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Ahsoka receives news of it first. News of a stasis pod found within the remains of a crashed ship bearing insignia that dates back to the Clone Wars travels the galaxy rather quickly, and the former Jedi is quick to find her oldest friend before finding the coordinates to lead them down the path toward rescue.
“Are you sure about this, Ahsoka?” Rex asks, quirking a brow as he leans back in the co-pilots seat of the tiny ship they’d procured for the venture. She hasn’t stopped staring at the surface for the last ten minutes they’ve been in orbit. Ahsoka had been so sure she could feel the Light of the Force echoing in the remains of this planet, across war-torn, scorched battlegrounds where so little remains. “We don’t have to do this. For all we know, it could be nothing.”
She knows it’s not nothing. For The Force to call her here and emanate such light, such familiarity, is not something she can ignore when it’s been so long since she’s felt it like this.
A long time ago, when she was a little girl in the Jedi Gardens running barefoot along the lake with her jetii’vod.
“I don’t believe this to be just nothing, Rex,” She muses, tipping her head to wink at him from over her montral - which is longer then she ever imagined them to be now - before returning her gaze to the planet looming before them. “The Force hasn’t called to me like this in years. Whatever is down there… it’s for us both.”
The landing mechanism engages, and they both take a gradual descent to the planet’s surface.
***
He can’t breathe. All of the dreams are the same, they’ve always been the same, a desperate plea for rescue from behind the glass of a stasis pod he cannot escape. There are a thousand million lives being snuffed out with a single breath. The Light dissipates into the Dark. That’s all there is.
The cold.
The dark.
And the crippling loneliness that encroaches upon his heart.
For the last thirty years, Kix has been dreaming of the people who are not there. He isn’t aware of that. All he knows is the people he’s come to love so deeply, so wholly, who have passed from this world and joined the Cosmic Force.
Obi-Wan. Anakin.
They’re all gone, and here he stands.
Alone.
***
“There!”
Ahsoka turns to glance at Rex over her shoulder. Her eldest brother is pointing in the direction of what looks to be the remains of a crashed Separatist ship in the distance, teetering precariously low on the edge of the cliff it crashed on. There are remains of B1 battle droids scattered around the bay door.
That’s not what bothers her. What bothers her is the familiar signet on the side: The crest of Serenno. She’d only ever known one person of high stature from that planet.
Ahsoka follows his fingers and nods, moving to join Rex at his side. “That’s it,” She remarks. “That’s where the signal is coming from.”
“Are you sure?”
‘’Have I ever been wrong? I’m the one with more experience, remember?”
The banter is familiar and playful. It’s also incredibly worth it just to hear the sound of Rex’s laughter. He might physically be different but his light is all the same, as is the familiarity and warmth that encompasses her when they’re together as opposed to the bitter cold when apart. There are crow’s feet around his eyes and his hair has long since greyed where it used to be blonde and closely cropped to his head, but those eyes have not changed at all.
His eyes were always older than the rest of him.
“You’re gonna have to let that go at some point,” Rex mused. “Because now we’re both old.”
Ahsoka snorts and lightly smacks his arm as they continued over the hill towards the ship. Most of this part of the planet had been uninhabitable since the war had ended, and no one had dared to try to return to rein habit it. Too much death. Too many ghosts.
No reason to live. Not here.
“So my assumption is that this was Dooku’s ship,” Rex remarked. “But I have no idea what could’ve been transported on it. It doesn’t look like it’s been touched since it crashed. If there’s something of value inside…”
Ahsoka nodded. “Pirates will eventually come for it,” She said. The pair stopped just at the next rise so Ahsoka could wave her hand and gradually lower the bay door. It was fortunate that there wasn’t another soul around for miles. No one would ever know what they took from here. “It’s a good thing we in our old age got here first.”
“I am not old,” Rex argued. “I aged like fine Corellian wine.”
She couldn’t argue that.
Holding her breath, Ahsoka descends the hill and stops just at the bay door to peer inside. The inner part of the ship is in ruins. Left with nothing but debris and the standard B1 blasters the droid had once carried, the bay is just as silent as the outside of it.
Until she sees the faint glow of green and the accompanying hum.
“Rex,” Ahsoka whispers. “Is that what I think it is?”
Fear is creeping its way slowly up her spine. The deeper, more innocent part of her that had died when Order 66 went out is stirring inside, begging to be woken up by something familiar that her heart aches for.
“A stasis pod,” Rex breathes. Her older brother approaches first, and the last thing she hears before tearing back across the scorched earth is, “He’s wearing 212th medic armor.”
He can’t know. Your jetii’vod can’t know your part in Anakin’s fall, he’ll never speak to you, you’ll lose your last brother, you’ll lose that last piece of who you used to be.
So when her past dares to breach the surface, she runs.
It’s what Ahsoka is good at.
***
There’s faint tapping on the glass. He thinks that’s probably happened before, back when he was first shoved in here by Dooku after discovering the plans for Order 66 too early. Kix had pounded his fists against the glass until his fingers bled and screamed until his throat was raw.
No one had come.
He’d tried to break it open with the Force.
The door didn’t move.
When the sleep did finally take him, he felt all the lives of the Jedi snuff out at once. His bond with Anakin broke. The one with Obi-Wan took longer to break - which told Kix that a significant amount of time had passed since the end of The Clone War - and the one with Ahsoka sat ever strong, that molten color of gold that never once threatened to burn out.
The tapping on the glass continues. Then the tapping becomes turning, and the rusted gears of the door and moving and the door is opening-
And by the time he forced his eyes to open, Kix Kenobi fell onto his hands and knees and took his first breath of real air in thirty years.
When they focused again, they focused on his brother.
For that, he wept.
***
Rex’s hands are gentle when he finally finds his footing and rushes forward to catch Kix. It’s definitely Kix, it could be no one other than his vod’ika with the curls and the peek of the lightning tattoos alongside those big, haunted eyes.
“Anakin-“ His fingers are frantic to grab at Rex’s tunic, onyx eyes blurred with tears as he tries repeatedly to stand to his feet. The years have atrophied his muscles, accompanied by the pale pallor of his skin - most likely from cryo-sickness from being in the pod for three decades - and the tremor of his hands. “I have to tell Anakin-“
Rex is careful not to let his devastation show.
“Tell him what, vod’ika?”
“Tell him about the Order!” Kix exclaims. “Fives was right, he was right and no one believed him, I need to tell Anakin about Palpatine and save him-“
There’s a look of desperation in his eyes that Rex hasn’t seen since the night in the warehouse with Fives.
“Kix, Kix’ika-“ Rex chides. “Slow down. I need you to tell me what you remember. Do you remember me?’’
Thirty years away from everything he has ever known could ever take away the memories that Kix has built with Rex. Thirty years alone could never quell the need of a clone to be with his brothers. To be secured by his older brothers.
Kix’s hands lift to cradle Rex’s jaw before their foreheads are pressed together and then Kix is tightly enveloped by Rex’s arms.
“Nothing could make me forget you, Rex.” He murmurs.
Rex is so overwhelmed by the warmth and familiarity of his baby brother that for the moment they spent in solitude to mourn together, he forgets about the Togruta woman who had seen clone armor and run away before even daring to gaze at his face.
“Kix’ika,” When the moment is over and they both pull away to wipe at their eyes, Rex absently motions towards the direction Ahsoka fled in. “There was someone else with me. I didn’t come here alone.”
He thinks about the familiar, warm presence - the one that had once held such innocence - outside of his stasis pod before it disappeared as quickly as it came. The last time he’d felt that…
A long time ago, when he was just a Padawan in the Jedi Gardens running barefoot along the lake with his jetii’vod. His littlest sister.
“Ahsoka?”
Rex nods and helps his brother to his feet. It’s going to take some time for Kix to look as he had before being locked in a tomb for thirty years, and he’s willing to carry his brother every step of the way if that’s what is required of him. They’re the last two left.
The last ones standing. And he doesn’t even know.
By the time Rex goes to tell Kix the story of what led them here, his younger brother has wrenched himself out of his grasp and taken off - with the least amount of grace, akin to a newborn fawn - as fast as he can across the field.
Because on the other side of it, Ahsoka Tano is sprinting right back to him.
***
Her feet are running before she can stop herself. On the other side of the field is Rex, but it's the golden rod armor and the blazing medic insignia that make Ahsoka long to embrace him and never let him go. The curls. The tattoos. The ridiculous Mando'a charm necklace he never took off and the Jedi robes that hang loose over his armor.
The lightsaber.
"Ahsoka!"
It's like watching two things happen at once. For a brief moment again, the two of them are running along the edges of the lake while Obi-Wan and Anakin watch on in the distance and laugh at their charade. The image flickers between the Jedi Gardens and the scorched, war-torn earth of a planet she never wants to see again as she and Kix run and run and run toward one another until they collide.
She's definitely not as agile as she used to be anymore, but Kix has not aged. Not a day. Stasis must've halted his advanced aging factor all the clones were cursed with upon birth. He's all shaky limbs and soft cries of relief that his little sister - the last of his lineage - is back in his arms. It's relief. It's peace.
"Kix," Ahsoka whispers, fingers tracing up and down the worn material of his Jedi robes as his knees give out again and she's forced to lower him to the ground. Rex runs his hands over his face exasperatedly, desperately trying to control the tears threatening to prick the back of his eyes at how overwhelmed Kix and Ahsoka are at being reunited. It's bittersweet but heartbreaking. They're the last of their line. "Kix'ika."
Somewhere, so long ago, a Master sits with his Padawan in a Garden. They're going to be there for a long while. Years even. But the wars will tear them apart, and there will be no soft goodbyes, no heartfelt reunions.
There's only what he remembers, what remains of who he used to be. What memories he can carry with him forever.
"Ahsoka." Kix whispers. "Ni'm yaim."
She's not sure what he said. Mando'a was never something taught to her, not enough to translate more than a few words she became familiar with. Kix had been forced to learn the entire language as a medic. Some of the brothers had spoken it better than Basic, and he wanted to offer as many options as possible for communication to make their lives a little bit easier. It had also been why he learned to sign when he'd become a Jedi. Obi-Wan's brief time mute after he and Cody had nearly died during the attack by Asajj Ventress had made that an invaluable talent.
It's not until he's on the brink of sleep that she lifts her head up to ask Rex what was said to her. "Rex? What does that mean?"
Rex's smile is sad. It's always sad anymore. You just have to know how to read it.
"He said he was home, 'Soka."
The last thing he remembers before everything overwhelms him and sleep claims his mind is the weary, bright blue eyes that just seem so sad as she holds him.
Oh, if only he knew