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“How would you like to be honoured, should you die?” Rex asked.
Ahsoka looked up from their dejarik game, an astounded expression on her face. “Where’s that coming from?”
Rex shrugged. “Just wondering.”
Of course, his former commander wasn’t that easily satisfied. “Rex...”
Rex heaved a sigh. It was his turn, but he didn’t make a move. “We’re in a Rebellion, Ahsoka. We’re surrounded by death. I think it’s worth thinking about, at least.”
“You do realise that we might not have the luxury of a funeral of our choice, right?” Ahsoka said carefully, grimacing.
“Yeah, I’ve been fighting for a while, kid” Rex replied, good-naturedly rolling his eyes at her. “I know what dying in a war is like. Still doesn’t mean you can’t have any preferences.”
Ahsoka sighed. The dejarik board lay abandoned between them, the holograms going into their idle animations.
“Look, just answer the question, will you?” Rex said. He didn’t really know why this was suddenly so important to him, but it was. Too many of his brothers had gone without any memorial. The very idea of losing Ahsoka as well was unbearable, but he knew it was a possibility. He had to be prepared for it.
“I’ve never really thought about it” Ahsoka murmured. “Jedi were usually interred in the Jedi Temple tomb. I suppose that’s what I’ve always assumed my funeral would be.”
“On Coruscant?” Rex asked. He knew Ahsoka had never really expected to become part of the Jedi Council, and, other than her master, she hadn’t really harboured such ambitions either.
Ahsoka nodded. “Or perhaps I could have been interred in the Jedi Temple on Shili.”
“But you’re no Jedi” Rex said. Despite everything, despite acting exactly like one, Ahsoka had kept reiterating that. To Kanan and Ezra whenever they came to her for guidance, to the Rebellion at large when they wanted to celebrate her as a Jedi, to the Inquisitors she thoroughly outmatched.
“No, I’m not” Ahsoka said softly. “So I don’t know. I haven’t actually been to that many funerals, really. And I don’t think any of them was not related to the war.”
They were both silent for a moment, each immersed in their own thoughts, though Rex knew they were remembering the same moments. A glorious parade through a city crowded with mourners. The stark contrast it formed with the planet they had just left behind, the simple burial mounts with nothing but near identical helmets ironically used as identifying markers stretching out to the horizon.
“What about you?” Ahsoka asked, startling him out of his memories.
“What?” Rex blinked.
“How were clones usually buried?” Ahsoka asked.
Rex let out a humourless chuckle. “We weren’t.”
He saw Ahsoka’s confused look, and he knew what she was thinking of. General Skywalker had always insisted on giving every clone who had lain down his life in battle a proper burial, if possible, or a memorial if not. No life had been disposable to him, and he shared his men’s grief each and every time to a point where Rex had wondered sometimes how he could possibly claim to uphold the no-attachment policy he said the Jedi upheld so rigidly.
For as long as she had been his padawan, Ahsoka had always been right at Anakin’s side during those moments. And where the General would leave afterwards, retreat to the solitude of his chambers or throw himself into the next mission, Ahsoka would stay and talk to the surviving men, asking them questions and prompting them to tell stories about those that had left them. She had even held hands with some, if they needed more than verbal reassurance.
Almost on instinct, Rex reached out to take her hand now. “You and General Skywalker weren’t like the Kaminoans, or even most Jedi. If a clone died, he was disposed of.”
He had never quite found out what had happened to Fives, or even Tup. They had been “subjected to medical and scientific research”, but nobody would tell him what had been done with their remains afterwards. His requests to receive them for a burial had not even been responded to. Not that he had expected it to, if he were honest. But he’d had to try.
Ahsoka gripped his hand with a reassuring strength, her eyes equal parts gentle and horrified. “That’s awful, Rex.”
Rex shrugged, blinking the sudden water threatening to fill his eyes away. “It’s what we were bred for. We were created so real people wouldn’t need to die fighting. Why give special honours for simply fulfilling your destiny?”
“You can’t think like that, Rex” Ahsoka said softly but fiercely. “You may have been a mere asset to the Republic, but you aren’t one to me; you never were. None of you were ever just disposable to me.”
“I know” Rex replied. Ahsoka cared; she always had. He would never forget how wrecked she had been when she had screwed up her first time commanding a squadron and lost half her men, and even now, after surviving one war and fighting in another, after countless specific attempts on her life, she still found it in herself to be horrified for him, and for his brothers.
It was one of the many things he loved about her.
Ahsoka took a deep breath, and slowly let it blow out in between her lips. “So how would you like to be buried?”
“I guess I don’t really care” Rex said honestly. “Burial, cremation... it doesn’t really matter to me. I just hope I would be remembered.” He looked up at her, meeting her piercing blue eyes. “And that it would bring peace to those I care about most.”
Ahsoka nodded softly, thoughtfully. “That’s beautiful, Rex” she said. “I’d want that too. If it were me. To console the people closest to me.”
She squeezed his hand briefly, a silent confirmation of what went unspoken between them.
***
“Rex.”
Hera Syndulla was the first to speak to him directly since Ezra had stammered out those three words that had made his world stop spinning.
A soft hand found his shoulder. “Rex, I... we’ve talked about holding a memorial service. For Ahsoka.”
Rex’s throat closed up. He nodded to indicate to Hera that she could continue. Words had consistently failed him since the two Jedi had returned to Atollon.
“I wanted to ask you what you think she would have wanted” Hera said. “Since you were her – ... you were closest to her.”
Rex sighed deeply. He had spent years fearing Ahsoka had been captured and killed by the Empire, but to actually know she was... it was incomparable.
She’s gone. She’s gone, Rex. Vader got her. She’s gone, and she’s not coming back.
“I can’t” he managed to croak out.
“I know it’s hard” Garazeb Orrelios said, sitting down with them, his voice unexpectedly gentle for someone as brawny and rough as he. “When there’s no physical remains, it’s hard to realise that it’s true. To stop waking up thinking it was a dream, to stop expecting her to walk back in.” He swallowed hard. “It’s not gonna go away, that feeling. But it does get easier, over time.”
I know, Rex wanted to reply. I’m a veteran of the Clone Wars. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost someone.
But he bit back the words. He knew what the Lasat had gone through, he knew the place he was speaking from. And after all, Zeb was right. This was different from losing a brother on the battlefield. This was Ahsoka.
“Having a memorial service for her might help cement that feeling” Hera said kindly. “As well as honour her life and everything she has done for the Rebellion.”
Rex merely nodded.
“It helps, you know” Zeb said. “Talking about it. Even if it’s with someone you’d never expect to understand, someone you don’t want to understand because it’s easier to just blame the entire galaxy than it is to open up about your pain. But sharing it could help you relate again. It might make you see that perhaps you’re not so different after all.”
Rex looked up at the man, surprised. Zeb wasn’t looking back at him; he was staring in the distance, his mind lightyears away.
Clearly at least he knew how deep the pain of loss could cut, even years after.
“She’d want us to just... remember her” he muttered. “She wouldn’t care about being honoured, or lauded for everything she’s done. She’d just want us to have a chance to say –”
But the word got stuck in his throat, and he fell silent.
Hera understood him anyway, her hand still reassuringly warm on his shoulder. “Goodbye.”
Rex nodded.
As impossible as it felt right now, he knew he would be able to keep on living, keep on fighting, without Ahsoka. After all, they had always known that this was a possibility, from the first time they’d fought shoulder to shoulder back in the Clone Wars. And at least she had gone out the way he wanted; fighting for what she believed in, and protecting those unable to protect themselves.
That would be his consolation. That her death wasn’t in vain. That she wasn’t Fives, killed before he could fulfill his part, before he had gotten the chance to save them all. That would be the fire that would keep him going, to continue her fight and see it through.
And he would never, ever, forget her.