Chapter Text
948 ARR / 52 BBY
It was too bright and too dark at the same time. He could feel the light through his eyelids, but there was also something vast and powerful, something dark that was brushing against him.
Obi-Wan had gotten used to the twin suns and three moons of Tatooine during his exile, but he clearly wasn’t on that dustball anymore. The ground didn’t feel like the hot sand that would always burn his skin, but it was cooler. It wasn’t the most staggering thing he felt, though.
The atmosphere around Obi-Wan seemed even darker than the galaxy usually was those days. He was used to the lack of light, having felt his fellow jedi be massacred and hunted, but when he tried to sense his surroundings, he felt no light whatsoever. Even his own light felt diminished, like water evaporating on Tatooine. Yet the darkness didn’t feel evil, it didn’t feel consuming like the darkness in Vader had felt on Mustafar.
Obi-Wan tried to sense what was going on around him, but the force wasn’t listening. His own light couldn’t move in the darkness and he felt like a crécheling again, trying to desperately grasp at something that had been by his side for his whole life.
“General,” he heard someone say. The sound was distant, but the word made Obi-Wan shiver. Nobody had called him that for almost two decades and the word filled his mind with an ache he could never soothe. It always made him think of them, the ones that he’d inadvertently hurt.
The clones… they had been one of the Jedi’s greatest failings, enslaving innocents for a rotten republic. While the empire under Sidious was even worse, the republic had been corrupt and at the brink of falling apart even before Palpatine.
If Obi-Wan could have done anything, if he could have changed anything in his life, it would have been the fate of those millions of sentients that had been slaves for both the republic and the empire.
It was no wonder that Cody had ordered his death, in the end, because Obi-Wan had essentially been his master, even if Obi-Wan hadn’t wanted to be. He had wanted to be their friend, he had tried to push for the clone’ freedom, but he had crumbled under the weight of responsibilities and his loyalty to the order and the republic, no matter how displaced that loyalty had been.
Obi-Wan should have done more. When he’d found the clones on Kamino, he should’ve ensured that they weren’t taken into the war. In his opinion, a rule that needed a slave army to survive wasn’t worth it - be it the republic or the Jedi, Obi-Wan would’ve sided with the clones-
“General,” someone repeated, and Obi-Wan recognised that voice. He wondered if he was finally one with the force. Had he been attacked by tusken raiders without his notice? Had the sandstorm gotten into his hut? Obi-Wan didn’t know, but the thought brought him some joy, even if he knew that it was too soon for him to join the force. He was supposed to train Luke, the force had previously been clear about that. He had even seen his own death at the hands of Darth Vader in his visions, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to die so soon.
It would be nice to see Cody, he supposed. Even if it was just to watch the man kill him again and again in the afterlife, Obi-Wan wanted to see him again. Cody, the man he had relied on for years during the war, one of the men he had come to love despite the Jedi’s rule about attachments. He had loved all of his men, the ones he fought with and the ones he had to lay to rest.
Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, he had said too many times in his mind. I am still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal . It had always hurt, seeing his men die, and he would fear that one day he would have to lay the last of them to rest. He hadn’t wanted to outlive them, he hadn’t-
“General,” the voice, Cody’s voice, insisted, and Obi-Wan opened his eyes. He didn’t expect to face his commander, looking down at him with concern in his dark eyes. He looked just as he’d looked during the clone wars, during their mission on Utapau, during-
Obi-Wan heaved out a sob, trying not to think about those days of happiness before his life had become miserable. He didn’t want to remember the times when he had thought about the future with hope, when he had imagined what the rest of his life could be like. He had wanted to stay with his troops, with the 212th, especially with Cody, but it could have never been true, could never-
“Obi-Wan,” Cody said, making him flinch. He was certain that he was hallucinating, there was no other way that his darling commander, his Cody, was once again talking to him like he meant something, like the past two decades hadn’t happened. He couldn’t look at the face of the man he loved so much but who he had wronged so badly. Obi-Wan wanted to apologise, he wanted to say how much he regretted never taking action for his men, but those would be empty words in a world so, so dark.
“Udesii, you need to breathe, sir,” Cody said, looking straight into his soul in a way that almost made Obi-Wan weep. The hallucination looked so much like Cody, making Obi-Wan’s heart ache and break, making him want to crawl inside of himself so that he would never hurt the man again. Any of the men . If he could have changed things, he would have given his all to ensure their freedom, their happiness. He would have died for them-
Almost too late, Cody’s words registered with Obi-Wan, making him snap into reality. He was alive. He was alive, and even if the hallucination was cruel, it was telling him to breathe and he was still alive and that mattered so he could keep Luke save and he had to stay alive and-
Obi-Wan took a deep breath, trying to steady himself and focus on reality. He was alive, he was somewhere dark but bright and his Cody was there and something was wrong. Obi-Wan felt healthy, healthier than he’d had for a long time and he didn’t know how or why, because logically he should have felt worse than ever because he hadn’t been breathing and he had been suffering of aches in his bones and-
“General, Obi-Wan, we don’t know what’s going on either. It has been twenty years since any of us saw you, and most of us are supposed to be dead,” Cody told him with a calm voice, crouching down next to him, even if Obi-Wan could now feel the underlying anxiety in him. When Obi-Wan focused his senses on the man, he could feel that it was his Cody. Unless the hallucination was disrupting his sense of the force, the man Obi-Wan was looking at was Cody. His Cody.
How was it possible? Cody was right, Obi-Wan hadn’t seen him for almost two decades. He had thought Cody was dead, or still in the claws of the empire, but he was there, young as ever, his Cody-
“Wait, we?” Obi-Wan asked when Cody’s words fully registered with him. He talked about there being other people, who were supposed to be dead, other people who Obi-Wan hadn’t seen in years and years… more of his men? Obi-Wan didn’t dare to hope, because even if he was one with the force, surely the force wouldn’t grant him such happiness. He had made so many mistakes, he had doomed himself and so many others, why would he be granted anything?
“Elek. As far as we have established, the whole GAR is here. We don’t know exactly where this is, but our whole fleet of ships is here too. Our navicomps say it's the Horuset system, but they have no name for the planet. We just… woke up here after we died, or after a certain point in time. Rex, Wolffe, Fox, Bly, Ponds, Waxer, Boil, Kix, Alpha-17… everyone is here ,” Cody stated slightly hysterically, dragging his gloved hand through his hair. He seemed drained, but still opened his mouth for another time. “Force osik?”
Obi-Wan wanted to smile at Cody’s remark about the force, but his mind was moving parsecs a second, trying to figure out if the place was their collective heaven or if something else was going on. Or if he was still hallucinating, which, to be fair, was a great possibility. There was no other way for the whole Grand Army of the Republic to be alive and well and in the same place. It would mean something that Obi-Wan didn’t know how to process just yet.
He wanted desperately for it to be true, he wanted to hug Cody and know that it was his Cody, but he feared that if he did, his arms would just pass through the man and he would fade into nothingness and Obi-Wan would, again, be alone in the dark world. He couldn't believe that there would be relief for him, relief of that old pain that had simmered in the Tatooinian sun for years and years, but he wanted to hope. Or perhaps, even if Cody were real, he would reject Obi-Wan like he should for all the pain he’d caused to him and his brothers.
“So…” Obi-Wan said hesitantly, trying to find his words. He hadn’t been talking to anyone but Beru, Owen and Luke for the past years, and he wasn’t used to social interaction. “All of your brothers are here, and I am here… have you seen any other jedi?”
Cody’s expression fell a bit, but he seemed to still be happy to hear Obi-Wan’s voice, which was very odd, since last time they’d seen each other Cody had ordered his men to blast Obi-Wan. He didn’t blame Cody for that, for wanting to kill the man who had been giving them orders for years like they weren’t sentient, like Obi-Wan should've never done, like…
Obi-Wan sighed. He could think about it later.
“No, we haven’t. Wolffe was especially sad to notice that, while you’re here, General Buir isn’t,” Cody told him. “All of us have missed our generals, and it’s hard that only one company gets theirs back”
Obi-Wan didn’t understand. Why would they have missed him? Why? Obi-Wan had tried to be kind to his men, yes, but he still hadn’t done enough. He had allowed the clones’ slavery to continue, for them to remain in the republic’s grasp despite the fact that they had never had a choice. Still, Cody had missed him. Wolffe had missed Plo, and, apparently, the other men had also missed their generals.
But why? Obi-Wan would’ve understood if they hadn’t, if they’d wanted for them to just disappear, to take control of themselves and be free. Sometimes, even during the war, Obi-Wan had considered giving the men an order to set coordinates to an uninhabited world - there were millions of planets like that, some with an atmosphere that they could live in - and allowing his men to kill all the natborn officers, including him. They would’ve been free. Despite everything, he never had done so, mostly because he knew they would be miserable without the other vode - the 104th, the 501st, the 327th and so on. The 212th wouldn’t have been happy with just themselves, and-
“I… don’t understand,” Obi-Wan said, trying to sit up but failing, feeling the oppressive darkness of the atmosphere pushing him down. He had forgotten about it for a while, but it felt odd against his skin. it didn’t hurt like the dark used to, like it had during his previous confrontations with the sith, and it almost felt… soothing. He had never known darkness to be so, he had always found it cold and cruel, but what he felt now was different.
“We don’t either, but if you dare try to get up, our baar’ur is going to strap you to the Negotiator's medical wing. You… seem okay, but you haven’t aged a day either, and this isn't normal,” Cody stated, then stood up from next to him, signalling something with his hands. Obi-Wan knew it was the basic code for needing a medic, and before he could protest, he could feel another familiar signature coming towards them.
Obi-Wan couldn’t feel the other three million clones, probably because of the darkness surrounding the planet, which was making him anxious. Despite that, he was trying to relax. It was made easier by the presence of Cody, his commander, being by his side once more. He had always found Cody a comforting presence, something he’d grown to adore, even after getting blasted down in the man’s orders. That brought him back to his point…
“I mean- I don’t understand why you missed me,” he said quietly. He watched how Cody’s brows furrowed. After a few minutes he seemed to realise something as his eyes widened. Obi-Wan tried to get a hint on what that realisation was while waiting for Helix to reach them, but his gaze turned to Cody who was looking down at him, dressed up in his old armour painted with orange-gold markings, frowning.
“Of course we missed you. Even if we were turned into mindless flesh-droids by that demagolka dar’jetii, we were still alive inside our minds,” Cody stated, crouching down next to him, making Obi-Wan feel confused.
Turned into flesh-droids?
Hadn’t they betrayed the jedi willingly, due to their enslavement under them? Obi-Wan had always wondered what he could’ve changed, how he could’ve prevented Cody from resenting him, but if the man hadn’t , if Sidious had done something to his Cody and everyone else, Obi-Wan was going to-
“You didn’t know?” Obi-Wan heard Cody ask hesitantly, making his eyes turn towards the man. Cody looked heartbroken, sitting next to him like he was lost. Obi-Wan didn’t understand. Why did Cody look broken at the mere thought that Obi-Wan believed him to hate him, why did he look like Obi-Wan had just kicked him into the gut?
Rage simmered under Obi-Wan’s skin at the thought of Palpatine- of Sidious doing anything to their men. To Cody, to Rex, Appo, Wooley, everyone . The thought of the evil sleemo causing even more pain to Obi-Wan and his men was… terrible. The man ordered Maul to kill Obi-Wan’s master, he had groomed Obi-Wan’s padawan to be his apprentice, he had turned Anakin into Vader, he had destroyed Obi-Wan’s family within the jedi, and Obi-Wan didn’t think he could stand to hear it if Sidious had also destroyed his family with the 212th and the GAR in general.
“You don’t know,” Cody said with a strained voice, dragging his hand through his hair. “You… did you live after we…”
Obi-Wan wanted to soothe Cody, to tell him that Obi-Wan had believed they hadn’t shot him out of their free will, but Obi-Wan hadn’t believed that. He had thought for almost twenty years that his family had turned on him because Obi-Wan wasn’t enough, because they wanted someone better, someone who would have freed them.
“Yes. I… was on Tatooine,” Obi-Wan said quietly, just as Helix walked up to them and looked down at him with his helmet on.
“We were chipped. All of us. Fives figured it out after Tup’s chip malfunctioned, and Rex got his own out during order 66. They’re all here, too, that’s why we know,” Helix answered for Cody, who looked miserable. Obi-Wan wanted to hug the man, he wanted to give him affection now that his jed morals didn’t matter, now that nothing mattered, and-
Chips?
Chips.
Chips.
Obi-Wan’s brain ground to a halt at those words. There were chips in his men? Had Sidious dared to-
Obi-Wan felt the darkness press harder down on him, trying to invade his every sense. it was clearly sensing Obi-Wan’s rage, his anger at the thought of Sidious defiling his men, the clones that had nothing but themselves and their brothers and that had been stripped of their own free will by Sidious…
Obi-Wan allowed some of the darkness in, making him able to breathe easier and allowing him to relax his muscles.
“I am going to kill him,” Obi-Wan said confidently, even if he knew that he could never succeed with it. Sidious was far more powerful than he was, and Sidious had Vader. Sidious had stolen his padawan, his home, his men , he had stolen everything from Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan, despite trying to still adhere to jedi morals, wanted revenge.
“No, you won’t kill him before you’ve been checked out in the medical. Who knows what this de-aging did to you. When we checked a few of our vode, the chips were missing. Rex had taken his one out already, but Cody and a few others had still served the empire when they suddenly woke up here. There were no chips,” Helix said calmly, taking his helmet off and looking at Obi-Wan with a deadpan expression. “Force osik”
Obi-Wan felt a weight lift off of his shoulders at the knowledge that Cody didn’t have the chip in his brain anymore. If it would’ve still been there, he would’ve done anything to ensure that the commander got it out, because Obi-Wan couldn’t imagine how violated Cody must have been feeling. Still, the lack of the chips brought up even more questions.
Where were they?
How were dead men alive?
Why were they suddenly the same age as they’d been during the clone wars?
How?
Obi-Wan wondered what the force was doing, sticking them into the same place en masse, making them young again and resurrecting men that should’ve been six feet under. The force didn’t work without a reason, so there must’ve been some benefit of messing with them the way it was doing, but what benefits were those?
Obi-Wan’s contemplation was interrupted by Cody’s voice.
“I was a dar’manda purge trooper under that dar’jetii Vader,” Cody said shakily. “And it was like I was screaming inside my head every time Vader told me to commit another atrocity”
Right. Another weight was dropped onto Obi-Wan’s shoulders, the thought that he had left Vader alive, he was the reason for Cody’s suffering under the empire’s rule, he was the one who had caused so much pain and suffering for his darling commander, for everyone. He should’ve killed Vader, but he hadn’t been able to do so - he had still loved Anakin, but he could admit he had also wanted some form of revenge for destroying everything. He had left Anakin to burn, listened to his screams as he’d walked away, even if most of the blame wasn’t on Vader.
Sidious. It was all because of Sidious.
Obi-Wan would’ve put a slug through the man’s head if he could’ve.
“You aren’t dar’manda, Kote. You’re our marshal commander, and now that we’re all together we can sort this thing out,” Helix said, grasping Cody’s shoulder as the other man held his face in his hands. He turned his eyes on Obi-Wan. “And you, sir, will submit to a medical and stop that self-loathing you’re starting”
Obi-Wan flushed a bit, even if he was still seething internally about both Sidious and his own inability to have prevented the misery of the clones, the jedi, of everyone he’d ever cared about. It hurt, the thought that he’d never been able to sense Palpatine, that he hadn’t been able to prevent the sleemo from hurting him, hurting Cody, Cody , hurting all of the clones and Anakin, oh, Anakin-
“Right. He is self-loathing. I’ll sedate him so he can get some sleep, he looks far too miserable and tired,” Helix said, and Obi-Wan could barely blink before he felt a prick in his neck and started feeling dizzy. He furrowed his eyebrows, looking incredulously towards Helix. The man was always fussing about him too much, like a bloody mother bantha.
As the sedatives worked their way into Obi-Wan’s system, the oppressive darkness pressed harder down on him, suffocating him, and he could feel Cody touching his shoulder, making him warm inside. It was so comforting, so nice to feel his commanders touch again after years and years.
The darkness felt comforting too. It didn’t feel freezing, it felt like something he wanted to be part of. It was probably seducing him to fall with the gentleness, only to show its claws. He didn’t care. He wanted it, and as he closed his eyes, he could feel the darkness seeping into him, comforting him with whispers of hope and future with his men, of something better and warmer than what his life had been up to that point.
He could save them all. He could save his men, his family, Anakin, the Jedi, he could save them all if he just took a hold of the darkness. If he just gave into the temptation that had nagged at him for years and years, ever since being abandoned to AgriCorps, ever since having a bomb collar on his neck on Bandomeer, ever since Melida/Daan, ever since watching his master dump him for a younger, better padawan and watching him die afterwards, ever since having to fight a war with slaves and ever since watching his own padawan fall to the dark side.
Obi-Wan had always struggled with the dark and there, lying on the warm ground of an unknown planet, he struggled more than ever. He could feel the possibilities the place was giving him, the ability to change the way that the things had gone in his previous life. It was selfish, maybe, and forbidden by the jedi to even try, but he wanted to do it. He needed to do it. If it could give a better future for everyone, he would sacrifice everything he personally was to succeed in it.
Obi-Wan could feel himself drowning and he felt alive and dead at the same time and he was free. His chains were breaking and he was going to be able to break the chains of his men, too, he was going to be able to save everyone and he was going to be powerful and help even if he was to be executed for it afterwards. He was in the end of the universe and at the beginning of it at the same time, he was the supernova that would shatter the web of their galaxy and-
“What did you give him, vod? He looks like you just injected spice straight to his heart”
It was Cody. C o d y. His commander, his darling commander, and Helix, and their brothers, and all the three million little stars he could feel standing on top of a planet of darkness, evil darkness, but there were no chips in their heads and they were free. He could feel them now that he could access the force again, no matter how dark it was. He could feel them and it was making him extremely happy because they were free.
F r e e.
Obi-Wan was going to do everything he had to in order to save them. To save them all. No matter what it took. If it really wasn’t a hallucination, if he really was there and alive, he was going to do it and he was going to ensure that they stayed safe and happy no matter what it took out of him. If everyone else got peace, his own peace could be the sacrifice.
Peace is a lie, there is only Passion
Through Passion, I gain Strength.
Through Strength, I gain Power.
Through Power, I gain Victory.
Through Victory my chains are Broken.
The Force shall free me.
The force would free him and he would use it to free everyone else. Even if the darkness swallowed him whole, he would use it to save everyone and they would be free. Everyone would be free if he had anything to say with it. He didn’t know how he could do it, the force hadn’t yet told him, and if he was just stranded on some planet during the imperial era there was little he could do, but at least he could save the vode.
He could ensure that they were safe and happy and that they didn’t have to live under the empire anymore. He could use the darkness to his advantage, because who would think that Obi-Wan Kenobi, the perfect jedi, could ever fall to the dark side? Nobody. They would be at a disadvantage compared to him, and he would ensure he’d bring glory to his men.
They would be free and they would be happy. Obi-Wan would make them grand and if he had anything to say about it, the empire or the republic or whatever reign that there was could go to dust before he was letting go of anyone he loved. Because Obi-Wan loved it and he was finally able to shout it freely, to admit it to everyone he wanted to.
The Jedi Code had shackled him, even when it had brought him comfort and happiness. He hadn’t understood it when he had been a jedi, he hadn’t even understood it on Tatooine when he’d studied the mastery of force under Qui-Gon, but the Jedi had been meant to change or die. They weren't the only ones who could use the force, yet they tried to dictate everyone who did.
Obi-Wan wasn’t a jedi. He didn’t think he was a sith either, unless it was by accident. He was free, that’s all that he was. He knew the codes of both the sith and the Jedi, he could emulate them in his being, but he wasn’t going to force himself to conform to either one of them. Even if he was dark, he wasn’t going to think of people as disadvantages - no, they were his people, they were better than he could ever be.
If he was going to be a sith, he would be a self-sacrificing sith. He didn’t want power or glory for himself, he wanted them for his men and everyone who had been loyal to him. Although…
Maybe he wanted a little bit of glory for himself. Kote…
“Yeah, he’s out of it”
Kote would be free. All of his brothers would be free. No matter the time, the place or the sacrifice, Obi-Wan would ensure that it came true. His men would be free and he would ensure it.
They would be free.
F r e e.