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"Maybe someday," Fox said carefully, gently, "when we've pulled everyone out that we can reach. When it's safe.” He met Rex’s eyes directly, imbuing his words with as much encouragement as he could in a reality where they often didn’t get what they wanted. "Maybe you'll be together again."
***
The planet was unremarkable. Rocky, sparsely populated, but with a few moderately advanced settlements that provided regular transportation to the main spaceport. It was the perfect place to say goodbye, to split off into the separate directions their lives were leading them toward.
Rex stood beside Ahsoka on a ridge overlooking the small village below, the Y-wing parked a short distance away, fueled and ready for his journey.
He'd be leaving soon to search for his brothers. He’d be looking for his batchmates, as well as Echo and Clone Force 99, if any of them were still alive. But he was also planning to pull out other clones – as many as he could – and release them from Empire's control. It was a dangerous undertaking, but he couldn't simply leave them behind, still under the chip’s influence, forced to serve the very regime that had stolen their free will.
And he couldn’t live without knowing what had happened to his closest vode.
Ahsoka knew the plan. They'd discussed it during their journey here, both of them dancing around the inevitable moment of their parting.
"So," Ahsoka said finally, her voice carefully neutral. "This is it."
Rex looked over at her, taking in the civilian clothes that still looked strange on her, the way she held herself like she was ready to disappear at a moment's notice, shoulders tense beneath the plain fabric. She'd been doing that a lot lately – preparing to leave, even when she was standing right next to him.
"You could come with me," he said quietly, though he already knew what her answer would be.
She shook her head. "I can't, Rex. You know that."
He did. It would be hard enough for him to free his brothers while staying under the Empire’s radar. Having a former Jedi with a special target on her back nearby would just make things more difficult, more dangerous. Still, he had to ask. He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t.
“You sure you’ll be alright?” he pressed, because he knows she’s capable, he does, but he also knows that she’s lost everything, same as him. They’d held each other through the initial waves of grief, but when the aftershocks come, there would be no one standing next to either of them.
She glanced at him before returning her gaze to the settlement below. “Course I will,” she said, and it was almost flippant. He continued staring at her, waiting. She huffed, a sound that was half laugh, half exasperation. He smirked, despite all his worries. He'd always taken pleasure in being able to outlast the Jedi padawan who was supposed to be a picture of patience, who could meditate for hours but couldn't hide her feelings from him.
Eventually, she relented, her shoulders dropping as the false bravado slipped away. "I need time," she admitted, and the honesty in her voice made his heart clench. "To come to terms with it. The Council, the war, what I did during it... what I didn't do." She turned to face him fully, and he could see the weight she carried in the shadows under her eyes. "I need time to figure out what my place is in all this. Where my path lies."
Rex understood, even if part of him wanted to argue. Wanted to insist her place was next to him, same as his was next to her. They'd found something together in the ruins of their old lives, something precious and fragile and unnamed. But it wasn't enough to build a future on, not yet. Not when they were both still bleeding from wounds too fresh to heal.
He had to let her go. She needed him to let her go, and maybe, if he was honest with himself, he needed the space too. To figure out who Rex was when he wasn't Captain Rex, when he wasn't defined by his rank or his loyalty to the Republic. When he was just a man trying to save his family.
"Will you use the comm Bail gave you?" he asked, grasping for some thread of hope that this wasn’t permanent, that their paths might cross and merge again after they diverged for a while. "Join up with his people eventually?"
Ahsoka was quiet for a long moment, not looking him in the eyes, staring at some invisible spot on his chestplate. "Maybe," she said finally, the word heavy with uncertainty. "When I'm ready. I don’t know."
"You could contact me, though," Rex suggested quietly. "Occasionally. When it's safe."
Reckless, his mind chastised him.
He ignored it. Some things were worth the risk.
"Sure.” Her agreement came more easily than he’d expected, considering she knew as well as he did what the consequences could be if their communications were traced. As if reading his thoughts, she held up a hand. “When it's safe,” she emphasized. But there was a small smile in her voice. "I won't disappear completely, Rex. Not from you. Not again.”
The reminder that they’d only recently been reunited after she’d been lost to him for months was a vibroblade to his chest. But he appreciated her willingness to indulge him, in this at least, so he simply nodded.
They stood in comfortable silence for a while, neither wanting to be the first to say goodbye. The sun was beginning to set, painting the sky in shades of amber and rose that reminded him of better times, of shared moments stolen between battles. Rex found himself memorizing details – the patterns on her montrals, the set of her shoulders, the way she still unconsciously reached for lightsabers that were no longer there.
"I'm going to miss you," he said suddenly, the words pulled from somewhere deep within.
"I'm going to miss you too," she replied, and her voice was thick with emotion she was trying to keep in check.
Rex pulled her into a hug then, holding her tight. She felt smaller without her battle dress, more fragile, but he could still sense the strength in her that had carried them both through so much. Her arms came up around him, fierce and desperate, as if she too was trying to commit to memory the feeling of being held, being safe, being understood.
The feeling of being loved. Even if they’d never say it.
"I'll find you," she whispered against his shoulder. "Someday, when the time is right. When you’ve found your brothers. When we've both figured out who we're supposed to be."
"Promise?" The word came out rougher than he intended, cracked with the weight of everything he wasn’t saying.
"Yeah," she said, pulling back to look at him, eyes shining with unshed tears and a determination that was all Ahsoka. "I promise."
They broke apart slowly, reluctantly. Ahsoka shouldered her pack and started walking toward the distant settlement where she'd catch transport to wherever she was going next.
Rex watched until she disappeared entirely, then turned toward the Y-wing.
He had brothers to find.
But he'd be listening for that comm, waiting for the day she'd be ready to come back to him.
***
Rex's expression was wistful, tinged with hope and heartbreak in equal measure. "Maybe. She said... she said she'd find me when the time was right. I trust her to keep that promise."
The faith in Rex's voice was absolute, unshakeable despite everything they'd endured, or perhaps because of it. Fox had always known that Rex cared about her, but now he could see just how much Ahsoka Tano meant to his brother. She wasn't just someone Rex had served with – she was someone he believed in completely, someone whose judgment he trusted even when it led her away from him.
Fox felt a surge of affection for his vod'ika, impressed, not for the first time, by Rex's capacity for loyalty and love even in the face of impossible circumstances. He ignored the sharp twinge in his healing spine to reach out and clasp Rex's shoulder, giving him a soft smile. "She sounds like someone worth waiting for," he said.
Rex’s answering smile was filled with all the love and hope and determination that made him who he was.
“She is.”