"Whatever Happened to Captain Rex?"

Chapter 10

"Rex, no!"

Ahsoka was concentrating intently on cauterizing the wound with her lightsaber. Her focus was so single-minded that she almost didn't catch Rex's hand reaching up to push away the lightsaber from his leg.

She sent a forced command into his mind, 'Sleep!' Normally that command knocked non-Force sensitives out immediately. But, she felt Rex's body freeze up, and hesitate in confusion. 'Commander?' he questioned back.

Ahsoka gritted her teeth in frustration, not even able to comprehend how he was able to respond back. Leave it to Rex to be difficult now of all times. She sent the command again. 'Sleep!'

Rex's head drooped in response. It seemed to Ahsoka that he had been close to passing out anyway. She finished cauterizing the wound, and then shut her lightsaber off. She set it down on the cave floor, not wanting to touch the weapon at the moment. She reached up and grabbed Rex by the shoulders and eased him off to the side so that he was more comfortably laying on one of the bedrolls. Then, she just leaned down on top of him, taking several long heaving breaths.

The cave smelled like burnt flesh. Ahsoka's stomach churned at the smell. She refused to allow herself to get sick. I did what I had to do to save Rex's life.

She retrieved the field medical kit, and checked Rex's vital signs. Heart rate: strong and steady. Respiration: normal. Blood pressure: as near to perfect as a human can have, perfectly normal for a clone. Ahsoka let out a sigh of relief, everything looked good.

Oh, wait, almost forgot body temperature.

She reached inside Rex's bodysuit so that she could place a body temperature sensor right up against his skin. She frowned when she got the reading back.

Elevated body temperature. Is it hot in here?

As a Togrutan, she naturally ran hot and was resistant to temperature changes. As she focused her senses, she realized it was definitely on the cool side. Ahsoka rummaged through the medical kit, frowning. There's almost nothing left in here. Oh, come on, there must be at least a dose or two of antibiotics in here...

Ahsoka found what she was looking for and pulled two syringes up to the light, checking dosages. She injected one directly into his leg, and saved the other for later. She leaned back against the cave wall, taking another moment to rest.

"Ah, Rex, how do we always manage to get ourselves into these messes, huh?" Ahsoka said, gazing at Rex's unconscious form. She wrinkled her nose. The smell of burnt flesh wasn't a new smell to Ahsoka. It was a common enough battle smell.

When Ahsoka had first met Rex on Christophsis, Rex had told her that 'experience outranked everything.' Over the course of her first few weeks, she had quickly learned many things about battle, such as battles smell awful. Human bodies sliced, blown and burnt open had an unforgettable smell.

But, it did feel different somehow since the burnt flesh belonged to Rex and she'd been the one who'd burned him. She'd applied the light saber lightly, in a grid-like pattern, forming a square. She effectively sealed off the large area that had still been bleeding out. The wound was finally sealed. Ahsoka had been shaking internally while she did it, but, outwardly she was deadly calm. Her hands were completely steady. She'd applied her saber with the utmost care and precision just as she made been trained to since she was a young child.

Still, somehow this felt like one of the hardest tasks she'd ever been called upon to do as a Jedi. Even though she'd tried to apply to the saber as lightly as possibly, trying not to burn him too deeply, she worried about the long-term effects. What if Rex had permanent damage from this? What happened to clones who were too injured to fight? Ahsoka didn't even want to pursue that line of thinking. It was too awful to contemplate.

Ahsoka shuddered as she thought of Rex's hand reaching right into the path of the lightsaber blade trying to push it away. The pain must have been getting too much to bear. Either consciously or subconsciously, he was trying to push away the instrument that was torturing him. It was then that the strangest thing had happened. Rex had responded back to her through the Force link. Ahsoka had heard his voice in her mind, as clearly as if she was communicating with her Master. She had no explanation for it.

She gave him another sharp of painkiller because she couldn't bear the thought of him being in pain when he woke up. As soon as she gave him the dose, she heard Rex's voice warning her about timing the doses too close together. When had she given him the last dose? She tried to do the mental calculations in her head, but she was too exhausted to think at the moment.

She decided to head outside to meditate to try to clear her head. Her nerves were totally frayed and she needed to clear her mind. The timing of the painkiller was nagging at the back of her mind, and she wondered if she'd just made a mistake.

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