Chapter Text
Fear flickered through Obi-Wan the moment he saw the helmets on stakes off the road to Anchorhead. During the nearly two years he had been on the planet, he’d observed the Empire’s nascent stranglehold on Tatooine rely largely on an air strategy of looming star cruisers and low-flying fighters. The two white helmets meant troopers had been in town recently. And had encountered resistance. Obi-Wan’s heart stuttered, and pin pricks crawled up his back. The Empire would come back and not quietly.
The helmets did not gleam in the long reach of the suns’ morning rays like that of the armor the Empire boasted about handing out to its new recruits. Even against the washed-out desert backdrop, they were dull and showed their age.
As his route towards town took him closer to the helmets, Obi-Wan recognized the design. It was standard Republic-issued armor and, though they had been stripped of any distinguishing colors, the helmets could have only belonged to clones.
The realization stabbed him in the gut, fear warring with sorrow. He had been gone for two years. Obi-Wan had been alone for two years. Everyone had been—
Obi-Wan took a deep breath, then another. He needed to fill his lungs lest his thoughts consume him. Centering his mind on the sensation of the suns’ kissing his face led him back into the present. The present at least offered plenty of dilemmas Obi-Wan could fixate on instead of ruminating about the past.
The Empire in Anchorhead was a problem of rancor-sized proportions, but Imperial clones were a krayt dragon-sized problem.
Obi-Wan stopped to consider his options. Risk continuing into town and potentially being identified by Imperial clones. Or, turn back and ration his resources for however long it might take for the Empire to retaliate and redeploy. He wavered, unsure of the best course of action, and let the helmets off in the distance draw his attention from making a decision. For the first time since spotting the helmets, Obi-Wan saw the low mounds of dirt and sand in front of each stake.
This was not the warning that Obi-Wan had inferred. These were graves. But graves? Obi-Wan had never heard of Imperials burying their dead. And who would bury Imperial clones?
It was too strange, and the many unanswerable questions left Obi-Wan unnerved. Retreating to the wastelands would be the safest option. He’d manage with what he had until the Empire came and left again. Luke had only just mastered walking and running and would need Obi-Wan more than Obi-Wan needed polystarch.
---
Three days later, after the cruiser departed and the wisps of black smoke rising out of town had dissipated, Obi-Wan again set out for Anchorhead on his eopie. His food supplies were running low, and the long shadow cast by the cruiser had shaken too many memories loose for Obi-Wan to sit still.
His body thrummed with worry about the devastation he might find by heading into town, but had heaved with heartbreak when left alone recalling the days and nights he had spent on a cruiser not unlike that one and the happiness he had found there among the horror. Now, all he had was the horror.
Obi-Wan wanted so badly to remember the time before without regret. He wanted to revel in his memories of Cody, who had been his mooring, always holding him steady when he felt so adrift, always an oasis of calm, but every glimpse dug into a part of him that bled with agony. The way his eyes smiled more than his mouth. Why? The way he’d use his hand to cover his face when he really grinned. What did I miss? The way his lips felt on Obi-Wan’s. Why didn’t I do more? The way his hands spoiled Obi-Wan’s body. What happened to you?
The questions tormented Obi-Wan often, not always confined to one source of despair, switching depending on the day from a loved partner to a loved brother. One man, whose fate he had set in motion, who now pillaged the galaxy searching for him. One man, whose fate he dared not imagine, because if he were alive, maybe there was hope. But if he were alive, and Obi-Wan had abandoned him to that fate—
Obi-Wan inhaled and focused on the immediacy of the suns heat on his skin. He was on the road to Anchorhead, he was on Tatooine, he had a mission, Luke, that was what was important.
He was prepared for the clone trooper helmets this time. Except the grave site had been trashed. One of the helmets was gone and the other had been knocked off its stake. Obi-Wan halted the eopie and looked around. They were the only sentients on the horizon. With no spying eyes around, Obi-Wan padded over to the site.
Obi-Wan knelt to pick up the helmet that remained. It was as Obi-Wan remembered, surprisingly light for its sophistication, but solid and sturdy. The front gave away nothing and he turned it over in his hands.
Long live the Imperial Army!
Obi-Wan startled at the ink scrawled across the back of the helmet. The Imperials desecrated this memorial? Why? Obi-Wan surveyed the area and his eyes landed on the wooden stakes. They weren’t just support posts, they were purposefully scarred with neatly etched lines. Leaning in closer, Obi-wan recognized the markings as words, as Mando’a.
There is no death. My brothers live within me.
Obi-Wan’s blood stopped but his mind raced. He’d heard the rumors that the Empire had somehow turned the clones into automatons, had wanted and not wanted to believe it at the same time. He’d heard that despite their subjugation, the Empire was replacing clones with ‘superior’ human recruits. Nothing he’d learned about the Empire suggested they would tolerate clones with the independence and empathy to bury their brothers. To bury their brothers under the words of the Jedi. If it hadn’t been Imperial clones, could there be others out there? Amid the theories crashing into disbelief and doubt, Obi-Wan sensed the sprout of something foreign. The slender possibilities watering a small bud of hope peeking through the arid desert.
He shoved the remaining helmet in his market bag and shuffled back to the road.
Obi-Wan stretched to shut down his thoughts again, focusing on the suns’ light. Letting the rays nurture the small bit of hope within him.
---
Anchorhead had survived the Imperials. Piles of destroyed furniture outside of homes marked a trail of cruelty, but the people were not so easily broken. Nods from shopkeepers greeted Obi-Wan as easily as the aroma of bread baking, like any other day. The Empire demanded obedience and fealty through terror, but here were the faithless.
Business transpired as usual among the stalls in the market. Derroh had millet and jogan fruit. Ne’seti was only low on Lothal tea, which he couldn’t afford to spring for on every trip into town anyway. And among his trinkets, Eyrin had the dregs of what skirmishes the town had seen: spent blaster cartridges, a few empty ammo crates, and miscellaneous pieces of Imperial trooper armor.
Obi-Wan sifted through the vambraces and shoulder plates. Somewhere in his hovel, he had pieces like these, from early in the war. He’d stopped wearing it, at some point it had become superfluous with Cody at his side, all the armor he needed. But this Imperial-grade plastoid was nothing like what Cody had worn, how much sturdier it was as Obi-Wan pried it off him. Obi-Wan briefly cradled the memory before letting it go.
“If none of that junk interests you,” Eyrin said, bringing Obi-Wan out of his reverie. “I’ve got a real collector’s item available for the right price.”
“Oh?” Obi-Wan inquired, leaning into the distraction. And as his main source of galaxy gossip, Eyrin was someone Obi-Wan tried to keep humored.
The Rodian reached below the display and revealed another Republic-era trooper helmet.
“Oh,” Obi-Wan feigned composure. His heart rate picked up again, he hadn’t expected to see the other helmet show up here.
Eyrin flipped the helmet upside down and motioned it towards Obi-Wan. “It’s authentic, you can see the clone’s ID right there,” he said, pointing at a small, neatly penned CT-8813 followed by ‘Cribs’ inside the brim. Obi-Wan swallowed against his rising nausea. As a helmet, it had been abstract. Now… He hadn’t known this trooper, but Cribs had been someone’s brother, someone’s friend. Eyrin was still talking. “These are getting harder to find and you’ll pay way more for one of these bad boys at the markets in Mos Espa and Mos Eisley.”
Obi-Wan took a breath to respond.
“I think I’ll pass this time, Eyrin, thank you,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. “Do let me know if you come upon any more, older perhaps?”
“I’ll see what I can do, my friend,” he replied, putting the helmet back under his table scattered with cheap keepsakes of various provenances.
“But I’ll take these,” Obi-Wan said. He picked out two flat, black stones from an assortment of rocks Eyrin offered from around the galaxy.
On his trip back to the wastelands, Obi-Wan stopped at the memorial to the two men who had once served the Republic. Who had once been more than soldiers or stormtroopers, they had been brothers, individuals. They deserved to be remembered, too.
Obi-Wan palmed the stones in his pocket and placed one next to each grave marker. “There is no death, there is only the Force,” he said. This time, it was not the suns’ shine that centered him, it was the soft glow of the Force. Through it, he felt peace and he felt his own hope growing.
---
Obi-Wan started a new journal.
On the first line, he wrote Cribs : CT-8813. The helmet he’d liberated had belonged to Moony, CT-6634. He wrote the man’s name on the second line.
As he took the first steps of this new ritual, he felt the excruciating silence of his solitary room ease. His shoulders dropped and he could breathe through his abdomen.
He craved true serenity, but would settle for liveable. He would need the support.
The next names were much harder to write.
Gearshift
Longshot
Waxer
He kept going, writing down as many of their men as he could remember. Adding the 501st and Plo’s and Secura’s men and Ponds and on and on. Not for the first time, Obi-Wan wished Cody were there, like it had been before, when they could toss aside the datapads detailing their losses in cold words and hold each other, feel the other alive and close, and let the peace and quiet talk for them as they shared the burden of command. His heart twisted at the memory, but this time the ache didn’t break him. He held onto the warmth and let the cold go.
By the end of his list, Obi-Wan could only remember the faces and how they had felt in the Force, but not their names. Cody would have remembered all of their names. The pages stared at him. Each one of them was the Force now, and they lived on in their brothers.
Perhaps even in brothers who had managed to escape the Empire. Who were carrying on the vode’s ways. Who were rebelling. Obi-Wan could hope.
---
Increasingly, Obi-Wan found himself looking forward to making the trip into Anchorhead. Not only was it an chance to indulge his newfound taste for haroun bread and perhaps glean some updates on the state of the galaxy, but each trip offered an opportunity to reflect and remember and lay a stone at the graves.
As the weeks passed and the sand whipped over the desert, scraping and reshaping the land, the two stakes and the subsequent stones placed by Obi-Wan endured.
Through his visits to Eyrin, Obi-Wan discovered a handful of new names for his register of the fallen. But as he also learned in his visits to Eyrin, clones were quickly becoming obsolete to the Empire. Their numbers were dwindling as the Imperial military sought to elevate their true believers. It imparted an urgency into Obi-Wan’s project, to preserve the memories of those clones he could, before they were all one with the Force.
Previously, Obi-Wan had found few reasons to venture as far north as Mos Eisley. But Eyrin’s suggestion that the market there would have more war detritus sparked his interest. Documenting the names of the fallen clones felt important and worthy and it gave him a function beyond ‘keep watch’. If a trip to Mos Eisley, would further his goals in the face of an encroaching Empire, he could muster the energy to go.
---
The road to Mos Eisley was worn into the earth in a way the route to Anchorhead shifted with every storm. Traveling by eopie meant listening for the hooligans on speeders coming up fast and giving a wide berth to the tradesmen traveling with banthas.
Obi-Wan spared enough attention to scan the horizon as he got closer to the city, nominally to keep an eye out for ne'er-do wells.
Eventually, he did spot what he was hoping to find.
Obscured by a rust-colored outcropping of rock a hundred meters off the road were three weathered stakes clustered together. These graves were better hidden than those outside of Anchorhead, and it allowed Obi-Wan the opportunity to linger over the memorial without drawing unwanted attention.
The stakes had the same message carved into them, There is no death. My brothers live in me. As he ran a finger over the words in Mando’a, Obi-Wan noticed the other sides of the stake also had words etched into them. One side indicated the date a few weeks earlier the men must have fallen. On the back of the stakes were their names and identification.
One of them had been a commander. It was the first time Obi-Wan saw a CC-number on a grave or a helmet and his stomach dropped out of his body. He hadn't known the man, but. But. He wanted to vomit but had nothing inside him. He knew, he knew no clone was immune to the whims of the Empire. He knew that, but.
Obi-Wan had tried so hard not to let his mind sink too deeply into the bleak possibility that Cody was… not alive. That Obi-Wan was too late, too weak, too cowardly. He had never seen an CC-number in his antique hunting. He’d thought, maybe hoped, they were insulated from the purge.
He shook his mind clear of the panic taking hold. He had no insight into Cody’s fate, for better or worse, he reminded himself. If he had, he would have acted. He hoped — gods he hoped — Cody was alive, but he had no way of knowing. No way of knowing who or how to ask. All he could do was endure until he knew more.
So he kept going. He had kept track of the graves and helmets he ran across in Anchorhead and he was making this trip to Mos Eisley to keep the brothers' memories alive. Centering himself, Obi-Wan took note of the names and numbers on the three graves and continued on. He would have to acquire stones in Mos Eisley and stop again on his way back.
---
Obi-Wan had not prepared himself for how physical the market in Mos Eisley would be. It wasn’t only that there were more sentients, but he was expected to push and elbow and force his way through the crowds to view the wares at any given stall.
Typically, Obi-Wan kept himself closed off from the Force when he was meditating or seeking its centering power. In Mos Eisley, Obi-Wan thought the Force might better nudge him through the crowds towards the answers he was looking for.
As he let the Force prod him, he felt another presence. An outsider grazing the periphery of his reach. Obi-Wan pulled back, and closed himself off to the Force. He would let his tactile senses lead him while keeping an eye out for whoever was lurking around the edges of Mos Eisley.
A stall cluttered with military paraphernalia caught Obi-Wan’s eye. While Eyrin could offer a Republic-era helmet or two each month, this one vendor had five. Obi-Wan muscled his way through the throng of onlookers to investigate the merchandise.
“Hello, hello!” the heavily modded human behind the register greeted him. “We offer the finest in genuine Republic and Imperial military wares, my friend! What can I interest you in? I’ve got goods to meet every desire!”
Obi-Wan couldn’t help but smile at the customer service. “I’m mostly interested in your clone armor,” he said.
“Yes, yes! A man of fine taste,” they said. “Please, inspect as you wish, you’ll find only the best here!”
Reverentially, Obi-Wan picked up the helmets one by one, searching for clues like the speck of red paint he’d found on the inside of one of the helmets Eyrin had acquired.
What he hadn’t expected — the odds were so slim, he'd assured himself — was finding a name and number of a man he'd known.
It was so late in the war, they had seen so many men come and go, but they still both made time to meet the new troopers. It was their burden that they bore together. Always together.
“Books, sir!” the shiny declared.
“I hope that’s because you’re always by the books, trooper,” Cody said at his side, leaning into him more than necessary but more than welcome.
The trooper’s eyes flitted between him and Cody, “uh,” he tried, “no sir, I mean yes, sir. I mean, I follow the rules, sir. But, it’s more because I like reading holonovels, sir.” With that admission, he stared at the hangar deck rather than meet his commander’s demanding gaze.
Obi-Wan captured Cody’s eye instead. “One of mine, then?” he quipped.
Cody inclined an eyebrow at Obi-Wan and pressed their bodies closer, “One of yours, sir.”
Obi-Wan felt the spike of anguish he shot into the Force before he could stop it. It was a careless oversight, but one he hoped went unnoticed by whoever was lurking about. He schooled his mien and moved on to note the names and numbers on the remaining helmets. He had a mission, even if it was only for himself
A flare in the Force forced him to pause. The presence that prodded him before hadn’t missed the distress Obi-Wan had broadcast for all to hear. It was begging Obi-Wan to respond.
He ignored it.
“How much for this one?” Obi-Wan asked about Books’ helmet.
“70 credits,” the vendor said, obviously angling to bargain. Fifty would have been a good price.
Obi-Wan was not in the mood. He wanted to return to the wastelands and meditate and find peace. He dropped 70 credits on the table and put the helmet in his bag.
---
Approaching his hovel, Obi-Wan sensed the same flare in the Force he’d felt in the market. When he reached out to it, the Force beckoned him forward, much like before. Sensing no darkness or subterfuge in the presence, Obi-Wan carefully stepped into his home.
The first thing he noticed were the robes on the hooded figure. Then the unmistakable aura of Ahsoka opened up to him and he was awash in a joy he hadn’t felt in years. The last time he had seen her, he’d sent her off to Mandalore with the 332nd, already with the odds against her. He’d assumed the worst, but she had survived.
“Ahsoka!” he beamed in surprise. She tossed off her hood.
“Obi-Wan,” she smiled back with none of the same surprise. Obi-Wan stilled at the realization, had he been that easy to track down?
“How did you find me?” he asked.
“To be honest, I didn’t know who I’d find here,” she demurred. “I heard an off-hand remark. One of my,” then she seemed to search for a word, “associates said someone had been stacking rocks on trooper memorials on Tatooine. I figured it was worth finding out if there was a dissident we could recruit, or maybe a free clone.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hold out a little hope it was you.”
Hope. Hope had brought her here. Hope had given Obi-Wan part of his family again. Hope showed him he wasn’t alone.
“I’m so grateful to see you, young one,” he whispered, drawing her in for a hug. He had so many questions, wanted desperately not to let her go. “But you shouldn’t stay here long.” There was too much at stake. Two Jedi together was playing with fire, two Jedi both hunted by Vader on Tatooine was reckless.
“I know,” she sighed. “I needed to warn you, though.” She took a deep breath. “A Sith Lord is looking for you. Everywhere.”
“I’ve heard as much.”
She looked at him sideways. “How much?”
“Enough. That he’s alive, that he’s angry.”
Ahsoka nodded slowly, mulling her next words carefully. Obi-Wan could sense her apprehension.
“I watched you in the market,” she confessed. “I saw you checking the trooper helmets on sale, looking to see who they belonged to.” Obi-Wan clenched his jaw in preparation for whatever news had her so nervous to divulge. “Cody’s alive,” she said, “but—”
Obi-Wan huffed out a ragged breath he’d been holding. “Where?” he asked before he even knew what he could do with the information.
Ahsoka’s brow was furrowed but she put a hand on his forearm. The light touch melted away the tension in the folded arms he was using to hold himself together. “Obi-Wan,” she said, too quietly for good news. “He’s not himself right now. There are these chips in every clone’s head that the Empire uses to control them. We’ve been able to free some clones, but—”
“Ahsoka, please,” Obi-Wan strained to squeeze out. Her preamble to avoid telling him what he needed to know served only to wring his being further. “He’s alive. Where?”
She looked at him with the wide eyes of a scared padawan and a trembling lower lip.
“Mustafar,” she managed to say before looking away, searching the room for a less bitter answer. “With—” her words stumbled to a stop. Obi-Wan didn’t need a name to know she meant Vader. “Obi-Wan, the Sith, he takes Cody with him everywhere. The stories from the survivors of the places they go,” she trailed off, her voice shaky.
Obi-Wan had seen the aftermath in the Jedi temple. He didn’t need to imagine the horrors. But Cody hadn’t and wasn’t choosing this destiny, a chip and the Empire were forcing it upon him. He was a prisoner of a war with no end to his captivity and his bondage at Vader’s side was no coincidence. Vader knew exactly how to torture Obi-Wan, even with a galaxy between them.
“You said you’ve freed some clones?” Obi-Wan asked.
Ahsoka’s grip on his forearm tightened and her gaze turned warning.
“The Sith has been hunting you and he hasn’t found you,” Ahsoka said. “Please keep it that way. The underground networks were hand-fed this intel, Obi-Wan. He wants you to know. He’s laying a trap.”
“Of course he is, my dear,” Obi-Wan sighed. “And he’ll already know I’m coming.”
“Obi-Wan, don’t, you’re safe here” Ahsoka pleaded. “Cody wouldn’t want you to walk into a trap just for him.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Obi-Wan agreed. Cody had raised an eyebrow at more than a few of Obi-Wan’s schemes in the past. Yet despite any of his reservations about a given gambit, Cody would join Obi-Wan on the front lines every time, even when he could have led from the fleet and let Obi-Wan clean up his own messes. “But I’m afraid his sound strategic reasoning hasn’t always foiled my plans to single handedly save the day.”
Ahsoka growled in frustration and, like an exasperated commander, ordered, “You’re not going alone.”
“You’re not coming with me,” Obi-Wan protested. Handing Vader two Jedi was out of the question. Besides, while Beru could handle most anything Tatooine or the galaxy threw at Luke, especially with Vader distracted, Obi-Wan had to consider the worst. “You would do me a great service by keeping an eye on my neighbors until we get back.”
Ahsoka narrowed her eyes, and he could feel her reaching out with the Force, testing his resolve. He hadn’t been this sure of purpose in years. She relented. “I’ll message Rex. He’ll go with you.”
Rex! Alive and free. Obi-Wan’s confidence in the mission multiplied. They were going to liberate Cody from the Empire. He was going to bring Cody home.
“Thank you, Ahsoka,” he said. “For everything. You’ve given me more than I can say.”
She did not look convinced. But she said, “May the Force be with you, Obi-Wan.”
He knew it would. He sensed its certainty shining around him.