Heyo, human beings from outer space!
Title by "Dancing in the Sky" because it has been echoing in my head all. Day. Long. Please halp---
Also, I binged the entire hunger games series a few days ago and lemme sayyyyyy 🫠🫠
Anyway, for the stuff you came here for: This was requested by KammaMlgaardPedersen (freaking taggss!!!!!!)
Read on if you dare
In Rex's book, experience outranks everything. And while it wasn't GAR protocole and would never pop up in one of Echo's reg manuals, it had never failed him. He'd watched Ahsoka grow up, a blooming blossom within the thorns of war, and she'd experienced a lot.
Which is why she should've come back.
But she didn't.
The Phantom wheezed as it set down and the door lowered. Ezra came stumbling down, holding Kanan's arm. Kanan shuffled unsteadily after him, a mask covering his eyes, and Rex had a feeling it wasn't temporary. Especially since Ahsoka hadn't come down yet.
But then Ezra dragged him and his master to a stop and let his eyes trail up slowly to meet Rex's. Ezra gave the tiniest of grave headshakes. And Rex knew, purely from that look into the kid's eyes, the look that was so broken and terrified.
Rex knew Ahsoka wasn't going to come down the Phantom's ramp.
Ahsoka wasn't coming back.
Ezra's eyes welled with tears and his eyebrows pinched together in strain. Rex wanted to tell the kid that it wasn't his fault, but he couldn't find his voice. He felt like his heart had stopped and plummeted into the depths of his sloshy stomach.
It was her leaving the Order all over again but one hundred times worse.
Rex could still remember the day vividly. Everyone had watched the trial on the holoprojectors Plo Koon sent in. The tension was so heavy and thick that it could've been sliced open with a knife— and Rex wished he had a knife to use with the way it was suffocating him, like fingers locked around his neck.
But in the end, Ahsoka was found innocent, and a roar exploded through the barracks, raging so loudly his ears rang and buzzed. But most of all, Rex could breathe again.
Until he couldn't.
Even when the whole battalion waited for her to come running up to the barracks for a celebratory game of Capture the Blue Milk or an arm wrestling contest or even just to sit on their backs and chat as they did push-ups.... she never came.
Kix kept saying that she was obviously going to be scarred. Every day he assured everyone that "she'll come back when she's ready!" "Any time now," he said every day. But everyday Rex watched a sliver of hope die from his eyes.
It didn't help that Anakin wasn't showing up either. Something was terribly wrong. The only good sign was that they hadn't been reassigned yet. Rex clung to that one like a life line.
In the end, no one ever outright told them that Ahsoka had left. Anakin certainly didn't, and nobody could pry her whereabouts or what happened from him. She just... wasn't there. And they pretended like nobody noticed, maybe more for Anakin. But Rex could still hear Kix mumbling in his sleep "she'll come back when she's ready, she'll come back when she's ready, she'll come back when she's ready...."
And she did. After too long. And as soon as things were looking up, disaster struck and they separated again. Rex thought he'd never see her again, but he did. They reunited and Rex swore to never let her go again.
But here he stood, entirely Ahsoka-less, and this time was different. This time, there was no chance she was coming back. She hadn't been driven out by the Order or disaster that ripped a void between them. This time, she was dead.
Rex should've gone. He knew he should've.
He shouldn't have let her go alone, even if she was older now, she still needed—
No.
Rex ordered his swirling brain to stop. No blame game. That made things worse. It always did.
Rex cleared his throat and swallowed hard, gruffly forcing out, "I'll be...." he trailed off, but he didn't need to continue. Hera, who had thrown herself around Kanan, gave him a tiny, firm nod. Rex stumbled off.
He made it to the edge of the base, barely within the safety of the borders. Flopping down on a rock, Rex clutched his head and strangled back a sob. He was supposed to be stronger— better— than this. He was supposed to be able to move on, not cry like a child. He was a soldier.
Sure, a moment of grief was acceptable for fallen comrades, but this was more. This was the tightness of desperate denial twisting in his chest. A void cracking through his heart and threatening to cave in.
Rex tried to wrestle it back and tie it down like the first time she left. But things were different then. He had a battalion of support and a chord of hope he clung to like a life line. He had General Skywalker's chaos through the Clone Wars to keep him busy.
And she had come back. She'd showed up just in time for everything to go wrong, but Rex was alive and well because of her. This time she wasn't going to show up again. This time, she wasn't coming back, because she was dead.
She was dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
The world echoed through his mind, shattering what little resolve he'd strung together. His chest tore open into an empty pit and his heart shattered.
Ahsoka Tano was dead.
She wasn't coming back.
Someone had finally defeated her and kept her down.
Rex's fist tightened hard enough for his knuckles to crack, tears pouring down his face. Call him foolish because he'd allowed himself to believe that, somehow, Ahsoka Tano would always be able to pick herself up. Not if she was dead. Not if someone killed her.
And Rex was going to find that someone and make him pay, even if it was the last thing he did.
Then he laughed at the brashness of the thought, and wondered if he'd finally lost his mind. He'd stand no match against anyone who'd killed Ahsoka. So then Rex would just have to play his part in the rebellion until he could finally watch that monster pay.
Rex allowed himself a few minutes to compose himself. He stared into the sunset. He used to do it with Ahsoka— it was her favorite thing to do— but now he couldn't.
With determination, Rex shoved himself off the rock and stalked back to the others beneath the stars that twinkled like the brilliant blue eyes he'd never see again.
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Word Count: 1,073
Published: 25 Apr. 2024
Guyyyyzzzzz I don't wanna do the stuff I should be doing right nowwwwww~
Requests are NOT open yet, but I promise I'm getting closer :)
Hasta la vida, peoples!