Chapter 3

There's a knock on James's door just as he racks his pistol.

"Come in." James answers. The heavy wooden door groans open, Ahsoka stepping in.

"Hey. Can I help you with anything, Ahsoka?" James asks, doing a press check on his pistol before sliding it into its holster.

Ahsoka turns and carefully closes the door, gently closing her eyes as it latches. She exhales, looking up, trying to figure out how to word her question.

"Have you ever… Have you ever done something that… Something that made you think that you made a fatal mistake? Something that seemed like the right decision at the time but afterward you realize may have been the worst thing you could've done, something that haunts you?" Ahsoka asked.

"I… I don't know that I have a straight answer for you. There have been times when I certainly didn't make the right decision, but in those times, I had no other choice but to make that decision. I had to choose, or I and all of my teammates would be dead." James answers.

Ahsoka purses her lips, not happy with his answer but not displeased either. Indifferent. James stands up, looking her in the eyes.

"Do you have a decision haunting you?" James asks, concerned.

"No. Well… I don't know. I may never know." Ahsoka replies.

Ahsoka turns to leave, James speaking up again just as she starts to turn the doorknob.

"I heard you last night. Screaming. I've seen it before. I don't know what they call it where you're from, but here we call it PTSD. We have people that can help, if you want it." James explains.

"No, thank you. Can we keep that between us?" Ahsoka asks, turning her head to face him, her body still facing the door. James slowly nods, Ahsoka stepping into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

Bacon sizzles as Rex joins James in the kitchen, Ahsoka taking a shower.

"Sleep well, Rex?" James questions, focused on the stove.

"Better than I have in a long time, actually. Your beds are quite a bit softer than the ones back home." Rex answers, yawning.

"I heard you were a clone. How exactly does that work?" James asks.

"I'm not sure on the specifics, but the people on this planet called Kamino specialize in creating clones. Over a decade ago they started creating a clone army. They took samples of a bounty hunter by the name of Jango Fett. They engineered us to be stronger, faster, rugged, even put biological chips in our brains to make us follow orders. Several million brothers later and here we are. You have any brothers, James?" Rex responds.

A shadow seemed to cast itself across his face as he thought about Rex's question, "I had a brother, yeah. Went on a lot of missions together, me and him. One mission, it- it didn't end well. We got cornered…" With that James turns away, sliding the bacon out of the skillet and onto a plate.

"Hey… What is it?" Ahsoka asks as she walks in, drying her lekku with a towel.

"It's nothing, just some old war stories. You hungry?" James answers.

"This is really good." Ahsoka says with a mouthful of bacon, Rex nodding in agreement.

"I'm glad you like it. As far as anyone can tell, you're stuck here. We can barely get our own people to orbit, some of our greatest feats of technology have been sending probes interplanetary; intergalactic isn't even a thought yet." James says.

"As long as I can eat this, Earth doesn't seem too bad. No war, no being hunted down, no Sith. Sign me up." Ahsoka states.

"You're being hunted?" James picks up.

"We don't know much, but we do know that the clones have been ordered to hunt down and kill all remaining Jedi." Ahsoka answers.

James glances at Rex, "And they just follow orders blindly?"

"I mentioned earlier that we had chips in our heads, inhibitor chips. They force us to comply with orders from a certain person. Just before we crashed Order 66 was issued, an order to systematically exterminate the Jedi. Luckily, Ahsoka here survived and managed to capture me, removing my inhibitor chip." Rex explains.

"After that it was… Interesting to escape, with an entire Star Destroyer on high alert looking for us. But, by some miracle, we managed to make it out." Ahsoka finishes.

James looks at them, eyebrow raised. "Star Destroyer?"

"Doesn't actually destroy stars if that's what you're thinking. Large military cruiser, carrier, troop transport, escort, et cetera. Crew of 7,400. Long story short a lot of people looking for us." Ahsoka answers.

James's phone dings, a message appearing. He picks up the phone, frowning. He checks his watch, then looks back at the phone.

"What is it?" Ahsoka asks.

"Plane's early. It just landed. It shouldn't have been there for another hour." James replies.

"I take it that's unusual?" Rex questions.

James nods, turning the phone off and pocketing it. "I guess in that case we better get moving. It should be about an hour drive there, and then we'll have several hours in the air."

"You guys are so slow." Ahsoka mentions.

"I'm sorry, Miss Laser-Swords, we haven't figured out infinite energy yet." James retorts, leaning back in his chair.

Rex raises an eyebrow, Ahsoka opening up, "We don't have infinite energy either, but we at least figured out that we needed to go fast to get to places. I can move faster on foot than you can in your 'car'."

"Really?" James asks, perplexed.

"Only by cheating." Rex mutters.

Ahsoka turns on Rex, pointing her finger. "It's not cheating! How many times do Anakin and I have to explain this to you? The rules of the race allow winning by any means necessary." Ahsoka finishes, crossing her arms in front of her chest triumphantly.

"But I can't use the Force. You two can. It's the reason I always lost." Rex adds.

"Sucks for you, I guess." Ahsoka responds.

"Yeah, not all of us can just jump out of a crashing ship at altitude and laugh about it. When you and the General do it, it's fun, when us clones do it, we die. Or worse, we get made fun of for being slow." Rex complains.

All the while James's eyes dart between the two of them, watching the argument play out.

"If you two are done, we do need to get on the road, slow or not." He states.

"Fine. But the Force is not cheating." Ahsoka says, jabbing her finger at Rex again.

Author's Note:

I noticed that I had a visitor from Iceland. Meaning 0.0003% of Iceland has seen this.

Things are moving right along, by this point I've kind of got a gameplan together for where this is going, emotionally and physically.

-MTCII

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