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As each week passed more and more stress kept piling on the Captain of the 501st.
While clones were made to handle such stress certain events were getting in the way of Rex being able to cope with it properly.
First, it was the mission on Umbara, he still couldn’t get the images of his dead vods out of his head. He’d seen bodies plenty of times but that was the way they died that stuck with them, how most of them didn’t even know their own vods were killing them.
Then there were the slavers, early on after it had happened he’d flinch back at the sound of any electrical item booting up. And he knew he wouldn’t ever be quite keen to tell the shinies how he got the scars on his back.
Currently though, the worst possible outcome had come to pass, General Kenobi had been killed.
He’d known General Kenobi since the beginning of the war so to hear that he was gone had hurt him deeply. It especially hurt his General though.
He’d watched helplessly as his General and friend Anakin was consumed with rage. He’d did his best to comfort him but there was little comfort he could give as a clone, and any comfort he was able to give wasn’t enough to tame Anakin’s need to avenge his fallen Master.
Last he’d heard Anakin had gone off with Ahsoka to go and retrieve the bounty hunter that had killed General Kenobi, leaving Rex to try and process what all had happened.
Or more accurately, not process it.
Rex was focusing on his datapad as a way to distract his mind from what it wanted to think about.
He heard a few of his vods outside the barracks discussing who they thought would be assigned to the 212th now that Kenobi was gone.
He squeezed his hand into a fist with frustration, as his leg bounced up and down.
He didn’t know when he picked up the trait but he hadn’t noticed it till one of the shinies asked him why he was doing it.
He forced his leg to stop so that he could focus better and not have to also worry about the idea that he might become faulty.
His head throbbed painfully making him rub his temples, he’d been experiencing headaches more frequently as he started to sleep less and less as a way to get more time to work in.
Kix had caught on to this fact and had told Rex very sternly that he wasn’t helping anyone by not sleeping, but he’d stopped listening to him after a while.
But now he was starting to agree with the medics’ suggestion.
The headache kept getting worse and worse until today where it felt like a struggle to finish his duties, not counting the extra ones he’d laid on himself.
He sighed, going back to looking at the datapad to finish up what he’d started, as he did though everything was suddenly white.
He thought that maybe the datapad was too bright for his headache to handle, but it didn’t stop when he turned it off altogether.
He frantically began to look around confused as to what exactly was happening. He knew headaches could cause other symptoms but he didn’t know they could cause outright blindness.
He stood up attempting to feel his way around the barracks, he needed to get to the door. He needed to find Kix.
As he carefully moved about he began to follow the voices of his vods knowing that was where the door was.
Just as he made it to the door he felt the pain flare up for a moment, and then it exploded.
His legs buckled as it felt everything suddenly hurt, he still couldn’t see, leading him to become even more afraid.
He thought that maybe a commando droid had broken into the barracks and was attacking him, he didn’t know how else to example what had just happened to him.
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“Could you imagine if one of the padawans got promoted just to go lead to 212th! We’d never hear the end of it from them!” Jesse joked, making his vod chuckle. He knew he probably shouldn’t be making a joke about the situation the 212th were going through, but he also knew that there really wasn’t any other way that they could discuss what their vods were going through.
“I’m sure Cody’s trying to get them into shape for their new-” suddenly he heard a loud thump come from the barracks next to them. He looked from each of his vods as they each gave him a similar look, “You heard that too right?”
“Yeah but I’ve only seen one person go in there, and that was Captain Rex.” a shiny by the name of Comic nervously replied.
Jesse looked at Comic with a stern look “Then if it’s Rex I’m sure everything’s fine, he probably just dropped his datapad or something.”
He walked forward acting as collected as he could. All the men knew that Rex had been pushing himself further since Umbara and with General Kenobi’s death things had only been getting worse.
‘Rex’ll be fine, he knows his limit. I mean I’ve seen General Skywalker tell him to take it easy before!’ Jesse thought as the door opened.
“Captain?!” Comic cried rushing past Jesse to be at Rex’s side.
Jesse kneeled down next to Comic watching as Rex moved his head in the direction of his voice but didn’t show any sign of recognition.
“Vod?” Rex said, looking in the direction of Comic’s voice, looking right past the clones.
“Rex, it’s Jesse. What happened? Can you tell me what’s happening?” he grabbed his vod by the armpit lifting him up into a sitting position.
“Jesse? Jesse!” the Captain began to desperately grasp for his vod’s hand. He missed it a few times making it more obvious to Jesse that his Captain couldn’t see.
“Jesse, I-I can’t see. Everything’s just white.” Jesse frowned, now he had confirmation but he wasn’t pleased that he’d been right.
“Comic, I need you to go run and get Kix. He’ll know what's happening,” Jesse ordered. The shiny nodded rushing off to the medical ward to retrieve the worn-out medic.
“Rex, I’m going to need you to explain to me exactly what you’re experiencing at the moment.” He explained to the Captain, hoping that it wasn’t too difficult of a request.
Rex took a deep shaky breath before replying to his vod, “It started with a headache, it flared up for a moment so I closed my eyes to give them a rest while I rubbed my temples. When I opened them again everything was white. I tried to make my way to the door following your voice, but my legs gave out suddenly.”
Jesse nodded along and once Rex finished he sighed “Kix told you not to overwork yourself!”
“The men needed to be reassured something like-”
“I know! I know...but that shouldn’t compromise your own health Rex! We’ve all seen General Skywalker tell you to take care of yourself, but the moment he stops taking care of himself you follow suit?”
That elicited a chuckle from Rex, he knew his vod wasn’t wrong but he hadn’t realized that’d been happening. “I didn’t intend it that way, but I guess that’s how things played out.”
The two sat on the floor quietly, Jesse would squeeze Rex’s shoulder every few seconds to show his vod that he was still there.
After a few minutes, Jesse heard footsteps begin to approach, “I told you to not push yourself too far!” Kix exclaimed as he entered the room.
The medic huffed as he helped Jesse lift up Rex and begin to take him to the medical ward.
“I know Kix, but can you save the scolding till this is all over,” Rex said in a half attempt to sound joking.
Kix obliged their Captain and, as quickly as they could, got Rex to medical.
Kix began by injecting Rex with some sedatives “First to fix the big problem, getting you some sleep.” he said, making Rex give out a weak laugh before passing out.
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Rex groans as he wakes up, right away he knows things have gotten better. He clearly sees Kix sitting right across from him giving him the worst stink eye.
“So I’m assuming you can see now, Captain.” Venom laced the medic’s voice as Rex felt his guts churn.
At first, he thought it was from nervousness at Kix’s words but then he felt something come up his throat.
He batted at Kix to let him know what was happening and the anger left the medic’s eyes as he frantically grabbed a wastebasket and handed it to him.
Rex leaned over it, gagging desperately to make the feeling go away. Barely anything except a few bits of bile came out though.
“Well, I’d say it’s a good thing you haven’t eaten anything recently,” Kix commented as Rex put the basket on the ground.
He rolled his eyes at Kix’s comment before asking, “What happened?”
The medic sighed “You experienced an ocular migraine. It’s a more extreme version of a headache, but this version takes away your sight for a small amount of time. Migraines already don't normally show up unless someone in the family’s experienced it but an ocular migraine is even rarer than that! I’d think the long necks would have removed that part from our DNA anyways so for you to have experienced one is not a good sign.”
“Then how did I have one?” Once he asked the question Kix gave him a look of pure ‘are you kidding me.’
“Rex, you’ve barely gotten any sleep these past few weeks. You’ve been hold up in the barracks day after day doing more work than was assigned to you. Along with stress building up from your most recent experiences and General Kenobi’s death, something was going to give and it just happened to be now.”
“I’m sure I’m never going to hear the end of this from General Skywalker.” he joked trying to lighten the mood up a little.
“Rex, I saw that on your file this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Last time though you most likely had a compromised immune system due to the virus.” he pulled out a datapad giving it a quick glance before looking back to his vod. “But you didn’t have that this time, this is pure build-up of stress mixed with bodily neglect.”
“But we were made to not experience backlash from-”
“And we were also made to not kill our vods and yet we did.”
Kix’s words cut deep, shocking even Rex with how cold the comment was.
“What I mean is, we’ve gone through experiences I don’t think the long necks were expecting. So to have a moment like this could be possible.”
Rex sighed, not sure what to say to Kix, he’d ignored the medics’ warnings but that didn’t excuse his crude comment.
“Kix, I know you’re angry but I didn’t feel like I was entitled to sleep. And when I tried I’d either see Umbara or the slavers, neither of which were pleasant.”
Kix’s expression softened, “Rex,” he breathed in deeply before letting out a very defeated sigh, “If that’s the case then I can prescribe some sleeping pills to hopefully help with those. But only if you promise to not go and do all this again!” he said as he got up and went to one of the cabinets.
Rex weakly smiled as his vod came back over with the bottle in hand “I’ll do my best. I’m a Captain after all, still have a lot of work to take care of.”
“Then at least pull all-nighters in moderation from now on!” Kix exclaimed, shoving the bottle into Rex’s hand. “I’m going to step out real quick to let the General know what all happened, I suggest you try and get some more sleep.”
Rex nodded and watched his vod leave him in the room. He looked down at the bottle as he thought about what all had transpired.
His head still ached and his stomach started to squeeze again, ‘General Skywalker’s going to have my head for this.’ he thought to himself. He stared at the bottle not sure whether to take the pills now or wait until he really needed them. "I can try to sleep without them for now." he muttered before putting them down. He laid back and tried to do what Kix had suggested, and get some sleep.