s able to rest after all this.

She finally came to an outcropping at the edge of camp, where the rocks dropped off steeply for a few feet before continuing on. She paused, breathing in the warm breeze that blew her lekku away from her face, and took in the view of the majestic canyons carved into the planet’s surface that stretched on endlessly towards the horizon, where they met the black expanse of the night sky. Closer to her, a lone silhouette blocked out part of the scenery. She recognized Captain Rex from the shape of the crest on his shoulder, and she moved to sit down next to him, dangling her legs off the ledge.

“Commander,” he said, removing his helmet and nodding in acknowledgment.

“Evening, Captain,” she returned, and they fell into a companionable silence. It was nice, Ahsoka had to admit, but she still couldn’t shake the need to keep moving. She swung her legs, tapped frenetic rhythms onto the rocks, and fiddled with her Padawan braid, but nothing seemed to put her at ease.

“Can’t sleep?” Rex asked, taking notice of her fidgeting. Ahsoka hummed in affirmation. “That tends to happen after a few days on stims. It should wear off soon, and then you’ll be out like a light.”

“Had a lot of experience with that, Captain?”

“I’ve seen soldiers fall asleep still standing once theirs wore off.” He chuckled, recalling a particularly funny memory. “Once, Hardcase was bragging that he didn’t feel any side effects while in the mess hall, and he ended up passing out mid-sentence and fell face down into his meal.”

Ahsoka threw her head back and laughed with Rex, feeling a little more relaxed. When she opened her eyes, she kept them trained on the sky, her gaze darting around the unfamiliar constellations over Ryloth. “You never see this many stars on Coruscant,” she remarked. “The city lights are too bright.”

“You can’t see them much on Kamino, either. It’s nearly always storming.”

“Sounds like a wonderful place to grow up,” Ahsoka quipped, but truthfully, she was interested. The clones didn’t talk much about where they grew up. Everything was all about the here and now and what battles they had fought in. She chalked it up to them not having much of a childhood to begin with.

“It’s a watery hell hole of a planet,” Rex admitted, “but it’s home.”

Ahsoka nodded along, knowing that this was probably the most she was going to hear about it for now. Her eyes fell on the faded image of their Star Cruiser hovering just above the planet’s atmosphere.

“Thank you for what you said before, back on the ship,” she said.

Rex shook his head. “Nothing to thank me for. All I said was the truth.”

“Yes, but I needed to hear it. So, thank you.”

Rex seemed to consider arguing this further, but relented in the end, saying a quiet, “You’re welcome.”

“Rex?” He always seemed a little startled when she used his name, but she couldn’t fathom why. They weren’t in any situation that warranted protocol and titles, and her Master almost never used them unless he wanted to pull rank for some reason (usually another one of his stunts that no sane person would agree to). “How do clones mourn?”

Rex blinked several times, as if trying to figure out how the conversation had taken such a sharp, morbid turn. Ahsoka wasn’t sure herself exactly what prompted the question, but the sound of his voice when he had snapped at her back on the ship still rang in her mind. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said after a moment.

“Back at the temple, we’re told that when someone dies, we should rejoice because they have become one with the Force and are finally at peace.”

“That’s…pretty,” he remarked, remembering their conversation in the bunker on Naboo.

“They tend to leave out how much it hurts, though. It doesn’t feel right, just smiling and moving on, as if that person was never there to begin with, as if they didn’t matter.” Ahsoka pulled her legs back onto the rock with her and hugged her knees to her chest. It wasn’t cold, but she could feel herself shaking with an emotion that she couldn’t identify, somewhere between anger and sadness.

“I don’t think that’s what they mean,” Rex said, trying to be helpful.

“I know,” Ahsoka sighed, “but sometimes that’s what it feels like. So, how do you guys deal with it? When people you care about are dying every day?”

She could see that this line of questioning was making Rex uncomfortable, but she kept pushing. She was still struggling to understand grief and loss, things she had never dealt with while sheltered on Coruscant and which had nearly shut her down a few days ago. So how? How had Rex not lost his mind after dealing with this almost every day of his existence? She needed to know.

“To be honest, most of us came to terms with this arrangement a long time ago. We’re bred to be soldiers, and soldiers die. That’s just the truth of it.” Ahsoka frowned and rested her chin on her knees. That wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear.

“But,” Rex continued, “there are ways to cope with it. It’s different for everyone, though. Many drink for a while until it becomes manageable. I see some who throw themselves into their work until they become used to doing their job without their brother beside them. Most of us, I think, just try to be thankful for the time we had with them and for our brothers still standing with us.”

“And you?” Ahsoka asked. “What do you do?”

Rex rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “It’s kind of hard to describe. I suppose you could say I collect things.”

“You…collect things?”

“Nothing substantial, just whatever I can record on my datapad. Names, numbers, holos, whatever they left behind that proves that they were here. I guess it’s my way of keeping them with me, of making sure they’re not forgotten,” he explained.

Ahsoka relaxed her posture, stifling a yawn. “That’s amazing, Rex, really. Would it be alright if I looked through your collection?”

For a moment, Rex couldn’t speak, seemingly surprised that she was even interested. “Oh, I left it back in my quarters on the ship, but if you’re up for it later, I’d be happy to show it to you when we get back.”

Ahsoka nodded, and doing so caused the stars to blur together. “I’d like that,” she murmured sleepily, as the night grew darker around her. “I’d like that.”

When Ahsoka woke up, the first rays of dawn were creeping up over the horizon. She didn’t remember lying down and falling asleep, and she certainly couldn’t recall having a blanket with her, and yet her cheek was pressed against a rough layer of fabric. The fabric did very little to cushion the hard rocks underneath, except her head wasn’t resting on a rock, Ahsoka realized as she blinked blearily in the light. It was a leg, a leg covered in armor and a black kama.

“Omigosh!” Ahsoka scrambled to get up, but in doing so, slammed her montrals into Rex’s face, as he had been slumped over asleep, himself.

“Augh!” he cried out at the rude awakening, reeling back and clutching his nose.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Ahsoka flailed her hands around, not really sure how to help or even what was going on. Rex sat back up, wincing and pulling his hands away from his face, but there was no blood, so she assumed that meant he was okay. “What happened?”

“You finally crashed from the stims,” he explained.

“On you,” she realized, her face flushing from embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, Rex. You should have just left me. I can’t imagine you slept well like that.”

“No worse than you did.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s another side effect of the stims,” Rex said, stretching his stiff muscles. “REM rebound. A few days without sleep can give you some nasty nightmares. You woke up a lot.”

“I don’t remember.” Ahsoka furrowed her brow, trying to conjure up any details from the night before.

“Probably not. You were pretty out of it.”

Try as she might, Ahsoka could recall very little about the nightmares Rex spoke of, only flashes of red light and heavy breathing. Then, something else. A warm, steady hand on her back. A low voice saying something that she couldn’t understand but which put her at ease.

Rex stood and offered his arm to help her up. “We should probably be heading back to camp before we’re missed, Commander.”

Ahsoka smiled and took his hand, and they walked back together.

Rex had only just raised his hand to knock on the door when Ahsoka’s voice called out from within. “Come in!” The door to his Commander’s quarters slid open immediately for Rex to enter, but he hesitated at the threshold, a bit taken aback by what he found inside.

It had been a while since he had been around Commander Tano. After taking note of some of her more reckless behaviors on the frontlines, the Jedi Council had required her to take multiple long “meditation retreats” on Coruscant. Of course, he saw her in between and briefly before and after battles, but with how busy both of them were, this was the first time he had really been close enough for any extended period.

She seemed taller, though it was hard for him to tell if her body had grown in height or just her montrals, and she had, to some degree, developed more muscle definition, but she had always been more on the lean side. Even the markings on her face and lekku appeared to have shifted, growing finer and more detailed with age. She carried herself differently, too, no longer the hyperactive and aggressive youngling he first met but a calmer yet still cheery Jedi in training. The change sometimes seemed so drastic that it left Rex stunned.

There was also the small detail of her levitating several inches off the ground, various objects around the room hovering around her. That sight took a minute to adjust to. Every time he thought he’d seen just about everything with the Jedi, they always did something else to surprise him.

Slowly, she slipped out of her meditative trance and lowered herself and her belongings to the floor. She grinned broadly at him, and that simple gesture settled him. This was still the Commander he had come to know, even if she’d grown up a bit. “What can I do for you, Captain?”

Rex remained in the doorway. His message was short, anyway. “General Skywalker just sent me to inform you that we’ll be coming out of hyperspace soon and to meet him on the bridge for a briefing in two hours.”

“Thanks. I’ll be there.”

Rex stepped back into the hallway. “If that’s all, I –“

“Do you have to go?” Ahsoka interrupted. “I mean, if you don’t have anywhere to be right now, it’s been so long since we’ve been able to catch up.”

He considered this for a moment. Sure, there were things he could be doing, but the second she had given him the option, he knew that he was definitely not going to do any of them. Besides, who was he to argue with his Commander? “I suppose I could hang around for a while longer,” he said, stepping fully into the room and allowing the door to slide shut behind him.

Ahsoka got up from the floor and took a more comfortable seat on the cot in the corner of the room, patting the space next to her. He set aside his helmet and joined her, and she began immediately with, “So, how goes our mission?”

Rex chuckled. “About that…”

Rex was not normally one to condone gossip. In fact, it was often his job to shut down the rumor mill within his own ranks to keep things from getting out of hand. Try as he might, however, the men still talked, and eventually, it all filtered up to him, not that much of it was worth his time. When the information came from above, however, and from the source itself, no less, there was no doubting it. In regards to spreading said information, Rex justified it in that he and Ahsoka were merely discussing a mutual acquaintance (nevermind if said acquaintance was both their superior), so it didn’t count.

He started by recounting what had happened while escorting the Duchess of Mandalore to Coruscant and the interesting conversations he had overheard between Generals Skywalker and Kenobi about her. It seemed that General Kenobi had once been “close” to the Duchess, and perhaps still was, though Rex had a hard time seeing that with all the yelling they were doing. He didn’t get confirmation of his suspicions until shortly after the Duchess had left and Anakin joined him and some other troops for drinks again, inevitably having too much and rambling on about one of two things: what he was pissed off about or Senator Amidala. This time, it happened to be both.

“Obi-Wan acts all high and mighty, but Rex – you won’t believe it, get this – I overheard him and Satine talking about how much they loved each other while someone was threatening to blow up the ship! And even after that, they were being sooo obvious about it, like, are they even trying to hide it? Why should I get in trouble for being married to Padme when he gets to break the Code whenever he feels like it?”

It was at that moment that Rex hastily escorted the General back to his room, helped him sober up, and informed him that he was no longer allowed to get drunk around the other men.

“No way! They’re married?” Ahsoka nearly shrieked. Thank goodness for soundproof Durasteel walls.

Rex nodded. “Apparently.”

“Is that even legal?”

He could only shrug.

Rex didn’t have many details other than that, but without being able to share this knowledge with Ahsoka, he had gone to Cody with it. Cody made it his business to know everything, anyway, and was more likely to put a blaster to his bucket before he went around spreading rumors, so he didn’t count, either. This had resulted in the two of them spending several hours discussing their two hopeless Jedi and their chaotic love lives, as it was quite entertaining to talk about something besides the war, for once, and ended with them betting on whether or not General Kenobi and Duchess Satine would actually get together.

“My money’s on yes,” he told Ahsoka. “I don’t think General Skywalker will rest until he can prove General Kenobi’s no better than he is. Cody says his General thinks himself too above those things, though.”

Ahsoka pondered this for a moment. “My money’s on Master Kenobi and Ventress,” she said, only mostly joking.

Rex froze for a moment in surprise and no small amount of horror. “What makes you say that?”

Ahsoka arched an eyebrow. “Have you seen those two fight? Seriously, it’s disgusting.”

He chuckled as she wrinkled her nose and grimaced at whatever memories she had conjured up. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to elaborate on that. “Well, I suppose it’s not the most out-there bet I’ve heard.”

She gaped at him. “You mean more people know about this?”

“No one besides me and Cody knows exactly what’s going on between the General and the Senator,” Rex reassured her quickly. “Although, several men have money on the two of them. The bet between me and Cody was supposed to be a secret, so naturally, pretty much every clone in our divisions knows about it. It’s gotten quite out of hand, to be honest.”

“Oh-no. What other pairings have they managed to come up with?” Ahsoka asked with trepidation.

“Well, some of the men think you and the General would make a cute couple,” he teased.

“Gross.”

“And there’s a significant portion that think the General Skywalker and General Kenobi should get together.”

“Double gross.”

“I’ve also heard them quietly talking about the possibility of Cody and General Kenobi,” said Rex, wincing himself at that one. Cody had not been happy at that insinuation.

“And let me guess, there’s a similar bet about you and my Master?” Ahsoka said, snickering behind her hand.

“Not that anyone’s been brave enough to tell me about it,” Rex replied. At least not to his face, but he knew somewhere in the ranks, it existed. He also left out the other two pairings: a joking one about him and Cody that honestly made him shudder to even think about, and another (put forth by Fives, of course, and seconded by Echo) bet on him getting together with Commander Tano.

He didn’t mention that one for obvious reasons. No need to make things awkward.

“I missed this,” Ahsoka sighed. “After being around you guys so long, I forgot just how boring the Temple can get.”

“That can’t be all true. I heard you managed to get tangled up in a few adventures.”

She nodded halfheartedly. “Here and there, yeah, but the day-to-day stuff isn’t really all that interesting. I spent most of the time studying and meditating.”

“The meditating you were doing before seemed pretty interesting,” Rex said, recalling again the strange sight of her levitating in the center of the room.

Her mouth quirked into a strange sort of half-smile. “Care to give it a try?” she asked. Rex, for how good he had gotten at reading her, couldn’t quite tell if she was teasing or completely genuine. Possibly both.

“No thanks. I’m no Jedi,” he said.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to be a Jedi to meditate. Here, let me show you.” She swung her legs up on the bed and crossed them in front of her, and after some expectant staring from Ahsoka, Rex did the same. The space was so small that their knees touched, and he found himself fidgeting around awkwardly in an attempt to avoid it.

“How do I, uh…”

“Just start by closing your eyes and clearing your mind. Relax,” she said. After some hesitation, he did as he was told, but then immediately felt very silly and opened them again. Ahsoka had closed her eyes, and her face had settled into a mask of serenity that didn’t last very long. A second or two after he had opened his eyes, she frowned. “Rex, I don’t need to be Force sensitive to know you’re not relaxing.”

She finally opened her eyes and arched an eyebrow at him. “Sorry, I’m afraid I’m not too good when it comes to stuff like this,” he admitted. Sure, he knew how to relax. In his time off, he would kick back with his brothers, spend some time enjoying the sights on the planets they camped on, or even enjoy a round of easy target practice, but this – sitting still in a too-quiet room, not doing anything to distract from the darker thoughts he’d rather not have – was entirely out of his element.

Ahsoka extended her hands out to him, palms up and welcoming. “Give me your hands. I’ll help you.” He eyed her skeptically for a moment, but she was being as earnest as ever, so he relented and gently placed his hands in her much smaller ones. As crazy as it sounds, he could have sworn he could feel the warmth of her skin through his gloves, and it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. She nodded, and they closed their eyes at the same time.

He still felt silly, but he felt something else, as well. Something like a small push against his mind. He stiffened out of reflex, recognizing the barest hint of the Force at work on him that he was able to pick up on. After his experience with Asajj Ventress, he had to admit he had become a little wary of the Jedi’s ability to manipulate others. Then the rational part of his brain kicked in, telling him that this was Ahsoka, and she would never do anything to harm him, so he gave in.

Immediately after doing so, he felt the warmth in his hands spread up his arms and over his entire body, and he automatically relaxed into it. Inexplicably, he felt himself vaguely picturing a peaceful meadow, a warm breeze, a sunny spring day. Ahsoka hummed in approval, and the sound of her voice drew his attention directly to her. “Breathe,” she whispered. “Just breathe.”

She continued, “Keep your focus away from whatever thoughts cross your mind. Let them go and return to breathing. Embrace the feeling of the air filling your lungs and leaving, of your chest rising and falling. That is all that you have to worry about right now.” He obeyed, her voice a soothing lullaby that drew him away from the darkness in his mind to just exist, and nothing else.

In the silence, he could hear the faint rumbling of the ship as it hurtled through hyperspace and the chatter of his brothers as they passed by the door, but like any thought that came to mind, those things came only briefly before drifting out of focus. As he breathed, and only breathed, he felt his muscles relax even when he hadn’t realized they weren’t before. The crease between his brow from concentration softened, his shoulders slackened to a natural resting position, and his stiff soldier’s posture bent into something more comfortable, leaning forward ever so slightly towards Ahsoka.

He didn’t know how much time had passed. It could have been seconds, minutes, or hours, but that was all irrelevant. He felt as if he could keep this up forever, but of course, he couldn’t, and reality quite literally came barging in.

“Hey, Snips! Just wanted to check on you and make sure-“

General Skywalker froze at the door, clearly confused about what he was looking at. Rex immediately straightened, dropping his hands from Ahsoka’s as he turned to face the General. The motion left him a little disoriented, however, after the sudden slamming of awareness back into his body.

“Just making sure Rex got my message to you,” he continued, slowly, still processing.

Ahsoka nodded stiffly. She was smiling, but Rex could see in her eyes just how irritated she was at the intrusion. “He did. Would it kill you to knock, Master?”

“Maybe,” he shot back. “Rex, care to join me on the bridge?”

“Yes, sir.” Rex stood almost too quickly, feeling strangely light as he continued adjusting to reality.

“I’ll catch up to you two later,” Ahsoka said, closing her eyes and returning to meditating, acting as if nothing had happened. Which it hadn’t. So why, he wondered as he followed his General down the hall, why did he feel so embarrassed to be caught?

Ahsoka growled in frustration as she felt the sting of the tiny bolt tag her shoulder. The training droid she had been practicing with hovered almost innocently a few feet away, and she wanted nothing more than to slash it to pieces, but that wasn’t what she had come to do. She was supposed to be practicing deflection. Theoretically, it should have been easier with the addition of her second saber, but the feel of the shoto blade in her hand was still foreign to her, and she was still clumsily feeling out how to move that side of her body in coordination with her dominant hand.

A second volley of fire began, and Ahsoka moved with the Force to block the entire round, but while she had been doing so, the droid darted again to her weaker side. Before her mind could catch up enough to move the new blade to cover her, another bolt struck her in the thigh. Ahsoka let out a loud string of curses that would have gotten her a week of archive duty back at the Temple and powered the droid down, figuring that she wasn’t going to get anywhere like this.

As she went to put away the droid, the training room doors opened, and in walked Rex. Ahsoka’s bitterness lifted slightly. It was always nice to see a friendly face, especially one that couldn’t comment on her lightsaber training progress.

“Rex!” she called, waving him over to her. “What brings you here?”

“Just getting in a bit of target practice,” he replied, patting one of the twin blasters strapped to his hip. He eyed the practice droid still in her hand. “I’m not getting in the way of anything you’re doing, am I?”

“Actually, I was just finishing up.” Ahsoka spared one last disdainful glance at the droid before tossing it carelessly over her shoulder. She heard it crash somewhere into a bin behind her and couldn’t care less whether or not it had been the appropriate one.

“Dual wielding not going as smoothly as you hoped?” he asked, somehow able to read her perfectly.

She glanced at his blasters and rolled her eyes, unclipping the shorter blade from her belt. “We can’t all be a natural at it. Besides, I think it’s a little different with lightsabers.” She tossed the saber over to Rex, an action that would have earned her a lecture from Anakin if he had seen it. If she had a credit for every time she had heard this weapon is your life…

Rex caught it easily, on instinct, and weighed it briefly in his hand. “It’s heavy for such a small thing,” he remarked.

“Go on,” Ahsoka said, folding her arms and watching him with interest. “Light it.”

“Sir, I don’t think-“

“I trust you,” she interrupted. “You’re the last person I would expect to burn your eye out looking down the shaft. Hardcase, on the other hand…”

He chuckled before dropping into a passable imitation of a Jedi stance and igniting the blade. He held it out in front of him for a while, the yellow-green glow illuminating the fascination on his face. Then, gaining more confidence, he slowly maneuvered it around, admiring the burning trail it left in his wake. Though unfamiliar with the weapon, his movements were calm and methodical, and to anyone who didn’t know, Ahsoka felt he could have looked like he had been using one all his life for how steady he remained. She found herself admiring how he progressively gained confidence with the saber, her eyes tracing over his sharp, muscular form as he moved fluidly from one motion to the next.

“You know, you’d make a pretty fine Jedi, Rex,” she said, breaking his concentration.

He switched off the lightsaber before handing back to her. “I seriously doubt that.”

She clipped it back to her belt. “No, really. You’re a natural leader. You’re good in a fight. You keep a cool head.” Rex raised an eyebrow at her, and she recalled how had snapped at her back over Ryloth. “Well, most of the time,” she acknowledged.

“That just makes me a good soldier. I think a bit more is required to be a Jedi, though,” he said skeptically.

“True, but even without the Force, I bet you could hold your own with that lightsaber.” Suddenly, Ahsoka was struck with an idea, and she scurried over to the rack of weapons against the wall. There was nothing like the training sabers they had back at the Temple, weighted at the hilt to better replicate the feel of an actual lightsaber, but she found two short staffs that were an acceptable stand-in. She rushed back over to Rex with her find, offering one to him. “Care to find out?”

“I should really be getting to my target practice,” he told her, eyeing the staff with no small amount of trepidation.

“Please, you’re the last person here who needs any more target practice.” Still, he didn’t move to take it. “Unless you’re scared that you’re going to get beat by a scrawny little youngling,” she teased, batting her eyes innocently.

“Ha-ha, very funny.” He rolled his eyes and snatched the staff from her, but she caught the faintest hint of amusement on his face. “First the meditation, now this. Might as well enroll me at the Temple already.”

Ahsoka adjusted her grip on the staff to something more like how she would hold her saber. The balance was off, of course, since it was near impossible to replicate a virtually weightless blade, but it would have to do, for now. “Okay! Ready position!” She widened her stance and bent her knees, an action which Rex replicated. “I’m going to walk you through the basic forms. One, two, three…”

She held each form for only a moment, and that was all Rex really needed to imitate her stance almost perfectly. He was bred for battle, a natural athlete, and therefore picked up nearly everything she showed him almost immediately, even if it was outside of his comfort zone. Still, it was at its essence a form of combat, and if there was anything she knew he excelled at, it was that.

After a few rounds of this, Ahsoka turned to face him. “Ready to give it a try?”

“Well, it’s not every day you get to show a Jedi how it’s done.” Rex smirked, and she heard a small chorus of “ooooh’s” from the door. At some point while they were moving through the forms, Jesse had walked in, followed shortly after by a few friends, and now they had accumulated a small audience. Ahsoka didn’t mind. She liked showing off in front of her men just as much as her Master.

“We’ll see about that,” she shot back. “One!” She swung her staff over to his lower right, which he blocked. “Two!” Same for the left side. “Three!” Their staffs met roughly equidistant between them. “Four!” She swung higher, and he turned again to block. “Five!” He met her strike to his midsection easily. “Six!” Her final overhead attack was similarly stopped.

She heard a round of cheers from the edge of the training room. She nodded approvingly with no small amount of pride that Rex had picked this up from her so quickly, and he motioned for her to come at him again. Which she did, only much faster.

“One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six!” She noted he struggled a bit to adjust his foot placement with the drastically increased speed, but he still held his own. They went at it again and again until she was no longer calling out her attacks, and their staffs spun faster than the eye could reasonably track, meeting every time with an echoing crack.

After several identical passes, Rex put force behind one of his blocks and managed to push her staff back and turned the tables by swinging his own at her. She blocked it, and they shared a quick smile. If he wanted an all-out match, she was going to give it to him, and Ahsoka wasn’t known for holding back.

She allowed him to take a few more swings at her and gain some confidence, stepping back and blocking each strike before she began fighting back. To Rex’s credit, he held his own against her extremely well, all things considered; however, while his moves weren’t clumsy, per say, he was still inexperienced. It admittedly took her a minute to push him back, as he did significantly outmatch her in terms of sheer strength, but she found her window of opportunity as once again, their staffs met in the middle. She twisted hers around to where she was able to push his to the side, knocking him off balance. Before he could recover, she brought hers back around and swung it at his back, where it smacked loudly against his armor and sent him stumbling a few steps, which was met with a wave of laughter from their audience.

“I think we’re done for today,” she said smugly, throwing the staff over her shoulders and sauntering back over to the weapons rack.

In the Force, time suddenly slowed down. She sensed the shift in the air, the sound of the staff sweeping towards her legs, before it even happened. At the moment it would have connected with her ankles, she leapt clear of it. (Probably higher than was necessary, but she couldn’t resist the urge to show off.) She whirled around, dropping into ready position, only to find Rex, his staff slung over his shoulders with an all-too-innocent expression. A few murmurs went through the watching clones.

Rex smirked at her. “I think it’s only fair that we go a round on my terms. Unless, of course, you’re scared that you’re going to get beat by a subordinate, Commander.”

Ahsoka adjusted her grip on the staff so that she held it normally and not like a saber. “You’re on. Let’s give these boys a real show, shall we?” With that, she rushed at him, swinging her staff in a flurry of movement that would have caught most opponents off-guard. But Rex was not most opponents, and he held his ground before kicking out to throw her off. It didn’t land, but it had the desired effect of forcing her back, which he took as his opening to begin his barrage.

Ahsoka knew she could not outclass him in terms of brute strength. Each blow against her staff sent massive vibrations up her arms that nearly made her elbows buckle, and she felt herself being forced back against the wall, where there was little she could do to fend him off. He was holding back, but only slightly, just enough to not actually harm her, but even so, if the training equipment wasn’t so sturdily made, her staff probably would have split in two by now.

Come to think of it, she might have been doing better if it had. It would definitely be more up her alley, weapons-wise. She glanced briefly at her lightsabers. Technically, there was nothing saying she couldn’t use them and immediately turn the fight to her advantage, but it still felt like cheating. The thought of her lightsabers gave her an idea. If she could just get the staff out of Rex’s hands like she had before…

Similar to their earlier fight, Ahsoka waited until their staffs met in the middle. She pushed back slightly, not enough to throw him back but to keep him from taking advantage of her opening, at which point she swung her staff to hook around the back of his. She used it as leverage as she leapt off the ground and planted her feet into his chest, prying the staff from his hand and sending him stumbling backwards. His weapon clattered to the floor, and Ahsoka smiled triumphantly.

The moment didn’t last. Less than a second later, he had regained his footing and started coming at her with his fists, which she frantically tried to dodge and block. In the back of her mind, it still registered that he wasn’t trying to hurt her, but any blow that connected certainly wasn’t going to feel good.

In a lesser experienced opponent, Ahsoka would have waited for an opening to launch her own volley of punches, but not with Rex. He kept his throws tight and his balance even, never over-extending himself. Besides, anything she could get in probably wouldn’t do much against his armor.

Using her staff as a vault, she once again launched into a kick into his chest, only managing this time to send him back a few paces. She had expected this, however, and immediately dropped low and swung her staff out at his legs, sending him crashing to the ground. He flipped over immediately and quickly started to get up, but Ahsoka lunged towards his back, latching on with her staff hooked around his neck.

He was more stable than she had anticipated, though, and instead of falling again, he rolled forward with her momentum, crushing her between his back and the floor and knocking the wind from her. Before she could recover fully, he was on top of her, wrestling her back to the ground, forcing her down almost solely with his superior weight. They scuffled like that for a moment, and while Ahsoka briefly thought about pushing him off with the Force, fair was fair, and she allowed herself to be pinned.

“I think we’re done for today,” he huffed, as worn out by their fight as she was, and Ahsoka nodded in agreement.

The clones nearby cheered for their Captain’s win, but in the midst of that, Ahsoka could have sworn she picked up a barely audible electronic click. Rex’s head snapped up, proving that she wasn’t alone in this, and she craned her head back to follow his gaze to where Fives stood, datapad in hand.

“Fives, what are you doing?” Rex asked, eyes narrowing.

Fives cracked a sly grin. “Nothing wrong with taking a picture to commemorate a victory, is there, Sir?”

The implied meaning was not lost on Ahsoka, nor on Rex, who immediately looked down at her as if only just realizing how tangled up they were. She thought she caught him blush, but he stood up so quickly that it was hard for her to tell. “If you don’t delete that holo right this second, I am going to come over there and break that datapad in two,” he threatened.

At this, Fives wasted no time in booking it out the door, Rex hot on his heels, leaving Ahsoka and the rest of the troops laughing in their wake. She knew, of course, about the bet on her and Rex; it hadn’t taken long to uncover what she imagined he was too embarrassed to bring up. She didn’t mind. It kept the men amused, and perhaps more importantly, it kept their focus away from her Master and Padme.

And with that in mind, she had made sure to put in a few credits on Rex and Anakin, knowing that it would piss the two of them off the most.

Rex could not get over the inherent wrongness of the situation. Ahsoka didn’t just disappear like this, never on purpose, at least. She didn’t ignore General Skywalker’s comms, not without the bare minimum snappy comeback. And she never would have just up and left him alone without even a word of warning.

He had grilled every troop that had been under her command that night, but none of them had any clue as to where she had gone beyond her last known position. He had searched that sector, searched every sector, three times, looking under every rock and tree that he came across. “That’s not good enough,” the General had said, as if he wouldn’t burn this entire kriffing forest to the ground if it meant finding her.

When General Skywalker commed to order them all back after hours upon hours of searching, Rex wanted to argue. He wanted to insist that they needed more time, that they needed to expand their search radius, that she just had to be out there and that they weren’t about to abandon their Commander. But orders were orders, so he bit his tongue, punched a tree to vent his frustration, and grumbled for the men to follow him back to the transports.

Days passed. Long, agonizing, grueling days spent mostly pacing his quarters on Coruscant while General Skywalker and General Plo holed up inside the Temple, waiting for any sort of lead. Fives visited every once in a while. He didn’t say much, which was unusual for him, but he had been a bit more withdrawn ever since losing Echo at the Citadel. They might share a drink, chat to keep their minds off of things, and Fives would lay a hand on his shoulder, and Rex knew he understood.

Then, without any sort of warning, he received a message from General Skywalker. It was only three words, but it sent Rex flying to his feet. We found her.

He was halfway out the door to go and see her before he realized that she would have returned to the Temple, a place where clones were explicitly not welcome. He forced himself to take a deep breath and backed into his quarters again, where he resumed his pacing. He knew now that she would be just fine, but something in his mind would not settle until he could see her.

He finally got his chance a few days later, when he was called to meet with General Skywalker and Ahsoka for a briefing on their next assignment. He forced himself to walk slower than he really wanted on the way there so that his anxiety was less plain. In the time since Ahsoka had returned, the details of her disappearance had trickled down to him. Captured by Trandoshans. Hunted for sport. Lead a small group of survivors to freedom with the help of the Wookies. The thought of her going through all of that – alone, no less – made Rex sick to his stomach.

Despite his attempts to maintain composure, he nearly tripped over himself as he came to a halt inside the meeting room and saw her for the first time. He supposed in the back of his mind, the least rational part of him, he had expected to find her injured and worse for wear, so the sight of her perfectly fine and standing tall knocked him breathless. With the eyes in the room turning to him as he approached the table, he somehow managed to find his words. “Commander Tano, it’s good to see you again.”

She nodded, offering up one of her signature smiles, tired as it was. “Good to see you, too, Captain.” Ahsoka moved over a bit to make room, and he took his place standing beside her.

Their next mission would take them to Mon Cala on an assignment to protect a young prince. They discussed their arrangements, the people that would accompany them, and their roles in the plan, and before Rex knew it, the meeting was over, and the attendees were filing out of the room. “Commander Tano, a word, if I may?” Rex asked before Ahsoka could leave.

“Of course, Rex,” she said, turning to him just as the door shut behind the last person out. “What do you need?”

“Well, actually,” he began, a little awkwardly (he wasn’t very good at this), “I was just wondering if you were alright.”

“Oh.” Ahsoka froze for a moment, blinking in surprise. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve had my fair share of near-death experiences.”

“But you shouldn’t have had to deal with it alone,” he said, not satisfied by her nonchalant answer.

Ahsoka shook her head. “I wasn’t alone, not really. I had my training and the other Padawans and the Wookies.”

Her words did nothing to ease the wave of guilt that this conversation had brought on. He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to find the right words. “Still, if we had just…if we had searched harder, if we had been paying attention in the first place, this wouldn’t have…”

“Rex, look at me.” Ahsoka reached up and placed a hand on his cheek, forcing him to look her in the eye. She held his gaze for one long, calming moment before speaking. “You and Anakin did all you could, and it all turned out alright. None of this is your fault, do you understand?”

In his heart, he knew she was telling the truth. That, combined with the fact that she was here and solid and real finally allowed him to relax. His shoulders, which had been tense up until that point, finally dropped, and he released a heavy sigh as he nodded against her hand. “Yes, sir.” She smiled and took a step back. Rex couldn’t help but miss the warmth of her hand on his face.

“Thank you,” she said, seemingly out of the blue.

“For what?”

“For worrying about me,” Ahsoka replied. “When I was trapped with the other Padawans, they were all convinced that nobody cared about us, that nobody would come. I didn’t believe it, of course, but it’s still a comfort to know for sure.”

“You’re welcome, I guess,” he chuckled. Ahsoka joined him, but he realized the longer he looked at her smile, the tighter it looked, like she was barely holding it together. “There’s something still bothering you, isn’t there?”

Ahsoka sighed, and the mask dropped, allowing Rex to finally glimpse just how weary this whole ordeal had left her, despite what she said to the contrary. “Can’t hide anything from you, can I?” she muttered. Rex only shook his head. When it came to Ahsoka, he had somehow become quite good at reading her even without the Force, or at least, he was far less dense than General Skywalker.

She leaned heavily against the large central table. “There’s just so much wrong out there, Rex, even outside of the war. I guess it just never hit me until now. The others were so convinced that the Jedi would never come back for them; how did we get the point where we’re trusted so little? If something like this could go unnoticed, what else could we be missing, or worse, ignoring?”

Rex placed a hand on her shoulder, which got her to stop rambling. She covered his hand with hers and took several deep breaths to steady herself. “We need to do better,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I want to do better.”

Rex was torn between wanting to hug her or shake her silly for being so sentimental, for caring so much about things that she shouldn’t have to at so young. Ahsoka was far from naïve; long months of war had made sure of that, but still, this didn’t seem like a burden she should be forced to carry. “I know,” he told her, hoping it might reassure her. “I also know that you’re not going to find the answers to fixing the universe right now. You did all you could, too, and you should be proud of the lives you saved.”

Ahsoka nodded, a hint of her smile returning. “I am,” she sighed. “And you’re right. Sorry for dumping all of this on you. I’m not sure who else to talk to about this.”

“Don’t be. I told you before: whatever happens, we’ll go through it together,” he said, squeezing her shoulder. “Perhaps you should bring your concerns to the Council?”

She rolled her eyes, the exact reaction her Master had to any mention of the Jedi Council. “As if they’d bother doing anything without ‘meditating’ on it for three days first. Still, I guess I’d better give it a shot.” She gave his hand one last squeeze before shoving off the table and heading to the door.

“Good luck,” he called to her. “Ahsoka?”

Halfway out the door, she glanced over her shoulder at the sound of her name.

“I’m glad you’re still alive.”

The door slid shut behind her, but he swore that he caught her first true, genuine smile of the day, and he was left breathless, once again.

One second, Ahsoka was listening to the mission report on Umbara, and the next, she was sprinting down the halls. She couldn’t remember clearly what happened in between.

Having written up several reports herself, Ahsoka knew how they focused more on the facts and numbers, tending all too often to obscure the true horrors of the battlefield: the deafening explosions, the acrid smoke, and all the unnecessary death. Umbara’s was no different, yet it made her sick to her stomach to even try to imagine all that the men – her men – had gone through, and still she could not come close to fully wrapping her head around it. The fact that it had all been the fault of a Jedi, no less, sent her into a deep spiral of confusion. Despite all of that, she at least managed to form one complete thought.

I have to find Rex.

That was how she found herself standing at the door to Rex’s quarters on Coruscant mere minutes after her meeting, breathless from exerting herself to get there. She would check in with the other men, too, of course, but something, the Force perhaps, warned her that Rex needed her now more than ever. As she raised her arm to knock, she could have sworn she heard something crashing within. Alarmed, she began frantically pounding on the door, calling, “Rex? It’s me, Ahsoka! Let me in!”

The sounds inside stopped for a moment. “I would like to be left alone, Commander,” came Rex’s muffled voice through the door, tight with extreme emotion.

She briefly considered respecting his wishes but ended up shaking her head no, even though he couldn’t see the action. There was absolutely no way he would be going through this alone, not on her watch. “Not going to happen,” she told him.

“Ahsoka!” he snapped, and she briefly flinched at the sharp use of her name. Rex must have also realized that was out of line because his next words were slow and measured. “Go. Away.”

“You’re really not going to let me in?” Ahsoka asked. She was met with only silence. So that’s how it is, then. She took a step back from the door, but only a step. She wouldn’t have gotten this far as Anakin’s Padawan without her fair share of stubbornness. Rex was fully aware of this, she rationalized, so he better be prepared to face the consequences of attempting to blow her off. A slight bit of pressure in the Force on the lock, and the door opened for her.

Ahsoka wasn’t sure what she expected to find, but what she saw absolutely crushed her. What little furniture was in the room had been overturned, contents of cabinets strewn all over the floor, mixed in with shards of glass from the one broken mirror in the small adjoining bathroom. The one thing virtually left untouched was the bed in the corner, where Rex’s datapad lay, its screen spiderwebbed over a holo of Waxer. Amid all of this destruction stood Rex with his back to her, barefoot and armorless, shaking with what Ahsoka could feel in the Force as rage and despair.

“Please,” he begged one last time, his voice barely above a whisper. “Leave.”

“No,” she answered simply, stepping inside so that the door could slide shut behind her. “Talk to me, Rex. Tell me what happened.”

“The report-,” he started to say, but Ahsoka cut him off.

“I saw the report. I want to hear what you have to say.”

“Why?”

Ahsoka stepped into the room, tiptoeing around the debris to reach him and gently turn him to face her. “Because it’s important to me.”

He looked away, unable to meet her eyes. For a moment, Ahsoka worried that he still might not talk to her, but eventually he heaved a heavy sigh and spoke. “General Krell’s plans were suicidal. I tried reasoning with him, but nothing I said changed his mind. The more men died, the less the others were willing to follow his orders. I tried to keep the peace, to maintain order. I figured the General must have a bigger plan that we just couldn’t see.”

Ahsoka moved to sit on the bed, and gently pushed Rex to do the same. It did nothing to lessen his agitation, and she watched him clench and unclench his fists repeatedly as he continued to recount what had happened. “Then, he wanted us to take the capitol, to march straight into missiles. Fives, Jesse, and Hardcase…they wouldn’t do it. Fives said the General was only using me to ensure the loyalty of the other troops. I knew he was right, but I still did nothing.

“They stole Umbaran star fighters and snuck onto a supply ship to destroy it and give us a better shot at the capitol. Hardcase didn’t make it back. They were heroes, but General Krell…” Rex paused, his mouth hanging open as if he still couldn’t believe what he was saying. “He ordered Fives and Jesse to be executed on the spot, and dammit we almost went through with it!” He stood abruptly, unable to contain his anger sitting any longer. Ahsoka stood with him but remained a few paces back, wanting to give him space.

“And that wasn’t even the worst of it! We received a transmission that the Umbarans had stolen our weapons and armor and were disguising themselves as clones. We headed out to face them head-on, but it wasn’t the Umbarans we were shooting at.” Rex’s voice broke then. Ahsoka peered around his shoulder and saw tears streaming down his face and was struck by the strangeness and wrongness of the sight.

She had seen Rex in highs and lows, and she had learned how to work her way around him in both. His moods, his words, his thoughts were all familiar to her like the back of her own hand. But in all of the months she had known him, she had never seen him cry, and although she had learned how to handle a teasing Rex or an awkward Rex, she had no idea what to do with a weeping one.

“We killed our own brothers! I killed my own brothers,” he continued hoarsely. Rex picked up the datapad from the bed, still displaying the holo. “And Waxer, before he died, he…he said that General Krell had told his platoon that we were the disguised enemy.

“After that, we attempted to arrest the General for treason, but he fought back. He cut through those of us that were still alive, and he laughed. If it weren’t for Tup’s quick thinking, he would have gotten away. But the Umbarans were on their way, and if they took back the base, General Krell would escape and all of those deaths would be for nothing. I had to end it. I had to.” Rex took a deep breath, choking on sobs that racked his large frame.

“But I couldn’t.” He tightened his grip on the datapad, and Ahsoka winced as the shattered glass crunched beneath his fingers. “Dogma took the shot. I was too scared.”

“At least it’s over now. You survived, Rex, and you won,” Ahsoka said, unsure of how to comfort him in this.

“Yes, but what was the point?” he nearly screamed. The question hung heavily in the air, ringing against the walls, echoing through her montrals. “So many men died because we were blindly following the orders of someone who couldn’t see past our numbers! He’s not the only one out there, and you know it! How many of us have to suffer and fight for a system that doesn’t care about us? Nobody cares!”

Thankfully, Ahsoka sensed his action in the Force before he went through with it. As he drew back his arm to fling the datapad into the wall and destroy his collection, she lunged forward and latched onto him so that he couldn’t, shouting, “Rex, don’t!” She clung to him awkwardly but tightly, hoping that he could somehow feel how much her heart bled for him through her skin. Eventually, he relaxed into her embrace and lowered his hand, letting the datapad fall less catastrophically to the floor.

“I…I’m sorry, Commander,” he stammered. “I was out of line.”

“No. No, you weren’t, Rex,” she murmured into his shoulder, still refusing to let go. “You were right.”

“If I had just realized sooner…if I had said something, maybe…”

Ahsoka shook her head. “None of this is your fault. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t deserve it.”

At that, Rex only sobbed, and Ahsoka eased them both onto the floor, where he clung to her in a show of vulnerability that she was sure no one else had ever seen. He’d had to be strong for everybody for so long, and it was the least she could do to hold him and be strong for him now. That didn’t stop a few tears from running down her own cheeks, though.

After several long minutes, the tears stopped, and Rex straightened; however, she noticed that his breathing was still ragged, and his heartbeat ran erratically. “Thank you,” he said weakly. “If you could keep from mentioning this to the others, I’d, uh, appreciate that.”

Ahsoka nodded in understanding, but she wasn’t prepared to leave him alone yet. She had faced down legions of droids, a fatal virus, and Trandoshan hunters, but the sight of Rex in this state was one of the few things that scared her, not that she wanted him to know that. She swiped at the tears on her cheeks and steadied herself. “Meditate with me first?” she asked gently. He opened his mouth to make some kind of excuse, but Ahsoka wouldn’t let him. “Please? It’ll help you rest easier, and it’ll make me feel better to know that.”

He swallowed his words reluctantly, but agreed, “Alright.” They moved off of the hard floor and onto the bed, where they could more comfortably sit cross-legged facing each other and join hands.

She started out slow, and Rex fell into the rhythm with her much easier than last time, possibly due to sheer exhaustion. “Breathe in. Breathe out,” she chanted, centering herself as she guided him. When she had settled, she reached out with the Force, brushing against his mind to get a glimpse of his emotional state. They both ended up flinching - him from the unexpected intrusion, her from the still roiling emotions she felt just beneath the surface.

Ahsoka gave his hands a comforting squeeze. “Will you let me in?” she whispered, desperately wanting to do something – anything – to keep him from hurting. She felt him more than heard him agree, and she edged her way further into his mind, not wanting to scare him again with her presence.

The immediate turmoil she found wasn’t a surprise. Memories from Umbara flooded her consciousness, coming to her less as distinct images and more as vague feelings and sensations. The frantic battles in the dark. Waxer crying as he died realizing the horror of what they had done. The blinding flash of lightsabers as Krell decimated his brothers. And finally, the crushing failure of being unable to kill him, even after everything he’d done. Because I’m weak I’m worthless I’m nothing nothing but a number a mindless soldier good soldiers follow orders goodsoldiersfollowordersgoodsol-

Ahsoka quickly shut down that train of thought, taken aback by the deep self-loathing he had attached to this experience, but she could tell that it was nothing new. It was something deeply ingrained in him that had only been brought to the surface. She set to work on the more immediate trauma, gently easing the memories away from the forefront of his mind for now so he could have a few moments of peace with gentle nudges of It’s over now. It’s not your fault.

Peripherally, on the physical plane, she felt him relax, but concerned by what she had heard, Ahsoka dove just a little deeper, trying to trace the grooves that these thoughts had carved into his mind. More memories cropped up along this path.

A deserter turning his back on everything they were taught, telling Rex he had a choice in how he wanted to live. What if I am choosing the life I want it’s meaningful to me isn’t that what someone programmed me to believe.

Slick’s betrayal on Christophsis, not long before Ahsoka had first met Rex. How could he do this to his brothers we’re not slaves we’re soldiers good soldiers follow orders.

The mantra from before thrummed louder and louder as she pressed further, spotting the memory of Ventress invading his mind in an attempt to trick her and Anakin. Powerless weak useless I don’t talk to Separatist scum I talked I failed I failed my orders GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS.

The more she looked, the more heartbroken she felt, and what she saw that hurt the worst were just the little things. Every time she and Anakin enjoyed his company. Every time he heard his name instead of the number he was assigned. Every time she asked if he was okay after a mission. Why do they bother why do they care I’m no one I’m nothing I don’t serve a purpose outside of the war I’m born only to die.

Rex! Ahsoka tried to make herself heard in his mind, but it was not a skill that she had fully developed, and going this deep made it even more difficult.

I’m expendable.

No, you’re not.

I’m just a number.

You’re more than that.

A soldier one of many.

You’re my friend.

GOODSOLDIERSFOLLOWORDERSGOODSOLDIERSFOLLOWORDERSGOODSOL-

REX!

Finally, stillness, quiet. He was listening, even if he wasn’t consciously aware of it. She took the opening to try and impress upon him how much she cared, how much he meant to her, all of it pouring out in a panicked jumble of thoughts and emotions. You’re a good man a good friend you’re so much more than you were made for I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you I’m glad you’re still alive I care about you too much so much that it hurts can’t you feel me crying I hate that you feel like this I want to help please let me.

She waited. Her words seemed to echo in the patient silence of his mind, and eventually she felt them start to sink in, calming parts of him she doubted that he was even aware of. She breathed a shaky sigh of relief and started trying to figure out how to navigate her way back to reality. It was tricky business, burrowing this far inside someone’s mind. Without help from someone more experienced, it was far too easy to get lost.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about that for long. Their connection was suddenly broken when a heavy mass hit her shoulder, jolting her out of her trance. She blinked several times, adjusting to the light in the small room, and glanced around, trying to figure out what had happened. She looked down and saw Rex slumped over against her, fast asleep. She chuckled to herself. Of course, after being wired on stims and his anxieties for who knows how long, the moment she had finally eased his mind would be the instant he passed out.

She carefully moved out from under him, gently laying him down flat on his bed and covering him with the blanket. She brushed off the last remaining tears from this experience and started towards the door, intending to leave him to his rest, but a quick glance around the room stopped her. It wouldn’t do to have him wake up only to be reminded of everything by seeing his destroyed room, so instead of leaving, Ahsoka squared her shoulders and set to work.

She righted all of the furniture and sorted his scattered belongings into the cabinets. She wasn’t sure exactly how he preferred to keep everything, so she did her best at guessing. Then, using the Force, Ahsoka gathered up all of the shards of glass on the floor and tossed them into the waste bin along with the mirror, which she would have to put in a replacement order for. She was halfway through with backing up Rex’s collection so he could get a new datapad when a sudden cry caught her attention.

Rex was thrashing around on the bed, his eyes half-lidded, muttering unintelligibly. Ahsoka ran over to his side, her hands hovering over his body as she tried to figure out what she could do to help. “Rex!” she called out, grabbing him by the shoulders in an attempt to wake him, but nothing worked. “Rex! It’s me!”

He continued to flail, and Ahsoka was about to call for a medical droid when she suddenly remembered their conversation from so long ago on Ryloth. The stims! This had to be a side effect of the stims! That realization did very little to stop her worry. What had Rex done to help her through her nightmares?

Unsure if it was right thing to do, Ahsoka ran a hand over his head, trying to soften the creases in his brow. She let the gesture trail down to his shoulders, giving a gentle squeeze to try and reassure him. “It’s okay, Rex. It’s just a dream. I’m here,” she whispered, vaguely recalling him speaking to her through the haze. This finally seemed to start calming him down. He was still breathing quickly, but he had stopped moving, choosing to lay on his side facing her. She murmured some more comforts, tracing circles on his back until he was sleeping soundly again.

This happened several times over the next few hours. Rex would half-wake, screaming from whatever horrors haunted him from inside his head, and Ahsoka would sit at his side, rubbing his back and talking to him softly until sleep took him once again. Eventually, the attacks became few and far between, and finally, they stopped altogether, at least to where Ahsoka felt comfortable leaving him alone for a little while.

She slumped against the door after leaving the room, feeling her exhaustion in her very core, but she wasn’t done yet. There were the other clones to see. It was late now, so Fives, Jesse, and Tup were all in the barracks, and they greeted her tiredly when she walked in. None of them were really any better off than Rex, least of all Fives, so she stayed and talked with them a while, and at the end promised that she would come out with them another time and have a drink for Hardcase. They all spoke glowingly of him, about how he had been his same crazy self right to the very end, and that was at least a small comfort.

Again, Ahsoka planned on leaving and going back to the Temple for some much-needed rest, but as she passed by Rex’s door, she knew she would be unable to sleep soundly until she was certain he was alright. She walked back into his room, finding him in pretty much the same position she had left him, except with one arm now reaching over the edge of the bed to where she had been sitting earlier. She smiled and took up the post again, giving his hand a gentle squeeze to let him know that she was here. Then she leaned her head back against the bed and closed her eyes.

She woke up sore and tired the next day, and Rex still hadn’t moved. Anakin had commed her, and she left him a short message explaining that she wanted to stay with the clones that day after all they had been through. She left Rex’s room only to take meals in the mess with the others, then swiftly returned to her position, meditating off and on throughout the day to try and make up for her lack of true rest.

Rex slept well into the evening before he finally opened his bleary eyes, this time actually awake. “Ahso…Commander?” he asked, still trying to shake the cobwebs of deep sleep from his mind.

“Good Morning, Sunshine,” she greeted with tired cheerfulness, but despite the cramps and the exhaustion, her smile was so wide that it hurt. Initially, she had wanted to speak with him about what she had seen in his mind, but she decided that now, after everything he had just gone through, was not the best time. Besides, she was in no state of mind to be having any serious discussions. She could have cried with relief at seeing him awake and alive and alright.

He took a moment to get a bearing on his surroundings. “You stayed,” he said dumbly after he had a minute to process.

“Of course.” Ahsoka held up their still joined hands. “We’re in this together.”

Rex knocked on the door that Ahsoka had slipped into several minutes ago to change and had yet to come out. Of course, she had to go and wait until the very last minute to put on her disguise. “Commander Tano, General Skywalker sent me to inform you that we are beginning our landing approach to Zygerria,” he announced.

“Absolutely not. I’m not going out like this,” she said firmly.

Rex rolled his eyes. Sure, he wasn’t too fond of his Zygerrian armor, either, but he couldn’t imagine hating it so much that he refused to go on the mission. “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” he assured her.

The door slid open, and Ahsoka stepped out, her arms crossed in front of her and her face twisted into a disdainful scowl.

Oh. Oh-no. Nonono.

He did not think his Commander actually looked attractive in her slave disguise. Because that would be wrong. On so many levels. Right?

He knew that General Skywalker had planned out their costumes, and as surprising as it seemed, the man had a good eye for clothing. His choice for Ahsoka made her nearly impossible to look away from. Glittering gemstones adorned a gold headdress atop her montrals, and her dress was the same shocking blue as her eyes, contrasting sharply against her skin tone, and the fabric draped in the most flattering way around her curves, and…

No. He was shutting down this train of thought. Right now. Even if he had to bash his head against the wall to do so.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t been aware that she was pretty before now. Anyone in the 501st could see that she had grown into a beautiful young woman, but out of respect, most of the men refrained from commenting on it, or in Rex’s case, deliberately ignored it. Doing so had become somewhat harder lately, though, ever since Umbara. He could still remember the feel of her in his mind, of being closer to him than any other being, even his brothers, all light and softness and peace. That feeling would return to him from time to time whenever their eyes met, whenever she smiled at him, and especially (Force forbid) whenever they touched. It was intoxicating, impossible to recapture meditating on his own, and even more impossible to shake off, even though he wasn’t sure he really wanted to.

He must have been silent for a suspiciously long time, and Ahsoka hugged herself tighter. “See? It’s awful,” she huffed.

“No, uh, you look…nice?” he tried, unsure of what exactly to say in this situation. The hallway was starting to get uncomfortably warm.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes with a smirk. “Wow, Rex. You flatter me,” she chuckled. She fidgeted with the strap on the top, still clearly uncomfortable with it. “I’ll just be glad to take it off once this is all over.”

He could practically hear some of his other brothers in the back of his mind, commenting cheekily on her choice of phrasing. Rex would not, and he shoved any unfortunate mental images aside.

“You seem to be handling all of this remarkably well,” Rex noted.

“Someone has to,” she said. Then quieter, she added, “I didn’t know about Anakin.”

“Really?” Then again, Rex realized, he knew far more about the General than most people, and far more than he actually wanted to know.

She shrugged. “I knew that he hated Tatooine, but he would never tell me why. I guess it makes sense. I can’t imagine going through something like that.”

“But now your people are,” he said.

Ahsoka nodded sadly. “Is it bad that I’m hardly surprised by this anymore? That there’s horrible things happening out in the galaxy right under our noses? Some of which the Republic actively turns a blind eye to like the Hutts?” She gave a heavy sigh. “What are we even doing?”

“Hey,” he interjected, not wanting her to spiral back down into how she had felt after the Trandoshan attack. “We’re here now. We’re going to put a stop to this.”

“And then what?” Her eyes bored into him, and Rex got the feeling that she wasn’t just talking about the kidnapped Kyros population. It was an expression he had noticed on her ever since Umbara, and something he could tell she wanted to talk to him about but never knew how to say. Finally, it seemed she had found the words.

“Rex, what happens to clones who don’t want to fight?” she asked pointedly, and Rex felt a pit form in his stomach. He wasn’t sure exactly what all she had seen inside his mind, but he had a pretty good idea of what might have prompted this. It wasn’t a discussion he was ever prepared to have, not even with his own brothers, not since Slick, not since Cut.

“Well,” he began awkwardly, “depending on the circumstances, they’re either imprisoned or sent back to Kamino for reconditioning.” Ahsoka flinched at this. “We all know the punishment for abandoning our duties, Commander. It’s what we signed up for.”

“But you didn’t!” she protested. “You didn’t have a choice!”

“We all have a choice, and I choose to stay and fight,” he insisted, as he had every time before now when someone brought up this point. “And so do the rest of my men.”

“I know you do,” she sighed. “It just isn’t fair.”

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not, but this is war, and war’s not fair. Please, Commander, I know what you’re trying to say, but you shouldn’t be worrying yourself over this.”

“But if I don’t, who will?” she asked. Rex froze, lost for any kind of response. He wasn’t sure there was even an answer for that. Nobody else worried about how the clones felt about the war, and they thought even less about what would happen to them after. Rex himself hadn’t even started thinking about an after until recently, and even then, the idea of it seemed so far away that it was hardly more than a fantasy.

“I don’t know, Kid,” he admitted glumly.

“I know we’re at war, but that doesn’t make it right. If we sacrifice our ideals now, who’s to say we won’t after? How can we say that we fight for freedom when we force you into service? What makes us any different from the Separatists or the Zygerrians?”

“Commander, I’m afraid I don’t have the answers you’re looking for. These questions…I ask them myself from time to time.” He shook his head, as if clearing them from his mind. This wasn’t something that a loyal soldier of the Republic should be saying, but Ahsoka demanded honesty from him in a way that no one else had. “All I know is that I firmly believe in what we’re here fighting for, despite any doubts I may have about our purpose. Above all of that, I believe in you. If anyone could figure out how to make things right, it’s you. But for now, let’s take it one step at a time and focus on freeing your people.”

Ahsoka nodded along with what he said, forcing herself to reign in her emotions. After all this time, she still wasn’t particularly good at it, especially when she was so passionate about something. “You’re right,” she said. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you. It’s…nice. To hear that someone cares, I mean.”

Ahsoka beamed at him, and again he was struck mute at just how amazing his little (though not so little anymore) Commander was. And beautiful and caring and…

He really needed to find a good wall to beat his head against.

Ahsoka was not drunk. Absolutely not. She was a Jedi. Jedi didn’t get drunk. (Anakin didn’t count. Anakin was just stupid.)

And if she was, it was totally Anakin’s fault.

Feeling that they all could use a break after the whole Rako Hardeen incident and the attack on Naboo, Padme had invited them all over to her place on the night following their return to Coruscant – all of them except Master Obi-Wan, that is, for obvious reasons. Anakin had immediately gone for the drinks and cracked open a bottle of something that made Ahsoka’s nose wrinkle at the smell. This didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“Don’t worry, Snips. I’m sure Padme has something around here that you can handle,” he chuckled.

She wasn’t sure exactly what possessed her to do it. Maybe it was her anger at recent events involving a certain Jedi Master. Maybe it was her frustration that her own Master still slipped into the habit of treating her like a youngling from time to time. Maybe it was just the fact that he used her old nickname despite knowing that she hated it. Whatever the reason, she immediately glared at him, snatched the bottle out of his hands, and downed the entire thing.

It tasted foul, and she had to suppress her gag reflex, but after several long seconds, the bottle was empty, and she slammed it down on the counter. She grimaced, regretting the decision, but one glance at Anakin’s smug face and she straightened and smiled tightly. “Give me another,” she told him, refusing to give him the satisfaction. How dare he think that she couldn’t handle a simple drink.

Anakin shared a glance with Padme, who shook her head disapprovingly, but he only shrugged and grabbed another two bottles for her and for himself. Ahsoka opened it and took another large gulp. It was still unpleasant, but after that first bottle, she found that the taste didn’t bother her as much the second time around. She could do without the room swaying, though. She was trying to prove something to her Master and stumbling around wasn’t going to help her case as the group made their way to the living room.

She took another drink. Still terrible, but less so. Anakin was ranting about Obi-Wan to Padme and to Cody, who had also been invited to join them. She chose to tune them out, which was fairly easy. She was quite skilled at ignoring her Master when he was being annoying, and the odd lightheadedness that had settled over her in the past couple of minutes made it easy to be distracted by other things. Like the room, of course, which hadn’t really stopped shifting but didn’t annoy her too badly now, as long as she didn’t move too quickly.

She raised the bottle to her mouth again, only to find that it was mysteriously empty, and she couldn’t quite recall how she had managed to drink it so fast. This amused her for whatever reason, and she suppressed a wave of giggles, peering down the neck of the bottle as if that would bring any liquid back. Anakin paused in his rant and glanced over at her. “You doing okay over there, Ahsoka?” he asked.

“Just fine, Master,” she chuckled, trying and failing to stifle any lingering laughter.

“I think maybe it’s time to settle down with the drinks,” Padme suggested, walking over and reaching out to take the empty bottle from her.

Ahsoka pulled it away from her, hugging it to her body and pouting. “No, really. I’m fine,” she insisted. And she was. In fact, she felt better than she had in a long time. She couldn’t remember at the moment why she had been so stressed out before (there were more pressing matters at hand, like trying to keep Padme away from her bottle), and she honestly didn’t care.

“Here, Ahsoka. How about you give Padme the empty one and you can finish off my drink while I go get another?” Anakin offered.

Padme looked like she wanted to protest, but Ahsoka practically flung the bottle at her before she could say anything. “Deal!” she agreed. Anakin slid his drink over to her before standing and heading back over to the kitchen. She greedily drank what little was left and frowned again when it was gone. It still didn’t taste very good, so why did she want more?

Yeah. This was definitely Anakin’s fault.

There was a chime at the door, and Ahsoka jumped up in interest. This, of course, made the room spin, but after a moment of giggling at her own dizziness she managed to regain her balance and shuffle towards the sound. “I’ll get it!” she yelled, but somehow, Threepio managed to beat her to it. She hadn’t seen the fussy droid all night and wondered if he had been maintaining a post near the door specifically for this purpose.

“Captain Rex has arrived,” Threepio announced, stepping back from the door as Rex entered the room. He was completely out of armor, dressed in the simple gray slacks and tunic that clones were issued to wear while off-duty, though with how busy Rex got, it was rare for Ahsoka to see him like this.

“Why didn’t you tell me Rex was invited?” Ahsoka whined over to Padme, who stuck her head out of the kitchen after tossing the empty bottles.

“I did,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But I doubt you nor Anakin were listening at that point.”

“Oh.”

“Welcome, Captain,” she greeted warmly, walking over to meet him. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Rex shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m sorry I’m so late, Senator. What’s the occasion, if I may ask?”

“Relax,” she told him, leading their party into the living room. “We’re all friends here. No need to be so formal. I just thought that everyone could use a chance to blow off some steam in light of…recent events.”

“It’s a ‘We’re Pissed At Obi-Wan’ party!” Ahsoka clarified. At Rex’s confused stare, Padme only shrugged and nodded.

Rex glanced over Ahsoka’s shoulder at a chair in the corner. “You too, Cody?” he asked incredulously.

Cody took a sip of his drink and nodded nonchalantly. “I’m allowed to be mad at him, too. You and I both know better than anyone how annoying our Generals can get.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” said Anakin, striding in from the kitchen, two bottles in hand. Ahsoka eagerly reached for one of them, but he withheld it from her and handed it to Rex instead.

“No fair!” she cried. “I want more.”

Rex looked appalled. “How many has she had?”

Anakin answered, “Too many,” at the same time Ahsoka replied, “Not enough.”

Rex looked very much like he wanted to smack the two of them across the head. Ahsoka decided it was a very funny expression on him and had to stifle a snicker. “Is she even old enough to drink?” he half-whispered to Anakin.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “You’re one to talk! You’re what, like, twelve?” she snorted.

He laughed somewhat half-heartedly, glanced at the bottle in his hand, then returned his gaze to the group gathered in the room, still looking awkward and uncertain in these surroundings. “Come on, Rex,” Anakin said. “It’s just a little fun. No harm done.”

Rex looked over at Ahsoka, his eyes lingering for a moment as he considered. She cocked her head to the side and beamed at him, feeling warm inside. (Well, she had been feeling quite warm for a while, actually, but this was different.) Abruptly, he gave Anakin a small shake of the head. “Sorry, but it’s been a long day. I think I’d rather turn in early,” he said, handing his drink back to Anakin turning to walk back to the door.

“Nope! Not allowed!” Ahsoka shouted, suddenly leaping at him and clinging onto his back. The attack had the desired effect of stopping him from leaving, but the unanticipated one of causing him to lose his balance. Together, they toppled backwards over the arm of the couch, Rex’s heavy body flattening her into the cushions. She flailed around, disoriented from the fall, and scrambled to get out from underneath Rex’s back. “You’re crushing me!”

“Sorry, uh, Commander,” he apologized, quickly pushing himself upright. Before he could get up from the couch to leave again, Ahsoka latched onto him, managing to wrap both her arms and legs around his torso to pin him in place.

“That’s right! I’m your Commander. And I command you to stay and have fun with us,” she ordered.

Rex gently tried to pry her off to no avail and looked around to the others desperately for help, but they were all laughing too hard to do anything even if they wanted to. “You heard her, Captain,” Anakin chuckled. “Orders are orders.”

Rex sighed, and though he was still stiff in Ahsoka’s embrace, he had stopped trying to free himself. “Then I’ll take that drink, now,” he said, reaching out to take back the bottle from Anakin. Ahsoka once again made a grab for it, but Rex scowled at her and held it out of reach. “No more for you, Kid.”

“Kid? What happened to Commander?” she pouted.

“You’re acting more like a kid than a commander,” he shot back.

“You’re acting like a kid,” she grumbled to herself.

“I heard that.”

“Shut up.” Ahsoka stuck her tongue out at him, and Rex rolled his eyes, and that was the end of that argument.

He popped the cap off of his bottle, and Ahsoka watched thirstily as he raised it to his lips. An uncomfortable heaviness had started to settle over her head in the past couple of minutes, and she started to miss how the alcohol had made her feel before, even if the taste was still subpar. Rex noticed her staring and shifted awkwardly to try and put some space between the two of them. “Do you mind?” he asked, pushing her to arm’s length.

“Nooooo,” she whined, hugging his arm so that he couldn’t get rid of her. She buried her face in his shoulder, and her words came out muffled. “I was just fine before and you ruined it.” First he denied her alcohol, then he denied her holding him. He shouldn’t be allowed to do that. He was very comfy to lean on, all warm and solid and strong, and she liked the feeling of his voice vibrating in his chest against her montrals.

He glanced around awkwardly, but nobody else seemed to care beyond their own amusement at Rex’s bafflement. “Look, I don’t think –“

“It’s fiiiiine,” she groaned. “We’re all friends here. Anakin and Padme can cuddle so why can’t I?”

Up until that point, Padme had been leaning against the back of the chair that Anakin sat in, absentmindedly messing with his hair. (It had gotten so long, lately. He really needed a trim.) At Ahsoka’s comment, they both immediately turned red and shuffled a few inches away from each other. Cody suddenly seemed very focused on finishing his drink. “Ahsoka!” Rex hissed through his teeth.

Ahsoka tried to fight through her foggy mind, but she couldn’t see what the big deal was. Everyone in this room knew that they were married. Except…except they didn’t know that they knew. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth formed a tiny “oh.” She tried her best to recover. “They’re friends and they can cuddle, Rex. Why can’t we? We’re friends, right?” She batted her eyes at him innocently. Nailed it.

Instead of being proud of her, like she had hoped, he ran a hand down his face in exasperation. It probably passed for embarrassment to the others, but she was familiar enough with his moods and his posture to know the truth.

“I don’t think you’re getting out of this one, Rex,” Padme said, relaxing against the armrest of Anakin’s chair.

“Of course, we’re friends,” he sighed in resignation, and Ahsoka cheered, tucking herself into his side. Rex took another long drink.

The rest continued talking, Ahsoka adding onto whatever embarrassing Obi-Wan stories that she had been a part of, but mostly she drifted out of the conversation. Truthfully, she wasn’t even that mad at Master Kenobi, not anymore, at least. The initial sting of his betrayal had long since passed, and feeling Anakin’s near-constant anger over it through the Force had left her more exhausted by it than anything. Mostly she watched the glittering Coruscant lights through the wide window on the far wall, smiling to herself as they blurred together whenever her eyelids grew heavy.

“I think the night’s just about over for Ahsoka,” Anakin remarked later into the evening.

“I’m fine,” she insisted again, though she had to stifle a yawn. “You’re stuck with me Skyguy.”

“Skyguy? Since when are we bringing that nickname back?” he asked.

“You called me Snips, earlier, so I get to call you Skyguy,” she said. “That’s how it works.”

“I did?” Anakin tapped his metal hand against the rim of his bottle as he tried to remember.

“Hey!” Ahsoka exclaimed abruptly, startling everyone in the room. “I don’t think I ever came up with a nickname for Rex!”

“I don’t think that’s really necessary,” Rex said sheepishly.

“Of course, it is! We have to come up with one now!” After all this time and she had nicknamed Artooie, but not Rex? How had that managed to escape her attention?

“You never gave me a nickname,” Cody chimed in.

“Shut up, Cody! I’m thinking!” she snapped, and she felt Rex laugh beside her. “Rexter…Rexy…”

“You really think it’s a good idea to send her back to the Temple like this?” Padme asked Anakin nervously.

He hummed thoughtfully. “You’ve got a point.”

“Rex,” Padme said, pulling his attention away from Ahsoka’s rambling, “why don’t you help Ahsoka back to my room? She can stay here for the night and sleep this off.” Anakin looked like he wanted to protest, but a sharp glare from Padme shut him up.

“But I don’ wanna!” Ahsoka slurred, still having to stifle some annoyingly timed yawns.

“Come on, kid,” Rex said, standing up. Ahsoka flopped over into the empty space where he had been sitting. “You can keep thinking of nicknames for me on the way.”

“Ooh!” She immediately hopped up, which sent the room spiraling around her, but she managed to keep upright by attaching herself to Rex once again.

Her feet stubbornly refused to cooperate as he led her down the hallway with her listing various nickname possibilities. At this point, they hardly had anything to do with his name and were just random thoughts that crossed her mind. Occasionally, they were teasing insults, as she was getting more and more frustrated with the fact that while she struggled, he remained steady, guiding her with a firm arm around her waist. He shouldn’t be allowed to be perfectly fine while she was being sent to bed like a youngling. It wasn’t fair.

Everything else was momentarily forgotten when the door to Padme’s room opened. Ahsoka grinned and ran forward, flying onto the luxurious sheets and plush pillows. “Her bed is so big!” she giggled, hugging one of the throw pillows to her chest. “Did you see Anakin’s face? I bet he was hoping to get to sleep in here.”

Rex remained awkwardly in the doorway. “You might want to take off your boots, kid,” he suggested, choosing not to respond to her last comment. Ahsoka squirmed, trying to pull them off her feet, but her hands didn’t seem to want to cooperate either, and her efforts were made that much harder by how heavy her body suddenly felt once she had hit the bed. Rex sighed and walked over to help, taking a seat at the edge of the bed and carefully easing each boot off, but not without muttering something about this not being in his job description.

“How come you get to go back to the party and I have to go to sleep?” she whined, playfully kicking at him with her now bare feet.

Rex fended off her feeble attacks. “Because I’m not drunk.”

“I’m not drunk, and it’s Anakin’s fault,” she informed him. “Why not? You had just as much as I did.”

“Because I’m bigger than you,” he answered, “and I know my limits.”

“Well, we can’t all be big, sexy, musclemen like you.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Ahsoka gasped and sat up in realization. “That’s it!” she cried. “Sexy Rexy! That’s your new nickname!”

Rex frantically tried to shush her, turning redder by the second. He was very cute when he was flustered, Ahsoka decided. “Please, no,” he begged.

Ahsoka folded her arms, satisfied with herself. “Too late. That’s what all the ladies will be calling you now.”

He hid his face behind his hands out of embarrassment, this time. “I seriously doubt that,” came his muffled voice.

She crawled over to him and peeled his hands back. “Why not? You’re very attractive,” she tried to assure him. Somehow, this only seemed to make him more uncomfortable.

“I look just like any other clone,” he protested.

Ahsoka considered this for a moment, studying his features. Sure, he had the same broad nose, sharp cheekbones, and dark eyes as any of his brothers, but even without taking into account the blonde hair, there was just something unique about him, something so unmistakably Rex that set him apart and above. At least to her.

“Nope,” she concluded. “You’re more handsome.”

“Thank you?” he said uncertainly. “But please never use that nickname again.”

Ahsoka groaned. “Fine! But you have to stop calling me Kid. I’m not a kid.”

“Fair enough. I should be getting back to the others,” he said, standing up to leave.

“No!” she cried out, her outburst startling the both of them. Sheepishly, she hugged her knees to her chest. “Can’t you stay just a little bit longer? I don’t want to be alone yet.”

“We’ll just be down the hall if you need anything,” he told her.

“I know. I know,” she said. “It’s just not the same. Nothing’s the same.”

Rex sat back down, eyeing her with concern. “What’s really going on?” he asked. “Is this about General Kenobi?”

“Yes? No?” Ahsoka muttered, burying her face in her knees. She sorely missed the dizzy numbness from earlier. Now she was just tired and sad, and she desperately didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts, fuzzy as they still were. “He just…he left us, Rex. And Lux left me. And Barriss became a Knight and she left. Everyone’s leaving.”

“I know what you mean,” he sighed. She knew he did. Anakin would, too, but he would turn it into some kind of teaching moment, and she really didn’t want to deal with that.

“I don’t want anyone else to leave. Promise me you won’t leave me?” She latched onto his arm once again, as if in her state she could keep him there, in this room with her, forever, where there was no war and no danger. Jedi were supposed to be keepers of the peace, she knew, but the only time she found she ever felt at peace were the quiet moments in between like this one, when she was with Rex.

He patted her tenderly on the arm, offering a gentle smile. “I’m not going anywhere,” he affirmed.

Ahsoka’s mood brightened so quickly that she thought she might get whiplash from how all over the place her emotions were. It was very un-Jedi-like, but she wasn’t in any state of mind to care much about that. “Great! So you’ll stay with me now!”

“Now, hold on! I didn’t –!”

“You promised!”

“But-!”

“Just until I fall asleep, then,” she compromised. “You can keep the nightmares away like on Ryloth. Please?” She batted her eyes prettily at him and pouted. It had worked earlier that night, and it seemed to work just as well this time around.

“Just until you fall asleep,” he reluctantly agreed.

“Yay!” Ahsoka cheered, scrambling to nestle herself in the silky sheets of Padme’s bed. Everything here was much softer than what she was used to on the battlefield or even in the Temple. She stared expectantly at Rex, still sitting at the foot of the bed. “Well? Aren’t you going to lay down?”

Rex looked very much like he wanted to make a break for the door despite what he had promised. “I’m fine here, thanks,” he insisted.

“I can’t sleep with you watching me like that,” she said.

“You’re the one who asked me to stay,” he grumbled. Still, after a very pronounced roll of the eyes, he lied down alongside her, folding his arms over his chest and keeping his eyes trained on the ceiling. Ahsoka continued to frown at him. “What now?”

“You’re doing it wrong,” she pouted. When he only looked at her with utter confusion, she scooted over so she was curled against his side, wrapping her arms around him and laying her head on his chest. “That’s better.”

He leaned away from her as much as he possibly could in this position and held his arms back in surprise, unsure of what to do in his situation. She felt his heart beat unevenly underneath her head. “I wasn’t aware that, ah, cuddling was a part of this deal,” he said.

“Of course, it is. We’re friends. Friends can cuddle.” Ahsoka squeezed him tighter for emphasis, letting him know that this was non-negotiable. She had said the same thing earlier in the night, hadn’t she? This was perfectly fine. “Now, shut up. I’m trying to sleep.”

It took a few minutes, but Rex eventually settled into the embrace, turning to drape one arm over her and settling his chin in the hollow between her montrals, where his breath tickled the top of her head. “How did my life get to the point where I’m babysitting a drunk Jedi?” he chuckled.

“I’m not a baby. You’re a baby,” she grumbled back. Then, after a moment of thought, she added, “So’s Anakin.”

“Go to sleep, Ahsoka,” he said exasperatedly, but she could sense his amusement.

She closed her eyes and breathed along with the rise and fall of Rex’s chest, letting the steady pounding of his heartbeat lure her deeper and deeper into a peaceful oblivion. There were no nightmares, only a sleep so contented that nothing could wake her the whole night through.

Bright sunlight and a sharp pain in her head eventually roused her. She was clinging extraordinarily tightly to a pillow, and she groaned and buried her face into it. “Look who’s finally awake,” came Anakin’s too cheery voice, the only thing that could have possibly made her feel any worse in that moment.

“Shut up,” she mumbled, turning over and slamming the pillow down over her montrals instead. She felt the bed depress as Anakin sat down beside her. He shook her shoulder.

“Drink some water,” he ordered. “It’ll help.” Ahsoka did her best to block out the pain and sat up, squinting at the glass in her Master’s hand before snatching it away. “Padme realized we forgot to make you drink some last night, but by the time she went to check on you and Rex, you were already asleep.”

Ahsoka nearly spit out the water as memories of the night before came crashing suddenly to the forefront of her mind. She remembered it all in painful clarity, all the clinging and the whining and oh kriff she really needed to apologize to Rex. And what must have Padme thought seeing her tangled around him like that? And did she tell Anakin?

She eyed her Master suspiciously, waiting for him to scold her or make some kind of obnoxious comment, but so far he seemed unaware of her distress. “Luckily, we don’t have anything important lined up, so you can take the day off to recover. The Chancellor made sure we got time off for taking part in his rescue on Naboo.” His chest puffed out in pride the way that it always did when he mentioned his connection with Chancellor Palpatine.

Ahsoka nodded along nonchalantly. She was just about to consider the possibility that every embarrassing thing she did last night had all been a dream when Anakin added, “Hey, Ahsoka. Do we need to have a talk about you and…ahem…’Sexy Rexy?’”

She immediately felt her face burn from a mixture of anger and shame, and she threw the pillow she had been holding at his head as hard as she possibly could. “No!” she snapped. Ignoring her headache, Ahsoka stood, snatched her boots from the floor, and stormed out of the room, leaving Anakin behind, still howling with laughter.

She found Padme in the kitchen preparing breakfast, and it only took one glance at Ahsoka’s expression for her to figure out what had happened. “Sorry about him,” she said, glaring down the hall. “Trust me, Rex got the worst of it last night when he came back out.”

“So, everyone heard?” Ahsoka groaned.

“Don’t worry, Ahsoka,” Padme assured her. “We’ve all done stupid things when we’re drunk. It happens.” (Ahsoka wondered briefly if Padme had been drunk when she married Anakin, then shoved the thought aside.)

Ahsoka stayed in the kitchen just long enough to pull on her boots and grab a bite of whatever Padme was cooking. “Either way, I’m still going to get out of here before he comes back out,” she said.

Padme nodded towards the door. “I don’t blame you.”

Ahsoka ran off, moving as quickly as she could without her head throbbing. The sun was unfortunately bright that day, and all she wanted to do was head straight for the Temple and crawl back into bed, but she made a detour towards the clone barracks. As awkward as it would be, she really needed to apologize to Rex. She waved to a few familiar members of the 501st along the way and even spotted Cody exchanging some credits with Fives in one of the hallways.

It didn’t take too long to find her target. He had gathered in the mess hall with most of the other clones currently stationed on Coruscant. Ahsoka walked up behind him, clearing her throat to interrupt his conversation with Kix across the table. “Good morning, Commander,” he said automatically, but his eyes were wide with surprise. She wasn’t sure how anything could have gotten out about the night before, but Kix suddenly and suspiciously got up from the table to join another group.

“Good morning, Captain,” she replied stiffly, trying not to let on to anyone else around them how uncomfortable she was. “Could I have a word?”

“Not much privacy around here,” Rex told her, dropping his voice below the din of the mess.

“This will only take a moment,” she assured him. She dropped down into the stool beside him, glancing around at the other clones nervously as she tried to figure out how to begin. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry about…you know.” She almost said “last night,” but she figured that might raise the wrong questions if anyone overheard.

“No need to apologize,” he said quickly, the tips of his ears turning pink. “Really, it’s fine.”

“Still, uh, could we…?”

“Pretend like it didn’t happen?” he finished for her helpfully.

She gave a sharp nod. “Exactly!”

The two of them glanced around awkwardly for a bit, trying not to meet each other’s eyes, but eventually they did, and then they burst out laughing.

“Really? Him?”

Rex found Ahsoka seated beneath a large tree a few yards away from the main camp, just hidden enough that she wouldn’t be bothered unless someone was actively looking for her. She had slipped away just after the briefing on tomorrow’s infiltration of the capitol city. The lizards native to Onderon that had gathered around her in curiosity scattered at his approach.

“If you’re here to lecture me about attachments, Anakin already beat you to it,” she grumbled without turning to face him.

“Oh, I would never doubt your loyalty to the Jedi Code, only your taste in men,” he teased. Rex took a seat beside her.

She bumped his shoulder playfully. “Like you’re one to judge.”

“Actually, I think I have a pretty good idea of how questionable your taste is, considering you apparently find me attractive.” This earned him a far more forceful shove, but the break in her sullen expression was worth it, and he continued laughing as her face turned a more vibrant shade of orange.

“We agreed never to mention that!” she hissed.

“True,” he acknowledged. That didn’t mean he still didn’t think about it. A lot. Or that Fives had somehow found out about it and would occasionally mutter his newfound embarrassing nickname whenever he was even remotely displeased with his Captain. Rex had found that the only way to treat the whole situation was with a healthy sense of humor, otherwise the memory of her pressed up against him brought up other feelings that were most definitely very not allowed.

It was even harder not to think about it here on Onderon, where he caught her casting longing glances at Lux Bonteri more often than not. It was hard to ignore his own bias when it came to the boy after knowing how he had hurt Ahsoka’s feelings, and perhaps he had been a little harder on him during training than he really needed to be. Maybe he was spoiled when it came to his expectations of Senators after hanging around the likes of Bail Organa and Padme Amidala, but Bonteri didn’t even come close to measuring up, in his book. The kid meant well, but he was clumsy on the battlefield and not even the brightest when it came to choosing his words.

Ahsoka deserved someone much better than that. She needed someone strong and intelligent, someone who she wouldn’t have to babysit in or out of battle, who could shoulder her burdens with her and not add to them. That Saw Guerrera had been vying for her attention, Rex had noticed, and he considered recommending that she’d be better off sticking with him, but he decided that was way out of line, way out of his expertise, even, and completely irrelevant to the mission. Also, he just didn’t want to.

“There’s nothing for you guys to worry about. Lux is just a friend,” she insisted. “Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s more interested in Steela.”

That, too, had not escaped Rex’s notice. The intricacies of normal beings’ interaction and courtship were starting to make his head spin, and he suspected that Ahsoka was just as much out of her element with it as he was.

“His loss,” Rex said decisively.

“Really?” Ahsoka looked at him skeptically. “I mean, Steela’s amazing, and, well, not a Jedi.”

“Ahsoka, any being in this galaxy should consider themselves lucky to earn your affection.” She rolled her eyes, still doubting his sincerity. “I mean it,” he assured her. “You’re…ah, Kriff, I’m not good at this…you’re beautiful. You’re the strongest, most intelligent person I know. You’re…” He fumbled around, trying to find the right words to describe how absolutely amazing she was. They were right there at the forefront of his mind whenever he looked at her, but his tongue suddenly glued to the roof of his mouth whenever he tried to force them out.

“Okay, okay! I get it,” she chuckled, putting him out of his misery. His shoulders sagged with relief, but his face still burned. “We really ought to stop flirting like this. People are going to get the wrong idea,” she continued, half-joking.

“They already do,” said Rex, thinking back to Fives.

Ahsoka hummed in disapproval, clearly thinking of the same thing. “You’d think that they’d eventually get tired of that bet.”

“It dies down occasionally, but then some new ‘evidence’ will crop up, and the credits will be flying.”

“It’s a good thing that no one else is out here, then. They’d be having a field day,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder contentedly, all of her earlier worries seemingly forgotten for now.

“Yeah,” he agreed tightly, suddenly nervous from her touch. He watched, transfixed, as she absentmindedly traced the Jaig eyes he had painted on the chestpiece of his disguise.

Her shoulders shook with an amusing thought. “At least one good thing came from all of this.”

“And what’s that?”

She stopped what she was doing and looked up at him with a somewhat wicked grin. “Now I know that you think I’m attractive, too.”

Rex opened and closed his mouth, wanting to protest, but, well, he had said that, hadn’t he? Ahsoka rolled back in laughter, and he found that he wasn’t as bothered by the embarrassment as he probably should have been. Seeing her smiling in the dappled light of the setting sun, for the first time, Rex thought he fully understood what Cut was talking about, finding someone to fight for and live after for, something more than just a righteous cause.

For the briefest moment, Rex allowed himself to fantasize about an after. One where there was no more war, where he was just a normal man, free to choose where he lived and what he did for a living. He imagined a sunny field and a warm breeze, possibly on Naboo. He thought of having a peaceful and quiet job, not as a farmer (he just couldn’t picture himself as one), but something that still allowed him to work with his hands. He had a small house in this vision, nothing too extravagant, but it was a home that he could return to at the end of every day, full of shelves where he could display things he had collected through the years.

Ahsoka was there with him, of course, like she was in all his happiest moments. He liked to think that Anakin and Padme lived nearby, as well. (Even in his most perfect fantasies, there was no escaping the General.) They might visit from time to time, and they would all share a hot meal after a long day. Then he and Ahsoka could sit out under the vast sky, looking up at the stars instead of looming ships, falling asleep to the steady sounds of the insects instead of uneven explosions in the distance. And they could hold each other, not to try and keep themselves from falling apart, but just because they wanted to, because it felt natural.

He knew he should be ashamed for having these feelings for his Commander, but if he was truly honest with himself, he had long since stopped thinking of her as such, and even longer since he stopped thinking of her as the bratty youngling he met on Christophsis. She was more than all of that, more than a Jedi, even. She was Ahsoka. She was his friend.

Perhaps even more than that, too.

Night was starting to fall, and they had an eventful day ahead of them. Besides, someone might come looking for them before too long. Ahsoka stood and stretched her stiff limbs. “We should be getting back,” she said, offering a hand to help him up. Rex took it, and their touch lingered just a bit longer than was necessary. Then, with one last squeeze and a smile of appreciation, he let go, and they walked back together. Back to reality.

Ahsoka once again found herself standing outside of Rex’s quarters on Coruscant. She had just returned from training a group of younglings to build their sabers, which had taken an unexpectedly stressful turn. She and Rex had worked out a system in which they would meditate together if either of them was having a bad day, but she found that she had very little patience for that today. She itched to get out of her own little world of the Temple, the Senate, and the barracks for a while, and why not take Rex with her?

She had commed ahead to let Rex know that she was coming, and he met her at the door. He was about to invite her in, as usual, when he spotted that she was wearing her cloak. “Something wrong?” he asked, looking her up and down in confusion.

“Nope,” she replied, tossing him a bundle of civilian clothes. Nothing too fancy, but at least it wasn’t emblazoned with the large Republic cog that marked him as a clone. “Just thought we’d try something different today. Are you hungry?”

“Yes?” He still eyed her skeptically.

“Then, get dressed,” she ordered.

Slowly, he backed into his room, the door sliding shut behind him. Ahsoka laughed quietly to herself in the few minutes he was gone. He was almost cute when he was confused.

“And what if someone spots me out of uniform?” he asked when he reemerged.

She shrugged, unconcerned. “I’ll just flash my lightsabers and say that you’re on an undercover mission with me or something.” Ahsoka affixed a simple cloak around his neck and smoothed out the material over his shoulders. With cloaks being an integral part of several species’ traditional outer wear, wearing one around the melting pot that was Coruscant wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention, and the hoods had the benefit of obscuring their faces from anyone who might recognize them, though even that was unlikely. Very few citizens below the topmost levels came into regular enough contact with Jedi to be able to immediately identify them, apart from those used as the faces of the Republic war effort like Anakin, and even fewer had ever seen a clone without a bucket over their head outside of Seventy-Nine’s. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be hard for either of them to blend in.

They took a transport down to Cocotown, where they then walked to a small eatery known as Dex’s Diner. Ahsoka knew Obi-Wan was very partial to the place, and while she personally thought the food couldn’t compare with the various other cuisines Coruscant had to offer, she appreciated the friendly but mind-your-own-business atmosphere. She and Barriss visited occasionally whenever they both happened to be off-duty at the same time, so she knew from experience that it was a great place to meet with friends and not be bothered by nosy waitstaff or the shadier customers.

She and Rex chatted idly over the menu for a while about nothing in particular, mainly some amusing stories about what some of his brothers had gotten up to recently. Once their food arrived, however, and they were promised no further interruptions by the waitress droid FLO, Rex leaned over his plate and said in a low voice, “So what’s all this really about?”

“Can’t I take a friend out to dinner for no reason whatsoever?” she answered, stuffing her face in an attempt to drive off further questioning.

He pressed his mouth into a thin line in disapproval. “Kid,” he began, disbelievingly.

“Rexy,” she shot back, rolling her eyes. Sure, she had promised that she would break out the embarrassing nickname if he kept calling her “kid,” but truthfully, she would have to be very drunk again to even dare to speak it aloud (even if she still thought it from time to time). She hoped that half of it was threatening enough to get him to stop pushing the issue. It wasn’t.

After a silent standoff between the two of them, she finally relented. “Fine, you win,” she told him. “It’s just kind of weird to say out loud.”

“You’ve said weirder, I’m sure,” Rex teased, earning him a glare from Ahsoka.

Still, she continued, “It’s just that…after training the younglings, seeing how amazed and scared and confused they all were throughout the entire mission, I realized how normal all of this had become to me. Following the Force, fending off pirates, fighting legions of droids. I was raised in the Temple, you see, and I even started my Padawan training when I was very young.”

“I’ll say,” Rex snorted.

“I don’t care if you’re tall for your age, you’re still younger than I was then,” Ahsoka quipped, falling into their usual banter over who was older or who was taller or who was more experienced by this point. “What I mean to say is, especially after being around Saw and Lux and Steela, I guess I started to see that there might have been things I missed out on in growing up how I did, you know?”

Rex only shrugged, but it wasn’t unexpected. His accelerated aging meant that he had hardly been a kid, and certainly never a defenseless or carefree one, and the concept of even having a childhood was very foreign to him. It just didn’t fit in with his own personal experience, but she couldn’t fault him for that.

“I don’t regret anything,” she assured him. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be a Jedi, and that hasn’t changed. I just thought it might be fun to try not being one for a bit, to see what normal is like for other people my age.”

“Why bring me, then?” he asked. “I won’t be much help. I’m just about as far from normal as you are.”

“I didn’t want to go alone,” she admitted sheepishly. “Barriss wouldn’t really understand even if she wasn’t off-world right now, and you and I both know that Anakin is about as far from normal as anyone can get.” Rex nodded in agreement. “Besides, you’re the only friend I have that’s closest to my age, technically speaking.”

He chuckled. “Fair enough. So, what’s next in our mission to be normal?”

Ahsoka froze. She really hadn’t thought beyond eating a casual meal away from the Temple. “I was hoping you might have some ideas,” she muttered.

“I just told you I wasn’t going to be any help in that department.”

Ahsoka gazed thoughtfully out the window at the darkening sky. “Well, what do you guys do for fun in the city?”

“I suppose most of us clones head out for drinks at Seventy-Nine’s. Other lifeforms drop in, as well, so that seems to be a normal activity all around,” he suggested.

“Then, let’s go for drinks!” Ahsoka announced, standing and dropping the credits for their meal on the table. “Just not at Seventy-Nine’s. Somewhere…normal?”

“Normal,” Rex repeated, as if testing out the feel of the word in his mouth. He only managed to walk a few steps out of the diner with her before bursting out laughing. “We’re really bad at this.”

They ran into another problem in figuring out just where exactly they should go. The nightlife on Coruscant was vast and vibrant and wholly disorienting to Ahsoka, who had only visited the seedier hotspots in the past on quests for information. Neon signs for various nightclubs, all with lines and loud music pouring out of them, jumped out at her from all angles. She wove her way through the crowded streets, trying to spot one that looked like someone her age might frequent. Rex trailed slightly behind her, his usual agility and confidence failing him off the battlefield where he was surrounded by civilians and entirely out of his element.

Eventually, they ducked into one near the main square that seemed fairly popular but not so full that they were turning people away at the door. Inside was a whole new barrage of lights and sound. A droid served as a DJ on an elevated platform, mixing together what Ahsoka assumed must be popular songs, though she wasn’t exactly up to speed on such things, while beams flashed over the mass of young people of every species dancing in the center of the club. “Come on!” she shouted to Rex over the din, grabbing his hand and leading him as close as she dared to the glowing tiles of the dance floor.

The heavy bass beat thrumming through her montrals was infectious, and she bounced on her toes to the rhythm of the music, but she wasn’t exactly sure how to begin mingling with the throng of people just a few feet away. They formed a seemingly impenetrable wall of bodies, all moving in unpredictable ways yet somehow never bumping into each other. She glanced over at Rex, and while she couldn’t see his exact expression in the dim lighting, she could feel how tense and awkward he was beside her.

She was about to ask him if he would rather go somewhere else instead, when two Twi’lek girls around her age, neither of which appeared to be entirely sober, approached them. “You don’t have to just stand there!” one of them said, clearly noticing her hesitation.

“Come dance with us!” said the other. They both grabbed her by the hands and started pulling her towards the outermost ring of people. She looked back over her shoulder at Rex, who simply motioned for her to go along with them while he remained on the edge, still adjusting to the scene.

The only dancing Ahsoka had ever taken part in had been at formal events and was often a choreographed affair, so she was very pleased to learn that dancing here in the club mostly consisted of jumping up and down to the beat, and while at first she felt a little awkward, she realized very quickly that nobody around either noticed nor cared. She danced in a small group of the Twi-lek girls and a few of their friends (although they might have actually just been other complete strangers) for a few songs before one of them poked her in the shoulder to get her attention over the noise.

“Why isn’t your friend joining?” she asked.

Sure enough, Rex was still in the exact same spot, his eyes scanning the crowd but always returning to her. He smiled when he realized that she was looking back at him. She motioned to the others to wait up for her as she jogged over to where he stood. “You should join us,” she told him.

He looked back at the floor nervously. “Ah, no. I’m good right here, thanks,” he insisted.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes, taking both of his hands in hers. “We did not come all the way out here for me to have fun while you just stay on the sidelines. If I have to go and dance with a bunch of strangers to act normal, so do you.” She started walking backwards towards the group, tugging him along with her. Whatever protests he tried to make were drowned out by the beginning of the next song.

She managed to coax him into jumping to the beat with her while the others cheered him on. He rarely moved more than that, claiming not to be much of a dancer, though he did once build up the courage to spin Ahsoka around. She was hardly more graceful than him in this situation, however, and it resulted mainly in their arms twisting together awkwardly as she tripped over her own feet, but any embarrassment was quickly swept away in the constant motion. After several songs of this, they retired back to the edge, panting from exhaustion and overly warm from still wearing the cloaks, unsure of where they could leave them in the dark room without losing them.

“Drinks?” Rex asked hopefully, seemingly relieved to break away from the floor. Ahsoka nodded, and they made their way over to the bar running along the side of the club. There were no seats, so they had to lean over the counter and huddle close together to be heard.

The bartender, an Ithorian with a translator, took Rex’s order first, and when he got to Ahsoka, she told him, “Just a water, please.”

“What? Nothing stronger for you tonight?” Rex said with a smile, elbowing her gently.

“Not tonight. Not ever again.” She grimaced. As fun as the night was, the last thing she wanted was to add alcohol to the mix and risk being dragged back to Anakin in a state similar to last time.

Their drinks were set before them, and Rex raised his glass. “To being normal?”

“To being normal!” she affirmed, tapping her glass against his. Just as she was about to take a sip, the bartender set another drink down beside her. It was clearly alcoholic, as vibrant in color as the neon lighting, and served in a decorated glass. “Excuse me, I didn’t order this.”

“No, but he did,” the Ithorian replied, pointing to a young Zabrak just a few feet further down the counter. He waved to her and began to approach.

“Hey! Wanna dance?” he asked, cutting right past any small talk.

Ahsoka pushed the drink towards him with an apologetic smile. “Thanks, but I’m not interested,” she told him simply, turning back to Rex.

“Why not? Give me a chance!” He tried reaching out for her arm to pull her attention back to him, but suddenly, Rex appeared in between the two of them.

“She said she’s not interested,” Rex said, glaring down at the Zabrak. He must have been either drunk or stupid because he did not appear to be intimidated.

“What are you? Her boyfriend?” He glared right back at Rex.

“No,” Rex replied, with only the barest hesitation.

“Then mind your own business!”

“Rex, it’s fine. I can handle myself,” she assured him with a hand on his arm, hoping that this wouldn’t escalate any further. Since when had that ever not happened, though?

“See? The lady said back off,” the Zabrak said, trying to push his way past Rex to Ahsoka.

“That’s not what I said,” Ahsoka snarled. “Look, I’m flattered, but my answer is no.”

“See? The lady said no,” Rex shot back with a smirk. Ahsoka rolled her eyes. Men. “Now, back off.”

The Zabrak shoved Rex in the chest. He took a step back, less from the force of the push and more from shock at the sheer audacity from the young man. “And what are you going to do if I don’t?” Rex only narrowed his eyes in response. He knew better than to dignify that question with a response. (Didn’t he?)

“Guys, cut it out!” she snapped, trying to wedge herself in between them.

“Stay out of this.” The Zabrak pushed her away, and she stumbled back, fuming. Sure, she could throw him halfway across the club if she wanted to (and she really wanted to), but she had really tried to keep to normalcy all night and couldn’t bring herself to ruin it now.

“Leave her alone,” Rex insisted again.

“Make me!”

Rex locked eyes with Ahsoka. She shook her head disapprovingly, but he only shrugged, as if to say, “He asked!” Before she had any time to react, Rex slammed a fist into the Zabrak’s face, sending him to the floor, unconscious. Everyone around them went abruptly silent and stepped back, and Ahsoka felt the burn of countless eyes turning to them.

“So much for being normal,” she muttered, toeing the Zabrak’s body. He moaned and twitched, so at least he wasn’t dead.

Rex, for his part, looked completely unapologetic, examining his knuckles nonchalantly. “I didn’t even hit him that hard,” he claimed.

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes at him but chose not to comment. “I think we should go.” She grabbed his hand, and they darted towards the back door before anyone could think to call security to throw them out.

They emerged into a thin alley running between the club and the surrounding businesses. It was only just barely wide enough for them to stand side by side, so they sprinted through it single file, linked only by their hands. The path wound around the backs of buildings with still no exit in sight, so once Ahsoka had judged that they were far enough away from the mess they had made, they stopped to catch their breath, each leaning against an opposing section of wall.

“I should be mad at you,” Ahsoka said, squinting at him in the dim light cast from high windows. Her voice echoed in the surprisingly quiet alley, a stark difference from the loud music or even the crowded streets just a few feet away, and her montrals were left ringing in the silence. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“I would never doubt that,” he told her. “I just didn’t like the way he was talking to you. It bothered me.”

“You don’t have to worry about me like that,” she said, but her heartbeat did a strange little jump in her chest.

“If I don’t, who will?” He held her gaze for a long, serious moment before cracking a smile that caused Ahsoka to burst out into laughter at the ridiculousness of it all. The fact that her best friend, a clone, of all people, cared for her so deeply that he would be offended on her behalf by minor inconveniences was baffling in and of itself, but perhaps even more baffling was that she felt the exact same way.

She leaned her head against his chest as she shook with the last few waves of laughter. “My knight in Duraplast armor,” she joked, knowing full well that neither of them were actually wearing armor at the moment. If they were, she wouldn’t be able to feel the laugh rumbling in his chest. It was a warm, welcome sound that helped her relax after all of the chaos.

She straightened, allowing her eyes to travel upwards to his face, desperate to capture this moment of happiness in her memory. There was a whisper in the Force, tugging at the back of her mind, and she became suddenly irrationally worried that she might not get another moment like this, not for a long, long time. She took note of his mouth, pulled back into a wide grin, his eyes, pushed into narrow slits by his smile, and even his nose, crinkling with his laughter. And after she was sure that she had burned this image into her mind, she found her eyes travelling back to his lips.

Ahsoka had been kissed exactly once, and it had been entirely unwanted and frankly, unpleasant. As partial as she had been towards Lux, the experience had been enough to turn her off from the idea of kissing entirely for a while, at least until she had come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t actually supposed to feel as forced as it had. Occasionally, she wondered what a real kiss would feel like.

She wondered what it might feel like to kiss Rex.

He quieted, almost as if he had heard what she thought. She felt his eyes watching her just as intensely as she watched him. She felt his desire for the same thing through the Force. She felt him lean forward as she did the same.

She told herself that this was fine. This was normal. If Anakin could break the Code whenever he wanted, why couldn’t she?

She stopped. She knew why. She knew how much she hated how hypocritical Anakin sounded when he lectured her on attachments. She knew that no matter how hard she tried, she would never be what most people would consider normal. She knew that all she had ever wanted to be was a Jedi Knight, whose Code forbid her from exactly this kind of relationship.

Ahsoka met Rex’s eyes. They were so close now, full of confusion and longing and searching hers for answers she didn’t have. “I can’t,” she said, stepping back as far as the alley allowed.

Rex nodded. He smiled at her again, but it was sadder, all the joy and passion from earlier completely gone. “I understand.”

They pulled up their hoods in unison and continued down the alley, silently vowing never to speak of this again, even if the furtive glances in between betrayed how much they wanted to.

Rex was pacing. He had been doing that a lot lately. It was a miracle he hadn’t run a track through the floor.

He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat.

He’d considered throwing things, even considered finding Fox and screaming at him for even considering that Ahsoka was capable of such destruction. (He knew, of course, that on at least one occasion she’d had to resort to killing clones, but that had been entirely in self-defense.) None of those things would fix what had happened or really make him feel better, so he attempted to meditate. The act of meditation, however, was so intertwined with thoughts and memories of Ahsoka that it was impossible to separate the two and only made him more frustrated. So he continued pacing.

Rex hated few things more than the feeling of being helpless. It was in his nature to fight until his very last breath. Unfortunately, it was also in his nature to follow orders, even if that did seem to get him into more trouble than not lately. Having to tell his men that she had likely killed their brothers, that she should be considered armed and dangerous, had left a bad taste in his mouth that hadn’t gone away since. It felt wrong on almost every level.

It still did. Even after she kept running. Even after they finally found her surrounded by explosives. Even after they escorted her back, him keeping a firm hand on her shoulder, wishing that somehow she could feel his concern for her despite being unconscious.

That was the last time he had seen her, before she had been expelled from the Order - her home, her life. She was standing trial right now, and General Skywalker had gone off to prove her innocence alone, leaving Rex on his own to pace and worry. The horrible thought that he might never be able to see her again kept intruding into his mind, and it physically hurt him to imagine her as just another holo in his collection while he would be forced to go on fighting with that empty space at his side.

Fives knocked on his door a couple of times, along with Jesse, Kix, and Tup. He felt bad turning them all away. They were probably all hurting just as much over their Commander, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk to them, to anyone, not unless they brought news on Ahsoka’s trial.

He tried to ease his mind by reassuring himself that there was no way she could lose, not with the surprisingly effective team of Skywalker and Amidala backing her. The Senator was one of the best there was, and her opinion was highly valued among her peers. Her choosing to represent Ahsoka had to count for something; Tarkin wouldn’t know what hit him. And Anakin would find the true culprit. Rex had seen him accomplish countless more impossible feats.

That still didn’t stop him from picturing the exact holo of hers he would use. It was one she had insisted on taking with the clones on her first day as a Padawan. She had thrown her arms around as many men as she could, smiling enthusiastically at her new Master behind the camera. He looked back at it often out of fondness for a simpler time.

There was another knock at the door late into the night, and he was about to turn whoever it was away when he heard his General’s voice. “Rex? I want to talk to you. It’s about Ahsoka.”

Rex opened the door before Anakin had even finished speaking, holding his breath in his anxiety. The sight of his General didn’t make him feel better in the slightest. His shoulders sagged in defeat, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. His eyes were red, and his jaw was tight, as if he had either been crying or was desperately trying not to.

“No,” Rex said before Anakin could open his mouth. “They couldn’t have found her guilty. You promised you would help her!” The words spilled out before he could think about the ramifications of yelling at his superior.

Anakin blinked at him in confusion for a few second, taken aback by his outburst. “She’s innocent,” he told Rex, his voice strangely hollow. “Barriss confessed to the bombing.”

Rex wasn’t sure that made the situation any better. Barriss was supposed to be Ahsoka’s friend, a high honor indeed. He couldn’t fathom how anybody could betray that. “Then, where is she?” he asked, looking over Anakin’s shoulder as if Ahsoka was waiting just around the corner, even though he knew that she was more than likely resting at the Temple after this whole ordeal.

“She’s gone, Rex.”

Rex felt his heart drop out of his chest. They couldn’t have carried out her sentence already! “What? But you just said-“

“I mean she left.” Anakin’s voice broke, and Rex took a step back. It was his turn to be confused.

“I don’t understand.”

“The council apologized. They asked her to come back, even offered her Knighthood. They said that the Force must have intended this to be her great trial. And she…she said no,” he explained, sounding as if he still didn’t quite believe what had happened. “She said no and then she left. She’s gone.”

“No,” Rex said, shaking his head in disbelief. “No way. She wouldn’t. We…we have to go after her.” He pushed past Anakin, as if he could chase Ahsoka down right now. If he had been more rational, he might have considered that there were a million places on Coruscant that she could be hiding by now, and he didn’t even know which direction she went, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t gone, and he was going to find her.

“Rex, I tried.”

“You didn’t try hard enough!” he snapped, whirling around angrily. For the first time in perhaps his entire life, Anakin was struck silent. A few of his brothers ventured into the hallway to catch a glimpse at what had gotten their Captain so riled up. “The Force intended this to happen? What kind of banthashit excuse is that for everything she went through?”

“The council…” he stammered. “I didn’t…” Anakin suddenly looked very small, like the child on Tatooine Rex was told he once was behind all of his fancy tricks and bravado.

Rex realized he was shaking, and he took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself down. He was angry and upset, but not at Anakin; he didn’t deserve to be screamed at over this. If anything, he was more frustrated at himself, at the fact that he couldn’t do anything to change this, that he should have done more to prevent this. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but he had to recognize that he wasn’t the only one hurting over Ahsoka, even if unlike Anakin, he never got the chance to say goodbye.

He walked slowly back to Anakin, laying a hand on his shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting gesture and most importantly, an apologetic one. “I’m sorry, General. I wasn’t being fair. It’s not your fault.” It was a miracle the words came out as gently as they did, considering how much they tore him up inside. He wanted so badly to find something to blame for her walking away. But it was her choice, as baffling as it was to both of them.

He shrugged him off bitterly. “No. I’m the one who failed her,” he muttered. Rex wanted to contradict him, to tell him that he had done all he could, but what could he say now? He wished he could take back what he had said earlier. Anakin’s eyes darted around at all of the clones who had gathered on the periphery to listen in on their conversation. “I just thought you ought to be the first to know.”

Rex met his General’s eyes, wondering how much he really knew about his feelings for Ahsoka. (He had only ever come clean to Cody because Cody still didn’t count.) Nothing had happened since the night at the club, and Anakin could be denser than Durasteel, but somehow, Rex figured, he must have known. Anakin held up one of his closed fists and opened it, letting a small chain of beads fall into Rex’s hands. He recognized it as what Ahsoka attached to her headdress to serve as her Padawan braid, for which she had once faced down a bloodthirsty bounty hunter just to get it back. “She’s really gone,” Rex sighed, staring down at it for a long moment.

Anakin nodded before saying, “I should be getting back.” He turned and started walking sullenly down the hallway, clones parting to make way before turning their eyes to Rex, still standing there dumbly with the braid in his hand. It occurred to Rex that perhaps the General had also come to him seeking some sort of consolation on top of giving him the bad news.

His eyes stung, and it took a lot of effort to keep his breathing even as the hallway felt smaller and smaller, concerned and curious brothers peeking in on him from all sides. He remembered this feeling. The last time he’d felt this level of panic had been after Umbara. All he wanted to do now was just what he had done then, disappear into his room to yell and cry and throw things and just beg for the feeling to stop just stop.

But he wouldn’t do that. Ahsoka wouldn’t have wanted him to spiral like that again. Besides, there were too many men watching him, and he refused to let them see him in that state. Swallowing down the rising panic, he shoved the braid into one of his belt pouches and caught up with Anakin in a few long strides.

“General, a drink?” he asked, coming up beside him.

Anakin offered the barest hint of a smile in response, but it was nothing compared to the blinding sunbeam that had been Ahsoka’s grin. Rex somehow felt even emptier than before.

There was so much Ahsoka wanted to tell her old Master. She wanted nothing more than to be able to sit with him and talk to him and laugh with him just like old times. She would even take his teasing and condescension, as long as she was allowed to return it, that is. But now was not the time. Maul was loose again on Mandalore, and they needed to act fast if they were to catch him.

That didn’t stop Anakin from practically bouncing on his toes the whole time she was with him, clearly enthusiastic about her return. He was able to keep focused as they discussed the mission, but as soon as they were out of the briefing room, he was tugging her along excitedly to give her a surprise. They passed by men from both the 212th and the 501st, all still saluting her and calling her Commander, even if she didn’t hold the rank anymore.

Then, the doors opened, and Ahsoka stopped breathing. All of her men were standing there at attention in neat, perfect rows, with identically painted helmets of her facial markings staring back at her. At the front of them all stood Rex, helmet under his arm, unable to contain his grin. He dropped into a more serious, soldier-like façade to shout, “Company! Attention!” The clones all stood aside for Ahsoka, and Rex stepped back, smiling again and watching as she stepped forward in awe.

“Go ahead,” Anakin said with a nod. “They’ve been waiting to see you.” Ahsoka took her first shaky breath, still overcome with emotion, and wandered through the lines of clones waiting for her. Even if their faces were obscured by their helmets, Ahsoka could feel their joy radiating out through the Force. She recognized each signature and could put names to every man standing there, despite the fact that their armor was all painted identical now.

She realized with no small amount of sadness that not all of the men she remembered were there. Fives was gone; she would have felt him immediately. So was Tup, and strangely enough, Kix. Those two had always been more careful.

“As soon as Rex and the guys knew you were back, they got to work,” Anakin explained, drawing her attention back around. Rex was still alive, at least, and he had moved to stand next to his General. He shrugged and nodded a bit shyly at her, holding up his own helmet.

She walked over to him, each step feeling like it took longer than the last. A flurry of emotions passed over Rex’s face in those stretched out seconds that Ahsoka could hardly begin to decipher before he settled into a smile. “Paint job’s a little crude,” he admitted, “but we think it gets the idea across.”

Ahsoka ran her hand over the helmet he extended to her. Her heartbeat was suddenly very loud in her chest, and she avoided his eyes, not sure what feelings might come rushing back if she looked. All this time, she had figured that she would see Anakin again. He’d left a private comm channel open to her, and she knew he was far too stubborn not to come looking for her eventually.

But Rex…she had almost resigned herself to the fact that she might never get to see him again. After forfeiting her rank and status, there was no way she would be allowed back to visit him, and without any direct line of communication, she would have had to go through Anakin to set up any kind of meeting. Besides, would she even have wanted to? Things had been a little awkward in their friendship ever since that night on Coruscant.

Ever since then, she had told herself that it had been nothing but a whim, a simple crush. Master Obi-Wan always said that these feelings were natural, that they would pass, so she waited for them to. In her time away, she thought they almost had. There were more pressing matters at hand that she focused on to stay alive, shoving her feelings into a corner of her mind until she could release them into the Force, but every time she thought of Rex in passing, an echo of those feelings still lingered.

Now they slammed into her with such force that it left her dizzy. She couldn’t help but react to them with near revulsion. Why, after all this time, couldn’t she shake them? Why did they always come back with such a rush of joy that only left her feeling sadder than before? Why did they make her want nothing more than to be with Rex when she knew that she couldn’t…she couldn’t…

Wait, why couldn’t she?

“Glad to have you back, Commander,” Rex said, and she slowly brought her eyes up to his face.

She was no longer a Jedi.

“Rex,” she began, “thank you, but you don’t have to call me Commander, anymore.”

She was no longer a Jedi.

And suddenly that thought didn’t carry as much sadness as it had in the past.

Rex raised an eyebrow knowingly, but still continued, “Sure thing, Commander.”

In the past, she would have fought him tooth and nail on semantics, but now, she could only smile, whatever emotion that was flooding her leaving her unable to speak. She wasn’t so stupid as to not realize what this was. She and Padme had spent enough time watching holodramas together in their time off, and as melodramatic as they were, in this case, she felt they were close enough for her to recognize what was happening.

She was falling for Rex. Or rather, she had fallen for Rex. She couldn’t quite pinpoint when exactly it had happened, but the feelings were there, all the same.

Oh Kriff what do I do now?

Thankfully, she didn’t have to think too much on it before they were interrupted by Anakin. “Oh, I have one more surprise for you.” Anakin presented a small wooden box that Rex had been carrying at his side. Ahsoka knew instantly what was inside. She could sense her Kyber crystals calling to her, but as she reached out to open it, they were interrupted yet again by the ship’s alarm blaring.

The next few minutes were a flurry of activity. Obi-Wan ran in, demanding they depart immediately to rescue the Chancellor from General Grievous even though they also had to move quickly if they were to capture Maul. Anakin, for once, was the only one to come up with a compromise, splitting his forces by promoting Rex and having him join Ahsoka. Then, like always, he was running off to his next adventure, and Ahsoka could only offer him a passing “good luck.” But it was fine. They could talk for real once all of this was over.

They had to scramble to get Ahsoka’s troops and supplies to a separate ship to set a course for Mandalore while Obi-Wan and Anakin set off for Coruscant. Ahsoka didn’t see Rex again in all the chaos until he met up with her and Bo-Katan in the briefing room while they hurtled through hyperspace. She felt bad that she hardly paid attention to him during the meeting. There was so much to go over and so much to prepare for in so little time. She did, however, notice that he had switched out his painted helmet for his familiar, Jaig eyes decorated one.

Once all the plans were in place and everyone was heading off to their separate duties, Ahsoka hung back. “Rex, a word?” she asked, despite the fact that he, too, hadn’t gone for the door. He smiled at her and nodded, as if he hadn’t planned on going anywhere to begin with. They appeared to be of the same mind on this; even if there wasn’t much time to catch up, it was something they both sorely needed. The others cleared the room to give them space.

Once the door slid shut, Ahsoka found that she actually didn’t know what to do next. When someone felt like this in the holodramas, there would be a huge confession scene, usually involving crying and running into each other’s arms in the pouring rain while the music swelled. (Ahsoka always laughed at them; she couldn’t help it.) Here, all they had was a quiet room, a table in between them, and too many months of things left unsaid.

“Congratulations on your promotion, Commander,” she said after a long period of him watching her expectantly. It was nowhere close to what she wanted to tell him, but it at least brought a smile to his face.

“If it’s all the same, I think the rank suits you better, Commander,” he replied.

“Sure thing, Commander,” she repeated with a wink.

Rex scratched his chin in thought. “Perhaps we could be co-commanders, Commander?”

“It’s a deal, Commander.”

“Commander.”

“Commander.”

They both saluted each other, but their professional facades lasted less than two seconds before they burst out laughing simultaneously, bracing themselves against the table. Rex set his helmet down to wipe at his eyes. “I missed you,” he said, still clutching at his sides as the last few snickers escaped him. “I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“Same to you,” Ahsoka said, straightening. She came around the table and rapped her knuckles against his helmet. “Didn’t miss me enough to actually paint your bucket, I see.”

“Sorry, I’m afraid I’m a little partial to the old design.” He fished something out of his belt pouch that Ahsoka couldn’t quite see. “I did, however, consider adding a little extra something for the occasion.” He opened up his palm, revealing Ahsoka’s old Padawan braid.

“I can’t believe you held onto that,” she chuckled softly, but her eyes stung with sentimental tears.

“Well, General Skywalker kept your weapons, and it just didn’t seem right to add your photo to the archive,” Rex explained. He held the braid out to her. “You can have it back, if you like.”

She pushed his hand back, much like she had with her Master. “No, I don’t think it suits me anymore,” she told him. “But thank you for keeping it safe. Here, let me help you.” She picked up his helmet and turned it upside down, finding a small spot on the inside between all of the apparatuses where it could be attached. It would have been ideal to have it on the outside, where it could be on display like the paint on all of the other helmets, but she imagined it would get extremely annoying to hear it clacking against his armor constantly.

She took the braid and clipped it inside securely before presenting the helmet back to him. He reached out to take it from her, but his hands lingered too long over hers. Suddenly it was very hard to look him in the eyes and yet even more difficult to tear her eyes away. “Rex,” she began, a swirl of emotions coming to the forefront of her mind that she kept trying to put words to. She failed miserably at it. “I’m sorry. I never should have left you like that. I should have-”

“No,” Rex said firmly. “No, it’s not your fault. You made a choice, a very hard one, one that I don’t think I could have ever made. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better. You were my friend, Rex! And I left you without saying goodbye.”

Rex looked at her curiously. “Were?”

Ahsoka shook her head at her slip of the tongue. “Are. You are my friend. I mean, I care about you. A lot. Always have, Code be damned. Kriff, I’m bad at this…” She looked down at the helmet between them, squeezing her eyes shut as if it would block out the embarrassment.

She felt Rex’s hand leave hers and come up to her cheek, gently bringing her back up to face him. Every ounce of confusion, desire, and affection that she felt was also spilling from him out into the Force. His eyes were wide, searching hers longingly, almost begging for her to feel the same way, not that there was any denying it at this point. “Ahsoka…” he half-whispered, but it seemed that he, too, had trouble finding the right words.

Kriff it all, she was always more one for action, anyways.

The next second, the helmet was clattering to the floor as her mouth collided clumsily against his. It wasn’t a perfect kiss by any means, with him still frozen in surprise and her unsure exactly what she was doing, but after a minute, it melted into something softer, something warmer and blissful and right. She threw her arms around his neck and his wrapped around her waist, and they pulled each other tighter, almost scared to let go again.

Eventually, though, they had to breathe, and Ahsoka was the one to break away first. She opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, trying and failing to figure out what to say after that. The holos usually faded to black at this point. Rex, for his part, seemed in a bit of a daze, as if trying to figure out if that had actually just happened. “I…sorry, I just…I didn’t know what to say, so…” she stammered.

Rex cleared his throat, his face turning a vibrant shade of red. “No, that was…very eloquently put, I think,” he replied.

And again, after a brief, awkward pause, they broke out into another fit of shared laughter. Ahsoka practically collapsed into the armor plating on his chest, and he folded himself around her, pressing another kiss to the top of her head before resting his chin in the hollow between her montrals. “We are an absolute disaster,” she giggled.

“What else is new?” he said cheerfully, and she could feel his lips murmuring against her skin. “I’ve come to expect it when it comes to us, at this point.”

She pulled away slightly, tilting her chin to look up at him. “So, that was okay? Are we okay?”

Rex nodded. “Yeah, Kid. We’re okay.” She found that she didn’t mind the nickname so much, all of a sudden. He was smiling like she had never seen him smile before, and waves of happiness and a strong feeling that Ahsoka figured could only be love rolled off of him in waves and wrapped around her.

“Good.” She pulled his face back down to hers, but their lips had only just brushed for the second time when the door suddenly slid open. They both stopped and stared blankly at the door, but it was far too late to untangle themselves entirely from each other.

Bo-Katan stood in the doorway, her eyes darting in between the two of them. She didn’t seem surprised, however, or horrified or angry or even the slightest bit annoyed. Honestly, she looked more bored by it than anything (which made Ahsoka wonder if she had been in this exact same situation before, perhaps involving her late sister and a certain Jedi Master). “Lady Tano, you’re needed on the bridge,” she said flatly. “Please wrap this up and meet me there in ten minutes.” Then, without waiting for any sort of response, she backed away and marched off down the hallway.

When the initial embarrassment faded, Ahsoka found that she couldn’t stop herself from grinning and shaking her head in disbelief. All this time spent worrying about what other people would think and being lectured on attachments, and when she finally actually did something, nobody cared! It was such a strange relief and a weight that she didn’t know needed to be lifted off her shoulders. She couldn’t help but wonder what Anakin might think (once he got off of his hypocritical high horse) or what Rex’s brothers might think (whatever happened to Fives, everyone owed him a lot of credits), but at the end of the day, she realized that none of it actually mattered, not as long as she had Rex by her side. His was the only opinion she cared about when it came to this.

When Rex asked her what was so funny, she only kissed him again in reply.

Rex couldn’t remember ever being this happy in his entire life.

Maul was captured and en route to Coruscant, and he was about to receive a transmission that most likely told of General Kenobi’s success in taking down General Grievous. The war might be over; he’d almost lost hope that such a thing was possible. Sure, that left him with certain anxieties about his future. In all likelihood, he and his brothers would be returned to Kamino, as the Kaminoans still viewed the clones as their property and were quite strict about letting their technology loose in the galaxy. Still, there was the possibility that for the first time ever, he might be a free man.

He’d meant what he had said over Zygerria. If anyone could find a way to change things, it would be Ahsoka, the strongest person he had ever known, his friend. More than that, actually, but such things were not to be discussed on the bridge in front of the other men.

Ahsoka, the person he had come to care for above all else, and who cared for him in return. For the first time, the peace he had envisioned actually seemed within reach. With Ahsoka, there was actually a chance of an after.

It seemed Rex’s life was split into befores and afters. There was before and after the start of the war. There was a before and after Umbara. There was a before and after Anakin, Slick, Cut, Fives, Echo, and most of all, Ahsoka. Now, there was a before and after three simple words.

“Execute Order Sixty-six.”

“Yes, Lord Sidious.” The reply tumbled from his mouth automatically, before he even had a chance to think about what he was saying. He couldn’t think, actually. His mind had gone strangely blank except for those words and a very clear objective, one that he knew he wouldn’t fail. He was good at that: following orders, getting the job done.

Then, there was a voice, a familiar one, breaking through the haze and tugging his consciousness back to the surface. “Rex!” cried Ahsoka, running into the briefing room. “It’s Anakin! I feel like something terrible has happened.”

What was I thinking? I can’t-

You aren’t supposed to think. You’re supposed to follow orders. Good soldiers follow orders.

Rex felt as though he were being torn in half, completely at war with himself. He was left paralyzed, every instinct screaming at him to turn around, to kill Ahsoka and fulfill his duty, but what little will he had left in him scratched and clawed at the walls of his mind, fighting the desire to slip under and just blindly obey. A cacophony of different voices crowded his head, some his own, some fighting with him, and one rising louder above them all, drowning out what little was left that made Rex himself. He would have screamed if he were able to gain any sort of control over his own body.

I cannot just follow orders when I know they’re wrong!

Good soldiers follow orders.

The Republic couldn’t have asked for better soldiers…

GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS.

Nor I a better friend.

GOODSOLDIERSFOLLOWORDERSGOODSOLDIERSFOLLOWORDERSGOODSOLDIERSFOLLOWORDERS.

He didn’t realize he was shaking until his helmet slipped from his hand onto the floor, the chain inside clattering as it was knocked loose. Staying still and trying to think his way through this was all he could manage, and he could tell he was losing. And fast.

“Rex?” Ahsoka said, the concern in her voice giving him one last thread he could cling to for sanity, and he latched onto it with all his might. It wouldn’t last. He was still slipping. But maybe it was just enough.

“No!” he managed to shout as the two troopers behind Ahsoka turned to fire at her back. He gritted his teeth, trying to maintain his defiance, but he fell under again, and the winning half took over. “I’ll do it.” That was his voice saying the words, but he didn’t recognize himself anymore. Neither did Ahsoka.

“Rex, what’s happening?” she asked stepping forward.

He whipped out his blasters faster than either of them could blink, but he couldn’t bring himself to fire them. “Stay back!” he snapped at her, though he couldn’t tell if it was a reaction out of self-preservation against a Jedi, his now sworn enemy, or a warning to her that he could hardly control himself. It all was starting to blur together in his jumbled-up brain.

He was still shaking, pushing back against every urge to pull the trigger. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair. Everything was so perfect and now everything just hurt.

Tears rolled down his face under the stress and strain of it all. He didn’t want to kill her. He had to kill her. The mantra roared louder than ever in his ears.

GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS.

There was so much they hadn’t gotten to do. There was so much he hadn’t gotten to tell her. About how he felt, about what he hoped for, about what had happened in her absence, about Fives and how Fives had known all along and we didn’t listen.

Ahsoka was listening, now.

“Find him,” he choked out, his voice starting as a whisper and building to a roar. “Find him…Fives…Find him! Fives!”

And with that, the last of his control was spent, and he pulled the triggers, but not before altering his aim just enough so that the shots went wide. Then, Ahsoka was lunging at him, knocking him back. His head hit the table behind him, and all of himself that he had managed to wrestle back immediately vanished under the blankness again. All hesitation gone, he stood and fired on her in earnest.

She would not get away from him again.

Except she did. She was exceptionally good at that. In a flurry of blasterfire and smoke, she had vanished through a hole in the ceiling. Another trooper sidled up to Rex. “Are you alright, Sir?” he asked mechanically, without feeling.

“Fine,” he answered back, pressing a hand to his temple. His head hurt like hell, probably from being smashed against the table, but a deeper ache went down to his very core. He ignored it. There were more pressing matters at hand. “Just…tired is all.” Rex shoved on his helmet, not paying any mind to the braid that fell out and onto the floor, crunching under the boots of his fellow clones.

He issued out their new orders to the rest of his men, unable to keep his frustration at not being able to catch Ahsoka out of his voice. This time would be different. Not like when she had been taken by Trandoshan hunters. Not like how she had disappeared from the Temple. This time, he would find her. And then after…

He shook his head. He didn’t like to think about what happened after. It complicated things, made his brain all fuzzy.

Speaking of complicating things, now Maul was loose and wreaking havoc, and before he could even begin to wonder how his men had kriffed that up so badly, he found himself tripping over a droid. R7, to be exact, Ahsoka’s old astromech. Suddenly, doors were closing all around him, cutting him off from the rest of the clones, and there was Ahsoka. He was momentarily stunned at the sight of her, and it took longer than he cared to admit to fully realize she was only a hologram. The voice was so clear that he swore she could have been right there beside him.

She’d found him, found Fives, and a small part of him deep down rejoiced in that, but he was too far gone to show it. “It isn’t your fault,” she insisted, like so many times before. “You were programmed. Your mind was altered to do this when you were very young. I can help you.”

Nothing about what she said rang false, but Rex couldn’t bring himself to care. As soon as the hologram vanished, he pulled his blaster on the little droid. “Where is she?” he asked.

“I’m right here,” came her voice clear as day right behind him. He spun around, but right at the moment he saw her face and began building his resolve to fire, everything went black.

It was somewhat of a relief, really, which he should have been more ashamed of, but at least he didn’t have to wrestle for control over his own body when it wasn’t even functioning. He was adrift in his own mind, just below the blankness, below the never-ending mantra of good soldiers follow orders. He wasn’t sure how long he was out, but again, he didn’t mind as much as he should have.

It was almost peaceful, almost like meditation, and then suddenly exactly like that. He felt a warmth, and something like a light pierced the darkness of unconsciousness. At first he recoiled from it, knowing on some level that it was the Force, that this was a Jedi – the enemy! – at work on him, but he soon relaxed and reached for it instinctually, like he had done every single time before now, unable to override his longing for the safety and care that he knew it brought. Another phrase broke through, and while it didn’t silence the endless refrain that had seized him on the bridge, it gave him a lifeline to latch onto.

“I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.”

He wasn’t sure if the words were being spoken aloud or impressed into his thoughts, but whatever they were, he hung onto them, repeated them until they became quiet again, allowing him to drift back under again as the light dissipated.

Then there was nothing. No mantra. No fighting. Not even drifting. Just darkness and silence and absolutely zero awareness of himself or anything around him.

Too suddenly he was slammed back into his body with a rush of adrenaline. Vaguely, he was aware that this had to be the result of some sort of medical stim, and he wondered what he had done to even warrant the use of that. Every part of him ached, but worst of all his head. He could feel that a bacta patch had been slapped on over the area where the pain radiated out from, much like what one would wear after surgery. Surgery? What had happened to him that he needed surgery?

He groggily fought his way to wakefulness. He could hear blasterfire. Why had he gotten surgery in the middle of a battle?

He sat up too slowly for his own liking, trying to force his reflexes back to what they should be as he reached for his blasters. He saw Ahsoka, her blades flashing as she tried to defend herself. The ones firing at her were his brothers.

Everything came rushing back to his memory. Order 66. The inhibitor chips. They were going to kill her.

Rex didn’t even have to think. He fired off three shots, hitting each of the men at the door squarely in the chest. They collapsed, and the door slammed down, momentarily separating the rest of the troopers from him and Ahsoka.

It wasn’t until then that it all hit him. He had just killed his brothers. Again. But this time, he had made that choice. He started shaking again, and tears stung at his eyes.

“Rex?” Ahsoka’s voice cut through the shock, wrapped around him, brought him back to reality, back to himself. “Are you okay?”

He lowered his weapons, strangely elated that he was able to do so. Yes, he had killed them, but he wouldn’t have made any other choice. Not when the alternative was killing Ahsoka.

“Yeah,” he breathed, even though it couldn’t be farther from the truth. But Ahsoka knew that, and that hadn’t really been what she was asking. She was watching him warily in a way that broke his heart. “Yeah, Kid. I’m okay.”

Reassured, Ahsoka approached him as he swung his legs off the operating table. He pressed a hand to the bacta patch on his head, knowing now that it was from the removal of his chip. He was grateful for it, of course, but it still hurt like hell. “Sorry for what happened earlier. I almost killed you.” The words felt wrong in his mouth. His own disbelief at what he was saying reassured him somehow, knowing that it certainly wasn’t his choice to do so.

He would rather die, he realized, than be forced to do such a thing again.

Of course, he had once felt the same about killing other clones.

Rex shook that thought out of his head. There wasn’t time to dwell on that. Right now, they had to get off of this ship.

They moved in harmony with each other as they fought their way down the hallways, years of fighting side by side making it as easy as breathing to predict the other’s attacks. Ahsoka whirled in a circle around Rex, deflecting any bolts that came their way, while Rex stunned their opponents. He was privately relieved at not having to kill anyone else, but he was too sensible to ignore the fact that it was only a matter of time before their hand would be forced. Seeing his brothers lying on the ground (only unconscious, for now), continued to tug at his heart, but he gritted his teeth and pushed on.

“Boys are having a rough time of it,” he remarked. “Did you hear Maul escaped?”

“He didn’t escape. I let him out,” Ahsoka answered simply, as if it were no big deal.

Rex stopped in his tracks. Had she lost her mind? (Never mind that he had actually lost his not that long ago.) “What? Why?”

Ahsoka only continued down the hallway. “Diversion. Come on!”

The ship jolted as they approached the hangar control room, and the emergency alarm assaulted their ears. As terrible of a sign as that was, they didn’t have any other choice but to keep going. Rex subdued everyone in the room with trademark efficiency before getting to work at the control panel. “The hangar bay doors are sealed. They’ve got everything locked down. If they weren’t trying to kill us, I’d be proud,” he quipped. At least this was fixable.

The hyperdrive, not so much.

What they had felt before was the ship being yanked out of hyperspace, and now they were hurtling towards a nearby moon, caught in its gravitational pull. “We have to get out of here,” Ahsoka whispered grimly. Understatement of the century, in Rex’s opinion.

Fortunately, there was a shuttle in the hangar prepped for takeoff. Unfortunately, every able-bodied clone onboard was waiting for them in the space between, organized into perfect, deadly rows, guns all aimed at their position. Jesse marched to the head of the troopers.

Everything that could have gone wrong already had, and Rex could feel himself begin to panic as he so rarely did. It was suddenly very difficult to breathe through his helmet. He gazed out through the viewport, and the soldier in him recognized an army, one that he needed to defeat in order to survive. But he also saw his brothers, forced into following an order they had no clue was wired into them until now and were helpless to fight it.

“So what do we do?” he asked Ahsoka, trying his hardest to keep his voice steady. He was never more grateful that his helmet obscured his expression. “Fight our way to the shuttle?”

“There are too many,” she said decisively. “Besides, I don’t want to hurt them.”

At this, Rex snapped. He loved her. He loved the fact that she cared. But now was not the time, and he needed her to see that. Sure, he was perfectly fine to follow her lead in stunning them earlier, but the situation had changed, and he had to choose between saving Ahsoka’s life or his brothers’. He had made that choice earlier, obviously, but he needed her to be there with him now, or he worried that he might not be strong enough to make it again.

“I hate to tell you this, but they don’t care!” Rex told her. She grimaced and looked away. It was too easy for her to see the good in them. After all, she had saved Rex, so why not them? But Rex could still recall the emptiness that had possessed him, the constant stream of good soldiers follow orders that overrode any other thought. She had been lucky with him not to realize how close to death she had really come in that briefing room. It would have been too easy then to pull the trigger, and it was even easier for his brothers now.

“This ship is going down,” he continued, trying to get through to her and her naïve way of thinking, “and those soldiers – my brothers - are willing to die and take you and me along with them!” Rex didn’t realize he was crying again until after he had finished speaking. Yes, he had made his choice. But he had yet to make peace with it.

He wanted to keep screaming about how none of this was right or fair, about how none of them deserved this, much like the child he knew he should theoretically still be, but he couldn’t. All other words caught in his throat. Because out there stood Jesse and countless other men he had been raised with and fought with and laughed with, all of them now willing to lay down their lives if it meant he would die, too. They all thought him a traitor, and Rex wasn’t sure they were entirely wrong. No matter the reasoning or morality behind it, this was still a betrayal.

Ahsoka must have sensed this because she said nothing, only looked at him sadly in understanding. Gently, she removed his helmet, but he still couldn’t look her in the eye, not when he knew she could see the absolute worst in him. Instead, he kept his gaze locked on Jesse leading his men, not that seeing that made him feel any better, either.

Ahsoka laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good soldier, Rex,” she said softly, as if reading his mind. He wanted to scoff, but the affection and sincerity she impressed into her words soothed him, if only a little. “So is every one of those men down there. They may be willing to die, but I am not the one who is going to kill them.”

Rex finally looked at her. There was so much he wanted to say to argue with her, but there was a resolve in her eyes that he knew he could never diminish no matter how hard he tried. Not that he would ever want to, anyhow. Her passion and her determination were some of the best things about her, as frustrating as they could be at times. He found himself briefly wishing that she had become a Jedi, even if it meant she never would have kissed him the other day. The Order could have really used more like her.

Rex sighed. As foolish as it was, she was just as reluctant to kill his brothers as he was, and that was a small comfort. Very well, then. If she chose to die with some sort of honor, then he would choose to die with her.

“So we’re just going to surrender? Admit defeat? Is that it?” he wondered. It was impossible to keep all of the hopelessness out of his voice. This went against his very nature, despite his determination to follow whatever path she led him down.

“No,” she replied, bafflingly.

“Well, I don’t see any other option.” Rex looked down at his helmet, still in her hands, ready to put it on again one last time. At least he might finally be able to go out in that blaze of fire and metal he had always envisioned.

So much for that meadow in the spring. It was a stupid dream, anyway.

Ahsoka looked out of the viewport at the challenge set before them, pondering for a few seconds. “I have an idea,” she said at last. Rex raised an eyebrow. Those words never ended well whenever they came from her or her Master. “Don’t worry. It’s a good one.” She handed his helmet back to him. “I think.”

Well, that was reassuring.

Still, he donned his helmet and chased after her into the hallway as she explained her plan on the way. She would pretend to be captured while Rex attempted to convince Jesse not to kill her, on account of her not technically being a member of the Order any longer. He was skeptical that it would work, and he voiced his concerns, but she pointed out how it wasn’t like he had any better plans, and he only needed to keep Jesse occupied as long as it took for the droids to create a distraction.

“Ahsoka, wait!” he called out to her as they reached the final stretch before the hangar. He briefly took off his helmet as the droids snuck on ahead.

Ahsoka turned on her heel impatiently. “We don’t have time! Trust me, the plan will –“

Rex didn’t give her a chance to finish, pressing his lips to hers urgently. “I know,” he said once they parted. “But I wanted to…just in case…”

Ahsoka kissed him back quickly before offering up a small smile. “For luck,” she countered, then turned around, raising her hands behind her head. Rex replaced his helmet, pressed his blaster to her back (safety on, of course), and they moved forward with the plan.

Nothing went according to the plan, obviously, but what else was new?

Theoretically, it should have worked, but Maul had to show up and completely ruin it, like he was so good at doing. (Rex owed Ahsoka a huge “I told you so” for that one.) They’d had to improvise, flying a shuttle out of maintenance as the ship tore itself to pieces around them. Ahsoka almost didn’t make it, having to run across the flaming wreckage as Rex flew alongside her, racing to meet each other before the ship met the ground. He caught her, but only barely, and Rex had to take several seconds to return his breathing to normal once he was sure she was safe.

They stayed airborne, keeping a safe distance away from the ship as it collided with the moon in a colossal cloud of fire and smoke. When the dust settled several hours later, they descended, landing in front of the still burning wreckage that spanned several miles. They both leapt out, gaping at the destruction, and Rex ran forward, hoping that the filters in his helmet would block out the heat and debris. It was a longshot, he knew, but he’d seen clones survive things nearly as terrible.

(He wondered about Echo suddenly, and how he and the rest of the Bad Batch had fared through this ordeal.)

He dug frantically through what was left of the ship, twisted metal burning him through his gloves and armor. Ahsoka came up behind him, pulling him away forcefully with a firm hand on his shoulder. He turned to scream at her, but there was nothing that he could even think to say. Just endless, agonizing pain, echoed in her sad blue eyes. He could see in them that his determination was hopeless, as she would have been able to sense if there were any survivors.

She walked forward, pushing away large beams with the Force, and Rex followed her numbly until they reached the area he only vaguely recognized as the hangar. He dropped to his knees, broken, weeping at the bodies strewn all around, torn to pieces and burned beyond recognition. He thought he had seen it all, thought he would be able to handle death like he had countless times before, but this had all been so pointless. The whole war had been pointless. These men had died, sacrificed their lives for a cause, and in the end, it was all worth nothing.

Ahsoka, too, was left in shock. She stumbled forward, finally collapsing at the still form of Jesse, or rather, what was left of him. He had loved her, as all the men had loved her, to the point of staring down Maul fearlessly for her not more than a week ago. She screamed, a long, heart-wrenching wail that shook the wreckage with the Force and pierced his heart until he was practically curled on the ground in their shared hurt. As lost as he was in it, he couldn’t begin to fathom what she was sensing now in the galaxy, her family, too, being slaughtered needlessly.

There was no way of knowing how long they stayed there, paralyzed in pain, but as it began to grow dark, Ahsoka stood shakily, dragging Jesse’s body with her. Rex crawled to his feet and joined her, and together, they picked up each of the men and carried them away from where they had died. His collection lost, he wasn’t sure how to even begin to commemorate them (the men they had been before now, at least), but they all deserved a proper burial, to be remembered like any other living being, instead of the expendable army they had been forced to become.

The process took days. They scavenged the ship for spare parts and bodies, burying each when they found them, Ahsoka whispering those pretty Jedi words about death as she placed their helmet over their final resting place. Rex figured it brought her peace to do so, and if it somehow brought those men peace beyond death, then who was he to stop her.

Having gathered all that they could, including all salvageable parts of R7, Rex waited by the ship to leave as Ahsoka said her final goodbyes, dropping one of her sabers at the sea of helmets she had laid out before her. He had found that he was no longer able to look at the grim scene. It made him sick to do so. But in his head, he muttered apologies to his lost brothers, and to those out in the galaxy that still remained enslaved.

Ahsoka approached him at last, her eyes clouded and lost now that she didn’t have a clear task set before her. Her fingers twitched, eager to get moving again and as far away from this place as possible. “Where to now?” he asked her.

“I’m not sure,” she murmured, her voice hoarse from the tears and the smoke. “I was hoping you might have some ideas.”

“I have one,” Rex admitted after a moment of thought.

“Lead the way,” she said, nodding. They loaded up the ship with all they had found and set off, neither able to look back.

Their destination was all the way in the outer rim, so they had to stop at least once for fuel. They stuck only to the shadier outposts where the Republic – the Empire now, they soon realized – wouldn’t find them. Not that anyone was looking. It was fairly safe to assume that most who even knew they existed were either dead or thought them to be dead.

They emerged from hyperspace over Saleucami just a few days later. Parts of the planet looked ravaged, remnants of some final battles that had recently taken place there, but there were no leftover Imperial forces in sight, and the area Rex was headed to still looked beautifully private and untouched. He brought them down at the edge of a tall field of crops, where the ship would be a hidden from wandering eyes, though he suspected that their entrance had not gone entirely unnoticed.

He and Ahsoka walked along a small trail in the field, her twitching and just barely inching towards her lightsaber at every tremble in the plants. He knew it wasn’t the breeze following them, and he cast a small smile into the leaves at every barely perceptible sound of footsteps. Surely, they would recognize him. He imagined it was impossible for them not to.

“Rex, where are we?” Ahsoka asked warily, her eyes darting around as she took in the unfamiliar surroundings. Ahsoka hadn’t gone with them on that mission to capture Grievous, so her confusion was understandable.

“We’re visiting a friend of mine,” he explained. “We should be able to lay low here for a little while. I just hope his offer to stay still stands.”

“I wasn’t aware you had friends outside of…” She trailed off, but he caught her meaning. He knew she hadn’t meant to reopen any fresh wounds, but he still winced. This would be a sore topic for a long, long time, or at least, however long they managed to stay alive.

“About that…” he began. He really should have warned her, but they were at the edge of the field before he knew it, two small figures bursting out of the crops ahead of them and running towards a simple homestead where their parents stood at the door, waiting.

“Daddy! Daddy!” the little boy called out enthusiastically.

“Rex is back!” cried his older sister.

Cut beamed at his children, then up at Rex and Ahsoka. “I can see that. What brings you back around these parts? More war?”

At the sight of Cut, another clone, he heard Ahsoka inhale sharply and step closer to him so that she remained partially hidden at his back. Rex reached behind him and grabbed her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Cut wouldn’t have been aware of the order, having deserted the army years ago, and even if he did, it wasn’t like he would be able to recognize Ahsoka as a Jedi unless she went around flashing her lightsabers recklessly.

“Trying to get away from it, actually,” Rex answered. “I was hoping you might be able to help us.”

Cut practically gaped at him in shock and disbelief, and Rex shifted uncomfortably. This was not a conversation either of them had ever expected to have. “Suu, go check and make sure that none of the Eopie have suddenly sprouted wings,” he joked, earning him a playful shove from his wife. “I never thought I’d see the day, Rex.”

Cut came closer to shake his hand, and Ahsoka stiffened at his side. “You’re welcome here anytime, of course.” He glanced down at Ahsoka, who was making herself as small as possible inside her cloak, and offered his hand out to her. “I’m afraid Rex here has forgotten his manners and failed to introduce us. I’m Cut. Cut Lawquane. And you are?”

At the name, she shifted, turning her eyes to Rex in a curious way that made him wonder how much of his mind she had really seen over the course of their meditation sessions. Whatever she knew or did not know, she suddenly seemed much more at ease, and she shook Cut’s hand. “Ahsoka,” she replied simply.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Cut’s eyes darted in between the two of them, and he raised an eyebrow at Rex that made his face feel suddenly warm. Cut was fond of making assumptions about him, but the worst part was that they were usually right, much like now. “Please, come inside and eat. You two look like you’ve been through hell.”

“You’re not too far from the truth,” Rex said, and something in his tone made Cut pause. His welcoming smile fell.

“I’ll have Suu send the kids off while we talk,” he said in a low voice.

The kids, of course, were not pleased with this arrangement, and they begged to be allowed to play with Rex again since it had been so long since they had seen them, but Suu gave them a long list of chores and told them that only after they were finished could they bother him. Once they were gone, Suu set the table before them, whispering, “They’ll be eavesdropping all day, just so you know.”

As they ate, Rex and Ahsoka launched into their tale, tiptoeing carefully around anything that might trigger Cut, as he and his wife sat and listened intently. “You probably ought to see a medical droid as soon as possible,” Rex told him, indicating the bacta patch still active on his own head. Turns out brain surgery took a while to fully heal from.

Cut nodded seriously. “I’ll head to the city first thing in the morning.”

“You poor dears,” Suu said, murmuring a hushed string of assurances in Twi’leki. “Come, Ahsoka, come with me. I’ll help you get cleaned up. Cut, you get Rex sorted out.”

Ahsoka glanced over to him, her grip on his hand tightening. She hadn’t let go since they had come in from the field and clearly wasn’t eager to be separated. He wanted to press a kiss to her forehead, to whisper that he would be just fine and that she should go and take just this moment to relax, but he still couldn’t help but feel a little awkward doing such a thing in front of one of his brothers. Instead, he nodded reassuringly, and Ahsoka allowed herself to be pulled away by Suu to some inner part of the house.

“Rex, I’m so sorry about everything. I don’t know what to say. If there’s anything else I can do…” Cut began.

Rex shook his head. “No. We’ve already mourned,” he said. “You were right after all. This whole war, everything we fought for, all along it was meaningless.”

Cut placed a hand on his shoulder. “But not to you. I’m glad you at least have someone to share the burden with. She seems…remarkable.”

Rex felt himself smile, however briefly. The action was strangely foreign to him after the past few days. “You don’t know the half of it.”

His brother stood, offering a hand to help him up. “Let’s get you all sorted out. We can set you two up in the barn again. It’s not much, but-”

“It’s plenty,” he assured him. “It’s all we could ask for after everything.”

Cut helped him get cleaned up and treated his other injuries, particularly his shoulder, which had taken a nasty bolt at one point in their escape. It was a relief to shed his armor, to borrow Cut’s simple clothes and be able to look at himself in the mirror and for once not see a soldier, or a failure of one. He waited outside the barn while Cut set up a place for them to sleep, watching the stars dot the sky as night fell over the farm. Ahsoka rejoined him then, and Suu sent the children off to bed, warning them that neither of their guests were to be bothered unless they were told.

They headed inside, the barn exactly as Rex had remembered it: not particularly nice, but cozy in a way. Their makeshift bed was hardly more than a few blankets and pillows atop some hastily pushed together benches, with the promise that they would be getting a proper mattress once Cut returned from town, but it was perfect after being unable to rest for so long. Rex wanted nothing more than to be able to drift off to sleep, but he found his mind still spinning.

Ahsoka must have felt the same way. She attempted to meditate, fending off the curious tongues of the Eopi, but whatever was waiting for her in the Force clearly only upset her, and she gave up. She crawled into bed beside him, folding herself against his body, and began to shake, letting out the last silent tears she had put off until now. Rex returned her embrace and cried too. There would be tomorrow to rest and move on, but for now, they were safe and together and allowed to be tired and angry and sad at the rest of the world.

They held each other tighter and tighter through the night, as though they could each somehow fill in and replace the shattered pieces missing from the other.

Ahsoka paced the hallway adjoining the docking bay where the Ghost had just landed. The crew had been tight-lipped so far on what had happened on their search for Rex, only saying that they needed to see her immediately. They would have told her if they had found him, right? Or if something had gone wrong?

Honestly, it was impossible to know with the Spectre cell. It might be why she liked them so much.

Maybe she should have gone with them. Would that have affected the outcome, though? And would it have been for the better or for the worse?

What if Rex wasn’t with them? It wouldn’t have surprised her, not after he either refused to answer her transmissions or just didn’t get them for several years. It would crush her, for sure, but she had a cause again, a mission to move towards, and they would endure.

And what if he was? What could she say to him after all these years? After what she had done?

The first handful of years after the fall of the Republic weren’t exactly happy (it felt like madness to use that word to describe them), but they weren’t all bad. After everything the two of them had lost, they still had each other, and that was enough. They stuck together and fought together just like they always had.

They hadn’t been able to stay at Cut’s forever, even though for a few weeks, it had been nice to live a simple farm life: herding the animals, selling the crops, looking after the children. It had grounded them both to be able to rest and put the past behind them, if only for a little while. But as always in life, they had to move forward. The Empire wouldn’t stay away from Saleucami forever, and while Cut and Rex might have been able to slide under their radar (as clones were quickly declared obsolete by the new Emperor and were then free to do as they wished), they would all be done for if Ahsoka was recognized.

They left after putting together enough food and supplies to survive in space for several weeks more if need be, but after a few days of travel, they stopped at yet another Outer Rim system, dropping out of hyperspace over a nameless moon that hosted a simple mining colony. The people there were tough and transient, mostly from backwater worlds like this one, all coming from across the galaxy to put in enough labor to earn some credits to their name before moving on to the next operation. It was a hard lifestyle where people were friendly enough but didn’t ask any questions, and she and Rex quickly adopted it.

They bounced from world to world, never staying for too long in case the Empire picked up on their trail. (She’d heard rumors of a Lord Vader hunting down the last of the Jedi, but she hadn’t actually been near the monster until recently.) Rex would join in on whatever work was going on in the small, out of the way towns they stayed in, be it mining or farming or hunting, and Ahsoka would pick up the odd mechanical job from their new neighbors. At night, they would regroup, dine together on whatever happened to pass for food in those parts, and meditate.

Well, sometimes they found other things to do besides meditate, but that’s what she told anyone who was nosy enough to ask.

It wasn’t always easy, and the pain of what they had endured never really went away, but they survived, and occasionally lived. The smallest of comforts became blessings. The peace of a rural town settling down for the night. The laughter from some overheard bit of gossip from one of the few friends they made along the way. The warmth of Rex’s arms around her, and the low vibrations of his voice sending shivers down her spine when he whispered that he loved her, and she whispered back.

Then, the Inquisitors happened. While the mysterious Lord Vader was a frequent topic of speculation, she found that no one liked to talk about the other Force Wielders working under him. As it turned out, few who came into contact with them survived to tell the tale, so Ahsoka was caught completely off-guard when they just so happened to land on the same moon as one hunting down a young Force Sensitive, only to pick up on her presence instead.

They had been relentless in chasing her down, even off-planet, and Ahsoka eventually had to face the fact that she had to kill them before they got to her. Rex by her side, they set a trap for the Inquisitor, luring them into a canyon where they would fight Ahsoka while Rex engineered an avalanche. Unfortunately, they were better trained in the Force than Ahsoka had anticipated, probably a former student of the Temple, though she couldn’t recognize their face through the mask nor their signature through the Dark Side.

As soon as Ahsoka signaled Rex to cue the explosion, the Inquisitor leapt out of the way, augmenting their physical strength and speed through the Force to jump between the falling rocks, climbing straight up to where Rex was hidden. He wasn’t completely defenseless, but blasterfire did very little against the unique spinning blades shielding the Inquisitor and carving at the walls of the cave as they approached Rex slowly, a predator cornering their prey. When they were close enough, they deflected a final bolt so that it rebounded straight into his thigh, forcing him to his knees. Another strike and the blaster in his hand was sliced in two and rendered useless.

Ahsoka remembered screaming as she lunged for the Inquisitor, everything lost to pain and the fear that she could lose Rex, hedging far too close to the Dark Side for her own comfort. But she could not let the Inquisitor make their final blow. They would not take the last family she had left.

The Inquisitor turned in surprise at her cry, bringing up their saber just in time to block hers again and again and again, fighting to hold her off as she wore them down. All that was left was for Rex to provide one last distraction to create an opening. He swung his leg at their ankles, and they stumbled back. Ahsoka’s blade was through their chest before they even hit the ground.

Ahsoka had helped him up then, helped him back to their lodging in the nearby town, but it seemed that she was shaking more than he was, her body and emotions spent. She patched him up, and they collapsed in exhaustion together, but in the morning, they fought. They had argued several times before now, but never like this.

“We need to split up,” she had insisted. “It’s too dangerous for me to be around you. The Inquisitors can sense me.”

Rex remained firm. “No. We’re in this together. We defeated them together.”

“This time!” she yelled. “But what about next time? And the time after that? I can’t lose you, Rex, and I can’t protect you from them!”

“I never asked you to! I have followed you into more battles than I can count. What’s one or two more?”

“And every time I was terrified that each one would be our last. We were lucky then, and we were lucky now. Others weren’t. People died, and they could just as easily have been us.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he screamed, and Ahsoka shrank back, realizing her error. “You think I don’t spend every night trying to remember their names and their faces and the things that they said? I realize how lucky we are, after everything we’ve lost, but I can’t let it be for nothing. As long as I have you, at least some part of all of this tragedy makes sense.”

Ahsoka hung her head, blinking back tears. “I know. I know, Rex, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Rex had walked over to her then and held her close, kissing the top of her montrals. “It’s alright. We were both scared. But you won’t get rid of me that easily, Kid.” The use of his pet name for her didn’t bring a smile to her face like it usually did, but she embraced him back anyway. Then, Rex headed off to work in the mines, as even an injury didn’t excuse a day off in those parts, leaving Ahsoka to ponder what to do next.

And what she had to do next couldn’t involve Rex.

She packed up what little she kept with her when they travelled between worlds before making arrangements to rent a ship from a nearby service. They would have it waiting for her that night. While it would have been too easy to disappear now while he was busy, she knew that he would track her down almost immediately, with or without the Force. Besides, she at least owed him a proper goodbye this time.

He returned in the evening, as usual, and they ate. Ahsoka wasn’t any good at cooking, but she had splurged a few extra credits to get a decent meal from a local vendor. Rex was wary, of course. They had only just fought that morning, and Ahsoka wasn’t always the best at letting go of grudges, or anything, really. She kept up a smiling mask to try and put him at ease and suggested they meditate, if anything to calm their minds and have a reasonable, rational discussion after dinner, one that would never happen.

They joined hands and chanted in unison, “I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.” She felt his mind open up to her without any hesitation, and she slipped in, synching not only their words, but their thoughts. She stopped the mantra, and he stopped with her, a question forming as to why, which she couldn’t let reach the surface if her plan was to work.

“You will let me leave this place and will not follow me,” she said firmly, pushing the words onto his will through the Force. He recoiled back instinctively but was unable to break the connection.

Rex shook his head, as if to shut her out of it, but she was too deep in to be dislodged so easily. “What? No!” he muttered, gritting his teeth against her influence.

“You will let me leave this place and will not follow me,” she repeated with more force.

His eyes were still shut in meditation, but tears streamed out from them. He gripped her hands like a vice, begging, “Ahsoka…please…”

Memories of Ventress that he hadn’t thought about in years came to the surface, and Ahsoka had to shove them away so as not to break her own will. She almost wavered, however, when he also remembered the blankness of the chip overtaking his mind, a nightmare she had felt through him over and over again. He fought her now like he had fought then, and like before, he was losing himself, losing his choice.

Ahsoka forced back a cry to keep her voice steady. “You will let me leave this place and will not follow me.”

“I…I will…” Rex sobbed, the last of his strength leaving him. “I will let you leave this place and will not follow you.” His hands finally fell away from hers, and he sat still, though his mind and heart remained in turmoil.

She leaned forward and kissed him one last time, and she caught a final flash of thought from Rex, his last plea for her to stay. It was something he had guarded in his heart all these years, a fantasy really, but now she saw it, the meadow in his mind. They held each other in this vision, standing under the stars of Naboo by a small, warm home, smiling like they hadn’t in a long, long time. At peace. Happy. Together.

The image was cracked now, much like the screen of his datapad after Umbara. Parts of it had been ripped away over the years. Anakin. Padme. And now Ahsoka tore herself out of it, leaving Rex standing alone in an empty field as the stars extinguished and the dream faded to black.

She pulled back, their mixed tears running down her face. Rex didn’t visibly react, and she shut out his thoughts before anything else could threaten to change her mind. It was too dangerous for them to remain together, and as long as he stayed alive, Ahsoka could convince herself that she had made the right choice. She had written down a frequency where he could contact her if need be, though it was scrambled and untraceable, and she left it on the ground in front of him for whenever he emerged from his trance.

She stood, gathered her things, and paused at the door. His eyes were open now, and even glazed over, she could see the hurt welling behind him. “I love you,” she said, but the words seemed like a hollow gesture after what she had done. Before he could come to his senses, Ahsoka left, vanishing into the depths of space.

It had been several months before he finally contacted her, the message having bounced through several channels just to reach her on the backwater world she had settled on for the time being. They exchanged several messages, most of them arguing and apologizing, and eventually the betrayal was left alone, even if it still stung. Last she had heard, he was seeking out more of his brothers who had removed their chips, and he was heading to the Seelos system in search of another one.

Then, his transmissions had stopped coming. It was worrying, and Ahsoka had tried to bury her worst fears in her work with the Rebellion and in optimistic thoughts. Perhaps he simply had no reception on that middle of nowhere planet. Perhaps he had been successful. Perhaps he was able to track down what was left of his family, and he no longer needed her.

That last explanation hurt, but it was bearable.

She could understand if he no longer wanted to see her again. She certainly couldn’t blame him. Still, a part of her continued to hope that maybe when she turned around, he would be there waiting for her.

She finally did turn to face the Ghost crew, her eyes scanning over every one of their familiar faces, searching for yet another one, but he was nowhere in sight. They must have found him and gotten something from him, she rationalized, or else they wouldn’t have asked to see her. She steeled her expression into that of the wise Rebellion leader, of Fulcrum, ready to receive their new intel.

Then, they parted, revealing a new member, and Ahsoka stopped breathing.

He was no longer the strapping, young soldier she had fought beside – the fit of his old, worn out armor more than proved that – but underneath the deep age lines, the sun weathered skin, and the snow white beard, she recognized him. She knew the way he carried himself, the way his mouth quirked upwards when he saw her, the way his eyes still held affection for her even after all this time, after everything she had done. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, her Rex.

“Commander,” Rex greeted playfully, his voice a bit gruffer than she recalled. She remembered to breathe then, and she walked forward to meet him. She still had to look up to meet his eyes, which didn’t seem fair at all now that her montrals towered over his head. “You got old,” he remarked, as if this were just one of their many banters of old times.

She felt herself slip into the habit, too. “Had to happen sometime, Rex.”

Ahsoka started forward, wanting nothing more to hold him and be held by him once again, but she hesitated. Was it really okay? But then she spotted him making the same halting motion, and unable to contain herself any longer, she threw herself at him, wrapping his arms around his neck.

He stumbled back a bit, but she only clung to him tighter, never wanting this moment to end, never wanting to let go ever again. She felt his arms pull her in closer as he whispered, “I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“You too,” she replied, pulling back just so she could take in his face again. She’d missed him so much that it hurt, and now that he was here beside her again, she almost couldn’t believe it was real, that she deserved such a blessing. She wanted to commit every detail of his expression to memory in case this was just another wishful dream that she was due to wake up from any minute now.

Rex stepped back, wisely acknowledging that they had an audience. “Well, I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for these guys.” He gestured to the crew of the Ghost, Ezra beaming at her proudly from the front of the pack. It figured that he would immediately attach himself to Rex. Kanan, on the other hand…

“Thank you,” she said to him, “for trusting my friend.”

Kanan scoffed. “It wasn’t easy.” Ahsoka didn’t miss Rex’s sideways glance at that. Order Sixty-six had left its scars on all of them, and there was always more work to be done when healing from it. “It’s still not,” he admitted, also looking away.

“Nothing worth doing ever is,” she assured him.

They started down the hall in the direction of the bridge, Kanan wishing to debrief her immediately on what had happened, but as they passed by Ahsoka’s quarters, Hera took note of how Ahsoka had started to cling to Rex’s hand, reluctant to stop touching him for any amount of time. She urged Kanan (Her friend? Lover? Husband? Ahsoka hadn’t quite figured it out yet.) to take a moment to unwind from their mission before they went over the details, and together they herded the curious younger two away, Zeb and Chopper needing no further push to run off and relax. Ahsoka shot the woman a grateful look before she and Rex ducked into her small room.

She embraced him again once they were alone, and finally, the tears rushed forward. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, and she repeated it over and over. Rex, for his part, wept with her, but ran a soothing hand down her lekku and her back, trying to tell her that it was alright, that he was here. “But it’s not! I keep asking you to stay, but then I’m the one who keeps leaving. What I did…it was unforgiveable, after everything you’d been through with me…”

“But I do forgive you,” he assured her. “It took a while, sure, but we all make mistakes, Kid. There’s no changing what happened, but I’m here now.”

“Shut up,” she cried, headbutting his shoulder softly since her arms were too busy clutching at his armor to punch him. “I’m older than you.”

“You aged a lot better than me, too, that’s for sure,” he chuckled.

She leaned back just enough to caress his cheek with one hand, running her eyes over his aged face. “Nah, still as handsome as ever,” she told him, pressing her forehead to his. “I was scared you were still mad at me. You had every right to be, and then you stopped answering my transmissions.”

“That would be Wolffe’s doing,” he explained. “He was worried that my love for you would drag us back into another war or something stupid like that.”

“And yet, here you are,” she pointed out.

“Here I am,” he acknowledged. “Not going anywhere. You can’t get rid of me that easily, and I mean it this time.” There was a not-so-subtle threat behind those words, and Ahsoka flinched, but only a little. It was better than what she deserved.

“Neither am I,” she promised. Then grinning, she asked, “You love me?”

“Of course, but you knew that already,” he answered, rolling his eyes.

“I do.”

She pressed a kiss to his cheek, but before they could do or say anything else, there was a loud knocking at the door. She sensed who it was even before he started begging her and Rex to come out and tell him some more exciting Jedi tales that the ever-serious Kanan never really shared. “Ezra,” she sighed. He must have slipped away from Hera at some point.

“Back to babysitting a Jedi youngling, it seems,” Rex remarked teasingly.

“Well, you would be an expert on that, right Rexy?” She winked at him, barely containing her laughter as he went a little red in the face. There would be plenty of time to embarrass him later, she realized, and to talk to him and laugh with him and hold him and love him for however long they continued to stay alive.

Hand in hand, they headed out together.