#I have this oddly specific head cannon that Anakin cannot for the life of him remember Dogma's name.

[star-ting-over]

Fic : A night on the Resolute

The wounds from Umbara were still fresh, and Rex wasn’t going to get any sleep. Instead, he paces the halls and finds everything, and nothing has changed.

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Dogma was snoring again. Rex glanced over at his brother, face down, passed out from exhaustion on the sparing floor matt that was serving as his bed against the wall of Rex’s cabin. Dogma didn’t sleep much these days, but when he did, he snored. Like a Gundark with a sinus infection. Rex honesty wasn’t aware that a trooper could make a noise like that before Dogma had taken up residence on his floor. Rex didn’t think Jesse would follow through with his half-hysterical threat of stabbing Dogma in his sleep, but he had the younger clone bunking with him just in case. If anything, it prevented another fight in the barracks, Tup apparently more than willing to jump to Dogma defence with his fists at the slightest provocation. There was an angry, aggressive streak in Tup that hadn’t been there before Umbara. Or maybe it had, and Rex just hadn’t noticed.

Rex dug the heels of his hand into his eyes as he sat up. He wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight. Swinging he feet over the side of his bunk, he rose as silently as he could so as not to wake his sleeping brother and headed for the door. Stepping out into the corridor, more people were milling around than he would have expected. Then again no one on the Resolute was getting much sleep at the moment and clones, by nature or by training, did not like to spend much time sitting still. Rex paused briefly to consider what his men might make of their captain pacing the halls in the dead of night in nothing but his blacks before quickly deciding that he couldn’t bring himself to care.

His first port of call was the med bay. It was trip Rex made after every campaign, but there was always something jarring about how the casualty numbers matched up with the brother on the beds. 300 injured didn’t seem real until you saw your men lined up on gurneys against the wall waiting for the medics to clear a bed for them. Kix always complained, with Rex privately agreeing, that if it were up to him, every member of GAR command should be dragged into the Medbay after a hard campaign to tell the medics and injured brother to their faces that a Venator, with a complement of 3,000 only needed 40 bacta tanks. If General Kenobi had managed to source 30 extra each for The Negotiator and The Resolute, Rex wouldn’t mention it.

Umbara had, by all metrics, been a hard campaign. Kix’s tired face and tight smile gave him all the information he needed to know. It could have been a lot worse, but it was worse than they could have imagined. Glancing over at the rows of occupied beds, his eye was drawn to Skipper, the lightsabre burns across his chest that should have killed him and the look in his eyes that said it might as well have done. That was enough of the Med bay for one night.

Back out in the corridor, Rex decided that if he weren’t going to sleep, he could a least be somewhat productive. As with any catastrophic, traumatising incident, Umbra had generated a lot of paperwork, most of which Rex had neglected to deal with partly out of spite but mostly out of exhaustion. No one had chased him for it yet, but it was only a matter of time. It wasn’t going to complete itself, so Rex headed towards mission control.

Expecting to find the room empty, be paused in the doorway at the sight of General Skywalker stood in front of the holo-transmitter, the flickering blue backs of General Windu and General Kenobi between them. Rex was all for turning and leaving, but General Skywalker had seen him, a subtle beckon dragging Rex into the room. Rex loitered just out of the holo-projector range as his General said his goodbye to the two Masters. He didn’t need to be a Jedi to sense the sombre mood that the conversation had left in the room; he could guess what they had been discussing. How many times had Rex stood in this spot late at night, listening to the best-laid plans of the Jedi? Old wisdom said that no plan withstood contact with the enemy and that was true even for Jedi, but until recently Rex had never had any reason to doubt that the General’s plan, any General’s plan, was the best one available. But now it was like a shadow had been thrown over everything. It wasn’t fair; Rex knew that. General Skywalker may be reckless, but he wasn’t malicious, he didn’t lead his men to their deaths deliberately.

As the projector shut off, the General turned to him. The flicker of the generals’ eyes made Rex suddenly very aware that he wasn’t in his armour. He suddenly felt vulnerable, exposed. He had never felt this way before, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what had changed. Up until very recently, Rex hadn’t had a reason to feel vulnerable in the presence of a Jedi. Something in General Skywalers expression closed off, and Rex wondered precisely how much of what he felt was being communicated through the force.

“How’s Jesse doing?” the General changed the topic of a conversation they weren’t even having.

Jesse had held it together well on Umbara, as calm and competent as always, but almost as soon as he set foot on the Resolute, it was like it caught up to him at once. Rex wouldn’t call it a breakdown. Clones didn’t have break downs. Right? Right. Rex wasn’t sure what he would call it. He wouldn’t sleep, he wouldn’t eat. His hands shook so hard Rex wasn’t sure he could still hold a blaster. Kix said he was having nightmares about the firing squad. Nearly being executed was bound to mess you up. It had messed Jesse up at least, Fives seemed fine, at least as far as Rex could see.

Kix was doing his best to help Jesse where he could. The seemed that it was the sight of Dogma seemed to be what set him off more than anything, and it wasn’t like Rex didn’t understand why. Everyone understood why. Even Dogma who since his rather miraculous, if temporary, reprieve had turned out to be surprisingly good at making himself scarce at least until it came time to sleep. He hadn’t even taken four steps into the barracks, a full hour after lights out, before trouble had reared its head. In the interests of a concise incident report, it was summarised as Jesse had lost it on Dogma, Tups had swung at Jesse, Fives tackled Tup, Kix had set Jesse’s broken nose and Rex had one more headache to contend with. Rex didn’t see any need to mention the tears that had streamed down Jesse’s face, the calm oddly detached look on Dogma’s face as Jesse threatened to kill him or the feral, deranged glint in Tups eyes as Fives pinned him down.  

“Getting there, sir” Rex had no idea if that was true. He and never seen anything like this before. The General nodded, face grim. He opened his mouth to say something before thinking better of it and turned towards the monitor against the far wall. Whatever he was about to say, he didn’t want to be looking at Rex for.

“The trooper who shot Krell…” Rex suppressed a wince. He didn’t like hearing that name in his own mind.

“Dogma” Rex interjected quickly. It might have come out a little sharper than he intended.

“Right, Dogma,” Skywalker gave him a long look out of the corner of his eye. “Dogma has been summoned by the Jedi Council for questioning as soon as we arrive” Rex felt something that might have been fear, bubbling up, but it was quickly replaced by rage. He swallowed that impulse down. He knew this would be coming; after all, it had been a condition of Dogma’s temporary release. Raging wasn’t going to help his brother. He hadn’t been quick enough it would seem as he watched General Skywalker’s eyes narrow.

“He shot a Jedi Rex.”

“With all due respect sir, he shot a traitor.” The General sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“It's out of our hands, Rex. We could stop him from being shipped back to Kamino, but there is nothing more I can do.” What you be doing if it was me, that was being hauled in front of the council? Rex wanted to ask but couldn’t bring himself to utter the words.

“Get some rest.” General Skywalker uttered those words without a hint of irony. It was a dismissal if ever Rex had heard one. There was a part of Rex what wanted to replay with a ‘Thank you, sir, I’m fine’ but was sure the phrase would go straight over the Generals head. Rex turned on his heels and headed for the door.

“Rex, let… er.. let the trooper know what's going on.” Rex turned, giving a quick nod and headed through the door. Rex knew that rest wasn’t an option, so he decided upon a different course of action. The ship's gym should be relatively empty, especially as most would be too tired from the recent campaign to feel the need to exercise. And if it just happened to be the furthest thing from rest, well that was just a coincidence.

Typically the gym was nowhere near as empty as Rex would have liked. More than a few pairs of brother were having a spar on the mats. There were a few spare treadmills along the left wall, but it was the punching bags in the back corner that Rex was after. One was already in use. Tups bun made him easy to spot from behind. Rex wasn’t sure the younger trooper even notice his presence as he approached. Rex decided not to disturb him; he looked like he was… working through some stuff.

Taking the bag farthest away from Tup, Rex when through his pre-workout stretches on autopilot before sinking his fist into the bag. He had hoped punching something would help focus his mind, but it didn't seem to be working. His conversation with the General had rattled him. A deluge of hows and whys and what-ifs that he had been desperately trying to hold back broke free.

It all came back to one thing. It should have been him that pulled the trigger. It was his call, his duty to his brothers and the Republic, he should be the one to bear the consequences of the decision. Whatever they would be. They had put Dogma back into his cell after shooting the General, after Fives had retrieved his pistol from Dogma’s limp hands. He had sat stock still for hours, just staring unblinkingly at the Jedi’s body left to go cold one cell over. Kenobi’s arrival, Rex’s desperate pleas to Cody, Cody’s appeal to his General and Skywalkers obstinate instance ensured that Dogma would face Jedi justice and not a sham of a court marshal at the hands of the GAR high command. Rex hoped that the Jedi would be more lenient, but he didn’t know. All he had to go off was that it was hard to picture a Jedi firing squad. When Dogma had been temporarily released for the trip back to Coruscant, he hadn’t said a word. In fact, Rex hadn’t heard him utter a sound, besides his snoring, since Umbara.

Rex wondered if it said something damning about him that he wasn’t able to take that shot. He considered himself someone willing to do whatever it took to ensure victory, to keep his brothers safe. Did this just prove that to be untrue? General Skywalker had said the though Dogma and Rex were alike and superficially perhaps they were. Fiercely loyal, devoted to the cause… trusting. But Dogma took the shot that Rex couldn’t, because Rex couldn’t, but why? Was he afraid the consequences, afraid of what it would mean to be a Jedi killer? Say what you would about Dogma he didn’t really factor in personal consequences into his actions.  

Would the outcome be different if it had been him? Rex wasn’t sure. And if it was, what did that say about the GAR? What did that say about him? Was his life worth more than Dogma’s? Because he was older, more experienced, because General Skywalker had taken a liking to him? Was he more deserving of mercy because he happened to be a Jedi’s favourite clone? Because General Skywalker could remember his name when he always seemed to forget Dogma’s? Rex was spiralling, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

One last strike of his fist into the punching bag and Rex all be collapsed. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Tup had stopped as well, at some point having been joined by Fives. They were both watching him, concern on Fives face, Tups expression was drawn. Looking down at his hands, Rex realised belated that he had forgotten to wrap his knuckles before starting, blood trickling from the split skin, staining the bag.

“You should go see Kix for that sir.” Fives voice seemed thin a far away. Rex recalled Kix’s tired eyes for earlier that night. He didn’t need to adding anything more to his brother plate tonight, he’d speak to him in the morning. He told Fives as much. The ARC gave him a reluctant nod. Rex glanced back to Tup, stood staring at the floor shoulders hunched, looking like he was about to throw up. Catching Fives eye, he received a second nod. The ARC would make sure that Tup was ok, that he got back to his bunk. Rex gave Fives a tried smile before turning to leave that gym. The next morning Fives wouldn’t mention how Rex’s stumbled from exhaustion as he walked and Rex wouldn’t mention the telltale red rims to Fives eyes.

Finally, back at his bunk, Rex though he might finally be tried enough to get some rest even though Dogma’s snoring. Upon entering Rex found the room empty, it would appear Dogma had made himself scarce once again. Rex would tell him the Generals news in the morning then. For now, he would finally grab a few hours of sleep.

#I have this oddly specific head cannon that Anakin cannot for the life of him remember Dogma's name. #Why? Who knows? Probably some force nonsense. #captain rex #clone trooper dogma #clone trooper tup #clone trooper jesse #clone trooper kix #umbara arc #arc trooper fives