Welcome to Ahsoka reminiscing about her bittersweet childhood while reuniting with Anakin and Padme. I've been working on this for a while and am really proud of it, so let me know what you think! Hope you enjoy! :)
Getting in a street fight during the first mission she was supposed to be in charge of was definitely not one of Ahsoka's smartest moves. Then again, neither was leaving her vibroknife at the compound because, in her ingenious words, "what could go wrong?"
This, apparently, Ahsoka thought bitterly to herself while she dodged another hit, trying to keep her center of gravity low. She knew what she was doing- the muscle memory she'd built as a soldier had sunk in as soon as the first punch was thrown- yet she wasn't fairing well. Not when the alleyway was so dark and she wasn't even sure where the rest of her crew went.
While she looked around wildly for the others, a club of some sort hit her hard in the back, nearly knocking the wind out of her.
"Son of a-"
Ahsoka swung in the direction of the hit, fist crashing into the crown of the man's head. He fell instantly, a small victory she couldn't celebrate. Not when there were still so many gang members surrounding her.
"What do you want?" She panted, roundhouse kicking a man square in the jaw and discretely using the force to send another crashing backwards.
The only answer she got was a swift, hard kick to her chest.
She wrenched over, frantically trying to catch her breath and blink tears out of her eyes.
Everything was happening too fast; a fist bashed painfully against her lekku, a boot slammed into her ribs. Hands grabbed her, pulled her different directions like she was a piece of meat thrown to akk dogs.
The last thing Ahsoka remembered before passing out was the alarming silhouette of a fist coming straight for her face. She didn't have time to duck before her body hit the pavement and her world went dark.
Anakin had never been one to drink.
The fear of it was carved into him when he was just a kid; when he lived in fear of the nights that Watto would get drunk and become his most abrasive self. Not even the finest of work could please him when he was in such a state. He would yell like a dog, threatening to sell Anakin and rip him away from his mother at any slight inconvenience.
Those nights taught Anakin early what a monster alcohol could turn someone into, and the presence of it in any situation made him uneasy well into his adulthood.
Yet now he found himself in the most miserable of places, perched indignantly upon a creaky old barstool, arms folded against the filthy countertop. Lowlifes with the same half lidded eyes he'd grown up fearing jostled around him, occasionally bumping into him as they smoked foul-smelling spice.
Anakin scoffed into his arm, swirling the murky blue liquid from his shot glass around in a lazy circle, staring at it blankly.
He'd been a wreck the past few months.
Usually, in his depressive episodes, he'd be stricken by bouts of intense insomnia. He'd drown himself in paperwork to escape the nightmares that awaited after difficult battles, spending hours hunched over his desk until he could barely even sit up straight.
However, this time around, things were different. This time, he was trapped in this dull haze, his body too weak to part from the comfort of his bed. It was easier, he convinced himself, to just close his eyes and forget about the world. Forget about the empty space in his life where Ahsoka used to be.
She'd left him, after everything, she'd left him.
The temple was depressingly dull without her. Even the gardens, which had to be the most colorful place on all of Coruscant, felt gray in her absence. Why should the flowers even bother to grow if she wasn't there to sing to them like she used to? Why should he even bother staying awake if she wouldn't be there when he woke?
Tonight was the first night in weeks that he'd left his bed. There was just this– feeling; this intense calling to that place that he couldn't ignore and without thinking about it, his feet had carried him to the rundown, lower-level bar.
It was hardly the nicest of places; the hot, humid air reeking of sweat and second hand smoke. The stench caused people around him to cough, but no one paid any mind to it. They were all there to forget something it seemed, too inebriated to notice the floor was sticky with drinks spilt by their own shaky hands.
He didn't know what the hell he was doing here.
He huffed in a long breath, about to let his head droop into his hands before a series of screams sounded from outside, and all at once, Anakin was hit by the blinding light of a familiar feeling.
Ahsoka's force signature.
After all this time, it was her.
The signature grasped onto his mind, tugging hard and sending bright, violent flashes of scared, danger, and 'help!' across their broken bond.
He immediately jumped up from his seat, and before he could make sense of what was happening, grabbed his civilian jacket, pulling his arms through the sleeves as fast as he could.
"You gonna drink that?" A deep voice grunted behind him.
Anakin turned around, seeing the bartender eyeing his shot glass.
"No," He breathed, grabbing his comm from the table.
The man grumbled something behind him, but Anakin paid no mind as he took off running out the door towards the fading remains of her signature.
He didn't need to run far until he was met with the sight of a crumpled, fallen form on the ground.
Oh no, Ahsoka.
Ringing.
Ahsoka's montrals were ringing.
She'd just woken up and, to her surprise, didn't feel the rocky permacrete she'd fallen on digging into her skin. She wasn't left in that cold, dark alley, covered in her own blood like she thought she'd be. Instead, she felt something… soft underneath her?
Her eyes fluttered open to see she was lying on a couch, but then tiredly fell back shut.
"There you are," she heard a fuzzy voice whisper above her.
It said something else, and then suddenly, a hand touched her shoulder.
No! No, no, no!
Ahsoka shot up, gasping in fear.
She'd lost the fight. They'd knocked her out, she was unconscious. she couldn't– she wasn't safe, she had to escape, she had to-
"Hey, hey, hey. None of that, you're safe." An urgent voice called as she started to hyperventilate, and then a familiar face came into her sight.
Anakin. It was Anakin.
His eyes were swimming with concern, and somehow he was right there- right in front of her.
Everything stopped– the ringing in her montrals, the frantic beating of her heart– and without even thinking, she threw herself into her old master's chest, eyes welling with tears as she clung onto him.
"Force, I shouldn't have– you're okay." Anakin muttered, his hand coming up to rest against her back.
They stayed there for a moment until after a few ragged breaths, Ahsoka came to her senses and realized what she was doing.
"Shit, I'm sorry." She breathed, pushing herself up on shaking forearms so her back was propped against the couch. She scanned the room, realizing that despite the unusual mess, it was Padme's.
"W-what happened?"
Anakin looked just as shocked as she felt, his shoulders heaving as he tried to catch his breath, "I don't know. Somehow you– you called me through our bond, I think, and I found you in the lower levels and you– well, you were hurt, so I brought you here."
"Oh."
For almost a year now, she'd only seen him in her nightmares– the ones where she was leaving him again, or worse, the ones where she wasn't there to save him from a blaster bolt– and now he was right there in front of her, tangible and real.
It was overwhelming to say the least.
"I don't know what to say." She choked out.
"I don't either I-"
They were both interrupted by Padme rushing into the room.
She looked– different.
Not in a bad way, just not what Ahsoka was used to.
Her messy hair was down and she was wearing a loose fitting casual smock dress. (Casual for Padme's standards at least. Of course it was still carefully embroidered with intricate gold and purple designs).
"Oh goodness, Ahsoka," she breathed, her voice full of emotion as she took her aching hands into her own. "I was so worried."
Whether she was worried about her getting hurt in the fight or rather her being on her own for so long, Ahsoka wasn't sure, but she didn't trust herself to respond without her voice wavering.
She was so tired, so overwhelmed that the only thing she could do was stare blankly while Padme quickly looked her over, taking stock of all her injuries.
"Anakin, hand me that med-kit, would you?" She asked, her no-nonsense senator voice kicking in.
Anakin did as she asked, then, realizing what she was going to do, awkwardly stood up.
"I'll umm-" Anakin coughed, gathering his cloak from the arm of the couch, "I'll give you some privacy."
Ahsoka raised her eyebrows.
Privacy had rarely been a luxury either of them had in the war. Anakin had seen her in states of undress a thousand times in medical tents and bacta tanks, had dressed her wounds and taken care of her when she was sick.
But she guessed it was different now. She wasn't his kid anymore.
Force, that hurt.
"Ahsoka? Ahsoka, come on, will you take your shirt off please so I can see your ribs?" Padme called, bringing her back into the present.
Ahsoka wordlessly nodded and she got to work pulling off her top, her hands shaking more than she would have liked. She couldn't tell whether it was because she was weak from the fight, or if she was scared of being near Padme again.
Ahsoka felt indebted to her after everything she'd done for her at the trial, and was clueless as to how she could ever pay it back.
Hell, she didn't even get the chance to smile at her when it was over. All she could do was shoot her a quick look across the courtroom because everything happened so fast after that. She was being rushed out the door by the guards, escorted past the press who were lined up with holo-cameras flashing in her eyes. Everyone was talking to her all at once, everything was too loud, too fast, too much.
She'd managed to get in the transport back to the temple, having no idea where Anakin was. All she wanted to do was lay down and cry. How could she celebrate her proven innocence when she knew Barriss was guilty?
"I'm sorry I never thanked you." Ahsoka said through clenched teeth as Padme began cleaning the welts along her ribcage. It was painful, but she'd been through worse.
Padme didn't look up at her. She just kept working carefully, her hands light and gentle, but firm in a way a mother's would be. "For what?"
Everything. Ahsoka almost said.
Dear Force, Padme had always been so kind, since the day they met when she had taken one look at Ahsoka and decided to take her out to lunch at some fancy restaurant in the Senate district.
"Are you even feeding her at all?" Ahsoka had heard her whisper to Anakin when they got back, to which he had to go through with the whole speech about the ration shortage and the fact that there weren't exactly ideal times for meals in an active warzone.
Padme had been nodding along, chiming in here and there about Republic budget cuts and what she was trying to do about them in the Senate. More importantly to Ahsoka at the time, Padme had vowed to take her out to eat at least once a month.
Their little talks over way-too-expensive restaurant food was what kept Ahsoka going when things got rough on the front, though she'd never really said as much. How was she supposed to tell Padme that she was one of her only friends outside of the order and the army?
It was embarrassing, for a teenage girl, that no one really got her. That spending most of her time on a battlefield tended to put a divide between her and everyone else.
She'd met this group of girls on one of her undercover missions- she was posing as a transfer student at a school, spying on a science professor who'd been suspected of creating bio-weapons for the separatists. The girls she met could go on for hours about their classes, sports, books, crushes, politics, hobbies. They could laugh over inside jokes, cry over break-ups.
Ahsoka was perpetually jealous of them. Jealous that they could go to school without having long absences spent in muddy trenches, jealous that they had time to sit down and read, jealous that they could cry about anything other than war. Most of all, she was ashamed that she didn't know how to relate to them. She'd try to strike up conversations, but she had no idea how to navigate them.
How was she supposed to tell Padme without bursting into tears, that she had been the one to sit down with her and listen; listen to the good and the bad, and even if she didn't particularly understand it, she never looked at Ahsoka like she was a bird with a broken wing. She just looked at her like she was Ahsoka. Like she was a friend, an equal.
She'd take her shopping, buy her short holo-novels that she could easily get through in between campaigns, teach her how to do make-up, and gossip with her about the most trivial of things.
She made her feel like she belonged.
Ahsoka didn't know how to even begin to thank her for all that, so instead she just closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "For the trial. You know, believing in me and all-"
Padme looked up at her for the first time, a hint of sad amusement in her eyes if there ever were such a thing. "No need to thank me, Ahsoka." She got up to grab a second medkit from the other side of the room, taking a second to squeeze Ahsoka's hand before she did.
"I always would have done it. Always."
"I just-" She took in a deep breath, watching Padme cross the room- she moved a bit slower than she used to, a hand on her stomach. She grabbed something that looked like bacta gel. "I never got to tell you."
Padme came back and sat down in front of her again, squeezing gel from the tube onto her fingers as she said, "It's not like you had the chance. I never reached out to you after you left."
They both knew that the comlinks Ahsoka had weren't exactly civilian- unless most people walked around with military grade comms that used encrypted channels- and it wasn't like Padme could just call her up, but neither of them said as much.
Padme had her connections.
As Sabe had said when Ahsoka met her, "Padme always finds a way."
And she didn't find a way to contact Ahsoka. Because she didn't try. They both knew that.
"I understand, it's okay." Ahsoka said quickly, wincing as the cold gel met her skin. "I know things were… difficult when I left, especially on you and Anakin."
Padme just hummed in agreement, applying a liberal amount of gel to one of Ahsoka's bruises.
They were silent for a while.
It wasn't awkward silence persay, just the kind two people fell into when they didn't know which apology to start with.
"What have you been up to?" Padme finally asked after a while. She was nearly done by then, with the bacta gel. "You know, since you've been out on your own?"
Ahsoka wasn't sure where to begin. She could talk about how Obi-Wan had somehow found her one night and given her enough money to start out with. "Just know that I still care deeply for you." He had said, brushing away her tears with his thumb. "Even when things are different."
She could talk about those first few tortuous weeks out on her own, alone in a world she didn't understand. The Jedi never taught her how to make it in a society outside of the sheltered temple walls. She didn't know how to live without Obi-Wan's herbal tea and the homely smell of her master's oil stained robes. (He was always tinkering with something.)
She could talk about her first job as a mechanic, how she thought Anakin would be proud of her for it. She could talk about the time she ran into Jesse once, and how her heart had hurt so much she couldn't sleep for several nights.
Instead she settled for current affairs, the ones which had landed her here in the first place. "Well I've been working with this group for a while now." She said, "We basically do a lot of the stuff I did on mercy missions. Supply runs, mostly."
"Hmm, is the group legitimate?"
"If you're trying to ask if we're doing anything illegal, no." Ahsoka laughed. "I mean, we're no official organization, just a handful of people around my age; some older, some younger, you know? We get food and stuff to the families that need it."
Padme smiled while she worked, something that looked like pride coming over her.
"Sounds like something you'd like."
"I like most of it. Not particularly the whole 'getting in a street fight' part through."
Padme sucked her teeth while she set the now closed tube of bacta aside, grabbing a small roll of bandages instead. "Yeah, let's not make that a habit, Ahsoka."
"It wasn't my fault! Apparently one of the families we were helping was in debt to some gang, and we didn't know, starting out. It wasn't like we were looking for trouble, or that-"
"Sit still, please." Padme interrupted under her breath, trying to bandage up a spot on her arm.
"Sorry. " Ahsoka obeyed, trying her hardest not to move. She was always a bit jumpy, especially when getting her injuries looked over. "But anyways, it was an accident."
"An accident?" Padme laughed, and suddenly that look of amusement was back on her face, this time without the shadow of grief.
"What?" Ahsoka laughed along.
"Nothing, you just remind me of Anakin."
"That's something I've never heard before." Ahsoka retorted sarcastically. Of course she and her master were always being compared to each other, usually after Ahsoka had gotten into some sort of trouble.
"I swear, you two are growing more and more alike each day." Obi-Wan had sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. It was of course after Ahsoka had broken the stove in his quarters, trying out some dumb science experiment she'd seen on the holonet. "Anakin broke my kitchen nearly three times a standard month when he was my padawan. It's ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous!"
The happy memory brought a smile to Ahsoka's face, but deep down, it stung.
She'd missed this. All of it. Being taken care of, letting herself rely on someone else, laughing with Padme, being near Anakin- even if he was in the other room, she could still sense him and that was more than she'd been able to say in months.
She wished she could take a picture in her mind of this very moment, because she knew it wouldn't last forever. She was living in a scene that she was watching end.
It reminded her of the first time Master Plo took her to the ocean. She had stood still in the water, face towards the sun as the waves rolled in and out, in and out, pushing the sand over her feet until they were buried in it.
She'd stood completely still then; quiet and unobtrusive, but the world moved around her nonetheless, pulling her under the sandy ground.
As she sat on the couch while Padme finished patching her up, she again felt the world pushing and pulling around her, the sun setting on the very moment as she lived it.
She wished she could be strong enough, to take a step regardless of the ripples she'd send throughout the water, but she was scared to move too abruptly, even to think too loud, in fear that she would ruin this night, this wild opportunity she didn't know she'd ever find again.
"I've missed you so much, Padme." She whispered when the final bandage was placed.
"I've missed you more."
Stay tuned tomorrow for chapter two, centered on Ahsoka and Anakin! Thanks for reading, I love you guys lots! :)
