Chapter Text
“What-” His voice rose in volume in a mere moment. “No, I’m not going to adopt Ahsoka, that’s insane!”
“I’m not asking you to adopt her, Anakin, I just need you to take care of her for a while. While I get settled with this job.” Obi-Wan’s voice managed to stay calm throughout his sentence, despite the pinched look on his face from his exasperation.
“Send her to a boarding school, I don’t care, but not with me.” Anakin sounded seconds away from hitting the end call button, but held on to hear what Obi-Wan had to say.
“I know you two aren’t close-”
“You’ve got that right.”
Obi-Wan ignored him. “But this isn’t just for her, I can’t be on this job twenty four seven, knowing she’s home alone all day every day. I need you to take her, if nothing else, out of guilt for me.”
“You’re really pulling that?”
“Yes, I’m really pulling that.” He sighed, picking his next words carefully. “Six months. I promise after six months, I’ll figure this out. If it doesn’t work out for me to do this job, then I’ll take Ahsoka back. And if it does we’ll find another way. But you need to give me this, Anakin, give me six months and we’ll figure it out.”
Anakin didn’t respond right away, instead picking those moments to carefully craft the next sentence, likely the nicest way to decline.
(Who was she kidding, Anakin wouldn’t bother picking a nice way to decline, he never was about sugar coating anything.)
“Give me time to think about it.”
Obi-Wan nodded, and a moment later he was off the call. Ahsoka turned back towards the stairs where she was supposed to be climbing down so it didn’t look like she was listening in on their call like some little kid, but she couldn’t make herself move.
Sure, they weren’t close, but knowing he was so against it? That hurt.
More than it should have.
He left when she was nine, when he was impersonal and she was bratty, and neither of them really cared. Anakin had just turned eighteen and went to college in New York, and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka were still living in Oakland. That is, until recently, when Obi-Wan had informed her of his new job.
The one that would make him move.
Without her.
She’d grown up under his guidance and Qui-Gon’s, and more recently just the former. Now she was going back to live with the brother she’d barely had more than three sentences in a conversation with, for an undetermined amount of time.
(Obi-Wan had told her six months, but she didn’t believe him. Not when he was buying an apartment instead of renting, and he was no longer pushing away her talk of going to college early.
The thoughts scared her.)
It was when Obi-Wan’s desk chair moved she finally made herself scurry down the stairs.
Anakin didn’t want her, and she didn’t want him, but this was the situation she was forced into: spending too much time with a brother she didn’t know, wishing desperately that she loved him or at least had better memories with him than him coming home drunk at seventeen years old in a country with a drinking age higher than that.
Back on the sofa, Ahsoka sighed. She could do it. She could do six months.
The real question was, could Anakin?
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“Promise you’ll text me when you’re on the plane, and when you land?” He fussed, wrapping her up in one more hug. “I talked to Anakin, he said he’d be there to pick you up. Text him when you land too, just so he’s not late.”
“I promise I’ll text,” Ahsoka responded, not at all eager to let go. She couldn’t be sure when the next time was she’d get to hug him like this, and some part of her reminded her of all that being a celebrity protection officer entailed. There was a chance- be it small- she wouldn’t get to hug him again. “You’re being a mother hen,” She complained with a soft smile to keep up appearances.
Obi-Wan didn’t let go to apologize, only laughing into her shoulder. “I have to. It’s in my job description.”
“Your fancy new job description,” She began, pulling apart. “Of ‘Head Personal Protection Officer’.” Ahsoka smacked his arm in a joking tone, pulling her backpack back over her shoulder. “Tell me how that goes, when you start.”
He nodded, and a moment later offered, “I will.”
She looked him over one last time, from head to toe, khaki pants with too many pockets and a coat thrown over a grey t-shirt included. She memorized the classic look before beginning to turn towards security.
She was about to walk away- turn towards the plane and get ready for the next season of life- when something stopped her.
Ahsoka turned, faced her brother, and tackled him in one more hug.
“I love you Obi,” Was muffled by his shoulder. “I’ll see you soon.” She told herself that, knowing that if she didn’t she might break down during her departure as she thought of her brother. The brother that took on the role as a father when no one else could.
Ahsoka took a step back and ignored the tears in his eyes (and the hidden ones in hers), stepping through the doors towards security.
She was ready.
========
Her too-long flight landed, and she was alone.
Not because she didn’t have a seat mate, the man next to her was actually quite nice but he was heading in the opposite direction, and no one was outside the gate waiting for her.
Not Anakin. Not anybody.
And that in and of itself was enough to bring tears to her eyes. That no one cared enough to be on time, not even her own brother.
(Well, they were off to a great start, now weren’t they?)
So she sat at a table outside a coffee shop, with twenty dollars to spend and her leg anxiously tapping. It was then that she realized her phone was still on airplane mode and no matter how many times she checked, she would never receive the notification she was after.
A few seconds, and they came flooding in. One from Obi-Wan, asking if she landed, and one from Anakin.
“Sorry I’m not there yet, I should be there half an hour after you land.”
Half an hour.
It had been ten minutes, fifteen, twenty, and at thirty she stopped looking at her watch because it wouldn’t matter anyway. But she stared intently at the front doors until a man with a grease stained shirt walked in, searching for someone.
His eyes locked on Ahsoka, and she recognized the scar across his face and the eyes she’d grown up staring into.
Ahsoka took three marching steps towards him, fire in her eyes, emotions running wild.
“You were supposed to be there, Anakin! You’re late, and I was stuck with my overpriced coffee and a stale bagel, waiting for you.” For a moment she saw something akin to sympathy in his look before he registered her anger. And oh how did he like a good fight.
“It’s not my fault I was stuck in freeway traffic!” He argued, spitting back.
She shook her head. “Yes, it is, because you left your fourteen year old sister alone in an airport for forty five minutes.” She breathed heavily, one in, one out. Their eyes locked, and any fire left in hers melted away in an instant. “But for real, that was really scary, I’m sorry for yelling.”
Anakin didn’t react right away to her hug, but it didn’t take long before he gently wrapped his arms around the girl, as if afraid she was going to break, unsure of how to handle the situation.
A moment after she pulled away again, he spoke, awkwardly looking towards the floor. “And I’m really sorry I’m late. And for yelling.”
Ahsoka nodded briefly. She could do this.
She had to keep telling herself she could do this because right now, as she realized her first words to her brother in multiple years were that of fire and screaming, she wasn’t so sure she could.
But she’d try.