TexasDreamer01

Title and Platform: Thermodynamic equilibrium (tumblr)
Recipient: ricebowls
Rating: Teen
Fandoms: Star War: The Clone Wars (2008)
Characters: Codywan, Original Clone Trooper Characters
Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Missing Scene, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Injuries, Mentions of Background Character Death, Mild Blood, Mission Fic, Happy Ending, Mentioned Anakin Skywalker
Summary:
"He held his general's life in his hands. It wasn't the first time, and all he needed was to keep his grip."

Another droid goes down, and he flexes his hand, feeling the creaking of his armor as the plastoid fractures just the slightest bit more under the stress. Obi-Wan is behind him, panting silently – he only knows this from the press of his general’s side against him, staying propped up by sheer force of will despite the hastily-staunched wound in his side.

There wasn’t enough bacta, having passed his off to another trooper while he was en route to Kenobi’s rendezvous point, the crackling comm message still echoing in his ears as his HUD keeps a running tally of casualties on the field. Despite the numbers increasing at a regular rate, they were making good time in their battle plans. It was a typical exfil mission of a Jedi that had been working on a Separatist-held territory, with Skywalker working from Coruscant to ensure the end point of the Jedi’s travel was secured.

If it were earlier in the war, it would have been a riskier strategy, but many norms had been thrown out of the airlock. Shifting as he heard a sound, Cody tapped on his helmet, adjusting his screen settings to look around the bend of the bombed-out building he and his general were using as cover. The smoke from the competing cannons from both armies made it hazardous to see much, and from the suppressed rasping of his general, worse to breathe. He licked his lips, worried even as he exhaled to steady his pulse.

The way looked mostly deserted, and he took a moment to check on Kenobi, moving carefully so they always kept a continuous point of contact. Still, even the smoothest of transitions still made the man tense in pain, and he resisted the urge to hold the other close, not needing a connection to the Force to know their pool of relative safety could be disturbed at any moment. Kenobi leaned wearily into his chest, one hand on his ’saber and eyes holding the vague glaze that told him the general was using said Force to hold himself together and act as lookout at the same time.

Cody wished he could admire his general’s dedication to be useful, but right now all it made him was frustrated and heart-sore, knowing from harsh experience that any Jedi – and particularly Kenobi, with his history of throwing himself into the Force as its acting hand – sustaining such active contact in a war zone could result in potentially permanent neurological damage. He almost wished he had listened to the medics about what to carry with him, but between the accoutrements as commander and navigating an entire systems army, medical devices that could monitor and ward off seizures fell distressingly low on the list.

“Koyaci, Kote,” Kenobi murmured, the man’s lips dry even as his eyes were nearly luminescent with the Force, pulling the thought straight from their latent bond. He wanted to choke on a laugh, unsure if it would morph into a sob, choosing instead to press around the edges of the wound to see if it had bled beyond its bandages and wondering how many he could plaster on top of each other before his general truly risked bleeding out. A hand laid over his, ’saber between them and carrying a hum audible even to his Force-deaf ears, “All will be well. We need to move.”

He nodded, inhaling sharply and considering the HUD read-out of his own vitals. There was going to be bruising on his hands regardless, but so far he had avoided anything warranting true medical attention. Checking the power on his blaster reflexively, he shuffled Kenobi closer to him, readying them to make the next point in their path back to the battalion. Nothing stood out even as his skin prickled in uneasiness. Clear enough.

One finger resting at readiness on the trigger, Cody led them through the slowly-settling haze, footsteps on uneven, broken ground muffled by the distant din of dying clankers and the reverb of cannons. Kenobi’s laboured breathing was his timepiece, calculating how much time they had and the rate they needed to move as he kept a firm grip on his general’s hand. The reciprocal grip was barely there, but it was there, and he gripped onto that hope like a lifeline.

It was obvious, now, when they were about to run across a droid. The place was deserted enough that there was only the cursory patrols, clanking metal alerting them more clearly than a HUD or the Force ever could. He kept his blaster at the ready, having surreptitiously dialed down the power in favour of silence and picking his shots carefully to disable them. Without fail, the combatants fell in a heap of sparking metal, and he let the satisfaction drift across his bond with Kenobi, bolstering the both of them.

They were pushed into a delicate balance of stealth and a dwindling clock, Cody stopping as often as he could to check on the blood-sodden bandages and murmuring a little prayer when necessary. Sometimes Kenobi even mouthed them along with him, a wisp of air that might have passed as speech if he were unencumbered by trying to keep them both alive to the rendezvous point. A part of him wishes that he didn’t need to wear his helmet – but then, he only ever took his helmet off when he was assured of the safety of the situation. This was no battleship painted in their colours, sailing amidst a fleet of their own and protected on all quarters.

He had miles to go until they could sleep, curled around each other and safe even from the bustle of the infirmary. Kenobi brushed a thumb weakly upon his own, both of them having reduced to holding hands as Cody focused on making sure they were cleared to shuffle across each uncomfortably open space. The next point in their path is within eyesight, faintly obscured in the artificial gloom, and he squeezes the hand in his, gesturing with a tilt of head toward it.

Defining signals had long since passed, and he knew the message was received for Kenobi to brace himself, the tight inhale his only response before he’s quickly scouting the area as he half-drags the general with him. One hand is held aloft and aiming instinctively in front of him in a loose, narrow sweep.

Kenobi must shift wrong, he must, because he gasps, the noise distracting him from the steady clank-clank-clank of an incoming droid patrolling. The loss of Kenobi's hand in his is as rattling as the three shots he fires on muscle memory alone, gripping tightly onto the corner of his mind that contains everything he cherishes about his general. He prays once more, knowing it’s the only thing that would stick until they were back under the tender wings of their troops, and takes his eyes off the next sight line to look for Kenobi behind him.

On some miracle, a currency he’s not willing to barter in, Kenobi isn’t thrown entirely to the ground. A couple hurried steps forward is all it takes for him to reach the other, one arm scooping around Kenobi's side and rucking the man close enough to imagine the thundering heartbeat that must surely echo his own. He glances quickly ahead, a scan for danger that proves no immediate concern, and then beside him to the sight of Kenobi's clenched jaw and furrowed brow.

Alive, though. Cody can work with that.

They’re out of bacta patches, bandages, and creative improvisation, so instead he clamps his hand on Kenobi's side, applying pressure with strength of desperation alone. It draws a shudder from his general, and he wants to sympathize, if he had any room in his situational assessment for a gram of weakness. He doesn’t, though, all of it being used up on allowing Kenobi his.

He grits his teeth, wishing he at least had the forethought to switch overlays on his HUD to better see through the gloom and the digital beacon he had set up on the battlemap. They weren’t there yet, and his vision was hazed in solar diffraction, the amber colouring muting extraneous tones.

Regardless, they’re still too far in the open to think too much. He briefly tightens his grip, enough to rouse Kenobi, vocoder transmuting the murmur to a whisper of voiced static, “Are you ready?”

Kenobi shifts in his grip – too easily, he thinks, and muffles that thought down along with its accompanying swell of panic – but finally assents with a nod that could well be a loll of the head. He takes it, knowing there wasn’t enough time to clarify matters, and mentally goes through the remainder of their route again, designating checkpoints with only mild despair that each stop would be in easy eyesight of each other. Still, it was better to take small steps that were more likely to succeed than large ones with a high chance of failure.

The next hideaway structure was close, and Kenobi made a good game of it, steps stealthy even as their cover was burned away by bright sunshine poking through the haze. He refused to look backwards, memorizing the feel of his general’s shoulders nestled into the crook of his arm as they snuck forward, his gaze alert to any unusual movement.

He didn’t want to say it was too quiet, but- But. Cody had already switched his pistol to his off-hand, and that required more concentration than he was willing to allocate when it came to compensating for his aim. They had only the scarcest of dust in the air to hide them, whisper-thin shadows that coiled around their boots and eddied in their steps. Beside him, Kenobi was still breathing.

It took him a moment to realize he was murmuring to himself, an unconscious bid to keep the general with him. Names rolled off his tongue, memorized in order, a long line of those marching ahead that stretched far back into his youth. They were weighted with grief, with that dangerous edge of wishful thinking. Nobody ever marched alone in this war, ghosts of their brethren invisible to the realities of the day but nevertheless clearing their way. He sucked in a breath, refusing to falter in the litany as he refused to falter in delivering his general to the rendezvous point.

Another droid nears them, loud in its chatter as it patrolled. The increased security was disconcerting for the problems it borrowed, but relieving in that he knew the ship’s radar would be able to track the shift in troop movement from orbit, changing their countdown to something more in their favour. The change in plans occurred swift as thought, both of them moving in sync as they decided to sneak up on the droid. Cody had the feeling that this was one of the last droids for a while, and also that it was Kenobi who had that feeling. He could almost feel himself grin, “Not always bad feelings, are they?”

Kenobi’s smirk was in his subdued voice, keeping pace with him in belying easiness even as his words were thinly spoken, “Statistically likely, my dear.”

They proceed to the next checkpoint, without visible haste but unrelentingly. Their shuffle step was muffled only by the ambient noise, one more rock kicked down the road along with many others. He wanted to tell himself that they were getting closer to their destination, but he knew that it was only a fact when they had already arrived.

The latent ping along their bond buoys him, the quiet affection tendrilled beneath the subtle nudge in his mind reminiscent of early morning tea and studious reflections of incoming orders. It has the entirely expected benefit of warning him of the next patrol – something that makes him want to smile fondly, Kenobi always keeping watch wherever he could – and Cody takes advantage of the blooming rays of sunshine at their backs to disguise them from the cheap and mass-produced optical sensors these droids had, a practiced wind-up that made the delivered punch all the more satisfying for the fact that it dropped like a sack of tarpa roots.

He rotated his wrist, feeling the ache reverberate down from their rush fleeing to another minuscule checkpoint to their rendezvous point. The silence was relative, and he kept one ear cocked to the fractured sound of his general’s breathing, hoping it wasn’t a timer that ran out before they could flag down a trooper.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan whispered, ensnaring his attention without any special tricks at all. He turned in the loose circle of his general’s hold, one arm firm over the man’s armor and carefully away from the wound he deeply suspected was escaping its impromptu bandaging. The other’s eyes were beginning to glaze, making his heart pick up its pace. Before he could speak – probably something stiffly concerned, unused to handling Obi-Wan's injuries at such a severe level without some back-up better than creativity – his attention was riveted to the hand in his, a lethally defensive weapon pressed between their grips, “Will you- will you take care of him?”

Looking back at Obi-wan made his eyes ache, as much from the vulnerability as from the bright rays of the sun his helmet had trouble filtering out from the shadows of his general. He licks his lips, too slight for the muscle ticks to be picked up by his HUD, gives a short nod, “We take care of our own,” he said, knowing by Kenobi's sigh that his sentiment was understood. As Anakin was Obi-Wan's family, and as Obi-Wan was… was his, that made Anakin Cody's family by proxy. He grips the lightsaber in his hand, feeling the pulse of its heart in time to the fluttering beat of its holder, feeling at once at peace and uneasy at the belief in him, “But you're going to tell him yourself, understood?”

Obi-Wan nods, exhaling as he slumps against him, “Understood, Commander. Get us out of here.”

He presses his head against his general, knowing he would have followed that order even if it were never voiced. They either made it out together or not at all, his mind decided long before he knew Obi-Wan could smile at him with weary wryness, fingers wet with his own blood latching on to Cody’s armor in a bid for another moment of strength. His HUD was ticking off his general’s vitals, scattered from their baseline and sent to languish in the background of running data fed to him from their environment, “I have you.”

A brilliant smile, eclipsing the waning late afternoon sun before fading away on the heels of Obi-Wan's wavering consciousness, “You do.”

Taking in a sturdy breath, he recollects their position, eyes sweeping across their surroundings and the HUD alike. He spends the interim time with a firm grasp upon both his general and the man’s weapon, attention split to try and reconnect his helmet to the trooper ’net, leaning on the tendril of Kenobi's mind in his own, as sure as if their hands were still twined lazily together. It’s difficult to carry him the last klick with the sound of his helmet running through the ’net diagnostics he ordered it to run in the background, the ion cannons and other artillery having obscured the connection until the dust could settle.

He can hear Obi-Wan's thoughts in the back of his head, a subconscious murmur that let him know there was more to the man than a weakening pulse and bleeding wound. It made him grip the ’saber tighter, feeling like a part of his general’s soul was there in his hands, vulnerable crystal encased in steel – very much like its wielder, a reassuring beat of energy he could coordinate his worries to.

They had been working to triangulate some sort of signal, patching through different protocols for noise and trying to get a match on voice patterns they had on record. Skywalker was busy in an Coruscant, and they couldn’t even borrow R2 at the moment. The trooper rubbed his fingers together, setting them back on the keyboard to try another route, a brother next to him working on a map as data was fed in live. Commander Cody was with the general, so the situation was either a waiting game or an emergency they hadn’t planned for.

A ping came in on his headset, and he tapped it to let the message go through, “This is Trooper Iron. Name and message, please.”

“Trooper Whoop here,” There was static crackling on the line, and Iron tapped a few controls, smoothing the connection out, “We’re seeing a dust cloud about ten klicks east of us, unusual activity.”

He glanced at his CO, tilting his head and adding the other to the line as the Captain stepped forward. Heart thumping, he inhaled, “Captain Sixes is on the line. Want to repeat that?”

“Sir,” Whoop’s verbal salute was crisp over the comms, “We’ve got a dust cloud about ten klicks east and unusual activity. Permission to check it out?”

Iron shared a look with Sixes, aware that the general chatter in the Comms room had dulled as soon as the conversation had registered. It was unusual activity, especially as the battle was winding down – the only thing missing was their general and commander. His captain looked at the map next to him, the trooper obligingly turning his chair so their CO could get a better look. A twitch of lips, and the captain tapped his own comm, “You have a go, Whooper. We’ll send someone to rendezvous with you.”

He grinned at the pleased “Sir” in Whooper’s voice, leaning back into his chair. Iron clapped a hand on his shoulder, “Good work, troopers.”

There were no shortage of volunteers to fetch their officers, but someone had to make sure the lights were still on at home, as General Kenobi was fond of saying. Beside him, the map was swiftly updated.

Ten klicks didn’t seem like that great of a distance, if one discounted the middling ravine that took a couple of hours for the engineers to pop a bridge over. Whoop couldn’t help the bounce in his step as he walked over to Booker, watching the trooper patch the signal from Comms over to a mobile unit that boosted its range. “Are we gonna be able to reach them with that?”

“Soon as I’m done getting through all the interference,” Booker replied, pointing to where the bridge was, all freshly unrolled like one of those luxury carpets in the Senate that Skywalker was gossiping about one time. Theirs was cooler, though, he decided, settling his hands over his rifle as he watched the faint flickering of the lights bobbing on the bridge nearly in time with Booker’s one-handed typing, “I’m adjusting the signal buoys so we can get a direct line between the commander and comms.”

Way cooler, He thinks smugly, wanting to let out a small whoop at it. With the way the nearby troopers tilted their helmets at him in amusement, he figured they knew.

His comm crackles in that particular way that lets him know Booker is running a diagnostic and hooking them up to a patched terminal, “Aaaand we have a go, sir. Whenever you’re ready.”

This time he doesn’t stop the delighted sound, one loud whoop! as he pats his rifle, striding forward, “Let’s get ’em home!”

At the ripple of identical whoops echoing out as half the troopers packed up and fell in line, he grinned. Best bridge ever.

When his comms clicked in, Cody almost startled. Almost, because if he did, he might have dropped his general, and that was an absolute no-go. Instead he hauled in a breath, meeting the faint, quizzical tug through the Force resounding through the ’saber in his hand.

“Almost there,” he murmured, keeping the unlit blade at the ready position, scanning for any last-minute clankers that might pop in on them, “Just got a ping, might be closer to our pick-up than I think.”

Obi-Wan spared him a delicate snort, both of them knowing that Cody rarely misjudged a distance. The man had been slowing down in incremental steps, breathing so steady it had to be intentional. He tamped down on his worry, not wanting it to swamp him with the fatigue that he was keeping at bay with positive thoughts. It was slow going, but at least they didn’t have much of a reason to be out of breath.

He tilted his head closer to Obi-Wan's for a moment, counting the breaths. Not too much of a reason, anyway.

The temperature gauge in one corner of his HUD registered the climbing temperature, mostly through the tint of infrared he had turned on a couple of check-points back, when the dust had first begun to settle. It wasn’t on so much for the clankers as it was his general, a quicker way of tracking vitals than trying to see how much blood was soaking through the compression bandage. The method was also better for his sanity, as well, despite how often he and Kenobi had cracked jokes about it being one of the first casualties, right next to their senses of humor.

Both of them were relying more on the Force now to communicate, silent as it was with Obi-Wan's focus being riveted to managing his wound and being conscious enough to drag his feet after Cody’s slow gait, so he had only the most marginal of ideas that he was walking with the living instead of someone with one foot already set to march. It made the crackle of static on his comms, a precursor to a rigged communication line being patched through, breath-taking.

“Commander?”

Exhaling roughly, he flicked his eyes to the gleaming icon in the corner of his HUD, activating the incoming line, “Name and rank.”

He supposed his clipped adherence to protocol could be forgiven, given the whoop of delight that served as both an answer and an identification. It made him grin, broad enough to confuse his HUD, “Good to hear you, trooper. Got a medic on hand?”

There was a murmured shit on the other side, “Sure do, Commander. How many do you need?”

Obi-Wan stirred in his arm, noticing that their usual was different but not entirely cognizant of why. He shushed his general, fingers aching with the need to curl around the man, to be safe in their quarters. He did one last visual sweep of the area, knowing they were within eyesight of the rendezvous point. It would have to be good enough.

Just in case, he lit the ’saber, the familiar, protective blue held in front of the both of them in deadly form. It wasn’t a true Soresu, but the spirit of it was encapsulated in the way Cody was unaltered in his protection of Kenobi, a bubble of determination that could not be broached.

“Just the one, Whoop,” Cody replied, holding Obi-Wan close, “We’ll see you there.”

Footnotes:

Written for the 2023 codywanreversebang, based upon ricebowls' wonderful art piece, alongside fellow writer thejediandthemandalorian (their fic here). Both were fantastic to work with!

Do I know what a tarpa root is? Nope. It's completely made-up, pretend it's a Space Potato.

I really enjoyed the new OCs, troopers Iron, Whoop, Booker, and Captain Sixes - hopefully I'll have some opportunity in future works to add them in.