Chapter Text
Rex had very strong feelings about General Yoda.
If it was off the record and he couldn't be sent to reconditioning on account of mutiny- he would probably say that, if given the chance, he would very much like to kick the little troll in his wrinkly, green face.
It was nothing personal.
No, wait... On reevaluating the meaning of the word 'personal', this was definitely personal. Rex had a visceral, personal vendetta against the leader of the Jedi.
...Not for his own sake.
It was personal, yes. But not about him personally- was he overusing that word? No, no. He wasn't, it was fine.
But... He was getting off track. Rex's issue with General Yoda had to do with his Jetiise.
The problem was this: Rex's General did not want a Padawan. From his understanding, the man had not taken one on for just over two decades. He was uncertain of why, only that was the way that things were. Frankly, he didn't care why. Rex didn't care much about his General at all. He used to. At the very start of the war. When he'd been naive, and the General had still seemed like a good person. When he was younger- no, not younger, not really, it had only been a few months but nothing was the same anymore-
Whatever. It didn't matter.
The bigger problem was this: General Yoda was an evil, conniving little womp-rat. General Jinn did not want a Padawan, and Yoda decided to use the war as an excuse to say that he didn't have a choice in the matter and now they were all suffering for it.
So, for Ahsoka's sake, Rex was furious with General Yoda. As a Jetii, his little Commander wasn't allowed to hate much of anything, but that was alright. Rex had plenty of anger kicking around in there to cover the both of them.
Don't get him wrong, it wasn't that Rex didn't want Ahsoka to be assigned as his CO- he did. She was a good kid, really.
It was just that he felt bad for her.
He'd watched the way the other Generals acted with their own Padawans on the very, very rare occasions that the 501st and 212th had crossed paths with other battalions. Rex had hidden curious glances in the broad visor of his helmet, and he'd observed.
There was General Billaba with Commander Dume from the 181st- and she was sure to check on him throughout a fight, and she ran worried hands over him after one to look for injuries, and leaned in to wrap him into a tight, teary hug whenever she didn't find any. It really wasn't any wonder, though- Billaba was General Windu's former Padawan, and for all that the High General commanded distance, he was someone firmly grounded in the idea of doing what was right. He must have passed that on.
There was General Tapal with Commander Kestis from the 13th- and he would always be sure that his Padawan was never far from his side when the blaster bolts started flying, and he trained him with a steady hand when they weren't, and he would offer gentle praises and calm corrections all the while. Rex had only met him once, and he wasn't supposed to, at that. But he seemed to be a decent sort of person.
Even with General Unduli and Commander Offee, as distant as their relationship was- she would clap a hand on the girl's shoulder after a battle, and she'd sit with her for meditation, and, once, Rex had caught her standing silent vigil by her bedside- when the girl was far too gone in her injuries and the sedatives she'd been given to even know that her master was there.
And General Unduli- she was the one who'd tracked down Rex's General to have a talk with him about Ahsoka. That was the reason why the 501st and 212th had since been unofficially isolated. She'd nearly ended the Padawanship, then and there.
It really showed the truth of the matter. A Master loved and protected their Padawan as if they were their own blood. Their own child. The training bond was sacred- something written in the history of the Jetiise across generations.
That sort of bond between Master and Apprentice... It was... Not like that with Rex's Jetiise.
From his understanding, a Jetii's lineage- them, and their Master, and their Padawan, all the way down and up the line- was a family. The Jetiise had cut themselves off from their blood relatives, so they sought connection there. It was an unconventional sort of family, sure, but Rex could understand it without any issue. He, after all, had several million brothers to keep track of, and that was hardly a normal family by natborn standards, either.
But... That was the thing. If a Jetii's lineage was their family, then General Jinn was a father who had never wanted a child. Nor was he the type who could force himself to pretend otherwise.
And, so, all Rex could do was watch in quiet anger and pity and sadness as his alverd'ika struggled to keep up with the other Padawan-Commanders her age, unfamiliar with their Force tricks and 'saber moves as she was. He listened to her cry as she failed to release her fear and pain because she didn't know how. He kept her company when she mediated, alone, on a mat in the Resolute's training room.
He wished that she had a Master who would watch out for her. He wished that General Yoda would give up and leave well enough alone.
He wished that he could do more for her, but he was only one clone. Not even a Commander, let alone a CC unit. None of them held any power- and, of the few that had something- Fox and Cody came to mind- he was certainly not one of them.
Rex did a lot of wishing- but there wasn't anything that he could do. There was nothing that he could change.
...Well, at least there was one area where she had a leg up on the other Jetiise. One thing that he could help her with.
Rex kept one hand on Ahsoka's shoulder and the other on her back, crouched low enough that he could murmur advice into her montrals and make small corrections if need be. More importantly- he was tucked behind her because he wasn't an idiot and he didn't want to die.
Her blaster skills really were improving.
Even if the only models that they had on hand weren't meant for smaller hands with a Togruta's vestigial claws, she was good at it. She'd found some way past triggers that stretched too far away for comfort and grips so narrow that the tips of her nails scratched at her palms.
This time, when the practice bolt shot true and struck the center of the target, Rex could only feel proud.
If there was one good thing to come out of Ahsoka's disconnect with her people and her reliance on the 501st, it was that they had infected her with the disease known as common fucking sense.
Rex was pretty sure that the first time she'd asked their quartermaster- Fritz- about Jedi Commander armor, the poor vod had wept.
Most Jetiise were stubborn about that sort of thing. A lot of them wore none, like their own General, who complained that it got in the way of his fighting style. Some wore bits and pieces. Very, very few agreed to wear the full set, paltry as it was already. He'd give some allowance to General Plo Koon, though. He was pretty sure that he'd forgone the gorget because of anatomy more than stupidity and he couldn't begrudge him that. He'd been decent to Ahsoka, too. Or, at least she spoke of him fondly- words soaked in regret and grief born of separation rather than death or disgrace.
It certainly gave him less to worry about. Even if Jetiise armor didn't come with a helmet or a proper breastplate, it was still something. His Commander was a reckless little brat, and knowing she had something to protect her- just a little bit, well, that was just good for his blood pressure.
Whatever the armor was supposed to do, it wasn't enough, evidently, considering that he'd left his Jetiise alone for five fucking days and his General was half-having a panic attack in the hallway outside the medbay.
The General generally did not interact with his Padawan much. Hauling her skinny ass to the medbay, letting her sink her claws into his forearm while Kix picked shrapnel out of her back, doing his paperwork in an uncomfortable visitor's chair when she slept on through the glorious haze of painkillers- that was Rex's job, most of the time. Or one of the ARCs, if he was too busy- they were almost as close with her as he was.
Not the General. He couldn't even remember the last time his two Jetiise had a full conversation. There was a reason why Ahsoka was unofficially-assigned to the 501st and the General spent most of his time with the 212th, even though they were technically COs of both. Some consequence of a mathematical error early in the war that had played out disastrously.
But, all the same, there he was. General Jinn clutched his head and muttered to himself, pacing himself sick outside of the 501st's medbay.
Rex gave him a long look, but when the General didn't acknowledge him, he stepped past him and scooted himself into the medbay. The beds were mostly empty, only two were occupied. One, in the corner, by a shiny, who- if Rex recalled correctly- had gotten his arm cut open in an accident trying to modify his helmet. And, sitting upright in the first bed by the door, was Ahsoka.
She, frankly, looked like shit- like someone had run her over with a speeder, perhaps several times- but Rex had seen her at ten times worse, ten times over. It was hardly anything that he could ever imagine the General getting so upset over. She seemed to be fine. Alert, answering Kix's questions, in one piece- it was more than Rex could ask for, if he was being honest. Ahsoka was exhuasting.
"Rex!" Ahsoka noticed him first. Whether it was with the Force, or from her sharper senses, he didn't know. It was hard to tell the difference, most of the time- the two tended to blend together, and Rex had neither, so he had no way of knowing where one ended and the other began. She gave him a tired smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Am I allowed to sit in, Kix?" Rex pulled off his helmet and tucked it under his arm. The medic paused from glaring down at a datapad and looked... Relieved?
"So long as you don't get my patient worked up." Kix set the tablet down on a table a bit too hard. "It's just a physical, General's orders."
"He looked pretty... Messed up, out there." Rex pulled a chair over to Ahsoka's bedside. He extended a forearm for her to grasp- his usual way of helping her calm down in the medbay- but she paused halfway- tense.
Ahsoka let out a small, rumbling growl of discomfort from somewhere deep in her throat and chest.
"...Something happened, when we were on our way back from the retreat. I can't- I don't remember any of it. But it was... Strange. I got the impression I might've been knocked unconscious? I remember... Waking up somewhere other than the ship." She shuddered and prodded at the place where the IV drip went into her arm. "He probably got spooked, or something. Like I said, I don't remember it. You'd have to ask him."
"I'll talk to him later." Rex shrugged and cuffed her on the shoulder. She gave him another toothy little half-smile. It still didn't reach her eyes- those were wide and watery with confusion, disorientation, and pain.
...Maybe he would ask the General about it, later. When the man had calmed down a little. He'd seen his General stare death straight in the kriffing face- back before Ahsoka was sent to them and the battalions split and he hadn't spoken to Cody since- he was getting off track... Anyway, he'd never, never seen him crack... and he was practically having a full-blown mental breakdown out there- all over a Padawan that he didn't want.
Rex never got around to that, though. He'd live to regret it. Many years later- he'd wonder if things could have been different, if he'd just gotten over himself and talked to the man who he hated.
Over the year she'd spent with them, it seemed that Ahsoka gradually became more... Comfortable. In her nature.
His alverd'ika wasn't human, simple as that. She was a Togruta. She had needs and characteristics and aspects of her biology that were completely alien to him. Pun unintended. Rex could distinctly remember her first month on standard rations- how she'd been faint and weak and sickly, long enough for Kix to get concerned- before her body adjusted into what Rex really, really hoped wasn't some form of carnivorous starvation mode. Even now, whenever she was on leave or there was a break in the fighting, she'd slip away from the men to go find herself something real to eat. Something that had the protein and fats and iron that she needed to stay healthy.
That was only one half of it, though. Ahsoka's kind ate meat, exclusively, and they were apex predators. That meant that they had to be different from humans in order to thrive. There was more to it than montrals and lekku- the parts of her that nobody could miss.
He'd known that Ahsoka had claws and fangs, just from proximity and the fact that the vode were programmed to be observant. He knew that her internal organs were different because of the xenobiology textbook he'd pilfered for Kix from the Jetiise the first the time that they'd been on Coruscant after they'd gotten her. Her rib cage was more cartilage than bone, sacrificing protection for flexibility- and it shielded larger lungs and a larger heart. She had multiple stomachs and no intestines. Her liver and kidneys were bigger. She had no appendix or pancreas. She also had a very different reproductive system, but Rex had only read the summary of that chapter. He barely understood human reproduction, and it wasn't like he needed to know. He'd had a lot of Talks with Ahsoka about safety and health and responsibility- but he'd gladly leave that one to Kix.
He had only really skimmed the book, though, before he passed it off to the medics. So some things came as a surprise.
Vocalizations, mostly.
The first time he'd heard Ahsoka hiss, she'd been sparring with Echo and he'd had a brief moment of panic that a pipe had burst and was releasing deadly gas into the ship before he realized where the sound was coming from. The first time she'd growled in front of him was much less dramatic. They'd been at some kind of bullshit conference on some Mid Rim shithole and someone had made a comment that, even with a vod's sharper senses, he couldn't hear, but Ahsoka had- and her previously friendly grip on his shoulder had tightened to near-pain as she growled into his ear, restraining herself from lashing out at the crowd. She did plenty of both, nowadays. Snarled too. There were plenty of opportunities for angry sounds on a battlefield.
Hearing her purr, though. That was a start. He knew that Togrutas were a highly social species, and she likely would've grown up cuddled up to her family and friends, if she wasn't a Jetii. Purring, from Rex's rather subpar understanding of it, was a way of communicating contentment and comfort but only in the presence of the people who they, well and truly, unconsciously- instinctively, even- regarded as their family.
So, when Ahsoka was asleep, pressed up against his side, and he started to feel more than hear her rumble- well that was a shock.
They'd just come off of a fight and were in hyperspace, on their way to a rendezvous point for resupply. Ahsoka was starting to crash after her adrenaline wore off. She was a bit like a baby, honestly, in the way that it was nigh impossible to get her to sleep, so it had become an unspoken rule of the 501st not to wake her unless necessary and Rex wasn't about to break it.
That's how he ended up where he was, going cross-eyed at the reports in his hands, pinned in place by a tired teenager.
Such was life.
And then she'd started to purr.
Rex could've easily mistaken it for the trembling of a ship in take-off, if they weren't in hyperspace. And if it wasn't irregular- up and down with short breaks in between, a ship would've been steady. And-
Well. It was something.
Rex peered down at his Commander, tucked securely against his side, her head pillowed against his shoulder. She was tiny, really. It was easy to forget it, sometimes, with how eagerly she'd launch herself at droids and Seppies, her green 'saber twirling through the air. But that was just it. Ahsoka was newly fifteen, and that meant that she was just barely seven-and-a-half by vod standards, and Rex didn't know much about natborns and their development but he was pretty sure that they weren't supposed to be that small.
And they sure as the fucking Sith Hells weren't supposed to be on a battlefield. Let alone without the person supposed to protect them. He knew that much, at least. Rex didn't know a lot about natborn society- but he knew that.
...It wasn't like there was much he could do about it, though.
All he could do, for now, was hold his alverd'ika against his side and beg the ka'ra and the Force and whoever- whatever- else was willing to listen that she would survive long enough to grow up.
Rex knew that it couldn't last. Something had to break.
You couldn't just dump a child on a battlefield and expect them to thrive. You couldn't cut them off from the support that their peers got and have them come out fine on the other side. Even if there hadn't been a war- it never could've been good for her.
Something had to break. Rex had hoped that it would be the General's resolve, or Yoda's stubbornness. That General Jinn would finally accept her and the battalions would be together again- and he did miss Cody, he'd love Ahsoka and she'd love him. Either that, or Yoda would give up- and Rex might never see her again, but he could rest easy knowing that she was safe with General Plo Koon and Wolffe.
Something had to break, and it was Ahsoka.
There was a planet and a battle, and- as was customary, at this point- the 501st and the 212th were neatly divided in their duties. This time, the ground invasion was their job, and Cody and his brothers handled aerial combat.
This would've been fine. It should've been. They'd done this hundreds of times, easily. The 501st was used to having a General only officially. Ahsoka was used to not having a Master to watch her back.
This time, though, there was a Sith on the field.
There was not supposed to be. Whenever there were reports of Dooku or Ventress, it was the 501st who shot through the smoky sky while the 212th trudged through the mud. That was the one line that General Jinn seemed incapable of crossing.
But Intel had failed them- because there was a Sith on the field, Force-damning shit. The air was filled with kicked up dust, enough that he couldn't make out the details, but that didn't block the special kind of agonized scream a brother let out when he was cut down by a lightsaber. And, even through it, he could see the glow of a single, blood-red blade slicing through the air and brothers alike without prejudice. One 'saber. Dooku, then.
Rex didn't know which would have been worse. He'd heard that Ventress was more sadistic- but Dooku- he was cold. He didn't like to play with his food, unlike his Apprentice. If you had to face Ventress, she would make you suffer, but you might make it out alive. With Dooku, you'd never stand a chance.
The 501st had never faced a Sith before. One was never allowed within reach of Ahsoka. And, since the 501st was Ahsoka's legion, where she went, they followed.
To put it simply, they had no idea what to do and they were beyond kriffed.
During his training, it had always been assumed that if there was a Sith on the battlefield that the Jetii would handle it. But what were they supposed to do when all they had was a mostly-untrained Padawan? Sharper with the blaster Rex had taught her how to use than the green 'saber she clutched in one trembling, white-knuckled hand? What was she meant to do about a Sith?
Not just any Sith. A Master of his Order, a former Master of the Jedi Order. The leader of the Separatists.
It wasn't like they had any other choice but to retreat. They, at least, had a good place for it. The entire planet was made up of rocks and crags- so they took a cliff overlooking a veritable sea of stones jutting up high into the air like rows of teeth. That way, the droids couldn't surround them. That way, they could only approach the fleeing troops on one side. It made it easy to provide covering fire.
The transports barely even touched the ground before they were fully boarded and taking off again. Some of them didn't even get that far, vode hopping up and stepping back to make more room for the next passenger, sending down a rain of blaster bolts onto whoever tried to pursue them.
That, of course, didn't work for all of their enemies.
Rex had always been grateful for the way that Ahsoka could fend off blasts with her lightsaber. He was decidedly less grateful when a shiny died right next to him from a reflected shot that came from one of his own vode's blasters.
His Commander stiffened next to him, her pale eyes blown wide with fear as she peered down at the Sith below. Dooku was close- too close. Rex couldn't see his face, but he could see his silhouette, and with the dust he couldn't even make out the nose of the gunship. That meant that he was nearly on top of them. They had to take off now or they'd all-
Ahsoka leapt off of the transport.
"Commander!" Rex's tone was more like an order than anything else, despite the girl technically being higher in rank than him. To anyone familiar with picking out emotions from the vocoders that quashed them, there was an undercurrent of horror, so maybe he'd just forgotten himself. "Get back here, now!"
She didn't respond, like she couldn't even hear him, instead slamming her lightsaber down against the Sith's with a snarl, a shower of green and red sparks illuminating their faces in the dust. Only briefly- and then they were out of range, and Rex could barely see them at all.
That was the problem with his Commander, really. Ahsoka was reckless, especially when it came to trying to protect her troopers. This led to the current problem- she struggled in sparring matches with her peers, and she was trying to fight a Sith Lord.
Everything happened too quickly for Rex to track it, Jedi-quick. The dust in the air didn't help either. All he could see was the flash of lights moving the slightest bit to the side, then the red one pushing, and then all he could hear was Ahsoka's shriek as she fell down, down, down.
The battle ended with a Separatist retreat, thanks to the 212th, and, when the vode took the time to assess the wounded and tally the dead, Rex, armed with a lamp attached to his helmet and a jetpack, went down into the field of rocks alone.
He'd been fighting for too long, maybe that was it. Maybe Kamino had made him well aware of the fact that a clone could never have something nice for long. Either way, he knew what he'd find.
One of the columns- or was it a stalagmite? It didn't matter, not now. Rex didn't know if anything would ever matter again- was painted a shining red. There was no sign of a body, but Rex was prepared for that possibility.
There had never been any bodies for his batchmates, either. They had been incinerated- having nothing to bury didn't make them any less dead. Ahsoka was the same way. He didn't feel surprise, he didn't feel disbelief. That had always been his life, after all. Rex lost, and lost, and lost again- he never, ever got to keep someone who he loved.
That didn't stop him, though, when he finally took the cracked little lightsaber into his hand- stained in blood a brighter red than a human's- from removing his helmet and weeping.