She's got blue eyes deep like the sea
That roll back when she's looking at me
She rises up like the tide
The moment her lips meet mine

Ahsoka and Barriss sat at the low table in the Togruta's room inside the Jedi Temple, scouring through numerous datapads, intent on studying. They had both been elected to teach younglings while between galaxy-faring missions, and although Ahsoka decided it would be easy passing on knowledge they had already gained, Barriss pressed that they research the fundamentals first. And so they had, for the past two hours. Ahsoka took to dragging datapads into her cross-legged lap to read.

"I can see you reading that holozine... again," Barriss intoned, attention fully locked on her own research. She sat illuminated by the slanting rays of the afternoon sun, the three datapads she shuffled between laid out neatly in front of her; Ahsoka sat just around the corner with the several datapads she'd already discarded lying every which way on the table.

Ahsoka offered an apologetic, sheepish smile before pushing her holozine under the table once more and returning to the datapad on her legs. It didn't help that she was inherently familiar with the subject matter they perused— granted, sometimes she'd come across elements she'd completely forgotten, but usually those weren't entirely important to the basis of the techniques anyway.

A knock sounded from the door, pulling Ahsoka back to the present when her mind again had wandered far from the reading material. Barriss popped up as quickly as if she had been expecting it and glided to answer it. Standing in the hall she found the black visor of a clone in full regalia staring back at her. A silence passed between them.

"Er... I may have the wrong room," he said slowly, looking the Mirialan up and down.

Barriss leaned back to call, "Ahsoka?"

From her angle on the floor, Ahsoka only caught sight of 501st blue from behind Barriss, and it spurred her to leap into the doorway, nearly elbowing Barriss out of the way in the process, a wide smile dominating her face. Although the soldier standing there was certainly unexpected. "Fives! What are you doing here?" She peeked out into the hallway curiously before returning her attention to the ARC trooper. "Have you ever been in the Temple before?"

His shrug made his dual pauldron appear like flapping wings. "Well, it's pretty easy to find your way around... it's um..." Fives took a breath before removing his helmet, stowing it under one arm. His inherent cheeky expression was unusually restrained, as if the hallowed Temple halls burdened him with unnatural propriety. "Are you busy tonight, Commander?"

"Tonight?" Ahsoka's expression was all anticipation, assuming her soldier was about to share the punchline of a joke. "No, why?"

"Well..." The trooper's head leaned to the side, taking in the unknown, green-skinned padawan sitting back at the table, clearly focused on their conversation. "I'm heading out on a special mission early tomorrow morning, so if you weren't busy, sir, I wanted to ask you to come out with me... tonight."

Ahsoka quirked a white eye marking, grin growing. "Won't you be under lockdown so close to shipping out?"

"ARCs get a little more freedom, I've found out." He again leaned over to observe Ahsoka's friend. "Er.. sir."

"So you ignore the rules without consequences?"

"Basically."

Ahsoka turned back to Barriss, wearing the same pleading expression that she used on her master when she was sure he would object to something. "How long were you planning on researching today?"

"Oh, it's fine," the Mirialan replied in a high pitch. She began collecting the datapads together into one pile. "We've accomplished enough for today."

Ahsoka returned her attention to the hopeful clone outside. "I'd be happy to go somewhere with you."

"Great! Say... meet around 2000 hours at the bottom of the Temple steps?"

His genuine smile was too contagious to resist and Ahsoka found herself mirroring it. She gave a quick wave as they exchanged goodbyes and leaned into the hallway, watching Fives' kama swing in time with his pace until both disappeared around the far corner. She returned to her table where Barriss was nearly done stacking the 'pads in silence. Ahsoka could feel the faint wall Barriss usually erected when trying to mask her real emotions, prompting Ahsoka to ask, "Are you sure it's okay?"

"That sounds like a question better suited for Master Skywalker."

"My master?" chuckled Ahsoka. "It's just Fives; he's one of my best friends." Her words did nothing to ease Barriss' furrowed brow, so Ahsoka quickly added, "If you want, you can come, too. I'm sure Fives won't mind."

Barriss declined with a graceful wave of her hand, displaying a level of maturity Ahsoka still wished to attain someday. "Thank you for the offer, but I have healing rounds to make tonight. Besides, I've never heard of a three-person date before."

Ahsoka flat out laughed at that. "It's not a date!" And yet she could feel a slight worry escaping Barriss' Force signature, the mild disapproval Barriss never voiced when she encountered things she believed diverted from the narrow Jedi way.

Ahsoka grasped her arm encouragingly. "It's not a date."

2000 hours finally rolled around; Ahsoka's constant glances to the holographic numbers floating above her clock hadn't helped hurry the time forward whatsoever. As she scurried through the Temple, a growing insecurity in the back of her mind told her she should've done something besides just showing up. She should've changed clothes, even though she had very few outfits to choose from, or she should've brought a gift of some kind.

But those were behaviors she had seen in holofilms when someone went on a date.

This was not a date.

Fives, as much of a rule bender as he was, already stood at the bottom of the Temple steps when Ahsoka arrived, barely three minutes late. She almost didn't recognize him out of his armor. He wore dark clothes, tall boots and a well-fitted jacket. The only thing that was familiar was his cheeky grin, which burst into a full smile when he saw her.

"I was starting to think I was stood up," he said lightly before she'd even made it all the way down the steps.

Ahsoka's expression dropped. "Don't tell me you were twenty minutes early!" The only acceptable arrival time according to the GAR.

"Okay, I won't tell you." He assuaged her guilt with his ever-present smile before nodding away from the stairs. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

The Temple stood in stark difference from all the neighboring districts. One, maybe two lights illuminated the base of each spire, while all modern buildings enjoyed the lights from holoadverts, flashing lights, and the constant illumination from speeders zipping through the skylanes. The Temple reaped the reward of ambient light, but it still left Ahsoka and Fives in one of the lowest-lit environments on Coruscant, scurrying off as if they were up to no good.

Ahsoka easily kept up with Fives' pace, his soldier gait, but with his antsy glances at the dark Temple spires, he quickened his step on their way to the public landing pad.

"So," she soon spoke up, "you own civilian clothes." The dark was not conducive to studying the details of his outfit, but she could tell he looked much less bulky out of armor.

Fives proudly tugged on his open jacket. "Well, yeah. I didn't want them tracking my every move. As far as the 311th can tell, I'm in my bunk."

Despite his casual smile, all Ahsoka offered was a wince at the dawning reality: Fives was risking much more going out so late than she was. If she was caught out with a soldier supposed to be on lockdown, the soldier would be labeled missing in action, which would reap harsh disciplinary action, and Ahsoka herself might be blamed for having a hand in his wrongdoing. Being on the wrong side of her master was bad enough— Ahsoka didn't even want to imagine what crossing the GAR would be like.

"We could save this until you come back, you know," she suggested, following on Fives' heels. "Sometime when you're actually allowed outside." They reached the brightly illuminated bridge leading to the landing pad and finally Ahsoka could make out more than just his profile.

"This isn't my first time skirting lockdown," Fives said, eyes shining with stories of accomplishment. "I know what I'm doing."

Somehow that didn't ease her mind.

Fives requested a taxi speeder from the landing pad controls, a smug smile on his face, radiating mischief. "Got anything particular you wanted to do tonight?"

"I haven't exactly thought much about it," Ahsoka admitted. She stood with one arm across her body, hand on her opposite bracer, glancing more at her feet than at him. There was something about Fives wearing civilian clothes that made her see him in a different light. He wasn't exactly the soldier she trained with on long hyperspace journeys, or the one she often hung out with on off hours in the mess. Out of his armor he was a little more human somehow.

So what was he in armor?

"We could get matching tattoos!" Fives suddenly exclaimed, startling her from her thoughts.

Ahsoka's face slowly broke into a smile from his enthusiasm, another contagious trait of his. "You want a second tattoo?"

"I'm long past my second, kid."

The serious expression on his face strangled her bubbling laugh, leaving her to stare at him, wide-eyed and completely curious. "What? You have more tattoos? Where? Can I see?" An engine whine nearly cut off the end of her question as a public taxi slowly descended onto the landing pad.

Fives just laughed. "Hey, now. At least take me to dinner first." He opened the taxi door for her and followed her into the backseat. A quick destination to the driver and they were off, soaring toward the bright grid hanging in the sky.

"But really," Ahsoka spoke up, already eyeing him for possible tattoos, "how many do you have?"

"More than two."

Padawan Offee stood over the bed of a wounded soldier in the medical complex of the sprawling GAR base. She had been working in the arguably well-lit trauma ward all evening, and for the last twenty minutes or so leaned in complete focus over this one soldier, her hand hovering indecisively between his bandaged head and bacta-covered chest.

Finally, she crawled out of the depths of concentration with a deep inhale, letting her mind open to the rest of the world. And she sighed.

"Finished, Padawan?" a passing medical droid asked from the opposite side of the soldier's bed.

Barriss flashed an apologetic smile. "I don't believe I've been much help tonight. I will work longer tomorrow, but there's something I need to correct before I can work again."

"Of course," it said with a stiff incline of its head. Barriss turned her apologetic expression on the unconscious soldier before retreating toward the exit.

Ahsoka and Fives walked along well-lit bridges and streets spanning endless rooftops, two sentients anonymous among the crowds despite her brazenly displayed lightsabers and his recognizable face. Floating adverts, holo adverts, moving adverts, and every business sign from each establishment they passed showered them with every color of light. Aside from the glowing club goers, Ahsoka and Fives' drab wardrobes helped them blend into the crowds.

Ahsoka's laugh was drowned out by a pack of Zeltrons exiting an especially busy cantina. Ever since they left the taxi, Fives eagerly regaled her with all the latest GAR gossip, only to be motivated to share crazier stories by her responses.

"Now, I know what you're thinking," he continued, cockeyed smile cemented in place, "Rex dyes his hair to stand out and get more attention than the rest of us on leave." He paused just in time for Ahsoka to laugh again. "But actually, Commander Cody gets all the ladies' attention when we're out. He's like a magnet. Can't go anywhere with him."

Ahsoka pointed to another restaurant on their left, its bright advertisement a cooked rancor on a platter. This was the third restaurant they passed, and despite Fives claiming he was "starving," he turned this option down as well. They rounded the corner and amid bustling crowds and bright businesses lining the street, Fives picked out one about halfway down, his pace quickening.

Ahsoka tried to find the advertisement sign among all the flashing lights. "Diamondback Nexu Cantina?" Her gaze leveled on him. "A cantina, really?"

"They have good food!" he defended quickly.

At that time of night, the majority of patrons congregated at the bar, leaving most of the tables available. Fives easily found a two-seater table near the door, away from the bar-crowding drunk sentients. A holoprojector in the middle of their table displayed the food menu, opaque enough to read, transparent enough to see Fives through it, leaning with his elbows on the table, completely in his element. Before they were even fully settled, a Nautolan waitress dropped off two cups of water on her way to an alcove table.

"Jesse's a different story," Fives carried on, somehow still on track with his list of names to gossip about. "He's the only brother I know who's into Rodians. Like, he prefers them. So we could be out with Cody all night and he'll still leave the clubs with a girl or two."

"Really?" Ahsoka asked amid her giggles. "Why Rodians?"

Fives' expression quickly sobered and his reply stumbled into a cough. "Er... uh, do you know what you want to order?" He further stalled for time behind his water glass.

"Oh, come on, tell me!" she persisted, all wide-eyed curiosity. "You can't just bring something like that up and not explain anything!"

"Usually the people I bring it up to don't need any explanation," replied Fives with a pointed stare. Before Ahsoka could argue more, he held up a hand and added, "Think about it a little. I'm sure it'll come to you."

Pouting, Ahsoka's attention returned to the menu floating in front of her, boasting only a few choices of meals. But then again, this was a cantina. She managed to decide quickly enough, typing her order into the touchscreen tabletop; Fives had already input his choice practically the minute they sat down. The menu receded and Ahsoka turned her gaze back on Fives.

"So, how popular are you with girls?" she asked with the same face she had worn all evening, an expression expecting to be entertained. She knew from experience that no one in the 501st was better at telling stories.

Fives balked. "Look at you, Commander Snoop!" he half-grumbled. "All up in my business..."

Ahsoka's attempt at outrage kept deflating into laughter. "You've literally spent this whole time ratting out your brothers!"

The Nautolan waitress approaching saved Fives from replying. Ahsoka's hopes for food were quickly dashed when the waitress set down a single, wide tumbler of red liquid garnished with small, luminous leaves in front of Fives. "Compliments of the lady at the bar."

Both Ahsoka and Fives turned to see a blue Twi'lek wave coyly through the hookah smoke haze.

"That answer your question, Commander Nosey?" he said, scooping up the glass and casually toasting the stranger. He shot a gloating gaze Ahsoka's way over his drink, leaving her to roll her eyes.

Ahsoka tried to ignore the sudden, envious spike in her chest. After all, this wasn't a date. It eased her irritation when Fives prodded her to pick up her water in order to playfully clink their glasses together. But then, the blue Twi'lek had the presumption to show up at their table uninvited before Fives had even finished the drink.

"Hi, I'm Ers'la," she said in a voice far too breathy in Ahsoka's unbiased opinion, eyes only on Fives. "What's your name?"

For the first time that night, Fives' smile looked strained. Ahsoka felt his brief indecision before his natural charisma swept through with a more genuine, endearing expression. "I'm Fives. Thanks for the drink, Ers'la, but—"

"Are you busy later tonight?" she asked, leaning closer to him as one tattooed lek slipped over her shoulder. Inexplicably, the small feeling of envy gripped Ahsoka's chest harder.

"Just as busy as I am now," Fives replied quickly. Ahsoka saw the Twi'lek finally, albeit disdainfully, notice her sitting there across from Fives and took this opportunity to slide an orange hand between them.

"You want to go back to the bar now, and rethink your taste in men."

Ers'la blinked, adopting a far-off gaze and mumbling, "I want to go back to the bar now..." She continued mumbling as she lurched toward her previous seat.

It was Ahsoka's turn to swell with pride, but when she looked back to Fives she caught the brunt of his disapproval. Her shoulders hunched defensively. "What?"

"One, ouch. Two, I was handling it." He drained the tumbler in his indignation. "I was trying to be nice about turning her down."

A retort danced on the tip of Ahsoka's tongue, but she stopped herself at the last second. She had to rein in her strangely animated emotions, giving herself a moment to take a deep breath. If anything, this interruption should have been something else for them to laugh about, not argue over.

This wasn't a date, after all.

Luckily, the Nautolan waitress returned then bearing food.

The Jedi Temple seemed to slumber along with most of its inhabitants; its dark halls absorbed loud sounds from those still awake, preserving the quiet and obliging the Jedi who roamed the Temple at this hour, like Barriss, to step a little more carefully. Barriss all but tip-toed down this final corridor that lay on the opposite side of the Temple from her own room. It had the familiar feel of the positive Force energies that filled her home, but the foreign entities of Masters she barely knew personally.

She second-guessed herself literally every step of the way, but once she knocked on the door there was no turning back.

She waited. No answer.

So she knocked again, more insistently, and heard a sleepy protest from inside. All her second-guessing returned in full to tell her this was definitely a bad idea.

A bleary-eyed Anakin Skywalker answered the door in pajamas, grimacing at the low light from the hallway; half his body was hidden by the wall he leaned on.

"Yeah?" His wince made him look angry, but his tone sounded exhausted.

"Master Skywalker," Barriss began hesitantly, standing a little more bent than usual, "I think I have something to tell you..."

Ahsoka felt much better after having eaten, especially because the meal seemed to help Fives forget he was irritated in the first place. They returned to talking and laughing as if nothing had interrupted them.

All of a sudden, Ahsoka's eyes turned round as something clicked in the back of her mind. "Oh!" Her gaze zipped to Fives, a slight tint to her lekku. "Rodians!" With her ensuing gesture defining a snout, Fives burst out laughing.

He calmed down enough to take a drink from his second cup, a tall opaque glass of his own purchase. "See? Just needed a little time. All of dinner, even."

"And speaking of..." Ahsoka's grin widened as Fives' expression playfully soured. "You said take you to dinner first to see any of your tattoos, and here we are." Elbows planted on the table, she leaned closer, all innocent anticipation.

"Yeah, I did say that," he admitted begrudgingly. Setting down his drink, he shrugged out of half his jacket to roll up the short sleeve of his right arm and uncover the majority of a dark tattoo spanning his upper arm and shoulder. It was a tangle of lines and shapes in a single, distinct art style reminiscent of the old banners she saw decorating Mandalore. A tribute to his heritage.

Ahsoka thought she could study the detail for hours, but Fives retreated far too soon into his jacket.

"Wanna get out of here?" he suggested before finishing his second drink.

He scanned a credit chip over the tabletop and the two exited into the night air of Coruscant, arguably hazier than the smoke-filled cantina. The streets were still as crowded as ever, keeping Ahsoka's and Fives' pace slow and their distance closer than shoulder-to-shoulder.

"You said you had more than two," Ahsoka spoke up when Fives made no conversation. "So what else do you have?"

Fives shook his head in mock exasperation. "Can I ask you what other white markings you have on your body?" He lightly pinched her cheek, but she swiped him away.

"That's different! I was born with these. You and your brothers chose yours, and they're all different from each other." She couldn't have reined in her curiosity even if she tried. But beyond that, there was a thrill of excitement being privy to something usually hidden underneath heavy armor— being in on a secret, of sorts.

Ahsoka nudged him with her shoulder as they walked, wide eyes pleading. With a defeated groan, Fives took her arm and pulled her down the next small road on their right, deserted due to the lack of businesses, only lit by the advertisements bright enough to shine down the street. He led her to the side of a building, a little less dimly illuminated than the rest of their surroundings, leading Ahsoka to wonder about the level of scandalousness she was getting into. After a quick check of their vicinity, Fives pulled his shirt nearly up to his left shoulder, upsetting his jacket in the process.

Ahsoka's eyes froze on his exposed chest— defined muscles, flattering angles, a handful of unique scars, and a faint trail of dark hair stretching from his navel downward. Which only made Ahsoka wonder: humans had hair elsewhere besides their heads? Finally, though, her attention settled on what Fives had tried to show her from the start. The word ECHO was written in simple aurebesh across his heart. It stood almost plain compared to the complexity of his shoulder tattoo, but Ahsoka suspected this one meant more.

She reached out and touched the name, her fingertips slowly dragging across it as she remembered the heroic ARC trooper, the perfect balance to Fives' personality. In fact, Fives had seemed a little unfettered ever since the loss of Echo, as if he had been searching for someone else to be his balance, to keep him in check the way Echo did.

All of Ahsoka's previous curiosity fizzled into sympathy, but one look to Fives' face told her it was misplaced. He was through with mourning. He regarded her intently, with the same amount of curiosity as she displayed earlier.

For some reason, his riveted gaze caused her lekku to darken and her eyes to fall from his face. They landed on his tattoo instead and she realized she was still touching his chest. Her lekku were almost as dark as the shadows now, and hot with embarrassment. Just as her hand started to slip from his body, Fives caught it and held it along with his shirt flat over his heart, where she could feel it beating a little faster than before.

"Y'know, I was wondering where else you might possibly have white marks," he began in a low voice, as if conveying a secret, "and if they looked anything like these." His free hand touched her face, a thumb tracing her cheek marking.

Ahsoka couldn't stop her head from leaning in to his touch, but a few sudden blinks brought her halfway back to her senses, enough to unbalance her at least. She reached her other hand out for support and successfully made contact with his warm abdomen.

Her lekku couldn't get any darker.

Fives slipped his hand from her face around to the back of her neck, right under her lekku. He drew her close and placed a soft, tentative kiss on her lips. It was nothing like the hasty kiss she received on Carlac, where the only emotion conveyed had been fear.

This kiss was earnest, and slow enough that Ahsoka had time to respond in kind, spurring Fives to press more eagerly against her mouth. It elicited a new flare of curiosity, completely foreign in its desires but exhilarating all the same.

The parting was mutual once Fives' hand slipped out from under her lekku, and he stared at her with a boyish grin sparking on his face. The more he tried to fight it the more it grew until eventually he had to cover his mouth with his fist. But he couldn't hide the enthusiasm dancing in his eyes, nor the way his Force signature practically glowed.

Ahsoka took a moment to catch her breath, staring in such surprise that even Fives' overwhelming grin couldn't prod her into a smile. But despite her shades of embarrassment, she soon did settle on a smirk.

He released her, letting her hands fall away from his chest. She didn't notice her own pout as his shirt once more covered him.

Fives recovered from his incapacitating glee enough to say, "Oh, I almost forgot... I have something for you." He pulled a small object out of his jacket pocket and managed to hand it over when a bright light shone on them from the street, causing both to tense in defensive stances, arms blocking the glare.

A large speeder bike drove down the road, and when it drew alongside the couple they found the harsh gaze of Anakin Skywalker raining down on them. Ahsoka attempted a smile; Fives snapped to attention.

"Is there a reason you're out this late?" he demanded of his padawan. Ahsoka's gaze dropped to the ground, shoulders slumping.

"And aren't you under lockdown as of six hours ago?" the Jedi continued, leveling his same authority on Fives.

The clone managed an awkward laugh. "Was that tonight, sir?"

Anakin signaled for Ahsoka to climb on the speeder. "Yes, it is. And I suggest you get back to the barracks as soon as possible."

Ahsoka winced at the sound of the engine revving barely before she was even settled, as angry as her master himself. She only caught a glimpse of Fives' glum parting wave before the speeder shot back toward the street, leaving the trooper alone in the shadows.

She wanted to be mad that her master interrupted her night out with a friend, but was actually relieved that he hadn't arrived any earlier. There would have been no way of explaining her way out of that, because it would've looked like a date. But it was a moment she could only reflect on with a warm, contented feeling— and even now riding a speeder with a vexed master, that memory threatened to bring a smile to her face. However, her thoughts didn't wander too far with her master's Force signature to ground her.

"How did you find us?" Ahsoka called over the rush of wind and sounds of vehicles as they merged into the skyways. Even for the Chosen One, there was no way he could just arbitrarily locate his padawan on the streets of Coruscant.

"I heard you were out with Fives. His credit chip logs every location it's used at."

She wanted to ask how he knew she was with Fives, but his tone warned her he was not in the mood to talk. Instead, her gaze fell to the object in her hand, a small holopic projector. She thumbed it on to see a miniature hologram of Ahsoka between Fives and Echo, a picture taken after they first returned as ARC troopers, all three wearing wide smiles. It was a nice gift, but something surprising for Fives of all people to part with.

Ahsoka felt a twinge of guilt for not having something to give in return. After all, it hadn't been a date... had it?

終わり

A.N. Song: "Rhythm of Love" by Plain White T's.

This all spawned because of that one chapter from Sildae's story Causatum where Fives kissed Ahsoka. And Sildae was kind enough to beta this chapter for me. Bwahaha, payback.

You could call this ship the Titanic if you wanted to be WRONG.

Eesh. March is going to be busy, so Imma take a posting hiatus. I'll be back in April though.