#I swear I don’t know from where Order 66 came from

[himilce-persephoniea]

❛ that’s how you want me, isn’t it? desperate, jealous, and willing to kill for you. ❜

All this lines sounds so good!

So…… dear Anon…. After almost two years I brought you the promised fic with this sentence 🙈 I’m so sorry it took me so long. As a compensation. It’s a 5K fic 👉👈 I hope you’re still over here and you’d enjoy it. It was very funny to write.

I’ll like to thanks @fishnamedsushi who was my beta for this 🤗 thank you so much!!

This sentence came from the “HeroxVillain sentence starter”. There are still many very good I’ve not tried. If you want me to play with one of them…

Now enjoy!!

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Obi-Wan pushed the bar’s door. He didn’t want to be there. He was so tired of the war and all the dirty tactics he had to use in the name of the Republic to gather information. He had been raised to be a protector of the peace, a negotiator, to bring calm all around him. His main goal on a normal day was to teach meditation to the Younglings and then drink tea in the gardens with the old Masters. He didn’t aspire to be a famous warrior or general, he didn’t want to attract the attention of the Senate or the people around the galaxy. He was content with his family and the peace they brought to him.

So, when this same family asked him to go to the lower levels of Coruscant, where not even the sun shone, to try to gather as much information as he could about a shady bounty hunter who had kidnapped the son of a crime lord, well… what could he say? He wasn’t pleased about his mission and he couldn’t wait for the war to finish. Because he was sure the Republic was going to win, with more or lesser consequences, but he didn’t contemplate a galaxy where the Separatists would win the war. That was sure.

“A whiskey,” he asked the barman. It wasn’t as if the beverage was going to be good, but he wasn’t going to try any of the other ales.

When he had his drink, he sat at the end of the place. He began to see if he could locate the man Master Sinube had pointed out to him. It was amazing how Master Sinube knew the lower levels. He had said that it didn’t matter if there was an intergalactic civil war, villainy at its most base level would not be affected. And by what Obi-Wan was seeing he was right: gamblers, spice dealers, sex workers, slave traders, bounty hunters; they were all reunited in that bar. It would have made a cantina in the Outer Rim pale in shame.

“What’s your deal, handsome?”

Obi-Wan looked up and saw a Twi’Lek. He was wearing expensive clothes. Too expensive for this kind of place. Obi-Wan had left his Jedi robes in the Temple and was wearing clothes that made him blend in with the masses –even if he wasn’t sure he would ever blend in with his accent and his well-trimmed beard. The Twi’Lek was wearing clothes made of the most expensive material and he had jewels all over his hands, arms and lekkus. He was almost begging to be robbed at this level. However, if he was so calm about it, it was either because he had someone that protected him, someone powerful –or he was an idiot.

Obi-Wan smiled at him, crossing his fingers internally for the Twi’Lek to be protected. He turned and leaned an arm on his chair.

“I work with the most powerful merchandise in the galaxy, sugar.”

The man seemed to not understand what he was saying, but it did not stop him from smiling. “How so?”

“He means information, Tal.” Someone sat next to Obi-Wan. Every nerve on his body raised. He didn't like that someone was so close to him —well, besides one particular exception, but he wasn’t there so Obi-Wan had to deal with the thing in front of him. It was a male human. He was dressed in a more sober manner than the Twi’Lek, but Obi-Wan had seen enough crime lords to know when he was crossing the path of one of them.

Great!

“Go play with other little things,” the crime lord said. “I think you caught a big fish here.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes internally. What he wouldn't do for the Jedi Order? He wanted to be back in its gardens.

“So,” grinned the crime lord. “What a beautiful thing like you doing in a place like this?”

Obi-Wan hid a grunt in his glass and tried to smile. Kicking him in his balls would not help him.

“Lot of things. A better whiskey for example.”

The man came even closer to him. Obi-Wan had to restrain himself in every way to not shove him into the other side of the bar.

“I have plenty of good whiskey at home.”

Was that a hand that Obi-Was was feeling on his knee?

“Or maybe not.” He took the hand and pushed it away without losing his smile. “I’m searching for a very specific kind of whiskey, you know? Of the rare kind.”

The crime lord raised an eyebrow and leaned his chin on one of his hands. “And which kind are you searching for, may I ask?”

Obi-Wan calmly drank his absolutely undrinkable whiskey. “A rare kind from Anxion, one only produced in its capital. Have you heard of that?”

The man seemed surprised for a split second. Anyone who wasn’t Obi-Wan wouldn’t have noticed it. However, it was clear that he had noticed what kind of information Obi-Wan was asking for. At that time, in Anxion’s capital, there was a very difficult blockade. The Jedi had discovered that the bounty hunter was hiding behind that blockade. They needed any information that could help to go through it —smugglers’ runs, spies, anything. Master Sinube was sure that in the lower levels of Coruscant, there were enough people who would know every secret passage to every system and planet in the galaxy. They just had to find them. He had pinpointed a first idea where Obi-Wan could start, but those kinds of investigations could end everywhere.

“Well,” the crime lord shifted his position, “I may have a contact that could bring you your priced whiskey. But,” he put his hand on Obi-Wan’s leg again, this time much higher, “every information comes with a price. All the question is if you are willing to pay for it.”

Obi-Wan was about to tell him that he could shove his information, and his hand, where the sun didn't shine anymore when he noticed that the man was gasping. He was opening and closing his mouth without saying a word. It was as if he couldn't breathe.

Then, a sudden force lifted him from his seat and shoved him into the nearest wall. Obi-Wan followed the movement for a moment before his brain supplied him with the information of how it was possible. He turned and saw the culprit. Obi-Wan felt as if his breath was taken away too.

His memory didn't do him justice. He was even more gorgeous than Obi-Wan remembered.

With a simile of the Jedi robes, protected by armour, with a long cape, all in black, Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, stood in all his glory in the middle of a dive bar in the lower levels of Coruscant.

“That’s how you want me, isn’t it?” He was talking to Obi-Wan, his eyes shining with golden fury. “Desperate, jealous, and willing to kill for you!!!”

The Jedi realised the kind of image he was offering: he was drinking alcohol —something he didn't do often—, smiling at a stranger, who had his hand on his thigh. It was amazing that the crime lord —whose name Obi-Wan had never learned, nor wasn't interested in— hadn't perished on the spot. Darth Vader was known for his fits of rage.

Obi-Wan decided that he needed to calm the atmosphere. He tried to approach the Sith with caution.

“My dear…”

“Don’t ‘dear’ me!” Vader cut him off. He was extremely angry. “He had no right to touch your body.”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow and continued his slow approach until he touched Vader’s cheek. “What have we said about my right to decide who touches my body?”

Vader looked in another direction. They had strong discussions about the topic. Obi-Wan wasn’t against Vader’s possessiveness, he liked it in fact, but it was Obi-Wan’s right to choose who could touch him and who couldn't. And he had made it clear to the Sith Lord that he wouldn't let him decide anything about his body.

“My dearest, my beloved, look at me.” He forced the man to look into his eyes. “Look inside my mind.”

Obi-Wan didn't know how it was possible, but Vader was so strong in the Force that he could pass his shields —one of the strongest in the Order— and look inside his mind for whatever information he wanted, without hurting him. Forcing someone’s mind was usually painful for the person, but Obi-Wan found it pleasant when it was Vader who did it. He never let anyone else do it. It was Vader’s privilege only.

The Sith took Obi-Wan’s waist and brought him close. He leaned his forehead to Obi-Wan’s. The Jedi felt something prodding near the walls of his mind and he let him in. Vader was incredibly powerful; but at the same time, he was warm. A warmth that Obi-Wan had only felt a few times. He liked to be embraced by Vader’s Force Signature; he felt secure like he hadn’t felt since the war began.

Vader looked inside his memory, back when he had been given the assignment by the Council, and when Master Sinube helped him to find ways to retrieve the information. Then, he searched for Obi-Wan’s feelings about the crime lord being too close. Obi-Wan could feel how relieved he was that the Jedi was revolted about being touched by someone else.

However, while they were submerged in each other’s minds, they heard the crime lord trying to get away from Vader’s Force grip. Obi-Wan had been so immersed in how Vader felt, that he had completely forgotten about the man.

“Stay still,” said Vader, still angry at the man. “I’m not finished with you.”

“Dearheart.” It was the only thing that Obi-Wan had to say. Vader knew what he implied with that simple word.

“I’m not releasing him!” He defended himself. “I’ve read his mind. The things he wanted to do to you… he’s lucky to be alive!”

“My love.” Obi-Wan kissed Vader’s cheek. He knew it was a low blow, but Vader loved physical contact and Obi-Wan didn't want to be the reason for a man’s death.

Vader took Obi-Wan’s waist and kissed him on his lips with determination. “I’m going to propose a deal to your Council. If they are good little Jedi, we could all leave with what we want, without anybody being hurt.”

Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes. “What’s the deal?”

Vader smiled like a loth-wolf. “You are mine for a month and I give them the information they want, and release this man. If they refuse, I give you back but I squeeze the information out of this bug’s head. There is no third option, Obi-Wan. If I don't have you, I'll take my vengeance on that worthless thing.”

“Dearthart.” Obi-Wan caressed his cheek. “You know there is no need.”

“There is.” He leaned his head on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, putting his nose in his neck, so he could smell him. He was hugging him tightly. Obi-Wan felt grounded. Vader was taller than him, but the Jedi felt wrapped by the Sith, and kept secure in his warmth.

Obi-Wan chuckled. “You’re impossible.”

Obi-Wan didn't assist at the conversation between Vader and the Council, but when Vader took him in his arms and took him with him to not leave his side for an entire month, he knew that he had saved a life.

During that month, Obi-Wan would hear Vader discuss several times with his Master. He was being stubborn about not being at the front in the war. Obi-Wan was worried about Vader. He knew that Sidious, his Master, was really dangerous and heartless.

“Anakin, I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said one day. “Come back to the front.”

Vader, whose real name was Anakin Skywalker —a name that Obi-Wan thought was beautiful—, but Obi-Wan didn't want to say out loud in public, took his hands to reassure him. “Sidious needs me. He’s not going to kill me. Besides, I’m stronger than him. I could kill him if I want.”

“Never underestimate your opponent, my love.”

Obi-Wan was proved right when, just two days after his month with Anakin, Sidious launched an order galaxy-wide: every Clone, who served with the Jedi for years loyally, turned against them and began to kill them at sight. Obi-Wan was at the Jedi Temple when it happened. He saw an entire legion marching toward the Temple. He had never been so afraid in his entire life. He knew his duty was to defend his home, and the people inside of it. But when it happened, he was teaching a class of Younglings about meditation. He looked at them. They were so afraid, so uncertain about what they had to do, where to go. He was their role model?, \ their protector\; they were the future of that home that was about to be burned down. Obi-Wan had to protect them with his life!

Without thinking twice, he took the Younglings through the secret tunnels and left the Temple by the sewers. They were afraid, feeling all the Jedi dying in the Force and they knew that something horrible was happening, even if they didn't know why it was happening.

Obi-Wan surfaced on one of his contacts. As he had not been an active general in the war, he had kept all the contacts he had on the lower levels of Coruscant. That man’s name was Dex. A Besalisk who had a little Dinner in Cocotown and had Obi-Wan's entire trust.

“Obi-Wan? What are you doing here? And those kids?” The Jedi had woken him up in the middle of the night by knocking at his door with a bunch of frightened children.

“The Temple has been attacked. The Clones are killing everyone. Even the children. I need your help to save them.” It was then when Obi-Wan realized the horror that had befallen upon them: when he heard himself telling the story with his voice frightened.

The Besalisk opened his eyes widely and let them all in. “You may need to get rid of those Jedi robes. I’ll see if I have something for the children to wear. You can sleep in my house for the night. But you’ll have to move fast out of Coruscant.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “I know. Can you look for them tonight?”

Suddenly, all the children surrounded him begging him to not leave them. He knelt at their level. “Dex is someone I trust. He will protect you. I need to find us a way to leave Coruscant safely, little ones. Be brave.”

The Younglings were scared and didn't want to leave Obi-Wan, but they understood that their home wasn't safe, not anymore.

Obi-Wan left them to Dex, changed himself to some normal clothes the Besalisk let him borrow, and ran. He needed to find a way out, the planet would be quickly closed and every ship closely inspected. He couldn't take long.

The fact that he hadn’t been a general in the war saved him from being spotted in the streets, the Clones didn't recognize him without his Jedi robes. But it also reduced his trusted allies. He didn't have friends in high positions that could prepare him a ship in seconds to leave the place.

He knew that this had been Sidious’ plan. He knew that every Jedi was a target because he was feeling them dying around the galaxy. But he didn't know what to do. He was a pacifist. He wasn’t even capable of chastising Anakin when he was being too…

OH GOSH! Anakin! Where was he? If this was Sidious’ plan, he should have led the Clones on the attack of the Temple. But Obi-Wan didn't feel him. Had been sent away in another, more important mission? But what could be more important than killing every Jedi, sworn enemies of the Sith?

I’m stronger than him. I could kill him if I want.

“Oh, please, Anakin, be careful.”

Obi-Wan came back empty handed. Coruscant had been closed quicker than he had thought and all his contacts couldn’t give him a pass through the blockade. They gave him, however, children’s robes, and a vibroblade. If there was something that could identify a Jedi quicker than their robes, it was their lightsaber.

When he was arriving at Dex’s house, he felt that there was someone inside that wasn't there when he left. He didn't recognize the Force signature. He was sure that the kids and Dex were alive, but they were tense. He didn't know what was going on, but he would risk his life to give the children a chance to run and save themselves. So, he tightened his bag full of clothes, assured the vibroblade, and entered the place.

Inside there was a man. A human male. He was tall, broad, with grey clothes. He looked too sure of himself, as if he was used to stressful situations.

“Good night,” his Master hadn't raised a man without manners, so Obi-Wan saluted.

“Good night. Dex has let me inside of his house.” He had a Core accent. “May I present myself. I’m Senator Organa. I think we have some friends in common.”

Obi-Wan came to where the children were, next to Dex, who was seated in front of the Senator.

“I’m not so sure. I don't have many Senator friends.”

The Senator smiled. “I don't wish you, or the children, any harm. I rescued Master Windu from a terrible battle he faced. When we passed over here, he felt a group of Force Sensitive people hidden. But he was too badly injured to come.”

Obi-Wan raised internally an eyebrow. There were many coincidences for his liking. The man just rescued an injured Jedi that, of course, cannot be there to prove his sayings.

“And what do you want, Senator?”

“Help you. You need to leave Coruscant.”

Obi-Wan simulated a thought. “You’re right. But moving so many Younglings at this time of the night would be too obvious. I may have an idea, if you would agree with it. We could transform them into school children. Can you find a large speeder? A school trip is easier to simulate in the morning than whatever we could think at this hour of the night.”

The Senator smiled confidently. “Of course. I will inform Master Windu that I found you. What is your name? You didn't tell me.”

Obi-Wan gave him is more warm smile. “Lux Lars. I’m just a knight. Never had a Padawan. So don't even think of calling me master.”

The Senator shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Knight Lars. I’ll come tomorrow morning with the speeder.”

“Thank you so much. We’ll be here.”

And the man was gone.

“Gullible for a Senator,” commented Dex.

“We are not going to go with the man?” asked one of the children.

Obi-Wan smiled. “No, little one. Your lives are my responsibility and a supposed Senator that says that he knows Master Windu… In these dangerous times, I don't trust anyone who I haven’t met before.”

They left Dex’s house that same night before dawn. Obi-Wan knew that the children needed to sleep. Luckily, Dex had better contacts than Obi-Wan. He found them a departing ship to Alderaan. Obi-Wan would have wanted a world further away from Coruscant, but Dex’s contact hid them in their shop so perfectly, that Obi-Wan was in a perfect spot to think about their next movement without worrying. The children understood what was going on, and that they had to be quiet. They meditated during the day and ran free in the forest during the night under Obi-Wan supervision.

However, when Obi-Wan was negotiating to travel in the Outer Rim, someone unexpected visited the shop.

“MASTER WINDU!!”

The poor Master of the Jedi Council found himself tackled on the ground by a group of very enthusiastic and happy children. The poor man looked tired, and ill, and he was missing part of one of his arms. He had to have faced a very difficult battle.

“I’m so happy you are alive, Master,” said Obi-Wan when the children let the man breathe a little.

“Me too, Obi-Wan. The news had been so awful around the galaxy. Seeing so many children alive and well at once…” his voice broke. It was so heartbreaking to see such a strong Master lose his voice like that.

The children fussed a little longer around the Master, brought him a cup of tea, and then ran to play in the backyard of the shop where they were hiding.

When he was sure they couldn’t hear them, Obi-Wan dared to ask the question that had been burning him since that fateful day.

“Do we know what happened?”

The Kourun Master nodded. “Vader and Sidious fought. I don't know what triggered their fight, but it resulted in the release of what has been called ‘Operation Knightfall’.”

Obi-Wan felt a cold sweat on his back. He had an idea of the reason for the fight. But he couldn't tell Master Windu that. He couldn't say that he was probably the reason for the Jedi Order’s fall.

“I felt a huge darkness in the Senate,” continued Master Windu, unaware of his inner struggles. “I ran towards there to try to help whoever was in danger. I would have never imagined I would find Vader and Chancellor Palpatine fighting with red lightsabers.” The man drank a little of his tea. “Vader was quickly knocked out and Palpatine attacked me. We fought and I won. Vader, who had recovered his senses by then, was telling me to kill him, that I didn't know how wicked he was… I should have listened. But I didn't want to, it wasn't the Jedi way. When Palpatine saw himself cornered, he took out some device and said something about an Order number 66. And the galaxy fell apart. I felt every Jedi die.” They fell silent for a moment. Everyone in the room remembered that terrible moment. “Vader was enraged. I’ve never seen him like that. I knew he was temperamental, but this was another level. He cut my arm off in his rage, and Palpatine electrocuted me.”

Again, the Master was silent. Obi-Wan let him. He was probably grieving on the people who had died, on the arm he lost, about the terrible situation he found himself in because he wanted to help. Obi-Wan was trying to bury his guilt. Vader’s attachment to him had started all this horror. He would never recover from that.

“The Chancellor thought he had Vader back. That he had vanquished me and finally took over the Republic. He ordered Vader to march to the Temple and kill everyone there. However, Vader just raised his lightsaber and cut his head off. I didn't see him coming. I think that the Chancellor didn't see him either or he would have stopped his attack. He was swift and merciless. He frightened me. But the worst part came just after. He came close to me. I thought he was going to kill me. The electrocution had weakened me, I couldn't move. I thought it was the end. But it wasn’t.” Master Windu looked at Obi-Wan’s eyes intensely. As a member of the Council, he had known what linked Anakin and Obi-Wan. The Jedi wasn’t sure he could look him in his eyes. “Vader spared me because he wanted to kill me in a weird offering in your funerary pyre. He was sure you had died in the Temple.”

Obi-Wan sat overwhelmed. He didn't know how to absorb all the information Master Windu had given him. He knew that Anakin was alive, that he had killed Sidious, but he had lost his mind thinking that Obi-Wan was dead. But he wasn’t, he had just flown with children trying to save their lives from murderous Clones.

He decided that he needed to analyze his feelings about it later. There were other, more important, things to think about.

“What had happened with the Clones? Are they still searching to kill us?”

Master Windu shook his head. “No. And we have to thank Vader for that. He stormed into the Jedi Temple and ordered them to stop. As he is a Sith, he has the same authority as Sidious. He managed to cancel the order. But it has been a disaster. The Clones are in shambles. That attack betrayed everything they stood for.” Obi-Wan saw in his eyes as the horrors didn’t stop with Sidious’ death. “Without the Clones, the Republic cannot fight the war. But Vader told us that Sidious was manipulating both parts. A group of Senators is trying to negotiate a cease-fire.”

“And the Temple?” Obi-Wan wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to that question.

“It has been a massacre.” Master Windu sounded so defeated. “Vader stopped the Clones, but I saw so many corpses… I’m so happy you took the children and hid them away from there.”

Obi-Wan looked outside, where the Younglings were playing happily. He remembered that night. He could never thank Dex enough for what he did that day.

“I thought about leaving them with a friend and coming back to help… but I needed to know they were completely safe. And that night, it wasn't an option.”

“You would have died. You did well.”

Obi-Wan cried. For days he had thought that with his decision he had condemned many of his siblings in the Order. He was a good fighter. He could have saved them. But with Master Windu’s reassurance that he would have died defending the Temple, he felt better on his decision to stay with the children and protect them until they would be safe.

That same night they went to the palace on Alderaan and officially met Bail Organa, Senator for Alderaan, who looked really like the man that tried to help them that first night at Dex’s house. In Obi-Wan’s defense, he had never liked politics, and wouldn’t have trusted a Senator, even if he had known that that man was, indeed, Senator Organa.

Queen Breha welcomed them in her palace as long as they wanted. Coruscant wasn’t a place for the children, and the Temple was still a place full of death in the Force. Besides, Master Windu was still recovering, so it was better to have them all reunited in the same place together.

The children liked the palace, and Queen Breha was a great host to them. She gave them places to run and play all over the palace. Obi-Wan was reassured with so many guards looking for them, if something happened again, they would be looked for.

A few days after moving to the palace, a big ship arrived. Obi-Wan didn’t have to look at the logs to know who was there. He recognised his Force Signature the moment he breached the atmosphere. Bail didn’t agree with his arrival, nor Breha, and Master Windu would prefer to not be near the man. When he landed on the landing pad, Obi-Wan was arguing with the royal couple.

“I don’t want him on my planet, Obi-Wan,” Breha said. She wasn’t a woman to whom you could not say no easily.

“He’s not going to hurt anyone. He doesn’t have a reason, nor is he in danger.”

“Tell that to Master Windu,” countered Bail. “He isn’t here because he dreads the man, but because he doesn’t trust him near the children. And we agreed with him.”

Obi-Wan put his hands on his waist. “When did you have that conversation with Master Windu? Those children are my responsibility. I do not appreciate being left aside when those decisions are made.”

“We thought that you cannot be neutral…”

Obi-Wan interrupted Senator Organa. “You do not wish to finish that sentence, Senator, in a moment Dearheart. I protected those children from the moment the Temple fell, and I’ll not let anyone, whatever their position or rank, decide their future based on groundless assumptions. Until Master Windu’s full recovery, I’m the sole responsible for them. If you dare to make another decision without me, you won’t see us ever again. Is that clear?” He turned then towards Anakin, who had arrived at their position. “Hello, my love.”

Anakin smiled with a dumb smile. “Need my help? I can maim, torture, kill, or even propose a very charming and fast ship to the other side of the galaxy.”

Obi-Wan laughed. He hadn’t laughed like that since the last time he saw the Sith Lord. He had missed him dearly.

“I think it would be quite alright.”

Anakin shook his head and took him in his arms. “Now it’s alright.” He sank his nose on the crook of his neck and inhaled deeply. “I thought you had died.”

Obi-Wan caressed his golden curls. “So I’ve been told. And they told me that you have been quite dramatic about it.”

Anakin squished him a little more in his arms. “I’ll not survive losing you. Not the galaxy. Nothing makes sense without you.”

Obi-Wan knew that he should chastise Anakin for this possessiveness, that his role, as a Jedi, should be to serve the entire galaxy. But he found it quite difficult when he was so perfectly wrapped in his arms.

“I’ve missed you.”

“You are not leaving my side in the next sixty years.”

“NOOOOOOO!!!” A bunch of children came running from every possible hidden way and wrapped themselves in Obi-Wan’s waist and legs. “If Obi-Wan stays with you, he will not be able to take care of us.”

“And who's going to be my Master?” said one little girl, to Anakin’s growing horror. “I’ve already decided he’s going to be my Master when I’m going to be of age.”

“Forget it!” said another one. “I’m older, he’s going to be mine.”

“I wanted to be his Padawan!” cried a third. “I already selected the beads for my braid.”

“No one is going to be Obi-Wan’s Padawan!!” panicked Anakin, looking at all the children around them as if he didn't understand how they had materialized near him. “He doesn’t take Padawans.”

“And who says that?” Obi-Wan smirked. “I like those children. And if I want the title of Master, I have to knight at least one Padawan, you know?”

He faced a group of very happy faces with stars in their eyes, and one distraught face.

“Then knight me!” busted out Anakin. “I know everything there is to know about the Force, and I can handle the Light Side.”

“That’s cheating!!” All the children revolted. “You are an adult, and we were first!”

Anakin stuck his tongue out. But it wasn’t what attracted Obi-Wan’s attention.

“You can handle the Light Side?!”

Anakin shrugged. “Of course. I’m the son of the Force. Light Side, Dark Side; there is no difference for me.” He came close to Obi-Wan’s ear. “And I know you like I call you ‘Master’... Master.”

“ANAKIN!!”

Obi-Wan was sure he was blushing. And he was sure that Master Windu would have a heart attack when he would tell him that Darth Vader wanted to be knighted in the Jedi Order just because he was jealous of a bunch of Younglings that wanted to be his Padawans. But that night, in his bed, in Anakin’s arms, surrounded by the stubborn younglings who didn’t want to leave his side, he was also sure that things were going to be alright. The Force felt lighter, as if it wanted to confirm his feelings. He fell asleep in Anakin’s arms, surrounded by happiness.

[awkward-tension-art]

Order 66 (tbb x Jedi!reader)

Ok, so i’ve had this idea in my head of the clones with a Jedi S/O during Order 66. I don’t mean they act on Order 66, I mean if everything sorta played out similar in canon (Chip doesn’t work)

Idk, I like me some protective boys.

CW: minimally proofread, jedi!S/O, Reader, Gender neutral pronouns, Order 66, violence, death, swearing, Hunter trying his best, Wrecker being a sweetie, Echo is ready to fight, Tech is the only one who is level headed, and Crosshair being somewhat emotional

You were following Caleb when the order came through. Your steps stumbled and your knees hit the cold ground. All around you, the Force was being ripped apart. Hands were on your shoulders. 

your lover. You barely realized through the haze.

With absolute horror, you watched helplessly as clones gunned down Depa Billaba. “Run Caleb!” You heard her scream through the overwhelming grief and death you felt. The padawan turned, lightsaber ready. 

“Get away from us!” he barked, calling your name, “Get up! Please!”

He was panicked, confused. So were you. 

You managed to look up, seeing the clone troopers across the field standing over Master Billaba’s smoking corpse. They were prepping to kill you and the padawan next.

Without another word you bolted, grabbing Caleb’s hand and sprinting to the trees. You didn’t look back. You had to make sure the kid was safe.

Hunter

“Wait!” He’ll give chase before stopping at the tree line. He had never seen you look so devastated and afraid. 

He’s going to follow you. Of course he is. He’s just as confused as everyone else. 

Until Tech finally finds out what's going on

“The Jedi have been ordered to be executed.” “Which one?” “All of them.”

“What!? Why!?” Hunter is panicked at this point. The troopers behind him have orders to kill. They won’t show you mercy. 

“Apparently they’ve committed treason.”

By the time he finds you, Caleb had already jumped across the ravine and was waiting for you. You turned, tears in your eyes.

“I can feel it…everyone is being killed.” 

“We’re going to figure this out,” He’s going to try and calm you down, “I promise, we’re going to figure this out.” His arms are around you. 

It wasn’t safe for you. Not anywhere near him and the others. He knows this. You know this. 

The two of you come up with a hurried plan.

“Go to these coordinates. Once we know what's going on, I’ll come find you.” He’ll kiss you passionately, “Get the kid and hide.” 

Hunter won’t go with you. He’s the squad leader. He can’t just go missing. 

Despite the fear that you’ll be found out, he trusts you and your skills to stay alive.

Once you jump across, he’ll watch, make sure no one follows or tries to shoot at you. 

Once he’s questioned on your whereabouts, he’s going to lie, “I managed to stab the kid and shoot the Jedi. both of them fell into the water.”

I will say, his nerves are shot until he gets to you again. 

But in the meanwhile? He’s antsy. Anxious and a tad distracted.

Also a hairs trigger from snapping.

Crosshair badgers him at Kamino and Hunter barely holds back a punch.

Hunter loves you, so damn dearly. And right now he can’t protect you because he needs to figure out what the fuck is going on.

But, after finding the truth and getting Omega, he makes a damn beeline for the coordinates he gave you.

Plus side? Caleb and Omega become friends.

Echo

What the FUCK just happend!?

He sprints into the trees to keep up, ignoring how Hunter is calling his name. 

“Echo, get back here!” 

“No.” He will cut off his comms. 

He’s an ARC trooper, he can track you to a degree. He’s not like Hunter, but he gets to the general area where you are. 

He manages to get to a clearing where you and Caleb are hiding in the trees. 

“Cyare!” Echo is clearly confused, worried and he swears he feels the same amount of death that’s overwhelmed you. 

Once you reveal yourself, his helmet is off and his arms are around you so tightly.

“I don’t know what's going on, but I’ll keep you and Commander Dume safe.”

Hunter and Crosshair catch up to you, and once Crosshair aims his blaster at you and Caleb, Echo is ready to brawl. 

He stands protectively in front of you, gun aimed at the sniper, “If your skinny ass doesn’t put the fucking gun away I swear to-!”

“Both of you stand down!” Hunter will have to get between them, because Echo is 100% willing to shoot Crosshair if it means you stay safe. 

He’s not aware Crosshair doesn't exactly have a choice at the moment.

Really no one is aware.

But he’s lost domino squad, he’s lost Fives, he's lost legion, right now his former general is probably being killed…He’s lost so much already.

He refuses to lose you too.

So Echo pulls the trigger first, settling on stunning him and making a dash towards the ravine. Hunter has to keep up.

Once Caleb is across, he’ll get meetup coordinates from Hunter.

Echo goes with you. He doesn’t return to Kamino. The moment he's across the ravine with you and Caleb he’s a deserter. 

He doesn’t care. He just doesn’t want to lose you.

He’s a strong, determined guard, and one who didn’t let you or Caleb get hurt.

Wrecker

He casts a glance at Hunter before running off after you. 

He has no idea what Order 66 is. Nor does he care.

The guy saw you so…out of it. So scared and confused.

His protective instincts have geared up to 11. 

Hunter goes with him, while Crosshair is the one who remains behind to stall.

Once Tech informs everyone that the Jedi have been named traitors and should be executed on sight, Wrecker gets serious. Very serious. 

He becomes so unlike himself, even Crosshair is surprised.

Honestly? I see Wrecker as someone willing to gun down any ‘reg’ if they’re threatening his squad or s/o. 

Even this early into the Empire.

When he sees you, he’s immediately grabbing you into his arms which causes Caleb to attack.

Admittedly he’s gonna tackle Caleb, only adding to the poor kids terror. 

“Wrecker, you're scaring him!” 

But after a strong bear hug and an “Easy kid! I’m tryna help you!” The padawan calms down enough to listen. 

He puts Caleb down, rips off his helmet and gives you one hell of a kiss. 

He’s worried. He’s scared. And he wants to protect you. 

Hunter will have to talk him down from running off with you.

The sergeant has to keep his squad together. It sucks but they need to figure out what the heck is happening at the moment.

Wrecker desperately wants to go with you but he can’t abandon his squad.

However, he feels much better once Hunter gives some safe coordinates to lay low and hide.

He’ll get you to the ravine and stand guard until you and Caleb are across and out of sight.

You bet your ass when he meets up with you again he’s not letting you go. 

Tech

He isn’t as emotional as the others at the moment. He’s actually focused on gathering as much information in the least amount of time.

He waits, listening to the comm chatter. What is going on? why?

“Execute Order 66.”

After a second, he shares a look with Hunter.

“Tech, go after-”

No more words need to be said. Tech is gone and going after you.

He’s smart. He knows your patterns. He knows where you’d most likely hide. So he focuses on that.

Once he’s confident he’s in a broad area where you and Caleb are, he’s going to call out to you, “Cyare? There’s something called Order 66 on the comms.” 

Tech gives you information first. He won’t make you reveal yourself if you don’t feel safe enough. 

When Echo announces that the Jedi have been charged with treason, he’ll relay that to you. 

“The comms say the Jedi committed treason against the Republic,” He’s going to keep looking around for you, “I know you. You’d never do such a thing. I’m here, Cyare. I can help you.”

Once you reveal yourself, Caleb behind you, he feels the biggest amount of relief. 

He pulls off his helmet, giving you a small smile.

“Tech…The Jedi…” your voice cracks, “They’re being killed…I can feel it.” 

“I know, Cyare…I’m sorry.” He tries his best to comfort you, but he knows he can never understand. 

The amount of Jedi he’s worked with can be counted on one hand. 

But he knows this is your family. Your friends. Your very life.

Once Hunter meets up with you guys, a plan can be put in place. 

He gives you coordinates for a location to meet-up and hide. You’ll lay low with Caleb.

In the meantime, Tech will return to Kamino, figure out what's happening, and from there a better, more long term plan can be made.

Before you leave though, he’s going to give you the longest, most passionate kiss he's ever given you.

He’s well aware that there's a chance you can be found and killed. 

Tech is the only one who has accepted that you may not make it out of this.

But he’s going to keep his mind occupied, distract himself until he’s by your side again. 

Crosshair

As soon as the order goes out, Crosshair is under the influence of the inhibitor chip.

He just doesn’t know. No one does at this point.

He watches you run away with Caleb and the drive to hunt you down is hard to ignore.

He needs to find you to kill you, to protect you.

But, the sudden headache he has is damn near blinding.

Crosshair follows Hunter, keeping his comms on.

He freezes when Tech finds out the Jedi have been marked for execution.

The Inhibitor Chip in his skull is contending with his feelings for you.

He needs to execute save you.

When he spots you he pulls his rifle and aims but barely manages to stop himself.

He can’t hurt you. He needs to kill loves you.

Crosshair draws some sort of conclusion that Kaminoans had conditioned all clones to follow specific orders.

He doesn’t know of the chip. He just assumes it comes from the troopers' conditioning.

When his arms are around your body, for a brief moment he thinks of snapping your neck.

Good soldiers follow orders.

He hates orders.

This is the point where Crosshair knows something is seriously wrong with him.

But he’s not going to say anything yet. He can still fight if need be.

“You need to run…hide…get away from here.” it's a rare moment that he’s scared.

The sniper is desperate to shoot protect you.

The headache is persistent, and it’s somewhat distracting.

But he’ll power through.

Crosshair will wait for Hunter to come up with…something. 

His eyes are on the area around you, gun set to kill in case any reg tries anything.

The plan? Clone Force 99 returns to Kamino while you and Caleb go into hiding. 

You have coordinates. He can find you later. 

But…well Crosshair doesn’t like that. At all.

Hear me out. Like Echo, Crosshair goes with you. He knows somethings up with him, but he trusts himself more than he trusts anyone else.

“Tell Kamino they killed me.” He instructs Hunter, “That I died trying to stop the Jedi and you managed to get justice.”

He crosses the ravine with you, only looking back to nod back to Hunter. 

By the time Crosshair, you and Caleb safely get off the planet, his headache is a small annoyance that goes away with time.

Crosshair sticks with you until he reunites with his squad and notices Omega

Welp, you got Caleb, what's one more kid?

[syrupgirl]

Prompts

if you wanna use these, just reblog or gimme creds i don’t mind💋

1. “What do you mean you’ve lost it? How could you lose it?”

2. “What are you hiding back there?”

3. “I’ll find them and bring them back, swear it.”

4. “Shit, get behind me!”

5. “I never want to wake up from this.”

6. “I’m afraid that if I touch you, you’ll disappear. Again.”

7. “What is your favourite memory? Of her, I mean.”

8. “I could never abandon you.”

9. “Come here say that to my face.”

10. “What do you mean ‘I’m not ready’?”

11. “If I’d done something- anything things could have been different..”

12. “They don’t know you like I do.”

13. “I though you knew?”

14. “They were like this when I found ‘em…”

15. “You are the only constant I need in my life.”

16. “You are something else…”

17. “You made this? For me?”

18. “Try as you might, you can’t unkiss me.”

19. “Really? Because your brother said quite the opposite.”

20. “It tastes…sweeter than I thought.”

21. “Do you have it with you?”

22. “Can I see?”

23. “I have your back? okay?”

24. “I look ridiculous is this thing.”

25. “What? Nothing clever to say?”

26. “Did you just…smell my hair?”

27. “I’ve never been so happy to have been wrong in my entire life.”

28. “This can’t be the only way!”

29. “I did it for you!”

30. “I don’t go away if you ignore me,”

31. “You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

32. “It doesn’t always have to be you, y’know?”

33. “Do you understand me? Food? Do you have some?”

34. “What did I do wrong?”

35. “This is the part where you leave.”

36. “Hold onto me, I don’t want to lose you.”

37. “I think…I’ll stay in tonight.”

38. “Why can’t I go with you?”

39. “You leave him out of this.”

40. “Are you mad at me?”

41. “Lay back, you need rest.”

42. “Your shoulders aren't the only ones that can bear the weight of the world."

43. “Just a little bit longer…”

44. “I’ll thank you after we get out of this alive.”

45. “A good luck kiss?”

46. “Watching you is hypnotic to me.”

47. “Your smile makes me wanna smile.”

48. “Do you even hear yourself?”

49. "I haven't kissed you yet today."

50. “Why is it always a fight with you?”

51. “Are you going to stop me?”

52. “Let me do this for you. Please?”

53. “Looking for something?”

54. “We can’t stay here.”

55. "I've lost so many people. I can't lose you too."

56. “You can’t be here!”

57. “I’ve told you too many times.”

58. “You came?”

59. “Where did you find this?”

60. “I will show you around.”

61. “Are you here to kill me?”

62. “I trust you but I lost some trust in you today.”

63. “Oh please. Live a little!”

64. “I know you’re looking at me.”

65. “Where did we go wrong?”

66. "You think I'm weak, because I'm not like you."

67. “We could run, you know. Far, far away from here.”

68. “Is that a threat?”

69. “Is that a promise?”

70. “Wrap it up, come on.”

71. “It’s nothing, just a few scrapes.”

72. “Midnight snack?”

73. “Move and it’s over.”

74. “I won’t apologise!”

75. “Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

76. “Something is different about you…I can’t quite place it.”

77. “I don’t need your protection.”

78. “It is okay, you’re safe and sound. I promise.”

79. “Miss me?”

80. “You coming with me or not?”

81. “Close your eyes and take my hands.”

82. “It’s okay to cry. There’s no one here but me and you.”

83. “Am I…Interrupting something?”

84. “Home isn’t an option anymore.”

85. “I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. Please please let me do that.”

86. “You look lonely over here all by yourself.”

87. “Come with me!”

88. “You can’t come around anymore!”

89. “I take orders from your father, not you.”

90. “Were you following me?”

91. “I’ll buy you some time!”

92. “Who’s going to stop us?”

93. “You don’t know when to quit, do you?”

94. “I have two, take one.”

95. “Jealous? Pff…As if.”

96. “Whatever they told you, it’s a lie.”

97. “You don’t have to shout at me!”

98. “Was it you? Did you do this?”

99. “It wasn’t me, I swear!”

100. “Who is going to take care of you if you take care of everyone else.”

[hobiiwan]

mirror • cpt. rex

pairing: captain rex x gn!reader

warnings: post-order 66 angst, hurt-comfort but i thrive in the hurt

w/c: 1.6k

notes: i'm back with lots and lots of feelings bc i've been ghosted and it's 5 am so i should probably sleep but i hope you enjoy :D

lovely gif credit to @pieklalat!

Framed by distant moons and even further stars, the night sky never seemed more vast. If you closed your eyes, it didn’t take much to picture a Republic Star Destroyer slicing through the atmosphere of the moon whose gravity became inescapable, with you in it.

Glancing over your shoulder at where Rex had made camp for the evening, you could tell he was thinking it too. Though his eyes were closed, it was clear as watching a holofilm; reliving the searing heat of plasma bolts, shot from the blasters of his brothers, the ones he had served beside for years—the same ones he had buried just hours prior.

It felt as though there was a vice wrapped in a deadlock around your heart, constricting your chest until it threatened to collapse in on itself. You exhale sharply, willing yourself to push past the hollow ache of the now-dulled Force connection, the flashing faces of the clones and Jedi who had perished under the Order—the fear they had felt in their final moments. It was now your fear that you would never escape it.

The price of surviving the command settles atop your shoulders, making a home. A bitter, weighted reminder that you are here, alive, when you shouldn’t be—when you aren’t supposed to be.

You collapse onto the ground next to Rex, which pulls him back to the present. His eyelids flutter as he blinks slowly, once at you, then back up to the stretching expanse of the inky black overhead. He lets out a sigh, leaning up on his shoulders to cast a weary glance at his surroundings. “How long was I out?” He questions.

You reply with a thoughtful hum, “Not long. You need the rest, anyway.” It’s true. The day’s events have undoubtedly taken its toll on the both of you. But how does one go about resting after being hunted to the death?

“I’ll take first watch. Get some sleep, cyare.” He says, now sitting upright and then you know there’s no point in fighting it. You both need rest, but with the way Rex’s frame is pulled tense as a bow, his hand twitching ever-so-slightly towards his blaster, you know there’s no way he’d rest easy.

So, you offer him a victory, albeit a minute one. You pull his unarmed hand into yours and close your eyes, feeling the way he lets out a shaky breath, releasing some tension along with it. A victory—you’re still here with him.

Neither of you can be certain how long you stay that way. The low croon emitting from the transceiver is the only sign that time actually passes. Neither of you complain about the noise, either. It didn’t need to be said that the silence—this silence, was much too loud.

You do try to sleep, Rex gives you credit for that. Though, after turning for the fifth time (he counts) you give up and sit up beside him. He’s got his knees pressed to his chest, one hand curled tight around his blaster. In his other, his thumb rubs circles against the back of your hand. The answer to whether it soothes you or himself doesn’t matter.

Wordlessly, your head lowers to his shoulder, propped gently against the curve of muscle.

“Did I ever tell you I wanted to be a singer?” You murmur, glancing at the transceiver. You don’t recognise the singer on broadcast, though you do take note of the melody, slow and mellow.

Rex watches as you even try to hum along, as offbeat as you are.

“No,” he huffs something short of a chuckle, “you didn’t.”

He knows what you’re trying to do, sees it clear as day. Yet, as he watches your feet tap to the tempo of the ballad, he can’t stop himself from humouring your attempt to comfort him.

You nod eagerly, eyes widening as if to express your candor. “I was about to be one, too! Then the Jedi came and…”

Rex waits as you trail off, then clocks the far-off look in your eyes. He picks up where you left off. “Would you sing for me now?”

You return in a split second, your lips pulling into a bashful smile as you avoid his eyes. “I’m definitely rusty by now, I don’t want you losing your hearing because of me.”

The Captain nudges you teasingly, grinning when you break into soft laughter. “It would be an honour, though,” he quips.

He wonders how much of you has been hidden behind the mantle of a Jedi’s title. Who would you have been had you not been brought into the Order, raised from young to be one thing, and one thing only? Who would he be?

Once again, Rex is dragged out of his thoughts. This time, you’re tugging him to his feet. It takes an effort and a half, which you currently lack in your fatigued state.

As he looks up at you questioningly, you motion to the transceiver, dropping his hand to raise the volume. It’s enough to provide a comfortable backdrop instead of a desperate attempt to quell silence.

“Dance with me,” you propose softly, “please?”

“I don’t know how to, mesh’la.”

As if pointedly ignoring his feeble protest, your hand remains outstretched, beckoning his participation.

Maker, he’s only ever seen couples dancing on holofilms and is even more certain he has two left feet. But gazing up at your expectant self is like looking at a promise of escaping the sorrow he now knows as reality.

Really, it’s all up to him.

Rex swears he feels three times lighter from the way you beam in delight when he fits his palm into your smaller ones and helps you lift him to full height.

He stands awkwardly, clueless as to where his hands should go, how he should move. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

Below him, you soften at the uncertainty tainting his features. Taking mercy on the poor man, you lift a hand to cup his cheek, garnering his attention.

“Put your hands on my waist,” you murmur, eyes twinkling when Rex’s hands fly up to root himself to you. Your own arms loop behind his neck and he takes it as a sign to pull you into his chest, no stranger to the position.

“and now we sway.”

Such a simple command, yet Rex feels like a fish out of water. His limbs are stiff, like the serenity of the movement is a stranger. To an extent, it is.

When you take over, moving him to the beat instead, he gratefully surrenders, allowing himself a moment of tranquility.

The only sounds that reach him become the silky notes of the singer and your soft, steady breaths. If he tries hard enough, he can pretend to be in a distant galaxy, where he is not a clone and you are not a Jedi, where the war is nothing more than a brash concept and his brothers are alive and well.

Rex doesn’t realise he’s crying until your thumb smooths away a tear rolling down his face. His eyes stay closed as he wills himself to keep pretending, but he can’t.

He is still a clone but you are no longer a Jedi. His brothers are gone.

You hold him when he finally breaks, cradling his head close when his shoulders tremble with the force of his sobs. His tears soak into the collar of your singed robes, but you truly can’t find the will to care—not when the man you love is falling apart, barely held together by the threads of your embrace.

“It wasn’t them,” he chokes, shaking his head, a wretched attempt to convince himself, “—it couldn’t be.”

At that, you’re positive your heart shatters. Stars, he doesn’t deserve this. You wish with all your might to take the pain away, to rewind every clock in the galaxy and then the next, but all you can do is watch.

“It wasn’t,” you nod, lowering your forehead to press against his, “not the real them. You know they loved you.” And by the Maker, you know.

Rex’s hands clutch tightly at your robes, as if letting go of that would mean letting go of you. The last tether to what is now his past, his only constant.

What if you hadn’t made it off the ship? What if Ahsoka hadn’t gotten the chip out of him in time? What if he had hurt you?

He briefly registers your voice calling his name, cutting through the despondent scenarios that could have, by any deciding factor, become his present.

“Rex, my love,” you plead, “please look at me.”

When he raises his eyes, he finds that yours are a mirror of his own. The anguish that parallels his agony. He feels you, your presence. He’s never understood much about the Force, but he thinks this is pretty damn close.

“I’m here,” you whisper. The promise of those two words anchor you both. “‘M not going anywhere.”

You mean it. If you believed it before, there was no chance in any star in the galaxy that anyone would be able to tear you away from him now.

For the current moment, you weren’t sure if there was a place to go, even if you wanted. Less than twenty four hours ago, you had been anticipating the end of the Clone Wars. Now, it feels like you’ve been thrown onto the losing side.

“What do we do now?” Rex asks, but you both know there isn’t an answer. There’s no precedent to go off of.

Two of the finest leaders in the GAR and the Jedi Order are lost, with no one left to follow them.

There’s nothing to do but move on.

“We keep living,” you say with a heavy sigh, burying your face into the crook of Rex’s neck, “we live for them. We’ll find a way.”

You always do.

[knightprincess]

In This Heart of Mine (Crosshair x Fem Reader) Oneshot

Words: 2336 Warning: Grief - Implied Character Death A/N - Not proof read also her/she pronouns used Description: Crosshair remembers how he lost his Runi. 

If there was one thing Crosshair hated about the empire. It was how they look his love away. Despite it being months since the Republic and Jedi Order had fallen, it still hurt him to remember it, he still hadn't dealt with the grief, the brokenness he so often felt. Despite his best efforts to ignore it, it always caught up with him during the quiet moments. Even now he could swear he heard (Y/N)'s voice, so clear as if she was standing right beside him. Crosshair guessed in a way she was, she was still with him if not physically then in his heart, closer than ever. 

"Wish you were here (Y/N)" whispered Crosshair, his barracks empty, his brothers having left him behind days after he lost (Y/N). Days after his life had been ripped to shreds. They had yet to come back for him, despite the obvious he still hoped they would, he hoped they hadn't given up on him, not now when he still needed them so much. His new squad members weren't his favorite people, if he was honest he hated them, to him it felt like they were replacing his brothers, or at least the empire was. They took away his (Y/N), now they were trying to replace his brothers with natural born soldiers, people he hoped would just leave him be. 

Crosshair didn't know the name of his new squad members. He didn't bother trying to remember them, even more so when comments had been made about how miserable he was, how they could do a better job just because they were natural born and he was a clone. Every time they were sent on an assignment he found himself hoping they didn't come back, or if they did they wouldn't return to the barracks. He wanted his brothers, if he couldn't have that, then he'd rather be left alone to grieve and remember the better times of the past. Times that he wished he could go back to now. If only so he could tell (Y/N) he loved her one more time. Even now he could still remember how he had lost her. 

Flashback 

The snowy terrain of Kaller was a welcome sight compared to the normal battlefields. Although the thick black smoke bellowing towards the grey filled sky, was a good give away as to where the battlefield actually was. Tech had made a comment about needing to reach General Depa Billada and her Padawan Caleb Dume soon. Wrecker mentioning something about not being able to wait to get his hands on the droids and destroy something, it was clear the oldest of the special unit was getting impatient, perhaps more so than he was on the Marauder heading over to assist. Echo and Hunter continued on with their conversation, although both keeping an eye out for any battle droid that was roaming the area or stragglers from the battle to have already taken place in the area they walked quietly through. 

Crosshair on the other hand was towards the back of the small group, walking just behind (Y/N), his Jedi General and lover. His normal smirk placed upon his lips, although shielded from everyone else by his helmet. The sniper not being able to help but look over her, to admire her beauty, even when she was determined to help those she considered friends. Her lightsabers attached to her belt, ready for when she needed them, a sure thing considering they were once again heading into the battlefield. At their current position at the top of some snow covered hills, they were in the calm before the storm. 

Also on the large steep hill was Caleb Dume, he seemed hopeful yet confused to see them, as if he was expecting more. Although he seemed pleased even reassured to see one of those sent as reinforcements was (Y/N) (Y/L/N), one of the many Jedi Knights, although one whom was rather well known to the republic at this point. Her power alone made her famous. Although she had also become known for her skills in battle since the wars had began just over three years prior. 

What would have been an ordinary reinforcements mission had quickly gone sideways. Crosshair could remember (Y/N) leading Hunter, Echo, Tech and Wrecker into the fight against the battle droids, blue lightsaber at the read. The young Padawan having returned to his master to keep them updated on what was going on. He had watched as they took out the enemy forces, how Wrecker was having the time of his life, even how Tech made a comment or two as if greeting an old friend. Even how Echo effortless took out the battle droids around him. Hunter using his knife and blaster as he always did, where as (Y/N) had effortlessly deflected laser bolts and helped destroy the tanks and spider droids. Crosshair had done his normal task and covering for those in the thick of it from his lofty perch. Shooting any and all droids who got to close to those he cared for and loved. 

Yet it was after that when everything went wrong. (Y/N) had given them orders to take out what remained of the droids nearby, to help with the counter attack, agreeing to allow the Caleb to go with them. Only when they were a distance away did they all receive an order, especially from the Chancellor. Execute Order 66. Caleb sensing something turned back, seeing his master fighting against the clones surrounding her, already too many of them for her to handle alone, he was about to go back when he heard her yelling for him to run. Although he had been frozen to the spot. Only moving when (Y/N) grabbed hold of his arm and running, her other hand hold the side of her neck. 

Crosshair had wished he didn't have enhanced sight that day. What he saw still haunted him. (Y/N) had appeared in shock, her eyes wide, one of her lightsabers missing. Yet the hand holding the left side of her neck, slowly turn crimson, as a trail of blood was left in her wake. Almost instantly Crosshair had felt fear, hate even. Yet none the less listened to the orders given by Hunter. Wrecker was stall the regs if any came searching for (Y/N) and the Padawan, Echo and Tech were sent to find out what was going on and why the regs and turned so suddenly? Why they fired on their commanding Jedi? Where as Crosshair was set to go with Hunter to find both (Y/N) and Caleb. 

As order Crosshair veered off to follow the tail of crimson staining the snow. Finding himself getting more anxious as he continued to follow it, dreading what he would find at the end. His worst fears being met when he come to the end of the trail of blood. Finding (Y/N), lent against a tree, more pale than the snow she sat upon. Her hand still holding on to the wound to her neck, as if to stem the bleeding or hide it from others. Fear shone so brightly in her eyes, yet so did her sadness and pain. 

Without a second thought Crosshair ran to her side, taking off his helmet as he did so. Ignoring the voice in his head yelling the same four words over and over again. Instead focusing on his lover. The moment he reached her, he reached for her hand, taking hold of it in a gentle grip, feeling as she weakly squeezed his hand in return, as if to reassure him he was still alive, all be it just. She still had some strength left. Within seconds Crosshair had pulled her into his lap, fighting back his tears, even more so when gently moved her bloody hand from her neck, seeing just how back to wound was. Instantly he knew there was nothing he could do to help her. Only make her comfortable in her final moments. Yet still he hoped his words would encourage her to fight a little longer, until help arrived at least. 

"Don't you give up on me Mesh'la. Just hold on" quietly spoke Crosshair, his words seeming so loud in the quiet area. He soon placed his own hand over her neck wound, taking hold of her hands in the other. Only now when looking over her, did he see she had been hit more than just once. Another scorch mark on her lower leg, just beneath the knee and a third on her right shoulder. "Remember the plans we made for when the war was over. Finding a plot of land somewhere, somewhere quiet and off grid, somewhere away from all the chaos and hassle" started the silver haired sniper, recalling the many conversations he had with her about leaving everything behind when the war was finally over. Taking his brothers with them, only telling a few trusted ones where they were going. They had planned a life together. 

"I love you" whispered (Y/N) in response, lying against him. Her back against his chest, his long legs either side of her. Tears soon come to her eyes, as the inevitability hit her, she was going to die. Just like the other Jedi who had already fallen. Yet she had something they didn't, her sniper at her side and the knowledge of knowing none of her unit had betrayed her. "Promise me, you'll go on, you'll keep living" choked (Y/N), as she began to cough up her own blood, her end fast approach, even Crosshair knew it, he could feel her hands growing colder and heaver as her body went numb. 

"No" responded Crosshair, his voice as quiet as hers, as he fought the losing battle with his tears and heartbreak. "There's no living without you" added the sniper, showing how much he loved her, how much she meant to him. "I love you Cyar'ika, please just stay with me"  begged Crosshair. Tears breaking through his barrier as her hand fell from his, as she let out her final waspy breaths. All Crosshair could do was hold on to her tightly, hugging her, protecting her as he struggled to see anything past the blurriness of his tears. A strangled yell ripping from his throat moments later. "Come back (Y/N), Please come back. I love you, please" cried Crosshair, hugging her as tightly as he could, not wanting to let her go. Not wanting to do anything other than be there with her. 

Hunter had found him moment later, having heard his strangled yell. He lent down besides the pair, closing (Y/N)'s dull (E/C) eyes for the last time. Placing a hand on his brother's shoulder moments later, trying to be strong for his grieving young brother, knowing his heart had broken beyond repair. He couldn't bring himself to say anything to Crosshair, nor did he protest when Crosshair reached for her remaining lightsaber, tinted crimson with blood. 

End of Flashback 

Crosshair soon shifted, reaching for the box on the small shelf behind his pillow. With a heavy sigh he opened the box, (Y/N)'s lightsaber still inside. He'd made a point of preserving it, even more so when it was all he had left of her now. He cleaned it whenever he cleaned his rifle, it being part of his routine. If he was feeling down before a mission, he'd take the lightsaber with him, so how it always helped to make him feel a little better. Crosshair liked to believe (Y/N) was with him when he had the lightsaber. 

"I'll make the galaxy a better place (Y/N). I'll make sure they don't forget you" whispered Crosshair, knowing his choice to stay with the empire, wasn't one he made easily. It was difficult, yet his brothers had helped with his choice. They had saved him when Kamino was destroyed, yet the distrust had been obvious. "One day I'll avenge you my runi" promised Crosshair, recalling when he had retrieved the (Y/N)'s lightsaber from his old barracks in Tipoca city, his determination had kicked in to save it. Hunter had put it in his pack, returning it once they reached the landing pad. Yet the real and only reason Crosshair had remained with the empire was revenge, they took his runi away from him, took his home away, turned his brothers against him and tried to kill him. His only motivation was to ensure the empire would fall, even if doing so cost him his life. 

"We'll see each other again (Y/N). Reunited when its all over" whispered Crosshair, as he left his barracks on board the star destroyer he'd been assigned to. Determined to remind the oblivious imperials of what they had helped take away and destroy. Determined to do what he thought was right, in the name of his lost love. Determined to see through what he hoped would be his redemption, or at least that's what he believed he was doing by helping Rex located their brothers still within the empire, Wolffe, Cody, Howzer even Dogma, as well as passing on information regarding future plans for the remaining clones, besides being fazed out of service. 

"In this heart of mine. You'll live for a lifetime" uttered Crosshair, his attention being drawn to the photo he held on to now. One taken during the war, it was clear it was during one of the many assignments. (Y/N) held on to her blue lightsabers, he was just behind her, his rifle one her shoulder as he aimed at something in his sights. (Y/N) actually looked like she was covering him while he destroyed something in the far distance. With that Crosshair returning his focus to the self given mission of bringing the empire down, no matter the cost. 

Translation: Runi = Soul

[teletraan-meets-jarvis]

Darkest Part

AO3 Link

Pairing: Crosshair x fem!Jedi Reader

Summary: The war was drawing to a close as you and The Bad Batch provided reinforcements on Kaller. However, the end of the war came in a way none of you could've predicted, as Order 66 is executed. Set during the episode Aftermath.

Warnings: 12+, Character death, slight violence, it's an angsty one peeps

Word Count: 1.5k

Author’s Notes: As always, feedback is really appreciated, along with reblogs! Thanks so much for taking the time to read, have a lovely day!

Depa’s screams echoed across the open plane, causing the group to stop in their tracks. You couldn’t believe your eyes, sure that this must be some kind of Force trick as you all witnessed Commander Grey and his troops firing on Master Billaba, her Lightsaber protecting her with everything she had. You hadn’t realised you were already running until you overtook Caleb, desperate to try and help. Both you and the Padawan had your Lightsabers drawn as you raced to the General’s aid.

With her last bit of strength, Depa Force pushed you both back and screamed for you to run, for you to get Caleb away from the Clones before one final shot sang through her chest. In her last moments, Depa’s beautiful face was tainted with the agony of betrayal from her closest allies.

An overwhelming pain suddenly smacked you in the chest. You didn’t realise pain could be blinding, but it took over every sense in your body until there was only a bright light. Screams could be heard, Lightsabers swinging for one final time, ships being shot down. It was the Jedi. They were dying. The Council. The Knights. The younglings. All of them. And just like that it was over. You were back, Caleb pulling on your sleeve as the Bad Batch caught up with you both. You’d fallen to your knees from the impact of the deaths of your kind.

You looked at the Bad Batch and your already emotionally battered chest tightened like a vice. Would they turn on you as well? After everything. Would Crosshair turn on you? You’d seen it, you’d felt it. You’d felt Master Plo’s despair as the Wolfpack shot him from the sky, you felt Obi-Wan’s disbelief as Cody ordered his execution, Aayla’s heartbreak as the man she loved gunned her down.

Your eyes stung with unshed tears as you met Crosshair’s visor. Could he hurt you? Love hadn’t saved Aayla, it hadn’t prevented Commander Bly from executing her with no remorse. What would stop Crosshair?

“Stay back” Caleb shouted at them, holding his weapon in a defensive position in front of you. Finally coming back to yourself, you grabbed his wrist and took off running. Hunter’s voice following after you, trying to reason with you.

Tears finally fell down your face as you focused everything you had on running. Focused on keeping the Padawan safe from certain death. There was nothing else that mattered now, this kid had to live. You couldn’t lose anyone else. You just couldn’t.

You struggled to keep up with what had just transpired, your conscious mind not processing the events as your body went into survival mode. Keeping Caleb safe was all that mattered, and you clutched to the one sane thought with everything you could muster otherwise you’d crumble.

With an initiative beyond his years, the young Padawan started climbing the trees to remain off the path where Hunter could track them. The child’s tactical mind caused the sobering realisation in your mind that, of his short life so far, most of Caleb’s years of innocence and learning had been tainted by war, forcing him to grow up beyond his years.

You followed his lead and supported yourself in an adjacent tree, out of sight from the ground. Your eyes were locked onto Caleb as he steadied himself on his snow dusted tree, you pushed a wave of support over the Force to wash over him, hoping it would calm his nerves.

In the distance, two sets of footfalls crunched against the white blanket of the forest floor. As quickly as it came into range, the sound suddenly stopped below your trees and Caleb’s wild eyes found yours. His fear was evident and bone deep. It was breaking your heart. He was just a kid; he didn’t deserve this.

Hunter and Crosshair’s modulated voices broke the silence in the air as they debated the way you’d both went. Hunter sounded distressed while Crosshair sounded determined, the same way he sounded when hunting a target. Your body shivered at the thought that you had suddenly become the enemy in his eyes.

The sound of a blaster bolt snapped your attention to Caleb. The branch he’d been perched on shattered beneath him and he fell very ungracefully at the base of the tree, with Hunter and Crosshair staring straight at him.

Without thought, you leaped down in front of the young Padawan, your brown cloak trailing behind you as you descended. You landed on one knee, a hand out to your side with you Lightsaber lit and at the ready.

Bringing yourself to your feet, you peered at your men from beneath the darkness of your hood. Hunter was stood in a defensive stance, hands out and unarmed. Crosshair however was aiming his deadly sniper directly at Caleb behind you. He was ready to take the shot, every inch of his body screamed his intent to kill.

“Caleb run” Your words were strong. Stronger than you felt.

“But-”

“GO!” You demanded the young child, if you could just buy him some time, there’s a chance he could get out of this.

Crosshair’s rifle was still pointed in the direction of the young Padawan. You stepped forward into the firing line and disabled your weapon, meeting the soldier’s gaze through his visor. You listened out as Caleb’s running feet sounded further and further away. Good.

“Crosshair, this isn’t you. Don’t hurt the kid.” you spoke with a calm you didn’t feel, like you were trying to soothe a feral creature.

“Good soldiers, follow orders” his hands were shaking as he bit out the words. That strange certainty he had while aiming at the young Jedi, now wavering while his weapon was trained on you.

“Well, if that’s the case.” You walked forward until the barrel of his rifle was aligned with the centre of your chest. “Take the shot, Crosshair.” your voice was void of emotion. You’re sure you heard Hunter screaming at you two in the background. Not even commanding as Sergeant, but as a brother, begging Crosshair to stop this.

A shot rang out.

You’d visibly flinched at the sound, such a contrast to the eery silence that fell over you all in the forests of Kaller. You opened your eyes, unsure as to when you’d closed them. You were met with the sight of the Sniper’s barrel smoking. Hunter’s arm beneath the weapon, having pushed the shot up over your shoulder. You met Crosshair’s visor again and your heart finally shattered.

Crosshair’s shaking hands threw his weapon onto the ground, almost in disbelief, moving to clutch the side of his helmet in pain. Despite the bucket covering his face, you could read every emotion he went through like a book.

More tears made their way down your face as you used the Force to launch the man you loved into a tree, effectively knocking him out for a short period. Hunter tore off his helmet and grabbed you by the shoulders as you sank to your knees. You were sure your face mirrored Depa’s as she died. After all these years, how could the Clones do this to the Jedi? How could Crosshair do this to you?

“General, I’m here. Whatever’s going on, I don’t understand it, but I won’t hurt you. I swear.” You studied his features, the equal amount of confusion and despair in his gaze. You believed him.

“Hunter, you’ve got regs incoming” Wrecker’s voice sounded from the Sergeant’s helmet. The Clone wasted no time pulling a spare comm from the back of his armour, one Tech had tampered with it seemed. He pressed it into your hands and looked you dead in the eye.

“Go, get the kid to safety. We’ll contact you when we figure out what this order sixty-six is, and what’s happened to Crosshair. We’ll rendezvous somewhere safe.”

“Hunter I-”

“You have to do this, and we can’t lose you, General. Go, I’ll look after the boys. I promise to keep them safe” I promise to keep Crosshair safe.

With a nod, you scrounged up one final bout of resolve before getting to your feet, ready to take off in search of Caleb.

Before you left, you spared another look at the man you loved, still sitting unconscious below a tree. His body was limp as the chin of his helmet sat against his chest. You hated that it had come to this. That you had actually hurt him in some way.

Putting all your trust in Hunter, you mentally said goodbye to Crosshair and the rest of the Batch before you finally departed among the trees. Unsure as to when you’d next hear Wrecker’s boisterous laugh, Echo’s kind words, Tech’s rambling, or Hunter’s terrible jokes. Not knowing when you’d next feel Crosshair’s soft breathes against your neck as you slept surrounded by everything that he was. Uncertain for your future and with a shattered heart, you kept running.

Back to Masterlist

[lightsovermonaco]

His Good Sweater: Chapter 10

Masterlist

Shoutout to my bestie @acollectionofficsandshit for all the drunk comments she made while betaing this one... Wish you guys could see them lol

Word Count: 4.8k

Recommended song: “Amnesia" by 5SOS

Pierre paces in his dinky trailer at the Circuit of the Americas and desperately tries to forget you exist. He had already taken down the pictures on the wall but the images were burned into his brain. He had shoved your shirt under his bed, having absolutely no idea how it had made its way halfway around the world to taunt him.

He was slowly unraveling like a spool of thread on a loom as you wove him irrevocably into the tapestry of your life.

The race in Austin started in less than two hours and you hadn't texted him. Not once in the handful of years he'd known you had you neglected to wish him luck before a race, even if it was 2 am your time or you had exams, you always took thirty seconds to warn him to be safe and finish well.

He was beginning to think you hated him for how he'd acted at the gala last weekend, jealous and possessive from afar. Talking to you would have been the better choice. But seeing you laugh and dance the night away had hurt too much. He’d slipped out early after Victoria assured him she could find a ride and sped home to fall apart.

He had only barely managed to piece himself together in time for the race.

Pierre checks his phone for the third time in as many minutes and swears under his breath. He didn't know why he expected it to ring and for your face to pop up at this point. Even if you called to tear into him, he'd still fall to his knees at the sound of your voice. He just wanted to hear you speak, didn't care what was said, only that he could latch onto your words and lose himself in them.

Hope sparks when his phone chimes but he nearly throws it across the trailer when he sees Charles' name.

Heard from her yet?

No. At this point I'm beginning to think I never will again.

Maybe she fell asleep early?

It's 5 pm in London. I'll bet you she's eating a bowl of takeout from the Chinese place down the street, not sleeping.

Its still possible. Don't dwell on it. This isn't the headspace you wanna be in before a race. Block it out. I don't wanna see my best friend wind up hurt today.

Pierre didn't reply, if only because Charles was right. Worrying would get him nowhere. After his shitty qualifying yesterday, he started thirteenth on the grid so he had his work cut out for him. Austin offered plenty of opportunity for overtakes; he could get the job done if his team made the right calls. 

And if he made it to the podium, you would have to text him.

The thin mattress groans when he sits to unlace his hastily tied race boots. He folds his legs to sit criss cross and places his palms on his knees. The familiar pose already has some of the tension leaving his shoulders as his eyes slide shut. He breathes in for ten seconds, reflecting on what ails him. He holds the breath for five seconds before releasing it slowly.

He repeats the process until he comes to terms with the fact that you won't be wishing him luck. That was your choice; there was nothing he could do about it and therefore no sense reading into it. He had done all he could to convince you to trust him. The ball was in your court; he had to be patient and wait for you to take a shot.

“Focus,” he murmurs to himself, forcing any erroneous thoughts from his head. “Walk through the track.”

The circuit at Austin was challenging, consisting of a mix of 20 sweeping corners and scattered hairpins. He was almost lucky in a way to be starting so far back on the grid because turn one was only a few hundred meters from pole and their tires would be slightly colder and less grippy upon arrival than his would be. The few extra seconds afforded to him by starting thirteenth could mean the opportunity to leap frog past his rivals in the first corner.

The counterclockwise circuit meant he would have to keep an eye on his front left tire too, as it would wear faster than the others. He'd change gears an average of 66 times per lap, higher than similar length tracks like Monaco. Pit stops cost an average of nineteen seconds, meaning he would need to build a significant gap to the driver chasing him in order to avoid the threat of any undercuts.

There were too many variables occupying space in his mind to afford you a sliver of it.

Some time later he decides that his four leaf clover tucked safely in the worn leather of his wallet will provide all the luck he needs and switches on his pre race playlist after popping in his ear buds.

"Sights on the podium," he murmurs to himself, hand on the doorknob. "Let's race."

The bass flows through him as his feet carry him to the Alpha Tauri garage on autopilot, through the back entrance and to his plain white driver room. The familiar beats are a numbing salve spread on his frayed nerves, his anticipation rising like a crimson wave in his veins. He leaves his clothes in a haphazard heap in the corner and changes into the white fireproofs hanging nearby, thoughts momentarily veering to you knocking on the door and stripping them right back off.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he runs through his usual stretch sets until Pyry arrives to walk him through reflex exercises.

"How's your head?" Pyry asks, running him through more cool down stretches. "Do we need to take a minute and do some meditation?"

"Beat you to it," Pierre grunts out, pushing back against the hand on his head to work his neck. "I'm good."

"You sound better than you have all week, I'll give you that. Keep that focus, use it to propel yourself forward."

"Run me through the lineup again," Pierre requests, "I need something else to think about."

Because if he let his mind follow the path it wanted to, it would inevitably lead to you and undo the work he had done to avoid that. He needed to be empty of anything that wasn't racing, anything else was an unnecessary distraction that had the potential to end in disaster.

Pyry rattles off the grid in order of who Pierre needs to overtake, pausing between each name to give him time to recall their driving styles and potential chinks in their armor to exploit. He knew from tapes of previous years that Stroll often ran wide into turn one, giving Pierre the option to brake late and sweep up the inside. Vettel was half convinced the track was cursed, so his mind would work against him enough that Pierre could exploit it and get past at some point. He continued until he got to Hamilton and Max locking out the front row, where he would need a bit of luck to overtake.

"You got it?" Pyry asks, stepping back.

Pierre rolls his shoulders and nods. 

"Get shit done mate," Pyry says and bumps fists with his driver. He slips out to allow Pierre a moment to center himself before slipping into his race suit, leaving it half unzipped and tying it around his waist before following his trainer.

Pyry leads the way to where the matte navy and white car waits, mechanics swarming it like studious worker bees tending to their queen. No one talks to him save his engineer because words from anyone else threaten to break his carefully constructed race mentality. If they wanted him to bring home points, they knew to leave him alone once he was suited up.

His mind is blank of anything but statistics as he twists his ear buds in and pulls on his balaclava and helmet. As his vision narrows to the sliver of track he can see through his visor, so does his focus. With forty minutes to lights out, he's directed out onto the track. He rips the wheel to the right as he exits the garage, getting a decent powerslide for his efforts.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would land on the podium, if only to see the look on your face when he did.

**********

It took an unfathomable amount of restraint to keep yourself from calling Pierre to wish him luck.

You texted Max instead, wishing him a safe and comfortable podium a half hour before lights out. He hadn't responded, likely already in the garage with his trainer going through his pre race routine.

The pace Max had set the day before had awarded him pole position and the margin between him and Hamilton had been enough that you were confident in his ability to hold off the Mercedes for all fifty six laps.

If you were honest with yourself, you were disappointed that the Alpha Tauri you so desperately tried to ignore would be starting in thirteenth. You try not to think about it, instead queueing up SkySports and opening your laptop for pre race coverage. You avoid the interviews in favor of listening to the commentators analyze the grid.

"It should be an easy win for Max as long as he fends off Hamilton until the first round of pit stops. The undercut works well here, as Red Bull proved last year, and I'm sure they plan on doing the same thing this year."

You hum in agreement, gingerly sipping your steaming tea. You really ought to consider a career as a sportscaster at this point based on how often you came to the same conclusions they did.

"I think one of the biggest shakeups is Russell starting all the way up in eleventh after his amazing qualifying for Williams yesterday. Think he can hold onto that position?"

"He's got some fierce competition not far behind in the form of Alpha Tauri. Gasly starts thirteenth- surprisingly far back on the grid given the otherwise flawless performance he's shown this year. But it seems likely that he should be able to overtake-"

You flick the tv on mute, unable to stomach listening to them sing his praises. You numb your mind with social media until the Formula 1 theme plays on your laptop, alerting you that there's a few minutes until race start. Tire blankets are peeled off and the drivers weave their way through the formation lap with the exception of Kimi who takes his traditional straight line approach to warm up his supersoft tires. 

Most of the front runners are on ultrasofts, indicating a two stop strategy. It was Pirelli's recommended approach, and you were glad that Horner heeded their advice for once and let Max use the ultras in Q2. It would give Max the upper hand over Hamilton who starts on the yellow sidewall tire and thus slightly slower lap times.

Crofty and Brundle break down the notable turns as the cars line up on the grid, pointing out the sharp hairpin only a few hundred meters from pole position. If Max got away clean, he would be ahead of the cramped pack and have an even better edge over the silver arrows who would be forced to queue behind him.

The traditional "lights out and away we go" kicks off the grand prix, engines roaring into the first turn. Max does manage to get away clean and is awarded with an immediate advantage. Turn one proves tragic for the Alfa Romeo of Raikonnen and the Asthon Martin of Stroll who collide and cause Kimi to spin. They rejoin at the back of the pack, your eyes snagging on the navy and white of an Alpha Tauri as it streams past. 

Your heart spins in a similar fashion when the GAS driver tag leaps up two places in the timing table, suddenly in eleventh due to the incident. Your gaze snaps to the laptop humming on your legs before you remember its Max's driver cam you queued up. The Dutchman is silent as his engineer relays information about the incident and informs him of the widening gap between those chasing him. 

“Confirm received,” Gianpiero says calmly. No matter the situation or how heated Max got, he always kept his head. It was what made the duo such a good match and had likely kept Max from going off the rails on more than one occasion.

“Yeah,” Max says shortly, clearly pissed about how quickly Hamilton was approaching. “Let me know when I’ve got enough charge to get out of range.”

“Yep, will do. Just keep this pace and you’ll hold him at bay.”

Live coverage replays the incident between Stroll and Raikonnen from the view of onboard with Pierre. The instant the 10 on the halo appears in the center of your screen you suck in a breath. He yanks the wheel to avoid colliding with Ocon, who had to do the same to keep from hitting his teammate as they navigate through the carnage.

You chew on your lip and try to refocus on the battle between the front runners. Not much is happening in the midfield for the next thirty or so laps and Max just barely manages to build a solid enough gap between himself and Hamilton to dive into the pits comfortably without losing places. 

Your phone rings and you answer it without checking who it was as the only person you wouldn't answer was currently occupied.

"Hello?"

"Why the fuck didn't they pit Daniel?!"

You grin, noting the blistering beginning on his front left tire as SkySports switches to his onboard camera. "Because he's about to pass Charles," you tell Dan's girlfriend. She didn't call you often during races. It was likely that she knew you were nearing your wits end and this was her way of offering support.

"He won't be able to with those tires- oh." She breaks off when Daniel passes a DRS detection zone and his rear wing opens, allowing him to pass the Monegasque with ease. 

"Told you," you say with a touch of reprimand. "You're always too nervous about those things. Daniel knows how to drive, just trust him to get the job done and he'll bring home another trophy for your apartment."

"I don't live here," she points out and you roll your eyes. She had lived in London as long as you had known her, but she was almost always at Daniel's apartment whether he was in town or not. Daniel digs in as the camera follows him for a lap, highlighting the widening gap between the McLaren and the Ferrari.

"You basically do. At this point, you're paying rent for a dusty one bedroom apartment on the east side that you set foot in maybe once a month." She scoffs but you push on, "a waste of sterling if you ask me, when you're at Daniel's every time I ask you to do anything."

"You act like I never- there goes Pierre!"

His name sparks dread in your gut as your attention flicks back to the screen in time to see him overtake Bottas on the inside of turn one. He'd managed to claw up to fifth with the move, somehow gaining places while you weren't looking.

"Good for him," you croak, trying your best to be genuinely happy for him. He was pushing the car to the limit and you'd be amazed if he didn't wind up on the podium along with Dan and Max. Charles and Hamilton were the only ones in his way, and something told you Charles wouldn’t put up much of a fight when his mate reached his gearbox. Hamilton would prove a challenge but he had been making tiny mistakes all day. Nothing significant, though enough to add up to him barely holding onto second while Daniel rode his gearbox.

"He's got ten laps to get past those two," she murmurs as if momentarily forgetting you were on the phone. 

"Can we talk about literally anything else please?" You whisper, half tempted to shut off the race completely. 

"Babe, you have to face the music at some point. Either you never want to see him again or you love him, which is it?"

She never failed to be anything but brutally honest. You appreciate it because everyone else let you brush off your problems, but she called you on your bullshit. She would needle you about it until you folded.

"I think it's better for both of us if I pretend we never met, don't you?"

"Easier for you, yes," she agrees. "But it'll kill Pierre. You don't think you could keep in touch with him, just as friends?"

"I don't know if I can handle that. I can barely look at him without wanting to bawl my eyes out."

She sighs, pausing to contemplate what to say. Voice soft, she continues, "Why don't you just take him back? Clearly it's ruining both of you. Are you really gonna let the press wreck the best you ever had? I know its hard but-"

"I'm not like you," you cut in. "I can't just ignore the articles and the comments and pretend there aren't people out there that hate me for being with him. They came to my house, disrupted my family. Hell, Ben can't even go to school without being mobbed by his classmates demanding answers. If my suffering is what allows my family to go about their lives then so be it."

"If that's what you wanna believe."

You sigh, tangling your fingers in the hem of your shirt. "It is."

"Alright," she says, voice teetering on a knife's edge. "I know better than to try to change your mind when you're like this. He's on the podium by the way. Oh, and watch what you say to Max- Pierre will read into it."

She hangs up without a goodbye, leaving you to deal with the realization that the podium is indeed VER RIC GAS on your own. Your eyes are glued to the Red Bull and McLaren drivers, blatantly ignoring the one in the white suit as the anthems play and the champagne is sprayed, turning away to busy yourself with making coffee when Daniel hands his liquid filled race boot to third place.

You weren't quite sure how you were supposed to watch what you said to Max- there was no reason to in your mind. Max was your next closest friend on the grid and you had every right to congratulate him if you wanted to.

Resolute in your decision, you text Max and Daniel a quick congratulations before shutting off the TV and closing your laptop.

Max's insane custom ringtone he'd selected for himself nearly makes you jump out of your skin when it blares from your phone.

"Hey great race-"

"Did you see it? I wasn't sure if you'd watch it- did you see my move on Hamilton when he tried to get past me?" He was talking a mile a minute like he was still out on track. "I was like- and then Dan tried to overtake me on the final lap and I was like no way! And then-"

"Max," you chime in, dragging out the 'a' with a sing-song voice. "You're rambling."

"Oh right. Yeah but I made it! Led every lap and finished with another win."

"That's great." You force as much enthusiasm in the words as possible, trying to match his chaotic energy. "You did great. I know it probably doesn't mean much, but I'm proud to be your friend. You beat a world champ!"

"It means a lot-" 

"Who's that?"

You stiffen at the familiar cadence. You had assumed Max was back in the garage when he called, but he must have still been in the podium room. You could picture him in his race suit, smudges of grease and dirt staining the pristine white. Beads of sweat probably ran down his neck, begging to be brushed away by your tongue. 

"Uh, no one," Max says in a lame attempt to cover up his digression. "I gotta go," he whispers to you. 

"Let me talk-"

"Wait don't," you start, but the call ends abruptly and you blink. You stare down at your phone, completely dumbfounded. Of course his instinct would be to talk to you, to share the euphoria of a podium with you. It was the first victory in three years he wouldn't have you to celebrate with.

It was only a matter of time until his resolve popped like the cork on his champagne.

**********

Pierre's phone is in his hand as soon as Max hangs up. He hefts his trophy in the other, a wild grin on his sweaty face as he snaps a picture. He makes sure he's the only one in the frame, shamelessly wanting himself to be the center of your attention.

"Mate," Daniel pipes up, catching his eye, "you think that's a good idea?" 

Pierre sighs, cutting the Australian a glare. "I'm just trying to fill her in."

"Wasn't your plan to give her space?"

"It's been a week, isn't that long enough?"

"Take it from me, sometimes it takes months for someone to figure things out. Hell, you know how long it took me to sort through my feelings for-"

"I know," Pierre cuts in. "I know. I just- a snap can't hurt can it? C'mon, I just got a podium! If it goes bad I can blame it on the post race jitters."

Daniel holds up his hands and shrugs. "You're a grown man. Do what you want."

Pierre studies the photo, scrutinizing the way his hair was plastered to his head and the awkward way he'd posed to keep anyone but himself out of the frame. It's his genuine smile that he knows will do you in, and ultimately the reason he sends it.

His phone is a lead weight clutched in his grip as he winds through the paddock, constantly stopped by vips and team members congratulating him. None of what anyone says registers, he just tries his best to match their mood and sputter praises about his team's contributions to his podium. 

The snap you finally send back is only from the eyes up, but it's enough. He's surrounded by people in his driver room, but for ten seconds it might as well have just been him staring at a sliver of your face on a screen.

The tiny lines at the corners of your shining eyes tell him you're smiling, which is a step in the right direction even if you won't let him see your entire face. It's enough to reignite the hope that slumbered in his chest while waiting for you to pull the trigger and make a move.

He sends back a video of the people in the room, who cheer when they realize they're being filmed. 'Wish you were here,' is what he captions it and sends it without giving himself a chance to overthink.

Ten minutes pass with no reply.

The beer he’s already consumed have given him a pleasant buzz as well as an excuse to make a bad decision or two. He takes another video of the room to post to his Instagram story, 'Missing you' written in the lower left corner.

Fuck, he hopes you'll see it and regret leaving him on read. Instead all he gets is a text from Charles chastising him for stirring up drama.

Really Pierre?

Blame it on the alcohol, he texts back. 

I know you aren’t drunk. You can’t form a coherent sentence when you are.

Guess i gotta drink more then

Pierre doesn’t turn anyone bearing alcohol away. He's two celebratory shots deep when Daniel finds him sulking in a corner. "You've got my girl texting me freaking out over your story. I've seen it and I gotta agree with her. Was that really necessary?"

"She left me on read," Pierre says like that was enough explanation. His head was spinning and it was getting hard to keep the room upright. "And it's the truth. I miss her like hell. I want her here. She was supposed to come, you know? I was gonna have her fly in with me on the jet. She doesn't start class again until June. I had this whole week planned out. I was gonna show her Texas- she’s from New York and..." 

He trails off when he notes Dan’s pitying smile. Daniel sighs and runs a hand through his curls. "I know. I get it, okay? I know it's hard but you can't force it. You've gotta let her come back on her own, all you're doing now is pushing her away."

He was fucking clueless when it came to these things. He'd had you for a few precious moments and now that he'd lost you he didn't know how to act. His mind was running on hazy autopilot; he barely knew which way was up, let alone did he trust himself to make any sort of important decision.

He stares down at the shot he'd been handed at some point before throwing it back. The cheap whiskey burns his throat but he barely registers the sting. "Should I take it down?"

"She already saw it," Daniel says gently, as if he anticipates how bad the fuck up will hurt. And it does. It hits him like a tire wall at two hundred kph, knowing that you were probably ranting or crying on the phone with Daniel’s girlfriend. "But yeah, that's probably best. People are already wondering what happened between you two, no need to throw fuel on the fire."

"You're probably right-" Pierre cuts off when Charles arrives with a grimace on his face. He shakes his head and gives his friend’s shoulder a squeeze. 

"For once I'm not the dumb one."

"You're a dick, you know that right?" Daniel says, allowing Pierre to delete the post. It takes him a few tries before he gets it down, but undeniably rumors will be circulating in the morning if they weren’t already.

"Honestly what were you thinking?" Charles demands, edging towards full blown yelling. "I told you to leave her be. The gossip stemming from this isn’t gonna help.”

The last thing he needed was someone else telling him how stupid his decision had been. At least Daniel had the decency to show sympathy. 

"Honestly?" Pierre responds with the same intensity, his anger flaring. "Honestly, Charles, I was thinking that she was happy for me but was too afraid to take the leap. She haunts me. Every second I’m awake I have to force myself away from her. Even when I’m asleep I can’t get away from her. So I don’t know, maybe I wanted to haunt her too."

“This isn’t the way you win her back and you know it.”

“I know!” Pierre throws up his hands. “But what else am I supposed to do? She won’t talk to me. She has no problem talking to Max or Daniel but apparently she draws the line at me.”

“You know it’s not-” Daniel's eyes flick to his phone and he fights back a grin. All it does is remind Pierre that he lost the person that could bring that sort of smile to his own face. "Fellas I wish I could stay and help but I gotta get going. Charles, I think Pierre needs another drink." He slaps five American dollars in the Monegasque's hand. "First one is on me."

Pierre is too deep in a spiral to care when his friend drags him from the party to a bar just south of the circuit. Somehow it was within walking distance; the floor was sticky and the lighting was for shit but he didn't care.

Pierre's focus was on downing shot after shot, erasing the broken image of you his mind had conjured up. He never should have posted the story. It only served to feed into what the media had been speculating for the past week and dredged up more tension between you.

Pierre stops checking his phone two shots later. The liquor provides a wet blanket over his senses, dousing him in cold water and scrambling his brain. He could barely remember his own name, but yours still lived in the corner of his mind.

Even drunk, he refused to forget you.

Two hours and who knows how much alcohol later, Charles helps Pierre back to his hotel room.

Pierre falls asleep as soon as he hits the mattress, head too blurry to dredge up memories of you.

[starilicious]

der lagi lekin (hunter x force-user!gn! reader + ep. 8 fix-it)

》 summary: tbb episode 8 fix-it featuring a force-user reader who used to be a jedi. reader is a part of tbb and in a relationship with hunter, but the squad–nor hunter–knows that reader is a force-user. (disclaimer: all of this was written before episode 9 was released! see a/n for an explanation ^_^) (another disclaimer: if you want just the hunter x reader comfort, please let me know and i'll finish it up and post it!)

》 word count: ~8k (yeah, it's a lot LOL)

click here to read on AO3

》 warnings: in-universe swearing, mental breakdown, some slight sensory overloads, pretty mild panic attack, light canon-typical violence, angst + some comfort, survivor's guilt from surviving order 66, no use of y/n, slightly plot heavy because i got way too carried away in writing (whoops?) [if i should add more warnings, please let me know!]

》 spoilers: major ones for tbb episode 8 "reunion"

》 a/n: okay look, i gotta confess: this wasn’t supposed to be an episode 8 fix-it. really. i’m actually glad cad bane won because we get to see that the clones don’t always win every fight... i think it makes for a better and more complex story. anyway, i started out writing just reader and hunter comfort after episode 8 ended. but i’m weak for omega because she reminds me so much of my younger siblings and i ended up writing a wholeass fix-it to save her (even tho cad bane is a downright badass). i kind of liked what i did with building up the plot so much that i might continue this story of force-user!reader with tbb. but that’s a tangent we can deal with later. if you would like a part two with the hunter x reader comfort this was originally intended to be, let me know!

as i said in the summary, i wrote all of this before episode 9 came out–just be aware of that. because it’s so long, it took me a while to edit, which is why i’m posting after ep. 9 was released. but without further ado, i hope you like it! <33

》 misc. notes:

• title of the fic is from the hindi song "der lagi lekin" from the film zindagi na milegi dobara. i linked the song in blue and linked the english translations in green in case you're curious! it's not necessary to listen or understand the song, but i thought it went well with the fic :)

“Everybody get down!” Wrecker yells. You and the squad immediately do as he instructs, diving towards the ground and covering your head. Stars, I hope this works.

The charges the six of you placed around the gigantic cone that surrounds the core cylinder explodes in a deafening blast. You curl into the tightest ball you can manage, breathing so hard that the HUD inside your helmet temporarily fogs up. Metal shards of the explosion rain down on you hard.

For a moment, it seems like nothing happened. But then you hear the telltale, ear-grinding creak of the durasteel and the squad is roughly catapulted forward from the force of the cone beginning to fall down.

You struggle to stand up as you lurch this way and that, trying to regain your balance and stabilize as Tech calls out, “Hold on!”

You quickly glance at the rest of the Bad Batch, trying to see if any of them were hurt. Other than the absolutely terrified look on Omega’s face, all is well considering the circumstances. The metal groans and begins its descent, taking your feeling of being grounded with it. The weightlessness is uncomfortably familiar to say the least, but you ignore it as the six of you scramble to hold on to the side of the cone. You certainly did your fair share of acrobatics back in the war, but feeling it hum around you...it’s too much. It’s too much. You elect to push it back into the depths of your brain. But it doesn’t leave.

It never really does.

Omega’s anxious whimpers come in faintly through your thick helmet and you whip around, frantically trying to find where she is. But before you can find her, the cone lands vertically on its head and the force is so violent that your stable hold on the durasteel is broken. Panicked, you quickly fire a grappling hook towards the ledge where you were previously hanging on. The hook catches and you stop abruptly, the jerky movement almost wrenching your arm out of its socket.

You look down to see Omega falling from someone’s grip and into Hunter’s arms. You can barely tell where anyone is thanks to the lack of light and the incessant motion.

The cone begins to topple onto its side and suddenly, your wire snaps from the tension. You let out a scream of surprise as you plummet downwards, wind rushing past your helmet. ForceIdon’twanttodieohmyMakerohno–

But you never hit the ground, instead being flung sideways as the cone tears into two. On trained instinct, you tuck yourself into a ball to try and roll in order to break your fall instead of using it. That time is long gone.

You land with a sickening thud and hiss in pain as your back hits the metal hard. You hear something crack, but whether it is your armor or something internal, you have absolutely no idea, and don’t have time to check before you black out.

✧✦✧

You jolt awake, a sound making its way into your consciousness. Finally, the damn place stopped moving. You take a few minutes to try and relieve the painful pressure in your chest, reaching up to rip your helmet off because you can’t breathe, you can’t breathe.

You tilt your head back as you struggle to take in air and let the adrenaline subside. You hear voices in the distance and you strain your ears to pick up on the sound as you quickly check yourself over. As far as you can tell, nothing major is broken, and at this point, that is all that matters. Though, your head is pounding, and for more reasons than one

“–nter.. port side... what… status?”

You can’t tell who is speaking, the message too far away for you to hear. But the bits and pieces are enough for you to know that it’s someone from the Bad Batch and that you weren’t unconscious for long. You stand up and dust yourself off before slowly walking to where you believe the origin of the sound is.

“–engine… got company.” A blaster sound and then an explosion rings through the quiet.

Your eyes widen and you quickly pick up the pace, getting your blaster ready as you pick your way through the sharp metal that is jutting out from the ground.

You click on your wrist comm. “Echo, you there?” A faint crackle before his voice comes through, but the signal is scratchy. You frown in frustration.

“–are you? Hunter is... port side,” Echo says and you smack your commlink to try and get the electronics to work, but it’s no use. The device is broken, most likely from the fall, you deduce.

“Meet… Marauder.”

You don’t bother to answer, knowing Echo would probably not even be able to hear what you had to say anyway. Without a signal booster or repeater, there’s no way you can get your transmission across the channel frequency.

It takes a few minutes, but you eventually find the night sky of Bracca blinking down at you at the end of the ripped off cone. You run out to find that you’re in the middle of where the cone broke in half. Okay, new plan. I need to find Hunter. Hunter will know what to do.

You scan your surroundings. The HUD isn’t picking up on any lifeforms near you, and you realize with sinking dread that you have no more options. Whichever piece you climbed through to get to your squadmates, it would take too long for you to search for them since you don’t know their coordinates and your comm isn’t working. Frankly, the Empire–Crosshair–would find you first. You have to use it.

You have to use the Force.

A wave of nausea overcomes you at the mere thought of it and you sway. In an attempt to ground yourself, you tear off your helmet to breathe some fresh air and end up keeling over as the bile rises in your throat. Nothing comes out. You can’t tell if that’s a positive or not.

You could have saved them. Someone. Anyone.

It itches at you in the back of your head, wishing to be let out of its cage. But you can’t. You can’t do it. What’s the use anyway? All you would be doing is saving yourself. The choice of surviving it all has haunted you ever since. Your head pounds in agony.

You saw it happen. You could have helped them. And you ran like a coward. Only ever concerned about yourself.

You inhale sharply as the scene flashes before your eyes, clones shooting at you and the other Jedi. The blaster fire. The confusion. The screams.

How pathetic.

The last statement, an echo of Crosshair’s words, bounces around in your brain. You clutch your head as you let out a heartbroken sob, knee deep in the dirt and metal and grief. Tears create clean tracks down your face as you finally break down, the flood of emotions bursting the dam open. At this point, you don’t know if the emotions are yours or the ones you previously felt through the Force, all of them swirling and blending into one. The bottled up anguish merged together when you attempted to cut yourself off from the Force after the clones–your friends–attacked.

The pain of their death is perhaps the worst of all. Horror courses through you as you finally process your friends and mentors dying around the galaxy, their deaths, their distress, their fear reverberating heavily throughout the Force. Each one cripples you further as you once again struggle to breathe.

It feels like light years pass when you finally calm down to a practically numb state of being. The scenes stop replaying behind your closed eyelids and the echoing shrieks die down to a faint, hollow whisper. You’re suddenly exhausted, limbs heavy and energy sapped. It was almost relieving to finally let the Force once again flow through your body, your nerves lightly tingling with potential despite how tired you feel. You collapse onto the ground and try to recenter yourself.

But despite finally acknowledging the loss, it doesn’t feel right. You didn’t get to say goodbye. You hadn’t been able to even think about them, much less honor them, too focused on going on the run to concentrate on anything beyond the next day’s survival. Even once you joined the Bad Batch, you were paranoid about their chips, about your friends turning on you at any moment. You were always extremely reluctant to engage in the Force, even at the worst of times.

With a start, you realize that you don’t need to worry about your squadmates. Their inhibitor chips are now gone. You… you are safe.

You let out a shocked laugh as it sinks in. A glimmer of hope, of peace. I’m safe.

You sit up then, criss-crossing your legs as you survey the broken landscape of Bracca. Despite the planet being a graveyard, you feel lucidly alive. Perhaps something died in you, that wretched day. But something else, slowly but surely, began growing in its place. It’s meek, but it’s there.

You let out a breath and close your eyes, reaching for the Force like it’s an old friend. It accepts your invitation with hesitation, joining hands with you as if you did not try beating it to death for days on end. You sink into the gentle lapping waves of the Force, extending into it and widening your scope.

There’s something that lurks beneath the surface, in the deep. Dark and sinister and so utterly painful. It calls to you, quiet and low. Enticing. Tempting. And something in you knows that it’s the reason for your previous life’s demise.

But you can feel Hunter’s–and Omega’s, you realize–presence near you in the Force. Even with your relatively damaged connection to the Force after Order 66, the Bad Batch’s Force auras were something you could always hone in on. You let yourself direct your focus to the duo, letting their emotions be your beacon to the acceptance of the Light side of the Force.

In a split second, you decide to not dive deeper into the Force. This isn’t the place nor the time to discover what is prowling in the endless yawning of the Force, to discover why everything happened. So you direct your concentration to the beings on the planet, feeling and breathing your way through the Life Force.

You freeze. There’s something here. No… someone. Your eyebrows furrow as you divert your attention away from your friends and other organisms to the peculiar source. Something about this person strikes you as familiar.

Your eyes snap open and you gasp. I’m not alone. A Force-sensitive. Someone survived. Giddy beyond belief, you snatch up your helmet and begin trekking your way across the wreckage in the opposite direction of Hunter and Omega before pausing. Whoever this person is doesn’t know about your presence on the planet.

And despite the fear you felt emanating off of them in the Force, you somehow knew they were safe, at least for now. And they would remain so if you have anything to say about it. Maker forbid anything that jeopardizes this person’s fragile safety. After all, you know best what it’s like to constantly flee scene after scene.

Staying away is the best thing to do. I’ll come back for you, whoever you are.

You double back and make quick work of getting across the debris as you focus your concentration on Hunter’s and Omega’s Force signatures. As you get closer to the port side, you hear Omega’s high voice. Through your HUD, you can see her small form. You grin. She disappears then, and on closer inspection, you figure she jumped through some broken cargo doors.

The entrance she and Hunter took is too high for you to jump up to, even with the aid of the Force. Combined with your wariness of probe droids, you decide to take a different route from the right side, climbing up the broken ship. The slick oil mixed with the water still present on the metal makes for a difficult trek, and you slip more times than you would like to admit.

Hunter’s gruff voice floats up towards you and you scramble the last few meters to the edge of a hole in the ceiling before pausing. The Force is itching at the back of your head. Something’s wrong.

You peek over the edge of the giant slab of durasteel that created the hole to see bodies in white armor littered everywhere–clones, you realize. Your heart pangs in sadness at the sight.

Slightly to your right, a blue figure and a techno-service droid stand in front of a ship and a frightened Omega stands behind a defensive Hunter. Your mouth drops open. Kriff.

Cad Bane.

A memory from near the beginning of the war hits you in full force. You and Anakin had taken some time on Coruscant to catch up with each other after you passed your trials and were promoted to Jedi Knight. He told you about a mission where he had to stop a bounty hunter who successfully stole a Jedi holocron. You remember how surprised you were when you heard the bitter disgust in Anakin’s voice. The ruthlessly cunning bounty hunter not only threatened to kill Ahsoka, but he murdered Master Ropal.

Judging by the looks of it, Hunter doesn’t know who he is. If the Anakin Skywalker had a difficult time with Cad Bane, there is no way in sithhell Hunter can take him on, even with his enhanced senses. Frankly, you seriously doubt you can either, especially with how rusty your Force skills are now. And that means this isn’t going to end well.

You watch carefully as you tune into the conversation.

“Ain’t you smart?” Bane smirks. “The kid’s got it all figured it out.”

“You’re in trouble now!” the droid exclaims, pointing at Hunter and Omega. You grit your teeth in annoyance.

“Who hired you?” Hunter asks. Stalling. Not a bad move, Hunter.

“Son,” Bane sighs, already done with the brief conversation. “That’s confidential information. Now hand her over.”

Omega stays behind Hunter, taking a knee as Hunter walks forward protectively. You bristle. How am I supposed to help from up here?

“She’s not going anywhere.”

Your eyes drift over the scene in a panic and you take in the fallen clones again. An idea pops into your head. It is desperate, but at this point, you don’t have much of a choice.

Bane mimics Hunter’s movement, walking forward and putting a hand near his belt. The tension is as thick as duracrete.

“That’s unfortunate… for you.”

You grab the long barrel piece from your belt, fitting it over your blaster hurriedly as the showdown begins. Out of the corner of your eye, you see them staring each other down and you can’t help but roll your eyes. Men.

During the war, Crosshair helped you re-engineer your weapon so you could put together various pieces in the field to make a blaster gun that loosely resembled his own sniper. Seeing the clones reminded you of him. A wave of sadness washes over you, but you shake your head. Now is not the time.

You screw on the telescopic sight and set up your makeshift sniper. You peer through the viewfinder and find Bane’s chest. Your finger tenses over the trigger.

You let yourself sink deep into the Force, let it guide your actions. Inhale. Exhale. I can do this. As you relax, the mellow warmth you missed so dearly washes over you, gently eroding the torment in your mind and heart, guiding your focus to the here and now. Trust in the Force.

Wait.

Wait.

Now.

You fire two bolts straight into your target the same exact moment Bane and Hunter shoot each other. Hunter’s shot hits the droid, breaking off its leg. Bane’s shot hits directly in Hunter’s chest, as yours did Bane. Both men immediately fall backwards and slam into the ground.

“My booster!” Oh. So not a leg. Got it.

“Hunter!”

Kriff kriff kriff. You jump down nimbly from your hiding spot in the ceiling and immediately sprint towards the duo. Is he dead? You would unapologetically release sithhell on Bane if he killed the man you love.

Omega panics as she tries to wake Hunter up, continuously calling his name before taking a glimpse of her surroundings. Before you can react, she grabs her bow and pulls it taut, aiming at you. She looks petrified.

“Whoa! Omega, it’s me!” you exclaim, holding your hands up in surrender. She takes a moment to actually look at you before sagging in relief. Suddenly, the droid comes speeding out of nowhere and Omega shoots, the energy bolt whizzing past your waist and straight into the droid before it can attack you from behind.

The shot rings true and the grumpy robot falls. You turn around to grab at its exposed parts under its head and yank them out to make sure it can’t power on again.

“Thanks, Omega. I owe you one,” you say and Omega gives you a proud smile.

You place a comforting hand on her shoulder before kneeling down to shake Hunter awake, but it doesn’t work. You take a moment to analyse Hunter’s Life Force. It’s a bit dimmer, but it’s constant, meaning he’s out cold and doesn’t have the life draining out of him. You let out a sigh of relief. He’s alive. You glance back to see Bane still not moving. Good.

“What’re we gonna do?” Omega whispers as you both peer down at Hunter. His armor is smoking from Bane’s blaster shot and you exhale through your teeth, trying to come up with a plan. You slip off a glove to check Hunter’s pulse–it’s strong. You don’t want to leave Omega alone, even if Bane is unconscious, but you aren’t sure you have a choice.

“Well we can’t carry him to safety, neither of us are strong enough for that,” you think aloud, gears churning in your head. You would have to wait for help, even if you were sitting ducks.

Briefly, you entertain the thought of taking Bane’s ship. The only problem is you don’t know what trackers or other gadgets are in there–it’s too costly of a risk and a price you weren’t willing to pay. You sigh, resigned.

“Omega, you try to comm the others and see if you can wake Hunter up. I’m going to go inside this guy’s ship and see if I can find something that can help us. We have to get out of here before the bounty hunter wakes up,” you instruct and Omega nods, youthful determination flooding back into her eyes.

You leave her to it, walking cautiously towards Bane’s ship. You look down at him. His armor is smoking in two places from the shots you fired. Based on what you see, he’s still unconscious, and his Life Force reflects the same conclusion. How long that would remain, you don’t know. Which means you need to work fast.

You board the ship while you remove the sniper attachments from your blaster and clip them back onto your belt. You keep your guard up as you look around. No droids. Guess that techno-service droid is his one and only.

In an effort to slowly re-familiarize yourself with the Force, you send out a quick pulse through it to see if there are any lifeforms aboard the ship, relaxing when you find none. You rummage through all the cabinets that you discover, looking high and low as you try to locate something of use. The secret compartment in the cockpit proves to be the fruitful reward to your search. With a wave of your hand, you unlock it with ease. Bingo.

Credits. Bags of them. And they’re unmarked creds, which make your score even better. Hopefully, it would be enough to pay off your debt to Cid and give the Havoc Marauder some much-needed upgrades.

Usually, you would feel bad about stealing from someone, but considering this was a bounty hunter – Cad Bane, no less – you figure you can risk treading the grey area of your moral code.

You grab as many bags as you’re able, stuffing them inside your backpack and clipping the rest onto your belt. At this moment, you’re incredibly grateful to Tech and Echo for designing a sturdy utility belt that fits you well. The standard ones were for clones and you definitely were not a clone.

You exit the cockpit and head to the second level of the ship to see if there’s anything else you can find. A stack of crates sits in the corner across from what you assume to be a prison. You scrunch your nose in disgust as you open one to find medical supplies. Bacta patches and gel, vitapaste, rations, water, gloves, sanitary napkins–it was all there. Delighted, you close the crate and click the repulsor to make it levitate. Oh how you love technology.

You turn around and walk back up the stairs to leave the ship. You freeze at the exit ramp. You have got to be karking kidding me.

“Sorry lil’ lady.”

Cad Bane stuns Omega in front of your eyes before rounding on you and immediately fires. In a desperate attempt to save yourself, you throw your hands up and the honeyed power of the Force rushes through every fibre of your being. The blaster bolts slow down to a snail-like crawl and your eyes widen. How did I…?

Never mind how you argue with yourself. Time to get out of here!

You tiptoe around each bolt, the effort of keeping them in stasis becoming more difficult with each passing moment. You grit your teeth as your arms shake, but you keep going until you are finally off the ramp. You lower your arms and the energy hits the inside of the ship, spazzing out the blinking controls inside.

Bane turns to you in surprise, astonished at how you’re suddenly in front of him. You don’t give him the luxury of processing the event and immediately punch him in the face with as much strength as you can muster. Bane pitches backwards and collapses onto the ground, just as he did the first time. You grab your stun blaster and shoot him as extra assurance. You really did not want this to repeat again. Hopefully he never wakes up with a memory of what I just did...

“Now stay down,” you mutter to a knocked out Bane, cradling your now injured hand. You have no idea how Wrecker ever does this because wow your hand is killing you.

You have to say, you’re pretty proud of yourself for being able to render him unconscious not once, but two times. You wish you could tell Anakin–the thought saddens you. He’s probably dead too.

With that vividly cheery thought, you stagger back from the ramp in exhaustion, weary from the sudden surge of the Force still ebbing and coursing through your body.

None of the Bad Batch knew you used to be a Jedi–not even Hunter. It was something only a few of your closest Jedi friends and the Jedi Council knew about.

But after what happened today, with Rex helping your squadmates get their inhibitor chips out, with you finally letting the Force in… maybe it is time to tell them. The secrecy wouldn’t be needed anymore now that you were sure you were safe around your friends. But clearly, the universe wanted to throw a nasty vibroblade in your plans by knocking Hunter and Omega unconscious and having the best kriffing bounty hunter in the galaxy be hot on your heels.

You take a few seconds to get your breath back and regain your mental energy. You aren’t out of the woods yet. You run inside Bane’s ship to grab the crate of medical supplies before sprinting back out towards Hunter and Omega.

You lean down and pat Omega’s cheek gently, trying to wake her up, but she’s out cold. Why is everyone around me unconscious? Frankly, you’re equally amused and terrified by the situation laid out in front of you.

You sigh, looking around to see if you can find some cover. There’s a giant sheet of durasteel to your left, big enough to act as a barrier in case trouble comes knocking. You bend down and pick Omega up before placing her down cautiously, leaning her small body against the metal. You repeat the action with the crate you found.

The third time proves to be much more difficult. Hunter certainly isn’t as muscular as Wrecker, but he sure as sithhell isn’t as light as Omega. You tap your foot nervously, trying to figure out a way for you to lift him. Yes, you could use the Force, but you don’t want to alert the other Force-sensitive on the planet. If they knew about your existence, it could put them in danger, and that was the last thing you wanted.

Giving up, you place your hands underneath Hunter’s armpits and effectively drag him all the way over, propping him up as you did Omega. You cringe at the sound of his armor grating the floor. There are sure to be dirty scuff marks on it now. Sorry Hunter.

Just as you’re about to sit down next to him, heaving deep breaths from the exertion, you pause. A warning is practically blaring in the Force and you tense, urgently trying to figure out the cause.

“Not again,” you mumble under your breath. You can’t handle any more action today. With Hunter and Omega both down, and your extreme fatigue from engaging in the Force, you don’t know how much of a fight you can put up. Not to mention you never trained as a soldier. There was a reason why you left the military planning strategies to the Bad Batch.

You hold your blaster close to your chest as you scan the environment. Bane is immobile and so is the dismantled techno-service droid. So what’s wrong?

Ten nerve-wracking seconds pass before you get your answer. Clone voices waft up to your hiding spot and you bite your cheek in frustration as your head continues to pound. Your headache still hasn’t stopped.

There is no way you can fight them all off, especially if Crosshair is with them. They are too far away for you to get a read on how many there are, and frankly, you’re much too scared to even peek around the durasteel to count.

One of Tech’s previous statements floats through your mind. About three attack shuttles worth.

You can feel your heart thumping wildly in your chest, blood rushing through your ears as anxiety ties your stomach into knots. I can’t do this, I can’t do this, Ican’tdothis.

You take deep breaths, doing your best to clear your mind and focus. You had to do this. There is no other option other than surrendering or dying. No, damnit, you would go down fighting until the Life Force left you.

You peer just past the edge of the metal to see at least twenty clones heading your way. Certainly not ideal, but you bide your time. If you started shooting now, you couldn’t use the element of surprise to your advantage and they would easily overwhelm you. But once they’re close enough, you hope you can at least take a couple out before having to resort to using the Force. It isn’t ideal, but it’s all you have.

Honestly, you don’t know if you could get out of this one alive, much less protect Hunter and Omega too. Maker help me.

It throws you off when they finally come into sight–you see how plain the clones’ armor looked without paint. You never really noticed it before since you were always running for your life in those circumstances. But now that you think about it, you are so used to seeing bright blue or green or yellow that the alabaster white just seems so… odd.

“Looks like a big fight happened here.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. All these men are dead.”

Now.

You whip your body around the metal and immediately begin shooting as fast as you can pull the trigger, trying to make every shot count. The troopers hesitate for just a moment, most likely due to their surprise of you being there. But that second is all you need.

You take out the three men closest to you before jumping back behind the metal as their barrage of fire rains down on you. You do your best to shoot back and manage to take out one more clone, but they’re beginning to gain too much ground too fast. I can do this. I have to do this.

As far as you can tell, Crosshair isn’t with the clones attacking you, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t set up shop somewhere nearby, waiting to shoot you.

You shudder. It’s a chilling thought.

You grab one of your last detonators from your belt and hurl it as far as you can. The rapid beeping rises quickly in pitch before the charge explodes. Anguished cries reverberate throughout the area, and you briefly feel sorry for having to take such drastic measures as you feel their Force signatures dim swiftly. But you don’t have a choice.

Peeking around the corner, you count around eight to ten clones down. Not bad considering the circumstances.

You continue shooting as much as you can but now the troopers are much too close for comfort and you’re feeling overwhelmed. The durasteel you are using for cover isn’t meant to take this kind of damage, and the integrity of your shield is quickly waning as told by the constant creaks and groans. You don’t know what to do. Will we make it?

In your haste of shooting first and panicking later, you don’t notice Hunter groaning, finally waking up. And before you have time to even glance at him, the familiar hum of the Havoc Marauder and its lights shine down on you. Your sag in relief. Looks like Omega was able to comm them after all. Never before have you been so glad to see the beat-up hunk of junk. (You would never say that to Tech though–the Marauder is his baby, his pride and joy.)

Echo, Wrecker, and Tech all race off the ship, guns ablazing. Wrecker and Tech stand guard, serving as cover fire while Echo bends down to help you out.

“Hunter, wake up!” Echo hisses and smacks his helmet lightly. Hunter mumbles in pain as he starts to move, trying to look around as his HUD boots back up. Seriously? Now you wake up? you think sarcastically. But you’re much more relieved at the fact that he has actually woken up.

“What happened? Where’s Omega?” Wrecker bellows, worried.

“She’s right here, I’ve got her!” you shout back at the same time Echo says, “He was shot in the chest plate.”

You pocket your blaster and gather the young girl in your arms with every last bit of strength you have left. You aren’t strong enough to hold her in one arm and shoot with the other. That is much more up Wrecker’s alley.

“We have to get him on board!” Tech exclaims as he helps Echo support Hunter. You pick Omega up in both arms and bolt for the ship as fast as you can while yelling at Tech to grab the crate of supplies.

“Incoming!” Wrecker calls out as a fresh wave of troopers advance towards the six of you. You grunt as you deposit Omega in a chair near the controls before pulling out your blaster and helping Wrecker shoot down the men racing towards you.

“Got him. Tech, fly us out of here!” Echo commands while Wrecker makes a gesture for them to get on the ship faster. Hunter stumbles as he does his best to upright himself.

“Go go go!” Wrecker exclaims. Tech shoves the crate next to Omega’s seat and makes a beeline for the cockpit as you continue shooting, moving to the side to make space for Echo and Hunter to come on board. Wrecker quickly climbs in right after them and the ramp closes shut.

Tech immediately pilots the Havoc Marauder up and away from the scene. You vaguely hear the sound of blaster fire hitting the bottom of the ship while you drop your blaster on the ground and wrench Hunter’s helmet off in a panic. You take his face in your hands as you scan him quickly, trying to figure out if he’s hurt or not.

Hunter bats your hands away. “He... he took Omega,” he says and you shake your head. Wrecker pipes up from behind you to respond.

“Who? Crosshair?”

“The bounty hunter,” Hunter mutters as he rubs a hand over his face. Before Wrecker can answer again, you step in.

“No, he didn’t. I took him down. And no, he’s not dead,” you tack on quickly when you see Echo open his mouth. Echo shakes his head fondly and you just grin at him.

“She’s right here,” Echo says instead, pointing to Omega’s sleeping figure. Hunter turns in surprise to see that his brother is indeed telling the truth.

“How...?” Hunter’s voice trails off. Echo and Wrecker look at you expectantly, and Hunter follows suit. You sigh and take off your helmet, setting it down on the ledge next to the controls. You don’t look at them.

“It’s a long story.”

You don’t have a chance to elaborate any further because Tech walks in, interrupting the conversation.

“I’ve made the jump to hyperspace. There was a cruiser in the atmosphere, but I was able to quietly go past them by disguising our ship as a bounty hunter’s. They didn’t interfere. I put in the coordinates for Ord Mantell. I estimate our time of arrival to be five hours and thirty two minutes,” Tech reports and Hunter nods while you voice your thanks.

“Looks like we got time!” Wrecker says cheerily, pulling out an extra chair. Tech looks to you in confusion.

“Did I miss something significant?” Tech asks, concerned about the information he did not receive as he adjusts his goggles. You shake your head but now, all eyes are back on you.

“She was just about to tell us how she saved Omega,” Hunter supplies helpfully and Tech nods in understanding. He grabs a chair as well and sits down, interested in hearing what you have to say.

You look around the room, realizing you can’t get out of it. You are exhausted and just want to sleep but based on the looks you are getting from the boys, there is no way you can leave without giving a sufficient answer.

You sit down on a chair in between Omega and Echo and begin explaining.

“When the cone fell, it separated. I got knocked out when I hit the ground, but I don’t think I broke anything,” you quickly reassure as Tech grabs a datapad to scan your vitals.

“After I came to, I tried comming Echo, but my commlink was broken – I could only hear bits and pieces of what he said. There were some voices near me so I just followed them and–” you pause, not sure if you should tell them what happened. What you experienced, what you found out. “–I saw Hunter and Omega. The ledge I found was way too high for me to jump to, so I climbed up the side of the wreckage to see them and the bounty hunter facing off,” you say, choosing to leave the detail out. It was too personal. You still needed time.

All of them are listening intently, hanging on to every word you’re saying. Hunter’s gaze on you is heavy and loaded with questions. Tech is still tapping away on the datapad, but you know you have his full attention. Multitasking may not be possible for regular humans, but it definitely was for Tech.

“When I saw the bounty hunter, I knew Hunter wasn’t going to win,” you mumble sheepishly, rubbing the back of your neck. Hunter winces at your statement and you rush to explain why.

“Hunter, you have to trust that I genuinely don’t doubt your abilities. You are much more of a soldier than I will ever be. But this bounty hunter is one of the best, if not the best in the entire galaxy. He’s gone against the Jedi, and won. Based on what Anakin told me at the beginning of the war, Cad Bane is ruthless. He tortured Master Ropal and killed him. Believe it or not, I think he tried to abduct Chancellor Palpatine. Even Anakin had a difficult time fighting him.”

A tense quiet settles over you all as you mentally revisit your conversation with Anakin, and later with Ahsoka. She told you how it was one of the first times she was genuinely afraid that she was going to die, or at least get hurt very severely.

Echo’s rough voice shakes you out of your reverie. “How do–did you know General Skywalker?” he asks, clearly confused at how you referred to him on a first-name basis. You mentally facepalm yourself. How did I forget he served as part of the 501st? You feel incredibly stupid.

You could make up a lie, of course, but it wouldn’t be worth it. Hunter’s enhanced senses and Tech’s vitals scan could probably pick up on your biological signs, not to mention you would feel terribly guilty about not being honest. I promised myself I would tell them…

You blow out a nervous breath, deciding to at least give them something. They deserved that much.

“I’m–well, I was a Jedi,” you admit, staring down at your feet. You can’t bring yourself to look at them, feeling almost… ashamed.

The boys are shocked into silence and you cringe. There was probably a much better way for you to say that, but now it was out there. Yet the pressure that had been weighing down on you since you let the Force back in didn’t lessen.

“What?” Wrecker questions, thrown completely for a loop. “You’re a Jedi?”

Before you can answer, Tech pipes up. “When I reviewed your medical data, there was no note about an elevated midi-chlorian count or any sort of connection to the Force. Additionally, there is no documentation of you serving as a General or a Commander during the war in the Republic military records. How were you a Jedi? And why aren’t you one now? You used past tense in your sentence,” Tech adjusts his goggles as he attempts to register this new information that conflicted with his previous knowledge.

You sigh, drumming your fingers on your thigh. “I left the Jedi Order before the war ended. I promise I’ll explain everything in detail later, but for now, you have to understand that I’m just a Force-user. I trained as a Jedi, but I’m not a Jedi, not anymore,” you clarify, lifting your head up to make eye contact with each of them.

“Aw man, that’s so cool. You have to show us your cool mind tricks sometime!” Wrecker smiles and you agree to his request. It warms your heart to see him so excited.

“It makes sense. You must have seen the regs turn on the Jedi but didn’t know why. When you started traveling with us, you didn’t know if we would turn on you too, even though we’re not regs,” Hunter realizes, and you nod in affirmation. You’re secretly relieved by the fact that he doesn’t seem angry, just… just thoughtful.

“And then when I saw what happened to Crosshair, I knew I couldn’t risk ever telling any of you. But when Rex told us about the chips…” you trail off.

Echo picks up your sentence quickly. “You figured out you would be safe with us if we got our chips removed. No wonder you were so insistent on following what Rex said.”

You smile at the last part, a bit embarrassed. He wasn’t wrong. You were probably even more insistent than Rex was on telling them to get their inhibitor chips out. Better to be safe than sorry you told them. Though at the time, you hadn’t even thought about how removing their chips would impact you and your abilities. You were too focused on keeping the Force out of your body to entertain that thought.

Wrecker suddenly gets up and gathers you in a bone-crushing hug. “Well you don’t have to worry now! We got those stupid chips out of our heads, which means I promise we won’t kill you!” he says cheerfully and you can’t help but laugh as you hug him back, the knot in your chest beginning to unravel. You could always count on Wrecker’s wonderfully big heart to raise your spirits.

“You’re right, big guy. It’s honestly a relief. One less thing I have to worry about.”

Wrecker lets go of you and you pick up where you left off. “As I was saying, Cad Bane isn’t a bounty hunter we can take lightly. Crosshair helped me re-engineer my blaster to turn it into a pseudo sniper with attachable parts during the war. Because I was so high up, I could get a clear shot of Bane. From that vantage point, I shot him at the same time Hunter and Bane shot each other.”

Echo’s mouth drops open. “Damn.”

“What I didn’t expect was for Hunter to be rendered completely unconscious. So I told Omega to try to comm you guys while I went on Bane’s ship to see if I could find anything. And I did.” You pull off your backpack and dump out the contents. Bags of credits come tumbling out. You unhook the few bags on your belt and toss them into the pile.

“Bane had a secret compartment with a lot of credits. So I took them and that crate I yelled at Tech to get,” you explain as you reach into the bag to show off the Imperial credits.

Tech’s eyes widen as he lifts up a bag to inspect it. “I will have to calculate how much you took and mark it in the inventory, but based on my initial deduction, this may be enough for us to upgrade the Marauder and provide sustenance for at least a few months.”

“Nice one!” Wrecker compliments and you grin in response. “What’s in the crate?” he asks, walking over to lift up the top.

“Medical supplies. We barely had any left so I figured I might as well take that too,” you shrug as Hunter gets up to join Wrecker to peer at the contents.

“What happened after that? You said you told Omega to comm the others, which means she was awake. Did she get hurt while I was out? Is that why you look so exhausted?” Hunter inquires, astute as ever.

You bite your lower lip. “When I was getting off his ship with the goods, he had woken up again. Before I could do anything, he stunned Omega and then immediately shot at me,” you pause, wondering if you should elaborate on how you got out of the situation. You decide to come clean on this part.

“I… I don’t know how, but I was able to stop the blaster bolts and keep them – and Bane – in stasis with the Force. The problem was that it took a lot out of me. After not really using the Force for so long, my energy reserves were pretty much gone,” you sigh, absentmindedly rubbing your arms. Your muscles are still sore from the event.

“After that, I punched him and knocked him out again. I dragged you and Omega away from the ship so that I could protect you, and I ended up using that giant piece of durasteel as cover to fight off those clones. Then you guys came and rescued us and that’s that,” you finish, suddenly fatigued from the conversation. You slump back into your chair, perfect posture be damned.

“Wow,” is all Echo says, surprised by your strength. It took some serious stamina to be able to withstand so much for so long. Echo remembered seeing Commander Tano and General Skywalker be exhausted after some especially intense missions where they constantly had to use the Force.

“Yeah,” you mutter, massaging your dominant hand. It is still throbbing from the mean hook you threw at Bane. You don’t have any regrets. You glance at Omega’s sleeping figure and soften. The things I would do for this girl.

“Looks like I taught you well!” Wrecker laughs and you smile. When you first met the Bad Batch, Wrecker took it upon himself to teach you basic self-defense and how to overtake an opponent intelligently. Even though you already learned how to fight as part of your Jedi and military training, you couldn’t say no to him when he looked so excited. But it paid off because he’s right. Wrecker did teach you well.

“You did. You basically saved my ass out there with your amazing teaching skills,” you chuckle, glancing down at your hand. You think you’ll probably have to cover it in bacta gel to speed up the healing process before having yet another realization. (You seem to be having a lot of those today.)

I can just Force-heal. Before, you couldn’t Force-heal because it would look suspicious if something healed too fast. But now that they know, you don’t have to solely depend on medical supplies anymore.

Tech, as always, is right on cue. “Is your hand alright? For you to render Bane unconscious must have been no easy feat. Not to mention that according to the medscan I just took, you have a mild concussion, most likely due to your fall. I can run a medical diagnostic test to start and then run more specific tests to combat your pain...” Tech mutters the last part to himself, brain running light years faster than his mouth as his fingers fly over the datapad.

You debate it for a moment before nodding. “That would be great, Tech–thanks. But right now, I’m exhausted, so I’m going to go and crash in my bunk. Wake me up if I need to punch someone again,” you joke before shuffling away from your squadmates. You ruffle Omega’s hair affectionately as you pass by her and pick up your blaster from the ground before climbing down the ladder. You don’t notice Hunter’s troubled gaze or how his Force signature sours a bit as you leave.

You quickly clean up and throw on some bacta patches on a few nasty bruises. You sit down on your bed and pull the privacy curtain before deciding to open up your secret compartment next to your mattress. You stare down at the objects, the only things you have left as a reminder of the past. You reach down for one of them, about to touch it when you stop.

You shake your head and shut the drawer. Deciding to finally, finally hit the hay, you’re out like a light as soon as your head hits the pillow. Dealing with the Force and healing yourself could be done later. Not even your constant pain and crippling worry about your family friends could keep you up any longer.

please consider reblogging! it really helps me and is super encouraging ^_^

[kyberconfessions]

No Matter Where You Go, I Will Find You. part 1

So this is the first full length story I have worked on in years. It will be different from all the snippets and one shots I have shared lately and will continue on in a multi-part series, spanning across Clone Wars and Rebels and into a bit of Legends Star Wars.

This will eventually be a 18+ older fic and will deal with anxiety, death, sex,  PTSD, murder, loss, found family, Order 66, and coming to terms. This is not just a fluff fic. It will very much be dealing with very dark and hard themes, so please, if that is something that can be too hard for you, don’t read.

Pairings: Rex x Reader x Cody (polyamory)

Rating: 18+ 

TW: Death, Murder, infanticide, death of the Jedi, PTSD, Loss, Anxiety, eating disorders, sleep disorders, Order 66. I will add other things as I think about them.

Part 1: Memories, Floating

You held tight to Rex, your grip on his blacks stretching out the material. He would never complain though. Cody came up from behind, hands on your hips as he gently kissed your shoulder.

"Cyare, it'll be okay. I'll be back before you know it. And then the war will be over and we'll go on a 'diplomatic mission to Alderaan'. All three of us." Even though his words were sweet, his arms pulled you tighter to him. 

"I can't help it, Rex. I keep having these dreams, these...visions. I'm so worried something bad is going to happen."

Rex breathed out his nose in a deep sigh and held you at arms length. Cody came around as well, standing in front of you, hands close to Rex's. Rex whispered your name, but you couldn't hear what he said afterwards.

Everything was muffled and starting to fade.

You panicked, trying to hold on for a few more moments. But everything was gone. Faded into nothingness, leaving you alone.

You shot up from your bed, covered in sweat. The little charms and baubles you had hanging from your makeshift bunk tinked and jingled as they hit your head. It was dark in your small ship, the blackness of space doing little for ambient light. A few, small, glowing spots littered around, giving an eerie feel to the silence.

 You groaned, leaning your arms across your knees, your small, threadbare blanket pooling in your lap.

It seemed like such a lifetime ago, that dream. A memory from before when everything was still normal, still happy.

Your brought a shaky hand to your face and wiped your brow. What was going on with you?  How many nights was it now? How many times did those faces haunt you? It didn't matter, they had to be dead. But it didn't stop your heart from hurting. They turned against you, but you couldn't stop that clenching in your chest, that feeling of emptiness clawing up your throat.

In your frustration, you wretched your small pillow from behind you and threw it across the hull, screaming and raking your fingers through your hair.

You were so tired of seeing their faces, of hearing their voices, of feeling their touch. You just wanted it to stop.

But you guessed this was your penance. This was the Force punishing you for breaking your most sacred code, for surviving when better Jedi had fallen, for walking away and becoming a bounty hunter. 

You leaned your head back; eyes closed as you felt your tears fall into your hairline. But they were gone. Your heart was ripped away. Your Master was gone too, on some back water planet, probably dead as well. Your sister was dead too, gone with your beloved. You hated to think he killed her. That your most beloved killed his vod'ika. And worst of all, your big brother was the most vile thing in the galaxy, hunting everyone down. Everything you knew or loved or were was buried under the Empire.

There was a beeping. A loud, irritating sound coming from the front of your ship. It cut through the silence of space and your thoughts like an angry rancor. You brought your head forward and let it loll onto your shoulder, staring at the red light that accompanied the trill sound. Someone was calling you. You thought about ignoring it, it could be someone looking to hire you, or Senator Organa checking up on you, or even Fett. You hate him the most. He looked just like them. He sounded like them. When he whispered your name at night...no. It was probably one of them and kark em. You hated them all. You hated how they used you, how they feigned their worry, how they looked at you, knowing you'd always keep their bed warm, even if you hated them.  

  But that light kept blinking and that sound kept beeping and soon you were out of your bed, grumbling into your chair and hitting your console.

"Whoever this is, you better have a good kriffing reason. And I swear to Maker if this is you Fett, I'm hanging up now."

"PRETTY LADY!" 

Hondo. That idiot pirate king now smuggler pushed his face into his receiver, the fish eye lense on his console warping him features in the blue light that was shown from yours.

You sighed and curled up into your chair, the collar of your old, faded, black shirt falling over your shoulder. The long necklace you always wore with two scored pieces of duriplast, fell from your shirt and got caught in the fabric.

You absent-mindedly played with it, the blue and gold colors flashing between your fingers. "What do you want Hondo?"

"Oh?! Is that how you treat your oldest friend? Pretty Lady, I am hurt. You have fired a bolt right into my heart. I am nothing but anguish as my last breath leaves my chest at your cruel words. I..."

"Hondo. It's late, I'm tired."

"No one ever appreciates me or my sweet words anymore." 

"Hondo." You cut him off of his grumbling, running a hand down your face. An act he didn't miss.

"Pretty Lady, when was the last time you ate a meal that wasn't a ration bar? Or when you slept for more than an hour?"

You looked away chewing on your cheek and breathing out your nose. 

"You know I worry about you. I made a promise to our dear Kenobi..."

"I know Hondo. I'm sorry for snapping."

"It's alright, Pretty Lady. But! I didn't just call you for pleasantries! I have a new lead! One I think you'll really love."

You perked up at that and sat up straighter in your chair. 

"Hondo, don't you mess with me."

"When have I ever messed with you?"

Your eyebrow raised up and you leveled him with a look.

"Okay okay, when have I ever messed with you when it comes to these matters?"

You looked over your shoulder at a door against your wall, before turning back to Hondo.

"What have you got?"

[art-i-know-yes]

AHH I'M EXCITED LET'S GO

Spoilers Ep.66

The dEscRiption because like a WHAT to WHAAT WITH GLENNNNN

I'm sorry literally one of the only things I've wanted to see is emotionally open Glenn

not the spotify ads

Darryl plays Matt

Hot Take: Darryl hates the environment

That's an oof, Henry

Biiiiig therapy

Horses vs Henry and Cows vs Ron

oooohhhmygahwdbeth

"I know what you said and I ignored it"

WOOOOOOOOO RON THERAPY

Imagine going to therapy

Awww Ron

I was just high key thinking about them listening outside the door

geeEENETIC TIMELINE

"That's depressing"

Those are liike good rollssssss

mmmnnnnn nevermind

Kinda wanna dig up clams

I-I mean why not

I guess that's a good idea to teach them how to drive huh

"No, that's ok"

WHY'D HE SAY IT LIKE THAT

They're too emotional right now

The keyword they didn't use is HOPEFULLY THEIR DADS SHOOT AT IT

Excuse me too young some countries learned by like 8

Hiiiissss voice

Noooo

"11, that's sounds like it's gonna be sad" "Oooo that tracks for you"

Really!! Glenn followimg laws!!

Kids have these neat abilities called vroom vroom speed vehicle where they get self control

YEEEE KIDS GET TO DRIVE

Ehhh come on Darryl you're making this so depressing

Henry shut up please

"Doooope" "Definitely Lark or Sparrow"

I remember seeing someone call Sparrow a furry

I think that is good idea for flexibility because I did not think if that because if I'm honest I only trust TJ to drive we saw what Lark and Sparrow driving was like

Can TJ still like use magic

THE LAUGHTER THAT THAT CAME OUT OF ME I CAN NOT DESCRIBE NEAR TEARS IM TELLING YOU NEAR TEARS

"I'm sure Grant is gonna be fine, but if ya know, Lark dies or something-" "WHAT THE FVCK DARRYL" DARRYL YOU CAN'T USE THEEEEEM AS AN EXAMPLE

But also my second thought was Nick and I made myself lose it

"Ok so Terry dies-" "NOOOOO-" "Ok fine you have two kids. Let's say Sparrow dies-"

THEY COULD JUST BE INJURED WE DON'T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THE WORST SITUATIONS

We should camouflage it again, both of them

Toooo thhhee raaaaaat

A LITTLE CONCERNED

Well I'm already in tears so

Real Nick Jr.? It's just Nick

Don't bring the Lawwrdd into this

Accidentally teaching him to dRIIIVVEEE HE CAN BARELY REACH THE WHEEL LET ALONE THE BRAKE OR GAS

But like literally watch Nick Jr. have to drive and does it perfectly

They are way to into the crab mech

He immediately started yelling-I'm just making noises at this point

Not the escape static I mean USEFUL but like the reverse j-turn is a little later

What did your dad teach you Glenn

This is why they're doing different sections

...I can barely do a regular reverse turn...

"I'M ONLY DOING THIS BECAUSE I WAANT TO FATHER"

Straight cut to "A few quick things in no specific order"

This is about what I expected with Willy as his father

Terry Jr. is having an existential crisis

Roooonnn

Understeer????

GlArK

"My son's name is not Glark" "HAVE YOU BEEN CALLING ME GLARK AND I JUST HAVEN'T NOTICED"

Not quoting the handbook

W-was Ron used as a getaway driver

TJ is big brain

"Use morse code" "Ok anyone wanna teach me morse code"

I just imagine Glenn turning around and like the Office "Quite an imagination on this kid"

"I'm in a dark place" respectable. thanks for being honest.

Honestly that's what I was thinking. Actually very close to that tune.

AWWWWWWW

CYCLISTS

I love you so much Sparrow

"*sniffle* you run 'em over son"

I... am so scared to see who's getting this roll

I desperately hope that twins aren't 1 and 2

This is a competition to them. I know it.

A 23!!!

Awwwwwwww poor baby nonononono

AWWWWW RONNN COMFORTING TJ

I'm not sure if you can tell who's my favorite father-son duo (or characters im general)

Noooooo Terrrryyyy (but like honestly SAME)

A VESPA

HE'S NOT THE DRIVER BUT LIKE STILL I KINDA THINK IT'S THE BEST CHOICE

"I know!"

"I purely know maps I'm the advocate"

CALLOUTS

This is the perfect team up

"And then also Sparrow"

"Idk we can tie them to like a stick or something"

Oh yeah the pillars

Doug is better than literally all philosophers

NONONONO

Is...Ron meta?

Not Elizabeth Warden

OH FVCK

That...doesn't sound good cause like...the underground part

mnnnmmnnnmmmnnn bombssss

"There was this show called Chernobyl" PFFT-

Yesss Bomb shelter beer

Ron's a genius

Hesoundsalittlesalty

"Sounds like somebody cares"

It doesn't sound like we'll make it to ep. 69

The humming is so funny to me

Ron *is* meta

I would LOVE to figure out what Glenn is actually thinking about Nick

YA KNOW WHAT THAT IS A BIG PROBLEM

I don't think mentally I'm ready for what is going to come out

I SCREAMED emotionally i am not recovered from loosing Nick hypothetically I am completely very ok it

*Cooooool*

Just the way he said it Hennrrrryyyyy

"Well, that sounds healthy"

He's really switching this conversation at them

We love Ron-Glenn solidarity

ahhhhh Henry rants

TOLERANT, SORT OF AFFECTION AHHHHAHAHHAHAHAHA

"We are Olive Garden"

Sir, that's a ring of self-sacrifice if you're willing

oooooo that hurts

I..dont know what to say. I'm in shock. My body literally has like tingles all over and my heart dropped. Is Erin ok? How'd he get there? How much does he know? I can't feel anything right now so much and many emotions

~20 minites of sitting in silence and shock later~

I WAS THINKING WHY WOULD THE DRAGON BE AFTER HIM CAUSE HE TOLD RADIOLAB WHAT HE WAS DOING AND WHY AHHH HE MADE HIM ROLL TWICE FOR THAT TO FUKIN WEAKEN HIM I KNEW IT WAS FUKING WEIRD THERE WAS NO WAY GOD

THE GASPS THEY KNEW IT THE MINUTE HE SAID IT

WTFWTFWTF IM SHAKING

CAN YOU HEAL THIS?! NO YOU CAN'T WHAT DO WE DO?! THE COUNTING! THE REMOTE REWIND? THE NEW ITEMS? 15SECONDS15SECONDS15SECONDS. WE CAN NOT LOSE GLENN RIGHT NOW CAN WE PAUSE. CAN WE BREAK THE SPELL LIKE THAT? WHAT IF IT DOESNT WORK? HE SOUNDS SO SERIOUS. IM SO SCARED BUT LIKE FUVK. HE'S GOOD BUT LIKE NOT THAT GOOD RIGHT BECAUSE GLENN WAS ALREADY WHAT 3 LEVELS ABOVE EVERYONE ELSE? YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!!!!AHHHHHH GLENN! NOOOOOOOO GODDAMIT HE PROBABLY HAS LEGENDARY ACTIONS I FUKIN THOUGHT ABOUT IT! OMGAWWD SLIGHT OF HAND SNEAK ATTACK. AHHHHG MODIFIERS SCARE ME.

I KNEW I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT

FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR YES HAHAHAHAHHA FVCK YOU

OH GAWD HENRY HEALED HIM

YOU FVKING SLVT ANTHONY

they were sooooooooo close

I swear to god we better see Glenn again or I'm killing someone

I'm having a late reaction tears are coming once I fully process.

BUT REALLY *RIGHT* AFTER THE HEART TO HEART

[gffa]

I've looked on Wookieepedia and can't find an answer to a question Bad Batch has made me wonder about: Did the clones' inhibitor chips only make them attack the Jedi. or did it extend to making them loyal to Palpatine after that? In other words, did they become his mind-controlled army after the formation of the Empire, or did they buy his propaganda and serve him by choice? Has this been established? Thanks!

Hi!  I wouldn’t say it’s super clear on the specifics of this, but as far as I remember, what we see of the chips’ function seems to be mostly limited to making them believe that the Jedi were evil and needed to/deserved to be hunted down and killed.  It’s not just that they were forced to kill the Jedi, but that they genuinely believed the Jedi were the bad guys. We see that in season 7 of The Clone Wars or in Kanan: The Last Padawan or in Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, where the clones genuinely believe the Jedi are evil and actively want to hunt them down.  We see that it’s not just that their hands are being forced to raise their blasters, but that they express belief in what they’re doing. However, we also see instances of some of the clones slowly coming out of the chips’ influence--Commander Grey from Kanan: The Last Padawan starts to question why they followed the order so easily, and I swear there was something in canon about how some clones, when they came out of it, couldn’t live with the guilt, so they killed themselves.  (But maybe that was Legends?  Don’t trust this without a source to back it up, of course.  If someone has a source to cite, feel free!) It’s sort of unclear how far it goes beyond that--especially since we never really saw much of the general clones not liking Chancellor Palpatine, I don’t think?  They were largely pretty loyal to the Republic, so it seems reasonable that a lot of them, not knowing about the machinations of what was going on like we the audience do, would be loyal to the Empire as well, no chips needed for that. (This sets aside the question of how much that loyalty was conditioned into the clones and what form that conditioning took.  I don’t think a lot of that has been covered in canon?) As far as we’ve seen, Order 66 seems to be the only one that was enacted, but there are at least 65 other Orders that can be triggered.  So my gut feeling is that the clones weren’t mind-controlled 24/7 in the sense you’re probably thinking of, but that there was a very wide variety of Orders that could be implemented that weren’t just one time things, but that the clones seemed to be forced to believe them. So, I guess it sort of depends on your definition of a mind-controlled army, but I don’t think the majority of their loyalty was specifically from the chips, but that the clones were loyal to the Republic, so they’re now loyal to the Empire.

[djarrex]

Hi everyone, just wanted to address what happened last night along with some other things from before that all tie in together.

There’s multiple parts to the following post - please make sure you read all of it if you’re gonna take the time to even start.

It was midnight and y'all were still jumping in on anon and telling me how I'm awful for not commenting, owning up, or taking responsibility - I should have been in bed. I have a life and job outside this app; and with the several of you in my inbox and it being too late at night to address each, I’m gonna do it now. I can’t not say something about all of this. I just can’t keep quiet and ignore the problem - it’s not fair to you all. Deleting one post already has you guys even more riled up and all I wanted to do was offer something better than a “half-hearted apology” (it was very late at night when I wrote that very short apology, and wanted a redo tbh). 

I really didn't want to make a long post like this. I reached out to a select few on here because I care about them (there's more of you, but like I said, it was at the time after midnight and I was fucking exhausted). but I was being demanded for accountability. So here I am.

Allow me to be real with you all, if that's ok. If it's not, well, idk. First I wanna address all you anons, who, instead of speaking to me one on one about all this, want to criticize me and shame me and my writing when truthfully it feels like you haven't even read more than a handful of my work. I didn’t realize that I write the clones all the same way? That I always make them super aggressive and uncaring and dom? “you write every single clone as so dominant instead as unique individual men with their own personalities” Interesting. See, that right there tells me you haven't read nearly enough of my stuff for me to believe that's true. That's one accusation I absolutely will not back you on because I know it’s inaccurate - saying how I group the clones into some overly-aggressive, and uncaring category - that I always write all of them as mean in bed because they're men of color. And hey, if I do write rough smut - which yeah, it's out there and I write it, as do a lot of you - there are warnings at the beginning, aftercare, dialogue, reader sharing their feelings, and most importantly... consent between the two. That’s what warnings are for, so that you know what you’re going to be reading. That’s why I, as we all do, appreciate warnings listed at the tops of fics; honestly, write them sub or dom or switch or however you want but don’t come at me like that. I’m sorry if I'm coming across as rude because I'm usually not, I’m one of the nicest people you’ll meet, but I will not stand idly by while you chastise my writing (writing that is pretty much the same type of stuff a lot of you write & rb with the same characters) that you haven’t read enough of to back such claims.

Next: Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart,

I get it. Really, I do. I fully understand the problem of whitewashing in SW along with almost everywhere else, and I do not agree with it. It's a huge problem, and it needs to be rectified. Now just because I don't speak publicly about it and opt out of publicly shaming TBB, doesn't mean that I agree with what’s going on. Not everyone is comfortable with sharing their opinions on a subject, no matter what that subject is or which side they're on. You live and you learn when it comes to that. 

It has never been my intention to fetishize POC in my writing, which btw, the same people who are saying that it is my intention are the ones claiming I portray all of the clones as the same, aggressive men, lacking their individuality. It’s a claim that is simply not true, and I know I have followers on here to back me up on that. I know what I've written; how about you check it out and tell me that you don't see the words "soft" or "fluff" or "cuddling" or “gentle” or “tender” within my work linked in my ML. Clone character being a good partner and father? Tender love making? Holding each others faces in their hands? “We/you survived” sex? Taking care of their partner? Saying “I love you” to one another? Confirming the safe word and going slow at first? Oh my - riveting and harsh stuff - totally unacceptable.  

Now: My admittedly problematic writings of Rex + Zygerria,

I went into writing that rp fic totally unaware and unknowing of the true implications. For that, I sincerely apologize. When I posted the NSFW alphabet, that’s when I was called out on that rp fic - not when I first posted it. Which the timeline doesn’t matter, I know that, but it concerns me a little bit that no one spoke up about it sooner - letting me dig myself deeper into a hole that I didn’t realize I was inside of in the first place. I've apologized once, and I know that doesn't negate what happened; I acknowledged my mistake back then, but I suppose that wasn’t good enough. I had asked you, anon, to message me to give me guidance, to teach me on what to do about the fic - you stayed hidden. Well, respectfully, what the fuck? I know we're all adults but don't lecture me and avoid me when I’d literally reached out for guidance on how to properly rectify the issue. I fixed my wording in some of my fics (the things I’ve caught upon rereading them) because I recognized and more importantly learned about and from my mistakes along with the unintentional negative implications of how I wrote those characters. Some of y'all wanna tell me that I "haven't learned"? Who are you, my personal blog police? My professor? My life coach? Are you even my friend? If I'm wrong and haven't learned, then fucking educate me. I worked hard on that rp fic, just like I do with a majority of what I write, but it doesn’t matter because I will delete it knowing that it’s harmful to others and I apologize for inadvertently romanticizing slavery with what I wrote - it was unintentional, and I’m truly sorry to those who have been hurt by it. I know it’s wrong, and there’s no proper excuse for it. Can’t go back in time, but consider it gone now.

Since that first wakeup call, I’ve been working hard to ensure I avoid using certain words and ideas when describing the clones in my fics. If there’s still something you see that isn’t correct or is inappropriate, please tell me! Don’t hold it in but then jump on the “attack M” bandwagon. Private message me, or come peacefully off or on anon, there will be no hard feelings. I don’t mind being corrected when I make a mistake - that’s just part of life, we all make mistakes and we live and learn from them. Making mistakes doesn’t = scumbag human. When you hold your breath and choose not to take the time to guide me, and if I appear to still be making the same mistakes, well, idk. I’m telling you right now that I do not mind if you message me with the good intention of pushing me in the right direction. When you come at me with hostility on anon, well, no thank you. To the anons that came without rage: thank you! I read what you wrote, and I have a better understanding as to how my writing had hurt the lovely followers of mine, and tried to address as much as possible in this post. See, angry mob anons? It costs zero credits to be kind and offer up your thoughts and advice with a good heart. I’m not going to hate you or block you if you try to correct me. I don’t block unless you’re a snoopin’ minor. Just don’t hold a knife to my throat.

Now: Why did I delete the tags and then my response to that anon ask? 

Simply put: I felt awful. Deleting it doesn’t immediately mean I’m hiding from it and ignoring the issue. I wanted to come up with a better apology, explanation, whatever you wanna call it, because my followers deserve that. The ones who enjoy my work, the ones who interact, the ones who I call my friends, the ones who know that I’m a good person. Didn’t want to leave the tags/post floating around all night, giving more people time to sharpen their pitchforks and join the mob while I attempted to sleep. Trust me, I know saying that I had no ill intentions when tagging that post doesn’t make it better nor does it make it go away. I’m just trying to show you my point of view, that I knew immediately how I should not have tagged it that way, so that’s why I deleted them. I corrected my mistake. But y’all are too fucking quick I swear.

One more thing:

I know some of you who had called me out with the passive-aggressive inbox messages are still following me, and for what? You don’t like what I post, which is why one would follow another in the first place, so why bother sticking around? Do you feel like you need to police my blog? You want to be there the literal minute I make a mistake? I’m gonna turn off anon for a bit, so if you wanna discuss, message me. Just know that if you’re going to come at me with knives out, I probably won’t reply to you. 

To conclude:

I’m sorry. Truly sorry for the entire Rex + Zygerria outfit + slaver ordeal with both the fic from a while ago and then the tags from last night. We can’t go back in time; the only option is to correct past mistakes that are able to be corrected, and then move on with new knowledge that’ll aid in me working even harder to ensure my writing isn’t inappropriate or offensive, and doesn’t hurt my followers nor the characters I write for. I’m still going to write self-indulgent filth and fluff, post-order 66 Rex, and other misc shit. I enjoy writing fanfic, as I know a lot of you enjoy reading what I write and love to talk to me about it. I hope that this didn’t come off as me being a bitch, because I’m really not. I enjoy interacting with the handful of people on here that I’d call my friends, and I love reading your reactions and tags to my fics when you’re excited and/or horny (LOL). It’s just after lunch time where I’m at, so I hope you have a great rest of the day/night/morning whatever for wherever you are.  

<3 

M

[clonecest-bin-account]

300 followers bingo - Echo & Torrent | Supernatural AU

(In which Echo gets followed by some Torrent boys. I’m not sure this is exactly what the asker wanted, but I had fun with it!)

Sometimes, Echo wonders what exactly the Tech Union did to him, because he swears he feels some presences, though he can’t put a finger on what presences exactly. Maybe it’s just paranoia. Maybe he’s just tired.

Little does he know, however, that there is actually someone following him in each step of his life.

  The first one to join him is Fives.

 He was confused when, after dying, he woke up in a lab without knowing where he was or whom that lab belonged to. Was that some sort of punished Palpatine had bestowed on him? Was there anything he could do? Were there any chances that he could’ve gotten back to warn everyone?

His desperation grew once he found out exactly where he was and, more importantly, who he was bound to, and with desperation shame also came, because Echo was alive and he didn’t even know it, didn’t even save him.

He stood helplessly as he watched his brother being experimented on, he cried for help, tried to do something, but he couldn’t touch anything. That was worse than death.

  Things change when Rex finds Echo. First of all, good to know that at least Rex is still kicking, and also… Oh, someone’s following him as well.

“Hardcase?!” “Fives?!”

The two brothers run at each other, enveloping each other into a long hug - huh, so at least they can touch each other…

There are so many questions they both want to ask each other, so many things they want to say, but in the end their silence speaks louder than any word could. They’ve spent so much time alone that having found someone who can finally even just see them is overwhelming.

Eventually, however, Fives finds himself speaking again. “Hardcase, I’m so sorry--” but Hardcase raises a hand to placate him before he can finish.

“Fives, I knew what could’ve happened when I agreed to your plan,” he says. “At least I was gone in a blaze of glory…”

Those words manage to bring a small sad smile to Fives’ face. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right…”

 When Rex tells Echo about what happened to him, Fives wants to scream: he can see the sadness and desperation in Echo’s eyes, and he’d do anything to be able to reach him, to tell him that he’s fine - more or less - to console him, but no matter how hard he tries he can’t do it. Damn it all!

Hardcase holds him throughout this whole process. He’d say something, if only he didn’t know that it wouldn’t help; what could his words add? No, he prefers staying close, offering consolation - for once - in a more subtle manner.

At least Echo seems to pull through well, at least partially. After all, they don’t have time to grieve, not when they’re still in danger.

Yes, Echo, get out of there!

 Fives and Hardcase keep following Echo and Rex, watching as things unfold.

They can’t help but to cheer their brothers on as they keep fighting the good fight. It makes them almost forget that they’re unable to do anything apart from watching.

No, it feels like they’re actually there.

 Fives doesn’t know what to think when Echo decides to stick with the Bad Batch. It feels unexpected, but oh well, if this is what he believes is best for him…

“Well,” Hardcase says, distracting him from his thoughts. “I guess you’ll go your way and I’ll go mine now, right?”

“… Actually, I was thinking that maybe we could stick together,” Fives replies. “I don’t know about you, but this gets lonely pretty soon.”

“That’s true…” Hardcase mutters, though he finds himself in a dilemma: to follow the Captain or to follow his brother? On one hand, he’d feel bad about leaving Rex alone, on the other, just watching without being able to do anything, all alone, is terrible. At least if he goes with Echo, he’ll have Fives keeping him company - and he knows better than to ask him to do the opposite, to abandon Echo to go with Hardcase and Rex.

Well, the Captain is hardly alone, in the end. He could afford to go…

“Ok, let’s stick together,” he says then. He notices immediately how Fives smiles at his words, happy about the fact that he won’t be going through this lonely journey on his own anymore.

At least now he has someone he can talk to, right?

 Seeing Echo getting integrated into the Bad Batch makes Fives feel… well, not jealous, but definitely nostalgic. If only he were still alive…

Not to mention about the chips part, because that’s still something dangerous that is looming over all of them, except that only Fives is aware of it. Rex should be too, but he doesn’t seem to have taken his words seriously judging from what he saw.

He doesn’t want anything to happen to Echo, not now that he’s finally free, but how can he be certain that nothing will go wrong? No, things are about to change, he can feel it.

 Both he and Hardcase get the confirmation that things have gone to shit when Order 66 gets sent out.

They’re on Kamino, still following Echo wherever he goes, when it happens. At first Fives fears Echo’s going to succumb, but for some reason that he can’t pinpoint, but he’s grateful for them nonetheless, neither he nor the Bad Batch are changed by it.

Whatever the reason is, it’s enough to keep them from becoming meat droids, but it also puts them in danger.

 Again, all Fives and Hardcase can do is to follow Echo and cheer on him. They know he can’t hear them, but they do it anyway; besides, who knows, maybe he doesn’t hear them, but he might still feel something - in fact, something he almost looks aware of the fact that Fives and Hardcase are there, though he always dismisses it as a passing feeling.

It doesn’t matter, as long as he remains safe. Despite the fact that Fives would want nothing more than to be with Echo again, he’d also rather have him be alive as long as he can, so he’s willing to wait some more, no matter how frustrating and lonely it can get. At least he has Hardcase to keep him company, just as Hardcase has him.

  After Echo and the Bad Batch manage to find a ship to escape, they think that, at least for a while, they can metaphorically catch their breath, but they’re proven wrong when another ghost appears. Oh no…

 When Jesse opens his eyes, the first things he sees are his dead companions, which means that something must be wrong. What is happenin… Wait.

“Jesse?” Hardcase mutters, tentatively approaching the figure in front of him and Fives.

It’s like a switch has been flipped as Jesse breaks down, sobbing uncontrollably as his dead brothers try to console him. “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry!” he keeps repeating over and over again, unable to stop.

 After he calms down a bit, he manages to tell what has happened to him, how he lost control of his body. So it really has started, huh?

“What about Rex?” Fives asks. Is he dead too?

“I think he’s fine…” Jesse mutters. “He did manage to escape with Ahsoka…”

Well, that would explain why there’s no Rex ghost hanging around. That’s one reassuring thing at least.

 “… What now?” Jesse asks. There’s pure desperation in his eyes. “What do we do now?”

Fives and Hardcase look at each other. Yeah, that’s something both of them have gone through on their own; exactly because they know how it feels they’re more than determined to help Jesse through it. Like hell they’re going to let a brother down.

“You can stay with us,” Hardcase offers. “At least you won’t be alone.”

“So, we just follow Echo around and see where things go?” Jesse asks. He’s obviously not too fond of the idea, which is understandable: they weren’t made just to observe things, but to act.

“What else can we do?” Fives replies. He hates how resigned he sounds, but really, what can they do? If there was anything he could do to change things, he would’ve done it a long time ago, and he tried, but to no avail.

A sigh escapes Jesse’s mouth at those words. It seems that he’s beginning to understand. “Yeah, you’re right…”

 They hug. Despite the fact that they’re supposed to be incorporeal, they still do feel something, at least with each other; besides, they might be ghosts now, but that doesn’t mind that they’ve lost interests in physical forms of affection.

They can find solace in each other, at least.

  And so, here they are, a pale shadow of what they used to be, but still here for some twists of fate.

All they can do is watching Echo’s struggle to stay alive, to escape from the Empire, thus they keep doing it, hoping that at least one of their brothers will be able to make it out alive and as his own person.

Maybe one day Echo will be able to see them, maybe they’ll manage to communicate with him, but for now all they can do is to watch and hope with the constant question of “is this enough?” plaguing their thoughts. They really hope it is.

[the-last-kenobi]

angst bingo prompt idea for "came back wrong": rex tries to rescue one of his brothers post order 66 but something goes wrong after the surgery to remove the chip

I love this. Let’s see what I’ve got in me today, shall we?

Tw for mental manipulation, non-consensual drugging, trauma, abuse, conscription/enslavement, murder, and VERY MORALLY AMBIGUOUS BEHAVIOR that I will not spoil here. Just be careful. It’s fairly sad.

What struck Rex most was how familiar his face was.

Of course, he was one of the brothers - the Clones - and all their faces were familiar.

But somehow he had expected him to look different, changed somehow, damaged, from his life under the iron grip of the control chip.

Instead he looked the same as he always had.

The twisted scar down the left side of his face, the jaw that was slightly blunter than Rex’s own, the extra stress line between his eyebrows that had somehow been there since birth.

Sleeping as he was right now, he looked more relaxed than he had ever seemed while conscious.

Rex rubbed his face in exhaustion as he finally stopped stumping about the recovery room and took the chair beside the bed, groaning a little as his knees protested at the movement.

“We’re getting old, Cody,” he said aloud, staring at the sleeping face. “We were always gonna get old before normal humans, but this... all this... I feel old before my time, that’s for damn sure.”

Cody, of course, did not reply.

Still, Rex felt better. He settled as comfortably as possible in the chair and closed his eyes, content to wait until his vod finally woke up — a free man for the first time in ten years.

][][][][][

Rex woke suddenly, inhaling sharply and jolting in his seat, feeling weirdly as if his consciousness had just been dropped unceremoniously back into his body. He’d really been sleeping.

Then he saw Cody, and his breath caught in his throat.

Cody was looking right at him, sitting up in bed — just sitting there, staring, no cold glare in his eyes, no clipped Imperial arrest declaration coming from his lips. His hair had gone more salt than pepper these days, but he was Cody, through and through.

“Hey—Cody!” Rex said, gasping. He leaned forward in his seat and grabbed Cody’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

Cody just blinked at him.

“It’s gonna be okay, vod,” Rex assured him, feeling a stupid grin spreading over his face. “I know it’s overwhelming right now. It happens to all the guys. But I promise this is real.”

The familiar scarred face tilted slightly to the side as Cody studied him intently with those mirror-image dark eyes. His hand remained limp in Rex’s.

“Some... memories will start coming back soon,” Rex continued. “But I’ll help you. It’s not your fault. Anything you can remember, I swear, it’s not your—”

“My fault,” Cody said hoarsely.

His grip suddenly turned to steel; he squeezed Rex’s hand so tightly that it hurt.

“No,” Rex said hastily. “No it’s not. Cody, it was a—”

“It’s my fault,” the former Marshal Commander of the 212th said firmly, his eyes roving around the room, taking it all in. “I need to get out of here. I need to fix this.”

Cody was not panicking as all the other dechipped brothers had, but he was still gripping Rex so hard that it was bringing tears to the other man’s eyes. “Cody...”

“I need to fix this. I failed,” Cody repeated. “Let me out.”

“I can’t do that, Cody, you’re not well...”

“Let me out. Now.”

“Cody—”

“Let me out. That’s an order.”

“No, Cody—”

“Let me out. I have to go.”

Feeling like he had no choice, Rex used his free hand to reach across and trigger a switch next to the bed. They always had to do this for newbies, although normally they were crying and screaming instead of just issuing orders.

In less than ten seconds Cody was unconscious again.

Rex peeled his hand away, wincing.

The door opened cautiously and a figure stepped inside, a cloak raised high to help conceal the magnificent montrals she was now sporting.

“I wonder how much he remembered,” Ahsoka said thoughtfully. “I feel like he would have been more distressed if he fully recalled... well, Utupau.”

“And everything after,” Rex sighed, rubbing his sore hand.”

Ahsoka nodded, still studying the man on the bed.

Rex looked at him too.

“He’ll pull through,” the former Captain of the 501st muttered. “Fine.”

][][][][][

The next day Cody woke for only minutes at a time, sleeping off sedatives and enduring scans.

Rex was away most of the day, but his friend was on his mind all the time, distracting him.

Cody’s solemn confusion hadn’t been as jarring as the screaming and anguished guilt he was used to seeing in his freed brothers, but there was still something so...

Unbearably sad about it.

Rex decided to spend the night on a cot in Cody’s room.

So he wouldn’t be alone.

He fell to sleep quickly, as he had been trained to do a thousand years ago in a world where everything had seemed simpler — even war.

Sometime in the night he woke to see Cody blinking blearily at him, saying: “...I... I failed... Do you know that Rex? I did.”

Before Rex could reply, Cody was asleep again.

][][][][][

The next morning before dawn, Rex was woken by the sound of Cody attempting to climb out of bed. He was unbalanced and clearly in some form of pain, his forehead deeply lined, but he persisted.

“Woah!” Rex stepped up and tried to take his old friend by the wrist. Cody batted his hand away without even looking at him. “Cody, hey, you can’t go yet. You’re not fully healed.”

“I have a duty,” Cody said. “I have to fix my failure.”

Rex bit the inside of his mouth, a sudden fear crossing his mind. “Cody... this can’t be... fixed. He’s... they’re all...” he swallowed hard, his throat so tight that it hurt. “He’s dead. You can’t—”

Cody’s head jerked up sharply.

Rex blinked in the fixed stare those dark eyes were giving him, a penetrating and cold look.

“Dead?” Cody questioned. “...Did someone kill General Kenobi?”

Rex’s heart plummeted.

He doesn’t remember...

“I... yeah, vod. Someone did. But...”

If Rex had thought his heart had stopped before, it was nothing, nothing to what it did when Cody shook his head and said, so very calmly, “I shot him off the cliffside, but I’m sure he survived. It was a controlled fall. The Jedi survived. I failed in my duty. I have to fix it.”

“No,” Rex croaked out. “No... that’s not...”

The door opened again, and Ahsoka stood framed there. She must have overheard, because she was looking at Cody with pity.

Cody locked his gaze on her, drawing himself up to his full height. “Jedi,” he addressed her. “Duty. Have to fulfill.”

“He’s dechipped!” Rex shouted desperately. “I don’t understand!”

“I have to go,” Cody said placidly. “Excuse me. Don’t worry vod. I’ll come home when I’m done.”

“You can’t!” Rex shouldered his way between his brother and his only remaining Jedi, terrified of the serenity of both of them; Ahsoka’s quiet sympathy, Cody’s placid desire to murder a man that was already dead, a man he had loved— “You have to snap out of it, Cody!” Rex bellowed, and shook the man by the shoulders. “Please!”

“But I’m fine, Rex,” Cody said, sounding surprised. “I just have one more thing to do. You saved me from the Empire. But Kenobi must die. It’s my job.”

“It’s not!” Rex screamed. “He’s dead, Cody! Dead! You already killed him, he’s dead, he’s been dead for over a decade! You already killed him!”

He was crying now.

For Cody.

For Obi-Wan.

For himself.

For Ahsoka.

For everyone.

Everyone.

“Excuse me,” Cody said politely, addressing Ahsoka over Rex’s shoulder. “I need to go kill Kenobi. Do you know where he is?”

“You have to fix him,” Rex begged her, struggling to keep Cody in the room. “Please. The Force. Something!”

Ahsoka glanced at him. Then she stepped forward and carefully pressed two fingertips to Cody’s forehead. She closed her eyes.

Cody closed his too, and for a moment there was silence.

Then he slumped in Rex’s arms.

“What - what happened?” Rex demanded, clutching his unconscious friend and looking around at Ahsoka in panic. “Wha—did you fix him?”

She shook her head. “No, Rex. There’s nothing to be done.”

“That’s not true,” argued Rex. “That can’t — don’t be — Ahsoka, we just have to help him!”

“Cody wasn’t ever fully under the chip’s sway,” she whispered. There was an apology in her blue eyes that he did not want, did not want to see. “Like you were - but he - he wasn’t able to resist it like you did. But he was... conscious... beneath the surface.”

No.

“Always beneath the surface.”

An Imperial trooper. Treated like garbage, like something disposable, barely worth keeping. Barely even worth using.

“He knew what was going on. He didn’t know why, but he learned over time. Overheard things.”

Forced to follow orders. Wage war on innocents. Execute innocents.

Cody felt so heavy. Like Rex was holding the weight of all his friend’s trauma instead of just his physical form.

Forced to issue despicable orders. Forced to be a cog in a machine that served the people and ideals he had so hated.

“He was constantly at war with himself. When we removed the chip from Cody’s head...” Ahsoka’s eyes were grieved. One slim hand came to rest against Rex’s shoulder. “His mind wasn’t prepared to cease battle so quickly. It... it broke him, Rex. The two sides of his mind clashed so violently out of nowhere with nothing to control which one was winning, and...”

“No,” Rex repeated. “No.”

“I’m so, so sorry Rex,” whispered Ahsoka. “We tried to bring him back, but he just... came back wrong. There’s nothing that can be done to fix him.”

Rex’s shoulders shook; he stumbled and slipped to the floor, Cody unconscious in his arms and Ahsoka kneeling beside him, her face painted with pain and concern.

Cody. Cody, and his scar, and his stress lines, and his familiar face.

“What... what do I... what...” Rex heaved for air, finding it suddenly so hard to breathe. His chest felt heavy, his throat so tight he almost thought he was being throttled by invisible hands. “What am I supposed... to do? J-just... put him out of his misery?”

Ahsoka took a deep breath.

Held it.

“...I don’t know. He’ll never be right again. He’ll never be...”

“Free,” Rex finished. “He’ll never be free.”

][][][][][

They had tried to heal him. They had tried to recondition him. They had tried erasing his memories of Order 66. They had even tried erasing his memories altogether.

But the broken mind of Commander Cody did not respond to time or treatment.

Most of the time he was calm. Sweet, reasonable, capable of cracking sly jokes.

But the slightest thing that triggered memories of Utupau would set him off.

Asking oh so politely for permission to go seek and kill a man long-dead, a man that he would once have never considered raising so much as a finger against.

He never harmed anyone in his attempts to leave.

But he harmed himself, skipping meals and sleep, banging slowly and repeatedly on closed doors, and demanding over and over and over to be let go.

And it took too much manpower to keep a constant watch on him. Manpower they didn’t have.

...So Rex, eleven years to the day after Order 66, settled his brother in a bed in the medical wing and set everything in order.

Waited for Cody to drift into a natural sleep.

And then, tears sliding silently down his weathered face, Rex pressed the button that would flood Cody’s veins with a drug that would ensure he would never wake again.

Cody slept.

][][][][][

[cloudyskywars]

Back to December is about Anakin and Obi-Wan and here’s 2,000 words why

So there I was, listening to Back to December, you know, as one does. And then I nearly started crying because this is without a doubt an Anakin and Obi-Wan song. I roped my friend @renegadeontherunn into doing a full song analysis with me. The whole analysis is based from Anakin singing this to Obi-Wan immediately after the events of Return of the Jedi. So everyone’s a Force Ghost, and feelings ensue. Enjoy the angst! 

The analysis will be below the cut, because as I said, it’s approximately 2,000 words. 

I'm so glad you made time to see me/ How's life? Tell me, how's your family?/ I haven't seen them in a while - Obi-Wan’s family was the Jedi. And Anakin has spent the past twenty five years hunting down the Jedi, eliminating them one by one. And now that he’s one with the Force, he’s gotta be wondering, “Are the other Jedi here too?” because he may not have realized it, but they were his family as well. I’m just imagining Anakin asking Obi-Wan where everyone else is, and Obi-Wan having to tell him that not everyone stayed with the Force the way that he and Yoda did.  

Your guard is up and I know why- Obi-Wan’s guard probably wasn’t up, but Anakin would expect it to be. He rightfully feels guilty, and probably expects Obi-Wan to hate him and not trust him anymore. 

Because the last time you saw me/ Is still burned in the back of your mind - on Mustafar, Anakin literally burning, the image no doubt haunting Obi-Wan ever since. In Obi-Wan’s 20 years on Tatooine, how many times do you think he replayed that memory in his mind? You were my brother Anakin, I loved you/I hate you. (grouped with previous two lines)

So this is me swallowin' my pride- Anakin as a Force Ghost, standing in front of Obi-Wan. He’s asking, begging for forgiveness, even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it. Anakin was always prideful for a Jedi, and this is him humbling himself and asking for Obi-Wan’s forgiveness (for so many things; Order 66, turning to the dark side, killing the Jedi, killing him)

Standin' in front of you sayin' I'm sorry for that night - the night Anakin fell to the Dark Side, their fight on Mustafar, and also probably the last 20+ years of him as a Sith and causing so much death and destruction. He’s sorry for so much, but especially that night when everything went wrong. 

And I go back to December all the time - he revisits that battle in his mind constantly, still hating Obi-Wan as Vader, but feeling deep (deep deep) down, an enormous sense of regret and guilt, and especially at the end when he reunites with Obi-Wan

It turns out freedom ain't nothin' but missin' you - We see in Episode 2 that Anakin feels that Obi-Wan is constantly holding him back, preventing him from reaching his full potential (feelings no doubt put there by Palpatine) Once he turns to the Dark Side, he believes he is stronger than ever, (“I’m stronger than the Emperor, I can overthrow him.”)and so most likely feels “free” from Obi-Wan and the duty of being a Jedi. But we know that he learned, eventually, that all the Dark Side brings is loneliness and despair. “It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith — because now yourself is all you will ever have.” 

Wishin' I'd realized what I had when you were mine - Anakin spent much of his time as Obi-Wan’s Padawan feeling less than and like he was never good enough for Obi-Wan. Then, when he finally became a Knight, he still felt held back by the Jedi. In reality, he had a substantial support system there waiting for him, ready to help him, that he never realized existed. He had the tools and the people he needed to be a successful Jedi and to have a happy life and to stay in the Light, but he didn’t use them. And now he’s wishing he had. That he’d recognized his and Obi-Wan’s friendship when he’d had it.

I'd go back to December, turn around and make it alright- Can you IMAGINE the regret Anakin is feeling right now? After 25 years of being the terror of the galaxy, Darth Vader, he has finally returned from the dark and knows all the bad things he’s done, and now recognizes that they were bad things. He slaughtered younglings, helped strike down the remaining Jedi, even took away the clones’ free will. Just imagining the pure regret that he must be feeling at this moment. 

These days, I haven't been sleepin' - REVENGE OF THE SITH ANYONE??? We know for a fact due to the Matthew Stover novelization of ROTS that Anakin was getting almost no sleep during the events of the movie. I believe when he Fell he had been without sleep for,,,, at least three days? (I think it was five but I’m not sure)  Anakin please take a nap. Nightmares!!! But also, as Vader, I’m pretty sure Anakin doesn’t actually need to sleep or at least doesn’t need a ton of it, so again he’s literally not sleeping and only sustaining himself on the Dark Side.

Stayin' up playin' back myself leavin'- Do you think- do you ever think that during his time as Darth Vader, he would constantly replay those days when everything fell apart in his head? I’m specifically thinking about the scene where he marches on the Jedi Temple. Granted, in that scene, he isn’t leaving, per say. He’s returning home, but it is no longer the place he calls home. I imagine that scene playing on repeat in his mind, because that’s the moment that he passed the point of no return. Before that, yes, he had already screwed up, big time. But he hadn’t crossed the line yet, I don't think. 

Then I think about summer, all the beautiful times- At this moment I’m sure he’s feeling loads and loads of guilt and regret, as discussed above. But I can’t help but think he’s also thinking about the good times he shared with Obi-Wan and Padme. (Padme specifically because of summer and Naboo for that one good week, where they fell in love and it was beautiful.) And although his relationship with Obi-Wan was strained near the end (and eventually fell apart) there were good times, times that they both cherished. During his time as Darth Vader, he probably looked back on those memories with hate. But now that he’s Anakin again, he is probably remembering those times fondly.

I watched you laughin' from the passenger's side- [insert gif of Obi-Wan smiling in the speeder] 

And realized I loved you in the fall - in the Fall. This could be for either Anakin or Obi-Wan. There must’ve been a part of Anakin that knew he was lying when he shouted “I hate you!” and felt happy when Obi-Wan said he loved him. And for Obi-Wan, he knew he loved Anakin, he had just never said it to him before. The only time he did was when Anakin had Fallen and was dying. And he probably regretted that with every piece of himself during his exile on Tatooine. 

And then the cold came, the dark days - There are so many instances where Palpatine is connected with the cold, with darkness, with everything that is the opposite of the Jedi and, more importantly, of Obi-Wan. The darkness referred to here is the Dark Side, when it became overwhelming and Anakin fell.

When fear crept into my mind - Anakin’s already-intense fears of never being good enough or Obi-Wan not reciprocating Anakin’s love were intensified and heightened by Palpatine’s influence and him planting even more fear and doubt into Anakin’s head. This fear and this doubt in his friendship with Obi-Wan was ultimately one of the reasons he fell. Yes, it was his fear for Padme’s life that really did him in. Anakin was known as “The Hero With No Fear.” But there at the end, he became a person full of fear, and as we know: “Fear is the path to the dark side … fear leads to anger … anger leads to hate … hate leads to suffering.”

You gave me all your love and all I gave you was goodbye -Again, this is Anakin finally realizing that Obi-Wan did love him, that he was a good Master for him, and it was Anakin who hadn’t seen it, who had betrayed him. There is a quote from the book Lords of the Sith in which Vader acknowledges his betrayal of everyone he loved. Palpatine: “‘You were a traitor, were you not, Lord Vader?... To the Jedi. To Padme. To Obi-Wan. To all those you loved.’ Vader: Vader did not know the answer his Master wanted to hear, so he simply answered with the truth. ‘Yes.”’

I'd go back to December, turn around and change my own mind- Talking about guilt, again. Without a doubt, Anakin would go back to where it all went wrong if he could. He wouldn’t turn, he’d save Padme, he’d do everything differently if he could.

I miss your tan skin, your sweet smile/ So good to me, so right- Obi-Wan was so good to him. Obviously in a platonic sense. But Obi-Wan was the best Master for Anakin, and you can’t change my mind. Even if they had a rough start and maybe Obi-Wan should have had some time to recover from his Master dying before he took on his Padawan of his own, but I digress. He did the best he could with Anakin, and was most likely far more patient and understanding than other Jedi Masters would have been. Of course at the time, Anakin did realize this and only resented Obi-Wan. Hindsight is 2020, and Anakin would have only realized after everything went down how good Obi-Wan was to him. 

And how you held me in your arms that September night/ The first time you ever saw me cry - This one doesn’t exactly fit because apparently Anakin and Obi-Wan never hug in canon and that is a crime (Filoni and Lucas I’m coming for you). But I am pointedly ignoring canon and choosing to believe that when things got really hard or bad, (after Satine died, maybe even after Ahsoka left the Order) they hugged. Maybe it was a sad hug, the kind where one of them breaks down in tears and the other just holds them as they cry. But I am confident that they have hugged, so this line applies to them. Fight me on it, I dare you. (I’m kidding but only partially) 

But if we loved again, I swear I'd love you right - After realizing how wrong he was in becoming Vader and how his relationship with Obi-Wan wasn’t one-sided, and especially after seeing the pure, selfless love of Luke, which ultimately brings him back to the Light, Anakin is no doubt thinking of the millions of ways he could’ve done better. He wants Obi-Wan to know how sorry he is and that, yes it took him all these years, but he’s learned his lesson. If he could do it all again, which he probably wants to, he would do it right this time. He swears to himself (and to Obi-Wan) that if he just gets this second chance, he’ll do everything right. 

I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't- Anakin knows he can’t go back and fix everything, no matter how much he may want to. All he can do is ask, beg, even, for Obi-Wan’s forgiveness

So if the chain is on your door, I understand - the metaphorical chain isn’t on Obi-Wan’s door, of course, he’d always welcome Anakin back. He wanted nothing more than to see Anakin succeed as a Jedi and be happy, and so of course he’s ready to see Anakin again, to forgive him. But still, Anakin doubts Obi-Wan’s love and his own worth and braces himself to be rejected, even though Obi-Wan’s arms are open. (this might be niche but think: doctor who, “You betrayed my trust, you betrayed our friendship, you betrayed everything I ever stood for. Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?”)

And, that’s it! If you read this entire thing, Fiona and I love you from the bottom of our hearts. As you can tell, we feel a lot of things about this song, and hope you enjoyed our analysis! 

[dameronology]

things we lost in the fire {obi-wan x reader}

summary: on a slow morning in tatooine, you and obi-wan reflect on how lucky you are to still have each other 

warnings: swearing, angst, mentions of death 

another obi fic based on a bastille song?? more likely than you think!! but i swear, despite, all the warnings, this isn’t going to rip your heart out completely 

enjoy,

- val xx

Things had never been darker.

The stars still shone at night, silvers and steels and greys against the canvas of the midnight sky. The sun still came up everyday - doubly so on Tatooine. You woke up every morning to the twin suns blaring down on your new home, illuminating the place with a hauntingly golden glow. For a place that seemed to be so fundamentally built on black and white beliefs - good and bad, right and wrong, light and dark - the world seemed too bright. 

The stars shone at night. The sun still came up every day. The world seemed bright - but things had never seemed darker. 

You missed the life you had - no, you didn’t just miss it. You yearned for it. You ached for it. You wanted to wake up one of these particularly hot Tatooine mornings to find everything was just a dream; that Anakin was alive, that Padme was alive, that you still had a temple to come home to. Everything you’d ever loved had been thrown into the fiery pits of Mustafar, left to burn and turn to ash. 

Well, not everything.

You still had Obi-Wan Kenobi and you thanked the stars everyday for it. 

It was clear that he was hurting too - there was always a tinge of pain in his sarcastic quips, a sense of tiredness in his eyes whenever they creased with laughter. He was doing it for you, staying strong for you. He was holding you both up - after all, helping people was all he knew. Even when he’d lost everything, that didn’t change. 

Searching for positives was hard and after desperately seeking, you’d found a few. 

You were no longer sneaking around, so you could walk hand-in-hand through the winding streets of your local market together. You could lay-in every morning, not worried about meetings or missions or operations. The pressure to be a good Jedi was off and now you could just be together. It wasn’t much - but at the same time, it was everything.

It was a warm morning on Tatooine; the suns were high in the sky, even though it was barely 7AM. You were sprawled out on your mattress, sheets tangled in your legs from where you’d kicked them off in the night. The sunlight was streaming through the cracks in the curtains, showering you in a warm glow as you lazily stretched. You rolled over on your side, eyes falling on the half-awake man next to you.

Obi-Wan’s eyes were vacantly staring at the ceilings, lids heavy with post-sleep tiredness. Having sensed that you were awake, he lazily reached a hand out towards you, covering yours where it was splayed out on the mattress. You tangled your fingers with his, lighting squeezing his hand. 

‘You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?’ You quietly murmured. 

‘Always.’ He whispered back. 

You felt that - you really felt that. Anakin was always on your mind; not Darth Vader, not the twisted, dark person he’d become. Anakin. The cocky Jedi, the one who you’d called your best friend for years. He hadn’t died in the physical sense but emotionally and mentally, he was long gone. He’d gone insane trying to protect the woman he loved and he wasn’t coming back. 

You didn’t necessarily understand. You never could, but you were able resonate with his innate desire to stop at nothing for Padme. You would have crossed the galaxy ten times over and back to protect the man you loved. The panic you felt in the moments after Order 66, not knowing if Obi-Wan had survived was going to stick with you for a long time. 

The way you held each other, after colliding into one another in the middle of a jet? The way you cried, relief washing over you despite the fact that every you’d ever known was gone? That’s when you knew that you were never going to stray away from him again. Everything you’d argued about, everything you’d ever worried about or bickered about suddenly seemed so menial. It was the peak definition of not knowing what you had until you’d almost lost it.

But you hadn’t lost him - you’d got lucky. He’d got lucky too. 

‘I miss him too.’ You said. You softly brushed a few strands of hair out of his face, your free hand still holding his. ‘And I hate to say it, but there’s nothing we can do.’

You hated having to be the voice of reason - that had always been Obi-Wan’s job. It felt like a bit of a dick move to remind him that you could never return to your former life, but reality was harsh. It was a goddamned bitch. The acceptance of the situation had hit you like a ton of bricks and you couldn’t make it any easier for Obi-Wan. You wished that you could; that you could take his pain away and turn it into something better. All you could do was guide him through it in the same way he’d done for you every time that you’d been hurting throughout the years. 

‘I know.’ Obi-Wan finally turned to look at you, a forced smile playing on his lips. ‘I can’t help but think would what have happened if-’

‘- don’t think about the ifs.’ You cut him off. ‘Try as you might but you can’t change the past.’

‘I wish I could.’

You leant forward, pressing a kiss to his cheek. ‘I know.’

With that, you shuffled out of bed, reaching down to grab a shirt. You pulled it over your head and slipped on your shoes, peaking over your shoulder at him as you did. You tried to give him a reassuring smile, but it faltered slightly. 

For once, you were trying to be the strong one. He had been your driving force for so long, the reason that you’d got out of bed in the morning. If you hadn’t had him after everything that had happened? You didn’t know where you’d be. You probably owed it to him to take the weight of everything for once.

‘I’m gonna go make some caff.’ You said.

‘I’ll be out in a moment.’

You stood up, the footsteps of your unlaced boots echoing off the walls as you headed through to the kitchen. Your dwelling was humble; big enough for both of you (and more, if that was what the future held). It felt like home for no other reason than the fact Obi-Wan was there with you. 

After assembling a semi-decent cup of caff, you kicked open your front door and headed outside. There was a small bench at the front of the house, overlooking the village ahead. The early morning sun was beating down on you, the air fresh and untainted. The day felt new - full of hope, despite everything. 

Pulling your knees up to your chest, you cupped the warm drink between your hands. The road ahead of you was still empty - most people around here were older, retired or out of employment. They didn’t rise until much later in the morning - you wished you were capable of that, but years as a Jedi had drilled early starts into your system. 

‘I don’t always think about the past.’

The sound of Obi-Wan’s voice announced his present. 

‘Yeah?’ You replied, tilting your head to face him. He was stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He had a cup of caff in one hand and a book in the other. ‘So what do you think about?’

‘You.’ 

Tossing the book to the doorstep with a dusty thump, the Jedi moved to take a set next to you. He reached his arm out towards you and without having to say anything, you dropped your feet to the floor and fell into his side. He pressed a kiss to your temple, hand gently carding through your hair. 

It was so domestic - so simple, so suburban and ordinary. But, behind your small gestures of affection and words of love, there were galaxies of grief. The place you were now might have seemed peaceful and quiet but the journey to get there had been anything but. Between you, you’d experienced enough loss and enough pain to last ten lifetimes. 

‘That’s a grand statement.’ You shot back.

‘A grand statement for a grand person.’

‘Oh, you always have been a sweet talker.’ You chuckled. 

‘I mean it.’ He replied. ‘I don’t say often enough how grateful I am for you.’

You peered up at him, a small sigh escaping your lips. ‘You don’t have to.’

‘I should though.’

‘And so should I.’ You shot back. ‘You have done everything for me since the day we met, Obi. I owe you so much-’

‘- you don’t owe me anything, darling.’ He softly murmured. ‘Simply staying by my side has put me in a lifetime of debt.’

You almost laughed at the thought of doing anything else. Staying with Obi-Wan had never even been a question - you were already packing your bags before he could even finish saying I’m moving to Tatooine. Neither of you had any idea where you were going, nor what you were doing. But, just like everything else, you were going to figure it out together. 

‘We’ll call it even.’ You leant up to kiss him, lips brushing against his.

‘I talk about what I’ve lost.’ He murmured, forehead resting on yours. ‘Anakin, Padme, the Jedi.’

That was the first time he’d said his name his everything had happened. It hurt - maker, it hurt - but the proud look on your face when it happened was almost enough to make it worth it. 

‘But I never talk about what I still have.’ He added. ‘You.’

‘You don’t need to talk about it.’ You shook your head. ‘I know the feeling.’

‘You do?’

‘Of course.’ You replied. ‘I think about that day all the time and all I can remember is that you were my first concern. I could only focus on finding you, on making sure that you were okay.’

‘You mean everything to me.’ Obi-Wan admitted. ‘You always have but even more so now.’

He hadn’t mean to become attached to you, even less so to indulge his addiction. Years ago, when you were both still sworn to a code, it had been hard. Choosing you over the very Order that he’d committed has life too had been a struggle - but now? He’d never been more grateful that he’d chosen you. 

‘It’s the same for you.’ You offered him a watery smile. ‘Guess we’re kinda stuck together, huh?’

‘Even if you strayed to the other side of the galaxy, we still have a Force connection.’ He reminded you. ‘So yes - I suppose we are stuck together.’

Obi-Wan was your backbone; the glue that held you together these days. It was easy to look at him as though he hung the stars in the sky - and as far as you were concerned, he did. You were living in dark times but he felt like the light at the end of the tunnel.

And, little did you know, but he felt the same. Having you by his side meant more to you than you’d ever realised. There was one specific second on the day of Order 66 that he held onto: the moment you met again, the moment that you tossed yourself towards him, not caring about whether or not he was going to catch you. That was when, despite everything, that he felt like things were going to be okay. 

The stars still shone at night. The sun still came up everyday. It felt like you were the reason why. 

tags: @cherieboba​ @valkyriesandbrokenhalos​ @cptnrex501​ @thespareoom​