I wrote this a while ago for Pinksaber13's birthday, but figured I'd post it now since I wrote it a sequel, (which I will also be posting). Enjoy!
I do not own Star Wars.
Even as a child, Ahsoka is able to appreciate the beauty of a still holo-photo. She is fascinated by the idea that one can hold onto a moment forever, frozen in time. As a Jedi, she is not allowed to own a camera, but that doesn't stop her from looking through the libraries at the brilliant pictures on the data-pads and info-cards. She has never been off Coruscant before and pours over pictures of far-off planets like Ragoon 6 and Naboo. They make her eager to become a Padawan, so she can go to those planets and see for herself if they really look like that in person.
Eventually, Ahsoka's time comes and she is told by Master Yoda that she is to go to Christophsis to assist Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. The latter will be her new Master.
Ahsoka can hardly believe her luck. Master Yoda believes she is skilled enough to train under Anakin Skywalker? Everyone knows the rumours surrounding him- the good and the bad. She dons the silka bead chain that will serve as her Padawan braid and is shipped off to Christophsis with a squad of clones.
Christophsis is, simply put, beautiful. From space, the whole planet is a vibrant turquoise, with a spiderweb of glittering lights stretching across it's surface. The background of dark space, sprinkled with stars, only enhances the planet's stunning surface.
Ahsoka has never so badly wished she had a camera.
She is too excited to focus on the scenery for long though. Her future could depend on how well her meeting with Master Skywalker goes.
Her first impression of Anakin Skywalker is that he is very, very tall. At fourteen, Ahsoka is a good, solid height, and her slight frame has often given her an advantage against her classmates. But she suddenly feels very small compared to the great Jedi Knight.
The second thing she notices is that Skywalker never smiles. Master Kenobi greats her with a polite nod and smile, but the younger Jedi could be carved from stone. It makes her feel unwelcome. He doesn't want her, and looking around at the turquoise buildings, Ahsoka wonders if this will be the only other planet she'll ever see, besides Bandomeer, the agriculture planet where they send initiates who fail to be granted the status of Padawan.
She wonders if people keep pictures to remind them of their failures.
Her mission goes from bad to worse when she succeeds in bringing an entire battalion of droids upon them. Skywalker's cry of "who's side are you on anyway?" has her cringing, and it is with a heavy heart that she presses the button to blow up the shield generator. She has just completed her first mission, but she has almost no doubt that it will be her last. The Knight looked furious with her.
She sits on a low crystal wall, head down, staring at the blasted turquoise ground. Ahsoka is so wrapped up in her misery that she almost doesn't see Anakin take a seat beside her. Briefly, she wonders if the ground would be kind enough to open up and swallow her down. Probably not.
"You're reckless, little one." Skywalker glances sideways and her and she refuses to look at him. "You never would have made it as Obi-Wan's Padawan..."
And yes, she knows this, she knows that she messed up, knows she's going home and why does he have to drag this out, it's humiliating enough as it is...
"...but you might make it as mine."
She can't possibly have heard that right. Her mind is playing tricks on her, telling her what she wants to hear, but when she looks up at him, he's staring right back with an almost amused look on his face that could almost be a smile and Ahsoka feels her face split into a grin as she muses that no camera could possibly capture the joy she's feeling right now.
Six weeks after Anakin accepts her as his Padawan, Ahsoka is given a camera by a lord of a backwater planet as a thank-you gift for saving his young daughter. Ahsoka is estatic, because even though Jedi aren't allowed possessions, it would be rude to decline a gift. She gleefully points this out to her Master back on the transport when he tries to tell her that Jedi aren't allowed to own things like that and he relents and lets her keep it.
Good, she thinks, because if that hadn't worked, she was going to point out the mountain of droids parts and other things he had stashed in his quarters in the Temple.
Ahsoka takes the camera everywhere they go, uses it every chance she gets. She takes pictures of scenery, clones, the ships, even Anakin, who absolutely hates it when she does that. As a result, she has not one picture without him ducking his head, or holding his hands in front of his face, although she does catch him with his tunic on inside out one day when they are rushing to get ready for a battle. She teases him about that for weeks and keeps the holo-pic for blackmail.
"Oh, come on Master, it's a picture! Would it kill you to smile for one?" she grouches as he hides his face behind Artoo.
"Better to be safe than sorry," comes the reply and Ahsoka sighs in exasperation.
"I'll get a decent picture of you one day," she promises, and Anakin comes out from behind Artoo with his eyebrow raised.
"Is that a challenge, my apprentice?"
Ahsoka says nothing, just gives him a mock salute and walks away.
The war goes on.
Anakin and Ahsoka fight battles across the galaxy, sometimes together, sometimes Anakin allows Ahsoka to tackle a mission without him. As more blood is shed, Ahsoka uses the camera less and less. She doesn't want to remember the men she fights with dying in agony. She doesn't want to see the war-torn galaxy frozen in a frame forever.
It's funny, she reflects, that she now hides from something she used to cherish.
She stopped trying to snap pictures of her Master months ago, after he came out of a battle covered in wounds, half-dead. It had shaken her up- a lot. She realized that she didn't want memories of Anakin with cuts on his face and ghosts in his eyes.
"It can wait until after the war," she had told him, proposing a truce, and he agreed. Neither of them mentioned that they might not live that long.
So they fight and win and lose and throughout it all, Ahsoka's camera stays put away.
Tiredly, Ahsoka and a squad of troopers slog their way through a swamp on a far-off planet that she had never heard of before this mission. Anakin is leading another squad a few clicks away. The rumour is that the planet as supposedly been captured by separatists. Ahsoka wipes mud off her nose and think that that if the entire planet is like this, the seppies can have it.
That is her last thought before the air fills with smoke and fire and she's falling to the marshy ground, her chest in flames.
She doesn't remember much after that. Everything is dark and her body feels heavy, like there's a large weight tied to her, pulling her down, keeping her in the blackness. A one point, there are voices above her, garbled, but understandable.
"What happened?"
That's Anakin, voice tense, and even though Ahsoka can't see him, she imagines he's standing with his arms crossed and a frown on his face, the way he usually does when he uses that tone.
"The attack came out of nowhere, sir, none of us could have prepared for it. Several are dead, most are wounded."
That voice belongs to a clone- which one, she can't tell. He sounds worn down with exhaustion.
"Will she make it?"
"We... don't know yet, sir. She's sustained a serious injury to her chest and I have yet to check the extension of the damage."
"Get to it," Anakin orders. Ahsoka thinks he might have gone until she feels a familiar presence by her left side. He says nothing, but sends a wave of assurance and strength over their bond. It is that gesture that keeps Ahsoka from succumbing to a sleep deeper than unconsciousness.
She wakes up to bright lights and a Jedi Knight sleeping in the chair beside her bed. Cautiously, she moves her arms and legs to make sure they're working right. No pain, but her chest and ribs protest when she tries to stretch.
Ahsoka's hiss of pain wakes her Master and he sits upright, rubbing his eyes. He jumps in surprise when he notices she's awake, too.
"Hey there, Snips," he says voice thick with sleep. The circles around his eyes are darker than usual and it's obvious he hasn't been sleeping well. Ahsoka feel guilty for waking him.
"What happened?" she asks. "How long was I out for?"
"Nearly a week," Anakin tells her. "Your troops were ambushed by the separatists and you got shot in the chest. Two inches to the left and it would have killed you for sure."
Ahsoka is silent for a minute. "Who else made it out?"
"Six in total. Two are still in the infirmary."
She lets out a sharp breath and closes her eyes. "I knew going there was a bad idea."
Anakin nods. "The Jedi Council has ordered us to postpone the mission until we have a better idea of what's going on."
Anakin seems angry, Ahsoka notes as she opens her eyes again. She cringes as she thinks of all the clones who died under her command.
"I'm sorry, Master. I didn't even hear them come up behind us. I should have payed more attention, I should have-"
"Ahsoka..." Anakin shakes his head, as if he can't believe what she's saying. "It's not your fault. They knew you were coming, they had it all set up. There was nothing you could have done."
Ahsoka sits back and thinks about his words. She doesn't know if she believes her Master, but it's a relief to know he isn't mad at her.
"Then... what is it?"
"What is what?"
"I can sense that you're upset, Master. Why?"
Anakin gets up and starts pacing, a habit he has when he's restless. "You almost died twice this week, Ahsoka. The first time, your heart stopped on the way to the cruiser and the medic almost couldn't restart it. The second was the day after, when they discovered that you had contracted an infection from all the mud in the swamp. You ran a very high fever and it took two days before they could confirm that you were going to live through it." Anakin takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his already messy hair.
Ahsoka blinks. Then blinks again. How does one respond to hearing that they've nearly died twice in one week?
"So... I guess I beat your record," she ventures.
Anakin glances at her, confused. "What?"
"You've only almost died once in a week," she continues, smirking. "I finally beat you in something."
Anakin just looks at her for a second and she's afraid her joke as fallen flat, but then he cracks a genuine smile and the tension shatters. "Not sure that's a good thing, Snips, but I'll let you have it."
They sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Ahsoka speaks again.
"That's why I used to like taking pictures. Because I liked the memories. I didn't know if who, or whatever I was taking a picture of would be there the next day." She thinks of her camera, gathering dust in her room on the Resolute. It's also why I stopped- because there are some things that should be forgotten."
Anakin studies her. "I never thought about it like that. That's also attachment, isn't it?"
Ahsoka meets his gaze with a hard stare of her own. "I suppose it is, in a way."
Anakin nods slowly, then abruptly gets up and exits the room.
Ahsoka shakes her head in disbelief. Is he really going to turn her in? Over a camera that she hasn't used in over two months?
She doesn't have time to properly get mad at him because he's returning five minutes later.
"Why did you- wait, is that my camera?"
Anakin nods. "I don't know how to use it, so you're going to take the picture."
Ahsoka must still be in a coma with a fever, hallucinating, because Anakin Skywalker hates having his picture taken. "Wait," she says slowly, "you want me to take a picture... of you."
"Of us, actually," Anakin corrects her, "now move over a little."
Ahsoka does, still feeling shocked. "Who are you and what have you done with my Master?"
"Shut up, Snips," Anakin deadpans, handing her the camera.
"You're only doing this because you now know that it's technically against the code, right?"
"Of course," he smirks. "Now take the picture."
Ahsoka doesn't believe him any more than she believes in space angels. However, it's rare that she gets to see the human, thoughtful side of Anakin Skywalker, so she's not complaining. She holds the camera in from of them and snaps a photo.
Anakin hops off the bed. "How did it turn out?"
Ahsoka brings up the picture on the screen. Neither of them look great, she's covered in bandages and her skin is pale, while Anakin bears resemblance to a zombie, with his ashen skin and sunken eyes. However, Anakin has his arm around her shoulder and is smiling a genuine smile and Ahsoka looks confused and amused at the same time. It's definitely not a perfect photo, but Ahsoka finds that she doesn't care.
"I like it," she tells her Master, and it's not even really a lie.
Perhaps memories aren't such a bad thing after all.
This is a bit of a different writing style than my previous works, but hey, change is good. I think. Please leave a review and tell me what you thought!