Archive of Our Own ^beta

~~~~

Rex carefully strips himself of his armor.

He can never risk taking it off before leaving Concord Dawn. They know him as a Child of the Watch, a traditionalist, and Rex... well.

Rex has always done his best to live by his word. If he says he's a traditionalist, he's damn well going to live as a traditionalist.

He's a Mandalorian. In every way that matters, he's a Mandalorian. That means Leia is too, and Rex is going to set the best example he can for her, even within the lie they're living.

So he always waits until he's landed to strip himself of the beskar. His replacement armor has full coverage, too, even if it was stolen from a stormtrooper. He only ever wears this set on these outings. Less recognizable that way.

Rex's fingers trace the navy jaig eyes painted on his left chestplate. He tried not to use much blue when he was remaking himself, making this beskar armor his own. But he couldn't, wouldn't give up those jaig eyes. So he put them somewhere new.

Blue for reliability. Rex's mind could be taken from him. It wasn't reliable. Yeah, his chip is out, but so was Jesse's back when Maul tore through his memories.

Rex's heart, though. His heart is reliable.

Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad. I know your name as my child. The Mandalorian adoption vow. That's what Rex promised Leia, holding her in his arms, terrified he was doing it wrong. He'd had shifts holding the tubies, same as everyone—human babies need human contact, even the clones. But a natborn baby, Padmé's natborn baby, seemed so much more breakable.

Rex isn't a linguist, but kyr'tayl always sounded a hell of a lot like kar'ta to him. Know and heart. Say what you like, but Rex doesn't think that's an accident.

He'll keep his vow. Even if Rex's mind fails him again, his heart will hold true 'til the day he dies. It'll always know who Leia is.

Rex lets his fingers fall away from the part of his armor that protects his heart, and reviews his route.

He's landed on what feels like the opposite side of the planet from Sabé. Sometimes Rex worries he's gone sedentary in his old age. Used to be, he could march for days on end with no problem.

Now, these little treks across the planet feel like an eternity. He keeps a speeder in the hidden alcove he always lands in to shorten the trip.

Rex is no fool. He knows his age isn't what makes these trips drag, even if his is aging twice as fast.

It's the distance from Leia that does him in.

She's safe. He knows that. She's back on Concord Dawn with her nanny droid and her little toys and Fenn Rau. No one's better suited to protect her than the titled Protector of Concord Dawn.

Rex might not trust Fenn Rau to raise a child. His own karked-up childhood is a testament to the man's poor parenting skills. Fenn Rau was among the best of a bad lot, and Rex hadn't realized just how low that bar had been set. It wasn't until he was given Leia on Padmé's deathbed that Rex understood just how wrong their trainers had been.

Even then, it took a while to sink in.

So no, Rex would never let Fenn Rau raise his kid. But the man could supervise and play defense while the nanny droid did the heavy lifting.

Rex is getting sloppy. He never would've let himself get this lost in his thoughts during the war.

He finishes armoring up, mounts the speeder, and heads out across the plains.

~~~~

Rex's relationship with Sabé is... complicated.

He hadn't known what he was getting into, when he went with her to Padmé's bedside. Hadn't known it would require him to hide, from his brothers and Ahsoka and everyone who mattered, just to keep one of Padmé's tubies alive.

It's worth it. Kriffing obviously it's worth it. Rex loves Leia with everything he's got.

But Sabé got to go home to her sisters. She didn't take one of the twins. She didn't even try. General Yoda said the kids had to be separated, and Sabé went with it, told him she's take Padmé's body and make it look like the tubies died inside her.

She could've taken Luke or Leia. Rex wouldn't trade Leia for the world, now, but back then...

Sabé didn't offer, and it was only the three of them there. That left two. General Yoda said one of the twins should go to their family on Tatooine. Rex hadn't known who the kriff he was talking about. Sabé probably did, but Sabé still hadn’t offered.

So General Yoda had taken Luke.

And Rex had been left with Leia.

Since then, Sabé's helped make Rex's life with Leia possible. Through the dead drop, mostly, leaving information and supplies and money and toys for Leia.

She's the one who got the nanny droid. Left it here, on this very planet.

In all this time, in all these years, they've never once met up in person. They've made a point of it, actually, leaving only flimsi notes behind, avoiding knowing anything about each other.

Sabé doesn't know what Rex's ship looks like. That's part of why he lands it so far from the dead drop. She hasn't seen his backup suit. Hells, she shouldn't even know what kind of speeder he's had to use.

This is the first time she's asked him to meet up in person. Her note said it was about the accelerated aging, listed the date and time she'd arrive.

If this is a trap, Rex is going to blow them all sky-high. He's not being taken alive.

~~~~

Sabé is waiting for him outside her ship.

Her face is stoic. It usually is, from what little Rex has seen of her. Maybe it's all that training to pretend to be a queen. Padmé wore the same face when she was busy being Senator Amidala for her speeches and debates.

Rex knows a thing or two about sharing a face.

Even if he hasn't seen his own face on someone else for over a decade.

Rex had done what he could to disguise his approach, give himself some time to scope out the situation. He saw no signs of an ambush. Nothing suspicious, nothing to indicate they'd been compromised.

Rex keeps the thermal detonator in his hand as he walks towards Sabé. He doesn't bother being subtle about it.

Leia is at stake. Rex isn't taking any chances, here.

Rex is confident he's parked the speeder out of Sabé's sightline while keeping it accessible. He'll make it to the speeder if he runs for it. That’s his Plan A, after he throws the first detonator. Rex has others hidden on his person, of course, but starting off with a little chaos never hurt anybody.

That's a damn lie, but Rex finds himself thinking Fives would approve of it, and that makes his lips twitch. He's grateful for the mask. He considered wearing the stolen stormtrooper bucket to match the rest of this karking shiny armor, but he can't see for kark when he does that, so a generic mask it was.

He's getting distracted again. He needs to focus. Hells, it never used to be this hard to think. He really is getting soft.

He walks up to Sabé, keeping his posture loose and open, letting his thermal detonator speak for itself. "Got your message. What's all this about?"

“There’s a way to heal your accelerated aging.”

“I’m aware,” Rex says, because he doesn’t actually live under a rock. Progress has been made, Fenn Rau’s heard about it. The treatment’s expensive as all get out, and getting it would require Rex to expose his identity. “It’s not exactly an option for me.”

“It is, actually.”

“Sure about that one?”

“A force healer can do it. She wouldn’t need any extra tech.”

“She,” Rex echoes. “You got somebody in mind?” It’s not a question.

“I do. There’s a former Inquisitor who does the procedure. Commander Bly recommended her to me.”

Commander Bly. The name hits Rex like a shot to the chest. Bly’s alive, then, or he was alive recently enough to suggest this ex-Imp. “He know it’s for me?”

“No.” For the first time, Sabé’s gaze falls from his. “None of them know you’re alive.”

“Good. Keep it that way,” Rex says through the pang of regret.

“Do you want the procedure?” asks Sabé, a flicker of sympathy in her gaze.

“I’d be a fool not to.”

Sabé nodded, mouth tightening. “I brought the healer with me. She’s in the cell on my ship, and has been for the entire trip. I can show you the cell logs. She agreed to it. She has no idea what planet we’re on, and no idea who you are, other than that you’re a clone.”

Rex took a deep breath, and then another, intentionally keeping his grip loose on the thermal detonator. "You didn't think to warn me?"

"Would you have come?" Sabé's tone isn't pointed, just matter-of-fact. Rex feels himself bristling anyway.

He's not a piece for Sabé to shuffle around on her holochess board.

Rex doesn’t bother to reply. The answer is no, obviously. Not with Leia’s safety on the line. Hells, he almost didn’t come today. Part of him thinks they might’ve been better off if he hadn’t.

"You deserve to be free," Sabé says finally.

"I know. I am.” Rex rolls his shoulders beneath the stormtrooper armor, and sighs. “As much as I can be.”

~~~~

Here's the thing.

If you ask Rex, he's earned every damn wrinkle on his skin. Experience outranks everything, and his experiences carry the weight of a thousand years, feels like.

But the accelerated aging... it means he'll get to experience less, at the end of the day. He won't live as long as he could've, maybe should've.

Rex doesn't regret it. His experiences made him who he is, and the accelerated aging was a part of that.

But if he could age like a natborn for the rest of his life...

He'd get more time.

~~~~

"Alright, fine. I'm in."

~~~~

Sabé shows him the cell logs, evidence Sabé’s willing prisoner hasn't left her cell. Rex searches for signs of alteration, and finds none.

He's hardly a slicer, though. Rex will have to speak to this former Inquisitor directly if he wants any answers.

Sabé goes with him deeper into the ship, swears to lock the door behind him, and unlock it at the first sign of distress.

Rex walks through the door, and stops dead at the sight of Barriss Offee.

~~~~

The door closes with a thud, lock clicking shut.

“You recognize me?” asks Offee.

Of course he does, but Rex isn’t about to give her another clue about his identity. He keeps his mental shields locked tight, and says nothing.

She can't know it's him. His mask is securely in position. Offee's just reading his body language. That's all.

Why didn't Sabé warn him? Rex gives her the benefit of the doubt for approximately a nanosecond. Maybe she didn't know about his past with Offee, what little of it there is. But no. Sabé's a spy. She must understand the significance of this.

Rex shelves those concerns for now, focuses on the woman in front of him.

Offee’s gotten old. She looks older than he does, actually. Rex looks pretty good for his biological age, even if his skin’s gotten pasty as hell without any exposure to the sun. Offee… well. Time’s carved deep canyons into her green skin. Then again, that could also be the weary expression on her face. She’s had a long journey in this cell, with little company to keep her entertained.

Hopefully that’ll make her easier to interrogate.

The former Jedi hums, seemingly to herself. “What can I do to put you at ease?”

“I want you to explain yourself.” It’s all he’s ever wanted, really. An explanation, a reason. He’d demanded one from Krell, once they caught him. He’ll never get one from Skywalker or Jango or Palpatine. He hadn’t specifically wanted one from Offee, but she’s here now and so is he.

Offee was there on Umbara, too. Just after she’d been made a general, wasn’t it? She blew up the temple shortly after that, framing Ahsoka in the process.

Rex doesn’t specify what he wants her to explain. With interrogations, it’s best to leave things open-ended. Rex used to forget that, let his emotions get the best of him. He’s gotten older since then.

Offee studies him. "Do you want to hear the full story? I'm willing to tell it, but I don't want to add to your burden unnecessarily."

The longer she talks, the more data Rex gets to figure out how truthful she's being.

"Why don't we go with the full story," he says. It's not a question.

“I assume you know about the temple bombing?” Rex nods. “If you saw the video of my trial, you already know what I had to say.”

Rex hadn’t had to watch the video. He’d been there. Asking her why she framed Ahsoka, which her impromteu speech hadn’t mentioned, would reveal too much about Rex’s identity.

“Yeah, well. You were a little light on the details,” he says instead.

“Fair enough,” Offee smiles. “I objected to the war on a fundamental level. It made me question everything I thought I knew about myself, about what the Jedi should be. I used to reenact historic lightsaber duels, you know? It wasn’t until the war that I understood that glorification of violence for what it truly was.”

“Can’t say I agree with you.” Rex keeps his anger out of his voice, and fights to keep his expression calm under the mask.

“I don’t expect you to. Of course, the reason I bombed the temple is simpler than all that: I fell. The suffering I witnessed was too much for me. So I fell to the Dark Side, and in that twisted state of mind I truly believed violence would stop more violence. It didn’t, in the end. It never does.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Rex snarls at her, control slipping for a second. He wants to throw something. Better yet, he wants the world to start working the way it should. He takes a breath, forcibly loosens his muscles where they’ve clenched.

“It shouldn’t. I wasn’t thinking very logically, at the time.” Offee’s expression is all calm acceptance. It’s infuriating. “I wanted to make a statement. I didn’t want it all just… brushed under the rug. Skywalker was practically the face of the war. He still is. I thought if people believed his padawan was the one to do it, they would start questioning things, instead of just assuming the war was righteous because the Jedi were leading it.”

It’s an indefensible reason to frame a friend for treason, especially when that friend was then slated to be executed. Especially when Offee didn’t actually make any statements until after she was arrested.

Still. She called him Skywalker, Rex notes. Not Darth Vader, and not General or Master Skywalker, either.

It's what Rex himself calls the man, after everything. No respect, no titles, no playing into the farce of Skywalker's so-called rebirth as Vader.

Refusing to call a brother by their name is the ultimate disrespect.

Skywalker isn't a brother. Rex doesn't even know if he chose that kriffing name. But when Rex calls him Skywalker, he does it with every damn ounce of the disrespect it carries for a clone.

He's surprised to hear Offee do the same.

Her voice doesn't have Rex's malice, but maybe that's a Jedi thing. Well. Ex-Jedi thing.

“You attacked children,” Rex says slowly. He doesn’t think of the 501st marching on the Jedi temple, Appo in the lead. “My brothers died in that bombing.”

“Yes,” Offee says. “I did. And it was wrong. I can’t take it back, but I can do good with the time I have left. That’s all I want. I promise.”

“Weren’t you an Inquisitor before this?” Sabé had told Rex that much, at least. Clearly Offee's revelation had come a little late in the game.

“I was conscripted into their ranks, yes. I haven’t been one for many years. I was never truly one of them… but it took some time for me to see that.”

“Why the change of heart?” Rex is more than skeptical, he’s pissed off. His tone stays level despite that, not even a hint of sarcasm coloring it.

Rex misses Jesse. His brother wouldn’t bother holding back. Jesse’s always been bolder than Rex.

“My first mission,” she starts, and Rex reigns in his surprise. He thought her stint lasted longer than that. "Skywalker had tracked down Master Kenobi, and he ordered me to accompany him for the... well. I thought of it as an arrest at the time. Really it was always meant to be an execution."

It shouldn’t shock Rex, that Skywalker killed General Kenobi. Not after everything. Not after learning about the younglings, and resolving that Skywalker would never find Leia as long as Rex drew breath. Rex has known for years that General Kenobi was dead. It was all over the holonews when it happened.

It shouldn’t shock him. Somehow it still does.

Offee grimaces in acknowledgement, meeting his eyes unerringly through the mask. Rex shores up his shields again, cursing himself for letting that much emotion leak through. Offee continues. “Only, when we caught up to Master Kenobi… there was a child. An initiate. She’d survived the slaughter at the temple, and then Master Kenobi found her. Or perhaps she found him.”

Rex has a sinking feeling he knows where this is going. “Skywalker killed her?” His voice is hoarser than he expects.

“He certainly tried. He grew… jealous, accused Master Kenobi of replacing him.” It’s subtle, but Rex can hear the edge of disgust in Offee’s voice. “Reva lashed out, then. She’d watched Skywalker kill… she’d watched Skywalker kill the other younglings. She was suffering. And Skywalker nearly strangled her to death, then chased Kenobi away from her body.”

Rex thinks of Yoda’s solemn words to him and Sabé when they arrived for Padmé. Skywalker had suffocated his pregnant wife on Mustafar. Yoda had been weak from his fight with the Sith at the time. He’d managed to get Padmé off-planet with R2D2’s help. That’s when R2D2 had called Sabé.

The rest, as they say, is history.

“What happened next?” Rex prompts, seeing that Offee’s gotten lost in memories herself. He reviews her words in his mind, and catches something he hadn’t noticed the first time: the initiate’s name. Reva. It was said distractedly, carelessly, as if Offee hadn’t noticed herself saying it.

A sign that Offee’s telling the truth, and that she needs better OPSEC. Rex is glad Sabé kept her locked in this cell for the flight, regardless.

“He ran ahead. I stayed behind. I healed her, as best I could. We were together when we felt Master Kenobi die.”

“Did the youngling survive?”

“She did. I kidnapped her, essentially. There wasn’t much else I could do. She was desperate to go after Skywalker and get vengence. She was also afraid of me. I tried taking off my helmet to make her less scared, but when she recognized me as the temple bomber she grew more scared and more angry.”

“You hurt her?”

“No. I only put her to sleep. And once we were safely aboard a ship and headed out of the system, I gave her my lightsaber to make her feel safer.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t kill you.”

“I was, too. She hated the feel of it, I think. Inquistors’ crystals have to be bled, to give them that red color. It’s awful to be around.”

Rex is getting back into the rhythm of this interrogation. “What’s that mean? Making a crystal bleed.”

“It’s when a darksider pours all their anger, all their hate, into a kyber crystal until it turns red. Force-sensitives can feel that wound in the force. There’s a way to heal the crystals, and I tried to heal them for her, but I wasn’t able to.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. Being around me… it wasn’t what was best, for her. I took her to someone who could get her to safety. I don’t know where she went, after that.”

“And where’s the lightsaber?”

“Still with her, as far as I know.”

“What did you do after that?”

“I healed. Anyone I could, really. Once I learned about the biochips, and realized I could heal your accelerated aging with the force, that became my new focus.”

“So you mostly treat us clones, then?”

“Whenever I get the chance. I couldn't heal those kyber crystals. I didn't even know where to begin, how to reconnect with a weapon. But I can heal people, and that’s more important, I think.”

Odd, that Offee made a point of saying she couldn’t heal weapons when she apparently has a thing about healing clones. Rex can’t tell how he feels about that.

Rex and his brothers were people, are people. Rex knows that. But they were made to be weapons, and most natborns are happy to treat them that way.

The Jedi were usually the exception to that rule. People like Padmé, non-Jedi who treated clones like sentient beings, were even rarer.

It figures that an ex-Jedi would get a complex about the whole thing. Unless Offee has gone back to considering herself a Jedi? Rex isn’t entirely clear on what’s going on there.

“Think you can heal me?” At this point, Rex believes Offee believes what she’s saying. Even if he didn’t, Offee is probably his only chance at this. Rex will take it. He won’t forgive her for what came before, but he’ll accept what healing he can get.

Rex can understand what it’s like to seek penance. For him, that’s Leia. For Offee, it seems to be trotting across the galaxy healing random clones.

There are worse things she could be doing with her life, that’s for damn sure.

Offee smiles again, and Rex catches a glimpse of the girl she had been. “I know I can. Let’s begin.”

~~~~

Apparently, the first step is some kind of force-scan of his brain.

“Do you have to touch skin?”

“No. I don’t. Not for this part, anyway. I assume you’d prefer that I not?”

“I would.”

“Then I’m going to place my hand on the side of your skull, over your mask.”

Rex’s mental shields have been up since before he walked into this cell, and he reinforces them now, for all the good it'll do him. He has a feeling he knows what Offee’s looking for. But what if she’s looking for something else entirely? Wouldn’t Sabé have told Offee about his chip, since Offee knows they exist?

If Sabé hasn’t told Offee, there has to be a reason. For now, Rex will follow Sabé’s lead. He keeps quiet.

Besides, Offee didn’t say she was looking for a chip in his brain, just that it was standard proceedure before healing clones’ accelerated aging like this.

Rex stays relaxed as Offee’s hand falls against his head, and her eyes fall closed. The seconds stretch, and after what feels like either no time at all or an infinity, Offee confirms his original theory.

"Your chip's out already." Offee smiles. It stretches the wrinkles on her face. "That's good."

The hells is Rex supposed to say to that? He closes his eyes for a moment, grateful Offee can't see it. "Yeah, well. Wasn't about to leave it in me."

Except Rex did. He left that kriffing chip in his head for far too long, and Ahsoka almost died because of it.

Is Ahsoka still alive? Is anyone?

Rex can't ask. Not with Offee here. He doesn’t trust that this cell could hold a Jedi, former or otherwise.

Leia's alive, though. Leia's alive and safe and that's how she'll stay, if Rex has anything to say about it.

"You'd be surprised," Offee says. "Many of your brothers still don't know about the chips at all. When their chips stop working, they assume everything that came before was their own choice, not forced on them."

That's Rex's fault.

He shouldn't have left Fives alone on Kamino. He should've listened to Fives. He should've listened to Kix. Failing that, he should've let Kix go to Kamino sooner, like the medic wanted. Hells, Rex should've gone with Kix to Kamino, instead of letting Sabé and General Secura pick up Rex's slack.

Rex should have told someone other than Padmé.

Yeah, he'd done his duty. He'd followed the letter of the law. But sometimes doing your duty isn't enough.

Rex had gone by what he was trained to do. Not he knew to be true, what his experience taught him to do.

“That’s done, then?" he asks, and the moment ends.

Offee goes along easily with the shift. “Yes. Now, I heal your accelerated aging."

~~~~

It's an interesting thing, to call this genetic alteration healing.

Like Rex's aging is a wound. Something broken that needs fixing.

But in a sense, isn't it? It was something that was done to him, inflicted on him, by the Kaminoans.

He shouldn't be aging this fast.

He also shouldn't be as strong as he is, as healthy as he is. Arguably, Rex shouldn't be, period. Without the Sith, he never would've existed.

But Rex is glad he exists. He's glad his brothers exist, and that the brothers they've lost had a chance to exist at all.

He's glad to be the person he is. His experiences made him this person.

Rex thinks he can be grateful for his existance without being grateful for the things that made him.

If Leia isn't her father, then Rex isn't his makers, either.

He's grateful to have raised Leia without being grateful for the circumstances that made it necessary.

Framing it like that helps with the cognitive dissonance. Rex wants more time, more chances to experience. Offee can help him get that.

If he thought Offee's imprompteu brain-scan took a while, then this is truly an eternity. It takes almost a full week to complete. Rex sleeps in Sabé's spare room aboard the ship, while Offee stays locked in her cell. They take breaks for meals, and to use the privy, and to sleep, but otherwise?

Offee's sitting cross-legged on her padded mat in her cell, surrounded by her lit candles. Her eyes are closed, hands held loosely in some kind of... Jedi mediation gesture. The flames flicker in time with her breathing.

Rex's instructions are to lay still on his own mat, and try to relax.

The candles' scent is thick even through his mask. Rex is lying down in his blacks plus some gauntlets, because lying down in armor is a pain in the ass but Rex doesn't love feeling totally exposed, either.

Time continues to stretch. Rex tries his best.

~~~~

After a week of this, Offee declares him healed.

"You sure, sir?" Rex asks, then internally curses at his slip. He barrels on anyway. "I don't feel any different."

"I'm sure," Offee assures him. She looks exhausted. Rex is half-convinced new wrinkles have made themselves at home on her skin.

Then again, this room is only lit by flickering candlelight. Rex blinks, watches the candles' flames dance across the backs of his eyelids. Maybe his eyes are playing tricks on him.

Rex shoves into the stupid stormtrooper armor. He’s getting ready to leave when Offee suddenly speaks.

"Are you happy?" she asks seriously.

"That's not really any of your business," Rex replies, gruff.

"No, I suppose not." Offee smiles, then, and it's a wry little thing.

Rex pauses, and sighes. “More than I thought I’d be. Thank you. For all this, I mean.”

“It was my pleasure,” Offee tells him, and Rex actually believes her.

He still re-arms the cell once he’s in the clear.

~~~~

Rex has never been close with Sabé. That was always Kix, running off after the truth of the chips.

He wants to ask about Kix now—if he's alive, if he's okay. Last Rex saw, Kix was reuniting with Jesse, getting dragged to help with the remaining chip removals.

It'd been hard, when Order 66 went out and Kix wasn't there. Jesse had already been dechipped, of course. Kix had dechipped him not long after they found Echo. It was Jesse's chip that Rex had passed to Padmé, who'd passed it to her handmaiden Eirtaé, who'd passed away under suspicious circumstances shortly after that.

So Jesse had been dechipped, and Jesse had been able to think quick. He'd kept Ahsoka safe, he’d gotten the remaining medical officer dechipped, and together they’d been able to dechip the rest of the ship. Their plan to do it had been kriffing insane. Rex still wakes up in a cold sweat some nights, remembering the way he’d suffocated when they cut off the oxygen from his part of the ship, three bodies in EVA suits looming closer as he fell unconcious.

And they did all of this without Kix. By then, Sabé had already squirreled Rex's brother away, taking Kix and General Secura with her to Kamino.

That's unfair. Rex knows it is. Kix had been pushing to do more investigation into the chips, and Rex had been pushing him off. Sabé arrived just after Lady Eirtaé died, determined to discover the truth. Rex's attempts to deter Kix, to keep him from getting himself killed in all of this, had practically shoved the medic into Sabé's waiting arms.

Kix would've gone to Kamino himself, if Sabé hadn't been there to go with him. Rex knows that. Hells, their little trip might've saved Kix's life, in the end. Everything was chaos in the final moments of the war. Who lives, who dies… it’s always a roll of the dice.

The point is, Rex and Sabé aren’t friends. Maybe they could’ve been, under different circumstances, but Sabé reminds Rex of some of the most painful moments of his life. He imagines he does the same for her.

He’s been on her ship for a week and they haven’t spoken once since that first day. Hells, he doesn’t even know where she sleeps. It’s not that big of a ship. Point is, they’ve made a point of not knowing each other.

So he’s more than a little blindsided when Sabé gives him her offer.

~~~~

"I could make other arrangements for her."

This is what Sabé tells him, moments before he hops on his speeder to head home.

She could only be talking about Leia. As for these other arrangements…

“You mean find her somewhere else to live?” Rex slowly turns back to Sabé.

“I do.”

"We're managed this long," Rex brushes her off. Then he pauses, and looks at Sabé, really looks at her. "Where was this offer fourteen years ago?"

Was this whole healing thing bait in the trap? Offee might’ve been genuine, but that doesn’t mean Sabé is. Rex doesn’t think Sabé’s lied to him, but she’s certainly been intentional in how she arranged things. Is this what she’s really after?

"Fourteen years ago I was planning Padmé's funeral. The best I could do for Leia then was disguise her existance entirely."

"But asking now? When she's got a home, a life?" A family, Rex doesn't say.

"She's about the right age for a padawan. I'm in contact with Master Secura. She's already gotten Ahsoka to knighthood. Master Secura could give Leia the control she needs."

Ahsoka's alive. Kark it all, but Ahsoka's alive. She was alive long enough to become a Jedi Knight. With Bly's General as her master, no less.

Sabé's manipulating him, and Rex knows it. That information was enough to throw him, but not enough to make him sign Leia up for something she doesn't want.

Leia's a Mandalorian. Sabé doesn't understand that, because she doesn't know Leia. She chose not to know Leia, and now she's got to live with the consequences.

"I'll ask," Rex says, voice rough with this new knowledge. "She won't go with you, but I'll ask."

"Won't or can't?" Sabé asks sharply.

"Won't," he says, firm. "She knows everything, and she's not interesting in becoming a Jedi. Said it's not her path."

"You told her everything," Sabé echoes slowly.

"'Course I did. She's an adult, isn't she?" Her brain may not be fully developed yet, but that's normal for humans. When Leia hit her thirteenth birthday, Rex told her everything he knew. He'd told her most of it before then, obviously, but once she was thirteen he stopped filtering out the worst bits. "Her mother was ruling a planet at this age."

When Rex was fourteen, he was given Leia. Granted, he was physically twenty-eight by then.

When Rex was physically fourteen, chronologically seven, he was being raised for war. Not trained for it. Raised for it.

When Ahsoka was fourteen, physically and chronologically, she was fighting that same war at Rex's side.

Ahsoka is alive. If nothing else, Sabé's acting like Ahsoka is. That has to count for something.

Sabé's been staring at him like she can see inside his mind. She can't, and Rex doesn't have anything to hide. "Ask anyway," she orders. “The offer stands.”

"I've just told you I will." Rex exhales through his frustration. "Thanks for the help. I'll be in touch."

He stands and walks away. Sabé lets him leave, the same way she let him leave with Leia over fourteen years ago.

It's time to go home.

~~~~

He gets the ship in autopilot, headed in the opposite direction of where he's going. Rex isn't about to lead Sabé to Leia unless he knows Leia wants to be found, and he's not going to lead anybody else there, either.

He pulls off the mask first, since he always puts it on last. Then the stormtrooper armor, similar enough to his that it's jarring but still clunky as hell.

Rex bunks down in his blacks for a bit, gets some shut-eye. When he wakes, he considers not armoring up just yet.

But he feels unsettled, alone in this ship. In so many ways, his armor is his identity. It tells his story.

It's tied to his soul, for all the credits Rex puts on a concept like souls.

So Rex armors up, lets the familiar weight settle around him, and feels a little less lonely.

This is who he is, now. This is who he's made himself to be. This is what he chose.

He carries his brothers with him, always. He carries Ahsoka and Leia, and maybe even Padmé.

He carries his experience. He carries his history.

He carries himself, most of all. He carries himself securely, and he knows that he's ready.

Come what may, he'll be ready.

~~~~

"You're late," Leia tells him as he walks through the door, crushing his ribs in a hug.

"Yeah, I know." Rex squeezes her in turn. "Sorry, Cadet. Got a little wrapped up in some things."

He knows Leia wants to press, but she doesn't, not yet. She trusts him to tell her everything once he's had a moment to catch his breath.

He's going to damn well keep that trust.

"I've been an adult for over a year, you know," Leia says instead, watching him through her visor as she steps back. "You really can't keep calling me Cadet."

"Don't count on it, Cadet," Rex replies, knocking his helmet against hers. He doesn't slam their buckets together the way he would for a brother, but it's a family greeting all the same.

"Fine. Have it your way, Ba'va."

Ba'va. It's adorable that she thinks she's embarassing him. The nickname is a shortened version of Ba'vodu; it's the kind of word that evolved because it was easier for toddlers and young kids to use.

The literal translation of Ba'vodu is Aunt, or Uncle. But Mandalorians are big on adoption. On Concord Dawn, it's not uncommon for a child to call the person who raised them Ba'vodu, or even Ba'va.

Rex cried when Leia first called him Ba'va. She calls him Ba'va more than anything else, these days, and sometimes it's still enough to make him cry. Not today, though. Today, he just feels fond.

"Come spar with me," Leia says now. "I bet you've gotten rusty, too busy flying that bucket of bolts for the past few weeks."

"Rusty? Oh, I'll show you rusty."

Leia laughs as she goes to gear up, and under his well-worn helmet, Rex grins.

It's good to be home.

~~~~