Image credit: rise-of-ahsoka.tumblr.com
Word count: 2008
Warnings: TCW S7 spoilers
Summary: After discovering a strange signal at the cyber station on Anaxes, Captain Rex calls an old ally for help.
Having just arrived back to Fort Anaxes from the Separatist cyber station, Rex feels drained. Drained might actually be a poor description of what he is going through – being overwhelmed by all his newfound feelings might be a better way to capture his inner sufferings. Sufferings he cannot share with anyone truly. No one who would understand, no one who would fully believe him.
Because he knows Echo is alive, damn all who think otherwise.
Tup, Dogma, Hardcase and Fives are all gone – no more than distant memories and smiling faces on holo images tucked away carefully in crates of 501st military gear and equipment. Cody is injured, moaning incoherently in his sleep while his face is scrunched up in pain despite all the kolto circulating in his bloodstream, with Jesse and Kix tending to him, watching over him.
There's General Skywalker, of course, but one need not be Force sensitive to feel he's reluctant, filled to the brim with disbelief and concerns to his own. And the Bad Batch may have proven themselves as allies and warriors, but none of them knew Echo. None of them would share his pain, feel his grief, and support his blind hope.
There is one another, his mind reminds Rex as he sits alone in his barracks, the white-blue shells of his armour lying discarded on the floor more carelessly than how he usually leaves them, knees hugged tightly to his chest. Another who's survived the Citadel, another who was broken by the loss of Echo, so broken she walked straight out the Jedi Order, maybe even the Republic. Another who could potentially help, potentially understand. Also across the Galaxy, probably, but that is beside the point. Rex is aching to hear her voice, feel her compassion, feel like something, anything that isn't just plain miserable. Anyone who says clones are engineered to not be afraid, to focus only on duty, can go straight to hell according to the Captain.
Rex moves slowly, not trusting his limbs as he unravels himself, plants his feet firmly on the ground as if he didn't trust his own body. He pushes aside the pieces of his chestplate to fish out the utility belt underneath. There's an encryption only he and her know, the one he constantly aches to use and yet never once dared to actually use to make a call. Now there is no hesitation in his fingers as he keys it into his holoprojector and waits for you to answer on the other end.
...
Sskoora growls, but you know him well enough to decipher the meaning behind the Trandoshan's hisses – the one he emitted just now is the equivalent of a sigh, and you know you've won when the hunter brushes past you to enter the cockpit of your ship.
"Scorekeeper won't accept droids as Jagannath points. A waste of time; a hunt not worthy of our time and our talents."
But your old friend is already entering the coordinates of Fort Anaxes into the navicomputer and you can't help but smile softly. He isn't like most Trandoshans. He is a seasoned warrior, but he has honour, and the friendship you established over the last year after surviving the harsh sands of Tatooine together is one you will cherish until you die. Your attachment to Sskoora is yet another reminder why you kept failing as a Jedi. And another is waiting for you at the end of your destination.
"I owe you one, old friend."
"You owe me a hunt," he corrects you calmly, his red scaled face a mask of perfect tranquillity.
"Find the burliest rancor by the time we've rescued my friend, Sskoora."
The Trandoshan wants to say he knows it's about more than just Echo, more than just a friend lost and found again. He knows you want to be reunited with your mate, but he keeps his mouth shut. You're still young in his eyes, and he will respect the rashness of youth just like the wisdom of old age.
"The burliest I will, little hunter."
...
When a Trandoshan appears on the ramp of the ship that just landed in Fort Anaxes, all the perimeter guards are on alert, guns aimed and ready to fire. Until a Jedi appears behind, waving her arms to show their harmlessness. It takes General Skywalker to break the state of emergency, but the great hunter seems to be regarded with distrust even afterwards. Anakin is upset when he finds out why you're here, but he cannot truly be mad. He stalks off in the night after showing you the direction in which Rex's barracks are. You bring back too many painful memories – the Citadel, the way you got out of the Order to live your life, the same way Ahsoka did. You don't blame him for not wanting to speak to you more. So you send Sskoora back to the ship and ask him to prepare for a fight, pacifying him enough to know his preparations for the hunt will quell any desire in him to cause trouble. And then you take a deep breath and go, trying not to reach out with the Force so eagerly to where you suspect Rex to be. The man you so innocently loved as a Jedi, and then agreed to let go for the sake of the Republic.
You're not a Jedi anymore. And though you wish nothing more than to throw your arms around him like he used to allow you, what you truly wish is to make him happy, to console him, to trust him when no one else does. You tell your little heart beating so fast that the man asked for your help only to bring Echo back, not for any other reason, and the sour lie helps you restrain your emotions as you enter the dark building.
"I got your message. Rex?"
You can sense him – his anguish and thoughtfulness draws your focus immediately, but you cannot see him until he moves. He's partly in his blacks, the circular emblem of the Republic visible on his chest. His kama and boots are on, however, and you've caught him in the act of fastening his belt around his hips.
"I wasn't sure you'd come, if I'm honest."
"Oh... I can wait outside, if you'd like."
"With our shared history?" Rex snorts, shaking his head. "You've seen more while you were still a Jedi."
"A fair point," you admit, usurping a bed and perching on top of it cross-legged. "Why weren't you sure I'd come?"
"That message encryption we cooked up was during... well, you know," he sighs, sitting across from you as he fidgets with his bracers.
"Yeah. I know," you breathe, voice quiet and strained.
It was during the prime of your love, before you both agreed to put an end to it for the greater good. Not long after, the mission to the Citadel came, and all your hopes of ever loving him again where shattered by the most painful decision you've ever had to make. Echo was a friend, a member of your weird little family, and you realised you were tired of losing them all one by one under your command, as you led them to countless battles knowing full well many of them would die. Echo's death was the last straw, the awakening you needed to stop being a hypocrite by enslaving an army of clones and spouting wisdom about the wrongness of oppressing the weak.
You never lost hope and you never stopped helping wherever you could, wherever the Republic would still let you, but you mostly did it for the same reason you didn't delete the encryption from your datapad all this time – Rex. It is well beyond your capabilities to say no to the man, to do anything that would harm him, anything that would go against his beliefs. Even if those beliefs in the GAR and the Senate had shaky underpinnings at best these days.
"I haven't seen you since you left," he says suddenly, eyes not rising to meet yours, but voice so full of suppressed yearning that it makes your head spin.
"I hope you understand why it had to happen this way, Rex..."
"You never told me. So no, I don't really. But you're not a Separatist, so I wouldn't mind hearing you out."
"I left because of you."
"Me?" he asks, looking up with a face full of shock that makes the corners of your lips lift into a small smile that disappears quickly from your face. Rex's eyes chase after it, wishing it lasted more than that split second.
"In a way, yes. I refused to be part of an Order that would willingly enslave you and your brothers, forcing you to fight in a war you have nothing to do with. And I don't see a way winning would make your situation any better. You're men, and yet you're treated as property. So much for the Jedi values."
"It's the Senate, not the Jedi," Rex argues back meekly, knowing your words to hold more truth than he'd like to admit.
"Well, now I'm not bound to either. Speaking of being bound, I have a spare bunk on the ship... Sskoora takes up two, but the top bunk is all free," you joke, trying to lighten both your moods momentarily. It works for a little while as Rex snorts, shaking his head a little as he concentrates on slipping his gloves back on.
"Sharing sleeping quarters with a Trandoshan sounds fun, but I might just pass on that."
"You could share mine. Captain's quarters are quite spacious, you know. More comfortable, less... Trandoshan, I suppose."
"Now that is a tempting offer. Think you could extend it to the end of the war?"
"Let's just extend it until we find Echo now," you sigh, both your moods souring considerably as you think of your friend. "You really think he's out there?"
"It was his voice. I know it. It couldn't have been anything else."
You slowly stand and sit next to him, casually letting your elbows touch. When Rex doesn't pull back, you let your shoulder lean against his, a small encouraging smile gracing your lips as you lean closer. "I believe you. We'll find him tomorrow. I'll help. Even if the Republic does not want me to. You just send me the coordinates, and I and Sskoora will be there on Skako Minor to back you up."
Rex, struggling with his tears at the prospect of seeing Echo again, and moved by your devotion to him, stares at his fingers and nods. "Thank you. For believing in me."
"I never stopped doing that, and I never will. Oh come here, you," you sigh, drawing him in for a hug which he gratefully accepts. Despite all the heartache, the war, the constant terror the Galaxy lives in, you find peace in Rex's arms, and he in yours. It's both extraordinary and just so natural at the same time, your minds joined in a synchrony you've terribly missed. Even if he cannot feel it through the Force, there's a bond that intertwines your fates so much that there is no escaping one another.
"There was a time I would have scolded you for even suggesting something like that, you know. About the spare bunk thing. But now all I'm saying – no, all I'm asking – is that you hold onto that question until we find Echo and win this war. And then I'll say yes, if you still want me. Stars know I'm more than ready for that."
You nod against his shoulder, letting your heart rejoice at the notion that the man you used to love, the man you still do, has grown so much in your absence. Maybe your separation was not for good, but only a temporary setback, a lesson for you to learn that there is no life without one another.
"I'll be waiting patiently until then. Like I have been all this time."