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A scream cuts through the air.
Rex’s scream.
Anakin jolts forward. Her boots sink into fine, orange dust. It’s finer than sand. Powdery. Clinging. She’s unable to gain traction. Each step sucks her backwards.
Wind tears at her tunics. Strands of hair smack her face. The heat is disorienting. Everything is orange; orange particles sting her eyes, coat her eyelashes, stuff her nostrils; an orange cliff face expands in front of her, barely seen through the blistering sandstorm.
The scream nears. But she can’t see him, can’t feel him through the force, doesn’t know where to go, where is he, where is REX—
An explosion engulf’s Rex’s scream.
Chunks of duracrete fly overhead. Anakin drops. Her legs sink into the dust. Her arms wrap around her head, her undertunics cling to her body, soaked with sweat, she can’t think, she can’t remember where she is, where is REX!?
Anakin reaches out with the force, but is met with nothing. Dust whips around her. She can’t see. She thrashes against the sinking ground. Wrenches free. She darts forward on all fours, desperate to get to Rex, dust sliding through her fingers, knees digging trenches and—
There.
Above her.
Flailing arms. Kicking legs. Smear of blue-white armor in the rampaging orange whirls. Nearing. Plummeting. Screaming.
“Rex!” Anakin’s hands shoot skyward. She shoves. Creates a pillow through the force. To catch—
Everything lurches.
*
Solid ground slams into her knees. Heavy rain plasters her hair to her scalp. It’s like a punch to the gut, switching from the arid desert to the torrential downpour.
Everything’s cast in purplish-black shadow. The hem of her tunics soak in an inky-tar puddle. She attempts to stand, but it sticks to her, tugging incessantly, greedily. It rises up her leggings. Heavy, thick.
Anakin wrenches at her tunics. Struggles. The goop has risen over her calves. It pins her in place. Rain beats at her, forcing her to bow her head.
The screaming nears.
The overcast sky is purplish-black, pockmarked by blinding flashes of blaster fire. Red-blue blue-red streaks sizzle through the rain, leaving behind arcs of rising steam.
An immense spider droid takes a lumbering step, its legs capable of overtaking a Coruscanti skyscraper. Its size is bigger than anything Anakin had ever seen before. Nightmarish in its scale.
Blue-white armor torpedoes through the rain, casting off a wake of misted droplets. Rex’s scream melts into the pattering drumbeat, arms caterwauling, flung upward by some invisible force. He’s going to crash into the glowing red eye—
Anakin desperately reaches through the force for him, to stop him before—
Everything lurches.
*
White, white everywhere.
Snow packs her in place. Crushes against her chest. An immovable blanket has tucked her upright, frozen, as an avalanche bears down on her.
She recognizes this.
Hoth.
Anakin wrenches her head to the side, looking for Torrent Company, they should be—
Only Rex is there, boots sunk in the snow, racing for her, he’s going to try to rescue her again, though it’s inevitable that he’s going to be swept up in the avalanche.
Anakin can’t move her arms. The snow is up to the level of her chin. Her eyelashes cling together, frozen. Her hood’s been swept back. The blizzard whips stinging shards of ice into her face.
Anakin focuses. She’s done this once before, she can do it again.
She shoves.
Rex flings through the sky, a smear of 501st blue cutting through the white. He lands at the top of a tree.
Anakin holds her breath.
A thousand tons crashes into her, and Anakin accepts her fate.
It’s dark.
And oh so thunderously loud.
But...she can’t feel anything.
This isn’t the same.
Last time, seven members of the 501st had been there. She’d managed to fling all of them into the trees before she’d been overtaken. Why is this happening again?
Is she having a nightmare?
She no longer feels cold. It’s pitch black. She wiggles her fingers. Meets no resistance. If she’s in a nightmare, she just needs to wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
**
Blistering orange dust pelts her. Wind flings her hair and ruffles her tunics. Sweat drips down her spine. Anakin holds out her hand to shade the glaring sun and recognizes the sweeping dunes of Geonosis. A massive fortress extends between adjoining cliff faces. Rex’s blue-white armor gradually increases in size as he plummets toward her. His terrified scream wrenches her heart.
“Rex!” Anakin extends her arms and—
It works this time.
The captain’s descent slows, but his screaming intensifies.
Rex’s arms jerk in a swimming motion. He hovers a few inches above the ground, horizontal, prepped to belly flop into a splat of viscera.
Anakin sets him gently down.
His screams cut off with a weak whimper. His helmet sinks into the dust and his arms are swan-dived out to the side. He doesn’t move.
Anakin rushes to his side. This time, the dust doesn’t sink her down.
“Rex,” Anakin says, breathless, shaky, terrified. She falls to her knees beside her captain. “Rex, can you hear me?”
Achingly slow, Rex’s helmet pries out of the dust. It’s like he’s dipped his face in paint, the black of his visor not visible beneath the thick layer of orange. “General?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
Rex flops his helmet back into the soft dust. It sends up minor plumes of floating orange particles.
By now, the fortress should’ve blown.
This is by far the most vivid dream Anakin has had since she’d dreamt of her mother. But even so, it doesn’t feel like a vision.
More like a half-remembered, distorted memory.
Might as well go along with it.
“You ok, Rex?” Anakin asks. It’s still too hot. The sun is too bright. And it’s far too orange. She’d prefer a different scenery, but would settle with less dust up her nose.
“I hate heights.” Rex’s voice is muffled, his helmet sunk into the ground.
Anakin touches his backplate. It feels real.
“I hate falling.” His tinny speaker is hard to hear. “I hate it when you push me off things.”
“I don’t push you—”
“You do. Again and again. I’m getting sick and tired of screaming.”
“Rex—”
Rex’s arms shift. Slowly, he shoves himself over. He drapes on his side. His helmet tilts awkwardly, the fin at the top digging into the ground. “Sir,” Rex heaves out, his vocoder still jammed.
Anakin leans in and wipes at his visor with her sleeve. Her hand shakes. “Yes, Rex?”
"You've never been here before. Why are you here now?"
"I—"
Everything lurches.
**
Shadows envelop her.
Rain drenches her. She's soaked, tunics hanging like dead weight, hair draping over her right eye, snagged on the raised edge of her scar.
Mimban. She's on Mimban. They spent the whole mission trudging through purple mud like waterlogged banthas.
She wrenches forward but the tar holds her tight. Its grip around her knees and calves unrelenting. Worse, worse, than the mud had ever been.
The smell is the same. Like fetid gym socks. Left out to soak in a pan full of regurgitated tea leaves.
The spider droid lifts its massive leg. Blaster fire evaporates the rain. Everything sizzles, a pot about to boil over, a drowning to occur on land.
Rex screeches as he's flung upward. No more than a stone at the end of a sling, sent careening to take out the one-eyed monolith.
Anakin had been the one to fling him upward. Last time, he'd managed to grab hold of the laser cannon, and, within the thin inner ray shield, he'd withdrawn his DC17 and fired at the spider droid point blank, killing it instantly.
But this one is huge, too huge, and Rex's velocity is far too fast; he's going to splat against the droid and then plummet to his death.
Anakin stretches out her hands, desperate to slow him. She wills the force—
His body slows like he'd been caught in invisible netting. And then, his trajectory reverses.
Rex plummets.
He screams.
Anakin catches him. He floats above the ground, twitching helplessly. He whimpers. Anakin sets him down.
His backplate squishes into the dark mauve mud. Rain patters against his armor. He's completely silent and unmoving.
"Rex! You ok?" Anakin shifts against the tar.
"General?" Rex's voice sounds like it’d been distorted through a gurgling scuba mask.
The spider droid twists its massive domed head. It's glaring red eye shifts its focus with a thundering snick. Target locked, it raises a massive leg that could squash an AT-TE like a bug.
"Rex!" Anakin shoves at the goop, desperate, but it clings to her arms. Travels up her thighs, over her waist, undulating as it creeps higher and higher. "Rex, help me!"
The rain abruptly cuts off.
Anakin frantically peers up. The massive footpad looms directly overhead. She thrashes harder.
Rex groans and sits up. "Yes, alright, alright. Fling me around everywhere and yank me back whenever you feel like it." He rises to his feet and stalks toward her, unhurried. "You want to know something?"
The tar creeps up around her neck.
Rex's boots squelch as he stands over her. "I had a plan. But before I could act on it, you yeeted me."
"What?"
Rex wrenches his grappling gun off his belt and shoves it in Anakin's face. "Do you know what this is!?"
His anger silences her. The tar has crept up to her jaw. She's afraid to open her mouth lest it creep in.
"I was going to use it! But you—" he flings his arm to portray how he'd been shunted without warning. The motion splashes rain into her face. "I nearly shit myself!"
Anakin wriggles helplessly. The droid's massive foot is approaching, forever approaching, like one of those weird visual presentations where the object constantly looks like it's nearing but never gets bigger.
"You didn't have to throw me!” His voice is hoarse. High-pitched. “You shouldn't have! What if you missed!?"
"I—" Tar creeps over her lips, cold and squishy and entirely unpleasant.
"Give a man some warning, at least!" Rex continues, hysterical. He taps at the side of his helmet with the grappling gun—showcasing the worst example of blaster safety she's ever witnessed from a man as careful as him. His visor turns on her. Water cascades over the lip of it. And suddenly—
***
Back to the arid, hellish landscape. Anakin sneezes once the dust hits her nose. She squints against the bright sun.
Rex stands beside her, armor coated in orange, the grappling gun gripped tightly.
They're on top of the Geonosian fortress this time.
"You laughed."
Anakin looks out at the too-orange landscape. They're completely alone. No droids shooting at them. Solid duracrete beneath their feet.
"Rex—" Anakin pleads.
"You thought it was funny."
During the first year of the war, she, Ahsoka, and Rex had destroyed this fortress. And, sure, Anakin had shoved Rex off the top. So he wouldn't explode. And then she and Ahsoka had caught him before he hit the ground.
Anakin would always catch him.
And…maybe she did laugh, a little, because he was so scared— didn't he know she'd always be there for him?
"I didn't find it funny.” His grappling gun is clipped to his belt. When did he—how—
Cool metal clasps around her wrist.
The force shuts off with a snap.
Rex shoves.
Anakin falls.
Open air meets her. Wind whips past. The fortress extends on for miles and miles as she plummets. She can't feel the force. She thrashes midair, but can’t twist, can’t see how far down the ground is, her gut clenches,
She's going to die.
She’s going to die.
A scream tears from her lips.
Anakin stumbles. She falls to her knees, breathless. Her hands smack against the duracrete. Her hair drapes around her jaw.
She dry heaves. Nothing comes out. A bit of hair gets sucked in and clings to the wetness of her lower lip.
Plastoid creaks. A blue kama takes up most of her periphery.
"Fuck." Rex crouches in front of her. "I shouldn't have done that." He brushes the strand of hair out of her mouth. He tucks it behind her ear. His heavy glove feels good against her cheek. "You ok?"
"Rex, I'm so sorry." Anakin shudders. She never thought what it might be like for him. Being completely helpless. It feels like the bones in her legs have been scraped out, leaving behind a goey husk of muscle and skin. Like she’d been turned into viscera, unable to stand against such rampant terror.
"Sure," Rex says. "I knew I'd picture you saying that."
Anakin peers up at him. The tally marks on his helmet are half-covered by pervasive dust. There's more tallies now than there had been when they'd actually been on the planet.
Rex’s fingers linger in her hair beside her ear. The plastoid pads are surprisingly cool. “I’ve pictured you begging for forgiveness, too.” His thumb brushes over her scar. It displaces the sweat gathered on her brow. “And yet, you keep on tossing me around.”
“I’m sorry. I promise I won’t anymore.” Anakin leans into his touch. They have to be back on top of the fortress—the sunlight far too bright for her to keep her eyes open.
“Funny. Thought it’d make me feel better to hear that from you.” Rex’s hand pulls away. Armor clanks as he rises. His shadow falls over her. “But it just makes it worse.”
“I promise I’ll never do it again.” She won’t. Not after experiencing it first hand.
Rex sighs, and it’s a pervasive thing that sinks into Anakin’s skin. He doesn’t believe her.
He doesn’t trust her.
His shadow slides away. Rex steps to the edge of the fortress, his back to her.
Anakin scrambles to her feet. She lurches, her stance unsteady. She feels like she might puke, but forces it down.
“Rex, I’ll make it right with you.” The force suppression cuffs are gone. “I promise. What do I need to do?” She rushes for him, hands hovering, desperate to prove herself.
Rex flinches.
Anakin hesitates. She stands behind him, a step off to the side. Where he normally stands when he’s with her. Slowly, she places her shaking hands behind her back.
Even now, he’s afraid she’ll push him off. She’d done it to save his life, not for fun. But…
She could at least have warned him. Or given him the option to jump on his own. Or let him save himself. She glances at the grappling gun at his hip.
At least Anakin knows now. Or, in some weird way, has always recognized it. Why else would her subconscious force her to go through with this? She’ll make it right with Rex.
Maybe that’s all she has to do, and then she’ll wake up from this.
“What else are you pissed off about? Is there anything else I can do to change—” Anakin asks.
Rex giggles. The sound he makes is too breathy. Too high pitched. He wrenches off his helmet. His blonde hair shines in the bright light. His shoulders shake as his laughter turns into half-escaped snorts.
It’s horrifying.
It’s rare enough to see the captain smile. This is so much worse.
Rex wipes at the corner of his eye. His mirth finally dissipates. “Oh, general.” His voice is tinged with a bubbling sense of hysteria. “You drive me madder than a spiced mynock.” He turns, finally, to face her.
There’s a gleam in his eyes that makes Anakin want to get as far away as possible.
“You want to know what really pisses me off? ” Rex takes a menacing step toward her.
Anakin wants to run, but finds her muscles seizing up in fear.
Rex’s honey-gold eyes are too-wide. His smile reveals all teeth. His finger jabs against her sternum. “You. Taking. Off.” Rex jabs at each word. “Just—” he splays out his fingers and waves into the far distance. “Skywalker style. Not a word, no message, just—” he waves his hand again.
“I—”
“You don’t even check in!” He’s shouting now. “Did you know, we have mandated check-in times? We notify each other, our squads, as often as we can? Just a simple comm, or two clicks over the radio, or—” Rex runs his palm over his scalp, his eyes darting off to the side, unfocused. His voice lowers to a whisper.
Anakin has to lean in to catch it.
“Because as soon as a vod misses a check in, you know—” Rex’s hand drags over his face. His eyes go half-lidded. All of the energy seems to seep from his muscles. “You know that they’re dead.”
“Rex—” Anakin breathes out, gutted.
“You’ll be gone for…hours. Kriff. Days, even. Without a word. I—” His hand falls limply by his side. There’s a crease in his brow that shows whenever they go over the mission reports.
Whenever he’s dealing with grief over his fallen brothers.
“I just don’t want to have to keep chasing after you. One of these days, I’m just going to find your body, and—" Rex cuts himself off with a noiseless sob.
Anakin doesn't know what to do. She feels whiplashed by Rex’s manic emotions.
Rex is stalwart. Steady. Confident.
The man in front of her is broken and terrified.
This is the worst nightmare she's ever had.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Rex's chest plate heaves as he takes in a shuddering breath.
She has to fix this. She has to—
Wake up .
Rex turns away from her, his lower lip quivering, his eyes squeezed shut.
Anakin’s fucked up. She’s fucked up, so bad, that she’s made the Rex in her head cry. He never cries.
Anakin steps in and wraps her arms around him.
Immediately, Rex sinks into her. His fingers grasp at her tunics between her shoulder blades. His stuttered breaths huff against her neck. Wet and warm.
Anakin has pictured, many times, of doing just this. Hugging her captain. But he’s always been so closed off, so perfectly put together. She didn’t think he’d appreciate it.
"I don't want you to leave me behind." The stubble on his jaw grazes against her neck. It feels…so real.
"Okay," Anakin says. "I won't." She'll promise anything, if it means she'll wake up from this. She runs her nails over the tightly shorn hair. The way the buzzed strands catch at her nails is fascinating. Force, she wants to be able to do this in real life.
Rex’s breathing slows.
Steadies.
Anakin rests her jaw against his temple. Maybe, when she wakes up, she’ll ask the Real Rex for a hug. Because this is nice.
Rex lifts his head. His arms keep her secured against him. He stares up at her through his long, dark lashes. His nose brushes against the cleft of her chin.
“General,” he says, and his voice is gruff. Low.
Anakin tilts her head down. Hunches, a bit.
Rex rises up to meet her. Their foreheads press together. His warm breath, smelling faintly like an electrolyte stim, huffs against her lips.
“I can’t stand to lose you,” Rex says.
Everything lurches.
****
Cold, cold presses down on her. It’s dark. And so silent it’s deafening.
Anakin can’t move.
There’s a pocket of space around her head, just enough for her to breathe. Anakin twists her head back and forth. Her ears catch on the snow and send some falling down her neck.
Hoth.
The avalanche.
Last time, she’d been knocked unconscious. And when she woke, she entered a light meditative trance—turns out she was capable of doing that, when her life was on the line—and simply waited until Rex came to her rescue.
But this is a dream.
Only a dream.
Wake up.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
Snow trickles down. Plops on her head. Slides down her cheeks. It’s so, so very cold, but Anakin does not shiver. She can't anymore.
Wake up .
Nothing changes.
Anakin has no control.
Last time, the seven members of the torrent company, including Rex, had gotten her unburied. They’d called in a gunship with a pilot mad enough to brave the blizzard—Hawks—and hitched a ride to the base of the mountain. As soon as they freed her and loaded her up, the ship shot skyward and beelined it for the Resolute .
Anakin focuses. She can’t feel her arms. There’s too much weight pressing down on her. Her limbs have gone numb. Through the force, she locates her wrist comm. Engages the homing beacon. Just like she had done before.
Rex will find her.
He always does.
All too soon, bright light hits her. Anakin winces.
“General!” Rex shouts, winded.
More snow plops onto Anakin’s face. She hears shoveling.
Suddenly, she’s half out of the snow. A trench has been dug all around her. Only her legs are still buried.
Rex shovels away with his helmet. Steam rises off his head. His motions are frantic. Too-fast, too-hurried, too-desperate.
“Rex,” Anakin says.
He does not stop.
This is a dream. Only a dream. Maybe if she reminds herself of it enough, it’ll force her to wake up.
Anakin crosses her arms over her chest. She’s wearing a heavy coat and several tunics. But it still feels like her nipples are cold enough to cut through the layers. “Rex. I’m okay. You’ve already rescued me.”
Rex frantically scoops snow away with his helmet. His cheeks and nose are bright red.
“This is just a dream.” Her shivering makes her voice wobble. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”
Rex slams his helmet into the snow. He leaves it jutting there. “The one time I actually find you, and you want me to, what, stop halfway?”
“You’re doing great. Can we go somewhere warm?”
“You think I’m in control of this?!” Rex waves emphatically at her, and suddenly, she’s completely unburied.
Anakin sits on top of the embankment, double-layered leggings and winter-grade boots only covered with a light dusting of snow. She brings her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “I suppose that works. Thanks.”
Rex sits back on his haunches. “Kriffing hell.” He shakes his head, and steam continues to rise from the sheen of sweat clinging to his blond hair. “Why can’t that work all the time?” His teeth chatter so hard it’s difficult to understand. “Why can’t I find you every night?”
Anakin has to breathe through her mouth. Her nose hairs have frozen together. She hates that her memory hyper fixates on the worse things. “Can we go somewhere warm?”
Rex giggles. That manic, breathy giggle, made all the worse by the swirling fog bursting out of his mouth. “The one time I get to you, you don’t even let me properly rescue you.”
“I’m sorry. Want me to start over?”
Rex’s jaw clenches. It sounds like there’s a rattling tin can stuck in his mouth.
“Look, Rex, I’m not sure what you want from me—”
“I want you to not be such an idiot!”
Anakin blinks.
Rex angrily motions around them. Only white could be seen for klicks and klicks, save for the tiny green specs of trees jutting out along the mountainside. “You weren’t supposed to even be in this area! You went the wrong way! We had to follow your tracks because you took off without us!”
Anakin glances up at the mountain peak. She’d been near the top when the avalanche wiped her all the way down to the base. She’d only survived by wrapping herself into a force-bubble. “I thought it’d be a shortcut.”
Rex laughs. It’s worse than the giggling. Maniacal. He places his elbows on his knees and leans down to bury his face in his gloves. “Prime’s wrinkly balls,” he huffs out between laughs. “You can’t always rely on GPS.” His voice comes out plaintive, face still hidden in his palms. “Why can’t you just look at a map?”
She doesn’t like this.
Rex doesn’t talk to her this way.
Then again, Rex would never toss her off a cliff.
Anakin shoves herself to her feet, desperate to leave. Her toes are numb. She stamps down on the snow to get blood moving.
Nightmare Rex is in control. Some version of her, deep down, must recognize how poorly she treats him. This is her penance.
“Fine. I’ll do whatever you ask.” Anakin hates how nasally she sounds. How her voice warbles over the shivers. “I’ll tell you where I’m going. I’ll study the maps beforehand. I won’t leave you behind. And I won’t toss you anywhere. Anything else?”
Rex pries his head out of his hands. Frost clings to his eyebrows. “I kriffing hate it when you eat bugs in front of me.”
“Fan-frickin-tastic!” Anakin shoves her hood back over her head. He doesn’t even like the way she eats. “Tell me how it really is, Rex. You hate everything about me, you think I’m an idiot, and I drive you batshit! Great!”
“I don’t hate everything about you.”
Nevermind.
She can’t do this.
Anakin turns and stomps away. She sinks into the snow up to the level of her waist. Frustrated, she tanks on, half-wading through the deep powder. Damn this dream, she’ll just have to find the edges of it and tear herself out of it.
“All you have to do is warn me!” Rex shouts from behind her. She can hear him struggle through the snow. “I’ll turn around and cover my ears so I can’t hear the crunch. I’d rather do that than puke on your boots.”
“Really?” Anakin swivels around. Rex is following her tracks, his helmet still discarded. Each step shoves more snow into the joint of his knee braces. There’s snow packed in his belt pouch.
“You hate bugs that much?” Anakin asks. “Why?”
Rex stops, just out of arm’s reach. He shudders, and it’s not from the cold.
That’s a morale booster, for sure. Nightmare Rex thinks she’s disgusting.
“Great. Just. Great.” Anakin huffs. It fogs in the air. “Is there anything you like about me?”
Rex’s kamas jut out behind him, caught in the edge of the trench. There’s no fog rising from his mouth, because now’s the time to hold his breath, apparently. He’d rather suffocate than answer.
He hates her.
“Rex. Look. I’m sorry,” Anakin says. She really, really is sorry. And she just wants to wake up, warm, in her bed, and not have to worry if she’s gotten frostbite where her stump meets her cybernetic because it makes such a terrible conductor in the cold. Her only worry will be accidentally saying something to Real Rex that will reveal that she dreamt about him, though she probably will still march up and hug him so this weird sense of guilt that fabricated this whole mess will go away.
“I’ll stop eating bugs. And lizards too, I remember the way you looked when Snips and I found that nest—”
Rex’s nose scrunches up.
“Yeah, thanks,” Anakin says mulishly. Nightmare Rex despises her. “Look. I’ll change every part of me if that’s what it’ll take for you to be happy.”
“You don’t need to change who you are, General.” Rex answers too quickly for it to be the truth.
“Clearly, I need to change a lot of things, because you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Yes you do. And if you need to tell me every reason why you hate me, then go ahead. I’ll listen. And I’ll try to change. I’ll do whatever it takes Rex, because I know you deserve better.”
Rex stares. That crease between his brows is back.
If this dream is her subconscious beating her over her head with a limmie-stick for her to finally pay attention, then maybe her master was onto something when he said one of these days not meditating will catch up with her. Instead of working through her issues like a normal person, she has to come up with this nightmare in order to realize she’s an asshole.
Rex hates her.
And this nightmare is going to show her just how much she’s fucked up.
Anakin hugs herself and tamps down the snow. “Rex, just, if this is what we have to do, go ahead. Be brutal. Be honest. But please, let’s go somewhere warmer.”
Rex’s expression is unreadable.
He slowly reaches out his hand. There’s snow packed in the cracks of the gauntlets. No sign of his blacks at the joints, because he’s closer to a walking snowman than an armored soldier, at this point.
Anakin rests her gloved hand in his. Her digits whir and then finally grip him in return, the cybernetics delayed. She’ll have to clean out any frost that got in the interior before it melts and gets the electronics wet—
Wait, no.
This is a dream. She’ll be fine.
Everything lurches.
****
For the first time, Anakin feels comfortable. She inhales deeply through her nose, and smells perfectly climate-controlled recycled oxygen. The thrum of hyperdrive engines settles beneath the soles of her boots.
She’s aboard The Resolute.
Her cybernetics are back to working at peak capacity, so she can feel Rex’s firm grip. Can feel his thumb rub against the back of her glove.
They’re in their shared office space.
It had been, originally, Rex’s office. But then, Anakin had exploded her own office—turns out, attempting to dig into droidekas to learn more about how they worked, engaged their self-destruct feature—and Rex had been so dismayed to learn that she’d nearly blown herself up that now she can only work on projects while supervised.
So. They combined.
They got rid of Rex’s desk. His sofa. And crammed in a little half-table and chair for Rex, and Anakin’s crate of tools, a cabinet that leans precariously to the side but Anakin refuses to part with, a small wheeled-stool that she adores, all of her current unfinished projects, and several fire extinguishers into the small space.
“Oh,” Anakin says, looking at her organized chaos taking up three-quarters of the room, Rex’s small table the only thing cleared off. She glances down at herself. She’s back in her typical black tunics. No dust. No rain. No snow.
“This is much nicer.” Anakin releases Rex’s hand and steps over two-and-a-half torn-apart mouse droids that she will put back together once she gets enough replacement parts, and plops down on her favorite chair. She adds in a little spin and examines the room on her 360.
It looks exactly the way it did yesterday. Down to the scorch marks and the fried electrical wires dangling off the cabinet’s handle.
Rex sets his helmet on the table. His armor is freshly shined, though the scuffs and scrapes and dents on it are proudly unvarnished. His fingers rest on the fin of his helmet, his gloves clipped to his belt, and he looks at her with a fond tilt to his lips that matches so closely his typical look that Anakin almost thinks she’d woken up and gotten her Real Rex back.
But. This is her nightmare.
This is her penance.
“So,” Anakin begins. “That list. Of things you hate about me.” She waves her hand in a motion to get on with it.
Rex’s expression crumples. “I don’t hate you.”
Anakin leans back on the stool. The front wheels raise up and she balances precariously.
Rex’s eyes narrow.
Might as well cross this one off the list right away.
Rather than clear his throat to get her to stop—like he always does when his patience is running thin—Rex squeezes in the narrow space between the table and wall and takes his seat. His eyes fall shut, either to close her out, or to gather his thoughts, or—
The top half of his armor disappears. He’s left in his blacks.
The wheels of Anakin’s stool thunk back on the ground. “What’re you—”
Rex lets out a relieved sigh and slumps back into the chair. He rotates a shoulder and cricks his head from side to side. “Much better.”
He still has on his lower armor—Anakin can see his legs from beneath the table, and he splays his legs wide. It’s indecent, is what it is. And the most relaxed Anakin has ever seen him.
“Why’re you—”
“Might as well get comfortable, General,” Rex says. “I’m not going to look a gift-bantha in the mouth if it means a different type of torture.”
“What?” Anakin can’t take her gaze off his chest. She’s never seen him out of his armor. There’s a slight divot in the muscle of his left pectoral, just above his heart. Where he’d been shot on Saleucami.
“Complaining about you, to your face, is the last thing I want to do.” His fingers tap against the little table. “But, falling is worse. So is...” His inhale stretches his skin-tight blacks. “So is endlessly searching for you in the snow.” Rex takes a moment to stare at the table.
A datapad appears beneath his fingertips. “I’m going to drag this out, so we don’t have to go back.”
“You really have a list prepared,” Anakin says, mouth gone dry. Kriff. She must subconsciously hate herself so much if she’s created this, this phantom version of Rex to torment her.
This kriffing sucks.
“Comfy?” Rex asks, and he almost sounds smarmy about it.
Anakin groans and slumps against the cabinet. It shifts under her weight and leans to the other side. “Fine. Just get on with it.”
“Hmm. I don’t think I’m quite comfy yet.” Rex closes his eyes again.
His lower armor disappears.
Rex is left only in his blacks. Legs still spread indecently wide. He scoots forward a bit and then leans fully onto the backrest of his chair. The blacks are so kriffing tight.
Anakin straightens in her seat. She can see every muscle in his thighs. She can see...his bulge.
Anakin wants to scream.
Why the kriff does her subconscious want her to know that Rex tucks to the right!?
Anakin wrenches her gaze toward the wall. Tup’s lopsided, disproportionate depiction of a tooka is a much safer bet than looking back under the table. The 501st blue smears still have fingerprints in it.
Most of the walls in the venator are durasteel gray; unpainted due to a lack of funding for "unnecessary" resources. But Rex had told her, once, that he hated the sterile white walls where he'd grown up. That The Resolute is sometimes too much like Kamino.
So Anakin complained to Obi-Wan. And, somehow, the amount of armor paint granted her troops was mistakenly doubled.
And then Anakin told Ahsoka that bland walls drove Rex crazy, and the next night, Snips, Tup, Fives, Echo, and Jesse had spliced into Rex's office and "upgraded" it. They’d drawn all over the walls, and Ahsoka had climbed up onto Jesse's shoulders to fingerpaint stick figures of her favorite members of the 501st smiling down at them from the ceiling.
Jesse had drawn a string of soldiers at eye level, all wielding DC's that deceptively looked like cocks and balls and—
Anakin whimpers and shoves her face in her hands.
"Am I making you uncomfortable, general?" Rex doesn't sound concerned whatsoever.
Anakin does not look up. Force, she knew she liked Rex. Like-liked him, even, but this is just torture.
"Let's start with that, then. You making me uncomfortable." His fingers tap-tap against the datapad. "I don't appreciate it when I have to stand guard so you can kriff your senator in the supply closet."
Anakin groans.
"Or everytime you call her, you have me make up excuses and cover for you. You made me lie to Cody. I hate lying to Cody."
Anakin slumps her shoulder blades back against the cabinet. It teeters precariously.
"I had to tell General Kenobi that you were catching up with Threepio once."
"Seriously?" Anakin asks, incredulous. Obi-Wan would never believe that. She lifts her head and only glances between Rex's legs briefly before focusing on his face.
Rex's expression is stern. "I hate lying, general."
"Probably because you're so bad at it."
"You're one to talk."
"Is that another reason why you hate me?"
Rex's fingers cease tapping. "I do not hate you, general." He says this dejectedly, like it's a fault. "I find it endearing how bad you are at lying. How…incapable you are of hiding your love for your senator." He looks over at all the palm prints Echo had plastered on the wall closest to his seat.
Is this what her subconscious is warning her of? The consequences of attachment? How her relationship with Padme affects the lives of those closest to her?
“So what, you’d rather I break it off with Padme so you won’t have to lie?” That’s an impossibility. It makes her queasy to even think it. Anakin would never willingly do that—not even in this dream reality.
“No,” Rex says immediately. “No. Just, maybe ask someone else to stand guard. To cover for you.”
“Then someone else will know about us!”
“You really think I’m the only person who knows about you and your senator?”
Fear rises to the back of her throat. Insidious and all consuming, like the cloying tendrils of the tar.
Anakin holds herself very, very still, as if this, this claim, this worst-case-scenario, this mad spiral—can’t be true.
If the Jedi High Council finds out, if they learn, if someone tells—
Anakin’s going to get kicked out of the order.
She’ll never see Rex again, or Jesse, or Fives, Echo, Hardcase, Tup, Kix, or all of the 501st, the 212th—including Cody—or the Wolfpack, or any of the soldiers who ever looked at her and saw her as a friend and not just someone they had to follow and die for; and Obi-Wan will shake his head at her and blame himself for not teaching her right, and Snips will be so sad because Padme’s her friend too but Snips will be so mad at her for stealing her master away, and—
“General.”
Strong hands grasp her shoulders, but Anakin can’t think, can’t open her eyes, she doesn’t want to give all of this up, she can’t be found out, if they find out about her attachment, her marriage, to Padme, maybe they’ll find out about the Tuskans, and if they learn that she’s made the same attachment to her men and will do whatever it takes to protect them, then they’ll—
“Skywalker!”
Anakin wrenches her eyes open.
Rex is crouching in front of her, knees framing her legs. His large fingers dig into the meat of her shoulders.
Anakin glances down. His crotch is right there. Blacks leave little to the imagination.
She never thought she had this vivid of an imagination.
“Really?” Rex says. One of his hands abandons her shoulder and plants itself on her jaw. He lifts her chin so they can make eye contact.
“Sorry,” Anakin says automatically.
“General.” His voice comes out stern. Like he’s talking to Fives after the jetpack-in-the-mess-hall incident. “None of us will ever reveal your secret relationship.”
“Why do you say it like it’s not a secret-secret?”
Rex’s lips do that twitch thing that typically happens when Snips talks to him. And after Snips leaves, he’ll lean into Anakin and whisper that it’s nice being reminded how naïve cadets can be.
“Sir. Senator Amidala traded Grievous for you.” Rex rubs his thumb along her jaw as if that will soften his words. “I’m pretty certain the entire GAR knows that the two of you are...close.”
That…that can’t be true. If it were true, the Jedi Council would know that she’s attached. They’ll kick her out. This is…this is…a dream.
Of course it is.
Real Rex would never be in the same room with her without his armor on. Especially not this close. Especially since he hates her.
This is still her nightmare.
“So you just hate me for loving her?” Anakin asks.
“That is not what I said at all.”
“You hate me because—”
Rex’s fingers squeeze on either side of her jaw, bruisingly hard. “I do not hate you.”
Anakin can barely get her lips to touch.
“I do not hate you, you mad, daft woman,” Rex says, his fingers thick and strong and as solid as beskar. “You frustrate me. You infuriate me. You give me nightmares because I’m terrified that I’m just some object for you to toss around. That you’ll never look at me the way you look at your senator, because I’m just some clone, some useless bantha fodder to leave behind and forget. And then, the one time I’m there to help, I can’t find you.” His fingers squeeze tighter.
Her teeth painfully dig into her cheeks.
“I know what I am. I’m nothing to you.”
“Wha’?” Anakin attempts to pull away. Rex can’t possibly believe that. Not even her subconscious could believe that.
Rex is her everything. Without him, she’d be lost. And dead, several times over. And completely miserable without his charm and his wit and confident, brilliant strategies that have saved the 501st on several, several occasions—stars above, all of them would’ve been killed years ago if it weren’t for his quick thinking.
And…her favorite moments are when she’s in here, with him, tinkering while he fills out reports. Her reports, because she refuses to look at them, and has taught him how to forge her squiggly signature that hasn’t changed a bit since she first learned Aerobesh at nine years old.
Her favorite thing is saving the mints at the bottom of GAR rations and handing them to him because it’s the one time he’ll give her that smile where only one corner of his mouth rises up and his eyes crinkle like this is a secret just between the two of them.
He makes her toes curl when he leans in and whispers some commentary into her ear, something he won’t share with anyone else.
He’s never been nothing to her.
Anakin struggles against him. She shoves against the hard planes of his chest, the texture of the thermoregulating blacks so dissimilar to the heavy cotton of her tunics, the leather of her tabard, the wool of her robes. No fabric in Padme’s extensive closet feels like this either. She’s never touched a soldier’s blacks before—only their armor.
Rex shoves her against the cabinet. It creaks threateningly. He has to release her face to pin her arms above her head.
“You’re wrong,” Anakin says, thrashing, wanting to get away, away from this nightmare; Real Rex has to know that she appreciates him, has to know that she’d do anything for him, that flinging him around like that was to keep him from harm—
He straddles her legs before she has the chance to kick against him. He doesn’t rest his full weight on her, but keeps his grip painfully hard on her wrists.
“You’re wrong!” Anakin says, staring into the wild, mad amber eyes of this monstrous phantom that looms over her. “Rex knows I care about him. Even if he hates me, I’ll still love him.”
Nightmare Rex stills. He’s watching her the way one watches Hardcase when the trooper’s been issued live ordinance and you don’t know if it’s going to blow up in his face or if he’ll manage to disarm it in time. When he speaks, his voice is just like the one he uses when he whispers in her ear.
“I do not hate you, general. I kriffing love you.”
Anakin stops wriggling.
She’s stuck. In this maddening, insanity-driven nightmare, where nothing makes sense.
Rex would never say something like that. Because—because he couldn’t. He’d never mean it. He doesn’t—
But maybe that’s it. The only way to escape this insanity…is to take part in it.
Anakin surges upward and slots her lips against his.
Rex hums in surprise. But he instantly reciprocates; always quick on his feet, always willing to adapt. His lips are slightly dry, and firmer than Padme’s, and he kisses harder, more desperately than anything Anakin has ever experienced before. Their lips move together, and Anakin parts hers willingly, and Rex slides his tongue into her mouth, responding to her movement with the confidence and ease of always being at her side, always watching and reacting and perfectly in tune with her.
Rex slides up her thighs, keeping her arms pinned above her head as he responds and chases after each gasp and shift of her lips. He kisses her like her mouth is a terrain he’s spent months studying and strategizing how best to conquer; with brutal, merciless efficiency. He rests his weight against her once they’re fully pressed together; his hardness pinned against her stomach.
Anakin arches her breasts into his chest. And ignores the way the cabinet creaks behind her.
Their noses brush together as he changes his angle, tilting his head to the other side. It’s devastatingly better. His jaw is smooth and soft; freshly shaved, and Anakin tastes one of his favorite mints on his tongue. He gyrates against her, his strong thighs bracketing her hips, his weight heavy and soothing and she wants to be smothered by him, wants him to break her.
If this is her nightmare, she’ll let it destroy her.
Knowing that this is all a distorted dream, that this can never happen with Real Rex, that she’ll never be able to look Padme in the eyes again, is the worst torture her mind can conjure.
She can do nothing but be consumed by it.
Anakin pulls her lips far enough away to suck in a greedy breath of air. Rex huffs against her lips, unable, unwilling, to create further distance between them. Her shoulder blades press painfully into her favorite cabinet. If they keep shoving against it, the whole thing might finally collapse.
“Rex,” Anakin says. “Bed. Now.”
Rex groans and chases after her lips.
*****
Anakin lands flat on her back. Her breath shoots out of her lungs, not due to the landing, the cot beneath her is soft enough, but at the sight of the man straddling her.
Rex’s chest is mouth-wateringly bare. The scar to the left of his sternum is a shiny patch of pink-white that marks an otherwise perfect expanse of tan, hairless skin. His chest is broad, firm. His nipples are dark. Peaked. His strong, scarred hands rest on her ribcage, his thumbs nearly brushing the underside of her breast band.
Her leggings create a barrier between herself and his—his synthweave briefs, his massive, muscled thighs in full display as he straddles her hips. A patch of blonde hair trails above his waistline. His arousal is distractingly evident.
Anakin catches her bottom lip in her teeth, unable to compartmentalize how detailed her imagination is.
“Sir?” Rex looks just as surprised as she feels, like they’d both been swept up in the avalanche, unable to change course.
Anakin feels her skin buzzing from that built up adrenaline, from the torturous thought of losing him, to the disgust of realizing that he has to hate her, to…
“I love you, Rex,” Anakin breathes, falling fully into the inevitability, the heart-wrenching betrayal of nightmarish proportions. “I’ll do anything to prove it to you.”
Something within Rex snaps. Because that mad look, that nightmarish looming, that mania, disappears. Only her captain remains.
“I love you,” Rex whispers, that toe-curling, only-for-you tone of voice.
“Show me.” Anakin arches against his strong hands, willing—
Rough calluses slide over her skin, her upper clothing gone in a flash. His hands squeeze against her breasts. The same hands that can take apart a blaster in seconds and piece it back together while blindfolded press and squeeze and map the terrain to perfectly secure it into his memory. He descends his mouth onto her nipple and lathes his tongue around the areola.
Anakin moans and wrenches her gaze away. She can’t watch her own undoing.
She rubs her cheek against the GAR issued thin-as-flimsi pillowcase and stares at the image painted on the durasteel wall.
It’s professionally done. The blue paint carefully detailed; darker shades created by thicker layers. The image is of a homestead at night, crops all around the small home. The front door is cracked open, and light shines through, beckoning.
They have to be in Rex’s private quarters. And this, this beautiful painting, had to have been done by Coric. She’s seen some of the nose art on the gunships he’s done, though it’s nothing as domestic as this.
Rex’s teeth pinch against her nipple.
Anakin gasps and wrenches her gaze down to her captain. He’s smugly watching her through heavy-lidded eyes, his teeth playfully gnawing—
Anakin grasps his ear and tugs. He chuckles and releases her. He kisses her upper breast, along her clavicle, the underside of her jaw.
“What’s that painting of?” Anakin asks, unable to place the image. It’s nothing she’s ever seen before, can’t recall what part of her memory could be supplying it.
“Saleucami.” Rex presses the word into her heated skin.
How? She’s never been to the planet. She’s never been in his room. But that thought gets lost amid the sensations as his hand smooths down her abdomen and his fingers slide under the waistband of her leggings.
She’s expecting her clothes to just disappear again, but instead, Rex rises. The bed dips as he slides off her hips and kneels beside her. He stares at her body, honey-gold eyes devoted.
For a moment, Anakin forgets that this is Nightmare Rex, and not the real thing.
Because how can a nightmare show love?
Inch by inch, he tugs the material down.
Anakin raises her hips so he can pull her leggings off. Only Padme has seen her fully naked, and this is, this is so wrong—
The air hits her core, shunting the evidence of her wetness into stark reality. Anakin is embarrassed at how willing she is to engage in this fantasy, despite knowing that nothing will change, that Real Rex will have no idea, can’t have any idea. Padme will be upset when Anakin tells her—for she has to tell her—but Padme will understand, will have to understand, just how she accepted what Anakin had done to the Tuskans—
Rex caresses her legs as he pulls the leggings completely off. He drops the material off the edge of the narrow cot. He crawls over her thigh and settles between her legs, his lips slightly parted, his chest rising and falling as though his breathing is agonized. His hands rest on her inner thighs, spreading her open. The rough pads of his thumbs idly slide against the wetness gathered where her thigh meets her outer lips.
He stares into her.
Unblinking.
“Rex.”
His eyes meet hers. Caught. Guilty.
“Touch me.”
And this is the worst form of torture, knowing that she’s the cause, she’s the problem, she’s the one willing to cast aside her promises and plunge into depths unknown.
Because, once she’s had a taste, there’s no going back.
Waking alone will be pure agony.
Rex slides his thumb into her slickness. It sinks into her core.
Anakin twitches.
Rex watches her expression . His thumb continues its exploration, sliding out, smoothing around her core, slides over her clit—
She shudders.
Rex moans and prostrates himself between her legs. His broad shoulders settle against her thighs, widening them. “You are going to destroy me,” Rex whispers, a promise he’s willing to keep.
Anakin squeezes shut her eyes.
Rex licks.
Anakin wakes.