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PT-2224 hated how cold space was.
It was horrible, the chill that permeated right through his armor no matter how much he screwed with his HUD to try and up the internal heat of his armor. The Death Star was worse than any other ship PT-2224 had served on within the Empire, icy even when he attempted to warm up in the sonics. He despised it. Despised the way people stared at him in his night black armor, despised the way he couldn’t stop shivering under it. He was getting too old for this.
In the end, it didn’t matter. PT-2224 was here on special order from Darth Vader himself. Taking a solo mission as a purge trooper was an honor, one that had PT-2224 standing at a crisp salute upon hearing his marching orders and one that had the Inquisitors who heard of his mission whispering jealous barbs behind his back. According to the reports he had read on the starship ride to the Death Star from the Coruscant base, there was a potential threat that would need eradicating, which would be made possible by the presence of a Purge Trooper that could alleviate any issues should an encounter occur. Knowing his job, PT-2224 assumed this “threat” referred to a Jedi.
The Jedi were… Well, PT-2224 was no longer quite sure what the Jedi were anymore. Maybe at some point the word had meant something more to him than a target to fire at, but now PT-2224 did what he was told with little recollection for any of it. Things were better that way. Whatever the Jedi may have been, to the Empire— the only thing between PT-2224 and a cruel death— Jedi were a threat to galactic security and the natural order of things.
So PT-2224 would do his job well, for his own sake at the very least.
He was unsure when his life had become whittled down from “protection” to “survival”. PT-2224 was created to serve, to protect the galaxy from a greater evil. Him and his brothers all were, for a beautiful place that no longer existed and perhaps never did. The Republic felt more like a thing of fairy tales under the gray scope of the Empire. PT-2224 had done his job to help people, to protect his own.
Then he ran out of people to protect. There was no one to save anymore, the Inquisitors and Darth Vader had made sure of that. PT-2224’s skin crawled with the knowledge he had ended up on the wrong side of the war. But what was there to do? PT-2224 was not a Rebel, he was a soldier. He fell in line and tried not to think about the fate that would surely befall him if he even attempted to step out.
He was cold. Everything was always so cold.
“Sir!” one of the troops under his command said briskly. PT-2224 turned his attention to them. “The Jedi has been spotted heading through the hallway towards the hangar!”
PT-2224 hummed in acknowledgement before silently forwarding the coordinates to Darth Vader. He trained this particular squad himself, one of the last groups he trained before being promoted to Purge Trooper. Teaching was never a position he considered being even remotely suited for, and yet PT-2224 seemed to thrive at it, churning out elite soldiers like it was what he was made for. His troops were fast, they were obedient, they could hold a blaster. And that was all he could do to keep them alive on and off a mission, even if it didn’t mean much at the end of the day. Even the best stormtroopers were snuffed out like candles in a storm. PT-2224’s work barely even mattered to the stormtroopers themselves, who eyed him in hallways and in drills like he was something slimy at the bottom of their boots. But keeping them alive, throwing himself into teaching, was what kept PT-2224 alive for so long. His own survival would have to be enough.
PT-2224 and his squad moved with quick feet towards the hangar bay, to where the threat would be. They heard the fight before they even saw it, the sound of Vader’s lightsaber clashing against something else, and the squeak of boots against the shiny floors. PT-2224 held his hand up in a signal and his squad scattered, strategically placed should Darth Vader need their help in apprehending and disposing of the traitor. PT-2224 rounded the corner, fully prepared to start blasting or to stand ready to do so. He skidded into view of the battle and–
The chill of space was gone in the margin between moments, leaving room for light and warmth to fill the cavity in PT-2224’s chest. It was so bright, more brilliant than anything PT-2224 could remember. Against regulations he closed his eyes, for only a moment, just to block out all sensation other than the supernova blooming inside of him. It was like coming back to his bunk after a long campaign– not the Death Star bunks, the bunks of his old Venator– warm and familiar.
PT-2224 could feel his squadron waiting for his signal, waiting for the sign to fire, to kill. It was what they were made to do; to give orders was what PT-2224 was made to do. But when he opened his eyes, all he could see was a pair of blue eyes staring right back at him, wide and shocked and full to the brim with a million other emotions PT-2224 no longer knew how to name. Those eyes were beautiful, his whole face illuminated by the glow of that blue lightsaber. PT-2224’s arm jerked, fingers on the trigger of his rifle stuttering where they had once been sure.
Despite how his body hesitated with every motion, PT-2224 had never been so positive that this man was important. Not just in the face of the galaxy at large, but to him, the same way breathing or eating was important. PT-2224’s head felt like it was ready to crack like an egg at the revelation, new and fresh and vulnerable. He shook with it, lost potential newly found and memories that were less of a flood and more of a trickle. A warm smile. A lightsaber hilt. The flap of a brown cloak.
“Sir, what are our orders?” A troop asked in PT-2224’s comms. He watched Darth Vader’s lightsaber come up in another ruthless swing, and then it was Cody that answered, scooping his rifle up off the shiny black tile and running towards the fight, ignoring the three strangers who were approaching the scene quickly. No one else mattered, only Obi-Wan, his Jedi, his person , the one who was about to get his ass beat by the galaxy’s least favorite goth tyrant.
“Hold your fire, hold your karking fire!” Cody barked into the comms and all at once he was aiming at Darth Vader’s stupid helmet. He hadn’t ever realized how much he wanted to put a hole through that damn helmet until now. There was no room for thoughts of mutiny in PT-2224’s head, only a vague cloud of thoughts to keep him alive. And, despite the way Cody could feel the mounting disappointment of it all, he knew that shooting Darth Vader in the helmet would do absolutely nothing to help Obi-Wan. The blast could ricochet and hit the man he loved, and would certainly do nothing to Vader. No, Cody wanted to shoot the bastard and he wanted to do it right.
Ah, well, there was always next time for helmets.
Cody jerked the trigger back with the muzzle of the rifle aimed right at his belt and then again at his chestplate, the things tethering Darth Vader to life. Cody watched with no small flush of joy as they exploded, the medicine and oxygen stored there destroyed. Darth Vader turned to his formerly loyal soldier, the one he had relied on in some twisted sense of the word. Darth Vader’s whole body seemed to contort with shock and outrage before keeling over, breath still coming in ominous puffs through his helmet. Cody demonstrated a very unflattering gesture to the biggest moron on the Death Star.
“...Cody?”
The shouts of his squadron were like static in his ears as the voice behind him registered, worn with age. Cody ran to Obi-Wan, yanking off his helmet in time for Obi-Wan to catch him in his arms. He spun Cody around like the lead in those holodramas Cody used to watch whenever he had the time during the war. Cody had never felt warmer than he did being held in that man’s arms. He grinned, closing his eyes when Obi-Wan pressed their foreheads together, sun dried skin pressed against Cody’s own.
“You can’t possibly be real,” Obi-Wan whispered, and Cody couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up from his lips, hoarse and awkward. He hadn’t had a reason to laugh since long before the end of the war.
“I’m real, I’m here,” Cody reassured, holding onto Obi-Wan even after the Jedi had set him on the ground. “I’m so sorry for—”
“I forgave you a long time ago, love,” Obi-Wan interrupted, crows feet crinkled with joy. Tears were beginning to run down his face, and Cody reached up with gloved thumbs to wipe them away. “You look beautiful.”
“You look old,” Cody said before he could think twice. He wanted to put the words back in his mouth and swallow, to make sure their first conversation since Geonosis was perfect. But Obi-Wan just grinned so wide it looked as if the expression might split his face open.
“I missed the snark more than I thought,” Obi-Wan remarked, then gave Cody a playful once over. “Age has caught up with you too, dear.”
Cody opened his mouth to do anything— Call Obi-Wan beautiful, ask him to run away, tell him his heart never stopped belonging to the Jedi after all these years— but was interrupted by blaster fire hitting the wall behind him. Cody glanced in the direction of his squad, surprised to see them firing from a distance at him and Obi-Wan.
Even with all the training, Cody could not change the way stormtrooper helmets were hardly a match for the old clone helmets of the Republic. The visibility was osik, and they got rid of the HUDs on account of it being too expensive. He tutted at the wide shot that was clearly aiming for his head.
“Try relaxing your grip!” Cody called to them. It was TK-529, who often let the kickback on his rifle knock shots off course. There was no reply, of course, hopefully if anything Cody had taught them decided to stick they had turned the comms off to him. But the next shot hit the durasteel wall far closer to Cody. Might have even bounced off his pauldron if Obi-Wan hadn’t deflected it with his saber.
“What in the galaxy are you doing?” Obi-Wan asked, sounding thunderstruck. Cody appreciated the complete trust that was put in him even now, Obi-Wan’s posture relaxed towards him and his face filled with confusion rather than betrayal. Even after so long Obi-Wan was a vision, blue eyes still full of brightness and the shock of white hair just as beautiful as the neat brown style he had sported on Geonosis.
Cody was hardly the epitome of conventional attractiveness anymore either. His hair had gone completely gray a few years ago, the red tattoo marking him as a purge trooper marred his face on the opposite side of his scar. Not that Obi-Wan could see any of that under Cody’s helmet of course; mostly likely he had known Cody’s signature in the Force from the life they had used to live together. But Cody liked the way they matched.
“If they’re gonna try to kill me I want them to do it right!” Cody argued back. It was an insult to his teaching that even after a full year of training they could barely aim. If Rex was here he’d grimace and tell Cody how they don’t “make ‘em like they used to”. But Obi-Wan just stared at him incredulously, batting away another bolt with a swing of cobalt blue.
“You’re insufferable!” Obi-Wan yelled with a laugh, ducking another bolt and stared at Cody in wonder. “Come with me. I’m training a young Jedi, he could use some help in hand-to-hand.”
Cody stared at him, ignoring the shots completely because knowing his troops, it would take a karking miracle to hit him. He remembered the cold he had felt for so long before this, the pain that had made its home deep in his bones. He did not know exactly when his life had stopped being a life and started being a desperate fight, but he knew he couldn’t keep going like that.
And here was Obi-Wan Kenobi, the only man who had ever even tried to love him the way he needed. A man Cody had only barely been allowed to love, a few scant years before the Empire had forced them against each other. He was here, so close Cody could pull him in and wrap him in his arms. He was the solution; loving this man was what made Cody remember himself, the key to everything Cody had once been.
Cody beamed, his cheeks hurting from the effort to do so for the first time in years.
“I’ll follow you through the galaxy if that’s what you want,” Cody said. Obi-Wan’s brow wrinkled slightly, and Cody snorted before adding, “C’yare. I adore you. The when or the where no longer matters.”
Obi-Wan pulled him close enough that he could press their foreheads together, a moment of intimacy in the midst of the chaos of the hangar bay. For just a moment, Darth Vader’s body was not twisted on the ground behind them, and there were no stormtroopers firing aimlessly at their heads. This moment simply consisted of Cody and Obi-Wan, together again for the first time in years.
“Obi-Wan!” A young female voice gasped from a short distance from them, and the two pulled away just in time for a young woman to fling herself at Obi-Wan, hugging him tightly. “You came for me.”
Obi-Wan smiled and hugged her back, looking at Cody over her head. “Of course I did. Cody, this is my… this is Leia. Leia, I’d like you to meet—”
“Of course I know Cody, he’s practically family.” To his infinite surprise, Leia pulled away from Obi-Wan and turned to hug Cody, her head fitting neatly just below Cody’s chin. Tentatively, he hugged her back as Obi-Wan watched. He looked bemused.
It was a face Cody was very familiar with.
“Hate to break up this tear jerking reunion, but we gotta go before those stormtroopers learn how to aim.” It was then that Cody noticed the two men standing just beyond the hallway Obi-Wan had fought Darth Vader in. The sketchy looking one was speaking now, gesturing towards the old Corellian freighter parked behind them. Cody stared at it.
“We’re riding in that hunk of junk?” Cody asked in disbelief. The sketchy one— most definitely a smuggler of some kind, because who else would his Jedi be associating with nowadays— looked indignant.
“I’ll have you know the Millennium Falcon is—!”
“It’s a good ship,” the blond interrupted, then looked imploringly at Obi-Wan. “Are we taking that trooper with us?”
Cody nearly melted when Obi-Wan reached down and twined Cody’s hand with his own, making happiness trickle through him like water after the last frost of the season. Cody had only seen it once, on Alderaan, and it was beautiful.
“Cody was a commander in the Clone Wars alongside myself and your father,” Obi-Wan explained. “You would do well to learn from him. Cody, this is Luke and our pilot, Han Solo.”
Luke’s mouth opened into a perfect “O” shape. Han rolled his eyes. “Great, the old man has a boyfriend now. Can we get on the ship and leave?”
Cody nodded, stepping backwards a little to kick at Darth Vader’s collapsed body maliciously. “He has a point. This asshole won’t stay down forever, as much as I want him to.”
Obi-Wan spared the collapsed form one more despairing look before smiling and squeezing Cody’s hand in his. “Han, lead the way.”
Cody let the four of them lead him towards the ship and, for the first time in too many years, felt hope blossoming in him.