Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They start running low on rations partway through the third ten-day of the campaign, but the men start rationing water after the first, once they realize how precious it is in the desert heat.

The dustball of a planet is hot and dry and dangerous and the 501st is barely holding back the Separatists as it is.

The droids don’t need food or water, so their only saving grace so far is the fact that the heat makes the droids overload, forcing them to draw back every so often.

General Skywalker had been grimly approving. And something furious had twisted across his face as he instructed them on the best ways to make the water last.

(The General is from Tatooine, Rex remembers, as he watches him speak to the shinies and tell them what to do, teach them how to determine whether you truly need the water at the moment or if you can wait for even a little while longer.)

For all that the men were adaptable, it is hard, in the beginning, for some of them to remember the tricks. Only drinking tiny sips, keeping the water in their mouths for as long as possible before swallowing, keeping your mouth closed as often as you could — it wasn’t what they were used to.

Water, growing up on Kamino, is the one thing they never have to worry about.

(Rex doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the look on the General’s face when one of the men had spilled some of their water. It was sorrow, grief, and anger all twisted into one.

Water, he remembers Skywalker telling Commander Tano, is a precious thing. )

Rex isn’t the one who orders the rationing after finding out about the slowly decreasing food supply. After all, he thought, they’re only just starting to get low. There’s still enough food that they should be okay for at least another two ten-days.

General Skywalker shakes his head when Rex tells him that.

“It looks like that now, but you never know what could happen. If you think you have enough for two ten-days, you usually only have enough for one.” The General pauses, looks Rex in the eyes, “I don’t doubt your capabilities Rex, I know how thorough you are, but on a desert planet it’s harder. Dehydration makes you want to eat, the heat makes you slow, hunger makes you dizzy. It’s all designed to kill you.”

The General bites his lip, clasps Rex’s shoulder. “I want as many of the men to make it out of this as possible, and this is the way to do that.”

There is a joke among the men (and from what Rex can tell, among the Jedi as well, though in different words), that General Skywalker is so impulsive and reckless that he makes a hurricane on Kamino look calm.

Rex can see none of that in the man standing before him.

His response is automatic. “Of course, Sir, I trust you.”

The grin the General gives him is nowhere near the ones Skywalker usually gives. There is something troubled there, something far away and agonized.

(It’s the same look the brothers who survived Geonosis have, it’s the same one that the last vod from their batch or squad get.

It’s the same look, Rex realizes, that Cody gets. The one that, back on Kamino when Cody was still Kote, was near constant whenever the long-necks started making noise about Rex's hair or his attitude, a thinly veiled threat of decommissioning that made Kote snarl where the long-necks couldn't see.)

Rex isn’t used to seeing a brother’s expression on his General.

General Skywalker still has that same expression when he sits down with Torrent and tells them what they need to know. It’s different, again, then what they learned on Kamino.

The General doesn't sigh, the need to save water ingrained in him in a way it isn't for the vode, but he bites his lip, rubs at his mouth in a way that reminds Rex, for a second, of General Kenobi. "What were you taught about rationing?"

It's one of the shinies who answers, confident and eager to please, "Eat as little as possible and only when necessary, General, and spread out the meal times as much as possible, Sir."

The General flinches, and studies them all. The shiny who answered shrinks, and the General's next question is soft. "The Kaminoan's never had to deal with famine or starvation, did they?"

There's a beat of silence before Rex answers, "As far as I know, sir? No, not in a couple generations."

Skywalker rubs at the back of his neck, "Right, okay. First of all, trooper, you're not completely wrong. And it's not your fault for being wrong, the Kaminoan's just didn't teach you right.”

The General purses his lips, taps his fingers against his arms, “Okay, so first of all, yes. You do want to try and eat less, two half portions a day for two weeks is better than two full portions for one week.”

Something twists in Rex’s chest, and he swallows it down, keeps his mouth closed, saves his water.

The General looks bitterly proud at the way Torrent follows his instructions. The sun is high and the armour is hot, but their canteens are full and carefully opened when needed, water consumed by the capful and not a drop wasted. No one will repeat the mistakes they made the first few days.

(Rex was not the only one to see that look of devastation the General couldn’t quite hide.)

There is anger flashing across the General's face, and the sun shines down harshly, puts the scar across his eye into sharp contrast.

“The trick,” Skywalker begins, voice soft, “with food, is to take little bites. Chew slowly and for as long as you can, wait a little bit before taking another bite, it makes your brain think you’re eating a lot more than you actually are. Keeps the hunger away longer and makes it easier to function. The way the long-necks taught you would only make the temptation of food greater, make you want to eat more often, make it harder to think.”

(All of it is designed to kill you, the General had said, experience heavy in the words. The desert is not kind, Skywalker has told them all, tense and knowing, there hasn’t been a single joke about how much the General hates sand since the first few days of the campaign.)

They finally win the campaign two-and-a-half ten-days later, just a day after they run out of food.

If they hadn’t listened to Skywalker, they would have been dead after the first ten-day. As it was, towards the end, their energy was low and too many of them were injured from things that they normally avoided with ease.

(No one makes fun of the General’s hatred of sand and desert planets after that campaign. They understand, just a bit, how something like that could sink deep into your bones and become something hated, something despised.)

The General stays tense until he watches all of them eat from their restocked rations, and he only takes some for himself after every trooper has eaten their fill.

Rex doesn't ask, but the questions sit in his throat as he swallows down his food.

(On that last day, when they had no food or water left, their General had signed to them, using his hands to talk them through the hunger pains and the dizziness.

His face hadn't changed, even once, from that blank expression. And if Rex didn't know he'd been sharing his rations with the men, that he must be starving right now, he would've never known.)

Rex palms another protein bar and sets it next to the General.

Anakin looks at him knowingly and eats it anyway. It doesn’t ease the knot in Rex’s chest.

Chapter Text

They're out of bacta-patches. Cody can tell by the way Obi-Wan's face stills.

Cody breathes heavily, ignores the pain in his side, the blurring of his vision.

They'd been separated from the rest of the 212th at some point, though Cody doesn't really remember when. Just knows that he and his General are alone in enemy territory and Cody has shattered plastoid armour surrounding the wound in his side from a slugthrower—which was so weird that of course the one time it pops up on a campaign he gets shot with it—the ammo buried inside his body, and the medpack the General snatched from the dead body of one of the Shiny field medics has no bacta-patches left.

Cody reaches for his General’s arm and grunts at the pain it causes. The General looks towards him at the sound, and Cody sets his hand on Kenobi’s arm and tries to project the feeling of it’s-alright-go-leave-go.

(He will not be the reason his General dies. Cody’s life is not worth Obi-Wan’s, he knows this in his heart.)

General Kenobi gives him a look that is all sorrow and twists his arm, does his best not to jostle Cody, lets go of the medpack and holds Cody’s hand in his calloused one.

“My dear Commander, we are getting out of this mess together,” Obi-Wan murmurs, voice soft to keep from attracting any unwanted attention.

Cody doesn’t laugh, but only because doing so will hurt more and he refuses to give their position away.

“There’s no more bacta-patches, General,” he breathes out, quiet and pained. He winces, tries to steady his breathing. “And I’m not much use like this.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth thins and his grip on Cody’s hand is as gentle as it is unyielding. Cody’s General has always been too stubborn.

“Now really, my dear, you must have more faith in me. You will get out of this alive.”

It’s hard to think, through the pain, but Cody is aware enough to know that the General doesn’t say that he will get out of this alive, just Cody.

“General,” He starts, voice quiet but full of warning.

Obi-Wan cuts him off, voice just as quiet as before but no less reproachful as he looks for something in the medpack, “Oh hush now, Cody dear, save your strength.”

Cody grits his teeth. Everyone who claims that Kenobi wasn’t just as stubborn as his padawan is an idiot, and this is just the most recent action that proved it.

Cody inhales sharply as a new wave of pain courses through him. He tries not to, but he knows his grip on his General’s hand tightens.

The fool Jedi won’t be leaving, Cody knows, and despairs even as he is relieved not to be alone.

Obi-Wan cuts a concerned look towards Cody, and he must do something with the Force, because suddenly the pain lessens enough that Cody can think just a bit better.

With his thoughts less blurred by pain and his vision no longer fading between blurs of colour, Cody can see that Obi-Wan has stopped rummaging through the medpack. It takes Cody a second to register the items he’s holding, but when he does, he can’t help his wince.

“Ah, the old fashioned way, then?” He tries for humour, but mostly he sounds strained.

Obi-Wan sends him a thankful smile, “Yes, well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s how to perform decent field aid in the event there’s no bacta.”

The needle isn’t ideal. It’s not one made for sutures and Cody knows it will hurt. The thread is improvised as well and, though it’s clear the General has done his best to sanitize everything, there’s only so much one can do when in the field.

Cody wonders, for a second, where the General would have learned this type of field aid. The Jedi, as far as he can remember, did not teach classes on it. Healers generally learned in the Halls of Healing, not on the battlefield, and his General is not a Healer.

He loses the train of thought as Obi-Wan begins to speak, regret lacing his tone, “I’ll work as quick as I can to fix you up, my dear. First though, Cody, I apologize; I’ll do my best to keep the area numb, but removing that round will take enough fine control that I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that and keep the pain away at the same time.”

Cody nods, braces himself. Obi-Wan grabs the leather belt from around his waist and hands it over. Cody grimaces and places it between his teeth.

His General hesitates for just a second after Cody’s settled, before reaching out a hand again.

It takes Cody a second to register the offer, but when he does he huffs a breath and takes the hand in his, the grip loose for now.

Obi-Wan gives him a final smile before growing serious. "Brace now, Cody."

Cody listens, as he always does. He bites down on the belt, breathing as evenly as he can. His hand spasms as the pain returns and he feels the metal being drawn out.

He has just enough awareness to think that he might be crushing his General's hand, before he has to bite down on a scream as the metal stutters and moves wrong.

There's a muffled curse, and then suddenly Cody feels nothing.

He breathes, shallow and dizzy from the echoes of pain.

Dimly he hears Obi-Wan speak, hushed and apologetic, "I'm sorry Cody, it seems that when one doesn't practice something for over twenty-five years, one gets exceedingly rusty."

And even as out of it as Cody is right now, he wants to frown, because his General isn't old, and twenty-five years ago would mean the last time Obi-Wan had done this was when he was still a Little, and why would Obi-Wan have had to learn how to do this at all, let alone that young?

He doesn't get much further into that thought process, because he's still dizzy and bleeding and Obi-Wan is frowning.

"I've sterilized everything, but this won't be pretty, Cody. I don't have the right supplies for this."

Cody thinks, It's okay as loud as he can, and it pays off, because Obi-Wan just sighs and nods.

"Alright, I should be able to keep it numb this time. Do you want me to take the belt out?"

Cody thinks about it, but shakes his head. He doesn't want to risk giving them away.

Obi-Wan nods. "Okay,” he pauses for a second, before continuing gently, “I’m afraid I do need both hands for this, my dear. I'm sorry."

Cody winces and pries his hand away from the General's. It's harder than it should be to give up that comfort, and it makes Cody feel ungrateful.

Obi-Wan makes quick work of his chestplate, pushing away Cody’s hands when he tries to help. And soon enough he’s talking Cody through all the steps he’s taking.

Cody can’t really feel anything, but he can tell where on his side he has no feeling and when he looks down at it, he can see the stitches being done, and it causes phantom pain to flare.

He lays back, deciding it’s probably best not to look. Obi-Wan’s voice is calm and quiet as he works, and when he tells Cody he’s tying the stitches off, Cody spits the belt out. His jaw hurts, and he feels exposed out in the open like they are.

Obi-Wan hums and packs everything away, helps Cody get back into his armour and takes most of his weight despite Cody’s attempts to stand on his own.

“I only numbed the pain a bit, and it only lasts as long as I focus. You don’t want to be walking by yourself when I can’t keep the pain away any longer,” Obi-Wan scolds, and Cody reluctantly concedes to it.

When they finally make their way back to the rest of the 212th, Helix fusses over Cody before freezing, a strange look on his face.

“The General did this?” he asks, and Cody nods.

Helix purses his lips and doesn’t say anymore, but they’re both thinking the same thing.

How had the General known how to fix up a wound like that without a bacta-patch, and with such limited supplies?

Something cold settles in Cody’s stomach and it has nothing to do with the wound in his side.

Chapter Text

Kix hadn’t expected his General to be able to give medical aid.

Maybe it’s rude of him to not think him capable of it, but General Skywalker has never done anything to dissuade Kix of that notion, either. At least, he hadn’t until now.

It starts because of a minor misstep. Well, really it starts with them freeing a group of slaves.

It escalates after that, with a mistake that Kix makes a note to chew the shiny who caused the mess out for later, but for right now it’s too late, and the tiny little Twi'lek refuses to let any of the medics near despite needing the medical attention for the wounds all across her back.

It claws at something in Kix, the way it always does when he can’t help, when he’s forced to be useless, when he can only watch and not heal.

The shiny moved too fast or did something or said something, Kix doesn’t know for sure, hadn’t been watching him, but it had sent the Little panicking and scrambling away from any of the vode.

She’s still bleeding, and all Kix can do is help the other slaves they freed from the occupation and hope that she lets someone help her before the lashes get infected.

When the General walks in, Kix’s first reaction is to keep him away from the situation, not because Skywalker is a cruel man, but because Kix’s General is not known for being calm or thinking things through and the last thing Kix wants to happen is for the Little to be even more terrified than she already is.

It makes something like shame well up in him that he just barely keeps himself from pulling the General back.

Skywalker is careful though, keeps his distance, keeps his hands in front of him and visible at all times, makes himself smaller right before Kix’s eyes, as if it was second-nature for the General to shrink into himself.

He speaks softly, “Hey there, little one, my name's Anakin Skywalker. What’s your name?”

She keeps watchful, frightened eyes on the General, but she’s no longer breathing as hard as she was before, no longer curled up in a ball that Kix knows is pulling at the open wounds on her back.

“Skywalker?” she asks, wary and tense and so clearly in pain.

The General nods slowly, and Kix doesn’t know why that’s important, doesn’t know what that means to her. But she relaxes just the slightest and says something in what Kix is pretty sure is Ryl.

Skywalker nods, answers her in the same language, voice still soft and a kind smile on his face, but his eyes are serious.

She exhales and it’s as if all the tension has been leached out of her.

“Shiri, my name is Shiri.”

The General smiles, “Hi there Shiri, could I take a look at your back?”

She nods and Kix holds his breath and waits, waits for—

He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for, but he doesn’t expect Skywalker to grab a medpack off of the shiny nearest him, and stride over to the corner Shiri has crammed herself in, doesn’t expect him to plop himself down next to her.

She shifts, reaches out and grips his wrist. Kix watches as she presses two of her small fingers to the General’s pulse point and taps them there twice.

In a quick movement, she brings them up to touch her mouth and then sets her hand down in front of her, opened palm up. She lets it sit there for a beat before twisting her palm face down and pulling her tiny hand into a fist above her heart.

She holds like that and then spreads her fingers until her hand lays flat over her chest.

The General smiles and returns the series of gestures, and something like awe, like realization, settles over Shiri, and she inhales sharply. Kix moves forward, worried, and the General throws out a fist in halt.

Kix freezes and Shiri smiles, shaky and trembling, breathes out a choked, “Thank you.”

Kix’s General smiles. “Do you want to be reintroduced now, or after I clean up your back?”

“Now,” she insists, voice full of determination. “Now, please.”

Skywalker nods. “Okay. Hello there, my name is Anakin Skywalker and I am a person.”

Shiri giggles. “Hello Anakin Skywalker, my name is Shiri Teksa and I am a person.”

General Skywalker grins, taps first her forehead and then her wrists, opens the medpack and waits for her to finish uncurling and turn around so he can see her back. He starts cleaning and dressing the lacerations as gently as he can, murmuring to her softly as he goes.

He asks her something quietly and she hesitates, before nodding. Skywalker lifts his head up and nods at Kix, beckoning him over. The feeling of uselessness that coils in Kix’s chest loosens just a bit.

“Sir?” he asks as he gets closer, voice soft to keep from startling Shiri and keeping far enough away that she won’t feel caged in.

“Do you have people working on the chips?”

Something in Kix’s heart freezes.

“The what?”

His General looks up, frowns. “You didn’t know?”

Kix breathes evenly, doesn’t yell. “Know what, Sir? What chips?”

“Oh,” Skywalker breathes, “Oh kriff.”

“General,” Kix stresses, his chest tight and mind racing.

“Right, okay, so there are slave chips that get put into every slave to make sure they don’t try and run,” Skywalker’s voice slowly grows toneless, speaking as if he’s reciting basic facts instead of something horrifying and disgusting. “It functions as a tracker and an explosive so the Masters can always find you, and if you leave the area the chip is designated for, you explode.”

Kix can’t breathe. There is horror ripping through his chest and bile crawling up his throat.

He swallows heavily, he clears his throat, tries to speak, can’t. Can only stare at his General’s blank face as he finishes with Shiri’s back.

The room is silent. Kix is not the only one who is horrified.

There is a well known fact on Kamino, that if you fall too far behind, make too many mistakes, don’t embody everything that makes up a good soldier, you’ll be decommissioned.

It could be for something as simple as a cosmetic mutation, or a too-slow firing score.

It could be for something as big as talking back or refusing training.

(Kix had a batchmate who had refused to do firing practice with the Littles standing in front of the targets. It was an exercise meant to both punish Littles who aren't matching up, or who were too much, and as an exercise for snipers meant to encourage better aim.

Kix’s batchmate had refused to even participate, and Kix had never seen him again, it had been the second strike against him. The batchmate, Trill, had had blue eyes. The long-necks were never forgiving towards mutations.)

The General is unaware of what he’s brought up, unaware of the memories his words draw forth.

Captain Rex hasn’t spoken a word the entire time. When Kix turns to look at him, to try and figure out what to say, the Captain’s face is blank.

(At least, Kix thinks, with acid coating his words, the long-necks kill you painlessly. An injection instead of a bomb buried beneath your skin.

There is no good option, there is no right answer. There is just one way that lets you feel no pain, and one way that, if you’re extremely lucky, you might survive long enough to get medical help afterward.)

Kix breathes. He’s a CMO, he’s been trained for medtrack since he could hold a scalpel, since he could read. He can figure this out. He just needs to focus on the problem.

“Alright. Is there a way to find where they are and remove them, sir?”

The General and Shiri exchange a look, and a little girl that young should not look so old and so tired. It’s wrong.

(It’s familiar. Kix has seen so many of his little brothers with that expression, and he can’t fix that, but he can fix this, he just needs to know how to.)

Skywalker hesitates. “Some of them.”

Kix wants to scream. Behind him, he can hear the Captain breathe a curse.

Kix exhales, face blank and voice even. “What do you mean some of them, sir? I need you to explain this to me, because I don’t know about these things, and it’s clear you do.”

(And how does he know? How is Kix’s General so knowledgeable about this, how is he so calm about this? Why is it something the General expects to be common knowledge? Why does Kix have no explanations, why isn’t there anything in his files? Kix needs to know, needs to be able to fix this.)

General Skywalker sighs, rubs at his neck, and then freezes, brings his arm down with a wince before he speaks. “It’s complicated. Sometimes, well, sometimes even if you know where the chip is, the best you can do is deactivate it. Some chips are in places where removing them will be more harmful than helpful, some just gradually became part of nerves or muscles.”

Kix swallows down bile and Captain Rex breathes out a quiet, “Kark, Sir”

Kix’s hands do not shake, “Okay, so a full body scan then. What deactivates them?”

Skywalker furrows his brow. “There should be a way to do it without setting it off, I’ll have to comm Healer Che and ask. She’s the one who—” The General cuts himself off, wrinkles his nose. “Well, she’ll know best. I’ve never been able to test any of the machines I built to deactivate them before, and I don’t want to try it while the chips are still embedded.”

Right, one thing goes wrong and the bomb goes off.

“Anything else, Sir?” Kix asks, trying to make a list in his head.

The General bites his lip, looks to Shiri. The little girl looks up at him with trust in her eyes, and it cements whatever the General is finding difficult to say.

He meets Kix eyes. “If you find one’s you can remove, try not to put them under please. Let them see the chips come out. They need that reassurance.”

Kix glances towards Shiri, who meets his gaze for a second before looking past him and nodding.

Her tiny face is balled up in determination, “I want it out, I don’t want in me and,” she falters, “If, if I can get it out I wanna see it happen. Mama used to say that you weren’t really free otherwise.”

(The General flinches and Shiri sends him such a sad look.)

Kix nods. He has a purpose, there’s a plan. He can do this. The General stands, taps Shiri’s hand once in what must be a farewell. She returns it and Skywalker walks towards the door of the room, heading towards the ship to comm Healer Che probably, when Pixie asks, “Why would anyone do that to someone, though?”

Skywalker pauses, and when Kix looks around, every single freed slave (are they really free when they still have chips that could kill them?) has an embittered expression on their face.

The General keeps his face blank as he turns to look at Pixie, and his voice is tarine-leaf bitter. “Anything, anyone, that a person buys is something that the owner will want to keep track of. Will want to keep anyone else from taking. Whenever there’s a sale, there’s always a contingency built in.” His expression flickers between angry and sad. “It’s just how things are.”

The newly freed slaves, slave chips still active and embedded in their bodies, do not argue.

Anakin leaves, and Kix, Rex, and the other medics are left reeling.

(Something catches at the back of Kix’s head, something the General said bothers him. There’s always a contingency built in.)

(The clones were bought and paid for. What contingency is buried in them?)

Chapter Text

The ruins of the city are dreary and haunting. The droids hadn’t cared for any of the buildings or for the people inside of them, and it showed.

The rubble and bodies were scattered without care and the buildings that had once been beautiful, were now just sad reminders of the battle that had been fought here.

The 212th marched forward, their General in the lead, and Cody could see the sorrow on the Jedi’s face.

(Life is precious Cody, Obi-Wan had told him, grief etched into the lines of his face and looking at the remains of the battle spread in front of them, and we are—well, we were—peacekeepers. This is never what we wanted.

Cody’s feelings on this war are complex, twisted up in the fact that without it he and his brothers would never exist, but if there is one thing he is certain of, it’s the fact that he hates what it’s done to the Jedi. Hates the fact that it tears pieces out of them the longer it goes on.

They are not a people built for war, not like Cody and his brothers are, and it is never clearer than in the aftermath.)

There is a rustle to their left and Cody throws up his fist in a halt. The General frowns and steps forward.

“Sir?” Cody asks him, tense and prepared for the worst.

Obi-Wan looks back and signs quickly, ‘survivor.’

Cody relaxes and relays it to the rest of his men. The tension that has settled over every one of them fades just a bit. They are still guarded, still in enemy territory, but this at least, is not an ambush.

The fact that there are any survivors at all is a little hard to believe, when faced with all this wreckage, but Cody trusts his General.

The General steps forward. Cody follows like always, but Obi-Wan shakes his head, signs to him quickly, ‘child, scared, stay.’

Cody nods, steps back. A Little who survived the initial destruction will not take kindly to seeing soldiers right now.

“Well, hello there,” the General says, voice gentle.

There’s a quiet gasp and Obi-Wan crouches down, hands visible and away from his lightsaber. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just thought that it must be very scary here, and that you would want some company.”

There’s a pause and then a shuffle, but no response, Cody doesn’t move, just watches as Obi-Wan settles into a more comfortable position, crossing his legs under himself. He signs quickly to Cody and the other men, ‘check area, scared for reason, careful, no enemy, maybe bombs.’

Cody signs back an affirmative and, as Obi-Wan continues to speak gently with the child, he organizes a perimeter check. The fact that the General can’t feel any hostiles with the Force is comforting; the warning of bombs less so.

When he looks back, Obi-Wan hasn’t moved from his seated position. He holds himself as still and non-threatening as he can, a difficult task when you stand at the head of a battalion.

“Do you know that there are over twenty different calendars on Coruscant alone?” the General asks the air. He doesn’t get an answer, but it doesn’t look like he’s expecting one, either. He just keeps speaking in that soft, calming tone. “It makes telling someone the date very hard. My brother came to us knowing one of the stranger ones, and it took ages to stop putting those dates down first on homework, when he remembered to put the date down at all.”

Obi-Wan still hasn’t moved any closer, but now, if Cody looks close enough, he can see what he thinks is the faint outline of a child’s body, curled up in the safe spot they found in the rubble of what Cody imagines is their home.

“When I was little, I got one of the calendars mixed up with another and,” he barely falters. Cody’s General so rarely shows his weakness, but his breath hitches on the next few words and it’s suddenly so very easy to tell that Obi-Wan never truly got over the loss of his Jedi Master. “My father, well, he thought it was the funniest thing. He didn’t tell me for the entire week that I had been using a calendar that had been ruled useless and no longer in use.”

There’s a quiet giggle and a slight shift as the Little peeks their face out, Obi-Wan smiles, “I know,” he whispers in mock offense. He grins and leans forward just the smallest bit and says, conspiratorially, “I got him back though, a week later. I dyed all of his robes the most awful shade of yellow I could find. He had no choice but to wear them until he could get new ones. It was wonderful”

The kid laughs, inches towards the General with a smile, not a trace of that cowering, terrified child on their face.

Cody’s bucket hides his fond smile, and he sends a quick comm to Waxer and Boil on the other side of the road.

The kid’s safe. General has them.

“Why hello there, sweetheart.” Obi-Wan smiles, “I’m glad I got to talk with you, it was quite nice.”

The kid wrinkled their nose, shrugged. “You’re nice, not mean like the people who were here before.”

The General’s smile turns sad, eyes full of grief. “Yes,” he murmurs, “I imagine I’m not much like them at all.” The kid nods, leaning more into the General’s personal space, as if pulled in by him. Cody can relate, Obi-Wan has this way about him — something that makes you feel safe and cared for.

“Well Dear, my name’s Obi-Wan, may I have the pleasure of knowing yours?”

They grin. “Mhm! I’m Tohalo, but my mama and mom call me Toh! You can too, you’re nice like them.” They wilt. “Do you know where they are? I got lost and now—” their face crumples, and Obi-Wan reaches out carefully. The kid just about dives into his lap, crying, and the General hums and he whispers reassurances to them.

Cody closes his eyes. The chance the kid’s moms are still alive are slim, and the General knows it too, if the way he is careful not to promise Toh that their parents are okay is any indication.

“We’ll look for them, Toh,” the General says instead, pressing a gentle kiss to the Little’s forehead, “we will. But for now, it’s important we know you’re okay. Is it okay if I have one of my healers check you over?”

Toh bites at their lip before nodding. “But only if you promise to stay.”

Obi-Wan smiles. “Of course Toh.”

(Later, after they get the kid all checked out and set up camp for the night, Cody mentions something to his General.

“I’m surprised they came out at all, Sir. I know that if it was me, I would’ve stayed hidden for as long as possible.”

Obi-Wan’s voice is even, but his eyes are sad as he meets Cody’s. “Children in war zones are scared, they need to feel safe. It’s all they want, and it’s hard. But when you meet a scared, cowering child, the best thing to do is be careful and give them space, and speak as if you yourself are a child.”

Cody frowns. It makes sense in a way, and he knows that he’s done something similar with some of his brothers when they are panicking and spiraling.

He nods, and Obi-Wan gives him a sad smile and turns around.

But Cody, for the life of him, can’t figure out why Obi-Wan knows how to help a child in a warzone in the first place.

After all, before this, the Jedi hadn’t been to war in centuries.)

Chapter Text

It takes Cody almost three hours to figure out something’s wrong.

Shame wells up in him for that, and for the fact that it takes Rex comming him with Commander Tano’s concerns to see it.

There is one thing, well, two things that Cody has learned serving with his General.

The first is that he will always, always give his life for others.

The second is that showing pain and weakness is something shameful, but only when it is Obi-Wan.

Cody’s General has always been his own worst critic.

Obi-Wan does not ask for help, does not ask for medical aid. He will sit by, injured and bleeding out, until every last trooper has received care.

He’ll brush off stab wounds as if they’re scratches, act like he’s perfectly fine even when he can barely stand.

Cody has known to look out for it, known to watch him after campaigns to make sure he goes to medical and gets help, he knows better than to forget.

But it had been a hard campaign, and Cody had let himself be distracted, forgotten to check and make sure the General had gotten out uninjured.

The ball of self-recrimination in Cody’s chest grows as he looks for the General. It should not have taken Rex’s little Commander to tell Cody that something was wrong.

Knowing when Obi-Wan is in pain is difficult. Obi-Wan will push through an injury until he collapses, and you will be none the wiser.

It happened far too often in the beginning of the war. Injuries would pile up as the Jedi refused to go to medical, and Cody and Obi-Wan had been too new to each other, too unsure, for Cody to do anything about it. Cody hadn’t fought hard enough, and Obi-Wan was too determined to throw his life away for others.

He’s learned since then that he needs to fight with the General sometimes, that there are some battles you can not give up on.

Cody has none of the Force powers the Jedi do, can’t feel his General’s emotions or if he’s in pain. All Cody has is what he was taught — how to read the body and the face.

The difficulty there is that Obi-Wan lies.

He lies by omission and by twisting his words around until you’ve lost track of the conversation.

When Obi-Wan lies with his body and his words, he hides his pain and everything he thinks is a failing of his, and there is nothing that is more infuriating.

Sometimes, Cody wants to know who taught him that, taught him to hide pain away and pretend it isn’t there, taught him that he didn’t deserve care.

Othertimes, Cody knows that it will do more harm than anything else, knows it won’t help Cody’s General.

Still, standing in the General’s office and watching as the Jedi trembles and pretends he’s fine sparks the rage inside of Cody’s chest, reminds him of being Kote and angry and terrified of losing his brothers.

“General,” he says, voice deceivingly even, betraying none of the fear he feels in his bones.

The General’s shoulders tense, but he doesn’t look up.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan responds, terrifyingly nonchalant, when Cody can see where the blood has started to soak through his robes.

Cody closes his eyes, grits his teeth. “Please tell me you at least patched yourself up.”

There isn’t an answer and Cody curses under his breath. “General, please—”

“Really, Dear,” Obi-Wan cuts him off, “I’m perfectly fine—”

Cody slams his hand on the desk and Obi-Wan goes hauntingly still and silent.

“If you’re fine,” Cody snarls, more Kote in this moment than Marshall Commander Cody, “then explain to me why Commander Tano is out of her mind with worry for you and Skywalker. Explain to me why you are bleeding out and yet still insisting that you’re perfectly okay.”

Obi-Wan scoffs. “I’m hardly bleeding out Cody, don’t be dramatic.”

Cody raises an eyebrow. The General is trembling. “It’s hardly dramatic when you look ready to collapse.”

Obi-Wan purses his lips, face closing off, and Cody curses in his head. “Commander, I’m fine and doing my job, I ask you to do yours.”

Cody ignores the jab. “With all due respect Sir, I am. I’m keeping you alive.”

“A task,” Obi-Wan snipes, “that I am perfectly capable of doing.”

Cody clears his face, lets it rest in a neutral mask. “You taught your padawan well then, General. He’s on his way to getting himself killed, just like you are.”

The silence is freezing, and there is something tormented on Obi-Wan’s face. Cody can’t bring himself to regret, only to be sorry it took using that to get through to him.

The General stands stiffly, watches him for a long minute, before all the fight rushes out of him at once. “Fine, I’ll get Anakin and we’ll both head to medbay.”

Cody nods, doesn’t push for anything else, doesn’t ask for forgiveness.

Obi-Wan gives it anyway.

His General brings a hand to Cody’s neck and pulls him in for Keldabe, soft and barely there, leans against Cody for long enough that Cody wraps an arm around the Jedi’s waist and braces him.

“I suppose that’s my clue that you’ll be walking me to Anakin, and then to medbay?” the General asks, already knowing the answer.

“I know you, General, you’d find some way out of it if I didn’t.”

Obi-Wan chuckles, and it feels a little like absolution.

They find Skywalker in the hangar, working on the Twilight.

The first thing Cody notices is the way that Skywalker breathes in the regulated breaths of box breathing, artificially calm and steady.

The second thing is the fact that even though the kid is usually all motion, now he is still, moving only the parts of him necessary to repair the pile of junk he calls a ship.

Cody has never known Skywalker to be stil. It makes him do a visual check. The kid is paler than normal, and he uses the Force to get things instead of moving, every shift is accompanied by the tiniest change of breathing. His left wrist is swollen and his right ankle is in a tiny makeshift splint that Cody can already tell would have Helix and Kix in a tizzy.

Cody can’t see any blood, but the way Skywalker wobbles every few seconds makes Cody nervous. Concussion, probably.

Obi-Wan sighs and Skywalker winces, then freezes, as if catching himself. He takes a shaky inhale.

He grins, going for charming but missing just the slightest bit. “Hey Obi-Wan, how’re—” he pauses, watches the way the General is leaning against Cody, and frowns.

“Are you okay?” Skywalker gives a quick scan and notices the blood. “What the kriff, Obi-Wan, why aren’t you in medbay?”

Cody doesn’t roll his eyes, but his General huffs. “Honestly, Anakin, I could ask the same of you.”

Skywalker does roll his eyes, then looks vaguely nauseous for it. “I’m fine.”

“You,” Obi-Wan says, voice wry, “have a concussion, and multiple sprains and broken bones.”

Skywalker grumbles, “You have blood all over your side and I don’t see you in medbay—” the kid freezes. “Wait, I can’t feel anything from you, why didn’t I know you were injured?”

The amusement leaves his General’s face. “That is the question I have for you as well, dear one. It would seem we have so thoroughly blocked each other out, major injuries no longer can be felt.”

Skywalker freezes. “It’s not a major injury Obi-Wan, I’m fine.” There is something frantic in the kid’s voice.

Cody is reminded, suddenly, of Kamino and the constant fear of being too injured to be considered worth the investment. The words ‘major injury’ had inspired that same form of desperate denial.

Obi-Wan’s face softens with understanding. “Oh dear one, it’s not a failing. No one will be upset with you unless you refuse to let the medics heal you.”

Skywalker remains tense, and whatever knowledge the two Jedi have sits heavy between them. Cody doesn’t know what made Skywalker fear the words major injury as much as Cody and his brothers do. But it is something that chokes the air around them, as Skywalker struggles to believe them and Obi-Wan struggles to get through to his kid.

Skywalker doesn’t relax, but he nods jerkily and stands, holding his head in pain and wobbling. Cody steps forward just as Obi-Wan moves towards his child, and they both steady the kid.

Obi-Wan whispers reassurances to Skywalker and Cody tries not to listen in. It’s difficult not to, but he keeps his head forward, gives them the illusion of privacy as Skywalker shakes and Obi-Wan whispers a mantra of “It’s safe here, you’re safe here, no one will punish you for this, you are safe, you can be in pain here, we’ll heal you, you are safe with us.”

The rage simmers under Cody’s skin, but he doesn’t glance towards the two Jedi until the mantra has stopped and the shaking has calmed.

Obi-Wan gives him a grateful smile even as he winces and Cody grimaces, “Right, okay, both of you two the medbay before you make yourselves worse. You both look only slightly better than death warmed up.”

(As the two of them are being looked over, faces equally blank and hiding the amount of pain they are in even now, even from each other, Cody comms Rex.

Tell the little Commander they’re both in medbay.

Rex’s response only reads ‘thank you’

Cody watches shocked and sheepish looks sprout across both of the Jedi’s faces at whatever the medics say and the quickly signed apology Skywalker gives Cody’s General.

Cody watches, and he struggles not to hate whatever taught them not to show pain, whatever taught them kindness when vulnerable was something for others, not for them.

It’s easier to be angry for others than to be angry for yourself.

Cody sets the thought away, the parallels are too much right now, the wounds on his heart are already raw and bloodied. Another day, maybe.)

When Tano makes her presence known, the two Jedi turn apologetic looks towards her as she rants about them taking better care of themselves until she’s holding back furious tears.

Skywalker sighs.

“Come here Snips,” he beckons, apology laced in his words and arms open for a hug.

She goes to him, young and scared and angry, and sinks into the hug.

Cody catches Rex’s eye, signs ‘she okay?’

Rex nods. ‘She will be, too much pressure on herself, talked to her though.’

Cody nods, and gives the three Jedi one more glance before he leaves.

They’ll be fine for now, with both Helix and Kix watching over them.

Chapter Text

Rex has learned, many times, that his General is a dreadful liar. Skywalker is indignant about it, but acknowledges the point in good humour.

“They stuck the two worse liars in the GAR together, and then put the two best talkers together, said ‘This is fine’ and moved on,” Skywalker had once joked, when he and Rex were watching Cody and Kenobi talk their way out of being reprimanded for a battle decision that, if Skywalker or Rex had made, would have gotten them punished. Instead, the two of them had gotten off scot-free.

And it’s sort of true. Rex is awful at lying, can’t quite get himself to do it. There’s just something in his head that makes lying to a superior seem impossible and it makes every lie Rex tells very obviously not true.

Cody, on the other hand, is good at making everything make sense, even as he makes you doubt which way is up and which way is down. His Jedi is even worse than him, or better, depending on your point of view.

There’s a reason General Kenobi is known as the Negotiator, it just hadn’t been one of the skills he’d passed down to General Skywalker.

Which is why both Rex and the General are shocked when they’re assigned to negotiate terms with one of the planets on the edge of leaving the Republic.

“Don’t you want Obi-Wan to go?” Skywalker asks, only a little desperate. “He’s the best negotiator, he’d be wonderful at this!”

The Chancellor smiles, “My dear boy, I’m sure your,” the Chancellor’s face twists into something faintly disgusted as he speaks, “Master, and really my boy you know I respect your culture but that’s such a heavy word,” the way he says it, an aside, as if he doesn’t see the General flinch, makes something in Rex stand still, register the threat of teeth. But the Chancellor continues on, just as kindly and gentile as always, “Well, he is great at his job, but I’m asking you Anakin. I believe in you, my boy.”

The General doesn’t seem to notice the way he flinched at the wording, and Rex pulls every trick about projecting blank stares Cody has ever taught him into practice to avoid drawing attention to himself.

The General doesn’t like calling Kenobi his master, or even his Jedi Master. It’s okay some days, but most of the time Rex’s General settles for Obi-Wan or Obi. Rex has never once heard General Kenobi complain, and most other Jedi are perfectly accepting of it.

It sticks, picks away at something in Rex, makes him feel like he’s missing something.

(Rex is almost sure he doesn’t want to know, not when it can make his General seem so small. He thinks he might have some idea of what it is. But he doesn’t know, not for sure. He doesn’t know what he would do if he did.)

Skywalker rubs at the back of his neck, an almost shy look on his face as he gazes up at the holo of the Chancellor. “Thank you for the confidence Chancellor, I won’t let you down.”

The Chancellor smiles. “Oh, I know you won’t, Anakin. I have the highest faith in you, of course.”

There is something left unspoken there, something that makes Rex uncomfortable. Things left unspoken, Rex has found, rarely mean anything good.

After a little more small talk that has the General visibly relaxing just the slightest, the call ends, and the General turns to face Rex, brow furrowed and the tension is back and worse than ever.

(It’s a pattern that Rex has noticed more and more as the war goes on. Whenever Skywalker talks to General Kenobi, he’s tense the entire time, as if he expects something bad to happen. But afterward, he’s more relaxed, calmer.

With the Chancellor, he relaxes during the talks, and yet afterward he’s wound up tighter than anything, as if everything awful he expects out of interactions with Kenobi had come out of the pleasant conversation with the Chancellor.

It’s strange and a little concerning, and it sits next to the other observations needling away at Rex’s brain.)

Skywalker sighs. “Well, Rex, this is going to be interesting.”

Rex snorts. “I don’t doubt that, sir.”

They exchange a grimace. Negotiations are never fun, and Rex is already preparing backup plans for when this inevitably turns into another ‘fight their way out’ situation. His General, after all, has always been more of a fighting person than a word person.

(Skywalker can not lie to save his life. Lying just isn’t something Rex’s General can do. Rex doesn’t know why, doesn’t know if something caused it or if it’s just how Skywalker has always been, but it’s the truth, indisputable and constant.

Skywalker can’t lie.

Skywalker can’t lie, and he doesn’t have the talent for negotiating that Kenobi does, or that easy way of making everything make sense that Cody does.

The thing is, though—

The thing is, there is a certain talent Skywalker has, in manipulating what he’s told to work best with what he wants. It’s not a skill he uses often, but it is one Rex has seen him pull out at times. Skywalker will either completely shirk off whatever he’s told to do, or he will do it exactly as he was told and utilize all the wiggle room he was given.

Skywalker cannot lie but, and Rex forgets this occasionally, just because he prefers to fight doesn’t mean he can’t use his words just as well.

It’s a way that Skywalker, from what Rex can read off of him, is similar to some of the brothers. He likes knowing he has the ability to fight, and the thrill that comes with it more than anything.)

They set down on the planet and manage not to offend the leaders within their first meeting, so things are going well enough. Rex doesn’t relax though, not when the planet gives vital resources to the Republic that they can’t afford to lose if Rex wants more of his brothers to make it through this war. He keeps his guard up and his eyes open for threats and lets his General try and negotiate.

It’s not quite a trainwreck, but only because Rex’s General hasn’t outright insulted or tried to fight anyone yet.

The frustration in Skywalker is obvious as they’re escorted to their rooms for the night, the leaders having grown tired and called for a halt, with negotiations to continue in the morning and no conclusion reached after talking in circles for hours.

The General scowls as the door is closed and sits down heavily on the bed, switching the signal jammer on before rubbing at his eyes and hissing, “Politicians”

Rex grunts in sympathy.

“Politicians,” he agrees, as he takes his bucket off and tucks it under his arm. “Afraid there’s nothing to be done about it though sir.”

Skywalker huffs. “They’re making everything take longer than it should and trying to confuse us. I’m not entirely sure they even want to stay in the Republic.”

Rex frowns. As far as he could tell, they were being a little overly cautious, yes, but not to the point of working against the negotiations.

“What makes you say that sir?”

Rex’s General shrugs, hand going to his neck and rubbing. It’s a nervous habit that Rex has come to realize the General often isn’t even aware he’s doing, an absent minded gesture spawned by worry or stress.

(And yet, and yet, and yet, Rex can’t get the image out of his mind; the picture of his General making himself small as if it was second nature so that a scared Little will let him help her, the look of resignation on his General’s face as he talked about bombs and chips and slaves as if he knew how that felt. The way he rubbed at his neck and then realized what he was doing and stopped, as if the very action was giving something away.

Thinking about it makes Rex feel sick.

The reason for everything is right there, all the pieces slotting into place and if Rex just had a second to breathe maybe he could fit it all together and process it. But it’s war, and he’s trying to keep everyone alive and running himself ragged.)

(And maybe, just maybe, the truth is too much to even think right now. It’s a shameful thought that weighs heavy. And Rex has never thought himself a coward, but in the face of this, he thinks that maybe he is just a little bit.)

Skywalker stands, fingers of his flesh hand tapping on his mechanical arm absentmindedly.

“Did you see the way they were all turned to face us?”

Rex nods. He had been looking for threats and their posture had been one of the first things he noticed, all of the politicians had been facing the two of them, but Rex hadn’t been able to see any ill intent in their postures.

Skywalker twists his hands together, in what Rex would call fidgeting if it didn’t look so deliberate for all of Skywalker’s current look of absent mindedness.

“Well, they were all facing us, but that positioning also let all of them see each other clearly. They spent most of the time they were talking with us sending each other signals to actively twist the conversation in circles.”

Rex thinks back to the meeting, and realizes that his General is right. Rex hadn’t catalogued it at the time because it hadn’t looked like any sign language he knew, and it hadn’t looked deliberate either. But throughout the meeting there had been multiple gestures that were followed by arguments or questions that had already been covered.

He never would have noticed it, he’s surprised that Skywalker had. Though, now that he thinks about it, maybe he shouldn’t have been.

Rex is overly cautious of where people place their hands in case of any threats, and he’s always watchful for battle sign, but he’s never had to keep watch for careful gestures disguised as random movements before.

Skywalker though, in all the time Rex has served with him, has always been careful of people’s hands.

Rex isn’t sure he likes that train of thought.

He purses his lips. “So they’ve already made their mind up.”

Skywalker winces. “I think so. Unless we can—oh.”

The General pauses, furrowing his brow.

“Sir?”

Skywalker hums. “What was it that the leader said when we first got here?”

Rex thinks for a second before answering. “I believe it was, ‘Welcome honoured guests, may we find a way to reach a peaceful solution with the Republic.’ Sir, why?”

The General grins.

“Because they just gave us every tool necessary to stop them from fucking us over.”

Rex frowns, “How?”

Skywalker shrugs. “They called us honoured guests. They may have been bullshitting us, but I did read the briefing for once, and on this planet being an honoured guest means that any move against us is an offense to the household.” He waves a hand towards the closed door. “The fact that they announced their intention to reach a peaceful solution even with all the talking around? It means the main reason they have us here is because they weren’t quite happy with whatever Dooku offered them. They aren’t trying to get rid of us, they just want a way that gets them through the war on top no matter who wins.”

Rex crosses his arms and leans against the wall as that sinks in. “So what’s the plan then, sir? Keep them happy and let them be neutral but still provide aid to the GAR?”

Skywalker shrugs. “Something like that.”

Rex raises an eyebrow and Skywalker holds the signal jammer up. Rex grimaces and nods. They’ve already had it on for far too long. Any longer and their hosts will be well aware that they don’t trust them.

Skywalker flicks the jammer off and gives Rex a curt nod with a quickly battlesigned ‘trust me’.

Rex meets his General’s eyes and nods.

Skywalker smiles, and then turns to face the beds. “We still have more negotiating to do in the morning Captain. Might as well get some rest.”

Rex very pointedly does not make a face, but whatever Skywalker can read off of him must give away his thoughts on how he feels about the lack of a watch in what he’s counting as enemy territory away.

Skywalker laughs. “Relax for a bit, Rex. I’ll take first watch.”

“Sir,” Rex protests.

Skwalker shakes his head and waves the protest away. “Don’t worry about it, Rex, I got it. Besides, I wouldn’t be sleeping anyway. Might as well get you some rest.”

Rex scowls but accepts it, stripping down quickly to his blacks and placing his DC’s within easy reach.

“Wake me up for second watch, Sir.”

Skywalker waves a hand in his direction. “Sure Captain. Sweet dreams.”

(It is perhaps not surprising that the General doesn’t wake him up until morning.

When Rex gives him the look that this deserves, Skywalker shrugs. “This is your second watch Rex, you’re going to be watching my six the entire time I’m trying to out politic politicians.”

Rex sighs and armours up. He really should have expected something like this to happen.)

In the morning, the General sips at a cup of caf, already ready to go.

Rex sighs. "Did you at least check there was no poison, sir?"

Skywalker huffs. "Yes Captain, don't worry. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not entirely thoughtless."

Rex snorts as he holsters his DC's. "Oh I know, Sir, I just thought that all the sleep deprivation might have made you forget to check before you drank."

Skywalker rolls his eyes. "Point received, Captain. I'll get some sleep after the mission."

“Sure you will, Sir, because otherwise Kix will hypo you this time.”

Skywalker makes a face, clearly remembering the CMO’s threat.

“Mutiny, the lot of you,” he grumbles into his caf.

Rex raises an eyebrow, “Whatever you say, Sir. I expect some better caf then whatever swill you’ve been drinking if this is a proper mutiny, though.”

The General snickers, unable to hide his amusement. There’s a knock on the door just as the General finishes his caf, and the both of them shoot the door poisonous looks.

Skywalker sighs, stands and stretches. “Ready for more politics, Rex?”

Rex grimaces as he puts his bucket on. “As ready as I’ll ever be, Sir.”

(Skywalker wields words as sharp as any blade, haggling and doing everything exactly as he’s told. He never says more, but he always get more from them than they do from him. It’s a dance that Rex watches from behind the safety of his bucket — a dance which the General, for all that he’s always said he never learned anything from General Kenobi, seems well versed in.

There are differences there, when Kenobi speaks he convinces everyone that his side is the right one, the most logical. Skywalker though, he twists words and strikes for the heart every time until they give in to what he wants. Kenobi is grateful nothing more is demanded, Skywalker is always horribly ready for them to demand more.

Skywalker, when strikes to the heart fail to work, makes the most useless things seem appealing, an exchange of something the Republic doesn’t need for something they desperately do. Somewhere, someway, Skywalker learned how to make unwanted things sound appealing, necessary, priceless.

Watching Skywalker is nothing like watching Kenobi.

It makes Rex wonder, as Skywalker gets the planetary officials and leaders to finally agree to the terms he’s set, just where he learned how to do it.

Manipulation was never something he thought his General capable of, before witnessing him like this.)

Chapter Text

Cody is used to insults, knows how to bear them, stoic and silent and fuming.

This, though — watching as the ungrateful civilians curse his General and spit on him, do their best to rip Obi-Wan into pieces — is something he is not used to.

It makes him angry. ‘He saved you all,’ he wants to spit, wants to shame them, wants to let them know every wonderful thing Obi-Wan has ever done, every way he’s kept them all safe while they hid away.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he watches as Obi-Wan takes every snarled Jedi, and Child-Stealer, every leave us alone, go back to your temple and stay there, with a gentle smile, responding with nothing of the sharp anger Cody feels.

Cody is silent, even when all he can think is, If Obi-Wan did what you’re telling him to, if all the Jedi did that, stayed in that temple until the war is over, who do you think would have to fight instead?

Cody’s Jedi does not rage, does not take back his kindness or spit in their faces like they do in his. Cody’s Jedi is kind.

The thing that stays with Cody though, the thing that strikes the most, is that Obi-Wan isn’t surprised by it. There is no shock, no outrage — just that calm acceptance and disarmingly gentle smile.

He tries not to think about that, takes all of that rage in his chest and forces it away. Locks all of it up in a box and never once let’s his blank expression slip.

The feeling, though, simmers in that boxed off part of Cody for the rest of the mission.

Later, back on the Negotiator and flying far away from the planet, Cody slips into Obi-Wan’s office. His General looks up from the paperwork, smiles at Cody with so much warmth that Cody can’t, for even a second, see how anyone could ever look at him and call him heartless, or a child-stealer, or unfeeling.

Obi-Wan is the furthest thing from unfeeling, feels too much. Is too caring and compassionate in times when Cody knows he, himself, could never be.

Like on this mission.

Cody steels himself, breathes. “Sir? Do you have a moment?”

His General stills, searches Cody’s face and the way he’s holding himself, and nods slowly.

“Yes, dear one? Is there something the matter?”

Cody breathes, tries to find a way to phrase it kindly. Can’t.

He goes blunt instead, because blunt force is something he’s always been good at, and in this case ripping the plaster off the hidden wound will work better than trying to weasel it out.

Obi-Wan has always encouraged learning, asking questions. Cody hopes that still holds true after this.

“I just, I keep thinking, Sir, about how the civilians reacted to you. And,” he pauses, bites his lip.

Obi-Wan doesn’t say anything, let's Cody work through his words, find what he wants to say.

He sighs, reaches up and takes his bucket off. The click feels like it echoes in the room, though Cody knows it doesn’t really, and he tucks it under one of his arms. He reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, sighing again.

“How is it that you can go through a campaign, Sir, and have them spit on your every effort, and still be kind? How do you still think it’s worth it and not regret it, when they tear you apart despite everything you do for them?”

It’s a weighted question, Cody knows. Obi-Wan does too, and he must be able to tell that there are reasons Cody is asking, layers to why he wants to know.

Obi-Wan, Cody knows, is well aware of how the men are treated on some planets, on Coruscant. Has sat in this office with Cody before and worn looks of private pain, and something close to anger, over the treatment their men face.

‘How do you bear it’ is a question for Obi-Wan and for Cody. Because, at some point along the way, his General had learned to grow used to anger and insults and borne them silently. Maybe, if Cody didn’t already have some of the knowledge he does, some of the pieces of the picture, it would be easily dismissed as something purely because of the role the Jedi play as the faces of the war.

But as it is, he does have those pieces, tiny as they are. And he can’t, in any good consciousness, dismiss it.

Obi-Wan purses his lips, sets the datapad in his hands down and brings his hands up to rest against his mouth, folds them together and leans his elbows onto the desk.

He looks at Cody for a long, long, moment before he sighs, presses his knuckles to his eyes.

“Please sit, Cody,” he murmurs, and he sounds like he’s carrying the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders.

Cody does, placing his bucket down and feeling like he is tearing open bloodied wounds. Doesn’t know whose wounds they are, just knows that they’re there, knows he won’t like the answer he gets, knows Obi-Wan will wish he could give a different one.

Cody has always known that the universe wasn’t kind. After all, if it was, he and his brothers would have never been created. Never been needed.

You do not need a soldier when there is no war.

Obi-Wan runs a hand over his beard, drops his hands to the desk with a quiet sigh. “Do you want the answer to your first or second question first, my dear?” Obi-Wan asks, and Cody hesitates, wets his lip as he considers. He wonders if he should’ve asked Obi-Wan this, when he sounds so very tired, so utterly exhausted from it.

But, he’s already asked, and will stand by the decision now, hope that it does not hurt Obi-Wan more to tell him than it does for Cody to hear. Hopes he can fix it if it does.

And, because Cody may not have been able to escape being cruel like he was taught to be, but he is trying so very hard to be kind anyway, he doesn’t answer right away. He waits for Obi-Wan to look a bit more steady.

And then he says gently, as if he did not just ask Obi-Wan to reveal the hidden bits and pieces of himself for his own gain, “The second one, Sir.”

“First, Cody, my dear, I will never regret an innocent life being saved, and I will always strive to help and protect and heal. I’m a Jedi.” He meets Cody’s eyes, searches for something in them that Cody doesn’t think he’ll find.

Cody was raised for war, and you can help, protect, and heal in war. But mostly, he was raised to be a weapon. He doesn’t think he will ever be able to understand just what Obi-Wan means when he talks of a Jedi’s duty.

Obi-Wan purses his lips, folds his hands together and runs his thumb over the back of his hand.

“I’m a Jedi, my dear, so I will never regret the actions I take to lessen the cost of this war, to protect and heal and teach.” He smiles, a little sad, but Cody’s General is always a little sad lately. Taps his fingers against his arm in thought, before he looks back to Cody, holds his gaze.

Cody always feels like he’s stripped of all his armour, when the General looks at him like that, as if he is tearing down all of Cody’s defenses.

He wouldn’t, Cody knows that, but it doesn’t stop that gaze from feeling like it is piercing into him.

Obi-Wan sighs, continues, “And it is worth it, will always be worth it, because it means that this war has not taken everything from us, yes. But also because it means that I have not lost myself.”

Cody shifts, does his best to hide his confusion. Obi-Wan catches it anyways, smiles softly, indulgently.

“If I am cruel, my dear,” Obi-Wan explains, “to those who are cruel to me, then I do nothing but continue a cycle of pain and suffering. If I reach for anger and wield it for the purpose of causing others pain, then that is when I may lose myself. When calling myself a Jedi grows dangerously close to being a falsehood.”

Cody thinks he understands, can see the lines of what Obi-Wan means and draw them together into a whole. He tries to imagine an Obi-Wan who would do that to someone and can’t; it wouldn’t be Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan, when he is hurting and worn, does not turn cruelty outward. Obi-Wan does not have the same troubles with being kind as Cody does and yet, he still strives to be kind in everything he does.

(Obi-Wan, to Cody, is a marvel for many reasons. This is one of them.)

Cody turns his words over in his mouth, pieces them together carefully. “You do not regret, because it is your duty,” he says, like he is reciting something with weight. Knows he is, can feel it heavy on his tongue. “And you are content with it, find joy in it. You do not regret, because in spite of it all, you are being kind where you could choose to be cruel, and where they might turn themselves into something ugly in their hatred, you will still know yourself when you look in the mirror.”

Obi-Wan smiles, nods.“Yes. It is not easy, and it is not, sometimes, what I want to do. But it is the best thing to do, it is what I have done and will continue to do for as long as I live.”

Obi-Wan is a marvel for many reasons, and it is a list that grows the longer Cody knows the General. He is, suddenly, overwhelmingly, grateful that they were placed together.

He bites at his cheek, tries to find any words to respond to that, can’t find the right ones. The one’s on his tongue all too jagged around the edges, and the sharpness of some of them bloody his throat the longer they stay there. None of them are what he wants, the things he means.

Obi-Wan reaches a hand across the desk and Cody pries his hands apart from where they are folded in his lap, meets Obi-Wan halfway, like he will always try to, and tangles their fingers together.

Obi-Wan sighs.“I suppose you’d like the answer to your first question now, dear one.”

He nods, squeezes Obi-Wan’s hand in both apology and support.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes, breathes out. “It will not be kind.”

Cody smiles, all sharp teeth and jagged edges and kindness molded from bloodied fists and cruelty, says, “I know, sir.”

Obi-Wan looks at him, with something like understanding and a little bit like regret in his eyes, murmurs, “Yes, I suppose you do.”

Obi-Wan runs his thumb gently over the back of Cody’s hand, sighs. Cody can’t read him, can’t see what it is he’s thinking, or what he wants to say. Though he can see that there are words waiting to be spoken. Obi-Wan, Cody has learned, has a vocabulary that stretches far across the galaxy, has words for most every situation, can string them together in just the right way to do most anything he attempts.

But he holds them in for this, doesn’t say whatever it is he’s thinking, and Cody can see him backtracking, reevaluating.

Finally, he sighs. “You asked me how I can still be kind even with all they do, I answered that, a bit, when I answered the second question.”

Cody nods. His other hand resting in his lap and itching to grab onto Obi-Wan’s hand. He breathes through the urge, holds himself still. Obi-Wan smiles gently at him, always so gently, and just keeps running his thumb back and forth. Some of the tension drains from Cody without him realizing, and he huffs, sees now what Obi-Wan was doing.

Obi-Wan taps his thumb gently on the back of Cody’s hand. “The answer though, my dear Commander, is that I am kind to them because it keeps them from having power over me. I smile at them when they spit at me, and they do not know how to react.”

Cody blinks, frowns, and Obi-Wan’s smile is just a bit bitter. “It is better than showing my anger, and maybe that is not the case in every situation, but I have been a Jedi since I was small, Cody, and the galaxy at large has had most of their opinions on Jedi set in stone for a long, long, time. Reacting to them only ever brings pain, my dear.”

The galaxy at large, Cody thinks, has never stood back to back with a Jedi, placed their life in their hands and had their Jedi place theirs in yours.

Obi-Wan looks him in the eye, gaze heavy. “Giving them what they want is both letting them win and inviting more pain onto you, Cody, so smile at them and only show them what you want them to see, and they will have no idea what to do. They will trip over themselves trying to hurt you and you will not let them, and they will expend more effort to hurt you than it takes for you to dismiss them and move on.”

Cody turns it over in his mind, dissects the answer from every angle, and Obi-Wan squeezes his hand. “I am aware, my dear Commander, that it is as much a moral victory based off of my own beliefs, as it is a victory for the sake of spite.”

It startles a half-choked laugh out of Cody, and he bites his lip to keep the rest of it in. Obi-Wan smiles, squeezes Cody’s hand.

“Thank you for answering my questions, General,” he says, and he was right in that he wouldn’t like the answers completely, not with the implications that they bring, but he got his answers.

His Jedi has always been kind, even when he maybe shouldn’t be, and just because he has borne the weight of what that means for years does not mean he has to bear it alone.

It’s the least he can do, for both this and a hundred other things his Jedi has done for him, for their men.

Obi-Wan smiles, “Of course, my dear,” and Cody thinks that he would do most anything for him.

Knows Obi-Wan would never ask him to, and Cody loves him a little for that.

They sit in quiet companionship after that and tuck the conversation away, let it rest as they work on flimsiwork together and allow that to distract them.

(Cody sits, puzzles it all out in his head, tries to find the way the pieces all fit together.

He doesn’t like the picture they are forming.)

Chapter Text

There’s a shadow that has been following them for the last few hours, Rex notes.

A shadow that is determined to never actually interact with them it seems like. Rex sighs, pokes at the general when he starts to get off task again and goes back to tracking their shadow’s progress.

The trooper almost makes it all the way to their table this time. Which is an improvement over the last few attempts, or the tries when they were down in engineering, or the attempts in the barracks, or in the hangers, or—

Suffice to say, it’s been slow going.

Rex sighs, he’d been hoping to let them build up their courage and broach whatever they wanted themself, but if they were still struggling….

“Yes, Trooper?”

They freeze, looking almost guilty as they sign a nervous, ‘Sir, acknowledged’

They hesitate, tucking a blue shoulder-length lock of hair behind their ear. Rex has been trying to place who they are for most of the day, he makes it a point to try and learn the names of everyone he can, but sometimes he just doesn’t interact with someone much or they don’t make a big enough noise to be immediately memorable. It’s the sad truth of having so many under your command. There’s too many troops to get to know each and every one of them in depth. Though Rex knows that that certainly hasn’t stopped some people from trying.

Rex raises an eyebrow, and they fidget as they sneak a look to the general. Skywalker looks at them with interest, and Rex sighs as he sees that he’s completely abandoned the request forms for the bright shiny new interesting thing catching his attention.

Being second-in-command feels awfully like herding Littles sometimes.

At least he’d gotten a good portion of them done this time, Rex’ll just have to sneak them in front of him again later, after he’s been thoroughly distracted.

The things he does to keep this ship running functionally.

“Is there something you need, Trooper?” Skywalker asks.

They clear their throat as they shift, hesitating a little before setting their jaw, “I actually wanted to talk to the Captain, if that’s alright.” they signed, half asking and half stating.

The general frowns a little, turning to look at Rex with a shrug, “Sure, I’ll leave you guys to it. I still have a couple of things to take care of anyway.”

He stands, sweeps his stuff up into his arms, “See you later Rex!” he calls as he leaves.

Coincidentally, the request forms have all been left, unfinished, at the table. Rex rolls his eyes.

The trooper resettles their weight, and Rex focuses his attention on them. They aren’t a shiny, that much is clear but it doesn’t help him determine what exactly is going on. He settles for raising an eyebrow. That usually proves to make most troopers at least start talking.

They grimace, “My squad is one of the ones that got filled out with our last batch of shinies,” they sign, “most of them were still getting used to the squad lead much less the general when we deployed and—” they grimace, sighing.

“One of them needs a prosthesis,” they continue, “and he’s panicking, to say the least.”

Rex allows himself a second to breathe through the riot of emotions in his chest. After the second passes, he exhales and gives them a sharp nod.

“I take it that he isn’t believing anything people tell him in regards to him being able to stay with us, or the general?”

They nod, and he hums, looking among the datapads and forms Skywalker left to him. If he’s right, then there should be—

He finds the datapad he’s looking for and opens it. “Number?” he asks, because the database is made for natborns, not the clones, and numbers are the standard. In some cases, it is also the only thing a vod has, no name chosen yet. It’s a system that’s functional and efficient and standardized.

It still stings, those rare moments when Rex forgets himself in the camadrie of the ship. He knows better; this is how it’s always been.

He pulls open the Shiny’s file, skims over it as he memorizes the number (CT-8970) and resolves to handle it as soon as possible. (He is also definitely throwing Skywalker at the problem. After all, when the man isn’t blowing things up or blundering through explanations, he is technically still in charge.)

He gives the trooper as reassuring a look as he can, closes the file, “I've got it handled from here. Though, I will say, I’m surprised you’re the one bringing this to me and not one of the medics.”

They laugh, for the first time since they started shadowing him, and give a wry grin as they sign back, “Who do you think sent me to you, Sir? It sure as heck wasn’t the mousedroids.”

Rex snorts, “With the mods the General does to them, trooper? I hadn’t ruled it out.”

The first introduction does not go as smoothly as Rex would have preferred.

It is, in fact, rather a clusterfuck.

Rex walks into medbay alone and armed with a plan. He’ll talk to 8970 for a little while first, and help address any doubts or fears as best as he can. Hopefully, then the trooper would be more willing to take the medics up on their suggestion to let the General work with 8970 to better ensure the prosthetic is made correctly for him. It’s a simple plan, with about a dozen conversation fail safes in case the problem isn’t what Rex suspects, and is in fact something different.

It is with this in mind, and having firmly instructed the General to wait outside until he called him in or he’d suddenly find a lot more lost flimsiwork that he’d have to fill out on his desk, that he steps inside.

He barely gets a step in before it goes to shit. 8970 just so happens to be in one of the cots with a very clear view of the door, and in the injured paranoia they all suffer from on the best of days, the trooper had been keeping a watchful eye on it.

Rex’s plan, to put it kindly, drowns before it even sets foot in the ocean.

8970 goes from in pain but hesitantly relaxed to tense and panicked in an instant. It isn’t a violent devolution, but quiet and all the more frantic for its silence.

Rex doesn’t close his eyes in resignation — his bucket is off and that would be the worst thing to do right now — but it is a near thing.

“Easy there, vod’ika,” he reassures, unsure of how much Mando’a exactly the most recent Shinys know.

(He’ll need to get an update on that soon, need to know who’s covering what, who needs modules to catch up, where their education modules were skimmed to get them out into battle quicker. He adds it to the list that is ever growing as the days go on.)

Rex keeps murmuring gentle commands to ‘70 to try and even the silent, panicked breathing, and tensed muscles, distant eyes. Nods to the medic hovering in the corner of his vision to let them know he’s got it, accepts the warning they sign to him with an ‘acknowledged’ as he works to get ‘70 back to a place where he can at least understand what Rex is saying. It is the primal reaction that Rex recognizes deep in his bones, from countless nights spent forced still and still shaking in the dark over whether this would be the unseen offense that would get him decommissioned. Finally too much work to prove worth the effort.

‘70’s panic is familiar and crushing at the same time.

Rex had been hoping it was ‘70 being intimidated by the General that was the problem, but he’d known that it was more likely a problem of fear.

Sometimes, Rex hates it when he’s right.

‘70 has been on the ship for a total of four days, he has no way to know that the General has never once sent a vod back to Kamino with the label defective because they needed a prosthesis, never punished them for it, never done anything more than commiserate and joke and build new prosthesis that work instead of the cheap crap they’d have to make do with otherwise.

‘70 has no frame of reference, and it has always been the unknown that was most feared on Kamino.

Once ‘70 has calmed down to respond to Rex’s words, breathing no longer quiet as fast and sharp, Rex meets his eyes.

“Is it okay if the General comes over here for this talk? You’re not in trouble,” he’s quick to assure, when the kid tenses and his breathing starts to pick up again, “just wanted to help you. And the General can’t do that as well from all the way over there.”

The kid bites his lip as he looks past Rex to where the door the General is standing behind. It takes a little while, and Rex waits calmly, not rushing the kid. It’s important that all of this gets done on ‘70’s terms, in his own time.

Finally, ‘70 huffs, meeting Rex’s eyes and nodding, looking away just as fast. It’s progress though, so Rex will take it.

“Okay, thank you. Just remember, trooper,” Rex tells him with a gentle squeeze to his shoulder, “that the Medics rule here, in the improbable world where the General tried anything on anyone in here they’d take him out in a second.” The kid laughs a little at the reassurance, shaky and hesitant still, but he nods.

“Understood, Sir.”

Sith hells he even sounds young. They’re just shipping them out younger and younger as this war goes on. The worst part is that Rex knows that the kid and all the new shinies are part of the Speedy batches too. Already had their growth accelerated far beyond what was the norm, and still so damn young. It makes something inside of Rex impossibly angry for all he knows the entire war is a numbers game.

He breathes and sets it aside. There’s no point being angry over it, and he knows that.

He texts the General a simple ‘clear’ and the door immediately opens. Rex suppresses the urge to snort. Knowing him, the General had probably been waiting to open that door for ages now and just barely holding off.

The minute Anakin steps into the room ‘70’s breathing begins picking up again and Rex grips his shoulders. “Come on now kid, breathe with me, that’s an order.”

The kid straightens up a bit, closes his eyes and slowly, his breathing comes down from the panicky pattern.

“Hi there,” Anakin says, like he didn’t just witness ‘70’s complete panic, trying to set ‘70 more at ease.

The most important part of Rex’s plan is this bit, getting ‘70 used to Anakin before the General offers his help. If this fails then it’s going to be a lot harder to try again later.

Anakin is smiling, wide and open, as he waves with his prosthetic hand, “I’m—”

“I know who you are.” The kid interrupts, before flushing and fidgeting. “Uh, sorry, Sir. Just. Everyone knows who you are.”

Anakin laughs, rubs the back of his neck with a sheepish smile, even as he flips Rex off for the teasing hand signs he threw the General’s way. “Oh wow. Okay. Um. Well in that case you have an advantage over me. What’s your name?”

‘70 freezes, fidgets. “Uh, I don’t, I don’t have one, Sir.”

Anakin nods. “Right, that’s fine, names are difficult!”

The kid shifts again and then seems to tense as the sheet moves, the amputated leg clear even through the thin fabric. The kid looks up, frantic. “I, I know that, that I can’t be as effective as the others but I swear that I can still be useful General I promise, I can still do the— the — the data entry or the navigation or I don’t know just, something you don’t have to send me for decommissioning I swear I’ll even—”

“Stand down,” the General orders, harsh and hoarse and the kid flinches. Rex raises an eyebrow at Anakin and gets a wince in response.

“Sorry,” Anakin says. “It’s just that, the amputation sucks for you and I’m sorry, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t still do anything. Just means it might take a while to get you up to the standard you want. And—” he continues, when ‘70 tries to interrupt, and Rex can see the agitation growing, “even if you couldn’t serve on the ground I wouldn’t just, just wash my hands of you.”

‘70 looks at him, blank and distant and Rex swallows the urge to curse. “Defective units are decommissioned sir, If I am of no use—”

“No living being is ever of no use,” Anakin snaps. “no matter what anyone else says.”

Anakin breathes, the calming pattern that Kix finally cornered him into admitting he knew and made him swear to use it, and continues, “I know that it’s hard to process right now—”

“Do you?” ‘70 snaps, and he is blank and shaking and closed-fisted rage, “because there are hundreds of other people who could disagree with you, Sir, and it wouldn’t matter how useful you think I could be.”

It is the truth.

Anakin shudders, breathes, and there is a moment where the air goes icy, the chill creeps into Rex’s bones and makes a home there, and then the moment passes and Anakin just nods.

“You’re right,” Anakin agrees, resigned, “but that hasn’t happened yet, and you can make sure that it never does, or at least that it’ll take more effort to make it happen than just leaving you be would.”

Anakin smiles, and the ice breaks, “You already kind of did it. You’ve got good instincts, trooper. If you’re ever in that position, you open with a way that you can’t be replaced first. If someone can get out of paying for something, they will. Use that.”

‘70 bites his lip, shrugs. “It wasn’t— I didn’t, I was just desperate. It wasn’t a plan or anything, just, I saw you and panicked.”

Ankin shrugs. “It happens. Just make sure to remember, even when you panic, to have all the ways you’re irreplaceable ready to go in an instant. No matter what the situation is, that list of reasons can be useful. Everyone is always looking for ways to get out of doing something, if they can cut corners they will, if they can use someone else to help themselves they will, if they can hurt you they will. Every time.”

‘70 plays with the sheets and is quiet for a long time. Anakin fidgets with his fingers, goes to say something more five different times before aborting, and there is something in the hunch of Anakin’s normally proud back that has Rex watching closely. That leaves Rex wondering why Anakin is so well acquainted with this need, this necessity.

“That sounds so sad,” ‘70 finally says.

Anakin shrugs again. “Someone I knew used to say that the biggest problem in the universe was that people don’t help each other. Now I think it’s that no one is kind without a price.”

There’s a beat of silence and then ‘70, shyly, asks, “If you weren’t gonna send me back—”

“Never,” Anakin interrupts, and Rex resists the urge to sigh at the General interrupting the kid again. They’ve been working on that the just jumping into a conversation. It’s a work in progress. “I’d never do that to you.”

‘70 nods. “Then what did you come to talk to me about?”

“Oh!” Anakin exclaims, excited to talk shop. “I thought Rex told you?”

Rex really does sigh then. “I figured it would be best for him to hear it from you. Clearly, I made a mistake on that one. Sorry, Trooper.”

‘70 shakes his head. “It’s fine Sir, really, no harm done.”

Anakin fidgets. “If you’re up for it now trooper, I’d like to get your measurements and stuff for your new prosthetic. That’s what this is for, I mean,” Anakin rambles, “to get you fitted for one and all the logistics figured out so I can make you a new one.”

“Oh,” ‘70 says and it is the type of awe that breaks Rex’s heart. “I didn’t think I’d be considered worth one,” he whispers.

“Of course you are,” Anakin protests, “I never thought otherwise. You matter, you’re important. Fuck anyone who says differently.”

‘70 looks up at Anakin with wide eyes, and Rex smiles as the last of the tension leaves the kid.

Rex stays while they finally move on to the measurements and talking logistics for the prosthetic, mostly to keep the kid at ease and avoid him clamming up again. It gives him time to turn the conversation over in his mind, run the words over his tongue and—

He doesn’t like what he finds.

Because someone, at some point in his general’s life, taught him he had to be worth keeping around if he wanted to live. There was enough of a threat of being replaced that he has a list of ways he can’t be.

Someone in his general’s past taught him that the world was cruel, and kindness was a lie.

It makes Rex almost sick with anger.

(He very, very carefully doesn’t think about why it all seems so familiar.)