Chapter Text
It was a few days after the commander showed up at Obi-Wan’s humble hermitage on Tatooine half-starved and full of remorse. The days passed slowly, Cody's body burning with a fever brought on by dehydration and malnutrition that Obi-Wan suspected went much further than the officer's time looking for him. It all happened so suddenly: one moment, the two of them were sitting at his modest table, drinking what passed for tea on the miserable desert planet, and in the next, Cody collapsed. He slept deeply yet fitfully, his mind held hostage by the demands of his body. Obi-Wan did his best for his former commander, stripping the battle scarred Imperial armor off of him and tossing it, peeling the standard issue black body suit away (flinching when he saw the half healed cuts, the deep tissue bruises littering Cody's strong, lean form. Someone had been beating him. Regularly), shoving the anger, the horror that arose thick and viscous in his throat at the sight of his friend's battered body into the same dark corner of his mind where he kept everything that bothered him, everything that hurt, focusing instead on washing and tending to what wounds as he could.
A lump the size of one of Tatooine’s moons had formed in Obi-Wan’s throat as he kept quiet vigil over Cody’s inert form. By the stars, he’d been so light, almost like he hadn’t slept or had a good meal since the last one they shared together before the battle on Utapau. It struck the Jedi as fundamentally wrong that someone as powerful and solid as Cody always was should be reduced to the sickly wreck that lay shivering under his thin blankets. And he shivered. And cried out in his sleep. For Fox. For Rex. For Bly. For them to go, to stay, to run away, to not leave him here alone.
Obi-Wan tried to go about his days much as he had before Cody’s arrival, but it was more difficult than he imagined. Every morning he gently extracted himself from the almost bone crushing grip Cody had on him. There was only the one bed in the abode, and Obi-Wan reasoned to himself that there was no reason to be more uncomfortable than he had to be, but the truth was that as each day passed without Cody waking from sleep, the more anxious Obi-Wan felt. Was it wrong of him to feel more secure lying next to the commander, when the other man had always been a source of comfort and stability that he'd always lacked? After everything he'd suffered? Was it okay to be a little selfish? He didn't know, but every night he would slide under the covers as far away from Cody as possible and meditate until he fell asleep. His dreams were more like lucid nightmares these days, and despite his best efforts, he always found himself mindlessly seeking Cody in the night, and by morning the two of them would be locked in an embrace closer than that of lovers. Cody seemed to shake less in Obi-Wan’s arms, but Obi-Wan refused to read anything into it, and so he would slip away from Cody as quietly as he could and coax some tea down Cody’s throat. That done, he spent the rest of the day practicing his saber forms or working on the few machines needed to keep his home operating. But years of relying on Anakin’s mechanical genius had dulled his own skills, and a loud sound very reminiscent of blaster fire (and the even more barbaric projectile fire some sentients still favored) sounded through the small home after he unsuccessfully rewired the motor of his water pump.
This sound roused a response from the comatose clone that must have been programmed into his blood and bones. For the first time in days, Cody’s eyes snapped open. He leapt from the bed, startling an already startled Obi-Wan, and settled into a defensive crouch. His eyes darted here and there wildly, taking in his sparse surroundings, locating each and every thing that might be used to hurt him and, seeing nothing, began to relax. Until he saw Obi-Wan. From the second those dark and confused eyes landed on him, Obi-Wan knew he was in trouble. Cody’s force signature was a turbulent cloud of guilt, regret, pain, confusion, anger, and hopelessness. Even just barely brushing against it took Obi-Wan’s breath away, the intensity of his commander’s emotions more than enough to knock him off his center. There was a tense moment where the two simply stared at each other. Then:
“Good soldiers follow orders,” the words were a guttural growl, like the sound a wild predator might make in its dying moments. Obi-Wan had a brief second to marvel at the depth of misery contained in that single statement before Cody was on him, wasted but still impossibly strong hands clamping down around his throat and cutting off his airway.
Obi-Wan struggled to free himself from Cody, but he found himself unable to harm the sickly clone even unintentionally, so he focused instead on loosening the grip on his throat and projecting as much calm into the despairing clone's mind as he could. Cody was not himself, that much Obi-Wan could see. His eyes were wide, the pupils blown until the gorgeous brown of Cody’s irises were just thin circles around them. There was no recognition in those eyes, nor in the tears that were streaming out of them and into the scruffy beginnings of a beard along his jaw. The grip on his throat was loosening, and Obi-Wan gripped the thin wrists in his hands and gently pried Cody’s hands off his throat. He’d have a nasty bruise, but otherwise he’d be okay.
Cody was still straddling him. He seemed frozen. His hands were still held loosely in Obi-Wan’s, and he was staring out past Obi-Wan into nothingness, muttering that same phrase under his breath and silently crying.
“Commander? Cody? Can you hear me?” Obi-Wan asked, wiggling out from under Cody as he did so. He got no answer. A feeling very much like dread and hopelessness pooled in the pit of Obi-Wan’s stomach as he watched Cody. Was he doomed to watch everyone he ever loved be destroyed in some manner right in front of his eyes? Siri, Qui-Gon, Satine, Anakin, and Padme. He mourned for each of them. Would Cody now join that litany of sorrow? He rubbed his eyes and pulled an unresistant Cody down, settling the man’s head in his lap and stroking his fingers through his soft black hair.
He would not fail Cody. Not this time.