Title: The Things We Don't Talk About
Author: karebear
Timeframe: Clone Wars movie
Characters: Anakin, Ahsoka, other minor appearances
Notes: This is really more about the concept of Anakin and Ahsoka's relationship than anything else. It's a sketch, it leaves a lot out and jumps around. I specifically didn't try to get the details right, and I'm sure I got some things in the wrong order, because to be honest, I really wasn't paying that much attention in the movie, but this idea forced itself to be written. It wouldn't leave me alone.
"The whole world is waiting to see when you fall."
- Saves The Day
This kid is going to get him killed. She is reckless and stupid and annoying and... and everything he was at nine years old, when he flew a starship he had never seen before into a raging space battle and blew up an enemy control ship. They told him he'd saved a planet and thrown a parade in his honor. Was it really fair for Ahsoka to only get scolded and yelled at?
She's afraid of what might happen to her, and he can't really blame her. The Jedi Council isn't what he would call understanding at the best of times, and she's already younger than most Padawans. Everyone was already expecting she wouldn't be able to hack it, himself included. The least he can do is to stand by her side and take some of the blame. She isn't a bad kid. One could even say she's got a lot of good qualities. She's smart and brave and willing to throw herself into harm's way to help others whether they want her to or not.
He'd watched her rush headlong into battle with destroyer droids and crime lords without flinching. She's an eleven year old soldier, the same as the clone warriors surrounding them. They rise to their circumstances, and they become what the galaxy forces them to be. He's done it too. That doesn't make it easy. He pulls her away in the quiet aftermath of battle when the adrenaline high fades and all the fear you were supposed to feel before but didn't rushes in to take it's place. The firelight flickers shadows over her face, and he feels cold despite it's heat and notices her pulling her cloak tight around her shoulders. He moves closer to her, and she looks surprised. He realizes it's the first time he's not actively pushing her away.
"Time to level, Snips. Are you scared?"
"No... I'm not supposed to be."
Oh, yeah, like he needed her to quote the Jedi Code to him.
"I didn't ask if you're supposed to be. I asked if you are." She smiled, but this time it wasn't a front. It only proved to remind him yet again of how young and fragile she actually was.
"Captain Rex said only idiots aren't scared in a war." It didn't answer the question, not directly anyway, but it still said a lot. Maybe it was admission that he wasn't the only one who threw the Jedi Code out the karking window as so much impractical garbage.
"You should probably listen to Captain Rex. He's pretty much custom-built to be smarter than either of us normal-born losers. Even if you do technically outrank him."
"We're not normal though," she said soberly, her tone making her sound far older than she was. She could do that sometimes, and he still wasn't used to it. He supposed they all had their moments, when the galaxy was falling apart all around them. "We're Jedi."
He nods. Despite everything, they are, whatever that means.
Right now it means saving a baby who is innocent despite the evils committed by it's father, it means nursing a sick child who is almost certainly destined to grow into a criminal, it means assisting a crime boss because it's convenient, it means opening the door to hyperspace routes bought with the blood of slaves.
The flight to Tatooine isn't long by his standards, but then by now he's more than used to traveling to every edge of the galaxy. He tries to remember how things felt when he was Ahsoka's age, and he finds it difficult. He feels like its been a million lifetimes since he was eleven, the age when Jedi are just beginning to leave the Temple for their first missions, when they can count the times they've left their insulated bastion on Coruscant on one hand, young enough still that once the excitement fades spaceflight is just cold and boring.
She fills the time by talking asking questions, asking him again and again about their destination. How many ways can he say he doesn't want to talk about it?
In the end he does because maybe it takes his mind away from the brilliant seduction of bloodlust and rage. He remembers Jabba all right. He remembers being three years old and hiding in a darkened corner watching the Hutt toy with his mother's life. He shakes himself out of it, wondering if Ahsoka feels the battle raging in him the way Obi-Wan sometimes could. If she does feel it leaking out from him into the Force, she shows no sign.
There was some subtle undertone in her voice when she asked about going home that took him a while to figure out. It was, he finally realized, the fact that like every other person she'd ever regularly interacted with, the Jedi Temple was the only place that could come close to being called home. Well, that was probably just as true for him. Nearly all of the memories he has of Tatooine are ones he wishes he could get rid of. The darker parts of him want to describe to her in great detail what the planet, without even the questionable law of the Republic, is really like. It would surely shut her up for a little while. The cruelty of that desire doesn't even surprise him anymore. He's used to the lurking whispers in his brain, and the things he's done are far worse. He carefully locks the thoughts away in the most secret places in his mind. He can control it, most of the time. He can control it when it matters.
Besides, it's only nearly all of the memories that are bad ones. Nearly all is not the same as all, and that's important. The look on Ahsoka's face is so eager and curious that he decides it's safe to share with her some of the good memories: what it felt like to race, the unique excitement of discovering how to fix something that everyone else was sure couldn't ever work again, the warmth of an old, well-worn quilt on a cold desert night.
He doesn't talk about his mother. She wouldn't understand. He's got some good memories of the Jedi too, creche-games and late-night talks with Obi-Wan, and no doubt Ahsoka has similar stories of pranks played with friends her own age. But she doesn't know what it's like to have parents, and he's discovered time and time again that it's not something you can explain. He's sure it would hurt too much to even try.
He tries not to let on how fragile his carefully constructed barriers are as he stands in front of Jabba, the mindless rush of noise threatening to drown him in his nightmarish memory. He feels as helpless as if he were a toddler again. He could lose it right here and now, especially when it becomes clear that the Hutt has every intention of slaying Ahsoka for the fun of it. If there was a worse thing for Jabba to say, he can't think of it. He tries to calm himself, taking those deep breaths that are supposed to center a Jedi. It isn't working. It rarely does. He tries to avoid finding his center as much as possible. He doesn't like what he sees there. He realizes that his hand has found his lightsaber without his mind being involved in any way in the process. He's a few steps closer to the Hutt than he remembers too, and he senses more than sees the crime lord's bodyguards and bystanders bristling.
In the end it's Padmé that saves him, again, always. He isn't even surprised anymore. It feels right, and as natural as breathing.
But it takes a long time for the knot of fear in his stomach to unclench. He turns to Ahsoka, sweat-soaked and streaked with sand, small and exhausted, but she isn't scared the way he is, she never is. As they walk out to the ship that will take them away from this nightmarish rock, she simply looks up at him with that grin that reminds him of all the best parts of life.
"No worries, Skyguy. I totally had it under control."
He's starting to think maybe this whole exercise had a point after all. He wasn't wrong when he said she'd never make it as Obi-Wan's padawan, but he's just as certain that doesn't mean she should simply be labeled hopeless and tossed aside. For the first time maybe he sees where Obi-Wan was coming from, forced to take on the responsibility of an unusual Padawan because it was about the only way to save a life. For all practical purposes, Anakin had to stay with him, where else could he have gone? Not back to Tatooine, that's for certain. And now, what is he supposed to do, send Ahsoka back to the Coruscant? She'd be sent to Agri-Corps, probably, to be forgotten while the Jedi conduct their war, just because she doesn't follow all their rules exactly right. But then, neither does he. Neither did Qui-Gon. Neither does anyone, he's pretty sure, and he hasn't yet worked out exactly what that means. But he knows enough to know he won't abandon her, and he feels a tiny bit of guilt for ever thinking that Obi-Wan didn't care about what happened to him. The truth is, probably, that he cared to much.
He doesn't want Ahsoka near him. It isn't safe. Because it only took a few days for him to realize that she is far more than just an okay kid. She's a great kid, and she deserves a lot more than what he can give her. The fear of what might happen, the knowledge of who he can be, gnaws at him, curled up cold in his chest. He can control it when it matters. He can control it most of the time. But what if she's nearby when he can't? What if he hurts her?
But he can't explain any of that, because he's tried a thousand times and no one hears him, even when he felt as though he's been screaming it all his life.
And even if they listened, it wouldn't matter, because when it comes down to it they are still both orphans with nowhere else to go.