Chapter Text
Boots sink into sucking black mud, making each step a journey unto itself, but ahead there is a white falling sun that blazes, burning the bare skin on Cody’s face and searing away anything from his attention that is not itself.
He cannot look away from the purpling sky and the reddening air. The tall grasses around him ripple with hot wind. Their stalks plummet and rise with heavy, rustling heads. They sound like a distant ocean. A golden ocean that grows ever more bleached the closer it gets to the sun.
Cody cannot stop taking sucking steps towards that glory. Even as his eyes fill with tears from the flecks of dust and dried husks the wind throws into his warming face. He can feel the liquid balancing on the edges of his eyelids.
A huge gust of wind hurtles straight into his chest while ahead, indeterminately far and close, a shadowed figure stands as thought to battle the sun itself.
Cody’s mouth opens in a wordless cry.
The wind steals it.
The figure raises a thread of blue against the goring, white beast before him. Cody doesn’t see it drop, however. Between blinks, the whole shadowed figure vanishes, blue thread and all.
He doesn’t feel anything but heat on his cheeks, his eyes, his nose, but the vibrations in his chest and the streaks of pain that erupt in his throat tell him that he is making a sound.
The wind explodes around him and wrenches his helmet from his hand.
Cody’s hands hang between his legs. The light from the setting sun has scorched the nerves beyond his skull, leaving behind a hiss that feels like an untuned radio. He can see the tips of his black gloves twitching but only with clarity for a few moments at a time. They blur out of focus just as often. His neck is the only point holding him up.
He could collapse any moment now and no one would care; it wouldn’t matter, he wouldn’t care, and he wouldn’t matter and nothing would.
Why should it?
What reason is there to go on when the last guiding light has been consumed by another?
“Commander,” a voice says, full to the brim of sympathy.
Cody’s lips want to smile. To smile. Imagine that.
Armor clacks against itself and the floor, but Cody’s head is to heavy to lift. His hands stay in focus as he smiles to them.
Pressure lands on his shoulders and he almost laughs.
“Sir, I am so sorry,” someone says.
Cody traps the terrible thing knocking against the inside of his teeth with his lips. He purses them and breathes in deep and steady. His hands. His gloves. They could have melted together into one. The difference is so fractional it cannot support its own meaning.
The pressure removes itself and an impact replaces it, right on Cody’s shoulder.
“I’m gonna get you someone,” the voice says. “You stay here, Commander.”
Cody wants to ask if he was ever meant to move. His boots are sinking into this floor, into these panels, just like the mud. The mud that is dragging the burning limbs of the guiding light into its embrace. Squelching and quenching the last lights. The last breaths. It clambers into the nostrils and the mouth, rushing forth with desperation. Perhaps it seeks protection from the terrible sun inside the general’s body.
It has no conscience.
There is only greed. Misery given a moment of escape.
What use do the dying have for their lungs?
“Cody. Cody, look at me.”
What use is any of it at all?
“Cody. Ori’vod. Please. It’s Rex. Look at me. Look at me. Stop this. This isn’t you, ori’vod.”
Another throat is closing.
It has begun to rain.
“Cody. Cody. KOTE.”
“Let him go, Captain.”
“Rex, you’re hurting him.”
Cody’s head is too heavy to lift, but there are hands now holding the front of his armor. They have dragged his legs up to straight. They are shaking him. It. Him.
“Kote. Kote, ori’vod, listen to me. I’m talking to you. Answer me.”
“Woah, hey, hey, hey. What’s going on here?”
The world buckles and all those forces keeping Cody upright are dragged away, forcing him to land on tingling feet.
He blinks and comes aware of a group of brothers, all wearing the same faces, all looking at him with them. Twisted brows, spilling hollows. Blue and yellow and white.
One steps into greater, closer focus than the others.
“Commander,” the blue medic says, “Come on, let’s get you somewhere safe.”
The screams come on like a wave thawed from its peak. They crash down in a slam of force that wrenches the air from Cody’s chest and replaces it with fragments of bone and a nothingness so painful it does not bear naming.
Nothingness floods his brain as those screams come on, but only moments after the muscles in his throat begin stripping themselves, weight piles upon him. Shushing in every ear. Murmurs. Hands trying to pry through his own to get to his face, hands in his hair, hands on his shoulders and chest and pinning weight on his hips. He bucks and his throat burns like that terrible fucking sun.
That murdering fucking sun.
What madness it is to want to rip the life from the unbleeding heart of an object. A thing. Murderous without the decency of being capable of dying itself.
“Kote, I’ve got you,” Wolffe’s voice says far too close, nearly melding with his own and thick with rain and thunder. “Please stop. Please.”
There is no stopping. Cody cannot feel anything but numbness. It will pass, and it does. And he wakes in the morning to Bly and Wolffe bracketing his chest and back, fit into his bunk like they are all children. Bly’s hair tickles his eyes.
Wolffe’s hand lifts and smooths itself over the side of Cody’s own hair.
“Go back to sleep,” he says.
Cody wishes he could, but his throat has begun to ache and narrow with each and every breath.
“I’m so sorry, Kote,” Wolffe whispers into his neck. “I’m so sorry.”
Cody hears himself sniff. Feels himself doing it after days now of floating. It makes it all worse. Every pain, every constriction in his throat, in his chest, in the nerves at the small of his back, grows stronger.
“He’s gone,” he breathes.
“Go back to sleep,” Wolffe says. There’s a fracture in his voice. Cody’s eyes are streaming and warm, tears slipping down to drag a path along the side of his face, where skin meets the rough fabric of a pillow. Or an arm. Cody can’t tell.
“He’s gone,” he repeats.
Bly’s eyes flicker in his sleep. Cody tries to quiet himself; grief bows his back anyways. Wolffe’s chest inflates to fill the space behind him.
“C’mere,” he says, and moves back so that Cody can turn around and press his wet face against his shoulder and chest. “Yeah,” Wolffe says, “He’s gone, vod. He’s gone.”
The crystal cracks.
Cody lets it shatter.
The general’s body has been cleaned of mud when Cody is finally allowed to see it. It is not the general. It is not Kenobi. Its skin is too sleek and waxy, its chin is lowered and its lips are too gray for it to be a living being.
It is a toy. A prop. Cody looks upon it while General Skywalker coughs throaty, undulating sobs into his elbow and feels...nothing.
Cody feels nothing once again.
“Obi-Wan,” Skywalker moans, muffled by wool. “Obi-Wan.”
He is surrounded by jedi who grasp uselessly for his elbows and cannot meet each other’s eyes. From among them, General Koon comes forward and wraps the man—the boy—into his arms, and then into his chest the way that Wolffe and Bly held Cody two days ago.
The General curls his fingers around Skywalker’s head, guiding it into the crook of his neck.
“He is one with the Force now, young one,” he says. “He will forever be with you, Anakin.”
Skywalker cannot speak through his grief; he can only moan and choke. General Koon strokes his hair time and time again. Cody turns his sore eyes from that miserable scene back to the prop in its temporary box.
It is the jedi custom to cremate. The toy and its packaging will be set ablaze.
Cody’s lips stiffen as he takes in the layers and layers of robes the body of this thing has been dressed in. The robes are tied in the opposite manner than it usually is. Around one waxy wrist is a woven cord, upon which a small gauzy pouch has been hung. There is a shape inside the bag—a sort of dark, triangular lump.
This, Skywalker came here to bring. Cody feels a curl of suspicion towards it. What follows is an impulse—a terrible, shameful impulse—to take it. Steal it. To get it away from those hands. To save it from the flames that will consume the doll, the box, the wrongly tied robes.
Cody is sick at himself and the sudden pounding in his ears.
There are only seconds. The jedi are breaking apart. They’ll look at him.
They’ll see him.
Fuck, goddamnit, and all the shit in-between. He’ll be guilty about this from now to forever, but if he doesn’t do it then he’ll die in regret.
He reaches into the box to feign stroking the backs of two fingers down his cold general’s cheek. His trails his fingers down the shoulder, down the arm. He’s sweating. His fingers brush the bag; it has been loosely and clumsily made out of a scrap of threadbare material that frays at each touch. Skywalker’s devastated fingers could barely make the stitches meant to hold it together.
The triangle inside the bag slips right of the corner with the barest of pressure and Cody slips the cold, smooth thing into the sleeve of his formal greys while blinking rapidly to make his eyes water. He tears his hand away and touches them just as he feels weight approaching him.
General Windu’s hand grasps his shoulder with care.
“Commander,” he says. “I am sorry for your loss.”
Cody lets a stray tear fall.
“Sir,” he creaks quietly.
“Obi-Wan trusted you more than anyone,” General Windu murmurs. “It is not your fault that he left you behind him.”
“Yes, sir,” Cody says as another tear slips its bounds. “I will—” he clears his throat, “I will prepare for the new General, sir.”
“No, please. Take time, Commander.”
He won’t.
“I will, sir. Thank you for your kindness.”
General Windu’s gaze bores into his spine as he walks away from the casket.
There are next to no places to be alone in this world, on this planet, during this war. There is only one that Cody knows for sure is now unoccupied. It is sacrilege for anyone else to enter it.
He locks the door behind him and throws his gaze around Kenobi’s personal quarters. It has been left in the same state it was before he was cut down. The mattress’s covers are wrinkled around a now-departed depression. Several books are piled at all angles on the cramped ledge by the mattress. The General’s saber lays on the pillow where Skywalker left it, unable to bear holding it in his own hands any longer.
Cody can smell the General here. He can practically taste him, but all of that serves to do is drive him to sink his fingers into the covers and rip them from their mattress.
He shoves the mattress away from the wall. Digs behind it with a penlight in hand, searching the creases of the wall there and finding only dust and stray hairs.
Nothing.
He throws the mattress back and opens the nearest drawer, then the next and the next. Inside there are tools and scraps of paper and rolling, lolling transceivers. The General’s personal datapad has been abandoned on the miniature table amid a stack of others and physical documents and files and maps. A projection of the sun that killed him and the planet that tried to consume him hovers over the table’s edge. Cody picks up the first datapad and inputs every combination of numbers and letters he can think of until he lands on Kenobi’s seventh preferred passcode. It unlocks the pad and shows him the parameters for the last mission. He closes that screen and goes through each of the tabs, scrolling up, to the side, down. He moves on to opening each messaging app; he goes through his mental catalogue of passwords so many times that the figures begin blending together.
It grows to be too much and fruitless, so he dumps the pad on the mattress and picks up the next one.
Then the next.
And the goddamn next and then the projection and then—
He slams his fists against the table and breathes through his teeth. His pulse throbs in his throat, just making everything that is already fucking terrible and aggravating even worse. He hurls himself around towards the stack of books.
His feet take him to tower over it.
“You’re a fool,” he snarls. “A liar. A coward. How dare you. You would not die like this. I won’t let you. I won’t let you. If you are dead, then so I am, Obi-Wan Kenobi. And I. Am. Not. Dead.”
A clatter.
His head snaps down to follow the sound and there, on the floor below his hand, is a little triangle. He frowns and stoops into a crouch. The triangle is rounded on its corners and smooth when he takes it up between two fingers to hold in front of his face.
It shines in the stale lighting—a black stone with other grey minerals tucked away in pockets throughout its surface and red veins that penetrate all the way through from one side to the other. Its polished face is so smooth that it feels sleeker than the ribbons pinned to Cody’s chest. He runs his thumb in a circle over it; it warms to his touch. The red veins shift their hue as he moves the stone around.
It feels...special. Important.
Alive.
Cody doesn’t own things; has never stolen anything like this before. It is taboo; if anyone found out, he can’t imagine the punishment—especially for disrupting the death ritual of an esteemed member of the jedi order. But holding this stone feels right. It is unusual, but it feels like Kenobi. Its veins, its warmth—it is a still-pumping heart.
He swallows and a clack outside snaps him out of his reverie. He stuffs the stone back into his pocket and hurriedly sets about putting the room back to rights.
He opens the door right into the faces of Skywalker and Tano. They blink rapidly at him. He salutes.
“Pardon, sirs,” he says faux-thickly.
“Oh, Cody,” Skywalker says hoarsely. “I’m so sorry. I hope you know that he cared about you just as much as you—”
Cody clears his throat.
“My apologies, sirs,” he says.
He could run, but he forces his steps to be long instead. His fingers turn the stone over in his pocket.
The jedi burn General Kenobi’s body. They allow troopers to be present and several hundred men from the 212th arrive in their dress greys. Cody stands at their head, watching as Skywalker, in a shaking voice, leads the prayer to send his master off into the Force. His eyes gleam red and streaming as he turns and accepts the torch from Tano.
They are the padawan and grandpadawan of the deceased. It is their right to send him off, but they are children, neither of the age of majority for the jedi—Skywalker barely a year too young still—and so it is only right for the next oldest in their lineage to set the first light of the pyre.
Cody’s eyes widen when General Yoda steps forward to do just that. The light he guides to the kindling catches, but it is many minutes before the wood itself does. The General’s unmoving face remains placid even as the wooden box cradling him is set alight. Soon, the flames are too great to see his closed eyelids between them.
The men weep at Cody’s back. The Jedi bow their heads and say circular prayers for Kenobi’s soul to return to the Force with ease. When the greatest wave of mourning has passed, General Yoda tells everyone that he will hold vigil until the pyre has reduced itself to embers.
General Ti comes around to envelope Tano into her arms and guide her inside. Windu takes Skywalker. Cody turns on his heel and orders all those men present to send off their general with the last salute. He calls them through the steps and pivots for the very last stage.
As one body, they salute the General. In the quiet following, someone far away begins a funerary chant and it grows louder and louder as the jedi file away. It spreads as the fire has; brothers sing with tears rolling down their faces to the sky.
General Yoda stands in the dead center of the front of the pyre, surveying the crowd as if accepting the song on Kenobi’s behalf. Slowly, its final notes fade, and the men begin to break way starting at the back of the throng and moving forward.
Cody holds Yoda’s gaze the whole time.
The old man nods.
It is permission and an order.
He nods back and heads back to his bunk.
Without Kenobi at the helm, the 212th looks to Cody as their primary steward. They have no general or now, which means that Cody has no time and no space for error. He tightens his ship. He closes the ranks. He grabs every captain and sergeant and lieutenant and corporal he’s got and sets up a line of direct command from them to him.
He runs the 212th on his own for six full weeks until the senate wakes up from its current bout of narcolepsy and decides that no, actually, they don’t want a jedi at the head of the largest battalion in the GAR. They want a career general—but of course to make that happen, they need to put forward nominations and then vote on who they want, and then argue about their neighbor’s choice and their mother’s choice and their neighbor’s mother’s choice—Cody has resigned himself to running the battalion for the next four hundred years by the time Fox comms in to tell him that his new General is on his way, and look out, he’s a glorious dick.
Cody appreciates his brother’s candor. He inquires as to the flavor of dick this particular general is and Fox reports back in record time with an image of a protractor.
He’s not wrong.
General Trohan greets Cody with a salute and waits in a manner that suggests Cody ought to have been the one to get that hand up first. Cody makes a point not to emote at him. It unnerves him and pleases the men, who are already suspicious of this new general.
At least General Trohan is aware enough of this latter point. He gets on comms to make a formal announcement of the transfer of power.
“I do not seek to replace Master Kenobi,” he says, “As we all know those shoes are too big for any one person to fill. However, I do come to this position with twenty years of expertise and experience in the art of war. The responsibility that comes with this battalion is as grand as the army itself, and its individual members are beyond value. It is my honor to serve you men and it is my greatest priority to bring each and every one of you home safely. I hope you will trust me to do that.”
These are lies on such a scale that Cody can see Waxer rolling his whole head in an exasperated circle through multiple hold walls.
General Trohan shuts off the comms and clears his throat. Cody takes that as a sign that he requires attention.
“Sir,” he says, saluting.
“How do you think that was received, Commander?” he asks.
Like a dead horse plunged in water.
“Well, sir,” Cody says. “I am sure the men will appreciate your investment in their wellbeing.”
“Good, good. I’m glad to hear that. And you? How did you receive that?”
Cody would rather not answer this question, please and thank you.
“I am no different from any other trooper,” he says.
The General hums and nods.
“I understand that you have been running things in Kenobi’s absence, Commander. Please walk me through your systems. It seems I have much to catch up on,” he says.
Cody inclines his head, turns around, and gathers his mountain of datapads.
It has been 9 weeks under General Trohan’s leadership and Cody is sorry to report that their relationship is rapidly deteriorating—through no fault of his own, of course. General Windu has assured him of this, although he is perplexed as to why General Trohan is determined, specifically, for Cody to receive constant disciplinary action.
Cody makes sure that he looks the picture of contrition during these punishments. He, a Commander, ordered to scrub toilets? He, a Commander, ordered to polish boots? He, a Commander, denied access to his General’s datapad?
He is only doing his job, General Windu and is perplexed and sorry to hear that the General ‘doesn’t like his attitude.’
General Windu assures him that he’ll get to the bottom of this. He’s sure it’s a cultural clash or a misunderstanding. Cody thanks him kindly and carries on with his mop until Ponds sticks his head in the room and comes over to chastise him for undermining the goddamn general of his battalion.
“Your job is to smile, nod, and make his wildest dreams a reality,” he hisses. “You can’t be blank-facing him, Cody. You’re making him feel stupid.”
Cody leans on the mop.
“Well, maybe he should stop being so stupid,” he says back at normal volume.
Ponds snaps at the gaping troopers around them to mind their own heads and asses and then goes back to telling Cody to just play the game.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” he says.
“Then I will die,” Cody tells him. “Or perhaps he will die, and I will again be able to perform my duties without hindrance.”
“Kote.”
“I can’t hear you over the sound of my spanking.”
“Kote, please—just smile at him, alright? Is that too much to ask?”
Is it too much to ask? Is it too much to ask?
The gall of these words strung together so callously. Cody cannot deign it with a response in case it gets the idea that he has witnessed it head-on.
“Is this you pouting?” Ponds sighs, “Seriously? Kenobi’s dead. He’s gone. I’m sorry, vod, I know you loved him, but no amount of huffing and puffing will bring him back; you need to adapt or you will be too. Let it go. Move on.”
Cody blinks slowly and a shutter sound echoes through his empty mind. He smiles. Ponds holds up a datapad between them like a shield.
“Stop,” he warns. “Stop that.”
“You’re so right, vod,” Cody says, beaming.
“Fuckin’ stop.”
“I’ll stop pouting, this is clearly not getting me my way.”
“You’re not listening. You didn’t take anything from what I just said.”
“I suppose the only thing to do is to re-instate the status quo.”
“Kote, you’re past not listening—”
“—and find that bastard—”
“And here we are again,” Ponds groans.
“He’s not dead,” Cody says.
“You are obsessed,” Ponds says. “You are obsessed, and it’s this that’s earning you shiny-work.”
“You’ll see,” Cody says, plonking his mop into its bucket. “Three months. If I have not proven myself in that time, then I will take your so-called advice.”
“Three months,” Ponds deadpans. “Yeah, okay. I’ll wager it takes you as much time to find a new toy to chew on, and you’ll forget this whole thing. What do you say?”
Ponds hold out a hand; Cody ignores it.
“You’ll see,” he says.
“And so will you,” Ponds replies.