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Again and again Cody dreams of water. Of blue waves curling up and falling back again. He dreams of a child with his face falling from a metal cliff into the waiting water. He dreams of a man, a little older, stepping forwards into nothing. He dreams, on some nights, of ice cracking, of twenty men that share his purpose trapped. Twenty of his face stare up at him from beneath the ice.
He dreams, sometimes, that he is with them. That he is the child that slips and falls, the man that steps over the edge, the bodies, mouths agape, beneath the ice.
He does not wake when the water touches him, when the world around him narrows into darkness on all sides. It is when he gasps for air, and only water enters his lungs, harsh and unyielding, that at last he startles awake. He wakes with tears on his lips, and it tastes like drowning.
Falling in love with Obi-Wan, he thinks, is much like that sensation of drowning. Of gasping, finding only water, and knowing that his fate is sealed.
---
Once, Obi-Wan had shown him the heart of his lightsaber. The lightsaber had, as was becoming habit with startling speed, ended the battle at his side rather than hanging from the belt of its owner. In the efficient march of post-battle work he had not found the time to return the weapon, and instead had carried it with him, the metal hilt hitting the plastoid of his armour in a steady rhythm as he walked. It was only after, when all that required him had been attended to, that he managed to venture to Obi-Wan’s quarters.
He stood outside for a long moment, grateful that the higher ranked officer’s quarters were far enough away from the ship’s centres of activity that he did not attract curious stares from nosey brothers as he hesitated outside the door. He inhaled a deep breath, and exhaled a curse that Fox had taught him, then pressed the door chime before he could change his mind.
The answering call to enter came almost immediately and it was then Cody realised that the Jedi had most likely sensed his presence long before he had announced his own. He muttered another curse that he and Fox had spent their youth practising.
“Commander.” Obi-Wan always spoke his title carefully, as if, had he failed to pay attention to the word, he might have unwittingly uttered something else.
Cody inclined his head in greeting, stepping inside the room.
Obi-Wan was sat in the centre of the room, legs folded beneath him. He had, Cody was certain, been hovering an inch or so above the ground when he’d first entered. Obi-Wan smiled, legs unfolding from beneath him as he rose, as practiced as a waterbird unfurling itself. “I believe you have something of mine?”
He phrased it as such, but both knew better than to consider it a question.
Again, he nodded. After a moment’s hesitation, he stepped forwards, just far enough that his toes brushed the edge of Obi-Wan’s meditation mat. Silently, his outstretched palm laid flat in offering, he held out the lightsaber.
“Thank you.” He smiled, in the sharing of a joke, “My commander, where would I be without you?”
“Lost, for sure.” He replied without hesitation, it was a practiced thing, this exchange between them.
“Indeed.”
Cody blinked, looked at him again. The softness in Obi-Wan’s voice was a break in their routine that caused his breath to shudder to a halt in sudden shock.
Obi-Wan was looking at him still, with such perceptiveness that Cody couldn’t help but think that he should have dropped his gaze.
“Would you like to see it?”
Cody blinked again, this time in true confusion.
“The crystal, I mean.”
“The crystal?”
Obi-Wan hummed, “Lightsabers get their power, their being, from kyber crystals. Each crystal is unique to the lightsaber, is unique to the Jedi.”
Cody paused, considering, “They’re alive?”
“Perhaps in some sense of the word. They are strong in the Force, and that alone grants the sort of vitality that any living thing possesses.” He turned the weapon over in his hand, “There is much debate on the subject, but there is a suggestion that kyber crystals have a sort of sentience.”
Cody opened his mouth to reply, then shook his head, words fell short of what he wanted to express.
Undeterred, Obi-Wan continued, “Far different from our own, of course. They are such a different form of life. But not so different as to prevent the sort of communication that goes on between any good Jedi and their crystal.” He finished with a soft smile, “But I didn’t ask you if you wanted a lesson, Cody, I asked if you wanted to see it.”
He nodded, then, once he had again remembered how to speak, spoke softly, “Yeah.”
Obi-Wan stepped back, to the far edge of the mat, and sat down again, motioning for Cody to join him. Armour knocking softly as his body shifted, he sat, taking care to echo Obi-Wan’s crossed legged position. He nodded in quiet approval, then placed the lightsaber between them.
He watched as Obi-Wan drew in a slow breath. Then, the tide pulling back from the shore, he exhaled. Around them, the room seemed to slow.
It was an inexplicable thing, to be within the frozen space. He felt breaths rise and fall within his chest, heard the thud of his heart within his ears, saw the same telltale signs of life reflected in Obi-Wan. And yet, with certainty so absolute that he could not have explained it, that space, the very fabric of the universe, had slowed, just for them, just for that moment.
Before him, the lightsaber began to hover. In much the same way that Obi-Wan had when he had entered, it rose between them, coming to rest within their shared eyeline. Then, the universe itself unfolding, the lightsaber stretched apart.
At first, it was almost an optical illusion. For a moment, there was the lightsaber, then the lightsaber in pieces, and then there was only light.
Cody exhaled, a slow breath of awe. Of something like surrender. It was the final breath out as he stepped forwards into nothingness.
Around them, the room was cast in a blue glow that pulsed, a tiny heartbeat that echoed Obi-Wan’s own. Its light shifted with each beat, almost imperceptible, and Cody found himself transfixed, watching the light around them as it ebbed and flowed. The crystal itself was almost difficult to look at, as if his gaze, each time he tried to fix on it, would slip away, forced just a little to the side of it so that he was forced to look around the crystal, at the space that it shaped.
“I can’t --" He gestured broadly at the crystal.
Obi-Wan hummed, understanding despite his lack of words, “It is truly of the Force. Perhaps --" He paused, “Truthfully, Cody, I do not know. Few Jedi share their crystals like this.”
He nodded, finding himself content to look past the crystal, to the light that it created and the way that it bathed Obi-Wan in its shifting glow. It picked out his features in shades of blue, each a little different from the last, moving in an ever-changing cycle as the sea travels over and over to meet the shore.
It was almost strange, he thought, to see Obi-Wan’s eyes amidst so much blue. Caught up amongst the shades of the crystal they changed with it, such that, reflected in his eyes, Cody watched the crystal itself. With the low hum that it was emitting, it shivered slightly, ever-shifting as if it could not quite decide upon the nature of its being.
Or perhaps it had, he wondered. Perhaps it had decided to do away with singularity entirely. Such a prospect was so distant from his own prescribed existence that there was something almost terrifying about it.
Briefly, he closed his eyes in respite. Even like this the world was still filled with blue.
“Cody?”
Again, he opened his eyes. Found Obi-Wan looking at him from within the sea of blue.
“Are you alright?”
He nodded, once. “It’s very beautiful, but --"
“It is very --” Obi-Wan paused, considering, “It is of a world that is not our own.”
“Yeah.”
Obi-Wan smiled, then, “I’m glad to have shared it with you.”
After a brief moment, the optical illusion reversed itself. Light becoming parts becoming weapon. Carefully, Obi-Wan placed the lightsaber on the floor between them. He rose, and Cody followed him. Again the world returned to its familiar grey.
---
“Obi-Wan --"
Obi-Wan’s name on his lips had always felt like a plea, the sound of a man half-mad with wanting. It was as if all the moments when they stood as Commander and General, whilst Cody had fought to keep the image of Obi-Wan’s hands on him from hanging over him, were coalesced into the sound.
This growing something between them had quickly begun to take on form and shape and meaning; a transient life, a tiny reef fish emerging from its egg unknowing that its lifespan was marked in weeks as it looked ahead to the gaping ocean.
Obi-Wan pressed his lips to the soft skin below his collarbone, and he gasped, the final sound of a drowned man. He worked a mark into the skin that, standing in the shower the next morning, Cody would trace, half-dazed as the feeling of shame, want, and something more that curled in his stomach.
A wretched little noise escaped his lips and the hand splayed against Obi-Wan’s back twitched, his whole body shuddering against the sensation.
At the noise, Obi-Wan looked up at him through his lashes, his expression soft enough to make Cody’s chest ache. The hand that was braced against his hip shifted, and Cody heard as his breath caught in his throat.
Obi-Wan began working his way up Cody’s neck, pressing brief kisses against his skin. The hand that had been resting against his shoulder came up to cradle the side of his neck, and between the two points that were Obi-Wan the world became a self-contained thing. Shrinking solely to the two points of contact that bracketed his neck.
“Cody --" Somewhere before it left his mouth, Obi-Wan’s voice fell away and Cody watched as he collected himself, tried again, “Cody, is this --"
He nodded, not allowing Obi-Wan to finish the sentence before he was leaning up to meet him.
He was faintly aware of Obi-Wan’s beard, of the taste of GAR standard tea, the shudder of Obi-Wan’s heartbeat pressed almost against his own. He heard Obi-Wan’s tiny moan, his name murmured as they parted for a moment, the way his own breath caught for a moment in his throat. And before it all, he could only gaze, witness to this stretching, yawning feeling that was unfolding through him.
He was, at once, the tiny fish, the ocean, reaching, the moon, as it shaped his very being.
After a moment, he pulled away. He was stood atop the metal cliff, looking out. Atop the sea of ice as it shifted and cracked. His exhale was a slow sound of awe.
Until now, it had been understood that they didn’t kiss. That kissing would be too much like the holodramas Obi-Wan pretended not to watch, as if they were two heroes destined for an ever-lasting romance. As if, had they paused long enough to recognise its meaning, this thing that they had would become something worthy of record, of existing beyond the half-dark confines of Obi-Wan’s quarters.
“Obi-Wan, I --” He began, his own voice near unrecognisable beneath the tender weight of devotion.
Still, the expression on Obi-Wan’s face was open. It was a terrible thing to behold, as Cody watched as the softness in his eyes was overcome with a terrible grief. It was the grief of speech, he was certain. Before there had been knowing, unspoken and shared, yet Cody had been brave and thought to give it words.
In Obi-Wan’s eyes, a galaxy was collapsing.
He shifted out from Obi-Wan’s touch. “Don’t.” Shook his head, “Don’t. Please.”
Obi-Wan sat up, the distance between them grew. He was silent for a long moment, regarding Cody with an expression that looked near to breaking.
Cody swallowed, understanding settling heavy within his chest. He wanted to throw something, yell something cruel. He only sat there, feeling horribly, terribly numb.
Then, static ringing in his ears, he drew in a breath. Obi-Wan watched its path down his throat in silence. Still, the silence stretched between them. He began to pull on his blacks, then stood from the bed, and began silently collecting his armour.
At last, Obi-Wan spoke, “Cody --”
His name was a drop of water amongst a deep ocean, a stone atop a monument, a single plea uttered amongst many.
He looked back at Obi-Wan, half standing from the bed, his robes pooled around his hips.
He pulled on his helmet with practiced ease, “I’ll see you tomorrow at the briefing, sir.”
---
“Commander!”
He turned, scrambling over the snow towards Obi-Wan, every so often turning back to send a shot towards the approaching clankers. Obi-Wan was stood a little further up the hillslope, facing towards him as he defended against another wave of droids. Behind him, was the telltale overhang of a small cave. His plan was clear, the cave was a defendable point, and, if worst came to worst, one they could barricade themselves inside and await reinforcements.
A shot screeched over his shoulder, catching the edge of his pauldron and causing him to stumble. He cursed. He was beginning to think that the worst was rapidly approaching.
Firing two more shots in retaliation, he pushed onwards, finally reaching Obi-Wan’s position.
The sound of blaster fire was joined by the hum of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber, and for a moment the sound of battle was all that echoed around them.
“General!” Another group of clankers was just beginning the slow ascent towards them. He nodded towards the cave.
“Agreed!”
As one, they began to retreat into the cave entrance, shooting and redirecting blaster bolts back into the nearest clankers. The overhanging was low, so that Cody had to duck his head a little, and Obi-Wan a little more. As soon as they were within the cave entrance Obi-Wan nodded to him. He fired two quick shots at the cave entrance, the entrance creaked once, then crashed down in front of them.
They stepped back, not waiting for the fine dusting of ice to settle, before Cody sent another shot at the next section. This time, Obi-Wan reached out, controlling the growing cracks so that a greater portion of the ceiling could be brought down without crushing them beneath it.
For a moment, they stood in silence, their breaths echoing in tandem from the low cave walls. Around them, the fine white dust began to settle, coating their hair and clothing in a thin layer of ice.
Cody let out a long exhale, admiring their work with something like pride. He took a step backwards.
The ice creaked ominously.
“General --"
“I know.” Obi-Wan’s voice matched his in the softness of its reply.
Around them, the ice groaned again.
“We need to move.”
Obi-Wan nodded, “Careful, the whole cave might be unstable.”
He took another step backwards. Nothing. Beside him, Obi-wan began to move backwards, away from the collapsed entrance.
Another groan.
Cody looked over at Obi-Wan, glad that his alarm was concealed beneath his helmet.
He watched as Obi-Wan took in a breath, stepped forwards.
The crash that followed echoed through the cave, reverberating off the walls and ringing in his ears as the sudden force sent him stumbling backwards. Distantly, he heard his name. It was only another echo amongst the falling ice.
For a moment, the sound of falling ice rang in his ears. He lay there, taking stock of his body, of the way each breath tugged at his lungs, though not enough to truly worry him. After the sudden shock of noise, the air was eerily quiet.
Deciding that all his body parts seemed to still be functional, he finally dared to move.
He did not call out for Obi-Wan, worried that sudden noise would be enough to bring down more of the cave. Instead, keeping his movements steady and soft, he began to look around. The worst of the collapse was confined to the corridor which they had entered through. The now small section which they had collapsed had been augmented by a far larger volume of ice, though Cody didn’t dare to guess just how much deeper into the cave they had been forced to flee.
The space he found himself in now seemed to be the end of the cave system, a low hollow that looked as if it might once have been the burrow of some giant, ice dwelling creature. For all Cody knew it might have been. He looked up with apprehension, several large cracks stretched across the ceiling and Cody swallowed. There was little he could do if the cave collapsed further before someone arrived to rescue them.
Gaze reaching the other side of the cave, he breathed a sigh of relief. Sat against the wall was Obi-Wan. He was surrounded by a few chunks of ice, but was awake and seemingly without major injuries.
Cautiously, he moved towards him, finding some relief when the cave did not creak any further.
He looked down at Obi-Wan, “Sir.”
Obi-Wan quirked an eyebrow at him, “You’re unharmed?”
He nodded, as Obi-Wan pulled himself up with the help of Cody’s offered hand.
“And you, sir?”
“A little dizzy.” Cody watched him with a critical eye as he stood, “I think I was unconscious for a moment.”
Cody nodded, “Minutes at most.”
Obi-Wan swayed a little, before righting himself. “Maybe we should sit.”
Cody hummed in agreement, watching as Obi-Wan used the cave wall to lower himself to the ground. Satisfied that the dizziness was truly only a minor impediment, he followed him to the floor.
Beside him, Obi-Wan turned his head to look at him, “A nice cave we’ve found ourselves in.”
“Secure as well.”
“I assume so secure that there’s at least no chance of the clankers breaking their way in?”
He looked back towards the collapsed tunnel, “I don’t think so. We’re safe here until backup arrives.”
“Or as safe as we can be.” Obi-Wan finished for him. He sighed, “Hopefully that backup arrives soon.”
He nodded, “Someone should notice our signal’s dropped out soon and come looking for us.”
Obi-Wan smiled, “We won’t have moved far, I suppose.”
Silence settled between them for a moment. Around them, the ice creaked, quiet, as it settled into its new arrangement. It was a little like being underwater, Cody thought, the world beyond them dull and muted.
“Do you happen to remember how long until nightfall?”
Cody considered, “Just under four hours, now.”
Obi-Wan was silent for a moment, then, “Let’s hope they find us before then.”
Mutely, he nodded. Cody didn’t mention that even if they were found quickly, there was no guarantee they would be freed with similar efficiency, or that they would be safely freed at all. He didn’t mention either, that with his temperature regulating armour he would survive for far longer at night than Obi-Wan would. He didn’t much like to entertain the idea of the morning light of rescue finding him, alive but shivering, besides the frozen corpse of Obi-Wan.
Besides him, Obi-Wan had again lapsed into silence.
Cody allowed him his silence. He kept himself occupied sifting through the visual filters in his helmet to see if any of them would allow him to see beyond the confines of their cave. After a few minutes of looking and combining settings in an effort to achieve better results, he sighed, pulling off his helmet and dropping it besides him in defeat.
“Can you sense anything outside?”
Obi-Wan shook his head, “Our men, far away. A few of those birds we saw earlier passing overhead. Nothing of any use to us.”
Cody nodded briefly in acknowledgment, trying to limit his frustration. “I’ve had dreams like this.”
He said it wryly, to fill the silence, but when Obi-Wan looked at him, for a moment, there was something tender in the depths of his expression.
Cody shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, there was something disarmingly knowing in it. He struggled to explain, to slip out from under the gaze. “Trapped.” He gestured broadly, “Drowning.”
“We aren’t going to drown, Cody.” He replied softly.
“Suffocation. Same difference.”
For a moment, his gaze remained steady, then Obi-Wan smiled, just at the corner of his mouth, “Optimistic.” He said dryly. “I’m so glad to be trapped with someone with such a sense of humour.”
Cody dignified his response with a single humourless laugh.
Again, silence stretched between them. There was little need to fill it, both of them used to the routine of waiting for the enemy, for the long tedium of exhaustion that followed a battle when neither of them could manage more than collapsing into bed. Cody looked up at the cave ceiling, it spread haphazardly away from him, curving in fits and starts towards what had been the entrance of the cave. The deep blue of the ice, now interrupted with faint cracks, enveloped them as if they had been pulled deep within the oceans of Kamino and now stood, looking up, as the waves above them shifted.
Cody exhaled slowly, his breath clouding in the air before him, the solidity of it a calming thing.
Besides him, Obi-Wan shifted, “Cody,” He began, “About what happened before --”
Keeping his gaze fixed levelly on the cave ceiling, he said, “Do you really think that this is the best time for that?”
Obi-Wan shrugged, “Perhaps not. But unless you have anything better to talk about --”
“Obi-Wan.” He replied warningly.
“I don’t like to see you carry pain like this, Cody.” Suddenly, Obi-Wan’s voice was soft, a gentle sound within the chambered heart of ice.
Cody pressed his mouth into a thin line. Closed his eyes and let his head drop gently back against the cave wall. Finally, he replied, “Go on.”
There was silence for a long moment before Obi-Wan spoke. His words were careful, not quite the diplomat that Cody witnessed from time to time, but not quite the man of their quiet evenings either. “I do care about you Cody. Force, how could I not?” A pause, “But I don’t want to -- I can’t allow what we have to matter to me, not like that. We’re at war.” He finished softly.
“Is that it?” He replied, sharper than he’d intended. “We’re at war?” He shook his head, turning to look at Obi-Wan, “I know damn well we’re at war. It’s all I’ve ever been.”
“Exactly! And there will be a time after, when I am not your superior, but now --” He stopped, and exhaled sharply, “I cannot tell you that I care for you, and send you off to die in the next breath.”
“I know, Obi-Wan.” Cody watched as Obi-Wan’s gaze followed the movement of his lips, “And it’s cruel of you to act as if you care, and then tell me that’s it’s impossible that you could.”
Obi-Wan dropped his gaze, letting his eyes fall to the cave wall opposite them. “I do care. But --"
“Alright.” Cody cut him off; it was like any wound, prolonging treatment to prevent pain would only worsen it later on. “Then we go back to the ways things used to be, before.”
“Very well.” Obi-Wan answered quietly. Then, carefully, as if concealing that his words were more question than he dared to ask, “I never forced you --"
Quickly, Cody shook his head, “No.”
“Then Cody,” He continued, “If you knew how I felt, for you, about the war, what did you think would happen?”
He swallowed, water rushing in his ears, as he struggled for an answer. At last, his voice quiet amongst the ice, he admitted, “I don’t know.”
Beside him, body rigid as his hand sought Cody’s, Obi-Wan admitted, “I’m sorry.”
---
There was no sense of time in the cave, the outside world obscured by walls of ice, and the deep blue created the sense that they were ensconced in a perpetual night.
The chronometer in Cody’s helmet told him that it had been almost three hours.
As the time wore on, he was increasingly struggling to keep the worry within his chest from growing. Their earlier conversation still haunted the back of his mind, but now, more pressing worries were beginning to occupy him. When he and Obi-Wan had been trapped he’d thought that the battle had diminished to small skirmishes, and would soon be over. That within an hour, two at most, someone would have appeared to free them. At almost three hours he couldn’t help but fear that something had gone wrong.
It wasn’t only his men he was worried for; he’d put his helmet on some time ago, and his armour’s ability to maintain his body temperature was protecting him from the worst of the cold. Obi-Wan in his standard Jedi cold weather gear, which seemed to consist of a large coat and snow boots, was faring far less well.
Beside him, the Jedi had his limbs pulled tight against his body, even as shivers seemed to fight to pull him apart. His head began to tilt towards Cody’s shoulder again, and he cursed. “Obi-Wan.” He poked him gently in the shoulder.
Obi-Wan’s eyes fluttered open, and he blinked at Cody. “Hello again.”
“I’ve not been anywhere.”
He hummed, “Because of this damned cave.” Then he smiled up at Cody, inordinately pleased with himself, “See, I’ve not lost my mind just yet.”
Cody shook his head, “I’d never dare even suggest that.”
Obi-Wan hummed, as his head began to droop again.
He cursed, poking Obi-Wan sharply again. “Talk to me. Tell me a story.”
Obi-Wan turned his head to Cody, blinking slowly at him. “A story?”
“About anything you like.”
“Even the Geonosian worms you hated?”
“Even the damned worms.”
Obi-Wan smiled. Cody followed his gaze along the slowly growing crack in the cave’s ceiling.
“What about a Jedi story?”
Cody nodded.
Obi-Wan sighed slowly, shifting slightly and pulling his arms closer around himself in the process. Most of his body was pressed against Cody, and though at some point their hands had separated, their bodies had shifted closer as almost subconscious action. Cody knew that he was providing little more than the grounding comfort of another person, his body heat trapped and recycled by his armour.
Then, he began, “The Jedi are made up of many different cultures, and so have many different stories about the first days of the universe. This is one such story.”
“In a time before time, before the universe as we now know it, there was only a dark void that stretched on and on. There was nothing else, for this void was so great and reaching that it enveloped all that could be. Until, one day, a single star emerged.”
“This was so long ago that there was no word for star, for there had not been stars before, nor much of anything besides the great darkness. Yet, if anyone had been there to witness it, they would have known that this new thing, this star, was so very different from the darkness.”
Obi-Wan trailed off, his gaze lingering on Cody for a moment before his eyes began to flutter shut. Cody poked him sharply and he blinked, “The star?” He prompted.
Obi-Wan nodded and continued, “Of course, the universe is very fond of patterns, and so soon there was a second star. Matched only by the first in its radiance. Together amongst the darkness they were a brilliant thing to behold, their light shining so brightly that the darkness was forced to recede to the far edges of all that was. This existence continued for a long time, the two stars orbited each other, each content to balance the other with its light.”
“The universe, however, is also fond of balance. It found that the brilliance of the stars was so great that it had weakened the void of before so much that the darkness had become only shadow, pierceable by the light. The universe decided that the stars could not be allowed to continue on as they had been, and instead they must be equal to the darkness. And so, the universe took the stars and broke them into thousands of pieces. As soon as it did this, the darkness rushed back from the edges of existence, again growing in strength and filling the universe as it once had. Fearing that the darkness would again take hold, the universe quickly scattered the pieces of the stars throughout the darkness. Each one floated amongst the blackness, alone not enough to dispel the darkness, but together they held it at bay, casting the universe into a harmony between light and dark.”
“Now,” Obi-Wan continued, his voice soft and his eyes half closed, “When we look up at the night sky, it is filled with thousands and thousands of tiny lights. Each one is a piece of those first two stars, cast across the sky so that they might accompany the darkness. Still though, they remember what once was. The time before, when they orbited another, alone amongst the brilliant light.”
Obi-Wan fell silent. After a moment, he forced his eyes open, and turned to look at Cody. “It’s one of the first stories that younglings at the Temple often hear, to teach them that light always has a shadow.”
Cody was silent, watching the way that Obi-Wan’s chest rose and fell, he seemed to struggle for each breath and dread grew heavy within his stomach. At last, he pulled his eyes away, looking at a point just past Obi-Wan’s face, “It’s a sad story.”
Obi-Wan hummed, “I suppose so.” He drew his body tighter, exhaling a slow breath, “Still, I’ve always found it rather beautiful.”
He smiled, his eyes drifting back to Obi-Wan, “The stories we told as cadets were never quite so calm.”
“Oh?”
“They always involved a lot more monster attacks. Or lasers.” He paused, “Fox always told one about a ghost that haunted the oceans, eating cadets that wandered off.”
Beside him, there was silence. Obi-Wan’s eyes had drifted shut again, and for a moment Cody held his breath, hoping that he had just taken another moment to rest. His eyes remained shut.
Cody cursed, shifting so that he could feel Obi-Wan’s pulse. Beneath his hand, it was growing weaker, a stuttering rhythm that filled his chest with sudden panic.
“Obi-Wan!” He shook Obi-Wan’s shoulder in a desperate attempt to bring him back to consciousness. For a moment, Obi-Wan’s eyes fluttered open, finding Cody, before falling shut. He cursed again.
Then, his comm chirped. “Commander? Can you hear me?”
Hearing Boil’s voice, albeit it a little staticky with inference from the collapsed cave, was almost enough to make him cry with relief. Instead, he answered as calmly as he could, “Boil. I read you. How soon can you get to us?”
There was a moment of conferring that Cody couldn’t make out before Boil answered, “Soon. Under an hour. We’re outside the entrance to the cave.”
“Good.” Cody did his best to keep his voice from trembling, “The General’s in pretty bad shape.”
“Understood.” Another silence, “We’ll get you out of there as fast as we can. Boil out.”
He sighed, allowing his body to relax just a little as he turned to look at Obi-Wan again. He was looking at him through half-closed eyes, though Cody wasn’t sure how much of the conversation he had heard.
“Soon, sir.”
Silently, Obi-Wan nodded, his eyes drifting shut again.
Beside him, Cody sighed.
At the entrance of the cave, he could faintly hear the sound of machinery working, a low rumble through the ice. Above them, the crack on the ceiling grew, just a little. Cody swallowed, barely breathing. Then, a crash echoed around him.
Cody closed his eyes as he threw his body across Obi-Wan’s.
---
Time was a single moment. He floated amongst the blue, weightless and beyond the world. Only observing through the haze that surrounded him.
He did not think here. Did not move. Barely breathed. He only hovered at the edge of sleep, never quite succumbing to it, but existing within the hazy borders at its edge.
Here, Cody was aware of very little. He knew the world moved beyond him, around him. Through the blue he could observe, with the little power his semi-conscious mind had, but he was not a part of this world. Unhearing and bound within this tiny ocean.
---
There were figures beyond the blue. Familiar, in their shape and movement.
He exhaled, the bubbles rising before him momentarily obscured the figures.
Then, again, he saw them. Two figures in conversation. One was him, or near enough to look at. The same build, same hair. Though each time he shifted Cody was reminded that he was another, that there was a world beyond the blue and in it were people that were Cody-like, but not Cody.
The second figure was other. Taller, with a fluidity to his movements that neither Cody nor his copies had ever had.
Cody was certain that he knew this figure, not perhaps in the way that he knew his copies, who were so much like him, and he like them, that there was very little he did not know of them. He knew the second figure as one might know a dream. Any certainty half-forgotten, but leaving a sense of some feeling so personal and revealing that upon reflection the dreamer was forced to wonder if the details had ever really mattered, and instead if it was what had been revealed that was of true value.
Cody did not quite remember what it was about the second figure that made him miss him. What it was, when he woke, that followed him through the day. He knew, though, that the feeling that ached between his ribs was the fault of the second figure. That once, the figure had called him Cody in a voice so tender it had broken his heart.
The second figure returned each day, sometimes in conversation with one of the other not-Codys, sometimes alone. Often, when the outside world was dark beyond the blue, the second figure would come alone and sit beside him. He would speak, sometimes, though Cody could not hear the words.
Once, the figure had stood beside him in silence for a long while, watching Cody as he floated in his miniature ocean. Then, he had pressed a hand against the ocean. His body crumpling to the floor in a single, broken motion. He had stayed there, pressed against the edges of the glass, for a longer time. His cheek so close to Cody that he could make out his features through the blue. Tired eyes, and greying hair. Dusty eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks.
Cody did not see his eyes, but he knew they were something like the blue. An extension of this world.
Eyes still closed, the figure spoke, and though Cody could not hear the sound, he knew the word. Cody. The figure spoke his name with only gentleness.