Work Text:
He should get all the sleep he could, Cody knew that, and yet, sleep wouldn’t come. A battle awaited them tomorrow, another one. They had managed to push the Seps out of the city today, but they were still there, gathering more forces.
So really, Cody should be sleeping. He needed all the rest he could get.
He turned on the bedroll, adjusting his thin pillow. It didn’t really help.
Huffing under his breath, Cody started counting sheep—a technique he had hardly ever had a need to use, but here he was. He got to elven sheep by the time his thoughts were derailed again.
He had gone all in, visualizing the sheep jumping over a fence. One after the other. And after that sheep number eleven, his mind supplied an image of Obi-Wan jumping over a fallen speeder before he had launched himself at the squad of clankers. Then it was just a bunch of metal limbs flying in the air and a blue lightsaber flickering around.
Cody had been too busy dodging blaster fire and returning it just as eagerly to keep his eyes on his general for long.
Cursing in his head, he tried the count again from zero.
Five…
Obi-Wan had dropped his lightsaber again. But he had been far from helpless. He had swirled around the droid, avoiding powerful hits. Then he had jumped on top of it, legs around its shoulders and then he kriffing pulled its head off. He had tossed it to the nearest trooper, telling them to keep it for the data inside.
Cody needed to start his count again.
He had managed to get to thirty-two sheep when another memory jumped in.
After the fighting had ceased, Obi-Wan had stayed behind, helping the clone medics get the wounded into the transports. He had been tired, clearly. Exhausted from all the Force use, he still aided them, levitating the troopers up into the stretchers, even bringing the whole stretchers into the transport ships.
Obi-Wan cared for his troopers. He cared for them—clones.
And instead of counting sheep, Cody found himself smiling fondly into his pillow as he remembered the look on Obi-Wan’s face when he had tried to explain to a very unimpressed General Windu how he had obtained the data from the tactical droid’s head.
General Skywalker had lost it, his holographic form laughing and not even trying to hide it. And then General Windu’s eyes had travelled to Cody and the lightsaber still clipped to his armor that he hadn’t gotten a chance to return to Obi-Wan. He had sighed tiredly and Obi-Wan had rushed through the rest of his report before shutting off the whole communication.
That night, Cody hadn’t gotten further than fifty sheep before inevitably losing count again. After he fell asleep, his mind had stayed with Obi-Wan.