Precipice by shadowsong26

Part 5: Lessons

Lessons: Chapter 3

There were certain things that Leia simply could not learn on Tatooine, no matter how creative Rex and the Jedi got with her lessons. Not that there wasn't time to teach her, of course. She was still a long, long way away from any kind of active field work, after all. Something like six years was their plan right now; that would put her at thirteen, or nearly, which was the age when Padawans could start going on active duty missions under the old system.

But when they hadn't had any problems after bringing her to Doctor Naar's when the General was hurt, they had started cautiously taking her on occasional offplanet trips to fill in some of those gaps. Six years would pass quickly enough, and it was far better for her to learn these things too early than for them to miss something that might be vital.

These trips were still rare, of course. They had their long, slow war to fight, and couldn't afford to lose what little momentum they had by stepping back too often. Even to train Leia. Besides, they didn't want to establish any kind of pattern or cause noticeably long absences where Leia's friends or other locals might question where she'd gone. And any exposure was still a risk. But the value of, for example, wilderness and survival skills in non-desert environments was becoming more and more of a factor. Enough to outweigh the downsides, at least from time to time.

This particular trip was under Rex's supervision. He had borrowed the ship General Kenobi was currently using and brought Leia to a nameless moon in a system about two dozen parsecs away from Tatooine. It was largely uninhabited, with red-gold forests under wide, faintly purple skies, and a series of small, crystal-clear lakes on its eastern hemisphere where he could teach her how to swim. Which was, as General Skywalker pointed out, a baseline skill for survival in most non-desert environments.

It was just the two of them this time. The three Jedi had gone to Dagobah, to meet with Master Yoda. It was, to Rex's knowledge, the first time the three of them had gone there together since Commander Tano had found them. She'd gone once by herself, he was pretty sure, once she'd known where to go; and he knew General Skywalker had gone as well, as soon as he was healed enough to travel by himself. He wasn't sure they were planning on discussing anything specific-maybe the news just received from Senator Amidala, that the Emperor already had a new apprentice, or maybe just touching base directly for the first time in years.

But it didn't really matter to him anyway; if anything came up he needed to know about, they would tell him when they got back. And Leia needed these lessons, and the General had asked him to teach her. He couldn't have refused even if he'd wanted to, and he he didn't; he loved the kid, and loved spending time with her.

"Besides," Commander Tano had said, when they'd made their plans, "you come from a water world. Always ask the expert, right?"

And, well, she wasn't wrong there.

So, he and Leia had left Tatooine a few hours after the Jedi did, and now here they were. They'd landed around midmorning, local, and at first all Leia had wanted to do was run around and marvel at the colors and the textures of the tree trunks and grasses. Different from Tatooine, or Doctor Naar's planet, or either of the two others they'd spirited her off to in the past few months.

Rex let her do it for a half-hour or so, because she seemed so happy and he liked seeing her that way. Plus, it gave him a chance to scout around for any kind of potential trouble. As far as he and the others had been able to tell-and they'd done extensive research before bringing Leia here, of course-this moon was really only used as a supply cache for certain smugglers who were not unfriendly to their cause. Not Captain Ohnaka's group, but one connected with the people who had brought General Skywalker his new leg. And most of that activity was in a network of mountain caves on the opposite side of the moon, anyway.

But there were no signs of anyone approaching, and no evidence of any large predators in or near the lake, and they were here for more than just to play. Time to get to work.

"All right, ad'ika," he said. "Come on, into the water."

She'd been halfway up one of the trees when he called. "Okay," she said, and jumped down, looking only a little bit disappointed. "Can I climb up again later?"

"Sure," he said. "After we're done."

She nodded, and trotted over to join him on the muddy lakeshore, then stopped, eyeing the clear, peaceful-looking lake with what could only be described as profound suspicion.

"All right?" he asked her. This wasn't the first body of water she'd seen, but it was bigger and deeper than the narrow creek where they'd camped when the Generals were teaching her how to identify which unfamiliar plants might be toxic, or cause an unpleasant reaction when touched. Jedi techniques, and ones Rex deeply, deeply envied. Not that he'd actually ever been caught without rations long enough to risk the local flora, but it only took one extremely itchy and unpleasant experience to learn some serious caution about avoiding skin contact with anything he didn't know damn well was safe.

She took a deep breath. "Yeah," she said, straightening up and glaring at the lake, as if daring it to swallow her up.

"I'll be right with you, all right?" he told her. "Until you're really comfortable swimming on your own."

She nodded, and hugged him very quickly. "Okay. So, I just...get in the water, then?"

"Yep," he said. "It drops off pretty quick a couple feet out, so stay close, okay?"

She nodded again, grabbing his hand and holding tight as he led her into the water. "It's cold," she said.

"You'll get used to it," he said. "Especially once we get moving."

"Okay," she said, and took another deep breath.

They stayed at the edge for a few minutes, where the water was less than a meter deep, while he showed her how to drift along on her back. She got comfortable with that pretty quick, once she realized she actually would float. It probably helped, he thought, that she was with someone she'd known and trusted for years, who was clearly more than comfortable in the water with her.

And then, leaving her floating on her back, he started to gently ease them out deeper.

"I like it here," she said, after a minute. They were still only about as deep as his waist, but she'd be almost completely underwater if she tried standing. He wasn't sure she realized it; he decided not to point it out. "On this moon."

"Yeah?"

"It's like the green place, sort of," she said. She was putting a brave face on things, but still nervy, clinging tight to his wrists. But talking seemed to help distract her from being nervous, as they got farther from the shore.

"The green place?"

"Uh-huh. I dream about it sometimes. Not all the time, like the silver planet, but sometimes."

...oh. The green place. With that clarification, Rex had a pretty good idea of what she meant by that, especially since there was only one silver planet he could think of that Leia might dream about.

Unfortunately, he was completely out of his depth on this particular issue, and had no idea what he was supposed to say. However much time he spent with his Jedi, there were some things he just wasn't qualified to talk about. "Does your dad know about them?" he asked, when he couldn't think of anything else. Besides, if he doesn't, I should probably tell him. Could be important.

She nodded. "I don't tell him all the time, 'cause he gets sad. But sometimes he asks if I still have 'em, and if they're good dreams or not."

Well, that was good, at least.

Knowing the General, he probably asks when he hasn't gotten any letters for a while, Rex thought. To convince himself that it's just the normal delays, not something that's gone wrong. And talk himself out of doing something stupid.

"Are they?" he asked.

"Mostly," she said. "Not always. It's like this whole other life inside my head, and life isn't always good dreams. Sometimes there's storms and stuff."

"True." She seemed a lot more comfortable in the water now, and he was concerned about saying the wrong thing. Best to change the subject now, get back on task. "All right, ad'ika. Ready to try moving?"

She blinked, then nodded grimly. "Yeah. Let's do this."

In the end, they spent about an hour in the water, and given that it was her first time, and only her second even seeing this much natural water all collected in one place, Leia did a damn fine job. Rex wasn't sure if that had anything to do with him as a teacher, or if it was all her-she was a quick learner, either a Jedi trait, or because she was always so determined to get things right. But by the end of the hour, not only was she willing to let go of him and able keep her head above water without his help, she'd managed to swim back and forth between a couple of distinctive rocks all by herself.

After that, though-well, the water was somewhat cold, and she was tiny. Best to dry off and warm up and bask in their accomplishment on the shore. Besides, he'd promised her she could climb up the trees for a while, and daylight on this moon didn't last very long.

Of course, contrary child that she was, she was almost as reluctant to get out of the water, now she'd found her way, as she had been to get in in the first place.

But he did get her out eventually, and settled on the lakeshore in dry clothes while he tried to brush out and rebraid her hair, which had somehow come undone and worked itself into a tangled mess while they were in the water.

(He wasn't very good at this, even after several years of trying. Commander Tano was better at it than he was, he suspected; despite having a lot less experience and no hair of her own.)

"Was it like this where you grew up?" Leia asked after a few minutes, fidgeting a little but trying to hold her head still for him. "Uncle Obi-Wan says there's lots of water on your planet."

"There is," he said, pausing in his task to look out over the clear, near-still lake, which was really nothing at all like the oceans of Kamino. "But not like this. Where I grew up...it's pretty much the exact opposite of Tatooine, actually. Even more than here."

She turned her head to look up at him, and he gently pushed it back.

"Try not to move, ad'ika, I'll mess up again."

"Sorry," she said. "But...this place is already about as different as I can think."

"My home planet is basically entirely covered by ocean."

He was certainly no Jedi, and she didn't turn her head to look at him this time so he couldn't actually see her face, but he could clearly feel the disbelief radiating off of her all the same. "That's not possible," she said.

"Hey, have I ever lied to you before?"

"No," she admitted. "The whole planet?"

"Yep," he said. "We had a lot of domes, too." For much the same reason, he suspected-architecture like that held up better against high winds. "Except, instead of building most things partly underground to stay cool, everything was up on stilts, so it wouldn't flood too badly."

She pondered that for a minute, while he finished the braid as best he could and tied it off.

"There, how's that?"

She tossed her head back and forth. "I think it'll stay," she said, then turned around. "Tell me more? About where you grew up. Was it at least pretty, like here?"

"Well, it stormed, almost all the time," he said. "The clouds would break...eh, maybe once every few months." He smiled a little, at the memory of those rare moments when the sky lightened and they got dazzling streaks of rainbows as the sun broke through. "I loved those days. Me and my brothers, when we were kids, we'd go climb out onto the roofs and chase each other around, trying to keep our balance. It got real slippery, even without the wind and the rain making it harder."

"Did you fall?" she asked.

He laughed. "Oh, yeah. Loads of times." And one of those, back when he'd been around Leia's stage of growth, had been the only time he'd ever actually met his-well, he still wasn't entirely sure how to refer to Jango Fett. Progenitor, he supposed, was the closest. He'd been counting the seconds and trying to angle his body so the impact when he hit the water would hurt least, when he'd suddenly stopped falling, and looked up to see…

His future. Sort of.

And, all right, technically it wasn't the first or only time something like that had happened; but seeing Fett at a distance, or in a group setting-sometimes, he'd run a weapons class or something for the cadets when he was on planet-wasn't quite the same.

"I bet your brothers laughed," she said.

"Sure," he said. "But not 'til after they caught me. Usually. And, of course, they fell just as often-so whoever had slipped would be teased for a while, and do better next time."

She nodded, then sighed and flopped back, staring up at the sky. "I wish I had a brother."

He-wasn't actually surprised by what she'd said; drifting towards the edge of the secrets they kept from her. Especially after their earlier discussion, about the green planet. So he didn't blink-much-and she probably couldn't tell how careful he was with his answer.

"You've got your friends," he pointed out. "And, trust me, biology is not the only thing that makes a family." Something he knew better than just about anyone. Because, even apart from the fact that-well, in a family of millions, your closest brothers became something special, Rex had...lost...his biological family years ago; and now he had-well. Now, he had something different.

"I know," she said, rolling her eyes. "Otherwise I wouldn't have Aunt 'Soka."

Or any of the rest of us, technically, he thought. Even Owen Lars was related to her by marriage, rather than biology. But Commander Tano was the most obvious.

"Still…" She trailed off.

And he understood what she meant. Because...however happy he was with the new life he'd managed to find, he missed his brothers. Or the ones he'd been closest to, at least. There was something about having people like him around. And-well, Jedi; he didn't know how much she knew, somewhere deep and instinctual, about the things they didn't tell her. He had no idea if she felt what he did, sometimes; that deep ache in the pit of his heart, the knowledge that there was something missing . No matter how full and happy life was with what they actually had.

But, of course, even if he ignored all the reasons General Skywalker had for keeping this secret from his daughter, it was in no way Rex's place to say.

So, much as he wanted to properly commiserate with her, he contented himself with, "Yeah, I know," and offered her a brief hug.

She accepted it and curled close for a moment, wrapping her arms around him in turn. "Thanks, Uncle Rex," she whispered, then kissed his cheek and pulled back. "Can I go climb the trees now?"

"Sure," he said. "Stay where I can see you, and remember what General Kenobi taught you last time."

"I will," she promised, then bounced up and darted for the treeline.

Her braid, of course, started coming undone before she was even halfway there.

He sighed and shook his head.

At least they'd accomplished what they'd come here to accomplish. Progress, moving forward-all good things. And for all he missed, he was happy with what he had now. Happier than he would have thought possible even two years ago; watching his General's daughter, who considered him one of her uncles, scramble up the closest tree like some kind of monkey.

Whatever he'd lost along the way, however much he missed the life he'd used to know...he had a family now. Just like he'd told Leia. And so he would keep moving forward, just like today; just like he had been for over half a decade now; protecting them and supporting them with everything he had, in every way he could.

Because that's what family was for.

Original Author's Notes: Soooo, as I mentioned previously, this fic is now officially a year old! And I'd like to do a bonus fic, as with previous milestones. Feel free to swing by my writing tumblr and let me know if there's anything specific you'd like to see!

And, once again, thank you all so much for staying with me for this long 3

~shadowsong