Chapter Text
When Kix stepped out of the med bay, his entire body quivering, Jesse couldn’t help but fear the worst, his stomach clenching in uneasy knots as his cyare simply stood there, quivering uncontrollably while the durasteel doors to the med bay hissed shut with a terrifying finality.
Fives, apparently, agreed.
The ARC Trooper moved forward, his face displaying all the emotions Jesse currently felt raging through his own mind – fear, terror, heartbreak, confusion, apprehension.
Kix stopped him with a shaking hand.
“He isn’t… I mean, he can’t be… He’s not…?”
Fives seemed incapable of forming a full sentence – but it didn’t seem to matter.
They all knew what Fives was asking.
Tup, who had moved forward to lean against Fives in the silence. Jesse, whose gaze was still fixed with an unwavering intensity on Kix’s form.
“He’s alive,” Kix confirmed quietly.
Their collective sighs of relief seemed thunderous after the tense silence.
“But?”
Jesse knew better than that – knew that Kix wasn’t standing out here, shaking and hurting, because Rex was alive. Knew that under the usual circumstances, he’d likely be rampaging through the med bay, cursing their beloved alor’ad for whatever hard-headed thing he had done now – perhaps even calling Commander Cody to complain about Rex’s empty bucket.
Jesse had seen it before.
“He thinks we hate him,” Kix choked out.
“He… what?”
“Haran, Jesse, he thinks we blame him for Umbara!”
Kix broke at that, a rough sob ripping out of his chest as he stumbled into Jesse’s waiting arms. Jesse wrapped the baar’ur – his cyare – up without hesitation, pulling him tight against his own chest, even as his mind reeled.
He was not alone.
“How could he think that?” Tup breathed, clearly horrified. “He – he saved us!”
“Not all of us,” Kix sniffled. “He had the casualty lists open, before he collapsed…”
“Hardcase, Waxer, Dogma,” Fives murmured. “And before that, Ringo and Oz…”
“Umbara was a karking nightmare,” Jesse agrees, peering down at Kix. “But that doesn’t explain why Rex thinks we hate him.”
“He blames himself, and he thinks that we do too,” Kix explained. “Kark, think about it!”
And Jesse does – truly thinks about it.
Let me be clear about the punishment for the treason committed by ARC trooper 5555 and CT-5597: they will be court-martialed, they will be found guilty, and they will be executed!
Rex could be forgiven, Jesse thinks, for believing that Jesse and Fives were angry with him – perhaps even hated him – for sentencing them to death.
But even that had been Krell – they all knew that.
It had all been Krell.
“I can handle this, sir,” Jesse ground out, his focus fixed on Kix’s sobbing form. “You can go.”
His words were directed at Rex, and they were short, clipped. Angry.
“Jesse –” Rex tried.
“Not now, sir,” Jesse growled. “Usenye.”
Jesse had never apologized for those short, clipped words and the insult that followed – had assumed that Rex knew he’d been worried for his cyare. Assumed that the Captain understood that, despite his frustration, Jesse didn’t blame him for the terrors Krell inflicted.
“Kark,” Fives muttered under his breath. “I – I kept telling him that Krell was using him – I wouldn’t back down. Kept arguing with him about standing up to that demagolka, about making different choices…”
Jesse sighs.
“It wasn’t just you, vod,” Jesse reassured the distraught ARC trooper. “I’ve been… short with him. Never said the things I should have said.”
Kix nodded against Jesse chest before he pushed away, looking around at the gathered vod’e.
“We need to make this right,” Kix said firmly.
“So, let’s go talk to him,” Tup agreed, moving towards the med bay doors with a confidence he couldn’t possibly feel. Karking vod’ika and their never-ending enthusiasm.
“Ahsoka is with him,” Kix sighed. “And while she’s not quite as… protective as she was in the mess hall, she’s still keyed up. I doubt she’ll let us near him if she thinks we’re going to upset him even more.”
“She’d do the same for any of us,” Fives observed quietly.
For several long moments, they stood in silence, remembering when Ahsoka had done the same for them – refusing to leave her vod’e behind as they slowly succumbed to the Blue Shadow Virus, curling around Fives in his bunk as he sobbed his heartbreak, shielding him from prying eyes, demanding that Skywalker take Lucky to say his remembrances for Ringo.
Finally, it was Jesse who spoke up.
“I – I have an idea,” he said, almost nervously.
Kix nodded encouragingly, silently urging his cyare on.
“Kix, if I know Rex, he hasn’t been taking care of himself,” Jesse guessed, earning himself another nod from Kix. “Go get him whatever you think he needs from the mess – food, caf, whatever you think we have a chance of actually getting him to consume.”
Kix nodded and skipped away without another word, not waiting to watch Jesse turn to Fives and Tup.
“And since I doubt that Kix is letting Rex out of the med bay anytime soon, you two are in charge of making his stay comfortable,” Jesse continued. “Extra pillows, blankets, all the good contraband Rex claims he doesn’t know about – grab what you can and bring it back with you.”
“Pillows, blankets, candy, booze – got it,” Fives listed off.
“Not booze, he’s injured, you di’kut,” Tup grumbled, shrugging out of Fives’ hold to turn back to Jesse. “What are you going to be doing?”
“I have a call to make.”
~~~
Rex turned his head, careful not to jostle Ahsoka, as the durasteel doors to the med bay slipped open. He was fully prepared for another dressing down from Kix – what he was not prepared for was General Anakin Skywalker sweeping into the med bay, looking equal parts determined and uncomfortable.
“General, sir,” Rex acknowledged, trying in vain to figure out how he could move to stand at attention – or at least karking sit up – without disturbing the sleeping togruta wrapped around him.
Thankfully, Skywalker waved him off.
“Don’t get up, Rex,” Skywalker added. “I heard you’re on bedrest, and its not you I’m here to see.”
Again, Rex glanced down at Ahsoka, still peacefully slumbering at his side.
“My apologies, sir,” Rex said. “She was worried – refused to leave, actually – so I thought it better that she at least gets some sleep here, rather than none at all.”
Internally, Rex cringed at his own formality – and thinly veiled deception – but Skywalker merely shrugged, his own eyes twinkling with something that Rex would almost call… mirth.
“I know how important you and the others are to her, Rex,” Skywalker replied gently. “She might not be ready to talk to me about it yet, but… I understand. More than she realizes.”
About her attachment to the clones.
About being welcomed among the vod’e as aliit.
Maybe even about her doubts in the Order, about her place among the jetii.
Skywalker said none of those things, but Rex heard them anyways – curtly nodded his understanding as he looked down at his vod’ika, then shook her softly, rousing her from her sleep.
“Rex?” Ahsoka murmured sleepily.
“Time to get up, vod’ika,” Rex said softly, his voice pitched low and soft. “General Skywalker is here for you.”
Ahsoka grumbled at that, refusing to move for a moment before the words settled in and she jolted upright.
“Master!” Ahsoka yelped.
“At ease, Snips,” Skywalker chuckled. “We’re needed on the bridge shortly – I know you’ve had a long night, so I’ll do my best not to keep you long.”
Ahsoka flushed at that, the blue of her lekku darkening as she pushed herself up to standing.
“You could have just sent a com, Skyguy,” Ahsoka griped as she tried – in vain – to straighten her battle dress and arm wraps.
“Awe, but where’s the fun in that?” Skywalker snipped right back, already turning to leave. Ahsoka paused before following, her eyes on Rex.
“You’ll be okay?” she asked.
Rex had no choice but to nod.
“Of course, Commander,” Rex replied, his tone firm as he reminded her of their roles – of their duty. Ahsoka sighed and rolled her eyes before trotting after her Master, a snarky, “Don’t cause any trouble while I’m gone” thrown over her shoulder before the med bay doors closed.
The moment she and Skywalker were out of sight, Rex looked around the med bay. Coric, for his part, had long since fallen asleep at his desk, and Rex was the only clone in the med bay at the moment, leaving his path to escape surprisingly clear.
He wouldn’t be able to go back to his bunk though – that would be the first place that Kix would check when he discovered him missing from the med bay. No, he’d be better off heading for Obi-wan’s room – the jetii likely wouldn’t mind, and Rex would make sure to set everything back in its place before he left. Though, technically speaking, this wasn’t Obi-wan’s room – he was just aboard the Resolute so frequently that one of the quarters normally left empty for diplomats and visiting jetii has unofficially become his.
“We leave you alone for two kriffing minutes and you’re already plotting your escape,” Kix growled as the med bay doors slid open again, revealing the baar’ur and his closest allies – namely Jesse, Fives, and Tup – arms laden with an odd assortment of parcels and linens. Coric jolted awake at the sound of Kix irate voice, looking around wildly.
“Kix, sir,” Coric tried, but Kix just waved him off.
“Go sleep in a proper bunk, vod,” Kix encouraged. “We’ve got our alor’ad in hand.”
Coric muttered something unintelligible as he slipped away, clearly eager to escape what promised to be a bloodbath.
“Kix,” Rex said tiredly, already mentally preparing to the dressing down that he knew was coming. Instead, he found himself engulfed in a hug.
“You’re a complete di’kut, did you know that?” Kix grumbled when he pulled away several minutes later. “I honestly didn’t think this had to be said, but apparently you utreekov need these things laid out plainly.”
“Kix,” Jesse growled warningly from a nearby bunk, where he was doing… something.
“We don’t hate you, Rex,” Kix continued, his voice softening. “I never blamed you for the choices that you were forced to make on Umbara. I always knew that those orders were coming from Krell, and that you hated them just as much as I did.”
“I don’t hate you either,” Tup added brightly from over Kix’s shoulder. “You saved us on Umbara, sir. Ran onto an active battlefield unarmed and without your bucket to save us and our vod’e – didn’t even hesitate to put yourself in danger because it meant keeping us safe.”
“Jesse and I knew the consequences of our decisions,” Fives added. “Knew that you wouldn’t be able to stop Krell if he chose to court-martial us – or worse – for what we did. Never expected you to, and never hated you for giving the order.”
“I kriffing hate Krell for it, but not you, Rex,” Jesse added. “Never hated you. Always knew that you had done everything you could to keep us alive – even when we seemed to have a jaro. Kark, you tried to take the blame for the entire thing.”
Rex sat in silence, listening to each of his vod’e, his mind just… blank. Unbelieving. Untrusting. But his vod’e, they seemed to understand that he needed time – that he needed to see that they meant the words they had said.
“I got us all first meal from the mess,” Kix explained, gesturing to what Jesse had been unpacking – trays of food and take-away cups of still warm caf. “I – we – thought that we could eat together, if you want?”
Kix was hesitant as he spoke, but his companions clearly had no intention of taking no for an answer – indeed, Fives and Tup were already pushing to unoccupied cot to his left over, so that it sat flush against Rex’s cot, and Jesse deposited Rex’s food on his lap, quickly followed by a cup of caf pressed into his hand, nearly as soon as Kix finished speaking.
“General Skywalker didn’t actually need Ahsoka, did he?” Rex asked no one in particular.
Jesse scoffed from where he was settling in on the unoccupied cot the Rex’s right, food tray perched precariously on his crossed legs.
“I’m sure he’ll come up with something adequately important,” was Jesse’s somewhat smug non-answer.
Fives chuckled from where he was now settled with his own meal, Tup already digging into his food at his side, ever the ravenous shiny he insisted that he wasn’t.
And really, he wasn’t – not after Umbara.
“You need to paint your armour,” Rex blurted suddenly, eyes fixed on Tup. “You – you’re not a shiny anymore.”
“Once you’re out of the med bay,” Tup agreed. “Fives and Jesse have been talking about needing to touch up their paint, too.”
“It’ll be nice to finally see you all kitted up in 501st blue,” Fives admitted, then dropped his voice low to whisper something else in Tup’s ear that had him flushing bright red.
“Give the adiik a break, Fives!” Kix admonished, launching a pillow across the cots at the ARC Trooper.
Despite himself, Rex laughed, a genuine smile cracking his face as he watched his vod’e bicker and flirt and generally wreak havoc.
He had missed his aliit.
~~~
Ahsoka slipped back into the med bay, already reading to grumble and complain about the never-ending list of inane and completely unnecessary tasks that Anakin had sent her on, only to stop dead at the sight before her.
They had pushed two cots flush with Rex’s, essentially turning the entire thing into a giant pile of pillows, blankets, and vod’e.
Rex was fast asleep on his own cot, Tup tucked under one arm, Kix’s head resting on his other side. Fives was sleeping practically on top of Tup, arm stretched to drape across Rex and hold his hip, while Jesse had curled himself around Kix’s back, his face nuzzled into the medic’s neck.
Ahsoka couldn’t help the soft smile that crept onto her face at the sight of them.
She waited until she had slipped back out of the med bay before calling Anakin.
“Which one of them had you send me on a wild tooka hunt?” Ahsoka demanded.
Her vod’e may look adorable all curled up, but she was still going to have some shebs to kick later.