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Chapter Text

Anakin didn’t expect the Council to grant him a padawan. To drop one off with him on the already going downhill mission on Christophsis, technically. But here Ahsoka is, fighting at his side as they work through the battlefield.

They’re Jedi.

The worst of the war was avoided.

But when the Dusting happened, and half the galaxy turned into dust, falling all around, half the conflict between the Republic and would-be Separatists died along with it.

The droid army is still a threat. But with all the damage, and without Dooku, the Separatists were far more willing to stand down and solve things diplomatically.

Mostly.

And those that aren’t, the few remaining Jedi are being sent to deal with.

Which is how Anakin is here, on Cristophsis, with his new padawan, assigned to the 501^st so they can work together when things get messy.

The Force still rings with death and emptiness. The entire galaxy feels empty, and there are people who blame the Jedi for it. Hence, this.

As he, Ahsoka, Rex, and a few other clones fight their way through dozens of droids and the native people of Christophsis. They plunged into civil war, and the 501st was sent in to stop it. The people here are grieving. Anakin has tried to talk them down, but with grief, as he knows well, there is little that can be done to stop the chaos that follows.

But he is still angry. Half of his men died, too. As did half the Jedi. Their numbers aren’t enough for this. The clones are helpful, but they just can’t cover the same role as the Jedi.

One of the clones sold them out. Slick. A newer clone Anakin never knew sold them out to the enemy, and they’ve been getting their communications jammed enough they haven’t gotten the word out to ask for help.

“Sir,” Rex calls, ducking behind a debris pile to hide from the smoke, “Their headquarters’ right up ahead.”

“Good. We need to press forwards. Don’t fall back.” He doesn’t know how the Separatists got so many droids on-world without being noticed, but it happens. That’s what they’re here to stop.

Rex nods sharply. “Sir, yes, sir!” He stands again, waving to his brothers. “You heard the General! Move forwards!”

Anakin stands again, but danger flares in the Force, and he looks up to see a couple towering spider droids heading their way.

Ugh.

“Ahsoka?” he asks, looking over at her.

“I’m here, Master,” she nods, braid swinging as she skids to his side.

“Good. We’ll take the spider droids.”

“They’re trying to keep us away from their headquarters,” she points out, “This won’t be over until we capture it.”

“Yeah. But I’m not leaving the clones to fight these things alone.” He readjusts his lightsaber grip and lunges. The droids fire at him, and he motions to Ahsoka. She jumps onto one of its legs, cutting off one of the three blasters it’s equipped with. Anakin Force-jumps onto the second one, stabbing his lightsaber into its head and delegging it while Ahsoka distracts the other.

He Force-shoves his over, taking out hers with it as they fall, but the Force is prickling. Something dark is here. Something… deadly. The Dark Side. Not like Dooku, but still dark.

“We have to be careful,” he warns his padawan, “Stay close to me, if you can.”

“Of course, Master.” Her answer’s too rushed, too flippant. She means it, but she won’t do it. She wanders. And, she’s a youngling. It happens.

“We need to get to the building,” Ahsoka repeats, eyes narrowing worriedly.

He knows. He just thinks they should go together, but Ahsoka keeps pressing, so Anakin caves. “Fine. Rex, you’re with me. Hold the line out here. Once we capture the leadership, we’ll have them stand down.” The Force whispers a warning in protest of that, on hindsight, he should’ve listened to, but instead, they go in.

Rex blows the door in with an explosive, and they and the squad their leading fall back, heading towards the building. They have to be careful, so the place isn’t blown down on their heads, but there’s only so much they can be careful for. It’s dark inside, and they creep in, lightsabers ignited and slowly tiptoeing through the open room.

Anakin freezes at a flickering, jerking his hands upwards to gesture to his men to stop. “This place is rigged,” he warns, a millisecond before the bombs actually go off. Or start going off. he spins around, sending a Force-shove at his men to throw them hopefully safely away from the worst of the blast, while Ahsoka raises her hands to shield herself. She’s scared. He can feel it, her fear curling into the Force in whispering violent waves.

He's scared, too, with the promise that this is a trap, that it’s all been set up somehow, that somebody knew they were coming well enough to plan for this. That there are probably more droids on their way then Anakin anticipated.

He didn’t plan for this.

He has no idea what he’s doing. He’s not a general. He’s a Jedi.

The blast throws him backwards, too, flames licking at his robes that he tries to pat out, stars blurring in his vision that he tries to shake, but consciousness is hard to cling to when his head is pounding so hard. Must’ve hit it in the explosion.

He feels death. Hears a whooshing amid the crackling of fire. Anakin groans, rolling over and trying to push himself up, only to see an emerald blade swing over him to block a red one.

Red.

The – Sith. Dooku is dead. There are always two Sith.

And he doesn’t buy into the speculation Palpatine was one.

Artifacts? Sure. He’s an artist.

Someone else stands there, flames crackling behind her. She looks… her skin is gray, and she’s dressed in dark purple. He doesn’t recognize her. This isn’t a name he knows, but she feels of the Dark Side. She’s older than Anakin, but she must’ve been Dooku’s apprentice.

It figures that the Sith just couldn’t die in the Dusting.

Ahsoka trades blows with the assassin, only to be kicked backwards and for the blade to be swung at him.

Anakin rolls aside, rolling to his feet despite how stars threaten to blur out his vision entirely. He’s about to pass out. This isn’t looking good – one fight he wasn’t ready for. Anakin draws the Force around him, parrying the first few strikes. He tries to kick her, but she ducks, and he has to roll to his feet again.

The clones start firing.

They don’t stand a chance.

They have to fall back. She’s already killed some of them – he sees the blaster and lightsaber wounds on most.

“Rex, tell the men to fall back!” Anakin yells.

Torrent company, as they were called, has been decimated. He’s afraid to know how many will be left when the Sith is through them.

“Hello, baldy,” Ahsoka snarls, jumping at her again.

The assassin blocks the blow, smirking. “Hello, kitten.”

“You got that right,” Anakin grunts, pushing himself to his feet. His hands ache from holding the lightsaber. “Or just… something. Maybe it was hitting the ground. His head feels wet. Is it bleeding?

The Sith scoffs, spinning her lightsabers around and they keep trading blows. Anakin hears a distant explosion again, shuddering the area. It makes his spine prickle with unease and worry, but he has to focus on the Sith, or they’re all going to die as will so many others.

“Who are you?” Anakin asks, readjusting his grip.

“I’m sure you’d like to know,” she throws back with a sneer, not a shred of her viciousness sliding. She Force-shoves Anakin, and he moves too slow to block it, and is flung backwards into the wall.

“Sir!” Rex. His vision is blurring again. Anakin raises his hand to his head, teeth gritted with pain. It comes back wet. Blood.

Voices blur around him. He hears clanking of droids entering, followed by Ahsoka’s cry of pain.

He pushes himself up to one knee, lightsaber gripped in his hand, seeing a group of droids clanking into the room. Then Rex falls with a blaster shot to the shoulder. There’s only two clones left standing. Younger ones – he can feel it.

Ahsoka’s on the ground by the Sith. Her left arm is smoking. Blaster shot. The assassin lifts her lightsaber, smirking. “I suggest you surrender, Skywalker,” she says sweetly.

He looks at the clones, still fighting the droids. The Sith, her lightsaber so close to Ahsoka.

He can’t. He can’t save them all.

Ahsoka lifts her head, eyes wide with fear, shaking her head to ask him no, but he’s already lost so much. Qui-Gon, his mother, Palpatine, Padme. Now, so many of his men. And with so little time left to spend with Obi-Wan, the galaxy torn apart by the Dusting.

He can't. He can’t let her die. He has to keep Ahsoka safe, and, hating himself all the way, it’s with that in mind that he slowly extinguishes and lowers his lightsaber, raising his hands. He’s going to regret this. But at least they’re alive to feel that regret.

***

The room they’re in is dark. Ahsoka bites her lip as she stares at the wide, empty walls. Rex had told the men to fall back. Some of them tried. She doesn’t know if they made it. The Sith was just going through them. There’s only five of them. Herself, her master, Rex, and two others. They’re all injured.

They need an escape plan that doesn’t result in dying.

She wishes her master had kept fighting.

“You okay, kid?” Rex asks, even if he should be more concerned with the burn hole in his shoulder then the light graze wound across her skin. It’s not bad, really – well, it stings and burns nonstop, but it’s not that bad. She won’t die.

And honestly, Jedi aren’t supposed to be affected by pain so deeply. And she still fell. She should’ve kept on fighting.

“Yeah,” Ahsoka breathes, nodding, “Thanks.”

Her master is supposed to be resting. They know enough about medical knowledge to guess that he has a concussion. He hit his head, and that’s not counting bruising.

She feels an approaching presence and tenses as the door opens. It’s the Sith again, backed by two droids. Anakin winces but pushes himself upright, anyway. Ahsoka tries to steady him. Echo jerks defensively in front of him, trying to shield him from the Sith’s gaze.

“Skywalker, come with me,” she drawls.

“Don’t touch him,” Ahsoka hisses, jerking to her feet.

The Sith reaches up, clamping the Force around Echo’s neck in a Force choke. Ahsoka Force-shoves her violently, flinging her back into the hall, rolling aside from the droid that starts firing. Fives grabs his brother’s shoulder, trying to steady him and check him over.

The Sith ignites her lightsabers, the ruby blades dousing the hall in red light. Ahsoka braces herself for another fight, but then Anakin’s sharp “stop” interrupts them as he limps to his feet. He’s swaying a little, visibly dizzy. Idiot. “I’ll go.”

“Sir,” Rex starts objecting.

“Master,” Ahsoka protests. Her master meets her gaze, tired but still as fierce and passionate as ever. “A fire exhausted as the entire galaxy is now, but still so overwhelming Ahsoka feels like she’s drowning sometimes. Anakin’s a fire, and he burns. It feels hard to breathe sometimes, with him here, but she’d do anything to keep him here, and she’s so scared.

“I have to go,” he answers, almost helplessly, and leaves the room.

Ahsoka sinks back to the floor with an exhausted sigh as the door slides shut again. She doesn’t know what to do. As a Jedi, she needs to focus on the mission and try to get out of here. Mostly, they need to find a way to kill the Sith, Because that’s what they’re supposed to do, but she has a bad feeling about this.

Sith don’t take Jedi for anything good.

Rex sits beside her, and silence settles over the room again.

“I don’t know what to do,” Ahsoka admits finally, “I thought being a Jedi would be easy. Easier than this, anyway.” She was told being a padawan is – or could be – a lot harder than training, but nothing ever prepared her for going to war on her first mission, much less being captured. Sure, they played all types of games like this at the Temple, but nothing could be enough to prepare her for reality.

Not when most of the other youngligns she played with are dead.

Forget Christophsis. Forget the Sith – what she really wants is to find the one who did this and beat out every shred of her fury. That’s not a Jedi desire, though so she does her best to hold it in.

“They’re watching us all the time,” Fives points out darkly, even with a broken rib from being thrown through something. Or maybe it’s fractures. All they know is that the bruising is really bad, and he’s breathing wrong, too. Basically, no one’s in a good shake to be escaping from this place. They need help.

“Not much we can do, commander,” Rex agrees. “Just get some rest.”

Ahsoka winces at the pain in her arm. It’s burning. She just… they need something to treat this, and the Sith isn’t giving them anything. Why would she? She’s a Sith.

***

Rex was never trained for this, either. Ahsoka is having a hard time with this situation, and Rex is, too. He’s having a hard time with… everything, truthfully. After the Dusting, so many people died. So many of his brothers. Half of them, roughly, though more have problem been created since. He has no idea.

Most of the people he knew are dead now. Or at least it feels that way.

He’s lucky Cody is still alive. That’s all he can count for, and that should count for enough, but it really… doesn’t. the 501^st was formed on Kamino. They trained together, were meant to go into action together, but then… then half of them died, and they had to reform.

It was hard. Half the men he was supposed to be taking care of were turned into dust as he stood and watched. And those that were left of his company were killed on Geonosis – save a few. Coric, Del…

All of them are dark and bitter now.

Their entire company died that day, except five men, all falling in the sands around him as Rex fought his way back to the start. They lost. They lost that battle. Dooku had died in the Dusting, but with so many of his brothers dead, with how the Separatist droids still left, it hadn’t mattered.

And here they are instead, dying, just like his men.

Rex finds himself staring at the walls, waiting, wondering how long it’ll take for them to close in on him and Echo and Fives, too.

He’s still sitting there when the door slides open again and two droids throw the general back inside. He hits the floor limp. Rex scrambles to his side as the door shuts on them uncaringly. He rolls him over onto his back. Anakin blinks hazily at them before his eyes close. He just went unconscious.

Ahsoka shakes her master’s shoulder, inhaling shakily. “Master!” He doesn’t move.

Rex’s jaw clenches at the thin burn lines on his general’s body. Electrocution. They were torturing him? Why?

The clones were prepared for this, too, but never seeing it on their general. Not on nat-borns. On them, sure. They’re supposed to be able to take untold levels of pain, allegedly have more pain resistance and endurance than the average nat-born.

The kid’s shoulders slump as she caves, tears spilling down her face. Rex slowly scoots closer to her, squeezing her shoulder, unsure what else to do. He feels so helpless. He’s not helping. He is most definitely not helping, but he’s trying. He can’t imagine crying in front of someone. Or crying at all. Well, he cried after Geonosis. He cried for hours when he was safe in the closedness of the ‘fresher, away from prying eyes who could see him so weak.

He's a captain. He doesn’t get to be weak.

But Ahsoka? Ahsoka’s a kid.

“I am going to kill them,” Fives mutters, glowering.

“You can’t walk, idiot,” Echo points out. He has a small lightsaber burn across his chest, and it must be light with how he’s still moving, but Rex is fairly certain the blade burned his clothes to his skin, and Rex isn’t offering to peel it off when they have nothing to stop the bleeding.

It’s also bound to get infected.

Better than the residential idiot who walks with a concussion, begging for another.

“I’ll walk on you,” Fives threatens.

“I’m terrified,” Echo deadpans.

Rex facepalms.

Ahsoka’s quiet sniffle breaks through any humor, and then the door opens again.

The Sith. Once more. “Hey,” she drawls, smirking, icy blue eyes roaming across them. “Do you have a moment of free time?”

Ahsoka jolts to her feet, snarling, furious. “You!” she hisses, “What did you do to my master?”

She skids back at the lightsaber shoved in her face, though only for a moment. “How about you?” The assassin looks at Rex. “You’re a captain, aren’t you? I saw the mark on your armor. Trying to hide your rank while wearing it on you isn’t very smart.”

“What do you want?” Rex demands shortly.

“Come on out, and I’ll show you,” she says sweetly.

He’d like nothing more than to shoot her in her ugly, gray face, but he doesn’t have that luxury right now, and neither can he risk his brothers, or the nat-borns they’re with. Rex’s hands clench and his eyes narrow with anger, but he follows them into the hallway.

She takes him to another floor of the building, leads him into a room and shoves him into a force field.

Well. Sure. They’re going to torture him, too? “Whatever you want, I’m not telling you,” Rex tells her flatly.

She laughs. “Oh. That’s not what I want, clone. They say your pain tolerance is higher than others. Would you like to test that?”

Ah. He is screwed.

***

Ahsoka is going to murder her. She will. The Sith better watch her back, because with both Anakin and Rex being virtually nonresponsive, she doesn’t know when anyone’s going to show up. She has no idea if they’re ever going to show up, so they’ll have to take matters into their own hands.

Somehow.

The Sith takes her next. Fives actually tried to attack her, and the Sith kicked him in the ribs. Echo tried to catch him, snarling fiercely about his brother being an idiot. Ahsoka thinks they’re twins – she heard someone mention that. Can’t remember who.

She expects to get zapped or whatever, but instead she gets pointed to some sort of ridiculous office that she makes mental notes of how to trash.  “This is some fine office for someone like you,” Ahsoka snarls.

“Now, there’s no need for that,” she scoffs, waving a hand. The droids stay trained on Ahsoka, too. They’ll shoot her if she makes one wrong move.

“What do you want?” Ahsoka snarls.

“Now, there’s no need for that.”

“You tortured my master!” Ahsoka yells.

“And?” she asks flippantly. “He’ll do you no favors, Jedi. Not when he betrays you. They’ve left you here, kid.

“Whatever you want me to do, I won’t,” she snarls back.

“Such conviction.” The Sith laughs. “You see, kid, you’re never going to make it out. You’re the one who has to make the choice to leave.”

She crosses her arms, pointedly raising an eye-marking at the idiot.

“You see, kid, none of us mean anything to the Jedi. It took me years to realize that.” She looks away, something flitting across her face, but at this point, Ahsoka doesn’t carer. She hurt Anakin. And Rex. Nothing she says will excuse it. Ahsoka doesn’t care. A Jedi should, they’re supposed to be forgiving, but she won’t be. Not in this case. Not when it involves her master.

Ahsoka’s nails dig into her palms as her eyes narrow angrily on the Sith. “Who are you?”

“My name is Assaj Ventress. I’m impressed it took you so long to ask..”

“I think hairless harpie fits better,” Ahsoka snaps.

Ventress laughs, like this is all a comedy to her. It makes Ahsoka want to rip her lungs out her throat.

“Think what you may,” she snarks back, “But when the Dark Side calls you, your entire precious Jedi Order will abandon you and your master. The only one who can stop that is yourself.”

Ahsoka thinks about lashing out, about slamming her orange fist into he ugly white face, but she holds back. That’s what the Sith wants. Her soul.

Ahsoka will give her nothing.

***

Echo sits at his brother’s sides’, praying someone will come and find them. He can’t think about one of them dying, but it’s a guarantee. He doesn’t understand why the general didn’t sacrifice them so he and his commander could escape as they would all have been grateful for. But he didn’t.

Won’t.

Echo doesn’t know. It confuses him. Rank is important. The Jedi are important, It’s the clone’s role to protect them. That counts above all else.

Not that the dark walls in front of him really count for much. Here, their lives are meaningless. 

He holds Fives’ hand, clasped in his and just… waiting, trying not to think too hard about his brother’s labored breathing, about how sickly he looks. They haven’t gotten food. Or water. Or treatment.

And his chest is aching. He should’ve dodged the lightsaber faster, though his armor shielded the worst of the blow. Not that he has his armor anymore. The droids took that along with their weapons. Not that it’ll stop them from fighting, but the Dark Sider – Ventress, the commander says her name is – is trying to wear them.

Exhaust them.

Not that she wants anything else.

***

“Why are you doing this?” Anakin demands finally.

“It’s easy, really,” Ventress muses, pacing in front of him. “The Jedi let my master die. Twice now. My Jedi Master, and now my Sith Master. So I thought I’d do them a favor of my own. And they’ll let you die, too, and when your little padawan falls to the clutches of the Dark, she’ll have nowhere to run but back to my side.”

“Ahsoka will never join you,” Anakin retaliates firmly. She might Fall, eventually, but she would never join Ventress.

“We’ll see, won’t we?” the assassin asks smugly.

“The Jedi didn’t kill your master,” Anakin adds, “I never fought Dooku. He turned into dust before we could. Not that he wouldn’t have been worthy of death after murdering hundreds.”

“Well, there are some who don’t see it that way. Those on Christophsis were more than happy to jump at the chance for vengeance of all those slaughtered. A Force-anomaly? That transformed half the galaxy into dust? That you Jedi couldn’t stop? I see one party to blame.”

This wasn’t their fault. It – it wasn’t. Not that it matters.

Nothing matters. Not when his world is blurred away into pain once again, until a familiar face finally blurs into view, the sounds of battle in the distance. “Master?” Anakin slurs faintly.

“Yes, Ankin, I see you’ve made quite the mess of yourself,” Obi-Wan gripes, holding one of Anakin’s hands gently despite the frustration in his voice.

He tries to think of a silly quip. All that comes out instead is a faint “’m tired.”

“That’s not unreasonable,” Obi-Wan tells him, holding him close. “You can sleep.”

Anakin does.

Chapter Text

Their rescue came none too soon, Fives would say grumpily. He’s stuck in the medbay, a scowling Coric fluttering over him, lecturing about how he has pneumonia or something like that among a list of other injuries.

“At least if I’m bleeding internally, I’m not loosing blood,” Fives announces, and Coric smacks him. “Oww!”

“Lay down, you idiot,” his older brother snarls.

“Is Echo…?” he asks faintly.

“I’m alive,” his brother tells him grumpily from the bed beside him, wrapped in a ridiculous number of bandages. He thinks Coric just likes tying his brothers in more white than they can move.

“Oh,” Fives gripes. “Sorry to hear.”

“I know,” Echo answers with a feral glare.

They were captured for three days. It’s been three more since. Over a week missing of his life. A week’s a lot. It took a few minutes, maybe half an hour for the Dusting to sweep through the entire galaxy. All those people dead. A day, not a week.

Breathing really, really hurts. He can’t get air into his lungs properly. One of his lungs was punctured, and Coric says between that and the place they were, none of them are doing well. They would’ve died in a few more days. Easily.

The general probably would’ve, since the Sith had a clear grudge against him. Maybe it had something to do with him being Ahsoka’s master? Fives has no idea. He lost track of her and her insanity.

He’d also like to know how he and Echo are the only survivors of their squad… again. Heavy, Cutup, and Droidbait were turned to dust, and then the members of Bravo Squad which they got merged with all died.

Guess they weren’t so great after all.

“Where’s Rex?”

“Bacta tank. With a few days bedrest, he should be fine. Scars and all.”

Will he scar? They electrocuted him. Ventress was really holding it out for the kid, wasn’t she? “Ventress dead?”

“Master Kenobi said she escaped,” Coric answers, “Get some rest.” He walks out.

Whoa. He’s gonna leave it at that? ‘The person who tortured you is still alive and ran away, good for you, now get some sleep’? Rude.

“Don’t overthink it,” Echo requests tiredly, “He’s got a point. You need sleep.”

“Yeah, but Ventres is still out there.” He winces saying her name. Thinking about it. His heart stutters uncomfortably in his chest. Fluttering. He doesn’t want to think about her. He’s so thirsty. Coric already gave him a glass of water. He’s so tired.

“Then get better and we can kill her together, brother.” Echo, for as much as Fives irritates him, still hasn’t drifted away. They’ve stuck together. Because that’s just… who Echo is. And even if his brother’s injured, Fives feels a little better knowing Echo has his back, just in case.

***

Ahsoka wakes up in the medcenter again. She’s the least injured of everyone and she’s already gotten permission to leave but she doesn’t want to until everyone else is safe. She can’t stop thinking about the dark walls and the never knowing when they were going to get out of there. Especially when Ventress is still alive and she doesn’t know if the Sith is going to come after her again. Or after – any of them.

All she can feel is the darkness and it makes her hate Ventress even more, even if she knows that’s just giving the Sith a victory because she wants her to hate.

She’s also so thirsty. It’s been days since their rescue, but she still hasn’t recovered from how they never got water. Somehow, Ahsoka forgot how good plain water tasted, and she drinks until her stomach is full and she can’t drink anymore before leaving her room, going to check on Anakin.

He’s out of the bacta tank right now but he’s in bed. Obi-Wan is sitting by his bedside.

“Snips?” Anakin rasps, when she enters.

“Feeling better, Master?” Ahsoka asks, anxiously, coming over to the bedside.

“All the time,” he promises, trying to smile as though that’s even remotely true in the circumstances.

“You don’t look any better,” she objects, dubious. He was tortured countless times. She could have Force knows how much internal damage.

“Don’t worry,” Anakin promises, through a tired smile, “I was – cooked. With electrocution. Takes meat a while to uncook.”

In all the –

Obi-Wan coughs. “Anakin,” he says, incredulous though she could almost swear he seems momentarily amused.

“How are you joking about this?!” Ahsoka yells, tears burning her eyes.

Obi-Wan’s hand touches Ahsoka’s shoulder. “Why don’t we let Anakin rest,” he advises. “He’s going back in the bacta tank for a little longer soon.”

“I’ll be fine,” Anakin tries to promise, but it doesn’t do much to make her feel better. All this happened because of her.

“You may be. After you sleep.” Obi-Wan pulls a blanket over him.

“I don’t need to be tucked in, Master,” Anakin mumbles sleepily.

“Yes, you do, Padawan-mine,” he replies, patting his shoulder before he leads Ahsoka out of the room. The medical droid is coming to check on Anakin now anyway. “Anakin is used to… being hurt badly,” Obi-Wan says once they’re in the safety of the hallway, “He just doesn’t want us to worry.”

“That just makes me worry even more.”

“I know.”

She bites her lip, trying to blink away her tears. “Is he really going to be fine?”

“He has some internal damage but nothing that won’t heal eventually.”

Ugh. She hates Ventress. She’s hated nearly everything since the Dusting, aside from how she finally got be a padawan in the first place.

“Do… we know anything about Ventress?”

“The Council is prioritizing finding her, but the galaxy is a disaster right now. We don’t have anything yet. But we will.” Obi-Wan looks grim.

She wishes it did something to make her feel better about this.

***

Rex wakes with a pounding headache. They trained to deal with this kind of thing. That doesn’t make pain any easier to think through. At least his limbs aren’t still twitching from the aftershocks. But he didn’t get electrocuted quite as bad as General Skywalker. He doesn’t think.

“The last aftereffects should fade soon,” the medical droid tells him.

The Commander is in here and she perks up the moment she sees him. Though mostly, she just looks totally worn and like she’s the one in need of sleep. “Rex? How are you?”

“Feeling better, Commander,” he promises, “We were trained for this.”

“That doesn’t make it any better,” she mumbles.

“I know, kid,” he says, because right now, all he can really see is a child. She’s so tiny and scrawny, even if she is their commander. “But what matters is that we’re out of there now and Master Kenobi still finished the mission so it wasn’t a total failure.”

Even if the memories still won’t stop. But really, being electrocuted wasn’t half as bad as seeing dozens of the brothers he knew by name and grew up with turning to dust in front of him.

It’s not as bad as seeing them shot down around him either. Most of the company they took to Christophsis is gone now.

Ahsoka doesn’t look happy with that answer but she doesn’t say anything more as he asks to be transferred to the same room as Echo and Fives, to rest.

They’re also both still confined to bed, but that doesn’t stop the squabbling.

“Everything that comes out of your mouth is stupid,” Fives is grumbling as they enter.

“Fives,” Echo says bluntly.

Rex laughs. He can’t help it.

Even Ahsoka cracks up a little, and it’s nice to see on her. She’s been so serious ever since they met.

“That’s what I mean,” Fives scowls.

“Yeah, me too,” Echo deadpans.

Rex is beginning to think he seriously regrets his choice to come in here. His brothers are so, so stupid.

***

Flashes of electricity burning through him, of screaming his throat raw with no end in sight to the pain jolt Anakin awake again. He keeps dreaming of it.

It’s over now. There’s no reason to get so worked up about it. That doesn’t stop how his heart is still pounding and he’s still afraid of – ending up back there.

Mostly, of the others ending up back and not making it out this time. He should’ve done more to save his boys and Ahsoka there but he failed again. As he always manages to do in the end.

The medical droid clears him for walking, even if he’s supposed to be back before long, so Anakin slips out of the room to find the others.

Rex, Fives, and Echo are all together when he enters. Ahsoka is sitting next to Rex’s bedside, her head resting on her arms. She’s sleeping. She looks adorable like that, honestly.

“Good to see you, General,” Rex greets, a bit tiredly.

“How are you holding up?” Anakin asks.

“The Commander’s been asking me that non-stop,” Rex says, “I’ll be fine, sir. You’re the one who looks like a ghost.”

“I was… cooked worse than you,” he replies dryly. The smell of ozone in the air and of his own burned robes and himself after being stuck in that device for so long is still burned into his mind. Making it a joke is the easiest way to think about it.

“I’m not sure I would find that amusing, sir,” Rex replies.

“Would you prefer I be more serious?”

The captain smiles faintly. “No, sir. I wouldn’t say that.” He looks down at Ahsoka, who’s still breathing evenly next to him. “She’s not taking this very well.”

Anakin looks down at her, heart clenching. He’s supposed to be her Jedi master. That means preparing her for anything she can face out here. But sometimes, he doesn’t think he even knows how to do that – not when it comes to things like this. And he knows that he can’t protect her from the harsh reality of things like this, no matter how much he might wish he could. “I’ll talk to her,” Anakin promises.

Rex nods. “She’s so… tiny,” he blurts finally, almost awkwardly, “I don’t know how she’s even able to fight as well as she is.”

“She’s a Jedi,” Anakin points out, faintly amused, even if he can entirely understand Rex’s concern. Ahsoka is so small. “She’s capable of far more than it looks like.”

“It’s just… hard to remember that sometimes,” Rex concedes.

“I know,” Anakin admits. But he knows he’s not going to be able to protect her forever. He’s never been able to protect anyone, really.

The best he can do is teach her how to protect herself.

Ahsoka starts to stir suddenly, a sudden rush of fear pouring into the Force.

Nightmare.

He’d know that sensation anywhere.

Anakin shakes Ahsoka’s shoulder lightly, and she jolts awake, nearly smacking him in the eye with the top of her lekku.

“Master?” she asks, blinking. Her fear is fading, but the lingering anxiety is still there.

“We’re safe here,” Anakin promises her, squeezing her shoulder.

“Are we?” she asks and there’s a desperate fear in her eyes.

He can’t promise her that Ventress won’t get to them again, especially if she really does have a special interest in Ahsoka. Anakin does not appreciate that at all. He’s actually really worried, if he’s being honest. He knows Ahsoka’s struggling with the Dark Side. He knows he is, too. Everyone is now.

“Well, we escaped one,” Anakin points out lightly, “Ifs she does try again, I’m sure she’ll lose just as badly.”

She doesn’t look very convinced at the reassurance. “I’m just… worried,” she mumbles.

“I know. But at least this time, we’ll be prepared for it if we do see her again.”

His padawan nods, though she still looks subdued.

“Are you really supposed to be out of bed?” Ahsoka asks finally, frowning.

“I have permission to leave, yes,” Anakin assures, “For now.”

“That’s not fair,” Fives grumbles from across the room, ignoring Echo’s fierce glare, “Coric still won’t let me leave.”

“You have broken ribs,” Anakin points out, amused.

“And they’re healing on their own. It’s not like he can do more than he already did,” Fives protests.

“I think I’ll have to trust Coric’s judgement in this case, regardless,” he replies dryly.

“I still don’t think you’re one to talk about that, Master,” Ahsoka interjects.

He laughs. “Probably not.”

***

Echo is still sitting next to Fives’ beside when General Skywalker comes over to them.

“How are you two holding up?”  the General inquires.

Echo doesn’t really understand why he seems so concerned about it. It’s strange. No natborn ever shows them any kind of concern. They’re just…. clones. It’s not like they have the kind of rank Rex does, even. Him and Fives aren’t important. He’s already begun to see, in the short time that they’ve had around their general, that he’s different but it’s not something that he really understands at all.

“I’m fine, but I’m still being held prisoner here,” Fives quips.

The General laughs. “That happens.”

“Ignore him, General,” Echo says, shooting a glare at Fives because he doesn’t understand how his brother can act so casual and informal around their superior. “He belongs in bed.”

“I do not,” Fives insists under his breath.

“What about you?” General Skywalker asks, looking to Echo, “You were hurt, too.”

“I’m fine, sir.” Now, at least. The injury wasn’t that bad. Not really.

“That’s not fair,” Fives mutters.

Echo really wants to smack him. But he’s not going to get into a brawl in front of their general. “Permission to speak freely, sir?” Echo asks awkwardly. He doesn’t know how to say this, but he’s been thinking about it non-stop since the mission. And every single day that they were locked together and Echo thought that Fives, Rex, and the General and the Commander would be the last people he ever saw.

General Skywalker blinks, almost as though he’s startled. “Yes, of course, Echo.”

“You and the Commander could have escaped, sir,” Echo replies, “We would have covered for your escape and you could still have finished the mission.  I don’t understand why you didn’t.”

“Your lives aren’t expendable, Echo,” General Skywalker responds firmly, “Your lives matter as much as any Jedi. As much as anyone’s.”

But that doesn’t make any sense. Their purpose was to fight and die defending the Republic. They’re supposed to protect the Jedi and any Republic civilians with their lives. That’s just how this works. It’s how it always has.

“Our purpose is to finish our mission, whatever it is,” Echo objects, confused.

“That’s what the Kaminoans may have created you for. That doesn’t mean you aren’t people of your own. Individually. Just like how you and Fives aren’t the same.”

“Thank the Force,” Fives mumbles and clearly he’s heard the General and Commander say that one too many times and is now copying them. “I don’t want to spend hours reading reg manuals just like Echo does.”

“At least you would be on better behavior if you did,” Echo shoots back.

The General laughs again. It’s strange to see someone who’s this cheerful, honestly. None of their trainers on Kamino were really like this. And the Kaminoans were never really emotional about anything, even when they weren’t being unkind. “It’s fine,” he assures, “I’m not going to ask you to follow some of those regulations on how to talk to a superior word for word. Not with me, at least.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Fives says, a bit cheerfully.

Echo has no idea what to say at all. He doesn’t fully understand what their general even means or – what. But he can still admit that he’s glad that General Skywalker is their general. Fives’ rogueness drove him crazy back in their training, and it still does, but knowing that his brother won’t be hurt for being disobedient still soothes him.

“And you should know,” the General goes on, “That your lives matter as much as anyone else’s and I’m never going to leave any of you behind.”

Echo doesn’t know what to say to that either. Ther’s a fierce intensity in how the General says it, that has him knowing he means it. He just doesn’t really understand why.

***

Obi-Wan comes to see Anakin again the next day. “The elections for a new Chancellor are finished,” he says, arms crossed, “Bail Organa won.”

It still hurts how Palpatine isn’t the Chancellor anymore. Anakin’s never going to see him again. He’s just gone with no warning and between losing him and his mother only days apart, it’s – a lot. The grief never stops smothering him. Having Ahsoka and his boys has given him a purpose, something else to focus on, but it’s hard. “That is… good,” Anakin says instead, “He would be a good Chancellor.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan agrees, “The Council is hopeful we’ll be able to work better with him than we have with some.”

He should feel something to that but mostly, all he can focus on is the gaping emptiness that Palpatine’s absence has left in his heart.

And he can’t help thinking about how Padme had only just admitted that she wanted the same relationship with him that he did with her, only hours before she turned to Dust. Most of all at that point, he’d just wanted a family. Something outside of the Order that he could still cling to, now that his mother was gone.

Because any friendship he’s ever had among the Jedi has always faded with time because close friendships just aren’t the Jedi way. And it’s different with Obi-Wan because he was his master and he is family, but there’s still so much duty between them.

But now… Padme is gone. Anakin’s never going to get to have that with her.

And he has a padawan now, and Ahsoka is all he’s ever needed. He needs to be the best Jedi he can be for her, but that doesn’t mean the lost chance at having a normal family – even if it’s not something he ought to have – doesn’t still hurt.

“Are you alright?” Obi-Wan asks, settling in a chair next to his bed. “Something is upsetting you.”

“The Dusting,” Anakin blurts, “Sometimes, I still cannot believe Padme was gone.”

Obi-Wan reaches out to touch his shoulder. “I know you were friends.”

“We weren’t just friends.” He doesn’t know why he said it a moment later. But it’s just – he wants to talk about it to someone and there’s no one else anymore. It’s not Obi-Wan doesn’t know how he feels about her, anyway.

His master raises an eyebrow. “What are you saying, Anakin?” He feels a touch wary, in the Force.

“I – We didn’t break the Code. Exactly. Just… she felt the same way as I did, but she didn’t want it to destroy our lives. But she finally told me. On Geonosis, she told me she felt the same way. That she didn’t care anymore, and we would have talked about it again, but then she was just… gone.”

Obi-Wan’s quiet for a long pause. “I know how it is to have that kind of friendship and know you have to let her go. It’s not that we’re not allowed to have these feelings. It’s… natural. It’s only a question of if we’re able to let them go, as we must for our duty,” he says finally, “I expect dealing with that as the same time as what happened to your mother isn’t easy.”

It’s not.

But right now, all his brain can latch onto is one thing. It’s easier than thinking about how he really was about to break the Code and he thinks Obi-Wan would be far more upset if he’d actually gone through with that. “Did you just say you had a girlfriend, Master?”

“No, Anakin, I said absolutely no such thing.” He sounds positively scandalized. 

“That’s how it sounds to me. Who was she?”

“Anakin.”

He tries and fails to smother his grin. 

“You are a menace,” Obi-Wan grumbles, “And that is entirely beside the point I was trying to make.”

“Which… was?” He’s a bit hesitant to ask.

“I understand the difficulty of the situation but… you know the choice you ought to make. Not that that is the point anymore, when she is gone.”

He nods, looking away. “I just – After Mom was gone, I didn’t know how I would have let her go. She was the only family I could have had. Other than you. And now Ahsoka.”

“I know why that would be a struggle, with the life you had before the Order,” Obi-Wan says.

He didn’t fully expect his master to be understanding about it but it still eases something inside of him to hear it.  And it’s not like anything that could have happened with Padme matters anymore when she’s gone.

That’s still not enough to make him stop longing. Or for it to stop hurting.

***

With Anakin finally cleared from the healer’s wing, Ahsoka’s grateful that the first place they’re going is to the ceremony for the new Chancellor. It’s not another battle and she’s hardly fought in any but they aren’t anywhere near as fun as she thought they would be.

Though, she’s beginning to realize quickly that formalities involved in the ceremony are actually very boring. And she can clearly feel how unhappy Anakin is.

“You okay?” she asks, poking Anakin’s arm.

He looks down at her, smiling a little, though it’s strained. “Palpatine was my friend. I was at his second inauguration ceremony.”

She knows Anakin’s talked about him a little. She just didn’t realize they were that close. “Oh,” she offers softly, shifting a little closer to him in silent support.

Everyone’s lost someone in this chaos. It’s just a question of who and how many.

Turning her attention back to the ceremony as much as she can, Ahsoka catches sight of Breha Organa here, too, near Bail once the crowd begins to disperse.

She sees Obi-Wan go up to Bail, between the crowds.

“Congratulations on your election, Chancellor,” Obi-Wan greets cordially.

Bail nods gravely. “I will do my utmost to lead the Republic in this time of crisis. The Jedi’s help will be invaluable now more than ever.”

Which is a serious problem, with how depleted the Order is now. When Ahsoka was young, she never thought anything could actually hurt the Jedi. She never realized how wrong she was until now. And the Council still has no idea what caused this. Not even Master Yoda – and it’s unsettling to think that there’s things even he doesn’t know.

“We will do our best, Chancellor,” Obi-Wan assures, “But our numbers have been halved as well.”

“Everyone has faced this,” Breha interjects, “We must all work together to handle it.”

How are they taking everything so in stride? Maybe they just haven’t lost anyone as personally, unlike almost everyone else in the galaxy. Or maybe it’s just a politician thing. Jedi are supposed to be all calm, but even meditation and the Jedi way haven’t prepared them for seeing half the galaxy get turned into dust. Because Ahsoka has even seen many Jedi Masters who are completely shaken by it.

“Does the Order have any insight or speculations on what may have happened?” Bail inquires.

“We do not,” he replies, “The cause remains unknown.” She’s heard that they’re trying to research more about this, but so far they’ve come up with nothing.

The meeting is left at that, and the crowd starts to disperse. Ahsoka follows Anakin as head out of the Senate building. But they don’t make it all the way there before another Senator steps between them. There’s another similarly looking woman at her side.

“You are… Anakin Skywalker?” one of them asks.

He stills, staring at them, a rush of grief pouring into the Force. “I am. You’re…”

“I’m the new Nubian Senator,” explains the one in fancy clothes, “Sache Adova.”

Anakin’s eyes instantly light with recognition. Ahsoka has no idea who’s even being discussed.

“I’m Yane,” the other woman interjects.

Anakin nods. “This is my padawan, Ahsoka Tano. Ahsoka, these are… Senator Amidala’s former handmaids.”

“Another friend you had at the Senate?”

His gaze is heavy. “Yes.”

“We were wondering if you might know what happened to Padme. The last we heard, she was under protection of the Jedi,” Yane says.

Anakin looks away. “The last I saw her, she fell from a gunship during the battle. She was alive then, but she was not found as a survivor. I do not know if it was because of the droids or the Dusting. But we were never able to find a body.”

Ahsoka feels the sharp flare of pain from both women.

“Thank you for telling us,” Sache says quietly, before they both turn away, disappearing into the crowd.

Ahsoka watches them go, before looking to her master. “Do you think we will be able to find away to reverse the Dusting?”

Anakin has that intense look on his face, the way he often does when he’s sensing something. “I don’t know,” he admits finally, “The most I can say is that things are changing and something is coming. Something that I think will lead us back to what caused this, but what that may mean, I cannot say.”

She doesn’t know if that should be relieving or not. Mostly, she just has a very wary feeling about the future. Enough things have gone wrong already. It certainly feels about time that something should go right. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to.

Chapter Text

It hasn’t been long when Anakin and Ahsoka are sent away on their next mission – to Mandalore. Apparently, in the chaos since the Dusting, Death Watch has taken over the planet. Ahsoka doesn’t fully understand all the history there but with the people grieving, Death Watch claimed that if Mandalore were still warriors, they would not have been harmed. Which Ahsoka as well as everyone else knows is entirely untrue, but grief… doesn’t always make sense.

The Duchess Satine has been imprisoned. Obi-Wan seems unusually worried about her and Ahsoka has no idea why Anakin keeps giving Obi-Wan these pointed looks occasionally when her name is mentioned. Obi-Wan is also studiously ignoring him. She opts to ignore it entirely and keep her focus on the mission ahead.

Her and Anakin are being sent in a group from the 501^st.

Explosions are ringing out all around them, as the gunships take off from the cruiser, flying for the surface. Death Watch is clearly very unhappy that they’re here.

The battle breaks out immediately after Anakin refuses their order to stand down and go back. They knew from the start this would turn out to be an invasion, and it’s what the Republic came there prepared for.

It’s easier when they get out of the air to the ground, making their way across the docks towards the capital city. The clones are falling quickly, though, and there’s not much Ahsoka can do to stop it, anymore than she’s ever been able to.

Her and Anakin cut their way through the Mandalorians opposing them, rapidly making their way for the throne room. The resistance is heavy, but they’re making it slowly.

Finally, they break through the last of the ranks, and she, Rex, Anakin, and several other clones stride into the throne room together.

There’s a woman with red hair seated on the throne at the front of the room.

“What is the meaning of this invasion?” she demands, sharply, “The Republic’s presence on Mandalore will only spark another war.”

“With all due respect, your actions are already leading to that,” Anakin replies. Mandalore has been contemplating allying with the Separatists because of supply routes and shortages, even though many of the citizens would prefer to be on the Republic side. And given that it would take so many systems with them – and disrupt a bunch of Republic trade routes that were just gotten in order, to supply resources to many o f the inner worlds – the Senate deemed it important enough to act on.

Besides, Mandalore is close to civil war, anyway. That’s true about many systems, though – people are fighting everywhere. That’s why they were called in to put an end to it before it could hurt the Republic.

“I will do what is in Mandalore’s best interest,” she replies, sharply. “Leave now, and there may be a chance this does not have to end in war. I cannot believe the Republic wants this right now.”

“We will leave, if you are willing to negotiate a deal,” Anakin counters.

“We don’t have time for this right now,” the man standing next to the throne speaks up. His armor is mostly gold and blue beskar, with various designed across it, though some are in red, to make them stand out most of all. Clan Wren, from the looks of the symbols. “We are trying to track the cause of the Dusting in first place, Jedi. We need all the resources for own planet that we can get.”

Ahsoka’s breath catches in her throat at the words. “Have you found anything?” she can’t help asking. This is what if feels like the Jedi ought to be doing. Finding some way to do something about this.

“We are still tracking the signature, but it extends deep into Wild Space. We will have to go there personally,” he replies, tersely, “And we don’t have time to deal with a fight here on Mandalore if our efforts are going to go anywhere.”

Ahsoka looks to Anakin hopefully, but one look at his face says enough about how intrigued he is, too.

“If there is anything I can do to help you look into this, I… would be willing,” Anakin  says. “But we’re here to work out a deal between you and Duchess Satine.”

“The Duchess has suppressed our people’s beliefs for long enough. Her rule is over,” the other woman replies sharply.

“She is still the rightful ruler of Mandalore, from the view of the Republic,” Anakin replies, “At the very least, the Republic needs the assurance you aren’t going to side with the Separatists.”

“And if that’s the only way we’ll have the resources we need to find what caused this?” the other Mandalorian asks.

Her master hesitates.

Ahsoka doesn’t know what to think of this herself, but she doesn’t understand why there wouldn’t be some other way to work this out.

“I can speak to the Jedi Council. I’m sure they would be willing to work something out,” Anakin offers finally.

They go back and forth for a while. Most of the discussions are not something Ahsoka listens too closely too. She doesn’t really have anything to add.

But they start slowly swaying the Mandalorians to their side.

Until Anakin finally settles on agreeing to go check out what the Mandalorian has found so far, just… before they tell anyone about it.

“We need to have something specific to tell them,” Anakin explains. “If they’re going to believe there’s a point in looking into this?”

“And so they won’t tell us to stop?” Ahsoka quips.

Anakin grins down at her. “That too.”

***

This is what Fives wanted to investigate from the start – what it was that took so many of his brothers for nothing. It’s expected that many would die during the war but that doesn’t mean it had to happen like how it did. This is something he wants to do, not that fighting for the Republic isn’t, but… This is different.

It also feels a little like getting to choose a mission and it’s a fun feeling. He doesn’t really get to do that.

They go in the same shuttle as the Mandalorian from Clan Wren. They’re nearly at the edges of charted out territory, from what Fives gathered.

“The signal is still tracing something that happened far from here,” General Skywalker observes, looking at whoever’s on the monitor the Mandalorian built.  Fives gave up attempting to interpret what the readings mean, from over their shoulders.

“I believe it to be from a different galaxy,” he replies shortly, “What we need is way to get to one.”

“Intergalactic travel?” Fives speaks up, because he can’t help it, “No one can do that.” At least not that he’s ever heard and that means they’re at a dead end, doesn’t it? He doesn’t want to give up, though.

“Yeah,” Commander Tano agrees, deflating.

“We’ve been searching for a solution to that,” the Mandalorian replies, “There is one creature believed to travel between galaxies, in legends from thousands of years ago, but how we would have the power to follow them is something that has always failed us.”

Fives exchanges a glance with Echo, who just shrugs. He has no more of an idea what’s being discussed than Fives.

“The Purgil,” the General realizes, brightening.

The Mandalorian nods.

“What’s that?” Fives asks.

“I heard deep space pirates talk about them,” the General replies, “They travel between galaxies. Rumor has it that that’s what first allowed us to develop hyperspace travel.”

“They talk about those in stories to younglings,” Commander Tano says, perking up, “But how could we use them to get us anywhere? If they’re even real.”

“Oh, they are real,” General Skywalker assures.

“So we just have to latch ourselves on to these Purgil and hope they don’t strand us forever between galaxies?” Fives queries.

“That’s the idea,” General Skywalker replies, cheerfully.

“Count me in, sir,” Fives says eagerly. It’s no riskier than countless other mission they’ve gone on – or maybe the thing is that it is but he’s more than willing to do that, if they can find answers for what happened to his brothers.

And honestly, he’s a bit curious as to what going to another galaxy would be like.

The controls on the ship start beeping loudly suddenly. It’s the proximity sensors. “Something massive is coming out of hyperspace, Master,” Commander Tano calls, alarm tinging her voice.

“The Purgil were rumored to go through here. That’s why I brought us out here,” the Mandalorian explains.

Something comes out of hyperspace suddenly, right in front of them. For a moment, all Fives can see is the blur of something moving past the viewport, but then an enormous eyeball appears in front of them.

The Commander yelps, jerking back.

The thing then swoops down a long tentacle smacking into the side of the ship, nearly throwing everyone who’s standing to the floor. Far beyond, Fives can see dozens of these enormous things.

“Looks like they are real,” Rex agrees, staring.

It’s about all Fives can do, too.

He’s never seen an animal half this huge. They’re bigger than Star Destroyers. Bigger than anything he’s ever seen.

“Are you sure those things aren’t going to make a meal out of us?!” Commander Tano asks, voice going increasingly high-pitched.

“I don’t think they eat meat. Or ships,” General Skywalker assures.

One of them opens its mouth a little, enough that Fives can see endless rows of teeth.

“That one looks hungry!” she nearly wails.

“No, he’s just smiling at you,” the General assures cheerfully.

The Commander doesn’t look remotely convinced.

Fives isn’t sure he is either but this is also – Well, fun. A little bit.

“I could connect with them,” General Skywalker says, turning to look between everyone, “But we need to understand that we have no idea what we’re walking into. We don’t know if we’ll make it back or not or what we’re going to find. If you don’t want to risk walking into this, that’s… fine. It wouldn’t hurt for someone to stay behind and deal with Mandalore either.”

They’re really doing this? “I’m coming, sir,” Fives says instantly.

The Commander hesitates. “I’m going if you are, Master. But what’s our plan to go with them?”

“They’ll give us a ride. Right in their mouth.”

“Their mouth?” she squeaks.

“Sounds fun,” Fives offers cheerfully.

“Are you going to report this to the Council, General?” Rex queries, a touch uncertainly.

“I’ll message Obi-Wan.” General Skywalker slips his comm out of his pocket. Fives catches a brief glimpse of the message – something about how they’re taking a trip to another galaxy and he promises they’re going to be back, with some ridiculous smiley face at the end. And a promise not to worry because they have it under control.

“I think that’s just going to spook him,” Ahsoka says, leaning over Anakin’s arm.

“We don’t have much other choice.” There’s a certain fierce determination in the General’s eyes now. He’s serious about this plan and that means he must know at least on some level, that it’s going to work. Fives trusts that much. The General has led them all this time and has never made a mistake. Fives doesn’t believe he’d be doing this if it was one either.

“I’ll come, General,” Rex says, “If you don’t know what we’re walking into, we need all the backup we can get.”

Echo nods his agreement. “We’re leaving right now, sir?”

“There’s nothing to wait for, is there?”

“Not that I know of, sir,” Fives offers cheerfully. If there’s a chance they won’t get permission to do this, he’d rather not ask for it. He’s grateful that General Skywalker is willing to do something like this by bending the rules just a little. They aren’t breaking any if they aren’t specifically told not to go.

He can hardly believe they’re about to go, though. Good thing the ship has rations for a month just as standard because he has no idea when they’ll be back.

Anakin turns back to the viewport, lifting a hand and closing his eyes. After a moment, the Commander joins him.

Fives watches, unable to help his awe as one of the purgil in front of them starts slowly turning, looking at them curiously. It’s always incredible to see the things the General can do with this Force.

And then the purgil starts opening its enormous mouth, lines of huge teeth that could squash the ship with ease opening in front of them.

“Fly the ship into its mouth,” Anakin instructs.

“You mean that?” the Mandalorian asks, but he doesn’t seem as worried as Fives would expect from most people when they see the General’s seemingly reckless plans.

“Yes.”

“What if it swallows us?” Echo speaks up.

“Then I will assume all responsibilities for saving us from being digested,” Anakin replies, a touch amused, “You don’t need to worry. I told it where we’re going. It agreed to help.”

“You talked to that thing?” So what if Fives is a bit awe-struck at what his General is capable of?

“Through our minds, yes.”

The Mandalorian doesn’t even ask any questions, just flies the ship into the Purgil’s mouth.

The creature’s jaws close over them and the ship rocks a little bit before it’s suddenly jerked forward, and then everything goes still again. Between the Purgils’ teeth, Fives can see the blue and white swirls of hyperspace.

The animal really did just jump to hyperspace with them on board.

This is definitely the most interesting mission he’s ever been on.

***

They’ve been in hyperspace for well over an hour now. Rex can’t deny that he’s a bit worried, even if he trusts that General Skywalker will get them through this. They just don’t even know where they are anymore. “We aren’t going to be lost out here, are we, sir?” Rex has to ask. Because he can think of a million ways this can go wrong. He wants to find answers to what happened to his brothers, yes, but he also doesn’t want to get stranded in an entirely different galaxy from the rest of them and never see them again.

“The Purgil know where they’re going. Don’t worry,” he assures.

“And they aren’t swallowing us either,” the Commander agrees. She’s a little more relaxed now which lets Rex calm down just a little himself.

“It’s kind of weird,” Fives interjects, “I can’t imagine holding something this big on my tongue and not swallowing it just because it’s getting annoying.”

“I’m glad I’m not a tiny person hiding inside your mouth,” Echo grumbles.

“You should be, because if you were – ” Fives starts to say and Rex tries very hard to tune out his stupid brothers.

Seriously, their general, commander, and a total stranger nat-born are all here and they’re still being idiots.

The Mandalorian is still studying his scanner, though, wisely ignoring everyone else entirely. “The center of what happened is drawing closer fast,” he observes.

“Then we know we’re not lost,” Anakin says. 

The Mandalorian finally looks up from his monitor, eyeing Rex and his brothers.

“What?” Fives asks, catching his gaze.

“I’ve never seen any of your kind before,” he remarks. Rex can’t help stiffening a little. When people say that, it’s usually because they don’t like clones at all.

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen a Mandalorian before either,” Rex replies.

“You were all cloned from a Mandalorian, weren’t you?” he asks.

“Jango Fett,” Rex replies. He doesn’t seem hostile, at least. The way he talks is always just a bit abrasive.

“I cannot believe he was willing to sell millions of you to the Republic in such a way,” the man says.

General Skywalker actually looks up a little, at that. “I have to say, I’ve never been able to understand that myself.”

“He was a bounty hunter,” Rex points out. “And it’s not as if any of us ever knew him.” He was around to train some, but it was always a professional distance. He was just another trainer. That they’re technically the same as him doesn’t really mean… anything. They don’t have parents. They just have brothers – that’s the only family Rex has ever had.

“The more my point,” the man replies, “In the Mandalorian way, you would all have been like his children. And he just sold you off for his own gain.”

“Then it’s probably a good thing we weren’t his children,” Fives pipes up, “I’m not sure we’d have liked it very much.”

“What he did was dishonorable and a disgrace to all Mandalorians.”

He’s actually upset on their behalf, and Rex doesn’t know what to think about that. No one gets like that, other than General Skywalker and their Commander. Rex has never known any other Jedi who hits the clones in their charge, unlike their trainers often did, but it’s still not the same as how is General is.

“I don’t know much about the Mandalorian way,” Rex admits. It’s never really mattered. It’s not their way. They have heard a few words here and there from Jango but that doesn’t mean it’s something that has any meaning to them. They’re loyal to the Republic. Not Mandalore.

“Have any of you ever been interested in learning about it?” the man asks, “Being a Mandalorian is still in your blood, even if your parent abandoned you to a different life.”

“Fighting the Republic is what we were meant for. It’s our purpose,” Rex replies.

He doesn’t think the man is overly happy with the answer, but it is the truth. This is the only way Rex has ever known and it’s his purpose. His duty. He doesn’t want anything else.

“If any of you ever wanted another way, I think you would fit well on Mandalore,” the man replies.

“Would they really be accepted?” General Skywalker speaks up, “I can’t say most people are eve happy to see clones.”

“Some may reject it but the clones are warriors. That has always been honored in our society.”

Well, that Rex can see clearly enough.

But it’s still not something he really cares to consider very much. He is where he wants to be, fighting alongside his brothers and General. And helping take care of the Commander.

***

Echo still can’t quite believe they’re actually doing this. Traveling to another galaxy on a completely unsanctioned mission when they have no idea if something is going to go wrong or not. To be fair, at least they’re acting under General Skywalker’s orders, so they aren’t technically breaking any rules. It just still feels like bending them to a point that they probably shouldn’t be.

He doesn’t miss the way General Skywalker suddenly straightens and moments later, they’re streaking out of hyperspace.

He breathes in sharply, suddenly pressing a hand to his hand.

The Commander looks similarly shaken about something.

“Are you alright, sir?” Echo asks. He can tell they’re sensing something even if he has no idea what.

“Different planets feel different in the Force. I never considered how different another galaxy would feel,” the General explains.

That makes… some sense to him. Maybe.

“It feels weird here,” Commander Tano says, “I don’t know why.”

“It doesn’t flow the same,” the General agrees.

Whatever that even means.

The Purgil opens its mouth, and they fly the ship out.

The star patterns out here look totally different. They really are lost. Hopefully the Purgil aren’t going to vanish on them or they’ll have a problem.

They’re in another solar system entirely now and they make their way out of an asteroid belt area and past several other planets, approaching one that’s green and blue and white swirls of clouds.

“That planet is where the incident is coming from,” the Mandalorian says, studying his scanner.

They fly the ship down the for surface, following the direction the scanner indicates the readings are the strongest.

“We don’t need any landing permits, do we?” Commander Tano interjects.

“Let’s hope not,” General Skywalker offers.

That… could be a problem. They don’t need to accidentally start an intergalactic war without meaning to. Although considering Echo’s never even heard of intergalactic travel before, he can’t really imagine it’s too great a risk. Though when they don’t know what they’re walking into, well, it’s hard to predict.

Especially with Fives.

They land the ship in the middle of a forest. The readings are coming from somewhere deeper inside but when they try to fly in through that area, it’s to run right into an invisible shield.

Echo’s unsurprised by that – it’s normal enough in their own galaxy.

They get off the ship together, getting out to have a look around. And try to find someone. This entire area looks unpopulated, from what he can tell.

“There is something up ahead,” General Skywalker remarks, his eyes narrowing in focus.

They start traipsing through the woods, but then Echo sees sudden movement. Moments later, a small group of dark-skinned humans, who look like warriors, suddenly emerge from the trees.

“Who are you?” one of them asks.

“I’m Anakin Skywalker,” his general speaks, stepping forwards, “We’re of another galaxy.”

“What are you doing out here, near Wakanda?” she asks.

“Half the population in our galaxy turned to Dust. We’ve been trying to locate the source of what happened,” he replies.

Realization settles over her face. “The Snap happened here,” she confirms, “There was a being named Thanos. He came to Earth to collect the Infinity Stones and used them to wipe out half the universe.”

“What are Infinity Stones?” the Commander pipes up.

“Objects of great power. Cornerstones to the universe itself. The Avengers should be able to explain it to you better.”

“You’re saying he somehow used stones to destroy half the universe from a distance?” Rex echoes, sounding entirely lost.

From the blank looks on everyone else’s faces, he doesn’t think they’re following either.

“Yes. The stones carry an infinite amount of power,” she replies.

“If these Stones could be used to cause that kind of destruction, couldn’t they be used to reverse it?” General Skywalker asks.

Echo didn’t even think of that.

“Thanos left with the Stones. We don’t know what has become of them. The Avengers said they would try to find Thanos.”

“Who are the Avengers?” Rex inquires.

She gives them a brief rundown on the situation on the planet.

Apparently, they’re some group of people with special abilities who have defended the planet for the last six years or so. A little like the Jedi except they actually volunteer or something, from what Echo’s gathering. But if they’re going to get any further answers, they’ll have to go there to talk to them.

And that’s going to require another trip across the ocean, to some place called New York. 

“You really think there’s some way this can be reversed?” The Commander asks quietly, once they’re on board the shuttle again.

“Nothing at the Temple ever spoke of these Infinity Stones, that I remember,” General Skywalker says slowly, “But if something were powerful enough in the Force to cause destruction of this extent… it’s hard to say what else they could be capable of. First, we need to hear the full story of what happened.”

It feels like a false hope. Echo knows he shouldn’t get his hopes up at al but he can’t help a sudden whispering question in his mind of what if they just found these things and undid what happened somehow? Is that even possible? Once people are dead, they’re dead. You can’t just suddenly change that. But still, there’s a stubborn part of him that can’t stop thinking about it.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” Fives agrees cheerfully.

Echo groans. “Don’t make me change my mind.”

Chapter Text

It doesn’t take them long to get across the ocean to Avengers compound. They land the ship a distance away so they hopefully don’t seem hostile. No comm system was picking it up when they tried to call ahead to explain who they are. Ahsoka hasn’t seen nearly enough of this planet but she gets the feeling they’re a bit behind time in technology.

Four humans come out to find them.

She’s beginning to think there are only humans on the planet, considering that they have yet to see in any other species.

“More aliens?” the woman asks, instantly wary.

“Who are you?” demands one of the others – someone in some kind of metallic looking suit.

“We’re here about the Dusting,” Anakin replies, stepping forwards, “We tracked it here from our galaxy. The Wakandans told us that you could answer our questions about it.”

The four exchange glances. They seem to relax a little.

Considering that their world was just attacked, Ahsoka’s unsurprised that they’re so wary.

They get briefly introduced – the Avengers here are Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, and Thor.

“What are you?” Stark asks, eyeing Ahsoka.

“I have not once seen a species of your kind, in all the time I traveled the realms,” Thor agrees.

“I’m a Togruta,” Ahsoka replies – she hasn’t met someone who doesn’t know what she is in a very long time. It’s always kind of amusing when it happens. “Maybe you don’t have anyone like me in your galaxy.”

“A few months ago, we didn’t know we had huge purple aliens out there either,” Stark points out. From how everyone’s emotions dip at the mention, she can guess they’re talking about this Thanos.

“Did you ever find this Thanos?” Rex interjects.

“We did,” Rogers replies.

“What about the Stones?” Anakin asks.

“He already destroyed them when we got there.”

Ahsoka knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but that doesn’t the stop disappointment that floods her.

“I still don’t understand what these stones are,” she comments.

“My father explained it to me,” Thor speaks up. There’s something about him that seems different. He feels Force sensitive, maybe, but Ahsoka can’t tell. All she knows is that he shines brilliantly in the Force. “The stones existed before anything else. They are reality, soul, mind, power, space, and time.”

“What are the Stones like?” Anakin inquires.

“They are an unstoppable power when wielded,” Thor says grimly.

“Thanos already had five of them when he came to fight us on Earth,” Rogers replies, “There was nothing we could do to stop him from getting the sixth.”

Ahsoka can feel the wild grief all of them are radiating. It’s how nearly everyone feels now.

“Not even anyone with the Force?” Anakin asks, uncertainly, “Do you have anyone here who uses it?”

“The Force?” Romanoff repeats, a bit incredulous and confused. Ahsoka would think she were amused if there there wasn’t such a heavy feeling of hopelessness and depression drowning them all out. Because there really is little to no hope of ever fixing what happened. Right now, they just need to understand. They need answers, and the Mandalorian, no doubt, needs someone to vent his rage on. Ahsoka personally thinks the entire galaxy does. Or is it universe?

“Is that some kind of weapon?” Stark queries, a bit dubiously.

“No, it’s like this,” Ahsoka hastily explains, flicking out a hand and levitating a branch off the ground.

“Magic?” Stark asks, perking up a little bit. “Of course, we have that here. Well, we had that here.” His face dips a little with grief. Whoever he’s referring to no doubt also died in the dusting. “But whoever uses it here usually gets all glowy.”

“All glowy?” Anakin repeats, almost amused.

“Wanda would glow red,” he offers, though that name has absolutely no meaning to her. But maybe it has something to do with how the Force itself feels like it flows differently here.

“Your magic is not like Loki’s,” Thor comments. “But he was the best with magic there was, and he could not defeat or trick Thanos either.”

“Who is Loki?” Anakin wonders.

Ahsoka is herself. There’s something to the way they all react to that name – she doesn’t think it’s all positive either. But whoever he is, to Thor, it means a lot. Whoever Loki is, it was someone close to him.

“My brother,” Thor replies.

“He attacked New York city about six years ago,” Romanoff offers, though that only leaves Ahsoka feeling more confused about this person than she was before.

“I thought you were protecting this planet,” Anakin objects, “Why would your brother have attacked it?”

“When it happened, I thought it because he desired vengeance on me,” Thor replies. His grief is pouring into the Force. “Now, I believe Thanos may have had much of a hand in his actions. Even when we were together after, Loki never told me. I could never make sense of his deeds. But now I will never have that answered.”

“Was he lost in the Dusting too?” Ahsoka asks quietly.

“No. Before that. Thanos attacked our ship,” Thor replies.  He doesn’t say more, but he doesn’t need to. It’s obvious enough, based on the way he’s speaking of it. It’s a hard memory.

“Why did Thanos do this?” Fives asks, “How’s him killing so many people supposed to help him get anything?”

“He was going on about some kind of universal balance. That there was too much life and he decided he needed to balance it out,” Stark replies.

…Wow. She doesn’t know what she can say other than that, to such ridiculous motivations. And she thought Dooku was bad? At least that made sense. People going insane for power, yeah, she learned all about that in the Temple. That’s the kind of stuff she was prepared for. Not some maniac who thinks they’re doing the world some grad survive by mass slaughter of untold precedence.

“Did he never consider that if these Stones were strong enough to destroy half of life, he could also use them to multiply resources to feed them all?” Anakin asks dubiously.

“It’s not like we sat down to have a chat with him,” Romanoff points out dryly.

Fair enough. A manic that insane could probably never be reasoned with anyway.

“We would have been happy to help in your fight, had we known about it before it was too late,” Anakin says solemnly. But he looks thoughtful. He’s thinking of something – though Ahsoka can’t imagine what. The Stones are gone. Thanos is dead. There’s nothing more they can do, is there?

Except accept that at least they have answers and got to take a trip to another galaxy while they were at it, but it still doesn’t help them solve anything. At least now that she knows what caused it, she can stop wondering, though.

“Are you staying around here?” Rogers asks, “Or… heading back home?”

“I don’t think we’ll be much help here anymore,” Rex points out. “The fight’s already done. The most we can do is try to keep cleaning up in the aftermath back in our galaxy. Unless the general says otherwise.”

“We’ve still got our own galaxy to try cleaning up,” Ahsoka agrees subdued. Though she can’t help thinking for a moment, that at least Ventress wouldn’t find them out here. But their galaxy is the one they need to focus on helping first. Their duty as Jedi demands it, even if there’s a small, selfish part of her mind that wants to hide out here and never come back, ignoring any chances of Ventress or any further chaos back at home. But they have to go home. Their own world has enough issues to deal with, and they can’t abandon them all because they’re scared of a Sith assassin.

“That’s true everywhere now,” Rogers agrees quietly.

“We’ll be heading home,” Anakin confirms.

There really is nothing else they can do here.

***

The possibility of having a way to reverse the Snap is overwhelming, and it floods Anakin with as much fear as it does relief. But unless they find a way to get the Stones back, they don’t have anything. They’re talking about time travel. The Jedi are capable of many things, but that seems like stretching it, even for them.

He could be misjudging a little bit, but he doesn’t find that likely.

“So, let me get this straight,” Ahsoka requests as she trails him through the Temple halls. “We’re going to find a way to go back in time, steal the Infinity Stones, Unsnap, and then send them all back into the past?”

“That’s pretty much it, yeah.”

His padawan slaps a hand over her face and groans. “Okay. That’s insane, Skyguy.”

He throws her a smile. “So I’ve been told.”

“Well, I think I need to tell you again.”

“We have a shot to fix this,” Anakin replies, “Or at least we might. There has to be something we can find in the Temple. Or just somewhere.” He gets no further than walking right into Obi-Wan, who immediately stops and does a double take of them both, then crossing his arms over his chest with a scowl.

“Anakin, where were you?”

“We took a trip to a different galaxy,” he offers, “With the purgil.”

“You did what?”

“And we found out why half the universe was turned into dust.”

“The universe?”

“And there might be a way to fix it if we can time-travel.”

Obi-Wan facepalms. “Anakin, it is far too early in the morning for such jokes.”

“I’m not joking,” he protests. “We need to look through the Temple Archives. There is travel between galaxies. The purgil did it, and so did we. We need people working on this. If there’s any Jedi Temple out there that’s connected to time, we need to know. Or meditate, or –”

Obi-Wan sighs defeatedly. “Alright, Anakin, I’m not even going to try to argue with you.”

“Good. We need this working.” Maybe he is going crazy, but he has to try something, because this is something that they have a shot at reversing. If one of the Infinity Stones is Time, there is a shot at reversing it. They just have to play it right, which will be hard, but worthwhile. If there was an object that could alter the flow of time itself in another galaxy, there’s got to be some sort of path here, too.

Anakin’s not giving up, even if common sense runs against him. Doesn’t it always?

***

Ahsoka researches. And researches, until it exhausts her and she’s practically sleeping on the table. They’re literally researching time-travel, and she still thinks her master is slightly out of his mind, but at least they’ve got a shot at bringing half the world back to life. They have to do this right. They don’t have a choice.

Even if they’re practically guaranteed to fail, they have to try. So, try they do.

And just when she’s about to give up, she stumbles on a file about a Temple on Lothal, something about how it has secrets there. Some sort of gateway, but to what, it doesn’t say. The Force flickers when she tries touching it.

“I think I found something,” she tells her master.

Anakin sounds as tired and irritated as she is herself. “Do you think it’s worthwhile?”

“I don’t know, but the Force says it’s important. Something about a gateway on in a Temple on Lothal. Should we check it out?”

“Might as well give it a shot,” her master agrees, and a few minutes later, they’re gathering in the shuttle again.

Ahsoka’s almost surprised to see that Master Kenobi has come, too, but he’s following them to the shuttle. The same one taken to the other galaxy – Anakin suggested calling it the Twilight. “I’m surprised to see you’re here,” the Mandalorian says, waiting in the ship.

“Yes, well, times change,” Master Kenobi replies, “I was once on Mandalore as a padawan. I have experience with your people.”

“Then you’d know of our history with the Jedi.”

“We have the same end goal,” Master Kenobi replies, brushing past him, “We aren’t enemies so long as that remains true.”

“He’s just testing you,” Anakin tells him, heading for the pilot seat.

Ahsoka sits in the back next to Rex, the Domino twins behind them in the back. Obi-Wan gave a brief message to the Council, and they set course for Lothal. “Do you think this is gonna work, Commander?” Rex inquires.

Ahsoka shrugs breathlessly. “I don’t know, Rex. I hope so. There’s definitely something about this place…”

“Time travel?” Fives pipes up. “Count me in.”

Echo groans. “No. I don’t buy into that. I mean, Jedi do crazy things all the time, but that sounds…”

“Don’t be a killjoy!” Fives whines, “It’s not that life-threatening.”

Echo huffs a laugh. “It could be.”

“Focus, boys,” Rex requests, though he’s still smiling.

“We’re focusing,” Fives protests.

“Yeah, on fighting each other.”

“We don’t have anything else to do.”

“Not yet, you mean,” Rex amends, “If you think time-travel’s gonna be easy, well, think again.”

“It shouldn’t be as bad as going to a different galaxy,” Ahsoka replies with a shudder. She never wants to have to sit inside a purgil again. Even if they connected with it, the thing could have swallowed them and they would have been history. They could have died. Facing death is always frightening, but at least battle is different than being swallowed by a gigantic monster.

“Even if we do find the Stones, how will we know what to do with them?” the Mandalorian asks.

“If worst comes to it, we can drop by back at the other world. They were there the first time. They know how it’s done.”

“No more intergalactic travel,” Obi-Wan requests. “At least not without warning.”

“We did warn you.”

“No, you left me a message after you already did it.”

Her master huffs. “Fine. Promise.”

“That made me feel so much better.”

“That’s good.”

“I can’t believe we’re stuck with these idiots,” Ahsoka whines, slinking to Rex’s side. He sighs and shrugs.

“I don’t know. I kind of like it,” the Mandalorian offers.

Ahsoka groans.

***

Nightmares never stop. Echo still dreams of Ventress, and on the way to Lothal, he finds himself jolting awake sharply, heart pounding, and then Fives is at his side. Not dying like he was in his dream. Not being hurt. Not being tortured.

He’s alive, though with Fives, it’s hard to say for long. “Nightmares?” Fives guesses.

Echo sighs. Like it could be anything else? He wishes he could sleep peacefully, but that’s been a dream ever since Ventress happened. It feels like something in him broke there, and it’s never going to get fixed. Like he’s never going to get to be normal again. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Well, yeah. It was a good guess.”

“It was an obvious guess,” Echo grumbles. Fives drives him crazy, but even he will admit he’d be lying if he didn’t acknowledge that Fives is his best friend, and that he’d loose it if anything ever happened to him. It worries him sometimes. As clones, they can’t get attached to people. They always have to get up and keep fighting. To keep moving. No matter what they’re up against. They can’t slow down if something happens to one of them, even if their closest brother drops at their side, but with Fives, he’s going to throw himself into some other sort of stupid danger, and he could die.

Sometimes, it feels like the only real guarantee in battle is death. Eventually. It’s a promise, the only ending future for all clones, burning on the horizon.

Echo’s not afraid of that. He’s just afraid of failing, of losing again.

“Yeah, I get those, too,” Fives shrugs, subdued compared to his usual goofiness.

Echo side-eyes him, wondering if he should ask, but he opts to say nothing right now, knowing how explosive that can go. “Bad?” he asks finally.

“Sometimes. I keep thinking about something happening to the kid. It’s crazy, you know? I’m afraid of one of them dying.”

“I’d be more afraid of you dying,” Echo replies dryly. He lost his whole squad already. Half of his brothers, all in one day. Most people just lost one sibling.

Echo lost millions. Even those who never got the chance to be born. It’s not something even he can comprehend sometimes.

“You’d be afraid of that?” Fives asks teasingly, “I thought you’d be happy to get me out of your hair.”

“Yeah, that too.”

Fives eyes him. “Love you, too.”

“Do you think this is gonna work?” Echo asks quieter, looking around the small, dark room.

“It had better,” Fives answers quietly. “Cuz I don’t know what any of us are going to do if it doesn’t.”

“What if it brings back other people? If we fix this, it brings back Dooku, too.”

“But it’ll give our brothers a chance. I think that’s more important than anything that sleemo could’ve done.”

“His apprentice got the jump on us. Imagine what he could’ve done.”

“Don’t be a killjoy,” Fives scolds, lightly punching his shoulder. “We got a shot at saving half the universe. We’ll be fine. Back on Kamino having a drink in no time. How’s that sound?”

“Like a nightmare,” Echo deadpans, and Fives laughs. If there’s one thing his twin brother is good at, it’s making his average laugh sound like an evil cackle.

***

The Temple on Lothal is… very different than anything Rex has ever seen before. He thought it was some sort of stone structure until they enter. The Jedi had been planning to go, but the Temple remains stubbornly open until all seven of them enter. He stays in the back with his brothers and the Mandalorian, letting the Jedi lead the way.

He has a genuinely unsettled feeling about this, but keeps on walking after them until his general comes to a stop in front of what looks like some sort of painting.

Three… beings.

“What rae those?” Fives asks.

“Legends have it they’re some sort of ancient, mythical beings,” Anakin replies, looking up at the towering painting.

There’s a being of white, black, and gray. It must have some sort of significant meaning, but Rex knows nothing about jedi osik, or painting. It’s not something the clones ever learned on Kamino. It’s not relevant to battle, though Anakin had told them that art is important, mostly because it is nothing.

That things don’t always need to exist with a purpose.

“Oh,” Fives says, blinking, “Are these beings supposed to save us?” Rex glares him into silence.

His general approaches the portal, studying it.

“This area is strong in the Force,” Master Kenobi states.

“I feel it, too,” Ahsoka agrees, “Its strange. What do we do?”

His general slowly raises his hand, pressing it against the painting over the white person’s hand, and the gold lines on the painting light, glowing. And it starts moving. The wolves on the painting move, trotting to a short distance along the wall beside it and form a circle in the air, their white outlines running in a blur until they form some sort of…

It looks different in the center. It’s like a film, but open.

“Is that a portal?” Echo breathes.

“Something like that,” their general replies, slowly approaching it.

“It looks like it’s asking us to go inside,” Master Kenobi says.

They start forwards, slowly filing through the portal. Rex ducks through, stepping out onto some sort of pathway. It’s black, lined with white, and there are so many stars. It’s like standing in space, but different. The walkways are pulsing with dim light, rushing like ocean waves. There are whispers in the background, voices overlapping each other. He hears voices of his trainers, of his brothers, his general and commander, and many others he doesn’t recognize.

“This is it,” Anakin breathes, slowly turning around. “A place where the past, present, and future are one.”

“If this works, we should find the Stones,” the Mandalorian agrees. / “There’s six of them, and even of us,”

“There are six stones, and seven of us,” Anakin continues, “That’s not coincidental. We should split up. Each of us go after one of the Stones.”

“What about the extra person?” Ahsoka asks.

“I don’t know.”

“The Force will decide that,” Master Kenobi replies.

In front of them, the paths start shifting. A portal forms, a rippling, shifting edge, with the markings of Rex’s helmet atop it.

“Looks like that one’s yours,” Anakin murmurs.

Another portal, tinted orange, bears the flickering markings from Echo and Fives’ armor. A faintly goldish one has the markings of Clan Wren. One bears the symbol of the Jedi, another with Ahsoka’s markings, and something that Rex could swear is meant to be a fighter.

Anakin laughs. “That’s what the Force recognizes me as? A fighter?”

“At least it’s what you like instead of look like,” Ahsoka teases.

There’s a rumble in the distance, and they all look around.

“This is not a safe place,” Master Kenobi warns, “For as long as we are here, we are in danger, and perhaps endangering time itself. We must hurry.”

After a few “may the Force be with you” exchanges, Rex squares his shoulders and steps through.

Rex finds himself standing in some kind of large building. There’s all sorts of… mess here. and cages with actual living things.

…He hopes those are animals, not sentients. Because it’s kind of hard to tell.

It’s not as hard to locate what he’s going after as Rex was afraid it was going to be. There’s a strange pulsing in the air, a tingling of energy that reminds him a little of how it feels whenever General Skywalker uses the Force too strongly. It’s weird he can feel it at all, but the General told him even non-Force sensitives have a connection with the Force.

He approaches the white spherical case set on a shelf, opening it carefully.

A red swirl of energy rises out of it instantly, swirling up into his face.

It is the Reality Stone, for sure. He just didn’t expect it to be a gas.

He tries to close the case it’s in, but then he touches the gas in the process.

The rush of red energy hits Rex full-force. He doesn’t know what’s happening but the world is spinning and he thinks he must’ve blacked out because he wakes up lying on the floor on his side. He feels different. Strange. There’s a pulsing energy inside of him that feels like reality itself, whatever that even means

And looking at the case of the reality stone, it’s to see that the stone is gone.

Because it’s… in him now?

That – that’s not possible. how could it be possible?

Rex doesn’t just panic about things. But he’s about to now. He absorbed one of the Infinity Stones. And he has no idea what that’s even supposed to mean or – what. Did he just blow their entire efforts at undoing what happened in the first place? Can the Stone even be used if it’s inside of him?

He needs to talk to his General immediately. He should know what to do. Hopefully.

Rex steps back through the portal as it closes behind him. 

Chapter Text

When Anakin steps through his portal, it’s to find himself standing on a space ship. The first thing that hits him is the fear. He can feel the fear and devastation in everyone on board the ship. The people must have just lost a lot and they’re all expecting that they’re about to lose more. From where he’s standing in the shadows, he can see Thor moving around, a distance away.

He looks different. This is Thor form the past.

It’s slightly unsettling if he’s being honest.

And he can sense the energy of the space stone but it feels elusive. He can’t pinpoint what it is.

Also, someone’s coming and he doesn’t see anyone until they almost literally materialize right behind him.

“Who are you?” the man’s hair is black and his eyes are a piercing green. If he can really be called a man when he almost looks younger than Anakin himself. It’s hard to tell  But he feels bright. Brighter in the Force than Anakin has felt any of the people of this galaxy.

And then, he just knows.

This is Thor’s brother, isn’t it?

And that means, this is probably right before Thanoa attacked them. Right before Loki is about to die.

“Anakin Skywalker, Jedi from another galaxy,” Anakin says, holding up his hands in what he hopes is calming.

“You were not here only moments ago,” Loki objects.

“This is probably going to sound crazy, but I’m here from the future. I came here through a portal.”

Anakin feels the way the other’s magic flickers. He’s trying to see if it’s the truth. “You interfere with the flow of time. Why?” he asks.

“Because of Thanos,” Anakin replies.

Loki stiffens a little. His expression might not change much but Anakin can feel the way his emotions skyrocket with sheer terror. He’s terrified of Thanos. Thor was clearly right about thinking he may have hurt Loki. It feels a lot worse than just hurt. “He won?” Loki deduces.

“Yes, he did.” Anakin sighs. “Half the entire universe was turned to dust. I our galaxy, we have people called Jedi. Force users – I think you call it magic here.”

“Yours flows differently than mine,” Loki observes studying him. He seems less guarded and more intrigued now, “You are a mere mortal and yet… I have never felt a power so strong., save the Infinity Stones themselves.”

A mere mortal? “You’re not a mortal?” Anakin asks dryly, maybe a bit confused.

Loki seems amused, even if the underlying far never fades. “I am what hose on Midgard would call a god. All of Asgard are.” That… is where Thor’s from. Right. Okay. He thinks he heard something about that, anyway.

“I’d ask,” Anakin says, “But I think we’re under a short time frame right now. I don’t think it’s safe to stay long.”

“You seek the Stones to reverse what Thanos caused?” Loki guesses.

“Yes,” Anakin replies, “And Thor told me you had it.  That… you gave it up to Thanos to save his life, and… Thanos killed you anyway.”

Loki’s expression does something complicated.

Anakin doesn’t think he’s really surprised. But he can also feel how his fear skyrockets. “I do not survive this?” he asks.

“No. Thanos is about to attack.”

“Of that, I am aware,” Loki replies, “His ship pursues us now, and we have no escape.”

These people are going to die. He doesn’t know how many here are about to die from the attack. Doing the Snap in the future isn’t going to bring any of them back. And as Jedi, even not as a Jedi, it feels so wrong to just leave them all here to their fate. He saw how broken Thor was from what happened.

And Loki…

He doesn’t know him at all, but he doesn’t want to leave him to die if he can change it. But is messing with time going to cause disaster? He has no idea what it could cause. Not that they know what taking the Stones out could cause, but if they bring them back to the moment they were left, then…

“I don’t want to leave you here,” Anakin admits, “I want to help. I just don’t know what it would do the flow of time if I did.”

Loki looks thoughtful. In a moment like this, he looks far older than Anakin first thought. He’s not clear on what’s going on with that. “Interference now would destabilize your own time. Perhaps the entire timeline,” he replies finally, “But changing something at a point where it would no longer effect time up the point at which you are would be… different.”

His mind is whirling. He can’t save all these people, no matter how much it always feels like he should be able to, but maybe he can save at least one. “I could take you with me,” Anakin offers, “I.. can come back through the portal before you die, maybe? “

“Why would you do that for me?” Loki asks. He seems confused. Is this the first time in his entire life someone offered him help? No wonder he turned evil.

“Because I can?” Anakin offers. He doesn’t need more of a reason than that. Why would he?

He thinks Loki is still confused. “You should leave,” he tells him finally. There’s a flicker in the Force and then a shining blue cube appears in Loki’s palm. “Take care with how you wield it,” he warns, holding it out to Anakin. “If not used correctly, it is deadly.”

“I’ll see you in a minute,” Anakin says, flashing him a smile and then turns to head back through the portal, right as he fears the floor beneath him suddenly trembling. The ship is under attack.

Anakin steps through the portal and he feels the air shifting behind him. When he turns back around, the portal is open again, showing something else on the ship. It’s must be what’s happening a little while later, from when he was last there. Anakin sees Loki standing in front of Thanos, withdrawing and holding out the space stone to him. He shatters the cube, putting it in his gauntlet.

He really is a towering purple grape.

But… the space stone is here which means it’s after they returned t? Or something. If that’s how it works. It’s confusing and overwhelming and a little bit amusing all at once.

And then Loki tries to stab the Titan in the neck.

But Anakin can feel the way his form flickers. It’s not the real Loki.

Thanos snaps his neck, flinging him to the floor despite Thor’s scream and then he just vanishes, in a cloud of blue energy.

Anakin jerks through the portal, pulling the real Loki through right before the portal closes on them.

“I hope you’re the you who still remembers me,” Anakin says. He really doesn’t know how this works, okay?

“I saw you again a minute. Of course, I remember you,” Loki replies. It sounds like an effort at a joke though he still seems shaken. “…Thank you,” he says finally, a bit awkward.

Anakin nods. “Are you alright?”

Loki seems a bit befuddled by the question. “Yes.” He really doesn’t look like he means it, though. In reality, he’s terrified, badly shaken by what just occurred.

“That’s good,” Anakin replies, “And I… need to go check on the others.”

Obi-Wan and the Mandalorian are the only ones who are already back through. “Who’s that?” Obi-Wan asks, eyeing Loki.

“His name is Loki,” Anakin offers, “I… saved him.”

Obi-Wan’s frown grows. “But Anakin, we don’t know what this kind of interference could cause.”

It feels rather insensitive to be debating this in front of him, but Anakin can understand why his master is worried about it. It would be a lot worse than killing half the universe to destroy the entire thing. An entire reality, evil. Even if it still stings. He always tries to help, and Obi-Wan is so often upset at him for it. And he never understands why. This is what Jedi are supposed to do. “I know, Master,” Anakin concedes, “But…I took him from the moment of his death. It shouldn’t change anything”

“Not to worry,” Loki interjects, “It will be only the third time I have survived death. It did not destabilize time before.”

“The third time?” Anakin repeats, incredulous.

Loki smirks back at him.

…He’s not going to ask.

Either way, he’s just glad that he got to save someone. And it’s not like they can just put Loki back.

***

One of them has to die. Fives’ mind is still swiveling with uncertain confusion, and mostly disbelief. The Force sent he and Echo through this because one of them needed to die? He – he doesn’t buy this. “Come on,” Fives argues, “There’s got to be another way.”

“I thought you’d be a lot happier After throwing me off a cliff,” Echo snarks.

He says it jokingly, but it still floods Fives with a crashing surge of disbelieving grief. He should have – he knew he and Echo had very little time together, but they chose to fill that time with constant fighting and strife instead of… each other. He really, really should have thought about that. About how Echo could die just as all the rest of their squad members, as half of the universe.

Fives never took it seriously.

Neither of them did.

“I don’t believe that.”

“It makes sense,” Echo argues, “To get the Soul Stone, you need to sacrifice a soul.”

“That sounds like you think it would count as a Sacrifice,” Fives argues, though he’s bluffing, and they both know it. Echo’s not insane. He knows Fives. They share the same blood. They’re twins. They are one. And now, one of them has to die.

“Fives, don’t be ridiculous,” Echo requests. He’s tensing, already ready for what’s about to come. Fives isn’t. He never could be, because he can’t let Echo die, and he never watched to actually have to fight him to die.

It feels insane.

“There’s only one way out of this. We’re both here. We have to finish the mission.”

“I’m not throwing you off a cliff,” Fives snaps.

“I’m not killing you, either,” Echo argues.

“You will if you die.”

Echo sighs, some of his fire fading. “Fives. You know what you have to do.”

“You do it,” Fives throws back, desperation bubbling in his heart, “I’m sure you’d be happy to throw me over a cliff edge. We’ve been waiting for this.”

Echo starts going for his blaster. Fives draws his, flicking to stun and firing. His brother bats his arm aside, so the shot only partly hits him, but he still stumbles from the electric field probably numbing at least one arm, and runs.

They’re both going to die here, some way or another, and he's not ready, but the time is counting on them.

He makes it to the edge when Echo catches up to him. They fall together, and Fives grabs Echo’s hand to keep the idiot from falling to his death, only for them both to fall, and look up with exhausted irritation as he realizes he’s stuck.

Echo just grappled him to the cliffside, the idiot.

“I’m actually about to throw you off,” Fives grumbles.

“Good,” Echo tells him flatly. “Then do.”

His breathing hitches. “Nope. I’m keeping you here, just to be annoying.”

“I’m saving your life, idiot.”

“Negative.”

“Positive,” Echo retaliates. Fives is holding his arm, shoulder straining, trying to keep him up, but he’s all that’s between his brother and death thousands of feet below. It’s starting to feel more real now. That Echo is dying. It should have been Fives. But it’s Echo, where it should never have been.

“Echo,” Fives pleads, panic clawing in his throat. “Don’t do this.”

“It’s me or half the universe. Let me go.”

“No.”

Echo sighs, and he looks terrifyingly calm even in the face of guaranteed death. Because it’s going to be him, it’s going to be, and Fives is going to have to go back and tell the others his brother is dead.

And Fives is going to be the one who kills him.

He can’t live with this.

“It’s okay. Let me go.”

Greater good, mission, whatever, he doesn’t care. Fives is a brother first, and he always has been. He’s not going to stop now, because there’s a few more people than normal on the line. And this is Echo. Tears burn in his eyes, stubbornly threatening to fall. He’s not going to cry. But there’s – there’s no way around this. “I can’t.”

“You don’t need me to keep being a jerk.”

“Hey, you don’t get to say something like that before jumping off a cliff.”

“Yeah, it’d be a lot better if I said it after throwing you off.”

He swallows back a stub. He’s never watched to punch Echo this bad in his life, but he can’t let him go. He’s going to die. “This isn’t a joke.”

“It’s okay. Let go.”

He doesn’t.

Echo rips his hand free instead.

Fives screams.

Echo falls.

There’s a flash of light, and then everything is wet. Just water, flowing all around him, and Fives blinking up at the brilliant sky overhead. The air feels staticky somehow, and he shoves himself up with instinctive urgency. He just got… teleported?

But Echo’s gone.

In his head is a brilliant orange Stone, radiating power and sorrow, and he wants to throw it and scream. Scream for eternity, because Echo is gone, and he’s never going to come back.

***

The room is dark, but there’s some sort of force-field in the center. There’s a floating gray orb in its center, one raiding brilliantly with the Force in a way Ahsoka’s never seen. Her portal did look purple, and she recognizes markings on the orb as the ones surrounding the portal she came through.

It must be this. Hopefully the others are having just as easy a time. She gently touches the shield, but her fingers bunch off, pain stinging through them. She reaches out with the Force instead, gritting her teeth at the energy that tries to overwhelm her mind and yanking at the orb. It snaps into her hands with ease, and she flips it over.

That was… easy. She thought there would be a fight.

The portal shimmers, and Ahsoka steps through again, holding the orb in her hand. Except, when she steps back into the World Between Worlds, she sees… everyone. Except not everyone.

Obi-Wan is holding a bright green Stone, looking very disgruntled about something, the Mandalorian is holding a large, shimmering gold one. Those things are normal. The fact that Rex is holding nothing though he radiates a disturbing sense of unrealness, her master is holding a big blue box and is flanked by someone she’s never seen in her life, Fives is crying, and Echo is… MIA, are not.

“Um,” Ahsoka asks slowly, “What’s happening?”

It’s mostly Fives and the lack of Echo that has her worried. He’s just… sitting there, kneeling on his edge of the walkway, entirely motionless. He does have an orange stone, which is a plus, but what happened? Fives doesn’t… even all the time with Ventress, he never showed this type of emotion.

Anakin freezes, expression shifting, and Rex slowly moves forwards with them as the two approach Fives.

They know.

Ahsoka thinks she does, too, but she’s not willing to accept it.

Echo can’t be dead.

“Fives?” Rex asks.

He doesn’t answer.

“What happened?”

Fives looks at the stone in his hand, then unexpectedly slams it down on the walkway.

“Soul,” another voice says from nearby, and Ahsoka’s head whips around towards whoever the newcomer is, “It costs a price to collect. Were you not aware of that before you came to find them?”

“How could we have known?” Fives yells, “You let this chaos slip from another galaxy and nearly destroyed ours.”

“Fives,” Anakin says gently, crouching beside him. Rex approaches, too. Ahsoka shuffles after, mind whirling. Echo’s dead. Another person dead. Someone under her command. Her control, orders – another person she failed. Echo. And he’s gone. Anakin gently lays a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll fix this,” he promises, “We’ll make it worth it.”

“Nothing can make this worth it,” Fives argues. Ahsoka squeezes around them, wrapping her arms around him. Anakin and Rex squeeze in, and the four of them stay clinging to each other for a long time.

***

The hyperspace ride on the way back to Coruscant is quiet. Echo is gone. Anakin can’t stop thinking about it. He’s lost many of his boys on missions before. But that never makes it hurt any less to hear the numbers afterwards. And Echo is one of the few he knew closely. He can’t believe he’s dead.

He was a friend. He was – so many things. And Anakin’s never going to see him again. Anakin had no idea he was sending him into danger when they went on this mission. It was the Force’s choice on who went where, but…

And Fives is going to have to have to live with what happened, that his closest brother, his twin is dead.

Anakin wants to say something more to him, to Rex, but there’s nothing any words can do to make it better.

“We still need to determine how to use the Stones,” Obi-Wan speaks finally.

Back to that. That’s what he needs to focus on but it’s hard in the face of this. But doing this to make up for Echo’s sacrifice is all the more reason to focus on it.

“Thanos had a gauntlet that harnessed their power,” Loki speaks up.

“Is there any way we could make one like it?” Anakin asks.

“With the right resources, you should be able to. But I must warn you that whoever wields the power of the Stones is not likely to survive.”

Everyone in the ships’ hold stills.

Anakin hadn’t actually thought of that. Maybe he should have. These things are like the essence of the Force itself. It makes sense that someone who used that kind of power… wouldn’t make it.

But someone else has to die on this mission. He shouldn’t be surprised. He just – thought Echo’s death would be the end.

“Thanos survived,” Anakin points out finally.

“He is strong. Not mortal as all of you are. Your strength in the Force may help but there is no guarantee. So, before you do this, you need to know if this is really a chance you want to take.”

“I will advise the Council of this,” Obi-Wan interjects, “I’m sure they will be able to… figure something out.” By the Jedi way, someone sacrificing themselves to bring back billions would be worth it.

If someone has to do it, Anakin is… willing to risk that. He’s the strongest in the Force. The least likely to be hurt. If anyone could make it, he could. And he couldn’t fairly just ask someone else to do it instead. “I’m half Force,” Anakin interjects evenly, “And the Stones are only a sixth Force, right?”

“Master,” Ahsoka protests, eyes wide with fear as she obviously realizes what he’s saying.

“Don’t worry, Snips. I’m not going to go anywhere,” he promises. The words feel hollow but he also thinks they’re true, on some level. It doesn’t feel like he’s about to die. Not that he thinks he could ever know that for sure.

“You don’t know that,” Ahsoka throws back. She’s terrified of losing him. He can’t leave her without a master. He won’t. And if that were a real risk, he thinks he would sense it.

“Anakin, no,” Obi-Wan speaks up firmly, “I know where you’re going with this and no.”

“But what if I’m the only one who could survive it?” Anakin argues. He can see how afraid all of them are. For him. But he doesn’t know what else to say. If it’s a guarantee whoever else uses it will die, then…

“No,” Obi-Wan repeats again, “We’ll talk about this with the Council, as I said before.”

Fine.

But… Anakin is fairly certain he already knows what they’re going to say. And for him, it’s not even a hard choice. If they don’t do this, Echo died for nothing. Anakin is not going to waste his sacrifice. It means everything to him. And if Anakin being injured means he can bring Padme back, bring half of Rex and Echo and Fives’ brothers back, it’s worth it.

***

It takes a few days back on Coruscant before the gauntlet is ready. It’s designed out of cortosis, hopefully in the right way to at least somewhat protect him from the Force energy of when the Stones lash outwards, which they will. He doesn’t know if he’ll survive this. And as Anakin suspected, the Council wants him to be the one to do it. A few of them think this may be what was meant by bring balance to the Force. Anakin doesn’t know but he’s willing to do it either way. He is the most likely to survive it, when he’s half-Force himself.

They also take Rex to the Jedi healers right away, to figure out what to do about the reality stone being inside of him.

The most they can tell is that it’s killing him.

They have to find a way to get it out.

Fast. 

They have the other five stones in the gauntlet when Anakin finally tries, concentrating on the strength of the energy inside of Rex, trying to pull it out. It takes a few mome,nts but then he feels it suddenly starting to shift. It’s actually responding to him, letting him wield it, even while it’s inside of another host.

A rush of red gas suddenly comes floating out of Rex, only to go right into him instead.

The rush of energy is overwhelming enough that it nearly feels like he’s about to dissipate into the Force itself with the sheer intensity of it. And now it’s inside of him.

He’s always been able to feel the Force in all its brilliance but the power inside of him is something else entirely. It feels like there’s nothing in the world he couldn’t reach out and change, if he actually wanted to. It’s beyond overwhelming. No one should be able to wield this kind of thing.

It’s –

Too much. Too strong.

“Sir, what did you do?” Rex asks, alarmed.

“Did you just absorb that, Master?” Ahsoka asks, incredulous, and maybe slightly amused.

“I… can try to put it in the gauntlet,” Anakin promises, trying to refocus on them, instead of the sheer intensity of the energy coursing through him, “Don’t worry. This only proves I am capable of wielding them.”

“Just one, not all six,” Ahsoka throws back.

“She has a point,” Fives points out dully. He’s still out of it, but this is enough to have him worried.

“That’s not reassuring, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says.

He wishes he knew what to say to reassure them but he really doesn’t.

“If it is any help,” Loki speaks up finally, “His strength in the Force far surpasses any power Thanos had, but I can give no more guarantee.”

Anakin turns back to the gauntlet, throwing his entire focus onto the Reality Stone, trying to direct it back out of him and to where it belongs. Trying to rip it out of himself.

It feels bizarre.

But then it starts flowing, pouring from him to it’s place in the gauntlet and consolidating into a small stone like the rest.

All of them are here.

It’s time. It’s ready.

There’s nothing left to wait for.

Except that he knows no one wants him to do it. He wishes there was something more he could say to them but there’s really not.

Their fera is radiating into the Force, but Anakin is determined not to leave them, not to leave the family that found him and has stayed right by his side for so long.

Anakin finally turns to the gauntlet, fitting his hand inside of it. The sheer power that washes over him is enough to take his breath away. It’s burning. Burning up and across his arm and it’s agonizing. Sometimes, the Force has felt so bright it’s like he feels too much all the time but this is so much worse. Three times worse, if that were even possible.

“Master!” he hears Ahsoka calling him panickily.

“Anakin?” He thinks that’s Obi-Wan.

“Sir?” Rex sounds worried too.

He can hardly register who’s speaking or what anyone’s saying.

“I’m fine,” Anakin gasps out shakily, though it’s all he can do not to keep screaming. He tries to turn all his focus on undoing the Dusting, bringing back everyone was killed in it and then he Snaps.

His vision whites out and then everything goes black.

Chapter Text

“Master!” Ahsoka calls, heart pounding as she runs to Anakin’s side. He just dropped and –

Rex and Obi-Wan appear at Anakin’s side a moment later. Fives is hovering, but he doesn’t have room to get any closer.

“He’s alive.” That’s Loki, standing over them. He looks oddly worried, for not even knowing her master.

She can feel that his Force presence isn’t slipping away like she’s been so terrified it was going to, but that doesn’t do much to ease her fear at seeing how pale and unresponsive he is.

The surge in the Force is overwhelming. It feels like it’s suddenly shifting with life, all at once across the galaxy. It’s the opposite of what the Snap itself felt like, but nearly as overwhelming. It worked.

Everyone’s back.

All the friends he knew when she was a child.

All of Rex’s brothers.

Everyone.

But that doesn’t change how Anakin is unconscious and unresponsive in front of her.

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan reach up to tug off the gauntlet on Anakin’s arm together. Or at least… they try to. But it’s not coming off.

“Why is this not coming off?” Ahsoka demands, but she thinks she already knows the answer.

It’s burned to his arm.

It literally melted there and she has no idea what that’s going to mean. And even past that, she can see dark burns traces up his arm, through his scorched robe. It’s bad.

“We need to get him to the healers immediately,” Obi-Wan says urgently, shifting to very carefully pick Anakin up.

Ahsoka stumbles after him numbly.

The halls of the Temple are busy. She hasn’t seen so many people suddenly around in so long. And most of them seem very confused about what’s going on.

Ahsoka stays at Anakin’s side while the healer looks him over. Obi-Wan is lingering, too, expression tight.

Rex and Fives clearly wanted to come but they’re in the Jedi Temple so where non-Jedi are technically supposed to go is limited. Loki came anyway, even if he’s technically also not supposed to be in here.

“There’s not much we can do,” the healer says finally, looking up from the endless scans they’ve done on him, “There is no way we can remove the metal. His arm is burned too badly beneath it. There’s no way to save it.”

Ahsoka bites her lip, a rush of horror running through her. “You mean he’s going to lose it?”

Lost limbs happen. At least he’s not dead. But she can’t imagine how it would be to lose a limb. When he wakes up, it’s going to be to the knowledge that he’s never going to be fully human again. And he’s probably just going to make some stupid joke about it. But right now, she thinks she could tolerate that just so she could hear his voice again at all.

“There's nothing else you can do?” Obi-Wan presses.

“I’m afraid not,” the healer replies.

“If I may?” Loki asks, moving closer.

“What?” Ahsoka asks, confused.

“I can heal. Some injuries,” he explains. His hands glow a dim gold as he stands next to Anakin. Ahsoka can feel the way the flows around him.

But his expression is grim when he steps back. “It is too far gone for me to heal.”

Ahsoka sags in her seat. At least Anakin’s alive. She couldn’t ask for anything more right now. But that doesn’t mean she has any intention of leaving his side until she sees him wake up.

***

Rex still can’t believe that Echo is gone. He hadn’t known him that long, and he tries not to hang onto any one of his brothers because he knows he could lose them anytime. That’s just what happens, but that doesn’t mean he can stop grieving him. Echo died to bring back millions of their brothers and Rex knows he has no issue for that. They’ll be continuing to fight for what he died for and that’s… something, as it is for all the brothers that Rex has lost.

It still feels like a cold comfort sometimes. And after what they went through together on Christophsis, he just thought it would be… longer. That they had more time.

And now, he’s worried about General Skywalker, too. It’s a strange sensation, considering that his General has always seemed to unhurtable. Though… he already started seeing how untrue that was after they were held captive by Ventress.

It’s not until some time the next day that he finally gets a call from the Commander that the General is waking and that they can go to see him.

General Kenobi is just leaving the room when he, the Commander, and Fives go inside.

“Master?” Ahsoka asks, hurrying over to the General’s side.

He’s awake, though he looks half out of it. But he still manages to smile. “Hey, Snips.”  His eyes drift past her to the other two. “Rex, Fives.”

“It’s good to see you awake, sir,” Rex says.

“Did it work?” he asks.

“It did,” Ahsoka says, and past the tightness and haunted look Rex is starting to see so much in her eyes, she actually smiles. “You did it, Master.”

“Told you so,” Anakin replies cheerfully, though it sounds a bit hollow with how tired he sounds.

“The Commander was still right that you wouldn’t be perfectly fine,” Fives points out. He’s still barely speaking, but he’d wanted to come.

“Better than someone else dying for it,” the General says.

No one can argue that point.

A lost limb is hardly pleasant, but it’s not the horrible, either. Not that Rex would know exactly. He knows some of his brothers have lost limbs in explosions and they can still function fine. They usually just brag about their new battle scars. It’s just jarring to think it can happen to a nat-born too. Especially a Jedi. His Jedi. General Skywalker is… strong with the Force. And he’s almost unstoppably good at what he does when he tries.

“I’ll just have to get a new arm,” General Skywalker says, sleepily, maybe I’ll give it a lightsaber component.”

“Skyguy, you’re insane,” Ahsoka deadpans.

Anakin laughs. “If it’s part of me, it has to fit.”

“What about giving it a flame thrower?” Fives suggests.

“I’ll think about that.”

Someone help him, please. Sometimes, Rex thinks he’s the only sane member of the 501^st. “I’m not sure that would be quite necessary, sir.”

“But it would be useful. Not something I could ever lose. And if I ever need to lend any of you a hand, I could do it literally.”

Rex smothers a laugh with a cough.

Ahsoka smacks the General’s arm.

Under any other circumstances, he thinks Fives would be cackling. “If I ever lose a limb, can you make me a special arm?” Fives asks hopefully, even if he still seems subdued.

“Of course,” Anakin promises.

“It sounds like you’re planning on this,” Rex says, side-eyeing him.

“It’s a good thing to plan for,” Fives defends.

Ahsoka smacks a hand over her face. “How about no one ever plans for this again?”

“That would be for the best,” Rex agrees flatly.

Anakin reaches out with his left arm, patting her wrist. His right arm is still buried under the blanket, and Rex doesn’t much care to see what it looks like. He can just tell that some of it is gone. Ahsoka takes his hand, squeezing it back.

Right now, the most Rex can do is be grateful that everyone’s made it.

Except Echo, who’s still never coming back.

***

Anakin actually cares a great deal more about losing an arm than he wants to think about but he’s alive. Losing a piece of himself instead should have been a given. Even if it doesn’t quite change how he knows he’s never going to be fully human again.  But there’s all he can do Is accept it.

Anakin’s dozing on off and when he hears the sound of his room door opening. He’s expecting Ahsoka or Obi-Wan, but it’s… Loki?

“Loki?” Anakin asks.

“I see you have awakened,” Loki says, “Are you… well?”

He tries not to think too hard on how he tries to automatically clench his right hand, only to remember he doesn’t have one anymore. “Getting better all the time,” he says instead.

“I tried to heal your arm,” Loki says, shifting next to his bedside, “But I could not.”

“You can do Force healing?” Anakin blinks, a bit surprise.d

“A healing spell,” Loki corrects.

“Well, thank you for trying,” Anakin offers quietly, “I knew there would be a sacrifice. At least I’m alive.”

“It was the least I could try to do,” Loki says. “And… there still be may be something lese.”

“You don’t need to try repaying me for saving your life. I would have done it anyway.” He doesn’t know why he gets the strong feeling, simply by looking at Loki, that no one ever really does things for him. What hurts most is how familiar that is, how much he’s lived through that, and how it hurts even worse to know that Loki has endured it, too, but it also gives him… a sense of companionship.

Something Anakin never had among the Jedi.

“You risked your reality for it. And… there may yet be something I can do,” Loki replies, “Do not tell the others of this – I do not want you to hope either, but there may be a way to bring one back with the Soul Stone.”

Anakin’s heart lurches with wild desperation and hope. “Is there? Fives told me it was meant to be an eternal sacrifice.”

“I cannot promise anything but I can try. And I can return the Stones for you if you desire. Seems safer than letting you venture outside this room temporarily.”

“Well, I don’t think anyone will be letting me out of the healer’s wing any time soon so… perhaps you should.” Anakin smiles faintly up at him.

“Good. Then I will handle it soon,” he decides.

He’s not supposed to hope. He shouldn’t be hoping, but what if there was a way to bring Echo back?

“As soon as I’m able to escape from here, I can take you back home,” Anakin offers. Obi-Wan may not want anymore intergalactic travels, but it worked out once and someone has to get Loki back home.

“There is no need to make haste for that,” he replies. He’s not just being polite. He seems… unhappy? About something. Anakin thought he’d be excited to hear he could go home. He seems more like the opposite.

“Are you okay?” Anakin asks uncertainly, eyeing him.

“I have little to go back to.”

Anakin feels a sharp flare of emptiness and grief and a loneliness so strong he could swear he’s feeling a mirror of himself before he was Knighted and got Ahsoka and the boys. In some ways, he thinks he’s even stronger than anything he’s ever felt. “Your brother?” Anakin objects, tentatively.

“We have had conflict for years.” Loki isn’t really looking at him now. “I cannot say my return would result in matters being much different.”

Anakin’s frown grows. He’s never had a sibling before, of course, much less an older one but he can’t imagine how Loki could feel like that about him. Thor obviously missed his brother. So what did he do before that has Loki so hesitant about going back? He doesn’t really know a thing about them, to be fair, aside from a few conversations and scattered impressions. “And you don’t have any other friends or family to go back to?”

“My mother and…. father – ” There’s  a wild rush of emotion, mostly bitterness and emptiness and hurt as he says that word “- are gone, and I have never had friends.”

He was right then, of what he was sensing. “I can understand that, a little,” Anakin tells him quietly, “When I was still a padawan, I did not fit among the Jedi. Any friendship I had with any other padawan faded quickly. It didn’t change until I was Knighted. I didn’t even mean to, and then I ended up here with Rex, Ahsoka, and the other boys. Only because of the war. People died, but for me, I got a family again for the first time since – since I lost my mother.”

Loki’s quiet for a long pause. “You are fortunate to have who you do now.”

“I know.” Anakin pauses, thoughtful. “Hey, if you really don’t want to go back, you could stay with us. I mean, But I do think your brother would at least want to know you’re alive.” Thor’s grief definitely wasn’t fake.

Loki nods a little, though he’s otherwise quiet.

“You don’t have to go back if you don’t want to,” Anakin points out, “I just thought you should tell him. So he doesn’t have to think you’re dead. And you can go wherever you want. You can come back here if… if you don’t want to stay with him.” He can’t imagine that, but he left Owen, so… “I have a brother, too,” he finds himself saying softly. “I only met him once. Step-brother. He wanted me to stay with him. It was hard to go, but the galaxy needed me, so… here I am.”

Loki smirks a little. “I know the feeling.”

Anakin laughs. “I know you do. Whatever happens, I just… want to make sure you’ll be alright when you go back home. And that you know you have a chance to come back if you want to take it.”

“I’ve lasted over a thousand years,” Loki says.

“- a thousand years? You’re over a thousand years old?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not joking, are you?” Anakin asks, amused.

Loki smirks. “What reason would I have to jest about that?”

He has like one million more questions before Loki goes anywhere.

***

Ahsoka can’t sleep. Something’s wrong – she feels that deep in her core, a distant whispering that something’s wrong. There’s a danger whispering in the Force, and she finally drags herself from her room, because there’s no point lying here when she’ll never manage to doze off, anyway.

The Infinity Stones are brilliant in the Force. It’s overwhelming to have six together so close for so long.

The Force itself is tense. Something’s wrong. It’s whispering deep from within the hull of the Temple, from somewhere in the Vault.

She doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she finds herself slowly walking through the Temple halls, heading for the library.

That’s where she is, in the middle of the dim Temple halls, when she abruptly senses a familiar presence that instantly ignores a coil of fear in her gut. Ventress is here. Alive. Breathing, even if she shouldn’t be.

It ignites an instant surge of rage within her.

“Master Kenobi?” she calls into her wrist comm.

“Ahsoka. The Temple is on alert. Master Yoda sensed an intruder.”

“It’s Ventress,” she answers, “I can sense her. Do we know where she’s headed?” How could she have gotten inside the Temple? It’s like she’s – she’s everywhere, She haunts their every step, every move. And Ahsoka’s rage never fades. She got what she wanted. To hurt them. She did it, and Ahsoka let her win. Not as though she had a choice, but it still floods her with a crushing feeling of shame.

She should have… been better.

This whole thing was about her.

“We think she might be after some type of intel,” Obi-Wan replies.

“Or – or the Stones,” Ahsoka warns, “I’m heading there now.”

“That is likely,” he agrees, “We’ll send a force. Head to the archives right away.”

Ahsoka doesn’t need to be told twice.

Ventress is always going to be in her nightmares, but it’s Ahsoka’s duty, as a Jedi, to stop her. To put her down, and she doesn’t need to be told twice. It’s what she wants. And that terrifies her, too, because this isn’t the Jedi way. She’s being driven by a need for vengeance.

Echo is gone. She can never let go of that pain, either. He was her friend.

For being the Jedi Temple, it seems abnormally unpopulated, but there is a lot going on in the galaxy right now.

Ahsoka skids to a stop in front of the vault, the one place no one enters, as she spots someone else. “What are you doing here?” she asks, confused.

It’s Loki.

“The Temple got put on alert, it wasn’t a hard guess that someone is after the Stones. Their presence is strong. When together, they can be felt by anyone. The sooner we return them to their own place, the better. Their placement here is endangering all of you.”

“Think we can’t handle it?” Ahsoka asks.

“Well, you are mortals, even if you’re magic wielders, or whatever your people call it. If the whole galaxy came down on you, I don’t think you could handle that.”

Ahsoka huffs, but the levity fades fast. “I know who it is,” she says, “I fought her before. She’s deadly. You best keep back from this.”

“Whatever she is, I’ve fought worse.”

“Not this.” Fear is hard to think through. But fear is what Ventress wanted, her fear, her cooperation. Her servitude. All that was because of her.

“What happened?”

She doesn’t want to talk about it. “It was my first mission. Ventress got the better of us. She held us for days in there. We’re lucky Master Kenobi got there on time to pull us out. She was going to kill all of them because she wanted…” Ahsoka trails off, unable to finish that.

Loki’s face goes dark. For once, he says nothing. She sees recognition though, and it makes her wonder if he understands more than she realizes.

Up above, the vent grate shifts. Then it’s pulled back entirely, and Ventress drops through.

Knowledge and all of the Force’s warnings were never enough to truly prepare her for this moment, for seeing the Sith again, and the fear and rage the well within her are raging for the upper hand. She wants to attack her again, to hit her and hit her but she wants to run, too, because she knows what the Sith is capable of, and she’s so, so scared.

Ahsoka ignites her lightsaber, bearing her fangs in a snarl.

Ventress laughs. “Well, well. If it isn’t the togruta kitten once again.”

“Be careful,” Ahsoka snarls. “I bite.”

The Sith laughs. Ahsoka wants to strangle her. “Yes, I’m sure you do. Thanks to me. But I’m not one to be afraid of cats. I’m from Dothomir. We eat wildcats for breakfast.”

“It sounds like your world has sparse population and even less creativity,” Loki drawls. How can he sound so lazy?

“And who’s this?” Ventress asks, “The kitten have a new master? Did he die, like your friend? That clone of ours?”

Echo.

Ahsoka snaps. She doesn’t think, just lunges at her with a yell of raw fury, swinging her lightsaber in a wild series of uncalculated attacks. Emerald clashing with crimson. Ventress dodges a number of her attacks altogether, and Ahsoka grits her teeth and keeps pushing. Through her rage, through the Sith’s cackling, all of it.

She pours out every shred of her pent up rage, until the Sith kicks her, sending her sprawling to the ground. “So long,” she scoffs, raising her lightsaber. Ahsoka braces herself to become one with the Force when the lightsaber stops and Ventress’s blue eyes widen, head snapping around to look at…

Loki?

He’s using the Force to hold her, and jerks her back from Ahsoka like she weighs nothing. Ventress slashes at him instead. The blade slashes through him, and he just… vanishes, only to materialize behind her instead, grabbing her wrist. And crushing it. Ahsoka hears the bones break and the assassin cry out.

Loki swings his other arm out and smacks her square in the chest with a haze of green.

Ventress is thrown backwards, through a wall, and the debris crash over her. How many bones did she just break? And how did he do that? Nightsister magic? She thought…

Loki’s expression is still dark as he reaches out, helping Ahsoka to her feet. It’s strange to see the show of gentleness as opposed to the violence of a second ago. “I understand,” he tells her shortly. “More about what happened than you realize.”

Thanos. Right. Thor had said something about it.

She has no more time to think on it before the doors burst open and Master Kenobi sprints inside with a group of other Jedi close behind.

“We got her,” Ahsoka tells them tiredly, and slips away as soon as they can.

***

Loki ended up being the one who sent the Stones back. Fives was a little wary about sending a complete stranger off with objects so powerful, but when he returns, so does Echo.

Or, most of his brother, at least.

He was injured in the fall, and though resurrected, he’s still injured.

An eternal reminder of what Fives did to him, of how badly he failed him.

But he’s here. Alive.

Actually alive, and Fives can hardly even believe it’s real at first.

General Skywalker explains Loki found some way to bring him back, that he didn’t want to tell anyone until they knew it would work. Fives is still too mindblown to even follow much of the explanation. He’s just grateful that Echo is alive.

They put him in a bacta tank, but that does nothing for his three missing limbs, or broken back, or the… many other injuries.

Yes, half of his brothers are back, and Fives knows he should try reconnecting with his former squad, btu right now, all he can think about is how Echo nearly died, and he stays clinging to his brother’s side the moment they allow him into the medbay.

Echo’s sleeping now, or at least he was before his eyes flutter open, and Fives has to sit there for a full minute staring at him before he can assure himself that this is real.

This is Echo, even if he’s almost unrecognizable.

“Echo?”

“Fives?” He blinks weakly, voice still tired. “I thought…”

His throat is tight. “We found a way to bring you back, idiot.”

“Did it work?”

“Partially”

Echo smirks a little, and Fives reaches out to tightly clasp his brother’s hand, clinging to him and praying they never have to get ripped apart like this again.

He can’t lose Echo again. They’re twins. Stars, they’re meant to be together, to be one, and Fives can’t imagine life any other way.

“Don’t ever do something that stupid again,” he orders firmly.

“I love you, too, idiot,” Echo grumbles.

“I hate you,” Fives tells him flatly, even if he stays clinging desperately for all that he’s worth.

***

They take Loki back home, despite Obi-Wan’s complains about the dangers of another intergalactic trip. Anakin lingers to the back, watching as he and Thor reunite.

Considering that they hug, maybe Loki will be a little more alright here than he thought.

Maybe.

The Avengers don’t seem sure what to think of him at all. They’re mostly keeping a distance, from what Anakin can tell, though they do come over to thank him for being able to bring everyone back.

Anakin can still hardly believe it himself. He can’t believe they have Echo back either. He’s never going to be fully human again, anymore than Anakin himself, but at least he’s alive. Anakin’s definitely going to check on him as soon as he gets back home.

“Have you decided if you’re going to stay?” Anakin inquires, going over to Loki once he and Thor have finished talking.

He hesitates. “I will stay. But I should like to be able to see you again.” He seems a little twitchy to even say it.

But it means so much for someone to even say that to Anakin. “Don’t worry,” he promises, “I’ll make sure to come back some day. Maybe we can even set up an intergalactic comm system.”

“And I may be able to find a way for the Bifrost to reach your realm.”

“…What’s that?”

“Asgard has a system of transport between realms, before it was destroyed. We may yet be able to built it again.”

“Well,” Anakin says, smiling, “Good luck.”

Loki nods to him, and he actually looks a little happy. And a bit mischievous.

Anakin really hopes they do see each other again.

Chapter Text

The war is, officially, over. It’s strange. They were made to fight in the war. Rex really doesn’t know what will happen to them now.

The Chancellor was, allegedly, Darth Sidious. Not that he really knows what it means, but after Palpatine came back, after the post-Dusting, the Jedi tried to arrest him. He escaped instead, disappeared, probably defecting to the Separatists,

No one really knows. But afterwards, Dooku resurfaced, requesting a peace treaty in the face of the war, and the galaxy settled. Mostly. The clones are out there now, trying to keep the peace as the Jedi once were. There are still battles to fight. Pirates are running rampant, and of course, just as before, there are civil wars sprouting everywhere across the galaxy.

But most are small.

There’s talk about finding citizenship for the clones – mostly thanks to the Senator Riyo Chuchi – but with the galaxy so unstable, no one is ready to fight that out yet.

But with the lack of war, it means everyone parts ways. It’s a little bittersweet, honestly.

Fives is still here. Domino Squad gathers together again, mostly, leaving Echo on Kamino to recover.

Their Mandalorian friend goes back to Mandalore, promising to stay in contact.

Loki’s gone back to Earth, or Midgard, or whatever they said the planet was called.

And the Jedi are heading back to stay at their Temple, figure out how to go forwards from here.

It’s ridiculous how hard it is to say goodbye to Anakin and Ahsoka.

Even if it’s definitely what’s best for the kid.

“I guess we’ll be seeing you around,” Rex offers awkwardly.

His no-longer-general smiles at him, and for once it looks sincere. It reaches his eye, and they spark brightly. “You will, I’m sure,” he agrees. “Just be careful, Rex.”

“You too, sir,” he requests, unwilling to admit how worried he is about something happening to either of them. He cares about them a lot. Maybe more than a clone should, but they took care of them, helped and protected his brothers when no one else has ever done that. And Anakin lost his arm. Ahsoka was hurt, mostly mentally, but still hurt.

It could’ve been worse. He’s afraid of worse.

“We’ll be fine,” Ahsoka promises, “I hope.”

Rex nods, smiling, though a bit sadly.

She shuffles and impulsively steps forwards to hug him. Anakin joins her, and Rex has to ditch all protocols just to hug them both this once. It feels nice. “You know,” Anakin tells him, “I might not be your general anymore, but we’re still friends.”

Friends. Rex doesn’t have those. Clones don’t have friends. But he has them. And he always will.

***

Padme’s alive again. Anakin doesn’t really know what that makes him feel. He’s excited and terrified at once, though she was definitely happy to see him, and a bit shaken over how he almost died, and mostly overwhelmed by how the entire war all but played out while she was dead.

And that she did die. Her family mourned her. At least the survivors did.

He thinks about leaving the Order. About having a real marriage, in public, where they can just live and be normal.

Then he remembers Ahsoka. And he can’t leave her. Ahsoka is his padawan. She’s his responsibility. He’s not going to abandon her.

Padme is… twitchy about it. It makes Anakin feel bad about it, but he doesn’t know what to do. They did agree to go further, but it feels… different.

Padme died, and she’s back now, but what if the same thing happens and this time, she doesn’t?

What if it ends up coming down to a choice between her and Ahsoka? What if he hurts his padawan because this is what he wants? His loyalty and responsibility is to Ahsoka first and foremost

He’s almost grateful when Obi-Wan somehow picks up on his struggles – his master is on the Jedi Council now – and requests he and Ahsoka go on short meditative leave.

Is it a nightmare? Yeah. But it also means he and his padawan get some one-on-one time together, and with everything that’s happened, Anakin couldn’t be more grateful. They all need some time. And finally, it feels like they have plenty.

***

Ahsoka gets a brief, temporary meditative leave. With her master. It’s… amazing. They do hear word from the others. From Mandalore, a galaxy far away, Kamino, the 501^st. They’re all far away, but they’re still family. Ventress is gone. She’s imprisoned, and still badly injured.

“Is it bad that I’m still just grateful Ventress is imprisoned?” Ahsoka asks.

Anakin glances over at her as they lay beneath the stars, in the grass under the night sky. “I am, too, actually,” he admits with a laugh. “Maybe I shouldn’t, but I’m just glad she’s gone. She’s gone. We’re free, Ahsoka.”

Ventress promised her that if she Fell, there would be no one to help her, but she lied. Anakin is here. Her entire family might be apart now, but they still helped her. The Jedi know she’s struggling with the Dark Side, but they haven’t kicked her out. They’re trying to help her.

She knew they would. But after Christophsis, she’d been so confused. About everything.

But Anakin’s here. Her master is here.

Even Echo came back, somehow, which means they’re all here. And she’s… free.

***

The reformed Domino Squad are just as crazy as before. They’re still always fighting. It’s insane, but Fives has missed this. Hevy is still as maddening as before. He still tries to do everything by himself.

Cutup still has his terrible sense of humor.

Droidbait is still…. Well, droid bait.

They all miss Echo. He’s gone now, but he’s happy where he is. Sort of. But until he’s healed, he’s not going to be ready to come with them to the fronts – the few there are – again.

They still dedicate their lives to driving each other crazy, but when Fives wakes from nightmares about Christophsis or Vormir, his brothers are always there.

Cutup is the first to find him, usually, hopping onto the edge of his bunk and blurting out whatever stupid quip that comes to his mind. Droidbait piles after, and they start into a squabble until Hevy threatens to stab them all for waking him, and they fall asleep in a messy pile of limbs.

He’s starting to think, one tiny bit at a time, maybe he can live with this.

***

Echo swears he was minding his own business. Really. He was. But when chaos sprouts in the cafeteria, he gets dragged into it and then dragged to Lama Su and then dragged to cleaning duty for a day.

Ouch.

The real culprits: a half-formed, discombobulated semi-formed squad of six idiots.

Hunter, Tech, Wrecker, Crosshair, a tiny little girl called Omega, and the only one with somewhat of a brain and his personal favorite – Emerie.

“I really can’t help them,” she complains, almost fully grown, just over his shoulder. The boys are still tiny. Omega even smaller. “You know brothers. They are impossible to reason with.”

Echo laughs. “I am a brother, too,” he teases.

“Do not tell them I said this,” Emerie requests, “But you are not nearly as exhausting as them.”

Echo looks at the six-year-olds on the other side of the room and laughs. “Yet.”

Emerie laughs with him.

This squad is different. They’re still in training, but so is he, and he’d… opted for a scomp arm instead of a normal, humanoid one. He could have, but he… didn’t. Because he thought he could be more useful, and even without the war, the galaxy needs its defenders. Skilled people to protect it.

And maybe his general is rubbing off on him, but he wants to help.

Could be these kids are really starting to rub off on him.

But, on the other hand, Echo caving into being a total softie isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Ahsoka really jump started that process, after all. He knows a lot about how to take care of kinds now. In short, it’s fine as long as Fives isn’t around to see.

He thinks of his brother with a familiar sense of loving fondness, and a bit of longing. Echo does miss him, but he is where he needs to be, too.

These kids are a disaster, and they desperately need someone to look after them. And after Vormir, Echo’s hardly… your average reg as they would call it any longer. So… why not stick around?

***

Loki may hardly know Anakin, but he still feels like a friend. All of them were… different. Nice. The first one he’s had in centuries. And he meant every word of it when he said he was going to try to find a way there himself. Mortals’ lives’ are short. If he doesn’t get to Anakin soon, he will never see him again.

Things with Thor might be getting better, but there’s still centuries of tension between them and it’s exhausting at times. And Thor’s friends are… Well, they’re Thor’s friends. Not his. Even if some of them are warming up a little bit.

It takes a few months, but they finally get a working Bifrost active in New Asgard.

Loki is the first to test out the path, stepping into the rainbow bridge and letting it carry him to a galaxy, far, far away.