Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan strode into the council room, Anakin not far behind. While Obi-Wan’s gaze was focused, his brows knitted together in contemplation as he walked, Anakin’s composure was far less relaxed – the irritation rolled off of him in waves, his steps thudding in the hall as he trudged forward, his dark robes like a storm surrounding him.

“Master Kenobi. Skywalker,” Mace Windu addressed them, nodding at them both. Obi-Wan nodded back, while Anakin bristled. He always hated it when Windu didn’t use his proper rank of Knight.

Obi-Wan did his best to ignore the tension between the two Jedi, as it was in common practice these days, with Anakin being called more and more often into the council meetings due to the war. He knew his former padawan was itching for a place on the council, and that he was irritated because of the clear lack of acknowledgement of his importance, despite it being glaringly apparent. But, it was almost as if this common tension bled into the background, as more pressing matters took the forefront.

“What’s going on?” Anakin asked the council, with no preamble. It may have been the tension from Windu’s jab, or it may just have been the fact that Anakin was disturbed right before his evening meal. It really was difficult for Obi-Wan to tell, sometimes. But Anakin’s urgency wasn’t without merit – they had been called in with no extra instructions, during their brief respite from battle. It had to be urgent.

Obi-Wan himself even bristled when he saw Yoda and Windu exchange glances, before Yoda nodded and straightened, preparing to speak.

“Important mission for you, we have. Retrieve a former Jedi, you must.”

Anakin and Obi-Wan shared a look – it was almost automatic, a mutual searching as they both took in the information.

“A former Jedi?” Anakin asked, always the first to question a mission. It seemed as if Windu was expecting this, as he already had an explanation prepared, his hand gliding across the holo projector, a mugshot springing to life in the pale blue of the projection.

It was a woman, about Obi-Wan’s age. Her hair was pulled back in a messy braid, loose strands hanging around her face as she laughed at the photographer, holding her prisoner’s number as if this were all a huge joke.

“Nea Andar?” Obi-Wan read, his brows raising. Force, he hadn’t heard that name in over a decade.

Anakin, still not catching on, continued with his tirade.

“Is she a Sith? Why are we-“ Kenobi held up a hand, and Anakin shut his mouth, his teeth connecting with a clack as he reeled back – the swift silence clearly a result of his confusion, rather than any desire to truly quiet as Obi-Wan had requested.

“What has she done?” he asked, and Windu contained a sigh, irritated with the impatience of the two.

“Nothing. Well,” he gestured to the holovid, where the woman on screen smirked one eyebrow raised, as if she dared her pursuers to try and capture her. “Nothing that is of our concern. The council just wants to talk to her.”

“The council? I hadn’t been informed of this,” Obi-Wan was incredulous, moreso than usual, due to the fact that apparently this had been decided by every member of the council except himself – the very person who had been in the woman’s cohort when they were younglings. Anakin didn’t understand the true extent of Obi-Wan’s indignance, but he still stood behind his master, crossing his arms, waiting for an explanation as to why at the very least, his old master hadn’t been consulted in the decision.

Windu sighed again. “Nea Andar is a powerful Force-sensitive and a former padawan learner. Her skill in the Force means that if the Sith haven’t located her yet, they will soon attempt to recruit her. Desperate times call for desperate measures – and desperate decisions. If we are to recruit her to the side of the Republic, she will be one less Sith for us to face in battle. It was a decision made quickly, as her time planetside is likely to be brief considering her… occupation.”

“What sort of occupation?” Anakin asked, the cogs in his brain working a mile a minute as he tried to process all the new information at once, as Obi-Wan’s signature in the Force was notably shielded, likely to disguise his own confusion.

Yoda fielded this one, as Windu seemed to be growing more and more irritated by the second, likely due to the time-sensitive nature of the task at hand.

“A pirate, she is. A smuggler. A Jedi, most certainly, no longer is she.” Yoda nodded, and so did Obi-Wan, cradling his chin, as if running his fingers through his beard would take too much effort.

“You’re not going to bring her in as a criminal. She needs to be negotiated with,” Windu supplied, and Anakin snorted.

“And who better to negotiate, than-“ Anakin started, with a smirk on his face, before Obi-Wan cut him off, his stance still stiff and cold – serious, even as Anakin attempted to lighten the mood in the stuffy council room.

“We’ll find her. Any word on her last location?” Obi-Wan adjusted his robes, readying himself to leave as the pads of his fingers skimmed over the hilt of his lightsaber, a habitual compulsion before he would head out on a mission.

“None that we know of. We believe she’s just finished a stressful run. I’d check the bars first,” Windu supplied. Obi-Wan nodded, and Anakin watched him with unusual intent, his former master’s shoulders tense as he left the council room, Anakin on his heels. It could have just been the stress of an assignment during their short respite, but he thought that he could sense more than that, in the thin, tangled mess of their weak training bond – never severed, but in severe disuse.

“What was that?” he asked, as the heavy door fell shut behind him, Obi-Wan’s stride long and purposeful, quick as he exited the council. Anakin, even with his long legs, had to pick up his pace to catch up with him.

Obi-Wan sighed, and offered his former padawan a pointed look, his expression weary, with a tinge of worry. “This mission is serious. The possibility of a new Sith Lord is daunting indeed.”

“You looked like you knew her,” Anakin asked, his voice slow and deliberate, cautious around the subject. Their bond wasn’t as strong as it used to be, but Anakin wasn’t blind. He saw the immediate recognition present on Obi-Wan’s face when he saw the holovid.

“I did. To be honest, I thought she would be dead, by now.” Obi-Wan admitted, his foot falls echoing louder in the grand halls.

“Dead?” Anakin exclaimed, incredulous as he skipped a bit to catch up. “She was a Jedi, why would she be dead?”

“Not many Force sensitives live long after they have been expelled by the Order, Anakin,” Obi-Wan stated, matter of fact. “Especially those that were never knighted. The Jedi offer not only a means of service and recognition for those within the Order, but also a certain amount of protection. There are many that would seek a young, inexperienced, Force sensitive for much more nefarious purposes. It is one of the reasons why we believe so many ex-Jedi turn to the Sith.”

“But she didn’t – or, hasn’t, yet.” Anakin frowned. “Don’t you think if she were going to turn Sith she would have done it by now? I mean, we know Sith have been around since I was brought into the Order – “

“I don’t know, Anakin,” Obi-Wan admitted, turning a corner to the hangar that held the speeders. “She may have been approached before, perhaps offered a choice to join them. I doubt that at this point, if they find her again, that she will have much of a choice at all.”

Chapter Text

Nea downed the last of her Alderaanian rum, the burn familiar, almost calming, as she smiled light, taking in her crew as they rejoiced their latest run.

It had been difficult. Their work was always difficult, always tenuous and stressful, and afterwards, Nea needed a drink, just to calm her adrenaline addled system. This run, in particular, had been concerning – they had started moonlighting as a refugee ship – for a small fee, transferring small numbers of frightened, disenfranchised citizens from their war-torn planets, taking whatever they could get in return. Usually, for her crew, that meant enough credits for a refuel and a couple rounds in whatever rundown, hole in the wall bar they came across.

As much as she enjoyed the work – it was important, transporting these people – she hated being on this godforsaken rock. Her smiles held no real mirth behind them as she poured herself another glass, the bottle resting next to her at the bar, drained of at least a third of its contents at this point in the night.

She welcomed the sting of the alcohol, the numbness it offered her, the way it blurred her senses and smoothed her harsh edges. But, even as it did, Nea never did let her guard down. Coruscant had that effect on her – she could feel the ever-present prickle on the back of her neck, the strong, overbearing Force signature that radiated like sunshine through the seedy underbelly of the planet, shining harsh and annoying, just enough to irritate the former Jedi.

Well, former Jedi wasn’t quite right. She had been but a padawan when she had been expelled from the Order, and it still stung. Old memories, old wounds, as she sat in a seedy bar that could very well have been one of the few that she had snuck out to with a few of the more rebellious padawans, on their more adventurous nights. Force, how long ago that seemed.

It was exactly these thoughts that she sought to avoid. She hated this planet solely for that reason – the ghosts of her past that seemed to rip open her memories like an old, scabbed over wound, never fully healed, even after all these years. It put her on edge to feel them so close, even if she knew her shielding was such that they would never be able to locate her by Force signature alone. Their presence tugged on her psyche, whispering what could have been, if she had stayed. And she shouldn’t care, because she knew now that their teachings were flawed, that their Code was flawed –

But still. She did, as her mind flickered to those Jedi she once held dear. To those she still did, even after all these years.

“Boss! Stop moping, will ya?”

Taen’s voice cut through the dull roar of the crowd – it was packed, everyone shoulder to shoulder, swaying and laughing with the taste of cheap alcohol on their tongues. She glanced over at the Nautolan, his grin warm and inviting as he squeezed his way into the seat next to her, punching her lightly in the shoulder.

Nea wasn’t anyone’s boss – their captain, maybe, the one that owned their ship, but she was no one’s superior. That he didn’t have to call her that, that he didn’t have to always look to her for direction. But he still called her boss – maybe to annoy her, since he never treated her like one, except when it mattered. Still, his presence softened her demeanor, and she swirled her new glass of rum – when had she uncorked the bottle and poured it? – rolling her eyes at him.

“Come on Taen,” she replied, taking another sip of her drink, the alcohol buzzing pleasantly, her chest warm and thrumming under her jacket. “You know I hate this place.”

“It’s not all that bad!” he laughed, leaning over, his movements unsteady as his chuckle reverberated through the chorus of drunken voices. “You’ve got us here, now.”

It was true, as Nea directed her attention over Taen’s shoulder. The rest of her crew were thoroughly enjoying themselves. Shagra, the tiny Pantoran that she was, couldn’t very well hold her liquor, her face flushed a darker blue as she cackled at some joke that her companions had made. Xolt, the Kel Dor, laughed heartily at whatever she said, his massive frame hunched over the miniscule table as he leaned on it heavily, the boards flexing under his weight. Soc was, as per usual, awkward – xe was still sipping xer first mug of blue milk, the drink obviously foreign to xer young palette, despite xer soft pink cheeks, flushed with merriment. Even Tesara, the notoriously stoic Zabrak, was grinning at Shagra’s antics, her arms crossed as she shook her head, her own glass of rum swishing under Xolt’s weight on the table.

“That’s very true,” Nea chuckled, shaking her head. The bar filtered through her eyes, slightly blurred, everything in an amber haze, a little less stressful, a little more enjoyable.

“Then come on, you stupid Jedi!” he laughed, the sound of it loud and rich, echoing through her mind even as she rolled her eyes. The crew knew how much she hated being called a Jedi – and yet, they still insisted, as she continued to use her mind tricks, continued to use the Force to call objects to her, to sense others within it. They teased her, and they laughed at her – and yet, she let them.

“Alright, alright! Don’t make me spill the rum – this shit was expensive!” she laughed, letting Taen drag her back to the group, who welcomed her with a cheer, Xolt slapping her on the back as she refilled Tesara’s glass, the Zabrak flashing her a rare smile before she swallowed the whole pour in one swig.

So, Nea let her guard down – her friends, her crew by her side. The prickle at her neck dulled with the numbness of the alcohol, instead replaced by a gentle warmth, the rum swirling through her bloodstream, calming her nerves. In time, she forgot about her past, forgot about the Jedi, as Taen and Shagra argued over who had the best prison stories, as Soc asked Nea, voice wavering, if she would finish xer drink, because xe was already feeling far too tipsy. It was as if the crew was on the Stormchaser, instead of smashed together in a dirty Coruscanti bar.

She was still smiling as she stumbled her way to the bar – knocking shoulders with a few other patrons, her broad smile and good nature smoothing over any ruffled feathers as she leaned heavily against the bar top, her hip popped as she asked the barkeep for another handle of rum, the older man snorted at her before retreating to the back room to retrieve one. Nea stayed where she was – her weight saddled towards the countertop, rolling her shoulders as she sighed, her jacket now wrapped around her waist as the rum warmed her from the inside out.

“Hey.”

At first, Nea almost didn’t recognize the noise as a voice directed towards her. The din of the bar was all jumbled into one, but the breath on her shoulder was what truly alerted her to the presence on her left, as her brain stumbled to comprehend the greeting.

It was as if saw him in slow motion – her gaze first directed to his hand, steading his form on the bar beside her. It was covered in a dark glove, which led to dark robes, draped across his body in a manner that was all too familiar. As her alcohol-addled brain processed this, moment by agonizing moment, her eyes drifted over broad shoulders, to his face.

He was pretty. Far too pretty for a bar like this. His hair framed his face in bronze curls, the neon lights dancing off of them, off of his lightly tanned skin, catching in his light eyes. As Nea met his eyes, her gaze tilted upward as she addressed the taller man, her brain finally connected two trains of thought, and dread pooled him her stomach.

This tall, beautiful man, was a Jedi. The tabards slung over his shoulder, the tunics and obi tied expertly around his waist. And, although her connection to the Force was dulled due to the alcohol, when she finally reached out, cautious, wary – Nea was faced with an almost blinding Force signature, golden and strong and true, as she man grinned at her, his head tilted slightly to the side, as if he wanted to buy her a drink.

It was a trap.

Her expression snapped like a thread – from dreamy and joyful, to stoic and unmoving, as she stumbled backwards, her hand flying automatically to her blaster – as if that would do any good against a Jedi with a lightsaber.

She collided with another patron of the bar – the body behind her unmoving, not even flinching at her detraction, and her blood chilled as she reached out, as she recognized.

She took a breath, and turned, her expression dark as her eyes met his. He had changed so much – his hair was longer, and he sported a well-trimmed beard. But his taste in robes was the same, as was his ever-serious expression, tinged with just a sliver of contentment, of pride at having one-upped someone else.

“Fancy running into you, Nea,” he mumbled, his voice as smooth as honey. It was deeper than the last time she had heard him – richer. But the Coruscanti accent was unmistakable.

Her eyes narrowed, her hand still resting on the blaster as she regarded him, her expression morphing into one of hatred, of disgust. She knew she was wanted by the Republic – she was wanted by everyone. But this – this way of bringing her in? It was just pathetic. She had half a mind to go down swinging rather than give old Obi-Wan the satisfaction.

“What do you want?” She sneered, her voice sharp and fierce over the roar of the crowd. She reached into the Force now, feeling the presence of both Jedi – tracking the movements of the younger man behind her as she glared at Obi-Wan.

“I think this conversation would be better suited to a less conspicuous location,” Obi-Wan replied, his gaze boring into Nea. Her stomach flipped – the alcohol within it churning ominously as he took in her own appearance. Her disgrace to the Order, more like it. She bit her own lip, bile churning in her throat.

“Oh, so you can dispose of me quietly?” Nea cackled, her laugh bubbly and anxious as she mentally slapped herself. She should have never gotten herself into their situation. She knew she should have never let her guard down –

“We’re not here to hurt you,” the Jedi behind her spoke, his voice low as he crowded her. She could feel his heat, her fingers ghosting over the hilt of her blaster. “We’re here to help you.”

“Help me?” She couldn’t help the nervous laugh that bubbled out of her lips, the entire situation presented to her as if behind a layer of frosted glass. “How could you possibly help me? You’re Jedi.”

“Nea, please,” Obi-Wan pleaded, his expression soft, desperate. “Step outside?”

Fuck. Her mind was already short circuiting, and this – she hated how she knew that Obi-Wan was real. How the image of him with a beard confirmed that this was not a ghost from her past, aged up solely by her unimaginative mind. That this Obi-Wan was real, and solid, and flesh in front of her, that his signature thrummed within the Force as he pleaded with her. As he confronted her, no longer as a friend, but as an adversary.

She considered her options. Shagra laughed, loud and cacophonous behind her, and she sighed. This was so much more than just her. She had a crew – a ship, an entire way of life behind her, that needed to be preserved. That needed to be perpetuated, if not for her, then for other refugees, for other adversaries of the Separatists, for other weak planets and systems who needed the Stormchaser’s goods in order to survive. This was so much more than just Nea.

And, technically, the Stormchaser didn’t need her anymore. It hadn’t needed her for a long while. And maybe it was her alcohol-softened will, or maybe it was simply her knowledge that resistance was futile, against two strong, fully-trailed Jedi with lightsabers at their sides. Either way, she sighed, her hand falling from the hilt of the blaster.

“Fine,” she snapped, making her indignance known as she shuffled towards the nearest exit – an alley just outside the bar, usually reserved for indecent activities – far more indecent than arresting a former member of the Order. She did her best not to sway, the alcohol flooding her system now more a hindrance than a panacea as her shoulder caught on the doorframe. She didn’t even flinch as she shoved herself through the exit, didn’t look behind her to see if they Jedi were following.

The air outside the bar hung heavy around her – pollution mingled with the smoke from the hookah lounge that shared the alley. The air was rank – stale alcohol mixed with fetid smoke, the grime already congealing on her heavy boots. She turned as soon as she could, her arms crossed as the men exited behind her.

Force. She bit her lip, refusing to allow her gaze to drift to Obi-Wan – to how much taller he was now, how he held himself, how his robes draped over him as if he were born to wear them. Instead, she focused on the younger man – his darker robes contrasting vastly with the golden sun that he shone in the Force, his movements just as confident as he stared her down.

“Well?” she asked, impatient, indignant. “What’s this all about?”

Her stomach churned as she truly took account of her situation. The Republic wouldn’t send two Jedi to bring her in for any old smuggling or piracy charge. No, Jedi were too precious for that. What was this, then? Her head swam, dread circling her veins as she contemplated what exactly she could have done. She was always so careful to avoid staying out of political affairs – at least, those that were of any real importance. She must have made a misstep, must have gotten herself stuck into something she had no business being around. And now, she was paying the price for it.

“We’re here to offer you protection,” Obi-Wan offered, and her eyes snapped to his, searching his face for any sliver of deception. His shields were immaculate – she had no idea what he was thinking, whether he was truthful or not. But Golden Boy – he wasn’t quite so impenetrable.

“Protection?” She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I’ll have to pass. Where was your so-called protection for the last decade or so, hm?”

The sarcasm fell off her tongue naturally, the alcohol aiding its delivery as her filter fell away. She knew her shields must also be a mess, but it wasn’t like she had much to hide from them, anyway. It would be better if they considered her weak and unhinged.

“Listen, you need to let us help you,” Golden Boy urged, stepping forward. Nea mirrored his forward motion with a backwards tread of her own, eyeing him warily, her arms falling to rest instinctually on her weapon. He sighed, combing through his messy hair – the frustration rolling off of him in waves.

“We have reason to believe that the Sith are looking for you,” Obi-Wan cut in, a hand on the younger man’s back that made his shoulders slump, a sigh venting out of his lips as he relaxed under Obi-Wan’s direction.

Nea raised an eyebrow in question, her lips quirking into a smile despite herself.

“The Sith are looking for me?” she repeated, trying to keep herself from laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all. “Really?”

“Yes, really!” The younger man urged, not catching on to the sarcasm in her tone. “The Jedi want to offer you protection – shelter, in the Temple.”

Just by the look on Obi-Wan’s face, Nea knew that this wasn’t all. That there was more to this story than just a simple act of kindness, or charity for one they wronged and expelled.

“In exchange for?” she questioned, and Obi-Wan’s face fell. Even after all these years, she could still read him. She tried to quell the surge of pride unfurling in her chest as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Supporting the Republic effort,” he ceded, knowing that there was no way she wouldn’t push and prod, antagonize and question, until the truth was out. And now that it was, Nea tilted her head back and laughed – loud and full, shaking her head as she finally faced the men once more.

“Oh yeah, join a kriffing war, just that,” she rolled her eyes, the laughter still falling from her lips. “I think I’ll take my chances with the Sith.”

“The Sith are far more powerful than they were ten years ago, Nea,” Obi-Wan urged. She closed her eyes, the sound of her name in his voice strange and comforting all at once. “If you refuse to join the war effort, I’m sure the council will consider an alternative. Our main priority is to protect you from the Sith. That’s all.”

Nea’s gaze shifted from Obi-Wan to his companion, the younger Jedi who had a much harder time hiding his emotions within the Force. His signature didn’t waver as Obi-Wan spoke, didn’t shrink like many did when someone was lying. But, that didn’t necessarily mean the Jedi were truthful.

“I’m sure it is,” Nea replied, treading lightly as she weighed her options.

She hated the Jedi. The things they stood for, the masks they wore. The last thing she wanted was to join them once more – even if it was just temporary, even if she was just sheltering under their protection.

But, her alcohol-addled mind spun as she considered her options – which were slim. As much as she despised the Order, she was faced with two full grown Jedi, one of whom was the last person she would ever want to face in battle. Though she wished she could run, grab her crew and fly the Stormchaser into the night, it just wasn’t in the cards.

At least the two didn’t seem like they wanted to hurt her either. Perhaps she could make the best out of a bad situation, spin this in a way that was beneficial to herself and her crew. The Jedi, were, after all, entrenched in the political workings of the Republic – and it would be incredibly useful if her crew had immunity under that governing body.

She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Force, she hated to do it, but it was the best option.

“If I go with you,” she mused, the words sour as she spoke. “If I play along… I need you to promise my crew immunity. Full immunity. I don’t want the Republic to touch a hair on any of their heads.”

Obi-Wan looked pained, opening his mouth to argue, but before he could, his companion cut him off.

“Of course,” he said, not hesitating at all. Obi-Wan’s shoulder’ fell, and Nea couldn’t help but grin at his exasperated expression.

“Then I’ll come with you,” she agreed, untying her jacket which hung around her waist, sliding her arms into the sleeves and adjusting her collar. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She directed the jab at Obi-Wan, but it was partially directed at herself, anxiety ringing in her ears as the men herded her down the alley, away from her friends, her crew. Back to the Jedi Temple, the one place she never expected to set foot in again.

As they made their exit, the door behind them swung open, smacking into the dirty wall of the bar. Nea and the Jedi both turned, and she was faced with Tesara – Tesara, the only one of them with any sense, arguably a better captain than Nea, a steady force on the Stormchaser. And a fierce warrior.

Nea felt the Force around her tighten, pulled taunt with the air of battle as the Jedi rested their hands on their lightsabers, as Tesara’s own fingers danced over her dual blasters, immediately recognizing the Jedi robes, the situation Nea was in.

“Calm down, Tesara,” Nea urged her, her voice quiet, calming. Tesara looked at her as if she had grown two heads, her grip on the weapons never faltering. “I’ve got this under control.”

“You never have anything under control,” Tesara spat, just as angry at Nea as she was at the two men who were stealing away her captain. Nea chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. She knew that with Tesara here, any fight against the two Jedi would be a much farer battle. But, if the two really could give her crew full immunity within the Republic… she really couldn’t say no to them. She couldn’t fight, or else the Republic would be after them, right on top of their every move – it would be far worse than screwing over a Hutt.

“Maybe so,” Nea replied with a shrug. “But let me take care of this. Just make sure Taen doesn’t crash my ship while I’m gone.”

Tesara didn’t look happy about this – but, then again, she never looked happy, as she removed her hands from her weapons, and instead crossed them in front of her chest, popping her hip as she glared between Nea and the two men.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” was Tesara’s only reply, and it earned her a dopey grin from her captain, snorting as she shook her head and continued down the alley, the Jedi now jogging to catch up with her. Nea had to laugh – she had to make light of this, or else she would break down. This was for the best. This was for her crew.

This was her worst nightmare.

Chapter Text

Nea sprawled over the backseat of the speeder, deciding that if the two Jedi were going to take her in, then she might as well enjoy herself. Her head slumped against the rest, her arms wrapped around the backs of the other seats as she closed her eyes, willing her nausea to dissipate.

She wanted to tell herself it was because of the alcohol, but she knew she held her liquor better than that. No, what truly made her stomach flip, churn ominously as they rounded a corner, was the situation she was in.

Her gaze fell on Obi-Wan, her eyes half-slits as she took in his form properly, now that the haze of drunkenness and adrenaline had fallen into a background hum, and she could focus properly.

The last time she had seen him, his padawan braid had rested just above his shoulder, his hair cropped short. At that point in time, she was sure he had been taught to shave, of course, but she doubted he ever truly put that knowledge to the test. He had been sixteen, a fumbling mess of a wannabe Jedi, desperately scrambling to adhere to the Code even while he taunted Nea as he bested her once more in the training halls, both of them dripping in sweat from a well-fought lightsaber sparring match.

He was so different now. His hair, even as they flew through the night, was perfectly positioned, his beard trimmed well to frame his face. His shoulders were broad, and he had an air of confidence within the Force that Nea had never expected from the dorky, unsure boy she knew as Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

Of course, some things never changed. Even though he was far more restrained, he was still sarcastic, and the corner of his lip still quirked into a cocky half-grin whenever he knew he won. And, even though he hid it well, even though it was only the barest hint, Nea could still sense doubt in him. A wariness, a way in which he still clung to the Code as if it were a lifeline, rather than a set of virtues that came as second nature to him. Even older and wiser, he was still Obi-Wan.

And he was one person that Nea had never expected to see again. She had been careful, over the years, to avoid the whispers of townspeople who spoke of the Jedi, treading carefully around the cities of Inner Rim planets with strong Republic ties, working instead in small towns, villages - Outer Rim planets her crew soon gained infamy amongst. 

Yet, here she was - in the back of a speeder, Obi-Wan leaning back casually in his seat, even as he gripped his armrest with white knuckles as the younger Jedi beside him took a turn far too fast for his tastes.

Nea couldn’t help but grin in the backseat, remembering how the other initiates had teased him for his reluctance to pilot speeders and other craft, complaining that it was “droid’s work.” She remembered copying him with the same sentiment, solely for the sake of complaining with him herself. 

The younger Jedi, however, the Golden Boy - to him, flying seemed as easy as breathing. In comparison to Obi-Wan, his hair was wild and untamed, bronze curls tangling as he flew, as if he owned the air. His Force signature sang with it - strong, content, in his element. It was a far different experience from his signature when he and Obi-Wan had negotiated with her - then, he had been unnerved, unsteady. Out of his element, while Obi-Wan had been calm and calculated. Now the converse was true - a flicker of unease passing over Obi-Wan’s signature as Golden Boy barely cleared another speeder.

Her eyes flicked to the rearview, and there he was, glancing at her again. It seemed that he was as curious about her as she was about him - though her questions were likely vastly different than his. Like - who was he? And how old was he, to be a Jedi Knight that Nea had never set eyes on before? Before she had left the Order, she knew almost every padawan, including those younger than her - she knew of most of the initiates as well. Was he so young that he had been a youngling when she had been a padawan? But, then, that made no sense - Nea had only been absent from the Order for fourteen years. If he had been a youngling, so small that Nea had never met him, he would have to be, at the oldest, a teenager - far too young to be a full-fledged Jedi Knight, especially one of this level of comfort. 

However, her contemplation on the nature of the younger Jedi was soon forgotten, as he turned another corner, and all at once, the Jedi Temple was looming over them.

Nea’s stomach flipped as they approached the imposing structure. She had never wanted to see it again - fuck, she had never even wanted to set foot on the planet that housed it. Xolt had to physically pull her off the Stormchaser - maybe she should have never listened to her crew’s pleas for her to join them for a round, if this was the end result of their merriment.

Even though the Temple was constructed in a way to be Force-dampening - to protect the fragile minds of the Force sensitive children inside it, who, when bombarded with the deafening background Force radiation of the city-planet of Coruscant, would wail and scream and never know peace - Nea could still feel its power, the sheer number of Force sensitives within it already tugging on her nerves as she carefully retreated into herself, building up her walls as best as she could. She had grown so used to dancing, reveling in the Force, that barring herself up with it again felt more claustrophobic than the walls of the hanger they pulled into.

Obi-Wan disembarked first, holding out a hand for Nea to take - to help her out of the speeder, ever the gentleman. She bristled at it, her heart skipping as she pointedly ignored his offer, and instead jumped out on her own, not once wavering, despite the alcohol still plaguing her system. Obi-Wan sighed behind her, likely annoyed at her stubbornness, her indignance, as he turned to the other man, who was powering down the speeder and logging its usage within the Jedi system.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan muttered, his expression weary. So, that was his name, Nea thought. Anakin. “Please take Ms. Andar to her quarters. The Council will convene first thing tomorrow morning.”

Nea made a face, her nose wrinkling at the mention of the Council.

“Fantastic. Love talking to the Council. That turned out so well the last time,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes. A little pop of mirth surfaced from the younger man - Anakin - at her quip, vibrating through the Force, even with Nea’s reinforced shielding. She grinned, glad that at least this man seemed to enjoy Obi-Wan’s discomfort as much as she did, as Obi-Wan leveled them both with a withering look.

“Goodnight, Nea,” Obi-Wan replied, a barely-restrained chide in his voice, his irritation overshadowed by what appeared to be a deep sense of weariness beyond his years. There was a sense of normalcy behind it - an old familiarity, like when he used to berate her for describing the Code as a “series of suggestions” when they were younger. It made her heart hurt.

As Obi-Wan made his exit, Anakin cleared his throat, and Nea was knocked out of her reverie, her eyes ripping from Obi-Wan’s retreating figure.

“So, I guess I’m showing you to your room,” Anakin mumbled, his voice betraying the fact that Obi-Wan had shouldered him with the responsibility because he was younger. Nea couldn’t help but grin.

“I guess you are, Golden Boy,” she replied, before she could even filter her words. Anakin, who had begun to make his way towards the door that would lead out of the hangar, turned to raise an eyebrow at his new guest.

“Golden Boy?” he asked, and Nea knew her cheeks were unnaturally warm.

“Well, Obi-Wan only just told me your name, I had to call you something,” she explained, trying to seem nonchalant as she shrugged her shoulders, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Anakin grinned, his lip quirking into a boyish half-smile. 

“Well, I’m hardly a golden boy,” he chuckled, shaking his head as he finally opened the door to the hangar, stepping into one of the back halls of the Temple. The barrage of Force signatures was dulled considerably due to the alcohol and the shielding, but Force, Nea still felt claustrophobic as she entered the building.

“At least, the Council doesn’t think I am,” Anakin continued, unbothered by the cacophony that was the younglings and initiates, the uninhibited, unshielded Force signatures ringing through the halls. 

Nea struggled to understand him, and when her processing finally caught up to his words, she snorted. He sounded like her - even before her expulsion, she had never had the best relationship with the members of the Council. 

“No, that’s not why I called you that,” Nea explained, as Anakin led her down a narrow hallway to the guest quarters. His long legs made sure that Nea had to speed walk in order to keep pace with him.

“Your Force signature,” she continued, a little embarrassed at the admission. “One of the first things I noticed about you.”

Anakin threw a raised eyebrow over his shoulder again, as he took a left and Nea followed him. 

“And what, it’s gold?” he asked. Nea raised an eyebrow in return, almost laughing at him. 

“Has no one told you?” she chuckled at the thought. “It’s almost blinding.”

“No, I guess not,” Anakin replied, finally finding the door he was looking for. Luckily for him, it opened, and he gestured for Nea to make her way inside. “Maybe it’s all the shielding. I honestly don’t know how you’re not screaming right now, from the noise.”

It was true that Nea wasn’t one for shielding. She found it limiting, at this point, for as well as it trapped her own emotions and desires, it also prevented her from accessing the deep connection to the living Force she had grown accustomed to - the sound of the trees growing, the animals foraging, on less habited planets. The dull roar of people who weren’t Force sensitive, their daily lives, their daily loves. She felt it all more deeply without her shielding, but in the overwhelming din of the Temple, it was necessary just to keep sane. 

“It’s not pleasant, that’s for sure,” Nea grumbled, shaking her head as she entered the room. It was small, but clean, furnished with a chest of drawers, a small cot, and a door in the back of it that she assumed led to the ‘fresher. It was a lot like her old padawan quarters, actually, only with no door adjoining it to a larger master’s suite. 

“Well, if you need anything, just ask me or Obi-Wan - do you remember where the masters’ hall is?” 

Nea remembered it - the hall that housed the masters and their padawans, the knights who still sought to take on younger members of the Order to train. Force, was this man already training a padawan? Is this what the war had done to the Order? He barely looked old enough to have been knighted. 

“Yes, I remember it,” she replied, in lieu of her abject horror at the idea of Anakin already teaching a padawan. Nea held on for hope that she was just terribly bad at math, and that he wasn’t as young as her calculations had claimed.

“Good,” Anakin replied, shuffling his feet, awkward. He ran a hand through his hair - it seemed as if it were a habit he picked up from Obi-Wan, perhaps, as the movement was so similar to how Obi-Wan mussed his own hair. Then again, maybe the men of the Order were all so grateful to no longer sport their padawan styles that they felt the need to touch their hair constantly. 

“Well, have a good night,” Golden Boy stumbled over his words, nodding to Nea as he closed the door behind him. Nea huffed a half laugh as he left - as if she could have a “good night” here, in this shithole. She felt uneasy in her own skin, as she surveyed the compact quarters. She sighed, deciding to take a trip to the ‘fresher - a long one. Maybe the ‘fresher wouldn’t just cleanse her body, but her mind as well, the torturous rush of Force that made her feel more nauseous by the moment, now that she didn’t have Anakin’s signature to bounce off of, to deflect some of the noise with something that she at least found halfway pleasant. 

She stopped herself, slapping a hand into her temple and shaking her head. She couldn’t go around calling pretty Jedi men pleasant. Force. She had to focus. The next day she was to meet with the Council, and she needed to be prepared. Prepared to face many of the masters that had expelled her, fourteen years prior.

It would not be a pleasant meeting.

Chapter Text

The following morning, Nea awoke to a gentle knocking on her door. She groaned, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she stumbled to her feet, hazy light streaming through the small window of her chamber as the knocking continued - quiet, but insistent. She groaned, sliding on her pants, her loose shirt hanging off her at an odd angle as she answered the door.

It was Obi-Wan. Of course it was. Nea tried to quell the surge of embarrassment as she feigned indifference, rolling her eyes at how perfectly manicured Obi-Wan was, even at the asscrack of dawn.

“Good morning,” he greeted, an eyebrow raised. “Sleep well?”

“What do you think, you bastard,” Nea replied, throwing the curse over her shoulder with no real venom behind it as she stumbled over to her bed, fixing her shirt as she went, before moving on to donning her shoes and socks. “It was horrible. I don’t know how anyone sleeps with all this karking noise. You and your little friend could have at least waited to capture me in the morning.” 

Nea had tossed and turned for hours before she finally drifted off. Maybe it was her natural instinct to protect, but the wailing of the infant younglings through the Force never failed to startle her out of whatever half-sleep she managed to get.

“I think we both know you and your crew would be well off-world by this point,” Obi-Wan replied, ever to the point. “But I apologize for the noise. I didn’t take into account your lack of shielding.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Nea scoffed, tying her boots with more force than absolutely necessary. “You Jedi purposefully cut yourself off from the Force. It’s ironic, if you ask me, how you can’t connect to the living Force in your own Temple.”

When she looked up again, Obi-Wan looked wistful, almost a little pained, as he regarded her.

“You sound like Qui-Gon,” he scoffed, a tiny smile as he tried to brush it off as a simple comparison. But even Nea, who had purposefully avoided news regarding the Jedi, had heard of the fate that had befallen Qui-Gon. It hurt her heart to be compared to his old master - one she had looked up to, almost as much as her own. 

Nea ignored the comment, perhaps out of some old, withered sense of camaraderie with Obi-Wan, or pity for his loss. Instead, she focused on running her fingers through her tangled hair, which she had removed from her braid the night previous, in a foolhardy attempt to tame it. She attached her belt and holster to her hip as she considered what she could say to dissipate the tension between them. She did think, briefly, that she was happy they didn’t confiscate her blaster as some sort of half-assed attempt to disarm her. She wouldn’t dare use it in the Temple, but she felt more at ease with it at her hip.

“So, how’s the Council changed since I’ve been gone? Windu still there?” she asked, attempting to make small talk as she threaded and buckled her belts. Obi-Wan made an affirmative noise behind her, and Nea nodded. She had always respected Mace Windu - he did things his own way, even if he had absolutely despised her propensity to talk back. At one point, as an initiate, she almost wished he had taken her as his own padawan, that she could have had the chance to learn Vaapad. What a pipe dream.

“Yes. Much of the Council remains the same,” Obi-Wan replied, but his voice caught in a strange way as he spoke. Nea raised an eyebrow as she threw on her jacket, nodding at Obi-Wan that she was ready to depart.

“Much, but not all? Come on, Obi-Wan, give me something to work with here,” she teased, trying to resurrect some of their old friendship, even though it made Nea ache, as if she were digging her fingers into a partially healed bruise. “Anybody who might go easy on me?”

Obi-Wan sighed as he gazed at her, before closing the door behind him and striding down the hall, his robes flowing wild and grand behind him.

“I now hold a seat on the Council, for one,” he ground out, the words forced. He winced when Nea gasped, the words sending a shock through her.

“Force!” she cried, the word ringing out in the quiet hall. “Obi-Wan, are we really that old?”

Despite himself, the comment made Obi-Wan crack, bursting into laughter even as they entered one of the larger halls, passing a few Knights and even a padawan that wasn’t afraid to target them with a questioning look. But Force, Nea didn’t care - the sound of Obi-Wan’s full laugh was better than any Alderaanian rum, filling her up with undeniable mirth as her own laugh bubbled up and over, meeting and mingling with his, almost as if they had never been apart. His smile was even brighter than she remembered, sending a warmth down her spine as she returned it, reveled in whatever spark she had managed to re-ignite.

“You find out I have a seat on the High Council and you make a pass at my age?” Obi-Wan snorted, incredulous. Nea sputtered, indignant, even as she grinned wide.

“First of all, our age. You’ve only got a year on me, remember?” Nea countered, and Obi-Wan shot her a smile - one that reminded her of the grins he would toss her whenever they were on a mission together and their masters said something particularly amusing.

“Oh, how could you let me forget,” Obi-Wan grumbled. Nea scoffed, and that earned another chuckle from him as she tried to defend herself.

“You were the pompous prick who thought it mattered,” she laughed, no real malice behind it. Their cohort had been made up of young Force sensitives within the same three-year span, so some joking and other teasing regarding age was bound to happen.

“No, you were the one that made a huge display of it whenever you beat me at anything,” Obi-Wan countered, and Nea snorted.

“Hey now, I didn’t beat you often,” she retaliated. She was right - Obi-Wan had always been stronger in the Force than she was - at least, he had been, when they were younger. As a teenager, Nea hadn’t been too concerned with strengthening her bond to the Force, more easily distracted by worldly pursuits, like hand to hand combat, or lightsaber battles, or sneaking out of the Temple on quiet nights to truly experience Coruscant without the Order breathing down her neck. Unlike Obi-Wan, who had always focused more heavily on his meditation and telekinesis. Because of this, Obi-Wan almost always had an edge when they dueled, and although the fight was always arduous, Obi-Wan’s endurance won out most of the time. On the rare occasion that Nea attained victory in a ‘saber battle, she felt she had good reason to celebrate beating someone “older than her.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Obi-Wan shrugged, his smile turning cocky as they entered the great hall. Nea snickered.

“Oh, don’t tell me Master Obi-Wan Kenobi’s still a ridiculously vain spoilsport,” Nea snorted. Obi-Wan still laughed at her words, even as he shook his head in denial.

“Anakin must be rubbing off on me,” he grumbled. “Now, if you want to talk about an unreasonably overconfident man-”

“Don’t you blame the kid for your poor behavior!” Nea chided, their sarcasm easily bouncing off of each other. “Also, speaking of him - how old is he? He’s a Knight, isn’t he?”

“Yes, yes he is,” Obi-Wan sighed, and Nea glanced at him, curious.

“I’m guessing he was Knighted for wartime?” she pressed, and Obi-Wan nodded.

“Far too soon. He was only nineteen-”

“Nineteen!”

“Yes. I hardly had time to cut his braid-”

“Wait. Wait -” Nea held a hand out, stopping Obi-Wan’s speech, as well as the man in his tracks, as his eyebrows jumped to his hairline at Nea’s bold gesture. “Did you say you hardly had time to cut his braid? Is he your - he was your padawan?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan replied, his cheeks a little ruddy as Nea gawked at him.

“Force. You’re something else,” Nea mumbled. There was a part of her that had hoped Obi-Wan was unsteady in the Order, that maybe he would, at one point, follow her into the unknown. But, it seemed as if that would never be the case - he was a Master. He had already trained a fully capable Knight, and he was only thirty. He was thriving.

“I’m hardly much,” Obi-Wan retorted, as they reached the door to the Council room. He was trying to deflect her, his emotions unreadable in the Force, his shielding too complex for Nea’s own perceptions, as she still had to protect herself from the constant flow of young signatures as she reached out. 

It was then that Anakin arrived, his dark robes pooling around him like a storm cloud as he half-jogged the rest of the way to the Council room. Nea saw him in a different light now - young, so young. Young enough to be Obi-Wan’s former padawan - well, at least, that explained some of the interactions between her old friend and the younger Jedi, now.

“Sorry I’m late,” he greeted, his hair a mess as he adjusted his robes. Fuck, how was he Obi-Wan’s padawan? It was as if the Force existed solely to test Nea Andar in the worst ways possible, as she tried not to let her eyes linger on his messy hair, his sharp jaw. 

“Actually, Anakin,” Obi-Wan replied, his smile apologetic. “The Council doesn’t believe that your presence will be necessary during the negotiations. I’m positive they'll be horribly boring, anyway.”

“Ugh,” Nea groaned, because he was right - this was going to be agonizing, wasn’t it? But still, Anakin pouted, his brows scrunched together in frustration.

“The Council doesn’t think I’m needed? But I helped you bring her in -” Anakin argued, gaze flitting to the door behind them. Nea understood the look in his eyes perfectly. Ambition. She had seen it many times before, but usually it wasn’t present in the Knights - solely the bold padawans who viewed the Order, the mastery of the Force, as a hierarchy rather than a self-sustaining system, a life cycle. She had never seen it so openly in a Knight - but, then again, Anakin was far too young to be a Knight.

“Anakin, it’s unnecessary,” Obi-Wan repeated, his voice strained. This was obviously a type of conversation they had often, with how weary Obi-Wan sounded. “This is more of a negotiation than a mission report. I can handle it alone. Why don’t you enjoy the last few days of your leave?”

Anakin was still frowning, but that, at least, seemed to make sense to him. He sighed, nodding to his old master, as Nea watched the interaction with interest, now that she was privy to the full extent of their relationship. 

“Yes, Master,” he grumbled, every bit the dejected padawan. Obi-Wan’s jaw flexed at the senior title, and Nea recognized his reaction as embarrassment that Anakin had referred to him with that title in front of her. In contrast, Nea grinned wide. It was kind of cute that Anakin still referred to his former master as such – it spoke of a closeness that Nea had never expected Obi-Wan to have with a padawan. She had always assumed he would be a very strict teacher, one that would establish boundaries far too rigid to be entirely necessary. But, it seemed that Qui-Gon had managed to rub off on his padawan a little. Either that, or Anakin had been so forceful and stubborn that he had wormed his way into a close relationship with Obi-Wan, despite the older man’s objections. She liked to believe the latter.

“Trust me, it’ll be boring,” Nea tried to reassure him, with a little grin. It didn’t help him much, but it at least made his lip twitch into a half smile as he bowed slightly and took his leave. Nea’s own smile fell almost as soon as he left, and reality set in.

“You think they’ll let me wait outside?” Nea groaned, turning to the heavy Council room doors. Obi-Wan huffed a dry laugh behind her.

“Highly unlikely,” he replied. Nea huffed her own humorless laugh as he pressed open the heavy doors to the chamber. At the very least, perhaps Obi-Wan would feel compelled, through their old friendship, to vouch for her demands.

This wasn’t the best situation for her, of course, but the morning so far had offered her a strange sense of nostalgia, of comfort in the presence of an old friend whose company she molded back into like she had never left him. She knew, logically, that the Jedi Temple was not a place she wanted to be – what with their rules, and the cacophony of the younglings, and the curious, or sometimes accusatory glances from the Jedi when they realized who she was.  She didn’t want to be trapped again, jailed by an Order that valued politics over truth, nepotism over justice, the adherence to rules over the pull of the Force. It wasn’t her way – it wasn’t her calling, her Force-song.

But still, with Obi-Wan by her side, she couldn’t help the way the Force sank into her skin, settled in a way that was comforting and safe, a blanket that she wanted to pull closer, but knew she shouldn’t. Even if this seemed like a natural thing – falling into old habits – the Council would not feel the same about her. She could never go back to the way things were – could never find that old life again. This was something new, and nebulous, something terrifying. She would have to fight, not only for her crew’s freedom, but for her own adherence to her personal agenda to stay decidedly out of this war. She didn’t know which was more essential to her at this point – which she valued more, her own morals, or the freedom of her crew. But hopefully she wouldn’t have to choose.

Nea frowned as the doors to the council chamber opened, revealing the large, circular room. The bile rose in her mouth as she surveyed it, and the warm feelings of nostalgia were replaced with the bitter taste of a nightmare, of one of the worst days of her life.

The council room was very empty compared to how it was when she was expelled from the Order. Then, only three of the members had been off-world, and all had been present. Now, there were more members off-world than there were present, and three of them were absent entirely from the array of chairs surrounding them. However, Yoda was still situated in the center of the arrangement – an almost immortal presence in the Order.

“Welcome, Ms. Andar,” Master Plo Koon greeted, his hologram wavering, his voice tinny as he addressed her. Nea frowned, but nodded stiffly.

“Please, call me Nea – or just Andar, if you’re so pressed about formality,” she replied, her voice drained of any mirth. She hated that the Jedi tried to be formal, or polite with her, after they had so brashly expelled her. And she especially hated that title – Miss. It sounded so inconsequential beside the others gathered around her – Masters, even those outside these doors were Knights. In wartime, they were Generals, their padawans Commanders. And Nea? Nea was simply Miss.

Nea took this time to scan the room. Of course, there were those that she had expected, and had known would be present – most notably Yoda, Mace Windu, and Plo Koon, who had just spoken. They were all present when she had been expelled, but they were not the only ones. There were Even Piell, Oppo Rancisis, and Saesee Tiin – all known for their conservative, moderate stances. Nea thought they looked like even older, dumber gasbags than they had when she was still in the Order.

Then, there was Ki-Adi-Mundi – another face that Nea recognized as one she was familiar with from her sentencing. However, after her expulsion, she gained a newfound respect for the Jedi – one of the only members of the Council who had argued in her favor, at the time. She nodded to him respectfully – perhaps thanking him for that service, all those years ago, even if it had been fruitless.

However, as Nea scanned the chamber, her gaze did flit over a few new faces. On hologram, there was a Togruta woman – was that Shaak Ti? Nea had remembered her, as one of the less strenuous Jedi masters she interacted with. Shaak Ti had been understanding, if strict, and Nea was grateful for her inclusion on the Council. She hoped that the Togruta would side with her on her demands regarding her crew’s immunity.

In addition to Shaak Ti, there was another woman who had called into the meeting via hologram. Nea could recognize Depa Billaba from a mile away – the human woman had a resting bitch face that could frighten even the most stoic of men. Currently she was steadying Nea with a glare made of pure ice, and Nea didn’t blame her. She knew of the Jedi’s history with pirates, but she refused to cower, instead holding her head high. Nea knew who she was, and what values she held. Even Depa couldn’t take those from her.

However, there was one face on the Council, one new face among the crowd, that made her falter –

Agen Kolar.

Her old master.

So, he had made it onto the Council? Nea was almost shocked, as the Zabrak purposefully avoided eye contact with her, instead tapping furiously against his datapad. Agen was strong in the Force, of course, but he had always been adept in combat, either with a lightsaber or without – he wasn’t someone Nea would have expected the rest of the Council to choose to occupy a seat, as he was a man of action, not deep thought, nor negotiation.

When she had trained under him, this had worked to both of their advantages. Nea had always been the type of padawan that needed physical motion in order to clear her mind – she was most at ease between blocks in a sparring match, closest to the Force with a lightsaber in hand. And Agen Kolar had understood that – he had embraced it, instead of forcing Nea into unwelcome discussions surrounding emotion, or the Code, or her spiritual development. No, Agen had been as eager to spend all of his time in the training halls as well, leading to Nea becoming the most adept padawan in her cohort in hand-to-hand combat, and one of the strongest duelists. They had clicked – neither bothering with deep conversations, simply bonding over their love of fighting, their appreciation of it as an art form. Nea had valued him greatly as a mentor, a master – and now, as he finally locked eyes with her, she was unable to parse his emotions, their Force bond completely severed long ago.

“Andar, then,” Mace Windu addressed her. She quickly turned, averting her eyes from her old master, and instead focusing in on Windu. He seemed cool and collected, as if this were some sort of boring clerical meeting, rather than an important decision that would shape her fate for the near future.

“I’m certain that Master Kenobi informed you of your situation.” He continued, his voice swift, matter-of-fact. “With how the war is progressing, the Separatists, and therefore, the Sith, have been recruiting as many unaffiliated Force-sensitives as possible to their cause. The Jedi, instead, would like to offer you a position with ours. You would not be a Jedi, of course, but you would be our ward, and our ally in battle. You would gain protection from the Sith, as well as a space to serve your Republic in war.”

Nea snorted at the idea of “serving her Republic” as if it were something to gain, rather than an act of indentured servitude.

“As I informed Kenobi and his companion,” Nea started, her voice cool and composed, “I’m willing to enter into this Temple as the Jedi’s ward, under two conditions. Condition one: I want my entire crew granted immunity within the Republic. I don’t want them prosecuted for what they’ve done. We’ve already been running weapons to some of your Republic outposts, and we’ve shuttled refugees off of planets that you’ve deemed too unimportant to bother with. We’re already fighting your war – but not for your politics, or your high-strung morals. My crew has been fighting for the lives of the people, and I don’t want them to see jail time for it – ever. So long as I’m under your watch.

“I also don’t want to fight in your side of the war. I hate the Separatists, and I despise the Sith, but I’m not the Jedi’s biggest fan either – and I hold the Senate in equal, dubious regard. This entire war isn’t based on anything concrete or necessary – it isn’t about a people fighting for their freedom, or the weak demanding representation and pride. No, this is a purely political war, about money, and power, and asinine democratic bantha shit that I never want to be involved with for as long as I live. So here’s my offer – I’ll support you. I won’t join the Sith, ever. But I don’t want to be just another soldier in your never-ending power struggle.”

Nea crossed her arms, popping her hip as she let her speech sink in. Her words were strong, she knew. It came from years haggling in Outer Rim markets, pumping up pessimistic pirates onboard the Stormchaser. It was a talent she had honed over the years, one she hoped would assist her in this endeavor as well.

“The Jedi’s decision to free your crew, it is not,” Yoda replied, after a steady period of silence. Nea always found it difficult to read him, in particular. Yoda’s Force signature was old, honed over many, many decades of practice and care in erecting shields. However, unlike most Jedi, his shields were not a sheer wall that one would have to brute-force entry into. Rather, they presented more like a dense jungle, with slight gaps, false passages that never seemed to be quite correct. It was impossible to tell if he was lying because of it, and Nea hated that.

“Yes, only the Senate can pardon them,” Windu added. Nea sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Alright? Then ask the Senate,” she huffed, irritated. She knew that the Jedi didn’t have absolute power to grant her friends immunity, but the Jedi and the Senate were so deeply intertwined that it wouldn’t take but a simple call to get whoever the Chancellor was on comm and the whole thing sorted. She swore, it was like they still thought she was a padawan.

“As for your second request,” Even Piell drawled, his speech slow as he considered the request. “This is within our grasp. And it is… interesting.”

“What do you mean, ‘interesting?’” Nea replied, her curt response betraying how little patience she had for the Jedi.

“We set out to recruit non-Jedi Force-sensitives in order to aid in the war effort,” Plo Koon elaborated. “But we did not consider the role one might already be playing within that effort. If you are telling the truth, then your exploits as a pirate are less of a hindrance to us… more of an eccentric assistance.”

“Ugh,” Depa Billaba groaned, crossing her arms. Even though the holo-vid, her disgust rolled off in waves. “Piracy is the coward’s role in a war effort. The Senate may be the ones to decide whether or not Andar’s crew walks free, but we, as Jedi, cannot allow her to as well. She is an important asset, an individual with a well-developed Force connection as well as some rudimentary training. There are two places such a Force sensitive should be – either on the front lines, or protected within the Temple. She should not be allowed free reign of the galaxy.”

Nea scoffed, knowing exactly why Depa was revolting against her proposal. Realistically, Nea knew that she was only suggesting that she stay with her crew so that she could return to some sense of normalcy, but to the Jedi, of course, that would read differently. They hated things they couldn’t control.

“I agree,” Saesee Tiin replied, his voice gravelly. “Although it is a novel idea that piracy could in theory support the Republic effort, Andar would serve us best along the front lines. We lost far too many men in the battle of Genosis.”

The Council thrummed then, humming in agreement. Nea even heard Obi-Wan’s deep huff of approval, and she turned to level him with a glare. She resented how naturally he fell into his councilman’s chair – his legs crossed casually, a hand at his beard, carding through it with an easy thoughtfulness. He looked every bit like a man who owned his space, one who knew that he was qualified and capable of holding his current position. And she almost envied him for it.

“If you free my men, we can discuss it,” Nea gritted through a clenched jaw. “But you must understand that if the Senate refuses to grant my crew immunity, I will fight the Jedi tooth and nail if you throw me onto the front lines. I will disobey every order, I will disregard every protocol. I will make your lives a living Sarlacc Pit if you refuse to grant me this simple favor.”

The Council thrummed with noise, this time that of consideration, as they turned to each other and contemplated Nea’s accusations. But, with her gaze now locked on Obi-Wan, when they eyes met, she knew that he understood just how serious she was. She wouldn’t back down, and he knew it – he knew of her stubbornness, her hatred of politics and adherence to unreasonable codes. Her desperate struggle for justice.

And, apparently, her old master knew it as well.

“Well? Call the Chancellor,” Agen Kolar called out, amongst the soft voices of his fellow Jedi. Nea turned to face him, and he purposefully avoided her eyeline, instead focusing in on Windu and Yoda. “Negotiations will be stalled until we comply.”

Nea allowed herself a small smile, a little victory. Her heart filled to see her old master vouch for her, even if it was clear he was trying very hard not to play favorites. But, she felt something from him – a little twinge of hope, a small spark of camaraderie. She hoped it would stay there, as she spoke with the Chancellor. As she determined her own fate, as well as her crew’s.

X

X

X

The Council meeting had lasted longer than Anakin had expected. He knew that Nea had certain demands she wanted to see through, but he had assumed that with their early start time, that he would have been able to see through his lunch date with Obi-Wan. He had been looking forward to it, with how long it had been since he and Obi-Wan had been able to simply enjoy each other’s company, forget the war for a few moments and enjoy a nice lunch or a quick sparring match. However, Obi-Wan hadn’t shown any indication of leaving the Council chambers, and, as such, Anakin had ended up where he usually wound up whenever he was on leave.

It wasn’t like he didn’t enjoy Padme’s company. She was his wife - of course he loved spending time with her whenever he could. He loved the lunch she had prepared for them when he had called ahead – it was more like a formal tea, with small sandwiches and pastries on towered serving trays, amongst a tea pot and another pot of caf for Anakin, who Padme knew wasn’t one for tea. It was thoughtful, and sweet, and he should be forever grateful for how much thought and care his wife had put into a last minute lunch – but he was still stubbornly upset that he wasn’t able to spend this time with Obi-Wan.

It seemed like Padme had caught onto his bad mood as well, as she frowned, dipping her head low to catch Anakin’s eye as he pouted.

“Is something wrong? I can ask 3PO to bring in some fresh caf if it’s gone cold,” Padme offered with a little smile, always wanting to be a hospitable as possible, even when Anakin was in a mood. And he loved her for that.

“No, the caf is the perfect temperature,” he assured her, even as 3PO stumbled over his own mechanical feet to the table, before Padme held up a hand in his direction and he retreated with a soft robotic “oh!”

“Then what’s wrong, Ani?” she asked, concerned, her little smile shifting into a concerned frown, her eyebrows drawn together. Anakin sighed, never wanting his Padme to worry over him.

“It’s stupid,” he started, shaking his head as he set his cup of caf down. “I just – I was supposed to have lunch with Obi-Wan, but he’s stuck in this never-ending council meeting. It’s not that I don’t enjoy your company, of course – I love you more than anything – but I had been looking forward to it. Sometimes I feel as if I see him even less than you.”

Padme smiled at him, a little sad, but understanding, as she took a bite of one of the smaller pastries. She leaned closer, resting her cheek on her hand as she surveyed Anakin’s distress.

“Obi-Wan’s very busy now that he has duties to the Council,” Padme rationalized, trying to comfort him. “I’m sure he would rather be eating lunch with you than in some stuffy Council chamber.”

“I know, I know,” Anakin replied with another sigh, his shoulders slumping. “I know it’s important Jedi business, but I still wish that they would at least let us enjoy our leave.”

Padme raised an eyebrow, words on her tongue, although she hesitated to ask them. Early on in their relationship, she and Anakin had decided to speak as little about their respective professions as possible. Anakin’s entire life was consumed by his duty to the Jedi, and Padme was equally bound to her position as a senator. As such, it would be easy for them to spend all of their time together reliving the moments they had spent apart.

But, despite this pact, Padme was still endlessly curious about the Jedi Order. Although everyone knew some basic facts about the Order, only a Jedi had the sort of information Anakin could provide her. And Padme loved knowledge – she always had. It was difficult for her, at times, to still herself, to bite her tongue and keep from pushing Anakin for more information about the intriguing society. However, sometimes, she did slip up.

“What was he meeting with the Council about?” she pressed, keeping her tone casual. Anakin didn’t catch on to her enthusiasm, and instead he remained detached, irritation still painting his worldview.

“They’re trying to convince an ex-Jedi to join the war effort,” Anakin explained, and Padme’s eyebrows shot into her perfectly curled hair.

“Well, that’s certainly important enough to warrant a meeting that runs through lunch,” she laughed, trying to keep the conversation light. “Is he a Sith? Is he dangerous?”

Anakin chuckled this time, shaking his head as he caught onto the lilt in Padme’s voice that betrayed her interest.

“No, not a Sith – a smuggler, actually. And a woman,” Anakin replied. Padme’s eyebrows shot up, leaning forward as her lips formed a soft o. She was beautiful, Anakin thought, even as he smirked at how intrigued she was, the gears in her mind spinning as she took in the information.

“So what do they want from her then?” Padme asked, tapping her chin. Anakin was momentarily distracted by her manicured nails, the small details on them reminding him of tiny stars, or perhaps moons. “Do they want to involve her in the war directly, or would the enlist her as something more covert – a spy, maybe? Oh, but what if she denies their request – would she be held in the Temple?”

Padme’s questions were compelling, and Anakin raised an eyebrow himself as he considered them.

“I doubt that she would deny them,” he replied, finally. “She has a crew. She’s negotiating their immunity under Republic authority – she wants them to continue to operate, even without her. But she also doesn’t want to join a direct war effort? I don’t know. Maybe they could use her as a spy. She would probably be good at it,” Anakin nodded, considering Nea as a spy. Certainly, she lacked the shielding to perform any espionage operations within the Sith ranks, but her Force sensitivity would make her perfect as an operative within other Separatist efforts. It was definitely an option.

“That’s noble of her,” Padme replied, tapping her fingers against her teacup as she brought it to her lips. She took a sip before she continued. “To offer up her own service in exchange for her crew’s freedom.”

“Well, she was a former Jedi,” Anakin considered, shrugging. “It’s strange. So, I talked to her last night when I led her to her room,” he explained, waving his hands as he grabbed another sandwich, bouncing his leg as he considered what to say next.

“I’ve told you about Force signatures before,” he continued, and Padme nodded, remembering the conversation. “Well, the way she felt in the Force was… strange. She didn’t feel like a Sith – they feel like a corruption in the Force. A distortion, like when you look at a reflection through a screen that’s gone black. A darker echo of the Force. I thought that she would feel like that, but she didn’t – even when we confronted her and she was backed into a corner, she never dipped into the dark. But she didn’t feel like a Jedi either – she’s not controlled or contained. It’s like her connection to the Force is wild and untamed, like it’s a living thing.”

Padme watched intently, sipping her tea as she listened to her husband speak of the Force. She couldn’t understand it the same way that he did – Anakin was so strong in the Force, a powerful Jedi with specialized training and a connection to a magic that she couldn’t draw upon at all. But, she still appreciated his explanation. She could listen to him talk about the Force for hours, but this discussion in particular was of interest to her.

She tried to imagine the smuggler ex-Jedi that Anakin was describing, wild and untamed, able to influence the Force in a way that was different from both the Sith and the Jedi. She wondered why this woman would limit herself to smuggling, to piracy, if she was as powerful as her husband thought she was.

“She does sound like she would be of interest to the Council,” Padme ceded, not wanting to betray her curiosity. She had already drawn Anakin far off the path they had created for themselves, the one that prevented them from prattling on and on about their professions. So, she changed the topic. “How do you like your sandwiches?”

Their conversation morphed into something more casual, as Anakin smiled at Padme, laughed at her jokes, and she softened, consumed by just how beautiful her husband was, how much she loved and missed him. She was looking forward to his return that evening, but after lunch he had to depart, citing the fact that Obi-Wan might still want to have dinner with him, once his meeting had adjourned.

“Of course, Ani,” Padme had replied, when Anakin had asked her permission. “I know how important Obi-Wan’s friendship is to you.”

Anakin had replied with a smile that was just a little off, just a little too late in its inception, just a little too tight-lipped for her husband.

She knew, realistically, that his relationship with Obi-Wan was far more complicated than simple friendship. Maybe she would never be able to understand it, since she had never experienced anything like it. Of course, Obi-Wan had been Anakin’s mentor for many years, and now was his comrade in battle, his brother in arms. That surely was a stronger connection than what many of her associates would define as “friendship” – it spoke of a deeper connection, a sense of loyalty and trust that was unusual for Anakin, who was, by nature, skeptical and wary due to his upbringing. It was something special, and Padme knew that must make it hard to define for the both of them.

Nonetheless, Anakin had thanked her for her support, and left, his small ship a beacon of light as he exited the atmosphere. She cherished the brief moments he spent with her, but, as he sped away, she considered that maybe it had been a smart choice, for her to pick a man who was as dedicated to his job as she was to hers. It led to a shared interest, a mutual understanding that when they were together, everything else should fall away. It was unsteady, at times, of course, but it was manageable. Padme always enjoyed a challenge, anyway.

X

X

X

“So, it’s settled,” Plo Koon declared, clasping his hands together in glee as the Chancellor’s hologram flickered and died in the center of the room. Nea’s lips were still drawn together in a sneer, as she took in the Chancellor, his kind eyes, his gentle words as he pardoned her crew and offered them immunity in the eyes of the Republic.

His gesture of charity was soured in her eyes, because she knew that it came with a caveat. She could see it in the way he locked eyes with Master Windu over her shoulder, with the way he thanked her ever so formally for her service to the Republic. No matter how kind, or polite a politician was, they were all the same. They had ulterior motives, and most of those motives were, at the end of the day, backed by pride and power. A more powerful planet or alliance led to riches, led to more political power, which granted one the ability to bend others to their will. It was this power that the Chancellor was graciously using when he spoke to Nea – granting her one kindness only so that she would be forced to grant him one in return – to fight in his war so that the Republic could destroy the Separatists, disperse their wealth among them. So that Chancellor Palpatine could go down in history as the leader in a great war, his ego inflated to a satisfactory amount only when the blood of thousands was shed in his name. It was disgusting.

But, Nea’s priority was, first and foremost, to her crew. The war, she knew, she had no true control over. It would march on, with or without her. However, her crew’s safety was something she could guarantee, something she could give them, with what meagre power she did hold, thanks to her Force sensitivity and her former connections. She sighed as she turned to face the Council once more.

“Now that your friends have their security, it’s time we discuss your role in our campaign,” Windu remarked, leaning back in his chair. Nea stifled an eye roll at the formal language, but she replied in kind.

“I understand your preferences, but as you debate my fate, I must once again remind the Council that I would greatly prefer to stay with my crew. We’re able to support the Republic from low places – the Outer Rim, the neutral planets – we can offer you intelligence, we can offer you supplies, we can ferry refugees,” she pled with them, her gaze serious as she swept it over the Council members.

“It’s a compelling idea,” Oppo Rancisis commented, his arms crossed, his tail tucked under him. “However, it is unrealistic. Without the guidance of the Order, there is no guarantee that Andar will keep to her word.”

Nea scoffed, but luckily, Obi-Wan interrupted before she could rip the Thisspiasian’s head off.

“While you make a good point, Master Rancisis,” Obi-Wan replied, his demeanor calm even as Nea’s eye twitched. “We also lack intelligence in a number of the outer sectors, and with Andar’s crew, she would even be able to access Separatist-occupied planets with little to no scrutiny. We should not discount the possible opportunities involving espionage.”

Nea shot Obi-Wan a thankful smile, a small gesture that he returned with a very formal nod. She was grateful to have him on her side, at the very least.

“Although the opportunities are present,” Depa Billaba cut in, the voice on her hologram gruff and crackly, “that does not make them the wisest option. Spies can be found in any realm of the outer sectors, even in the bowels of Coruscant itself. What we need are strong Force-sensitives on our front lines. Strong, trained Force-sensitives. Nea Andar is one of the few former Jedi on our list who is both alive and partially trained. Though she may not be as strong in the Force as a Jedi, she would still be invaluable in battle. We must not let our personal agendas or propensity for kindness betray our goal. We must end the Clone Wars swiftly.”

The Council room murmured with approval, and Nea had to bite the inside of her lip to keep from speaking out, from calling out the clear hypocrisy in Depa’s statement.

Nea had always resented Depa. Just a few years older than Nea, Mace Windu had chosen her as a padawan, vowing to teach her the coveted Vaapad form that Nea had so desperately wanted to learn, that would have suited her aggressive fighting style so well. But, Windu had deemed her undisciplined, unrestrained. Wild – in other words, difficult. So, he had chosen Depa, who, while vicious, was restrained. Their distaste for each other, it seemed, had only grown. Depa’s parents, after all, had been killed by pirates, and now Nea stood before her, a member of that same profession. Though Nea and her crew operated with a certain morality that a select few of the same designation lacked.

“Master Billaba has a point,” Windu replied – of course he did, Nea glowered, as he addressed the Council. “Our ranks have been severely depleted. Although it would be foolhardy to place Andar with a platoon of her own, she would do well at the right hand of a Jedi who could use additional assistance.”

A louder murmur sounded this time, at Windu’s assertion, even as Nea’s jaw fell open. What were they – were they suggesting a babysitter?

“That’s a fine suggestion, Master Windu!” Saesee Tiin replied, looking ever the gleeful old man. “Our generals could use some additional support. But – who should we appoint to –“

“Wait, hold up,” Nea demanded, floundering as she held a hand up to stop the Council from speaking. She knew that what she was doing was rude, but frankly, she didn’t care. She had what she wanted - her crew’s immunity. She had no reason to maintain her ridiculous polite facade for the Council any longer.

“Why am I being placed alongside another Jedi? Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to the war effort to place me with my own men? My own squadron that I could lead? What use is a trained Force-sensitive next to a Jedi?” Nea cried. Honestly, she didn’t understand these people. Was she a useful asset, or was she simply a potential Sith that needed to be contained?

“You may be Force-sensitive, but you are no Jedi,” Agen Kolar replied, his hands clasped tightly, as if he were holding himself back. “You may be strong, but you are unrestrained - not yet capable of commanding forces on your own. Much like a padawan, but still vastly different.”

“A padawan?” Nea scoffed, but the rest of the Council seemed to agree with Kolar’s statement, Yoda even nodding sagely along with the rest.

“That’s a fine analogy, Master Kolar,” Rancisis hummed, looking so pleased with himself, even as Nea fumed under the assertion. Some of her peers were masters, one of them was now serving on this very Council - and Nea was still likened to a padawan? It was insulting, even for the Jedi. Especially coming from her former master.

“It’s bantha shit is what it is,” Nea growled. “Listen, I have tried to remain civil with you, but I will not be likened to a padawan. I may not adhere to your Code any longer, but I still maintain my connection to the Force. I have honed it over the years, developed it in ways I was never once taught in your Order. Just because I was not formally trained and Knighted does not make me a child in need of guidance. Especially not by the likes of you.”

Nea stepped back, crossing her arms. Whereas before, the Council had been active, almost amicable in their discussion, a cloud of wariness fell over the room, a hesitation, the dawning of distrust. And Nea welcomed it. She knew that until this point, the Council wanted to view her as that old padawan that had fallen off the path, but that still believed in the Jedi. She knew they wanted to believe that when she left the Order, that she had discontinued all training in the Force, that her skills were stagnant, her power weakened with disuse.

However, the opposite was true. Within the Order, Nea had been stagnant - so focused on her physical training that she neglected the spiritual. But, without the dull roar of the Code surrounding her, without the insatiable desire to climb ranks as quickly as possible - from padawan, to knight, to master - without anyone else to spar with, without anyone to prove herself to - she had turned to the Force. She had communed with it in ways she had never before thought possible, walked paths that before she would have scoffed at. 

To the Jedi masters, of course, she would appear untrained. Because she was not trained in their paths, she did not possess the same knowledge they did. She was not confined by the same Code that they adhered to. And, in some ways, she was sure, that scared them. That she possessed knowledge that they did not, that she worked with the Force in ways they did not. Because to them, the unknown meant only the dark - not the different.

“You have a point,” Obi-Wan mumbled, his voice soft in the quiet of the room. The silence had stretched on far longer than was natural, and his wavering voice echoed in the chamber as he spoke, running his fingers through his beard as his gaze flicked up to meet Nea’s. 

“It’s true. You are not a padawan. But you are also not a Jedi. The Council meant no disrespect when we suggested you be paired with a Jedi Knight, and I am willing to apologize on behalf of our Order for this offense.” Obi-Wan nodded, and Nea bowed her head to him in kind, still skeptical as he opened his mouth to continue. “However, just because you are trained in the ways of the Force, does not mean you have been trained in the ways of warfare and command. You have admitted yourself that the Jedi are adept at these more political pursuits. We do not seek to assign you to a Jedi’s battalion because we view you as a padawan - rather, we view you as a warrior who is capable in her field, yet untrained in the intricacies of a formal war.”

Nea frowned at Obi-Wan’s speech, but in the end, she sighed. Force, he was right. She knew that no amount of negotiation would land her with her own men, but she was glad she had at least tried. And, she also knew that at the very least, Obi-Wan didn’t view her as weak in the Force - only undertrained when it came to politics and war. Which, she was honestly proud to have a lack of knowledge in.

“I understand,” she grit out. “I accept the Council’s apology.”

“Alright. Let’s settle this,” Windu cut in, rocking impatiently in his seat. “Andar, you’re familiar with Master Kenobi. He’s a steady, conservative General, and a very… patient teacher. I’m sure he would be more than willing to show you the ropes.”

Nea’s gaze met Obi-Wan’s again, and she hated how quickly she switched from disgruntled, sour at the thought of trailing some snobby Jedi, to hopeful at the thought of spending time with her old friend. She almost gagged at how her heart skipped.

“Hm,” Yoda hummed, his brow furrowed as he regarded Nea and Obi-Wan, as he contemplated Windu’s assessment. “Perhaps with a younger Jedi, young Andar will work well.”

“What are you suggesting, Master Yoda?” Windu asked, already looking concerned as the elder tapped his claws against the edge of his seat. 

“Right, Andar is. A padawan, she is not. A Jedi, she is not,” Yoda continued, nodding as he spoke. “Perhaps, a challenge, she should take. With a General who is both padawan, and Jedi.”

Nea raised an eyebrow, confused, as she always had been, whenever Yoda crooned out some order. It was as if he was forced to speak in riddles. However, the rest of the Council - particularly Obi-Wan and Windu - picked up on his sentiment immediately.

“Master Yoda-” Windu began.

“Anakin doesn’t need anything else on his plate-” Obi-Wan pleaded, but Yoda held up a hand, and they both quieted.

“One stone, for two birds,” Yoda continued, unperturbed by their interruption. “A watchful eye, responsibility, young Skywalker requires. A Jedi companion, a fierce General, young Andar needs. The Force, I feel, draws them together, mhm.”

Windu sighed, sinking into his chair with a groan. Obi-Wan’s brow was still furrowed as he covered his mouth with his hand, and Nea could feel the rolling unease in the Force around them - not just from the two masters, but from almost all that were present. But, of course, none of them were man enough to speak up against Grand Master Yoda.

Nea would have spoken up, truth be told. However, as she mulled over the option in her mind, it dawned on her that for once, Yoda may be correct. As much as she enjoyed the idea of joining Obi-Wan on his campaign, she could already tell that their personalities would clash viciously. Obi-Wan had only nestled himself further into the Jedi Order, wearing it as he wore his robes - proud, tucked closely to his chest. Whereas Nea had discarded hers entirely, with no desire to return to her old habits of forced politeness, of tired attempts at following a broken Code. They would be at each other’s throats, most likely.

But, then there was Anakin - who, despite their brief meeting, Nea knew was different. He still possessed some of his master’s mannerisms, of course, some of his quirks, his beliefs. But he hadn’t settled yet, not like Obi-Wan had. He hadn’t given in to the Code - he still snuck around it, still resented the Council, still had some fight, some hope in him. Nea couldn’t speak up against Yoda, because, truth be told, he was right. 

“Is that your assignment, Master Yoda?” Windu asked, looking so very tired. Yoda nodded, humming content.

“It is, Master Windu,” he replied. 

Obi-Wan tried not to appear distraught, but his complexion was pallor, his hand clamped over his mouth as if he might scream. Nea quirked a half-smirk at his expression. Force, who knew that Obi-Wan would be so protective over his former padawan - or, perhaps, Nea considered, her grin widening, he wasn’t protective of Anakin, so much as fearful of the sheer chaos Nea was likely to cause with him.

“I’ll have a padawan send for him,” Windu groaned, leaning back in his seat. Nea sighed, pleased that the endless negotiation had finally reached its result, waltzing over to the transparisteel that separated the Council chamber, and the Jedi Temple, from the rest of Coruscant. 

The speeders and people below seemed so small from up here, in the Jedi’s tower. So insignificant. No wonder the Jedi were so afraid of Falling, what with how high their pedestal was.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long for Anakin to arrive. He was a whirl of robes, and Nea once again was reminded of what she had compared him to before - a dark storm. Where Obi-Wan wore his robes with nobility, dragging them behind him like a bride’s train, Anakin was tumultuous, like waves crashing against sharp stone. He didn’t hide his irritation well, and Nea almost thanked him for it - the brief respite from the cold, meaningless frivolities of the Council.

“Yes?” he asked, addressing the Council in a curt manner that almost made Nea laugh. Instead, she remained, leaning her forearm against the cool transparisteel of the chamber window as she surveyed the curious twist of Anakin’s Force signature - so unruly compared to that of the other Jedi.

“We have settled our negotiations with Nea Andar,” Obi-Wan supplied, trying his best to calm his former padawan. Anakin, however, didn’t waver, his agitation just as concentrated as before.

“How does this concern me?” he inquired, trying to keep his tone even. Regardless, Nea, and everyone else in the room, could hear the bite in his voice, feel the thunder in his aura.

“We have decided to assign Andar to a Jedi Knight, to assist in the command of their fleet,” Windu replied, his own tone just as curt. “Master Yoda recommended that you should be that Jedi.”

“Me?” Anakin cried, his eyebrows shooting up. Nea finally turned to watch his reaction, as Anakin drew a hand to his chest, shocked. “But I already have a padawan to look after -”

“Not a child,” Nea droned, reminding the entire Council of her previous tiff. Anakin stumbled over his words, glancing from Nea to Windu and back again.

“That’s not what I meant -” he clarified. “But I hardly think my ship needs another Force-sensitive on board.”

“That may be true, Skywalker,” Windu replied, as if he were talking to a youngling. “However the Council has decided that she is to accompany you.”

Anakin sighed, his shoulders slumping before he set them again, stronger, but with less enthusiasm. This time, when he spoke, it was with less fire in his voice, a practiced formality that he obviously hated putting on.

“As you wish, Council,” he replied with a short bow. “I will take her into my battalion.”

The Council murmured with approval, and Nea locked eyes with Anakin across the chamber. He didn’t look particularly thrilled at the prospect of fighting alongside her, but he didn’t look at her with any disdain, or even irritation. More of a hopeful dread that she would be bearable to live with and fight alongside, which she couldn’t blame him for. Although Nea thought that perhaps they would get along easily enough, they would never know until they tried.

“Good. Take the rest of your leave. Andar will depart with you when you leave in one standard day. The Council meeting is adjourned,” Windu commanded, looking every bit like he needed a trip to the ‘fresher and a nap.

The Councilmen shuffled out of the room, many of the older masters muttering to each other about the latest political intrigue that had graced the holonet. Nea watched as her old master shuffled out after them, only catching her eye for a moment before he too followed. Nea’s heart sank a fraction, at the knowledge that her old master no longer wished to speak to her. She wondered what they told him, all those years ago. She wondered if he felt as if she had betrayed him.

“So, I guess we’re working together now,” Anakin sighed, crossing his arms as he addressed Nea. She mirrored the position, chuckling, shrugging off the guilt.

“Well, I was supposed to be auctioned off to Obi-Wan, but he didn’t want me,” Nea joked, and Obi-Wan groaned from where he was collecting himself next to his chair.

“Master Yoda determined that Anakin would be the best fit for you… somehow,” he added at the end, still confused by the old master’s ruling. Nea grinned wide at that, at the little sliver of Obi-Wan’s sarcasm, his skepticism regarding the Order. “I had no say in the matter.”

“Aw, does that mean you’re gonna miss me?” Nea egged him on, and Obi-Wan darkened, his cheeks tinted a wonderful shade of pink that Nea hadn’t seen in over a decade. Oh, how she had missed it.

“I swear, Master Yoda must be strong in the Force in ways I will never comprehend,” Obi-Wan snapped back, Nea chuckling at his distress. She felt a little bubble of mirth from Anakin, too, dancing through the Force as Obi-Wan adjusted his robes.

“I think he’s gonna miss me,” Nea threw over her shoulder to Anakin, who stifled a chuckle with his hand. Obi-Wan regarded them both with a withering look that they knew well.

“The Force tests me every day,” he mumbled, shaking his head as he made to leave the chamber. “You two better behave. The both of you!” he added, pointing at Nea. She scoffed, a hand to her heart in shock.

“You can’t order me around! We were in the same cohort!” she cried.

“I’m still older than you!” Obi-Wan called back, his voice a sing-song that Nea couldn’t help but chuckle at. Force, she was starting to regret the fact that she had been paired with Anakin instead of him.

“At least it seems like we have something in common,” Anakin commented, stepping forward so that he and Nea were on the same footing as they exited the Council chambers.

“Oh?” she replied, an eyebrow raised. Anakin grinned at her, full of joy, and just a hint of mischief.

“Obi-Wan finds us both insufferable,” he chuckled, and Nea grinned back at him.

“What a wonderful trait to share.”

X

X

X

The day leading up to her deployment was a specific sort of strange - an unnerving sense of nostalgia coupled with the prickle of Jedi signatures on the back of her neck, the ever-present surveillance that constantly reminded her that this was no longer her home.

It was strange, walking the halls. If it had been up to Nea, she would not have left her temporary accommodations, if it were not for their lack of a kitchen. Unable to leave the Temple, Nea was trapped in this bubble - in this strange half-world that simultaneously was and was not the Temple she grew up in. 

The halls were claustrophobic, as if she were too broad to walk them now, too tall, too old. She knew that wasn’t the case - she had hardly grown an inch since she left the Order - but the feeling persisted. Perhaps it was because when she passed the training halls, she no longer recognized the padawans practicing their basic forms. Or, perhaps it was because she only saw three of them - the padawans forced into war much like their masters.

In fact, the entire Temple was eerily quiet. When she finally reached the commissary, it was practically empty, which was startling. As a padawan, the area was always packed, even at hours that one would not typically consider appropriate for eating, solely because the Jedi kept such strange schedules. But, it was all but a ghost town, her utensils echoing through the hall as she ate silently.

It was a stark contrast to the memories that danced behind her eyes, the conversations she had so carefully locked away over the years, the life she had tried so hard to forget. The seat she took in the commissary was the same one she used to sit in as a padawan, Agen by her side after a long day of training. The halls that she walked, she once ran with her fellow younglings, their laughter echoing as they scrambled after a ball that one of them had dropped. The training halls rang with her labored breathing as she attempted to cut down her peers, as she practiced her forms over and over until her lungs filled with fire and her arms screamed for respite.

It was so quiet now, in comparison.

It was almost a relief when the day finally came for her to depart with Anakin. 

He was in the hangar, fiddling with a smaller ship – a freighter, maybe? Nea had seen similar models owned by smugglers in the Outer Rim, filing away the fact that Anakin operated such a vehicle – one that she didn’t necessarily associate with war.

“All ready?” he asked when he saw her, running his pre-flight checks with his astromech, the little blue and white droid beeping as it twisted knobs and checked connections. Anakin was up to his elbows in the ship, grease streaked over him, his robes pushed up to his biceps. He had changed from his typical robes to what Nea assumed was his war garb - a set of dark armor, a plate for his upper chest, a shoulder guard for each of his arms. When he turned to address her, she couldn’t help but notice a smear of dark oil that disappeared into his curls. Force, he was a mess of a man. 

“Not much for me to get ready,” Nea replied, gesturing to herself. She had always traveled light - Jedi habit, she assumed. All she had on her was the clothes on her back and the blaster on her hip. “Wish they would have at least given me a new lightsaber. Bastards.”

“What do you mean, a new one?” Anakin asked, the hint of a chuckle in his voice. “What happened to the old one?”

“Hey,” Nea countered, her voice only playfully stern. “You try keeping track of a very rare, very powerful weapon as a teenager in the Outer rim.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Anakin replied, snapping down the hatch he had been working on, dusting off his hands, even though that did little to help clean himself. “Obi-Wan’s given me plenty of lectures about keeping track of my own.”

“Were you one of those padawans that was constantly losing his own lightsaber?” Nea teased, crossing her arms and leaning against the ship. The droid beeped angrily at her - she thought she caught an expletive - and she backed away, hands held up in placation. Anakin snorted.

“Don’t say it like that. Those padawans always left it with their dirty robes, or in the training halls. Mine was launched from speeders and thrown down elevator shafts.”

“Oh, so you’re one of those padawans, just with extra steps.”

Anakin groaned, tilting his head back as he secured the last of the panels on his ship. His curls tumbled down his back, the line of his neck long and tanned. Force, even when he was whining, he still managed to be pretty, in a disheveled mess of a way. 

“I don’t know if this assignment is going to work if you keep nagging me like my old master,” Anakin grumbled. Nea snorted in response.

“Well, we’ll never know until we try,” Nea sighed, nodding towards the ship. “Ready to get going?”

“Yeah, everything’s booted up and running fine,” Anakin confirmed. The astromech droid, however, seemed to have a different opinion, as he squawked something at the Jedi in binary that had Anakin rolling his eyes.

“Yes, I know, Artoo,” Anakin groaned, shaking his head. “I’m going to fix it once we get on the ship. You know I left the tools in the hangar.”

R2 beeped back at Anakin, likely nagging him about his improper tool management, as Nea looked on, a single eyebrow raised.

“Your astromech sure has a mouth on him,” Nea commented, and instead of dignifying her with a comment, Artoo rolled away, likely loading himself onto the craft before he had to deal with any more organic nonsense. “I’m surprised our R3 unit never picked up that kind of sass.”

“Artoo’s been around a while,” Anakin offered as a response, nodding towards the starship, walking up its short landing platform. Nea followed him into the cockpit, which was surprisingly spacious.

Their trip to Anakin’s command ship was swift, as it had been circling low outside of Coruscant in preparation for Anakin’s arrival. It was imposing, Nea thought, as they neared the tremendous craft. They likely looked like ants and Anakin landed in the hangar bay, the party of three disembarking from their freighter transport. 

A man in white and blue armor was there to greet them - one of the clones, Nea assumed. She had mixed feelings about the clones – she was sympathetic to them, in a way, understanding that they had no say in whether or not they were born, or cloned, or created. However, she did object to the fact that the Jedi had bred an entire race of men for war, shortening their lifespan, training them so that the only thing they would ever know was gore and death and pain. It was cruel – as if the Jedi didn’t already secret away children in the night to train as obedient Knights. She couldn’t help but view the clones with a certain amount of pity – with a certain backsplash of rage for the system that had prevented them from living a full, complete life.

However, this was not the fault of the clones, and Nea inclined her head as Anakin gestured towards the clone as he looked Nea up and down, as if sizing her up.

“Nea, this is Captain Rex,” Anakin introduced them, trying to seem calm, even if Nea could easily detect the awkwardness lurking under it. “Rex, this is Nea Andar. She’s going to be fighting in our division for the foreseeable future. I want you to set her up in Ahsoka’s room for now - I don’t know what we’re going to do when she returns from her mission with Master Luminara.”

Res nodded, shrugging at Anakin’s clear admission of the strangeness of their situation.

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out when we get to it, sir,” he replied, and Anakin nodded, flashing the both of them a smile. 

“Well, I need to get that engine on the Twilight fixed before Artoo starts screaming at me,” Anakin grinned, and Rex chuckled knowingly. “Will you get her set up?”

“Of course, sir,” Rex nodded, straightening as he accepted his order. Anakin waved to both of them, before he was jogging back to Artoo, the little droid herding him to the tools he had stashed there. That left Nea with Rex, and they both eyed each other with a conservative amount of skepticism.

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Rex greeted as he set off down the halls of the ship. Nea couldn’t help but snort at the formality.

“Please, call me Nea. Or Andar,” she added, knowing that he might not feel comfortable enough to use her first name. “Calling me sir is a misnomer. Didn’t he say you were a captain? We’re the same rank.”

Rex looked at her quizzically.

“I was under the impression you held the rank of commander,” he questioned, an eyebrow raised. Nea shook her head. 

“That’s what Anakin suggested. The Council didn’t think I was suited for such a high rank, what with my lack of training. Didn’t think I should be giving orders to guys like you, I guess,” Nea shrugged. She knew for a fact it was because they didn’t want her to outrank the most senior clones - they didn’t want her giving whole battalions orders, like the Jedi and their padawans could. They probably thought she was volatile, but the only thing it really hurt was her pride. She was never one to enjoy seniority.

“Oh,” was all Rex replied with. He seemed a little unsteady now, and Nea couldn’t tell if it was because he had been misinformed or because he was uncomfortable holding the same rank as a Force-sensitive.

“Sorry,” Nea laughed, trying to fill in the awkward. “I know it’s probably strange for you. Weird for me too, honestly. I’m used to being called captain because I owned the ship, not because I’m a ranking officer in some military occupation.”

Rex chuckled low, shaking his head as they turned a corner. The starship was so huge that Nea was bound to get lost in it - all the windowless halls looked the same. 

“I apologize too. It is strange - strange for all of us to have a Jedi as an equal - or, Force-sensitive,” Rex caught himself, and Nea grinned a little at the slip up. It reminded her of her crew - how they would all call her Jedi just because she could control the Force. How people outside the Order viewed the term as something completely different than what it was - even Rex, who worked with Jedi every waking hour of his day.

 “Well, don’t worry about it too much. I don’t even know when they’ll let me see battle, anyway. Sometimes they treat me like a child, others a dangerous criminal. It’s kind of exhausting, honestly,” Nea groaned, and Rex chuckled again, this time stopping outside a door. 

“Well, if they do lock you up, at least you’ll be comfortable here,” he nodded towards the door, and Nea opened it, stepping into the small padawan’s quarters. The room was cozy but efficient - a cot, wardrobe, and a few built in units with drawers. She spotted the door to what she assumed was the ‘fresher, and there was even a small porthole next to the bed.

Nea whistled, nodding, because it really was nice, compared to her quarters back on the Stormchaser. That old bucket of bolts was usually filled to the brim with contraband, stuffed into the bunkroom that meant to house her rowdy crew of six, plus the droids. What would have been her captain’s quarters on that ship instead was a bunkroom strung up with five hammocks and Soc’s bed - a little alcove the kid had managed to make a little nest out of, in the mangled side of the ship where Nea was certain some mechanical component used to be housed.

In comparison, this was the best quarters she had ever stayed in for interstellar travel.

“Force, that padawan’s got it good,” Nea commented, and Rex huffed a little laugh.

“Oh, speaking of that-” Rex chuckled louder. “As a padawan’s quarters, you share a ‘fresher with General Skywalker. Good luck with that.” 

Nea tried her very best not to blush at that statement - Force, would she ever be able to spend a moment away from Obi-Wan’s former padawan? - and instead replied with a laugh of her own, trying to lighten the mood.

“Fantastic,” she spat out, sarcastic, and that just seemed to spur Rex’s cackles on as he saluted her sloppily, stomping off down the hall he had come from. Nea shook her head, mumbling to herself as she closed the door behind her - “share a ‘fresher with him. Force.”

She very much did not want to think of sharing a ‘fresher with the younger man. She didn’t want to look at a recently used shower and wonder what Anakin had looked like under its steady stream of water. She didn’t want to think of how his curls would plaster to his forehead when they were wet, didn’t want to think about what he looked like under all those robes - 

Force. She shook her head, sitting heavily at the foot of the bed, pressing her fingers to her temples. She couldn’t live like this. Obi-Wan was bad enough, her idiotic padawan crush blooming to life again even as she tried to pull it out by the roots, for all the years they had been apart. But now she was looking at the man’s padawan? There had to be something wrong with her.

She removed her jacket and her boots, deciding that the best course of action would be for her to meditate on it. She wished she had been able to do so sooner, but the Jedi Temple had been so thrumming with people, with Force signatures so loud she could barely hear herself think, that she knew it wouldn’t have done her any good. But here, with the vacuum of space humming the song of the void outside her transparisteel porthole, the clones’ biorhythms a background hum in the Force, the only bright point Anakin, far away in the hangar, likely still tinkering with his craft, she could find peace.

She had much to meditate on. Not just her runaway heart, which she had been purposefully ignoring throughout this whole ordeal, but the ordeal itself. It would take her a good bit of meditation to calm herself from the thrumming anxiety that permeated her Force signature due to the nature of this predicament she had found herself in - forced to serve a corrupt Republic, forced to fight under the very same Order that had broken her trust all those years ago. 

She adjusted her clothes, crossing her legs on top of the bed as she closed her eyes, letting the Force take her. Hopefully, when she opened them, she would have answers. 

Chapter Text

Anakin groaned, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist. Artoo beeped contentedly, satisfied at the result of their labor. The Twilight was now in perfect condition - or, as perfect as it could be, after seeing battle so many times. It had taken them a few hours – mostly because a couple of the clones stopped by to chat – but now they were done, Anakin slamming the last control panel shut with a warm sense of satisfaction.

“Good job, Artoo,” Anakin mumbled, and the little droid replied with something akin to an exhausted sigh. He chuckled, grabbing a spare rag to wipe off his hands, dab some sweat from his brow. Absentmindedly, he checked his face in the gloss of the newly-polished metal, wiping a spot of grease away from his hairline.

“Better go check on our new recruit,” he mumbled to himself, tossing the rag on top of his tools. Rex had set Nea up in her temporary quarters hours ago - he should probably make sure she hadn’t gotten lost in the ship or anything while he was engrossed in his work.

He carded his hand through his hair, a nervous habit, as he headed off down the hall, towards Ahsoka’s room. He was sure she didn’t appreciate the room assignment, with how adamantly she had insisted she wasn’t a child. Either way, it was the only room they had that wasn’t a bunk in the clone’s quarters, and he didn’t want to just throw her into the mix of his men. Rex and the rest of the 501st wouldn’t have objected, of course, but he knew his men. While they wouldn’t ostracize Nea, it would have been awkward for her, the only non-clone among the ranks. At least in his adjoining room, Nea would have some space to herself as both she and the rest of the 501st adjusted to her presence.

However, he wasn’t happy with the arrangement either. As he neared Nea’s temporary quarters, he felt his stomach flip, uneasy. There was absolutely no reason for him to feel awkward, to feel out of place around the woman – but he was. She wasn’t like anyone he had met before. She cussed like a smuggler, swaggered like one too – she wouldn’t look out of place with one hand on her blaster, the other leaned against the wall of the ship, shooting Anakin some smug grin. But Force, she was so much like Obi-Wan as well – unafraid to press his buttons, to tease him with sarcastic comments. She was easy to talk to like he was, but her words had a sort of edge Obi-Wan never possessed, a blatant disregard of any rules, a confident stride, like she knew she was the master of her own universe, and that no one could truly reign her in.

He felt drawn to her in some unwarranted way, and that made him uncomfortable. He tried to tell himself that it was just because she reminded him of his former master – that she knew Obi-Wan as well, that maybe he could feel closer to Obi-Wan just by speaking to Nea. But if he was honest with himself, he knew that wasn’t all of it. She was intriguing, her Force signature strange and new – beautiful, as she unfurled it when they rocketed away from the Jedi Temple, sighing gentle as her shielding crumbled and she extended her perceptions to their full extent.

Anakin couldn’t help it – he was curious by nature. He was one to carefully pick apart something before reassembling it again, examining each part of the whole as he set them back together. He wanted to know what Nea was made of, as well – what made her tick, how she was who she was. And it was that undeniable draw, that strange curiosity, that made his palm sweat, cracking the knuckles on his flesh hand as he paced the hall before finally stopping in front of the door to her quarters.

Anakin sighed, shaking his head to dispel any strange thoughts. He was fine – this was fine. Nea was just another member of his battalion now – a captain, like Rex. There was no need for him to treat her any different. He could handle this.

He knocked, and the first thing he heard was a loud thump, followed by a strangled gasp.

“Nea?” he asked, his voice lilting with concern - what could she possibly have been doing?

“Karking-” Nea slid the door open, and Anakin almost fell through it. Nea looked irritated, running a hand through her hair as she shook her head at him. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Anakin swallowed harsh, unsure of the situation he had gotten himself into. 

“Sorry?” he offered, more of a question than an admission. 

Nea sighed, shaking her head and padding over to sit on the foot of Ahsoka’s bed. It was only then that Anakin noticed she was barefoot, and that the topmost blanket on the cot was rumpled, a clear indent of where someone might have been sitting.

“I think we might have to set some ground rules so that the next time I’m meditating you don’t break my ass by accident,” Nea replied, sitting back down in the indentation, rolling her neck as if she were dispelling stiffness.

There was a lot to unpack in that statement, so Anakin just raised an eyebrow. Like most things, he didn’t mull it over for long before he followed his first instinct.

“You were meditating?” he asked, his voice incredulous, shocked. “If I were expelled from the Order, that would be the last thing I would want to do.”

He regretted it almost immediately after he said it, wincing as he waited for Nea to glare at him, to snap at him for mentioning her expulsion. However, she didn’t - just snorted at him, grinned a little, lopsided and lazy. Even just from the few short moments they had spent together, Anakin could tell that Nea wasn’t as tense as she had been – she looked far more relaxed than she had at any point in the Jedi Temple, her shoulders relaxed as she sat. Even if she had been irritated at him moments prior, her demeanor now spoke of nothing other than a calm contentedness.

“Did you hate it too, as a padawan?” she asked. Anakin scoffed.

“As a padawan? I hate it now,” he laughed, but it was tinged with a bit of embarrassment. He had thought that as an ex-Jedi, Nea wouldn’t be as involved with the Force – that after her expulsion, she wouldn’t have wanted to train in it at all, instead using what little she did know to join a pirate crew, protect her friends, maybe only calling upon it to guide a blaster bolt or two. He was a little sheepish that even someone who was no longer a member of the Order still had a better grip on meditation than he did.

Nea laughed a little louder, drawing her knees up on the bed.

“I hated it too, when I was with the Order,” Nea replied, her head tilted to the side as she thought of her past, her golden waves falling over her shoulder.  “I always thought it was useless. Like – I could have been practicing my katas, or dueling, or anything –“

“Exactly!” Anakin cried, his grin so wide as relief flooded him. He had been a part of the Order for a decade, and he had never heard someone talk about meditation the same way he did – felt the same way he did. It was like a breath of fresh air. “It’s such a waste of time!”

“Well,” Nea amended, her grin a little softer as she looked Anakin up and down, her gaze curious. “That was what I used to think. When I left the Order I learned just how important meditation truly is.”

Anakin frowned, scoffing at the suggestion – half in jest, but mostly because he felt a little hurt that Nea didn’t understand him as well as he thought she did. She seemed to pick up on it, though, considering Anakin for a moment, before she continued speaking – slow, careful.

“It’s easy for you to push it aside,” she mumbled, soft, more serious than how she usually spoke, so loud and full of energy. “You’re a Jedi. You exist under their protection. I didn’t. I don’t know if you understand this, Anakin, but outside of the Order, a Force sensitive has three options – to join the Sith, to suppress their connection to the Force until it shrivels and dies – or, to cultivate it in their own way. I chose the third option.”

Anakin frowned at Nea, unsure what to make of her at this point. He felt like he was on the precipice of something – that she had taken great care before sharing just that small bit of information with him. And he could understand why. She had just admitted to her continued training in the Force – something Anakin had never considered possible. There was the Jedi, and then there was the Sith. He had always thought that once one was expelled from the Order, they would either fall to the Dark, or that without the Jedi, their power would grow weak, stagnant, without the guidance of the Jedi, without their teachings. That’s what he had been led to believe, anyway – that any teachings outside the Light – outside the Jedi – were formations of the Dark. That such knowledge wasn’t to be trusted.

But that was what Nea was admitting to, wasn’t it? That she had continued to train after she left the Order. That she still learned to manipulate and commune with the Force, even after she left the Temple, even after she was expelled. That she wasn’t stagnant, perpetually stuck as a padawan. That she had learned something different, something new.

Anakin knew he should shut down this conversation immediately. Jedi were forbidden from such conversations – any teachings outside of the Order were considered Dark, dangerous. But how dangerous could it truly be, just listening to someone? Nea wasn’t Sith – Anakin could feel it ringing true around her, Nea’s shields practically nonexistent. She didn’t feel like the Sith – like a black hole that consumed the Force around it, spat it back out in a sludge that felt corrupted, wrong. She felt like, of all things, the living Force, raw and untamed, uninhibited and unlimited. She may not have been a Jedi, but she most certainly wasn’t a Sith. And Anakin, curse him – he wanted to know more.

“And how…” Anakin stumbled, the words catching on his tongue. “How did you do that? Find your own way?”

Nea chuckled, and it was like something sighed in the Force, the tension between them dissipating as she slid back along the bed, patting the indentation she had left behind.

“It’s kind of a long story. You might want to sit down.”

“I’ll ruin the blankets,” he replied, gesturing to his robes, which were a mess of oil and sweat. Nea shrugged, unbothered by it.

“Just take off your shoes, Golden Boy,” she rolled her eyes, the nickname slipping out again before she could stop it. The Force sang with that, tension now replaced with a ring of anticipation, of curious joy as Anakin grinned, toeing out of his boots before situating himself on the bed across from Nea.

She had her legs crossed, hands placed gently on her knees, so Anakin mirrored her. It reminded him of his guided meditations with Obi-Wan - how his old master had nudged against his Force signature, guided him through the steps of clearing his mind, of removing any clinging worries, any unnecessary desires, dusting off Anakin’s Force signature as if it were a physical object that could be cleaned.

“When I left the Order, I knew I needed to train myself – and fast,” Nea began. “When I was expelled the Sith weren’t around, but that didn’t mean I was in any less danger. The galaxy has some sort of sick obsession with Force-sensitives – especially former padawans. They take it as a challenge to capture and control us, use us for their personal gain. And I knew that. I knew that if I wanted to continue to practice in the Force, that I would have to become very strong, very fast.”

“So, I formed a plan. I would find myself a ship and cruise the Outer Rim, looking for any old Jedi relics I could find. I had heard rumors of them, even on Coruscant – of lost holocrons, of legendary sources of Jedi power scattered across the galaxy. They were my only hope.”

Nea grinned lopsided at Anakin, laughing a little as he tucked a stray stand of hair behind her ear. “I think the Council wants to believe I immediately decided to live my life as a pirate, but that’s not what happened. I kind of stumbled into it – once I had a ship, I needed a crew, and once I had a crew, I had mouths to feed. So, between chasing down leads for old Jedi relics I didn’t even know existed and translating the few holocrons I did find – I had to make a living somehow. And that led to piracy, to smuggling too, as the war rolled up on us.”

Anakin watched Nea as she spoke, the way she twisted his expectations. It was true – even he had thought that she had turned to piracy immediately, or at least, had made the conscious decision to join a crew. That it was her main focus. But this – this was different. It sounded almost insane.

“So, you did find these… ancient Jedi holocrons?” Anakin asked, skeptical. He found it hard to believe that an exiled teenager could find something that the Council couldn’t. Nea snorted, likely following his train of thought.

“Rumors, mostly. Word of mouth. I know it sounds ridiculous – honestly, I thought it was too, when I was searching. But it was my one lifeline, so I kept trying. And I’m glad I did. I found so much more than just old Jedi holocrons. There were memoirs, too – old exiles and ex-Jedi who were forced through their expulsion to give up their connection to the Force. Those books were their last chance to express their knowledge and connection – they probably didn’t think it would help anyone else, but Force, they were amazing. And, there were a few… other things as well,” Nea spoke the last part slowly, cryptically. “The ancient Sith were a horrible regime, but they did leave behind some interesting literature.”

Anakin sputtered at that, leaning back, almost sliding away from Nea. She gazed at him, expectant – as if waiting for him to do just that, to jump off the bed and call her a traitor to the Order, accuse her of being a spy for the Sith.

But, something tugged at him. Maybe it was his idiotic curiosity, but something told him it was more than that. The way Nea looked at him was analytical – like she was testing him, so much like Obi-Wan when he would present his padawan with a particularly intriguing philosophical question. Except, instead of his old master expecting him to parrot the Code back, he had no idea what Nea anticipated from him. What she wanted.

Well, then, what did he want?

He wanted to know more. He was certain Nea wasn’t a Sith – she couldn’t be, he could feel it in his bones. So… what was she, then, if she was an ex-Jedi who had studied Sith teachings?

“So, what?” Anakin asked, choosing his words carefully for once in his life. “You got your hands on a bunch of holocrons and just… taught yourself how to meditate?”

Nea grinned at him, sincere and with just a hint of pride, overshadowed by a twinkle of amusement in her eye.

“Well, that was one thing. The most important thing to me was how I came to understand the Force. It’s different than how the Jedi describe it. At least, I think it is,” she shrugged, as if she were a bit unsure of how to continue, a nervous laugh on her lips. “It’s funny – whenever I would mention any of this bantha shit to my crew, they would just call me a crazy Jedi and tell me to shut up about my stupid spiritual nonsense.”

She shook her head, before running a hand through her hair and continuing.

“I know that the Jedi teach you that anything outside the order is Dark. That the Dark is hungry – all-consuming, vile. That emotion leads to Darkness, that the Jedi way is the only way to the Light,” Nea explained, and Anakin found himself nodding, his companion speaking the very things that had been rattling around in his mind ever since she had started discussing her relationship with the Force.

“Well. They’re right – but they’re also so, so wrong.” Nea shook her head, frowning as if she were disgusted. “The Force is nowhere near that simple. There are shades of Dark, and shades of Light, and murky spaces in between. The Force isn’t one for simple answers, or for clear choices. It’s a living thing, a pulse throughout the galaxy that is neither completely Light nor truly Dark – it just is.”

Nea spoke this last bit with such fervor and conviction that it astounded Anakin, watching as she balled her hands into fists, struggled to find the words to convey the magnitude of her discovery. And, what was more surprising, was it made sense. There was a truth that rang in her words, and not just because her Force signature, unshielded and without restraint, sang with her conviction. No – it was more than that. It was the pure nature of her signature, how she kept it wild and untamed, that convinced him, that clicked in his mind – Nea refused to shield herself because she truly did see the Force as something living, changing, evolving – as wild as the galaxy, as free as it.

It was beautiful. It was different – far different than the Jedi, than anything that he had ever heard.

“How did you –“ Anakin choked on his own enthusiasm, catching himself before he continued. “How did you – figure it all out?”

Nea smiled at him, and this time it was with a hint of mischief.

“Meditation,” she replied, waiting for Anakin’s pout. He tried to fight it, but even as he bit his bottom lip, Nea still snorted at him, shaking her head.

“I know, I know, it’s not what you wanted to hear,” she laughed. “But that’s really what did it. About a year into my life as a free woman, I decided to spend some time on an almost completely uninhabited planet in the Outer Rim. I’m not sure if it had a name – all I knew was that it was covered in dense forest and it radiated Force energy like nothing I had ever felt before. I didn’t even realize, at the time, that what I was doing was meditating. I just sat under a tree, wanting to feel more of the energy, the power of that place – it was there that I understood what the living Force really was. It’s not some transient wisp of Force, like some of the old masters described it as – it’s the Force in its purest form, as it weaves through every living thing. It’s tied to our every move, our every breath. We are the Force, and the Force is us – and we are not inherently Light or Dark, just like the Force.”

Nea spoke not like a pirate, or a smuggler, or like any Jedi Master Anakin had ever studied under. She was excited – almost shaking with eagerness as she talked of the Force, with such love that he had never seen any Jedi express when discussing the power they wielded. All Anakin could do was listen – caught up in the whirlwind that was Nea Andar, her joy as she spoke of the Force, as she unraveled its inner workings with reverence and care.

“A few years later, after studying various holocrons, reading memoirs – even looking into Sith teachings – I finally had a set of guidelines to follow. I felt like an idiot writing them, since I had always criticized the Jedi Code, called them ‘suggestions’ –“ Anakin snorted at that. “But I guess, growing up with the Jedi, I felt the need to write down what I was striving towards. I came up with seven tenets of this – I don’t know what to call it. A way of life, I guess? A form of communing with the Force? That I decided would save me. And, surprisingly, it worked.”

Nea gestured to herself, chuckling. “And, I’m still here, so I guess it worked well enough, huh?”

Anakin found himself grinning too, nodding. “I guess it did.”

Anakin’s comment hung between them, sliding into silence as Nea scratched her nails against the knees of her pants, as Anakin considered what he had been told. Nea’s words rang in his head, bounced around with no indication of stopping anytime soon. He wanted to know more – he needed to know more. It was his accursed thirst for knowledge – at least, that’s what he told himself. He didn’t want to admit that Nea’s words filled him with an unnamed something. That what she said made sense – so much more sense than the Code ever had, the string of commands he was forced to recite, but never to understand. Nea understood her way, because she had crafted it, had scraped it together over years of scavenging and searching, had cobbled it together for survival. It wasn’t the Jedi’s Code – one that spoke of thousands of years of complacency, of ideals that some cushy master had written from the spire of some isolated Temple. Nea was real, she was tested – thrown to the wild, forced to survive. And Anakin desperately wanted to know how she saw the Force, how she commanded it.

So, he broke the silence.

“What… what were your tenets?” he asked, then backtracked, not wanting to seem like someone who was only interested in this information so he could report her to the Council, so that he could suppress her only means of survival for so many years. “If – if you’re comfortable with telling me. I understand if you wouldn’t be – I’m a Jedi, after all.”

Nea grinned at him, leaning forward a little, her smile bright and affectionate in a way Anakin wasn’t used to. He had to fight back a light blush at the attention.

“My way of understanding the Force isn’t some new Order,” she explained with a laugh. “Jedi can learn it, live by it. It only goes against your Code if you let it – only if you do too, at your core.”

Anakin raised an eyebrow at that, not so much confused as he was skeptical. Before he could even ask the question that sat on the tip of his tongue, Nea had his answer – it was as if she could sense it before it had come to fruition. Force, maybe she did, Anakin realized, as it dawned on his just how closely her Force signature drew to his. She wasn’t intrusive, or insistent – she wasn’t trying to break his shields or force herself into his thoughts. Instead, she gently brushed against him, felt the emotions he couldn’t help but project, the ones that he didn’t really care fell outside the walls of his mind. He could feel her turn them over, investigate them, consider his feelings with care.

“I know the Jedi don’t like to admit it,” she continued, answering Anakin’s unspoken question. “But it’s my belief that some people just… don’t work with the Code. It’s restrictive – it works incredibly well for a specific kind of person, but others have to fight tooth and nail to follow it. I think that’s unnatural, unreasonable. A violation of the Force, even.”

Anakin frowned, his brows drawing together in contemplation.

“A violation of the Force? How can the Jedi possibly violate the Force?” Anakin laughed. He had heard of violations of the Code, of course, but the Force? Did she mean a misuse? But still – that wouldn’t make sense.

“It’s not the Jedi – it’s an individual thing,” Nea explained, waving her hands for emphasis. “The Force lives within us – it changes with us, it shapes us. Each of us has a destiny that the Force guides us towards, a path in life that we were meant to walk in order to bring balance to the Force, the galaxy. What the Jedi do is instead of allowing each person to walk their own path, they tell them ‘your path is wrong, there is only ours, even if it doesn’t fit you, even if the Force fights you every step of the way.’”

Anakin blinked, caught off guard by her answer. As the Chosen One, he had listened to Jedi drone on about destiny, fate, and prophecy for years. It always felt confining, restrictive. Like the Code itself. It had made Anakin wish, more often than not, that he wasn’t some special Chosen One – that the rest of the Jedi could treat him the same as everyone else, that he wasn’t under extra scrutiny and pressure.

“So, what? Everyone has a fate they can’t escape?” Anakin asked, a hint of malice on his tongue. He wasn’t looking forward to Nea telling him that he was the Chosen One whether he liked it or not.

“No – you misunderstand me,” she replied instead, with a chuckle. “A lot of people think of fate as something inescapable, written in stone. Something that they won’t ever be able to change. I don’t think that’s what destiny is – destiny can change in a second. Destiny takes weird detours, it can be contradictory. But I think it’s all the Force drawing us towards where we should be going. We can ignore it if we want to – but it would be like working against our own souls. It would hurt, it wouldn’t be fun. And I don’t think the Force would appreciate it very much. It’s more of that old saying – follow your heart. I think that in our hearts is the Force.”

Anakin was, once again, shocked. He opened his mouth to say something, but then he closed it again, unsure what he would even be able to say to that.

“Like – “ Nea continued on, contemplative, holding her chin in her hand. “Personally, I think that my destiny in the Force is to support. My crew – hopefully people who want to learn my tenets, at some point. But I didn’t force myself into it. I didn’t seek out pupils or something stupid like that – fuck, I didn’t even go searching for most of my crew. I let the Force decide it. I think it’s kind of ridiculous I ended up with the Jedi again,” Nea rolled her eyes, “But it’s the will of the Force, I guess.”

“The will of the Force,” Anakin huffed. “You still believe in that, even after you wound up here – even after you ended up caught in the middle of a war?” he couldn’t believe it. Nea seemed too smart – no, too stubborn, even – to believe in that shit. He knew he didn’t – not after what happened to his mother.

Nea shrugged, sighing.

“It’s not like I’m some perfect sage who doesn’t have doubts,” she admitted. “I wish I wasn’t here. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be – I could have made a misstep along the way. I could have made a mistake – maybe I shouldn’t have ferried those refugees, or maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to drink on Coruscant. Maybe I should have fought you and Obi-Wan. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out, honestly. Because the Force isn’t kind, all the time. If you go against it, it’ll bite back.”

Nea shook her head, shivering at the thought. Anakin watched her, analyzed her – even nudged a bit at her signature, felt the unease she did, but still, the reverence for the Force lay under it. She still loved the Force, even if she didn’t fully understand it.

“That’s sort of what the tenets are about,” Nea continued, with a shrug and a smile. “Figuring out what your path is. It’s about listening to the Force, to yourself.”

Anakin nodded, contemplative. It was a lot to take in, this – but he felt a pull to it. Was that what Nea was talking about, then? The way she said the living Force worked, the way destiny did? How it would pull you towards something?

Follow your heart, she had said. It sounded too good to be true.

 “I don’t do a lot of that,” Anakin admitted. He didn’t get the chance to listen to himself often, to exist outside of the Jedi. Even when he did, it was always tinged with this danger, with the knowledge that even if he thought it was right, the Jedi most likely disagreed, and instead of being punished by the cosmic Force, instead he would be punished by Yoda and the rest of the Council. A double-edged sword. “And when I do, it always flies back in my face.”

“Well,” Nea laughed, “If you ever want to learn the tenets, you know where to find me.”

She meant it as a joke. He could tell just by the way her aura shimmered, the mirth in her eyes. She didn’t think he could possibly take her up on it, because why would he? He had already done so much more than any Jedi should have – he had listened to her preach about an understanding of the Force that wasn’t Jedi, he had asked questions, prodded and poked and soaked up the knowledge and asked still for more. He knew that Obi-Wan, or any other Code-abiding Jedi would have shut her down immediately, speaking of Darkness and the danger of stepping outside of the Code.

But that invisible something still tugged at him. And, well, maybe Nea was right. Maybe he should listen to it more often.

“I think I would like that, if you’d teach me,” Anakin admitted, his heart in his throat, danger a claxon in his ears as his adrenaline spiked – the anxiety of doing something you know that others would disprove of, even if you, personally, have no problem with it.

Nea stilled, her laughter dying as she met his gaze, her brows creased, her lips parted in a small expression of wonder. Anakin wanted to look away, but he didn’t. He was serious, and as Nea pressed against his projected emotions, she knew it too.

They just looked at each other, for a moment, Nea, considering him with awe, Anakin meeting her gaze despite it all, despite the twist of his gut, the fear-excitement-wonder that was flooding his system.

“Is that what you want?” Nea asked, as if she couldn’t believe what he said, even though she had felt his emotion, had heard his conviction. “You want to learn?”

“I do,” Anakin replied, with more weight to his words, a nod accompanying it. “I’ll be your student.”

The air, heavy with the significance of their words, abruptly popped with Nea’s shocked laughter, the noise a shock to them both.

“Oh no,” she chuckled, waving her arms back and forth in a tell-tale X shape. “We’re not doing any of that master and padawan bullshit. You’re a grown man.”

Anakin felt a blush creep over his cheeks, but he grinned back, something fluttering in his chest from the words. It shouldn’t shock him as much, the fact that Nea rejected that assumption so easily. After all, he was technically her General – she was technically his ward as well as his Captain – very much not anyone’s inferior. But it was still nice to hear her say it.

“Actually,” Nea considered something, tapping her chin with a finger. “I think I have an idea. Because I don’t want this to be some big deal of me teaching you this ideology and you sitting at my feet like I’m preaching the truth to you, and all you’re supposed to do is sit and listen.”

Anakin chuckled, offering a lopsided grin.

“Yeah?” he asked. Honestly, he wouldn’t mind just listening to her ideology. It was interesting, and even when Nea was “preaching” as she called it, she didn’t treat it like absolute truth. She didn’t shut him down when he asked questions, didn’t chide him for doubting her. She explained and she admitted her failings. It was so different to how Obi-Wan would respond whenever Anakin had questioned the Code as a young padawan.

“What about you teach me something too, huh? You’re got a padawan, don’t you? You’re probably good at it,” Nea hummed, nodding to herself. “I mean, I’m going to need some training of my own, as much as I hate to admit it.” Nea frowned, biting her lower lip as she considered it. “Like, I know how to use a blaster, but I’m hoping that one day I can fight with a lightsaber again. And I’m so out of practice that it’s embarrassing.”

Anakin’s eyes lit up at that. She wanted lightsaber practice? That was so easy. He could do that.

“But, the Council probably wouldn’t like it, considering they wouldn’t even give me a weapon,” Nea continued, smirking a little when she saw Anakin’s enthusiasm.

“Well, they didn’t tell me that,” Anakin countered, finding loopholes as easy as breathing for him. Nea laughed, loud and easy.

“Sounds like we’ve got a deal then,” Nea replied, tilting her head as she offered Anakin a hand to shake. He took it instinctually, and Nea gripped his robotic hand tightly, not even flinching at the feel of gears beneath her fingers instead of flesh and bone. They gripped each other firm, a light movement before their hands fell to their sides once more.

The Force seemed to crackle around them, like fireworks, alight with something new and exciting, with joy and interest. Anakin smiled, feeling like a kid again – full of wonder, full of a newfound admiration for the Force, an interest in it that he had almost forgotten he had. Maybe this time, his curiosity had paid off.

Chapter Text

Nea awoke the next morning to a knock on her door. She grumbled, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she tried to make herself presentable – once more having to throw her pants on and pull up her shirt, which threatened to sneak down her shoulder.

“Jedi and their early hours,” she mumbled, shuffling to the door.

It slid open, and there was none other than Anakin Skywalker – bright and as put together as Anakin could look – that is, to say, that Nea looked like she was forcibly dragged out of bed, and it at least seemed like Anakin had put on clothes and attempted to tame his hair.

As it stood, he opened his mouth to speak, easy grin on his face, but when he glanced down and caught a good look at Nea, his grin was replaced with a shocked blush, creeping over his nose as she readjusted her runaway shirt.

Force, he was cute when he blushed. Nea felt like slapping herself.

“Yes?” she asked instead, blinking up at him expectantly. Anakin sputtered, running a hand through his hair like he often did when he was nervous.

“Oh, yeah –“ he spat out, as if he had forgotten why he was at her door in the first place. Nea grinned at him, unable to mask her amusement. It was too hard not to smile at him – even nervous, he managed to fill her with a kind of joy that she wasn’t used to.

“I just came off a call with the Council,” Anakin continued, finally finding his footing in the conversation. “They’re sending us to Eriadu.”

“What for?” Nea asked, an eyebrow raised. “Looking for more Force-sensitives?”

“No,” Anakin replied, looking a little distraught. “Intelligence says that Eriadu is hiding the largest Separatist communications hub in the entire Outer Rim. That if we take it out, it’ll knock out communications for half of the Separatist fleet.”

“You don’t look too sure about that,” Nea countered, crossing her arms. Anakin glanced at her, then sighed.

“The Council said there’s a base,” Anakin elaborated, gesturing with one hand as the other pressed into his hip. “But they have no idea where it’s located. We would have to scour the whole planet – with a very small landing team. Eriadu is a neutral planet, but it’s Separatist leaning. We can’t just send in a half dozen transports and act like we own the place.”

Nea hummed, nodding. Yeah, that did make things more difficult.

“Sounds like a challenge. I’m ready if you are,” she joked, smirking. Anakin huffed a laugh, half amused, half exasperated.

“Sounds impossible, if you ask me. With Eriadu’s neutrality, we wouldn’t even be able to fly close enough to get a good read on its radio signals. It would take us months to scan the planet from a single fighter, even longer to scout on the planet itself.”

Anakin groaned, scrubbing a hand along his face. It reminded Nea of Obi-Wan, only making her heart flip worse.

“I’m sure it won’t be a problem for us,” Nea assured him, trying not to laugh. “I’ve sniffed out quite a few hard to find items, with even less to go on. Plus, it’s the perfect opportunity to work on the first tenet, I have to say.”

At the mention of Nea’s tenets of Force-work, Anakin perked up, meeting Nea’s gaze with a little spark of interest, reviving him from his melancholy surrounding the daunting task at hand.

Nea grinned wider, loving how eager he was. Honestly, she was shocked that he wanted to know more about her way of living, how she worked with the Force and learned to survive outside the Order. She had thought that he would rattle off some nonsense about how the Jedi forbade him from listening to her – but instead, he asked to be her student. It had completely caught her off guard.

But she wasn’t mad. No, far from it. She had wondered for many years, what it would be like to talk to someone about her tenets, to share that knowledge with them. She had always thought that it would be a member of her crew with a spark of Force-knowledge, that the Force would pull them together, and Nea would teach them as they rocketed through the Outer Rim, on the search for new knowledge and easy smuggling money.

She never expected Anakin – a Jedi, and not just that, but a Jedi she had never met before. Sometimes, on her weaker nights, she had fantasized about what it would be like to teach Obi-Wan about the Force, about how they would learn together, him filling her in about the ways of the Jedi that she had never gained access to, as she explored the Force with him, laughing, knees knocked together as they meditated, as they formed their own special bond in the Force – not quite a training bond, but something more.

Well, she always thought the Force worked in mysterious ways, she considered as she chuckled. Anakin wasn’t the one she expected, but it made sense to teach him – for him to teach her, as well. She was equally as excited to finally learn more lightsaber forms, to return to something that brought her so much joy and peace as a child. It really was an equivalent exchange, more than a relationship between a teacher and student – which she would have cringed at, with Anakin.

So, he stood outside her door, excited, maybe a bit anxious at the prospect of finally learning of this system that Nea had constructed. And who was she to make him wait any longer?

“Come on,” she mumbled, waving him in. “Sit with me. I’ll tell you about it.”

It felt different, talking about the Force with Anakin. Like a breath of fresh air. Her crew had laughed at her when she had tried to share this with them – not out of malice, but just because their connection to the Force was so dim, that they couldn’t understand it the way Nea did. It didn’t make her appreciate them any less, but it was a disappointment, that she couldn’t talk to them about it. But Anakin – he listened, he questioned, he wanted more. And it lit her up with this spark that she never expected. She wanted more of it – she wanted to teach him, even though she had some misgivings about teaching a Jedi her own personal philosophy.

But, something told her, Anakin was different. She hoped it was right.

She climbed onto the bed, pulling the blankets up so that they wouldn’t clump uncomfortably under her and Anakin. They would be here for a while, if he would stay. Anakin closed the door behind him, toeing out of his boots and climbing onto the end of the bed, all long limbs and dark robes. At least he wasn’t covered in grease this time.

“First, you need to know a little bit about the tenets themselves,” Nea began, looking him up and down. “You know their purpose – to help you discover your true destiny. But, it’s important for you to understand how this system works. You will move through each tenet in order, remaining with that tenet until you have successfully incorporated it into your life.”

“Once you move through a tenet, that doesn’t mean you’ve mastered it,” Nea continued, very deliberate about this part. “Actually, I think it’s impossible to master a tenet. You will be constantly returning to them – especially to this one I will be teaching to you today. It’s not just the first tenet – it’s the foundation for everything that comes after it. It’s the core of it all. The purest form of the Force.”

“I’m ready,” Anakin interrupted, stubborn as ever. “Whatever it is, I’m ready.”

So eager , Nea chuckled to herself, shaking her head. Headstrong. Like her, when she was younger. Force, it was difficult for her to stop smiling when she was around him.

“The first tenet,” she continued, grinning wide, wicked. “Is truth, and trust.”

Silence hung between them, heavy and full of question, as Anakin took in what she had said. He blinked, knitting his brows together. Nea just smiled, breathing out a little laugh before she continued.

“That-that’s it?” Anakin sputtered, confused. Nea had to keep herself from bursting into peals of laughter.

“It sounds simple,” she explained with a chuckle. “But it’s really not. It’s important that before we move any further through anything, that we establish trust. When I share with you the tenets, it’s not something I can sit idly by and teach. It’s something we learn together – it’s something I relearn as I pass it on to others. And the first step is always, always, to establish trust, through truth.”

“Alright…” Anakin conceded, speaking slowly as the cogs turned in his mind. “But, how are we supposed to do that? Fighting alongside each other?”

Nea smiled, a little sad, this time. Of course, as a Jedi knighted during wartime, Anakin would think that battle is the great trust-forger. It made her cringe, it made her stomach drop as she considered what Anakin had seen, as he met her gaze with sky-blue eyes. How many deaths had he witnessed – had he caused? How had it damaged him – she knew he had lost his arm, had felt it with her own flesh, but what about those wounds she couldn’t see? How had it changed the way he thought, deeper than either of them would ever understand? How would it change her, as she was forced to join him?

“No,” she replied, forcing herself to chuckle, even though the vocalization sounded mechanical to her own ears. “Although that can be a part of trust, you initially establish it, and further it, through truth. Through vulnerability – sharing things with each other. Our past – our present. Our dreams for the future.”

When she met Anakin’s eyes again, he looked genuinely scared. Like Nea was going to force him to give up his secrets, worm her way into his mind, past his carefully-crafted shields. Like she was going to command him to do these things, like he had no choice in the matter.

“You don’t have to,” she added, softly, her own heart wounded at the expectation of betrayal in his eyes. “You don’t have to do any of this – ever. No matter how far we are into the tenets. You can always say no, you can always take what you’ve learned and leave. You’re not stuck here, Anakin.”

Anakin shook his head, as if dislodging the fear, throwing it into the Force. Nea sighed, knowing that wasn’t healthy either, but she bit her tongue, allowed him to act as if he didn’t have ghosts of his own to face.

“No, no,” Anakin assured her, shaking his head. “I want to learn. I-I’m sorry.”

She sighed, leaning across the small stretch between them, to lay a hand over his flesh one. He was warm, flexing his fingers under hers, their eyes locked.

“Truth and trust is not just something that I expect of you,” she whispered, knowing what the Jedi had likely taught him, what they had required – what they had required of her too. “It’s something you should expect of me too. Anyone who asks you to trust them without proving it themselves first – there’s something wrong, there. That’s – that’s what the Sith do. They force you to prove your loyalty and trust to them, without reciprocating the same way. And that’s not what I want to do to you.”

Anakin’s eyes were imperceptibly wider, his Force signature taunt around him, confused, perhaps a bit frightened. Nea projected soothing, kind energy, brushing against him soft, trying to show him how seriously she took this – how much she wanted him to believe her.

Well, if she wanted him to trust her, there was only one thing to do, wasn’t there?

“I’ll start first,” she acquiesced, with a little smile. “With my truth.”

She slid her hand off of his, fingertips ghosting over his knuckles as she leaned back. She almost wished she could stay there, that single point of connection linking them – she wished she could hold it, run her thumb over his fingers as she spoke, as she explained.

But she couldn’t. She shouldn’t – and she knew it as she found his line of sight again. There were so many reasons why – he was a Jedi, he was Obi-Wan’s padawan, she hardly knew him – but still, something drew her closer. She wished she knew enough about the universe to tell if it was the Force pulling them together, or just her stupid heart, tugging at its strings because Anakin was awkward and gorgeous and a complete mess of a man who who pulled her heart-strings so taunt that it hurt.

She pushed it back, all of it, until she was centered, breathing out. It was stupid – she knew she shouldn’t reject her emotions like that. But fuck, she wasn’t perfect, and she had more important things to consider at the moment.

“When you’re sharing truth with someone, it doesn’t have to be everything, all at once,” Nea explained, closing her eyes and sighing, centering herself. “Most of us do it without even thinking, sharing our stories gradually, over time, spilling secrets and learning each other. What we’re doing here is more deliberate, but it follows the same principal.”

“So,” Nea continued, opening her eyes now that she felt ready to look at Anakin again, like she could without losing hold of her heart. “I’m going to tell you a little about myself. I guess it makes the most sense to start from the beginning, huh?”

Anakin smiled at her, nodding, sinking into the mattress, getting comfortable. That was good – he wasn’t scared or uneasy. Nea made a note of that, that she was right to go first, to initiate that trust. That vulnerability was something you had to first show, to receive in return.

“I was born on Corellia,” Nea began, sinking into a more comfortable position herself. “To a very large family. I was, at the time, the youngest of twelve children, split between three fathers, all pilots. My mother worked tirelessly to care for her children, but it was difficult, between our fathers trying to rip each other’s heads off and the piss-poor jobs offered to a woman with mouths to feed, who refused to pilot ships off-world while we took care of each other.”

“When the Jedi showed up, it was a relief for her. Like – yeah, sure, take my youngest daughter. I don’t have any use for her!” Nea chuckled. “At least, that’s what she told me. I was barely two when the Jedi spirited me away – the only reason I know any of this is because I found my mother after I was expelled.”

Nea spared a glance at her companion, and Anakin looked – grief-stricken, almost, his jaw set like a man who was avoiding tears, heaving a breath that seemed to cause him pain. She wondered what he knew of his own mother – if he had ever seen her, after he joined the Order. She knew many Jedi who had never met their parents at all. It seemed unbearably sad.

“But, that was how it started, I guess. The Jedi took me, and I was a crecheling, then a youngling, then an initiate. I was a mess of a kid – Force, I was always causing trouble. I can’t tell you how many times I had some member of the Council talk to me about how much chaos I was causing, how it wasn’t the Jedi way – I’m sure you don’t want to know the details,” Nea waved it off, and this, at least, seemed to dispel a little of Anakin’s foul mood, a quiet chuckle reverberating through the room.

“When I was little, one of the only ways to keep me out of trouble was knowledge. I guess that I was the kind of kid that would burn the house down if I was bored. But, if I was in the library – Force, that was the only time I was ever quiet. I could speed through four, maybe even five holocrons in a day, if you left me alone. I wanted to know everything about the Jedi – about their history, the way they lived, the ways they fought – and the Force, too.”

“I think it’s the only reason why I was cleared to be an initiate, rather than the Jedi immediately sending me away to the Agri-Corps, or maybe the Exploration Corps,” Nea laughed. “They were like – this one already knows too much.”

Anakin snorted in response, and Nea grinned wider at it.

“I was in the same cohort as your master – Obi-Wan Kenobi. We were friends, or at least, I like to think we were. He would never sneak out with me and some of the more adventurous kids, but we had fun together. Teased each other. He was a good Jedi – one of the only padawans who could beat me in a lightsaber duel, actually. I had him beat in hand-to-hand though, the bastard.”

Anakin laughed louder now, clutching his sides.

“I-“ Anakin choked on his words, wracked by giggles. “I can just imagine you pinning him, kark-“

Nea laughed louder too, lost in her memories.

“Oh, he was always pissed,” she admitted, and Anakin almost fell over with mirth. “But I was always working on my hand-to-hand. He was more focused on his telekinesis, his meditation – maybe he was smart to work on the things that caused him the most stress, because I only ever beat him in a lightsaber duel twice. He was the only one who ever put up an actual fight. I think some of the other padawans were scared of me, honestly – I don’t blame them, to tell you the truth. I trained under Agen Kolar, and he didn’t hold back at all when he taught me forms.”

“You trained under Kolar?” Anakin cried, shock ringing out.

“Before he was on the Council,” Nea amended, her heart twinging. “Back then he was just a Knight. He was a good master, a good fit. We weren’t close, but we worked well together – I complained about meditation, and he said, in not so many words – ‘hey, fuck that, let’s go practice your basic lightsaber forms.’”

Anakin cackled at that, throwing his head back as he laughed. Nea’s heart skipped, almost urged her forward to grab his hands so he wouldn’t keel over, but she resisted. He shook his head as he righted himself again, his waves falling over his eyes.

“I wish Obi-Wan would have let me miss out on meditation practice,” Anakin chuckled. “That was – Force, it was horrible.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Nea replied, before she really thought about it. She considered meditating with Obi-Wan – his signature brushing against hers gently, softly, urging her deeper into meditation as she would cling to his own sense of patience, of serenity. It sounded like the most phenomenal thing she could ever wish for, and like the Sith hells themselves.

“Oh, it was bad,” Anakin replied, rolling his eyes for emphasis. “trust me.”

“Maybe I will,” Nea replied, the quip rolling off her tongue easily, with a little smirk, as she pushed thoughts of Obi-Wan aside.

“Anyway,” she continued, brushing her own hair out of her face, “I had a good time as a padawan. I loved it, actually, even if I hated the Jedi Code – I would sneak my friends out whenever I could – I learned so many new and exciting ways to escape the Jedi Temple.”

She chuckled, shaking her head.

“And I learned a lot when it came to combat. Many of the Knights thought I had potential, even if I was a pain to work with. I was still volatile, you have to understand – I still asked too many questions, I didn’t take any shit, even though I probably should have. And that’s what led to my downfall.”

Nea sighed, brushing through her hair, burying her face in her hands and taking a breath.

“I haven’t talked to anyone within the Order about my expulsion. I figure that they don’t need to know – that most of them wouldn’t believe me anyway. But, well, we’re being honest now, and I feel like you should know what happened, if you’re going to be looking to me for advice.”

Anakin leaned closer then, elbows to his knees, chin to palm as he nodded, willing Nea to continue. She swallowed harsh – knowing that what she was about to say was important, but still not wanting to say it.

“Do you know of a Jedi named Sorebo Natau?”

Anakin frowned, wracking his brain, biting his lip as he thought.

“I- wait,” he paused, something dawning on him. “I think Obi-Wan and I went on a mission with him when I was a padawan - human, right? Long braid?”

“Don’t know about the braid,” Nea admitted with a laugh. “I know him by that idiotic smirk he used to wear all the time - especially around women.”

Nea tasted bile, bitter on her tongue as she unwittingly called those sour memories to the forefront of her mind. 

“Oh, I remember that,” Anakin commented, trying to keep his voice low - he could tell that this was troubling, for Nea to admit. That it caused her a great deal of pain. “I didn’t know him well - he was killed before I was knighted.”

“Genosis, I’m guessing,” Nea mumbled, as if she were bored. She felt her stomach roll as she thought of the man dying in battle - a warrior’s death, a Jedi’s funeral. He didn’t deserve it.

“No,” Anakin whispered, his brows knitted as he considered it. “No, I- I’m not certain, but I think he died before then. Some Core World mission - maybe Bespin? Alderaan?” 

He shook his head, unsure of himself, and Nea blinked. Bespin. Alderaan. What kind of washed up Jedi managed to die on what was likely a diplomatic assignment? She resisted her urge to snort.

“I’m sorry,” Anakin added, looking down. Nea raised an eyebrow at him.

“For what?” she laughed, and Anakin looked more confused than ever.

“He was your friend, wasn’t he? You said you knew him.”

“Friend?” Nea cackled, the noise loud, but trailing off easily, until she was shaking her head, the mirth leaving her voice. “No, he wasn’t my friend. He was the bastard that got me expelled.”

It seemed like everything stopped for a moment - like Anakin shifted on his axis, his Force signature rippling.

“What?” he finally breathed, sounding pained and completely befuddled. Nea sighed, settling into the indentation on the bed for the story she least wanted to tell - but one she knew she should.

“When I was fifteen, I had everything going for me. I trained my ass off, and I did exceptionally well among my cohort - but that was the physical. Mentally, I was weak in the Force, untrained, too caught up in my own pride. And that pissed off a lot of people, and not just the Council.”

“Sorebo was prideful of his own right, cocky in a different way. Always bragged about how he could break anyone’s mind with a Force suggestion. What a load of shit.”

Nea huffed out a laugh, wringing her hands. She didn’t want to talk about it, but she knew she should. Anakin deserved to know.

“He told me he was gonna sneak out and drink, and would I come with him. Said that a couple of the other padawans would be heading out too.” Nea bit her lip, knowing exactly which name had peaked her interest. “I said yes. But there was no party. There was no drinking. There never was.”

“He cornered me in an empty room used for training younglings. I remember the wall of training lightsabers, the droids - I remember his stupid, disgusting face as he barricaded me against the wall and tried to Force me to do as he asked.”

Nea shuddered, remembering the feel of his mind trying to break hers. It was true, she hadn’t been strong in the Force - but she had always been headstrong. It had made her vision go blurry, trying to ward him off, but she had bit out curse after curse, doing everything she could to protect her own mind.

“I said no. I pushed him away. He knew he couldn’t take me in a fight - knew that making me angry wouldn’t get him what he wanted. So instead, he offered me two options: put aside my pride, my stubbornness, my rage - and sleep with him. Or, he would report me to the Council.”

When Nea looked up, all the color had drained from Anakin’s face. She saw a smattering of emotions pass over him - disbelief, unease, a sense that he shouldn’t be listening. He was uncomfortable - her story was rattling him, tugging at the two ends of his mind - the one drowned in a deluge of Jedi teachings, that said a Jedi, even a padawan, would never do this, would never force themselves onto someone - grappling furiously with the other end of his psyche, the one that had seen corrupt Jedi, had witnessed failings in the Council and the Code.

She knew it was hard to believe. Knew that Anakin had no precedent to trust her, and he didn’t need to. She didn’t expect him to. This was about truth first - the trust would come, if they let it. So, she set her jaw and continued on.

“I laughed in his face,” Nea grinned, a knee-jerk reaction, the same way you would laugh at a horrible tragedy, the same way your first reaction upon experiencing a great loss would be to crack a joke. It didn’t hold any joy, any humor. “I told him to try his fucking best, but that I wasn’t giving into him. I held my chin up high, pushed him away. I think I remember literally spitting at him that he ‘wasn’t my type-’”

Nea laughed, and even Anakin responded with a short, cut off bark of a laugh, nervous, the irony of the situation getting to him. Nea didn’t blame him for it.

“Well, he made true on that promise,” Nea sighed, leaning back, letting her shoulders rest against the wall at the head of the bed. “The next thing I knew, I was called to a Council meeting - I was used to them, at that point. Thought I was going to get in trouble for sneaking death sticks into the Temple. I had tried my best to forget that shitty night. Throw it away into the Force - fat lot of good any of that did.”

Nea rolled her eyes, but continued. 

“When I entered the Council chambers, he was there, and I knew. I had no idea he was going to actually follow through on his threats - he was going to try to get me expelled -” she took a breath, her hands shaking with fear, rage at the memory. “He twisted it. All of it. Said that I had cornered him. That I had lured him, that I had been stalking him - that I had an attachment to him that made me possessive, jealous. That I was the one who tried to break his mind.”

“That’s-” Anakin’s words broke Nea out of her own bubble, glancing at him only to find his fists clenched, the knuckles on his flesh hand white with fury for some woman he barely knew. 

“That’s disgusting-” he spat. “How could - how could someone-? And they believed him? One look into your memories and his entire lie would collapse!”

Nea closed her eyes, bit her lip.

“Yes, it would. In theory. If I had let the Council look into my mind,” she sighed, remembering the smug look on Sorebo’s face, how he knew he had won, knew that Nea would never let the Council into her mind. Knew that carefully wrapped up behind her shields, in every corner of her mind, was attachment. He hadn’t lied about that - Nea was irrevocably attached, entranced, in love - with Obi-Wan. And if she opened her mind to the Council, even a sliver - they would know. Either way, Sorebo had caught her - cornered her.

“There are many reasons why I denied them access to my mind,” Nea spoke slowly, cautiously. “And I’m not entirely prepared to share them all yet.”

She spared a glance at Anakin, expecting him to frown at her for her hypocrisy. Here she was, spouting bantha shit about truth and trust, when she didn’t even trust him enough to spare him this small sliver of information. 

But he wasn’t frowning - if anything, his brows knitted together, his eyes wide, he was sympathetic. Angry. Upset at the Council for what they had done to her. Any smattering of disbelief he may have had when she first relayed this story to him had now escaped him, replaced by a righteous desire for justice. And she knew that it wasn’t because it was her - knew instinctively that it was simply who Anakin was - a protector, a seeker of justice. But it still warmed her to see him care - to believe her, to want to help even though the damage was already long done.

“It was my pride that was my downfall. I had assumed that the Council would believe me - that I could convince them to search Sorebo’s mind instead of my own, since he was the accuser. I argued, I reasoned - but my lack of submission destroyed me. Not wanting to allow them access to my mind was, in their eyes, an admission of guilt. Maybe I should have let them in - at least then, I could have taken Sorebo down with me - but, as it stood, I was a reckless padawan. And, though comparatively unimpressive in his skills, Sorebo was obedient. He could be reasoned with. He respected authority.”

“They tried to send me to the Agri-Corps,” Nea laughed, the sound cold and hollow in her mouth. “The fucking Agri-Corps. I was fifteen and fighting was in my blood.”

Nea shook her head, taking a moment to breathe, to calm herself. This time, it was Anakin who reached out - a gentle hand on her knee, and when her eyes caught his, his gaze was soft. Concerned. Not full of pity, as she might have expected - but some semblance of patience she had never before seen in him. She smiled, patted his hand lightly before he removed it as she sat up straighter, taller.

“Of course, I told them to go fuck themselves,” Nea smiled wide, trying to make light of it, and Anakin replied with a wry grin of his own, imagining the look on Mace Windu’s face. “I wouldn’t be anything other than a Knight. It was insulting - it was the principle of the thing, of how they treated me. They didn’t believe me, but they didn’t have the balls to expel me - wanted to debase me, but still use me for their own gain, even if it was just the Agri-Corps. I wouldn’t do it. I asked them if that was their decision, and when they said it was, I chopped off my own padawan braid right in front of them. I told them no. I pushed them away - The Council, the Jedi - all of it.”

Nea breathed, closing her eyes. Though it sounded vindictive, defiant, final - it was the hardest thing she ever had to do. 

“It was the worst decision I ever had to make,” she added, her voice softer now, less sure of herself. “That was my entire life, there in that Temple. Every single person I had ever called a friend. Leaving them was like ripping away a part of myself. It still hurts. I never got to say goodbye to half of them - the war got to them first.”

Nea picked at a piece of hardened skin next to her thumbnail, trying not to think of the friends she lost. So many of them – Siri hit particularly hard. Even the man that had caused this whole mess was now one with the Force. And she – the failure of all of them – wasn’t there. Wasn’t there on Genosis to fight alongside her friends, her comrades. Wasn’t there on Naboo to fight Darth Maul – couldn’t help Obi-Wan save his master – couldn’t save Obi-Wan, either, from the grief of losing him. Because she was a coward. She had been, for years, out with her crew chasing rumors instead of facing her fears.

Maybe that’s why the Force drew her back to the Jedi. To face her punishment for years of cowardice. To finally pay her price.

“But you had to leave,” Anakin cut in. He looked stubborn as ever, his mouth set in a thin line. Nea was once again reminded of just how young he was – the defiance in his tone, the assuredness. “They were going to send you to the Agri-Corps – you would have had to leave them anyway! Why give the Council the satisfaction?”

Nea grinned, a little sad.

“That’s exactly how I saw it when I was younger,” she pondered it, sighing. “Now, I’m not so sure. Sometimes when I’m meditating my mind will shift. Think back to the what-ifs – if I had opened my mind. If I had stayed with the Order. Maybe it would have blown over. Maybe my master would have vouched for me, insisted to keep training me. Maybe I could have trained in secret in the Agri-Corps, rejoined the Knighthood after Genosis, when the Council needed everyone they could take. But the fact is, I didn’t do any of that. I stubbornly clung to my pride and left the Order – and that’s what makes me who I am. I don’t regret what I did. I have a feeling that I would have been drawn away from the Order no matter what I did – but it still hurts.”

Anakin was biting his lip when Nea finally stilled, taking a breath as she centered herself. It was in the past – and her decisions made her who she was. Even as old as she was, she still agreed with her padawan self – leaving the Order was her best option. It was the only option. It was where the Force was drawing her, and it was the first time she had leaned into it, accepted it. Without that moment, she never would have become who she is today – Nea Andar, Ex-Jedi, pirate captain of the Stormchaser, Force-sensitive and proud. She needed that, to be who she was. And she wasn’t about to deny it, or reject it, or say she wished it had happened differently. That didn’t mean she pushed it aside, released it to the Force, or forgot her past. She accepted it, embraced it. Did not fear it, even if at times it was difficult to admit to others, hard to express.

“So,” she sighed, rocking back and forth in her seated position. “That’s my story, I guess. Or, the important part. One of the important parts.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Nea picking at the skin around her fingers, Anakin quiet and still across from her. When she finally raised her head, Anakin was looking at her – half befuddled, half in awe.

“Thank you. For telling me,” he nodded to her, like she was his teacher and he was her student. Like her emotions weren’t anticipated of him, like she wasn’t supposed to share them. That this had been something he had never expected of her.

“I was going to tell you anyway,” Nea replied, not wanting Anakin to think that she only did this because he had agreed to train with her. “You needed to know.”

“I didn’t,” Anakin insisted, eyes filled with something important. Some emotion she couldn’t comprehend. “And I could tell it was hard to talk about. So – thank you.”

Nea wanted to bite her lip, wanted to tell him not to thank her, that this was her choice, that in some ways she was imbuing him with unnecessary knowledge, that she was sorry she caused him distress with her tale. But now wasn’t the time.

“I’d like to return the favor, if that’s OK,” Anakin stumbled, his eyes flitting from Nea’s to the blanket in front of him. His eyes caught on a grease stain from the day before. “I want to tell you about my past, too.”

“Anakin,” she mumbled, the name rolling off her tongue slow. “You know you don’t have to-“

“I want to,” he insisted, stubborn, headstrong. “If you’re going to be teaching me, you deserve to know who I am. Where I came from. Especially if you don’t keep up with everything that happens in the Jedi. I – I haven’t been the easiest pupil to train.”

Anakin drew his gaze down as he said that, hands wrapped in the blankets. Nea frowned, wondering just what the fuck that idiot Obi-Wan had said to this wonderful, shining boy to make him sound so dejected at the thought of learning.

“I was born on Tatooine,” Anakin began, frowning, his brows scrunched together. Nea tried to stifle a laugh, but he caught on as her hand flew to her mouth, caught the mirth in her eyes.

“Sorry,” she chuckled, trying not to sound as if she were making fun of him. “But that dustball?”

Anakin barked his own laugh, the sound surprising him as the seriousness faded from his face and he shook his head.

“You know Tatooine?” he asked, almost amused. Nea raised an eyebrow.

“I’m a smuggler. Of course I know Tatooine. I never forget my near-death experiences,” Nea replied, crossing her arms over her chest. Anakin answered her with a shake of his head and a bright smile, a look of wonder.

“I guess that’s something we’ve got in common, then,” Anakin chuckled, continuing with his story. “Anyway. I was born there. As a slave. My younger years were spent crawling into spaces too small for anyone else, fixing things that no grown being could reach. My mom did her best for me – she stayed positive, did everything she could to love and care for me, despite the pain.”

Nea blinked at him, looking Anakin up and down. The carefree waves, the strong jaw. The broad shoulders, the defiant attitude – he was a former slave? A former slave of the Hutts? Bile rose in her throat at the thought, and she was unable to hide her glare at the thought of this poor boy forced to do the bidding of those self-serving snotbags.

“Until some Jedi crash-landed on my planet,” Anakin chuckled, shaking his head. “I was ten – and they were amazing. The first people I could ever feel strongly in the Force – Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon actually managed to buy my freedom, even though he couldn’t do the same for my mom.” Anakin frowned, turning his gaze downward, towards his hands again.

Nea’s brows scrunched together. Did he say ten ?

“How old did you say you were, when Qui-Gon found you?” she asked again, her confusion apparent. She had known Qui-Gon – the more spiritual master had offered her assistance with meditation and telekinesis several times, most of which she had declined. She had worked under him on quite a few missions – she, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Agen making quite the team. But even though she knew Qui-Gon valued the living Force above all else, she hardly thought he would bring someone so old into the other – practically padawan age. It was unheard of.

“Ten,” Anakin replied, confirming her confusion. But he seemed to recognize it, sighing as he sought to diffuse it. “I was ten when I entered the Order. Everyone at the Council wanted to deny me because I was too old – because I couldn’t be properly trained. But Qui-Gon insisted I was this – this Chosen One .”

Anakin made a face - it spoke of stress and resentment, and Nea understood it immediately.

“That had to be a difficult burden to bear, as a child,” Nea mumbled, because she knew exactly how the Jedi liked to operate - telling the younglings that the galaxy rested on their shoulders, that they needed to be perfect Jedi in order to protect the world, in order to keep everyone else safe. She couldn’t imagine what it might be like with some strange prophecy hung over it all. No wonder Anakin had reacted the way he did, when she had spoken of destiny before.

“It was horrible,” Anakin grumbled. “Qui-Gon fought for me, in front of the Council. He begged them to knight Obi-Wan so that he could take me on as a padawan-”

“Force,” Nea whispered, so quiet she didn’t think Anakin heard, her mind spinning. Fuck, Obi-Wan would have only been - he would have only been twenty. Only a year older than when Anakin himself had been knighted. That would have been preposterous for the Council, outside of wartime - and she couldn’t imagine the pain Obi-Wan would have felt, his master insisting that he complete the Trials at twenty. She had known that Qui-Gon was hard on Obi-Wan, but that - that was cruel.

“-But, it didn’t matter either way. Qui-Gon died soon after, on Naboo, at the hands of Darth Maul,” Anakin looked down, his signature stormy, his eyes dark.

“Force!” Nea cried out, louder now, her brows knitted tightly, her mouth open. What the fuck had happened while she was gone? She knew of Qui-Gon’s death, of course, it was one of the few pieces of Jedi news she had been forced to uncover - but the rest? Force, the rest -

Anakin nodded, his face still solemn. “The Council ended up accepting me, of course. And Obi-Wan was my master-”

“Anakin,” Nea held up a hand, stopping him for a moment. It was too much for her. She put her head in her hands. She could fucking strangle the entire Council - forcing that on Anakin, on Obi-Wan, after his master had just died , after he had just killed a Sith Lord -

Nea took a shaky breath, curling her fingers into tight fists so she had something to do with the fury she was encasing. 

“Are you alright?” Anakin asked, bending down to try and get a good look at Nea. She breathed again, willing her emotions to settle.

“Yeah,” she breathed, shaking her head, flexing her fingers. “Sorry, I just - Force, that sounds horrible. All of it, for all of you. I knew that Qui-Gon had died at the hands of a Sith Lord, but I had no idea - no idea about everything else.”

She was, partially, still stuck on the fact that Anakin was once a slave. All the new information rattled around in her head, constantly bouncing back to the forefront and sending her reeling again.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Anakin rationalized with a shrug. “I mean, I was a free man. I had a great master - I’m sorry, guilty, even, about Qui-Gon - but I’m grateful to be a Jedi.”

Nea nodded, making sure that Anakin knew she wasn’t trying to invalidate his life, his choices.

“No, no. I’m glad you found them - Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. And I’m sure Obi-Wan was a great master to you, but… losing his own master so young… the average age one takes the trial at is twenty-five. He was - I had no idea -”

Nea blinked, thinking of the way Obi-Wan had held himself, the times that he seemed weary beyond his years when she had seen him over the past few days. This wasn’t just a man who had accomplished many feats prematurely, he wasn’t just a prodigy now - he was a young man forced to grow up too fast. Forced to take on too much responsibility far too soon. No wonder when she looked at him, she saw someone so stuck in the Code - would he really have had any time to go against it, while he tried so desperately to cope with the loss of his master, the responsibility of a young padawan at his side? It was the only guidance he had - he must have clung to it like a lifeline, foregoing any critical inspection of it for the simple stability of having a system of behavior that he could adhere to himself, without his mentor to finish his training, as well as to teach a young, uninitiated Anakin.

“And Force,” Nea added, shaking her head. “It must have been hard for you, brought to the Order so late.”

Anakin clutched at the fabric of his pants, hands balling at his thighs. The leather of his gloved hand made an ominous creaking sound, as a small sigh escaped his lips.

“It was hard,” Anakin replied, not looking up. “I was too old - everyone else had made lifelong friends by the time I was introduced. And on top of that, they knew about the whole ‘Chosen One’ thing, since nothing’s a secret for long in the Temple. The only friend I ever really had was Obi-Wan… and I guess he doesn’t really count.”

Anakin huffed a humorless laugh, and Nea frowned, tilting her head as she considered him carefully. 

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Nea started, a bit wary, “what was this whole ‘Chosen One’ deal? I’ve never heard of it, but I know how the Jedi are with their prophecies.”

Anakin shook his head, laughing humorlessly. “I don’t even really know, honestly. Apparently when they tested me, when they found me on Tatooine, my midichlorian count was off the charts - and that meant I was some mythical Jedi who was supposed to bring balance to the Force?”

Anakin shrugged, trying to seem blase about the whole thing. Nea wasn’t sure she believed he was so unbothered - she knew how those sort of expectations affected people.

“I don’t know. All I know is Qui-Gon believed it. I don’t know if the Council did, though. It seems like they always saw me as a burden instead of a savior,” Anakin frowned, his expression bitter, his eyes cast in darkness from the angle at which he sat.

“That’s a really shitty thing to just throw on a ten-year-old,” Nea grumbled, crossing her arms. “Like - Chosen One or not. I don’t even believe in prophecy, but Force, that’s a mess. I’m sorry, Anakin.”

Anakin laughed, raising an eyebrow in return. 

“What are you apologizing for? You’re not one of the padawans that were too scared to spar with me. Or one of the Council members that tried to hold me back while I was training - or even now, honestly,” Anakin shook his head, likely trying to dispel whatever shitty feeling this whole thing caused him. Nea just frowned in return.

“Still,” Nea insisted, arms crossed tighter. “You didn’t deserve it. Especially after being a slave on fucking Tatooine for Force knows how long. Kark.”

Anakin ran a hand through his hair, leaning back so he could rest his weight on his arms, rolling his shoulders as he considered what Nea said. She very much didn’t watch him as he stretched, somehow still flexing despite the armor and layers of Jedi robes. Force.

“Well, it’s in the past now. Or, that’s what Obi-Wan would say,” Anakin chuckled. “Focus on the present, right?”

“I still find it so funny that he taught you everything you know,” Nea shook her head, changing the subject. “When I knew him he was too chicken shit to even take his speeder license test.”

That caught Anakin off guard, and he laughed louder, almost losing hold of his weight and falling back on the bed.

“Kark-” Anakin tried to catch his breath, but it was difficult for him, since he was smiling so wide. “He was always that way about speeders?”

“Yes, and fighters, and starships,” Nea rolled her eyes as Anakin laughed, biting her lip to prevent herself from joining in. She really shouldn’t - after all, she had pretended to be afraid of flying in order to spend more time with Obi-Wan as their peers had excitedly scrabbled for first turn on the speeder. Nea had never really cared one way or the other about flying - so when she saw the opportunity to spend more time with her dumb initiate crush, she had taken it. It was the first time she had lied because of her attachment - and not nearly the last. 

“He always said flying-”

“-Was for droids.”

Their sentences ended the same way, and when each caught the other’s eye, they couldn’t help but burst into peals of roaring laughter. Anakin keeled back, his arms finally giving out as he flopped onto the foot of the bed, and Nea only cackled harder when he almost fell off of it.

“Did I tell you-” Anakin choked out, breathless, still laughing “- the first time I took him out on a speeder-”

Anakin broke into more laughter, and Nea nudged him with her foot.

“Yeah?” she urged, trying to quell her own giggles and only partially succeeding.

“He- he hurled right off the side-”

Nea howled, and Anakin laughed so hard his face turned red, the Force around the two of them crackling and popping with joy and radiating happiness, their faces red and pink as they tried to calm their laughing.

“Oh, Force,” Nea choked out once she had caught her breath, “you know, I think Obi-Wan probably didn’t want us working together for this exact reason.”

Anakin snorted, still flopped halfway off the bed. 

“Did he really fight against it that hard?” Anakin asked, lifting himself up a little. Nea shook her head as she leaned back, relaxing. She was almost shocked at how easy it was to talk to Anakin - to admit things to him, to laugh with him.

“He didn’t want you under any more stress, since you already have a padawan,” Nea replied. “Which makes sense - but I think he also knew that we would join forces specifically to make fun of him.”

“Reasonable,” Anakin considered, with a little devious smirk forming on his lips. “Me and Snips do that enough on our own.”

“Snips?” Nea asked, an eyebrow raised. Anakin grinned wider, shrugging as he sat up on his elbows.

“Ahsoka - my padawan. I call her Snips.”

Nea beamed at that, made a soft noise. “Force, that’s the cutest thing. You have a nickname for her - “

Anakin laughed, and Nea returned the favor.

“Yeah. I miss her, but she’s set to stay with Mistress Luminara for a few months still. She’s probably bored out of her mind.”

“Well, we’ll just have to get into a bunch of trouble so you have some good stories to tell her when she gets back.”

Anakin grinned, tilting his head to the side, bronze curls falling into his eyes.

“Oh, I’m sure we will.”

Chapter Text

The next day they ripped out of hyperspace, a safe distance from the neutral planet Eriadu. The small, rocky world spun in the distance, merely a speck of light far from their starship. 

Anakin had decided, after consulting both Rex and Nea, that the best option for them would be to collect a small landing crew and search for leads among the locals. On their own, scanning around the planet, either by ship or by foot, would take forever - but Nea had reminded them both that while landscapes often kept their secrets, people did not. 

So, Anakin was preparing a small landing craft that would transport himself, Nea, Artoo, and Rex to one of the trading ports on the tiny world. It was actually the perfect first mission for him to take Nea on, he thought - since their cover story was that they were refugees, Nea’s lack of military training would actually help them blend in as they questioned the locals.

Rex had been somewhat anxious about joining them, seeing as he was a clone - but, luckily enough, the clones were known for their distinct armor, not necessarily their distinct faces. Anakin assured him that with his civvies on and a nice hat, no one would have any idea who he was.

That didn’t make him look any less ridiculous, though.

“Is the hat entirely necessary, sir?” Rex asked, shooting Anakin a withering look. While the Jedi had simply removed his own armor and replaced his tell-tale tabards with a looser slung belt, tucking his lightsaber between the folds of his tunics, Rex had been outfitted in tighter pants, a collared shirt and utility jacket, his dual blasters on his hips and a wide-brimmed hat perched atop his head. 

The low whistle Nea replied with as she joined them in the hangar likely didn’t help Rex any, as he shifted awkwardly in his new clothes.

“Rex, is that you?” Nea asked, an eyebrow raised. She hadn’t known the clone for very long, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t prepared to joke around with him. “Force, you clean up good.”

Rex groaned, and Anakin shot him a gleeful look from where he was leaning against the Twilight .

“Yeah, it’s nice to see you out of the armor every now and then,” Anakin quipped, spreading out, resting his elbows on the wing of the craft. Nea grinned wicked.

“No offense, sir,” Rex offered, with a withering look, “but did you include me on this mission just so you two could make fun of me?”

“I don’t know about Golden Boy over here, but I was serious about it,” Nea replied, giving the back of Rex’s hat a sturdy flick as she boarded the vessel, Artoo whistling that his pre-flight checks were complete and the ship was ready for takeoff. Anakin watched her go, her golden hair tied in a messy braid, swinging along the back of her worn leather jacket. She walked with every ounce of swagger Anakin had imagined, the thud of her heavy boots and the glint of her blaster only completed her aura of casual confidence.

Rex cleared his throat, fist pressed to his mouth as he raised an eyebrow at Anakin’s obvious staring.

“Best be off sir,” Rex stated, his mouth twitching in the barest hint of a smirk. “Remember to keep your wits about you.”

Anakin frowned - no, pouted at him, grumbling something about his wits as he stomped onto the ship behind his Captains.

X

X

X

Eriadu’s trading town of Despun wasn’t very large, compared to some of the other cities Anakin had seen, but it was still bustling. As with every Outer Rim planet, the docks were lined with starships - most of them worn, some probably stolen and hotwired, quite a few with noticeable blaster holes. Rex eyed them warily as they disembarked, and by comparison, Nea and Artoo strode down the landing ramp with little to no fear, Nea turning in a circle as she took in the surrounding ships, letting out a low whistle.

“Man, hard to believe I’ve never been here before. Looks right up my alley,” Nea commented with a raised eyebrow. As she spoke, a Wookiee across the street roared, smacking a human in the face and sending him flying halfway down the landing strip. A couple miscellaneous thugs cackled with laughter in the background as the human scrambled to his feet again.

“Looks like a tactical minefield if you ask me,” Rex mumbled, his eyes flitting from one slimy character to the next. Anakin was starting to wonder whether he should have brought the clone Captain - the man was radiating anxious energy into the Force, his fingers twitching over the weapons holstered on his hips. Rex was, first and foremost, a Captain of the 501st. All he had known was war - and being outside of that clearly had him on edge.

“Don’t worry Rex, we’ve got this under control,” Anakin assured him with a steady hand on his shoulder. Even Artoo whistled his support, bumping into Rex’s leg. “All we have to do is talk to some locals - and if nobody knows anything, we move onto the next town. If you stand your ground, nobody’ll even notice you.”

“Hey!” Nea called, already a good two hundred yards away from the men. “If you need me I’ll be over here-”

She jabbed her thumb in the direction of some shoddy cantina, loud music emanating from within, despite the sun being several hours away from setting. Anakin frowned at her, which she must have taken as permission - shooting them both a thumbs up and a shouted “I’ll see you by sundown!” before retreating into the rowdy bar.

“Think anybody’s gonna notice her ?” Rex asked, a raised eyebrow disappearing under the brim of his hat. Anakin groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose and feeling far more like Obi-Wan than he ever thought he would. 

“She’ll be fine,” he felt a twinge of irritation - he hoped that Nea simply wanted to begin her own survey of the locals in the establishment. That would be as good a place to start as any, what with the cantina serving as a gathering place for people of all sorts, where liquor flowed freely and loosened tongues. All things considered it was a great move to hone in on a bar like that as soon as possible - or it would have been, if Nea hadn’t just thrown herself into it alone, without Anakin or Rex, without even discussing it with them. It made him frown, his mind wandering to the horrible idea that she had ditched them for cheap drinks and rowdy company instead of following through on their mission. He hoped he was wrong - but he had a bad feeling.

“Artoo?” Anakin asked, and the astromech beeped in acknowledgement. “Make sure she doesn’t shoot anyone for me.”

The droid spun in a circle, whistling his contentment to be on babysitting duty instead of following Anakin around some bumpy, rocky town, and gladly made his way to the cantina as well.

Anakin and Rex shared a look, the latter adjusting the brim of his hat before the two sighed, starting their search of the city.

It was agonizing work, stepping into every rundown storefront they came across, trying to talk to anyone and everyone in the town, hoping that someone, anyone, would have the information they needed. 

Anakin had initially been more forthcoming about their false backstory, telling the workers that he and Rex were refugees seeking Separatist space - but much like the planet Eriadu itself, its residents remained neutral, quickly changing topics or chiding Anakin for speaking of politics within their establishment. It was like pulling teeth - Anakin would gain some semblance of trust from a local, with his limited, outdated knowledge of Outer Rim happenings - but as soon as he so much as glanced over anything related to their final goal of locating the Separatist communications hub, they went silent, sometimes even gently herding Anakin and Rex out of their shop.

The closest they had come was in a small mechanic’s shop - it was run by a Dug named Yabo, who kept both spare parts and scrap as well as tools completely littered around his workspace as he tinkered with speeders and some smaller ships - Anakin had even spotted a half-disassembled droid or two in the back of the room. Anakin had easily struck up conversation with the Dug, pointing out a section of the coolant system that Yabo hadn’t even realized was in disrepair. After that, the two had talked for nearly an hour about speeders, droids, podracing - the Dug had been jovial, happy to converse with Anakin as he worked, Rex traipsing around the shop and trying to seem busy while Anakin attempted to direct the conversation in a path to Separatist occupations and outposts.

At that, Yabo had immediately clammed up.

“Don’t know nothing about that,” he had mumbled, his voice low and gruff as he tightened a bolt on a speeder. He had quickly changed the subject instead to the war’s impact on the podracing circuit, leaving Anakin even more frustrated than he had been before. He was inches away from performing a mind trick on the Dug, since he obviously knew something, he was definitely hiding information from them - 

But he barely managed to restrain himself. Not only would that give away his identity, putting himself, Rex, and even Nea in danger, there was always the chance that the Dug would be immune to it and not give up the information regardless of whatever Force manipulation Anakin had a hand in. And, although Anakin didn’t even want to admit it to himself - maybe Nea’s story of Sorebo had shed a different light on the use of Force manipulation tactics in his eyes.

Anakin and Rex had left the shop empty handed, shuffling to the next restaurant or storefront, their demeanor more grim and exhausted by the passing hour.

By the time they had finished their rounds, the sun had well set, the stars visible even though the town was bustling. Some of the activity had settled down, beings no longer scurrying to and from the docks with crates of who-knows-what, loading and unloading starships full of product. Instead, the streets were filled with revelry, noise spilling out of restaurants, bars and cantinas, the traders, smugglers, and other temporary residents more than happy to spend their well-earned credits on a warm meal and some cold drinks.

“Suppose we should gather Andar and head back to the ship for the night?” Rex asked, biting his lip on the “sir” that threatened to punctuate his question. Anakin had specifically told Rex to avoid titles, and even his name while possible, but the Captain still had some difficulty.

“I guess we should,” Anakin groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. He couldn’t help but be upset - not only had they spent the entire day in town with nothing to gain from it, but Nea had run off without them at the first chance she had taken. He could have used her - would have liked her company. She had spent years in the Outer Rim as a smuggler, a pirate. Maybe with her beside him, Yabo would have talked. He tried not to let it affect him, but it did - he had thought they were… friends, maybe. That Nea would want to spend time with him and Rex, might crack a joke or two as they followed leads.

But instead she had run off  to do what? Recon on her own? To drink herself into a stupor? Anakin hated that he even considered it, but who knew? Nea wasn’t a Jedi, and she didn’t even want to be there, as far as he knew - she was only fighting for the Republic in exchange for her crew’s immunity, so maybe she would try to circumvent her Jedi jailer as soon as possible, to drink and talk and maybe try to escape - 

No. Anakin shook his head. Maybe Nea wasn’t the happiest with this arrangement, but she wouldn’t just run away. He hoped that when he entered the cantina she would be chatting up some drunkard, looking just as downtrodden as he and Rex - that she would tell him “sorry boys, looks like I came up empty handed” and Anakin could breathe a sigh of relief that she was trying - that even though she wasn’t a Jedi, she wasn’t a drunken pirate either.

But, as Anakin and Rex swung open the doors, his heart fell.

Anakin spotted her almost immediately - how could he not? She had managed to sandwich herself between another human and a Twi’lek on the cantina’s stage, all three of them crowded around a microphone. She had her arm wrapped the Twi’lek’s shoulders, leaning on him heavily, while the other man held the microphone steady for them as they sang-shouted some old tune-

“I met a girl from Mandalore, she smiled and took my hand
Said ‘pretty boy come with me now, I’ll surely make you a man-’” 

Nea laughed as the Twi’lek slurred his words, and the crowd seemed to be caught up in the gleeful energy as well, guffawing along with the trio on the cantina stage. Anakin had no doubt that it was partially thanks to Nea’s Force signature - it had all but barreled into him as he set foot in the door, buffeting his shields with mirth and contentment. He frowned, watching as some bargoer tried to use Artoo as a cupholder and the droid proceeded to toss the drink back into his face. 

“Rex, save Artoo for me,” Anakin commanded, his eyes narrowing as the song ended, Nea cheering and taking a glass of something from a woman in the crowd, chugging it with gusto before she slammed the glass down and the human man slapped her on the back, almost sending her tumbling off the stage. He felt white hot anger-embarrassment boil in his throat, even as he tried to release it into the Force. He had trusted her - trusted her with knowledge of his childhood, of his status as the Chosen One. Trusted her with this mission, trusted that when she entered the cantina she was focused on the Republic, on the war. He was disgusted that after all that time spent rambling on about truth and trust - that Nea had betrayed his as soon as they set foot outside the Resolute .

As he neared the stage, Nea finally locked eyes with him, her Force signature surging with happiness as it attempted to wrap around his own. Anakin frowned, shaking off her attempts at connection, at urging joy and laughter in his general direction. He was pissed, and she was not going to change that with just a brush of her signature.

“Hey, Golden Boy!” Nea called, still leaning on the human. The man’s good nature faded somewhat as he looked Anakin up and down - comparing them, probably. Anakin tried not to radiate satisfaction that the man looked to be half a foot shorter than him, with spindly arms and legs that looked easily snappable. 

“Nea,” he replied, trying to keep his voice even, the din of the crowd still roaring as Nea tumbled down the stairs of the stage towards him, dragging the other man along with her. “We’re heading back to the ship for the night, come on.”

“Hey, sorry,” she replied, a little apologetic smile on her face. “But I already told Ned here I’d head out to the salt flats with him. At night, you can see the stars for miles-”

Nea waved her hands in a dramatic arc, chuckling a little as she did so. The man - Ned - smiled back at her, patting her shoulder as he pulled her closer. Anakin frowned. There was something… off here. Something in Nea’s signature was prodding gently at him, as if trying to get his attention, but here, she was actively pushing him away, stumbling into Ned and laughing as he tripped over his own feet. He tried not to let his emotions get the better of him, but irritation, annoyance - and a sharp tinge of something directed at the man who kept drawing Nea closer to him, further away from Anakin - clouded his mind.

“Too bad,” Anakin replied, electing to ignore whatever strange Force-game Nea was trying to play. “We’re going to the ship.”

Anakin grabbed at Nea’s wrist with his robotic hand, but in a flash of a second she had broken the hold - hadn’t even lost her footing. Anakin grit his teeth, wishing that this drunken mess of a woman hadn’t been the most competent hand-to-hand fighter in her cohort.

“Come on now, Golden Boy,” Nea mumbled, careful not to let Anakin’s name fall from her lips in this cantina full of Force-knows-who. Her gaze was less glassy than before, the corner of her lip turned into an almost-frown as she stared at him. “You trust me, don’t you?”

The Force hung about them, Nea’s signature still radiating that unintelligible something that was starting to give Anakin a headache. His anger almost bubbled over - what could she possibly want with some gangly little smuggler boy who looked like his favorite activity was smoking death sticks and whimpering? What was more important than the mission - than their mission? 

“You’re drunk,” was his only response, grabbing her wrist again, this time holding her inhumanly tight with the durasteel grip. He tugged at her, not wanting to cause a scene, and she groaned, rolling her eyes before she stepped towards him - close, too close.

He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t this - he thought maybe she would attempt to pull away again, or argue. Not place her free hand on his shoulder, using it as leverage to stand as high on her toes as possible, until her breath ghosted over his ear. She didn’t even smell strongly of alcohol - the only hint of it a waft of sweet wine as she leaned in.

“Anakin, stop it,” she whispered, and he could barely hear her over the din of the cantina. “I know what I’m doing.”

When she pulled back she was all smiles, her eyebrows raised as she looked at him. That look. That was - it was the exact same look Obi-Wan gave him when he had a plan. When he had a plan and Anakin hadn’t caught on yet.

His breath caught, the similarity tugging on something he didn’t know how to label as she stared at him expectantly.

He released her hand, partially out of plain shock, and she skipped back over to Ned, his fiendish grin not going unnoticed by any means.

“I’ll see you tomorrow -” Nea called, waving at Anakin, even throwing him a Sith-damned wink. “-trust me!”

Anakin just stood there for a moment, watching her cling to the man and lose herself in the throng of people. He had just let her go. He had let her leave because of a few whispered words and a look on her face. 

He could scream.

But he didn’t. He gathered himself, trying not to grind his teeth into a pulp, storming out the front doors of the cantina, outside of which, Rex and Artoo were waiting.

“Where’s Andar?” Rex asked, sounding just as exhausted as Anakin felt. Artoo replied with a string of beeps and whistles, letting Anakin know exactly what the little droid would do to her for leaving him with a gaggle of drunkards just to serve as a cupholder. 

Anakin sighed, running a hand through his hair. “She’s not heading back to the ship tonight. But we need to. Let’s get some sleep.”

Anakin didn’t wait for a response, instead leading the charge towards the Twilight , trying not to let the subtle irritation get to him, at the thought of Nea away from the ship for the night. He shouldn’t be so upset - he knew that she had spent countless nights in whatever dingy, rundown places pirates and smugglers called home - but that was before she was his Captain. His responsibility. He was only concerned because if he lost her, the Council would have his head. That was the only reason.

“Where’s she going, then?” Rex asked, mildly incredulous.

“She’s following a lead,” Anakin grumbled, unsure if he was lying or telling the truth. “She said she’ll find us tomorrow.”

Artoo beeped his indignancy that the only “lead” Nea would be following would direct her straight to the bottom of a bottle, but Anakin tried his best to stay calm, even though his brows were scrunched together, irritation rolling off of him in waves.

That night, it took him a while to fall asleep, his mind betraying him with visions of Nea – Nea leaving them, Nea with that idiotic, spindly little man, Nea kissing that gangly asshole –

Anakin threw his pillow over his face, turning on his side to press his face between pillow and stiff cot. He could hear Rex’s quiet breathing from the bunk above him, and he groaned, pressing his eyes closed. He shouldn’t care. He wouldn’t care. They would gather Nea the next morning and move on to the next town. Then, he could really give her a piece of his mind. He had been too lenient before, as her General – let her think they were equals just because she was teaching him of her way in the Force. Well, maybe he would just put an end to that too. How could he trust her, after she just ambled off like that, like it was nothing? Like she just expected him to play along? Wasn’t that exactly what she had said a Sith would do – expect unyielding trust without first proving themselves?

Anakin knew he was exaggerating that last bit, but kark, he was tired and pissed. Eventually he fell into a light slumber – one that had him tossing and turning at strange hours of the night.

It was no surprise then, that when someone knocked at the door to the Twilight before the sun had even risen, he was bleary-eyed, muttering curses as he tossed his tunic over his chest, barely tying the loose belt around it before he stumbled to the entrance. He knew that the tunic barely counted for a shirt, but he couldn’t care less, wanting nothing more that the skeevy mechanic or smuggler or whoever it was that was banging on the side of his ship to go the fuck away .

“What?” Anakin snapped as the ramp lowered, the dim glow along the edge of the horizon the only indication that the sun would crest it in time. However, instead of some questionable merchant hawking their wares from ship to ship, Anakin instead found Nea – hip popped and arms crossed.

Anakin hated how he looked her up and down – she was in the same clothes as before, except instead of her jacket wrapped around her waist (something he was coming to associate with her drunkenness) it was instead resting on her shoulders in its typical position. Her shirt was properly buttoned, her hair still in the braid from the previous day, although the wisps escaping it haloed her face more than they had before. All in all, she looked to be in one piece – not even as disheveled as Anakin had expected, as his eyes darted involuntarily to her neck, noting the absence of any possessive bruising.

“Huh,” Nea mumbled, dragging her eyes over Anakin in turn, raising an eyebrow. “Guess I can wake up earlier than you,” she commented with a half-smirk. Anakin frowned, adjusting his robes so that they covered more of his chest and tightening his sash.

“Get in here,” he demanded, gesturing to the inside of the ship. It was freezing outside, in the dim light of early morning, and Nea didn’t seem to mind, stuffing her hands into her pockets as she moseyed her way into the Twilight .

Anakin shut the hatch with a jab to the control that was more forceful than absolutely necessary. Nea leaned against the door to the cockpit, her shoulder pressed to it as she observed Anakin.

“Wake up on the wrong side of the bunk, Golden Boy?” she asked, an eyebrow raised as she took in his pinched brows, the agitation that he couldn’t help but leak beyond his shields and into his outer Force energy. Nea’s gentle swipes against his signature weren’t helping his foul mood.

“No, you don’t get to call me that,” Anakin snapped, Nea stumbling back a step with the severity of his anger. “You don’t get to act like we’re friends or – whatever the kark we are, comrades, teacher and student – you can’t act like you deserve my trust when you run off and just expect me to take it . I am your General .”

Nea pursed her lips, brows drawing together in confusion and - was that hurt? She crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself as she took in what he had to say, her signature betraying nothing besides a tangled mess of emotions and a slowly creeping sense of displacement, of concern.

“Look, Anakin-” she started, sighing as she drew a hand away to brush back the wisps of hair that escaped her braid. “-I’m sorry for not telling you, but I honestly thought that I would have everything settled by sundown. I didn’t expect it to take so long-”

“Didn’t expect what to take so long, huh? Your night of drinking? Your time spent putting your own desires before the mission, before the Republic?” he hisses, his own arms crossed harshly, his gaze steely and full of disappointment.

She looked shocked at his reply, staring at him as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“You – you thought I was leaving you to go drink ?” she raised an eyebrow, and laughed, even if it was watery, even if her crossed arms now looked as if she were holding herself, comforting herself as she fell against the cold durasteel of the ship’s wall. “Anakin I - I would never. Kark, I know I should have run it past you first but - I went to that cantina to look for leads . Nothing more.”

Nea pressed her face into her hand, taking a deep breath as Anakin’s own expression contorted into one of confusion. Wait - so she… had been chasing a lead? Had he just been blind to it in his anger?

“OK, this was obviously a huge mistake,” she relayed, her voice strained. “Force, I fucked up – I only looked drunk. I wasn’t actually as intoxicated as I seemed. Us smugglers call it halfa’d - we ask the bartender to water down our drinks so we can seem tougher than we are - or so we can lull others into a false sense of security. I did it for the mission - I thought you would know but… I guess I shouldn’t have made that assumption.”

Anakin didn’t know what to say. His mouth ran dry as he looked at her - how her voice shook, the way she couldn’t meet his eyes. It made his heart hurt a bit, to see her so upset - but shouldn’t she be? How was he supposed to know that she wasn’t just trying to leave him - and Rex, and the mission - behind for her old life? She had to have known on some level what she was doing.

Or, maybe, he just didn’t want to forgive her. 

“So, what?” Anakin asked, his voice stiff and clipped. It scared him how much he sounded like his former master, reprimanding him after something reckless. “You worked over everyone in the cantina. Alright, fine. But you didn’t come back to the ship. What were you doing with that-”

Anakin shook his head, trying not to let his anger overtake him. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much, but the idea of her leaving the bar with that gangly little kark made him see red.

Nea chuckled at that, shaking her head as she ran her hands over her face. It just made his frown deepen, his anger worsen.

“What? What’s so funny?” he demanded, willing his irrational fury to stay buried, trying not to clench his hands into fists as she laughed at him.

Instead of answering, Nea shook her head, a small, sad smile on her lips as she fumbled for something in her pocket. When her hand reemerged, she held a small ring between her fingers - attached were various slim metal cards, and a few small keys clinking intermittently.

“What’s that supposed to be?” Anakin huffed, anger overtaken by confusion as he tried to conceptualize why Nea would be showing him some random set of keys now, of all times -

“They’re a set of keys for the Despun center. The communications hub we’ve been looking for.”

Nea’s smile was a little sad, a bit ironic. Anakin’s confusion mounted, his mouth opening in a small O before he closed it once more, blinking at her.

“Wh-how did you-”

“That kid, back at the bar. Ned,” Nea explained, tucking the keys back into her pocket. “He works there, as an operator. I tried to nab the keys back at the cantina, after he started bragging about his job, but there was no way for me to swipe them without him noticing. I needed more time - so I had to leave with him, wait until he fell asleep. I wasn’t going to let what could be our one chance at taking down that hub just walk away.”

She looked at him with a sort of watery determination - that she was sorry for not telling him, for her lack of communication, but that she would never be sorry for what she did. For taking that risk, for the results it afforded her. And if he was mad at her - wouldn’t he be a hypocrite? How many times had he done the same thing to Obi-Wan - just run off, following a lead because he wanted to get everything done quickly, because he knew how to achieve the desired result, because he wanted his master to be proud of him? How many times had he been just as unconventional, just as reckless? How many times had he put the mission before the chain of command?

He didn’t know what to say, as she looked at him expectantly. Ready for him to reprimand her more, to take the punishment with pride. Something inside of him twisted, and he sighed, deflating - his shoulders no longer tense and stiff.

“Well,” Anakin acquiesced, hating how easily he forgave her. “At least something came of it.”

He nodded at Nea, not smiling at her, but no longer leveling her with a glare that could vaporize a planet if it needed to. She smiled back, a bit wider, but not the broad grin he was growing used to. Her signature radiated relief, though, a sigh in the Force as if she had been holding her breath.

“Thank the Force,” she chuckled, a sound that spoke more of stunned relief than humor. “I thought you were going to hate me.”

The words stung him - hate her? Is that really what it had seemed like, in that moment? He had been disappointed, yes, maybe it broke some of their trust - but he didn’t hate her. She had made a mistake. That was all. He was still upset, but - he never wanted her to think that.

She was oblivious to his turmoil, instead pressing forward with the mission, all business as she laid out the information she had gathered for him. For his crew. For the Republic she had never wanted to serve. 

“We should probably head out at night. Too much visibility during the day – we have to cross the salt flats to get to it. It’s over them, to the east, tucked into the mountains. Ned said they did it so no ship would be able to land directly on top of it, so we’ll have to be sneaky about it all, if we want to make it in.”

Anakin hummed, taking it in. It made sense - no wonder the base was so difficult to find. If it weren’t for the intel she gathered - it would have taken far longer for them to discover something so well-hidden and inaccessible. They wouldn’t have been able to monitor air traffic to determine its location, and any survey of the land would have been near impossible if the base were built into the mountain.

“Well, I’m heading to the ‘fresher,” Nea made a face, shifting her shoulders as if she felt disgusting. Anakin didn’t blame her – she definitely needed it after the cantina she had holed up in, which looked like even the air was sticky with dried alcohol. And, of course, she could pass her clothes easily through the sonic washer in the ship.

“Try to get some sleep if we’re heading out tonight,” Anakin recommended, trying to stay all business. “You’re the one with the information – we need you.”

“Aw, that’s sweet,” she teased, trying to return with some of her joking familiarity, even if it sounded a bit forced. She swept through the door behind him, careful not to knock shoulders. Anakin sighed, hating how easily he had taken her at her word – how rational her words had been, even – letting her ease back into his good graces so simply. He supposed he shouldn’t cling to negative emotions, but he had a feeling that it wasn’t his perfect Jedi morals that made him forget his irritation so swiftly.

Chapter Text

The day passed quickly, Anakin busying himself and Rex with obtaining a speeder and plotting a path on whatever accurate maps they could get of the local area. Rex had been shocked, to say the least, when Anakin admitted that Nea had returned with everything they needed to storm the communications post, but despite his reservations regarding her character, Rex had been easily won over by her shrewd tactics and quick turnaround, nodding his approval as Anakin relayed the events of the early morning.

“That’s fantastic, sir,” he had mumbled, eyes wide. “You must be very pleased.”

Rex, of course, was under the impression that at least part of Nea’s recon mission was planned and agreed upon by Anakin. The Captain could obviously tell when someone didn’t follow his General’s orders to the T, and Anakin’s huffy, irritated response to that, but he likely assumed that Nea had simply taken too long, or gotten too into character, or something along those lines. He had no idea just how disjointed the effort was on the parts of the two Force-sensitives involved.

Anakin tried not to think about it, he really did. Instead, he worked on setting up their attack and determining a plan with Rex, losing himself in military maneuvers and intricacies. Through Nea’s intelligence as well as the map data Artoo was able to download, he had triangulated the approximate location of the base - when looking at the code of the holo, it was always so easy to tell which sections had been generated by a sentient being trying to hide something, rather than a robotic surveyor actually mapping the land. And, judging by that location, Nea had been right - there really was no area where a ship of any decent size would be able to land. That meant Anakin couldn’t call in reinforcements - any transports landing on the salt flats below would be sitting ducks for artillery tucked away in the mountains. An uphill battle is never one with good odds.

So, he and Rex mutually decided to instead continue with their stealth mission - just the four of them would infiltrate the compound, using Nea’s stolen access keys in order to dismantle the base from the inside out. It was unconventional, and Anakin had to admit that it was risky - but he never was one to pass up on a challenge. With their resources, they should be able to pull it off if everything went to plan. All they would have to do is cross the salt flats on a speeder, then sneak into the communications post using Nea’s keys. Once inside, Artoo would be able to download anything interesting, and on their exit, he was sure Rex would be able to come up with some creative ways to ensure no one would be using that post anytime soon.

It was work that needed to be done - plotting the course, securing the speeder, briefing Artoo. But as he completed it, he couldn’t help how his Force signature churned around him, murky and agitated as his mind continued to circle back around to Nea, constantly reaching out to her, brushing against her sleeping mind as if to make sure she was still within the confines of the ship and resting. It was ridiculous. 

At least he was able to avoid her for most of the day. Even when she woke, tendrils of her signature snaking out to nudge against him, he was careful to stay away from her - slipping from the cockpit to the speeder outside as he readied them for their assault on the communications outpost that evening. It wasn’t until the sun was hanging low in the distance that Rex pulled Anakin into the cockpit for a briefing.

Nea was there, leaning against the far wall. She had her arms crossed, staring out the windshield of the Twilight as Rex pulled up the necessary maps, Artoo helping him. Anakin could feel the unease in the room as if it were a palpable thing. Nea, despite her aloof demeanor, was projecting waves of guilt, of uncertainty, of embarrassment. It almost made him feel bad - if she hadn’t gotten herself into the mess in the first place.

“Alright everyone,” Anakin began, trying to signal to Nea that as much as neither of them wanted to interact right now, it was necessary for their mission. She sighed, ambling up to the map and settling on the side opposite Anakin, scanning the projection.

“Because of the inaccessibility of the communications hub, which should be around here-” Anakin gestured to the side of the mountain where he had found the code anomalies, “-there’s no way for us to initiate a traditional strike. Luckily, Nea- er, Captain Andar-”

Anakin rubbed the back of his neck, hating how he couldn’t figure out if he should be casual because it was only the four of them, or professional, since this was official military business. He could feel Nea’s bubble of mirth in the Force, even though she didn’t laugh at him outright. And he couldn’t stop the rogue blush that spread over the tops of his cheekbones.

“ Captain Andar was able to recover a set of keys that should grant us access to the building. Therefore, we pivoted, and this mission is now a covert operation. We’re going to cross the salt flats here, trying to stick to the edges of the mountain range as much as possible, and then when we finally reach the hub, we’ll have to scale the mountain and enter the building. Once inside, Artoo will extract as much data as he can from their logs before scrambling all their signals and destroying their communications hardware. As we exit, I’m sure Captain Rex can make quick work of their facility.”

“I certainly can, sir,” Rex grinned devilishly, and Anakin replied with a wry smile of his own.

“What am I doing?” Nea asked, trying to act casual even as anxiety curled around her. “Watching the ship?”

She was expecting to be sidelined, he realized. She knew she had fucked up, so she expected to be punished for it - and maybe Anakin should have punished her for it. 

But he couldn’t. Logistically, he needed her there - needed as many men as he could carry on the speeder, needed her, specifically, because she had information straight from the source that he couldn’t pass up. But personally… he wanted her there. He wanted to mend whatever this was, and leaving her to sit around the Twilight  and twiddle her thumbs wouldn’t do that - it would just drive a wedge further and further between them. He remembered when Obi-Wan used to do that to him - Force, when he did it to Ahsoka, on more than one occasion - and how it always just bred more resentment, and, in some cases, a feeling of rejection and fear that they’re hated for what they’ve done.

Anakin didn’t want to do that to her. He was still kind of pissed, but he could take that out on the Separatists. There was no reason at all for him to leave Nea out of the fight.

“No, you’re coming with us,” Anakin replied. “You’ve got firsthand information, and Rex and I are going to need backup. So make sure you bring your blaster.”

Anakin added that last bit with a small pull of a smile, just trying to dispel some of the awkwardness between himself and Nea. It worked well, as a lazy smirk spread across her face - it was like her aura glowed as calm relief flooded her.

“Really? I was thinking of leaving it here for the day,” Nea joked back, and even Rex grinned at that one.

They could do this. They could be a team. It could work.

They loaded into the speeder as night fell - Artoo whistling a warning before he flew into the backseat with a burst of rockets. Anakin, of course, would be driving - he always did, and he booted up the vehicle as Artoo rearranged himself so that one of the final two occupants could situate themselves beside him.

That passenger turned out to be Rex, who claimed the seat without any hesitation, leading Anakin to shoot him a confused glance in the rearview mirror. Rex just raised a single eyebrow, half-hidden under the wide brim of his hat (that he was certainly going to have to hold on to the entire ride there, with how Anakin flew). 

And that left Nea to slide into the passenger side of the speeder. Anakin noted that she looked much better than she had that morning - her clothes were clean and her braid had been re-tied in a style that was tight to her scalp and kept her hair well out of her eyes. It made sense, with the battle they were about to head into. Her blaster looked recently polished as well.

“Ready for a night on the town, boys?” Nea asked them, reclining in the chair as if they were going to take a leisurely cruise around some port city. 

“Oh, absolutely,” Rex replied, wrapping his arms along the back of the seats beside him. Artoo beeped an affirmative, and even Anakin smiled at the little joke, laughing just a bit as they headed out into the night, not attracting the attention of many pedestrians at all - it seems as if their cover was still manageable, blending in with some of the other smugglers and rogues who slept all day and partied all night.

It only took a few moments before the four of them were outside the city limits, ghosting over the edge of the salt flats as Anakin revved the engine, speeding up now that he no longer had to deal with streets and people crowded around him.

“If we keep along this ridge, we should be fine,” Nea called out, gesturing to the area Anakin was headed for. “Almost nobody comes out here - at least that’s what Ned said.”

“Speaking of that,” Rex yelled back over the roar of the speeder. “How exactly did you manage to get your hands on those keys of yours?”

Rex’s question was innocent, and Anakin was sure the Captain didn’t mean to imply anything, but the insinuation in how words hung over the speeder like a dark cloud. For a moment, Anakin shifted awkwardly in his seat, unintentionally speeding up a tick as if he could outrun the awkwardness. Nea broke the silence with a laugh - the kind that was clearly forced, but was also needed to break such a fog of awkwardness.

“Well, I can’t say it was fun,” she scoffed, cringing at the memory. “I had to wait until he fell asleep to snag the keys since he had them clipped to his belt. It was awful - he was a horrible conversation partner. I thought he would never pass out.”

Anakin chewed his bottom lip, hating how much the topic set him on edge. He really didn’t want to think of Nea having to spend time with that scrawny bastard - talking, or doing anything else.

As if she had read his mind (and she could have, for how badly he was projecting), she snorted and shook her head. “And before anyone asks - we just talked. C’mon, I’m a Force sensitive! If I really needed to, I would use a mind trick before resorting to anything else .”

Anakin exhaled a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, but before he could contemplate just how ridiculous it was for him to be relieved that Nea didn’t resort to any seductive tactics, Rex broke out in a bark of laughter that nearly made him jump out of his seat.

“Good to know you have taste. Skywalker said he was built like a toothpick -” 

“ Rex !”

Nea burst into giggles at that, slamming back into her seat with how recklessly Anakin took a turn, but she didn’t let the bumpy speeder ride slow her down.

“He was! And - Force, he smelled like fish and hardboiled eggs!”

Artoo screeched his disgust, and even Anakin chuckled at that one, catching Nea’s scrunched up nose at the mere memory of the man. 

Anakin hated how his chest felt lighter, how he grinned as he caught Nea’s gaze. That shouldn’t be what made him feel better about this entire ordeal - he shouldn’t be comforted by the fact that Nea didn’t sleep with someone for a mission - he shouldn’t care about that aspect of it at all, beyond it potentially looking bad for a Jedi to be associated with someone who would do such a thing. No, he was upset because Nea had gone out and done what she did without asking him first, Because he was her General, and she wasn’t supposed to just create her own missions and fulfill them without his say-so. Because that’s what they were - comrades. Their work together with the Force was simply training. There wasn’t anything else, and there wouldn’t be.

And even if there were - which there isn’t , and Anakin’s certain of it - he’s a married man. A married man - with a wife! A wife that he loved dearly and who he thought of every day - so he couldn’t possibly be having any sort of thoughts about Nea. Not while he was having thoughts about Padme. It didn’t work like that.

He felt like smashing his forehead into the steering wheel. Focus. Mission. Infiltrating important communications base. Fighting the war. No time for anything else.

Luckily for Anakin, the speeder journey wasn’t long. Even though the town of Despun looked like just a blip of light in the distance, they had made amazing time, thanks to Anakin’s breakneck pacing as he zoomed across the salt flats. They stopped at the base of the mountain, Rex removing a pair of binoculars from his coat and zooming in, trying to locate the base. Wherever it was, it was camouflaged masterfully, blending in with the dark brown-gray of the craggy rock that made up the mountainside.

“Found it, sir,” Rex called out, stashing the binoculars away. “Around a hundred and fifty meters up. Once we’re on top of it we shouldn’t be able to miss it. There looks to be a couple guns on the ridge, but they’re unmanned.”

“Makes sense. No need to man the guns of a station that no one knows about” Nea mused as she hopped out of the speeder, following Rex to the trunk. Once opened, their gear stood ready and waiting - Nea grabbing a large rifle blaster as Rex threw his hat onto the backseat and replaced his jacket with the familiar white and blue armor. “They figure their best line of defense is secrecy… this is a really nice blaster.”

She turned it over in her hands, getting off topic as she admired it.

“Only the finest for the 501st,” Rex replied, checking both of his pistols and replacing them in his usual holsters.

Anakin turned from them, not really knowledgeable of, or interested in blaster specifications. Instead, he glanced up at the mountainside, pushing his rogue thoughts aside to focus on the mission in front of them. It would be a rough climb, but it didn’t look like they would be ascending up a sheer cliffside, at least.

“Artoo, buddy,” Anakin called to the astromech, and Artoo rolled to his side, beeping an affirmative. “I’ll call for you when we get to the top. We don’t know what the defenses look like and I don’t want you to get blasted before we’re up there.”

Artoo made a dejected sort of whistle, complaining about how he was always last to the action, and Anakin just laughed, patting him on the top of his metal dome. 

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll be up there soon enough.”

“Ready?” Nea asked, the rifle now slung over her shoulder the only indication that she had prepared herself for the assault. Rex, in comparison, had already secured his chestplate and his utility belt, his helmet obscuring his face as he rested his hands on his pistols. He had told his Captain that the armor wouldn’t be necessary, but Rex had insisted - citing that he felt somewhat vulnerable without the familiar reinforced plastoid chestplate and helmet.

Anakin swung a fold of his robe aside, revealing his lightsaber hanging at his hip. 

“Ready,” he replied with a nod, shooting his Captains a grin. Nea gave him a two finger salute, partially in jest as she followed him to the foot of the mountain, Rex’s expression obscured by the helmet.

Anakin was the first to start the climb, the others following close on his back. It wasn’t a completely vertical trek, but Rex did have to use the wires and clasps built into his utility belt to help him scale some of the steeper inclines, as Nea and Anakin called upon the Force to scale the rocks. Anakin was actually shocked that Nea was so adept at using the Force like this - he assumed that she was a more mentally focused Force-sensitive, since she admitted it was what she had practiced with the most after her expulsion. However, it seemed like she was also sharp when it came to using the Force in a physical manner, letting it guide her ascent, reinforce her jumps and steady her feet on unstable ground. Anakin knew, during sections of missions like this, that he was always more nervous than absolutely necessary, glancing back to both Rex and Nea as he made his way up the cliffside, constantly checking to see if they were managing. But, he needn’t have worried - Rex was a master with the climbing equipment, and Nea’s only complaint as they neared the communications hub was that she should have worn gloves, frowning at the way the jagged rock dug into her palms uncomfortably.

Eventually, they made it, Anakin hauling himself up one last time, until a sturdy door hidden by an overhang came into view. The only indication that it was anything special were the lights encased next to the door - clearly caged in durasteel, they were warning lights, the kind that were for industrial or military use. The door was also unmarked - no “do not enter” signs, nor any indication of what facility lay behind its heavy doors - a clear indication of a suspicious operation.

As Nea and Rex hefted themselves onto the small sliver of flat land, Anakin whistled low over the side of the mountain, sounding like some kind of bird of prey. Artoo responded immediately, using his rockets to propel him far higher than an astromech should be able to, hopping from outcropping to outcropping until he finally touched down next to Rex with a satisfied beep.

“Man, you really know how to get around,” Nea commented, patting Artoo on the dome. Artoo responded with an indignant whistle - half flattered by the praise, but mostly irritated that Nea would dare pat him like Anakin did. That was for friends only! Not people who left him to be used as a cupholder!

“Come on,” Anakin hissed, re-orienting the little team as he gestured to the door. He kept his voice low - although they had access to the hub, that didn’t mean there couldn’t be listening devices. He hadn’t seen any cameras, but who knows - maybe they were already made. This entire mission had him thrumming under his skin, his aura buzzing with anxiety. “Nea, the door.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Nea assured him with a confident smile and a wave of her hand - a gentle brush of her signature against his, as well - he had been projecting his anxiety, and he was thankful for the reality check - he shouldn’t be radiating those emotions. 

Nea strode to the door, eyeing the small lock system next to it. It consisted of a card swipe and a tiny keypad next to it. Anakin froze, doubt encircling his veins when he realized that Nea had never told him about any codes she had managed to swipe from the gangly kid at the cantina.

“Relax, Golden Boy, you’re clouding the Force,” Nea grumbled, trying to be quiet enough that Rex, who was watching their six, couldn’t hear her. Anakin frowned, but tried to reign in his signature again, strengthening his shielding as Nea swiped the card. Some prompt appeared on the screen above the numeral pad, and Nea sighed, closing her eyes and holding her hand over the keypad.

Anakin frowned, confused, as Nea’s brows scrunched together, the pad beeping for the code to be entered. He was about to say something when Nea sighed, eyes still closed as her fingers danced over the pad, entering a five digit code seemingly at random.

The pad beeped, and the door clanged open. As Nea opened her eyes, a lazy smile spread across her face, tucking the keys into her jacket pocket as she slid the rifle off of her shoulder, readying it as they entered the facility. The doors to the hub creaked open, Anakin’s attention refocused solely on the hall that lay ahead of them, lined with dim, flickering overhead lights.

“Rex-”

“Already on it, sir,” Rex mumbled, tightening up in formation so that their small group was thoroughly protected on all sides. Anakin led the way, gliding slowly through the hall as the door closed behind them with another clang. Well, they were in. But that was the easy part.

“Main control room is to the left,” Nea whispered, her eyes closed when Anakin turned to look back at her. She was using the Force - she had used it for the keypad, he realized, and she was using it again here - a Force trick that he had learned almost as soon as Obi-Wan had taken him as a padawan, but one he had hardly ever thought to implement in missions. He could feel the soft brushes of her Force signature as they unfurled, extending beyond their small party, caressing the walls, the floors, asking kindly for them to reveal their secrets. 

“Got it,” Anakin murmured in reply, choosing the left fork in the hallways without hesitation. Maybe he should have hesitated.

Nea apparently hadn’t picked up on the team of three droids stalking the end of the hallway.

“Intruders!” the one in front yelled, its voice tinny and far too loud in the echo of the hallway.

“Blast ‘em!” the one on its right yelled, and the trio of droids immediately raised their blasters and opened fire.

Nea hissed a curse, knowing she had fucked up, and scrambling to retrieve her blaster from her shoulder. Anakin managed to unhook and ignite his lightsaber just before the first round hit them, deflecting the fire as Nea sank to one knee, Rex leaning over her shoulder in perfect unison as the two fired back, Artoo shrieking in terror-anger.

The barrage was over as quickly as it had begun - Rex and Nea firing neatly into the three droids, all of them tumbling to the ground in a heap of scrap metal in an instant. They were lucky that it had only been a trio - but they were vastly more unlucky to have encountered them at all.

“We have to move! Nea, where’s the main control room?” Anakin yelled as a siren started to blare - the droids must have triggered some alert system when they engaged their little team, and now the hall was scattered in flashing red and white lights that alternated between blinding them and drenching them in semi-darkness.

“Don’t know - follow me and try to stay calm!” She shouted over her shoulder. He could feel her Force-instinct extend, the tendrils less calm and collected now, more urgent, tugging against the Force insistently like a child would for a parent, begging and pleading for their path instead of taking freely what was given. Luckily, the Force bowed in, and Anakin scrambled after her, Artoo whistling a sarcastic comment about their lack of planning as Rex brought up the rear, constantly glancing over his shoulder as they rocketed down the hall, the only thing guiding them Nea’s Force-instinct and Anakin’s desperate hope that Nea’s certainty was as strong as it seemed to be.

“Pardon me, coming through!” Nea shouted, fear-drenched sarcasm flowing freely from her mouth as she slammed a droid into a wall, running on pure instinct as the quip fell, anxious and unnecessary, from her mouth. The droid smacked into duracrete with a loud thump, Anakin slicing its head away before it could even think to react as they rounded another corner.

“There!” Nea screamed, pointing directly in front of them towards a set of heavy double doors, just as thick as the ones that had guarded the entrance to the building.

But, unlike those doors, these had a fleet of five droidekas barreling out in front of them.

Anakin grit his teeth as Nea swore again, her own Force signature singing with fear, regret, anger, guilt. She was blaming herself for this - for their attack, as she sank down onto one knee and returned the fire with her own, the blaster bolts only bouncing off the droids’ energy shielding.

“Nea, Rex, cover me! Artoo, stay out of the line of fire!” Anakin commanded, Artoo already shrieking back down the hallway they had exited from. Nea grit her teeth and held her blaster close to her shoulder, Rex the same as Anakin charged forward, knowing that only his lightsaber would be able to take down these droids. 

The blaster fire rained, Anakin attempting desperately to weave through it, deflect as much as he could to protect his men. He was now starkly aware that Nea wore no armor, held no lightsaber as she let loose bolt after bolt into the unflinching droidekas. That fear spurred him onwards, lightsaber sizzling against blaster bolt as he tried to find a way to break the line of high-powered assault droids, barely making it close enough to slice through the first of them without a blaster scorching against his skin.

“We’ve got company!” Rex shouted, sweeping a glance over his shoulder as Artoo screamed back into the larger intersection of hallways, blaster fire emanating from behind him as he did his best to hide in a corner of the junction. The scene was chaos, the Force pulled taunt around them all as Nea and Rex faltered, their attention split between the threat in front of them and the one from behind. But, before Anakin could so much as open his mouth to issue the order, Rex made a snap decision, breaking formation. “I’ve got these ones - Andar, cover the General!”

“Got it!” Anakin couldn’t see her, too focused on slicing down a droid, but he could hear the concentration in her voice as Rex flew down the hallway Artoo had emerged from, the sound of blaster fire reaching a concerning crescendo as Anakin attempted to ward off the droidekas, Nea’s shots controlled and accurate, but nowhere near enough to penetrate the droids’ thick energy shielding.

“We’ve got two dozen clankers in the hallway!” Rex called, the fear trembling in his voice even through the helmet, and Anakin felt the Force turn cold around him as he swung with twice the effort, now through three of the droidekas. Nea thrummed in the Force, vibrating like a bomb about to explode, her terror and determination almost a palpable thing as Anakin tried to gain on the last two droidekas, sweat beading on his brow. He hated these things, especially in such confined spaces where he couldn’t just fling himself over them, to their weak back and undersides-

“Anakin, on my count!” Nea screamed, and Anakin stalled, feeling the Force vibrate around him with friction as Nea bent it to her, twisted it in ways that were familiar and different all at once - and he knew what was coming.

“Go!” They shouted at the same time, their wavelengths snapping together as she used all of the Force energy available to her to fling one of the droidekas into its companion, the opening just wide enough for Anakin to slice through one, then the other, panting as the shards of the final droid fell at his feet.

But the moment of triumph was short-lived. In an instant, more shots rang out from the adjoining hallway.

“I need backup!” Rex shouted, now retreating into view even as he rained down a barrage of fire at the approaching droids. Anakin and Nea shared a startled look at the shadows that peppered the hallway - it looked like a lot more than two dozen.

“We need to get into that room!” Nea yelled, frustrated. Artoo whistled his own dismay, shifting back and forth in a droid’s mimicry of a shudder. Anakin shook his head, refusing to be bogged down by terror and dread.

“Nea, give me those keys,” Anakin commanded, and she complied without hesitation. Without skipping a beat, Anakin snatched them from her grip and flung them to Artoo, the droid beeping his confusion as he caught them in his extendable arm.

“Get us in that room, Artoo! We’ll keep you safe!” Anakin called, and Artoo whistled his compliance, zipping past the two of them as Rex joined the two of them, his armor looking considerably more charred than when Anakin had seen him last.

“Brace yourselves!” he yelled, retreating to where they stood. 

The clank of the droids echoed through the hall, bouncing off cold rock walls as the enemy approached. Anakin’s lightsaber sizzled by his ear, the two Captains beside him rushing to reload their blaster clips before the enemy was upon them. It smelled like ozone and burnt metal as Rex’s cartridges snapped into place.

But, as Nea’s fingers slid over her clip, they slipped, the cartridge jolting in her hands as the droids rounded the last corner. Anakin felt it more than he saw it - Nea’s wide eyes as she desperately tried to slot the clip into her blaster, the artificial sightline of the droid, straight to Nea’s unarmored chest. It was as if time stilled to slow motion, the Force around them pulled tight with expectation as the droid raised its weapon, as death sang through the air - 

Anakin struck like lightning, his blade slicing through the tension with the grace of a dancer and the precision of a general. The bolt intended for Nea’s heart ricocheted off the duracrete wall as her rifle clicked into service again, her tremble rippling through the Force as she tried to pull herself together, a brief nudge of her signature against his as if to say “ thanks for the save, Golden Boy. ”

In just a split second, the moment was lost, Rex and Nea plowing through droids as he threw himself into the fray, dodging blaster bolts as they flew into more waiting enemies, cutting down droid after droid, the blaster fire of his Captains singing around him as he carved through the first wave of them.

Artoo whistled his success just as Anakin slashed his last, the next dozen or so droids about to shoulder their weapons.

“Go!” Anakin screamed, waving in the direction of Artoo as the astromech held the door to the central hub open. Nea grit her teeth as she and Rex made their retreat, both of them continuing to fire as Anakin did his best to deflect the incoming hail. Artoo shrieked as he finally withdrew the combination of key and card that opened the door and whizzed inside, the doors clanging shut just before the droid squadron overtook them.

For a moment, there was silence among the soldiers, only the sound of clanking feet outside the door and their own labored breathing as they steadied themselves.

“Well,” Nea considered, breaking the silence as she brushed a shaky hand through her hair. “We’re fucked.”

It reminded Anakin so terribly much of Obi-Wan that it made his heart hurt, but he forced himself to push aside those comparisons for the time being - they had a severe problem on their hands, and he needed to focus.

“No, we won’t,” he insisted, as the bolts began to rain down on the outside of the blast door, pinging off the durasteel like raindrops off a roof. “Artoo, download as much as you can from those data stores. Focus on military routing and weapons production facilities. Rex, do we have security cameras?”

“Looks like it, sir,” Rex replied, tapping a few keys before a set of screens wavered to life, displaying various hallways, the outside of the control room they were currently trapped in (which looked a mess, covered in dismantled droids and the ones still operational clamoring over their fallen batchmates), and the doors to the outside of the facility. 

“Why isn’t there anyone in this room…” Nea mumbled. Anakin watched as her previously fearful wide eyes narrowed as she scanned the small room, and -

“Someone’s been here,” Anakin finished, his eyes locking onto the same item Nea had zeroed in on. An abandoned cup of caf on one of the switchboards. Nea, who was closer to it, curled a palm around the mug.

“Still warm. Somebody left in a hurry.”

“We should too, sir,” Rex added on, gesturing to the security screens. More droidekas - Force, where were they hiding all these droids? The communications hub must extend well into the mountain. “I think they’ve already sent out a distress beacon. If they get ahold of our speeder -”

“We’ll be stranded,” Anakin finished, his voice grim. “We need to find out where that operator went. Maybe it’ll be a way out of here.”

“Already ahead of you,” Nea replied, her voice casual as she scanned the room, her hand slipping from the mug as she crouched down, running the tips of her fingers along the seams of the control boards. She was trying to keep steady, her movements slow and methodical, but Anakin could see the slight tremble in her hands, could feel the heavy anchor of fear weighing in her Force signature. She was terrified – and she should be, Anakin realized. This was her first mission, her first battle with the 501 st . He had just thrown her into things, assuming she could handle herself as Rex did, since they held the same rank. And while it was true - that she carried herself with power and ease, that she knew her way around a blaster and certainly could hold her own in a fight – the aura of war was entirely different than that of a bar brawl or a smuggler shootout. There was a certain desperation to fighting against the droids that always weighed on Anakin like a boulder in his gut – the knowledge that with every droid destroyed that the Separatists could just produce more, mindless metal machines that didn’t care if they lived or died, didn’t care if you were a trooper or a Captain or a General, would shoot you down just as well. And Nea had almost been one of the fallen – if he hadn’t been there, she would have died, back in the hall. As powerful as she was, she was still a shiny, as Rex would say – she was still shivering with the fresh anxiety of war. And she was trying her best to not let it show – to not worry her comrades.

He shook his head, looking away. She would get out of this, and she would have plenty more time to learn the stresses of war. It would be fine, he reasoned, as Rex continued to scan the security footage and Artoo beeped, downloading as much of the data as he could.

“Anakin!” Nea called, waving to Anakin from the far side of the room, where she stood, eyes to the ceiling. “I think I found something.”

Found something she had. The ventilation above them wasn’t closed properly, it seemed. And, considering the fact that Nea’s little friend the other day had been exceptionally small and gangly, it seemed like the Separatists chose their technicians for that express purpose – so that if they were compromised, the small tech would be able to escape via the vents, leaving their larger assailants stuck in the control room. There was no way he would fit into that small space, or Rex. Artoo was out of the question, his droid bulk far too wide for the small air vent.

Nea might be able to make it out, though. She was almost a foot shorter than him, and despite her broad shoulders, she was still their best bet. She might be able to squeeze through if she tried – might be able to get to safety.

“Think he got out this way?” Nea mumbled, frowning at the vent, probably thinking the same thing Anakin was. “Skinny bastards-“

“Do you think you can fit through?” Anakin asked, getting straight to the point. Nea frowned at him, glancing from him, then to Artoo and Rex.

“Why the fuck would I?” Nea argued, crossing her arms. “I’m not leaving you! Any of you!”

“This information is too important,” Anakin urged, as Artoo signaled his completion of the download, disconnecting from the computer system and rolling towards Anakin. “I can give you Artoo’s memory discs and you can get out of here. Signal the Resolute – get help –“

“We both know that’s bantha shit!” Nea scoffed as the blast doors rattled.

“We’ve got a half dozen droidekas and three dozen clankers out there, sir!” Rex relayed, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“You’ll be dead before I even get outside the building, and you know it,” Nea hissed, her terror morphing into a fierce determination.

“It doesn’t matter what I’ll be,” Anakin grit out as the droidekas’ fire slammed into the blast door, threatening to dismantle it at any moment. “The Republic is more important – the destruction of these droid factories is more important. As your General I order -“

“Kark your orders!” Nea screamed, and Rex jumped in his seat, Artoo beeping in indignance. “Kark your fucking operation! Rex!”

Rex looked like someone had shocked him as he stood stock upright, his hands floundering over the keyboard. Even with his helmet still obscuring his face, his entire body language spoke of confusion and shock.

“Sir?” he replied out of instinct, and that just made Nea snarl – Anakin was too shocked to even say anything. He knew, of course, that Nea resented authority, that she hated it, even – but knowing and experiencing are two different things entirely.

“What kind of bombs do you have on you? You got droid poppers?”

“Of course?” Rex was so confused, but Nea wasn’t having any of it. She was completely changed – the fear still coated her aura, but it was tighter, now – honed for a purpose instead of free floating, billowing like a sandstorm. Now that had hardened to pure glass, sharp and deadly, fragile and fierce all in one.

“Then we’re getting the fuck out of here. Artoo, I’m sorry little guy, but we’re hauling you out of here if we have to,” she glared at the droid, who whistled with indignance – but Anakin could tell, under it, that his astromech was well aware of the risk, that his short-circuiting was a calculated one, that he trusted Anakin to fix whatever may break from the overexertion of power.

“No!” Anakin shouted, Rex all but frozen, looking from Anakin to Nea, hands ghosting over the droid poppers on his belt as if he was actually considering Nea’s concept without Anakin’s approval, weighing the option in his mind. Anakin could have screamed from the way that Nea so easily thrust herself into that position of command when she needed to, how even with her fear and war-terror she forged ahead and stared down Anakin with the same fierce protection-disapproval-determination that Obi-Wan always did when he was fixing his padawan’s mess.

“Anakin,” Nea growled, pressing forward so that they were almost chest to chest, her neck craned so that she could glare at him with the fury of a supernova, her eyes fiery and fierce. “I’m not leaving anyone behind. I’m not letting you – not letting anyone die in this shithole.”

Her eyes shone, and Anakin could feel it – her guilt, her fear that this was her fault, her responsibility, her rookie mistake that would cost her comrades their lives.

Anakin almost bared his teeth in return, almost snapped at her – it was the Jedi way to send Nea off with the information – it would be the right thing to do, to ensure beyond any doubt that their intel was safe and sound and away from rogue blaster fire.

But a less noble part of him feared. A less noble part of him snarled, demanding that he protect Rex, his Captain who had done the same for him on so many missions, that had pulled him back from his self-sacrificing tendencies over and over again, that had always been by his side. A part of him, removed from the Jedi code, ached at the idea of leaving Artoo behind, of putting him in harm’s way, after all the droid had done for him, after all the time they had spent together, all the battles won. A part of him hated the idea of the greater good, a part of him longer for the desperate, emotional press of no man left behind, we go down with this ship .

Anakin bit his lip, pressing down his anger at his authority being overstepped again, being overwritten by whatever this undefined thing was between him and Nea Andar, the woman who looked at him with the same fire and determination as Obi-Wan but swore like a spice smuggler and shuddered like a padawan.

“Rex,” Anakin growled, still glaring at Nea, his gaze probably piercing right through her. “Get those droid poppers ready.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Rex cried, relief in his voice as he unclipped the bombs from his belt, fingers deftly setting the timers on the charges.

Nea grinned at him, a lopsided thing as she clapped him on the shoulder, the fire gone from her eyes, but the determination only growing as her Force signature seemed to sing around him, her triumph seeping into the living Force. Anakin almost hated how his own Force signature seemed to surge to meet it, a positive feedback loop of “we can do this, we have to” even as he kept frowning.

Artoo whistled, signaling that the memory discs had been written and were ready for Anakin, that they would be safer outside his ports if Artoo was fried a little too hard in the explosion. Anakin slid the discs out of the droid’s memory port, absentmindedly passing them to Nea, who had more pockets and easily tucked them away into one of the many present on her leather jacket.

“Ready, sir,” Rex called, as the droids’ fire thrummed against the blast door. Nea took a knee, pressing her rifle to her shoulder as she poised her fingers over the release on the door’s locking mechanism, mostly out of the line of fire, but ready to return it if she needed to protect her comrades. Rex slipped to the other side of the door, ready to throw the charges as deep into the sea of droids as he could as Artoo slid under one of the far switchboards, hoping to avoid the charge that would sweep the enemy assault droids. Anakin exhaled, trying to steady himself as he drew his lightsaber, the ignition a sharp crack in the confined space, bathing his face in light and shadow.

“Do it!” Anakin cried, lowering into a ready stance as Nea slammed her hand into the button. The doors slid apart, and as soon as they were far enough for Rex to toss the charge, he did, a battle cry crackling through his helmet as the two charges soared through the air, into the sea of droids. Anakin grit his teeth, deflecting as much blaster fire as he could, trying to take out any droids that would storm the small room before Nea could get the door closed, slamming her hands over the closing mechanism over and over again, screaming for the room to secure before the charges went off-

The droid poppers exploded just as the doors started to creak closed, the wave of electromagnetic pulse firing just as Anakin shut down his lightsaber, his durasteel hand going limp, the circuits scrambled as he fell to a knee and grabbed his lightsaber before it could hit the ground. Artoo screeched and then his voice died, unfortunately electrocuted before the door could be closed completely. It wasn’t ideal, but as Anakin stole a glance at the security footage, all of the droids had been decommissioned for the foreseeable future, their limp figures a mountain in front of the control center they stood in.

“Get that door open again – we have to get out of here before more show up,” Anakin commanded, jogging to Artoo and groaning as he hefted the droid up, all dead weight in his arms. He had no idea how they were going to get Artoo out of here, but the weight lessened as Rex grabbed the other side of the astromech, nodding at his General that he wasn’t going to leave Artoo behind if Anakin wasn’t either.

Nea slammed her fist into the button again, the doors groaning against the weight of all the unresponsive droids pressed against the panels. A few spilled into the room as Nea scrambled over their limp forms, glancing back at the men behind her as she scrambled over them.

“I’ll cover you!” she called, raising the rifle to her shoulder and motioning them forward as she climbed over the dead metal. Anakin and Rex followed, their footing unsteady on the forms of droids, the task made even more tiresome and nerve wracking as Rex attempted to plant charges as they moved, slapping one onto the chest of a droid at the top of their little hill, before he and Anakin carried Artoo down the embankment and followed Nea, her signature reaching out once more to secure their route out of the facility, Force tendrils like spider silk, not only focused on remembering the path, but also pulled taunt, searching for movement, for inorganic life, for droids that would seek to destroy them and the knowledge they had extracted.

Nea surged forward, Anakin and Rex stumbling behind her, Artoo stretched between them. She flew onwards, rounding a corner to fire off two rounds. By the time Anakin and Rex reached the corner, there were two decommissioned droids smoldering on the floor, Nea’s Force signature encased in rage-terror as she stormed onwards, carving a path in front of them.

It wasn’t long until they reached the outer blast doors – however, when Nea attempted to open them both with the button and the key, they refused to budge.

“What the – fuck!” she screamed, kicking the durasteel as she howled, the Force rattling around her. Despite her determination, Nea’s frustration tainted the Force around them, until Anakin shakily set Artoo down, drawing his lightsaber.

“Watch my back,” he commanded them. Rex jumped to him immediately, drawing his twin pistols and scanning the hall in front of them with an unwavering gaze. Nea, however, groaned in frustration - not at Anakin, but at her own stupidity for causing this calamity, for trapping them in this outpost that could very well become their tomb. It wouldn’t, if Anakin had anything to say about it, as he ignited his lightsaber and pressed it through the durasteel, slowly, agonizingly slowly, cutting through the heavy blast door.

“Sir?” Rex gasped, trying not to seem concerned as their shadows appeared in the distance, highlighted by the emergency bulbs flashing. Anakin grit his teeth. He was almost there, his muscles burning as he willed the lightsaber to cut faster, the metal to give way under his single-handed grip that he put how whole Force behind. They had to make it - they had to!

“Got it!” he screamed, and, in a flash, Rex wrapped an arm around Artoo, thrusting both of them through the door. Nea followed soon after, wasting no time and scooping up Artoo as soon as she was out the door. She screamed to Rex as they faced the mountainside, concocting a plan for their retreat as Anakin chanced a look behind them at the compound.

The halls were filled with droids. In addition to a communications outpost, it must have also been a reserve facility, with so many assault droids. As they rounded the corner, they raised their blasters to strike him, and he responded with quick, deadly blocks, the bolts spearing two droids as he made his own escape, not even bothering with the mountain – he stabbed his lightsaber into the side of it, using the weapon slow his descent. Rex and Nea repelled down beside him, one Captain clinging to the other as Nea struggled to used the Force to slow Artoo’s fall as the depowered droid tumbled through the air beside them.

They smashed into the ground – Anakin with a grunt, Rex and Nea barely avoiding being crushed by Artoo as they careened the last bit down the cliffs. Blaster fire was raining down now - the Captains struggled to toss Artoo onto the back of the speeder, until finally Nea screamed in frustration and called upon the last of her energy to Force-push the droid the rest of the way.

“I need a driver!” Anakin shouted – his decommissioned arm hanging limply beside him as he defended the speeder with his life, wielding his lightsaber in his off-hand as fire rained down. Nea threw herself into the driver’s seat, Rex holding on tight to Artoo as Anakin finally hauled himself in, his lightsaber sheathing with a hiss as Nea slammed her foot into the gas, flooring it as they spun wildly, careening away from the mountain as Rex finally pressed the ignition on the bombs –

The communications hub burst into flame behind them, pieces of rock and metal careening towards them. Nea deftly avoided them, only thanks to her connection to the Force as she sped onwards, never looking back.

As they flew away from the wreckage, away from the charred remains of the Separatist communications center, Anakin could only sigh in relief, sinking into the passenger seat as they swerved towards the town and safety. Another mission completed.

Chapter Text

Nea was silent for most of the debriefing. She stood beside Rex, who now wore his full armor, as Anakin explained to the Council what had transpired on their mission to Eriadu.

She felt like she would be sick, as her eyes flickered over to Artoo – even if Anakin had said the droid only suffered damage to the hardware that facilitated his initial boot, and none of his procedural memory had been affected, she glanced at the astromech’s still figure and felt as if a wave of guilt could swallow her whole.

The whole mission had been a disaster. They had barely escaped with their lives, and it was a miracle that they had managed to ferry the stolen data with them as well. Nea traced her fingers along the precious cargo she still carried in her pockets – the discs of data that Artoo had risked everything for, the data that Anakin and Rex had almost died for.

Anakin. Nea hardly let her gaze flicker to him as he reported to the Council, speaking with authority, with purpose, even as his mecha arm hung limp at his side.

She bit her lip, averting her gaze before Anakin could catch it in the black mirror of one of the ship’s screens. She didn’t know if she could handle his narrowed eyes, his lips downturned in disapproval, in anger, now that they were no longer in the heat of battle. It seemed like forever ago when they had laughed together on her cot, how he had fallen over with mirth, his smile bright, Force signature warm and shining like the sun itself.

Now all she caused him was worry, anxiety, and irritation. His brows were pinched in concentration as he spoke to the Council, trying to justify Nea’s idiotic choices for her, trying to wrangle together the mess of a mission – the mission that she had derailed with her ridiculous assumption that Anakin knew of pirate recon techniques.

Well, to be fair, that wasn’t the only reason why she had skipped over to the cantina the moment she left the Twilight, lazy smirk on her face as she bid her comrades goodbye and entered the familiar space. No, she wasn’t treating this like a mission she would carry out with Taen or the rest of the Stormchaser’s crew – because when she was with her crew, she didn’t have the same irrational desire for acceptance, for success and praise.

What she had been thinking, when she started chatting with smugglers, traders, and locals, picking her way through their conversations, sifting through their surface thoughts, looking for a lead, was that Anakin and Rex would be so impressed with her, once she returned with the information they needed. That it would be a surprise, almost – that Anakin would grin at her, shake his head, maybe even yell in delight and pull her into a hug, like Xolt would, when she had pulled off something particularly risky with amazing success.

She felt like putting a blaster bolt straight through her foot at the extreme stupidity of that assumption. Anakin wasn’t a crewmate, no matter the fact that he had acted like one the day before, laughing and joking with her like they were friends. He was a Jedi – a Jedi General, and she was his Captain now, not his captain. Of course he wouldn’t enjoy her impulsive decisions, of course he would assume that she was out drinking herself into a hole instead of spending hours carrying on frivolous, agonizing conversation with spindly, smelly Ned because she was some lazy pirate who only ever wanted to drink and fuck around.

On some level, she was angry at Anakin for assuming that she fell into that patronizing stereotype, but mostly she understood where she had given off the wrong impression – how she had broken his trust right after she had spent the better part of a morning with him cross-legged in front of her discussing her ideology on the matter.

Trust wasn’t something gained in one day, and truth was a constant struggle – one Nea still had severe battles with, each and every day. But still, she felt guilt, regret, and bone-deep embarrassment that she had let her desire to cultivate a close relationship with Anakin cloud her judgement like that. She hadn’t felt like this in so long that she had forgotten what it did to her, what attraction did to someone.

It was idiotic for her to deny it when her heart flipped whenever he so much as smiled at her. Despite any of her misgivings about her interest in Anakin – that he was a Jedi, Obi-Wan’s padawan – her heart had already decided, with little input from her head. All she could do now was listen to it.

But it had been so very long since she had to deal with – what, a crush? She would have scoffed at that label, as it seemed like something a teenage padawan would have – but, that was exactly the last time she had felt anything remotely similar. This is how she had felt about Obi-Wan, the memories resurfacing slow and steady as she made the same mistakes. How attraction could cloud judgement, how it could cause someone to make rash decisions, how it distorted the world so that all one could see was the object of that desire.

And she could wish it away all she wanted, but it was still there, as she did her best not to look at Anakin. It had been there when she snapped at him in the communications hub, when she had outright refused a direct order. She had no doubt that Anakin, as her General, not her friend, would have a few choice words for her once the debriefing was over and the holoprojector clicked off.

But she wouldn’t have it any other way, as she tilted her chin upwards, stubbornly. Any harsh words she would take with pride and dignity, if it meant that Anakin, Rex, and Artoo escaped safely with her. Anakin had been so quick to throw away their lives for the Republic that it rang through her like lightning, a stark reminder of who he was and who he was loyal to. He would lay down his life for the Jedi, whereas Nea cared far more for her crew, for her friends, for the connections and attachments she had cultivated over the years.

Well, it made sense, she supposed, with a bitter taste on her lips as she watched Anakin finish up his report. It was far easier for the Jedi to control individuals whose first and only loyalty lay with their Order, with the Council that moved them about like pieces on a playing board, themselves so detached from the world and its conflicts that they barely flinched when one of their own was cut down on the battlefield. That Council was not so concerned with the loss of a person, a sentient being with a life and desires and people who loved them – but at the loss of a soldier, a pawn. Her gaze hardened to durasteel as her eyes flicked from Anakin to the hazy projections of the Council. Would they have cared if he died? Would Obi-Wan, his flickering blue figure placed next to all the others, even care if his former padawan had given his life for their hopeless cause?

“Excellent work, General Skywalker,” Windu said, his voice distorted. “We are sending you to relieve General Plo Koon’s forces on Raldaka. He will retrieve the Eriadu data and return to the Temple.”

“Thank you, Council,” Anakin replied, his bow nothing more than a slight nod. Nea could feel his tension in the Force – he felt underappreciated, snubbed. Had he wanted to present the Council with his findings? Or was he simply upset that they were being sent to relieve another General – which would mean no break from the warfront. Nea scowled at the assertion – so what, all Anakin got was a “thanks, here, go throw yourself in front of a blaster again – just this time on Raldaka”?

The members of the Council flickered away, one by one, as the meeting ended – even Obi-Wan’s hologram disappearing without a word. Nea sighed as Anakin closed his end of the link, frowning as he turned to her and Rex.

“You hear that, Rex?”

“Loud and clear, sir,” Rex replied, with a nod. “I’ll have our navigator prepare for the jump and inform the men.”

“Thanks, Rex,” Anakin replied, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Nea stood, silent – worried that if she asked for a task to perform she would sound indignant or sarcastic, and she didn’t want to push Anakin any further than she already had. She felt the tiny prickles of pain in the Force – the beginnings of a headache, she assumed – as Anakin’s shoulders slumped, Rex marching out of the room to perform his duties.

“Nea?”

“Yes?” she tilted her head to the side, shocked at how softly he had said her name – then again, if could have just been the headache talking.

“Can you give me those data discs? We need to get them somewhere secure before I work on fixing Artoo – and myself,” Anakin frowned as his durasteel arm swung limply at his side.

Nea complied, sliding the discs into his waiting flesh hand, Anakin using his wrist to tap at some buttons that opened a sliding drawer to safekeep the precious data.

“Need any help?” she asked, gently, not wanting to press him. Nea felt compelled to do something – to apologize, to prove to him that she was worthy of his trust. She desperately wanted him to look at her with something other than disdain or anger in his eyes.

Anakin sighed, running his fingers over the seam of the drawer he had just closed, shooting Nea an exhausted look over his shoulder, his expression almost sad.

“I guess,” he relented, as if the admission pained him. It tugged at Nea’s heart – did he not want her there? Or was he simply tired, just war-worn and exhausted, a proud General who didn’t want to admit his weakness, even as his own right hand hung useless at his side. “Do you even know anything about fixing droids or prosthetics?”

There it was. That voice cut her deep, the disproval edged it, a lack of trust that wormed through it like veins of obsidian. She hated the way it made her feel. How normally she would have snarked something back, if it were almost anyone else. She would have just let her feeling pass over her like a cool stream, allowing her own discomfort at being dismissed to flow into the living Force, acknowledging it and then letting it pass her over.

But things were different, like this, with him. She couldn’t process these emotions as fast, couldn’t untangle the strange knot that was her desire and attraction which were wrapped up in her need for approval, her desire for trust and closeness.

“I’ve worked with droids before – I had to learn at least something, with how often my astromech would break,” Nea frowned, trying to occupy herself by thinking of literally anything other than Anakin’s tired, irritated expression. “And I briefly did a repair for a Balosar man – makes sense, since I was the one that broke it.”

Nea tried to laugh, but Anakin only raised an eyebrow, as if he was forcing himself not to smirk.

“Two for two, then,” Anakin quipped, and Nea could have exploded from embarrassment – Force, she really did have a record now, when it came to breaking prosthetics.

“Ugh,” she groaned, as Anakin strode into the hall – likely heading towards his quarters, where he would have a maintenance and repair kit for his arm. “Listen, I’m sorry – I’m sorry it came to that. I had no idea that mission would go so Force-damned sideways.”

“Missions are like that, sometimes,” Anakin conceded with a sigh. Nea could still feel his pain in the Force, the headache growing as he turned a corner up ahead. He was trying to be understanding, but it was hard for him, after everything that had happened. “It was your first time. It happens.”

“Shouldn’t have happened like that. For fuck’s sake, I got Artoo decommissioned!”

Nea threw her hands up. She should meditate before she talked to Anakin about this – she wasn’t doing anyone any good, throwing herself this pity party – but she hadn’t had time to meditate, and she was guilty and frustrated and she felt like he was acting strange and distant, which was somehow even worse than his heated glares.

Anakin threw a glance over his shoulder as he reached his room, the door sliding open as he entered.

“You feel responsible for all of it, don’t you?”

Nea sighed, rolling her eyes. “Wouldn’t you feel responsible for it, if you were in my situation? Force, Anakin, I had stop you from sacrificing yourself for the Sith-damned Republic! Because of my mistake!”

He stood stock still at that, his shoulders rigid as the door slid shut behind them with a soft click. Nea felt the change in the Force – the swirl of emotions that surrounded Anakin – his own regret, his own fear.

“And I’m sorry for saying what I did in front of Rex,” Nea continued, too deep to stop now. “I didn’t do it to disrespect your authority – I did it to save your idiotic Jedi life! I don’t care if you’re the fucking Grand General Supreme of the Local karking Cluster – I’m not just going to stand there like a moron while you kill yourself for honor!”

Nea crossed her arms, hating how she always fell back on that – on her stubbornness, on her anger and her blunt, bare-all words. She had spent so much time trying to hone her speech, trying to sound like Obi-Wan – truthful but direct, dancing around honesty with grace and intellect – but at her core, when things were as serious as this, she always fell back to brutal truth, to harsh emotion that would probably do more harm than good.

Anakin finally let out a breath, his shoulder slumping, his back still to her as he used his only working hand to card through his hair, slowly, as hie headache still pounded through the Force.

“I know,” was all her said, half weary, half guilt-stricken, and the words hit Nea like a punch to the gut. She thought he would be pissed – thought he would chastise her for going against his orders, for putting him and Rex and Artoo above the Republic, like she was a padawan again and he was going to lecture her on attachment and its dangers.

“It was a wreck of a mission,” Anakin continued, face in his hand. “But I can feel you blaming yourself for it, and it’s not your karking fault! You’re – you’re a pirate! You’re not a soldier, or a Jedi – you shouldn’t have to be the one to save my reckless ass! You shouldn’t have even been in there, you almost died –“

Nea blinked. Force, she had almost forgotten about the blaster bolt that had almost done her in, the realization hitting her like a punch to the gut.

“- I’m supposed to be your General. I’m supposed to be able to plan and strategize so that bantha shit like this doesn’t happen, but over and over again I’m reckless and stupid and - we almost died because of it!”

Anakin’s pain pounded through the Force, and Nea almost surged forward, almost wrapped Anakin in her arms and squeezed tight – but she thought better of it, instead soothing over him with her Force signature, wrapping him up in the mental version of a hug as she sighed, placed a gentle hand on his shoulder to turn him around.

When he faced her, he looked every bit the war-weary General – agonized not over his position of power, but how he used that power – the responsibility that came with it, the weight of all the lives of his men on his shoulders. How he lurched with the weight of it, how he agonized over his decisions after the fact - because one snap judgement made in the heat of battle could cost him so many lives. He looked hopeless, because he wasn’t a perfect Jedi General with endless patience and infinite wisdom – he was impulsive and decisive and reckless and he threw himself into things with everything he had, and it ate away at him.

“Fuck, Anakin,” Nea breathed, shaking her head at him. “Don’t act like this is your fault. Don’t act like it’s your responsibility to control and know everything – Force, you’re a Jedi, not a God.”

Anakin chuckled, but it was mirthless as his head pounded with it, the Force distorting as the pain worsened.

“It doesn’t matter,” he insisted, pushing his outburst away, his cheeks pink with exertion and embarrassment, at how he had blown up in return to Nea’s own outburst. “I still have men to take care of.”

“Yeah, and your men can take care of you too, you dumbass,” Nea frowned, hand on her hip. “Now let me at that hand of yours I karked up.”

This time, his laugh was a little more genuine, even if he didn’t smile. Anakin sat down in the small chair beside a little desk next to his bed – it was coated in a thin layer of droid bits and mechanical odds and ends, and Anakin lifted his arm and set it in the middle of it all, the black leather glove still covering his prosthetic.

“I can do most of the repairs – you just be my extra set of hands,” he insisted. “Also – you can get the glove off.”

“No shit, I can get the glove off,” Nea scoffed. “Force, why do you even wear a glove – makes it so much harder to fix!”

She realized what she had said halfway through the first buckle on the tall glove, and she felt like she could scream or hit herself upside the head. Force, she was just getting somewhere next to normal with Anakin again, realizing that his reasons for prioritizing his General status were achingly human – and now she went and karked it all up by making some dumb comment about his hand. It was obvious that he kept it covered for a reason – she was lucky he trusted her enough to so much as touch it.

“Fuck, sorry,” Nea backpedaled before he could open his mouth. “You don’t have to say anything – that was stupid of me to ask.”

“No, it’s OK,” Anakin replied, as Nea worked on the other clasps that held the glove against Anakin’s prosthetic. But, his voice was so soft, and his Force signature was so clouded with headache pain that Nea couldn’t tell if he was actually comfortable talking to her about it, or if he just wanted to appease her.

“I lost it in a battle with Count Dooku – the battle on Genosis, actually,” Anakin’s free hand dug into the plasticene of the desk, nails raking against it. “I don’t like to look at it. Reminds me of that day.”

The comment hung between them, the full weight of it heavy and dense as Nea considered what this meant – the level of trust Anakin was providing her by telling her this, even after she yelled at him, called him an idiot, demanded personal information from him.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, finally sliding the glove off. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Anakin shrugged. “Hey, truth and trust, right?”

He said it like it was a joke, but it hurt Nea, made her frown as she set the glove down, as Anakin leaned over to flip open a panel on his forearm, as if he didn’t see the irony in his words.

“I’m surprised you’re still saying that,” Nea admitted. “After everything that happened.”

Anakin’s flesh hand fell to the table as he locked eyes with her, lips twisting into a frown as a sigh fell from his lips.

“I’ll admit, I don’t completely trust you,” Anakin replied, not sugarcoating his words – telling the truth, Nea realized. “But I want to. I can tell this isn’t going to be as easy as we thought it would be – but I don’t give up that easily.”

“Good,” Nea breathed a sigh of relief of that, replied with a stupid little smile that she couldn’t control. “I don’t want to either. Now – what do I need to do here?”

They fell into quiet complacency – Anakin asking for Nea to hold small tools or help him connect wires as Anakin did the majority of the work on his arm. Luckily, it was just a single fried circuit that needed to be replaced, but it did require a few different wire hookups and a bit of fiddly work, as Nea helped Anakin steady the metal hand. She felt strange touching it, after he had admitted how much he hated it – she felt like they weren’t close enough, like she had barged her way into his life, deeper than she should have, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her to back off. This compounded upon the headache she could feel building in his mind – what had started as a gentle ache had grown as Anakin tried to focus on the intricacies of the prosthetic, his brow furrowed in a way that looked pained as he groaned, biting his lip as he grabbed his soldering pen and fixed a circuit to the arm.

“There,” he finally said, probably a half hour later, slapping the panel shut. “Now all we have to do is boot it up.”

He said this with trepidation, as if he didn’t want to activate the prosthetic.

“Will it hurt?” Nea asked, catching onto his hesitation. “With the nervous system connection?”

“Yeah, it hurts,” Anakin grimaced. “It’s fine, though. I’ve done it a million times.”

“Doesn’t mean it hurts any less,” Nea scoffed. “Is it this?”

She gestured to a small switch that was set into the mechanism of the arm near the seam of flesh and metal, situated in a way that nothing would be able to trigger it accidentally. Anakin nodded, gritting his teeth in preparation.

“I’ll hit it for you. Here –“ Nea offered her hand to his flesh one – to grip through the pain if he so wished. Nea felt awkward offering it – she knew that she wouldn’t accept if someone ever offered that to her, but she figured she would present Anakin with the choice. It was a peace offering of sorts, a way that he could pass some of his pain to her, so that she could provide him some semblance of relief after all she had done to cause him stress and agony.

Anakin hesitated, looking from Nea’s eyes to her outstretched hand, but after a wavering moment, he gripped her hand with his, squeezing her palm tight. Force – she hadn’t taken into account how much larger he was – his hand engulfed hers, and even his resting grip was strong. But, she didn’t flinch. She had offered him this, and she had meant it.

“Three, two, one-!” Nea flicked the switch and Anakin cried out, gripping her hand in a vice and throwing his head back as some electric noise echoed, his durasteel hand springing to life as the fingers curled in agony.  Nea ground her teeth together, slammed her free hand into the desk as Anakin all but crushed her fingers under his forceful grip, the knuckles on her hand popping as he squeezed tight.

“Kark!” Anakin cried, as the pain finally subsided, the wave in the Force ebbing as he released Nea, running his fingers over his own hand, checking the responsiveness and sensitivity. Nea gasped as he released her, attempting to stay as quiet as possible as she curled and uncurled her fingers, trying not to flinch as she slid her hand off the desk so that he wouldn’t see her discomfort.

“Looks like you got it working again,” Nea tried to laugh, but it sounded a little strained, especially when she finally felt Anakin’s signature in the Force again – fuck, it seemed like the torture of the reconnection had only worsened his headache, as he finally reached up to press at his temple with his newly recalibrated arm. It made her flinch, the ache that seeped into the living Force – it was intense now, deep.

“Yeah, guess we did,” Anakin offered a shaky smile, but it was accompanied by a little twitch as he smiled, a throbbing pain in the Force.

“Fuck, OK, now that we’ve got the arm fixed, we’ve gotta do the head next,” Nea caved, shaking her own head as if to dispel the residual Force energy that was attaching onto her own signature, the secondhand agony that clung to her like pollen.

Anakin frowned. “What?”

“You heard me,” Nea sighed, exasperated. “The head – your headache. You’ve had it since the Council meeting. I wasn’t going to say anything, but it just keeps getting worse. I won’t be able to meditate without getting one of my own if you keep that up.”

“You can feel that?” Anakin asked, astounded, even as another wave of pain overtook him and he clutched at his head involuntarily. Nea flinched and groaned.

“Of course I can feel it – I don’t use shielding like you do,” she replied, as if it were obvious. “And you’re projecting like a karking youngling.”

Anakin tried to glare at her, but it fell short, his eyes starting to glass over from the combined ache of his head and his newly attached hand. He closed them instead, trying to will away the worst of it.

“Are you a healer?” he asked, his voice low so as not to aggravate his head, but still spoken with confusion, with a certain measure of curiosity. Nea grinned, shaking her head at him.

“Oh, Force no,” she snorted. “But if this is a stress headache, which I have a feeling it is-“ she looked at him pointedly “I can help to ease it. You’ll have to let me past your shields, though, and I understand if you-“

“It’s fine,” Anakin replied, too quickly. Nea raised an eyebrow, and he sighed, opening his eyes again, looking at her with that little half-smile that made her heart skip a beat.

“I said I wanted to trust you – I meant it,” Anakin breathed, his eye contact electric, almost too much for Nea to bear, her skin hot. “And –“ Anakin added, “-if I don’t get rid of this thing soon I’ll probably ram my face into a control panel somewhere, so…”

Nea snorted, shaking her head at him. Force, what a fucking dork – she was absolutely enamored with him, and her hear soared as she leaned forward, nodding for him to do the same.

“Here,” she pressed two fingers to either of his temples, and the pain in the Force intensified, both of them flinching. “I’ve got you. If you let me past your shields I should be able to look through and find whatever’s causing it. I promise not to snoop.”

“You better not,” Anakin grumbled, but it had a playful edge to it, his lips quirked in a half smile as he closed his eyes, ready for the pseudo-meditation that came from opening one’s mental barriers to another. Nea grinned back, her eyes sliding closed as well, the pads of her fingers pressed to his temples becoming her single point of focus as she breathed in, then out.

And then Anakin opened the floodgates, and she almost drowned in him.

If she thought that he usually shone in the Force, it was nothing compared to his radiance unshielded. She gasped, choking on air as she tried to steady her own Force signature so as not to get lost in him. Fuck, he was – he was everything. She could fall in love with this Force signature alone – it was so full of caring, of compassion, it spoke of a being that lived to radiate love, to protect and cherish those he held dear. There was such passion and desire in it that Nea could hardly comprehend it – the only thing that grounded her, that set her forward on her mission, was how closely his signature resembled hers in terms of motivation – they were both driven by love, by their desire to hold and support ones they cared for. However, the similarities stopped there, as her own signature was fully eclipsed by his stunning supernova.

She was finally able to move past the initial surge of him, wading through his essence, allowing the pain still resting in her knuckles to guide her – pain, she was looking for pain. She weaved through the cacophony that was his surface emotions, like a man walking a twisting forest with one hand over his eyes – she had promised not to snoop, and she intended to keep that promise. His true emotions regarding her would be here, in this outer ring of current events, short term memories, and emotional occurrences – and she truly didn’t want to know if he hated her, or tolerated her, or wished that she had been assigned to Obi-Wan – it might break her, if she had to feel those sentiments for herself, so instead she ventured forward, blind, until she caught the thread of pain and followed it.

She untangled it as she went, ripping the pain away from Anakin’s psyche – she could tell what it was connected to – guilt that he had almost doomed Rex and Artoo, regret at allowing Nea to participate in the mission, not because he thought she was incapable, but because he felt like he couldn’t protect and prepare her properly. She could tell it came from a place of camaraderie and love – a place of caring, instead of one of pity – just like the horrible, intense bundle of pain strung together around the memory of the bolt that had almost struck her straight through – the intense terror-fear-responsibility that radiated with that memory groaned within his mind as she tried to extract it.

“Anakin,” she whispered, her voice sounding as if it was underwater.

“Yes?” he replied, his voice equally dreamy and far-off.

“You have to let go,” she mumbled, “I know you feel as if it’s your duty as a General to keep your men safe, but I’m here - I’m alive and well and I can fight another day. You saved me, Anakin. I’m here.”

She tried to press that feeling into him - how safe she was now, how alive and whole. She had no idea he cared so much about his troops, about her. Then again, she considered, he radiated with compassion. Of course someone who shone this bright would care for his men deeply – would care for her deeply as well, as both his Captain and his ward, a fellow Force-sensitive that he, perhaps, enjoyed the company of.

Either way, his hold on the memory, on the stress, loosened to the point that Nea could pluck it from his mind and toss it aside, soothing over the fear memory so that it was still there, but that it didn’t hurt as much – so that it was replaced with the knowledge that it was in the past, that he had saved her regardless, that she was alive and healthy beside him.

There were a few more – nebulous balls of regret-fear, things that were laid under all the others, old trauma wounds that Anakin ripped open with each further disappointment, with each failure. She recognized Genosis among them, but she didn’t pry – these were old wounds that she couldn’t heal, but she smoothed them over, pressing some of her own contentment, her own ease and love into them until the horrible memories sank back into the depths from whence they came, and Anakin’s mind finally sighed around her, the headache receding as his own grief and self-hatred settled back into the recesses of his deep mind.

“There –“ Nea mumbled, sighing as she felt peace fall over him. She almost didn’t want to leave, now that she had settled in the golden rays of Anakin’s mind. It was like a magnetic field – she was safe, secure, protected within him, within the too-strong pull of his mind that was almost gravity itself. It emanated the warmth and comfort of a bed in the morning, like Nea was a sleeper only just waking, who knew she had to leave the plush confines, but couldn’t find the strength to disentangle herself from the rays of pure sun that enveloped her.

“It’s done,” she groaned, starting to extract herself. It almost physically hurt to weave away from him, her own Force signature snagging against his as she left. It was as if his signature tugged at hers as well – like he wanted her to stay - but she knew that was impossible.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, with one last brush of his pure mind against hers, and Nea’s heart sighed, wrapping around his final parting Force-hug, the gesture honey-sweet and lingering.

When they finally parted, Anakin raising his shields, Nea had to take a deep breath as the sun drew behind the clouds once more, only a pinprick of what she could once feel. It was cold and lonesome, but she knew it was necessary. She briefly considered the extreme mental fortitude Obi-Wan would have had in order to consistently meditate with someone so brilliant.

“Feel better?” she asked, trying to gather herself. Her hands were shaking as she pulled them away from his temples.

Anakin grinned at her, and Force, his smile was somehow sweeter now that she had felt him. She was a lovestruck idiot, almost going to putty at such a simple gesture.

“Good as new – how did you even do that?” he asked, wonder in his voice. Nea could feel her own blush, but she scoffed, brushing off his praise.

“It’s not that difficult – it’s almost like a joint meditation. I can teach you, sometime,” she added, as if it wasn’t just a selfish ploy for her to worm her way inside his mind again.

“I would like that,” he replied, pressing a hand to his forehead in wonder. Force, he was cute – Nea never thought she would find a thirst for knowledge, of all things, attractive, but Anakin had somehow managed it.

“Well,” Nea sputtered, standing up from his desk. “You’ve still got an astromech to fix, so I’m gonna go back to my room and leave you to it.”

She knew she was making a rapid escape, but fuck. If she stayed with him any longer she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep her attraction a secret.

“Oh, yeah – kark, I need to fix Artoo,” Anakin ran a hand through his hair as if he had just remembered his droid friend, and it almost made Nea laugh at his absentmindedness.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” she tossed over her shoulder as she made her way to the ‘fresher door that joined their rooms. “I’ll see you later then!”

Anakin replied with something, but Nea couldn’t hear it – she was already thundering through the ‘fresher door, breathing a sigh of relief once she was far enough away that Anakin’s Force signature didn’t have her weak in the knees.

Sithspit. This was bad.

Chapter Text

Nea didn’t know how many hours she spent meditating after that – but it didn’t do anything other than dull the thundering beat of her heart, cool the blood in her veins. Fuck, was it ever this bad with Obi-Wan? she wondered, as she tried to remember those old padawan days where every time her crush had so much had smiled – not even at her – she had felt a constricting ache around her entire ribcage as if her love could demolish her from the inside out.

It would be difficult, she knew, and she cursed Yoda and the Council for placing her as Anakin’s Captain as she finally drew out of her meditation, the biorhythms of the clones once again tuning down into the background, the hum of the ship dulling – but Anakin’s signature barely flinching as she receded. She groaned, resolving to make time for meditation in the coming days – she couldn’t live like this.

She wished, as she fell asleep, that she had an easy answer for the Anakin problem – but she didn’t. Unlike her padawan days, where she had gone weeks, sometimes months without coming into contact with the object of her affections, Anakin was just two thin ‘fresher doors away. She wouldn’t be able to put space between them without jeopardizing men, missions, and the Republic - she couldn’t just tell him (Force, she shuddered just considering it) because he was a Jedi, of all things. He was bound to his Order, and that left no space for attachments, no space for Nea. The only real option she had, was to keep her affections secret, and hope that they fade with time.

Well, she thought. It’s not like I haven’t compartmentalized my attraction before.

The next day, she awoke with a new determination, a fresh outlook, despite the looming presence of Anakin’s Force signature, which only served to nag at the back of her mind as she hauled herself to the mess hall for breakfast.

She wasn’t quite used to all the clones yet – there were so many of them, their weak Force-signatures singing in harmony from growing up together. That was something Nea always thought was unique – close friends and siblings who had been raised from a young age together had a complimentary motion in the Force – not the same, of course, and sometimes not similar at all – but they threaded together in a dance that spoke of easy friendship and familiarity. It was comforting, to be surrounded by – but also intimidating, since unlike the rest of these men, she had not been raised with them, and on their most basal, Force-influenced level, they could tell that she was an outsider - an invader, almost.

Rex, at least, knew her. He even took the chance to sit next to her at breakfast, as she munched on the bland food of wartime.

“How are you holding up?” he asked, a hint of genuine concern in his voice that Nea appreciated.

“Better,” Nea replied. “I talked to Anakin last night, smoothed things over.”

“Oh, did you now,” Rex mumbled, taking a bite of his food to avoid saying anything else. Nea raised an eyebrow at him – was he insinuating something? Or was she just projecting? Force above – had he really been able to see through her stupid crush on Anakin without even knowing her for a standard week? She really needed to meditate more often, fuck.

“Yes, I talked to him,” Nea replied, with a pointed glance. Rex returned it with the ghost of a smirk, and Nea had to avoid punching him in the shoulder – it would hurt her more than it did him, what with all of his armor.

“Mhm,” Rex hummed, clearly not taking her seriously. He was teasing her – oh, the fucker-

“Hm,” she mirrored him, and they both took a sip of caf at the same time, gazes locking out of the corner of each other’s eyes as they sipped. This was familiar – it reminded her of how her crew used to tease her – about being a Jedi, about everything under the sun. Rex was so similar to them in these small, minute ways that it caught her off guard. Nea had always thought, before, that the clones were all business - that they would be cold and procedural and hyper focused on the war. But no – even on their mission to Eriadu, Rex had a sense of humor that she understood, that she found comfort in. It was almost strange how easy it was to banter with him, the few times they had talked.

“So, Andar,” Rex changed the topic as their mugs clacked against the metal of the table. “After this campaign on Raldaka, I hear we’re getting a new squad of shinies shipped in.”

Nea raised an eyebrow. What the fuck was a shiny?

“What, like rookies?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Rex chuckled. “Rookies. Either way, it’s our job as Captains to train them up, make sure they know what the fuck they’re doing.”

“Makes sense,” She considered with a nod.

“But you’re a shiny yourself,” Rex pointed out, with a dumb smirk. Nea glared at him, and Rex continued, holding his hands up to display that he meant no harm. “Just stating a fact, Captain. You’re shiny – and I haven’t had the chance to get you familiar with the ship. How are you gonna help me out with the rest of the troops if you don’t know where the kark anything is, eh?”

Nea scowled at him, but it was a good-natured thing - an obviously exaggerated gesture that would just make him laugh more.

“If it makes you stop calling me a shiny, I guess it’s worth it,” Nea replied, and Rex barked a laugh, clapping her on the shoulder. She smiled back, laughing with him.

“Yeah, there it is! Now you’re thinking like a clone,” Rex laughed, and Nea shook her head at him. “We’ll start with the training facilities – once those shinies get here, that’s where we’ll be putting ‘em through it.”

“I’m guessing you’re also gonna put me through it?” Nea asked, a brow raised. Rex replied with a cheeky grin.

“Now, what would make you think that?”

X

X

X

Before making their way to the training facilities, Rex actually took Nea to the armory and gear storage.

His reasoning was that in order for her to be a shiny in the first place, she would first need some actual new, shiny armor – that was what had spawned the term, anyway. She had been wary, at first – armor could easily slow her down and restrict her movement, which she wasn’t the biggest fan of. She didn’t rely too much on acrobatics as a Force user, but she liked to have the option in a pinch if she needed it.

But, at the same time, she thought of Anakin – of how worried he had been, of how guilty he felt, blaming himself for the fact that Nea had almost been shot through with a blaster bolt. Maybe armor wouldn’t be such a bad idea, what with the fact that Nea wouldn’t be fighting with a lightsaber, and thus had little to no defensive capabilities by nature of the weapon she wielded.

After some consideration (and a lot of moaning and groaning from Rex, who wished she would just pick something), she settled on some shoulder and forearm plates that were large enough for her to wear over top of her jacket. Rex had urged her to just take the damn coat off, since it would make everything so much easier - but she had insisted. The jacket stayed, no matter what.

As for the rest of her armor, she declined everything except for a chest plate. She wasn’t certain if she would be wearing it often, but it would be good to have, just in case. If they were to ever see a traditional battlefront, she would feel safer with the durable plastisteel between her and the droids.

Nea secured the new guards to her jacket - the shiny white of the plating contrasting harshly with the grit and dirt of the leather - and, despite how idiotic she looked, she at least felt safer. Soon enough the plates would be covered with soot and oil and maybe even some of the blue markings she had seen on a couple members of the 501st, and then the armor wouldn’t look so out of place.

After their brief detour, Rex led her down to the training facilities. On their way, he gave her some perspective on them - the rooms were large, and one was even spacious enough for the men to drill and run maneuvers if they so chose - but they were miniscule compared to what was available for trainees on Kamino. In addition to this large multi-purpose space, the ship also boasted a small training room for physical therapy, and two shooting ranges.

“Oh, and there’s some sparring rooms. They’re equipped for Jedi - got some training sabers in ‘em, if I’m remembering right,” Rex mentioned offhand, waving towards the small rooms. Nea’s gaze whipped up at the mention of them.

“Nice. I’ll have to ask Anakin if he’s feeling up to some lightsaber training later,” Nea mumbled, mostly to herself. She had no idea if his arm would be in working condition for it, but she was itching to get her hands on a proper training saber again. Over the years she had done the best she could, trying to practice her katas and basic forms with whatever she could find, just so she wouldn’t forget what she had learned. But Force, an actual training session sounded like a dream.

“Oh, is that so?” Rex hummed, a little smirk playing on his lips. Nea frowned at him - Force, was he going to do that literally any time she mentioned Anakin? And how had he divined her attraction to him, anyway? Were the clones secretly psychic, or some other bantha shit Nea wasn’t privy to?

“Why do you keep doing that?” she finally cracked, shaking her head as they passed by the large multi-purpose room (she had to admit, it was quite impressive, but it was overshadowed by her irritation). “Acting weird as hell whenever I mention him?”

Rex snorted. “Who, Anakin?”

Nea blinked, and it hit her. Oh. Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Oh, fuck you,” she growled, and Rex cackled. “I’m not about to start calling him General Skywalker.”

That just made him laugh more, shaking his head as they rounded the corner and headed towards the shooting range. “Got a problem with authority, do you?”

“Oh, you hadn’t heard?” Nea quipped back, and they both chuckled then. “I was friends with Obi-Wan back when we were younger. It would feel weird as hell, calling his own padawan General.”

“I suppose it would,” Rex relented, holding the door to the shooting range open for Nea. She nodded at the gesture, stepping into the room. She hadn’t been to many formal shooting ranges, but it looked like one from the holos - targets set up opposite a designated shooting zone, standard-issue blasters hanging on the wall for them to choose from. She selected the same model she had used back on Eriadu, and Rex pulled out his pistols.

“But he is your General,” Rex continued, and Nea couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“Listen, if you’re here to lecture me about disobeying orders again, I’ll tell you what I told him. I’m not here to disrespect him, or purposefully disobey him, but if he tries to get himself killed for no Force-damned reason, I’m not gonna stand for it,” Nea said, short and clipped as she readied her weapon, releasing the safety and ensuring that its ammo was snugly secured. 

“Oh no, you’ll be doing plenty of that,” Rex assured her. “I’ve saved the General’s ass on more than one account myself. What I mean is that even if he’s our General, he’s still reckless. Little bit of a loose ion cannon. With Commander Tano out on another mission, the only thing standing between Skywalker and certain destruction are the two of us.”

Nea raised an eyebrow, staring at him with her mouth half open. Admittedly, she felt a little stupid for it now that he had opened his mouth, but she had always assumed that the Jedi and their clones were strict, unbreaking - that the clones were expected to follow orders without asking questions, without considering alternatives or intervening. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she had been holding at his admission, a weight lifted off her shoulders at the knowledge that, at least in the 501st, their priorities were straight.

“Well then,” Nea considered it, as she and Rex lined themselves up across from the targets, Nea sliding the butt of the rifle to her shoulder, lining up the scope. “I’m honored to be your backup.”

Rex laughed, and they fell into companionable silence as they fired off their first rounds, both of them intent and focused on their targets. Nea didn’t stop shooting until Rex did, and afterward they both lowered their blasters. Two small droids retrieved the flimsy targets from their hooks and held the results in front of the Captains – the flimsy sheets fluttering as the droids presented their results.

“Where’d you learn how to shoot, Andar?” Rex asked, letting out a low whistle as he scanned her target - the bolts had all entered through the same small area in the center of the target’s chest - or the middle of its head. “I’m guessing the Jedi aren’t too big on blaster practice.”

“No,” Nea shook her head, glancing at Rex’s own target, which was damn near as good as hers. “I learned in the Outer Rim. It’s funny that the Jedi don’t teach their padawans how to shoot - Force sensitives are ridiculously good at it. Natural sense of aim.”

“Are they now? Maybe we should get Skywalker down here sometime, see how he fares,” Rex joked, and Nea grinned at him.

They shot a few more rounds, devolving into ridiculous bets as to who could nail the most headshots. It was easy - it reminded Nea of when she had taught Soc to shoot, in that old backwoods forest somewhere in the Outer Rim. Soc had come to her flighty and terrified and full of self-doubt, so, naturally, the first thing Nea had done was shove a blaster in xer hand.

Nea grinned, thinking about it - her whole crew coming together to teach Soc, to welcome xer into their fold, to show xer that xe didn’t need to be afraid anymore. She remembered Shagra’s outlandish claims to her shooting abilities (the Pantoran had always been better with her fists then a blaster), Taen’s cheesy trick shots, the laughter that reverberated throughout the trees as Nea leaned over Soc, helped to carefully correct the kid’s form, showing xer how to hold the pistol steady.

Rex reminded her of that, in a way. Of that easy sort of camaraderie that came when you fought alongside each other. Whether it be in criminal business or in war, things seemed to remain the same, as Nea groaned, knowing that her absentmindedness had cost her the bet - and had granted Rex the right to the first blue mark on her new armor - once it was reasonably scuffed, of course.

“Finally beat ya, Jedi scum,” Rex joked, all grins as the droids displayed their pockmarked targets. Nea exaggerated a scowl back at him.

“Oh, laugh all you want for now. We’ll see who’s smiling tonight at dinner,” she reminded him with a waggle of her eyebrows. Rex groaned - one of the wagers he had lost was his right to dignity, with Nea’s declaration that he had to call his General Anakin for the entirety of dinner. Serves him right, for making fun of her.

The two were reloading, considering what they would wager this time, when the door to the shooting range creaked open.

“Hey - Nea, Rex! I thought I’d find you two here,” Anakin called, a pleasant smile on his face. He was back in his war-robes, armor in place over top of them as he jogged over to his Captains. He was in much better spirits than he was yesterday, Nea noticed - his Force signature wasn’t murky and clouded, but it was still so warm and bright that her soul ached just from him standing so close - Force, she wanted to wrap herself up in him like it was a homeostatic need. She was glad that with the absence of his headache and the recommissioning of his arm that Anakin was feeling happier, but Sith’s hells, it was distracting.

“Nice to see you, General,” Rex replied, and Nea managed to shoot him a shit-eating grin out of the corner of her eye, mouthing “General” to him until he rolled his eyes at her. Well, at the very least she could try to distract herself by mercilessly teasing Rex.

“Glad to find you well rested after all the trouble back on Eriadu,” Rex continued, making polite conversation. Anakin groaned at that, carding a hand through his hair. Nea purposefully didn’t watch him do that, willing whatever stupid fluttering sensation that resided in her stomach to go the fuck away. 

“Well, we’re in for more of it on Raldaka,” Anakin replied, expression turning grim. “I just got off comms with General Plo Koon. It’s a good thing we’re showing up - sounds like he needs the reinforcements.”

Rex made a face, and Nea frowned. “I thought the General was headed back to the Temple?”

“He is,” Anakin clarified, waving a hand as he explained. “He and General Fisto have both been heading up the siege on Raldaka - we’re providing reinforcements as well taking over command of some of his men for the time being.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the Council sent in a third battalion,” Rex mumbled, and Anakin sighed. Nea raised an eyebrow.

“That bad, huh?”

“Definitely,” Anakin groaned. “Raldaka’s an important mining world, and I’m glad we aren’t putting any civilians in the line of fire, but I wish Master Yoda and the rest of the Council would just send in another battalion or two so we could crush them and have it over with.”

The ferocity in his words startled her - the clench of his gloved fist, the way his lips downturned in a grimace. She understood it - those were his men out there, losing their lives just because the clone army was spread thin over far too much galaxy - but she had never expected to see such rage in a Jedi. Such viscous strategy, if Anakin had the power to run the Council on his word alone. 

With a chill down her spine, Nea wondered how Anakin’s Force-sun would collapse if he fell. If, when Dark, he would create an all-consuming black void just as massive.

“Well, I’m sure the 501st will do their best, sir,” Rex replied, snapping Nea out of her contemplation. She blinked, images of a Dark Anakin fading into the Force as the man made of Light itself stood in front of her, an encouraging smile on his lips as he nodded to Rex.

“Thanks, Rex,” Anakin replied, with a firm clap on his shoulder. “Also, sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering, since we had some down time, if I could steal Nea for some lightsaber training?”

Nea’s eyes lit up like stars. Hell yeah, she was down for lightsaber training!

Rex rolled his eyes at her enthusiasm, sighing as he set his rifle back on the rack. “Fine. But she’s still due for a physical assessment before the shinies get here.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it Rex, I’ll do fine,” Nea shrugged it off, and he frowned back at her, crossing his arms as Nea set her own rifle on the rack, all but skipping after Anakin, who was headed to the door. “At least you know I’m an ace shot with a blaster, eh?”

Rex just made a low grumbling noise in reply, and Nea tried not to laugh at it as she flew into the hall to follow Anakin.

Lightsaber training. Force, it had been forever - her entire being thrummed with excitement at the thought of getting her hands on a training saber again, of finally having someone to spar against, after more than a decade of isolation. She was probably going to get her ass beat, if Anakin’s immense Force signature was anything to go by. And Force, if that didn’t do her in, her crush would.

She swallowed harshly as Anakin led them to one of the training salons, the door clicking opening as he approached. Nea couldn’t help but drag her gaze over his broad shoulders, the strong back that was agonizingly obscured by layers of Jedi robes. Fuck, it was getting worse, her attraction – the realization hit her like a blow to the gut as she glanced up, thinking only of how much she would love to run her fingers through his tangle of bronze curls – the fact that she would even forgo a long-awaited sparring duel if only to –

Karking Sithspit. Nea felt like hitting herself upside the head. This was far worse than Eriadu, where she could at least appreciate the little hitch in her breath whenever she caught Anakin at a particularly flattering angle. Then, she had been able to contain it, somewhat – not release her emotions to the Force, but acknowledge them, understand their weight, and, for the most part, move past them. Yes, she made some rash decisions, but she understood them. She could rationalize them and they didn’t overwhelm her.

But ever since she slid past Anakin’s shields, into his bright, warm mind – she shivered just thinking about it. He really was golden, in every sense of the world, and it was almost too much for her to bear. If this was anything like what she once felt for Obi-Wan, she had no karking idea how her tiny preteen body had been able to contain the sheer amount of love and affection she felt spilling over.

At least Anakin seemed unaware of it, tossing her an excited smile of his own as she followed him into the room, the door sliding shut behind her. And then, it was quiet – just the two of them, as Nea tried to occupy herself by steadying her breathing, removing her jacket and its new armor, setting it down with a thump next to the door.

“Well,” she started, because Force knew she talked when she was nervous. “How do you wanna do this?”

“Start out with some stretches, move to hand to hand?” Anakin offered, with a tiny smirk. “You said you were good, right?”

Nea’s heart felt like it might explode at the thought of fighting Anakin hand to hand, but she pushed it down, locked it in the deepest recesses of her psyche, willing herself to smile back as she tried to still her beating heart at the shine of his smile, the fucking feel of his Force signature’s joy.

“Best in my cohort,” she replied instead, rolling her neck, stretching out her arms. She may have been the best in her cohort, but that was back when she was a teenager – when she was roughly the same size as most of her human opponents, only those of different species offering her a significant size difference. Force, even Obi-Wan had only been an inch or two taller than her when she was fifteen. And even though she had put her skill to work in many a bar fight and trading scuffle, she hardly thought beating the shit out of a drunken smuggler compared to the Jedi in front of her – well over six feet tall, and expertly-trained to boot.

Not to mention, he was… distracting.

“I have to admit I’m out of practice, though,” she acquiesced, cracking her knuckles. Anakin replied in turns, stretching out himself, all long limbs as he replied with a grin.

“Don’t think you can handle me?” he taunted, his smirk wicked. Sweet stars, she was going to die. She fired back with a devilish grin of her own, trying to push away the twisted web of attraction that threatened to push through the fog of her mind.

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” she replied, returning the grin as they stepped onto the designated lines on either side of the room. It brought memories swirling back as she stepped onto the small painted circle, Anakin doing the same across from her - but, in a way, those memories helped to ground her. Helped her remember how to steady herself, even in the face of her chaotic emotions.

She exhaled, clasping her hands in front of her heart in traditional salute. Anakin mirrored her, and they bowed - a display of respect and dignity that Nea hadn’t truly appreciated as a padawan - but now she used this small window of calm to center herself.

She closed her eyes, allowing her Force signature to extend itself, unravel. It didn’t matter who she was fighting - whether it was a rogue in a bar, Anakin Skywalker, or a Sith Master in the flesh. If she opened her mind to the living Force, she could feel them, sense them. And fight them. 

When she stood upright again and opened her eyes, she deftly shifted her focus - there was no use in dwelling on thoughts - whether they be rational strategies, assumptions of what would work well against Anakin’s physique and skill level, or irrational, emotional perceptions, like the curve of his smile or the bounce of his curls as he fell into a ready position. Nea did as best she could, pushing thought from her mind, focusing instead on the feel of Anakin’s movement in the living Force, the shift of his body and the tension and lax, the push and pull within the Force. Relying on instinct, on the living Force, made her strong - stronger than ever when she leaned into it like this.

She shifted her right foot behind her, easing into her ready stance as she allowed herself to fall into a half-trance. Unlike lightsaber training, which she would have to consciously dictate, due to her lack of experience - in hand to hand, Nea might stand a chance against him, if only she could remain grounded in the Force.

They circled each other - Anakin probing at her, waiting for her to make the first move. And, despite Nea’s loud, raucous nature, she usually wasn’t one to throw the first blow, instead waiting patiently for her opponent to strike, so she could redirect his momentum.

Anakin must have realized this, as he feinted and danced around her, never truly attacking. He was smarter than she had taken him for - maybe she was the fool, for assuming Anakin would be just as reckless in a sparring match as he was out in the field - as unpredictable and wild. 

She ended up giving in, the thrill of the fight too much, the Force taunt around them as Nea threw the first blow - a high roundhouse feint followed by a lower, sweeping blow, drawing upon the Force for increased power as she followed through. Anakin barely managed to dodge it - Force-quick himself as he mistakenly attempted to block the first blow, gasping as he realized his misstep and sliding backwards just in time to avoid the move that would have certainly landed him on his back.

After that, all bets were off - Anakin surged back in with a kick of his own, Nea expertly dodging it, using her hand to guide his movement as she attempted to sweep around to his back, to land a sharp jab to his kidney. Of course, he was too fast for that, redirecting her jab and leading to a fury of exchanged fists - blocked and parried and redirected in perfect synchronicity - neither of them allowing the other a blow.

She hadn’t fought like this in ages - both of them moving so fast that only through the flow of the Force could they predict each other’s movements. By now, in any other fight, Nea would have at least landed a blow or two, or taken one herself, but she was evenly matched in Anakin, in his speed and cunning, drawing upon the Force himself like he deserved its secrets, like he knew the energy would bow to him without him even having to ask. It urged her on, even though they were both breathing heavy, the Force crackling with more and more anticipation as the stakes of the fight rose, as they both pushed themselves further.

With each aborted blow, with each redirected kick, the air around them sang. All it would take was one slip, one opening - 

The Force pulled tight and Nea saw it - she didn’t even consider how unconventional her form was as she blocked his incoming punch, slipping into his personal space until she could feel the heat radiating off of him - and hooked her foot around his ankle, pressing her palm into his chest to throw him down. A dirty move, perhaps, but an effective one nonetheless.

Anakin cried out - shocked as their bubble of dancing parries broke and he toppled over - doing the only thing he could think of and wrapping his durasteel hand around Nea’s upper arm before she could block him or break his grasp -  yanking her down with him.

“Kark!” Nea cried, as Anakin used her off-kilter balance to his advantage, twisted as they fell so that he could pin her, hands on wrists as he leaned over her, triumphant grin on his face.

“Looks like I won,” he panted, his exhausted Force signature singing with the joy of a battle well-won. 

Nea only quirked a brow at him. 

“Did you?” she asked - and before he could answer, she wrapped a calf around his, slamming her hips upward as she swung her arms towards her thighs, the motion stunning him - effectively removing her wrists from his grip as he reflexively caught himself on his hands.

But she didn’t stop there - with her hands now freed, she slammed them into the crook of his elbow, tightening the twine of her right leg with his left as lifted with her hips and thighs, putting the full effort of the Force behind it as the turned the tables on him before he could even comprehend what was happening - he had already disconnected from the living Force, a jumble of rational and emotional thoughts as Nea now pinned him, pressing her whole weight onto his arms to make sure that even with his larger stature, he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

“Ugh,” Anakin slammed his head into the floor of the training room, and Nea faded out of her half-trance, grinning broad as Anakin went limp under her. “I keep forgetting you trained with Obi-Wan.”

Nea cackled, trying to grasp onto the joy of triumph rather than the warm body beneath her, the muscles of Anakin’s forearm flexing under her grip, the heat of every very intimate point of connection. She bit the inside of her cheek as she all but scrambled off of him, holding out a hand to help hoist him to his feet.

“Oh, did he pull that sort of shit with you too?” Nea grinned, hefting Anakin to his feet with a little added help from the Force. She knew exactly what he meant - Obi-Wan was easy to underestimate, and he was incredibly tricky. The only times he had ever beaten Nea were with tricks like the one she pulled with Anakin today - appearing as if he were defeated, only to spring up and strike a devastating blow or turn the tables just as quickly. It was something Nea had come to appreciate and use in her own fighting style, now that she had no Jedi ties and was assumed weak and helpless. It was also unreasonably amusing whenever anyone fell for it.

“All the time. I feel like an idiot,” Anakin groaned - whining about his defeat, Nea realized. It made her smile wide, like an idiot herself, at the tiny pout Anakin sported.

“Well, don’t,” Nea urged, giving him a playful shove in the back to snap him out of his losing funk. For a Jedi Knight, Anakin was incredibly emotional - needy, even, with how he could fall into a sour mood just from one lost sparring session. “You’re going to kick my ass when we get to lightsabers, whether I like it or not.”

That did seem to cheer him up, as ridiculous as it was - Anakin chuckled, shaking off her shove and giving her a sly grin.

“Hm. You’re right,” he replied, and Nea snorted at how self-satisfied he sounded. He was so caught up in himself that it was almost annoying - he was certainly cocky, and she was briefly reminded of Obi-Wan’s description of him - “an unreasonably overconfident man.”