Chapter Nine

Padme was bored.

It was a terrible thing to say, she knew, but it was true. Her daily routine as senator of Naboo was just so dull whenever the Senate was in between sessions. Sometimes, it seemed like the flow of documents across her desk would never end. Larger matters she didn't mind dealing with, but so much of it lately had been inane and, quite frankly, idiotic. What did she care that the agricultural interests in Chomell sector had suffered a point one percent decline in revenue this year? Didn't any of these people understand there was a war on?

"You look absolutely miserable."

Padme almost screamed when she heard the voice in her ear and felt the breath on her neck. Instinctively, she reached for the holdout blaster mounted under her desk and spun her chair around to find… her husband.

"Anakin!" She said, both relieved and aggravated by his presence. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"What's the matter, you not happy to see me?" He said, trademark cocky smile plastered across his face.

Padme sighed.

"Of course I am." She said, smiling back briefly before sitting up to kiss him.

They held the kiss for a few moments, savoring the intimacy they'd seldom been able to enjoy in their marriage.

"What are you doing back on Coruscant?" Padme said after they'd separated. "Last I heard you were headed for Umbara…"

"The Chancellor recalled me."

"Why?"

Anakin shrugged.

"There were a few urgent matters he wanted my take on." He said. "That's all I can really say about it."

"Okay then." Padme said. "So you already met with him?"

"He sent a speeder to pick me up at the spaceport, and afterwards I came right here…"

"And nearly gave me a heart attack." She finished for him.

This time he looked a little more embarrassed as he answered.

"I wanted to surprise you." He said.

"And you couldn't accomplish that by coming through the front door?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Anakin's smile was different this time, Padme could tell. He was nervous about something.

"Anakin," She said. "what's wrong?"

He sighed heavily and the humorous veil lifted. He moved to her side, crossing his arms and leaning on the edge of the desk.

"We might have a problem." He said, suddenly very sullen and serious. "Somebody knows about us."

"What?" She gasped. "How much…"

"Everything." He answered before she could finish. "He knows everything."

How could this have happened, Padme thought, they'd always been so careful. At least they thought they had. Looking back…

"Who?" She asked.

"One of my men." Anakin said. "One of the non-clone officers, Col. Marczak."

The name sounded vaguely familiar to Padme.

"Did he used to work with the Coruscant Guard?" She asked.

Anakin nodded.

"I think so." He said. "Near the beginning of the war. Now he's in charge of my recon teams."

"And he just confronted you with this? Out of nowhere?"

"Not exactly…"

Anakin left the desk and moved to the window at the rear of the office.

"Do you remember when I told you about reassigning Ahsoka for a little while?" He asked.

"Yes, it was the last time you were here." She said. "Why?"

"Because I placed her with Marczak, and…" He stuttered, as if it was difficult for him to say what came next. "I caught them together."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I caught them in bed together." Anakin said, leaning with is arm against the window. "Ahsoka's sleeping with him."

"Oh my…" Padme had known Ahsoka for a while now, and she'd seen her get close with a boy her own age, but a fellow officer… "How old is he?"

Anakin turned around, leaning back on the window and holding his hand over his face.

"I don't know," He said, clearly frustrated and confused by the whole situation. "I think twenty maybe..."

"Okay, okay…" She said getting out of her chair and pacing around to the other side of the desk. "So he's not all that much older than her."

"She's seventeen!" Anakin said, incredulously.

"I was queen of Naboo at fourteen." Padme countered. "Besides, legally speaking, Ahsoka's old enough to make her own decisions."

"But they're moving so fast, she's barely even known him for a month." He said, moving back toward the desk. "And the Jedi Code…"

"Anakin." She interjected. "Are you really going to stand here, in front of your wife, and talk about the Jedi Code?"

"No." He sighed, defeated. "But I'm worried that Ahsoka doesn't understand what she's getting herself into."

Padme smiled lightly and moved around the desk to place her hands on Anakin's chest.

"I know." She said, looking up into his eyes. "But if you fight her on this it will only push her away. Let her maker her own decisions, just be there to catch her when she falls."

Anakin looked down at her, and she could see in his eyes that he knew she was right.

"And if you want," Padme continued. "I can talk to her, girl to girl."

"I don't know what I'd do without you." Anakin said, embracing her. "I love you."

Wrapping her arms around his waist, Padme nestled up to her husband's chest.

"I know."

Ahsoka was glad she didn't drink much, because Ghes did, and he was heavy.

Ghes had "neglected" to tell her that, according to the GAR organizational tables at least, Retaliation wasn't on Coruscant, the Acclamator-class transport Ruusan was. How, exactly, he'd done this, or whether Ruusan was even a real ship, Ahsoka didn't want to know, but it meant that she didn't have to report to the Temple.

It was a first for her, being on Coruscant without the normal restrictions of her Jedi duties. With no where she had to go and a pretty good reason to avoid her master, Ahsoka decided this free time was best spent with Ghes. After all, they had to spend time together outside of "work" eventually, right?

This sentiment seemed a little hollow though when they went to a GAR bar filled mostly with his men and, from the cap badges she recognized, men from other elite units; airborne, Galactic Marines, other ARFs, even a few ARCs and commandos. Ahsoka didn't drink much though. That wasn't to say that she never drank at all, she'd just never much cared for the effect it had on her. Maybe it was because her senses were so naturally sharp, but there was something profoundly disconcerting to her about those senses being dulled to the degree even a moderate amount of alcohol caused.

The second reason, and probably why this was the first time she'd ever been in a GAR bar, was something Rex had said to her the first time she'd tried to tag along with him on shore leave. He had, of course, refused to bring her with him, saying that it was inappropriate for an officer to get drunk in front of their subordinates. While she'd argued about it at the time, she had to admit now that Rex had probably been right. Even Ahsoka had to recognize that, at the time, she'd just been a kid and probably would have overdone it, especially considering that, at the time, she'd never had a drink before. Not to mention this had been before clones had pushed most of the locals out of the bars around the new fleet yards, so a drunken teenage Jedi would have gotten way too much attention in all the worst ways.

Ahsoka found out a few months later how much she owed Rex for preventing would likely have been the most embarrassing moment of her life, when she finally did have her first drink. That incident, the one and only time Ahsoka had truly been drunk, had involved her, another Padawan named Scout, and a peer-pressured Barriss sharing a smuggled bottle of an extremely high proof Mandalorian liquor she never wanted to see again. To make a long story Ahsoka still had trouble remembering the details of short, the night had gone very poorly and all three of the girls had to take multiple extra duty shifts to ensure that nobody other than the on-duty apprentices would ever hear of it. That was the third reason she avoided heavy drinking, as, since that fiasco, Ahsoka had always been very weary of alcohol, never allowing herself more than a few drinks in a night in order to avoid a repeat performance.

Ghes was not like that at all. He quite clearly had no problem drinking with his men, and, unlike most clones, they drank a lot. It was actually rather concerning to Ahsoka, if only for the sheer volume they'd collectively downed by the time they finally called it a night. Thankfully, Ghes wasn't a bad drunk, it seemed to mostly effect his speech and motor skills, though that was to a degree where he seemed unable to support his own weight. Ahsoka had to carry him out of the bar and to the speeder he'd conveniently had the codes to, then fly them both to the address Ghes just barely managed to punch into the nav unit before passing out in the passenger seat.

By the time they reached what turned out to be an apartment tower and Ahsoka had lugged Ghes's semi-conscious body up to what she hoped was the right floor, she was about ready to pass out herself. Ghes was heavy. Thank the Force he'd had the good sense to wear a regular uniform instead of his armor.

"Stop…" Ghes moaned, gesturing weakly at an apartment door.

At this point, Ahsoka was listening more to what Ghes thought he was saying then to what was actually coming out of his mouth, so "stop" sounded more like an incomprehensible dialect of Shyriiwook then Basic.

"This is it?" Ahsoka asked, holding him up near the keypad. "Can you key in the lock code, or…"

His response was a slurred, even in his own mind, string of expletives from a dozen languages, half of which she didn't recognize. But he managed to input the code and the door slid open.

Ahsoka didn't have a lot of experience when it came to judging apartments, but she felt fairly safe in assuming that what she was looking at now was sparsely furnished by anyone's standards. It wasn't a bad layout for one person, a single main living space with a small area set aside for food preparation, and two doors she assumed lead to a bedroom and a refresher. The room seemed empty though, possibly because the only furniture was a chair, a small couch, and low table which, together, took up at most a quarter of the available space. All of this, combined with how neat everything appeared, made it clear that Ghes didn't really live here.

She dropped Ghes in the chair, happy to get the load off her aching shoulders, and took a knee in front of him.

"You going to live, Ghes?" She joked, patting him on the cheek. "You need anything?"

"Caf…" He answered, speech still slurred beyond recognition for anyone but her.

"Okay…" She sighed, standing and moving toward the kitchenette. "Give me a few…"

"No…" He grunted, shaking his head. "Instant…"

It didn't take her long to find what he was talking about. Ghes hadn't exactly fully stocked this place, and she was somehow both surprised and not surprised at all to find a box of GAR caf packs stashed in one of the cupboards. Ahsoka involuntarily curled her nose. This stuff was nasty, why would he choose to have this? She made it anyway, heating the water first so it would at least be bearable, but she only poured one mug.

Ahsoka sat on the end of the couch nearest Ghes while he nursed the beverage for around a half hour. When he'd finished, she had to admit he at least looked better, even managing to place the empty mug on the table without falling over.

"Military caf." He said, speech far more understandable then it had been. "Good for sobering up."

"Feeling better then?" Ahsoka asked, a little more amused then she perhaps should have been.

"Yea." He replied, though he began messaging his temple. She wasn't going to envy the state he'd be in by morning.

"I swear." Ghes continued. "Jango's blood must have been made of liquor, because it is impossible to keep up with those boys."

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes.

"This isn't a regular thing with you, is it?"

"Don't worry," Ghes assured her. "if it was, I'd be dead by now."

"It'd better not be." She threatened playfully. "I have enough problems without adding an alcoholic ex-boyfriend to the list."

"Message received." He said, smirking. "Look on the bright side, my mom always told me; 'Ghes, if you're going to be with someone, make sure you see them drunk'. Now you've seen me drunk."

"Good advice." Ahsoka said.

"What about you?" Ghes asked. "When do I get to see what you look like hammered?"

"You don't." She answered. "Because I don't."

"Come on." He said, disbelievingly. "Everyone has too much sometimes."

"Once." Ahsoka admitted. "And it's not an experience I'd like to relive."

"Ooo…" Ghes said, intrigued. "There's a story there. You ever going to tell me?"

Ahsoka smiled, stood, walked over to Ghes and sat back down on his lap.

"Maybe…" She said, kissing him on the forehead. "But not tonight. You ready for bed?"

"Help me up." Ghes groaned.

She didn't have to carry him like she had before, Ghes had regained enough of his strength that he only needed to steady himself on her as they made their way to the bedroom. Said room was a little better then she'd expected. The bed was at least twice as wide as the bank they'd been sharing aboard Retaliation. She did see a minor problem though.

"Do you have any more pillows?" Ahsoka asked as she helped him sit on the edge of the bed.

"I think in the closet." He said, gesturing to a door.

Ahsoka opened the indicated door, a light activating automatically to illuminate the space. She found two pillows on a shelf almost immediately, but she noticed something which interested her more.

Laid out on a rack mounted to the back wall was a full suit of Mandalorian armor painted in deep purple highlighted with sand gold. There were a few differences she noticed immediately that set this set, which Ahsoka assumed belonged to Ghes, apart from others she'd seen. For one, it included a dyed-gold kama, which she knew wasn't uncommon, but was worth noting. It was also bulkier, appearing as if it would provide more protection than was usual, especially for the upper arms and thighs. Thirdly…

"No jetpack?" She asked, not turning away from the displayed armor. The way it was lit by the automatic lighting appeared very deliberate, as if Ghes had carefully adjusted it all. And it was beautiful.

"Buir never used one." Ghes explained. "And I'll admit I've never been to fond of them either. You like it?"

Ahsoka nodded, still looking at the armor.

"It's…" She started, trying to think of another way to describe it, but eventually just went with: "Beautiful."

"Thank you." Ghes said. "I made it myself."

"Really?" She asked, impressed, and turned back to face him.

"The beskar has been in my family for generations." He said. "But I reforged the mismatched plates from a dozen different suits into that one. So, yeah, really."

Even to someone of Ahsoka's technical skills, that was impressive, if only for the electronic components she could see worked into the gauntlets and assumed were worked in every other piece of the armor as well.

"And the colors?" She asked, assuming some sort of meaning behind the paint job.

"Purple's an old family color." Ghes explained.

"And gold?"

That seemed to cast a shadow over Ghes's face, who looked grim, as if recalling a painful memory.

"When my Buir was young." He began. "Back before the war between Jaster Mereel and the Death Watch really got going, Clan Marczak tried to bring Mereel and Vizla to the negotiating table. Buir's ba'buir had stayed neutral when the other clans started taking sides, and he wanted to prevent the whole thing from turning into the Civil War it eventually would. Vizla, Tor Vizla, not his sycophant son who runs things nowadays, didn't like that idea. He wanted war, and he didn't want anyone trying to stop it, especially not a man who'd repeatedly refused to back his claim to being Mand'alor. By the time Vizla's men where through, there were only a half-dozen Marczak's left, my buir and ba'buir included. After that, we joined Mereel's True Mandalorians and added the gold to our armor to symbolize the quest for revenge against Vizla and his butchers."

"Oh…" Ahsoka began, unsure what else to say. She didn't recognize most of the names he'd mentioned; Jaster Mereel, True Mandalorians, Tor Vizla, but she didn't really need to too get the point.

"Yeah." Ghes said, looking a little more sullen than he had before he'd told his story.

"You know…" She said, trying to shift the topic as she walked back to the bed, half-forgotten pillows in hand. "You should really wear that armor more often."

"I used to wear it every day." He said wistfully as he began to strip off his uniform. "Figured it wasn't such a good idea after the first time two jumped me on my way into work."

"Still…" She said, following suit and climbing into bed next to Ghes. "It's a shame for it to sit in a closet all day. Besides, I bet you look great in it."

"Oh, trust me." Ghes said, sliding closer and wrapping his arm around her. "I do."

Sleep didn't come as easily for Ahsoka that night as it did for Ghes.

It had been like this for the past few nights, ever since Anakin had found out about her and Ghes in the worst possible way. She worried, not just about what Anakin might say to others, but about what he had said to her. Did she really know what she was doing, how hard being with Ghes would be? Part of her wanted to say yes, but still…

Anakin and Padme had been married for more than two years, and Ahsoka knew for a fact the two were rarely able to find time alone. She wanted to believe that it would be different for her and Ghes, but what if it wasn't? Sure, they were both assigned to the 501st, but that had been true for years and she'd never met Ghes until a few months ago. Was the fact that they'd never have a "normal" life just something she'd have to accept? Were stolen days like today all they would ever have?

The last thing to cross Ahsoka's mind before she finally drifted into sleep was hope, a vain hope, born of doubt and longing. Hope that it all would someday be over, the war, the Jedi, all of it. Hope that her and Ghes could have the "normal" life that, deep down, she knew would always elude them. Hope that, one day, they could find peace.

Author's Notes:

This is all getting done a lot later than usual, so this one is probably going to be a bit on the shorter side.

First off; Hybrid301, great to hear from you again. As I said before, I felt it was best that Anakin find out about Ahsoka and Ghes as soon as possible. From there, it seemed a natural development for Ahsoka to figure out what was going on between Anakin and Padme, and Ghes happening to have heard some rumors to that effect was a convenient way to make both revelations happen at the same time. It's a tradeoff, for sure, but trading the potential antics involved in trying to keep their relationship secret for more potential character conflict down the line.

8th, don't worry, I tend to babble on quite a bit as well, and I have a dyslexic brother, so I'm pretty good about reading around spelling/grammatical errors. Sadly, I can't really respond to your only direct question, because I didn't have any theories about Snoke after his brief appearance in The Force Awakens, and I guess I'd be in the minority in saying that I didn't think killing him off was that bad an idea, though it probably could have been handled better. But I'm biased, of course, since Jacen Solo was the "final boss" of Legacy of the Force, it makes sense to me that his underdeveloped and infinitely inferior new-canon counterpart have roughly the same role in this story (though I doubt Episode IX will feature anything as awesome as Rey being trained by Boba Fett like Jaina was).

On to this week's chapter, which is sadly going to be the last one I publish for a long time coming, because Part I of Lives Well Lived is now officially concluded.

Like I said last week, this was a very low-key chapter, and the ending is super corny, even by my standards. As with everything, that was intentional, in this case an attempt to balance out how freaking bleak everything is going to be at the end of Part II. I won't spoil details, because I know some of you haven't read Marczak (which I don't encourage, the only reason it's still up is because of my own sentimentality for my first publicly released work) and even if you did it's pretty different this time around, but Part II is titled Fall, so yeah, things don't go great.

One thing I personally like about this chapter is that bit about Ahsoka's bad experience with alcohol. That little element of backstory is entirely of my own invention, something I try not to do with characters I didn't create, but, in this case, I made an exception because of the subject matter. Besides, I don't know of anything shown or written about Ahsoka that would contradict this, and, even if I cared about the new canon, I doubt Ahsoka will be retconned as a heavy drinker at any point in the near future.

Well, I said this was going to be on the short side (at least compared to most of these), so I'm going to end this here. There's going to be one more update before I ship out, definitely next week but possibly not Wednesday, and that's going to be a preview for Part II, currently of indefinite content.

Until then, thank you for reading, and please follow/favorite if you enjoyed and feel encouraged to leave a review.