Echo's on his way to Coruscant.
Rex keeps it in the back of his mind, mostly because banishing the thought has proven impossible.
The Bad Batch isn't infiltrating the Separatists: they're targeting the Republic's supreme leader at the height of the bloodiest war the galaxy's seen in centuries. There's no way this can be spun as a sanctioned operation. If they get caught, they're as good as dead.
Rex shakes his head and palms open the medbay door. Shouldn't be worried. No reason to be worried. Echo's an ARC. Echo's one of the best. He's part of Clone Force Ninety-Nine. He'll be fine.
He'll be fine.
"Jesse's asleep," Kix says without turning around. He's standing with his back to the door, studying the three holoscreens he's projected in an arc around him. "I reevaluated him today and he should be back on his feet in a week or two. Until then, sir, maybe you should get some rest yourself."
"I'm on my way to a debrief," Rex says. He wants to be annoyed that Kix knew who was coming through the door without even looking, but Rex has been in here every day he could manage it, sometimes twice a day, so it couldn't have been that hard to guess.
"Where are we headed now?" Kix asks. He spares Rex a glance. His brow is furrowed. "We've got a lot of wounded. We're nowhere near ready for another engagement."
"That's why they're sending us back to Coruscant," Rex says. "We're leaving orbit in the next few hours."
Kix snorts. "I'll believe it when I see it."
Rex can't blame him for his skepticism. After Skako Minor, they were supposed to head back to the core worlds to regroup and resupply. Instead, they were called to neighboring system after neighboring system, driving the Separatist presence further and further back.
Putting out fires.
Rex has looked at the casualty list more times than he wants to admit.
"I have it from General Skywalker personally that we are, without a doubt, going to Coruscant," Rex says.
Kix shakes his head. Something clatters in an adjacent room and he sighs. "Jesse," he calls, "if I have to haul your shebs back to bed one more time, I'm going to put you in a restraining field."
Rex can't help the small smirk.
"It's not funny," Kix grumbles, already heading for Jesse's pod. "This is the third time today and it's not even noon yet."
Kix doesn't make it all the way into the room. Jesse pokes his head around the corner, clinging to the doorframe to stay upright. His eyes are hazy and distant, like he just shook off sleep and isn't fully awake yet. There's a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Hey, Kix," he says groggily, "seen Fives? Thought of a joke he'd like."
Kix doesn't react, but Rex suddenly feels like his heart is trying to twist his way out of its chest. "We've been over this, Jess," Kix says gently.
Jesse blinks, trying mightily to recall. When he does, Rex knows immediately. His face crumples – and so does he. Rex rushes forward to help Kix catch him and carry him back to bed.
"Sorry," Jesse mumbles, once he's settled and tucked it. He toys with the edge of the blanket. Rex clasps one of his hands.
"It's all right," he says.
Jesse's face is pained. "Lost a lot of brothers back there," he says, biting his lip. He stares at their joined hands. Rex squeezes tightly. Jesse looks to him, pleading.
Hopeless.
"We'll remember them," Rex whispers fiercely. Ni suc'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum. He remembers when he added Tup and Fives to that recitation – remembers his voice cracking and Cody's hand on his shoulder, solid and steady. "I promise you that, Jesse. We'll remember them."
"I don't want to remember them," Jesse hisses. "I want them here with me."
"You should get some rest," Kix says tiredly. "You can call me if you need me."
Jesse scowls. "Hey," Rex says quickly, "I heard from Echo the other day."
He meant it as a distraction; it works better than he could have hoped. Jesse's entire face transforms. "Yeah?" he says, suddenly beaming and scrambling to be a bit more upright. Rex stops him with a gentle hand to the chest. Jesse eases back down. "What's he been doing?"
Committing treason. Rex hesitates.
"Never mind," Jesse sighs. "Classified, right? Clone Force Ninety-Nine stuff." He pats Rex's arm with his free hand. "'s'okay. Did he say if he was coming back to see us sometime?"
"Next time Cody needs Ninety-Nine, he'll be here."
"But he's okay?"
"He's all right," Rex says. "He's in good hands."
That seems to satisfy Jesse. He settles back and closes his eyes. Rex waits a moment and then carefully stands and slips out of the room with Kix. When he looks back, Jesse's asleep.
But he's still got his smile.
"That happens every time he wakes up?" Rex asks quietly. Kix palms the door shut.
"Not every time, but enough," Kix says. He scrubs at his face. "It's the painkillers. Sometimes he – he gets pretty confused. He asked about Hardcase yesterday."
"We don't have any other drugs."
"We ran out of the other options, yes," Kix says irritably. "If I could give that to him instead, I would. We're badly in need of a resupply. I'm out of bacta patches too. General Skywalker came down to help, but he can only do so much."
Skywalker's just as exhausted as everyone else and, apparently, draining what little life he has left in him to heal his men. Rex blows out a breath. He feels a strange mixture of exasperation, admiration, and pride but by now, that's his typical reaction to most things Anakin does.
"That's the general," Rex says.
"Try to get him to eat something," Kix says, shoving a ration bar at Rex. "He brought his rations for the day down to make sure we had enough here."
"I will."
"Hey, Rex?"
Rex stops in the doorway. "Yeah, Kix?"
"Echo's really okay?"
"Yeah, Kix."
Kix's smile is small, tired, but still so sincere. "Glad to hear it."
Rex smiles back. It hurts more than he thinks it should.
Skywalker, Kenobi, and Cody are already gathered around the star chart by the time he walks into the control room. Anakin quirks an eyebrow. "You're late, Rex."
Like he has any right to talk.
Skywalker just barely catches the ration bar Rex launches at his head. "Hey!"
"Sorry for the tardiness, General. I had to pick up your dinner," Rex says dryly. Cody tries – and fails – to hide a smirk. Kenobi doesn't even bother.
"Captain, always a pleasure to see you," Obi-Wan says warmly. His eyes are sparkling, a sharp contrast to the dark circles arcing beneath them. He holds his right arm close to his body; it's supposed to be in a sling, if memory serves. Rex glances at it, then at Cody.
Cody shrugs. Stubborn jetii. What am I supposed to do?
Kenobi's not oblivious to their exchange, silent though it may be, but he is courteous enough not to mention it.
Mostly.
"The Commander has a concussion and isn't supposed to be vertical until tomorrow, but he assures he me the headache has subsided enough for him to participate in this debrief," Obi-Wan says, bringing up the holo of the last campaign. "He also assures me that as soon as it is complete, he will follow his medic's orders to the letter."
Rex levels an accusing stare at Cody. Kenobi's going on in the background, reviewing their troop movements and which strategies proved most effective; Rex barely hears him.
Cody, by all appearances, is engrossed in the holotable.
"When did that happen?" Rex demands, the second the debrief is done and Skywalker and Kenobi have stepped to the side to have their own discussion.
Cody sighs and cracks his neck. "Don't worry about it, Rex," he says. "I'm fine."
"You're not supposed to be up."
"Don't worry about it."
"You're sure—"
"When was the last time you slept?" Cody asks. "You don't have to keep watch over Jesse every night. He's perfectly safe with Kix as long as he doesn't try to leave."
It's not just Jesse that keeps him from sleeping. It's Echo. It's Fives. It's Tup. It's Hardcase. It's every man he couldn't save and every brother that went to their deaths too soon because he was too late. Too late to stand up to Krell. Too late to bring Echo home. You came back for me, he said, but Rex didn't know he was even still alive. Didn't check. Didn't search. Just left him to the Separatists and the Techno Union. Left him for dead.
Left him behind.
"I don't know," Rex says, with a furtive glance at the Jedi: the last thing he needs is Skywalker hearing that and putting him on lockdown.
Cody frowns. It's silent for a long beat. "Talk to me, Rex," he says at last. "What's going on?"
For a second Rex thinks about following him out, thinks about letting the grief and the fear and the pain crush him into falling apart and letting Cody pull him back together again, thinks about letting Cody hold him and say it's all right, vod'ika, I've got you like he did after Fives died and Rex showed up in pieces at his door in the middle of the night.
He can't fall apart. Not now. And if he says a word about any of it, about the chips, about Fives, about the way Echo's putting his life on the line, he just might.
"I wish I could."
Cody stares at him, bewildered. "The hell does that mean?" he hisses. Out of the corner of his eye, Rex sees Kenobi stiffen slightly and glance at Cody; the two are so attuned it's almost a little unsettling. Rex wonders briefly if he and Skywalker do that, he's never thought about it, he just acts, but he doesn't have the chance to finish the thought.
"Excuse us, Generals," Cody says smartly, and then his grip is wrapped around Rex's wrist and they're leaving.
Cody doesn't let go or stop walking until they're a good ten feet away from the door. "You want to go somewhere and talk?" Cody asks. "Or do you want to keep doing this until you get killed?"
"What?"
"You don't sleep. You're barely eating—"
"Everyone is barely eating. We need to resupply. We're out of medical provisions, we don't have enough rations, we're running low on—"
"Stop."
Rex snaps his mouth shut. Cody waits a beat. "You need to tell me what's going on," he says slowly.
"There's nothing 'going on,'" Rex says. "I'm just – we're all just tired."
Cody blinks disdainfully at him. "Follow me," he orders evenly.
Rex doesn't have the energy or the inclination to argue. Cody leads them to his quarters. The moment Rex is inside Cody stabs a finger at the floor.
"Sit down, cut the osik, and tell me what the hell is going on, Rex."
Rex eases onto the floor with the care of a man who believes he might be shot at any moment. Cody – calm, controlled, concussed Cody – is fuming. "You wish you could," he bites out. "What does that mean? When have you ever not been able to come to me?"
"Cody, it's really not—"
"No," Cody snaps. "Don't tell me it's not that bad. Don't tell me it's nothing. I have watched you run yourself into the ground ever since we brought Echo home and I have waited for you to tell me what's wrong and you haven't."
"There is nothing wrong," Rex says. It sounds hollow to even his ears.
Cody levels a stare at him.
"I'm fine."
"How?" Cody demands. "How is this fine?"
"I'm just trying to keep them alive!" Rex barks. "I'm doing my job. That's fine."
Cody's eyes are pained, suddenly, suffused by a deep grief Rex has so rarely seen him show. "You're not the only one who's tired of burying his brothers," he says hoarsely. His voice cracks. "I won't bury you too, Rex. Not when I can help it."
There's a lump in Rex's throat. "I'm sorry, Codes," he says, dropping his head to his hands and driving his fingers into his temples. It's an old nickname. He can't remember using it since Christophsis. Can't remember why he stopped.
"Look at me."
"You'll think I've lost my mind," Rex whispers. It doesn't escape him that that's too close to what Fives told him, in his final moments. Eyes blown wide. Terrified for his life. So close. Too far. He couldn't get to him, shield him, calm him: he could only hold him as he died.
"Rex, look at me."
Rex slowly raises his head. Cody's kneeling in front of him so they're at eye level. "We're brothers," he says fiercely, taking hold of Rex's shoulders. "Nothing changes that. Whatever it is, we'll face it together, the same way we always have."
"It'll sound crazy," Rex croaks. "I can't—"
"Vod'ika, you have to trust me."
Rex manages a shaky nod. "It's Fives," he blurts before he can think twice, and the tears prick at his eyes. The name hurts. Too close. So far. He hears Cody take a sharp breath. "I couldn't save him. I couldn't save any of them. I—"
"What happened to Fives was not your fault," Cody says firmly. We've talked about this.
"Nala Se drugged him," Rex says, barely audible.
"You don't have any proof of that, ner'vod," Cody says. His voice is pained. "Whatever happened to Fives – whatever went wrong – it was a virus. He had a virus, like Tup. We didn't catch it soon enough."
"I have proof," Rex says.
"How?"
"Kamino."
"When did you have time to go to Kamino?" Cody asks, and even as he's asking the question the answer is forming in his eyes. He presses them closed for a beat. "Of course you didn't. Echo did."
"Nala Se drugged Fives so he would be out of his head," Rex says. "The Chancellor framed him so he went on the run and by the time we found him he was so desperate and paranoid I couldn't reach him. But it's not a conspiracy theory, Codes. He wasn't crazy. There is a chip in every clone's head and one day, they are going to activate it and none of us is going to have a choice."
There's too much compassion in Cody's eyes. "You don't believe me," Rex says quietly. His chest pangs. Fives. Ragged. Screaming. Please.
"It's not that, Rex."
"Then what is it?"
"I read the official reports and the audio transcripts from the…Fives incident. There is a chip," Cody says, "but it's just an aggression inhibitor. It's there to keep our emotions in check and to give the Republic a way to deal with any rogue Jedi. That's it. It's not going to overwrite our free will."
"It overwrote Tup's."
Cody rubs at his temples. Concussed. He must have a headache; all of this stress can't be helping. "All right," he says tiredly. "All right, let's say you're right and this chip can make us do whatever they want whenever it switches on. Who's holding the trigger?"
Oh, this is going to sound bad. "Echo and I," Rex says haltingly, "we think it's the Chancellor."
Cody's eyebrows shoot up. His face twists incredulously. "You think the Supreme Chancellor is behind a plot to destroy the Republic. You think—"
"I know what it sounds like," Rex interrupts. "I know. But I'm not crazy, Cody. I'm tired, but I'm not crazy."
"I'm not going to lie to you," Cody says, blinking. "What you're saying doesn't just sound crazy. It sounds insane."
"You asked me to trust you," Rex says, searching Cody's face. "Now I'm asking you to trust me."
Cody's silent for long moment. Then he blows out a long breath and pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Please," he says, "at least tell me you have more evidence."
"That's all circumstantial."
"I know, Cody."
"If we're going to prove this to a Senate committee, we're going to need something concrete."
"I know, Cody."
Cody furrows his brow. "There's just this one thing I can't work out," he says.
"What is it?"
"Why would the Chancellor want to wipe out one of the Republic's most valuable military assets? You take the Jedi out, all you've got left is us. And we're effective, sure, but we're no Jedi."
"I don't know," Rex says. "We're working on that. Right now, the top priority has to be stopping the signal from going out at all. Proving it to the Senate comes second."
"Worse comes to worse we'll just shoot the chakaar," Cody surmises humorlessly.
"If we have to."
"What if we're wrong?"
Rex thinks of Fives – desperate, terrified Fives. "We're not wrong."
It's silent for a moment. Dimly, Rex realizes they've been here for hours. No wonder he's so drained.
"It has to be about the power."
"What?"
Cody moved to sit against the side of his bed while Rex was explaining. He drums his fingers on the floor. "Somehow, taking out the Jedi gives him more power. But that doesn't make any sense unless he's somehow in direct competition with them for that power."
"Maybe he is. They're war heroes. Maybe he wants the glory."
"No," Cody says. "I'm not talking about political power. I'm talking about the Force."
"The Force?"
"Yeah," Cody says. "The Sith."
"What, like Ventress and Dooku?"
"Exactly," Cody says. He leans forward and folds his hands in his lap. "Look, back when we first ran into Ventress, I asked Kenobi about them. I wanted to understand how they worked. He basically gave me a seminar."
"Sounds like Kenobi."
Cody coughs a laugh at that, but it's fond. "Right. Well, he told me that, in the Force, there's light and dark. The Jedi are devoted to the light. The Sith serve the dark. You following me?"
Rex nods.
"Somehow, they're out of balance. The Jedi have this sense, like – like there's this darkness on the horizon just out of sight. Kenobi told me that looking at it through the Force is like trying to fly a gunship around a mountain in a dense fog. You know it's there. You're just not sure how to avoid it. One miscalculation and you're dead."
"So you think the Chancellor has something to do with the darkness."
"Maybe." Cody looks pensive. He's staring past Rex, not at him. "If we're right, if there is a plot to destroy the Jedi, I'd place my bets on it having something to do with the Sith. Maybe it's what Kenobi's been sensing this entire time."
If we're right. Not you're right. We're. Rex feels a flood of relief fill his chest. Cody's onboard.
Suddenly, he doesn't feel so alone.
"You think the Chancellor is a Sith?"
"No," Cody says shortly. "The Council's made up of the most powerful Jedi in the Order. If Palpatine was a Sith, they'd have known it."
Kenobi's on the Council; Rex wonders briefly just how much faith Cody really has in the Council itself and what fraction of his confidence is based on his belief in Obi-Wan. "Maybe he's just working with them, then," Rex suggests. "Maybe he's their figurehead."
Cody scrubs at his face. "It could be," he allows. "I don't know. He seems to have a lot of control to be just a figurehead."
For all of the exhaustion in his eyes, there's still a burning spark of frustration, some puzzle piece he can't make fit. "What is it?" Rex asks.
"Why would he commission an army for the Republic? Why have us made? Why put a chip in our heads? If he was a Separatist, why didn't he just attack them head-on while their defenses were down?" Cody scowls. "Why even bother starting a war?"
If it's the Jedi he's after, why not target them directly? The question burns in the back of Rex's mind every time he closes his eyes. He doesn't think about it long: he can't – can't bear the thought that he might have put brother after brother in the ground for nothing.
He knows they were built to be fodder. He just never thought they would be fodder for a fabricated war.
"It would help if I could tell Kenobi," Cody says tiredly. "I don't feel confident making an assessment about something I can't see or feel. It's all just speculation."
"Isn't that all the Jedi would do if we told them?" Rex asks.
Cody quirks an eyebrow.
"If I tell General Skywalker about this, he'll shut it down. He's close with the Chancellor," Rex says. Fives, screaming, terrified. You've gone too far. Fives, gasping for breath in his arms. "If you tell General Kenobi, he will inevitably tell General Skywalker and then we'll be in the same spot."
"If I asked him to keep it quiet—"
"Skywalker will know," Rex says firmly. "Kenobi barely managed to fake his death for a few days before Skywalker figured it out. They're too close."
Cody drops his head into his hands.
"What?"
"Shabla Force," Cody grumbles.
"What do you mean?" Rex asks. There's anxiety ticking in his tone, pounding in his chest. "Cody?"
"If I start hiding things, Kenobi is going to know something is off," Cody says, voice muffled.
"How?"
Cody looks up at that, but it's only to make an exasperated face. "Might be my turn to sound like the crazy one," he mutters.
"If you think you can top the story I just told, go for it," Rex says.
The hint of humor seems to set Cody at ease. His shoulders relax. He takes a slow breath.
"Skywalker," Cody says. "He knows when Kenobi's in trouble because they're connected through the Force. They have a bond."
"What does that have to do with you?"
"After Christophsis," Cody says, "I went to Kenobi with some suggestions for improving the Two-Hundred-Twelfth's efficiency on the battlefield. We'd been losing a lot of men and I wanted to minimize our casualties. He brought up a Jedi technique he'd been studying and practicing."
Rex tilts his head. Cody frowns, searching for words. "It's called battle meditation," he says haltingly. "The Jedi reaches out into the Force and finds the minds of their soldiers and wills them the confidence and calm they need to temper their adrenaline. When applied on a large scale, it forms a connection between every man on the battlefield. They're all perfectly in tune with one another. There's no uncertainty. There's no miscommunication. They move as one unit."
"Sounds impressive."
"It is." Cody's eyes are dark and faraway. "We've cut our average casualties by more than half since we started using it."
Rex waits a beat. Then he reaches out and squeezes Cody's wrist.
"The bond that forms," Cody says, like he's been startled out of a trance, "it's supposed to go away after the battle meditation ends. And in the beginning, it did."
The gravity of Cody's suggestion takes a moment to sink in. "Are you telling me you have a Force-bond with General Kenobi?" Rex asks.
Cody doesn't look at him. His jaw twitches. "It started sticking around after the battle was over," he says. "At first I thought it was just the stress. Post-battle operations are hectic. We have to move the wounded to medical. We have to get the gunships cleared out. We have to check on the men – make sure the shinies aren't too shaken up. So I thought, maybe Kenobi's so used to it being in place that he just forgot to cut it off."
"But he didn't forget."
"I didn't ask him," Cody says. "It always went away eventually. It just started taking longer to fade. Hours. Then days. Once, a week. Now, never."
"What changed?"
Cody shrugs helplessly. "I took a hit," he says. He rolls his eyes at Rex's look. "Years ago, Rex. You remember when I was laid up for two months."
"I remember you drove Sol crazy trying to leave every day."
"Yeah. Well, if Kenobi hadn't been there with me, I would be dead," Cody says. "I was pretty far gone by the time they found me. And Kenobi just looked me in the eyes and said it was all going to be all right. I mean, I didn't believe him, but what was I gonna say? I couldn't even breathe."
Rex has seen Anakin do the same – has watched him hold the hand of a man who's been hurt so badly even the Force can't save him and tell him it was going to be okay. The troopers that died like that didn't know him well enough to know he was lying.
Rex has always seen that as a small mercy.
"I'm okay, Rex," Cody reminds irritably, and Rex shakes off the ghosts.
"Right," he says. "So that's – almost dying. That's what solidified the bond?"
"Yeah. He healed me enough to survive," Cody says. He sounds like, in some separated way, he still can't believe it. "When I woke up in the medbay two days later, he was there. He told me he should have mentioned it sooner, he just hadn't realized it was happening because I'm – I'm not a Force-sensitive."
"Then how is it even possible?"
Cody holds his hands up in front of him. It's eerily similar to the way Kenobi and Skywalker and Ahsoka sit when they're meditating. "Kenobi said the Force is part of every living thing," Cody says, like he's repeating a mantra. "That it binds the entire galaxy together. I guess that makes it possible. Rare. Maybe unheard of. But possible."
"Can't he just cut it off?"
Cody smiles ruefully. "That was my first question," he says grimly. "No. He said at this point severing it would hurt both of us more than it would help. The best he can do is damp it."
"So you just walk around with Kenobi in your head all day?" Rex blinks dubiously. If he had to listen to Skywalker, in his mind, every day, all day, he'd lose whatever scraps of sanity he still has left.
Cody shakes his head. "It's not like that," he says. "There are no thoughts. I just get flashes of feelings. I know proximity. Moods. Stress. Worry. Fatigue. I know if there's danger or if he's been injured. The bond's great for having a reason to haul his jetii shebs to the medical bay after a mission, Rex, don't get me wrong. It's just…not so great when we're planning to commit high treason."
Rex blows out a breath. "Osik, Codes."
"I know," Cody says. There's exhaustion in his eyes. "I'll have to find a way to work around it."
"If I'd known—"
"You wouldn't have said anything about the chips to me and run yourself into the ground trying to save the entire army by yourself," Cody says sternly.
"The last thing we need is Kenobi watching our every move."
"I'll come up with something," Cody says. "The war's reason enough to want to withdraw. I'll keep to myself. I'll just have to be smart about when and how I do it."
There's a sharp rap on the door. "Commander?"
Rex almost jumps out of his skin. "Speak of the devil," Cody says under his breath, but Rex gets the sense he's not really surprised. He gets up gingerly, takes a moment to steady himself, and then walks to the door.
"Anakin's been looking for the Captain," Kenobi says. His voice is soft. It's late: the rest of the ship is run by a skeleton crew at this hour; most of the off-duty men are asleep. "He's very worried. He's been meaning to speak with him, but Rex isn't answering his comm."
"I've got him, sir," Cody says. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "He's all right. Just resting."
"You should be doing some of that yourself, Commander. Sol told me you never reported to the medical bay."
Cody hesitates. Kenobi's smile is warm. "Don't push yourself too far past your limits, Cody," he says. "Your men need you."
"I know, sir," Cody says. It's quiet for a long moment. "If there's nothing else—"
Over Cody's shoulder, Rex can see Kenobi's eyebrows crease with concern. "Are you all right?" he asks quietly. "I swore to you I would damp the bond, and I have, it's just I'm still getting this overwhelming sense of—"
"I'm all right, General. It's just been a long few months."
"You're very anxious," Obi-Wan says.
"Long few months," Cody repeats shortly. "If there's nothing else, sir?"
Kenobi studies him for a beat. "No, Cody," he says, and Rex suddenly remembers how to breathe. "That's all."
The door hisses shut.
"That was being smart about it?" Rex asks dryly.
Cody glowers and whips a pillow at him. "I have to be up in five hours to run over some logistics with Sol," he says, and stabs a finger at his own face. "If I show up looking like this, he's going to sedate me and lock me down until next century. So either shut up and get some sleep, or get back to your own quarters."
His own quarters are a long walk away. Too empty. Too quiet. Kix won't let him back in the medbay again, either.
"I'll stay," Rex says, and climbs in beside Cody, tucked so they're pressed back-to-back. The bed's not made for two, but neither were the berths on Kamino and their vode always found a way to make that work without much issue.
"Goodnight, vod'ika," Cody says. His voice is already heavy with sleep.
Rex cracks a small smile. This time, it doesn't hurt. With Cody at his back, a warm and comforting weight, the ache is his chest eases. Rex lets himself relax.
For the first time since he died, there are no nightmares of Fives.