Chapter Text
Rex brings the twins to Anakin, and makes Mereel and Jango wait on the couch while they get the babies to stop squalling. They are upset, screaming, and red in the face. Rex doesn’t care what the Mandalorians want. The kids come first.
He hands Anakin a blanket to cover up while feeding. Anakin rarely minds people seeing him nurse the twins, but something in Rex hates the idea of Mereel and Jango seeing it.
“So,” Rex says. He keeps his eyes on Mereel, and doesn’t look at Jango. Shmi is pressed into Rex’s side and trembling. “What brings you here?”
“I think you know,” Mereel says. “You look rather a lot like—”
“Let me rephrase,” Rex interrupts, because he has no mind for being polite right now, “how did you know where we were, or that we even exist?”
Jango is fidgeting, but Rex can’t see details from his peripherals.
Mereel is stupidly calm, and Rex is jealous. “We heard rumors of someone wandering around in armor that had blue, black, and grey in enough of a quantity that we had someone come by to find out if there was Kyr’tsad in the area, see if maybe we’d stumbled across a new base. They found out you were here, heard you had kids and no interest in bounties or getting involved in any kind of politics or law, and then saw your face and realized… well. You look a lot like Jango’s father. We thought maybe an uncle, or something. Jango says he doesn’t know enough about his grandfather to know if there was any chance of his father having siblings he’s never met.”
It's the sensible assumption. Wrong, but the truth isn’t going to be anyone’s first thought.
“I don’t want to get pulled into your war with Death Watch,” Rex says. “I’m not putting my kids at risk for you.”
“You’re Mandalorian!” Jango bursts out. “So that means—”
“I’m not,” Rex says. He waits for a second to see if either of the people across from him will object, but they don’t. Jango is frozen, and Mereel is… patient. Rex doesn’t like him. “My biological parent was a Mandalorian, but he never gave me or my brothers the grace of acknowledging us as his children, and the training we received may have been Mandalorian in culture, but we only got to learn the fighting and some of the language, but never to fluency, and never anything that wasn’t useful in battle. Even my armor is plastoid.”
“Brothers?” Mereel prompts.
“All dead,” Rex says. He ignores the wounded sound from Jango, like a little bubble of hope just got dashed.
Mereel makes a low hum of a noise, and says, “there are ways to become Mandalorian.”
“I’m not swearing the Resol’nare,” Rex carefully does not snap. “I am not swearing myself to you. Like I said, my own kids come first.”
The hand on Jango’s shoulder may well be the only thing keeping him from jumping up to pick a fight. Mereel is still so damnably calm. “I understand. That said, can we discuss some possibilities for having you in Jango’s life, as the only remaining blood relative?”
Rex purses his lips, and looks to Anakin. The twins, he thinks, are finished, and Shmi doesn’t feel as tense or scared as she did earlier.
“I’d prefer to have this conversation without the kids in the room,” Rex decides. Anakin twitches next to him. “Shmi, do you mind taking the twins to your room? If you’re okay with it, Jango could go with you and… I don’t know. Help you with one of your books? He’s a bit older than you, so he should know how to read.”
Jango looks offended. “I learned how to read years ago!”
I don’t care, Rex thinks. “Then you should be able to help her, yeah?”
Shmi leans away from Rex’s side to look at him, and then Anakin, and then back to Rex. There’s something calculating in her eye, but she nods. “Okay.”
She gets up, and grabs the hoverpram, and Anakin… well, he puts the babies down, which is more than Rex expected of him, honestly. He kind of expected a fight.
The kids leave. Anakin stays tense, and far away, and Rex listens for the closing of the door.
“So,” Mereel starts.
“I’m genetically engineered to age at twice the speed of a normal human,” Rex interrupts. Mereel, for the first time, actually looks shocked. “I’m not even fourteen yet. I’ll be an old man in twenty-five years, and probably dead ten after that. By the time my kids are grown, I’ll look old enough to be their grandfather.”
Mereel, to his credit, looks shocked and disturbed, but Rex sees no pity. “That’s… you’re not an uncle, then.”
“No,” Rex says, “but I don’t want to discuss my origins, and I don’t want the kid to know. I had no intention of forming a connection with him, but…”
The man leans forward, “but?”
“But you have better access to medical facilities than I have any hope of,” Rex says through grit teeth. “If you can find a way for me to grow old enough to meet my own grandkids, I’ll negotiate. Visitation or whatever.”
Mereel’s mouth twists to one side.
Rex doesn’t want to hear whatever it is that he’s going to say, but he can’t really justify cutting the man off.
“You know,” the Mand’alor says, “swearing yourself to me is a two-way street.”
“I’m not going to—”
“As reserves?” Mereel presses, “not to be called on for internal conflicts, just things that threaten all of Mandalore. Left alone outside of a full regional call to arms.”
Rex feels his frustration rising. Anakin leans past him and asks, “what do you mean, two-way street?”
“Should someone come for your family, you can call for help, and we will respond,” Mereel says. “If you are not pledged as a Mandalorian, I can only help in a personal capacity as a relative of sorts. If you are pledged, I can respond as Mand’alor.”
And… oh, that is tempting.
Devastatingly so.
“A moment?” Anakin murmurs, putting a hand on Rex’s shoulder. He stands, and pulls Rex along with him. They avoid Shmi’s room, and head to the kitchen instead. It’s not a secure place by any means, but it’s private enough for this.
Rex tries not overthink the paranoia the last few years have instilled in him.
Anakin holds him by the biceps. It’s meant to be reassuring, probably.
“We can say no,” Anakin says. “But… but I think if you want to get that gene therapy… he’s more likely to agree to a medic that isn’t legally obligated to tell him things if you agree to be in his reserves, right?”
It’s a point. An important one. Rex’s genome is a nightmare, if it ever gets out, and he’s already told Mereel part of the main issue.
“You think he’ll ask less about my past and the…” Rex trails off and finally just gestures to his own face.
Anakin shrugs. He doesn’t meet Rex’s eyes. “I don’t know, but it could be useful to have backup, if we need it, and… I don’t want to lose you before I have to, you know. Having someone we can kind of trust with your medical information to not sell us out for a quick credit is a good thing.”
Rex doesn’t want a lot of things, and aging faster than Anakin or the kids is a big one. The risk of getting called up as one of Mereel’s soldiers, though… “and the Force?”
“This is your decision, Rex.”
He doesn’t want it to be. “I want your input. It’s your family.”
“Our family, Rex,” Anakin insists. “And… I don’t know. I think Mereel is doing his best, at least with this situation. I don’t know the wider political stuff, but he seemed… genuine? About helping the kid. I don’t think he’d pull you in unless absolutely necessary.”
Rex was never as scared of death as he has been since he, sort of, became a parent.
“Do we tell them the truth?” Rex asks. “Jango, and maybe Mereel. Do we ever tell them about what… about where…”
About when.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Anakin says. His lips purse. “I… there’s one more thing, about the medical.”
“Yeah?”
Anakin doesn’t meet his eyes, and he hesitates, but he still says the words. “Padmé might have still been alive, if she’d seen a doctor instead of just a droid. I know there was Sith magic involved, but… but that didn’t help. And the kids aren’t going to know the version with that part until they’re older anyway, so as far as they’ll know, she died from medical complications, and seeing you get older that fast…”
They’ll worry for him.
Rex doesn’t know how to feel about the way Anakin may or may not be manipulating him, but at least it’s pretty transparent.
Closing his eyes, Rex nods. “For the kids.”
“And for you,” Anakin says. He squeezes Rex’s arms, and it’s as grounding as he probably intends. Rex appreciates it either way. “Don’t forget about that part.”
--
The story they give Mereel is more truthful than the one they’ll give Jango, but less truthful than the one they’ll give the medic. All three will be less of a truth than what they keep to themselves and may, one day, give the Jedi.
“So… an uncle,” Jango summarizes.
“It’s complicated, but we’ll go with that,” Rex says. He doesn’t want to say it, but the kid is a kid, so, “you can call me ba’vodu, if you like.”
(Even if Rex was running live fire drills at his chronological age…)
“Rex Fett?” Mereel prompts.
Hell no. “Rex Torrent.”
Jango makes a face, but he’s at least got enough manners not to press. “Does that make the little ones my cousins?”
“…sure?” Rex doesn’t know enough about natborn families. If he’s an uncle, then by definition, they’ll be cousins. If he remembers correctly. “You’ll be seeing them whenever you see me, I guess.”
Jango eyes Shmi, who eyes him back. They don’t exactly seem like best friends, but there hadn’t been any shouting or violence, so Rex is calling it a win.
Anakin’s already busied himself tucking a sniffling Luke into his neck and trying to shush the kid. Leia is blissfully content in her hoverpram.
“Is there a word for cousin in Mando’a?” Shmi asks.
“Yes,” Mereel says, before Rex can answer that he isn’t entirely sure himself, “ali’vod is the word for cousin, with different modifiers dependent on the level of distance between branches. That said, we usually just say vod, unless it’s relevant. You’re family of the same generation, so it’s not too different.”[1]
That’s pretty easy. Annoying, to Rex personally, but he’s got a lot of baggage and very little of it is in the realm of shit anyone but him should be dealing with.
Jango and Shmi are watching each other again. Rex has no idea what they’ve decided is the dynamic here. So long as it’s not actively antagonistic, it’s… probably fine?
“Comm number?” Anakin prompts Mereel. “Or is there a better way to get in contact?”
“I was hoping Jango and I could spend a day or two here so he could get to know you,” under my supervision so I know you’re not Death Watch, Mereel does not add, “and we could get some details squared away.”
“Like?” Rex asks.
“Getting in a medic, to confirm your actual relation,” Mereel says, “and for the other thing you mentioned. Want to make sure you’re not just a lookalike.”
“We’ll need to talk about the level of secrecy the medic can have from you,” Rex says. “I don’t want a doctor that can be forced to disclose the details of my body to the Mand’alor.”
Mereel considers this, and then says, “I can think of a few that are beholden to the Republic’s disclosure and privacy laws while otherwise loyal to me. One of them is on the ship right now, even.”
Rex doesn’t want to hope, but the timing would… maybe match up. The man he’s thinking of was older than Prime, by a decade and change. It’s possible. “You got a name?”
“Wie’jul,” damn, “and he’s got a second, Gilamar.”
Wait. Really? “Either of them trained in gene therapy?”
A pause. “Not sure about Wie’jul, but the assistant did most of his training in the Core.”
“Gilamar, then.” Thank fuck. Rex doesn’t know what the man was like at this age, but he’s at least a little more sure of being able to trust, now.
“The man’s only twenty.”
“If he’s better at genetics, then he’s better for what we need,” Rex says. “Not going to share more in front of the kids, sir.”
Shmi looks concerned. She keeps looking between Rex and Mereel like someone’s going to get hit.
Jango just looks annoyed. “You’re supposed to call him alor.”
“Like hell,” Rex deadpans. “If I’m not actively following him into battle, he’s not my leader. Reserve troops means I get to reserve titles.”
“That’s not how it works,” Mereel points out.
Rex gives him the flattest look he can.
Mereel actually snorts. “Fine. And as for the choice of doctor, it’s your call, I suppose. I’ll let Gilamar know and check with him that he’s got the required certs before I ask him to come into the house.”
“You do that,” Anakin interjects, “but for now, please get out. Leia needs to be changed, and they both need to nap.”
That too.
[1] Ali’vod – made from aliit (clan) and vod (sibling)
The usage of ‘vod’ for all relations of same generation is based on how we do it in Serbian. I refer to my brother, my cousin, and my second cousin as brat, and then only clarify with ‘of/through aunt’ (brat od tetke) or ‘of/through uncle’ (brat od strica) if it’s relevant, and even that’s not fully informative because, well, the uncle in question is my dad’s cousin, not my dad’s brother.