Trust

"Jedi strive to overcome fear." The fact that they still felt it was left unsaid. Rex didn't need to hear it, maybe he didn't even want to hear it from the boy stretched out across from him, close to the fire for their only source of heat. The planet was a bitter cold at night and while they looked like they were reclining around a campfire, they were waiting for pick-up. Kenobi's leg was broken. Rex had blaster wounds that had eaten through his armor. They were trying to keep each other awake.

"So do we," Rex said. "A good soldier can't ignore fear, but you don't let it stop you. You can't. Or else your brothers are going to die and it'll be your fault."

"Are you afraid now, Rex?"

The clone looked across at the young Jedi. "Yes, sir."

Kenobi drew his hands back into his sleeves to try to keep them warm and he looked into the crackling edges of the fire. "I am too."

They had been on assignments before but Kenobi gained Rex's trust on that mission. It was the conversations in the most dire circumstances that stayed with him more than the victorious ones. He knew the Jedi was a quiet, sensitive boy who proved his worth keeping up with the rest of the clones and going further. He was confident too, intuitive and proficient with anything in their arsenal. But knowing about Kenobi didn't mean he knew Kenobi, and now he did. Now Obi-Wan Kenobi was one of his brothers.

Kenobi never liked the medical droid. Probably a lot of memories associated with that thing. Rex wouldn't say that he was wary of the bot because of memories, but he did know from experience that medical droids were often less than gentle and with the amount of times both of them had been at the mercy of the droid, he really couldn't say he blamed him. There were memories of pain and blood on the battlefield and then there were memories of being jabbed in the neck by a soft-spoken droid. It was the latter that made Rex keep his distance.

He kept his distance from the boy too. But Kenobi hadn't told him to leave, Rex just assumed that the kid wouldn't want him to be around. In fact, he hadn't opted for the medical droid either. It was Lucky who was sealing the wound on his arm. Rex folded his arms, watching the bacta seal the wound and the bandage go over top and the way that Kenobi looked across at an empty wall in the treatment room of the cruiser.

The two of them saw the inside of this place a lot. Obi-Wan had the scars to prove it and so did Rex. Maybe that's why he wanted to see that the boy was okay, that's why he couldn't tear himself from the doorway. Cody hadn't been by yet, he would later, and General Jinn was on the bridge because General Jinn trusted them. After all, the clone who shot his Padawan was already dead.

Neither of them wore armor, it would have been too loud, bulky and obvious. Kenobi was clearly a lot more comfortable with darting between the large rocks, finding a place to hide and then moving to the next one. He scrambled over them like it was a game, clinging to one and jumping to another, then rolling around and crouching, squeezing between two rocks that didn't seem wide enough.

Rex was a formidable soldier and excellent recon officer, but even he was having trouble keeping up with a Jedi in his element. They raced to the top and Rex kept low, letting Kenobi take the faster route.

Then they found themselves with their backs pressed against a rock, shoulder-to-shoulder and squeezed down as much as they could manage to avoid detection. In the moment, Rex glanced over at the younger man. Kenobi was the picture of calm, but his eyes were elsewhere. Rex knew that look too, he was racing ahead, calculating the next move and pushing onward up the hill even if they were pinned down by a recon droid. The very second it was safe, Kenobi sprung into action again.

So they stretched out at the top of the hill, looking down into the Seps' installation. A two man infiltration job. In and out. Simple. Except nothing was ever simple. Rex liked it that way though. He looked down at the installation with the visual amplifier, taking in all of the angles he could manage from their vantage point.

"Squad to the north, three droid teams moving along each perimeter with two guards on every door," he said, lowering the amplifiers. "Sounds complicated."

Kenobi nodded in agreement. "There's another set of guards who come from the inside every twenty minutes and the guard changes on schedule at 43 minutes of every hour." He smiled briefly. "Sounds like fun."

When Rex had been paired with the young Jedi Commander, he wanted to make the best of it, but wasn't entirely certain it would go well. It might not go well at all. But he was starting to like Kenobi all the same. "Yes, sir," he replied. "That it does."

The kid still hadn't looked at him. He hadn't looked at anyone really, not even Lucky. Hadn't said anything else. Not that Kenobi was always the most talkative in the universe, in fact he was pretty reserved with a rare and dry sense of humor.

Rex, the clone who would charge head first in against a Rancor, found that he didn't want to be the one to break the ice. Not even as Lucky left the two of alone. But he had to step up and do it. They weren't going to make it far if they didn't know where each other stood after the recent events on the planet.

He stepped forward, walking over to stand in front of Obi-Wan and the young Jedi finally looked up at him. "Sir," Rex said. "Just wanted to make sure you're all right."

"Just a small burn, Rex, I'm fine." Kenobi slid off of the table and onto his feet, reaching for his robe, but by the movement of his injured arm, he was still fairly sore. He seemed to consider it for a moment and Rex didn't make a move until Kenobi did. The young man didn't look at him as he spoke, but the words were enough. "Can you give me a hand with this?"

"Yes sir," Rex replied smartly. Grabbing the edge of the cloak, he pulled it over Kenobi's arm gently so he could get to the other side.

"Thank you, Rex." Kenobi laid his hand on the clone's shoulder briefly, but they walked out together. They'd be okay, Rex thought. They didn't say much, but they didn't need to; they'd fought back to back in battle and their actions spoke much louder. He knew Kenobi could have pulled his cloak on himself. He just wanted to make sure Rex knew that their trust was still intact. And Rex was determined that it would never be questioned again.