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In retrospect, head-butting the droid wasn’t his smartest decision. It wasn’t even the first time he had done it—the difference, though, Cody had had his helmet knocked off his head this time.
Everything made more sense in retrospect.
It didn’t really matter how it happened now. Now that he was bleeding profusely from his head wound and his vision started to black out on the edges. The fight went on around him, but Cody could no longer hear it. Like underwater, all the noise ceased at once, the world blurring and darkening until he didn’t know about himself anymore.
When he came to, it was to Waxer shouting his name and wrapping a bandage over his head—too tight. Cody groaned at the pain it sent pulsing down his skull. Boil was in front of them, shooting at whatever got close.
Waxer hadn’t noticed his wakefulness and shook his shoulder, sending a wave of nausea through him. Cody quickly gripped the hand and pushed it off.
“Sir! Are you alright? What happened?” Waxer was yelling in his face.
“Help me up,” Cody said instead. He looked around as Waxer helped him to his feet and steadied him. The tactical droid wasn’t anywhere around. Yes, the move had let him free himself from the droid’s mechanical clutches, but it had also been very dumb and hadn’t done any damage to the droid.
Cody cursed, confusing Waxer even more. Instead of thinking about the mess, Cody asked for a battle report.
They were pushing the droid battalion toward the cliffs, as planned. Everything was running smoothly, their losses minimal against mostly B-1 battle droids. Their general was leading the charge and they estimated a win in the next half hour.
Cody was glad to hear that and pushed back the urge to comm Obi-Wan and ask him how it was going on the front lines. It would be a distraction. Obi-Wan could deal with the battle on his own. Cody had the utmost trust in him.
Boil kept guarding their back, shooting Cody a quick ‘glad to have you back, sir’ before focusing on any surprises that might come their way.
Waxer put an arm around his back while Cody kept himself up around his shoulders. Waxer had a blaster in his other hand, aimed and ready. Cody had lost both his blaster and his helmet. He couldn’t worry about that now as Waxer hauled him toward the nearest medic.
He hated leaving the fight earlier than his men, but he wouldn’t be able to shoot straight right now no matter how much he tried and that would be more dangerous to his troopers than anything.
The fighting was over thirty-six minutes later. Cody had been transported back to the Negotiator and its infirmary along with the rest of the injured clones.
If not Cody, Obi-Wan would have to report to the Council immediately with their progress on this particular front. He must have rushed through that, because before the clone medic could finish rewrapping his head, Obi-Wan was striding into the infirmary, his robes soot covered and billowing behind him.
He had a familiar helmet tucked under one hand. Cody breathed a sigh of relief at the sight. Obi-Wan was fine. And Cody still had his helmet. He could always count on Obi-Wan.
“I found this on the battlefield, and you nowhere in sight,” he said, a worried frown on his face as he stopped at the side of his bed. “What happened?” He looked at Cody, then at the medic.
Before Cody could answer, the medic was speaking. “A nasty cut, and an even nastier concussion. Wanna share with the general how you got it?” He glared, crossing his arms over his chest.
Obi-Wan looked at him expectantly.
“Not really,” Cody grumbled, willing the heat from his cheeks. In retrospect, it was really, really stupid.
After years of fighting alongside him, Obi-Wan easily figured it out, his eyes growing wide. “With your head?”
“I forgot I didn’t have the helmet,” Cody said in his defense, giving a tired sigh.
Obi-Wan looked at him with exasperation and fondness alike. He placed the helmet on his bedside table. “How do you feel?”
“Like somebody knocked me out with a metal brick,” he deadpanned, making Obi-Wan bark out a laugh that he quickly covered when the medic glared at them both.
“I’ll keep you here tonight. No sleep for you, but you’re on strict rest from now on.”
“You think he might have some lasting effects?” Obi-Wan asked, the earlier mirth forgotten.
“No, but it’s better to be safe. We’ll monitor him for the next twenty-four hours and then he can sleep all he wants. If you need his report, he can record it tomorrow, but no screens for a week.”
Cody and Obi-Wan nodded, familiar with how things worked after a concussion.
.
Cody was finally released from the infirmary and told he could stay in his room and that one of the medics would come check on him regularly. Should he experience any of the side effects the medic had listed, he should get back immediately or comm them.
As far as being concussed went, Cody felt alright. He did as he was told even if his fingers itched to open up his datapad and get some work done, but he knew that would make him feel worse and if he wanted to return to work, he had to mind his actions.
So rest it was. Cody had turned on some audio-book Ahsoka had recommended to him months ago. It wasn’t bad, but sort of simplistic, the complex issues covered within the story tended to be portrayed in a very black or white view. It reminded him just how Ahsoka was. How she was still a child, no matter her skills and Force abilities.
He got through about a quarter of the novel when he felt his eyes drooping. Instead of trying to stay awake and listen, he turned it off and slid down in his bed. He wouldn’t be able to focus on what was being said either way and would have to go back a couple of chapters the next day which would have been a hassle.
Cody let the exhaustion pull at him and surrendered to the much-needed sleep.
.
The battlefield in front of him was familiar, but Cody couldn’t explain why. He took a step forward, his blaster held securely in his arms, pointed to the ground. Where were his troops?
They were supposed to be there. This was their battle. They were supposed to be here.
His steps were muffled on the grass and soft soil. Still, he knew his boots would not start sinking and digging in. He had been here before. The ground was safe to walk on, confirmed by his men.
Where were his men?
He looked up, up from the ground and nearly took a step back, startled. The ground was littered with droids, their bodies still smoking from where they had been shot through with blaster shots. Scorched where the scalding laser had cut through. Their parts were all around him.
Ashes flew in the sky, the sun setting over the horizon. In a fight, not all blaster shots met their intended targets. The nature around always suffered. The leaf-less trees around the clearing burned, made it look like a twisted version of snowfall.
It covered the droids. Or it should have. But when Cody watched the ash fall, there weren’t droids beneath it. His men—covered in the ash, their armor white and orange unmistakable. And further yet, scorched with a lightsaber like the droids had been.
But it shouldn’t have been them. Why was it them?
Panic growing, Cody turned around, seeking an explanation.
The sun had never set on this world. His men had won. The ash hadn’t fallen before they had left. This was wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Obi-Wan stood behind him when he had turned. His face was pale and tear tracks dried on his cheeks, his eyes glistening. The lightsaber in his hands was raised, ready to strike.
But it was only Cody.
Darkness swept through his mind at the sight of his general. Of the Jedi. Dark and evil. And so, so cold. Words played in his mind, mutterings of words he should understand. Words he knew like he knew his name. Deep in his mind. But there.
Cody couldn’t grasp them. Couldn’t fully comprehend their meaning.
“Not you, Cody. Please, not you too,” Obi-Wan pleaded with him, but he didn’t back down, didn’t lower his weapon.
Cody’s arm was already raised, his finger hovering above the trigger. He hadn’t registered raising his blaster to aim at Obi-Wan, but his mind was a swirl of darkness. He couldn’t think. Nothing beyond a single phrase.
The words finally formed on his tongue, foreign but his, his in a way nothing had ever been. And when he opened his mouth to speak, Cody fired.
He jolted awake, breathing hard, skin clammy and damp with cold sweat. His shirt was drenched and his head spinning. Cody took in his room, counted his breaths and willed his heart to slow down.
He focused on his surroundings. The room was dark, but he could feel the hard mattress underneath him, the blanket pooling in his lap. He could hear the rush of his blood and his labored breathing. Could feel his skin growing cold when the chilly air hit his wet shirt.
Whatever he had been about to say to Obi-Wan in his nightmare was gone, lost in his thoughts. Yet the foreboding feeling stayed. The darkness slowly leaving but not as fast as he would have liked. Cody stood up and rushed to switch on the light, not caring one bit that the light was blinding and sent a spike of sharp pain through his head.
The darkness ceased, but he felt shitty and ready to throw up. Cody hurried to his tiny bathroom, but nothing came out. He settled for a quick shower and a visit to the infirmary.
By the time he got there, the nightmare was nothing but a few lingering images in his mind. The battle from before twisted by his unconscious mind. And Obi-Wan… Cody remembered his stricken face, remembered pulling the trigger just moments before waking up. That part, he desperately wanted to forget. Cody would never shoot at his general, would never willingly hurt Obi-Wan.
The medic didn’t like the sound of the nightmare, but with a head injury like that, he didn’t think it was too odd. Cody had been through a lot down there. Another fight that could have easily ended up in him dead. Things like that had consequences—in the mental processing—that he shouldn’t ignore just because he had been through countless battles by now.
Still, Cody didn’t really want to talk about it. There wasn’t anything to mention, not really. A nightmare. One of many, for sure. No deeper meaning to it. Maybe Cody was stressed, that was it. His routine uprooted by the injury and time off, that was all.
The medic gave him a slightly stronger painkiller than before and that was it. He was told to come back if it got worse, but Cody doubted that.
The nightmare, while he may have forgotten most of it, had left him disturbed for the rest of the day. The emotions and panic it had brought on lingered uncomfortably, knotting up his stomach.
Obi-Wan had commed him in the early afternoon to ask him how he was feeling and if he was feeling good enough for a quick tea. Cody thought that would be fine, but seeing Obi-Wan today, after that nightmare… He couldn’t get that picture out of his head. Him killing his general. So Cody lied and told him he was about to take a nap.
He never lied to Obi-Wan.
Cody felt even shittier than before but he couldn’t face Obi-Wan. Not today. He would get over it soon. Tomorrow, he would be fine. Now, seeing Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan’s worried face that was bound to follow would make him spill instantly.
At night, Cody tried to stay up as late as he could, but the painkillers worked and left him dazed. He wanted to sleep and dreaded it at the same time. There was no telling if the nightmare would follow him.
The decision was taken from him as he fell asleep despite his best efforts.
Ahsoka knocked the blaster out of his hands. She was agile, a skilled fighter with her two sabers. Cody barely had time to dodge. She didn’t cry, not like Obi-Wan. She stood strong against him. Fighting and fighting, pushing him back.
Cody tripped and lost his balance.
“We trusted you!” she shouted, sending him sprawling with a powerful kick.
Cody rolled to the side, not giving the traitor a chance to kill him with her lightsabers.
What?
Cody froze, stopped fighting. Why was he fighting? It was Ahsoka. She wasn’t his enemy. Where was Obi-Wan? To his left laid a bundle of robes. His heart missed a beat, but they were too dark to be Obi-Wan’s and yet clearly Jedi. Bile rose up as he recognized the mop of dark blonde hair.
He didn’t need to remember it to know he had done that. He had shot Anakin. And then Ahsoka had charged him before he could shoot her.
When he was done with her, he would have to find Obi-Wan and—
No. Cody didn’t want to fight them. They weren’t his enemy.
He repeated the sentence in his head like some sort of mantra, but it was starting to lose its meaning and soon, he was reaching for the dagger hidden in his boot. Ahsoka didn’t let him. With a cry that was both enraged and filled with agony, she lifted him up with the Force and slammed him back.
The impact knocked the breath out of him. Cody choked on air, desperate to fill his lungs. His eyes trailed around the dark room, not the old road that had been thrown against a second ago.
The nightmare had returned, different and exactly the same. Cody fought to regain his breath and his mind, fought to get a grip on his emotions. Whatever this was, it didn’t feel like it was going to go away.
The darkness lingered at the edge of his mind, clouding his thoughts, drawing out all the negative emotions. As the bad dream faded, they stayed. And Cody didn’t want to be alone anymore.
He commed Obi-Wan and asked him if they could have that tea now.
“Cody, are you alright?”
“Yes, why?” he said quickly, not ready to talk about this over the comm.
“The tea… I am happy to share it with you any time, but… it’s five am.”
Oh. Cody hadn’t checked the chrono. He had woken up, calmed down enough to think and commed Obi-Wan. “Right. Sorry. Go back to sleep, General. I-I’ll see you later.” He ended the transmission before Obi-Wan could answer.
Cody pulled his hands to his face and groaned. He rubbed at his face furiously, feeling the burn of his stubble against his palms. This was stupid. It was just a nightmare. Why the kriff had he commed Obi-Wan with this?
He knew why. There was nobody else he wanted to talk to about these things. Obi-Wan always came to his mind first. The man would listen. He would try to help. He cared about Cody.
And Cody cared just as much.
Only he knew that he shouldn’t. That there was no future for them. No present either. They were in the middle of a war. And Obi-Wan was a Jedi. Cody didn’t know their rules and philosophies by heart, but he also hadn’t met a Jedi with any sort of a partner.
Which meant nothing as long as Obi-Wan didn’t reciprocate his feelings—which he couldn’t. It was Obi-Wan. And he was, well, a clone serving the very people Obi-Wan was a part of. It was all… Cody didn’t think about it all too much. The war and surviving each day were more pressing.
A chime echoed through his room. Cody didn’t have to guess who stood behind his door. He stood from the bed, turned on the light before he could hit something and then pressed the button on the door panel to unlock it and let Obi-Wan in.
There was that worried expression Cody had feared. The one that always made him fold immediately.
Obi-Wan reached out and put his arms on Cody’s shoulders, analyzing his face. “Cody… Do you need to see the medic again? What’s going on?”
“No, I don’t think—” He sighed, not knowing how to speak his mind.
“Alright. It’s okay. Let’s sit down first.”
Cody let himself be guided back to his bed. Obi-Wan propped his pillows behind his back. When Cody was settled, Obi-Wan stood again and dimmed the main light. “Now, that’s better,” he muttered to himself and then sat down next to Cody.
Those sharp blue eyes took him in. Obi-Wan didn’t touch him again, but Cody could clearly see that he wanted to. He wanted to provide him with any comfort he could, and Cody would have welcomed it, but he didn’t speak and so Obi-Wan didn’t. “Cody,” he said, drawing his attention. “Forgive me my bluntness, but you look terrible.”
Cody had enough energy to snort. An understatement.
This time, Obi-Wan’s fingers brushed against his forearm, the touch tentative. “Talk to me.”
The floodgates opened.
“I’ve been having nightmares.”
“How long?”
“These past two nights in a row. Look, I know how it sounds. It’s probably nothing. I know that—”
Obi-Wan took his hand in his to calm him down, rubbing soothing circles into the back of it with his thumb. “Cody, listen to me. I wouldn’t care if it was only one. I can feel your panic, your fear. I will not judge you.”
Cody breathed out. He would have thought Obi-Wan was using the Force to calm him down, but he knew better. It was simply Obi-Wan. He was enough. “They take me back to the battlefields. It feels like a memory at first, until it isn’t. And I fight. But it’s not against the droids. It’s—I fight you, Obi-Wan. And Ahsoka. I’ve shot at you. I’ve killed Anakin. There were other clones too, dead. By your hands. I don’t—” Tears sprang to his eyes as he recalled the feelings, the sights.
Obi-Wan pulled him into a tight embrace. “They’re nightmares. That’s all. They will fade. You are safe, as am I. You know how Anakin is, he can get out of any bind. And Ahsoka takes after him. You’re a good man, Cody. You wouldn’t hurt any of us.”
“It feels like I want to, though, in those dreams. There are moments when I’m myself, and then I’m… something else. Still me, but I want to do it. And then I do.”
Obi-Wan pulled him even closer, held him for a moment, taking it in. Then, he pulled back so that he would be able to see Cody. “It could be the stress from your injury, and that last battle, but do you think there could be more to it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Dreams have ways of showing us things that lay in our subconscious. Fears and worries we aren’t even aware of ourselves.”
Cody frowned but he did think about it. Obi-Wan waited for him, patient, not pushing for an answer.
Of course, there was the fear of dying, him, his brothers, all his friends and the people he worked with, the man he loved—Obi-Wan. They were at war, could die at any moment. That was a part of his life Cody had long accepted. It wasn’t death he feared.
And if, there would be no need for his subconscious mind to dredge it up in his dreams, giving him horrible nightmares. He shook his head. “These nightmares… they’re something else. Something inside me but not part of me. Even if it’s still me pulling the trigger.”
Cody sighed and brushed back his hair that was starting to fall over his forehead. “I’m not making any sense,” he added. He could hear himself just fine.
“We’ll figure this out,” Obi-Wan assured him.
“You don’t sound so sure.”
“I’m sure. I think I have some herbs for a calming tea. And I can teach you a meditation technique to clear your mind before you go to sleep. And if that fails too, we can get you a mind healer to talk to.”
Cody nodded. It was more than he had come up with till now.
“I won’t let you suffer like this.”
He closed his eyes and let Obi-Wan pull him into another hug, their foreheads resting against each other. Cody didn’t let himself doze off no matter how safe and warm he felt in Obi-Wan’s arms.
.
Despite everything they had tried, the nightmares continued. His headaches persisted too. With each day, Cody was crankier and more scared. The nightmares kept coming back. There was no respite. The best he could do was a half hour nap. He set his alarms in a way he would wake up before he could start dreaming. But the naps left him more tired than before.
The nightmares seemed to follow a script. Cody was always in his armor, always with his blaster at ready. And he always used it. In every one of those dreams. Without hesitation. Turned against any Jedi his mind had conjured for the particular night.
He had killed so many. Sometimes more of them at once. Sometimes he lived through it, sometimes they were already dead, with Cody standing over them, the feeling of the kick from his blaster still fresh against his arms.
Master Yoda, General Windu or Fisto, he could deal with those. Could compartmentalize. Push it back during the day.
Ahsoka and Anakin, those he struggled to come to terms with. The worst thing was, the Jedi in his nightmares talked back. Blaming him. Cursing him. Those were the better alternatives. Sometimes, they begged, they cried, they tried to understand and couldn’t. How could they, when Cody himself had no idea what was going on.
The worst mornings came after he dreamed of Obi-Wan. Of killing him. Shooting him. Some nights he didn’t have his blaster, but that hadn’t stopped him. He still had his hands. His training. And as soon as the dream Obi-Wan had lost his lightsaber, Cody had won. Many times over.
He stopped telling Obi-Wan about the nightmares. Just shrugged when the man asked again and again. There was nothing new to tell him. They kept happening and that was all he could say about them.
The words he spoke in those nightmares still eluded him. He had tried to recall them, but it was like that itself made him forget much faster. He was clearly talking during those nightmares, but he could never grasp the exact words.
And yet the words Obi-Wan shouted at him were branded in his mind.
Whatever he was saying, those words were a key to this—Cody could feel it, feel how true that was. But the words would always drift away. And the dark voice speaking in his mind never stayed for too long. Not once he was awake.
.
Weeks of nightmares started to blend in and the script was becoming familiar. Cody had returned to work, but his hours had been cut by Obi-Wan and the medic. He wasn’t in his right mind. He hated that he couldn’t go out and fight beside Obi-Wan.
He knew it wasn’t because Obi-Wan stopped trusting him. Cody was sleep-deprived. All of the time. He couldn’t fully rely on his skills and his senses and in turn, Obi-Wan could no longer rely on him out on the battlefield.
That script kept bothering him.
A word jumped out. Traitors. Cody kept calling the Jedi in his nightmares traitors and once he woke, he couldn’t fathom why.
.
A nightmare more brutal than all the others combined had him waking up screaming. Then sobbing after he had realized where he was. Cody was tired. He was so, so tired.
He kept working. He kept drinking caf. He avoided sleep for as long as he could. His bed hadn’t been slept in for three days now.
On his fourth day, Cody didn’t dare walk with a cup full of caf. He had his helmet on at all times when walking around the Negotiator. His eye-bags were quite the sight, his face hollow. He was starting to see things that weren’t there, hear things he shouldn’t be hearing. It wasn’t quite the darkness from his nightmares, but it was still unsettling.
Better than the dreams. Better than seeing Obi-Wan dead at his feet every night. Cody couldn’t do that anymore.
He thought he was going to get away with it—as illogical as that sounded, logic had long left him. Until he woke up to a familiar sight of the infirmary.
He felt both relaxed and like he had been run over by a shuttle. His head hurt like it had after his last battle against the Seps. When he opened his eyes, Obi-Wan was there, sitting beside him, looking distraught. Cody wanted to reach out and soothe his worries.
Then the medic noticed his heart-rate changing, spotted his open eyes and nearly threw a glass of water with a straw at him—if Cody had thought the last time was bad…
“Sir, you’re a karking idiot,” the medic said after Cody had sipped on the water. Despite his words, he held the glass in the perfect position and didn’t let Cody spill all over himself. “You cracked your head against the wall. Fucking again. A shiny found you bleeding out in a corridor,” he yelled.
All the noise snapped Obi-Wan out of his thoughts. He immediately stood up and watched Cody with rapt attention. “You’ve said you’ve been sleeping. But you haven’t.” It was more a statement than anything. “How long have you been surviving on caf?” Obi-Wan asked.
“Clearly, I haven’t,” Cody said, wincing as he felt the pain in his head properly now.
“That was so stupid. You know better, sir. You had to sleep eventually,” the medic said, finally not yelling at him.
“I know,” Cody said quietly, too tired to be having this conversation. He was always tired these days. The kind of tired he thought he would never escape. He couldn’t even remember what a full-night’s sleep felt like. What it was like waking up feeling rested and full of energy.
Obi-Wan spoke next, turning to the medic. “Can we have a minute alone?”
The medic left them with a nod, saying he would return later and that Cody needed to relax soon. The sedative they had given him to keep him from having nightmares was still in his system. He would be asleep soon again.
Obi-Wan stepped closer and sat on the edge of his mattress, facing him. “I’m getting really worried about you. There’s something dark clinging to you.” He looked him in the eyes. “What’s happening, Cody?”
Hearing Obi-Wan recognize and feel the darkness within him that Cody couldn’t explain… he was scared. Cody was terrified, actually. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice feeling small in the emptiness of the infirmary.
Obi-Wan took his hand and squeezed it comfortingly, but it still didn’t ease his mind fully. Something was wrong with him. So terribly wrong. Obi-Wan pulled their foreheads together.
They separated only when they heard the medic’s steps approaching again. Obi-Wan still sat by him, hands intertwined. The medic didn’t say anything to that.
“Your earlier concussion and the cut are pretty standard, but I want to run more tests. We should’ve checked your brain properly. Let’s do it now. Could be we missed something after the concussion occurred.”
Cody nodded. Better late than never. He wanted the nightmares to stop.
A full day and five different scans later, the medic had a screen pulled up in front of them. Obi-Wan stood by the bed, his hand covering his beard, occasionally brushing through as he was thinking.
“These are the scans from after the last battle. Notice this area.” The medic circled the area where his temple was. He pressed a button to pull up different scans. “Now these are from this morning. That same area. Level 5 atomic brain scan. The most accurate one we can do here.” He circled the area again.
“What are we looking at?” Obi-Wan asked for both of them. There was something on the screen. Something in his head.
“I don’t know yet. But whatever it is, it’s the cause of your nightmares and possibly the headache as well. We’ll need to investigate. Run some more tests, but at least now we know what to focus on.”
Cody nodded. Overall, this was good news. It still meant there was something in his brain, and they had no idea how it had gotten there, if it was a tumor or something else, but it was a start.
.
It was not a tumor. It was a chip.
The medic, Cody and Obi-Wan kept the investigation contained to the necessary medical personnel who was sworn into secrecy too. Soon, they figured out that this was something sinister, something they were never supposed to discover.
Their medic figured out a way to remove it from his brain. The surgery carried many risks, but Cody wanted it out.
The nightmares had stopped after that, as did the headaches. When Cody had woken up post-surgery, feeling more like himself for the first time in weeks, he had wept in Obi-Wan’s arms, not the least ashamed of it.
He could finally rest.
They thought well and hard about this. Mater Yoda and General Windu were brought into their little secret. As were Rex and Anakin after swearing not to tell the Chancellor, and with him Ahsoka.
All their theories hadn’t yielded anything, but the things were already set in motion.
The Jedi were cautious, preparing for something they had no idea, but preparing nonetheless. And when Tup had open-fired on General Tiplar, she had been saved. After all, they had been ready. Tup had been quickly taken to the Temple, an emergency Council meeting organized and from then on, things started to make more sense.
His nightmares had been like those of the Jedi—prophetic in nature. And thanks to Cody’s refusal to sleep and collapsing in a random corridor, the ploy against the Jedi had been discovered.
Anakin had then revealed the shadier things the Chancellor had told him over the years and the picture had become crystal clear.
They had found their Sith Lord.