Hello there!

Thank you all soooooo much for checking out my story! And even more thanks in advance for any love you choose to show it; it's always deeply appreciated and inspiring. 3

I'm not currently taking random requests due to not enough time and too many unfinished stories already, but I'm always open to reasonable suggestions on my current works. You can PM me on the FFN site or on FB (search for the same username). My updating schedule and details about my current Reader Reward program can be found on FB for the curious.

Again, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy!

TheLoneRebel

Disclaimer: I don't own any Star Wars characters and any OC's that resemble real people are entirely coincidental.

There is an explanation of how my calendar works and a list of helpful translations for my commonly used Star Wars words in 'Flame of Hope - Everyone' if you're curious.

A/N: This story is for my 2020 AO3 reward winner, Jack_Starwin. Theoretically this was supposed to be a one shot, but I know myself, and I know it will end up a full story length, so we're going to do chapters right off the bat, lol.

The Conundrum

Crash and Burn:

"Son of a fragging Hutt!" Anakin swore under his breath as he just barely avoided turning the Twilight into a metal pancake on the side of the Separatist cruiser that had just popped out of hyperspace, come to join the battle that hadn't existed when he and Ahsoka had gone on a scouting mission to the planet below. Of the four dozen or so vulture droids that were chasing his tail, almost half of them weren't so fortunate, exploding on impact.

Anakin grinned to himself. Droids can't fly half as well as a Jedi, no matter what Obi-Wan says. "That's twenty-six for me," he called, eyes glued on the chaotic space battle in front of him. "How you doin', Snips?"

Ahsoka, who was employing the Twilight's laser canons, huffed. "Those last twenty didn't count. You didn't know that cruiser was going to show up, so they killed themselves."

"Doesn't matter," he insisted. "I dodged, they didn't. I'm counting it."

"Whatever," she grumbled.

"So what's your count?" He really wanted to know. And maybe gloat a little.

Anakin smirked to himself as he felt her glare on the back of his head. "I'm at seventeen, if you must know."

"Not bad," he praised teasingly. "But I'm sure you could do better. Focus."

"I'll focus you, you big rancor butt."

The young knight snickered to himself, not offended in the least by the words she'd muttered just loud enough for him to hear.

Anakin spent the next ten minutes pursuing and evading enemy fighter droids and dodging laser fire from the cruisers and destroyers from both sides of the war doing their level best to obliterate each other. By the time he'd managed to lure his thirty-second vulture droid to its death, Ahsoka had caught up in her count and was now ahead by three. He decided to try and remedy that by taking a huge risk and flying right through the laser fire between Obi-Wan's Venator and the Seppie cruiser it had engaged.

It worked.

Mostly.

Four more vulture droids met their end, but he'd missed dodging one green laser bolt and it had been the last hurrah for the Twilight's already faltering shields. Kark pat. We're not out of this yet. Never one to give up, Anakin kept flying when he should have retreated to the safety of his Venator.

"What's that alarm for?" Ahsoka demanded even as she shot down another vulture droid.

"Nothing!" Anakin lied as he smacked a button to make the wailing noise desist. "Just the old girl having fits again for no reason."

He could feel her skepticism through their Force bond, but she let it slide without further comment. He was grateful as he poured every ounce of his concentration into flying like their lives depended on it. Because now they really did.

He would have been fine if one of their own fighters hadn't suddenly crashed into them from behind in an out-of-control spin. He'd been concentrating on the enemy, not their own ships. And it cost him. The last millisecond of warning from the Force wasn't enough to avoid the collision but it was enough for him to start turning into it to lessen the impact.

Artoo squealed as he went flying.

Ahsoka, who'd been standing at the gunner's pull-down terminal, was thrown across the cockpit with a cry that was suddenly silenced as her head made contact with something hard. Anakin's heart dropped to the vicinity of his stomach. But he couldn't check on her until he got his fried ship back under control.

And it was fighting him badly as the systems crackled with sparking electricity caused by the crash. "Artoo!" he yelled. "See if you can figure out what's shorted out and fix it!"

As they spun dangerously close to the side of his own flagship, Artoo beeped an affirmative and he heard his trusty droid roll back across the floor and back to his wall socket. Anakin had just gotten the ship to fly straight again when Artoo beeped out, "Hyperdrive is…" and then came the awful, garbled scream of a droid being electrocuted. Followed immediately by the familiar increase in cabin pressure as the ship prepared to shift into jumpspace.

"Kark!" Anakin cursed as his fear for his friends ate at him with sharp teeth.

The control panels in front of him were all going haywire as sparks and blue electricity danced around them. All Anakin had time to do was make sure the Twilight was pointed at a clear bit of space between other ships before the blue and white light of passing stars filled the cockpit.

"Shit, shit, shit," he muttered, knowing that they could crash right into a planet or sun at any second if he didn't get his ship to stop. Pretty much everything was unresponsive at this point, so the only thing he could do was cut the power. He had to use the Force to do it, because he didn't dare actually touch the control panel anymore.

Unfortunately, the blasted ship didn't want to turn off. They were still in hyperspace with the toggles pointed down. Grimacing at what he was about to do to his baby, Anakin stood and grabbed his lightsabre. He plunged the blue blade into the console where he knew the navicomputer was.

They dropped out of hyperspace immediately.

And then the power finally decided to turn off, plunging him into darkness except for the glow of his lightsabre. "Kriff. That's just great."

Looking outside and not seeing anything but black space and stars in front of him, Anakin let the Twilight drift forward as it wanted with what was left of its velocity and decided to let the ship's systems settle for a minute before trying to reboot them. They had a few minutes before the temperature inside fell into the uncomfortable range.

Turning he looked for his Padawan and found her crumpled half against the wall to the right, not far from where Artoo lay on the floor. "Ahsoka!" Leaving his droid for now, Anakin rushed to her side, worry making his heart pound in his chest. Kneeling beside her, he put his lightsabre down on the floor carefully so it didn't burn anything and stayed on. Then he pulled the little warrior girl into his lap as his eyes scanned her for injuries.

There was dripping red blood running down her face, and it was coming from under her Akul tooth headdress. She must have hit the wall hard enough for a tooth to cut her. Poor Snips.

With careful hands, Anakin felt under her lekku for the tiny clasps that held the strands of beads together and kept the headdress from falling off. Then he pulled on the large teeth that were lightly glued to her forehead until the whole thing peeled off. Putting the decorative symbol of a huntress' achievement that also carried her Padawan's silka beads down on the floor beside him, he turned his attention back to her forehead. There was a cut on the white base of her montral, and it was already starting to swell. Poodoo.

Picking her up easily and standing, he then called his lightsabre to hand and exited the cockpit, using the Force to open the door since the power was still off. The medbay was just down the hallway and he took her there, laying her down on the bed within gently after setting his deadly blue glow stick on the floor to illuminate the space. Not bothering to power up the old med-droid slumped in a corner, Anakin dug through a drawer for supplies.

He cleaned the blood off of her face first and then sprayed the cut with a disinfectant. A bacta bandage went on top and was taped down. During all of this, she moaned a couple times, but never woke, worrying him further. And the swelling on her montral was still increasing.

The bacta and rest would heal her in a day or so, even if she had a concussion, but Anakin wanted her better immediately. He couldn't stand to see his precious Snips in any sort of pain or distress if he could help it. So he tried something he'd been thinking about ever since she'd died on Mortis but had never actually had the opportunity to try before, not wanting to look stupid in front of others. But they were all alone here, and if he was wrong, then no one would know if his experiment was just crazy wishful thinking.

Touching the delicate skin of her montral with feather-light fingers around the swelling, Anakin closed his eyes and concentrated on the Force thrumming within himself and their bond. And then he pushed as much of his energy into her via their bond and his touch as he thought was safe, knowing he still needed something to work with while he fixed the ship so they didn't freeze to death.

Maybe a minute later, possibly less, Ahsoka gasped and he withdrew the connection, feeling tired but exhilarated. Because the bump on her head was gone and she practically glowed with life and Force energy. Curious to see if his healing experiment had worked on the cut too, Anakin peeled the bandage off her montral just as she opened her eyes.

"Ow," she protested from the pulling of her skin, raising a hand to her head to rub at the area as Anakin grinned like a loon.

"It worked!" His fingers joined hers and he rubbed the flawless skin where the cut used to be, just to double check that his eyes weren't deceiving him.

Ahsoka caught his hand and held onto it, making him belatedly realize that he was getting a little too personal with one of her most sensitive areas. "What worked? And what happened to the lights?"

Still distracted with his own success, he let her keep his hand. "You hit your head and cut it. I healed you with the Force!" Anakin beamed down at her as she sat up. "Isn't that great?!"

Ahsoka beamed back at him, her warm little fingers playing with his in a pleasant way. "That is great. You learned a new trick! The Healers at the Temple are going to be so jealous of you when they find out."

He laughed. "Let them be. Oh, and the lights are out because the Twilight kind of broke again. We've jumped to I have no idea where and I need to go fix it."

"Okay," she said, but she didn't let go of his left hand when he moved to leave.

Anakin looked down in surprise, suddenly realizing that their fingers were locked together and that he'd been letting her do things to his hand only Padmè had ever done before. "Ummm, Snips? Is there a reason you've attached us together? You're not afraid of the dark are you?"

"No." Ahsoka purred out a laugh and slinked off the bed, only to press her body against his. He stiffened in surprise. Their joined hands were brought up to her mouth and she licked one of his knuckles. "I'm just taking advantage of the intimate ambiance you've created for us."

What the kark? She's lost it! Anakin pushed her away and literally peeled her fingers off of his because tugging wasn't working. (And even that might not have been successful if he didn't have a mechanical hand to his advantage.) "Ahsoka! What's wrong with you?! You know I don't love you like that!"

Like she was drawn by a magnetic force, the girl was magically attached to him again, and this time her arms were wrapped around his neck as she rubbed her chest against him. "Hmmmm. I disagree. I can feel how much you care for me through our bond."

Anakin reached behind him and unlocked her hands, gripping each wrist carefully but in a durasteel grip as he pushed her away again. "Care, yes. Like my sister. And you know this! What's gotten into you?" She was actually struggling to get close to him again, so he didn't dare let her go. As he looked at her with shocked worry, Anakin finally noticed that her pupils were dilated and that her skin was increasing in temperature under his bare left hand. She was always warmer than him, being a Togruta, but she was getting alarmingly hot. "Force, do you have a fever? Are you sick? Did I somehow cultivate a bacteria or something in you when I healed you?"

Ahsoka shook her head, making that purring laugh again that would catch the interest of any male who wasn't firmly in love with someone else already. "I'm not sick, Anakin. Whatever you did has triggered my mating instinct. Which means you're mine now."

Oh shit. Anakin gulped. "Isn't there a drug you take to keep your heat cycles under control?" As awkward as it was to ask it, he did know the basics about such things thanks to so much time spent in close proximity to her.

"Yes," she purred, licking her plump burgundy lips as she eyed him like a hungry predator. Which, technically, she was. Anakin was starting to think that he might be screwed – literally – as his cock stirred in direct response to the action. "But they're not here. And this isn't a normal heat cycle."

"It's not?" His voice was embarrassingly high pitched. And his arms seemed to be losing strength as she kept pushing towards him. Shouldn't have given her so much of my energy. Bad, bad mistake. Or maybe it was because something in him was starting to cave in to the idea. Ahsoka was an incredibly beautiful girl, after all. And he was just a guy with a healthy dose of testosterone thrumming in his blood right now. Is it possible she's emitting irresistible pheromones? Because this is nuts; I love my wife!

"No, Anakin. It's not." She licked her lips again. And her skin under his hand was even hotter.

His worry and arousal both ramped up a few more degrees. "How… How is it not?"

Ahsoka pushed towards him again and this time his arms bent. She pressed her soft breasts against him with a happy purr that his traitorous dick thought was the sexiest thing it had ever heard. Looking up at him, her blue eyes shone in a narrow ring around pitch black pupils. "I'd rather show you than tell you," she whispered huskily. "I guarantee you'll like it. There's a reason Togrutas are so popular on the slave market."

Anakin gulped. Not only at her words, but because she was caressing his chest with her lekku. He'd never seen her move her lekku on purpose before. Hadn't even been entirely sure the rumours that lekku were prehensile were true.

There was no question about that now.

Hoping, needing, to buy himself some time, the confused and overwhelmed Jedi Knight said, "I have no doubt that's true, but I have to fix the ship or we'll freeze to death sooner than later."

Rising on her toes, Ahsoka pressed her luscious mouth to his jawline, kissing her way along it as she whispered, "If you must, but I think I could keep us both plenty warm."

Considering the way her body heat was all but toasting his entire front side, even through their clothes, he didn't doubt it. Until we pass out later and turn into sated but very stupid popsicles, his realistic side pointed out. Letting go of her wrists, Anakin picked her up by the waist and plunked her back on the bed, kissing her on the forehead in apology for what he was about to do even as he palmed her lightsabres and made them disappear up the tighter sleeves of his undertunic while she was distracted by the lingering touch of his mouth.

"As tempting as that sounds, Snips, I don't want to die out here in space. So you just stay here and meditate or something for a bit, okay?" He was backing away and calling his lightsabre to hand as he said it, while also getting a feel of the open medbay doors with the Force with his other hand behind his back.

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes at him and was leaping off the bed only a moment later. Anakin Force pushed her back as hard as he dared and then dashed out the door and slammed it closed with an aggressive show of Force. Then he used his lightsabre to weld the doors together so she couldn't open them right back up with her own power.

"ANAKIN!" Her screech of rage was heard both through the durasteel and in his mind as she threw her body against the door with a solid thump that made him wince.

"I'm sorry, Snips," he thought back down their bond. "Surely there's a sedative in there somewhere you can take until we get back to the Resolute and you can take your usual drug."

"I told you THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS!" she yelled in his mind so loudly that Anakin physically stumbled as he jogged back to the cockpit. Her anger and despair made him want to turn around and hug her in apology until everything was all better again. But he couldn't. He didn't dare.

"I'm sorry," he said again, feeling utterly helpless. "Just hang in there. I'm going to get us some help."

And then, feeling guilty as hell and still hornier than he had any right to be, Anakin put up a shield between them so she couldn't send him any more thoughts and feelings or sense what he was thinking. It was a shield he was used to employing between himself and other empathic Jedi, especially when Padmè was around, and Ahsoka was used to him shutting her out regularly for obvious reasons.

In the cockpit, the first thing he did was set Artoo back on his feet and hit the power button, praying that was all the droid needed to reboot. He beeped to life a second later, dome spinning in confusion before focusing on Anakin.

"Where are we? What happened?"

Anakin rested a hand on the silver dome in relief. "I don't know and technically, we crashed again. Can you very carefully see if you can find the short in the system so we can get the power up and running again? Ahsoka's not doing well and we need to get help here as fast as possible."

"On it!" Artoo beeped and rolled away. Anakin turned to the console that he'd killed and ran a slightly shaking hand through his hair. Force, what a mess. But I've fixed worse. I can fix this too.

His lightsabre went on the floor again and Anakin pulled the panel off and crawled under the console. He cursed under his breath in multiple languages as he started dismantling the various components that had been fried, either by his lightsabre or the electrical surge before that. The only good news was that the comm unit appeared to have survived. He'd find out once Artoo got the power up again.

A few minutes later, his ever amazing droid rolled back into the cockpit beeping, "Found the problem! A blown motivator in the engine room. Replaced it!"

"Thanks, buddy," Anakin said as he unfolded out from under the console. Going up on his knees, he reached over to the next control panel and reached for the main power switch. "Here goes…"

Switch on, he waited with baited breath for three endless seconds, and then the lights started turning on and various parts whistled and clanked throughout the whole ship as things rebooted. Including the heating system, which was good, because he was starting to shiver, he realized as he called his lightsabre to hand again and hung it on his belt after turning it off.

"Artoo, plug into the comm system and get Rex and Obi-Wan for me."

"Okay."

As the droid rolled to the wall socket, Anakin changed his mind. "No wait!"

Artoo paused and swivelled his dome around. "Someone else first?"

"Yeah. Yeah, send a holo request to Kamino. I need to talk to Master Ti."

"Will do."

Anakin sat down on the floor again and shimmied back under the control panel, expecting it to take at least five minutes for the Togrutan Jedi Master to return his call. He wasn't expecting to be nearly assaulted by an angry Togrutan Padawan in the meantime, though.

His first and only warning that Ahsoka had escaped the medbay was by having his ankle grabbed and being bodily pulled out from under the console. "Whaaaaaa…" he exclaimed and then blinked up at the girl who looked like she wanted to eat him for dinner. But this time, not in a good way.

"Anakin Skywalker," she growled, hands planted on her hips. (She actually growled and It was kriffing frightening.) "If I wasn't on the verge of losing my mind from the need to jump your traitorous body, I would rip you into a hundred pieces right now! But I would prefer to mate with something alive, frag you very much."

He believed her. Her Force aura was literally raging around her with more desire than he'd even seen in another being. Mixed in with that was a very unhealthy dose of Dark energy that was growing by the second. Her eyes were even starting to flicker towards yellow, and that wasn't good. Not good at all. Karking hell.

Holding out a placating hand, he rose to his feet. "I'm sorry, Ahsoka. Please, I didn't mean you any harm. I was trying to protect you from yourself, that's all."

She didn't appear appeased by his words, but her eyes went fully sky blue again, so he took that as a good sign. "I don't need protecting from myself, you idiot." She shook her head at him then sighed and basically whimpered out, "I just need you to love me back."

The broken tone in her voice was enough to make him feel like he'd been punched in the gut. Again, he wished with his entire being that he could hug her until she felt better, but he still didn't dare.

That choice was taken out of his hands as Ahsoka sobbed once and then launched herself at him so that he had no other option but to fold his arms around her back as she hung off his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist. "Oh, Snips, I'm sorry," he whispered against her montral as she cried a river into his neck. It had never occurred to him that this was traumatizing for her as well.

"Got her!" Artoo beeped triumphantly just before he projected Shaak Ti's holo image before him in life-sized form.

"Skywalker, what can I…" her words faded when she saw his passenger. "Oh. Is this a bad time?"

"No!" he said quickly, briefly holding out a hand in a stop motion to make sure she didn't leave before tucking it below Ahsoka's back lek again. "I need your help. Advice. Something."

Ahsoka cried harder, embarrassment flooding their bond.

Poodoo.

"What have you done this time?" the Togrutan Master said with a twinkle in her eyes.

Anakin's face scrunched up in reluctance to admit that he'd royally karked things up, but he had to, so…. "Ahsoka hit her head, and I healed her with the Force, but now she thinks she needs to mate with me even though I'm sure I just need to get her back to the Resolute so she can take her normal drugs for a heat or whatever this is."

"Anakin…" With a sobering expression, Master Ti shook her head at him. (People do that to him a lot.) "When you healed her, did you use your training bond as a conduit?"

"Well, yes," he shrugged. "Should I not have?"

The Jedi Master winced visibly. "That's not good. Is your bond stronger than normal now?"

Thinking back to how easy it had been to exchange thoughts with her, and experiencing her pain and desire now as he was, Anakin had to admit, "Yes."

"Did she say anything about mating as opposed to heat?"

Thinking back, Anakin realized that she had. "She said I'd triggered her mating instinct. Is that bad?"

Master Ti laughed once, her eyes starting to sparkle again. "Only if you're a Jedi."

He glared at the older woman. "What does that mean?"

The hologram smiled at him in that annoyingly benign way that all the older Masters had. Including Obi-Wan. "It means, young Skywalker, that you're in for a wild ride for the next two days and that you are now the forever mate of a beautiful young Togruta. Most males would kill to be in your place right now."

Thinking of his somewhat rocky but very committed and loving marriage to Padmè, he flinched. Which made Ahsoka stiffen. "And there's no way out of it?" He had to ask. Ahsoka basically turned into a vibrating rock in his arms, and her anger and sense of betrayal was flooding him again. "I'm sorry," he thought to her.

Master Ti shook her head, expression very serious now. "No, there's not. Once a Togruta goes into heat for their true mate, it won't stop until the need is appeased the natural way. If you don't, she'll burn up with fever until she eventually falls into a coma and then dies of heartbreak."

"Kark," he whispered, "I can't let that happen. Not to my Snips."

Master Ti inclined her head. "Then there's your answer."

"Right." Anakin tightened his arms around his Padawan as resolve filled him. I'll just have to work things out with Padmè later. Maybe she'll be open to a polyamorous relationship? "Thank you, Master Ti."

"You're welcome, Anakin. And don't worry about your standing with the Order. Exceptions have been made in the past, and this will certainly qualify."

"Thank you." Too bad she'd never have said the same thing if she found out I was married to a normal Human woman.

With a final nod and smile of encouragement, Master Ti's hologram disappeared. Anakin focused on his droid. "Artoo, contact Obi-Wan and give him our coordinates, but tell him we don't need a rescue for two days at least, so not to rush."

"What do I say when he asks why?" Artoo beeped back.

Anakin huffed and pressed his cheek against Ahsoka's satin-skinned montral for a second for courage. "Just play him my conversation with Master Ti. That should explain more than enough."

"Okay."

"Thanks, bud. You might as well fix what you can while Snips and I are… Whatevering."

The droid beeped and shook with laughter, inspiring an actual laugh from Ahsoka as well. She was pliant in his arms again, hot as furnace, and love was rushing down their bond like a sandstorm hellbent on smothering him to death.

Despite knowing that this was going to either completely ruin, or at the very least drastically change, his relationship with his wife forever, Anakin carried his now purring Togruta mate to his cabin to embark on two wild days of whatevering.

And the purrs and nibbling kisses she was pressing against his neck were working on his body exactly the way he was sure she intended them to; inspiring, to say the least.