Archive of Our Own ^beta

It didn't take Fives long to get out of bed, and think about a plan.

In the clone barracks on Coruscant, a huge building ready to house the soldiers on the planet - a huge, sad, monotonous and depressing building (Fives could have talked for hours about how horrible it was), one good thing was that there were blankets.

There were no blankets on the Venators, and the room temperature was set so that they weren't even needed. Before going down to Coruscant for the first time, in fact, Fives had never used a blanket: he had never even seen one, even though he knew what it was.
They all knew it, the same way they knew every known species in the Republic, how to write or read, how to use a toothbrush and how to get a sonic. Or how to use a blaster from a theoretical point of view.

Fives had always wondered why, when they had bombarded their newborn brains with all the information a parent should have taught them, they hadn't also done it with the regulations - but then they would be wronging Echo, since regs were his only love.

(They did it to have hundreds more excuses to kill them, probably.)

He took everyone's blankets, thin and rough and decidedly cheap blankets (they had been anything but cheap, so he could understand that), and spread them out on the floor, Tup's silent figure beside Fives helping him.

Jesse salvaged as many pillows as he could, going back and forth between the closet they'd chosen and the dorms, until the entire floor was covered in flat pillows and cheap sheets.

There was a strange bacta smell in the air, probably coming from the boxes stacked at the side of the room, a smell Fives associated with brothers on the brink of death, or Fives himself barely conscious on the brink of death- it wasn't pleasant, but Fives tried to think of Kix's hugs, of him and his armor smelling so much of bacta as if he actually slept and ate in a bacta tank.

Kix just then arrived, fresh thanks to a few hours of sleep but with heavy dark circles under his eyes, and he had in his face the same amount of pain all of them must have had.

Even the shinies in the hallways looked sad, and they had known the Commander for maybe a few weeks. That was the problem - if people who barely knew her were so sad to hear that the Commander was leaving them, how should Fives, who had known her for over a year, react? Or Rex and the General, who had been with her from the beginning?

Fives quickly took off his armour, leaving it in the corner left free just for that purpose, remaining only in his blacks - and was soon imitated by the others, who didn't say a word and sat down on the cushions.

They must have been a sight from the outside: four clones lying on a sea of wrinkled sheets with their arms crossed, wearing only their blacks and a frustrated expression on their faces. In complete silence.

There were no other noises, at least until someone tried to open the door and found it locked and impossible to open. The person behind it stood still, then rapped his knuckles against the metal surface.
Two close, slow knocks. Three quick knocks. Two more slow knocks. A foot hitting the floor seemingly senselessly.

Kix stood up and entered the code to open the door.

On the other side Rex clutched his helmet under his arm, his face cold and locked in a block of stone, behind him the shorter figure of the Commander.

Or at least, the shrunken figure of their Commander.

The few centimeters that now separated them mattered nothing, nor did her montrals that every day became taller and more detailed in shapes and colors, not when it seemed that the entire galaxy was weighing on her shoulders, trying to take down and destroy her.
Fives promised himself that, as much as they could, they would stop her from sinking.

The two entered, and while Kix again sealed the door of that room that Jesse had classified as "out of order" by hacking the maps of the building to have as much time as possible, their Captain exhaled a loud breath in all that silence, and quietly began to take off his heavy boots, then the chest plate, the comm link on the wrist, the shoulder pads, until the four unarmored clones became five.

The Commander remained motionless, however, staring at the tidy disaster they had engineered.

She had took part in this little tradition of theirs, usually carried on for those who lost their batchmates or closest siblings, giving comfort as part of their identical and strange family (usually using the spare blacks as blankets to spread on the floor, or the dark tunics that Ahsoka stole from her Master), but seemed surprised that they had done all that for her.

Fives could already hear her reply that "she was fine, and this was not her tradition to take part in" and he didn't hesitate to make himself more comfortable and swiftly say "Don't try to come here with those shoes of yours. We have to sleep in these things after all this thing".

Ahsoka looked at him for a long second, hesitation in her painfully young eyes, her face a mask of insecurity.

It hurt to see her like this, but it was good for her.

It had taken time to make her understand that it was important to show weakness with one's vode in order to succeed in battle.
Crying in the arms of a loved one, being clear-minded and avoiding dying.
It had taken even longer for her to understand that they were there for her – and when she did it was like being born again.

Ahsoka knew almost all of their names- and Fives said almost because it was impossible to know them all. But she knew everyone in Torrent.
And she didn't mind coming to their dormitories, exchanging jokes with those he passed until he found the one selected for that night of nightmares.

She had moments.

For almost two months straight she'd decided that Echo was the number one guy to sleep with, which had infuriated so many clones determined to be the best big brothers they could be, but that had amused Fives immensely.

Until he had to start fighting with the Commander over who would take the place next to Echo.

Their silent battle (embarrassing but glorious battle, even Master Fisto had heard of the final fight) had ended when Echo had dragged them by the ears to sleep together, and Fives had become Ahsoka's new favorite.
(When Echo died, Ahsoka climbed into his bed, and didn't leave his side.)

Everyone knew that in the end Rex was her real favorite, but there was no harm in that.
 They were all siblings, and they all had the ones they were closest to- and the Commander was to their Captain what Echo was to Fives, probably.
A batchmate to love and protect with all one's being, and Fives also knew that Rex had no batchmates alive, that they had died shortly after their decantation, and that the Captain had only had someone to care for after the CC class kind of adopted him.

Ahsoka had realized over time that all of them were her family, and that there was no harm in asking for help.

Now one only had to look at her to see the huge cry for help written on her face.

She bent over, pulling her boots off her feet, and when she moved her head there was no sound, no beads and shards of metal hitting each other and ringing in the silence as they normally would. She didn't feel it too, probably, because the hands clutching her shoes were tense, knuckles pink and fingers almost trembling.

When they were both ready they fell down next to each other, letting out another breath in unison.

Rex sat down next to Kix, who immediately grabbed his hand, and placed his feet on Jesse's lap. Tup was positioned to peek out from under Jesse's arm. Fives ended up at Rex's side, and when Ahsoka tried to get at his side he forcefully grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her onto him, making her lie on top of all of them.

The very fact that she didn't laugh was a huge red flag.

Everyone shifted a little, finding the perfect position and arranging the pillows and blankets around them until that cocoon of fabric and limbs was perfected.

Ahsoka took a deep breath, her eyes fixed on the gray ceiling of the room. There were some damp spots, and it needed to be repainted.
The tips of the montrals were pushed against Fives' stomach, and he began to massage the area between one and the other in the way he knew relaxed her, reducing her to a mass of jelly.

"I didn't want to come here."

Her words surprised them all except Rex who gave her a gentle push on the shoulder, and she did nothing but let out a short, high-pitched giggle- bordering on hysterical, almost.

"Why not?" Kix didn't move, relaxing further and tapping his fingers in a rhythm only he knew the sense of against Rex's closed hand.
"Because I'm afraid I'll change my mind if I spend another second here with you."

Jesse smiled.

"If you try to change your mind we'll kick you out of here" at the stunned look Ahsoka gave him he raised an eyebrow, the huge tattoo almost invisible under the dim light "What, you thought Rex made you come here to convince you to stay ? We're not that mean, kid."

The tears came unexpectedly, but none of them were caught off guard.

They knew exactly how to comfort a sister.

Rex pulled her against him and hugged her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. She grabbed his crossed wrists with her hands, hiding her face against them and trying to hold back a horrible sob.

Fives immediately went to grab her hands, pulling them away from her and preventing her from biting them like she had done in the past in an attempt to muffle any noise.

(It hadn't been a pretty sight.
Her blood had been added to her tears, blue and copious as it seeped from where the sharp teeth had broken her skin. They had agreed not to say anything to the General, and Kix had treated her hand with a care and kindness he reserved only for her.)

Jesse and Tup took the other one, and Tup held it with a heart-broken expression on his face, his always changing face just like Ahsoka's.

“M-maybe” she managed to say between sobs “I was hoping y-you'd told me not to go” she looked up and locked her eyes with Kix's “I-isn't that wrong? "

“It's not wrong, Ahsoka.” It wasn't a Commander moment. “I'd say it's normal, having second thoughts. But I don't think you really want to stay. Am I right?"

The wail that followed was the saddest thing Fives had ever heard- and Fives had lost count of how many times he had had to stick his hands into a brother's torn open chest in an attempt to save him, screams and prayers in his ears for eternity.

"You don't have to do anything for us, Ahsoka, or anyone else" Fives clasped his hand on hers, fingers intertwined and locked together inexorably "You have to do it for yourself. And you know what's best for you."

Ahsoka didn't know how to choose for herself, and Fives couldn't blame her for that- or he'd be a hypocrite. He didn't know what to do either.
(There used to be Echo ready to do it for him, select the most convenient option for Fives with only Fives' safety in his mind, but without Echo that wandering role was as painful as anything.)

She could learn how to.

"We wanted to say goodbye" Tup sounded so sad when she looked at him, but he smiled at her kind and tough as he always was "We won't see each other for a while. We couldn't make you leave without one last hug."

They didn't even know if they would ever see her again, if they would live to do so.

But Fives decided it was for the best. He had never liked the idea of Ahsoka finding their corpses amidst the dust and scrap metal of the battlefield.

"I-I'd say it's a nice hug."
I hope not the last one.

Rex left a gentle kiss on her forehead, letting her go now that her tears seemed to slow. They heard that silent prayer.

Ahsoka hadn't been very good at asking, but luckily they were good at understanding her- and now, like when they'd first met, she wanted them to survive.

"You deserve nothing else, vod'ika."

⸻

Jesse didn't feel like socializing, especially not with the only nat-born in their group.
But he gave up and accepted that he had to do it, because the kid had ended up alone with a group of fifty soldiers she didn't know, and had only been with the 501st for three weeks.

And above all because he found her alone in a corner, looking over her shoulder every ten seconds as if she were just waiting for an ambush, and with the small boxes attached to her belt that Jesse knew contained her special rations still closed.

When Jesse sat down heavily next to her the jetii noticed him, and her face paled slightly. Her big blue eyes widened, and she looked around as if searching for what the clone was looking at, then back to Jesse again.

Jesse had seen her fighting and she was a resourceful kid, but she didn't know Jesse and had lived up to that point dealing only with Jedi, living in their big Temple- he could understand her.
He raised a hand and waved lazily, letting a friendly smile spread across his face.

"You have to eat if you want to get taller."

He was sure that was how it worked with nat-borns, and that the seven-year-old cadet in front of him was perhaps twice as old, and that it would take years for her to grow up. And that she didn't have growth hormones able to destroy planets pumped into her blood on daily basis.

She frowned (she didn't have eyebrows, which was funny- she was like a Kaminoan, but less ugly) and let out a hesitant but aggressive "I'm not short."

Jesse raised his hands.
“You still have to eat.”

She still looked weirded out for a second, before shrugging and opening one of the small boxes. She couldn't hide a smile, and Jesse remembered that he had to tell Rex everything and ask for fewer turns in the communal showers in exchange.

He saw her take a small, blood-red bar with a strong, strange smell between her fingers and eat it in a few bites. She took another, but this time she didn't stay silent and just took a small bite.
"Why did you come here?"

The clone raised his eyebrows.
He had done it because Skywalker was nervous about leaving her alone, as much as he tried to pretend it didn't worry him, and he hadn't asked anyone to keep an eye on her for some stupid reason, like not wanting to impose too much, or not wanting to seem incompetent. Jesse liked Skywalker, so he would keep an eye on the girl for him.
And Rex liked her too, so he would do it for him brother too.

He had done it because he felt sorry for her, alone and with no one to talk to. She would see her Master and Rex again the next morning because they would be staying there just for the night, and sleeping alone in a place you didn't know, surrounded with people you don't really trust is difficult - especially for a cadet.
Jesse remembered being a no-one CT on Kamino, and even though there were no mysterious, dark planets, on Kamino there were just as many shadows, and being without his brothers terrified him like nothing else.

"I wanted to know what they make you nat-borns eat. What's that red thing?" he said instead, pointing first to his own greyish ration and then to the jetii's strange one.
Her eyes widened and she asked him almost breathlessly, "Don't you know what meat is?"
She was funny.
"I know what meat is. I've never seen it like this. At least, not in person. But I've never seen meat in with my own eyes, either, so."

The little girl frowned again, looking first at the GAR's rations and then at her own, before firmly handing them to him.

"If I eat less I can convince Rex to show me how to use his D-17s instead of training with Skyguy. I don't know if you'll like it, it's condensed and sterilized raw meat. But I want to try yours."

Jesse's first instinct was to say no.
If it had been Skywalker maybe he would have done it- shake his head, say no and run away as soon as he could.

"Okay."

That ration was the best thing he had ever eaten.

"Damn" he announced, impressed.
"Damn" she announced, swallowing the last bit, a grimace on her face and definitely not impressed.

Jesse laughed loudly, and the men close enough to heard gave both of them curious, somehow frightened looks.

"Why do you even eat raw meat, Commander?"

"I'm a togruta, it's part of our diet as carnivores. Well, technically we're supposed to hunt it ourselves to calm our instincts, but the Temple allows us to travel to Shili periodically to hunt after we turn fifteen. I've never done that, but Shaak Ti- she takes care of the creche usually, I want to be just like her, she says it's as relaxing as a joint meditation. Skyguy says he'll try to get permission to go next year, when I turn fifteen, but I know that we probably won't be able to with this mess. At least I have these. Did you like them?"

Jesse didn't find himself stunned just because he was used to Cuss, and Cuss had always been the most talkative person in the world, but he almost was. He wondered if the kid had taken a breath before starting.

"Definitely. Can't you, I don't know, hunt here? We could secure a perimeter."

She got three shades darker.
“Um, no. Better if I don't.”

Some soldiers around them were going to sleep, and Jesse unrolled his cot next to where the Commander sat.

“You don't have to, um, sleep here.”
Jesse ignored his (unexpected) disappointment and started to get up again, but she stopped him again with a sincere and slightly hesitant smile on her face, hopeful and open.
"If you don't want to, at least."

"It is not wise to sleep alone, Commander."

He smiled at her as best as he could, as he had never done to anyone other than one of his brothers, and was happy to see that hesitation disappear and leave room only for a tired happiness.

"I didn't ask for your name."

A whisper in the night that was ignored.

When he woke up a few hours later, his comm beeping loudly and everyone around him getting up, he realized that the Commander's arm was touching his, and he turned to look at her, turning off the alarm.
She was sleeping flat on her stomach, with her face turned toward him and her mouth wide open, a trickle of drool dripping onto her thin pillow.

Finding himself in the same situation a month later, Jesse took a photo and sent it to the group he had with the others from the 501st and the general, but not this time.
He just smiled, noticing how she had moved towards him until their shoulders were touching – like Kix had done back then, when they weren't Jesse and Kix yet, and wondered if he and Ahsoka Tano would ever become a Jesse and Ahsoka.

He shook her shoulder with a loud "Let's go back to your Master" and hold back a laugh at her confusion and her instinctive "Wha'?".
It wasn't very useful, because she still glared at him.

⸻

Echo had met Ahsoka Tano before Fives did, and when he told Fives about her he had only said, "Too short to be real".

Fives and Ahsoka had actually met after a week, during the twins' second campaign with the 501st as ARC troopers.
Ahsoka had retreated, dragging the dead weight of a soldier behind her, her right leg completely torn below the knee, and when their MCO had advised leaving her behind the Commander had looked at him with a fury in his eyes that was decidedly out of place on such a young child, but more than appropriate for the massacre that was going on in front of them.

(The clone, Heitch, didn't mind, because she knew that if the same thing happened to Kix the medic would ask to be left behind.)

Fives had volunteered to carry her to shelter, as she was too heavy for the Commander, and Heitch had survived- and Ahsoka Tano had come looking for him the next day, to thank him, back aboard their Venator and headed for the Outer Rim.

Fives was eating and complaining about how he almost slipped in the communal showers that morning with Echo, who did nothing but eat and look at him with the expression of someone who didn't want to stay there and listen to him, when the Commander approached their table and stopped behind Fives with her tray clutched like a life preserver.

Echo had seen her first, had remained motionless for a second before stiffening completely and Fives had raised a curious eyebrow following his gaze, turning and finding the girl biting her lip in doubt and tucking her head between her shoulders as if wanting to make herself smaller.

Fives tried not to panic, and asked in a firm voice, "Are you okay, Commander? You need anything?"
Echo hit him under the table in the calf, but Fives ignored him.

"No" the togruta shifted her weight from one foot to the other "I mean, yes. Nothing..."
She didn't say anything else, and Fives saw her eyes go to the empty seat next to him.
 Something he didn't recognize stirred in his chest, and he jerked his head toward the empty bench, allowing himself a smile that was sure to infuriate Echo.

“Want to sit and eat with us?”

She looked more than a little taken aback, and she quickly turned to Echo before looking down at her. "Only if, you're ok with it."

Fives wasn't surprised by his twin's sigh, and turned to him with a huge grin on his face, moving away even before he could say anything.
"Of course, sir" he could see it in his eyes, that he would never be able to say no to the well-hidden but visible insecurity of the girl- girl who seemed to grow ten inches taller when she heard him agree, and who lit up with happiness and moved to sit with the life force of a star.

She began to eat without waiting for anything else, probably already used to the horrible taste of the canteen rations, but with a certain happiness in her eyes.

“So,” Fives began, “why here, Commander?”

"Jesse usually lets me sit with him, but he has to finish some strategies with Skyguy and they say I still have to eat" she rolled her eyes in annoyance, as if they had asked her to climb a volcano rather than eat some nutritious and terrible food "I didn't want to sit alone, and I remembered you. What's your name?"

"Fives, at your service Commander" he smiled playfully at her, proud when she returned him, with her big (how the hell could they be so big-) eyes glittering.
“You like the number?” she looked seriously curious, and Fives bit back a laugh.
As light-hearted as she still was some of that insecurity had returned, like a fear that Fives would react badly.

First of all, if Fives had reacted badly she could have simply killed him or sent him back to Kamino with two words.
Then Fives had no reason to be offended – and if she feared his reaction it meant that she knew the importance of their names, and that was several plus points.

But perhaps it was difficult to add even more points after the little girl had carried a half-dead sister on her shoulders for too long.

"My identification code is very original, you know? You speak to the one and only CT-5555."
She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully "They didn't have any imagination, but you're definitely no better. I mean, Fives?"

She seemed to freeze, and so did Fives, surprise the only thing stopping the laughter that was about to escape his lips.
Echo didn't have the same regard, and he nearly choked on the water he was trying to drink (even the water was disgusting in there, full to the brim with minerals and salts). He quickly turned red in the face, and tried to clap his hand against his chest- but he only laughed more.

It wasn't a particularly funny joke, but Echo only laughed at things like that. Stupid things, apparently insignificant, but which in his brain, on the contrary, were hilarious.
Fives crossed his arms and raised his chin dramatically, determined not to show his own amusement and glaring at his brother.

 When Echo calmed down the commander looked at Fives, lost.

"I didn't mean to insult your name. I think it's a really good name!"

"Don't worry, kid" he put a hand on her shoulder, Echo still grinning across the table as if he hadn't almost been killed by water. The glorious army of the Republic, choked with water "I know my name is awesome. Not like Echo, he just knows how to fill your head with useless things."

"You wanna feel better after being humiliated by a little girl?"

"Bastard, she didn't-"

Fives froze, before slowly turning to Ahsoka, who was still looking at them confused but with a new beaming smile on her face.
 He felt the invisible, lethal edge of a blade touch his neck.
“You didn't hear that word from me, okay?”

The sheer offense in her flushed face was hilarious.
"I'm fourteen, not five!"
"Don't tell anyone though. Not to your strange ori'vod" jedi families were complicated "nor to Rex. Especially not to Rex. Understand?"

“What shouldn't she tell me?”

Saying that Fives jumped from where he sat was embarrassing, but as true as nothing else.
Echo scrunched his face, trying to hold back laughter again, but remained a mask of composure. The General's presence behind Rex was probably the reason.

(They weren't afraid of the Jedi, exactly. They just didn't trust him. Fives didn't trust Ahsoka either, not yet, but he liked to hope, and he liked her.)

He gave him a look, a silent cry for help, and Echo composed himself even more and spoke in a firm, confident voice that was professional and screamed loud as hell 'don't I seem trustworthy? Of course I do, I am trustworthy'. It had always worked.
"No big deal, sir. The Commander discovered a rather embarrassing thing the private did this morning, he simply joked about keeping it a secret. Isn't that true, Commander?"

Ahsoka approached him unexpectedly and wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him a little closer, and Fives sent everything to hell and returned the gesture, his arm sneaking around her waist, almost ending up tickling her.
They both produced the most innocent smiles they could, and Fives even dared to raise a thumb like he'd seen the Commander do a few days earlier.
"Very true, Echo."

The brother accompanying the Captain sat down heavily next to Echo and seemed to hold back a laugh too, a hilarious mask of seriousness on his face.
His face was covered by an almost obscene Republic tattoo, but hey- everyone had their own fixations, who was CT-5555, Fives, to judge.

The General was just curious as to what had made his padawan so amused. The Captain seemed on the verge of hysteria. Maybe he had just discovered that Ahsoka had just found the perfect match for...well everything.

⸻

They saw each other again not long after.

Of course, when they saw each other again it was because Ahsoka had a piece of metal lodged in her calf- and its dimension far too large to be acceptable, and because Echo found her moving quick as lightning in a sea of B1 despite the blood that wouldn't stop coming out- and because he was forced to drag her away before she killed herself.

The clone who had greeted Echo on his first day, a tough-looking first-generation CT, helped him and they managed to get her to safety, and Fives went to see them when they told him that Echo was in the med-bay.

To say that Kix almost hit him in the face when he ran into his med-bay like a madman was to understate his fury, but he didn't hesitate to stop Fives at the first "Where's Ec-" with a firm "He's fine, he's not hurt, he just has a sprained ankle. He's with the Commander. Be quiet or I'll kick you out."

This had calmed him, but he still felt his stomach sink when he found the Commander lying on a cot, her face contorted in an expression of pain and one of their medics, Shut, carefully sewing closed an open wound on her calf that was perhaps as large as his hand.
Echo was close to her, along with Steel (the old intimidating CT) who was worriedly looking at her.

"Kriff, Commander."

Ahsoka turned to look at him, and she smiled- it didn't come out well, looking more like a grimace, but a smile nonetheless.

"You should see how I dealt with them."

"Never doubt it" he turned to Echo, and immediately his twin groaned, "And you idiot, do something about your ankle."

"Ankle?" Ahsoka turned to look at him in surprise "But you managed to carry me here. On your shoulders!"

"Kix says sprained ankle, and Kix sees everything. And Echo knows how to hide it when he wants to."

The girl nodded to herself, convinced, holding a wince well when the last stitch was applied and Shut pressed a patch of bacta on the suture "I want to learn how to do it too."

"The General will send us back to Kamino, no thanks," Fives joked, and decided he would stay with her for a while. Steel had left, quietly, to check on the other shinies, and Echo was having Shut tape his ankle.

"What does that mean-"

"So, tell me the story of your hopefully first super battle scar."

Ahsoka launched into recounting what had happened to her, gesturing and laughing when Fives interrupted her by saying that "he fell from his pod and broke his right leg and split it open, what a huge shame" (it was worrying that she was already so used to that special kind of humor that the clones had developed over the years), a little too alike the cadets he had met on Kamino during his ARC training and who had asked him hopefully and excitedly if they too could get tattoos.

(At that Fives had spoken harshly, exclaiming a firm "Such actions are unbecoming of a soldier of the Republic," but he had given them a quick wink and smiled at their repressed giggles.)

He stayed with her that evening, and when the General entered the med-bay like a hurricane after an hour (waking up several sore soldiers who without knowing it sent to hell their commanding officer) he found his padawan sleeping together with a trooper with a five tattooed on his face that he recognized as the one from the day before, her mouth open and drool dripping down the neck of the man who had collapsed with one leg and one arm still outside the mattress.

He didn't wake them and waited.
(Fives woke up with the General's face mere inches from his, and jumped into the air, waking Ahsoka - who instinctively grabbed Fives' blaster left on the nightstand and hit her Master's head with it. Fives never thought he would risk be decommissioned due to laughter. No, scratch that, he definitely had.)

⸻

"Do you know Skyguy well?"

Jesse blinked in confusion.

"Well, not much. I love the man, but he's still my general and I've only known him for a short time. Why, jetii'ika?"

"Nothing," the commander shook her head and moved the spoon into the dark blob they had served in the mess that day.

  They had been planet-hopping for a long, long time, and rations were dwindling, so they were forced to give up the few good things they were fed – like the occasional pudding. Jesse didn't know how it was possible for them to get kriffing pudding, since they were considered war machines, but he didn't complain.
But no, just mysterious, disgusting nutrient-laden blobs.

"Hmm" he raised an eyebrow and it didn't take long for the little girl to speak.

"I don't think he likes me very much."

Jesse remained silent, swallowing a mouthful of grey blob, and felt his face twist in sheer confusion.

"The General? He adores you."

They were alone, because Kix was locked up in the infirmary and Rex was resting - and Jesse had become some kind of friend for the commander.

It was difficult not to want to protect her from every evil in the world,  if not downright impossible, considering that she was a kid sent to fight a war - and not a kid like the ten-year-old Commanders were, but a kid like Jesse had been as a cadet, barely five years old and already too desperate.
 Sometimes, looking into her eyes, Jesse saw himself, saw Kix, saw thousands of identical brothers - stubborn, eternally alive, human and sensitive and strong and scared and full of joy.

"I don't know. He never lets me go with him and Master Kenobi, and it's strange, isn't it? A padawan should always follow their Master, but I always stay with Rex, or on the Resolute with Officer Yularen- who hates me, I'm sure of it."
Jesse wasn't important enough to know Yularen of all people, so he couldn't know.
"He always fights in the front line and leaves me behind."

"You're only a cadet, though." Ahsoka blinked in confusion "A cadet, a three to eight years old clone, training and not yet ready for action."

"I'm not a clone, I'm a Jedi!"

"But you are still what, six in our years? If I may, and forgive me for the disrespect, Commander, you are still young to be on the front line. For the Jedi you and the General are a sort of siblings, right? It is definitely normal that he wants to protect you, I would protect a cadet if they were sent here, in a dangerous mess like this one."

The Commander stiffened, and shook her head quickly, a slight panic covering her voice "We are not siblings, he is just my Master!" Jesse was taken aback, and his words died in his mouth "And he doesn't have to protect me, I can handle myself, so don't say he has to!"

Jesse didn't say another word.

A few seconds passed and the soldiers from the nearby tables who had turned to look at them, having heard Ahsoka's high tone, pretended not to pay them any more attention, even though their nervousness had become palpable. If it was palpable to Jesse he had no idea what it was like for the Commander.
He saw her shrink back, nothing but shame on her face.

"I'm sorry."

He hadn't even told her his name yet.
Jesse suspected Rex had warned her not to ask, or insist, or use it unless he told her voluntarily, because Ahsoka hadn't asked him what her name was since that mission.
She simply didn't call him anything, and it wasn't a big deal.

 He would tell her, one day, probably. Maybe sooner than they both thought.

And he wouldn't until he was able to argue with her or feel her growing angry without fearing for himself or his brothers. Then he would give her the most precious thing he had.

"I just think he does it not because he doesn't trust you, Commander" he spoke cautiously, and he saw her flinching at the respectful sound of his voice "He just wants to protect you until you can do it yourself."

The blob hadn't changed taste, sadly.

The tension didn't last long, because on the next action Ahsoka met an ARC trooper, CT-5555, one of their new soldiers – someone brought among them by Rex himself after their batch had saved Kamino from certain destruction.
He and his brother were the only survivors, and, since the first time Jesse saw them eating together, it became difficult if not impossible to separate them.

If Fives and Echo, as they had presented themselves to all of them (Commander and General included), were attached at the hip, they were more than happy to break away momentarily and place Ahsoka between them.

Well, they would give Rex an aneurysm, because the only thing that had stopped Ahsoka from going wild was the fact that she had no one to do it with her.
Jesse wanted to, but his old, hardened soldier heart (he was literally ten years old) had trouble trusting and wouldn't go around breaking regulations like it was nothing.

Ahsoka didn't have this problem. Not even Fives, for that matter.

Jesse quickly warmed up to him.

He was chaotic, exuberant and enterprising, and he hated following orders that he thought were stupid.
The best and worst thing a clone could have, the one they were created for, the ability to choose.
It had been useless in the end, considering they had taken away their power to choose.
 From a quality, it had become a fatal flaw - but in true Fives fashion, Fives didn't give a damn.

The first time he had looked at Skywalker in confusion and asked, "Why would you make such a stupid move?" Rex had gone ten shades paler.
Too bad, because Rex was usually a treat for the eyes.
 Ahsoka started laughing, and Skywalker first gasped, then crossed his arms and with his usual excited and brazen air of defiance asked "Then tell me, what would you do?".

At that point Echo intervened. It hadn't taken the Captain long to decide that Echo's strategic genius was beyond compare.
Only when Jesse allowed himself to join that trio he understood Echo's role in everything.

Echo was the king of sarcastic and passive-aggressive jokes. He could be the meanest bitch in the room, but he could also be the most respectful bastard in the world.
  He loved driving Skywalker crazy, acting like a model soldier but not using the basic shield techniques taught to all of them and thus projecting everything he sincerely thought for the Jedi to perceive.

If Ahsoka was always amused by it, Skywalker had to keep himself from laughing every second at Echo's reactions to the umpteenth bullshit spouted by a nat-born officer during meetings.
Those nat-born who wouldn't take kindly to a clone daring to tell them what to do.

Usually in such cases Skywalker was the one to talk to them and "take credit" for some brilliant thoughts, but no one complained too much. The better were the plans, the longer they survived.

Ahsoka got along with them like no one else.

Where Rex and Jesse were the kind of older brothers still too rigid to relax completely, Echo and Fives were the chaos that married her chaos.

When Jesse told her her name it wasn't on a special, sensational occasion.

The girl hadn't just saved him, they hadn't just survived something terrible that had brought them together, they hadn't confessed something terrible to each other.
They had done it too many times to consider it special.

One morning, while they were eating protein bars in a LAAT/i while returning to the Resolute, the relationship between Ahsoka and her Master stabilized and new habits now part of them, Jesse casually told her that she could call him Jesse.

Ahsoka nodded and continued eating, half asleep on her feet, and when she had rested her forehead against his chest and managed to fall asleep standing up like a bantha Jesse had breathed a sigh of relief.

⸻

"What would you like to do if there was no war?"

Jesse didn't stop humming some song the General was listening to the other day, when he had chosen to teach Jesse how to repair the central engine of one of their ships.
Jesse had understood how to do it in little time, because they had been engineered to quickly understand such things - but it had been fun, and the general had put some of his music on his datapad.

He had never really listened to music. Yes, he remembered some tracks, the delicate but omnipresent background of the evenings spent at the 79's, but the music of the 79's was that - a simple background sound.

The General had played a slow song, with the voice of a woman singing in a language he didn't know, made up of sounds that were first slow, then fast and violent, then again, slow and relaxed. He remembered the end, and the murmur of the General singing the last words as delicately as the singer.

It didn't leave his head, even though they had listened to a lot of songs in three hours.

While he violently rubbed a sponge on his armor, praying the Force that the mysterious stain would go away and he wouldn't have to change the helmet and repaint it again, Ahsoka sat next to him.

The day before, showing to an impressed Fives a lightsaber trick, she had burned herself- so now she had a huge bacta patch on her arm, covering it entirely.

Jesse had held back a laugh when Skywalker had started to lecture her (Skywalker who had to stop laughing in the first place), considering that he had seen the Jedi suddenly wake up because of a Separatist attack and fall over in his haste, managing to get hit in the head by a passing soldier's D-17. Soldier that Rex had to calm down from a panic attack in the end, but that had become a legend in the 212th eyes.

When Jesse didn't respond, she continued "I know what I would do. I would go back to the Temple, and I would travel around the galaxy with Skyguy. He would teach me everything I need to know to be as strong as he is. Maybe I could get to know Master Kenobi better, spent more time with him and the other padawans."

Jesse raised his head to look at her as he continued to rub the sponge.
"That doesn't sound bad, Commander."

"No" she shook her head "That doesn't sound bad at all."
She stayed quiet, then she talked again "What would you do if right now they announced that the Separatists had surrendered and the war was over?"

Such a heavy question, asked so lightly.

But as casual and friendly as her voice was, there was a kind of trepidation in the slight tremor of her hands, a certain impatience and desperate curiosity in her large blue eyes.

"I don't know, Commander, but I guess I won't have to worry about it for a while."
He kept his voice as light as hers.

She nodded, and she tried hard to hide from him the way her head sunk in her shoulders, how her face darkened slightly and a deep disappointed sadness invaded her eyes. Jesse was too old to be fooled by a kid.

"Alright."

She didn't leave immediately, instead standing still and staring at him.

Jesse sighed and wondered what forced him to live when it meant having to deal with hyperactive little girls who were too curious for their own good.

"I don't know what I'm going to do, because I don't know how to do anything, if not fighting" Jesse stopped scrubbing, turning to her. The Commander had straightened up, and was looking at him with wide eyes, hungry for information "The Republic has technically bought me. I guess they'll tell me to do something."

"But you won't do it."

She said it confidently, like nothing in the galaxy could make her see reasons, like it was her personal dogma.

Jesse looked around. There were just the two of them. CT-5597 and Commander Tano. Jesse and Ahsoka.

"I hope I don't."

He couldn't have told her that he would never do what he was told - because what was he doing, if not listening to their orders?

"We will help you" and she said it as sure as she had been that Jesse would rebel against his owners "When it's all over. We won't leave you alone, I'm sure of it."

A second of silence.

“So we're friends now?”

Those hopeful eyes would ruin him.

“Yes, kid.”

"Great. Now can you tell me why you tattooed that ugly Republic's seal on your face if you all hate the Republic so much?"

"..."

⸻

Ahsoka's no longer so small body against Fives' would usually be a balm against any sorrow, mental or physical that it was, but this was a pain impossible to stop or ease.
  No words of comfort, no hand held in his, no warm and tender hug could have made him feel better.

He would have liked to disconnect as he had seen so many brothers do, as Echo had done so many times.

Like the time they'd been locked in a quarry on a planet overrun by separatists and a brother had lost his leg—and the general had been forced to disinfect the stump with his lightsaber while they held him down.

During those infernal twenty minutes Echo had seemed to disappear, moving like an automaton and not really responding to external stimuli - and Fives knew it was a way of dealing with everything that happened.
That it wasn't healthy, not at all, and that as he could he would help his brother.

Fives had never been capable of it, and he would have liked to.

Rex's order was enough to leave the fire of Echo's death behind.
He had continued to move with precision, a man with a mission, to save himself and complete his mission, follow his orders.

He had boarded the LAAT/i together with the others.

It had taken two minutes for him to collapse in on himself, and Ahsoka didn't hesitate to wrap a strong arm around his waist and keep him upright.
Rex stood up and supported him on the other side, and Fives distantly heard the General's voice say something, Commander Cody's voice answer him and move closer to help Rex, but he didn't pay them the slightest attention.

He didn't think about them, not when he could only see the fire blooming again and again and his brother's helmet blowing up with him, landing in front of his feet.
He had secured it to his belt before going to his waist, and now he was looking for it, moving his hands as if he didn't really remember where he had put it. How couldn't he?

Ahsoka took it, pushing it between his hands, and Fives only managed to clasp them around the still boiling plastoid, squeeze and squeeze his fingers until he felt every kind of strength abandon him, and bring his forehead to it as he had for too many years.

  Push it against his forehead, close his eyes, pretend that the push was Echo meeting him and not his own hands and the steel grip on the buy'ce. Close his eyes, and tell himself that it wasn't true, it couldn't be true.

Ahsoka had wrapped her arms around him, and only after days Fives was able to remember what she had done - she had held Fives, and she had cried too, silently as an ad should have never been capable of doing.

Rex stood in front of him, a hand on his shoulder and a contrite expression on his face that did nothing but tell Fives that the Captain was calm for now, and he would allow himself to cry later, when no one could watch... could watch it.
 Commander Cody and Kenobi stood off to the side, and Skywalker stood at Ahsoka's side.

He didn't cry for much longer, and he remained composed when they landed in the port, and he couldn't live that hour that separated him from real life like a zombie.

He heard everything, he felt everything, from the recoil of the Jedi who must have sensed something just by meeting them, to the innocent questions of the shinies who didn't see Echo enter the barracks with them, to the looks they gave them as he walked towards their bed.

  Jesse was there, along with Hardcase.
Dogma and Tup were lying on Fives' bed, the bottom one, and Dogma was reading something from a datapad to Tup who snorted and threw a pillow at him, missing by miles.
 Hardcase was sitting at the foot of the bed, and in the two seconds it took Fives to get seen he managed to not eat, but inhale an entire ration.
Jesse was on Echo's bed, lying with his head hanging off the edge, a bacta patch on his red nose.
They were waiting for their return.

They were waiting for Echo and Fives, returning from a mission that everyone said was impossible but which they were sure they would survive, with a new crazy story to tell and maybe an extra cool scar.

 Tup looked up and saw him, and a huge smile spread across his face.
The smile disappeared. He looked confused, moving his eyes to his side-Echo wasn't there. He moved his eyes lower, to the buy'ce familiar in paint and indentations to them all clutched in his red hands. With that, dread filled his face.

Jesse saw this and half-screamed a loud "Hey brother, we saved you some food!", sitting up straight. Jesse didn't understand it gradually. One look at Fives' face was enough for him to understand.

 Hardcase stood up in a second and handed him a handful of rations grinning as if he had just won the toughest battle of his life, smile that disappeared before returning, almost forced.

Dogma didn't look up, muttering something along the lines of "chill, give them time to change".

"Fives" Jesse's voice was strained.

Fives didn't answer.

 "Fives, where's Echo?"
Hardcase seemed to be trying to be confused.
He was lying to himself.
Fives had done it, and it hadn't worked.

Dogma looked up then, eyebrows furrowed, a question on the tip of his tongue, a question that didn't last long.
When he spoke, his voice came out strangled like Fives had never heard it.
"He's dead?"

Hardcase's voice was almost hysterical "What? No, Dogma, what-"

Fives collapsed at that exact moment, and he truly collapsed.

He couldn't hear anything beyond his sobs, and when Dogma tried to leave with eyes wet like never before he grabbed his arm in a grip that could have been painful, and told him in a strained voice "Don't try to leave now."

Dogma did not leave, and he took Fives' hand.

No one left, and when he let himself go, tired and too exhausted to function, nothing on his mind but Echo, Echo, Echo, Echo Echo - they cried with him and stood by him, close and tight, as they had been when he was there.
Echo was among them, but Echo wasn't there, Echo wasn't there anymore, Echo was gone, Echo was perhaps still there waiting for death to come, drowning in pain, Echo was perhaps dead because of him, Echo would never come home, Echo would never eat Hardcase's rations, Echo would never scold him for stealing food winking at him at the same time, Echo was-

Just dead.

 Ahsoka came after an hour or two.

Still dirty from the mission, tired and with eyes red from tiredness and crying and insomnia, she approached them and had the nerve to be hesitant in front of their intertwined bodies- as if Tup wouldn't pull her to them in a second, his face contorted and dark skin wet with tears,

Ahsoka was a balm for all evil, he reminded himself as she hugged him as if it were the last time, but this evil was too great even for her.

⸻

Umbara happened.

Ahsoka was there for the after- the famous after, the worst thing in the world.

Fives had always connected Ahsoka with the after.

Her little Commander, who had told them that she would like to be their sister sometime later, as if she weren't already one, as if there could ever be after for them- but Ahsoka hoped, he hoped as they rarely were allowed to.
Ahsoka took that faint hope in her hands, hands hardened by training and two years spent on the battlefield, and encouraged it to grow and helped it, and supported it like no one had ever done before her.

Ahsoka saw horror after horror, staining her childish mind with indelible images, and didn't stop.

Ahsoka had found herself talking to a vod, joking with her and Fives while they waited for everything to begin, for the first droid to came to life, when the air is calm and one expects the end, and she had seen a multitude of blaster blots arrive and hit that sister's body apart.
She had remained motionless, the corpse half on her lap and the clone's blood on her face, and Fives had had to physically pull her away.

Ahsoka had taken four blaster shots trying to save a new squad of shinies from an attack no one was expecting, and she had nearly died too many times to count.

Her Master had done worse, but Ahsoka was too much like him to be safe in a war. Or anywhere else, sure, but still. War.

Ahsoka wasn't on Umbara when all hell broke loose, thank the Force.

She was there for the aftermath.

Ahsoka arrived at the barracks on Coruscant, and the first thing she did was drop her lightsabers on the ground.

The thud echoed in the silent corridor, and when she ran towards them she didn't hesitate to throw himself on the bed where Tup, Jesse and Fives had let themselves go, regardless of the fact that that little uncomfortbale mattress was not made for three people - let alone three adult clones and a teenage togruta.

Or better. She hesitated.

Like she always did, like she should have never done.

Fives wanted to punch anyone who made her believe that giving in to the affection they felt for each other was wrong.

For them that affection was everything, and Ahsoka wasn't that different from them, even though the mere thought of it made her feel nauseous and mildly anxious, at first.

She hesitated, and said in a low, defeated voice, "I'm sorry".

Jesse looked at her for a long second, sighed and showed all his years (one more, but that was too much), but he didn't smile or say anything else.

He only said a frail “It's not your fault, vod'ika,” because it wasn't.

It took time for her to understand this.
It took time for the general to understand this and forgive himself, but they did--certainly never completely, but Fives didn't blame them.

It was impossible to forgive yourself in war, he had discovered.

⸻

"What if we go take a walk down there?"

Jesse shrugged and followed her.

The Commander was ok, despite everything.

A little bruised, with an almost healed wound on her left lekku, but safe and sound.

Jesse's knee hadn't stopped hurting since the moment he had left Umbara's ground, and Kix would have beaten some sense into him if he'd seen him walking around in those conditions. What his brother didn't see couldn't hurt him. 

Jesse was pretty tired, but he wasn't going to say no to exploring that little town near where they'd camped for the night.

They couldn't do it, technically.

All personnel were supposed to remain on the Venator in orbit in the absence of battle, but the 501st had stopped following that rule a long time before.

Jesse remembered when Commander Cody had patiently explained this to General Kenobi, and the man had run his hand over his beard and nodded.
Then he had shrugged, and said with a forced, encouraging smile, "I'd say you won't hurt anyone, right? And fighting near so many interesting places and not visiting them after seems rather... pointless for you."

When Jesse had transferred to the 501st and they had tried to follow that one useless regulation, Skywalker didn't even remember that it existed in the first place.
So yeah, no one really stayed in the Venators.

It was nice to see the shinies so excited about simple, boring towns, and Jesse had visited so many places in the last two years.
He always made an effort to walk around the markets or whatever they had in place, maybe talk to the nat-borns who didn't shout insult at their simple sight and eat something with the credits stolen from the General (more than aware that it was happening but pretended he didn't-  Jesse felt graced every time).

 The Commander always seemed to vibrate out of her skin whenever she could, and Skywalker watching her speak excitedly to a tired Rex, who had agreed to accompany her, had explained to Jesse in a contrite voice "When I was a padawan part of every mission was to learn something about the culture of the place visited. Obi-Wan was really picky about his exams, believe me. I never had the pleasure and time to explain to her the bizarre mating rituals of some strange winged people."

  Jesse had asked him if he would then go down with them to try to understand what the planet's mating rituals were, rather than stay in orbit talking to the Council and other people too important for someone like Jesse.

Fives had actually run around asking it, and had been slapped by a little old lady.

 Ahsoka wasn't excited that night.

She stared straight ahead, her shoulders tense and a certain urgency in her eyes that Jesse had seen rise and bloom like a poisonous flower.

How many times had he seen the happiness and pure life in the Commander's eyes and cruelly wondered how long it would last?
How many times had he wondered how much longer she would be active and lively at the start of a battle, how long it would take before her blue eyes turned gray and all happiness became forced?

It had taken a year, more or less.

 It had been the first soldier dying in her arms,  feeling a vital force extinguishing in the Force and become one with it for the first time, feeling so much pain that she believed she could die from that alone for the umpteenth time.

For all of her fragile nat-borns dreams to be shattered before her eyes, desperate ignorance and sincere confusion holding her back stopping her from saving them, ignoring her shouts. For that violent "Why?" to become a feeble question asked of the night.

 Until even those happy moments from the everyday life of a child became rarities to be protected like the greatest of treasures.

The city they reached was small, a village more than anything else, and was animated by an air of celebration that they rarely managed to experience. But that evening, they had arrived at the right time.

That planet had no moons, and its only sun had set hours ago, leaving room for a sky with visible and shiny stars- like they would never be on Coruscant.

The General hated the capital, even though going down to Coruscant meant seeing his wife again, because he said it was one of the dirtiest places in the Galaxy - and he had grown up on Tatooine, for the Force.
But Coruscant would never admit the existence of that filth that filled every one of its crevice, and that was worse than anything else.

Jesse still wore his armor, but no one batted an eye at the armed clone walking among them. Ahsoka stopped in front of a hot food stall, and bought two portions: some kinds of sandwiches with noodles-like things in the middle, which overflowed and were covered in a dark sauce that smelled of alcohol.

It was really good, he discovered.

They sat on a bench and ate in silence.

The last time they'd done something like this Hardcase had been with them, and he'd exchanged comms with a Twi'lek he hadn't stopped flirting with for a second, no matter how stupidly he'd done it.
Ahsoka had teased him to the point of exhaustion, and once back on the Venator she had knelt before Skywalker and repeated what Hardcase had said to her poor soul. The General had looked at Rex confused, and at the padawan's exasperated explanation he had shrugged his shoulders, saying "It wasn't so bad".

Rex had blinked and looked at him like one would look at the most ridiculous thing in the world.

"I want a tattoo."

Jesse settled himself better, crumpling the paper of the strange sandwich and throwing it into a nearby bin. He cursed under his breath as his knee sent a sting of pain.

“I want you to do it.”

Jesse blinked.

The last tattoo he had done was on a shiny who, after their first battle, had gotten a huge scar on their chest and had commented on it with an annoyed "Unsightly. Make it prettier".
Jesse had been stunned, but had laughed with them and continued to draw everything he could think of around it. Flowers, meaningless lines curled around the raised skin, vines and exotic plants that he had seen over the course of many campaigns.

"Why me?"

"You do everyone's"

The first tattoo he had done was at the beginning of the war, when Jesse - with his sore head and lots of new ink on his skin - had complained to Rex that he would like to learn to do tattoos because it had been too cool.

Skywalker had heard this, and the next day he had given him his data-pad with a very suspicious article open on how to.
 He'd done it with such a confident smile that Jesse hadn't wondered twice how wise it was to follow the advice of an article on the holonet, and he'd experienced the first disaster on himself.

There was a reason it was half covered in stupid drawings and writings from a curious Fives who understood how Jesse cared little what was written amidst that map of scars.
 The most memorable was "the Gneral and Rex will fuck, and y'all are gonna give me fifty credits each" (typo included) on his calf next to a small stylized drawing of Yoda done by Skywalker himself. They would probably die before that could happen.

"What would you like to get tattooed?"

Ahsoka had pulled a fragment of explosives the size of his hand out of his leg two weeks ago. She could get a tattoo, sixteen or not.

 "I don't know. Remember Hardcase's one, along the sides?"

Hardcase had made up his mind that he wanted a tattoo, and said "I won't tell you what, it's a surprise".
 When they had found the time to, and Jesse had prepared the needles and the blue color as the other wanted, he had said that he wanted lines that went through his face, his head, his back, his hips and shoulders, his chest, up to the ankles.
 After the tattoo was done he admitted with a big grin that he had made it all up on the spot, and he just wanted to get something tattooed because theirs were "fucking cool."

"They'll hurt."

"Who do you take me for?"

A kid who two weeks earlier had sewn up Jesse's calf, split in two by a fragment of explosive she had extracted, with a first aid kit recovered from the corpse of a medic laying near Jesse's feet.

"When?"

"I have everything you need with me."

The fact that he had put his hands through his things didn't surprise him, and a raspy laugh escaped his lips.
“What, you want to do it here?”

"I don't want to... Maybe we should ask someone for hospitality? I'm a Jedi, technically, maybe they'll do me this little favor."

The old lady who let them in was smiling, the red skin of her face wrinkled but shiny like that of all the inhabitants of that planet.

It was the third person they had asked: a young mother had apologized, but she had just put her new-born twins to sleep and couldn't risk them waking up - and seeing the purple dark circles under her eyes Jesse hadn't hesitated to reassure her that there was no problem, and a man who closed the door in their faces. He muttered something rude from beyond the door which made Ahsoka laugh, and Jesse insulted him back in Mando'a not caring about the curious look of a passerby.

"My old Anupiu's room is free. Saved my old Anupiu, you Jedi have. Good people, you are. Come, come."

Anupiu, it turned out from the photos, was a kind of mini bantha with long curled antennae covered in fur the same color as the white crystal mountains that covered the planet, who had a room of his own but who was currently at the village doctor for a bad gastritis.
 Once a passing Jedi had saved Anupiu from being killed by a nobody criminal who wanted to sell him for the rarity of his fur, and now after twenty years the old lady (whose name Jesse had forgotten) had decided to let in a clone and a little jedi kid in his house, at night, to give them a space to tattoo the latter.

It was an almost surreal experience, and he said it, and Ahsoka shrugged and said lightly, a small smile on her lips, "When will it happen again?"

Ahsoka took off her shirt, her chest covered with the black bandeau underwear that he also wore to train with them and Skywalker. When Jesse saw that it was one of the pairs that opened on the side he laughed and shook his head, preparing the machine and the paint.

Maybe it was the steady hand he'd been forced to have to properly use a blaster and survive on Kamino, maybe a natural gift, maybe the holy Force, but Jesse was physically incapable of making a crooked line—Ahsoka knew it, and didn't move a finger when the first needles hit her and the line along her side took shape.

Inch after inch.
 On her hip, around her waist, under her arm and above her ribs. Then the blue stopped, and Jesse remembered making the same drawings on his brother's body. If a tear fell from his eye Ahsoka said nothing, simply making a fist with her left hand as if her life depended on it.

Then over her shoulder, down the arm and down to cover her hand along her middle finger.

Then again, he pulled down the side zipper (she had thought it all) of the leggings, and the line continued down to the ankle.

Every now and then it was interrupted by a scar or a stretch mark, or ended up matching the white marks on his skin, and at those points Jesse interrupted or covered it, no questions asked.

When it was all over the sun had risen, and Ahsoka answered to Skywalker's comm with a quick "Will be up in ten."

They didn't say much as they boarded the LAAT/i, waiting for them near the village little space port.

 It had been be the last time they went "exploring" together, because the next hell that hit them shattered that painful and fragile balance as not even Echo's death had done.
Jesse's hands never stopped shaking.

⸻