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"I know you're there, Rex. You can come in."
Once his heart slowed from the painful flutter of getting caught, staring, Rex squeezed through the faulty blast door into a makeshift storeroom, somewhat abashed. He rubbed the back of his neck as a telling flush began to creep under his skin. Had he really thought she wouldn't notice his presence? She was still a Jedi, even if she wasn't a Jedi.
"Ahsoka, I'm sorry – I didn't mean to spy. I was just curious."
Ahsoka looked up from the assortment of spare parts on the workbench in front of her, and smiled. "Rex, it's okay. And as you're wondering, I'm pilfering some supplies to modify the hilts for these lightsabers."
"The ones you took from the Inquisitor?" As soon as he said it, he could have smacked his head against the wall. Idiot. Of course that's what she meant. What other lightsabers would she be talking about?
She chuckled, as if she were privy to every thought that flashed through his mind. Maybe she was. The back of his neck grew hot.
"Yeah, those lightsabers. I couldn't leave them as they were before – too much hatred and anger had bled into the hilts, as well as the crystals. But I can't seem to get them how I want them."
"How do you want them?"
"I'm not sure," Ahsoka confessed, a frown forming between her brows. "It's more of a feeling: they have to suit my form, and usually they're made up of materials that mean something to each individual. But there's not very much to work with here."
Rex looked around the dimly-lit storeroom, his eyes falling upon the same spare and broken parts of engines and farming instruments that littered namana farms across the western hemisphere: the likes of ancient afterburners, electrostatic baffle vanes bent so out of shape as to lose their integrity, and repulsor modulators left too long in Bakura's inclement atmosphere, among other things. Very little to inspire, indeed.
But it explained the smudge of black dust on her cheek.
"Maybe I can help?" he suggested, the driving force his own curiosity, certain there was little he could offer in the way of assistance – but happy to offer it all the same. Then it occurred to him she might prefer to be left in peace. "Mind if I join you?"
He half-expected her to turn him away, but she half-surprised him when she said, "Be my guest," and gestured to the bench beside her.
After six standard rotations in a row of grueling labour on a secluded namana farm, the muscles in his legs burned as he took a seat next to her, the chill of the metal surface seeping through his boiler suit. He winced, and rubbed his sore thighs, but found he didn't really mind. The physical discomfort was grounding.
"Can't sleep?"
Rex shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, longer these days than he'd ever worn it. "Still haven't got used to these long rotations. And Wolffe's nightmares are getting worse: he's shouting and tossing and turning. I wake him and he doesn't seem to know where he is at first."
Ahsoka nodded, eyes downcast. She never enquired about the nightmares, but he suspected she didn't have to. On more than one occasion, she'd sat with Wolffe while he writhed in his sleep, sweating and stammering some variation of You brought this on yourself, or I'm sorry, I couldn't stop it; she'd touched her fingers to his temples, and focused on slowing his heart rate. It worked … for a while.
"So, how come you have your blasters with you?" she asked.
Old habits die hard. "Well, I haven't inspected them since we arrived, so I thought I'd strip them down, make sure they're still in working order. And—" He hung his head, shame clawing at his innards. He had to push the words past his teeth. "—I let down my guard on Raada – it was so quiet, I thought we were safe there. It won't happen again."
"I understand, Rex. But it's not your fault," she replied. His eyes snapped up as she placed a hand on his arm, and met her own, wide and concerned for him. Her skin was warm against his. "I should have seen it coming. I've allowed too much distance to grow between myself and the Force. It's time I changed that."
For a moment, their gazes remained locked, and Rex's pulse began to beat out an erratic rhythm at the base of his neck. But her eyes shone a little too bright, and there was something in her voice, something between the determination and the guilt, that made him frown.
Before he could speak, she was pulling away, and taking her hand with her. His skin hummed where her palm had been.
"Well, then," she said, and cleared her throat. "You dissemble your blasters, and I'll rearrange the parts for these hilts. Let's see who finishes first."
*
Their hearts weren't in it. But they worked side-by-side in an easy silence – bar the persistent pattering of rain against the high, transparisteel windows that looked across acres of pale namana trees, their delicate blossoms tinged blue with the approach of another damp dawn. Early birds sang their cheerful songs, blissed out on the flesh of the addictive fruits.
Rex had stripped his DC-17s down to their base parts, cleaning each component as he went. The blasters, along with their stun setting and his impeccable aim, had made him popular with the local farmers, who occasionally found their land inundated with the natives birds that feasted on the namana fruit. Once upon a time, their natural predators, the arboreal cratsch, had kept the population at bay; but their own declining numbers had seen whole trees picked clean in a matter of days.
Ahsoka had risen more than once to sift through the piles of parts scattered about the room. Then she would return to the workbench, each time her shoulders a little heavier. Old balance turbines and hydrovalves weren't of much use, nor were sheets upon sheets of durasteel.
Over the din of the roaring wind beyond the farming complex, and accompanying the intermittent birdsong, Rex became aware of another, more melodic sound. He turned to Ahsoka, and realised she was humming.
It wasn't like anything he'd heard before. His trips to 79's back on Coruscant, though they had been few, were characterised by the fast-paced music with a heavy bass that scrambled the brain after prolonged exposure; on Kamino, he and his brothers were taught the anthem of the Galactic Republic, martial and rousing in its very nature; he'd even heard folk songs on the planets of Ryloth and Felucia, sung by the locals in great waves of joyful reels. But this was slower, at once sweet and melancholy.
He listened for a while longer, his own task forgotten, while Ahsoka tinkered with her sabers, somewhere else entirely. Her deft fingers moved over the complicated components as if by instinct, rearranging and reevaluating as she went. The tune ceased when her lips parted to take a breath, and once or twice her eyelids fluttered closed, lost as she was to her memories.
Then she was looking at him, and Rex was caught for the second time that night, staring when he shouldn't.
"What were you humming?" he asked, even as his cheeks heated.
Was it his imagination, or did her lekku flush a little pink, too?
"It's a Kel Dor lullaby, I think. Master Plo used to sing it to me when I was a youngling in the crèche. Then he taught it to me, so when he was away from the temple, I could sing it to myself if I was sad, or scared. I used to be scared of the dark, you know. And there was something calming about that tune. Although it always worked better when he sang it, so maybe it was his voice. He has a … had a nice voice for it."
It still had a way of creeping up on them sometimes. They'd thrown themselves into manual labour on Raada, and once again when they'd fled to Bakura. While they needed to earn money and keep a low profile, it was just as much about evading the extending reach of the past as it was about outrunning the new Empire. But it would find them in their dreams if it couldn't catch them in the cold light of day. Would it ease, with time?
"What are you afraid of now?"
She opened her mouth as if to answer – then seemed to think better of it, and pressed her lips together with a small shake of her head.
"Ahsoka, you can talk to m—"
"What are you holding?"
He hadn't realised he'd been leaning towards her as she spoke about her old life, about a Jedi who'd been a sort of father figure. He didn't know what that felt like. Jango Fett, for all of his passing-down of wisdom and experience, hardly fit the bill, more a teacher whom a young clone might aspire to be like – until that clone came to realise what said teacher's extracurricular activities entailed. But Rex knew such a presence in one's life was desirable, and to lose it must have hurt in the same way it hurt him to lose a brother.
He leaned away again.
"Oh, this?" he said. "It's an ignition chamber, from one of my Deeces."
Ahsoka eyed it with curiosity, and Rex understood. He took the other chamber from the twin blaster, and passed them to her across the table.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. Had he misinterpreted the whole thing, after all? "I, uh, just thought you could give them a try."
Her fingers tapped a speedy rhythm into the table as she mulled it over, her eyes flickering between him and the Deece parts. At last, she said, "Are you sure?"
"I'll find others. Mine don't need to be … special." Fek, was that too presumptuous?
But still she hesitated.
"You're overthinking it. I want you to have them," he insisted. This time, he took her fidgeting hand in his own, the back of hers in the palm of his, and placed the ignition chambers right there in her grasp, closing her fingers over them.
She smiled, the corners of her eyes creasing. She wouldn't meet his gaze. "Rex, thank you."
He didn't want to let go of her hand, surprised to find that holding it felt as natural as breathing, calloused as his own and warmer still. But she was already pulling out of his grasp. "You're welcome."
*
She didn't ask him to leave when she closed her eyes and held her palms out over the lightsaber components. From the periphery of his vision, Rex watched as she slipped into a state of meditation, like sinking beneath the surface of still water. She pulled back her shoulders and dipped her chin; then her breathing slowed, chest barely rising and falling, and it seemed as if a part of her was somewhere else, even as her body remained fixed in place. Then, one by one, the parts began to rise under her guidance, and the very air seemed to come alive around them.
Rex hadn't seen Ahsoka use the Force since Raada. Between hiding and farming and running for their lives, she'd resisted the temptation to use the easy way out. Not so long ago, she'd confided in him that it felt wrong, somehow, in a way she couldn't explain, the balance skewed beyond her comprehension. It frightened her.
Did it scare her still? Was that her fear?
The novelty of it never wore off for Rex: he looked on with the same fascination now as he had almost five cycles ago, at the very start of the war. But it was rare indeed to bear witness in a moment of complete tranquility: no blaster fire, no horde of clankers, no fight instinct to harness nor flight instinct to kick. Through the Force, Ahsoka rearranged the stolen and borrowed parts of the lightsabers, each integral piece slotting into place before him, until they resembled something familiar, something powerful.
And it was done.
Ahsoka opened her eyes, and reached out to take the hilts from the air. Anticipation hung in the space between them, crackling. Then she steeled herself and ignited the sabers – pssshewww – illuminating the room with a bright, wh—
"I win."
Rex tore his gaze away, and glanced from Ahsoka – a performative smirk on her face – down to his blasters on the worktop – incomplete and forgotten – then back again. He shook his head, and laughed.
"You win. But your lightsabers are white," Rex said on an outward breath.
Ugh, she doesn't need you to tell her that, stupid.
"I don't know what it means," Ahsoka admitted, flicking the activation switch and pitching the room into semi-darkness once more. "I've never seen a lightsaber like this before. But the crystals are white when we find them in the caves on Ilum, before they bind themselves to a Jedi. At first, I thought it meant they're not bound to me, even after I cleansed them. But they called out to me for a reason, I'm sure of it. Maybe they just know, somehow, that I'm not a Jedi anymore."
"Perhaps," he began, "it's not about bonding, but bringing the crystals back to their purest form."
He'd be the first to admit that he didn't know as much as he'd like about the mechanics of lightsabers, on a corporeal level as much as a spiritual one; he could have been talking absolute banthashit for all he knew. But he wasn't going to sit there while she tore herself to shreds from the inside out. He could see the words turning over in her mind, before a small, tentative smile began to form on her lips.
"Rex, you might have just given me an idea," she said as, with a sort of reverence, she returned the deactivated lightsabers back to the worktop.
"What's that?"
"I'll tell you when you're older," Ahsoka teased, flashing him a wink.
"Har-har."
"I'll tell you soon. It's only really half an idea right now."
"But when it's fully formed?"
"You'll be the first to know."
"I like it already."
"Rex …"
His name on her lips, spoken just like that – barely above a whisper, loud enough to ring in his ears and the cavity of his chest – was enough to make him ache. Within the space of a breath, the gap between them lessened, their fingertips brushing on the tabletop, noses almost touching. In the low light, her pupils were oddly dilated, blue irises roaming between his and down to his mouth. He could have kissed her then, as her eyelids fluttered closed and she spoke his name again.
But in the next heartbeat, she was gone.
"Rex, I have to tell you something."
He blinked, all lethargy and confusion, as if waking from a deep sleep. He had to be quick to school his expression into something neutral before his disappointment could show itself.
The tone of her voice was agitated, nervous, her brows high and pinched.
"Ahsoka, what's wrong?" he asked.
In one swift movement, she'd risen from the bench and paced towards the high viewport, looking up at the pale foliage bowing under the weight of the rain. She crossed her arms over her chest, and beneath the whispering and rustling of the wind, he heard a sigh.
"Rex, I'm leaving."
Had she doused him with a bucket of icy water, she could not have done a more thorough job of dragging him back to reality. A peculiar reality, where everything he'd struggled to make sense of for the past cycle suddenly made no sense at all.
"I don't … I don't understand."
Ahsoka's head drooped, the line of her shoulders taut. "I told myself that sticking together and keeping low was the right call: we could watch each other's backs, and look for your brothers without drawing too much attention to ourselves. But that Inquisitor found us on Raada because of me."
"You don't know that. What if the whole thing was just a coincidence?"
"We both know it wasn't," said Ahsoka, turning back to him. She sounded tired. "They've been trained to hunt down Jedi, and I'm worried that the longer I stay here, the more I'm putting you at risk – and Wolffe, and Gregor. We've only just got them back, I can't jeopardise that. But if I leave, soon, you'll be safe and I'll know you're not alone."
Rex scoffed, and climbed to his feet. "Was that the plan all along?" he said, a bitter taste at the back of his mouth. "Find me someone else to play with, so you don't have to feel guilty about leaving?"
He regretted the words even before the shock and the hurt registered on her face.
Idiot, idiot, idiot!
"Of course not, Rex. We've been through so much together, through things that no one else could understand. Everyone I've ever cared about, everyone I've ever loved, is gone. Except you." He looked at her then, and her eyes were so soft. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? "I don't want to leave you. But I can't stay. Those sabers found me for a reason, I'm sure of it. Just like the Force brought you and Wolffe and Gregor back together. My duty isn't finished. But yours can be. I know you, Rex – and I know you don't want to fight anymore. Nor are you obliged to."
It was true enough. They'd given everything, he and his brothers. Everything for a cause they were told was a righteous one, the path of heroism and selflessness. But its conclusion had erased all of that. The freedom and peace they'd fought for was nowhere to be seen. So what had been the point of it all? His brothers were dead, or brainwashed. The Republic that had commissioned them was gone, the Jedi along with it. And the galaxy was unrecognisable, his place in it murky at best. Truth be told, there was no fight left in him.
And she'd made her decision. He could see it in the set of her jaw, her proud posture. A rumble of thunder shook the foundations of the complex.
"I'm sorry," he said, looking anywhere but at her. "I shouldn't have snapped at you."
"It's okay. I kind of sprung it on you."
Rex sighed. "Where will you go?"
Her relief was palpable, and she stepped towards him. "I have an appointment to keep," she replied. "On Alderaan."
He frowned. "What's on Alderaan?"
"A spark."
None the wiser, and sensing she was determined to be vague, he nodded. "When?"
"Not yet. I'll need more credits to get off-planet. But soon."
Soon. Not yet.
She edged closer, until she was right before him; her eyes were almost level with his these days. And then she was throwing her arms about his neck, pulling him into a fierce hug. Caught off guard, he froze, elbows locked by his sides and heart stuttering against his ribcage.
"I'll keep in touch this time," she whispered. "Any way I can."
He shivered at the ghost of the breath on the shell of his ear, and gave himself over to her embrace. With his arms around her, and his hands pressed to the small of her back, he pulled her closer, until their bodies were flush. He let his head drop to her shoulder, cheek against soft lekku, and her skin was redolent of the sweet namana fruit.
When they'd first arrived on Bakura, one of the farmhands had told Rex all about the tree their livelihoods depended on: from the tips of the pale leaves to the properties of the nectarous fruit – it all had a purpose. But the most peculiar part of all, he'd said, could be found beneath the roots themselves: a network that ran far below the ground, invisible to the humanoid eye, connected each tree. Resources could be shared, and a signal of mourning sent out if one succumbed to disease; those nearest would shed their leaves, and bear no fruit for several years.
After the Tribunal's crash, Rex had found himself privy to Ahsoka's dreams on more than one occasion, to her emotions, the beat of her heart – and she to his. If he closed his eyes and focused, he could sense a cord stretched between them both, invisible to the humanoid eye. With her in his arms, it seemed to thrum.
She squeezed him tight, then pulled back to meet his eyes.
"We'll see each other again, Rex. I know we will."
These days, Rex knew if she was lying or not, and smiled. He brought a hand to her cheek, and with the pad of his thumb, gently brushed away the trail of black dust she'd smeared across her face.
He'd look back on that moment, and wouldn't remember who'd kissed who.
Don't leave, he thought. Don't leave again.
Perhaps she really could read his mind, for she pressed closer and kissed him harder, her lips tender beneath his, fingers entwined in the hair at the nape of his neck.
Kamino had been his home, once. He couldn't say when that had shifted, when it had become a person instead of a place. For a moment, Rex and Ahsoka inhabited some liminal world, at the precipice of their past and their future, a place and time in which the rest of the galaxy held its breath.
Were it not for the taste of salt water on his tongue, Rex might have thought it was just another one of his dreams.