Rex hasn’t been back on duty in the ER for all that long when Windu makes his monthly check on student rounds. He’s actually kind of glad for the distraction, seeing as he’s still experiencing some shortness of breath and fatigue - because there’s no better entertainment in his world than seeing his attached residents getting their asses handed to them on a very polite, chilly, utterly correct platter.
It always starts with the hiding. On this particular occasion, it’s Tup and Ahsoka who have taken refuge under the intake desk, frantically gesturing to Rex to Oh my gods just SHUT UP as he grins down at them.
When Windu breezes in, he’s already got a flock of unfortunate students under his wings - they all look petrified, because why wouldn’t you, when the Dean of the College of Medicine and one of the most famed cardiologists of his generation is personally overseeing your rounds to make sure they’re satisfactory? - and it means Rex can turf out his own disgruntled protectees, sniggering all the while as Tup and Ahsoka sulkily join the back of the queue with their clipboards and badges. He has no real fear for them, knowing their skills - he can already see the rest of the class watching them with solemn, hero-worshiping attention as they talk a resolutely silent Windu through the first few beds - but damn, it is still hellishly funny.
“Hey, man,” he adds, finishing his notes on a new case and flipping shut the folder as he looks up at Windu’s personal assistant, who has his head buried in a smartphone schedule as per usual. “How’s it going?”
“As expected,” Ponds says calmly. Rex has to give it to the man - as far as assistantships go Ponds probably has the toughest job in the entire hospital complex, and he somehow manages to do it without a shred of the backstabbing or unpleasantness that Tarkin takes pride in. “These students will have to finish their presentations in the next seven minutes. He’s due at a fundraiser.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Rex says, grinning, as Tup manages, while in the middle of a very complicated speech about stents and shunts, to trip over his own feet. “I have a good batch this semester.”
“So I see,” Ponds says, one eyebrow slightly raised at the distant sight of Ahsoka’s flame-emblazoned chucks under the hem of her scrubs. “And yourself?”
Rex is kept from answering by the sudden appearance of Windu himself at his elbow - damn the man is stealthy - and the repetition of the question in a slightly different form. “Mr. Fett,” Windu intones, with the students clustered in a nervous huddle at his back. “I trust you are fully recovered?”
“Quite, sir. Thank you.”
“Perhaps we might find time later to discuss your experiences in the containment unit,” Windu continues, looking sideways at Ponds with a brief nod. He really is very scary close up. “I am most interested in how you came to terms with the various symptoms of Blue Shadow.”
“Oh,” Rex says, somewhat nonplussed. “Uh - ”
“I’m afraid you are fully booked for this evening, Doctor Windu,” Ponds says politely. “Drinks with Dr. Yoda and the Board.”
“Later in the week?”
“Provost meetings wall-to-wall.”
“Hm,” Windu says, frowning slightly. “Well. To be continued, Mr. Fett,” he continues, straightening his immaculate coat. “I congratulate you on your oversight.”
“Thanks again,” Rex calls - he has to raise his voice to make sure Windu, who is already halfway out the door, hears him at all. He could swear, he thinks, with a smile, that he’d seen Ponds roll his eyes.
“That’s it?” Tup complains, sighing as he props himself up on the desk. The poor kid looks like he’s run a mental marathon in five minutes. “I actually prepared for this.”
“Trust me, you’re good,” Rex said, and grabs both of them up in a surprise, squeaky sort of bear hug. “Well done.”
“I need a drink,” Ahsoka says, and wobbles off towards the lobby and its vending machines.
It pays, Rex has always found, to give Windu the respect he so manifestly deserves. A week later, for example, he finds himself in receipt of another little batch of med students - they all look so small, but he knows that he’ll be treating them all as the adults they are - and, along with them, personally delivered by Ponds, a sheaf of paperwork saying that the Dean has just finished negotiating the approval for construction of an entirely new teaching wing of the ER.
It’s going to be a hell of a lot of work, Rex knows, as he gets down to the day’s tasks of making sure none of his new batch faint at the sight of blood, needles, or any of the other frankly-horrific possibilities the ER can throw at them on any given day. But that’s what he loves, and what he’s good at - and if Windu thinks he’s worthy of it, he’ll take the compliment every time.