Rex II
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That evening it was dark and damp, the buildings blurring with the thick smog and the sky sipping the heat of the day from the cooling permacrete in long, thin steaming trails. Rex found himself second guessing and double checking things as he walked. Ordinary things that were taking on sinister appearances beneath his gaze. The neons were at once simply signs illuminating street shops, then jarringly the glowing vegetation trawling shadowed banks and ridges. The hum of speeders became the whirring of mechanical legs, sharp and pointed and flashing in the night. The catch of headlights the Saber of a general gone bad.
Lost brothers with molten holes and slashes. The chatter of citizens became the calls to fate from comrades echoed and scattered on his helmet channel. Tinny and chilling, pain and horror. Rex shook his head against the dark thoughts, holding back the recurring shudders that threatened to loose from within again.
He'd had no destination at the time of his departure, just the whispers of a need to get away so strong he'd been walking before he realized it.
It was irrational, he knew. The thoughts which combed his mind. The chills in his chest that the sight and sound of something so familiar and previously beloved now brought. The soft clink of a handle against a belt, the hum of a blade bright and brilliant coming to life. Normally, no, always before, an experience of reverence that made his breath hitch with pride.
At the moment, everything about them made him shudder. He wrapped his arms around himself and kept walking. One foot ahead of the other. Focusing on the ground passing beneath his feet. It was a distraction tactic he used sometimes in the throes of bad thoughts. It didn't help much right then. He knew it was wrong. He was being irrational. Senseless. Silly.
But he still couldn't shake it. He had to get away from it and quiet his head.
His feet slowed then stopped and he looked up. Surprised, he found himself in front of a familiar door. Red painted and lacquered, slick-shine in the night. A beacon of distraction, remembrence and familiarity. His feet had had a purpose even if his mind hadn't it seemed. He paused there looking at the door for long moments wondering what had drawn him there. Wondering if he should go in or go on. He wanted to keep moving. Needed to, but his feet wouldn't budge. With a long sigh he pressed the door open with a uncertain fingers and slipped inside.
The shop was dim, the overhead lighting faint and quiet in contrast to the flashing neons of the outside night. Warm and earthy sweet smells were thick in the air, greeting and wrapping and distracting. The floor shone a polished shine beneath his boots which made sharp clacks across them.
Although still open for a short while, the shop was empty save for a single small and familiar form sprawled in the center of the floor. She lay on her belly, painting marbled colors on the tiles, her dress and the tips of her hair slipping through and becoming stained with it as she looked up.
She recognized him at once and grinned, making the paint smudged across her cheeks spread.
"Captain oh Captain! "
And then the little bare feet were rushed patters on the floor, arms around his legs before he could respond beyond a faint flash of surprise and a small grin. He removed his helmet and clipped it to his belt to pick her up, for a moment lost in her, and he allowed himself to be. The memory of their first meeting returning to his thoughts. That awkward and curt but sweet moment. That day. It had been a good one. Back when everything had made sense. His men were safe and laughing and had smiles in their eyes and passing back and forth in their arms and on their knees.
After a dazzling but brief smile Fayna's face had changed. At first slipping to a puzzled, measuring expression, then becoming eerily stoic for one so young. She had studied him for a long moment, eyes dancing between his, searching. He wondered at what she had found there because she finally settled to rest against him, small head to his neck, one hand delivering a repeating soft pat to his chest and the other playing light fingers across the edge of his pauldron. Rhythmic and soothing and quiet. He could feel the heat of her head against his neck, the heartbeat there although he wasn't sure whose it was. She stayed like that for a long while as though possessed of an innate child-sense he couldn't fathom. He'd heard of children having an ability of sorts like that somewhere. He wondered if they were all that way. Had he been that way? He couldn't remember.
But, just then, he was glad of it. The faint warm weight in his arms burning heavy and meaningful and treasure. It felt like he was holding a bright thread of everything that was right in the galaxy. Everything that meant something. It was what he fought for. What they all fought and died for.
For a moment it made things easier to cope with.
There was a laugh from the back room and footsteps.
"Fay, how's-" Aiya paused in the doorway a moment, then her eyes softened and she smiled.
"Rex! Welcome back. "
Welcome back. He replayed it in his head a few times. Squirreling it away for another time. He gave her a small smile back. She had no idea how grounding it all was, the child in his arms and those words and her voice. The faintest weight and simple words, yet at that moment they felt profound. They all implied a place he had been and returned to on good terms. A welcoming place. A constant, an anchor to hold onto in the tide which seemed intent on ripping him away.
Fox emerged from the doorway then, hearing the exchange. He caught sight of Rex and Fayna and chuckled just as Rex was lowering Fayna to the ground and she scampered off to the kitchen. Paints forgotten and smears on his armor, the print of her cheek on his chestplate.
"Are you hungry? We're just closing up. Still some soup left from the dinner rush. " Aiya offered with a foot already in the doorway to the kitchen.
"I..." The smells were too much for him and his traitorous belly gave a growl at the offer.
Aiya dipped into the back room with a wink and Rex turned his attention to Fox.
The commander stood staring strangely at him now, the grin replaced with a grim mouth and furrowed brow. He seemed to sense the unrest from Rex even though he was doing his best to hide it. Once the sounds of Aiya prepping in the kitchen could be heard he gave the Captain a questioning look. Previous joviality replaced by true concern.
"Something's wrong Rex. What is it? "
Rex stared at him mutely for a full minute, fighting his thoughts. He hadn't come to confess. He didn't even know why he was there. He really didn't want to speak about it.
And yet, he did, more than words could express.
He conceded with a long breath finally, a hand to his head, fingers pressing above his eyes.
"It was... Umbara. We...the general." Words eluded him. "I..." What? He'd given the report and still could really bring himself to find words for it.
At last he shook his head and gave a tap to his helmet.
"I think...it'd be easier if I just showed you. "
Fox's gaze was intense on him now, roving his face, dipping to his helmet. Processing what his friend had just said. He understood perfectly, he just didn't believe it. Helmet vids were used to document battles and it was required that they were recorded for that purpose. But they were by code transferred to a military database under watch by superiors and erased immediately after. Safety measure. Stored data was compromising. It had to be erased. By code.
Rex lived the code. He always had. Why was he breaking procedure now? That of itself spurred Fox to place a hand on his friend's shoulder and urge him to have a seat right away. He pressed the Captain into a chair and pulled up his own and sat, hands out for the helmet.
"Let's have a look."
...
Afterwards they sat for a long time in silence, neither knowing quite what to say, or perhaps unwilling. The air was a thick weight between them. Dark. Stagnant.
Rex sat tapping the spoon absentmindedly against the empty bowl in front of him. After Fox had removed the helmet, he had started to say something, but had stopped, unable to find the words to make sense of his thoughts. He had given Rex an unfathomable look, something between horror and sympathy. And then he had sat for a long time, not a word passing between them.
Fox was bent over in his seat with elbows resting on his knees, chin on his knuckles, replaying it all in his mind. He had watched it all. Fast forwarded some parts, slowed others. It flashed before his eyes in macabre spurts now.
The deep mist and glowing trees, dark banks and electric weapons. He saw brothers shot by horrific crawling machines and pierced by neon streaks. Dissolved by energy blasts. Scattering and trampled. He had heard the screams and cries and calls for cover and help and pain. The pleading to live and be saved...and the begging to die.
He saw the jedi. He saw again and again the jedi: Krell. The dismissals of rest and advice, the heavy and cruel rebuke and saber-drawn threats. He had witnessed the jedi make real on those threats in both agonizingly slow and rushed time, with live and garbled sounds. He'd seen brothers kill their own. Then, brothers sliced with the fiery slashes and stabs of swords which were supposed to be ones of light, of peace and protection. They had been vicious, wicked death to so many.
He remembered the last words of the general. Mocking and pride and greed and disgust. He heard the shot again, the single shot, and then silence. Fox looked at Rex.
"Rex. It...It wasn't your fault, Rex." he said at last.
Rex gave him a shadow of a smile. He wondered if the commander knew how much that simple admission affected him. If he was honest with himself, he hadn't been entirely sure how Fox would take it all. He had been possessed of a slight but real fear that the commander would be appalled at his actions, would rise and order him out of the shop in disgust.
For as long as they had known eachother Fox had been a rule-player. Always. By the book. Everything by the regs.
Force, he still had the standard haircut. Even with orders to differentiate his armor from his men as his role as commander he had chosen to paint his armor in exactly the same style, merely reversing the colors. The rules. He'd taken pride in them as much as Rex.
He wondered if that was why they had clashed so heatedly as cadets. It had always been a competition of sorts between them back then. Most of it not the friendly kind.
That Fox was seemingly willing to absolve him from fault of blaring discrepancies was strange. Not unwelcome, it touched him in a way he felt grateful for, but it was still strange. He wondered if Fox had changed that much, or the circumstances were just that bizarre that any reaction would be rendered just as strange.
Rex looked back at Fox again as he rose and gave a nod of thanks. He wondered silently how things would have gone if Fox had been there. Would he have lost more men, or less? How much would he have tolerated from Krell? Fox had never been possessed of the unchecked admiration Rex had for jedi. Rex had always pegged that off to simple arrogance, but had later found it to have a different basis. Would he have stood up to jedi? Would he have been able to shoot Krell himself?
"I really should head back." He glanced at the empty bowl. "Tell Aiya thanks for me will you?"
Fox rose and walked aorund the table to put a hand on his shoulder, frowning. "You don't... have to go back, Rex. At least not right away. Not right now. Stay." Rex froze for a second, remembering a similar offering, on a morning which seemed so long ago.
Cut Laquwane. Cut had told him that once.
His response now was all but the same, although the calling to accept the offer was stronger now. Much stronger. Back then it had seemed a wisp of a dream, a sweet but nonsense request. Now it was different. Now it was real and tangible and...almost desired. And that discomforted Rex.
"I have to get back. My men...need me." He scrubbed a hand over his face before lifting his helmet to replace it on his head. He stared at it in his hands for a moment. The weight of it a question. The open mouth of it sneering at him. Asking. Was he really worthy of wearing it?
He had always been a man of undisputed faith and belief in himself. Give him a task and he'd do it. Some how, someway. It wasn't arrogance, merely honest pride. He really was that good.
Was. The helmet was a dead weight in his hands. "Force knows I let them down enough." Did they want him back? After what he'd done? After how badly he'd failed them? He'd never had so many question his orders before, and he'd never ignored, bypassed and regretted that so completely.
"You didn't do anything wrong, Rex. You were handed a bum lot and you did the best you could."
Was that his best? Rex shuddered inwardly.
Fox seemed to sense him slipping away, and was equally determined to distract him of it.
"I finally met that commander of yours," he called after the captain's retreating form.
Rex turned and Fox gave a small grin.
"Briefly. When you were away. She was down about being left behind, I suppose. Stopped by a bit. "
Ahsoka. Rex hadn't seen her since they returned yet. When they had landed he hadn't wanted to. He'd pointedly avoided her. The clash of his deep affection and trust of her and his current feelings towards jedi causing him to want to run.
At the time it had seemed a good idea, now it felt strange.
"My boys are quite taken with her, it seems. Like moths to a krinking light."
Rex snorted. "She seems to have that affect."
"She does."
The words were unspoken, but there. Fox knew of Rex's fondness for the padawan. Had heard him speak of her over the years.
You could use some of that light.
He just had to remember that her light was true. Krell's had been false. Krell hadn't been a jedi when he sabotaged them, disavowed the republic and murdered. He hadn't. That wasn't what jedi were, or stood for. He knew that.
Why was he so unsure of it right now?
Rex gave Fox a staeady look over his shoulder.
"Promise me something, will you?"
Fox raised an eyebrow. "Been there. Done that. Still haven't told anyone."
Rex stared at him for a second blinking before bursting out laughing. He had forgotten that. A promise made years ago. A slip up, an admission, a promise. A breakthrough after years of hating each other for ridiculous reasons. He shook his head as he put on his helmet and turned to Fox, who was watching him with a look of relieved amusement.
Rex reached an arm out and Fox took it, clasping his forearm and looked his friend dead in the eyes as he spoke.
"Dont hesitate. No matter who it is...if it comes down to it and your men are in danger. Even if it's someone you trust. Someone you like...Even if it's a jedi. Don't hesitate to question, and shoot, like I did."
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CaptainReb and Cozzizzie: Thanks for your reviews and input! I like both as well, them being friends and Rexoka. My original plan for this story has them remaining friends. The one-shot I I'm working on, I was debating whether or not I should have them meet up again or not after everything goes down with my crew following order 66. In Rebels-it wasn't quite clear if they hadn't seen eachother since Ahsoka left the order, or if it had just been a while. At least, I'm pretending it's murky ;).
I want sure if I was going to have them just thinking of eachother from far apart or actually meeting. I think I've decided I want them to meet up.
I have had some private requests for a Rexoka also, though. So, I think what I'm going to do is post the one-shot and have an extra chapter. The first chapter will be the original, and the second will be a Rexoka spin of it. Kind of a "pick your path" thing.
Rex and Fox. I like the idea of them having a rival dynamic during training. And Cody being a mediator of sorts between them (sorry Cody!). I'll be writing their story after I finish up the arc with Surge, Trust, Hatch and Ravi.
Next chapter is an interlude. A Turns 2 chapter with everyone and Ahsoka, which takes place while Rex and the 501st were at Umbara. Even though it occurs before this chapter, I wanted it to be read after. A little sweet before things go dark. Coming up is Ahsoka's escape from prison from Fox's point of view, then her recapture and trial from her point of view.