After the Ghost crew took off, Anakin went back to the Rogue. He wanted to see if the council had replied to his report or if they had even seen it yet. When he checked the Fulcrum frequency, though, nothing new had come in.

Anakin rested his chin on one arm as he logged out, watching the Fulcrum sign rotate on the projector a few times. Seeing Ahsoka's forehead marks almost made him want to reach out again, but she was keeping an eye on Ezra and didn't need to be distracted. She would check back in when she thought it was a good time.

"Did you get any rest?"

He sat up and turned around to see Rex standing in the doorway, looking at him. Looking one more time at the symbol, he went back and forth before answering. "A little. I was up late with Kanan last night, and I got up early to check up on Ezra before he and the others took off."

Rex nodded, walking further into the room. "How's he doing?"

"He'll be fine, but the medics doubt he'll be able to see again," Anakin explained, folding his hands on his knees. "I tried to help heal the injury, but it didn't restore his sight. The damage had already been done."

"You Jedi don't need eyes to see, though. I've seen you duel blindfolded before."

"And he did, but he had an adrenaline rush at the moment," he reminded him. "He's had some time to process, and I'm not sure it's helping him. A lot happened on Malachor."

Rex chuckled as he sat down across from Anakin. "Well, that's nothing new." He hesitated before asking, "What about you? Doing okay after everything?"

Rubbing his forehead, he groaned. "I haven't had time to think about it, really. It's a lot to process."

"What did happen out there? Other than the deal with Kanan?" he probed, hoping it would help to talk about it.

It was Anakin's turn to laugh. "How much time do you have?"

"Enough."

Well, if he had time, he might as well start at the beginning. "As soon as we entered the atmosphere, Chopper picked up a second ship. He couldn't identify it either, so we didn't know exactly who we were dealing with. We touch down and go out to explore, and it takes us about two minutes to accidentally fall through the surface."

Rex grinned. "Sounds like a typical mission for you. Confusing and crazy right from the get-go."

He rolled his eyes, but Anakin knew he was right. "We walk around for a bit and stumble across another Inquisitor, number eight. He throws a few bombs, and Ezra falls even further. Kanan and I go after the Inquisitor because we didn't think anything would happen to Ezra. It was a bad idea, but it's what we did."

"What'd he find?"

"Maul."

"Are you-" Rex facepalmed and muttered a few choice words under his breath. "Why isn't he dead?"

"From what I recall, Ahsoka let him out of his cage after the Seige," Anakin recalled, thinking back to the last they had heard of the ex-Sith Lord. "I never figured out what happened to him after that."

He shook his head. "No, I get that. I mean, why hasn't Jadis killed him already? Didn't she say that Offee wanted him dead too? Wasn't that why he was targeted?"

To be honest, Anakin had no idea. "Now that is a good question. What I do know is that Maul found Ezra down there somewhere, and the two of them were buddy-buddy the next time we saw them."

By now, it was clear the entire mission had been a giant mess. The story had barely started, and it was already chaotic. "Okay, so Maul more or less abducts the kid. What next?"

"Remember the other Padawans Ahsoka knew in the Order?"

Rex made a face. "I didn't know them know them, but yeah, sure."

"One of them turned out to be the new Inquisitor."

"How the..." Now he was really done with this story. "How much worse does this get?"

"I've barely started!"

"Skywalker, you have issues."

"You already knew that."

Rubbing his temple, Rex sighed. "Alright, just get on with it. Spit it out."

"Kanan and the Inquisitor talk for a bit before we decide to go find Ezra. Two more Inquisitors crash the party before Maul and Ezra show up. Inquisitors fall back, and Maul tries to convince us to team up. We decide not to and go off on our own, but the Inquisitors and Maul catch up. Ezra gets split up again and heads up to a Sith temple with a holocron Maul gave him. Maul kills two Inquisitors and might have killed the third. Ezra activates the temple, and Maul blinds Kanan, and I cover for him until he recovers from the injury. When Kanan's on his feet, I leave Maul to him and go get Ezra. When I get up there, Jadis has him cornered and is about to kill him until she sees me. We chat for maybe a minute before we start fighting, and I push her over the side of a cliff, Chopper picks the three of us up, and we manage to escape Malachor before the temple blows up."

Anakin was slightly proud of the concise summary he ended up giving. Rex just looked exasperated. "You know, someone should really make a HoloNet sho-two HoloNet shows about you. One for the Clone Wars and one for this. They'd have plenty of content and make a ton of credits off of it."

He laughed a little, standing up and walking a little bit. "Honestly, I can handle all the chaos. It wasn't great, but we can deal with it. What I'm still hung up on is why Yoda sent Ezra there in the first place."

"Well, it's Yoda, isn't it?" Rex asked, and Anakin stood up to pace. "Grandmaster of the Jedi Order and whatnot? Or is that not a thing anymore?"

"It could be if Yoda was still a Jedi," he grumbled, dragging his hand down his face. "Yoda left the Order, which is why I'm confused as to why he's sending us anywhere. Not only that, but-mmghh," he growled, covering his mouth with his fist before he said something he would regret. Eventually, he just turned to Rex and summed up his thoughts as best he could. "When an impulsive teenager says he wants to fight, you don't send him on a wild goose chase for a weaponized Sith temple that's already going to be swarming with Inquisitors and a renegade ex-Sith."

Rex raised an eyebrow. "Is that a specific rule in the Jedi Master book of conduct, or just a good philosophy in general?"

It was a very valid question, in Anakin's opinion. "It should be both. Clearly, Yoda isn't on the same page. Which shouldn't matter; he's not supposed to be involved if he's 'in exile,'" he made air quotations at the last two words, "but Ezra didn't know that, and I gave Yoda the benefit of the doubt. Which I'm never doing again."

"This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that he's...at least a couple centuries old, right?"

Shaking his head, Anakin didn't even try to answer that one. "It could be because of anything. That might be a part of it, but it's all...just..." he sighed again, finally looking back at the commander. "And you wonder why Tyrannus, Krell, Ahsoka, and Jadis left. I'm surprised I didn't dip out before it all fell apart."

Rex hesitated before reminding him. "You almost did, if I remember correctly."

"Good point," Anakin agreed, sitting back down and resting his chin in his hands. "I'm almost glad the Empire took that temple on Lothal. If it means one less channel of communication with Yoda, it might be for the better."

Though he wasn't sure if it was appropriate to say out loud, Rex agreed. Yoda didn't seem to be entirely helpful these days, so there was no point in wasting time on him. There was something else that piqued his interest, though. "You said most of the Inquisitors died?"

Anakin cursed under his breath and closed his eyes for a minute. Rex assumed he was checking the Force Balance and waited. It was a rather handy resource, especially if it could reflect which Force-users were and were not alive.

After a moment, his eyes snapped open again, and he groaned. "Thanks for reminding me. I was so preoccupied with the other Jedi that I forgot to check it once we got back."

"No problem. The Inquisitors?"

"Two of them are dead," he reported, ticking them off on his fingers. "The one Kanan knew is still alive, and somehow Maul and Jadis both survived. Tyrannus is fine, obviously, but that's about it for the Dark Side," he realized. "Ventress is pretty stable, and the rest of the Inquisitors are either children or dead."

Rex thought about protesting the existence of child Inquisitors before he realized of course, of course, the Sith would recruit Younglings into the regime. Why wouldn't they? "How balanced is it now?"

Shrugging, he admitted, "It's better. Not the way I would have preferred it even out, but Maul killing two Inquisitors was effective. It was too much, though. The Force is Light Side-heavy now."

"Seriously?" Rex asked, astonished. He didn't think it was that close.

Anakin made a face. "Well, think about it. Tyrannus and Jadis have about eight kids in custody, and Maul, Ventress, and one last adult Inquisitor are still alive. Yoda's gone, but there's me, Kanan, Ezra, and a handful of Order survivors in hiding. You know one of them."

Nodding silently, Rex didn't bother to say the name out loud. He didn't know where, but somewhere out in the galaxy, Obi-Wan Kenobi was still in hiding. He wasn't surprised that there were others.

"All that's left to do now is predict how the Balance will respond to the Inquisitors' deaths. I don't know what to make of the fact that Maul, a fellow Dark Side user, killed them rather than a Jedi. It could retaliate either by strengthening the other Sith and Inquisitors, making more of them, or killing off Light Side users. Whatever consequence comes, we have to deal with it."

"What are you supposed to do about all this Balance stuff?" Rex asked. "I know you had that prophecy that said you were supposed to take care of it, but how?"

"If someone could tell me that, it would make my life a lot easier," Anakin complained, shaking his head. "Even when I went to a Force planet with magical deities, I didn't get answers. All I got was confirmation that it is supposed to be me. Not exactly helpful."

"Great. A prophecy and no way to fulfill it," the soldier groaned. "Typical."

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, letting the conversation process. After a while, Anakin gave Rex a smile. "Thanks for this. It's always good to have someone with common sense to debrief with."

Rex shrugged and stood up. "It's the least I could do, seeing as I'm not running around with you all the time anymore." He and Anakin made to leave and go out onto the base, but Artoo rolled in right as they did, blocking the doorway and whistling for Anakin. It was time to leave.

"Leave?" he asked from behind Rex. "Leave for what? Command hasn't given us a mission yet."

It wasn't a mission, actually, according to the astromech. It was his sabbatical.

"What's a sabbatical?" Rex asked, but Anakin ran his fingers through his hair when he heard the news.

"A productive leave of absence," he explained, turning back around to head to the cockpit. "It's about as close to a vacation as I can get nowadays. I negotiated with the Rebellion Council to get one every once in a while for 'personal and Jedi reasons.'"

Rex raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. "Sounds like the type of excuses you're used to using."

He didn't deny it. In fact, he all but confirmed it. "We're set to pick up Senator Amidala in a few hours, but that means we have to leave in the next fifteen minutes," he noted before calling to Artoo. "Get the engines warm. We'll take off as soon as I let Kanan know what's going on."

Artoo beeped in acknowledgment, and Anakin turned to Rex. "You're welcome to come. We've been hoping to find you for a few years now, so finally bringing you home wouldn't come as a surprise."

"And 'home' means...?"

"I'm going to let you guess what it means."

Glancing to the side, he thought about it. Rex knew better than anyone except Kenobi and Ahsoka that Anakin had a thing with Senator Amidala. 'Home' was probably somewhere on Naboo, tucked away and hidden so the Empire couldn't find them. Rex's head was suddenly filled with the image of the two of them together, maybe sipping tea with Kenobi or, heaven forbid, even running after a child or two. Or more. He didn't know how busy they had gotten over the years.

As peaceful as it sounded, as safe and joyful and hopeful as it seemed, Rex couldn't bring himself to take the offer. That wasn't him. Domestic life, serenity and luxury and ease, Rex didn't know anything about that. He didn't want to taint Skywalker's haven on Naboo with his calloused soul.

"Just say hi for me," he finally decided, shaking his head.

"You sure?"

Sighing, he nodded. Anakin didn't press and clapped him on the shoulder, and the two of them walked out together. Anakin didn't have long before he needed to leave, and he didn't want to leave Kanan without an explanation.

Right before they exited the ship, Rex leaned over. Whispering, he couldn't help but ask: "How many kids?"

"Just two, but they're twins," he answered, trying not to grin. "Obi-Wan says it's as if Padmé and I switched bodies. They're going to give me a run for my money someday."

Rex laughed as they continued down the ramp. "Think they'll join up?"

"Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't be surprised if you get to meet them in a few years," Anakin told him, with a twinkle in his eye Rex hadn't seen in a very long time. "In fact, I'm trying to make sure they don't get here too soon. At this rate, they're going to destroy the Empire before they hit their twenties."

"Sounds about right. I'd like to see that. Two Amidalas and two Skywalkers, slicing through the Imperials ranks like it's nothing while Kenobi sits back and watches while knocking back shots."

"Eh. One day."