#and then say this is why the Jedi all deserve to burn in hell

[foundfamilynonsense]

The fact that The Good Place is one of the best explanations of love vs attachment and yet people still use it to say they Jedi had it backwards really shows how far people are willing to go to misinterpret this concept.

[starwhore-spacetrash]

//idk wut this will be… maybe a series… maybe not… Takes place after Clone Wars S.5 E19 Barrisoka// Ashoka POV

I rolled over again, stretching my arms above my head before slamming them down on either side of me. I’ve been trying to sleep for hours now… but I can’t shake it. How could she do this to me? After everything we’d been through? She could have picked anyone to frame; why me?

Anger boils inside me. “It’s not the Jedi way…” I stop myself; I’m not a Jedi. In a span of 48 hours, I’d lost my Master, my rank, my family, my purpose… my best friend.

The anger melts away and leaves something deep… a dark hole that’s swirling inside me; I feel like I’m being swallowed up.

Oddly, leaving the Jedi provided me with more relief than I anticipated. Barriss’ words have been running in a loop in my mind since her impassioned confession yesterday. She claimed the Jedi were corrupt. “The Jedi have become an army fighting for the Dark side!” I could still see the conviction in her eyes, the desperation in her voice.

If only she would have told me how she felt. How would I have responded? I wasn’t honest with her, why should I expect her to share everything with me? Barriss was always the open one. Always so kind and thoughtful. She knew me better than anyone… so why would would she chose me as her mark? Why set me up? I thought we were friends, many times, I thought we were more.

I feel the tears burning my eyes. A week ago, I would have pushed them back. Emotions are not a friend of the Jedi. They cloud your judgment. They make you weak. But, I am no Jedi, so I let them fall. A tear for every conversation, every smile, every time we fought alongside each other… a tear for every dream I’d had.

“Ahhhhh!” I slam my feet on the ground beneath me. I can’t lie here anymore. I have to see her. I’ll make her explain this to me. I deserve an explanation; it’s the least she could offer me after the hell she’s put me through.

•••

It’s darker here than I expected. I guess keeping the higher profile prisoners hidden deep under the city is a great deterrent for those who would want to break them free. Even with my knowledge of the force, I wouldn’t want to try it. I’m just here to get answers and get out. I don’t think I can bear looking at Barriss any longer than I have too. I’m lost in my thoughts and I barely acknowledge the two guards coming towards me.

Of course there are guards… I knew that going in. What I didn’t consider was my recent lack of clearance.

“Halt,” a guard now has his hand on my wrist, “you aren’t allowed down here.”

“Yes, I am allowed here.” I say as I wave my hand in front of his face. “Yes, you are allowed here,” the two guards echo in unison.

“You will take me to the cell of Barriss Offee, former Padawan and traitor to the Republic.” The words taste bitter leaving my mouth, and I fight the nausea rising in me.

A moment passes, and I almost waiver in my resolve. I’ve always struggled with mind tricks; Master Yoda says it because my mind is never at peace… now is no different. Finally, the guard repeats, “We will take you to the cell of Barriss Offee, former Padawan and traitor to the Republic.” We walk swiftly through the narrow corridors before stopping in front of a black, reflective door.

I waive my hand, “You will give me the key card and go about your day.” They do as I say, and I brace myself for what lies behind the door. I briefly consider walking away. What if what she says only hurts me more? What do I hope to gain from this conversation? An apology? No. She can’t say anything that would change the past, but, part of me (maybe a foolish, naive part) still hopes for a future. I take a breath and raise the card to the door.

“I’ve said all I intend to say. Further interrogation will get you nowhere.” Barriss’ back was to the door, her voice dull and without it’s usual sweetness. “That’s unfortunate,” I said mirroring the chill in her tone, “I risked my freedom to give you the opportunity to explain yourself. Foolish of me to assume my closest friend would have a reason for such betrayal. My mistake.” I knew I was speaking, but when she turned, when her tired eyes met mine, I felt the ice melt away.

“A-Ashoka?” she rasped. Barriss slowly stood up, hands raised in front of her, like she was afraid I would attack. There was fear written across her face, and something more… something deeper etched into the crease of her eyebrow. “Why-why are you here? I have nothing else to tell the Jedi.”

I tried to respond, but my mind was racing. Barriss stared at me wide eyed, awaiting a response. She didn’t wear her normal hood or headpiece, her short brunette waves falling loosely around her face. She wore a grey jumpsuit, and I couldn’t help but note that it was the only time I’d seen her in something other than her normal, baggy robe. Her legs were long, and obviously muscular. How did I never notice how small her waist was? The jumpsuit hugged her body around her hips and chest the material being pulled tight and…“Control yourself, Snips, a Jedi controls their emotions, not the other way around.” I could here Anakins snide voice correcting me for letting my guard down.

I snapped back into the moment, meeting Barriss’ eyes. “I’m not here on behalf of the Jedi. In fact, I won’t be doing anything for them ever again.” I said dryly. I noted the confusion that flooded her face. “What do you mean? As a Padawan, everything you do is on behalf of the Jedi, whether you intend it or not.”

“I left the order, Barriss.” It was the first time I said it out loud, and it didn’t hurt as much as I anticipated. Not when I was telling her.

“You left the order! Why?! Being a Jedi was everything to you! Was it because of what I did? Will they not let you back in?” Tears were pooling in her eyes, and I saw her bottom lip begin to quiver; my eyes were immediately drawn to it and I could think of nothing but making it stop. “My plan failed, Ashoka. I never intended for it to go that far. I wanted you to be out of danger, I never anticipated that you’d run away. I thought you’d be safe in a holding cell while I enacted the rest of the plan. I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.” She crumpled before me, heaving sobs wracking her small body.

She almost killed me. She caused the Council to turn against me… my own Master doubted me. I lost everything because of her and I should be furious. I should be glad she is rotting in the dark cell, tortured by her guilt. But I’m not.

My feet begin moving before I realize what I’m doing. In one movement, I scoop her from the floor and carry her to the small cot in the corner of the room. Her body relaxes into mine and I hold her tightly as the sobs lessen into muffled whimpers.

Gently, I comb my fingers through her hair, allowing my thumb to graze her temple and ear. I whisper, “I know. I understand. I forgive you.” She releases an exhausted sigh, and I lean my cheek against her forehead. Her breathing slows and I realize she’s asleep. Asleep on my lap, in my arms, in a jail cell, not 48 hours since her lies had me on trial for treason.

I’m not even angry. Actually, this is the closest I’ve felt to peace in months. The war, the council, everything that weighed down my existence for as long as I can remember… none of it exists anymore. Right now, it’s just us. Just Barriss, against my chest, sleeping as if she hasn’t had rest in years, and that’s all that matters to me.

I know this won’t last. The guards will do rounds soon and I’ll have to sneak out. Or worse, Barriss will wake up and I'll be forced to articulate what I feel (something I'm not at all prepared to do at the moment). I push those thoughts away and pull her closer. If being a Jedi Master means I could never have this feeling, then walking away was the best decision I ever made.

•••

To be continued…

[blackkatmagic]

Agen helping the clones so quickly is making my heart melt, ❤️ he's so kind and good ™ But him not taking sh*t from Alpha is really good too! I love one (1) man zabrak

;)

There's a moment’s pause, considering. Alpha glances at him, then out across the valley towards where their ship is hidden. “Trap?” he asks.

It’s possible, but—the idea doesn’t feel right. Agen shakes his head. “I do not believe so. A small operation, perhaps.”

Alpha grunts. “Big enough to have grabbed a bunch of kids,” he says darkly, and digs his canteen out, pulling his helmet off to take a long swig. After a second, he offers it to Agen, and Agen takes it with a nod of thanks and swallows his own mouthful. Dandoran is hot, humid, and while Agen is well-suited to this type of atmosphere, the gravity here is greater than he would prefer.

“Do you know how many?” he asks, handing the canteen back, and Alpha takes another few swallows and then recaps it.

“Hopefully all the rest,” Alpha says grimly. “Twenty kids still missing, maybe another fifteen older clones. All the rest are confirmed decommissioned or have already been rescued.”

Decommissioned. Agen feels the word settle, all barbs, all vicious, uncaring cruelty, and has to consciously keep from curling his fingers around his lightsaber. “The Kaminoans decommissioned clones,” he says flatly.

Alpha doesn’t look at him, keeps his eyes fixed ahead. Then, long, slow, he sighs, digs his fingers into his helmet. “Of course they did,” he says flatly. “Why the hell do you think we ran? Wolffe’s whole command—they were slated first, before we realized what was happening. Only Wolffe, Sinker, and Boost got out.”

“How many?” Agen asks, and swallows down his growl, breathes through the urge to turn right now, go to Kamino, do something drastic and entirely deserved. Jedi do not seek revenge, but—justice is something entirely different.

“Thirty thousand,” Alpha says, still perfectly steady, still entirely too calm. “Minus three.”

The number is…staggering. Gutting. Agen bows his head, takes the wash of guilt, the burn of rage, the steady, devouring beat of grief, and hopes that all the murdered clones found their peace in the Force. Hopes they march together, even if it’s far away.

“My grief dwells alongside yours,” he says quietly. There's nothing else he can offer.

Alpha grunts, lifts his nails from the paint on his helmet. “We got all the rest of them out,” he says, and it’s a grim sort of victory. “Karking millions of us, and they only managed to grab about a hundred thousand. I’ll take it.”

It doesn’t stop the grief, but Agen can see the logic in it, the steady push towards the future. Can see, too, the drive to recover those taken, and why it was that Agen took him and Tan the moment the opportunity presented itself.

“I know,” he says quietly, “that I have already told you I will cooperate. But beyond that, Alpha, I would like to offer you my help in all things, regardless of what has come before. Whatever you need to see your people safe, I would like to help you get it.” Alpha doesn’t look over at him this time, either. Just pulls his helmet on, rises to his feet. “Help me get the kids back first,” he says flatly, and starts climbing again, one hand after the other, even as the cliff face slants outward.

[tiffdawg]

On Fire For You | A Din Djarin x Reader Oneshot

Gif: @bestintheparsec

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader (fem; no y/n)

Word Count: 2.5k

Rated: T  | Warnings: tropes galore, including but not limited to there’s only one bed, huddling for warmth, first kisses, and, of course, found family. And there’s one (1) mild reference to something spicy.

A/N: This is part of my follower giveaway! The lovely @aerolanya requested Din + “oh no there’s only one bed” and I’m only too happy to deliver on one of my favorite tropes. I hope you all enjoy!

Read on AO3 | My Masterlist

… . …

On Fire For You

It was a rare treat for you and Din to see Grogu for such an extended period of time, and you were excited to take him to an ancient temple at the Jedi Luke Skywalker’s instruction even if finding the site proved difficult but being stranded on a frozen planet in the middle of a blizzard was not how you envisioned the trip. Even with the upgraded console on Din’s new ship, it was impossible to navigate through to snowstorm raging on Polus. He’d been forced to set the ship down on the empty ice plains until it passed. Even now as you sat in the cockpit cradling Grogu, you saw nothing, but white snow and ice whipped by furious winds outside the transparisteel viewport. 

You held the small child tighter as his ears drooped at a shrieking gust of wind. You didn’t like the sound of that either. When your partner re-entered the main cabin, you quickly stood from the co-captain’s chair and faced him. “Is everything okay?” 

He nodded once as he brushed a layer of snow of his pauldrons. “Ship’s in good condition. We’ll be ready to fly as soon as the storm passes.” You nodded quietly as you processed the situation. And then he added, “as long as we’re not buried under ice in the morning.”

You didn’t like the sound of that either. “What are the chances of that happening?”

He gestured to the viewport you’d been staring out of as if to say pretty damn good, but at your worried expression, he made an effort to console you. “We’ll be fine for the night. Don’t worry.” 

You heaved a small sigh of relief as you pulled your shawl tighter around your body, making sure Grogu was securely tucked underneath the thick Bantha wool as well. If Din thought things were fine, then you’d be fine. Surely there was nothing to worry about.

… . …

As your frozen breath swirled around you with each exhale, you wondered why you ever listened to a word out of that stubborn Mandalorian’s mouth.

Bundled in your heaviest parka and wrapped in a blanket, you and Grogu watched as Din pulled apart the ship’s internal wiring and tried to put it back together. Inside the metal hull, the temperature was dropping by the minute and after nearly an hour of work, he’d had no luck powering up the ship. 

“Dank farrik.” Grumbling, Din tossed aside his pilex driver. “I can’t get the heating system back online. Hell, I can’t get anything back online. Not in these temps.”

“You’re telling me it’s colder than space?” you asked, desperately trying to hide your panic

“No,” he sighed. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I– I don’t know this ship.” His frustration was evident in the way he moved as he stood and looked around helplessly. You felt for him. He always tried his best to hide his struggles from you, but you knew losing the Razor Crest was like losing his home. Despite the cold, your heart warmed toward him. Of course, that was nothing new.

“It’s okay,” you said, even as your teeth chattered. You reached toward him, intent on offering some sense of comfort, but recoiled as soon as your hand touched his cuirass. The metal was so cold it stung. “Kriff! You’re freezing, Din.” 

“The armor is insulated. It’s only cold on the outside. I’m fine,” he assured you. Still, you eyed him skeptically. He never put much thought into his own good. More often than not, that was your job. “I wore enough layers,” he said pointedly. 

“I’m practically wearing everything I own.”

“I can tell.” You heard that hint of a smile in his voice, the one that stirred the butterflies in your stomach, but you only narrowed your eyes at him. He chuckled softly and offered you the last blanket. “According to my starmap, there’s a small settlement not far from here. If we can make it there, we might find somewhere warm to pass the storm.”

“Might?” you whispered so only Grogu heard you. As he blinked up at you, you could tell that he shared your apprehension. “Don’t worry, little one,” you said as you trailed a gentle finger down the slope of his nose. “Your father would do anything to protect you.”

… . …

Either Polus was known for its hospitality or you looked as pitiful as you felt, but by some stroke of luck, the three of you found someone willing to offer you safe lodging in the village. As he assured Din that his family would be safe and warm for the night, your cheeks burned so warm you were certain the snowflakes melted as soon as they touched your skin. Then the generous old man dashed away through the snowdrifts back to the warmth of his home and family, leaving you alone in the old cabin. Relief washed over you as soon as you stepped inside and out of the biting wind. 

“Ewoks live better than this,” you mumbled as you scowled at the sad, dark dwelling. It was well insulated but little more than a room and lacked something as basic as a refresher. The only one was in the village’s main hall which would require you to dash through the snow in the middle of the night should you wake up at some point. You would not be doing that.  You knew it was better than being out in the snow or freezing to death on the ship, but it was austere even for your nomadic lifestyle. 

“I’ve seen worse,” Din offered. 

“Oh, I’m sure you have.” You rolled your eyes behind his back, but as he craned his neck to look back at you, you thought he might’ve sensed the gesture. After a year of traveling together, the two of you could practically predict each other’s next move.

While Din lit a small fire in the hearth in the center of the room, you offered a small meal to Grogu from the meager supplies you’d been able to carry with you. Unsurprisingly, he took the tin of food eagerly and sat himself near the flames to warm up. With the roaring fire, you finally felt your limbs start to thaw. Still, you kept all but your wet outer layers on as you arranged your bedroll. Which was when you noticed a small problem.

“There’s only one bunk,” you stated dumbly. You looked around the room as if a second would appear magically.

“You take it,” Din said as he reclined against the wall across from the fire. He folded his arms across his chest as if to fall asleep like he did in his captain’s chair. 

“You won’t be comfortable like that all night,” you protested weakly.

“I’ve had worse,” he echoed. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes again.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve better, Din.” You crouched next to him, trying to catch his eyes behind the visor. For all you knew, he was already asleep.

“You and the kid are all that matter,” he said softly after a moment. Your chest hollowed as the air escaped your lungs at his words. You felt the same sentiment deep in your bones. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Too late for that,” you said with a rueful little smile. You worried about the man constantly, but you couldn’t help it. Not when he carried your heart with him, and you needed him to keep it safe. Needed him safe. Even if he didn’t need to know that. You brushed the few remaining snowflakes off him even as they melted quickly in the warming room. “You shouldn’t sleep in wet clothes,” you offered pointlessly. “You’ll catch your death, and we can’t have that.”

Expecting him to gently chastise you for your concern, you didn’t wait for his response. Instead, you scooped up the baby, who’s eyes were blinking shut even as he still clutched the last of his meal in his tiny, clawed hand, and crawled into bed. 

As you arranged the blankets neatly around the two of you, you noticed Din’s stare still trained on you. You held his gaze from across the room. It was hardly the first time you’d caught him watching you, but as the flickering firelight reflected off the obsidian visor, you desperately wished you could see his true expression. 

“Goodnight, Din,” you whispered after a long moment.

“Goodnight, cyare,” he rasped quietly.

With that single word of Mando’a fluttering between your ribs, you settled in for the night.

… . ...

Perhaps an hour or two later you woke with a chill. As you all slept, the room’s only source of warmth had dwindled to smoldering embers and even as you curled up into a ball and cuddled the baby closer to your chest, it was not nearly enough to stave off the cold. 

“Din?” you called, your voice wavering as you shivered. He woke with a bit of a start before his visor turned to you. “We’re freezing,” you embellished. Maybe he’d take pity on you if he thought the kid was cold too.

Din nodded once, almost dutifully. Limbs still heavy with sleep, he moved slowly as he stood and stoked the fire, but he gave up after a minute and ignited his flamethrower with a flick of his wrist. The hot blue spark was more than enough to rekindle it and you felt the warmth flood the room immediately. 

You expected him to then return to his slumped position against the wall. Instead, he stared at you with his helmet tilted curiously. You watched with bated breath as he crossed the small room while pulling off a single leather glove. You couldn’t tear your eyes away from the sight of his tanned skin. Since that fateful night on Moff Gideon’s ship, you hadn’t seen him missing so much as a single pauldron. Din hooked a finger under your chin, tilting your face toward him, and ran the pad of his thumb across your lips. The simple action sent a shock through your system and every thought vanished from your head. All accept one. But you steadfastly resisted the urge to kiss his warm skin. 

“Take off your clothes,” he said softly. Your jaw dropped at the command. And then, if possible, even further as he started to remove his Beskar.  

“W– What?” you asked without bothering to hide your surprise. 

“You need body heat,” he answered evenly. That… that made much more sense. That was a logical, rational explanation. Although it was the opposite of what you’d been thinking. You silently scolded yourself as you stripped down to your modest underclothes. You did your best to advert your eyes while Din did the same before climbing into bed behind you. 

“Relax,” he said as he settled next to you. 

You did as he asked. Or rather, tried your best as you laid facing away from him. As you did, you heard the faint whir of his helmet’s locking mechanism disengaging. A muscular arm reached past you to set it on the floor. 

Understandably, all of the movement woke the baby. In the dim firelight, Grogu’s eyes widened as he smiled up at Din. He cooed happily as he reached for his father’s face. 

“Hey, kid.” Din greeted him as if it was the first time, he’d seen him in a while. And like this, it was. He laughed, deep and rich and real, and you cherished the sound. 

A smile pulled at your lips at the sweet exchange. But as much as you longed to see him, you kept your focus on the baby and let yourself see Din through his eyes.

“Alright, back to sleep.” For once, Grogu was tired enough to actually listen to his father. He curled up against your chest again and Din carefully tucked the blankets around the both of you. His soft snoring resumed almost instantly.

He shifted for a bit as if trying to find a comfortable position. You were acutely aware of his every move and every accidental brush of his skin against yours. At one sharp inhale, he spoke again.

“Are you okay?” Not quite trusting your voice, you nodded. Because the truth was, you were more than okay. There was no place you’d rather be than in bed with him. “Still cold?”

“A little.” 

Before you could tell him that way okay, he surprised you by wrapping a strong arm around your middle and pulling you closer until you laid with your back to his bare chest. Instantly, you felt the heat radiating off his body. The man was a furnace. 

“Any better?”

As your eyes fell shut, the words slipped out with a breath before you could stop them. “Oh my stars, you feel so good, Din.” 

His hold on you tightened. Then, in an unexpected but wholly welcomed move, his hand slid up your body to cup your cheek and turn your face toward his. You felt only a ghost of a breath on your skin before warm, chapped lips pressed against your cold ones. Scintillas of heat spread throughout your body.    

“Look at me, cyare,” he whispered as you parted.

Hesitating only for a second, you opened your eyes to find perfect, plush lips smiling back at you. Letting your eyes roam, you admired his soft brown eyes glinting in the firelight and the mess of tousled locks you wanted to run your fingers through. So you did as you pulled him back to you.

“I can’t wait to have you alone,” Din murmured against your mouth. Chills erupted across your skin that had nothing to do with the cold. But his kiss only lasted a moment before he backed away with a look of uncertainty. “Do you want that?”

You smiled at his bashfulness. It was completely unfounded, but endlessly endearing and so incredibly like him. “Yes,” you promised as you sealed your lips to his once more. Both of you fell fast asleep with soft smiles 

… . …

The storm passed overnight and the next morning the villagers set you on the right path to the ancient temple. Din got the ship up and flying in no time and the three of you were off. 

When you arrived Grogu seemed to instinctively know just what he had to do. Whatever he was meant to find in there, it was meant for him alone. With a gentle hand on his shoulder, just above the mudhorn signet that signified their bond, you held Din back as the baby toddled into the icy cave alone. You sensed his hesitation, but he stayed with you. He heaved a sigh under your touch.

“Have I ever told you that you’re a good father?” you asked as you slipped your hand into his. The gesture was new, but as he twined his fingers with yours, it felt like something the two of you had done a thousand times before. 

“All the time,” he answered.

“And do you believe me yet?”

Din was quiet for a long time before he turned to you. “You’re a good mother to him, cyare.”

Somehow, as you beamed at him, you knew your smile was returned. Finally, you could imagine it perfectly.

... . ...

Thank you for reading! 

💕Tiff

... . ...

Forever Tags: @leo-moon @readsalot73 @frietiemeloen @huliabitch @jerusomeeno @benedrylcumbersnatch @b0n-chann @scapricciatello @liadamerondjarin @pedropasscals @paintballkid711 @mistermiraclee @honeyand-roses @mxsamwilson @themilkface @mylifeliterally @mskitty79 @rosiefridayrogersunday @perropascal @giselatropicana @roxypeanut @divineangelix @sarahjkl82-blog @kylerr @aerolanya @artsymaddie @linkpk88 @antisocialshipper @toastytaurus @321-lets-go’s @kesskirata @gredandfeorgesgirl @lou-la-lou @helga1031 @ktmadden86 @lesbianlena @mtjoi @pedropascaldice @swimmingsloths @lovelyasfcuk @technicallykawaiisoul @cinewhore @ali-cide @iamskyereads @magpie-to-the-morning @stardust-galaxies @melaniermblt @jenrebloggingfics @gondowan @phoenixhalliwell @melaniermblt @mystical-934 @ellefran @filmmando @ohnomando 

Din Djarin Tags: @northernpunk @lindsaybluthforlife @michaelgaryscottismydad @witchqraft @harrys-stan @rebloogggs @valeecruz16 @hufflepuff-ophelia @bees-fart-too @stardust-fray @lazybeeches @1800-fight-me @aleishabeck @leonieb @fvriosa @the-horny-virgin @fireproofmarta @radiowallet @anella951 @callitdreamland @honey-hi @starless-eyes-remain @theoceanimade @thevoiceinyourheadx @sfr99 @frogllady @qhbr2013​ @aphr0d1te5 @waitingforbluerskies​ @strawberryperegrine 

[suzukiblu]

About 3k of handmaiden!Anakin for @thisarenotarealblog. Bit of a timeskip from where we last left off this time, so we're writing a bit out of order right now.

And a read-more, of course!

--

Obi-Wan has no idea why he's at this party, but he is. It was the Supreme Chancellor's idea, certainly. Usually the Supreme Chancellor is to blame in these situations. Obi-Wan appreciates the man's efforts, but not in this kind of thing.

“Enjoy yourself, Obi-Wan. How often do you take a break?” Palpatine says with a smile, handing him a glass of something definitely alcoholic, and Obi-Wan can’t really argue with that.

He doesn't take breaks, though.

"If you say so, Supreme Chancellor," he says, taking a sip of the drink. It is definitely alcoholic. Palpatine looks amused.

"I do," he says. "Relax. You don't have any responsibilities tonight."

Obi-Wan always has responsibilities.

He drinks the drink, though, and he listens as Palpatine makes political small talk with various senators and other dignitaries, and he follows him from group to group as he does. Palpatine occasionally ropes him into the conversations, but Obi-Wan manages to escape most of them effectively enough. It's a bit of a trick to do it without offending anyone, but he pulls it off, hopefully.

Someone gives him another drink. He’s more than glad to take it.

"Hm," Palpatine says at one point, pausing in his steps between one group and another. Obi-Wan isn't sure what's distracted him, mostly because he's just been hugely distracted himself.

Anakin Skywalker just walked into the building, is the thing. Obi-Wan has no idea where he actually is, but in his defense, the ballroom is crowded and he might be a little tipsy. Or—well, perhaps a little drunk.

But he can feel Anakin Skywalker in the Force like a force, and there is no mistaking his presence. And yes, Obi-Wan is a little drunk, but not drunk enough to miss someone so obvious as that boy. It's been years, but he's never forgotten the feeling of Anakin Skywalker’s Force presence.

He's never forgotten anything about that awful, awful mission.

He exhales, steadies himself, and has another drink. Palpatine continues making his way around the room, continues all his little small talk and pleasantries, and a few minutes later they come face-to-face with Queen Amidala.

Obi-Wan reflexively looks at Padmé, not the handmaiden in the white face paint and red lipstick and golden headdress. The handmaiden is wearing layers upon layers of shining black silk and heavy gold ornaments. Padmé and the rest of her handmaidens are in robes with a simple dark gray ombre, flanking "Amidala".

Palpatine greets Amidala, not Padmé. Amidala inclines her head in reciprocation. Padmé looks at Obi-Wan, just for a moment, and he has to look anywhere else.

She brought Anakin Skywalker here, wherever he is. He can't figure out why. The boy can't be more than . . . twelve? Thirteen, maybe?

He doesn't know.

He should know. Anakin Skywalker should be here with him, in fact, wearing Jedi robes and a padawan braid, and Obi-Wan should know everything about him.

He takes another drink.

"Such a pleasure to see you again, Your Majesty," Palpatine says, smiling serenely at Amidala. Padmé’s eyebrow quirks, and one of the other handmaidens makes a subtle little gesture that Obi-Wan only catches in the reflection of another dignitary's shiny ornamental armor. "It makes me think of home."

"And you as well, Supreme Chancellor," Amidala says. Her voice is a very close match to the way Padmé’s own voice as Amidala was, actually, though that's definitely her actively imitating it. Or she might be wearing some kind of voice modulator; it's hard to tell with all the layers of silk wrapped around her throat. "Naboo misses your company."

"Perhaps one day soon I'll have time to go back for a vacation," Palpatine says, clearly amused by the idea that he'd ever have time for one. "You remember Knight Kenobi, yes?"

"Yes," Amidala says. "Of course."

She bows her head to Obi-Wan. He bows properly in return. He could say something, but all he's thinking about is the smell of burned flesh and the weight of Qui-Gon’s body in his arms.

"Naboo is still very grateful to you, Knight Kenobi," Amidala says. Padmé is watching him intently out of the corner of her eye.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Obi-Wan says, immediately wanting to leave. He doesn't want to be anywhere near all this black silk and bad memories. Everything about Naboo is another reminder of his failures, and Queen Amidala more than most.

He's tried so hard to be a Jedi Qui-Gon would've been proud of, but always there is Qui-Gon’s own death and Anakin Skywalker’s existence.

He can never be the Jedi Qui-Gon would've wanted.

Not that Qui-Gon actually wanted him, in the end.

But that's such a selfish, miserable thought.

"I hope the party is to your tastes, Your Majesty," Palpatine says.

"Of course, Supreme Chancellor," Amidala says, inclining her head politely.

"Good, good," Palpatine says gamely. "I'd hate to see you bored."

"We are far from bored," Amidala says. The handmaidens shift very slightly behind her, but Obi-Wan misses whatever little gesture they've made this time. He's not sure if they're communicating among themselves or just fidgeting, and he's a little too drunk to trust a guess.

It doesn't matter anyway, really. He doubts they'd be saying anything he wants to know.

Or deserves to, more like.

An attendant comes up to Palpatine and murmurs in his ear, and Palpatine pauses to listen, then smiles pleasantly at Amidala and Obi-Wan.

"I may be needed, it seems. Why don't you two catch up?" he says. "I won't be but a moment."

"Supreme Chancellor—" Obi-Wan starts warily, and Palpatine pats his shoulder.

"Offer the queen a dance, Knight Kenobi," he suggests. "I'll be right back."

". . . of course, Supreme Chancellor," Obi-Wan says, too baffled by the idea to argue it. Also he's fairly sure arguing it would come across as an insult to Amidala, so . . .

Palpatine walks away with the attendant. The handmaidens rustle amongst themselves. Amidala looks momentarily bemused, but then clears her face.

"If it pleases Your Majesty," Obi-Wan says, feeling like a fool. He holds out his hand to Amidala, who looks momentarily bemused again but takes it.

And she's not a handmaiden, Obi-Wan realizes the moment their hands touch.

She's Anakin Skywalker.

Hell.

It's too damn late to do anything else, though, so he leads the other to the dance floor. Anakin Skywalker follows with perfect manners, and they step into the dance. Obi-Wan knows it, but not quite as well as Anakin apparently does. It's not too demanding, at least, which is probably for the best for the both of them—Obi-Wan is a little drunk, still, and Anakin is wearing very heavy robes and jewelry. He doubts they're the best for dancing in, though Anakin doesn't seem to mind.

Obi-Wan can feel the handmaidens' eyes on them.

He could speak to him, he supposes, but he can't imagine what he'd say.

What could he, after everything?

"Hi," Anakin says, his voice still a near-faultless match to Padmé’s. Obi-Wan still doesn't know what to say.

"Hello, Anakin," he replies, voice pitched low so as not to carry to the other dancers. Anakin doesn't seem surprised to be recognized. Well . . . Obi-Wan supposes he remembers a bit about Jedi senses, more than likely.

"Nobody calls me that anymore," Anakin says. He doesn't make a face, but Obi-Wan gets the impression that he would, if not for Amidala’s makeup.

"What do they call you, then?" he asks. It's only polite.

"Anaké," Anakin says. Obi-Wan frowns faintly. He would've expected "Ani", he supposes, or just "Skywalker".

"Anaké?" he repeats questioningly.

"Yes," Anakin—Anaké—says. "Except my mom calls me Ani."

"Your mother?" Obi-Wan says, his frown deepening. "Isn't she . . ."

"Padmé bought her," Anaké says.

"Oh." Obi-Wan feels like a fool, again.

"You missed a step," Anaké says.

"Ah—my apologies," Obi-Wan says. Anaké’s right; he did. "It's been some time since I danced."

"You're okay at it," Anaké says, with all the unforgiving bluntness of a teenager. Obi-Wan really doesn't know what he feels right now.

"Thank you," he settles for, diplomatically. He tries not to picture what Anaké might look like without the makeup, and especially not what he might look like in Jedi robes and a padawan braid. That's something that didn't happen, and never will.

Something he couldn't trust himself to let happen.

Something he wasn't strong enough to make happen.

"So you're a knight now?" Anaké says.

"Yes," Obi-Wan says.

"Not a master?" Anaké cocks his head.

"Not yet." Obi-Wan is mostly sure that wasn't meant to be an insult, but the words stab him anyway. He should've taken a padawan by now.

He should've done a lot of things.

"Sorry about your lightsaber," Anaké says.

"What?" Obi-Wan asks blankly. He's wearing his lightsaber.

"Never mind," Anaké says. "Um."

Obi-Wan is about to say something, but then he gets a bad feeling. He tightens his grip on Anaké, and Anaké stiffens.

"What's that?" Anaké says, and then the ceiling blows up. People scream. Obi-Wan throws Anaké to the floor and shields him from the debris with his body, and Anaké lets out a startled yelp. There's already a long vibroblade in his hand. Obi-Wan has no idea where he was hiding that thing.

The handmaidens swarm them. People in armor that Obi-Wan doesn't recognize drop through the ceiling with weapons drawn and start shouting demands. The panicking dignitaries are forced back towards the walls.

Obi-Wan really wishes he hadn't had those drinks earlier.

"Fall back. Don't get pinned down," Padmé says tersely. She's right at their side, a blaster drawn from somewhere within her robes. All the handmaidens are suddenly visibly armed in one way or another, but they're definitely outnumbered.

"Padmé!" Anaké says.

"We'll cover you," another handmaiden says. Obi-Wan thinks she looks familiar, but he doesn't know her name.

They fall back, and Padmé and the handmaiden lay down covering fire. Obi-Wan draws his lightsaber and flicks it on.

He really hopes Palpatine isn't in the building right now. That's not a problem they need.

The attackers shoot back. Obi-Wan dives forward and knocks back a blaster bolt before it can hit the handmaiden. She keeps firing her own blaster over his shoulder, not missing a beat. A few more of the dignitaries and attendants scream.

"Cover!" Obi-Wan barks, slashing another blaster bolt out of the air.

"You're doing fine," the handmaiden says dismissively, firing again.

"Fé!" Padmé shouts. "Fall back!"

The handmaiden sighs, but listens. Obi-Wan covers her retreat, and they fall back towards the heavy buffet tables. Someone's already kicked them over, and they drop back behind them. Fé checks her blaster. Obi-Wan feels like throwing up, which is probably the alcohol's fault.

A few other dignitaries have pulled out hopefully not ornamental weapons and there are guards in the room too, but at this point everyone's taken cover. Obi-Wan can't see or sense Palpatine, so that's some mercy.

Assuming he's not dead, anyway.

Obi-Wan steels himself. Palpatine isn't dead. He isn't even in the damn room.

One of the attackers starts shouting again. Fé takes aim at them, but Padmé puts a hand on her arm to hold her back.

The attacker is clearly under the impression that this is a hostage situation, which is awfully optimistic of them, Obi-Wan thinks. They might have more blasters, but they're nowhere near containing the situation.

"They get one chance to surrender," Padmé says. The handmaidens all nod sharply. Anaké flips his grip on his vibroblade.

Obi-Wan . . . well, he's the Jedi here, isn't he.

"Ready to wave the white flag?" he calls out to their attackers.

"You corrupt bastards will regret your crimes!" one of them yells.

"Oh, well, I could think of a couple people we could let them shoot, then," a handmaiden says.

"Very funny, Yané," Padmé says dryly.

"I was joking?"

"I don't think we should expect them to surrender," Obi-Wan says, adjusting his own grip on his lightsaber.

"Probably not," Padmé sighs.

"Maybe if we shoot a couple of them?" Anaké suggests.

"I do have the shot," Fé says.

"I'm considering it," Padmé says. Obi-Wan wonders if they're always this prepared for chaos. They seem better organized than the guards are. Definitely better than their attackers are.

"Let me take care of this," he says. "I'm the peacekeeper here, after all."

"You've been drinking," Padmé says.

"I'm still capable of negotiating," he says with as much dignity as he can muster. He's not that drunk, dammit.

This is what he gets for letting himself get talked into going to a party.

"I'm more concerned with you being capable of not getting shot or stabbed," Padmé says frankly.

"I'll be fine," Obi-Wan says.

"You almost tripped while we were dancing," Anaké says.

"I did not," Obi-Wan says indignantly. Anaké and the handmaidens give him an unconvinced look.

Teenagers. For Force's sake.

"Just try not to die, please," Padmé says.

"I haven't yet," Obi-Wan says. The attackers fire a few rounds into the ceiling. Some people scream again, which is really not helpful. He sighs, then flicks off his lightsaber.

"We'll cover you," Padmé says.

"That's very thoughtful of you, thank you," Obi-Wan says, clipping his lightsaber to his belt. He really doesn't need the assistance, but he's not going to protest a little bit of insurance either.

Now the question is, can he stand up without getting shot?

Chances may be slim, he admits to himself.

Alright, he may need the assistance. And really, he's done more dangerous things in his life.

"Let's talk, perhaps?" he calls over to the attackers.

"We don't talk to lying politicians!" one of them yells.

"Well, I'm definitely not that," Obi-Wan says.

"Padmé’s not a liar!" Anaké says with a scowl.

"Thank you for your entirely correct priorities in this situation, Anaké," Obi-Wan says dryly.

"Traitors to the people!" another attacker yells, and takes a potshot at the table they're behind. Obi-Wan is grateful that they brought out the heavy-duty furniture for this party.

"I'm going to shoot them now, my lady," Fé says.

"Let's, yes," Padmé says, and fires back at them. The other handmaidens do the same, except for Anaké, who doesn't have a blaster and looks impatient. Obi-Wan considers pulling out his lightsaber again as the attackers return fire. At least they're focused on them, and not any of the less-protected people. No one's died yet, and Obi-Wan would like to keep it that way.

It might be a fool's hope, admittedly, but it's one he lives by.

Enough people have died on his watch in his life.

The table is starting to take some serious structural damage. Obi-Wan gets his lightsaber out again after all.

"I'm going to do something a bit dangerous now," he informs Padmé and the others. "Please don't shoot me."

"No promises," Yané says.

Well, at least they're honest.

Obi-Wan sighs, then shifts into a crouch and leaps over the table with a Force push, high into the air and over the blasterfire. He flicks his lightsaber on and lands in the middle of the attackers, and things proceed logically from there. Some of them attack him; some scatter. He's a bit more worried about the scattering ones, though it looks like the handmaidens are doing their best to pick them off.

Alright, yes, he might've needed the assistance.

Obi-Wan slices his way through opponents as they do their damnedest to kill him, and blasterfire continues to rain down around them all. He's not really sure who's shooting, at this point.

Someone screams, and Obi-Wan senses terror. He jerks his head towards it and finds an attacker doing a very bad job of taking a hostage, by which he means "being viciously stabbed by Anaké".

Very viciously.

Sweet Force, Obi-Wan thinks, then narrowly avoids getting stabbed himself.

The fight is messy but brief, and it doesn't take long. Obi-Wan has been in worse ones, certainly. He does nearly get killed once or thrice, but that's just a normal day, really, and before long he's surrounded by fallen bodies. Padmé shoots past him one last time and takes out one more attacker, and then silence falls in the ballroom.

Obi-Wan rakes his hair back out of his face, trying to catch his breath. He feels . . . pained, a bit, and not because of any injuries.

He just feels Qui-Gon like a lost limb, sometimes.

"Well, that was a bit unfortunate," he says as casually as he can make himself, flicking his lightsaber off.

"A bit of an understatement," Padmé says, standing up and dusting her robes off. The other handmaidens swarm Anaké again, who's busy wiping blood off his hands. It might not be the best example of body-doubling ever committed by the Naboo, but then again, what does Obi-Wan know about either the Naboo or their body-doubling practices. He's certainly never looked into them.

Padmé joins the group around Anaké and steps up to him to carefully wipe a little more blood off of Amidala’s makeup with her thumb. It doesn't smear, to Obi-Wan's mild surprise. He doesn't know much about makeup either, of course.

The guards come out to collect the surviving attackers, and the dignitaries and attendants start coming out as well. Most of them are wary, but they're grateful too.

Obi-Wan doesn't feel drunk anymore, at least, though actually at this point he'd like another drink or two.

He thinks about going over to Amidala and her entourage, but he can't imagine why they'd want him there.

Palpatine comes back as the guards and attendants are cleaning up, looking alarmed.

"What happened?" he says. Obi-Wan still wants another drink.

"Just a minor incident, Supreme Chancellor," he says, though the hall is trashed enough that he doubts that's a convincing statement. "Nothing to worry about."

"I see you've handled things well enough yourself, Obi-Wan," Palpatine says, looking at the lightsaber wounds on the attackers. Obi-Wan straightens up, trying not to look as tired as he feels.

"I had some assistance," he says, tilting his head towards Amidala and her entourage. Palpatine makes a thoughtful noise.

"I see," he says. "Well, it's a good thing you were here."

"I suppose," Obi-Wan says, which logically he recognizes is true, and yet . . .

And yet.

"How was your dance?" Palpatine asks, and Obi-Wan smiles weakly at him.

"Perhaps I owe Queen Amidala another," he says.

"Ah, well, there's always next time," Palpatine says, and Obi-Wan really doesn't know if he ever wants to see Amidala or Padmé or Anaké's faces ever again.

"I suppose," he says again, and watches the handmaidens fuss over the debris-covered hem of Anaké's dark robes, and feels him in the Force like a star: the lineage-brother he'll never have, the padawan Qui-Gon was never able to take, the would-be Chosen One that went unchosen. The boy wearing a queen's face like he's worn it a thousand times, so impossible to miss but so well-hidden all the same.

Obi-Wan still doesn't know what he feels about any of this at all.

He supposes it doesn’t really matter, though.

No one's going to ask him, after all.

[vagrantblvrd]

That time where Anakin didn’t fall to the Dark Side but also had enough of the Jedi Order and their nonsense and, idk, ended up on Tatooine because it’s quiet there.

(And other more emotional reasons, including the whole time period where he Did Something about the whole ~slave thing the Jedi didn’t want to touch and anyway, Padme took care of all the political stuff, Anakin got his hands bloody and maybe Boba Fett sidled over in there somewhere and Anakin’s like, he sure as hell doesn’t want Jabba’s job and just make sure they don’t have Situation and everything’s good, Fett.)

Padme does the politics and such and finds Tatooine oddly restful after dealing with other politicians and really, having to contend with sand is worth the peace she finds there with her family.

Also, though.

Anakin finds himself running a hangar in Mos Eisley - there was a sabacc game and a brawl and anyway, he runs a hangar now. Him and Luke, although Leia loves being there when she’s not learning to terrorize politicians at her mother’s knee.

She’s with Padme a lot, but they’re on Tatooine more than others think she should be, given her role in government and such, and anyway.

Anakin runs a hangar and gets a friendly rival in Peli Motto who is forever trying to steal Luke from him.

Smirks at Anakin when Luke shrugs sheepishly because Peli bribed him with an old speeder he can have if he pays for the parts and does the work himself and okay, wow, no fair? But also  Anakin was going to help Luke fix up their old speeder - there was A Thing and it maybe got exploded a little and anyway, fine.

Bribe his son with a speeder why don’t you, Motto, Anakin doesn’t care.

(He does a little, though.)

And then!

There’s that time Luke comes home with this doofy smile and Anakin is like oh no because he knows that doofy smile. (Padme makes fun of his all the time.)

So Anakin ~spies. Badly, and not with any real intent, more bumbling dad energy and Peli forbids him from stepping foot in her hangar - “Leave the poor boy alone, you know what it’s like,” and anyway.

If Peii’s not worried about whoever managed to catch Luke’s eye they can’t be all bad.

But then Anakin comes home and finds Luke patching up a Mandalorian and Luke’s awkward, scared, “...hey, Dad,” with the guy’s blood on his hands and their medical kit - hefty thing, because Anakin and Ahsoka and various former troopers who sem to think he’s a complete disaster, and anyway.

Anakin notices the way the Mandalorian is trying to shield his son, his son, from him like it wasn’t even something he had to think about doing even though he looks like he’s been through hell, all bloodied and battered and -

“Hey, Luke,” he says, and goes over to the two of them and helps because what else was he going to do?

And then later with the Mandalorian sleeping  - passed out - in Luke’s bed Anakin’s outside tinkering with...something. Speeder or whatever and Luke comes out all awkward and a little wary and Anakin sighs.

Asks Luke how work was, if Peli’s still treating him right over there - they’re literally across the way but it’s a Thing - and what does Luke want for dinner? Anakin’s not done the shopping for a while, but he’s pretty sure they have enough for three, and anyway.

They end up with a Mandalorian staying with them, in Luke’s room and it’s a little funny the way Luke blushes so easily when Anakin gives him a certain look or raises an eyebrow and he promises he’ll stop, but Padme it’s hilarious and Anakin totally understands the sheer glee of it Obi-Wan felt with Anakin and her.

And then!

There’s a thing one day, Anakin has to close the hangar because no work’s going to get done there until it’s fixed crews won’t be there for another day at least. So he heads home early. Luke’s working on something for Peli, and it’s the first time Anakin’s been alone with Luke’s Mandalorian and he’s just.

The man is so...careful. Polite. It makes Anakin feel wrong-footed in his own home, and - hey, you know.

Is that armor beskar?

So Luke comes home after a long day’s work to find his dad and his Mandalorian going at it in behind their home, just all-out fighting that could mean lost limbs or severe burns, and -

His dad is laughing?

His dad’s laughing.

Din is - well, he’s not laughing but he feels like he’s enjoying their fight - spar? - and beside Luke Artoo is like Skywalkers because they’re always like this, and trundles off to pester the pit droids that always follow Anakin home, and anyway.

Yes.

Also.

Boba Fett coming over for dinner every week, all nice and polite and Uncle Boba, and Luke doesn’t know who’s more confused by that realization between Din and Han.

(Probably Han, because that time Boba put him in carbonite and Leia’s still annoyed with Boba for a while afterwards even if Han did deserve it.)

Also.

Luke and Din coming back from Adventures with Grogu and Anakin being all ;_______________; because he’s a grandad again. Padme, Padme, come look at our adorable tiny green gremlin grandkid, he’s the best.

...and other shenanigans, such as that time with Din and the krayt dragon and is the man stupid, there are at least two Jedi-types on the planet at any time, he could have asked one of them for help???

But yes.

Also, though, also.

Anakin being lololol at finding out his son’s marrying the Mand’alor and Obi-Wan shaking his head because Skywalkers, and really, like he has a leg to stand on in that regard, and are you laughing at him, Cody? Rude.

[shatouto]

more raised-sith anakin whump and jedi obi-wan comfort, co-written with @obiwanobi ! (also available on ao3) pls check out the rest of the series if you haven’t (it won’t make a lot of sense otherwise)

content note: non-graphic depiction of violence; mention of past sidious-style abuse; just please proceed with care

a little more

Anakin shivers alone in the nightly winds.

He counted exactly five sunsets and sunrises since the meditation incident. Obi-Wan never brought it up again, and acted like nothing happened. He still smiled and joked with such kind eyes; still asked Anakin about his progress on the newest cleaning droid in their quarters and offered to read to him before bed. Even Ahsoka never brought it up, even though Anakin was sure the Jedi would tell his apprentice about his major offense.

He couldn’t eat. He could hardly sleep. His stomach churned every time Obi-Wan said a gentle thing to him, in that usual melodic lilt of his. His breath halted every time Obi-Wan passed him by and pat his shoulder or brushed his hand. His Master had made him wait before, but never for this long without reminding him of his misdeed. But waiting time was meant to make the punishment more excruciating, so perhaps this is the point all along - that he suffers before he gets what he deserves. Or maybe the smiles are only a beautiful facade before the Jedi discards him for good. Because, let’s be frank: what worth does he have here?

The sky is a lightless inky ocean with not even a speck of starlight to speak of. Anakin turns his gaze one more time towards the lights of the Jedi dormitories. This is what he has to do, to be able to stay, he reasons. This is the only way.

He makes his way down.

The Lower Levels of Coruscant are singularly illuminated by artificial light, if they are illuminated at all. Here where celestial lights never reach, every grease-streaked face is tinted in the neon magenta and cyan of gaudy store signs, or the sickly green of long battery life storm lanterns. The alleys are perpetually murky, a certain stickiness that holds the sole of your shoes whenever you peel your feet from the ground. A cacophony of howling fight dogs echoes from afar, and the light above him flickers. Anakin doesn’t even need to glance around.

Here, there is no shortage of fists itching to throw a punch.

It takes little more than a shove and a cuss, to get himself thrown to the ground. Anakin springs back up onto his feet with ease; by then, several people, of various species and stature, have gathered around him. Some of them reeks of booze, others of blood. From there on, it’s easy.

His knuckles collide with a jaw. Bone cracks under his metallic fist. Force-blinds are no match for him; he has taken down dozens on his own when he was but a whelp under Master Sidious’s tutelage, thirteen years of age or so. That’s not to say they don’t land a good blow here and there, but a few bruises on the face are hardly more than a tickle compared to the burn scars that litter his body. When a sudden blast rings in the relative silence and misses him by a hair, Anakin grins. He whips around and uses the Force to simultaneously yank the blaster from the shooter’s hand and fling the marksman across the street. He opens fire.

Some of them fall, some of them run. Some of them remain, and then run when they see him toss the blaster away in favor of meeting them hand to hand. The more they come at him, shoot at him, the more his blood infuses with thrill. He feels renewed in misery, in the knowledge that this show of abandon will surely earn him the punishment he deserves, where all else failed. His metal fingers are capable of cutting skin, breaking bones, if he so wants, and he does. There’s blood on his hands, warm, soaking the sleeves of his too-soft robes. There has always been blood on his hand; a little more doesn’t make any difference.

When he’s done, Anakin thinks, he’ll be back in the Jedi’s quarters and kneel at the door to his bedroom. He’ll wait there, ready, so that when the sun rises, the Jedi will come and see what he has done. This is not something the Jedi can ignore in favor of delaying his punishment. He smiles and shivers at the same time at just the thought of it.

“Anakin, what are you doing?”

Obi-Wan’s startled voice runs him through like a spear. Anakin stops dead in his movements, wide-eyed. Obi-Wan? Here?

His pause promptly earns him a blaster shot to the shoulder. He snaps his head back towards the bastard who shot him, hand thrusted out in a Force-push. The shooter flies through the air and slams against a store sign. Another blaster fires.

Obi-Wan deflects it away from Anakin.

Anakin doesn’t know what’s happening anymore.

He staggers back and back away. This isn’t right. The Jedi should be asleep. He’s not meant to be in this nest of rats and vipers; not meant to know anything of this, to see Anakin in this state—just, just observe the aftermath and dispense his justice. Only the aftermath. Only when Anakin is ready.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Anakin says, his center lowered, his stance battle-ready. The scums around him scurry like cockroaches under the light of a lightsaber, even as Obi-Wan thumbs it off and clips it to his belt. “You should be in bed, not here.”

“The same could be said to you,” Obi-Wan says. Neon lights flicker on his face, his furrowed brows and tight lips, and there’s no light that’s ever been so dull, duller than the spark of dismay in his eyes that Anakin doesn’t want to acknowledge. “I would much prefer you to come back...”

“I have to be here.”

Obi-Wan is unflinching. He crosses his arms not only in a refusal to engage, but also in clear disapproval. “May I ask why?”

It’s the disapproval that makes Anakin’s heart drop.

“No,” he grits, breaths stuttering. He closes and opens his hand and warm sticky blood seeps into the cracks of his palm. If there is some semblance of a reflexive surface here, Anakin would look right into it, so desperate he is to see what color his eyes are. How does he look like to Obi-Wan right now? Does he deserve a punishment yet? Does he deserve anything?

Because if not, if he doesn’t, if he has no worth and Obi-Wan grows tired of him, he’ll be on his own again, facing the fact that he has lost everything and everyone and has nowhere to go and nothing to be. Hells, Anakin knows he shouldn’t be like this. He should be stronger than this. He shouldn’t be so weak as to fear losing any one man, let alone one Jedi, one stupid Jedi; he shouldn’t care; why does he care so much; he hates it, he hates it.

“Why are you here?” Anakin backs away, towards the source of sound - there’s a gambling den nearby, where he could conceivably squirrel himself away. “What are you trying to do?”

Obi-Wan only raises his hands, palm forward. “To get you home. Anakin, you have...”

“Bantha shit,” Anakin spits. They’ve gathered yet again a sizable amount of curious onlookers. “What do you want, Jedi?”

“Anakin, please, calm down—”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Anakin roars, even though that is exactly what he has been seeking. Direct orders, uncomplicated. But not like this. Not with this benevolence. “If you’re not going to answer me then don’t fucking tell me what to do!” He steps back and back, and the only thing the Jedi does is match every backward step of his with one step forward of the exact same length. “Fuck you and your nice little lies; never say one straightforward thing, ever, because you’re too good for it, what a good Jedi. Just say you want to drag me back by the scruff and punish the nine hells out of me.” He gives a teeth-gritted grin. “Say it! I know you want to say it!”

Obi-Wan doesn’t even deign to look taken aback. He says nothing, does nothing, just stands there in that damned little display of harmlessness, so patient, so calm, like he’d be ready to ask for a cup of tea and sip it slowly while watching Anakin any moment now. So that’s how it is, huh?

The bystanders scatter in shrieks when one of them is suddenly lifted in the air, scrabbling at their neck with strangled noises. Anakin’s eyes are not even on them; he glares at the Jedi as his fingers curl. “Say it.”

Obi-Wan finally moves. He stands between the hapless stranger and Anakin. His eyes harden, the shadows on his face sharpen, and his voice turns steel-cold. “No.” He takes Anakin wrist in a vise-tight grip. “Let them go. Stop this, now.”

Finally.

Anakin lets go. Not just of the person, but of everything. He drops to his knees with his wrist still in Obi-Wan’s hand, and when it’s released, his arm swings down limply, colliding with his thigh in a dull slap. His head hangs as his eyes squeeze shut. He tucks his tongue back and tries not to wonder what it’ll be this time - lightning or lightsaber burn, electro-whip lashes or an invisible hand around his neck, water running over his face or the cold hard curved confines of the Sphere...

But nothing comes.

“Anakin.”

Obi-Wan’s voice has always been very soft for someone so capable at fighting; even so, this is probably the gentlest tone he’s used yet.

“Anakin,” he says again, and the name feels safe in his mouth.

Anakin won’t be fooled. His Master liked to lull him into a sense of safety during his lessons, coaxing him to let down his guard just to strike harder after and make sport of his tattered body. He should know better. He should…

“Anakin, please, look at me.”

Obi-Wan’s voice is worth a little more pain.

He opens his eyes to find Obi-Wan’s. The Jedi is crouched before him, close enough to touch if he wanted to. But he doesn’t. Anakin can’t decipher the look on his face or even the hand hanging in the air between them that doesn’t have a lightsaber in it ready to strike him or lightning to burn him.

“That’s it,” Obi-Wan says. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Anakin doesn’t dare to breathe too hard.

Obi-Wan’s brows knit together. “I could not understand why you would leave in the midst of a night to do this. Where have I wronged you?” He sighs again into silence. “You scared me, Anakin.”

A punishable offense. So here’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, listing his sins before punishing him, ordering him to keep his eyes open in wait of the punishment to come. Anakin stares at him, eyes stinging, waiting. But instead of the burning of a blade on his back or a slow Force-choke around his neck, calloused fingers find his wrist. They move lightly above his skin, cautious, taking their time as if to unravel the tension under his flesh, wrapping around his hand. Anakin braces himself for the twist, for the sudden deceit and pain. Instead, Obi-Wan's thumb starts rubbing slow circles on the back of his hand.

“May I take care of you, then?” Obi-Wan asks, and something in his voice breaks a bit. “You’re hurt, dear one.”

These last words are like a saber to his heart. Anakin never thought Obi-Wan could be this cruel.

“Don’t,” he chokes out his last defiance, as his fists start trembling, “don’t call me that.” He bows his head deeply and shuts his eyes and goes as still and silent as possible. His insides are curling in on themselves, yet he doesn’t dare move. He’s nearly holding his breath, as the air moves around him. Fabric rustles, and he can feel arms drawing around him, and This is it he thinks, this is it, the pain will come and he will finally be released—

Obi-Wan pulls him to his chest.

This is not right. This is not real. This can’t be true. Nobody could be this gentle; nobody could forgive just like that, not with the insults and insolence and innumerable unpunished offenses old and new. Anakin does not get touched like this. He should not. His shoulders are squared stiff and his muscles constrict so hard that he starts shaking. He can barely breathe, because every breath knives into his tightened throat. His nose stings and his eyes burn and he gasps for air, only to take in a sharp sob.

“Please don’t… Please don’t do this to me.” Anakin gulps, clutching his own torso, fearful of the sudden warmth and tenderness. “Just—just punish me, I deserve it, please punish m—” He nearly bites his tongue trying to suppress the next sob. Tears always angered his Master. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I beg of you, please stop making me wait, Master, I’m sorry, please, just…”

Obi-Wan pulls back only to take Anakin’s face in his hands. Thumbs wipe over his cheekbones. “I’m not your Master,” he hushes, brushing hair back from Anakin’s forehead. “I’m not going to punish you, Anakin.”

And then Obi-Wan does the unthinkable: he lowers his outermost mental shields. He lets Anakin in, on his own. His concern scatters across the expanse of his psyche like gemstones, like blinking stars. His words are as true as the moon. I would like to bring you home. I would like to keep you safe. Obi-Wan’s hand cradles the base of his skull. Lips press into his hair. I would like to see you smile.

Anakin’s mouth falls open in a wail. He smushes his face against the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck and soaks his robes with tears. He cries his throat raw and parched, cries until his jaws tremble, his teeth clatter, his head goes light. He lets go of his own flanks and bunches his fists into Obi-Wan’s robes instead. Obi-Wan’s arms are wrapped firmly around him like a promise.

Anakin hiccups one last time, and sags.

—

Ahsoka paces near the Temple’s gate. The Temple Guards glance at her every once in a while, and she’s a little bit annoyed, maybe, but that’s nothing compared to the worry brewing in her chest right now. Dawn is peeking at the horizon, and her Master is nowhere to be found.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” she mutters to herself, flooding her and Obi-Wan’s bond with the rightful amount of indignation. You should’ve taken me with you, Master!

She’s surprised to feel Obi-Wan’s response immediately. A brief sense of reassurance, and a nearness - he’s approaching. His presence is too mired in concerns for her to make out the exact message, but she gets the sentiment. Her worries go through and mirror his own. They’re probably worrying about the same thing, then.

Ahsoka knows Obi-Wan is back before he’s even within sight. Yet the sight of him still suffuses her with equal parts relief and amazement. In the light of dawn, her Master marches into the Jedi Temple, a gentle silhouette against the rosy sky. Limp in his arms, head pillowed on his shoulder, is Anakin No-Name, formerly known as Darth Vader, currently unconscious.

“Let them both in.” Ahsoka tells the Temple Guards, showing them her datapad. “Words from Master Yoda.”

Obi-Wan looks at her gently, mouthing a soft thank. Her steps fall beside his, and for a while there are only the sounds of their footsteps echoing in the great hall.

“Master.” Her eyes flick to Anakin, noting his red, puffy eyes in stark contrast with his ashen face and… are those dried tears? There is blood on the ex-Sith’s robes and on her Master’s and she sort of really wants to know which is whose. “Is he alright?”

“More or less,” Obi-Wan answers. Ahsoka frowns at him, yet he seems too deep in thoughts to notice that. She sets a hand on his arm.

“Master, the Council has…”

“I know, young one.” Obi-Wan pauses when Anakin chuffs, shuffling his arm to rearrange the ex-Sith in a more comfortable position, and continues on his way. “I would prefer you to go back to sleep. This is my responsibility to bear.”

[winterscaptain]

absence.

Aaron Hotchner x Gender Neutral Reader a joyful future fic

a/n: the next installment is here! this is the second-to-last piece in the berry hill section of a joyful future. as it has been lately, this one requires little ajf context, but i would recommend reading berry hill and waldosia, if you haven’t already. (thanks to aimz @ssaic-jareau, kira @good-heavens-chris-evans, and sabina @writefasttalkevenfaster) edit: this has been heavily revised as of april 29th, 2021. the changes and additions address continuity errors and ongoing subplots. 

words: 7k (prev. 3.8k) warnings: language, vomit mention, really accurate satellite phone protocol (eat your heart out, cm writers), beard!hotch, jack hotchner content, one last slow burn

summary: “absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great” - roger de bussy-rabutin. au!march-september 2011

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | ajf faq | taglist | what do you want to see next? updated: april 29th, 2021

There’s a moment where he stops at your desk on the way out of the bullpen, but you just stare at him. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it. After a moment, he finally says, “Jack is with Jessica tonight.” 

You have no idea what your face looks like, but it’s enough to drop his shoulders and send him on his way, defeated.

+++

You let yourself into his apartment, slamming the door behind you. He’s been waiting for you, leaning against the windowsill across from the door. 

“How dare you.”

He sighs and presses a hand to his forehead. “You have to understand that I -”

“Bullshit, Aaron. I don’t have to understand a goddamn thing. What are you thinking? We need you.” 

His head tips up, and he looks through you. The haunted look in his eyes almost makes you falter - it so acutely reminds you of the days following Haley’s death - but you keep your resolve. He doesn’t say anything, just lets you yell at him until it's out of your system. You could never actually hate him and he knows that, which makes some of it easier, but not all of it. 

The tears start and pick up speed as you continue, nearly at a shout. “You've known for seven months that you were going to leave for Pakistan. I read the brief. Seven. Fucking. Months, Aaron. Since September, you’ve known and you didn’t tell us about the task force assignment in fucking Pakistan!” 

You pause, but the final nail in his proverbial coffin leaves your mouth without permission. “Emily died, and you’re still leaving?” He flinches. “You’re leaving me and Jack. You’re leaving our team. I never thought you could do something like that to us. Maybe them, but not me. Never to me. I mean, after everything we’ve -” You cut yourself off and raise the back of your hand to your mouth, unable to finish the unbearably painful thought.

He’s not sure which part is the most painful - the fact that you list yourself with Jack instead of with the BAU, the fact that you say ‘our team,’ or the tone that drips with hurt. The sob that rips through your chest breaks his heart. He leans heavily against the arm of his couch, knocked down by the weight of your tears. 

No. The hardest part is knowing he deserves it, that you aren’t saying anything that isn't unfair or untrue. 

“I can’t even look at you right now.” 

He can only watch you as you walk back out, leaving the door open behind you. 

About twenty minutes later, he receives a text.

9:34pm I’ll be there tomorrow at 12:30 to take you to base. Be ready when I get there. 

He crawls into bed about half an hour later, and receives another text.

10:05pm Goodnight. 

Fuck. 

+++

The ride to base ride is mostly silent, and you know something’s wrong. It’s nothing you can articulate or even really put your finger on, but it’s something bigger than just his imminent absence.

He’s boarding a C-130 supply transport with a few Marines and various agency task force members to an outpost in Pakistan. It will no doubt be a long and deeply uncomfortable flight. His go bag, packed with desert fatigues and a couple of creature comforts, looks smaller than usual at his feet. 

“How long?”

He sighs and shakes his head. “Task force operations are need-to-know.” There’s so much he can’t tell you, and it eats at him. Because it’s you, and he’s been an ass, he concedes a little. “Probably a couple of months.”

“We’ll be okay, Aaron.” 

A little laugh leaves him, and it pulls a smile from you. 

“What?”

“Remember when you chased me down last night to tell me the team couldn’t do this without me?” 

You roll your eyes. “It’s still true, but we’ll manage. We always do.” There’s a moment of silence, and you continue. “And you’re going where you’re needed. That helps.” 

It’s true. Your anger had cooled (just a little) overnight, and you decided you didn’t want to be upset with him when he leaves. 

You already miss him. 

“Don’t think I’m not still mad at you.”

He looks out the window, and you can hear the wheels turning in his head. Jack is on his mind, and so are you. There’s nothing more nauseating than the thought of leaving you while you’re still hurting from Emily’s loss. “I know.” 

Why are you going through with this, Hotchner?

Oh, right. You’re a coward. 

“I just don’t want our last conversation before you leave to be a fight.” You sniff, but don’t look at him as you continue driving down the highway. 

I am perhaps the most undeserving man on the planet. 

He says, “Thank you. I don’t want that either,” but he hopes you can hear what else he can’t say. 

I love you. I’m sorry. 

+++

“Alright, you’ve got everything you need?” You stand next to him on the tarmac, shading your eyes from the sun. 

Aaron hikes his bag higher on his shoulder. “Think so. You gonna be alright?”

You nod and reach for him. He embraces you, tucking his head into your shoulder. “You be safe, Aaron Hotchner. If you die out there I’ll kill you myself.” 

He chuckles, and you hope the sound is enough to keep your heart from breaking too much over the next couple of months. Your eyes close as he presses a kiss to your cheek. “I’ll check in when I can.”

Shoving against his chest, you turn him around and push him toward the plane. “Get outta here.” 

He takes one last look over his shoulder when he reaches the loading ramp and offers you a wave. You return it. 

+++

You manage to get to the highway before the tears start. The only person you want to talk to is Emily. She’d know exactly what to say, and she’d make sure your days off were full of fun and good company. You pull off on the side of the road, your head falling into your hands, sobs wracking through you.

When you’re able to keep driving, your chest hurts beyond belief. 

Without her, these months seem to stretch before you forever. 

+++ april 2011 +++

It’s not the first time you’ve ended up in his office alone, but it’s the first time you’ve really noticed the evidence of his absence. 

The picture frames on his desk started gathering dust, so you brought a little duster to the office. His desktop computer has stopped making noise, so you turned it on and off once out of pity. His phone hardly rings, unless it's the NSA trying to get a hold of one of you for a sat phone call, so you and Morgan take turns taking forwarded calls. 

The silence is overwhelming and seems to pull something intangible from you. It’s exhausting. 

“When’s the last time you slept?” 

You turn, finding Penelope in the doorway. You’re not sure how long she’s been there, watching your acquiescence to the bees that seem to have invaded your brain in the last couple of weeks. 

“I slept last night,” you tell her. It’s not technically a lie. 

She doesn’t look impressed. “Did you sleep through the night, or are you just trying to play one of your Jedi mind tricks on me?” 

With a sigh, you cop to it. “No, I didn’t sleep through the night.” You look out the window to the bullpen, and you know she sees something on your face. 

“I don’t like it either.” She looks over her shoulder, finding Spencer and Ashley playing a game of Go on the desk. Unsurprisingly, Spencer’s winning. Rossi and Derek speak quietly by the little kitchen, looking just about as tired as you feel. 

The short-handedness is getting to you. “There’s just…” You search for something to say. “There’s just so much to do.” 

Penelope looks back. Her mouth twists. “And we’re down a couple’a hands.” 

That’s an understatement. 

+++

“I would understand if you needed some time to think about it.” Erin leans forward in her chair, elbows on her desk. “With your team cut in half, even I wouldn’t feel comfortable sending you to another unit without some time to train a replacement or two.” 

“Or three,” you add.

She looks at you and nods. “Exactly.” 

You pick up the letter from the Special Agent in Charge in Los Angeles. You’d be his right hand - essentially the liaison between operational support divisions and units operating in the field. It’s a hell of an opportunity, a huge promotion, and a significant bump in pay. 

“Can I take you up on the offer to think about it?” You slide the letter across the desk again. 

Her eyes are soft, and you almost feel close to her in that moment. “Of course. Take your time. It’s a position created just for you, so there’s nobody else in line for it.” 

“Thanks.” 

+++ may 2011 +++

“Ready or not, here I come!” You call across the apartment, sneaking through the familiar rooms with practiced ease. 

Aaron’s been away for close to a month, and you’ve settled into a routine. Cases, of course, keep you busy. Derek’s rather good at playing unit chief - decisive and collaborative - but you miss Aaron’s steady, even hand. 

Really, you miss everything about him. You try not to think about him too much. 

You fail, often. 

Avoiding thoughts of Aaron gets even harder as you creep into the master bedroom. The smell of him hasn’t left. Past the doorway, the air is spicy, masculine, and warm. You squint at the bed. One of the pillows moves, just a little, and you pounce, pulling the covers back and grabbing the wiggling pillow. 

Jack screeches and throws himself at you. You catch him and fall back on the bed, laughing. “I found you!”

Jess is off running errands for the afternoon, taking some well-earned time off. You’ll more than likely spend the night over here tonight to give her more of her weekend. It’s never any trouble to stay with Jack. You adore each other. 

Usually, Jack leaps right to his feet for another round, but he stays put after his fit of mirth passes, sprawling across your chest. 

“What are you thinking about over there?”

He sighs, and brings his little hands under his chin, propping his head up so he can look at you. He’s six (and then some), now - still very much a boy - but the pensive look on his face starkly reminds you of his father. “When’s Dad going to be home?”

You push some hair off his forehead. “I’m not sure, my love. I’m hoping it’s only a couple more weeks, but it could be a little longer than that.” 

He sighs, and it breaks your heart a little. You turn on your side, and he curls into you, resting his head on your arm and tucking under your chin. “Are you and my dad best friends? I have a best friend named Connor and he says best friends are really important and I was just wondering.”

You laugh a little. “Yeah, I think so. Your dad and I have known each other for a long time.” His little hands play with the collar of your shirt. There’s more to his question. Jack’s just like his dad and takes a bit of ferreting out. Luckily, you’ve had plenty of practice. “What are you curious about, little bug?”

“Do you miss Dad?”

A track of Aaron’s laugh, his smile, the way his arms feel around you flies through your head. “Yeah, I miss him a lot.” 

“I’m happy you’re here so we can miss him together.” You can almost hear Aaron’s voice in Jack’s. It sounds just like something he would say, and probably has said, talking to his son about Haley.

“Me too, buddy.�� You kiss the top of his head. “Me too.” 

Jess returns about an hour later, groceries in-hand, to find you and Jack curled together in Aaron’s bed, snoozing the afternoon away. She snaps a picture with her phone, saving it in an album she keeps for Aaron. After she puts the groceries away, she escapes, leaving a note. 

You’re on your own tonight and tomorrow. Have a good time with breakfast - he’s been picky lately. 

XO, Jess

+++

“You know,” Jess says, a little out of the blue one afternoon. “Haley told me something once.” 

You snort. “I’d imagine she told you a great number of things.” 

“Well, sure. But I mean about you and Aaron.” 

It’s pretty stupid that your body decides to panic over absolutely nothing. If this was a polygraph, you’d fail outright. And yet, nothing’s happened between you and Aaron. You’re just friends. 

Yeah but you love him. 

And he probably loves you, too. 

But we're all to chickenshit for that.

What a-fucking-bout it?

You take a little breath and a sip of your tea. “Oh?” You hope the query sounds casual enough and doesn’t give away the cool sweat blossoming over your palms. 

Luckily, Jess isn’t a profiler. 

“Haley told me - and this was the summer before she died, so it’s not like she told me under duress or anything - that she thought there may have been something between you and Aaron after the divorce.” 

She says that like it’s the simplest thing. You’re not sure what to say, so you keep your eyes on the grain of the coffee table, tracing the lines with your eyes. Eventually, you decide to answer in the simplest, most honest way possible. 

“There’s never been anything between Aaron and me. He’s one of my best friends and I care about him.” That sounds evasive even to your own ears. “I care about him a lot.” 

Jess hums. “I know, but Haley always had a sense about these things. And she knows Aaron better than anyone.” 

Her slip into the present tense makes your chest pull. 

“I don’t say that to put you on the spot or anything.” She shrugs. “I just think you guys would be good together. You’re good for him and I think he’s good for you, too.” 

She’s more right than she knows, but you can’t think about it for too long. You miss him too much. 

Out of a need to respond, you offer a half-hearted, “Maybe.” 

Jess reaches out. “He’ll be home soon. When he gets back, I think you should at least think about it. Or talk about it.” She shakes her head. “Or something.” 

“I have -” You cut yourself off, not really meaning to share. 

She squeezes your knee. “I know you have. So has he.” 

+++ june 2011 +++

Back to back cases - five of them, to be exact, pull you through the next four weeks by the ear. Formal leadership wears on Derek more and more by the day, and you find yourself making just as many decisions as he does. You’re immensely proud of him, but the whole thing is exhausting. Spencer does his best to slip back into his normal role, but Emily’s loss continues to wear on him. You don’t blame him.

Most days feel held together by duct tape, with you and Rossi acting as the adhesive. All that and the offer in Los Angeles you’ve hardly had time to process. 

Thus, your evening with Jess is both well-earned and much needed. 

“Wanna crash here tonight?” She sets a mug of tea down on the coffee table in front of you and sits heavily back on the couch. “It’s pretty late.”

You check your watch and find it is indeed late. Before you can answer, your phone rings, and you answer it with an apologetic glance toward Jess. “Hey, Morgan. What’s up?”

“We have sat call notification from Hotch. Can you come in?” He sounds exhausted. 

“Yeah, I can be there in twenty. Is everything okay?”

He sighs. “Yeah, looks like a routine check-in.” 

Jess sighs, knowing the drill. She goes to the kitchen and pours your tea into a travel mug. 

“Are you calling anyone else in?”

“Nope. Just you. See you when you get here.” He hangs up. 

You stare at your phone as Jess sits next to you again. “We have a call from Aaron coming in, and I have to head to the office.” She hands you your travel mug, and you take it gratefully. 

“You’re welcome back here - I can set up Aaron’s room for you. We’re a lot closer to the office than your place, and I don’t want you to drive if you’re too tired.” She sets a hand on your knee, and you reach over to embrace her. 

“Thanks, Jess.”

+++

When you arrive, Derek’s already on the phone. “... So, no leads?... Right.” He looks up and catches your eye. “Here, Hotch.”

You take the phone. “Hey.”

“Hi.” He sounds relieved. “Are you doing okay? How’s Jack?”

His questions make you smile. “We’re good. He’s good. I just left the apartment - Jess and I were having some grown-up movie time.”

You’re warmed by his laugh. “Good. Glad to hear it. I was just telling Derek that the leads out here have gone cold, but we’re still working.”

“Ah. Any chance you’ll be home soon?” You avoid Derek’s searching gaze. 

“It doesn’t look that way, no. We’re picking up on some chatter out there, but nothing firm. We’ll have to keep out for a couple more weeks at least.”

Your heart drops, but you hide it as best you can. “Alright. Anything you need from us back here?”

“Just keep doing good work.” You know he can’t say much more than that, with more than a couple of NSA guys in between you on the line, not to mention the archival recording of the call. Even then, you know he means looking for Doyle. “That’s all I need from you.” 

“We can do that.” You give him a quick rundown of some recent cases, all surface-level. You’re mostly stalling, using up incredibly expensive satellite time just to hear his voice. 

You hear him sigh. “Alright, I gotta get back. Tell Jack and Jess I love them.” 

“Of course.” You hand the phone back to Derek and wait while they finish up. Your eyes wander over the volumes of law books in Aaron’s bookshelf, the pictures of Jack and Haley and Jess behind his desk. Wandering over to his chair, you sit down and rest your head on your arms. 

Your eyes wander to a photo taken a year and a half ago at Haley’s service. You’re not sure who took it, but you’re crouched on the ground talking to Jack, while Aaron stands behind him with a hand on his head. Jack's little hands are in yours, and he’s smiling a little. 

Of all the photos to keep on his desk...

Derek hangs up the sat phone and puts it back in the lockbox. He crosses the office and leans against the desk beside you, placing a hand on your shoulder. 

+++

When you get back to the apartment (indeed much closer than your home), Jess is asleep in the guest room, and Jack’s still out like a light. 

You change into your pajamas, stuffed into your go bag, and curl up under the covers on Aaron's side of the bed. His pillow smells faintly like him, and you burrow into it. 

The bed feels far too big and far too cold without him. 

+++

“JJ!” You stand to greet her. “What are you doing here?” 

She holds up her credentials. “I’ve been reinstated as a profiler on temporary assignment, so don’t get too excited. It’s a contingent favor for the FBI and I’m sure the State Department will call to collect sometime soon.” 

You clear your consults and subpoenas off the desk beside you. “Good to have you back.” Looking over at the intimidating stack of files you ask, “Need anything to do?”

+++ july 2011 +++

The next time a sat call comes in, you can’t go into the office. Jack has the flu and is absolutely miserable. You can’t, in good conscience, leave Jess to her own devices. Between the vomit and the sleeplessness and the tears, four hands are absolutely necessary. 

“Derek, I can’t leave. Jack is literally puking his guts out as we speak, and I don’t have any new intel for Hotch.” 

Morgan huffs into the phone. “Come on. You know you’re the only one he actually wants to talk to and the only one who has any actual updates about Jack.” 

“You just have to tell him that I’m up in the middle of the night with his son, who has the flu. Isn’t that enough of an update?” You don’t really mean to snap at him, but the lack of sleep has made you a little punchy. 

“Fine. If he -”

“Yeah, I know. If he gets upset, just blame me. He can deal with me when he’s not in Pakistan. As long as there are five time zones between us, I’ll take my fucking chances.”

“Fair enough.” 

He hangs up, and you return to the hall bathroom, where Jack’s cheek is pressed against the toilet seat, his forehead clammy and face pale. Jess is taking her turn to sleep - you’ll switch off in an hour. 

“Hey, bubba.”

He mumbles something that sounds like, “Hi.”

“Can I get you some crackers or maybe some Sprite?” 

Jack shakes his head and lifts himself up, holding his arms out. The risk of illness far from your mind, you gather him up and lean against the cabinets, rubbing his back.

“Can you try to close your eyes for me?”

“I don’t feel good.” There are a few tears in his voice, and it breaks your heart a little. You’ve so been there. 

“I know, baby. I know. Just close your eyes for a minute, okay?”

He does, and his breathing evens out eventually. He’s still feverish, but you’re happy he’s sweating, at least. It could break by morning at this rate. 

The makeshift towel-bed on the bathroom floor looks more than inviting. You gingerly shuffle over and lay down, keeping Jack flat against your chest. 

It’s the best sleep you’ve had in weeks.

+++

“Strauss offered me that transfer to LA again.” 

Derek looks up at you from his report, his brows drawn low over his eyes. “You gonna take it?” 

You heave a sigh. Before you can say anything -

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” He puts his pen down, giving you his full attention. “What’s stopping you?” 

So many things. 

There are only a couple of them you can say aloud. Luckily, they have the benefit of being true, albeit incomplete. “I love this work. I love this team. I don't know if I want to be a lackey for an almost-politician.” 

“And?” 

He’s got you. He knows there’s more because he knows you. Even then, you can’t bring yourself to say exactly what it is that’s holding you back. So, you hedge your answer, knowing he’ll understand. 

“I can’t -” leave Aaron and Jack. You clear your throat. “I can’t leave this team. Maybe that makes me a coward or suggests a lack of adventure or something, but I can’t do it.” 

“It doesn’t,” Derek says. “It makes you human.” 

You smile a little. 

“And for the record, I don’t want you to leave. And I don’t think Jack and Hotch do, either.” 

A little incredulous laugh leaves you. Derek simply smiles, but doesn’t say much else. It makes your point for you. 

Nobody else knows you like this team. 

+++

The hardest days are the ones where you end up by yourself. Derek’s picked up kickboxing with Penelope, Spencer has withdrawn almost entirely, JJ has her family, and Rossi retreats to the cabin by the lake with an alarming degree of regularity. 

Thank God he’s not as cranky as Gideon. 

That would be too spooky. 

Everyone is out of the office, scattered to their respective distractions. You sit on the floor of Aaron’s office, leaning against his desk. Your laptop sits open in front of you, but you’re only half paying attention to the movie playing. 

It was only this afternoon you realized his office smelled more like stale paper, your house, and Tiger Balm than Aaron, and it broke your heart a little. Your only solace was his apartment - the evidence of his existence was inescapable there. With Emily gone for good, you often needed the reminder. 

His office phone rings. You pause the movie, stand, and answer it. 

“Agent Hotchner’s office.” 

NSA is on the other side, dry and professional. “We have an incoming call from Agent Hotchner. Is Agent Morgan available?” 

You tell him he’s not, but that you’re the next in line to receive task force updates. In an equally dry and professional tone, you relay your credentials and your unique intel code. 

“Thank you. Please stand by.” Click. 

You roll your eyes. 

God, they’re boring. 

Sitting down at Aaron’s desk, you wait for the armed guard to arrive with the phone. As per protocol, you’ll sign for the call and remove it from the lockbox yourself. You’ll return it for pickup when the call is completed. 

The guard shows up and you step through the motions, finally getting the phone to your ear. 

“Hey.” 

“Oh, it’s you.” He sounds surprised, but not displeased. 

You laugh a little. “Yeah, it’s me. Morgan’s unavailable at the moment.” 

“I see. Is Jack feeling any better?”

“Yeah. He’s been alright for about a week now. It was a pretty nasty bug, but he’s a trooper. Any new chatter down your way?” You trace the wood grain of his desk with your finger, only a little absent-minded. 

“There’s a little bit of activity on the border. We’re monitoring the situation. Is everything going okay over there?”

“Yeah, for the most part. We’ve been feeling the heat a little since Seaver transferred to Andy’s unit, but we’re managing alright. Dave’s called JJ back in to lend a hand, and she’s doing really well.” 

He hums. “That was a smart idea.” 

“I’ll tell him you said so.” 

“Oh, please don’t. It’ll go straight to his head.” 

You smile. “Fair point. Any updates on the timetable?”

When are you coming home? Please make it soon. 

“Not at the moment. I think we’re getting closer. Few more weeks.” There’s something behind his voice you can’t quite grasp, but you let it go. 

“Alright. Keep us posted.” 

“Will do. You know the drill.” 

“I sure do. I’ll relay the information to the team, tell your son you love him, and talk to you in a couple of weeks.” 

You can almost hear his smile. “Exactly. Talk soon.”

“Be safe, Aaron.” 

“Hey, before you go,” he says. “Can you, um -” 

You smile, tracing the wood grain on his desk. “I’ll tell Haley you said Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks.”

+++

Jess’s hand only shakes a little as she lights the candle and holds the cupcake between the three of you. While she takes care of the cake and begins to sing with Jack, you hold the camera, filming the impromptu party so Aaron can see it when he comes home.

“Okay, Jack you have to help Mom blow out the candle,” Jess says, holding the cupcake in front of him. With a great amount of glee, Jack extinguishes the candle with a big breath and a laugh. 

You turn the camera on Jess, who says, “We couldn't let Haley’s forty-first go unrecognized - she’s officially old and we had to let her know.” 

With a laugh of your own, you turn the camera around and wave before turning it off. 

“Can I eat the cake now?” Jack asks. 

Jess nods, pulling the candle and setting it aside on your picnic blanket. “Of course, but after we eat some fruit, okay? I don’t want the ants to get to the basket before you do.” 

The July sunshine beats down on the three of you, picnicking beside Haley’s resting place. It is, in fact, her forty-first birthday. You can only imagine the look on her face she would have adopt when you reminded her of her age. 

“Oh please,” she’d say. “When you get to be as old as me, you’ll never hear the end of it.” 

Jack sits in the sun, munching on a little apple slice. You reach over, rubbing a little splotch of sunscreen into his skin. He already has a little sunburn from your adventure to the District earlier in the week and you’re not about to make your life even harder. 

Aaron’s absence, even in its fourth month, is glaring. Jack has mostly stopped waking in the middle of the night looking for him and having regular meltdowns, but he always looks up when the front door opens with an expectant look that breaks your heart. He’s an adaptable kid, but months without contact from his father have taken their toll. If you’re honest, it surprised you a little bit. 

With a little bit of perspective, months are different than days, or even a week or two. Jack relies on Aaron more than you realized and the difficulty of helping Jess where you can has only further illuminated your ignorance.

“Will Mom always have a birthday?” Jack asks. 

Jess looks over at him. “What do you mean?”

He thinks for a moment, a little pensive. “I mean, because she’s not here. Do people who aren’t here still have birthdays?” 

“They do,” she replies. “That’s why we have to celebrate for them. They aren’t here, but it’s still special.” 

He nods, a kind of understanding look on his face that makes you think he knows exactly what that means. 

+++

“Yeah?”

You smile. It’s been a minute since you heard his voice, over the phone or otherwise. “Hey, Dr. Reid. How’s Vegas?”

“Hot. But it’s nice to be home.”

“How’s your mom?” You trace aimless patterns over the mat on Aaron’s desk, watching the suede imprint and erase as you go.

He sighs. “She’s alright. I think she’s about ready to kick me out, though.”

“It’s only been three weeks,” you laugh. “Surely you can make yourself useful?”

“I sent in her most recent publication to the journal, so I’ve outgrown my use until I find her a new thesis.”

You can almost see it - the two geniuses, mother and son, bickering over a game of chess or fourteenth-century novel. “Better find her a new thesis, then.”

Spencer’s thin smile is audible through the phone. “Guess so. How are things over there?”

“It’s a little hectic. It’s just me, JJ, Morgan, and Rossi now. Penelope’s still working with us regularly, but counter-terrorism keeps pulling her for ‘special projects,’ whatever that means.”

You don’t mean to guilt him into coming back or anything - you know he needs the time to recharge. He’ll come back when he wants to or feels he needs to but at this point, there’s hardly a difference between four and five agents on the team. You need Aaron. And Emily.

“With the amount of summer task forces coalescing, that doesn’t surprise me.” He pauses. “I’ll probably spend a few more weeks here unless there are any developments between now and then.”

By developments, you know it means any confirmed sighting of your target. “That sounds like a plan. We’ll be glad to have you back but take your time. You’ve more than earned it.”

“Thanks.”

+++ august 2011 +++

“How’s Jack?” 

“He’s doing alright,” you tell him. “He misses you.” 

I miss you.

Aaron sighs. There isn’t time for everything he wants to say, even less for the things he could. “I’m probably going to miss his first day.” 

“That’s what I figured.” It's hard to think about and probably going to be harder than you can imagine, especially if there’s a case that takes you away from home. “Jess will take lots of pictures and I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell you all about it when you get home.” 

It’s hard to keep the bitterness from your voice, but neither one of you could have anticipated this would go on for this long. ‘Over the summer’ seems a little abstract until the end of the summer arrives. 

This isn’t his fault. It isn’t. You know that. 

But it’s his fault for going in the first place. 

Conceptual anger isn’t useful. That’s another thing of which you’re keenly aware. 

And yet…

“Thank you for being there for them,” he says, as if he’s reading your mind. “I know this isn’t easy.” 

There’s nothing you can really say, but you hum anyway. 

The pair of you are just eating satellite time now, so you say goodbye and good luck before tipping your head back against his office chair. 

When the tears slip down your cheeks, you’re not sure if you miss him more than you’re mad at him or the other way around. 

+++

“Chief Strauss?” You knock lightly on her door and she beckons you in, just finishing up a phone call. She gestures to the little sitting area in the corner of her office, and you make yourself comfortable on one of the couches.

She hangs up and joins you. “Have you thought more about the offer?”

“I have. Thank you for your patience. I know it’s been a little while since we first spoke about it.”

Erin waves her hands, brushing off the implied apology. “The BAU’s work in the last few weeks has been exemplary. I’m impressed, especially considering the significant funding and personnel obstacles you’re facing at the moment.”

You laugh a little.  “I hope that doesn’t make anyone think working with this many people is acceptable, ma’am.”

“No,” she assures you. “I’ve made that very clear.”

There’s a small moment of silence before you speak again.

“I won’t be accepting the position in Los Angeles.”

Strauss sighs but doesn’t look surprised. “That’s as I expected. I will, however, add something that I did not share with you before to further inform your choice.”

You sit up a little straighter, a little more attentive.

“The push for a transfer is also in an effort to protect your reputation. I know the BAU has continued investigating Ian Doyle and while that is noble, it could go very wrong. And that much is above my head. DHS, ATF, NSA - they could all be upset by your unofficial involvement. This could go as high as Congress and could result in your permanent termination from the bureau, making you ineligible for work in federal law enforcement.”

“Yes, ma’am. High risk, high reward.” You shrug. “Or at least, that’s what Dr. Reid tells me.”

A wan smile pulls at her mouth. “Yes. As long as you’re comfortable with the consequences.”

“I am, ma’am.”

“Good.”

+++ september 2011 +++

“Alright, buddy! You ready to go?” 

Jack adjusts the straps on his little backpack while Jess finishes putting his lunch together. “I’m ready. Just need lunch.” 

“It’s right here!” Jess says, bringing his Captain America lunchbox to him and strapping it to the outside of his backpack. “You’ve got a ham and cheese sandwich, a juice box, some carrots, and a brownie. Does that sound okay?” 

He nods. 

“And if it’s not enough, we can always get some more food after school okay? It can be a special treat.” 

Jack grins and you all head off to the car together. 

+++

The little meltdown arrives when you and Jess move to leave him at the door of his classroom. Jack’s brown eyes get wide and rapidly fill with tears as soon as you take a step away from him. 

“Jack, baby, c’mere.” You drop to your knee and open your arms. He steps into them and you can feel his shaky, hiccuping breaths against your shoulder. 

While you hold him, you hear Jess debriefing his new teacher about their current situation, and the way things are in general. Dad in Pakistan, dead mom, goes by Jack rather than Jonathan, the whole nine. 

“You are so brave,” you whisper into his hair. “You are so smart. You are a good friend and you are safe.” 

He nods. 

“I’m so sorry your dad can’t be here, honey, but he’s going to be so excited to hear all about it as soon as he gets home. And I'll tell him how brave you are on our next secret superhero phone call.” 

‘Secret superhero phone call’ was the best way you could describe using the sat phone (and why Jack couldn't talk to Aaron himself) so you just went with it. 

Jack nods again, sniffling a little and pulling back. You reach for him, wiping his tears with your thumbs. 

“I love you so much, bud.” 

“I love you, too.” 

You kiss his forehead, reminding him, “I might have to get on a plane for work, but otherwise I’ll see you after you’re done with your first-ever day of school, okay? This is so exciting!”

He finally smiles, and your work is done. When he steps into the classroom, he doesn’t look back.

+++

Thankfully, you’re not pulled for another case until the end of the week, so you’re able to see Jack through his first-ever week of school. 

It hits you more than once that you’re the person next to Jess right now while he hits these milestones. Long gone is that toddler that would giggle in his mother’s arms as she danced around the living room to Hall and Oates. In his place is an insightful little boy with a rapidly burgeoning sense of humor and a wickedly kind smile. 

You love him.

+++ 

The entire team got an emergency call, so you're all gathered in the roundtable room when Aaron walks in, looking all the worse for wear and -

Is that a beard?

Wait. He’s back. 

You just spoke to him on Monday, with news of a “few more weeks,” even in the face of developments on the Doyle case.

Fucking bastard knew he was coming home, didn’t he?

All of your joy in seeing him evaporates, and you narrow your eyes at him. Just like the last time you were in this room together, there’s an apology in his gaze. 

“Welcome back.” Derek doesn’t sound surprised, and your head whips toward him. He doesn’t look at you. 

Unbelievable. 

“Thanks. Everyone, have a seat.” You follow Aaron’s instructions, and sit, crossing your arms. It’s childish, sure, but the balance of personal and professional life has flown out the window. 

This feels like a personal slight, rather than a professional one. You try to push it away, but it lingers in your sternum like a lit flare. It’s uncomfortable, and you hate it. 

“Why?” Derek sounds a little concerned. Your anger cools a little bit. Derek doesn't actually know anything. “What’s going on? Is everything alright?”

“Seven months ago I made a decision that affected this team.” You notice, brow furrowed, that JJ stands beside Hotch like an ally. They both have odd looks on their faces. “As you all know, Emily had lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle.”

No. 

“The doctors were able to stabilize her. She was airlifted from Boston to Bethesda under a covert exfiltration.” 

No. 

“Her identity was strictly need-to-know. She stayed there until she was well enough to travel. She was reassigned to Paris, where she was given several identities, none of which we had access to for her security.” 

No. 

There’s silence, and you can’t tear your eyes from Aaron.  

“She’s alive?”

“We buried her...” 

Penelope and Spencer’s comments rush past you and you feel much like you did in the waiting room on that horrible, horrible night seven months ago. 

“As I said, I take full responsibility for the decision. If anyone has any issues, they should be directed toward me.” 

His eyes finally meet yours, and you find your vision blurred. You blink away your tears. 

It was a necessary lie. 

You go into this business expecting to be lied to. 

Not by Aaron. 

That’s not the issue and you know it. He left. 

He missed Jack’s first day of school. He was gone for five months. 

He left us. 

“Any issues?” Derek’s disbelief is marred by hurt, but you can’t reassure him through your own shock. “Yeah, I got issues.”

He’s cut off by Penelope’s glance toward the doorway. 

The team, save for JJ and Hotch, rushes toward her. You’re stuck to your seat until she approaches you. At her touch, you come back to life, throwing yourself into her arms. Her name sounds strangled leaving your mouth. “Emily.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry.” Her grip on you is tight, but your arms, looped around her shoulders, don’t feel like they’re attached to your body. 

She lets you go and continues to speak. Derek’s frozen, and you can’t imagine for a minute what’s going on in his head. Emily wraps around him. He’s stock still, his eyes misty. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding when he brings his hand to her shoulder, his cheek falling onto the side of her head. 

It’s back to business faster than you can blink, and now you’re sure you’re not the only one ready to kill Aaron where he stands. Derek is livid. 

They stare at each other while Spencer starts asking questions. Eventually, they focus back. Aaron crosses to you, contributing where necessary. 

You don’t acknowledge him. It’s horrible. You hate being so angry with him, but there’s nothing to be done. 

You can’t be upset at him about Emily. There’s too much to understand, and yet the initial shock of it is like a never-ending bucket of cold water poured over your body. 

Selfishly, you realize you’re upset with him because he didn’t tell you he was coming home. It’s so small when there are other, much bigger, issues to address. 

Emily’s lie is professional. Just part of the job. This one feels personal.

You’re a child. Let it go. 

He knew and he left. 

He missed Haley's birthday.

He knew and he left. 

He shouldn't have gone. 

He didn’t tell you he was coming home.

[the-last-kenobi]

With anyone from the disaster trio or duo! (sorry I realized I didn’t say characters in the last ask!)

@badthingshappenbingo

Tripwire

(TW for panic attacks and minor and unintentional emotional abuse. This is emotional crisis in the middle of a war. Nobody in this story is at their best.)

••

Ahsoka sometimes thought that her Master never had rough days.

Oh, he had days when his temper was high - and those days were more frequent as the war went on and on and on - and days when he was more tired, more sad.

But he never seemed to have days where he just wanted to sit in a small, dark space like the far corner of his room or the dusty storage cabinet near the engines and hold himself together with his own two hands and just cry himself to exhaustion.

She tried to ask him, once, on a day when he seemed brighter and calmer.

“Master?” she began.

Then she stopped. Tilted her head to one side, listening with her montrals to the happy rhythm of his heart.

“Yeah?” he asked. “Snips?”

He was glowing with happiness, so excited just from his phone call home. She wasn’t stupid. Like the rest of the 501st - and 212th - and hells, maybe even the entire Order - she knew that her Master and Senator Amidala were... a thing.

Whatever that was, exactly.

Maybe, she contemplated, not noticing that she had begun to hunch in on herself a little, shoulders drawing in, maybe that’s what Anakin had that was different. Rex had Cody and the rest of his brothers, Anakin had Senator Amidala.

Ahsoka was just by herself.

“Hey,” Anakin said, sounding a little concerned. “Ahsoka? What’s up?”

The togruta shrugged, casually sliding back into her normal relaxed and confident self, the bravado she’d created years ago when she first began to suspect that nobody would choose her as a Padawan, and then built up again when she was assigned and dropped into the middle of open warfare.

And now again, struggling always with that urge to flee somewhere warm and small and safe.

“Nothing, Master. Sheesh. I was just wondering about the next class rotation. I really don’t want to retake Galactic History level 240 just yet...”

They moved on to other subjects.

••

She tried again, a few months later, shaken after a crushing campaign that stripped the 501st of some of their best and very, very many of their newest. The shiniest shinies.

Ahsoka searched the encampment they had pitched on the darkened moor, but she could sense Anakin from a mile off.

It was just harder for her, the closer she got to that epicenter of muted rage she could sense coming off him like heatwaves off sand.

But... they could help each other.

He didn’t have Padmé Amidala here today.

Today, right now, they had each other.

Ahsoka crept up to the dimming fire, set several meters away from the outer circle of tents, and saw the dark silhouette of Anakin Skywalker sitting on a low outcropping of rock, gazing into the flames. The red glow outlined him in faintest fire, sharpening the edges that darkness had softened into shadow.

“...Master?”

He didn’t seem to hear.

“Master... Anakin?” Ahsoka stepped a little nearer.

His head turned very slightly.

She froze, suddenly a little frightened, suddenly wishing she’d found her own warm safe place to be — because the ember-lit outline of Anakin’s face were neither safe nor warm.

He looked enraged.

“Anakin?” she whispered.

“Now isn’t the best time, Ahsoka,” he said slowly. Holding back. For her.

Giving her a chance to run.

From him.

She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Not Anakin. “But, Anakin... I think...” she took a deep breath and closed the distance between them, crouching down to place one of her hands gently on his arm. He trembled. “I think we should be together right now. Help each other.”

He shook.

There was a long pause.

Then: “Go away, Ahsoka.”

Her heart fell like a stone.

What was she supposed to do? Fleeing to a dark corner felt so wrong, so un-Jedi like, so weak — and now, to abandon her Master when he was so hurt? It felt like a double sin. She couldn’t do it. It would be wrong (but it was so tempting—)

“Master...”

“Go, Padawan! Now!” He turned to face her fully, his teeth bared in a predatory sneer that made her own sharpened fangs and hunters blood quail. A wall of blunt rage slammed into her like a blast of hot wind and Ahsoka fell back, catching herself on her palms in the cold grass.

A flash of something like guilt crossed his face, not much older than her own, but then hardened again.

“Jedi do not feel these things, Ahsoka,” he lectured. “Much less act on them. Go eat your meal and then get some sleep. Wallowing won’t help.”

Do as I say and not as I do?

Ahsoka sprang to her feet and gave in to the wild pounding of her heart and the icy fear clawing at her lungs — and she fled.

••

Ahsoka felt like she was falling.

She could feel her feet thudding against the dewy ground, could feel her montrals trembling as they picked up noises all around her, but all she could see was darkness and it felt like she was running in midair, held up by nothing.

Shadows rushed past her and her breaths came rapid and out of control.

She was dying.

She had to be.

This felt awful, terrible, there was no control —

She was just going to lose her breath and lose her senses until she died here - wherever here was -

Was she crying?

Maybe.

She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find her way in the dark.

Ahsoka crashed.

Blindly she crawled her way into what she could sense was some sort of corner.

It was warm here.

Dark.

Safe.

The feeling of walls and a floor and some sort of low ceiling pressing in all around her small form made her feel better, not worse. She could feel where she began and the shadows ended.

Slowly... slowly... slowly, Ahsoka Tano felt her soul begin to settle back in her flesh.

She could understand her surroundings better now.

She had shoved herself under cot in somebody’s tent. It really was warm here. Soft. It smelled familiar, the smell of the armor-polish-stale-soap-homemade-brew-standard-woolen-blankets and that something other that was just their men. Their boys.

Ahsoka could feel now how tightly she was curled up, how hard she was gripping her own limbs, still shaking.

Her throat felt raw.

Had she screamed? Cried? Or just gasped too much for air that hadn’t been coming?

She didn’t know.

She didn’t know a lot right now.

Does this make me a bad Jedi?

Or just a bad solider?

Which one am I, anyway?

“Padawan?”

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t —

“Ahsoka?”

She took a shuddering gasp, then another.

She just wanted some answers.

For once, some answers.

No “do or do not,” no cultural languages she couldn’t understand, no envy of what Anakin had in his Senator, the forbidden things she didn’t understand and didn’t know she really even wanted.

She just wanted to know if she was wrong for this.

She had to be.

No real Jedi cried in a corner because someone reminded them they needed to be strong.

“Ahsoka.”

Finally she looked up.

“Master?”

It was Anakin she longed to see - the Master who hadn’t wanted her but had taken her anyways, the friend she’d always needed, the teacher she could never have dreamed of.

But it wasn’t Anakin.

It was Obi-Wan.

He looked down at her, and his eyes were so compassionate that she felt her own begin to well with tears again and her throat close up painfully.

Angrily, she swiped away a tear and hid her face in her arms.

There were soft sounds that told her that Obi-Wan was kneeling in front of her now.

He didn’t do anything.

Didn’t encroach, didn’t speak.

He just breathed.

And breathed.

And breathed.

Steadily in and out, and unconsciously Ahsoka began to mirror him, taking calm and even breaths.

Eventually it was just the two of them breathing together, the Master kneeling, the Padawan still hiding from the world.

“...Master Obi-Wan?” Ahsoka asked in a small voice. She lifted her head, and was struck again by how sad and tender her grandmaster’s blue eyes were. He looked so soft and comfortable, contrasted in her head with the memory of Anakin and his fiery outline and clenched jaw.

“Anakin...” she struggled to say. “I thought he... I hoped... why...” her voice broke again.

Unable to help it, Ahsoka pitched forward, sobbing again. She had already cried so much that her throat burned in protest, but cry she did, and this time she found herself wrapped in Obi-Wan’s arms.

She had never pictured this. He had always seemed so... aloof. What Jedi were meant to be. What she was not. What Anakin was not.

“I know,” he said slowly, his voice rumbling against her striped montrals. “Our teachers are not always what we want or need them to be. But we love them anyway, Ahsoka. Don’t we.”

She nodded as she cried, letting him hold her.

“I — thought — I — how am — does — d-does this — am I a — am...” it was utter nonsense coming out, but somehow he seemed to understand.

“You,” he said, “are a student. A very young student, despite how tall you may feel some days. War is hard on everyone, Ahsoka. You deserve better. It’s all right to have times like these.”

“You... you don’t,” she sobbed.

“Oh,” he said, sounding a little surprised. “Oh. Yes I do. Of course I do. I work my way through with meditation and tea. Anakin needs to be alone, and then he needs to vent. Normally he vents to me, or to — others. But it’s not your job to handle his outbursts. When you’re hurting, you go where you need to go.”

“Even if it’s a dark corner?” Ahsoka mumbled into his tunics.

She felt him chuckle slightly. “Even then. Especially then. We’re all dealing, Padawan. I’m sorry we didn’t talk to you about this, before this happened.”

“It’s okay,” Ahsoka muttered.

What she meant was: isn’t it my Master’s job to guide me? Isn’t it Anakin’s job? Am I too weak for him?

“We’ll do better,” Obi-Wan promised.

She had a feeling he meant: I’ll try to make Anakin do better. And when he doesn’t, I will.

And there was an overwhelming flood of emotions with that.

Thank the Force for Obi-Wan. But why not Anakin? Was this forever? Was this why her Master and Master Kenobi didn’t always get along? Because they were emotionally different? Would they shun her eventually too, if she turned out different from them both?

...But for the moment, Ahsoka took comfort.

Anakin would be back to normal in the morning.

And Obi-Wan’s arms were warm, and dark, and safe.

fin

[letsunity]

The Lucky Batch

Bottom of the Barrel

It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. 

Morast Tāne was strict, but they did their best for her. They made more of an effort than the other Jedi Masters, something of a parent-figure for her. They didn’t deserve to die.

And of course, as always, the all mighty Jedi Council put the blame on her. While Master Plo Koon and Master Obi-Wan Kenobi stood up for her, they were drowned out by Master Mace Windu. 

Though Master Yoda is the head of the council, Mace Windu is the main voice. He has a lot of respect from the others, his words influencing others. 

He had been a friend of Master Tāne. She could see why he’d blame her, but it wasn’t her fault. It couldn’t have been, right?

Master Tāne said to trust the force, and Kenlha did. She trusted herself, acted on what she thought was right and Master Tāne died. 

It was only because there wasn’t proof that she killed him that she wasn’t expelled from the Order. That and they needed as many force-users as possible. Hell, it was bad enough for her to be Knighted. 

Now she has to wait for a Battalion for them to dump her at. The 501st are fun and General Skywalker has a Togruta padawan. Someone else who understands the thorough upkeep of montral horns and lekku. 

“Kenlha, is it?” came a smooth voice, like molten chocolate. “Master Kenobi and Master Koon mentioned to me what happened. I am sorry for your loss,” he comforted graciously.

“Master Fisto, your words have more value than you know,” she continued, a little honoured to be in his presence. “They were a good master to me.”

“I didn’t get to speak with Master Tāne, but I heard many great things about them. I’m sure they’d be very proud of your recent knighthood.”

She wish that to be true.

“Would you like to meet your new squad?”

She gets her own squad? 

The green Nautolan motioned for her to follow him. Eager, Kenlha walked next to him, her mind racing with a million questions.

What did he mean? What new squad? Isn’t she supposed to join a new Battalion?

As the newly knighted Jedi stepped into the shipyard, her eyes were drawn to a colourful ship with a large clover on it. It was damaged and only had three leaves. 

Master Fisto smiled, nodding to that ship. 

“Clone Force 37,” he introduced. “They are your squad.”

A small group of clones jumped out of the door for dear life, ducking their heads as something exploded inside. As smoke bellowed, they began bickering over what caused it. 

It was at that moment that they noticed Master Fisto and Kenlha. 

“Was’ up, Kit!” waved a clone who plopped onto a GNK droid, sitting on it joyfully. “Yo, that your new P-to-the-Wan?”

“For the love of Prime, Jackal, never say that again,” his brother sighed, shaking his head, the braid flapping from side to side. “The question stands. Who’s this?”

“This is Master Kenlha Whiro, your new commanding officer,” Kit Fisto smiled, patting Kenlha on the back. 

A clone smothered in smoke and soot bounced out of the ship, tackling Kenlha. He grinned up at her, several burn scars on his face. 

His brothers surrounded her, excited to meet her and were like giddy children.

One of them with different-coloured eyes slapped something onto her chestplate. Confused, she looked at it, finding a large star sticker.

“I’m Pepper, the medic,” he introduced, grabbing one nearby, “and this is my twin, Foxy.”

“Jackal!”

“I’m Ballast!”

“Boots,” Boots said. After a moment, he grabbed a bit of scrap and lobbed it at the other clone’s head. “He’s Cypher, a bit if an airhead but when he’s paying attention, there’s nothing he can’t interpret!”

They were weird and she loved it. 

“They’re all mine?” Kenlha beamed, already in love with her new little brothers. “All of them?”

“As are those two,” the Nautolan added, motioning to a Captain with a young child with him. “Captain Raffle and Luna Evynder, your own Padawan.”

She was overwhelmed and astounded, unable to process the sudden gifts upon her. Master Kit Fisto was kind, but she never thought he’d give her so much.

So much that she probably doesn’t deserve. 

“I’m going to be honest with you, Master Whiro, these are not the greatest soldiers. In fact, many believe them to be the worst of the army. Though that may be so, everybody has a place in this universe. I have faith that you can take care of them,” he smiled, his webbed hands on her shoulders. “Know that not only I believe in you, but so will they.”

Teary eyed, Kenlha embraced the Nautolan, her montral horns pressing against his chin. She didn’t care that they weren’t good soldiers, they were hers. 

“Thank you, Master Fisto. I won’t fail you.”

“Nor will you disappoint. When it comes to the unusual, you need someone equally unique to lead them. Master Kenobi and Master Koon helped me talk Master Yoda in letting you have these clones. They believe in you as well.”

She wasn’t going to fail. As of now, she’s the leader of Clone Force 37.

“Welcome to the squad, boss-sis,” Foxy announced, patting her shoulder. “First things first, we'll show you how the moonshine maker works.”

Foxy might just be her favourite because of that alone.

Thanks to these guys for their characters!

@just-another-dreamerr​ @generaltano​ @radbatch​ @foxlock​ @maygaladon @lavenderstaars  @lusiawonder

[cora-vizsla]

Into The Dark- Chapter 1

Pairing: Jedi!OC x Sith!Obi Wan

Word Count: 4.5K+

Story Rating: E (18+)

Chapter Rating: Just assume they’re all E at this point.

Warning: Swearing. Threats of violence. Mentions of death/dying. Mention of war. Drugging. Snark. Angst. (I mean seriously if you know me you know angst is gonna happen)

A/N: This is the beginning! If you haven’t read Hypnotic this story isn’t going to make much sense to you. If you have read Hypnotic, welcome back! I hope you’re ready to be sad lol. Anyway, enjoy and let me know if I missed any tags!

“Darling, you can’t be serious. There is no way that you’re going.”

“I am being serious, and I am going. This isn’t really a discussion. I’ve already made up my mind.”

“Explain it to me. Please?”

Zara sighed and sat down next to her husband. Obi Wan smiled at her softly, brushing her hair back.

“Mace called me. Palpatine got loose which shouldn’t surprise anyone. I wouldn’t care but.. he took Cody.”

“Cody? Who the hell is Cody?”

They both looked up to Anakin walking in, a four-year-old Leia on his hip.

“Zara!”

She slipped down Anakins leg and bolted into Zara’s arms. She laughed and giggled as Zara held her close and spun her.

“Oh, my beautiful little Leia. Couldn’t let your daddy go without you?”

“Nope! Gotta watch him. Mama says so.”

Anakin rolled his eyes but laughed.

“I came here to help you, Obi Wan, but if that slimeball took Cody there is no talking her out of it.”

“The clone?”

“My friend.”

Zara snapped and glared at the blonde. He held his hands up defensively and sat back, crossing one leg over the other.

“Yeah, Oh-bee. Her friend!”

Zara laughed and kissed the girls cheek.

“That’s right. You get it. We protect our friends, no matter what.”

“No matter what!”

Zara set Leia down who immediately ran around the room getting into everything. Anakin sighed but Zara motioned for him to let her go. Out of the two, Leia was the well behaved one. She was busy but it was more out of curiosity than breaking anything. Luke was more likely to break things just to see how they worked.

“The question I have is why you didn’t call me to help you.”

“Mace was very clear that neither you nor Obi Wan were welcome on this mission.”

“So, you’re working for the Jedi. Again.”

“No, sweetheart. I am helping them get my friend to safety. We all know how dangerous Palpatine is.”

“All the more reason for me to be by your side.”

“Can’t say I disagree with the Sith, Zar.”

Zara rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

“No. Both of you will stay here. Anakin you have a family now. Your kids and wife are top priority. I’m not letting you get dragged into Jedi shit again. And you, my love, don’t play nice.”

“How rude, darling.”

“Rude, but correct. You don’t play nice with the Jedi and frankly I’m not letting you get near Palpatine again. He controlled you once.”

“So, you don’t trust me.”

Anakin cleared his throat and called for Leia. She ran over and jumped into his arms, holding on tightly.

“C’mon sweetheart. Aunt Zar needs to talk to her domesticated Sith.”

“Mama says you need to be nice to uncle Oh-Bee.”

“Well, mama isn’t here.”

“Good thing I am so I can tell her how mean you are to Aunt Zar’s husband who she loves very much.”

“It’s complicated, Leia.”

“Nope. Everyone duh-serves forgiveness, daddy. Plus, he makes Aunt Zar happy.”

Anakin sighed and looked at Zara for help, but she crossed her harms and shrugged.

“And don’t say its com-pluh-cated. You made Aunt Zara cry before. She forgave you. So, you should be nice.”

“You sound a lot like your mother.”

“Good! She’s the smartest person I know.”

Zara chuckled as Anakin sighed, defeated, and left the small home. She turned back to Obi Wan who had been watching her.

“We have a good life, Zara.”

“I agree.”

“Then why are you leaving?”

She sighed and let her shoulders slump slightly.

“Obi Wan, Cody meant a great deal to me. We worked together for a long time. I know that you don’t really work with anyone or play nice. It’s just when you work with someone for so long they become like family to you.”

“Not to be rude, but you left him before.”

“I left the entire order. I trusted the Jedi to keep the clones safe. They were to have their inhibitor chip removed and retired with honor. That isn’t what happened.”

“Well, your first mistake was trusting the Jedi.”

She sighed in frustration and got up off the couch. She put more things in her bag before turning to look at her husband.

“I need you to trust me. I need you to understand that a friend needs help.”

“And I need you to understand, my darling, that I know Sidious better than anyone on the Jedi counsel. What do you plan to do? Waltz in and tell him to give you your clone back and go back to jail?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what are you doing, Zara? This is reckless.”

“You wouldn’t save a friend if they were in danger?”

“I don’t have friends.”

“You wouldn’t save Anakin?”

“Absolutely not.”

Zara scowled and crossed her arms.

“Obi-Wan!”

“You could have picked anyone else we know, and I would have at least hesitated. That’s on you for choosing Anakin. It’s not like we’re the best of friends.”

“You wouldn’t save Padme? The twins?”

“I wouldn’t save them without you. I wouldn’t even dream of going without you.”

“Palpatine controlled you once.”

“Sidious had control; it was not over me. If you recall I convinced him not to kill you and tricked him into thinking that you were becoming my obedient little plaything. I tricked him at every corner, and he had no idea until the very end. Tell me I am wrong.”

She fell silent, looking at him with sadness written all over her face.

“Then tell me what the true problem is. Tell me that you’re afraid I’ll feel the dark side too strongly and go back. This has nothing to do with me not playing nice. It has everything to do with the Jedi playing into your fear of the very darkness that I carry inside of me and using it to control you. How can you not see that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Which part?”

Zara looked down at her feet and chewed at her bottom lip.

“None of it. Cody needs my help. If I want the help and the resources needed to help him, I must do it their way. I love you with all my heart. I truly do. Is there some truth to what you said? Yes. I think I’ll always be afraid of you turning fully to the dark and not needing me anymore. The darkness does scare me. I’ve never said anything contrary to it. Your darkness doesn’t scare me though.”

“If you trust me, then you have to also trust that darkness, Zara.”

“I have to do this, Obi Wan.”

“You really don’t. You can’t change my mind of this.”

“Then I guess we’re at an impasse.”

Obi Wan stood up and walked to her, placing his hands gently on her arms.

“I know nothing that I say will stop you from going. I’ve known the entire time we’ve discussed this. Just know that I strongly think you should take me with you. We’re stronger together. Always have been, even if we didn’t want to admit it at the time.”

“I have to do this.”

He nodded and kissed her forehead, holding her close to him.

“Come back to me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of not coming back to you.”

“Don’t make me come looking for you either.”

She laughed and wrapped her arms around his torso, resting the side of her face on his chest.

“I mean it, Zara. I will tear this galaxy apart before I let anyone, or anything keep us apart.”

“I believe you.”

“Good. Just don’t ever let yourself forget that.”

XXX

Zara stepped down the ramp of her ship and pulled her saber into her hand, igniting it. She looked at the burned orange hue of it and thought of the man waiting for her. When she had settled onto Naboo, one of the first things she did was make a saber with the crystal he had given her at the ball.

Now she was glad for it. It reminded her of him and everything that she was always fighting for. It wasn’t as beautiful as his eyes, but it was close enough to bring her some peace. She wasn’t thrilled about not having him there, but she knew it was the best thing she could do.

She thought about their argument quite a bit on her trip. Obi Wan had been right about her fear. She feared losing him more than she feared losing her own life. The last thing she wanted to happen was for Palpatine to get his hands on him again. She couldn’t risk it.

The same went for Anakin. He had already twisted him beyond breaking once. He had no training with the darkness that he now carried. She had wondered if Obi-Wan could teach him but never brought it up. They didn’t get along and it came down to how much the darkness scared her.

It hurt her heart how much Obi-Wan was hurting. She didn’t do it to harm him, but it didn’t change that it did. Zara desperately wanted to get Cody to safety and go back to her life. They both deserved to be done fighting and yet there she was fighting another battle for the Jedi.

She made her way down the hallway and felt through the force. She sighed when she felt a familiar signature and moved into a wide-open room. In the middle of the floor was Cody, hands bound in front of him. Zara looked around to check for any traps but when she didn’t see any, she walked to her old friend.

“General?”

“Just Zara, Cody. I’m not a general anymore.”

“You.. you shouldn’t have come.”

“Of course, I did. You’re my friend. As soon as I found out you were missing, I came.”

“You don’t understand, General. That’s exactly what he wanted.”

“Who? Palpatine?”

“I’m so sorry.”

She knelt down to look at him and picked his head up to look at her gently. Her eyes widened when she saw that he had tears brimming his eyes.

“Cody, why are you sorry? We’ve talked about this in depth. I don’t care that you’re a clone. You mean-“

“I’m not the only one that knows your soft spot for clones, General. I can’t.. I’m so sorry.”

Before Zara could ask him what was wrong, she felt a jab in her arm. She looked down to see Cody sticking a syringe into her arm and push the plunger down all the way. She yanked her arms away and fell backwards onto her butt.

“Cody?”

“I told you.. you shouldn’t have come. I’m so sorry, General.”

The binders fell off Cody’s wrists and he stepped forward, pulling Zara up into his arms. The world was spinning so she shut her eyes, desperately wanting it to stop.

“I have her, sir.”

“Very good, CC-2224. Just as I expected. Bring her here. Destroy her ship before you do.”

“Yes, sir.”

Zara lost consciousness as Cody carried her to his ship. He set her down gently, placing her saber on his waist. Once she was settled, he walked over to her ship and looked through her belongings. He pulled out a few holo pictures that he clicked on. A small smile spread on his lips when he saw Anakin alive and well with Padme and two children. The other ones were of her and the Sith that had taken her. He had been worried when he first heard she had left the order with him but was assured it was her choice.

“You look so happy, General. Exactly what you should be.”

He closed his hands around the holos and slipped them into his pocket. He glanced at the dashboard and saw the emergency signal. He hesitated then reached past it, “accidentally” hitting the emergency button. When he stood up walked outside and waited.

“Stars, I hope that signal gets to someone.”

After a few moments he stepped back and shot at the fuel tank, exploding the ship as instructed. Once he made his way back into the ship and checked on Zara, he hit the coordinates for where he needed to go.

“I know you can’t hear me, General. I just hope you know I wouldn’t do this unless I had any other choice. I’ll do what I can to keep you safe. Hopefully General Skywalker and your Sith can find you in time.”

Once they were into hyperspace, he pulled her saber from his waist and looked at it. It was new from what he remembered, but still beautifully made. He expected nothing less from his former General.

He thought back on the first time he saw her. She showed up to command his troops with a smile on her face. He initially thought that she was going to be a weak leader and weakness meant death to clones. He had been so wrong.

She was the first Jedi to show compassion towards him and his men. She grieved their deaths just as much as he did. Nights when he was up wrestling with the pain of losing someone, she was always right by his side. She didn’t need to; the mission was always finished. She wanted to. She wanted them all to know that they were all individual people to her, regardless of where they came from.

She made it easy to run into the heat of battle. It wasn’t that he didn’t ever want to. He believed in his own fighting and trusted his brothers. It just came down to the fact that he wasn’t fighting for her. He was fighting alongside her.

He ignited the blade and widened his eyes when a new color came out. He didn’t know the particulars of the Jedi and their blades, but he had never seen a blade that color before. Cody looked down at his hand holding the hilt and frowned.

He had hurt her. What was even worse was the possibility that she would never forgive him for what he did. The chip had been deactivated before Order 66 could be initiated but somehow Sidious still had a hold over him. He had gotten close enough to him to activate it just enough to make him obedient. He glanced back at Zara asleep and shook his head.

“We will find a way to get out of this, General. We always do. Somehow, we will get you back to your happiness. Maybe I’ll even find a bit of it myself.”

He chuckled to himself and shook his head again.

“Look at me, thinking a clone can be anything more than a tool. You’d think I’d learn by now. Although you’d be yelling at me for even thinking that. Stars, General, I hope you don’t hate me forever for this.”

XXX

Mace sat in the council chambers alone. The last thing he wanted to do was call up Zara, but he didn’t see any other option. Once the war was ended, the Jedi no longer had the authority to do anything without the government’s approval. He knew that they wouldn’t send them for a single clone. As far as they were concerned Palpatine was no longer a threat. Not that the Jedi agreed with that at all.

When his coms went off with Zara’s emergency signal, he felt his chest get heavy. It ended just as quickly as it was received, but he knew the longer it took for her to message or call him, the worse that was. She had a propensity to bump into buttons, but she always called. He tried to call and was met with no answer. Master Yoda walked into the room and looked at him.

“Her signal went off then immediately went dead.”

“Feel it, do you? A great darkness, there is.”

“Yes. I feel it. It has to be Sidious.”

“Mmm. Yes. Suspect him, I do.”

“I’m going to have to reach out to Anakin and Veth.”

“Go. In much danger, she is.”

XXX

Obi-Wan sat in his home, reading the same book for the third time. As much as he wanted to reach out to Zara, he didn’t want her to think he was trying to distract her or force her back home. It was killing him though. Even just hearing her voice would make him feel better. He looked up from his book when he heard a ship land close by. Before he could stand up, Anakin was bursting into the house.

“Sith, it’s the Jedi.”

“Is Zara with them?”

“It’s only Master Windu.”

“Shit.”

He followed the younger man outside just in time to see Windu walking closer. He clenched his jaw, not wanting to see the Master Jedi at all.

“Anakin. Veth.”

The three men looked to the side as Padme and the twins came running out of their home.

“Wow, even your children are strong with the force.”

Anakin stepped in front of Mace and set his jaw; his hands balled into fists at his side.

“Don’t even look at them. They will never be hurt by you or the council.”

“I’m not here for your children, Anakin.”

“Where is my wife.”

Mace turned to look at Veth who was standing with his arms crossed over his chest. He still looked just as cocky to Mace as he had when he was a child, but the darkness swirling around him was new. It was the first time they had faced each other, other than through a holo communication.

“We should go inside. Small ears don’t need to hear this conversation.”

Anakin glanced over at Obi-Wan, who nodded back at him. Anakin looked back at Padme and gave her a tight smile before following Obi-Wan into the house. Once Mace made it through the door, Obi-Wan used the force to slam it behind him, smirking when the master Jedi jumped.

“If it weren’t for the children, you wouldn’t be welcome in this home. Now tell me, where is my wife and why is she not here with you?”

“She made it to where we though Sidious was with the clone trooper.”

“Cody.”

“What?”

“His name is Cody. You sent my wife to find him and don’t even have the courtesy to use the name she knows him by.”

Mace rolled his jaw and sighed.

“Cody. My apologies. She made it there safely and sent a communication she was heading inside the building. From there, we lost contact. Soon after, her emergency signal reached us and turned off within a few seconds.”

“And nothing since?”

“Nothing.”

“Sidious has her. That emergency signal was a mistake. Where is she.”

Obi-Wan was seething. Her being taken was exactly what he was afraid of, and he was completely powerless to change what was happening. The more he thought about how terrible Sidious was and how much she could be hurt, the more the room started swirling with darkness. Mace put his hand on his own saber and took a step back.

“Please calm down, Veth.”

“You called up my wife, the woman that I love more than anything in the galaxy and asked her to go on a fool’s errand with no backup. Then you come here and tell me that Darth Sidious, the most dangerous man I have ever met likely has her. Now you expect me to calm down. After everything you’ve done to me you’re lucky you’re still breathing. Let alone what you’ve done to her. She came to me broken, Master Windu. She came to me lost and afraid that she had lost every bit of her life and soul because she couldn’t live with your lies anymore. You nearly forced her to kill her best friend. Now you sent her into the hands of a madman. Tell me, why in the galaxy should I calm down?”

“I understand that you’re upset.”

Obi-Wan barked out a laugh and crossed his arms again.

“You don’t understand anything that the Jedi didn’t shove down your throat. Tell me where she is. I will go bring her back home where she belongs.”

“I’m going with you.”

Obi-Wan looked at Anakin and frowned. He could feel how unstable Anakin felt. The normal darkness around Obi-Wan he was used to, but the pure rage he was harnessing was drowning him. It wasn’t ever something that was discussed but he would never be able to fully get away from the dark side. It just wasn’t possible.

“You aren’t stable enough, Skywalker.”

Obi-Wan shot his finger out to point at Mace, shaking his head.

“You don’t get to tell him what to do, Mace. The audacity that you Jedi have. It is absolutely astounding that you thought you could walk into my home and tell anyone under this roof what to do.”

“You know he isn’t stable. I can’t be the only one who feels it.”

“What he is or isn’t is no problem of yours. Just give me the coordinates and I will take care of getting Zara back.”

“I want to help.”

“You have done enough. Now, if you will, I have much to do and none of that involves catering to you being in my home. You’re tarnishing the air and I won’t have it a moment longer.”

Mace sighed and shook his head, setting down a data stick with the coordinates and information about the ship she had been using. He thought about asking him how he planned on helping him, but he thought better and walked through the door. Once he left Anakin huffed out a frustrated sigh and grabbed the stick.

“Alright let’s go.”

“You aren’t going.”

“What!?”

Anakin spun around to glare at Obi-Wan.

“You just said-“

“I said he doesn’t get to come into my home and tell anyone what to do. That does not mean I don’t agree with him. You’re unstable. You have been for a long time.”

“I’m fine.”

“Tell me that my darkness didn’t affect you then.”

Anakin opened his mouth a few times and shut it, without uttering a word.

“Exactly. You have a family here that needs you.”

“Zara is my family too, Veth.”

“Stars above I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

Anakin smirked and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Why do you think I call you that?”

“You’re insufferable. I pity your former master. You wouldn’t have lasted five minutes having been my padawan.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m a lot stronger than you think I am.”

“I gladly would have tossed you off the first cliff we found. I considered it when we found you if I’m being entirely honest. Ungrateful brat that you are. You’re lucky when I shoved you it was to your safety.”

“I still don’t fully believe that was you. I don’t remember you being so smug.”

“No need for you to. It wouldn’t be the first time that you ignored the reality around you to construct fantasies that mean absolutely nothing to anyone else.”

“You’re an ass, do you know that?”

Obi-Wan barked out a laugh as he started gathering his supplies.

“Oh, I’ve been told. The fact of the matter is that you are not stable enough to come with me. I need to focus on Sidious and whatever he has planned. I can’t babysit you through your temper tantrums, reckless behavior and propensity to disobey any form of authority within a parsec of your location.”

Anakin frowned and huffed out a sigh.

“Then teach me.”

“Teach you? If Padme can’t control you, I highly doubt anyone else can.”

“I’ll listen! I’m not asking you to turn me to the dark side. I just.. I’m the only person in this situation that even remotely trusts you. If you would just help me, I can help you then we both can help Zara.”

He sighed and looked at the younger man in front of him. He meant what he had said to Zara: if given the choice he would not save him. He had a point though. He was someone he could trust to at least want to help his wife. After considering it for a moment he sighed and tossed his hands up in the air.

“Fine. Only if you go tell Padme that it is entirely your idea and that I was opposed to it from the beginning. You will listen to me and do as I tell you to. I will teach you how to control yourself at least enough to help Zara. Beyond that, just stay out of my way.”

“Yes! I’ll go grab my bag and let Padme know what is going on.”

Anakin head towards the door but paused when Obi-Wan spoke to him.

“And Anakin? The first time you aggravate me I’m shoving you out the airlock. Don’t think that I won’t either. I’ve killed for less.”

XXX

Cody carried a still unconscious Zara into a dark room, only having the very center lit up dimly.

“CC-2224 I see you have returned successfully.”

“Yes, sir.”

The shadow of a man stepped forward, using the force to push Zara’s hair from her face. Cody thought that she looked almost peaceful curled up in his harms, her face resting against his chest.

“You have pleased me, trooper. Now the next part of my plan begins. Take her to her chambers. She is not to leave unless I command it.”

“Sir, am I permitted to stay with her?”

“Yes. Keep her calm. Give her a reason to stay here. Though I don’t expect her to be on board with everything I say, at first, this entire plan is contingent on her falling in line.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cody turned, walking down a long hallway. Once he entered Zara’s chambers, the door shut and locked behind him. Normally it would have made him uneasy, but he was calmer knowing that he wouldn’t be separated from his former general just yet. He placed her down gently into the bed, careful to ensure she would be comfortable.

He pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed, crossing his arms over his chest. He glanced down at the black armor that he now wore, unsure of how he liked it. He always wore armor, so it wasn’t new. It just made him uneasy at how dark it was.

When he shifted, he felt the holo pictures that he had taken from her ship. He pulled them out and turned on their display, looking at Zara’s family. He felt so much guilt and pain knowing that he was part of the reason she wasn’t home with them. Cody knew that nothing good was going to come from Sidious getting his hands on Zara, but he was determined that he wouldn’t let her forget where she belonged.

“I can’t let you forget something that you always deserved to have, Zara. I just can’t.”

Zara continued to sleep while Cody sat next to her. He was caught between his loyalty for her and his obligation to follow Palpatine. He wanted her to wake up, but he also was afraid of what she was going to say once she realized he had betrayed her.

“You’re so strong, General. If anyone can fix this, it’s you. I believe in you so much. Please have just a little bit of faith in me.”

Tag List:

@mapplestrudel @cannedsoupsucks @musubabii @mascaracoffee @ahsoka-padme

[robinasnyder]

My thoughts on Crosshair and s01e15 are thus:

I actually don’t like Crosshair. He said nasty stuff to Rex, among other things. That being said, I think he’s interesting and has real potential to be compelling.

A lot of people are saying the chip isn’t out. But I’m very certain it actually is. Before he even revealed it was gone, I mentioned to my husband that I thought the chip had been burned out. There’s a big difference between how he acted when it was first turned on and at Bracca, and then on Ryloth and in this episode. Even when he’s verbally sniping at Hunter, there’s something gentle in his voice.

I’ve seen people ask why he would go from “it wasn’t my choice” to “Haha! I’ve been free all along”. Cause, well, he didn’t. The Chip was there. Tarkin did turn it on. The thing about the chips (and what we see with Howser) is that the personality remains. The chips didn’t make them soulless robots. It made them act on two ideas 1) good soldiers follow orders and 2) your orders are to kill the Jedi. Once the Jedi are gone, that control fades.

We actually see it almost immediately in the first episode when the regular clones end up fighting the Bad Batch, and also end up shutting them out. You remember Soup? Yes, everyone white washed their armor (which is an ironic symbolic thing, because oh the whole making the entire batch as white as possible thing, but I digress). But everyone also is still acting like themselves in times when they aren’t under orders.

So, Crosshair on the chip is still Crosshair, but while he’s also been a “don’t tell me what to do” type, suddenly he has to follow orders. But that rebellion is still there. I bet that the chip was either damaged (and therefore removed) with the burn, or he used the burn to have it removed. If you zoom in, you can actually kinda see the white scar.

So, let’s say the chip’s out? Why stay?

Well, his family not only abandoned him once, but multiple times and serious injured him. There’s a lot of hurt there. He still needs medical attention for a while. When that heals, what he’s left with is no family, but a job where he’s a Commander and he’s important. He outranks Hunter, and even if the TK troopers don’t like him, they have to respect him. Hell, even Vice Admiral Rampart eventually listens to him.

Crosshair has secured a safe place for himself. So, he decides to stay. Then he decides to wants his old team back. He wants his brothers, his family. All of them are so specialized that they would be both useful and safe, so long as they’ll follow orders. So when he sees Hunter, that’s what he offers: A safe place for Omega, away from the fighting, and a safe, secure job where there’s so actual respect. He clearly believes that being above the regs makes them special and makes them valuable.

Unfortunately for him, we all know the empire would (and did) drop him at the slightest sign of disloyalty, because he’s a clone and they don’t trust him. Even if he got everyone he wanted, eventually, the Empire would kill them. But he doesn’t know that. Hunter’s got a pretty good idea of it, though, which is why he’ll never agree.

So, when Crosshair admits that the chip is out, and Hunter asks him for how long, Crosshair asks if it matters. He knows they’re disappointed in him for the choices he makes. He knows they don’t like him. Clearly, they don’t love him to leave him. But they know about the chips and still never, ever tried to reason with him. They never tried. So why does it matter? They didn’t come for him when they thought he was 100% innocent, let alone when they know he’s been guilty for a while.

But what I loved about the confrontation was that Crosshair clearly loves them more fiercely than any of them. They’re willing to show that devotion for Omega, and probably for each other. I suspect Crosshair is hurt because he knows he loves them more. He’s the only one who uses the word “brother”, the way regular clones do. Even Echo doesn’t call them brothers. But it means something to Crosshair.

Given his designation number (9904) my guess is that he’s actually the youngest of them all.

Do I like Crosshair? No. He’s an asshole. But he’s interesting. And in this case, he’s right. Hunter and the others havent’ treated him well. The closest any of them came to admitting any positive feeling toward him was Wrecker admitting that he missed him. Omega told him she knew it wasn’t his fault, but she’s a kid and he’s hunting them, so of course she’s not going to be happy to see him. No one else has expressed any need to get him back. The audience never sees it. The first time Hunter expresses any such sentiment is when he’s already captured.

Hunter and the others are wrong. They were wrong to not go back for him, or to try and help. They were wrong, and Crosshair deserved to point it out. That Hunter did knock him out instead of shoot him, and that Hunter had him taken with them is his first step to making up for not caring enough.

[padawanlost]

Hi, I dont read alot (of books) but I was just wondering, did Anakin/vader ever see people he helped/freed (during his time as a jedi) being oppressed by the empire. Did he feel pity or sorrow for them? Or had he totally unplugged from those emotions at that point ?

No. Anakin was to broken to feel sorry for anyone but himself. People have this idea of Vader being a sadistic monster who thrived on the suffering he caused but the truth is he was too lethargic to care. He didn’t stay with Palpatine out enjoyment or even loyalty. He stayed because he had nowhere else go, no one else to be with.

You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself … It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith— Because now your self is all you will ever have. And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the *shadow* who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow. In the end, you do not even want to. In the end, the shadow is all you have left. Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself— And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame. This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker. Forever … [Matthew Stover. Revenge of the Sith]

What Vader appeared to be  - no fucks given BAMF – were very different from what he truly was: Palpatine’s slave. Vader, once you get to know him, is not a scary monster. He’s a quite pathetic and hopeless man.

He wasn’t a sadistic control freak like Palpatine and he didn’t *enjoy* hurting people he didn’t feel deserve to be hurt but he was too damaged and broken to do anything about it. he kind of just went with it.

In one of the comics, he has to face the truth that the Empire is enslaving people and he is upset about it. but he does nothing because there's nothing left in him. for him to pity them, he’d have to empathize with them and that’s something he couldn’t afford to do. He was too trapped in his own private little hell to feel bad for people.

Again the smile or snarl from his Master. “You were a traitor, were you not, Lord Vader?” Vader’s breathing caught on the hook of sudden anger. “What did you say?”

 “To the Jedi. To Padmé. To Obi-Wan. To all those you loved.” His Master turned to look at him, his eyes reflecting the flames. 

Vader didn’t know the answer his Master wanted to hear, so he simply answered with the truth. “Yes.” [Paul S. Kemp. Lords of the Sith]

If he couldn’t even care enough to defend himself from his master abusive behavior, I doubt he’d ever care enough to pity a stranger.

When it comes to Vader’s apathetic, one of the best examples I can think of is his ‘relationship’ with Drua. In one of the books, Vader and Palpatine are stranded. They run into a girl and Vader saves her life:

“Come here, girl,” the Emperor said, putting the power of the Force into his command. Unable to resist, the girl walked out of the tree line until she stood, small and vulnerable, before him. With preternatural speed the Emperor drew, ignited, and slashed at the girl with his lightsaber, but Vader had sensed his Master’s intent and moved with greater speed, igniting his own blade and intercepting his Master’s blow before it could land. The girl, under the sway of the Emperor’s power, seemed scarcely to notice the danger. She simply stood there, staring vacantly, her face aglow in the red light of the crossed blades. The Emperor’s mouth twisted in a snarl, and Vader felt his power gathering. Behind Vader, Deez raised his rifle and aimed it at Vader’s back, but Vader stretched his free hand back and unleashed a blast of power that lifted the guardsman from his feet and flung him into the trees. Branches cracked audibly under the impact of Deez’s body. Vader and his Master stared at each other across the sizzling glow of their crossed blades. “Has it come to this?” his Master said. He sounded calm, almost resigned, but not at all surprised. The tone surprised Vader. “Forgive me, Master,” he said, and deactivated his blade. “I think the girl can be of use to us.” [Paul S. Kemp. Lords of the Sith]

The girl, Drua, takes them to very home and does everything she can to help them. After everything was said and done, Palpatine orders Vader to kill her and everyone in her village. And Vader does it. Not because he wants it. but because he’s too apathetic to care. Too trapped in his toxic relationship with Palpatine to see things for what they really were.

“There’s work for that yet, my friend,” the Emperor said, nodding at the hilt of Vader’s blade.

 “Master?”

 “The villagers, Lord Vader. Drua and her people. We can’t allow so many witnesses to live. I’ll wait for you here.” 

Vader looked from his Master to the dark mouth of the mine inside of which Drua and the rest of the villagers had fled. He felt the Emperor’s eyes on him, the intensity of the gaze, the weight of his expectations, and Vader knew that the day’s events had been only half about depleting a rebel movement before it could grow. They had also, as Vader had suspected, been about testing him, forcing him to face the ghosts of his past and exorcise them forever and fully. He saw that more clearly now; saw, too, that his Master was right to administer the test. It also explained why his Master had shown so little of his true power throughout the day. Perhaps he’d wanted Vader to rely on himself to overcome the challenges they’d faced. Or perhaps he’d wanted to seem weaker than he was, to draw out any treacherous ambitions Vader may have held. “I hear and I obey, Master,” Vader said. He ignited his lightsaber and strode toward the cave, his mind drifting back to another day, a day when he strode into the Jedi Temple filled with nothing but younglings. He’d slaughtered them then, and he would slaughter the Twi’leks now. His Master’s laughter followed him into the cave, and it lingered in his mind, louder even than the screams of the Twi’leks as they began to die by his blade. When it was done, he returned to his Master’s side. “Well done, old friend,” Darth Sidious said. He wiped his hands, as if to clean them of dirt. “And now let’s move on to more important things.” [Paul S. Kemp. Lords of the Sith]

The only time Vader cared enough to influence his behavior was with Luke. All the other times, there were a glimpse of something – of the old Anakin – like when he saw C3PO or even Ahsoka. But not enough for him empathize with people.

Qui-Gon had a interesting theory about this. He believed Anakin – to survive – had to bury that side of him so Vader could exist. An Anakin who cares cannot be Vader. He buried all the good things about Anakin.

“Master, is Darth Vader Anakin?”

“Yes,” Qui-Gon’s voice replied. “Although the Anakin you and I knew is imprisoned by the dark side. […]The core of Anakin that resides in Vader grasps that Tatooine is the source of nearly everything that causes him pain. Vader will never set foot on Tatooine, if only out of fear of reawakening Anakin.” [Ryder Windham. The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi]

As terrible as life as Vader is, facing Anakin Skywalker’s decisions and living with them would be much, much harder. That’s why only when Luke demonstrated his unconditional love that Anakin allowed himself to reemerge.

Vader saw his son crying, and knew it must have been at the horror of the face the boy beheld. It intensified, momentarily, Vader’s own sense of anguish—to his crimes, now, he added guilt at the imagined repugnance of his appearance. But then this brought him to mind of the way he used to look—striking, and grand, with a wry tilt to his brow that hinted of invincibility and took in all of life with a wink. Yes, that was how he’d looked once. And this memory brought a wave of other memories with it. Memories of brotherhood, and home. His dear wife. The freedom of deep space. Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan, his friend … and how that friendship had turned. Turned, he knew not how—but got injected, nonetheless, with some uncaring virulence that festered, until … hold. These were memories he wanted none of, not now. Memories of molten lava, crawling up his back … no. This boy had pulled him from that pit—here, now, with this act. This boy was good. The boy was good, and the boy had come from him—so there must have been good in him, too. He smiled up again at his son, and for the first time, loved him. And for the first time in many long years, loved himself again, as well.  [James Kahn. Return of the Jedi]

Vader didn’t hate the world. He hated himself.

And because of that he bury everything that was remotely good and positive about himself as deep as he could. So his behavior, his lack of empathy wasn’t about him being sadistic. He was simply too broken and trapped in a deeply abusive relationship to care for the world around him.

[lovelucybradford]

I Pretend You’re Mine~Three

A/N: Thank you again, so much, for your kind and encouraging comments. It makes me so happy that you’re enjoying this.

Trigger warning: Rosalie has plane accident anxiety, gets high off of Dramamine, and wants to fight some hoes

Masterlist

And without further ado, I present to you...

Chapter Three: I Get Drunk On Jealousy

Rosalie had never been a good sleeper on the night before a vacation. Normally, she would spend the hours tossing and turning in bed, her mind whirring with anticipation at the upcoming events or thinking of the impending doom of a plane flight. Last night followed the same predictable pattern: lie awake counting the ruffles in the popcorn ceiling, think about planes falling out of the sky, roll over, curl into ball, think about something else to ease the anxiety...

Save for one difference--an earlier conversation with Laura played in Rose’s head over and over like a drive-in showing of the newest heart-pounding flick.

 “You haven’t seen my idiot brother, have you?” Laura muttered as soon as Rosalie opened the door, suspicious eyes scanning the apartment in search of a hiding Derek. She didn’t wait for Rose’s reply and walked into the living room, plopping down on the sofa.

“Well, hello to you, too. Not that you’re not always welcome, but what are you doing here? You could have called. And why are you looking for Derek?” Rosalie questioned, resting her hip on the doorframe.

Laura rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “He hasn’t been home in days, he missed family dinner Sunday night, he won’t answer texts or calls. I think he’s hiding from my mother. I—”

“Why would he be hiding from your mother? I mean, for God’s sake, he’s a thirty-year-old man—”

“Can you blame him from hiding? You know what my mom’s like when she’s pissed.”

“Why’s she pissed at Derek? As far as I know, he hasn’t done anything deserving of the wrath of Mama Hale.”

Laura crossed her arms, a signature Hale glare aimed right at Rosalie.

Rose questioned Laura’s unwarranted expression with a glare of her own. “What?”

The scowl etched on Laura’s face just grew further. “You’re honestly going to lie to my face?”

At Rosalie’s clueless expression, Laura sighed, throwing her hands up into the air, “What kind of game are you and Derek playing?”

Rose’s heart began to beat a little faster. Could Laura know about their little white lie? No, she couldn’t have. All joking aside, Rosalie’s friend group had sworn not to tell anyone else. But it wasn’t like they kept in contact with the other Hale siblings to begin with…

Laura stood, grabbing the other woman by the wrist and pulling her to sit, in the teal armchair, across from her.

“Tell me. Whose idiotic idea was it to tell your whackass family that you and Derek are engaged? Yours or his?”

Rosalie’s jaw dropped, but Laura looked unaffected.

“How…how did you find out?” Rose breathed, knowing she was caught red-handed.

“Your father called my mother to congratulate her on having ‘an esteemed Martin daughter’ joining the family—”

“Of course, he did,” Rosalie muttered into her palm.

“—Then asked when you and Derek were planning on officially announcing the engagement.”

Rosalie purposefully stared at the gold buttons that outlined the armchair. One of them was loose. That would have to be fixed. Now that she knew about it, it would drive her nuts. “And… what did Talia say?”

“She said that she’s overjoyed that you’ll be an ‘official’ Hale, and that she’d be sure to pass along his concerns to you. Then, she called my brother to ask why the fuck she just had to lie to Jason Martin and what in the world you two were scheming up.”

That surprised Rosalie. Talia Hale was a woman of great poise; it was rare that she lost her temper. “Wait, she actually dropped the ‘f’ bomb? Why was she so angry? So what, we may have fibbed a little.”

The accent pillow from Rose’s sofa hit her in the face, forcing her to look at Laura. Laura’s lips were pursed, face growing redder with frustration.

“SO WHAT? Good God, you two are the stupidest smart people that I know!”

The condescending tone of her voice caused Rosalie to raise her haunches. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?!”

“It means that this is, by far, the dumbest con you two have come up with. And this beats the night that you and Derek got drunk on his 21st birthday and you dared him to go streaking down Main Street.”

“Why? You don’t think that Derek and I can play a convincing couple? Because I’ll have you know that we both won the Best Thespian award during our respective senior years, even though D—”

Laura stood, exploding. “That’s just it, Rosalie! You’ll both play madly in love very well, too well actually, and I…”

She ran a hand through her brown hair, walking to the window and facing the expanse of city below. Softly, Laura added, “I don’t want to see you two get hurt.”

She sounded so vulnerable, it made Rosalie wonder the reasoning behind those fears. Derek and her, they would never hurt each other. The two friends both cared too much. “And why would you think that?”

Laura whipped around to face Rosalie so quickly that she wondered how her pseudo-sister hadn’t gotten whiplash. “Must I spell it out for you? Obviously, I must. You two have been in love with each other since you were kids.”

No. No. Rosalie had feelings for him (albeit repressed), sure, but they certainly weren’t love. She swore she would never get herself into that mess again. And Derek… no way. Like he could ever love her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I… Derek… we’re not in love.”

“You keep telling yourself that, sweetie. Tell me how denial goes for you. Just don’t come back to me crying when this whole ploy of yours blows up in your face spectacularly.”

Was Laura right? Would this all end in burning flames? That question had ruminated in Rosalie’s head all night long.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty!” A slap on the leg jolted Rose wide awake. She looked to her left, finding the culprit grinning in satisfaction as his eyes scanned the road ahead.

Rosalie rolled her eyes, slumping against the passenger door to glare out the window at the streaks of artificial light that came from the surrounding buildings as we passed. “Go to hell, Peter.”

“I’ve been there, sweetie. Feels right at home. And besides, you’re getting to spend a week in paradise. I think you can sacrifice a little sleep.”

“So you woke me up because you’ve got FOMO?”

“You could have gotten a ticket, too. You have enough money,” Lydia chimed in from the back seat. Her voice was low with latent sleep, Lydia not much more alert than Rosalie.

Peter sighed dramatically, always one for fanfare. “No, I could not have. Rosalie’s father’s restraining order still stands… and I’m permanently banned from the state of Hawaii.”

Stiles perked up immediately, elbows leaning on his knees so he could listen in closer. “This is a story I have to hear.”

At the same time, looking to Peter in her peripheral, Rose commented, “You’re lucky you got off that easy. You’re welcome, by the way.”

Stiles reached across Lydia to poke Derek spastically in the bicep.

“What did he do? What did he do?” Stiles questioned Derek like an excited little boy.

Derek groaned. “This fucker commandeered Jason Martin’s yacht and took it for a drunken joyride like he was Jack fucking Sparrow. He went around picking up a bunch of women and partied until the Coast Guard pulled up.”

To himself, Peter muttered, “Boats and hoes.”

Rosalie scowled. “You had to go and call the female cop a dirty wench.”

Peter looked irritated. “Um, excuse me. I may not remember much from that night, but I’m pretty sure my exact words were, ‘Ahoy there, you sexy wench! Give me some of that booty.’”

Stiles laughed hysterically. Rosalie reached around in her seat to smack him on the forehead. “Don’t encourage him!”

Peter shifted the car into park and turned towards the group in the back. “We’re finally here. Now, get the fuck out of my car so I can go back to sleep.”

________________________

  Her pillow was hard—unusually so. She specifically remembered buying the fluffiest one in the store. So why did it feel like she was sleeping against a wall? Rosalie inhaled deeply, the woodsy scent flooding her nostrils. The brick wall smelled amazing. She greedily burrowed further into the pillow. The pillow that was becoming less hard and more… prickly.

The pillow shook slightly, Rosalie’s torso moving along with it. The hazy ring of a laugh resounded amidst the mechanical buzzing of the airplane.

“Are you smelling me?” came a familiar voice. The woman turned her head slightly, only to find that her pillow was not a pillow, and instead was the shoulder of her best friend.

Rosalie smiled happily up at him. “Hey Derek!”

He grinned back, green eyes dancing with amusement. “Hey princess. Sleep well, I assume?”

“Mmm, yeah. So good. The best.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re about two hours outside of Orlando. Just a reminder, the fasten seatbelt sign is on. We may run into some turbulence here.”

Rosalie lifted her heavy head from Derek’s shoulder, leaning back fully on the cushion of her seat. Her eyes hazily scanned the encapsulated ceiling. A blast of cold air hit her straight in the face.

“God, is that you?” Rosalie questioned curiously, “Why are you telling me to fasten my seatbelt. I always wear my seatbelt, you know that. I am a responsible driver.”

Derek laughed again. “Holy shit, you’re so high.”

Rosalie smacked her lips, mouth suddenly feeling cotton dry. “I require a beverage.”

Stiles peeked his head over the seat.

Rose stared up at him in awe. “Stiles, you really are a Jedi! You’ve mastered levitation!”

Stiles gave her a weird look. “First you’re saying that you require a ‘beverage’, now you’re thinking that I’m levitating.” His focus turned to scrutinize Derek. “I told you we shouldn’t have given her Dramamine!”

Rose’s body suddenly felt heavy again, so she slumped over and used Derek to support her weight. Derek’s head was stretched all the way up; he was yelling back at Stiles. For what, Rosalie didn’t understand. “Would you rather she spends the whole flight puking her guts out? You know she has motion sickness!”

Rosalie blindly reached a finger up and to her left until she poked Derek in the nose. “Derek. Derek. Der. I need a beverage.”

Derek wrapped his hand around hers and brought their hands down to rest between them. His free hand ran through his hair.

“The drink cart’s coming. It should be here soon.”

Rosalie narrowed her eyes, focusing on Derek’s hair and not his words. The black locks were disheveled, the right side sticking up in a very unattractive manner. She stretched up to pat his hair down.

“Yes, thank you. Ok. The stewardess is coming,” Derek said, clearly not appreciating her fixing.

Rosalie shrugged and went back to lying her head on his shoulder, trying not to inhale when she caught another whiff of cedarwood. Damn, that scent was addicting.

The perky stewardess appeared almost instantly, almost like she was at Derek’s beck and call. She might as well have been, with the way she was looking at him.

The woman was young, likely around Rosalie’s age. She wore a navy blazer over a white button-up shirt, with one too many buttons undone. Even her scarf couldn’t hide that cleavage—eye-drawing cleavage. And it’s like the stewardess knew it, too, with the way that she pulled down her shirt as soon as she stepped in front of the two in the aisle. Her brown eyes scanned Derek hungrily, not an unusual occurrence when it came to Derek Hale.

Intuitively, Rosalie’s blue eyes scanned the hand still in Derek’s for the ring that she was sure she put on this morning, the sapphire that got them into this mess in the first place. Just as Rosalie thought, it was still secured around her left ring finger.

The pretty blonde flight attendant flipped her long hair and smiled brilliantly at Derek.

“How can I help you, sweetheart?” she fawned, voice thick with a southern drawl.

Rose watched her like a hawk. She didn’t like that look, nor the subtle flirting. Not when it was obvious that he was engaged.

Rosalie put on the sweetest smile she could muster in her slowly angering state. “I’d love a ginger ale. Thank you.”

The stewardess didn’t even look at Rosalie as she spoke; she was still smiling brightly at Derek.

“Would you like a champagne? It’s on the house, for a pretty face like yours.”

Rosalie’s blood boiled at the woman’s blatant flirting with her fiancé. It sobered Rosalie immensely. She raised her head from Derek’s shoulder, moving their joined hands to her lap where the sapphire ring would be obvious.

The flight attendant’s gaze grazed briefly to Rosalie’s hand. It was as if she was unfazed.

Rosalie’s brows stretched tightly upward as she channeled Big Hale Energy to the best of her ability. The words came flying out of her mouth before she could really even think them through. She was beyond pissed.

 “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you’re just too stupid to see the ring on my finger. Because I highly doubt that American Airlines would appreciate one of their employees whoring it up for someone else’s fiancé.”

The look on the woman’s face was priceless. Finally, Rosalie got a reaction on that steely, perfect face of hers, one that reminded Rose eerily of her stepsister, Ashleigh. The other woman’s jaw dropped, noisily gasping for breath.

The gasps echoed across the cabin. Derek’s hand stiffened in Rose’s.

“I am so sorry. We gave her some Dramamine to get on the plane, and she gets a little… feisty. If we could have the ginger ale, that would be great. Thanks,” Derek croaked, swiftly pulling his hand away to pull out his wallet from his back pocket. He handed the woman a five-dollar bill with an apologetic smile.

Rosalie looked at him, flabbergasted.

Derek stared right back at her, one brow raised in challenge.

“Do you want to get kicked off this plane?!” He hissed.

Stiles poked his head up again, whistling loudly. “Not even there yet, and you’re already playing the jealous fiancée. Damn, Rose. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

Lydia yanked him back down into his seat as the flight attendant stiffly appeared with Rosalie’s ginger ale and a bottle of water for Lydia. Rose didn’t look at her as she accepted the plastic cup. Instead, she stared at her tanned legs. The stewardess’ high heels clicked as she stomped back up towards the front of the cabin.

In the clear, Rosalie brought the cup to her dry lips to take a much-needed drink. Lydia reached one hand through the gap between Derek and Rosalie’s seats, grabbing Rose’s elbow before she could let the liquid into her mouth.

“Don’t drink that!” Lydia exclaimed hastily.

Rose put the drink down on Derek’s open tray table and turned to peek through the gap. She could see a fraction of Lydia’s face. From what she could see, Lydia looked irritated.

“She probably spit in it, Rosalie.”

Rose scoffed at the suggestion. “What? She was the one who was hitting on a taken man! What am I supposed to do?”

Derek shoved a half-drank bottle of Aquafina from his carry-on into her lap. “Just shut up and drink this.”

She removed her face from the gap to look at Derek apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t react, just kept on glaring at the tray table.

Rosalie changed defense tactics, smiling at him with all teeth bared like a guilty child. “I’m sorry. I love you, Der Bear.”

Just as predicted, his green eyes shot to her blue ones. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “You better. I forgive you.”

Success. Rosalie’s lips curled upwards in satisfaction.

Derek held up a finger in front of her face. “On one condition. You never call me Der Bear again.”

His comment had Rosalie cackling loudly, drawing more unwanted attention to herself for the second time on the flight.

______________________________________________________________

Tags:

@empath-bunny

@ityagirljay​

@wolfarrowepz​

[blissfulalchemist]

A Chance for Faith Ch.10

Hello there all! I have another chapter! This is a direct follow up to chapter 7 “Finding You”. This piece was intended to be a few prompts that just all started to fit together into what we have now. So @unleashed111​ and @jedi-mabari​ thank you for your patience and I hope that I could deliver on the prompt requests. 

Word Count: 7k

Warnings: There is a nsfw(ish?) bit near the end of the piece. Alcohol use and minor drug use.

Ao3

The tears that welled up in her jade green eyes cause his heart rate to increase, while the hand that reaches out to him sends him stumbling back a few steps. His back hits the counter, fingers gripping tight to the edge of it, giving a small shake of his head. She frowns, taking another step closer to him. He panics and slaps the money on the counter, it should be enough, mumbling for the attendant to keep the change. Chance’s knuckles burn white gripping the crate as he pushes past the woman, head leaning downward focusing on the bottles. She’s lying, there was no way that was his mom. She’s dead. Long gone.

The slam of the truck door, crate tossed next to him, nails digging into his palm as his hands wrap around the wheel. He’s gasping, chest burning, aching, resting his forehead against the steering wheel. She’s wrong, I’m not her son. I’m not her son, he repeats. His jaw tightens as his hands start to relax enough to grab the first bottle, its cap twisting off with ease. There’s no burn from the vodka as he makes his way through almost a quarter of the bottle. His eyes land on the woman as she works her way through the store, even from this distance he can see that the clothing identifies her as a member that lives on the compound. They are some of the most loyal, the ones that had the most faith, and were guaranteed a spot in New Eden so Joseph wanted to keep them close. Many of those people were from the days at the warehouse in Georgia and the lack of glassy eyes….She’s one of the originals, the ones that had joined somewhere along the road to Hope County. 

Those eyes….something about those eyes….

She says his eyes remind her of her grandmother’s eyes. A good woman and someone she’d have loved to have met Chance had she’d not passed just the year before. I think the jade will darken as he gets older, taking after the man Andi thinks is his father. 

“January twenty-fifth, nineteen ninety-four,” he mumbled, watching as the door opened and the woman moved to the standardized beige truck of the peggies. Chance took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, “Worst case is that she’s just confused,” Wrong! Worst case is a trap that’ll get you killed. As if it really mattered anymore. There really wasn’t anything more that could make his life worse. “Fuck it,” Chance stepped out of the car, jogging up to catch the woman before she drove off. Her eyes lit up, a smile crossing her features as she met his eyes again. He kept his distance, arms crossed with his back straight, “Look, for all I know you have me confused with someone else.”

She shook her head, “I’m positive that I don’t.”

He suppressed the eye roll, choosing to narrow them, “Either way, I guess it doesn’t hurt to talk to you at the very least.” 

“Really?” She gasped, eyes going wide, “You’re willing to talk to me?”

Chance gave a shrug, “Yeah. Why not.” 

She straightened out her smile only growing, “Well we should talk in a more private setting, so I’ll follow you.”

Chance gave a slow nod, “Right….you follow me,” To some destination I haven’t even thought of. He made it back into the truck, pulling out of the gas station watching through the mirror as she pulled out behind him. Home was out of the question, some random field wasn’t a good idea with how exposed it was, most buildings near here were boarded up and contained who knew what. Leave it to me to not have a plan, he thought as he scanned the road and area ahead of him. Finally a little farther up ahead on his left the baseball field with old fashioned dugouts, There were worse places to have potentially life changing conversations. 

He slowed to a stop the dust billowing around him and the truck pulling up next to him. His hands shook, stomach turning once the car stopped, how he wished this was an after effect of the alcohol. It was now or never though, and he wanted to pick never. The bottle came to his lips once again, he just needed enough to get himself out of the car. This felt like the stupidest idea he had had since coming back here, hell it probably had to be the worst one in his life. If she was his mom, did she really deserve the time of day? Was she going to just make everything right again? She left him behind….

May 29, 1997

Andi Greene has no more chances. She will never see Chance as long as I can help it.

Twice. Maybe more that his father never found necessary to record, either way that was the last time his dad ever spoke of her. 

Glancing over he caught sight of the woman staring straight ahead, Is she feeling the same as I am?, she was going to find out if this was her child and whether it was him or not in the end, there still had to be some kind of guilt there on her end….right? If it was him though….if she was right….

It couldn’t be, Andi Greene was long dead and gone.

Chance took another deep breath and made his way out to the dugouts, the slamming of a car door following him. The shuffling of the rocks beneath them grating his ear drums as Chance picked the home team. He pointed to the seat further in, “You can have that one,” she gave a nod settling herself, Chance grabbing another. He straddled the foldable metal chair, resting his chin on the back of it, mouth going dry. She stared at him, shifting, hands clasping and unclasping, Chance’s leg bouncing. He cleared his throat, readying to-. 

“So I assume you have a lot of questions for me,” she said rapidly, “Just ask anything you want.”

He tilted his head cocking a brow, “Not really other than what your name is,” Probably should have asked that first, could have saved a bit of trouble.

“Oh. Yes. My name is Andrea Greene, but most everyone used to call me Andi,” Okay maybe it was possible, “And you’re still Chance I see.”

He frowned, “Why would I be going by any other name?”

“Dr. Ruicknar,” her jaw clenched, her eyes closing a moment while taking a deep breath, “well he believed that you should have been named Jason. So I just assumed….”

“Don��t think he ever really tried to change it. Knew that Chance was my name, always has been and always will be.”

She gave a thin smile, “Figures.”

He sat up straighter, thumbs tapping on the back of the metal, “Well a name doesn’t prove much of anything. The kind of stuff you just said is almost common knowledge around here.” Okay maybe the whole potential different name thing isn’t.

“You’re right,” she nodded, “Then ask me something that you think only your mom would know.”

I don’t have too. I can just leave. I never needed her before, “When did you leave me?”

She blinked slowly, looking down to her lap, “Of course, there would be no other question that you’d ask first,” her voice softer. “I always hate to admit this, I mean you’d think,” she gave a weak laugh, her smile thin, “that admitting it in one’s confession and getting it marked on your body would make it easier.” His eyes followed her hand as she rubbed the left side of her chest, she swallowed, “I was selfish, the first time I left, and well I’m sure you know of the second time.” She cleared her throat, sitting straighter, “So, forgive me, you’ll have to be a little more specific I’m afraid.” Chance’s palms began to sweat, words catching in his throat, “Unless you want to know about both,” she paused, looking him up and down. She gave curt nod inhaling, “Probably best you know of both of them. Make life easier for you. When you were three months old I left you with Dr. Ruicknar, back in ninety-four. I really wasn’t ready to be a mom and I-,” her voice cracked, taking a moment to right herself, “I wasn’t ready yet to pick you over my bad habits.”

It lined up with the story Chance had known, but it was hard to tell how much of the truth she was telling. She wouldn’t be trying to hold back her emotions like this if she was lying though….?, “What about the second time,” he asked in a whisper.

She sniffed, clearing her throat, nodding her head, “Right, well I didn’t want to leave you, my son.” A pride came to her eyes as she said those words, the smile falling as she looked away, “The second time I was forced to be away from you.” Andi’s eyes glimmered in the light, stray tears escaping them, the pride gone, “You were only three and we were finally starting to connect. Starting to become a family, you and me.”

Ding, Ding! We have a winner ladies and gentlemen, Chance tried his best to mask the shallowness of his breathing, she was right. She was, is, his mom. “So what happened?”

Andi looked out to the field, jaw tight, her breathing long and purposeful before turning back to Chance, “Dr. Ruicknar happened.” He flinched slightly at the venom in her voice, “He decided that I shouldn’t have you,” she rubbed her chest once again, eyes growing darker, “That I shouldn’t be your mother anymore.” That….doesn’t-. It doesn’t feel right, she crossed her arms, “He had no right to do that, just up and moving taking you with him while I was out of the house.”

Chance shook his head, laughing, “No. No. That’s-that’s not what happened.” The world spun a moment Chance standing too quickly from the chair, “Dad-He’d-. No. He was a good man, he’d never do something like that.”

Andi stood, slowly making her way towards him, “He did though,” her face softened, fingers gently pulling his face to meet hers, “Chance, he just wanted you all for himself. Was so desperate to be a father he spun lie after lie.” He wouldn’t, he always saw the best in people, he desperately wanted to cover his ears, tune out her voice, “To the courts, his friends, father, neighbors, everyone. All so he could make sure that I was out of the picture.”

The scar on the back of his neck burned, god he needed another drink, “If he wanted you out of the picture it was for good reason,” It’s all bullshit. Dad wouldn’t have lied, he always went for the truth.

“It’s the truth, Chance,” she looked evenly into his eyes, “Think about the Jessop girl. He planned to take her in, despite the fact that she already had a family.”

“Rachel has nothing to do with this,” Chance growled, stepping back shaking his head, “And even if she did-. No.” He turned away from her, “No, I’m not gonna get wrapped up in your little game or whatever it is you’re doing.” I just need to get out of here, It was stupid to give a woman that abandoned him twice the time of day.

“I’m not playing any games with you, Chance,” she followed after him, “I’m telling you the truth! You deserve to know the kind of man Dr. Ruicknar was.”

“Oh, fuck off! I promise you dad had his reasons,” Andi Greene has no more chances, “He was a good man and you’re lying to me!”

“I’m not,” he jumped inside the truck, as her hand reached into her pocket, “Look!” Andi held up a photo, gripping onto the door, another in her other hand. Chance stopped taking in the weathered photo a thin white line down the center from years of folding and unfolding, the picture showcasing a young woman and small boy. “This is you and me,” her voice cracking, “the day before he took you away from me.” She evened out her breathing as she made sure the photo was always at eye level, “We were happy, Chance. I was only staying with him to get back on my feet so I could give you the life you deserved.” 

His hands shook, snatching the photo from her hand, focusing solely on the people within it. The woman looked to be in her early twenties, her smile big as her arms encircled the young boy. His hair looked to be a mess, curls unable to stay in place, he held out a stuffed dinosaur, the one from the museum not too far from the university campus, the smile lopsided but green eyes lit up with excitement. Chance suppressed the urge to rub the back of his neck, the tingling from the scar getting worse. He can’t recall any sort of memory looking at the picture, just that he remembered sleeping with that dinosaur every night, clinging to it becoming upset when he couldn’t sleep with it one night. Chance can recall the vague memories of trying to sleep, waking in a scare, running to his father still up grading tests, and falling asleep at the table in his lap. 

“Did he ever talk about me, Chance?” Her words brought a lump to his throat, “Or even your grandfather? Either of them?”

“No,” he ground out, hanging his head.

Andi placed a hand on his shoulder, “Now you see why. They shouldn’t have done what they did, separating us like that.” She handed over the second picture, this one more weathered than the last, the color starting to fade, “But we’re together now. We can make up for the lost time.”

This picture was a baby picture one that he fuzzily recalled seeing once before, I can’t-. I can’t think properly, “This-. You have to know that this is a lot to take in.”

She placed a hand on his cheek, wiping away at the few tears falling without his knowledge or permission, “I know. I know it is, but I’ve missed you, my boy. My son.” Her smile….it's hard for him to find anything insincere about it. Her words….truth, mostly, possibly all of it. She takes a deep breath, “My Chance, I’ve missed you so much.” He doesn’t respond, how can he? It’s all too much at once. Chance turns away from her shaking his head, she swallows, nodding away the tears, “I’ve waited this long for you to return to me and I can wait a little longer for you to get your mind wrapped around this.”

This all had to be a lie, a hallucination like the ones Faith’s put me in, Her warm hands against his skin speak otherwise. There’s a comfort in her touch, one he fears, and if he lets himself feel it, embrace it even a little, he’ll just fall right into that comfort never wanting to leave. Maybe I’m already too far gone, all of this too reminiscent of those first encounters with Faith. He kept thinking it was just the drugs, Just like how it has to be the alcohol now, only to soon realize that it was something real. Those shadows of memories of a life he loved and wanted to go back to, back when things still made sense in the world. 

That ache, that never ending ache in his chest seemed to be disappearing now as he stayed letting her hold his hand. Calling him, calling him to seek out that baser comfort of being embraced by one’s caregiver. His chemistry begging, begging, begging for those chemicals tattooed on his hand to be activated within Andi so that he may in turn gain the serotonin lost over the years. That scar burns. Family, some kind of family, some kind of real family. The last of it right here before him.

The story she told, truth to it, yes, something just feeling….off. He rubbed the back of his neck, nails digging into that damn scar, he just needed to tear it off. The familiarity of how she told it….

He needed to go. Too much. Terrible idea. Nothing has been gained from it. Nothing….lies. So many of them still wrapped in some kind of truth. The only other people to bring any kind of perspective on them long gone. 

“I’ve-. I gotta go,” Chance mumbled, pictures in hand, throwing the truck into drive, dust kicking up. Home, just go home, he repeated, the clinking of the bottles keeping time. Liar, liar, liar! She had to be lying. He was a good man, that’s what he remembered. He was a good man that didn’t just do things without good reason. Right? No, that was correct, it's his truth, the one he knows, the one he has to believe….it's the one he’s known his whole life. 

There’s a blare of a horn, Chance swerving to the other side of the road, slamming the brakes. He looks up to the cars passing by, all of them belong to locals, Chance’s teeth grind, knuckles white on the steering wheel. He needs to get home, needs to clear his head, get back to that state of….

One more stop. 

If he’s right about this being a hallucination or his brain playing tricks on him then having some of it won’t do anything to him. It won’t affect him. Hell it probably would help him with making the world, his world, as it should have been. Shouldn’t be too hard to find, just need to go to one of those shrines, they’ll be doing their duty of converting all that they can. Two miles. I’m pretty sure there’s one two miles from here.

He takes a long drink from the vodka, grabbing the handgun from under the passenger seat. The door slams and the two, Wait there’s one in the water, the three peggies look up at him, guns aimed. Come at me, His gun already out, the first shots shaky in their aim but effective to bring the two down, Civilian injured, but just in the arm. The one in the water rushes at him, fumbling for the gun on her back, Lucky me, one shot and a splash. Not even a second look at those he’s just rescued, picking up one of the member’s canteen filling it from the open barrel. Back on the road and home before he knew it….could even process it.

Crate placed on the counter, the bottle from the car halfway filled, Chance pouring in some of the Bliss, the liquid taking on a faint green tint. He gives it a good shake before drinking once more. In a near instant the shaking finally stops, breathing slowed, warmth flooding to his limbs once more. He lets his eyes open, finding the world around him….

clear….

peaceful….

Beautiful.

This is what he needed. This is what was going to help him. He just needed to think and why not just think in a place that was out of reality. “Rest.” He needed that too, Should do that first, he thought as more of the bottle disappeared letting himself fall onto the sofa. Never had it felt softer, more inviting. Singing, distant, clear, words he knew all from her voice. “Where are you,” the whisper echoing in the open expanse of….well where he was. “Faith,” he breathed out, “I need you,” his eyes closed with the feeling of her fingers brushing against his skin. Her voice closer now, lulling him to sleep, “Don’t leave me,” he pleaded.

“We won’t,” she whispered, lips cold as they pressed to his cheek….

“Just rest.”

As quickly as Chance landed in a dreamless sleep the world moved suddenly. Sharply. His head groggy as his eyes struggled to focus, stomach starting to roll. One more drink, he can wake up with another drink. The bottle felt lighter than when he laid down, the sky darker, Didn’t mean to rest that long. A hand stopped the bottle from reaching his lips, his eyes turning slowly to meet her blue-green eyes, a smile spreading on his face. “You’re still here,” he whispered, reaching out for her.

Faith nodded, placing his hand back on the sofa, “I told you I’d come back to check on you.” Her eyes looked to the bottle in his hand solemnly taking it in, her frown only growing, “How are you feeling today?” She swept a hand over his forehead, the curls clinging to the sweat on his brow, “It looks like you spent most of it sleeping.”

He shook his head, “I didn’t sleep,” she didn’t stop him as he moved to take another drink, “I was thinking.”

Faith tilted her head, “Oh? What were you thinking about,” her voice soft, softer than the last time she spoke to him. They fought? Yeah we did. We did and she came back?, “Chance?” 

“Hmm, oh,” his eyes focused back on the room around her, “Her.”

Dark blonde eyebrows knitted together as she stared, “Her, who?”

“Mom.”

She flinched, opening her mouth a second before closing it again. She bit her lower lip, thinking for a moment, looking at her hands folded in her lap. “Your….mom,” he nodded, “Why? Are you wanting to find her?”

Chance shook his head, sitting up, “Don’t need too. She found me.” The world spun slightly, taking another drink to steady it.

“She….found you,” Faith moved to sit on the coffee table.

Chance nodded, “Yep. ya’know I’m sure you’ve met her. She’s been with you all for a long time.” He looked around the room, tints of green pressing through the darkness outside his windows, “Wait.” Faith looked up, fingers still holding her chin, “You think she’ll show up here?”

“At your house?” She asked, raising a brow.

“No, in the Bliss. In that big field you showed me,” he walked to the window by the door, “This house has to be there right? She could come and end up finding me again.”

“That’s-.” She shook her head, moving to stand next to him, “There’s no possibility of that happening,” Faith assured, her hand gently touching his shoulder.

“Your hands,” he placed a hand over hers, “Your touch,” Chance rubbed circles on the top of her wrist, “it’s so warm.” He stared down at it a moment more before he dropped it, walking to the canteen on the counter, testing the weight, “I didn’t take too much did I?”

Faith took the container from him, setting it back down, “No, you didn’t Chance.”

“Then why do you feel so warm? So….,” his fingertips ran down her cheek, neck, and collar bone, the lace scratchy against them, “Real.”

Her eyes searched his face, brow knitting together, “Because I am, Chance. You didn’t take enough to last more than a few hours.” 

He frowned looking at the ground shifting, “Is that why my chest is starting to feel empty again?” Chance rubbed his chest, feeling the raised letters beneath his shirt, looking at Faith through his lashes.

The frown she wore, eyes sympathetic, answered enough for him. “You said you met your mom,” she started, “Is that why you-?”

“Started drinking again,” he finished, scoffing, shaking his head, “No. It all happened just a few hours ago.”

Her eyes widened, “And how did it go?”

“Why are you asking so many questions?” The ache, the edges of the hole he could never close started to burn. That damn scar, all of them, but mostly the one on his neck and spread across his chest itched and burned.

“I-,” her eyes flicked to the hands at his side, one gripping the glass bottle the other balled into a fist, both sporting white knuckles. “I- Well I was just making conversation,” she smiled, her voice lighter, teasing with laughter, “Seems like we never just talk anymore, my White Knight.”

He blinked, locking his gaze with hers for a moment. He gave a quick shrug, “Huh. Guess you’re right.” Chance took another sip, rocking back on his heels, words starting to slur, “Never had much to talk about after a while.”

“Oh,” her smile fell for a fraction of a second, shaking her body out, “Well, there’s been some new developments it seems.” Easy, always easy to talk to, Chance’s smile returns, I can tell her anything.

“Sure,” he finished off the last of the bottle, Faith’s soft smile ever present as she watched him move, eyes turning sad. He grabbed another bottle, opening it quickly, “But she could be….well hmm I don’t think she’s really my mom.” He strode past her reaching for the photos on the coffee table, feet starting to tangle, “I know I’ve seen this one before somewhere,” he held up the baby picture, Faith tilting her head taking it from him. “I just can’t seem to place it yet. There’s just too,” he waved a hand over his head, “Just too much going on in my mind to find it.” 

She flips the photo over, “I see,” squinting her eyes, fuzzy memories she can’t quite reach, play out. A simple handmade shelter in the woods and a manila folder.

Chance holds up the second one, “This one I’ve never seen before,” Faith’s eyes take it in, glancing between his eyes and the one on the small boy’s. It’s him, she’d know his eyes anywhere now. He taps it, “That dino toy though,” he laughs to himself, “I had one just like it.”

Another drink down, Faith starts walking around him, fingertips running along his shoulders, “So who do you think she is?” God, how did she manage to make her voice sound like a song. She takes the second photo placing them on the table once more.

“A trick,” he shrugs, “Maybe I just got stuck in the Bliss and there’s no coming out of it for me.”

She smirks, “Or?”

“Or some trick of your brothers’,” he laughs with a snort, “Probably Sunglasses, wants to get me to join you all.” She tilts her head, “Joseph said it wasn’t too late for me.”

“Are you really considering the offer,” her smile grows, “After all this time? All this protest and resistance, you’d really join the faith?” His eyes follow every movement of hers, contemplating if he should ask for more from her. Her whispered words in his ear brings him back, “Join us in creating a New Eden?”

“I-,” he stops, the questions sinking in. He didn’t believe, would never believe in some higher power, especially one coming from Joseph. That wasn’t the only reason why people joined religions, or why one would stay…., “No. No, I’m not considering it, just trying to think like you do.”

She hums, “You hesitated,” Faith says as she sits on the back of the sofa, ankles crossed, “Normally you never hesitate.”

“This isn’t some therapy session, Faith,” he snaps rolling his eyes, another swig of the bottle following, “No need to look that deep into it.” That woman’s wrong, she’s wrong. Just lying, just a trick.

“Then what would you rather do?” Faith smirks, the concern growing in her eyes, “Anything you want.”

He moves closer grabbing her hand, still warm, chest starting to feel hollow while the rest of him feels some kind of electricity. Why did they ever start this? Why did he ever start to let himself fall for someone that could also be a dream at any given moment? There was never a real good way to tell the difference anymore, was there? How many times did he find himself here with her like this? 

He set the bottle down letting his now free hand run along her jawline and neck slowly, pausing where he could feel her pulse the best. He lets go of her hand placing it on her waist, feeling as her heartbeat increases.

“Real or not real,” he whispers, Please say-.

She takes hold of the hand resting along her collarbone bringing it to her cheek. smiling, “Real.” His breath catches, the pleas he had for her once it looked like neither were going to come back to the other, held back. She frowns, pushing some of his hair back, “Do you feel unreal, Chance? Or like none of this is real?”

He cast his eyes down, Can’t ever hide my thoughts from you, “I wonder sometimes,” the hand on her waist running farther along the curve of her, “Maybe this place is just some kind of afterlife.” He sighs, eyes slow to meet hers once again, “I just couldn’t take it anymore one day. Or they finally got me,” he’s spinning, falling, the longer he stares into her eyes, “But I just-Faith I don’t feel like myself anymore. I never do-.”

“Until that bottle is gone,” she finishes softly, Chance giving a small nod, shutting back the tears threatening to fall and close his throat. “Chance,” he opened his eyes to her sympathetic face, “What would happen if you felt like yourself again? Even just for a little bit.”

“Could think through everything,” he whispers, “The whole world….I can make sense of it all.”

“You think you’d have the answers you need,” she guided him closer to her, “The ones you want.” Chance nodded, resting his forehead against hers. If she was real then he needed to have this moment with her. Just needed to have her, the real her, the one that didn’t get angry when he’d refer to her as Rachel every now and again. Faith nodded, “Then how can I-?”

“Touch me,” his response was fast, Faith blinking in surprise. He took a deep breath, the smell of her flowers with undertones of fresh rain giving him comfort. This had to be the real her, had to be, “Just-. I need to feel….,” Real, alive, close, comfort, you, “Feel something other than….”

His words trailed off, Faith giving him a moment before finishing his thought, “Other than the confusion and pain?” He stayed silent, she nodded in understanding, “Is this what you need to help you,” her fingers started to play with the edge of his jeans, the bare skin she touched warming beneath it, She missed me too, didn’t she? 

He tilted her chin to take in her face, “It would be a start I think.” There just above her eyebrow, the faint scar from those early days of the reaping, Been awhile since I’ve seen that on her, “But only if you’re really here, really you.”

She frowned, eyes misting, “Of course it's me, Chance,” she pleaded, “I told you last night that I’d come back to check on you.”

He brushed a thumb over the scar, “Tell me how you got this then.”

She tilted her head, cocking a brow, before exhaling slowly, “I got it because you,” she poked his chest, “got a grenade thrown at me.” She gave a small smile at the memory passing through the two of them, “I still don’t forgive you for threatening to cut my hair that day.”

Chance couldn’t help but chuckle, “I was really looking forward to adding Hairstylist next to sacrificial lamb on my resume.” She laughed, the melody one he could never forget, Real. This is real, “Besides I saved your life that day.”

“Again, only after you put me in danger in the first place.” Her fingers traced along the muscle and bone of his hips, “It was also when you pointed out the obvious point I had been ignoring.” His mind wadded through the memories, the feelings vague, muted by the liquor taking hold of him, “I tried, well try, to ignore the fact that I’m so easily replaceable.”

“Oh,” he looks to his feet, “I’m still sorry. It was a low blow.”

Faith shook her head, “You were right though.” Her eyes grew distant, hands stopping along his hips, “I used to think she was meant to replace me, you know.”

It took a moment for the name to come up, or well the name Faith knew her by, “Mary? Your sister?”

She nodded, eyes cast down, “Some days I wish I could have been more genuine in my kindness rather than keeping her close to keep her from replacing me. Or at least had more time to be genuine,” her voice cracks, “She always was to me.” 

Chance ran his thumb along her cheek catching the few falling tears, “It weighs on you,” he started softly, “Those feelings of not being able to say goodbye, to make sure that the person knows how you feel about them,” Even if they are still alive. 

She pulled him closer, face pressed into his chest, “You won’t just leave without letting me have a goodbye, right?”

I can try, his eyes glanced down to the bottle at his feet, I want a little more. Need a little more. “Not if I can help it. Even if,” he looked up at the ceiling, letting out a sigh, “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but even if ghosts and the afterlife turn out to be real, I’ll make sure you can have a nice goodbye.”

Her eyes widened at the admission, “Must really care about me to make that kind of promise.”

Chance looked back into her eyes, mind slipping into the blue of them easily, pushing some of her hair back, “I-. Rach-.” He took a breath to steady himself, her grip on him making it harder to grab for the bottle, “Faith I love you.” 

Faith doesn’t say anything, eyes searching his face, his heart falling with each beat of his heart. Say something….anything. Say it back, the lump forming in his throat. 

This was a mistake. He shakes his head, “Look jus-just forget it. Forget I said anything.” He turned away, cheeks starting to burn, stomach turning as he grabbed the bottle stepping away from her. 

She grabs onto his hand, “Chance wait.” She jumped down walking closer to him, arms wrapping around him, kissing his cheek, “I know you do.”

“Do you just not feel the same?” His whispered voice hesitating with each syllable, “That why you won’t say it back?”

“Chance,” Faith closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, “I’d rather hear those words come from a sober mouth,” she laced her fingers with his, “You’re not the only one that has trouble distinguishing dreams from reality.”

He looked over his shoulder, the windows still grasping onto that green fog, “What do we do then, if neither of us can trust in what we see and hear? If we feel we can’t even trust the validity of our feelings?”

“Exist.” 

“In this moment,” she smiled, taking the bottle from him, “We meet in the middle.” She took a long drink, nose wrinkling from the burn, “Or well I meet you there, and then we just exist in the other’s presence.”

He blinked, eyes wide, “You’d stay the whole night?”

She smiled, giving a small nod, “Just like I used too.”

“The nights where we just laid in bed-.”

“And talked, with my skin pressed to yours-.”

“Until the whole world was just you and me-.”

“The orange of the sun dispelling the barriers we’d set up-.”

“Our call to return to a world where-.”

 “Neither of us really belong anymore.”

 She brushed some of his hair back, unable to break free of his green eyes, his hands resting on her hips, breathing even once again. He was the first to move, guiding them to the bedroom, pulling the zipper of her dress down once in the doorway of his room. Faith let it fall, pulling his shirt over his head. Chance quick in removing the rest of his clothing as she followed his lead, sliding under the covers with ease. 

Maybe it was the time they had spent apart or the feeling of being unreal that changed their thought process. They were only meant to lie there feeling the other close to them, not having their lips crash together, hands tangling in each other’s hair, and their hearts starting to race. He pulled her leg around him making sure it was secured around his hip before moving his lips down her jaw and neck. She let out a small gasp as he started to kiss across her chest.

Her fingers grasp at his hair, pulling his lips back to hers as he lays her on her back. She rolls her hips to meet his gaining whatever friction she can, Chance moaning into their kiss, hands gliding down her body. Fingertips trace the scarred sin before running up her body once again, pulling one of her arms away from him, lacing their fingers together, holding it down on the bed. She gives the lightest of pushes on his shoulders, Chance following her thoughts kissing down her body once more. 

His lips and tongue trace every outline of her, her breathy moans filling the room. The heat radiating off of her only grows the closer he gets to her core. She doesn’t force him back up, doesn’t stop him from starting his act of worship between her thighs. She lets him watch as her back arches, the way her chest moves as her breathing deepens, listening to his name leave her lips as her fingers tangle farther in his curls. This. This is real. This is the woman he’d been letting himself fall for. Not the one who’s been coming to visit almost every night with her song that commands his actions. 

There’s little time to recover when she pulls him back to her lips, the taste of her still lingering. He’s starting to strain, desperate to be connected to her when she pulls away, foreheads still resting against each other. There’s a moment where both catch their breath, Faith whispering, “I want you….,” her fingers running down the nape of his neck. 

“I need you,” they say together. 

“All of you,” he continues, “Every part of you.” His eyes travel down her body, every scar, curve, flaw traced and memorized, “For as long as I can have you.”

She traces a fire along his chest, letting out a ragged breath rolling her hips, “Let’s start with now,” she whispers, their bodies interlocking with ease. Easy, right, perfectly made for the other. How it all seems so obvious as their hearts beat in perfect rhythm, the slow and purposeful movements eliciting a duet of moans, sighs, and gasps. It's no longer a rage of fire and heat, not like it ever was, it’s slow and calming, always there. 

Equal as Faith easily takes the lead, pushing him onto his back, Chance moaning out her name. His head falls back with a low groan as she starts to move her hips in a circle, nails gripping onto his chest. His hands fall and rise with the curves and dips of her torso, hips bucking to meet her movements. She increases the pace of their movements, Chance gripping onto her hips, both on the precipice of ecstasy, time slowing down around them.

Then all at once the pleasure hits them, engulfs them, their lips crashing together as they ride it out. The high lasting longer than it had before made the two of them work to catch their breaths. They smile, Chance giving a small chuckle giving one more soft kiss every little detail and sensation heightened and solid. They were both here, they both existed at this moment.

They were both alive.

It took a moment for the two to fall into place on the bed, silent as they adapted once more to just feeling the other’s warmth once again. Faith’s fingers traced the scars littering his body, mind searching for something to start with. “You know, I got a glare from John after that day, you know.” 

“What day?” He asked, noticing how she shivered feeling the way Chance’s fingers traced patterns lightly on her skin.

Faith laughed quietly, “The day you first brought me here.” 

“Ah,” he kissed the top of her head, “Why did Fashion Week glare at you?”

Faith smirked, pulling him closer, “I couldn’t stop thinking about how you called him Karen.” He gave a snort holding back his laughter, “I’m serious. The way you said it,” she gave a small shake of her head rolling her eyes, “There was just something funny about it and it kept playing out in my mind during our meeting. He said something that I think was vaguely insulting and the name slipped out when I tried to call him out on it.”

Chance laughed, burying his face in her hair, “Of course he would have to act like a Karen after I graced him with that name.” He looked up to the ceiling, hand moving over the curve of her hip, “I would have loved to see his face as you said it.”

“Maybe someday you’ll be able to,” she looked up, resting her chin on his chest, “once all of this-,” the smile she had starting to fade.

Chance nodded slowly, moving on his side their faces close, “Once all of this is over,” If it ever will be. His lips brushed against hers briefly before placing a light kiss on them, “My day to see Gossip Gabby really appreciate my humor will come. Even if I have to make it so.”

She giggled, “Do you have these nicknames written down so you can just pick from a list?”

Chance placed a hand on her cheek, bringing her lips to his in a deep kiss, forehead pressed to Faith’s when he pulled away. “You’ll never know, Princess.”

[kyber-queen]

Like Real People Do (Rex x Reader) Pt. 3

Summary: Jedi!reader and Rex fall in love but are separated by the war. They meet again two years later, weeks before the Siege of Mandalore. In this chapter, Rex and Reader are prepping for a mission on an outer rim planet. Some fluff, slight angst, Rex gets to use a lightsaber because I say so. Italics signify a flashback in this fic. 

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: Mentions of children/family planning ??, insecure Rex, k*sses, mentions of blasters n violence against droids, mentions of alcohol

Author’s Note: I’m not gonna lie this is probably my favorite chapter yet. It’s a little longer, but I think it’s worth it :) Likes and reblogs are very much appreciated!!

Previous | Next

****************************************

After your less than satisfying encounter in the maintenance closet, you had made an early retirement to your quarters to sulk. You slept, but your dreams were ridden with visions of a certain bleach-blond captain. You awoke the next morning ill-rested and heartsick.

You showed up late to your first tactical meeting with the upper ranks of the 501st in a disgruntled mess of dark undereyes and wrinkled robes. If Rex noticed your sleep-deprived state, he made no mention of it. You had positioned yourself strategically in the back of the room, precisely so if you peeked between the admirals, you could clearly see Rex discussing troop formations with General Skywalker. His structured brow was furrowed, and you noted the way he gestured at the maps as he made his point. He was so much more confident now, so much more self-assured than that often-anxious shiny you remembered from training drills two years ago. Maybe that was why he gave you the cold shoulder yesterday—had he outgrown you? Two years was a long time, especially during a war. Did he find someone new? Your heart burned at the thought. You hadn’t even tried to move on—at times, at your lowest points, you considered it, but you never gave up on him. You had broken your code for him. You had broken it every day since you met him, and yet here he was, the picture of cordial indifference. You were attached, deeply and painfully. Did he still care about you?

“Commander, I can hear your gears turning—any input?” Skywalker looked at you expectantly.

You eased your tired features into a placating smile. “Looks good to me, General,”.

“Perfect. Rex, you’ll go with the commander. I want you two waiting just outside the village. The Separatists should arrive within around two hours of landing. Comm me when you see the Separatist forces coming, and you guys cut down as many of the first wave as possible. I’ll circle around with the rest of the 501st and we’ll finish off the rest from behind. All clear?”

You nod in assent as Rex answers with a decisive, “Yes, sir,”.

***

Rex was going to have to have a conversation with his general after this. Your very first mission with the 501st, and Skywalker had paired you with Rex on a glorified stakeout of all things. Rex was pissed. He had decided as soon as he found out you would be consulting with the 501st that he would keep his distance. He knew it wasn’t your fault that you hadn’t seen each other in years—war makes love near impossible. He was more upset with himself for falling for a Jedi. It was against the law for either of you to have an attachment to each other. Rex had fallen in love, and it was a stupid, shitty idea. He had spent the better part of two years trying to bury his memories of you, and just as he was beginning to succeed, here you were creeping back into his mind. Just the sight of you threw him back to two years ago—back when he was really, truly happy. Rex was built for war, nothing more. The problem with you was that being with you made him think otherwise. When you were together, you would always talk about ‘after the war’. Rex knew that as a clone, there really wouldn’t be an after. You, with your altruism and soft smiles and gentle touches were everything Rex didn’t need.

Rex walked to the pod that would take the pair of you to the Separatist-threatened planet. You were already seated. You thumbed the grip of your lightsaber, and Rex recognized the gesture—it was a habit whenever you were nervous. His eyes were locked on you, debating whether or not he should say something despite his earlier promise to not get involved. You broke the silence for him.

“I can feel you staring, Rex. Talk to me,”.

You could always tell what he was thinking. As your friendship first blossomed, it unnerved him, but as your paths intertwined more and more he found it a comfort to have you understand him so well without him even saying a word. Rex met your eyes, and his stomach clenched. You were still so beautiful. He looked away

“Just thinking about the campaign, sir,”.

Your heart ached. Every bone in your body was screaming, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,” and yet he called you sir. He addressed you as a superior, another link in the chain of command. He really had moved on, hadn’t he? You bit your lip, the sharp pain of your teeth against the tender skin attempting to draw your attention away from your torturous thoughts. You had a mission to complete. You peeked out the porthole, and you saw the terrain approaching far faster than normal.

You landed with a crash. You were jostled from your seat, your head smacking the metal wall painfully. As the ringing in your skull crescendoed, you took stock of your darkened surroundings through your blurred vision. The lighting in the pod must have been damaged during your landing. You ignited your lightsaber, illuminating Rex with its soft glow. He stood up and rolled his shoulder experimentally, his nose scrunching in pain.

Your brows furrowed, “Are you alright?’

“I’m fine,” He grunted. He felt his way along the walls. “Exit’s been jammed shut, though,”

You searched his eyes in the dim lighting, another pang of longing reverberating through your chest. You dismissed the sensation and plunged your lightsaber into the wall of the pod, freeing yourselves. You emerged from the battered pod, your head pounding as your eyes adjusted. It was bright, with the triad suns beating down on you relentlessly. You checked your positioning system—you had landed a mere 15-minute walk from your stakeout site. You watched as Rex eased himself out of the pod. He groaned, his hand cradling his right arm. You handed him his positioning chip, and the two of you set off towards the village outskirts.

You noticed his hand lingered on his right shoulder, and he would grimace from time to time when it jostled. You reached your hand out to his plastoid-covered shoulder. “Rex, let me—”

“I’m fine,”.

His tone was sharp and dangerous, affecting you like a slap to the face. You sucked in a breath, and walked the rest of the path in silence. The planet was beautiful—you were surrounded on all sides by strange golden grasses that swayed with the breeze. Its beauty did nothing to distract you from the man by your side.

You arrived at the meeting point and immediately settled yourself against the large boulder meant as your cover. Rex sat across from you, leaning against a smaller rock. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes for a moment and swallowing thickly. You traced the sharp line of his jaw with your eyes, following down to the thick cords of muscle in his neck. You contemplated another attempt at offering him some bacta spray, but considering his earlier response, decided against it. When did Skywalker say the Separatists would arrive? Two hours?

You spent around an hour in silence. You meditated, as General Secura had taught you. Time moved thickly around you, your aura burning bright as it cut through the hours and seconds. With your deep focus came little flashes of memories.

You saw Rex, smiling. His golden skin was warm against the soft sheets. His thumb traced the apple of your cheek. You grinned.

“What do you want to do, Rex? After this is all over?”

He paused, his hand resting heavy on your jaw. “I don’t know, cyare. Guess I never really thought about it,”. His eyes flicked over your gentle smile and bright eyes. “I’d wanna be with you, though,” he whispered. You’re everything he could ever want. He’d never loved anything so much, and he knew he’d never love anyone else the way he loved you. What the hell did he do to deserve you? “What about you?”

“My parents—I barely remember them now—had a house on Naboo. We could live there, just us. No war, no fighting. It’s so beautiful there, Rex. The grass is long and tall—as a child, I’d play outside for hours just soaking up the sunlight. It’s a good place for raising children,”. Your face heated as you said the last part.

“Raising children, eh?” Rex tilted your chin, and you lifted your gaze to his eyes. You nodded slowly. “With me?” His eyes shone in the morning sunlight, his brow furrowed.

“Yes, Rex. Who else?” Rex’s expression eased, and you pressed your lips to each of his cheeks, followed by a gentle kiss to the tip of his nose. Rex sighed contentedly. He had no clue why you were with a shiny like him—he was one of a million genetically and physically identical men. He was sure that eventually you’d realize just how much better you could do than a clone, but until that day he’d savor every precious moment with you.

“You’re gonna be a great parent, one day, cyar’ika,”.

“You will, too, Rex,”.

You jolted out of your trance. It was just your luck that Rex had infiltrated the one escape you had from your relentless thoughts of him. You opened your eyes to find him studying your face. He averted his gaze quickly.

“Rex,” you called.

He fiddled with the straps of his armor.

“Rex,”.

He dropped his hands to his sides with a harsh sigh. “Would you just stop it?”

You were stunned. “Rex, I—”

“I spent two fucking years trying to forget I ever loved you. I was nothing, I was nobody, and you were this—this ideal being. I had no fucking clue why you gave me the time of day, but I let myself fall for you anyway. When we left for our tours, I broke. You were the first real thing, the first good thing I ever had, and you were gone. I was sure I was gonna die over there—and you wouldn’t have even known if I had. It was so much easier to believe that you had moved on, that you were through with me. Now you’re here and you’re alive and I—” his voice broke, “I don’t know what to do,”. He met your gaze, and his eyes glistened. His voice was barely a whisper, “You were always the rational one. Please tell me what to do,”.

Your wide eyes watered. You turned your head to the golden fields and let out a tiny sob. What the hell do you answer to that? Just as you opened your mouth to speak, you spotted what seemed to be a thousand metal heads just over a rolling hill. The separatists. You hastily wiped your eyes and took a deep breath. This would have to wait.

“The Separatists are here,” your voice wavered more than you would have liked. “I’ll comm the General,”. You sniffed, rubbing your eyes again. Get it together, you thought. You were a Jedi Master, for gods’ sake. Ever since returning to Coruscant, you’d been an emotional trainwreck. You were starting to see why the council discouraged attachments.

You allowed Rex a moment to collect himself, turning to face the oncoming droids as the two of you prepared in silence. The metallic clang of their footsteps grew louder and louder. Rex slipped his helmet back on over his head and unholstered his blasters.

“It’s your call, Commander. When d’ya wanna go?”

You looked back over your shoulder at him, and you were instantly thrown back to the hours of training exercises you had completed together. You grinned.

“Think you can take down the battle tank over there?” You motioned to the gargantuan hunk of steel situated right in the middle of a sea of battle droids.

The competitive edge you had so dearly missed was back in Rex’s voice.

“You know I never miss,”.

“Race you there,”. And with that, you were off. The two of you flew down the hill, cutting down the droids as if they were made of straw. You swung, decapitating a droid and ducking as Rex put a blaster hole through the one taking aim at you from behind. You worked well together, always did. The rest of the 501st seemed to be making easy work of the droids from behind.

“Rex, blaster!”

Rex tossed one of his blasters into the air, and you force-pulled it into your grasp in an instant. You fired off three quick shots at one of the tanks, damaging the traction treads. Rex looked over at the tank, and recognized the maneuver you had initiated in an instant. He took off for the tank, and called your name once he was just yards from its base.

“Saber!”

You switched off your saber and hurled it in Rex’s direction. He had barreled past at least ten lines of troops, snatching your lightsaber from the air before igniting it and plunging it into the battle tank’s generator while simultaneously firing off a few rapid shots at the droids. The droids’ main attention, as planned, was on you, and you were beginning to feel the heat. You force-pulled your lightsaber, still ignited, from Rex’s grasp and into a line of battle droids before its heavy weight met your palm again.

“Blaster!”

You tossed Rex his blaster, and he caught it with ease. With your lightsaber in hand, you began cutting a path to Rex, who had holed up against the decommissioned tank.

“Need to get me one of those,” Rex motioned to your lightsaber with a grin.

You shook your head with a laugh, deflecting a blaster shot as Rex took aim at the next line of droids.

It was your fault. You got distracted. Something about the focus in Rex’s masked stare as he picked off the droids one-by-one pulled your attention away just long enough for one of the droids to press the cool metal of its blaster against your neck. Before you could react, Rex fired two quick shots into its head.

“Told you, cyare, I never miss,”.

You missed this. The nicknames, the banter, working together like this. It felt good. It felt like coming home. You snuck one last glance at Rex before sprinting out from your cover to cut down the next row of droids.

Rex was fucked. Did you realize he called you cyare? It just slipped out—something about being here with you, fighting next to you—it brought him back to two years ago. He shook his head, firing at a droid that had pointed its blaster at you. He was done with pretending he didn’t care. He still had no idea what to do, or where this would go, but he could figure that out later.

You finished off the last droid, looking back at Rex with an easy smile before waving to General Skywalker. Rex jogged over to you, pulling you back behind the tank and away from the prying eyes of the rest of the 501st.

“Rex, wha—”

He ripped off his helmet, letting it fall to the ground as he pulled you into a kiss. His hand fell to the small of your back, and you practically collapsed into him. His lips were hungry against yours—he was all tongue and teeth and desperation. He needed this. You needed this. You raked your nails through his close-cropped hair, drawing a little groan from deep in his chest. His hands were everywhere—your hair, your neck, your waist—

“Rex, where are you? Are you injured?”

For the second time today, Rex was going to kill his general. He pulled away from you reluctantly, his hand lingering on your waist. You take his hand, and press your lips to his palm.

“We should go,”. Rex nods. “Meet me in my quarters tonight—you still like firewhiskey?”

“Rex—are you over here?”

You meet Rex’s eyes, and he smiles. A real smile. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“See you tonight,”.

********************************************

Like Real People Do Taglist: @pinkiemme @callme-eds @dinpoe