Disclaimer: I own none of these characters. I guess Disney does now.

Author Notes: Feedback greatly appreciated.

Ioioioioioioioioi

Master?

Yes, Anakin.

I believe that love is selfless. What do you believe?

I believe that I am very tired, Anakin.

I'm serious, Obi-Wan.

So am I.

ioioioioioioioio

Generals Kenobi and Skywalker were on a return trip from another successful, but long and costly, campaign in the Outer Rim. This time, they waged battles on three different planets for control of one system. Too many Clones had been sacrificed, in their opinion.

On one particularly inhospitable planet, they had lost two out of every three Clones landed. 'Man down' rang in their ears the entire time they were there. The medics couldn't keep up, and Obi-Wan was fairly certain that they left some survivors behind when they had to retreat and re-group. Luckily, some of them had survived until they were able to re-take the area. Not all though.

The toll on the morale of the 501st was palpable. Brothers were left behind. Brothers were sacrificed. Brothers that would never walk into the barracks or the mess with them again. Anakin had never seen the troops so low. He swore that he even heard snuffling from some of them. They truly were brothers, these soldiers. And they were human.

He had railed at the Council over the holocom. "They are dying in unacceptable numbers! And for what? This pissy little backwater in the Outer Rim. What is its significance again? Oh, that's right. The Seppies wanted it, so we have to oust them. It's not worth the life we are losing!"

Obi-Wan agreed with Anakin in his calm manner, "Anakin is right. The casualties as well as their effects on the emotional state of the troops is more loss than we had calculated. Every campaign has its losses, but this is a massacre. Do we have your permission to pull out?"

Mace Windu and Yoda exchanged glances in their peculiar way. "I'm sorry, General. With the fall of Richi Sector, this system has suddenly become a very important route through that area of space. We need a place for safe passage. You're just going to have to find a way," Mace explained to a disheartened Obi-Wan. "May the Force be with you."

Obi-Wan turned to Anakin and said with as much sarcasm as he could, "Yes, well, that was helpful."

"Arrrgghh!" was Anakin's only reply as he stomped out of the communications tent. He needed to check on the troops anyway. "Stupid Mace Windu," he mumbled. "He wouldn't know how to find his way out of a paper bag, even with the Force!"

Captain Rex fell in beside his commanding officer, asking "What's the good word, General?"

Anakin gave him a sidelong look. "Don't ask, Rex. Same old shit on a different day. We need a new strategy if we're going to get any of us out of this alive. Round up the best strategists and meet in the command center at 0900."

"Right away, General," Rex saluted and trotted off in the mud.

With a good deal of ingenuity and just plain grit, they managed to ground out a victory in the system. But the toll on the Clones was still very high. Anakin heard the men talking in the mess, in the hangar, in the hallways, everywhere about their fallen brothers. There were reminisces, bawdy stories, tales of valor. But through it all, Anakin noticed that there was emotion.

There was regard for each other. He saw offers of physical and emotional support between many of the men within their units. It got him thinking about the nature of attachment on the battlefield. How you asked someone to put his life into your hands and put your own into his. How emotions would grow around the circumstances of saving each other's lives. Loving the man next to you in battle would do very little for your own self-preservation, but it might make you do something pretty heroic for him.