Work Text:
Dogma kills General Pong Krell, traitor, murderer, Darksider, and he thinks “This is it”. This is the end of his story. He thinks he will be decommissioned, sent back to Kamino for the cloners to dissect and study and search where he went wrong.
He thinks it’s a cheap price to pay for avenging his brothers and he keeps that thought in his heart, like hot burning coals warming him against the cold of his future death. He almost doesn’t speak, from Umbara to Coruscant, from brigs to cells. He obeys, waits. The second he killed Krell, he knew he would die for it.
That doesn’t mean he’s not stressed enough for his muscles to feel like stone when the door of his cell opens. It’s the middle of the night on Coruscant, lights in the prison block went out only two hours before. He thought he would have more time before getting shipped out to Kamino but he still gets up from the hard bunk. He killed Krell and never imagined there wouldn’t be payback. He has no intention to beg but the silhouette that enters the cell is wearing Jedi’s garb and pushes the cowl back.
“General Kenobi!” He has never met the man in person but every clone knows the face of the man commanding the Third Army and there is no mistaking the red hair, the beard and the grey eyes, piercing as the gaze of bird of prey. He seems smaller in person and the dark rings under his eyes age him: in that instant he looks as old as Dogma feels, but the second their eyes meet he smiles and there is gentleness there.
“Dogma, I presume? Please, come with me.” And Dogma follows. What could he do otherwise?
The small ship they board is not exactly what he imagined. It’s a two person ship, first, it’s a Jedi ship, it’s very much not the transport he was waiting for. Automatically, he sits in the co-pilot chair and helps in the take-of. They work in silence diligently, and it’s only when they are orbiting the planet that Dogma opens his mouth again:
“Sir?”
“Hmmm?” is the vague answer, from where Kenobi is programming a jump.
“Are you the one taking me to Kamino?”
“For Force’s sake, is that what you …”
Kenobi abandons the computer, turns until he faces Dogma.
“There were… noises about you going back to Kamino. In fact, the Chancellor’s office is pushing for it. But your Captain talked to Anakin, who in turn talked to me. We are not waiting for the bureaucrats to decide in which hole they want you buried. We’re living in busy times: we’re reassigning you to the farthest unit we could find and if they want to take you out of it, they will need to do it themselves. After all, with how busy the Jedi Order is, we certainly couldn’t find the time.”
“Is that not… obstruction?”
“Terribly busy, as I said,“ Kenobi quips, then become serious once again.
“You killed a Darksider. You did what Jedi should have done and failed to. We didn’t even see his Fall. No member of the Order will give you up. No member of the Order will do anything but help you, in whatever capacity we still can. And if we don’t have enough power right now, politically, to obtain your pardon, we have been playing that game a long time already.”
He puts his hand on Dogma’s shoulder, hesitates, and pats it in what he’s probably trying to make a reassuring way but is only awkward, then goes back to the computer.
If Dogma’s training where less efficient, he would probably hyperventilate.
He will live.
And now what?
And now…
And now…
And now, General Jinn.
They make contact somewhere in the Outer Rim, farther away from civilization than Dogma ever thought possible.
General Jinn is more than two meters tall, limping when he doesn’t wear a brace and still running quicker than should be possible for his weight, as graceful and lethal as any Jedi when his green saber comes out.
General Jinn leads a small strike team of clones, most of them Arc Troopers, but not all of them, and not only does he never adhere to proper procedure, he seems to revel in it.
General Jinn swears like Wolffe on bad days but quotes poetry from extinct worlds in the evenings.
General Jinn doesn’t seem to follow a proper plan but in the ten days General Kenobi and Dogma spend with his team they dismantle a cartel, save a farmer’s family from a slaver’s ring and cause a lot of explosions. Really, really, really a lot.
“Our small bunch of misfits, not proper enough for civilization, not proper for the Core,” General Jinn would say and you could think there was an accusation in his words, for the way General Kenobi refused to meet his gaze.
“This is not obligatory,” General Kenobi would insist to Dogma. “This is a very dangerous posting and different probably from everything you were trained for. You can come back with me to the Core and we will help you hide somewhere else.”
Dogma stays. He doesn’t think the Core would help. Here, he can pretend his feeling of loss is because he doesn’t know the brothers and everything is done on the fly, instead of using the proper procedures. He can pretend the nightmares are because of the missions, dangerous and crazy, even by Arc Trooper standards, and not because of Umbara.
After a month the brothers seem to decree that he has played lone wolf long enough and he’s included in the rotation of sleeping mates.
“I’m not… I don’t…” he stutters, blushing like a fair maiden in a holodrama, the first time one of them joins him in his bunk.
“Oh shut up, I’m not after your virtue,” Slick says. Is his name Slick? Did he really spend one month with them without remembering their names? Sometimes he thinks he hasn’t come out of Umbara’s mist. Slick sleeps against him and Dogma admits it helps.
And little by little, he emerges from the mist. General Jinn insists on teaching him meditation. His Arc brothers teach him new moves in hand to hand. Slick lectures him in his political views, changing every week and with only the fact that they are always extreme in common!
They steal a pirate ship and Dogma paints its silhouette on the backside of his armour.
There is a crime syndicate and then a separatist spy and then an old Sith Temple, General Adi Gallia going with them for that one. There is some unpleasantness with a Hutt’s organization and they need to leave that world very quickly. There is the capture of Presidente Shu Mai, who Master Windu himself comes to collect.
He stays and he starts to like it. As disorganized as it seems in the beginning, there are rules, if unwritten ones. His brothers that felt crazy in the beginning are now good friends.
General Jinn is still totally crazy but Dogma would put his fist in anybody’s face for daring to say it.
He’s their general.
And then Obi-Wan Kenobi comes to them to ask for their help, to save the Duchess of Mandalore.
They go, of course, but now that he’s better, Dogma sees what he hadn’t before.
“What’s the problem between the Generals?” he asks one night. Since Kenobi’s been there, Jinn has stopped eating with them, and is spending almost all his time alone.
He’s always in the background, pretending he’s not observing Kenobi. And when Jinn is busy, Kenobi is in the background, pretending he’s not observing the older man. They haven’t exchanged more than twenty words in a week.
Slick shrugs.
“Apparently, bad blood. The General trained Kenobi and whatever happened, they’re not on speaking terms.”
“But he brought me here. And he came to the General for help when the Council refused to help Mandalore.”
“Well, apparently, speaking or not, he knew the General would still accept your ugly mug if he was the one asking.”
“You’re jealous because I’m the prettiest of the team,” is Dogma’s answer, but his heart isn’t in it and he goes to Kenobi, later in the night.
Kenobi has aged ten years more in nine months and he needs a second to recognize Dogma, but he still smiles when he does.
“How’s life treating you here?”
“Good, General. I wanted to thank you.”
“No nee…”
“Yes, there is,” Dogma interrupts. Look at him. Interrupting a Jedi. Slick and the others are a bad influence. They would be so proud!
“Whatever happens, I had a second chance. I won’t throw it away. Do you know how many people have one? From what I’ve seen of the galaxy, it’s pretty rare, and for natural born it’s the same as clones.” He swallows. “I can die tomorrow and it will be with no regrets, because I took that chance. So, thank you, Sir.” And he leaves the tent, without letting Obi-Wan dismiss him.
Then he doesn’t have time anymore to think about the Generals because Death Watch attacks the camp.
What follows are four days very similar to what life is usually like with General Jinn. There are things exploding left and right, they crash a ship, another, a third. Dogma is almost decapitated by a crazy guy with mechanical legs and horns and a dark saber. There is a beautiful redhead woman with the worst character he had ever seen and he’s friend with Slick. There is a blond Duchess, regal and hurt and human and only General Jinn’s powers in the Living Force, whatever that is, save her from death.
After, he enjoys his first bender, something that waited way too long, if you listen to Slick, and he wakes up with the redhead woman. She seems to suffer from the same headache as him and isn’t vexed when he needs to ask her name again.
Bo-Katan Kryze is the best shooter he has seen in the natural born soldiers, not interested in more and knows where the best caf is.
If he was inclined to that sort of thing, he would fall in love. It was still an interesting experience and he doesn’t regret it, but he’s now sure it’s not for him. They’re making their way through the palace, still full of rubble and traces of yesterday’s battle, when a door opens in a supposedly closed off area.
They’re not trying to spy, ok? It’s just that it’s reflex to go silent and observe.
But it’s not enemies, not a third crazy Zabrak or anything like that.
Just the Generals, speaking slowly. They probably only just woke up too: General Jinn is not wearing his brace yet and General Kenobi is only wearing one layer of tunics.
Dogma opens his mouth to salute, but Bo-Katan’s hand stops him.
And then General Kenobi stands on tiptoe and kisses the other Jedi, full on the mouth. It really doesn’t seem shy and from where he stands Dogma can hear the noises General Jinn makes and he really, really would prefer not to!
The Generals part ways, leaving the two indiscreet observers alone in the hallway.
Dogma really needs that caf.