Chapter Text
“Did you really think it was going to be this easy?” Son’s cold breath ghosts across his cheek, dry lips brushing faintly against the shell of his ear and making the hairs on his neck stand on end. “Do you think you’ve won?”
“You’re dead,” Anakin grits his teeth. “I killed you myself.” When he turns his head, he’s alone.
A slow, humored chuckle echoes through the room, clawing its way up Anakin’s spine. “Nothing ever really dies, my son,” his mother appears before him, her eyes glassy and blank, even as her mouth moves. Anakin’s hand clenches the hilt of his lightsaber, but his mother only laughs, her voice warping into something deeper and colder.
“I am a God—you cannot kill me,” Son’s voice drips with condescending gentleness, like he’s talking to a particularly naive child.
“What do you want?” Anakin’s mouth feels dry, like he tried to swallow a mouthful of sand.
“Why so harsh? You and I are not so different, after all.”
Anakin snarls. “You’re wrong. I’m not like you! I will never be like you!”
Son only looks amused at this declaration. “Everyone around you fears what you are capable of. They fear your anger and your passion. They don’t understand that it makes you strong. But it doesn’t seem to matter how strong you are, because your strength brings nothing but weakness in the most vital moment. You cannot save anyone around you, only bring them pain and misery and cruel deaths.” Son shifts back into his mother’s corpse. Blood drips from her empty eyes like mocking tears, a hole gaping through her gut. The smell of cauterized blood fills the room, making Anakin’s eyes water. He clenches his hands into fists, gloves feeling strangely wet.
“For all your strength, you are powerless. Unless you join me and embrace the Dark.”
“Like I’d ever join you!” Anakin snarls. “Not after what you did to Rex!”
Son laughs, suddenly before him, shadows stretching and growing sharper. “I only showed him the Truth,” he claims. “Just as I am trying to show you.”
“Liar!” Anakin swipes at Son, prepared to strangle him with his bare hands. His hands grasp nothing. Son disintegrates, his laugh grating as it echoes around the room.
“Now, wouldn’t that be convenient?”
Anakin swings at shadows, Son’s maddening laugh digs into his skull. “You cannot hide from the Truth forever,” Rex stumbles, a hole burned into his gut, his skin covered in dark cracks. His mother’s hands are on his face, her eyes glinting, teeth bloodied as she laughs and laughs.
“You have not saved anyone, Anakin Skywalker. He is still mine.”
Obi-wan finds Anakin tearing apart the training droids on the training grounds like wet flimsi. Sweat drips down his face, his hair plastered to his forehead, and the bags under his eyes are worryingly visible from across the room. What Obi-wan came all this way to say immediately flees from his mind. “Might I inquire as to the last time you slept?” Obi-wan knows Kix told Anakin to take it easy while his thigh was healing. He highly doubts this training session is medic-approved.
“Not now, Master,” Anakin hisses as one of the orbs gets a shot in, hitting his left bicep and giving him a stinging shock. Anakin responds by slicing the poor droid in half and spitting out a string of curses that Obi-wan graciously pretends not to hear.
Another batch of training droids power on, humming as they swarm. Anakin’s movements become increasingly frustrated and jerky, the scowl on his face deepening and gritting his teeth together. There’s none of the precision, grace, or general coordination that makes his former Padawan such a great warrior. Several droids hit in short succession, driving Anakin to his knees. A moment later, all the droids are held in place, whirring in panic as gears start to grind. Simultaneously, they crumple on themselves and fall to the floor, smoking. Anakin continues to lift them up and smash them into the ground until all the droids are unrecognizable heaps of scrap. They join a concerning large pile of scraps already on the floor. Anakin kicks the nearest one into a wall, cursing and then grabbing at his foot.
“No, I don’t want to talk about it,” he grounds out just as Obi-wan opens his mouth. “Go drink tea or meditate or whatever it is you do.”
Obi-wan sighs at the reminder of his misfortune. “I’m afraid I can’t do that at the moment.”
“Then leave me alone!” Anakin snaps. In the past, Obi-wan tried to respect his wishes and give him some time to sort through his thoughts. But now he wonders if that was the best course of action. Obi-wan himself prefers being left alone to sort through his emotions privately, and even the thought of showing vulnerable emotions around others is embarrassing. However, he’s self-aware enough to admit that more often than not, being alone only leads deeper down the spiraling path instead of off it.
It has been a long time since Obi-wan has seen Anakin this angry. It is admittedly terrifying, but Obi-wan resolves not to leave Anakin to sort through it alone.
Anakin powers up another round of droids, and Obi-wan immediately types in the cancel code. It’s clear that the droids are not doing anything to calm his former Padawan’s temper. Besides, if Anakin keeps this up, there won’t be any training droids left. And Anakin is going to land himself back in the Halls of Healing. He’s doing everyone a favor, really.
“Hey!”
“I think you have tortured the training droids enough for the rotation,” Obi-wan says lightly. “I received the notification that Captain Rex is out of surgery. Perhaps you would like to visit him with me?” He hopes that Anakin seeing his Captain well and recovering will help.
Those hopes are quickly dashed when Anakin tenses up, shaking his head. “I can’t.” He kicks another smoking heap of former training droid, glaring as if it personally wronged him and ruined his life.
Obi-wan’s brow furrows. “Why ever not?”
His former Padawan scowls, becoming defensive. “I just can’t.”
“That’s not an answer,” Obi-wan presses gently.
“Kix kicked me out of the MedBay with extreme prejudice and a promise to shoot on sight, so I can’t go even if I wanted to,” Anakin finally mutters. Obi-wan blinks.
“Why don’t you want to visit Captain Rex?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” The low sound of grinding metal starts to fill the room, Anakin’s hands clenched into tight fists.
“Anakin—“
“I said leave me alone!” The Force slams into Obi-wan, throwing him into the wall. Stars burst in front of his eyes, and he catches himself on his hands and knees, dazed. Before he can collect his bearings, the hum of a lightsaber fills the air. Obi-wan realizes that the blade is pointed at him, trembling inches from his face. Bloodshot eyes widen and Anakin immediately stumbles away before turning to run.
Well, sh*t.
“Anakin wait!” Anakin doesn’t stop, and Obi-wan is left staring at the smoking heaps of scrap on the floor.
“There is something rotting in my head. You have to cut it out,” Rex pleads.
“Rex, you just came out of invasive surgery! There’s no way I can—“
“Kix, please,” Rex begs. “You have to get it out!”
“No! There’s no way your body can handle a second surgery right now! It will kill you,” Kix’s tone is hard, shutting down any argument. Rex shouldn’t even be coherent right now. Kix and Master Che had just been elbows deep into the Captain’s guts not even a standard hour ago, looking for a tiny shard of “physical Living Force” or however the kark Clover had tried to describe it. That’s not even considering all the damage the broken shard was doing for the week or so it was left to fester inside of Rex, combined with the weird flashes of white light that seemed to take all of the Captain’s energy and haven’t gone away like they were supposed to. Kix still isn’t sure what the extent of damage is or what the recovery period will be for this level of Force-osik.
It’s one thing to dig around someone’s abdominal cavity to look for something small and out of place. It is an entirely different thing to dig around someone’s brain. If Kix makes one wrong incision, he could kill or cripple his Captain. And Kix will never forgive himself if he is directly or indirectly responsible for Rex’s death because he botched a highly delicate surgery.
Of course, Rex’s Jetti-brand stubbornness doesn’t listen to common sense. “I’ll be fine.”
“Like kark you will!” Kix barks. “With all due respect, what part of ‘you just came out of invasive emergency surgery and your body needs time to recover before we cut you open again’ are you failing to understand?”
“I’m already healed,” Rex claims.
“That’s ridiculous, there’s no way—”
“If I may interrupt, Lieutenant, I believe the Captain is correct,” Master Che says regretfully, still looking pale and slightly sick.
“Master Che, you can’t seriously be considering surgery right now,” Kix tries.
“Whatever is in his head cannot be left to fester. It is of utmost importance that we remove it immediately,” the Healer declares.
“Kix,” the Captain looks up at him with firm resolve, eyes hard and narrowed. His jaw is clenched tightly, a visible grimace on his face as he fights against yet another unseen enemy. “I need you to strap me down. If this thing activates, I won’t be able to control it.” Rex could barely stand to be touched all week, and now he’s demanding brain surgery and restraints with the same calculated coolness he uses to issue orders on the battlefield. Whatever is in his head, Rex is terrified of it. Is willing to risk death to get it out.
“N-no. I can’t. We’re talking about brain surgery, Rex. I wouldn’t even know where to begin, I don’t even know if your body can handle sedatives right now.” Kix has watched Rex suffer for a week, unable to do anything but watch and try to treat what he could see. And now, the solution is right there. Kix could fix this.
But he’s terrified of what his Captain is asking him to do. He knows too little about The Force, and whether it will be enough to help Rex through this. Kix has a steady hand and a quick mind, but it won’t be enough to guide him through these uncharted waters. He is so far out of his depth that he can’t see the surface, and Rex is asking him to swim deeper.
“I trust you. Everything will be just fine, Kix,” Rex’s tone is absolute, the one he uses at the turning point to urge troops to run towards the fire.
Kix feels courage swelling in his chest.
And then Rex convulses, eyes widening with fear and pain, sweat beading around his brow. “I c-can’t hold—“ and then he goes still, face blank as everything that was Rex drains away.
“We’re out of time,” Master Che hisses. She moves to sedate him, only to get kicked across the face. Rex springs to his feet, movements strangely stiff as he approaches Master Che.
“Jetti,” he says in a voice perfectly blank, “you are in violation of Order 66.”
Kix tackles him to the ground. The stiff robotic movements are replaced by wild, uncoordinated swings as Rex struggles like a man possessed, snarling and growling and biting Kix’s arm. The medic howls, feeling a weight pin him down in his moment of distraction. “CT-6116, you will be executed for acting in violation of Order 66,” hands wrap around his throat, quickly cutting off his ability to breathe.
“Re-“ he gasps, clawing at the hands around his throat. Just as Kix is about to black out, the pressure is released and Rex is thrown off of him. The rush of air into his lungs burns. Kix chokes and wheezes, unable to move.
“Captain, I do not wish to harm you,” Master Che says sternly. Rex doesn’t seem to care, as something shatters a moment later, accompanied by a pained grunt. He hears the doors slide open even over the sound of blood rushing through his head.
“Kix!”
“What the kark?”
Hardcase and Jesse must have heard the commotion from outside.
“Don’t—” Kix’s voice is a harsh, grating wheeze that only makes his throat and lungs burn. Black spots wash over his vision as he coughs. Kix clings desperately to consciousness, but the tug is too strong. His awareness drips away, ears ringing as the sound of blaster fire fills the MedBay.
“Did you hear that?” Hardcase asks.
“Hear what?” Jesse is surprised that Hardcase can hear anything, considering how he works with explosives for fun.
“I thought I heard Kix,” Hardcase shuffles nervously, glancing at the door they are guarding.
Jesse rolls his eyes. “You’re just being paranoid. The door is basically soundproof. There’s no way you should be able to hear—“ a loud crash comes unmistakably from behind the door, followed by a pained grunt. Jesse can feel Hardcase smirking from underneath his helmet. The smugness is immediately wiped away when Hardcase realizes that the sounds they are hearing means that something is going horribly wrong.
“Kix!” When he doesn’t immediately see his batchmate, dread ices through his veins. The feeling doesn’t go away when he finally spots the medic sprawled on the floor. Jesse prays he is just unconscious, not dead. “What the kark?”
Jesse looks up only to see Rex sprinting towards them, tackling him to the ground and wrestling his blaster out of his arms. In one smooth motion, the blaster is aimed at Master Che. The sound of blaster bolts firing sends Jesse further into shock.
“R-Rex!” Hardcase sputters.
“Seal the door!” Master Che barks. She has drawn her lightsaber, carefully deflecting Rex’s shots into the ground.
“The door!” Master Che calls again, voice tight. Rex has not let let up on his barrage, instead closing the distance and shooting while also engaged in hand to hand. Jesse forgot just how terrifying his Captain could be as an opponent. The Jedi Healer is struggling to defend herself without destroying delicate equipment or hurting the Captain. Master Che uses The Force to push Rex back and pull Jesse's blaster out of his grip, slicing it in half with her lightsaber. She’s forced to turn the blade off as Rex charges at her, reckless and uncalculated. Jesse wants to yell at his Captain for being so stupid, but then the situation catches up to him.
“Door’s sealed,” Hardcase informs him.
“Hardcase, set your blaster to stun,” Jesse orders.
“But Jesse—“
“If you won’t do it, give me the blaster. You hold him off, and I’ll stun him when there’s a clear shot.”
“Kark no, I don’t want to fight that. I would die.” Hardcase gestures to Rex, who scores a particularly nasty kick to Master Che’s ribs, followed by a swift punch to the jaw. Master Che crashes to the ground, and Rex is on her before she can get back up. The wrestling is even more vicious, and Jesse watches as his Captain claws deep scratches into the Healer’s wrist, hands scrabbling towards her throat. Jesse doesn’t want to fight that either, but they don’t have time to argue.
“Fine. Then you take the shot, and I’ll draw him off. But if I die, I will march right back here to eat your kneecaps.” With that, Jesse charges into the fight. And immediately regrets it.
Because holy kark, Rex is terrifying.
Jesse is getting the sinking suspicion that his Captain was holding back when they sparred. His strikes are strong and swift, immediately aimed for any opening and forcing Jesse off balance. He can feel bruises forming along his arms, despite the fact that he is wearing armor and Rex is not. Jesse has a newfound respect for Master Che for holding out as long as she has without resorting to incapacitating injuries.
“Hurry up Hardcase!” A solid kick to his ribs drives every inch of air out of his lungs, his cuirass snapping in half at the force. He hits the ground stunned and gasping for air. A stun bolt sails over his head. From his position on the floor, Jesse watches it miss Rex entirely. Not even close. He is utterly disgusted by his batchmate’s show of marksmanship. A shiny could make a better shot half-blind. Still unable to speak, Jesse curls his hand into a thumbs down.
“That wasn’t me! Something curved the shot!” Hardcase says, voice panicky. He lets out a yelp as half of Jesse’s blaster is thrown into his face. Right as he recovers, the second half is thrown as well, and Hardcase stumbles back with a curse. Rex charges for the blaster, but Hardcase recovers quickly and shoots.
Rex… catches the shot. His Captain seems equally surprised by this outcome, the stun bolt hovering between his outstretched hands. His eyes widen in fear and he tries to throw it away. The bolt hits Hardcase, sending him to the floor in a heap.
Kark.
They are so dead now.
Equipment and cots rattle as an invisible wind starts to whip through the Med Bay. Jesse crawls to his feet, using a nearby counter as support, and takes a defensive position. Rex’s eyes are wide and wild as he swats at the air around him, eyes flashing white. Whole body flashing white. Jesse’s broken chest plates are picked up and flung into the wall.
Over the sound of the wind, he doesn’t hear the sound of a lightsaber cutting through metal.
On the opposite side of the MedBay, Master Che has her hands extended and her eyes closed. Jesse doesn’t know what she’s trying to do, but he shuffles towards her position so that she can protect him from whatever Force Osik is currently happening.
With a cry, Rex stumbles to his knees, light tumbling out of his body. His eyes and mouth are so bright Jesse can hardly look. For a brief moment, Jesse swears he sees a woman holding Rex’s face in her hands, wiping away his tears with her thumbs. Master Che clutches at her head, overwhelmed from whatever is happening in The Force.
A loud cry pierces the air, two voices mixed together. Wings made of light burst from Rex’s back, followed by a karking bird. The bird is hard to look at, and Jesse is no expert on birds, but even he can recognize the small wings, large body, and long tail distinct of a convor.
A weirdly glowing, green and white colored convor. That came out of his Captain’s body like something out of the Alderaanian mythology that Appo liked to read.
Oh kark, his Captain!
Jesse’s brain must have turned off, because he approaches Rex with none of the caution one should have after watching said man fight on par with a Jettise and then snap inch thick, reinforced plastoid chest plates (and possibly several ribs) in half with a single kick. Thankfully, Rex appears to be completely unconscious. Master Che approaches, holding one hand to her forehead.
“We must act quickly, before he wakes up. Lieutenant, I’ll need you to—“
The sound of metal crashing to the ground fills the room. Anakin Skywalker bursts through the hole he just cut into the doors, lightsaber up in guard and eyes scanning the room wildly. A stun ring flashes over him not a moment later. Master Che thankfully grabs the General's lightsaber with The Force before he can land on it. Jesse scans the room to figure out where the shot even came from.
“I warned him,” Kix rasps from the floor.
“It has to be you,” Master Che says. Blood is pooling from a burst blood vessel in her left eye, complemented by a fair amount of swelling from a broken nose and possibly a bruised cheek bone. She squints at him through undoubtedly blurry vision, trying to sound reassuring.
“I can’t. My hands have nerve damage. They shake,” he rubs a line of scar tissue, trying to work out the ache already building. “There’s no way I can lead a delicate and complex surgery like that. Are you certain Kix can’t operate?”
Master Che shakes her head. “Healer Kix was strangled to the point of unconsciousness. As is standard practice, he is off-duty and under medical observation for the next rotation to ensure there is no serious damage to his throat or brain.” Across the room, Kix is sulking on a medical cot, arms crossed and frown carved deep into his face. Dark, finger-shaped bruises circle around his neck, both eyes deeply bloodshot. On the beds next to him, Jesse, Hardcase, and the General are still out cold.
“I will guide you through The Force, but you are the only medic who has the correct clearance, wellness, and ability for this procedure,” Master Che says gently.
Coric hasn’t done anything more delicate than stitches in months. Now he’s being asked to cut through his Captain’s skull and remove something from his brain. Under normal circ*mstances, Coric would refuse and defer the surgery to another medic, even one outside of the 501st. He knows Hale is on-planet, and has worked with Rex before. Helix from the 212th is also a dependable medic, often working alongside the 501st. But the Captain is vulnerable right now, and if he were to suddenly wake up in a panic and use The Force in front of Hale or Helix…
Master Che is right. It has to be him.
“Okay,” Coric whispers. “I’ll do it.”
Cody storms into the 187th barracks, nearly running into the vod he came to find. “Ponds, we need to talk,” Cody grabs his batchmate’s hand, dragging him into an empty supply closet.
“Now is not a good time, Cody,” Ponds tries to brush past him, but Cody stands his ground. Ponds sighs. “Lieutenant Clover just informed me that Rex is in surgery again. They took him to the Temple. I’m going to the Halls to see if I’m needed.”
“Again?” Cody feels his stomach sink. Why would Kix agree to a second surgery when he had been so nervous about the first one? “Why wasn’t I informed?”
“I just got the comm myself not even a minute ago. Apparently Rex woke up unexpectedly and kept saying that there was something in his head. Whatever it was must have been serious enough to risk a second surgery,” Ponds says, brows furrowing with concern. Cody wants to find Rex and wrap him up in several layers of beskar armor, wants to keep him away from the War and everything that could hurt. Rex is not supposed to almost die every time Cody takes his eyes off him.
“Cody, breathe, he’s going to be okay,” Ponds has his hands on Cody’s shoulders, grip firm and voice stern.
“I can’t keep doing this, Ponds,” Cody wheezes out. “Every mission he comes back hurt, and I can’t keep sending him into the field knowing he’s going to be so reckless.”
“That’s not your call to make,” Ponds says gently. “We’re clones, Cody. We don’t have the right to save each other. Even if we did, you know Rex would never agree to being benched. He won’t ask his men to assume any risks he wouldn’t take himself.”
“We’re going to lose him Ponds!” Cody’s eyes sting, vision blurring from the tears he so desperately tries to keep from falling. He tries to convince himself that it is anger making his voice crack. “Rex chases after his Jettise alone and they lead him into battle against monsters and gods and some day he’s not going to come back! I can’t keep him safe anymore,” those words break the dam, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Ponds drags him into a kneeling position, thumbs brushing away the tears. The rough material of the gloves is grounding. Cody sucks in three deep breaths, lungs hitching with each exhale.
“You can’t,” Cody flinches at the harsh, simple truth.“But Cody, Rex is alive now because you took him in as a cadet. And if he lives, he will live because you taught him to survive.” Ponds puts his hands firmly on Cody’s shoulders, shaking him until he looks up to meet his batchmate’s eyes. “You did everything possible to ensure that kid had the chance to show everyone what he is made of, and now Rex proves he is the best of us every single time he steps onto the field. He’s earned those Jaig Eyes a dozen times over and it is because of you, Kote,” Ponds says fiercely.
“I don’t envy your position of having to be the one to give the 501st their assignments, but you aren’t responsible for whether Rex lives or dies. No mission is guaranteed success, no matter how skilled the soldiers are. But you also can’t start mourning Rex’s death before it happens. Rex is here. He’s alive. He’s fighting. His medics are doing everything they can. Don’t give up on him yet.”
“Okay, I just… okay,” Cody manages. A fresh round of tears bubble up from his eyes, something in his chest twisting until it feels like his heart will snap. Ponds wraps his arms around him, holding him together.
“Relax, Cody. Let me be the older brother for once. You don’t have to carry the burden of caring for Rex alone. We’re all here for the kid.” Cody wants to remind Ponds that the last time he let him watch Rex, his vod’ika got stuck in a sinkhole with a giant, angry lizard, was poisoned, and then convinced Kix of all people to let him out of the MedBay to find evidence of treachery against the Republic, only to get himself captured, shocked half to death, and attacked once again by the giant, angry lizard. But Cody knows well that Rex is as smart as he is reckless, and it takes a battalion to make sure the kid takes care of himself. Deep down, he knows Ponds isn’t to blame for Malastare.
Cody is tired, so he lets himself relax into Pond’s firm hug. Ponds hugs him tighter, a hand reaching up to stroke his hair. He feels himself falling asleep. His brother guides him all the way to the floor so that Cody’s head is resting in Pond’s lap.
“What about Rex? Didn’t you want to see him?”
“Rex will be fine for a few more hours, Cody. Let me take care of you.”
Cody makes the mistake of closing his eyes, and then he doesn’t have the strength to open them again.
When Ponds tells him the news, Obi-wan almost doesn’t believe it. He asks three of his men to confirm the information before checking for himself.
Cody is asleep.
Obi-wan visits his Commander’s barracks and pokes him just to be absolutely sure. Cody doesn’t budge. Ponds raises an eyebrow. To be even more safe, Obi-wan also puts a sleep Suggestion over his Commander’s mind, ensuring that he gets a long and restful sleep.
“If Commander Cody wakes, please inform him that I am meditating in my room and do not wish to be disturbed,” Obi-wan asks Ponds. The Commander’s brow furrows, seemingly confused by the request.
“Sir?” The acknowledgement sounds more like a question, but Obi-wan considers it good enough. With all the dignity he can muster, he quickly exits his Commander’s quarters.
And then he immediately heads to the Temple’s kitchens, where a warm cup of tea will soon be in his hands. It feels like his Life Day came early, and he is nearly bouncing on his feet like a Youngling. He ponders in his head what kind of tea he should indulge in—black or green, herbal or spiced. Does he want cream or sugar—no, that will take too much time. Cody has an odd ability to sense when Obi-wan is going to do something that he has been told not to. His Commander says it comes from raising Rex. There could certainly be some truth to that—Obi-wan doesn’t need The Force to know when Anakin is about to do something stupid.
When Obi-wan gets to the kitchen, the tea cabinets are empty. All ten of them. There is not a single box or bag left. Not even the Licorice tea has been spared, which has been left untouched longer that Obi-wan has been alive. How could this possibly be?? Obi-wan opens and closes the cabinets again, as if this will magically fill the cabinets with tea. There are many Jedi who drink tea before or after meditation. Obi-wan has never seen the cabinets be anything but fully stocked, not after the legendary fit Master Qui-Gon threw when they ran out of Peach Orange Ginger Turmeric.
“Looking for something, are you?” Obi-wan startles and turns to see Master Yoda hobbling in, a steaming cup of tea in his hand. It smells like Corellian Spice, Obi-wan’s favorite.
“Master Yoda, the cabinets appear to be empty. May I ask where you found some tea?”
“Gone, it is,” Yoda hums. “Drank all the tea, I did. Will of The Force, it was.”
“A-all?” Obi-wan stares at the sad*stic green goblin with horror. A strange kind of desperation overtakes him, the kind that immediately trades reason for insanity. He takes a staggering step towards his Grandmaster, hands twitching. Murder is typically a last resort, but Obi-wan is tempted to make an exception. “Master Yoda, surely you wouldn’t mind sharing—?”
Yoda immediately takes his gimmer stick and whacks Obi-wan over the head with it.
“Mine this is. Have it, you cannot.” And then his Grandmaster drinks the whole cup in one swallow, seemingly unaffected by the fact that the tea was still steaming hot. And then Yoda leaves, humming to himself and walking merrily away.
Obi-wan sinks to his knees.
Coric’s hands are the steadiest they have been in months. Master Che’s presence is grounding against his mind, guiding him where he needs to go. Through the Jedi, he can feel the pulsating mass of something Dark. It pulls at him with a deep fatigue, with a malignant coldness that settles into his bones like mud. Still, Coric trudges onward, knowing that what he is doing could kill him. Knowing that if he doesn’t, his Captain will die.
Loyalty is a funny thing. He doubts there is a single clone in the 501st who would not fight to the death for the Captain, and beyond them a line extending into the Upper Command of the GAR. Considering their upbringing and purpose, it is considered a strange privilege among clones to choose one’s death. Coric knows all too well he is alive by the whims of luck—an honor bought with the blood of many brothers. Rex and himself are all that’s left of Teth, and that brotherhood alone is worth dying for. Is worth marching into Hell for. Even if it breaks him, Coric will do this for his Captain.
There.
There is the rotted mass, poisonous and pulsating like a dying animal. It bites and writhes against his mind, but Coric firms his resolve and keeps his hands steady. He wrestles against it for a long time, feeling the ghostly sensation of old wounds opening along his body, shards of glass stabbing deep into his hands once more.
A medic needs their hands. If he can’t do his job, Coric will die. He’ll be sent to Kamino to be decommissioned, but only after his hands are dissected to inspect the nerve damage first. He knows exactly how they will do it, splitting open each finger along the bone, tearing out the scar tissue and peeling the muscles apart on his palms while he is still awake and alive to feel it. But the Long Necks don’t like the sound of screaming, so they put the muzzle on his face again—
A hand is on his shoulder, grounding him against the sensations and images crawling against his skin. Coric shudders and grits his teeth. Whatever this Darkness is, it will not have him or his Captain. As long as he has his hands, Coric will use them to save people.
Finally, he cuts away the tumor, the blackened thing almost immediately breaking to pieces as he pulls it out.
With a patient, cautious hand, Coric finds each piece of debris, each shard of malignant tumor and blackened vein extended from the main body. Through him, Master Che moves The Force like a cleansing fire, chasing away the infection and sepsis that had started to take hold.
As the wound is closed, Coric feels a heavy weight lift from his chest. The air is light as it dances through his lungs, almost burning with how crisp and fresh it feels. In all his euphoria, Coric sits on the ground, limbs going numb. Master Che sits down next to him, and Coric wraps his arms around her, sobbing in a way he hasn’t since Teth.
Something is burning in The Force. Ahsoka shakes her head and tries to focus on her assignment, but the flare is so bright it overwhelms, like a bombardment of fireworks in the night sky. She sighs, giving up on trying to analyze the Kel Dorian poetry she selected for her Galactic Cultures class. It’s not like she expected to get very far anyway, not after receiving the news that Rex was in surgery again. Even if the assignment was due last week. And she had plenty of time to do it sitting around the MedBay.
She had hoped that a visit to the Room of a Thousand Fountains would calm her down and help her focus, but restlessness reaches her even here, The Force itself becoming a distraction. The sound of growing murmurs reaches her sensitive lekku, and Ahsoka realizes that all the other Jedi in the room with her are beginning to perk up as they also pick up on the bright flare.
“The Force is so warm!” one of the younglings exclaims loudly.
“Yes, it has not felt this happy in a long time,” The Creche Master looking over the group of younglings nearly has tears in her eyes. “I had almost forgotten what it was like.”
As long as Ahsoka can remember, The Force has been cloudy and dark on Coruscant. But now it is like a beam of sunlight is burning through the fog, and everything feels warmer now, like she is wrapped in a blanket of comfort. As Ahsoka opens herself up to The Force, she realizes it feels like Rex. Steady and calm, bursting with life.
And then a convor flies into the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Delighted and surprised shouts fill the air, once again ruining the quiet tranquility the room is known for. The bird also has a strong Force signature, one that feels strangely like Daughter. The coloring of the feathers are similar too.
But Daughter is dead. Ahsoka watched her die.
The convor circles the room and then lands on her shoulder. Looking into the bird’s eyes, Ahsoka can see an ancient sort of wisdom. She reaches out a finger to stroke the soft feathers. The convor coos and then uses her beak to pull out one golden-white feather.
When Ahsoka touches it, she knows that this bird is somehow Daughter. Or, perhaps, what Daughter used to be.
“Thank you, Morai, for watching out for us,” Ahsoka tells the bird. The convor bows its head before taking off from her shoulder, disappearing as quickly as it had come. The only sign that the convor was ever here is the feather held delicately between her fingers.
Gradually, the flare in the Force dies down, but Masters and Younglings alike continue to smile and talk quietly, as if freed from a burden they hadn’t realized they had been carrying for too long, or suddenly relieved of a deep pain that had lingered.
All around them, The Force continues to sing.
Sidious scowls as the shadow he spent decades weaving around Coruscant begins to weaken.A bright Force presence flares, burning it away. Sidious is no fool. He knows to cultivate a garden. How to carefully watch everything he needs to prune and water or uproot and burn until it can’t threaten the future he is making.
This Force presence is nearly bright enough to challenge Skywalker. It shouldn’t be possible. There is only one Chosen One, prepared by his Master.
He calls his most trusted servant.
“Perhaps it is Skywalker?” Tyranus suggests.
“No. This Force Signature is different, untainted. It needs to be found and destroyed before it interferes with our plans.”
“It will be done, my Master,” Tyranus bows and ends the holocall. Sidious leans back and steeples his fingers.
He has spent decades making systems that will take even longer to undo. He has slowly raised the price of housing and food while stagnating wages. He has let the lower levels of Coruscant become holes of crime and sin, slowly driving a wedge between the privileged and the poor. He has subtly influenced elections to find Senators who are greedy and corrupt, who care more for power and influence than the people they serve. He has shown them eating their fill and attending expensive galas while their people work in the dirt and starve and die. He has embroiled the Republic into an expensive, unwinnable war, sacrificing home worlds and rationing valuable resources all while espousing the necessity of it all for the good of the Republic and the preservation of Democracy. He has slowly poisoned the Republic and its people, making Coruscant the center of this writhing tumor, allowing the anger and despair to cloud The Force slowly, so that the Jedi would not know they were blind and powerless in the dark until the dirt was already falling into their graves. Once the Jedi are gone, the people will beg for the security and peace of his Empire. People don’t care what government they are under as long as food is on the table. It is a lesson Sidious learned long ago.
He has planted the seeds and cultivated them carefully. Skywalker will be the jewel of his garden, a Son of The Force made into a weapon, powerful and feared and loyal to Sidious alone.
Coruscant is only the model of what is to come.
But Sidious did not plan the revival of a Sith Empire only to be stopped by a single weed. No, whoever caused that flare in The Force will be uprooted and left to wither in the sun, the stalk crushed and the seeds burnt so that there is no chance of revival.
Mace Windu wonders if his eyelid is ever going to stop twitching.
“I called this Council over an hour ago. Where is Master Kenobi?” Mace has other things he planned to do today, like take a nap while pretending to do flimsiwork. Or gossip with Ponds while baking bread shaped into the face of certain politicians he doesn’t like and then burning it. Or doing literally anything to distract himself from the week-long migraine Skywalker and his Captain have given him. If it weren’t to keep up appearances that he cared about what was going on in The Force, Mace wouldn’t have bothered gathering the Council at all.
“Occupied with other matters, he is.” The decrepit frog makes an amused chuckle. Mace feels his eyelid twitch at the same time a vein in his temple throbs.
“Why would you not say so sooner?” Mace demands.
“Crossed my mind, it had not. Forgotten, I must have.” The mischievous smile on Yoda’s smug gremlin face contradicts the words leaving his mouth. Mace decides that he doesn’t have the energy to deal with the Grandmaster today.
One of the burned loaves is definitely going to be frog-shaped.
“Never mind then, we can fill Master Kenobi in later. Let us begin our Council,” most of the other Council members already look bored, and Master Krell has come prepared with his usual disapproving frown on his face. “I’m sure you all noticed the flare in The Force over an hour ago. Were any of you able to discern a source?” Mace Windu already has his f*cking suspicions, of course, but he’s not going to say anything.
“There was a peculiar bird spotted in The Room of a Thousand Fountains,” Master Tiin reports. “A green and white convor brimming with the Light. It landed on Padawan Tano’s shoulder briefly before flying off.”
This is the first time Mace Windu is hearing about such a strange bird, but the fact that it sought out Tano does not change his theories as to who was responsible. However, he will take an out where he can get it. “Any reports as to where the bird went?”
“I’m afraid it disappeared shortly after,” Master Tiin says.
Mace rubs futilely at the base of his left eyebrow. “It is possible the bird was somehow responsible for the Flare, but unless it shows up again, we don’t have any evidence. Which brings us to the next item on our agenda: who the f*ck took my Lavender Chamomile Tea?”
Several Council Members flinch, as they damn well should. That tea is one of the only things that helps his migraines, and all three boxes he keeps stored in the Temple kitchens disappeared.
“Drank all the tea, I did,” Yoda answers without an ounce of fear or remorse.
The vein in his temple throbs menacingly. Several burnt loaves are definitely going to be shaped like the decrepit frog. “You don’t even like tea!” he accuses. Whenever Mace drinks his tea, Yoda has to say something along the lines of ‘swamp water, I would rather drink.’
“The Will of The Force, it was,” Yoda says, sounding solemn. Mace isn’t buying it.
“You’re grounded.”
“Ground me, you cannot.”
“You are grounded. No more Dagobahnian swamp frogs until you get my tea back.”
“Master Windu, be reasonable, you must.”
“I will be reasonable when you get me my damn tea, Master Yoda.”
Kix pokes at one of the fragments on the debris tray. “What—?” His voice crumples and breaks off into a series of grating coughs.
“Stop talking, you di’kut,” Coric scolds. He is checking Rex’s vitals for the third time in as many minutes, and Kix is all too familiar with that kind of anxiety to say anything. He knows Coric won’t truly relax until the Captain is awake and coherent.
Kix pokes at one of the fragments again. It looks a bit like a rotted tumor, but something like that should have shown up on a Med-scanner well before it became so harmful. The fact that it didn’t means that the tumor wasn’t registered as an anomaly.
Kix doesn’t like the implications.
Coric finally leaves Rex’s cot, coming over to look at the fragments. “Whatever it is, it’s in sad shape,” he grumbles.
“It doesn’t look like any tumor I’ve ever seen,” Kix continues, regardless of his voice. “And I didn’t think that tumors rot like this either.” There’s a weird pattern to the decay, starting at the center and branching outward. But there are patches that are more rotted than others, even some holes that expose something shiny.
“Where did you get that!” Kix jumps as the General’s voice snaps from behind him. Kix turns to scold him for getting up from his cot, only to pause. The General’s face is pale, eyes wide and whole body tense and shaking with barely restrained fear.
“I said, where did you get that!” He orders.
“It was in the Captain’s head, sir,” Coric finally answers. The General responds with a string of curses so vile that Kix has several new words and phrases to add to his vocabulary.
“What is it, General?” Instead of answering, Skywalker storms out of the Halls. Kix is too confused to stop him.
“Kix,” Coric’s voice sounds slightly strained.
“Yes?”
“Do those shiny things look like wires to you?”
“How did we get volunteered for this?” Fives whines.
“Because Rex just got out of surgery, Kix is the one who did the surgery, and Hardcase and Jesse are guarding them, which means you and I are the only officers available to oversee training, which is vital to the continued efficiency of the 501st,” Echo reminds him calmly.
“I can’t teach shinies, Echo! They act so overconfident while being completely clueless!”
“Now you know how Rex feels teaching you.”
“I am a joy to train with!”
“Yes, I’m sure the Captain enjoys watching you taste mats for over an hour because you won’t make the adjustments to your form that he keeps recommending. I certainly find it entertaining,” Echo muses.
“I still don’t understand how he does that kick,” Fives whines, rubbing his heel into his chest. “It should be impossible to put that much force into his legs with that wide of an extension.”
“I’m sure Rex would teach you if you weren’t allergic to listening or following instructions.”
“You say that like we aren’t ARC troopers, Echo. We’re the best of the best!”
“You might be good with a blaster, but your hand-to-hand made Alpha-17 cry.”
“That’s only because I punched that training droid,” Fives scoffs.
“You shattered your hand!”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant. If I remember, Alpha-17 was crying because he had ‘another Kote on his hands,’ whatever that means.”
As they round the corner to the training hall, Fives and Echo nearly collide with General Skywalker, who looks like he battled Rex in a no-sleep marathon. His hair is frazzled, eyes wide and bloodshot. Before Fives can make so much as a comment, the General’s gaze seems to finally lock on them.
“Echo, with me,” he orders before turning around and briskly stomping back the way he came, not even looking to make sure he was being followed. Fives shares an uneasy look with his twin. Echo just shrugs and gives him a lazy salute.
“Good luck with the shinies, vod,” with that, Echo hurries to catch up to the General.
It takes a second for the words to register in his head. “Wait, no! Don’t leave me! Echo!” Fives realizes with sinking dread that Echo has no intention of returning any time soon. Which means he will be training the shinies by himself.
“Kark.”
Echo groans and throws his splicing kit onto the table with frustration. “It’s almost completely rotted through. The data’s too corrupted for me to get any real information out of the code. Best I can tell, there’s a list of orders, and one of them must be the default when the chip gets too damaged. You said this was in his head?”
“Yes. I tried to take it out as one piece, but the thing crumpled when I touched it,” Coric has a pensive look on his face, as if he’s putting together a puzzle in his head that he doesn’t like.
“It’s a slave chip. I’m sure of it,” The General says darkly. He’s been sulking in the corner as Echo worked, occasionally pacing around, trying and failing to hide the concerned glances he sends Rex every few seconds. The Captain has stayed completely out of it—something Echo is grateful for. Not only does Rex deserve the rest, but the update he got from the medics was rather concerning.
“When would—“ Kix’s voice breaks off roughly, followed by a harsh wheeze.
“You. Stop talking,” Coric scolds immediately. Kix rolls his eyes, but obeys.
“How could someone have put a slave chip in his head without us noticing?” Echo voices for them. “Did this happen on your last… mission?” Echo’s still not quite sure what to call it. The medics and the Jettise have both been pretty tight-lipped on the details.
Coric shakes his head. “Based on the size of the fragments, and the fact that it is mostly made of organic matter, this thing has been there for awhile. It had time to grow into place—it’s too big to have simply been shoved in at some point, not without visible scarring from an implant surgery. And if you look here and here, you can tell that there are different patterns of decay. It’s clear that this chip was already starting to disintegrate, but it was happening at a much slower rate. Something must have triggered a rapid decay response here, I’d say sometime in the last week, otherwise the rot would have lead to infection and sepsis much sooner.”
“What are you saying?” General Skywalker looks like he wants to murder something with his bare hands. Instead, he takes to firmly anchoring his hands to the edge of the table, knuckles white.
Coric turns to Kix with a stoic look. “I want you to scan my head for a chip.”
Kix is clearly taken aback by the request. “What, why?”
Coric gives his fellow medic a look for speaking, but then sighs, glaring at the pieces of rotted chip. “It makes no sense that Rex would be the only clone to have a chip. Think about it. Besides Geonosis I and Teth, he’s never been taken captive, and never in a place where he was removed from the battlefield, or taken where the Seppies would have the time or equipment for that kind of operation. The chip is organic, and the lack of scarring means it was implanted at a young age. The Kaminiise are the only people who would have the time and equipment, but they don’t know about the Captain’s Force Sensitivity, or they would have never let him off of Kamino. Even if they wanted to monitor him closely for his hair mutation, the contents of the chip don’t make sense. We know that the chip has a list of Orders, one of which has something to do with attacking the Jettise or anyone in sight, and as far as we can tell, that is the command that the chip defaults to when damaged to a certain degree. The only thing I can’t figure out is why the Kaminoans would program a clone to go rogue.”
A loud crunch sounds throughout the room, the table General Skywalker is gripping dented under his hands.
“Do the scan.” Skywalker orders. “I’m going to meditate,” he stalks out of the room, glass shattering across the floor, metal and machines creaking ominously as he goes.
Rex wakes slowly, his awareness dripping back in pieces. There are voices, too muddled to understand, but familiar and comforting. His hand moves, and he is the one in control of it. Rex clenches it into a fist, then releases his fingers one by one, slowly curling them again. His hand obeys. Though swollen and painful, it belongs to him. He wants to sob with relief.
If The Force hadn’t intervened, who knows what he could have done before someone stopped him?
Rex makes the mistake of opening his eyes. The bright light of the Halls of Healing bores into his pupils and brings full awareness to a horrendous headache, making him shut them with a quiet groan.
“Rex?” Not quiet enough, apparently. Soft footsteps approach, and a hand checks his forehead. Rex gives a quiet grunt to indicate that he is awake, but refuses to open his eyes.
“Echo, go turn off the lights.” Two sets of hands help lever him into a sitting position. His whole body sparks with soreness, and even with his eyes closed the movement makes him dizzy and nauseous. His head feels heavy and about to split in half. Someone is rubbing circles into his back, another massaging their cool fingers into his temple. He nearly moans in relief when the pain starts to fade.
“You can open your eyes now, Rex,” a voice gently presses. Slowly, he cracks his eyes open, expecting pain and blindness. Instead, the lights are almost completely off, save for the emergency lights along the floor and walls. Through the dim lighting, Rex can make out the faces of Kix, Coric, and Echo.
“How do you feel?” Kix asks. His voice is hoarse, and Rex remembers trying to strangle him.
He had almost killed his vod, had felt Kix’s throat collapsing under his hands, unable to stop himself. “I’m sorry, Kix. I’m so—“ his voice cracks, throat suddenly dry.
“Rex, that wasn’t your fault,” Kix tries to reassure him, but the painful rasp in his voice is only a reminder of what Rex almost did. “You were right.” Kix moves to bring over a tray. On it are three fragments of what looks to be some sort of wires surrounded by blackened organic material. Some parts are completely rotted out, filled with holes, while other parts are only starting to blacken. The whole thing looks to be slightly smaller than his thumb.
He doesn’t understand.
“How long have you been getting headaches or migraines?” Coric asks, something knowing in his tone. Rex tries to think. He’s had almost constant headaches for awhile now, ranging from slightly annoying to nearly crippling, but that was from Force Exhaustion, stress, and at least one minor concussion. It wasn’t from—it couldn’t have been from—
He’s sure Son is the one who put this thing in his head. That’s the only thing that makes sense. All those headaches, the hours spent in the dark waiting for the pounding of his head to cease, there has to be another explanation.
“I don’t understand,” Rex rasps. His throat burns, something in his chest twinging painfully.
“That,” Coric gestures to the blackened fragments, “was in your head. Now answer my question: how long have you been getting headaches? Don’t downplay this, Rex. Not this time.”
Rex tries to think back. Lately, he’s constantly been injured or recovering from injury, so he’s quite honestly stopped keeping track of what is going wrong with his body at any given moment. If anything, his life entered a downward spiral once he learned he had The Force—
“Valtameri,” Rex breathes. “I think that’s when they started.”
Coric nods, like Rex has confirmed something. Then the medic reaches over and flicks him hard on the forehead.
“Ow, Coric—“
“This is why you don’t hide osik from the medics.”
Fives is pretty sure he is going to have bruises on his bruises. He’s pretty sure every new batch of shinies comes out of Kamino dumber and dumber. He had a shiny put him on his ass three times while he was trying to explain how to use forearms to block or redirect an attack. Half the karking shinies kept trying to kick him while he was offering corrections, and then the other half had the audacity to ask him to repeat his instructions at least ten different times, as they couldn’t think to listen to the instructions the first time. No matter how many times he repeated himself or tried to break down his instructions into more manageable pieces, at least one shiny would ask what they were doing, and then proceed to do some secret third thing he assumed they were doing. When he paired off the shinies to have them practice forearm blocks, several groups kept dodging their partner’s kicks and punches. Others kept aiming their kicks too low for their partners to block with a forearm. Another group kept gossiping about how Lieutenant Jesse assigned some dumb schmucks to fresher duty for a month because they used their real blasters instead of training blasters during a simulation drill.
Anyways, at the end of the rotation, Fives doesn’t have a karking clue how Rex survives handling this level of incompetence regularly. All he knows is that the second his Captain is freed from the confines of the Halls of Healing, Fives is giving him a hug, an apology, and a drink at 79s.
“Did you do as I asked?” Echo stares the shiny down, arms crossed and eyebrows raised expectantly. The shiny cowers slightly in fear.
“Y-yes sir, I kicked him every time he said ‘you’re going to kick me’ during his explanation of what we were doing. I also had my batch-mates pretend to not understand what was going on until he broke down the instructions into short, simple terms. Then I switched helmets with Olive, disregarded instructions entirely and kicked at my partner’s legs so he had to stop me and explain why we were learning forearm blocks and what I needed to do to help my partner learn.”
Echo laughs. Operation: Turn Fives into Command Material is a go. “Thank you, CT-5385. Sorry I couldn’t be there myself, I got called away last second for an urgent matter. But, it seems you and your batch-mates handled yourselves quite well even without my help,” he pulls out a handful of hard candies from his utility belt. The shiny looks at them as if they are droid poppers about to go off.
“These are a reward for you and your batch-mates, for a job well done. Now, how long did it take Fives to catch on to what you were doing?”
The shiny chuckles nervously as he awkwardly cradles the handful of candies in his hands. “I- uh, I don’t think he ever caught on— sir?”
Echo doesn’t know why he is even surprised.
There is a chip in Coric’s head. It doesn’t show up on anything except for a Level 5 scan. The type of scan Kix would typically have to request clearance to use. If he wasn’t using the medical equipment in the Halls of Healing, Kix probably wouldn’t have considered going that high, just for the attention such a request would bring. And now he knows why.
Master Che looks over his shoulder at the scan’s results.
“Lieutenant, I want you and Corporal Echo getting scans done as well.” The Healer’s face is still pinched tight in worry or pain. There are several dark bruises across her face and Lekku, shiny with the tell-tale use of bacta. Kix feels awful that he has brought so much pain to the Healer, just as he is grateful for her help.
Coric huffs a bitter laugh. “Kark. And here I was hoping I was wrong.”
Echo touches a hand to his head, lips pinched with distaste. Rex’s face crumples into something devastated beyond words.
Whatever it is that they have stumbled upon, it seems to be bigger than any one of them. How deep into the GAR does this extend?
Kix fears he already knows the answer.
He is always there in the corner of his eyes. Lurking in the shadows, dripping words into his ears like blood. Your shame and guilt will never leave you. He can barely look at his lightsaber without picturing it sunk deep into his Captain’s gut. Without seeing his mother’s corpse grinning at him.
The blood of the innocent is on your hands.
You and I are not so different after all.
The Galaxy is very different from what Anakin made it out to be. The Republic is no longer what he thought it was. Mortis opened his eyes to the Truth, and now Anakin no longer knows how to forgive his own willful ignorance, if he even deserves forgiveness. He’s supposed to be the Chosen One, but how can he bring balance—how can he bring peace, now that he doesn’t think the Republic is worthy of being saved?
Rex’s words linger along his spine, tracing thin fingers along the knobs of bone. They prod at the ugly, terrible Truth that Anakin tried to ignore.
You were a slave once, you know how this works. We were made to be weapons. But it isn’t cost efficient to make a weapon and give them a choice. So, you find a way to keep them in place.
The chip in Rex’s head—possibly in all his men’s heads, only confirms what Anakin tried so hard to ignore. The Jedi aren’t meant to be soldiers. They aren’t meant to lead armies. The Republic abused the Jedi’s position as peacekeepers, guilted them into fighting a conflict that they had no interest in. Gave them an army perfectly ready, who had grown up with no choice but to fight, as if this whole War had been decided upon long ago. As if it were inevitable.
What bastion of freedom fights with an army of slaves?
Anakin wants to fight something. He wants to run until his lungs burn and his limbs ache, scream his throat raw. He wants to find the Senators who agreed to this war and punch them in the face. He’s tired of being angry. He hates that his first reaction to uncomfortable feelings is to want to tear something apart. After his reaction in the Halls, and with Obi-wan this morning, he feels ashamed.
Something needs to change. Anakin can’t keep doing this, can’t keep building the fire in his chest until it burns him, until it burns those closest to him. His men don’t deserve that. Rex doesn’t deserve that. Obi-wan especially doesn’t deserve it, not when he has only ever tried to be helpful.
So. So Anakin is going to do something about this anger that he can’t control. Before he hurts someone again by lashing out with The Force. He finds himself wandering the Temple, lightsaber locked away in his room where he can’t use it to hurt anyone.
And he stumbles upon a room he has never seen before.
Colorful paints sit on a large shelf that spans an entire wall, other, smaller shelves stocked with canvases, paper, and paintbrushes. A dusty canvas sits forgotten on an easel, only half-painted. The room smells terrible, and Anakin quickly spots the source—an unbelievably moldy cup of tea. Though the liquid evaporated a long time ago, the mold seems to have made quite the home before drying out, valiantly creeping up the tea bag string looped around the handle. A faded sunset-orange tag sticks out, too covered in mold to be read properly.
It looks like no one has been here in years.
Anakin is about to leave (and find someone to take care of the moldy tea—either housekeeping or toxic waste disposal services) but then The Force prods at him, anchors him in the room.
My son, your shame and guilt will never leave you.
Anakin has always used his anger as a shield. He has always feared that if he were to let it go, the shame and guilt he tried to push back would drown him. Or worse, he would forget the terrible things he has done. But now he sees that he is holding his anger like a knife without a handle, a weapon kept only to cut himself, to hurt anyone who tries to take it from his bloody hands.
This is why Rex and Obi-wan fear him. Because Anakin’s anger does not make him strong. It only makes him dangerous.
“Why baking?” Anakin asks Rex through a mouthful of fried bread.
“It gives me something to do with my hands without having to think too much,” Rex holds up his hands, flour and bread dough still stuck between his fingers. “Working with the dough, shaping it between my fingers…it’s grounding, I guess. Forces me to stay in the moment and think about what I’m doing.”
“But why not, I don’t know, painting or poetry?”
Rex flips the piece of dough in the pan, flinching back when hot oil sloshes a touch too close to his hand. “Baking is far more predictable. As long as you follow the right steps, you get the same result. And if you understand the steps, then you can adjust to your preference and get something even better. Painting… it’s unpredictable. The brush is hard to control, and you need a steady hand to keep the lines straight. Painting my Jaig Eyes is hard enough,” he huffs a laugh, before getting a pensive look on his face. “And poetry… well, I don’t know about anything but being a soldier, so I don’t have anything else to write about meaningfully. I don’t want to try and make War beautiful or glorious, and I think it’s already sad enough. Besides, writing involves too much sitting still and thinking.” Rex gives him a mischievous smile. “I do enough of that correcting your after-action reports, sir.”
Anakin laughed at that. “Just you wait, Captain, I’ll publish a whole volume of poems, and when I do your name is going to be in the dedication.”
“You can’t sit still enough to write poetry, General. You can’t even write briefs correctly.”
Anakin finds himself smiling at the memory despite himself. Out of spite, he had tried to write a poem on the spot. It was just as terrible as Rex had predicted it would be. Obi-wan looked constipated when Anakin read it to him. Padme had laughed for twenty minutes before diplomatically telling him that the Republic was fortunate that he was a better warrior than he was a poet.
Now, surrounded by paints, he thinks about what Rex said. Something grounding. Something to do with his hands. Something that requires being in the moment. Something that doesn’t involve sitting still and thinking.
There’s an extra easel resting next to the one already set up. Anakin grabs some random colors from the shelf, carries them to a small table set up by the easels. There’s a pallet to hold the paint already there, the colors long dried to the cheap plastic. A cup with paint-crusted brushes sits next to it, the water long evaporated. Anakin sets the ruined brushes aside, refilling the cup with water.
He remembers taking some basic art classes as a Padawan, though he hadn’t paid much attention at the time. But he remembers that the paints he grabbed need water added to them to activate.
Without thinking, he dips his brush into the cup of water, and then into the blue. Then he presses the paintbrush to the canvas. The watery paint immediately begins to drip down, leaving a blue trail. He tries to stop the bead of water, but all he does is smudge it against the canvas. With a huff of frustration, he sets the brush back down.
This was a mistake. Anakin already ruined his painting before he even knew what he wanted to make. And now there’s a big blue line smeared over the center of the canvas, like someone tried to wipe away angry tears.
Like someone tried to wipe away angry tears.
Anakin stares at the canvas for a long time. And then, with a shuddering breath, he picks up the brush again.
Obi-wan hates the market, hates how loud and smelly and dirty the streets are, but he’s desperate. He wanders about through the thick crowds, eyes scanning for food stalls. He finds several selling baked goods, caf, and different types of honey or “fresh” fruit. Some food vendors are also selling drinks with street food, but none of them are offering tea.
With a sigh, he walks up to the nearest booth. The Rodian running it gives him a skeptical once over. “Excuse me, do you know where I might find some tea?”
“Out of luck pal,” the Rodian answers with a flippant wave of his hand. “Just had a massive recall several rotations ago. Apparently some major packaging plant of the CoruscanTea Company had some deadly bacteria of some sort contaminate their supply. All the tea they sent out was recalled, and anything else got bought out shortly after that. Must have just gotten here, if you missed all that commotion.”
Obi-wan’s expression falters. Some desperate, illogical part of him wants to blame Cody somehow. If anyone could orchestrate a city-wide shortage of tea, it would be his Commander. Unfortunately, even Obi-wan can admit that Cody wouldn’t have had the time to pull this off. It’s also disingenuous towards his Commander to believe that he would be so petty as to cause a major economic shortage.
“Thank you for your time then,” Obi-wan turns to disappear back into the crowds.
“Hey buddy, aren’t you going to buy something?” Obi-wan sighs, and reaches for his purse.
“I suppose that would only be polite.”
“Rex does this all the time, how hard can it be?” Hardcase has all the ingredients set out on the counter, a datapad open to one of Rex’s highly annotated bread recipes titled “Super Duper Easy Herbed Bread so Simple a Gungan could probably Make it on the First Try.” He has watched the Captain make it probably over a dozen times, to the point that Rex doesn’t even look at the recipe, simply pulling out the ingredients and measuring them into the bowl.
He’s ready. He can do this. How much harder can it be than making a bomb?
“If I remember correctly, the kitchen was an absolute disaster the last time you tried to bake anything,” Jesse corrects.
“If I remember correctly, it was a group effort, and you were part of it,” Hardcase huffs.“Besides, I’ve grown since then. I’m smarter, wiser. More responsible.”
Jesse raises an eyebrow.
Hardcase’s shoulders droop. “I wanted to do something nice for the Captain, since the vod has been going through a lot lately. I thought maybe some bread will help cheer him up, after, you know, he tried to kill us and everything. But since he still can’t use his hands…”
“That’s… surprisingly thoughtful of you, ‘Case,” Jesse admits.
“I can be thoughtful!” Hardcase protests.
“Tell that to our QM, who found you “borrowing” blasters from the armory and taking them apart to make bombs near the heavy artillery,” Jesse scoffs.
“That was one time! I was a shiny bombs specialist! You can’t hold that against me forever.” Hardcase absently rubs his ear, still remembering the absolutely scathing lecture he had gotten from Rex, before also getting several crates of broken blasters he could salvage for parts and a repurposed hangar where he could work on his creations without threatening to blow up the ship and everyone on it.
Rex is practical like that. Hardcase loves him for it.
“Just saying, ‘Case. When you try to be thoughtful, you usually skip over the steps that include basic safety and common sense.” Just because Jesse's right doesn’t mean Hardcase is going to give him the satisfaction of agreeing.
“If you’re going to be here, are you going to make yourself useful? Or are you just going to make fun of me?”
“Well, I was just planning to make fun of you. But if you need me to do something—“
“Great! You can read the recipe. That way I don’t have to keep turning the datapad back on.” Jesse sighs, beckoning for the tablet. Hardcase hands it to him with a grin.
“Okay, first up, four cups of flour.” Hardcase’s grin immediately fades.
Well, kark. How does one measure in cups again? He tries to remember what Rex used, but his mind comes up blank. Maybe he’s overthinking it? If it’s just a cup, why would there need to be a special tool? Hardcase shrugs and grabs a caf mug out of the cupboard, scooping it into the jar of flour and then dumping it into the large bowl.
“Next you want to add the salt, yeast, and water and herbs,” Jesse instructs, frowning at the recipe. “I think.”
“What do you mean, you think? What does the recipe say?”
“It says to whisk them? I don’t know what a whisk is,” Jesse says. “Maybe, I don’t know, stir it or something?”
Hardcase frowns. He really doesn't want to mess this up, and if the directions say to whisk, is it really okay to stir? “What do Rex’s notes say?”
“He didn’t write anything on this step,” Jesse unfortunately informs him.
Hardcase sighs. “I guess stirring will have to do. How much am I adding?”
“Two teaspoons kosher salt, one teaspoon active dry yeast, and one tablespoon freshly chopped herbs of choice, though Rex wrote that he prefers Alderaanian Rosemary if it’s on hand. If it’s not, thyme, basil, or oregano will work. Or if stocks are low, he has a stash of dried herbs in the pantry that will pass in a pinch.”
Hardcase buries his face in his hands. “I don’t even know what any of those are!”
“Well, add the salt and yeast first, and then figure it out.” Hardcase nods, grabbing one of the spoons he has on the counter. He’s not quite sure what a teaspoon or a tablespoon is, but the cutlery drawer had two different sized spoons, so he thinks he can use those. He measures two spoonfuls of salt with the smaller spoon and then pours some yeast onto the spoon over the bowl. He accidentally pours a little too fast, and a fair bit of yeast overflows from the spoon and into the flour. That’s probably fine, right?
“Okay, where do we even keep the herbs?”
“How should I know?” Jesse scoffs. “It’s probably in the cryro storage if it’s perishable.”
Hardcase opens the door and shuffles through a few bins, finally finding a stash of plants in a small drawer labeled “Rex’s herbs.” He pulls out the whole container and shifts through the bags, pulling out a plant with thin leaves on a slightly woody stem. The bag says Rosemary on the label, so Hardcase is fairly certain this is the plant he wants. He takes out several sprigs, chops them, realizes he has more than he needs, and decides to dump the whole thing in anyway. He doubts Rex will complain if there’s more herbs than usual.
With Jesse’s guidance, Hardcase adds two cupfuls of “room temperature” water. It might be a little on the warm side, mostly because he didn’t want to wait for the tap water to cool. He digs his hands in enthusiastically, mixing the water and flour together into a thick paste. It clings and sticks to his fingers, nearly impossible to scrape off.
“Is it supposed to be this wet and sticky?”
Jesse shrugs. “Rex’s notes say it should be pretty sticky.”
“I don’t think there’s enough flour,” the dough seems a little too soupy, in Hardcase’s untrained opinion. He grabs a handful of flour and tosses it in. But then the dough doesn’t seem sticky enough.
Kark.
Hardcase begins a delicate dance of adding more water, then more flour, until he gets a substance that seems wet and sticky enough without being soupy or dry.
“What am I doing next?”
“The recipe says you are supposed to let it sit for 12 hours.”
“Ugh!” Hardcase dramatically drapes himself over the counter before hitting his forehead on his folded arms. “There’s no way I can wait that long!” Hardcase thinks hard for a second, trying to figure out what he can do. He can’t work on bombs—his muscles are still spasming from being stunned, and his vision isn’t quite cleared from being lightly concussed by Jesse’s blaster. Concussion means no training either. Which means he has nothing to do for even one hour. Which means he will die of boredom.
"Wait! I got it!” Hardcase starts searching through the different jars on the counter until he finds the yeast. “This is the stuff that is supposed to make the bread rise! So if I add more, it will make the bread rise faster!”
“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Jesse says, ever the doubter. Hardcase scoffs at him, already grabbing the spoon he used to measure out the yeast the first time. Two large spoonfuls later, he starts stirring it in. The bread dough doesn’t look all that different, but Hardcase just shrugs. It will rise in the oven, that’s what’s important.
“What do I do after it has rested?”
Jesse rolls his eyes, but dutifully scrolls to the next steps in the instructions. “You are supposed to dump the dough on a floured surface and coat it with flour. After that you knead the dough just enough to work the flour in.”
Hardcase eagerly takes handfuls of flour and throws it onto the counter. A cloud rises, making him sneeze. Jesse makes a face when Hardcase immediately throws the bread dough onto the pile of flour.
“Dude, you just sneezed all over that!”
“Relax, baking it will kill any germs. I think.” Hardcase focuses on coating the sticky dough in flour. The dough sticks to his hands, making it impossible to properly knead. It doesn’t want to keep its shape all that well either. Hardcase gives up and dumps the whole wad of dough into the flour bowl. Jesse makes another face, but doesn’t say anything. Once the dough is properly coated in flour, Jesse dutifully gives the next set of instructions. Hardcase pulls the dough into three pieces, trying his best to make them even. One of the balls looks smaller than the others, but that’s probably fine.
Next, he puts the loaves on the plastic tray that he vaguely remembers Rex using. He makes sure to put extra flour around the loaves so they won’t stick.
“What next?”
“It says to “preheat” the oven. You’re supposed to let the bread rest for about 20 minutes.
Kark, not more waiting!
Hardcase heats up the oven higher than the recipe calls for to make it preheat faster. He’ll turn it back down once the bread is in.
Speaking of which, the flour-coated bread dough looks like it is already losing its shape.“Jesse, are the loaves supposed to flatten out like that?”
“Rex left a note that the loaves tend to flatten out a bit while resting. It should puff back up in the oven.” That’s good at least.
The oven takes forever to get to temperature, but it finally does with a shrill beep. Hardcase can hardly control his excitement when he carefully lowers the tray into the oven. Rex is going to be so pleased when Hardcase sneaks him fresh bread in the Halls of Healing!
Coric is standing in what used to be the kitchen. Again.
Acrid smoke is billowing out of the oven, which has set off the fire alarm and the sprinklers. Instead of putting out the fire, however, the sprinklers have busied themselves in making a paste out of the copious amounts of flour dumped onto the floor from a knocked over bowl. Hardcase and Jesse are waving frantically at the open flames with their bare hands, like absolute di’kuts.
“Stand back!”
Coric grabs the fire douser and sprays it in the general direction of the oven. Jesse and Hardcase shriek as they are covered with chemical foam. Coric keeps a firm hand on the nozzle until the foam runs out with a hiss.
Somehow, the oven is still on fire. Looking into the inferno, he can see the remains of a plastic tray and whatever was on it, all melting off the metal racks and burning to the bottom of the oven.
Maker damn it, Coric just wanted some caf.
He turns to Hardcase and Jesse. “Did either of you di’kuts burn yourself?”
The two di’kuts look at each other, then at the oven. Eventually, Jesse answers. “Well, no—“
“Good.”Coric smacks both of them over the head. “You are both grounded until the War ends or you develop common sense—and make no mistake, I have very little hope for the latter.”
Rex wakes to his hand being held. The touch is gentle, careful not to press against any of his wounds. Above his head, he can hear quiet humming. Around him, The Force is warm, nearly buzzing against his skin. It’s almost enough to lull him back to sleep.
The hand holding his adjusts, grabbing his index finger. His palm lays across the back of the hand, pulling at scabs and stitches and adding pressure directly to the half-healed wounds, sending a stinging pain up his arm. A hiss escapes his teeth before he can stop himself.
Ahsoka jumps, something cold brushing over the tip of his index finger. A jolt of pain runs through his hand at the sharp motion.
“Rex! You’re awake! I was just—dang it, now it’s smeared—“ she furiously scrubs the pad of her thumb over his fingertips, once again careful to hold his hand in a way that won’t bring pain. Rex cautiously tries to take his hand back. Ahsoka hisses at him.
“Be patient, I’m almost done.”
“What are you doing, Commander?”
“I’m painting your nails? I noticed you haven’t done them in awhile. Do you still have the bottle I gave you?”
“Sorry, Commander, I—“ Shame wells in his stomach, fearing he offended her. The bottle is still sitting in his desk drawer, unopened. He takes it out to hold every now and then, but the nail polish is such a precious gift, he’s afraid of wasting it. “I promise I appreciate the gift, I just—“
“Rex, I’m not mad at you,” Ahsoka assures him. She returns to her work, and now Rex can recognize the cool sensation of the brush sliding over his fingernails. “You know I can always get you more, right? I bought you the nail polish because you are my ori’vod, and I thought that it was something you would enjoy.”
He feels something brush against the jagged edges of his mind, fluttering like bird’s wings. “Ori’vod,” the word settles heavy in his chest like a broken promise, nestled between his ribs. It hurts.“You don’t need The Force to have value. Not to me.”
“You—“ you meant something to me. Ahsoka—the gnawing crescendos, chewing up his thoughts. He lashes out blindly, trying to get back the pieces that Son has took. He’s being pulled in two directions while underwater, and he wonders if it is better to just pick a side, even if he drowns.
“I shouldn’t be,” Rex admits softly.
“Shouldn’t be what?”
“Your ori’vod.” The hand holding his squeezes tightly. Rex hisses and tries to tug his fingers free, but Ahsoka does not let go.
“Nope. Illegal,” Ahsoka puts extra effort into popping the ‘p,’ the hardness of her eyes and grip the only thing betraying her casual tone.
“Ahsoka I attacked you!” Rex puts his free hand to his throbbing head, only to hiss as it makes his palm throb as well. His memories have been coming back in blurred snapshots, but he remembers the feel of Ahsoka’s ribs under his heel, remembers attacking her while she was vulnerable and feeling glad that it was almost over. “Kark, Ahsoka, I tried to kill you.”
Hands settle over his ears, and Ahsoka’s forehead presses against his. “I can’t believe attempted murder is what it took for you to stop calling me Commander.”
“Ahsoka—“
“I’m going to say this until you start believing it, so it will be easier on both of us if you listen up the first time, Rexter.” He feels her fingertips around the shell of his ears, angling them towards her face, still pressed up against his.
“You are a di’kut, the biggest one I have ever met, if you think I am going to blame you for what Son did using your body. The whole time we were fighting I never once thought that you had betrayed us. When Son captured you, we thought you had died. Skyguy’s Force Bond had been severed, and there was blood spattered on the viewport, and even then we were still coming for you, dead or alive. No matter what you’ve done, no matter what’s been done to you, I will find you and bring you home. Even if you do Fall, I will drag your shebs back into the Light. You are worth that fight, Rex. Force or no Force, war or no war. You are more than a soldier to me, and you and your brothers are more than just clones. You named me as your vod’ika, and now I claim you. Ni kyr'tayl gai ori’vod, Rex.”
“Ahsoka—“ the guilt scrapes his ribs hollow. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness for what he’s done. He broke her ribs, he almost sliced Anakin’s leg off. He said poisonous things that he doesn’t fully remember, but knows he said to bite deep. Rex knew their vulnerabilities, and he purposefully exploited them.
He would have killed all of them on Mortis. Just like he would have killed his brothers and Master Che. Rex has always known he was made to be a weapon, but he never imagined just how easily he could be turned and used against those he cares about. Those he was raised to protect.
“Do you blame the men who were possessed by brain worms on the transport to Ord Cestus? Do you blame Barriss? She is almost a fully-trained Jedi, and yet she let her mind be overtaken.” There’s a dangerous edge to Ahsoka’s voice, and he can’t look her in the eyes.
“Of course I don’t blame Commander Offee or those men,” he says. “But I—“ Ahsoka firmly whacks him over the head.
“No buts. If you don’t blame a trained Jedi or your fellow men for being mind-controlled, then there is nothing to be guilty for. Rex, you had The Force physically and painfully torn out of you, your hands were a useless infected bloody mess, and you had been fighting the will of literal Gods since we arrived on Mortis. Don’t you dare think that you failed us just because you lost the fight for a time.”
The conviction in Ahsoka’s voice is intoxicating, leaking into The Force and wrapping around his head. He breathes and his chest feels lighter. Little One, The Force croons.
“Morai,” Ahsoka breathes. There’s a convor in the room, feathers colored an unusual green and gold. Without thinking, Rex holds out his arm, and the bird lands gracefully. Light seems to spill from her feathers, eyes betraying an ancient sort of knowledge. Rex immediately recognizes Daughter, reborn into a new vessel. He can feel the way The Force wraps around her, protective and motherly. Morai ruffles her wings, plucking out a feather and bobbing her head for him to accept it.
“Hey, we can match now!” Ahsoka shows Rex her silka beads, which now have a golden feather attached to them. Daughter croons in approval, once again offering the feather out for him to take. With his free hand, Rex slowly accepts the gift.
“Thank you, for everything,” Morai flaps her wings and coos, taking off and disappearing through the ceiling.
Rex looks at the feather in his hand. It glows with an inner light, making the gold-white gleam. For some inexplicable reason, the feather brings an odd sense of hope, some invisible burden lifted off his shoulders. The guilt of what he was forced to do lingers, but it is no longer crushing. Rex has the oddest sense that despite everything they just went through, he will be okay. That he will heal, that he will be able to accept himself.
“Okay Rexter, give me your hand back. I want to finish painting your nails before Kix or Coric kick me out again.”]
Cody takes a drink from his flask, wincing at the acrid taste. One of these days, he’s going to get alcohol poisoning from drinking the toxic waste his men try to ferment. Or maybe, if he’s lucky, he’ll go blind. Cody takes another swallow and pretends he handles it better. “Any updates on Rex?” Cody doesn’t know what Ponds’ sources are, but they seem to be more accurate than Cody’s.
Cody has no sources. No one has bothered to tell him osik.
It is driving him karking insane.
“Rex is out of surgery, and has been stable for a rotation now. The medics still aren’t allowing visitors until further notice, outside select members of the 501st. Here, if you insist on getting drunk right now, drink this—it doesn’t taste like crude oil and Gundark piss and it’s less likely to cause immediate organ failure.” Ponds takes a sip out of his flask before handing it to Cody.
Cody groans in frustration. “The medics do realize that we outrank them, right? We should get some pull as Rex’s ori’vode.” He takes a sip of the flask, appreciating the much more pleasant burn. Ponds always manages to get his hands on the Good Stuff. Or at least, much better stuff than the rotgut Cody keeps confiscating from Waxer and Boil and the occasional ambitiously dumb batch of shinies. He takes another sip or two, feeling warmth spread out from his stomach.
“And as a Marshall Commander?”
Cody hands the flask back, taking advantage of Ponds’ empty bunk to lay down and stretch out his back. Kark he’s getting old. “I’ve stopped pretending that rank meant anything to the medics a long time ago.” Ponds hums in agreement, taking another sip of the flask himself before returning to his flimsiwork.
“Maybe we could break in? How hard can it be?”
“Not wise vod. Kix has reportedly been stunning anyone who enters the Halls of Healing without authorization. Including his General.”
“Maker, wish I could have seen that.”
Cody’s comm beeps, and he groans. “Commander Cody,” he answers with as monotone a voice as he can manage.
“Commander! It’s Boil. We have a Code Orange on our hands!” Cody immediately bolts upright, startling Ponds.
“Sit rep, and make it quick!”
“The General just asked Waxer how holonet shopping works! Waxer is stalling for time, but I don’t know how much longer he can hold out. The General looks really, really sad, and he’s making porg eyes—“
This is bad. It was one thing to orchestrate an economic shortage, but taking down every tea-selling site on the entire holonet is another. He already owes Fox an entire shipment of caf and a case of high-grade whiskey, and he doubts the bastard is willing to do more work before the debt is paid. “Give me your position, I’m on my way,” Cody bolts to his feet, wobbling the first few steps before regaining his balance.
“Good luck vod,” Ponds offers a lazy salute with the flask, a viciously amused smirk on his face. Cody returns the salute with his middle finger, before rushing down the hallway as fast as he can while still maintaining his dignity.
Anakin steps back from the easel, scrubbing his tired eyes with his forearm. Black and purple smears of color crowd the smudged blue tears trailing through the center of the canvas, all of this a background for a hazy mess of splattered red handprints.
“It deserves a title, don’t you think?” Anakin startles at the voice, but when he looks no one is there. Hairs prickle at the back of his neck, fists clenched at his sides.
“Show yourself! Don’t you dare hide from me, you coward!” He may not have his lightsaber, but Anakin is not afraid to fight The Son with his fists.
“I am not hiding from you. It is you who blinds yourself to my presence. Look through The Force, Anakin, and you will find me here, where I’ve always been.” Anakin sighs, but obeys the Voice. Suddenly, Qui-Gon Jinn is there before him, inspecting the painting he has made.
“This is quite good, for an amateur. Your raw emotion comes through very clearly with your unconventional brushstrokes, and your use of color is obviously intentional.”
“What would you know about painting?” Anakin huffs.
Qui-Gon laughs. “I would hope I know at least a little bit, considering this used to be my room.”
“This used to be your room?!”
Qui-Gon glances around the room as if trying to soak it all in again, as if the space itself was the ghost, and not himself. “It was. My Master put it together for me as a gift for my Knighting.”
“Count Dooku built this room?” Anakin sometimes forgets that the leader of the Separatists was once a Jedi himself, much less a highly respected one. Anakin had never lived in the Temple at the same time as his great-Grandmaster, and Obi-wan did not mention the Count often, claiming that Dooku now was almost unrecognizable from the man he had known.
“He did. Even after he left the Order, he would send me regular shipments of art supplies,” Qui-Gon pokes at the moldy cup of formerly tea, his translucent hand sinking right through.
“I find that hard to believe,” Anakin scoffs. “Why would he bother sending you art supplies when he hated the Jedi?”
“My Master was a difficult man,” Qui-Gon agrees. “He… lost faith, long before he ever left the Order. But I like to believe he never hated the Jedi, nor stopped believing in The Force, but instead was waiting for a sign that The Order could be what they were meant to be.
“As a Padawan, I found that painting helped me make sense of the Visions I saw through The Force. My Master knew this, and I want to believe that he wanted to support me, even if he could no longer support the Order.”
Anakin looks at the unfinished painting on the easel. White, red and gold mixed together to form a brilliant star, surrounded by a roughly sketched pattern of swirls.
“While I painted it, the title was going to be “The Last Hope,” but now I think it should be called “The End of War.” Perhaps you will help me finish it.” Anakin jolts as he realizes that Qui-Gon must have been painting this right before he died. It would explain the long-abandoned cup of tea, the brushes so carelessly left uncleaned while the water in the cup evaporated, leaving a crusted layer of sediment on the bottom.
He looks at his own painting, at the ragged brush strokes and frantic splatters. He looks at the watery red paint still staining his hands. He had tried to capture the weight of unpardonable sin, the shame and guilt that has plagued him since his Mother died.
Maybe Son is right. Maybe it will never leave him, and the burden of guilt is the punishment he will always carry for his actions. Perhaps his hands will always be stained with the blood of the innocent. It is the least he deserves.
But the past is a graveyard, and Anakin can’t linger here forever. He can’t keep cutting himself on the knife in his hands and bleeding onto everything he touches.
“Do you have a title?” The glint in Qui-Gon’s eyes tells him that his Grandmaster already knows.
He nods. Scans the painting one more time, taking in each brush stroke and splattered beads of red paint. The weight of colors, and the emotions they feed into. Looking at the surface, it is clearly a piece about guilt and shame. Anakin wants to lay his grief to rest, to bury it along with the dead, even if he doesn’t deserve it.
“Nothing ever really dies, my Son,” his Mother whispers in his ear.
“Forgiveness.”
That is the only way forward.
This is how he will set the knife down.
Anakin will learn to forgive himself.
“We need to figure out what to do about these chips.” Coric lays the pieces of Rex’s decayed chip onto the table, along with the scans confirming that Coric, Echo, and Kix have them as well.
“So far, I have not seen any adverse affects from chip removal in Captain Rex,” Master Che confirms. “However, the Captain seems to be struggling with his connection to The Force. I have been unable to determine whether the removal of his chip is the main cause, or whether it is a side effect of—”
The door to Master Che’s office opens, and two clones stumble into the room. One is guiding and half-carrying the other, who has the heels of his palms pressed into his eye sockets, body hunched over itself in pain. From the paint on their armor, Coric immediately recognizes them as vode from the 187th.
The clone being supported has a stream of pleas tumbling from his lips, desperate and afraid. “Please don’t take me, Captain please, I can handle it, we don’t need to find—” The words are cut off with a sharp cry of pain, and it is a scramble for the vod supporting him to keep them both off the ground.
“Sorry,” the vod guiding the other gasps out, chest heaving as he catches his breath. “Clover needs help, and I didn’t—Commander Ponds said I should take him to you. N-nothing is working, and we don’t know what to do anymore.”
All three medics immediately stiffen. “Come here child,” Master Che grabs a bench from the corner and guides Clover to sit on it. “Where is the pain localized?”
“Right temple and eyes,” Clover murmurs. Coric presses his lips into a firm line. He feels Kix stiffen beside him.
“Our CMO ran some scans, but nothing showed up,” the Captain informs them.
“The pain won’t go away. It’s already been three rotations,” Clover’s lip wobbles, and he takes a sharp breath, hunching forward, prosthetic fingers digging at his skull. The other vod immediately tries to pull his hand away before he hurts himself.
“Can you open your eyes for me?” Master Che keeps her voice calm, but Coric can see the tension running through her body. Clover shakes his head, biting off a sob. Coric goes to dim the lights, while Kix pulls out Master Che’s med kit and starts looking for a hypo. None of them want a repeat of what happened with Rex. If this is a chip malfunction, they need to act immediately.
“Lights are dim,” Coric reports. Master Che hums her thanks and presses her fingers into Clover’s right temple. The clone slumps in relief as the pain starts to fade, nearly going boneless. Cautiously he blinks open his eyes. Coric is startled to see that they are glowing a brilliant silver, the same way Rex’s eyes glow when he uses The Force. Slowly, the silver drains, returning to a honey gold. Master Che slowly guides Clover to lay down on the bench, keeping her hands gently pressed to the vod’s temple.
“Thank you,” Clover breathes.
“You need not be afraid of what you are, young one. I seek only to help those who need it. Commander Ponds was right to send you to me. For one so untrained, you see deeply into The Force.”
“If these are Visions of what is to come, I cannot bear it,” a fresh wave of tears stream down Clover’s cheeks. The Captain is quick to put his hand on Clover’s shoulder, trying to offer comfort. Coric feels fear curl deep in his chest. Clones are desensitized to many of the worst aspects of war long before they leave Kamino. None of them are strangers to watching brothers die violently. To seeing the worst parts of sentient species. For Clover to be this upset, he must have seen something truly terrible. Perhaps he has even see how the War ends, or the fate that awaits those of them who are left at the end of it. Coric does not want to ask. He thinks the knowledge might crush him.
“Alone, the burden is great. Shared, the weight becomes bearable,” Master Che assures him. “It is no weakness to let others help you.”
“Rex, I want to talk to Rex,” Clover tries to sit up, only for Master Che to firmly push him back down.
“Captain Rex is currently resting, though you may speak to him once you are both well. However, we need to address the source of your issues with controlling your connection to The Force. Lieutenant Kix, we need to prep the operating room,” Master Che declares calmly.
“What?” Clover tries to pull away, but his face crumples in pain the moment he breaks contact with Master Che.
“It is a minor operation,” Master Che assures him. “But we must act quickly to prevent long-term damage.”
“What’s wrong with him?” The Captain’s voice grows sharp with worry.
“Is it the chip?” Kix asks. Master Che nods.
“Chip? What chip?” Clover cries.
“There’s a chip in your head—all our heads, most likely. We think the Kaminoans placed them there, don’t know why. But yours is deteriorating, just like Rex’s was. Which is why it needs to come out now.” Coric informs him bluntly, leaving no room for emotions. Clover blinks then nods.
“Get it out. Please,” he whispers. Kix quickly sedates him with a hypo.
“I’m not taking any chances,” Kix mutters.
Coric frowns down at the unconscious vod. That both Rex and Clover have had their chips deteriorate so close to each other cannot be a coincidence. There has to be something causing the chip’s deterioration. The only similarity between the two cases is that both Rex and Clover seem to have a connection to The Force, and they both discovered it recently. But why would the Kaminoans make the chips so averse to The Force if the clones were made for the Jedi? Is this simply supposed to be the way the Kaminoans ensure they keep the clones Force-null? Or is this something deeper, more sinister?
“Please tell me what you know about the chips” The Captain says.
“We hardly know anything ourselves, other than the fact they exist.” Coric tells him.
“You said Rex’s chip also deteriorated. Is he okay now?”
“We are still closely monitoring Captain Rex,” Master Che supplies. “The full effects of chip removal cannot be known yet, especially concerning his condition at the time the chip was removed.”
“Are you sure the chips are even safe to remove? If the Kaminoans put them in us, they surely had a reason.”
Kix slams a fist on a nearby table, his expression dark. “You don’t understand. Whatever the consequences, these chips cannot be allowed to stay in any vod’s head. Right now, the chips are dormant, and this is probably how they have avoided detection so far. But when they activate, not even Rex could fight it. There was a void where Rex used to be, and all that was left was an empty shell that tried to kill us.” Kix tugs down his medical whites, revealing the stark, hand-shaped bruises still on his throat.
The Captain’s gaze becomes piercing. “Tell me what I need to do. I want to help.”
“How are you feeling, Captain?” Kenobi carefully settles himself in the chair by Rex’s medical cot, holding two cups. “Would you like some caf?” Kenobi offers one of the cups, only to wince when Rex holds out his heavily bandaged hands to accept it.
“I am doing much better now General, thank you,” Rex eventually finds the least painful way to hold the cup steady, eyebrows raising at the contents. It doesn’t look like any caf he’s ever had before, considering its opaque caramel-brown color. But it still smells like caf, and he trusts the General’s word that this is in fact caf, if nothing else. He slowly takes a sip, immediately appreciating the scalding temperature and the way the bitter edge is blunted, leaving only the rich flavor behind. Whatever this caf is, it’s not the dirt-water from the barracks, that’s for sure.
Kenobi takes a tentative sip of his own caf, face screwing up in distaste. Rex takes another sip to hide his amusem*nt. Cody must really have his General on the ropes, if Kenobi is resorting to drinking caf—or “unrefined swill,” as he so fondly calls it.
The humor quickly dies as the General clears his throat, fingers tapping at the cup cradled in his hands. Rex instantly recognizes that this isn’t just a visit for pleasantries. He tries to sit up straighter against the cushions strategically wedged behind him.
“I wanted to discuss the events of our recent… adventure, and where we should go from there if you are feeling up to it,” Kenobi avoids eye contact as he says it. Dread immediately churns in Rex’s stomach, and he closes his eyes in resignation. There’s no way Kenobi doesn’t know about Rex’s connection to The Force, not when he used it directly in front of the General more than once. Which means it’s over. General Kenobi will tell the Council, and Rex will be sent back to Kamino. Rex knew he was on borrowed time, but he had hoped he would be able to keep his secret a little longer, be able to help save more people. He had hoped the doppelgänger who came to visit him on Mortis was wrong. Rex is a naive fool for thinking General Kenobi would take it as well as Anakin and Ahsoka had.
“I-I understand General. I submit myself to disciplinary measures, and to trial before the Council and to the Tribunal of the Grand Army of the Republic,” something warm starts to splatter into his lap, and Rex doesn’t realize how badly his hands are shaking until Kenobi is quickly peeling the cup out of his hands with a curse. The bandages have been soaked through in some places, the heat scalding through to his skin.
“Oh dear, I suppose I should have gone about this better,” Kenobi reaches for Rex again, and he feels every muscle tense up. Various instruments start to rattle, The Force wrapping around him instinctively. His eyes are burning, and he hears the General suck in a breath through his teeth.
“Captain, I assure you that I have no intention of bringing you before the Council. Or the Tribunal for that matter,” The words don’t sound real. Why wouldn’t General Kenobi bring him before the Council? Rex is used to Skywalker going against the Council’s express wishes—it is practically a game at this point—but he can’t imagine General Kenobi doing the same. After all, General Kenobi is on the Council, and it is his duty to bring up something so important to the war effort. There’s no way the Council won’t see a Force-sensitive clone as a threat to the Jedi order—after all, isn’t that why the Kaminoans engineered them to be Force-null in the first place? Isn’t that why the Jedi Order so carefully monitors Force-sensitives? There’s no way the Order would let him operate as an unaffiliated Force-user. And once the Kaminoans get word that there is such a thing as a Force-sensitive clone, they will stop at nothing to get their hands on him—
“Captain? Can you hear me?” Something shatters, and General Kenobi curses softly. “Please don’t bite me again, but I need to get these bandages off quickly.” What? Warm hands wrap around his wrists, the wet bandages heavy as they are peeled off.
“Kix and Master Che are going to kill me,” Kenobi murmurs. One hand stays anchored to his left wrist, and Rex flinches as something cool and wet trails along his skin. The contradicting sensations of warm hands and cool ointment grounds him, and eventually Rex is able to climb out of his own panic.
“Thankfully, the burns appear to be mild, the bandages must have mostly protected your skin from direct contact.” Kenobi murmurs to himself, “now, where does Master Che keep the bandages?”
“Third shelf on the left,” Rex manages to say. Kenobi hums his thanks, standing up to find the bandages. Rex simply watches as the swaths of white are firmly wrapped around his wrists and hands. Kenobi says nothing at first, focusing entirely on his task.
With how gentle the General is treating him, Rex is almost embarrassed by his earlier bout of panic.
“I apologize Captain, I did not intend to cause you distress. I have no desire to bring your…” Obi-wan pauses to mull over his choice of words. “Your gift to the attention of the Council, not when you have cause to fear for your health and safety if the matter were to be made public. While I will not pretend to know what the Council’s feelings on the matter would be, I agree that it will be safest to remain discreet.”
Rex winces. “You heard that?”
Obi-wan nods. “You projected quite loudly, my Dear.”
“Ah,” Rex felt his cheeks start to burn. “If you don’t mind my asking, Sir, if you aren’t here to bring me before the Council, what did you wish to discuss with me?”
“I’ll admit the primary reason for my visit was to see that you are doing well and recovering,” Obi-wan says. “I had hoped to lift your spirits by bringing you caf, though I’m afraid that did not go as planned,” from the way the General avoids eye contact, Rex has a niggling feeling that the caf was for more than just his spirits. Growing up with the Shebse, he is more than capable of spotting a bribe when he sees one.
“I also wanted to…offer myself as a resource for you.” Obi-wan continues to avoid eye contact, instead folding his hands repeatedly and tapping his thumbs together. “While I’m certain Anakin agreed to train you, he is also rather busy teaching Ahsoka and fighting a War, and well, I imagine it wouldn’t hurt to learn from multiple teachers…”
Rex considers the offer.
He knows the General is considered to be one of the strongest Jetti in the Order. Rex has seen firsthand the way he uses The Force to fight, the way he subtly weaves Force Suggestions into his words when he negotiates with Separatists or the people they are protecting. Kark, he’s a member of the Council for a reason.
Rex also happens to know that General Kenobi is certifiably insane, even if he tries to hide it behind his reasonable locution and tea drinking. He gets along with Cody, of all vode, and it’s hard to forget that this is the man who trained Anakin. Rex does not want to end up like that. No thank you.
Obi-wan must see the hesitation (read: visceral terror) in his face, because the General’s shoulders droop. “Ah. Forget I said anything.” He fiddles with the sleeve of his robes, inadvertently revealing a pair of crescent-shaped scabs that look exactly like a bite mark. Rex wonders when that happened—maybe Daughter tried to bite him the way Son bit Rex? His head flashes with pain, and belatedly Rex realizes that he dropped his shields—
There’s a hand against his forehead, Kenobi’s shields instinctively wrapping around his mind.
Rex sighs in relief, his mental shields slowly reforming. After having them destroyed so many times by Father and Son, Rex has had much more trouble keeping his shields intact. Master Che has told him that his shields are being weakened by severe exhaustion, mental and physical, and that he will gain his normal mastery back as he recovers. But Rex isn’t so certain. He feels different after Mortis. Less contained. Less controlled. His connection with The Force is much more raw, in a way it hasn’t been since Valtameri.
Obi-wan has a worried frown on his face, and Rex can’t tell if he was projecting his thoughts again.
“Captain, if you don’t mind my asking, is it… are you having difficulty with your shielding?”
Rex nods, cheeks once again coloring with embarrassment. Shielding is a skill he supposedly mastered months ago. The fact that he keeps losing basic control of his abilities is shameful. The fact that Master Che has to keep rushing to his side whenever he slips up because he can’t build his shields up on his own is even more so.
Obi-wan hums, interrupting Rex’s mental pity party. “From what I could gather, you are already quite proficient at shielding, which is more than impressive for someone your age. I imagine only Anakin has achieved such thorough mental defenses, considering the amount of time we focused on shielding techniques when he was a Padawan. I dare say you even give my friend Quinlan a run for his credits.”
What.
“I have found that stronger Force users struggle with building proper shields. Anakin constantly lost control as a kid, and then again as he was going through puberty, giving impressive headaches to anyone who managed to be too close. And you, Captain, seem to be having similar issues. Though in your case, Captain, I believe the type of shielding you use, while strong and flexible, is simply taking too much energy for your recovering mind. May I teach you a temporary form of shielding to use as you recover? It will be less effective, I’m afraid, but far more stable.”
Suddenly, Rex realizes the trap he has fallen into. Damn Kenobi. But Rex can’t very well let his shielding keep falling apart like this. He won’t always have a Jettise on the field with him if he slips up. If the General has a way to help him, it would be stubborn foolishness not to take him up on it.
Reluctantly, Rex agrees. Kenobi walks him through the steps. Instead of water, he is imagining the branches of a tree, wrapping around his mind like a living cage. It’s a bit more rigid, but there are controlled access points to The Force, rather than a constantly shifting wall. It’s an intermediate mix between the different types of shields that Rex has already learned, making it easier to pick up. After that, Kenobi shows him several other types of shields, with different rigidity and flexibility, and has Rex practice shifting between the different shields one after another. This way Rex can immediately slam up his beskar-walls when he first loses control, before gradually shifting to healthier shields based on what he has the concentration and energy for.
Kenobi is gentle and patient the entire time, keeping Rex cocooned in his mental shields until he is certain the Captain can handle shielding on his own. By the end of their session, Rex feels more at ease and in control of himself than he has in a long time.
“Thank you, General, I appreciate it, more than I have the words to express at the moment. Perhaps… I wouldn’t be opposed to future training sessions? If that is okay with you, of course.” Rex wonders what he was so worried about before. The 501st and 212th work together often, so finding a time to train isn’t the issue so much as finding a way to keep it secret. Based on the shielding session they just had, Kenobi has an approach to teaching other than Anakin’s preferred “throw-them-right-into-it-and-see-what-happens” method. Kark, Rex might actually understand what he’s doing for once.
Kenobi brightens considerably. “It would be my pleasure, Captain. I am delighted to be of service to you.” He takes a sip of what is undeniably cold caf at this point. Based on the face he makes, the General had forgotten it was caf in the first place.
“Captain, if it is not too much trouble, would you be able to assist me in finding a more… agreeable beverage?”
Rex tries his best to keep his face completely blank. He doesn’t believe he is successful in the slightest. “Apologies General, but if the Commander is still mad at you, I’m afraid you are on your own.”
Kenobi looks disappointed, though not surprised. “Are you certain? I have heard that the Commander is like an older brother to you. Surely, as his younger brother, you would be able to curry favor with him?”
Rex learned long ago that to get between Cody and his campaigns is to make a death wish, and he has no desire to interfere in whatever wrath the General brought down upon his head. Especially if Cody is going so far as to drag Fox into his plans. Anyone who so much appears to consider helping Kenobi get his hands on some tea, or otherwise commute his sentence, is sure to face a punishment worthy of the Sith’s deepest hell. As far as the clones are concerned, the General has dug his own grave, and no one feels the need to dig it deeper or wider to join him.
“Unfortunately, General, I’m a younger brother, not a miracle worker.”
Kenobi slumps into his seat, looking thoroughly dejected. “It was worth a shot.”
Anakin takes a step back from his easel, wiping his brow with his forearm to avoid smearing paint on himself. In his chest, The Force hums with approval. From the canvas his mother smiles back at him, her hair pulled up into an elegant braid. Wrinkles crinkle around her eyes, but they are lines of care, rather than stress. Faint lines of gold weave around her like the natural balm of sunlight. After all, Shmi was firmly bathed in the Light.
Tears start building in Anakin’s eyes. His memory of his mother’s face had started to fade, and he had feared that his memory of her would leave with it. But now he has a picture to keep, and it is something he made with his own hands. For the first time since she died, Anakin can face his mother, and he can face her without shame.
If he had not stumbled upon this room, Anakin would have never known he had the ability to paint like this. To lay himself down in The Force and let it guide him through his emotions. Anakin can finally see why Obi-wan likes meditating so much, why Rex bakes at every available opportunity. He feels grounded, fully in control of himself. He can examine his emotions and the roots of them the same way he would solve a mechanical puzzle. The anger and shame are still with him, of course, but they are simmering now, not the only thing he can focus on.
“You think you can escape me so easily?” Son’s voice tickles against his ear. “I am buried within you, marrow and blood. Soon you will realize that you can’t live without me, that you will need what I can offer you.”
Anakin moves his dirty brushes to a small utility sink, methodically cleaning the bristles. “You’re right. I can’t escape you. That’s why I am going to face you head on. I’m not going to let you control me.”
“Your Guide is still mine, and so long as he is he shall suffer.”
“Then I shall free him from you. Day and night, I will scour The Force to find his chains. And when I find them, nothing will stop me from destroying you.”
“I am a God, you foolish mortal. You cannot kill—“
“I have already killed you once. You are nothing more than a ghost clinging to its former shell.”
The door opens, Obi-wan carefully sneaking in, scanning the hallway before closing the door as quickly and quietly as he can.
“Master, what are you doing here?”
Obi-wan startles so badly he knocks over a table and several bottles of paint with The Force.
“Anakin! What are you doing here?” Even as the question leaves Obi-wan’s mouth, he’s clearly distracted in his search for something. His eyes flit around the room like a sparrow being hunted.
“Painting.” Anakin gestures to the drying canvas. “Are you looking for something?”
“Ah, yes, I suppose you could say that.” Obi-wan’s gaze lingers a little too long on the biohazard still sitting untouched by Qui-Gon’s unfinished painting. Anakin had honestly forgotten it was there.
A sense of ominous foreboding fills the room. Sweat trickles down the back of Anakin’s neck. He knows quite well the desperate spark in a man’s eyes, when dignity and humanity have fled with reason.
“Master, no.”
Obi-wan lunges for the cup anyway, and Anakin pulls it to the floor with The Force. The cup shatters into hundreds of tiny pieces, but that does not stop Obi-wan from falling to his knees, picking up the moldy tea bag and barely taking the time to brush off the shards of glass before shoving the whole thing in his mouth.
Anakin does not think his eyes will ever recover. He crumples to his knees from the psychic damage just as Obi-wan starts retching.
“Captain, I am happy to inform you that your recent round of tests have all come back satisfactorily,” Master Che announces. “You are now released from the Halls to recover in your barracks, so long as you continue to regularly check in with Healer Kix or Healer Coric.” She levels him with a stern glare. “By regular check ups, I mean once every other rotation, or immediately if you start experiencing concerning symptoms, such as dizziness, severe or reoccurring headaches, insomnia, fatigue, abdominal pain, deep aches, hot flashes—“
“Thank you, Master Che, I appreciate the concern, but I think I will be—“ The healer cradles his face in her hands, looking at him intently.
“The next time I see you, Captain Rex, it better be as a visitor, and not a patient. In order to ensure that favored outcome, you must take care of both your body and your mind.” Master Che presses her forehead to his, and Rex can feel The Force humming and swelling around the both of them. The feather stashed under his medical gown grows warm, almost burning against his skin. “You are strong, Captain. One of the strongest individuals I have ever met, both in The Force and in strength of mind, but even the sturdiest rocks may be weathered by the storm. Take care to remember that you are not alone in your trials.”
Rex struggles to swallow the lump forming in his throat. “Thank you, Master Che. I promise to take your words to heart.”
“I give it three weeks, max,” Coric murmurs to Kix. A moment later, Coric lets out a yelp when Kix’s elbow nails him in the side. Rex wonders if his medics have started getting subtlety lessons from Fives and Echo. Master Che rolls her eyes before turning to face her fellow medics.
“Whoever created those chips wanted them hidden. If we are to start removing them, we must do so discreetly.” Kix and Coric both nod, determination in their eyes.
“Blond Squad is working on a way to bypass the report function that is used whenever a Level 5 scan is requested. They are also having some of the splicers look into programming the surgery into the machines where the data will immediately be wiped. While they modify the scanners and surgical machines, Coric and I will start spreading the information through the GAR medic network,” Kix explains. “For now, we will only operate on cases where we suspect chip degradation has already begun, and then expand our efforts to clones in medical, command, and spec ops.”
Master Che nods. “If more of your brethren show signs of Force Sensitivity, have them contact me using this comm code.”
“I can help too,” Rex offers. “I can teach—“
“Not on your life, Captain,” Coric immediately shuts the offer down. “Let us medics handle this, that’s an order.”
“I outrank you,” Rex huffs.
“Not when it comes to the health and safety of the men,” Kix and Coric respond in sync.
“If you’re so concerned for my health and safety, am I at least allowed to bake?” Rex hasn’t had the chance to bake since before Mortis, and the desire to bury his hands in some dough is nearly overwhelming.
Kix and Coric exchange some sort of look with each other. “Normally I would say yes, but,” Kix scrunches up his face like he bit into something sour.
“Hardcase and Jesse exploded the kitchen. It is currently unusable,” Coric finishes. Rex feels all joy and hope in humanity leave him at once. If he sees Jesse or Hardcase on the way back to the barracks, he’s not sure he can stop himself from murdering either of them.
“I think I need to go lay down for a bit.”
What remains of his armor is sitting in his quarters in the barracks, cleaned and stacked into neat piles. Inspecting the pieces, Rex sighs when he realizes he’ll have to get a new chest and back plate again, considering the gaping hole through both of them.
His memory of Mortis is still mostly jumbled, hovering in his mind like a foggy mist. He picks up the chest plate, running a finger over the sharp edge. Even the moment he was stabbed feels unreal to him, the scar already faded and old. He knows he was not fully himself at the time, his body and mind torn apart so something dark could be shoved in. Rex thinks that a part of that darkness still lingers, that he can feel it throbbing under his skin.
Before he can spiral too far, Rex sets down the chest plate and picks up his helmet. Faint streaks of dried blood still linger on the surface, and Rex vaguely remembers dragging his bloody hands over the surface, trying to drown out the blue paint. The Jaig Eyes he wasn’t worthy of, the tallies of all the missions "successfully" completed. With a sigh, Rex puts on his helmet, planning to inspect the HUD for damage.
In the upper right corner of the HUD, a small red light is blinking, signaling that there is a recording to view. Rex sucks in a breath through his teeth, opening the file and setting his HUD to project. He turns off all the lights, so that the recording is the only source of light.
The video starts with a panorama of floating islands and lush vegetation. It is almost eerie how the islands simply hover, how quiet and still everything is without animals. It makes the hairs on the back of Rex’s neck stand up.
“What?… What? Uh, Did you guys hear that?” Anakin asks off to the side. Rex turns to look at the General, only to see him turning in circles.
“Hear what, sir?” Rex hears himself ask. The camera whites out and is filled with static a moment later. It fluctuates and continues to only catch bits of landscape and conversation for the next few minutes, only coming into clarity again when a landslide happens. The frame freezes and glitches before resuming, but in that time Rex sees a dark blur hovering in the left corner of the frame. Then the video captures Rex being thrown off a cliff with perfect clarity. He watches his hands scrabble uselessly for a handhold, hears each pained grunt and panicked curse as he fails to catch himself.
Rex watches for what feels like hours, as the recording recounts what he experienced. Without the memories to back up the video, it feels like watching a dream version of himself. The video also struggles to capture anything having to do with The Ones, leading to voids in the film. He watches himself be dragged around by Father, watches Anakin burst open the Conduit of the Force, bending night and day to his will. He sees Anakin’s face when he is captured by Son, and the naked fear and desperation sends a shiver down his spine. The video cuts out for a while after that, until Rex is holding the helmet and pointing it at himself.
Rex almost doesn’t recognize himself, seeing what Son had forced him to be. Dark veins spiral over his pale skin like cracks, eyes molten gold and bloodshot, lips pulled into an unnatural snarl as he paints over the camera lens with blood.
And then Anakin comes, and Rex hears himself say every secret thought he swore he would die with, spitting it at his General like the deadliest of poisons, every word meant to cut deep and burn. But no matter what he says, the General still keeps trying to save him. Then Ahsoka joins the fight, and neither her nor Anakin ever move to maim or kill, even when Rex does.
Rex’s eyes start to burn, and the next thing he knows tears start streaming down his face. His chest is twisting with a raw grief he can’t name, and he he presses his hands to his mouth to choke down the wretched sobs making his throat ache.
He finally understands Ahsoka’s words. That the Jettise will fight for him like he isn’t a clone. That she views him as something worth fighting for. It was so much easier when Rex believed he would die alone on Kamino, when he could convince himself that no one would mourn him, and he was replaceable like a clone should be.
Even when the Shebse found and adopted him, Rex could convince himself that they might mourn for awhile, but would be able to move on. After all, the clones were painfully aware of the cruel reality of death from the moment they were decanted.Rex is supposed to die. That is the whole purpose of his existence. And if he dies during the war, then he doesn’t have to worry about what happens after, doesn’t have to think about being anything other than a soldier.
It is a strange thing to watch himself die. To watch Ahsoka cradle his dead body. Seeing the grief on her face, in Anakin and Obi-wan makes him hate his own cowardice. Rex has not been trying to die, but he has not been trying to live either.The realization of his own value terrifies him. His brothers, the Jettise, they all see him as a man—as something individualized, valuable, irreplaceable. But Rex still sees himself as a number, and he doesn’t know how to reconcile his purpose with his humanity.
Rex throws his helmet across the room, and then curls into a ball and stays that way for a long time, the video replaying in eerie shadows on his wall.
Fox does not get paid. Even if he did, Fox could not be paid enough to deal with this osik. His eyes are blurring, no longer able to focus on the words on the datapad.
Two rotations. He has been working for two full rotations. If his medics knew, they would kill him, which is why he has locked himself in his office and directed all inquiries to Thire for the time being. But the Chancellor needs his report on the CoruscanTea company investigation and monopoly bust filed by tomorrow, and Fox is never doing Cody a favor again.
Sure, Fox was already planning on giving at least Amidala and Chuchi a heads up on the shady tea company, and Cody’s request to suddenly get rid of all tea on Coruscant had been a good excuse to get things into motion, but not even two cases of fine Corellian Whiskey will fix the amount of bantha-osik Fox has had to deal with. Turns out tea-addicts are much, much worse to deal with than regular alcoholics and spice users. General Kenobi has been stopping by his office nearly every day for an update on the case, and an estimate on when tea will be back on the market.
With a sigh, he leans back and rubs at his heavy eyes. The desire to sleep is about to pull him down, so he reaches for his caf, only to find out that the cup is empty. Karking osik. After a few more curse words, he’s able to push himself up from his chair, back and neck protesting every movement with a series of loud pops. He tiredly swipes up his empty cup and starts making his way to the kitchen, because Staples and Patch won’t let him keep a caf machine in his office, arguing that he’ll abuse the access to caf. They aren’t wrong, but it’s inconvenient that he has to walk all the way to the kitchen.
Odd. The lights are already on. Considering the time, the only Corries awake are himself and anyone assigned to night shift. Besides, the caf machine is the only thing in the kitchen anyone knows how to use, and any Corrie worth their salt can use it in the dark. The light is abrasive, and Fox stands in the open doorway to the kitchen, blinking hard several times so his tired eyes will adjust. Then he blinks again, rubbing at his eyes with his free hand. When his vision finally clears again, he can mostly confirm that he’s actually not hallucinating the scene in front of his eyes.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dying in a MedBay somewhere?”
His little blond menace lets out a surprised shriek, whipping around and throwing the nearest convenient projectile. Fox doesn’t even try to dodge, accepting his fate as it soars through the air and hits him directly in the chest, creating a cloud of fine white powder that coats his face. After a moment, the thing peels off his armor and plops onto the floor. Fox nudges it with his foot, surprised by how squishy and pliable the blob of material is.
“Fox!” Rex chokes out. “What are you doing here?”
Fox holds up his empty caf cup as an explanation. “Better question: what are you doing in my kitchen at 3 in the morning?” Fox isn’t actually sure that’s the current time, but it feels like the correct time.
Rex sighs and gestures at the blob on the floor. “I was making bread.”
“You mean the thing you just tried to murder me with?” Fox nudges the supposed bread with his foot one more time, for emphasis.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be awake,” Rex mutters sulkily. He gives the bread on the floor a forlorn look before he starts scooping up the powdery mess on the counter into a pile, sweeping it into the bowl he picked up from the floor.
Fox ventures further into the kitchen. “And why are you trying to make bread in my kitchen at three in the morning?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Now that Fox is closer, he can see that Rex’ika does indeed have worryingly dark circles under his blue eyes. It’s going to take a while for Fox to get used to that. His vod’ika also looks far too pale and skinny to be healthy.
It still doesn’t explain why Rex is in his kitchen.
“You aren’t hiding from your medics, are you?”
“Like you’re any better,” Rex rolls his eyes, scooping a certain amount of white powder into a larger bowl. “They released me this morning, if you’re that worried.” Fox watches with interest as Rex adds in a few more powders and salt before pouring in some water and mixing everything into a paste. He doesn’t remember seeing any of these things before, which means the menace brought them himself, with the full intention of making a mess in Fox’s kitchen. Still, Fox can admit there is something soothing about the repetitive motions Rex makes. Despite the dark circles under his eyes, his vod’ika really does look more at peace, the tension draining from his shoulders.
“Do you want to try?”
The question startles Fox out of his thoughts.
“What?”
Rex gestures to the paste. “Want to try making bread? I mean, I know you’re probably busy—I get it, really. But, you feel—you seem stressed, and I find baking helps.”
Fox should say no, should grab his coffee and go back to holing up in his office. He really needs to finish that karking report. But the blond menace is looking at him with those hopeful tooka eyes, and the voice in his head is whispering that he should take any moment he can get with his brothers—for all Fox knows, this might be the last time he sees his little menace alive, especially with Rex’s recent track record.
“Give me a moment,” Fox sets down the empty mug and turns on his heels. The dark hallways seem much emptier without the warmth and light from the kitchen. Fox tries not to think about it as he grabs the stack of data pads on his desk and makes his way back.
Rex brightens considerably when he returns. Fox sets down his stack of data pads and approaches Rex by the counter. His little menace pulls out another bowl and starts instructing Fox on how to make his own paste mixture. He’s still a little doubtful on how this is going to become something edible, but Rex seems confident enough.
Mixing everything together with his hands is… surprisingly calming. He ignores Rex’s knowing grin as he focuses on making sure all the flour is incorporated into his blob of dough. After that is done, Rex briefly turns the oven on and then off again.
“Usually I let the dough rise overnight, but for the sake of time, we’re going to use the one-hour method.”
The hour of wait time gives Fox the chance to finally make his caf and work on his report. Rex spends the time cleaning up the rest of his mess and then reading over Fox’s shoulder, offering the occasional correction and snarky comment.
Rex pulls the bread out of the oven, and Fox is surprised to see that the blob has doubled in size. Following Rex’s example, he works to coat the sticky food in flour, mesmerized by the pillowy texture. Fox is starting to see why Rex is so obsessed with this. Absently, Fox pinches off a piece, popping it into his mouth.
“Fox, wait-“
Maker, it tastes awful. Almost worse than their ration bars.
Rex bursts into laughter, the sound slightly hysterical. Tears start streaming down his vod’ika’s cheeks and he uses the counter to keep himself upright.
“You’re telling me you raided my kitchen at 3 am to make this osik?” Fox washes the taste of bread out with cold caf. All his faith in his youngest vod’ika has been wasted. He picks up his data pads and prepares to march out of the kitchen with any dignity he still has.
“Wait, wait,” Rex gasps out. “It isn’t baked yet, you di’kut.”
“What do you mean it isn’t baked yet—isn’t that why you put it in the oven for an hour?”
“That was to proof the dough,” Fox gives him the blankest stare he can manage. “I gave the yeast time to work its magic so the dough would rise.”
“I see,” he doesn’t, actually, but Rex doesn’t need to know that. Thankfully, his vod’ika is distracted by shaping the loaves and coating them in butter, herbs, and salt, and then they are left to rise one final time while the oven gets to temperature. Fox finishes his report while the loaves bake in the oven.
The little menace has an osik-eating grin as he hands Fox a thick slice of still-steaming bread, then sits there like a karking vulture, anticipating the first bite.
Hesitantly, Fox takes a small nibble. He has to fight to restrain himself from inhaling the rest of the bread, instead making a noncommittal humming sound as he chews the next, significantly larger bite as slowly as he can.
“Well??” The menace is so eager for his approval. It’s honestly kind of cute.
“It’s alright, I guess.” Fox would do several illegal things to have an entire loaf of this bread. He would even consider doing another favor for Cody. His eyes are starting to sting from the effort of holding back tears of joy, his jaw clenched tightly so that not even a ghost of a smile can form on his face. “I suppose you are worth keeping around for a little bit longer.”
Rex beams, then hands Fox another thick slice of bread.
Thire marches into the Corrie break room, finding his men huddled around the salvaged caf table and whispering amongst themselves.
“We should try it! It smells so good, it can’t possibly be bad.”
“Goat, what is wrong with you? We have no idea who left it here—what if it is poisoned?”
“Yes, Tyrel, because if I wanted to murder vode, the easiest way I can think to do it would be to sneak something poisonous into a high-security military complex, instead of just using anti-war-protest-mobs or shooting them on the street.”
“What seems to be the problem?”
The Corries whip around, immediately falling into attention. This tells Thire that the whole lot of them are shinies. No one else in the Corrie Guard bothers saluting their superior officers.
“At ease. Now, sit rep.”
One of the shinies—Tyrel, if Thire had to guess—holds up an object pinched between his thumb and index finger, carefully extending his arm to keep it as far away from his body as possible. “Sir. This appeared in the break room sometime last night.”
On the caf table is several trays of what appears to be over a half dozen round objects, sliced into smaller pieces. The outer core is a golden brown, the top covered in bits of green leaves and tiny clear crystals. The inside looks spongy and lighter, also filled with green chunks. Thire has no idea what it is, or how and why it appeared in the break room. If he had to guess, based on the fact that it is sitting on trays alone, it might be a sort of food, but it looks nothing like the rations the GAR serves, nor the protein mush they were fed on Kamino.
Whatever it is, he doesn’t trust it. Not one bit.
“Did you ask medical to check it out?” Thire finally asks.
“Staples said he was too busy for me to be wasting his time with such bantha-osik, and to avoid putting it in my mouth if I was that concerned over it being poisonous,” Tyrel admits sheepishly.
Thire sighs. “For now, don’t touch it, and treat it like it’s hostile. I’ll have someone from Analytics come get a sample—hopefully they can figure out what it's supposed to be.”
It is at that moment that Marshall Commander Fox himself strolls in, cup of caf in one hand and a datapad in the other. With barely a glance at everyone else in the room, he makes a beeline towards the caf table, picks up a slice of the Unidentified Substance—somehow without setting down his caf or datapad—and takes a large bite out of it before holding it in his mouth and turning to leave.
“NO!” Without thinking, Thire slaps the thing out of Fox’s mouth, inadvertently smacking the caf and datapad out of his hands as well. Unidentified Substance, caf, and datapad all end up in a wet pile of broken glass and porcelain on the floor.
For a moment, Fox just stares blankly, like he’s going through the 5 stages of grief deep in his own head. It’s when the Commander meets his eyes that Thire starts to consider that he maybe karked up.
“Commander Thire, I sincerely hope you have a good explanation for this.”
