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It is now one year after the end of the war.
Somehow, things took a shift. Rex was only barely able to keep up with it, having been close to it, in a sense, as his General thrashed and stewed in anger, betrayal, but ultimately there was no other way around what things were, what they all meant, and what it meant for… all of them, really.
The Jedi had all gotten it all back on track. The end of the war had been the result of hard work of so many people, so much time and effort and care and blood and sweat and tears. And it had ended with the death of Chancellor Palpatine and Count Dooku.
Even with the war itself over, trials are still ongoing for the majority of the Separatist Leadership, and for traitors to the Republic. But as Chancellor Organa told Rex, when he'd asked after it— that is now the long work ahead, and there's a lot of it to do.
He'd not been quite sure how to feel about it, at the time, getting his medal of honor for bravery in service to the Republic alongside most of the rest of Clone Leadership, and he knew less about handling it now than he ever had during the war. During the war, there had been structure, clear lines and orders, directives to accomplish, long term goals to plan for, and now…
Now, the Clone Army has been downsized, because the war and armed occupation periods were finished, so there was no more need for them. So they were released from service.
Even more recently, a deal between the Planet Kamino and the Republic on the fate of the remainder of the clone populace had been struck… So, they now need even more places for developing clones to be shunted to, more hands-on deck there, than in maintaining whatever fraction of the original army remained.
And there'd not been a place for Rex, in that army.
So instead, he's created purpose for himself helping other clones in his position deal with their new lot in life. And it is meaningful work, it does give him some of what he missed from before, working with Howzer and other Captains in the same position as he has… but… it's not everything his old life was, really.
Not really.
There's something missing.
Ostensibly, that's why he's found himself out here.
"It's… a nice place you and your boys have shacked up in."
The breeze of the ocean and the sound of it is— nice, admittedly. Rex had never figured he'd want hide nor hair of the sea, not after 10 years living on Kamino, and definitely not now that the planet had more or less told them they were not wanted back, the Jedi and Republic having brokered the deal for the end of the cloning contract.
There is also a great deal of difference between the constant gloomy storms of Kamino, and the peaceful island life that Pabu has apparently been offering then. But who's to say. He knows some clones who won't step hide nor hair anywhere where there's this much water.
Echo smiles as he turns back to him, and he's looking— good. Well, better than good, really. Actually started to muscle back up, seem more like himself.
"Well," Echo took a breath. "The kid sweet talked her way here, we're all just benefiting off of it."
"Uh-huh." He agrees. That had been one of the biggest surprises. According to Echo, the last time the Bad Batch had been on Kamino, it'd been a mess. Nala Se had been arguing to keep her test subjects, which had caused Echo to call Fives, who had commed Cody for back up.
It'd all been sorted, of course, in the end… Cody had their backs, always would, and had the authority to make sure they got off safely.
But in the aftermath, they'd had a young cadet, the supposed final member of their squad, the one who'd told them what was being planned (to be kept… permanently). And Omega'd been their focus since.
Rex sees her playing on the beach, laughing as she plays with another girl around her age, and he softens. "You've done good by her."
"We're doing our best. Stars knows she was running circles around us, at the start." He leans back, quiet. "I was pretty scared, when I realized I couldn't reach you, all things considered."
And wasn't that a dark time indeed? He'd had to track down General Skywalker in person afterwards, and showing up at the Senator's office had been… a little awkward. But it had resulted in the long road he's been on since.
"Result of the downsizing. Whole swathes of the Grand Army of the Republic that were quickly let go, and all. They realized it'd be bad if we kept access to our military comms." He swirls his drink as he recites the line he's been saying to himself the whole time.
"Like we'd betray them then, after everything?" Echo scoffs. "Navy just wanted us off their hands."
And, yeah it had been a dick move by the Navy.
Echo huffs. "Tarkin's fault, probably."
Right on the money. He glances to Echo, and sighs. "If I bring you on," He says, only half joking, "You have to promise to keep it to yourself. Chancellor Organa would be really upset if it got out and we galvanized a bunch of clones against him."
His face twists, "What a…" It goes blank, and he sighs, takes another sip, before setting his cup down, looking into the contents. "Who said I wanted to be on?" He asks, idle.
Rex smiles as he looks at him, really looks at him. Echo's stronger, more fit, more sure of himself than he'd been back when they'd rescued him from Lola Sayu. But, he can look at Echo, and see himself. See himself, missing part of himself. For Echo, that part is doing what he believes in. Action. When Rex was forced out of the fight, he thought he had no purpose, suddenly, and he'd never understood Echo's need to move to a new place more until that moment— to find somewhere else.
There's something bitter there, that he'll swallow, too, as Echo looks at him, brown eyes looking for answers that Rex himself barely had.
"If you do," He says instead of answering. "You know you'll always have a place at my side, Echo. There's almost no one else out there that I'd sooner bring on."
Echo's face goes from searching, to softening, sad. Understanding.
"You haven't… heard from him?" It's said in a way that's practically radiating disbelief. And—
Rex looks back to his glass, to the half-empty liquid inside. Because, no.
He takes a long breath, and faces it, inside of himself.
He'd not heard from Cody since he'd been excised from the army. Not since he'd formed this thing with a handful of other odd Captains and Lieutenants who were all looking for things to do. Since he'd started this project to help all clones find a place in this new, strange galaxy with no war. When all they'd ever been trained to do was fight and die in battle.
And perhaps his feelings are foolish. While he and Cody had been— closer than anything, even; literally and metaphorically so close they were beneath each other’s armors, standing side by side. They had been doing that in the context of war. A war that's now over, them all on the other side of it— Cody still in the army, and Rex, on the outside.
They'd been close, but it was not as though they'd been married like Fives and Echo, or even where Echo and his current team are now— to Fives' chagrin and Rex's own aching heart.
Because, what does he have now? Anakin and Padme are taking care of newborns, each other in the galaxy after the war.
Ahsoka had finally reentered the Order, but had asked for space from the 501st, needing to find herself away from war.
So they are busy.
Even Echo and Fives here, they're all busy too, helping Tup, raising a child.
The clones were bred for a war that is now over, and his person, the one person he'd always thought he'd have at his side, had never found him in it's wake.
It's over.
But Echo is still staring at him, large brown eyes, kind face, that rookie he'd marked with eel blood and claimed for his own.
His hold on the glass shakes, as does his breath, and he thinks he might break, before he is caught by Echo, holding him close, as he puts his head on his shoulder, forcing himself not to cry.
Because he did not realize, before the war ended it would have also ended whatever had been between him, and Cody.
"Rex." Echo says emphatically. "I didn't—"
"It's alright." he shakes his head as he cuts him off, "It's alright."
And it has to be.
He's had these feelings in his chest for Cody for so long, had him at his side for so long, since Alpha-17 had trained them both and named them, and he'd been so sure they were real. And he does not know how to move on, he's hardly been able to move on from the war and that ended conclusively and what is left does not want him there fighting on its behalf.
But it's all he's ever had. Cody'd been practically everything to him, but there's a major issue with that, how it looks now.
"If he wanted to see me," Rex rationalizes, "he'd have come around."
Rex might have seen him as that everything, might have viewed their lives as intertwined as the way his armor used to lock into place.
But Cody clearly doesn't feel the same.
Echo holds him there, for a very long time.
The end of the war is about what Cody'd expected. More of the same old shit, just with a new coat of paint, and the loom of the actual end on the horizon. General Kenobi had gone back to just 'Master' Kenobi, and that had left Cody in charge of the downsizing of his units, where things went, how it happened. They're now handling things like organizing mine removal squadrons from places that had been trapped to high heaven during the Clone Wars, making sure that everyone stuck to non-aggression pacts and disarmament agreements.
It's tedious, but it's also safer by half to what used to be his routine.
But, there's something about it that changed, drastically, something key to him that has just…. vanished from his side, and he's been feeling it more and more every day since the war'd ended.
And it'd been a long, long year.
"This is about Rex, isn't it?" Hunter asks, dry.
"No." He instantly denies.
This social call had started with a genuine reason, he'd swear upon Fett's Bones. One of the things that had come out of the woodwork was another secret goddamned facility run by the now long dead Chancellor Palpatine's pet mad scientist, some absolutely hair-raisingly creepy prick named Hemlock, who'd already lost his Republic credentials for what is most broadly described as unethical experiments.
But Hemlock's assistant had been a clone woman. Meek, quiet, polite even. Concerned about her future, as she'd been thrown away by the Kaminoans already, but she'd never really been supposed to fit in among any other clones.
So, of course, she was a CT-99.
"No," he says again, glancing away. "This is about your squad, Hunter, I knew you ought to hear this from someone who knows you."
"Uh-huh," he folds his arms on the holo, and Cody takes a long breath to steady himself. "And you assigned yourself to drop off this supposed new person because of Rex," Hunter continues, because of course.
"It's because I don't have anyone still on who worked with you last. You took both Fives and Echo with you, and they'd have been my picks."
"And Rex is here."
And. Ugh.
It is an unfortunate truth that he had, indeed, noticed that Rex had been on a mission from his brand new civie organization and.
Hunter waits and watches him, expecting to be right, no doubt.
"If the Captain's schedule aligns with mine enough to meet up, that is his business." He deflects, and Hunter scoffs, finally dropping it.
"We'll see you soon, then, Commander." Hunter leaves off with all the deference he'd always given Cody, and the call ends.
So he is alone, and therefore able to sit back, and stare down at the blue world below.
Rex.
The invisible ghost beside him, the steady presence at his side, the person he'd always known he could have relied upon, the person he'd expected to have with him forever.
… Had not stayed on as part of the Grand Army of the Republic. None of the 501st had, they'd been one of the entire units that had been downsized and cut out. It wasn't any of their faults, it was because of their Jedi. Knight Skywalker had some private matters to handle with the order after the war; and so he'd left the 501st out to pasture.
Frankly speaking, the Jedi had been unsure of how to handle that many of the clones after the war, and more, they didn't want to remain on as military leaders. They'd stepped down.
So the 501st, rudderless in the complete absence of General Skywalker, had been one of the first that the Navy had cut in the Jedi's absence as leaders. They'd been some of the first floundering without any purpose.
But Rex had stepped up, there's nothing that Cody can hold against him there, he can only imagine how he would have fared in Rex's place.
No, the Captain of the 501st became the leader of this clone movement, became its very face, alongside other Clone Captains no longer deemed necessary. And their men fell into line behind them, even though it was a very different road to follow. He worked fairly closely with Padme— before she'd needed to take maternity leave— and now Padme's younger replacement, her friend, a Senator named Riyo Chuchi, and she has a very large heart and a good sense of morals. In fact, Cody's own men had started falling into their programs, Captain Howzer reconnecting with Boil as he and other lower ranked members began to sift out.
Their goals look simple, but Cody knows, they're hard as anything.
They need to find places for clones to live with dignity, in society as their own people. Find what a new life means, after the end of the war.
And in that invisible space beside him, Cody knows that, Rex hadn't included him in that life.
Which—
They're both busy men. They both have a lot to do, Cody with winding down remaining operations, and Rex with figuring out what the galaxy will have in store for the people who now need places to go, and work to do.
It would be a lie to say it did not sting, that at this point it had been a year, and at no point in that time period had Rex reached out to him, to talk. They'd spoken, been together for nearly 4 years, and now Rex is gone, and had been gone for some time.
He just— wants to see him. Needs to see him.
And here he is. So, Cody will get his answers.
He guides the ship down to Pabu, to the coords Hunter had given him.
After they land, when he reenters the hold to the door out to the world, Dr. Karr looks about out of place as he feels.
They'd confiscated the majority of her belongings for the future trial of disgraced former head scientist, Royce Hemlock, and instead she was in a borrowed pair of blacks. While her measurements and Cody's were— well, putting it kindly, there was a mismatch— it'd been better than the alternative they'd offered, making her wait for another invasive test that felt like fishing for another long interview. It felt like the only kindness they'd given her was letting her keep her karking hair tie.
Without her goggles, she looks even more like any other clone. But most of all, she looks like Tech, with a little softness to her features that reminds him of the 99 he knows the least, aside from her. He didn't know what her goggles had been for, which does make him concerned.
"Do… you need a hand?" He asks, concerned, knowing exactly what Tech's vision was like without his goggles.
"Oh. No." She shakes her head, squeezing her hands. "I'm farsighted, sir. My goggles are, were, for things like reading, technical work." Her hands tighten again. "Which, I probably won't be doing any time soon."
"We'll get them sorted out." He promises, genuine. Between Tech and Echo, Captain Fordo, and Cody himself, he was certain of it.
When he lowers the door, Pabu is a picture of paradise. Dr. Karr tenses behind him, but he moves forward.
Hunter's waiting for him, his arms crossed, with his second behind him.
"Dr. Karr." Hunter greets, calm. "From what the Commander said, we've some things to talk about. Thank you, Cody." He nods his way, and gestures Emerie over to him. She hesitates behind Cody for a moment more, seemingly waiting for…
Ah.
Cody coughs, nods. "See you later, Dr. Karr. You're in good hands."
"He's at the bar down by the beach." Crosshair snipes at Cody, and Cody coughs, again. When he glowers at Crosshair, for putting that out there, Crosshair rolls his shoulder in an easygoing shrug.
Stars above. They keep poking at an already bleeding wound.
But they aren't wrong either. The mountain descends down in the form of many, many stairs, and that somehow is just as far a distance as the stars between them on Coruscant, somehow so much further than the distance of space when they were on opposite sides of the galaxy.
He took a breath, and moved to start that journey down. He knew Rex would be here at the same time. He came here wanting answers. He knows Rex makes social calls, if not to him… so.
He'll head toward that beach, the sand below, the water sparkling out on the horizon.
People pass by him as he walks down the stairs, shore walls and lines dedicated to protecting the islanders were there to be some natural disaster, he was sure. They look at him curiously, but with smiles, recognizing him no doubt. Someone even calls for Fives, before they stare at him curiously. They're able to tell them apart remarkably well, though, the cynic in him does know that he has a big scar on his temple Fives does not have, much as the idiot tried to give himself one during that mess on Kamino.
His heart thuds louder in his chest than it ought to. This isn't going to battle. This is just— Rex. Rex and Echo and the boys. It's like old times.
He can keep telling himself that, he realizes as his stomach sours, and his breath catches.
The old times are gone and there's no going back.
Rex and Echo are on the beach together. Omega's playing with one of the islanders in the water, laughing.
Rex is a vision, always. His blonde hair is a little longer than the captain normally kept it, but only by a hair. He's filled in some, not keeping to the extreme ration and regime the war had required them to be on no doubt. It looks good on him; on the way it makes his muscles stand out as his shoulders move as he—
Cody's eyes widen.
Reaches over to Echo's hand, and puts his hand over his in a reassuring gesture, fingers tangling in the sand.
That's one of their things to do, his and Rex's, when things had been rough and things were going wrong was to reach across, and to gently catch the very tips of each other’s fingers like that, entwining them together. He remembers it on Anaxes even, Rex double checking he was okay, just their fingers passing each other as he looked into his eyes, made sure that Cody had healed properly.
His heart tugs.
That had been during the war. They're a year out.
Echo looks good. He's always known that Rex and Echo had been close, never mind the absolute hell that Rex put himself through to get Echo out. And; Echo had a lot of love to give, that's why he had both his marriage and his current squad. It would… make sense, to a degree.
It would make sense.
The idea slots into place, aching at the thought, aching in preemptive hurt.
Even as it makes him feel almost choked up. Like he's just realized he's lost a battle during the war.
"Oh, Fives!" Omega calls for him, unintentionally revealing him, before she squints, tilts her head and the other two turn his way, and, that's almost like a knife twisting, as Rex's eyes find his and his heart sinks as he realizes that the familiarity of him feels exactly the hole in his life he's been missing. "Wait… you're not Fives."
"Cody," Rex says after spending a moment longer just looking at this living ghost in his life. He feels a mess, red eyed and covered in sand, sitting with an old friend as he attempts to figure out what it is to chart life again now, life, not just the logistics but the rest of it too, the parts that Echo had solved.
Cody stares at him from the staircase leading down to the beachside, stuck on that last bit of structure, not joining him in this new place without it once again.
"Uncle Cody!" Omega calls, her joy warm and unfreezing the scene from where the pair of them had become a black hole together.
Echo catches her at her waist as she attempts to run to Cody, to greet him. "Ah, Megs," he haltingly says, voice awkward, "Uhm. Let Uncle Rex handle something with him first."
Echo fully stands, and he places his hand on Rex's shoulder reassuringly, squeezes it, and Rex's heart squeezes as he watches Cody, not able to separate himself from his gravity well, unsure if he really even wants to do so.
Rex slowly pulls himself to his feet as he hears Echo and Omega leave, Lyana grabbing the two girls’ twos from the sand. And then there are two, and somehow, he feels just as out of place when he'd been a random CT stuck in the same class as his own High Commander, the pair of them both under Alpha's tutelage.
Stars, and he's not changed a day since the last time they'd saw each other. Strong and intimidating to those around him, a person with a commanding aura, brown eyes that are intense as they look into Rex, just like he'd done that last moment when Rex had asked Cody if he knew what was going to happen next, happen in the nebulous after.
"No," Cody had said, voice with that surety that only the High Commander had only had, to Rex, his bare fingers in Rex's, "But I know it'll be with you."
And then it hadn't gone that way, the story of so many things after the war. Now they've been apart for all this time, and he's let his heart break and let himself think it was a rallying cry to the end of the war.
And it had been the same, for the version of them that had existed beneath the sheets of their cots gone with his ship and the galaxy that had been before.
"Cody," He repeats himself, trying to force the dumbfounded expression off his face, trying to keep his heart off his sleeve, Fives having barged into his and Echo's one on one talk to tell Echo he couldn't leave, before he'd seen Rex crying, and the tone had changed entirely. He wishes he was as capable of the fire Fives had tried to put back into him. But Cody had been his person, damn it. So, there's no fire, no anger, there never could be. There's just a hole in his life where he'd once been. "It's… been a while."
Cody is so still for that moment longer on those stairs, that he's almost certain that he's either not going to stay, or that he's some sort of illusion.
And then he breathes again, and his shoulders move as he tilts his head, and looks at Rex, searching for something that Rex doesn't understand.
"Yeah," Cody says, coughing. "It, uh, has." Cody takes another breath, something that Rex recognizes as him trying to steel himself, and he'd known that it was over, but to see him look so damn awkward faced with Rex, it does hurt. "You look good."
Hah. He knows he's covered in sand, probably a little flushed from the booze or the tears, or maybe both. He'll take the bait.
"You do too," and he's telling the truth, Cody had always been a vision that he'd been so lucky to have been with at all, something he's dreamed of in his time apart.
There's no immediate follow up to the conversation, just him on the beach and Cody on the stairs, and where there would have been a comfortable silence just a year ago, there's only an awkward pang in his chest.
"Want a drink?" He asks, wanting to ease the tension, wanting to ease this hurt.
Cody's lips flatten into something like, disapproval, before he nods, a little jerky. The Commander collects himself, and finally steps forward to Rex again.
Rex smiles at him, gesturing him to follow.
He still doesn't know what strings Echo pulled, but the bar is empty today. He is grateful. It's a nice place, cozy, the lights dimmed, mostly coming from the light of the windows out to the beach.
He slides behind the bar; reaches for bottles that he'd been taught; making something fruity and sweet. The Fett sweet tooth was pretty strong; even more so in taste with drinks.
And; it reminds him of a sweet they shared on Naboo once, fresh, citrusy. The one he already made sits warm inside him now, giving him the courage to do this, calm. He hands it over as Cody sits down on a barstool.
Cody's brown eyes look up at him, searching.
Rex's hand holds tight to the bar top as their gaze’s lock.
"Thanks." Cody says after a moment, breaking it as he turns away. "Smells good."
"Reminds me of Naboo." Rex tells him, quiet.
Cody pauses where he's smelling it, eyes closed, to look his way again. There's a crease in his brow.
"Yeah." He agrees, quiet. "It does, doesn't it?" There's something there he wants to say, but doesn't.
Rex pours his own, and then moves, sits next to him on his own barstool. It swirls underneath him, as though equally uncertain about this path.
He looks up at him, trying to find the words to ask Cody what happened, to ask him why he never, not once came to find him after the war, even after he knew that Rex was out of the military. He opens his mouth—
"Where did you go, Rex?" Cody interrupts him before he's able to speak. Cody's gaze is as intense as anything, his grip on his drink tight. "Are you with Echo now? Did I do something wrong?"
It's a string of questions that he wasn't planning on hearing, not from "Echo?" He finds himself echoing that because of its' sheer absurdity. It's not that he never thought about it but, "He's already got enough going on without me inserting myself into that mix." He answers, truthfully. Cody relaxes, infinitesimally, and something flips inside him. Cody was jealous?
The question processes. "Wait," He sits upright, indignant. "You never came to find me. When we were discharged when General Skywalker stepped down, I lost my comm."
"Exactly. But you found Tano, and Skywalker." Cody points out back. "I stayed on as a Commander, I owed that to our brothers, I knew that would have hurt you. I figured you could have reached out to Kenobi, when you were ready."
"Exactly, you were busy." Rex points back out, his shoulders starting to relax. "I no longer had any idea where you were going, at all."
"Kenobi would have known. I had no easy way to find you, but I knew you did." He glances down.
"I became easy to find." Rex reasons with him. "I was the face of the movement. Cody, I just thought, we were in the same circles, but we'd never talked about the specifics of after the war."
"Rex," Cody is realizing the same thing that Rex is, from the other side. "You thought I was done with you? Never."
"You thought I'd be upset you were still in it? Jealous? Why would I? It wasn't your fault."
They'd lean further and further to each other, as the realization hits them both, and then, Rex's barstool gives out from him. He curses, while Cody catches him, holds him.
The flimsy chair looks sad on the floor, and Cody holds him for a second longer than he really needs to, and Rex looks up at him.
Cody looks tentative. He glances Rex over, and his hands squeeze Rex's shoulder. "I missed you." He confesses, soft.
"I missed you too," Rex says back after a moment, adjusting his stance so that he is standing on his feet, and he sets down his drink to pull Cody into a tight hug, and Cody holds him back just the same. They never could have done this out in public before, Cody in his armor, but the war is over, times have changed.
Cody smells the same, of blasterfire and the man he loved.
"Do you have time to catch up?" He asks as he holds him there, moving up to look him in the eyes, see that moment where they missed each other, to see where things all fell apart. "We've missed so much, I—,"
Cody stops him with a searing kiss, holding him close in his arms, one that Rex melts into, because this was his person, this was his other hand, this was the person meant to be at his side.
"I came here just for that." He says after breaking the kiss. He puts a hand on Rex's cheek, smile soft. "For you. You've been my person for as long as I can remember. I want to figure it out with you. There's nothing else I'd like to do more, Rex."
Rex puts his hand over Cody's on his cheek, and instead of just a brush in public, he grabs the hand, entertwines their fingers.
"I know one thing I want to do more," Rex whispers back, using his other arm to bring Cody into another kiss, closing his eyes.
As long as they were together, they would be able to do anything.