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“Padmé!” Anakin called, and before she even had her eyes open, a loud clattering of metal and banging of… something… had her leaping from her bed and palming at her door handle to get out as quickly as possible.
Just outside her door, she ran smack into her roommate, Tsabin, stumbling out of her door in a similar state of panic and confusion. The neck of her t-shirt stretched over one shoulder, she rubbed her eye with her fist and groaned.
“Do you know what time it is? Get your boyfriend,” Tsabin growled through gritted teeth. “Before I get him for you.”
“I got it, I got it…” Padmé put a hand on her shoulder, spinning her back toward her room. “Go—” She turned her head away to yawn. “—back to bed, it’s fine.”
Her friend wasted no time rolling her eyes as she walked back in her room, pouncing onto her bed. “I mean it!” she said, throwing the blanket over her head.
Padmé sighed, running her fingers through her hair. It was too damn early to be dealing with either of them.
“Padmé!” He yelled again.
“Whaaat,” she whined, stomping her feet as she came out into the open living space. “Why are you up? What are you even…” Her words tapered off when she saw he was lying on the floor, smushed between the cabinet and the fridge with all of her of pots and pans in his arms and lap. “What are you doing?”
“I can explain, I swear. I have a good reason.”
She walked over to him, crouching down to remove things from his arms one by one until they had picked everything back up and he was brushing off his pajama pants. “I love you, but you are such a disaster sometimes.”
“I know…” He said, glancing downward and kicking at the ground softly.
She took his face in her hands, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Please tell me. Why are you digging through my cabinet at quarter after 6 in the morning?”
“Ahsoka text me in the middle of the night saying she was sick and asked if I had any medicine from when we took care of Kenobi. So I thought I could make her soup to take over… I don’t have the exact recipe or anything, I was gonna try to get it as close to the way mom used to make it, though.”
The sweet sound of remorse in his tone for waking her up, coupled with his puppy dog eyes, made it impossible to actually be upset. Especially when he was being the kind of big brother everyone deserved. The person everyone should have. When people looked at Anakin, she doubted many of them saw how kindhearted he truly was under those unpolished outer layers. She, on the other hand, understood the real him after being on the receiving end of that dedication driving him to do ridiculous things like attempting to make soup just barely after dawn.
“Baby, I adore what a good man you are. But…” She carded her fingers through his hair, bringing him closer to her. “If Ahsoka was up then, don’t you think she might be sleeping and not looking to eat yet?”
“Maybe,” he murmured, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “I just wanted to have it ready so I could take it over as soon as possible.”
“Has she texted you since then?”
“Well, no…”
“Has Barriss?”
“No.”
“Then she’s probably sleeping. Right?” She trailed her hands down his back slowly, kissing his jaw. “Like you should be.”
“But—”
“Please. No buts. I will help you make something, but not at this hour. Let me text my mom to get her famous chicken and rice recipe. I’m pretty sure I already have everything we need anyway and I promise it works.”
She took him by the hand, walking backwards toward the hallway. Her mom’s soup was unmatched. It was the only home remedy Padmé actually believed in because there wasn’t a single ailment her, Sola, her dad, or her nieces had faced that wasn’t cured almost instantly by whatever it was her mom put in that dish. And Ahsoka wouldn’t be the first to not be healed, either.
“I’m starting to wonder what me and Ahsoka would do without you,” he said, his lips curving up into a slight smile.
“You’d be noisily making canned soup in the community kitchen. Probably getting yelled at by an RA. Duh,” she added playfully, tugging on his shirt while she climbed back into bed.
“And instead of that, I just get to be yelled at by you.”
She thwacked him with her pillow as he flopped down beside her. “I saved you from the yelling, actually. Sabé was about to rain fire down on you.”
“Sabé is always ready to rain fire down on me.” He laughed, snatching the pillow away to tuck under his own head.
“That’s only because she loves you.”
Echoing each other almost perfectly, a groggy voice from the other room yelled, “No, I don’t,” followed by Anakin’s shake of the head, saying, “No, she doesn’t.”
Padmé didn’t believe that, but the way her boyfriend and best friend danced around one another in their love/hate relationship amused her to no end.
“Whatever, I know better.” She pulled his arm with her as she rolled over and slid down under the covers. "Now, let's go back to sleep."
“Are you sure it tastes alright?” He asked, a little more than skeptical.
After they ended up with 3 pots of broth, one that was too salty, one that barely tasted like anything more than water, and one that was almost edible, he gave up and let Padmé take over. She salvaged the almost edible one and promised to work on the excessive amount of leftovers to see if it could be saved also while he was with Ahsoka. What they were going to do with that much chicken noodle soup was beyond him, but with cold and flu season in full swing… Maybe they could just start a soup delivery service.
“Ani, it’s perfect. Trust me.” She glanced over at the glass bowl he planned to take to Ahsoka, cooling on the countertop while she took another bite. “Do you need me to go with you?”
“No, no. I got this. I’ve been taking care of Ahsoka for years.” Sort of… He’d been trying to take care of her for years, but that’s the part that mattered, right?
“Okay, then. I’ll see you when you get home.”
“Good luck with the rest of the soup,” he added with a cheeky grin.
“Oh, thanks a lot. It’s on you to figure out what to do with it!”
He kissed Padmé’s forehead, gathering up the box of tea she bought while they were out buying ingredients after they’d used up everything she already had, along with the soup and Padmé’s ridiculously fluffy powder blue throw blanket. If all of this didn’t get Ahsoka well, nothing would.
“I’ll come up with something. Just give me a few.”
“Hi…” Ahsoka opened the door looking like death warmed over, the hood of her jacket pulled tightly around her face, her nose slightly red and voice full of congestion. “I feel like garbage.”
“You look like it too.”
“Thanks. I can always count on you to know just what to say.”
“Absolutely. I’m here to save the day,” he said, walking past her to unload his arms. “I even brought soup.”
“At least that actually sounds helpful.” Ahsoka shuffled behind him, dragging her feet in her slippers. “I haven’t eaten anything all day. Nothing tastes right. Can’t taste anything.”
Then why did I stress myself over this?
“Well, you have to eat something. Padmé helped me with this. It’s not mom’s, but it’s close.”
“Ohh,” she groaned, pulling out a chair to sit down. “Mom’s was the best… Even when she ruined it by putting carrots, or little pieces of celery in it. I miss it so much, like all of her cooking.”
His sister's words voiced his inner thoughts. Some things just would never be the same and a world without her cooking was one of them. Even if some of her 'specialities' were just random ingredients thrown together from the pantry when she was between paychecks and couldn't afford many groceries, they were better because mom made them.
“You do know that stuff was in there on purpose, right?” Anakin laughed, grabbing a smaller bowl from the cabinet.
She sniffled, shaking her head. “Does not mean I liked it.”
“But you ate it.” He put a spoon in the bowl, setting it in front of her. “So, eat this. There’s no carrot or celery.”
There used to be, but he and Padmé meticulously picked them out before bringing it over here. Padmé said he was being ridiculous and there’s no way Ahsoka would care now that she wasn’t a kid. Part of him wished she was there just to see how wrong she was. He knew his sister like the back of his hand. It was impossible to forget her unnatural hatred for carrots in soup, and don’t even get her started on vegetable beef.
Ahsoka took her spoon and swished it around, eyeing the bowl cautiously. “Better not be,” she grumbled.
“You’re impossible.” Anakin grabbed a trash bag from under the sink, looking through the open door of her bedroom. Clothes were tossed all over the floor, her sheets were in a tangled bunch at the foot of the bed, and there was a growing collection of water bottles on the nightstand. All of it was completely out of character for her. But most of all… “Ahsoka, you have tissues everywhere in here. Why don’t you have a trash can in your room? How many boxes did you go through to have this many? Twelve?” He crinkled his nose, wishing he remembered to bring gloves with him.
“Leave me alone. My nose won’t stop running.” She looked up at him, with her bottom lip jutted out. “I'm sick. You have to be nice to me.”
“Have to? I’m gonna remember this the next time I ask you for a favor.”
“Hey,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “You chose to come over here. I was doing just fine. All I asked you for was DayQuil.”
“That Ahsoka-shaped hole in the center of your bed says otherwise.”
“Hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” He tapped his knuckle on the table. “Keep eating and I’m gonna work on the rest of this place.”
She narrowed her eyes at him before returning to her soup, mumbling something too quiet for him to hear.
Ignoring her, he went to work, consolidating water bottles, throwing out the empty ones, filling half of a grocery sack with used tissues and the two empty boxes they originally came from, and throwing all her dirty clothes and sheets in the hamper to take back with him to Padmé’s. His comment earlier that morning was both rhetorical and legitimate, because what would they do without her? For sure, he’d spend the entire night at the laundromat at least twice a week and they’d never have homemade food. Plus, he probably would’ve lost his mind several times by this point.
Anakin still remembered how much he cried when Shmi told him he was going to have a little sister. It sounded like the worst idea he’d ever heard in his whole five years of living. He tried to reason with his mom that a puppy would’ve been a much better choice, that he would’ve been able to help if they got one of those instead, and surely it wasn’t too late to change her mind. If he focused really hard, he could still hear his mom’s laughing reaction to his proposal. The way she pulled him into her arms and kissed his forehead, promising it didn’t mean she loved him any less or ever would, was so clear in his mind, like it happened yesterday. He didn’t believe her then, but she told him there would be a day she would need his help with a baby more than a puppy. That wasn’t what he wanted to agree to, but pretty quickly after she was born, it was clear his mom’s word couldn’t have been more true. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to protect or care for her.
By the time he had the place cleaned up again and was done reminiscing, he could hear her snoring in the next room with her face buried in her arm.
Anakin gripped her shoulder, shaking her softly. “Soka, wake up.”
“No,” she whined, shrugging his hand away and turning her head.
“Ahsoka, let’s go. I cleaned your room so you could get back in bed.”
“Don’t wanna get up. Go away…”
He rolled his eyes, taking the empty bowl from her and setting it in the sink. “I’m not going away.”
“Ugh…” She sat up, squinting her eyes when she looked at him. “Fine, I’m up.”
“C’mon. Back to bed.”
She took his hand while he hauled her back to her feet and pushed her toward her room.
“Are you leaving?” Ahsoka grabbed the pack of tissues from her desk as she crawled into the neatly made bed.
“Are you feeling better? Do you want me to?”
“Not really,” she whispered, blowing her nose for what Anakin figured was the millionth time, at least.
“Then no, I’m not. Scoot over.”
He moved the box of tissues out of his way as she wiggled toward the wall on the bed. Anakin threw the fluffy blanket over his sister when she snuggled into his side.
“Can’t believe you cleaned my room,” she said with a soft snort, muffled by the sleeve of his shirt. “You barely clean your room.”
“Remember that favor I said you’ll owe me? What did you think that was gonna be?” He leaned back against the pillows, turning on the small tv across the room.
Ahsoka smacked his chest, pushing him dangerously close to the edge of the bed while he grinned. “How are you the best and the worst at the same time?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is perfect.”
“I think the word is idiot,” she said, sniffling again. “What did you do with my tissues?”
“You knocked them on the floor when you were being ungrateful.”
“I was not being…” Her face scrunched up, wrinkling her nose.
He furrowed his brow looking at her. "What is it?"
“I think I’m—” She lunged over his lap, scrambling to find them before she sneezed on him instead. "—gonna sneeze."
“Ahsoka!” He shrieked, pulling his arm back with disgust.
“Sorry…” She looked up sheepishly, sniffing and holding the box in her hands. "Need a tissue?"
He sighed, grabbing tissues to clean himself up as quickly as possible. “Great. Now I have your germs all over me. If I get sick, guess who I’m calling?” He fished his phone out of his pocket to quickly text Padmé telling her not to get rid of a single ounce of that soup.
“Padmé?”
Probably, he thought. She would definitely be the best choice, considering how much she helped him today. Plus, would he ever actually turn down an opportunity to have his girlfriend fuss over him? But that wasn’t the point right now.
“No. You. So I can sneeze on you as payback.”
She scoffed. “You’re the worst best brother ever.”
“And you’re the worst best sister ever. Guess we’re two peas in a pod.”
“I want my own pod.”
“Yeah? Thanks, I sure love you too.” Anakin chuckled, pulling her back into his side and kissing the top of her head.
“You’re welcome.” She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his chest with a yawn. “Love you, Anakin. Really.”
“Back at you. And always will.”