Ahsoka Tano and Captain Rex Are Dead

"Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter."

-Yoda

Chapter 2. Luminous Beings

"This is home?"

Ahsoka opened her eyes, looked up at Rex, and found him alight. A brightness was surrounding him like a halo, warm and luminescent, like a sunlit sky on a clear day. It shone out from his head, still helmeted, down his armored arms, torso and legs. He was looking away when he spoke, but at her startled gasp, he turned to look down at her, and he stiffened, tensing at the sight of Ahsoka's similarly glowing form.

She leaned backward to see him more clearly, and found that where the faint radiance reached his hands, there was a different glow emanating as well, one whirling in similar shades of blue, but rather than the yellowy warmth of the sun, there was an aquamarine hue swirling inside of it.

Releasing one of his hands, she lifted hers up, turning it back and forth. She was radiating light, a deep, but definite kind of crystalline cerulean with undertones of aqua. The colors streamed from her fingertips, tracked her motions and clung to her slightly translucent skin as she gently waved her hand back and forth, watching the way the light moved with her and emanated from her. Her usual, warm Togruta tones of burnt umber were incased in those cooler shades.

A second hand joined hers, and she could more clearly see the colors rising from Rex's diaphanous hand. White armor was surrounded by light blue with strands of yellow sunlight coursing through.

What was it that the Jedi taught? She remembered from her long-ago classes: The spirit is bright.

Rex was inspecting her as much as she was inspecting him, each of them holding the other slightly outward, as the tilt of Rex's head moved from down to up, taking in multi-colored radiance she emitted, much as she drank in the sight of him. He reached for her hovering hand and pressed his palm against hers. The brightness increased, as seaside colors blended with those of a sunny sky, all merging and twisting around each other like a kaleidoscope.

She could not help but smile. Rex's luminosity was beautiful. She saw his shoulders ease, and she could feel his awe when he said, "We're glowing."

"At the Temple, we're taught that the spirit is luminous."

They were dead, and they were alight.

When Ahsoka finally turned away from Rex and the interplay of their ghost-light, she found that they were in her room. It was dark, but slowly, there was a brightness filling the space, flowing from their lambent bodies. They were small, her quarters on the Resolute, with just enough room to turn around beside her bunk, which jutted from one wall and was covered in a light grey blanket. There was a small desk with a computer console for her use, whether it was to interact with the ship's computer, or to communicate with the various computers at the Jedi Temple. She didn't spend as much time as she should studying, but when she had time, and energy, and Master Skywalker badgered her into it, she caught up on what she could.

Her spare pair of boots was tucked into the corner where her bunk met the wall, the knee-high tops flopping over. The door to her tiny refresher was ajar. One of the drawers under the bed wasn't closed completely, and a corner of the poncho she used in cold or rainy weather was sticking out. Her handheld holoprojector was sitting on the narrow ledge that ran around the room, off.

Everything was as she left it, though now cast in softly shifting shades of cerulean, viridian and gold. The Jedi Temple was where she belonged, but for two years, the Resolute was where she lived and worked. "I guess this is home," Ahsoka said, looking down at her bunk. The blanket was slightly rumpled; she'd tucked it in that morning, but in a hurry. She began to pull away from Rex, to smooth the creases, but stopped before her foot touched the ground again. She sent a worried look at Rex, then down at their illuminated hands. He was clutching her fingers. She eased back and clasped his hand more firmly. She wasn't going to let go.

"It's your home, too, though, isn't it? The Resolute?" she asked him, her voice a little uneven. Dead. Dead, dead, dead. Ghost. Were they so unnatural, though? The light seemed anything but unnatural, in its soft beauty. But she wanted to be home, and now they were on the Resolute. Did that mean they'd made a choice? Decided to return? Would they be able to return to Mortis, would they be able to join the Force again someday, later? Was this a mistake? Were they going to haunt the Resolute for all eternity, now? What were they supposed to do, anyway?

Rex was answering the question she asked aloud. "I suppose it is. More my home than Kamino, anyway. Never really lived anywhere else."

Her room ached with emptiness, even filled with light from its occupants. There was a scattering of dust, and it looked perfectly lived in, like she would be returning at any moment to flop down onto her bunk and sleep off the rigors of the last battle. She wanted to flop down on it now, curl up into a ball, pull the blanket up as high over her montrals as it would go, and just sit in the dark and warmth and maybe cry awhile. Rex could come too, though he probably wouldn't fit on the bunk.

Did they even have mass anymore? They seemed to be made of light, but she could feel Rex's hand in hers. Could she move through walls? Did she want to move through walls? Did she need to? They seemed to teleport from Mortis to here with just a thought. Could she just think, "Mortis!" and they would be whisked back there? Not that she really wanted to see Mortis again. "Netherworld of the Force"? Did that count as an actual location? Was it populated by a thousand generations of dead Jedi?

Ahsoka reached out and placed a bright hand on the top of her computer console, the shape of her fingers standing out starkly against the grey surface. She could feel the hum of the system through the ship, and the slight warmth from the current of power that fed the machine, but it was the faint warmth that came from a sleeping console, not an active one. It didn't switch on at her touch, or even when she thought, "On!" at it.

She shook her head. "So much for spooking."

Rex peered around her, trying to see her face. "Spooking, sir?"

He said it so curiously, she actually smiled. "Yeah. You know, like in the holos. Turning lights on and off, wailing. Horror holo stuff."

His head tilted to one side, and Ahsoka really wished she could see his face. Was he stuck in that helmet for all eternity, too? Was she stuck in this outfit for the rest of time? She snickered, pressing a hand to her mouth. It was ludicrous. Was this what ghosts worried about? Rex's shoulders eased, and his head tilted to the other side. "I'm glad you find this amusing."

Her smile grew sad and she sighed. "Not really. What do we do now?"

They stood in silence, neither knowing the answer to that question. Back to Mortis? Try to question Daughter? If so, ask her what? Take a stroll through the Resolute? Sit in Ahsoka's empty quarters in silence? They'd returned from a battle, but not really. None of the usual post-battle traditions applied. There was no need to go to the mess, to eat. No need to hit the showers, to wash away the blood and the grit. No need to go to the bridge, to give a report or a debriefing.

No desire to go to the medbay, and see who else didn't make it. No desire to go to the morgue, and see their own remains.

Ahsoka looked longingly at her bed. Sleep. She could use a nice, long nap right now.

Except she had no body to feel tired. The passage of a few hours to the restorative qualities of sleep was denied to both of them. She pressed a hand to her face, and felt Rex's hand tighten around her other one.

The door slid open with a mechanical whisper, and a rectangle of light stretched throughout the room. A moment later, the doorway darkened, and a figure filled it, a swath of burdened weight rolling into the room like a wave from its shadow. The florescent light that ran around the ledge in her room flickered on, and the room was cast into a sharp contrast of white light and grey gloom. The figure stepped inside, and the door closed behind him.

Ahsoka's first thought was: Master Skywalker looks terrible.

Anakin was disheveled. He was clean, indicating he'd been back on the Resolute for a few hours at least, but a shower did not appear to do anything for his expression or the way he carried himself. He carried a bleak weight with him, a crushing gravity that Ahsoka felt in her shoulders, pushing them down as though someone had placed a heavy yoke on her. His hair was shaggy, in that unkempt way it could become when it was washed but unbrushed, prone to both clumping and flyaway strands. His tunic was unevenly belted, either from haste or inattention. His shoulders slumped from the heaviness he exuded, and his head was bent. His gaze, though, was sharp in spite of the dark circles beneath his eyes. His hands were clenched into fierce fists.

What was, perhaps, most striking, was the aura that emanated from around him. It gleamed, clear and hard as starlight striking black diamond, with shadows giving way to sharp white corners that shone as he moved, sometimes reflective and bright, sometimes swallowing the light around him. The emanation clung to him as he stepped further inside, slightly trailing, always glinting and flickering in its luminosity.

"He's glowing, too," Rex said, startled. Ahsoka gave him a wide eyed look. She adjusted her grip on Rex's hand before turning back to Anakin, who was standing just inside the room and staring, not at them, but through them. Ahsoka felt a little chill trace her spine. Anakin wasn't dead. Did all people have these auras, these glowing halos around them?

"Master?" she asked, uncertainly. "Anakin?" He responded by looking away from the corner in which they stood, and stepped further inside, casting his gaze around the room. She tried again, louder. "Anakin!"

He only looked at her computer console, then past them and the refresher door, then to the bunk jutting out of the wall and the drawers beneath it. He unmade a fist and ran his other hand through his hair, while his attention caught on the small, round shape of her holoprojector, sitting on the ledge beside her bed. Anakin sat on the bunk, reached back, and picked it up.

Ahsoka backed up a step, until she bumped into Rex. She wanted to crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head, or perhaps bury her face in Rex's armor and just simply not watch this. She was here. Right here. And he couldn't hear her, couldn't see her.

The holoproj flicked on, and the blue hologram's flickering light warred with the hard diamond gleam that surrounded him, pressing upward and into the hollows of his face. It cast shadows onto the wall behind him.

She made the slideshow of holos for her last life day, permanently borrowing the projector itself from storage, along with a couple others. Anakin had one. So did Rex, and Barriss. They all contained the same series of holographs: of the men of the 501st, of Admiral Yularen, of Cody and of Barriss, of Master Kenobi, of herself and Rex, and of herself and Master Skywalker. She looked at them often, sometimes setting the slides into a repeating loop, watching them flick from one face to another every few moments. The faces of her friends kept her company when she agonized over Temple studies, or scrubbed blood off her skin, peeling away layers of filthy, stained clothing after battles. Sometimes, they guarded her sleep at night, when she would doze off in bed before remembering to press the switch on the device.

Even though Anakin had the same projector and the same set of holographs, his presence in her room and his sitting on her bed while looking at the images felt somehow invasive; they were hers, they were personal. There was nothing embarrassing about the pictures, but it felt like he was rifling through her personal things, things she didn't generally share. Anakin seemed to loom large, out of place, in her small room, an outsider even though he was her teacher and friend.

The images passed before his eyes, one after another, as his thumb pressed down on the control button again and again, sending the images sliding by faster and faster, around and around on their loop, while his face did not change, save for the slowly growing crease between his brows.

Abruptly, he stopped. The image was of Ahsoka and Rex, the two of them with their faces pressed together, Rex's cheek against her nearest montral. The image was close, since she'd been holding the holocam out to fit them both in the picture. They were both smiling.

Anakin's attention lingered on their faces a long while, eyes tracing over their smiles again and again, until he shut his eyes. He switched off the projector, bent his head, and pushed his fists against his forehead while his elbows rested on his knees. She heard the sound of the projector cracking in his mechanical fist, the grey casing fracturing under the pressure.

Ahsoka looked away, up towards Rex, stricken. Rex looked between the two of them, Ahsoka silently pleading for his help, and his grieving General. "I don't know, kid," he said. There were no procedures for this. No precedent. How could he comfort a dead girl who was distressed over her Master's grief? This wasn't something he could shoot at, something he could marshal troops for and fight. He had no wisdom to impart; he had no experience with anything like this. Not from the perspective of someone who was dead, and helpless to help. So he simply told her the truth. "I don't know what to do, either."

Low words sounded harshly in the little room. "You too, Snips." He lifted his head, just enough to look at his hands. He opened one, and a small chain dropped down, dangling from his fingers, the silka beads appearing smooth and delicate in the dull lighting. Delicately serrated triangles of polished grey bone twisted in the air as Anakin turned his hand over, palm up.

"My Padawan braid," Ahsoka breathed, reaching up to touch the akul tooth headdress that framed her face. She could still feel it, arching over her forehead as it always did, the teeth pressing up and radiating outward onto the soft white of her montrals. Reaching behind her, she could still feel the Padawan braid swinging behind her head, just as it always had - except it was also in Master Skywalker's hands.

It was surreal. She backed up again, closer to Rex, who laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. It should have felt reassuring, but right now, it was no consolation.

Anakin, though, was still speaking, quietly and haltingly, to the headdress of beads and the teeth hanging from his hand, shoulders hunched. "This time, everyone cheered when I killed them all. Who's next, Snips?" He ran a thumb over one of the teeth. "This can't happen again. I won't let it happen again."

The headdress, lying limp in his palm, had no answer for him, and he closed his fist around it again, pressing his knuckles against his brows.

He hadn't heard her the first time, but Ahsoka tried again, this time reaching out and tugging Rex along behind her, closer. They shuffled into the narrow space between Anakin and Ahsoka's desk, and Ahsoka bent, leaning closer, placing a light hand on Anakin's shoulder. Her fingers prickled at the sensation of coming into contact with the flickering black diamond glow gleaming around him. The contrast was strange, the white-black glitter of Anakin almost absorbing her sea-colored shine.

He did not look up, but a shiver ran through him, his shoulders quivering for a moment, then bunching as he tried to shrug deeper into his tunic. "Master, can you hear me?" Ahsoka tried.

No response. She continued, a little desperately, "We're here. We're okay. Well, maybe not okay, but it's alright." She moved her hand from his shoulder to his hands, placing it over the one holding her braid and headdress, and squeezed, the prickling sensation coursing up her forearm as flecks of black seemed to whirl up over her hand and spiral around her wrist. "If you defeated the Separatists, that's good. You saved everyone! You won! It's okay, Master. Rex and I are together, and we're here."

Anakin shivered again, lifting his head, and looked straight into Ahsoka's face, almost seeming to peer forward, searching. Ahsoka's grip on Rex tightened, and she felt a little thrill of hope as Anakin concentrated for several long moments. She tensed her hand around Anakin's hand as well, willing him to see, to hear.

Daughter said something about returning to continue their struggle. That would be impossible, if no one could see or hear them, wouldn't it? There had to be a way.

Anakin, though, was deaf to her words, and blind to the sight of them. He sighed, heavily, and stood, his hands sliding out of Ahsoka's by sliding through them. "I'm sorry, Snips," he said, then added, wearily, "Rex." He looked down at the broken holoprojector in his hand, clenched it tightly for a moment, and then relaxed his grip. Turning, he set the holoprojector down, gently, in the center of Ahsoka's bunk, grey metal on grey banthawool. The headdress and braid he kept clutched in his hand. He lingered there a moment, then turned swiftly and moved away.

The door whisked open before him, and shut behind him, and they were left alone in the room again.

The white lights flicked off in his absence, and the luminescence of ghost-light was all that lit the room again.

"I don't want to stay here anymore, Rex," Ahsoka said, dully, staring at the closed door.

Rex didn't want to stay either. The Resolute may be home, but right now, it felt cold to be here. To be so close to others, to friends and brothers, was to be reminded of his helplessness, and hers. They needed time, time to talk, time to understand what they'd become.

"Let's get out of here, then."

And once again, they were gone.

There's a lot of glowing in the fic. Anakin's aura is black/white for what I hope is an obvious reason – light/dark. I picked the colors for Ahsoka and Rex for a variety of reasons – Ahsoka's blue eyes, green lightsaber, Rex's 501st blue – but also because I wanted to carry a slight "sky" theme with them, being so closely related to Anakin. Ahsoka gets night (think an aurora) and Rex day (sky blue and sunlight). Colors don't have specific meanings – blue isn't sad and yellow isn't cowardly, for example. Mostly just what colors I associate with certain characters….

I don't usually write a lot of Anakin, so I hope he's turning out okay.

And...a big thank you to everyone who has so kindly reviewed the first chapter! *hugs!*

~Queen