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Cody is dying.
It’s only a handful of months into the war and Cody is dying.
It’s sad. Pathetic, really.
The command batch was meant to be the best of the best and yet, here he is, dying— and not dying on a battlefield, no instead, he’s dying standing in a quiet, empty field surrounded by brightly colored, sweet smelling flowers.
They somehow make it worse, those flowers. They’re far too cheery for this. This is just embarrassing.
Cody breaks into another coughing fit that’s interrupted by several bursts of sneezes.
He had learned his lessons well back on Kamino. He knows that they were engineered to be immune to nearly every known illness or disease in the galaxy, that was part of the Kamino Guarantee.
So, Cody knows that whatever the Seppies have cooked up this time, whatever’s got his throat swelling, eyes burning, lungs aching like there’s a weight sitting on his chest, it has to be specifically designed to kill them .
There is no cure for this. Whatever it is. It has to be fatal.
Luckily, it seems he’s the only one out of their small scouting party that’s stumbled across an activation device.
He can make out the rest of the team through blurry vision lingering in the treeline across the field. He’d barked at all of them -- ‘ Stay back’-- after his first burst of coughing and sneezing, once he realized what was happening.
Boil’s voice crackles in over his comm. “Commander…”
Cody cuts him off, “Boil, you’ve got command of the squad. Get back to camp, go through proper decon, and report to Helix. Tll Trax we’ll need another full scan of this planet to figure out where the Separatists cell that did this is hiding.”
Boil is quiet for a moment. “You really think this is a Seppie move, sir?”
Cody closes his burning eyes. He can’t tell him how he knows, not unless he wants Boil and the rest of the team dashing into the field in a vain attempt to rescue him.
“Yes,” he finally says.
The shapes on the far off edge of the forest linger for a moment, to the point Cody thinks he’s going to have to yell, but Boil is, first and foremost, a soldier. And now he’s got command of a squad.
“Copy that Commander,” Boil’s voice finally says over the comm.
Cody watches the group of them slowly turn and disappear back into the trees.
Boil’s good Vode , Cody thinks, he would be good in helping transition whoever comes on to replace him as 212th Commander. He’s in with pretty much all the 212th cliques.
Once the scouting party is out of sight, Cody finally lets himself sink down to his knees, the weight in his chest starting to make him lightheaded.
This is it, he supposes, his last moments as a GAR commander.
Kriff— the others will be so pissed. They’ll have to restructure the GAR after this. Cody had been trained to lead the Third Systems Army, and yeah, most Command batches went through the same courses on Kamino, but it was different, the real thing and the sims. Leading the 212th and Third Systems Army had its own set of unique challenges.
Cody pulls his helmet off, it’s not like it was doing much anyway. He’ll have to report that too, that whatever this toxin is, it bypasses the sensors in their helmets that detect harmful toxins and switch to the emergency 8-hour breathpacks.
Maybe he should recommend that Kenobi take two commanders for the first few months. That might help alleviate some of the gaps in experience…
Kenobi.
Cody curses, then breaks into another coughing fit as he fumbles for his wrist comm. He punches in the General’s comm code.
‘ General Kenobi here.’
“General, Sir, I…” Cody swallows hard and blinks past the burning in his eyes. “I’m dying.”
‘… Pardon?’
“It’s something in the air, Sir” Cody rasps. “Some kind of new weapon. I’m the only one infected, but it bypasses almost everything the Kaminooans built into us. It’s something new, and it’s fast, Sir, and I—”
‘Cody, where are you ?’
Cody shakes his head. “No, General, listen, there’s not much time. I am recommending that Lieutenant Boil be promoted to the role of Captain and that he assist in the transition of my replacement. I’d also recommend pulling Commander Fox from Coruscant as my replacement. He was trained in my batch and people…people always say we’re a lot alike—” He breaks into another fit of coughing again, a wet noise building in his chest. Something falls onto the back of his hand and—Oh, great, his nose is bleeding. It won’t be long now.
“You’ll like him,” Cody continues, “You two will get along.” He smiles a bit, despite himself, thinking of how much Fox will hate him for saying that.
‘ Will we now?’ Kenobi’s reply comes out sounding slightly out of breath, almost like he’s running…
“General,” Cody snaps, “do not come to this location! We don’t know the nature of this toxin.”
" Relax Cody, Jedi can’t get sick, remember?’
“That’s what they said about us, sir.” Cody says in turn. His voice comes out smaller than intended.
How many other promises from the Kaminooans would turn out to be false? How many more of his brothers would die from this new weapon, thinking that they were engineered to be invincible to everything other than war itself?
He hates this. Past the burning in his eye and the weight in his chest, the horrible itching in his throat, he just feels so… so small . Like nothing. He’d accomplished nothing. He’ll be remembered for nothing. He’ll fade into nothing. A tiny blip in the timeline of the galaxy. Like he never existed at all.
A gentle breeze rustles through the plants around him, sending them swaying in the warm sun. It's followed by the sound of soft footsteps behind him, then a gentle hand that rests on his shoulder.
Obi-Wan crouches down in front of him, blue eyes serious and assessing. His hair’s fallen into his face a bit, small loose strands of it are stuck to the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. Cody knows it's a sign that his General was far away before rushing here. It takes a lot to make a Jedi even break a sweat.
Obi-Wan tuts and fiddles with something on his belt. He then pushes something, a small piece of fabric, up against Cody’s face to his bleeding nose.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Cody tells him, awkwardly taking the folded ball of cloth from him and holding it to his face.
Thankfully, whatever the toxin is, it doesn’t seem to be affecting Obi-Wan-- or its working a lot slower. The effects on Cody had been near instant. Obi-Wan looks the same as he always does, kind blue eyes, soft-looking auburn hair, a bit of dirt smudged on his face from whatever he’d been doing before Cody had commed.
Those blue eyes study him. “Well I’m here now,” Obi-Wan says simply, voice thick with something Cody doesn’t have the energy to guess at.
It’s getting harder to breathe now, the tightness in his chest worsens. “How long do you think it will be?” Cody asks as Kenobi presses his fingers under his jaw, up against his pulse point under his jaw.
The Jedi doesn’t answer him for a moment. His fingers slide away after a beat, and he sits back on his heels , brows drawing together. He then glances around, at the field of flowers surrounding them, as if noticing them for the first time. Idly, he plucks up one of the buds.
“Cody,” he asks, slowly, “Have you ever…Are there many flowers on Kamino?”
Cody frowns, looking at the plant stem rolling between Kenobi’s fingertips. “No sir,” he croaks.
Obi-Wan finally looks back up at him, relieved .
Before either of them can say anything, Cody’s comm device crackles back to life.
‘ Break channel three to Commander Cody.’ Helix’s voice floats in.
Obi-Wan’s eyes flick down to the comm, then back up to him. Cody, hesitantly, picks it up.
“Cody, go ahead.” His voice sounds like gravel.
Helix’s growl comes over the comm. ‘ Hey fuckface, what’s this I’m hearing about you exposing yourself to a dangerous toxin and not comming your CMO about it?’
Cody goes to say that it’s too fast acting, that he wouldn’t risk exposing more of his brothers to it, but then Obi-Wan cuts in.
“Hello there, Doctor,” he says, pleasantly. “I’m here with Cody now.”
Helix makes some kind of strange sound over the comm. ‘ Ah, right, sir. Sorry about the er, language there. Just uh, just worried about the Commander, sir.’
Cody resists the urge to roll his eyes. He wonders how long it’ll be before Helix gives up on saving face in front of the General.
The Jedi doesn’t seem to be fooled by this either, grinning down at the comm. “No worries, Good Doctor. I would like to inquire if you happen to have a stock of epinephrine planetside with you.”
‘Uh,’ Helix says , and there comes the sound of rustling over the line, something opening and closing. “ Yes?’
“Excellent! It seems our good Commander here is having an allergy attack.” Obi-Wan glances up from the comm and shoots Cody a sympathetic look, one that hardly registers because holy shit, he might not die. “We’ll start making our way back to camp. If you could, please meet us enroute, I’d like to relieve the Commanders symptoms as soon as possible.”
An allergy attack.
Allergies.
Allergies??
Cody’s mind comes to a halt.
He’d learned about allergies. One of their Mandalorian trainers had a strill that followed her around and it would always make one of the other trainers' eyes water, sneezing occasionally, when they taught lessons together.
This is not that. This feels like death . His lungs are laboring in his chest, his throat is burning and tight, his nose is still bleeding and sending spectacular sprays of blood across the flower petals when he sneezes again. He can barely see past the burning in his eyes. No, the General is mistaken. Cody is dying. He has to be. He’s too miserable to not be dying.
He goes to rub at his eyes, only to have his hands stopped when Obi-Wan catches him around the wrists.
“No, Cody. Your hands are covered in the pollen. See?” Obi-Wan turns his hand to show the bright yellow powder over his gloves.
“Do you…” Cody hates how small his voice sounds. “Do you think it’s really just allergies?”
Obi-Wan nods, still holding both Cody’s wrists loosely, crouched in front of him. “You’re showing all the symptoms of an allergy attack. A pretty strong one at that— Watery eyes, irritated nose, and you have some hives starting up where you touched your neck here.” Warm fingers brush over his neck and Cody shivers. “It hurts to breathe too, doesn’t it?”
Cody nods and Obi-Wan’s expression softens further. He gives one final squeeze to Cody’s wrists before he lets them go and rises to his feet. He helps Cody stand up after him. “Let’s get you to Helix for a fix, hmm?”
Obi-Wan pulls Cody’s arm to lay over his shoulder, even though he doesn’t have to, it’s not like Cody’s legs don’t work. But Cody allows it anyway, partially because he still can’t see straight, but mostly because a few moments ago he genuinely believed he was going to die and he still doesn’t trust his knees not to give out purely at the relief.
That’s it. That’s the only reason why.
Obi-Wan picks up Cody’s helmet and holds it under his other arm and then walks him, patiently, to the edge of the clearing and into the dense woods in the direction back to camp.
Helix meets them about halfway, as promised. He stabs Cody in the neck with a hypo the instant he’s in range, and also swats the back of the head and hisses, “ Idiot.” when he thinks the General can’t hear. Cody thinks he still does based on the small amused smile on Obi-Wan’s lips as they walk together.
Later, Cody finds himself stuck in one of the med-bay beds, missing a few ounces of blood that Helix absconded with for further allergy testing.
He feels much better after the injection and a few hours of rest. He’d passed out almost immediately once they got back, his body apparently exhausted after its little hissy fit. His eyes are still a bit puffy, and the skin on his neck is still a little irritated and itchy. Helix’s cronies—a whole new breed of fearless under their overlord— keep smacking his hands away everytime they catch him itching — ‘ Stop that…Sir.”
The tent flaps open and Kenobi wanders in. He smiles when he sees Cody and crosses to his bedside.
“Commander,” he says, smiling warmly, “you’re looking much better.”
Cody feels his face heat up and this time, embarrassment that seizes his lungs this time.
Allergies.
He’d called the General of the Third Systems Army out of the field for allergies.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Cody says. At Obi-Wan’s raised brow, he adds, “This...wasn’t an efficient use of your time.”
Obi-Wan’s expression flickers through something briefly, before it settles into something warm and kind. It’s an expression Cody’s slowly becoming more familiar with, slowly learning to trust, slowly learning that by some miracle of the galaxy, a being such as Obi-Wan Kenobi cares so deeply for Cody and his men, who were never made to be anything more than weapons for war.
“It’s alright, Cody,” the General says, warmth in his tone, “Many people across the galaxy experience some form of allergies, myself included.” He settles a hand on Cody’s shoulder and offers a comforting squeeze. “There’s no need to apologize. It is, after all, only human.”
###
10 Galactic Standard months into the war,the 212th finds itself stuck on the icy hellscape of the planet Scalla.
Everywhere they trek, it’s cold, windy, and white; a miserable landscape of ice and snow. It’s terrible. So much so, that when they finally finish their campaign objective, there are actual cheers— whether that’s because they finally get to return to their ship, or the spectacular explosion Obi-Wan creates at the droid factory, who’s to say?
Upon returning to the blessedly barely-room-temperature halls of the Negotiator, Cody almost immediately collapses into his small but warm bunk. As he drifts to sleep, he thinks distantly of how he can’t hear the sound of the General’s soft snores anymore coming from across the command tent.
He thought the silence would be a blessing.
He finds more now that he misses it.
The next morning Cody joins the General in his quarters to write their mission reports and submit resupply requisitions. Obi-Wan sits across from him at the small table in his quarters with a cup of tea to match Cody’s Caf, and they work quietly together.
These kinds of mornings are Cody’s favorite: After finishing a campaign, with both of them alive and well. It feels like drawing a secret breath, a hidden moment of calm in the grand scheme of the galaxy, shared only with his General.
“Here,” Cody checks the last box on the form he’s filing and then passes his datapad to Obi-Wan, “these need your signature.”
Obi-Wan hums and takes the pad, almost absentmindedly, but then pauses when he glances up, looking at Cody’s hand. Warm fingers catch around Cody’s wrist in a loose hold, easily breakable, if Cody so wanted, but for whatever reason, his brain’s too busy short circuiting at the gentleness and warmth of that simple touch alone. He lets Obi-Wan carefully rotate his hand, turning it over so his knuckles and back of his hands are facing up.
“Oh, Cody… ” he breathes.
The cold dry air of Scallia combined with the buffeting of snow had done a number on his skin, had left it dried and cracked. The worst of it was on his hands, which are now peeling in flakes across the backs of them. They’re irritatingly itchy, and sting terribly every time he washes his hands, but it's not life threatening. He’s experienced worse.
He tells Kenobi this and gets a very unimpressed look from the Jedi in response.
“Just because something is not life threatening, does not mean it’s not a big deal,” Obi-Wan tells him, then gets to his feet. “Wait here.”
Before Cody can protest—and lament the fact his requisition form remains unsigned— Obi-Wan disappears into the small fresher off to the side of his quarters, then returns a few moments later, setting a small pot of something on the table.
“Here.”
Cody eyes it dubiously, then looks back up at him.
“Sir, really, it isn’t—”
Kenobi cuts him off with a great sigh, one that Cody’s heard many a time when Skywalker is onboard, which is quite frankly an insult of unimaginable nature to hear directed at him. Before Cody can summarize his level of his affront at this, Obi-Wan sits back down and begins to unscrew the lid off the pot. He grabs Cody’s hand again, before Cody can think to retreat back across the table, then begins slathering the thick lilac-colored cream across the back of it.
“Many near-humans experience this when they’re out in the cold, it’s dry skin irritation. This will help provide the moisture you need,” Obi-Wan tells him whilst using pads of two fingers to rub, delicately , the cream into Cody’s skin, slipping over his knuckles, down each finger, massaging into the skin between. Cody’s so mesmerized by the touch alone, the carefulness and attention, it takes him a moment to even register the blissful cooling sensation, soothing over his irritated and swollen skin.
Cody lets out a little puff of air, shoulders sinking.
Obi-Wan looks up at him, still massaging between Cody’s fingers, and gives him a knowing smile.
Cody’s too enraptured in the attention and sensation to do anything more than smile back.
“Other hand, Commander.” Obi-Wan says softly, after a moment longer. His smile only grows widener again when Cody swaps them without complaint.
Afterward, Obi-Wan sends him on his way from his quarters a couple hours later with the small pot of cream in hand. He’d insisted on Cody keeping it. He’d also sent a note down to Helix, requesting they add lotion to their list of med-kit resupply requests before they went out, voicing his suspicions that there were more of Cody’s brother suffering silently just the same.
Later that night, in the quiet of his room, Cody rotates the small pot between his fingers, contemplating. The General’s touch around his wrists, his fingers sliding over his, so careful, so intent, and so attentive, had stayed with him in the back of Cody’s mind for the remainder of the day.
The General's hands had always been so soft, despite all those broad, deep, lightsaber calluses across his palms, in the crook between his thumb and forefinger.
Cody rotates the pot again and wonders if this was the reason why.
###
Cody huffs and shifts, rubbing at his thigh once more.
“Something bothering you, Commander?” Obi-Wan asks finally.
Cody looks over to find Obi-Wan studying him. Despite having a hood to his cloak, the Jedi’s kept it down. He doesn’t seem to mind the back splatter from the rain that’s making it under the small rock outcropping they’re huddled under, soaking him slowly in the fine mist. His hair’s wet, pushed back away from his face, with small strands of it still clinging to his forehead, droplets of water clinging to his skin and eyelashes. He looks…beautiful like this.
They’re waiting together until their men can execute a covert extraction for them now that they’ve completed their mission, securing a piece of intel from the castle that sits towering on top of the cliffs behind them.
“Cody?” Obi-Wan asks, and Cody’s reminded he’d been asked a question.
“It’s nothing,” he responds, too quickly. He inwardly cringes as Obi fixes him with a look .
After a long moment of a truly valiant effort to ignore him, Cody finally concedes. “My leg, it’s just sore for some reason.”
Obi-Wan unfolds himself from the huddled ball he’d been sitting in and stubbornly ignores Cody’s instance, ‘It's fine, really, Sir,’ until Cody finally relents and sits back, stretching his leg out in front of him.
“You didn't hurt it during the jump, did you?” Obi-Wan asks, already scrutinizing him with a mixture of exasperation and corners in his blue eyes, because apparently hiding injuries is only something that only one’s Jedi General is allowed to do.
Hypocrite, Cody thinks pointedly at him.
The corner of Obi-Wan’s lips tick up, likely picking up Cody’s accusations just from his expression alone.
Likely.
“It's just sore,” Cody says, “Like I pulled a muscle or something, but…different.”
Obi-Wan relaxes a bit. He hums and kneels next to Cody’s outstretched leg, looking it over. Because of the sensitive nature of their mission, Cody had been dressed in civilian clothes to help disguise him as he slipped through the crowds at the gala while Obi-Wan kept the local dignitaries distracted. The consequence of that is Cody no longer has his armor, instead, it’s just a pair of brown dress pants, turned dark from the rain, between him and Obi-Wan’s hands that settles over Cody’s thigh. And while Cody’s grateful for that Kaminoian engineering that has kept him plenty warm in all this rain, it doesn’t do much to stop the shiver that runs through him at Obi-Wan’s touch, light and gentle, testing and prodding as he works, auburn brow drawing together.
“General,” Cody says, swallowing, “it’s really not that--”
“Commander,” Obi-Wan parrots back. He raises a brow back at Cody, challenging, while Cody internally debates if it’s really worth it to continue to protest. The thought of how much he likes that hand on his thigh is telling him both yes and no.
Cody lets out a short sigh through his nose, mostly for show-- a checkmark in a box that he can point back to one day and tell himself that he really did try everything he could to stop himself from falling head over heels for his General. But ultimately, the truth, as he’ll only admit to himself, is he’s developed a uniquely Obi-Wan shaped weak spot in his normally iron will.
Obi-Wan’s expression softens at Cody’s somewhat childish display of petulance. He smiles as he says, “What did I tell you about pain and big deals, Commander?”
Cody doesn't respond with anything more than a hum, can’t really, as he’s too busy furiously trying to beat to death all those soft fluttery feelings in his stomach.
Denial isn’t just a large backward flowing body of water on the sand planet Tpyge, Rex had told him once. Cody had refused to even acknowledge that with an answer, instead just pointing out that Rex’s Arcs were setting fire to something behind his back.
Obi-Wan’s hands continue running over his leg, looking for any sign of injury. “It doesn't hurt when you move it?” he asks.
“No, like I said, it's just,” Cody waves a hand, half-hearted, “aches.”
Obi-Wan’s lips press together, tilt downward at the edges as he thinks. “This was the leg you broke last campaign, right?”
Well, broken might have been a bit of an understatement. A more apt term would be annihilated, obliterated, unfathomably fucked, as Helix had said whilst lecturing Cody on the dangers of jumping out of moving LAATi’s—paying no mind to the fact that said LAATi had been on fire -- before instructing him stay away from strong magnets due to how many pins they’d had to put in his leg.
Cody, at the time, had been too high on painkillers to tell if he was joking or not.
He’s still not entirely sure.
“Yes,” Cody replies, feeling his own brow furrow. “Medical gave it the all clear for return to duty.”
“Ah, well,” Obi-Wan says, sitting back on his heels and pushing wet hair from his face, “that still explains it though. Typically, with injuries like this, unfortunately, there’s almost always some residual pain.”
Cody blinks a few stray droplets of rain water out of his eyes. He rubs his palm gingerly over his thigh as the bone deep ache starts up again. “So how do we fix it? More bacta?”
Obi-Wan shakes his head, offers him a small, sympathetic smile for him. “Unfortunately, there’s not very much that can be done,” he says, “Well, besides this…” Obi-Wan produces a small set of painkillers from a pocket on his belt and hands them over to Cody, followed by his water flask.
Cody glances at the pills, recognizing them as standard painkillers. He swallows them without complaint, and takes a sip from the flask before handing it back. He eyes his leg dubiously after, “So… I just have to deal with this for the rest of my life then?”
Obi-Wan nods, sympathetic. “I’m afraid so, yes. Some days are easier than others. Weather like this,” Obi-Wan gestures to the curtains of rain around them, “tends to make it worse.”
Cody wants to ask how he knows all this, but then it occurs to him that Obi-Wan must have had countless injuries like this in his lifetime.
Does he feel this sort of pain all the time? Is that what the painkillers he keeps in his belt were for?
Obi-Wan’s comm beeps and the Jedi looks down at it. “Anakin says they’re about an hour out,” he informs Cody, tapping out a quick reply. He settles back against the rock next to Cody after and says, “In the meantime, let me know if you need any more painkillers for your leg. I mean it. I have plenty, so there’s no reason for you to suffer when you don't have to.”
Cody feels something…complicated, in his chest. “Thank you, Obi-Wan,” he says.
Obi-Wan hums, barely audible over the sound of the rain, “It's no trouble at all Cody.”
The rain continues to fall around them.
###
“Enjoying yourself, Commander?”
Cody turns as Obi-Wan appears at his side. He’s holding a flute of sparkling bubbly liquid between long fingers.
Cody eyes the glass dubiously, then looks back to him. “Enjoying a Gala where there’s almost certainly a trained murderer in attendance? No, can’t say I am.”
Obi-Wan laughs at that, that belly laugh where he throws his head back and it makes Cody feel fuzzy all the way down to his fingertips and--
“Relax, Commander,” he says, those blue eyes kriffing sparkling . “Quinlin’s already got eyes on a suspect.”
“Oh, that makes me feel loads better.” Cody grumbles.
Obi-Wan just gives him a wink that snatches his breath away, before downing the rest of his drink and turning to swap it out for a fresh glass off the small droid moving through the crowd with a serving tray.
Cody eyes that one too.
Obi-Wan snorts, “If I have to deal with Quinlin and Anakin under one roof for the night, I am allowed proper compensation.”
Cody glances over to where Skywalker is locked in close conversation with Senator Amidala. “While that may be true, one of you should still probably keep your wits about you.”
“Relax, Cody,” Obi-Wan says with a small wave of his hand. “Jedi can't get drunk.”
Cody serves him another incredibly flat look. At some point, near the beginning of the war, he may have believed that. Now, two standard years of working daily with Obi-Wan, he knows better.
And he knows that Obi-Wan knows he knows better too. So this is really just another piece of evidence in the ever growing list of proof that his General is just as much of a little shit as his padawan that he constantly complains to have ‘no idea how he turned out like this.’
Cody knows.
He knows all now.
There’s a small group of people huddled on a platform in the opposite corner, across the banquet hall. One of them, a shorter Twi-lek with an emerald green coloring, steps forward up to a microphone and introduces them, the rest of the group holding various instruments behind them.
Then, with a breath and a nod shared between them, the group starts playing and a soft swell of music starts to flow.
And Cody…he pauses.
He has, of course, heard music before; undercover in cantinas, filtering through the radio channels when they have to change frequencies on the comms due to signal issues. He’s just…he’s never seen it made before.
Logically, he knew it came from instruments like these, but some part of his brain had always seen music as mechanical, another manufactured thing in the galaxy, a production of a computer or machine.
There was nothing mechanical about this. The artists play their instruments with passion, a slow soft sweet tune.
“Hmm, they are quite talented,” Obi-Wan observes, speaking over the rim of his drink glass. “This piece is famously hard to play.”
“How do they all know?” Cody finds himself asking. “What to play, I mean,” he clarifies, after Obi-Wan turns to him, bemused.
“Practice, I’d gather,” Obi-Wan says, after considering it. “It takes years to be able to play like that.”
And Cody thinks about that, thinks about taking years to learn a skill, to master something that’s not based on survival, not a weapon, just something that creates, solely for others to enjoy.
“It’s…nice.” He settles on saying, eventually.
He sees in his peripherals that Obi-Wan’s eyes are on him again, his expression thoughtful.
“What?” Cody asks, unable to tear his gaze from the musicians just yet.
Obi-Wan, after a moment, turns and sets his glass down on another passing service droid. He then grabs Cody, loosely, gently, around the wrist, his fingers are chilled from the glass. “Here, come with me.”
Without much consideration as to why , Cody follows.
Obi-Wan leads him up to the edge of the crowd to where there’s a group of people formed together in front of the band, moving together, in synchronous movements.
Watching them, logically, Cody knows this is dancing. He’s seen it many times, on missions and in holofilms before.
This kind of dancing feels private though, more intimate, shared between the couples together on the floor.
Obi-Wan, still holding his hand, turns to look at him, blue eyes kind and warm.
Cody swallows hard. “Sir… the mission…”
Obi-Wan has a soft smile for him, “What better way to observe the room then, Commander?”
Cody can’t argue with that logic.
Well, he can, but he finds he doesn't want to.
He wants…he wants to follow Obi-Wan.
So he does.
The Jedi leads him further into the gathered crowd of people just as the music changes to something slower again, a softer paced melody, as a young Mon Cala steps up to the microphone to sing.
Oh, my love
Obi-Wan turns and places his hand on Cody’s hip, guides Cody’s hand to his shoulder, and then steps just a small half step closer into his space.
My darling
And Cody…
Once, the two of them had been stuck together, trapped after a rockfall, barely an inch of space between them. They’d both been injured, coughing from the dust in the air, but even with a shattered wrist, and Obi-Wan’s blood dripping slowly onto him from a cut on his forehead, Cody still thinks about that time constantly. The breaths they’d shared, Obi-Wan guiding him through quiet conversation until the panic in his chest subsided, those soft puffs of warmth from Obi-Wan’s breath, his words and his weak laughter ghosting across the skin of Cody’s neck.
Cody knows now, with extreme clarity, that this moment will replace that one, whenever his thoughts require the need to wander back to someplace softer, warmer. Obi-Wan guides him in a soft turn on the floor, blues eyes gleaming bright and so full of such warmth and looking at him, at Cody , like that and it’s…
Breathtaking.
They follow along with the pace of the music and Cody starts to get the hang of things, those half-turns, gentle sways, timed with the rhythm.
Obi-Wan laughs lightly when Cody leads him into a turn, rather than just following this time. “See? You’re a natural at this, Commander.”
Cody ducks his head as he laughs, forehead brushing up against Obi-Wan’s shoulder, and it's just…natural then, in that moment after, with Obi-Wan this close, looking at him like that, to rest his head the rest of the way there, settled against Obi-Wan’s warmth.
He feels a soft puff of breath as Obi-Wan turns into him, sighs softly against his cheek, softs fingers come up to cradle the back of Cody’s head scalp as they sway together.
And logically, Cody knows they’re in a ballroom, surrounded by hundreds of people, Skywalker, Vos, their men, and a possible assassin.
But right now, in this moment, it feels like it's just the two of them. The two of them and the music. Outside, there’s a war to be fought. Tomorrow, they’ll suit up with new orders and head off to whatever new battle there is to be fought. They'll do that over and over again, and at some point, it will stop, whether they’re there to see it or not, that’s for the Universe to decide. But no matter what, he’ll have this — this moment, this soft gentle tune that ebbs and flows and the way they sway together.
###
On the planet Saldene, CC-2224 stands in the smoldering ruins of a cafe.
They were tracking a suspected rebel who led them here. Things had escalated when the civilians decided to fight back.
They’d lost. All of them.
Amidst the rubble and the bodies, in a pile of crumbled stone across the room, there’s a small radio that’s still producing a tinny, staticky tune that’s barely comprehensible.
Barely.
Lonely rivers flow
To the sea,
to the sea
He steps almost mechanically over to it. As he does, he passes one of the cafe workers, now sprawled on their back, dead. He wonders, distantly, if there’d been someone waiting for them, at home, how long would they wait before knowing they’re dead.
I'll be coming home,
wait for me
wait for—
CC-2224 switches off the metal dial on the radio, effectively cutting off the metallic tune.
He takes off his helmet then, afterward. Technically, it’s against regulation, but it’s.. He needs… The filter in his bucket must be broken, it's getting hard to breathe.
“Commander, we’ve identified the suspect.”
CC-2224 nods once, stiffly, and crosses the rubble over to the trooper standing over the body of their target. The rebel’s sprawled on his back on the ground, blood soaking his side, eyes staring up, blank and unmoving.
Good.
The only good rebel is a dead one.
CC-2224 stares into the dark eyes of the man on the floor. At one time, he thinks, he may have felt guilt for that, condemning a man to die for simply fighting for what he believed.
But time can do so much.
Cody shakes his head.
“Take the body back to the lander, gather the men.”
Later, back at base, as he stands in the sonic, letting the dirt of Saldene fall from his skin, that same turn from the radio earlier floats through head. Over and over again, that soft lull of lines repeating.
It's annoying. It's irritating. Its—
—he thinks of blue-gray eyes, auburn hair, warmth burning in his chest all the way down to his fingertips, a hand cradling the back of his head—
— Beautiful.
Cody shuts off the sonic and goes back to his quarters to fall into a dreamless sleep.
It stays with him, afterward, those notes in that song from the radio. It’s there as he drags yet another rebel into the room with the inquisitors. It’s there as he gives the orders to his men that they’ve finished yet another mission. It stays with him as they return to their ship.
It says with him.
On his next mission as he lines up a sniper shot, it plays in his head. It's with him as he pulls his knife from his belt and lunges, fights for his life to that tune.
Again and again, those humming notes keep creeping up.
Cody eats, sleeps, fights, and listens to that slow, soft melody.
And there’s something that comes with it in his chest every time. Every time it hurts. A room decked in gold, a warmth pressed against him, the faint taste of champaign, the soft scratch of a beard against his cheek.
It hurts. It's not a pain he’s familiar with. He doesn't know how to treat it. So he ignores it.
He’s had worse.
“What have I told you about suffering needlessly, Commander?”
Cody traces fingertips over a symbol carved into a cavern wall. At one time, he knows it had meant hope throughout the galaxy.
Now though…now it’s the dying embers of a people no longer meant to be.
Time can do so much.
This is wrong.
He turns.
His troopers have a group of young ones, all huddled behind a snarling Twi-Lek, pinned in the corner, waiting for his order.
“ It’s only human, Cody , to want change, to learn and to grow.”
The ensuing fire fight is over in a matter of seconds. None of these troopers had been trained to watch their backs as well as their fronts.
The younglings stare up at him, eyes impossibly wide after. CC-2224 just steps off to the side and lets them pass.
The next several weeks he spends ducking behind corners, stealing what resources he can from unattended convoys, and planning, planning, planning.
A man with thick braids and a band of gold across his nose finds him, hits him hard in the head, and then he wakes up as Cody .
Once he’s gone numb from the screaming, the man finds him curled up on the floor and hands him a device. It’s programmed with a set of coordinates.
“ I need to ask a favor from you, Commander.”
Cody’s hands shake as he flicks on the ship’s engine, plugging the coordinates into his ship’s navigator.
I’ll be coming home,
Wait for me.
On the sands of Tatooine, with the light of the twin suns just starting to rise behind him once more, Cody sinks to his knees before the figure standing frozen on top of the dunes
“Did they send you?” a voice he never thought would hear again asks.
“No,” Cody whispers. “No, I came back…I came to find you. I came home.” He’s breathing so hard, so hard, he’s reminded of a field of petals again. Somewhere, someone says his name— his name, it’s his name— Cody. Cody. I’m Cody and I found you. I found you and I came home—
A shattered sob breaks out his chest and— Oh , oh he gets it now, what it means, to hunger for this, what it means to need it.
Warm hands wrap around him, pull tight into an embrace, a touch so familiar, and so, so soft. There’s whispered words, barely there, a soft touch along his jaw.
“ Darling, I’ve been waiting for you .”