3 ABY (Five days before the battle of Hoth)

Hyperspace, somewhere along the southern part of the Corellian Spire, between Manpha and Hoth

"I'm too old for this kind of Jedi stunts," Rex grumbled, his beard scratching against the smooth and warm skin of a lek whose stripes he had thought he would never see again.

"I am no Jedi," Ahsoka reminded him as she gently disengaged from his embrace, a slim hint of regret in her voice – a strange kind of regret, one Rex couldn't really pinpoint, one that stemmed not from the moment but from a memory elicited by her own words.

Rex cocked his brow, but didn't reply at her remark; he settled for taking her in eagerly, basking unashamedly in the happiness that this most unexpected meeting had brought him. In his book, few people were entitled to call themselves Jedi more than Commander Tano, but if there was something his years serving under General Skywalker had taught him it was not to take sides in these philosophical diatribes.

"It seems you kept the bad habits," he merely said.

"Stunts like what? I don't remember throwing you down a wall," she said, flashing him a grin and graciously setting upon the comm console, which was just high enough for her long legs to be left dangling a few inches from the floor, in a very unconvincing imitation of the way she sat on the inlaid bunks in the troopers' quarters on the Resolute when she was nothing more than a gangly teenager. The image of Rex hurtling down that huge fortress on Geonosis resounded between them with no need for the Force. Rex snorted.

"I'm talking about that kind of stunts in which you Jedi let people believe that you're dead only to pop up after awhile healthy as a krayt, just as General Kenobi did," he said, his glee for once overcoming his ability to keep his mouth shout. Kriff. I shouldn't have said that.

Ahsoka, though, put his worry to ease at once, for she sobered immediately.

"Oh. Yes. That was not nice of him. Though, in my defense, mine at least wasn't a deliberate deceit."

She knew. Rex let out the breath he had been holding. He acknowledged her grief with a brief nod, but knew there was no need to reopen that wound, so he pulled a chair and sat before her.

"What happened to you, then, Ahsoka?"

Ahsoka shivered and Rex knew it had nothing to do with the low setting of the therm regulator.

"I'm not sure," she replied. "Some Jedi weird stuff," she added, a sly smile emerging from behind the veil of aloof melancholy she had worn since Mandalore and Order 66.

But Rex was not so easily sidetracked. "You should never have faced him on your own, Ahsoka, going against someone skilled enough to kill Kenobi… How did you manage to escape?" he asked her, trying to keep the blunt edge of worry from his voice. He was immoderately proud of her, his brilliant, beautiful, brave sister-daughter-brother-in-arms, but this didn't excuse her from her unforgivable recklessness – an hereditary tract, and he had a precise idea to what part of her lineage she owed it.

But Ahsoka was not listening. She had slowly slid down the console and was now kneeling before Rex, in what he had learnt to recognize as a meditation pose, her small hands shakily searching for his, her wide-eyed face pale and drenched of all blood.

"It is true then?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Oh. So she didn't knew all the tale. She only knew he had been alive all these years – Rex was almost inclined to forgive the General for this, at least he had not left her in the dark – but she had not heard about his death yet. Kriff. He slid down his chair and knelt with her on the floor. "I thought you knew," he said miserably. "I am sorry, Ahsoka."

He had never seen such deep horror in her eyes, not even during that dreadful business with Knight Offee, not even during Order 66. It resounded in her innermost core, more intimate than the Force itself.

"Bail told me he'd been killed… He never said who… I-I suspected, but I never… I had hoped" she moaned, twin trails of crystal-clear moisture staining her cheeks.

Rex frowned, looking away. He couldn't stand watching her weep. "Bail… Bail who?"

It was Ahsoka's turn to frown. "Bail Organa, of course," she said, wiping the tears from her face with one sleeve.

At this, Rex gaped, utterly dumbstruck. Not an unwelcome surprise, to be sure, but definitely an unexpected one. "The Senator is still alive?" he asked, bewildered at this string of miraculous survivals. What in the blazes...?

"No, of course not," Ahsoka replied, wearing the same expression Rex felt on his own face, one that grew more and more confused by the minute. "He died with Alderaan."

Well. He was definitely missing something.

"But the General engaged Vader on the Death Star right after the destruction of Alderaan, to let..." No. No, perhaps it is best to avoid this detail for now. "To let the Princess of Alderaan escape. Bail Organa was already dead by then, Ahsoka."

Ahsoka was beyond mystified. "I must have been out of the loop longer than I thought," she said. "We are definitely not talking about the same Kenobi. Unless you're telling me Obi-Wan had a son?" she feebly jested.

"No, no, that's General Skywalker who had a son! It was General Kenobi on the Death Star, Ahsoka. He gave up his life to let them escape, Skywalker's son and Organa's daughter…"

"No, Rex, stop," Ahsoka said at last, on the verge of a very un-Jedi panic. She had most definitely not heard that right. "This doesn't make any sense. Are you alright?" she added, her voice threaded with faint worry.

"Ahsoka, you just said you knew the General deliberately faked his death."

"And how could I forget, you've no idea what it was like, for me and for Ana-… No," she hissed, as realization dawned. "He… All these years… Obi-Wan was alive?"

Rex nodded, a lump in his throat. What a fine mess. "He went out of hiding when Princess Organa sent him the plans of the Death Star."

"He was hiding? He has been hiding for nineteen kriffin' years? Where? Why?"

"On Tatooine."

He saw her put two and two together. Kenobi, Tatooine... Skywalker. It was pure mathematics.

"And what did you say about…? Rex?"

Rex forced himself to look her in the eyes. Gently, he took her hands in his and stroke her slim fingers.

"Your Master had a son. Luke Skywalker. The boy who destroyed the Death Star. He lived on Tatooine."

Pride bloomed inside him for his General's offspring. His daddy's boy, there was no doubt.


Too much. That was definitely too much.

You killed Obi-Wan! How could you?

Somehow, this hurt even more than the fact that he had tried to kill her. Anakin Skywalker had loved her, she had never had any doubt about that, but Obi-Wan… They were The Team. And a brother had killed the other. Oh Force, why are you so cruel? What is the lesson in this?

And he had a son! A son! Oh, Anakin, why? Why? Padmé... Padmé, I'm so sorry. Had I been there, perhaps..

"I am sorry the General never told you, Ahsoka." Rex' words brought her back to reality.

"No, I understand why he did it." Of course. To protect. To protect the child from his own father, from Obi-Wan's own brother.

"To be honest, I don't," Rex observed sternly. "There was no reason he could not make contact with you during these years."

Oh, Rex, if you only knew… Pray you never will, my friend.

"There is, Rex, more than you can possibly imagine. You'll have to trust me on this one." One corner of her lips curled, just slightly.

Rex snorted. "You're the expert on Jedi weirdness, Commander."

"And experience outranks everything," she added. Their eyes met, and through tears and pain they smiled. "Rex, this Luke Skywalker? Have you met him?"

Rex shook his head. "I wish I had. I tried to, but I was not sure… He's a Jedi." Ahsoka's heart skipped a beat. A Jedi. Another Knight Skywalker. "I saw his lightsaber on his belt and made a few enquires. Been trained by the General himself, even if, as rumor has it, only for a few days. I didn't know how much I'm supposed to say. I bet he's starving for information about his father, but you know I don't want to get entangled in Jedi business more than I already am."

Beneath the mirth and the good-hearted abusive jests, Ahsoka saw true concern.

"You've grown as old and wise as Master Yoda, Rex."

They chuckled heartily together for a few precious seconds. They were all they had left of their lives. It was just the two of them, in a dark Galaxy where the bright flame that now burned, waiting to engulf the darkness, was one they didn't completely understand, one they didn't know how to fit in.

"I believe you did the right thing, Rex," she said at last, getting on her feet and staring at the molted lights of hyperspace. She felt him rise and stand beside her. "If he's indeed training to become a Jedi, he needs to be focused on the present moment, no distraction allowed. The enemy he's facing it too…" Another realization. Enemy. Father. Son. Brother. No. No. Obi-Wan, what have you done? Does the boy know? Please, tell me you told him. Obi-Wan!

"Ahsoka?" Rex enquired, squeezing her shoulder and grounding her to reality.

"I… I'm sorry, Rex. I was thinking, I-I would like to see this boy," she added, a treacherous sting burning in her eyes.

"We're headed were he is, at Echo Base."

Ahsoka turned towards him, a quizzical smile on her lips. "Echo base?"

Rex almost blushed… almost. "I might have suggested the name. Apparently people think it's because of the actual kriffin' echo."

"I am sorry," Ahsoka offered, gently brushing his arm. She was sorry. "He deserves to be remembered."

Rex frowned, deep in thought. "I am not sorry," he said at last, slowly. "It is not for them to remember. They are all good people, this Rebel lot, and they fight as true warriors, if not as true soldiers. They are passionate and brave. But they don't understand, Ahsoka, they never will. They can't. They fight against something that is so evil that there is almost no moral dilemma. It is all clear-cut. In the singular actions, there may be a dilemma, but not in the grand scheme of things. They fight for freedom, for hope. We never knew what we were fighting for. The Republic, of course, but I'm sure not even you Jedi ever truly believed that bantha chizzsk. We all knew from the start we didn't really know what was going on. Sometimes we fought for the people… but sometimes we just fought for ourselves. For our brothers. Yours, and mine. And the more we fought, the more we won, the more we died… the worse it became. Krell, your friend Offee, Tup, Fives. Even you Jedi started questioning the war. My brothers were afraid it would end – what were we going to do then? What would have happened to us? How would the Republic dispose of us? The longer we fought, the more we died... but we were afraid of peace." Ahsoka was speechless, her eyes closed. "Those Rebels will never understand." Stiffly, he turned and entered the cockpit, settling in the pilot seat.

Ahsoka nodded, weary, and followed him, sitting as his co-pilot. "No, they won't." She sighed. "We are relics of another era."

The proximity sensor blared and Rex reverted the ship to realspace, where the gleaming mass of Hoth waited for them in its glacial splendor.

Ahsoka felt a sense of unease stir in Rex, a seed of doubt that bloomed into a green tendril of hope.

"What's it, Rex?"

He rolled his eyes. She grimaced.

"Ouch. Sorry. Forgot you don't like it when I do that."

"No to worry," he said, as he punched the coordinates and their clearance code for landing. When he was finished, he turned towards her." I was just wondering… You were purportedly dead, and here you are. General Kenobi the same – well, almost, I mean, he survived almost twenty years… Ahsoka, don't you think…?"

It was probably the first time Ahsoka had heard Rex not finishing a question, unable to press on, to utter in its entirety that swelling hope that was now rising and rising and sprouting tender green leaves.

She looked into the earnest eyes of this brave, kind, good man, a man who had known slavery and death and grief and loss and betrayal and who was still here, with a smile on his face and hope in his heart, eager to fight for a better world in which he would most likely never live. He deserved to know. More than anyone else, he deserved to know.

Ahsoka never knew if she did it for him or for herself… or for Anakin.

She crushed the blooming sprout under her heel.

"Anakin is dead, Rex. Killed by Darth Vader when the Emperor ordered him to march on the Jedi Temple."

She did not shield herself from the raw pain in Rex' soul, the tender seedling turning to dust, dust to dust, into the Force that created us and onto which we shall return. His warm eyes, usually of the color of the earth after the rain, were now as dry and lifeless as the Jundland Wastes.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

Anakin Skywalker was weak. I destroyed him. "He was my Master, Rex. I felt his death." She blinked away tears. Then I will avenge his death. "Anakin is gone." Then you will die.

Crushing the sprout of hope was mercy. Better than see it turn into a beautiful, tall, slender tree only to watch it being consumed by the raging inferno of truth's pitiless fires, until nothing more than a blackened stump remained, lying on a wasted shore, the pleading mockery of what had been, of what would never, could never be again.

They remained in grieved silence through the planetary descent, as Hoth's snowstorms rose to swallow them in their lethal beauty, white, cold, white and cold as death itself… and in all that whiteness, something else rose white, and it was not made of ice but of light, white dazzling light, clear as a white dwarf yet powerful as a supernova, and it called to her, it resounded in her, familiar, family, family… and then, as the shadow of a smile tugged, at last, at her lips again… something else attracted her spirit, something less clear, less defined, and yet… oh sweet Force.

You couldn't really do anything by halves, could you, Master?

There was another.

Another Skywalker.