#I have thoughts about the skywalker twins and their adoptive families

[riyo-soka]

The Organas and the Lars family are all well aware that the children they’re raising each have a sibling somewhere in the far reaches of the galaxy. They can never say anything, since Luke and Leia would be in grave danger if the truth of their heritage were to get out, but sometimes the twins’ adoptive families can’t help but think about the other child that they will never know.

Breha notices her daughter’s title causes her to struggle with finding companions her own age and wonders if that loneliness might have been lessened had the twins never been separated. Sometimes, she imagines taking Leia’s brother by the hand and introducing him to the people of Alderaan as a beloved member of the Organa family just like his sister.

Beru starts stitching a family tree -a tradition among slaves and former slaves on Tatooine, meant to bring together families that were separated by slavery- but struggles to finish it when she realizes it’s too dangerous to include her niece. After the war, Luke and Leia create their own, and Leia displays her connection to the Lars family line like a badge of honour.

Bail is always concerned about Luke’s wellbeing somewhere in the back of his mind. The Lars family are supposed to be good, hardworking people, but even under Obi-Wan’s protection, Tatooine is a hostile place to live: especially compared to a temperate core world planet like Alderaan. Since he is unable to directly intervene so far out in Hutt Space, his contacts within the rebellion are occasionally tasked with checking in on the state of things in and around Tatooine’s settlements. On the occasions where Owen and Beru found themselves struggling to put food on the table, an off-world traveller would soon arrive offering to pay handsomely for something like mechanical help or a ride to Anchorhead.

Owen tries not to dwell on what-if scenarios and focus on keeping his nephew safe, but raising a force sensitive child -much less a force sensitive child of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala- is stressful on the best of days. When people in town murmur under their breath about how odd the Lars boy is, he worries. Both that the empire will take the whispering about Luke being odd seriously, and that the little girl Obi-Wan told them about when he arrived with baby Luke hidden under his cloak might be put in danger by those same whispers.

[the-obiwan-for-me]

SSTW Ask:

I’m not sure if you’ve ever thought about this, but if you have it would mean the world to me if you told me about whatever you have thought about, even if it’s just tiny snippets.

Basically, I’m curious about the younger Kryzes and if they ever choose to get married (if they weren’t already in a relationship) and have kids. By “younger Kyrzes” I mean Korkie, Ahsoka, Lily, Avi, Eli, and Edi, as well as the Skywalker children, and of course special mention goes to Sabine and Tristan.

If they ever have kids, how many do each of them have? What are their genders? What about their names? Do any of them marry a different species and have hybrid children? What about adoption?

If you’ve thought this far ahead, what are the kids like, that is, their personality?

BTW it’s totally okay if you’ve never thought about this and have no answers, but if you do I’d absolutely LOVE to hear your thoughts.

Thanks in advance! You’re the greatest.

Oh wow! These are great questions. I know some of this, but not all of it, and I am happy to share because I don't know/highly doubt I will ever write this far into the family's future (save one story, which I will point out when I get to it).

Korkie and Aled get married at the end of MTB (last chapter....it's glossed over, but that's why the whole family is there). They will eventually adopt a child, probably a little girl (why I get Cam and Mitch vibes from Modern Family, I will never know).

Ahsoka has always ready pretty ace to me in canon (her weird jealousy over Lux and Steela Gerrera in the Onderon arc of TCW felt very forced and I have beef with EKJ about....well, TONS of things, but she doesn't even read her own writing well...the interactions between Ahsoka- wait. You know what. This isn't the place to rant about EKJ). ANYWAY, my Ahsoka is ace and aromantic and goes on to live a very happy life helping the galaxy through the RHI and other means.

Lily has yet to tell me what she wants in this department. I have a little storyline in my head about her meeting someone, but it hasn't really formed into anything meaningful yet.

Avi definitely gets married. To a boy from Alderaan that she meets at uni on Coruscant. He has no idea she's royalty for a good while, and is far more excited that she's cousins with the famous singer, Eli Kryze.

Edi and Eli I don't know yet.

The twins, well, I have a whole scenario that gets Han, Luke, and Leia meeting up, so Leia and Han will marry (this is the story I want to write, because the idea of Han marrying into this clan is hysterical to me). Luke will somehow meet Mara Jade as he goes about the galaxy being some sort of lay-Jedi.

Past this generation, I have no real clue! Avi will have children, for sure, and Leia and Han will have some variation of the twins and Anakin Solo from Legends/EU.

But, just know, that in THIS galaxy, they Kryzes are a large and growing and happy clan, unlike in canon *sob*

[numbuh-7-knd]

I had a dream the other day about Luke and Leia realizing that they are functionally identical save for their hair and (possibly) eye color and just fucking with people by swapping places constantly. The time period was really fuzzy and may-or-may-not have taken place before the original trilogy in some kind of au where the both of them are rebels as teenagers and none of their rebel friends know that Luke and Leia are related, never mind twins. It was basically the two of them giggling while dressing up in each other's clothes to mess with the other rebels. At one point Leia put on a short blonde wig and Luke's clothes and the both of them showed up to a meeting to see if anyone noticed... eventually someone did and basically asked Luke "who's that?" and Luke answered "my twin" so now the rebels think Luke has a twin brother and may even think said twin has been on base for awhile... were there 2 Luke's all along?

All whist the setting was incredibly... blurry? at one point I think Leia may have implied that Naboo was destroyed instead of Alderaan. but the organa's were still dead or not in the picture. Luke and Leia were at least heavily implied to still be teenagers, and at one point made a refence to being raised by Obi-Wan? At one point there was actually a cut to Luke and Leia with obi-wan and an apparently reformed Anakin? like, he was just kind of there, not Darth Vader, and chilling while obi-wan raises his children??? to be fair though, Luke and Leia also referenced remembering the clone wars, so either Ani had an oopsie baby² as a teen, or something sent Luke and Leia to the past during/before the clone wars and Obi-Wan got saddled with raising 3 Skywalkers instead of 1.

This also all inspired some thoughts about a Star Wars Parent Trap AU where both the Organa's and the Lars's choose the same space summer camp to send the twins to. Somehow they realize that they're twins and pull the usual twin swap, only with an added layer that one of them has espionage training and they aren't just doing this to learn about the other half of their family, they're investigating their adoptive parents/families, and at this point questioning everything including "Anakin Skywalker" being Luke's dad, since it seems weird that Luke's Aunt and Uncle would claim that his dad was a pilot on a spice freighter, and yet Anakin Skywalker was the name of a well known War Hero general and Jedi, who presumably died in order 66 along with the other Jedi. So was the twin's father the war hero, a spice freighter pilot with the same name, or someone else entirely?

Then I started giggling and thought of something that would make this whole situation even more chaotic: Ezra Bridger. On top of both twins being sent to the same space summer camp, the lothal rebels send Ezra undercover at the camp. He runs into Luke and Leia and they come to the (Wrong???) conclusion that they are actually triplets, based on Ezra's age, sharing a birthday with the twins, and Ezra's offhanded remark about being adopted (referring to Kanan and Hera, but the twins don't know that)

There's also potential for all 3 to realize that they are force sensitive, and correctly assume there is some significance to that, but still manage to get things very wrong, such as coming to the conclusion that they are actually older than they think they are and were actually already alive and in the crèche at the jedi temple before order 66 as babies and were smuggled out and eventually split up.

This actually gave me more sad idea: what if they were slightly right about being alive pre-order 66 and in the crèche, but not as babies? 3 of the younglings killed by Anakin and the clones were then reborn hours later, 2 as Anakin's own children, the other as Ezra, assuming Ezra's not a Skywalker triplet lol.

sorry for the rambling lol, I wanted to share both the gist of the dream I had and the ideas it inspired. Feel free to add on to any of these ideas.

[marvelstars]

The Force & The Skywalker Family

I think the force on Star Wars is like the kind of parent who´s extremely strict with his kid but likes to spoil it´s grandchildren. At the same time it´s a general who has declared war on the Sith Order since Darth Plagueis dared try to control it and it isn´t taking prisoners.

The Jedi Order stopped listening to it?

Here´s Qui-Gon to give them hell about the living force but also give them an out with the Ghost Force hability.

Time to bring it´s family to the fray.

Anakin is born a slave?

The Force: It builds character and Shmi is a wonderful mother.

Anakin becomes a Jedi but stays isolated at the temple and gets groomed by Palpatine

The Force: He needs to learn to not trust everybody he meets, also he needs to know his enemy and the Jedi Order/Republic will need him for the war the Sith planned so stay strong Son.

Shmi gets kidnapped and killed, Anakin loses his mind and destroys the tusken who kidnapped and tortured his Mom:

The Force: He needs to learn to interpret his visions and his temper, I will welcome Shmi into the force.

Anakin gets married?

The Force: Son, I want Grandchildren.

Anakin: I know but Padme and I barely see each other, we can´t afford to get pregnant right now, you will have to wait until this war is done.

The Force: Don´t worry Son, already took care of that.

Anakin: Ok..., wait a moment, what do you mean you already took care of it?

Force: Go to sleep Son, you don´t sleep enough.

Anakin: Sigh, ok.

Anakin falls to the darkside and helps destroy the Jedi Order?

He gets a fate worse than death, his existence is pure pain and anger, gets isolated from everybody except his abusive sith master and the force but the force stays with him as his sole comfort and companion for 20 years, leading Vader to defend the force´s will, even agaisnt Palpatine, won´t shup up about it even with imperial admirals who know nothing about it, which also leads to Vader finally giving actual serious thought to the chosen one prophecy, the reason he was born.

The Force makes sure Vader literally can´t die until he gets to the prophecy part, he stays close to the Sith Master and finally fullfils his prophecy saving Luke and the galaxy.

Anakin gets to finally rest in peace within the force as good kids do after doing their chores.

The force to Anakin: Come here Son, time to rest and have some Ghost Force adventures.

The Force with Luke and Leia:

They are given to loving families, have a normal and loving childhood for the most part.

As young adults, join the rebellion, they can practically enter any kind of danger and nothing touches them.

Luke destroys the death Star on his first day as a rebel. Leia gets away as a spy inside the Empire since she was 16 year old, both manage to give great blows to the Empire almost without trying, only Vader seems to be able to give them some pause but they are family, so Vader goes easy on them consciously or unconciously.

Leia leads in the battle to destroy the second death star and reforms the New Republic while Luke brings back their father to the light side by weaponizing his love and rebuilds the Jedi Order.

Later the twins develop their force power beyond anything seen before, except maybe Anakin in some special circunstances.

The Force with Ahsoka:

As adopted grandkid, she gets to have the literal spirit of the light side of the force inside of her and as a guardian, she gets ressurected once by Anakin, becomes the main fulcrum spy for the rebellion, gets saved by time travel from being killed by Vader and stays strong even after the Emperor and Vader die and gets to end the imperial remnant.

The force: Look at my grandkids, aren´t they cute? Slay away kids.

[starcrashx]

II.

They are happy your honour.

You could say that Galen was terrible at social interactions. And you would be totally right. After he agreed to be adopted by Anakin Skywalker two days had passed. In those two days he was planning ahead on what he will say to his family. He composed a nice and polite greeting and even planned small talk with the twins and Obi-wan if the latter was present. The boy of course didn't forget his night outs however today his thoughts were occupied by his new family rather than her. He turned his head to the side and searched for the big dipper. He was also kind of afraid that he would forget her.

×⭐×

"Ready kid?" asked Anakin, who was standing before a gray car.

Galen stood before him with just one bag that contained his school supplies and some clothes. The boy's eyes were fixated on the backseat of the car rather than Anakin. The man followed his gaze and smiled.

"C'mon Luke greet him!" said his father and opened the car door.

The blond boy practically jumped out of the car he was smiling widely and his gaze held a curious shine in them.

"Hi! My name is Luke Skywalker. My father told me about you, Galen was it?" beamed Luke.

"Nice to meet you too. I'm Galen Marek." said Galen politely.

"Alright let's go. We don't want to be late after all." said Anakin and Luke jumped back into the car however this time he sat on the other seat, leaving the one he previously sat to Galen.

The boy hesitate a bit. He turned around to look at the orphanage. Some of his caretakers were waving to him and smiled at him. Than he looked back at the car where Anakin already took the driver seat and Luke patted the space beside him gently. Galen took a deep breath and mentally said goodbye to his old life. He sat down beside Luke and closed the car door. He put his luggage down to the car's floor, between his legs. Then Anakin started the car and as the car left the orphanage so did his chance to think twice about his decision.

"You are really skinny." said Luke after observing the newcomer.

Galen looked questioningly at him, not knowing what is the right answer to that question. Fortunately Anakin came to his rescue.

"That was a bit rude, son."

Luke held up his hand in defence.

"Sorry but it's true. But don't worry uncle Obi-wan makes great dishes. Oh and aunt Ashoka's meat ball with tomato sauce is awesome you have to try it." rambled the blond boy.

So there were more people in this family. No worries Galen prepared for this too.

"Hey how about my roasted chicken?"

"Not to be that guy dad but even Leia's weird broccoli shake is better than that."

"Oof that was a low blow." said Anakin and pretended that he got physically hurt by the comment.

Luke giggled and Galen smiled.

"Broccoli shake?" asked Galen curiously.

"Yeah there is a rumor that broccoli shake is good for the skin so my sister decided to test that theory. This isn't even the weirdest thing she's ever done tho." explained Luke.

"Like the one time when she bleached strawberries because one of her classmates said that it was possible to have white strawberries and when she said he was wrong he challenged her to prove it?" chuckled Anakin at the memory.

"Like that. You see Galen, my sister likes to test things out and prove something is right or wrong."

Galen's reaction was a quiet "oh" at the explanation. It really was a weird habit but it was certainly better than his was.

"So how old are you?" asked Luke again.

"I'm 15 years old."

At the information Luke's eyes glint in joy. Galen thought it was rather amusing.

"We are too! That means we are triplets! Right?"

"I don't think that's how triplets work." said Galen carefully.

Anakin laughed at his son's silliness.

"Alright Luke enough questions. You will have plenty of time getting to know Galen when everyone is present."

"But whyyy." whined Luke.

"So Galen doesn't have to tell everything twice." came the simple answer.

"Aww you are such a killjoy." pouted Luke.

Galen smiled again and Anakin let out a small laugh. Maybe this won't be so bad after all for Galen.

×⭐×

Oh boy how wrong he was. When they arrived at a small village that was quite close to the town Galen didn't know what to expect. But whatever he did, it wasn't even close to the truth. Anakin parked before a big farm house. Luke previously told Galen that they were living with their aunt and uncle. But what surprised the boy the most is when they stepped inside the house. They immediately stepped into the living room where there were more people than Galen would anticipate. The little plan that formed inside his head shattered the moment he saw that this was a party. For him. Two girls held a "Welcome home Galen" sign. There was a huge dinner table beside the couch that was full with all kinds of food and drinks. There was also a vanilla cake in the middle with "Welcome" written on it. Galen must have been silent for too long since one of the men (who by the way looked so similar to the other 3 men that were also in the room) asked:

"You don't like vanilla?"

That made everyone chuckle however Galen panicked at the question asked not picking up on the joke.

"N-No that's... that's not it. It isn't at all, pardon my stumbling i-it's just not what I-" before he could make an even bigger fool out of himself Anakin stopped Galen with a wave.

"Relax kid Fives was just joking."

"You made the kid feel shit are you proud?" smacked Fives head the other man beside him.

"Echo language!" said an older man across the table.

"Sorry Cody!"

"God this is a disaster." shook her head Leia.

"I didn't even expect anything else from you guys. Great job." said sarcastically a ginger haired man with a beard.

"How about we sit down and eat? The food will be cold and I don't know about you but putting together that Mac and cheese was a nightmare." sighed the brown skinned girl who held the other half of the sign.

They went through all this trouble just for Galen and he didn't even show any signs of appreciation towards their efforts.

"I'm sorry for the poor reaction. The truth is I'm really bad at talking to people. I was almost always alone as far as I can remember. But I really do appreciate the effort and the work you put into this. Thank you." confessed the boy shyly.

That earned fond smiles from everyone in the room which helped Galen relax a bit. Although Luke was frowning.

"You didn't seem to have communication problems when we talked in the car tho."

"That's because, oh god this will sound weird. The conversation went according to what I planned."

"To what you planned?" asked the man on Cody's right who was the most different from the other 3.

"Yes. I do a graph about the possible questions or topics according to the situation. And then I write answers to them." said Galen slowly.

That earned a suprised expression from everyone one. The ginger haired man looked astonished Cody beside him looked rather deadpaned.

"Wait do you have those on you? I kinda want to see it." said Anakin while smiling.

"Yeah I'm curious too!" chided in Luke.

"A-Alright."

Fives and Echo made space on the table and Galen opened his bag. He fished around in it for a while before he proceeded to pull out a blue notebook. He opened it and showed some of his work. Luke was bewildered.

"Oh my god. Some of these are exactly what I said! Are you a wizard?"

"No of course not. It's just simple statistics. You can't predict the future because the future changes constantly. However you can predict the most likely question that a person is going to ask based on the situation." explained Galen.

"Jesus kid you should have socialized instead of writing these. At your age I had a girlfriend." said Fives but even he was impressed.

"Fives you are 18. And you never had a girlfriend."

"How would you know Rex! You weren't even there."

"I don't have to be there to know this basic fact."

Everyone laughed at the last comment the tension from before melted away in an instant. After discussing what a genius Galen was (he wasn't he was just desperate for good impressions) they introduced themselves to Galen and  started eating. Galen was sitting beside Anakin and Cody.

"Do you like the cake? We didn't know what you liked so we settled on a basic vanilla cake." said Cody.

"It's really good! It looked so professionally made that I thought it was store bought." said Galen politely.

Cody and his siblings laughed.

"That's because we own the Fett cafe. We also serve desserts not just coffees. It started out as a small business but now we have four shops. One here and there is another in the town too. The other two are a bit far from here." said Rex who was clearly proud of their achievements.

"You look really skinny Galen. Did you eat anything in that orphanage?" asked Ashoka.

"Well yes but we never got much since there were a lot of children and the orphanage's founding... wasn't the best."

"Then eat. You are still growing after all." said Obi-wan.

"Growing? Where? He is taller than me and Leia already." whined Luke.

Everyone laughed at his comment and the rest of the dinner was spent with small talk. Galen stumbled here and there but he thought his performance was okay. After that Anakin showed him around the house.

"Since Leia is in the age of needing her own space, you are going to room with Luke. Hope it's not a problem." said Anakin sheepishly.

"Of course it's okay. I'm used to having roommates."

Galen didn't know what he did to make that impression on Anakin that he would need his own room. He hoped he didn't seem selfish, that would be terrible. When they entered Luke's room the first thing that grabbed Galen's attention was a sword. When Anakin noticed this he said:

"Ah yeah. Back in the days Obi-wan liked to go fencing. He is extremely good at it. I was interested in learning from him just like Ashoka and it became a family thing. If you are interested too, I would be more than happy to teach you too." smiled Anakin fondly at the memory.

"I will think about it." nodded Galen.

After that everyone went to sleep and the Fett brothers left. Although Luke, Leia and Ahsoka begged them to stay, Cody said they needed to open early tomorrow and they had to bake some cakes too. Galen was staring at the ceiling of his newly shared room with Luke. The said boy was happy when his father said that Galen will sleep in his room. Now he was sound asleep. Galen missed his usual night out but he broke his habit for the sake of his new family. So far he enjoyed being with the Skywalkers. And he firmly hoped they felt the same way about him.

[mcrcki]

Was that [WILLA HOLLAND]? Oh no no, that was just [LEIA ORGANA], a [CANON CHARACTER] from [STAR WARS]. They are [TWENTY FIVE] years old, use [SHE/HER], and [ARE] aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here -

leia technically has been here for nearly seven years now. she’s been in dc since she was twenty three, and while for plotting sake i have her age on pages frozen at twenty five, she is almost thirty now.

what is your character’s job -

president of the united states leia organa at your service

where has your character been pulled from in their fandom -

leia is pulled a few months after the battle of endor and the end of the galactic civil war. she was specifically on her way to a meeting with mon mothma about the role she would be taking in the new republic when she entered hyperspace and woke up in dc. that’s the last thing she remembers from home.

has any magic affected your character -

multiple times, yes. when leia first arrived in dc, she was completely unaware of her life back in her galaxy. she had originally thought she grew up in a political family, her father being the senator from oregon, her mother being a state representative. in that time is when she and sheev grew to be close friends, and eventually running for office together while both unaware of the true reality behind their connection. during one of the first storms in dc, leia had gotten caught up in the magic which brought her memories of home back for the past few years. two summers ago however, for reason we’ll get into i promise, she went unaware again, was the absolute worst and regained her memories during the jumanji nightmare. so, while she is completely aware now, she was unaware for a few times on and off. you never know though, third time’s the charm, that might stick this time around

extra information -

we know the drill by now right? i’m going to write a novel for no reason and apologize for how long i will go on gushing about the space mom

background :

let me just start by prefacing this with i pull pretty much everything i know and write about leia from legends canon. i really don’t follow new canon at all. of course, for rp purposes we’ve meshed the two and i love the solo family and their four messy kids, but i do write leia solely from legends and the path that life took.

a woman of too many names and titles. born leia amidala skywalker, younger twin to luke skywalker, the only daughter of padme amidala and anakin skywalker, she and her brother were separated at birth following the death of their mother and the fall of their father. it was the safest option. they would be hidden away from vader and palaptine. they should have been safe that way.

adopted by the organa’s, leia became the crowned princess to the alderaan throne, thus being known as the princess leia organa of the royal house of alderaan. and while she always knew she was adopted, she never knew about the family that she had lost to the force. her parents, bail and breha organa did everything they could to keep leia safe from that. she had at first, not shown any signs of the force.

unfortunately she did reveal a skill in it around the time she was two, and was soon on the empire’s radar for the incident.

might have been a baby but hey, gotta start pissing the emperor off from a young age.

while she never knew her twin growing up, leia had grown up with her best friend, and adopted sister, winter celchu. the two could not have been more different and yet as thick as thieves. winter was the perfect example of refined and regal, it didn’t take long for people to mistake her for the princess of alderaan. where leia was often mistaken as “a domestic girl”. which leia didn’t mind really. she never wanted the pressure of being the princess, to have to go through all of the training that her aunts would push on her. (she appreciates it more than she could have ever imagined now)

honestly shout out to winter for literally everything. the girls used to switch places, winter going to plenty of events as leia so that leia could sneak out of the palace and “create mischief and visit inappropriate boys”. this is something the girls carried on their entire lives, and even now winter will cover for her as president at least once a week.

leia really was just a rebellious child and i apologize to bail and breha for the nightmare girl she was. she was kicked out of almost every single school on alderaan, one of them because she staged a protest for not giving the students fresh squeezed juice, at seven. and another because she broke into the school’s speaker system and changed the programming so that any mention of “emperor palpatine” was replaced with “emperor fuckface” and the empire’s anthem was replaced with the anthem of the old republic. she was like 13 at the time.

she was mostly homeschooled after that by tutors.

honestly i could go into everything leia did as a child because dear god she got in so much trouble she was a terror. like dropping a water balloon on tarkin’s head. truly read her legends wiki, it’s so funny.

proficient in far too many languages, it was her favorite thing to learn and one of the only tutors that held her attention. that and her self defense teacher, but that was to be expected.

either way, leia learned that she hated most of high society, the way they all thought they were better than everyone, the lavish parties while people suffered and she, along with her father’s hand in training her for this, had decided early on that she wanted to change the galaxy she lived in.

bail had trained leia for this. she was the youngest senator ever elected, at just eighteen when she was formally introduced to the galactic senate and palpatine himself.

she was only seventeen when her father started to bring her into the fold of the rebellion.

when her father stepped down from the senate, leia officially took his place and subsequently used her diplomatic immunity and cover for her ship to run secret missions for the rebellion. it began her first steps into her double life of senator and rebel.

this was around the time that mon mothma had taken leia under her wing and she grew even closer into the senate but also the inner workings of the rebellion. she was meant to fully take over the rebellion thanks to mothma’s teachings.

this is about when we get to the events of the original trilogy so !!

JUSTICE FOR ALDERAAN.

life in dc :

alright deep breath everyone.

first and foremost, let’s just talk about the solos. leia is a mother of four, grandmother to three, and aunt to one. and she loves each and every one of them with all her heart and soul. her kids are her life, her grandchildren hold all of her heart. truly is just a very family oriented person, despite her workaholic tendencies, she would do anything to keep her family safe.

she is married to han solo, having eloped right before the halloween gala of 2022. they had kept it rather quiet, and were going to announce it to the family later until SOMEONE had to go and get themselves skewered again..... smh.

she is kinda still the worst. i’m so sorry to any agent ahsoka assigns to her detail because leia is a runner. there are far too many times that ‘nebula’s disappeared’ is called over the radios. but listen she’s got her blaster and her own lightsaber now, it’s fine

she was in the process of training with the force. she knows she’d never really be a jedi, she didn’t ever want to be a part of the order like that. and while she was doing well, learning how to control the force within her, there was always a darkness in her. one that she couldn’t fight off forever. the actual use of the force is something that still scares her. it’s a fear that she only talks to luke about, the both of them having an understanding about the darkness that continues to call to them.

her anger takes over far too often, not thinking clearly when it does and it leave a perfect opening for manipulation. for her own fall. to make the mistakes of her father. and that terrifies her.

she wanted to be good, she wanted to be strong, but she just doesn’t think it can happen. her greatest fear is that she will fall to the dark side as vader had, that she won’t be able to fight it. and with each encounter with palpatine, she fears he’s making more and more progress on that.-- i wrote that like two years ago AND OH BOY DID WE FORESHADOW.

she’s fought with palpatine about four ?? times now, three of them discreetly, but another when she tried to kill him. a futile attempt that ended only with leia falling and her brother’s death only being mirrored instead of avenged. she wants to forget it ever happened but knows she can’t.

she doesn’t think she can ever really forgive her father for what he did. she knows, somewhere deep down, that one day she will find a time to forgive him, seeing as how one of her sons is named after him, but she still has nightmares about what vader did, about the days she spent locked in her cell on the death star. often she will close her eyes and clear as day feel vader’s hand on her shoulder, forcing her to watch as alderaan was destroyed. those days set her back.

right now, leia’s main goal is just keeping her kids safe. keeping luke and han safe. and trying to keep herself from falling. but she’s also made up her mind, that if any of her family is to deal with the dark side, leia will be the one to take that fall. she will let herself fall under palpatine if it ever came down to that or her family’s safety. - big fucking oof to that one lMAO

god there is probably more i could ramble about, like certain things that happened in the og trilogy or headcanons about her and the force or her and her family or her and her job. who knows. i will probably do some like head canon posts for more details about like her and jabba or her and what happened on the death star idk glkdfjg

BUT if you want to know what’s going on with sith vibes, here is the link to that update, since it’s where we’re at currently with leia !!

anyways once more sorry for the length but also as always, throw a middle finger into the sky for the space momby, carrie ♥

connections :

✩ secret service agents

a long standing connection i’ve had up on the main. truly anyone is free to apply for this, if you need a job, the agents are there for you!!

not all of them will work with leia directly, but she would definitely know all of their names, as she cares a lot of everyone who works for/under her.

just be warned, if you are on her personal detail, it’s probably meant to mess with you because leia is known for disappearing from her detail whenever she feels like it and getting into one mess after another

definitely be ready to have “nebula’s disappeared” be part of your daily vocabulary.

✩ white house employees

this can be anything from her cabinet members to a maid, truly anyone who works in the white house would definitely know her

leia doesn’t like to have this big separation between herself and the rest of her employees so feel free to have your characters work in the white house and be friendly with the president!

✩ people in politics

i mean of course she would know just about everyone in politics, but she definitely would have friends she would have business lunches with, go out for some drinks after a long day, all that jazz

✩ people outside of star wars

leia has been in the city for 4+ years as well, she would be pretty much all over, going to any and every fundraiser, doing speeches at schools, visiting different jobs etc

so she would realistically know a bunch of people from all over the city, both good and bad interactions, feel free to plot these out with me!!

✩ friends outside of politics

people she would know that she doesn’t have to talk shop with, someone who maybe she meets on one of her many adventures running away from her agents

just about anyone she can just be leia with

✩ opposing politicians

my love is very very liberal , she is not always going to rub people the right way with very progressive thoughts and actions. she’s the youngest president in history and that can be to her detriment sometimes. on top of all of that, there have been how many disasters under her administration within the city?

point is, she’s not always going to get along with everyone, and i would love to explore some people who are definitely against her re-election, people who oppose her that she has a very strained professional relationship with etc

just tension all around !!!

[ladytemeraire]

So OBVIOUSLY I love this AU for everything it is; Luke and Leia grow up with two dozen overprotective uncles, this is how it would have gone down in a softer, kinder universe and you cannot convince me otherwise, BUT ALSO:

Rex canonically survived and made it to Endor.

A remnant of the 501st survived to the same era as Anakin's children.

So please please please imagine him getting to actually interact with the twins.

Please imagine him hearing the name Skywalker and having to sit down and put his head in his hands and just breathe, because something of his General survived the war and the purges and the Empire and is here, now, living and breathing and thriving and standing in the Light despite everything.

(Luke is an ace pilot with a lightsaber on his hip, and Leia is a diplomat who commands the respect of an army, and Rex hears their name and connects the dots and the only thought ringing through his mind is your parents would be so proud.)

Please imagine them calling him Uncle Rex.

(Luke, I think, would do this basically immediately, because he grew up with an Aunt and an Uncle and Old Ben instead of a mother and father, and he loves and loves and loves and wouldn't hesitate to say Uncle Rex without a second thought because clearly this important person is his family. Leia, I think, would take quite a bit of time to adopt the term, if she ever actually does; but even if she never calls him Uncle, she would love him nonetheless.)

Imagine the three of them talking, after everything, after it all ends.

Imagine Luke, seeing the Force ghosts on Endor, knowing everything he does, having experienced everything he has, and sitting down with Rex around an Ewok bonfire and quietly saying, "Tell me about my father."

Imagine Leia getting to learn about Anakin as a person, not just a symbol of pain and terror and loss, and also getting to learn about Padme and the love she shared with her biological father, how that love was both his salvation and his downfall.

(Bail and Breha will always be her father and mother, she will always be and call herself Organa, and yet – she loves her brother, has loved him before she knew he was her brother, and this is a gift unasked for, this is family unlooked for, and being able to know the woman behind her fragments of memory is a chance she never could have expected.)

Imagine them learning about the brothers Rex had (the uncles they had) that they never got to meet, and Rex sharing a lifetime of memories with them.

"Let me tell you about Uncle Kix saving everyone in the 501st from some stupid stunt they pulled by the skin of his teeth, because he was the best damn medic we ever had and I would swear to you even without being a Jedi he could perform miracles."

"Let me tell you about the time Uncle Jesse accidentally set himself on fire and swore in front of Command and the Council in five different languages, and then three hours later took out half a droid battalion single-handedly."

"Let me tell you about Uncle Echo, how clever and brave and determined he was despite everyone looking down on him and his squad."

"Let me tell you about how hard Uncle Fives tried to tell everyone the truth, even at the cost of his own life, because his dedication and loyalty and love was stronger than any other force in the galaxy."

And they are gone now, they are stardust and one with the Force and nothing but memory, but they mattered, they were people, not just numbers, and they laughed and cried and bled and fought alongside Anakin and Padme and their brothers –

And the twins can honor their memory and carry their stories forward.

And that, more than anything, brings all of them peace.

@crossover15 kofi requested Anakin introducing the twins to the 501st!!

(kofi requests are open!)

[multistoty]

My 80 year old grandma with Alzheimer’s has started kenobi. These are the comments so far:

“Where is old obi-wan? This one is a good actor but he looks like boy band Jesus.”

“I never thought someone so young could look so much like a disappointed parent.”

“If he doesn’t stop frowning like that, his face will stay up that way.”

“Does he really blame himself for the fall of a boy who he didn’t even know was married?”

“Kenobi seems like someone who claps when the plane lands.”

“I bet he would be a good cook. He slices up Vaders legs so easily.”

“Killing kids is wrong but maybe after the journey with the twins, kenobi might see them in a new light.”

“Do you think that I could pull off a look like the third sister? I mean I sew. Maybe I should crochet.”

“I think Obi-wan is like a goth because he’s sad.”

“Ben isn’t a cool name. Why didn’t he pick like a Star Wars name?”

“Why doesn’t he find a woman? There is no council anymore.”

“Obi-wan was smart to be among the sand for it is Darth vaders weakness. Like should have stayed among the sand.”

“Why is bail a senator if his wife was a queen?”

“Obi-wan is shocked Anakin is so sassy when he raised him.”

“I feel like obi-wan would write a fail on Anakin himself like he did back on the temple with his essays.”

“I think Lola has the sass chip the golden vacuum droid does.”

“Leia is smart. She gave her droid a name and not numbers and letters. She’s the best Organa and Skywalker.”

“Obi-wan is the kind of uncle to never let his brother have anything and then spoil his nieces and nephews.”

“Maybe the should have a yard sale on Tatooine. “??? This one I don’t get

“I thought he was from the mountains because he has the high ground.”

“I remember people calling black people negros and now the most popular movies when I had kids has one as the lead. That’s awesome. Though they shouldn’t just be villains.”

“Why is Anakin more obsessed with finding his old master then wether or not his kids survived?”

“Do you think it would be possible for him to have accidentally killed his children since he goes after the force kids?”

“Leia should write a book about how to get men to behave.”

“I bet Obi-wan would wear scarfs.”

“This show should be called Organa. She’s the joy of this show and it’s more about her. The Jedi are real bummers.”

“Do you think they could be like guides for the plane landing with their light sabers?”

“Why do men feel like they have to add dancing to their sword play to seem cooler than judge dancers?”

“For someone who hated politics, he really is constantly involved and friends with.”

“Do you think they told Leia she was adopted or her first words just figured them out completely?”

“Did they put them with other families to just kill those families?”

“Beru would like Arkansas. She’d like me.”

“Why is everyone blaming Ben? Like sorry mr.Lars, clearly not all Jedi suck.”

“I’d hate for Leia to be mad at me. Her stare can be a lightsaber.”

“A little girl has more fashion than every person I walk by.”

“I wish my hands could still make braids like that. Maybe the internet could teach me.”

“I thought droids were phones.”

“If yoda can take everyone, surely kenobi who already has the height and the high ground should be better.”

“Shouldn’t she be able to take down the Harry Potter of Star Wars if he taught him everything.”

“The mask that was broken showed a prettier face then the one in the seventies. Let Darth Vader be ugly.”

“Bail should send some supplies to Obi-wan. Coffee could change his life.”

“For someone who hates flying, he sure travels a lot.”

“Obi-wan is to smart to not make sure Vader is dead. Or maybe emotion really makes Jedi stupid.”

“For people who can read people, he really didn’t see how horny Anakin was to just see his wife. It was embarrassing.”

“So Palpatine can hide his identity as a Sith for so long and they struggle with the twins.”

“For someone who can like fed the world, how do they do badly not see things coming?”

“Coming from who their parents were, why did they not have like a constant camera on Leia? She is cunning enough for them to notice.”

“Your telling me he was like a celebrity and no one knows or recognizes him.”

“I wondered why he aged so much. Children like Leia are wonderful but I only look like this because of trying to keep up with similar ones.”

[tennessoui]

*slides you the most beautiful piece of jewelry in the galaxy* please write more keeping up with the kenobis

i do accept bribes and i am also always ready to write more kuwsk

this is the lead up to the one where they get the dog, first mentioned in this post from---damn, a year ago.

(1k)

Luke has not let go of the drawing he and Leia made since that Open House when they’d showed the family portrait to Obi-Wan.

This is, actually, quite distressing for Obi-Wan, as it’s getting terribly wrinkled in Luke’s tiny baby hands, and there’s no polite and adult way to ask the child to please relinquish the drawing as he would quite like to get it framed so that nothing will ever be able to destroy the first time Obi-Wan Kenobi was included as part of a family in a child’s terrible stick-figure drawing.

“There’ll be more,” Anakin tells him one night, two glasses of wine in and looking at him with something unreadable in his face. “If it…if it doesn’t bother you, and you let them know you like it, they’ll do more. They probably won’t stop. You’re their Obi. You’re my—” he cuts himself off and takes a long, seemingly fortifying sip of the wine. “I don’t understand the big deal.”

Of course he doesn’t. He’s been a firm and unwavering part of his children’s lives since Padmé was pregnant. He has no idea how it feels, to come in late and distant, to not see the love coming before it’s knocked him over and out.

They put him in their family portrait painting. Him.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Obi-Wan finally says. “It’s…I want it.”

He doesn’t know why he tells Anakin that, and he doesn’t mean to say the words the way he does. Like it should be enough, his want. I want it, he says and he doesn’t mean to imply so please get it for me, but those unspoken words hang in the air between them.

Anakin finishes the glass of wine in his hand and sets it down on the side table, rubbing a hand over his mouth as he considers him. 

There are some moments, even after a year and a few months of living together, where Anakin will look at him and Obi-Wan will have no idea what he’s seeing or what he’s thinking.

It makes him feel strange, though now certainly isn’t the time to examine the feeling.

“You know why he’s carrying it around, right?” Anakin asks him. “Sleeping with it, trying to bathe with it, eating wi—”

“He’s trying to bathe with it?” Obi-Wan asks, shocked and offended. “If water gets on it, it’ll ruin it!”

Something about his words—perhaps his tone—makes Anakin break into a smile, one he rushes to hide behind his hand, one that makes his eyes crinkle up into slits, laughter lines fanning out from them.

The strange feeling in Obi-Wan’s stomach intensifies.

“If you really want it, I think I know how to get him to let it go,” he tells him, and Obi-Wan’s hand tightens on his glass.

It would be so nice to have, this drawing. He could hang it up in his office, straight across from his desk, so he can just…look up and see it.

It would be so nice to have proof—concrete proof—that he hasn’t simply…made everything up. That he really and truly is a part of this strange and endearing Skywalker family, as far as the children are concerned.

“I really want it,” he hears himself saying, pleading.

The flicker of a thought ghosts across his brain: he never pleaded for anything from Satine.

A strange truth, but a truth nonetheless.

“He wants a dog,” Anakin says plainly. “They both do. That’s the important part of the picture for them: the one missing part of their family.”

Obi-Wan blinks and then swears very loudly. He’d forgotten about the damn dog, so focused on his own inclusion.

But…he really does want the picture.

“We have a very big backyard,” Anakin points out. His tone has turned wheedling. Obi-Wan wonders if he knows the twins have adopted the same voice and use it whenever they want anything at all.

They must have learned from their father.

It’s highly effective.

“We don’t have any supplies for a dog,” Obi-Wan replies, but even he knows that he’s grasping at straws.

“That’s what stores are for, baby,” Anakin says and then snaps his mouth shut, looking as if Obi-Wan will take him into their very big backyard and shoot him for the slip up.

Instead he just laughs. Qui-Gon had come to visit last minute two weeks ago. Since he still thinks that Obi-Wan and Anakin are a loving couple, raising their children together and ostensibly having sex every time they send them off to kindergarten, they’d had to play the part. “It’s a hard mindset to get out of,” Obi-Wan agrees even though Anakin hasn’t said anything else since. “Darling.”

Anakin picks up his empty wine glass and tries to take a sip, face still red.

“Fuck it,” Obi-Wan declares and he doesn’t know what the tipping point is for him, what makes him capitulate. Perhaps he just really wants that goddamn painting. Perhaps the strange feeling in his chest has grown so heavy that it’s becoming impossible to ignore. “I’ll start looking into breeders. Perhaps something small? A corgi. Oh, one of those miniature poodles, I’ve always thought they looked friendly.”

“Breeders?” Anakin stares at him as if he’s talking nonsense. “Baby, no way. I’ll take Friday off, I know you only have the one morning lecture. We can pick the kids up early and go to the animal shelter.”

Obi-Wan stares back at him. “Alright,” he agrees faintly. “But…still small, right? Anakin? Anakin love?”

But Anakin has stood up with a laugh, heading back towards the kitchen, shoulders shaking from his mirth. He must simply put his wine glass in the sink instead of washing it properly, because he’s back within a few seconds and leaning against the archway to the dining room with a smile still hanging around the edges of his face. “Did the dog in the picture look small, Obi?” He asks him, eyes twinkling.

Obi-Wan has a very bad feeling about this whole business. Very bad indeed. 

[phoenixyfriend]

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.

[where-dreamers-go]

“A Walk” Prince!Luke Skywalker x Princess!Organa!Reader

(A/N: Time for a fanfic that takes place in an everybody lives alternative universe. This insert reader was for @girl-next-door-writes Bingo Challenge last year, but hey it’s finished. Thank you @the-and-sign-anon for your input months ago when I was brainstorming. Also thank you @ivorydragoness44 for looking up what those darn booths are called.

Summary: Reader is an adoptive member of the Organa family. Reader can’t seem to focus on the Senate meeting and ends up sneaking out to meet up with best friend Prince Luke Skywalker. Will these two find trouble or have a peaceful time? Bingo Card: Royal AU Warnings: Uh…me using Star Wars lingo. Word Count: 2,022 words)

A pause of your thoughts and the colored darkness made you aware of your situation.

Snapping your eyes open, you adjusted in the cushioned seat and artificial glow.

That man’s still speaking? You thought as you looked out into the Senate Chamber. I shouldn’t be dozing off like this. Beside you, your adoptive father Bail Organa sat quietly and attentively. Something that would be easy to do if someone else was talking.

Senatorial meetings were usually more interesting than the one you were attending in Coruscant. The one in which you were listening did not seem to hold your attention at all.

What would keep your mind focused?

Movement off to the side, in a separate repulsorpod, were the royals of Naboo. The ever passionate and justice-leading Skywalkers. From where you sat you could not see everyone in attendance clearly, the royal handmaidens and other security, to be more specific. There was a considerable distance, but that didn’t change much.

Your family and the Skywalkers were very close. Years of friendship and experience in the Clone War added to the strength of the bond.

More often than not, Queen Amidala-Skywalker brought her two children along. Twins who were your age and learning the importance of their position. Same as you.

However similar, one of the Skywalkers may, perhaps, be interested in some entertainment.

✧ ✧ ✧

Thumping a quiet rhythm with his fingertips, Luke kept up his mask of interest. It was easier said than done, but practice made a difference. Yet, alternative ideas could throw practice and experience out the door.

By birth, Luke was a prince through Queen Amidala and, in ways unliked by some, he was a Force sensitive through Jedi Master Skywalker. An interesting combination in the renewed Galactic Republic to say the least. His father reminded both Luke and Leia that it was no one’s business.

Luke could live with that.

Rules had changed. Jedi codes had evolved after saving the Republic, Jedi, and clone troopers from a long-term plan from a Sith Lord who had been the puppeteer the whole War.

Sighing, Luke glanced over to the repulsorpod beside his family’s. An instant upturn of his lips occurred at the sight of you, one of his closest friends. Closer than most and looking lovelier than ever in your attire, cape included.

It was a shame that you didn’t have a chance to greet one another before the meeting. Times like these made him wish you were sharing a repulsorpod again.

Taking a few quick glances at the people around him, Luke closed his eyes and reached out through the Force. Just a nudge. A little unexpected movement of fabric.

Done.

With a quirked eyebrow, you peered over and locked eyes with Luke. You shared an amused smile before using your eyes to gesture ‘out’.

He nodded quickly. The grin on his face faltering when his blue eyes landed on the deadpanned expression of his twin sister Leia.

“No,” Leia hissed from her seat beside him.

He opened his mouth to argue, but she beat him to it.

“They’ll see you.” She said, referring to the Royal Handmaidens. “And we agreed to attend the entire meeting. This is important.”

“Leia,” Luke leaned further back in his seat. “He’s been talking about adding HoloNews to public turbolifts for almost fifteen minutes. Or twenty…how can we tell?” He glanced passed her and saw that you were already leaving your seat. “I’ll be back before they decide on the right action to take. I promise.”

Before any questions were raised, Luke was on his feet and walking out of the Senate Chamber.

✧ ✧ ✧

Making it out in the hall were guards stood, your presence caught the attention of two droids.

“Oh,” the golden protocol droid turned in your direction. “Princess (Y/N), it is so good to see you.”

“Hello Threepio,” you said and winked at his astromech companion. “Hello Artoo.”

“Beewoo bip.”

Doors slid open and Threepio had changed his attention to a young man dressed in the finest Naboo robes.

“Master Luke, is the meeting over so soon?” See-Threepio asked.

“Sadly,” Luke patted a hand atop of Artoo-Detoo’s dome. “No.” He grabbed your hand, leading you down the maroon colored hall.

“Your highness!” See-Threepio raised his arms in the air.

Hushed laughter escaped the pair of you even as you both checked over your shoulders. Not an uncommon move.

Another presence had left the meeting.

Knew it, you thought as Princess Leia walked out into the hallway. You could practically feel the gravity pull as she rolled her eyes; it was in her exasperated stance. Hands on her hips; you’d seen that more than once. You did not need to see her rolling her eyes to know she did. Leia tended to do that if you and Luke made your own…not so planned excursions.

She started her fast paced walk towards the pair of you.

“What did you have in mind for today?” Luke asked, unconcerned that his sister was closing in.

There was no telling what time it was given the lack of natural lighting and chronos. Possibilities were only limited by…well, what would get you both in trouble.

“How about we focus on keeping me awake.” You suggested with a quick exaggeration of wide eyes. “Nothing too…um.”

“Exciting?”

“Or reckless.” Leia chimed in.

“Agreed.” You yawned.

“Then…,” Luke raised your intertwined hands, “may I accompany you on a walk?”

“You certainly may.”

“That makes you our supervisor, Leia?” He questioned over his shoulder.

“No.”

“No?” You and Luke asked.

“I came out here to make sure you stayed in the building.”

“That was one time,” Luke said quickly.

Luke and Leia exchanged a series of subtle expressions before she nodded.

“Don’t be gone long. They may send Sabé and Dormé after you both.”

“I promise.” Luke said without an ounce of scorn.

With a small smile sent your way, Leia turned back to return to the meeting.

You watched until there was a squeeze of your hand. Luke.

“Come on,” Luke said once your gazes met, “let’s keep you awake.”

Thankfully, the walking kept your eyes from drooping shut. It also helped that your best friend was holding your hand as you explored the halls. The seemingly endless senate halls. After returning regularly, the halls weren’t that majestic anymore. If anything, they were a mixture of illusion, responsibility, and reminders of the past.

“What has you so tired?” Luke asked.

You made a small sound of complaint in your throat and answered, “meetings. But I mean…I’ve been to a meeting of some sort almost every other day for the past two weeks.There’s only so much I can take in at a time.”

Rubbing tiny circles on your knuckles, he lead you around another corner. “Not much I can do about that. Unless I want to risk getting in trouble again. Once was enough.”

“Getting caught once was enough.” You grimaced.

“It would’ve been fine it wasn’t for the bounty hunters…”

“I still owe you for picking me up from the cancelled luncheon. I really didn’t like waiting there.”

Stopping, he raised his voice, “And us running into bounty hunters five minutes later was worth it?”

“I was with you. We were fine.”

“Don’t joke…” Luke started walking with you again. “We’re both lucky to be alive.”

“Very true.” You walked closer to him, shoulders bumping.

It wasn’t the most thought-out decision that Luke made back then. One message from you about not having a ride nor anything to do; instantly Luke had hopped in a ship to get you. If only the pair of you hadn’t run into trouble in Republic space. Then again, you were fairly certain that his parents would had gave him a lecture regardless. He did leave without telling anyone where exactly he was going.

Lesson learned, you thought. So…

“Um,” you clapped your other hand over Luke’s that was intertwined with yours. “How’s your training?”

His head turned so fast, you laughed.

“Off limit question of the day?”

“No, no, it’s fine.” He lowered his voice as his lips curved upwards. Blue eyes becoming distant as he remembered something you could only imagine. “The next time you visit,” his eyes refocused on you, “I’ll need to show you.”

Squeezing his hand, you offered him a grin; one he matched with a brightness to outshine the twin suns of Tatooine.

Hah, he has beautiful eyes. He just—

“Show them what exactly?”

Yelping, you clutched onto Luke’s hand as he instinctively stepped in front of you.

“Master Kenobi,” Luke hid your clasped hands behind his back.

“Hello Luke,” Jedi Master Kenobi said before nodding to you in a short bow. “Hello Princess (Y/N).”

“Hello Master Kenobi.” You swallowed and took a sidestep to see him better.

“I trust you two have a good reason to be out of the Senate meeting.” The brown robed Jedi Master asked as he walked closer.

“Yes.”

Master Kenobi pursed his lips at Luke’s quick answer.

Oh, no. We didn’t even do anything. We’re still in the building.

There was never any running, physically or otherwise, when it came to answering one of Master Kenobi’s question. Even if he didn’t say everything on his mind, he clearly knew whatever it was you didn’t want him to know, which could be anything.

“And does that reason include showing them another room in the Senate building or a restricted area?” He stood before the pair of you.

“No,” you and Luke said together.

“I was starting to doze off and couldn’t keep my eyes open.” You explained truthfully. It didn’t do any good to hide that from him. It was harmless. Regardless, you held onto Luke’s hand a little tighter.

“And I offered to walk with them.”

The pair of you, two royals, stood frozen under the gaze of a Jedi Master.

If it wasn’t for all of the stories you were told, you’d see Master Kenobi as a sassy uncle type. The lightsaber on his belt suggested slightly otherwise.

You swallowed again. Both your hand and Luke’s becoming increasingly clammy.

“Seeing as you are very much awake,” Master Kenobi smirked, “I suggest you return to the meeting before your parents send someone looking for you. Again.”

Luke’s arm tensed against yours.

“Right…,” Luke nodded.

You peered between the two Force sensitives and said, “Yes, but we actually needed someone to. Find us that time.”

“(Y/N).”

“What?” You threw your hands up.

Master Kenobi chuckled. “Alright, I see you two are…,” he glanced down at your hands, “otherwise engaged in private conversations that you deem more important than a Senate meeting.” He rose an eyebrow.

In a second, you and Luke released each other’s hands.

Again, the Jedi chuckled.

“A senator was persuading the Republic to have more HoloNews available. In turbolifts.” Luke explained, tired of the idea already. “But,” he stood more higher, “we should return to our seats.”

“They may be deciding a course of action,” you said.

“Then I will leave you to your meeting.” Master Kenobi bowed. “Until we see each other again.”

“Until then, Master Kenobi.” You smiled.

“Master Kenobi,” Luke bowed his head.

The Jedi walked passed the two of you and down another hall before either one of you dared to move.

“What’s he doing here?” Luke wondered out loud.

“Maybe he’s late for the meeting?” You suggested.

He laughed, “I doubt it. Obi-Wan is never late for anything.”

Grabbing your hand once again, Luke started leading the way back to your families. Reality felt more stable with your hand in his. It was a feeling that you had come to realize after years of friendship.

Did you envision a little more to your friendship? At times, yes. There were many possibilities given the new structures put in place as you grew up and perhaps figuring out if Luke liked you as much as you liked him was in the future.

Who knows, you thought. As long as Luke’s happy and we don’t run into trouble…we’ll be fine. I hope.

~~~

(A/N: Who knows if I’ll write more for this AU, but it was pretty fun. I had to find a stopping point before I made this into some extra adventure or something and it got out of hand. OMG it was at 2,020 words and I just had to add two more. LOL

If you love my writings and want to support me, I have a Ko-Fi where you can buy me a coffee. I would be eternally grateful.

Best wishes and happy reading.)

~~~~~

DreamerDragon Tags: @cubedtriangle

Star Wars Tags: @darkenwolfy @sweetheartliz07 

**Let me know if you would like to be tagged in insert readers, either through replies, ask, or message.**

[alligatorpie1945]

Hello there! I saw that you need questions, so I thought I'd drop by.

1: how do the Batch know Cody and Obi-Wan?

2: what's the situation with the Skywalker family and Ahsoka in your universe?

And 3: how did the boys meet 99?

Thank, you, and have a great day!

Obi Wan was volunteering at a local food drive when he met Anakin. Obi-wan was in high school at the time. He noticed Anakin would always come alone and run off as soon as he had food. Slowly Obi-wan befriended the boy. He discovered that Anakin and his mother were living out of a small one bedroom apartment on the wrong side of town. Obi wan and his family did everything to help the two. Helping Shmi find a more stable job, inviting them over for holidays, and making sure Anakin got into a decent school. Obi Wan quickly became sort of a surrogate big brother to Anakin.

During college, Obi-wan met Satine and a relationship was soon formed. They ended up getting married, and were a happy couple while they both went through law school. Satine ended up getting sick, and after a long battle with cancer, ended up passing. Obi wan was heart broken, and poured his soul into his work. Trying to take cases that would make Satine proud.

So when Anakin reached out about a favor for a struggling family trying to get custody over their sister, Obi Wan jumped right in to help. Throughout the trial, Obi wan ended up meeting a lot of the Fett's, including Cody. A close friendship was started from there...

(Cody is a cousin to the Batch and Echo)

As for the skywalkers.

Happy ending for all.

Anakin is married to Padme and they have the twins, Luke and Leia. Anakin and Ahsoka are teachers at the middle school, and co-coaches of the soccer team. Ahsoka used to be Anakin's student teacher but now is teaching classes on her own.

And 99.

99 helped the boys alot during their teenage years. When they were homeless, he was one of the only people that tried to help. He was social worker and discovered the batch at a homeless shelter, he tried to get them into some sort of foster care. But as soon as they realized there was possibility of being split apart, they ran away.

99 managed to track them down once again, and decided to help them a little more "under the radar". He used his connections with other homeless to find the boys safer areas to live in. He would often bring them food, and much needed supplies, and provide shelter when the weather got bad.

And he even helped them enroll in a local high school. He was as close to a father figure the boys would ever get. He was making plans to adopt them, when he was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was killed in a mugging gone wrong. The batch had no idea of his passing until several weeks later, when they stumbled upon his obituary in a newspaper.

--

For the most part, any death that happened during pre-Order 66 will be reflected in the Modern AU.

[killianglyndon]

Hope

Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x Skywalker! Reader

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: force choke, killing younglings (basically what had happened in rots...), death, age gap (16 years)

A/N: my first Obi-Wan Kenobi x Reader imagine haha, and I use some lines in ROTS for plot purpose. I have another one in my draft, will post it as soon as I finished it!

Tatooine, it at the same time felt like home and not. You and Anakin lived on this Planet with your mother for nine years, it still felt like yesterday to you.

Things happened quickly, you didn’t even have time to digest the recent incidents. You knew Anakin was struggling, his fear of losing Padmé. You tried to reach out to him, yet, he shut you out. Build walls around himself, keeping your reach in the force away.

(Flashback)

“Please Ani, don’t do this. The dark side is not the solution to this!”

“It is, sister. Join me, together we will be the most powerful.”

“No! Power is not anything. Did you hear yourself, Anakin?”

“It’s the only way. Chancellor showed me what Jedi didn’t teach us. You can too if you join me.”

“No, I will never pledge myself to the dark side.”

You never thought this would happen, Anakin had joined the dark side. His doubts to the Jedi council, his fear of losing Padmé, and the words of Palpatine, drive him to reach the dark side. How could you not see these signs? If only you could help him if you had tried harder. Maybe, maybe Anakin would not turn to the dark side.

According to master Yoda, not many Jedi had survived during Order 66. You were relieved that your Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi had survived.

“Obi-Wan! You’re alright.” You exclaimed while you ran towards him.

“(y/n)!” Obi-Wan pulled you to him and wrapped his arms around you.

You two had feelings for each other for a long time, but two of you knew it was against the code, you both buried your feelings and agreed to not do anything.

“I...I the younglings...Anakin killed them all…” You sobbed thinking about the image of that, he killed them in front of you. You tried to save them, but there was nothing you could do, Anakin used the force to pin you down. After he killed them, he used the force to choke you until you passed out.

“I know… we saw the security hologram…” Obi-Wan said and put his hand behind your head, trying to calm you down. “I’m sorry…” Obi-Wan trailed. He blamed himself for this, he had failed Anakin, he had failed you, he had failed everyone.

“Don’t. It’s not your fault…” you whispered against his chest.

“It is… I’ve failed him.”

“You didn’t. You’ve taught him everything you know. You’re a great master, Obi-Wan.” You pulled away to look into his ocean eyes, you had to be strong for him. You knew the guilt he carried, his eyes told you everything. His former Padawan turned to the dark side, the one who supposedly brought balance to the force.

Obi-Wan leaned down to kiss you on your forehead before C-3PO headed your way. “Master (y/n), the medical center requested you and Master Kenobi.”

——————

“For unknown reasons, we are losing her. If we want to save the babies we have to operate quickly.” The medical droid said.

“Babies?” Bail Organa exclaimed, looking shocked.

“She’s carrying twins.” The droid answered.

“Save them, we must. They are our last hope.” Yoda said.

After hearing the answer, the droid rushed back to the operating room, you and Obi-Wan followed.

You and Obi-Wan took Padmé’s hands, encouraging her not to give up. She screamed from the pain, the droid holding the baby, “it’s a boy.”

The droid handed you the baby, and you showed him to Padmé.

“Luke…” Padmé whispered and struggled to touch his forehead.

“And a girl!” The medical droid said.

Obi-Wan took the girl from the droid and showed her to Padmé.

“Leia…”

“You have twins, Padmé. They need you...hang on…” Obi-Wan leaned down to talk to Padmé.

“I… can’t.” Padmé winced and took Obi-Wan’s hand, holding Anakin’s japor snippet. “Obi-Wan, there’s… good in him. I know there is… still…” she gasped.

You looked at Padmé then Obi-Wan, tears rolled down your cheeks. You lost your brother to the dark side, and you lost your friend too.

——————

You, Obi-Wan, Master Yoda, and Senator Organa were in the Conference Room of the cruiser.

“Pregnant, she must still appear. Hidden, safe, the children must be kept.” Yoda said.

“We must take them somewhere the Sith will not sense their presence.” Obi-Wan recommended.

“Split up, they should be.” Yoda added.

“My wife and I will take the girl. We've always talked of adopting a baby girl. She will be loved with us.” Senator Organa said and looked at Master Yoda then you. Somehow, ensuring you that they would take good care of her. She would be happy, healthy, and grow up under the love they provided.

“And what of the boy?” Obi-Wan asked.

“To Tatooine. To his family, send him.” Yoda answered.

“(Y/n) and I will take the child and watch over him. If (y/n) want to, of course.” Obi-Wan said and turned to look at you.

“I want to.” You answered and gave him a sad smile. “That’s the least I could do for him and Padmé…”

“Master Yoda, do you think Anakin's twins will be able to defeat Darth Sidious?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Strong the Force runs, in the Skywalker line. Hope, we can . . . Done, it is.” Yoda trailed, then added. “Until the time is right, disappear we will.”

You, Obi-Wan, and Senator Organa stood up, heading out of the Conference Room. Before Obi-Wan left, Yoda stopped him.

“An old friend has learned the path to immortality.” Yoda trailed.

“Who?”

“One who has returned from the netherworld of the Force to train me . . . your old Master, Qui-Gon Jinn.”

“Qui-Gon? But, how could he accomplish this?” Obi-Wan looked puzzled.

“The secret of the Ancient Order of the Whills, he studied. How to commune with him. I will teach you.” Yoda answered.

“I will be able to talk with him?” Obi-Wan was stunned, and to be honest, maybe a little relieved. The recent incidents had him questioned himself, perhaps he could find guidance from his former master.

“How to join the Force, he will train you. Your consciousness you will retain when one with the Force. Even your physical self, perhaps.” Yoda trailed.

Before Obi-Wan left the Conference Room, “Jedi code, no more.” Yoda said, then added. “Feelings, you and (y/n) have for each other. Hide, no more.”

———————

You, Obi-Wan, and the newborn baby Luke were on the ship to Tatooine. Luke was sleeping soundly in his baby carrier. You couldn’t help but look at his face, he looked so peaceful.

You trailed your fingers softly on his forehead, for the first time in a while, you felt calm. You just sat there for a while before returning to the co-pilot seat next to Obi-Wan.

“How’s the baby?” He asked while changing the setting to autopilot.

“Sleeping soundly.” You answered.

Then it went to the comfortable silence again.

“(Y/n), I would like to tell you something.” Obi-Wan said suddenly.

“Yeah?”

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, “I want to be honest with you, (y/n).” He looked into your eyes. “I love you, for a long time. There are no Jedi codes anymore…” He took your hands in his. “We don’t need to hide our feelings anymore. Now, we have a chance to have a new life, together. Only if you want to…” He said, trying to sound hopeful.

“I’d like to.” You looked into his ocean-colored eyes.

His eyes lightened up when he heard you, “Really?” He asked.

“Yes. And I love you too, for a long time.” You traced your hand to his face, caressed it.

He eyed your lips, then back to your eyes. “Can I kiss you?”

“Please.”

He closed the gap between you, putting his big, warm hands on your cheeks. The kiss started slow and gentle, you two savored the moment, and you closed your eyes. It was like the world stopped, there were just two of you. This was even better than you had imagined. He delicately nibbled your bottom lip, sucking it a little. You put your hands on his nape, massaging it a little.

When he pulled away, you couldn’t help but giggle.

“What?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Nothing.” You smiled at him. “It’s just so… unreal. I can’t believe it’s happening.”

“It’s real, (y/n). This moment, you, and I are real.�� Obi-Wan caressed your cheeks.

——————

You watched Obi-Wan hand Luke to Beru, you knew he would be happy there, living a life he deserved.

Obi-Wan walked back to you, standing beside you, and put his hand on the back. You two stood there watching Beru, Owen, and Luke, knowing there was hope after all.

[sunflashh]

I just wanna talk about my Mandalorian modern kid au. Generally speaking: aliens are still aliens, and imagine they're all on modern earth.

Din is a 10 y/o boy who ran away from a foster home with Grogu because it was a bad situation and they were going to get separated.

This lands him in a small town where he meets a gaggle of other kids and teens: Luke (6), Cara (9), Migs (9), Cobb (10), Omera (11), Boba (13), Ahsoka (15), and Fennec (17).

Jango (still alive) notices how dirty Din is and how hungry him and Grogu all are. Finds out he's a run away, and down the line ends up becoming his foster parent (and even later officially adopts him).

This will get long So

Some world building away from Din-

Jango Fett is a single dad. He works as a carpenter. Loves Boba dearly, even if the little shit is now middle school football player who thinks he's So Tough. Boba loves his little brothers tho.

Skywalker family is... a lot. Qui-Gon is also alive in this AU and is married to Shmi (Anakin's mother). He's a youth pastor, which is how he met and then later adopted Obi-Wan. Church food drive is how he met single mom Shmi, and they got married 💕 They never had any children together, but did adopt Ahsoka :D

I've shortened Anakin and Padmé's age gap. They were a teen pregnancy sorta deal with Padmé dying during childbirth and Anakin out of the picture due to trouble with the law.

The Organa's were under the assumption that they were only taking in one baby and were unprepared to take in another. Shmi and Qui-Gon were also not in a position to take both. (I honestly cannot think of a better reason to separate these two that isn't even more implausible).

The others have less strong backstories but:

Cobb and Cara have parents in the p*lice force. Omera lives happily with her parents on the town's farm. She's close to Fennec, and Fennec has a dicey home life and often spends time with Omera.

Leia grows up happy with the Organa's, and is well aware that Luke is her twin. They live about 45 mins away from each other (Leia lives in the city), but are absolute besties and love each other. She has a babysitter, Bo-Katan (18; HS senior), who HATES the others lmaoooo. It gets even worse when her sister, Satine, gets engaged to Obi-Wan and she learns that Ahsoka is about to become her sister-in-law.

Bo-Katan is in pain.

Ahsoka thinks this is hilarious.

They're familiar with each other because Fennec rounds up the kiddos into her car and takes them into the city so they can play at the park, get fast food, play illegal games of hide and seek at Ikea, etc.

Bo-Katan: Leia, you can play with ANYONE else, does it have to be them???

It doesn't help that they all crash her Halloween party lmao.

A few other details:

- Both Omera and Cobb have a crush on Din. Omera is shy about it, and Cobb does stupid things to look cool and get Din's attention

- Fennec has a Thing going on with Peli (19) and will likely start working at the mechanic's shop with her after she graduates in a year.

- Greef (21) is constantly exasperated and wondering where all these kids parents are

- Boba plays football and Ahsoka is a volleyball player who will pitch in for softball if they need an extra player

- Fennec sometimes hunts (for food, not sport) and is one of the best shots in town

And honestly I've got SO much more going on because my friend and I can talk for hours. If y'all have any thoughts or questions, please send them my way :D I love not shutting up

[youremyonlyhope]

Obi-Wan Part V

I thought yesterday was Wednesday, and nearly looked for the new episode before realizing it was Tuesday. Then today, I forgot it was Wednesday and almost got spoiled before remembering to watch this episode.

Oh Anakin. Young Ani. Oh my sweet child. I never thought in my entire LIFE that I’d actually be happy to see the stupid Jedi rattail braid. But I’m happy to see it on Ani. I’ve literally forgotten for like 3 episodes now to check who is voicing Vader. Ok good they DID get back James Earl Jones. Yeah ok get all the people out now please please please. “He hasn’t the patience for a siege.” “How do you know?” Because the boy once dived out of a moving speeder. For some reason my brain was like “Imagine if we see Captain Phasma.” but I realized this is still 50+ years before we reach the sequels. “You trust me? I trust her.” People trusting Leia. I’m emotional. More Leia and Grogu parallels. Bail’s devotion to the Skywalker twins. He’s not sure if Leia and Obi-Wan are safe, so he’s planning at the very least to protect Luke if he can’t save his own adopted daughter. Guys help me. Help. I’m really emotional. Yay I was right!! I was right about Reva being a youngling! “I thought he was here to help us.” God that’s the worst part. When that kid comes out and says “Master Skywalker?” Fuck. For lack of better word, fuck. She played dead and hid with the other dead bodies. No wonder they put a warning before the episode.

Hey America. If we have to put warnings before sci-fi fantasy shows because the horrible thing that happens in the show is too close to things that happen in real life, then maybe, just maybe, THE COUNTRY HAS A PROBLEM.

“You’re not serving him, are you? You’re hunting him.” YES YES YES THANK GOD YES. I mean I don’t want Ani to be killed and I know he won’t be, but still YESSS. “Where were you while he was killing my friends?” Riding a lizard and battling a cyborg with 4 arms. “He was your Padawan.” Oof that guilt. No not Tala. No lightsaber? “You’re not bringing him to me, I’m bring him to you.” Ah so that’s his weaponless plan. Yeah I have feeling Obi-Wan’s just gonna let Reva fail while he escapes. OH MY GOD THE SPLIT SECOND OF REALIZATION THEN JUST HOLDING THE SHIP COMPLETELY WITH THE FORCE. OH MY GOD. Seriously, I forget how scary Vader is sometimes. He really is Space Jesus powerful. WOW. JUST TEARING IT UP. DOUBLE WOW. A SECOND SHIP. Yeah this was not gonna work out for Reva. God I love the spinning saber though. Was that double-wield moment a reference to Asokha? I’m hurting. She’s so flashy and he’s barely trying. So he knew she was a youngling. But did he know at the time when he stabbed her that she was still alive, and he chose to just let her die rather than ensure she was dead? That’d be ironic since Obi-Wan would do that to him only a few hours later on... god I’m so sleep deprived. The lava planet. You’d think he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice though, stabbing her and leaving her to die. Also I thought he’d pull a Count Dooku and use both sabers to cut off her head. That would have been fun and more efficient. Oh nooo. Earlier when they were talking through the door I was like “Reva knows about Ani, but she still doesn’t know these kids are his kids... right?” And she just found Bail’s communicator, so she’s gonna know now isn’t she? Yep. Great. Reva my girl please don’t. And there’s little baby Luke. Let the boy be please.

While checking IMDB to make sure it was James voicing Vader, I saw the Part V was so far the highest rated episode. I see why. There was a lot of pain. And a lot of realizations.

But GOD I hate when life parallels the sci-fi I’m watching. Stranger Things and Obi-Wan needing warnings. And when I rewatched Torchwood: Children of Earth in 2018 I accidentally coincided the rewatch with the first revelations of Drumpf’s family separation policies. Ugh. It’s not fun when sci-fi is this realistic.

I’m sad about Tala though. But I’m glad I got to see my girl Indira in this show.

[mcrcki]

Was that [WILLA HOLLAND]? Oh no no, that was just [LEIA ORGANA], a [CANON CHARACTER] from [STAR WARS]. They are [TWENTY FIVE] years old, use [SHE/HER], and [ARE] aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here -

leia technically has been here for nearly eight years now. she’s been in dc since she was twenty three, and while for plotting sake i have her age on pages frozen at twenty five, she is like thirty one now.

what is your character’s job -

president of the united states leia organa at your service

where has your character been pulled from in their fandom -

leia is pulled a few months after the battle of endor and the end of the galactic civil war. she was specifically on her way to a meeting with mon mothma about the role she would be taking in the new republic when she entered hyperspace and woke up in dc. that’s the last thing she remembers from home.

has any magic affected your character -

multiple times, yes. when leia first arrived in dc, she was completely unaware of her life back in her galaxy. she had originally thought she grew up in a political family, her father being the senator from oregon, her mother being a state representative. in that time is when she and sheev grew to be close friends, and eventually running for office together while both unaware of the true reality behind their connection. during one of the first storms in dc, leia had gotten caught up in the magic which brought her memories of home back for the past few years. two summers ago however, for reason we’ll get into i promise, she went unaware again, was the absolute worst and regained her memories during the jumanji nightmare. so, while she is completely aware now, she was unaware for a few times on and off. you never know though, third time’s the charm, that might stick this time around she has been unaware several times, forgetting she is the president during that time , so sorry to anyone who has been personally victimized by the idea of president palpatine

extra information -

we know the drill by now right? i’m going to write a novel for no reason and apologize for how long i will go on gushing about the space mom

background :

let me just start by prefacing this with i pull pretty much everything i know and write about leia from legends canon. i really don’t follow new canon at all. of course, for rp purposes we’ve meshed the two and i love the solo family and their four messy kids, but i do write leia solely from legends and the path that life took.

a woman of too many names and titles. born leia amidala skywalker, younger twin to luke skywalker, the only daughter of padme amidala and anakin skywalker, she and her brother were separated at birth following the death of their mother and the fall of their father. it was the safest option. they would be hidden away from vader and palaptine. they should have been safe that way.

adopted by the organa’s, leia became the crowned princess to the alderaan throne, thus being known as the princess leia organa of the royal house of alderaan. and while she always knew she was adopted, she never knew about the family that she had lost to the force. her parents, bail and breha organa did everything they could to keep leia safe from that. she had at first, not shown any signs of the force.

unfortunately she did reveal a skill in it around the time she was two, and was soon on the empire’s radar for the incident.

might have been a baby but hey, gotta start pissing the emperor off from a young age.

while she never knew her twin growing up, leia had grown up with her best friend, and adopted sister, winter celchu. the two could not have been more different and yet as thick as thieves. winter was the perfect example of refined and regal, it didn’t take long for people to mistake her for the princess of alderaan. where leia was often mistaken as “a domestic girl”. which leia didn’t mind really. she never wanted the pressure of being the princess, to have to go through all of the training that her aunts would push on her. (she appreciates it more than she could have ever imagined now)

honestly shout out to winter for literally everything. the girls used to switch places, winter going to plenty of events as leia so that leia could sneak out of the palace and “create mischief and visit inappropriate boys”. this is something the girls carried on their entire lives, and even now winter will cover for her as president at least once a week.

leia really was just a rebellious child and i apologize to bail and breha for the nightmare girl she was. she was kicked out of almost every single school on alderaan, one of them because she staged a protest for not giving the students fresh squeezed juice, at seven. and another because she broke into the school’s speaker system and changed the programming so that any mention of “emperor palpatine” was replaced with “emperor fuckface” and the empire’s anthem was replaced with the anthem of the old republic. she was like 13 at the time.

she was mostly homeschooled after that by tutors.

honestly i could go into everything leia did as a child because dear god she got in so much trouble she was a terror. like dropping a water balloon on tarkin’s head. truly read her legends wiki, it’s so funny.

proficient in far too many languages, it was her favorite thing to learn and one of the only tutors that held her attention. that and her self defense teacher, but that was to be expected.

either way, leia learned that she hated most of high society, the way they all thought they were better than everyone, the lavish parties while people suffered and she, along with her father’s hand in training her for this, had decided early on that she wanted to change the galaxy she lived in.

bail had trained leia for this. she was the youngest senator ever elected, at just eighteen when she was formally introduced to the galactic senate and palpatine himself.

she was only seventeen when her father started to bring her into the fold of the rebellion.

when her father stepped down from the senate, leia officially took his place and subsequently used her diplomatic immunity and cover for her ship to run secret missions for the rebellion. it began her first steps into her double life of senator and rebel.

this was around the time that mon mothma had taken leia under her wing and she grew even closer into the senate but also the inner workings of the rebellion. she was meant to fully take over the rebellion thanks to mothma’s teachings.

this is about when we get to the events of the original trilogy so !!

JUSTICE FOR ALDERAAN.

life in dc :

alright deep breath everyone.

first and foremost, let’s just talk about the solos. leia is a mother of four (soon to be five!! solo #5 is on their way), grandmother to six, and aunt to one. and she loves each and every one of them with all her heart and soul. her kids are her life, her grandchildren hold all of her heart. truly is just a very family oriented person, despite her workaholic tendencies, she would do anything to keep her family safe. (i don't want to hear it about bastilla rn let her just be happy mom for a second)

she is married to han solo, having eloped right before the halloween gala of 2022. they had kept it rather quiet, and were going to announce it to the family later until SOMEONE had to go and get themselves skewered again….. smh. and then the other half of this fell to the darkside in a full on dive but ya know lol

she is kinda still the worst. i’m so sorry to any agent ahsoka assigns to her detail because leia is a runner. there are far too many times that ‘nebula’s disappeared’ is called over the radios. but listen she’s got her blaster and her own lightsaber now, it’s fine

she was in the process of training with the force. she knows she’d never really be a jedi, she didn’t ever want to be a part of the order like that. and while she was doing well, learning how to control the force within her, there was always a darkness in her. one that she couldn’t fight off forever. the actual use of the force is something that still scares her. it’s a fear that she only talks to her siblings about.

her anger takes over far too often, not thinking clearly when it does and it leave a perfect opening for manipulation. for her own fall. to make the mistakes of her father. and that terrifies her.

she wanted to be good, she wanted to be strong, but she just doesn’t think it can happen. her greatest fear is that she will fall to the dark side as vader had, that she won’t be able to fight it. and with each encounter with palpatine, she fears he’s making more and more progress on that.– i wrote that like two years ago AND OH BOY DID WE FORESHADOW.

she’s fought with palpatine about four ?? times now, three of them discreetly, but another when she tried to kill him. a futile attempt that ended only with leia falling and her brother’s death only being mirrored instead of avenged. she wants to forget it ever happened but knows she can’t.

she doesn’t think she can ever really forgive her father for what he did. she knows, somewhere deep down, that one day she will find a time to forgive him, seeing as how one of her sons is named after him, but she still has nightmares about what vader did, about the days she spent locked in her cell on the death star. often she will close her eyes and clear as day feel vader’s hand on her shoulder, forcing her to watch as alderaan was destroyed. those days set her back.

right now, leia’s main goal is just keeping her kids safe. keeping luke and han safe. and trying to keep herself from falling. but she’s also made up her mind, that if any of her family is to deal with the dark side, leia will be the one to take that fall. she will let herself fall under palpatine if it ever came down to that or her family’s safety. - big fucking oof to that one LMAO

god there is probably more i could ramble about, like certain things that happened in the og trilogy or headcanons about her and the force or her and her family or her and her job. who knows. i will probably do some like head canon posts for more details about like her and jabba or her and what happened on the death star idk glkdfjg

BUT if you want to know what’s going on with sith vibes, here is the link to that update, since it’s where we’re at currently with leia !!

UPDATE FROM 12/12/23

god

welcome to maig's longest intro in the history of hidden and I JUST KEEP MAKING IT LONGER

anyways , here's a bastilla update :

leia went dark and tried to kill her family lol that's it :))))

not really jk but , like she's fine now?? things are fine??? she's fixing it. she's not a sith anymore, she died like twice over and it fixed her brain a little bit.

she had made a deal with sheev, and she a very poor grasp on the force to begin with so the moment it became more powerful, she sort of lost control over it

on top of that, most of the bastilla nightmare happened during the valentines day mini event where everyone was trying to kill people and they weren't themselves so, she really went above and beyond at that point and was struggling to control herself

she choked allana, stabbed jacen and killed kirei and yeah.. NOT GREAT but she's better now, she basically doesn't use the force at all. she won't even look at her lightsaber anymore. she is going to make it up to the family if its the last thing she does, she just wants to fucking fix this

for now, though, she is currently several months pregnant with solo #5 and is hoping that she can sort out the family drama before the baby comes

anyways once more sorry for the length but also as always, throw a middle finger into the sky for the space momby, carrie ♥

CONNECTIONS :

✩ secret service agents

a long standing connection i’ve had up on the main. truly anyone is free to apply for this, if you need a job, the agents are there for you!!

not all of them will work with leia directly, but she would definitely know all of their names, as she cares a lot of everyone who works for/under her.

just be warned, if you are on her personal detail, it’s probably meant to mess with you because leia is known for disappearing from her detail whenever she feels like it and getting into one mess after another

definitely be ready to have “nebula’s disappeared” be part of your daily vocabulary.

✩ white house employees

this can be anything from her cabinet members to a maid, truly anyone who works in the white house would definitely know her

leia doesn’t like to have this big separation between herself and the rest of her employees so feel free to have your characters work in the white house and be friendly with the president!

✩ people in politics

i mean of course she would know just about everyone in politics, but she definitely would have friends she would have business lunches with, go out for some drinks after a long day, all that jazz

✩ people outside of star wars

leia has been in the city for 5+ years as well, she would be pretty much all over, going to any and every fundraiser, doing speeches at schools, visiting different jobs etc

so she would realistically know a bunch of people from all over the city, both good and bad interactions, feel free to plot these out with me!!

✩ friends outside of politics

people she would know that she doesn’t have to talk shop with, someone who maybe she meets on one of her many adventures running away from her agents

just about anyone she can just be leia with

✩ opposing politicians

my love is very very liberal , she is not always going to rub people the right way with very progressive thoughts and actions. she’s the youngest president in history and that can be to her detriment sometimes. on top of all of that, there have been how many disasters under her administration within the city?

point is, she’s not always going to get along with everyone, and i would love to explore some people who are definitely against her re-election, people who oppose her that she has a very strained professional relationship with etc

just tension all around !!!