A/N: I missed updating on May The Forth like I'd hope to do, but I can still go with This Is The May! (You can thank my fascination with watching Bad Batch reactions and a crazy life for the belated update. :P)

A/N 2: This chapter is dedicated to RaraCloe. Thank you!

Besotted (part 2):

While Rex had his eyes superglued to the screen, watching a fairly accurate representation of Commander Tano like he'd never get to see her again, Cody spent his time in a much more divided fashion.

There was Tezza, of course, who either looked back at him with the same expression of hopeful fascination that he was undoubtedly wearing, or she watched Rex's adorkable, mostly growling reactions to Ahsoka in the custody of Hondo with an indulgent smile on her lips that made him want to kiss her. (To be honest, all she had to do was exist and he wanted to kiss her, so, that wasn't saying much.)

There were also the yellow covered minions and the cops who couldn't make up their minds what to watch. Their heads were constantly swiveling between Rex, the cartoon, himself, the wandering tookas, or Tezza - the last of which made him want to do some growling of his own and beat someone up every time their gaze landed on the girl with lustful appreciation. How she was so oblivious to her own appeal, he had no idea, but Tezza never looked back at any of them except with an occasional hint of curiosity if she happened to catch someone staring at her. She saved her own lustful looks for him only, and that made Cody feel like a proud caveman or something who'd scored the best female as his mate.

Cody was also watching the same list as the minions and cops, but he knew for a fact he was being way more subtle about it… with the exception of when he caught Tezza's gaze and they spent endless seconds staring at each other and blushing. (She was so kriffing cute when her cheeks coloured red like that.)

The cartoon Ahsoka was now being rescued by younglings in ridiculous circus costumes, which didn't appeal to him much, so he was using his time much more enjoyably by examining the fascinating flecks of gold in Tezza's blue eyes when all-of-a-sudden, a weight with four (surprisingly) heavy paws landed in his lap. If he hadn't been a highly trained soldier, Cody might have startled and scared the small, fluffy animal right back off, but he squashed the reflexive reaction and looked down to see the black and white tooka ('cat' in Tezza's language), aptly called Domino, settle onto his haunches on the hard, slippery armour covering his thighs and look up at him assessingly with bright green eyes that looked at least as intelligent as most beings he'd met, if not more so. If it starts talking, I swear I won't be surprised.

Tezza glanced down too and smiled at the tooka before reaching over and stroking her hand down its back, eliciting a curl of its spine that echoed the caress and an instant purr that was almost loud enough to drown out the sound of the voices on the cartoon show and the low hum of engines powering the (currently stationary) transport they were in. "Good Dommy," she murmured, still petting the tooka.

Cody envied the tooka.

Not to be left out, he pulled off his left glove and joined the adoration of the feline beastie, inspiring even more purrs as Cody used cautious fingers to scratch behind its ears and under the chin. The tooka's fur was incredibly soft to touch, and the clone found the appreciative purrs to be addictive and soothing. He'd never met a tooka anywhere near as friendly, usually inspiring hisses from the (generally) wild felines that prowled the dark places in cities for scraps. He knew that there were other breeds of tooka that were specifically meant to be pets, but he'd never met one till now.

He now understood the appeal, imagining having the tooka curled up in his (unarmoured) lap and purring contentedly as Cody stroked his back with one hand and dealt with endless stacks of flimsiwork with the other. It would definitely make the tedious chore more bearable.

Tezza paused in her petting to type into her wrist comp, He likes you. That's a good thing.

Cody read the translated message on his own computer and then glowed with stupid pride under the approving look she was giving him. He smiled to show his thanks, still petting the tooka, on the back now, since Tezza wasn't.

But then she was again, and almost instantly their hands came into contact with each other. He froze all movement and so did she, their eyes locked, hands just touching on top of Domino's fur. She didn't withdraw.

The seconds ticked by, the Ahsoka cartoon played on (now showing a speeder chase through a canyon), Rex was oblivious to anything but his feisty little commander, the minions' gazes were glued to the drama taking place on the innocent back of a tooka or Rex's face, and Tezza didn't withdraw.

In fact, he'd swear her eyes were daring him to make the next move. So Cody did, never one to turn down a dare – not with a few million younger brothers who would needle him into eternity if he ever showed any sign of weakness. He slid his hand over her much smaller one and laced their fingers together, curving his longer digits down to her palm.

Tezza gasped ever so slightly before her lips curled into an approving smile and she squeezed his fingers with hers. Stars, do I ever want to kiss her again.

But with all those eyes on them, Cody settled for subtly stroking their joined hand over Domino's soft fur, which was a pleasure in and of itself.

Smythe came back into the main seating area of the transport as Cody felt the ship lift back into the air and continue its journey to wherever they were being taken. The man in charge gave the cops and Tezza their identification cards back, pausing only for a moment when he saw Cody's and Tezza's joined hands, eyebrows shooting up under his face shield. He said something to Tezza that made her blush and shake her head before replying. Shab, I wish I knew their language. Cody narrowed his eyes at the man warningly, not liking the resulting tension in Tezza's fingers from the brief exchange. Domino didn't like the change of atmosphere either, apparently, because he jumped off Cody's lap to hide behind his boots instead. (The other tooka, Tangy, now finished exploring every possible nook in the main body of the transport that it could access, was rubbing itself against Artoo and purring, much to the droid's bemusement and the others' amusement.)

Smythe acknowledged Cody's look with his own semi-glare of warning before he took his seat across the aisle.

Unspoken messages given and received:

My female. Don't mess with her or you'll regret it.

Fine. But if you hurt her, I'll make your life on this planet very, very short.

Cody raised an eyebrow at Smythe as he moved his and Tezza's joined hands onto her thigh, indicating that the ball was in her court.

Smythe nodded minutely in acknowledgment and that was that.

Cody turned his focus back to Tezza and found her looking at him with an indecipherable expression. Maybe curiosity. Maybe appreciation. Maybe consternation. Probably mostly consternation.

Grateful that it was his left hand holding hers so that he didn't have to let her go and he had an awesome excuse to lean over into her space, he typed, What did he say to you?

She glanced at her comp to read the translation and then huffed lightly. Tezza then looked pointedly at their joined hands and he reluctantly released her so that she could type back. But he left his hand on her firm, strong feeling thigh, encased in a faded blue material that felt sturdy but comfortable. He let his fingers wrap around her leg like they wanted to and squeezed lightly. That move got him another huff, this one more amused, and she stroked her fingers over the back of his hand once in a returning caress before she typed back, Nothing bad. Smythe just commented that clones move fast and I replied that so do horse girls, so we were well matched.

Cody felt himself utterly enraptured by her words and the shy but determined look she gave him from under her lashes. With every passing moment he spent with her, he was falling even harder for her and coming to the realization that he wasn't going to be able to leave her behind, even if he did find a way back home for Rex's sake.

"Tezza," he murmured helplessly, leaning towards her and nuzzling his nose into the sweet, soft spot behind her ear. "Gar chakur ner kar'ta."

Tezza didn't know what exactly Cody breathed against her neck in a different sounding language from what he normally spoke (she was guessing Mando'a), but the thrills from the sound of his husky voice and the touch of his skin against hers had her heart racing. Smythe and his minions were looking at her with those judging and envious eyes again, but she shut them out by closing hers and leaning her cheek against Cody's forehead. She blindly grabbed his hand where it was clutching her thigh tightly and laced their fingers again. "Cody," she breathed back, just loud enough for him to hear, wishing they were somewhere private and that they could talk without having to use a translation program. (Especially one that NASA was now connected to.) "I don't want you to leave me."

It was a sentiment that came straight from her heart, but she would never type it for him to read, not if it meant he stayed on Earth and grew to resent her for luring him away from his beloved brothers, the Jedi who counted on him, and his duty as a warrior for the Republic. From what she knew of his background, Cody was one of the most important people in the G.A.R. and to lose him would be devastating to millions.

But… if he asked her to go with him instead… she might just very well do it.

Not that she would ask or beg, but if he happened to ask her, Tezza was pretty sure she'd say yes. The only real attachments she had keeping her on Earth were her horse and the cats, which weren't even technically hers but belonged to the stable. It would hurt (a lot) to leave CeCe behind, but she would if she had to for the sake of the powerful love and perfect compatibility she sensed was between her and Cody. (Taking CeCe with her would be even better, though, if it were in anyway possible.)

They spent a few seconds just leaning on each other, hands clinging, but then sprang apart when Rex all but yelled out one of the easily recognizable swears he'd been saying quite frequently over the last ten minutes.

She looked around Cody to see his brother with fists clenched and torso leant forward as he avidly watched the screen, muttering even more of the swear words. (It honestly wouldn't surprise her if he was just saying 'fuck' in three or four different languages along with some choice descriptive words for Hondo.)

Looking up, she saw a large speeder transport crashing into the ground, sending its occupants flying. The scene cut to Ahsoka and various younglings regaining their bearings in the swirling red dust of Florrum's barren landscape. It had been a few years, maybe, since she'd seen this episode of The Clone Wars, but Tezza remembered there being a funny interchange between Artoo and the lightsabre making droid that would have been between those two scenes if they weren't watching the Ahsoka only version of the show.

She also remembered that General Grievous would be spidering over to challenge them in the next few… Yep. She shuddered slightly. Geez, he creeps me out when he does that!

Cody squeezed her hand reassuringly as Grievous stood and ignited two blue lightsabres. He also put his other hand on Rex's shoulder supportively as Ahsoka, like the protective badass she was, put herself in front of the brave younglings who'd ignited their own sabres.

Grievous laughed in that awful, mechanical way that made Tezza want to grind her teeth. So many lightsabres to add to my collection!

The Ithorian youngling said something in his own language that undoubtedly translated to, 'Over my dead body,' as the Slave 1 rose into view behind them.

The ramp lowered and another youngling (Tezza honestly couldn't remember their names) yelled, Hurry! Come on!

Run. All of you, run! Ahsoka told the group behind her, and they very wisely did.

Beside Cody, Rex sucked in an audible breath as Grievous advanced on Ahsoka, looking very smug with his arms behind his back.

Ahsoka crouched in her defensive position, emerald sabre and lime green shoto held at the ready. Even though she'd seen this fight before, Tezza clung to Cody's hand as she watched Grievous attack with four blades in one of the most intense lightsabre fights that Ahsoka would encounter. Cody hung on just as hard, concern for the young Jedi clear on his face.

And then there was Rex, who looked like he might actually break Cody's cuisse with how hard he was gripping his brother's thigh. Wow, does he ever have it bad for his Commander. Justifiably, though. Even after nearly two hundred years of new Star Wars characters being added to the story, Ahsoka is still considered the best and hottest female Jedi of all time.

At least his love isn't one-sided and they live happily ever after.

As Rex watched Ahsoka parry attack after attack from Grievous' four deadly and swiftly moving lightsabres with her own and with the Force, he wished once again that he'd been there; he would have shot that shabla clanker cyborg a hundred times and not stopped until there was nothing left but melted slag and fried organs. In fact, I might just go AWOL one of these days and hunt him down myself. This war has gone on long enough and Grievous has taken out too many of our Jedi already.

But first, I have to get back to the correct galaxy.

And if I'm going to go AWOL anyway and probably earn myself a decommissioning, then I'm going to kiss Ahsoka first before I go.

And I'm definitely tracking down Hondo on the way to Grievous and beating the shit out of him for how he treated my Soka. This show doesn't clarify it, but he kept her bound by his side for nearly a whole day without even a sip of water or a trip to the refresher, that bubble-headed shabuir.

But at least he wasn't trying to kill her, Rex snarled to himself as the cyborg picked up Ahsoka by her face and under her arms with one of his huge, clawed feet and then threw her. She'd had deep slashes on both sides of her head, where her montrals turned into lekku, from that, which had left faint scars, even with bacta treatments. At least her armorweave dress had saved her back from the same fate. (Unsurprisingly, the cartoon didn't show her bleeding or even cut, considering it was probably meant for children.)

And then the bloody clanker laughed at her prone form as he came after her with whirling lightsabres that sent the dirt flying in sizzling clumps. Ahsoka came back to her senses just in time to roll out of the way and somehow regain her feet to block the attack with the lightsabres she'd managed to keep hold of.

Rex finally eased his grip on Cody's thigh (which he hadn't realized he was doing until just now) when he saw his precious Commander jump up onto Grievous' back and then flip away to safety, running for the relatively rare Firespray-class interceptor at the urging of the younglings already aboard. "Fragging hells, I hate that karking clanker," Rex muttered as Ahsoka made the long, but effortless leap to the ramp of the ship.

"Agreed," Cody said back. "And he's as shabla hard to kill as those awful beetles that infested our camps on Geonosis." Seeing Grievous get shot at pointblank by the Firespray and have not a single laser bolt hit was proof enough of that, if all the times he managed to escape an exploding ship or a Jedi's justice (wrath, really, but they pretended not to feel such emotions) weren't.

"Ugh. Don't remind me. They liked to crawl under my armour when I was sleeping. I didn't sleep very much."

Cody chuckled. "I remember that. Squashing them didn't work, but giving them to Skywalker, Tano, and some of the more daring vode to eat sure did."

Rex grinned at his brother, taking his eyes off the screen as Ahsoka, the younglings, and General Kenobi made a star out of their lightsabres, and thus just now seeing that Cody was holding hands with Tezza. He raised an eyebrow but decided to tease Cody about it later. "Remember when Fives brought a whole bucket full of beetles to Skywalker the first time Kenobi was around too and he went white as a shiny's armour when my crazy General lit up and said, 'Dinner!' like he'd just been served a hundred credit steak?"

Cody sniggered. "I still have it saved on holo."

The brothers paused their conversation when Tezza cleared her throat pointedly and then looked up at the screen with exaggerated flicks of her eyes. The screen now looked like the translation program that had appeared on their wrist comps and said in both languages (he assumed), Would you mind telling us what's so funny?

Rex grinned at Smythe and then typed out, Sure! We were just comparing Grievous to an unkillable bug and then that turned into remembering when General Skywalker ate a bucketful of said unkillable bugs for dinner and how it completely grossed out General Kenobi. His words appeared on the big screen too for everyone to read. Clever.

Rex was a little surprised when the minions whooped and shoved each other a bit. Fortunately Smythe explained almost right away with nimble typing. There's one older, non-canon cartoon that has Anakin eating bugs, but no other material to support it. It's been debated forever if it was an actual character trait of his or not.

Cody and Rex looked at each other and snorted in an identical fashion, and then Rex typed. It is. Skywalker will eat almost anything as long is it won't kill him. He literally has no squidge factor. Kenobi, on the other hand… I swear Skywalker found the grossest things to eat just to mess with his former Master. And the boys helped.

Tell us! Smythe typed as everyone laughed. We have a few more minutes before we arrive, tell us more about your Jedi. Stories not likely to make it into shows and movies intended for young audiences.

Rex looked at Cody again. "What do you think? Brain worms?"

Cody grimaced, glancing at Tezza and getting a sweet smile in return. "Nah. Too gross and depressing. Tell them about the time our Generals decided to spar during that Rishi campaign last month."

Rex started chuckling just thinking about it. "Perfect." He started typing.

You guys ever here about the time Kenobi and Skywalker almost had to mate with an avian species?

Collectively, every set of eyes on the ship widened and most shook their heads.

Rex grinned. Good.

Right after Ahsoka and the younglings had their 'adventure' and she was escorting them back to Coruscant, the 501st and the 212th fleets were sent to a planet called Rishi to assist General Fisto's. It was tropical, hotter than an oven, and made everyone sweat like we'd been trapped in a sauna. Generals Skywalker, Kenobi, and Fisto and their troops had been sent to take back the exonium mines scattered around the planet that the Seppies had claimed as their own along with knocking out the Republic base on the Rishi moon yet again.

The battles went as expected with three of the best Generals in the G.A.R. leading the campaign, quickly destroying the droids and returning control of the mines to the native Rishii people.

After the planet and moon were won back, the Generals, all three of them, were talked into demonstrating their lightsabre skills for the Rishii leaders and all of the nearby nest villages that had played hosts to our camps. The Rishii were an avian species and thus covered in feathers and seemed to be very fascinated by Humans and Fisto, the first Nautolan they'd ever seen.

Rex glanced up to see that he had a rapt audience, every eye in the transport transfixed to the screen, waiting to see what he'd write next. He smirked a little to himself and continued.

Well, the Generals decided that, due to the heat, they would spar without their tunics and go bare-chested. It was a very impressive display of skin and muscle, no question, and the Rishii appeared to think so too, since they couldn't seem to take their eyes off the sight and murmured to each other a lot as the Generals fought and leapt and taunted each other through the clearing and into the trees and back again over and over.

When Jedi playtime came to an end with Skywalker finally calling uncle after the older Masters had ganged up on him, the Rishii literally surrounded the Generals and flew away with them to the top of a nearby mountain, leaving us poor flightless clones to scramble after as fast as we could in our gunships, terrified that the Generals had just become dinner or something to hundreds of carnivorous avians.

This elicited a collective gasp as his audience read the startling turn of events. Feeling the transport start to descend, Rex knew he had to wrap this up, so he kept the ending as short as possible. (Which wasn't much, really.)

Turns out that the Rishii people only shed and regrow a whole new coat of feathers when they are ready to mate and make young ones - something to do with the heat of the planet and not wanting to boil to death while they got busy - and the sight of the Jedi's bare skin made them think that the Generals were looking for mates. The Rishii just happened to have a few females also looking for mates at that time, so they took the Jedi to them to see if the females would be interested in any of the Generals.

Everyone in the transport was grinning now, exactly as Rex had hoped they'd react.

When Cody and I got to the mating grounds, Generals Skywalker and Kenobi were escaping by saying that they were already mated, which, hilariously, the avians assumed meant it was to each other. And then it became even funnier when our Generals stumbled over that one since they were trying not to actually confess to being in real relationships. General Fisto, though, had been chosen by a particularly daring girl who decided that the Nautolan was the hottest thing she'd ever seen and didn't care that their species were about as likely to procreate as an actual bird and fish would in the wild. Fisto's unit returned to Coruscant a week later than the rest of us, and aside from looking like he might not have eaten much during that time, he looked like he'd enjoyed himself immensely. The smug bastard meandered past Kenobi and Skywalker, who were waiting for him, and said, "You know, if you two weren't so besotted with a single female each, you could have so much more fun."

Guffaws erupted as the transport came to a stop with a gentle landing. Even Artoo beeped out his version of sniggers.

Kenobi sputtered for a solid minute and Skywalker looked like he'd swallowed his tongue. Then they chased after Fisto and all but pinned him to the ground until he promised to never repeat that to anyone. It was great.

I wish they'd made an episode out of that, Smythe typed. Would have been a favourite for sure. Oh well. We're here. Everyone just sit tight while I find out what we're doing with you.

The brothers settled into their chairs a little more, indicating they were content to wait as Smythe left. Not that Rex thought Cody actually wanted to go anywhere. Not if it meant being separated from the girl who now had her head resting on his shoulder.

He, on the other hand, was eager to get moving, which hopefully meant getting back to Ahsoka. Watching the cartoon had just affirmed how much he loved her and wouldn't be complete without her in his life, in whatever form of relationship he could get.

Rex missed her when they were apart with a deep-seated ache in his chest that made it hard to breathe sometimes.

Now was one of those times.

But like a good soldier, he obeyed commands and stayed put.

For now.

No guarantees if the minions try to keep me on their planet, though.

Mando'a translations:

Gar chakur ner kar'ta. – You steal my heart.