Chapter Text
Ahsoka’s hands were coated in dust and grit as she scaled the cliff beside Rex. Nearly spent, she looked up to the top of the cliff. It seemed to taunt her—so close and yet so far.
Beside her, Rex rested for a moment on a ledge, similarly exhausted. She flashed him a smirk that didn’t match her trembling limbs. “Tired already?”
His eyes narrowed at her, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “I’m not the one with limbs that look like bantha jelly.”
She snorted, shifting said limbs to bring her to the ledge he stood on. She let out a sigh of relief as her feet settled on stable ground.
“The General,” Rex said, “owes me so many drinks for this.”
“Drinks, or next time he can lug himself up a-”
Searing pain shot through her shoulder, and she staggered backward, feet slipping off the ledge. Rex aimed his blaster and one-two shot down a commando droid with a sniper rifle. He turned toward her as she stumbled, as her feet sought hold on ground that was no longer beneath her, a look of horror coming over his expression. She plummeted, desperately grabbing for a cliff face that was too far away—
Her arm was nearly jerked out of its socket as Rex lunged to catch her, slipping off the ledge himself as he caught her arm. She let out a cry of pain.
“Shit,” Rex hissed, eyes wide. “Hang on, I–”
He held on to the edge of the ledge with one hand, her arm with another. He tried to pull them both up, but an hour of vertical climbing had taken its toll. His arm shook as it tried to pull their weight, to no avail. Ahsoka could feel the blaster wound stretching as she held onto Rex for dear life, body dangling over air. The ground was hundreds of feet away.
Rex was still trying to pull them back up to the ledge, iron determination etched into his features. But his persistence was only met with failure. He couldn’t pull them both up.
His fingers slipped an inch on the ledge, and he gave a grunt of effort. “Come on.”
“Rex,” Ahsoka said quietly. He didn’t look at her.
“Can you comm the General? He can send someone to pick us up–”
“Rex,” she said again.
His fingers slipped again, and he cursed, low and vicious, the way he did very rarely. He looked down at her, and she read the fear in his eyes. For her, she realized. She gauged the distance to the ground again.
“You know Anakin won’t get here in time.”
His hand tightened on her arm, but she knew he understood their situation. He glanced toward the ground, then back at her, and her heart broke at the guilt and resignation that ebbed from his Force signature. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.”
She swallowed, resisting the urge to look at the ground once more. “You have to let me go.”
“No,” he said between gritted teeth. “We don’t leave men behind. You should know that by now, vod’ika.”
The term was reassurance where there could be none, and she smiled for his benefit. “I won’t die,” she said, projecting confidence she didn’t feel. “I can slow myself down with the Force.”
A half-truth, and he knew it. She was exhausted, not to mention sporting a blaster burn to pull her focus away.
“I’m not letting go,” he said. His hand slipped on the ledge again.
She pressed her fingers into his bracer. “If you don’t let me go,” she said, “we’re both going to die. Anakin would kill us in the afterlife.”
He didn’t laugh, not that she expected him to. His lips thinned. “I’m not dropping my superior officer. You’re not expendable.”
The end of that statement lingered between them. I am.
“You are not expendable, either,” Ahsoka said with venom that surprised even herself. “You have to get back to them. Then you can send Anakin back for me.” She looked at him hard, and tried to convey her resolve. She could survive. And Rex would survive, even if she was wrong about herself. The 501st needed him. Anakin needed him. He couldn’t lose both of them to one scouting mission.
Rex read all of these thoughts in her eyes, and shook his head at her. He had always been stubborn. “Let me go, Rex,” she said gently.
His expression crumbled. “I won’t.”
Stubborn, indeed, and Ahsoka knew what she had to do, now. She smiled at him, and he glared down at her, keeping her arm in a bone-crushing grip. “Don’t.”
But she did. She hit at his arm, using what little strength she had left to pull the Force to her aid.
His grip loosened, and she slipped through his fingertips.
“AHSOKA!”
Ahsoka fell.