Archive of Our Own ^beta

Obi-Wan has had three steady relationships. There was Quinlan, all through high school before he left to go backpacking/join the Interpol/hide from a drug cartel; Satine, all through university before Anakin and Ahsoka staged an intervention because Obi can not marry the perfectly nice but incredibly neurotic and slightly racist next in line to the Monégasque throne, come on; for the last six years it's been Cody, who makes Anakin wish they had just left well enough alone with Satine because with Cody it's serious enough that he's taking Obi away. First Cody stole him all the way to their swanky two-bedroom apartment in SoHo, and now—

"Auckland," says Ahsoka, smiling so very big Anakin feels insane. How is she happy about this? "Remind me, that's a city in—" 

"New Zealand," says Obi promptly. Cody settles a hand on his knee. 

"New Zealand," echoes Ahsoka. "Right." Her smile, somehow, gets even bigger. Anakin wants to wail. "Wow. Congratulations! When's the wedding?" 

"September fifth," says Cody. "Our anniversary." 

"That's soon," says Ahsoka. "Right when the summer ends." Still smiling. "Wow." 

"And you'll be moving to... Auckland. Right after the wedding?" asks Anakin. 

"That's the plan," says Obi, grinning nervously. He blindly clutches for Cody's hand. "So?" 

Anakin hears the word come out of his stupid mouth like they're someone else's. "I am... so happy for you both. Marriage! Auckland! Wow! This is going to be so great!" 

The sun sets and Obi-Wan and Cody leave them with Tupperwares of baked ziti, pork tenderloin, and a whole brown sugar roulade. Ahsoka sweeps the tiny kitchen, fixes herself a plate, and climbs out on the fire escape to sit with a spliff and the rush hour traffic and her inarticulable dread. 

Anakin pokes his head out. “Do we have insurance?” he asks, clambering out to join her in her hot pink gym shorts. “I never thought to ask.” He snags a mouthful of food then waves his prosthetic arm about. “Who paid for this?” 

“Obi-Wan,” says Ahsoka. She takes the fork and gives him the weed. “He did. Or his work did. We’re gonna have to get jobs with insurance now.” 

“Like what?” 

“I dunno.” The ziti’s so fucking good. She hates Cody five percent less. “Maybe you should go to college.”

“No.” 

“A job at Obi’s company?” 

Anakin’s mouth contorts like she shoved him face-first into the pile of trash that’s been festering at the end of the street for a week under the scorching mid-June heat. “I can’t be a yuppie.” 

Ahsoka hums and rests her head on her bent knees, shaking her shoulders in the vain hope that it will unstick her tank top off her sweaty back. No dice. She contorts her arm out to do it herself. Sweltering city summer. She squints one eye against the sun and inhales. Patchouli and sweat and tomato sauce. Yum. “What’s the weather like in Auckland?”  

“Uh… sunny? It’s an island.” A pause. “Damn it. Remind me to fix the toaster, yeah? And buy a pot. And a pan.” 

“Okay,” says Ahsoka. Cars honk; drivers yell. “What for?”

From: [email protected]  

To: [email protected]

Subject: COME BACK 

Great news! 

My brother (Obi-Wan, the older “normal” one) is getting married! And moving to New Zealand! 

This is so great, really. Cody’s a great guy, and he COOKS stuff with like shallots and rhubarb and carrots he knows the name of Produce is what I mean (Obi doesn’t, which is why Anakin and I don’t) like they have a spice rack at their place, so Obi’s gonna be eating like a king til death (or divorce) do they part! and he calls me Soso, which is very very cute (?) ok I kind of hate it but if it were anyone else I would know it’s infantilizing but not Cody! Cody’s great. He really loves Obi, and it makes sense that they would go to NZ (haha wow so far! May as well be a whole other planet!) because from what I know Cody’s dad is from there, and Cody lived there til he was 5 or so. And it’s a lovely place, I guess, although I doubt you could get a bagel like you can here. Do they have Ess-a-bagel in Auckland? I hope so. Obi just gave up snow, he can’t give up bagels too. 

Many changes going on as you can see! 

Unrelated, you need to come back here right now RIGHT NOW. An emergency has occurred with your apartment. I can’t say more because what if this email is intercepted. So you must return to NYC and check it out yourself! And also give me a hug I’m not feeling too good haha LOL. 

xoxoxoxo, 

Ahsoka

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]  

Subject: Re: COME BACK 

My dearest loveliest Soso (HAHAHAHA)

I will be back in 1 month, when Ramadan ends otherwise my parents will disown me and then I will have to get a job (like you) and I shudder just thinking of the horrors of bartending. You should not make me go through with that.  

Congratulations for your brother! I’ve arranged for a bouquet and chocolates to be sent over to your apartment, since I don’t know where he lives. Feel free to enjoy them yourself, because I know you will. In other words they are for you to make up for the lack of hug :( 1 month!!! 

Love, 

B.

From: [email protected]  

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Re: COME BACK 

And the vibrator and the Playboy mag, also for my brother????

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]  

Subject: Re: Re: Re: COME BACK

No those are for you. You need to RELAX and UNWIND and I know you havent gotten some since that wimpy senators kid from Stern because otherwise it would have been the first line of your email. I am just trying to help.

From: [email protected]  

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: COME BACK 

And I thought emirati girls were uptight……… Yes youre right i need to do that get some but that doesnt negate that i would LOVE YOU FOREVER if you chose to come back early… but okay I understand. I would not wish the horrors of bartending upon anyone, especially not you. 

“Shouldn’t drink on the job,” says Rex, sliding up beside her and swiping the vodka from her loose grip. 

“I’m not!” she insists. He glances up from the drink he’s shaking to give her an unimpressed look. Ahsoka rolls her eyes and steals the rag slung on his broad shoulder to wipe the bar down, then she switches the TV channel, abruptly cutting off the French-American senator in favor of wild tigers mating on the Discovery Channel, much more suitable for the clientele. 

She takes orders and gets distracted by the particularly rambunctious game of pool going on in the corner; she shakes up drinks and hums along to It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over, which Obi used to sing to her when she was twelve and sad and only he could get her to dance around in the kitchen. She ducks in the back when it gets slow and chats with Coric and snacks on home fries; when it gets loud out again she heads back to actually do her job before Rex drags her back by the hair. 

“I’m totally working,” she tells him as she rejoins him, slapping on a megawatt smile for the flush-cheeked girl on the other end of the bar. “Hi, what can I get you?” 

The girl’s eyes slide to Rex, clearly disappointed he’s not the one taking her order. Suck it up, girlie. “Cosmopolitan?” 

“Sure thing!” Ahsoka’s cheeks hurt from holding her customer service expression, even as she swipes the juice and triple sec. She’s doing way too much big smiling today, it’s gonna freeze her muscles. 

Someone tugs at her braid and her lungs stutter. Rex. “What’s with the Pennywise face?” he says too close, his breath warm on her ear before he’s back to work—a lightbulb flashes in Ahsoka’s mind (more like—a daydream. He pulls her hair, he whispers something rough that has her aching to bite); in that one moment he just changed everything. 

Ahsoka glances back at him, and for the first time in the three months she’s known him it’s like she’s seeing him as he is. Clouds part, the angel choir rings—the epiphany. 

Hm. Muscles, the ease with which a smolder becomes a grin, that voice that’s all Al Pacino Panic in Needle Park drawl and a vaguely pseudo-Australian lilt—all of him, really. Him. She wants him.  

Rex the bartender is hot. He looks like the type of fuck that leaves a girl brainless and sore in the morning. She can already imagine her next email to Barriss: no need for the vibrator. I got dicked down by my sexy co-worker with the big hands!!!

“Heya, Ty,” says Anakin. 

Typho tips his head in greeting. “Mister Skywalker. Nice to see you.”  

“Nice to see you,” echoes Anakin, all giddy. Everything’s so nice right now. After he got the message to come to Tsabin’s apartment, he practically danced all the way to the Upper East Side—and he’d never noticed before tonight just how lovely the city is, with its gorgeous towering skyscrapers and talented buskers and the trash on the street, where else in the world do you find such character, not to mention the resilient homeless people and even the yuppies with their ambition, love and magic on every corner! “How’re the kids?” 

“Fine, thank you, sir. Here to see Miss Naberrie?” 

“Who else?” laughs Anakin, sheepish. 

Typho gestures for him to go right ahead. Anakin thanks him, says good night; he steps into the elevator with his heart in his ass, it’s been so long it feels like he’s meeting a brand new person. He fingers his hair smooth and tidy, studying his reflection in the elevator mirror. 

What will she think of his hair? It’s longer than it’s ever been in the time she’s known him. And there’s that new scar on his temple, from him and Ahsoka play-fighting with those decorative sabers they scored at a flea market, three dollars each. But maybe he should’ve worn something else; sure it’s miserably hot outside, but a band shirt (fucking Wilco, like a pleb) and jeans is too underdressed, he should’ve worn a button-up at least—

The elevator dings. The door slides open, revealing the familiar glitz of Tsabin’s penthouse living room. All sleek sophistication, but not the woodsy type at Obi and Cody’s place—(no, don’t think of Obi right now)—but all its impersonal beauty pales in comparison to the figure on the leather couch by the huge windows. 

Anakin grins. Something inside of him sags in relief.

“Ani,” says Padmé, holding a hand out in invitation. “You’re late.” 

Anakin beelines towards her, where her hand catches his hair and she drags him in for a kiss that’s first breath. She tastes like coffee and blackberries ripe for the picking, her mouth equally pliant and bruising against his, like she craves him as much as he does her. 

Impossible, he thinks, hands fluttering all over her—he wants to touch her everywhere, taste her everywhere, eat her all up, swallow her down so she’s only his. “Mé,” he whispers, hoarse, tugging at the collar of her—his! That’s his Scarface shirt!—shirt so he can mouth at her neck, “my Padmé, hi, my sweetheart, missed you so fucking much—”

“Ani,” she whines, still anchoring him by the hair, “did you get prettier, you look prettier—oh, hm, yeah—” A hitched gasp, his hand on her bare cunt, she was just—sitting in his shirt and waiting for him, the thought alone nearly drives him insane—“bed—please please don’t stop wait—” Her head falls back onto the couch with another lovely musical whine, and Anakin trails kisses down til he’s kneeling by her feet, hoisting one leg over his shoulder. There. He could live and die with his head buried between her thighs, just her and the sweet sounds she makes.

Even if he always has to leave in the morning. Even if he always has to be her best-kept, most shameful secret—it’s worth it. Here the noise blocks out, the world dissolves. Here it’s just her with him, city forgotten. Here it’s nothing else.

Rex the bartender is a good guy. Respectful, friendly. The type who makes pleasant conversation with regulars and knows when to swap vodka for water if someone’s had too much and kicks handsy assholes out the bar without making a deal out of it. He’s a diligent worker, and Ahsoka’s never seen him distracted by a nice pair of boobs unless it’s strategic (i.e. he’s flirting for tips). 

The only reason she pushes her own boobs out and tugs up her top to show her belly piercing and her hip bones is to get into character. Character: slut. 

Subtlety is no use right now. A bit of wit, maybe—unfortunately for her current predicament, Rex has proven time and time again that he’s got a fully-developed frontal lobe and he’s not afraid to use it. He’s gonna make her work for it. 

For the rest of their shift, Ahsoka stays close to him. Close enough to study his hands—thick fingers, blue stuff (paint—right, he’s mentioned that before) crusted in the nail beds, tattoos on the knuckles and shifting tendons—and imagine them on her thighs. They banter as usual, competing for the most tips by the end of the night even though they always divvy it up between them. Ahsoka just… touches more. Hand on his bicep, hip pressing to his when she slides by him. Leans closer. Her teeth ache. She almost feels like she’s shot up but she hasn’t touched the stuff since Barriss went home for the summer. Just this desire makes her loopy. It’s been there for what feels like forever, now it’s boiling over and overwhelming her. If she gets what she wants she knows he’ll touch her into supernova. 

Usually she’s smart. She would lay the groundwork. Go slow, flirt her way into driving a target crazy; tonight, desperate in a way she’s never been, Ahsoka sends off Coric and the waitstaff so she and Rex close up together and just—

One minute they’re chatting and snarking while wiping down tables and stacking stools up on them; the next she sort of just—jumps at him. 

In her defense, he catches her. By the scruff of the neck, like a misbehaving cat. 

He licks into her open mouth like a starved man, though she thinks that’s just a Rex thing rather than him wanting her as much as she does him right now. She kisses him submissive and presses close to him; he gasps into her, hot whiskey breath (drinking on the job, she wants to tease, but she’s doing a much more important thing with her tongue right now) and spit in her mouth. His gorgeous hand sinks into her hair, fingers curling between her two braids against her scalp, and it hurts when he pulls her head back to mouth at her jaw, her neck, breathing ragged against her. 

“Wh—” He doesn’t let up, kisses and talks at the same time. Such an efficient man. Such a good man. “Wha’s that for?” 

“I want,” whimpers Ahsoka, still in control. Mostly. “Do you?” 

In response he trails kisses back to her lips and involuntarily grinds against her, warm and hardening, and her mind’s gone blissful and dumb while a hand wanders under his shirt and along the vulnerable small of his back, she wants him naked and laid out for her—

“Shit,” gasps Rex, wrenching himself away from her. “Shit. Ahsoka. I have a girlfriend.” 

“Oh,” says Ahsoka, her heartbeat echoing in her ears. Oh. Her other hand’s on his crotch. She squeezes, making him choke on his own breath. He’s really gonna make her work for it—she tries to care, she really does, but his mouth is all shiny from kissing hers and he’s still grabbing her by the hair. She’s… a horrible person. She wants him so bad—and she wants to get what she wants. “I don’t… really care. Do you?” She pulls her hands from him, innocent. “You say the word, Rexter.” 

Rex closes his eyes as though drawing strength. Ahsoka counts four seconds of him thinking about it. “Fuck me.” And then he drags her in by her hair for another bruising, perfect kiss. 

“Marry me,” blurts Anakin. She’ll say yes. 

Padmé gapes at him—suddenly she comes, back arching and mouth opening in a soundless scream. She digs her nails into his shoulders and catches her breath, eyes squeezed shut. She has to say yes. Anakin waits, but she untagles herself from him and shoves him away and rolls out from underneath him, grabbing the five-billion thread count Egyptian cotton sheets while Anakin sits like an idiot on the mattress with his cock still slick with her. Impossible, he knows she loves him, she can’t—

“No,” says Padmé, her back to him. Her voice is so cold, like it is on the TV, like it’s never been with Anakin. “I think you should leave. I think we should stop seeing each other.”  

Ahsoka’s fucked in beds and bathrooms across this city since she was fifteen, some better than others. Rex is the first man to crowd her into a bar and make her come twice without even taking her clothes off, a hand wrapped around her throat and his lips incessant against her jaw. She almost wishes it was on a bed so she could luxuriate in the wine and roses of the feeling, but it ends and he kisses her shoulder twice as he slips out of her and helps her straighten up like a newborn fawn on frail legs. 

“That was fun,” she says as she yanks her jeans back into place. 

He just smiles and tugs the collar of her shirt back up, covering a hickey. He locks the bar up and hails a cab for her, and opens the door and helps her in, too.  

What a man, really. And she made him a cheater. 

“See you Friday?” he says, leaning down to meet her eye. 

“See you Friday,” she echoes, trying for a smile. She presses her legs against each other. 

Rex smiles back, a bit shaky, and slams the cab door shut. Ahsoka’s head thunks back against the seat. “Mulberry Street, please.” She had been so right, Rex left her deliciously sore, and he completely ruined everything. In just thirty minutes he took her to heaven and back; all she can think about on the drive home is how he shuddered when she raked her nails against his skull and how good it felt, to have him in the palm of her hand like that. 

She laments that she hadn’t gotten his mouth on her. 

God, she’s horrible. Ahsoka Tano, worst person in the world. Only she could turn someone as decent as Rex the bartender dishonorable. She shakes her head. It happened. Can she take it back? No. Who cares.  

Home, she painstakingly turns the key in the lock and tiptoes inside. It’s dark and dead silent. Anakin must be asleep. Ahsoka locks up behind her and slips her Converses off, setting her purse on the floor. She makes for the kitchen to grab the Lorazepam they keep next to the cream cheese, but there’s a shadow on the couch and she freezes. 

The street lamps outside and a passing car’s headlights illuminate half its tear-streaked face.  

“...Anakin?” 

His mouth opens slowly. “She broke up with me,” he says robotically.  

Ahsoka steps closer, brows furrowed. “What?”

“Pah—my girlfriend.” 

Oh. Usually, Ahsoka (and even Obi) would say, “Right, your imaginary girlfriend of a year that we can’t meet because of her top-secret job! Don’t tell me she lives in Canada, too!” But here and now, with Anakin’s bloodshot eyes and his eerie catatonia the likes of which Ahsoka’s never seen from him, not even when Qui-Gon died, all she can say is, “What happened?” 

“I asked her to marry me.”  

He’s sitting right where Obi had been twelve hours earlier when he, with a small beatific smile, said, “I asked Cody to marry me, and he said yes.” Anakin and Ahsoka had let out matching rambunctious screeches before they launched themselves at their big brother, the three of them caught in a familiar tangle of limbs and jeers. Cody took a bunch of photos, the flash of his Sony cam blinding Ahsoka for a minute. She’s sure the next time she visits their apartment, the best angle will be framed in the living room or stuck to the fridge. 

Anakin sniffles. Subdued and heartbroken, Ahsoka sinks down onto the couch. She squeezes his shoulder then wraps her arm around him. 

“I thought she loved me,” whispers Anakin. It rings in their dying, dead apartment.  

Ahsoka says nothing. She tilts her head onto Anakin’s shoulder, and they sit and stew together until the sun rises. It’s a new day. Whatever happens, there’s no way in hell it can be worse than the one that just ended.

Anakin learns to make pasta; Ahsoka, freshly squeezed orange juice without the pulp.

“This is nutritious, right?” she says. They do lunchtime on the fire escape in boxers and old shirts, his with a disgusting coffee stain on the side and hers with a hole in the armpit. At the foot of the building, there’s a lady scooping up her dog’s shit and yelling at someone on the phone. “Put in a can of tuna—there’s a balanced meal, pasta salad. Carbs, protein, fruit.”

“Vitamin C,” adds Anakin. “Cooking is so easy. Why did it take us this long to actually do it?”  

“Beats me,” says Ahsoka, shrugging. “Hey, do we have passports?” 

“Uhhhhh.” Anakin sniffles, thinking. “Maybe? We went to North Carolina three years ago.” 

“I don’t think you need a passport to travel in the US.” Ahsoka frowns. She spears a glob of pasta shells clumped together. “I think. I dunno. We can ask Obi when we see him tomorrow for dinner.” She takes her time chewing so the glob doesn’t get stuck in her esophagus. “Bly and Aayla will be there.” 

Anakin perks up. “Cool. I miss Aayla.” They went to high school and did all the advanced physics classes together. Aayla went on to Columbia and NASA’s GISS; Anakin went on to do two years in the military and lose his arm and dither about going to college while working at a car garage in Williamsburg. Obviously they fell out of touch, until the day Cody invited Anakin and Ahsoka to a family dinner and there she was on the arm of his closest brother.   

“Think they know about Auckland?” 

Bly and Aayla did not know about Auckland, as evidenced by the way Bly’s face had gotten comically big-eyes downturned-mouth sad like a cartoon character’s when Cody broke the news over grilled steaks and Heinekens. “What? Why?” he demands. “You love New York. You love yelling at people on the street! You can’t yell in Auckland, and there’s no MET there either.” 

“There’s an observatory and a maritime museum,” says Obi.  

Cody nods. “And Te Toi Uku. Clay and ceramics.” 

Bly looks aghast. He turns to Aayla, who happens to be chewing an oversized bite of steak. “I’m… wow. Really.” His eyes narrow. “Does this have to do with Jango and the second set of boys—”

“Nothing to do with that,” insists Cody. Ahsoka and Anakin exchange a look, him with exaggeratedly raised brows, her with exaggeratedly pursed lips. Jango? They turn the looks to Obi. He mouths father, busying himself with the table’s centerpiece. Fett family drama, then. Ahsoka shrugs. It’s kind of funny, what Obi-Wan’s marrying into. She’s only met Bly—perfectly fine, incredibly competitive—but she’s heard stories of a Fox who Obi has had to bail out of jail three times. 

“We just figured it’s time for a change,” continues Cody. “And what better time to try something new than as newlyweds? Besides, there’s more of a market for lawyers and financial consultants over there, here we’re a dime a dozen—we outnumber the fucking rats.” 

Aayla swallows. “I can’t say I’m happy you’re leaving, but I am very excited to come visit you over there. It’s very sunny, very beachy, get a nice tan…” 

“You’ve got a nice tan,” says Bly, pinching Aayla’s side. “One you got on our roof here, no fanfare and cross-continental travel required.” His eyes glaze over as he leans into her to whisper something in her ear. Ahsoka turns her eyes to the ceiling; Anakin glowers at his steak like it’s responsible for his romantic woes. 

“Oi,” says Cody, glaring. “Not in front of the food, Christ’s sake.” 

“Sorry, Codes,” hums Aayla. She turns her attention across the table. “What do you guys think about Auckland?” 

Ahsoka and Anakin exchange a look, opposite the one they did earlier. 

“Couldn’t be happier!” says Anakin. 

“Yeah, we’re really excited for them!” says Ahsoka. “I mean… New Zealand.” 

“Woah,” says Anakin. 

“I’m jealous,” says Ahsoka. 

“Right, think of the beaches and the cocon—ughts!” Anakin coughs, choking on his half-chewed food. 

“Who raised you,” mutters Obi, grabbing the water carafe and pouring him a glass.   

Bly looks at them, scrutinizing for something he doesn’t find. He turns to Cody and Obi-Wan. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to you leaving,  but…” He sighs, raising his wine glass in a toast. “If you must, I wish you all the best.” 

“You didn’t put up this much of a fight when Ponds went to Thailand,” notes Cody. 

Bly shrugs. “I know Ponds is coming back soon. He always does. You, if you leave, there’s a chance it could be forever.”

Anakin doesn’t have Padmé’s number. He has Tsabin’s, which is technically Tsabin’s assistant’s number, who never patches him through the chain of command; if he wants to reach Padmé, he just prays to God or Allah or Buddha or Madonna or whatever in the hopes that one of them will take pity on him and send her the subconscious desire to see him, which she then communicates to Tsabin, who communicates it to her assistant, who communicates it to him under the guise of it being Tsabin’s desire.

So convoluted. How the hell did he put up with it?  

He has a life. A non-Padmé life. He has friends—Ahsoka, Aayla, and Kit—but Ahsoka’s “doing research for her novel” in Midtown; Aayla’s at work or getting dicked probably because she and her boyfriend are fucking insufferable and Anakin’s walked in on them more times than he cares to count; and Kit is deployed in Iraq, which kind of put a bit of a strain on their friendship anyway because Anakin protested the war like a normal person while Kit’s ambivalent enough to serve in the military. So he didn’t go to college like he’d planned, and the Air Force had been—hm, better not talk about that—but he has a steady job that he loves, even though his boss Asajj’s made one too many quips about blowing him up with a car engine for being funny— that woman belongs in Bellevue and not in a garage, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway he has a good life and he has hobbies, some (jogging in Central Park) more reputable than others (dumpster diving at the garage and by computer stores for scrap parts to tinker with).  

There’s also Obi and Cody, of course, but right now Anakin’s scared that the topic of conversation will inevitably turn to the impending Auckland and yawn. 

The point is that he has a life. That he’s not waiting by the phone for the senator to perhaps lower herself to his pedigree and seek him out for a quick fuck. He has a balanced, happy life; can the workaholic with no friends beside her senatorial staff say the same for herself? No. 

Anakin groans into his hands. He clicks STOP on the stereo, cutting Bruce off midway so there’s just the cacophony of outside—but the boss is right, no use sitting round crying over a broken heart. He’s a gun for hire! He’s a spark! He’s gotta move! He ambles into the kitchen, stepping around the mosaic chaos of the apartment—tarot cards splattered on the floor and the overflowing laundry basket and the stack of Toni Morrison paperbacks and dirty coffee cups everywhere, midday sunlight patching on the hardwood floor—charged to do something. He checks their cabinets—just rolling paper and sleeping pills, dammit—and turns to the broken toaster. With a grunt, he crouches to look for the wrench and finds instead of it a nest of cockroaches that he Raid-sprays dead; he cleans that up and feels kind of bad about the perverse pleasure he’d taken in watching the cockroaches convulse and spasm and imagines their teeny, high-pitched screams of agony, which zaps his previous good mood away, and he’s back to thinking about Padmé and how she probably found perverse pleasure in leashing him like her dog: Ani, roll over. Ani, play dead. Good boy! 

His head snaps up. Yes. He has friends and a job and hobbies, and now he knows exactly what he’s missing. 

Rex approaches her after last call, when she’s wiping the bar down and slotting the bottles into their right places the way he likes them. She pretends not to notice how he pretends to help with cleanup beside her as he casually asks, “You doing anything tonight?” 

Heat pools in her tummy, squirms about. Ahsoka glances at him out the corner of her eye and devotes a split second of thought to the faceless girlfriend. In her mind, Girlfriend is built like a swimsuit model and simultaneously exists/does not exist. If Ahsoka were Girlfriend, she would claw her eyes out with her nails for being such a callous bitch. But she’s not Girlfriend, she’s Ahsoka, the callous bitch. “Depends on who’s asking.” 

His gaze drops to her lips for a split second. He’s been doing that all night. “Me.” 

“Come up with something interesting and I just might be,” says Ahsoka, but already she’s running on the high of what’s promised. 

Much, much later, after Coric’s set and put out a minor fire by the fryer and they’ve rounded up the final few stragglers and swept the floors and stacked the chairs and everyone’s got but them, all the lights are off so she only catches the spilled honey glints of his eyes when the moonlight pours in just right, she makes herself ask. "You've  got no plans tonight?” If he’s forgotten he has a girlfriend, it’s not on her. She hopes he keeps forgetting forever, amnesiac with no cure. 

“Nope. Just you,” says Rex, “for the foreseeable future.” He thumps the bar. “Hop on?”

She grins toothily as she obeys, a cat with her cream. “Yes sir.”

His hips fit neatly in the cradle of her thighs and his hands settle on her waist before he trails his fingers along the skin of her tummy, rousing goosebumps. He flicks the dangling heart-and-cross piercing. “Cute.” He thumbs the button of her jeans. “It’s almost a shame to take these off, with how good they look on you,” he hums; she huffs and arches her hips as if saying please. Thankfully he listens, yanking her sneakers then jeans off, and his gaze zeroes in on the scrap of black lace she’s wearing. 

Ahsoka says, “Take a fucking picture.” 

Rex leans up and kisses her. “I’ve got an eidetic memory.” Another kiss. “Trust me. I don’t need a picture to remember what you look like.” 

“Aw. You mean I’m in your spank bank?” 

That draws a genuine laugh out of him. “Am I in yours?” 

Ahsoka hums non-committally, her fingers trailing down his sides and dipping under his shirt, tugging. “Get this off then we’ll talk.” Which is to say—duh. Since three nights ago, he’s been her spank bank. She shamelessly ogles his bare chest as he shucks his shirt, and immediately her hands dart to his happy trail then belt buckle, the zipper of his jeans—last time he’d gone commando, this time too her hand closes in around his cock and she pulls him closer, her other hand yanking her panties aside—

“Oi,” he blurts, pulling away and zipping his jeans back up. “What am I, a dildo?” 

She tries not to sound petulant, cheeks hot. “I’m sorry, are you gonna fuck me or not?"

He pulls her fucking hair—gets an embarrassing whimper in response—and kisses the corner of her mouth. “Gimme a fucking second, Ahsoka.” 

“That’s—ugh.” 

“Christ, you’re impatient.” He grabs her thighs and squeezes once before he gently pries them open. “I wanna eat first. You mind?” he asks, innocent. “I’m just… starving.” 

It takes her a moment to get what he means. “That’s a terrible joke,” says Ahsoka on a breathless laugh, fire inside her simultaneously tempered and gone inferno.

“I can make up for it,” whispers Rex, leaning forward—that’s gotta hurt his back, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit—and trailing kisses along the edge of her underwear. 

Ahsoka locks a leg around his neck, head tipping back. Is it just her, or are there stars on the ceiling? “Yes. Make up for it.” Probably just asbestos. Or—no. Stars stars stars, a whole galaxy’s worth behind her eyelids. “Come on. Get to work.” 

His laugh is just as salacious as her grin. “Yes, sir,” he hums. When he’s done—twice, surpassing expectations—he wipes his mouth clean and says, “I’m still hungry. You wanna grab pizza?”

There is a dog perched on the coffee table when Ahsoka gets home. She yells; Anakin comes running out of his room with his pillow poised for attack, naked as the day he was born. Ahsoka promptly smacks her hand over her eyes. 

“There’s a dog!” she cries, blindly pointing in its direction.

A beat of silence. “THAT’S IT!” Anakin bellows. The dog begins to bark. “YOU WOKE ME UP FOR A DOG?” he demands. “IT’S LITERALLY A DOG! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!” 

“There’s a strange mutt in our apartment! It’s SITTING ON MY NOVEL!” 

“IT’S NOT GONNA EAT YOU!” 

“IT’S SYMBOLIC! IT’S SHITTING ON MY LIFE’S WORK!” 

“YEAH WELL YOUR WRITING’S DOGSHIT ANYWAY.”

One of their upstairs neighbors chimes in, a faraway god-like call drifting in from open the window: “SHUT THE FUCK UP, IT’S FIVE IN THE FUCKING MORNING!”

“YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Anakin yells back, murderous. Then. “It’s five? And you just got home? I thought your shift ended at two.” 

“Anakin. There is a dog in our living room.” 

“I know. That’s Artoo.” Anakin whistles; Artoo hops off the table and trots over to hop by Anakin’s feet. “I adopted him.” 

Ahsoka peeks between her fingers, finds Anakin decent via strategic pillow placement. “What.” 

“Isn’t he adorable?” 

She takes a good look at Artoo’s shaggy fur and his dopey grin. He’s tiny and jumpy like he’s on the doggie-speed. “Did you find him in the dumpster?” 

Anakin tuts. “Don’t listen to your Auntie Soso, Artooie,” he says, crouching to scratch the dog’s head. It yips. “She’s not so good with change. But this is good! You need purpose in your life, and Artoo can help. I don’t know if you noticed, but you don’t do so well when you don’t have classes and Barriss to put your energy into.” 

“I have purpose!” insists Ahsoka. She says nothing about how she hopes Artoo really did take a dump on the loose stack of paper so that she has an excuse to throw that pathetic exercise in style away. “And friends besides Barriss!”  

“Oh yeah? Like who?” 

The guy who just ate her out and bought her pizza, duh. “Is the dog vaccinated at least? Or are we rooming with rabies?”  

“Have some faith in me, Ahsoka,” grouses Anakin, thankfully evading her evasiveness. “I got him from a really nice shelter on the Upper East Side.” 

Ahsoka rubs her nose. “Gah. I guess he can stay, but I’m not cleaning his shit up, Anakin, I mean it. And he’s not allowed in my room.” 

“Of course!” Anakin grins, blinding. He scoops Artoo up by the belly. “So where did you go after work?” 

Ahsoka pretends not to hear him, yawning exaggeratedly with her mouth wide open and arms stretched out. Again, the sun begins to rise through their window. 

Sunday is Obi-Wan’s favorite day of the week. 

Either: He and Cody idle in bed, jazz on the stereo, til the sun’s well and truly up. They pick up fresh bread and expensive cheeses and rainbow produce at the farmer’s market in Union Square, maybe an arrangement of tulips for the living room; they have coffee and a shared cigarette by the foot of their brownstone like they’re ten years younger and still uncertain of each other. They invite Anakin and Ahsoka over for their only balanced meal of the week, Bly and Aayla if they’re otherwise unoccupied, Wolffe if his flavor of the month is tolerable and capable of carrying out a decent conversation—which hasn’t happened in the four years Obi’s known him. After their guests have gone they love each other slow in the living room, glowing with hope and good fortune. 

Or: He and Cody fuck the sheets off the bed, order Chinese takeout, fuck on the kitchen counter.

Today’s an either, with a special addition. Last night, Cody asked, “Do you think Ahsoka and Anakin will mind if Rex and the boys come join us tomorrow?” 

“No!” Obi-Wan lied. 

Cody had known it was a lie—six years in, he’s familiar with all their bull-headed antagonization of change, new people, disruption of habits they’re anxiously attached to. Four strangers on a Sunday? Mutiny. But this is more important than Anakin or Ahsoka (or Obi-Wan’s) issues. 

Except Obi-Wan didn’t think they would spend thirty whole minutes picking fruit to make dessert. What if Echo hates apples? What if Jesse hates lemons? What if all four of them don’t like fruit-based desserts? What if this is Cody’s one chance at bridging the divide between all nine(!) of the Fetts and he blows it?

“You’re worrying too much,” says Obi-Wan. 

Cody shoots him that unimpressed scowl. “Are you making fun of me?” 

“I would never.” He is. It’s quite funny how the tables have turned. They’ve had this conversation about a million times, roles reversed. This is the first time Cody’s the nail-biter. It’s difficult not to find it amusing, at the very least. 

Cody sighs sharply through his nose, glaring at the fruit crates and the smoking vendor’s Bob Marley hat, and Obi-Wan, for the time being, takes it seriously. 

“What about a strawberry shortcake?”  

“What if one of them is allergic?” asks Cody. “Rex hates us already. Imagine I kill him or one of his brothers on our dining table.” Not our brothers yet, still us and them although they all share a last name. He picks up a vibrant prune, inspects it, thumbs it to bruising, puts it back. 

Obi-Wan sighs. “Darling, the strawberry component will be obvious. If the allergics eat some of it, that’s on them." He cups Cody's elbow. "We’ll make a non-fruit alternative to go with it, too." 

“It’s just—” Cody clicks his tongue. “I’ve never been an older brother before.” 

“Technically you’re the middle child,” says Obi. “You’re Anakin.” 

That makes Cody even surlier. “You told me Anakin used to feed Ahsoka ants when they were kids. I’m not stooping so low I’d feed my ingrate brat of a—” He stops and sighs again. Over the Tupac rap from a faraway radio, he finally says, “He’s my brother. I’m not asking for much, just for him to have fucking breakfast with me.”

“I know, Cody.” 

“Fucking—fuck it. Let’s pick up bagels and go home. I doubt they’re gonna show up anyway.”

Obi-Wan wraps an arm around Cody’s shoulder, cradling his jaw and bringing him in for a kiss. “Still got my ingrate brats to feed.” 

“Ingrates, he says,” scoffs Cody, but he allows Obi to steer him away from the bustle of the farmer’s market and towards the street so they can hail a cab. “They worship the ground you walk on.” 

“Give it time,” insists Obi. “Remind me. What did Rex say when you invited him?” 

“I couldn’t reach him,” says Cody. “I called a bunch of times, and it was always Fives picking up. I dunno if Rex told him to give me hell or if that’s just how he is, but whatever it is—kid’s impressively annoying.” 

“How old is he?” 

“Nineteen, twenty. Ahsoka’s age.” 

“Ah.” 

“He promised to pass the message along to the other three. I just hope…” Cody rubs the back of his head as a cab slows to a stop in front of them. “I just hope.”

“Sometimes that’s the best we can do,” says Obi, and they go home.  

Anakin collects the cards off the floor and joins Ahsoka on the fire escape with two chilled Diet Cokes. He drops the deck between them, her on the stairs and him on the ledge. “Can you read my cards?” 

Ahsoka eyes him over The Dud Avocado with her beady inquisitive eyes. Wordlessly, she sets the book aside and begins to shuffle the cards. “Am I looking for something?” 

“Yes. Will I do something embarrassing at Obi’s wedding?” 

“That’s not how it works, Anakin,” says Ahsoka, still shuffling. She purses her mouth and stops. “I’m—do you think you’ll stay at the garage your whole life?” 

“I dunno.” Anakin taps his fingers on the ledge. “Do you think you’ll ever write the novel?” 

She laughs. “I finished the novel a long time ago. I just have to stomach letting anyone look at it.” 

“Hm.” He stares into the sun, at the building across the street, at the guy smoking by the car idling with its doors open and radio playing Lou Reed. Black spots dance across his vision. “What’s it about?” 

King of swords. Ace of cups. Hierophant. “Us, in a way.” She takes a sip of her coke and scratches the edge of the hierophant card. 

“Then I already think it’s great,” says Anakin, meaning it wholly. Anything that involves them is inherently good. With Ahsoka’s talent, it’s probably heartbreaking. 

Ahsoka hums. “The cards tell me you’re gonna do something embarrassing at Obi’s wedding, but like in a good way.”

“Cool,” says Anakin. “Maybe it’s just the part where I cry during the best man’s speech.”

“Let’s hope.” 

Ponds, in Thailand, pitches a fit when he hears that Obi and Cody want to go tuxedo shopping together. His email, which Obi shows to Anakin, is a long, meticulously verbose chastisement punctuated with several IT'S BAD LUCKs where it makes no sense for one to be there. It ends with If you must, however.  

“Apparently, that means he’s really upset about it,” says Obi, shrugging. “So Cody’s going with his brothers and I’ll go with mine.” Anakin tries not to be surprised that Obi took the afternoon off for tuxedo shopping, showing up at the apartment to collect them like kindergarten children at the end of a school day. At least he brought Magnolia cupcakes with him. A bribe, certainly.

“What if we had plans?” says Ahsoka around a mouthful of red velvet. 

“Barriss is still in Dubai,” says Obi, “and I know the garage is closed because Asajj is in the Hamptons. I figured the odds were in my favor.” 

Without much complaint, Ahsoka and Anakin get dressed while Obi plays with Artoo and pretends not to snoop around. “Did you know your toaster’s broken?” he says on the landing as they’re leaving, over the clicks of Ahsoka locking up and Artoo scratching the inside of the door. Obi forbade Anakin from bringing him along. 

“I’ll fix it,” says Anakin, “no biggie.” 

They set off in the direction of Balani in Midtown, the sun beating down on them. Anakin makes himself relax and sink into the moment. With Obi it’s always more of a stroll,  even the jaywalking, as though they’re in some upstate farm and not about to be run over by a cab or a particularly determined businessman. A stroll. He can do a stroll. He imagines an even, soothing voice in his head telling him: “You like spending time with Obi. A stroll gives you more time with him. That’s all you want, isn’t it?” 

Ahsoka squirrels her way between Anakin and Obi, looping an arm around each of their elbows as they walk. “Mimosas and a show,” she says. “I’m excited!”  

“So am I,” says Obi. 

“How hard can it be to find a tux, anyway?” asks Anakin. “I didn’t think you and Cody are the types to do anything other than classic black and white.”

“Or full black, much more elegant,” says Ahsoka. “That’s more Cody’s style than yours, though. You stick with the white shirt, Cody does the black one. Although that could clash with the ties…” 

“We’re going with electric purple,” says Obi.  

Anakin gapes, horrified. “Obi.” 

“We’re not, but you should see the look on your face.”

Ahsoka chortles. “Oh, good one.” 

It is an arduous process, getting fitted for a custom-made tuxedo. Anakin has to focus really hard at not scurrying away from the lady measuring his inseam or whatever the fuck she’s doing by his crotch, but Obi does it all with this innate grace that is unfortunately nature and not nurture, otherwise he and Ahsoka would’ve had a shred of it at least. Ahsoka, as she had guessed, gets mimosas and a show. From her place on the plush couch opposite the stands Anakin and Obi are practically displayed on, she sips her drink and judges. Some pants make Obi look “elfin short.” Anakin slouches. Obi should slouch, at least a bit, so that he looks a little more like a normal person. 

“I hope you’re getting your hair cut before the ceremony, Anakin,” she says. “Obi, you can’t let him stand beside you on the altar looking like that!” 

It’s dusk by the time they’re done, tuxes ordered and to be delivered within the month. Outside, they lose Ahsoka for a few minutes while she rifles through a setup of used records. Obi steps aside to call and check in with Cody. Codependent freak. Anakin glances around to find something to kill the time. At the end of the street, there’s a Harry Winston. 

Anakin strolls into the store, mildly interested. It smells  ridiculously expensive. He entertains the thought of a robbery. He and Ahsoka would be fed and clothes forever if he swiped six or seven of the monstrously glittering diamond and ruby necklaces in the display cases. Or about a dozen rings. 

Engagement rings, wedding rings. Buying one would accomplish the same thing as throwing a few thousand dollar bills into the sewers. These things are practically useless, but the symbolism behind them is quite… nice. To give someone an embodiment of a promise like that. Not just someone—the person you love most in the world. To choose a ring that fits them, to gift them this ring, to have them wear this reminder of belonging to one another. To promise your self to someone, forever. 

It sounds so nice. 

He almost misses The Ring. It sits, innocuous, in between some gaudier counterparts. It’s just a band with a swirling cluster of diamonds around a larger circle-cut one, like a constellation of stars enclosing the moon. It’s pretty. 

He approaches it. 

He doesn’t bother asking how much it costs—more than his rent, probably. All the money he has and then some. He’s already pulling the checkbook out of his pocket and asking the salesman to pack the ring up for him. “You take checks, right?”  

“What are you doing tomorrow?” asks Rex, crouched in front of her to wipe between her thighs with a clean rag. 

“Huh?” 

“Fourth of July.” 

“Oh! My brother and his fiancé are having a barbecue at his place,” Ahsoka says. “You?” 

“Nothing, I think,” says Rex, shrugging. “Beer and fried chicken with my brothers. My half-brother invited me to a thing he’s hosting, but that’s more out of obligation.”

“What do you mean?” asks Ahsoka, using his shoulders as leverage to hop off the bar. 

Rex shrugs, dislodging her hands but taking them in his and swinging them at their sides. It’s—adorable. Too close. Ahsoka relishes it. “I—it’s. About a month ago, I found out my father had a whole-ass family before he had us. Five kids. One of them shows up at my door—him and his partner, some British asshole with the weirdest name I’ve heard—and he basically calls my life shit, and offers to ‘help me out’ or whatever.”

“That could be good,” says Ahsoka. If five extra Anakins ever sprung out, she would kill herself. “Right? Five siblings.” 

“I have brothers,” says Rex. “I don’t want five more, especially not if they’re all rich and snobby like the one I’ve met. I just want them to go back to where they came from and stop inviting me to pity brunches and barbecues just because we share half a genetic code.” 

Ahsoka snorts inelegantly, but it makes Rex grin wide. He pecks her knuckles then drops her hands to grab their pants off the floor. She takes hers with a little thank you and an explosive sort of realization that ruins her whole entire life. How can she, very slyly and not cruelly, trick him into breaking up with Girlfriend and make him fall in love with her instead?

“What would you do if this happened to you?” asks Rex as they begin to lock up.  

“Not a chance,” says Ahsoka, calmly. “For that, I’d have to know who my parents even are.” At his confused look, she clarifies: “I’m adopted. Foster kid, technically. I’ve got the teensiest family in the world. Not like you, twelve brothers.” She snorts. “My—brother-in-law’s like you, too. Every time I think I’ve met all his brothers and cousins, out comes another one. The other day I found out there’s one who lives in Thailand!” She considers it. “I don’t know. I like how things are. I wouldn’t want five extra brothers, not for all the pity brunches in the world. Mine are more than enough.” 

Rex sighs. “So are mine. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Let’s do something.” He slings an arm around her shoulder and aimlessly steers her down the street, and Ahsoka doesn’t get home til the sun’s rising. 

Armed with a bowl of bran flakes and a joint, Anakin’s flipping through two days ago’s New York Times for the crossword when a familiar face catches his eye. 

Senator Amidala Breaks Silence on Abortion Rights. 

The accompanying photo is one of her mid-speech on the Senate floor, mouth pursed and brows slightly furrowed. He trails his pinky finger over the outline of her head, following the line of her slick straight and tied back hair. The night he met her—he was closing the garage, she was driving back from Boston and ended up with a flat—her hair had been all riotous curls, a complete mess, unruly with sweaty tendrils sticking to her flushed face and making her look like a different woman; he hadn’t even recognized her as the senator til days later. 

He loves getting his fingers stuck in those curls when they fuck, loves that when she lets her guard down enough to fall asleep next to him he inevitably ends up with her hair in his mouth because she curls in close like she can’t bear space between their bodies. He loves brushing it back to see her face more clearly, and the way she would tilt her head up the slightest bit as though asking for the kiss he would surely leave on her forehead. 

He misses her. 

“What are you reading?” Ahsoka asks, peeking over his shoulder. She’s got too much pep for this-early o’clock. “Oh, Senator Eurotrash.” 

“Hey! She’s a great senator, you know,” says Anakin hotly. “Her work on the public school system and overcrowding is admirable, plus she’s done more for the homeless people in this city than half the Senate combined—” 

“Bah, what do I care!” interrupts Ahsoka, rifling in their fridge and emerging with the sliced loaf of sourdough. “That’s just what I’ve heard people call her.” She takes two slices out the bag and sticks them in the toaster, which makes a dull click. “Oh. Shit. Hey, fix the toaster.” 

“Later. Get dressed, we have to pick something up to take to Obi’s.” 

“They probably have everything,” mutters Ahsoka. She exchanges bread for kibble and shakes the can like a maracas. Artoo barks. “Let’s grab coffee on the way, I don’t feel like making some right now.” She pours Artoo’s kibble in his brand-new Obi-gifted custom bowl and makes cooing sounds at him. “Flowers? A six-pack?” 

“Flowers and half a dozen cupcakes.”

“They’ve invited half the people they know!” 

“So you think we should get a dozen cupcakes?” 

They show up with flowers and an ice cream cake, shucking their shirts immediately upon arrival. Obi directs them up and out. The roof is decked out, literally, lawn chairs and foldable tables laid out with bite-sized sandwiches and nacho dishes, fruity mixers and tequila bottles chilling in the coolers. Cody and the brother of his with the one eye man the grill while other Cody-adjacent people mill about with beer cans dripping condesation, chatting over the radio turned to some frequency that will probably spin Born in the U.S.A. within the hour. The smell and sizzle of meats and veg skewers makes Anakin’s mouth water, and it’s great, very Fourth of July, except he doesn’t really want to be here, despite the Obi of it all. It’s just that Cody’s got a billion brothers and cousins and the partners of those, and he can never keep track of them, and that fucking article this morning, and it’s so fucking hot. 

He envies Ahsoka, who downs half a dozen martinis then spends the rest of the afternoon sunbathing on a lounge chair. Anakin’s one hundred percent sure she’s snoozing under her huge Sharon Tate sunglasses. He himself tries not to latch on to Obi like a baby duckling. 

He latches to Cody instead. Anakin sticks to the grill and bonds with Wolffe over being an invalid (he does that bit with detaching his prosthetic arm and thwacking Obi’s cheek with it, which makes Wolffe snort with laughter); as a bonus, he gets to sample the ribs hot off the rack before anyone else does. 

Eventually he finds Aayla. They share a joint like they’re hiding under the bleachers at their school gym, except she’s staring at Bly and he’s thinking of Padmé. She asks about Auckland. 

“Bly’s really pissed about it,” she confesses, “but he won’t tell Cody.” 

Anakin hums. “Can’t relate. I’m happy for them! In fact I wish I had come up with the brilliant idea of moving to an island first. Now if I pack up and go to, like, Hawaii it’s gonna look like I’m just copying Obi.” 

Aayla side-eyes him. “Remember that school trip to Coney Island where you fell face-first into the sand and fucking bawled like a baby?” 

“I was twelve,” huffs Anakin. “I had sand in between my teeth. I thought I’d never be able to enjoy a sandless meal in my life.” He shrugs. “I’ll give you one thing, though—I don’t understand how they could leave Manhattan.” 

“Obi-Wan and Cody are older. Well-adjusted. Maybe a switch flicks in your brain when you’re thirty.” Aayla blows her smoke in circles. “I worry one day Bly’s gonna get hit on the head and ask me to move to Connecticut. That’s my biggest fear.” 

“You wouldn’t last a day in Connecticut.” 

“I wouldn’t last a day without Bly,” she corrects wryly. Anakin’s chest goes tight. He thinks of The Ring and wonders how much longer he has to wait to use it. Aayla suddenly laughs. “God! Coney Island!” She grins, a little sappy. “I’m so glad we’re practically in-laws.” Before Anakin can react to that adequately without embarrassing himself or alienating Aayla forever, she says, “Oh, Riyo’s back!” 

“Who’s Riyo?” 

“Fox’s fiancé sometimes. When he’s not being a dick. I’m gonna go say hi.” She pats his knee and flounces away before he can ask who Fox is. He thinks it’s his cue to either wake Ahsoka or find Obi or take a leak—or just do all that in reverse order. He makes his way across the roof to climb down the fire escape and duck into the kitchen, where he finds Obi and Cody making out against the counter like teenagers.

“You have guests,” says Anakin, petulantly. 

Cody breaks away first. “Go away, kid.” 

“No.” 

“Go away, Anakin,” echoes Obi with a world-weary sigh. “Bother your sister instead.” 

“She’s asleep! She keeps staying out til the morning and sleeping all day.” He opens the fridge. “Ooh, brownies.” The doorbell rings. “Jesus Christ, is there anyone in this city you didn't invite to this shindig?” 

“I’ll get it,” says Obi, disentangling himself from Cody. Anakin follows him out like a lost puppy, weathering Obi’s exasperated glare.

“What?” grumbles Anakin. “I’m bored.” 

The door swings open to reveal a tall blond stranger with muscles and tattoos and the same nose as all the Fetts, standing rigid like he’s prepared to bolt. “Rex!” says Obi, surprised. 

The man—Rex—falters for a moment. “Uh, hey. Where’s Cody?”   

“I thought Cody only had four brothers,” says Anakin. 

“Anakin, do you mind going back outside?” says Obi, a little tense. 

Cody comes out of the kitchen then. “Rex,” he says, wide-eyed. He looks like he’s about to smile before Rex opens his mouth and obliterates any chance of that. 

“I only came,” he says stoically, directly meeting Cody’s eye in a way it took Anakin three years to manage, “to ask you to—stop. Just stop. Stop calling at their apartment. You can bother me, but don’t bother my brothers. Leave them alone, alright—and don’t fucking guilt Jesse into getting us to come see you. He’s fifteen."

“What are you talking about?” 

“Last night,” says Rex, as Bly walks out of the kitchen right after Cody, his smile dying as he notices the scene in front of him, “you called. Jess picked up, and you spouted shit about family and made him feel bad—we have a family, and you clearly have yours.” 

“It’s the same fucking family,” says Bly. Rex’s gaze swivels to him and the poor guy seems like he wants to die. Anakin tries to piece it all together as he stands aside next to Obi, who’s watching the scene unfold like it’s a court case he's assigned to. 

“It’s not,” says Rex. “And that's fine."

“You’re our brother,” insists Bly, harsh. Anakin’s never seen him like this. “You look like the spitting image of my fucking dad, you expect me to let you and the boys walk around the city like you’re strangers? Cody’s asking you to humor him with fucking lunch and you’re too prideful to say yes?” 

"I'm not prideful," says Rex. "I'm just not going to waste everyone's time with this. Maybe you feel responsible for us because we're younger than you, but there is nothing that forces you to play nice for no fucking reason." 

"No fucking reason?" repeats Cody. "Rex. We share a father. He's a piece of shit, alright, but that doesn't make me or Bly or any of the others not related to you and the boys." 

Rex falters. "Fine. We’ll do lunch, call on birthdays and Christmases. Will that be enough?”

"What am I, your co-worker?" demands Bly. "Christ, kid. Come in and have a beer." 

At the same time, Cody says, “We just want to help.”

Anakin feels Obi tense. Rex stiffens too, a renewed fire to him. That's pride if Anakin's ever seen it. “We don’t need your help.” 

“You dropped out of college,” says Cody, like that means something. Anakin winces—he doesn't know much, but that was definitely not the right thing to say.

“I don’t get it, are you spying on us? Forget that,” snaps Rex when Cody begins to answer. “Fuck you,” he continues, vitriolic like Bly. “I’m twenty-three years old, I don’t need you as some replacement Jango. I’m doing fine, and my brothers are fine. We don’t need you.”

“I’m your fucking brother, too,” says Cody. “I’m offering my help. I can help you so you don’t have to work three fucking jobs and so you can go back to college—”

Rex turns on his heel and goes. 

Cody yells after him, simultaneously enraged and heartbroken. He’s about to follow after him when Bly holds him back by the elbow, Obi stepping in, too. 

“Leave him,” says Bly. 

“Cody,” says Obi. “Give it some time.”  

A moment later comes Ahsoka, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “What’s going on?” she says. 

“Nothing,” snaps Cody. He yanks his arm out of Bly’s grip and stomps past Obi into the kitchen. This is the most emotion Anakin’s seen from him in the long, long time he’s known him. He thought that he knew everything there was to know about Cody: rational, dry and witty, careful, scarily intelligent, loyal—to a fault, maybe. 

Obi stares after him like the heartbreak is his, too. 

Ahsoka sidles up to Anakin. “I’m bored,” she mutters. “Let’s go home?” 

“Yeah,” says Anakin. He looks to their brother, who hasn’t moved. “Obi. Come with us?” 

One of the framed pictures in Obi and Cody’s living room is from Fourth of July ‘91, their first one as siblings. Ahsoka grins with all her teeth, strawberry ice cream all over her mouth. Anakin stares straight into the camera with typical preteen surliness. Obi’s crouched between them with an arm around each of them, smiling. Behind them is a ferris wheel and clear blue sky, all picturesque Americana trailer park summer. Next to it is a photo of Cody, Bly, and their brothers practically dog-piling each other while standing, matching shit-eating grins on their faces. This photo is also dated Fourth of July ‘91, with that same ferris wheel and blue sky behind them.

“Taxes,” says Ahsoka. 

Anakin grunts in acknowledgement. “Yeah, that one I actually know. Don’t worry about it.”

Ahsoka braves the night’s last train on the A line, then a cab from Grant Avenue to JFK, to meet Barriss when her flight lands in New York because she’s got nothing better to do—and because Anakin was right. Outside of Barriss taking the reins, her social life is woefully dry, and she misses the weekend benders her erratic best friend drags her out on. Hopefully, Barriss had such a dull time the past month that she itches to make up for it with something like a week of molly, a threesome with an A-list actor, and a last-minute trip to Miami. It’s happened before.

In the terminal, Barriss spots her first; Ahsoka notices the three suitcases and her ears pick up on Barriss’ voice before she’s got an armful of oud hair perfume and Chanel N°5 and they’re giggling against each other, smacking kisses on cheeks and bemoaning the distance that had kept them apart. Once again, Ahsoka finds herself devoting a fleeting thought to the blessing that is NYU roommate assignment. 

“Did you have fun in Dubai?” she asks, practically vibrating as she takes a suitcase and they head out to find the chauffeur and town car Barriss has certainly ordered. 

“No,” says Barriss jovially. Score! “Yawn. Forget that. Tell me all about you. Also! Tomorrow night, clear your schedule—you and me, and Ashely and MK.” 

“Ashley and MK?” 

“The twins,” says Barriss, duh-like. “We’re friends, I had History of the Universe with them, didn’t I tell you? Anyway—they’re taking us to Bungalow 8 tomorrow, we’re gonna have so much fun!!!” 

“Oh goodie,” says Ahsoka, “I need to get severely trashed. I need to—oh, motherfucker, I didn’t tell you about it. Something—happened.” 

“What?” says Barriss slow, wary. “Are you pregnant?”

“No. Worse. I’ve met the literal love of my life,” says Ahsoka. “He’s like a sex god, I’m not even kidding. He’s an artist, and the other day I watched him solve a crossword puzzle in ten minutes while making someone a French 75. And he’s so funny and kind and a million things, every day I learn something new about him! But—but—he has a girlfriend, I’m literally the whore on the side.” 

“Soso!” gasps Barriss, delighted. 

“Don’t call me that,” whines Ahsoka. She imagines telling Cody about the whole Rex thing. Maybe blunt advice from a healthy middle between her brothers (too judgy) and Barriss (not judgy enough) is exactly what she needs. She better do it soon, before Cody becomes her brother. In a month and a half. Crap, she's gonna throw up. 

“You know,” says Barriss as she finds and flags down the chauffeur, “I always thought your trauma response would be rampant promiscuity, not dependent attachment to one person.”

“Trauma response for what?” says Ahsoka, sliding into the backseat of the car. 

“Your brother moving to New England.”

“New Zealand.”

“New Zealand, right. Anyway I was saying—”

“Nothing intelligent.”

“Now that I think about it,” continues Barriss as though Ahsoka hadn’t spoken, “it makes sense. Your whole life revolves around two to four people. You need to be attached to someone otherwise you, like, fritz and go woozy and start doing too much xanax.” 

“That is so inaccurate,” insists Ahsoka, very breezy. “Besides, there’s no attachment with Rex. Sure, he’s great and right now I’m obsessed with him, but like in a casual way. Like I could totally stop when I want to.” 

Barriss snorts out a laugh. “You wouldn’t know to act casual if I was in your ear giving you a play by play of what to do like I’m your ground control.” 

“Are you calling me clingy?” 

“Noooo,” says Barriss. “Look, he sounds great! He’s probably a prince among men if he’s got you all—” She wriggles her fingers and rolls her eyes up into her head. “And the girlfriend problem? Easily dealt with. I’d like to meet him—he can come with us to Bungalow 8 tomorrow!”  

“No,” says Ahsoka. 

“Why not?” 

“We’re not together,” huffs Ahsoka, crossing her arms over her chest and staring out the car window as skyscrapers whizz by them. “We just fuck after hours.” 

“Then invite him and tell him it’s extended kinky foreplay,” suggests Barriss. She knocks their elbows together. “We can go to Bergdorf’s and pick up something for you to wear—my treat. Is he a leather type of guy?” 

Ahsoka rolls her eyes. “Barriss, he’s not going to fall all over himself for me just because of a leather miniskirt.” Although—well. Maybe? He’s never seen her in something other than her work clothes. It would be nice to show him that she’s got a good life outside the bar. “You’re sure you can get him in?” 

Barriss’ toothy grin is so wide it practically glimmers when the moonlight catches it. “You just tell him to meet you there, and I’ll take care of everything else.” 

Each road that we took, it turned into gold… But the dream was too much for you to hold… 

Now over and over, I keep going over the world we knew… Days when you used to love me—

“What would you have done if Cody said no?” asks Anakin, staring at a chip in the mahogany coffee table he had helped Obi and Cody pick out when they first moved to this apartment. 

Who’s going to help them pick furniture for their place in Auckland? And haul their antique record player across the city (the world, this time)? Who’s going to get them greasy pizza and cheap champagne to celebrate the end of their move in day? 

“I… would’ve put pause on life for a good while,” says Obi wryly. “Moved back in with you and Ahsoka, quit my job maybe. And slowly, everything would have gone back to normal.” Then he laughs. “Or perhaps I would’ve just given up.” 

Anakin laughs. “You? Give up? I’ll believe it when I see it, old man.” He softens. Across from him, in a wrinkled suit with a glass of scotch and the wedding vows he’s trying to write, Obi looks so happy. Anakin would never, ever do anything to take that away, even if it means he’s in the gutters. “Thank fuck we’ll never have to.”

Ahsoka jolts awake to a quick succession of banging—the mattress jumping beneath her—a series of yells—

She’s half-lucid and stumbling out an unfamiliar bed before she realizes she’s nauseous and stark naked and so fucking sore, in a cluttered little bedroom through which window she can see the Brooklyn Bridge, and she just stepped on a small paint tube that splatters chartreuse in a thick stripe on the floor. 

“Motherfucker,” she rasps. She sounds like she spent the night chainsmoking—or screaming. 

She studies the tiny space as she collects her bearings—Bungalow 8 last night with Barriss’ favorite candies of choice, fucking Rex in the bathroom, making out with someone else (maybe Barriss?) but then going home with him, fucking all night til she sobbed of overstimulation and passed out. There’s evidence all over—the bruises and stickiness between her thighs, her leather skirt by his jeans on the floor and her silk top carelessly ripped and slung in the corner by the crate of records and CDs (her underwear, she thinks, is on the floor of the club bathroom), a used condom discarded by the bed before they had—she swallows, she needs Plan B—right, gorgeous canvases and stained palettes and old paintbrushes in another corner, Charlie's Angels and Hitchcock movie posters on the wall and a Mountain Dew can by the stereo system on the bedside table and why the fuck did they come all the way to Brooklyn? 

Oh. Anakin at home. Although Rex also has brothers, he said they would be otherwise occupied at friends and boyfriends’ places, but still through the open door— 

There raised angry voices that had startled her awake are similar in timbre, too far for her to make out actual words but easy to follow. Ahsoka bundles herself up in the sheets to snoop, heart in her throat. Is Rex in organized crime or something? 

No. At his door is just a guy who resembles—Cody, strangely. The guy looks like Cody, ten years older and shifted to the right, grey hair at the temples and a broken-crooked nose. But he has Cody’s scowl and impeccable posture, and the shape of Rex’s eyes. Behind him there’s a tiny Asian woman with a murderous glare fixed on the man. 

She’s the one who catches sight of Ahsoka first. Then the man does, and his brows shoot up—which makes Rex follow his shift in attention to her, too. “Hey,” says Rex, looking so tired. He slides in front of her as if to block her from view. “Did I wake you?” 

“No,” lies Ahsoka. She glances above his shoulder to find the man watching them in a way that irks her—not predatory or anything, just smug and beyond fucking annoying.  

“Girlfriend?” he says. 

Ahsoka’s heart plummets. Rex says nothing but directs a glare at him. 

“I’m Fox,” he says to her. “That’s my fiancé, Riyo.” 

“Ex,” snaps Riyo. To Ahsoka, she says, “Hi. Sorry for barging in on you.” 

Fox glances at Riyo, jaw clenched. Then he focuses on Rex. “You don’t want to tell us shit about your life, fine,” he says. “Frankly? I don’t give enough a fuck to beg you to like the others are doing.” 

“You’re at my place at seven in the morning,” says Rex, slowly turning to face him again. “I would hate to see what it looked like if you did give a fuck.” 

“I'm here because,” says Fox, “ they give a rat’s ass about where you end up and it's driving everyone crazy. So stop being a dick. Pick up the fucking phone, have a ten-minute conversation with one of ‘em. Give ‘em the peace of mind they want before it’s too late.” Like it pains him to admit it, he adds, “If anything, they should hate you. He left us first—for you. We know how it feels—but at least we still had a mother.” 

Ahsoka blanches. Rex stiffens as Riyo snaps, “Fox!” 

Rex wordlessly punches Fox—right hook in the face—and Riyo laughs like she wanted to hit him herself, but she still grabs Fox by the chin to get a look at his face. Ahsoka barely flinches, but tenses, anticipating a punch back. She can take Fox if she has to—self-defense with Anakin and Obi was never a joke. 

But Fox only laughs hysterically. “I get it now,” he snorts, looking terrifying with his feral grin and blood spurting out his nose.  “You really are our brother.” 

“You’re fucking unbearable,” says Rex, "don't come back here." He yanks Ahsoka back inside and slams the door shut. 

Their heartbeats ring in the silence. “I’m sorry,” says Rex. "I'm not usually a hit first talk later type of guy."  

“He deserved it.” Ahsoka steps forward and ducks her head to catch his gaze. “I get why you don’t like them now.” 

“Yeah,” huffs Rex, running a hand over his head.

She squeezes his hand. “Why was he here?” 

“I went to that family shindig I told you about the other week and picked a fight with two of them.” Rex shrugs. “I didn’t see Fox there, but I guess he wanted a piece. Who cares.” Clearly he does. He looks close to tears. “You hungry? Wanna go get some breakfast?” 

“Rex.” 

“I don’t wanna talk about it, Soka,” he says quietly. 

Right. That’s the girlfriend’s job, not the other woman’s. Ahsoka swallows down the bile in her throat. “I’m sorry.” 

“S’not you, baby.” He cups her cheek, kisses the corner of her mouth then the patch of vitiligo that Anakin and Obi called her angel wing when she was small. Ahsoka shifts her hold on the sheets so that when she reaches up to hug him, she cocoons both of them in the fluffy white that smells of their sweat and smoke, soundless slice of heaven. Theirs alone. 

“Can I do something to help?” she asks, pulling back just enough to kiss him. 

Rex smiles like clouds parting for a sunrise after rain. “My girl,” he murmurs, so soft that her heart rents in. “Just… Be here? Stay with me today?”

“You have nothing to do?” asks Ahsoka, worrying at her bottom lip. 

He brushes flyaway hairs away from her face, runs his thumbs along her scalp so soothingly. “All I want to do is take a shower and just sit around with you. And maybe make out a bit.”  

She scoffs but trails languorous kisses along the underside of his jaw, the closest part of him she can reach without moving. “Of course. Jackass.” 

He grins boyishly, dopily. “You still like me. I can make us something to eat in a bit?” 

"That sounds really good." Her throat closes up as he lazily pulls her and the sheets closer. He wants to pretend, who’s she to stop him?

From: [email protected] 

To: [email protected]

Subject: Help Me Emily Post 

What’s the etiquette on inviting your coworker/fuck buddy to your big brother’s wedding? If rude/no-no, consider this my official request for you to be my Plus One to Obi’s wedding!!! Anakin is bringing Artoo! 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]  

Subject: Re: Help Me Emily Post

I would consult my mother on this but I can’t let her know I know someone who has premarital sex on the regular. Personally I think it’s OK! But that’s only because he’s polite (Emily Post approved) and hot (wedding sex!) 

“We don’t have to sell the apartment,” says Obi-Wan, “right?” 

Underneath him, Cody’s roving hands still on his spine. “No!” he answers immediately. “No. This is our apartment. Mine and yours. Every important thing we’ve ever done has happened in it. You asked me to marry you in this apartment. If I have it my way, we grow old and drop dead here.”

“Right here?”

“Right here,” says Cody, using his leverage to pull Obi closer so he’s promising against his lips, “on this couch, me and you like this. First one to go owes the other ten bucks and a blowjob on the other side.” 

Obi-Wan can’t think straight. There’s his lot in life—ten years ago, he thought he was owed eternal sadness. He would have refused to believe—to hope—he would get all of this. “I love you so much,” he says, and laughs heartily when they roll off the couch onto the floor, Tuesday afternoon turning into lovely Sunday morning.      

When Ahsoka puts her mind to it, there’s nothing she can’t achieve. Not even focaccia. 

She goes to Trader Joe’s for flour and olive oil and yeast; she picks up cherry tomatoes and sprigs of rosemary at the Greenmarket on Broadway & Whitehall Street. She puts Speaking in Tongues in the CD player and kneads dough to the rhythm of Burning Down the House. She reads thirty minutes of Virginia Woolf til the dough rises then rolls it out in a glass dish and arranges the tomatoes and rosemary into flowers; when she sticks it in the oven the orange light inside spills halolike onto it. 

“Pretty,” she says to herself, sliding to sit on the floor in front of it. She imagines bringing this to Obi and Cody’s place for Sunday lunch, and everyone’s praise over the dining table at how good it tastes. Maybe Rex could be there, too, arm resting on the back of her chair and fondly tugging at her hair like he does when she says something he particularly delights in. She imagines that proud, besotted quirk to his mouth. She would haul ass to Brooklyn (yuck) forever if it meant she could keep that smile for herself, the way she does her books. 

They could get a studio close to his current place for a bit of privacy, live in close quarters because they have no need for space anyway and they would learn to cook together; in the bedroom her pens and his paint brushes would sit by side. She imagines a whole other life while the fresh-spring scent of baking bread wafts around her. Rex is already pretty good at cooking, she muses. He made her pancakes with too much sugar the morning Fox barged in on them. What music does he like? Movies, other than Hitchcock? Would she have anything in common with his brothers? She knows all four of them like football but for some inane reason they call it rugby despite being born and raised New Yorkers. She could learn the rules of the game and play with them; she’s scrappy and quick and she’s got muscles from boxing with Anakin. Would Rex and Anakin get along? She has a feeling they’d be good friends. What about him and Obi? 

The doorbell rings, jerking her out of her reverie. She gets to her feet, expecting Anakin and Artoo back (Anakin’s keys sit forgotten on the coffee table), but instead there’s a haughty lady in a pantsuit. Ahsoka’s first thought is that they’ve been made for either the drugs under the bathroom sink or Anakin’s dumpster diving behind the Samsung headquarters and Secret Service is carting them off. Her second one is pfffft.

The woman glances beyond Ahsoka into the living room, mouth pursed like she’s smelled something sour. Ahsoka hates her on principle. “Hello. I’m looking for Anakin Skywalker.” 

“Who’re you?” 

“My name is Tsabin Naberrie,” says the woman. “Anakin and I are… friends. Could I speak with him?” 

“He’s not here,” says Ahsoka. “Can I take a message?” 

“Frankly, this is a sensitive matter.” 

“I’m his sister.” 

Tsabin’s brows shoot up as her gaze roves over Ahsoka’s dark skin and mane of bleached white and blue curls. “I don’t see the resemblance.” 

“I can tell him you stopped by,” says Ahsoka. “I would invite you in, but he’s never told me of you and strangers freak me out.” 

“There’s no need,” says Tsabin, her mouth curling. She rifles in her slim, sensible purse for a moment and pulls out a card with a phone number scrawled onto it. “Would you tell him to call? It’s urgent.” 

Ahsoka muffles her giggles behind her palm. “What the hell did Anakin do?”  

Tsabin just scowls. “Please have him call me. Have a good day.” Before Ahsoka can react, Tsabin turns and walks away, the sound of her heels echoing on the landing. Ahsoka laughs to herself again.  

Fifteen minutes later Ahsoka’s taken the perfect (!!!!) focaccia out and Artoo’s barking happily at the other side of the door. Ahsoka opens it for the dog to dash inside and into the kitchen, where he hops around in circles as he’s wont to do. Anakin shakes out his sweaty hair with a grunt hello. 

“I have a question,” says Ahsoka, mirth evident in her voice. 

“Hm?” says Anakin distractedly, toeing off his sneakers. 

“Are you in a cult? Scientology maybe?” 

“Uhhh.” Anakin scratches the side of his nose. “Not to my knowledge.” 

“I think you are,” says Ahsoka. “Some woman came for you.” 

He snorts. “Some woman?” 

“So fucking rude, too,” she continues, making her way back into the kitchen. “Like it was a personal inconvenience to come look for you. Her name’s Sabine or something and she wants you to call; the card’s by the phone. Anyway I made focaccia !” She cuts up a sizeable piece and puts it on his favorite Snoopy plate. “It’s really so good, you’re gonna love it. I’m thinking I’ll try it with more veggies next time and bring it to lunch on Sunday, here—tell me if you like it—what’s wrong?”

Anakin’s standing where she left him with one sock on, staring at the phone like it’s a ghost. 

“Anakin?”

“What did you say her name was?” he asks. 

“Sabine? Tsabin Naberry, something like that.”

Anakin lets out a string of curses so colorfully filthy Ahsoka takes a step back. “What the fuck did she want?” he demands.

“She just said to call her,” says Ahsoka as Anakin stalks into his room in a rage, tugging his dirty shirt off and dumping it on the floor. “Who is she?” 

 “Tsabin Naberrie,” spits Anakin as he comes back out in clean jeans and a shirt, “is the PR consultant and the cousin of my girlfriend!” 

“What girlfriend?” demands Ahsoka.

“Senator Eurotrash!” 

Ahsoka makes a choked sound. No. No! No way! “Can we get Obi on the phone? I can’t do this by myself!” 

“She broke up with me and now she sends Tsabin here? Instead of coming down to see me herself? Where’s the fucking phone—” 

Entirely bowled over, Ahsoka watches him rip the couch cushions out of their place, knocking books and dirty dishes around til he finds the phone under the coffee table. He punches the number in and puts the phone to his ear, pacing and fuming. Artoo trots out of the kitchen and rests onto his stomach by Ahsoka’s feet, like he too recognizes that something strange but momentous is happening. 

Anakin is not a dog. He will not roll over just because Padmé asked for it—not even deigning that. As usual, she sent Tsabin to do her bidding. The only reason he’s going to see her—Tsabin’s apartment, of course—is to give her a piece of his fucking mind. He fucking hates her. What a selfish, spolied bitch; how could he love someone who won’t even speak to him on the phone? How could he wish to spend forever with such a heartless woman, so cruel a lover? 

(Simple. For everything else that she is.)

But he’s not letting her get away with it this time. Padmé wishes to see you. Well, he wishes for a fucking million dollars and the last five years of his life back, and no one’s snapping their fingers to get him those things, are they? The senator needs to learn that in the real world—he gets out the cab and slams the door shut behind him, barely tossing out a greeting to Typho before he’s in the elevator, glaring at his own reflection—she can’t get everything she wants just by beckoning for it. Not even him!  

The elevator slides open and he’s greeted by Tsabin’s gaudy furnishings and Padmé, the poised perfect Senator Amidala, pacing in a band tee and ratty gym shorts and no makeup or jewelry at all, hair a wild mane like an electrified halo. She freezes when she spots him. 

“Anakin,” she says, like he’s a revelation. 

He hates her. "You—"

She stalks over to him and drops to one goddamn knee. Anakin stops breathing. 

“Marry me,” she says, her voice breaking. 

Anakin whimpers.

“I love you,” says Padmé. “There is—no one in the world I love like you. No one I could ever love like you, Ani.” She sniffles deeply. “I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say yes so, so bad, it broke my heart not to. I was so scared, but I promise that this is it, I won’t ever hurt you like that again, I want to meet Ahsoka and Obi-Wan and I want you to meet my family, and I want to live with you, and build a life with you—”

“You can’t propose to me!” yells Anakin, cutting her off. Ignoring Padmé’s horrified, heartbroken what, he reaches into his pocket for The Ring, falling onto his knees opposite her. “Look at this—” 

“Oh,” she says, and she laughs wetly. “Oh, it’s so gorgeous.” 

Anakin shakes his head, heart thundering. This is—never in his wildest dreams— “Do you mean it?” he asks hoarsely. "Yes, you want me?"

Padmé furiously nods, hands cupping his cheek so hard her nails dig into his skin. “Yes,” she whispers. “Let’s get married—now. Tomorrow.” She sighs then laughs. “We can have a—a big wedding later, but I want to be your wife as soon as I can. It’s all I’ve been thinking of since you asked. I imagine—waking up next to you, and making coffee for us every morning, and coming home to our shoes and our coats in the same place every night. I just want to be your wife.” 

“And I want to be your husband,” rushes Anakin, tilting his head up to capture her lips. She kisses back like welcome home, sloppy and messy, their teeth clacking and snot dripping into their mouths because they’re both crying like fools, and he grasps her shoulders to bring her closer, closer than close—

There’s—a new bump in her stomach, and Anakin knows without needing to be told. Call it divine intuition or the line his sister left him on their kitchen counter, he knows and it leaves him breathless. Padmé sniffles, pulls back just enough to take his hand and press it under her shirt, right where the skin rounds. 

“Besides,” she says, “I would like to fit in my wedding dress during the ceremony.”

The world goes brighter. “You’re—”

Padmé nods, biting her lip. “Thirteen weeks.” Her voice goes wondrous as she adds, “Twins.”

“Twins,” echoes Anakin. Wow. Twins. Babies. “Ours?” 

“Yes, my love.” Padmé takes his hands in both of hers, intertwining their fingers and kissing his knuckles then his mouth, eyes closed and nose brushing his. “I’m sorry. I promise from now on it’s you and me against the world.”  

Isn’t that the nicest thing he’s ever heard.

“Hey, it’s me. I know you’re probably asleep right now, but um… I haven’t heard from Anakin in a few days. Three, four. I don’t think it’s something to worry about? I think. I hope. Anyway. We’ll talk tomorrow, call me when you wake up.”

The phone’s ringing, nagging her dreamy sleep.

Someone huffs mid-snore. Ahsoka blindly reaches for the thing, answers it, smushing it to her ear. “H’lo?” 

“Ahsoka!”

Ahsoka winces. Too loud. “Wha—” 

Then she registers who it was. Anakin. 

“Where’ve you been?” she asks sluggishly, rubbing sleep out of her eye as she sits up. Rex half-whines as she moves out of his reach, but then he rolls over and keeps snoring lightly into her pillow. 

“Sorry. Hello,” says Anakin. “I have eloped. I’m married! You have a sister-in-law. Padmé, say hello.”

Padmé, who is apparently not a sign of Anakin’s impending psychological breakdown but just his wife, says, “Um. Hello!”

Ahsoka freezes before she repeatedly smacks Rex in the chest. He half-heartedly smacks her back, grumbling into the pillow. “Soka. Down.”

"What am I, a dog?" she huffs, and then she bursts into tears. She shoves the handheld into Rex's chest and clumsily tumbles out of the bed, tripping over the sheets tangled between her legs and nearly falling face-first into the floor. She reaches the kitchen before she collapses onto the checkered tile, woozily staring at the early morning sun glittering off Anakin’s sudsy dishes and the broken toaster.

No one’s going to fix that toaster now. She’ll have to get a new one, and do Anakin’s dishes, which have been in the sink for a week because of the principle of the thing—he washes his dishes, she washes hers, but now he’s married and gone so she has to do them. And she has to ghost Rex, because Senator Padmé Amidala, her brand new sister-in-law, cannot know that Ahsoka is the type of horrible, selfish person who keeps a guy with a girlfriend on fuck buddy speed dial just because he has tattoos and a big dick and his voice is so hoarse and enamored when he calls her my girl. 

Rex has a girl and Ahsoka is not her. Also, he can’t stay—there’s no room for another heartless, careless person in the family. They already have Ahsoka filling the role. 

It would be the best course of action: dishes. Toaster. The third thing. Easy. She can do it.

“Hey,” says the man himself. He crouches down in front of her. She stubbornly stares at their bare feet. “I hung up with whoever that was.” His hand rests on her knee, thumb rubbing the bone. “Is everything alright?” 

“Yes,” says Ahsoka. His palm is so rough, but the calluses seem to fit so perfectly against the nicks she has on her knees from a lifetime of falling off bikes and high horses. She takes his hand. She sneaks a peek at him and finds him watching her with that soft look that makes her float but also on the verge of throwing up out of guilt.  

She had called him last night, after leaving a message for Obi, and asked him to come over. He showed up at her place in thirty minutes and he just sat in her bed with her til she fell asleep, no sex or anything. Just came because she asked, killing time with her. What a guy.  

“Rex,” she says. What to say? I love you? How could you? I’m sorry? She wishes she’d met him first, before his girlfriend. Worse—she wishes she were enough for him to break up with the other girl. To choose her. Clearly he sees nothing worth anything in her. Clearly he’s not as great as she’s made him out to be in her head. 

He kisses the back of her hand and a sob betrays her. He frowns. Dammit. She buries her face in her free hand as her shoulders shake. 

“C’mere,” he murmurs, pulling her into his chest between his legs. Hiding her from the cruel world, where her brothers leave her and Rex leaves her and she’s all alone forever. He strokes her hair and dusts kisses on her temple, and her heart shatters all the worse for it. “What’s wrong, baby?” 

She furiously shakes her head, eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t—”

“Okay, okay.” He kisses her cheek. “I’ve got you, okay.” He rubs her back over her protruding shoulder blades then tangles his hand in her hair, holding her close to his true blue heart. Ahsoka grips the waistband of his boxers, twisting the fabric between her fingers, stop crying stop crying stopcrying stopstopstopstop . She can barely breathe. 

How could Anakin just get married like that? How could Obi-Wan just move across the world, as if going a week without seeing him feels impossible? How is she supposed to exist out of her brothers’ orbit when it’s all she’s ever known? 

“It’s alright,” whispers Rex. “Everything will be alright. I promise.”

No, it won’t. But she can deal. 

Ahsoka pushes away from Rex, sniffling deeply and embarrassingly. Her face warms when she realizes she’s snotted all over him. He’s already reaching back for her, a kicked puppy look on his face. “Soka—”

“I need to pee,” she mutters, picking herself up and darting to the bathroom like she’s on fire. She slams the door shut behind her and grips the edge of the bathroom sink, staring at her reflection.

This girl in the mirror is such an angry, careless thing. No ambition, no empathy for strangers if they get in the way of what she wants. So uncomfortably familiar. But there’s some redeeming good there, right? She’s fun at parties, she’s intelligent when she’s not too stoned, apparently she can be a good cook. 

She turns on the sink to wash her hands and her face when she hears the noises outside the door. Too many to be made by just one man. 

“Rex?” says Obi’s voice. Ahsoka’s head snaps up. She stares into her wide-eyed reflection, water dripping off her chin. “Um. Hello?” 

“Rex?” echoes—Cody. Oh, motherfucker. “Rex, you mean—Rex?” 

“What are you doing here?” asks Rex. They know each other?

“What are you doing here?” echoes Cody. “Where’s Ahsoka?” 

Ahsoka could scream—what are they doing here? 

She bolts out to the living room to be met with the sight of Obi and Cody standing by the still-open front door in what looks like the t-shirts and sweatpants they wore to bed, their copy of the key in the lock. Rex is still in his fucking boxers in front of her older brother—there’s no mistaking what that looks like. “Hi. What are you guys doing here?” 

“We got your message, then Anakin called,” says Obi, mouth twisted and downturned in terrible sadness. “He got married."

“I know,” says Ahsoka. “He called me, too. I—” She wipes her face. “You know to who?” 

“Some woman named Padmé,” says Obi. 

“The senator," clarifies Ahsoka. “Padmé Amidala.” 

Obi-Wan rubs at his tension-headache forehead spot in patent eldest child disappointment. “Fucking Anakin.”

“Jesus Mary Joseph and the camel,” says Cody under his breath. “Obi. There’s a fucking senator in our family now. As if Aayla’s NASA bullshit wasn’t enough. Maybe Ahsoka will marry the president.” That seems to remind him—he turns to Rex. “Now you. How do you know Ahsoka?” 

Rex looks utterly miserable, like he wishes the ground would open and swallow him whole. Ahsoka decides the least she could do is alleviate some of that, considering it’s her family drama he accidentally got caught in. “How do you know Rex?” she demands. 

“He’s my brother,” says Cody. 

“Half-brother,” corrects Rex automatically. 

Ahsoka gapes, like she’s being punk’d. She whirls on Rex. "Cody is one of the evil half-brothers?” 

“Evil!” crows Cody.  

“How come you never mentioned his name?” 

“I did tell you about him—my half-brother and his fiancé with the weird name!” says Rex. “Didn’t you… connect the dots, after meeting Fox?” 

“I didn’t know Fox was Cody’s brother til now,” snaps Ahsoka. But—now she remembers. Fox, the one Obi keeps bailing out of jail. “Besides, I thought that's who you meant about the mean rich ones—Fox and Riyo!”

“Riyo’s not as weird a name as Obi-Wan!"

“Thank you,” Obi interjects drily. 

“She’s met Fox?” Cody interrupts, indignant. “You’re introducing Fox to people? You like Fox more than me?” 

“Fox showed up at my apartment to heckle me! If anything, Fox is my least favorite! My favorite is the fifth one, whose name I don’t know because he never fucking bothered me!”

“Wolffe?” guesses Obi-Wan. 

“No, Wolffe found my number and left me twelve messages on the answering machine,” huffs Rex.

“Ah. Ponds, then.”

“Rex doesn’t have email,” grouses Cody, “otherwise Ponds would’ve been on his ass.”  

Rex buries his face into his hands and groans. Ahsoka wants to offer him some comfort, but she’s ultra-conscious of Obi’s critical judgment of their states of casual undress and the fact that Ahsoka has a boy who clearly slept over.

Artoo trots over to them from Anakin’s room, barking up at Obi. “Hello, boy,” says Obi blithely, crouching down to pet him. “I don’t suppose you know what’s gotten into my idiot brother’s head.” He narrows his eyes up at Ahsoka. “How didn’t you realize Cody and Rex are related? They look so similar.”

“Unlike you, I’m not looking for Cody everywhere I go,” retorts Ahsoka. Looking at it now , at them side by side, they do look quite similar. Almond-shaped eyes, their soldier-like posture and broad shoulders. Maybe even their smiles quirk a bit similar. Is stubborn pride genetic?

“We do have the same last name,” notes Cody. 

“Huh. I didn’t know your last name,” says Ahsoka faintly. Rex Fett. Rex Tano-Fett. Fett-Tano? 

No. Stop it, Ahsoka. Ahsoka Tano-Fett. 

!!!!!

Okay. She breathes in and out, so normal. Sooo normal. This is all happening to her because Rex still has pillow creases on his cheek and Anakin’s spontaneous nuptials have thrown her for a loop. She’s so totally normal about this man. 

“So how did you two meet?” asks Obi, rising to his feet with Artoo held in his arms like a baby. 

“We work together,” says Ahsoka, surly. To Cody, “How did you find out you have extra brothers?” 

“Echo’s Myspace,” says Cody.

Ahsoka claps a hand to her mouth to muffle a peal of laughter, just imagining Cody browsing Myspace in his and Obi’s swanky, woodsy study with his reading glasses on. 

“Ahsoka and her brothers are really close,” says Cody to Rex, tentative and clearly hopeful. “If you continue hanging around her, you’ll have to deal with me being there, too—without trying to bite my fucking head off for, say, passing the salt at the dinner table.” 

“Only til you move to New Zealand,” says Rex. 

“You know about that?” asks Cody, his whole demeanor shifting. 

“Wolffe’s messages mentioned.” 

“And you remembered.” 

“He has a freakish memory,” pipes up Ahsoka. Obi raises his brows. 

They are interrupted from further misery—or perhaps doused with even more of it—by footsteps on the landing, a familiar voice saying, “Don’t worry, she’s going to love you, she listens to your speeches on the radio sometimes—” Then the still-open door reveals a couple in jeans and baseball caps and oversized sunglasses, hands clasped. First comes Anakin, overconfident and overjoyed, and then his fucking wife, apprehensively gnawing at her lip but still looking at her loon of a husband like he’s hung the stars in the sky. 

“You’re awake!” says Anakin to Ahsoka, delighted. He turns to Obi. “And you’re here! You can meet Padmé!” 

Padmé waves, a little awkwardly. Obi waves back. Ahsoka smacks Rex in the chest again; he takes it like a champ. Anakin dumps his duffel bag on the ground and closes the door behind him, taking Artoo from Obi with a hello Artooie!!! 

“Oh, it’s so great to see you!” he says, dropping Artoo for him to scamper off. “And you brought Cody! And—” Anakin’s gaze swivels from Cody to Rex. “Oh, Rex! I remember you—not this much of you, I have to say. Laundry day?” 

“You—know Rex?” asks Ahsoka, aghast. 

“Sure, he and Cody and Bly got into a big fight on the Fourth of July,” says Anakin. “It was fascinating, I’d never seen Cody show this much emotion in my life.”

Cody glares at Obi as if to say this is all your fault.  

“You—” Ahsoka racks her memory. “When?” 

“When you were drunk and passed out on the roof.” 

“You were there?” asks Rex.

“I was not drunk.” 

“That is not the point right now,” says Obi tersely. “Padmé, it’s very nice to meet you. I look forward to spending time getting to know you.” He rounds on Anakin, inhaling deeply. "You.  What is wrong with you? Did you fall and hit your head? Is the Senator pregnant out of wedlock? What reason would there be for you to have a shotgun wedding without inviting me and your sister!”

On the defensive, Anakin opens his mouth to retort. Cody raises a hand to stop him.    

Obi’s on a roll. “I never expected such petty, careless behavior from you. Not only did you disappear without a warning, driving us all out of our minds with worry, you underwent a monumental life-altering event without even informing us about it. How would you feel if Cody and I did that to you?” he demands. “We didn’t even know you were seeing someone— how would you feel if Ahsoka got hitched to this new boyfriend of hers without even introducing him to you!” 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” says Ahsoka’s mouth without input from her brain. 

Five people stare at her with varying levels of judgment. Rex glares. “Excuse me. What?” 

“We’re just—” Ahsoka makes a weird noise. Her brothers and a US Senator are in her living room and her co-worker/boytoy/actual soulmate probably but she's not insane enough to say it out loud is standing there practically naked and looking like a Playgirl spread and glaring at her. This is beyond mortifying. “Well. I’m not your girlfriend!”

“Oh, motherfucker,” says Cody under his breath. 

“Not my girlfriend!” says Rex, disbelieving. “I went clubbing with Barriss and her crowd of schizo microcelebrities because you asked—that was the most terrifying night of my life, and I used to live in a frat house! You think I would do that for some chick who’s not my girlfriend?” 

“A frat bro!” says Anakin. “God save us all.” 

“You’re one to talk, you got hitched to Senator Eurotrash,” snaps Ahsoka. “Er. Sorry, Senator.” 

“That’s quite alright,” says Padmé. “I suppose we’re family now, so it’s all in good fun.” 

“Totally,” says Ahsoka. 

“You should call me Padmé, by the way.” Padmé smiles. It’s actually a very soft and warm smile, not Senator-like at all. Ahsoka shakily smiles back. She wonders if Padmé will want to do things like take her shopping. She—kind of hopes yes. “We’re sorry it’s—all so sudden.” 

Anakin sighs, all his bravado gone. He grasps Obi’s elbow and Ahsoka’s shoulder. “She’s right. We—I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I didn’t think you would care this much.” 

“You fucking dumbass,” says Ahsoka, and she’s suddenly crying again. 

“Anakin,” says Obi, “Anakin, you fucking idiot. You got married without us. I used to wipe your ass and you got married without me there.” 

“You never wiped my ass, old man,” says Anakin. 

“It’s a metaphor.” 

Ahsoka muffles a particularly loud soub. Anakin looks horrified. “Don’t worry!” he insists. “We’re having an actual wedding with a ceremony after Padmé gives birth—” 

“AFTER WHAT?" 

“Hey, we’ve all had premarital sex here!” says Anakin hastily, raising his hands in defence. He glares at Rex and then Ahsoka. “Some of us more recently than others, apparently, which reminds me—defiling my sister without putting a label on it? Under my roof?” 

“Do not answer that,” says Ahsoka to Rex, not meeting his eye. She knows she’s hurt him, for some reason, like he has any right to be hurt—he’s the one with the girlfriend! Instead she stares at the Senator—at Padmé—who, as of yet, does not look like she regrets what she’s married into. Nothing crazier than the US government, Ahsoka supposes. 

Padmé says, “We’re having twins.” 

Obi’s anger slowly dissipates. “That sounds—” He turns to Cody, who grins encouragingly. “That sounds so lovely.” 

“Doesn’t it,” says Anakin, fondly looking at Padmé. 

“You’re married,” says Obi, “and you’re going to be a father.” 

“Yeah.” Anakin turns hopeful. “I know it’s so sudden, but… it’s good. I have someone who—like you have Cody.” 

“It’s good,” echoes Obi. "Yes. It's—very good."

Oh, motherfucker. Ahsoka looks at Rex, who’s watching her. Waiting for her move, like he had been the first night. He’s still here. She kisses Anakin’s cheek then Padmé’s in quick succession, then she grabs Rex by the arm and hauls him to her room, slamming the door shut behind them. 

She whirls on him. “I’m issuing an ultimatum.”

Rex’s eyes widen. “Soka. I’m not down for marriage right now, not even to you.” 

“I’m twenty years old, Fett, I’m not down for marriage either,” she snaps. “No. I mean—break up with your girlfriend,” she orders, her breath lodging in her throat, “or me and you, it’s done.” 

He, strangely, laughs, a high and strangled sound. “What girlfriend?” 

“The girlfriend you told me you have the first time I kissed you!” 

He laughs again. “She hasn’t been my girlfriend since that night!” 

Ahsoka almost cries. Not his girlfriend?

Then what the fuck have they been doing this whole summer?

“What do you mean?” 

“Ahsoka,” he says, and when he leans down and cups her face it’s not soft. It’s a listen to me type of grip, forcing her gaze to meet his. “I went to her apartment and broke up with her right after you left, the very first night we got together.” 

“You don’t have a girlfriend?” she croaks. 

“No.”

“So I wasn’t, like, a homewrecker, and you weren’t a heartless bastard cheater?” 

“No!” 

“Why did you break up with her?”

“I—I just wanted you.” 

“But you never said.” 

Rex flushes. “I… hinted? I’m not good with saying. And it seemed like you weren’t either, so I thought we were doing this unspoken taking it slow thing, but we both knew we were… each other’s.” He ducks his head, letting go of her. “I told my brothers about you. Called you my new girlfriend, the funniest coolest smartest girl on earth, and—” He clears his throat. “I dunno. I had a feeling that you… it would be life-changing.”

“Really?” 

“If nothing else, the goddamn senator saw me in my boxers,” he deadpans. Then he laughs, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m insane.” She wants to shove him onto her bed and tie him down and never let him leave. 

“No,” says Ahsoka. "You  must think I’m insane. That first night, you pulled on my hair at the bar and you said something and I thought… wow, he probably fucks good, and so I totally jumped you just cause I wanted it bad.” She scoffs. What a long, strange trip it’s been. “I fell in love with you like, a week after that, and I thought you had a girlfriend but I was too gone for it to even matter.”

“Soka,” he says, grinning like he’s won. “That’s so fucking embarrassing. Christ.” He cups her face again and kisses her deeply, leaving her breathless. “I love you so much, you psycho.”

“Yeah,” she huffs. “Ditto.” She wraps her arms around his neck and presses close to him. “This is—not a dream?” 

He shakes his head, still grinning. “No, baby.” He’s so fucking pretty. She traces the slope of his cheek and the slightest groove of a dimple. 

“Cool.” She kisses him. “I can’t believe I’m in love with Cody’s brother.” 

“Argh, don’t remind me,” he grumbles, burying his face in the crook of his neck. 

She softly runs her nails through the buzzed hair at his nape and grins like a predator when she feels him shiver, but it falls when she thinks about Cody outside and Anakin’s recollection of their Fourth of July fight and Fox’s broken nose. “He’s a good guy,” she says quietly. “When I got my first period and I was too freaked out to tell my brothers he bought me pads and stuff. He picks me up when I’ve done too much with Barriss and he never says a word about it. Why don’t you want to try?” 

When he speaks, his breath is warm on her throat and his lips brush against her skin. “He’s just doing it out of misplaced latent guilt because our father’s a bastard,” says Rex, muffled. Ahsoka slightly turns to kiss the side of his head.  

“So?” 

“He doesn’t give a shit about me or the boys.” 

“Of course he does, otherwise he wouldn’t be trying so pathetically. What else?” 

He sounds so scared when he admits it. “What if he—leaves?” 

Ahsoka tightens her grip around him. Her boyfriend. Her boyfriend!!! “He won’t.” 

His shoulders slump and he pulls back enough to kiss her. “Let me get dressed,” he murmurs against her mouth. Another kiss. “Then figure everything out from there.” 

“Okay, baby,” she hums. Rex grabs his sweats and shirt off the back of her laundry chair and she watches as he slips them, finding shorts for herself too. She’s got all the sunrises and butterflies in her tummy, what with how relieved and delighted she feels. 

When she opens her bedroom door, Anakin nearly stumbles onto her floor and barely manages to catch himself in time. Behind him is Obi-Wan, arms crossed and clearly awaiting a verdict but not about to be as obvious about it as Anakin eavesdropping. Cody and Padmé, sitting on the couch, stop mid-chat to look at them. Cody slowly gets up. 

“This is my boyfriend,” says Ahsoka, taking his hand. “Rex. That’s Anakin and Obi-Wan, my older brothers; Padmé, Anakin’s wife.” She glances up at him. “And you know Cody.” 

Rex swallows, squeezing her hand. “Yeah, I do.” He clears his throat. “I’m gonna run out and get bagels for breakfast. You wanna come with me?”  

Cody nods, expression carefully neutral. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go get breakfast.”  

It’s storming outside, rain pelting the windows and thunder rattling Artoo to zoom into a different hiding place each time it strikes. The apartment smells like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies from their earlier stint in the kitchen, Ahsoka and Padmé tutting at the recipe while Anakin gobbled chocolate chips byy the handful. Now Padmé sits cross-legged on their couch, Sexing the Cherry propped up on her rounded tummy and thick tortoise shell-patterned glasses on her nose. On the floor by her feet, Anakin fiddles with a screwdriver and the toaster. Ahsoka sits opposite him, reading over a stack of papers with a Bic pen. It’s quiet, peaceful. 

Anakin’s head snaps up when he hears the key turn in the lock. 

The door opens to reveal Obi in a wet slicker, his cheeks pink. “Hello there,” he says.

“Your key is for emergencies,” says Ahsoka absent-mindedly. 

“This is an emergency. Sort of.” He kicks his shoes off and takes off his slicker. “I have news.” 

Anakin and Ahsoka simultaneously frown. Padmé reaches down to squeeze Anakin’s shoulder, uncrossing her legs to stand. “I’m gonna go lay down in your room. Nice to see you, Obi-Wan.” 

Obi waves at her as she walks away and softly closes Anakin’s bedroom door behind her. 

“What’s wrong?” asks Ahsoka. 

“Cody and I have decided,” says Obi, “to stay in New York. At least for the time being.” 

Anakin and Ahsoka blink at each other, still frowning. “Um,” she says. “Why?” 

“Rex asked,” says Obi. 

No one says anything.

“I know he can be pretty persuasive,” says Ahsoka, and Anakin cringes just thinking about the double meaning of her knowing that, “but you’re telling me you and Cody upended a whole move because… Rex asked?” 

Obi shrugs. “Sure.” 

“But Rex hated Cody up until like, last week,” says Anakin. 

“I know, but they apparently get along really well when Rex is not being difficult and Cody is not being—er—unintentionally sanctimonious.” 

“I still don’t get it.” 

“Well, family is important,” says Obi, hands on his hips. “Cody’s just getting to know his new brothers. One of them is in high school, practically a baby. Rex asked if Cody would consider not going to New Zealand right now so they could—try out the extended family thing, and so—” He shrugs. “Voilà.” 

“But that’s what Cody thinks,” presses Ahsoka. “What do you think? Don't you want to go to Auckland?” 

“I imagined if it were one of you asking me to stay in New York, and I understood Cody’s choice immediately.”   

More silence. Thunder rumbles; there’s the pitter-patter of Artoo’s paws as he darts out of Ahsoka’s bedroom and under the couch.

“You mean… you mean if one of us had asked you to stay when you first told us, you… would’ve?” says Anakin slowly.  

Obi-Wan shrugs. “Is it stupid to say that… well, part of me hoped you might,” he confesses. “It didn’t feel great, that you guys were so eager for me to go.” 

“I wouldn’t say we were… eager,” says Anakin. “But you just seemed so excited for it.”

“I was.” Obi nods. “But as the end of the summer got closer, the reality of leaving you here became… a little unbearable.” 

Ahsoka, sounding strangled, says, “We just want you to be happy.” 

“I’m never happier than when I’m with you,” says Obi.

Anakin gets to his feet and launches himself at Obi, gripping the back of his brother’s shirt. He feels more than hears Obi’s oof, then they’re both jostled by Ahsoka crashing into them, her shoulders shaking. Without missing a beat, Obi’s arms come up around the two of them, so tight it’s almost suffocating, and his head finds its perch in the juncture between Anakin and Ahsoka's. This is an embrace as familiar to Anakin as the back of his hand, the patches of vitiligo on Ahsoka’s face, the pattern of freckles on Obi’s nose. Twenty years’ worth of Thanksgivings and summers, birthdays and hospitals and fires in kitchens; twenty years in Manhattan with the three of them scampering around the city like rats, teaching each other their best and worst habits and then loving each other despite their horrible flaws. 

Everything else could go away, as long as he keeps his brother and sister. 

“Don’t go,” whispers Anakin. 

“Please,” adds Ahsoka. 

If possible, Obi hugs them even tighter. “Alright,” he says, and that’s that.