Chapter Text
When Ahsoka finally awoke, she felt first that their blankets were intertwined and knotted between their legs and around their waists. She felt that Anakin had moved during the night as his body was pressed up snugly against her back. His flesh hand had found hers and their intertwined fingers rested against her abdomen. His breath came softly against one of her montrals.
Ahsoka remained still as she tried to process this. Her right hand was tucked uncomfortably close to the side she was laying on, but she didn’t dare remove it.
Thankfully so, as Anakin suddenly stirred behind her. The mattress sunk as he shifted his weight, and he pulled her into a tighter hug. “G’morning, Ahsoka,” he murmured, his voice low from sleep. He removed his hand from hers to trace his knuckles up and down her arm.
She didn’t move. She wasn’t sure if the gig was up or not, but she remained still and kept her eyes firmly closed. She felt the mattress shift again and it became much lighter under her as Anakin left the messy nest of blankets. A few moments passed, and Ahsoka heard the bedroom door open and shut. Her eyes remained closed for some minutes more, her body frozen, until she dared to peek. She was alone.
Ahsoka sat up and blinked sleep from her eyes. She certainly felt like she was at a loss now that her master was gone from her side, but at the same time, she felt like she could finally breathe. Sunlight poured into the room, not hindered by the shut blinds covering the window, and she realized that they had both slept late into the morning. She felt she had needed it since she finally felt rested for the first time in quite a while.
After sitting in the bed for a few minutes longer to fully wake up, she cast the blankets aside and left the bedroom. She stumbled through the dark hall towards the bright kitchen and saw Anakin drinking caf at the table. She side-stepped his chair and took the last citrus fruit from the bowl on the table top. The young togruta would much rather prefer a slab of sizzling meat, but she knew she wasn’t about to cook anytime soon, and she doubted Anakin would either.
She took a seat opposite her master and dared to glance at him. Their eyes met, and she held his gaze despite wanting to look away. She sunk her teeth into the fruit after peeling a portion of the skin off it. “Master Kenobi must have wondered where we were,” she ventured, and immediately regretted her choice of words as unnecessary guilt bloomed in her chest.
Anakin took a big gulp of his caf. “Snips, don’t talk with food in your mouth. And yes, but I’m sure Obi-Wan managed breakfast without us. Quinlan probably sat with him in the cafeteria or invited him to his quarters.”
“Sorry,” she replied with a piece of fruit tucked in her cheek.
Anakin smiled momentarily despite himself. “Are you feeling better?” His eyebrows furrowed as he voiced the question.
Ahsoka stared down at the fruit and absentmindedly pulled at bits of the peel. Her feelings from yesterday certainly felt muted and detached now. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Good. Let’s train today. We’re not going to stop until you beat me.”
Her head snapped up. “Master- I don’t know if...” She stopped and glanced at their lightsabers where they lay on the counter next to the front door. She paused to give it some thought, and reasoned that it would certainly help her forget the oddness of the morning.
Ahsoka attempted a smile of false confidence. “You’re on, Skyguy.”
-
Anakin had led his padawan to a balcony room of sorts, a place that he had sparred with Obi-Wan many times before, a room in which its use transformed almost daily from youngling classroom, to sparring room, to meditation room, and more.
He hadn’t lied to her. The suns had set, and the room’s lights turned on overhead, and they were still at it. They had only stopped for lunch and a couple quick bathroom breaks. Dinner had gone forgotten.
Ahsoka’s blades came down against his for the hundredth time. Anakin admired the determination in her eyes, but didn’t spare her as he pushed his blade so she had to switch into defense. Their blades went from humming to sparking viciously as he pushed Ahsoka backwards.
“You’ve been distracted this whole time,” Anakin warned her through gritted teeth. His left wrist ached at the pressure put upon it as Ahsoka’s blades fell heavily at the base of his own. (Was she trying to cut his other hand off or what?)
“And you haven’t been?” Ahsoka challenged as she pushed them towards the other side of the room. The cold night air cooled her sweat and made her skin cold, but there was no time for her body to shiver. She blocked a high blow, ducked and spun around him, and landed a harsh blow against his lightsaber.
Anakin said nothing in reply. She was right, he knew. Yesterday still clutched at his heart and mind. He had seen his padawan look sad many times, unfortunately, but something about this time felt different. In all honesty, many times she looked sad because of him, and this time seemed to have an essence of that, but it felt twisted or muddled. He couldn’t help but think she was also struggling against herself. He wanted to know why. He had always wanted to know everything, after all.
He couldn’t take it anymore. “Did I do something, Snips? Was it something I said?”
Her response was immediate, practiced, and openly false. “No.”
“Well, it’s not often that you come to me at night like that. I don’t think you’ve ever done that before, actually.”
“Can I sleep in your bed, just for tonight?”
He was already scooting over to the far side. “Come here.”
She crawled in while he separated his two blankets so they each had one. He draped the softer one over her and tucked it under her feet, sides, and chin the way his mother had done to him so, so many years ago.
“Did you have bad dreams?” He asked her as he laid back against his pillow.
“No...” she trailed off and it was evident she didn’t want to say more.
Anakin gave in and rolled over to turn the lamp off, swallowing them in darkness. Even though he faced away from her, and saw nothing but the dark, he could feel her presence so strongly. “Goodnight, Snips. Get some rest.”
“Goodnight.”
He wished he could roll over and comfort her. Instead, he screwed his eyes shut and listened to her breathe.
A flash in Ahsoka’s eyes, and she kicked behind his knee, making his leg buckle. Even then, his lightsaber blocked hers and she huffed in annoyance as he regained his footing. She stared up at him and tried for another opening.
“I’m sensing some hostility,” Anakin joked while jumping back to avoid a slash to the face.
She thought he made it sound like last night she had been a youngling coming to him after a nightmare. “I’m not a kid,” Ahsoka hissed.
Anakin’s voice, lowered and quiet, caught her off guard. “Yes, you are.” He easily pushed her back towards the center of the room. He spun his blade in his hand and readied his stance. “You’ve been through a lot, seen a lot, but that doesn’t change what you are.” The corner of his lips tugged up at a certain memory. “You’re wise, but you’re still a kid, an inexperienced padawan, with much to learn.”
Ahsoka groaned and hit his blade hard . “Then teach me!” She pushed against him with renewed strength and led them towards the edge of the room that overlooked the city. The breeze had picked up. “Maybe I don’t want to be a little kid anymore!”
Padme’s words echoed in his head, and he voiced them. “Don’t try to grow up too fast, Ahsoka,” he told her, voice calm and low.
Ahsoka huffed at those words. She found an open spot and jabbed, her right blade coming close enough to singe his outer robe, while her left blade clashed with his. Her expression was dark, and pained, as she advanced to deliver blow after blow.
Anakin was worried. She was winning, but out of anger and frustration. He couldn’t stop to reprimand her, not when he wanted to know why she was hurting. He was also a touch jealous. He could see how badly she wanted to win, and yet it didn’t blind or hinder her like it tended to blind him. “Snips-”
He didn’t have time to process it. Her foot came down against his thigh while the swipe of her blade had enough force to knock his weapon out of his hand. Her blades came down and crossed at his neck as he sat on his knees. “I win,” she said, voice strained.
Anakin held still, hands held slightly up in surrender. “You win.”
She blinked. A high-pitched cry ripped from her throat and she disabled her lightsabers, dropped them, and fell against him.
Anakin caught her in his arms and held her close as she buried her face in his neck. He rocked her, just a few times, and planted a kiss to her shoulder. He let her cry, her hot tears running down his neck and over his collarbone, and thought that his dear padawan had been crying a lot lately. Oh, and he loved her so much, so dearly, but he felt so helpless about it all.
“I’m sorry,” she croaked quietly between sobs.
He shushed her and placed a hand at the back of her head to stabilize her. “You’re alright. It’s alright.”
Their knees bumped against each other as she tried to draw closer to him. He swiftly pulled her up sideways into his lap and tucked an arm under her legs. He shushed her again as her cries momentarily rose in volume and pitch, and slowly lifted her up. He’d have to return for their lightsabers later.
-
Ahsoka took the late dinner into her bedroom and sat at the edge of her bed while she ate it. In reality, she was pushing the meat pieces around in their sauce while her mind raced.
She couldn’t even feel proud for winning against Anakin. All she felt was guilt over the same thing she had felt guilty about the previous day.
Anakin grabbed her wrist somewhat roughly. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
Ahsoka tore her arm away and hurried to walk ahead of him down the hallway. “I have not. I’ve just been busy.” She knew it was a lie. She had been purposefully avoiding him as well as everyone else. While most, like Obi-Wan, had given her space, her master was determined to pester her over it. She just couldn’t face it right now.
Anakin tried again and grabbed hold of her. “Enough!” He took hold of the handle of the nearest door and opened it, shoving them inside and closing it behind him. There wasn’t much space inside the supplies closet for him to gesture as he voiced his concerns, “For the whole week you have avoided me, and you were even completely cold towards Obi-Wan yesterday. I don’t know what’s gotten into you but you need to just come out and say what’s on your mind.”
Ahsoka backed up against the shelf behind her. “I can’t,” she pleaded. For a moment, she worried he would try and read her mind.
She felt pathetic, suddenly, being so afraid, and for making her master worry when the cause was something so stupid as having a crush on him.
Anakin gripped her arm. “Did I do something to you?”
“...No.”
Ahsoka raised a piece of meat to her lips and willed herself to chew it, albeit slowly. Her room felt cold and was dark despite the bedside lamp. Their quarters were silent, and she couldn’t help but wonder what Anakin was doing just down the hallway in his own room. She quickly pushed the idea of sleeping in his room again out of her mind.
She didn’t understand how it had all happened. She wondered how it was possible to change one’s view of someone from a brother to a romantic interest. She thought something must be wrong with her.
Nevermind that she could never measure up to Padme. What would Padme say? Ahsoka loved her dearly, and she was certain that it would hurt her friend if she and Anakin ever became more than what they were now.
Everything had changed so much. Against all odds, the jedi and clones had won against Palpatine. The fog in the Force had lifted. Ahsoka had never felt the Force to be so clear and bright before. To everyone’s surprise, Padme and Anakin had decided to be just friends. Some jedi left the order. It was clear that Obi-Wan’s faith in the Council had changed, although he remained. Anakin was granted the rank of Master after all, though it hadn’t been immediate.
Ahsoka had never spent so much time consistently at the temple since the wars began, but she had slowly gotten used to it. She wondered if she had simply spent too much time beside Anakin. Yet, that couldn’t be the cause. She was with Obi-Wan almost every day too, yet her view of him as a father never wavered into something else.
She felt she had changed a lot, along with everything else, and worried it wasn’t for the better.
Much less hungry than at the start, she set the plate on her bedside table and laid down. She curled up under her blanket and hugged her stuffed tooka plushie close, and closed her eyes against the dull light of her lamp. She didn’t want to turn it off quite yet. Although she was exhausted from their sparring, she didn’t want to fall asleep just yet. Something told her that Anakin was awake, and she just wanted to lay there with him, separated only by a few walls.
-
He knew he shouldn’t have done that in the morning. It had been too easy to roll over and hug Ahsoka, to appreciate the warmth of her skin, her gentle breathing, her peaceful expression in sleep, and the way their feet were tangled together. He couldn’t help himself - he never could when it came to something like this. Padme had received the brunt of that in the past.
Anakin sighed. He tossed and turned in bed, his lamp still on, the window blinds up to reveal the moonlight, and he tried not to think about Ahsoka, which meant he thought of nothing at all besides her.
She was too young. It didn’t matter what the laws were as they differed on different planets - anywhere in the galaxy, Ahsoka was simply too young. She was a kid at mind and heart, and Anakin was truly glad for her about that, even though it was causing so much trouble for him.
He turned over and watched the way the lamplight shined on his metal arm as he turned it this way and that. He closed his eyes and brought his arm up to hold his hand under his head. All he could see was Ahsoka.
“Kriff,” he groaned. He turned onto his other side and screwed his eyes shut tight. He didn’t know what to think about to distract himself. There were upcoming council meetings, sure. There were still bad people to deal with throughout the galaxy, too. He loved her smile, and the way she laughed, and he enjoyed their banter far too much -
“Kark it!”
“You’re not going halfsies at all,” Ahsoka argued and ripped his straw from his lips. She flicked it onto the table and used her own straw to suck the rest of the shake down.
Seated in the diner booth with them, across the table, Obi-Wan shook his head. “If your master wasn’t cheap, you’d each have your own.” He flagged the waiter down and ordered another milkshake.
“Well, jedi don’t exactly get paid, you know,” Anakin argued.
“We get an allowance, and yours is double than mine,” Ahsoka frowned.
The milkshake was made quickly and as soon as it was set down on the table, Ahsoka grabbed it and stuck her straw in. She turned her body away from Anakin as he fumbled to steal it from her. She stuck out a hand and pushed his face away.
“Snips-!” Anakin gave in soon enough, with a huff to let her know his disapproval, and sat back in his seat. A fond smile played on his lips as he watched Ahsoka.
Obi-Wan cleared his throat, and Anakin caught his gaze. The smile fell from his lips as he realized Obi-Wan might know more than he thought he did. “Oh, Kark,” Anakin whispered.
Anakin smiled at the memory, briefly, before opening his eyes to look out the window again. He wondered if Obi-Wan had him figured out, as he always did. Obi-Wan had admitted, only after everything was over and his and Padme’s relationship was broken off, that he had known about their romance. Anakin worried that now it was no different. Was he always that bad at hiding secrets? Obi-Wan had never approached him about it, at least. Perhaps he was just paranoid, he thought.
Either way, Anakin thought Obi-Wan had nothing to worry about. He wouldn’t do anything, he was sure. He couldn’t possibly do anything to alter his relationship with his padawan. She was too dear to his heart. He wanted her to have a bright future, and he didn’t think it were possible if he got her involved with himself.
Although he was resolved and determined not to do anything, that didn’t mean it wasn’t hard. When Anakin loved someone, he went all in, he knew that much about himself. It was hard to restrain himself. It became a mantra to him: she was too young, she had her whole future ahead of her, she was his padawan, the council wouldn’t allow it...
Anakin slowly drifted to sleep, the words a mere breath on his lips, “...she’s my padawan...”