Disclaimer: Clearly I do not own Star Wars, The Clone Wars, or anything belonging to Lucas Films or Disney.
The air shifted and blew through the grass and trees surrounding the cottage and Ahsoka took a deep breath, the smell of woods and smoke from a nearby fire flooded her senses for a moment and a small smile graced her lips. As she stepped carefully over the boards of the deck to look at the group of misfits she called family, who were currently causing a clamor that their village neighbors complained about half-heartedly, with smiles glittering in their eyes. The tang of sweat and the sound of laughter rang to her in a way that was so alive, and she planned to enjoy every moment of it.
Making her way over to the railing and leaning on her forearms carefully she thought about how they ended up here; Ezra and Fives were being appropriately chastised by Echo while Kanan laughed and informed him it was no use-they were always causing trouble that inevitably landed one of them in a medical bed-as he was wrangling a small toddler since Hera was inside helping get dinner ready. Jacen Syndulla was an over the top, green-haired, and impish boy who loved to try to sneak things by his father; he understood blindness but not the Force, curiously his father always somehow found him out anyway.
How did we end up with another chance? She mused, rubbing the thick scar on the back of her left hand absentmindedly. It seemed like a lifetime ago that the Force pulled them back through time, leaving them to try and convince an extremely skeptical Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi to trust them before it's all too late.
It all seems so far away now...all the pain they went through, all the loss... Strong arms wrapped themselves around her waist and rubbed her slightly swollen belly gently.
A giggle escaped her as she turned and raised an eye marking, "Aren't you supposed to be helping Hera with dinner, blondie?" Ahsoka queried innocently, pulling a snort from Rex. He shook his head and nipped her neck lightly before replying.
"She booted me, apparently I am a 'kriffing useless excuse of a clone' per our lovely-if hormonal- pilot." Rex rolled his eyes and turned Ahsoka in his arms to nuzzle into her neck more.
"I'm, and here I thought you were her favorite clone. Oh well, I guess I'll have to wrangle Kix or Cody to help her." she sighed dramatically with a swing of her arms and patted the top of his head before extracting herself from his grip.
"Echo?" was mumbled as she pulled away.
She shook her head, "Nope, he's busy trying to keep Ezra and Fives out of trouble because he's my favorite clone." She winked at her husband and sauntered off towards the small fire as he scowled.
"Aren't I supposed to be your favorite, cyar'ika?" Rex hollered after her. Ahsoka shrugged and opened her mouth to reply before a metallic clang sounded, followed by crashing, yelling, and the smell of burnt plastic.
"I take that back, you're still my favorite." She grumbled and stomped off to see what mess the boys had made this time. Rex chuckled and waved to Kix, seeing him on the deck next door, to help Hera inside before trotting off to accompany his wife and deflect any unnecessary rage.
Ezra poked the campfire with a stick as he watched Jacen try to sneak a loth-kitten past his dad without notice and failing miserably. Where a toddler had gotten his hands on a loth-kitten on Kiros was flabbergasting, but not as much as than the small herd of Nerf calfs he had found a few weeks prior-they now kept Kix and Cody busy as a real herd to help the village food supply.
Surrounding the campfire were several small cottages that were a stark contrast to most of the tribal style huts that were found in town. Their little family had made them on their own land after the colony they previously saved from slavehood sent title to a homestead as a thank you.
A heavy thump sounded next to him and nearly knocked him off the bench as Fives stretched out his legs and laid an arm languidly over Ezra's shoulders, pulling him closer.
"So...Hera's in the kitchen with Rex, Ahsoka is sleeping, tiny tot is keeping daddy Syndulla busy...wanna play a prank?" Fives' grin split across his face ear to ear as he cocked an eyebrow. Ezra stared at him, deadpan, for a moment before his eyes lit up and he nodded eagerly.
"Excellent. So, I need you to take this pot of water and climb up to the fifth branch of that tree with it."
"Alright, what are we doing exactly?" Ezra looked over at the tree Fives was pointing to and nodded, albeit confused, before grabbing the metal pot and heading over to it.
"Don't worry about it, it'll be great! Better than the bubble blasters even." He shooed Ezra towards it.
Fives grinned and waited, fully aware that Kanan had overheard, and was going to use that as an advantage.
Fives waited until Ezra's attention was solely focused on the tree to slip away to a large water reserve next to the house. Turning his attention to a wood panel with hinges, Fives opened the hatch to a furnace that supplied hot water for showers and turned off the valve. Peeking around the wood door to make sure Ezra had been caught by Kanan-he had-Fives then took off a plate on top of the furnace, removed the piping and pulled out a pack of bright green powder and dumped it in.
"FIVES! Get your shebs over here!" roared his ori'vod and with a sigh, he sauntered over after carefully replacing all the parts he had moved and closed the wooden panel out of sight.
"I'm here, I'm here. What's the trouble, Echo?" He grinned up at Ezra who was now effectively using the tree to avoid both Echo and Kanan.
"The trouble? The trouble is you two! Ahsoka sent me over because she saw Ezra climbing a tree and assumed you two were getting into trouble again. What did you do?" eyes narrowed in his direction and Fives shrugged.
"I didn't do anything, vod-" a loud crash broke up the conversation as the branch Ezra was perched on cracked and he fell, water splashing them all and effectively putting out the fire, but not before Fives' empty packet flew out of his hand and melted.
Groans sounded-Ezra's echoed in the pot over his head-and all at once the silence was broken by simultaneous arguing.
"I swear, whatever you-"
"I didn't! Give me some credit, I'm an ARC, I know how to be seri-"
"Are you kidding? An ARC maybe, but your personality-"
"Is lovely, thank you!"
None of them noticed the crunch of twigs before Ahsoka swept the Force over them all, cutting off the conversation. Four surprisingly guilty faces turned to her.
"Hey, Ahsoka. So..." Echo stumbled for words as she glared, an amused Rex not bothering to hide laughter over her shoulder.
"One job, Echo. Don't let Fives and Ezra do stupid things. One job." she gritted out. Echo sheepishly glanced over at them. Noticing something odd, he looked around them to the benches and around the large tree before interrupting Ahsoka's instructions to rebuild the fire.
"Where's Jacen?" Echo asked sharply. Kanan's blood froze for a moment as he looked around wildly as if he could see.
"Jacen? Jacen, come out please. This isn't funny, come back to daddy and Zen'ka 'Soka!" Kanan called as panic laced his tone before chiming laughter turned everyone towards the house as the main entry door swung open.
"I have him right here. He came in babbling about Nerra Ezra and trees." Hera had Jacen on her hip.
"I am going to go shower him, stew is resting and will be done in a little while." She grinned as she balanced Jacen and a rather pregnant belly, her lekku dancing in humor. With wave she went back into the house and Echo turned to Fives.
"So...what did you actually do?" He asked pointedly, eyebrow raised. Fives shrugged and slung his arm around Ezra again.
"Oh, you know, just the usual mischief and getting Nerra Ezra here in trouble." Ezra scowled and kicked the dirt petulantly.
"I don't even know what that means! I don't speak Ryl." he grumbled with a roll of his eyes. Ahsoka and Kanan chuckled softly. Ezra had decided he didn't need to learn Mando'a or Ryl, although that decision seemed to be coming to an end.
"You know Hera could teach you, right? And none of us would mind teaching you the words we use daily." Rex patted Ezra's shoulder unclaimed by Fives' hand.
"Yeah, well...yeah. Then none of you can talk about things I'm not supposed to know about." the air around him felt triumphant. Ahsoka's eyes crinkled in a smile, No one appreciates Ezra as much as Ezra does, that's for sure.
Echo snickered behind his hand, "Oh yeah just wait until Fives starts teaching him things in Mando'a." Fives made a sharp movement with his hand behind Ezra but was promptly ignored. With several groans and sighs at that thought, Rex and Ahsoka began ushering everyone inside to get dinner set up.
As they made their way up the short stairs, fire put out properly, Hera popped her head out again.
"Fives, Ezra, you two can eat outside." She glared at one and then the other slowly.
"What?! What did I do? Echo was supposed to be watching him." Ezra groused with a finger at Echo.
"Echo can eat outside too then. Next time you put dye in the water, maybe aim for something other than green?" Hera said dryly while gesturing to her own green skin and Jacen's matching green hair...although there was a significant tint to his usually pale skin.
Sighing heavily Echo dragged both of the troublemakers back out to the bench with a shake of his head before returning to gather stew for themselves as well as Kix and Cody nextdoor.
Thank you everyone for reading! Please let me know what you think, this story is cross posted on ao3 and Tumblr. Apologies for incorrect paragraph formatting, FFN hated the file.