Chapter Text
"Wolffe said you skipped out on 79's again yesterday."
Cody glances up from his dining table to where Rex has entered completely unannounced. He's wearing that dark green heavy-duty spacer jacket he got a few years ago and seems fond of--he probably came straight here after finishing work.
It's nothing new for Rex to barge in like this--they've been doing it to each other ever since they moved to the Jedi Temple--but sometimes it definitely gets very annoying.
Cody sets his datapad down. "I didn't skip out," he says. "I never agreed to go in the first place."
Rex rolls his eyes. "The point is," he says, "you didn't go. Why not?"
"I didn't want to."
"Yeah?" Rex steps closer and leans against Cody's kitchen counter. "That's it? You didn't want to?"
"That's all the reason I need," Cody says. "You got a problem with that?"
Rex sighs. "Did you really not want to? Or is this because of your pet project again?"
Cody bristles. "It's not a pet project, and what I do with my free time is my own damn business."
"I'm not saying it's not," Rex says, crossing his arms. "But I can't even count how many times you've blown these things off now--I hardly ever see you anymore. I'm worried about you, Cody."
"I'm busy. I can't help that."
"Busy with what?" Rex shoots back. "I know your work with the Jedi doesn't take twelve hours a day, every day of the week. But when you're not working, you're in the Archives, and when you're not in the Archives you're in the Senate records, and when you're not in the Senate records you're here. Alone. Something's wrong here."
"Everything is fine, Rex."
"Yeah? Everything's so fine you can't even take a few hours to unwind with your brothers once in a while? You weren't even this bad during the war." Rex sighs. "I think you're obsessed, Cody. Your pet project is eating your life."
"Just because you don't see me that much doesn't mean I don't spend time with any brothers," Cody says. "I'm with the 212th every day."
"Because they're just as obsessed with Obi-Wan as you are!" Rex shouts. "It's been five years, Cody! He's gone! He's never coming back!"
All at once, the air seems to go frigid, or maybe that's just Cody. He clenches his fists. "I'm not trying to bring him back."
"No? Then what the hell are you doing with all your mission reports and Senate briefings and secret conversations with people you don't even like?" Rex says.
"I've told you--I'm trying to find the truth."
"The truth? The truth is Obi-Wan is a traitor and always was one! How can you possibly still defend him after all these years, Cody? He deserted you--all of you. He killed our brothers. He nearly destroyed the Republic! You know what he's done to Anakin, you know what he tried to do to us, and you still think there's any room for doubt?" Rex says. "What did he do to you?"
"He showed me he was a person worth trusting. That's all."
Rex sneers. "Selling your trust to the lowest bidder, then? I see how it is. You'll trust a monster like Obi-Wan but not your own brothers."
"You don't understand, Rex."
"Then make me understand," Rex retorts. "What do you know that I don't? Explain to me why you've become like this. Tell me how you can possibly think Obi-Wan didn't do what he did. Tell me why you're throwing your life away for a dead man!"
"He's not dead," Cody says, his voice tight.
Rex looks skeptical. "And how do you know that? Did he tell you?"
Cody purses his lips. "I just...feel it's true. If Obi-Wan was dead out there, I think I'd know."
"That's not how it works, Cody," Rex says. "You've been through the war same as me. That's not how it happens."
Cody did know that, but he still felt it deep in his heart--if Obi-Wan was dead, he would know, somehow. Obi-Wan was so resilient it was hard to imagine him ever falling, much less to some insignificant thing out in the galaxy where no one would see it. Something would change if he died. He doesn't have the energy to argue with Rex, though, so he lets it go.
"I'm serious," Rex continues. "You've got to give this up. I'm worried about you--everyone's worried about you. Don't do this to yourself over a traitor. He's not worth it."
"If you want to talk about traitor Generals, then you ought to start a little closer to home," Cody spits. "At least Obi-Wan never stabbed his own family in the back."
"No, he just left you all to die!" Rex yells. "Or does it only count if he stabs you with his own hands, just like he--"
Cody stands up. "Get out of my apartment."
Rex doesn't move. "Listen to me, Cody. I know we've got our differences. I know we haven't talked that much in a long time, but I still care about you--I always have, though only the stars know why I bother at this point. You can't keep shutting yourself out like this. We won the war. We got everything we wanted and needed. We're free. You did more than anyone ever could have asked of you, don't ever doubt that, but it's done now. We made it. You don't have to burn yourself out on another hopeless case--you can just live your life. Move on."
"I told you to get out."
"Cody..."
Cody steps closer to Rex, clenching his fists. "I'm going to give you fifteen seconds to leave, or I'm going to toss you out myself."
Rex rolls his eyes. "Come on, don't be like this."
Cody holds up a finger. "One..."
"Seriously? We're not cadets anymore. That doesn't work."
Cody starts making his way around the dining table and holds up another finger. "Two..."
With an exasperated sigh, Rex crosses his arms. "Fine, fine. I get it. I'll go." He makes his way to the door, then pauses. "Think about what I said, okay? I don't care if you've got your personal projects or whatever, just don't let them ruin your life. Don't forget there's people here who care about you. Live a little, yeah?"
"If it's such a big deal, I'll comm you sometime," Cody says.
Rex frowns. Clearly, that isn't what he had hoped for, but he seems to realize as well as Cody that it's all he'll get. "Fine. I'll hold you to that. See you around," he says, then lets the door slide closed behind him.
Cody stands there for a long moment, watching the door as if waiting for Rex to come back and throw something else back in his face. When it's clear that Rex is truly gone, Cody sighs and goes back to his datapad at the dining table.
A familiar wanted notice stares back at him: Former High General Obi-Wan Kenobi, wanted for high treason. Twenty-two million credits bounty, dead or alive. Preferably dead.
Cody rubs his temples and gets back to work.
The most difficult part of the incident is that it was almost insultingly simple--only confusing for its suddenness and the consequences that followed.
The facts are these: five years ago, at the height of the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi had a private meeting with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine regarding the war, and in that meeting, suddenly stabbed Palpatine in the chest. Surveillance footage showed there were no threats made, no struggle, and no provocations on Palpatine's part. The murder weapon was a small dagger stolen from the Jedi Archives using Obi-Wan's High Council codes, and was concealed in Obi-Wan's sleeve before entering the room. Obi-Wan was positively identified by multiple parties that day, leaving no room for an imposter. It was unquestionably cold-blooded and premeditated murder.
Palpatine had called for help, and the Senate guard found Obi-Wan covered in Palpatine's blood, holding a bloody knife. Palpatine, severely weakened by the attack, had tried to order the guards to execute Obi-Wan, only for Obi-Wan to stab him a second time in the throat, interrupting him by very effectively--if messily--ending his life.
Obviously, at that point the Senate guards had attacked Obi-Wan and attempted to apprehend him, but Obi-Wan shattered the window and fled the scene.
That is the last anyone saw of him.
It's hard to forget the aftermath of that incident. There was an investigation, of course. Cody had been questioned for days on end, as had many of Obi-Wan's other close contacts, all to no avail. Obi-Wan had not said anything to anyone about his intentions to assassinate the leader of the Republic. Nobody could point to any sudden change in his demeanor or inciting event, nor did Obi-Wan leave behind any notes or plans that could point to why he would do such a thing. It was as if he had simply woken up one day and decided to commit murder.
Obi-Wan Kenobi quickly became the most wanted criminal in the Republic. He did not make the following manhunt easy--he did not return to the Temple or his flagship after the murder, and neither the Coruscant Guard nor the Jedi could find him anywhere on the planet, leading them to conclude Obi-Wan had made a clean getaway. There were no flight plans filed in his name or any of his aliases, so he likely had an accomplice take him off-planet, but if any such accomplice existed, they were keeping their mouth shut.
Obviously, Obi-Wan did not return to the Grand Army of the Republic. The sudden desertion by one of the Republic's main military leaders at such a critical point in the war was, to put it lightly, a problem. Jedi who had already been spread thin had to scramble to take up Obi-Wan's considerable duties, with Anakin Skywalker and many other young Jedi receiving promotions to command ever-larger forces. When Separatist attacks increased in the ensuing chaos, casualties soared. For several weeks, the possibility of the Republic falling apart had felt very, very real.
The transition of power to Vice-Chair Mas Amedda was messy. Mas Amedda did not have the same charisma and forceful personality that Palpatine had used to hold the Republic together--the war effort suffered under his clumsy leadership, creating massive rifts within the Senate. More than one world declared an intent to leave the Republic if a new, more competent Chancellor was not instated, but as with all things taking place in the Senate, such a shift in power did not occur nearly quickly enough. The Senate's bickering took so long that soldiers on the ground began to notice something very strange: they were winning.
Despite increased casualties caused by the mess left in Obi-Wan's wake, after two and a half years of constantly chasing after Separatist forces and defending worlds and getting ambushed in places the Separatists should not have known about, the Republic Army was gaining ground and keeping it. The apparent security leak that had been a thorn in the Republic's side for two years seemed to have vanished after Obi-Wan's desertion, and the Separatist's attacks--though as violent as ever--became more manageable than they ever had been. Inexplicably, even though the Republic had lost one of its best Generals, it was no longer constantly one step behind.
The conclusion was obvious: Obi-Wan Kenobi had been a Separatist spy, and his assassination of the Chancellor had only been the last of a very long string of betrayals against the Republic.
For anyone who had known Obi-Wan, it was unthinkable. Never had there been a man more faithful and steadfast than the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. How could a kind man who worked so hard and loved so sincerely commit such a betrayal against his family, his men, and the people he had sworn to protect? How could he have deceived everyone for so long without anyone noticing?
Cody didn't know. He didn't know when the incident happened and he still didn't know now. Maybe it's true that Cody never knew Obi-Wan as well as he thought he did, but if there was one thing Cody knew for certain about his former General, it was that Obi-Wan did not do things lightly. Despite the danger he had constantly thrown himself into, he did not take risks blindly--if he had murdered the Chancellor, it meant that he had weighed the benefits and the risks and decided it was necessary for Palpatine to die.
There was a reason for the betrayal buried somewhere in the past, and Cody needed to know what. He had to know because in the end, even after everything, even after Obi-Wan's name became synonymous with traitor and anyone who defended him would be tarred with the same brush, Cody could not believe that everything had been a lie.
Maybe everyone was right, and it was just how it looked on the surface. Maybe Obi-Wan really had been a spy the entire time and he really had tried to destroy everything Cody and his brothers were fighting for. Cody couldn't be sure of anything anymore, and he knew that if he kept digging, chances were good that he would find only pain, but he had to know.
Even now, five years later with the case dead and buried, he needs the truth about Obi-Wan.
Life for Cody after the war is a little like this:
Every day, he wakes up at almost exactly 0600. He runs an extended route through and around the Temple--a different route each day, depending on how he feels, but each one somewhere between three and five kilometers long. The Temple Guard or some other Jedi will see him as he passes and sometimes, they'll make small talk for a few minutes or ask Cody about how his work is doing, but otherwise Cody runs without listening to anything except his feet on the pavement and the heart beating in his chest.
When he is done, he finishes his exercise with about half an hour in the salles. Usually, there is another member of the 212th or one of the Jedi Knights who are also doing morning exercises, and often they'll talk while they work out. Most of it is about inconsequential things--recent holonovels read, events going on around the Temple and the city, rumors about missions and who's doing what with who--but it's really more about the company than the conversation, and Cody enjoys being able to meet new people this way.
After this, Cody showers, then eats breakfast in the refectory. The food is simple, but fresh-cooked and parsecs beyond what he had at Kamino and in the GAR. If anyone needs to talk to him, they usually find him at his breakfast table--it's the only time people can be guaranteed to get ahold of him. Otherwise, he reads the news over breakfast just in case there's anything important going on. In the early days after Skywalker left the Order and the GAR, Cody had kept an eye on different publications to keep track of the latest boneheaded thing Skywalker or his no-longer-secret-wife had done, but even Skywalker wasn't interesting enough to be newsworthy for five whole years, and now Cody mostly reads about sentient rights legislation and conflicts out in the Mid- to Outer Rim where Jedi assistance may become necessary.
At 0730, he reports to the Jedi Council for work. Officially, he is an 'administrative assistant', which is not a very informative title, but in short his job is to collect information about mission requests that come in and determine the Jedi Knights best suited to each mission based on their skills and previous experience. It sounds simple enough, but often his investigations require multiple interviews, a shipload of legislation to review, and more mission records than he ever realized existed--the entire galaxy wanting Jedi to fix their problems for them seems to be a little more accurate than Cody ever would have guessed.
He takes his work very seriously. Shoddy information costs lives--not potentially just the Jedi who takes the mission, but also the people they are sent to protect. Since this background research is such a huge undertaking that even Cody can't manage it all alone, he has a small team of other 'administrative assistants' to help him--some clones, some Jedi. He's not really sure how he ended up being in a leadership role in this job, except that he seems to be the one most invested in doing the job as thoroughly as possible, every single time.
There's even usually one or two Padawans helping out--it's become a bit of a thing for Masters to assign their Padawans to him for a week or two so they can get some exposure to information sciences and doing their research before going off to a possibly hostile planet. The Padawans are a little clueless, but Cody doesn't mind. They're just kids--bright-eyed and innocent, still getting their feet wet in the big scary galaxy that was once ready to throw their lives away. They're so soft, nothing like the Commanders that Cody had interacted with during the war, and he's glad for it, as much as it scares him. He can't help but think that one day these kids will get blindsided by harsh reality, like a shiny's first shell-shock, but the reality he had grown up with is not the one these kids will--hopefully--ever know.
The war is over. Things are different now.
Cody's schedule is flexible, and he works on and off until about 1800, when he eats dinner. On most days, he'll do about four to six hours of actual work, interspersed with personal time or walking through the gardens or getting roped into whatever fun activity the crèches are doing. It's a bit of a thing for crèchemasters to invite a few clones to help with the younglings, and Cody gets to try a lot of new things that way--visiting museums or painting or playing team games or doing amateur theater--things that he never got to do as a cadet in Kamino. Perhaps that's the point.
After 1800, he checks in on members of the 212th still living in the Temple. There's not a lot of them anymore--a lot of people were hurt when Obi-Wan left, the 212th most of all, and Cody couldn't really blame them for leaving once the war was over. He doesn't actually do much with the 212th--he's just there, talking and spending time with them in the little part of the Temple they've sequestered as their own--but that's all he really needs. Sometimes he'll spend the entire evening there, while other days he'll return to his comfortably-sized apartment in the Temple and work on some personal projects until 2200, when he usually goes to sleep.
It's a peaceful life, and not one Cody ever imagined for himself growing up, or during the war, or even after the war until it actually happened. He keeps himself busy with work and digging into the past and keeping an eye on his men and the Jedi, and it's...good. He likes keeping to a schedule and knowing what to expect from each day. He likes having time to work on what he wants to do, and being able to try all the things he'd never had a chance to, before. He eats good food, he spends time with people he cares about, and he gets to have things of his own, from the apartment in the Temple to the little glass figurines and potted plants he keeps buying on a whim from street vendors. He makes himself useful in a way that feels like he's making a difference, and he gets to do it all on a full night's sleep--he's even cut back a lot on caf now that he's not chronically exhausted.
It wasn't easy getting to this point. The last eight months of the war after Obi-Wan left had been fresh hell, and it took well over a year of Cody and his brothers arguing with bureaucrats to get them to officially acknowledge them as sentients and citizens of the Republic--a process so arduous that multiple clones, including Fox, immediately quit anything to do with the Senate the moment they were able to get employment literally anywhere else. Even now, Cody's brothers are still haranguing the Senate to get some sort of financial compensation for their military service, but it'll be a few more lawsuits before anything starts moving on that front. Until then, the Jedi Temple pays them a decent stipend and has offered their considerable free living space to them.
Cody tries not to spend too much time dwelling on why, exactly, there's suddenly so much vacant space in the Temple. His brothers are not the only ones who have lost too much in the war.
The point is, after ten years of training and almost four years of war, Cody and his brothers are finally free. There's no Kaminoans looking over their shoulders, no military telling them what to do with their lives, no threat of Separatist attack hanging over their heads. They're not soldiers and casualty reports anymore, but people who are allowed to simply exist and live.
It's what Obi-Wan had once promised him and his brothers--safety and comfort and a long life ahead to enjoy it. It still feels like a dream some days, especially in the deepest part of Cody's heart where he's always known and accepted he would breathe his last on a battlefield far from home.
He knows it's not a dream, though. Because once upon a time, Obi-Wan and Cody had stayed up late nights filling out paperwork and talking about after. After the war, after everyone was safe, after things were normal again. In small and private moments across two and a half years, Obi-Wan had promised to be as loyal as the 212th was to him and to be there for Cody and his men for as long as they needed or wanted him.
In Cody's dreams, Obi-Wan is not a liar.
"Cody! There you are," Boil says, hailing Cody in the Temple refectory. "We were wondering if you would ever show up."
"What are you talking about? This is always when I eat breakfast," Cody says, taking the free seat between Boil and Longshot. He sets down his tray of rice and mixed vegetables and reaches for the shaker of pepper flakes. "It's not my fault if you're not in here when I am."
"Well, as long as you're getting enough to eat," Boil hums. He takes a bite of what looks like some kind of bean porridge. "Hey, so, I was talking to Vos a couple days ago, and he told me something kind of interesting."
Cody grimaces. 'Kind of interesting' coming from Quinlan can mean literally anything. "Yeah?"
"It's been five years since the last time anyone saw the General," Boil says. "Which means pretty soon they're going to change his status from AWOL to 'dead'."
"Obi-Wan isn't dead," Cody says.
Boil holds his hands up. "Hey! I'm not disagreeing. He's wanted enemy number one, right? If anyone manages to find him or his corpse, I'm pretty sure we would know. People would yell it off the rooftops. They'd have a whole-ass parade--Skywalker would probably lead the damn thing."
Cody's mouth twists. He doesn't like to think about Skywalker on a good day, much less what Skywalker did after Obi-Wan's disappearance.
"But still," Boil continues, "the fact is nobody's reported any sign of Obi-Wan in five years, and it's not like people aren't looking. There's still a couple teams searching for him, and there's all those bounty hunters who want to cash in. I know the General was really good at making friends with, um, less law-abiding citizens, but did you see? They raised the price on his head again the other day. I'm not sure there's a bounty hunter alive who would be more loyal to Obi-Wan than to a prize like that."
"Boil. I love you, but please get to the point," Cody says.
Boil looks sheepish and clears his throat. "Sorry. The point I was getting to is that since Obi-Wan's going to be declared dead pretty soon, we wanted to hold a funeral service for him."
"Who's we?"
"The 212th, mostly," Wooley answers from across the table. "We haven't really passed the idea by any of the other units--you know how they feel about Obi-Wan."
Boil nods. "I just...thought it would be good for all of us--the ones who care, anyways--to get together and remember him without having to get into a fight over it."
Cody gets it. Ever since Obi-Wan disappeared, it's been impossible to talk about him without having to hear all kinds of garbage about him--about how he was so cruel, how he was a liar and a sneak and a cold-blooded murderer. As if Obi-Wan hadn't put himself in the line of fire to help people who would never thank him, battle after battle after battle. They hadn't been there for two and a half years, watching Obi-Wan drive himself to exhaustion trying to keep a Republic together that didn't give a damn about him except if he could solve their problems.
Cody's not proud to say he's gotten into fights over people talking shit about Obi-Wan. He knows better than to argue with people who won't listen, but even he's got limits to how much he'll take lying down. It's not just him, either. Obi-Wan's reputation is so blackened that simply being a clone in 212th colors in public is enough to warrant some kind of harassment, and that's not even touching the issues 212th clones have with getting outside employment. It's really not a coincidence that nearly all of the 212th has either renounced their colors or settled down in the Temple where people will keep their opinions about Obi-Wan to themselves so long as nobody else brings it up first.
"It would have to be a private service, probably within the Temple," Cody says. "Invite only. Even mentioning it publicly would be a disaster."
Wooley nods. "We know. It's not like that would be a problem, would it? It's not like there's a lot of us, anyways."
Cody grimaces. That's true enough. The 212th used to be one of the largest battalions in the GAR. Now there's barely a few hundred of them, tied together by loyalty to a man who abandoned them.
It's pretty pathetic, but it's all they've got.
"You're sure this is what you guys want?" Cody asks. "A funeral service is...it's a big step."
"Yeah," Boil says. "I know he's not dead, but...I really don't think he'll ever come back. I just...I want some kind of closure. I think a lot of us do. Even you, Commander."
"A funeral isn't the kind of closure I'm looking for," Cody says.
"No. But it might be the only one you get."
Coming from anyone else, that would be enough to get Cody ready to start breaking heads, but this is Boil. Boil, who never doubted Obi-Wan, even after the news broke. Boil, who got into more fights than Cody could even count, trying to defend the honor of a man who could no longer defend himself. Boil, who's simply telling the sad, bitter truth.
"Obi-Wan's still out there," Cody says softly. "He could still come back."
Boil's expression twists into something pained. "I know, Cody. Don't get me wrong, I want him to come back. I don't even care if he explains himself anymore--I just want to say goodbye properly." He takes a deep breath. "Quinlan told me that when they change Obi-Wan's status to dead, they're going to pull back the search parties. If they couldn't find Obi-Wan in five years of non-stop hunting, they're not going to find him now, when they stop looking. I've waited so long already--I can't wait anymore. I know I'm not the only one. Please, Cody. Let me have this."
"Why are you asking me?" Cody asks. "I'm not your Commander anymore. You already know how I feel about this. If you wanted a funeral, you could have done it without me."
"If we do this, I want to do it properly," Boil says. "And that means having you do the eulogy, Cody."
"I see," Cody says. He can see the rationale, just as it makes him feel cold inside. He imagines, for a moment, what it would be like to stand at a stuffy podium in front of an empty casket and talk about Obi-Wan the High General, the Jedi Master, the man who was just trying his best to help everyone. What would he say? What could he say? After so many years, he's not sure if he even has words for all the feelings he has--that was always Obi-Wan's thing, not his.
He pushes food around his plate a bit, then shoves the tray away. He's not hungry anymore.
"Cody?" Boil asks.
"I have work to do," Cody says, standing up. "I'll see you later."
"So you won't do it?" Boil asks, a touch of desperation in his voice. "Cody, please--"
"I don't know, Boil," Cody says, more sharply than he means to. "I don't know if I can do it. Just...send me the details. I'll think about it."
Boil looks at him, wide-eyed, then swallows and nods. "It'll be a week from now. I've already talked to Master Windu about reserving some space."
That's good, Cody thinks. Windu was close friends with Obi-Wan and is committed to doing things the right way. He'll make sure Obi-Wan gets a proper Jedi funeral, even after everything that's happened. It's the way Obi-Wan would want to be sent off.
"Sounds good. Have you sent out invites already?"
Boil shakes his head. "Not until we get everything finalized. Why? You got suggestions for the guest list?"
"Yeah," Cody says. "Don't invite Skywalker."
As promised, Boil sends Cody the details about the funeral. They'll be holding it one week from now in the evening, late enough so it doesn't conflict with Cody's work schedule. It's an almost criminally small service--the guest list is severely restricted, and the venue itself is small, in one of the more obscure courtyards within the Temple that hardly ever see outside visitors. It's a far cry from the extremely public funeral Obi-Wan had that one time he faked his death, but then again, back in those days, people still liked Obi-Wan.
Cody reads through the plans with a sort of grim detachment. It's not that he's never thought about Obi-Wan's funeral--during the war, Cody had always known that death could come for them at any time, and that if his General died, it would be up to Cody to make sure Obi-Wan got to the right people and sent off properly. He has thought about the arrangements he would have to make, and who he would have to contact in the event of Obi-Wan's unfortunate demise. He's been prepared for this funeral almost from the day he met Obi-Wan.
That's really the thing: it would be easier if Obi-Wan was dead. Cody knows how to deal with death. He knows how to close that door and make his remembrances and move on, because the stars know he's gotten so much practice at it over the course of the war. If Obi-Wan had died--if he had bled out on a battlefield, even if he had been caught and executed after his betrayal--it would hurt, but there would be a finality to it that Cody could comprehend. There would be no answers forthcoming, and Cody would be able to let it go.
He was never prepared for desertion. He never thought Obi-Wan would walk away on his own power and then choose, every single day, to not come back. The fact that he's still out there is like a festering wound that Cody can't cut away--not when there's still any amount of hope, and that's why it hurts the way so much blood and death didn't.
Cody doesn't want a funeral for Obi-Wan--it won't give him the answers he needs and it feels too much like admitting defeat--but this isn't about him. It's about Boil and every other soldier who needs to pay respects, the ones who still believe in Obi-Wan but can't have his memory haunting them for the rest of their lives. For them, a funeral would help, and Cody's first duty has always been to his men.
It's all about duty, in the end.
He'll help with the funeral arrangements and he'll say Obi-Wan's eulogy even when it makes him want to claw his own skin off because his men need it. He knows they would understand if he said no, but Boil is right--if they're going to do this, they have to do it properly, and for better or for worse, the 212th still trusts him to do the hard thing, even when he doesn't want to.
He wonders if Obi-Wan felt the same way, when he slipped that knife between Palpatine's ribs and turned everything upside-down. Maybe that was just his duty as a Separatist spy, to tear down the Republic and with it all the people he'd spent so much time getting to know--for a man who genuinely cared so much about sentient life and understood the consequences that must result from such a drastic course of action, that would certainly qualify as the hard thing.
Cody doesn't know if that's the case and he'll probably never find out. It doesn't really matter in the end--even the best-case scenario paints Obi-Wan in a harsh light. Maybe Cody can understand it better than anyone--he knows the importance of doing duty at any cost. It's just hard to forgive when it's his own men's lives being paid.
That's just one more reason Cody isn't ready to mourn Obi-Wan; he still can't decide if the bastard deserves it.
The guest list for the funeral is mostly the 212th--about fifty of them in total, less than a third of the 212th still remaining in the Temple. It's not that the others don't care, it's just that the fake funeral isn't useful for them, like it isn't useful for Cody.
Besides the 212th, there are a few Jedi on the list--Quinlan, Master Windu, Master Luminara, and a couple of Obi-Wan's other old friends. Outside of those are some of Obi-Wan's more eclectic company--namely, the owner of a small diner and former Senator Organa. Once upon a time, the list would have been longer, but it seems that many of Obi-Wan's closest friends are no longer among the living.
"Anakin isn't on this list?" Organa asks Cody as he scrolls through the details on his datapad over caf. "I would have thought he'd be the easy first choice."
Cody makes a face. "You've been through the last five years the same as me--you seriously think Skywalker should be at Obi-Wan's funeral even after all that?"
Organa frowns. "Obi-Wan would want Anakin to be there."
That's true enough, Cody supposes, but Obi-Wan's regard for Skywalker was always beyond reason--it would have to be, to still care about him after enduring ten years of Skywalker banthashit. Skywalker could commit the very worst of crimes and Obi-Wan would still care. All of Skywalker's slander and hatred probably didn't rate. Chances were, Skywalker's already made these accusations to Obi-Wan's face many times over in private.
Cody isn't Obi-Wan. He can't respect a man so controlled by his emotions that he threw away his vows and his duty, then threw one of his previously most trusted companions under the speeder the moment things got hard. He'd just as soon dropkick Skywalker into the next century if he could, not just for what Skywalker did to Obi-Wan, but to all of the clones under his command. "This funeral isn't for Obi-Wan," Cody says. "It's for us."
"Ah," Organa says. "I see."
Organa makes no further comment on the matter, then continues reading the datapad. Cody watches him as he does so. It's been over three years since Cody last saw Organa in person--just after Organa was all but forced to resign as Senator and returned to Alderaan as its Viceroy. He looks well, and he's as elegant as ever in his embroidered jackets despite flying in from Alderaan on extremely short notice--the least he could do for Obi-Wan's funeral, he said.
Cody isn't really friends with Organa--he never really interacted with him enough to build that kind of rapport--but he respects Organa deeply. In the aftermath of Palpatine's assassination, Organa was one of very few Senators who had blocked the Senate from unanimously passing Palpatine's hasty attempt at an execution order into an official act, insisting that Obi-Wan deserved a proper investigation just like any other citizen. The investigation, of course, was unable to pull any substantial evidence that Obi-Wan had Separatist loyalties of any kind, except that he had been caught murdering the Supreme Chancellor literally red-handed.
After that, he had been one of the champions of the Clone Rights Acts, sitting down and working with clones to help them build their argument and teaching them how to apply pressure on the Senate so they would have to listen. It was a messy process, but one that eventually saw results because while it was easy to ignore one Senator out of hundreds, it was very difficult to ignore four million highly-trained soldiers who could collectively decide that, if they were not formally recognized as members of the Republic, then they were under absolutely no obligation to continue defending it.
Just those two things had made Organa wildly unpopular with the rest of the Senate. He had been accused of trying to incite a coup and fraternizing with Separatist forces and everything in between, but he had weathered those attacks just like he weathered everything else in the Senate.
The final straw was later on, after Skywalker's court-martial. Skywalker had not adjusted well to the increased responsibilities given to him after Obi-Wan left, and his already existing issues--his tendency to flaunt due process, his terminal recklessness, and his frequent absences from missions and briefings due to spending time with his secret wife--inevitably led to the logical conclusion where, without Obi-Wan to cover for him, his forces sustained unacceptable losses due to negligence and his extracurricular activities were brought under scrutiny.
The court had ruled Skywalker unfit for command, and Skywalker had retaliated by quitting the GAR and the Jedi Order, publicizing his marriage to Senator Amidala in the process. This obviously set off an entirely different set of accusations against Skywalker and Senator Amidala both, to which Skywalker responded by blaming everything on Obi-Wan.
The accusations he made against Obi-Wan--and by extension, the Jedi Order--were numerous and unflattering. He alleged that Obi-Wan was manipulative and jealous and cold, taking him from his mother and forcing him into the Jedi life and ruining his childhood and adolescence. He accused Obi-Wan of inciting the Clone Wars, of failing to defend well-renowned diplomat Qui-Gon Jinn, and of having a personal vendetta against Palpatine. This exposé coincided with when people were beginning to realize Obi-Wan may have been a Separatist spy and gained significant traction as a result. Rapidly, the public's perception of Obi-Wan's actions shifted from what could possibly be some sort of extreme extenuating circumstances to malicious sabotage of the Republic by a traitor of the worst kind.
Obviously, Obi-Wan was not present to defend himself against any of this, though even Obi-Wan's silver tongue would probably not be enough to head off this disaster. Someone had to take the fall, and it would have either been him or Skywalker--and it was obvious who Obi-Wan would have picked.
The public outcry got so bad that the Jedi Order had to officially and publicly renounce Obi-Wan, declaring that they would search for him and bring him to justice. But even then, it was too late. People already didn't care much for the Jedi and their esoteric ways and blamed them for letting the war drag on. With Skywalker's accusations, the Jedi Order became regarded with outright hostility--only now after a few years of the Jedi resuming their diplomatic and disaster relief duties across the galaxy are civilians starting to warm up to them again.
Organa and a few other Senators spoke out vehemently against Skywalker's accusations, defending the Jedi Order and Obi-Wan while criticizing Skywalker's hypocrisy and callousness. It was these words that perhaps saved the Jedi Order from having their rights restricted further by the Senate, and these words that all but ended Organa's career.
The last thing Organa did before his resignation was to offer his planet to the clones who would soon have nowhere to go--if the Republic would not accept them as citizens, Alderaan would, with all the civil protections that allowed.
When Dooku was killed and the war ended and the Senate had still not bowed and given the clones their rights, many of the clones took Organa's offer and settled on Alderaan. For over a year, millions of clones called Alderaan their home and learned trades and built their own community, figuring out what it meant to be a civilian.
Eventually, the Senate gave in and recognized clones as citizens of the Republic, allowing the clones to move freely through the galaxy--something that would have been much harder to achieve without Alderaan's hospitality to protect them in the transition period. A thriving community of clones remains on Alderaan now, including a large majority of the men who had left the 212th in the wake of Obi-Wan's betrayal. Cody visited them once, a couple years ago--they had made it clear that as long as he maintained sympathies for Obi-Wan, he was not welcome. He respects that, and has kept his distance since.
So yes, Cody respects Organa--a man who stuck to his principles and saw things through to the bitter end. He's not a perfect man, but he is a trustworthy one, and Cody can see why Obi-Wan liked him so much despite his profession.
"These arrangements look very sensible. Obi-Wan would be pleased to know people care about him this much," Organa says, breaking Cody out of his thoughts. He offers the datapad back to Cody. "Let Boil know he did a good job."
"Of course," Cody says, taking the datapad. Organa's made a few notes in the margins, but as he says, he's found little fault in it--a private service within the Jedi Temple is unlikely to reach the public eye and it's modest the way Obi-Wan would have wanted it.
"I admit, I was surprised to get your message," Organa continues, sipping his sweetened caf. "I didn't think you would support a symbolic funeral like this."
"I don't," Cody says. "But it's for my men. They need this to move on."
"I see." Organa pauses for a moment, staring at Cody with dark eyes. "It's been a long time since we last spoke--you still wore armor back then. Did you embroider those yourself?"
"I've come to see the appeal of the robes and tunics, but the Jedi fashions are, uh, a bit plain," Cody replies, running a thumb over the hand-stitched sunflowers scattered around his hems. "You know how us clones are. We like making things our own."
"You did a good job. It really suits you," Organa says. "So, you've stayed at the Temple, then. Are you still investigating Obi-Wan?"
Cody nods.
"I suppose you haven't found anything," Organa says. "Or you probably would have told me already."
Cody nods again. "All I've seen from his mission record is that he was extremely competent. His reports were thorough, and he often reported his shortcomings and ways he endeavored to improve in the future. The truthfulness of his accounts is corroborated by outside observers, and while he didn't always succeed--a lot of his missions went hairy more often than not--he always did the best he could, sometimes at personal risk. It's not really a surprise he received so many missions."
"Yes, that does sound like Obi-Wan," Organa replies.
"And what about you?" Cody asks. "Have any of your people found any sign of him?"
Organa shakes his head. "It seems that wherever Obi-Wan is now, he's covered his tracks. He has hunted down bounty hunters and criminals before--he knows how to stay under the radar."
"He's a fugitive whose face is known to the entire galaxy," Cody says. "Surely someone has to have noticed him at some point in the last five years, right? I've never heard of someone going on the run for so long and not getting spotted once."
Organa shrugs. "He is a Jedi Master. He has some tools at his disposal that others do not."
That's true enough--Cody's never dealt with trying to track down a Force-sensitive gone AWOL who was actually trying to stay undetected. With the exception of the nebulous Sith Master, all the Darksiders they've had to find over the course of the war have left a trail of murder and destruction in their wake--hardly subtle. With technology, Obi-Wan could get cosmetic surgery and go to ground, and with mind tricks it would be easy enough to make sure anyone forgot him, though that still couldn't explain why even the Jedi with all their Force powers can't find him.
"What will you do if you ever actually find him?" Cody asks.
"The same thing I would do if we found any other fugitive from the law," Organa replies. "We would apprehend him and take him into custody on Alderaan. He would be questioned and eventually he would go to trial. That's the due process."
"You would do that to Obi-Wan? Drag him back to be executed?" Cody asks.
"Execution isn't a foregone conclusion," Organa says. "In the event that he did, in fact, act in the best interests of the Republic, his sentence will be significantly reduced. Perhaps he could even be pardoned entirely, on account of his previous service."
"How can you honestly think that assassinating the leader of the Republic is in the best interests of the Republic?" Cody asks.
Organa sips his caf. "Obi-Wan's the one who did it."
Cody's stunned speechless by the sheer brazenness of that. How can Organa still have such unshakable faith in Obi-Wan after everything that's happened?
"What do you know that I don't?" Cody asks.
"Pardon?"
"How are you able to...to trust him, still? How can you still believe he did the right thing, after everything that happened because of what he did?" Cody asks. "Do you know something, Organa? Did he tell you something?"
Organa's quiet for a long moment, then says, "No. But I know Obi-Wan."
"I knew him, too," Cody says, "and I--"
He trails off. There's a tight knot in his chest, one that he can't loosen no matter how he tries. He wants to believe in Obi-Wan. He wants to have the unshakable faith that Boil and Organa and so many other members of the 212th have, but he thinks about the chaos and the casualties and the war stretching out for so much longer than it ever should have and he can't.
"...Did Obi-Wan ever tell you about Zigoola?" Organa asks.
"No," Cody says. "The name sounds familiar. Is that a planet?"
Organa nods. "It's a Sith planet, out in Wild Space. The two of us went on a mission there fairly early on in the war--it was the first time the two of us really spent much time together. We didn't get along at the time."
That's hard to believe--Obi-Wan and Organa had always seemed to have some sort of...connection between them. Not just mutual respect and a sterling sense of duty, but something a bit stronger than that, too.
"I don't think I've seen this mission record," Cody says.
"I doubt you have--it's classified, for one, and Obi-Wan was unable to actually write the report due to being heavily compromised for the majority of the mission," Organa says. "I'm not allowed to tell you much about it."
"Then why did you bring it up?" Cody asks.
"You wanted to know how I can still believe in Obi-Wan," Organa replies. "And while it comes from everything Obi-Wan has done to prove himself reliable and trustworthy and kind, Zigoola is where he cemented my complete faith in him."
"A bold statement."
Organa nods. "Maybe so, but true nonetheless. That planet...it was poison to him. There was something about it that got in his mind and twisted him all around--it wanted him to stop being a Jedi, either by death or by conversion. I was miserable there, but he was fighting for his life, hallucinating his worst memories and constantly hearing voices telling him to die." He pauses to drink some more of his caf, then continues, "There's something about seeing a man at his very lowest. When the facade and all the defenses are stripped away, you see who he is in the deepest part of his heart, and Obi-Wan...even when he was out of his mind and dying and telling me I was the most infuriating man in the entire galaxy, he was trying to protect me, trying to complete the mission, trying to do what had to be done. If he was not as strong or as committed to his principles, he would have fallen on Zigoola, and I would not be alive. That's why I still believe in him--because he proved to me who he was, and he could not have deceived me then."
Cody takes a moment to imagine the bleak scene, of Obi-Wan being ripped apart by Sith ghosts and yet still clinging--desperately clinging--to the Jedi ways that he believes in. He can't even picture it. Obi-Wan had always seemed so invincibly strong that no matter how badly beaten and bruised he ended up, Cody knew he would be able to recover. It didn't matter how much death and mourning there was, through all the failures and trials Cody had been through with Obi-Wan, he had never lost faith that Obi-Wan would take the hits and stand up again.
Even at the end, when Obi-Wan had murdered Palpatine, he had looked the same way--calm and collected. Would it have been better if he had been distraught and screaming? Would Cody believe in him more if he'd been able to peel back Obi-Wan's layers of pleasantries and charming smiles and see what lay in the raw heart beating in his chest?
Probably not. Just thinking about seeing Obi-Wan so vulnerable feels...wrong.
Organa sets his cup of caf down. "If Obi-Wan assassinated Palpatine, he had a reason for it--a reason that he felt justified everything that would follow. That's what I believe."
"How could anything justify what happened?" Cody asks. "My men died because of his desertion--men who would not have died if he had stayed true to us. We lost entire planets, the Republic almost broke itself apart. Does none of that count for anything to you?"
"I think...perhaps you should consider that this--" Organa gestures vaguely. "Maybe this was not the worst-case scenario you believe it is."
"You think things could have gone even worse?" Cody asks incredulously.
"There is a story of a dragon," Organa says. "A dragon so large that when it attacked, it would cause the extinction of an entire people. But when the dragon approached, a hero fought the dragon and killed it, and its body fell to the ground, crushing the towns and killing thousands of people within them. The survivors turned against the hero, accusing them of murdering those people and destroying those homes and fields. The hero tried to explain that the dragon would have killed them all, but the survivors would not listen, because they had lost their friends and family and livelihoods, and so the hero was driven off in shame. The dragon, now dead, never posed any more danger to the people, and the hero was remembered as one of the worst villains in history."
"That's an awful story," Cody says. "What the hell is that supposed to teach?"
"It teaches whatever lesson you want to take from it," Organa replies. "I take it to mean that sometimes situations are not as they first seem."
"So, what, you think the people would have been happy with what happened to them just because they would have died otherwise? That's ridiculous."
"No one is denying it would be a tragedy," Organa says. "And no one is saying that you should be happy simply because things could have gone worse. Your losses are real, and I'm sorry for them. What I am saying is that maybe Obi-Wan saw a dragon that we did not, and the only option he saw was to slay it."
"It sounds like you're saying Palpatine was the dragon," Cody says.
"It's a metaphor," Organa replies. "You don't need to take it that literally."
Cody looks down at his datapad, which has fallen asleep over the course of their conversation. It would be nice to be able to believe Obi-Wan was doing the right thing--that somehow, he was the man Cody always believed him to be.
"If he had a reason for doing what he did, then why didn't he tell anyone?" Cody asks. "People would have listened to him--I would have listened to him."
"That, I can't tell you," Organa says. "And in any case, Palpatine had ordered his execution at that point. Maybe he decided that caution was the better part of valor and that explanations could come another day when it was safer to give them."
"Do you really believe that?" Cody asks. "It's been five years. I don't think he's coming back."
"No, I don't think so, either. Without the Temple, he has no family or home here anymore. If he was ever planning to explain himself, I think he would have done it before now," Organa says. "But I trust he had his reasons all the same. That's good enough for me."
There is a gift waiting for Cody when he visits the Archives to do some work a few days later. It is a double knit scarf in 212th colors--gold-on-white on one side, white-on-gold on the other. It is a wide scarf with a stylized sunburst pattern at both ends, which looks shockingly similar to the pattern he had once painted on his armor.
"Where did this come from?" Cody asks.
"One of the Padawans dropped it off for you," Master Nu says. "Maybe it's a thank-you gift for teaching them."
"That can't be right," Cody says. "I hardly teach anyone anything."
"You underestimate yourself. The Padawans love working with you, Cody--you know what you're doing, you don't condescend to them, and you make them feel like they're doing something important. It's the mark of a good teacher."
Cody feels an embarrassed flush creep up his cheeks. He knows how to train people, obviously, but he would never say he's any sort of special talent at it--he just remembers what it was like training at Kamino and all of the things he hated about the trainers there. He hated how they only ever spoke to him when he did something wrong, or how they never explained the point of why they were teaching things a certain way. He hated how they never called him by his name, or ever seemed to see him as a person and not just another unit in a combat engine. A number and a set of statistics--that was all he mattered to the Kaminoans.
Naturally, when he got fast-tracked for command and began teaching the younger batches, he didn't have a damn idea what he was doing, but he knew exactly what he didn't want to be. Most of his brothers did not like his training--his standards were too high and he pushed harder than just about anyone--but at least they know why he did what he did, and that he was looking out for them as people and not just as numbers. And, critically, the training worked. He trained up good soldiers who could do what he needed when he needed it. Cody's got no illusions about his reputation--most of his trainees never liked him, but they respected and trusted him, and in a lot of ways that was more important. Cody didn't care about being liked--he just needed to keep his men alive and working together.
So it's...weird to think that younglings like him just for doing his job. It's not a completely alien concept--he's gotten little thank-you gifts before like small handmade trinkets or, when it got around that he kept a collection of plants, tiny potted succulents, but he kind of just assumed that the gift-giving was a Jedi manners thing, not an 'actually I enjoyed working with you' thing.
Still, even as a genuine token of appreciation, a hand-knit scarf with a custom design is a bit much. Wooley knits sometimes, and Cody knows it would probably take at least fifteen hours of work to make a scarf like this. That's a lot of effort to go to for an instructor you only spent one or two weeks with.
"This is very sweet. I wish I could thank them," Cody says, looping the scarf around his neck. It's softer than any scarf he's ever worn before and it smells faintly of freshly-fallen leaves. "Could you pass on my regards?"
"I'll mention it if I see them again," Master Nu says. "Are you still working today?"
Cody pauses. "Is there a reason I shouldn't?"
"Well, you have an event later tonight, don't you?" Master Nu asks.
"What are you--" Cody stops a moment, then realizes: the funeral is today. Somehow, between his hammering out final arrangements with Boil yesterday evening and waking up this morning, it completely slipped his mind. "I can still work. We scheduled it so I can attend after dinner."
"Cody, you already work so much. No one would mind if you took a day off."
It's true, nobody would, least of all anyone in the Jedi Temple, but it still feels wrong to not work when he's perfectly capable of it.
"This is an important job," Cody says. "The Jedi need me to do this."
"The Jedi Order survived for a thousand years before you arrived," Master Nu says, not unkindly. "And I have done your job for many decades. We appreciate all your hard work, Cody, but this isn't something that ever was or should be entirely on your back--trust us to handle ourselves without your guidance."
"Oh," Cody says, feeling a bit chastised. Perhaps it is a bit arrogant of him to imply that everything would fall apart without his supervision. He hadn't trained his teams for four years just to not trust them to do their jobs, after all. "I need to finish up this request from Chandrila, though."
"Then go finish that," Master Nu says. "And take the rest of the day off. I'm sure your brothers would like to see you today."
"Yes, sir," Cody says, and goes to do just that.
This is how Cody ends up in downtown Coruscant that afternoon, running some errands for the 212th while they get things prepared for the service that evening. Some of it is mundane--Boil is running low on tooka food and Longshot needs a new hand towel after he accidentally set his last one on fire--while others are a bit more sentimental, like small things to leave for Obi-Wan after the pyre.
It's a trial, being in the city. Cody hardly ever leaves the Temple these days, and downtown is just so loud and chaotic in comparison that it makes him feel a little lightheaded. It's familiar, sort of, because Cody has spent some time out in the city in the years since the war ended and he still remembers walking this promenade with Obi-Wan on the way back from the barracks the few times they had actually gotten leave on Coruscant. It was different then. During the war with energy and resource rationing there were never so many people out on the streets, nor were there all the stalls, the shops, the public events. Compared to now, it was practically a ghost town then, and Cody thinks he understands better now what Obi-Wan meant when he used to say one day things could be normal again.
He never liked the city the way Obi-Wan seemed to. Maybe it was part of Obi-Wan's home, but it never was that for Cody. Back during the war, people used to look at him like he wasn't supposed to be there, his trooper armor little more than an unsavory reminder that the war still raged on beyond their safe little world. After Obi-Wan left, they looked at his colors with suspicion and did what they could to get him to leave as soon as he could. Then, after Cody finally put his armor away and truly became a citizen of the Republic, they distrusted him when they didn't outright ignore him.
Cody finds himself thinking about Organa's story of the dragon again. When Dooku had made his last desperate push all the way to the Core and attacked the Senate directly, the citizens of Coruscant were terrified, and rightly so. After the GAR had successfully driven Dooku off, there was some gratitude for the soldiers who fought and died, but most of it was anger.
How dare you let them come so far, they said.
Hundreds of civilians died today. You should do better, they said.
Why didn't you save us? they said. Why did you let us die?
Cody understands their anger. Nobody deserves to have a war come up to their doorstep, and the bombings and the deaths from that attack were horrific on their own, but he wonders if they ever realize if his men hadn't fought their battles so hard for so long, the war would have arrived in Coruscant much, much sooner.
He wonders if civilians would appreciate that more if they had seen the dragon, if they had tasted the horror and the death early on and understood what the stakes truly were. Would they have been so quick to push the clones out of their minds and leave the fighting to the magic space wizards and their magically appearing clone armies? Would they have read about Separatist attacks on Ryloth, on Mon Cala, or any other number of planets, and think maybe we're next instead of saying it was somebody else's problem?
It's a horrible thing to think. Cody doesn't actually wish pain and fear on people just because they treat him poorly. It's not like he wants their parades and accolades or to be made out as some kind of hero. He had a job and he did it to the best of his ability, so he doesn't need awards for that, but he wishes they would care. For these people, safely holed up in the Core with people fighting battles for them far away, it's easy to take their safety and victory for granted and be impatient about things going back to 'normal' as if people weren't literally dying just out of their field of view.
It makes Cody sick. There's so many brothers that didn't make it, and the war didn't really solve anything--the Republic is still split from the Separatists with only a few trade agreements between them--so sometimes, even though the war is over and Republic is at peace, it really doesn't feel like any of it mattered. Nobody learned anything, nobody's really changing anything. He devoted his entire life to this farce, and what does he have to show for it?
Nothing but empty words.
Once, a long time ago, Obi-Wan would have told him to meditate on his feelings and take a step back to ask himself why he's really so bitter.
Well, Obi-Wan isn't here anymore.
Cody can admit it--he misses Obi-Wan. He misses the conversations, he misses the company, he misses fighting side-by-side. He misses having someone he felt he could trust, not just because he was a brother with loyalty engineered into his flesh and bones, but because he simply cared so deeply that he had no other possible choice but to act. Things had always looked brighter at Obi-Wan's side, because he was so steadfast and reliable it was unthinkable that he would fail to lead the way ahead.
Obi-Wan had always seemed larger than life. He had a natural charm and he always seemed so candid, talking readily about anything and everything, but Cody had realized after watching Obi-Wan put his famed negotiation skills to work that as casual as he seemed, he was always deliberate. His conversations were careful, his rhetoric was sharp, and he spoke with the intention of making his points fully and clearly--he conveyed exactly what he wanted and nothing more. Obi-Wan told him once that the easiest way to conceal information was to misdirect--after all, if you put stepping stones across a river, your audience need not dive into the water and see what lies within the empty spaces.
When Cody thinks of Obi-Wan, he doesn't think of the battles or the impassioned speeches. He thinks of the moments in between, of Obi-Wan watching over troops in the medbay, of Obi-Wan lost in thought in the mess over a half-eaten meal, of Obi-Wan reading a book in the small leisure time he could claw for himself. There was something delicate about him when he was alone and silent, like the iridescence on the surface of a soap bubble that would vanish if anyone tried to get too close. Cody wonders about those empty spaces--words Obi-Wan kept inside and chose to never use, because he never wanted to even let the idea cross Cody's mind.
Cody doesn't know how much of that strong, unbreakable image was the mask and how much was truly the man himself. After so much time looking through Obi-Wan's mission records, of talking to people who knew him, of trying to make sense of his final acts, Cody wonders if he ever really understood Obi-Wan at all.
Maybe he had taken Obi-Wan for granted, just like everyone else.
It's with these thoughts that Cody enters a small tea shop a couple levels into the undercity. Obi-Wan had brought him here a long time ago, saying that it carried some of his favorite teas, and had offered some for Cody to drink.
Cody's never really seen the appeal of tea--the flavor just doesn't do it for him--but he had enjoyed sharing tea with Obi-Wan nonetheless, just the soft scent of the leaves and the warm mug in between his hands. He thinks maybe it would be good, to try and relive those moments and remember the good times he had, back when he thought Obi-Wan would never abandon them. Today is about remembrance, after all.
It's only when he looks around at the rows and rows of tins that he realizes he has no idea what tea it was that Obi-Wan liked. He can distinctly remember which cabinet Obi-Wan had kept it in and what temperature to heat the water to and how long to steep it, but he can't, for the life of him, remember what the tea is actually called.
He goes down the rows slowly, squinting at the tins as if that will make him magically remember information he doesn't know, and when that unsurprisingly yields no results, Cody starts picking up tins and smelling the leaves to see if there's anything that seems familiar.
He's at it for about fifteen minutes when he hears an extremely loud voice say, "Commander! Why, it's been such a long time since I've seen you!"
Cody looks up from the tin he's smelling to see a Weequay in a hat and long jacket staring back at him with a large grin on his face. "Do I know you?"
The Weequay recoils as if struck. "Commander, you wound me! How could you forget your very good friend Hondo? And after all the good times we've been through, too!"
Cody vaguely remembers being in the same room as Hondo once and regretting every second of it. Officially, Hondo was a pirate or something, but he was better remembered by his unofficial occupation, which was being the most annoying man in the entire galaxy.
"What a coincidence that we could meet here today like this," Hondo continues, getting directly into Cody's personal space. "Surely, this is a sign of good fortune from the stars themselves. We should celebrate!"
"I would rather not, thanks all the same," Cody says, pushing Hondo away from him. "Why are you here?"
"Well, to buy tea of course! That is what tea shops are for." Hondo plucks a tin off a nearby shelf and places it in Cody's hand. "You should try this one--I hear it's very good."
"Um, thanks," Cody says.
"But never mind that, how are you, Commander? Things have changed so much since we last met--I hardly recognized you without your armor." Hondo slings his arm around Cody's shoulders, much to Cody's dismay. "And is this a new scarf you're wearing? It's very fashionable, if I do say so myself. Do you like it?"
"This scarf was a gift. You're not taking it," Cody says.
"Oh, Commander, do you really think so poorly of me?" Hondo asks, with great melodrama. He seems to be trying to make tooka eyes, but the effect is somewhat lost by his...him-ness. "I would never steal a gift. That would be unacceptable conduct for a great and honorable pirate king like myself."
"Hondo, if you have a point, get to it. I don't have time to waste talking to you."
Hondo sighs. "You military types are all so boring. Why must there always be a point? Isn't it enough to want to spend time with a good friend and see how they're doing?"
"We were never friends," Cody says.
"Nonsense," Hondo says, slapping Cody on the back. "You are a good friend of my good friend Kenobi, so of course we are friends! That is the way of the world, my good Commander."
"I'm not a Commander anymore," Cody says, stepping away from Hondo. "And stop touching me or I'll comm someone to get you arrested."
Hondo seems to deflate a bit. "Ah, I see how it is. If you are so busy, then I suppose with great regret I must leave you to your business." He tips his hat. "It was good to see you are still doing well, Commander. Stay healthy until I see you again!"
With that, Hondo thankfully leaves, not even purchasing anything on the way out. Cody hopes he didn't steal anything.
He looks down at the tin of leaves Hondo had given him--it's a simple round tin just like any of the others. Carefully, he twists off the top and gives it a careful sniff. It smells gentle, like the early light of dawn over the horizon.
It's the tea Obi-Wan used to drink.
"Can't you read? The recipe says medium heat! Does this look like medium heat to you?"
"It's not high and it's not low, so that's medium enough! Get off my dick about it, Wooley, and--don't you dare touch that stove!"
Cody looks up from his mixing bowl to where Wooley and Trapper are on the verge of a fistfight. Off to the side, Boil has his striped black tooka in his lap, who he is valiantly distracting with pats to keep it from wreaking havoc on their food. A few other clones are scattered around the living room, trying to fold dumplings and prepare buns with some limited success.
It's mid-afternoon, and there's eight of them piled into Boil's apartment with others coming in and out to shuttle food and ingredients. Boil's apartment is the largest one in the 212th because he had successfully argued that his tooka needed the space for healthy enrichment, so they had sequestered it for the day to cook dinner for everyone before the funeral. So far, it's going about as well as expected, which is to say, not fantastic, but they're having fun and at least nothing's caught on fire.
"Hey, if you're going to get into a fight, do it outside," Cody says. "Mitts is already upset with me because I won't get you idiots to pull your punches."
"The bruises build character," Longshot says, pouring a handful of chopped onions into Cody's mixing bowl.
"Yeah? You wanna tell that to Mitts' face?" Cody asks.
"Absolutely not," Longshot replies. "He'll make that sad face again, the one that makes me feel like shit. I hate that face."
"Good. That means it's working," Cody says. "Wooley, if you're seriously going to fight him at least turn off the stove first."
Wooley sticks out his tongue. "I'm not getting into any fights, especially not with people who can't read the cookbook."
"Yeah? You wanna come closer and say that again?" Trapper asks. "Maybe I can introduce you to a dictionary--"
"Not inside the apartment!" Cody says, putting down his mixing bowl. "Come on, outside, shoo." He half-drags Wooley and Trapper to the door and tosses them out. "Don't come back in until you're civil."
"I can't believe you'd do this to your most loyal soldiers, Commander," Trapper says, holding a hand over his heart. "I'm shocked and betrayed."
Cody scoffs and waves him off. "Go make yourselves useful and get another bag of flour--we're almost out."
Wooley snaps off a cheeky salute. "Right away, sir."
With that, Wooley and Trapper head off to get some more ingredients, thankfully without any stove-based fights breaking out between them. Cody sighs and goes back into the apartment and checks on the sauce the two of them were cooking, then after some consideration, adjusts the stove dial so it's closer to medium heat.
It's been a while since he's had a big get-together like this. In the days after the war ended, when hostility against Obi-Wan and anyone associated with him was at its highest, the 212th had largely stuck together out of sheer self-defense. They started some social events together, including a monthly potluck, which lasted about a year until someone's soup caused a massive food poisoning incident. It was really kind of impressive because the Kaminoans allegedly engineered them to be resistant to food poisoning, but apparently the best genetic engineering in the galaxy couldn't hold a candle to a clone's accidental biohazardous concoction. Go figure.
The point is, it's nice. It feels good to be in the same space together working on the same thing, to hear the chatter and get into petty squabbles and eat food together at the end of it all. It's all the things they'd never had growing up in Kamino--the freedom to eat what they want, to manage themselves without supervision, to be around each other without the rigid framework of the military. In a lot of ways, this is what they had fought for all those years. Not just for themselves, but for everyone else, too--a safe place to call a home and a family to share it with.
The oven timer dings, and Cody ducks down to switch out the squash casserole with the stuffed rolls. He's not going to kid himself and say he's good at cooking--he usually takes all his meals in the Temple refectory, so he doesn't get much practice--but he enjoys it when he's got the time to really get down and put something together. He likes food, which was a pleasant surprise after the war ended and he started to eat things that weren't the same rations day in and day out. He likes the variety of tastes and textures and the smells and all the ways they come together--or don't. This many years out, it still feels like a luxury to savor food instead of getting it all down as fast as possible for the sustenance.
It's appropriate, he thinks, that food could bring them together before they hold the funeral service for Obi-Wan. Better to find happiness in each other and the people who are still left even while they remember the ones who have gone.
He steals one of the freshly-baked jam tarts while Longshot's looking the other way and pops it into his mouth. Longshot got really good at baking about two years ago and this is no exception--the fruit gives it a bright flavor that's perfectly balanced between the sweet and the tart, and it's still gooey in the middle in a way that sticks to his teeth. He's not a huge fan of sweets, but he could get behind these. He reaches out to take another and Longshot slaps his hand away.
"You can wait until later just like everyone else, Commander," Longshot says. "Don't think I didn't see you steal that first one."
"Me? I would never do something like that," Cody says. "There must be someone else here stealing jam tarts."
Longshot glares at him and says, "In that case, you won't mind if I move these somewhere else, will you?" He picks up the tray and carries them out to the living room where they're safe from Cody's sticky fingers.
At that moment, the apartment door slams open.
"Boil, Cody!" Wooley says, looking panicked and gasping for breath. "Something's--you've got to--"
"Wooley?" Boil asks. "What's going on? Did something happen?"
Wooley swallows and nods. "The courtyard--someone's vandalized the funeral."