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"All in all, I'd say it was a successful mission." Skywalker crossed his arms and smirked at General Kenobi's hologram.
Kenobi glared at him. "Yes, except for the part where you left your Padawan to face General Grievous on her own," he said flatly after a few tense moments.
Skywalker blushed. "Yeah, that was unexpected," he mumbled, scratching the back of his head.
"Indeed. Well, I am glad to see that you have your droid well in hand." Kenobi gave him a brittle smile. "Thankfully Ahsoka didn't have to pay the price of his return with her life. Consider wiping your astromech, Anakin, or I'll do it for you." Kenobi cut off the channel without another word.
Rex grimaced under his helmet. He'd seen Skywalker get plenty of dressing downs from General Kenobi when he was still a Commander in the 212th, but that was cold.
"Right. Yeah, I'm definitely getting chewed out when I get back to the Temple." Skywalker clicked his tongue in annoyance and turned away from the holotable. "Sorry that went so long, Rex. Go ahead and get some rest."
"If I may, Sir," Rex said before he lost his nerve.
Skywalker stopped. "What's up?"
"I'd like your permission to disobey an order, Sir," Rex said. "A future order, if given."
"There had better be a good reason." Skywalker crossed his arms and frowned.
"If Commander Tano orders me to abandon her for the mission, Sir, I'd like your permission to disobey her." Rex was glad he had his bucket on because he'd almost certainly turned puce.
Skywalker's face softened and he looked down, almost smiling. "Granted," he said quietly after a few moments. "And Rex, I've a standing order for you in the same vein." He looked back up. "If I'm not there to protect Ahsoka, you watch her back for me. You keep her alive, no matter what."
Rex nodded. "Sir, yes Sir. Akay karase dar'hettir."
Skywalker tilted his head. "What was that?"
"A promise, Sir. An old Mandalorian saying. Until the stars no longer burn. Means until the universe gives out, or I do."
Skywalker clapped him on the shoulder. "I like that." The General looked right through his visor and into his eyes for a few seconds like he was searching for something, then released him. "Dismissed, Captain."
Rex relaxed and left the bridge in the opposite direction of his General in search of a turbo-lift. He had a commander to track down before he could get settled.
Rex hadn't really known what to make of her at first. Ahsoka Tano was a feisty Togruta youngling with the weird ability to see people's emotions in some sort of color-coded cloud that hung around them. After Christophsis and Teth had wrapped up, he'd finally managed to meet up with Cody outside of a mission brief. His ori'vod had immediately begun teasing him about getting his comeuppance; after all, Cody had spent the first three months of the war gritting his teeth and physically restraining himself from tackling then-Commander Skywalker after the Padawan had subverted yet another perfectly sound battle plan with his dinii'la Force osik, it was only right that Rex got to suffer the same way he had. When he'd reminded his big brother that he had not only inherited Skywalker and his dinii'la Force osik but he now had double the osik because of Ahsoka's Empathy, the shabuir had laughed even harder.
For the first month he'd been saddled with the kid he'd had to buzz his hair extra short so he wasn't able to rip it out by the roots. She was mouthy, threw herself off of terminally high surfaces with alarming regularity, and raced the shinies on all fours. She played fast and loose with the General's orders and seemed to believe that war was some sort of elaborate game; a belief that was somewhat encouraged by Skywalker.
He still wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing. On one hand she was a baby-faced cadet who had no business being on a battlefield, and turning it into a competition seemed to be a good way to keep her from going ghost-eyed like a shiny who'd outlived his whole batch. On the other hand, she was playing a game where his life and the lives of his brothers were the cost of losing.
Rex hadn't expected her to become anything more than an annoyance to be tolerated. She was seven – no fourteen, he kept forgetting – and she hadn't been trained to fire a blaster before she could walk like he had. She barely knew how to hold a blaster the right way; hell, she didn't look like she knew how to hold a lightsaber the right way either, though she still made it work somehow. Through it all, though, that little annoyance stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them, often throwing her tiny little body directly into the line of fire to shield him and his brothers without a millisecond of hesitation.
Or, in the case of Skytop, she'd thrown herself in between him and General karking Grievous and called the tower of bolts grumpy. Grumpy. She had ordered Rex to leave her to distract the droid and complete the mission, then he'd lost contact with her while in the reactor core. Every step he'd taken running to the rendezvous instead of returning to back her up had echoed hollow in the space in his chest where his heart had been. All he could think about was if that shabla cyborg was ripping her apart slowly or if she'd mercifully found a quick end.
The simulations had prepared him for a lot of scenarios. Living with the burden that his baby Commander had died to buy him time to complete a mission instead of the other way around wasn't one of them, and when it turned out that she had gotten away from Grievous Rex had realized that she was more than just the student of the Jedi he had been assigned to. He'd been waiting for her to prove that she had what it took to actually lead men into battle, and she had. And not only that, she was willing to sacrifice herself for them. She was special, damn it, and even if she was a reckless little shit who scared the life out of him with her stunts, there was nowhere else on the battlefield he'd rather be than watching her tiny back.
"Vaughn." Rex threw the vod on the other side of the turbo-lift doors a nod of greeting as he stepped out. "Seen Commander Tano anywhere?"
"Sir." Vaughn snapped to attention and saluted. "I saw Commander Tano in the mess hall approximately five minutes ago, Sir."
Rex returned his salute. "At ease, Private. You don't need to do that every time you see me, you know."
Vaughn looked sheepishly at his feet. "Sorry, Sir," he said with dark cheeks.
"On your way." Rex dismissed him with another nod and chuckled to himself after he'd walked away. Every batch of shinies they got in were jumpy around him for the first week. Between his decade long rivalry with shabla Ordo and the scar he'd left across Dred Priest's neck after the bastard had carved up Cody's face, Rex had to wonder what kind of reputation he had left behind on Kamino.
The mess was light during the end of the swing shift. Ahsoka was holed up in a corner table with two shinies, Jesse and Kix, who had gotten busy painting their helmets as soon as they'd earned the right to do so. A squad of ten and only Rex, Denal, and the two fresh-faced cadets at the table had made it back to the rendezvous.
"I think it's dashing, don't you?" Jesse put the final touches on his freshly-painted helmet and showed it to Ahsoka with a grin. "The last thing the clankers will ever see is the Galactic Roundel blowing them away."
"It's perfect," she declared, smiling so wide that her little fangs showed. She leaned forward over the mess table on her elbows, going up on her knees for extra reach. "Is that what you're going to get for your tattoo?"
"Yep." He elbowed Kix. "You still getting the lightning bolts?"
"Haven't decided," the medic drawled, arching his back like a tooka to pop it. He leaned far enough back to spy Rex approaching them and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"Captain on deck!" he barked, scrambling to his feet to get to attention. Jesse fell backwards after him and Ahsoka rolled her eyes and sank down on her knees.
"What, don't I get any respect?" Rex teased her.
"I outrank you," she reminded him sweetly.
Rex clapped Jesse on the shoulder. "At ease, boys."
"Thanks, Captain." Jesse flashed him a grin and swung his leg back over the bench seat.
"It's Rex in off-hours, 'lek?" Rex circled around the table and took a seat next to the kit. She'd busied herself with her own paint job while the boys had worked; it looked like a double set of feline eyes. "What's that?" he asked her, motioning at the flimsii with his lips.
"Oh, that?" She smiled at the painting. "Those are akul eyes. That's the beastie that I hunted to get these." She pointed at her head proudly.
"Wait, those are teeth?" Kix asked, leaning in.
“We coat them in metal to protect them,” Ahsoka said proudly, removing her headdress for the boys to see. “Akul teeth are sharp but break easily. They’re like lampreys, they’ve got something like ten rows of teeth and are constantly regrowing them.”
"Woah," Jesse breathed. "How old were you?"
"Twelve," she preened, reveling in the gasp of the shinies while she reaffixed her headdress.
"Pretty impressive," Rex said warmly. "Almost as impressive as taking on General Grievous on your own."
Ahsoka's stripes suddenly looked darker. "Yeah, well, we had to complete the mission," she said, looking away. "You would have done the same."
"But still." Rex nudged her knee with his own so she'd look at him. "I'm telling you that you impressed me, kid."
Ahsoka's stripes were definitely getting darker. "Thanks, Rex," she said, her bashful smile now too big to hide. "That means a lot."
Rex glanced up at the enraptured shinies. "Say, Specialist," he began, glancing at the medic. "Aren't you supposed to be on shift in the medbay until 2200?" He glanced down at his chrono. "Off a few hours early, aren't you?"
Kix blanched. "I was taking a chow break, Sir, but yes. I, uh, I should get back." Kix scrambled back off the bench with a nervous expression and picked up his still-wet helmet. "Goodnight, Sir. Uh, Rex. Sir."
Rex glanced at Jesse, wondering if he would have to say it out loud or if he had more brain cells than the average shiny.
The vod was almost as much a baby as the Commander but he got the hint. "Gotta get going too, Commander," he said, throwing her a two-fingered salute before swinging a leg over the bench and taking his own wet bucket. "See you, Rex."
"See you, Jesse." Rex waited for him to go before turning back to the kit.
"Got a top secret mission for me, Rexter?" Ahsoka asked with a brow marking raised.
"Not quite." He folded his hands on the table. "I wanted to ask you something."
"Shoot." She slid onto her rear and tucked her knees under her chin.
"You've heard some of us calling each other vod'ika and ori'vod, right?" Rex asked.
She nodded. "Those're Mandalorian words, right?"
"Mando'a. 'Lek. Yes." He smiled. "You know what it means?"
She shook her head.
"Little brother is vod'ika. Ori'vod is big brother. We're all brothers, you see, but some of us choose a brother to stick with. The word means a little more to us clones."
"More how?" Ahsoka asked.
"If you call a brother your vod'ika, it means that you're going to look out for him and be there for him no matter what. You'll teach him everything you know and help him be the best version of himself. He's your battle buddy and your best friend. You take care of each other."
"Kix called Jesse vod'ika," Ahsoka nodded with new understanding. "And Cody calls you that."
"Yeah, Cody's my ori'vod," Rex said fondly. "But I don't have a vod'ika. There's been plenty of younger troopers I mentored, but none of them really proved to me that they needed me like that."
Ahsoka blinked at him like a tooka kitten.
"But you, kid," Rex continued. "You did. Prove it, I mean. So I wanted to ask if I could call you my vod'ika."
Ahsoka's mouth dropped open in surprise. "But I'm not a clone," she said, her eyes gone as round and dark as parnaberries.
"No, you're not. But you are a vod. You proved that to me on Skytop, Ahsoka." Rex put a hand on her shoulder. "I admit, I didn't know what to think of you when you bounced off that ship on Christophsis. You're young– not a youngling," he hastily added as she instantly opened her mouth to protest, "But you are young. I didn't know if you would know how to be a leader yet, but you do. You risked your life for the mission. You jumped in between me and the big clanker himself."
Ahsoka's face suddenly fell and she looked away. "I should have pulled back," she said sadly. "If I hadn't been so bold then maybe I wouldn't have gotten most of the squad killed. You wouldn't have needed saving if I had just stopped for a second and thought instead of throwing myself at General Grievous."
His heart hurt seeing that she blamed herself. "He was right in front of us, kid," he reassured her. "Unless you could have locked him behind a set of blast doors, he would have done exactly what he did regardless of whether or not you made the first move. You can be impulsive, but in this case it wouldn't have changed anything." He squeezed her shoulder. "You saved my life. You engaged a ten foot tall cyborg with four lightsabers to draw him away from us. Because of you, we completed our mission and destroyed the listening station. You proved yourself, Commander. Not just to me, but to the other troopers."
A small smile returned to her face. "Well, thanks for coming back for me, too," she said shyly.
"Only one reason I wouldn't," Rex answered with another squeeze and a smile.
"What reason?" Ahsoka tilted her head.
"Because I'm dead," he deadpanned, and they both laughed. "So what do you say?" Rex turned and swung one leg over the bench so he was straddling it and looked at her head-on. "I watch your back and you watch mine till the end of this war. Deal, vod'ika?" He held out his hand.
Ahsoka nodded and shook it, smiling big again. "Deal, ori'vod."
Rex pulled her forward and touched his forehead to hers. "And that is a kov'nyn. A headbutt. Also called a mirshmure'cya, or a brain kiss, if you're feeling cheeky."
"Meesh-moor-hay-cha," she repeated slowly.
They'd definitely have to work on that accent. "Close," he smiled.
"Are you going to teach me Mandalo– Mando'a, too?"
"If you want."
Ahsoka scrunched her nose happily. "Yeah. Yeah, that'll be fun. And it'll surprise Master Obi-Wan."
"Sounds like a plan, littl'un," Rex said fondly. "Oh, and I get to teach you how to fight like a clone." He wiggled his eyebrows. "And shoot. You'll be the most well-rounded Jedi in the Order."
Ahsoka bit her lip. "Master Kenobi knows how to shoot but he'd have a fit if he saw me with a blaster."
"Too bad. I'm your big brother now, so he has to let me."
"I don't think that's how it works," she giggled.
"Yeah it does. I helped write the regs, I should know."
"Oh, it says that in the manual?"
"It will once I write it in."
They both burst into laughter again. "So I'm your little brother now?" she asked once she had enough breath to. "Or is there a different word for sister?"
"Same word."
Ahsoka nodded against her knees. "My people kind of do the same thing. We call it clan." She played with her bootstrap. "It's different from your family, even though your family is in your clan. It's not about blood, it's… well, on Shili, it's pretty dangerous. You need a clan to survive."
She glanced up at him and Rex got the sense that she felt like she was overstepping a boundary. "If you're my little sister then we're definitely clan," he assured her.
"Yeah, I guess we are. A clan of two." She laughed to herself and lowered her legs. "We'll be able to take on anything."
"Darn right, we will." Rex chuffed her under her chin.
"Thanks, Rex. I, um, I should probably at least get a start on my essay before bed." She got to her feet with a smile. "Goodnight, ori'vod."
Rex smiled back. " 'Night, vod'ika." She turned and made it halfway to the mess hall door before he noticed she'd left her painting on the table. "Wait, you forgot your akul eyes."
She shrugged. "You can keep it if you want. If you hang it up by your door, Baagaan will keep bad dreams from coming in." She waved goodbye and continued her way out.
Rex didn't know who Baagaan was, but he sounded alright if he scared bad dreams away from kits. He gingerly picked up the wet painting with a warm feeling in his chest and a soft smile, then felt something tickle the back of his head.
He looked up just in time to see a streak of orange and blue dive back behind the doorway with a giggle.
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