Chapter Text
There were many aspects of Ahsoka’s new life as a padawan that she loved.
She loved being out of the Temple and going to new places.
(Not that she didn’t love her home, with the gardens and the Room of a Thousand Fountains and her friends and warmth of the Light of countless Jedi that cocooned her and made her feel safe. It was just that, lately, the Temple had felt more stifling than anything else. She had this inexplicable need to go, a tug on her heart that refused to relent. It was as though the Force itself was beckoning to her, calling her out into the Galaxy. To do what, she still wasn’t quite sure.)
She loved her men. She loved learning about them and studying their Force Signatures and seeing all their quirks and differences despite their identical faces. She loved joking with Fives and talking to Echo about her favorite classes, loved listening to Denal’s stories and playing cards with Jesse and pestering Kix while he went about his duties in the medbay. She loved learning from them, loved trailing after Rex while he taught her how to be a commander, loved the training regimen that he and a few of the others had put together for her, loved sparring with them and putting her new skills to the test.
She loved her Master. Skyguy may have been a stubborn kriffhead, but he was also smart, brave, and much more caring than she could have ever guessed he’d be past all the snark. He thought outside the box and pushed her to do the same. Currently, he was not only teaching her more advanced saber and Force techniques than she should have been allowed at her age, but also mechanics, piloting, and battle strategy. (Well, that last one was more Rex, but her Master helped too.) He didn’t stand on tradition, giving her the space to just be herself instead of the ideal picture of a Jedi that she could never quite seem to grasp. He was informal in a way that made her feel like she was more friend than a student.
(In fact, she might have even called the men around her, both Jedi and not, family. She might have even said she loved them more than was appropriate for a Jedi. She might even call herself attached…)
(But she was a Jedi, so she said nothing.)
All in all, Ahsoka would say this new chapter of her life was pretty great. However, there was plenty that she hated as well, as unbecoming of a Jedi as hate was.
She hated war, of course. Despite the fact that war was what brought her into her new life (her new family), she hated what it wrought. Hated the fear that permeated the few desolate worlds she had been to in such a short amount of time, hated the desperation and the grief of soldiers and civilians alike. She hated that the clones saw themselves as expendable, that they acted like her life somehow held more value than their own. (It didn’t.) She hated that people around her died. (No matter how hard she trained, how much she learned, how much experience she gained, people still died.) She hated that she had to be okay with that because she was a commander and a Jedi.
She hated having to find time to her Temple classwork in addition to all of the other responsibilities the war hefted onto her shoulders. She hated ration bars, their chalky texture and the way they got stuck in her teeth and the way that she never felt full because the GAR hadn’t thought of non-human species when they supplied them. She hated the scratchy, GAR issued blankets and the way the GAR issued soap dried out the skin on her montrals and lekku.
(She hated the fact that she couldn’t complain about it to anyone, because her Master hadn’t wanted her and neither had the men at first, and now they were finally accepting her and she couldn’t - wouldn’t - ruin that by being a burden.)
And, of course, she hated how kriffing cold it was in space!
Maybe this shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her. Being a Togruta, she already didn’t thermoregulate quite as well as some other humanoid species. Also, Ahsoka had traveled off planet more than once before being sent to Skyguy. She had gone on her coming-of-age hunt on Shili when she was eleven. Before that, she, like all Jedi younglings, had gone to Ilum to obtain her lightsaber crystal. But those trips were relatively short, and the excitement of such significant milestones in her life had been enough to keep her mind off of the pervasive chill that seemed to enter her very bones.
Now though, it was different. The novelty of space travel, of everything, had worn off relatively quickly, so now she was spending more and more night cycles (and sometimes even her free time during the day cycles) trying to stave off the stupid cold.
While one would think that this was a problem easily solved by a few more layers of clothing, to Ahsoka it was anything but.
Firstly, she hadn’t been back home to the Temple in a little over a month and a half, not since she was shipped off to Christophsis to meet her Master. Ahsoka hadn’t really brought much with her, not that she had much to begin with. An extra cloak and a few changes of clothes, all of which were suited to the controlled climate of Coruscant and the Jedi Temple and not the freezing void of space. Between her nerves and the conversation she’d had with her crechemates just before leaving (she shoved down the pang of hurt at the reminder of that particular encounter), she hadn’t really thought to bring anything warmer.
Could this, then, have been solved by simply asking her Master or Rex to help find her some warmer clothes on the ship?
Again, the answer was complicated.
Ahsoka was not the only Jedi in the Temple that did not wear traditional robes, not by a long shot. That didn’t stop people from constantly harping on her choice in clothing. There were plenty of stiff, traditional Masters that huffed and muttered about humility and propriety and belonging to something bigger than oneself, which Ahsoka agreed with. She just didn’t see what her choice in clothes had to do with it. And then there were others, sometimes people her age, sometimes not, that mumbled and griped about her wanting attention in a way that just sat wrong in her brain whenever she heard it.
In her opinion, it was all stupid. They just didn’t get it! She dressed how she dressed because she liked the way it looked. That’s it.
(Okay, so maybe she sort of, kind of, a little liked the idea of not blending into the sea of robe-clad Jedi. Maybe she didn’t mind the idea of standing out. Was that really so wrong?)
The point was that people had been griping and moaning and judging her choice of clothing for forever. She was used to it, which was why she just let it all roll off her back when Skyguy and Rex and Kix and even Admiral Yularen said something about the “appropriateness of her attire.” It was always different flavors of the same speech: concern for her safety in battle, respect for military standards, people getting the ‘wrong idea’, wandering eyes (whatever that meant), blah blah blah…
Each and every time, Ahsoka pushed back, because it always boiled down to the same thing: they didn’t trust her. She supposed she understood; she was what the men called ‘shiny’. She was new to being a Padawan, to being in the military, and to being at war. It definitely didn’t help that they hadn’t wanted her hadn’t been prepared for her.
But, as she kept assuring them, it was fine. Even if they didn’t quite seem to believe her yet, she’d prove it to them. Eventually they’d see that Ahsoka was perfectly capable of handling herself. They didn’t need to micromanage her like some little kid. She wasn’t a youngling.
It was with that thought in mind that she decided that she was absolutely not asking any of them for help with her current cold situation. Skyguy would be stupidly smug about it, with many ‘I told you so’s’, and with what she was learning about Rex and the other men she’d befriended, like Fives and Echo, they wouldn’t be much better.
(Besides, she didn’t need to give them any more reasons to regret keeping her. She’d only been here for a short time, short enough that it probably wasn’t too late to send her back to the Temple if they decided that she was too much trouble. She could handle herself. She could.)
So instead, here Ahsoka lay: in her room, freezing her butt off and doing her level-best to ignore the headache blooming behind her eyes and the queasy feeling in her stomach that never really seemed to leave since she started eating GAR rations. She scowled as she shivered and wrapped her stupid scratchy blanket tighter around her shoulders.
It was even worse than it usually was; they’d taken some damage in their last battle, so they were stuck trying to conserve power on their way to their next destination, which meant even less power going to the climate controls. She was already wearing her night clothes with her leggings under, plus her robe. She was even wearing socks for Force’s sake! She usually detested wearing socks to bed!
She huddled into as tight of a ball as she could, hoping to conserve as much body heat as possible. That worked for all of five seconds before the chill took over once more.
Fed up, Ahsoka growled and threw herself out of her bed, resorting to pacing back and forth in her small quarters. Maybe moving around would help her warm up; she never really had a problem with the cold when she was in the midst of a training session with Skyguy. She realized quickly, however, that wasn’t going to work. It turned out that the sheer rigor of their training sessions had completely ruined her ability to warm up by simply moving around. If she wanted to defrost, she would have to run one of her actual exercises, which defeated the whole point of trying to sleep. Besides, if she went to the training rooms, Skyguy or Rex or Kix would be sure to find out somehow, which would lead to lectures and pestering and lectures. She absolutely wasn’t about to let that happen if she could help it.
She sighed and curled back up on her bed, resigned to a night of shivering.
//
It wasn’t until the next day that Ahsoka had an idea. A brilliant idea, if she did say so herself.
She had been shadowing Nat, one of the engineers, around the ship for most of the day as part of her Master’s insistence that she know everything there was to know about their flagship. While she had no doubt there would be an eventual quiz of some kind on the specs of the Venator-class Star Destroyer, she did doubt that was the only reason he’d sent her off.
Ahsoka didn’t need her natural empathetic abilities to see that Skyguy was Stressed. Their latest engagement had left many of their ships damaged and in need of repair, which meant making it to a Republic base to get said repairs before they could finally go back to Coruscant. As such, he and his Captain were stuck putting out fires (not literally, of course; they’d put all those out pretty quickly) and didn’t have time (and probably not the patience, either, but she kept that to herself) to look after her. Thus, here she was, pawned off to a poor, unsuspecting junior engineer to keep her busy and away from either of them. She’d tried to argue in favor of following her Master around instead, so long as she promised not to get in the way, but he wouldn’t hear of it, which…
It hurt a little. More than it probably should have, honestly. It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d punted her off to someone else so he could have a moment’s peace. He’d done it to Rex the moment they had met on Christophsis, and still continued to do so pretty regularly. At the same time, though... Ahsoka wasn’t stupid. She knew how people tended to think she was annoying. Too loud, too obnoxious, too much of a know-it-all. (Always too much.) That her presence and energy were ‘hardly conducive to fostering a peaceful environment’, as one of her meditation instructors had once put it. She had tried to be better about putting people off since she’d become a Commander, but it was hard, reining herself in, going against every instinct when things demanded to be spoken.
Whatever. It didn’t matter. She could-
“Commander?”
Ahsoka blinked in surprise as Nat’s voice pulled her from her mulling.
“Hm?”
“I was just saying that we’ve arrived at one of the control rooms,” he said uncertainly.
She blinked at him again before remembering that she was supposed to be listening and learning. She mentally kicked herself for letting herself get distracted, and hoped upon hope that Nat wouldn’t tell her Master that she wasn’t paying attention to him. Skyguy let her get away with a lot of things, especially her attitude, but one of the few things he absolutely did not tolerate was disrespect towards the men. More than that, she really hoped she hadn’t made Nat think she was ignoring him and hurt his feelings.
Through the Force, she could feel a pervasive air of wariness and embarrassment within his signature, probably due to his appearance. Like all Naval personnel, he kept his appearance in line with regulation, which, Ahsoka thought privately, was so odd compared to the infantrymen she spent her time with, who seemed all too eager to set themselves apart in some way or another, either through their armor or hairstyles or tattoos. However, Nat’s appearance was very distinguishable from his other brothers in Naval due his eyes. While one was the standard deep, dark brown, the other was a striking blue with speckles of green interspersed throughout. She had wanted to ask him about it when Skyguy introduced them, but a quick look at his aura told her the question may not be a welcome one.
To compensate for her little faux-pas, she put on an air of enthusiasm she hoped was believable. “Oh! Right, yeah. The control rooms. Wizard!” She cringed; wizard? Wizard? That was so lame! Only old people like Skyguy used that word! What was wrong with her? Acting was absolutely not her strong suit.
At the sound of a clearing throat, she realized that she had tuned out again. She grinned sheepishly at him, making sure to keep her fangs hidden behind her lips. “Sorry, Nat…”
“That’s alright, Commander,” he answered, kind yet still uncomfortable. The man watched her for a moment, unsure of how to move forward, and Ahsoka did her level best not to fidget. “Are you alright, sir?” He finally asked.
She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh yeah, totally! Just a little tired, ya know? It’s been a busy couple of days.”
Technically, she wasn’t lying about that. It had been hectic lately, but that wasn’t why she was kriffing exhausted. Or at least, it wasn't the main reason, but she wasn’t about to tell Nat that she was spending her nights freezing to death instead of actually sleeping. He was already stuck babysitting her; he didn’t need to think she was more of a child than he clearly already did.
She had a feeling the little sniffle that she wasn’t able to hold back hadn’t done much to help her case.
“Allergies,” she explained lamely when his eyebrow ticked up ever-so-slightly with suspicion.
For the barest second, she thought he was going to keep pushing the issue. Rex or Kix or even Jesse definitely would have. However, his lack of familiarity with her seemed to have done her a favor this time, as he reluctantly let the matter drop and continued on into the control room.
Ahsoka did her best to pay attention and engage with Nat as he explained the ins and outs of his workspace, like why they needed these control rooms when most of these things were monitored on the bridge. It was all interesting enough, she supposed, but found herself distracted nonetheless. Her tiredness was weighing down on her more and more as the day went on until her body felt like it was trudging through thick mud, and her sniffling wasn’t getting much better. Her chest felt heavy, her body ached, and all she really wanted to do was curl up in one of the chairs in the room and sleep.
That was when it hit her: she wasn’t cold. Not like she had been in all the other parts of the ship, at least. When she asked Nat about it, he told her that heat came from the engines, as they were closer to them than most of the other rooms on board the ship in order to be close enough for some of the grittier maintenance jobs, as well as emergency maintenance.
Her eyes wandered around the room, her aching tiredness forgotten for the moment, as he continued going over the inner workings of the engineering department and the maintenance crew. She made sure to keep one montral on him, listening and taking in as much information as possible, while she made her own little inspection looking for-
There!
Along the wall, underneath one of the control tables was a large grate covering a vent shaft. She could definitely work with that.
//
Rex watched Commander Tano with a frown. Her cheek was propped up in her hand as she pushed her ration mush around on her plate looking lost in thought.
If he was being completely honest, he was worried about her. She was quiet. Not quieter than usual, but actually quiet. Usually, she’d have managed to talk his ear off about no less than ten different subjects before they’d even sat down with their food. All he’d gotten today was a soft “Hey, Rexter” as she approached with her tray.
It wasn’t just her behavior, either. She looked… off. He wasn’t quite used to assessing someone who wasn’t human (kriff, he wasn’t used to assessing someone who wasn’t a vod), but he could swear there were bags under her eyes, the blue of her little horns (no, not horns, montrals; Kix and Coric had been adamant about using the correct terminology when it came to the little commander) and lekku seemed a little dimmer and her eyes held a slightly glazed quality. She looked exhausted. Maybe sad? She’d been disappointed that she wasn’t able to work with him and the General today… He wasn’t quite sure, but she was definitely something.
Rex opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated. Commander Tano was still relatively new to this, new to them. While it was clear to him and many of the others that she fit rather seamlessly into the fabric of the 501st, it obviously wasn’t so clear to her. For all her brashness and (over)confidence, she seemed to take every chance she could to prove herself. He could see it clear as day, and he understood at some level. Not too long ago, he’d still been a cadet himself doing everything possible to prove his mettle. The only real difference between him and the Commander was that his survival hinged on his performance, and hers didn’t. At least, not in the same way.
She just might not appreciate his voicing his concern, though. Especially not in front of the (admittedly, few) others at the table. It wasn’t that she minded his gentle corrections or instructions; on the contrary, she seemed to hang onto every word he said to her, not unlike the way she did with the General, except with markedly less lip. He really just didn't want to embarrass her.
(It was strange, helping to take someone under his wing who not only was not a brother, but also outranked him. However, he found that he didn’t really mind it. He wondered privately if that was due to his own proclivity to teach, or the Commander being… well, herself. Probably the latter, if he really thought about it.)
Maybe he could try and interrogate her in a more roundabout way?
Rex cleared his throat to get her attention. “So, er, Commander, how was your day? Uh, so far?”
Great. Real smooth, you dikut.
Thankfully, she seemed too preoccupied to notice his nervousness. Yet another sign that something wasn’t right. She was usually pretty in tune with the feelings of the people around her, maybe even more so than the General. Rex wondered idly if that was due to inherent talent or lesser control, since she was still just a cadet. Padawan. Whatever. (Karking Jedi and their weird titles.)
“My day?” She blinked slowly at him, as though she was bringing the world around her back into focus. “Right, my day. It was fine.” She shrugged as she brought a little spoonful of mush to her lips, grimacing a little as it went down.
He tried not to grimace at her succinct and wildly unhelpful answer. “You were shadowing Nat in engineering today, weren’t you?” He prompted.
All he received was a nod that time.
“I can see it was quite exciting,” he snarked. Still nothing. “If you don’t mind my saying, kid, you’re usually a little more enthusiastic. Nat bore you to death on your tour?”
She shook her head, eyes wide. That, at least, got her attention. “Why? Did he say something?”
“No,” Rex answered slowly as he narrowed his eyes in suspicion, “Why? What happened?”
“Nothing!” She blurted, far too quickly for his liking. He just raised his eyebrow in response and waited, hoping this wasn’t something she was going to be stubborn about. Thankfully, she deflated almost immediately.
“I kept zoning out on Nat,” she admitted sheepishly, “I swear I wasn't trying to be disrespectful! It was just a lot of information and I’ve been a little tired lately-”
“Commander-”
“-just please don’t tell my Master! He’s already stressed enough and I don’t want him to think I’m not trying-”
“Commander-”
“-he already thinks I can’t handle shadowing his own duties. What happens if he hears I can’t even handle a couple hours of technical-”
“Kid!”
Her spiraling came to an abrupt halt as Rex placed a steady hand on her arm from across the table.
(A month ago, he wouldn’t have dared, but in the short time they’d known one another, the girl had already shown herself to be a rather tactile person.)
“Kid,” he said again, softer this time, “breathe. It’s fine. You didn’t do anything wrong, especially not something worth spilling to the General.”
“Really?”
“Really. And even if you did, I doubt he would care.” The little Togruta didn’t seem to believe him, though, which was concerning. General Skywalker and Commander Tano sassed the osik out of each other all the time, but she was worried about something this small setting him off? What had brought this on?
“Commander, I know I can’t really speak for him, but do you honestly believe the General would be upset over something so small? The same person who doesn’t even bat an eye when you tease him and call him ‘Skyguy’?”
Another little shrug. Manda, he was not paid enough for the moodiness of teenagers. Hell, he wasn’t paid at all…
“I’ve literally seen him zone out during briefings with General Windu of all people. I’m pretty sure he fell asleep with his eyes open once. Snored and everything!” That got a small giggle out of her, and her shoulders relaxed.
Encouraged by her shift in demeanor, Rex decided to press his luck. He shot a look at the few vode seated at the other end of their table, all of whom were not-so-subtly attempting to listen in on their conversation. Freezing like kybuck caught in torchlight at being caught out, they scattered, leaving him to speak to the little commander in relative peace.
“Littl’un,” he started gently, “What’s really going on?”
The girl blanched at his question, and he immediately knew that he had been right; something was wrong with her.
“What do you mean?” She asked lightly, doing her best to put on a casual air about her.
Rex was having none of it.
“I mean, it's obvious that something’s up with you, kid. You’re not your usual self. You’re on edge. Usually, you don’t give two kri-,” He did his best to swallow his swear. “I mean, you usually don’t care about getting in trouble with the General, and now suddenly you’re acting like he’s going to throw you in the brig just because you thought Nat was boring.”
“I never said Nat was boring!”
“Not to mention you’ve been quiet,” Rex continued, ignoring her. “You’re almost never quiet at mealtime-”
“Hey!”
“-and, with all due respect, sir, you look wrung out. Anyone with eyes can see how exhausted you are.”
The kid stared at him with wide eyes before crossing her arms and leaning back from her plate.
“I’m fine,” she said sullenly, “and even if something was wrong, I could handle it myself. I’m not a youngling.” He doubted she’d meant for that to sound as petulant as it did. Rex would also have been more inclined to believe her if her lip wasn’t stuck out in a soft pout and her hands weren’t gripping her biceps so tightly. He didn’t miss her little shiver, either.
The captain sighed and silently cursed the universe for giving him another Jedi who was possibly even more stubborn than his first one. This had to be karma for all the kark he’d put his brothers through on Kamino.
“I know you're not ki- Commander,” he amended when her fingers tightened at the diminuitive, “And I’m sure you’re more than capable of handling things yourself, but you don’t have to. That’s what the General is here for. And, if you don’t mind my saying, that’s what the vo- what we’re here for too. You’re not alone, sir.”
The Commander watched him, bright eyes assessing him with an intensity only Jedi ever seemed capable of. He made sure to let his genuine concern sit at the forefront of his mind, hoping she’d pick up on it and let him help her.
He could practically see her wrestling with herself in her mind, with the way she worried her bottom lip with her sharp fang as she stared at the table. For a brief, shining moment, he thought she was going to break as she opened her mouth to speak, but his hopes were dashed when instead her expression shuttered.
“It was a hard battle,” she mumbled oh-so-convincingly, “I’m just trying to make it easier on everyone by staying out of trouble; the last thing you or Master Skywalker need is to worry about me when you’ve got all this other stuff to deal with. That’s all.”
“Commander-”
“I have to go do homework,” she said, almost snapping as she stood abruptly, “I’ll see you later, Captain.”
She was out the door before he could even attempt to get another word in.
//
Ahsoka did her absolute best to focus on her Temple work; she was already so behind, and she needed to finish before the next calamity hit their fleet.
However, her foul mood had followed her from the mess hall. Of course Rex had seen right through her. Force, all she had to do was get through one meal without seeming like a needy little youngling, and she couldn’t even do that! She let out a frustrated grunt and pressed an unsteady hand to her forehead. In addition to the achiness in her limbs and her exhaustion, her head had begun to pound something fierce. It felt like there were Wookies beating war drums inside her temples…
Since the ship’s night cycle was due to start soon, Ahsoka decided that her attempt to be responsible was a wash and exited her Galactic History essay, instead pulling up the schematics for the Resolute her Master had sent her when she’d first joined the battalion.
Having already explored a good portion of the ship in her limited free time, she had a pretty good grip on the layout. Just one mortifying instance of getting lost and having to ask one of the men for directions was enough for Ahsoka to make it her business to know the ship as well as the rest of her men even before Skyguy had made it an official assignment.
She studied the map, trying to determine the best way to get to her destination without being seen. The most direct path through the hallways would be heavily trafficked until well into the night cycle, so that was a no-go, and the more out of the way routes would be more crowded even now due to the repairs happening around the ship. Although…
Ahsoka cast a thoughtful eye on the vent grate above her door.
This really shouldn’t be this hard, She thought as she climbed down yet another shaft.
It didn’t make any sense. Ahsoka was in great shape! Even before she was assigned to Skyguy, she trained hard almost every day, and had the stamina and endurance to prove it. Now, with the crazy kark her Master and Rex were teaching her, it was safe to say that she was stronger than she’d ever been in her life.
And yet here she was, huffing and puffing, her skin clammy and slick with sweat despite the chill running down her back, while doing something she did for fun back at the Temple.
“Almost there,” Ahsoka whispered in encouragement to herself as she forced her shaky limbs to carry her further down.
She let out a little curse as her arms wobbled and she slipped down a few inches. Her lack of sleep must have really been getting to her. Yeah, that was probably it…
Finally, finally she made it to the right junction and crawled into a horizontal shaft. Once she was securely tucked into the space, she laid her head against the metal and gave herself a moment to catch her breath.
The moment came and went as shivers tore through her body once more, spurring her forward in her search despite the exhaustion that pulled at every fiber of her being.
Ahsoka wasn’t sure how long she’d been crawling when she suddenly realized that the metal under her fingertips was slightly warmer. She followed the sensation like a plant chasing sunlight until the vent around her felt like the ceramic of a mug of hot tea in her hands: not hot enough to burn, but warm enough to seep comfortingly through her skin into her overtired muscles.
She let out a heavy groan as she lowered herself onto her side. She still felt a chill, but even as she suppressed a shiver and brought her cloak tighter around her shoulders, the worst of it was gone.
Suddenly, Ahsoka’s stubbornness that had been holding back every sleepless night crumbled like a derelict dam, and every ounce of tiredness washed over her and threatened to sweep her away. There was no distinguishing one thought from the next as her eyes drifted shut, only an overwhelming sense of relief as she finally surrendered herself to sleep’s warm embrace.
//
Anakin sighed in relief as the hot, bitter caf washed over his tongue. It was probably all in his head, but he liked to think that he could feel the energy slowly coursing through his veins, invigorating him like a magical elixir as he drank.
A good night’s sleep was a rarity for him ever since Geonosis, but these last couple nights had been particularly rough. This past engagement had taken a lot out of them, and he was still putting out fires (not actual ones; they’d put those out almost immediately) several days later.
He let the drone of troopers chatting amongst their brothers wash over him as he took another drag from his mug. If you asked him, Anakin would tell you that he wasn’t much of a morning person. It wasn’t that he had trouble getting up early (no child of the desert did), but rather that he just wasn’t pleasant to be around when he did. He needed a buffer time, of sorts, to get his head on straight, to mentally prepare himself to face the day and all of the challenges it would undoubtedly bring. When he was a padawan, mornings with Obi-wan were typically spent in companionable quiet, a stark contrast to the steady din of a ship full of people. However, Anakin found he didn’t mind the change. The steady background noise was almost comforting in a way, like a reminder that he wasn’t alone in all of this.
That being said, it didn’t mean he wanted anyone actually talking to him, and everyone on the ship pretty much knew it and acted accordingly. The only one who either didn’t get the memo or simply didn’t care was Ahsoka, who, at the moment, was nowhere to be seen. Briefly, the Jedi wondered if he should have been worried; thus far, his new Padawan had been awake (bright eyed and annoyingly bushy-tailed) and on time for breakfast with him and Rex every day.
He brushed off the thought as soon as it crossed his mind. She was fine, probably just slept in for once. Anakin, never one to look a gift-fathier in the mouth, reveled in the quiet her absence wrought. It wasn't that he didn’t care for Ahsoka. On the contrary, in the span of their short time together, the little womp rat had quickly become one of the most important people in his life next to Padmé and Obi-wan. While he found her bubbly, sunshine energy to be kind of adorable ( a secret he would take to his grave), he would be lying if he said that she wasn’t a little… much in the mornings. Seriously, where did she get so much energy? Weren’t teenagers supposed to sleep in every chance they got and be moody and grouchy at least ninety-five percent of the time?
(Obi-wan would say yes, with a very pointed look at Anakin that still managed to make him feel like an unruly Padawan instead of a fully grown Jedi Knight.)
So no, he wouldn’t worry, and instead enjoyed the calm quiet he’d been able to find for himself just this once-
“General.”
Damn it.
That was Rex’s ‘I need to talk to you’ voice. Not to mention the Force around him felt muddled with concern…
Whelp. The peace was nice while it lasted.
Anakin made sure to down the last dregs of his caf as the other man slid into the seat across from him, before giving him his attention.
“Rex,” he greeted, trying not to sound too annoyed at the interruption. Based on the small flicker of amusement that cut through his anxious swirl, he had not succeeded. “What can I do for you?”
For a brief moment, uncertainty clouded around Rex in the Force, and Anakin had to do his best not to frown. His Captain hadn’t been nervous to speak to him about anything since they were first deployed together.
It disappeared as quick as it came, though, replaced instead by grim determination.
“Well, sir, I was just wondering if you’ve spoken to Commander Tano today?”
Uh oh.
The question had him straightening on instinct. Aside from her snarky attitude and her ability to ‘creatively interpret his orders’, his Padawan had been surprisingly well-behaved in their down time on the Resolute. Honestly, he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop for a while now. Ahsoka had been with them for what, a little over a month? Long enough for her to finally be secure enough in her place here to act up, he supposed.
“No,” he sighed, “Why, what did she do?”
“Nothing, General,” Rex answered, and though his tone gave nothing away, his Force signature betrayed a hint of disapproval. “That’s the problem. She didn’t show up for drills this morning.”
Anakin blinked. He was pretty surprised; he knew from Jesse and some of the others that Rex could be a hard ass when it came to training, but he tended to be a lot more lenient with Ahsoka-
“She never misses morning drills, sir,” Rex insisted, his voice taking on an edge that, on anyone else, would sound almost like fretting. And there it was again, a spike of the concern that had been permeating his signature…
Oh. He wasn’t upset with her. He was worried about her. Anakin fought the urge to laugh at the fact that Rex - big, bad clone Captain Rex - was wrapped entirely around his padawan’s little finger. The big karking softie.
“She probably just overslept,” He assured him as kindly as he could. It was hard, though, to keep the teasing lilt out of his voice.
Rex, however, wasn’t mollified in the slightest.
“General, the Commander never sleeps in-”
“So, the little menace finally tired herself out,” he said with a shrug, “It’s about time.”
“Sir-”
“Rex,” Anakin interrupted with a laugh. (Seriously, who knew his stalwart second was such a mother nuna under all that armor?) “I’m sure she’s fine. And if you don’t believe me, go ahead and go knock on her door and wake her up. You have my express permission.”
“Sir, with all due respect, I already did that.” The slightest bit of frustration bled through his tone. “She didn’t answer.”
Anakin only barely avoided rolling his eyes. “So she’s a heavy sleeper.”
Not that he would really know. The only time he’d seen her sleep was dirtside during their last campaign, and she was understandably pretty easy to rouse given the circumstances.
“Look, Rex, I appreciate you looking out for her, but she’s a kid. You can’t freak out every time she does something a little out of the ordinary, especially not something as small as sleeping in and missing training. If anything, it would be weird if she didn’t do stuff like that.”
Rex still wasn’t satisfied, his lips pressed into a thin line as indecision hovered around him. He sighed, a deep, tired thing, before meeting Anakin’s gaze head on.
“Permission to speak freely, General?”
Anakin straightened again, his humor slowly draining away as a sense of unease began to rise in its place.
“Always, Rex,” he answered sincerely, setting aside his disappointment at the fact that his Captain still felt he needed to ask after all this time.
Rex responded with a tight nod.
“Sir, I’m concerned about Commander Tano. It’s more than just this morning,” he said before Anakin could brush him off again, “She’s been… off, these past few days. She’s been distracted lately, quiet and withdrawn. And yesterday at dinner, she looked really wrung out. I tried to press her on it, but she shut me down and took off…”
As Rex spoke, he grew more and more agitated until his calm soldier’s veneer completely fell away, revealing the depth of his anxiety. Anakin felt wrongfooted, seeing him so worked up. Even in the midst of battle, Rex didn’t panic, and yet here he was, freaking out because the kid under their collective care was being moody.
When he suggested as much, though, Rex shook his head.
“I think it’s more than that, sir. She almost opened up when I asked her. She seemed like she wanted to, but then she changed her mind and gave me some osik about how even if there was something wrong, she’d handle it on her own,” he rubbed the back of his head in exasperation, “I know she feels like she needs to prove herself, but it’s like you said, General, she’s a kid. There are some things she shouldn’t have to face alone, and I have a feeling that whatever is going on with her now is one of those things.”
For just a moment, Anakin sat and stared at his second-in-command, trying not to look as completely out of his depth as he felt. It was probably nothing. Rex was most likely just overreacting because he wasn’t used to kids. (Not like Anakin was, either, but that was besides the point.)
But…
But if it was something more? If there was something wrong with her? His clone captain had been the one to notice, and honestly, he didn’t know whether to be grateful or annoyed. Ahsoka was his padawan; he should have been the first to notice.
(What the hell had the old troll been thinking, giving him a karking padawan?)
“Okay,” Anakin nodded after a beat, “If you’re really worried, I’ll check in on her.”
Rex didn’t slump, he was too perfect a soldier for that, but Anakin could practically feel the relief wash over him as the tension left his frame.
“Thank you, General.”
//
Right after Rex left the mess to attend to his duties, Anakin attempted to comm Ahsoka. Multiple times, in fact, all of which went unanswered. Normally, he wouldn’t think twice about that, but his and Rex’s conversation sat heavy at the forefront of his mind. If there was any chance that what Rex had said was true, and something was wrong…
Which was why, instead of going to make his painstakingly scheduled call to his wife (who he rarely got to see), he was stomping through the corridors towards Ahsoka’s quarters with what was no doubt a thunderous expression, given the way that troopers were practically leaping out of his way.
If he found out that she really had just overslept and worried Rex and himself for no karking reason, he was going to make her run laps until her legs fell off.
Once he finally arrived at her door, he wasted no time pounding on it as hard as possible.
“Snips!” He bellowed. “Get up!”
When he received no answer, he pounded on the door again, this time with his metal hand. The clanging of metal on metal echoed through the corridor, and while he didn’t look around to check, he could feel the eyes of passing troopers on him along with their amusement leaking into the Force.
His cheeks warmed in embarrassment. “Ahsoka!”
Still no answer.
“Ahsoka, if you don’t get out of bed and answer this door right now, I’m coming in!”
Aaaand now I sound like Obi-wan. The thought alone was enough to twist his face into a disgusted grimace. Just for that, she’s doing drills until she karking drops!
Despite his threat, he was met with silence.
“Alright, that’s it! I warned you!”
With more force than was strictly necessary, Anakin punched in the override code and stomped into the room.
“Ahsoka Tano, get your-”
He stopped, his rant forgotten as he realized his padawan was nowhere to be seen.
That little seed of worry that Rex had planted in him began to sprout-
No. No. She was fine. There was a perfectly good reason why Ahsoka wasn’t here.
And why her comm device was.
And her lightsaber.
And why her bed was very clearly not slept in.
…
Okay.
Maybe he was a little worried.