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fanfic-obsessed · 5 months

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Ten Years in Two months

While the meat and potatoes of this idea comes a bit later, it does require some finangleing beforehand. Some of the beginning does feel a bit contrived, because it is. In order for the dominoes of the plot to fall right later, we do have to force them into shape now in a series of improbable actions.

Bear with me for a bit, we’ll get there.

There is not really a particular point this starts, save that it is after Padme becomes pregnant (though well before she realizes she is) but before the Umbara arc (or ignoring the Umbara Arc), for no particular reason other than I want Waxer there. A mission is assigned to the 212th to escort Padme Amidala and her retinue to a neutral world for negotiations with the Separatists. They are taking with them commander Ahsoka Tano (the in-world explanation being that she was on Coruscant catching up with course work and they would rendezvous with the 501st, who were on a campaign in that region).

On the way to this neutral world, from the perspective of the rest of the galaxy, the 212th in its entirety vanishes for two months.

From the perspective of the 212th they become trapped on an uncharted planet for 10 years.

For the rest of the galaxy those two months are enlightening into Anakin Skywalker's particular brand of instability. Without the tempering influence of the bonds to his Master and Padawan, compounded by the fact that his secret wife disappeared as well, Well…his attempts to find them could, in the best of lights, be described as unhinged. He did not fall in at this time, for he was given no reason to make that choice (and falling to the dark, into evil is very much a choice. One does not fall by accident, after all), but he made it very clear that the war, protecting innocents, the Republic, or even the lives of his own men meant nothing compared to finding Padme (occasionally he would remember to make it seem as though he was focusing on finding Obi Wan or Ahsoka, though he never quite remembered to include the rest of the 212th). His obsession presented itself in such a way that even Palpatine was reconsidering some of his plans (he still intended to break Anakin into Vader, but he was now inclined to let Padme-and maybe even Ahsoka; Obi Wan was always going to die-live on as a stabilizing influence to his ultimate apprentice).

He was swiftly removed from command of the 501st and had to be kept partially sedated for at least 6 of those 8 weeks.

With the 212th for the first few months, from their perspective, they tried to contact the rest of the fleet. Tried to contact anyone. Tried to escape from their orbit around this one planet, thankfully habitable and with an abundance of edible food. However, though they did not know it, the planet was out of sync with the rest of the galaxy.

Over the period of about two years they shifted from living mostly on the ships with just enough people on the surface of the planet to keep everyone fed to a more permanent settlement on the planet with a rotating skeleton crew up on ships to keep everything running.

Padme found out about her pregnancy pretty early on, and with it came the knowledge that her relationship with Anakin was not the secret she thought it was. Nor was the relationship forbidden like Anakin told her. The marriage was forbidden, because of the Oaths Anakin swore as part of the Jedi Order and how they conflicted with the traditional Nabooian Wedding vows (though she also finds out that the Jedi Order would have helped revise both sets of vows so they did not conflict). Even beyond her own misunderstandings of the Jedi, she started to see the many places where Anakin either deliberately misunderstood his own culture, or deliberately misled her.

In fact it became obvious within the first six months that every culture represented in the ships (The variety of cultures from the natborn admiralty, the Nabooian Delegation, The clones, and the Jedi) all had some misconceptions about all of the other cultures ranging from the humorously minor to massive misunderstandings (One of the minor misunderstandings is between the Jedi and the Clones on names and numbers. The Jedi believe that they are making sure that they are calling the clones what the clones want to be called instead of their designation. The clones think that the Jedi as a whole are uncomfortable with their designation AS names-Which yes but also no-so even though most of the clones prefer a name to their designation, even the few that want to use their designation are told by the other clones that the must choose a name to use around the Jedi).

Obi Wan takes over Ahsoka’s training and the gaps that Anakin had left become very obvious; the place where he taught her something that was outright wrong even more so. About three months in, Ahsoka tells Obi Wan about Anakin’s ‘training’ of being surrounded and fired upon by the 501st. One of the few things that Anakin was right about was that he Jedi would not understand, nor condone, that training. Ahsoka had not realized how disconnected from her own culture she had become in her short time with Anakin. How isolated he had made her from her people. Though she and Obi Wan were the only Jedi, she felt closer than ever to everything she had grown up with as he took on her tuition.

In month 8 Obi Wan, who was looked to as the leader, arranged for a series of times to address the misconceptions held by an for each culture present. When it became clear that they were cut off for the long haul, he helped the variety of people to start to live instead of just surviving. And at the beginning there were a number of natborns among them that were anti clones, or anti Jedi, just as there were many clones that were anti nat born. But with only about 1500 people in total (1300 clones, about 50 natborn officers and support staff, about 150 senatorial support staff) there were simply not enough people to support those kinds of prejudices. It is hard to say that the clones were not human when you listen to the stories of decommissioned batchmates during one of the remembrance ceremonies. Or hate the natborn lieutenant that got drunk and cried all over you about the pregnant wife they left behind.

The twins were born with a village of aunts and uncles, and though they are the oldest, they were not the only ones. Sache, one of Padme’s former handmaidens and part of her senatorial retinue, entered into a relationship with Waxer and Boil, having a child with them that was a year younger than the twins. Many relationships formed and broke apart during those years.

Ahsoka and Padme ended up co parenting the twins, with Padme being called Mom and Ahsoka being called Mom Ah. It was the twins who insisted on their names from their earliest ability to speak.

In year four Cody and Obi Wan get married. Though theirs is not the only relationship that develops, nor the only one with healthy communication, their relationship does highlight to Padme how unhealthy her relationship with Anakin actually was. (It should be noted that, although Anakin’s instability and actions were flashier, this is not Anakin abusing/coercing the poor innocent Padme. In this they are toxic together, both acted in unhealthy ways that compromised their own morals). Padme was able to see how Cody and Obi Wan did not use their love for each other as a bandage for deeper wounds. That CodyWan did not become all consuming; each man had friendships and hobbies and duties separate from each other (even with the friends they shared, they did not act as a single unit, inseparable from each other). The other relationships she saw only drove this point home.

At some point in those ten years she tells Obi Wan of what happened on Tatooine, just before the start of the war. And Obi Wan, eyes betraying his grief and horror at the massacre of the Tuskens asked her why she absolved Anakin of his crimes (By technicality, as a senator Padme did have the authority to absolve Anakin-so even if Tatooine becomes part of the Republic, and the crime is reported, Padme’s actions mean that Anakin cannot be tried under Republic Law). Padme cannot answer him.

Though it does take time, Padem is eventually able to meet Obi Wan’s eyes again after the revelation.

6 years in, Ahsoka and Padme realize that they have fallen in love. Driven by the Jedi teachings for healthy and open communication (though many cultures value open and honest communication, few need it in the same way as the Jedi who are all some degree of Empath), they talk about what was happening. Neither is sexually attracted to the other, but they do want to date each other. But Padme is married to Anakin. And it might have been six years, so they do not know if Anakin even still lived, and if did, he had likely moved on (both of which are reasonable assumptions) but being together without first speaking to Anakin felt too much like giving up the idea that they would find a way home. So they agreed to wait until they were ready to give up that idea.

They had not given up by the time that the 10 year mark rolled around.

In year 7 the chips begin to deteriorate. The material they were made up of were not meant for the extra years of use, plus the method Helix used to stop the accelerated aging (discovered within 5 months of actually having time) created an enzyme as a byproduct that had no effect on the clones, but accelerated the deterioration of the chips. The first three chips were removed after the clones involved complained of migraines. All the documentation in the computer banks (the archive of what was readily available, instead of what was stored on the galaxy’s version of the cloud) of the ships said the chips were to inhibit excess aggression. No one had any reason to not believe the documentation, not even with the realization that the chips were not in the right place for what they were supposed to do (the assumption is that the Kaminoans, for all their genetic know how, just do not understand near human neurology enough to have put it in the right place). Obi Wan met with Helix, the head medic, with Cody after the removal of those first chips. Obi Wan assumed that he did not know about the chips because he had not been on the council when the order was put in. Helix is able to confirm that all of the clones have these chips and what they are supposed to do (according to the literature) and that some were beginning to deteriorate. After it becomes clear that the removal will not hurt the clone, they make the decision to remove all of them. However, believing them to be behavioral modifiers (if incorrectly placed), and as they did not have the optimal equipment to decode them, they all left it at that and put the Chips into storage and basically forgot about it.

Just 15 days shy of the 10th anniversary of their arrival to the uncharted planet, whatever grip that was holding the ships bound to orbit the planet vanished (The planet was in sync with the rest of the galaxy- it is a window of time that is six hours long in the larger galaxy, or 15 days long on the planet) Still not able to raise communications to anyone outside of the planet’s orbit, not knowing how long they would have before they were stuck again, and fearing that they would be cut off from anyone left behind (no one had forgotten that the planet had not registered as there until they were trapped), everyone was loaded onto the ships along with all of their food stores and the 212th left the uncharted planet.

As soon as they hit the galaxy at large again, alarms began to shriek. Every system that communicated with the central systems (basically everything outside of life support) experienced a fatal error upon reconnecting with the galaxy’s central system. It takes 4 days to fix. They have to reset all of the internal clocks/calendars in their computer systems to a date and time two months and 3.5 days after they became trapped (the last 24 hours of that time was spent inputting random dates into the system).

NOTE: There is a very important reason for this. Computers are very black and white about some things, and communicating between computers is often validated on specific information to make sure that both systems are dealing with the same information at the same thing. Current Date/Time had to be validated for the purpose of navigation. Galactic/Stellar drift is very real, and in the mapped regions of the galaxy that drift is precisely calculated. It is impossible to keep a real time map of every object in the galaxy, instead there is a systematic ping that goes out at specified times (Twice per Galactic Standard year) remapping every object in the known galaxy and correcting the location in the centralized system. Then Navigation computers calculate how long it has been since the last ping to figure out where everything is and a safe route. That only works if the current date time matches the current date time of the centralized system exactly (some of those object movements, even objects large enough to damage the largest of ships, can be measured in microseconds).

No one realizes why this is an issue. The entirety of the 212th believe that 10 years have passed (born out by their time keepers, which had ticked along for ten years) and yet to the larger galaxy only two months have. They absently notice that by the time anything is working again the planet they were on had vanished.

A message is sent to Coruscant, to the Jedi temple, but it is a hesitant thing. Deliberately vague in details. Obi Wan has no idea what 10 years has done for or to the war effort. The response is almost immediate, a call from the Jedi council. The very first question out of Mace Windu’s mouth is a cranky sounding ‘Where in the Force have you been for the last two months?’ (Look Master Windu is absolutely ecstatic that they are safe and not dead, but he has spent the four days helping to keep Anakin contained-the sedation began to wear off faster now that he could feel Ahoska and Obi Wan in the Force again-, the last two months realizing that Obi Wan ran about a third of their side of the war, and had been in the middle of sleeping for the first time in weeks).

There is quite a bit of confusion as both Obi Wan and Mace were absolutely sure the other had lost it over how long the 212th had been gone (Obi Wan: we were trapped for ten years; Mace: Bullshit! You’ve been gone for 2 months). It is Ahsoka’s appearance that convinces Mace that something more is going on (he would not know the children, and Ahsoka is the only other one for whom 10 years-or 10 years and 5 months for the clones- would make a huge visible difference). Mace is able to convince Obi Wan that they really have only been gone two months and the 212th makes its way back to Coruscant, reeling over the disconnect (The Lieutenant who spent the last 10 years mourning over the missed moments with their wife and unborn child…hasn’t even missed the birth).

The mind healers who have been dealing with Anakin nearly weep in relief at the news that Padme Amidala is with the 212th and safe. They know that Anakin needs many much therapy still but they have hope he will actually pay attention now that his wife is back.

The 212th, now a community in a way that they had not been, returned to Coruscant. They do not split in the ways that they would have before (before relationships and children) and peer at the lives they had left behind that they no longer quite fit the shape of.

The lieutenant brings home their best friend (a clone who had not picked their name before the mission, but decided to go with 29, which they picked to reference the number of a decommissioned batchmate) to meet their wife, only for some of the wife’s family make an awful comment about flesh droids and being a pet (thankfully their wife was equally embarrassed by her brother’s behavior).

Obi Wan, Cody, Padme, and Ahsoka go to the Jedi temple, to the Jedi Council (the twins, like the rest of the children, were left aboard the Negotiator in the care of their extended family). They speak of the planet where they had been trapped and the lives they grew there.

Padme took the time to apologize to the Council, formally, for the violation of their beliefs that she and Anakin had perpetrated by marrying as they had. She could admit that while Anakin had not told her of any Jedi traditions for marriage, or really any traditions they might be violating by marrying, she had made no effort to check either.

As an afterthought Obi Wan told the Jedi Council about the chips deteriorating, but that they did not appear to be doing anything anyway (To which every other member went: “What chips?”). Upon being asked Obi Wan calls for Helix to get a chip or two out of the storage closet they had been forgotten in. Which was then promptly handed to people with specialized equipment for decoding bio mechanical chips.

After the latest round of sedation has worn off Padme, Obi Wan, and Ahsoka go to see Anakin. They are told that before Anakin can be released he needs to be assessed by three different mind healers. They go intending to tell Anakin of the twins. Padme also goes with the intent to test the waters about the possibility of separating (She does not know that her and Ahsoka dating would go anywhere, nor are either of them even thinking of it right now, but even leaving that aside Padme has realized that her and Anakin are not healthy together). Things do not go quite as intended.

At first Anakin is so happy to see all three of them, he exclaims over Ahsoka being so grown up (she is now 24, now older than Anakin). It rapidly becomes clear that Anakin expected he would be released immediately, now that they were back. There was a small blip, a frown and a strange heaviness when he realized that all three of them were backing the healers that he needed to be assessed. Anakin also did not like how close Ahsoka and Obi Wan were, oh before they vanished he would joke about Ahsoka being their shared padawan, but he preferred it when Obi Wan’s lessons unintentionally reinforced the idea that Ahsoka was better off with Anakin than any other Jedi.

There were a few moments when he could speak to Padme alone, and the way he spoke left Padme feeling cold. There was nothing overt but it all reinforced a possessiveness that Padme realized she did not want in her or her children's lives. They leave without telling Anakin about the children.

Padme tries six more times to go and talk to Anakin about separating. At best he acts like he does not hear or understand her words. At worst he starts ranting about Obi Wan trying to steal his wife and needing to be sedated.

Regretfully, and with the backing of both the Jedi and the 212th community, Padme starts the process to get a divorce. Nabooian traditions insist that a couple that wants to divorce must meet with a Nabooian marriage counselor first, to see if reconciliation is possible. Setting this up takes several months as, upon being informed of proceedings Anakin had a second breakdown. His connection to the Force was such that the Jedi needed to block the connection lest he become very destructive. Only the Force Blockers left him not coherent enough to attend the session with Counselor. In the end the Jdi built a special room just to block Anakin’s specific connection to the force for them to meet in. Traditionally the divorcing couple meets at least 5 times before permission is given to divorce. It took one meeting for the Counselor to grant Padme her divorce.

The 501st had not been assigned a new general by the time the 212th returned, and Ahsoka was almost ready for knighthood. She took command of the 501st for a total of 4 months, it was too uncomfortable and too much like she was replacing Anakin (made weirder by the fact she still wanted to date his soon to be ex wife and was helping to raise his children). In the end Obi Wan ended up taking direct command of the legion, with Cody taking the lead of the 212th. This also made everyone uncomfortable, thankfully the war ended three months after that (the revelation of what the chips did had the council contemplating finding the planet that 212th had been stranded on).

Palpatine had been indiscrete around someone who he had assumed would back his power play for an Empire. To be fair, in another world that family would have been high ranking imperial with very human centric tendencies.

Palpatine had not expected a Lieutenant of the Galactic Navy, member of the 212h or not, to whip out a slug thrower and shoot at a party when Palpatine had admitted to knowing about the slave chip in the clones' heads.

To be fair, neither did the Lieutenant.

#star wars #star wars the clone wars #fanfiction prompt #obi wan kenobi #star wars au #anakin skywalker #codywan #bamf obi wan #Anidala critical #sheev palpatine #Not for Anakin Fans #anakin critical #Order 66 did not happen #jedi order respected #jedi order

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questforgalas · 10 months

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Random clone and padawan headcanons

I will die on the hill that every padawan was extremely connected to/close with their clone battalion

Certain clones have closer bonds, but every clone trooper saw anywhere from a child to barely teenager standing in front of them on their Venator and went “protective instincts initiated”

Ahsoka and the 501st are the closest only because Anakin encouraged they interact with the men as if they were troopers and not their commanding officers whenever not in a professional setting (think missions camps, off duty, in transit to missions). This helped Ahsoka acclimate because it reminded her of the crèche days and the bond she formed with her crèche mates

With that said, Rex was fondest of Ahsoka (big bro mode activated double time when he saw a child standing in front of him) but she and Fives together were his biggest headache

Cal was a babay when the war started so the 13th battalion, yes respected him as their commander, but their relationship was much more "little bro surrounded by 100s of big bros" (with how young Cal was, I firmly believe he rarely saw the field)

Cal loved to watch the clones train, and once and awhile they'd let him join in on their sparring. Due to the fact he was maybe 100lbs wet, they'd go easy on him, but it was the highlight of Cal's day

Caleb/Kanan wanted to be the cool commander so badly. Like so so so so badly. During down time, you'd find him in the mess hall with a group of clones around him while he told what he thought were his coolest stories or about all the cool things he's done on Coruscant (Depa Billaba would never admit it, but she enjoyed coming to the mess during these times and oh so casually correcting an over-embellishment of Caleb's like oh interesting she doesn't remember him pulling off a double flip she remembers him face planting in the temple fountains, but maybe that was another time. Caleb gives her the "mom stop embarrassing me in front of my friends" look and she laughs to herself as she walks away)

To help pass the time while Jaro was leading a campaign on the ground and Cal was on the Venator, Cal and the clones not involved in the battle would play a version of hide-and-seek. One time Jaro came back from the battle to a bunch of sheepish clones admitting they had no idea where his padawan was after they'd been seeking for him for over an hour. That's when they learned Cal can fit into spaces previously thought only a mouse could access

Ahsoka was a very curious teenager who loved to learn. Much to Rex's chagrin. After Christophsis, back on the Resolute on their way back to Coruscant which was a day or so journey, Ahsoka followed Rex around asking a million questions about life on Kamino, their training, what it was like growing up surrounded by the same face, who his favorite trooper was, who his favorite Jedi was, what his least favorite part of the ship was, etc.

#star wars #the clone wars #jedi padawan #ahsoka tano #cal kestis #caleb dume #kanan jarrus #captain rex #13th battalion #arc trooper fives

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cienie-isengardu · 1 year

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Cienie's Star Wars sidenotes

While doing research and writing down the last pieces of Funeral Rites of the Clone Troopers, it became even more clear how The Clone Wars animated TV series did a great disservice to Jedi, especially in the context of medical care for clones.

TCW has clone medics, both as part of combat units (e.g. Kix from 501st Legion) and working apparently in the medcentre as sometimes was presented on the screen.

The role of doctors treating wounded troopers was given to Kaminoans (Nala Se) and droids and sure, those two groups were part of the whole GAR’s medical system in the Legends too. However Jedi Healers (doctors), as far as I remember, were seen treating mainly other Jedi like Yoda

and even then TCW barely paid attention to force healing as an important skill.

The research about medical care for clones gives a pretty drastic idea of what was happening during and after battle which is understandable why the show destined for younger viewers didn’t go into full details about triage of wounded but considering how many dark themes were put in the same show, I dare to say not showing medical care provided by Jedi or common Republic doctors and nurses (who btw are a rare example of republic citizens conscripted into army during the war) actually is unfair. The show reduced one very important aspect of Jedi - they weren’t just generals and commanders either sending or leading troops into battle, they also provided medical help, whether they were specifically trained at healing or not.

In Legends, we could see Jedi Healers assisting the army on various occassions, working in triage area like in Republic comics series:

The triage unit, where Jedi healers labor to save the lives of the wounded, was set up safely behind the line of battle. But as the fortunes of war shift, so do the battlelines.

and worrying first about wounded even in the face of serious danger

Master Saa! We’re cut off! There’s no way to get the wounded out!

and searching for survivors

Master Saa is hurt! She pulled the trees on top of us for protection...

and working in hospitals

Follow me Skywalker. We have much healing to do. The Jedi sickbay, where we treat the most severe injuries. And our own, of course. Master Offee has saved countless lives. She seldom leaves her post to rest. But we all work long hours.

Not to mention the whole Medstar duology dedicated to padawan Bariss Offee, doctors and nurses serving in Republic mobile hospitals close to frontine - and yes, forever I’m gonna be bitter about how TCW/New Canon treated the most iconic Jedi Healer.

(The cover art for Medstar: Jedi Healer by Dave Seeley)

When padawan Skywalker arrived at New Holstice with his troops, he was immedialy called to assist in the nearest sickbay

“Are you injured, master Jedi?”

“Not really, no.”

“Good. You can make yourself useful by heading to the nearest sickbay. We need all the Jedi healers we can get...”

and for context, this is Anakin two days after after Jabiim, one of the worst war campaigns Republic experienced so far, the solely survivor of Jedi Pack traumatized both by the loss of his comrades and what happened on the planet and forced to make a devastating choice is literally told to get at work ASAP because every Jedi in between assignment was working here hard to heal the most wounded..

Though no healer himself, Anakin even force-healed injured trooper on battlefield to stop him going into shock:

Supporting the commando trooper with his left arm, Anakin warded off blaster bolts on the run. The rest of Squad Seven supplied cover, blowing STAPs out the sky with uninterrupted fire. Cody motioned everyone into a shallow irrigation trench just short of the mound. By the time Obi-Wan arrived, the troopers were deployed in a circle, and continuing to pour fire into the sky. Anakin slid into the trench a moment later, lowering the commando gently to the muddy slope. Squad Seven’s medical specialist crawled over, removing the commando’s ravaged utility belt and deeply dented helmet. [...]

The harvester’s pincers had crushed the armor into the commando’s abdomen. His skin was intact, but the bruising was severe. With only half the original army of 1.2 million in fighting shape, the life of every clone was vital. Blood and replacement organs - - what the regular troopers referred to as “spare parts” - - were readily available - - “easily requisitioned” - - but with the war reaching a crescendo, battlefield casualties were on the rise and treated as high priority.

“Not much I can do for him here,” the medspec told Anakin. “Maybe if we can get an FX-Seven air-dropped - - ”

“We don’t need a droid,” Anakin interrupted. Kneeling, he placed his hands on the injured commando’s abdomen and used a Jedi healing technique to keep the clone from going into deep shock. [Labyrinth Of Evil]

(and included request for evacuation of the wounded trooper when Cody called for artillery support)

In Republic comics series alone we could see Jedi showing concern for the wounded troopers at various moments, putting their well-being as priority:

or helping (healing) wounded enemies:

And I won't lie, it is frustrating how Legends, especially Republic comics series that had around 40 issues put so much pressure on Jedi Force healing and how Jedi care for wounded troopers while The Clone Wars (New Canon) that lasted for decade or so kinda ignored the issue? Which is unfair to Jedi and clones alike. The first are presented as less caring, at times indifferent? the latter deserved to have all the available medical help, not just Kaminoans and droids.

#star wars #jedi #jedi healers #clone troopers #legends vs new canon #anakin skywalker #luminara unduli #bariss offee #aayla secura #mace windu #i wil be bitter forever for how tcw treated bariss offee #i demand new canon to bring back the jedi force healing their troopers and wounded in general

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qvnthesia · 1 year

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Another You (1)

an anakin skywalker/jedi consular!reader fic set during the clone wars

the pitch: best friends with anakin since he had joined the jedi order, you hadn’t expected to catch feelings for him, not that hard, at least. his intentions were clear — his heart already enraptured by the nubian senator, leaving you to ruminate about the prospect of letting go of not just him, but maybe everything. until another anakin shows up, and your — your universe’s anakin starts behaving strangely.

A/N: this is a gift for my padawan, @kaizsche! happy birthday, kai! i hope you enjoy this fic! i return from an unexpectedly long hiatus with a three-part fic and i hope that all my other readers enjoy this short-fic too! a note to all readers — there’s no y/n here, the reader’s nickname for the fic is sky. that’s all from my end! happy reading!

part one — and you are?

word count: 3, 380

part one (here) | two | ....

As a Consular, you were trained to study the deepest abyss of the Living and the shrouded myths of the Cosmic. Albeit well-trained with a lightsaber, being a Jedi meant forsaking weapons for words. Diplomacy over bloodshed. Knowledge, insights, and lessons instead of learning the different ways of besting war-mongering droids and bureaucrats.

You look back at the looming hallways of the Temple, letting out a sigh as you turn around to watch the warships meander above the setting skies through the windows. The sun used to shine brighter, you think, but perhaps it’s the shadows that don’t let the light reach the galaxy anymore.

A Nubian ship soars between where the indigo darkens the pale orange in the sky and another wave of longing and sorrow digs deeper into your heart.

It had been almost a standard week since the Five Hundred and First Legion had arrived for their monthly rotation to protect Coruscant.

“Let’s hope we make it a week and not get called back to bust some Seppies since the 501st seems to be the only competent one to get some wins.”

You couldn’t stop the smile that had tugged at your lips.

“Don’t let Obi-Wan hear you say that.”

A deep rumble of laughter had echoed through Anakin’s chest and he’d pulled you into his embrace. It hadn’t taken a Force-sensitive to sense the happiness spread through your body, or that the same happiness had made him glow in the sea of shadows drowning the Force. He smelled just like he always did — fuel, probably the one from Malastare, since the scent always tingled your skin, and kyber, his bond with the second crystal coursing through his year-old arm. The spark of the Force, you called it, the crystal accepting the machine as a part of him.

But there was something more. You stiffened, the soft, sweet scent making you sneeze, making you draw back and—

“Since when in the name of Maker did you start wearing nlorna fruit-scented perfume?”

His cheekbones immediately stained red, shock dripping from every inch of his face until the charm and delight took over for the damage control.

“Some reporter tried to get up too close while I was on my way to the Temple.”

You laughed it off, knowing very well the Chancellor had banned journalists to enter the Temple after an incident involving three women, two men, and a food fight in the barracks had ended with Commander Cody coming off with a sprained neck and handing nearly half of the 212th two days’ worth of time of cleaning the trooper barracks on Coruscant. There were admirers of General Kenobi and on the other hand, well, admirers even Kenobi couldn’t negotiate with.

Obviously, it wouldn’t take an idiot to know. Anakin had always confided everything to you. He’d considered you as the best of his friends — the point which had exactly been the problem for the past two years. But you knew he was keeping something. You knew it, and the realization of it had cracked through whatever strength you always mustered whenever he smiled at you with those blue eyes — always so tired. Ones that had come to no one else to you for caf, for stories about your mind-blowing inventions, always teasing you about the time you had created such a fluffy pillow for Master Yoda’s backaches that it had taken him the collective efforts of the Council to wake him up from his slumber. You had never known what had happened in Master Yoda’s chambers, but the Council had learned not to disturb the centuries-old master from his sleep ever since then.

Anakin would continue on and on, narrating the tales of his adventures across the galaxy, while you kept on wondering when he’d slip like he usually did and confirm your worst fears.

But you never got the chance. The war grew on, spreading its tentacles to the corners of the Outer Rim to the point where the once full hallways of the Temple had never been so desolate, so hollow and abandoned. Every attempt of studying the Force your meditation had ended up just easing the mighty power as it writhed under the screams of terror, of the losses of life and the constant blasts and booms of missiles and bombs.

Just when you wished for some peace in the Temple, word had spread of spies in the Senate. You had joined Anakin and Obi-Wan to watch another one of the Senate’s heated sessions. The Chancellor’s bony fingers extended across the air, his steel voice commanding Senator Orn Free-Taa to shut down his baseless arguing against Senator Organa. But the senator from Ryloth simply refused to back down, until another pod smoothly drifted to join the three, the air ringing with the determination and tranquility brought forth by none other than Padmé Amidala.

The bond between you and Anakin flared up, something so bright and looming, such beauty and danger filling your soul till it vanished with a spark. You looked at Anakin, who had been clapping with the surrounding senators, his radiant smile only and only for no one but the occupant of the Nubian pod.

For so long, you had wondered who it was he’d found, had been so desperate for an opportunity to see, maybe echo some made-up protest or remark that’d dull his interest and make him come back to you no matter how selfish it sounded. But it was hard for you to ignore the goodness in Padmé’s heart, her resilience easing the Force in a way you never could, no matter how much time you spent studying it, meditating to repair its cracks and tear apart the veins of darkness shrouding its light.

Anakin Skywalker had fallen in love, and it wasn’t you. It was someone else and you… you were simply too late.

You let out a sigh, watching the Nubian ship disappear between the tall skyscrapers of the ecumenopolis. The scrolls on your table rustle for your attention, and you heavy-heartedly oblige, going back to once again analyze another countermeasure against the Separatists, who were now rumored to have created some sort of machine that could decimate entire civilizations — a planet-killer, the informant had said, before being poisoned to death.

You set down the scrolls with a heavy thump. Ever since Padmé, Anakin hardly ever came to visit. Ever since this stupid rumor of the Separatists’ planet-killer, the governing body of the entire galaxy looked up to you for solutions, for answers. They had offered you a chunk of kyber crystal retrieved from Ilum stolen by the Separatists and then recovered by Master Yoda himself. They demanded a weapon, sharply silencing your idea of diplomacy.

You wished for Anakin to maybe visit you, to just… just forget the karking war for five freaking minutes and let his childhood lullabies lull you to a restful slumber. Instead, you were drilling your gaze on the kyber crystal covering under a massive rug, the strength of the Force humming within a wonder for your meditation, the crystal’s deathly blue glow the bane of your sleep.

But that was the point. Maybe just forget the war. It did seem never-ending; one day the Republic won, the Separatists in the other. There was simply no end in sight. The number of lives to save was steeply increasing, missing civilians and dead soldiers bruising the Republic’s morale. Your master had been one of the unfortunate Jedi to pass into the Cosmic Force on Geonosis. Some of the padawans you had formed friendships with were now soldiers scattered across the galaxy. The Council was too busy arguing about matters behind closed doors, matters in half of which you were indirectly involved in. Anakin was away most of the time, the Hero With No Fear too busy to worry about his best friend who had so foolishly violated her morals and had fallen in love with him.

Isn’t that what you had exactly trained yourself to avoid?

“It’ll pass.”

You scoff at your Master’s words ringing in your head. The anger simmering in your bones builds up to a crescendo, and makes its presence known with the shatter of your sensor arrays on the opposite wall. Glass shards litter your laboratory, blood trickling down the lines of your palms, your exhausted tears joining the red dripping on the floor.

A soft twang bends the air in the room and echoes through the Force. The hair on the back of the neck rises sharply, and you watch the kyber in bewilderment. The deathly blue behind the rug hums stronger. Your equipment breathes to life, and your teary eyes squint in confusion, rushing toward the kyber as an invisible force possesses your machinery to run diagnostics on its own.

The deathly blue turns as bright as the Coruscanti sun shining at the Core, lighting up the edges of the galaxy with a power rivaling the one you and so many others before you control. You shield your eyes, stumbling over boxes and books detailing advancements of the past. Your equipment spits electric sparks, and you cower behind your arms.

“Stop it—STOP!”

The glow dies, the light in your laboratory returning to just as it was before. You launch into a fit of coughs, waving your hands to disperse the smoke filling the lab. You tune your senses and reach out into the Force.

The wave of a horrifying scream slams into you, knocking you off your feet. You summon the Force again, hoping the mystical power can help you steady yourself. But you freefall toward the table of sharp-edged screws and bolts until you’re pulled forward headlong towards a figure.

You regain your balance, fingernails digging into a smooth fabric covering a rock-hard chest. A tendril of warmth and concern wraps around your Force signature, and you look up at your savior.

“Anakin!”

You wrap your arms around his neck, breathing him in, all of him— wait, was that cabbage and banthaweed? Oh, who in the maker gave a shit — was he alright? Was he—

Your train of thought crashed to a halt as you draw back, gazing at Anakin before you. Your heart rate accelerates to a speed you can’t bring yourself to control, and you pray to the Maker he doesn’t hear it.

He’d done something to his hair. It was longer now, falling just below his shoulder and partly tied back, streaks of light brown and grey near his temples. Loose shirts and trousers and softer tones of beige and brown had replaced his dark, billowing robes. Most of all, you’re aware of his stormy blue eyes roving over you, wide-eyed in absolute shock.

“Hi.”

There’s a strange breath in the greeting that escapes him, one that makes you gulp; his throat visibly bobs as he clenches his jaw. The movement makes you realize there are two feet between you and him. Two feet away from the thunderous storm that is always Anakin Skywalker.

To your surprise, there’s no storm raging before you, nothing but a serene sun shining bright, its warm tranquillity reminding you of the one time you and Anakin had snuck off-world to Naboo as padawans. He’d promised the summers there at the time were delightful, and true to his words, they really were.

You reach out, intertwining your fingers with his, and meet flesh instead of cold metal.

You yelp, harshly flinching backwards. Anakin’s eyebrows shoot up in concern and he raises both his hands in an attempt to placate you. You’re horrified as you see his right arm, no longer a prosthetic but actual flesh.

“Sky!”

A sharp voice rings through the dimly-lit hallways, footsteps running their way towards you, and Anakin Skywalker skids to a stop at the threshold of your laboratory.

“Sky, are you—”

He halts his question mid-way, acknowledging the presence of the man standing right beside you.

There’s a moment of silence that passes between the two stunned men, before the Jedi-clad Anakin ignites his lightsaber, pointing the laser tip toward his long-haired double.

“Sky, get behind me.”

“Wha—” You whirl toward him with an indignant expression and your hands on your hips. “Do you think I’m incapable of defending myself?”

“No, I don’t—”

“On the contrary,” the long-haired Anakin speaks, his voice mellifluous and silvery, “I think not.”

You and Anakin pause in beginning another one of your bickering sessions, Anakin’s lightsaber still leveled against his double.

“Who in the hell are you?”

“Anakin Skywalker?” the long-haired Anakin answers again in the same tone, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “And you must be…”

“Anakin Skywalker,” says your Anakin, the height of his lightsaber inching slowly to the ground, utterly confused.

Shit.

“Well, this is interesting.”

The three of you swerve toward Obi-Wan standing in the doorway, arms crossed as he strokes his beard while Cody’s eyes are going to pop right off of his skull, witnessing one Anakin standing on each of your sides. Captain Rex, on the other hand, just aged a standard decade more with the lines appearing on his forehead.

“Stand down, Anakin. There’s no need for… that,” Obi-Wan ends rather admonishingly, though stunningly failing, still roiling from his possible lack of sleep — or the shock of seeing a copy of his former padawan.

Anakin’s lightsaber retracts into its hilt, and Obi-Wan turns to you.

“Consular Sky.”

Double shit.

“Are you alright?”

Oh, thank Maker—“Yes, Master Kenobi,” you nod fervently, not knowing whether you’re doing a good job of convincing Obi-Wan or yourself. “I’m completely fine, all thanks to Anakin.”

“It’s no problem, Sky.”

“You’re welcome.”

Anakin shoots a glare at, well, the long-haired Anakin, who shrugs with a relaxed raise of his eyebrows.

Obi-Wan looks like he’s about to faint right then and there, but the negotiator that he’s always been, he schools his expression just in time before anyone else can comment on it.

“Could you tell us what happened here, Sky?”

You look around your laboratory, trying to find an answer to the same question evidently ringing loud in everyone else’s minds.

Something along the lines of your nighttime reading pops up in your mind, and you cringe inwardly.

Double shit.

Obi-Wan’s expression settles into the one he’s always worn whenever he’s attending another one of the Council’s meetings.

Triple shit.

“Well, I don’t think I need to tell you where we’re going next, are we?”

“Which is the point here—”

The room’s attention turns back to the long-haired Anakin, eyes twinkling bright with the same softness as the time of his appearance.

“Where exactly are we going?”

Maker, he had to ask.

“From another universe, this version of Skywalker is?”

You grit your teeth and find the courage to nod.

Master Yoda grips his cane even tighter. Honestly, you really want to pity the old master, but Master Windu sits right next to him, clearly grouchy at being disturbed from the sleep he probably got after weeks and weeks of leading attack and rescue campaigns.

“How is this even possible?” Master Koon’s voice rumbles through his mask, sharp and alert despite the drowsiness emanating from a majority of the Jedi Council.

“Well, Master Koon, there’s the multiverse theory,” you speak, voice slightly quivering. “It’s clear our universe isn’t the only one that exists. There are thousands of worlds out there with billions and trillions of lifeforms. But they’re distantly separated from ours, just like all others. For all we know, they might have their own laws of physics, their own collections of stars and galaxies — that is, if stars and galaxies can exist in those universes,” you stop a nervous hiccup and continue. “—and maybe even their own intelligent civilizations.”

“Is this true, then?” Master Windu leans forward with his signature soul-scanning glare. “Are you truly from another universe? Or just another shapeshifter?”

All other Council members swerve their heads toward the long-haired Anakin standing on your right.

“I assure you, Master Windu,” the other Anakin shrugs lightly. “I am not from here. I—”

He takes a second to look around, his gaze turning distant.

“I will admit I have been here before, in the Temple, though this one does look incredibly different from the one I was raised and trained in.”

Several pairs of eyebrows shoot up in surprise, even Anakin’s, who stands just in the corner behind where Obi-Wan has himself perched on another one of the Council chairs.

Master Windu recovers from his internal heart attack and focuses his line of sight on you.

“How did this happen?”

“Honestly, even I’m not sure, Master Windu,” you admit. “I did nothing of any sort to the crystal, it just started to glow, and the next thing I know—”

“I’m here,” the other Anakin finishes, eyes twinkling in some sort of amused annoyance.

Master Yoda taps his cane, and the Council’s incoming deliberations surrender to silence.

“Will of the Force, it seems, that this Skywalker has been sent here. Aid us, harm us, know that, I do not.”

He flutters his eyes close for a brief second, tendrils of his power hesitantly coiling around you and the other — long-haired — Anakin before refocusing them on you.

“Consular—” you stiffen as Master Yoda blurts out your name. “—find a way to send this Skywalker to his home, your task it is. Help you, our Skywalker will. Lead Captain Rex and the Five-Oh-First, Master Kenobi will—”

Behind Obi-Wan, Anakin steps forward to protest.

“—Temporarily, till resolved, the situation is.”

Anakin stops to stand on your left, the slight touch from his elbow a sign of comfort and reassurance.

“Important I feel, it is, to send this Skywalker home. Stay longer, he must not. At war, we already are. Already upon us, the shadows of the Sith are.”

The long-haired Anakin’s eyebrows raise.

You sigh inwardly. I’ll explain it to you later.

He relaxes, and you turn toward your Anakin, who gazes at his counterpart with a strange mixture of suspicion and something along the lines of annoyance.

“Send him home quickly, you must, Consular,” Master Yoda speaks with an inspired urgency. “Terrible it will be, I sense if the Sith find him. Not just for Jedi, but for the Galaxy, also.”

Your Anakin moves closer, his fingertips brushing yours, a tingling sensation itching yours to touch his.

You focus your gaze on the masters before you and bow down with both Anakins, nodding towards Yoda and Windu.

“Master Kenobi will show our guest to his new quarters.”

Obi-Wan seems relieved at finally being allowed to stretch his legs as he strides over to the long-haired Anakin.

“Come along,” the master pauses before smiling in his wise and incredibly tired ways. “Anakin.”

The other Anakin offers a cordial nod and turns to you.

“I suppose I’ll be seeing you later.”

He poses it as a question of sorts. You don’t take time to dissect his intentions, having no energy to do so with the day’s certainly turbulent events and give him a nod.

“Thank you.”

Your eyes slightly twitch in alertness as he offers you a bright, albeit tired smile. Before you can respond or react, he’s already followed Obi-Wan to his quarters, having long disappeared around the nearby corner.

“Sky?”

Your Anakin puts his hand — the metal hand — on your shoulder.

You can practically feel the gears of his joints creaking to ensure his touch stays gentle, despite knowing very well he could easily crush your lung right now with the frustration nagging at his veins.

“It’s nothing, Anakin,” you answer before he can voice his worries out loud. “I’ll be fine—we better get some sleep, lots of work to do.”

Anakin nods, letting go of you with a soft smile. With a sweep of his robes, he walks out of the Council chambers.

You finally let out the breath you’d been holding; the image of both of their smiles filling your vision much clearer than they were supposed to.

Quadruple shit.

to be continued...

thank you so so much for reading! if you'd like to be added to the tag list, comment below! <33

gif credits to @nowadayz

cross-posted on AO3 <33

part one (here) | two | ....

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aspenstarflare · 9 months

Text

Time for round three of Clone wars headcanons:

-Cody definitely carries around all of Obi-wan’s favorite types of tea on the Negotiator, and definitely always keeps two tea bags on his utility belt during campaigns in case Obi-wan needs tea and lost his own. (The extra one is for him so he can drink Tea with Obi-wan at the fire)

-It’s canon that Obi-wan always loses his lightsaber and that Cody always gives him it back, but in the background Anakin and Ahsoka have definitely been keeping count how many times Cody handed Obi-wan his lightsaber and threaten to tell the entire GAR anytime they want to blackmail Obi-wan.

-Kix and Rex definitely had to beg Ahsoka to wear her season 3 - 5 outfit, maybe even chase her around the Resolute to get her to wear just something slightly more protective. They did try pushing the agenda of amrour later but they pushed their luck and Ahsoka threatened to go back to the tube top she had from the clone war movie to season 2.

-When Obi-wan’s men in the 212th are injured he personally makes sure to have Tea parties with his injured men to cheer them up and give them something to do in the med bay, making sure to remember the favorites of each solider to make them feel a special as Obi-wan always reminds them they very much are.

-Children, no matter which planet, absolutely adore clones, especially ones of the 501st who are close with Ahsoka (because the kids see that they’re absolute softies from how they interact with her), the children will follow the clones around, asking them mountains of questions and begging them to play games with them. One time on a snowy planet some children in a village the 501st was stationed at, charge Ahsoka and the torrent company with snowballs, leading to a village wide snowball fight between the troopers, Anakin and Ahsoka vs. the towns children (and even some adults). The town’s children for the rest of the time the 501st is there, take time to memorize all their names, play with them, share their hot chocolates with them, and give them little presents (bracelets, necklaces, little nicknack stuff like that) to the troopers to keep to remember them. The 501st cherishes the presents from their little friends and always make sure to keep them on them.

- Ahsoka definitely loves climbing on her brothers like trees rather it be to wrestle for fun, climb on their shoulders, and get a free piggy back ride, she does it whenever she can. After or during campaigns she gets really tired on, during hikes to rendezvous point where she’s exhausted on she simply climbs onto the nearest brother’s back on and dozes off. No one ever bothers to complain about it because a. She’s super light and b. the trooper that gets to carry her for the rest of the hike gets to feel the comfort knowing their commander is well and safe with them and trusts them enough to rely on them for safety when she’s asleep.

-Boil and Waxer have walked in on Obi-wan and Cody cuddling before and snapped a picture, and have been provided a lifetime supply of chocolate (curtsey of Obi-wan) in order to keep their mouths shut.

-Ahsoka and Fives have made it their lives mission to prank Echo, Rex, and Anakin as much as possible. Once gluing pink glitter all over Anakin’s hair, earning them refresher duty for a month.

-Ahsoka sometimes goes on hunts when they are on planets with the right kind of animals and environments, taking a batch of clones with her just in case any droids show up. The first time she did this on a mission, she murdered a large animal with her bare hands and teeth, Jesse passed out when he saw all the blood on her face and everyone was horrified. Everyone was excited to eat something other than rations for once but the clones that went with Ahsoka were horrified how she easily and bloodily she murdered a animal with just her teeth.

#ahsoka tano #anakin skywalker #codywan #clone wars #anakin and ahsoka #anakin is a father to ahsoka and the 501st #captain rex #arc trooper fives #obiwan kenobi #commander cody #waxer and boil #arc trooper echo #clone medic kix #obi wan’s tea addiction #obi wan’s lightsaber losing hypocrisy #children adore clones are I absolutely love it #ahsoka the feral Togruta #ahsoka is a sister to the clones

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wild-karrde · 9 months

Note

Congrats on 800 🥳 !!!!

For a quote-ficlet request, Commander Cody and Ahsoka Tano (underappreciated duo imo)! “What did Skywalker do now?”

THANK YOU SO MUCH and THANK YOU very much for the ask! I completely agree that they are an underappreciated duo! I hope you dig what I came up with!

Rating: T

Warnings: language, extremely fluffy sibling dynamics

Word Count: 1.6k words

“Ah good. Anakin’s returned.”

Cody glanced up just in time to see the 501st’s gunship landing in the hangar of their Venator. The doors hissed open, and he felt himself already doing the mental tally in his mind, checking off brothers as they stepped out one by one. Their numbers still appeared to be mostly intact, and Cody felt himself relax slightly, especially when he caught a glimpse of a pair of painted blue Jaig eyes emerging from inside the ship.

“I’m curious how his mission went,” General Kenobi remarked. “Hopefully, he and Ahsoka were able to hold the line on the eastern front. That will make recapturing the capital city much easier.”

Cody had a sneaking suspicion that things hadn’t gone quite according to plan. They rarely did when his general’s former padawan was left unsupervised. The first glimpse he caught of Skywalker’s new padawan only seemed to confirm that suspicion. He could already see something was off in the way the young Togruta’s shoulders slumped as she strode off of the gunship. Her eyes were glassy, and her teeth were digging firmly into her bottom lip. She was clearly trying to keep her head up and put on a brave front, but something had battered her, and judging by the fact that she had no visible injuries, Cody suspected it was her master. His mouth turned downward in annoyance.

What did Skywalker do now?

It wasn’t that he thought Skywalker was necessarily cruel for the sake of being cruel; he just hadn’t wanted a padawan, a fact that he had made abundantly clear to that padawan despite her not being at fault in any of this. She was a child, one that had been placed on a transport and sent into a warzone. And Anakin had yet to accept that fact and adapt to it, something Cody couldn’t understand.

We always took care of the cadets. Always protected them when we could. Always looked forward to mentoring them so that they would be able to stay safe. Why won’t he do the same for her?

Rex had told him what Skywalker had been subjecting his padawan to for training, and quite frankly, it enraged him. While Cody was as stringent about preparing his men and their counterparts for battle as anyone, he vehemently disagreed with Skywalker’s methods for a multitude of reasons.

Firing on a teenager, even with stun bolts? Unacceptable.

Rex had confessed how much he hated it after a few rounds at 79s, and while he had to support his general in front of his men and toe the line, watching the young Togruta’s confidence slowly slip away under her reluctant master’s constant berating was beginning to wear on him as well. Cody had teased his brother relentlessly about how quickly he’d become protective of Ahsoka, joking that she might as well share their face and have been born from a tube.

But in spite of all of his teasing, he understood it. He couldn’t deny he felt a certain level of protectiveness over her as well, as did Kenobi. When he’d found out that his general had initially thought she was assigned as his padawan, Cody had allowed himself to think about how things might have been different, how she’d have been leading with him rather than Rex. He’d liked the thought of having her around, but he also knew Ahsoka had had a positive impact on Rex, and that the two of them working together had maybe tempered some of his brother’s recklessness.

Kenobi would have been the better choice, of that he was certain. His general was empathetic to a fault at times, normally very cognizant of the feelings of the people around him. However, at the moment, it seemed that his general was completely focused on his former padawan, oblivious to the mood of the young Togruta as he strode by her, absently resting a hand on her shoulder in greeting as he passed. Cody could see the touch brought her little comfort as Kenobi continued past, not even sparing her a second glance as he greeted Skywalker. Anakin was obviously in a foul mood, his brows knitted together in his trademark scowl. Ahsoka turned and looked over her shoulder at master one more time as he exited the gunship, clearly hoping for some sort of reprieve, but Skywalker pointedly ignored her, meeting Kenobi and walking off with him in the opposite direction with Rex in tow. The captain of the 501st removed his helmet as he fell into step behind them, his gaze lingering on Ahsoka as she slumped off before he turned and met Cody’s eyes with a pleading look. The unspoken ask was clear.

Keep an eye on her.

Cody gave him a short nod, and Rex responded with a grateful grimace before he disappeared out of the hangar with their commanding officers.

Ahsoka had made her way over to one of the large windows on the hangar deck and was hugging herself tightly, staring out at the starfield before her. Cody ran his hand through his short-cropped, regulation haircut before sighing to himself and striding over. She didn’t turn to look at him when he stopped next to her, her eyes only briefly flicking over to where he stood before returning to the empty space ahead of them.

They’d had a few interactions, all of which were brief and simple, but this time, Cody wasn’t quite certain where to start. He didn’t want to drag Skywalker through the mud in front of her. As far as he understood Jedi tradition, she was permanently bound to her master, and they had to figure each other out. Driving an even larger wedge in between them wouldn’t help things, and it would only make Rex and his brothers less safe if their two Jedi leaders were at odds. But she wouldn’t want to be coddled either, that much he’d gathered from her personality. She was a good kid, as stubborn as her master, but above all, determined to prove that she was competent, that she could do this, that she would do this. It just might take more time than she had patience for.

Cody wet his lips. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Ahsoka shrugged, but he could see her eyes were still glossy. “Same as always," she muttered. "I disappointed Master Skywalker again. Did something wrong, and apparently, I somehow should have known better.” She sniffed. “I know he didn’t want me, and I’m trying so hard to be a good padawan and a good leader, but I don’t have it all figured out yet, and I feel like I can’t learn it all fast enough. Like I’ll never be good enough.”

Cody nodded, thinking for a moment before taking a deep breath and wading in. “You know, no matter how many times I come up here, I never get used to the number of stars I can see from this deck. More than I can from any planet’s surface.”

The padawan was quiet for a moment before dipping her chin in agreement, not questioning his abrupt change of topic. “They’re really pretty.”

“That they are. But you know, it’s always funny to me how they all look the same from here,” he noted. Ahsoka turned to him, raising one eyebrow in curiosity, clearly wondering where he was going with this. Cody pressed forward. “They’re all different when you’re up close. Some are burning hot and blue, while others are cooler and red. Some are massive and others are smaller. A few are part of a binary system with two stars, some have even more than that, relying on one another to keep things in balance, but you can’t see them separately from here. Some are at the beginning of their life, others moments from going supernova or burning out. All so different, but from here, they all look the same.”

Ahsoka rocked on her heels. “I suppose that’s true.”

Cody flexed his fingers, glancing over down at her to see if his hastily cobbled-together metaphor was landing. She was clearly mulling it over, but he decided to maybe be a bit more clear rather than letting her meander towards his meaning. There were enough riddles and metaphors in her Jedi training.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned down and nudged her with his shoulder, knocking her slightly off balance. “What I’m trying to say is it’s easy to think we’ve all got our shit together at a distance. Jedi, clones, even other padawans. But everyone is on their own path. Sometimes we are burning brightly, sometimes we're close to burning out, and sometimes we’re relying on the ones around us to hold us up, and all of that is part of life. Doesn’t make you any less or the general any more. Just means you’re doing it differently, and from what I know of General Skywalker, different comes with the territory. You’re doing alright, Commander. You’re finding your way, just like the rest of us, and no one can rush that. Not even The Chosen One.”

A smirk tugged at the corner of Ahsoka’s lips as she recovered her balance and shrugged. “You mean to tell me you and Master Kenobi don’t always have things figured out?”

Cody chuckled quietly. “If we did, do you think I’d have a clip on my belt specifically for when I recover his lightsaber?”

Ahsoka giggled, and Cody warmed. “Don’t tell him I said that though," he whispered.

The young Togruta grinned. “I won’t.” She leaned against the clone commander slightly. “Thanks, Cody.”

The gesture took him aback slightly, but he reached down and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Of course, kid.”

Thanks for participating in my 800 Follower Celebration!

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canichangemyblogname · 1 year

Text

So, I recently left these comments in the tags of a poll about my interpretation of Commander Fox:

I think I may interpret Fox very differently. Because, see, he's canonically one of the most decorated men in the Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone Wars. He clearly took his duty very seriously, and was good at his job. I'm sure he, much like Rex (and many other clones), believed it an honor to serve. And based on the actions of other Corrie Guard Commanders, there seemed to be a cult of death among the Corrie Guard (the honorable death being is one of the 14 characteristics of fascism Umberto Eco listed in his essay Ur-Fascism). They absolutely would die to protect Coruscant, and I absolutely believe that they believed in the system they fought for, as many clones did. I see Fox as a narrative representation of who Rex might have become and the path he might've taken had he not had influences from brothers like Slick, Cut, Fives, Dogma, and Echo, or influences from Jedi like Ahsoka and even Pong Krell. Fox would go on to have an absolute view of O66, and go on to believe the extermination of the Jedi was righteous. Would he have believed so had he had a mentee like Ahsoka? Or met brothers like Cut and Fives and Echo who challenged his worldview around honor and duty and purpose? Or met brothers like Slick and Dogma who revealed the injustices within the system & challenged his view of the Republic? Or if he had ever had to serve on a front that wasn't Coruscant? Serve alongside partisans? Serve behind enemy lines? Or lose entire divisions under the capricious orders of a bad Jedi?

And there's one arc that drives this interpretation home for me: The Wrong Jedi Arc. In this Arc, Captain Rex and Commander Fox come to a head as they disagree over Ahsoka's guilt and how to proceed with the investigation into the temple bombing. Rex knows that Ahsoka embodies the ideals he believes they (the GAR & Republic) should stand for because he has served alongside her and fought with her. He knows because he trained her. "I know Commander Tano. She would never do something like this." Rex had tried to instill in her a value of and loyalty to the men she served alongside.

Earlier in the Arc, Fox had been working with Ahsoka and had even complimented her efforts in apprehending suspects as "A lot of innocent people died in that blast." But as soon as Ahsoka is suspected of having masterminded the conspiracy, Fox moves to arrest her. In season 7 when Rex told Ahsoka that loyalty meant everything to the Clones, he didn't mean loyalty to the Senate or the Republic or the Power Base, but to those they have served beside and fought alongside.

This seems not to be an idea that Fox shares. Despite having worked alongside her every step of the investigation and despite her having an alibi (a.k.a. literally being recalled from the front to investigate because she was nowhere near the Temple during the incident), he never gave Ahsoka the benefit of the doubt. There seemed to have been no sense of duty or loyalty or responsibility to someone he was fighting alongside. He was given orders to arrest her and so pursued them.

Fox was deeply bound by a sense of duty and honor in the same way Rex had been early in the war. This sense of honor compelled Fox to loyally serve and protect Coruscant, and, more specifically, the Galactic Senate. I'd argue that Fox's duty was to the Senate first and the Republic second because he was specifically stationed on Courscant to serve and protect the Galactic Senate.

For comparison, Rex's priority was primarily toward his men rather than the Galactic Senate. That priority stemmed, at least partly, from how he was stationed compared to how Fox was stationed. Rex served behind enemy lines and alongside partisans and was unfortunately familiar with significant loss. He'd lost men under tragic and unjust circumstances. He'd lost entire companies of men. On-screen, the deaths of the men of the 501st were given little show and little pretense compared to the death of, say, Commander Thorn. Death is shown to be comparatively banal on the fields of Umbara in service to the Republic compared to any death among the Corrie Guard in service to the Senate.

These sort of circumstances create a very specific bond between Rex and his men, but they also shape a person's priorities. Rex started out as one of those "follow orders for the Republic" guys, something we see him and Anakin joke about at the start of the Umbara arc. But eventually, Rex's priority became getting his brothers through to the end of the war alive. In fact, I'd argue that the overarching plot of The Clone Wars was about Rex coming to believe that his duty was to his brothers first and the power base second.

By the time The Wrong Jedi Arc airs, Rex has learned that fealty to the Republic (& thus the governing body of the Republic: the Senate) does not ensure a solid moral framework. He was less concerned with loyalty to order and some inherent sense of duty, and more concerned with loyalty to the ideals he believed they should stand for and to the people who embodied those ideals. Rex had been headed down this path since early in the Clone Wars series. It's what he told Cut as early as season 2. However, it would be a couple more seasons (season 4 to be specific) before he realized that serving the power base can conflict with those ideals, and that the people who represented the power base did not embody those ideals.

And this is what brings him and Fox to a head.

Fox never had an Ahsoka who he trained and fought beside. Fox also never experienced the opposite end of the spectrum by serving under Pong Krell. Unlike Rex, Fox had never had to come to terms with his loyalty to the order he served. That loyalty always remained unchallenged until the moment he died. He was never confronted with the consequences of the Senate's (lack of) morality on other peoples, districts, or planets. He was never confronted with the hypocrisy of those in power. He didn't have brothers whose actions challenged him to build a morality outside fealty to the Republic. (Slick saw their service as enslavement. Cut believes service is a choice and that family is paramount. Fives believes Clones can think for themselves, disobey wrong orders, and challenge authority.) Serving the power base did not conflict with Fox's ideals because his ideals aligned with the values of the power base; the values the Republic had instilled in him during his training. They believed- and he believed- that good soldiers follow orders. Consequently, he became one of the best-decorated soldiers in the GAR.

Rex, however, had come to question the purpose of the war. Without the war, he wouldn't exist, but if he sees the war to its end, he may stop existing (die). The war gave him purpose, but it also took away the opportunity to define for himself a different purpose. He knew nothing else besides life in the military, but he also knew that he had lost so much because of a life of war. Much like the Jedi he served beside, he was unconventional, driven by a deep attachment to those he loved, and he would eventually also grow wary of the system he was serving.

We talk about how Ahsoka being framed and leaving the Order destroys Anakin's faith and trust in the Order and shifts his priorities. But we seldom discuss how this might have affected Rex. Like Anakin, Rex had a lot resting on his shoulders. Rex was effectively trapped. He had limited options and nowhere else to go. Like Anakin and most Clones, Rex could not leave it all behind. Unlike Anakin and many Clones, Rex learned to let go. Ahsoka and Echo played a crucial role in that lesson.

But unlike Rex, Fox never let go. There was never an indication he had grown wary of the system. Not just because his values aligned with the system he served and continued to serve, but also because he was totally committed to it. Just as he had no one to model questioning authority and duty and purpose, he had no one to model choice and letting go. He was attached to his duty like Anakin was attached to Padmé. Fox held on to his convictions and his belief in the absolute morality of his cause and in total commitment to his cause until the bitter end when he was cut down without pretense. Fox was loyal to the end because it was his commitment that would bring his end.

And his death was as banal as the death of every clone before him.

Had Rex not learned the things he had when he had, I think he would have met a similar end as Fox did. A rigid attachment to his ideological beginnings, an absolute belief in the morality of following orders, and a black-and-white value system would have led to his death. His commitment would have brought his end, too.

“Yeah, I didn’t much like being a Commander anyway.” -Rex

______________________________________________________________

As a Commander, Rex's commitment would have had to change, too. There are many reasons why I think he did not want to be a Commander, as I discussed here, and I believe one of them includes a change in his commitment to the system he was serving. As commander, he would have had very different responsibilities and a different relationship with both the Republic he was serving and the Men he was commanding. "He enjoyed being a Captain because it allowed him to be right beside–like right beside–his men facing the line of fire. He gets to be in the thick of action as a Captain in a way that he may not always be as a Commander." But I think it would be interesting if didn't want to be a Commander because he also didn't want new & more commitments to the system he served. Maybe, he wanted to stay right where he was because he liked his position relative to his relationship with the men he was commanding AND relative to the commitments he held.

#Captain Rex #Commander Fox #Ahsoka Tano #Star Wars #The Clone Wars #this is kinda all over the place #there's no real flow or direction in this rant #just ideas shoved into a post #Rex quiet quitting?

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knightprincess · 7 months

Text

Forgive Me (Echo x Medic Reader) Part 15

Words: Just over 1k Warning: Spoilers for Bad Batch Season 1, a bit of suspense. Pairing: Echo/Medic Reader Pronouns: She/Her A/N: Sorry for the long wait, got a little sidetracked with other projects outside of writing (digital art & cross stitching)

The war was coming to a close, no one could deny it. The senators who fought in the senate knew the end was drawing nearer, although none could say for sure what if it was they could sense coming to an end. All they could say for sure was the unexplainable feeling of dread and impending doom, lingering in the air. The Jedi too had felt it, along with the harsh judgment cast upon them by the very people they had fought to protect. The judgment that now branded them as much of enemies as the Separatists they fought against. The judgment that called them bloodthirsty warmongers.

In the months since Echo had been rescued by the daring Jedi Knight, Anakin Skywalker, his loyal Captain Rex, and the Enhanced Commando unit collectively known as The Bad Batch. A fair bit had changed. Echo had made the decision to join the Bad Batch, going on missions and adventures with them across the galaxy, slowly accepting the truth he'd tried so hard to deny, he wasn't the same Arc Trooper he once was, although still an asset, he was more machine than clone now.

But his decision to join the Bad Batch had come at a price. He had to leave (Y/N) behind. She was assigned to the 501st and would remain with them until she was either reassigned or the war ended. With Kix going MIA, Snap was the only medic the boys in blue had, the only one they trusted enough to attend to their wounds and open up to about the brutality of the war. She was a trusted and loyal friend to every clone she met, in return, they treated her as if she was one of their own, as Cody put it, she had an army of protective brothers.

At first, Echo had been reluctant to leave (Y/N) behind, during his quiet moments aboard the Marauder, her thoughts would drift to her and the concern she would feel abandoned by him grew in power. He'd forget about the conversations he had with her while recovering from his traumatic experience as a prisoner of war, he'd forgotten the advice Snap had given him while offering encouragement. Telling him to find his place and himself, encouraging him to put himself first instead of everyone else.

"Still thinking about her?" asked Hunter, noticing Echo had been staring off into hyperspace for quite some time now. The blue and white swirls reflected in his pale eyes. The assignment to Kaller was minor compared to the majority of troopers reassigned to Coruscant, General Grevious' attack there seemingly shook everyone, even more so when the droid commander had managed to gain access to one of the more secure buildings on the planet and kidnap the Chancellor.

"She has that effect" replied Echo, suspecting Snap would have been reassigned to Coruscant along with the rest of the 501st. He had little doubt she would have been sent back to the military base, prepared to do her duty as a well-trained and tested medic. "I feel guilty for leaving her behind again. The last time I promised her I would be back, I ended up a prisoner and weapon for years" admitted the Arc Trooper, although he refused to word his other concerns, that it would be her taken from him if something was to go arie this time. After all in recent weeks, the civvi medics and other personnel had been targets of attacks, medics more than others.

"(Y/N) is a fighter, I do not envy those who believe it wise to target her" voiced Tech, not lifting his eyes from the datapad he tapped away at. "My research suggests her last known location was on Coruscant, give me a few more minutes and I should have an exact location" he added, only receiving a hum from Crosshair, he and Hunter were the only ones to really notice Tech like many had become fond of Snap, often keeping an eye on her whereabouts over the time since building a friendship.

"The 104th, 212th, and 501st's are with her. What could go wrong?" questioned Wrecker, all knew Octavius was a constant thorn but had thrust far been easily deterred, as had Isolde, who spent the majority of her time trying to regain Octavius' attention, especially when she realized he had put it back on to her younger sister. If Isolde wasn't trying to get Octavius back, then she was making a poor attempt at her job, which normally ensured the Jedi were updated on any changes, should anything have changed during the short and normally uneventful trip from the temple to the military base. More often than not it appeared Isolde was sabotaging the Jedi she was supposed to keep informed, a few times her stupidity had been mistaken for terrorist acts.

The moment the elite unit landed on Kaller, the focus became the mission at hand. Echo forced the thoughts of (Y/N) to the back of his mind, promising himself he would return to them later. For now, he had to keep his mind on the here and now and ensure Jedi Master Depa Billada and her Padawan Caleb Dume had the support they needed, even if they didn't have the backup requested.

The job was simple enough, provide aid to allow the occupation to continue with as little as possible. If need be settle the hostile residents of the planet, who had plainly stated they didn't see a difference between the Separatist Occupation and that of the Republic, both had caused destruction and brought war with them. At the top of a snowy peak, the five soldiers were met by Caleb Dume, who seemed surprised by there only being five, it being clear he and likely his master had expected an attack battalion rather than the enhanced squad.

The battle had been easy enough, a standard mission. Hunter and Crosshair had assessed the enemy forces, with the sergeant deciding on the plan to use. By the time the skirmish was over, Wrecker had another battle droid over his shoulders and Crosshair was nudging some scattered across the battlefield if only to ensure they were deactivated. Hunter had gone over to General and those hiding with her, Tech and Echo following behind, with the former still trying to access seemingly locked files.

Everything had been as it should be, a regular assignment with an easy solution to it. Everything was normal until it wasn't. When one order came through and continued to repeat.

Execute Order 66.

Masterlist

#forgive me (echo x medic reader)#arc trooper echo #tbb tech #sargent hunter #tbb wrecker #tbb crosshair #the bad batch #fem! medic reader #reader interactive #reader insert #x reader fanfic #star wars fanfction #star wars x reader #part 15

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flyiingsly · 6 months

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CFB 2023 Masterlist

Here it is ! My masterlist for the @clonexreaderbingo :D This event was so much fun to write for, and as I said on my last submission post, it was a big challenge for me, but I'm more than proud and happy to have shared all of this work here with you.

Thanks again to @ghostofskywalker for organising this ❤

Hope you'll love reading those as much as I've loved writing them !

Enjoy ❤

My writing tag : #vi writing

(NSFW works are labelled as such, for the rest, check out the "warnings" section of each fic.)

Nightmares // Crosshair x gn!jedi!reader

Square : I wasn't sleeping Summary : Crosshair keep having nightmares after being rescued from Mount Tantiss. You are a former jedi who is very sensitive to other people's emotions, and you are able to feel how bad he struggles with them. One night, after another nightmare, you try to show him that he can count on you to help him overcome his trauma.

How to get away with bad pranks // Fives x gn!reader

Square : Fives Summary : You catch Fives trying to pull a prank on Kix, but things backfire quickly on you, leading you into an unexpected but enjoyable position.

Reinforcements // Keeli x gn!jedi!reader

Square : Medic Summary : As the battle of Ryloth is raging and the planet is under Separatist's blockade, you and your men are secretly send as reinforcements to help General Di and Captain Keeli's batallion to face the droid army. You are ready to do whatever it takes to save their lives, even sacrificing yourself.

Smoke Screen // Wolffe x gn!jedi!reader

Square : Fire Summary : Your battalion is sent as reinforcements to the 104th in anticipation of a potential separatist attack, but things turn out worse than expected, leading you to risk your own life to save your beloved Commander from a terrible fate.

What will become of us (part 1) // Dogma x f!jedi!reader

Square : Is this for me ? Summary : After the treason of Krell and the disaster of Umbara, you couldn’t stop worrying about Dogma and are determinate to go visit him at the GAR prison, without expecting how much of an impact on your life this decision will soon have.

Undercover // Fox x f!jedi!reader NSFW

Square : Obi-Wan Kenobi Summary : You get caught by mistake by the Coruscant Guards during an undercover mission, which led you right into the office of your favorite Marshal Commander.

Remember Me // Hunter x gn!jedi!reader

Square : Music Summary : When Hunter unexpectedly heard you sing for the first time, he instantly fell in love with your voice, and even more with you.

Dress // Cody x f!jedi!reader

Square : Cody Summary : You are send on a very special undercover mission to ensure Senator Amidala’s protection. It was unexpected, but at last it gives you opportunity to spend some time alone with your favorite Commander afterward.

Water Fight // Wrecker x gn!jedi!reader

Square : Blaster Summary : You’re experimenting a new training method with Omega, but as soon as Wrecker got involved, things derailed pretty quickly, but in the best possible way.

The Banquet // Kix x gn!jedi!reader

Square : Rations Summary : You and Kix team up to prepare a meal for the rest of the 501st, but despite being used to cook together, this time might end a little differently.

Love Drunk // Tup x gn!jedi!reader

Square : Wedding Summary : You and the boys are at the 79' celebrating the end of your last mission. It was supposed to be an ordinary night off, until Tup ends up doing the most unexpected thing ever.

Shelter from the storm // Dogma x gn!jedi!reader

Square : Snow Summary : During a mission on Orto Plutonia, you and Dogma find yourselves separated from the rest of your group, forced the seek shelter for the night to not freeze to death in the snow.

The Fall // Tech x gn!reader

Square : Tech Summary : What if it was you who fell into the river while mining ipsium instead of Omega ? And what if that accident was the trigger that Tech needed to finally confess his love to you ?

To build a home // Rex x gn!jedi!reader

Square : Tell me the truth Summary : Rex is acting strange with you since you both returned from your last mission on Saleucami, and you have a hard time figuring why. Until someone decided to give you a little help to resolve the situation.

The Jedi and the Captain // Howzer x f!jedi!reader

Square : Jedi Summary : After rescuing Howzer and his men from the Empire's ship, you decided to pay them a visit to make sure that they are fine. But when he realizes what you are, the clone Captain suddenly turns into an unexpected menace for you.

Lanterns // Fives x gn!reader x Echo (platonic)

Square : Echo Summary : Different times, different contexts, but Life Day is always one of the most special moment of the year for you, for it always bring back memories of those you had loved and lost, no matter what.

#cfb2023 #vi writing

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sheepgirl3 · 6 months

Note

heya! for the WIP asks 36. (Title your WIP like an article headline ) or 14. (Rewrite a scene from your WIP from another character’s perspective.) for 'Everyone Belongs Somewhere' from your whumptober series? no pressure of course, hope you have a good day ((((:

Ahhhhh thank you so much for the ask! And I love the story that you chose, since I’m actively writing the second chapter right now. So I decided to answer both!

Ask 36: “Younger brother struggles to understand the concept of family” or alternatively, “Dogma’s No Good, Terrible, Very Bad Life: Coming Soon on Netflix!”

And here, I present Cody’s perspective of the first chapter!

Link to the story on ao3 and the missing scene below!

*****

They’d been looking for Clone Trooper Dogma for two days and Cody was starting to fear the worst.

They’d been searching for Dogma ever since the 212th finished their last engagement and Rex had contacted Cody, desperate and without options. The 501st was called back to Coruscant without any flexibility and they weren’t able to look for Dogma. It had been a few days before the 212th had been able to start searching and Cody was worried.

The trooper was in handcuffs and without armor, according to Rex. He wouldn’t be any sort of match against the wilds of Umbara and Cody couldn’t help but wonder if the Umbarans or their planetary nightmares had already gotten to him. It was hard to pick up any sort of trail, the only signs of clone life coming from the armies that had been there before.

It was Boil that found the first clue, as they traversed wilderness that showed no signs of their armies passing through.

“Commander!” He held up a ration wrapper that had been laying on the ground. “It’s not been here long, sir. Couple days, tops, from the look of it. Troopers weren’t in this area.”

Cody twisted his head, looking around. “He can’t be far. Captain Rex said he didn’t have any supplies, so even if the ration was his, he didn’t have much else.”

“If he’s even still alive, sir.” Boil scowled, not an uncommon expression on his face but even more so since Waxer had died. “I’ll run the scans again, see what I can find.”

Cody nodded and turned away, only to pause as he caught sight of something unusual. Underneath one of the nearby plants, one with big leafy growth that glowed unnaturally, the shadows didn’t look quite right. He took a step closer and could just make out what seemed to be a hand.

“Over here!”

Cody reached the vod first, taking in the sight before him. The trooper looked to be almost dead, curled into a fetal position with only a thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders, protecting him from little of the elements. Cody felt his neck and wrist for a pulse, breathing easier once he found it. They weren’t too late yet. Cody pulled him into a sitting position and hooked his arms under the vod’s knees and shoulders, picking him up.

He weighed concerningly little.

“He’s alive.” Boil was right behind Cody, looking at the younger clone in surprise. “I wasn’t sure he would be.”

“He won’t be if we don’t get him to Helix.” Their chief medic was in another search party at the moment. “Radio the rest of the search parties and have them report back to base, stat.”

“Yes Commander.”

Cody looked down and was startled to see Dogma’s eyes open, unfocused and confused, blinking as he took in his surroundings. He looked up at Cody as if he couldn’t believe he was real.

“There you go, kid. Rest, vod. We’ve got you.” Cody watched as the young clone’s eyes slid closed again and felt a surge of protectiveness. They just needed to keep him alive and they’d figure it out from there.

#clone wars #star wars #commander cody #star wars the clone wars #fic #dogma needs a hug #tcw dogma #clone trooper dogma #near death experience #ao3 fanfic #star wars fanfiction

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fanfic-obsessed · 1 year

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Dimensional Slide

Hold onto your hats folks, this one gets a little weird.

It starts in a world very much like canon. Order 66, the death of the Jedi, Anakin's fall, splitting the twins, the works. About five years after the end of the clone wars, through a series of unfortunate events; first Owen and Beru Lars, then Bail and Breha Organa both die within a few months of each other.

Obi Wan takes Luke to the stars, without the Lars there is no reason to remain on Tatooine (Obi Wan still believes Anakin to be dead. They had only hid Luke on the desert world because he had family there and because Obi Wan was not fit to raise anyone at the end of the clown wars). A few months later Leia is smuggled to Obi Wan by the Rebellion (Specifically Quinlan Vos who had guessed as to who Leia is).

Now that the background is established we fast forward 10 years. In those 10 year Obi Wan discovers the information about the chips, but unfortunately discovers this in the same breath that he found out Cody died in a suicide run (believing that he had killed Obi Wan, he took with him the remains of the 212th, four companies of post war storm troopers, and an even dozen inquisitors. He had been planning it for nearly three years). He discovers who Vader is. The twins call him father and have developed into slightly paranoid, feral balls of pure light who are even more protective of Obi Wan than Obi Wan is of them. Yoda has made it known to members of the Rebellion that he believes that one or both of the twins is the ‘chosen one’ and their only hope. Obi Wan is not sure if he actually buys into the prophecy, but will not let anyone put that kind of pressure on his children(which is one of the reasons that they do not stay in one place for very long).

Luke, Leia, and Obi Wan are on a deserted world. On this deserted world with an old force temple, old enough that the exact faith is unknown, Leia touches an artifact. It takes all three of them and plops them into an alternate timeline, in the Room of a Thousand Fountains in the Coruscant temple.

In this alternate timeline, Anakin Skywalker never returned to Tatooine. It changes surprisingly little about the war itself, or the beginning of his slide into darkness. What it does is make Obi Wan a bigger irritant to Palpatine (as this Obi Wan and Anakin do not have the same weight of secrets tearing them apart), big enough that Order 66 is activated for the 212th early. Early enough that this Obi Wan is killed by his Commander, shot in the back even before the Jedi Council confront Palpatine. The breaking of their bond was enough of a shock to Anakin’s system that it halts his descent into darkness before it truly begins. With Anakin’s help they are able to take Palpatine alive, and he sits rotting in a specially made prison, as death is considered too good for him.

The stress sent Padme into early labor. In this world Padme survived but the twins did not. The process of saving Padme left her unable to have any more children. The twins and Obi Wan were the only casualties of Order 66 and its aftermath.

Any one of these events should have broken their relationship and for a time it did. Padme and Anakin divorced, got back together, remarried, and repeated the cycle no less than three times in the first five years after Clone Wars ended. Eventually they were able to build something healthy and long lasting. They have found that, as a couple, they are much healthier when they live apart, with lives that diverge almost completely save for a 5 week period every 4 months (5 weeks being the maximum that they can live with each other before the fighting begins). Padme continues to be a senator for Naboo, remaining on Coruscant most of the time. Anakin continues to take missions as a Jedi, but his main job (upon gaining stability of his own) is to take missions with the 212th(generally rebuilding or rescue), with help from the 501st. It started as a way of keeping them stable, as none of them (particularly Cody) took Obi Wan’s death well. It evolved over time into a specialized unit, associated with but not fully tied to the Jedi or the Senate, who handle the most dangerous search and rescue and reconstruction after planetary disasters or wars. Though each member of the unit has found both joy and satisfaction in the job itself, it is well known that the idea of the unit is dedicated to their lost general.

It is into this world, 15 years after the end of the Clone wars, that Obi Wan, Luke and Leia are dropped. The shift knocks Obi Wan out (as these stories always seem better if Obi Wan is unconscious at the first meet and greet), leaving Luke and Leia awake, aware and 100% unwilling to be separated from their father for even a moment. They will not give any of their names and are distressingly frantic over the fact that Obi Wan won’t wake. Like the ground around them is buckling as their force use is fueled by their worry kind of frantic. The twins do not know where Coruscant is (as in their world it is called Imperial Center), or believe that this is a Jedi temple (as to them the Jedi are dead). Fifteen years has been long enough that Obi wan is not recognized on sight, compounded by the fact that none of the people who found them were especially close with Obi wan.

After a time the trio are brought to Healing Halls. Vokara Che is the first to see Obi Wan and blink, almost dismissing the possibility that he was anything other than a look alike, because Obi Wan Kenobi is fifteen years dead. However, she is thorough in her examination, including a genetic scan for all three. There is a gathered crowd of healers, coming to gawk at twins (who still looked about 1 moment from attacking with their teeth), when she gets the results. Che has to sit on the floor for a moment when she reads who the genetic matches for all three of them are (by technicality the twins lived for 35 and 58 seconds, respectively, which is just long enough to have their genetic code entered into the system).

At that point the Master Che insists that the council be called, after she verifies that the only thing wrong with Obi Wan is Force exhaustion and that there is nothing wrong with the twins at all.

Though Obi Wan remains unconscious though these first interactions, the twins (Luke specifically, because in this world where the twins were raised by Obi Wan; Leia is has the need to act of all three of her parents, while Luke has their diplomacy) are able to tell the council enough that they can guess what had happened. Such an event is not common, but it is also not rare enough to be unknown.

The council had contacted many of Obi Wan’s old friends, to tell them who had been found. When this version of Quinlan Vos arrives, the twins relax slightly as they had at least met him before. Obi Wan wakes up just as Anakin, followed by Cody, Rex, Ahsoka, and Padme, crashes through the doors to the healing halls. He does not react well, barely awake and trying to push his children behind him, to protect them. He is a growling panicked, all but feral mess.

For a moment we leave this scene for the original universe. Yoda and several other surviving Jedi had known the moment that the twins left the timeline. They risk a meeting and convince Quinlan Vos to investigate. He begins to make his way toward the deserted planet, all the while questioning when the universe decided to place all their hopes in two teenagers.

Back with the new timeline, it has taken hours to calm everyone down enough to convince Obi Wan that 1)this wasn’t some kind of trick or hallucination, 2) He and his kids really had shifted timelines, and 3) they were safe, and did not need to fight or escape (it really was only luck that there was only property damage at that point).

There is a deep, almost unending well of awkwardness on both sides. It is made up of living guilt, both deserved and not (for surviving, for dismemberment, for a shot that killed one man and saved the galaxy, for the inability to strike a final blow that doomed it, for a Fall that all parties that remember it blame themselves for), the desperate longing of all present to cling to these living images of the people they lost contrasting with the unshakeable reality of 15 years between them (even the twins had heard enough of Obi Wan’s stories of all these people that they want to know these walking, talking memories), and pulsing under all of it (popping up with a depressing speed, as there are too many practical souls in the room) is the heart shredding knowledge that they would be separated again, when Obi Wan and his twins returned to their own timeline.

It is the twins that ease the tension in those first few days, after they reassured themselves that their father was alright. For the people in the new timeline, the twins that died in childbirth were not wholly people, they were a potential but there are no real memories that are attached to them. So there are not as many expectations on how they would act and react as there were with Obi Wan. And though they had met variations on some of these people (Rex, Ahsoka, Vos), for most all they have is stories.

In the original timeline Vos continues to seek the planet and temple where Obi Wan and the twins vanished. It is common knowledge amongst the rebellion that the twins have vanished. Through his travels we see some of the Rebels give up, with the ‘Chosen One’ gone. Others redouble their efforts. For a small percentage the disappearance has had no real effect. It makes Vos deeply uncomfortable to see and realize how much of the Rebellion had largely been in a holding pattern waiting for the Skywalker twins to grow old enough to help them break free.

There are many discussions in the new timeline, forgiveness is given (for limbs taken, for a killing shot, for different lives taken though the same childbirth) whether it should be needed or not. Eventually nothing is left unsaid. Obi Wan feels safe for the first time in 15 years. His twins get to know their biological parents as well as the extended family that should have been theirs. They even take time to go meet both the Organa’s and the Lars’. Cody and Obi Wan begin a romantic relationship, the relationship they had both wanted during the war (Obi Wan had been hesitant, but Cody had asked if denying themselves would make leaving easier. It wouldn’t). Everyone is very aware that any day might be the end point (they tracked down the artifact, it would need to be activated from the original universe’s end but the nature of the artifact would draw someone to activate it).

Eight months after Obi Wan and the twins drop into their lives, Vos of the original timeline finds the artifact. He takes his time to learn about the artifact before activating it, possibly knowing more than anyone else alive. He uses it to first view where Obi Wan and the twins had been dropped, observing them for a day; he sees their happiness, sees Obi Wan actually living for the first time since Order 66. Vos makes a decision. He opens the portal, enough for him to speak face to face with the people on the other side. He chooses his moment well, as Obi Wan and the twins are gathered with members of the 212, Obi Wan’s crechemates, the Skywalkers, and assorted others.

It’s the other Vos that notices the portal first. To the credit of everyone present, they all get pretty much immediately what the portal means. Obi Wan asks the original timeline Vos if they have time to say goodbye. Vos shugs and says that they are going to have all the time in the world, there is no way Vos will let any of them through (a quirk of the artifact, once the connection between worlds is broken twice, once in the initial use and once to return, it cannot be establish again). Obi Wan starts to object but Vos says ‘Hey, if you can tell me you have any reason to come back except for some overblown sense of duty to a prophecy you don’t even believe in and I will stand aside.’

Obi Wan can’t and the original Vos’s sharp grin softens, and he tells Obi Wan ‘You deserve to live, not just survive’ then he very deliberately looks at his other self and says ‘take care of our brother, yeah, he’s kinda bad at it’. The other Vos nods and the portal is closed.

In the original timeline Vos destroys the artifact for good measure. Then he leaves to start building a better future. Incidentally this is made much easier as the minute the portal closes for good, Vader drops dead. Ironically it had been his latent bond with Obi Wan that had kept him alive all these years, and when the connection between the timelines was cut, so was the bond.

In the new timeline things begin to settle again. Care is taken to ensure Obi Wan and the twins are given space that is shaped just for them, instead of trying to fill the space for the dead. Much therapy is solicited (For nearly a decade after they arrive, so many of the dimensional traveling trio and their assorted friends and family each had their own dedicated therapist, who in turn had their own therapist).

And they all found something like happiness.

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mwolf0epsilon · 6 months

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The Umbaran Pathogen - Day 23: Forced to Watch

Summary: With no way to contact those down below on the planet's surface, the troopers that were left to protect the Venators feel nothing if not helpless just waiting for the campaign to be over.

Warning: N/A

Prev / Next

[In which the events on Umbara are worsened by an unknown pathogen taking hold of both the 501st and 212th. These series of drabbles will follow a non-linear timeline based on the AI-less Whumptober prompt list for 2023.]

THIS STORY IS ALSO ON AO3

---

Boil was restless, which wasn't all too surprising. It was always like this whenever he ended up assigned to protect the Negotiator, rather than being sent to either do reconnaissance or engage the enemy. He'd be left pacing with a mug of caf in hand, or be looking out at the chaos below while checking comms.

Counting the minutes, hours and days until the mission was done and over with. Until his brothers and General returned.

It was pretty monotonous. An unchanging, achingly boring, routine that he'd gotten used to a long time ago, back when he was still pretty much a shiny. Well before he'd earned his paint or even considered growing his facial hair, into the glorious and well maintained mustache that it was today.

Everyone had their turn being left behind on the ship to rest and recover from prior campaigns. Just like everyone had a turn gallivanting towards uncertain doom with their Jedi leading the way.

This time something felt different however...

The atmosphere around the ship felt incredibly tense. Wound up like it was expecting something awful, despite the fighter pilots doing such a good job of keeping enemy ships far from the Resolute and Negotiator's range (both of which were in sight of each other, with a great big view of everything around and below).

On occasion, Boil could even see Commander Tano's ship zoom by, the young togruta making a point to wave whenever she caught sight of a trooper watching her fly by. Always polite that one, unlike her insufferable master who had a tendency to show off with cocky delight.

Even so, through his scopes he could see that she was also visibly worried about the state of things. The way her brow was furrowed and her smile looked a little too tight, indicative of her own concerns that she did her best to hide from the less observant soldiers.

Whatever it was that they were feeling right now, this strange unease that would not leave them be, the little Jedi could sense it too...

And that was never a good sign.

Looking over his shoulder, Boil noticed Peel passing by. The other trooper looking worse for wear as he paced the halls quietly like a ghost. If he was still upset about staying on board, he couldn't really tell. But he certainly didn't look too happy about the radio silence.

They'd lost communication with the ground troops a while back. At some point Tacet had temporarily brought them back up, but then they'd gone eerily silent once more. There hadn't been enough time to request a quick sitrep, and not once did General Kenobi nor Commander Cody try to reach them.

It was a little worrisome...

Very briefly, Boil wondered if the 501st were having the same issue. Wondered if the men on board the Resolute were just as stressed as her sister ship's crew. Left scratching their heads at the ominous silence and lack of any news from the battlefront. Left to worry about who may or not return to them at the end of this grueling campaign...

If Commander Tano looked stressed while flying high, while engaging enemy ships and still finding the time to be polite so as to give even the slightest bit of a morale boost, then he had no doubt that the answer was probably yes.

Her men were down there too. Her vode. And his as well.

She understand the anxiety that came with being in their current position. A position they most definitely did not want to be in. The conclusion to be made was that all of them weren't too happy about being forced to wait and watch. It just wasn't in their nature.

#Eps Writes #star wars #the clone wars #whumptober #Umbaran Pathogen AU #clone trooper boil #clone trooper peel #ahsoka tano

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weyrwolfen · 2 days

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Eidola: Chapter 21 - CT-8821 Reaver

Rating: T

Characters: Gen, Clone Trooper OCs, Captain Rex, Ahsoka Tano, and other canon members of the 501st/332nd and the Bad Batch

Warnings: canon-typical violence; references to self-harm, injuries, and substance abuse; PTSD; it’s post-Order 66 and nobody is having a good time (but they’re all working on it)

Summary: The mission was never to bring down the Empire. Not really. The mission was to save every single one of their chipped brothers. But if doing do helped break the Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy? Well, that was just a bonus.

“I will admit, the upcoming, earlier-than-expected visit from the Imperial tax assessor has put us in a bit of a bind,” Governor Shalk said, reaching for one of the datapads on her surprisingly utilitarian desk. “Of course, we here on Wadj are proud to support the Empire, but we have so few goods we can export to Core worlds to generate additional income, and fewer highly-connected allies to help us find markets for those goods we do have to offer.”

Major Ullmann reached across the desk and accepted the datapad, turning it around to scan through the proffered file.

Reaver was standing at attention, just to the left of the door of the governor’s office. The Coruscant Guardsman, Ori, was opposite him, posture propaganda-holo perfect on the door’s right side.

They weren’t exactly a matched set though. Ori had handed Reaver an orange command pauldron, when they’d all been suiting up for this escort mission. Reaver wasn’t sure what to make of that: if their recently arrived brothers were honestly trying to loop him in on their non-standard command structure or if it was just a sop to his ego. He might still be the top-ranking clone in the 241st, but he clearly wasn’t the one calling the shots around the base anymore.

Neither was Major Ullmann, but that had been true since they’d arrived on Wadj, right after the war had ended. That was a separate issue to mull over in the middle of the night, when Reaver’s insomnia got the better of him.

“Might I take this ‘pad to review these files in detail?” the Major asked, all diplomatic etiquette and careful obfuscation, promising nothing.

Governor Shalk waved one hand with casual grace. A single ring caught the light at that gesture, one small stone set in a plain band, resting on the finger several natborn cultures reserved for signs of marital status. Reaver had been in this room dozens of times before, guarding meetings just like this one, but he hadn’t really noticed any of the fine details of the place or the people involved. It was vaguely horrifying, just how bad he’d been at everything, under the chip’s control.

“Of course, in the event this little endeavor bears fruit, I would be happy to negotiate some form of remuneration for your efforts,” the Governor was saying with a small smile.

A bribe. She was offering the Major an under-the-table cut of the profits.

Reaver’s memory might be spotty and incomplete, but after reviewing what recollections he did retain before this mission, it was obvious that the Governor had been making every effort to ingratiate herself with Major Ullmann, from the moment they’d all been stationed on Wadj.

The funny thing was, Reaver didn’t think less of her for it. It was obvious that she was doing everything in her very limited power to protect her planet’s citizens. If that meant sucking up to the Empire’s military commanders on-planet, or greasing a palm or two to keep everyone happy, then so be it. Her actions on other fronts were far more telling.

The local economy ran as much on barter as it did credits, but what little revenue did come in from the taxes on off-planet trade was cycled back into public works and social safety nets, not into lining Governor Shalk’s pockets. Not unless she was hiding her tracks better than any of them realized.

Given the aggressive plainness of the governor’s office and attire, Reaver kind of doubted it.

Wadj wasn’t exactly a prime posting for any ambitious Imperial officer. It was too small, too out-of-the-way, and too strategically unimportant to rate much scrutiny from the Empire. As long as the planet paid its taxes and kept its head down, the chances the local politicians would be replaced with Imperial cronies were low. And the higher-ups on Wadj had been scrupulously toeing the line to keep things that way. On flimsi, the planet was populated by loyal, if poor, Imperial citizens.

The planet also appeared to be the perfect place to send a trio of disgraced Imperial Army officers to languish in obscurity, under the guard of their chipped clone troopers. Finding those reports on his personal terminal had been sobering. Reaver had immediately sent them all to the Major, who had read them over with something resembling dark amusement before forwarding them to a few key brothers among their rescuers.

At least CT-8821’s chip-addled incompetence had extended to the reports he’d filed behind his own officers’ backs. They hadn’t contained anything too incriminating. Lists of comm contacts, details of the Major’s bank records, his daily schedule. Invasive? Yes. Horribly so. But not incriminating.

Ori was confident he could mimic Reaver’s, CT-8821’s, wording well enough to take over sending safely innocuous, false reports, occasionally seeded with useful misinformation. The Corrie had offered to run all of the falsified documents past Reaver and the Major both. Reaver wasn’t having any better luck interpreting that offer than he was the orange pauldron on his shoulder.

The Governor leaned back in her chair and adjusted the drape of her robe, seemingly appeased. The garment was made of a well-crafted, but unpretentious, blue fabric with only a little embroidery around the seams to add visual interest. Not austere, but also not extravagant, at least by Outer Rim reckoning.

“Now,” she said, clearly changing the subject. “Is there anything I should be aware of, regarding security operations in system?”

From his current position, guarding the door, Reaver couldn’t see the Major’s face, but he had worked with the man long enough to easily read his body language. If they’d been playing sabacc, Reaver would be on his guard, given the way Major Ullmann had just shifted in his seat, shoulders angled casually out of perfectly square.

“There has been a minor uptick in pirate activity in a few of the neighboring systems,” the Major said, sounding professional, if largely unconcerned. That statement, at least, was true. “You may notice some heightened activity, around our base. We have been instructed to take certain steps, to increase our operational readiness in the event we need to repel similar raids in system.” And there was the lie, Reaver knew that they’d received no such orders. The Empire, like the Republic before it, cared very little for the safety and security of Outer Rim planets. “We have been increasing patrols, both on the ground and in orbit, but I assure you, these actions are precautionary only.”

That was a neat and tidy way to explain away anything odd the locals had almost certainly noticed around their base, not the mention the increase in fuel the base was requisitioning from the capital’s small spaceport.

Reaver’s lips twitched upwards into a lopsided smile, which he only allowed because it was well-hidden under his bucket.

The Guardsman, Ori, might as well have been carved from stone, visor facing perfectly ahead, seemingly focused on a blank patch of wall some indefinable distance above the Governor’s head. He might have been rolling his eyes behind his visor, but honestly, Reaver doubted it. Ori had struck Reaver as a consummate professional, even though this meeting had to be painfully quaint to a brother who’d spent most of his deployment on Coruscant serving the Senate.

Major Ullmann and Governor Shalk continued to chat for another twenty minutes, discussing minutiae that Reaver would remember this time, even though he didn’t find much of it interesting. Regulation of fishing quotas, hiring additional locals to fill empty staff positions in the Imperial registrar and judicial offices, unusual storm activity off the main continent’s southern coast.

When they left, picking up Jade and Facet along the way, they were stopped at the door by one of the Governor’s aides, who presented the Major with a wooden box of ‘export samples.’ Another bribe, no doubt. Major Ullmann clearly found the whole thing highly distasteful, but he hid it well with a polite thank you and a vague gesture to the four clones flanking him.

Jade accepted the small crate, and Reaver saw Ori discretely palm out a hand scanner and give the box a quick once over. Reaver trusted that the Corrie would do or say something if he found anything too alarming.

Apparently he didn’t.

With some final nods and empty platitudes, they were finally able to join Sergeant Levee and another one of their new brothers, Hitch, who’d been guarding the armored transport they’d taken from the base.

The drive back was largely uneventful, except for the part where Ori insisted they open the crate so he could make absolutely sure of what they were bringing back before they reached the base. That seemed paranoid, but Reaver couldn’t exactly fault the man’s reasoning. The good news was that the contents seemed to be innocent enough: some kind of alcohol in three rather fancy-looking bottles, a shockingly soft bolt of green fabric with an iridescent sheen to the weave, a solid cylinder of some kind of faintly luminescent mineral, two vibrantly painted ceramic bowls, a few jars of scented creams or cosmetics, and a selection of fancily packaged herbs and spices whose names Reaper didn’t recognize.

No explosives, no surveillance equipment, nothing biologically reactive unless you counted the alcohol.

Ori sealed the box back up, apparently satisfied with his findings.

Major Ullmann sighed, stretching his legs out in front of him in the back of the transport. “I wish I had even a quarter of the connections the Governor apparently thinks I do,” he said dourly. “She’s not wrong to be concerned though. The slated increase in Imperial taxes is going to be crippling to what few import and export businesses they have.”

The clones were all silent for several minutes. Planetary economic theory hadn’t exactly been covered in the standard trooper training regimen back on Kamino.

Eventually though, Ori did say, “I will speak to the Commander,” and left it at that. It was as vaguely non-committal as anything the Major had said back at the Governor’s office. Reaver had no plans to hold his breath waiting for anything to come of it.

Clip was waiting for all of them in the base’s courtyard when they all filed out of the transport. Much to Reaver’s surprise, he wasn’t there for Ori or the Major.

“You’re needed for a comm call upstairs,” Clip explained. The ARC’s uncharacteristically terse tone made Reaver tense up, immediately assuming that he’d be receiving some kind of bad news. Clip clearly noticed that reaction and grimaced a little before adding, “It’s nothing bad, but we thought it best to let you and Brace decide what should be shared with the rest of the base.”

Brace. Brace was the 241st’s CMO. That really didn’t set Reaver’s mind at ease.

They didn’t head to the main holotable in the base’s command center, but instead diverted off to one of the conference rooms meant for more sensitive conversations. And sure enough, there was Brace, standing on the other side of the compact comms system, looking as worn and worried as Reaver felt. He had a stack of datapads sitting on the table in front of him, which he’d obviously been reading through when they’d arrived.

Clip punched a quick code into the wall panel and said, “I’ll be in the command center if you need me.”

The device hummed and flickered to life when the door closed behind Clip, light resolving into quarter-sized images of two clones. The one on the right was a brother Reaver didn’t recognize, but the medical symbol painted on one of his spaulders spoke for itself.`

The other was Captain Rex.

Despite their nominally equivalent ranks, Reaver knew perfectly well where he fell relative to Rex in the new command structure around base. Reaver found himself stiffening unconsciously, shoulders squaring under the other Captain’s scrutiny. Out of the corner of his eye, Reaver saw Brace do much the same thing.

“Sir?” Reaver asked, with a deference he knew was deserved even if it was poorly defined.

Captain Rex was silent for a moment, and Reaver wasn’t sure if it was because of a delay in the signal or something else. “We’re working on getting someone embedded in the capital’s hospital, a Core-trained surgeon,” he finally said. “Be working on a list of your people you think could benefit from access to their facilities.”

The news was a kriff-ton better than whatever Reaver had been half-expecting. “We can do that,” he said, still waiting for the other boot to drop.

“We also have some medical files to transfer to you,” Captain Rex added, glancing over to his own medic, who leaned forward to enter something into the holotable on their end of the connection.

Brace picked up one of his datapads and plugged it into the ‘table. The file transfer only took a few moments, but whatever came up on the screen earned a sharp intake of breath.

“Nails finally agreed to let us read you in on his situation,” the other medic said without any further preamble. “He’ll be on the next ship we send your way.”

Reaver couldn’t sleep.

He was exhausted, but every time he started to drift off, some new thought would bubble up to the surface and jerk him back to wakefulness. The medics informed him that this was a fairly normal, even mild, reaction to coming out from under the long-term effects of his mind-control chip. Given how most of Reaver’s men were, or were not, recovering from their own surgeries, he kind of understood their point.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t the chip. It wasn’t like he was short on other, more immediate sources of stress.

Nails, for example.

Force. Captain Rex himself had told Reaver about Nails, almost the moment Reaver had left the infirmary after his own surgery. That news had seemed too good to be true, and Reaver’s small kernel of doubt had only grown after the days turned into weeks and their long-lost brother still hadn’t commed any of them.

But now that Reaver had read the medics’ reports, he had a better idea why Nails might have been hesitant to reach out to them.

Reaver himself had signed the flimsiwork, sending Nails off on a temporary assignment to the Republic medical station in the Hosnian system. He’d been helping to repair the base’s malfunctioning carbon dioxide scrubbers when Order 66 had gone out. Apparently there had been fifteen Jedi on base: nine knights and six padawans, all injured and receiving medical care.

The clones, Nails among them, had killed them all in their cots.

It wasn’t the last slaughter Nails had been ordered to perform, before being rescued out from under the noses of his Imperial commanders on one of Millik’s moons.

Force. The details had been hard to read. Reaver couldn’t even imagine.

Reaver had lost two years of his already foreshortened life to a slave chip the Kaminoans had planted in his brain before he was even decanted. He was angry, and bitter, and (although he hadn’t actually admitted it out loud) deeply afraid that removing the chip somehow hadn’t been enough, that one day another random comm call would snatch his mind away again, this time forever.

But in comparison to what their new brothers had experienced, in comparison to what Nails had experienced, Reaver was also very lucky.

Almost his entire company was here with him on Wadj. His men were wounded in mind and spirit, but they were recovering. The situation was far from ideal, but it could have been so much worse.

Reaver had met maybe a dozen new brothers who wore the infamous blue of the 501st, but the rest of their group sported all sorts of other colors, rarely in groups bigger than two or three. He hadn’t seen a single other brother wearing Clip’s shade of medium-green, or Shark’s brownish-red, or Aughts’s pale lavender. He didn’t know if their battalions were gone – just completely wiped out, or if their closest brothers were still out there somewhere under the control of the Empire.

Their new brothers had been opening up more and more every rotation, sharing stories from their pasts. Hearing more about them, what they had gone through during the war and especially after it, made his own experiences seem small and petty by comparison.

Reaver was so angry, and so afraid, and so lucky, and he’d really just like to work through his own osik, without also feeling guilty for not being happier or more grateful for his comparatively good situation.

He couldn’t blame his reaction on their new brothers. They weren’t doing or saying anything to stoke that guilt. If anything, they were being so unfailingly supportive about the whole situation that it was just making Reaver feel even worse. Aughts had flat out asked him if he’d prefer to schedule his check-ins with one of his own medics. That had seemed cowardly, not to mention rude towards the brothers who had saved them, so Reaver had turned the offer down.

Maybe he shouldn’t have.

He really needed to get his bucket on straight, and fast. He couldn’t let his own issues spill over onto Nails. He wouldn’t.

Sleep was a long time coming.

“Malk, we’ve got the Scythe incoming,” Latch said over the command deck’s open comms. “You’re gonna want to clear your cadets out of the way.”

They weren’t really cadets, but nobody seemed to have a better name for the pair of stringy, half-grown Nautolans one of their new brothers had somehow adopted. They’d been on base for a little over a week at this point, running endless laps around the courtyard, or eating in the mess, or practicing with blasters under the watchful eyes of multiple different clones. They seemed like good kids, not that Reaver had a lot of experience with less-than-fully-grown natborns.

Captain Rex had asked Reaver if transferring them here was going to be a problem, and Reaver had said no. He genuinely hadn’t thought there would be any issues.

He also hadn’t been sure if he could actually voice a complaint if he did have one. If it would be heard or heeded.

He wasn’t sure if the question itself hadn’t been some kind of test.

He was pretty certain he was being unfair.

Reaver just wished somebody would just lay out the details of this… whatever the kriff this was. Rescue mission or rebellion or what.

Maybe their new brothers couldn’t.

Maybe they didn’t know themselves.

Reaver had always known where he stood back on Kamino, with the G.A.R. Kriff, even with the Empire, under the control of the karking chip. The knowing made things easier, let him predict how he should act, when he should speak, and when it was better to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t know where that line was anymore.

Major Ullmann had always encouraged his officers to speak their minds, but now he was deferring to the newcomers in all the ways that mattered. He’d instructed his men to do the same. There had been a lot of pretty words to say about self-determination and the founding principles of the Republic, but none of the brothers present had missed the guilt and anger and grief and heartache behind his words.

Reaver got it. He did. The Major felt responsible for what had happened, for not figuring out the reality of the chips or how to give his men their own minds back earlier, no matter how irrational or illogical that line of guilty reasoning was.

Reaver felt the same way.

He just wished his CO would give him a little additional guidance here.

The 241st still answered to Reaver, and Reaver now answered to… somebody. Maybe Captain Rex. Rumor had it he’d been promoted to Commander near the end of the war, but those same rumors also said he’d been stripped of his rank and accused of treason after Order 66. Reaver wasn’t interested in reopening any of those wounds with tactless requests for details. And besides, Rex hadn’t exactly been around much, to oversee the day-to-day workings of the Wadj base.

The same could be said about Ahsoka Tano, who as a Jedi padawan also had held the rank of Commander, but who had also made herself scarce shortly after Reaver had been released by the medics. From what little gossip he’d been able to gather around base, her actual rank was even more convoluted than Rex’s, even though both of them were clearly the leaders of this operation.

Perhaps Reaver was supposed to be answering to one of the seemingly random sampling of Coruscant Guards, ARCs, or indeterminately elevated troopers who seemed to round out the rest of the upper echelon of the group’s command structure. Who even knew?

Force, the entire outfit was a karking organizational mess, except he couldn’t exactly say anything against their operational effectiveness. Not when they’d taken his own base out from under him and then seen to the health and freedom of his brothers. Chips or no, the entire incident was deeply humbling in retrospect.

Reaver sure as kriff couldn’t run any of these thoughts past his own men, who needed him to be a source of stability while they all sorted themselves out.

And he still didn’t know where he was supposed to fit into this whole mess.

“The Scythe is on her final approach,” Bar reported, sending out the data on the projected flight trajectory to the other terminals. “Requesting permission to land.”

Reaver had a wild, irrational impulse to deny that request, just to see what would happen.

“Latch, please confirm that the yard is clear,” he said instead, perfectly professional.

“Yard’s clear,” Latch said after only a moment’s pause.

“Then permission granted,” Reaver said, rattling off the prescribed words like he was reading from a script.

The shuttle was easy to pick out, a dark silhouette against the last colors of Wadj’s fading sunset. They’d been routing most shuttles in and out after full dark to hide them from the locals, but sundown was just going to have to be good enough cover this time because–

“Did a piece just fall off of them?” Bar asked, alarmed.

Because of that. Yeah.

“Looks like yes,” Reaver answered without glancing over his shoulder at the men. He didn’t need to. He could feel the incredulous looks they were trading behind his back.

He didn’t blame them. He sure as kriff wouldn’t have been comfortable taking that thing out of atmosphere, much less into hyperspace.

Despite the obvious beating the ship had taken, the Scythe rotated smoothly and sank carefully into the courtyard. The base’s floodlights were doing their karking best to highlight every spot weld and temporary patch that were currently holding the craft together.

Reaver stepped closer to the command deck’s main windows, so he could see into the courtyard below. Ori was down there, waiting to greet his brothers as they exited the ship. Eventually the 501st ARC and their senior medic, Jesse and Kix, appeared, escorting an unfamiliar sentient down the ship’s damaged ramp. The being’s slender build looked particularly out-of-place surrounded by so many clones.

Right.

The surgeon.

“Slicing isn’t the issue,” the trooper said, scowling down at the datapad in his hands. Reaver had seen him around base, but he’d never managed to catch this brother’s name. Whatever his name was, he didn’t seem terribly comfortable being the temporary center of attention. “We have the access codes. In Hutt space, that’s all you need to open accounts and move around credits. But…” he trailed off.

“But the Hutts police their own banking system, and they don’t look favorably on unsanctioned thefts,” Ori said, picking up the thread of conversation without glancing up from his own ‘pad. “Draining these accounts will be a blow to their reputation.”

Jesse nodded, clearly unsurprised by their analysis, but also unhappy about it. “With the Imperial oversight of their own banks, somebody’s going to notice a huge number of credits suddenly appearing in some random account on an Outer Rim skug hole.”

“The Mandalorian banks are still independent,” Ori said, frowning to himself, and then amended, “Barely.”

Wait. Wait… “Wadj has an independent banking system,” Reaver said, looking around the holotable. He’d thought Ori, at least, had already known that, but maybe not, given the hard looks he was getting. “Lots of these small, Outer Rim systems do. It’s small, and I don’t know all the details, but I was never asked to report back on the Major’s Imperial accounts, only the Wadj ones.”

Reaver could practically see the gears spinning in all three brothers’ heads.

“Factor, can you look into this?”

Right. The trooper’s name was Factor. Reaver filed that piece of information away, grateful that he wasn’t going to have to break down and show his shebs by asking.

“Already on it,” the trooper said to himself, eyes flicking back and forth across whatever he was reading on his personal screen. After a protracted silence and a lot of rapid fire typing, he said, “Oh, that’s interesting,” under his breath. He seemed momentarily oblivious to the fact that everyone else was watching him, waiting for some kind of elaboration.

Finally, Jesse sighed and then asked, “What’s interesting?”

Factor looked up, refocused his attention with a small shake of his head, and reported in a stringently professional tone, “The local system functions more as a membership-based, credit sharing entity instead of a true bank. It looks like it only really handles in-system transactions and has agreements in place with the Imperial banks for anything off-planet.” He handed his own datapad over to Ori, who took it with obvious interest.

The Coruscant guard’s expression sharpened like a hunting strill catching a scent. “They don’t require chain codes for membership,” he said, half to himself. He shared a weighted look with Jesse. “And the transfers can be done in the system’s name, not the individual member’s.”

Jesse made a quiet sound, half exhale, half low whistle. “How the kriff did they get away with negotiating that?” he said.

Ori shrugged. “By being too small and too unimportant to be worth targeting,” he said, but there was something distinctly predatory under the casual statement.

Reaver hadn’t been following the conversation half as well as he would have liked – credit-sharing didn’t sound any different from what regular banks did to him – so it was almost a relief when a comm request popped up into his HUD. It was from Brace. He turned to the side, flashing an explanatory hand signal to the others, and accepted the call.

“Reaver here,” he said, hoping this wasn’t some kind of emergency.

“The surgeon’s here,” Brace said flatly, not even bothering with a greeting.

Kriff, already? Reaver checked the chrono in his HUD and realized that this meeting had run exceedingly late. He’d completely lost track of time. He’d meant to get down to the infirmary before the natborn surgeon arrived. “I’ll be right down,” he said.

“Good,” Brace said and then cut the connection.

Well, that didn’t sound promising.

Reaver re-engaged his external mic just in time to hear Jesse say, “… If any of the natborns might be willing to test the waters by opening a personal account.”

Ori actually snorted. “Better than stashing their credits under their bunks, which is what I’m pretty certain everyone in the safehouse has been doing so far.”

“I’m needed in medical,” Reaver inserted into the brief lull in conversation. Maybe he should have phrased that as a question, but kark that. His brothers needed him, and whatever else this karked up situation ended up demanding of him, they would always come first.

But Jesse just nodded and asked, “Can you ask Echo and Tech to come up when they get done?”

Reaver just nodded and left the command deck to the others.

The walk across base was largely uneventful. It was a little disconcerting, how day to day life just kept humming along, chip or no chip.

Except, of course, there were differences. There was more chatter in the halls, more anger and more laughter and more sniping and just more personality underlying every conversation. Most everyone was wearing their old Phase II armor again, freshly pulled out of storage and touched up with the paint their new brothers had sourced.

And of course, tan wasn’t the only color paint he saw on his walk.

Reaver had known exactly who to expect in the infirmary, but the space still felt unexpectedly crowded. That could probably be chalked up to Clone Force 99’s presence, in its entirety.

The surgeon, a slender, multi-armed sentient in surprisingly colorful attire, was tracking a small light back and forth in front of Wrecker’s clouded eye and asking questions in a tone too quiet to make out. Kix was discussing something with Echo and Tech, the kid, Omega, was obviously trying to provide moral support to the others, and Hunter was hovering over them all like a broody Krayt dragon, puffed up and just as prone to bite. The situation seemed well in hand, so Reaver felt precisely no qualms about going to his own men.

Brace was bristling in front of Truss and Curl, pretending to review something on a datapad while actually watching the proceedings unfolding in the infirmary’s neighboring cots. It didn’t escape Reaver that he’d placed himself between his brothers and the unknown natborn in the room.

As for Curl and Truss, their reactions were about what Reaver had expected. Curl just looked bored, but Truss was fidgeting, playing with the makeshift prosthetic the medics had knocked together out of scavenged neural tech and a partial droid hand. The two metal digits curled along with his organic ones, but they moved more slowly in awkward fits and starts.

“Interface still glitching?” Reaver asked him, keeping his voice low.

Truss shrugged and looked up to meet Reaver’s eye, expression stubbornly blank. “Not really,” he lied.

“I had trouble figuring out distances back when it happened,” Wrecker was saying, his booming voice filling the space. “But I’ve gotten pretty good at managing.”

That also sounded like a lie to Reaver’s ears, but maybe it was a day for it.

Reaver was about to ask Curl how he was doing as well, when his scout suddenly hissed a soft, “Force,” under his breath.

Reaver turned to see what the issue was.

Echo had removed his armor and was starting to strip off his upper blacks as well.

Karking hells.

They all knew about the prosthetics, of course. They were kind of hard to miss, even when the 99 ARC was fully armored up, but Reaver hadn’t had any idea exactly how extensive the modifications were. Exactly how far up did–

A solid thwack against his armored shoulder jerked Reaver’s attention back to Brace, who had just hit him with his datapad.

“Stop staring,” the medic hissed, expression full of warning. He turned and leveled the same glower at Curl, whose shoulders hunched up in defensive guilt, and then Truss, who was the only innocent party here.

Truss just responded with a flat, unimpressed look of his own.

“Right,” Reaver said, pulling himself back on track and trying to drag his brothers along with him. “So, what’s the plan here?”

“Plans,” Brace said, not toning back his side eye a bit. “Plural. Tide, Kix, and I have worked out a number of different options, depending on what’s actually available.” He pointed at Curl, who’d taken a lungfull of corrosive gas back on Siesiss and experienced severely decreased lung capacity ever since, and said, “Regenerative therapy, partial mod replacement, or transplants, tank-grown or otherwise.” Then he shifted to Truss, and said, “Integrated ports or enhanced neural interfacing with an updated skeletal framing covered in either armored plating or synthetic skin.”

“All of which sounds pretty kriffing expensive,” Curl grumbled under his breath.

At least that concern was something Reaver could lay to rest. “That shouldn’t be a problem for long,” he said with a tiny, lopsided smirk which slanted at least a little mean. “I can’t share all of the details, but our brothers are working on a plan to relieve some slavers of their blood credits.”

Curl and Truss just stared in surprise, but it was Brace whose entire demeanor shifted. If he’d been wearing his plate, Reaver might not have noticed the slight shudder that worked its way down the medic’s spine, but Brace was in his light grays today. His expression flickered back and forth between hope and doubt.

Reaver could relate. The clones had always worked under the framework of tightening budgets and stringent rationing. The concept that they could just get whatever they needed without skimping elsewhere seemed too big to contemplate. Too big to be real.

Apparently the 241st weren’t the only ones to feel that way either.

Later that evening, well after the surgeon had returned to the natborn safehouse and Reaver had gone back to the regular day to day running of the base, Jesse had shown up to drag Reaver and a few of his officers to an ‘unofficial, official command meeting’ in the section of the base designed for natborn officers’ R and R time.

To Reaver, it looked a lot more like ‘after-hours drinking,’ but he wasn’t about to complain about that. Not when the Major had stopped by to add one of the governor’s fancy bottles of iridescent liquor to the more questionable options their brothers had ‘liberated’ from the Abainya pirates.

Who even knew how many glasses into the evening, Jesse had leaned back in the cushioned couch they’d claimed against one of the room’s walls and said, “It’s good to see him like this.”

It took Reaver a second to figure out who Jesse meant, but he did eventually realize that the ARC was watching their own CMO, Kix, who was snickering over something with two 501st brothers and Brace, who’d also been dragged into this impromptu celebration.

“What,” Reaver said, feeling and sounding a little fuzzy. “Drunk?”

Jesse snorted, because there wasn’t any denying that Kix was at least a little tipsy, but he still corrected, “Having fun. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen him smile since… Well, you know.”

Reaver did know, but this was getting a lot more personal than he was ready to handle, even if it turned out that Jesse and the other ambiguous ‘officers’ were surprisingly easy to talk to, at least after a few cups of liquid courage.

“This is the first alcohol I’ve had, since then,” his inebriated brain decided to blurt. The admission was somewhere between a confession, an explanation for why his tolerance was so pitifully low, and a poorly-thought-out attempt at commiseration. “Imperial regulations.”

Jesse just nodded and lifted up his own glass in a casual, almost mocking toast.

“To breaking Imperial regulations,” he said.

Reaver clinked his own glass against Jesse’s and echoed, “To breaking Imperial regulations.”

The weird, sparkly liquor really was good. Certainly better than that piss-tasting swill Ori was drinking.

“Oh, speaking of recreational reg-breaking,” Jesse said, leaning forward to set his glass on the low table in front of them. “How long do we all have to keep pretending we don’t know that one of your troopers has shacked up with Agent Weeks?”

Reaver just about choked on his drink, trying not to laugh mid-swallow. He’d been covering for Callan since before the war had ended. They all had. And now that every free breath he and his brothers took already amounted to high treason, Reaver was finding it even harder to get worked up over a little enthusiastically consensual fraternization on base, especially now that the remaining complications related to their company’s chain of command were actively being jettisoned out of an airlock.

The charade was getting more than a little silly, but there was something humorous and almost comforting in the familiar, unnecessary pretense, so after a moment’s thought, Reaver answered, “Probably right up until we get invitations to the marriage ceremony.”

Don’t lock your knees.

That was one of the earliest lessons Reaver remembered from back on Kamino. Before combat training, before blaster drills or armor maintenance, before learning to read or even to march, clone cadets were taught to stand at attention. Keep your back straight, chin up, eyes forward, and never, ever lock your knees. The instructors never explained why, they just gave the order and expected it to be obeyed. Of course, a few brothers didn’t listen, or weren’t sure what the instructors meant, or maybe they just forgot the detail, and ended up face-planting on the training room floor, out cold.

And when they’d come back to, then they’d been punished for not following their orders in every detail.

So, Reaver had learned pretty quickly not to lock his knees.

He locked his knees now though. He had to.

Nails was on that descending shuttle.

“I’m going to kill them,” Reaver muttered under his breath, trying to distract himself from his own irrational apprehension. At his side, Clip just laughed quietly. Pulling a half-joking grimace in response was easy. Reaver was still working things out in his head, but he thought he’d reached something resembling equilibrium over their ambiguous ranks. Getting absolutely plastered with your brothers was useful like that, even if his head was still throbbing.

“It’s too late to dismiss them now,” Ori said blandly, standing on Clip’s other side. “You’ll start a riot.”

Wasn’t that the truth?

Reaver had told Truss, Bolt, and Callan about who was arriving today, because to do anything else would have been cruel. He’d told Agent Weeks because he wasn’t an idiot and he knew that Callan would tell her even if Reaver didn’t. He’d also told all four of them that while he didn’t expect them to keep the news to themselves, they needed to keep the welcome party as small as possible so they wouldn’t overwhelm Nails.

It looked like the entire base had shown up instead, formed up in precise lines and decked out in their old, painted armor, buckets tucked neatly under their arms. Their non-241st brothers must be covering all of the base’s essential duty postings, to help make this happen.

At least most of the extra ships had relocated to the rapidly expanding archipelago base. It meant that at a bare minimum, they at least had the room for this kind of nonsense.

The shuttle was descending towards the last open space left in the base’s courtyard, thankfully far enough away from the front line of their formation to not shower them all in dust. Once the ship had landed and cut its engines, Reaver gestured for Truss and the other brothers assigned to the armory to fall in with him. Agent Weeks did not, as Reaver had half expected, join them. She just stood at the front of the formation in her formal blacks, shoulder to shoulder with Major Ullmann and Sergeant Levee in a silent show of support.

Reaver stopped next to the shuttle’s still-sealed ramp and waited as his brothers from the armory lined up next to him.

But then the shuttle’s ramp was dropping down and there, flanked by Captain Rex himself, was Nails.

Force.

It really was him, Nails, impossibly returned to them, but frozen at the top of the ship’s ramp, body language all but screaming that he was uncertain of his welcome.

Well, that wouldn’t do.

“Welcome home,” Reaver said, voice cracking only a little.

And then Bolt staggered forward up the ramp and caught Nails in a bone-crushing hug. Callan and Truss were only a step behind him. It was a wonder the four of them didn’t topple over, back into the ship.

A miracle, which probably had something to do with Captain Rex planting a supportive hand in the middle of Nails’ back.

As for Nails, he just buried his face against Callan’s spaulder and gripped all three of his brothers with desperate strength.

“I told you there wasn’t anything to worry about,” Reaver overheard Captain Rex say to Nails in an undertone.

It took Nails a bit, but once he got himself a little more under control, Reaver managed to gently entice the lot of them back down the ramp and towards the rest of the 241st, who look ready to storm the shuttle by force if they were asked to wait even one more minute.

He fully intended to join his men in the celebratory feast he wasn’t supposed to know Kenner had been cooking up in the mess. But there was one thing he needed to handle first.

When Captain Rex finally took the last few steps down off of the ramp and into the dust of the courtyard, Reaver gave him the most proper salute he could manage, shoulders back, posture perfect, and said, “Captain Rex. Thank you, sir.” He meant it too, the respect and the gratitude for Nails. For everything. He’d been raised to be loyal, and giving that loyalty to a brother was the easiest thing in the galaxy. Especially a brother whose men and mission continuously demonstrated their mettle. This brother.

Captain Rex just looked at him for a long moment, and then, instead of returning the salute, he extended one of his hands.

Kark it all, Reaver had really thought he’d gotten this relative rank thing worked out.

But Reaver did reach out, maybe a little awkwardly at first, and grip Rex’s forearm in greeting.

“Can we not, Captain?” Rex said with a small smile, putting a little extra emphasis on their shared rank.

Except it wasn’t shared, was it? Not really.

But Reaver really was feeling a little more confident in his footing. Enough to relapse into the familiar territory of being a subtle pain in the shebs when his superior officers were being particularly dense. “Anything you need, Commander.”

Stalemate.

The grumpy, resigned expression on Captain Rex’s face was legitimately hilarious, not that Reaver was going to let that reaction show on his face and lose the upper hand here.

Finally, Rex just sighed and buckled under the inevitable. “Can I at least get some food before having to deal with whatever crises cropped up dirtside?”

“Of course, Captain.”

AN: Previous chapters are available here.

Dividers by @freesia-writes using helmets by @lornaka. More designs available here.

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