Caibideil 25

Ahsoka was curled onto Anakin's couch, wrapped in a blanket and bouncing Jinn on her knee. She absolutely loved the Skywalker twins and was happy to spend time with them and help her master with them but Anakin saw the twinge of pain in her eyes. She would have just given birth if she hadn't miscarried, and the post-miscarriage depression seemed to come back in a wave. Lux had to leave for Coruscant and quite frankly neither he nor Anakin were entirely sure if they could trust her enough to leave her by herself. Grief did things to people… terrible things. Anakin could still hear the Tuskens crying for mercy when he thought of his mother. Lux still shuddered to think of his days aligned with Death Watch.

Ahsoka wasn't officially on a suicide watch but Anakin would be damned if this wasn't the closest that he would get to it without making it official. He had made sure she was kept away from sharp objects and that any electronics were kept as far away from water faucets as possible. He was pretty sure she wasn't even aware of what he was doing and wanted to keep it that way, after all: babyproofing was surprisingly pretty similar to a suicide watch, especially now that Leia was starting to crawl. Jinn was trying to figure it out but for now only seemed to be capable of scooting backwards a few centimeters at a time.

Anakin had had a lot on his mind, about Ahsoka, about his kids, about the new Order. He had been thinking a lot about their future, how he wanted to be as a father, a Jedi, a master, and a man. He knew he couldn't do it alone. He missed Padmé dearly, and every minute after her death had been pain, numbed by his beautiful babies, but pain, nonetheless. He knew he couldn't be half the man he needed to be alone. Besides, if he had died, would Padmé have been spending the rest of her life in pain? He wouldn't want her to do that, and she wouldn't want him to suffer needlessly either. Plus, Ahsoka could use the distraction if he asked for her help with this matter.

"Snips?"

"Skyguy?"

"I've been thinking."

"You? Thinking?" Ahsoka joked.

Anakin was not amused but decided to ignore her comments this time. He did call her Snips for a reason. "I think I'm ready to date again."

Ahsoka froze, Jinn flopping back onto her lap giggling away at this new part of their game. "Are you sure?"

"I think so, I don't really know though."

"Because there's nothing wrong with being a single dad."

"I know that, and I'm not saying there is but, I don't know how to say it, it's been hard without Padmé. You, Obi-Wan, R2, and everyone else are great friends but…"

"But we're not the same."

"Exactly."

"Well, if you ever need a babysitter while you go out, you know who to call," Ahsoka offered with a smile. Her first genuine smile in months.

Anakin smiled back, "I know… Barriss."

Ahsoka feigned shock, "What is wrong with me?"

"Do you want a list?"

"Hardy har."

"I am pretty funny, aren't I?"

"You're really not," Ahsoka commented before looking down at the baby chewing her fingers, "Do I taste good? You like my fingers?"

Jinn grunted, and the two adults laughed.

Ahsoka looked back up at Anakin, "Anybody in particular?"

"Not yet."

"If you want, I could try to set you up on a blind date."

"Ahsoka, no," Anakin replied.

"Ahsoka, yes!" she countered.

"No, I don't want… Do you smell that?" Anakin lost his train of thought as he checked Leia's daiper, "Yep. You need a change."

As Anakin carried Leia to his room, Ahsoka took out her commlink, the time to plot was upon her. "Barriss! When you get the chance, call me!" she said and sent the message.

Barriss had been in the courtyard training Petro and experimenting with new meditation techniques. "So the way we were always taught to meditate empties our minds of emotion and attachment."

"Yes?" Petro replied, sitting crossed legged beside her, "But now we don't have to live without emotions anymore, right?"

"Exactly! So, today I want us to try something new."

"I think I'm following."

"Focus on something that makes you happy instead of trying to drain yourself. If I'm right it should give us a deeper connection with the Force than if we meditated normally."

"Are you sure this'll work?" Petro asked, somewhat skeptical.

"I have no idea! That's the fun part of these experiments."

"Okay then. I'll try."

Barriss raised an eyebrow somewhat disapprovingly at her Padawan, "Need I remind you what Master Yoda says?"

Petro sighed and they recited in unison, "Try not, do or do not. There is no try."

"Good! Now, close your eyes," Barriss ordered. Petro did so. "Now," his master continued, "try to think about something that made you feel happy. The best time of your life."

Petro was never good at meditation, but he tried to do as his master requested of him. He had to dig in his memory for it. The "best time of his life," had to be his adventure when collecting his kyber crystal for his lightsaber. When he and his friends had to pose as circus performers. Especially when he got to fling that drunk pirate captain twenty meters in the air. He couldn't help but snicker at the memory of the man saying, "I'm flying!" and crashing into a bunch of crates.

"Have something?" Barriss asked, her eyes closed as well but taking note of her Padawan's laughter.

"I think so," Petro chuckled, "Do you?"

"I do," Barriss replied, thinking about when she had first asked out Riyo. It was a few months after Ahsoka introduced them and was probably among the bravest things she had ever done. It was scary but exhilarating, and now she was with the love of her life. Even if the date itself was a complete disaster and they were both humiliated by the end of the evening. Turning her attention slightly back towards Petro she said "Now, focus on it. Try to ignore everything else, just play that moment in your mind on repeat."

"Yes Master."

Sitting across from one another, legs crossed, the master and apprentice focused on their happiest moments, embracing their emotions instead of neutralizing them. Obviously anger and hatred were tools of the Dark Side, but surely something so beautiful can only be from the Light, right? Barriss's lips slowly formed into a smile and she began to levitate a few centimeters off the ground. She was among the few Jedi who could do this, even Master Yoda was not among them, and as such it was something of a bragging point for her master. The images of her shaking hands, trying to calm herself when she spoke those magic words, the waiter tripping and spilling their drinks all over the Senator, Barriss slipping on the wet floor and cutting her head on the broken glass still on the floor, the hidden kiss good night behind a pillar outside of Riyo's apartment building.

Then her commlink began to beep. "Just ignore it Barriss. Just ignore it," she thought as the message notification subsided. Smiling she went back to her meditation for a few minutes, playing her date in her mind over and over again. Then her commlink started beeping again. She sighed in semi-annoyance as her levitation was starting to wobble a bit with her being distracted. She refused to allow whoever was messaging her to interrupt her lesson/experiment. Was it really wrong to use an experiment as a lesson? Granted she was using her Padawan as a guinea pig but she was experimenting on herself too, and that makes it ok… right? Yeah, yeah, she'd go with that. She settled back into her meditative stance, levitating more stably. It seemed like a good twenty minutes passed them by and she could hear Petro occasionally chuckle, perhaps subconsciously. She'd have to ask him what was so amusing that he mediated on later.

Her commlink beeped again, and Barriss was thrown off so much that she flopped back on the ground as opposed to her typical gentle glide she was accustomed to. Her butt did not like the hard floor coming to meet it at the speed of gravity. Petro opened one eye and made to say something but she cut him off, "Don't. Just… don't. Keep meditating, apparently everyone and their סבתא (sahvtah) wants to talk to me at the moment," she said before muttering "It had better be an emergency." She saw the name Ahsoka. "But probably not."

She called her friend back, "Ahsoka, I swear someone had better be dead or dying."

"Bad time?"

"Little bit."

"Did I interrupt you having-"

"Meditation lessons!" Barriss screamed to hopefully be heard over the increasingly irritating Padawan she considered a friend. "You interrupted a meditation lesson with my Padawan."

"Oh. Whoops."

"Yeah, whoops."

Ahsoka's hologram looked past Barriss, "Hi Petro!"

"Hello!"

Barriss groaned, "We'll try again later. Just go… do… something," she instructed her apprentice. When he got up and left the room Barriss looked at Ahsoka's visage, "What could you possibly want?" she asked as she went to take a swig from her water bottle.

"Anakin wants to try dating again."

Barriss immediately choked on her water, "What‽"

"Yeah. I know."

"Well what do you want me to do about it?"

"Didn't you say you had a friend a little older than you who wasn't having much luck in dating?"

Barriss held a look of realization when her insistence upon her Master's anonymity when she told Ahsoka about that whole debacle had inadvertently led to this situation. "I can guarantee they wouldn't be a good fit."

"Well you won't tell me who it is."

"She was embarrassed enough."

"How bad can it really be?"

"Very."

Ahsoka paused for a second, then asked, "Where did you meet her again?"

"She's not gay if that's what you're trying to get at."

"It wasn't. I'm trying to piece together her identity."

"Stop it."

"Maybe they'll surprise you."

"With her, there are no surprises."

"Sounds dull."

"Yes! Dull! Exactly how she likes it."

"Well Anakin does need to slow down now that he has kids."

"If you're trying to get me convinced, it's still no."

"At the very least it might help her get some confidence."

"Under… no… circumstances…"

"Ugh, fine. I'll ask if anyone else has single friends."

"Thank you."

"I'll leave you to teach your Padawan," Ahsoka ended before breaking the transmission. She wondered just who else might have had a single friend she could set up a blind date with.

Master Ti had come back from trying to recruit former Orthodox Jedi, actually succeeding with a few, and was being brought up to speed with the whole Kenobi-Unduli situation. As she sat on Luminara's small couch listening to the story as Luminara was flopped onto the table, too embarrassed to even lift her head up to look her friend in the eye. "Shaak, how can I even take the seat on the Council if I can't even look him in the eye?"

Shaak shrugged, a little confused and suffering the secondhand embarrassment from Luminara, "Well these things happen. Give it time and I'm sure you'll both laugh at it."

"Maybe in a few years, that doesn't help me now."

"I may sound like a typical stoic Jedi but try to meditate on it. That's all I can think to tell you."

"I'll try, but I've been having trouble meditating lately."

" Want to go to town and grab a bite to eat?"

"Sure, anything to get my mind off this. Let me go put on some clothes."

As Luminara got up to change her clothes Shaak's commlink began to chime. Answering it, she was surprised to see Ahsoka Tano-Bonteri had called, "Padawan Tano?"

"Master Ti, can I ask a quick favor?"

"Of course. What is it?"

"Do you happen to have any single, female friends I can set up on a blind date?"

Master Ti raised her brow slightly, surprised by the question, then realized the opportunity that had just fallen in her lap. Smiling somewhat happily, she replied "I think I have somebody in mind."

"Great! Can you have her come to the restaurant I'll transmit to you in a week's time?"

"Who are you setting up?"

"I'd prefer if she went into it blind too."

Ti rolled her eyes at the youngster's constant scheming, remembering just how she was as a Padawan, "If you insist."

"Great! Thank you so much!"

Just as she cut the transmission Luminara walked back into the room wearing fresh clothes. "Ready to go?"

"Ready if you are."