In the Blackness

by catboydogma

Summary:

“Nothing I can do to help?”

“Nothing anyone can do to help,” Obi-Wan said with a rueful twist of his mouth. “It’s not all bad. It really isn’t all like this, and I—well, I suppose I’ve become rather used to it.”

Rex’s response to this was best described as “unimpressed.” Obi-Wan coughed a little to clear his throat, carefully, and when nothing further seemed to be forthcoming in the way of dirt or petals, gestured Rex in closer.

“Now, about our own situation—I have a few ideas.” He looked around, carefully, tracking guards’ trajectories and lowering his voice even further. They leaned together, ostensibly to huddle for warmth, as Obi-Wan started to sketch out the beginnings of his plans.

Notes:

i meant to give WAY more buffer time between brute divine and this but i accidentally hit post chapter on the third part so here u all go. as a treat! art once again from the amazing and wonderful @olives-and-lilies on tumblr!

Chapter 1: i

Spinebarrels are thorny desert flowers native to the planet of Jakku. They need regular bright sunlight, warm climes, and very little water to thrive; indeed, they bloom best in arid weather and are easy to over-water. Their delicate root systems are widespread and reach deep into the desert scrub they are found in, rotting quickly when the ground is soaked with rainwater during Jakku’s irregular monsoon seasons. To many nomadic tribes native to Jakku, they signify sudden change, reclamation, and longing. 

 

“Master,” Obi-Wan called out, eyes wide. There was something in his throat. He swallowed once, twice, and it only lodged further up. “Ma—” When his voice broke he started coughing, the lump in his throat getting sharper and harder.

Qui-Gon was at his side when he next looked up, one hand steadying Obi-Wan by the shoulder as he started to sink to his knees. “What is it, Obi-Wan?”

Dark spots crowded his vision. Obi-Wan could only just barely take short, shallow sips of air, even as he coughed and coughed and coughed, even as Qui-Gon rubbed one hand up and down the quivering length of his spine and did something with the Force to try and—he didn’t know.

He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t breathe.

Obi-Wan stared at his hand fisted in the front of Qui-Gon’s tunics. His knuckles were white with pressure. He couldn’t quite feel his hands, all the same, vision dimming and dimming at the edges. Qui-Gon’s deep voice was a rumble just at the edge of hearing. The hand between his shoulder blades—unmoving, now—burned like a brand.

He couldn’t have caught some sort of virus or flu originating on Mandalore. That was just preposterous. Obi-Wan’s biology was perfectly compatible with—

Obi-Wan doubled over and hacked a crimson spatter of blood and matter onto the shining durasteel floor. It was ugly and dark, half clotted blood and the soft tissues of Obi-Wan’s throat and mouth, half—something else. He kept coughing—and coughing—and coughing. Another trail of thin roots, hairy with offshoots and rough with half-dried dirt, followed onto the floor. By now his coughs had taken on a distinctly hoarse sound and they were great, agonizing things, like they were turning Obi-Wan’s lungs inside out with each heave.

His Master stayed with him throughout. Nearer the end—when the roots were more fine hairs than anything else—he gave Obi-Wan a great thump on the back that seemed to dislodge the rest of it. He caught Obi-Wan when he nearly fell face-first onto the floor and took him to the fresher, where he directed Obi-Wan through an endless round of rinsing his mouth and gargling stinging salt water and listening to his heart and lungs with Force and ears.

“Easy, that’s it, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon murmured. He pulled Obi-Wan’s hands into the sink one after the other—they must have relocated to the ‘fresher at some point, when Obi-Wan had still been trying to breathe past the lingering tightness in his chest and throat. There was blood streaked all down his chin and front. He sat, quiescent, as Qui-Gon ran a towel under the stream and started to wipe away the blood starting to dry into the lines of his palms.

“What’s happening to me, Master?” Obi-Wan asked. The words were barely recognizable, but Qui-Gon hummed a note at the back of his throat that suggested he was formulating an answer.

They sat in silence a little longer. Obi-Wan took over clumsily swiping away at the blood over his chin and mouth. He could only find a sense of exhausted sort of relief that he’d cut off his Padawan braid, all those months ago; it surely would not have escaped unscathed.

“This could be an isolated incident.” Qui-Gon held one of Obi-Wan’s hands cupped in his own, thumb resting delicately against the inside of Obi-Wan’s wrist to measure his pulse.

That did not sound convincing.

Qui-Gon cleared his throat and turned to the sink, rinsing his own hands off. Obi-Wan leaned his temple against Qui-Gon’s bicep to find that he was washing off something in his hands: the flimsy flower Obi-Wan had hacked up before regurgitating half a root system.

“Force Sensitives—empaths, that is—are somewhat more susceptible to certain afflictions.” Qui-Gon presented Obi-Wan with two cups, both half full of water. “Without more data, we can’t be sure what it is. Regardless, though, the healers at the Temple will have a solution. This may very well resolve on its own.”

It didn’t feel like it would figure itself out. Obi-Wan took one cup and downed it in a few gulps, throat stinging with each movement. He could still taste iron all through the back of his mouth, fresh blood welling up with each minute breath and shift.

“This is a dew flower.” Qui-Gon held up the flower that had shredded his throat into a bloody mess. It was morning-pale, with tiny white petals stained blush-pink layered around a crimson center. The stem was thin and still had a few of the long, curved thorns that had lodged in Obi-Wan’s throat. “It is a native to Bellassa and thrives in perverse conditions even through their cold seasons.”

Including his throat, apparently.

“Rest, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon laid a hand on his shoulder and steered him from the ‘fresher, handing both cup and flower off to Obi-Wan along the way.

He’d looked after enough of his Master’s plants to know what Qui-Gon wanted from him now, with this. Obi-Wan dropped the deceptively delicate flower into the cup of water and watched as a sanguine plume of blood curled up from the end of the stem, where it had soaked into the flower.

In the days following, he remembered sometimes—often—waking up to stale, earthy taste filling his mouth, or hair-thin fragments of roots caught in his throat and between his teeth. He hadn’t thought much of it after the first few shocks. It had faded over the course of the antibiotics the healers had prescribed, over time.

Eventually, he’d even thought it had disappeared altogether.

 

The Zygerrian slavers kept the enslaved Togruta in pens along with Obi-Wan and Captain Rex. He and the trooper, however, got special accommodations. Solitary confinement, Obi-Wan supposed. It only made it harder to watch the guards walk through the Togruta and strike about carelessly as they left them for the night. There were a few guards stationed here and there, talking to each other in low tones or fidgeting restlessly.

“General Skywalker will come,” Captain Rex said. His voice was low and rough with exhaustion; he sounded more as if he were reminding himself than Obi-Wan.

“He will.” Obi-Wan hesitated, only for a second, before putting a hand on Rex’s shoulder. Rex leaned into the touch, the tight lines around his mouth and eyes easing. The motion reminded Obi-Wan of Cody so much that his chest ached. They had the same, self-assured, economic way of moving and fighting. From the way Cody always looked out for the younger trooper—Obi-Wan suspected Cody of older brother tendencies. Not that he would ever say such a thing, of course.

Now to change the subject and get rid of the rest of those worrying, worrisome lines off Rex’s face. “You’ve known Cody for quite some time.”

“Yeah.” Rex shifted a little so they were turned toward each other, his knees drawing up to his chest so he could rest his forearms on them. “Cody’s batch—all of the CC batches—were trained by Alpha troopers. I’m only three generations younger, but the CC batches had boosted developmental modules on top of decanting earlier.”

That explained the gap between CTs and CCs—they had not only been trained differently but raised differently.

“Cody was the one who nominated me for ARC training. The one who oversaw my first few engagements, too.” Rex tilted his head back against the bar of the cage they were kept in. “Taught me that even if a few of us might not make a difference, we’re strongest when together. That we were brothers, all of us, no matter how far we march apart from each other.”

“Vode an,” Obi-Wan said softly, and Rex nodded. Brothers all.

“Vode an, kandosii sa kar’ta.” Rex sighed and looked away, out at the countless other cages—most held Togruta, faces familiar to Obi-Wan, but some on the far edges held strangers with far more dust matting their skin and clothes shredded to rags on their bodies. “You ever heard that song, General?”

“Once.”

Obi-Wan didn’t elaborate. Rex didn’t ask him to. The hard, choked-up feeling in his chest had only been climbing higher and higher in the dark that swallowed them up. Obi-Wan went for a quiet cough and it turned into a series of hoarse, racking ones that left him shaking and shivering and inadvertently banging the back of his head against the bars behind him.

“General?”

“Obi-Wan, if you please.” This sets him off into another round of hacking and wheezing in small breaths between hacking and hacking all over again. The suppression collar around his throat felt like it was choking him but Obi-Wan knew that wasn’t true: there was a scant millimeter of space between it and his skin. This was all in his head. All in his thorned briar thoughts.

When he retched, only dirt filled his mouth. He spat, heaved again, spat more clumped dirt and half-rotted petals onto the stone-cold ground. Rex made a hastily stifled sound of alarm and shifted towards him on his knees, only stopping when Obi-Wan threw up a hand. He felt around his soft palate with the other, two fingers pressed to the top of his throat, scoring out dirt and decomposing flower heads. They were unrecognizable, the color leeched out of them by the dark and their state.

“Sir?” Rex said. His voice was hushed even further now—a few guards had glanced in their direction. It was never wise, they had both learned, to bring the attention of the slavers down upon oneself.

Obi-Wan waved his hand around some more, indicated that he was alive—for now—and attempted to uncurl his spine from his fetal position. It worked, in a manner, but then Rex was there with a hand steadying his shoulder and the other quickly checking his pulse.

His mouth was filled with blood and dirt. Obi-Wan swallowed with difficulty and turned his face away to spit, dark blood clots mixing with dirt clumps.

“Sir?” Rex asked again, voice newly filled with a rather distinct tone of alarm.

Obi-Wan could only shake his head and grimace and make shaky hand signs at Rex. Status: alive. Vitals holding steady.

Rex’s lips pressed into a thin line. The lines of worry were back on his face, carved deep enough to make him look two generations older.

They only got deeper in the days to come.

 

Nightfall, at least, brought a pause to the horrors. The slavers left well enough alone at night; they had their own beds to fall into, their own cruelty-laden dreams to wade through. Obi-Wan had Rex, and Rex had Obi-Wan.

“You’re shivering,” Rex said, voice just loud enough to carry to Obi-Wan. He shifted closer to Obi-Wan, one of his hands hovering in the space between them. In that moment he looked very young and more than a little lost, for all his battlefield expertise.

Obi-Wan worked his tongue free of his teeth, the bitter taste of old blood filling his mouth and the back of his throat. He could smell it when he breathed in and he was quite sure his beard looked a horror. “Nothing to worry about, but thank you for your concern. That was a hard fall you took, earlier today. Are you alright?”

Rex gave him a cross look, blond-brown brows drawing together and one corner of his mouth pulling further down than the other. “I asked first.”

“Technically, you didn’t ask at a—” Obi-Wan’s mouth clicked shut at the even more cross look Rex was giving him. “Yes, alright, alright. I’m a little cold, but it truly is nothing to worry about. I have poor circulation due to my ailment, you see, so I get chilled quite easily. Nothing too harmful, simply rather inconvenient. And you?”

“Alright. I’m tough. I heal fast,” Rex said simply. “They haven’t been hitting me as hard as you, either. And you don’t have the Force to rely on.”

“One needn’t rely on the Force at all times,” Obi-Wan said, even if having the Force cut off from him felt like having one of his limbs severed. Even if it felt like walking through a dense, cold fog, without light or warmth. He was one with the Force, and the Force was with him—and it was yet just out of reach, muted and dim. “This is far from the worst trial I have faced, Rex.”

“Sure,” Rex agreed. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking suck. Sir.”

Obi-Wan lifted and dropped a grimy hand in a halfhearted wave. He kept his nails short but two of them were broken all the same—one even cracked down to the nailbed, the scab under it tender and itchy. They both smelled of sweat and exhaustion and the cloying, toxic mineral they were being forced to mine with the Togruta prisoners. When he got back to the Negotiator, his first order of business would be using up his entire water ration for a long, hot shower.

“The Republic will be here soon,” Obi-Wan said after a moment. “Anakin would not walk away from this. And I intend to see this through to the end.”

“As do I, sir.” Rex sighed and shifted to lean back against the bars ringing them in, the gleam of his eyes faint in the dark as he glanced Obi-Wan’s way. “How long has it been since he was your Padawan, sir?”

“Oh, not that long at all, though I’m sure he would have you believe otherwise.” Obi-Wan tugged at a corner of his beard and smiled faintly. Anakin had grown faster and faster, shooting up like a damn beanstalk as soon as he’d raced into his teens, but Obi-Wan would always remember that little blond boy he’d once been. “He was still my Padawan learner when the start of the war broke out, you know. But he was Knighted soon after, and, well… the war keeps us apart, as it does everyone. So, I suppose it’s been about three years by now. Some days it feels like it wasn’t that long since I myself was a Padawan.”

“He was an apprentice until he was nineteen?” Rex asked, surprised. He tilted his head towards Obi-Wan and pulled a knee to his chest, rested his elbow atop it. “Is that very late for the Jedi?”

“Oh, not at all. The opposite, in fact. It’s quite early. I myself wasn’t Knighted until I was twenty-five—and, you know, I—” Obi-Wan chuckled a little, coughed a little, and tried to ignore the ominous rattle starting up in his lungs again. “—sometimes I still think I wasn’t truly ready. I would have happily remained a Padawan for a couple more years.” Doubly so if it had meant Qui-Gon surviving.

Rex was silent for a moment. He was chewing on the inside of his cheek, contemplating something—Obi-Wan wasn’t quite sure what. “I advanced to Lieutenant when I was nine. Fast-tracked to Captain by the time the war broke out. Think I know a bit how you feel. It all comes on so fast, then you’re looking back at the years between and just thinking—what the hell? How the hell? When did I get here? When did—” Rex broke off and shook his head, rolling whatever he wanted to say about his mouth for a few seconds. “I dunno.”

“Quite,” Obi-Wan said, wry. “I’m glad you had Cody for it, for what it’s worth. He’s… he’s a good man.”

“He’s the best vod a trooper could have,” Rex said. “And he’s a good man. A helluva trooper.”

“We’re all quite lucky to have Cody.” Obi-Wan turned away, politely, to cough into his fist. The very air felt heavy and damp. His shoulders and chest were still covered in the cold sweat that a day full of backbreaking labor had gotten him.             “The two of you are—quite close, aren’t you?”

Rex nodded, once. “He’s my vod. And at the end of the day, I know I’m his,” was all he said.

“I know the feeling.” Obi-Wan shifted and winced at the pull of the scabs criss-crossing his back. Before the slavers had turned their attentions on the Togruta, they had not been gentle with their whips. The sensation seemed to spark another fit in him—this one longer than any he’d had yet, and only ending with Obi-Wan half-collapsed onto the cold ground and with dark spots dancing in his vision. The guards seemed unconcerned; Rex, to compensate for this, was nearly vibrating at hyperspeed with furious concern.

“Sir!”

“Quite alright.” Obi-Wan retched one last time for good measure, grimacing as the collar abraded the top of his collarbone and sides of his throat. “This, ah, happens—” Obi-Wan grimaced until he felt the tickle in his throat die down once more. “—happens at times.” Without his customary medication, he really was starting to worry about infection and the like. His wounds from the Zygerrians were one thing, but if…

“What happens at times?” Rex’s face—really only distinguishable in the dark by the brightness of his hair—moved closer. He rested a heavy, warm hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “What’s happening to you, sir?”

“My ailment,” Obi-Wan said plainly.

When it became clear that he would not be adding more, Rex cut him a look that would have made Cody proud. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s happening, sir.”

Obi-Wan suppressed the urge to sigh and carefully leaned his head back against the bars of their prison. “I am chronically ill with a rare virus that manifests with persistent and recurring growth of plant matter within my respiratory system. This late into the disease and at my age, the best anyone can do is to mitigate the symptoms, though this has varying degrees of success, which I am sure you can attest to.”

“And Cody knows,” Rex said.

What an odd thing to conclude from all that. Obi-Wan had witnessed many and varied reactions to his condition, but this was certainly—strange.

“Cody knows,” he agreed. “Though I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”

Rex, normally rather transparent in his displays of emotion—or so Obi-Wan was coming to find—gave him a look that was quite unreadable.

“There’s not much that can be done about it, now,” Obi-Wan said, quieter now. He was doing everything right: he knew he was. He was regulating his emotions, meditating daily—when he could—and not letting himself become attached. He took the medication, he stayed hydrated just the right amount, and kept away from respiratory hazards. He was doing everything right, as much as was in his power too, and—still. Still. There would always be the downhill slope he was one bad day from tumbling over.

“Nothing I can do to help?”

“Nothing anyone can do to help,” Obi-Wan said with a rueful twist of his mouth. “It’s not all bad. It really isn’t all like this, and I—well, I suppose I’ve become rather used to it.”

Rex’s response to this was best described as “unimpressed.” Obi-Wan coughed a little to clear his throat, carefully, and when nothing further seemed to be forthcoming in the way of dirt or petals, gestured Rex in closer.

“Now, about our own situation—I have a few ideas.” He looked around, carefully, tracking guards’ trajectories and lowering his voice even further. They leaned together, ostensibly to huddle for warmth, as Obi-Wan started to sketch out the beginnings of his plans.

 

One thrilling escape later, Obi-Wan was being corralled off a lartie by Master Koon and corralled through the hangar by what felt like half of Ghost Company and then corralled into medical by Howl, only just managing to ensure that the Togruta civilians and Rex were being suitably cared for as well.

“Take his other side.” Howl’s voice was indistinct and fuzzy around the edges, much like most of the hangar.

Obi-Wan had only just gotten the suppression collar off in the gunship and he felt a little like a hurricane poured into an eggshell. Pale. Damp. Brittle. And, of course, somewhat buoyant.

A warm and hard weight pressed in against his right side and his arm was lifted up, up over a pair of orange-gold spaulders.

“Alright, General?” Cody asked. His tidal Force signature filled Obi-Wan’s senses with the heat of sun-warmed granite and deep, heady drag of undertow. Between that and Howl’s misty chalk downs, the edges of his self were getting easier to find. The pain made it hard, but pain was something Obi-Wan was used to. There was a deep well of it within him, and at the present moment it seemed to be overflowing.

“Captain Rex reported that in their final fight to get off the mining facility, the General sustained injuries. Add that to the beating from the very beginning, the abuse the slavers subjected him to, the run out—he’s in poor shape, sir. Only reason we’re not carrying him to medical in a gurney—”

“No, thank you,” Obi-Wan said as politely as he could manage. The coughs rattling his chest made it a bit difficult, but if there was one thing he knew how to do, it was to persevere in the face of difficulty and not being able to breathe properly.

“—other than that, is because the civilians need ‘em. But he’s stable, and he’s here now.”

Quite right. And he’d be just fine if he could only get his feet under him.

“We’ll get you in and out as fast as we can, sir, without sacrificing effectiveness for speed. You just sit still and try not to hurl on me, and we’ll go along just fine.” Howl, with Cody’s help, directed Obi-Wan onto a medical cot that was tucked away in a corner of the medbay—one that he vaguely recognized from previous sojourns to this accursed place.

Well, he would try his very best. As he always did.

The debrief was quick and clinical, between a holocall with Mace, Cody, and himself. Obi-Wan’s attention wandered and time slipped away from him on more than one occasion: at one point Howl was shining a light in his eyes and talking about a concussion, the next he was doubled over on the floor with his palms and knees stinging and heaving up what seemed like a bucket’s worth of ashen earth. And the next—he was back in the cot again, wrapped all around with bacta patches and a brace for a sprained wrist he’d not realized he’d had.

Cody didn’t leave his side even after Mace had signed off and Howl was packing up his kit and convincing Obi-Wan to do silly things like lay down and release the tension he was carrying in his jaw and shoulders. Awareness and a vague sense of passing time were starting to ebb back into Obi-Wan’s consciousness, along with—

“Torrent,” Obi-Wan said, planting a hand on the cot and starting to rise. “And Master Koon, I’ve got to—”

“Accompanying us back to the Togrutas’ colony,” Cody said. His hand was firm and warm where it had settled in the middle of Obi-Wan’s sternum. “I’ve already plotted our route with Generals Koon and Skywalker. There’s nothing yet that demands your immediate attention, sir. Even if there weren’t, you’re in no shape for it.”

Well. When he put it like that. His back and core protested as Obi-Wan sank back into the mountain of pillows that always seemed to haunt this particular cot.

“Rex is with Torrent.” Cody pulled a chair up to Obi-Wan’s beside and eased back into it, suppressing a wince of his own. He looked exhausted, the cut of his cheekbones sharper than usual and scar standing out in livid wine red. He must have been scratching at it again. “Asking after you, actually. Kid’s banged up good. Dehydrated. Systems’re feeling the effects of a few days without food or proper rest. The works. Lt. Kix reports he’ll have no lasting injuries.”

“And yourself?” Obi-Wan closed his eyes to stave off the pounding headache that had started to creep up on him.

“Well enough. I wasn’t tortured and coerced into compliance, forced to mine a highly toxic mineral that threatens severe long-term respiratory damage, and beaten for good measure.” Cody’s voice was clipped. He wasn’t looking at Obi-Wan—which was understandable, really, he was quite sure he made for a rather pitiable sight—but at the datapad in his hands. That would not have been remarkable, really, if not for the fact that it was still off.

“But I’m alright, now,” Obi-Wan said, as gentle as he dared. He stretched an arm out over the vast, interminable distance between them, and let his bruise-dark hand settle on the blank screen of Cody’s datapad. “And you look tired, my dear.”

Cody let a long, slow breath out through his nose, glancing away from the datapad—and the back of Obi-Wan’s hand—to stare down the privacy drapes drawn ‘round Obi-Wan’s cot.

“I am tired,” he finally said. “And I can’t sleep.”

“That’s quite alright,” Obi-Wan said genially. He raised an arm up, pulling at something sore that he probably shouldn’t have been. There was, perhaps, a spare two inches of space beside him on the cot. Cody looked at Obi-Wan—finally, and it felt like the sun breaking over a warm and immediate horizon—and sighed.

“One hour.” Cody rose and took off his gray dress cap to run a hand over his head.

“Oh, naturally,” Obi-Wan said, like a liar. “You needn’t sleep. We can just lay here and be productive in our hearts and minds, hm?”

“You are a paragon of moral corruption and insincerity,” Cody told him. The effect of these hurtful words was somewhat ruined by Cody tucking himself up against Obi-Wan’s chest, just under his chin, and pillowing his head Obi-Wan’s bicep—not the one that was currently sporting a bruise the size and color of an overripe jogan fruit.

“Just for you, my dear.” Obi-Wan beamed, heedless of the way it pulled at the still-clotting split in his upper lip. Cody was like a very compact space heater. Even through his thick, stiff greys, he radiated a warmth that eased the tightness in Obi-Wan’s overtaxed muscles and soothed the raw ache behind his eyes. The light painkillers Howl had administered at some point were starting to kick in as well, which was rather nice. There was nothing odd about two colleagues having a spot of shut-eye in a professional and friendly manner. In fact, he was quite sure it was a time-honored tradition amongst many, and Obi-Wan and Commander Cody were nothing if not consummate professionals.

Yes, Obi-Wan thought as Cody made a subvocal noise of content and leaned the side of his face against Obi-Wan’s chest. This was an activity that many friends and comrades indulged in when the need arose. There was absolutely no need to overthink the matter at all.

At some point later, Howl came by to check up on Obi-Wan, reading the display screens around him that were tracking his vitals and the state of his respiratory system. He didn’t rouse Cody, simply putting a finger to his lips and winking at Obi-Wan before tenderly tucking the medbay mascot—a vigorously disinfected and very worn bantha plush—under one of Cody’s arms. Despite everything—Obi-Wan found himself dropping off, lulled to rest by the steady rhythms of Cody’s own lungs and heart.

 

Chapter 2: ii

Notes:

and here we can play spot the diablo 3 reference

Sunbursts are a flower native to Stewjon, so named for their distinctive bright golden shades and tiered arrangement of petals, taking the shape of tiny, stylized suns. They require a great amount of light and warmth to thrive, and so are most often found in the warm seasons of Stewjon. Conversely, they need consistent night and day cycles as well as damp, near-boggy conditions. Not many planets have cycles similar enough to the length of Stewjon’s orbital journey to support sunbursts but numerous attempts have been made. On Stewjon, sunbursts symbolize loyalty, devotion, and friend- or kinship. They are worn by close friends and relatives at both weddings and funerals and, over time, have come to take secondary meanings associated with these usages—grief and joy.

 

Cody began to carry throat lozenges on his belt. They did nothing, really, in the long run. As the General had said: his condition was simply a fact of life by now. The sight of the General tucked away in a corner and curled over himself became one that Cody walked towards instead of away from. There was always this sheepishness about the General when he turned away to cough up another knot of plant matter. He looked at Cody out of the corners of his eyes like a massif caught eating something he shouldn’t have been.

The first time Cody offered a flimsy-wrapped drop to the General was unremarkable. Kenobi had been giving off little tremors for much of the afternoon, like subterranean quakes each time his chest jumped against the urge to cough. Cody had witnessed and catalogued many of the General’s coughs by this point: this was the one he made when he was trying to be discreet and there was something stuck in his throat. It was different from the ones he made when he was actively retching something up—and different again from those initial, weary rattles that signaled a new problem taking place in his General’s lungs.

He touched Obi-Wan’s elbow. Obi-Wan looked down and to the side, eyes flicking up to meet Cody’s. He pressed a little candy into the General’s palm and Obi-Wan’s fingers curled around it in a startled flinch. Their eyes met again for a bare moment before Obi-Wan’s gaze went down to his hand, then up at Cody, then back down to his hand.

Cody didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. Later, however, he allowed for a brief and quickly-quashed flicker of satisfaction at the sharp, sweet smell around Obi-Wan and the lines of pain around Obi-Wan’s mouth easing a fraction. He started to share the scent as days went on: the smell of the drops was pungent and clung to his hands and belt pouches even when he wasn’t carrying any—which grew to be less and less often.

The General’s—Obi-Wan’s—fits came and went. There were good days and bad, though Cody felt that he had no metric by which to judge these things. He wasn’t the one coughing clots of dirt and pollen into handkerchiefs. But as they got closer—and closer—he was granted more of this insight into Obi-Wan’s days and even more insight into the labyrinthine depths of Obi-Wan’s mind.

“Here. Sit,” Obi-Wan said brusquely. He still smelled of the last medicinal drop Cody had given him. Its sweet-acid scent and the crisp scent of the aftershave Obi-Wan used made for a heady combination and Cody swayed as he obeyed.

“It’s not all that bad,” Cody said on reflex. Damn him. He was starting to pick up unhealthy habits from the General.

The injuries he’d picked up from their last engagement—nothing to comm Kamino about, just a minor scuffle—were still healing. The General—Obi-Wan—had taken it into his mind to do something about this.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Obi-Wan made a gesture that Cody interpreted as an order to let Obi-Wan do as he willed. He peeled up his shirt and winced, letting his next breath out as slow as he could. “I can care for you without you laid out on your deathbed, can I not?”

“I should hope when I go, it won’t be laying down,” Cody muttered. He picked restlessly at the wraps around his knuckles.

“No, I suppose not.” Obi-Wan’s voice was—dare he say it—fond as he delicately peeled up the edge of the bacta strip covering Cody’s side and back.

The burn was itching—which was good, meant it was healing—but it was also oozing a little—which was less good. His immune system had been optimized for recovery and durability: he wouldn’t get sick. But the fluid kept crusting and scabbing and splitting open again at the slightest movement, pulling at the edges of his wound where his skin was still tender and healing. Caught the wrong side of a plasma canon in combat on top of his DC jamming not seconds later.

Obi-Wan hissed as he finished peeling the rest of the bacta strip off. Cody turned his head to look over his shoulder and was stopped by Obi-Wan’s hand on the nape of his neck.

“You’ll pull something, my dear,” Obi-Wan told him. “It’s not all that bad.”

“I thought Jedi didn’t lie,” Cody said, mostly operating on reflex. The feel of Obi-Wan’s hands—one curved over the back of his neck and the other splayed across the spread of his ribs—was arresting most of his attention. And, with it, about 85% of his impulse control.

“Oh, I’m living proof that that’s quite incorrect,” Obi-Wan said airily. “I quite enjoy lying, as a matter of fact. It’s a time-honored and well-honed skill of any negotiator, really. I’m not sure where all this about Jedi being moral paragons and—and saints of some sort started… we’re just people like anyone else.”

You’re not a person like anyone else to me, Cody thought. Thankfully, that leftover 15% of his impulse control was working overtime. Instead: “Makes sense. Will I live, General?”

“Most assuredly.” Obi-Wan finished spritzing bacta spray over the burn and started to smooth another fresh bacta patch over Cody’s side. The lengths of his fingers pressed all along the curve of Cody’s ribcage, and his thumb curled around Cody’s side to secure the patch just under the swell of his pectoral. He was slower than Howl and less gentle. The way he inspected the rest of Cody’s wounds—a blue-black bruise on his hip, a small laceration left by flying shrapnel high on his deltoid—told Cody that he had experience in field triage, if not any extensive formal training. Knowing his General, most of it had probably been on himself while out on a mission.

“Good to know.” Cody went to shrug his shirt back on—Obi-Wan stopped him again, this time with a touch to his shoulder, and took one of Cody’s wrists.

“You really should see about getting some proper protection for your poor hands,” Obi-Wan murmured. He didn’t seem to notice Cody going still and silent. He unwrapped the bandage around Cody’s knuckles delicately, holding Cody’s hand with his fingers curling against the underside of Cody’s wrist. Cody could feel the flutter of his pulse against the pads of Obi-Wan’s fingers, the thin blue radial artery working double-time as Obi-Wan inspected his scabbed-over knuckles.

“Perhaps a thicker pair of gauntlets for direct engagements, or a pair of brass knuckles,” he continued. “I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to requisition something that will do the trick.” Obi-Wan finished smearing more bacta over the back of Cody’s hand—gel this time, for more localized healing—and Cody flexed his fingers. He could hardly feel the burn of the scabs over his knuckles splitting and cracking open. Obi-Wan had scars to match his over his own knuckles, though his scar tissue was silvery-white to Cody’s red-pink.

“Thank you,” Cody said.

Obi-Wan looked down at Cody sitting between his knees. His expression was still unbearably fond, a subtle smile turning the corners of his mouth up and eyes crinkled at the corners. At some point he’d levered himself up to sit on the table in front of Cody and he cradled Cody’s injured hand in his own like it was something delicate and precious.

“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t finished.” Obi-Wan set Cody’s hand down on his knee—not Cody’s, not the table—and gestured imperiously for the other.

Cody gave it to him. The bleeding on this one hadn’t been so bad but Howl had told him he was lucky he hadn’t broken or sprained his wrist. Cody could still feel the phantom ache in it even now. Obi-Wan was just as careful with this hand as the other, peeling the wrap back and applying the topical bacta and wrapping it all back up again.

“Thank—”

Obi-Wan pressed his lips over the white wraps. Cody could only feel the warmth and pressure of them and for a moment a yawning chasm opened in his chest. He missed the feel of Obi-Wan’s mouth as one that he had never felt before: but he missed it all the same. The wiry tickle of Obi-Wan’s beard brushed against the backs of Cody’s fingers as he pulled away and Cody’s hand twitched entirely against his will.

“You’re very welcome,” Obi-Wan murmured.

 

These strange golden flowers, Obi-Wan thought, were most definitely here to stay. He sighed and curled his fingers around a sodden wad of them, casting for a way to discreetly dispose of them. Something about them tugged at the edges of his recall—but the day was starting to get rather busy, and it would come to him eventually. He let it take its place at the back of his mind, unsuccessfully trying to clear the tickling itch at the bottom of his chest. They were meant to still be in transit back to Coruscant: the 212^th, for their much-deserved and much-needed leave, and Obi-Wan for something the Council had refused to speak of over official GAR channels.

The mysteries only spiraled tighter the further one went down them these days, Obi-Wan was finding more and more. Spirals within spirals and secrets within secrets.

Thoughts to be tabled for another time, perhaps.

“You’re getting old, Kenobi,” Ventress hissed, leaning over top the boulder Obi-Wan had taken cover behind.

“It happens to the best of us, I’m afraid,” he said, voice mild as he shook through another spasm. The rest of his attention was devoted to kicking against the boulder as hard as he could with both legs and Force. Ventress went over with a screech of outrage. He sprang up in the wake of the boulder, wincing as a stray bolt clipped past his ear and left a line of searing pain in its wake. The shoulder of his robes was all wet with blood or sweat; he hadn’t the time to check, but he suspected a combination of both.

“Your weakness consumes you.” Ventress’ face was a mask of spite and fury. The uncontrolled rage she bled in the Force made the air thick and hard—harder—to breathe. Obi-Wan focused on drawing air in and letting it out of his battered lungs.

“I’m not the one who is weak, my dear.” Obi-Wan parried a powerful overhand blow and then they were back in the thick of it. The battlefield raged beyond them. It was a muted concern at this point: Obi-Wan would handle Ventress. Cody and their 212^th would handle the masses of droids Ventress had brought along. “The power you seek in the Dark preys upon your own fears and weaknesses. It draws you to let them fester and consume you. You will not find what you are looking for under Count Dooku’s tutelage.”

“You know nothing!” Ventress snarled and battered Obi-Wan back. Her fury split the air and ground around them. The air crackled with a stinging charge and the fine hairs on the back of Obi-Wan’s neck and forearms stood on end. “You know nothing of what I seek, Kenobi. You preach from your tower of hollow morality and imagine yourself better than I, better than my master. Yet the blood of your Jedi brethren will water the path to a new age of Darkness. An age beyond the Jedi’s feeble trappings of their corrupt tenets. And you, Kenobi—”

Obi-Wan let his feet find solid ground. He was an anchor in the wild current that swept Ventress away. The Force around her raged with doubt and fear: his own was a deep lake, quiet rain upon a gravel shore, dark and clear waters reaching deep into the depths of his own self.

“I,” he said, arms no longer shaking as he met each of Ventress’ wild blows, “am a servant of the will of the Force. Your ill omens are nothing but a power-mad dream in a Dark night. And, my dear—” Obi-Wan bared his teeth, tasting iron and earth at the back of his throat. “—the dawn is fast approaching.”

Ventress looked nonplussed for a fraction of a moment.

A LAAT/i strafed the ridge around the two of them. Obi-Wan tucked and rolled. The rocky ledge Ventress had fought him to a standstill on crumbled under the onslaught and she fell with a piercing shriek. Her lightsabers tumbled end over end after her. Obi-Wan scrambled to his feet and started running as fast as his burning legs could manage.

This entire bank of rocky outcroppings and shallow-rooted grass was hollow beneath. A subterranean spring had carved out the ground only a few meters below their feet, and the ridge had never been meant to withstand such stress.

“General?” Cody called out over their frequency. The ground settled and Obi-Wan collapsed against the nearest solid-feeling structure. “Obi-Wan?”

He answered with a rousing round of hacks and wheezes, lungs burning from exertion. It was, really, quite an inconvenient time for Ventress to have interrupted their voyage back to Coruscant. His coughs had been getting worse—as they often did in dry and stressful conditions—and his chest was starting to ache fiercely with the frequency and duration of his more recent bouts.

“Sitrep when you can,” Cody said. He sounded inordinately worried.

Obi-Wan rolled his head on his shoulders and hacked up another wad of golden-orange petals. He was at just the right angle to get the sun directly in his eyes, now that the ridge they’d battled upon was no longer there. In its place was a vast and rushing underground river, the scrubby grass given way to rocky shores wet with condensation and gleaming in a light they’d never before been exposed to.

Sunburst. That was the flower’s name. Obi-Wan let his head thunk back against the rocky structure behind him—boots dangling just over the edge of the gaping scar in the ground left by his little stunt—and lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the golden sunrise. It was nearly the color of the down-soft petals he’d been choking on for the last week.

“Copy,” he rasped. “Ventress has escaped into the tunnel system.” He could feel her fury-and-claret signature getting fainter and fainter, but there was nothing they could do about it now. He’d kept her from killing his troopers, and she wouldn’t be scheming anything anytime soon with the nasty fall she’d taken.

“Status?”

“Minimal injury.” Obi-Wan grunted as he levered himself up to standing, chest burning with effort. It was harder to breathe after exertion some days—more and more often as of late, it seemed. It would pass, as all things did. “And yourself?”

“Running a rout as we speak. Should be able to wrap things up in a tick. Southeastern flank could use some help with the entrenched plasma cannons the clankers have below, if you’ve the inclination.”

“Oh, I think I might.” Obi-Wan took one last steadying breath, filling his lungs as much as he was able before the very act drew him into another fit. He coughed as he clattered down the now debris-littered slope, careful not to jeopardize structural integrity without sacrificing urgency. “On my way now. May the Force be with you, Commander.”

Cody’s frequency was open but silent save for the hissing static for a moment—his hesitance lay between the two of them like a living thing. “…and with you, Obi-Wan.”

Like the dawn rising, Obi-Wan was helpless to stop a smile from stealing over his face.

 

Once cleanup had commenced, Obi-Wan and the half of his Command Corps not actively involved with triage had the dubious pleasure of plotting their route back to Coruscant.

“Our leave has been bumped up by a few weeks,” Obi-Wan told them. “And I will be liaising with the Council for some… independent work, as it were.”

Gregor looked at Cody, who looked back at Gregor and did something complicated with his eyebrows. The look was passed onto Boil, who wrinkled his nose slightly and glanced over his spaulder at Davijaan.

“Right,” Davijaan said after a moment of brow-based argument with Boil and Cody. “Jedi business.”

“Quite,” Obi-Wan said.

“You’re not going on leave with the rest of us, sir.” Cody had quite the talent for making the interrogative seem declaratory.

“Oh, the work never stops, my dear,” Obi-Wan said. He and Cody took a moment to gaze soulfully at each other, Obi-Wan’s gaze fixed quite firmly on Cody’s eyebrows and Cody’s own pinned somewhere over Obi-Wan’s left shoulder in the guise of maintaining eye contact.

Gregor, without whom all their efforts would be naught, politely pretended to dry-heave onto the wartable.

“And on that note,” Boil declared, “I think I’ve got a mountain of flimsiwork to get back to. Permission to be dismissed, Marshal Commander?”

“Dismissed,” Cody said, turning back to the holotable and the faint-glowing hyperspace route charted out upon it. “And get some shuteye while you’re at it.” He gave Obi-Wan a Look to indicate that this was to include Obi-Wan as well, which Obi-Wan declined to respond to. He had prepwork to do, after all, and as he’d said: the work never ended. Not in peace, and certainly not in war.

As was the way of things, matters only went downhill from there. The Chancellor’s life was in danger. He was given a choice—and, well, when it came down to it, it wasn’t a choice at all, really. Obi-Wan was only cold and tired, inside, as he followed the Council’s orders—the Senate’s by proxy, really. The last thing he heard, before the drug took effect and slowed his heartbeat and breathing down, was Anakin’s howl of rage and grief.

And so it went. Downhill, and ever onward. Obi-Wan found it grimly amusing that even transplanted into another man’s body, so to speak, his condition still plagued him. His chest felt as if it were gripped in a vice most days. In a way, it rather helped with affecting Rako’s crude, rough mannerisms and way of speaking. It wasn’t the mission that presented the most difficulty, really. Obi-Wan was—well, he was good at fighting. He was good at subterfuge and manipulation and underhanded tactics, as much as he disliked thinking—or talking—about such things.

What presented the most difficulty, contrary to all expectations, was returning to his post.

Anakin was no longer speaking to him. This was… to be expected. Obi-Wan watched his former student—former friend, now—walk away and let his hand drop back to his side from where it had risen into the air, beseeching. He inhaled carefully and felt something tug painfully at the back of his esophagus.

Whatever it was, it could wait. The Negotiator was fueled and in orbit above Coruscant. It was time to bite the bullet. He would fare just fine with a return to a professional relationship with Commander Cody. They had, after all, grown far more close than many Commanders and their Generals over the course of the war. It was toeing the line of propriety, really, and this made for a good opportunity to… to…

Obi-Wan came to a stop in the massive hangar bay of the venator. The bay doors of the gunship that had taken him up from the surface of Coruscant sealed behind him with a hiss.

Cody, along with an entire complement of Ghost Company, were waiting for him.

“Commander,” Obi-Wan said into the echoing quiet.

Cody had his helmet off. His face was as unreadable as his Force signature, eyes dark and mouth in a thin and neutral line as he took Obi-Wan in. He took a step forward, then two, until he was raising a hand and Obi-Wan’s shoulders stiffened against his will as he braced himself for whatever—

“Obi-Wan,” Cody said, voice thick with relief, as he clasped Obi-Wan’s forearm and pulled him into a tight embrace. “It’s good to see you, General.”

A cheer went up at that, the complement of troopers behind Cody breaking ranks to congratulate Obi-Wan—on what, he wasn’t quite sure until Gregor came up to his side and clasped his shoulder as tightly as Cody was still holding onto his forearm.

“Well done,” Gregor said gruffly, shaking Obi-Wan back and forth a little by the shoulder, “on coming back to us all in one piece, sir. And well done on your mission. That was some tricky shit you pulled, saving the Chancellor like that. Well fucking done, sir.”

“It’s—it’s good to be back,” Obi-Wan said, throat closing up in the wake of his words. When he cleared his throat, though, there were no obstructions to his airway, no tangling roots or tearing thorns. He made his way through the crowd with Cody at his side, shaking hands and clasping arms and forearms. The more familiar troopers deigned to reel him into kov’nyn, only gentle taps of foreheads to temples and vice versa. Those who had to go back to their posts filtered out, and Obi-Wan followed Cody out of the hangar in a daze. He only realized they had been walking to his own quarters when they stopped outside his own door, the control pad sedately blinking up at him. Dumbfounded, he looked to Cody.

“I don’t know if anyone told you this, sir,” Cody said while staring intently at the control pad, “but the Council stalled for weeks on instating a new General for the 212^th while you were… indisposed. At the time—” Cody paused and frowned, cleared his throat with a sharp cough. “At the time, we thought they were giving us time to grieve, in their own way.” He finally looked up to meet Obi-Wan’s gaze, brows furrowed together. “But getting you back…”

Obi-Wan pressed his knuckles to his chest, trying and failing to ease the sharp pain that rose up at the expression on Cody’s face.

“…it’s much better than anything the Council would have done for us in our mourning,” Cody said, even quieter than before. “Though when I—when we were in the thick of it, I did appreciate it. That being said…” With a few taps to the control pad, the door to Obi-Wan’s quarters hissed open. “…with no new General, we didn’t see a reason to move anything of yours.”

His quarters were just as he’d left them, nearly, save for his bed. It was neatly made, covers smooth and tucked into crisp corners with military precision. He would have recognized Cody’s handiwork anywhere.

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan said. The words felt vastly inadequate for the depth of emotion welling up within his chest, but they were all he could manage on short notice. He turned to Cody and took a hand in his, pressing the backs of Cody’s knuckles up to his mouth. “Thank you,” he murmured against the scar-shiny, rough skin of the back of Cody’s hand.

“Thank you for coming back to us,” Cody replied. He brushed the pad of his thumb across the corner of Obi-Wan’s mouth. Without his beard, the sensation felt alien—too much and not enough all at once.

“I suppose I’ve quite a bit to catch up on, then.” Obi-Wan cleared his throat and rubbed his knuckles into his chest one last time. The ache that had settled into his sternum had to have been the emotions running high for the last few days, that was all.

“I’ll run you through the worst of it,” Cody promised, already pulling his datapad out. “I’m assuming you haven’t been keeping up to date with the latest GAR news.”

“Not as such.” Obi-Wan found a comfortable-enough seat at the foldout table still scattered with his own personal detritus. The GAR-issue folding chair was hell on his aches and pains, but he wasn’t about to have this conversation in bed.

Cody—and the 212^th Command Corps—had kept everything running everything tight and smooth in his absence. Obi-Wan had never had any doubt as to that: it was part of why he had agreed in the first place. He’d known, no matter how long he’d have been undercover, even if he’d died—they would have been alright. They talked until Obi-Wan went to lean against the table and the sharp edge of it jabbed right up against a still-healing blaster burn.

Mercifully, Cody didn’t comment on the sound he made, nor the terrible struggle for breath that followed. He only paused, studied Obi-Wan for a moment, and directed him to get some rest.

 

Resupply took a further tenday. Anakin refused to speak to him, still, all the way until the 501^st were deployed once more. The 212^th lingered in orbit over Coruscant as Obi-Wan put his affairs in order; he hardly had time to sleep, much less linger over the ragged edges of his relationship with his once-Padawan.

The damn flowers were an entirely different issue.

Rotting away in their cups, they were, as such things were wont to do. He had been far too busy to do much more than hack them up into the nearest waste receptable and move on. Someone—or perhaps several someones—had seen fit to tend to the living plants in his absence, but his quarters were filled with the sickly-sweet scent of decaying flowers.

Obi-Wan mechanically set to work draining stagnant water into the sink and rot-black blooms into the waste chute. The tin cups clinked together as he stacked them, one by one, on the counter. He would need to rinse and clean them at some point, but that was an issue to be dealt with at a later date. The smell caught in the back of his throat until the only breaths he could take were shallow, gasping sips of air, and then not at all.

His hands were mottled with scabs and bruises. The nailbeds were pale and his nails bitten down to the quick. His knuckles were white from where he was gripping the counter. It was shaking—no, he was shaking. His hands were twitching with fine tremors and his chest ached from deep within. Dim grey spots crowded the edges of his vision, fuzzing out the counter and his fingers and hands and—

Hoarse, heaving coughs broke over him, through his aching ribs and expelling clotted blood and fine pollen from his lungs. The thick wads of claret he hacked into the sink glimmered with the fine, shimmering dust, turning them a brassy crimson. It went on—and on—and on—until he thought he could take no more—and then on.

Obi-Wan slapped open the spigot with a hand that clutched and convulsed, as if he could physically pull an inhale from the air with his hands and into his raw and bloody trachea. The reflection of his face in the metal was warped and confused—Hardeen, sometimes, then Obi-Wan, then a twisted mesh of the two. Hardeen’s hollow, hungry gaze. Obi-Wan’s spittle- and blood-flecked lips. Hardeen’s mouth twisted into a sneer as he stared down the barrel of a blaster. Hardeen’s trigger finger ready to pull. Hardeen’s hands covered with Obi-Wan’s arterial blood.

It ended with a wet gasp and clutch of flower heads crowding up into Obi-Wan’s mouth and slithering, slick with blood, over his tongue. By now, he readily recognized the distinctive shape of a clutch of sunburts, even without their golden petals. He spat. He rinsed his mouth. He spat again. The water swirled pink and gold. Instead of the scent of rot heavy on the air, all he could smell and taste was the tang of his own blood.

A merry ping! from his comm lit the air.

Obi-Wan, hunched and shivering over the sink with his head nearly down the drain, nudged the water off with an elbow. He waited to make sure it wasn’t his own imagining, but—

Ping!

Cody was messaging him. Obi-Wan rinsed the blood from his mouth and the stubble of his beard—still growing out—as he read. His shaking hands set his tunics to order the same way Qui-Gon had used to straighten his tabards and obi after a bad coughing fit left Obi-Wan lurching and disoriented. The medication he kept in his belt abraded the inside of his tender throat but it would keep the worst at bay, should he have another fit.

His Commander was entreating him to meet in Cody’s quarters to go over a list of candidates for transfer. This was hardly unusual. What was unusual was that there was a question mark at the end of Cody’s invitation, which stunned Obi-Wan into silence as he re-read the notification.

Obi-Wan had been fairly sure that Cody did not know where the punctuation options were located on his keypad, save for the omnipresent full stop. Cody was a man who loved his use of a good full stop. Yet—there it was.

MCCody: Considering transfer of troopers to 21st Marine Corps. Gen. Kenobi would you care to join?

HJGKenobi: Yes, I’ll be right over, thank you, Cody :o)

Cody’s quarters were conveniently located just barely down the hall; he hardly had to knock before the door was sliding open before him.

“I don’t still have something in my teeth, do I?” Obi-Wan asked. Regret followed quickly on his heels. His voice sounded as shredded as he felt and Cody’s expression didn’t so much as twitch as he looked Obi-Wan over.

At last, Cody deemed him suitably cowed and stepped back to admit Obi-Wan into his quarters. It wasn’t the first time he had visited them nor, he was sure, would it be the last.

“You don’t,” Cody said.

“What?” Obi-Wan asked blankly, bracing a hand against the table as he eased himself into a chair. “Oh. Thank you. That’s—good to know.”

“But you’ve got—here.” Cody leaned across the table and took Obi-Wan’s chin in one hand, tilting his head from side to side as he inspected him closely. Obi-Wan froze, ears burning cold and then hot. He’d been sure to clean his teeth before leaving, but there wasn’t much he could do about the lingering taste of blood at the back of his mouth. Could Cody smell it on him?

Cody thumbed a fading bruise just beneath Obi-Wan’s eye, brows drawing together minutely. When he pulled away, Obi-Wan swayed forward—and Cody showed him the glittering smear of golden pollen on his thumb.

“Will I live?” Obi-Wan asked gravely.

“Undoubtedly. Alpha-17 has informed me that you are indestructible, and he would hate to be proven wrong.”

“Oh, what else does Alpha have to say about me?” Obi-Wan looked demurely up at Cody through his lashes. Cody was unmoved.

“That he’s the only one allowed to kill you, so you’d best hope his ass stays grounded on Kamino.” Cody hooked his foot around a chair and pulled it in. “Lightning’s due another upcoming supply run. Their leave lines up neatly with ours.”

“You’ve nominations for a few of our ARCs to be transferred to the Marines?”

“Just a few.” Cody leaned closer until they could both study the screen of his datapad, the blue-white glow lighting up the angles of his face from below. “We’ll get more experienced ARFs in return, this time.”

“Let’s see what we can do.”

They fell to their separate tasks after that—the formwork was unending, but Obi-Wan had found that it passed faster with someone at his side. It only felt like an hour or two until he paused to stretch out his back and winced as a deeply aggrieved muscle twinged in his hips.

“I’m going to grab us something to eat.” Cody set his datapad down on the table with a clack. He was watching Obi-Wan—he could feel Cody’s eyes on him like pinprick weights. He didn’t even need the Force for it. Cody’s regard, in whatever form it took, was a piercing thing.

“You needn’t bother yourself for—”

“Frankly, General, you look like a particularly determined breeze could blow you right over.” Cody looked unimpressed by Obi-Wan’s waffling, as he always did. The familiarity lit a spark of warmth in Obi-Wan’s chest, cold and flower-filled as it was. “And I’ve some doubts as to the quality of the last thing you ingested.”

“Well, alright,” Obi-Wan said, grudging. He coughed wetly into his fist and glanced at the time—Force, but it was late. “I can—”

“I’ll just be a moment,” Cody said.

Obi-Wan watched him go, absently, and looked back down at the report he’d just finished. The only thing left to do, now, was go over the debrief for his last op.

He’d put it off for long enough.

Obi-Wan didn’t remember much of the Hardeen mission. That was what Cody called it—when he referred to it, which was rarely. It was a good thing, too. The mission, in Obi-Wan’s mind, was a muddy blur. The things he remembered were ordered thusly:

The buzz of Cad Bane’s voice.

Smooth cheeks under his palms.

An alien, dead-eyed face in the mirror.

Hacking, frantically, heaving and coughing and choking on his hands and knees, gut aching and sore where Anakin had kneed him in the balls—and underneath that, a flicker of pride, he’d taught that to Anakin and it had been a damn good shot—collapsing onto his hands and knees and heaving up a blood-slick, hot, gory mess of gnarled roots and spiky leaves. The thorns had torn at the tender inside of his throat.

The sight of Anakin, face pale and shocked, gaze fixed on the ground before him—and the leaves from Obi-Wan’s own lungs, the body at the crime scene. He’d looked up at Obi-Wan for only a split second but Obi-Wan had seen it on his lips—

Master?

He’d watched the footage of his own “death,” after. Of course he had. It was part of the after-mission debriefing, maybe, in a roundabout manner.

Cody came back to him fifteen minutes into replay by replay, of Obi-Wan’s own body tumbling to the street below, the feedback fuzzing in and out to shake with the howl of Anakin’s anguish.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said, laughing a little. He’d started to shiver at some point, Force knew why or when, and Obi-Wan had a fist clenched in his tunics over his sternum. “Hello there.” It didn’t sound like it had come from his own mouth, but all the right parts were there, or they should have been.

Cody didn’t seem so convinced. The line of his mouth tightened, then tightened further as he looked Obi-Wan up and down in one slow sweep. He pried the datapad out of Obi-Wan’s hands and chivvied him into the ‘fresher, pulling clothing off Obi-Wan along the way with a businesslike sort of manner. He brushed his fingers against the edge of a bacta patch where it had begun to curl up from Obi-Wan’s fidgeting and picking. His fingers came away wet with sweat and blood.

Briefly, terribly, Obi-Wan experienced a moment of immense and crushing guilt.

“I didn’t get any on—”

“You’re still injured and your chest clicks every time you inhale,” Cody said evenly. “If you start worrying about the state of my GAR-issue chairs, I will beat you over the head with one.” He palmed on the water in the ‘fresher as he spoke, then eyed Obi-Wan with a level of calculating consideration that made Obi-Wan fear for what dignity he had left.

“I can wash myself, thank you very much,” Obi-Wan said hastily, pulling the very last of his composure about him as he shivered in his underthings and socks.

“I’m sure you can, Obi-Wan,” Cody said smoothly, which quickly and easily took first place for the most patronizing sentence he’d ever had said to him. He barked a laugh when Obi-Wan indicated where he could put these sureties, but he left Obi-Wan alone all the same.

The water was cold when Obi-Wan jumped under. He’d found that sonics tended to exacerbate the dry, itching feeling in his throat and chest, especially after a rough episode. Cody disliked water showers, said they were bad for his curl pattern and overall efficiency. Obi-Wan, very privately, thought that this was a deflection for something else.

But that was none of his business. Probably.

He braced a forearm against the wall and let the water pound against his back and shoulders. The water warmed, after a minute or two, and then it was scalding: just as Obi-Wan liked it. He rubbed his chest with the heel of his palm, watching the water eddy red, then clear, then red, then clear again. Each breath was hard fought-for and hard-won. He kept his rattling coughs silent, or as silent as he could: one escaped into the steam-filled air, echoing wetly against the tile walls covered in a sheen of lukewarm condensation. With it, a fall of golden petals rushed onto the tile floor—and quite suddenly, he could breathe easy.

Gold and crimson swirled about the drain between his feet. The waterlogged petals were just the color of Cody’s eyes when warm, golden sunlight hit them and lit up the hidden motes of deep umber in his dark eyes.

Hell, Obi-Wan thought, starting to laugh. It was a low, raspy thing, barely audible over the rush of water pounding onto skin and tile.

 

Cody, ever considerate, had left a towel for him by the sink, seemingly as a trade for Obi-Wan’s tunics, which were nowhere to be found. He peeked out of the ‘fresher to find Cody sitting at a table cleared of datapads and stacked with medical supplies.

“Is this an intervention?” Obi-Wan asked, hoarse.

“If it were, I’d have brought backup,” Cody replied. “And Gregor.”

Obi-Wan laughed again at that, and something pleased bubbled to the surface of Cody’s expression—an easing of the tension in his brow, the lifting of a corner of his mouth. Cody beckoned him forth, and Obi-Wan went, feeling something dangerous fluttering in his chest.

For now, he could pretend it was just nerves. For now, he could pretend it was the cold.

“Won’t hurt to get these changed.” Cody set to work peeling patches away. He was faster than Howl; less gentle, but Obi-Wan didn’t mind.

He’d gotten off lightly, all things considered. The Healers’ wing at the Temple did phenomenal work, and he’d gotten another check-up with Howl after he’d rejoined the Negotiator in official capacity once more. A few blaster burns, once-broken ribs that were well on their way to mending, a lucky slash from a vibroblade. Once Cody finished, smoothing patches over the fresh butterfly bandages sealing the slash together, he allowed Obi-Wan to help him clean up. Obi-Wan closed his eyes for just a moment and woke with a jolt when Cody’s hand intervened between his forehead and the table.

“Mmn. Morning?”

“Not yet.” Cody’s hand smoothed its way over his forehead and into his hair. It wasn’t quite at the right length yet, still. “Stay or go?”

“Stay, if you please,” Obi-Wan said distinctly. The world wobbled in a somewhat comical manner as he managed to lever himself into a standing position, then gave a noise of alarm when the towel fell from around his hips.

Cody only laughed and gave him a pair of GAR sweatpants to change into.

The world came into focus a little clearer as they ate in sleepy silence—the dip and swell of Cody’s awareness betrayed him, as did the progressive journey of Cody’s chin to his chest. Obi-Wan found that the sweatpants he was wearing were Cody’s when he stood—the ends came barely to his ankles, and he had to make a hasty grab for the waistband before he scandalized Cody for a second time that night.

It might have been wishful thinking and the lingering scent of Cody on the pillows—soap and blaster residue and the deep, warm smell of Cody himself—but Obi-Wan’s traitor mouth opened before he could think.

“Your bed’s more comfortable than mine.”

Cody paused from where he was pulling the blanket over himself and glanced over at Obi-Wan. They were pressed hip to thigh, Cody’s leg tangled between his; Obi-Wan was quite sure the GAR had made their beds this size to prevent this exact scenario and to cock block him, specifically.

“Probably because I sleep in it more,” Cody said. “And you don’t like sleeping alone.”

“Baseless accusations and unfounded conjecture,” Obi-Wan told him. The dip between Cody’s shoulder blades made for a perfect place to put his cold nose.

Fondly, Cody made as if to shove him off the bed. They settled. Cody’s other leg found its way over Obi-Wan’s hips. Between one moment and the next, sleep stole over him, silent and sudden.

 

Chapter 3: iii

Notes:

any timeline changes (of which there are many) can nominally be attributed to hanahaki-riddled obi-wan having the butterfly effect but also on Me Not Re-Watching TCW

Katella flowers, thought to be native to the worlds along the Nanth’ri Route and Quellor Run, are often described as inconspicuous and nondescript flowers. They grow in small bunches or bushes close to the ground; many species consider them weeds, though they are not invasive and help retain groundwater due to their fine, dense root networks. Most strains of the Katella flower are a lacy-appearing cluster of many tiny-petaled flowers gathered together and grow in light pearlescent colors. They are not particularly hardy, yet their seeds—light and adaptable—spread easily and quickly. In worlds along to the Nanth’ri Route, they tend to symbolize foolhardiness, naivete, and faith. Along the Quellor Run, they symbolize trust, safety, and hope.

 

“Cody!” Wolffe dropped into the seat next to Cody, jostling him into Rex and shaking the entire booth. “My littlest vod.”

“That is patently untrue,” Cody said, wrestling Wolffe into a chokehold as Wolffe slapped at his chest and shoulders and snapped his teeth just next to Cody’s ear. “Behave, we have a cadet with us.”

Rex let out a longsuffering sigh and slowly, gently pressed his forehead to the table.

Across from them, Fox let out a snarling chuckle.

“So. When you and Keno—”

“No Jedi!” Fox stabbed a finger at Wolffe then down at the table for emphasis. “No talking about or with or to Jedi. No Jedi mentions or innuendo. If I catch so much as a whiff of Jedi, I’m turning this entire fucking booth over and leaving to slum it with Lightning.”

“Hey, fuck you!” Neyo said. He slid into the unoccupied seat next to Fox, shoving Fox down a place with his hip. “You’ll corrupt my troopers.”

Wolffe held his hands up in a placating gesture. It might have had more effect if Cody hadn’t had him by the throat.

Rex peeled his face up off the table after a moment of consideration. It was just in time for their drinks to arrive: something poisonous-looking for Cody, a glass full of ice and half-full of amber-golden liquid for Neyo, a colorful monstrosity in a martini glass with a swirly straw for Wolffe, a row of shots for Fox (yikes), and a tall glass of something bubbly and sweet-smelling for the youngest.

Cody mostly let Wolffe go and they all took a moment to sample drinks and pass them around and sample some more, murmurs of appreciation and disgust breaking out in turn. Cody ended up with both his and Wolffe’s drinks while Wolffe stole away a few of Fox’s shots, who had poured two of his own shots into Rex’s glass in exchange for some of his fruity ale. Neyo got the swirly straw.

“Sitrep,” Cody demanded once they’d all settled.

“Appreciative of the leave.” Neyo raised his glass to Fox, who delicately clinked one of his shot glasses against it. The swirly straw bobbled amongst Neyo’s many ice cubes, one of which he fished out with his fingers and crunched between his molars. “That supply drop we picked up for Nova? New company fresh off Kamino.”

“Not from existing ARCs?” Wolffe frowned, shot glass paused halfway between him and the table.

That was not SOP. The Marines were the best of the best—or the second best of the best, as Cody privately thought, since he had trained most of Ghost company himself. But the troopers of the 21^st Nova Corps were comprised of ARC troopers and CCs hand-picked from Kamino’s top troopers. They didn’t get shiny troopers. They didn’t get cadets off Kamino. Nova’s troops were meant to forge deep into the enemy front and strike the hardest where their enemies were the weakest. It was a thankless, grueling task, one that Bacara bent the entirety of his indomitable will to.

Neyo shook his head. He looked as disgruntled as Cody felt.

“Did the longnecks provide an explanation?” Fox gestured towards the galaxy at large. “What, are the Marines supposed to train them? Balls deep behind Separatist lines? What the fuck are they playing at.”

Neyo shook his head again. This time it wasn’t disgruntlement in his face. It was resignation.

“Shit.” Wolffe rubbed a hand over the side of his face. His thumb traced the path of his scar, up from his eyebrow, down over his cheekbone. “Sabotage?”

“Isn’t that outright.” Neyo’s thumb traced over the parabola of the rim of his glass in sympathy with Wolffe’s. “But someone high up on Kamino ordered it. And the cadets I got—they’re practically straight out the tube. Accelerated modules. Accelerated growth. Accelerated promotions. Most of them still have serials and not names. The hell am I supposed to do with them? The hell are they supposed to do in the Marines?”

That was the question. The Marines were the frontward bulwark for a reason. They needed good soldiers, experienced troopers, not a generation of cadets untested on the field of battle. Fox’s troopers were good—hell, his command corps rivaled that of Ghost’s—but they were, for the most part, stationed on Coruscant for a reason. Wolffe’s own battalion was still recovering from its wipeout at the hands of the Separatists. Rex served under Cody himself.

Which meant…

“Take some of mine.” Cody came to the decision half a second before Wolffe did, who went rigid under his arm. “I’ll give you a list. I was going to send a few of my officers along to the 21st anyway. We’ll call this accelerated advancement.”

“You can’t exchange an entire company of your own troopers out,” Neyo snapped.

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” Cody retorted, idly flicking his glass up and down the table between his hands. “It makes sense. More than the GAR letting a company of cadets get wasted in the field. You can keep some of the Shinies, but you are ill-equipped to handle them and they are even less prepared for the Marines. I’ll forward it to you in the morning when I’m not tipsy.”

“Take it,” Fox said, sudden. His eyes were fixed on his (empty) row of shot glasses. They glittered between his hands like stars. “We need all the preparation we can get.”

“Hey, what the fuck?” Neyo asked into the ensuing silence. “Are you turning into a Jedi on us, Tenten? Because that cryptic bullshit? That was Jedi-level cryptic bullshit. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Fox didn’t look away from the table. He chose his next words with care. Cody could see him turning them over in his mind, again and again, tumbling against one another like Kamino’s tides. “This isn’t the only instance of bureaucratic neglect. And I’m not the only one noticing it. Every day the orders handed down from on high get harder to parse or carry out. Or both.” He looked up and met Cody’s gaze. It felt like recrimination but Cody knew that was all projection.

He knew what Fox was talking about. Fox knew he knew, and Cody knew that Fox was much, much more than he ever seemed—and Fox seemed like a lot to anyone. Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard was the trooper closest to the heart of it all: the Senate, the war, the Chancellor. He was the measure for the center of the galaxy, as far as the GAR was concerned, and his intelligence was always filtered through six different levels of redirection and obfuscation.

Fox had been sent to Coruscant to get him away from the front lines and recover from the torture the Seps had put him through. But in the middle of the Senate’s intrigue, amidst the web of lies and manipulation? Fox had thrived.

It was, Wolffe had once said to Cody, like putting a fox into an enclosure full of very fast rabbits. A lot of people including Fox were getting a good runabout but in the end, Fox was a predator through and through—and his list of enemies was getting more and more narrow by the day.

“212th’s orders come straight from the Chancellor or the Jedi Council,” Cody said.

Fox pointed a finger at Cody and threatened violence in his direction.

“Shut up, I’m not done yet.” Cody tilted his head back against the booth. “Council, or Chancellor. Guess which one gives us the directives that get the most troopers killed. We need to hold points at any cost—even when the cost is half a battalion. We need to accomplish the mission within the given time frame—even if the time frame is a matter of days. Or hours. We need to let Kenobi do his work—even when Kenobi’s work is him left to his own devices behind enemy lines at best and suicidal at worst.”

Rex sucked in a breath through his teeth. That there was a cue.

“Talk,” Fox ordered, pointing in Rex’s direction next.

“General Skywalker talks with the Chancellor,” Rex said after a beat.

Well. Cody had not fucking known that, or he wouldn’t have put Rex in Skywalker’s battalion.

“They’re friends.” Rex’s mouth twisted, just for a second, before his expression smoothed out again. Cody had taught him well. “That’s what Skywalker says. Holocalls when he isn’t on Coruscant, visits when he is. Skywalker and the Chancellor go way back. Said he knew Palpatine even when he was a cadet.”

“A Jedi Padawan?” Cody guessed.

“A cadet,” Rex agreed.

“So the Chancellor is fucked up.” Wolffe shrugged, nudging his shoulder up against Cody’s arm. “Aren’t all politicians?”

“Feels a bit dire, doesn’t it?” Neyo’s gaze darted around the table. He lowered his voice, even in the middle of a club that catered almost exclusively to vode. “Wrong orders handed down nearly every day to nearly every battalion. Or just plain destructive ones. When was the last time you couldn’t flip a coin for the probability of intel landing a company in a trap? Or worse? When was the last time we had clear, comprehensive mission parameters that took the situation into account?”

“What you’re talking about…” Wolffe didn’t finish his sentence but his mouth had settled into a troubled line. They were loyal. They were. It had been programmed into them along with how to hold and fire a blaster, how to hold and keep the line, how to die and take out as many enemy combatants as possible.

Was it still loyalty if they had no choice? Was it still bravery when war was all they knew?

What you’re talking about is treason.

Wolffe didn’t have to say what they were all thinking. Rex had gone still and quiet in his corner by the wall. He had been even more introspective since his detour on Saleucami. Cody suspected many things but they had never talked about it. Rex would come to him when he was good and ready.

“It doesn’t have to go that far,” Fox said, which was a first for him. Fox was always pushing, pushing, pushing, pressing every button within reach just to see what the fuck it would get him. He was as bad as a Marine. Worse, even, because at least Marines were predictable.

“Not yet,” Cody said. Wolffe tensed against his side and Cody unconsciously pulled him closer. They’d used to sleep in the same pod, him and Wolffe, even when their second growth spurt had hit and they’d gained inches in a matter of days, even when just being in the same space had felt like being buried alive. The reason why Cody wasn’t Wolffe’s kih’vod was the same reason why Wolffe wasn’t Cody’s: they’d been decanted in the same instant, two identical redfaced tubies in the arms of two identical nurse droids.

“All you have to do is listen. And wait.” Neyo spun his glass back and forth between each hand. The coruscating light reflecting off it reminded Cody of the sun—not the artificial, watery sun of Coruscant, but one with life. “All we have to do is be aware. Prepared? Maybe. But for now—there isn’t much we can do.”

“You can take my damn troops,” Cody said lazily. “I have some bucketheads I want off my hands anyways.”

“And they’ll all come straight from Ghost Company, handpicked and -delivered.” Neyo pretended to laze back against the booth, but his tone was sharp and cutting. “You mother nuna, you. Bacara can hold his own.”

“It shouldn’t have to be Bacara against the Seps on his own,” Cody replied. His voice was too sharp for this. He let it gentle: “Vode an. We need to start closing our guard.” Neyo wasn’t his enemy, as much as Neyo thought that he was in a galaxy full of enemies.

“And on that note.” Wolffe held up a finger and downed his final shot. “I’m due for an early morning. Need to get a head start on sleeping off my upcoming hangover.” He managed to put an elbow and both knees in Cody’s gut and ribs as he climbed over Cody to get out of the booth instead of waiting for Cody to get out first.

“Well!” Neyo said. His gaze fell to Rex, who was full of too many of Fox’s shots of dubious content and looking drowsier by the minute. “Now that that’s over. Cody, are you gonna introduce us to the cadet you brought in without so much as a by-your-fucking-leave?”

“Why, Rex?” Cody drawled. He pulled Rex in closer and clamped him to his side with one arm. “You don’t remember good ‘ol Rex? You sure you don’t want your head checked by a Jedi medic while we’re here?”

Rex twitched at his side. Good Sabacc face: check. Good liar: not so much. Kid was hiding something, and it wasn’t just about Cody trying to take the piss out of Neyo.

“Yeah, you don’t remember Rex?” Fox asked. His eyes narrowed to slits of good humor when Neyo turned to glare at him. “Trained with us by Alpha-17. That Rex. Why didn’t you say something sooner, Cody?”

“He’s straight out the tube.” Neyo gestured at Rex with the glass in his hand. “Just look at him. I can still smell the goop on him.”

“Poor Neyo.” Fox shook his head, slow and theatrical. “Memory problems at fourteen? That’s rough, vod.”

“I’ll give you a memory problem,” Neyo hissed, but the tilt of his sharp grin was pleased. Bacara, Cody knew, wasn’t the only battalion Commander who got isolated out there on the front lines. They all had the troops around them but Command batches never stayed together like lower-ranking batches did. Even the Nulls and Deltas and Alphas saw their batchmates more frequently than they.

“You could be a Commander one day,” Fox said to Rex with his voice steeped in faux sincerity. “That could be you.”

Rex made a face like someone was holding a live DC to his cod plate. “Absolutely not. I like where I’m at, thanks. There’s enough trouble—” Rex cut himself off and shook his head.

And there went Cody’s bullshit sensor, ringing merrily away.

“Trouble?” Fox’s gaze flicked to Rex and he leaned forward, like a vulptex about to pounce. “What kind?”

“It’s—inter-battalion,” Rex said, terse. All his previous levity was gone. Cody could practically feel the tension he was carrying from where he was sitting next to Rex. “We’re handling it.”

“Relax, cadet. No one’s saying you can’t do your job,” Neyo told him. “We’re nosy assholes. That’s it.”

“Objection.” Fox lazily raised two fingers, like he was intending on ordering another row of shots. Neyo only took his wrist and set his teeth, gently, around the second knuckle.

“One of my troopers killed a Jedi General.”

“Weh’ shif,” Neyo said around Fox’s knuckle. Then, after extracting Fox’s hand from his mouth—“Again?”

“Objection retracted.” Fox wiped his hand off on the shoulder of Neyo’s greys—his gaze didn’t leave Rex once. “I heard about that. Thought it was friendly fire.”

“Nominally. Yeah.” Rex studied the table like it held Separatist secrets and hyperspace routes. His mouth was still pressed into that thin and pale line. “One of my own men. He’s sick. Don’t know how or what. They sent him off to Kamino. No word back yet. He wouldn’t—near the end, all he—he wouldn’t stop saying it. Just… ‘good soldiers follow orders.’ Over and over again. And I…”

“You…?” Fox tilted his head, then kept tilting it as Rex’s gaze slid over Fox’s shoulder and landed on something—someone—over at the bar.

“I have to go.” Rex shot up and Cody found himself getting shoved around and climbed over for the second time that night. How had the Kaminoans managed to make the Trooper-class clones so damn bony and full of elbows?

“ARC-class trooper by the corner.” Neyo narrated and sprawled indolently against the corner of the booth. His eyes and grin were sharp as ever, even as he pretended to sip at the last of his drink. “Brawny kid in greys that don’t quite fit him. Younger than your Rex by a few batches. If not a gen or two. Number on his temple.”

Not this fucking guy again. “It’s a five, isn’t it?”

Neyo mimed shooting Cody with a blaster. “Got it in one.”

Rex came back with his ARC in tow. Lt. Fives had managed to procure a hat meant to hide his not very distinctive tattoo, but Rex had yanked it off and was shaking it in Fives’ face as he spoke in a low, furious tone.

“Don’t tell me,” Neyo drawled. “This one was decanted with you on Kamino, too, Cody.”

“Maybe then Cody would be taller.” Fox snorted and lovingly returned the middle finger Cody sent his way. “Guard’s been looking for a clone matching your description, ARC trooper. Got anything to say for yourself?”

Fives snatched the hat out of Rex’s hands and stuffed it back over his curls. They were just a centimeter over reg length, Cody noted. His hat would fit better if they weren’t. “The control chips have kill codes.”

What.

“They could make us kill the Jedi. They don’t control aggression or any of that shit—I got mine taken out.” Fives gestured at his untattooed temple—the hat hid a bandage on the other side of his head. His dark eyes were frantic and the brazen, lackadaisical trooper Cody had met on Rishi was gone. “I’m fine. Uh. Sir. Sirs. Commanders.”

“Sit down.” Fox clamped a hand onto Fives’ shoulder and dragged him down into the booth with them, slipping a jammer out of one of his belt pouches with the other and setting it on the table. Fives sat with a thump and swayed in place. He had the look of a trooper who had been running too many engagements on too little sleep, too little food, too little support.

Rex took his spot on Cody’s other side and shoved Cody deeper into the booth in the process. He got no fuckin’ respect from this crowd.

“Can you get me to the Chancellor?” Fives asked.

“No,” Fox said flatly. “You don’t want to take this to the Chancellor. What does this have to do with your other 501st trooper? The sick one?”

“Tup’s dead.” Fives closed his eyes. Once his momentum had been arrested, he seemed to fold in on himself. He was built along the same long, lean lines as Rex, but somewhere along the way he’d beefed up in a way Rex had never gotten around to.

“What happened?” Rex went still at Cody’s side again.

“The scientists killed him. The chip was what made him turn on General Tiplar. They—” Fives shook his head, once, like a massiff setting its jaw. “—did an autopsy. Chip turned… cancerous. It’s a part of us. We were—grown with it. Called it a biochip.”

“Alphas know about the control chips,” Neyo cut in. “Some of the CCs, too, but if they’re not there to control the aggression—”

“Slave chips.” Cody tapped a finger against the table. One. Two. Three. Fox met his gaze from across the sticky, wobbly table. One. Two. Three. “’Good soldiers follow orders,’” he echoed. Something about the phrase felt so right. It felt good in his mouth, like it was lighting up the right parts of his brain that lit up when he assembled a blaster or neutralized his target. One. Two. Three. Something was moving here, something far beyond their little circle—beyond 79s—beyond Coruscant. “The Council should hear about this… first.”

“Master Ti on Kamino—”

“Is not the Council.” Cody tapped his trigger finger against the table one more time, decided at last. “You’re coming with us to the Negotiator. Kenobi’s a High Councilmember, he’ll get you an audience. It isn’t Palpatine that’s in danger from the chips being activated. It’s our Jedi.”

“’Our’ Jedi,” Fox said. “What did I say at the very beginning of this? What did I fucking say?”

“And you’ll disappear into our ranks faster,” Cody said, overrunning Fox’s protests. “If someone recognizes you and Kamino hears we’re caught before we’ve even started.”

“This is treason,” Neyo said, barely loud enough to be heard over the thumping bass and screaming chatter that filled 79s. “You’re talking about treason.”

“Something stinks to High Coruscant with this whole situation. The orders. The chain of command. The clones, the Admiralty, the Jedi not even knowing we—all of it.” Fox rapped his knuckles against the table and thrust an elbow into Fives’ ribs, shoving him out of the booth to let Fox out. “Fuck the Senate. I want answers. I want truth. Most of all, I want to know how fast I can get this Sith-fucked thing out of my head.”

“Pretty fast,” Fives told him, absently rubbing the bandaged side of his head. “If you skip the anesthetic.”

“WORST idea I’ve heard in my life, you’re all fucking insane, I take it back. Whatever goop they put in Cody’s batch, you must’ve got some too.” Neyo heaved himself out of the booth and slung an arm around Fox’s shoulders, then Cody’s. Quiet, then, with his head tucked up against theirs and mouth barely moving—“I’ll talk to my General. Keep an eye on that ARC. He’s not the key, but he’s a crux, and we’re only gonna get one shot at this. I’ll tell Bacara. We can coordinate from there.”

“Oya,” Fox said with a snort. “Don’t let them decommission your ass. Either of you.”

“They’ll have to catch me first.” Neyo’s grin only got sharper as it widened. Fox had all the cunning and liked to think that he’d gotten all the bastard, but that was patently untrue. Neyo was as close to unfiltered Alpha as the CCs got, Cody had always (privately) thought. “Oya, Commanders.”

 

Notes:

im on tumblr!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of heavy off a golden hue