A/N: I am once again (I say again even though this is the first Star Wars fic I'm posting - there are many others coming) promoting my headcanon of Palpatine being a metaphor for mental illness. Since I am tired and recovering from the umpteenth illness to knock me down this year, here is a short angsty thing about guilt and recovery. The title is from something I found written in one of my old notebooks. I have no idea if it's a quote from somewhere or if I made it up.

Also, I love the headcanon Clawedandcute uses in her Accidental Sith AU of Rex being part of the command batch, but his general never filled in the paperwork to have his rank and number changed. I also love the headcanon of Ponds being in the command batch - and the angst that goes with it. So this fic uses both of those.

They're sitting in a bar that Fox doesn't remember the name of. The whole batch is there - no, not whole. Fox still expects Ponds to walk in at any moment. Even months later, his death doesn't feel real. Maybe it's the fact that they were apart for so long that makes Fox glance at his comm sometimes, waiting to see a message from Ponds - frazzled and apologetic as he explains the very valid reason he had for not being in touch. But there's no message. Ponds is marching on, out of reach.

They all sit around a table - Cody, Wolffe, Rex and Fox - with drinks that are mostly just there to give their hands something to do, trying to prop up the conversation with mundane questions and innocuous comments. Everyone shuffles around the bantha in the room - the war, the conspiracy, the aftermath. Eventually someone slips up and mentions the former Chancellor.

The table goes quiet.

Cody doesn't need to ask. Fox can see the question in his eyes as clearly as if it was written there in Cody's neat, printed script.

'Why didn't you tell us?'

Rex doesn't ask either. Doesn't ask because he knows. He served under General Krell. More than all their batchmates, Rex understands that sometimes you can't tell anyone.

Wolffe - who has never had the patience or energy to be anything but brutally, painfully blunt - asks outright.

"Why in haran did you never say anything Fox?"

Fox doesn't answer. The war is over. Palpatine is dead. Fox never told his batchmates about everything he did. It doesn't matter. None of it matters.

He gets up and walks out of the bar. He hears Wolffe start to follow him, but he doesn't look around to see Rex put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

Fox has no idea where he's going. He came here with Cody - he's only been cleared to leave the medbay, not to drive yet. So he ends up sitting on the steps of some boarded up service entrance in the alley next to the bar. It's quiet here, at least, as quiet as Coruscant ever is with the constant drone of speeders and machinery.

Rex finds him about two minutes later. He doesn't say anything, just sits down next to Fox. He leans his head on Fox's shoulder and Fox leans against him in turn.

"It's like falling down the stairs," Rex says eventually, "One moment everything is still fine. The next you're down on your shebs with no clue how or when you got there. And you can't ask for help because then you'd have to admit you're the di'kut who couldn't climb the stairs no one else seemed to slip on."

Fox snorts at Rex's description. Despite coming with no warning or explanation, he knows exactly what Rex means.

"Precisely."

There's a pause.

"We were both wrong you know," Rex says, "we could have asked for help."

"Oh I know," Fox replies. "I'm very kriffing aware."

Rex turns to look Fox in the eye.

"You should also know that it's not your fault."

Fox stares at Rex. He's too shocked to do anything else.

"I was the karking Marshall Commander - I was responsible for keeping the men under my command safe. Of course it's my fault!"

"Responsibility and guilt are two different things, vod."

If there is a difference, Fox doesn't know what it is. For him guilt and responsibility have always been intertwined.

"How?"

"Just because you were in charge doesn't mean it was your fault. You did your best."

"It wasn't good enough."

"It still mattered though."

Rex answers so easily. As if he's had this conversation before.

"After Umbara..." Fox doesn't know how to end that sentence, no idea how to ask the question he desperately needs an answer to.

Rex doesn't say anything for a while.

"Umbara was bad. After Umbara was worse. But eventually - it got better."

Rex nudges Fox.

"This will get better too. You'll see."

Fox doesn't know if he can believe that. But then, he didn't think that he would live to see the end of the war. Yet here he is.

"There you are," Cody says, coming around the corner of the alleyway, "Wolffe, they're over here!"

"Oh thank the Light," Wolffe says following on Cody's heels, "you had us worried for a moment there, Fox."

"Hey," Rex says with mock offence, "I was with him the whole time, why would you need to worry?"

"Vod'ika," Cody says, ruffling Rex's hair, "I trust you to do absolutely everything except stay out of trouble."

Fox shifts as Wolffe and Cody join them on the steps. Wolffe sits down in front of Fox and tilts his head back to look at him.

"About what I said earlier -"

"I know. It's all right."

Wolffe hums and leans back against him.

After a while of sitting in comfortable silence, Cody says,

"Listen, as much as I love you guys, could we please move this somewhere else? My back is killing me."

"What's the matter, ori'vod?" Rex teases, "Getting too old for this?"

"Oh absolutely," Cody says, "I've aged a decade this past week alone."

"You know," Wolffe says, offering a hand to help Fox up, "now that the Jedi have fixed our accelerated ageing, how long do you think it will be before the jokes about our ageing become outdated?"

"Given the fact that they weren't funny to begin with?" Rex says, "I give it a week."

"You just have no appreciation for humour," Cody says.

"Hey, my sense of humour is just fine. How do you think I survived working with General Skywalker?"

"That's a sense of irony," Fox chips in, "not the same thing, Rex."

They continue to bicker all the way to the barracks. As he falls asleep, surrounded by the sound of his brothers' breathing - and in Wolffe's case, snoring - Fox thinks that maybe this is what better feels like. He hopes he'll get to feel this more often.

A/N: And that's it! I think I did a pretty good job with the angst to fluff ratio, but who knows?

Feel free to leave a comment but please don't feel pressured.

And to everyone going through a rough time - it does get better. Keep fighting. Love you and God bless 3