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Padmé sighed and closed the door behind her, reaching up to massage her scalp around her heavy headpiece. “Well, I think that went as well as it could.”
“Yeah…,” Rex said, hands still shaking.
“I’m sorry,” Padmé said, walking over to the little caf table in the anteroom. “I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to the ‘non-sentient and acting as programmed’ argument.”
Rex screwed his eyes shut and swallowed against his rising nausea. He opened his eyes to see the senator offering him a cup and shook his head. Even the smell was too much after standing in front of so many natborns, devoid of his armor, listening to them argue whether he was man or machine or somehow both and neither. He took in a shaky breath. “Well, I’m alive, which was the goal, so….”
“So,” Padmé agreed, dumping the caf out in the sink rather than taking it for herself. She stood there for a moment, staring at the drain. “It should’ve been me,” she eventually said, as quiet and mousy as she never was.
Rex resisted the urge to take off his cover and wring it between his hands. It wouldn’t do either of them any good. “Senator?” he asked instead.
Padmé straightened and turned to him, face solemn. “It should’ve been me on trial, Captain, not you. I knew what he did, he confessed to me immediately after the fact, and I did nothing.”
As Rex reeled, she stood there silently. “Why are you telling me this?” he finally demanded.
She continued to just stand there, looking guilty, like she was waiting for -
Incandescent fury burned in Rex’ diaphragm. “I’m not going to absolve you or sentence you,” he said, quick and sharp and nearly loud. “If you want that, you can go to the courts on Naboo and confess to accessory to a massacre.”
Padmé’s eyes went wide. “That would ruin me, I’d never serve again.”
Rex could barely breathe. “If that’s your biggest concern, then you’re not really sorry.”
Padmé scowled at him. “Do not presume to tell me how I feel, Captain.”
“I’m not telling you how you’re feeling, I’m telling you how you’re acting,” Rex snapped. “All of this could’ve been avoided - All of this -” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “It’s like Grievous all over again.”
“You know what he was like!” Padmé cried. “He could track me from halfway across the galaxy, if he’d found out I had the chance and didn’t take it -”
“You didn’t serve him,” Rex snarled, “you serve the Republic. All the Republic. If you were concerned for your safety, you should’ve told the Jedi Council.”
Padmé set her jaw. “Everybody makes mistakes,” she said, and for a moment Rex thought she was talking about herself. “He shouldn’t have been made to suffer for his.”
“Suffer?” Rex choked. “Suffer like his victims did? I saw the bodies! I carried them to their pyre! He chased them down, even the children. Then he went into their homes and slew everyone who tried to hide instead of run. Elders, infants, a newborn! All on an assumption, he killed his entire family.”
Padmé huffed. “How was he to know they were his family? How could his mother just give up her child like that?”
Rex crossed his arms. “You know exactly how. Because the moment it was safe, she gave him up, too.”
Padmé huffed and pressed a hand to her stomach. “I would never split up my twins like that.”
A million tiny pieces clicked in Rex’ head. He could remind her of the Nubian taboo on sitting politicians having any family but their people. He could remind her of the Jedi vows of neutrality, thoroughly overtrodden by such a close connection to a senator of a single planet. And yet… she’d spent the last several weeks telling him not to be afraid to speak his mind around her. “I do know what he was like,” he admitted, watching her relax. “There were times I feared for my life, too. But I went to the High Generals in those instances. And I certainly didn’t marry him anyway.”
“It was the easiest way to keep him happy,” Padmé said, almost absently.
“I’m sure it was,” Rex said, and it wasn’t a compliment, and then because he was tired and overwhelmed and done with making excuses for his superiors - “Force forbid you do the difficult thing.”
Padmé’s eyes flashed, sharp and flinty, and she drew herself up to her full height. “That’s enough, Captain,” she spat. “You forget your place.”
Rex fell immediately into parade rest, years of conditioning in the face of authority the only thing keeping his tongue leashed.
Amidala turned her back on him. “Dismissed,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Rex said, angry tears burning his lashline - where they would stay if they knew what was good for them. He turned and opened the door into the public areas of the courthouse, finding Sergeant Hound already waiting for him.
“Oh, and Captain,” Amidala called.
Rex paused but didn’t turn back to look at her.
“Don’t tell anyone what we’ve just discussed. That’s an order.”
Rex’s hands clenched into fists, and he nodded, and then he left, letting the door slide shut behind him.
“Alright, vod?” Hound asked.
Rex just snorted.
“Well, luckily, I got just the thing for you.” Hound whistled, the sound coming out even shriller through his helmet’s vocoder, and a small, dark blur rocketed down the hall.
Rex smiled and knelt down to greet his ori’vod’s favorite trooper. “Hey, Grizzer,” he said, scratching up and down the massif’s back.
Panting, she tried her best to wriggle into his lap and under his chin, giving wet little kisses all over his neck and uniform.
Sighing, Rex brought his hands up to scritch right behind her tympana, then pressed a long kiss right to the top of her head before standing. “Good girl.”
With a gesture, Hound had her fall in between them, marching in perfect time as they walked out to the speeder that would take Rex back to the Temple.
It wasn’t until halfway through the drive that he found the courage to ask Hound how much he’d heard.
Hound was silent for a long moment, thinking deeply as he steered carefully through the traffic lanes. “More than you probably would have wanted me to,” he admitted. He glanced over briefly before turning his attention back to the airspace around them. “If you want, I can tell them. That way you don’t get in more trouble.”
Rex shook his head and Hound let him be. They sat in silence as the speeder moved through Coruscant, coming to a stop beside a platform to the side of the Temple’s main entrance.
Rex waited until Hound had turned off the vehicle before quietly saying “I thought she was one of the good ones.”
Hound tilted his head. “She is,” he finally said. “But that doesn’t mean much when everything’s….”
“FUBAR?” Rex suggested.
Hound nodded. “She’s safe to work around. She sees us as people. But she’s a natborn, rich, a politician since she was a cadet… Seeing us as people doesn’t mean seeing us as her people - or as equals. She’s not a Jedi, raised to view every single life as equally valuable. Very few people are.”
Rex heaved a sigh and tilted his head back against the seat, feeling like the entire weight of the planet had settled on his chest - in his heart. “I’m so… weary. Down to my bones, my soul. I was tired before all this, but now….”
Hound hummed in understanding. “Wanna take Grizzer for the rest of the day? She loves General Hett - he brought her to Coruscant, you know - and I have a meeting.”
Rex picked up his head and squinted suspiciously at his brother. “Wouldn’t people expect you to have her with you at a meeting?”
“Not that kind of meeting,” Hound admitted sheepishly, his voice soft and warm. He looked up and waved at a Jedi standing in the nearest doorway.
The Jedi - the familiar Jedi - smiled, earnest and affectionate despite his stern countenance, in a way that was painful to see after the day’s trials.
“Drallig,” Rex mused out loud. “Huh.”
“Yeah,” Hound said, no doubt smiling dopily under his bucket. “Cin’s great.”
Rex huffed and smiled. “Yeah, alright,” he said. “I’ll take Grizzer. I’m sure A’sharad misses her, too.”
He did, it was clear, when he went to his knees in his apartment and tearfully greeted the massif.
“Ghorliseha!” A’Sharad cheered, letting her lick all over his bare face.
“Sorry,” Rex said, “I didn’t think to ask if animals counted against modesty rules.”
A’Sharad laughed. “Not massifs.” He scritched all along Grizzer’s back, carefully grooming the spines on her shoulders. “There are a few animals that do, but it’s largely about showing due deference. You wouldn’t show up to a meeting with the Chancellor in your underwear, and you wouldn’t meet a krayt in anything less than full hunting regalia. Well - not on purpose.”
Rex laughed and kicked off his boots before settling on the low couch.
Grizzer immediately abandoned A’Sharad to snuggle up against Rex, clearly deeming him more in need of affection and comfort between the two of them.
A’Sharad didn’t seem offended though, simply standing and brushing off his trousers before going back to the pots and pans he was cooking in when they’d arrived.
“What was that you called her?” Rex asked after a moment. “Ghorliseya?”
“Ghorliseha,” A’Sharad corrected him. “It’s her Ghorfan name. All the massifs I bring the Guard have them.”
Rex hummed. “Like Adawo’kared for you?”
“Yes,” A’Sharad agreed. “My own little bit of rebellion, I suppose. A bit of Ghorfan culture hidden right under the Senate’s nose.”
“What does her name mean?”
“‘Carrying a person on her back’.”
Rex paused. “Why?” he asked, trying and failing not to imagine how much that would hurt her.
“Figuratively,” A’Sharad assured him, turning off the heat and reaching for the shallow bowls he kept rather than plates and bowls both. “Because she carries the entire team.”
Rex stood up and wandered into the kitchen to help with the food and A’Sharad turned and kissed him.
“Like you do for the 501st,” A’Sharad teased - just to see his lover turn red, Rex suspected, in which case he certainly succeeded.
Rex squeezed his wrist behind his back, taking comfort in the creak of his vambrace as he waited for the High Council to get to the point.
“The fact of the matter is,” Windu cut through the crosstalk, “the 501st has now served under two Fallen generals, and we don’t want to put you in such a position a third time. So, despite some members’ misgivings, we have decided to assign you two Jedi, personally vetted, that will serve to keep each other accountable.”
“Which generals, sir?” Rex asked.
Master Koon brought his hands together in front of his chest, looking somehow mischievous.
Rex squinted suspiciously at his ba’buir.
“I believe you are already familiar with Master Hett,” Plo said. “He will be the first Jedi. As for the second, we cannot currently afford to separate any Jedi from their present command, so Platoon 419 and their attached communications specialist will be permanently assigned alongside the 501st Legion. Their specialties are in reconnaissance and battlefield clean-up, so I believe they will be of great use to you. If the two units are unable to cooperate, another will be assigned.”
Rex nodded slowly as he digested that information. “What about General Kenobi?”
Plo, Windu, and Yoda all shared a look, pointedly not looking at the empty seat a few down from their own. Finally, Yoda spoke. “Grieving Master Kenobi is. Additional responsibilities he does not need, not at this time. With the 212th the 501st will continue to work, and often, yes, but permanently assigned a frequent collaborator is not.”
“And the chain of command?” Rex asked. “Skywalker was a Knight and Kenobi was a Master, and I’m a Captain while Cody is a Marshal Commander, so seniority was rather straightforward whenever we operated jointly. Will this arrangement be as clear?”
“Not to worry,” Plo said, still radiating mischief, though this time with a side of smug pride in his family. “It has all been taken care of.”
Well, Rex trusted that about as far as he could wield the Force. “If you say so, sir,” he said, diplomatically.
Yoda hummed. “Questions you have. Ask them of us you may.”
Rex took a deep breath. “Two questions, sir. The first is regarding Commander Tano. Will she be rejoining the 501st? General Hett did explain to me that attachment is not forbidden to all Jedi, just to her lineage - your lineage, sir -” and now Yoda and Windu were frowning - “but the men see her as a little sister and it would be a severe blow to morale to lose her, even if just to a different unit.”
Windu sat forward, suddenly even more intense. “Has her conduct been so poor that attachment is a concern?”
Rex’ mind blanked, there was no other word for it. “Sir?!” was all that made it out of his mouth.
Plo raised a hand. “Captain, what do you mean when you say attachment?”
Rex frowned. “Close relationships, sir. Is that not correct?”
Windu sighed and buried his face in his hands. “I know Skywalker passed this class,” he grumbled, “I was the one who taught it that semester.”
Rex swallowed, measuring his words carefully. “I often found that General Skywalker could pass a theoretical exam without internalizing the practical applications,” he offered. “A case of memorizing the correct answers without understanding the content.”
Windu sighed again and nodded, running his hands down his face. “Critical thinking was never Anakin’s strong suit. Attachment, in Jedi philosophy, refers to possessive or obsessive relationships, where members are treated as objects rather than people and given preference above the greater good. Jedi serve the Force first of all. Close relationships are allowed for all Jedi, so long as all parties understand that duty must come first, though we caution careful consideration and good judgement. Especially as it’s common for certain types of beings to be interested in Force-users only for the exotic factor. I don’t foresee any of that being a problem for you or the Vode in your care, so I see no need for Ahsoka to be separated from you, even while she waits for a new Master.”
Rex deflated. “No, sir.” He paused. “It’s possible I’ve been operating under faulty intelligence regarding the Jedi for the duration of the war. Is there a general theory article I can search?”
General Ti was the one who answered him. “I will speak with Master Nu to make the Basic Force Theory & Jedi Philosophy set of classes available to all deployed troopers, from initiate to Padawan level, and make an effort to have it included as an elective class here on Kamino.”
“Yes, sir,” Rex said, “thank you, sir.”
“Of course, Captain,” Windu said, before whipping his head toward Rex’ ba’buir. “Plo,” he groaned.
Plo shrugged. “Commander Gree was very interested in the ethnobotany class I mentioned taking before the war. As he did not have his own Archive credentials, I allowed him to use mine. That was two years ago, I believe he has qualified for junior degrees in sociocultural anthropology and multicultural studies at this point. I’m already looking at how to transfer them from my citizen identification codes to his once he has them, Jocasta is helping me.”
“As long as Jocasta is aware,” Windu sighed. He seemed to do that quite a lot.
“A second question you had, Captain?” Yoda asked.
Rex coughed into his fist, though he already knew it wasn’t quite enough to hide his amusement from the room full of empaths. “Yes, sir,” he said, and then quickly sobered. “Was the Council aware that General Skywalker and Senator Amidala were married?”
Shoulders slumped around the room. “Aware we were that they were intimate,” Yoda admitted, “a loud thinker Skywalker always has been. Married? No, that we did not know. Hrm….”
“She knew,” Rex said. “She tried to order me to stay quiet about it, but she knew what Skywalker had done. Her concerns were her career - possibly in the context of being able to support her ikaade once they’re born, but -”
“Her what?” General Mundi asked, apparently the only one not shocked into silence.
Rex looked around the room. “She’s carrying?” he said. “I… assumed that was something you all could sense.”
“Force,” Windu said, with feeling. “A miniature Skywalker.”
“Two of them, I believe,” Rex said.
“Does Obi-Wan know?”
“I don’t know sir. I think that telling him or not should be the Senator’s decision, though, regardless of anything else she’s done.”
Windu nodded. “You’re right, Captain, thank you for reminding me.”
Yoda cleared his throat. “Unsure you are that this is the context she meant?”
“Yes, sir.” Rex tilted his head. “I just… she had plenty of opportunities to come forward. Instead, she married him. She said she did it because she feared for her safety, and I don’t think that was a lie. But it’s certainly not the whole truth, either.”
Plo nodded. “You have good instincts when it comes to both battle and sentient behavior, Captain. We will monitor Senator Amidala closely and offer her children what support we can.”
A thought occurred to Rex then. “Will the children be Jedi?”
“They’ll most likely be Force-sensitive,” Windu answered, “but whether they become Jedi or not is not up to this Council.”
Rex nodded slowly. “I’d request, sir, that until I rescind it, if they do become Jedi, they be kept far away from me. It shouldn’t matter who their father was, but I don’t know that I’ll be able to remember that at first, and they shouldn’t be exposed to my feelings on Skywalker until I have my head on straight about him.”
“Easy enough to arrange,” Windu agreed, “if they become Jedi. We’ll do our best to run interference between you and the senator from here on, if you would like, but I can’t make any guarantees. She’s an official in the Galactic Republic, and you are a soldier in its Grand Army. Circumstances may render our efforts null and void.”
“I understand, sir,” Rex agreed, “and… I think I would like that.”
“It will be done,” Windu said, sitting back in his seat, arms resting on the sides of his chair. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”
Rex shook his head. “No, sir, not at this time.”
Windu nodded. “If anything comes to mind, comm me or Plo directly,” he ordered. “The 501st will ship out in two days’ time, your generals have already been briefed and will meet you on the Resolute and update you once you’re underway.”
Rex straightened. “Actually, sir, there is one thing. Skywalker named the Resolute. I’d like to petition to rename it, to distance ourselves from his actions as much as possible.”
“Do you have a name in mind?” Windu asked.
Rex didn’t even have to think about it - he knew the majority of his vode would agree with him. “Integrity, sir.” For all Skywalker had been resolute and determined, if he could cover up his murder of children, integrity was clearly something he’d lacked.
“A good name,” Plo said, gentle in that way he always was but that you never noticed until you really needed it. “I’ll see to it tonight.”
“Thank you, sirs,” Rex said, coming to attention.
“Dismissed, Captain,” Windu said. “As you were.”
The comm took nearly twice as long as usual to connect, Cody’s tired face appearing above Rex’ wrist washed out in shades of blue, brows heavy and eye bags heavier.
“You look like shit, ori’vod,” Rex said.
Cody snorted and ran a hand down his face. “I feel like shit,” he admitted. “I thought I was babysitting my Jedi before, but that has nothing on this.”
Rex frowned. “Do you need me to make a report for you?”
Tellingly, Cody paused and considered it, but he eventually shook his head. “I don’t mind caring for him,” he said, in the same voice he used to talk about ‘after the war’ and ‘when this is over’.
Everyone who knew him knew that for Cody, Kenobi was the ‘after’. The Jedi embodied hope, and some vode felt it more clearly, more deeply than others. As long as everyone stayed professional on duty, Rex believed, there was nothing wrong with that - and as he’d recently learned, the Jedi believed the same.
“It’s just a lot,” Cody continued, “and it doesn’t feel like it’s going to end, it feels like he just… broke once he knew Skywalker had died. What he’d done. And I don’t know if I can fix him.”
“You can’t fix him, vod,” Rex said, not ungently. “You can only give him the tools to fix himself. And stay far away from the fallout if he decides not to. You got the ‘how to deal with prolonged battle shock in other Vode’ lecture from the medics same as I did.”
“You think that’s what this is?”
“I think it’s similar enough for the lecture to apply.”
Cody nodded and fell silent, thinking, staring at something just out of pick-up range.
Rex took the opportunity to really look at his older brother, to track the new lines on his face, the stray silvers the entirety of command were ever so slowly collecting at their temples. Even Rex himself would look in the mirror and see stubbles of hair glittering rather than shining. And Force, the oldest of them were what - twenty-four in natborn years? Engineered to be resistant to stress, his muscular buttocks.
“You need a break, vod,” he said quietly.
Cody shook his head. “I don’t think it’s safe to leave him alone right now.”
“So don’t,” Rex said. “But, vod, gar shuk meh kyr’ayc. Tired is dead too often for you to risk it. Let someone else take a shift. Get some sleep, and then do something for yourself that has nothing to do with your cyare. It’s healthy to have other things besides each other - even, maybe especially, when you need each other. And you can’t take care of him if you’re burnt out and needing care yourself.”
Slowly, Cody nodded, and then he deflated. “I’m supposed to protect him, Rex. And you, and us - all of us. How did I miss it? I thought Skywalker was immature and reckless, not - not evil. How did I….”
“Everyone missed it,” Rex said, his own guilt churning below his breastbone. “And if you should’ve caught it, how much more should’ve I?”
Cody sighed and nodded once again. He gave a sad, wry smile. “Longnecks fucked us all up, didn’t they?”
Rex snorted. “You CCs in a new and interesting way for sure. If CTs are sheep, then you’re all either livestock guardians or hyperactive herders, sometimes both at once but there is no between.”
“Not very good at the guardian part, are we? Vode keep dying. And even when we win the war, what then? We’ll have to let everyone go their own ways, have no one left to guard.”
“Like I said,” Rex said, not nearly as unaffected as he tried to be, “a new and interesting way.” He paused. “Sometimes the predators win.”
“It’s my fault when they do,” Cody insisted.
Rex sighed. “I think… I think we want it to be our fault, because when there’s a reason it’s not as frightening. But there’s not always a reason. There’s not always a fault. Not on this side of the war, at least.”
Cody finally turned back to the comm, just staring at Rex for a long moment. “When did you get so wise?”
“I’ve been seeing a mind-healer while I’m here,” Rex admitted. “It’s hard, and it’s temporary, but he’s trying to give me as many tools as he can before we ship out again. The Jedi are planning to make the Archives classes available to us all. I might look into some clinical psychology stuff, try to understand how our brains work in the first place.”
“Is that what you want to do after?” Cody asked.
“No,” Rex answered, immediately. “I could do it, but I don’t want to. I just want to understand it.”
Cody nodded and then yawned, looking like an utterly betrayed disgruntled tooka afterward.
Rex laughed under his breath. “Take a nap, vod. If nothing else, get one of the assistants down in medical to look after Kenobi. You know they’ll know how to take care of him.”
“You might be right,” Cody admitted, leaning over the comm. “K’oyacyi, vod.”
“K’oyacyi,” Rex said. “I mean it.”
The best thing about being back on the Res - the Integrity was seeing Ahsoka again. They’d both been so busy at Temple and leading up to his trial….
He wrapped his little sister up in his arms and held her tight.
Ahsoka melted into him, clinging to the edges of his armor. “Are you okay?” she mumbled into his chest.
“Yeah,” he said, pressing a kiss between her montrals. “Yeah, kid, I’m okay. You?”
“I’m okay,” Ahsoka said, pulling away. “I could be okay-er, though.”
“Yeah,” Rex laughed, though it wasn’t really funny at all. “Yeah, me, too.”
A’Sharad walked up to them, then, reaching out with his mind in a way Rex was learning to recognize, to enjoy. A quiet presence and reassurance when they needed to put other things first. Far away, on the planet below, Xiaan reached out as well.
“We should wait for Sha before the official briefing, but they sent us on an ‘easy’ mission for our first one working together,” A’Sharad said, “so I want to be prepared for the absolute worst. Is there anything that can be done while we wait?”
Rex nodded, tucking Ahsoka under his arm. “Anything for an absolute worst that presumes we don’t even make it to our destination. Due diligence inspections of the hyperdrive, inventory, anything like that. I’ll pass word on to my lieutenants and they can tell their crews what they need done in each of their sectors.”
A’Sharad nodded. “If any of them need an extra body, there’s nothing I have to do in the meantime.”
“I’ll let them know,” Rex agreed.
A’Sharad looked up. “Though I don’t think we’ll be waiting for long,” he said, a smile in his voice.
Rex turned to see a starfighter enter the hangar with a familiar symbol splashed across its nose, followed by an even more familiar, highly customized Kappa-class shuttle. “What the hell is he doing here?” he grumbled, mostly for show.
A’Sharad glanced at him. “You don’t get along?”
Rex shook his head. “He’s an annoying ba’vodu, that’s all.”
A’Sharad sent him the impression of a laugh, a smile. “I see.”
“You’re laughing at me.” Rex definitely did not pout. No matter if he wanted to.
“I am not,” A’Sharad said, blatantly lying, and laughing more besides.
The fighter’s cockpit swung open and a young Kel Dor swung out of it and onto the hangar deck, then her gaze snapped up to Ahsoka.
Ahsoka gasped. “Oh!” she said, looking slightly dazed.
“What is it?” Rex asked, immediately on alert.
Ahsoka shook her head. “It’s - It’s a good thing, promise. Just unexpected. I didn’t think….”
The Kel Dor strode over with purpose, a lightsaber swinging at her hip. “Hello, Ahsoka,” she said, with the deepened voice oxygenated atmospheres gave all her people. “My uncle’s told me a lot about you.”
“Knight Koon,” Ahsoka said, bowing. She paused, shifting awkwardly. “Are you… are you looking for a Padawan, Knight Koon?”
“I wasn’t,” Koon the Younger admitted. The ‘Sha’ A’Sharad mentioned, Rex realized. That must be her name. “But not looking doesn’t mean that I don’t take joy in the finding. Will you let me walk this path with you, young one?”
Ahsoka glanced at A’Sharad.
“There’s no shame in saying no,” Sha told her. “If I’m not who you want, then that’s okay. If you need time to decide, that’s okay, too.”
Ahsoka frowned, thoughtfully, and looked back up at the Knight. “Spontaneous bonds are rare, isn’t this a sign from the Force?”
“The Sages teach that signs are suggestions,” Sha said. “Not orders. And I am as much a Sage as I am a Jedi.”
“Will I have to be a Sage, too?” Ahsoka asked.
Sha shook her head. “No, little one. Though Uncle Plo told me that your buir will likely teach you the ways of the Mando gorane and the Ghorfan mooncallers, and I know there is an indigenous Togruta tradition as well. You can learn as many or as few of these as you would like, and I will support you, but you don’t have to be anyone or anything. A teacher helps you safely become the best version of yourself, but only you can decide which version is the best one.”
“How do I know?”
Sha smiled, the skin around her mask pulling to one side in the way that Kel Dor who had spent a lot of time with humans learned to do. “Lots and lots of meditation. At least, that’s how Master Saldith and I did it. You and I might do it differently.”
Ahsoka tilted her head.
“What does the Force tell you?” A’Sharad prompted her, gently. “What do you feel?”
Rex watched as Ahsoka closed her eyes and focused. “I feel… disappointed that you won’t be my master, and happy that Knight Sha will be at the same time. But how can they exist at the same time? Don’t they contradict each other?”
“Not at all,” A’Sharad said. “It just means you like us both, which personally makes me very happy.”
Ahsoka smiled up at him, then turned back to Sha. “You are welcome to guide my path, Master.”
Sha put a taloned hand on Ahsoka’s head. “Then I will clear the way. If you lose the path, I will find it. If you stumble, I will catch you. If you fall, I will pull you up. You are my Padawan.”
“And you are my Master,” Ahsoka agreed.
The words, spoken with the cadence of ritual, twisted something deep in Rex’ chest, and he thought of Kenobi, of this vow he must have taken, too, once upon a time.
Someone started clapping, enthusiastically, and he turned to see Commander Ravenne and his Murder Platoon standing nearby.
Rex sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Ravenne walked over and slung an arm around his shoulders. “Congratulations, General Sha, Commander Tano. Mind if I steal Commander Rex?”
Rex frowned. “I’m not a commander,” he protested.
Ravenne grinned. “Yes, you are. I report to you, now. And Raj,” he gestured at the specialist his platoon had kidnapped from the 91st, “is supposed to be your new administrative assistant whenever we’re shipside. Mine, too. I know you don’t like being out of the action, so I’ll take care of the oversight stuff that Sergeant Appo’s been doing already, and you get to stay on the front lines. It’s all been taken care of.”
Belatedly, Rex realized he’d been had. “General Plo said the same thing.”
“The highest of compliments,” Ravenne said, completely seriously. “Isn’t he your ba’buir?”
Sha looked up curiously at that.
Sha Koon, who was Plo’s niece, which meant she was Wolffe’s - and therefore Rex’ - cousin, he realized all at once. The least his buir could’ve done was warn him.
“Borrow away, Commander,” A’Sharad said.
“I want a divorce,” Rex quipped as Ravenne led him away.
“We’re not married yet,” A’Sharad replied before turning to talk to the other Jedi, completely oblivious to the crisis he’d just given his partner.
Ravenne grinned at him.
“We have to be back in time for the briefing,” Rex reminded him sternly.
“We’ll be back and sober,” Ravenne agreed, steering him into the officers’ quarters and unerringly finding his small suite.
“Sober?!” Rex yelped.
“You, vo’adu,” Ravenne said, pulling a bottle of whiskey out of his pack, “have had a truly shitty month. Wolffe got to get drunk with Fox to process it all, but as far as I’m aware, you haven’t had any opportunity to do the same.”
“I try not to drink when I’m upset,” Rex pointed out. "Not anymore."
Ravenne shrugged. “If you really don’t want to drink, then we don’t have to. I can put this somewhere else. I do think you need to vent to someone not as close to you or to the situation, though.”
Rex thought about it for a moment, then snatched the bottle out of Ravenne’s hand. “You’re still not my ba’vodu,” he said, the routine old and familiar by now.
Ravenne grinned. “Your buir’s CC-3636, I’m CC-6363, we both have names after an animal but with extra consonant and vowel at the end. Wolffe and Ravenne, Ravenne and Wolffe. Not to mention how often we work with the Pack, pre-screening the sites of their relief missions. And how Wolffe and I were inseparable on Kamino. And how I was there when he adopted you. And how -”
“Okay, okay,” Rex laughed, pulling off the bottle’s cap and giving it a sniff. “Half the CC class was there when I was adopted, you’re not special.”
Ravenne gasped dramatically and clutched his chest, tipping over back onto Rex’ bunk. “You wound me! I’m mortally wounded!”
“Sure you are,” Rex drawled, smiling at the familiar antics.
He put the bottle down without taking a drink, and crawled in under his ba’vodu’s arm.
“Hey, kiddo,” Ravenne said, soft and much less erratic as he scritched his fingernails over Rex’ scalp.
Rex hummed and laid his head on his shoulder. “I’ve missed you,” he admitted. “Even with your you-ness.”
Ravenne chuckled. “That’s fair. I pull it out just to annoy you.”
“You pull it out when you think I need a smaller problem to be annoyed about,” Rex corrected him.
Ravenne pulled a face. “Oh, I’m that predictable now?”
“I’m a strategist,” Rex pointed out.
“The best to ever come off Kamino,” Ravenne agreed, though that wasn’t what Rex thought. “Okay, I guess I don’t feel too bad about you figuring me out.”
Rex just hummed. “There’s so much I don’t know,” he finally said. “So much I’ve been wrong about. And it’s… hard. Grieving the man I thought I knew, hating the man he was, hating myself,” his voice cracked, “for not realizing.”
Ravenne was quiet for a moment, brushing his thumb back and forth over Rex’ shoulder. “You know, the bounty on you is pretty high, now.”
“What?” Rex asked, completely thrown.
Ravenne shrugged. “I dunno, just…. The Seppies hate you plenty already. Even Dooku, probably. Don’t do their work for them. Radical self-acceptance is a tool we have that they don’t.”
Rex nodded carefully. “Well,” he said, “if it’s to spite Dooku….”
chat opened “this family is a fucking nightmare”
online: IceAndFire, mama wolffe, Mythosaurus rex
Mythosaurus rex: So was anyone going to tell me that we have a cousin or was that something I was supposed to find out when my new General Sha Koon showed up?
mama wolffe:
what
mama wolffe:
WHAT
IceAndFire:
we have a cousin?!!!
IceAndFire:
is she cool?
Mythosaurus rex: the coolest
mama wolffe: how cool is the coolest?
Mythosaurus rex: [jedi_training_01.holom]
IceAndFire: i want to meet our cousin!
mama wolffe:
NICE
mama wolffe:
why’s the file 01? I thought you were up in triple digits
Mythosaurus rex:
renamed all the ones of skywalker from jedi training to skywalker training, bc the more we learn the more we realize that he really was just doing his own thing with no thought to anything at all
Mythosaurus rex:
should’ve realized it when he had us stunning soka so much tbh but he said it was helping like jedi training wouldn’t and it wasn’t as bad as the trainers would do to us
mama wolffe:
i’m sorry STUNNING SOKA?
mama wolffe:
what was that even teaching her? It’s not like you can build up an immunity. You CAN get nerve damage and seizures and cardiac arrest though holy kriff what was your medic doing
Mythosaurus rex:
yeah, kix wasn’t happy and idk he was trying to teach her to sense when and where blasterfire would come from even while surrounded
Mythosaurus rex:
but Sha won’t do that to her. She looked horrified when i brought it up
mama wolffe:
good
mama wolffe:
i approve
mama wolffe:
and she’s a good general?
Mythosaurus rex:
she comes highly recommended by a trusted source
Mythosaurus rex:
she’s ravenne’s general
Mythosaurus rex:
which means you definitely should’ve met her before
IceAndFire: next time we work with the murder i’m meeting our cousin and no one is stopping me
Mythosaurus rex: murder’s been permanently assigned to the 501st
IceAndFire:
:0
IceAndFire:
thief!!!
IceAndFire:
buir rex stole our cousin!!!
mama wolffe: rex give the cousin back
Mythosaurus rex: finders keepers losers weepers :P
Rex looked up from his datapad as his door opened, pausing his video and taking one earpiece out as he scooted over, making room for his guest.
Ahsoka crawled under his arm much as he had with Ravenne earlier that morning, and she curled up against his side. “What are you watching?”
“Basics of Attachment Theory for Older Initiates,” Rex murmured in answer. “General Ti came through with the Archives access and, well. This was the thing I most clearly misunderstood, seemed like the most urgent to address.”
Ahsoka nodded, chewing her lip. “Can I watch with you? I should probably review my foundations after…. After everything.”
“Of course.” Rex took out his other earpiece, held his vod’ika close, and played the video from the beginning, and it felt like patching something up inside himself.
Healing, Knight Cole’s voice suggested in his thoughts, and as he pressed a kiss to Ahsoka’s forehead, Rex agreed.