Chapter Text
Sometimes Cody thought to himself that, if it all hadn’t been absolutely soul-crushing, the turnabout of things would’ve had the potential to be very, very funny. If morbidly so. It was always something morbid with them. This time, it was the sheer time-stopping confusion amidst losses they'd never even imagined before - beyond their worst nightmares, that was, the ones that left them staring bug-eyed at the wall, their mouths open but their voices gone, only able to mutter, senselessly, over and over - What? How? Why?
The end of the Wars was supposed to flip the Galaxy upside down. Turn it inside out, perhaps. Everyone knew that winning couldn't just magically fix every death they dealt with, stitch up every open wound fighting had carved into them, but it was supposed to be a start. It was supposed to be the first big victory in the line of fights they’d go on to fight, fights that were leagues above those in the field - because, finally, they’d be fighting for themselves. No more carrying the whole Galaxy on their shoulders.
And yet. Well, truly, turn the Galaxy inside out it did. The entirely wrong way. Leaving nothing but more bodies in its wake, more death, more suffering, and not a single victory in sight. Hardly any brothers to fight for, not even Generals to lead them. All their minds were scattered, their battalions torn to shreds, they were lucky if they managed to stay alive, much less free themselves from the newly formed clone meat-grinder that called itself the Empire. Much less get around to joining the Rebellion.
But, in the end, that’s what a lot of them did, when they got themselves free. Because fighting was familiar. Because it was a rhythm their blood and their hearts knew since they were decanted. Because it was old, and it was tried and tested and even if it hurt, at least it hurt the way they already knew it would. And if brothers all around were dying, well, it was never any other way. And the more days went by, the clearer it seemed that it never would be any other way.
Cody fell back into step. Back into a structure. Back into order - he was always an orderly man. And yet, all was different. All the same from afar, and from the inside - changed completely.
Cody - like most of his brothers - had always thought that liberation after the Wars was what they all needed. But now, outfitted with a new symbol, under a new flag, fighting, finally, for something he could say he truly stood for (couldn't afford not to), Cody thought that perhaps the unity they found in their collective rightlessness would do the trick as well. Not forever; it wasn't even favourable now, but they couldn't exactly get to fixing the entire Galaxy while effectively dying out. They were all rebels, and nobody looked at the fact that this or that one was a clone. The Empire wanted all of their heads. They all wanted the Empire’s smoldering corpse by their feet. It was a reasonable cause to rally to.
He recognized that the rebels were not his vode. Nobody could replace his siblings in any regard, lost in their minds and unrecognized by their own bodies, as Cody’s had - if briefly. But they were not the Galaxy’s worst, either. They looked at Cody, and they just saw a Human man, not the mix of clone - soldier - symbol of war that was to be expected during the Wars. It was like he’d grown a soul in the eyes of the Galaxy. Oh, sure, perhaps the perception was somewhat influenced by the fact that nobody here had the luxury of not working with each other, but he was willing to accept that, too.
He found that, with most of the rebels, camaraderie was easily built and barely needed upkeep. That professionality could come with ease that was scarcely familiar to him, outside of perhaps his relationships with the rest of the Commanders and his General.
Ex-General, now, Cody would remind himself, because the Wars were technically over and Kenobi had shaken away the title like a wet Loth wolf getting water off its coat, like it was something loathsome (and perhaps it was, to him), like he was repulsed by even the thought of putting himself above anyone, rank or not, ever again. Cody would understand the instinctive desire not to have to carry the duty of preserving the lives of thousands of people any longer - but it wasn’t the responsibility Kenobi seemed to hate.
He often preferred to be a little… lonelier than the average person, put simply, Cody knew this. Cody, who was always surrounded by brothers and sisters and siblings, Cody, whose life had been sworn to the Republic and then to the Empire and only now to himself, Cody, who had never been alone and then was, suddenly, with a wasteland in his head and only his shaking hands to remind him of himself. Cody, who knew all along life would hardly ever be any different - Cody, who, regardless of all of it, never wanted any of this.
It was… nice, then, in some way that made him feel guilty, that sometimes, when he was alone and unsure how to come back to himself, Kenobi - even as his General, even as a link in the chain of command - forewent his own little space. Forewent his place in the solitary comforts that made him feel grounded, so obviously, so clearly, and stayed with Cody instead. Those were visits Cody couldn’t have called business, after bad battles or high casualty rates. But then again, he never brought them up to anyone, anyway. There was some kind of quiet understanding between them, a 'keep your silence and I'll keep mine' of sorts, coming into effect every time they sat down together with no paperwork to do, with no strategy to discuss, and one day, one day - one day, once, Cody almost called him by his name.
General Kenobi grew on him easily from the very start. Obi-Wan Kenobi, however, grew on him with barely any effort at all.
He still couldn’t believe his own hands had held a blaster and pointed the barrel toward him. Perhaps he’d never work his way to believing it at all. It seemed like something from a distant dream. A nightmare. It’s just that nothing ended when he woke up, and the darkness outside of his own mind grew thicker and thicker. And if Cody knew how to reach into the Force, if the universe had granted him at least a grain of understanding of what his ex-General had coursing through his veins and heart and soul since the moment he came into the Galaxy, he would’ve reached out, yes, as soon as he could. Would have curled against the presence of Kenobi, whatever of him Cody could find, and stayed there indefinitely.
It had felt like an end to any other mission, Utapau - except with higher stakes. Higher stakes which they thought the Force had leveled in their favour; higher stakes that they got too optimistic about, too much and too soon. And when Cody’s mind was taken from him, when he fought his own General on the edge of a water-filled sinkhole just above the floating body of a once-beloved varactyl, it was just a mission gone wrong. And when Kenobi knocked him down and took his head between his palms and brought him back to himself, it was just a mission gone wrong. And when Cody knew what was happening, when he grabbed Kenobi (who was beginning to sway on his feet, racked with grief and exhaustion and pain - Cody was better at fighting a Jedi than he thought he was, perhaps, and it was a terrible thought filled with what-ifs), and when they ran from his brothers, it was just a mission gone wrong.
And then they never stopped running, not until Mustafar, not until the Rebellion, and suddenly it was no longer just a mission. Suddenly, it was the rest of their lives.
Cody was still getting used to it, that was the most probable answer as to why sometimes he woke up and expected the quiet chatter of his brothers that never seemed to fully fade. He expected to step out and find himself in a Venator, and he expected to look down and find streaks of sunlight across his chest. None of that was left, now. Cody couldn’t exactly justify his expectations.
Perhaps it was about Kenobi after all, because Kenobi was there. Almost all the time, now. Swaddled in his old tunics, singed and scorched because, well, nobody was there to make new ones - and his hair had grown out a bit but his beard was still trimmed close to his face, and he hid his hands in the sleeves of his robes the same way, and he walked the same way, and he smiled the same way; there’d always been a sort of spot in his eyes reserved for emptiness, after all. And if it’d gotten a little bigger, Cody wouldn’t bring it up. But Kenobi looked - almost looked the same.
To a fault, sometimes. When they had missions, especially.
Such as this one. They still walked side by side. They still watched each other’s step. That hadn’t changed. Cody still tried to fall back a little, and Kenobi still never let him, slowing down himself every single time. When they took missions, they went together.
War followed them. They were both forged in it. Cody a little more literally, perhaps. But to the Galaxy, a war hardly meant anything, and so it threw it at its children - one after another, and a few additional ones after that. It didn’t matter that they were all weary, that they were aging years in spans of months and not because of their accelerated growth; on the contrary, that seemed to be becoming less and less of an issue as they went on.
They had one war, then they had another. Bigger or not, people died all the same. They could’ve died all the same. Cody was prepared to see death behind any corner, now.
They took missions together, when they could. Sometimes, they couldn’t. That wasn’t unusual either. It happened quite often during their first war together, actually, even when Cody was bound to Kenobi by durasteel and lifeforce.
So it was no surprise that this felt just like one of the days his General had work on the other side of the Galaxy, Council or Senate-instructed, and now Cody couldn’t even quip at him about hurrying back - he wasn’t just a Jedi, back then, he was the Jedi of the Third Systems Army.
Cody didn’t know what was left of the Jedi at this point, and he didn’t know, most of all, whether his General - ex-General - even considered himself one anymore. Then again, if you blew up a planet, the surviving inhabitants would not somehow gain new identities. And with the lightsaber on his hip and the cloak tied around his waist and the focus in his expression, Kenobi hardly even looked like he’d changed at all. Though, of course, if Cody looked closer, he’d see the twitch of his mouth and the dark skin of his under-eyes, and how tightly he pressed his lips together when he wasn’t talking, and a certain weary look in his eyes that he got after a long battle that hadn’t gone away for whole weeks straight, now.
Cody should’ve worried about him if all of them didn’t look like that, these days. And yet he worried, either way.
“If we time it right,” Kenobi was speaking, wringing his hands at the waist a little, lacing his fingers together and letting go, a little dance of gestures, something he didn’t do so often and even less in front of more people, and Cody had worked all of them out throughout the Wars, mapped them out - “we’ll intercept them. And if the Force wills it, they’ll have a good portion of the 501st Legion with them.” A little glance Cody’s way, a smile that nobody who hadn’t spent years at his side would tell was just a smidge nervous, “And then we have a chance of making Commander Rex a very, very happy man.”
Cody looked down, hiding the small wry smile that forced itself onto his face. Freeing brothers, while a cause for joy, yes, was rarely a happy occasion in practice. Primarily because said brothers usually had to spend a week or so without a blaster within reach - along with all the implications of the restriction. And that was if they got lucky.
(It was the 501st, most of all, who could not even look a Jedi survivor's way without distant horror, grief and guilt painted all over their faces. Cody understood. Sometimes, he thought about Jedi younglings, and his littlest brothers. Never for long, though. He couldn’t, for long.)
“It should be over quickly,” Kenobi assured him, because he knew, he always knew. That’s how he showed up at his doorstep at odd times and asked, with wide eyes and gentle looks, he asked, What’s wrong, and that’s how he knew when Cody hadn’t slept, that’s how he knew this and this and this. “We’ll go in and out. Cut off their comm lines, bring the ship in with a tractor beam. If all goes well, dechipping begins and ends in quick succession and we have the medbay staffed and operational.”
Cody nodded. He knew all this.
Kenobi was leaving, and Cody couldn’t come. Not for the first time, no - but he doubted he'd ever get used to this.
“Sir,” he spoke, and took Kenobi’s forearm. And even this, even this was reserved for emergencies, they’d grab each other to move the other out of the way, to pull or push them away from something, they’d touch lightly, unassumingly, to get the other’s attention without speaking, but not for much else, and so he took Kenobi’s arm and waited for him to pull it back.
Kenobi didn’t. He just turned to him, stilling, eyebrow raised a little as his arm just - stayed there, in Cody’s grip, until he got a hold of himself and let him go. His chest burned with something, giving way to some deep ache. “You know there’s no need for that anymore. There never was, really, but now it’s just excessive.”
Cody stared at him for a moment, lips parted, and wondered what he was supposed to change it to. How was he supposed to get rid of the last ring in the chain of command that had been wrapped around them both ever since they first met? Difficult question. For a long time, it was somewhat of a safety harness - a very limiting, slightly infuriating safety harness, but one nevertheless.
“Obi-Wan,” Kenobi reminded him, gently, and Cody shook his head a little. As if he’d forgotten. As if he could ever forget.
“Obi-Wan,” he said, quieter than he expected, and lost track, for a moment, of what he was going to say.
“Cody,” his General - Kenobi - Obi-Wan said, a little smile mirroring his own, like they were meeting for the first time, and in some way - perhaps they were.
It hit Cody a little harder, now, that Kenobi - Obi-Wan - wasn’t really his General anymore; wasn’t really his anything anymore, and there was nothing tying Cody to him, no chain of command, no spindly webs of duty. He didn’t need to walk by his side, he didn’t need to follow behind him wherever he went, he didn’t need to shadow him anymore, give his thoughts or even - even talk to him, really, there was nobody that would reprimand him for it, nobody to even question it, perhaps. It was a sense of absolute freedom he somehow never really thought he’d get, never readied himself for it - him and his ex-General (even calling him that was strange) on equal footing.
He looked him in the eyes and knew he didn’t have to defer to any of his decisions. And, somewhere in Cody, it was a final piece to the trust he already held in Obi-Wan, when Cody looked at him and saw that the man looked at him the same way. Careful gentleness and the feeling of absolute sincerity that, somehow, nobody could convey as well as Obi-Wan did.
And, at the same time, not having to be at his side, fighting another war except this time without him, that sounded lonely as all karking hell. And Cody found that Obi-Wan had not been his General for all that it was worth; somehow, somewhere in there, he’d become someone Cody - treasured, very much so. Perhaps the lost rank made it clearer.
And so he took his newfound freedom, surrounded himself with the knowledge that he had it, now, not to ever be taken away, and reached out, and slid his hand up to Obi-Wan’s shoulder, and pulled him into his arms. And, in the end, it was both easier and harder than he thought it’d ever be, if he ever even got around to doing something like it and not just entertaining passing thoughts about lingering touches.
Obi-Wan’s step stuttered with the strength of Cody’s pull, but he went willingly, only just managing to drop his arms to his sides so Cody didn’t press them down. And Cody wrapped his around Obi-Wan’s shoulders, pulling him to his chest, so much so that he could feel the warmth through the robes. And if he couldn’t breathe for a moment, he would’ve said it was simply because of how tightly he held Obi-Wan for that one tick of time, and not because of the trembling feeling that crawled up his spine, not because of the contented sigh he swallowed down, not because of the warmth.
“Good luck,” he said, then, before he could think too much on it.
And then, the unthinkable, just as Cody began to draw back - arms came up, and palms pressed to his back, and Obi-Wan wrapped Cody up in a returned embrace, keeping a hold around his waist, keeping him close. He put his head on Cody’s shoulder, hair tickling the side of his neck, and Cody couldn’t breathe for a moment more.
“No such thing as luck.” He heard the words being pressed into his glove, the warmth of Obi-Wan’s breath passing like a shadow over his skin. Cody huffed a chuckle, and - unmistakably - felt Obi-Wan’s hold on him tighten for a moment. Linger.
“Be careful, then,” Cody told him instead, and then he had to pull back, he had to let go before he decided he didn’t want to at all. Even so, the release of his arms was slow, hesitant still.
“Of course.” Obi-Wan sounded - rather quiet, a little out of breath as he let go as well, his arms slipping off Cody’s waist and taking a familiar position over Obi-Wan’s chest, one hand against his chin. And then he smiled, bright and just a touch soft. “You as well.”
And when Obi-Wan stepped out, stepped out and disappeared into yet another danger, into yet another mission, Cody crossed his arms and watched him go, and waited for him to come back, as he always had - because the freedom to be away from the man who used to be his General did not mean it brought him the desire to do so.
And he wondered, working on his own, watching the ships go and return, if, when Obi-Wan did come back, Cody could pull him close again and hold him there a moment longer.