Chapter Text
On an abandoned space station in the far reaches of the Outer Rim, Rex says, 'What's your name, soldier?' and when Jesse answers with something other than a four-digit number, he sobs in relief.
'Oh good, he's awake,' Maul drawls from the other side of the room with enough sarcasm that Rex allows himself a moment to imagine viciously wringing the darksider's neck.
Sitting silently on the bed on the other side of Jesse, Payt glowers in Maul's direction.
'Maul,' snaps Ahsoka from where she's sitting in a chair between where Haat and Flash are still sleeping off the anaesthesia. She has a hand each on their arms, her fingers softly sweeping back and forth. She met them both less than a tenday ago. 'You don't need to be here for this.'
Maul lifts his shoulders in a shrug too nonchalant to be genuine and continues fiddling with the scalpel in his hand, flipping the blade between his fingers.
'What happened?' Jesse asks and Rex sits down heavily next to his brother, lets Jesse lean on him so he can sit upright.
'We're... still working that out,' Rex admits.
He leans a little more into the weight of Jesse at his shoulder. He hasn't slept since the Order went out. That was three days ago.
Three days of keeping Maul from killing the five clones in a Force-induced sleep. Three days of jumping through hyperspace in a stolen Mandalorian ship, searching for a medical station with the equipment that could perform the surgeries they needed without telling the newborn Galactic Empire where they were.
They aren't soldiers anymore. The war is over. They won. They lost.
Stitcher walks into the room, staring at a datapad. He's pale with exhaustion, so much so that the five stitches tattooed on his cheekbone stand out more starkly against his brown skin than usual. He glances up at where Rex and Jesse sit side-by-side and for a moment, Rex thinks he sees tears shining under the fluorescent lights before he blinks and the brightness in his eyes is gone. His shoulders slump and he offers Jesse a tiny smile. 'Oh, thank kark for that.'
Someone groans a few beds over. Rex doesn't know these brothers well enough yet to be able to tell who without looking.
'Kriff, my head hurts,' Flash grumbles, pressing a hand to his freshly shaved skull.
'Join the club,' Payt snaps.
'Flash?' Haat asks, his voice pitched high and urgent. He cringes away from the overhead lights until Stitcher goes to turn them down.
'Here, brother,' Flash responds, but they’re both still too groggy to move.
Haat opens his eyes to follow the sound of his brother's voice and squeaks in alarm when he spots Ahsoka sitting between them instead. 'Commander Tano!'
'Shhhh,' Ahsoka murmurs, sending the kid a gentle smile. 'We're all okay now.'
Flash scans the room. 'Sterling?'
There’s a moment of heavy silence.
'I'm sorry, kid,' Rex says.
He looks the kid in the eye like he has with every other shiny under his care who’s ever asked after a squadmate or a batcher that never made it home. Flash’s eyes are blue - a rare mutation among Fett clones but not unheard of - like Stitcher’s green eyes. It sets them apart, not by choice but by genetics, which always brings unwanted attention from long-necks, natborns and brothers alike. It’s no wonder Flash and Stitcher stuck so closely together.
Ahsoka glares at Maul, sitting apparently oblivious in his corner, with more malice on her face than Rex can remember ever seeing before.
'The ship wasn't big enough for a firefight between seven troopers and two Force-users,' Rex explains before the silence can stretch too far. He can't look at Maul as he finishes, 'Sterling got caught in the crossfire.'
Payt snorts derisively, fists clenched in his sheets. Rex ignores him. He can only deal with one bastard at a time right now and Maul’s attitude is more than enough to keep him busy.
'Oh,' Flash says, flat.
Rex doesn't push. Flash, Haat, Stitcher and Sterling had been Vaughn's men. Not quite all on the same squad but close. Brothers got fiercely protective over their Company men. They aren't Torrent like Rex, Jesse and Payt - Rex doesn't know them as well as he knows - knew - Torrent's men, but in some ways, all brothers really are the same. Cavalry Company looks out for their own.
'We're not losing anyone else,' Ahsoka promises fiercely. 'Not to those Force-damned chips, anyway. They're gone. No one will be able to take away your will again.'
'The Empire will,' Maul says, his voice velvety soft in a way that makes Rex's skin crawl. 'No one is safe until Sidious is dead. Not your brothers,' he stands and stalks towards them, preternaturally graceful, attention fixed on Ahsoka, something vicious and almost pleased lighting his eyes. 'Not your friends. The Jedi will be hunted to extinction, the Republic lies in ruins. Your army is nothing. Nothing but empty flesh droids serving at a mad emperor’s whim.'
Ahsoka stands to meet him. She isn't tall enough to match him in height, but she has never let something so trivial intimidate her before. There are times when she is so obviously Anakin Skywalker's padawan that it hurts.
'I told you,' Ahsoka all but growls. 'I will help you, but your deal is with me, not these men. This isn't their fight. They've done enough.'
Rex jolts. 'Ahsoka-'
'No,' Ahsoka cuts him off before he can speak more than her name. 'I won't ask you to come with us. You've already given too much.'
'Don't we get a say?' Jesse demands while Rex tries not to panic.
He can see what an alliance with Maul might do to Ahsoka if he left her friendless, with no one to watch her back. He can't abandon her to the mercy of someone like that. An alliance with Maul is insane, practically suicide, but Rex had spent enough of the war thinking he'd die at her side to let that sway him to cowardice. He’d only just got his best friend back, after all.
'I'm not leaving you,' he insists.
'Me neither,' says Jesse.
Haat asks, 'Where else would we go?'
Stitcher’s hands clench around the datapad in his hands. 'I'm sticking with my brothers.’
'Fine,' Payt grumbles, but Rex doesn't doubt for a second that he's as surely opting in as the rest of them.
Flash sits up properly. He stares Maul down with the sort of brashness that doesn't usually last more than three months on the battlefield. It's a testament to how young he is - he's just a shiny . It breaks Rex's heart.
Flash says to Maul, 'Looks like you got your army.'
A slimy smile grows slowly on Maul's face. His eyes almost glow with satisfaction and something sinister. 'Not yet, Little Soldier,' he purrs. 'Not yet.'
They leave the abandoned space station behind, taking one of the armoured transports still docked in the hangar. It explodes as they leave, the combined effort of Flash and Payt, to eradicate any evidence of their stay. Ahsoka sucks in a breath as it goes, a silent light show in their portside view through the vacuum of space, gone in a blink.
Maul directs them to Dathomir, to a base hidden deep in the jungle. ‘Not even the Nightsisters will bother us here,’ he says as they land.
They’re greeted by a mismatched collection of thugs and criminals, who all incline their heads respectfully as Maul approaches, walking like a king. Maul sends a slimy smile in Flash’s direction as Pyke enforcers, smarmy blaster-wielding humanoids wearing the Crimson Dawn crest, and a myriad of other lowlifes emerge from the shadows of the complex. ‘ This , Little Soldier,’ Maul says, surveying his kingdom. ‘This is my army. Welcome to the Shadow Collective.’
They don’t stay on Dathomir very long. Maul keeps them moving, sweeping through Shadow Collective bases with Ahsoka a step behind and to the left, the clones flanking them both like an honour guard. It's an effective intimidation tactic, but it's not why Maul puts up with Rex and the men.
Maul and Ahsoka clash on every decision. She questions everything, objects to every plan on the basis of collateral damage, civilian casualties, sheer destruction. Maul is not used to being questioned. Lightsabers are drawn for the first time only a tenday after they arrive on Dathomir. It's instinct that has Rex and the others drawing their blasters, ready to back Ahsoka’s play, but she snaps, ‘ Stay out of it! ’ even as Maul launches himself across the table with a scream.
The fight is brutal, but Ahsoka is right: there’s no clear shot for any of the clones the entire time. Too many bodies in the room, too much movement. Maul’s thugs also look like they don’t know what to do with the duel raging before them, hands on their blasters still in their holsters. The duel ends in a stalemate, both combatants stopping short with the other’s blade at their throat, breathing hard.
‘You fight like Kenobi,’ Maul hisses.
Ahsoka bares her teeth at him. ‘If I fought like Master Kenobi, you’d be dead.’
Maul growls and thrusts one hand forward, sending Ahsoka shooting back into the wall. She crumples to her knees but catches herself, staggering back to her feet looking dazed.
Maul nods to one of his thugs with the Crimson Dawn crest on his chest. ‘Take her down to the cells until she’s learned her lesson.’
It happens twice more before Maul switches tactics.
He and Ahsoka are deploying pirate teams when Ahsoka identifies one target as a Republic-turned-Imperial medical frigate. This time, when she tries to strike the target off the list, Maul doesn’t so much as twitch. Instead, he watches her impassively until she’s cut off by a scream from Haat falling to his knees, clutching his arm.
‘Hey!’ Rex barks, torn between dashing to Haat's side and leaping at Maul, who hasn’t so much as lifted a finger, but Rex has had too many close calls with Ventress and Dooku to not know what must have happened.
Haat sobs, his good hand fumbling with his armour clasps, trembling so hard he can’t get his fingers to work. Rex gives in to his first instinct, he and his brothers running to his aid, Stitcher yelling something Rex can’t quite hear through the pulse in his ears. Ahsoka makes an aborted step forward before rounding on Maul. ‘What did you do? ’
Maul only inclines his head. ‘You were saying?’
‘I-’ Ahsoka starts and is cut off when Flash makes a choked noise, suddenly grabbing at his throat, eyes going wide.
Ahsoka looks desperately over at Haat, rapidly going into shock, to Flash, gasping for air, then back to Maul watching her.
‘Nothing,’ she says and steps back. ‘I’m sorry.’
Rex catches Flash as he slumps, sucking in lungfuls of air and Stitcher hurries over to check Flash’s throat for damage.
‘That’s right,’ Maul says.
Rex sends Flash and Haat to the base’s medical bay, helped there by Jesse and Payt, Stitcher leading the way. He stays with Ahsoka and Maul, jaw clenched and working the whole time. The briefing continues as if nothing had happened, but Rex can feel that something in the air has changed. The cold trickle of Rex’s fear is mirrored in Ahsoka’s face, her eyes reflecting the sickly yellow light of the sconces on the walls.
He meets Ahsoka’s eyes across the table and sees she’s realised the same thing he has.
Now Maul knows that he can use Ahsoka’s protectiveness against her, and none of Rex’s brothers will ever be safe again.
When Order 66 had come through, they’d already been on their way from Mandalore to Coruscant to confront the Chancellor. Rex’d had a moment of cold terror as he fought for control, just long enough to send Ahsoka searching down the right path and send Fives an apologetic prayer because if only he’d listened -
It’s only been a few months since Fives died and the loss still aches. It's easier, though, with Jesse and the others around. Part of Rex is almost glad Fives isn’t there with them since he and Maul would probably only piss each other off until one or the other snapped. Rex is starting to think this would have sent his more impulsive brother over the edge.
‘I can’t believe we’re doing Maul ’s dirty work,’ Jesse grumbles from where he and Rex are crouched out of sight of the Kaldana syndicate thugs protecting a suspiciously large crate.
‘Ahsoka’s the one who asked us to do this,’ Rex points out. ‘You don’t like it, you can always walk away.’
Jesse snorts and adjusts the focus on his macrobinoculars. ‘Yeah right. And leave you lot to Maul’s mercy? I don’t think so.’
‘Hey,’ Rex says. ‘We can take care of ourselves, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘You sure? Because you don’t exactly-’
‘Sir! ’ Haat’s voice sounds over his helmet comm. ‘We got company!’
Rex swears. ‘Kaldana reinforcements?’
‘No sir, ’ Haat replies just as a huge shadow blocks the starlight, plunging the courtyard into total darkness.
Jesse sucks in a breath just as Payt skids in behind them. ‘It’s a Star Destroyer!’
‘ Kriff ,’ Rex hisses. ‘Take cover!’
Beyond Rex’s hiding-place, the Kaldana thugs start shouting, cries of ‘The Empire! ’ sending goons scattering in a panic.
A faint mechanical scream reaches Rex’s helmeted ears, getting louder by the second. A flight of unfamiliar starfighters rockets over their heads, close enough to the ground that their wake nearly knocks Rex, Jesse and Payt on their asses.
‘What the kriff was that?’ Payt demands as the leader circles around at incredible speeds. ‘Look at them fly!’
Rex has known Payt for a long time but even so, he can’t tell whether it’s fear or awe in his brother’s voice.
‘Rex,’ Jesse says. ‘We need to get out of here.’
Rex grimaces. ‘Agreed.’ To his comm, he adds, ‘Cavalry, meet us at the extraction point. We’re getting outta here.’
‘Woah,’ Flash breathes.
The lead starfighter has landed, its pilot climbing out the top of the round cockpit and jumping the ten feet to the ground like it's nothing. At first, Rex isn’t sure what he’s looking at, the starlight casting the figure in sharp contrast, making him a monstrous thing. The... thing stands at least six and a half feet tall, dwarfing the four identical starfighter pilots that have flanked it like an honour guard. A long black cape nearly reaches its feet, and a black skull-like mask truly is a thing of nightmares. Even from this distance, Rex can hear the thing breathing, a sound reminiscent of General Grievous, harsh and grating on the ears. The Kaldana thugs that had stood their ground were now cowering in fear as the monster looms over them.
‘I am Darth Vader,’ the Monster says. ‘The Emperor sends his regards.’
Rex can feel the deep resonance of that mechanical voice in his chest. The shrieking hiss of a lightsaber shatters the moment of petrified silence following that statement and then the screaming starts. Rex doesn’t stop to watch the carnage, turning to Jesse and Payt. ‘Go. Now .’
The three of them take off in unison. In the corner of his eye, Rex spots Haat tearing across rooftops with his new sniper rifle slung across his back. Someone behind them must spot the movement because a heart-stoppingly familiar voice cries, ‘Over there!’ and two of the monster’s honour guard peels off from the slaughter, chasing after them and Rex fights the urge to be ill because they’re clones-
The monster spots them and freezes for a split-second. Rex feels the thing’s eyes meet his through their helmets but then the moment passes, and the galaxy starts moving again. Darth Vader carves bloody carnage through the Kaldana thugs, and Rex flees.
Blasterfire from their pursuit shatters the air above Rex’s head and he ducks, swerving back and forth to make himself a more difficult target. He doesn’t fire back. He can’t . Not at brothers.
‘We’re not gonna lose them!’ Payt growls as he sprints for the short space between two buildings. If they can make it out into the city, they’ll get lost in the crowd - although painted clone armour sticks out like a sore thumb these days, it’ll be something .
Payt gets hit in the shoulder and he cries out. He doesn’t fall, but stumbles, turns, and starts firing back.
‘Payt!’ Jesse cries, aghast.
‘I am not gonna die today!’ Payt bellows and Rex hears a clone cry out and a body hit the ground behind him.
Rex’s chest heaves and his whole body burns with the effort to keep moving. He doesn’t look back.
There’s an alley in front of them, a busy street on the other end and Rex pours everything he’s got into finding more speed, Jesse alongside him, Payt on their heels despite his injury. They burst through the other side and scatter nighttime pedestrians - it’s only half an hour till curfew and everyone is heading home. The streets are packed. Rex slows abruptly to compensate for the traffic, weaving between sentients and ducking around speeders to get to the alley on the other side. He glances back once to see their pursuer trapped behind a large speeder before disappearing.
He hits the wall of the alley with his armoured shoulder and skids to a halt, spinning so his back is to the wall, and he can catch his breath. Jesse and Payt slam home beside him and the adrenaline coursing through Rex’s veins almost makes him want to laugh.
Jesse wrenches his helmet off to gulp in more air. Even in the shadows, his face looks pale, a flush visible on his cheeks from the chase. ‘Maul isn’t going to like this,’ he huffs between breaths.
Rex thunks his helmeted head against the wall, all his leftover energy leaving him at once. ‘It’s Ahsoka I’m worried about.’
They return to Dathomir with a new name on their lips: Darth Vader. Maul laughs , goes on a rant about visions and Sith and plans and Skywalker , and Rex lunges before he can think, Jesse and Payt only a beat behind him and the Cavalry boys have to haul them back before they can do something stupid. Maul stops mid-word, his manic grin shifting, becoming sharper, more calculating.
‘Of course,’ he drawls, drawing out the last word as if he’d only just remembered. ‘Skywalker was your General, wasn’t he?’ His face contorts into a mockery of sympathy and Rex has never wanted to claw someone’s eyes out as much as he wants to right then. Only Krell, that traitorous monster, had ever ignited a similar ire, and it's the image of Krell tearing through squads of clones that finally snaps him back to sense. He refuses to be the catalyst that sends Maul into a murderous rampage through his brothers.
‘Betrayal is a bitter thing, is it not?’ Maul muses softly. ‘You see it now. We are the same. My master replaced me, left me for dead and now...’
Maul turns, and beyond him Rex sees Ahsoka standing, stricken, her blue-green eyes frozen wide.
Maul tilts his head as if in regret and finishes, ‘Now, so has yours.’
‘No,’ is all Ahsoka says before she turns on her heel and leaves the room.
Maul turns back to Rex and his men and sighs. ‘You don’t believe me now,’ he says. ‘But one day soon you will.’
Ahsoka locks herself in her quarters for three days and when she returns to them, she is different. Angry, harsh. Her eyes…
Rex has never seen Maul look so pleased with himself, muttering about vindication and prophecies and Sith.
Rex doesn’t know - doesn’t want to know - which of Maul’s tests Ahsoka passed those three days she locked herself away, but after that, Maul starts sending her out with Rex and the boys.
It's a relief for everyone. Ahsoka had hated being cooped up and Rex feels better about this deal they’d made with Maul when he is there to watch her back. They are as good a team as they used to be - perhaps better now that it's just them and they don't have whole armies to worry about.
The old Ahsoka, the one Rex had known during the war, starts to reappear whenever they leave Maul and his thugs behind. She is still a little sharper around the edges, a little harsher, but so is Rex, so are his brothers. They’d all decided to join Maul in his war against the Empire and they are all paying the price - Ahsoka more than most. But once she's no longer under Maul’s watchful golden gaze, she visibly relaxes, starts smiling and bantering with the squad on their way to attack imperial shipments, sabotaging the Emperor’s war machine.
Still, as the months progress, something in Ahsoka changes. Not all at once, not in a way Rex could articulate if asked, but something changes. She doesn’t spare any imperial officers she comes across. If there aren’t any clones in the ranks of imperial stormtroopers they find on missions, she doesn’t spare them either.
A new threat emerges, more black-masked Force-users like Vader, carrying red-bladed saberstaffs and wearing Imperial insignia. Ahsoka throws herself between these Imperial inquisitors and her men with a breathtaking ferocity that seems to delight these imperials as much as it terrifies them.
Rex has fought alongside his fair share of Jedi, enough to notice each had their own style. The Ahsoka he remembers was all acrobatic grace. The Ahsoka that joins them on missions now fights more like Skywalker, powerful, brutal, direct, punishing. She wears rage like its armour when she’s in battle, pulls off feats with the Force that Rex had only ever seen Skywalker perform, but every time she does, she comes back a little colder, and it takes a little longer for her to come back to them at all. It makes Rex ache, somewhere deep inside him, to watch it happen and have no idea how to help.
Maul takes Ahsoka out on a mission, alone, and the two Force users disappear for almost a whole tenday. By the fourth day, Rex has a duffel bag packed, ready for the moment when Maul returns alone, Ahsoka’s lightsabers on his hip, and cuts Rex and his brothers down with them.
While they’re gone, Rex and his brothers have more downtime than they have had in over a year, and it should be a relief, but it leaves no distraction from the gnawing worry churning in his gut. Jesse makes noises about going after them, but Rex puts a stop to that. If they knew where Ahsoka and Maul had gone, perhaps they’d have a chance, but they don't, and as it stands, if Ahsoka is dead, they won’t survive long against Maul anyway.
So they wait, and they plan how to take Maul down. This alliance was always supposed to be temporary, anyway, and serving under Skywalker during the war had taught Rex that it is always useful to have a backup plan.
Maul returns with Ahsoka a step behind and to the left, unharmed. She looks... better, more settled, and Rex wants to believe that’s a good sign, but something keeps him wary.
‘We went searching for a cure,’ Ahsoka explains that night when they get a few minutes alone to debrief. ‘For you and the boys, so you don’t have to age so quickly anymore.’
Rex nods but doesn’t speak for a long moment. He remembers, only a few weeks into their arrangement, how Maul had thrown that tidbit of information in Ahsoka’s face, dangled it like a worm on a string and watched her swallow it whole. We can save them, you know , he’d said, and Rex’s world had stopped spinning for a second. The look on Ahsoka’s face when she turned her gaze to Rex had gutted him more than the idea, like a spice-dream, that there was even the possibility that Rex and his brothers could have the one thing they all knew had been denied them: time.
It had seemed like such a small thing compared to everything else they lacked. Freedom, rights, somewhere to call home, but time couldn’t be legislated into existence. All the talk during the war of Clones Rights Bills and the Clone Repatriation Act that had never even made it to the Senate floor were about the things that could be fixed. Thinking about everything that had been stolen from them that could never be given back wasn’t useful. Every brother he's ever known has been staring down the barrel of their own mortality for as long as they could remember. They all knew that even if the war didn’t get them, they’d fall apart sooner rather than later. He thinks of Haat and Flash, still boys, really, and tries to imagine a world where they can age like natborns, keeping the youth that had already been stolen from too many brothers.
And now Ahsoka was promising them more time. This should be a good thing.
He wants to hope, needs to hope that there is a way they all get out of this mess not just alive, but with lives to live.
‘Just be careful,’ he says, instead of the joy Ahsoka was so obviously hoping to hear. ‘Maul is using us to get to you.’
Ahsoka sighs. ‘I know, Rex, I know.’ She looks up at him and Rex is reminded that this is one of his closest friends, someone he’d follow to certain death because he knows that she would do the same for him and his brothers. There's a soul-deep care written all over her face and he couldn’t help but pull her into a hug, resting his chin between her montrals, letting her sigh into his shirt.
‘I have to try,’ she whispers into his chest.
Rex hums. ‘I know.’
The Empire grows and Maul and Ahsoka’s rebellion grows in its shadow like a cancer. For the first few years, it’s just them, just Maul’s army of pirates and gangsters and Rex’s small family.
Once Ahsoka starts joining Rex’s team out in the field, however, their family starts to grow, too.
The first new addition they discover after Ahsoka has carved a path through an Imperial light cruiser, Rex’s brothers following in her wake, only to find one of the troopers had survived being thrown into a wall. Stitcher notices him breathing and shouts for help, tugging off the man’s helmet to reveal Jango Fett’s face. The trooper looks young, maybe not much older than Haat and Flash, and groans a little as they try to move him back to the ship, but doesn’t wake. Stitcher works all the way home to keep him alive and later, when the trooper’s been treated with bacta and had his chip removed, Rex spots Stitcher’s hands shaking where they’re fisted in the covers of the unknown brother’s cot.
His name is Dance. Before the Empire, he’d been a fresh recruit to Commander Bacara’s regiment on Mygeeto, hoping to make it to command track someday. The boys fold him into their ranks like he’d always been there, like they always had with the shinies back when there was still a Republic to fight for.
Two months later, Dance catches a blaster bolt to the neck and dies in Payt’s arms, choking on his own blood.
They try again. And again. And again. More names get added to the squad over the next two years; Trapp and Luck - an inseparable pair of batchmates that had somehow stayed together through the GAR’s restructuring into the Imperial Army. Tally, a genius slicer. Cage, a former infantryman from the 104th. Pepper, their family’s first sister and a former ARC. Jus, a former captain that made even Rex’s personality seem positively sunny in comparison - and then they have enough for Jesse to take command of his own squad. Ahsoka latches onto each new addition like a lifeline, throwing herself into battle for each as she would have for Fives, Echo, Kix, Hardcase, or any of the countless soldiers she’d fought beside under Skywalker. Every new name is a victory. Sometimes Rex catches Ahsoka rattling them off under her breath after a battle, hoarding them, her eyes glowing yellow – not a remembrance, as the clones would say for the dead, but a reminder all the same.
They lose men, too. Stitcher starts adding a tattooed stitch to his face for every brother that doesn't come home. The first five had been in remembrance of his batchmates, Stitcher had told Rex once over a stiff drink. Now, he honours every fallen brother they have the same way. The brothers they fight alongside every day now are family in a way even the brothers they'd fought with in the GAR never were.
They start painting their armour, the imperial white almost completely disappearing under dark blues, reds, greys and blacks. Ahsoka’s markings become their symbol, Maul’s horns where the diamonds should be, painted on pauldrons, helmets, chest plates - everyone ends up with the icon somewhere. Lost or damaged armour pieces are replaced with whatever they can scavenge and repainting them becomes something of a group activity. Rex catches Ahsoka watching them paint from the door to their bunkroom once, but she turns and leaves as soon as she spots him looking at her.
He brings her some armour pieces later that night when the rest of his brothers are asleep; two pauldrons, a pair of vambraces, and the kama he’d stopped wearing after the war, that had been tucked under his bunk ever since. They paint in silence, covering up any residual imperial white, and when it’s done, Rex’s chest warms with how much she suddenly looks like one of them, like their leader. She is as much theirs as they are hers. In this endless fight and the dread that follows Maul like a cloud tainting the recycled air, Rex still manages to feel pride. It’s a heady thing.
‘Thank you,’ Ahsoka says, sending him one of her rare genuine smiles.
‘We stick together,’ Rex says. ‘It’s the only way we’ll win.’