Star Wars One-Shots

You Are To Me

Author's Note: I know this is a bit dark, but I have no idea why I'm the first person to write Ahsoka and Rex like this –

PS. This is for the square "only one bed" on the 501st bingo. :) 

~ Rivana Rita

Kamino trained Rex for everything. They made it sound simple. Good soldiers follow orders. They never prepared him for what it meant to have a family, a child, and for what it would mean for orders to hurt them.

Either he's not a good soldier, or his training on Kamino never trained him for what it meant.

"Let go!" Ahsoka screams, struggling in his grip, "I said let. Me. Go!"

"Negative, Commander," he grunts, dragging her back. She's thrashing. She's fighting him, and it hurts as much as it breaks her heart.

"Keep her safe," Anakin had said a millisecond ago, and Rex watches as the droids drag him from the room, the door slamming behind. He has his orders, and that's what he's going to do.

"Let go!" Ahsoka yells, still squirming, even if she must know it's pointless, because Rex is stronger than her. She's still tiny. Still scrawny. He has no idea how she's on the field.

"Our orders were to stay here and wait," Rex argues firmly – that's what Anakin had told them.

"They're going to hurt him!" Ahsoka shouts, "What's wrong with you? How can you just let that happen?"

She doesn't yell at them. Ahsoka rarely yells at them, even if she will at her master sometimes. She has a temper, but Rex has never had that unleashed on him before. It stings, borrowing deep under his skin and eating him inside out. He's following Anakin's orders, and that's what they've always done. It's what they're trained to do. "We have our orders. We have a duty."

"I don't care about duty!" Ahsoka yells back, "They're going to hurt him!"

"They're Separatists," Rex reminds, as if it's something they could actually forget. "They'll hurt all of us if they have time, and faster if we give them reason."

"How can you not even try to stop it? How can you just stand there?"

"Orders are orders," Rex tells her, as if orders aren't currently tearing him apart, because he knows she's right. They took the General. They're going to – He doesn't want to let it happen, but Ahsoka's words still lance through him, burrowing deep inside and burning.

He didn't want this. He didn't want to let it happen, but there was nothing he could do.

Helplessness is gnawing at him, with a mocking whisper of after everything he did for you, you'll just let them hurt him? He came back for you. Anyone else wouldn't have been too afraid to help.

Rex lets her go, stepping back, and Ahsoka whirls around, eyes blazing.

She's furious.

Having to hold her back as the droids took Anakin out is one of the hardest things Rex has ever had to do.

"I don't care what your orders were! You can't blindly follow them when you know they're wrong!"

He wants to cry.

He never cries.

He hasn't been yelled at by a superior since Kamino. Rex hasn't been in action all that long, but Anakin certainly never did that. Anakin doesn't yell at anyone. Rex doesn't even understand that, but he's – he's so kind. (And now, he's being hurt, because of you.)