Chapter Text
When later asked, Anakin will claim without hesitation that he recognized where he was by the taste of the sand in his mouth.
Whether this is true or not, Anakin does know where he is by the time he wipes his face clear, coughs up the driest of grit, and sees the suns in the sky. It’s the peak of the binary rotational cycle, which means Tatooine is getting hit by the full power of both suns, and Anakin knows that sight like nothing else. He feels his bones baking, and his skin crawls with tiny quartz and the heat of dark fabrics and the pain this planet gives him.
They were on fripping Glee Anselm five minutes ago.
“Master?”
Ahsoka.
He turns over and rushes over to her. This is bad. Shili’s a humid planet, with plenty of tree cover and tall grasses. Ahsoka isn’t meant for planets like Tatooine. Geonosis had been bad enough.
“Put this on,” he says, yanking off his outer tunics and then hesitating. Her current outfit certainly covers more than the one she wore when he first got her, but it’s still not enough. Just the tabards should unfold enough to cover her montrals and lekku and upper arms, and that silly window at the chest, but the cutouts on her legs… Should he take off his secondary layer too? It should be—
“Skyguy, is this really the time to be a prude?” Ahsoka sighs, stepping around him to pull Rex out of the sand. He stumbles when she does. “I’m fine.”
“We are peak cycle,” Anakin snaps, already using the Force to pull out what sand he can from under Rex’s armor. “You’re going to burn, Snips.”
“What cycle are you eve—wait, no, I remember this,” she cuts herself off. “Um… binary star systems rotate around each other, sometimes as short as a few hours or as long as a few months, and they project more light when in isosceles to the planet than they do when one is in front of the other, blocking it.”
“Correct,” Anakin says, smiling so brightly that his eyes squeeze shut. He shoves his outer and middle layers at Ahsoka. “Wrap up.”
“But that’ll just make it hotter,” Ahsoka whines, though she takes the fabric from him.
“You can use the Force to deal with temperature. Can’t use it to fight off sunburn. You know this.” He turns away from her and at Rex. “Your temp controls in service, Captain?”
“All in order, sir,” Rex reports. “Eh… the HUD’s saying we’re on Tatooine. That… can’t be right.”
“It is,” Anakin says, with not a little distaste. “Binary suns are rare, and few of them have inhabited planets. I can sense cities nearby, and the sand’s the right composition. I recognize the impact craters on the two moons that are actually visible, so… yes. We’re on Tatooine.”
They give him a moment.
“You sound mad,” Ahsoka says.
“Absolutely furious,” Anakin says, as lightly as he can. “I don’t like this planet. Let’s get off as quickly as possible without letting anyone know we’re here.”
“Of course, sir,” Rex says.
“You could visit with family?” Ahsoka tries.
“Mom’s dead, barely met my stepbrother all of one time, no dad.” Anakin turns on his heel until he’s pretty sure he’s facing civilization, or as close to such as Tatooine has. “Let’s move.”
They scramble to keep up with him, but Anakin ignores them. He hates this planet—though a Jedi shouldn’t hate—and he wants out.
--
Mos Espa.
Of course it’s fucking Mos Espa.
“Ma—”
“Don’t,” Anakin snaps. She jerks away from him, offended and a little nervous, which is better than shrinking away. “Basic only has the one word for master as teacher and master as owner. Everyone on Tatooine will assume you’re a slave if you call me that. Just… use my name.”
“Um… okay, Skyguy,” she says. “But we’re Je—”
“Not until we get off this rock, we’re not,” he cuts her off again. “Just keep your head down and stick close to me or Rex. I’m local enough that people can tell, and Mando or clone, a person in armor like this isn’t something anyone’s going to want to mess with.”
“I can take care of myself,” Ahsoka mutters. “And your saber’s on full display, Skyguy, and you have a famous face, and any natborn with a clone is probably going to be one of us anyway.”
He shoots her a look. “Sure, you can take care of yourself… on planets that aren’t this one, because we’re not looking to start a damn fight.”
“I won’t pick a fight!” she protests.
“But someone else might,” Rex says, oddly low. “That right, sir?”
Anakin doesn’t meet his eyes. “Young, female Togruta in good health, minimal scarring, minimal sun damage. Still needs either training or an implant. You’d sell for almost twice as much as my mother would have. Minimum thirty thousand wupiupi, probably thirty-five, possibly forty at a stretch or if they got you chipped before auction. Add on another ten if they figured out you were Force Sensitive, another twenty if they realized you were a Jedi they could ransom or use as a selling point.
“Granted, that’s only applicable after they’ve already gotten you, so we can ignore it, but the forty before that? That’s what people are hearing when they look at a girl like you. The way to stay off their target list is to make it look like you’re more trouble than you’re worth, more expensive to catch and keep than you are to sell. So, whether or not you want a fight, padawan, it will come to you if you don’t hang around one of us, because we are, visually, what makes the fight expensive.”
Ahsoka stares up at him, gauging, and then huffs and turns forward again. “Fine. Whatever you say, M—Anakin.”
He rolls his eyes.
He wants to say that he was never that naïve or sassy or annoying, but he was probably worse. Obi-Wan would have said as much. When Ahsoka steps closer and grabs at his belt like a youngling, he looks at her. She smiles, shiny and sweet, and he rolls his eyes again.
He does pat her on the head, though.
“It’s weird that nobody’s talking about the war,” Ahsoka says, tilting her head like she’s trying to get better angles on her montrals. The fabric can’t be helping, but she’s still got better hearing than either he or Rex do. “Nobody’s even commenting on Rex. That’s weird, right?”
“Not really,” Anakin tells her. “It’s Tatooine.”
“But—”
“Hutt territory,” Anakin tells her. “And this is mostly slaves and lowlifes. They’re not really… the war doesn’t touch them, because they don’t matter, not to anyone who runs the war, or fights it, or even those who suffer from it. It just… passes u—passes them by.”
And he’s getting the worried tooka eyes. Shavit.
“Come on,” he sighs. “In here.”
They follow him into a little shop, the kind of shaded repository for chilled foods. It’s expensive here, mostly once-a-year treats, and the only shop of its kind that’s even that achievable a purchase for slaves and street poor. Anakin remembers coming in here all of one time as a child, for a birthday after he’d made a sale big enough that Watto had laughed and tossed his mother an entire five-wupiupi coin for it.
“Hey there!” the cracking Nautolan behind the counter says. He looks younger than Anakin remembers, but that doesn’t mean much. The man’s always looked the wrong age, from how poorly Tatooine’s weather treats him; it’s part of why even the most cynical people didn’t really judge him for keeping a cooler shop than the rest of town. The freezers and fridges are one thing, but there are small spot coolers everywhere, and Anakin feels himself relax a little as he looks around. “What can I get for you, Ootmian?”
“Directions, hopefully,” Anakin says. He’d feel bad about not being recognized, but it has been a long time, and it’s not like he came in here often. “Is Ma Jira’s still where it used to be? I need some directions to get off-planet. We didn’t mean to land here.”
“Where you headed?” the man asks, and Anakin knows he doesn’t trust them.
“Back to Coruscant,” Anakin says.
“Even the Mando?”
“He’s GAR,” Anakin says, for all that it should be obvious.
The proprietor’s face isn’t easy to read, but it’s easier than even less humanoid species, so Anakin leans on that. The man looks confused, but unwilling to really admit to it, and Anakin can’t figure out why. Still, that’s not what he needs to know. He just wants to get out of here.
“You know Ma Jira,” the Nautolan finally says.
“Got freed by a rich off-worlder with a gambling habit when I was nine,” Anakin tells him, and there’s a flicker of the nictating membrane as the shopkeep processes that. “Listen, I’ve got military work off-planet and our transport got obliterated on landing. Nothin’ salvageable. Just need to talk to Jira, or someone else that knows the city like she does, until I can find someone willing to take republic credits.”
The Nautolan whistles. “Hard sell, here.”
“I’m sure there’s a freighter or something that’s headed for Republic space, but hell if I know anything about the who’s who now,” Anakin admits. “Just need pointing.”
“Ma—Anakin!” Ahsoka calls. “Can I get some of the frozen blue milk?”
Anakin sees every thought that crosses the shopkeep’s face. The instant he realizes that Ahsoka was about to say master. The moment he notices that Anakin has a classic slave’s name. That second of judging if Anakin is one of those slaves that, upon being freed, would turn around and purchase a slave of his own—he wouldn’t be the first. The hesitation of noting that Ahsoka’s request speaks of someone comfortable with him, not someone he owns.
“Forgive my apprentice,” Anakin says, just a little stiff. “She wasn’t really paying attention when I explained that most of Tatooine’s local shops don’t take Republic money.”
“Oops,” Ahsoka giggles, and then she calls out for Rex to looks at the non-temperature-sensitive sweets with her. “This one’s a frog!”
Anakin grimaces. It’s almost a smile.
“Apprentice, huh?” the shopkeep says, and it’s very slow. He crosses his arms, and if there were muscles on those arms, Anakin’s sure they’d be bulging.
(Owning a shop space with cooling is, in many eyes, the height of luxury on Tatooine. Anakin knows better. This is still a life of hand to mouth and stretch for bills and worrying about Hutt taxes. The reward this man has gotten is high, but the risk is almost greater.)
(He sells delicacies, after all. This is not a store to rely on a consistent demand.)
(But of course, no free man’s shop without slaves is anything other than a front, is it? Anakin knows who hides in those storage rooms and cramped fridges when Jabba’s enforcers come a’knocking.)
“She’s not used to having to clarify,” Anakin mutters. “She grew up Core.”
“More of an ‘honored teacher’ type,” the shopkeep summarizes.
Anakin shrugs. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s… yeah.”
Eloquent, he tells himself.
“General Skywalker, are you sure there aren’t any currency exchange offices?” Rex asks, sounding exasperated. It’s not the first time the question’s been posed, but maybe he’s hoping a local local will know more, or he’s just getting annoyed with Ahsoka, or he really does just want a frozen frog creams.
“Nothing that doesn’t have an obscenely high tax,” Anakin calls over. “Like I told you the last five times.”
Anakin doesn’t turn, and Rex doesn’t take off his helmet, but neither of these facts stops Anakin from knowing that eyes are being rolled at him.
“Skywalker?” the Nautolan asks, even slower than before. “Like Shmi’s boy?”
Anakin feels his face freeze. He tries to keep the anger off of it. Mostly, he just twitches. “Yeah. I’d rather not talk about it. Look, can you just tell me where Jira is?”
“Hold on,” the man says. Anakin really wishes he remembered his name. “Why do you not want to talk about—you have the same name. There are only so many Anakin Skywalkers, that’s—”
“She’s two years dead, can you drop it?” Anakin snaps. “No, I don’t want to talk about Shmi Skywalker. I just want to get off of this rock.”
The Nautolan stares at him. He puts a hand over his lower face.
He stares a bit more.
“What?” Anakin demands.
“Uh, Skyguy?”
“Not now, Snips.”
The Nautolan holds up a hand, a silent but obvious request for just a moment longer to think.
Anakin is this close to just walking out.
“You think Shmi Skywalker is dead,” the Nautolan repeats, blankly.
“Excu—I know she’s dead,” Anakin cuts himself off. I held her in my arms as she gasped her last breaths, asshole.
“Shmi Skywalker, Watto’s mechanic,” the man continues. “Daughter of Lesyan, daughter of Umira. That Shmi Skywalker.”
“Yes,” Anakin grinds out. “That Shmi.”
The man stares at him a bit more. “Okay. So… I saw Shmi Skywalker, that Shmi, three days ago, buying pallies in the market. She’s got a six-year-old with your name. I’m going to go ahead and guess that you two are related somehow—not asking questions—and that you both were told the other was dead?”
It’s Anakin’s turn to stare.
“General Sk—”
“That’s not possible,” Anakin croaks out. His throat is—it feels like there’s something stuck in it. Dry and swollen and ugly. He can’t swallow. He can barely breathe. “That’s not—she’s dead, I know she’s dead, you’re lying.”
“I swear to you I’m not,” the man insists. “Gardulla gambled her to Watto, what, three years ago now? I know her, she’s a fine woman, you—oh, okay, we’re going down.”
It takes Anakin more than a moment to realize that the man is talking about him. That Anakin, like a shiny trooper fresh from his first battle, is staggering back against a wall and falling, not even to his knees, but to sit and—and—
“I’ve got you Master,” Ahsoka says, her arms hooked under his as she lowers him down. “Um, Skyguy, I mean.”
“My—” Anakin cuts off, sucking in a deep breath that tears at his throat. The air’s too cold for his lungs right now. “She—”
“I think we need some privacy,” Rex says, probably not to Anakin. “Please, er, don’t mention us to anyone. We need to figure out how to—General, let’s go, we can find a—okay, Commander, you take him. Sir, I’m sorry, we need to… handle this.”
“The little one’s military too?”
“I’m not little!”
“Something like that. General, just give us a moment—”