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WHO: Those who have been invited & anyone who would have a reason to visit Maurtia Falls #010! Wondering if you fit into that category? Just contact anyone with an involved character (Andy; Rex; Martin; Cassandra Igarashi; Dio; Archie) and ask!
WHERE: Maurtia Falls #010
WHEN: TONIGHT? TONIGHT.
WHAT: The soldierfam has decided that regular group dinners are good for Martin, and this time they've got a few party crashers!
WARNINGS: None anticipated; will change if necessary!

At a glance, one could easily mistake Maurtia Falls #010 for being entirely uninhabited. Dio rarely returns home and Rex and Marty only have a handful of belongings between the two of them and Rex is meticulously tidy, returning everything to exactly where it ought to be - if anything, it's Andy who makes the biggest mess around the place, and she doesn't even live here.

Despite every sign to the contrary, however, they do live here, and it winds up being a hub of activity whenever one of Martin's guardians - if that's truly what they can call themselves - decides that it's about time to get everyone together for dinner. In Anderson's absence, Rex has taken on the opinion that cooking can't be that hard, which is how they wind up with one window open, a casserole dish burned black soaking in the sink and an assortment of take-out on the table.

(As it turns out, it is that hard - and he found a combination pizza & Chinese food take-out place, whiich means that it can only be better.)

In all, there's not much to do or see here; there's food, Rex the goldfish in his tank, a soccer ball neatly tucked close to the house in the backyard, and a mysterious shelf called "Martin's Things" in the cupboard. Otherwise, you're stuck with nothing more than some potential awkward conversation. Have fun, kids!

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"Did I?"

That's the first he's heard of it. While he appreciates Cass' continuous usage of the word doppelganger - it rankles at him every time he hears of those monstrosities described as a clone - he had assumed that he'd never had any of his own. He doesn't think he has any inner demons to run rampant. He's got a firm hold on himself and his identity without any need for excess.

Or at least that's what he thought.

"No. I had no idea. Did you run into it?"

It couldn't be that bad if she hasn't mentioned it to him yet; he has a funny feeling that if a version of him had been running around attacking people, someone would have told him by now.

"Yeah, it was the first one I met. Before I even knew what was going on."

How does she put this? The Rex doppelganger had disturbed her, as it seemed to confirm her suspicions of how fucked-up Rex's origins are. At the same time, she's been through plenty with Rex since then to know he doesn't act anything like that himself, and frankly seems pretty well adjusted, despite everything. That doesn't mean she's not going to share her opinion.

"He was basically a robot. He was just standing still on a sidewalk saying he was waiting for the appropriate orders. He wasn't dangerous or anything, just fucking creepy." She feels as if she needs to push this further, even if she trusts Rex himself. "Do you know why he could have been like that? Something to do with being a clone, I'm guessing?"

The description alone is enough to make Rex frown. He's familiar with the nature of his origins; they were made to be good soldiers, the finest in the galaxy, and good soldiers follow orders. That's just lesson one. But the Kaminoans never truly had a handle on the nature of man, and they certainly didn't have a handle on how the clones they bred came out. Over time, they developed their own culture and way of doing things, ways of distinguishing themselves from the pack, names.

Despite their best efforts, Rex knows of no clone that does nothing but await orders, not even the ones who trip over their own feet to follow orders. That sort of thing comes from a desperation to do the right thing, to not be cast out or cast aside, to fulfill what they were made for. They never last that way for long; an eagerness to do what they were made to do can only war against the more independent nature of their other brothers for so long. Rex would know. He was one of them once.

"That's the only possible explanation for it. Following orders is what we were made for." He glances over at Cass, a furrow between his brows. "I can't see why my double would be acting that way, though. That's not how we turned out. None of us, not even the prototypical batches."

Especially not the prototypical batches. He's heard stories. Those ones were trained by Jango himself, and always seemed a little... more than Rex and his brothers. He's never been able to get a handle on it, and he's never had to; the Alphas have little to do with CT units at the end of the day.

"Batches...?"

For all Rex's attempts at making this seem less fucked up, this just makes it sound moreso. Would mindless drones have been preferable...? She'd be uncomfortable either way, so maybe that's not a question she should be answering. Or asking. The point is that she doesn't quite buy Rex's terse explanation- if anything, that makes all of this even more uncomfortable than it was before.

"Look, I know you acted like cloning people for war wasn't some sort of horrific thing, but that doesn't exactly support your point," she says, arms crossed again. "He didn't act anything like you, but the fact that he existed in the first place? It isn't right."

"Yeah. We're made in batches. I'm in the 7000s series," Rex says, because that's the easiest part to address first, mostly because it's the most sensible part of this whole discussion. It only stands to reason that if you're in the business of making soldiers, you can't make them all at once - there's only so much room, so many teachers, so many tanks and, of course, so much room. It got cramped in Kamino as it was.

Less so, after the war started. Rex tries not to think about that.

He shifts his weight. He's been swayed a little more to Cass' side in recent months in ways he finds distinctly uncomfortable. It's nothing she said. Rather, it's the fact that he knows that in the future, after the war has ostensibly been won, they're still being made - but they get numbers, not names. They did their duty and things got worse.

"But that's the point of what I'm saying. We're not like that. He didn't exist. He was just some cruel trick of this place's hoodoo. You know me well enough by now to know I'm nothing like that."

Cassandra's brow furrows. This is a topic that seems more and more absurd and terrifying the more she hears about it, and the two things Rex just told her are so firmly juxtaposed that she can't help but be incredulous. She gets that this is his attempt to make her feel better about things- but he's only compounding the issues here, in her eyes.

"Rex, I know you aren't, but- can you really blame me for asking when you just referred to yourself with a number like you would a fucking shiny new refrigerator? Or a laptop or something? None of that is something that should happen!"

Rex stares at Cassandra, perplexed. He just can't figure out why she's so invested in his background - or why she's so insistent that he shouldn't exist, that his brothers shouldn't exist, that he should somehow agree with her that the very nature of his existence is wrong. It's bizarre. He knows some argue the fact, but that's generally in the Senate, in court, not to his face.

Cassandra's never been the subtle sort. "There are millions of us. How else would they keep track? It's the only system that works reliably." He crosses his arms. "It's not as though you natural-borns don't have your own systems in place of keeping track of your own."

Generations, birth certificates, family trees, histories, things that most of his kind find ultimately meaningless in the face of the much more reasonable raw data they function on.

"Yeah, but not with fucking serial numbers! Or at least if they do it's not essential to how we were...created, or however you want to put it."

She finds it genuinely hard to comprehend how Rex doesn't feel anything about this- even a basic sense of strangeness coming from being a clone. But being defined by batches? And simply being made for warfare, to boot? If she was one of a million, she wouldn't have been able to take how cosmically horrible and stacked against her the situation was. To take this in stride is incomprehensible, in her viewpoint.

"Are you telling me this never makes you uncomfortable at all? You don't have questions? Problems with any of it? Why?"

"Because, Cassandra, what you have an issue with is our very existence. I know exactly what I am, and what my purpose is. That I'm at peace with that is my own business."

It means that they're disposable. They're manufactured by the million and hold no real significance to anyone but each other and those precious few who look upon an army with identical faces and still manages to find something worth saving there - and those people have earned their undying love and respect for it. But it's not something he questions - their lot isn't so bad. They have a purpose. They have meaning to their lives. And, of course, they have each other.

It's all Rex could have ever asked for. And being a good soldier? That's all he's ever wanted. To look beyond that would be greedy; senseless. Why want what you can't have? And take that all away, Rex's past and purpose, his ability to protect what belongs to him, and what is he?

Nothing, really. An empty space. Being a soldier, being with his brothers and his Jedi - it's better than anything else the world holds for him. He crosses his arms. "Don't misunderstand me. I hold no love for the people who created me. But why would I have a problem with being alive?"

Perhaps that was a bad way to put it. Cassandra runs a hand through the front of her hair. Invalidating someone's existence isn't what she's about, even in her worst moments. That's not really what she's focused on, she realizes- her wording was all wrong. It was simply the easiest way to approach the issue, rather than the accurate one.

Maybe she should think this shit through more often.

"That's...not what I mean. Of fucking course we're all better off with you around." An uncharacteristically tender thing for her to say, but it's true, and she needs to make a point here. "I mean- you don't ever have a problem with how you've been treated? Having these exact expectations for what you're meant to do, and seemingly not being able to do anything else...ever? That sounds fucking miserable!"

Rex pauses, softening just a tad. To say that they're actively better off with him is an uncommonly kind thing to say, and something he's not entirely certain what to do with. "You wouldn't have been the first to see it as a subject of debate," he says quietly instead, with the briefest incline of his head.

You spend ten years in your own bubble and escape only to hear people debating who and what you are on all of the holos, from debates in the Senate whether or not you ought to exist, be employed, or continue being made, to squabbles on daytime radio on whether or not you've got a soul when you weren't aware any of it had ever been up for debate in the first place. It makes these things a bit sticky. Here, people can question his past without repercussions but at home? Every conversation people have to that effect change the world, slowly but surely.

Now, two years into the war, people don't like them very much. Rex tries not to let it bother him but as they march ceaselessly onto the end of the war, it's difficult not to wonder where they'll be left once it's all over.

"I don't think it's something natural-borns can understand. It's what we were made for." It's as simple as that. It doesn't undermine their humanity - he took an issue with Martin comparing himself to a rake, after all - but it's what they're for. Questioning that's not something they're supposed to do. "We certainly don't see it as being miserable. And frankly, Cassandra, we're treated far better in the military than we are anywhere else. That it's a difficult life doesn't make it a bad one."

She's likely not going to get anywhere here, she realizes. Still- she didn't feel as if this was something she could let go.

Maybe she was initially interested because it's just so wildly fucked up of a concept. But Rex is a friend now, and she can respect his opinion on his own life- but that doesn't mean she won't be pretty goddamn worried about it. It just doesn't seem like a sustainable, healthy position to be in, even if he's used to it. She's interested because she cares now, unfortunately.

"...I get it. Well, I don't get it, but I get it." A roundabout way to say it, but she's sure he gets what she means. "Hey, how much do the others know about it? Does Martin?"

She doesn't think Rex is hiding it at all- after all, he told her pretty quick- but it's occurred to her that Martin, at least, may like to know more. His situation seems strangely similar, after all.

Rex nods, a little relieved that she's not going to press on the matter any further. Truth be told, this isn't a discussion he's ready to be having with anyone. He hasn't sorted out what he thinks of it all, these days. It's oddly exhausting, figuring out how natural-borns live their lives and having a taste of it for himself. He's almost relieved by the parts that he doesn't like. But the parts he does like...

He shouldn't be getting a taste for it. It won't last.

"Andy knows." He'd told her, what, the second time they'd met? It had come up naturally in conversation, and she'd taken it in stride - and then it had never come up again. Andy's a good friend that way. "I've told Martin too, but I'm not certain how much he understood."

It's frequently difficult to know how much Martin understands. He's so quiet, so meek, that he may be witholding questions or a greater understanding. Or both. But he does think that Martin understood what he was getting at, at the basic similarities between the two of them, that Rex understood at least a little of what Martin's going through.

"And everyone from my galaxy knows as soon as they look at me, of course. Comes with the territory."

"There's really that many of you? Or people like you." Just being one of the most recognizable people on one planet is enough for Cassandra, frankly- even if Rex's celebrity is of a different sort. "Hell. That's got to be a bit much."

As for his other statements- those make sense for people to know, although they open up plenty more thoughts. "Martin...tries to understand things. But clearly it's not easy." It's disturbingly hard, actually, and who knows how much progress Rex has made on that front compared to her.

"And- what's Andy's deal? Not that I don't trust your taste in friendships, but she's a bit...different. Than you."

Sits alone in the bathtub drinking different.

"Millions of us, yeah." He glances over at Cassandra thoughtfully when she brings up Cassandra, something wry in the tilt of his mouth. "And besides those millions, everyone's different from me."

But that's probably just being purposefully dense, isn't it? He and Andy don't make sense as friends on the surface. Where Rex is deliberate, detail-oriented, careful never to have a foot or hair out of line, Andy glides through life rambling and rough-shod, surviving in the way she knows how. Rex can admire that, in its own way.

"She's a good woman." He pauses. "She's a friend. I probably wouldn't have met her a second time if not for Martin, but here we are. She may seem a bit rough around the edges, but she's a stalwart ally with a good heart - and atrocious knitting skills."

If Cassandra's seen knitting being left around the house, well, that certainly doesn't belong to Rex.

"Millions?" God, Rex, just when she thinks she's reached the limit with you. She has to back herself up before she gets into an argument again- millions of clones? "You say that like everyone else being different from you isn't...normal."

God, okay, she really does need to change topic. "Whatever. It makes sense if she's another Martin-based acquisition, I guess. He tends to attract help." She glances inside- Archie, for example, is a complete weirdo, but him wanting to help Martin certainly fits.

"And I can't even see her knitting, so I can believe that," she remarks. "But what's her story? She's kind of mum about it, other than that she did a lot of...well, killing. And I'm not sure if it's circumstances like yours or something else."

Everyone else being different from him isn't normal. Being here is the most contact he's had with natural-borns since he was made, unless you count the Kaminoans. Rex doesn't. They may be natural-born, but there's nothing natural about them. Even after all the time spent in their company, Rex has a hard time seeing them as people with a world outside of the cold, staid facility he'd called home.

"That he does. It's a good thing, too. It's not as though any of us turn away the help."

Out of all of them, it's Archie that seems like he has the most experience with kids like Martin and that's... Archie. Point being, it's a group effort and thank god for that, otherwise they may just wind up screwing this up more than they already have.

"Her story's not mine to tell. If she decided she didn't want to tell you, that's her business." Which is to say, he does know it - he's just not particularly inclined to share.

"He's got a fucking sad kitten face, Rex. I've barely talked to kids that young since I was one, but then he just kept...showing up."

The kind of bullshit other people would call fate, but there's so many imPorts in one town. Rex is a friend- she would have run into Martin again, right? Right.

And, though she's not eager to admit it, he has a point about Andy. It makes the journalist in her antsy, but considering she's trying to scale back a bit on her hounding? "Well, nothing she's done makes it need to know. You'll...probably end up knowing if that changes."

Sometimes it does, after all.

"I will." Rex pauses, then sighs, glancing back at the house with an arch of his brow. "It's the face, isn't it? It's awful."

Like a sad kitten. Rex had never thought about it in that way - and, in truth, has had very little to do with felines in general considering the fact that he tends not to like animals in general - but he's struck by how absolutely correct that comparison is. "I haven't exactly got much experience with kids myself, but... he showed up." He shrugs. "It'd take a crueler man than myself to turn him away."

Now, though? He wouldn't have it any other way. Martin is his, for better or for worse. It's funny - for all that he's always telling others not to get attached to him, he's the one who's gotten attached. This place changes them all.

God, it is awful. Anything most people would call "maternal" in Cassandra really isn't; it's more that she has a massive sense of responsibility, and tends to notice when the people around her are fucking up. And even in the times she's turned out to be in over her head, she still tends to notice a multitude of flaws in their actions. She wants to believe things can be different.

So her approach to Martin is more about...knowing he can change, she supposes. Learn things about the world. It'd be wrong not to help him.

"How did you meet him, anyway? I didn't even know you had a kid with you until...the shitshow went down. He doesn't seem like somebody who'd go out asking for help on his own."

"I found him."

This, at least, is his own story to tell, and he's aware that Cassandra will want a bigger, better explanation than that. Unfortunately, Rex can't provide that. The way he and Martin wound up together makes absolutely no sense, not even to Rex, and he knows he'd be hard pressed to explain it to anyone who actually knows him as the soldier he is, not whatever he's become since he got here. Rex himself doesn't care to think much about what he's become either. It's too strange, too complicated.

"It was his first day out, and he nearly got himself run over in the streets. I helped him out and sent him packing to his assigned housing. Figured the government would take care of the rest." He tilts his head towards their backyard, now squared away as the place where Martin does... that gross thing he does. "Found him a few days later sleeping in my backyard. So I told him he'd be staying with me from now on. And that's exactly what happened."

As though it's not daft for a career soldier, for someone with absolutely no experience with kids to take one in full-time after finding himself on a strange new world without anything or anyone to lean on for assistance, as though it's not daft to take a child in like you would a stray animal, as though it's not daft that Martin just accepted it and stayed.

But it's how it worked. And for what it's worth, it's been working. He can't argue with the results.

None of that is a real surprise, but she frowns at it. Martin's situation is too extreme to comprehend, sometimes; it's not just that the world he's from seems mostly unrecognizable, but that his upbringing seems cruel and unusual if anything. She supposes it's no wonder he ended up with Rex, but she's not sure Martin would end up as surprisingly well-adjusted as Rex is.

"He already acts like he was raised by wolves sometimes, so I shouldn't be surprised about him sleeping outside..." She glances toward the house, wondering how Martin would feel if he knew people spoke of him so much. "He's a good kid, I just don't know what would have happened to him if you weren't there. He really wants to do right by you, you know. He's sweet. Just weird."

"I don't think he's accustomed to sleeping outside. He was just scared."

He's always scared. Sometimes it reminds Rex of some of his youngest brothers so keenly that he feels it in a pit in his chest, the wide-eyed terror of someone leaving everything they had known for the first time, only to find themselves thrown into the thick of things. Other times he seems so different that he may as well be another species - which, Rex keeps forgetting, he is.

He shakes his head. "I know he does. There's not a soul out there that could fault him for not trying hard enough. It's lucky that we got to him first." He glances at Cassandra, thinking of all the other kids he's had run-ins with since. "But it should have never been up to luck. By all rights, he should have never wound up with me."

He should have wound up with someone else, some kind person willing to take in a scared child, someone used to them and equipped with the skills to truly care for them in the way they need. If someone were to take Martin away now, he'd fight tooth and nail, no escaping that, but that doesn't change the truth of the situation. Rex should have never been able to take in a child like Martin and it certainly shouldn't have been as easy as telling Martin what to do. Something like that could have gone wrong in ways that he doesn't like to think about it.

The fact that Rex isn't eagerly embracing the idea of taking care of Martin surprises her. He clearly seems protective of the kid, and on top of that Martin is certainly very fond of him; she expected a little paternal pride, although she's never known Rex to be especially emotional.

His last statement, in particular, catches her. Who better for Martin to be with than Rex? She can't think of anyone.

"What are you talking about? All I can tell is that you're good for each other. You get his...weird child-soldier shit, if you don't mind me saying it. And you've got the patience to put up with all the weird stuff he thinks. Where do you think he should be?"

Rex lets out a quiet bark of laughter. "I suppose you could see it that way. We do have an understanding."

And it's true - he doesn't know that anyone else would understand Martin as well as he does. They may be better at taking care of him, well-equipped to help him rehabilitate and figure out his place here, equipped to knowing how to live a civilian life and what resources are available for a kid like Martin, but they don't have that same, bone-deep understanding that they were made for a purpose only to have that purpose taken from them. There is a sense of aimlessness that comes with that, a certain loss of identity. Rex understands what that's like because he feels it, knows that Martin feels it too.

But understanding someone doesn't mean that you should be their primary guardian.

"But look at it this way: I've never dealt with a child for more than a minute or so at a time before coming here." And even then, it had been simple things - instructing them where to go, asking where to find their guardians, inquiring as to their health or whether or not they needed something to eat, nothing that he wouldn't have also asked of an adult. He supposes there's Ahsoka, but she's hardly a child. The girl's his commanding officer, for heaven's sake. "That I was able to simply..." Adopt? No. That's not the right word, no matter how many times Andy refers to them as a family. "Pick him up off the street without so much as a background check isn't what I'd call a good thing."

He crosses his arms. "That said, he's here now. I've no interest in handing over primary guardianship to anyone else."

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