Chapter Text
Rex caught sight of her for the first time at some family event, years ago. He didn’t know it then, but she was going to be the biggest, brightest part of his life in the future. They were barely teenagers, and he was at a barbeque with his brothers, an invite from a neighbor. Mutual friends, it seemed, and Ahsoka’s brother Obi-Wan had been invited, and brought along his siblings.
Ahsoka was… Loud, that day. She was, what, thirteen, he was fourteen? She had this brash sense of confidence that hadn’t been taken away by maturity yet, and so she joined a game of football Cody had initiated and evidently been placed on his team. It’d been a mess of a game, but he liked the way she smiled, so it didn’t really matter.
Then, some months later, came the yard sale. Cody and Fox had put it together, asking him and a handful of the younger siblings to offer up a few things. They’d get whatever money was made off of them, they claimed, so Rex put up the monster trucks he’d been attached to for years but his younger siblings never liked, a child’s archery set, and books he’d gotten as gifts over the years he’d never actually read. Among them was a copy of a Kaminoan history book his brother had passed to him. He’d skimmed the pages, never really caring since any events that happened he either already knew about or could ask one of his brothers about.
Walking from a few doors down the street came Obi-Wan and Ahsoka.
Now, by this point Rex knew about them. He knew that Obi-Wan taught at the high school with Cody, that his younger brother Anakin worked at the mechanic his family always brought their cars to, and Ahsoka was in the same grade as Fives and Echo. They weren’t friends or anything, but her name was mentioned and he saw her in the halls during the transition from third to fourth period.
Ahsoka and Obi-Wan stick together as they scan the card tables of junk they’re trying to make a few dollars off of. Rex doesn’t see it happen, but he hears when Ahsoka says, “Obi-Wan, look!”
“I knew you’d find the books eventually,” he’d teased.
“ Obi , it’s Republica Kamino, I only have Republica Coruscant and Republica Shili, and this is a first edition!”
“I can see that, it is pretty exciting. How much is it?”
The silence speaks volumes. “Six dollars. Dearest brother, can I borrow a dollar?”
He chuckles, and Rex sees him pull out his wallet. “Go pay the man, menace. Are you sure there isn’t anything different you want?”
“Unless they’re harboring Republica Naboo somewhere in here, no, this is it.”
She trots over to the table. “Hi, Mr. Fett! Just this please.” Ahsoka hands over the bills, to which Cody takes them, smiles, and points her in the direction of the lemonade they made. “Cool!” she says.
“Go at it, kid. This one’s on us.”
They’d been charging fifty cents per cup, but that was only in technicality, and Rex had a feeling they’d never make any money off the drinks anyway. Ahsoka leaves with his copy of Republica Kamino under her arm, Obi-Wan empty handed, but smiling.
There are other instances, conversations in the halls and one, boring wedding they’re both invited to where they make weird faces at each other from across the tables, but they don’t call themselves friends yet. They won’t for some time.
Not until Freshman year Electrical Engineering at Coruscant State University.
Rex took a gap year, because he was the only one who could drive the kids to school everyday, didn’t work a consistent job, and he wasn’t all that worried about education. Sure, he wanted to go into mechanics someday, but it wasn’t a priority like his brothers were.
Then he starts working alongside Anakin, and realizes maybe he should start looking more seriously towards his own future.
A year later, he agrees to start some classes at the place. He’d learn never to regret this.
When he sits down during that first class, he’s admittedly a bundle of nerves. He wants to be here, but that doesn’t mean he feels prepared. He applied to every scholarship he could find and still had to pay for all his materials, textbooks, and the daily parking pass. Which, yeah, that’s pretty good, but for somebody who has had his card decline on three packages of instant ramen, that’s a good chunk of his savings.
What calms his nerves is the gorgeous girl sitting next to him a moment later.
He recognizes Ahsoka after a moment, but the first thing he really sees is the way she smiles at one of her friends waving goodbye from the door, followed by the swish of her braids when she sits down. Her lean figure, accentuated by clearly worked muscles, and her piano fingers as she takes out her laptop and begins typing a title in a notes document.
She looks over when he shuffles. “Rex?”
He finds himself grinning. “Ahsoka. Fancy seeing you here.”
“Hey cool! Didn’t know you decided to go here.”
He shrugs. “Felt right, I guess.”
“I didn’t think you were interested in college, what’s your major?
“Undeclared,” he admits. “But Mechanical engineering’s been on my mind, so I agreed to take some classes after my brothers’ pestering.
Ahsoka snorts. “I feel that.”
“What about you, do you have a major?”
“Yup! I’m in Ecology, but I wanted to start the year with a couple required courses.”
Rex squints in disbelief. “Electrical Engineering is required for an Ecology major? I thought that was… Y’know, plants and stuff. Animals.”
This time Ahsoka actually laughs, and it might just be the best thing he’s heard all week. “I need elective science credits, man. And I already know just about everything there is to know about at least beginner electrical engineering. Have you even met my brother?”
“Fine, fine, that makes sense.”
By that point, the professor is introducing himself and they lapse into silence, but Ahsoka keeps walking into the hall a minute before class starts and keeps sitting down next to Rex, often enough that he starts saving the seat for her lest anyone attempt to take it from her.
Week after week, project after project, their seats stay the same. In time, Ahsoka invites him to their study group, which is actually just an excuse to eat snacks together in the library. She has a couple friends, Barriss, who’s rather quiet but enjoys the noise of the environment anyway, and Riyo, who Rex actually knows, as Fox’s “not-girlfriend.” She smiles at him kindly.
When he goes home for Christmas break (his one bedroom apartment and two roommates is certifiably making him go insane), and Riyo is finally considered Fox’s actual mate, she mentions their study group. Perhaps it’s just a way to get familiar conversation started, but Rex will take it.
“I have a friend who’s going to start coming,” she tells him, and thus the rest of the group, because any peek into Rex’s deeply private social life is a win.
Well, it’s not so much private as it is non-existent, but no one can blame him. He was the first of the brothers to get into driver’s ed; all the other brothers waited until they didn’t have to pay, but Rex worked his backside off to be able to, if only so he could drive the younger ones to school for as long as possible.
Riyo takes a bite of her food, so Rex forces himself to reply. “Oh?”
She nods. “You might know him, Caleb?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Most people call him Kanan—” That name he knows “—but I’m not sure anyone knows why anymore. Him and his girlfriend Hera might be around. I think Ahsoka knows him.”
“Ahsoka?” Echo asks. “Obi-Wan’s Ahsoka?”
Riyo nods. “She goes to CSU with us. Rex, isn’t she in one of your classes?” He nods in agreement.
Fives cocks his head. “Rexy! You never told us you knew Ahsoka!”
He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“How come?”
“It never came up, kid.”
He scoffs, but moves on. “How is she?”
“Fine. Studying Ecology.”
This time it’s Echo’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “...And?”
“And what?”
“What else? You’ve gotta know something about her other than her degree.”
Rex doesn’t know a lot about her, if you asked, but he knows so much in his own little ways. If he had any artistic ability he could draw every curve of her face and the shape of the scars on her cheeks, forehead, and neck. They’re long healed and the scar tissue there is really only a raised, light color, barely a scar, but it’s so beautiful to know. He’d heard hints about what happened, chemical burns when she was a baby just trying to escape her own country, but he can’t speak to them so he doesn’t. She has her box braids weaved into two larger plaits most days, but when she wears sweatpants and comes in with coffee (usually after a failed attempt at an all nighter), they’re put into a bun on the top of her head. Her laugh is long and loud, and sometimes she snorts when trying to keep it in, which is all the cuter.
Something about her sticks to him. He doesn’t know why, but nor does he try to stop it.
Rex forces himself to respond. “We don’t talk a lot, I don’t know her entire family history or anything.”
Fives leans back in his chair. “Geez, just wanted to know how she’s doing.”
“She’s doing fine. She works at Kenobi's bookshop on the weekends, so I don’t really see her unless it’s in the study group.”
They drop the subject, but Fives asks him to make sure she calls, texts, or sends him snail mail soon, because they haven’t talked since sophomore Econ and they used to have some fun in group projects. He mentioned something about a hard boiled egg that Rex doesn’t care to know about.
Later in the week, huddled on Riyo’s couch because the library is closed and it’s too rainy to sit outside, the three of them and Kanan sit around the coffee table with their books open. They all have different majors, but find areas with which they can help the others, and they have a good time, so Rex thinks it’s worth it. He can’t tell much about Kanan (he asked; he prefers Kanan over Caleb), but there’s a stoic smile that comes with years of caring for others over yourself. Rex would know the feeling. It garners instant respect from him.
It’s nearing seven when Ahsoka says she should head out.
“I have an early lecture tomorrow,” she says, “And since Barriss is sick I want to be there if she needs me.”
In any other circumstance Rex might find himself being disappointed in her absence, but instead he has to marvel at her kindness for a roommate she doesn’t know all that well, but seems to love anyway. Rex immediately adds, “I should head out too.”
As they gather their things, Rex realizes Ahsoka’s come in only a hoodie, and he knows for a fact he saw her walking here when he arrived. “Didn’t you bring a jacket?”
She shrugs. “I didn’t know it would rain. It’s fine.” She pulls up her hood instead.
“Let me drive you back,” he says, pulling out his keys.
He expects her to say no, maybe out of some social construct that accepting help isn’t correct, but instead Ahsoka immediately says, “That would be great, thanks.” Riyo must shoot her some kind of look, because Ahsoka promises her, “I’ll text you when I’m back.”
Weird, but Rex didn’t grow up around girls, so in his mind anything is acceptable at this point. He’ll just do his very best not to act creepy. Or clingy. Or like he’s excited for Ahsoka to sit in his passenger seat and adjust the music to her tastes and put her elbow on the center console.
Crap. Maybe he’s creepy.
Is he creepy? Rex certainly doesn’t think so, but he’s also not a young adult woman getting into a man’s car who he doesn’t know well based purely on not wanting to get toasted by a lightning bolt like Fives did when he stuck a fork in the outlet at three years old. Or was he thirteen?
As they say their goodbyes and scurry to the car, Rex finds himself instinctually getting to the car first and opening her door for her. Ahsoka smiles briefly and slips inside, letting him shut it behind her, crossing behind the back of the car because he was too obedient to go against his brother when he taught him to drive. When he reaches the driver’s door of his decrepit truck and forces the keys into the ignition, Ahsoka’s already talking.
“Man, it’s torrential out there,” she complains, dropping her bag on the floor and buckling. “I always forget how rainy it is so close to Kamino.”
“Valley territory like where we grew up will give you this false sense of security,” he tries to joke. “All the precipitation gets stuck at the mountain.”
Rex shifts gears, trying to take a glance at her as he does so. She doesn’t notice and keeps talking. “I came from eastern Shili, which is pretty much desert, so one of my first memories of Coruscant is Obi-Wan taking me to play in a rainstorm. It was insane to me to see that much rain at the time. Even if it wasn’t a lot of rain in reality.”
Rex grew up visiting Kamino on the weekends, so to him the desert is much more of a marvel. “The skies are really clear in Shili, right?”
Her eyes light up when he glances at her, a smile forming on her face. “Oh, yeah! I’ve gone back a couple times and you wouldn’t believe the constellations that only exist where there isn’t light pollution. I have a lot to harp on about Togruta culture, but the use of natural resources really lets down on all sorts of pollution. I’m pretty sure I'll be doing my senior project on the lack of pollution there, and I could talk your ear off—”
And she does, when Rex tells her to. It’s a few minutes back to the dorms anyway, and Rex has to show the guard his ID before getting on campus, which takes an annoying extra minute usually, but this time he gladly takes.
“I have a little bit of a photography background, so I was able to take some gorgeous pictures last time I was there that I’ll use—” she looks up at the jerk of his car parking. The gear shift is a little clunky. “That’s my cue, thanks again, Rex!”
He returns with a quick, “Of course,” but before he can think to say anything else she’s out the door. As he’s preparing to leave, he glances up to the overhang at the front doors where Ahsoka is waving goodbye at him. Rex finds himself smiling, and gives a small wave back as he backs out of the parking space.
It’s not until Rex is pulling into the last available space at his apartment building that he sees the sage green backpack covered in pins and a coffee stain still sitting on the floor of his car.
You left your bag in my car, he texts her quickly. Do you want me to bring it back?
It’s only after a minute, while he’s still sitting in his car, that Ahsoka replies, sorry!! can you bring it to class tomorrow?
Yeah, you don’t need it beforehand?
I’ll survive a night without my laptop lol. thanks tho!
Personally, Rex might combust knowing his laptop is sitting in his friend’s car, but a smaller, quieter part of him rejoices because she trusts him with it.
========
Rex finds himself looking at the backpack the next morning. Studying it. He's really beginning to think this is how stalkers have their awakening.
The sage green color of the material is faded on the back, only on the left side. He’s only seen her carry it on one side or the other before anyway. One of the pins is Calcifer, the character he only knows the name of after looking up fire character studio ghibli. He watched the movie once, cut him some slack. Another is for Tatooine Technical Institute, where he thinks her brother, and his “boss,” Anakin went to. A RED Instead pin sits below both others. She doesn’t have one for CSU yet.
A minute before class starts, Ahsoka rushes in with just her water bottle and a gummy smile on her face. “Hey, thanks!” she tells him, sliding the bag between her legs. “I know I said I could go without my laptop, but my friend texted me asking if I wanted to do an Age Of Empires 3 campaign and I had to say no, so I feel a little betrayed by my own forgetfulness.”
He finds himself grinning. “I don't blame you.”
“Have you ever played?” she asks.
“No, I think my brother has, though.” As an afterthought, because he prays the conversation will continue, Rex asks, “What’s it about?”
“It’s this campaign based game, where you play as a country and your goal is to overtake the other country's settlements—” She goes on to talk about her favorite version, admitting to not ever playing the first one but loving both the second and third ones. Rex tries to pick out the information she’s most excited about, the friends she plays with and how old she was when she learned to play, things he thinks he can bring up later for conversation.
By the time Ahsoka starts talking about the cultural appropriation of the early versions of the game, which he isn’t shocked about at all considering the nature of its theme, the professor has started talking and Rex forces himself to pull out his laptop to take notes.
Weeks later, at the beginning of February, Rex is back on the crappy library couches with even crappier free coffee.
“What’re all everyone's plans over break?” Riyo asks.
When no one pipes up (Ahsoka has her nose in her laptop or else Rex thinks she would have), Barriss answers, “I’m going home to see my mom, but I’ll probably get bored and drive back up here anyway.”
“Same,” Rex says. “My brothers are all off school so I’ll have a house full when I go home.”
Riyo nods. “That’s true.”
“Will you visit, Riyo?”
She shrugs. “I don’t have family in the area, so I’ll probably be around. What about you, ‘Soka?”
Her head perks up. “What?”
“What’re you doing for February break?”
“Oh!” Her eyes light up. “Obi-Wan’s having a little kids event at the store that I'll be helping with, and I promised Fives I'd hang out at some point. He mentioned a double date with his girlfriend, but I'll probably end up third wheeling.”
“No date?” Riyo asks, eyebrow raised.
“Not unless you count the creepy dude at Anakin's shop who asked me out over last break,” she says, disgust obvious in her voice. “Seriously, he was twice my age and hadn't brushed his teeth in years. Go to a dentist, ba ha’a .”
Barriss laughs. “I had a similar one last week, a man tried to tell me how to wear my own hijab to make me look sexier—”
“ Sexier? ” Ahsoka scoffs. “Some people have no self awareness.”
“Yes, well I was able to tell him that if he wanted a sexy hijab he could go buy one for himself. The look on his face was priceless.”
Rex has this sudden fear that he’s far less self aware than he thinks he is. Growing up in a house full of boys doesn’t help his awareness around women, but he thought he was doing alright.
Riyo adds her story, something about a man and a taser she conspicuously had, and Kanan’s already looking at him with a raised eyebrow, something a little fearful that says, Yeah, me too, man.
No wonder Ahsoka assured Riyo she’d text when she got back to the dorms.
========
For the first time (and he suspects not the last), Rex misses her over February break.
He misses texting her about classes, because it feels like the only thing he knows how to talk about with her. He misses her laughter when she found a meme he didn’t fully understand, but she couldn’t explain because it would take three layers of other memes to comprehend. He just misses her.
Cody notices. It’s a little annoying.
“You’re face first in the dirt, Rex, what’s up?”
He shrugs. “I wanna get back to classes. I’m bored.” He’d taken part of the week off work to be more present, or some crap, but he’s beginning to regret it.
“Hey I’ve got plenty of things you can do,” Cody replies, an eyebrow raised. “I’m forcing the twins to help me clear out the attic, I’m sure they wouldn’t be mad if you helped.”
Rex snorts. “I would’ve helped you anyway.”
“Yeah, but now you have no reason to decline. Go get your work pants on, there’s some old paint that tipped over last summer and perfectly landed upside down. We’ve been trying to figure out how to tip it back up without spilling navy blue all over the floor.”
Rolling his eyes, Rex replies, “Guess the attic’s getting a paint job. I’ll be right up.”
========
He’s about to get in the shower (while still covered in navy blue paint, of course) when his phone rings. Ahsoka’s name shines through, a photo she took after stealing his phone a few weeks ago popping up behind it. Something in his chest flutters.
Rex answers, setting it to speakerphone and throwing his flannel off. The shower takes a full minute to get at all warm, so he turns it on now, too. “Hey, ‘Soka,” he greets.
He can hear her toothy smile through her short, “Rex!” Something shuffles in the background. “I hate to be the one to call you like this, but you have a truck.”
He finds himself chuckling. “What d’you need?”
“I just signed on that apartment I told you about—” A studio, a few blocks down from his apartment complex. She’s lucky enough not to room with anyone, and be able to afford the thing this early on in life. “—and I found a futon that I think I can make work. I’d call Anakin, but he’s in SenDis on a job.”
Sure, Amidala’s a job, he jokes to himself. “Send me the address, I can be there in a few.”
“Thanks!” Ahsoka promises to text him the address, and hangs up.
Rex sighs, shutting off the shower that’s just gotten warm and putting his flannel back on. Ahsoka will just have to accept the navy blue paint dried all over his hands.
========
Pulling up to the side of the road where Ahsoka sits on the hood of her Subaru outback, Rex can’t help but laugh. Her legs hang off the side of the car, decrepit red off-brand converse hitting the already destroyed grill. Her smile is bright when she catches sight of him.
She whoops as he climbs out of the truck, quickly followed by, “What in the blueberry disaster happened to you?”
He rolls his eyes. “Cleared out the attic, and some paint got in the way of a good time.”
“Well we won’t let it get in the way of this good time. Now come grab the other end.”
He pulls open the tailgate and does as she says, guiding the couch to slide in. Rex has to force himself to look away from her biceps, because he’s never actually noticed the pure, unadulterated strength behind the lanky body she sports. She laughs as they nearly drop the couch, yells, “Pivot!” when they have to turn a corner, and gives him a vigorous high five as soon as they shut the tailgate.
The struggle to get it up a skinny flight of stairs is far worse than getting it in his truck, and he’s tempted to get frustrated as soon as he catches his foot under the futon trying to save it from scratching the wall. Though Rex will admit he’d rather bruise his foot than make Ahsoka pay the security deposit for it next year.
Finally, after Ahsoka fumbles with her keyring to unlock her front door, the couch is inside, his foot stopped throbbing, and they can sit.
This is the first time he actually gets a good look at the place. There’s a skylight which lets in floods of natural light, and a small window over the sink that he has to take a double take for.
“Ahsoka?” She hums in acknowledgement. “Is that a window looking into the hallway?”
She laughs, and though it’s exhausted, he’s never heard anything better. “Yup! If you’re as short as I am, it actually looks through the window in the hall, so I get a half-obscured view of the outside.”
Beyond the window, the apartment is actually pretty cute. There’s a corner where the futon now sits just perfectly, with another small window a few feet above it. There’s a built-in dresser to it’s right, followed by the front door. Glancing towards the same wall is the kitchen, tucked into the furthest corner, with the bathroom door beside it. Overall not much, but a home for certain.
“Is there laundry in the bathroom?” he asks, because practicality gets him places.
“Nope. Guess I’ll be lugging my clothes to the laundromat.”
Rex shrugs. “It’s not too bad, there’s one in the plaza on main street I go to.”
“Guess we’ll have to go on laundromat dates,” she jokes, but Rex…
Well, he doesn’t think it’s a joke.
As soon as he gives her a glance, he meets her gaze. It’s soft, a little nervous, he thinks. Her eyes are so glaringly blue in this light.
“Yeah,” he answers, “Yeah, guess we will.”
She returns his smile. It’s never been so appealing.
========
Rex isn’t sure how or why Cody dragged him to the bookstore, but he’s shutting the truck door now, so there’s no going back.
“What did you even need?” he asks his brother.
“Obi-Wan has a check for the work I did on the roof a few weeks ago,” he says.
“And he didn’t… mail it?”
Cody scoffs. “Three to five business days? Not a chance. That man is a walking rotary phone with a running mouth, he’d rather walk to our house than mail it.” He opens the door and holds it for Rex to walk in first.
Kenobi’s bookshop is an overall nice place, Rex thinks. Soft lighting, wide aisles so you don’t run into anyone, a couch by the back window, and a coffee pot that’s always filled. If he had more free time Rex would be tempted to spend it on that couch on the south wall. Maybe he’d even learn to like reading more.
As soon as the doorbell tolls again when Cody shuts the door, there’s a perky, “Welcome!” heard from the front desk. Ahsoka sits behind it with a mug of coffee, and all Rex thinks he can do in the moment is smile.
Smile, because he can’t take his eyes off the curves of her face, because she’s everything Rex isn’t with hints of familiarity hidden underneath the bountiful energy, and it feels like nothing else can comfort him like the sight of her toothy smile.
He really, truly, has never felt this before.
Cody answers her, and Rex finds it in him to give a short wave. Ahsoka continues, “Obi-Wan told me you’d be by for a check, but he never actually told me where the check was,” Ahsoka admits, “So give me a minute to go search through his office.” She swiftly disappears into the hallways behind the front desk, where Rex’s eyes still land.
Cody nudges him. “I can feel the heart eyes,” he mumbles.
Scoffing, Rex replies, “I keep my heart eyes well contained, thank you very much.”
“If that’s your definition of contained we need to have a discussion on what else you have contained. ”
Before Rex can bite back with anything else (because he won’t let his brother harp on his perfectly normal levels of attraction), Ahsoka’s back with an envelope in her hand. “Found it!”
Cody steps forward to take it, leaving Rex in his wake. The two of them keep chatting, something about what the roof was like before Cody and a few of his employees stepped in, but Rex isn’t really paying attention. He’s thinking about how obvious his attraction is if even Cody can see it, that maybe Ahsoka can see it. Is she just hoping she’s misinterpreting, or maybe that if she leaves him alone long enough, it’ll go away?
Or, says a small, scared, part of him, maybe she’s afraid because she’s reciprocating.
Maybe she meant to leave her backpack in his car, or guided him to the laundromat question. Maybe she’s been hoping she’ll get closer and closer to him.
Maybe.
He can work with maybe.