TCW FebuWhump Prompts

Life's Cruel Gift

Day 24 alternate prompt: "please come back"

Warnings: canon-divergence, character death

The sky was filled with grey smoke and dust as Rex entered the ruined Venator to search for another body to bury, trudging and setting his shovel outside. The wind blew past him, picking up ash and sending it throughout the eerie ship, the noise echoing throughout the large space. Debris laid on the ground, metal burnt and holograms flickering out, their blue light reflecting in Rex's usual warm honey brown eyes. But this time, they weren't warm, and would probably never be seen the same again. After this, they would always show the brokenness of a soldier who lost their family, of a survivor who had lived through the horrors of war.

It was just a few hours from Order 66 until everything really kicked in, and when it did, Rex realized that his whole life...was for a useless cause. His existence was for nothing. Every single clone's existence was worth nothing.

Nothing at all.

Fight for the Republic? The Republic was ruled by a fucking Sith lord who enabled mind-control chips, taking away his brothers' and his own free will. Sidious took away the only thing clones really had in life, and now, millions of vode were going to be slaves for the rest of their lives, no freedom whatsoever. They were going to arrest their own Jedi, their generals, the people they had fought beside with these past years, and gun them down like they were just animals. The children in the Temple didn't even have a chance in life as Ahsoka explained her nightmare to him in rapt detail, some day from the CLone Wars, as if foreseeing the current future.

Cries of death throughout the force as she described the lights blinking out one by one until the Force was a gaping hole.

Her description of the acrid smell from fire and ruins as though she was there, her distant eyes pooling with tears, making her look so small and vulnerable.

They had been on this unnamed planet for only a day, quietly mourning in their respective sleeping places until they couldn't bear the loneliness and clung to each other for a sliver of comfort, their arms wrapped around each other's backs in a death grip, just making sure that the opposite person was real.

They had both shed tears.

He hadn't realized that he had been clenching his fist until he felt a sharp pain. The crescents of his nails made a small scratch on his grimy hands, and it pierced it enough to turn the red spot darker from all the previous digging. A water drop fell onto the floor, its wetness spreading throughout the dirt and he slowly lifted his other hand to his face, finding that a tear slipped through his eyes without his notice.

He blinked and shook himself out of his trance as he marched through the debris, continuing with his original goal. He was about to turn a corner until something on his right periphery seemed to have shifted. He walked towards the direction, his brows furrowing as he saw the broken panel move even more.

Someone was moving it. Someone was struggling. Someone was alive.

He jogged into a sprint as he got closer and closer to the moving item, his heart pounding in his chest.

Who could it be? A shiny? A veteran?

He shoved the panel sideways, and although his arms were sore from the overuse, he persevered, his hope overriding his exhaustion. 

Finally, he could see who survived. And his blood ran cold.

Life had decided to throw him in the worst situation possible, laughing cruelly, as it saw his reaction. 

The trooper on the ground was cover in red, blood staining the floor. Shrapnel was embedded into their side, and wheezing breaths could be heard, the sound painfully echoing throughout the room.

The soldier's helmet was a scratched up dark blue, the Republic cog painted right in the front of the bucket, no longer looking proud. Half of their pauldron was nowhere to be found, and their kama was ripped up, the paint on their armor obviously chipped.

Jesse.

Rex's eyes widened as he kneeled beside his comrade, immediately removing his brother's helmet, needing to see his eyes, needing to see that he was real, that he was here.

A long bloody scratch adorned Jesse's right side of his face, the blood seeping into his blinking eye. His mouth was cracked, the small drops of blooding combining with the flow running down his neck, seeping into his blacks.

"Jesse?" Rex whispered.

Said soldier coughed, the harsh sound making him wince. Jesse looked at Rex in unmmasked wonder, and slowly lifted a hand. He took it, clasping it between his hands, dropping his vode's helmet, leaning closer.

"I-I'm so sorry," Jesse mumbled. He shook his head, trying to will away the 'good soldiers follow orders' repeating itself in its head, the chip's power weakening. His eyes looked away in shame, reliving Order 66 and the atrocities he commanded. 

His body moved without permission, his mouth opening and pouring out words on killing the two traitors CT-7567 and Ahsoka Tano

He commanded the other troopers gun down their sis-commander, like she was meat for slaughter.

Her markings painted on their helmet turning into something ironic, what used to be a show of love now making them turn against who they used to adore and hold in reverence.

"Don't apologize. It's not your fault," Rex answered, tilting Jesse' head to look at him.

"It," Jesse rasped, his heart tiring out, blood pumping slower through his body, promising death. "It is."

Before Rex could counter with an argument, Jesse pushed on.

"I almost killed y-you and our vod'ika. I couldn't fight the t-thing in our head, and when I had the chance to, I...I didn't take it."

"But it wasn't your decision. It's my fault that I didn-"

"Rex."

The ex-commander looked up, and locked eye contact with him. A strong light was visible in Jesse's eyes, but only for a moment. 

"None of this is your fault. Nor hers. Remember this."

Rex sensed his life coming to an end and tried to keep Jesse awake, memories of Fives' death playing thorugh his head. The parallels in the moment was a brutal joke to him.

"Jesse! Jesse, stay awake!" 

He lightly slapped the his cheek, but the trooper's eyes were holding a distant look, no longer looking at Rex. Before he exhaled his last breath, the soldier smiled.

"It was an honor serving with you...vod."

He closed his eyes and his chest didn't rise. His hand became limp in Rex's grip.

"Jesse? Jesse! Jesse!"

Rex tightened his hold on Jesse's hand, wishing for him to just open his eyes and laugh for successfully pranking him, for Fives to turn around the corner and chuckle along, for Echo to be following after his twin and rolling his eyes at their antics, for Kix to chase after Hardcase for causing another dent in the wall, for his brothers to be right here.

But they weren't, all of them now a figment of a memory.

"Please, come back, vode."

No one answered, the wind silently blowing as if mourning.

Ahsoka found him several minutes later, her cloak hanging over her montrals, and as she saw the body he was tightly holding, she wordlessly knelt down on the corpse's other side, bowing her head.

As they left the unnamed planet together, Jesse's helmet was lined in the front, a stake, a reminder of what horrors the war had given them.