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“Have you lost your mind? This is military airspace!”
Ahsoka winced. Of all the admirals in the Grand Army of the Republic to hail their ship, of course it would be Admiral Yularen. It was just her luck that her past life would catch up to her at the most inconvenient of moments. Dread curled its way into her throat as Trace let slip that she didn’t have a starship license.
As Rafa started stammering excuses into the comm, Ahsoka gritted her teeth and reluctantly reached out into the Force with a prayer.
Listen, I know I haven’t been the greatest Jedi lately, or really a Jedi at all, but please, Force, please let us continue on our way without issue, I swear, I’ll meditate every single day, just let me keep running…
She poured her soul into the plea, hoping against hope that the Admiral would overlook the issue and Trace would pull up into the civilian transport lane and sweep Ahsoka away from all of the pain hanging heavy around her former home. She shoved all of her wild desperation into the Force over and over again, when all of a sudden she felt an unmistakable tug.
No… it couldn’t be…
Ahsoka had kept her training bond fiercely clamped down for months, cutting herself off from her former master entirely. Even if Anakin had been one of the only things she had loved about life as a Jedi, she knew that keeping contact with him would mean slowly drifting backward. If she truly wanted to strike out on her own, she had to keep her shields impenetrable.
The tug lingered in the Force for only a second before vanishing, and Ahsoka shook herself. It was nothing. Hearing Yularen’s voice had brought back memories, so she was just imagining things. It was nothing.
“Who is this? What’s your transport number?” Yularen barked, and Ahsoka knew she had to act. Heart fluttering, she reached over to end the transmission, but the Admiral’s next words made her hand freeze. “In the name of the Republic, I am ordering this ship detained. We are sending a detachment, do not attempt to fly away.”
Ahsoka completed her hand’s arc of motion and slammed down the end comm button. She put her head in her hands and groaned.
“What’s a detachment? Is it really that bad?” Trace asked, eyes flicking between Ahsoka and the Coruscant air traffic swirling around them.
“Yes, Trace, it really is that bad. It means that we’re gonna get arrested for flying illegally and I’ll lose the job and the money just because somebody didn’t bother getting a fake license!” Rafa spat out.
Trace trembled and she hesitated before responding. “I’m—I’m really sorry Rafa, I didn’t realize, I thought I could do it, I just really wanted—”
“It’s whatever. Nothin’ we can do about it now, anyway,” Rafa said with a sigh. “Just gotta follow that ship right there.”
Trace bit her lip and began steering them down towards the hangar where everything would go wrong.
A silence settled over the cockpit as Ahsoka quickly descended into panic over how much worse things were going to get once they landed. The three of them would be arrested, and Ahsoka would be recognized, and they’d mention that she was a Jedi, and then the Martez sisters’ ire would turn from each other to her, and she’d lose the closest things to friends she’d had in months, not to mention the Force’s whispers of something more in her heart whenever she looked at Trace—
The tug in the Force had returned, and it was growing stronger with every moment. There was no denying it now: Ahsoka Tano was knee-deep in bantha shit.
The tension only thickened as the hangar grew ever closer. Ahsoka opened her mouth, words wavering at the tip of her tongue, words that would explain her Jedi past, words that would ruin her. How could they possibly understand? And so she closed her mouth and turned away, unable to deal with Trace’s warm eyes meeting hers.
The Silver Angel landed with only a mildly-concerning creak, and Ahsoka held her breath as they made their way off the ship. She saw the towering figure awaiting them at the bottom of the ramp, and her brain allowed her only a moment of recognition before she was tackled with the most crushing hug in the galaxy.
At first, she wobbled backward, caught off guard by the assault of affection. She stood stiff as a board in his embrace, desperately trying to remind herself why she had stayed away. But slowly, tentatively, she curled her arms around his back and breathed in the scent of home.
“Snips.”
Anakin Skywalker said her name like it was the answer to a prayer. Wrapped up in his arms, it was all too easy to pretend they were Master and Padawan again and Ahsoka had never left the Order and everything was okay.
As she let herself get swept away in the fantasy, the stone walls of her shields began to crumble away into dust. The reopening of their bond felt like a new, divine layer of embrace as their souls rejoiced at the reunion. Buried in each others’ arms and the Force, it was as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. It was only Snips and—
“Skyguy.”
Even before Ahsoka had left, it had been too long since they last used those nicknames. But they were the names that rang true in the Force. It felt so right that Ahsoka could cry. As the thought came to her, she suddenly noticed a damp quality to the face shoved against her left montral. The coolness of Anakin’s tears shocked her back into reality, and she slowly extricated herself from his grip. His hands trailed down her arms as she pulled away, unwilling to let go of her again.
Even separated physically, Ahsoka found that she could not tear her eyes away from her former master. The force danced a waltz-step of ecstasy tinged with remorse around them as they stood there, lost for words. Anakin was the one to break first, and his words overflowed like a babbling fountain.
“Snips, oh Force, I knew it was you from the moment Yularen stopped that ship, but I had to be sure, and I’m so glad it’s you, you’re really here, I missed you so much—”
“Master—”
“—the Temple really wasn’t the same without you, and you have no idea how much I worried about you—“
“Anakin—“
“—all alone in the streets of Coruscant, though I suppose not totally alone, you’re with an unlicensed pilot, getting into some sort of trouble, I can’t believe you were about to get arrested—”
“Please don’t blame Ahsoka for this, it’s all my fault, she was just helping us—” Trace started to say before shutting up when Rafa elbowed her side and glared at her. Nonetheless, Ahsoka blushed, and her stomach flip-flopped in affection over Trace sticking up for her after only a day of knowing each other.
Anakin looked at Ahsoka’s face strangely, and some sort of a realization dawned on him. “So, you got yourself a girlfriend and didn’t comm me right away? I’m disappointed, Snips.”
“Skyguy, Trace isn’t my girlfriend!” Ahsoka shouted louder than she intended, and her cheeks blazed redder in embarrassment. She looked away from Trace, not wanting to bear any possibly disappointed expression on her face. Unfortunately, this left her looking back at Anakin, who gave her a trademark not-quite-convinced smile.
“Ahsoka, is this the brother you were telling me about? The one who taught you how to fight?” Trace asked. Anakin made a quiet noise Ahsoka almost thought she had imagined, but the Force swelled around him in obvious pride.
Ahsoka flushed even further, certain that her Togrutan complexion made her the color of a meiloorun. “Um, sort of? Anakin, this is Trace and Rafa Martez, they’ve helped me out a ton recently. Trace and Rafa, this is…” She trailed off, stomach clenching at the thought of revealing her identity. But she knew it was too late to turn back. “This is Anakin Skywalker, my former Jedi Master.” She felt Anakin’s minute flinch in the Force at her word choice of “former.”
Trace’s eyes bugged out but Rafa was the first to speak. “Are you kriffing serious?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, I really did plan on telling you--”
“Did you really? Isn’t being a kriffing Jedi important enough for us to know?” Rafa spat out, eyes blazing.
Ahsoka couldn’t but cower a bit from her glare. “I’m not a Jedi, technically. I was one, but I left the Order months ago. I swear I didn’t intend to lie to you, but I knew you’d react this way and I guess—I guess I didn’t want to lose my new friends so soon.”
Finally, Trace spoke up. “I guess I just never thought a Jedi could care about people like us,” she said, her voice meek but her eyes meeting Ahsoka’s directly.
Beside her, Anakin coughed. “Er… I may not know you two that well, but Jedi or not, Ahsoka’s one of the most caring people in the galaxy.” His eyes twinkled. “Although, since she’s your friend, she should have cared enough to tell you not to fly unregistered, or at least how to do it without getting caught.”
Rafa scoffed and opened her mouth to snap back, but Anakin laughed and held up his hand.
“Hey, I’m just kidding. But…” His next words were laced with an ancient bitterness, one Ahsoka had heard before in Trace and Rafa and countless others ignored, and she found herself instinctually sending a wave of comfort over in the Force.
“But I do wish the Jedi were better at this kind of stuff. I swear to you, I’m working really hard to change the system from within so we can look out more for people like you. You shouldn’t be invisible.”
The gleam in Anakin’s eyes and the determined set of his jaw reminded Ahsoka of just how desperately she had missed her master over the past months, no matter how hard she had tried to convince herself otherwise.
Rafa gave a curt nod, but her expression of anger was faded. “Thank you. You get why we have a hard time fully believing you, but y’know, you don’t really seem like the other ones.”
Ahsoka beamed in pride. “Yep, Skywalker Academy sure was a unique place to study.” Trace giggled and Ahsoka’s heart soared at the sound. She felt Anakin’s bemusement but also his pride and affection as he leaned over and patted the top of her montrals. Another wave of yearning for that fantasy life washed over her, and she ached over what could have been.
“Um, Ahsoka?” Trace asked, a strange expression crossing her face. “Now that you’ve got your master back, will you, uh, will you be leaving us for him?”
“Also, are we arrested or not? What’s the deal?” Rafa added.
Ahsoka sucked in a breath. Right. Now she had to choose her fate yet again, or something like that. She had missed this easy camaraderie with Anakin, but she still felt a pang of fear when she thought of returning. She opened her mouth and closed it again before turning to look at Anakin.
His face was pained as he addressed Rafa. “I’ll clear it up with Admiral Yularen; he’s still got that stick up his ass, but you guys should be fine.”
Then he turned to Ahsoka and hesitated. “You know, the Council’s offer to make you a Knight still stands. I’ve missed you so much…”
“Anakin, I’ve missed you too. And maybe someday I’ll take them up on that offer. But right now, I’ve got friends who need my help. I’m always going to help those in need, just like you taught me.”
Anakin’s jaw clenched, and for a moment, Ahsoka thought he was going to argue back. It had taken every last bit of her confidence to tell him no the first time, and she wasn’t sure how long she could hold out before acquiescing to his pleas.
Instead of pleading with her, though, Anakin just sighed and scanned his eyes over the Angel behind them. “Well, I don’t know how much you can really help while flying around in this hunk of junk.”
Trace gasped in indignation. “Excuse me, who’re you calling a hunk of junk? The Silver Angel is better than just about any other ship out there!”
Anakin chuckled. “Sure, kid, I’ll believe it when I see it. The Silver Angel, though, that’s a pretty wizard name.”
“I—” Trace’s brow furrowed, clearly unused to that line of praise. “Oh, uh, thank you! You really aren’t like other Jedi, since Ahsoka here thinks it’s a lame name!” she said, nudging Ahsoka in the ribs. Ahsoka rolled her eyes in response, but there was no mistaking the fondness in the grin sneaking onto her face.
“Trace, I… I’m not going to abandon you, I swear.” Trace’s expression lit up, and she scooped Ahsoka into a hug. It was so similar and yet so different from the one she had just shared with Anakin, and oh, Ahsoka could get used to this.
When they separated, Ahsoka glanced back over at Anakin. He had a knowing smile on his face, and his eyes glimmered with wistfulness but also with hope and with…
“I’m sorry I didn’t keep in contact with you over the past few months, and I swear this won’t be the last you’ll see of me. But I just want you to know… I…”
She stared at the floor, begging the words to come out. But they only finally overflowed when Ahsoka looked upwards into Anakin’s blue-eyed gaze, his attention focused solely on her.
“...I love you, Skyguy.”
“I love you too, Snips.”