#fancy tuna

When Rex is eleven-slash-twenty-two, he is introduced to Nabooan seafood.

Rex is used to seafood. It was one of the favored protein sources on Kamino. Admittedly, they were fairly different from those on Naboo, but there’s something about convergent evolution and uh… bauplans? That.

Oceanic planets tend to develop fish-shaped life because that’s just the most convenient way to move through water, or something.

So yeah. Seafood. Rex is used to it. High in protein, some healthy fats, beware of tiny bones if it’s not in cube form. It was one of the more common items of fresh food that they got back in Tipoca City. Not often, certainly not enough to grow tired of it, but not Rex’s personal favorite, either. He’d preferred the algae-and-urchins dishes, which… okay, technically they were also seafood, but they weren’t fish.

And then he’d come to Naboo.

It’s not Rex’s favorite experience, overall. He’d nearly died. The kid nearly died, the Senator nearly died, several brothers did die. The Blue Shadow virus was a nasty bitch.

Naboo has them recuperate locally, after. A thank you and an apology, they’re told. Also less risk of taking any lingering disease off-planet by getting on the Resolute, for all that it’s easier to quarantine on a ship of several thousand than on a planet of millions.

“You can room with me,” Senator Amidala tells him. “You and Ahsoka. That way, Anakin doesn’t have to dither about which of us he should visit first.”

Rex doesn’t know how to respond to that idea, that General Skywalker would want to see him as much as the kid or the senator, or that Senator Amidala calls them Anakin and Ahsoka, so familiar, or that she just… doesn’t mind sharing a room with him.

She’s from an old, wealthy family, he knows that much. They’ve even been invited to spend a few nights at a ‘summer home,’ which he understands is something for only the wealthiest of natborns. She’s former royalty, also, and still in politics besides. She is at the absolute highest echelons of society.

And she wants to share a room with a clone. A captain, sure, but a clone. Legally, Rex isn’t even a person. At least the kid is a Jedi.

“Captain?”

She looks worried. He should say something. “I’m flattered, Senator. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” she says.

Later, Rex will want to say that her eyes shone, or that her cheeks dimpled, but that would be a lie. They are both tired, nearly dead, and even the most beautiful woman he’s ever met looks grey and wan.

“Cool,” Ahsoka chimes in. “This is going to be fun!”