By Dawn's Early Light
"What do you have?" Padme asked stopping to look at the man standing before her. He was holding something behind his back and she was trying to reach around him to grab it. Unfortunately, she was small and he was such a large man.
"Nothing," he said shaking his head, mouth obviously full.
"Sneaking food again, soldier?" Padme asked and smiled, resting her hand against his bare chest. "Well I suppose just this one time."
He chuckled and then swallowed, a smile gracing his face as he looked at her.
"What?" she asked looking up into his brown eyes. She faked innocence, but she knew that he had her pegged. Padme would never give in on the Senate floor, but to him, well she couldn't say no.
"You will always let me have what I want," he chuckled again in that deep accented voice. "Always."
Padme let her eyelids flutter and she looked up at him with lash veiled eyes. It was the best innocent look she had been able to produce. Sometimes, well sometimes he wasn't so good at interpreting innocence versus put on innocence and she got away with some things. This time though, she knew that he wasn't fooled.
"Okay," she breathed exasperated at the look on his face. "Okay, you win. You will always get what you want here. Because..."
Her voice trailed off and Rex, clone captain of the 501st, pulled her closer to him. His arms creating a barrier between her and the world. There was a lot at stake here and they both knew it. Rex did everything he could to protect her, but it still wasn't enough.
"It's okay to say it," Rex finally said after he felt her tighten in his arms. "Because I might not get a second chance."
She pushed away from him. This was what she always hated about being with him. Their quiet moments were punctuated with the ever present thought that he might not return to her. That he might die on a battlefield and she would be unable to see him again. It wasn't how she wanted their relationship to be. In fact, she had tried to get him reassigned to Coruscant as part of the Senate guard, but he had refused. It was Rex who had told her he wouldn't be whole if he didn't fight with his brothers.
He had used the words "running and hiding behind her skirts" to illustrate his point. That hadn't set well with her. She was still mad about the way he had illustrated his thoughts. He wasn't running and hiding, he was living and that was what she wanted for him. For them.
"Wait," Rex said trying to catch her up in his arms again, but Padme had moved just far enough away from his grasp. It always felt wrong when he touched her and talked about death. He should be talking about the life that they would live together. How they would always be a part of each other's lives.
She shook her head no at him. When would he learn that she didn't want to hear about his demise? That all she wanted to hear about was their love?
"It's always on your mind," Padme finally said with a tear laden voice. "I will never be more important than this war. I will never be more important than the battlefield."
"You're wrong."
"How? How am I wrong? Death hangs over us at every turn and you want me to pretend it's okay to talk about the time when you won't be with me anymore. I can't do it Rex. I can't live with the idea that you will die like you seem to do so easily."
"I don't live with it, but it's inevitable. I age faster. I fight. There is no getting around the fact that my life expectancy is very short compared to yours. I will never be an old man, but you will live for many years."
Rex crossed his arms over his bare chest and sighed. She didn't get it. No one ever got it. To talk of death for a clone was to ward off the fact that death was around every corner and through every door way. This was part of the superstition of being a soldier. The more you talked about it, the less likely it was to happen to you and the more on guard you would be against it.
"Do you think I like to live with the idea that I would leave you in such pain that you wouldn't want to live yourself?" Rex finally asked her, looking straight into her eyes.
Their relationship had been difficult from the beginning. It was born out of one terrible night when she had been almost killed and Rex had huddled with her to keep her warm. Rex had hoped all night long that she would live and she did, barely. He had shown her the compassion he was known to have and she, in return, had seen something in him which was different from the other men. She saw him as Rex and not as CC-7567. It was the first time a woman had looked on him with eyes that saw his true heart.
Their love had been complicated further due to the General's interest in Padme. He had been obsessed, infatuated to the point of making himself look completely stupid, even in front of his men. Padme had rebuffed him several times and they had both laughed about it in private, but something inside of Rex always hated that fact that another man was looking at his love. At the woman who he wanted to give him children, if that was possible for a clone. Rex had to admit, the Kaminoans had never been very clear about if the clones could reproduce. He knew that they didn't want to think about their product breeding an army of their own.
Padme turned and looked at him. She had never thought about the fact that he worried for her safety after he was gone. That he wondered if she would be able to continue living if he wasn't with her. It wasn't like he was with her all that much now, but still they had something. It was something they could both look forward to and she often did. There would be nights that she would lay awake thinking about when he might return.
"I would hurt," she admitted softly pulling her arms around her as though the thought made her cold.
"I know you would and that is what I fear the most about my life."
"How do you do it? How do you walk into the line of fire knowing that you might die?"
"I do it because it's what I was trained to do. I don't have fear for my life. I know that the training I have is the best that money can buy. I would much rather fight there than what you have to do."
Padme looked down at the floor shyly. He could make very emotion in her body bubble to the surface all at once. It was amazing how love found you when you weren't looking. It found you in that dark place where it always lingered, just waiting until you needed it.
He had been made for her. She had been made for him.
"It's almost morning," Rex said noting the sky changing colors through the large windows in her bedroom. "We should really get some sleep. I have to report back to the barracks soon."
"Then maybe we shouldn't sleep," Padme said winking at him and then grabbing his hand in hers.
"Whatever the Senator desires."