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The universe has a funny way of bringing things full circle, Ahsoka thinks, when she’s 17 and joining Anakin and Obi-Wan and Rex and the 501st once again for one more campaign.
This is home and family, these people who she cares about so much. (So Many gone in her absence.)
They still call her “Sir” and “Commander”.
And then…
Rex calls it crude, and by clone armor standards, it kind of is.
But it’s more than that.
It’s her face. Her color and theirs.
(She’s wearing their color, herself.)
“[It’s perfect, Rex,]” she says. Something always loosens in Rex’s voice, but it’s even more stark a contrast after all this time apart. And it gets her what she wants.
There are few positive titles in their language, Anakin’s biggest influence on the language.
“[Welcome home, Ahsoka,]” Rex says.
And she really feels it.
The universe has a funny way of bringing things full circle, Ahsoka thinks, as she feels her new sabers in her hands.
Well, old sabers, but different. Tied together with Anakin in so many new ways.
“Good as new… Maybe a little better,” Anakin jokes, but all Ahsoka can feel is the grief and love within the blades at Anakin’s influence. She’s missed him.
“Now, are you ready?”
Ahsoka smirks.
“Born ready, Anakin,” she says. “Let’s take this planet back!”
The universe has a funny way of bringing things full circle. Anakin’s love and loss are left behind in her two blades when she runs, and when she separates from Rex.
Rex…
They promise to find each other, eventually, and they will, they do …
Officially, he works for the Empire, now. Unofficially, he gives her information bites. Nothing too big.
“[I’m not ready for another war, yet, love,]” he says, and Ahsoka doesn’t fight him on it.
Too much.
But she must be pushing too far because…
Fate has a funny way of bringing things full circle. Two clones who didn’t kill their Jedi kill another on the inside.
“Ahsoka, I don’t want to be a spy!”
“And why not?” Ahsoka asks. “Rex, there’s only so much I can do. [The Master grows more powerful, enslaves more people, and you’re too much of a coward to even twist stories?]”
She hadn’t even realized she’d slipped into Their Language. But she does realize just what she’d said.
“Rex, I…”
“I said no, Commander,” Rex says. Ahsoka doesn’t even argue with him, this time.
She leaves without another word.
And, when she tries to call… no one answers.
(But that part wasn’t Rex.)
Fate has a funny way of bringing things full circle because Rex finally comes back just as Ahsoka needs him most.
Because no one else can know her suspicions and understand what it means to even consider it…
“[I’d known they were falling apart,]” Rex says. “[But I could never have imagined them forgetting themself.]”
“[Neither could I,]” Ahsoka says. “[I don’t want it to be true. Because, if it is…]”
“[If it is, they’ve destroyed themself in every way,]” Rex says. “[And many others.]”
Ahsoka sighs.
“[Exactly.]”
Fate has a funny way of bringing things full circle, and to an end, Ahsoka thinks, as she faces Vader, no… as she faces Anakin. There’s no mistaking his voice, his face, even with the scars and the glowing golden eye.
She’d met Anakin, then she’d met Rex.
“You’re stuck with me, Skyguy.”
“In my book, experience outranks everything.”
She’s said goodbye to Rex… and now to Anakin.
“Well then I definitely outrank you.”
Vader won’t let her live through this, and she won’t join him.
“I won’t leave you,” she says, anyways. “Not this time.”
“Then you will die .”
Fate… is a funny thing.