The Togruta and the Toddler

Five years after the Clone Wars, Rex found them. It was on Randon-III of all places. Rex's unit had been called in to clear the sector of possible rebel forces that had gained a foothold on the planet. Maybe there had been actual rebels on the planet, maybe there wasn't. Rex hadn't really cared anymore these days.

A good soldier follows orders.

But all that Rex saw of Randon was pain and suffering.

The higher ups claimed to be a soldier was a good thing. They were the ones doing the protecting from those who preyed on others. Soldiers protected the galaxy, protected Sentient Beings' rights and freedoms.

Rex had heard these lies all before. He's heard it time and time again. Back in the days of the Clone Wars, Republic Senators shouted the same thing. Planets screamed for justice aid and mercy. Separatists spluttered off, trying to take care of their people, but gained a war for their efforts.

These things are nothing new for Rex.

The Togruta holding a youngling while gripping a familiar shoot blade with knuckles turning white from her grip is new though.

It takes a painstaking long second for Rex to place her markings as familiar. Far longer than what it should have, a distant part of his brain mockling tells him.

The Togruta is Ahsoka~ his brilliant Ahsoka. The commander who fought like the suns gave her fire from the universe itself as fuel for her spirit to burn. Her eyes, once brilliant with the life they held in her grip stared at the former captain with a terrible paralyzing fear in those depths.

Rex could only lower his blaster, eyes drowning in this mirage from a better past what seemed like a lifetime ago.

The Togruta's montrals were longer. The patterns that decorated them had begun to take a distinctive shape to each one. The headdress that had once been akul teeth from her padawan days had also been changed to something sleeker, more metallic looking.

Dirt and blood caked both her and the little one.

Ahsoka's eyes filled with an unmasked terror Rex had never seen before as the clone unconsciously stepped forwards. The Ahsoka he knew had never looked at her men with such cold fear. Her eyes had once been filled with only warmth and affection when they fell on white armour.

Now her eyes looked on with horror, forcing Rex to halt in his tracks.

"Stay back." A feral animalistic growl slipped through her bared teeth. "I don't know who the Kriff you are. You'll stay back and won't touch her."

The her in question was the youngling, Rex quickly figured out.

The girl was young, that much the clone had figured. She wore clothes that had more patches then original material in them. A green grimy tunic that didn't hide the layers of dirt on her skin and brown leggings that barely reached her knees. Her hair had been done in two simple plaited rows that looked like they had been done with care and attention.

Rex's mind flashed backwards briefly to another time when she turned her head and looked at him. The girl's eyes; brightly piercing warm amber colored eyes, unerringly found his through the bucket. They showed with energy Rex hadn't seen in such a long time as the two locked gazes for just a moment.

The white shoto blade cut sharp defined angles of light and shadows across her visage. On anyone else it would have given the person a harsh, cruel, and unforgiving look.

But on the Youngling, it highlighted the same familiar curve of her cheekbone, the high planes of her forehead with short strands of curling hair and the softening slant of her nose and lips.

Rex took a step backwards.

Outside, the Stormies were barking orders and dragging civies and rebs out of buildings in the darkening night. Large walkers and ammunition rounds where the cascading rumbling rhythm that underlined the screaming and wailing duets that carried.

Rex heard none of it. He had fallen into brown fierce eyes and lost himself in another time all together.

It was nearly a decade ago, longer than the expiration date of a Trooper such as himself to have survived. It wasn't Stormies and Rebel Commandos fighting each other with Civies caught in the unfortunate middle.

It had been a battle of Clankers and Clones. A blue lightsaber lighting a cleared path; held aloft by a Jedi general proudly. Blue eyes looked across the scene of pain and hurt with the same fierce defiance and undying determination of beskar'gam .

"Soka!" The tiny girl cried out, breaking Rex away from that better place. She dug small delicate fragile fingers into Ahsoka's leather shoulder armour.

"Stay away from us!" Ahsoka lifted her chin and her shoto higher, clutching the girl minutely closer to her body.

Rex dropped the E-11 blaster. It was a far cry from his beloved old decommissioned DC-17's. There wasn't a lot of the old universe left laying around these days was there?

"Commander?"

"How~" Ahsoka lowered her shoto slightly, before she remembered this was the enemy in front of her.

The sheer incredible sound of her disbelief hurt Rex's heart in unmistakably new ways. Ahsoka's instincts seemed to keep the girl hidden by the pure light and her body. The woman shifted her weight, turning her body just slightly so she would catch a blaster bolt with either blade or body before the child could get hit.

"It's Rex, commander." Hands reached up to remove the white plastiod helmet from his face, revealing unusual blonde hair and a clone's face.

"Rex?"

Ahsoka demanded in question. "You're alive!?"

"Aye commander." Rex smiled briefly, moving on once the shoto had finally been put away. "You two need to leave, commander. It's not safe, even if you're not rebels."

Ahsoka shook her head stubbornly. "I can't leave her."

"Commander, as soon as they find your 'sabers, you are both as good as dead." Rex argued fiercely, eyes burning with a sudden need to protect this now grown woman and tiny fragile child.

"I can't Rex! Leia is all that I have. I can't leave her.

Leia reached upwards and patted the montrals. Gaining her guardian's attention in a way she knew how. "Soka! They're coming. It'll be okay."

"You're right kid. It will be. Everything will be just fine. We just have to stick together, right Leia." Ahsoka gathered the child closer, murmuring words into hair as she rubbed the girl's back and shoulders. "We'll be okay. You and me, Leia."

"Ahsoka, you've got to get out of here. The Stormies aren't going to leave anything untouched in their search."

Ahsoka glanced upwards. Her face and body was wrapped protectively around the young girl. "You're right Rexster. Those Imps aren't just going to let us slip though and escape their grasp though."

And that was when Rex opened his mouth.

He opened his mouth and out came words that formed a karkin' insane plan. Cody was going to kill him the next time they met up. There was no doubt about that, only on whether the meetup happened in this life or the next one, that was. Rex might die from this kriffed, possibly doomed Jedi thought out, insane from the very beginning sithspawn of an idea!

But none of those thoughts that were running through the Captain's showed on his face as he spoke. Rex was a professional, and as a professional he had learned that when General Skywalker's plans got crazier; so did the chances of coming out of it alive and successful.

"Give me the girl, Commander."

"But~"

Whatever protests lay on Ahsoka's lips were; they soon died as the sound and feel of a large concussion Fernandez strike went off nearby.

Their time to flee had almost run out.

The woman scrambled upwards, clutching Leia is her arms as she mirrored Rex in the middle of their only cover.

"Commander, it'll be easier for you to get off planet without having to worry about the ad'ika and me." Rex shucked his chest and back armour-plates. Arm guards and shin and leg bracers soon joined the matched set of the pile. He was left in just the Blacks part of his uniform. Deft fingers grasped the leather gun belt, pulling it free of the plastids armour. The blaster that had been forgotten had also been gathered and Rex made sure his weapon was primed if he needed it.

"We'll meet up after, commander. Promise."

So Ahsoka passed the clone a tiny brown haired child. A demand fell from her lips as she once more trusted a man from under her command. Eyes begged the man with things that Rex couldn't help himself but bend to her demands.

"Promise me, you'll protect her, Rex. She's the most important thing in this universe and all that I have left. Sor protect her. Please."

"I'll protect her. No worries." Rex adjusted his hold, shifting the precious small bundle of life as he gripped her better.

"Thank you." Ahsoka looked at Leia with sadness. Orange fingers gently wrapped around a pale white face and the woman leaned her head forwards. "Be good for your Uncle Rex, okay Leia? He'll look after you until I can come back."

"We really have to leave soon, Commander. This was supposed to be the last zone to search and clear."

Ahsoka backed away, blue eyes locked onto Rex's and Leia's figures in the smoking ruins. She was vanishing into thin air, the way one turned off a communicator. Her smile had lost it's joyful tinge and it flickered on her lips like a struggling holoprojector.

"Her name is Leia Amidala Skywalker."

Oh.

Oh Kriffing

Hell.