#listed under: AUs where anakin doesn't become a Sith

[starculler]

Lost & Found

spacial displacement, my old and severely underutilized friend -- notes from an idea featuring Padawan!Anakin and Cadet!Rex:

Anakin -- all of twelve years old, on an errand for one of the Temple's Masters, and definitely not where he's supposed to be -- finds a kid. Specifically, he finds a kid who's managed to get himself lost in Coruscant's lower levels for more than a week with no memory of how or why he's ended up there. Adding fuel to an already horrifying fire, the name the kid offers Anakin when he asks is a designation: CT-7567.

Anakin, he promptly decides, is going to murder someone.

First, though, he breathes. In through his nose, out through his mouth like Obi-Wan taught him in an effort to help him manage the sparking anger that sometimes kindles too hot and too fierce in his chest. The kid doesn't need that from him, and Anakin knows somewhere deep down that he needs to be clearheaded about this.

If there's one thing he knows for certain, though, he's sure as hell not going through Coruscant's sercurity forces for this. They already missed the kid for this long, and Anakin's been around enough (and heard enough) to know how vulnerable little kids (no matter that he looks close enough to Anakin's age) like the one he's found can fall through the cracks.

No. This, he knows, he'll have to handle himself.

.

Rex has no idea what he did to get himself into this situation, but knows for sure he's going to be decommissioned for it as soon as he finds a way back to Kamino. The Jedi Commander who finds him is a whirlwind of action from the moment he just about bulldozes into Rex to everything that happens after.

He's everything and absolutely nothing like what he expected a Jedi, cadet or otherwise, to be based on what his trainers, the Kaminoans, and his flash training have told him.

The Jedi -- "I told you my name's Anakin," he says, voice strangled with something distinctly distressed. "Please stop calling me 'sir'" -- shoots him rapid-fire questions, and Rex answers them with the military efficiency trained into him. The back and forth doesn't last long, not after one of the lamp lights buzzing over Anakin's head pops and shatters, startling them both.

"Sir," Rex starts hesitantly, staring wide-eyed at the broken light. The Jedi Commander breathes heavily through his nose and Rex course-corrects immediately, tense as a wire (thinks of annoyed trainers and brothers who don't catch on quick enough and disappear overnight never to be seen again). Anakin whines, the sound mostly stuck in his throat. Rex knows bitten back distress as well as he knows the shape of his face, and a hand darts out to grab the cadet's hand before he even really knows what he's doing. He's a little surprised when the little Jedi squeezes his fingers instead of letting go.

Rex, after they've settled, ultimately decides this is his Jedi when the boy pulls him into a nearby building, still holding each other's hands, and buys him a roll of the sweetest bread he's ever tasted in his life. Anakin grins, all sharp and Jedi-knowing, and promises he'll help Rex no matter what (including finding him a name instead of a number, because he's a person.)

(Rex chokes a little, his eyes blurry and burning, when he shares his name with his natborn Jedi -- the first person to hear it outside of the circle of brothers he's lived with his whole life. Anakin's eyes go wide and bright, his grin so wide Rex thinks it might split his face.)

.

Cue:

A little clone cadet following his chosen Jedi like two little ducklings leading each other

So many instances of "here, try this!" as Anakin shoves food at Rex

A very confused Jedi Knight followed by a confused and horrified Jedi Knight and Council

The revelation of a Sith plot years in the making and the discovery of a clone army supposedly commissioned by a recently deceased Jedi Master on behalf of the Republic

Journeys of self discovery and personal betterment

Also, Jango's there.