[So Vima had thought of 'distraction' as something like totally-accidentally knocking over some crates, or shouting STOP THIEF and pointing at the blank space where there was definitely a thief or... you know... doing something that actually distracts.
IN HINDSIGHT, that was probably a silly expectation to have of Rex. And yet she can't stop herself from grinning as the guard becomes perplexed, and she has to actually smother her laughter when Rex says that YES, SHE'S HIS DAUGHTER. the guard is just staring at this response to his question.
god it's SO HARD NOT TO LAUGH no salvage it salvage it!!!]
Dad! I was just trying to find your vest when this guy here started getting all huffy! Did the people who hired you tell you that you'd be managing a bunch of jerks?
[Unsurprisingly, the guard bridles at that.]
Hey! I'm not a jerk! It doesn't matter whose kid you are, it's not safe to go wandering around back here!
Not in those words, no. But I have heard of your reputation before coming here, and let me tell you: none of it's good.
[ The man pales. ]
W-what? Look buddy, your daughter's the one breaking the rules--
[ Rex clears his throat, laying it on thick. He's not the best liar in the world, but he's a damn good drill sergeant, and that's an easy enough thing to rely on. ] Don't go changing the subject on me! I've got reports on my desk talking shoddy worksmanship, slacking off during work hours, clocking out early - do I need to add talking back to that list? [ The poor man opens his mouth, then closes it. Rex somehow manages to puff up even more, even without his armour - evidently clones are a lot like peacocks. ] What's your name?
What?
You heard me, man! What's your name?
Andy. Listen, I don't want any trouble.
Not from me, you don't. Listen, Andy, I'm willing to let this go and have a fresh start from here on out - if you get out of my sight. [ Andy stares at Rex, petrified. ] I mean now, Andy. [ Cottoning on, the man scarpers. Rex looks towards Vima with a pained expression and a shrug. ]
[Oh my god. Vima makes sure to move herself out of Andy's line of sight--which is easy to do because he's wide-eyed and fixed on Rex--because she simply cannot keep a straight face right now. Jedi are supposed to be calm, composed, and controlled. But look, most Jedi aren't faced with the provocation that Vima is faced with right now.
Once Andy flees the vicinity, Vima is finally safe to let it out and bursts into giggles.]
Poor, poor Andy. I think he might go looking for a new career after that.
[She gives a quick glance to ensure that the folks who've stopped to look have dissipated to their own schedules and hands over the bright yellow garment.]
No, I can't say it. Not even in jest. [ Dad. Stars, the people here must be idiots. He can't believe that that actually worked, that anyone had believed for a split second that he was somehow this young Padawan's father. He puts on the vest as quickly as possible, surveying their surroundings. ]
But on the bright side, I have a feeling Andy's going to be telling all of his little friends about us. C'mon, let's go. Nobody's going to ask us what we're doing now.
[In spite of the hilarity, Vima nods. It was funny the one time because of how absurd the idea was, but with her real father dead and her father-mentor figure very recently also dead, it's a joke that can only last so long.]
Nope, we've just made you into the scariest man in this train station... without even waving a lightsaber around.
[This is a serious accomplishment, okay.
Vima locates the cargo car, still with its doors wide open--and she thinks she can overhear Andy's voice on the other side of the train, making her grin again as she climbs in.]
Hm... not the most comfortable-looking accommodations, but at least it's basically clean.
You kidding me, kid? Compared to the bus, we may as well be traveling in first class, [ Rex says, climbing in after her. He paces the perimeter twice, fingertips brushing against the walls of the traincar without being wholly aware that he's doing it; it's out of habit alone, more used to being in warzones than anywhere else. Upon finding that it's perfectly safe, he shuts the doors and secures a corner for himself to sit down in, feet flat on the floor and knees knocking together as though he's wearing more armour than he is. ]
Chances are, we won't be able to improvise like we did just now when we liberate a ship from the feds. Best we come up with a cover story now. Something a little more believable, perhaps.
[Vima watches as Rex searches the car for... what? Danger. Bombs or mines or enemy soldiers lying in wait, probably. It's interesting to see the way he sits down. She herself picks the softest suitcase to park herself on.]
Good idea. Hm... [Something that people will believe, which isn't that they're family....
Uh.
That's a big problem, actually. Vima has no idea what passes for plausible on this planet and to tell the truth... she doesn't know what would pass for it even outside the scope of the Jedi.]
Maybe--student--and a teacher? [that's the only other type of relationship she's familiar with.] You look theright age for that.
[ A teacher. All right. He can probably do that. The only teachers he has any familiarity with are the ones who instruct cadets but it can't possibly be that different - and he knows that there are plenty of kids who attend regular classes and, failing that, rich kids who have their own personal tutors. ]
Yeah. We can work with that, [ he says slowly. ] I'll act as your tutor. Rich kids get... [ He waves one hand vaguely, as though to describe something he has no experience with with gesture alone. ] Taken around enough.
[ All right, so the only frame of reference he has for that are holos, knowledge of some Senators' children and, of course, a holobook or two that someone had smuggled in as contraband.
He finds himself considering what it must be like to be Jar Jar's tutor and is suddenly, deeply glad that he's with this pesky youngling instead. ]
Oh, we're definitely going to be edified by the end of this.
[The train lurches forward with a lot of clanking and chuffing, and the cargo rattles around. Vima can feel all the bumps and jolts reverberating up from her bum through the rest of her. It's novel, but not totally comfortable. Honestly it drives home how primitive this planet is compared to everywhere else she's been... and she's been to many places.
Well, there's no knowing how long they're going to be in here for. Might as well start the edification now....]
Tensions have been rising for a number of years now, but active warfare's only been going on for the past two years.
[ Rex seems to have finally relaxed now that they're moving at a decent clip, safe in their little makeshift bunker. If they're going to get into any trouble for what they're doing, it'll be once they get to where they want to be, so that'll be quite all right. ]
With any luck, it won't be lasting much longer.
[ Both sides are running out of resources, and quickly. The speed at which they've been tackling each other can't be sustained. Even someone as gung-ho as Rex can see that every time he sends out a request for more equipment and gets less and less as time goes by. ]
That would be nice. I guess it's not surprising that another war happened four thousand years after the one I grew up with.... but it doesn't seem necessary, all the same. [Tensions. In the recent history Vima knows, they've always had the dark side pulling from one side.
She's curious if that's the same with the war Rex is involved in, but she has another question.]
What will you do once it is over?
[under the assumption, of course, that he'll survive to see it.]
[ The look Rex shoots her way is a little startled. Nobody's ever asked him that question before. Hell, nobody's ever even mentioned it, not even among brothers; it almost seems like bad luck to plan that far ahead, too ego-driven, too confident in one's own abilities to even begin to think that you are the one that will live when everyone else has died. ]
I haven't planned that far ahead, [ he says bluntly, tilting his head back a little to rest against the rumbling cart. ] Best not to rely on a future that may not happen.
[ What will he do? He has no significant skills, not like some of his men. Many of them would be fine - they're brilliant men, storytellers, artists, doctors, technicians, sharp with one thing or another. Rex has always been more of a jack-of-all-trades. Good at nothing, really, beyond being a soldier. It's all he's ever wanted to be. ]
I imagine I'll continue to serve. Even after the war is over, there's plenty that will need to be done that has nothing to do with fighting.
[Vima is a little surprised at how taken aback Rex appears just to be asked that question. She wonders if anyone's bothered to ask it before; not just of him, but of his comrades-in-arms too.
Though it's not surprising that he'd have a rather fatalistic view of his own prospects. She has to repeatthere is no anger, there is peace to herself. Just getting angry won't help.]
Serve doing what? There's always a lot that needs to be done around the Galaxy. It helps to narrow down what you want to do.
[ Again, he's surprised that she even has to ask. There's only one type of service he's capable of doing, and that's to stay exactly where he is. What he doesn't bother saying is that the type of service likely doesn't matter - for as long as General Skywalker remains in the military, Rex intends to stay by his side. He won't steer them wrong, he's certain of it, and he can think of precious few others he'd rather fight beside. If not General Skywalker... well, he sticks to his Jedi. That's what they were bred for.
If the Jedi extricate themselves from the military entirely - a strange notion; he is objectively aware that they were never meant to be soldiers, but he has never known any of them to be anything but - then he'll have to reassess things. That's a bridge to cross when he gets to it. ]
After the war ends, plenty of worlds will still require aid and resources, to be freed from the Separatist regime. I'll do what's needed to restore them. I doubt they'll require all of us, but there will be no shortage of work to be done.
[He is right. The years from age four till now have been spent at her mother's side, traveling the Republic to drive off the dregs of Exar Kun's forces, to restore ruined atmopheres and bolster teetering colonies, and even now the Jedi's numbers are severely depleted. An end to war is the continuation, and the beginning.]
It's handy for the Republic that you'll be pitching in even after the war's ended.
[ Rex says it with the utmost certainty because he has to. This is what his entire life has been for up until this very moment. There's not a chance that they'll lose. There can't be, otherwise everything that they've done, the core at their very being, will have been for nothing. ]
[When Rex says that, Vima feels a cold chill. The Republic fall... she'd seen it come close to that when she was a small child. For all its age and breadth, it isn't invincible.
And if the Republic falls, he'll fall with it because he was made to. He was designed and created and molded to throw himself in front of that blaster bolt. And it's strange, because Vima knows that Rex says this with complete conviction; he believes it with all his heart. But do all of the soldiers think like him? Would all of them say this? How strongly has it been programmed?]
...If the Republic falls, someone will have to build it back up again.
That's a big if. I've got no place in governance, though, not even now. That'll be a task for others: governing bodies; Jedi; community leaders; politicians; planners.
[ A lot of people who are what he's not, in short. Rex knows nothing of politics, knows nothing of what it takes to build a community, let alone a Galactic Republic, knows nothing of human nature and how to herd civvies around. He's a damn good soldier, but that's all he is. ]
[Vima nods. It could happen. The Republic has existed for 25,000 years... but everything ends, someday.]
Really? You've probably been on the ground of a dozen different worlds. And what you've seen is a lot different than what some Senator gets when he sweeps in with his retinue.
I bet you'd get through the red tape a lot quicker once you saw something that needed to get done, too.
You've got a lot of faith in me for someone you've just met. No, I know my place. I'm a damn good soldier, but that's all I am.
[ Rex shifts where he's sitting, getting comfortable. To admit to his own shortcomings anywhere outside of his area of expertise isn't an uncomfortable experience for him. He knows who and what he is. To be honest about that is a strength, not a weakness. ]
I don't know enough about what an ordinary life is like to have any desire to shape it.
[ He'll fight for them. That's all. It's up to the people what they do with freedom once it's been granted to them. ]
[Vima sighs. Knows his place? Well, sure, she's alway known that her "place" is to be a Jedi, but that's different. She had two Jedi parents, but she wasn't cultivated in a crowd of other Vimas, like a field of Dantooine wheat just waiting to be harvested.]
In my experience, most people are more than the sum of their parts.
[She's about to go on, but then she glances at their surroundings again, and grins wryly.]
...Though I suppose I'm not in a position to talk about having a normal life either. What do you think that looks like?
[she's still half trying to pry at the cracks, but half of it is a legitimate question. because truthfully? she's got no clue either.]
[ Unbidden, Cut springs to Rex's mind. As odd as it had been seeing a clone in that sort of situation, it's the closest he had ever gotten to experiencing a normal life. Seeing the daily lives of politicians and nobles doesn't count, nor does assisting with rebel factions, nor does the lives of refugees clinging desperately onto life.
What Cut has, though? That's what Rex has always thought it was like. A home of your own, with a partner, children, a job to tend to, a family to cherish and protect, knowing that they wouldn't perish the moment you turned his head. A dinner table, toys, requests to play in the field, eager smiles and shared glances that even someone as skilled in reading body language as Rex couldn't decipher.
He's quiet. He may be serious, but he's honest, and he wants to answer her question with the seriousness it deserves. ]
Routine. Going home to the same place every night, to the same people, and knowing reliably that every day is going to be much like the last. Peace, for yourself and your people.
[ It's a nice way of looking at it, but that's what they mean by normal, isn't it? The way things could be, not the way things are. ]
She's been sure there's more to Rex than meets the eye, more than his unswerving declarations of duty and insistence that he has no desire to be anything more than what he was made. She thought he would brush off her question as something he's never going to experience, something he doesn't bother thinking about...
She didn't expect him to actually know. Because this is more than some 'for the Republic' platitude. He's clearly speaking from some kind of experience.
It's also an experience she doesn't know herself. The Sunrders had a house on H'ratth, long ago, but that life is one she barely remembers. Since then she has known the constant come-and-go of knights and apprentices, the terror and chaos of war, and then endless travel with her mother, trying to put the Jedi back together one piece at a time... with a growing resentment inside.
Vima finds herself thinking of that house on H'ratth. Was that how her mother and father thought of life?]
...I understand wanting to preserve that for someone. [She realizes she was staring off into space a little, and focuses on his face again.] You know someone, who you want to preserve that for?
[ He won't tell her about Cut. Even though he doesn't think Vima would give him away, it's too risky. Cut's entire life, Suu's whole life, the lives of his children - they all hinge on one thing, and that's Cut remaining unnoticed. If he were to be caught, he'd be court-martialed, and then...
Then... what? Drafted back into duty? Sent for reconditioning? Executed for having the audacity to find a new family after the only one he had known had perished?
Rex hopes he'll never find out. ]
There are some families who want nothing to do with us. Fair enough. [ They only descend when things have dissolved into war and violence and misery. Nobody's ever happy by the time things have gotten to that point. ] But I've been deployed on other planets where they've invited us into their homes, offered us their hospitality. Theirs is a way of life worth protecting.
[ It's not a whole truth, but it's part of it, and part of what he's always believed. It's the face to what they're doing, why they do what they do. Maybe his own children will never have to live in the future they built, but why do they have to be his own for him to care? ]
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[ Sure! This little white red-headed girl sure is his daughter! Let's roll with that!
#nailedit ]
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IN HINDSIGHT, that was probably a silly expectation to have of Rex. And yet she can't stop herself from grinning as the guard becomes perplexed, and she has to actually smother her laughter when Rex says that YES, SHE'S HIS DAUGHTER. the guard is just staring at this response to his question.
god it's SO HARD NOT TO LAUGH no salvage it salvage it!!!]
Dad! I was just trying to find your vest when this guy here started getting all huffy! Did the people who hired you tell you that you'd be managing a bunch of jerks?
[Unsurprisingly, the guard bridles at that.]
Hey! I'm not a jerk! It doesn't matter whose kid you are, it's not safe to go wandering around back here!
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[ The man pales. ]
W-what? Look buddy, your daughter's the one breaking the rules--
[ Rex clears his throat, laying it on thick. He's not the best liar in the world, but he's a damn good drill sergeant, and that's an easy enough thing to rely on. ] Don't go changing the subject on me! I've got reports on my desk talking shoddy worksmanship, slacking off during work hours, clocking out early - do I need to add talking back to that list? [ The poor man opens his mouth, then closes it. Rex somehow manages to puff up even more, even without his armour - evidently clones are a lot like peacocks. ] What's your name?
What?
You heard me, man! What's your name?
Andy. Listen, I don't want any trouble.
Not from me, you don't. Listen, Andy, I'm willing to let this go and have a fresh start from here on out - if you get out of my sight. [ Andy stares at Rex, petrified. ] I mean now, Andy. [ Cottoning on, the man scarpers. Rex looks towards Vima with a pained expression and a shrug. ]
Could've gone worse.
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Once Andy flees the vicinity, Vima is finally safe to let it out and bursts into giggles.]
Poor, poor Andy. I think he might go looking for a new career after that.
[She gives a quick glance to ensure that the folks who've stopped to look have dissipated to their own schedules and hands over the bright yellow garment.]
Here's the vest, boss.
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[ Rex grimaces. ]
No, I can't say it. Not even in jest. [ Dad. Stars, the people here must be idiots. He can't believe that that actually worked, that anyone had believed for a split second that he was somehow this young Padawan's father. He puts on the vest as quickly as possible, surveying their surroundings. ]
But on the bright side, I have a feeling Andy's going to be telling all of his little friends about us. C'mon, let's go. Nobody's going to ask us what we're doing now.
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Nope, we've just made you into the scariest man in this train station... without even waving a lightsaber around.
[This is a serious accomplishment, okay.
Vima locates the cargo car, still with its doors wide open--and she thinks she can overhear Andy's voice on the other side of the train, making her grin again as she climbs in.]
Hm... not the most comfortable-looking accommodations, but at least it's basically clean.
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Chances are, we won't be able to improvise like we did just now when we liberate a ship from the feds. Best we come up with a cover story now. Something a little more believable, perhaps.
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Good idea. Hm... [Something that people will believe, which isn't that they're family....
Uh.
That's a big problem, actually. Vima has no idea what passes for plausible on this planet and to tell the truth... she doesn't know what would pass for it even outside the scope of the Jedi.]
Maybe--student--and a teacher? [that's the only other type of relationship she's familiar with.] You look theright age for that.
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Yeah. We can work with that, [ he says slowly. ] I'll act as your tutor. Rich kids get... [ He waves one hand vaguely, as though to describe something he has no experience with with gesture alone. ] Taken around enough.
[ All right, so the only frame of reference he has for that are holos, knowledge of some Senators' children and, of course, a holobook or two that someone had smuggled in as contraband.
He finds himself considering what it must be like to be Jar Jar's tutor and is suddenly, deeply glad that he's with this pesky youngling instead. ]
We're on a trip for your own edification.
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[The train lurches forward with a lot of clanking and chuffing, and the cargo rattles around. Vima can feel all the bumps and jolts reverberating up from her bum through the rest of her. It's novel, but not totally comfortable. Honestly it drives home how primitive this planet is compared to everywhere else she's been... and she's been to many places.
Well, there's no knowing how long they're going to be in here for. Might as well start the edification now....]
So how long has this war been going on?
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[ Rex seems to have finally relaxed now that they're moving at a decent clip, safe in their little makeshift bunker. If they're going to get into any trouble for what they're doing, it'll be once they get to where they want to be, so that'll be quite all right. ]
With any luck, it won't be lasting much longer.
[ Both sides are running out of resources, and quickly. The speed at which they've been tackling each other can't be sustained. Even someone as gung-ho as Rex can see that every time he sends out a request for more equipment and gets less and less as time goes by. ]
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She's curious if that's the same with the war Rex is involved in, but she has another question.]
What will you do once it is over?
[under the assumption, of course, that he'll survive to see it.]
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I haven't planned that far ahead, [ he says bluntly, tilting his head back a little to rest against the rumbling cart. ] Best not to rely on a future that may not happen.
[ What will he do? He has no significant skills, not like some of his men. Many of them would be fine - they're brilliant men, storytellers, artists, doctors, technicians, sharp with one thing or another. Rex has always been more of a jack-of-all-trades. Good at nothing, really, beyond being a soldier. It's all he's ever wanted to be. ]
I imagine I'll continue to serve. Even after the war is over, there's plenty that will need to be done that has nothing to do with fighting.
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Though it's not surprising that he'd have a rather fatalistic view of his own prospects. She has to repeatthere is no anger, there is peace to herself. Just getting angry won't help.]
Serve doing what? There's always a lot that needs to be done around the Galaxy. It helps to narrow down what you want to do.
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[ Again, he's surprised that she even has to ask. There's only one type of service he's capable of doing, and that's to stay exactly where he is. What he doesn't bother saying is that the type of service likely doesn't matter - for as long as General Skywalker remains in the military, Rex intends to stay by his side. He won't steer them wrong, he's certain of it, and he can think of precious few others he'd rather fight beside. If not General Skywalker... well, he sticks to his Jedi. That's what they were bred for.
If the Jedi extricate themselves from the military entirely - a strange notion; he is objectively aware that they were never meant to be soldiers, but he has never known any of them to be anything but - then he'll have to reassess things. That's a bridge to cross when he gets to it. ]
After the war ends, plenty of worlds will still require aid and resources, to be freed from the Separatist regime. I'll do what's needed to restore them. I doubt they'll require all of us, but there will be no shortage of work to be done.
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[He is right. The years from age four till now have been spent at her mother's side, traveling the Republic to drive off the dregs of Exar Kun's forces, to restore ruined atmopheres and bolster teetering colonies, and even now the Jedi's numbers are severely depleted. An end to war is the continuation, and the beginning.]
It's handy for the Republic that you'll be pitching in even after the war's ended.
[Though that opens up another possibility.]
If the Republic wins.
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[ Rex says it with the utmost certainty because he has to. This is what his entire life has been for up until this very moment. There's not a chance that they'll lose. There can't be, otherwise everything that they've done, the core at their very being, will have been for nothing. ]
If the Republic falls, I fall with it.
[ ................No he won't. ]
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And if the Republic falls, he'll fall with it because he was made to. He was designed and created and molded to throw himself in front of that blaster bolt. And it's strange, because Vima knows that Rex says this with complete conviction; he believes it with all his heart. But do all of the soldiers think like him? Would all of them say this? How strongly has it been programmed?]
...If the Republic falls, someone will have to build it back up again.
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[ A lot of people who are what he's not, in short. Rex knows nothing of politics, knows nothing of what it takes to build a community, let alone a Galactic Republic, knows nothing of human nature and how to herd civvies around. He's a damn good soldier, but that's all he is. ]
Let's hope it never comes to that.
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Really? You've probably been on the ground of a dozen different worlds. And what you've seen is a lot different than what some Senator gets when he sweeps in with his retinue.
I bet you'd get through the red tape a lot quicker once you saw something that needed to get done, too.
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You've got a lot of faith in me for someone you've just met. No, I know my place. I'm a damn good soldier, but that's all I am.
[ Rex shifts where he's sitting, getting comfortable. To admit to his own shortcomings anywhere outside of his area of expertise isn't an uncomfortable experience for him. He knows who and what he is. To be honest about that is a strength, not a weakness. ]
I don't know enough about what an ordinary life is like to have any desire to shape it.
[ He'll fight for them. That's all. It's up to the people what they do with freedom once it's been granted to them. ]
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In my experience, most people are more than the sum of their parts.
[She's about to go on, but then she glances at their surroundings again, and grins wryly.]
...Though I suppose I'm not in a position to talk about having a normal life either. What do you think that looks like?
[she's still half trying to pry at the cracks, but half of it is a legitimate question. because truthfully? she's got no clue either.]
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What Cut has, though? That's what Rex has always thought it was like. A home of your own, with a partner, children, a job to tend to, a family to cherish and protect, knowing that they wouldn't perish the moment you turned his head. A dinner table, toys, requests to play in the field, eager smiles and shared glances that even someone as skilled in reading body language as Rex couldn't decipher.
He's quiet. He may be serious, but he's honest, and he wants to answer her question with the seriousness it deserves. ]
Routine. Going home to the same place every night, to the same people, and knowing reliably that every day is going to be much like the last. Peace, for yourself and your people.
[ It's a nice way of looking at it, but that's what they mean by normal, isn't it? The way things could be, not the way things are. ]
That's what we're fighting for, anyway.
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She's been sure there's more to Rex than meets the eye, more than his unswerving declarations of duty and insistence that he has no desire to be anything more than what he was made. She thought he would brush off her question as something he's never going to experience, something he doesn't bother thinking about...
She didn't expect him to actually know. Because this is more than some 'for the Republic' platitude. He's clearly speaking from some kind of experience.
It's also an experience she doesn't know herself. The Sunrders had a house on H'ratth, long ago, but that life is one she barely remembers. Since then she has known the constant come-and-go of knights and apprentices, the terror and chaos of war, and then endless travel with her mother, trying to put the Jedi back together one piece at a time... with a growing resentment inside.
Vima finds herself thinking of that house on H'ratth. Was that how her mother and father thought of life?]
...I understand wanting to preserve that for someone. [She realizes she was staring off into space a little, and focuses on his face again.] You know someone, who you want to preserve that for?
[It's a shot in the dark, but one worth taking.]
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[ He won't tell her about Cut. Even though he doesn't think Vima would give him away, it's too risky. Cut's entire life, Suu's whole life, the lives of his children - they all hinge on one thing, and that's Cut remaining unnoticed. If he were to be caught, he'd be court-martialed, and then...
Then... what? Drafted back into duty? Sent for reconditioning? Executed for having the audacity to find a new family after the only one he had known had perished?
Rex hopes he'll never find out. ]
There are some families who want nothing to do with us. Fair enough. [ They only descend when things have dissolved into war and violence and misery. Nobody's ever happy by the time things have gotten to that point. ] But I've been deployed on other planets where they've invited us into their homes, offered us their hospitality. Theirs is a way of life worth protecting.
[ It's not a whole truth, but it's part of it, and part of what he's always believed. It's the face to what they're doing, why they do what they do. Maybe his own children will never have to live in the future they built, but why do they have to be his own for him to care? ]
Do you?
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