In which Tobirama is sort of Obi-Wan, Madara is Anakin but not quite, and Obito and Kakashi don’t quite fit the roles of Asajj Ventress and Luke Skywalker but try their best regardless.

It’s always been something of a point of pride, for Ponds, that he never really has to worry about his general.

There’s a child hiding behind his robes. Mace looks down, brow rising like a warning flare, but doesn’t move. Leia looks back, all big, innocent brown eyes and perfect guilelessness, and pulls a fold of brown cloth over her head as she practically stuffs herself under his chair.

“There’s too much to be done,” Padmé says, and looks back to meet the holo’s flickering gaze. “Our base on Ithor was compromised, and I can't take the time to vet a bodyguard—” “Then it’s a good thing,” Obi-Wan says with careful cheer, “that I found one for you.”

The sight of Obi-Wan sprawled out in the warm, shallow pool, eyes closed as he drowses, is too much for any sentient to resist, and Kit certainly isn't about to try.

“Sir, please,” Kix says, the closest Cody has ever heard him to tears of frustration. It’s enough to make him stop dead, because Kix never sounds like that. “I just need to stitch you up, that’s all.”

A shadow falls over the mountaintop just as the first droid drops down onto the rocks above Fives.

“One more,” Alpha decides, and beneath him Jon can't do anything but moan, hitching and ragged.

“Are you really sure this is necessary?” Jon asks, faintly hunted.

“This,” Xanatos says with perfect conviction, “is going to be an absolute disaster, I can't believe you agreed to this.”

“Be careful,” Jon says, though Nico likely doesn’t need the reminder. “If the Sith Lord notices—” “Then he’d best not,” Nico says, and vanishes with a ripple of light. A moment later, the door opens, then shuts again, and Knol snorts. “Fancy tricks, all of you,” she says, amused, and takes the hand Jon offers her. “Says the woman who eats fire,” Jon says. “With the Force.”

With a sound of quiet sympathy, Kit reaches out, tapping his knuckles lightly against Rex's pauldron. “Forgive me, Captain, but I believe you would be far more comfortable without your armor. The beach cannot be a pleasant place for you right now.” Rex pauses, almost startled by the idea of taking his armor off. He’s on a mission, or at least the disastrous tail end of one, and unless he’s on leave, he almost never strips down to his blacks. And it’s been…months, since his last stretch of leave that wasn’t cut off before it even started. “Oh,” he says dumbly, and then flushes, reaching for the clasps on his armor. “Right, sorry, sir.”

“I'm not going to stay with the ship,” Anakin says, outraged. Savage closes his eyes, not quite praying for patience, but—reaching for it, certainly. Having a padawan has been good for his self-control in ways Savage hasn’t even wanted to consider too closely.

Thire's grimace is apologetic, but that doesn’t stop him from saying, “We’ve got a guy from that group of infiltrators who got rounded up last night asking to speak with command.” Fox waits, brow raised, because if every lowlife who wanted to talk to command ended up in his office he’d never do anything else. Thire knows that, too. If this guy rates a mention, there’s a reason. Thire's expression says he needs a vacation, and also someone else willing to play messenger. “He says he’s a Jedi, sir.”

Agen digs his fingers into the silver-veined bark, smiling a little. Pushes upright, flicking his hair back behind his shoulder, and pulls his outer robe off, draping it over a branch. “A trooper in distress,” he says, stepping forward. “I believe Jedi are supposed to rectify such things.” Two pairs of dark eyes snap to him, and Fives's widen with glee. He wriggles harder under Echo's pinning weight, like a landed fish, and cries, “General Kolar, help! I'm being overrun!”

“Leia, it’s fine,” a man says, and it’s not quite soothing. More entreating, and Boba wrinkles his nose, shifting slightly. His hands are cuffed behind him, and one of his captors was smart enough to steal the lockpicks from his belt. Boba hates smart enemies. “It’s not fine,” the woman says acidly. “Luke, he tried to kill us!” “Only once,” Luke says stubbornly. “And technically he was taking Han alive.”

Fox, Padmé, and a conversation about armor.

Tup gathers his courage, leans in. With a flicker of humor, Mace dips his head to meet him, taking the kiss without hesitation. Behind them, someone chokes.

The general is asleep. Not his general, of course. At least not officially. But Cody still pauses at the edge of the camp, caf in hand, and watches Mace breathe for a long, long moment before he steps closer and glances around them, checking whether anything has changed in the handful of minutes he was gone.

“We’re getting a commander?” a loud voice asks, delighted as it carries through the trees.

“Soon, padawan,” Qui-Gon says, and Obi-Wan doesn’t appreciate the amusement in his voice at all, but his disgruntled look doesn’t win him anything except a raised brow and the calmly bemused glance that always makes Master Windu eye Qui-Gon’s hair like he’s about to pull on it.

There's a moment of absolute silence as Fives and Echo trade startled glances, Rex gapes at Obi-Wan, and Kix and Jesse freeze, eyes widening. Then, deliberately, awkwardly, Rex clears his throat, face about four shades redder than it was a moment ago. “General, you—you know Quinlan?” No wonder they made it out of the smuggler’s mansion in one piece. Obi-Wan breathes in through his nose, lets it out, and then says, “Very well, yes. Quinlan Vos, I thought you were dead, and instead you were—were—playing hooker to a crime lord!”

The press of a body sliding into the bed behind him wakes Mace from a light sleep, too alert for any real sort of surprise, and he huffs as thick arms wrap around him, shift him. “So you took my invitation after all,” he says, and there's a sound behind him, rough and amused.

“I appreciate your willingness to indulge me, Commander,” Padmé says, keeping her eyes very firmly fixed forward as Tekla works. Just because she wants to stare doesn’t mean she will.

“Well,” Kit says lightly. “This does seem to be a predicament, doesn’t it?” Pressed right up against him, gauntlets digging bruises into his almost-bare hips, Dogma squeezes his eyes tightly shut. “I'm going to kill my whole squad,” he says, perfectly certain and resigned to it.

That sort of tight-curled body almost always means pain. Bly pauses at the edge of the camp, attention caught by the last campfire before the ring of sentries. A man, Human, is seated on a rock by the fire, curled in on himself with his knees drawn up, and the length of his limbs means he’s probably tall, but he’s managed to press himself down into a knot that looks strangely vulnerable. He doesn’t have a cloak, but there's a worn pack on the ground next to him, and he wouldn’t be the first intelligence officer to look a little out of place in the middle of a battalion of clones.

“What is that?” Thire asks, wrinkling his nose as Fox marches past him. He immediately turns to open a window. Fox snorts, lifting a boot to kick Thorn where he’s sprawled out on the couch. Thorn groans, but raises his head, and Fox jerks his head at him. “A Jedi,” he answers, and Thorn freezes, eyes widening.

“It’s Chancellor Palpatine,” he says clearly, as steadily as he’s able to. “Chancellor Palpatine is the Sith Lord. I need your help to kill him.” There's one beat of stunned, frozen silence. Then, careful, Thire clears his throat. “You want us to kill the Supreme Chancellor?” he asks. “Yes,” Mace says, and when he sits back, all three commanders are staring at him. Something in his chest sinks, grim and resigned. “I can't—” “Thire, get those damn boxes open,” Fox orders. “Stone, we need some kind of distraction. Grab some detonators.”

“He hasn’t noticed yet, has he?” the little Chalactan girl asks cheerfully, pulling herself up to sit on the table. Myles, currently face-down on the wood and despairing of every moment he’s spent devoting his life and honor to an idiot, groans loudly.

“Shh, shh, we’re almost there,” Feemor murmurs, and the trembling teenage girl pressed tight to his side gives a jerky nod, though she doesn’t release her death grip on his belt.

This, Fox thinks, staring up at the fabric of the tent above him, is absolutely not what he remembers from before he closed his eyes. Right along with the realization comes the desperate, sinking sort of feeling that what he was most afraid of happened again. One step down the hallway in the Senate, heading somewhere, and then—

“Are you sure about this?” Jon asks a little warily.

“Queen Miraj is going to betray you,” Feral says, and Cody practically jumps out of his own skin.

Maul is going to make himself a widower in short order.

“Who’s in the next room?” Obi-Wan asks, low and soft right next to Hardcase’s ear.

“Clan Wren sends its regards,” Ursa says, bowing, and by all rights Jaster should be paying attention to the Countess’s daughter, should pay his own respects to the heir to Krownest, but— He only has eyes for Ursa's brother, steady at her side.

“I cannot believe you,” Jaster says, muffled where his face is buried in his hands. “One week of leave and this—this—this is how you come back?” Myles weighs whether he should be ashamed of himself, considers that last time Jaster got himself kidnapped because he pissed off a culty group of guardians around an ancient shrine, and promptly decides he regrets nothing. “I was only the Sith Emperor for three days before true love’s kiss broke the spell, it was fine.”

This was supposed to be a vacation.

“I can’t believe you ruined my boots,” Leia says, outraged, and pushes Dooku’s face further into the mud.

“Oh,” Jaster manages, and it cracks right in half.

“No,” Padmé says, breathless but full of iron. “Hands on the floor.”

Jango's eyes flicker up, down, up again, and it’s meant to be dismissive, but Shaak knows wariness when she sees it, and it makes her smile just a little. “Lady, I just tried to put a slug through that fancy headdress of yours.” With a chuckle, Shaak takes a step closer. “Fett, I've been a Jedi for decades. If I held a grudge against everyone who had tried to kill me, I would have more enemies than you.”

“I thought it was supposed to be warm on this planet,” Ahsoka says, pulling her jacket a little tighter around her shoulders.

“Barriss?” Ahsoka hisses, bewildered. Barriss, in a fancier dress than Ahsoka has ever seen her in, covered in tattoos and dripping jewelry, freezes stock-still on the stairs into the casino, and Ahsoka feels the bright-sharp flare of her panic a half-second before she spins to face Ahsoka.

“You know,” Shaak says, and watches the man jerk upright with wide eyes. She smiles careful not to show teeth, and pulls herself out of the water just enough to fold her arms on the stone, resting her chin on them. “I usually eat Men like you.”

“Well this is awkward,” Quinlan says, raising a hand to stop his nipple tassels from swinging.

A high, sustained, familiar scream rises above the treetops, and Rex pauses. He looks over at Cody, finds Cody already looking back, and does his absolute best not to grin.

“No,” Sabé hisses, catching the edge of Kycina's red hood and dragging her back down behind cover.

“This planet,” Mace says quietly, “is not a place that was meant for you.” Kix doesn’t move from where he’s sitting, just watches the shadows shift and shiver as the trees stir around them. There's no wind, just the steady rumble of thunder above them, the flickers of the lightning, and hiss of leaves and stems and branches moving on their own, bending away from the violet glow of Mace's lightsaber, the muddy hem of his robes. “I think it suits me just fine,” Kix says, and it’s soft because he doesn’t need to shout. There are better ways of being angry right now.

“I presume,” Mace says with a flicker of amusement, ghost-white fluttering in the corner of his vision, “that that relief isn't solely for my own benefit.” Ponds has the decency to look chagrined. “I'm glad you're safe, sir. When the droid hit you…” He pauses, meets Mace's eyes, and his expression is a little rueful, a little grim. “Not everyone took it well.”