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I
Geonosis is a nightmare come to life, but Cody can’t really say that, both because it’d be kind of a blow for morale, which is already at an odd balance, and because it sounds, in his mind, like something any of them would get reconditioned – or decommissioned – for if they were caught saying it by the wrong person, maybe even the Marshal Commander himself.
So, he stays quiet as his team finds the Jedi who’d gone after the secondary target, some nat born named Dooku, and he keeps his mouth shut while the medics stabilize one of the men and check over the other, and then on the flight back to the Venator-class ship they’d been assigned to, escorting the newly appointed officers, even if one of them hasn’t been notified of his newly acquired status yet, unconscious as he is, all the way to the med-bay. There’s a medical frigate stationed with them, but that one is expected to be filling up with both Jedi and Troopers soon enough that they’d been directed to what’s meant to be their own ship from that point onwards, with a much smaller but just as well-equipped medical area and staff.
It's there, amongst the efficiently chaotic, bacta scented crew and equipment that Commander Cody first meets Healer Kenobi.
One second his eyes are on Stats, their CMO, who’s looking over the prone form of Commander Skywalker while trying to tell General Jinn off and towards the smaller examination box further down the hall, the General arguing that his padawan, his apprentice, needs him and their bond, whatever that bond might be. The next he’s gazing up at the figure casting a shadow over the side of Stats with suspicion, only for his jaw to go just a little slack in awe, not that anyone else in the room could notice between the general hubbub and Cody’s helmet still firmly set on his head.
“He will be in my care, Master Jinn.”
Cody’s becoming familiar enough with Jedi garb to recognize it in the newcomer, although he’s missing several items, a few pieces have been somewhat personalized, and he’s added some elements that mark him as a part of the medical staff as easily as Stats’ scrubs. But that’s not what has him starting to blush and staring wide eyed, it’s just what gives him the commodity to do so, the security that this is one of his superiors, one of his allies. What has him acting like a shiny is the man himself: he’s about the same height as an average Trooper, which also makes him shorter than General Jinn, but where Jinn and Skywalker are more on the gaunt or gangly side, this Medic seems to have some more meat on him, what with the way his undergarments fill a little more at the shoulders and upper arms; his bright-eyed, neatly bearded face is composed as he bends to assess the state of the noticeably younger man, and the overhead lights glint off the well-cared for strands of his bronze-copper hair, and off the similarly colored feathers of the carefully folded wings at his back, the articulations at which they bend easily reaching and surpassing the General’s height and the feathers at the bottom likely touching the ground. When the man shuffles to take a better look at the cauterized wound that used to be Skywalker’s arm, an odd tapping-tinkling sound rises from the ground, and has Cody looking down in a daze, to find out that, around mid-thigh, the Medic’s tabards give way to what can only be considered as the legs of a powerful, yet elegant bird of prey, the sharp talons clicking against the white flooring and snapping Cody out of his stupor.
“Healer Kenobi,” General Jinn acknowledges the other male, Kenobi, with a harsher voice than Cody’s heard so far, staring down at him with a severe expression. “Anakin needs me by his side, as you can see.”
Jinn looks like he’s planning to say more, but closes his mouth shut at a single hand gesture from the Medic, leaving the other Jedi wide-eyed in an inscrutable show of emotion, and Cody both bewildered and hot under the collar of his standard blacks.
“Anakin needs immediate medical attention, and so might you, from what I’ve heard of your fight against Dooku,” Medic Kenobi says, firm and steady, and the muscles at Jinn’s jaw twitch but not a single sound can be heard coming from him. “Trooper?”
“Marshal Commander CC-2224, sir,” Cody rattles off at attention without even thinking.
Kenobi hums and Cody can’t tell whether it’s at something he’s said or done, or because of a new piece of information about his patient that the nimble work of his hands has revealed to him.
“Commander, could you please ensure that Master Jinn makes it to the box, is exanimated by the medical droid there, and follows whichever immediate indications he’s given?”
“Yes, sir,” he answers with a bit more strength than he’d intended.
Get it together, you wet shiny, he thinks in the recesses of his own mind.
“If he chooses to be obstinate about it,” Kenobi continues, turns to look at him for the first time as Skywalker is taken away by Stats and a droid, and oh, those eyes are such a nice shade of grey blue, “you have my permission as Chief Medical Officer of the Grand Army to complete the task with any means necessary.”
Cody nods, and Kenobi gives him a gleaming smile before twirling to follow on the steps of his colleague and towards his patient. In the single second he gives himself to stare after the retreating Medic, he can confirm that the tips of some of the lowest, longest feathers do reach the floor and trail after him much like Jinn’s robes do.
Cody never thought he’d have a thing for birds, but, well.
II
“We need to stop meeting at battlefields, or at Geonosis, for that matter,” says a bemused voice behind and to the side of him, a voice Cody recognizes, and too well, all things considered.
When he turns in his seat on the crate, Cody’s welcomed by the beautiful sight of Jedi Medic Obi-Wan Kenobi in all his bronze-copper glory, looking nearly golden under the inescapable sunlight of noon at Geonosis. He’s wearing his usual dress of Jedi tunics and medical attire, all accommodated to what he’s come to learn is more or less the average Stewjoni physiology. Even if he’s only caught long glances of the Medic since the First Battle of Geonosis, crossed paths with him at the Officer’s tent on occasion, both of them having so much to do, so many places to be in a battlefield, in a war, Cody’s at least done his private little research and found out what he could about the humanoid-adjacent natives of the tempered world of Stewjon. Which, admittedly, isn’t all that much, mostly just some medical papers on their avian characteristics and some notes about basic etiquette. Turns out, not only do they have talons in their feet, but also teeth sharp and jaw strong enough to tear into his meat, maybe even shatter his plasteel armor, and they have to take good care of the nails in their hands to keep them from pretty much turning into a second set of claws, unless they actually want that. Quite the predators, he thinks, and a shiver runs down his spine when Kenobi approaches and takes a seat next to him, or more of a slouch forward, with his elbows resting on his thighs.
Instead of letting himself follow the line of thought that his body very clearly wants him to, Cody steers his mind towards the safer topic of Ahsoka Tano, the kid commander of the 501st who shouldn’t ever be sent into a warzone whatsoever, even with her razor-sharp claws and fangs, glow in the dark eyes and too flexible spine. He wonders if the two of them have ever met, if they’ve traded hunting tips, if she’s wiped the floor with him while sparring the way she sometimes does with the men under Rex, or if maybe Kenobi’s seasoned experience has won in the end.
“A bit difficult to avoid in a war, I’m afraid, sir,” Cody answers with a steady voice, back ramrod straight.
Kenobi regales him with what can only be called a soft smirk, eyes twinkling and a flush to his cheeks, either from the sun or the exertion of whatever chaos he’s emerged from. Breathe, Cody.
From this close and without any orders to immediately carry or dish out, Cody can take a moment to just look at the other male. Kenobi is certainly older than Skywalker, and younger than Jinn, maybe somewhere right in the middle between the two; the flush, fading away a bit now, touches his cheeks and connects over the bridge of his strong nose; there are faint crowfeet next to his eyes, a smattering of ghostly freckles high on his cheeks and near his hairline, almost imperceptible bags under his eyes, and lines that must come from a lot of frowning between his eyebrows.
“I should leave you to rest with a modicum of peace and privacy, sir,” Cody attempts to extricate himself but the Medic is shaking his head with a huff long before he reaches the sir.
“You think I’m letting you leave, just like that?” Kenobi’s voice gets a little lower, almost gruff, it makes the tips of his fingers and toes tingle. “I can see the scratches on your neck, and the singe at your elbow, Commander.”
“You came here to rest, sir,” Cody emphasizes even though he stays in his place, pinned by the other’s attention, like the genuine, defenseless prey of an apex predator, knowing it’s too late to escape.
Kenobi raises an eyebrow at him, one arm keeping him propped in his half slouch as the other waves about.
“I’m sitting, aren’t I?”
Cody eyes him with reproach then, the spell broken, but all that gets him is a huffed laugh, there and gone like the breeze.
“Let me take a look at you and I won’t have to hunt you down, which you truly don’t want me to do.”
Cody swallows around a maybe I do want you to that gets a little too close to the surface for his liking, watches Kenobi push his hair off and away from his eyes, pull a pair of sterilized and sealed gloves from a pouch before he makes a gesture at him.
“Take off the armor on your arm, I’ll roll the sleeve back.”
The clasps are easy to undo, and Cody stacks the pieces of plasteel on the small surface of the crate that remains unoccupied. Kenobi’s hands are strong and steady as they make quick, careful work of the snug fabric, with fewer calluses than Cody’s but still more than he’d expected; he’d seen the lightsaber dangling from a clip at the Stewjoni’s utility belt, he can see it now peeking from the side of the dark grey apron, at his left hip, but he’s never caught him use it, or even heard of anyone who’s done so.
Sure, he’s a Jedi, so he must at least know how to use his own weapon without chopping one of his own limbs off, and those talons look like they could do a whole lot of damage, and even General Jinn seems to foster a healthy enough amount of dread at the sight of the Medic barreling towards him to deliver a scolding, but Cody can’t find it in himself to envision him fighting the way Generals Jinn, Skywalker, Koon or Unduli do, not even how Tano does, a flurry of green-yellow lights, athletic twirling and open-mouthed hisses showing off sharp teeth, although that would seem the likeliest image, he supposes. There’s just something too dreamy, too otherworldly to imagine him dropping to the same level of other humanoids and their petty, gory squabbles, and also, there’s something too good, too soft about him, like for all the glares, raised eyebrows and sharp words, Kenobi’s genuinely unable to hurt anyone, or anything.
Case in point, Cody can hardly feel his gloved fingers trailing over the edges of the blaster scorch running from the inside of his elbow a couple inches up his arm, where there’s little to no protection from his armor. Cody hadn’t been aware of it during the skirmish, likely from the rush of adrenaline and the absolute panic of the General’s shuttle crashing down too close to the enemy line, but he can feel it now, the itchy burn, so it’s not like any of his nerves got fried or anything, probably. Kenobi doesn’t seem particularly worried either, just reaches for one of the pockets of his apron, his hand coming back up with a blue spray and a sterilized gauze. Cody frowns.
“We shouldn’t be wasting any bacta, sir.”
Kenobi’s beard twitches and his eyes gleam, amused, when he looks up at him.
“A single puff for the Marshal Commander isn’t that much of a waste, now, is it?”
And a single puff really is all he gives, Cody relaxing when he sees the spray being dropped back into its designated pocket. Kenobi’s touch isn’t quite as gentle as before, but it’s still not as rough as Cody’s own treatment would be, just firm swipes to make sure the injury is clean and the bacta is well spread; the Medic adds a patch to keep the area protected before moving to the scratches on his neck, the result of some flying debris, those. With their faces so close they could touch and Kenobi’s hands on his neck, the Commander, the vod’s finest, has to make a bit of an effort to keep his heart and breath steady.
“You still haven’t told me your name,” Kenobi murmurs, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin and nearly making him shiver.
“Yes, I did,” although it comes out almost like a question.
The other male hums.
“You gave me your ident, not your name, and, as I understand it, those are two different things.”
Cody swallows thickly.
“Unless, you don’t want to,” Kenobi back tracks and backs away in the blink of an eye, putting a good few inches between their faces, meeting Cody’s eyes with a regretful expression. “Which is fine, really, your name is yours, and you don’t have much else, I suppose, so it should be yours to k– ”
“It’s Cody,” he interrupts before Kenobi can keep digging at the hole he’s convinced himself he’s fallen into.
“Commander Cody,” the Stewjoni repeats, as if tasting it in his tongue, as if he finds it delectable and that’s why his eyes go wide and bright, and the feathers of his wings ruffle. He gives Cody his loveliest smile yet. “Thank you, for giving me that.”
Cody nods, a bit curtly maybe, but he can’t trust his voice not to betray him, not to waver like a shiny’s, not to blurt out something along the lines of I’d give you anything you want and more. It’s just a little embarrassing, and absolutely the kind of thing Rex would think lesser of him for.
They split off sometime after Cody assures the Medic that he has no other injuries, that he’s fine, really, and that he’ll stay hydrated. He doesn’t see hide or hair of him for the rest of the shitshow that is Geonosis, the second round of it.
III
Out of all the many things to possibly happen in Umbara, which are quite a lot, it seems, meeting Medic Kenobi, and the rest of Rainstorm, for that matter, at their rendezvous with the 501st wasn’t one of them. And yet…
Cody’s grateful for his calming, steady presence nonetheless, making rounds through the survivors with hushed words, gentle hands, and protective wings, the men reaching to him like he’s their lifeline, like he’s their own personal angel. He might even need some of that by the end of the day, night, whatever.
For the time being, he takes a good, long glance at Kenobi, muted as he is in the gloom of the planet and the sickly glow of the port’s lights. Then he follows after General Jinn to check over the compound with Rex.
The control tower is pretty beat up, but most of the equipment is still usable; also one of the hangars is singed, to put it mildly, and a few of the ships are useless, but they can still take some of the intact ones with them to reverse engineer any interesting tech. Pong Krell’s body had been removed, taken away in the same shuttle Dogma had been, and Cody feels like throwing up or blowing something up when he hears the final death toll, and for all that the General has a decent Sabac face, he can feel the emotions rolling off of him. He can’t stand it, and neither can Rex if the speed at which he skips to check on some of his men as soon as the Jedi dismisses them is any indication.
Cody doesn’t need to think twice about it: he goes looking for Kenobi.
And it’s not even because he needs the comfort – which he does, and as Marshal Commander, he finds it difficult to exchange solace with the Troopers under him, even with Rex, sometimes –, but rather because Kenobi might.
It’d been at a greasy diner type place back at Coruscant, one ran by a Besalisk that could not be any more different from Krell, that they’d, uh, convened after Saleucami. It wasn’t a date, he’d insisted in the Command comms channel, and Rex had rolled his eyes at him. They’d just talked, gotten to know each other some more, taken the chance to let go of some of their grievances and frustrations. It’d been nice, more than nice, and Kenobi seemed like a good person, a good friend, someone Cody really wanted to have on his side. But the thing that had stuck with him from that conversation had been a fragment, a confession, and an unintentional request all at once.
“You help me stay calm,” Kenobi had said into his cup of tea, a compromise of some sort after all the greasy, filling food they’d eaten. “It can be difficult for me not to loose myself in all the pain and fear around me when there’s so much of it, but when I’m near you it gets easier. You’re a very steady presence amidst all the chaos.”
Cody hadn’t really known what to say to that, still isn’t sure if there’s anything he can say about it, and Kenobi had taken his perplexity as a sign that he’d crossed a line or something, apologizing profusely, admitting that it was an awful thing of him to do, to use him like that, assuring him that it wouldn’t happen again.
“It’s alright, you can do that all you need, or want, I don’t mind. Next time you can even comm me if you prefer,” Cody’d tried to be as reassuring as possible and the best he’d gotten was a look of hurtful doubt that’d nearly broken his own heart.
So, he supposes he should show Kenobi that he’d meant it, put his credits where his mouth is.
He finds the Jedi a little ways away from the huddle of Troopers being tended to, conversing with a pair of regular GAR medics in a voice too hushed to make out what they’re saying, but with very eloquent pinched expressions. It takes a moment before Kenobi’s eyes find his, and when he nods to one of the empty hangars in a sign to follow the Stewjoni makes a gesture with his hand, not to move along or leave him alone, but to wait, for him. The hangar is blissfully empty when they do get into it, lights low and big, sturdy crates to sit on all over the place.
“How are you holding up, sir?” Cody goes straight for it before the Medic can get a single word out, catching him off guard.
Kenobi sighs, runs a hand through his hair and taps the floor with his talons in an anxious rhythm, all before answering Cody’s frankly simple question.
“I’m fine, Commander,” he finally says with a drawn face.
“You can just call me Cody,” and he’s so tempted to use his don’t try me, shiny voice, but this is Kenobi, a fully grown, if a bit self-flagellating, self-depriving, Jedi, so the slightly disappointed act should work well enough. “And no, you’re not, so don’t bother lying to me.”
Kenobi just sighs harder.
“I shouldn’t have told you anything.”
Cody takes advantage of Kenobi’s ceiling gazing to give him the kind of soft smile he swears up and down he’s physically incapable of making, then he goes to sit on one of the crates, sets his helmet down and starts working on his upper armor. Kenobi makes a warbled sound from much closer than he’d expected.
“Were you injured?”
“A cut on my arm,” he shrugs. “A medic already tended to it; it just bothers me with the armor in place.”
The Medic sits next to him, lets his feathery legs and powerful feet stretch out and relax, unfolds his wings to fan out behind them, and keeps an eye on him. Cody gets a glimpse of the way his garments fit and cover his groin and upper thighs and has the urge to touch, to feel the way skin gives way to soft down and then to proper feathers. They look firm, but would they be silky or coarse?
“And there’s little point in keeping the rest on, is that it?”
Cody’s mind has to back track a bit, shamefully, but he gives Kenobi a snort of laughter anyways.
The silence between them is easy, something uncharged and unhurried, with Kenobi trusting in his fellow medics, and Cody trusting everyone else not to blow something up in his absence, the two of them weary but safe with each other. Eventually, the peace has to end, as it always does in a war.
“You haven’t answered my question yet, don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
Kenobi does his warble noise again, but this time it’s deeper, growlier? It sounds more annoyed somehow, while the other one had seemed alarmed. Makes sense to him, but he should also take any observations he makes when he can feel drowsiness creeping up on him with a pinch of salt.
“I’m better now,” Kenobi begins but Cody shoots him a reproachful glare and that has him reconsidering enough to at least drop that course of action.
They return to the silence, heavier this time, but Cody’s too tired to wait for the Stewjoni to make up his mind.
“What is it that’s stopping you from taking what I offered? Because that’s what I did, and that offer stands until I say otherwise, and still, I haven’t seen more than a wink of you since Coruscant. Looks to me like you’re avoiding me.”
Kenobi gives him pitiful tooka eyes, but tough luck for him, because Cody’s known Rex since he was a tubie, not to mention the actual tooka Bly managed to smuggle into their barracks once.
“Is it because I’m just a Clone?”
Kenobi’s face falls, his body tenses up and his wings puff up, and Cody feels a, uh, whiff, of something like sadness, regret and guilt all mixed up. Ah, well, if that’s it then–
“It’s nothing like that,” Kenobi says with feeling. “It’s because so many people already see you as just a Clone, it’s because the whole system treats you as just a Clone! It’s awful enough that you don’t have any rights!”
Cody can feel his insides go all warm and mushy, he lets it happen too, because his status as a sentient being without any sentient rights within the Republic is not something he likes to think on the best of day, and today, in Umbara, after Krell, is not a good day, it’s not even a decent one, even if Kenobi’s right there with him.
“So, you feel like you’re, uh, taking advantage of me because I have no rights, although I’m just offering, and I am offering, some comfort?”
“Comfort can lead to a lot more without even trying, and that would be an abuse.”
Cody tries to read between what Kenobi’s saying and what he’s silencing, but he still doesn’t know him well enough to do more than assume, and that won’t do.
“Kenobi,” Cody attempts, and although it sure gets the other’s attention, it doesn’t sit right in his tongue, so he tries again. “Obi-Wan, do you think I’m a sentient, emotional being?”
“Yes,” he replies, without a hint of hesitation in his voice or his face.
“And do you think that I’m mature?” This time he raises a hand to stop the Stewjoni from charging ahead again. “I don’t just mean physically, here, but mentally as well, emotionally. Do you think I can be trusted with my own choices when those choices affect myself?”
It’s a loaded question, and one for which neither of them can have all the information to make a judgment, since there’s still classified data the Kaminoans are keeping about the cloning and developmental process. Kenobi gives him an infinitely sad look.
“Yes, I think you can be trusted with yourself,” but he looks like he’s mulling over something else, so Cody gestures for him to continue. “At the very least, you’re allowed to try to, to learn how to do so, to make the kind of mistakes that everyone else do.”
“Even the Jedi?” Cody asks with a raised eyebrow, amused, and Kenobi smiles, truly smiles, for the first time today, tonight, ugh.
“Yes, even the Jedi.”
“Then why won’t you let me? If anything, all the reservations about my situation make me trust in you even more.”
“You’re assuming I want to.”
Alright, Cody thinks, that’s fair.
“Do you want to? That is, to take comfort in each other, keep each other company.”
Kenobi’s lips twist in bemusement.
“That is, assuming I can offer you any of it in return. Reciprocation is only fair, Cody.”
Ah, the self-deprecation.
“You already do a lot for me. Do you have any idea how many people I can talk to like this?”
“I’ll assume that not many.”
“Maybe two, and neither of them are living in my ship,” it’s surprisingly relieving to say it out loud, just how isolated he feels from everybody else around him.
Kenobi raises one of his legs to hold it against his chest with his arms and lean his head on the knee, considering.
“Because you’re the Marshal Commander,” not a question, but a conclusion.
Cody nods.
“I outrank almost every other Clone, even most of the other Commanders, even the little Jedi given commandment and captainship. I’m close to Commanders Fox, Bly and Wolffe, but Fox is in Coruscant, and between Bly, Wolffe and I we’re always running everywhere. I think of Rex as my little brother, more than anyone else in the whole GAR, but…”
“But little siblings are meant to be looked after?”
They share weary, fond smirk at that, the understanding between them palpable.
“I care about my people, and it’s not like I separate myself from them completely, that’s impossible, and there are ways to find solace, intimacy with them, even for me. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting something different, is there?”
“Even if that something different can’t, or shouldn’t be something more?”
Cody shrugs.
“I could die tomorrow, sir. We both could. I’d rather take your kinship over nothing.”
Kenobi looks at him with such sadness, such tenderness, and Cody thinks I would give you the galaxy in a beskar platter.
“Alright, but if we’re doing this, then it’s only fair that you get to call me Obi-Wan when it’s just the two of us.”
“Of course, Obi-Wan,” and the name feels like a fresh sip of water in the middle of a desert, and Obi-Wan gives him one of his soft smiles.
“Now, shall we talk about the things that we don’t want to, but should, before our time runs out?”
They stay there and just talk, hands occasionally brushing against each other in a more tangible offer for comfort, for a good hour, maybe two, until Cody’s insisting comms interrupt them.
IV
They pick up the Rainfall before they hit the hyperdrive on their way to Kadavo and to relieve General Koon of the people from the Legacy and the Resolute, and right from the moment the shuttle lands on the bay it feels like a particularly irritated, worried beast has come to prowl around the halls and rooms of Cody’s ship. It has his spine tingling in anticipation and his heart dropping in commiseration.
“Commander,” Obi-Wan greets when he reaches the bridge, the sweetness behind the single word veiled by his ruffled wings, heavy footfalls, and thunderous expression.
“Sir,” he salutes back, with feeling, which at least gets him an amused huff. “Is your team all set up?”
“Yes, Commander. They’re being given a run down by Medic Stats in case their help is necessary. How is the retrieval effort going?”
“It’s going, sir. We should be having an update any moment now.”
Obi-Wan nods, seemingly calmer, and settles next to him, observing the proceedings for a lack of anything else to do, publicly, at least.
Obi-Wan contacted him shortly after they’d engaged the hyperdrive, a single line of text saying, asking, may I? And Cody had said yes, had said I’m on the bridge, had let Obi-Wan see it for what it was: you can have my company, but I’m expected to fulfill my functions at the moment, sorry.
It must be enough for the time being, since Obi-Wan lingers with him, his feathers smoothing out, his presence amongst the men unwinding with a trade of polite smiles and friendly nods. He doesn’t even get that much more distressed when they get news that the Wolfpack’s mission was a resounding success, but the Togruta, and their own men, are in need of medical attention, though that might be because they’re only a few minutes away from dropping off hyperspace.
They share a nod of acknowledgment and Obi-Wan turns to leave the bridge and head for the med-bay, Cody ensuring that General Jinn’s shuttle – carrying Skywalker, Tano and Rex along – lands safely in the bay before commanding to turn to Coruscant and overseeing the preparations for departure before making himself scarce, unable to ease off the weight on his shoulders until he’s made sure that Rex is alright, or as alright as circumstances allow.
“It looks worse than it is,” Rex tries to say above the medic’s loud complains. “Really, the General got the worst of it all.”
Cody sighs, feeling the headache growing behind his eyes.
“Vod, it’s all right if you’re in pain, you don’t have to ignore it, or hide it, just because someone else had it worse. I’m still here with you and not with the General, right?”
Rex rolls his eyes, fondly, like he supposes every other irked younger brother in the galaxy would do.
“Yeah, I know. I mean it though, nothing really hurts, I’m just, tired, and, well…”
Cody offers an encouraging gesture, not wanting to be pushy, just extending an outlet for whatever’s in Rex’s head. Rex gives a tense look to the medic, Trace, still fussing over him, then seems to think better of it and shrugs, making the poor man grumble even louder.
“It’s just that, I wish I could’ve done more, you know? At Zygerria, sure, maybe have done things different, but at Kadavo, too. The Togrutas were so scared and tired, and we could barely give them a hand, and whenever the General talked back – because he did, he wasn’t as bad as usual, but he still talked back -, the slavers would lash out at them, and then everything was worse.”
Rex sounds frustrated, sad even, but not defeated, not broken, and that’s good, Cody can work with that.
“You do realize you’re just one man, right?”
His vod gives him a no shit look that nearly makes him cackle, but he’s not done talking.
“Even the Jedi, three of them no less, couldn’t do much on their own, and you think, what? You could’ve taken over the whole Empire down on your own with a better plan? A better plan would’ve had more people in it from the get-go, in my opinion.”
Now it’s Rex’s time to sigh, more of an airy growl, as if that’s not enough proof that he’s been spending too much time with Ahsoka Tano.
“I hate it when you’re on your older brother knows best act.”
“So, all the time?”
Now, that’s a long-suffering groan if Cody’s ever heard one, ha!
They spend some time together, the most they’ve had without being shot at or chased down in months, but all good things come to an end, and eventually Cody has to leave to tend to something or another, promising Rex a cup of the good caf he’s stashed away with the General’s help. The work he has left from then to their arrival at Coruscant is routine, mostly signing requisitions, filling reports, and overseeing that everything goes smoothly and without a hitch. Boring stuff that he could maybe shake off in his sleep, but needs to be done, before any penpushers start breathing down his neck, hopefully.
Time moves slowly, Cody goes through a stack of work, gets his ration at the mess hall, makes an act of presence at the bridge and the med-bay to see how everyone is faring, spends some minutes with Obi-Wan before heading back to continue his ruthless attack on bureaucracy with renewed strength.
Time keeps moving.
It’s nice to have a semblance of quiet, the trip from Kadavo to the capitol long enough for things to slow down, the troopers on sleep time resting in their little bunks or their makeshift group dens, the inclination to be close to one another in their most vulnerable still hard to shake off. Others, the one’s with extra time in their hands, take to the mess hall, the viewports, the few resting rooms, the training rooms, even the hangar bays to do whatever it is they choose to do at any time. Bait, the fiend, even invites him to a game of sabacc at one of the storage rooms. Cody ignores her, fully aware that if he tried to claim a previous engagement, she’ll sniff his bullshit from the other side of the ship; at least this way she’ll just forget it until the game is over and she’ll only needle him about his absence.
They’re almost a standard day away from their destination when Rex comms him to cash in his promised caf. Bring it to the training room no one uses, he says, and refuses to further elaborate until he gets to where he’s expected to. Really, Cody needs to stop taking people under his wing, the entire GAR will stop fearing him before the karking war is over, at this pace.
The room in question is a couple of levels below Cody’s quarters, and it isn’t that nobody uses it, exactly, only that, because of its proximity, it’s associated with the Officers, most of the nat-born ones not bothering much with it, the vode preferring to train alongside their fellow troopers, and the General only going there for whatever lightsaber training Jedi are meant to do from time to time. Cody makes his way there with only a couple of looks thrown at the steaming, fragrant cups he carries. The door opens for him thanks to the proximity sensor, and for a moment he’s not sure what it is his eyes are seeing.
“Ah, thanks, Kote,” Rex takes his cup from him, snapping him from the confused daze caused by, uh, by…
“What’s this?” He whispers, instinctually trying to avoid the attention of the people duking it out on the sparring mats.
“A friendly spar, I think,” comes the answer along with a smirk that looks more like a grimace.
Cody turns to look at him, his own face undecided between a frown and a raised eyebrow.
“You think?”
A shrug.
“They did ask me to judge if they were going too hard at it, not that I could do much against them.”
Them being Obi-Wan, all clicking talons and extended wings, and Ahsoka Tano, charging at him with an open maw. Tano’s wearing her newer garb – which is a definite step up from the crop top she used to wear, but still doesn’t include any armor in battle, kriff – which now comes with footwear that allow her claws to jut out along with the fingerless gloves in her hands, so, at least someone’s seeing reason. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, is wearing the blacks he’d taken to sometime after the Battle of Mon Calamari – the second one –, his tunic, protective wraps around his hands and feet, and nothing else, his tabards, belts and personalized robes left carefully folded on the bench Rex leads him to sit on, all three lightsabers sitting pretty on top of the fabric.
“I can barely follow their moves,” he admits in awe, Rex nodding along on his periphery.
“I looked up some info on the Togrutas. They’re a pretty peaceful people for sure, but they’re also the apex predators from their planet. They rely on their camouflage, speed, and nimbleness,” and Cody can believe that, seeing Tano doing a quick backflip, and another, and another, staying out of range from the powerful swing of Obi-Wan’s wings, strong enough to create a breeze in the otherwise undisturbed air of the room.
“Apparently,” Rex continues, conspiratorially, “they used to send their shinies out to hunt on their own, as a rite of passage, and most of their prey was at least their own size.”
“Kriff,” is the only thing he can say, both to Rex and to Obi-Wan grabbing one of the Commander’s arms in the prison of his left foot and tossing her over him as he finishes to roll over, quickly pushing himself up with feet, hands, and wings.
Tano only grunts before springing back on her feet in a crouching position, assessing Obi-Wan with black eyes, far away enough that Cody can’t tell if even a sliver of her round baby-blues remains. It has him break into a light sweat, his muscles tensing in a reflexive fight-or-flight response.
“She plays into her strengths, obviously, but the jetiise being what they are, I guess, made sure she worked on her stamina,” Rex adds after a while, nearly making him jump out.
“Her stamina, huh? How long have they been at it?”
Rex shows him his chrono with the steady approach to the 40-minute mark on its display. Tano looks only a bit winded, leaving little wet spots of condensation and sweat in the ground bellow her feet and hands, and Obi-Wan…
Obi-Wan looks rosy cheeked, like he looks when he’s been running around the med-tent after a battle, and there’s sweat breaking out at his hairline and the back of his neck, maybe his armpits and the curve of his lower back too, but his breathing’s steady and his posture’s loose. He’s relaxed, at ease, and Cody’s gotten to know him, the picture of him, enough to be confident in assuming that much.
The lightning quick predator versus the elegant and patient hunter.
“So, wanna bet?”
Cody snorts loudly, the noise making one of Obi-Wan’s wings twitch before he reigns it in.
“I don’t wanna take your meager credits, vod’ika.”
He ignores Rex’s indignant defense of his Jedi Commander in lieu of finishing his caf.
In the end, it’s expertise that gets the upper hand, Obi-Wan’s defense solid and his offense targeting any and all openings with frightening accuracy. Ahsoka Tano is a formidable opponent nonetheless, and she’ll become nothing short of a force of nature with time, practice, and people like Obi-Wan there to give her a helping hand.
By the time they’re done and Obi-Wan pats the floor in front of where he’s sitting cross-legged, an open invitation for Tano to join him, a good hour’s passed since Cody’s joined them, and the two of them are breathing heavily and more than a little soaked through their clothes. And yet, Commander Tano appears to have come out of her defeat relaxed, her body less of a coiled spring and more like that of a lazy tooka’s, the weight she’d been carrying around the ship for the last couple of days gone, or easier to bear. She drops to the same position of her fellow Jedi in an undignified, huffing heap, amusing and confident rather than petulant, and starts to check her bruises and scrapes with Obi-Wan’s patient guidance.
Later, after Rex and Tano have left to bother General Skywalker wherever he may be, and Obi-Wan has taken on his offer of a private fresher, Cody hears the rest of it.
“She needed to blow off some steam, work out some of her frustrations at what happened in Zygerria and Kadavo. It’s easier for her to do after a good spar, it helps her see what she can work on, how to move forward.”
They’re laid down on the floor of Cody’s quarters, the little furniture he’s been given pushed up against the walls to make more room, and all the blankets and pillows he’d gotten his hands on acting as a barrier between them and the cold plasteel, Obi-Wan a comforting, warm weight stretched out on top of him, his head resting on top of Cody’s sternum and his wings draped to either side of them, extended to their fullest length, or at least to what the room allows for the four or so meter long appendages, half of their span on the bare ground and the left one propped up at an awkward-looking angle. Obi-Wan’s taking well to the time-honored clone tradition of communal sleeping, he thinks, even if by communal he really only means the two of them locked away from the rest of the ship.
“She felt guilty and helpless, huh?”
He hums in affirmation.
“So did Rex.”
Obi-Wan sighs, his breath warm even through the layer of Cody’s blacks.
“I’ll be having another conversation with Master Jinn, it seems.”
Cody snorts.
“Can I be there to witness it?”
“Of course, dear.”
Their conversation lulls and winds down, giving way to a deep rumbling noise coming from Obi-Wan’s chest, not unlike a tooka’s purr. And Cody falls asleep at an unknown point of time, against all his wishes, but with the comfort of his hand resting in the patch of skin and down between Obi-Wan’s wings, holding him.
V
At this point, Cody isn’t even sure what planet he’s on, or even what system. All he’s aware of is the bone-deep tiredness, the blood-pumping adrenaline, and the well-founded indignation that he’s been riddled with since General Jinn’s death. Sure, he doesn’t have to deal with any too-self-confident, trouble-magnetic Jedi anymore, but it also means that all the bureaucratic work Jinn had been so good at disposing of – through mysterious means Cody had refused to look into – was now being redirected at him and accumulating at alarming rates; it means that there’s no one now to talk back at the Admiralty when the 212th’s given particularly stupid or nonsensical orders, and that they’ve lost the advantage of having an admittedly powerful wizard-warrior in the field with them, all while the Jedi Council seemingly sits on their asses and mourns, or pats the Chancellor in the head and holds his hand with whatever the kriff they’re doing on Naboo, instead of sending them a replacement so Cody’s men don’t die too.
So, he’s bitter, so, what? He’s been stuck in this muddy hellhole for too long, and he may fall on regs when he’s wrong-footed according to Rex, but inside? He’s been learning to foster righteous fury thanks to his exposure to Obi-Wan and Commander Tano, and Fox too. He’ll be coming out of this war a full-fledged rebel, if he comes out of it at all, fuck. He doesn’t even miss the too-calm bastard, he swears.
Their advances are slow-going and with too many close encounters with aggressive native fauna to anyone’s liking, especially Bait, who’s unfortunately been living up to her name this campaign, but eventually they make it to a rocky outcrop overlooking their target, a Seppie relay station giving the neighboring systems too much trouble for all that intel says it’s secured by a single platoon. It looks like intel was right too, for once.
They stake out the place for an hour, taking a well-deserved rest while at it, drinking water and checking over their equipment, decide to go forward with their original plan, breaking into their preestablished groups and slinking away to their posts. When Cody gives everyone the go, he internally swears that if the intel is wrong in any way that doesn’t work in their favor, he will either punch Admiralty in the face or come back from whatever afterlife awaits him to haunt them for the rest of their lives.
“Well, intel was fucking wrong, again,” someone says over the comms, only discernible above the din of blaster fire and grenade explosions thanks to the built-in lines in their helmets.
“Hold your positions!” Cody shouts loud enough to make a shiny or two weep, then directs his attention to the few men that’d been left at the outcrop before they come down to give them back-up. “And call for reinforcements!”
He’s well aware he can’t, actually, punch anyone at Admiralty, or in the Jedi Council, so he’s left hoping that he can comeback as a ghost after his unavoidable death just so he can at least inconvenience everybody he deems worthy. Or unworthy, rather, since Obi-Wan and Tano surely don’t deserve it.
“Sarge’s on it, sir,” comes a hurried reply and the faint sound of rolling rocks, one of the men coming down to lend a hand as the snipers stay in their lookouts.
“All we need right now is to hold our positions until the station’s blown up, no finesse work, just heavy artillery,” he instructs with all the confidence he can project.
But a shield is activated around the main relay tower, and their laser cannons are taken out before someone can so much as consider bringing it down so they can do any real damage. And then they get news about more units heading their way, likely to be dropped off behind them, and they can’t afford to let these blasted clankers box them and pick at them like defenseless prey, so Cody gives the sign to regroup and retreat, they’ve lost the element of surprise anyways, the best option being an airstrike now, even if they don’t have the means at the moment, it can wait until someone nearby is available.
They don’t even get that much.
He knows the ravine is a bad idea, but the surrounding area is too unprotected, and this is known territory, and they’re not dropping like flies yet, surely, they can take the few droids circling to the other end of it with their numbers.
They can’t hold off that well against a whole unit and back-up destroyers, though.
“I hate this planet,” someone cries from further back in the cave they’ve holed up in, a sentiment echoed in waves of murmurs.
“I fucking hate intel,” Bait shouts back at them from somewhere close to him and one half of the troop laughs while the other groans.
The standoff continues for an inordinate amount of time, the mouth of the cave providing enough cover to consistently return fire without losing too many men, but it’s only a matter of time before the clankers get back-up and then it’ll all be over for them. At least they’ll go down swinging, he supposes, not much of a comforting thought when he can count at least thirty troopers with him, who knows how many taking cover in the crack further to their right. They’d been a hundred strong, more than enough to quickly dispatch a low-level threat while the rest of the Legacy provided support in one of the larger battlefields at the surrounding planets and systems. How could intel fuck up this badly?
“Any hopes for reinforcements?”
A shiny whose name he hasn’t gotten the opportunity to learn yet, if they even have one, gives him a wide-eyed, shaky shrug.
“Too much interference to know for sure, but they’re trying back there.”
Cody sighs as he lets someone else take his place in the shooting efforts.
A few minutes later, ten or fifteen, the seemingly impossible happens: a winged miracle.
“Commander, get back out here,” Crys calls from the frontline when Cody’s checking over their supplies, the first sign that something’s happening, something other than their slow death.
The second sign is the utterly beautiful, and terrifying, sight that’s presented to him when he pokes his head out: Obi-Wan – otherworldly, and too-good-for-his-own-sake Obi-Wan – tearing down the enemy forces in a whirlwind of gleaming feathers, cold eyes, fanged snarls, and sharp strokes of light; quick, efficient, and utterly unrelenting. Cody’d seen him spar with Tano, an apex predator all on her own, and hold his own, win fair and square with his personal mix of experience and skill, and then help her come to terms with her feelings and frustrations with gentle hands and kind words, but this is as far removed from that as he can think possible, a gifted hunter made all the more dangerous with the guiding hand of a community of peacekeepers, of all things. It makes something unnamed surge within him.
“Blast ‘em!” Cody roars, his men following a half-step behind.
With the help of not only Obi-Wan but also of the fellow company trailing behind him, at least a hundred-and-fifty strong, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it before the clankers – the ones in the ravine and the back-up that was coming to annihilate Cody and his men - are nothing but piles of smoking junk, and Cody, a little dazed and breathless, has the opportunity to make his way towards his very own Stewjoni dream at a brisk pace.
“Commander,” Obi-Wan greets him with a grimacing, panting smile.
He stands tall and proud with one of his feet resting on a useless destroyer, talons digging into it like it’s a prize, his hair is plastered to his face and neck with sweat, there’s a smidge of soot on his forehead, and a smattering of primary feathers on his left wing is clearly singed, and he’s never looked more beautiful to him. Cody can’t stop himself.
He steps right into Obi-Wan’s space and grabs a hold of the back of his neck to yank him forwards, the startled chirp he pulls from him cutting short when their foreheads touch, not as gently as he’d wished, but desperate times and all that. Obi-Wan gasps, his wide eyes locking onto Cody’s, and then he snakes a hand to the back of his head, looking for a purchase Cody’s regulation short hair doesn’t allow for, the appendage settling for the fabric of his blacks around his neck.
Cody closes his eyes and, for the first time in hours that felt like days, breathes. He basks in the moment like a tooka in the sun, just letting the warmth and intimacy wash over him in loving waves.
When he opens his eyes again at a rough, curious croak from Obi-Wan, he does so just in time to catch the way the troopers around them are decidedly looking at anything but them, how Bait not-so-gently herds a couple of shinies away, shaking her head in admonishment. He doesn’t know if she’s meant to be admonishing the shinies or himself.
The touch remains as Obi-Wan gives him a soft, questioning look, and Cody chooses to take the opportunity to say his bit.
“You’re a real mean harpy when something gets your feathers in a twist, aren’t you?”
Obi-Wan laughs, and it’s the most delightful sound Cody’s ever heard, worth the sudden space between them when the Stewjoni leans back to let his joy run through his whole body.
“Sirs, the relay station’s been blown up, we can get off this rock,” someone calls out to them, and Cody’s spirits are so high at the moment he doesn’t even consider barking back at whichever wet shiny decided to interrupt them.
“Shall we?”
VI
Their time together in Coruscant is short, too short for everything that’s happened in the last months that they’ve barely gotten to talk about, let alone process, even shorter for all the things they want, the mutual comfort, yes, but also more, everyday more, something even Obi-Wan’s been slowly growing unapologetic of.
“I’ve always had trouble with attachment, maybe it was a sign.”
Because in the end they only get a few hours together before Obi-Wan has to leave again with Rainstorm Squad, they make a compromise: one hour of talking, one hour alone to go over the most urgent or painful subjects, and then they can do whatever they want. Sleeping curled around each other, most likely, with how tired they are.
That’s how Obi-Wan lets go of his frustrations about Ahsoka Tano and how both the Republic and the Jedi Council managed the matter. That’s how Cody tries to start to come to terms with nearly dying in the vacuum of space because of the tiniest fissure some debris had scratched onto the hull of the Legacy, just above Coruscant and all because Dooku got daring and ended up beheaded anyway.
That’s how Cody gets to talk about Fives and Echo, and how they’d been apart from each other by just months, weeks, how Echo would’ve been able to help Fives with whatever the kriff he was going through, how Fives would’ve followed Echo to the Bad Batch and beyond, just to make sure he was all right after everything, at the very least, how, how…
“Rex told me what Fives told him; you know?” Cody’s curled up like a trembling shiny after their first deploy next to Obi-Wan, sitting on his slightly more comfortable bed at the Jedi Temple, in comparison to the cots and bunks available in starships and battlefields. “About how he’d been drugged by that Kaminoan scientist, how he thought the chips were something else, what he’d allegedly heard from the Chancellor, that everything was some trap. We didn’t have the heart to tell Echo about any of it, he’d been shaken enough by learning he was the last of his batch.”
Obi-Wan circles his upper back with one arm, cocoons them in the safety of his bronze-copper wings, holding him in a side-by-side half-hug, pressing a gentle kiss against his left temple, soft and comforting in all the ways Cody’s still learning he can also be, he can accept.
“I don’t even know what to make of any of it,” he confesses.
“Of what? Echo and Five?”
“No, well, yes, but more importantly, about the chips. Rex thinks we should dig more into it, make sure that what Fives said was all just delirious paranoia, instead of the alternative.”
Obi-Wan hums softly, the scratch of his beard rubbing against the sensitive skin at the crook of his neck not as prickly as he’d thought it’d be, yet.
“What was it that the Chancellor told Fives, exactly?”
Cody tells him, even if he doesn’t really want to, even if he only knows what little Fives could tell Rex before it all went down, the wound still open and bleeding, like all the other wounds left behind by his thousands, hundreds of thousands of siblings, dead but not forgotten, for all that that matters.
Obi-Wan’s face twists in worry.
“Maybe we should take a look at that.”
Cody turns just enough to get a proper look at him.
“You too, huh?”
“Well, what if it is true? The only people we can ask about it are Palpatine and the Kamonian cloners, and if Fives was telling the truth, then neither of them is trustworthy. The Kaminoans are still keeping some classified records, we didn’t even know about the chips until Tup and Fives, and we’re only just know understanding what they did to your genes for the accelerated aging.”
That startles him, the first time he feels wrong-footed with Obi-Wan since before Umbara, since Geonosis – the second one - if he’s honest.
“You’re working on that, and you didn’t tell me?”
“Not quite,” Obi-Wan placates with an apologetic grimace. “I’m not working on any of it, other than gathering blood samples, which is standard procedure anyways, to check for any pathogens. The Jedi Council, Master Che and a handful of Senators had a little meeting, I think, and gathered a small team of geneticists and bioengineers. I only found out about it recently.”
Well, that makes sense, Cody concedes. Obi-Wan isn’t specialized in either of those fields, his skills revolving around emergency care, surgery, and Force healing.
“Alright. So, the Jedi have a team working on our aging problem, and you want to take a look at the chips?”
“Yes. You have to admit that a lot of things concerning your creation are suspicious at best. How is it that the clone army was created for the Jedi – not even for the Republic – and yet the Jedi didn’t know anything about you until the war was at our doorstep? And we’ve been so preoccupied with the war itself that we haven’t had much time or energy to go deeper into the matter, every piece of information we’ve gathered about it has come to us by the will of the Force, coincidence if you will, and it’s only that, pieces. Learning more about the chips might help in answering a few questions, or at least point us in what direction to take moving forwards.”
Cody doesn’t even need to dwell on it.
“Then let’s do it.”
They spend much longer than they’d originally planned on working out a plan to deal with the chips until they reach something feasible: a number of medics, Obi-Wan included, will de-chip an appropriate amount of voluntaries each, a large enough group to have a proper sample and compare the results, but not too many to affect their units if the worst does happen or their numbers are needed. They’ll get started as soon as they split up, Obi-Wan paying a visit to a friend in the Halls of Healing to spread the word amongst the healers on and off world, and Cody doing his part with the GAR medics through a secure clone line. Surely some of his more excitable technicians would love to meddle with the comm lines, regardless of the reason for it.
“We never have enough time, do we?”
Cody touches his forehead to Obi-Wan’s, fully aware that the faster they get going the sooner they’ll have some answers, some piece of mind, even.
“Maybe we’ll have time after we win this war,” he lets himself hope, if not for his sake, then for the sake of his love.
“Maybe,” Obi-Wan echoes, and suddenly he’s all fluid movement, angling his body towards Cody’s, wings a flutter, head tilting.
Their first kiss is sweet, Obi-Wan’s lips dry, perhaps, but oh so warm and gentle.
All the kisses, and touches, and embraces they get to exchange between the bed and the door are just as sweet.
I
“The Organas will raise the girl, I will take the boy to Tatooine with me,” General Jinn, Master Jinn, the Di’kut, whatever, says to no one in particular and to everyone in general.
Cody, no longer a Trooper, no longer a Marshal Commander, has a lot to say about it, none of it particularly nice.
They’re aboard an Alderaanian frigate, Senator Organa, Master Yoda, Jinn, Ahsoka Tano, Stats, Rex, and Cody, all sitting around a table, either drinking caf like sleep deprived maniacs or not touching their cups at all. Senator Amidala – beautiful, kind, fierce Senator Amidala – is dead, her cold body on its way to Naboo and her children sleeping, or crying, or whatever tubies that young do, somewhere else in the ship under the careful eye of Obi-Wan and one of his squad mates, the Pantora man who’d once helped raise his younger siblings. The rest of Rainstorm Squad – which had already been de-chipped by the moment the End of Times came crashing down on all of them, thankfully - has taken a hold of every piece of medical equipment and semi-sterile room in this ship to help Stats’ team de-chip the men of the Legacy, a good fourth of them still going on about how “good men follow orders” and trying to fight anyone and anything standing between them and their “mission to carry out Order 66” until someone lands a stun or hypo on them. It makes it difficult to look at Rex, and Tano, in the face, the knowledge that they’ll never have the chance to help their men a heavy weight on top of all their shoulders, the image of the last resting place of the 501st engraved into their hearts.
“You’re not splitting them up, and you’re not setting one or the other aside,” Cody ends with, biting back accusations about Skywalker, because he knows that’s not fair, but with his blood boiling, jaw set and body ready for a fight, nonetheless.
He doesn’t know if anyone’ll have his back, other than Stats from the look on his face, maybe Rex, too, but he’s not expecting Tano, of all people, to agree with him.
“He’s right, they should be kept together, and not on Alderaan. Hiding in plain sight might work with just one, but the both of them? They’d be like a beacon if the Emperor or… If any of them so much as fly by the system.”
“What do you suggest we do instead?”
Everyone has something to say to Organa’s question, but it’s Master Yoda who gets the final say, for the moment.
“A suggestion, I have,” the little green fiend says, then ignores all their questions and comments in favor of fiddling with the comms system embedded on the side of the table.
Minutes pass and one by one everybody gives up on extracting any more information from the old Jedi, Trapper drops by at some point, gives Cody a sheet of flimsiplast with updates from the Legacy and Rainstorm Squad, then makes a beeline for some caf and a seat, body too tense for anything more than getting off his feet. Eventually, the door opens again and Master Yoda swivels in his seat in expectation.
“Master Kenobi. The babies how are?”
Obi-Wan, otherworldly Obi-Wan, with his hair falling limp and greasy, wings twitchy, posture tired and eyes impossibly sad. His beloved, bearing the weight of a hurting galaxy.
“They’re healthy, all vitals normal, and resting with Styx and Crys. One of the squads that found us got more formula, they should be back before they wake up, I believe.”
Yoda accepts the answer with a nod and hum, and Cody can see Jinn giving him a suspicious glare from the corner of his eye.
“Come, Master Kenobi, sit. Much to talk, we have.”
Yoda’s plan is better than Jinn’s, he can give him that much: Obi-Wan gets the kids, it borders on hilariously simple. Obi-Wan is good with kids, at least the older, talking ones, and he’s strong enough to protect them from most things, skillful enough to cure them of the rest, hopefully; his wings make for a good getaway in a pinch too. And yet…
“What do you think of this, Master Healer?”
Bless Organa, the only sensible being around here, probably one of only three Senators who actually use their heads for something other than counting their personal earnings.
Obi-Wan rubs at his beard with one hand, his other arm crossed over his chest with his hands tucked under his armpit, sitting back against his chair, deep in thought.
“I think we don’t have many options, with this or anything else,” he eventually says, troubled but decided. “Skywalker is alive, you said as much, Master Jinn. He’ll likely be after you, which would put either of the children you’re guarding in danger by proximity. And you, Senator, are an important political figurehead, your wife is the Queen of Alderaan, the other child might be hiding in plain sight, but would still be in danger. I don’t have either of those problems; even if my physiology makes me conspicuous, I’m not the only Stewjoni living outside of our planet, and I seem to have been officially pronounced dead by the Empire, they shouldn’t be actively looking for me, at the very least.”
“What of the hiding? You would have to leave to the Outer Rim, you wouldn’t be able to help anyone, not the surviving Jedi, not even someone who needs a Healer,” Jinn says, and Cody once again refrains himself from shouting at the man again.
Obi-Wan crosses his arms more firmly and gives Jinn a harsh look, the kind he’d give him while scolding him over unnecessarily endangering himself and the people under him.
“What makes you think I don’t know that? I agree that the children should be kept together and away from Skywalker and Palpatine,” it doesn’t go past Cody the way Obi-Wan’s voice goes hard as beskar at the second name. “If I’m the one who has to do so because the other options are too dangerous or are needed someplace else, then so be it. Children are the future, and even if these two weren’t as bright in the Force as they are, they need protection to have a future, any future. I’ll pay any price for it.”
His voice doesn’t so much as waver as he stares the older, allegedly more powerful Jedi down, but Cody can see the way his wings twitch. At least Jinn knows how to choose his battles and keeps his mouth shut, more sullen than properly admonished.
“So, how and when do I leave?”
Later, back on the Legacy with Rex to check on the progress being made with their people, he takes advantage of the relative privacy of watching a med-droid de-chipping a sister to say:
“I’m going with Obi-Wan.”
Rex looks at him, without any surprise or resentment over the decision, and nods.
“I’ll get you some clothes from Organa’s people while you go and pack up.”
Not that there’s much packing up to do to begin with, Cody thinks with a touch of bitterness. He stuffs some extra blacks and boots into a cloth bag, adds his shaving kit, removes his armor all the way down, throws it into a pile in the first show of disregard for it he’s partaken in since before the war started. He hides a knife into a boot and tosses another in with his clothes; he’ll have time to go over the rest of his weaponry and extra supplies before paying his last visit to Stats, already back to working his life away at the med-bay. For now, he sends a comm for a couple of troopers to get the things he needs ready and sits on his cot, his blasted cot, sometimes too uncomfortable to sleep in, others, too comfortable to get up and face the galaxy, and occasionally entirely forgotten, replaced by a nest of blankets and pillows on the ground whenever Obi-Wan happened to be on the ship. He’d never let himself bunk down with his men during the many lonely nights in between, and a part of him was now regretting it, but they’d lost so many during these four years, replacements for replacements for replacements, some of which hadn’t gotten a name of their own before leaving this life, and Cody already had so many ghosts haunting him. And all for nothing, all so the brothers and sisters and siblings who’d survived the endless, countless battles would become slaves for a power-hungry dictator and his leashed beast, all for them to turn against the people they’d been made for, the people they loved.
Cody’s not going to miss this room, tender, happy memories included, he won’t miss this armor, or this ship, just like he doesn’t miss the barracks at Kamino, just like nobody else will, he thinks. Home isn’t a place but a people, and there’s still plenty of his people around, and many who are willing to risk their own to free them. It’ll be alright, he lets himself hope, for his own sake.
Stats seems as unsurprised about him leaving as Rex did, and the troopers he takes his weapons and medical supplies from look a little shaken, but they salute him and wish him the best anyways.
“We’ll see each other again someday, sir,” one of them says, whether he means in this life or the next left unclear.
Rex is waiting for him inside his quarters, a bursting cloth backpack sitting pretty next to the bag Cody’d filled earlier. They stare at each other, silent and still, for a beat, and another, and…
“This isn’t goodbye, you hear me, Rex’ika?”
Rex gives him a worn-out smile and towards him, seizes him in a bone crushing hold.
“I hear you.”
His little brother, his beloved brother, leaves to organize things with the other surviving Jedi only after they’ve soaked up in each other’s warmth and has given him an inconspicuous, top of the line communicator, small enough to fit into his boots in a pinch.
“For emergencies, or if the homesickness gets too bad, I suppose.”
In the end, it’s Cody who’s surprised, when he gathers his things and takes a leave from his quarters only to come face to face with Bait, waiting for him sitting on the corridor, back against the wall, armor so clean it shines, even the ochre paint, and looking tired beyond words, beyond her years.
“I thought you were still on Organa’s ship.”
Bait rolls her eyes at him, eerie in its resemblance to the eyerolls Rex gives him.
“Think again, sir.” She points at the bags and weapons cases. “Need a hand with that?”
Cody sighs. If Rex thought his brand of loving and caring was annoying, then he was bound to lose his shit with Bait. One day, he may even get to hear all about it, too.
“Sure, why not.”
They don’t speak on their way to the hangar, Bait seemingly having no comments to offer him at the moment, wanted or otherwise, and Cody’s, well, Cody. Even now, he has trouble finding the right words to say to one of his subordinates, former subordinates, people who’ve been within arm’s reach and yet systems away, for all that he’d done his best to keep things professional, within regulation, all the while wanting nothing more than to be with them, a part of them the way they were of him.
“I guess this is where I leave you,” she says when they’re steps away from the vessel Obi-Wan chose the minute he stepped into the Legacy to prepare for departure. She takes a moment to carefully set his things on the ground next to the ramp, and when she straightens back up her face is set and her posture perfect. She salutes him with a respect she hasn’t shown him in two years. “It was an honor to serve with you, sir!”
In the blink of an eye, every single vod in the hangar drops what they’re doing and turns to him, saluting him in a perfect disarray. Most of them aren’t wearing their helmets – some aren’t even in their armor – so Cody can see their faces, can see who they are for as far as his sight can distinguish them.
He leaves his things in a bunch along with what Bait had carried for him, squares up, and salutes them back. By the time they drop the formality, the air in the room feels lighter, or maybe he feels lighter, a weight being taken off his chest.
“I expect none of you to salute me the next time we see each other,” Cody huffs, getting some snorts and laughs, many more eyerolls.
Bait starts her walk back out of the hangar and into the many corridors of the ship with an admonishing headshake. Cody doesn’t wait to see her get out of sight and starts loading his things into the ship. Obi-Wan’s not on board yet, but he can see the work of his vode in the fully stocked supplies, the clean surfaces, the perfectly made bed in the sleeping compartment. He puts everything away where it won’t be in the way and heads towards the cockpit; he’s running through diagnostics when he hears someone approaching. Someone with claws and light feet, not heavy talons.
“Rex told me you were leaving with Obi-Wan,” says Tano – Jedi Tano? He’s not sure where she’s standing with the Order now, after everything from her trial and the last few days both. He’s not sure it matters anymore.
“And you didn’t believe him?”
“Oh, I believed him alright. That’s not why I’m here.”
Cody turns to look at her then: she’s still wearing the get up she’d left to Mandalore with, all muted blues and greys, and the little baby fat that’d still clung to her body and face not too long ago was mostly gone, her features sharper and her bare arms more filled up with raw muscle. She’s older than him, in a standard kind of way, and he’s well aware of it, but that won’t stop him from thinking of her as a kid, the kid commander of the 501st, the kid who always kept everyone on their toes and wiped the floor with Rex’s men, who went to spar with Obi-Wan because she was frustrated she couldn’t do more, even though she was a kid in a battlefield, and she was already doing so much more than she had to, than she should have.
“Then why are you here, ma’am?”
She cringes away at the nicety and Cody has to fight back a snort of laughter.
“You can just call me Ahsoka, Commander. Actually, I encourage it.”
“Then you’ll have to call me Cody. I’m no Commander anymore, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Got it.”
She takes a moment to inspect the cockpit with a critical eye, every bit Skywalker’s apprentice, and it doesn’t sting nearly as much to think about it as he thought it would. Cody’s unwilling to give any credit for that to the man.
“So, Ahsoka, what is it?”
Her eyes are too old and serious for her seventeen years when she looks at him.
“Do me a favor, please? Take care of him.”
Ahsoka, Snips, Little ‘Soka, holds on to her tears with a straight face and Cody wonders if she’ll let herself cry for anything, or anyone, else ever again.
“I will, you have my word on that.”
She leaves him alone in the cockpit once again with only a parting nod, impersonal and austere, severe even.
After that, and after he finishes the diagnostics, Cody choses to wait for Obi-Wan at the ramp. It takes a while, but eventually the Stewjoni makes his appearance with a sort of makeshift pram levitating to his side, which makes so many questions spring up in his mind.
“I had gone looking for you,” he answers an unasked question, his wings tightly folded and drawn back, rigid. “I thought I’d find you in your quarters.”
Cody tilts his head up at him from where he’s sitting on the durasteel.
“Now, why would I be waiting for you there?”
Obi-Wan stares back at him with his sad, defeated eyes. There’d been joy, maybe even love in them at the sight of Cody not a week ago, and if he could, Cody would unwind time and shoot Palpatine right between the eyes before any of this came crashing down, maybe Skywalker too, just for good measure.
“Cody, you don’t have to do this.”
“I know I don’t. I want to though.”
His mouth twists uglily, but Cody pushes forward because the best way to beat Obi-Wan is to catch him off guard.
“Look, Obi-Wan, you may be a mean harpy, and I may want you to be my harpy, and the Jedi may have an issue with that, and maybe people here, my people, could use my help with a hundred different things, and maybe everything in the galaxy has gone to utter shit, and maybe you think in that smart, beautiful head of yours that you ought to carry all these burdens all on your own, that you somehow deserve it, but none of that changes the fact that I’m going with you, because I don’t see anybody else offering to, and because someone should give you a hand with those kids, and because I love you. So, you might as well start getting used to the idea of having some company, because I’m not leaving your side, sir.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes recover some of their usual spark, hardening in the way they do when someone’s gone and done something particularly foolhardy, as if they were asking for a scolding. But Obi-Wan doesn’t scold Cody, and the glare passes as quickly as it’d come, is replaced by an equally burning softness, a gentle fire.
“Lead the way, then, Commander.”