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Ahsoka blinked, brow ridges furrowed. “I didn’t know you had been… I didn’t know.”
Anakin shrugged. It was easier to ignore it all if it was simple. And it was; he’d been a slave, he’d belonged to Gardulla, then to Watto, then to Qui-Gon Jinn. After that was a little blurry, but he’d made as much peace with it as he was going to with the war on.
Padmé came back into the room with a tea service and a very appropriate amount of cookies. “Anakin was born into slavery on Tattooine,” she started.
“Oh! You’re from Hutt space! That explains so. Much.”
“Thanks, Snips.” Anakin rolled his eyes. There was a bolt in his hand that needed tightening. It was barely loose, but still. He picked up the wrench again.
“Did the Jedi save you, like Master Plo saved me?” Ahsoka’s eyes were bright. Anakin looked at her and forced a soft smile.
“Sort-of,” he said, continuing to tweak his arm.
“We met him during the siege of Naboo, when Qui-Gon freed him and made him a Jedi,” Padmé explained.
Anakin bit his cheek. Thanks, Padmé.
Obi-Wan coughed politely.
“I would not put it that way, my love.”
“What way?”
Oh good, we’re doing this now, Anakin thought. That bolt really did not want to lie flat.
“Qui-Gon didn’t free him. I don’t think, technically, Anakin’s enslavement codes have ever been dissolved from the registers.”
Stupid bolt. Anakin was not going to be able to hide from this conversation.
“But when we went back to Shmi’s home, Qui-Gon said—”
“Qui-Gon said a lot of things. Snips, let’s go on a drive.”
“So, why are we in a speeder above city altitude limits?”
“So I can do this,” Anakin grit his teeth and punched it, sending them hurtling toward the horizon at nearly the maximum speed of the little city cruiser that had been available at a moments notice from Padmé’s apartments. Their heading was parallel to approved launch vectors for anyone departing the atmosphere, and Anakin felt he was being remarkably safe. He leaned back and let the sense of wind and lights flowing past them, the Coruscanti cold, and the cold of the upper atmosphere ground him.
“This was… not how I planned to tell you.”
“You planned on telling me‽”
He shook his head.
“Obviously I didn’t plan on telling you, Snips. It was rough.”
Ahsoka was quiet for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I never knew anything about you. As a youngling the Padawans were something we gossipped about, but I never paid attention to that. I was busy.”
“And you stayed that way, huh?” Anakin asked. He’d heard about some of her misadventures in the room of a thousand fountains, and that was only the tip of the iceberg, and afterwards she’d become his Padawan.
“Yeah, yeah I did. Master Plo found me about the same time you were inducted, and so I was paying even less attention—”
“Plus you were a toddler.”
“Are you saying I’m as skilled at gossip as a toddler?”
“Yes.” Score one for team deflection. Score zero for team actually talking about this with his Padawan. He sighed. “Ahsoka…”
“Yeah?”
“You really feel like Master Plo saved you?”
“Of course?” Ahsoka looked at him like he’d grown three extra heads, her hand flying to her shoulder to check that the failed implant scar was both still there, still healed, and still most importantly incomplete. Anakin’s own itched, far more complete. “I know this mission was rough, but I absolutely feel like Plo saved me. I know he saved me.” She inhaled. “You don’t feel that way?”
Anakin exhaled. Yup, this was something he was doing.
“Qui-Gon bought me. He said it like he freed me, but he bought me.” He tuned out Ahsoka’s gasp. He wasn’t going to be able to get through the explanation if he listened to her for it. He hoped that would be enough, and wouldn’t end in disaster. “The Naboo queen landed on Tatooine in need of parts, and Master Qui-Gon walked into the store owned by the Toydarian who also owned me and my mom. He entered me in a pod race and wagered my contract versus the pod I built and raced in. He won me, and then we left Tatooine.”
“And then he freed you?” Ahsoka cut in.
His eyes slammed shut, as half the molecules in his body found themselves back in the swamps of Naboo, outside the assembling Gungan war machine. The other half threatened to freeze solid and immolate as one, and he pulled his shields tighter and tighter until he was back in the here and now.
“He… did not. And I think I’d need to talk to Obi-Wan before I say anything about the siege of Naboo, but yeah. He bought me, and then he died. My slave tracker was right here,” he said, leaning forward to point between his T9 and T10 vertebrae. He didn’t tell her it was still there. He definitely didn’t tell her it was still partially active.
“Oh,” Ahsoka said after a few minutes. “And Padmé doesn’t…know all that?”
Anakin laughed, and it was a pained, raw, sound.
“I don’t really talk about it? She was there, she knows he bought me. I don’t think she thought about it much, she’s… not from the core, but not from the rim. She didn’t know there were still slaves, when we met.”
Ahsoka was quiet again.
“I see why we needed to come out here. Can we maybe go back now?”
Ahsoka was shaking slightly, and Anakin flipped the speeder in a very necessary vertical loop to revert the heading back to the senatorial apartments.
Landing was easy. Getting out of the speeder was also easy, but neither of them wanted to be the first to do it. As one, Ahsoka and Anakin sighed, made eye contact, and swung out of the speeder.
The door to Padmé’s apartments was similarly frightening, but having already gotten out of the speeder it was much easier to enter their private rooms. Anakin did his best not to slink into the sitting room behind the main door, but Ahsoka made no such attempt. She needed the emotional support of their whole family, and Anakin probably did too, but he really, really did not want to acknowledge it. The scene that greeted them wasn’t as scary as it could have been, and Anakin shoved that mental image back down with everything else he was focused on not feeling. Obi-Wan was seated with his arm around their wife, and Padmé didn’t look murderous. He was so, so not looking forward to this conversation.
“Anakin, I’m so sorry.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, gently. “I shouldn’t have brought it up like that out of the blue, and I shouldn’t have tried telling your story like that without your input, I—”
Anakin held up a hand.
“Wait. What?”
Padmé looked at him, confused. Obi-Wan also looked confused, but at both of them. Ahsoka swiped half the remaining cookies and swept herself into the farthest armchair. Smart girl.
“What do you mean, Anakin?” Obi-Wan tried.
“I mean why is she—why are you apologizing?”
“You stormed out,” Padmé started. “I thought I had… scared you, or that you were angry, and well, Obi-Wan and I talked. I was worried.”
Anakin relaxed, slightly, and moved farther into the room. He took a seat on a cushion facing his loves, but still close enough to Ahsoka just in case. Just in case of what? he asked himself, and didn’t answer.
“What did Obi-Wan say?”
“Well, he started by explaining that Jinn never— that he didn’t— ugh! And I thought he was at least a good Jedi if not a good man!” She sighed. “He explained to me how Master Qui-Gon Jinn never actually freed you, that he actually purchased a slave, you, that—” This time she cut herself off, eyes darting to Ahsoka. It was nice, that Padmé thought about Ahsoka like that. Anakin wasn’t surprised, but it still caught him by surprise, that more people than just he and Obi-Wan cared for the girl in his care.
Anakin looked to Obi-Wan. The next secret was Obi-Wan’s, if he chose to share it. They could only protect Ahsoka so far, and while she didn’t need to know what else had happened, she might want to, and Anakin did not know how to tell what was appropriate for her to know.
Obi-Wan nodded first to him, then spoke.
“Young one, I’m sorry.” His words to Ahsoka were as true to heart as they always were. “You may wish to leave this room at any time during this conversation, and I will not fault you should you choose to do so. None of us will.”
Her eyes were wide and she retreated farther into her mountain of treats, nodding.
Padmé closed her eyes, and began again. “I knew what he did to you,” she gestured to Obi-Wan, “not all of it, obviously, but enough. And I knew that he’d done some of that with you,” Anakin’s turn, “but not… it’s somehow worse. To know.”
Ahsoka looked confused, and Anakin groaned, and started to say—and Obi-Wan cut him off.
“You are aware, Ahsoka, what much of the galaxy assumed of Jedi Padawans, before the war?” She nodded, and grimaced. “My Master made no attempt to dissuade Anakin of that idea, prior to his death.”
If it were possible, Ahsoka’s face fell even further. So, too, did Padmé’s.
“Obi-Wan, can you please explain that to me?” the Senator asked quietly, and it was very much her senate voice. Ahsoka stood up immediately, and simply took the tray of sweets in her hands before leaving for another room. The door whooshed behind her, and the trio could hear the blast door clicking in behind it before soft music started to play. Soundproofing for human and near-human hearing was not sufficient for a species of echolocating ambush hunters.
“Explain what, my dear?” That was Obi-Wan’s Negotiator voice, too. Kriff.
“Qui-Gon raped us both, Padmé.”
Silence. Oops.
“Anakin, I am going to take a deep breath. Once I finish that, one of you is going to explain to me in sufficient detail to get the point across and not a micrometer less, exactly what happened between you two and Qui-Gon Jinn.”