Snowed In (Rex)

                                    

                                          
Summary: Rex and his Jedi SO get stranded on Ilum in the middle of a bad snowstorm, but it turns out to be just the Life Day gift they were hoping for.
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"Like I said, we'll try to get back to you guys tonight if we can. But I don't think that's likely."
Obi-Wan and Anakin frowned at me from the small projection on my wrist communicator in sync.
"Are you sure? We barely left a hour ago. Has it really gotten that much worse?"
I started nodding before Anakin had even finished the question.
"I almost lost Rex in his white armor when he went outside to scout before I called you. He was five feet from me. I spit and it froze almost before it cleared my lips."
"Why did you spit?" Obi-Wan asked, his frown deepening. This time it was Anakin and I's turn to give him a look in perfect sync.
"To see how bad it was by how quickly it froze," Anakin answered for me. "What else?"
Obi-Wan didn't dignify that with a response, just an eyeroll.
"Alright," he said, moving past Anakin and I's conversation. "If you aren't able to get off-planet by tomorrow morning, call us again. We'll come back with more equipment and find a way to dig you out."
I nodded. "Sounds good. I'll check in with you guys in the morning. Hopefully you won't have to make the trip back, but if you do... make a pitstop to grab some flame throwers from Ki-Adi-Mundi."
Obi-Wan huffed a laugh, while Anakin looked much too excited beside him.
"Hopefully, that won't be necessary," Obi-Wan said. "Stay warm and stay safe."
"Will do."
"See you tomorrow with flame throwers."
I snorted and gave the boys a little wave at Anakin's sign-off. Hopefully for everyone involved, this storm would clear and we'd be able to get out of here without Anakin needing to go within a lightyear of a flamethrower.
I sighed, surveying the space Rex and I would be occupying for the rest of the evening. We'd been here following a few strange feelings in the Force Obi-Wan, Anakin, and I had had surrounding Ilum, one of the best and only places in the galaxy to get the crystals for our lightsabers. For fear of the Separatists trying to mess with the place, Obi-Wan and Anakin had come with Rex and I, along with a good portion of the 501st, had come to investigate. We'd searched high and low and mediated on it at length, and thankfully, found nothing amiss. We'd taken our time moving everybody out, since we had no reason to rush, and Rex and I had planned to be the last out after doing one last check of the crystal sites and making sure none of our men left anything behind. We'd done both of those things, but we'd also ended up catching the beginning of one of the planet's worst snow storms.
Luckily for us, we'd set up a nice camp in a spacious, well-protected ice cave. It had been our whole group's base of operations while on planet, and now Rex and I had it all to ourselves. We hadn't even had to rebuild the fire.
In a weird way, this was exactly what Rex and I had been looking for. Despite some of the stricter interpretations of Jedi rules, throughout the course of the war, Rex and I had slowly but surely fallen in love with each other. We'd come to the mutual decision to act on those feelings a while ago, but between the need for secrecy and the galactic conflict we found ourselves in the middle of, we didn't get a lot of time to spend however we wanted, just the two of us, without interruptions.
"It's official," came Rex's voice, returning from his scouting at the mouth of the cave. He came into sight a moment later, stopping with his hands on his hips. "Looks like we're snowed in."