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Rex had known something was wrong the moment the Phantom entered the atmosphere. Hera shoved through the small crowd that had begun to gather, leading the group forward, waiting to receive their heroes. Their friends. He could see the tense line of Hera’s shoulders, the anxiety that sat under Zeb’s skin. The ramp lowered, and everyone rushed forward. Hera ran to Kanan like reaching him was a matter of life and death, like she needed to feel him under her fingertips to know he was real. She threw her arms around his neck, no words passed between them, and none needed.
Everyone had rushed forward, but Rex held back. Rex had known something was wrong.
He locked eyes with Ezra, and he knew. He saw it in the crease in his brow, in the hard set of his mouth, in his wide eyes, in the subtle way his head tilted down. He saw it in Ezra, he saw it in the heaviness in his chest, and he saw it in the fact that only two people had exited the Phantom.
Something was wrong.
Ahsoka hadn’t made it.
Rex took a deep breath. He inhaled the desert air, let it fill up his lungs, rough and dry, but he’d breathed desert air before. It smoldered in his chest, enough to feel like he was burning from the inside out, enough to feel like it was going to melt his insides, to force him to his knees, to knock him into the sand under his boots, to be swallowed whole and forgotten. The feeling lasted only a moment, though, and he exhaled. It felt like blowing out smoke, like the curling black cloud from a campfire freshly extinguished. It was over, he knew it, there was nothing to feed the flame, no fire left at all. It was his oldest and favorite friend, and she was gone. Snuffed out, leaving only cooling embers and ashes, only old memories that would surely fade as well. Stars, if he wasn’t familiar with the taste of desert air.
It seemed that Ahsoka really did have more experience than Rex.
He remembered seeing her through the holotransmission, distorted by the crackling of the connection and the discoloration of the image, but he saw her. He would know her anywhere. He remembered watching her, the top of her head barely meeting the height of his shoulder, bright-eyed and far too eager for comfort to someone who didn’t know what to do with a child. He’d called her little one, then. There were mountains of obstacles that towered before her, but she’d surmounted them with a grace he never would have expected if he were still that man on Christophsis who met her for the first time. He’d call it a miracle, but he knew it was through her own strength that she grew into a bigger person than he ever could have dreamed. He would have laughed, but it really wasn’t funny.
“Ahsoka, you don’t have to go to Malachor alone.” Trading Commander for Ahsoka still felt strange on his tongue, even though so much time had passed. “I could be there in two rotations.”
A part of him wishes he’d gone anyway, but a bigger part of him knows it wouldn’t have mattered.
But stars, she’d saved his life more times than he could count. He knew it had been years, and they’d both changed since he saw her last, but he knew her. He knew exactly when she’d roll her eyes at something Skywalker had said, when something would make her brow pull up in a sly gesture of amusement (something they had in common, but who knows who had started that?), how she’d move on the battlefield, when she would make a reckless move, when she would stay back and think things through. He knew he had been right in believing in her, that she never could have killed any of his brothers in cold blood, knew it before the Jedi Council admitted it. He knew her just as well as he knew his designation was CT-7567.
“There’s been a mix-up. The youngling isn’t with me.” The siege on Christophsis was hardly the place to question Skywalker about how and why he’d somehow been assigned a Padawan when Rex had very clearly heard him say how much he didn’t want one, now, in the future, ever, many times, on many occasions. Yet there she had been, looking all too proud of herself, ignoring Skywalker’s frustration and displeasure (pouting) with an ease he’d only seen before in General Kenobi.
He’d had professionalism beat into him on Kamino from the moment he took his first breath, but he had been unable to contain the laugh that bubbled up in his chest when she’d called General Skywalker Skyguy. It wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence to see Skywalker lose his temper, but Rex found his arguing with a child, especially one who gave out just as good as she got, far more amusing than he had any right to find it. Even when Skywalker dumped her on him.
He’d had about six different opinions of her based off of that first interaction, but the jury was called very suddenly back out when they walked through camp. She had more than a lot to say, and she had more than enough confidence to say it. She’d asked him questions, gave suggestions, chittering about below and around him. Clearly, no one had ever told her the story of curiosity and the tooka.
“So…if you’re a Captain, and I’m a Jedi, then, technically, I outrank you, right?” Even then, he really didn’t think that she had meant to mock him, or otherwise lord her status as a high-and-mighty baby-Jedi over him. She’d tilted her head and looked up at him, waiting for him to confirm what she already knew.
“In my book, experience outranks everything.” She grinned again when he didn’t give her the satisfaction. Of course he hadn’t said it, but he’d thought that at the very least, Ahsoka’s addition to the 501st would be interesting. Even in his most optimistic estimates, he hadn’t counted on who she’d become. He wouldn’t have said he found her endearing, but she’d endeared herself to him all the same, at a rate he would’ve found alarming had he noticed it happening at the time.
He had hundreds, thousands, millions of brothers, so he marveled that he’d managed to find a sister.
“You don’t exactly outrank me anymore.” The reminder of what had happened on Coruscant had struck him more than he thought it would, even all these years later. He doesn’t blame her for leaving, but he always wondered what would have happened if she’d stayed. Maybe the Empire wouldn’t exist, maybe the Republic would have broken into parts and put the pieces back together for the better, maybe Tup and Fives didn’t have to die, Echo didn’t have to suffer. Maybe nothing would have changed.
“In my book, experience outranks everything.” As he said it, he wondered if she remembered.
The quirk of her brow and the half-smile were visible even through the shoddy connection of the holotransmission, and he knew the answer. “Hmm, then I definitely outrank you.” He hadn’t had any space to argue, just took a moment to revel in her expression, one as familiar to him as his own face.
“Glad to have you back, Commander.”
“Rex, thank you, but you don’t have to call me Commander anymore.”
“Sure thing, Commander.” He couldn’t have stopped himself from smiling if he’d tried. The bucket he had tucked under his arm had matched the girl– woman, really, at that point– who had stood before him, in a room full of brothers with the same, and it was as much of an acceptance of her help as it was a welcome home, we missed you.
Now his bucket was white and 501st blue. Dirty, scuffed, tally marks still etched into the sides, but clear of the markings he and the rest of the company had carefully painted onto their buckets. No one would ever say the clones were well-versed in the delicate, but each of them had taken the time to make sure it had been done right, in slow, deliberate, painstaking detail. His bucket was empty, now, and he supposed that was alright, since there would be no welcome home.
“I am concerned that the Jedi have elected this…child,” he remembered the scathing disdain in Tarkin’s voice, the venom in his words and in his eyes. “To lead the group.”
Every part of that mission had been unorthodox, least of all Ahsoka’s unplanned presence, but the other Captain’s words had sent an uncomfortable and unexpected chill down his spine. He’d straightened his back imperceptibly, and he’d kept his eyes forward. “I’ve served with her many times, and I trust her, Captain.” He had known that Tarkin had more to say, he saw it in the set of his jaw, in the pull in the corner of his mouth, but he was thankful that he didn’t push the matter.
She’d been young and reckless, then, but– she was young. She should’ve been reckless. He had been more than willing to give his life to the Republic, but even he had to admit– she was a child soldier. She should have been a peacekeeper, she should have been able to hone her skills on her own time, not in places where between every breath, there was the reminder that the next one could have been her last.
He remembered standing on the bridge, the young woman standing in front of him so different from the girl he’d first met on Christophsis, the one that had not been afraid to argue with Skywalker, the one that had been eager and excited to learn and to gain the experience he had told her was so important. “The Republic couldn’t have asked for better soldiers, nor I, a better friend. ” And that had just compounded the hurt of what happened next, added another layer of pain to something already so tightly wound. He remembered her silent and still, after, standing in front of the graves of all his brothers.
He thought it had been a miracle when he’d seen her, then, after those few years apart. He knew she was alive, but he hadn’t known how to name the feeling he had when he finally saw her decades later. Old habits die hard, and Rex was no one if he didn’t know his duty first.
“Commander.” He’d watched as the shock on her face went through metamorphoses so rapid he probably couldn’t have discerned the differences had he not known her so well. He couldn’t hold back his smile when she settled, and he wouldn’t have wanted to. “You got old.”
And it had been so many years that he hadn’t heard from her, but when he heard her laugh, he swore he could have last heard it yesterday. They could have been standing on the bridge of the Resolute, watching Skywalker and Kenobi argue back and forth, just as they did every time they were in a room together. “Had to happen sometime, Rex.”
He probably shouldn’t have been surprised when she threw her arms around his neck, but he was struck for a moment by how surreal the moment felt. It felt for a moment like nothing had changed, like nothing had happened, like his brothers and his friends weren’t long dead and gone. He closed his eyes and hugged her back, and knew that things had changed, that everything was different, because back then he’d wanted to welcome his sister back with open arms, but his training in protocols wouldn’t let him. But she had been there, safe, alive, and just for a moment, he’d maybe understood what the Jedi had always meant when they talked about the living Force. “I’m glad you’re still alive.”
But it was Kanan and Ezra who had walked off the Phantom. It was Kanan and Ezra who were crowded by everyone on their base, who were fussed over and hounded with questions. It was Kanan and Ezra who had returned, bruised, scarred, bleeding, haunted. It was Kanan and Ezra who had come back.
He remembered searching for her on Felucia, the composure he fought to keep as Skywalker had thrown his out the viewport. He remembered Skywalker’s voice when he reported back, that he still had found no sign of her. “Not good enough, Rex, try again!” He remembered the sinking feeling in his gut, the worry of an older brother, but he remembered the hope fluttering in the back of his mind, too.
After meeting Ezra’s eyes, he didn’t feel any of that hope, now.
“If you wanted experience, little one, it looks like you’re about to get plenty.” If he’d known what all that experience would entail, he never would have said it.
He wished she’d never gotten any at all.