"No."

Anakin slowly glanced back at where the news had been playing just moments ago. There were still too many things and too many words ringing around his head: the clones, the duchess, and then…the heir. Anakin vaguely remembered the boy, back when he had to drop Ahsoka off to Mandalore. But back then, he hadn't thought too much on it, mostly because he had been more concerned with the fact that his apprentice very obviously was reluctant to teach a cluster of cadets who weren't that much older than herself.

"I can contact Ahsoka and Rex instead," Anakin said at last. "And you can contact…" Another memory flashed through his mind: running through the halls of a ship, an alarm blaring overhead. A light, teasing comment, and Obi-Wan shouting after him that she's not my—

"Whoever you need to," Anakin said lamely. He stood up.

"You don't have to—"

"There's a communicator in the other room," Anakin said over his shoulder. He gestured towards the holoprojector sitting on the coffee table. "It's all yours."

Anakin returned to the living room to catch just the barest snippets of Obi-Wan and Satine's conversation. They were speaking quietly, even over holoprojector. Anakin made out Satine's bowed head, and for a second, Anakin could only marvel at how it was the duchess, and that was her voice, but then he heard Obi-Wan say something. Anakin couldn't quite make out all the words save for "stay safe".

And when Satine's blue form flickered away, Anakin saw Obi-Wan's head dip slightly, his shoulders round over briefly. He looked alone.

So Anakin pushed himself into the room, settled down on the couch next to Obi-Wan.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan said, straightening. He swiped a hand over his face. "Are Ahsoka and Rex…"

"They got distracted by something," Anakin replied, even though he had wanted to ask Obi-Wan questions first. But then Anakin wondered if he even knew which questions he would ask first: how are you and are you okay and is she okay and did you two talk all seemed to blur together. So Anakin just kept talking instead. "But I think they'll get here soon."

"Good," Obi-Wan said. He rolled his shoulders back. "The duchess is also secured. She was already back at her apartment by the time the news broke. She's preparing a statement as we speak…and I think she's about to reach Padmé."

"That's good," Anakin said.

"Yes," Obi-Wan agreed.

There was some silence.

Anakin pushed the holoprojector farther down the table, even though he knew he didn't have to. He fidgeted once with the thing, waited a heartbeat before asking, "Did you two…discuss anything else?"

Anakin risked a glance backwards.

Obi-Wan was looking away. "We didn't get the chance," he said after a while. "I suspect we'll discuss things later."

A part of Anakin wanted to ask more questions—and yet another memory flashed through his mind, this time one of being in a lift, another question being asked, Obi-Wan's flushed face, Anakin smothering a little smirk to himself.

Anakin couldn't quite bring himself to ask any questions now, because Obi-Wan looked alone.

"Okay," Anakin said. He pushed himself off the couch. He moved into the kitchen, took out a kettle. He shuffled around the kitchen, dragging out a mug. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he grabbed a few more mugs. He had a feeling that everyone would need it.

"What are you doing?" Obi-Wan asked at last. Anakin heard the rustle of robes, quiet footsteps coming his way.

"Tea," Anakin replied. He glanced over at Obi-Wan.

"Tea," Obi-Wan repeated. "Anakin—"

"I got this," Anakin said, waving a hand. "Just sit down."

Obi-Wan hesitated, and then he slipped to the seat closest to Anakin—a stool at the island. He set his hands on the surface, and Anakin felt his former master's eyes follow him as he filled the kettle with water, turned up the heat.

"What?" Anakin asked after a while.

"You never were much of a tea drinker."

"No," Anakin replied. He turned around, leaned against the opposite side of the island. "But Padmé does, from time to time. And we have to be prepared whenever you come over, don't we?" He was relieved to see the faintest twitch of a smile on Obi-Wan's lips.

"And to think," Obi-Wan said, shifting his elbows onto the island. "That you couldn't surprise me anymore."

"As if," Anakin replied lightly, turning back around to the kettle. "Of course we would stock up for you."

A pause, and then, quietly: "Thank you."

Anakin knew Obi-Wan wasn't just talking about the tea, but he found that he still didn't quite expect those words. We'll get better at this, he had said just a little while ago. That felt like hours ago. The us part.

Anakin turned around a little bit, just enough to catch Obi-Wan looking at him.

"You're welcome," Anakin said.

The Skywalker-Amidala residence had never been this quiet before with this many people—and by this many people, Anakin really just meant Ahsoka, Rex, Obi-Wan, the twins, and himself. But no one was speaking. No baby babbling, just the occasional sigh from Luke or Leia. A slight creak of a chair as someone shifted in their seat.

"Well," Anakin said, just as Ahsoka asked, "How did all of that information leak?"

Anakin looked at her. She had her hands wrapped around the mug Anakin had given her, her face set in a frown. "The inhibitor chips, Duchess Kryze…" Anakin noticed that she didn't mention Korkie. She looked around the table, her brows furrowed. "All of that intel just rushed out at once. That can't be a coincidence."

"It's obvious," Obi-Wan said from beside Anakin. His eyes were on the mug, his hand loosely gripping the handle. "Someone is trying to disrupt the rebuilding process of the Republic. Cast as much doubt as they possibly can." He pushed aside the mug, flicked his eyes up to Anakin. "And I suspect it started with those released images."

Anakin's throat dried. "You think…"

"It has to be related," Obi-Wan said, crossing his arms. "Your marriage with Senator Amidala was news enough, but images of your children…" He glanced over to Luke and Leia, who blinked back at Obi-Wan with a solemnity that sent a shiver up Anakin's spine.

"And the inhibitor chips," Rex said dully. "That's obvious why someone would want to let that little secret slip out." He rubbed at his temples absentmindedly, and noticing what he was doing, Rex hastily dropped his hand to his lap.

"The chips were never taken out?" Anakin asked.

"Things have been slow," Ahsoka said. Her eyes were downcast. She pressed her lips together. "And you heard that idiot news anchor—he had a point. Deactivating all the chips in every single clone trooper in a short amount of time would be a medical feat. And there was also the matter of trying to get our other programs up and running…" Her brows furrowed. "I don't think too many worlds would have been excited to offer up places for clone troopers if they knew that there was something like a chip coming into play."

Fair, but Anakin knew that Ahsoka and Rex were both regretting the decision now. He hated those dejected expressions on their faces. He hated the people who had mocked the attempts being made for the clone troopers, and he hated that they were in a situation like this in the first place.

"Well," Anakin said, "those chips can't cause any harm right now, right? There haven't been any…" He tried to search for the right word. "Incidents."

"No," Rex replied. "But we're going to have to take care of it faster now. In case…" His voice drifted, and a shudder seemed to run through everyone's bodies.

"That won't happen," Anakin said decidedly. "So we just speed up the process with deactivating the chips. Right?"

Another silence.

"It will take time," Obi-Wan said. "Perhaps more time than the public would be comfortable with." He looked to Ahsoka and Rex. "But that will be something that cannot be helped."

They lapsed back into quiet.

"How are the others?" Anakin asked at last. "Did you—"

"A minor scare," Rex replied. "Not the first time most of them had seen an angry mob." His words were factual, but that slight flicker in his face told Anakin the unfinished rest of the sentence: but not this. "Or angry politicians looking for…answers."

Anakin's chest tightened. He peered out the windows in the direction of the Senate Building. Padmé had said that she would take care of things from her end, but the day was growing darker, and he still hadn't heard back from her since she had made that first call.

Anakin found that he wasn't the only one looking to the Senate Building—he saw the slight tilt of Obi-Wan's head toward the windows, the crease between his eyebrows, and not for the first time since the news broke out, Anakin wondered what exactly was going through his former master's mind. There had been the initial shock—the numb, and then Obi-Wan had been mentioning contacting Ahsoka and Rex first—

Anakin glanced over at Ahsoka and Rex. Ahsoka had been watching them both, Anakin realized. She looked tired. They all looked tired, Anakin figured, but even despite it all, Ahsoka nudged her head towards Obi-Wan. A silent question.

Anakin turned back to Obi-Wan, but he wasn't looking at the Senate Building anymore.

"There will be support to keep the clone troopers safe," Obi-Wan said, his hands resting on the table. "You two have garnered enough alliances and support thus far—quiet support, perhaps, but enough to speed up any legislation in the long term." Words of hope, that was what Obi-Wan was giving now, despite everything.

A small nod from both Ahsoka and Rex—a small smile, but better than nothing.

"In the meantime," Ahsoka said, turning to Rex, "we'll have to get some more information on exactly how much time it'll take for all of the chips to be deactivated. And some kind of system to deactivate them all efficiently." A wry smile. "Are you ready for some more research?"

"The Archives might have some resources," Obi-Wan suggested.

Ahsoka nodded. "That'll be one place to start," she said.

"And a revisit to the Kaminoans' confessions," Rex said, rubbing a hand over his head. "Should make for an interesting…couple of days."

"Understatement of the millennium," Anakin muttered, which was followed by halfhearted murmurs and mumbles of agreement, shifts and scrapes of the chairs against the floor as everyone mulled over the chaos of the last few hours.

"And…what about Duchess Satine?" Ahsoka asked, nudging her mug forward. "Has she been contacted yet?"

Anakin glanced at Obi-Wan.

"She has," Obi-Wan replied. "She's safe for the time being. Getting ready to face the…outbursts."

A nod from everyone else around the table.

And that was that.

Anakin found Ahsoka standing at the edge of the balcony, mug sitting in her hands.

"Mind if I join you?" Anakin asked.

Ahsoka looked up, gave him a weary smile. "Of course," she said.

And for a while, they stood together at the edge of the balcony, their elbows bumping against each other as they watched speeders pass by. Anakin wondered if there were still photographers lingering nearby, and he wondered if that should be their signal to walk back inside, but Anakin dismissed that quickly.

Go ahead, Anakin thought sourly. He would replace the pictures with something nastier than a loth cat if he saw any more photos posted. But then again, he figured that there had been enough news today. He glanced back into the apartment, where Rex and Obi-Wan were quietly talking over data pads, while Luke and Leia tugged at their clothes.

Anakin turned back around to Ahsoka. She wasn't quite looking at the speeders or the buildings or anything, which was how Anakin knew that he was going to have to ask what he was going to ask next.

"How was…your visit?" Anakin asked, squeezing a hand around his mug. "To the Detention Center?"

A silence.

And then, pushing out a sigh, Ahsoka replied, "Strange. And…" She scratched the surface of the mug with a fingernail. "Strange," she repeated.

"What did she want?"

Ahsoka's lips twitched, but not in the direction of a happy smile. Anakin found that he was the one who felt strange now, seeing that different sort of expression on Ahsoka's face. "To apologize," she said.

Anakin tried to imagine Barriss Offee apologizing in front of Ahsoka. Tried to imagine Ahsoka's expression: but all Anakin could see was Ahsoka's stunned expression when he had first brought Barriss into the courtroom. He remembered Ahsoka's widening eyes, the too-soft voice when she had asked of the truth.

Looking at Ahsoka now, Anakin had the feeling that this encounter hadn't gone too well.

"And," Ahsoka said, dropping her hand from the mug, "I couldn't last two minutes in there." Her hand curled inwards—not into a fist, but into a half-raised steeple against the balcony ledge. Her eyes had drifted down to her knuckles. There was no shock left there, not the kind that had filled them when Barriss had first been marched into the courtroom. Just a blank, empty kind of hurt that Anakin knew didn't belong there.

"Ahsoka—"

"Is that strange?" Ahsoka asked, lifting her head. Her eyes to Anakin. "That I couldn't…" She frowned, her brows furrowed. "I know I'm supposed to be compassionate—"

"Who says you're supposed to be?" Anakin asked, and Ahsoka blinked, and for a moment, she looked caught off-guard, and then oddly guilty, but before Anakin could further decipher her expression, she bowed her head.

Anakin leaned against the balcony ledge. He looked down at her hand. Her knuckles had paled—they hadn't gone white, but still.

"I thought I could handle it," Ahsoka said after a while. "I really, really thought I could." Her voice wavered at the end for a moment—the briefest of wobbles before she closed her eyes, lowered her head slightly.

Anakin's chest tightened. "Ahsoka…" He set a hand on her shoulder, and then Ahsoka was turning around to face him. Her eyes were open this time, and though Anakin saw the pain there, Ahsoka's chin remained lifted, the expression on her face still trying so hard to maintain its defiance. Anakin told himself that he had seen that look before, but it seemed different now. Felt different in the way that made Anakin wonder yet again how Ahsoka had grown up without telling him.

So that led Anakin to his next words: "What are you going to do now?"

That felt strange—asking a question instead of telling Ahsoka what to do.

Ahsoka lowered her head a little bit. Then she looked back up at Anakin, pressed her lips together. "I want to do the right thing," she said. "I'm just trying to figure that part out."

The right thing.

Ahsoka lowered her head. She closed her eyes once, reopened them. Lifted her head back up at Anakin, and this time, some of that defiance on her face had melted away, leaving behind the faintest glimmer of the younger Padawan she used to be. "Do you think I can do that?"

Anakin stared down at Ahsoka. "The right thing?" he asked.

Ahsoka hesitated, nodded.

Anakin felt a corner of his lips twitch. He squeezed Ahsoka's shoulder. "That's not even a question," he said.

But Ahsoka didn't smile back, so Anakin ducked his head down a little, just so that it was easier to make eye-contact with his former apprentice. "Ahsoka, come on."

Ahsoka's eyes moved up to Anakin.

Anakin smiled. "You'll do the right thing," he said. "Whatever you choose to do—it'll be right because you chose."

Ahsoka hesitated. Anakin could tell she wanted to say something—so he asked, "What is it?"

"Nothing," Ahsoka said, and her lips quirked into a familiar halfhearted smirk-smile. "You've just changed a little."

Anakin blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Choosing," Ahsoka said. She poked Anakin in the chest. "I didn't think you really liked all my choices before."

"That's true," Anakin said, eyeing the place where Ahsoka's silka beads used to hang. He looked back at Ahsoka's face and said, "But you've changed a little too, you know. And I already told you that."

Ahsoka's face softened. "Yeah," she said. She poked Anakin in the chest again. "It's kind of new, isn't it? This? Us?"

Anakin caught Ahsoka's finger before she could poke him again. Ahsoka gave him a smile that was more like herself, and Anakin realized that even if some things changed, there were still some things that would stay the same.

"Not entirely," Anakin said. He dropped Ahsoka's finger from himself and slung an arm around Ahsoka's shoulders instead.

"Ouch—Anakin—"

"Sorry, was that your leg?"

"Yeah—"

"Sorry—"

Ahsoka huffed, but a moment later, her head was on Anakin's shoulder.

They were like that for some time.

Padmé came back to the apartment long after everyone else had fallen asleep—well, everyone except Anakin, who almost flew out of his perch in the living room when he heard the door open. Almost because both Obi-Wan and Rex started to stir from their sleep, and for an instant, Anakin felt like he was calming down the twins instead of his friends. ("Sh, go back to sleep, go back to sleep—" And miraculously, they did fall back asleep, while Ahsoka and the actual twins remained dead to the world.)

And now Anakin enfolded Padmé into his arms, felt her settle her head against his chest and her hands tug him closer. He heard her quiet breaths, the slight tremble in them.

So they stood by the door, Anakin by the door and breathing in his wife and knowing that Padmé was doing the same.

"It's bad," Padmé whispered at last.

Anakin glanced backwards at his friends still scattered in the living room. And then he remembered that Obi-Wan had said that he had heard Ahsoka and his own conversation earlier that day, and remembering that both Obi-Wan and Rex had so easily wakened, Anakin shifted his head to the bedroom.

Padmé caught Anakin's gesture and nodded. They both padded over to the bedroom, hands never leaving each other's.

When the door closed behind themselves, Padmé let out what Anakin wondered was her first real breath.

"Satine will be making her own formal statement tomorrow morning," she said. "And Chancellor Mothma has already started her urge for the senators and civilians to stay calm in regards to the clones." Padmé sat down on the bed, pain tightening her features. "She's already utilizing some of the information Ahsoka and Rex had sent her before this whole…mess. About the actual nature of the inhibitor chips, the limits to them."

"The limits," Anakin repeated.

"As far as Ahsoka and Rex know—and as far as the Kaminoans know," Padmé said, "the inhibitor chips weren't actually directed at…civilians."

No, the chips were meant to execute Jedi, and Anakin wasn't sure if that trade-off made anyone feel any better, but still, if that was what it took to calm down even a small percentage of the Coruscant population and the politicians…

"What else?" Anakin asked. "Were there any other updates?"

"No more scandalous secrets, if that's what you're asking," Padmé said wearily. She undid her hair, letting the dark locks spill over her shoulders. She looked up at Anakin. "How were the others?"

Anakin thought about the events of the day. He felt like this whole day had just been a whole year, smashed into one rotation.

"Well, they're all here," Anakin said. "Which is the important thing."

"I noticed," Padmé said, a small smile tugging at her lips. Anakin was glad to see that smile. Padmé pushed herself off the bed. "You know we have guest rooms, don't you?"

"I know," Anakin replied. "But they just…all fell asleep there. And I didn't know if I should disturb them." He gave Padmé a semi-bashful look. "Besides, it's not like this is the first time."

"Yes," Padmé agreed. "But I think they all deserve to sleep in actual beds tonight, don't you think?"

"Couldn't agree more," Anakin replied. "But if one of them can't go back to sleep…"

Padmé only rolled her eyes, but Anakin knew that she was glad for this light moment—just this brief, light moment that reminded Anakin too much of their own stolen moments back when the war was ongoing.

But there is no war, Anakin told himself as he trailed after Padmé. The war is over.

"Come on," Anakin said now, nudging Obi-Wan awake.

Obi-Wan sleepily opened his eyes, blinked up at Anakin a few times. "'kin—"

"Bed," Anakin only said.

Obi-Wan nodded, but his eyes were already drifting shut.

Anakin smirked. He heard Padmé waking Rex—saw Rex's own bewildered, almost embarrassed expression as he took in what was happening around him. ("It's fine, Rex, let's just get you somewhere a little more comfortable…" "Yes, ma'am." "You know you don't have to call me ma'am." A short laugh.)

Anakin flashed Rex a quick smile at that, caught Rex's own sheepish grin back.

It took a few trips and a few mumbled apologies from everyone before Anakin and Padmé had bussed everyone into a real bed. And then there were some more whispered apologies as Anakin and Padmé scooped up the twins, who had started to fuss at the sudden noise.

But the twins were quiet now, sleeping in the cribs that Anakin had half-dragged, half-levitated into their bedroom.

Padmé slipped into bed a moment later, her slightly shower-damp hair tickling against Anakin's cheek.

And Anakin wanted to tell her about everything that had happened today: the Council meeting and the healing crystal and Ahsoka's encounter with Barriss and everyone sitting around the kitchen table with the tea and too many questions to ask, but when Padmé rolled right into his arms, Anakin found that he was too tired to say anything at all.

And Padmé was, too.

Tomorrow would come tomorrow.

A/N: Your girl's classes are about to start in two days (now officially a junior in college what who allowed this to happen), but I promise that updates will still be regular, since I still have a few chapters pre-written. (I'm not too worried about staying on top of updates though. COVID has definitely limited what I can do both on and off campus, and I know I'm going to be escaping into fic when I'm not writing my endless piles of term papers.)

As always, reviews/follows/favorites are greatly appreciated!