She had just received the promotion every young initiative accepted into the Order dreams of accomplishing one day; Knighthood. He was there, along with fellow masters and saw how proud of herself she was. And he of her, too. But he also saw the way she hugged herself and went into a reserved stance, walking out of the Council chambers and heading to her quarters. Obi-Wan had caught word from Luminara that other fellow recent Knight graduates were going to throw her a celebratory gathering at some swanky restaurant down at the Coruscanti entertainment district. He'd been invited but wasn't sure if he'd show up - the cause for celebration was for her finally getting away from his watch, after all.
Here in the Temple's chilly gardens, he was able to grasp just how far from shore the last couple of months had swept him away. Obi-Wan was probably going to put in a request for yet another Padawan now with the war over easing up time, Ahsoka was indeed originally meant to be his - how crazy things seem when they fall in another due order. Padme had accepted the nominee for Supreme Chancellor and was well on her way to take on the Rotunda, despite hailing from the very same green globe the evil they'd just defeated sprouted from too. But it only gave her all the more grit in her itinerary to earn the Senate's votes. Still, even with her heavy workload and heaps of responsibilities to attend to, in any event that they could see each other, it proved to be too heavy of a weight to bear on his heart at the moment, of turning over a new leaf in their relationship; as friends. Eventually, they would get there. But the climate was much too foggy to even attempt to navigate it. The clones were left stuck between a rock and a hard place, as the Senate endlessly debated the allocation of their discharging of services for the Republic. It was to be one of the major key turning points in the election of the next Supreme Chancellor. He was left with just his Snips, and now she too was heading for a future where he existed; but not in every corner, just the dark ones where she might stumble and lead a light to redirect her to a safer passageway. He would be there for her, no matter what, and it was better to exist in some space than none at all. But he was Anakin Skywalker, and he made a promise long ago to never perceive his ties to his heart in any measure as inferior to his ties to his brain and their strategies; they all came with him when you called him over to you, whether it be on the battlefield or the comfort of a home.
Out of the shadowy archway and climbing up the stairs to join him, he could sense an equilateral accumulation of fear, humor, and carelessness emitting from her.
Truth is, she was afraid as ever to confess to him her feelings. Every time he saved her life, it was equal amounts of joy and gratitude as well as frustration and repression. She said her thank you's, bowed her head, and went on to discuss how to improve the strategies for the next battle at bay. But the nights were long and awful, especially if they shared sleeping space. It always helped to have Rex and the other clones to stay up late with and chat away till the sleeping fairies hit them with their dust, but it wasn't always a guarantee they'd last any longer in going to bed than Anakin.
So she was forced to live in her head more times to count, recounting if he saw the way her eyes lit up when he would purposefully position himself right next to her amongst the legion of troops when they were cranking in on the clankers, how much she loved watching him banter with his men, how in a state of war, he managed to keep her sane with his recklessness, jokes, and even extreme shows of passion.
She was a Jedi, she had wanted to become a Knight after so much bloodshed and victories and losses played out before her eyes, but more than that, she wanted to not just forever live with him, but like him.
Yet there was a small desire to laugh at the whole ordeal of it all, too. Along with her fellow recent Knight grads, she had entered adulthood and was experiencing urges and desires. It was commonplace to hear from her companions that they had ventured into the more seedy, underground neighborhoods of Coruscant to take care of these nuisances that had to be dealt with much rather sooner than later, to keep the disciplines of the Order alive, in check, and on routine. She was teased when she would turn down their incites to taking a walk down those lustful paths.
No, she didn't judge or look down on her friends for employing those services. She was happy they were looking out for each other, that they confided in one another to share their experiences of longing for and seeking out intimacy, all in an effort to find strength when they need it the most against the dogmatic nature of their lifestyle. It wasn't all one-sided; after tireless efforts to get her to crack and admit maybe she was a bit curious about what they'd offer her down at those districts of Coruscant, she told them the truth. It simply couldn't be something she could get done with in a night and never look back at in much regard besides "well, it happened." That couldn't occur, because she wanted it to be with him. The entire concept wasn't what she was fixated on, for she had never been one to ponder too long on certain assertions of life. But the fact that he was so inexplicably hers, it left her with the same rush of light in the constant dark she experienced when he first told her maybe she could make it as his Padawan.
The thing was, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and had proven it to her several times throughout the war. His attachment to her surpassed that of a Master and Padawan long ago, to the point where she attempted to take a step back from his immediate circle of loved ones in the fear she was becoming a bothersome interloper to his dealings with Senator Amidala, whom she knew was more than just a friend, but how much more, unclear of. She quickly snapped out of her daze after realizing neither he, nor Padme wished to see her casted off. While she understood Padme's point of view, for as she didn't get to see the busy politician nearly as much as her Jedi peers, Anakin's revealed just how far his need to experience everything with and in relation to her went. The time had come to act on the shifting tectonic plates beneath them, for she couldn't stand having to watch him from another ridge.
"Snips, shouldn't you be getting ready for your celebration?" Anakin asked her with a mild tinge of embarrassment and regret in his tone. Sometimes she thought she embarrassed him far too much for a man of his stature.
A soft smile with adverting eyes met his gaze. "I will be. Knowing Barriss, I doubt she even booked a proper reservation. We might end up dining at Dex's."
Anakin laughed, feeling relieved this wasn't a conversation in a purely-confrontational manner. She's still Snips, after all. "So, what's on your mind? How does it feel to finally be a Jedi Knight? One of us?"
This time, a forced smile and swallow was all she could offer. "It's weird," she shakily said trying her hardest to gain her composure. "Feels more like the end of a race than the beginning of a new era. Probably because, in my mind... I have another potential future. And I'm always going to have one. In fact, I've had several of them. They start off as little seeds I think my mind plants itself just to try to trick me, or amuse me. Yet, this time... I can't shake it off. Because it's not a matter of mind. It's my heart."
Anakin rested his gloved hand on her shoulder. "Then what does your heart tell you?"
She tilted her head away from him and shut her eyes in agony. "That I should be looking at what's right in front of me. But, in order to do that, I need to look at what's been behind me too. Geonosis, Wasskah, Mortis. Each and every one of those times, I nearly escaped death. And it wasn't simply coming back out breathing that instilled the life in me. It was seeing you, Mas- Anakin. It was seeing you. I'm a Jedi Knight now, and that means having to lift up even more darkness and death than I could have possibly done as a Padawan, because I have the next generation of Jedi to shield, to protect, and instruct. But I don't know if I can do it, not without you there to show me the very essence to keep going."
"Ahsoka, I will be there. We'll all still be here. You're not going to be doing it all alone. Master Obi-Wan and even me, will have to continue to pass on our teachings to other new learners."
"I've just grown out of it, that's all," she said with a disillusioned expression that finally expressed just how hard saying all of this to him was. "And not my beliefs! The Jedi - we won the war, we took down the Sith, we're committing to rebuilding our ways. I'm proud of us. But the Temple, and the Order, it's no longer where I wish to reside. To be honest, I don't care if I'm back on a Trandoshan moon for the Force's sake - as long as I'm with you."
She finally titled her head in his direction and looked at him in the eyes. He retracted his arm from her shoulder, letting out a long sigh, looking down at the pavement.
"I know you feel the same way! You've risked more for me than I've ever could have possibly dreamed of. And not just on the battlefield! Here, Anakin. I've seen it here. In the Council chambers, in the corridors, just eavesdropping on your conversations with the other masters. You're a good person, and you'll never be able to resist helping others. In fact, there's so much more good you secretly hope to do without the approval of the Council. This I put all my faith in. But I know you long for more than this. You don't have to race from your quarters to mine every morning with a platter from the cafeteria before I even wake up. You didn't have to cut yourself off from being intimate with other girls after you ended the thing with Senator Amidala. Those pair of tickets I found for the Galaxies Opera weren't for friends; most of your friends here either can score those easily or are Jedi simply not interested. Our duty is over. We can be, Anakin, if we wanted to. Stop making a big deal out of the little things, we've got an entire life to worry as well as one to do some good in the galaxy. I'm calling you mine, I'm yours."
Leaving the Order and startling life anew amongst the stars wasn't exactly something that had her staying up writing over and over in her holojournal. But it was what her rebel heart commanded her to do. Yep, she'd always been a rebel - the youngling that didn't have many friends amongst her lightsaber training class. Overseer of the Onderon guerilla. The apprentice of Anakin Skywalker. It just came with the territory.
Anakin stood with fists clenched and a defeated face. It was after all, so easy for Ahsoka to embarrass him. For a moment, Ahsoka thought she had completely humiliated the Chosen One. Yet again. Are they back on the battlefield? He quickly relaxed and sprint forward to lift her into the air in a majestic spin. Ahsoka let out a series of giggles that seemed powered by butterflies. Her feet came back down and they embraced in a ultra-passionate kiss, Anakin massaging her rear lekku with his hand. They pulled back and he traced her facial markings with his gloved fingers while remarking, "Ever since after Kadavo, when I told you: after the war, let's eradicate slavery and other horrors from the galaxy. Not a day has gone by where I hope you haven't forgotten that promise. As a boy, I wanted to be the first pilot to visit all the star systems. But I never wanted to do it alone. Now with you by my side, I no longer have to. Thank you, Ahsoka Tano."
"Now, which Star System do we conquer first, Lady Tano?" he playfully inquired Ahsoka, who had her arms resting on his shoulder meeting his face-on.
"I think Dex's Diner. Barriss is almost for sure picking a fight with the staff already."
They shared a laugh without any pretense of awkwardness or suppression of feelings for the first time in what seemed an eternity and made their way down the stairs of the Jedi Temple, their old home, in pursuit of the stars beyond that would host their new home, hand in hand.