Good soldiers follow their heart

Trauma

"I will kill you. I will kill you all, clones!" Pong Krell ignited his double bladed lightsaber an sliced the clones, one by one. Rex couldn't move. He could just watch. Wath as he kills them one by one. Hardcase, Echo, Dogma, Fives, Jesse... No matter how hard he tried to move, to scream, to do anything, nothing happened.

Pong Krell finished all his brothers, the whole legion. And now he was walking towards Rex, his lightsaber ignited. A single tear rolled down Rex's cheek when he saw Pong Krell's lightsaber above him, about slice him.

Rex woke up and sat on his bed, breathing heavily. He stood up and walked out of the room without a specific destination in mind. He just wanted to escape from his thoughts. Easier said than done.

He wasn't paying attention to the path, so it wasn't surprising when he bumped into someone.

"Rex! What are you doing here?" 

Rex looked down to see Ahsoka."I'm sorry, Commander," he said, trying to sound calm.

"Are you okay, Rex?"

"I just couldn't sleep." 

Ahsoka looked at him suspiciously. She didn't believe him, that he couldn't sleep, so he just went for a walk to the Jedi section of the cruiser, dressed only in the black suit he wore under his armor.

"I will go to sleep now," said Rex. He turned to the left and walked away from his room. 

Ahsoka asked, "Are you okay, Rex?" 

 He stopped, unsure what to do. Ahsoka approached him and softly placed her hand on his arm. "Rex?"

He faced her with a slow turn. Ahsoka knew something was seriously wrong the moment Rex looked into her eyes. Rex was crying. 

Somehow, they ended up sitting on the floor. Rex crying softly in the arms of his commander without any idea how they got into this position. And at the moment, he didn't care.

The compromising situation he was in dawned on Rex. He sat halfway on the floor with his head in Ahsoka's lap.

"I'm sorry," he apologized.

"Don't worry, Rex," Ahsoka reassured him with a gentle smile. 

Rex moved away and leaned against the wall beside her.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, I'm okay," he replied.

"Rex, you're not okay," Ahsoka sighed. "If you don't tell me what's bothering you, I can't help you."

"I still can't recover from Umbara."

"I should have made the Jedi council send a different general." Ahsoka sighed, her voice filled with regret.

"It's not your fault, Commander." 

"It is. I knew about the high casualities under his command and I knew he didn't care about the clone's lives. But I didn't think he would intentionally try to kill you. I'm so sorry, Rex."

"Don't worry. You are not responsible for anything."

"But... I could have done something to stop him."

"You couldn't do anything, Commander." 

"How do you know that?"

"I know that if there was anything you could have done, you would've done it."

They sat quietly for a few moments until Rex spoke up again.

"How he was killing us wasn't the most awful thing, you know?"

Ahsoka was surprised as she looked at Rex. What could be worse than Krell killing his brothers?

"He said they had our armor. We thought they were Umbarans. We- we- we didn't know..." Rex began to cry silently and Ahsoka embraced him tightly.

She was trying to understand what had happened. Krell said that the Umbarans took the clones' armor, causing them to fight their own brothers by mistake, thinking they were Umbarans. It was worse than she thought.

"You didn't know, Rex. It's okay. You didn't know. Everything is fine now." she spoke soothingly while drawing gentle circles on Rex's back.

"Commander?" he spoke to Ahsoka. He had no idea for how long they've been sitting there.

Ahsoka didn't react and that was when he realized she fell asleep. The togruta in his arms looked so peaceful Rex didn't want to wake her up. He picked her up, trying not to wake her, and carried her to her room.

He gently laid her on the bed. "Good night, cyare'ika." he whispered into her ear.

Ahsoka just mumbled something from asleep. 

This chapter is shorter than the other ones and there isn't really much happening but I just liked the idea of Ahsoka comforting Rex after Umbara. I hope you enjoyed. I promise there will be some action in the next chapter.