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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

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Auntie ‘Soka and Little Leia (and Rex)

The counterpart to Uncle Ben and Little Luke (Original Post, Chrono)

Listen. You all knew this was coming.

This got... very long and detailed and I’m going to have to clean it up and post to AO3. As in, this was supposed to be 2-3k and is literally ten times that long. It crossed 25k. And the initial section actually glosses over a bunch, actual fic-style writing starts at “That, of course, is when things get interesting.”

Warnings: discussion of various canon traumas (most relating to being child soldiers), general PTSD, several scenes featuring dissociation or panic attacks upon being triggered, and canon-typical violence.

Rated T, gen.

I still want there to be de-aging nonsense involved so Ahsoka is physically a late teenager despite having a solid two decades of field experience behind her (we’re pulling her from Malachor).

Leia, much like Luke, is now six. She just came from being a rebellion general. She is not happy about being a child. She was already short, this is just mean. She’s a human espresso.

UNLIKE BEN, Ahsoka is not happy about this turn of events. Being seventeen-ish is not helpful in the outer rim. She’s a female togruta, young and healthy, and in the Outer Rim, caring for a small human child. Sure, she has her lightsabers and plenty of combat experience, and she can keep them safe, but she’s just one person, and a major target for those looking to make some quick cash. It doesn’t matter how good she is; she needs sleep at some point.

It makes my heart happy to treat Ahsoka and Rex as two halves of the same black ops specialist so you know what, he’s there too! He’s physically like... 10-12 in natborn, maybe. They’re not sure, because clones age weird. He’s moderately more useful than Leia (who is very competent but also physically six, and short for that age), but he’s still... very small.

Reminder that none of them have been born yet.

Ahsoka has a harder time explaining WHY she has children with her, since she's barely more than a kid herself, and clearly unrelated by species. She sometimes just says “Oh, my adoptive brother’s kids” since it’s kind of the truth for Leia and she’s not touching the actual truth about Rex with a ten foot pole.

Ahsoka definitely knows about Leia being a Skywalker, or at least has suspicions that Bail never outright confirmed but was conspicuously quiet about. She does tell Leia about it, but it’s not like that means anything, right? Just, you know, your dad was my teacher! I don’t have to tell you he became Va--oh shit, you already knew that part. Well, fuck. What do you mean he had a son? OH SHIT, PADME HAD TWINS.

Alt take for explaining why she’s got kids: She’s my foundling, I know her name as my child (Leia shut up!!!)

(Ahsoka can fake Mandalore. Sometimes.)

That said, there is... significantly less gambling and significantly more theft to get to Coruscant.

As previously stated, Ahsoka is a black ops kinda gal, and more importantly, she looks like a fairly attractive young woman in the Outer Rim, with two children in good health. She’s a target, and also not the kind of person one generally gambles with. If she does gamble, people get upset when she doesn’t lose, in ways they don’t get upset about Ben doing the same, because she’s, again, a cute teenage girl. It’s exhausting.

As things go, she largely ends up stealing from people who deserve it and/or smuggling herself and her charges into someone else’s ship. They’re small, they can hide. Sometimes she can get them all passage by working as a mechanic, she’s good at that.

Once they’ve got a handle on when they are, they have to decide on Names. None of them have been born yet, so technically they could use their own names without anyone Knowing. Rex and Leia might not even be born, depending on how successful they are at, you know, stopping the war and everything. Ahsoka, though, she’s going be born in two years, and there’s no reason to prevent it, so... she doesn’t want to steal baby-her’s name. That would be mean.

Leia is already calling her “Auntie ‘Soka” when she can for reasons like “selling the bit” and “manipulating adults” and “making us both feel better after we had a mutual breakdown about Anakin being Vader.” Ergo, she decides that whatever new name she picks better include that in some way, and decides on “Sokari” because it sounds pretty.

Overall, they don’t... they don’t actually make it very far before there’s an Incident. Again, teenager with small children. They spend a lot of time hiding out in space ports looking for an opportunity.

That, of course, is when things get interesting.

Specifically, Ahsoka spots a Mandalorian.

She doesn’t recognize the armor. She does recognize the sigil, and thinks ‘well, they’re more likely to help than some,’ because from what she’s heard, the Haat Mando’ade are Decent People Overall. Her view is a little biased, mostly on account of the sheer level of grudge she has against Kyr’tsad. It’s fine! The True Mandalorians have the same grudge, right? And Mandalorians like kids and Ahsoka hasn’t slept in five days and it’s fine. It’s fine! IT’S FINE.

“Oh shit,” Rex whispers, before she can suggest anything. “Oh fuck.”

“Stop cursing,” Leia hisses, elbowing him. “People are going to notice.”

“That’s the Prime,” Rex panics, mostly quiet. Ahsoka’s heart drops, because fuck is right. “That’s Fett.”

Leia isn’t impressed. Ahsoka just angles herself between Fett and Rex and hopes that he doesn’t see them. That’s just asking for trouble.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is in fact running on none sleep with left trauma, and doesn’t notice Fett walking up and dropping into a seat across from them until he’s actually done so, removing his helmet to glare a little more efficiently.

“Wanna explain why your kid has my face?”

Ahsoka later tells herself that he’s killed Jedi and that’s why he can sneak up on her, and that she can be forgiven some slip-ups with the exhaustion being what it is, and that she’s obviously going to be dealing with some emotional instability in light of the sudden return of teenage hormones and new forms of anxiety that are markedly different from those she was dealing with a few weeks ago.

What Ahsoka wants to say is “that’s kind of a long story,” or “maybe he’s a cousin,” or “kriff off, I don’t know you,” or maybe even “he’s a clone.”

What Ahsoka actually does is burst into tears, which is embarrassing for her, for Fett, for the kids, and for the entire rest of the bar.

It really is the straw that broke the eopie’s back. Even when she was actually this age, she didn’t exactly cry much. Objectively, Fett quasi-aggressively asking a valid question shouldn’t send her into a panic. She’s been through torture and worse. She shouldn’t be crying.

But she is, sobbing her eyes out with no control, and he’s just sitting across from her and looking uncomfortable while Rex wraps his little arms--oh Force he’s so small--around her, and both ‘children’ glare at Fett.

“So, I’m going to take it she didn’t kidnap you from a loving family or do something illicit with a blood sample,” Fett says, after it becomes obvious that Ahsoka’s not going to be ready to talk any time soon.

“She didn’t,” Rex says stiffly, with just the right emphasis for Fett to catch what’s implied. Ahsoka just keeps her head down, eyes pressed against the heels of her palms, trying to get her body to stop rebelling against her.

Fett’s eyes dart to Leia, who folds her arms and draws herself up, every bit the unimpressed princess. “My father claimed her as a sister, so she’s my Auntie ‘Soka.”

The man dithers a bit, the conversation clearly not going where he’d expected. “Right,” he says. “You--you’re all kids. I thought she was a little older, at least, but I didn’t have a good look at her face before.”

She is older, but actually admitting that is only going to make this worse, both for her pride and for her chances of making it out alive.

“Where are you staying?”

“What?” Leia bites out.

“You’re kids, you’re alone, and you’re clearly not okay if you were trying to hide the one with my face as blatantly as you did, and then... whatever this is, when I confronted you,” Fett explains. Ahsoka lifts her head to glare at him, but it’s probably not doing much with the way her eyes are rimmed with red and still wet. “Don’t give me that look, ad’ika, your kids looked as confused and horrified by that as the bartender did. They obviously didn’t think it was normal either.”

Well, kriff you too, Ahsoka thinks.

“And what do you mean by ‘blatantly,’ here?” Leia challenges. It’s adorable, but Ahsoka watched this tiny girl shoot a man last week, and wonders when people are going to start taking that seriously.

“There’s a lot of people in this galaxy, and I don’t exactly have the clearest memory of what I looked like at that age,” Fett says, slow and careful like he thinks they’re dumb. Ahsoka decides to chalk it up as being because Leia’s visibly six. “I would have thought it was just a coincidence if you hadn’t put in effort to hide him.”

Leia huffs, and Rex glares harder. Fett just sighs, like they’re all going to give him grey hairs.

“You can explain whatever the hell’s going on,” Fett says. “I’ll let you stay on my ship, there’s a spare bunk and you’re small.”

“For free?” Rex demands.

“A night on a bunk in exchange for information,” Fett clarifies. “We can negotiate from there.”

Ahsoka takes a few moments, notes that both of the others are waiting on her for the decision, and cringes. She doesn’t feel steady enough to carry that. She has to anyway.

“Rex?” she asks, voice rasping after the breakdown of the past few minutes.

“Yeah?”

“How much?”

He looks up at her, eyes calculating, and grimaces. “We don’t want Order 66. A warning is better, even if we... share information.”

She nods, and turns to Leia. “Any premonitions, princess?”

Leia glowers, cute and furious. “No.”

“No, don’t tell, or no, you aren’t getting any vibes about sharing info one way or the other?”

“The latter,” Leia clarifies, huffy to the last.

“Right,” Ahsoka says, and then just... hesitates. “Fett...”

“You’ve got conditions,” he guesses.

She bares her teeth in what could have, through a squint and perhaps a few drinks, been called an apologetic smile. “Just one, really.”

“Yeah?”

“No hurting, killing, or turning us in for bounties,” she says. “Any of us.”

“You’re children, I wouldn’t.”

She blinks at him, slow and careful. She hesitates. She reaches down, out of sight, sees him stiffen.

She unclips her sabers from her belt and puts them on the table.

His eyes are fixed on the weapons the second they enter his line of sight, and don’t move as he clearly realizes why she made the condition she did.

“I left years ago, because I couldn’t stay without it ruining me,” she says. Still slow. Still careful. She’s so tired. “But if I want to keep Leia safe, I have to get back to Coruscant.”

His eyes finally lift from the sabers, expression blank. “Just her?”

“Rex doesn’t have the same monsters coming after him,” she says. “If it were just me and him, I’d worry less. Leia’s a different kind of target.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith on the table by telling me that,” Fett says, voice flat and toneless. “Considering my occupation.”

“She’s a child,” Ahsoka says, feeling heavy and boneless. “Even with what I was and will be, even with what money you would get from the right buyer, you wouldn’t.”

“There are other risks.”

“There are.”

They stare at each other for too long, probably, and then Fett jerks as Rex kicks him under the table. The boys glare for a moment, and then Rex says, “If she weren’t good, I’d still be a slave to those who grew me.”

Fett blinks, and then nearly growls the word, “What?”

“She freed me,” Rex reiterates. “While I was trying to shoot her.”

Ahsoka lifts a hand and puts it on his far shoulder, pulling him into her side. She doesn’t meet Fett’s eyes again, because part of her is back on Mandalore, dodging her own soldiers and crying out as her family dies across the galaxy.

Fett breathes in. Breathes out. He puts a hand to his head, visibly frustrated. “Fine. A good Jedi kid, and two smaller kids, one of which is apparently in some way mine.”

Rex makes a face, which is fair, but also not helping.

“To the ship,” Ahsoka says, putting her sabers back on her belt and sliding out of the seat. “I’m... I’m Sokari.”

“You already know my name.”

“I do.”

---------------------------

Fett watches her like she’s a predator, which has the benefit of being accurate and slightly flattering. She lets other two take care of most of talking, and then Fett tells her to sleep first, and talk in the morning.

“You’re dead on your feet, jetii,” he snorts. “And that crying jag didn’t do you any favors. Sleep.”

So she does, and Fett doesn’t even wake her. He just lets her sleep. He watches her in the way of a guard. She sees him when she gets up to use the ‘fresher in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t even comment when she collapses right back into the mediocre cot she’s borrowed for the cycle.

Rex and Leia are safe, her hindbrain tells her, even in the depths of sleep. Her mind curls around theirs in the Force, and she trusts that they are here. They are not happy, but they are alive and unharmed, and that has to be enough.

When she stumbles her way to true wakefulness, groggy and loose-limbed, Fett greets her with caf.

“The kids wouldn’t let me near you,” he tells her.

“They’re good,” she says, cupping her hands around the mug. She feels wobbly, in every sense. Her body, her mind, her emotions, her connection to the Force. Nothing is on-kilter right now. “Did they tell you anything?”

“They waited for you,” he says. “But the little miss needed a nap of her own. They’re down in the other bunk.”

“I didn’t notice,” she admits. She should have. She’s Fulcrum. She’s a veteran of the Clone Wars. She’s... she’s supposed to be better than this.

“How long?” he asks, and then when she squints up at him, he clarifies. “How long did you fight?”

“My last fight--”

“No, whatever war you came out of,” he says. Her chest twists cold. “I don’t know if the Jedi sent you into it or if you waded in yourself once you left, but you move like a soldier.”

“I was,” she confirms. “But... but I don’t want to talk about the details. Not until the other two are here.”

He frowns at her. “Is there anything you can talk about?”

She shrugs and looks away, trying to take solace in the warmth of the caff she holds above the table, as if it can hide her, guard her, from the disgraced Mand’alor across the table.

“Jedi?”

“I’m not officially a Jedi,” she says, voice quiet. “Not anymore.”

“Then what do I call you?” he asks. “We’re not exactly close enough for names.”

“Torrent,” she says. “It’s not--I can’t claim my family name anymore. But I can claim Torrent, so I will. And if you want a title, I was a commander.”

“Bit young for that.”

“I got the rank when I was fourteen,” she says, and watches his face do something complicated and unpleasant. “Don’t. I know your own culture puts children on the field that young.”

“Not in command.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, well... the soldiers were technically younger. Adults, but...”

Ahsoka can see the way he casts about to figure out what species grows at that rate. He guesses a few, and she shoots all of it down.

She won’t tell him. Not until Rex is awake.

This part of the story is his.

--------------------------

When Leia tries to sit alone, a foot away on the bench like a proper adult, Ahsoka refuses to let it happen. She pulls the younger girl to her side and quells protests with a glance. It’s a decent skill, but she’s not sure how long it’s going to work on her niece-in-spirit.

“Your body needs the chemical release of skinship,” she says, and Leia glares at her. “I spent way too much time with the boys to not know about this. Deal.”

Rex sits close enough to knock their knees together under the table, and his warmth is the old comfort she needs.

“Do you want the story you’ll believe, or the truth?” Ahsoka asks.

“What’s the difference?”

“One of them involves something so impossible that even most Jedi wouldn’t believe it,” she tells him.

Fett folds his arms and leans forward to rest them on the table, challenging but oddly open. “Try me.”

“Time travel.”

He blinks, just once, fully controlled. “That’s a tough one.”

“There were only three Jedi left alive when I died,” she says. “Or... whatever it is that happened to me. I think I died. All I know is that one moment, I was thirty-two and dying, and the next, I was... seventeen again, and had these two with me. All of us younger than we were. None of us have even been born yet.”

She refuses to look him in the eye. “They both outlived me by... six years, maybe. Got caught up while traveling instead of dying. Leia was twenty-two. Rex was thirty-five. I’m not technically the oldest anymore. I mean, physically I am, but that doesn’t mean anything, and it’s not exactly doing us any good, and--”

Rex bumps his shoulder to her arm. “I dunno, Commander. I’ve spent a long time looking older than I should. Nice to look younger for once.”

She shoots him a small, pained grin. “Could be worse, yeah.”

“Let’s say I believe you.”

Her attention snaps back to Fett, who’s looking damnably blank, and is showing even less in the Force.

He waits a second for her to relax back into her seat.

“Let’s say I believe you,” he repeats. “How’s ‘Rex’ connected to me? What’s so special about Leia there? And what war did you fight in that has you acting like a veteran?”

“Three years in the clone wars,” she whispers, glancing to Rex and forcing herself to not go for her sabers to defend against an attack that her paranoia says is coming and the Force says is not. “Then almost all the Jedi were wiped out at once, and I spent a year... drifting. Then black ops for the next fifteen.”

“Black ops,” he repeats, still damnably flat.

“There was a Sith Empire,” she says, and she can hear her own tone growing somehow emptier. “Glassing planets. Enslaving entire species. Committing genocides all over. Of course, there was a rebellion, and of course I joined it. I was one of the only people left with Jedi training. For all that I’d left the Order, I still had a duty to the universe.”

His eyes flit to Leia, who shrugs and tries to look prim. “I was adopted and raised by one of the founders of the rebellion, a movement built on the desire to instate freedom and democracy in a galaxy that had lost even the pretense.”

“That why you’re special?”

Leia smiles, thin and patronizing. It doesn’t fit on her little face. “I’m special because my biological father was one of the most powerful Force users in history, and his Fall to the dark side and choice to become a Sith is why the Emperor’s rise was nearly uncontested. I do not like power, but it’s in my veins and I can’t change that. Force users are... a lucrative trade, and I’m still the size of a child, so I can’t fight back. I’ll be safer in the Jedi Temple, even if I don’t want to be a Jedi.”

Fett looks to Ahsoka, makes to ask a question, and then shakes his head. Not the time, maybe.

“So, that’s all... very complicated and I don’t know how much of it I believe, but it doesn’t explain...” he trails off, and sighs. “My kid, or whatever you are. I heard you mention clones.”

Rex grins. It is not a kind expression.

“Let me tell you about Kamino.”

---------------------------

Ahsoka has no idea if Fett believes them. Either he thinks they’re telling the truth, or he thinks their delusional kids. Whatever the case, he offers to take them closer to the Core. Ahsoka quietly offers to take a look at his engine in return, and then pretends not to notice when Fett awkwardly drifts to and away from Rex.

“They put chips in our brains to make us kill the Jedi we respected, cared for, even loved. I tried to shoot ‘Soka, Fett. She was seventeen and risked her life to get that chip out of my head while I was trying to kill her. I have never hated myself more than when I woke up and realized what I’d almost done, and I was one of the few that were able to fight it. I heard the stories of dozens of brothers who woke with their chips having degraded and chose to eat their blaster rather than live with the guilt of the orders they’d followed without question because of a thrice-damned Sith slave chip in their head.”

“So no, I won’t call you father or acknowledge you as clan until you do something to prove you’re worth it, shared blood or not.”

What Ahsoka does get out of the arrangement, for all that Fett’s route mostly takes them on a meandering path that isn’t faster than their previous system, is sleep. She gets to rest. She gets to trust that Fett won’t kill Rex, out of guilt for something he hasn’t done, that he won’t kill Leia out of a worry that she’s just a delusional child, a real child, that he won’t kill ‘Sokari’ because it would ruin any chance of gaining Rex’s favor, ever.

She’s not safe, won’t believe she can be until she’s in the Temple and Sidious is dead dead dead, but she’s safer than she’s been in a long time.

Every night, Ahsoka wakes up and stumbles to the little galley, deaths and torture sparkling behind her eyes with the energy of a thousand lost Jedi, ten thousand mourned brothers and sisters.

She is not the only one of their little group to be a survivor of a near-total genocide, but Rex could not feel his brothers die in the Force, even if his nightmares featured what they heard of suicide missions by the emperor’s favored shock troopers, and Leia had... Alderaan had more off-world survivors than there had been Jedi at all.

It’s not worth comparing their pain. It’s stupid to even think it. Part of her can’t help but do it anyway.

“Caf?”

She feels a lek twitch in response to the voice of the only other person on board who can reach the top shelf. “I probably shouldn’t.”

“Whiskey?”

“That’s a definitely shouldn’t.”

“Hoth chocolate?”

“...please.”

She doesn’t lift her head from her arms until the mug clicks down in front of her, ceramic on plastisteel.

“Do I ask what it was this time?”

She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain to non-sensitives.”

“Try me anyway.”

Ahsoka twists the Hoth chocolate in her hands, takes a sip as she thinks. “The Force isn’t just one thing. It’s... energy and philosophy and spirit, a sense of being that ties the entire universe together. Sentient and inanimate and living and dead, empty space and lush forests and stifled cities. For those of us who are sensitive to it, it’s possible to feel the life of everyone around you, theoretically possible to feel entire systems. If you have a Force bond, like a master and padawan, that can stretch across planets, even systems if one or both are particularly powerful.

“So just... just imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to feel the screaming of all those Jedi in the Force as their trusted men shot them down.

“Some of them were close enough that I could feel them die,” she manages. “I... it’s horrible. It’s horrific. It’s not something I can ever forget, and I want to. I want to forget what that moment was like. Not that it happened, but...”

She can feel the tears. Fuck..

“You want to dull the edges.”

“Don’t we all?” she asks, scrubbing the back of her hand across her eyes. “Leia lost her entire planet, billions of people, and she was forced to watch. Rex... Force, I can barely imagine, and I was there for most of it.”

Fett watches her, measuring. “From what he said, they were as much your brothers as his, by the end.”

“No,” she immediately denies. “They could have been, maybe, but the ones I was closest to died earlier, and then I left, and by the time the Empire rose, all but a handful were... no. Rex, I will claim as a brother in all the ways that matter, but I don’t get to do that with the rest. I don’t have the right.”

“You’re hard on yourself.”

“Fate of the galaxy, my good bitch. Guess who’s got it on her shoulders.”

He snorts at her, and nods at the mug. “Drink your Hoth chocolate. We’re landing in eight hours, and you’ve got kids to look out for.”

---------------------------

There’s a twitch in the Force when they land, something pulling at her in a way she barely feels. She’s had her shields up so fully for so long that it’s natural to hide away what she is to the point where she can hardly tell what anyone else is, either. It takes more than a moment to remember how to let herself spread out across the world.

“Auntie ‘Soka? Why’d you stop?”

She doesn’t have an answer to Leia’s prodding question. “I don’t know.”

It’s almost familiar. Old and half-forgotten, not the same as what she remembers, but--

“This way,” she says, and wanders off into the crowd. Leia and Rex follow without question. Fett curses and rushes through the rest of his transaction with the docking attendant. The sound of him jogging after them is almost funny, with the armor, but she can’t focus on that.

Ahsoka slips between people with the ease of a career built on such a habit, children trailing like ducklings. She knows this feeling, she knows this person, what is she missi--

“Oh,” she breathes, going stock still. She knows that face. She knows those braids. She even knows the presence.

Younger than Ahsoka had ever seen her, but unmistakably Master Billaba.

“Torrent, what the hell?” Fett demands, finally catching up. “You can’t just run off like that!”

“It’s Depa,” she says, eyes still fixed on the woman parsing through a datapad with an irritated vendor. She has a padawan braid. It doesn’t feel like Master Windu is on-planet, so this might be a solo mission, a... oh. Senior Padawan, Knight Elect. This is the kind of mission taken to test if she’s ready to be promoted.

Ahsoka feels light-headed.

Fett waits for her to elaborate, but she can’t. This was Kanan’s master. This was a member of the High Council. This was a woman who died and--

“You need to sit down,” Fett says, not a touch gruff. He puts a hand on her shoulder and guides her off the main walkway. “I’m... going to talk to the woman in the Jedi robes. You three just stay there and don’t get kidnapped.”

Ahsoka nods, feeling like she’s not quite inhabiting her own body.

It’s Depa.

Her eyes track Fett without conscious control, and her montrals pick up the sound.

Depa looks up when the armor comes close enough, free hand tensed in a way that says she’s preventing herself from reaching for a saber in reaction to the heavily-armored individual standing several feet away.

“Mando,” the woman says. “May I help you?”

“Are you Depa?”

Depa doesn’t do anything so dramatic as gape or step back, but she does blink rapidly for a moment. She then folds her hands down in front of her, drawing her spine up ramrod straight. “I am Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, yes. May I ask why it is that you need to know?”

Ahsoka imagines Fett grimacing, or rolling his eyes, or maybe dithering. She can’t tell from this angle, and he has a helmet on besides. It turns his awkward silences into judgmental ones.

“I’ve had some Jedi kids on my ship, hitching a ride,” he says at length. “One of them recognized you and then just... froze.”

“You have our younglings in your care,” Depa says, carefully not accusatory, but close enough to be a warning.

“Not quite,” he says. “The one that actually came from the temple is seventeen. One of ‘em isn’t Force Sensitive, and the last one is but hasn’t been to Coruscant before. They’re trying to get the little one to the Temple for her own safety.”

Depa considers that, and then passes the datapad to the vendor. “Lead on.”

It’s surprisingly simple, really. Fett did all the talking.

And then Depa is standing right in front of her.

“Like I said,” Fett sighs. “She froze up.”

“Hello,” Depa says, hands laced together inside her sleeves. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Ahsoka shakes her head. “I know of you. I’ve seen you spar. You’ve never spoken to me.”

All true. A little misleading, but it’s fine, it’s all fine.

Depa waits a moment, and then says, “You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Sokari T-Torrent,” she manages. The words feel clunky in her mouth, the sound abrasive for all that it’s just her own voice, no different from usual. A little shaky, maybe. She can feel a cool breeze on her upper arms. Shouldn’t she have armor? She should have armor. “It... it’s been a long time since I’ve seen another Jedi. I’m having a hard time believing you’re real.”

“I see,” Depa says. “Perhaps we should take this somewhere more private? You seem a little unsteady.”

Ahsoka lets herself be led back to the ship, in the company of Mand’alor Jango Fett, Jedi Padawan Depa Billaba, Princess-General Leia Organa, and good old Captain Rex.

It’s like the start of a sick joke.

---------------------------

Fett and Depa talk where she can hear, but they rarely address her directly. Both seem to realize that she’s not particularly useful right now. Leia and Rex are pressing up against her at the little table in the galley, and Ahsoka lets them.

This is real. She can feel Depa in the Force, recognizes her energy even if it’s not quite what it will-was-could-have-been. This is happening.

It’s a textbook Traumatic Stress Response case, one of them says.

Fett has his helmet off. Ahsoka’s sure that’s wrong for some reason. She thinks he might already be on wanted lists. Should she worry about Depa trying to arrest him?

Depa asks about Rex at one point. Fett tells her that someone cloned him without his knowing, but the kid is more comfortable with Ahsoka so they’re still working on what that means for him.

It’s more or less true. Rex squeezes her hand the one time someone suggests separating them. She’s not letting that happen unless Rex wants to leave for whatever reason. They’ve worked apart before. They can do it again.

“Auntie Soka? You’re shivering.”

Is she?

Leia cuddles in closer, and Ahsoka runs a hand over her hair. It’s an absentminded motion, and for all that she knows Leia’s hair is fine as silk, it feels like plastic in the moment.

“I don’t think I’m okay,” Ahsoka announces. The words hang in the air like lead balloons, and she can feel Depa staring at her. “I haven’t been for a very long time.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Fett says. “Do you need to lay down, Torrent?”

Does she?

“No,” she says. “I... I don’t know what I need.”

“The spicy drink,” Rex tells them. “It’s grounding.”

Right. That.

Fett goes to grab it, and Depa continues to watch.

“How long ago did you leave your master?” Depa asks. “Or... did he die?”

Ahsoka closes her eyes and shakes her head. She can feel the shivers now, tremors in her biceps and a shudder she can’t control in the height of her ribcage. Her teeth grind together, jaw like stone.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Depa assures her. “I’m... going to recommend you see a mind healer on Coruscant.”

That was a forgone conclusion.

A cup clinks onto the table. Fett’s back. “Drink.”

She does.

Depa and Fett continue discussing it as “the adults” at the table. She’s older than both of them. Rex is older than all of them. Ahsoka follows about half of what they say. She agrees with most of it. Rex bullies his way into speaking when she doesn’t, without her even asking, because he knows her mind as well as she does. Fett rolls with it. Depa lets him.

She’s going to reach out to the Temple and see about getting them a ride back to Imperial Center Coruscant.

Fett makes Soka go to bed, taking Leia with her.

---------------------------

She feels more like a person come morning.

Depa’s sitting at the table, datapad in her hands and caff on the table in front of her.

“Good morning,” Ahsoka says, rough and croaking, and Depa’s eyes flick up to meet hers. She nods a shallow hello.

“Feeling better?”

“Much,” Ahsoka says, and goes about gathering a breakfast. There’s definitely some dried meat in here. She can get something fresh when they stop by the market later.

“I was hoping to speak with you about your options,” Depa tells her, once she’s sat at the table. “Fett and your friend Rex took care of most of the negotiation, and I feel like I have an idea of what would work best for you.”

Ahsoka nods slowly. “Okay.”

“There is a Master-Padawan pair a few planets away,” Depa says. “The Council informed me when I spoke with them about you and your wards. They’d be headed back to the Temple in a few days anyway, and the Council has agreed to extend an offer to Fett to handle the transportation. The presence of a Jedi Master on board will allow for him to get in and out of the Core unmolested, and we’d like for you and yours to have a Jedi escort, given what happened yesterday afternoon.”

Her complete spiral into nonbeing?

“I understand,” she says instead. “I suppose Fett agreed because he’s still trying to get Rex to like him?”

Depa shrugs. “That part isn’t my business.”

Of course it isn’t.

“Rex can stay with me for a while, right?” Ahsoka finally asks. “I know it’s not exactly protocol, but I’m...”

“In need of a support system until you’ve seen a mind healer, and against all odds, the child is part of it,” Depa summarizes. “Yes, I recognized as much. I think the Council will be able to allow some leeway there. I don’t know if he’ll enjoy it, given that all the others his age are Initiates, but we can adjust as necessary. On that note... Do you know Leia’s midichlorian count?”

“No,” Ahsoka says, and hesitantly adds, “But her biological father was my Jedi Master, and I’m told his count broke records even as a child. Given what Leia’s shown so far... it’s why I’ve been in a hurry to get her to the Temple.”

Depa frowns at her, clearly working through the implications of a Jedi having a daughter and still teaching... and then visibly dismisses the situation, eyes closing to breathe in the steam of her caff.

Biological father certainly implies a child that was raised by her mother or adopted out so the Jedi father could remain in their chosen career without a conflict of interest or duty.

She’ll tell the council the truth, or... at least Master Koon. Master Kenobi is still a padawan, but she can tell Master Koon.

She already told Jango Fett, of all people.

“Padawan Torrent?”

Her head snaps up. She hasn’t been a padawan in over fifteen years. It’s weird to hear. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted some time to think it over before I presented the offer to Fett,” Depa says.

Ahsoka gets the distinct feeling that Depa is planning a report to the Council that has ‘needs a mind healer’ underlined at least three times.

“No, I’m--I’m fine. That sounds like a good plan.”

“I’ll speak with him, then. Would you like to come with?”

"No, thank you.”

---------------------------

Fett agrees. Ahsoka’s pretty sure it’s all to do with Rex and maybe Leia. It’s probably nothing to do with ‘Sokari.’ She’s a Jedi, an adult in mind and in body, or at least close enough to count. She’s a damn sight more ‘enemy’ to Fett than the other two are. Not as much as Depa, maybe, but Fett’s been playing nice with her for Leia’s sake.

He plays nice with Ahsoka for Rex’s. That’s all.

They’re only a few planets over from the meeting point, and they have a few days to hang around before the escort meets them. Depa hadn’t given them a name--apparently it could have compromised the opsec for the Jedi team--but Ahsoka’s pretty sure she’ll be able to identify almost anyone. She gets the feeling that the Force is going to send her a familiar face, just as it did Master Padawan Billaba.

Ahsoka lets herself feel the world around her. It’s dark and dreary, in the sense that the beaten-down port is full of petty crimes and less petty horrors, but it’s still lighter than most of the Empire had been. She sneaks away from the ship at night, ignoring Fett at her back, and performs a bit of vigilante justice while she can. She’ll be banned from doing so as soon as she’s reinstated as a Jedi, probably, but for now... for now, she can look at the drug cartels and ‘they’re not slaves, really’ workers and do something to help.

She doesn’t use her sabers. She doesn’t need to. It’s been a long time since she has, for small fry like these.

“What are you doing?” Fett asks her, landing heavily behind her back.

“Chip removal,” she says, hand pressed to the slave’s leg. Her eyes are closed, but she can hear him shifting. “Let me concentrate, I don’t have a meddroid for this.”

He’s silent until she finishes, and waits until the people she’s helped are on their way to the planet’s freedom routes. He doesn’t ask what she did with the owners.

“You’ve done this before.”

“Regularly,” she confirms. “You?”

He doesn’t answer that, just ambles over to the the chains and stares down at them.

“Fett?”

“You go through this like it’s as easy as breathing,” he says. “It’s... impressive.”

“I guess?” she hesitates to continue. “I’m... I don’t think of it that way. This is the easy stuff. A time-waster that helps people. If I wanted to help for real, I’d been going after Jabba or Sidious or--”

“How old were you?” he asks, turning on his heel to face her dead-on. The vocoder of his helmet pulls the emotion from his voice. “When did this... these missions, the slavery battles, when did that start for you?”

“Fourteen,” she says. She’s not entirely sure, really, what counted as a mission for ending slavery and what counted as just a part of war, but she can round down. “Maybe fifteen. It’s a bit of a blur.”

“And you just kept doing it.”

“Of course,” she says. “If I have the time and the energy, if I need to do something and there’s nothing official on my hands, why not?”

He doesn’t answer her.

---------------------------

Rex greets them before she does.

Ahsoka, in her defense, is asleep at the time. It’s a restless sleep, but it’s enough that she doesn’t sense the nearing Force signatures until they’re almost at the ship.

She recognizes one of them.

“Auntie ‘Soka?” Leia questions, when she lurches to her feet and starts pulling on her boots with all the energy of a zombie. “Where are you going?”

“Jedi,” Ahsoka grunts. “Here.”

“I see.”

Leia dresses to follow her, in a little coat that’ll withstand the chill of the outside air, and Ahsoka makes it to the cargo hold just in time to hear Rex saying, “I’m not shaking your hand until you put your gloves on, Vos.”

She laughs to herself, breathless with the knowledge of what she’s about to find. She jumps the railing of the upper walkway, drops down just in front of the Master-Padawan team, and keeps her back to Fett and Rex. “Hello, there.”

One human, one Kiffar. She knows the latter.

“Would you be Sokari Torrent?” the Master asks.

“I am,” she says, with a slight bow. She can tell there’s a bit of judgement for how she’s dressed, but they’re covering it well. A Shadow and his trainee know the value of armor better than most Jedi bother with. “I’m afraid Padawan Billaba didn’t inform me of your names before we met.”

“And yet your friend knew my padawan,” the Master says.

“By reputation,” she says, as smoothly as she can. “I’ve encountered Quinlan Vos before, though I doubt he remembers--”

“I’d remember someone like you,” Quinlan interrupts, with a grin she’s sure is meant to be charming and rogueish.

He’s... very young for her, and not her type. Mostly, she wants to pat him on the head, but that probably wouldn’t go over very well. She still looks like she’s younger than him.

“Anyway,” she says, turning back to the master, “I’m afraid I still don’t know who you are, Master.”

“I am Tholme,” he says, with the bow that a Master gives a Padawan. She feels a little slighted, but it’s fine. She looks the right age, it’s fine.

It’s not like they know.

“It’s nice to meet you, Master Tholme,” she says. “My charges are Rex Torrent, the young man behind me, and currently coming down the ladder is Leia Antilles. I’m sure you’re aware of Jango Fett.”

“The Mand’alor,” Quinlan volunteers, and Ahsoka can almost hear Fett’s teeth grinding.

“Don’t call me that,” he says. She’s sure he’s got a hand drifting for his blaster.

“There isn’t a whole lot of room on the ship,” she says before the men can get into whatever weird contest she’s sure someone might start. Her bet’s on Fett. “But Leia and Rex are small enough to share with me, so I’m sure we can make it work.”

“There’s spare rolls for anyone comfortable with sleeping in the hold,” Fett grunts. “Or on the floor in the passenger room.”

“Well, I guess I could ask for a little help fi--”

“Vos,” Ahsoka snaps, letting her voice take on the kind of ‘obey me or get fresher duty’ irritation that she’d perfected back when the rebellion still had her managing people, before they’d realized she was more use in the field. “Do not.”

There’s a moment’s pause, and Tholme looks unimpressed with that raised eyebrow, but the kind of unimpressed that’s split between his own padawan and the stranger before him.

“Um,” Quinlan says. “I just--”

“No,” she cuts him off. “No flirting.”

It’s weird and uncomfortable and she’d have maybe been okay with it if she was actually the seventeen-or-eighteen-ish(?) that she looked, but she’s not. She’s in her thirties and Vos is... what, twenty? Twenty-one? No.

He stares at her, and she wonders momentarily if she’d gone too far in the direction of judging his intentions in the Force and preempted actual flirtations.

“I’m sorry?” He offers, looking confused, but ashamed. “I, uh, I’ll keep that in mind.”

She definitely preempted the actual flirtation.

Fuck.

Ahsoka closes her eyes and breathes in. Breathes out. Opens her eyes. “Right. That was... I’m not sure how much Padawan Billaba told you about me.”

“Enough,” Tholme says. He moves forward and puts a hand on Quinlan’s shoulder. Ahsoka has no idea if it’s to comfort him or hold him back. “I didn’t share most of it with my padawan, but I have a general understanding of what’s going on.”

Quinlan darts a look at his teacher, but Ahsoka doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

“Thank you for your understanding,” she says, and bows, and stiffly turns away to walk to the galley.

---------------------------

Leia squirms into the bench seat, shoving her way under Ahsoka’s arm like a particularly wriggly tooka.

“What was that?” Leia demands, the authority of a rebellion general rather useless in the squeaky voice of a child.

“What was what?”

“The whole thing with Padawan Vos,” Leia says. “You blew up at him before he even did anything.”

That’s pretty true.

“I felt the flirtation coming before it happened and reacted inappropriately because I panicked. I’m significantly older than him, but I can’t tell him that, so it’s just awkward and uncomfortable and... I’m not okay, Princess. I haven’t been for a long time.”

“Yeah, we can tell.”

“Leia.”

“What? I need therapy too! Captain Rex needs therapy! I’m pretty sure Fett needs therapy! You, Fulcrum, you really need therapy. None of us are okay.” She huffs, wiggling impossibly closer. “I don’t like it, but it’s true.”

“I know,” Ahsoka groans. “I just... I just need to hold out until the Temple.”

“Will you be able to hold it together if you see someone you actually care about?” Leia demands. “What are you going to do when you see Kenobi?”

“Stop.”

“I’m serious, you--”

“Leia, that’s enough,” she snaps. “I was fighting that war before you were even born, and I’ve dealt with the consequences since. I know the risks and I’ll thank you to remember who taught you to control your own mind.”

Leia stiffens, sucking in a sharp breath. “That was uncalled for.”

“You’re not the child you appear to be,” Ahsoka reminds her, not a little sharply. “You want to dish it out, be ready to take it. What will you do when we see Bail Organa? When we see the toddler that is Anakin Skywalker?”

“I get it.”

“I’m not sure you do,” Ahsoka mutters. She isn’t surprised when Leia ducks out of the embrace and leaves the galley. She lets the girl go, guilt warring with the memory of how Master Kenobi had more than once spoken that way to Anakin at the height of the war. The fact that she’s an adult in the body of a child isn’t an excuse for poking at Ahsoka’s open wounds. It was cruel and unnecessary, and unbecoming of a... not a Jedi. A princess. A politician.

She rests her head on her arms and zones out. She should meditate, but that seems like... too much effort.

She can feel Vos and Tholme setting up in the room they’ve been assigned. Neither seems particularly angry. Most likely, Tholme’s given the absolute shortest explanation of ‘child soldier, dead master, highly traumatized and emotionally unstable’ to Vos to smooth over the incident in the cargo hold. Rex is with Leia; he’s agitated, but less so than Leia herself. Fett’s annoyed, in the cockpit, but he seems annoyed as often as not. There’s a shudder at lift-off, and a few minutes later, they’re in hyperspace, headed for the Core.

Fett finds her, falls into the other bench in full armor, and drops his elbows onto the table. The helmet clunks down a moment later.

She doesn’t lift her head. “What do you want?”

“Do I need to keep Vos away from you?”

“What?”

“Vos. He made you uncomfortable. Was that him being someone that hurt you in the future, or just the interaction being awkward?”

She lifts her head. She stares at him. “What?”

He leans back and crosses his arms. “Do you need me to tell Vos to stay the hell away from you?”

She’s gaping. “You realize I’m thirty-two, right? I can handle my own battles.”

“You’re also traumatized as hell and everyone can see it,” Fett argues back. “If Vos himself is a trigger, I can handle it.”

“He’s not,” she tells him. This is strange. Fett’s being strange. “He was actually a friend of my grandmaster’s. I’m just uncomfortable with the flirting because I’m a lot older than he realizes, and I can’t tell him that.”

He nods sharply, and then looks away. The silence sits.

“Thanks for asking?” Ahsoka says, well aware of how her confusion over the offer turns it into a question. “I mean, thank you for... caring.”

I guess, she finishes in the privacy of her own head. Or at least pretending to.

Fett makes a face, still not facing her. He eyes the galley instead. She can guess where his thoughts are going. The galley is... not very big, especially with six people on board instead of one, but she’s sure they’ve stocked up enough. On the off chance they do go through more than expected, because of how many growing bodies are in residence, they can stop off and buy more. They have those resources now.

Jango never does ask what she did with the slavers.

“Who’s going to cry if I spice things properly?” he asks.

“Probably Leia,” she says immediately. “Vos will try to power through it even though he’s going to be overwhelmed. No idea about Tholme, but I think he’ll keep a straight face whether he likes it or not. Rex and I are fine, ‘hot’ was pretty much the only flavor of seasoning the GAR had.”

“GAR?”

“Grand Army of the Republic.”

He finally looks at her.

“You already knew I was a child soldier, Fett; don’t act surprised.”

“That doesn’t mean I like hearing about it.”

“I was fourteen. That’s old enough by Mando standards, Fett. Just think back, when did you get on the battlefield?”

“I take your point,” he says, lip curling unpleasantly. “It just hits different now that I’m old enough to look back and think of how damned young fourteen really is.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Yeah, well--”

“You said the clones were ten.”

There’s the rub, isn’t it?

Of course it was about the clones.

“...closer to seven, by the end. Kamino was just making speedies at that point. Triple growth on the average instead of double, but averages in that case meant they’d been growing at double rates for six years and then got forced through four growth cycles in a single year to beef up the army when we kept losing men.” She looks down at the table, picking at a scratch in the plastipaint with her nail. “Rex and the rest of the ones from the beginning were basically twenty in mind and body, even if they’d only been decanted ten years earlier. The speedies... I always wondered. They’d gone from functionally twelve to functionally twenty in a year. That’s not... even in Kamino, that can’t have been normal. They didn’t act like adults, not the way the originals did.”

Fett rubs at his face, groaning. He swears under his breath in three different languages.

She pities him, if only because he hasn’t actually done any of this yet. He’s paying for the crimes of a man he likely won’t ever become.

She kicks him under the table. “Wanna make tiingilar and see how long it takes Vos to start crying while he insists it’s fine?”

---------------------------

Dinner is when the questions start. Some are relatively easy. Others, not so much.

“My Master was Leia’s biological father,” is an easy truth to share. “She inherited his power, so I need to get her to the temple for her own safety, because home no longer is.”

“Yes, her adoptive parents were unfortunately killed rather recently. We’d prefer not to talk about it.”

“Rex is with me. Where he goes, I go, and vice versa.”

That one gets her an odd look.

“I thought...” Quinlan trails off, gesturing between Rex and Fett.

Fett keeps his face impassive, but his discomfort and guilt leak into the Force. “I didn’t know Rex existed until I ran into these three in a spaceport cantina a few weeks ago.”

Quinlan blinks at him, looks at Rex again, and then turns back to Fett with a grin that might have been described as ‘saucy’ if he were less smug about it. “Wild oats, huh?”

“Are you shitting me right now,” Leia whispers, and Ahsoka elbows her.

“That was inappropriate, padawan.”

Quinlan’s grin fades as Fett just continues to eye him.

“Um, so--”

“How old is the kid?” Fett interrupts.

Darting eyes answer him, as Quinlan tries to gauge Rex. “Ten? Maybe twelve?”

“And how old am I?”

“...early thirties?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

Quinlan’s grin fades further as he does the math.

“I’d have been between fifteen and seventeen when he was born,” Fett says, tone flat. “Between fourteen and sixteen at conception. I know damn well I wasn’t doing anything that could have resulted in a kid at that age.”

Quinlan rallies. “So, brothers?”

Tholme sighs loudly, hand over his eyes.

“I’m a clone,” Rex says, and Ahsoka can feel the amusement he gets out of Quinlan’s confused shock. They’d both had plenty of respect for Master Vos, but Padawan Vos was nothing but trouble. “Harvested genetic material, grown in a tube, inconsistent aging meaning I don’t even know how old I am for sure.”

“I broke him out,” Ahsoka adds, which is half true.

“There was a chip in my head,” Rex adds, with a bright smile. Quinlan’s discomfort grows. “She got it out. Also, lots of brothers. None of them are... around anymore. The creators were trying to make an army.”

Vos and Tholme have no response. Fett looks like he’s been carved out of stone. Leia’s just ignoring them and picking at her food.

Ahsoka lifts a hand and, without looking, Rex high-fives her.

---------------------------

“Drop your elbow.”

Ahsoka tries to cover her smile at the dirty look that Leia shoots Fett. Fett remains unimpressed by the glare of royalty, just gestures for the girl to do as he said.

“I know how to fight,” Leia grumbles. “I took lessons. I was good at them.”

“And I’m better,” Fett says, leaving no room for argument. “You want the Torrents to take over?”

The Torrents. Rex and Soka. She likes being referred to that way. Like they’re a team that never got split up.

Force, she wished they’d never gotten split up.

“Again,” Fett orders, and Leia moves through the Mandalorian kata with ill grace in her emotions and all grace in her sweeping limbs.

Well, as much grace as an undersized six-year-old can, at any rate.

“Think he’ll ask me to spar her again?” Rex asks, dropping down into the seat next to Ahsoka and passing her a drink.

“Maybe,” she acknowledges. “I think he’s wondering if it’s worth asking Vos to spar with her, so she gets more experience with size differences.”

“Hm?”

“She flinched at his face again,” she tells him. “The whole... thing with Boba, I guess. She still won’t tell me why Fett triggers her sometimes, but he’s not pressing her to spar with him, and there’s only so much she can get out of fighting me. Asking Tholme would be presumptuous, but Vos is just a padawan. I think it’d work out.”

“And you?”

She looks at him, already feeling a cresting wave of bullshit she doesn’t want to deal with. “What about me?”

“Are you going to spar with the Jedi?”

She should. She hasn’t sparred with a saber since she got tossed back into a body only half-familiar to her. She’s let Leia borrow the shorter one to learn some basic blocking moves, Shii-Cho and then, with hesitance, the first Soresu form. Another time, she loaned it to Rex to practice some attacks; they both know that the next time he picks up her saber in battle, having lost his weapons or she her grip, it will be neither the first or last time he wields a sword of light. None of that, however, is... sparring.

None of that is against someone who knows what they’re doing.

How long has it been since she sparred with anyone other than Kanan and Ezra?

How long has it been since she sparred without the looming specter of Darth Vader in the back of her mind, without fear of the Inquisitors, without the knowledge that any saber held by someone other than her two friends would be red as blood and twice as drenched.

Would she be able to hold back as she fought?

“I should,” she acknowledges, eyes on where Fett is nudging Leia’s feet into position for some kind of leveraging flip. She’s so small. “It would probably be a good idea to spar against a master at some point.”

“Do you think you can?” Rex asks.

“I never knew him,” she says. “And he isn’t Dark. It should be fine.”

Rex nods, taking her word for it. They watch as Leia stumbles on a final move, and Fett gestures for her to sit down and get a drink.

“That man is a terror,” she informs them.

(She’d once described him as a slave-driver. She had not made that mistake twice.)

“Least it’s not Kamino!” Rex tells her cheerfully. When Leia refuses to look impressed, he laughs at her.

Ahsoka has a half-second’s warning before heavy boots thud to the ground next to her. “What’s Kamino?”

“Hello, Vos, it’s nice to see you too,” she drawls. “I’m good, thanks for asking, and yourself?”

The boy-not-quite-man rolls his eyes. “Hi, Torrents; hi, tiny one.”

Leia glares at him next.

“So, Kamino?”

“Planet by Rishi,” Rex says.

“Why were you there?”

“They specialize in cloning.”

Ahsoka covers her mouth as the conversation drops into the same awkward gap that always happens when Quinlan stumbles into a subject he didn’t know to avoid.

“Like... you were made there, or you were researching how it works for your own--”

Ahsoka slaps a hand over his mouth. “Now’s a great time to stop talking.”

He licks her palm.

She bares her teeth and arches her fingers just enough to press nails into his cheek.

He bites at her palm, and she yanks her hand away.

“You’re all children,” Leia accuses, conveniently forgetting that Ahsoka and Rex are both over a decade older than her.

“I can throw you the length of a swimming pool,” Ahsoka tells her. “One of the fancy competition-ready ones that would make a Tatooinian cry. You are absolutely the child here.”

“Using the Force is cheating, sir,” Rex informs her.

“Only if there’s a competition,” Ahsoka shoots back. “And proving that a certain princess is a small child is not a competition. It’s a declarative fact.”

“I’m going to rip open the seams on all your tops except the ugliest one,” Leia decides.

“Try me,” Ahsoka challenges. “Adi’ka.”

A low, rough cough interrupts them. “Are you done?”

Fett has his arms crossed, and an eyebrow raised. He knows they’re all adults here, and is entirely unamused. As the silence drags, the eyebrow climbs a little higher.

“Done with what?” Quinlan finally asks, thereby volunteering himself to spar in hand-to-hand with Jango Fett, as one does.

“Poor, poor Vos,” Rex laughs, watching as Fett barks out orders at Quinlan every five seconds to fix his footwork, to stop dropping his guard, to stop wasting energy on flips instead of just dodging the easy way.

“Throw him!” Ahsoka calls. To her delight, Fett obliges.

The thing is, Quinlan isn’t bad at brawling. He’s got training, endurance, skill. The man knows what he’s doing, objectively. He’s just not a match for Fett, and is used enough to relying on his saber that his hand-to-hand skills are rusty. They are perhaps less rusty than those Jedi who don’t take questionable jobs in the Mid-Outer Rim, and Ahsoka’s got a suspicion that Vos regularly gets into bar fights in his downtime, but none of that is enough for him to actually do more than survive against Fett without his saber.

Even the saber wouldn’t help, if Fett had his armor.

“Whose idea was this?”

Ahsoka cranes her head back and smiles. “Hello, Master Tholme. Vos... volunteered.”

“Did he know he was volunteering?”

“No comment.”

Tholme snorts, crossing his arms and eyeing the spar in front of him. “I thought Fett hated Jedi. Giving us a ride for the sake of you three is one thing, but why is he teaching my padawan?”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Constructive bullying?”

There’s a small twitch of a smile, quickly gone. “He said something wrong, I’m guessing?”

“There was no way he could have known,” she dismisses. “We’re just, like, ninety-percent tragic backstories.”

“You’d think the Force would warn him,” Rex notes.

“That’s not how the Force works,” Leia chides.

“No, no, he’s right,” Ahsoka corrects. “The Force does sometimes step in to stop a person from saying something stupid. However, Padawan Vos is at an age where people think they are very rational while being more irrational than they likely ever will be again.”

“Do I want to ask what you were doing at that age?” Tholme asks.

“Running bla...” she trails off, then whips around to gape at him.

He smiles, bland and unassuming. “Does Fett know?”

“Know... what?” Ahsoka asks.

“That you’re significantly older than you look,” he says, voice just low enough that the sparring duo can’t hear him. “All three of you.”

Ahsoka turns back to the spar, only catching Tholme out of the corner of her eye. “He knows.”

“Mm. Were you planning on telling the Council?”

“Yes.” That part was never in question. “How did you figure it out?”

“I am a good investigator,” he says. “And you rely a little too heavily on your physical forms to obfuscate. Were it just one of you, that wouldn’t be a problem, but the pattern repeated across three is a little easier to discern.”

“I hoped the whole ‘child soldiers’ thing would be a bigger distraction,” Ahsoka mutters. She glances at Leia and Rex. Both of them are used to being in charge to some degree, giving orders and making contingency plans, but in this... in this, Ahsoka is in charge. They’d decided that at the very start. It didn’t matter that Rex had lived longer and had more experience, or that Leia had held the highest Rebellion rank of the three of them. Ahsoka had been agreed as leader, and they were relying on her.

They’re waiting on her orders. Stiff and unhappy, in Leia’s case, but they trust her.

“Will you be telling Vos?” She asks.

“No,” Tholme says. “Your secrets remain your own unless they endanger us, and I’ve a feeling they won’t be.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Rex jokes, smile not reaching his eyes. “I’ve been working with this family for too long to trust that trouble won’t find them around the next corner.”

“This family?” Tholme repeats.

“Sokari was telling the truth about her master being Leia’s biological father,” Rex says. He shrugs. “I worked with him, with his wife, with both of his kids, with his master and his padawan. All of them, to a one, are trouble magnets.”

“Ah, but that’s not the secret that’s putting us in danger,” Tholme points out. “Simply existence as a Jedi.”

Rex shrugs. “Fair enough. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”

Ahsoka lurches to her feet, turning with a smile and dancing backward into the the stretch of empty cargo hold they used for such things. “A spar, Master Tholme?”

He looks past her, to Quinlan, and raises a brow. “Would you not prefer to spar with someone a little closer to your level first?”

She barks out a laugh. “Master Tholme, I’m afraid I’ve spent more of my life fighting to survive than having normal friendly spars. My style is more lethal than the average, and you’ve already seen what war’s done to my mind. I ask to spar with you because, if I lose control, if I slip in time or react on an instinct that isn’t appropriate, I trust that you’ll be more able to stop me than a senior padawan.”

He smiles. “Yes, I gathered as much. Still, better to ask. Shall we wait for them to finish up?”

Ahsoka shrugs, turns, and yells. “Clear the deck!”

Rex snorts behind her, and lowly mutters, “Sir, yes, sir.”

She smirks at him over her shoulder. “At ease, Captain.”

“That’s ‘Commander’ to you, I got promoted,” he sniffs, chin held high.

Heavy steps herald Fett’s arrival at their little group. “The hells are you doing?”

“I’m going to have a spar with a Jedi Master, and I want you and Vos to not get stabbed.”

“I’m not that easy to injure in an actual fight, let alone by accident,” Fett grouses. He looks up and over at Vos, who is already significantly taller, if a fair shot less built. “This one, on the other hand...”

“Hey!”

Ahsoka laughs and backs into the center of the cargo hold, drawing her sabers. “Don’t worry, Vos, I won’t play dirty. You’ll probably get your master back in one piece.”

He wrinkles his nose at her. “Getting a bit ahead of yourself there, aren’t you? He’s a Jedi Master and former Watchman. You’re... what, eighteen?”

Ahsoka raises a brow and activates her sabers, tapping the blades together and watching as more than one person winces. “Wanna bet on how long I last?”

“No,” he says immediately, stepping back to join Rex on the bench. “You’ve already blindsided me enough. I’m not dumb enough to fall for whatever you’ve got up your sleeve.”

“I don’t have sleeves.”

“Armwarmers-slash-greaves, then.”

“Greaves go on the legs, these are vambraces.”

He throws his hands up in the air. “I’m just going to stop talking now!”

“Good plan,” Leia snarks, and then literally hisses when Rex ruffles her hair.

Tholme lights his saber and sinks into an opening stance.

Ahsoka mirrors him.

---------------------------

She wins, but barely. She's had a few weeks to practice her forms, has sparred hands-only with Rex and Fett, but this is her first real try at using her sabers against a person, instead of a blaster or thin air, since she arrived in the past. She’s only mostly adjusted to her body.

But Tholme is a healer and a watchman, not a duelist. Ahsoka held her own against Ventress, against Grievous, against Maul when she was this age. Still adjusting to her body or not, her lineage is one of battle, and it bled true.

“You’re terrifying,” Quinlan tells her after they’re done, smiling like the sun as he hands her a towel. “Please never turn that on me.”

She laughs at him. “Would you believe that I’m out of practice?”

“Out of practice with what?” he asks, horrified and fascinated. “Fighting Sith Lords?”

“Among other things,” she says, and smirks when he chokes on his drink. “Multiple darkside users who claimed to be Sith, at least. One being a full Lord, one that was disowned by his master, and one that was apprenticed to a Banite apprentice, so she wasn’t technically allowed to be a Darth because of the rule of two.”

Tholme meets her eyes past Quinlan’s shoulder, head tilted and eyes half-shut in consideration. He’s taking her seriously. He knows what she’s not saying.

“How...” Quinlan trails off and shakes his head. “You know what, no. Asking you people questions never ends well.”

“Good plan,” Ahsoka says, clapping a hand down on his shoulder. “Also, you need to spar with Fett more. Your footwork is shit.”

“It is not,” Quinlan gripes. “You’re all just scary good at this stuff.”

“You mean surviving?” Leia pipes up, and smiles innocently when Quinlan turns to pout at her.

“You’re getting bullied by a six-year-old,” Rex informs him.

“Yeah,” Quinlan sighs. “I know.”

Ahsoka laughs, and it’s fine. It’s all fine. For a week, everything is honestly great. She trains, she laughs, she works through the nightmares.

Then fucking Denon happens.

---------------------------

Denon is a city-planet on the intersection of two major hyperlanes. It’s the kind of place where they stop for two things:

Fuel.

Paperwork.

Technically, there’s a whole mess of paperwork they have to fill out to continue along this specific hyperlane, since they aren’t official Republic ships, and don’t have the licenses to just pass along like ships that are pre-registered to the Trade Federation or the like. They could sneak past--literally all of them know smuggler’s routes--but it’s honestly less of a pain to do things legally. They have a Jedi Master. They have cash. Some of that cash wasn’t quite legally acquired, but nobody needs to know that.

It’s supposed to be a pit stop. That’s all.

It’s just a pit stop.

But no, the galaxy isn’t that kind and Ahsoka’s luck is currently being compounded with a Skywalker, two Fetts, and Vos, which means that of course they run into trouble. Of course they do. There was never any other option, was there?

“Motherfucker,” Ahsoka snaps, lifting her head up and slamming her drink on the table.

The glass is empty. That’s good. They’re in a restaurant right now, a little splurging after weeks with only each others’ company, and spilling the sugary child-friendly juice with that move would have drawn way too much attention from the servers.

“Language,” Tholme says, voice idly unconcerned.

“Sir?” Rex asks, kicking Ahsoka under the table. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wr--that jackass,” she hisses, getting to her feet. “Rex, grab a blaster, I’ve got shebs to kick.”

“Okay,” Rex says, grabbing one out of Fett’s holster and scooting out of the booth before anyone can tell him not to. “Whose?”

“I didn’t even know that he was... osik, I don’t have jurisdiction,” she realizes. “I don’t have any record of wrongdoing. I can’t arrest him since we don’t have evidence of criminal wrongdoing...”

“Are you two going to explain what’s going on?” Vos asks. “Or sit down, maybe?”

Ahsoka makes her decision. She eyes the window--the restaurant in question is a little dingy, but it’s also several dozen stories in the air. “Rex, remember the thing we did on Geonosis that you hated?”

He pauses, and then sighs heavily. “Yes, sir. I remember the... yeeting.”

Hah. That slang doesn’t even exist yet.

“Great. With me!”

It’s a good thing the windows are forcefields instead of transparisteel. A bit of a twist to the energy and they’re gone.

She only hears a little screaming before the wind tears all noises away while they plummet.

They land lightly--of course--and Ahsoka wraps them both in a don’t notice me aura. Nobody even notices that they’ve just come from above. It’s great that she can just Do These Things again, and get brushed off as Weird Jedi Shit, instead of worrying about the Empire. She’s missed being able to jump out of windows without fear.

Rex follows her as she starts running through the city. They don’t have comms, and he’s still so small, which means he can’t keep up with her even if she runs at normal speeds without Force enhancement.

“Should you carry me?” he asks, before she can figure out if it’s worth suggesting. She did it a few times before they joined up with Jango.

“It’s not... urgent, I think,” she says. She hesitates to speak, even as she keeps jogging with Rex at her heels. “Honestly, I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can ding him for so we can attack him. It’s all well and good that I can beat him right now, but all the crimes I know about haven’t happened yet, so it wouldn’t be legal...”

“Commander?”

“Hm?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

She scrolls the conversation back mentally, considers, and says, “Oh.”

“Who’s getting steamrolled?”

“Uh, Maul’s here,” Ahsoka admits.

“Ah,” Rex says. He makes a face. “I understand the desire to jump out a window, now. I don’t agree with it, but I understand.”

Ahsoka laughs. “I mean, I just... every time I’ve seen him for almost twenty years, it’s been like... on sight, you know? We’ve never not attacked each other, except when I needed him to cause problems on Mandalore. But I always knew I was in the right, then.”

“So... what do we arrest him for?” Rex prompts.

“Um... carrying a lightsaber without a license?” she hazards. “We’ll need Tholme there. Hopefully I can just shout at him and he’ll attack me, but I think he only went full nutjob after Master Kenobi cut his legs off. He might be too controlled to try to kill me just for yelling at him.”

“...do we have to stalk him?” Rex asks, sounding like he’d most likely sigh if he weren’t mid-run.

She scoops him up and swings him around onto her back before she answers. “I think we have to stalk him, Rex’ika.”

“Don’t call me that.”

---------------------------

Maul is... exceptionally sneaky, actually. Either that, or he hasn’t done anything wrong yet. Ahsoka’s betting on the former, because she’s seen this particular skocha kung take over a planet before anyone realized he was the most dangerous person around.

Or maybe he’s just not committing crimes, and is in fact just here to buy groceries.

He’s examining a papaya.

She fantasizes about jumping across the market and greeting him with a heel to the cheekbone.

“Are you imagining a flying kick, Sir?”

“Yeah...”

“He’s examining a papaya, Sir.”

“I know...”

“Does he know we’re here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Do you think I should go hit him?”

“No.”

“Should I hit on him?”

“No, Sir. I would not advise that.”

“He’s looking at the neloms.”

“I can see that.”

“Why does he have to be so bo--did he just fucking bite a nelom?”

“It appears so, Sir.”

“Like... like rind and all. Just bit the little fucker.”

“Seems it.”

A scuff of metal. “What the fuck are you two doing?”

Ahsoka tips her head around to peer through the grate. “We’re spying, Fett, what does it look like we’re doing?”

Rex cranes his head. “We’re hanging upside-down from a fire escape to get a look at a suspected Sith Apprentice that is currently shopping for various fruits, Mand’alor.”

Ahsoka waves. “Hi, Master Tholme.”

“Sokari,” the master greets. “This seems a very conspicuous way to spy.”

She shrugs as well as she can from this angle. “Yes, but you see, this way’s more fun.”

“Is it now.”

Rex shifted. “He’s on the move!”

“To kill someone?!”

“No, to the deli meats.”

“Kriff.”

---------------------------

Apparently, Tholme and Fett had told Quinlan to take care of Leia, as Leia had wanted to finish her juice and refused to get involved in the Torrents’ nonsense. According to her, if they couldn’t be bothered to explain the nonsense, they didn’t need her.

This was true and accurate.

Quinlan shows up while they’re still stalking Maul, having moved to a low rooftop for a decent vantage point with less likelihood of being spotted. He’s giving Leia an eopie-back ride, and the pout on her face at needing it is adorable. She pouts harder when she sees them.

“Are you even trying to hide?” Leia scoffs.

“Not really,” Ahsoka admits. She’s got Fett’s binoculars out. “I’m not sure he’s caught wind of the fact that we’re here yet.”

“Or he has and he’s just biding his time to escape while we’re distracted,” Tholme points out.

“Meh,” Ahsoka says, avidly devouring the visual that is a teenage Maul glaring at leafy vegetables. “I just want him to do something so I have an excuse to beat his ass.”

“Do I get to know who?” Quinlan asks, setting Leia down on the roof. “Or are we going to keep being completely unwilling to share information?”

“Baby Sith Lord,” Ahsoka says. “He’s fifteen. A child.”

“A baby,” Rex agrees.

“You’re... that’s... ugh,” Quinlan groans as loudly and as dramatically as he dares, flopping down to the rooftop. “Master Tholme, please tell me this isn’t a real Sith.”

“He’s Dark,” Tholme confirms. “Sith is... up for debate until we have evidence.”

“He’s a bitch is what he is,” Ahsoka mutters. She observes the teenager in question stop to poke at some pink tomatoes. “E chu ta, break the law, already!”

“Does he have a lightsaber?” Quinlan asks. “If he has a lightsaber and no Jedi ID or specialty license, we can probably arrest him.”

“Auntie Soka doesn’t have a license or ID,” Leia points out.

“She’s got a Jedi escort,” Tholme says. “And if our supposed Sith is polite and plays nice, we can probably escort him to the Temple as well.”

Rex snorts derisively.

“Do you know why he’s on Denon?” Fett asks.

“No clue,” Ahsoka admits. “Evil reasons, probably.”

“You’re useless,” Leia tells her.

“Thanks, princess, how’s that attempt to open the jam jar by yourself coming?”

Leia says something very inappropriate for a princess, for a child, and for a lady. It’s fairly appropriate for a soldier, which is admittedly what she’s been for a few years now. Ahsoka sticks her tongue out at the girl like the mature operative she is.

“I wish we could still get him to lose his osik by just showing up and insulting him,” Rex mutters, low enough that Quinlan probably can’t hear.

“I wanna punch him in the face,” Ahsoka confesses. “I want him to try to punch me in the face, and fail.”

“Don’t bully the baby Sith,” Rex admonishes.

“He’s a Sith.”

“He’s fifteen, it’s tacky.”

“But it’s Maul.”

“I know, but you’re tw--significantly older than him.”

“But... but it’s the motherfucker himself.”

“...you can bully him a little, but only because he’s a Sith.”

Fett steals the binoculars. “You can borrow them again when you stop acting like children.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Rex says, dry as Ryloth. “I’m ten.”

“Pretty tall for your age,” Ahsoka mutters, and then giggles.

“Don’t steal my jokes,” Rex says. He elbows her, hard.

“You know,” Quinlan says, slow and tired. “Master Tholme and I are trained investigators.”

Ahsoka and Rex look at each other, and then up at him.

“Okay?”

“...do you want me to find actual evidence of this guy doing something criminal?”

“Oh, yes please.”

---------------------------

Quinlan, as it turns out, is not overselling his skills. He does catch Maul doing something illegal later that day. It’s a little more ‘stealing corporate secrets in the dead of night’ and less ‘torturing people for kicks,’ but it’s still enough to legally arrest him. Quinlan attempts to do so.

Quinlan does not succeed, and is forced to jump out a window to avoid getting cut in half. Maul follows, steals a passing speeder by throwing out the driver, and takes off. Someone--looks like Tholme--drops back to save the driver, but the rest of them give chase. Ahsoka gleefully takes point on that, of course. She’s the best pilot.

(Rex looks bored, but someone is likely to puke by the end of the night. She hopes it’s not Leia, who insisted on coming for some fucking reason.)

“How the kriff is a teenager that good?!” Quinlan yells, clinging to the edge of the speeder to avoid getting tipped out as Ahsoka swerves around a corner with a wild laugh.

“He’s a Sith!” Leia shouts over the wind. “What do you think?”

Quinlan is not impressed by the claim of Sith.

Ahsoka screeches as she drifts across four lanes of traffic and into an alleyway to pursue Maul. He’s pretty good at dodging cross-building walkways, but she’s better. She bares her teeth, hissing, and tries to pick a plan.

“Vos, how’s your aim with Force throws?” She calls to the backseat.

“Uh, decent?”

“Great! Fett’s the projectile!”

Vos takes a second longer to process that than Jango does.

“I’m wh--”

He cuts off, screaming, and is flung forward by Quinlan to crash headfirst into a teenage Sith.

“Take the wheel!” Ahsoka commands, not waiting to see who follows the order, because Fett and Maul are both getting to their feet, the other speeder is about to crash, and she’s not sure who’s going to win that fight.

She jumps from the speeder they’ve been violently dragging around Denon, and lands feet-first on Maul’s... shoulder.

Hm.

That definitely dislocated something.

“You should wear armor!” she chirps at him, drawing both sabers and grinning as he whirls to face her, eyes wide with hate.

He’s utterly silent.

That’s disturbing. Expected, but disturbing.

“Did you just throw me?” Fett demands, higher pitched than she’d normally expect.

“No, Vos threw you.”

“Because you told him to!”

“Yeah, it’s a good strategy!”

“It is not!”

“Why not? Throwing people was standard practice in the GAR.”

She can’t see his face, but she’s pretty sure he’s about ready to strangle her.

Ahsoka cannot, at that point, continue snarking with the father of her best friend, because there’s a red lightsaber coming for her throat, and she should probably worry about that. Maul’s very good at killing people and she’d like to avoid becoming part of that statistic.

As she is quickly reminded, he is... fifteen. And shorter than she’s used to. And already injured.

It’s really, really easy to take him out, actually.

At some point, the other speeder was safely recovered before it caused property damage, and their own is landing a few meters away with Vos and the kids.

“You have Force-negating cuffs, right?” Ahsoka asks.

“No, Master Tholme has them.”

“Oh,” she says, and grimaces. “I guess I’ll just... keep sitting on him then.”

Maul snarls, and she raps him on the skull. “Stop that, it’s uncivilized.”

Rex snorts.

Jango makes a noise that is incredibly frustrated with the lot of them, and turns on Rex. “Was she telling the truth?”

“About?”

“Throwing people being standard practice for the GAR.”

Rex’s face goes pained. “It was in the five-oh-first. And a few others.”

“What’s the GAR?” Quinlan asks.

“None of your damn business,” Fett snaps.

Quinlan throws his hands up in the air again. “Come on! I just proved I know what I’m doing!”

“And their tragic backstory is none of your business, prudii!”

Quinlan blinks at him, and then glances at Ahsoka. “Um.”

“He called you a shadow since your training, um, seems to be pointing in that direction,” she says as carefully as she can. “We were theorizing.”

“Wh... you actually paid attention?” Quinlan asks, looking horribly confused. “I thought I was just annoying you.”

Ahsoka laughs at him. “Oh, Vos... I’ve been running black ops for... much longer than most would guess. Trust me, I know another spy when I see them.”

She smiles as kindly as she can, because she hadn’t actually meant to make him feel left out or unwanted or... well, she’d been pretty patronizing, especially for someone seemingly younger than him. The smile does not work. Quinlan just looks kind of horrified about how young she just implied she started spy work.

Granted, she’d been sixteen for Zygerria...

Deciding to ignore him for a bit, she shifts on Maul’s back and pats him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, Baby Sith. We’re going to get you lots of nice therapy. Mind healers, no Sith tortures, all that fun stuff. Maybe some plushies.”

“You’re also getting therapy, right?” Quinlan asks. “Please say you are. I’m required for the specifics of my training and if anything you’ve said is true, I feel like you really need it and I’m scared of what’ll happen if you don’t.”

Ahsoka laughs, knowing exactly how empty it sounds. “Oh hell, if I didn’t get therapy, I imagine Kix would rise from the grave to force me into it.”

The name means nothing to anyone except Rex, and... ah, yeah, she told Fett about Kix a few weeks ago.

“No more throwing me without warning,” Fett grumbles, dropping to sit on the ground next to her. “Especially not at baby Sith Lords.”

“I am not a child!” Maul spits.

“He speaks!” Ahsoka cheers. “Aw, I knew you could do it.”

“’Soka, I told you not to bully him,” Rex complains. “It’s tacky. You’re being tacky.”

“I’m allowed to be tacky,” Ahsoka declares. “I’ve died twice, that’s, like, permission from the universe.”

“You’ve died twice?” Quinlan asks, back in ‘fascinated horror’ territory. “Wait, no, I shouldn’t ask--”

“Too late! The first time was on a planet that doesn’t exist and my Master lost his mind, killed a god, and used the good favor of another god to have me brought back to life at her expense. Not in that order.”

“I--what? No, that’s--what?”

Ahsoka smiles brightly. “You asked.”

Tholme finally shows up with the cuffs.

---------------------------

“You should eat something.”

He glares at her.

“Baby Sith Lords need to eat.”

He keeps glaring at her.

“Maul, you’ll never get big and strong and ready to kill if you don’t eat your vegetables.”

He bares his teeth.

“No, I don’t eat my veggies, but I’m a Togruta, so if I eat too many vegetables I throw up.”

Rex kicks her thigh, right on the faulds. “What did I say about bullying the Sith Lord?”

“Not to.”

“And what are you doing?”

“Making him eat his vegetables.”

“Soka.”

“Rex’ika.”

He kicks at her again. “Get up, we’re swapping out the watch.”

“But I wanted to hang out with my favorite little criminal mastermind.”

Rex drops to the floor and presses his forehead to her shoulder. “How the hell is being around this guy the first thing to make you cheer up in weeks?”

“I’m allowed to be mean to him.”

“He’s going to bite you.”

“I’ll bite back.”

Rex jabs a finger into her ribs, and she squeaks. “Go get something to eat, Commander.”

“Fine,” she huffs, rolling to her feet and moseying along to the galley. She walks in on Tholme and Fett having an argument about the ways in which Jedi and Mandalorians differ. Quinlan’s on the side, watching with wide eyes, and little Leia’s drinking a juice box at his side, tucked up under his arm and occasionally saying things to fan the flames. Ahsoka assumes she’s enjoying herself.

She opens the cooling unit, looks over the contents, and pulls out a raw leg of eopie mutton. She leans against the counter, bites into the chilled-but-not-frozen meat, and uses the back of one hand to wipe the blood off her chin. The ‘real adults’ don’t notice.

“I’m like ninety percent sure you’re doing this to mess with me but also...” Quinlan trails off, staring at her with horror. “Why?”

“A girl’s gotta eat.”

“Yeah, but all the obligate carnivores I know are like... generally holding to basic rules of courtesy when it comes to not grossing people out,” Quinlan says. “Like, I don’t chew with my mouth open. You don’t... eat in the most intimidating--did you just crack the bone with your teeth?!”

Ahsoka smirks at him, using her free hand to take away the shard of bone so she can suck out the marrow without eating the bones themselves. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t polite society. We’re in a galley on a bounty hunter’s ship, and I’ve been living on the run or in an army for most of my life. Table manners are optional.”

“No, they’re not,” Leia orders. “Fett, it’s your ship, tell her to--”

“--and another thing!” Fett snaps at Tholme, clearly paying less than no attention to the food argument.

Ahsoka keeps on eating, trying to catch wind of where the discussion’s at. Mostly, it seems to be at ‘talking past each other.’ Neither of them seems to have fully grasped more than the absolute most basic parts of the other culture, and that’s only enough to insult each other, not actually have a constructive conversation. She’d have expected more out of Tholme, at least. He’s not exactly young.

“Hey, quick question,” she says, in a moment where both of them have paused for breath and the opportunity to seethe. “Fett, when’s the last time you worked with a Jedi, or any member of a Force-based religion, before I popped into your life?”

His nose scrunches up as he makes a face.

“And Tholme, when’s the last time you worked with anyone from the Mandalorian system?”

Tholme’s reaction isn’t any more gracious than Fett’s.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says. “Vos, were either of them actually interested in that conversation, or just looking for an excuse to yell?”

“Now listen here, jetiika--”

“Fett,” she snaps. “I am not a child.”

“And neither am I,” he growls right back. “This is my ship, and I damn well don’t need you treating me like a misbehaving youngling. You’ve got a problem, you bring it to my face, not get all smug about people’s tempers blowing over.”

Well, then.

She smiles thinly. “Of course.”

He stands with his arms crossed, in full armor save for the helmet. She puts aside the eopie meat and wipes her hands, smiling until she can put her hands on her hips and let it drop to a challenge.

“You know, I’m just--I’m just gonna go,” Quinlan mutters, pulling Leia out with him, the girl hanging from under one of his arms. “This, uh, this looks like a problem for... you folks. Um. Yeah.”

He sidles out.

Tholme doesn’t.

Fett rubs at the bridge of his nose, and then gestures at the table. “Sit.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

He drops his hand and glares at her. “We have another week on this ship together. We are going to have this conversation. Sit.”

She sits, right on the warm spot left behind by Quinlan and Leia. She crosses her arms, lifts a brow, and waits.

Fett takes the seat across from her. Tholme leans against the counter.

“We all know you’re older than you look,” Fett says. “I heard Tholme mention it, I know that much has been shared. You’re acting like an actual teenager, and I’ve... I’ve put up with a lot. I am trying to keep things civil, particularly with you. I’ve tried to be friendly. You’ve been fucked up since we met, fine, everyone’s got trauma. The thing where you’ve started talking shit to our faces for what seems like your own amusement? That has to stop. You’re older than me, Torrent. Fucking act like it.”

She blinks at him, slow and not exactly happy, and turns to Tholme.

The man shrugs. “I was planning to put up with it until we arrived to the temple and handed you over to some mind healers. Fett doesn’t have that kind of time.”

There’s a curdle in her stomach, defensive and angry and guilty.

“You’ve been... a bitch,” Fett finally says. “You know that. I’m not going to mince words. You’ve been holier-than-thou and rude and condescending, and aiming that at Antilles is one thing, when you’ve apparently known her since she was a toddler and taught her things. Aiming at the rest of us isn’t going to fly. We’re all adults trying to share a space. Stop acting like... just like you have been.”

There is no defense to be made that they aren’t both already aware of.

She closes her eyes and tries to strangle the burst of irrational rage.

Their accusations aren’t unfounded.

They deserve an apology.

She is in the wrong.

She’s felt freer than she had in years, and in that freedom allowed herself too much rein, let herself lace her words with barbed wires and poison instead of sparks and spices, comments that were cruel instead of just joking. Too familiar. Too comfortable.

“My behavior’s been inappropriate,” she finally says, the words clumsy and too big in her mouth. “You’re right about that. I’m sorry, and I’ll endeavor to keep a tighter rein on my less pleasant behaviors in the future.”

At least she only lashes out with words. It could be worse.

She opens her eyes, fixes her gaze on the wall behind Fett, wrestles her expression into stiff neutrality. “Am I dismissed?”

“...uh, no, not after that,” Fett says, sounding just a little horrified. “What the hell was that?”

Tholme hisses out a breath. “Let her go.”

“No, this needs to be discussed, that’s not a healthy rea--”

“Fett, let her go,” Tholme insists, low and heavy.

Fett looks between the two for a moment, seems to come to a realization he doesn’t like, and then gestures almost violently towards the door. “Fine. Go.”

She walks out, doesn’t sprint. She’s stiff. She’s controlled. She’s the one that fucked up, so it’s fine if she doesn’t feel great right now. Getting called out on one’s own failings as a person isn’t something to get upset about if the failings are real. The feelings are real and normal, but this was her fault, and so it’s up to her to fix it, and she can’t let them know it hurt her, because this was her mistake.

She goes to the cargo hold.

---------------------------

Ahsoka works out her frustrations on Fett’s punching bag. She does not augment herself with the Force, just uses raw strength and technique, ignoring the tears that press at her eyes.

She’s fine.

It’s not weird. It’s not odd. It’s not strange to not notice she’s been kind of a bitch since her mood came up with the whole Depa thing, and then Maul. She’s been mean, mostly to Vos and Fett, and nobody’s confronted her about it until now. They let her have room for her trauma, and she hadn’t reined it in. She’s just gotten worse.

‘Snippy’ she’d always been, but age apparently hadn’t fucking tempered it.

“Um.”

She catches the punching bag, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. She hasn’t worked out all the twitchy, nervous energy yet.

“Vos,” she greets, once she’s caught herself enough that her voice won’t waver. He’s on the other side of the bag, but she knows his voice. “Do you need something?”

“You’re kind of... projecting,” he tells her, drifting to where she can actually see him. “Not self-loathing, but, um, recrimination? You just don’t feel very good and I was hoping to help”

Why in all the Sith hells does he have to be nice.

“I got called out on my behavior and wasn’t ready to face the fact that I’d kriffed up,” she tells him. “I’ll be fine. And I’m... sorry. I haven’t been fair to you and was using you as an easy target for some of my ruder comments.”

“I mean, I kind of figured,” he admits, coming closer. “I’ve been tutored by Shadows before, and a lot of them act like you. I just assumed it was more of that.”

“I still shouldn’t have let myself run loose like that,” she says. “I’m... it wasn’t appropriate. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she says. “Not with... not with you. Or anyone other than Rex and a mind healer, really. Most of it is...”

She trails off, distantly noticing that her eyes are tearing up enough to blur her vision, and her nails are digging into the bag in a way Fett won’t appreciate.

There’s so much that beat her down, never quite breaking her, that she doesn’t even know what made her act the way she does.

“Want to spar?”

She looks over at him, wonders what he sees that makes him want to fight her when she’s visibly unstable.

He smiles, kind and easy, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s genuine in intent, if not in energy. He wants to help. “You all keep saying I could work on my hand-to-hand. Just take off the armor so I don’t break a finger, maybe.”

“You’re serious.”

“No, I’m Quinlan.”

She’s going to wipe the floor with this boy. “You sure you wanna fight me?”

“You won’t be able to meditate until you do,” he says. He’s right, damn him. “The other option is that I go get your... vod, I think? I go get Rex and you two can talk it out since you trust him with more. I don’t want to do that, though, he’s still a kid.”

She eyes him, lips pressed together and mind awhirl with emotions and thoughts she’d tried to beat out of her head and into the bag. “Ever fought someone without the Force?”

“...yes?”

“Was it cuffs?”

“Oh, you meant me not having the Force,” he realizes. “Er, no. Is... is that something you’ve done a lot?”

She smiles at him. “You’re planning on Shadow work. That means getting captured and stripped of everything you are at some point, Force included. Unfortunately, the cuffs are in use on a very annoying Dathomirian right now, so we’ll have to make do with you shielding like your mind’s a Kessel Spice Mine.”

“...do I want to know how often you’ve been captured?”

“No, you don’t.”

When he comes at her, it’s easy to dodge. It’s easy to tap him on target points, little pokes that show she could take him out, but isn’t going to until he’s learned something. He stays grinning throughout, letting her take the lead, and he treats her like... like a knight. Like a teacher. He’s stepped back and gone from trying to impress her as a fellow padawan, to proving himself to a full knight.

She’s not sure when that change happened, or why or how, but it makes things much smoother. She wants to think that it would have even if she hadn’t gotten a wakeup call from Fett.

So she treats him the way she treated Ezra, for the year she’d spent traveling with Kanan. She treats him as a student that’s willing to learn, good but not yet great, competent but not yet ready to survive. She draws him into the kind of chest-heaving exhaustion that tells a fighter just how much energy they waste.

(Ahsoka may have had her own style, but her grandmaster had been the pinnacle of a Soresu user. She’d spent years on the frontlines of a war. She knew the worth of conserving energy, and she’d teach it to any who stepped in to challenge her.)

“Who taught you to fight like this?” He asks, when they’ve taken a handful of moments to circle each other. His steps are heavy, sure, planted. Her own are light and ready.

“Soldiers,” she says. It’s true enough.

“Not your Master?” he asks, just as he tries to kick for her upper arm. It’s a safe question. For anyone else, it would be a safe question.

But for Ahsoka, it’s another chink in the armor, after a maelstrom of emotion, a storm of self-loathing, a dervish of instability.

She doesn’t break right away.

She spirals. She fights Quinlan, but doesn’t quite see him. Her strikes get sloppy, her feet stumble. She can’t make herself meet Quinlan’s eyes, not when the scrape of his heel against the metal sounds like the rasp of a breathing machine. Her shields get fuzzy, she knows, and she leaks what she feels into the air, making it sour and thick. She doesn’t notice, because all she can see, all she can--all she can hear and feel and--

She drops to her knees and grabs at her head, trying to stop it.

“Sokari?”

She breathes. In and out, harsh and jagged but natural in a way that the damned respirator wasn’t.

Her master her teacher her brother the traitor the hound the executioner

Her face is hot. Something prickles. It might be tears.

She tries to say something, tries to say a name or a request, tries to make anything come out of her mouth that isn’t the broken wail of a woman who hasn’t let herself think about how she died.

She feels herself pulled into someone’s arms, and she can’t quite tell who, but they’re bigger than she is, and feel warm and worried. They care. They don’t understand, they’re scared, but they care.

Her hands shake, clutched to her chest and she can’t breathe she can’t make herself take in enough air to do a Force-damned thing the empire is going to feel her her shields are down and broken and her emotions are spilling and the empire is going to find HER ANAKIN IS GOING TO FIND HER AND--

“COMMANDER!”

Rex.

Rex is here.

Her breath is coming so fast that she’s hiccupping more than she’s actually inhaling. She feels small hands in gloves on either side of her face, and then her forehead presses to something warm.

Rex. A Keldabe kiss. Her brother, her partner, her other half. He’s here. He’s calm. If he’s calm, then things are fine.

“What happened?” Light voice, high voice, small and distant. Leia. Little Leia little princess Leia she’s in danger she’s in trouble Anakin will--

“Commander.”

No. Here and now. She needs to focus on here and now. Her throat feels cold. She breathes too fast, still. She can’t stop it.

“I don’t know.” That’s Vos. He was... they were doing something. He was here. Talking to her. “We were sparring, and she just--”

Right, sparring.

“I don’t know if I said something?” He offers, voice pitching up, unsure and worried. Is he the one holding her? He’s the one holding her. That’s embarrassing.

“Commander?” Rex prompts. “Commander, can you open your eyes?”

She tries. She can’t. She shakes her head.

“Soka?” he asks, voice quiet. “Where are you?”

“F-F-Fett,” she manages. It’s enough.

“And where were you?”

His voice is so soft. So worried. She held him the same way after Mandalore, after Order 66, after all his brothers, all her friends...

“Soka.”

Her mind is spinning, and suddenly all she can hear is Anakin Skywalker is dead. I destroyed him.

Her breath hitches, and she wails.

“Commander,” Rex tries again, but her head is a vortex of Then you will die and Perhaps this child and not the Jedi way.

Our long awaited meeting.

I destroyed him.

Then you will die.

She can’t breathe she can’t breathe she can only see that yellow eye that’s too familiar but belongs to a stranger can only hear a voice that shouldn’t exist can only mourn and break and--

“Soka?”

“Malachor,” she manages. “I--h-he--I died.”

“What did you say?” someone asks. A vod. It’s the right voice, almost, rough and business-like, not accusing anyone yet, and... and... no. No. Not one of her boys. It’s Fett.

“Um, right at the end? I asked her who taught her to fight like this,” Quinlan says, nervous. “And she said it was soldiers. And I joked, I asked that it wasn’t her Master, and she didn’t answer that. A couple minutes later, she just started...”

“Oh, Soka,” Rex whispers, pulling her closer. “Commander, just breathe with me.”

“H-h-he, he just--R-Rex, he j-just--and I c-c-couldn’t--”

“I know,” her captain whispers. “I know, just breathe with me.”

“He k-k-k-killed me,” she sobs, falling out of the Keldabe and into too-small arms. “I l-loved--he was my broth-ther and--and he just--he killed me, he didn’t even stop.”

“I know,” Rex whispers. “Soka, I know.”

Of course he does.

---------------------------

“It was just bad timing,” Rex says, once they’re in the room she’s been sharing with her little family, curled up under a blanket and watching the floor like it has all the secrets to how she lost her world three times over.

“Is there anything we need to keep in mind?” Fett asks, gruff and uncomfortable. She wonders if he’s angry that she took his necessary confrontation and turned it into this mess.

“Don’t bring up her Jedi Master,” Rex says, and pulls her in when she shivers. Her eyes squeeze shut before she can stop them, tears beading up again. “Just... don’t. It’s too soon.”

“He’s--”

“He Fell,” Ahsoka interrupts. “I thought he died, but he became a Sith. And fifteen years later, we ran into each other, and I refused to join him in the Dark, so he tried to kill me.”

Fett swears, low and muffled. She thinks he has a hand over his mouth.

Quin and Leia aren’t there. She thinks they’re keeping an eye on their Baby Sith prisoner. That’s good.

“Soka,” Rex whispers, and she buries her face in his shoulder. She’s too old to be this kind of mess. She’s thirty-two. She’s Fulcrum. She’s...

She’s in need of a lot of therapy.

“We can avoid the subject unless you bring it up,” Tholme promises. “Definitely until the Temple. Is there anything else we shouldn’t talk about?”

Ahsoka can practically feel Rex’s deadpan look. “Sir, we’re a trio of child soldiers ripped from everything we know. Every other sentence is a risk. We’re just... working our way through.”

There’s a knock at the door. Oh. Quin and Leia.

“Just figured we’d drop this off before we went down to visit Mr. Grumpy-Face,” Quinlan whispers. He still thinks Leia’s a child. He’s trying to make things less terrible for her. That’s nice. “We decided he’ll be less angry if he tries Hoth chocolate, and made some for everyone.”

They definitely made it for Ahsoka herself, and Maul was an afterthought. Still. It’s sweet.

“Commander?” Rex prompts, jostling her a little to try and get her to sit up.

“Gimme a sec,” she manages. It takes longer than it should to push herself away from him, to accept the mug that Leia gives her, too-serious worry in the furrow of her brow and the twist of her soul.

She doesn’t look six. She doesn’t even look twenty-two. This girl was always too old for her skin, forced to grow up in the hostile fear of the Empire.

“Thank you, Princess.”

She sips.

She can barely taste it beyond the ashes she imagines coating her tongue.

I destroyed him, her memory echoes. His slightest hesitation before he made the final move, it haunts her. She almost reached him. If only she’d tried harder, yelled louder, been better...

She shivers.

“Do you need help falling asleep?” Tholme asks. “I’m a regular healer, not a mind healer, but...��

She probably should.

She takes another sip of her drink, willing herself to taste it. It’s good. She likes it. She knows she does.

“Can you make it dreamless?” she whispers.

“It doesn’t always work, but I can try,” he tells her.

She nods. “When I finish the chocolate.”

“Of course.”

---------------------------

Everyone’s careful around her for days. The whole decision to be nicer doesn’t mean anything when she’s walking about in a daze of too few emotions, drained of everything she could feel in favor of a grey cloud of fluff in everything she does.

She does forms. Single saber and Jar’kai. Ataru and Djem so and Soresu. Reverse grip, regular grip, partial reverse on either side.

Again. Again. Again.

She loses herself in the motions, not meditating so much as just empty.

Rex worries. Fett worries. Vos worries.

Leia and Tholme keep their shields locked up tight, and she doesn’t know how they feel. She thinks Leia might be judging her. She think Tholme might be pitying.

Maul simply hates. It’s an old and familiar sensation to walk into, and she takes unthinking comfort in his rage. She’s silent instead of snippy, when she plays the role of guard, and they stare at each other in silence. His eyes burn, and she wonders how much he’s heard of her nightmares.

“You need to talk,” Rex tells her, when he finds her with a cold cup of caff, eyes fixed somewhere beyond it all. She lifts her head. “Soka.”

She just stares at him.

He sighs and pulls her into a hug. “Commander, please.”

She can’t.

Ahsoka stares at the wall behind him, resting her chin on his head. Her neck itches under the lek at the back of her head, a little tingle of a feeling that she can’t bring herself to do anything about. The pale light of the galley is sharp against the chipped paint of the metal that surrounds them. It hurts her eyes to look, but it’s not the deep and dark lit only by red--

Then you will die, her memory growls.

She flinches.

“Breathe,” Rex tells her, too-small hands clinging at her back. “Just breathe, ‘Soka.”

She curls in tighter and tries to just breathe.

---------------------------

“Tell me something good.”

Ahsoka blinks. She looks at Leia. She doesn’t have the energy to parse that.

Leia chances a look at Rex, who isn’t leaving Ahsoka’s side any more than he has to, and Fett on the other side. Tholme’s asleep and Quin’s on Baby Sith duty. It’s just people who know, right now.

The little girl across the table, the child senator, the spy, purses her lips and huffs in irritation. “You knew my biological father before he became one of the worst people in the galaxy. Both of you did. Tell me something good about him.”

Good things.

About Anakin.

“You fought a war as a Jedi,” Leia prompts. “Surely you must have done some good things with him, or at least thought you were.”

Did they?

Every mission ended in tragedy or was just a ploy of Palpatine’s. Every saved life was just...

Wait.

“He built Threepio,” she finally says. “Your father wi--I mean, Bail wiped Threepio’s memory after the Empire rose, for your safety, but Anakin was the one who built him.”

Leia sits up, eyes brighter. “I didn’t know that. I... was Artoo involved? Did he build R2D2, or...”

“No,” Rex says, “But Artoo was his favorite astromech, and they always pushed each other into stupid stunts. We risked a hell of a lot to save that droid, more than once, and I didn’t find out until you started working with the Rebellion full-time, but Artoo and Threepio were the witnesses for your bio-parents’ wedding.”

Leia gapes at him. So does Ahsoka. (Fett doesn’t know enough to care.)

Rex grins, and if it looks a little forced, that’s fine. “He had a holo recording. I was one of the few people left that knew about the marriage that might have wanted to see, so Artoo offered. It was... sweet.”

He waits, probably for Ahsoka to add something herself, but she has nothing.

“I think that’s when they swapped droids, since Threepio was more useful to a politician and Artoo did his best work when we set him loose on the enemy.”

“He never changed,” Leia muses. “Did he always swear that much?”

“Yes,” Ahsoka answers, as Rex laughs. “Always. All the binary I learned started with the best swears.”

She tries to think of another good memory, something else that Leia might appreciate. Her mind ticks back to saving Stinky, which is just a terrible option, because that mission started with Hutts and ended with the Battle of Teth. That massive loss of life, all for the son of the creature that had put Leia in chains.

She wonders if she has anything in her memory that doesn’t end in blood and graves.

“Soka.” Rex.

“Hm?”

“Remember that time Fives and Echo got lost in the undercity their first time on leave, and we had to get the General to help us find them?”

She does.

He’s right, that’s a good story.

“Okay, so what you have to understand,” Ahsoka says, already digging the faint details out and dusting them off, “is that these boys were ARC troopers, top-notch, terrifyingly competent once they got through specialty training, and loyal as hell. Echo had memorized the reg manuals front to back, and Fives was... well, Fives ended up being the only person to figure out the chips before they went into action. Point is, the Domino twins were good... eventually. Just like everyone else, though, they started out shiny.”

---------------------------

“Tholme’s hiding something.”

Ahsoka wonders if Leia will just leave if she ignores her enough. Probably not. This was the girl that got kicked out of boarding school for leading a sit-in at age seven. She’s got patience.

“His job requires him to hide a lot of things,” Ahsoka says instead. “Not as many as Vos will have to, eventually, but a lot.”

“He’s hiding something from us,” Leia insists, visibly frustrated that Ahsoka isn’t as upset about this as she is. “Something important.”

The way she says ‘important’ is clumsy and impacted by the missing baby tooth. She can’t say the r. It comes out as ‘im-poh-ten,’ which is adorable, and if Ahsoka comments on it, she’s probably going to get punched by a six-year-old.

“The Force doesn’t care,” Ahsoka says. “I trust his intentions, if not him as a person.”

“If you don’t trust him, then why trust his intentions?”

“Leia, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I trust one and a half people in the galaxy,” Ahsoka points out. “Me not trusting a person isn’t a sign of anything except my paranoia. The only person I trust fully and without reservation is Rex. Even you, I only mostly trust, because my brain starts screaming if I think too hard. That’s why you’re the half.”

“Okay, whatever, paranoia aside,” Leia barrels on, “He should tell us. Whatever it is that he’s hiding, we deserve to know. We’re not children that he can just hide things from for our own good.”

Ahsoka presses her lips together. “Leia. Princess. I know you’re used to holding all the cards--”

“This isn’t about me being a control freak!”

“It is, though,” Ahsoka soothes, and smiles. “Your mother--the bio one--was the same way. You spent years as one of the leaders of the Rebellion, so obviously you’re used to having all the information, and people reporting to you... but Tholme is a Jedi Master. He reports to the Council and the Republic. Do you know how many people I kept secrets from while I was a padawan? We’re an unknown, Leia. They have no proof that we’re on their side, especially since we’re traveling with Fett.”

Leia crosses her arms and glares as hard as she can.

“I’m not going to bother him,” Ahsoka says. “I’ve already had, like, five unrelated mental breakdowns. I’m putting this on hold until we get to the Temple and I can trust that there’s a healer on hand to sedate me or something.”

“You... want to be sedated?”

“Leia, this... really should be obvious, but a Force-Sensitive losing their osik the way I have been isn’t actually safe. I know I broke a weapons rack last week.” Ahsoka gestures vaguely. “If the Jedi Master isn’t telling me something for reasons that might relate to my clear and obvious mental instability, I’m going to assume he’s got a point.”

“So he should tell me or Rex.”

“We’ll be on Coruscant in four days,” Ahsoka soothes. “Just... let it be. They won’t hurt us.”

“You don’t know that.”

Ahsoka shrugs. “I don’t have to. The Force leads me in all things, including this.”

Leia isn’t impressed by that, but Leia isn’t impressed by much in the first place.

She strides off in a fit that is, perhaps, more influenced by her six-year-old emotional control than she’d like to admit. Ahsoka lets her. It’s not worth the argument.

It’s only a few minutes later that Fett strides in, takes the seat Leia was just in, and asks, “What would it take for you to teach me how to use a jetii’kad?”

She blinks at him. “You want to learn how to use a lightsaber?”

“Yes.”

“...why?”

“Viszla.”

“I see.”

She does.

Ahsoka taps her fingers against the table, eyeing him with the kind of interest she copied from Master Kenobi, years ago. Fett doesn’t fidget, but she thinks he might want to. He just looks back, waiting for her judgement.

“You’ll need to justify it,” she finally says. “It’s a significant difference from what you actually did, so I need to know your reasoning for doing it, and your plans for once it’s done.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s step one,” she corrects. She tilts her head, considering. “My standards for you aren’t built in a vacuum, and you know that. Explain to me what you plan to do and how you plan to do it, and if I approve...”

“You’ll help me achieve it.”

“Maybe,” she allows. “A lot of that depends on Rex.”

“I expected as much,” Fett says. “He is... an admittedly large part of the reason.”

“He would be,” she says. She gives the silence a few more seconds to sit awkwardly between them, and then stands up. “I’d guess you’ve been brainstorming already. Do you have it written down or is it mostly just in your head so far?”

“I’m still... debating options, so to speak.”

She grins, and the shape of the predator’s smile, the baring of teeth... that almost makes him step back. She can see it in the twitch of his muscles. Smart man.

“Follow me,” she says, and doesn’t wait for him to stand. She strides out with tooka-light steps, hears the heavy beskar tread behind her, and goes to the cargo hold. Fett’s confusion grows tangibly behind her, especially when she tosses him a wooden quarterstaff. She picks up the other and spins it in one hand.

“You’re going to fight me,” she tells him, stretching and letting the staff help with the process. “And while we fight, you’re going to tell me what your plans for Mandalore are.”

He mimics her, but there’s a frown on his face. “And why staffs?”

“You and I, we’ve only sparred bare-handed,” she says. “I need a feel for how you fight with a weapon anyway. These are a good start.”

“Not the beskad?”

She grins, and the twitch is back. “No. That can wait. We start with the staffs.”

He takes a stance, and she mirrors him. She lets him strike first with a weapon, but she’s the one that asks all the questions.

(He is the only one on the ship that can fight her one-on-one right now, and he can win. Still, she makes him work for every inch, and what she doesn’t win in bruises, she wins in words.)

(Fett might yet be a proper Mand’alor, but Ahsoka learned war from her brothers, negotiation at the knee of a general and in the shadow of a prince, and government at the side of duchesses and queens.)

(If he wants her help uniting his people, he needs to prove that he can hold them together once she’s gone.)

---------------------------

Ahsoka’s interrogation of Jango’s plans is thorough, and she’s not the only one involved. She brings Leia in, and has her join in on the grilling. She maybe laughs as the twenty-seven-year-old survivor of Galidraan, the Mand’alor, a man who has killed Master Jedi with his bare hands, gets lectured on various government structures by a tiny girl that's missing several teeth and needs to sit on books to see the table properly.

Still, Leia knows this better than any of the rest of them do. The girl might have grown up heir to a monarchy, but she got a classical education and was drilled on democracy and all associated forms of government. Where Ahsoka knows military protocol and law enforcement, intersystem relations and defensive measures, Leia knows agricultural subsidies and welfare programs, infrastructure and education.

Ahsoka may know how to find out if someone’s breaking a zoning law, but Leia knows why it exists in the first place.

“And I grew up in a cult,” Rex says, when an argument on that topic breaks out. Everyone that hasn’t heard the joke-that-isn’t-a-joke stares at him. “The Jedi grew up in a religious meritocracy; Leia grew up in a monarchy; and I grew up in a cult.”

Ahsoka elbows him. He’s not wrong, but still.

Unfortunately, Ahsoka is about forty-seven percent sure that Leia will put her foot in her mouth when it comes to Mandalorian culture, blunt as the girl is. That prefrontal cortex isn’t anywhere near as developed as it should be, either, so impulse control for the princess isn’t great. Ahsoka refuses to let Leia and Fett talk about ways to mend the breaks between tradition and the pacifism of the New Mandalorians without either Rex or Ahsoka herself as a mediating presence. Tholme sits in a few times, but while he knows that Leia isn’t really six--though not about the time-travel, yet--Quinlan doesn’t.

They admittedly end up doing this while he’s on Maul-sitting duty.

“It’s like he doesn’t even care about making nice with the people that, at this point, make up the majority of his people!” Leia grumbles one night, as Ahsoka kicks over a step stool so the girl can brush her teeth. “He may not like the New Mandalorians, but from what I understand, it’s still early enough to prevent the majority of the cultural bleaching you brought up. If he stays this stubborn--”

“Leia,” Ahsoka says, and the girl’s mouth snaps shut. “I’m aware of your reasons for not trusting his intentions. But if I may say? Chill.”

“He’s not even trying!”

“He’s trying a hell of a lot harder than he did in the original timeline,” Ahsoka reminds her. “Brush your teeth.”

“I’m not a--”

“Teeth.”

It’s a little worrying, how the child’s brain affects Leia, but... well. That’ll pass in time, hopefully. Until then, Ahsoka gets to be the aunt she should have been. This includes tucking Leia in, which the girl grumbles about despite the fond waves of comfort that enter the Force around her. Ahsoka doesn’t call her out on it, just brushes back wisps of hair to plant a kiss on Leia’s forehead, and then does the same once Rex stumbles in, grumbling about the limitations of a cadet’s body, but far more ready to follow the protocol that is bedtime.

Rex doesn’t pretend to not like getting tucked in, for all that he’s sharing with a grumbly, already-asleep princess. He smiles up at Ahsoka, lets her hug him, and pretends they can be a normal family for five seconds.

Quinlan’s making a late night snack for himself in the galley. Tholme is guarding the Baby Sith. Fett...

Ahsoka goes to the cockpit, takes the copilot’s seat, and watches hyperspace pass them by.

It takes long minutes before either of them say anything.

“Do Jedi believe in souls?”

His shields are up, locked up tighter than the innermost chambers of the Imperial Palace. She has no idea where he’s taking this question. She has to cast about for an answer.

“That depends on how you define a soul,” she finally says. “Leia told me about Force Ghosts. A Jedi Master who underwent the right meditations and training could pass into the Force upon their death without losing their sense of self. They could remain themselves, to an extent, and interact with force-sensitive individuals. I don’t know if they could last that way indefinitely, but depending on your definition, I could argue those ghosts were evidence of a form of soul.”

“So you believe that the dead pass into the Force, but that what passes could be a soul. Something must exist for a sense of self to disappear at death in a way that impacts the Force as you understand it, and many would use the word ‘soul’ for that something.”

“Mm,” Ahsoka considers it. “I’d say that’s pretty accurate. You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“What about those not yet born?”

Her fingers feel cold, and she finds herself no longer able to watch the passage of hyperspace as passively as she had, and her eyes catch on streaks and motes of what is not dust, her vision unable to keep any more still than her heart.

“Oh,” she hears herself say. “The clones.”

It’s a long time before he answers, but the walls come down. He carries a confused sort of grief with him, guilty and a mite resentful. His questions have been building for longer than she’d thought. His voice is rough. “I’ve taken plenty of lives, but I’ve never known the name of someone I erased from existence before they were even born.”

“The stories we told Leia about the brothers.”

There’s a grunt of agreement from Fett, so those dots at least connect.

“I take it my answer wasn’t helpful,” she manages to say.

“Will they still exist?” Fett asks. “Will they be born elsewhere? Or is... is a soul something that only comes into existence after the body does?”

“I have no idea,” Ahsoka admits. “I want... I want to think that I’d be able to find them eventually, to recognize them, if their souls are still born into this world elsewhere.”

“And if your Sith finds someone else to build his army out of?”

Ahsoka looks at him, sharp and pointed. “You wouldn’t.”

“They’ll be doing it anyway, if their plans are as ironclad as you say.”

“You’re already associating with Jedi,” Ahsoka says, fighting the urge to break his nose. “They wouldn’t approach you, not now. They can’t leverage your anger against you. They won’t know everything, but they’ll know that you have friends among the Jedi.”

“You think they can’t come up with better lies?”

He has a point. He has more than one point and she hate hate hates it.

A Jedi does not hate.

I am no Jedi.

“You’re going to have to convince me,” she says. “Especially if you want to somehow balance this with the darksaber thing. I won’t teach you how to fight with it if you’re not planning to retake Mandalore.”

“That’s how they’d sell it,” he says. “Retaking Mandalore. An army ostensibly for the Jedi, and ultimately...”

“You’d build an army of slaves.”

“No, I’d be the inside man for when they build that army anyway.”

She holds his gaze. She looks away first.

“Torrent?”

“I’m thinking.”

He lets her.

“I’ll need to talk to Rex. Probably Leia.”

“Understandable.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I’m only just considering it. It’s an idea, not a plan.”

“That’s the only reason I haven’t ripped your throat out with my teeth.”

“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you.”

She glares at him, and leaves, her mind chopping up and laying out every possible angle on Fett volunteering to do the exact same thing as last time, but somehow worse.

Great. Just what she needed.

---------------------------

Ahsoka isn’t there for the shouting match between Rex and Fett, but she doesn’t have to be. She can hear it form clear across the ship, and Rex comes to her afterwars. He’s been crying, which isn’t as surprising as it could be. These bodies are still prone to such things, and will be for years. She doesn’t comment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

“We need to take out Sidious before he starts anything on Kamino.”

“Agreed,” she says. “It’ll be hard, though.”

“I don’t care.”

“What did Fett say?”

“That if it wasn’t going to be my brothers, it would be someone else’s. Either we stopped the cloning from happening at all, or we mitigated damage by being there.”

“I don’t think Sidious is going to tap him for it,” Ahsoka admits. “Not unless you’re willing to stage that kind of fight publicly enough for Fett to claim the Jedi poisoned you, family, against him. It could work, but it’s a gamble.”

He knows all of this.

“I miss them,” he says, and she cards her fingers though the curls he’s managed to grow in the past weeks. “I just... even at the end, I had Wolffe. I knew Boba was out there; I wouldn’t be surprised if the beskar let him survive a Sarlacc. I had brothers. Not as many as I used to, but there was always someone. I miss them all, so much it hurts.”

“It wouldn’t be them,” she reminds him. She pulls him closer, puts her cheek to his head. “It would be the same process, the same faces, the same training, even, but the boys themselves...”

He clings to her and shudders.

“Rex?”

“I can’t force them to grow up the way I did. I want them back. Sidious is going to make the army no matter what. Someone’s going to suffer, and I don’t want it to be my brothers, but they won’t exist otherwise, and...”

“And it’s an impossible choice,” she summarizes. “And it sucks.”

“It’s sucks Gungan balls, ‘Soka.”

She laughs, and feels him smile against her shoulder. Good. He needs to smile more.

“He’s still trying to get me to like him,” Rex says. "He’s still making an effort, and he never did that for anyone except Boba, and it’s weird. I don’t know what to do with any of that.”

“Gain a brother,” Ahsoka whispers, and she feels him jerk against her. “If that’s what you want.”

“He’s not vod.”

“Same blood as all the rest, and you’re older than him, so he’s not really in a position to be a parent to you like he was to Boba,” she says carefully. “You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to, but... I think he’s trying. I think this means a lot to him, and that he isn’t any more sure of what to do than you are. You don’t have to forgive him for what he did in the future, you don’t have to accept when he reaches out, you don’t have to ever talk to him again after we reach Coruscant if you don’t want, but I think... I think it’s worth at least considering what you have to gain. I think it’s worth looking at what he’s trying to give you.”

Rex huffs. “Why couldn’t he just be the shabuir I knew in training?”

“Something happened between now and then?” she offers. “I don’t know. I never met him in the original timeline. I just know the guy that keeps trying to get on my good side so you’ll like him.”

He outright scoffs. “Soka, that’s not the only reason he’s trying to get on your good side.”

“...I’m a former Jedi who talks trash to his face,” she says slowly. “And I cried on him. There is no reason for him to be nice to me, other than you.”

“He thinks you’re cool and a good person and wants you to be his friend.”

“Bantha poodoo.”

Rex grins in a way that goes straight to smirking. “Soka, I’m not joking. Jango Fett wants you to be his friend.”

“Kriffing why?” she asks, more than a little horrified. “I’m a mess, look like I’m ten years younger than him, have gleefully kicked his ass in front of an audience; I even told Vos to throw him at a baby Sith Lord. Putting up with me is one thing, but I’m... I’m only barely not a Jedi. I’m a historical enemy of Mandalore, and part of the community he hates more than anything, and--”

“And his reaction to you kicking his ass was pure Mando,” Rex says. “In that he now thinks you’re a badass, and thus worth being friends with.”

“I can’t believe that. I physically cannot.”

“Soka, just accept it. The Mand’alor wants to be friends with you.” He scratches at his scalp. “I mean, he met you while you were protecting what appeared to be children, and it’s apparently still early enough for him to care about that.”

She leans back in her seat, eyes on the wall ahead of her and back against the cool metal of the other side. Rex falls back with her. She wonders if Rex changed the subject so they didn’t have to talk about deciding how many of his brothers get to exist, and whether or not he can swallow the bitterness of his history to have a connection with at least one member of his blood. She doesn’t ask. If he wants to change the subject, that’s his right.

“I don’t... no.” She denies it as well as she can, and then the implications dig a little deeper. “Is this me accidentally signing up to be the Jedi Order’s official liaison to the Mand’alor?”

“I mean, this point in time... they’ve got Kenobi for the Duchess, yeah?” Rex shrugs. “Good relations with the system are probably a good thing, and you’ve got a stronger connection than Tholme and Vos.”

“Ugh,” she says. She rubs a hand against her head, and then lurches to her feet. “Fine! Fine. If it’ll get him to retake Mandalore before the Sith decide to bribe him with an army he doesn’t get to keep, I’ll teach him how to fight for the kriffin’ Darksaber.”

“That’s what makes the decision for you?”

“Well something had to!”

They only get one lesson in before Coruscant, but the lesson lasts a full day, and Ahsoka’s got his comm number. Fett’s a quick learner anyway, and Tholme was there to give pointers where Ahsoka couldn’t.

He won’t measure up to a Jedi in saber-to-saber combat, but he doesn’t need to. He just needs to learn enough to turn all those skills with a beskad to something that works with a jetii’kad.

(The balance of a saber is wrong to those used to a physical weapon. The inertia doesn’t work the way anyone expects. There’s no need to worry about damaging the blade.)

(Fett is good. Ahsoka is better. And, bless his heart, he knows it.)

(She will mold him into the shape of someone who not only can, but should rule a system with a history like that, and he damn well knows that too.)

---------------------------

“Dropping out of hyperspace in T-minus twenty seconds.”

The Slave I is not, in fact, a Venator-class starship, or anything else near the size and smoothness of the ships that Ahsoka grew up on. This is a bounty hunter’s vessel, and the drop to real space jolts like nothing else. Ahsoka’s in the copilot seat for the return, but Tholme’s going to swap with her as soon as they’ve got confirmation that there were no problems with exiting hyperspace, and nobody’s shooting at them.

“We’re not going to get shot at,” Tholme had assured her.

“I always get shot at,” she’d told him.

“I have our clearance,” he reminded her, seeming more amused than frustrated. “There’s no need to worry about getting shot at.”

“I also always get shot at,” Jango had thrown in.

“Okay,” Tholme had allowed, after several minutes of his trust in the Temple warring against Ahsoka and Jango’s learned paranoia. The looks Quinlan had darted around the room when Leia and Rex also claimed ‘chronic getting-shot-at disease’ had been a treat. The paranoia of a Watchman and a future Shadow was great, but the paranoia of three revolutionaries and a galaxy-wide criminal was greater. “You can take us in close enough to get in radio contact, but the second we have to ask for clearance and a vector, I’m in the seat.”

She’d agreed, of course. She was paranoid, not inexperienced.

“We’re much less likely to get shot down by ground control if you tell them we’re with you,” she’d said, to his hilariously apparent metaphysical exhaustion. “Obviously.”

“Good enough,” he’d sighed.

What that means is mostly just that Ahsoka gets to watch the distant star at the center of Coruscant’s system grow rapidly brighter. She can pick out the constellations she’d grown up with, the stars the creche had projected on the ceiling every night, the ones that she may not have seen from the surface, but had greeted her and then sent her on her way every time she left on yet another campaign that lost her men their lives for a Sith Lord's wretched plans. These were the shapes and stories she’d never seen again as Fulcrum, a woman so hunted that to come within a dozen subsectors of the planet was to court her death.

For sixteen years, she hadn’t ventured closer than Alderaan, save for a single trip to Chandrila.

And now, maybe twenty minutes away at this speed, was the Temple. It was home.

A home that didn’t know her, that had sentenced her to death, that had hosted the rampage of her former master... but home nonetheless.

“Stable?” Fett grunts.

“Thrusters are good,” she confirms.

“I meant you.”

Ah. “I’m... fine. As good as I could be, anyway.”

She hesitates, but manages to speak before he does. “You?”

“I’m not the one walking into an entire building of triggers.”

“Only because you’re not entering it,” she says. “It’s the home of your ancestral enemies who, bad info or no, killed off a whole lot of your friends.”

“I get to leave,” he says. “You don’t.”

She plans to needle him a bit more, maybe on something a little less based in both their traumas. She needs to talk, if only to fill up the silence and keep herself from reaching out to all the lights in the Force. It’ll be too much, she knows.

Tholme enters the cockpit. “Change of plans.”

“Better be a good reason,” Jango says, voice flat.

“Leia’s crying.”

Ahsoka’s unbuckling herself before she can process the words fully. “What?”

Leia doesn’t cry for no reason. Her emotional control is as difficult as the body makes it, but she doesn’t just cry. There’s always a cause.

“I don’t know. Rex said to get you,” Tholme explains. “She was saying a name. He seemed to recognize it.”

Not good not good not good. If Leia was feeling the Emper--No. She cuts the thought off there. No catastrophizing. Information first.

“What name.”

“Luke. Mean anything to--and she’s gone.”

Ahsoka ignores him, just sprints to where she knows the ‘young ones’ are. They’re all in Maul’s room, because nobody wants to be alone with him now, but it’s the worst time to leave him without supervision. It’s not the worst option; he mostly refuses to talk, still.

This holds true, because he definitely isn’t talking when she bursts in. He’s sitting on the bench, in a corner, hugging his knees and watching Quinlan try to calm Leia down.

“Captain, sitrep.”

“Vos and Tholme attempted to show Leia how to reach out to feel the Temple from a distance. They felt that it would be a good use of the time, and an interesting exercise at this distance. She attempted to do so, struggled for several minutes, and then reacted with shock. She has repeated the name ‘Luke’ several times since then, and we’ve been unable to fully calm her down. I asked Tholme to get you, as you are the only Force-Sensitive on board that understands the situation in full.”

“Understood.” She nods to him, and then goes to nudge at Quinlan. “Vos, move.”

“Torre--”

“You can sit behind her, hold her in your lap like you did when we had lunch the other day, but I need to get in her face.” She waits for him to comply, and then drops to her knees and takes Leia’s hands in her own. She radiates calm and assurance, even though she knows Quinlan’s probably been doing the same since this started. She dips her head enough to get in the girl’s line of sight, waits for her to meet eyes.

“Princess,” she says, and meets Leia’s eyes. “What did you feel?”

“Luke.”

From this distance... they’ve got half the system to go, at least, and Leia’s training shouldn’t reach that far for anything more than the fact that the Temple is there. Ahsoka could feel unshielded individuals from here, if she focused, but she’s also been doing this much, much longer. The twins theory holds more water than ever.

“Can you show me?” Ahsoka asks, instead of asking for more clarification. She squeezes Leia’s hands and smiles. “In the Force?”

Leia nods, and closes her eyes. It’s not the first time they’ve done this, but it’s the first time in a while that Leia’s needed Ahsoka to guide her through.

Luke’s light, for all that it’s unfamiliar to Ahsoka, is brilliant among the rest of the signatures in Coruscant. Like Anakin and Leia, he’s a star in his own right, but he’s brighter. He doesn’t have Anakin’s bitterness or Leia’s righteous anger, just... light. Ahsoka had asked Leia to show her instead of looking for herself because she’d expected to not recognize the boy, but she needn’t have. He’s unmistakable.

He’s so bright that she almost misses the other signature that she does recognize. She shies away, knowing that it would be there, but... but it’s almost twinned with another nearby. Not identical, but different in a way that comes with age, with trauma, with... death.

Leia hadn’t arrived alone, after all.

Why would Luke?

Her eyes snap open, her hand coming up not-quite-fast enough to clap over her mouth as she gasps. She feels a shudder, one that starts in her shoulders and reaches deep into her ribcage, finds a home in her chest and doesn’t stop.

“Oh fuck,” Quinlan whispers. “Torrent? Um, Sokari?”

Rex steps closer. “Commander?”

“That shabuir faked his death again,” she manages. “Three times, Rex!”

He blinks at her. “...I know way too many people who fit that description, Soka.”

“Master Ke--” she cuts herself off. He might have changed his name, just like she had. There’s already an Obi-Wan here. Rex seems to be figuring it out, but she needs to give him another hint.

“He pulled a Hardeen,” she stresses, and Rex’s eyes snap shut with a tired groan.

“Who?” Leia asks, her own tumult of emotion paused in the wake of Ahsoka’s shock. There’s a hope and relief to her, and Ahsoka belatedly realizes that her main worry had been that she’d misidentified what was going on, that she’d given herself a false hope. Ahsoka’s internal reaction, her approval and awe at Luke’s presence, had trickled over enough to give Leia the reassurance she’d needed.

Unintentional as it was, Ahsoka was glad that she’d succeeded in helping her charge.

“Er...” she trails off. “I don’t know what name he’s going by, right now. We’ve spent so long in hiding...”

“The man Luke knew as Crazy Old Ben,” Rex says, and Leia’s eyes light up.

“Oh,” she breathes. “General O--no, names. The High General, then.”

“Yeah,” Ahsoka says, not a little soft. “Yeah, I guess death didn’t stop him any more than it stopped me.”

“I could have told you that,” Leia says, smiling far too widely. She squirms where she still sits on Quinlan’s lap. “He was... he taught you, right?”

“As much my master as the official one,” Ahsoka says. She glances as Quinlan, feels Maul’s gaze on the back of her head. “Your f... my official master was very young when I was assigned to him. He wasn’t ready to teach, wasn’t even ready to be a knight, entirely, so my training was split between him and his master.”

Quinlan pops in at that moment, “Your grandmaster was military, too?”

We all were, she thinks. Even you, in your own way.

“I landed in their care mid-battle,” she says carefully. “It was a complicated situation.”

He nods, and she vaguely notes that he’s got his arms wrapped around Leia, and his chin tucked on top of her head. She isn’t sure if Leia’s noticed, but Quinlan’s picked up ‘baby’-sitting duty so often recently that she’s fairly certain he’s all but declared her ‘little-sister shaped.’ It doesn’t matter that Leia’s older--she’s still taking the juice boxes and gummy snacks that Quinlan shoves at her every single snacktime.

“Do you think...” Rex trails off, something uncomfortable twisting in the Force, even though his face keeps it mostly hidden. “My brothers. If the General survived and... and made it back...”

“I didn’t feel any,” Ahsoka says, because she knows she’d have noticed if it was anyone she’d met, and likely any clone at all. They all felt different in the Force, but they all held a spark that made her know it was one of them. “I’m sorry, Rex’ika.”

“A long shot,” he says, that dash of hope shriveling up. He must see something in her face, because there’s a curl of warmth in him, even if his smile is brittle. “It’s fine, really. I have you, ‘Soka.”

Rex and Ahsoka. Two halves of one whole.

She can’t wait to hear the lectures on attachment, the way people who haven’t seen her wars try to criticize her for clinging to any chance at still having a will to live. She can’t wait to see them justify telling her that it’s selfish to hold her sanity in her hands and refuse to let the grief take it away. She can’t wait to stare someone down for asking her to ‘learn to let go’ after she’s lost her family, her life, her universe three times over.

Most of the Jedi are more sensible than that, are reasonable enough to see those shades of grey and how to approach rules in the spirit they are meant instead of the rigid letter, but there will be some.

There will be more than enough telling her she is wrong to hold her oldest, closest, best friend as dear as she can.

Attachment, they’ll say.

What they’ll mean is ‘codepedence.’

They won’t be entirely wrong.

She reaches out for him, lets him fall into her side and stay there, closes her eyes and reaches out for the man she’d long called father, when they’d still been in each other’s lives.

This time, past the deafening flare of surprise-love-hope of the little star next to him, she can feel him reach back.

---------------------------

The second the ship has landed, even before Tholme and Fett are done with the checks, Ahsoka’s waiting at the exit. She strains her hearing so she’ll know the second the system will let her open the massive door of the cargo hold.

Leia clings to her side, and the boys stand to her back.

Quinlan’s stressed enough that she can feel it like a cloud. She is very much not trying to feel that stress. Quinlan’s stress levels, back where he’s got Maul so he can keep an eye on Ahsoka and the Baby Sith at the same time, are so low on her priorities list that it’s a a little sad.

It doesn’t take long for her to be able to punch the button and open the damn door.

It opens slowly. She bounces on her toes, because there’s a beacon of light and a steady, familiar glow on the other side, and she’s so, so close. She can’t see through the crack yet, because it’s day in this part of Coruscant, and the sunlight is blinding against the dark of the hold. So close. She’s so close.

“The hell’s wrong with you?”

Fett? Fett. He’s already here to get off? This door’s slow.

She doesn’t answer him, because the door is finally open enough to let her out, and she leaps through the gap.

She lands on a pourstone floor, feels pebbles and grit compress under her boots, frantically looks around as her eyes adjust to light and--

The High General, the Negotiator, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, looking just as he did when she first met him, if a little less armored and a little more fed. The hair, the beard, the crinkle in the corner of his eyes. His spirit is a little older, his smile a little more strained, his posture a little more tired, but it’s him.

He spreads his arms, low enough that she could have dismissed it if she’d cared less for hugs, except she’s almost as small as she was when they met.

And every other hug she’d given back then had been, functionally, her being a living missile aiming her montrals for someone’s organs.

She’s a little more aware of how to avoid stabbing her friends in the intestine now.

“Master!”

She sprints for him, collides and sobs, feels him stumble back and then sink to his knees on the too-hard floor, and can feel the tears pouring out of her already. Her breath hitches, and she wails like a child, and that last part of her that couldn’t even grasp at safety shreds itself. His arms are tight around her, warm and strong and Master Kenobi don’t you dare leave again.

It doesn’t matter that Sidious is out there, that the Republic’s been building towards war for a century, that even now someone’s kicking up the Trade Federation. Her dad is here.

“I’ve missed you too, my dear,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head, the bristles of his beard scratching along the skin of her forehead. Off to the side, the binary suns that are Luke and Leia grow brighter in proximity, so bright she can barely bear it.

(“Fett, why the kriff are you reaching for your blaster?!”)

(“Torrent said her master tried to kill her.”)

(“Different guy, that was a different guy, put the blaster away.”)

(“You could have just warned me.”)

(“I didn’t expect you to go for a shot on sight!”)

(”Calm down, Jetiika, if I was going to shoot on sight, we’d already be in a firefight.”)

She ignores everything.

“If you fake your death one more time, I swear I’m going to kill you myself.”

He tries to pull away to talk to her more directly. She does not let him. He apparently resigns himself to this, because he just adjusts how he’s sitting and pulls her in closer.

“In my defense, I was far from the only one presumed dead that took advantage of that status, by the end,” he says, letting her slump into his lap and cry herself dry. “I’m proud of you. You know that, I hope.”

She nods against his chest, smearing tears and snot across the linen and wool. She doesn’t care that they’ll need a thorough washing. She can have her public breakdown and it’s fine because Master Kenobi is here.

He doesn’t even know what she’s spent the past fifteen years doing. Luke wouldn’t have known. He doesn’t know she’s thirty-two and broken, beyond a shadow and cut down by her own master. There’s so much he doesn’t know but the Force rings with the truth of it: he’s proud of her anyway.

“I’m going by Ben, now,” he mutters against her montral. “There’s already an Obi-Wan here, after all. Still, I remain a Kenobi.”

She can’t make the words come out of her mouth. She’s overwhelmed, so much so that speech is a mite bit beyond her.

Sokari Torrent, she presses along the frayed bond that’s knitting itself back to life with every breath they take. Leia was already calling me Auntie Soka, and Rex and I both took Torrent, for...

“For the men you lost,” he mutters. “Yes, that’s fitting.”

He smells like sapir tea and a spiced beard oil.

There’s a whirl of activity about her, greetings and ‘a Sith apprentice?’ and introductions. She distantly notes when Fett almost shoots Dooku before Rex shuts that down and advises the Master to leave the area before things spiral out of control. She feels Ben stand, and she stands with him, clings to his side like a child and trusts that whatever happens, whatever needs to happen, he’ll take care of it until she can stand on her own two feet without swaying.

Rex grabs her free hand, and she feels herself settle back into her skin, bit by bit.

She’s back at the Temple. The twins are safe. Her grandmaster is here. She has her other half.

They can save the galaxy this time.

She’s alive she’s home she’s okay.

She’s okay.

Everything’s going to be okay.

576 notes · View notes

countrymusiclover · 2 years

Text

1 - Rebellious Teenager

Part 2

Kenobi's Future

Tag list - @tyrionsprincess30 @nanagoswife @lycaonpictusphotography @bigbendyhorns @abaker74 @haideehaids @sassycowboygoatee

1 year later

"Padme, where's your sister?" I called out crossing my arms over my chest. She sits her book down laying on her bed shrugging her shoulders. Her hair is straightend and falling over her shoulders. Throwing my head back I groaned in annoyance. Padme is a good seven year old daughter. The one who actually listened to Obi and I when we say that the sands are dangerous. That we still should be on alert of the Empire possibly send more people to hunt Jedi. Spinning on my heels my boots hit the ground floor harshly and my husband takes notice from the kitchen. He stops making dinner, sitting the spoon on the countertop. "Darling, you alright?" He rests his hands on my shoulders, feeling that I'm stressed through the Force. For years Kiera has become a little bit of a pain.

I don't ever remember being a rebellious teenager growing up. But then again I think it was actually my sister who was the troublemaker. She would have us skip our lessons to go running down the beaches back home. The only thing mom ever caught me doing was reading book about the different planets when I should have been focusing on math. Becoming a Jedi gave me the chance to explore the galaxy. A big thud is heard from the girls room causing Obi-wan and I to grab our lightsabers rushing inside. Lowering my weapon I see Kiera rubbing her back with the window wide open like she was trying to sneak back in. "Kiera Kenobi!" I barked stomping my foot on the ground of the house. She slowly pulled her hood off her head revealing that her hair was no longer the Aburn color like her father's but in fact bright blonde. "Where in the galaxy have you been. And what made you think this was alright?" I pick up stands of her new colored hair but she pushed my hand down.

Kiera's POV

Opening the window to mine and my sisters room I climbed through but my left boot got hooked on a plant outside making me fall inside with a load thud. Padme leans up on the bed when our parents bursts in holding their lightsabers. Dad eyes me while mom started going off. I have been sneaking out because I like to watch the pilots leaving the town. Even today I saw one large ship land and a guy with a Wookie walked out. Dad hates flying but somehow I dream about it. Getting to my feet I pushed past mom where she shouted my name. Once I'm outside I climbed on the roof of the doorway just letting the hair blow in the wind. "Kiera, Kiera!" My ears picked up my father's voice this time. He grunts sitting down beside me still wearing his old Jedi robes.

"Mom's not happy with me is she?" I questioned resting my head on my arms crossed over my legs. He rests his hand on one knee with his other leg laying flat on the ground. "No babygirl she's not. You know she doesn't - we don't like you sneaking out." Throwing my head back I groaned into the air. Ever since I got captured years ago with little princess Leia. I have gotten the edge to explore since a few years ago. Resting my hand on my belt I feel my lightsaber still there. Mom said I can wear it as long as I'm careful. "I'm sorry I'm not like innocent Padme anymore, dad. I just want to see what's out there." I throw my hands up then dropping them with a heavy sigh. Dad scratches at his beard which is when he's in thought. "Lisen, honey. Just be careful. You're mom and I don't want you getting with the wrong crowd."

Hours later mom and dad are asleep. Padme is coloring some drawings before I hear a small beeping on my tracker. Climbing out of the bed I hit play seeing the guy and the Wookie from earlier appear. "Hey, I saw you checked out our ship. If you ever want a ride. Come by the ship yard tomorrow night." The called ends quickly where I run a hand through my hair. Whoever the pilot was he just offered me a way to explore the world. Grabbing my green cloak and tying my boots I creak open the bedroom door. I tip toe through the house as best as I can. Swiping some credits from the table by the door I closed it slowly. "Dangerous you are, Young Kiera." I nearly scream at the sound of a sudden voice. Drawing my lightsaber out I waved it around seeing a small figure sitting at my feet. "Yoda...what are you doing here?" I asked lowering my weapon a little. The little green man stares at me glowing blue. "Keeping an eye on you I am. Worry your mother feels for your future."

"My mom doesn't understand. I - I want to leave this place." He waved his hand in disagreement. My parents looked up to the little green Jedi Master. I don't understand everything about them but they look to him for guidance. "Look to the future you shouldn't. Dangerous the galaxy is. Protecting you, your family is." Shrugging my shoulders I rest my chin in the palm of my hand, sitting on the ground. "They still want me to be that sweet eight year old daughter. Be like Padme forever. But that's not the case, Master. I want adventure and I want a love...I don't think I can get that if I remain here." The former Jedi walked over placing a hand on my shoulder, closing his eyes taking a breath. "Clear your future will be in time. Learn to control your emotions, you must...Young Kiera." Before I could say another word he disappeared into thin air where I bend my face in my knees sighing heavily.

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hufflepuffsweetheart1 · 3 years

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"Hello my name is Joel Dawson and I'm going to tell you a story about my life it all started when I was about 16 years old a my girlfriend and I were sitting in her Jeep I was drawing her. She had gotten me some art supplies and I tried to draw her terrible I at it. After a while making out in the backseat kind of thing you know but I'm sure you don't want to know that horny detail but anyways back to my story.."

Y/N sits in her Jeep and hoses and looks at him . "are you done yet Hans I can't sit still that long "she giggles.. Joel trying Draw her.

" Stop moving Leia I'm not finished Joe had growled.. you are f****** me up."

Y/N Giggles a bit. And sit still as soon as he was done he showed her "I have a beard.."

" The supposed to be shade unless I tried." Control said with a pouty face.. Y/N just smirks and laughs "I'm sorry but it just looks like a beard and what is the my hair am I is it supposed to look like Princess Leia as me." Joel shook his head and laughs. " Oh yes it was supposed to be but now you just totally made fun of my picture rude." She just Giggles & Smiles and then pulls him and kisses him passionately . Joel kissing her back waiting on two making out in the back seat of the Jeep then they heard huge booms in cracks as he looked to see what had happened saw a bunch of fire in in the city. Y/N looked up and look and She was shocked. She couldn't believe what had been going on as they drove back home finding Joel's parents packing up and getting stop to leave.. mrs. Dawson looks at her son. " Get what you can Joel we need to leave. " Joel had the chandelier when is hand plus his art supplies she didn't move for a minute

he then looked at his girlfriend . " come with us he said." Y/N just looked at him and almost started crying. " I have to go get my mom and my brothers." She said. As Mr. Dawson was getting stuff done " come on son we got to go . " He yelled to his son. Joel had ran to Y/N and kissed her "I'll come find you Leia I promise."

Y/N had kiss back and smiled Tears In Her Eyes she didn't know when she would see him again. She had grabbed her favorite necklace off the Jeep and gave it to him it was her Star Wars

Joel took it in his hand. Your " My favorite necklace I gave you you love this." He started to cry she wiped his tears and kissed him. " can give it back to me when you come find me." I was Joel's looked at her she headed to her Jeep he walked towards car. " Leia I love you!!"

Y/N looks at him. " I know. " She got in Drive way.

Joel it was about to get in the car and then some kind of monster just stepped right on to the car making him fall over and watching his parents be crushed by a giant huge foot. As he backed away somebody grabbed him and telling him to come on he got in a back of a truck in tears watching his family be crushed ..

To be continued......

A: I have really bad grammar and bad spelling I am dyslexic as well so please be kind... thank you.

#joel dawson imagine #joel dawson x reader #love and monsters

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villainousshakespeare · 3 years

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Bobby’s Play Date Part 1

The pandemic is keeping Tom idling in London by himself. One positive is that wearing the mask helps him avoid recognition, allowing him to wander in the park with his dog, Bobby. On one of their walks, Bobby becomes smitten with a dog named Lulu and Tom is equally enchanted by her human. Can the Hiddleston men manage to find a way to see the lovely ladies again?

Tom Hiddleston/OFC

Rated M - Pandemic, Fluff, Quarantine, Masks, Adorable Puppies, Meet Cute, Second Part May (will) Contain Smut

@yespolkadotkitty @just-the-hiddles @hopelessromanticspoonie @wine-and-whines @arch-venus25 @caffiend-queen @devilish–doll @enchantedbyhiddles @hiddlesholic @i-do-not-fangirl-i-fanwoman @kellatron55 @ladyoftheteaandblood @latent-thoughts @gorgeous1974 @maryxglz @myoxisbroken @nuggsmum @nildespirandum @pedeka @redfoxwritesstuff @sinfully-lustful-darling @vodka-and-some-sass @wrathkitty @kingtwhiddleston @wolfsmom1 @poetic-fiasco @shiningloki @dangertoozmanykids101 @bookworm-christina @thecutestlittlebunbunfairy @amwolowicz @delightfulheartdream @frostbitten-written @what-a-flammable-heart @tom-hlover @nonsensicalobsessions @myraiswack @loki-yoursaviourishere, from-hel-i-with-love, @sweetsigyn, @fictiondoesitbetter, @ms-cellanies @evieplease @viviennes-tears @turniptitaness @cynic-spirit

It was months into the pandemic that had ground the world to a halt. Tom desperately hoped things would go back to normal soon, and that a vaccine would be found to help more people from getting sick and dying. There were, of course, many changes to the world at the moment that Tom was not pleased with. Being unable to work, for instance, or travel to visit his sisters was both frustrating and depressing. One change, however, he had to admit he was not completely adverse to.

Tom loved his fans. They were usually polite, often intelligent, and had donated millions in his name to charities. He often said that he couldn’t consider himself an actor without an audience, and he meant it. It was just that there were times when he wanted to enjoy a little anonymity. Particularly when health advisories suggested a six foot distance between people, Tom was relieved to be able to slip on a plain black mask along with his baseball cap and sunglasses and blend in with the other people wandering about on errands.

He was enjoying just such a stroll now despite the warmth, grateful for the ability to hide in plain sight. Bobby frisked happily on his lead, chasing after imaginary prey as they ambled aimlessly down the winding path. It was a lovely, sunny day, but fear was keeping many people at home and they had the park largely to themselves.

When they reached a bend, Bobby began barking excitedly and pulled Tom along, his human chuckling as he was dragged by his furry companion. The reason for Bobber’s excitement soon became apparent. Sitting on a bench placed beside a scenic little river was a woman in a flowered mask, holding the lead of a small, gold and white shih tzu dog in a ridiculous pink and white checked dress.

Tom had to take a firm hold as Bobby frantically tried to go over and meet the smaller dog, who had begun barking herself as they rounded the bend. Her fluffy head, complete with bow to keep the hair from her eyes, perked up, and she began jumping up and down in a little dance. Bobby calmed down a bit as he felt Tom’s pressure on his lead, but his tongue still lolled out of his mouth in a dopey smile.

“Steady,” Tom commanded, feeling embarrassed as Bobby continued to hover as close as allowed to the silly looking strange dog. “I’m sorry, I promise he is completely friendly.”

“It’s okay, so is she,” the woman replied, smiling with her eyes even though he could not see her mouth behind her mask. “You know, she’s usually quite shy, but she seems to like him! May I pet him?”

“Please, and thanks for asking.”

Letting the lead out a bit, Tom watched as the woman reached down to give Bobby a good pet, complimenting him on being a handsome boy. Her fluff of a pup had advanced timidly, and she and Bobby commenced sniffing and circling each other with obvious enjoyment.

“Wow, I have never seen her respond like that to a strange dog!” the woman laughed.

As she spoke, Bobby rolled onto his back and waved his paws in the air with a complete lack of dignity.

“Safe to say he is rather taken as well,” Tom chuckled. “Absolutely shameless! Mind if I have a seat? It seems a shame to deprive them.”

He gestured to the bench next to hers, wanting to keep a safe distance and indicate he respected her space, and the woman nodded. She was dressed much more simply than her dog, he noticed. Black leggings and long rose colored tee shirt, a pair of keds. Apparently, she got all of her whimsy out on her pup.

“What’s his name?” she asked, watching as the dogs frolicked with each other.

“Bobby,” he supplied. “I’m Tom.”

“I’m Leia, and that ridiculous creature is Lulu.”

“Like the princess?” he couldn’t help but ask with a chuckle.

“General,” she answered without missing a beat. “It’s what happens when you are born during the release of a cultural phenomenon. Pity all of the little girls out there now being named Daenerys or Gamora.”

Tom held his breath for a moment. If she was a Marvel fan, then did he have to worry about her recognizing him? Fortunately, she seemed more interested in the game of tag their companions were playing, and he let himself relax.

“There’s a dog run about half a mile from here,” he suggested after a few minutes of companionable silence. “It’s actually where we were headed.”

“I know, but Lulu is so skittish,” Leia sighed. “She just huddles in a little ball when the bigger dogs come near her.”

“She seems fine with Bobbers.”

“I know! Your adorable boy is some sort of sorcerer! It makes me so happy to see her playing with another dog!”

“I have to ask…”

“The dress?” she guessed; voice wry.

“Yeah.”

“She’s a rescue. When I got her, she was a pathetic, bedraggled little thing that had been there for ages. It was winter, and the first times I took her out I had to put a coat on her. After that, she started equating dressing with going out, and would get so excited every time I took a coat or sweater out for her. When the weather warmed up, I realized that I missed the way she would jump up and literally throw herself into whatever I had picked out for her to wear. It’s completely silly, I know, but it makes her happy, and she just looks so cute!”

Tom’s heart melted a little as he listened to her explain. Yes, the dog looked silly, but it was such a sweet reason that suddenly the little dress transformed into a symbol of kindness rather than an eccentricity.

“She does look adorable,” he said.

A beeping noise had him drawing his phone from his pocked, and he was surprised at the time. He had to get back home soon for a virtual session with his trainer. Oddly, he found himself reluctant to go. It had been so long since he had just spent time with another person, it had felt good just to sit in her presence and relax.

“I’m afraid I have to get going. But Bobby and I usually walk this way around lunch time,” he blurted out, lying through his teeth. “Hopefully we will run into you lovely ladies again. So that the dogs can play.”

He was more grateful for the mask than ever, as it hopefully hid the blush he could feel coloring his face. Once more her vivid eyes sparkled and she stood up too, twisting around with him as they attempted to untangle the leashes.

“I’m sure Lulu would love that!” she told him, picking up the golden dog as she whined and tried to follow after her new friend. “We’ll see you around, Tom. Bobby.”

With a jaunty step he let his long legs take him away, looking forward to tomorrow already.

It rained the next two days. Not just a soft drizzle but am early summer storm that made the idea of a pleasant walk a fantasy. Tom and Bobby both resented the weather, and it was a toss up which of them was more disagreeable as they were forced to stay indoors.

When the sun shone on the third day, Tom immediately cancelled all of his afternoon plans. He had waited patiently, he told himself, he was not going to let this day go to waste. It was for Bobby’s sake, after all. The pup deserved a nice day out after being shut up inside.

They left home mid-morning, Tom unable to sit still any longer. He couldn’t say why exactly he was so keen on meeting Leia and her silly dog again, but he had been able to think of nothing else during his enforced isolation. Perhaps it was simply the novelty of meeting someone new who didn’t instantly faun over him or act nervous and shy. She treated him as though he were just an ordinary guy walking his dog in the park; which of course was what he was!

He arrived at the benches where they had met earlier that week, but they were empty. It was still early, so they made a circuit of the nearby trails. His eyes always alert for their new friends. They passed a few other people walking their pets, but both Tom and Bobby were uninterested beyond a nod hello and brief sniff. The Hiddleston men were both to focused on finding particular companions.

It was, as it had been before, Bobby who first discovered their presence. As they were walking through a more secluded, twisting section of the park, the dog’s ears pricked up and he began barking in excitement. Tail wagging frantically, Bobby yanked on the lead and pulled Tom along behind him as he took off around a curve. A high pitched yip sounded from the direction he headed.

“Well hello there!” Leia greeted him, leaning down to scratch Bobby’s head as he and Lulu danced around each other. “We were hoping to run into you boys again!”

“Eh heh heh,” Tom laughed, dancing around to keep his leash from entangling too badly with hers. “Obviously Bobby here was looking forward to that as well! As was I.”

“Well then, I am so happy you found us.”

He felt absurdly pleased as they fell into step beside each other. The two dogs were happy to walk along, darting back and forth in play as they went.

“Were you going anywhere in particular?” Leia asked casually.

“Oh, just wandering about,” Tom answered, not wanting to admit that they had been on a mission to hunt down the ladies.

“Well then, we can wander together.”

As the dogs played, Tom and Leia chatted happily. He learned that she was an aspiring writer working on edits to her first novel, and a tour guide, specializing in guiding small groups around literary sights in London as a way to earn money.

“Of course, it’s hard to be a tour guide with no tourists,” she sighed. “You would think it would give me more time to write, but its hard to focus. Anyway, I talk too much. What about you?”

“Oh, I’m on furlough,” he shrugged, staying vague. “Just loafing about the house, annoying Bobby. So what is your novel about?”

He managed to direct the conversation back to her, even though she avoided the subject of her book. Instead, she brought up some of the more interesting places she had brought tourists. Tom, a proud Londoner, had been to many of them, and they happily discussed the more interesting locations. She seemed impressed that he had read books by most of the authors they discussed and was quite ready with a line or two from memory. In turn, Tom loved how expressive she became when describing the joy people experienced finding themselves walking in the footsteps of their favorite fictional characters.

By the time Leia announced that she and Lulu needed to head home, (Tom thought he detected regret in her voice) he was surprised to realize that they had been talking for almost two hours. It was the most pleasant afternoon he had passed in some time.

After that, Tom and Bobby spent every afternoon in the park. At first, they managed to “stumble” upon their companions most days. The days they did not were frustrating for both of them and usually ended with them barking at each other. After a few run-ins with Leia and Lulu however, Tom took the plunge and asked if they would like to make their daily meetups official. Leia seemed pleased, but with the caveat that some days she did need to stay home and write when she was struck by the rare inspiration. Tom deflated momentarily, thinking she was looking for an out, until she offered to text him an let him know if they would be absent. He happily gave her his cell phone number and took hers in return, letting her know that she should feel free to text anytime and then feeling like an idiot the minute the words left his mouth.

Over the next two weeks they met all but three days – two because of her writing and one when the skies once more conspired to thwart him. Their conversations ranged from literature to films to favorite places to travel. Leia sometimes teased him about his obvious upper class life style, jetting about to Viet Nam, Hawaii, Australia… but that was the closest his celebrity status ever came to being brought up. He would occasionally feel a stab of guilt over keeping that part of himself from her, it felt dishonest to lie by omission, but he was enjoying being just Tom, and didn’t want to spoil it.

Tom started taking more care in his appearance as the days went on. Gone were the torn running shorts and frayed t-shirts, and in their place were his slim fitting dark jeans and more presentable tops. If those tops also stretched a bit tight across his chest to better show off his muscles, well, he had worked hard enough to achieve them! He made some attempt to style his untamable locks as well, experimenting with different products until he found something that made the curls less crunchy. If he was remembering Leia’s off hand comment about how she liked his natural curls no one else needed to know that.

On the one month anniversary of meeting them in the park, Tom paced nervously back and forth near their favorite bench as he waited for them to arrive. He had a proposition for Leia and hoped desperately that she would say yes. When Bobby started frisking about he knew that he would see her walking Lulu, and spun around to see her come towards them.

“Sorry I’m late!” she smiled with her eyes. “This one managed to hide my house keys, and it took half an hour to track them down to her stash under the sofa.”

Lulu looked unrepentant as she pranced around Bobby, and Tom chuckled good naturedly. He gestured to the bench and sat after Leia, leaning back and stretching out his legs.

“No worries, honestly,” he assured her. “I am just delighted you are here now.”

“You are the perfect gentleman.”

“All lies, I assure you,” he waited for a moment, wanting to sound casual, and then launched into it unable to delay any longer. “I was wondering… The park is lovely, of course, but I thought it might be nice – for Lulu and Bobby – if they had a bit more freedom to run about. Lulu being afraid of the dog run, she has no opportunity to be off leash, and that can’t be too fun for our furry companions.”

“They seem to be having a good time to me,” Leia laughed, looking at where the dogs were investigating a small pile of leaves by the side of the trail. “But what did you have in mind?”

“Well, you see, our house has an enclosed back yard. Not huge, mind you, but large enough they would be able to chase to their hearts content without fearing larger beasts. I thought that perhaps you and Lulu might want to come over this Friday evening for dinner. There’s a testing sight not far from here. We could each get swabbed to make sure we are uncontagious. My bubble is only my Mum and Bobbers, and from what you’ve told me yours isn’t much bigger. It should be reasonably safe for you to come. I could make us dinner, and we could eat outside. If you would be comfortable with it, that is.”

He tried to look calm, but inside Tom was a riot of nerves as he waited for her answer. Leia’s brow crinkled in thought, and she glanced again to where the dogs were once more hopping back and forth across the path.

“I can’t do Friday,” she told him, and his heart fell.

“Oh, alright then. It was just an idea.”

“Friday is my virtual book club,” she went on, talking over him. “Would Saturday work?”

“Saturday would be perfect!” he beamed.

“Great! I’ll go to the clinic for a test tomorrow then. Would you like me to bring anything?”

“Just Lulu and a healthy appetite.”

“Excellent! Now what do you say we walk over to the little waterfall?”

Tom practically floated through the rest of their walk. He had enjoyed getting to know her so much, but he wanted to spend more than an hour or two at a time with her. Dinner would give them a chance to really relax. Plus, he was dying to see her mouth. After a month of imagining her smile he wanted to know if what he had in his mind was anywhere close to reality. She would see his full face too, but if she hadn’t recognized him by now it was doubtful she would from the lower half of his face.

His confidence dipped a bit when they returned home. Looking around, Tom began to panic. Between photos of him in his full Loki regalia to a group picture with the cast of Skull island, there were far too many give aways of his fame. She might not recognize him, but you would have to like on another planet not to know who Sam Jackson was!

Tom spent the next few days rearranging his home. His awards, normally discreetly placed in a cabinet in his living room on the insistence of his mother, were moved to a back shelf in his office closet. The set photos from a decade plus of filming were shoved under his bed and various pieces of memorabilia were secreted away in the spare bedroom. By the time he was done his guilt had increased but he was fairly confident that all trace of his career had been tucked away safely.

“Well, Bobbers, let’s hope we don’t blow this,” he sighed, adjusting the bandana he had bought to go around the dog’s neck. Bobby whined slightly and Tom grinned. “None of that, you want to look good for your date. She has a fondness for clothing, after all.”

Bobby gave him a look that said he clearly knew Lulu was not the one Tom was trying to impress with his new fashion statement, but Tom cheerfully ignored it. Tonight was going to be a wonderful night.

#Tom Hiddleston #Fan Fiction #Fic #Tom Hiddleston Fic #Tom Hiddleston/OFC #Bobby Hiddleston #Fluff #Flirting #quarantine #pandemic #puppy love #cuteness overload #smut in second part #meet cute

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la-sopa · 3 years

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Ok om hear me out

Time travel AU.

About in-between move 1 and 2

Luke Leia Han, the resistance and stuff. Si basically like palatine opens a portal to bring people from tge past to now. It's like grevious, doku, Maul and shit. BUT the portal also brings back people form the past for the resistance. Ferus olin, roan lands, siri tachi.

I feel like this would be cool to read

"What are we going to do" Luke ponder out loud to Leia. He and Leia were walking the surface of the forest plant they were on. Luke couldn't recall the name, I should really start getting better at this if I'm to be a jedi.

"I'm unsure about what will be the out come of this," Leia started,"however, we'll keep doing what we've been doing. We will stop the empire, no matter what walls they put in are way."

"Luke? Is everything alright?" He realized he had stopped walking

"Wait, I feel something..." Leia careful moved her hand to her blaster. Luke followed, placing a hand on his Saber. Silence. The leaves shook carefully un the breeze, the animals chirped and scoft. All was calm, peaceful, quiet. Crunch-crunch . They spun around drawing there weapons, ready to face what the empire would throw at them. How? How did they find us so quickly.

"Whow... didn't mean to frighten you, your highness" han spoke hands drawn up in defense.

"Han, u scared the life out us" Leia scolded. " do u still feel it?"

"Yes..." Luke was at a loss, he had begun to feel something like this for a while now. But never this strong, never this close. Why can't I put my finger on it?

"Princess! Look out!" Han was already reaching out for Leia as he spoke his warning. Luke faced the sky. A portal facing the ground. The thing that the fice had been warning him about now hoverd in the sky. Just then. A hand appeared, dangling from the portal. Then as if in an instant a man fell from the sky as the portal closed behind him. -thump-. The man let out a quiet groan as he hit the forest floor.

His black flight suit, did he work for the empire? But he wore no armor, no helmet, who is this man? Luke hadn't realized it but suddenly the distance between him and the man closed, as he now layed right at his feet. "Do you know him?" He asked Leia who approached from behind him.

"No, I don't believe he's working for the empire though," she said as she stood beside him, "he looks at least half firrerreo." The man was almost still. Shoulders rise and falling shakily, and the quiet rasp breaths he was taking.

"How can u tell"

" the silver streak in his hair" she pointed out, motioning to the hair covering most if his face.

"He sound like he's injured. Let's flip him on his back, open the air ways." He proposed to Leia. They stayed still for a moment. The man's hand twitched, he alive,

"Roan" a hard to hear wisper escaped the man's lips. Luke looked over at Leia, she shook her head no. He reached down, flipping the man on to his back. He gasped

"He's... he's got a lightsaber..." look starred at his hand, the lightsaber glistening softly from the forest light. A jedi? They were all dead but, some how he survived, there has to be more jedi out of there. More jedi to help fight the empire. Luke felt hope fill his body, he would find the jedi. He would-

"Han, get a medic" Leia ordered. Luke was shot out of his daze. He's eyes moved above the lightsaber resting on the mand stomach in a clenched hand, up to his chest. Blood soaking through the flight suit, slowly pooling under him.

"Roan" came the whispered voice.

"The doctors are on there way." She informed the man

"I need u to stay awake for me!" Leia spoke A little more harsh.

"Roan" the man wisperd desperately as he slipped into unconsciousness

======================

"Aaaaaa" Ferus yelled as Vaders lightsaber cut into his chest. He body was burning. The room was blurry. You promised Roan you advenge him. He groaned as his body hit the ground. Vader stood before him, turned off his light Saber

"Good bye, ferus olin." Came the machical voice. Vader turned on his heel heading to the door. Ferus just watched. Depreatly thing of something to say.

"Ani?" His voice was weaker then he'd like. His body more frail then he'd like.

Vader paused at the door. "Anakin Skywalker is dead."

"I believe he's still there. He's standing here before me. Even if his been covered and hidden in this persona, he's alive. I believe he can break out if these chains you put on him. On yourself." Vader paused. Looked at him.

" I was planning on killing u quick, giving you a quick pain less death ferus. But, you've over stepped your role in this story, Farwell." Vader turned on his heel, fading from view as the doors closed behind him

It burns

He was gasping in pain, as the world around him started to spin. Roan. Ferus remember the lake he and Roan would swim in. The blanket tha Donna had made. The blanket he and Roan would take on picnics, to lay in the grass and watch the stars. The stars that would glisten I'm the sky at roans parents lunch parties that would carry on till late nights. The warmth Roan had shown him, the tender love and kindness Roan had shown him. Welcoming him in open arms, going on dates, the most simple and smallest acts to. The small act of kindness that had brought them together at that bakery all those years ago. It feel like yesterday. "Roan" He wisperd.

A tight feeling swirled in his stomach, somethings wrong. The force warned him. His head hurt, his chest burned, body screaming in pain. "Roan" He wisperd, he was afraid, holding on to all of the memories he and Roan made for comfort. He put a hand to the necklace around his neck that held a single ring. The rung Roan had given him, promising they'd get married after all thus. "Roan... forgive me...roan" the world faded to balck... the ground was hard, but then he felt weightless although he was falling. "Hmpht" Ferus groans as ge hit the ground. Where am I? It's humid, to warm to think. Ah he opens his eyes he's met with a jungle surrounding. What? He hears talking bu can't make out the words. Move ferus. Siris voice echos in his mind. She right. But. I can't. What would he do. "Roan" He called out for his husband, not even realizing till the words left him. A pair of hands rolled him on to his back. The figure before him was blurry, he couldn't make anything out. "Roan" there was more muffled sound. The world started fading. "Roan"

"The doctors are in there way." A voice speaks to him. Oh yeah. He thinks, as the burning sensation fills his body again. "Roan". He wisperd as the world started to spin. A cool hand touch his forhead, "roan?" He felt his eyes began to drap, "need-awake-me" the voice was fading away along with is sight. "Roan"

==============================/

Idk something like that u know. Maybe something better that was rushed but. I would be invested to read something like that you know

#ferus olin #jude watson #siri tachi #::mentioned #a bit enjoy #last of the jedi #anakin skywalker #roan lands #jedi quest #luke skywalker #leia organa #han solo #star wars #time travel #Please I would give up my first born child to read something like this #darth vader

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bether3385 · 3 years

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Hello my name is Joel Dawson and I'm going to tell you a story about my life it all started when I was about 16 years old a my girlfriend and I were sitting in her Jeep I was drawing her. She had gotten me some art supplies and I tried to draw her terrible I at it. After a while making out in the backseat kind of thing you know but I'm sure you don't want to know that horny detail but anyways back to my story.."

You sits in her Jeep and hoses and looks at him . "are you done yet Hans I can't sit still that long "she giggles.. Joel trying Draw her.

" Stop moving Leia I'm not finished Joe had growled.. you are f****** me up."

You giggles a bit. And sit still as soon as he was done he showed her "I have a beard.."

" The supposed to be shade unless I tried." Control said with a pouty face.. you just smirks and laughs "I'm sorry but it just looks like a beard and what is the my hair am I is it supposed to look like Princess Leia as me." Joel shook his head and laughs. " Oh yes it was supposed to be but now you just totally made fun of my picture rude." You just giggles & Smiles and then pulls him and kisses him passionately . Joel kissing her back waiting on two making out in the back seat of the Jeep then they heard huge booms in cracks as he looked to see what had happened saw a bunch of fire in in the city. Y/N looked up and look and She was shocked. She couldn't believe what had been going on as they drove back home finding Joel's parents packing up and getting stop to leave.. mrs. Dawson looks at her son. " Get what you can Joel we need to leave. " Joel had the chandelier when is hand plus his art supplies she didn't move for a minute

he then looked at his girlfriend . " come with us he said." Y/N just looked at him and almost started crying. " I have to go get my mom and my brothers." She said. As Mr. Dawson was getting stuff done " come on son we got to go . " He yelled to his son. Joel had ran to you and kissed her "I'll come find you Leia I promise."

You had kiss back and smiled Tears In Her Eyes she didn't know when she would see him again. She had grabbed her favorite dice off the Jeep and gave it to him it was her Star Wars

Joel took it in his hand. Your " My favorite Han Solo Dice I gave you you love this." He started to cry she wiped his tears and kissed him. " can give it back to me when you come find me." I was Joel's looked at her she headed to her Jeep he walked towards car. " Leia I love you!!"

You looks at him. " I know. " She got in Drive way.

To be continued......

Check out for part 3 please be kind the girl behind me not very good and she has dyslexia so please be kind to her and her story.. for this was sort of her first point of view story.

Thanks

love, Joel

#joel dawson #dylan o'brien #joel dawson x reader #dylanobrien x reader #love and monsters

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purplesauris · 4 years

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The Heart Wants

"I want you to meet my family."

Din wants to show Luke off to his family- whether that be his found family or anyone else.

Read it on AO3 here!

“I want you to meet my family.” Din watches him, beskar helmet reflecting the sunset from the window as he leans back in his chair.

Luke’s hands still in the air, Grogu floating above him, and he looks toward Din. “Pardon?”

A trickle of discomfort curls around Luke’s throat, a soft wispy thing, and he lowers Grogu from the air, ignoring the disappointed coo the child lets out as Din’s shoulders slump. He instead draws one of Grogu’s toys closer, making it dance through the air to keep him occupied as Din clears his throat. “If you want. They’ve asked to meet you when I go out next.”

“They’ve asked for me?” Luke doesn’t want to seem overly eager, but judging by the way Din’s head turns just slightly, unable to look at him, he’s blushing inside his helmet. “You talk about me.”

“You’re training my son.” Din croaks, as if that’s excuse enough.

“We’re dating.” Luke can’t help the grin that spreads over his face, laughing when Din shuffles in his seat and mumbles something uncouth under his breath. It’s enough for the modulator to pick up, but not enough to be heard clearly, so it sounds like static cracking through. “When were you thinking?” Luke says instead, giving Din a way out of his flustered revelation.

“When it’s better to bring Grogu along.”

Luke’s mind whirls immediately at the thought, and he glances down at the small green child tucked in his lap. Words bubble up from him before he can trap them behind his teeth, shove them back down, and Luke’s gaze is firmly locked on the toy he sends sailing through the air in wilder and wilder loops and spins.

“I can bring him to my sister, she’s- like me, and will know how to care for him.”

“On Coruscant? The capital of the Galaxy?” Luke winces at the way that sounds, but something niggles at the back of his mind, and he squints in Din’s direction.

“How do you know where she is?”

Now it’s Din’s turn to wince, though the subtle shift of his body is much less noticeable than Luke’s; only caught because Luke knows every dip and stretch of muscle.

“I keep track.” Din mutters, as if just admitting that is something wrong, ugly. Luke finds it frustratingly endearing, the level of awareness that Din has for everything and everyone; it only lends to the fact that Din’s strength lies not just in his fighting skills, but in the simple fact that Din is smart.

He’s devilishly clever, wildly pragmatic when he needs to be and endlessly creative. Every time that Luke thinks he finds him, truly sees him another layer is pulled back, revealing more and more of the man beneath the armor. Of the clever, kind man whose spirit called to him in the moments between their words.

“I know it’s not ideal, but…” Luke glances over at him, willing him to understand without Luke having to continue, and to Luke’s continued delight Din dips his head- finishing Luke’s thought.

“I trust you, Luke. Not sure I do her, but if she’s like you…”

“Ah, she’s better, actually. Much more adjusted.” Din huffs a laugh, metallic and low, and Luke revels in the sound and faint feeling of warmth wafting off of Din. “If we have her babysit, when were you thinking? Next supply run?”

“Mmm. Probably."

Luke purses his lips, thinking about how far Leia is from him, and even with him flying solo it’s going to be a tight turn around if they want to be on time.

“Okay. I’ll have to leave a couple days early, to get him there and get back.”

“Alone?” Curious, Din sits forward in his chair, as if the thought of being left behind is a novel idea.

“It’ll be easier for me to get in and out of the city without a big scary Mando following me around.” Din snorts at that, but judging by the way that he sits back he has no argument. Not yet, at least. Luke can practically hear the gears grinding in Din’s head, turning his words over and over to examine every bump and crack. “The x-wing only fits one anyhow.”

“You’ll meet me back here?”

“Of course. After all, I want to fly the Crest too.” His grin answers Din’s groan, and he feels a thrill go down his spine when Din doesn't automatically tell him no. He might not get to this time, but he's a patient man, and with enough convincing Din will let him do almost anything.

Almost.

"Tell me about her?"

Luke leans back on his hands, letting the toy drop and nodding at Grogu. Grogu grumbles unhappily, but the toy begins a shaky maneuver into the air, Grogu's little hands raising while Luke begins to talk. "Her name is Leia, but you knew that already. She's a senator for the new republic."

"What's she like?"

"She's brave, smart as a tack. Doesn't take shit from anyone." Luke's eyes burn, and he presses a hand to his forehead, stupidly emotional. "I didn't know her when I was a child- I grew up on Tatooine while she grew up a princess on Alderaan. We met during the Rebellion: she was a prisoner on the death star and Han and I rescued her."

"Han?"

"Solo. Her husband. He was a smuggler I hired who kind of got sucked into helping the rebellion."

Talking about the rebellion always made something slimy and panicked crawl through his veins, but if there was one thing he'd mastered long ago it was pushing those feelings back. His meditation had helped, the little training he had with Yoda had helped, and most days, alone with Din or Grogu or Artoo, he could breathe. But there were moments of silence, of stillness when Luke's right arm ached and all that he'd done came crawling back to the surface. When he laid in bed, Din asleep beside him, and wished he were anyone else. The thoughts drag at him like an anchor against the sandy bottom of the ocean, and Luke finds himself set adrift, the room around him fading in and out of focus.

This is not the time to be doing so.

Luke tries, really he does, to draw himself back in, to crawl from the ugly sprawling thoughts in his mind, but he hears a low scraping sound that’s so much like metal debris against the side of his x wing that he flinches. There’s a rattle to his left, the dropping of something heavy, and then a weight settles against his back, tucking into the crook of his neck and gripping around him.

Luke’s first instinct is to shove away from it, to fight his way out, but soft fingers catch at the edge of his shirt, smoothing along his abdomen, and Luke releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The touch is hesitant at first, as if afraid, but when Luke doesn’t do anything past dragging in low, shuddering breaths it grows bolder. If he were here, truly focused, he’d make a joke, something to diffuse the situation, but instead he shakes as a palm slides under his shirt and presses flat over his chest, nestled above his heart. Luke focuses on the pulse he senses in the man’s palms instead of his own, the warmth of skin on skin contact.

Badum. Badum. Badum.

Slow and even- calm in the midst of a storm. Luke tilts his head back, gasping in a breath, and metal digs into the back of his head, cold and hard. A pauldron. Luke recognises the ridged edge to it, recognizes the soft scrape of facial hair against his neck when Din presses closer, breaths light and hand held to Luke’s chest.

“Take a breath. Hold it.” Luke follows the command on instinct alone, chest expanding under hand and stopping, full to bursting until Din’s voice, soft and so unlike his visage, speaks again. “Release. Slowly.”

Luke follows that instruction to the letter, letting the air seep from his lips until he feels empty, hollowed out and aching to take a breath. Din works him through ten more breaths, until he’s breathing without waiting for Din’s quiet command and his hand finds Din’s, clutching at his fingers in an effort to keep himself grounded.

“I’m sorry.” He chokes out, grief rising in his throat like a beast ready to kill, and Din’s voice vibrates across his back from where Luke is pressed back into his arms.

“I know.” Somehow, his simple acknowledgement, his acceptance, is what breaks Luke. He feels a sob clatter out of him, low and weak, and Din’s head turns, forehead pressing against Luke’s temple. Din holds him tight and Luke allows himself to be held, shaking and weak, until his tears and his panic finally ebb, drawn back into the little box he keeps under such careful lock and key. In his lap Grogu’s big brown eyes are shiny with tears, and when Luke turns his head, bumping his forehead against Din’s he finds his mandalorian in a similar state.

“I’m sorry.” Luke says again, because he doesn’t know what else to say, and Din’s free hand comes up, dashing away the wetness that clings to Din’s lashes like morning dew. Din doesn’t stop at himself, thumb wiping at the trails on Luke’s cheeks before drawing Grogu up. Luke’s hands come up to steady the child against his chest as Grogu’s little head tucks under his chin, and Luke leans heavily back against Din’s chest.

They sit there for a while, breathing and holding each other close until Grogu’s breaths even out and his snores kick up, Luke only half fighting the heaviness in his own eyelids. It seems easier to fall asleep than address this fragile, marred thing, but Din always seems to be one step ahead of him, hand slipping from his chest as both arms move to rest around Luke’s middle instead, a warm cage that Luke doesn’t want to leave.

“Sleep, Luke. You don’t get nearly enough. Let me watch over you.” Luke wants to point out that they’re in the middle of the living room, but Din’s chest rumbles against his back as he makes a soft noise, nosing at his cheek and placing a soft, reverent kiss to the curved edge of Luke’s jaw. Luke allows himself to drift off in Din’s arms, sinking into the darkness behind his eyelids without a fight.

Luke wakes up in bed screaming.

He looks around, eyes wild, trying to find the source of the agony coursing through him, but there isn't any. Luke sucks in two harsh breaths, fighting against the instinctive panic, and he looks down at his right hand, fingers twitching madly and whole arm quaking. When he tries to move his arm another razor edged wave of feeling scrapes along his nerves, and he bites back another scream. “Fuck-”

“Here.” Luke’s head snaps up toward the doorway as Din’s lithe form slips through, walking with measured steps until he sinks down onto the edge of the bed by Luke’s hip. He reaches out, hands gentle as he takes Luke’s hand in his. Even that movement is too much, too rough, but Din thumbs at the line where his wrist connects, edging along the hard line of the cybernetics underneath the skin. Din almost seems to be searching for something, and Luke wants to ask him what, but Din’s thumb digs in suddenly and Luke feels a pop in his wrist. Sensation shorts out of his arm immediately, fingers twitching for a moment before going limp. Luke is able to focus more on his breathing and collecting his thoughts with Din having done… whatever it is he did, and eventually Luke finds his voice.

“How did you...”

Din’s eyes flick up toward him, near black in the dim light coming from the hallway, and so filled with warmth that Luke feels like he’s a spark away from going up in flames.

“You’ve done it before.”

“I know I have, but how did you know to-” Luke’s mouth snaps shut at the realization that he knows the answer to the question. He didn’t realize he’d ever done it in front of Din. He’d spent months tinkering with his hand after the medics on the Redemption had installed it, and he’d installed what some might call a kill switch. It was small, near impossible to trigger unless you knew exactly how and where it was, and Luke had done it out of sheer desperation to have some way to make the pain stop.

“You've only used it one other time.” Din says, looking down at Luke’s hand and thumb smoothing over his inner wrist. “But you were in pain then too.”

“It bothers me.” Luke expects the shame that comes with talking about his hand, but Din lifts it higher and places a kiss onto the deadened palm. Luke wishes desperately that he could feel it, if only for an instant, but his want is written plain across his body. It has to be, because there’s no other way he can explain away to himself the way that Din gathers his other hand, lips soft and gentle on the palm. Luke presses the fingertips of his good hand into the skin of Din’s cheek, holding him there, and Din’s eyes shut, turning just slightly to bump his nose against the meat of Luke’s thumb and smile against his skin.

“You don’t have to hide when it does.”

“I have obligations.” Luke protests, sinking away from the casual way that Din reminds him that he’s a man. Just a man, beneath everything. “I can’t just- turn my hand off when it suits me.”

“Are you useless without your right hand?”

“No, but-”

“Can you still teach, still work your plants and tinker with Artoo?”

“Yes, but-” Luke feels like a moon cracked into jagged pieces, pulled in all directions by the gravity of Din’s eyes, of his careful, thought out words.

“You are allowed to want to stop hurting.” Luke physically recoils at the words, letting them slam into his chest and bury deep. Luke draws in one breath, then two, then three, trembling in bed as Din holds his hand and presses his face, his skin against Luke’s palm and seems content never to move away. “I want this, Luke. Let me shoulder some of the burden for once.”

“What if it’s too much?” Luke’s voice is weak, timid, and Din’s expression softens, eyelids drooping and corners of his mouth tugging into a sad, quiet smile.

“Then I’ll complain. Loudly.” That draws a thick, startled laugh out of Luke, and he watches the way that Din’s smile warms into something fond and affectionate.

“Promise?”

“I can start now.” Luke laughs again, disbelieving, and Din chuckles along with him, tilting his head as Luke leans forward, shifting the hand on Din’s cheek so that he can kiss him easier. Din pulls back after a moment, humming softly and brushing his lips against Luke’s more for the sensation than anything else. “I just got Grogu back to sleep. Do I need to sing you to sleep too?”

“I don’t think your singing would have that same affect on me.”

“I’m pretty good.” Din points out, cracking a smile when Luke pushes against his cheek, choosing instead to flop back against the bed.

“I would just stay awake to hear it.” Din nods as if that’s a perfectly acceptable answer, and when Luke opens an arm Din doesn’t hesitate to crawl into bed beside him. Luke has always loved that for all of Din’s brute strength and aggressiveness he sleeps curled tight, knees up close to his chest to block anyone from getting at the soft expanse of his belly. It took waking up to knees in his ribs more times than he could count to adjust to the way that Din slept, to coax him into spreading out and taking up space.

Din does it now without question, hooking a leg up over Luke’s to press it into the space between Luke’s thighs, arm tossed over Luke’s ribs and face tucked against Luke’s neck. The feeling of Din’s breath on his neck, slow and even, is what allows Luke to finally drift off again, Din holding his deadening hand gently.

-*-

He manages to reorient himself by the time he calls Leia, scrambling and rescrambling the feed to ensure that whoever might have been listening were thrown off. Leia’s face is fuzzy at first, buzzing with her movement, but she’s grinning at the sight of Luke.

“Luke.”

“Hey Lee.” Luke grins when Leia scoffs at the nickname, the same reaction he’s gotten since he first tried it out and decided it was going to stay. "I have a favor to ask you."

"Would that favor involve childcare?" Leia's expression is impassive, but when Luke grimaces, rubbing the back of his neck he sees her crack a smile. "I can hear your intentions from here."

"It would only be a couple days, and you could get to know him!"

"He's your student."

"I know, I know, but it's too dangerous to bring him back to Nevarro and-"

"Why are you going to Nevarro?" Leia's eyes narrow, brow arching when Luke's cheeks flush with color. He very pointedly looks away for a moment, drawing in a couple of deep breaths before Leia's grin turns shark like. "You met someone."

"It's-" Luke goes to say that it's complicated, but Leia's eyes widen comically at something in the background, and Luke turns just in time for Din to dip down, bumping his helmet against Luke's forehead. Luke presses up into the touch, smiling, before remembering himself and pulling back, cheeks positively red now. Din's attention turns to the holo, head tilting just so, and Luke feels the instant that Din realizes what he's done. "Leia, this is my partner, Din. Din, this is my sister, Senator Leia Organa."

"Senator." Din dips his head as a courtesy, and Luke watches as Leia does the same.

"Mand'alor." Luke hears Din groan quietly, too soft for the holo to hear, and he snickers, ignoring the elbow that gets him in his side. Really, by now Din should be used to the title and people's knowledge of who he is, but somehow it comes as a shock to him every time. Leia straightens in her chair, and though nothing has really changed Luke can see the polite mask that falls into place. "If you truly don't have anywhere else, I'll take him." Luke grins, glancing at Din. "But only for three days. I do have obligations here that a child would disrupt."

Luke nods his head in agreement, pressing his lips together in a miserable attempt to hide his grin. "Right so uh, I'll see you in a couple days?"

"Don't forget anything." Leia warns, Luke laughing. "And Luke? You have questions to answer."

Leia doesn't let Luke reply before the holo goes dead, and Luke sits back, peering at Din. "Well, that could have gone worse. If you hadn't appeared I expected to lose my hearing."

"Would it have been that bad?"

"She locked me in my room for three days the last time I lied to her." Din pauses, head tilting, and Luke is surprised and delighted when Din laughs, a full bodied sound that makes Luke smirk.

"I like her more already."

"Good! Because she's going to make us visit sooner or later."

“Make us?”

“You don’t get to say no to Leia.” Luke knows that from experience: sooner or later Leia is going to drag them to Coruscant for something, and it’s only a matter of time.

Din hums from behind his helmet, reaching out to play with the sleeve of Luke’s robe. “If I tried?”

“She might put a bounty out on you.” Luke deapans, face carefully arranged into a blank expression that breaks when Din shakes his head and shoves at his shoulder. Luke scoops the holo up off of the counter, turning as Din catches his waist, holding him still. Luke raises a brow, lips quirking, and watches with obvious interest as Din reaches back to unlock and slip his helmet off.

Seeing Din's face is just as breathtaking as it was the first time so many months ago, and Luke's heart swells with affection. Din is handsome- not in a drop dead, unrealistic kind of way, but in a softer, grounded way that makes Luke's heart go wild in his chest whenever he gets a peek. Luke is so used to reading the lines of Din's body, of trying not to read him but reading his emotions anyway that when Din's connection opens Luke temporarily goes blind with the feelings that wash over him.

The rush of their connection powers through him, making Luke slap a hand onto the counter as a laugh bubbles up in his throat. Din's amusement, his care and his love sweep through him, leaving him warm and fuzzy, but other feelings worm their way in as well. He can acutely recognize the worry and fear, the anxiety that makes a mess of Din’s thoughts when he thinks of Grogu being so out of his reach. It’s intimate- madly so, and Luke finds himself tipping forward, clanking their foreheads together uncomfortably and reaching to cup the back of Din’s neck.

“I don’t want you to go.” Din begins, voice choked, and Luke leans in harder, fingers digging into the nape of Din’s neck. “But I know you’ll be safe.”

“I’ll hurry.” Luke whispers, bumping his nose against Din’s and brushing their lips together. Din makes a soft, wounded sound, tilting his head to kiss Luke firm and slow. Luke feels Din’s connection go flimsy, and Luke lets his hold on the other end go, Din’s emotions wrapping back around him like a cloak. It’s easier to handle this way, but Luke craves the connection at the same time.

Din pulls away, reluctance in every muscle of his body, and Luke hums, leaning back to look him over. Din’s eyes are watery, tears gathering, and Luke loves how expressive Din can’t help but be. Luke bumps their foreheads together one more time before he steps out of Din’s arms, going to get his things and gather up what Leia will need for Grogu’s stay. Once he’s gathered enough toys and things to keep the youngling occupied Luke pads back into the living room, scooping Grogu up into his arms and grinning when little claws tug at his robes.

“We’re gonna go visit someone special. Can you say bye to your buir?” Luke hears Din give a choked off noise akin to a gasp, and when he turns to Din the other man is staring at him with unabashed surprise. As if he never expected to be called that.

Grogu coos happily, reaching his little hand out, and Din steps forward, tilting his head down to place a soft kiss on Grogu’s fuzzy head. “Be good, ad’ika, no causing problems.”

The child tilts his head, as if he’s asking could I ever? and Din gives him an unimpressed look. Luke whistles sharply and Artoo whirls out from the other room, beeping and whistling merrily. “Ready to go, Artoo?” Din walks them to where their ships are nestled close together, the x wing covered in a layer of dust from Din’s takeoffs. Artoo speeds ahead of them, lining himself up and lifting up into his spot. He slots in easily and Luke grins when the x-wing roars to life. The vibrations from the engine pulse through Luke and he feels giddy all over again: he hasn’t flown since Grogu came under his care, and he desperately misses it.

The cockpit swings up and open with a pneumatic hiss, the ladder sliding down for easier access, and Luke pauses at the bottom, turning back to Din. He looks at him one last time, not because he won’t see him again but purely because he wants to look, and Din’s answering smile is encouraging. Luke realizes with a jolt he’s projecting a little strongly, and he grins sheepishly, dimming himself down despite the way that Grogu giggles at Luke’s infectious eagerness. “Come back safe.”

“Nothing could stop me from coming home.” Luke promises, staring at the way Din’s lips twitch, color flushing the tips of his ears and brown eyes sparkling. It’s so ridiculously attractive that Luke almost stumbles hoisting himself up into the cockpit. It isn’t until Luke has his headset on, Grogu safely in his lap and yolk in his hands that Luke clears his mind. Din’s ship is a little close to his, wings overshadowing Luke’s vessel, but Luke maneuvers himself smoothly away from the Crest and circles into the air, rising higher and higher, leaving Din among the greenery of the planet.

Grogu stays firmly in Luke’s lap until they break through the atmosphere, but once the sharp nose of the x-wing cuts through and vaults them into space Grogu perks up, crawling to peer out of the cockpit window. “Alright Artoo, next stop Coruscant.”

Artoo beeps affirmatively through the comms and Luke watches the coordinates flash through his display, Luke turning himself in the right direction and increasing his speed. Grogu squeals in delight at the stars rushing past, and Luke braces Grogu’s little body as they slip into hyperspace, stomach dropping momentarily as his body adjusts to the drag and Grogu’s wide eyes take in the smears of blue and white that scramble past them.

“You’re gonna love Leia. She’ll spoil the devil out of you, little womp rat.” Grogu turns, crooning, and Luke smiles. “Just for a couple days, then you’ll be back with your buir and I.”

Luke doesn’t dare call himself a parent, not with what Din and Grogu went through together, not yet, but calling Din Grogu’s father? That feels right, like breathing after breaking the surface of the water, and Luke knows Din has been his father far longer than he ever realized.

-*-

Coruscant is as huge and sprawling as he remembers it, stinking of artificial ozone and smog. No one is there to meet him at the landing pad, but Luke is grateful for the chance to slip into the city anonymously. He tucks Grogu a bit deeper into the sling strapped across his chest and pulls his hood up, letting the dark fold of fabric obscure his face and cover the lightsaber hanging at his belt. He won’t need it in the city if he’s lucky, and Luke dives headfirst into the chaos of the city.

The electronics hum around him, sharp and bright, and Luke feels Grogu’s overstimulation rising in him, a surge of panic and anxiety. Luke tries to push some of his hard earned calm onto Grogu, smiling under the hood when Grogu relaxes, gurgling happily and sinking into the sling to nestle against Luke’s chest instead. Luke rests his hand against Grogu’s little form, both to protect and comfort him, and Luke makes a beeline for Leia’s home. He’s a half hour early, having made good time in hyperspace, and he’s itching to get inside and see his sister.

Leia's house is on one of the upper levels, closer to the Senate building, and Luke has to take two separate speeder lifts just to get to the top. Speeders whiz and race past him, going in every direction, and Luke wonders what it would be like to try and fly through the heart of the city: how many speeders he'd be able to avoid before finally wrecking. That thought process will only get him in trouble though, so Luke pushes it away and instead focuses on hopping out of the speeder, robes whipping back at the air that rushes from the pit of the city. Luke stops in front of Leia's building, taking a deep breath and battening down the waves of the force that swirl around him, arranging them into something neater, more easily managed. Only once he's gotten himself into something resembling the normal calm demeanor he's praised for does Luke knock on the door.

The door swings open, revealing an older man with dark brown hair, who smirks at him. "Hey kid."

"Hi Han. Leia home?"

"Nah, off on some Senate errand. Told me not to let you run away though. That your kid?"

Han motions toward the bundle on Luke's chest as he steps away from the door, Luke ducking inside and brushing the hood off his head only once the door has shut.

"My student, yes. Did Leia say how long she'd be?" He looks around while Han closes the door- the house is clean, immaculately so, but if he knows his sister, which he does, she spends about as much time here as Luke spends on Tatooine. Which isn't much anymore, if he can help it.

"Aww, don't want to hang out? I'm starting to think you don't love me anymore." Han's grin is easy and genuine and makes Luke roll his eyes.

"I just don't have much time before I have to leave. It's a tight turn around."

"Then you'd better speak fast." Luke jumps at the sound of Leia's voice, and he turns, watching as she slinks down the stairs, dressed in a cream suit that flatters her figure. Luke scowls when Han laughs at him, but Leia is sweeping him up into a tight hug that Luke stoops down to accept, pressing his cheek to hers but keeping his chest carefully angled away. Grogu squirms against his chest, curious, and Luke pulls back, letting the child poke his head out.

At first it's just his eyes and ears, staring curiously at Leia, who regards him with open wonder. Luke feels her reach out with the force the same instant Grogu does, and they release twin noises of surprise, Grogu kicking his legs to try and pull himself from the sling.

"Okay okay, no need to kick, here you little womp rat." Luke tugs Grogu free from the sling, depositing him in Leia's arms, who takes him with minimal hesitation. Her eyes are bright and friendly, and she pets a finger along the ridge of Grogu's ear.

"How did you find him?"

"I didn't. Din did." Leia looks up, keeping Grogu nestled in her arms while she waves for Luke to follow. They head into the living room off the main hallway, Leia sinking onto the couch while Luke remains standing, too tired of sitting to bother settling down. "Grogu can tell you the story- he's much more descriptive."

"I heard that a mandalorian was tearing up the outer rim in search of something. I didn't realize it was him." Leia coos at Grogu, letting him tug on the end of her long braid while cooing back.

"But you know he's Mand'alor?"

"Through word of mouth, mostly, though his reaction confirmed it." Leia looks up at the thought of Din, regarding Luke with something akin to exasperation. "Why didn't you say anything about him?"

"He's a private person."

"I'm your sister."

"You know now don't you?" Leia purses her lips, displeased, but she can't argue against that point, even if she did want to know sooner. Leia opens her mouth to say something just as the clock chirps the new hour, Luke's eyes flying up to check. He holds a hand up, sly smile on his face. "I have an hour before I have to leave again. You get one question about him: how we got together, who he is, or what he's like."

"The last two are the same." Leia points out, frowning.

"You have two options then." Luke replies, Leia's frown deepening.

"How you two got together?."

Luke's expression goes wistful, and he paces the length of the living while thinking of what he wants to say.

"I saved him and the child from a squadron of dark troopers on an Imperial cruiser. It's how Din became Mand'alor, actually. He won the Darksaber in a fight against Moff Gideon."

"That isn't how you got together."

"I'm getting there." Luke shoots back, squinting unhappily at Leia until she holds up a hand in a placating gesture. "Din was… unprepared for Grogu to leave. They'd done all this work to save him, to rescue him and I came in and just- well I didn't steal him, Din gave full permission but… he was heartbroken. For a long time I felt echoes of it, and eventually I sent him coordinates to visit. Grogu missed his buir as much as Din must have missed his ad'ika."

"He taught you Mando'a?"

Luke laughs, shaking his head. "I just picked up the important words." Luke's expression sobers, and his hands disappear into the sleeves of his robes, worrying away at the shirt underneath. "I had visions of Din nightly- glimpses of him with friends or alone, but always heading in my direction. When Din finally did land on the planet I couldn't be sure if it was him or another vision."

Luke's voice peters off as he hesitates, but Leia is silent and Luke lets the words come to him faster and faster, flowing past his lips in a tidal wave. "He only stayed a day the first time- but when he came back and he- never left. For Grogu, I knew, at least at first, but denying attachments had never been my strong suit and- he's force sensitive Lee, not that he can use it really, but it drove me half mad with the way he could use it. I didn't- want him to leave after a while. The house seemed too empty and his cooking is much better anyway."

Luke hears Leia laugh and he finds himself smiling along. "He was the one that kissed me first, actually."

"You've seen his face?"

"We're a clan." Luke replies, voice soft with awe. "But kissing is different- like what you saw over the holo. He doesn't have to remove it, and half the time he doesn't. It was a relief just to know how he felt that night, but he's- brilliant. He's smart and he's funny and he's such a good dad and he's handsome."

"With or without the helmet?"

"Yeah." Leia laughs at the dreamy look that clouds Luke's face, glancing over at the clock. He's already ten minutes past when he was supposed to leave. “I’m… very lucky to have him, and to have Grogu as well.”

“You’re happy.” Leia says, fondness written all over her. “What are you doing that you’re leaving Grogu here?”

“Meeting his family.” Luke breaks from his reverie finally, glancing at the clock before gasping with outrage. “Leia! You did that on purpose!”

“I didn’t do anything.” Leia denies, the spitting image of innocence, and Luke scowls. He jogs over, ducking down to bump his forehead against Grogu’s little head. A clawed hand pats his cheek and Luke leans back, catching his gaze and staring pointedly.

“Be good, Grogu. She isn’t just a normal person, she’s like me. Which means she can tell when you try to use the force to sneak snacks.”

Grogu gurgles in disappointment, obviously displeased, but Leia bounces him a little higher in her arms and he giggles. Luke presses a warm kiss to Leia’s cheek before jogging for the door, waving goodbye and slipping outside. He’s much too impatient to wait for a speeder to take him down a few levels, so Luke does what any person would do.

He jumps off the edge of the city, letting himself plummet faster and faster until he jerks to a stop, the force catching around him like a net. A speeder with a family inside screeches just above his head, and he carefully maneuvers his way back to the level needed, hoisting himself up over the edge and dusting his robes off. All around him people stare at him with wide, confused eyes, but Luke is already slipping from their view before anyone can ask him questions. Artoo whistles happily when Luke comes bounding up to the ship, ignoring the ladder in lieu of hopping lightly, kicking off of the wing and vaulting up into the cockpit.

Luke shoves the helmet on, securing it under his chin as the cockpit seals around him and Luke gets comfortable. “Alright Artoo, we’ve got time to make up!”

Luke’s hands are barely on the yolk when the ship roars into movement, and Luke allows Artoo to guide them out of the city and into open space before he takes over. He doesn’t have to pilot, Artoo could easily handle it, but Luke hasn’t let Artoo truly fly him anywhere in years. Instead he lets him chart a path and then takes off, following with careful precision and overexaggerated loops just to make his stomach flip and roll with the g force.

He’s on a crash course for Din, and nothing will be able to stop him.

-*-

There’s a charlie horse in Luke’s leg that he can’t shake out and he wants to rocket himself into space. He’s been in his cockpit for far too long for his liking, having gone straight there and back, and by the time he slams through the air into the open sky of where he now calls home his knee is jittering anxiously. Luke’s landing is a bit hot but Luke swings the back end of his ship in a wide arc before easing to the ground, touching down and powering down as soon as he’s able to. Luke tugs his helmet off, storing it before popping the hatch to the cockpit, shoving the hatch up and open. He drags in a deep breath of balmy air, eyes closed, before he steps up onto the edge of the cockpit, crouches, and leaps off.

The burn in his muscles is fresh and beautiful and Luke craves it more than anything as he flips and lands in the dirt, laughing to himself. Luke dips into lunge after lunge, moving through defensive stances that intentionally stretch his aching thighs and calves out. He’s so caught up in the rush of being able to move after being in the cockpit so long that he doesn’t notice Din standing in the doorway to the Razor Crest, arms crossed over his chest and whole body tense. When Luke does finally notice him he goes stock still, nearly in the splits, eyes wide.

“Din! How uh, how long have you been there?”

“Long enough to see the flip.” Luke grimaces, straightening up and rubbing at the back of his neck.

“It was a long flight back.” Luke supplies in defense, Din only humming. He doesn’t move from his spot and neither does Luke at first. “I know I’m a little late, I got caught up talking to Leia and I didn’t notice-”

“I’m not mad.” Din interrupts, Luke’s shoulders sagging in relief, and he takes a few steps toward the ship, stopping at the bottom of the ramp. Din tilts his head down, watching him, and Luke feels something like apprehension or eagerness crawl up his spine. Din’s hard to get a read on at the best of times when he’s actively protecting himself, and Luke still hasn’t gotten used to having to try. Din finally breaks away from his spot by the door, walking down the ramp with heavy, purposeful steps. They’re nearly close enough for Luke to reach out and touch when Din does so first, holding his hand out in an offer. “Are you ready to go?”

“No time to waste, we’re already going to be fashionably late, huh?” Luke turns to Artoo, nodding his head toward the ship. Din doesn’t seem.. Thrilled, but he’s warmed marginally to Artoo, and doesn’t object when Artoo rockets up the ramp and disappears into the ship.

“No time like the present.” Din agrees, Luke taking the other man’s hand, skin sliding along worn leather. Luke allows Din to lead him up the ramp and into the belly of the ship, eyes adjusting to the lighting as the ramp lifts up behind them.

Luke isn’t quite sure what he expected when he saw the outside of the Razor Crest, but a bounty hunters ship was about it. He can see a carbonite bay tucked near the back, but there aren’t any people encased, and Luke edges away from the contraption with barely concealed anxiety. He’d seen what happened to Han so many years ago and still felt the remnants of his own brush with that fate anytime the weather took a particularly cold turn. Din doesn’t seem to notice Luke’s apprehension about the bay, instead pulling him deeper into the ship itself. He allows Luke to look around the living space; Luke goes straight for the weapons locker, letting it swing open before nosing around. He hems and haws over the selection, and Luke can see Din go still when Luke lifts a particularly powerful rifle, hand smoothing up the barrel as he inspects it.

“You didn’t have this one before.”

“How do you know?”

“Your signature isn’t on it.” Luke replies, grin just slightly unsettling. It’s enough to remind Din that he does have powers, as Din calls them, and he shelves the gun again, giving it a lingering look. He’s going to have to ask Din to let him shoot a couple of them. Din closes the weapons locker while Luke goes to snoop in the sleeping bay, humming when he sees his bag tucked away in one of the cubbies built into the wall. At least Din remembered to grab it. Luke doesn’t pay much attention to the refresher, though it does intrigue him how spacious it seems to be- usually it’s just a vac tube and maybe a sink, but Din’s is nicer, obviously meant more for comfort than straight efficiency. Once Luke has snooped enough, Din climbs the ladder up into the cockpit, Luke following close on his heels. “Can I fly?”

“Maybe on the way home.” Luke practically bounces out of his seat at the reply, and he tries to be patient and out of the way as Din settles himself in the captain’s chair. Luke watches as Din’s hands slip along the dashboard, flipping switches and pressing buttons in seemingly random orders. Luke has to admit he’s never really flown anything quite like the Crest, and not even the Falcon seemed to have quite so many buttons. Din’s movements are easy and precise, and Luke shouldn’t admit it but watching Din work makes the back of his neck flush.

Din handles them all like he has a thousand times, and he flips two more switches before the engines whine to life, powering up and shaking Luke’s bones. They’re so much more powerful than the x-wing’s single engine, and Luke feels like he could be shaken out of his chair as Din takes hold of the yolks in front of him. Din doesn’t give him any warning before the ship lifts, easing into the sky. Luke sinks back into his seat, fingers gripping the edges, and watches, eyes on Din’s hands the entire time that they ascend.

His hands shouldn’t look so lovely around the yolks, really it’s practical and necessary for Din to hold them the way he is, grip firm and tight around them, applying even pressure to guide the ship higher. What isn’t necessary is the way that Din’s thumbs swipe over the tops of them, Luke’s breath hitching in his throat at the sight as he tries miserably not to think about Din’s hands elsewhere. Luke sees Din’s helmet tilt infinitesimally toward him, as if he heard, and Luke has to fight against the urge to cross his legs to hide whatever reaction he may or may not be having. If he does that though Din will definitely know, so Luke leans back in his chair and thinks his purest Jedi thoughts.

Jedi thoughts turn out to be useless when Din works them through the atmosphere: Luke is used to the drag and jittering of ripping through the layers between space and whatever planet he’s leaving, and he expects the bulk of the Crest to be less than elegant. But when the ship begins to shake Din eases the yolks back, tipping the nose and increasing the throttle in one smooth movement. They slip through like water seeping between a crack in the earth, smooth and uninterrupted, and Luke could kiss Din senseless at the pure artistry in his piloting skills. Luke might think himself an ace pilot, especially with his x-wing, but even he would have struggled with such a smooth exit.

“You’re good with the yolks.” Luke blurts it out without thinking, slapping a hand over his mouth when he realizes what he’s done. Din’s laugh is honey thick, simmering with heat, and Luke tries very hard to sink back into the seat and disappear. Din doesn’t say anything until they’ve slipped into hyperspace, and it’s only to turn to Luke with a simple command.

“Go shower.”

“Do I stink?” Luke lifts his robe up, but he can’t smell anything other than smog and the lingering scent of Leia’s perfume.

“No, but I can tell you want to.” Luke pauses, frowning, but he had been lamenting that Din’s ship didn’t seem to have one. “Take your time.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to wait?” Din shakes his head once and Luke rises from his chair, lingering a moment to watch Din fiddle with the autopilot before slipping back down to the living quarters. As much as he wants to wait or ask Din to join him he does feel gross, and he leaves his clothes in a pile on the cot before slipping into the ‘fresher and letting the door close behind him. It takes him an obtuse moment to figure out that the showerhead is tucked back into the wall when not in use, and another moment of cold shock before he gets the water to heat.

The hot water is a delight that Luke has sorely missed, and he allows himself to stand under the spray, pounding against his back with surprising pressure. He’s slow to wash himself up, to hurry the process along, but Luke knows there’s limited water and he doesn’t want to use it all lest Din wants a shower later. Alone in the steam of the shower Luke allows his thoughts to drift: Din’s fingers wrapped tight around the yolks, guiding them up and away, Din’s hand on his waist, holding him close in the moments they steal when they can. It’s almost embarrassing to say that he wants Din this way so often- he’s perfectly content to do nothing more than kissing, and it’s honestly never been something Luke thought about in regards to other people.

But there’s something about Din that lights his skin on fire when he sees something he particularly likes, or thinks about the things he wants to ask for but never will.

Luke turns the shower off, watching the water circle the drain as he uses a small towel to scrub himself dry and wring out his hair. He's still in the 'fresher when he hears Din call for him, and Luke grabs his robe, slipping it on and cinching it at the waist before climbing the ladder. His skin prickles with cold and he probably should have gotten dressed first, but Din never calls for him unless he needs something and Luke is eager to see what he can help with.

"Din?" Luke pokes his head into the cockpit, padding inside on bare feet when Din doesn't answer. Din turns his head once Luke gets close enough, and Luke sees the predatory tilt of Din's head when his eyes sweep over Luke's form. "You needed something?"

"Mm." That… doesn't answer anything really, and Luke raises a brow when Din reaches out, resting his hand on Luke's hip and smoothing his thumb over the line of bone there. Luke tries not to let the touch get to him, but Din's fingers press in gently and he finds himself being tugged forward. He skids a hand against Din's vambrace, trying to brace himself, but Din hauls him forward regardless and Luke finds he very much likes the attention. Din turns the chair so that he's facing Luke, and with another insistent tug Luke finds himself settling into Din's lap, thighs snug around Din's and knees digging into Din's hips.

"Oh." Luke utters, tongue tied as Din's hands move to brace Luke's waist as the chair swivels back to face the front. Luke can tell from the viewport they're very firmly in hyperspace, but the back of Luke's neck tickles with awareness that in other circumstances someone could see him, perched in Din's lap in only a robe. A robe that Din is toying with, tracing the edges up to where it's draped shut, barely covering him. Luke feels like his skin has caught fire, and he shifts in Din's lap just slightly.

Din's thigh plates are gone.

Heat sears down Luke's spine at the heady implication and he tips forward, pressing his forehead to Din's helmet and letting his breath fog the visor. "Din."

"Do you remember what you said," Din begins, voice low and smooth. "The night you found out I could feel you using the force?"

"Which part?" There were a lot of things Luke said, both during and after and in between, but Din's hands slip beneath the robe to trail over his thighs and Luke realizes Din doesn't have gloves on. Din doesn't say anything for a moment, instead smoothing both hands up and down Luke's thighs, pushing the robe away and letting it fall back around Luke's hips. It bares Luke to the cockpit and most embarrassingly to Din, who watches the way that Luke's cock twitches with interest at each touch. "Din." Luke entreats, puffing out a sharp breath when Din's thumbs dig into the junction of hip and thigh, drawing out that wonderful wobbly feeling that makes Luke's stomach clench and thighs jerk underhand.

"The part about having fun, if I'd asked sooner."

"What am I supposed to be asking for?" Luke is breathless now, eyes wide, and Din uses his hold on Luke to tug him forward, slotting their hips together and letting Luke's weight rest fully against him. Luke's brain shorts out at what he feels because there's no way that shape was there before and Luke never mentioned anything and-

"Oh." Luke says again, voice weak and needy, and Din huffs out a laugh that makes Luke's toes curl. "Din I-"

"Our connection goes both ways." Din whispers, hands wandering as Luke shivers in his lap when the tie to his robe is tugged open, allowing the robe to fall loose around him. "You're most open in your sleep, when you dream about things you think you shouldn't have."

"I shouldn't ask for." Luke corrects softly, teeth catching at his lower lip when Din rolls his hips up. The press of whatever Din has hidden away against Luke's own rapidly growing interest is sublime and Luke barely keeps himself from grinding down. Only the careful way Din watches him keeps him from doing anything too desperate just yet.

"You should ask for it, Luke. I want it too." Luke's heart hammers in his chest at the words, and Din never ceases to amaze him in the steadfast acceptance he shows. The attention that the armored man showers on him, whether they're alone or not.

"You want to do it… here?"

"You look good against the stars. You belong here, in my lap." Luke can feel his cheeks flush at the compliment but the only thing he can really focus on is the pitiful moan that he lets out at the phrasing. "We can wait until we land, if that makes you more comfortable."

"Din, I am not leaving your lap."

"I was hoping you'd say that."

Luke laughs softly, but Din's hand wraps around him in a gentle, teasing touch and Luke gasps, hips bucking up into Din's fist. "How long were you planning this?"

"A while." Din admits, thumbing at the underside of the head in a way that makes Luke's brain go fuzzy. Luke isn't sure what to do with his hands so he just rests them against Din's chest plate, closing his eyes as Din's hand squeezes lightly around him to draw out a soft whine. He's fully hard now, soft and warm and pliant in Din's lap, and Luke groans when Din pulls his hand back.

"Wanted to ask you for a while, but I was never- ah- brave enough." Luke can't help the noise that interrupts him when Din grabs his ass, spreading him teasingly as his other hand messes with something behind them Luke can't see. Din hums, goading Luke on, and Luke tries his best to focus. It becomes increasingly hard to do so when a single slick finger rubs absently at his rim, circling the sensitive muscle without dipping in quite yet. Every time Luke goes to speak again Din shifts his fingers, and Luke shudders when Din finally slides a finger in, letting Luke adjust slowly. He finds his voice once the initial teasing is out of the way, eyes shut to help him focus. "I know after some of the stuff we've done it should be easy but ah- mm, you're very good at that-"

Din moves his finger in slow, languid strokes, content to let Luke speak even as a second joins the first. Luke is more than ready for it and he takes it easily, grinding back onto Din's fingers as his head tips back. Din lets Luke fuck himself on his fingers, watching with unabashed interest at the way Luke's thighs flex with each movement. Luke can sense Din's attention more than he can see it, even when he does open his eyes, and he catches a flash of his own eyes in Din's visor, electric blue in the light of hyperspace. "Have you done this while I was away? Touched yourself this way?"

"Yes." Luke isn't afraid to admit it, not now with Din crooking his fingers and bumping against his prostate every other pass. Luke's fingers curl around the edge of Din's armor, holding on for dear life when Din finally gets the angle right and presses up firmly and rubs, Luke's hips shoving back as he keens. "Fuck, Din- it wasn't- good like this."

"No? All that power, and you never once used it on yourself?" Luke shakes his head, whimpering when Din nudges a third finger against him. Luke whispers his agreement, tugging on Din's armor, and he moans when Din's fingers stretch him wide. "You could have. Could have opened yourself up for me, waited patiently till I got home."

"Mhm- Din, please if you keep going I'll-" Heat races through him and even in the cool interior of the Crest Luke feels feverish with want. Din's ministrations don't slow at all, even when Luke's hand drifts to twist in the fabric of Din's cloak at the junction of his neck and shoulder, and Luke is one second away from bursting, whining pathetically and hips grinding back. "Din- Din don't tease, wanna come with you in me-"

"You will." Din promises, and his fingers ease back just enough for Luke to focus on Din's voice. "Can you hang on?"

Luke whimpers, achingly close, but he nods after a second. He can do this much at least, and Din's fingers slowly resume their slow rhythm, though Din pointedly avoids Luke's prostate in favor of spreading his fingers a bit to stretch Luke wider. He groans at the feeling, right hand gripping Din's cloak in a death grip just to have something to hold on to. Din is maddeningly good at this and Luke feels stupid for not having asked sooner, breath catching in his throat when Din finally pulls his fingers out, circling Luke's rim in a final teasing touch before his hand disappears.

Luke hears the soft pop of a cap and his mind goes blank, hands shooting down to fumble at Din's pants. Din hums a low approving noise that cuts short when Luke finally works the toy free. Luke has no clue how long he's been wearing it or how long Din has sat here with it pressing into his hip. The sight of it though stops Luke short, and he can't help the laugh that bubbles from him: it's green. Obnoxiously so, but when Luke glances up, raising a brow Din shrugs defensively.

"It reminded me of you."

"Thank you." Luke's voice is sincere, and he can imagine more so than see Din roll his eyes.

"Don't be a brat."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Mand'alor." Luke laughs again when Din's hand swats at his ass, probably harder than he means, but Luke finds he doesn't mind it terribly, especially when Din's fingers soothes over the red mark it must have left. Luke shuffles himself a bit closer, lifting his hips as Din slicks the length of the toy, watching him.

"Come here." Luke tries not to seem so eager when he moves closer, though he knows he fails miserably when Din hums quietly. Din's hands settle on Luke's hips, holding him steady, and Luke stops, kneeling above Din's lap and waiting. He doesn't know what he's waiting for until Din nods, tilting his head as Luke reaches to steady the base of the toy. The first initial press makes his hips still, overwhelmed, but Din's thumbs sweep over his hip bones as Luke pants, slowly fitting more and more until he's pressed to Din's lap, trembling. "Okay?"

Luke nods his head frantically, gasping when Din's hips shift: the toy carves deliciously into him, and it's been too long since he had this, since he let someone get close enough to do anything like this. Luke should be embarrassed at the way he moans, but Din pulls back before snapping his hips back up and Luke's vision whites out. He hears Din's own shaky noise in response and that spurs Luke into action, lifting his hips of his own accord and letting Din drag him back down.

"Din-" Luke doesn't know what to say, brain fried by the way that Din thrusts up into him, but he tips himself back, letting the cold metal of the dashboard dig into the small of his back. He doesn't have the strength to stay sitting up fully, thighs trembling and jerking each time that Din rolls his hips, but the angle is better, tighter and Luke cries out at the first hard slide against his prostate. He braces an elbow back against the panel, robe pooling at his elbows as the other hand shoots out, grabbing blindly for something to hold on to. He feels a button depress under his fingers and Luke swears, but Din doesn't break his stride, hips thrusting up smoothly as he leans over, flipping another switch to fix whatever Luke's wandering hand had done.

The image of Din piloting while Luke is helpless in his lap makes fire roar through him, and Luke is shamelessly close, chest heaving with his breaths. The edge of the console digs uncomfortably into his back but he arches up and away from it anyway when Din grabs at his hip again and pulls him a bit closer.

"Careful." Din soothes, a hand sliding down Luke's thigh while the other braces against his side. "You don't want to knock us out of hyperspace."

"That'd be- bad." Luke agrees, though he can't find it in himself to care too terribly much when Din is very warm and very talented with the movements of his hips. Luke glances at Din, wanting desperately to see him, but the muddy image in his beskar makes Luke pause: he stares at the way his skin has gone blotchy, chest and neck red and cock curving up against his hip, and when he spares a glance up his eyes widen. He looks- wrecked, for lack of a better word, tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and half lidded, and Luke can't help the way he moans at the thought of Din seeing him this way, fucked out and desperate. Luke suddenly can't take it anymore, doesn't want the barrier, and the force sweeps along Din harder than necessary as Luke pops the lock on his helmet, whimpering. "Off, please, please I wanna-"

"Take it off, Luke." Luke surges forward, pushing off the dash and narrowly avoiding jostling a yolk on the way as he reaches for Din's helmet. It slides up and off without any resistance and Luke doesn't care where it lands as he tosses it toward the direction of the co-pilot's chair. Normally Din would scold him for the mishandling of his beskar but the other man only moans, brown eyes dark and half wild with lust as Luke surges to kiss him.

He cups Din's neck with one hand, the other burying in his hair and tugging as Din fucks up into him, hips stuttering when Luke laps into his mouth, tasting the noises he lets out. Luke can feel his own release boiling just under his skin and he drags the force along the length of Din's back, delighting in the shudder and gasp that earns him. Luke doesn't miss the small brush of an electronic, so quiet compared to the rest of the ship that Luke's curiosity is peaked. Luke reaches out, turning the little device on and pulling back when Din's hips jerk hard up into him, losing their rhythm completely. Luke watches the way that Din's eyelids flutter, and Luke grins, using a bit of help from the force to ratchet the power in the device up a notch. Din whines his name, breathless, and Luke grinds his hips down, panting and edged in sweat.

"Don't wanna come alone."

"Fuck- you could have warned me."

"Didn't know it was there." Luke shrugs, as if it were Din’s fault for not telling him, and Luke gasps when Din finds his rhythm again, hard and fast. Luke doesn’t bother trying to talk anymore because each thrust punches weak, needy moans from his lips and he’s so close his thighs are starting to go numb. Luke knows that he could come just like this, fucked open and mind hazy with bliss, but he bumps his forehead against Din’s, leaning heavily against him as his hips cant up, changing the angle and keening when Din hits his prostate head on.

Luke is dizzyingly, staggeringly close and he doesn’t know how much longer he’s going to be able to hold on. Din’s hands are bruising on his hips, dragging him down with each sharp thrust and Luke is helplessly in love with the way that Din’s eyebrows scrunch, thighs twitching under Luke’s as sweet moans drift from his lips when Luke quiets long enough to hear them. Luke lets his normal, tight control on the force loosen now, letting all that he feels rush around him, filling the cockpit with battering waves of energy. He feels Din quake underneath him at the feeling and Luke dips to kiss Din’s neck, trailing his lips up in a slow arc until his cheek presses to Din’s, Luke moaning softly into Din’s ear and smiling when Din grips his hips harder.

Luke can feel a wave building higher and higher in Din, raging and powerful and Luke wants to drown. He wants so badly that he doesn’t think he could stop the way Din’s own emotions batter him, and their pleasure twines together so closely that Luke doesn’t know how he’s going to untangle them again.

Luke isn’t sure who comes first- him or Din.

All he knows is that Din is entirely too good to him, a hand snaking between them to take him in hand and stroke him in time with the movement of their hips. Luke shakes apart in Din’s lap, pressing his face into Din’s hair and riding out the shocks that skitter along his nerves, lighting him up from within as Din ruts his hips up, whining low in his throat until Luke gets the memo and turns the vibe off with a twitch of his fingers. Din sags in relief underneath him, chest rising and falling with his ragged breaths, and Luke can feel the mess he’s made of Din’s beskar smearing against his stomach. Luke sits heavy in Din’s lap, unwilling to move away quite yet as he regains feeling in his legs while Din’s hand wanders from his hip, petting across the small of his back and tracing the bumps of his spine up and down in a soothing motion.

Luke is groggy, half heartedly tugging at the strings of the force around him to arrange them into something more easily worked when Din turns his head, kissing his jaw and smiling against his skin.

“What?” Luke questions, tilting his head to the side to allow Din to leave warm, open mouthed kisses along his neck just for the sake of touching him.

“Nothing.” Din’s voice is far too light, too casual, and Luke brings his hand up, snapping his fingers as the vibe thrums to life. Din jerks, swearing, and Luke snaps his fingers again, groaning when Din bites his neck in retaliation. “You’re being a brat.”

“You didn’t say how long I had to be good.” Luke says, lips curling in a self satisfied smile when Din snorts against his neck, resuming his ministrations.

It’s a minute before Din stops long enough to talk, and by then Luke is able to lift himself up and off the toy, settling in Din’s lap again. “I’m just- happy.”

“Mm, no need to hide that.” Luke sits back on his haunches, ignoring the way his thighs protest the movement as he looks Din over, smoothing his hair away from his forehead. Luke traces his fingertips across Din’s forehead, over his temple before cupping Din’s cheek and sweeping his thumb over Din’s lips. “I am too.”

Luke watches the way that Din’s eyes sparkle, lips quirking into a small, pleased smile that Luke knows he doesn’t know how to hide. Luke finds himself smiling too, just to see Din’s grow at the sight, and Luke tips forward to place a soft kiss on his lips, the curve of Din’s smile soft underneath his lips. Din’s hand stills against the small of his back, pressing him a bit closer as Din tilts his head, slotting their lips together easier and sighing softly. Luke keeps his eyes open for a moment more just to see the soft, relaxed way that Din’s eyes slip shut, the way his head tilts just so to kiss him easier. Luke closes his eyes, letting his other senses take over as his skin pricks underneath Din’s palm, hypersensitive to each touch. Kissing Din is a luxury that Luke gladly takes as much of as he can, and he only pulls back when his skin begins to stick to Din’s beskar.

“As much as I could sit here forever, I think I could use another shower.” Din hums noncommittally, but Luke swings from his lap in one graceful movement that ends in his knees buckling, hand shooting out wildly to grab the edge of the dashboard as he laughs. “Ah, maybe I’ll just wait here.”

“Something wrong?” Din questions, head tilting as he turns in his chair, watching the way that Luke leans against the console. The bright eyed glare he levels over his shoulder is scathing and Luke scoffs in annoyance when Din’s smug smile only grows.

“No, not at all, just waiting for you.”

“I’ll follow behind.” Luke locks eyes with him, blue against brown, and it’s ultimately Luke who wins, Din unused to prolonged eye contact and Luke too stubborn to look away. Luke shoves away from the console, heading for the door and down the ladder into the sleeping bay before his legs can decide to give out on him again. He makes it down the ladder with only minor struggle, and Din is right behind him, nearly at the bottom when Luke snaps his fingers.

Luke watches Din’s back go rigid as his knees go weak, and he watches in smug satisfaction as Din’s knees hit the floor at the bottom of the ladder, bare hands tight around the rungs bolted into the wall. “Something wrong?” Luke parrots, leaning back against the doorframe for the refresher as Din hauls himself up using the strength of his arms. Din’s eyes are lava hot, black in the fluorescents of the ship, but Luke raises a brow as Din stands there, shaking.

“Turn it off.” Din’s voice is rough in his throat, but Luke catches the pleading, desperate edge to it because he crooks his finger in a come hither motion. Din doesn’t move for a moment and Luke thinks that he’s misjudged, but then Din shoves away from the ladder and storms over to him, beskar digging in uncomfortably as Din presses him bodily back against the wall. “Turn it off, Luke.”

“In a minute.”

“Luke-” Din’s voice finally cracks and Luke makes that same crooking motion with his finger, gripping Din’s bicep to keep him from collapsing as the vibrations grow in intensity. Luke drinks in the way that Din’s eyes go distant, lips parting as a soft moan falls from his mouth as his brow furrows. He hangs his head, hands gripping uselessly at Luke’s robe as his hips jerk. It doesn’t take long, not with the way that Luke keeps ratcheting up the intensity before Din is shaking in Luke’s arms, moaning desperately and only just keeping himself standing as an orgasm washes over him. Luke presses a kiss into his hair as he dims the intensity slowly until finally turning the vibe off, letting Din stand in his arms, shaking against him and forehead pressed to Luke’s collar bone. “You’re awful.” Din says eventually, though there’s no venom in his voice.

“I’ve been told that once or twice.” Luke agrees, hands skimming over Din’s armor to release the clasps and slip the pieces off one by one. By the time he’s got Din in his clothes Din seems more inclined to help, and he wiggles out of his shirt and pants, shucking the underwear with the toy off. “Shower?”

“Sleep.” Din argues, voice groggy. Luke waves for Din to go crawl into bed and Din doesn't argue, collapsing onto the cot without bothering to get into pajamas. Luke takes another quick shower, ass and thighs sticky from the lube, and then spends a bit washing the front of Din's chest plate so that Din won't forget in the morning. Only once he's gotten everything set does he duck into the sleeping bay, crawling over Din and using a sweep of his hand to close the bay off from anyone's sight. He won't sleep, not with them in hyperspace, but Din grabs for him greedily in his sleep, tucking his head under Luke's chin and causing the other man to smile and wrap an arm around him. Din's greatest strength seems to lie in passing out immediately after sex, and Luke wishes sometimes he could follow, but his brain won't shut down.

All he can think about is the way Din's hands had held him so tight, the way it had felt to be fucked in the captain's chair on display for Din and Din only. Luke has never been one to run toward being known, but Din looking at him, brown eyes soft and molten with lust made Luke want to bear himself in the hopes that Din would never look away. Din somehow manages to surprise him in some way each and every day, and Luke looks forward to the unknown more and more each day. Despite his own reservations about sleeping during hyperspace he will meditate, and he allows his mind to empty, thoughts scattering.

-*-

Din wakes up only a short time after Luke has drifted off.

At first he forgets where they are, but the cot in the ship is small and slightly lumpy and Luke is smashed against his side. Din doesn’t care too terribly much that every inch of them is touching in some way, reveling in the easy contact and the way Luke’s arm remains a constant heavy weight over his ribs. Luke’s hair tickles at his nose and he brings a hand up to push it away from his face, freezing when Luke shifts and mumbles something under his breath.

“Luke?” Din doesn’t want to wake him, but he doesn’t feel like he’s sleeping and when Luke shifts, humming quietly Din knows it was the right call. “We’ll drop out of hyperspace soon.”

“How soon?” Luke’s voice is groggy, half asleep, and Din almost chokes on the affection that swells up inside him.

“Have to go up to see. You’re trapping me.”

“Mm.” Luke makes a noise of agreement but doesn’t move his arm, instead hugging Din a bit tighter and sighing happily. Din allows the cuddles for a minute more before shoving at Luke’s hip lightly, recoiling when Luke’s lips part in a pained gasp as Luke rolls onto his back, drawing away. Din sits up so fast that dizziness slams into his skull as he drifts careful hands over Luke’s stomach and sides, Luke protesting. “Din, I’m fine, stop fussing-”

“That,” Din says quietly, voice trembling, “Was not an okay sound.”

Din watches as Luke sits himself up, narrowly avoiding knocking their heads together as he tosses the blanket back to show Din that he’s fine. But- he’s not. Bruises bloom over his hips in splotchy lines and curves, and Din’s hands clench into fists. He should feel shame: he knows it in the back of his mind, that hurting Luke this way, leaving these kinds of marks is unacceptable, but Din reaches forward, sliding his hand over them lightly and lining his fingers up to each purple bruise. His hand settles comfortably on Luke’s hip and Din can feel his cheeks burning.

“I told you I was fine.” Luke insists, though his voice has gone soft and breathy as Din pulls back to sweep his fingers over the marks.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.” Din looks up, frowning, and Luke smiles, sheepish. “Okay, so they’re sore, but I like them.”

Din comes up short at that: he doesn’t really see a reason to be upset if Luke likes them, and Din has to admit they do look rather fetching against the pale ivory of Luke’s skin. Din smoothes a hand over them again, pressing lightly and watching the way that Luke’s hips twitch, a rueful smile spreading across his face.

“Don’t start things you can't finish.”

Din hums, thoughtful, and dips to kiss the Jedi, a thrill going down his spine when Luke presses up against him. Luke’s hand comes up to cup the back of his neck but Din pulls back, kissing the tip of his nose and slipping out of bed. Luke groans loudly, annoyed, but Din only chuckles, moving to find his clothes and pull them on. He’s expecting to have to clean off his beskar but he’s pleasantly surprised when it shines dully in the light, clean of the mess they made a few hours ago. Once he’s armored again he hauls himself up the ladder, ducking into the cockpit and scooping his helmet up off the floor.

The display in front of him glows softly and when Din looks he’s surprised to find that they’re only minutes from dropping out of hyperspace. He slept longer than he expected. “Drop in five.” He calls, listening as Luke bangs around in the sleeping area below. Din isn’t worried about him going flying, Luke can handle himself, but he doesn’t want to cause anymore bruises if he can help it. He takes hold of the yolks when the computer beeps, guiding them through and down out of hyperspace as smoothly as he can, letting his body sag back against the chair as the ship slows around him. The drag of leaving hyperspace always disorients him for a minute, but he’s long trained himself to push through the dizziness to guide himself down toward the planet in question.

Nevarro’s atmosphere blooms hot around the nose of his ship as he plummets through, sweeping down through the clouds and dipping low over the dark sand and familiar rivers of lava that warm the flats. Din expects Luke to join him up in the cockpit, but he’s still fumbling around down below and Din isn’t going to call him up if he’s busy. It gives him time to worry privately about their meeting- Luke isn’t meeting his convert, not since they scattered to the wind: He’s meeting arguably the most important people in his life- all the ones who helped guide him toward the path he’s on now and kept him on it even when he was teetering on the edge, ready to fall off. It takes a minute to find a spot in the port clear enough for him to land, and he lowers them carefully, touching down with little more than a bump before switching off the control panel and snatching the steering chip out of it.

Din drops down the ladder easily, knees dipping to absorb the shock as he peers around. He finally catches sight of the door to the cargo bay open and heads that way, padding down the ramp and glancing around. He spots Luke’s blonde head of hair a few paces away, peering curiously up at the twin suns that light the sky. Din stops short at the bottom of the ramp, heart stuttering in his chest at the sight of him. The cloak around Luke’s shoulders is white- soft and plush looking and far too warm for the climate of Nevarro. When Luke turns, smiling, Din loses his breath at the sight of him, blue eyes bright against the stark snow white contrast of his clothes. They’re simple, pants and a form fitted long sleeve and boots, but the way the cloak hangs across his front like a cowl before draping over one shoulder flatters the slim angle of his shoulders and hips.

“What are you wearing?” Din feels stupid instantly at the question, but the lightest color he’s ever worn is tan, and Din’s eyes flick down to the dark sooty dirt that’s bound to stain the bottom of the cloak.

“Thought I should look nice.” Luke answers, shrugging his shoulders and smiling, just a shy quirk of his lips. His cheeks are pink and the white makes his skin look tanner, warm and flushed and Din can’t seem to formulate an intelligent reply. “Din?”

“Hm?”

Luke’s grin is pleased, affectionate as he beckons Din forward. The ramp rises behind him when Din finally steps off and walks forward, taking Luke’s outstretched hand. Luke’s right hand is clad in a white glove to match and Din worries his old leather is going to ruin it, but Luke doesn’t seem to care, smiling the way he is. “You have to lead. I don’t know where we’re going.”

“Oh. Right.” Din shakes his head to clear it, leading them away from the Crest and through the arch that guards the entrance to the town proper. Din moves through the crowd the way he has a thousand times, dragging a wide-eyed Luke along behind him. Din knows the town is safer than ever, but Luke’s child-like wonder is a neon sign for them to get robbed and Din ushers him along through the streets, ducking into an alley and heading for an unmarked door. He knocks twice and kicks the bottom once, Luke raising a brow and snickering when the door slips open. Din ducks inside, mindful of the low threshold, and Luke follows behind, glancing around the room.

It’s mostly empty with a kitchenette tucked in one corner with a huge table dominating most of the space. There are a couple of couches that are devoid of people, and Din feels himself relax a bit.

“You’re late!” A feminine voice calls, Din turning toward the sound and snorting when Cara comes striding up. She hasn’t changed out of her armor, and Din can see the gold of her badge heavy on her hip. Cara stops at the sight of Luke, whistling and raising a brow. “Dressed to impress, Jedi?”

“Always.” Luke says, grinning. “Marshal now, eh?”

Cara’s hand strays to the badge, tracing over it, and Din can feel the pride radiating from her. “Was about time I went straight.”

Luke’s brows go up at the phrasing and that draws a laugh out of Cara, Din glancing between the two of them. For all Cara’s talk of Luke being New Republic she doesn’t seem very worried, at least not now with the badge on her hip. “It suits you. Bossing people around.”

Cara rolls her eyes and reaches out to swat Luke’s shoulder, the man in question reaching up to brush at his cloak as if she’d gotten dirt on it. A new voice chimes in, quiet and brash, and Din’s hand nearly goes for his pistol on instinct before he recognizes it.

“Stop hogging the Jedi, Cara. Some of us actually want to meet him.” Din inclines his head toward the asian woman, said woman nodding back before holding her hand out. Luke shakes it, barely reacting when Din knows she’s squeezing as hard as she can. She’s holding the wrong hand to intimidate with, because Luke squeezes back, mechanical hand whirring softly in Din’s receiver as the woman’s lips twitch. “Fennec Shand. Din’s told us a lot about you.”

“Terrible, gritty things I hope.” Fennec pauses, blinking for a moment before a small smile colors her face. “Luke Skywalker. Din has been willfully vague about most of you.”

Fennec nods, tilting her head, and her grin is sharklike when she glances at Din. “For good reason. Speaking of good reasons… Cara, care to join me in hunting down enough cups for all of us?”

“You brought Spotchka?”

“It’s a party, isn’t it?” Cara and Fennec link arms as they head to raid the cupboards of the kitchenette and Luke turns to Din, nodding his head toward them. There’s a question in him that Din finds entirely predictable and Din nods.

“Since you saved us on the cruiser.”

“Interesting. They’re a good match.” Luke glances back over at the two women who bow their heads together, whispering and occasionally glancing back at them before snickering and looking away again. “So, I know this can’t be it, or you wouldn’t be so nervous.”

“We’re waiting on two others.”

“And are they the ones I need to impress?”

“You don’t have to impress anyone.” Luke hums, unconvinced, and Din grimaces in his helmet. Okay, so the only person he’s actually worried about is Boba- the man doesn’t know when to shut his mouth and has an ego a parsec long and Luke is so willfully neutral that Din doesn’t know what will happen. “They’re just- rougher.”

“Is it because I’m from Tatooine?” A new voice, laced with a drawl and smooth as molasses chimes in, and Din makes sure not to let himself rock forward when a hand claps across his back. “Good to see you again Mando. Who’s this?”

“Luke. My partner.” Din can feel his cheeks flush at the phrasing, astounded at calling him that, and he looks the silver haired man over, tilting his head. “You knew he was coming.”

“Didn’t know he was from Tatooine.” the taller man grins easily, looking over toward Luke with an appraising look in his eyes.

“You know I’m from Tatooine?” Luke chimes in, voice amused and curious all in one. "Though, I suppose most people do."

"Nah, you walk like you belong on sand."

"Excuse me?" Din watches Luke's brows go up in surprise, and he thinks that Luke might be offended until he laughs, stunned and cheerful and reaches to shake hands. "I haven't heard someone tell me that in years. Your name?"

"Cobb. Cobb Vanth."

"Mm, the Marshal of Nothing." Cobb smirks at that, nodding his head and trying not to seem so pleased. "You fly here on your own?"

"Nah, I leave the piloting to the experts. Hitched a ride on the Slave I."

"Yeesh, quite a name." Din freezes when he hears the soft, near silent steps of another hunter, and he watches as Boba Fett slips his helmet off, faint amusement in his eyes.

"It was my fathers." Luke turns toward the new voice, smile on his face, and Din watches in shock as Luke's face cycles through a plethora of emotions. Curiosity, anticipation, confusion, wild sweeping rage, cool acceptance, all before settling on careful, painted on indifference. A mask Din knows his Jedi training has supplied him with. Din glances at Boba, who's primed and ready for the normal comments he gets about his father or lack thereof, but Luke doesn't go for the low blow. Din stares in open confusion as Luke holds his hand out, shaking Boba's and tilting his head. The movement is predatory and dangerous and Din shouldn't find it attractive, but the brittle, sharp smile Luke plasters on only makes it worse.

"Fett. The scars are new."

"Skywalker." Din watches Boba's grip tighten for a moment before he lets go, lips twitching. "The hand is new."

Boba says it easily, sympathetically, but Din catches the razor edge and he knows Luke does too. Luke only flashes that same sharp smile as before, shrugging his shoulders and dropping his hand. "No one gets through a war without a few scars. Is that sarlacc still kicking?"

"Is your father?" Din's vision goes blurry with the blinding, all encompassing fury that billows from Luke in enough of a wave to make his cloak rustle, and when Din sneaks a look around the room everyone is wide eyed and fearful, even normally rock solid Fennec. The emotion is there and gone faster than Din can blink, and Luke sniffs haughtily, looking Boba up and down once.

"No. Much like the emperor and the death stars, he's been gone for years." Ah. The threat stitched so finely in Luke's casual words lance right through Din and he's suddenly very hot underneath all the armor and slightly ashamed at that fact. Din looks between the two, everyone up on pins and needles, but then Boba laughs, skirting around Luke and moving to stake a claim at the table, helmet placed in front of him like a shield. No one is sure what they should do, but then Luke moves, going and sweeping into the chair directly across from Boba as Din follows suit. He sits to Luke's right, Cobb on his left and the ladies on either side of Boba. It feels like a protection deal, a meeting between two rivals, and Din was not expecting the night to go this way.

"So I'm going to assume y'all know each other. But I don't, so Luke," Cobb turns hazel eyes on him and Din watches the way Luke softens, lips quirking as he nods for Cobb to go on. "What'd you do on Tatooine?"

"Besides pod racing and shooting?" Cobb nods, smirking, and Luke leans back in his chair, fingers steepled in front of him. "My aunt and uncle who raised me were moisture farmers."

"Tough job. They raise you your whole life?"

"Just about. I was nineteen when I left home with my first Jedi Master, Ben. I met Han and Leia shortly after, and then joined the Rebellion."

"And wreaked havoc." Cara pipes in, Luke smiling sheepishly and shrugging his shoulders.

"I'd never left Tatooine before. Could hardly blame me if I was a little reckless in my ah, pursuits." Care snorts, pouring a glass of Spotchka for everyone and sliding the cups toward them. Din catches his, but he isn't going to drink it and they all know it. Instead he rolls the glass between his hands, watching as Luke downs his and then trades their glasses, letting Din fiddle with the now empty glass while he throws back Din's drink. No one blinks at the silent arrangement, though Boba watches, head tipped to one side.

"Was one of your pursuits to plunge the galaxy into chaos?"

"Only partially." Luke replies coolly, carefully letting go of the glass with his right hand to drop his hand onto Din's thigh plate instead. The metal won't shatter like the glass will, and Din doesn't say a word when Luke's hand trembles on his thigh. "What were your pursuits, Boba Fett? Working for Jabba and the Empire?"

"Money talks." Boba's voice is careful, threaded with warning, but Luke smiles charmingly, blue eyes glittering, and Din listens as everyone takes a collective breath and holds it.

"And I'm sure it's speaking to you now. Tell me, does Jabba's throne seem a bit big for you? It seemed rather uncomfortable last time I was there." Din watches in amazement as Boba's expression shutters, eyes narrowed, and he can't help the laugh that bubbles out of him. It's such a startling sound that the rest of the group join in after a moment, and Din shakes his head.

"Like a couple of rabid jawas." Cobb murmurs, hiding his grin behind his glass and holding it out for a refill when Cara swishes the bottle invitingly. Luke does the same but allows Din to hold on to his empty glass, this time sipping slowly at the fluorescent blue liquid.

Fennec sits back in her chair, eyes carefully neutral but a smirk on her face. "No wonder you fell for him, Mando. He doesn't pull punches."

"Mm." Din doesn't say much, but the thought pleases him greatly and he glances over at Luke. He finds the man watching him back, eyes soft and none of his rage present in the pale blue of his eyes. Din looks away before he gets lost and loses his train of thought, and he glances around the room. "Any questions for them, Luke?"

Luke perks up at the chance to ask now, nodding. "Plenty. Fennec, you work for Boba?"

"I do." She agrees, shifting in her chair and eyes carefully guarded. "He saved my life."

"Noble. What did you do before?"

"Odd jobs. Contracts, cleaning. The works." Luke hums, somehow not surprised, and Fennec quirks a thin brow. "What else?"

"How'd you meet Din?" Fennec glances at Din, as if asking his permission, and Din nods. He figured Luke would ask, and he doesn't particularly care so long as they don't say anything too embarrassing.

"He tried to kill me. Well, that's not strictly correct. He was helping a fellow guild member try to bring my bounty in, but the dumbass shot me and went after Mando."

"At your coaxing." Din interrupts, frowning, but Fennec only laughs and shrugs.

"I may or may not have convinced the kid that Mando was worth more of a bounty."

"And you, Cara? What's your story?" Cara perks up beside Boba, nursing her drink and mulling the question over.

"We tried to camp out on the same backwater shithole."

"That's it?" Luke raises a brow and looks at Din. Din shifts in his seat, spinning his cup and shrugging a shoulder.

"We might have taken down a band of raiders and an AT-ST that was troubling a krill fishing village. The raiders had been stealing the krill to distill their own Spotchka, but were doing a pretty poor job." Cara says, grinning. "There was a lady that was sweet on Din, almost got him to settle down too."

"Omera." Luke says, and both Cara and Din look over to find him smiling, head tipped to the side. "Grogu talked about her and her daughter. He said you liked her too."

"That was- a long time ago." Din isn't quite sure why he's explaining himself, but Luke hums low in his throat. Luke's fingers drum over Din's thigh in a comforting rhythm, even as the rest of the group watch them.

"If people falling in love with you bothered me I'd have a lot of anger." Din feels his shoulders slumping, relief flooding him, and Luke winks at him before glancing at Cobb. "Now your story, cowboy, I do know."

"Oh ya do? Well, I guess you don't need me to explain then."

"Well, I wouldn't mind hearing your voice." Cobb laughs, shaking his head, and Din rolls his eyes. Cobb swirls his glass, letting the blue liquid inside nearly splash over his fingers.

"Mando was looking for others of his kind, and I was just about the only fella in armor anyone had heard of. He just about killed me when he saw me in the armor."

"Left it reeking of cologne, too." Boba interrupts, Cobb chuckling and taking a slow sip of his drink.

"Some of us care about our appearance, big boy." Din wrinkles his nose at the nickname but Boba only rolls his eyes. Din watches Luke's eyes flick back and forth between Cobb and Boba, a smile growing on his face.

"You lost your armor, and Cobb wore it? Oh, that's fantastic."

"Temporarily."

"Sorry, not funny. Moving on." Luke definitely isn't sorry, Din can tell by the smile he's struggling to hold back, but Boba only rolls his eyes before motioning for Cobb to continue.

I traded the armor for his help in taking down the krayt dragon that was plaguing Mos Pelgo.” Luke’s brows go up despite already knowing the story, and he turns his body more toward Cobb, listening. “Din here let himself get eaten to get the cattle loaded with bombs into the damn thing. We lost a bunch of good people in the fight.”

“From the acid. Grogu remembered the smell, and Din covered in it.” Luke’s nose wrinkles remembering that particular memory Grogu had pushed onto him. “You met them all through fighting. Why am I not surprised?”

Din shrugs again, as if it’s the only thing he can do. “That’s how I meet people.”

“What about you, Luke?” Luke turns toward Fennec, who looks like she’s about to make a bad decision. Din sits up, frowning, and tries to silence her with a kick to the shin under the table. She isn’t deterred, and instead jerks her head toward Boba. “You two have history. Did you know Boba was Mando’s best friend?”

“No, I didn’t. But who Din is friends with doesn’t affect me.” Din could kiss him at the smooth, graceful answer, and he kicks Fennec again when she opens her mouth to speak. It still doesn’t stop her.

“How did you and Boba meet?”

The room goes silent once the question is out, and even Boba has the good sense to look uncomfortable, shifting in his chair as Luke leans forward with singular focus. He braces his elbows on the table, folding his hands under his chin as he levels a long look at Fennec. Din quakes in his chair at the roiling, raging storm that boils under Luke’s skin, so lacking in color or light or anything that Din knows what it is. Recognizes it from the same ugly, sweet pull of the emotions within his blade.

“Luke-” Din murmurs, trying to draw his attention away. Luke doesn’t seem to hear him.

“He tried to capture me to bring me into the Empire when I went to my mentor’s house. He also captured my brother in law, froze him in carbonite, and nearly killed us when he got him back.” It- doesn't sound like much to half of them sitting at the table, but Din reaches up, touching the soft underside of Luke’s upper arm, trying to draw him from whatever memories have snagged him. “Do you know,” Luke says, voice shaking, “How terrifying it is to fight blind with almost no basic knowledge of how to fight?”

“Not really.” Fennec says softly. Din had blinded her, true, but she was in her prime- untouchable at the time. Luke stares unblinkingly for a moment more before he abruptly stands, turning to Din and dipping down. Din blinks when Luke presses their foreheads together, asking a question, Din nodding when Luke pulls away and slips from the room out into the alley beyond the door. The door seals behind him, beeping as the lock clicks, and Din sits in the middle of his friends, all with varying degrees of confusion and worry on their faces.

“He needs a minute.”

“I’ve never seen a Jedi get upset like that.” Cara muses, fingers worrying at the decorated bottom of her glass.

“He’s a person. Everyone gets upset when people don’t know how to stop pushing.” The glare that Din levels on Fennec doesn’t go unnoticed, and she grimaces, slumping back in her chair. “He likes you all, and he wants you to like him.”

“Oh, does he? Couldn’t tell.” Fennec mumbles, wincing when Din’s third kick lands harder than all the others.

“He isn’t going to let you dig up every ghost in his closet, Shand.” Cobb says, glancing toward Din and then toward the door. “We all have things we would rather forget.”

Fennec softens at that, sighing heavily and standing from her chair. Din knows what she’s going to do before she says anything and he holds a hand up to stop her. “Just wait.”

“I was an ass.”

“You were. Now be nice and open the door.” Fennec looks at him, bewildered, but there’s a faint tap on the door and Din hums. Fennec goes to unlock it, stepping back and out of the way as Luke slips past her again. He looks as unruffled as when they first came in, and Din turns in his chair just to watch the muscles in Luke’s thighs shift under the white of his pants. Din leans his head back, anticipating the way that Luke leans down, cupping the back of his neck and smushing his forehead to Din’s helmet. He stays there for a moment, breathing, and Din’s hand comes up to cup Luke’s cheek, not caring that they have an audience.

“That is weirdly cute. Mando, is that really how you guys kiss?” Din makes a low sound in his throat, something distinctly annoyed, and Cara laughs, Din lingering in the same position for a moment even when Luke pulls away.

“We just had sex in front of you. Surprise.” Din jerks in his chair, head whipping to stare at Luke, but he’s grinning, brow raised as Cara stares, dumbfounded. She doesn’t know if he’s lying or not, but surprisingly it’s Boba that laughs, deep and from his core, covering his eyes with a hand and leaning back in his chair. Luke’s smile doesn’t dim this time, though something in his eyes flickers momentarily, but then Cobb is laughing too, slapping the table in front of him and rocking back in his chair. Din can hear Fennec snickering behind him, still standing, and Cara’s cheeks flush, outrage and embarrassment twisting her face.

“That is not funny.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” Luke folds his hands in front of him, instantly the picture of a solemn Jedi. It only lasts a second before the facade cracks, Luke’s eyes twinkling with mirth as he snorts, choking back a laugh. Din’s heart soars in his chest at all his friends laughing, at Luke standing tall and proud among them, glowing like the brightest star in Din’s universe.

#dinluke #trans din djarin #force sensitive din djarin #major sluttiness #meeting the family

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honeylikewords · 3 years

Text

uneasy lies the head (poe dameron)

In the wake of her passing, the official, if somewhat symbolic, royal title of Alderaan has passed to from Leia Organa to her chosen heir, Poe Dameron. Along with his elected position as the Galactic Senate Represenative for his home planet, Yavin V, Poe is now burdened with the responsibility of a political office he never imagined holding, and is called to attend a summit of the galaxy’s leaders that will be held aboard the Starcruiser Halcyon.

This piece is based on a few things: one, me liking the idea of Prince of Alderaan Poe, two, my interest in Begrudging Politician Poe, and three, the new details that have come out about the real-life Halcyon experience that will be opening up at Disney World in Florida, which you can read more about here! I’ve been really excited about it for a long time, and just thought it’d be fun to tie one of my favorite characters in to this amazing new experience that will be coming soon!

(Content Warnings: mentions of Leia’s de@th, some slightly risque flirting between Poe and his wife, and a little bit of making out, but that’s about it! Word count is 5k.)

Poe stands in front of the mirror, anxiously adjusting the epaulets of his tunic. They don’t seem to sit right on his shoulders, he thinks, passing a hand through their silvery fringe and watching them brush the snow-white fabric of his sleeves. This isn’t his kind of uniform, and when he looks at himself, he sees more a child wearing the spoils of a raid on their parent’s closet than the Senate representative he was meant to be. He tries tightening the high, pale collar of his tunic against his throat, swallowing thickly and watching his Adam’s apple bob beneath the colorless fabric. That didn’t help much dignify the image, he thinks, eyeing himself morosely.

He looks older. His beard is fuller, having let it grow out to appear more… wise, he supposes, and the grey streaks running through it match the ones appearing more and more every day at his temples. His tan fingers tease lightly at the end of his beard, trying to stroke it like he’d seen other, more senior politicians do when lost in thought (or at least trying to come across like they were). It makes him look pretentious.

Sighing loudly, he slumps his taut shoulders and rolls them a few times to loosen the aching muscles. He turns away from the mirror and steps out of the dressing room, entering the stateroom and collapsing onto the edge of the bed, his face in his hands. He hears a door hiss open and looks between his fingers at the emerging figure.

She’s still fidgeting with her hair, which is now lifted from its former looseness into a series of intricate looping braids. Letting out a huff, she takes her hands away, seemingly having resigned herself to leaving the hair as it was. Poe lifts his head a little, resting his chin on his palm as he watches her pat her dress and check the mirror in the dressing room, just as he’d been doing mere moments before.

She looks much, much better than he does. It’s an objective fact. Her air is stately and refined, with her gown framing her regally. The fabric is a delicate, pale blue, trimmed with fine threads of gold that interweave and flow, like braided ivies, trailing up her waist in a way that guides Poe’s wandering eyes to the loveliness of her figure. She seems to belong better to this world, with its mannerisms and socialites, its political politenesses. He never had the patience to be so diplomatic, even though that is his job, now.

He watches her pull a face at herself in the mirror, frowning at some flaw he’s oblivious to, and he stands up, coming to her side and placing his hands on the small of her waist, leaning his head on her shoulder and kissing her cheek amiably.

“You look like a princess,” he purrs, hoping his flattery will encourage her confidence. He hates seeing her unhappy with herself.

“I wish,” she responds, voice tinged with something wan and far away. “I… I really do wish.”

He knows what she’s thinking about: he’d been thinking about it, too. Dropping the air of adulation, Poe reaches for her hand and gently knits their fingers together, pressing their locked hands softly against her belly for reassurance. He meets her eyes in the mirror, and the two share expressions of loss.

“I miss her, too,” he murmurs. “I don’t feel like… like I can do what she did. What she left for me to do.”

He feels his wife squeeze his hand intently, causing him to lift his head up and meet her gaze as she turns to look at him, unfiltered by the mirror. Her eyes, clear and sharp, stare at him as she nods, then kisses his forehead warmly, taking her free hand and brushing it softly across his cheek.

“She chose you for a reason,” she whispers, soft and sincere, just like she always does. “Leia left you her seat and title because you’re the only person fit for the job. She trusted you.”

Her hand dips to his jaw and she lifts his head up from its morose slump. He cannot look away from her, even if he wanted to.

“I trust you, too.”

Poe takes in all the angles of his wife’s face, knowing that no single word of what she said was untrue, but searching for the possibility of a lie anyway in some small giveaway of her expression; after all, how could he be the one fit to carry on in the shadow of his predecessor? How could his shoulders carry the burden of her greatness, much less improve upon it? But there, in her eyes, Poe sees the truth, reflected over and over again: he was chosen for this job, chosen to carry on a legacy he had no option but to strengthen. He is the only one who could, whether he believes it or not.

He straightens his back a little, standing up taller, and squeezes his wife’s hand in silent thanks, taking a moment to press their foreheads together and breathe in the scent of her. She is wearing perfume-- something they’d never had access to during the scarcity of the war-- and he marvels at how something so small changes the entire atmosphere of her presence. She truly embodies the grace and elegance of the woman who came before both of them, looking every inch the part of an Alderaanian royal.

Glancing back at himself in the mirror, Poe huffs; while she may look, indeed, just the way Leia would want the nation to be represented, Poe does not. He looks stuffy in his garb, at times like an old man in the too-tight clothes of his youth, and, at others, like a scrawny teenager in the baggy trappings of someone he was only pretending to be. She seems to sense his dismay, as she takes the initiative to comfort him, this time.

“You look dashing,” she smiles, adjusting his lapels and the ribbons of decoration on his chest. “Prince Poe Dameron, Senate Representative of Alderaan and Yavin IV. You’ll knock ‘em dead.”

At that, Poe lets out a playful, exasperated huff, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll be great,” he grimaces, eyeing his form in the mirror. He raises his voice into a mocking lilt, swaying his head from side to side in an intentionally cartoonish parody of a stuffy bureaucrat. “Oh, Senator Y’Barra, your engagement commission is most dreadful! Shall we discuss its heinousness over tea and crescent crumpets? Garcon, we need more gold-dusted butter for our scones if we are ever to pass this bill!”

She covers her mouth to hide the beginnings of a smile and tries to reprimand Poe, affectionately slapping his chest.

“It’s nice that we’ve been asked to attend the summit, Poe. At least try to make some--”

“Don’t say friends,” he groans. “I don’t want to make friends with these people. They’re politicians; they don’t want to do anything other than profit, and post-war reconstruction is a hell of a time to make money for slime bags like these people.”

That seems to take her back for a moment, and Poe watches her expression shift as she sorts through her thoughts, her lips pursed, eyebrows arched. She then shrugs and nods, acquiescing.

“Probably. But there are probably also people like you: people whose service in the war and dedication to their people, all across this galaxy, led them to this job. People who just want to rebuild. Do better. You’ll find them, dear: you’re an excellent judge of character.”

She taps her fingers against his nose playfully.

“After all, you picked me, didn’t you?”

“If I remember correctly,” Poe teases, lowering his eyes to her lips and smirking, “You were the one to get a crush on me first. All butterflies and nerves anytime I so much as passed you in the halls. More like you picked me, huh?”

Poe catches her face take on the familiar cues of embarrassment and flustering; he can just tell he’s got her all a-twitter, and she pouts her lips, looking down at her shoes shyly as he starts to chuckle. It’s adorable to remember how flighty and skittish she was in those early days, and how enamored of her he himself was, and remains. Getting her all shy like this is a sweet harkening back to that early, giddy tension, and he dips his face down, hovering his lips just above hers, feeling her draw in a breath of neediness and--

“Senator Dameron,” a robotic voice announces through the commlink in the stateroom, freezing Poe in place. “The ferry is beginning docking procedures with the Halcyon. Please proceed to the boarding area. A droid will be sent to collect your luggage as you leave.”

“Ah, shit,” he growls. He’d completely lost track of time.

Dodging back out into the stateroom, Poe glances out the window and sees the looming mass of a gigantic starcruiser, a sharp body of glimmering steel and inky black portholes contrasted against the star field behind it. It is massive-- far larger than any ship Poe had personally piloted in the past-- and spans more than the distance his window could afford a view of. They are extremely close, and within minutes will be aboard the behemoth, where Poe will have to eat, sleep, and breathe senatorial and princely dignity.

He turns away from the window to see his wife making sure everything was packed and prepared for departure, checking the bathroom and dressing room before giving him a confirming nod: everything is where it needs to be. They are ready to go.

They walk towards each other and Poe places his hands on his wife’s arms, stroking up and down the bareness of her shoulders to steady himself. As he feels the warmth of her skin beneath his rough palms, Poe blinks with awareness and gives her a quick squeeze, darting off to the dressing room. He opens a trunk and lifts up the topmost layer of fabric, running back into the stateroom with it carefully laid across both his forearms, then turns his wife to face him and gently lays the upper corners of the fabric on each of her shoulders.

“The cloak,” he mumbles as he fastens the pale silver silk around her neck, “Don’t wanna forget that. A princess is set apart by garments like that.”

“Right,” she hums, admiring his hands as he fusses with her collar. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that since you’re the prince, now, and I married you, I’m the--”

“Princess, yep,” grins Poe. “Princess Dameron.”

“By marriage only,” she teases.

“And I’m only the prince because she left an essentially honorary title to me,” Poe wits back. “But it suits you, at least.”

“You think?”

“Mm. Now, I think the prince owes his princess one of the tenets of royal responsibility: unadulterated affection towards one’s spouse.”

“Is that a tenet of your responsibilities?,” she smiles, brow cocked.

“I just made it up, but I like to think so.”

Once again, Poe presses his palms against the soft curves of her upper arms, squeezing in the grounding manner he knows she likes, tracing his thumbs along the creamily-smooth fabric now covering her, and he leans in close, admiring how the light shifts against her skin as his shadow draws nearer. He parts his lips, ready to feel the gentle swell of her soft ones against his, when, as if by divine interruption, the hydraulic hiss of the stateroom’s door fills the room and a silver-plated protocol droid peers at him through the now-open door. He grits his teeth to resist letting out a completely undignified expletive aimed at the droid and stares at it pointedly, trying to silently communicate that it had interrupted a private moment.

“It is time to board the Halcyon, Senator,” it chimes in the lilting manner all protocol droids seem to have, seemingly blissfully unaware of his frustration. “Please, come with me to the boarding area.”

Behind the protocol droid, a cargo lifter droid rolls by, seemingly waiting until Poe and his wife leave the cabin to enter. Poe sighs, but can’t resist letting a small chuckle out: both droids, despite their different purposes, both seem polite, in their own sorts of ways, and he always finds that endearing.

Looking to his wife, Poe gives a little bemused half-smile and shrugs his shoulders, as if apologetic but resigned. She takes his hand and turns, nodding to both droids with an impassive but gracious expression, one that Poe notes is more than befitting of an official such as herself. Distanced, but not dour, regal, but not recalcitrant. He loves it.

“Thank you,” she says, coolly polite. “Please, lead the way.”

The protocol droid begins its stiff-jointed hobble towards the boarding area and Poe and his wife trail behind, arms linked at the elbow as Poe fidgets with her fingers. He twiddles her marriage band as they walk, always comforted by the feel of it on her hand. He admires it as they silently proceed; it’s somewhat rough-hewn, made from hammered durasteel, a little uneven and dented in some places from the haste in which it was made, and Poe loves it.

He loves how it contrasts the delicate, fragile jewelry common amongst royals, how it’s not meant to glitter and shine and grab attention, how it ties her to him and he to her, with no regard for image or pomp. It is heavy and solid and made purely for the sake of love and belonging, and she wears it everywhere she goes with pride, as if it was the finest-cut Oshiran sapphire, or the most carefully sculpted gold. It is one of the crown jewels of Alderaan, now, and the thought of it-- of his parent’s simple, quickly-made wedding ring, forged in a time of war, without promise of any moment past the one they were in, now being a royal regalia-- makes his heart ache to bursting with unadulterated love.

Poe tugs her hand up and kisses her knuckles as they finally round the corner into the boarding area; somewhere in the back of his mind, he registers the droid saying something about how their luggage will be sent directly to their stateroom aboard the Halcyon, but he’s hardly listening. He’s looking at his wife, his rock, his tether, as they begin their socialite dance, seeking steadfast comfort in her as he prepares to have to play his part in a world he was never born to be in.

The droid gestures to a corridor formed between the two ships: passengers traipse from the shuttle onto the boarding area of the Halcyon, representatives from a myriad of species in a breadth of costumes and liveries. Poe and his wife exchange glances, knowing that these people will have some hand in forming what comes next in the political landscape of the galaxy, and that they, too, will be instrumental in forging the new governments of the rising Republic.

“Come on,” she smiles, trying to coax him along, tugging his hand and taking a step forward, “It’s gonna be fine. It’s not like my flyboy to get cold feet, hm?”

Poe chuckles and shakes his head, trying to dislodge his clouding worries, and walks in time with his wife, joining the throngs of senators and royals and presidents and diplomats making their way aboard the Halcyon. Some of them exchange pleasantries, others are locked in conversations: some even look at Poe and his wife and nod in acknowledgement, or turn to their compatriots and whisper.

Poe feels an embarrassed heat creep up the base of his neck; he knows rumors have circulated about his particularly unusual position as a representative for a dead planet and a living one, and about how he’d been named the next in line for a royal title he was not born into. He tries not to let it get to him-- let people think that they think, and do your job, Leia had always told him-- but the feeling of alienation and disbelonging hangs over him, shaming him into silence. He tenses, and keeps his eyes fixed forward, which grants him an ever-nearing view of the grand foyer of the massive starcruiser.

The Halcyon is unlike any other ship Poe has ever been on. He’d heard about starcruisers like this, meant to be enormous cruise ships travelling in luxury and style from one planet to another, filled with sprawling cabins and indulgent amenities, and had never even pictured himself aboard one. The thought hardly appealed to him: days, weeks, even, of doing nothing? Just wandering aimlessly around, decadent and opulent in one’s revelry? The mere idea disgusts him. Still, as he steps into the expansive entry for the Halcyon, he finds himself feeling something other than disgust: he feels strangely at home.

The area is bustling as ship workers and bellhops collect luggage and transfer it to droids, as greeters guide guests to check in areas and hand them keycards, as officers check passports and documentation against databases, all lit under the glow of thousands of lights, which reflect off polished durasteel and marble surfaces. Holo projections provide information about travel destinations and the cruise itself in hundreds of different tongues, while a massive projection of the captain glows a familiar blue and greets the boarding politicians.

Poe turns in awe, gazing at the dozens of porthole windows affording views of distant and nearby star clusters, at the navigational crew high above, checking maps and charting courses, and takes a deep, steadying breath in through his nose, squeezing his wife’s hand tight. The hum and thrall of the ship, with its thousands of moving parts and requisite workers, feels exactly like all the ships he’d served on during the Rebellion. He half-believes that if he closes his eyes and turns around, he’ll open them and see Leia there, giving orders and directing the workflow.

The memory sits on his heart, but instead of a heavy, lingering pain, it kindles a warm, growing fire: she lives on in him. She would be proud to see him carrying on the mantle, working to do what no one else has the skill, speech, or stones to do. She is never really gone. Never can be.

Instilled with strength and purpose, Poe looks to his wife, who is staring at the gargantuan hub of activity before her, almost taken aback by how bustling it is. He leans down and gently pecks her cheek, tugging her along and breaking her out of her trance. They’ve got places to be, things to do, royal engagements to avoid, after all. As they begin to move closer to what Poe believes is the reception desk, a Twi’lek in a sleek, almost military-looking white uniform steps in front of Poe and his wife, grinning from green ear to ear.

“Senator Dameron, Princess Dameron,” she greets, bowing at the waist respectfully, “I am Lyna’ame, and I’ll be directing you regarding your stay on the Halcyon. Thank you for honoring us with your patronage.”

“Uh, thank you for having us,” Poe stammers, unsure of how to conduct himself in such a position.

Lyna’ame looks up at him with a quizzical eye, but seems too well-trained to respond with anything more than a polite smile and a nod. She produces from the pocket of her grey-trimmed suit a pair of infochips, extending them towards Poe and his wife.

“You will be staying in the royal suite on Deck B, unit number eighteen,” Lyna’ame smiles. “These chips will act as your keys to the room and to any amenities you should wish to access, and will remind you of upcoming engagements or conferences you should be in attendance of.”

As if on cue, the small screens on the infochips light up and read “19:00: Senatorial Dinner In Ballroom One!” Poe blinks at it, then flashes Twi’lek a cordial but slightly cold smile, taking the chips from her hand and tucking them unceremoniously into his breast pocket.

“Alright, thanks. I think we can get it from here.”

She seems not to register his attempt to tie off the loop of the conversation, continuing anyway.

“You will also have access to all the facilities of the ship, including the swimming areas, dining areas, lounges, bars, activity centres, spas and--”

“I’ll check the brochure in the room,” Poe smiles, searching for an exit. “I appreciate it, but, uh, my wife is very tired--” --Poe nudges her with an elbow and she balks, then understands his intention and mimes a yawn, nodding sympathetically-- “--And I’d love to get her some rest before any hobnobbing, y’know?”

“Of course, your highness,” Lyna’ame says, again accompanied by a civil bow. “The elevators are to the left. Press your infochip to the pad and it will take you to your floor. Your luggage should already be in your room, and please,” she smiles. “Enjoy your cruise.”

Poe bows back, then leads his wife by the elbow to the elevators, where they tap their key card and the doors hiss open. As they board, just the two of them, Poe’s wife turns to face him and raises one eyebrow, haughty.

“Really threw me under the bus there, Poe,” she smirks. “‘Oh, my wife wants to leave this conversation because my wife is awkward and doesn’t know how to handle subordinate behavior from service workers’. Real nice.”

Rolling his eyes, Poe can’t help but smile, and instead of replying, drops his hand to the small of his wife’s back, grazing his fingers there for a moment before dipping slightly lower and--

She jumps, then giggles, hitting him with a shocked but not at all displeased expression.

“Did you just pinch my ass?”

“Maybe,” he smiles. “Why?”

“You just seemed so…” She touches his arm, searching for the right word, chewing her lip thoughtfully. “Severe, before. Lost.”

“Feeling better. Feeling… like I can do this, maybe. Or at least do what I need to do, even if it doesn’t look exactly like how everybody else might expect me to.”

At that she purses her lips and nods, and he can tell she’s happy for him: he’s not entirely out of the woods about this whole ‘galactic representative’ thing, and certainly not used to all the expectations that come with being the heavy head that wears the crown, but he’s going to be alright. At least, he feels like he is, at this moment, and that’s all that matters.

Poe finds himself allowing his smile to grow wider as he dips down and nuzzles her temple, teasing his lips over her ear, tempting and toying.

“I still hate the suit,” he whispers, sending her shivering, “And I don’t want to talk to these people like we’re all buddy-buddy--”

“--Acknowledged, Senator,” she teases, rubbing his arm in the way that lets him know she’s itching to get more handsy.

“But we’re gonna have a private room,” he continues, “And a lock on the door, and at least--” --He checks the infocard, which reads “17:05”-- “--About two hours before anybody’s gonna need us, so I say we shimmy out of these nice duds…”

Poe’s finger trails down the silky rivulets of her collarbones; he has to admit, he does find her massively attractive in this royal robing, but he figures it’ll be less hassle for both of them to assure he doesn’t get too rowdy while they’re wearing some of the best (and irreplaceably expensive) fineries in the galaxy, so he’ll have to bid her pretty little dress and luxurious cape adieu for their stateroom rendezvous. Not that he minds: the dress might be pretty, but the woman underneath is ten times more so. Besides, she can always put it back on again for the dinner, anyway.

“We go see what kind of minibar we’re looking at,” Poe teases, watching her roll her eyes, “Hop in the bath, and see where those two hours take us.”

“Mm, we’ll see,” she demures, patting his chest. He knows she likes to dance around it, never say anything too scandalous where someone else can hear, and he loves that; she extends the tension, making him wait for what he wants. He may not ever have been a patient man before, but she forces him to slow down, savor it, work for it. And that’s delicious.

The elevator doors slide open as Poe leads his wife out into the hall, kissing her jaw as he checks the suite numbers. They shuffle along, exchanging little pecks and touches in the graciously empty hallway (what would the other representatives think, she reminds him in a hushed tone as they pass rooms, if they saw the new prince of Alderaan and Senator for Yavin V hanging off his wife like a pubescent teen?) before arriving at suite eighteen. Poe fumbles in his breast pocket, keeping his lips planted on his wife’s neck, then slaps the infochip haphazardly against the door. It clicks open, and Poe doesn’t even bother to look inside: he just coaxes his wife in, and tumbles in after her.

The lights in the room slowly turn on automatically, rising from a low dim to a sunny brightness, illuminating white-panelled walls and a lush, wide bed, all the furniture sharply clean and sleekly modern, trimmed in shades of black and silver. A massive window shows the endless expanse of space beyond the double-layered transparisteel, and while Poe would normally be more inquisitive and peek around the room to admire it, he’s more than occupied as he pushes his face deeper in the warm, scented crook of his wife’s neck.

“Careful,” she warns as his hand starts to pet at the base of her head, eking dangerously close to the beginnings of her hair roots, “These braids took me hours. I don’t want to have to re-do them, Dameron”

“I get that,” he breathes heavily, “But you look really hot with messy hair and--”

“If we’re going to go to that dinner, I’m not going to go with my hair flying everywhere! I’ll look like a… well, you know!”

“Like a woman well-loved by her husband,” Poe teases, nipping at her jaw. “But, fine, we’ll skip the dinner, and I’ll just keep you all to myself. Nobody else has to see. In fact, I’d prefer they didn’t.”

His eyes glimmer with wolfish promise as he sets his wife down on the edge of the white-blanketed bed, staring at her as her skirts form pools of silver and blue. He’s serious: the summit dinner all but disappears from his mind as he looks at her; how beautiful she is. How elegant. So poised and pretty and his, all his, to love until all the suns swallow themselves and burn out. All these representatives won’t miss him at one measly, lousy dinner, right? Not when he has the love of his life to attend to, surely.

“What’s gotten into you?,” she giggles, kicking off one of her sophisticated shoes as she sits on the bed. “You’re acting like we’re on our honeymoon!”

Poe leans in and places his hands on either side of her hips, bumping his forehead to hers as he takes long, weighty breaths, feeling the heat radiate off of her.

“I just… This is a lot, right?”

“Mm,” she acquiesces.

“And you’re kind of… what I go back to when I’m in too deep. So, right now, all this summit stuff and the Senate and the council? I need that to take a backseat to me being with you. The person I love. And letting that be what guides me in what I need to do for… everybody else.”

She lets out a soft, appreciative “aw”, her eyes softening as she cups his cheek, and Poe leans into her hand, allowing a little lasciviousness to leak into his smile as he stares down at her.

“Plus, it’s kinda… you know, a little sexy, being somewhere so new and ritzy. I’m not used to this kind of stuff. That, and we barely got a honeymoon, if you remember--”

“Yeah,” she recalls, sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose, clearly vexed by the memory, “I remember. The day after we got married, that First Order outpost tried to open fire and you were up and out of bed and back in deployment after less than twenty four hours of being a married man.”

“Duty never sleeps,” he shrugs. “But… We can make up for lost time here, on this big, shiny, fancy-ass ship, huh?”

Poe wiggles his eyebrows with playfully rapacious intent, sending his wife into a fit of good-natured laughs. He adores when she laughs; it sends his heart racing, every inch of him alight with the joy of knowing that her smiles are because of him, the sound of her voice bouncing up and down with glee all caused by some silly little thing he’s said or done. Unable to contain himself, Poe leans down and kisses her, cutting off the sounds of her laughter, a deep, satisfied groan emanating from his chest.

“God,” he rumbles as they part for a quick breath, “I haven’t gotten to do that all damn day.”

“It did feel really good,” she sighs, clasping her arms around his neck. She seems to take pause, etching his face into her memory with her eyes, then comes to a decision: Poe would recognize that resolute gleam in her expression anywhere. “Alright, we’re staying.”

“...You mean it?,” he chirps.

“Yep. You tell them your poor, defenseless wife is laid up ill and needs your constant and most doting attention,” she smiles, kissing the tip of his nose. “Then when you’re done calling the front desk, you come over here and you help me get out of this dress and into that bath you promised.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he chuckles, then catches himself. “I mean, yes, Princess.”

“Mm,” she beams, teasing him with a pinch on the thigh. “Much better.”

They share another deep, drawn-out kiss before Poe manages to wrest himself away from her and off to the side of the room with the comm built into the wall, but glances over at her as he taps at the screen to connect with the front desk. She grins coyly from the bed, kicking one leg out in a pseudo-sultry, semi-silly way from beneath her sumptuous gown. Poe can’t help but feel a swell of endearment.

As the call connects, Poe sighs dreamily to himself; if all else failed, at least he had her, and with her by his side, he was definitely going to enjoy a very, very pleasurable cruise.

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #long post #original #OH MY GOD CAN YOU BELIEVEEEEE i actually sat down and wrote this? dkhfhdkf #im a little rusty but! felt good to finish a project! i hope you guys enjoy!!#star wars

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