#lamaenthel

The crèche still smelled the same as it had as far back as Ahsoka could remember; chalky aquarelle paint and sweet craft paste, sharp calligraphy ink and sun-warmed tatami mats, all overlaid with the minty dalas wood incense that Crèchemaster Vereixem always claimed was calming to a child's disposition. He'd lit a stick ten minutes ago, probably sensing her irritation.

Kento—the ancient dras lizard that Ahsoka had once liberated from the Halls of Learning and hid under her bed for a week—lay sleeping on a java wood branch in his transparasteel enclosure in the quiet corner. The bone masks that her Kaleesh Crèchemaster wore were displayed high on the bamboo wall, out of reach of his curious wards and magnetized to avoid being pulled down with the Force. Each youngling he helped raise decorated a mask for him. They were made from mumuu bones that he harvested himself then carved to resemble the faces of various animals across the galaxy.

Hers hung three spots over from the floor-to-ceiling window that looked east; she still remembered painting the mask with careful fingers, sure that she would make the best mask ever for the nicest Crèchemaster in the galaxy. She had chosen the one that resembled a borgle bat and covered it with green, pink, and purple splotches–attempting a sort of patchwork look that she had really thought that she'd nailed at the time—and glued an obnoxious spray of white feathers in the center.

At the time she'd thought it a masterpiece, but now that she looked at it with fresh eyes the best she could say was that it wasn't quite as ugly as some of the others. The patchwork effect she had been going for made the skull look diseased and the feather crest was doing the same thing Anakin's hair did when he fell asleep flat on his face. Not that Vereixem cared, of course; as far as he was concerned, every single mask that one of his younglings made was perfect, no matter how ugly it was.

Taarak made a happy chirp that was muffled by Anakin's thumb. She glanced up from her coloring page just long enough to see that the little usurper was still dreamily munching away on her Master's ruined glove instead of coloring, distracted by the taste and feel of leather in his mouth and the toys levitating in front of him.

She knew she was being irrational. There was nothing to be mad or jealous or territorial over. Taarak was a kriffing toddler, he wasn't about to steal her Master out from under her. His constant scent marking was done from instinct, not as a challenge to her.

"Ndi mtundu wanji?" Anakin asked Taarak, bouncing him on his knee. His aura was a radiant cloud of coppery-blue pride-affection that made Ahsoka fight down the possessive urge to lean across the craft table and scent mark him into oblivion. "Pano, look. Ndi mtundu wanji, do you know?"

Taarak cooed and reached for the yellow block Anakin was pointing to. "Dzuwa," he sang softly.

"Inde, inde, very good." Vereixem had put out a bowl of raw bantha meat cut into cubes for them to share. Anakin popped one into his mouth, chewed it, then fed it to the toddler as a reward. "In Basic it's yellow, can you say yellow? Nena yellow?"

"El-low," Taarak said, blinking up at him.

"Yellow, inde, good boy." Anakin fed him another cube of chewed bantha meat, practically glowing with blue pride.

"Are you treat training him?" Ahsoka asked, trying not to scowl.

Anakin smirked and shrugged. "Worked for you, didn't it?" he asked, his aura going deep, brassy gold with affection-humor. He popped another cube in his mouth.

"You didn't—" Ahsoka began heatedly. A familiar tutting noise cut her off.

"Big feelings, my little kit, what do we do with our big feelings?" Crèchemaster Vereixem cooed at her over her shoulder. The mask he wore today was a ronto, decorated with rainbow-colored Sriluurian butterflies. Hundreds of small yarn chains the color of ruddy turu grass clicking with glass beads hung down his back.

"I don't have big feelings, Master," she grumbled.

"Really?" Vereixem chuckled. "How odd. My Empathy may not be visual like yours, but I could have sworn I sensed some very big feelings coming from this table."

"Perhaps they were Taarak's," she replied, coloring in her bantha forcefully.

Vereixem squeezed her shoulders. "Shall we sing the big feelings song together?" he asked.

"Master, I don't think that's necessary," she said faintly, cringing. She felt her stripes heat to black.

"I do," Anakin said in a serious voice, his aura gone molten gold with hilarity. "In fact, I'd like to learn it so that I can help you with your big feelings out in the field, Padawan."

"Oh, what a good idea!" Vereixem beamed at Ahsoka. "Ready, dear? We'll sing it together."

Ahsoka glared at her Master, who smiled back like a tooka with a mithoo in its mouth. "Go on," Anakin encouraged her.

Ahsoka took a deep breath. "I have big feelings, very big feelings. They make me yell and, they make me cry. But I'm bigger than, all my big feelings, so to the Force, all my big feelings fly."

Anakin helped Taarak clap his little red-orange hands with a face-splitting grin.

"Force, Force–" Vereixem paused with his hands above his head. "Come now, Ahsoka, don't forget the next part."

Ahsoka sighed and raised her hands. "Force, Force, like the rain, wash my big feelings away." They trailed their fingers down in tandem. "Force, Force, like the breeze, blow away my big feelings." They made their hands swim through the air. "Force, Force, like the sky, help make my big feelings fly." They painted a rainbow above their heads in an arc.

Vereixem clapped cheerily. "Well done, Ahsoka. See, don't you feel better?"

"Yes, Master," she said tonelessly, wishing she was dead.

"Can you do that again?" Anakin asked innocently, opening up the holocam on his wrist-mounted commlink.

Ahsoka growled at him. Taarak's eyes went wide, round, and nearly black, and his yellow aura brightened with milky fear and teal protection. He bared his little baby fangs at her and let out a returning high-pitched growl. Across the room, Kento's rainbow-colored frill popped up around his neck and he made a high shriek that Ahsoka had never heard before. He threw himself at the transparasteel wall of his enclosure and slid down, leaving a wet trail of venomous drool behind.

"Ayi, Taarak, ayi," Vereixem said sternly, striding over to the enclosure with his hand out. His pink aura reached out to Kento with minty serenity and calmed the creature, who sulkily crawled into his hide. "We do not use animals to hurt people. Knight Skywalker, translate for me please."

"Calm down, you two, there's plenty of me to go around," Anakin said, his aura gone a very smug shade of red. "Palibe nyama, Taarak."

"Inde," Taarak sang sweetly, pulling Anakin's head down so he could rub his lek all over his cheek again. He made steady eye contact with Ahsoka as he did, his aura glowing bright metallic green with victory-possession.

Ahsoka closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and centered herself. She was sixteen. Taarak was two. She was not going to snap at a baby. She focused on empathizing with the toddler instead of dreaming about biting him. Coming to the Temple was scary. He was possessive of Anakin because he was lonely and he was the one who had brought him to the Temple. It made her Master feel more familiar to him than he really was, so he was clinging to him like… like a little tick.

She opened her eyes and met Anakin's. He was biting down the urge to laugh and his aura was still bright gold, but he pulled a chewed cube out of his mouth and offered it to her. She accepted it, slightly mollified; she remembered what he'd said about treat training her a second too late.

His wide smirk said that he remembered too. "Good girl," he said with a pat on her head.

Taarak stuck his lip out and turned red with offense-disappointment at seeing her be fed one of his bantha cubes. He sniffed and looked away from them both.

"Why don't the three of you go for a walk?" Vereixem suggested. "Wear out Taarak for me so he's good and ready for a nap when you return."

Anakin seated him on his hip and Ahsoka accepted a farewell kiss on her cheek from Vereixem. "If you run into Parna, please tell her that I need Grogu's updated nutrition plan by tomorrow."

"Grogu?" Ahsoka asked, trying and failing to place the name.

"Have you not met him? He's a youngling assigned to Master Beq. For this decade, at least." Vereixem chuckled. "I believe they're in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, if you're headed that way."

"We're going to the meadow meditation room, but we'll keep an eye out for Parna." Anakin tickled Taarak's deeply clefted chin.

"And don't be afraid to come back and visit me once in a while, my little kit." Vereixem gently stroked her cheek with his dry, reptilian fingers that smelled like red clay. "You are all so precious to me, and this war has taken too many of you." His aura thickened with violet grief.

Ahsoka's heart sank. She took his fingers and kissed them. "I will, Master," she promised guiltily.

"So what did he mean by Grogu was assigned Master Beq for this decade?" Anakin asked once they were back out in the hall.

"He must have a long infancy," Ahsoka said with a shrug. "Some species need longer individual care before they can join a clan." She plucked a cube of meat from the bowl Anakin carried, chewed it, then held it out to Taarak along with a tendril of amber amenability.

Taarak darted narrowed eyes between her face and the offering. Ahsoka watched the little wheels turn in his head as he weighed his options, his aura switching back and forth between yellow suspicion and green trust, before he cautiously took it from her fingers. He held the meat in his mouth, swallowed it with a loud gulp, blinked a few times, then chirped and held his arms out to Ahsoka.

"I knew he'd warm up to you," Anakin said warmly as he handed him over, his aura awash with solid blue happiness.

Taarak nuzzled up against her neck, then pulled the tip of her lek into his mouth and started to suckle. One hand snuck around the back of her neck and started absently stroking along the seam between her rear lek and the base of her skull, sending a warm tingle down her spine. "We should learn to get along now. I have a feeling we'll have a Master in common one day." Ahsoka tried not to let her knees buckle from the endorphin rush.

Fierfek, and to think that she'd been labeled as a master manipulator as a kit. Taarak put her to shame.

"Are you trying to choose my next Padawan for me?" Anakin asked teasingly.

"Pretty sure he chose you, Master," Ahsoka said, then grinned. "But maybe I'll do what you did to Master Kenobi and steal him out from under you once he's old enough to be a Padawan."

"Hey, I didn't steal you, that was all Master Yoda!" Anakin protested, his aura still glowing gentle gold with humor.

Ahsoka purred and rubbed at the crook of Taarak's lekku buds. He purred back and her heart melted a little. "Kriff," she mumbled under her breath.

"So you never actually told me what the big deal was with his clan name," Anakin said, trying not to laugh at them.

Ahsoka caught Taarak's other hand before it weaseled down the front of her robes. If he thought she was going to nurse him just because she had the equipment for it, he was sorely mistaken. "Na'Hane is what we call people who were exiled after…" she tapped on her teeth and raised her brow markings meaningfully.

"They have their own clan?" Anakin asked, surprised.

Ahsoka shrugged. "Some of them end up sticking together for survival's sake. They can't chew, right? But a baby born to the Na'Hane would never be forced to bear that name after they were taken. I can't imagine why his adoptive parents would have kept it."

"Well, they were Toydarian. They must not have known." Anakin looked away and his aura briefly flickered with a purple line of guilt. "They probably thought they were honoring his heritage."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "It would have taken them five minutes on the holonet to find out what it meant, but you're probably right. Is it too late to change it in his records?"

Anakin held the turbo-lift door open for her. "I'll find out. So when you say taken…" He trailed off and looked at her sideways.

Ahsoka shifted Taarak's weight. "A Na'Hane can't be trusted with a child," she said firmly.

"So you just… take them?" Anakin asked, frowning.

"It's not like we go out hunting for them," Ahsoka said. "Usually, they're left on the edge of the village in the middle of the night by the Na'Hane."

"But if you ran into one out… doing whatever your people do, you'd just take them home?"

"A Na'Hane is a Togruta exiled from their clan for doing something horrible, Master," Ahsoka snapped, trying not to get annoyed with him. She pulled Taarak's hand out of her robes again. "It's to protect the child, we don't–"

"Easy, little one, easy." Anakin patted her between her montrals and fed her a bantha cube. "Don't get defensive, I was just curious."

Ahsoka swallowed her treat and tried not to sulk. Taarak's purr sped up and he suckled harder, running a fat little hand up and down her lek comfortingly as he did. She hugged him closer. "Anyway," she said, "I'm not saying that it would be a big deal here at the Temple, but if Taarak ever goes back to Shili it'll be pretty awkward. Imagine having to introduce yourself as Starkiller for the rest of your life because of something your mother did before you were even born."

Anakin's eyes widened and his aura went pale yellow with surprise-amusement. "Wait, Starkiller? His name means Starkiller?"

She didn't like how pleased he looked. "Na'Hane means killer," she said sourly. "Taarak—well, Tara—means star."

Anakin threw his head back and laughed. "Snips, there's no way I'm changing that. That is way too cool of a name to change."

Ahsoka scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Master…"

"Aww, who's my little Starkiller?" Anakin cooed, tickling Taarak's stumpy little rear lek. It twitched happily at the stimulation. "You are, yes, you're my little Starkiller…"

"Master, don't call him that!" Ahsoka said, exasperated. Taarak giggled around her lek.

"I'm absolutely calling him that and you can't stop me." Anakin pulled Taarak off of her lek with a loud pop! and blew a snozzberry into his neck. "Alright, Starkiller–"

Ahsoka groaned. "Master!"

" –Go get tired." Anakin set him down on the grass of the meditation room and released him. The kit squealed and took off for the koi pond, diving into a forward slide on his belly until he was peeking over the edge. His little red feet kicked in the air and he cooed at the fish in broken, babyish Toydarian.

Anakin put an arm around her shoulders. "So, did you and Obi-Wan make up? If I have to listen to him whine about his hurt feelings one more time I'll puke."

Ahsoka felt something go quiet in her chest. "Yeah. We're fine."

Anakin glanced down at her, his aura darkening with dark green unease. "Why do I sense that's not exactly the truth?"

She shrugged. "It's never going to be the same. It can't be. But I've forgiven him and I'm moving on."

Anakin sighed. "Ahsoka–"

"We can't stop change, Master," she reminded him. "I had to let him go. It's the Jedi way."

She rested her head against him and subtly rubbed her lek on his cheek while Taarak was distracted. "We'll have to let each other go one day too, Master," she said softly.

Anakin's aura brightened to staticky white with anxiety. "Yeah," he muttered. "One day." His hand twitched on her shoulder.

Ahsoka watched Taarak's aura lighten to burning orange with anticipation-excitement and his stubby little rear lek wag back and forth. She elbowed Anakin. "Just so you know, you've got about five seconds before Starkiller goes fishing."

"Before he–" Anakin's eyes went wide and he bolted for the toddler. "Ayi, Taarak, ayi! Osasambira!" He missed Taarak's ankle by inches, tumbling ass over elbows into the koi pond after him. He surfaced with a gasp a few seconds later, holding a giggling Taarak above his head while struggling to not let his long brown robe drag him back down. He looked like a sad, wet cat with his hair plastered to his forehead, but Taarak was delighted.

Ahsoka burst into hysterical laughter, falling to one knee and wheezing like she'd gotten the wind knocked out of her. Anakin's aura turned a menacing shade of orange with mischief. "Keep laughing, Snips!"

Ahsoka's laughs morphed into screams as Anakin lifted her up into the air with the Force and dropped her into the pond with them.

Notes:

TOYDARIAN TRANSLATIONS Ndi mtundu wanji?: What color is it? Pano: Here Dzuwa: Yellow Inde: Yes Ayi: No Osasambira: No swimming

Taglist: @starwarsficnetwork, @soliloquy-of-nemo Dividers: @saradika-graphics

Ahsoka took a deep breath of the heavy, wet air. It smelled like petrichor and mud, wet stone, moss and ozone, but most intensely of all was the smell of freshly-opened tiarek flowers that had opened to greet the morning sunlight; a sweet, floral smell that tasted like sunshine and citrus in the back of her throat.

It was a pleasant, delicate smell, and one that ironically didn't suit Rex at all. Rex smelled like clean soap and warm musky skin, not citrus flowers and sunshine. She could picture Rex sneezing if he got a whiff of them. She did know that Padmé would absolutely love them though. The wind blew their heavy scent straight to her nose from her spot atop the hill that bordered the creekbed. They were gorgeous, if tiny; small and plush, a vibrant yellow pistil surrounded by six-petaled starbursts of creamy platinum the same shade as a certain captain's hair.

Rex had been named after a flower. A flower. And she couldn't even tease him about it without traumatizing him.

Ahsoka split the stem of one flower with her thumbnail and carefully threaded another through the hole. She almost had enough of a chain to circle Boba's head, though she knew that she'd have to sit on him if she wanted to get a holopic of him with it on.

If Cody woke up, maybe he could hold him down. He had been performing eyelid maintenance on the blanket next to them for the last half hour, stripped to the waist and face down to let his fresh ink breathe, using Robert the Rancor as a pillow. Ahsoka followed the diamond-dash pattern of dadita names along the sunburst to the newest addition; Ponds.

Her heart broke a little, remembering the holorecording Aurra had sent to taunt them. She looked away before Boba saw where her eyes had settled. He lay between her legs, leaning back against her chest with his face tucked next to her lek. He hadn't left her side since he had returned except to strip out of his sodden flight suit and into his civvies. As for her, she'd changed back into her white and red robes, the ones that Obi-Wan had seamed up for her on the way to Corellia.

"The Force is not a power that Jedi wield, as many believe it to be." Obi-Wan sat cross legged in front of Boba's brother, who'd dragged himself from his hoverchair to join the Master on a blanket atop the damp grass. Obi-Wan's aura was a warm, sunny blue with happiness-peace. "It is the energy between all things. It is the tension and the balance that binds the universe together. One can learn to wield it if they have the natural ability, which you most certainly have." Obi-Wan's lip twitched and the air shimmered soft gold with humor around him. "Catching a plasma bolt, for example, is a remarkable feat without any training. Ahsoka can't do that."

Ahsoka frowned. "I also haven't tried!" she called down defensively.

Obi-Wan winked at her. "Would you like to learn how to meditate, Cassus?"

Cassus nodded eagerly. He was starved for contact with any sentient that wasn't his mother or the droids he had programmed himself. He wanted to learn so badly, but this would most likely be the only lesson he ever received; not just because of Kaisa, but because of their own Jedi dogma. It didn't seem fair that Cassus had to let his own natural affinity wither away because he'd had the misfortune to be born to Jedi-hating bigots. His naturally turquoise aura was radiating vibrant green curiosity-excitement-joy. His little BD droid made an offended series of beeps at being jostled on his lap and took himself to the corner of the blanket, where he curled up and pouted.

Obi-Wan smiled wide. Getting the opportunity to teach an eager student that was interested in more than just how to use a lightsaber must have felt like a novelty to him. "Very well. Close your eyes and reach out. What do you feel?"

Cassus shut his eyes, still beaming, and extended his hand. It trembled, but Ahsoka didn't see anything in his aura that said it was a result of his nerves.

Obi-Wan chuckled and gently pushed Cassus' hand down. "Not like that, young man. Reach out with your feelings. Take a deep breath and sense the forest around you. Tell me what you see."

Cassus, pink cheeked and aura yellowed like a bruise with embarrassment, took a deep breath as instructed. "The bunker?" he said hesitantly, eyes still closed.

"Yes, the bunker. What else?"

"The trees. The bugs in the moss." Cassus' breathing deepened and his aura flowed out like soft smoke around him. "A herd of shatual does. A convor. Life, so much life. It sings around us."

"Very good. The Living Force is strong in places such as this." Obi-Wan smiled. "What else?"

Cassus' face screwed up in concentration. "Death. A tree fell in the storm. It had a banshee bird nest in it, and the babies died when it hit the ground." Cassus sagged a little and his aura darkened to purple. "I think it was fast."

"Their bodies will nourish new life, will they not?" Obi-Wan's voice was gentle. "They will be eaten by scavengers and insects, who in turn feed the moss, the trees, all of it. Do not linger there, keep going. Take all of it in."

"Warmth. The sun is warm." Cassus tilted his head. "But the ground is cold from the rain." He turned his head towards Ahsoka, Boba and Cody snuggled together on their blanket. "Peace." His head tilted the other way. "And violence."

Ahsoka's arms tightened around Boba.

"And between it all?" Obi-Wan encouraged him.

"Balance. An energy… a…"

"The Force. That is the Cosmic Force." Obi-Wan's aura was lush green with pride-appreciation. "Very good, Cassus."

"Mama said the Force isn't the Manda. The Force is what Jedi call on to do their magic."

Obi-Wan laughed quietly. "On that, we disagree. I think that the Manda and the Force are simply two names for the same concept. You listen to the song of the Manda, and we strive to follow the will of the Force. It is not so different, those two philosophies."

Cassus blinked his eyes open. "You're not going to make me live at your Temple, are you?"

"No." Obi-Wan shook his head. "No, dear boy, even if your mother consented to it, you are unfortunately too old to be trained as a Jedi. It's a shame. Your temperament is very well-suited for this life."

"It is?" Cassus' eyes went big and round, and his aura flared staticky white with surprise.

"Yes." Obi-Wan smiled, but his aura pulsed with red-violet regret. Ahsoka could see why. Cassus was desperate to learn, but even this small lesson toed the line of impropriety. Teaching the ways of the Jedi to someone outside of the Order was forbidden, and Obi-Wan was a shabla Council member.

"Mama… she's said a lot about the Jedi, but I don't think she was told the truth. And she ran into some bad ones, maybe." Cassus reached for Buddy, his aura gone white with anxiety; Ahsoka watched the little droid crawl up his arm and snuggle next to his ear, cooing the whole time.

"I think you may be right. I know that she suffered at Galidraan, and combining her own experience with, well…" Obi-Wan hesitated and chose his words carefully, "Salacious rumors about the Order, her prejudice runs deep."

"So you don't steal babies?" Cassus asked, looking up at Obi-Wan with shining gray eyes.

"We do not. I do not doubt that it has happened, unfortunately, but if such a thing were ever to be discovered then the child would immediately be given the choice to return to their old life."

"Oh." Cassus wrung his hands in his lap and squirmed with violet guilt-shame. "I'm sorry that Mama tried to hurt you and Ahsoka. When her friends in town called to say that they saw two Jedi and a clone trooper heading for us, she… she got so scared. I've never seen her that scared."

Obi-Wan patted his hand. "Given her trauma, that is understandable."

"So you're not mad?" Cassus blinked at him from under his lashes.

"Holding a grudge is not the Jedi way." Obi-Wan didn't look at Ahsoka but she felt a gentle nudge through their bond, almost like a hand slipping into hers. She returned it with a copper tendril of affection.

"Can we do that again?" Cassus asked shyly. "Meditating, I mean."

"I'd love to." Obi-Wan grinned broadly and closed his eyes. "First let's try a breathing exercise."

"She'd shit if she saw this," Boba said wryly. "Cassus learning from a Jedi? It's her worst nightmare come true."

"Seems like it." Ahsoka gently rubbed her lek against his cheek. "How are you doing with all of this?"

Boba shrugged. "Can't you tell?"

"To an extent." She eyed the confused kaleidoscope of colors that circled around her vod'ika. "But you've got a lot going on inside, I think. I'd rather hear it from you. And talking it out usually helps."

Boba didn't answer, choosing to silently watch his brother instead. "He's not like Dad at all," he said after a minute. "He'd be horrified if he saw how soft he is."

"There's a lot of sharp edges in the galaxy, especially when it comes to Clan Fett." Ahsoka huffed a quiet laugh. "Maybe a little softness is needed to balance it out."

"He's not Clan Fett," Boba said glumly. His aura solidified into solid purple sadness before spinning back up into its fractal rainbow. "He doesn't claim that name. He's Clan Skirata."

"That doesn't mean he's not Jango's son," Ahsoka said.

"Yeah it does." Boba watched a fat pink butterfly flap around Cassus' head and smirked when it landed in his curls. "Once you declare someone dar'buir, that's it."

Ahsoka hugged him tighter. "Did he, though?" she asked.

"I… I guess I don't actually know," Boba admitted. "I assume he did, if he goes by Skirata."

"You should probably talk about it with him."

"Yeah. Probably." Boba sighed. "I don't think my dad really loved me."

Ahsoka blinked, too surprised to respond. "What?" she finally managed, her voice jumping an octave. Beside them, Cody cracked an eyelid, his aura tinted green with curiosity. "How can you say that? Before, you said–"

"I said a lot of things before," Boba interrupted. "That was before I knew why he shot them down. Why she left us behind. Everything I thought I knew was based on banthashit."

His aura went spiky and deep violet; Ahsoka recognized it as the warning of a meltdown and bit her lip. "When we were on The Babasta–"

"He told M– Kaisa, he told Kaisa he loved her too. All the time." The violet spikes in his aura spun and sharpened. Ahsoka smelled salt. "He told Cas and Tiarek he loved them. He tried to kill all of them." He squeezed his eyes shut too late to stop a tear from escaping. "I don't understand how he could do it, but I'm… I'm glad he's dead. I hate him."

Ahsoka sucked in a breath. "Boba…"

"I do. I hate him. He tried to kill my brothers, my mother, and for what? Because Tiarek looked at junk in a stupid box? Because my mother was trying to protect Cassus from the longnecks? We weren't…. He never loved any of us. Not really.” He stared at his hands, his aura throbbing yellow-green with disgust, and Ahsoka had to wonder if he was thinking about how much they looked like Jango's. "And I’m just like him. I tried to kill Windu in some stupid, half-assed revenge attempt. You've almost died for me twice already. My donor was a monster, and I'm going to be a monster too.”

Ahsoka couldn't help the tears that escaped from her own eyes, though it was hard to tell if they were truly hers or an echo from the boy in her arms. “I didn't know him," she said quietly. "And what he did to Cassus and Rex is unforgivable, but–"

“But nothing, Ahsoka! He was a monster!" Boba's face crumpled and he seemed to shrink in her arms. "And I am too. I shot Kaisa. I-I threatened to use the same poison on Cas if she didn't give us the antidote."

Ahsoka's brow markings raised. "You did?" she asked, trying to keep the shock out of her voice. "When?"

"When you started going all glitchy and babbling." Boba shuddered and grayed with the memory of fear. "I was so mad at her, so scared that you were going to die, I couldn't… I couldn't…"

"Sssh, udesii." Ahsoka rubbed his back and purred. "I'm sorry, vod'ika. I don't…" she took a deep breath. "I don't think you have the whole story. I don't know that you'll ever get it without Jango, but right now, you only have a few pieces."

"I wish Kal would have just minded his own fucking business," he sniffled, hiding his face under her lek. "Now everything is… it's different. It's not like I didn't know that it had happened, b-but…" He took a deep breath. "But I know now that he couldn't have loved them, which means he couldn't have loved me." Boba stared down at Cassus with a bruise-dark aura of grief. "You don't hurt people if you really love them. Not for a stupid reason like that."

She looked down at Obi-Wan, laughing silently at the butterfly that had landed in Cassus' curls, and felt her left arm throb for a brief second. "Do you love Cassus?" she asked Boba, gently enveloping him in a warm copper blanket of love-safety-comfort.

"I don't even know him." The spikes were slowing, going dull.

"That's not what I asked."

"I don't know. I used to." Boba flared soft copper with love-humor as he watched Cassus finally open his eyes and dissolve into a peal of laughter at the discovery of his new friend.

"Would you like to know what I see in your aura when you look at him?" Ahsoka asked softly.

Boba's lip trembled and he looked down. "I can't love Cas. I was going to hurt him. I was so mad that I didn't even hesitate, and… and…" He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Fuck, I really am just like him."

"That's not a bad thing," Ahsoka said.

Boba whipped his head around. "How the fuck–" he began hotly, but she shushed him.

"Because he was more than just the bad things that he did, Boba." She threaded their fingers together. "He also could make a drawing out of pencil that looked as real as a holopic. He played quetarra and sang for his boys. He fell asleep on the couch snuggling them, and he told you that he loved you every single day, even when he was mad at you. And he raised an amazing boy. With all of the things that he did wrong, he still made you into the person that you are today. And that person is pretty amazing."

Boba turned in her arms so that he could hide in her neck. It quickly started to feel hot and wet where his eyes were pressed. "How can I believe that he ever meant it when he hurt everybody else he said he loved?" he whispered, a dark-green cloud of noxious misery.

"You love your brother. But in the heat of the moment, you lost your head and were fully prepared to hurt him. Right?"

Boba nodded, clouded with deep yellow shame.

"But now that the sun is up and everything is okay, I have a feeling that you really regret it."

Boba nodded again.

"Don't you think it's possible that your dad felt the exact same way?" Ahsoka pulled him out of her neck so she could look him in his tear-swollen eyes. The purple had faded to green, at least. "What your dad did was wrong. There's no way to rationalize it, kiddo, no matter how angry or scared or drunk he was, it was wrong, and that's just something that you're going to have to live with. The difference is that he didn't have an ori'vod to stop him back then, but you do. And I won't let you get away with that shit." That earned her a shocked little laugh. "So we're going to nip it in the bud now. We'll work on our anger before it gets out of control and we do something we can't undo, 'lek?"

Boba nodded, his face still all screwed up and teary, but his aura glowing soft gold with humor.

"We're more than the bad things that we do. They just stick out a lot more than the good." She wiped his eyes. "Change is hard. Trust me, I know. But you can't stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting, Boba. You just have to keep going."

"How?" Boba whispered.

"You just do." Ahsoka smiled sadly. "You are a survivor, Boba. You've been through so much, and you've gotten this far because of what your dad taught you. You can get through this, too. And it'll be better this time, because you won't be alone. You're not meant to be alone. None of you are."

Boba nodded, soft green with coppery green affection-acceptance. "Thanks, ori'vod."

"Any time, vod'ika." She kissed his temple, slipped the chain of flowers around his head, and snatched Cody's helmet to take a holopic before he could shake it off like an uncooperative tooka.

"Seriously?" Boba asked, then burst into laughter that echoed with bright gold.

"You look beautiful," she teased.

Boba gingerly pulled it off with a roll of his eyes, then glanced at Cassus. "We're not meant to be alone," he repeated quietly. "But Cassus is alone."

"He has Kaisa," Ahsoka said, watching him gently rotate the flower crown in his hands.

Boba snorted. "Yeah. And look how that turned out." He took a deep breath and went silvery-green with determination. "But if I go back with you, I'll be alone too. I know there's that school that Plo talked about, and yeah, you'll visit when you can, but I'll be on my own there most of the time."

Ahsoka's heartbeat sped up. "That's true."

"I have to stay here. For Cassus. He needs an ori'vod, even if he is technically older than me." He looked up at Ahsoka. "Plo won't be mad, right?"

"No," she said. "No, I think Plo will be so proud of you when I tell him why you stayed." And so was she, though her first instinct was to put him under her arm and run. She couldn't do that. She had already come to terms with letting Boba go when it was time, it was just… now that it was actually time, it was proving a little more daunting than she had expected.

"Maybe I can bully Kaisa into moving to Coruscant," Boba jokes, going soft gold again. "She's been locked in this fucking hole for a decade, after all." He adjusted his legs and his aura lightened to pale blue with surprise. He reached for the pocket above his right knee. "Shit, I keep forgetting to give you–"

"Breakfast!" Gotika toddled out of the bunker entrance, trailed closely by Pinky. The astromech was wearing a frilly black apron. "Cas'ika, breakfast is ready, it's time to–" She stopped dead at the sight of her maker on the ground. "Cas'ika, what do you think you're doing?" she wailed, waddling at hyperspeed towards him.

"I'm fine, Gotika," Cas said, exasperated. He quickly clambered back into his hoverchair before he could be scolded again.

"But the ground is wet! You could get sick, or–"

"I'm fine!" he said crossly, his aura yellowing with embarrassment. "Let's go in."

"Finally," Cody groaned, flipping over and reaching for the top half of his blacks.

Boba tossed the flower chain to his brother as he zoomed by. "Ahsoka made this for you," he lied casually, smirking.

"Really?" Cassus put it on his head and grinned at her. "Thank you!"

Ahsoka smiled at Cassus and kicked Boba's ankle. "You are very welcome," she said sweetly.

"He's a natural," Obi-Wan said softly, coming up behind her. They watched the two boys and Cody follow Gotika up the short ramp to the bunker door.

"I noticed." Ahsoka allowed him to put a careful arm around her shoulders. "It's a shame that he can't be taught. I could see him in the Agricorps."

"He has a Force Talent. Mechu-deru. A very rare gift, one once thought to be linked to the Dark Side. We know better now, thankfully."

Ahsoka raised her brow markings. "What is mechu-deru?"

"He has an intuitive understanding of mechanics, and can manipulate them with the Force. He said that he rebuilt and programmed Gotika when he was five." Obi-Wan shook his head with an aura of green disbelief. "All of these droids, the drones, the turrets– those were all built from scrap by him with absolutely no guidance. He would have been a wonder if he'd had a teacher."

"Reminds me of Anakin," Ahsoka said quietly.

"In a way, yes." Obi-Wan squeezed her a little as they walked. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"Like I was put through a laundry pod and hung up to dry," Ahsoka joked. "Otherwise, I guess I'm fine."

"And the leg?"

Ahsoka twisted her leg to show him. "It's already closed up," she said with a smile.

"Good." Obi-Wan returned her smile but his eyes were tight, and his aura thrummed with staticky-gray anxiety. "Thank you, Ahsoka."

She side-eyed him. "For what?"

"For allowing me to accompany you on the final leg of your journey. I know…" he took a deep breath and his aura flooded with pewter determination. "I understand, now, how deeply my actions affected you, but I need you to know that none of my decisions were made out of malice, or indifference towards you, but out of my duty to the Republic."

Ahsoka nodded, feeling cold resignation sink down into her guts like an iceberg. He wasn't saying that he regretted it. He wasn't even really apologizing for it. He was just asking for her to understand that it wasn't personal.

Somehow that felt even worse than everyone telling her to get over it.

"I care deeply for you, Ahsoka," Obi-Wan said, his voice cracking. He stopped and took her hands, looking frighteningly young without his hair and beard. He looked almost like the Padawan Bobi of her youth, and it hurt to look at him for too long. "More than even you, with your marvelous gift, will ever know." His aura shone like a star with intense copper and his eyes pleaded for her forgiveness, for her to tell him that they could go on again as normal, but she couldn't make the words come out.

She had been furious at him at first, almost more for what Anakin had been through than her, but now that anger was gone and all that remained was just… sadness. She wasn't angry anymore, she was in mourning; not for the man, but for the trust that was gone for good. She loved him, and she could see how much he loved her, but the unshakeable faith that she'd always had in him was gone. She was expendable to Obi-Wan in a way that she had known in the abstract, but had never been forced to confront before now.

"Would you do it again?" she asked him, trying and failing to not let her grief leak into her voice. "If you could do it all over again, would you put me in that alley and let me hold you while you died? Make Anakin watch them burn your body? Or would you trust us enough to bring us in?"

Obi-Wan looked away, darkening with a familiar shade of yellow shame-regret. "Hindsight is notably clearer than foresight," he said quietly. "Perhaps I should have had more faith in the two of you, but the life of a Jedi requires us to sacrifice everything in service of the greater good. I regret that I hurt you, Ahsoka, I truly do. And… I may have gone further than I needed to in order to sell the lie."

But he would do it again if he had to. He may even hate it, but he would do it, because that was what a Jedi did. They sacrificed everything and held onto nothing, all for the greater good.

And Ahsoka… she was a Jedi too, and it was time for her to follow her own advice. To keep walking, and not look back. She'd always looked at him as the closest thing as a father that she'd ever have, and his aura matching the color of her actual father's had only cemented it for her, but he wasn't her father. He was her mentor and one of her dearest friends. He had shaped her into the person that she was, guided her lightsaber forms and taught her about the Force, but it was long past time that she let go of Bobi and what he represented to her and move forward with Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. She quieted her mind and took a deep breath, then opened herself up to the flow of the Cosmic Force and surrendered her dull, icy grief to it.

"Ahsoka?" Obi-Wan asked softly, teal with concern over the way she'd gone quiet.

The gentle hooting of a convor sounded directly above their heads; she craned her neck up to search the canopy but saw nothing but a sea of green against a sunny blue sky. "I'm starving," she said, looking back down with a watery smile; she felt lighter now, but empty in a way that she couldn't describe. "Let's get inside before Cody inhales the table."

She felt her wound throb as she walked away, but it didn't reopen.

"So is this an everyday thing?" Ahsoka asked, staring at the spread before her. Roba sausage, scrambled nuna eggs with little pieces of spicy peppers, a giant pot of hominy, some sort of cake crusted with sugar and amber syrup, a bowl the size of Pinky's dome full of sliced-up shuuras, snozzberries and meilooruns, all sprinkled with shredded kokanini… It was the sort of breakfast feast that was served to a busy working family in a holovid that would have two bites taken then be promptly abandoned in favor of the plot.

Cassus blushed, fogged with yellow embarrassment, and fiddled with the napkin on his lap. "No, but I-I thought since we haven't really been good hosts, I could at least make sure you had a nice meal before you left."

"You kicking us out?" Boba asked casually, dipping a fork full of nuna eggs into the amber syrup before shoving it in his mouth.

"No, of course not, but I didn't… didn't think you'd want to stay after you got your armor."

Boba swallowed the whole mouthful in one go. "You don't want it?" he asked, flaring white with surprise.

Cassus shook his head. "It would be wasted on me," he mumbled. "I'm not a warrior. I'm–" his bronze cheeks were nearly puce and his aura was getting more yellow by the moment. "I can't walk. My hands shake too much to shoot straight. I made my drones to try and be useful, but I'll never be able to fight someone face-to-face no matter how much beskar I'm wearing."

"Well, not with that attitude," Boba grumbled, shoving more eggs in his mouth.

Ahsoka gave him the look that she so often received from Rex that said behave. "Is your mom going to join us, Cassus?" she asked.

Cassus shook his head. "She's packing the armor up now," he said, not meeting Ahsoka's eyes.

"Then I'll go take a plate to her." Ahsoka stood up and almost walked face-first into Gotika.

"Mistress Kaisa needs to rest while she recovers from her injury, Master Jedi," she said brightly.

Ahsoka nearly choked at being addressed as Master, and she saw gold flicker around Obi-Wan out of the corner of her eye. "I'll make sure she's abiding by your recommendations and take her some food," she said pleasantly, stepping to the side.

"I already brought her a plate." Gotika matched her step.

"Then I'll join her so she doesn't have to eat alone." Ahsoka stepped to the left, mirrored by the ominously pleasant protocol droid.

"No need."

"Gotika, let her pass," Cassus said sharply.

Gotika's eyes dimmed and she immediately stepped out of Ahsoka's way.

She tossed a tiny smirk over her shoulder at the droid as she made the hallway. Gotika's left eye strobed as though it was twitching.

Ahsoka rapped softly on the door at the end of the hall before opening it. Kaisa sat on her bed, dressed down into a sleeveless undershirt and a pair of loose pants that ended at the knee, both black and well-worn. There was a green bacta sleeve wrapped around her left knee. She stared at Ahsoka as she came in, her aura pulsing like orange smoke with distrust-anxiety-fear.

"Thought you could use some company while you ate," Ahsoka said gently, projecting a cool sage aura of serenity-trust.

"Why?" Kaisa's aura cautiously bled back into her base of coral, tinged with a bruised line around the edges.

"Maybe it's the Togruta in me talking, but I hate eating alone." Ahsoka set her plate down on her wooden dresser and leaned against it, taking in the room. It was rather plain in comparison to the vibrant colors of the karyai; the walls were gray and she had a carpet thrown over the plascrete floor that was a soft blue, but the only decorations she kept in her room were a few holopics on her dresser and a knitted blanket on her bed that faded between ripples of orange into purple, like a sunset reflecting off the surface of a lake. Boba's beskar plates lay in front of her on the bed, along with four bright blankets folded into neat squares.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot." There was a rocking chair opposite of Kaisa's bed; Ahsoka gestured at it. "May I?" She took a seat after Kaisa's nod, careful to respect her boundaries. Ahsoka was in her bedroom now, her most intimate space. She was going to be defensive no matter what, but she would also be unbalanced, too wary to be able to lie convincingly.

Kaisa's aura developed a telltale pewter line around the edges, preparing to go on defense.

"I apologize for screaming at you last night." Ahsoka watched the pewter shiver.

Kaisa tilted her head. "I poison you."

"I'm fine now." Ahsoka shrugged. "I could hold a grudge if you'd prefer, but it isn't the Jedi way."

Kaisa snorted. "Jate, if you speak it." Her gaze fell back to the bed and softened as she looked at the plates, her aura flooding with violet so dark that it was nearly black with grief-despair. "I hear Jango die many time. Six, seven, more. I before hear he die on Geonosis, I think same again." Her shoulders fell. "Not rumor, this time. Jango nari taabi'an."

"Elek." Ahsoka watched the woman carefully, curious as to why she would mourn the man who had done such terrible things to her. "He tried to kill you. He tried to kill your son. You had to stay in hiding for a decade because of him. I admit that I don't know you very well, but his death seems like something you'd celebrate."

"Not simple, my Jango." Kaisa took a deep breath. "Long story."

"Then start at the beginning," Ahsoka replied easily. "How'd you meet?"

Kaisa's eyes flicked up from the beskar plates. It was eerie how close the colors matched. "My Clan, my home in Kyrimorut, Death Watch burn. My ba'vodu take me in. Kal."

"Kal's your uncle?" Ahsoka asked, surprised. "I didn't realize you were blood related."

Kaisa raised an eyebrow and her aura went chartreuse with disdain. "No blood. My buire find me when kih'ad. Aliit ori'shya tal'din."

Family is more than blood. She didn't disagree there. "I agree. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Please, go on."

"Kal join with Jaster Mereel. Haat'la Mando'ade. I meet Jango there. We grow up together." Kaisa's aura flooded to mauve with love-yearning. "We happy, for while. Then not. We always fight. Too… too same. He never back down, I never back down." Kaisa gently bopped her fists together. "Like gotaliise, Jango and me." She smiled softly in wistful remembrance.

"What happened the night you left Kamino?" Ahsoka asked. "Why did you leave?"

Kaisa's face fell. "Cassus almost... Jango not does trying hurt him. Our fault, together." She took another deep breath, flaring bright red with the memory of anger. "One day, I find Cassus does floating with his toys. I know we must leave. Not safe, he does singing around kaminiise. They will take him, they want his blood. Want everything." Her aura flared to bright violet sadness. "I speak Jango, we does leaving, with him or not with him. I want take all my boys. All." She wiped her nose. "Jango stop us on landing pad, speak Tiarek and Boba his. I fight him, I not does leaving without my boys."

Ahsoka's heart lightened. She'd fought for them. She hadn't just gotten in her ship and accepted Jango's claim, she'd fought for them. That changed things.

"He… he hit ner sen'tra."

"Your jetpack?"

" 'Lek. He hit it, he… he want disable it. Make me stop from does flying. But it make me fly hard. Very hard, very fast." Tears leaked down in twin trails on her cheeks. "I hold Cassus when happen. Sen'tra fly me at wall before I can stop."

Ahsoka had seen how violently a person could be jettisoned with a malfunctioning jetpack more than once, and felt ill to imagine it happening to a toddler. "That's how Cassus was hurt?" she asked.

Kaisa nodded miserably. "I hit wall hard, h-his spine break." Her face crumpled and her aura darkened with even more violet sorrow. "Jango… he scream. He think he kill him. I never hear him scream so loud, long. He want my death, I see in his face."

"So it was an accident," Ahsoka said softly.

"I have stasis pod on my ship for bere, for I does hunting." Kaisa stared at the four blankets, haunted. "I run. Cassus does dying, kaminiise not help if I stay. I try reach my ade, my Boba and Tiarek, but Jango…" Kaisa looked up at her. "I put Cassus in stasis pod, fly. No choice. He die, if I stay."

Ahsoka couldn't answer for a few moments, her mind racing to picture the scene. Kaisa and Jango arguing in the Kaminoan storm, Rex and Boba being held back by their father. Jango sabotaging Kaisa's jetpack, and Kaisa being rocketed into a wall hard enough to break the spine of the baby in her arms. Being forced to choose between fighting for her remaining children and saving the one actively dying.

It was a choice that Ahsoka wasn't sure she would have been able to make. She had been forced to leave troopers behind on the battlefield and it destroyed her every time, but to have to make that choice about her own children? If Boba knew, it might change how he looked at Kaisa, but Ahsoka feared it would also erode his father's memory even more.

"Jango shoot. I drop escape pod, missle hit it." Kaisa sniffed. "We call move goteni muun'lan, when we Haat'la Mando'ade."

Ahsoka raised a brow marking. "Laying an egg?" she asked, unsure if she was translating correctly. "Because… because you drop the pod to be blown up?"

" 'Lek." Kaisa looked at Ahsoka with eyes shining with tears. "He think Cassus dead, or will be. My fault. He want kill me, not him."

She sniffled again. "I get away. I make Corellia. Cassus… No does feeling under here." She drew a line under her large bust, but above her navel. "We hide. Jango kill me, take Cassus back if he does finding us. So we hide. I…" she started crying again. "I know Boba and Tiarek alive on Kamino. Not in danger, not like Cassus. So I hide. I pray for my boys one day does finding me. I not expect jetiise with him."

She really hadn't had a choice. Ahsoka's heart twinged with sympathy for the woman who was practically drowning in her own guilt on the bed.

"I not understand how he hurt Tiarek." Kaisa's eyes looked far away. "Boba, he… when almost two year, climb up front of traciyam. Pot of tiingilar does boiling on top, Boba pull off, miss him by inch. I hit him on his shebs, two hit so he not climb again. Jango hit me." Kaisa showed Ahsoka an open palm and huffed a soft laugh. "He speak I hit anyone, I hit him. Never his ad'ikase. He hold ad'ikase in his heart. He never hurt them."

But he had. How broken had Jango become to have hurt Rex the way he had? To abandon him?

"You speak Jango…" Kaisa swallowed hard. "He beat Tiarek? He…"

"Yes." Ahsoka nodded and felt her heart clench. "About a year after you left. He and Boba were going through the things you'd left behind and he walked in on them. He had forbade them from going in it, and he struck Tiarek with the box." She swallowed. "Hard. After his head trauma was treated, he was reconditioned and reassigned to the Marshall Commander batch under Dred Priest."

"Priest?" Kaisa's voice cracked and she doubled over, drowning in black despair. "Ner ad'ika. Ni ceta, ni ceta ner kar'ta."

Ahsoka cautiously examined her aura. She saw no sign of any deceit silvering its edges. Her grief and guilt looked real enough. She strengthened her projection of serenity and waited for Kaisa to catch her breath.

It took her almost a minute for her to compose herself before she sat up, wide-eyed and trembling, and looked at Ahsoka with yellow desperation. "You know…He alive? Or he die in war?"

"He's alive." Ahsoka moved from the chair to the bed, and took Kaisa's hand. "He serves directly under me as a Captain in the 501st clone battalion."

Kaisa blinked, going white with shock, then shook her head. "Good boy," she said laughing, flush with blue relief-pride. "Good boy always. Sweet always. Naughty never, listen Mama always. Take care of kaysh vode."

"That sounds like him." Ahsoka couldn't help but smile. "He goes by Rex, now."

"Rex?" Kaisa raised an eyebrow. "What wrong with Tiarek, eh?"

"I think he remembered it, to an extent. That's why he chose it." Ahsoka shrugged. "Reks'ika. Rex. It makes sense."

Kaisa nodded. "It makes sense," she repeated softly. "Shabla kaminiise. They had no right. No right." She squeezed her eyes shut. "But maybe… maybe better, he not remember me. Boba has pain, much pain. Easier Rex does forgetting. Not open a wound with good, clean scar. Stay heal." She wiped her eyes and turned to the folded blankets, sniffling. "You before see this?" she asked, changing the subject.

Ahsoka shook her head.

Kaisa unfolded the blue blanket. Dozens of tiny tiarek flowers had been cut from cotton and sewn to the front of it in a pattern that mirrored itself in four directions, like a mandala. "Called tivaevae," Kaisa said softly. "Tradition on Concord Dawn, not Mandalore. Buire make together for they ade. Meant as a…" Her hands flailed. "I not know word, ah… symbol speak? Sa'johaa."

Ahsoka thought for a second. "A metaphor?" she asked, as it was the closest thing she could think of to like speak.

Kaisa shrugged. "Not know, but needle, thread, fabric, all sa'johaa. We stitch up our ade and make them strong with thread, weave our fabric and create for them. We make our ad like we make tivaevae." She brushed at an invisible piece of lint. "Not only thread. Holes from needle. We must be gentle, or more big, more big than we can does hiding. We… give violence on our ade, in does making them." She stared at her boots instead of Ahsoka. "But I make one for all my boys. Not finish, but I make. Give on his verd'goten, if return. This for Tiarek."

"It's beautiful." The appliqued flowers had been sewn flush to the front of the lake blue fabric with thousands of miniscule stitches. It was clearly still unfinished, with a half-dozen flowers still loosely basted on and almost a meter of blank blue space between the flowers and the edge, but hundreds of hours must have been poured into it already. Ahsoka glanced back at the other blankets. "But there's four?"

" 'Lek. All need more work. Take more long, only one parent." Kaisa smiled sadly and her aura darkened with grief again. "Cassus." She patted the bright turquoise square, then the lush, fern green square beside it. "And Boba."

"And the orange?" Ahsoka asked, eyeing it curiously.

"Gavin." Kaisa unfolded it. It hadn't been worked on as much, with only a few bright-red laceleaf flowers attached in the center. "Our first son."

Ahsoka nearly fell backwards off the bed. "You have another son?" she asked, her voice pitching up sharply.

"He die." Kaisa's bruised aura retreated on itself, stuck tight to her skin like a bandage. "Death Watch kill him on Galidraan. Five years old." She trailed her hand over the red flowers, her face haunted and distant. "They make me watch."

Ahsoka covered her mouth. The pain in Kaisa's voice was indescribable, an agony that split the Force with a shriek like a knife on porcelain. "I'm sorry," she managed after a few seconds.

Kaisa refolded the blanket. "You take Boba and Ti… Rex, take they tivaevae when you leave. Maybe you finish." She shrugged. "You his ori'vod. Close thing like buir for him."

Ahsoka watched the pain on Kaisa's face echo in her aura. She was dar'buir to Boba, now, and the declaration was as much a wound to her as the gash on the back of Ahsoka's leg. "Boba's staying," she said.

Kaisa's aura turned bright white with shock-disbelief, and her mouth fell open in a small o. "He stay?" she whispered, almost too quietly to hear.

Ahsoka nodded. "He's staying for Cassus. He doesn't want to be separated from his brother again."

"H-he speak, though–" Kaisa began, her voice shaking.

"He's staying. Consider this a fresh start. Cin vhetin." Ahsoka squeezed Kaisa's cold hands. "Give him some time. He's been hurt badly by the adults he's trusted in the past. Don't demand anything of him, show him that you can be trusted. As hard as it may be, he's not ready for you to be Mama again. Not yet."

Kaisa nodded as Ahsoka spoke, pale pink hope swirling around her like smoke. "Any chance, I take," she said desperately. "Any price I pay."

Ahsoka fought the urge to smirk. "In that case, have you ever considered moving to Coruscant?"

"Coruscant?" Kaisa's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. "Dangerous place. Not… Cassus, he not go city in many year…"

"Boba has an invitation to a prestigious academy there." Ahsoka's lip twitched. Anakin would have been proud of her for that not-lie, but an offer of a scholarship was still an invitation even if it was extended out of pity. "I'm sure that a spot could be arranged for Cassus, too."

"I… I think." Kaisa looked disturbed at the notion of moving; her aura matched her face with ugly green disgust.

Ahsoka had to wonder if it was because she was a country girl, or because she just found the notion of living on the Jedi's home planet so despicable.

Kaisa shook her head and straightened her spine. "Now, you does coming with me. You must eat, too skinny. More food. Come. Later speak me, I have tiingilar spices. I give for you later cook, ad'ikase love tiingilar." Kaisa got to her feet and carefully hobbled back out to the karyai, Ahsoka's cold plate in her hand and her coral aura suddenly missing its bruised tinge.

"I've programmed in everyone's private frequency—mine, Plo's, Anakin's, Obi-Wan's, even Master Shaak-Ti's. If you need anything, anything, just call one of us right away." Ahsoka smoothed down the shoulders of Boba's jacket. "Even if one of us can't come, we'll send someone. Someone you can trust."

"Take a breath, Tano," Boba said, smirking down at his kneeling ori'vod.

"I'm breathing just fine." Ahsoka scowled at him and got to her feet. "Can you blame me for being cautious? You can't go more than a day without somebody trying to kill you."

Boba shrugged. "Yeah, well, I got a guard dog now." He jerked his head back at Gotika, standing at the door of the bunker next to Kaisa, glaring pleasantly at their departing guests in the creek bed.

Ahsoka's eyes narrowed. "Yeah," she said, not sounding convinced. "I guess that's true. I'm allowed to be worried a little bit, though, right?"

"Yeah, I don't think I've much say in that. You're a fucking worrywort." Boba smiled like his heart wasn't pounding in his ears.

Ahsoka was leaving. He was staying. It was all over. She had a war to get back to, and he… well, he had a brother that wasn't dead, but who needed to learn how to grow a fucking spine. What he had left of one, anyway. And he had a former mother he needed to somehow convince to leave her bughole and move to Jedi home base. He needed to get to work on her now, or he'd never see a Biscuit Baron again.

"You be a good ori'vod to Cassus, alright? And watch your language, he's sensitive."

Boba snorted. "Oh, you noticed?"

"And when you talk to Kaisa, keep in mind what I told you about what I saw in her aura. Her guilt and remorse… that's all genuine. She didn't want to leave you."

Boba looked away. She wouldn't tell him exactly what Kaisa had said, just that she now understood why she'd made that choice and that he should ask her about it. "So, um, there's a long-range communicator at the cantina. It charges by the second, but we can still talk on holocall. If you want." Boba rubbed his wrists anxiously.

"That's why I put my frequency in your commlink, vod'ika." Ahsoka smiled and opened her arms.

Boba dove in and buried his face in her neck, his eyes suddenly stinging. He felt Kaisa's eyes burn a hole in his shoulder blades. Was it jealousy over freely giving Ahsoka affection, or was she afraid he'd kill Cas in his sleep? "Will you come back for my verd'goten?" he asked, hating how whiny his voice sounded.

"There's no telling where the war will take me, but I will do everything I can to make it back, I promise." She purred and rubbed her soft lek against his cheek.

Boba took a deep breath of her weird, spicy pollen scent and tried to commit it to memory for when he already knew he'd feel alone, even with Cas, and for when Kaisa would inevitably try to mommy him.

He didn't want her to go.

"I don't want to either," Ahsoka said quietly into his scalp. "But we have to let go of each other for now. Our paths might divide here, but it's not for forever. We'll always find our way back to each other."

"Fucking sap." He closed his eyes and tried not to cry.

"Comes with the job." She seemed in no hurry to let him go either. She really was too sweet for her own good, tooth-rotting sweet like a—

"Oh shit, right." Boba sniffled and reluctantly pulled back, shoved his hand in his pocket then pulled the tooth out, hidden in his fist. "I found this on Geonosis when I took your belt off. It fell out." He opened his hand and showed her.

Ahsoka stared in pure shock, her jaw hanging down to her chest. "You've gotta be kidding me," she whispered, gently taking it from him. "You've had it this whole time?"

"Yeah. Not on purpose, I just kept forgetting to give it back to you." Boba awkwardly kicked at the damp moss underfoot.

"I—do you know what this is?"

Boba shook his head. "I've never seen that animal before. Must have been big."

Ahsoka bit her lip and closed her fist. "He was pretty big."

Boba stilled and glanced up at her. "He?" he asked sharply, his eyes darting between the tooth in her hand and her face. "That… that's from a sentient?"

"Os'ika," Cody called. "I know it's hard, but wrap it up. We're going to miss our train."

Ahsoka glared at him. "Go ahead without me, I'll catch up!" she called, then gestured with her head for Boba to follow her. Cody and Kenobi shared an exasperated look but began to climb the steep hill in the opposite direction.

She dragged him to the tiarek grove. "Did you kill somebody?" Boba asked, impressed.

"No. I'm not the one who killed him. I'm the one who took his teeth, though." Ahsoka took a deep breath. "My people have a ritual. We don't execute our murderers and rapists. Instead we pull out their teeth one by one before releasing them to wander clanless in the forest."

It was a pretty hardcore punishment, but Shili was a hardcore place. "Nice." Boba nodded.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "This tooth belonged to a Jedi. Pong Krell."

Boba's eyebrows hit his stubbly hairline. "No shit?"

"I don't think that he's been widely reported on in the media, but, uh…" Ahsoka bit her lip. "There was a battle he led on Umbara. Anakin was called away by the Chancellor and Krell was left in charge of the 501st on the ground. I was in orbit, leading the space battle." She swallowed hard and looked down, and Boba saw tears glinting in her eyes. "We had no idea, but Krell wanted to become a Sith, so he was trying to get the attention of Count Dooku by throwing battles, which he did by killing clones. He had casualty rates ten times that of any other battalion. He used them like cannon fodder. His one and only strategy was to overwhelm the battlefield with clones and attack until they completed their mission, no matter how many died. On Umbara, he… he tricked the 501st and 212th into attacking each other by telling both of them that the enemy had stolen clone armor. Over four hundred men were murdered through friendly fire." She looked away, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Fuck." Boba stared at the tooth. "So you ripped his teeth out?"

Ahsoka nodded. "Yeah. Seemed… seemed like the right thing to do."

"You ever see a bayleg?" Boba asked her and glanced up; she shook her head. "It's a huge, scary, dragon-looking fuck. Nasty creature. My dad had me face one, once. Told me to bring him back a tooth."

"Is this a flying lesson?" Boba asked, craning around to look at the jetpack Dad had just snapped onto his back.

"Sort of. Remember those fluffy little chakaare we flew over on the way here?" Dad spritzed him with something that smelled foul. "This is their piss."

"Dad!" Boba squealed, sticking out his tongue and gagging. "Why would you put pee on me?"

"Because they're the prey of the bayleg."

"The what?" Boba squawked. He heard a roar from deeper inside the cave.

Dad handed him a blaster and grinned. "The bayleg. Go bring me a tooth. I'll wait here."

"How old were you?" Ahsoka asked, crossing her arms and frowning.

"Ten." He snickered at her horrified look. "I fucking lived, obviously. But it tried to eat me, and when I came back I was crying like a bitch and asked Dad why he would do that. He told me it was because now I'd faced my own death and knew true fear, so I'd never have a reason to be afraid of anything else." He shook his head. " 'Course he was wrong about that. I'm afraid of all sorts of shit. Some days I think I'd rather be back with the bayleg. But I've been keeping the teeth of monsters ever since. They remind me that I lived, and they died, because I was stronger than them."

"We don't actually keep them. Dogma's the one who stepped up and finally executed Krell. It's for him, for the ceremony once he's back with us, if he wants to do it." Ahsoka untied a small leather pouch from her belt. "They're not trophies to us. The ritual varies among clans and cultures, but the Binishii, my people, we toss them away, usually into a body of water, while singing our grief. No words, just the emotion of it. It's hard to describe without being there." Ahsoka looked up at him sadly. "It's ironic, you know. I forgot too." She put Krell's tooth in her pouch and withdrew a different one, a more humanoid one with a gold filling in it.

"What the—" Boba glanced up at her. "You keep a jar of these somewhere?"

"No," Ahsoka huffed. "Why do people keep assuming I've got a jar? Why would I have a jar?"

"You're the one pulling teeth out," Boba said, taking it from her and examining it. "So whose was this?"

"It's Aurra's."

He dropped it, just like his heart dropped out of his ass and into Corellia's mantle. He dove to his knees and picked it up immediately with shaking hands, staring at it. Now that he actually looked, he knew exactly which tooth it had been; the second-furthest molar on the bottom right. He could still remember what it tasted like when he kissed her. "I… what the f…" He looked up at Ahsoka, feeling dizzy. "Why? When did you take it?"

"Anakin took it, actually." She sank down on her haunches to be at eye level with him. "He thought I could do the ceremony with you."

We don't execute our murderers and rapists. Boba slowly turned the tooth over in his hand.

"But I think you should keep it." Ahsoka closed his hand over the tooth. "My peoples' way is to throw them away, to dispose of them in a lake or a river so that their memory will be washed away from us. Your way, and your father's way, is to keep the teeth of monsters, and to remember so it makes you strong."

Boba stared at it for a few seconds longer, then nodded decisively and put it in his pocket. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right." He swallowed hard. "Vor entye, ori'vod."

Ahsoka pulled him into a hug and gently pressed her forehead against his in a kov'nyn. "I'm going to miss you," she said quietly, swaying with the breeze. "You're really something else, kid. Thank you for letting me into your life."

"You're not bad." Boba sniffed. "For a Jedi."

"Sure, tough guy." Ahsoka laughed and squeezed him in one last spicy-smelling Togruta hug. "You have to admit, this was unexp—" She suddenly stilled, then tilted her head and clicked with her mouth open. "No way. No, what is he doing here?"

"Who?"

Ahsoka spun, her eyes huge. "Rex?" she squawked, taking off east.

"Are you fucking daft, Tano?" Boba called, jogging after her. "He's on that shitho—oh." No, there was Tiarek, alright, and he had an armful of squealing Togruta rubbing her head all over him and laughing. There was a break in the canopy ahead, and he had put down a Y-Wing neatly in the center of it.

"What are you doing here?" Ahsoka asked once she was back on the ground, blinking like a tooka kit with eyes all shiny from the tears that had popped up when she spoke about Umbara.

Boba took a weary breath. Her teacher had to see this shit all the time, right? Was he okay with it, or was he as stupid as they were?

"The General had a bad feeling. You know the kind. Seeing as you were all out of comm range, he sent me to check in on you." Tiarek yanked Boba into a hug as soon as he was within reach. "You behaving like I told you to?"

"I'm always a fucking delight." Boba closed his eyes and gave the Manda a silent prayer of thanks for letting him say goodbye to his brother one more time. It hurt, knowing that he wasn't going to be seeing him now that he was staying… with…

His heart started pounding and he locked panicked eyes with Ahsoka. "Fuck," they said simultaneously. Tiarek could not go down to that bunker. Kaisa and Cassus were there, and fuck, fuck, this wasn't how he needed to find out—

"What is going on here?" Tiarek asked with a suspicious look.

"Nothing!" Ahsoka said brightly. "Nothing, we were, um, we just forgot something?"

Boba stared at her. Was she lying badly on purpose, or was she that bad at it?

She shot him a look. "We, um, we…"

"She doesn't want you to know that when we first got here, Kaisa sniped at Kenobi and nearly fragged him with a slug," Boba interjected. "Got her all shook up. She knows how protective you all are of your pet wizards."

Tiarek's brows went up. "She almost got General Kenobi?" he asked, turning to her.

Ahsoka nodded solemnly. "He's fine, but she's not very Jedi friendly. It was a hard welcome."

"That's one way of fucking putting it," Boba grumbled, then stilled at the way Ahsoka's eyes had gone perfectly round and black like a porg's.

A sharp whistle sounded from behind them. Boba's heart stopped and he spun to look. "Su'cuy, verd'ika!" Kaisa called out aggressively, her slugthrower butted up against her shoulder, pointed at the ground.

Tiarek immediately put himself in front of them. He took a step forward and snapped into a perfect salute. "CT-7567, Captain Rex of the 501st Clone Battalion, Sergeant," he said briskly, then lowered his hand.

Kaisa dropped the rifle to her waist and stared. "Tiarek?" she asked hesitantly. She put a hand to her chest. "Tiarek… tion'gar kar'tayli ni?"

Tiarek shook his head. "Sorry, Sergeant, early years are a bit fuzzy for me. Got a little too close to a grenade as a cadet."

Boba stared daggers at Kaisa, mindlessly begging the Force that Plo had assured him was in everything that she'd shut up—don't fucking tell him, don't fucking tell him, you have no right, no fucking right—and he felt like he was going to throw up from the way panic was squeezing him. He just knew that if she told him, she'd rip open something that he would never heal from. He'd believed at first that he needed Tiarek to know, needed him to remember but that was before he saw how… fine he was. Boba was lonely, and he thought that Tiarek remembering everything would somehow undo something that they'd lost a decade ago, but Tiarek wasn't torturing himself with the need for answers at night like Boba was. He was fighting a fucking war and watching his vode die on the daily, he didn't need to be haunted by memories of Jango telling him he loved him and trying to murder him on top of it.

Boba was Tiarek's ori'vod long before Cody was in the picture. Back then, it was his job to protect his little brother. It didn't matter who was bigger, Boba was older. He had to watch out for Cassus, now, but that didn't mean he couldn't still protect Tiarek—no, not Tiarek, he had chosen Rex—from this. Boba willed Kaisa to understand that if she said a word, he'd tackle her off the edge of that fucking hill and take them both down to the creek.

Boba could let go of Tiarek, for Rex's sake, and Kaisa would too if she knew what was good for her. He caught Ahsoka's eyes; she looked sad, but nodded in understanding.

Kaisa swallowed hard and gave Boba a small nod. "Wer'cuy," she said in a shaky voice. "I… I before does teaching. I think you before remember me."

"Apologies." He crossed his arms. "So what's this I hear about a sniper shot taken at a High General?"

"Misunderstanding, right?" Boba asked sharply. "She won't do it again."

Kaisa nodded and gave Boba a flat, meek smile. "No. Won't do it again."

Rex harrumphed and turned to Ahsoka. "You're alright, then? Nothing happened that I need to tell the General about?"

"Nope." She gave him a bright smile. "I'm fine, Obi-Wan's fine, everyone's fine."

"If you say so." Rex pulled Boba into a kov'nyn. "Cin vhetin, ner vod," he said quietly. "Don't waste this. Ahsoka worked hard to get you here."

That was a fucking understatement. "I won't," Boba promised Rex.

"Good man." He nodded at Kaisa. "Nice meeting you, Ma'am," he said.

"And you," Kaisa whispered, trying to smile.

"Mind if I hitch a ride to Goran with you?" Ahsoka asked Rex, bumping him with her shoulder.

"Sure, but where's General Kenobi and Cody?"

"Walking back to Bockin proper to catch a turbo-train." Ahsoka shrugged. "But we've got a battle to get to."

Rex chuckled. "I'll brief you on the way there, then." He winked at Boba. "See you around, Boba."

"See you." Boba nodded at him, nearly blind with relief, and Rex turned to go back to the Y-Wing.

Ahsoka pulled Boba into one last, last hug. "This is going to be hard, but I know you can do it," she murmured. "I am so proud of you, Boba, and I am so lucky to know you."

Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum. Boba squeezed his eyes shut and memorized the sound of her purr, but didn't dare say the words out loud. He knew she wasn't allowed to say it back. Nothing was forever, that wasn't the stupid fucking Jedi way.

Ahsoka hugged him tighter, and he wondered if she had heard that thought too. "Vercopa gar mar'eyi mirjahaal, ner vod'ika," she said softly, pulling away after one last rub of her soft lek.

Boba took a deep, shaky breath, "K'oyaci, ori'vod." He meant it literally. If she got her shebs blown off by a battledroid after this mess, he'd pay a Nightsister from Dathomir to bind her stupid fucking ghost to a toilet.

Ahsoka's eyes went wide; she'd heard his thought. She threw her head back and laughed. "Never change, Boba." She let Rex put an arm around her shoulders as they walked back to the Y-Wing.

Boba cupped his hands around his mouth. "Oblivioussayswhat?"

Rex turned and squinted at him. "What?" he called back, and Ahsoka clapped a hand over her mouth too late to stop her bark of laughter.

"Use a condom on the ride back, your kids would be fucking ugly!" Boba bellowed right before they closed their cockpits, and he cackled at their identical looks of mortification and their mouths silently bellowing his name.

Rex shook his head and started up the landing sequence. Ahsoka blew him a kiss as they ascended. Boba tracked them until the ship turned into a tiny dot, then stared at the place in the sky where they disappeared until it all went blurry. He felt cold, even though it was so warm and humid that he was sweating through his jacket.

Ahsoka was gone. He was on his own, again.

Or no. No, he had Cassus now, and he was going to be a good ori'vod to him or kill one of them trying.

Kaisa shifted, in clear discomfort from being on her knee. "Ahsoka bal Rex, eh?" she asked with a small smile.

Boba rolled his eyes. Even fucking Kaisa could see they were more than vode, even if they didn't want to acknowledge it, but that didn't mean he wanted to gossip about them with her. "He's her ori'vod, that's all," he said frostily.

Kaisa nodded and her smile faded. "Tion'gar copaani uj'alayi?" she asked him timidly. "Fresh. I make, not Pinky."

Boba looked at her sideways. "Let's get one thing straight," he said. "You're not my mother anymore. I am here for my brother, not for you. I know we have a lot of shit to talk about, but right now I'm not up to it. I'm going to go to my room, take a nap, and nobody's going to bother me. I don't want fucking Five Nights at Flimpo's down there stalking me, or any of the other droids spying on me. Leave me be. That's all I want from you."

Kaisa nodded and looked away. "Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum, Boba," she said softly. "Darasuum."

"Yeah, that's great. I'm still not fucking calling you Mama." Boba stalked past her and down the hill, his hand throbbing. He'd squeezed the tooth so tight that he'd drawn blood with its razor sharp roots. Awesome. He was off to a great fucking start.

He strode over to Cassus, who had parked his hoverchair at the top of the ramp and was casting something onto a set of knitting needles. Buddy was perched on the back of his chair, playing soft quetarra music. "Are they gone?" Cas asked, his hands still making complicated loops around a needle while he looked at Boba.

"Yeah." The song sounded familiar, like an old memory, but he couldn't place it. Boba swallowed hard and tried to breathe normally. "I'm gonna lay down for a bit, alright? I'll see you at dinner."

"Alright. Gotika made your bed up." Cas looked back down at his knitting and started humming along with Buddy's music.

Boba jogged to his room and locked the door behind him. He looked around. It was plain, with just an empty wardrobe, an armor stand with his beskar carefully displayed, and a bed of white linens with a blanket made out of a hundred crocheted squares laid over the top. Robert the Rancor and the silver tooka doll had been placed together on the pillow.

He kicked off his boots and laid down on his new bed, facing away from the beskar, and let loose a muffled sob into Robert's belly.

Cody checked his chronometer and let out an uncharacteristic growl. "Sir, you go on ahead. I'll run back and make sure Os'ika didn't fall in a hole."

Obi-Wan bit down a laugh. "Cody, you are aware that I know what that nickname means, correct?" he asked.

Cody met his eyes shamelessly. "Is it inaccurate?" he asked dryly.

"Not in the slightest." They both snickered, and Obi-Wan's commlink blinked with an incoming transmission. He raised an eyebrow and opened the channel.

"Master, you're never going to believe who I ran into," Ahsoka said wryly.

Cody leaned in. "In the backwoods of Corellia? We know for sure that all that poison's out of your system, right? You're not snuggled up to a mother nexu in a den somewhere?"

Ahsoka laughed. "Oh, he's definitely a mother nexu."

"Very funny, Commander," a familiar, disgruntled voice said.

Obi-Wan and Cody both did a double take at his wrist. "Rex?" Cody asked incredulously. "What the heck are you doing all the way out here?"

"General Skywalker had a bad feeling. Sent me to check it out."

Obi-Wan sighed. "Of course he did," he said wearily. "And I suppose simply sending a message to us was out of the question?"

"To be fair, Sir, you were out of range." Rex sounded like he was smiling.

"Did you…" Cody cleared his throat and met Obi-Wan's eyes nervously. "Did you meet Kaisa?"

"Yes. She seemed nice enough, though more timid than I expected for a Mando."

Cody almost choked. "Is that so?" he asked, his voice squeaking comically. "Did she say anything to you?"

"Besides hello?" Rex asked. "Not really?"

"Oh." Cody looked relieved.

"Is it true she shot you, General?"

"Why would Boba lie about her shooting Obi-Wan?" Ahsoka snipped.

"I didn't say he lied, I'm only asking."

Obi-Wan could almost hear Rex's eyes rolling. "A misunderstanding, Captain, no worries," he assured him. "Boba will be perfectly safe with her."

"If you say so, Sir."

"I'm hitching a ride to Goran with Rex, Master. I'll see you soon."

"Are you leaving now?" Obi-Wan asked, dismayed.

"My instructions were to join Skyguy as soon as I returned to the Temple, Master," she reminded him.

"Yes, but…" Obi-Wan stopped, pulled himself together and stopped trying to argue his illogical case. "Yes, that makes sense for you to skip the trip back to Coruscant. Very well. Be careful on Goran, Padawan. May the Force be with you."

"And you, Master." Ahsoka disconnected the channel, and moments later Obi-Wan felt her Force signature fade as she presumably entered hyperspace.

Cody frowned. "Well, that was… abrupt."

"Indeed." Obi-Wan pulled his cloak around him and tried not to visibly sulk. "Let's keep moving, then."

"Yes, Sir." Cody was clearly unhappy, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he walked. They walked in silence while Obi-Wan stared at the ground and brooded. Something had changed after he'd apologized to her. She'd not broken their bond, nothing so dramatic as that, but it was different. Lighter, in a way, though that didn't make sense. It had never felt like a weight before, but now he keenly felt a new absence, rather like an overdue haircut that was shorter than desired.

"Give her a bit more time, Sir," Cody said after a few minutes of listening to only the starry-leaved strings of leaves whip in the wind and a convor that occasionally hooted sadly overhead. "She'll come around."

"She has come around, Commander," he said pleasantly. "This is what that looks like."

Cody clearly didn't like that answer, and his unease thickened the Force around him. He was far too used to coming up with a solution to any problem that came his way. "I… expected this to end differently, I think," he admitted.

So had Obi-Wan, though he'd never admit it. "How so?" he asked Cody anyway.

"I suppose I expected the two of you to have a go at each other, but then go on as you always have. Not sure I like the way this is turning out."

Obi-Wan patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "Ahsoka and I will always hold deep affection for one another," he reassured him. "But nothing is permanent except the Force. We have both become unduly attached to who we were to one another. It's best that we both let go and move on."

Cody huffed, still displeased. "Are you sure, Sir?"

"We must, for her sake," Obi-Wan answered blithely. "She cannot heal unless we do. Unfortunately, my deception has had longer-lasting repercussions than I anticipated." He never would have agreed to the Rako Hardeen mission if he had known the real cost.

Cody frowned. "Seems a bit… extreme, is all."

"It isn't. It is the foundation of our beliefs, after all. We must not allow ourselves to become so attached to the past that it impacts our future." It was the truth, so why did it hurt so badly? Obi-Wan had told Mace that he understood that his actions had consequences, but he hadn't anticipated that the consequences would be… so permanent.

Ahsoka forgave everyone everything. She couldn't help it, it was part of her nature. She could feel when one's remorse was genuine and she always, always capitulated, but she hadn't in this case and he had no one but himself to blame. She would grant a blank slate to everyone except for him, but their slate was far too full to be wiped clean. A lifetime of memories had been etched past its surface and into the foundation beneath.

Their slate needed to be discarded entirely and started anew, and so he would. He would do whatever Ahsoka needed to be able to heal. No matter what words he chose, nothing seemed to stop the bleeding. Clinging to her even harder had done nothing but left new bruises behind, so now he would do the opposite. He would let her go for her own peace. His attachment to her was the shrapnel in the wound causing it to fester, the broken thread causing the whole tapestry to unravel.

Kyber did not shatter as easily as Kaisa Skirata seemed to believe, and a real buir knew that sometimes one had to let their child go, especially when holding onto them would harm them far more than help.

"Bo-bi," Ahsoka said with a quivering lip and eyes almost completely swallowed up by her pupils. She waved at Obi-Wan over Plo's shoulder as he walked away. "Bo-bi!" They turned the corner and were gone.

They broke the treeline, and Obi-Wan could see the train station just ahead. "I've been meaning to ask you, Sir, what does mo nighean mean?" Cody asked.

"My girl," Obi-Wan answered with a smile he didn't feel. He didn't tell him that it also meant daughter.

Notes:

MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS Ori/vod/ika: big/brother/little Dar'buir: no longer parent. Essentially a parental divorce/disownment Udesii: calm, easy Cas'ika: Little Cas Gotika: Little Machine Jango nari taabi'an: Jango is marching (marching being a metaphor for the afterlife) Elek/ 'lek: Yes Ba'vodu: Uncle Buir/e: Parent/Parents Aliit orshya tal'din: Family is more than blood Haat'la Mando'ade: True Mandalorians, a mercenary group composed of mainly former Mandalorian royal soldiers formed by Jaster Mereel, who was considered rightful king (Mand'alor) of Mandalore. Jango took over leadership (and possession of the darksaber!) after Jaster's death Kih'ad: small child (ad'ika is the more cutesy and commonly used term) Gotaliise: Gotal people Kaminiise: Kaminoans Ner sen'tra: My jetpack Goteni muun'lan: Laying an egg Traciyam: stove Jetiise: Jedi (plural) Tiingilar: Spicy Mandalorian stew Ad'ikase: Children Ner ad'ika, ni ceta, ner kar'ta: My baby, I'm so sorry, my heart Kaysh vode: His brothers Reks'ika: Little Tiarek (s added for ease of saying, as otherwise it would be a hard stop in the center of the word) Shabla kaminiise: Fucking Kaminoans Sa'johaa: Metaphor Verd'goten: Mandalorian rite of passage into adulthood, usually done at 13 Cin'vetin: Fresh start (literally fresh snow on a field) Karyai: Large central living chamber of a traditional Mandalorian home Os'ika: Little shit, a pun on the normal diminuative of Ahsoka, Ahs'ika Chakaare: Assholes Vor entye: Thank you Kov'nyn: headbutt Su'cuy: Hi Tion'gar kar'tayli ni: Do you know me? Wer'cuy: It was ages ago Ni kar'tayli darasuum: I love you/I hold you in my heart forever Vercopa gar mar'eyi mirjahaal: May you find peace of mind K'oyaci: Stay alive Bal: and Tion'gar copaani uj'alayi: Do you want some uj cake? MAOR-GRASTA TRANSLATIONS Mo nighean: my girl/daughter OTHER NOTES GIRL YOU'RE NOT EXPENDABLE BOBI LOVES YOU HE ALMOST STRAIGHT UP MURDERED SOMEONE FOR YOU AHHHHH *is dragged off stage by a comically large shepherd's hook*

Taglist: @starwarsficnetwork, @soliloquy-of-nemo Dividers: @saradika-graphics

Strongly recommended listening for this chapter

Goran CXXV was the smallest, farthest terrestrial planet from the massive star of its namesake system. It didn't have a breathable atmosphere, but it did have a surface that had been glassed by a particularly violent solar flare from the blue supergiant into pure trinitite, which was in high demand by both mercenary miners and Techno Union industrialists for use in radiation-resistant microchips. A legion of battle droids had taken the planet a month ago. If they didn't take it back now, there wouldn't be a planet left once it was stripped to the core.

Anakin drummed his fingers on his vambraces, thinking hard as he stared at the holomap of their drop zone. Something was breaking his concentration, an annoying metaphysical itch of a feeling that felt like an invisible sand flea had crawled down his back and latched onto his skin. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.

"You alright, Sir?" Rex asked on his left, leaning in with a low voice.

"Yeah, fine, I'm just…" Anakin knew it wasn't an actual itch, it was the Force telling him that something was wrong and he'd regret it if he kept ignoring it. "Let me get this call out of the way, first."

"As you say, Sir." Rex leaned back. Across from them, Appo popped the seal on his helmet and hooked it on his belt.

"Ridge, get Master Koon up on holo for me," Anakin ordered.

"Right away, Sir."

Plo Koon's hologram flickered into view, Commander Wolffe standing at attention beside him. "Koh-to-yah, young Skywalker."

"Koh-to-yah, Master Plo." Anakin bowed. "I hope the journey here has treated you well."

"Oh, indeed, as did the one previous." Plo chuckled. "Captain Rex, Sergeant Appo, it's good to see you both. Have you had a chance to review the simulations Wolffe prepared for you?"

Anakin rolled his shoulders again, trying not to twitch. "We have. I wanted to run an idea by you, if you don't mind."

"By all means."

Anakin brought up a topographic map of the surface. "Taking a look at what has bounced back from the scouting team, there's suspected to be a large ipsium deposit in sector eighteen. This is obviously not where we want to be staging a firefight."

"Agreed." Master Plo tucked his talons into his sleeves. "Unfortunately, that is also where there's the highest likelihood of a ground ambush. Those valleys are rife with blind spots."

"Exactly." Anakin pointed at a small canyon between two jagged, trinitite hills. "I'd like to send in a small team to see if we can get this pack of B1's away from the ipisium. I'd prefer we recapture the sector without blowing it into a crater the size of ten limmie fields, not to mention destabilizing the neighboring plateau."

"Agreed. Excellent catch, Anakin."

Anakin kept a neutral face but his back did straighten a little. "I'm thinking that we have Appo lead Akul Platoon down to these coordinates, let them lure the B1's over to the canyon to swing around behind here." Anakin pointed to a small dead end. "We'll box them in, have a LAAT/i grab Akul before they get pinned down, then you mop up with a bombing run. Hopefully we can clean up the battlefield and lower the odds of blowing the thing sky high."

"Any additions, Commander?" Plo turned to Wolffe.

"Sounds solid to me, Sir."

"Let me run some sims so we can get our timing down. I'll send them over to you as soon as I can, Master." Anakin jumped like something bit him.

"Are you alright, Anakin?" Plo's head tilted curiously.

"Just fine, Master." Anakin smiled a little too wide.

"We shall speak soon then, I hope." Master Plo disconnected the channel with a bow.

Anakin shook his arms and legs out as soon as the hologram disappeared, the glowing warmth from Plo's compliment quickly fading at the reminder that something was wrong. Kriff, he had a bad feeling about something; he had no idea what, but if he had to guess, it concerned his conspicuously absent sidekick that normally would be running the simulations for him and complaining about it the entire time.

Ahsoka was with Obi-Wan and Cody, taking Boba to go meet his mom and get his armor back. She was fine. He was being a worrywort for nothing. She was probably just… arguing with Obi-Wan. Hopefully she was letting him have it and getting it all out of her system. He couldn't message her, as all of them would be out of comm range for the day; rural Corellia wasn't exactly flush with public long-range communications that they could tap into.

"What's eating you, Sir?" Rex asked wryly, looking him up and down.

"I've got a weird feeling." Anakin swiped through the holomap. "You haven't heard from the kid, have you?"

"No," Rex said. "Cody said that they'd be off-grid for a while. Public holonet connection doesn't go past Bockrin limits." He paused. "When you say a weird feeling…"

"Yeah, one of those." Anakin brought up a bomber simulation. "Maybe it's nothing. I can worry about it later. Right now, we need to focus on the mission. Let's get our timing nailed down so Appo's boys don't get turned into falumpeset cheese."

"I appreciate that, Sir," Appo deadpanned from the other side of the table. "I'll head down and start prep, if that's alright with you."

"Absolutely, Sergeant. Dismissed." Anakin returned Appo's parting salute and turned his attention back to the holotable to start throwing numbers into his flight simulations.

Ten minutes later the feeling wasn't going away, no matter how much Anakin tried to stomp it down, and what was worse was that now his knee was throbbing. Well, not his knee, it was actually a few inches below his knee on the back of his calf, but it was so sore that he figured his knee had to be the source. Had he pushed it during his katas that morning?

"Sir?" Rex finally asked, fed up with watching him shift his weight and make annoyed noises.

"Ugh." Anakin let out a long groan and let his head droop. "Do me a favor, Rex, and–"

"Eight hours."

Anakin popped his head up. "What?"

"From here to Corellia. Eight hours in a hyperspace ring."

Anakin winced. "I hate to even ask."

"No you don't, Sir." Rex sounded amused under his helmet. "If I leave now I can be back before the fighting's completely over."

"We're not even staging for another twelve hours. Plo's still got all of our AT-TEs on his Venator for maintenance. I'll be shocked if we fire a shot within twenty hours." Anakin slung an arm around his captain's shoulder and gave him a conspiratorial squeeze. "I owe you one."

Rex laughed. "Vaughn's in charge of Jaig Platoon until I'm back. Not Jesse, I don't care what he tells you. Vaughn."

Anakin laughed loudly and patted him on the back, relief washing over him like a rainstorm. "I'll send Skirata's coordinates to your commlink. Get going, Captain. There's a ticket to a Gungan shaak roast in it for you if you make it back before Plo realizes you're gone."

"Don't worry, Sir. I'll update you as soon as I'm on the ground." Rex gave him a parting salute and left the bridge at a pace brisk enough to set his kama swishing.

Anakin turned his attention back to the holotable, feeling like a bantha had been lifted off his shoulders, and started the simulation over.

The room around Boba exploded into action. Cassus buried his face in his hands and started sobbing, clearly horrified at what he'd just done; Gotika raised her glowing palms and aimed at Kenobi, and his mother swung a knife at Cody. The trooper ducked the blow and snared her hand before she could slash again. He yanked her arm forward and cracked her elbow over his knee, forcing her to drop the knife with the strike to her nerve, then put her in a headlock, drew his carbine, and held it to Gotika's faceplate with his free hand.

"Kid, stop crying and take the droid to your room," Cody said calmly, like he didn't have a squirming, snarling Mandalorian fighting to get loose under one arm.

"Mama…" Cassus whimpered.

She wrenched herself out of Cody's grip and pushed her hair out of her face, but didn't try to attack again. "Udesii, Cas'ika. Mama ven'cabuo cuun, ner ad'ika. Ni kar'tayli darasuum."

Cassus' lip quivered. "Al–"

"Ke'cuyoli gar haav'yamika. Ke'hiibi Gotika bal beskar'ade. Tion'jate?" She whistled and Pinky appeared a few seconds later.

Cassus nodded miserably then hung his head. "Jate, Mama." He hovered to the bedroom hallway, followed by Gotika, Pinky, and Buddy quivering in a little ball on his shoulder. He turned and gave Boba a last, desperate look. "Please don't hurt her," he begged, then disappeared. His bedroom door beeped with three descending notes as he locked it behind him.

"Don't fucking move, bitch," Boba spat, pressing the WESTAR against her temple again.

"Boba, stop this," she growled in response. "Jetiise ne'baati par gar, ner ad'ika. Ni–"

"Shut. The fuck. Up." Boba hissed the words through gritted teeth and pushed the blaster harder. "You're a fucking monster. You tried to fucking kill us!"

"Nayc gar!" she barked. "Beskar'ade be'Cassus ne ru'leneda gar, bic du'cari."

"Sure, the drones were just delaying us, not shooting to kill," Boba said mockingly. He wanted to pull the trigger. Behind them, Ahsoka thrashed around in Kenobi's arms, whimpering like a beaten massiff. "Sit the fuck down."

"You does making mistake, ner ad'ika," she said softly, but didn't fight Boba as he pushed her over to one of the few chairs with armrests.

Cody yanked off her cuirass and gauntlets and ejected a length of whipcord, then began to tie her to the chair with the same inescapable knots he'd used on Ordo. "Now, Sarge, you're going to–"

"I know you," his mother interrupted, watching him. "Jetii before speak your name Cody, 'lek? You are–"

"CC-2224, Sergeant," Cody said stoically, crossing his arms. "I remember you. You specialized in close-quarters combat and knifework."

"Cody." She smiled. "Sound like kote. I before speak you what it mean, 'lek?"

"Yes." Boba saw him bite back the automatic Sir that nearly followed it. "Glory. But like I said back then, I don't care about glory. I care about ner vode." Cody leaned down until he was at eye level with her. "And you just poisoned my vod. Tell me where the antidote is."

She blinked in surprise. "Jetii not your–" she began.

"Don't you dare try to tell me who is and isn't vode to me," Cody said silkily, and Boba felt a shiver go down his spine at his tone. "Commander Tano is a vod in all but genes. She has fought at my side and my brothers' side for years. She says the Rememberance, she leads from the front, she's put her life on the line for us more times than I can count. Now tell me where the antidote is–" Cody brandished the knife he had just taken from her, " –or I start cutting things off."

She scoffed. "Do you think you scare me, ad'ika?" she growled.

"I know he does," Boba snapped. "You're not used to seeing them grown. All you can see is Jango. He scares the hell out of you, I can practically smell the piss in your pants."

Her face screwed up in anger. "You forget, Boba," she snapped. "I Mama. I raise you, I nurse you on my breast, I hold you in my heart second I see your face."

"And then you fucked off!" Boba snarled, eyes stinging. "I don't care if you loved me once. You obviously don't anymore, so tell us where the antidote fucking is."

"How you speak it?" She looked horrified. "I never, never stop, Bo'ika, you believe me. I have no choice when I leave."

"I don't care." Boba's face was wet and he didn't know how long it had been that way. "You tell me where the fucking antidote is, now."

His mother looked at him with heartbreak plain on her face. "Mama kar'tayli darasuum, ner Bo'ika."

Boba saw red. "I fucking hate you," he said venemously, then shot her in her exposed knee.

She shrieked at the top of her lungs and bent over in pain, while the rest of the room jumped a foot in the air. "I need to focus!" Kenobi barked; one hand hovered over Ahsoka's rancid blue knife wound, the other over her heart. "Do not fire that infernal thing inside again!"

"Fine." Boba grabbed the knife Cody had taken from his mother, fisted the bitch's curly black hair into a handle, then tugged her head as far back as he could without breaking her neck. He held the knife an inch away from her eye. "I'm not going to fucking ask again, you evil cunt," he spat. "Because if you don't tell me, I'm going to dig out your eyes one at a time and make Cassus fucking eat them." He dug her nails into her scalp and bared his teeth. The tilted blade caught the firelight at just the right angle; he saw the subtle rainbow sheen on the kal's edge. "This one has manax root on it too, doesn't it?" Boba whispered. "But you won't give it up for yourself, we both know you're too stubborn for that. How about I go see what Cassus is up to–"

"Boba!" She gasped. Her beskar-colored eyes were already bugged out from the angle he held her head at, but now they bulged even further from terror, or maybe horror; he could have asked Ahsoka which one if she hadn't been poisoned for no fucking reason at all.

"You don't think I'll do it?" Boba seethed. He wanted so badly to put the knife in her eye, slip it behind the globe and sever her optic nerve, scoop up to pop it right out–

"He your brother," his mother said, trembling.

"That would mean that you're my mother. And you aren't. Not anymore." He spat in her face. "Gar cuy dar'buir, shabla dalgaan."

"Boba…" his– no, Kaisa, whispered.

"I choose my family, now. I chose Ahsoka, and she chose me too. She's my ori'vod." Boba's voice cracked and he tasted bile. "I swear, I will jam this fucking knife down Cassus' throat if that's what I have to do to save my sister, so tell me where the antidote is. Fair trade, right? His safety for hers?"

Kaisa's eyes rolled desperately to Cody.

"I'd do what he says, Sergeant," Cody deadpanned. "He's a civilian and a citizen of the Republic. I have no authority to tell him not to do anything."

Her big silver eyes rolled back over to Boba, full of tears. "Go out, walk creek. Follow until see tiareke. I before bury there, over by bush." She swallowed hard. "I plant for gar vod, Bo–" She froze when the poison blade kissed her eyelashes.

"General, we're going now." Cody put his helmet back on and picked up his carbine.

"I'll stay here," Kenobi said, still concentrating with his eyes closed. "I've slowed the poison down enough to where we should have a bit of time if she stays calm and you hurry, but I need to maintain the trance."

"Roger that. Come on, kid." Cody put a hand on his shoulder.

Boba let go of Kaisa's hair and tucked the blade into his pocket. "You better hope we fucking find it in time," he spat. He looked at Ahsoka one last time, moaning and twisting like she was on fire inside, then turned and followed Cody out into the storm before he put the dagger in Kaisa's heart.

They'd only made it five meters away from the door before it made the same three-note melody as Cassus' door had when he locked it. "Fuck," Boba said faintly. If the bunker was locked, they didn't have the ordinance to get back in. Even if they found the antidote in time they wouldn't be able to give it to Ahsoka, she'd be dead and they'd be fucking useless out here and–

"Boba!" Cody barked through his vocabulator. He went to one knee in front of him. "Focus, trooper. We have a mission to complete. Commander Tano is counting on us to get her that antidote, so that's what we're going to do. We don't have time to waste panicking. General Kenobi will figure out a way to let us back in."

Boba stared at Cody, caught between laughing, crying, and punching him; he wondered if that was the speech he usually used on shinies when they were on their first drop, trying not to soil themselves. "Sure thing, Commander," he choked.

"Good man. Now let's move!"

Boba cursed Cody's long fucking legs as he hustled behind him, trying not to trip over the slick pebbles. They ran through the pouring rain until the dry – or not so dry anymore – creekbed ended. Just ahead, there was a ring of wide-leafed flower bushes that looked nothing like anything else in the forest around Bockrin.

"Right there. See those flowers?" Boba pointed at the bushes dotted with small, pale, yellow-white flowers, curled up in protective buds from the storm.

"Those are tiarek flowers, eh?" Cody held out a hand and helped Boba down the steep hillside.

"Yeah." Lightning strobed overhead, thunder crashing moments later.

"Well, the name's accurate." Cody turned on his headlamp and shined it around the flower bushes.

"No." Boba used the flashlight on his commlink to search underneath the dark-green canopy, but saw nothing. "Where the hell…" he whispered to himself. "I don't get it. I don't see anything out of place, do you?"

"She must have put the sod back," Cody said. "I'll start on this side, you go the other way. Work in a circle, we'll find it."

"We don't have anything to dig with," Boba said, trying not to shake. They didn't have time for this banthashit, they needed the antidote now. Kenobi had said she had time but they had to hurry, and if they had to dig up every single bush–

"You've still got her knife," Cody reminded him. He'd already yanked out his own vibroblade and was carefully cutting at the grassy ground, trying to see if anything was looser than normal.

"Right." Boba started poking around in the grass under the bushes, trying not to panic again. He just had to keep looking, he'd find it. Ahsoka's Force or whatever would guide them. Hopefully.

He found nothing under the first bush, nothing under the second, and by the time he had crawled on his hands and knees under the third he was shaking so badly that he could barely loosen the dirt. He was going to be too late, wasn't he? Ahsoka had almost died for him going after the armor on Geonosis, but it was his own mother who would be the one to actually finish her. The armor was cursed. He should have let it rot with whatever was left of Dad in that bughole. His soul didn't deserve to be retrieved.

Boba continued to dig, hating himself more and more every moment that went by without finding it. He was useless, nothing more than the defective clone of a murderer. All this time, he'd thought that Dad had to have had a good reason to shoot Mama and Cas down. He couldn't have imagined what it was, but there had to be some reason.

"Mama wanted you and Tiarek to come too, but Dad wouldn't let you leave. He kept telling her that he couldn't go and she wasn't allowed to either because of the clause in her contract. Ten years, that was the deal."

He was enforcing her fucking contract. She wanted to leave because Cassus had powers, obviously, and she was right when she said the longnecks would have cut him open and taken his cells for their clones. But Dad wouldn't let her leave, and when she'd tried he shot their ship out of the sky. It was something that Boba had known his whole life had happened, but he'd trusted that his dad had a reason. Nobody just shot their wife and kid out of the sky for nothing, and his father had a code of honor. He had to have a good reason.

"Listen well, Boba, and remember our code. Be polite to clients, especially to enemies. Never complain; never say more than necessary. Face your fears. Die with valor. He who hires my hand, hires my whole self." Dad looked down at him. "And remember, never tell the truth in a trade."

The only reason Jango Fett needed was his fucking name on a signature line. Whoever hired him hired his whole self, after all.

Boba crawled to the fourth bush, gulping down silent sobs and trying not to puke. He was thankful for the rain, in a way; it made digging easier, but more importantly Cody couldn't see what a little crybaby bitch he was.

Every memory was poisoned by knowing. Dad playing quetarra and singing to Cassus, helping Tiarek blow out birthday candles, falling asleep on the sofa during holofilms, taking Boba on jobs, showing him how to fly the Slave I, teaching him how to shoot, telling him he loved him–

"He told me he loved me every day. Even when he was mad at me because I'd done something stupid or messed up, he still always told me he loved me."

Was everything some sort of act? Were Jango's sons ever anything but pets to him, pets that had to be put down once they were too disobedient? He'd shot down a ship with Cas on it. He'd almost beaten Tiarek to death and had him reconditioned afterwards. What would he have done to Boba if he'd lived?

Boba crawled to the fifth bush, feeling like a dog. He was no better than Jango in the end, who was he kidding? He'd threatened to poison Cassus, he'd threatened to feed him his own mother's eyeballs. What the fuck was wrong with him? Was he rotten down to his DNA? Jango's DNA?

He wanted to say it was because he just wanted to save his sister at any cost, but he'd be a fucking liar if he did. He wanted to hurt Kaisa. He still wanted to, he wanted her to feel a fraction of what he was feeling inside now that he knew that she had been alive this whole time and had left them both there, had accepted that they were someone else's property and gotten on her ship to leave anyway.

Kal had known she had survived, had somehow been in contact with her, but she'd hidden herself and Cassus away. She hadn't tried to get them back. She probably hadn't even asked about them, just pretended that they never existed. Maybe she'd added their names to the Remembrance after her parents' names and Gavin. It was probably easier to pretend that your kids were dead instead of acknowledging that you'd abandoned them.

"Why now?"

That's what Cassus had asked. He hadn't been surprised that Boba was alive, only that he'd shown up.

"He's dead, isn't he?"

Boba had meant that he had nowhere else to go, but maybe Cassus thought that Boba knew they were alive and it was only because their father was dead that he could finally find them safely.

Ahsoka would be disgusted with him if she knew what he'd threatened to do to Cassus, and she'd be right to be. Whatever had happened to his brother, it had led to Kaisa keeping him soft. It wasn't his fault. Maybe… maybe if they made it through this, that could change. He couldn't consider Kaisa his mother anymore, not after everything she had done, but Cassus didn't deserve to be disowned. She was the one who had separated them, Cas never had a say in it.

Boba moved onto the seventh bush, then the eighth, then by the time he got to the ninth he was crying too hard to see straight in the pouring rain. He already knew he wasn't going to find it. Ahsoka was dying, but there was no larty coming to save them this time. She had a fucking Jedi Master doing everything he could for her and it still wasn't enough.

Boba couldn't pull through for her. He was a fucking failure in every way that mattered. His hand tightened on the kal. So much for a fair fucking trade.

"Never tell the truth in a trade."

Fuck.

"Fair trade, right? His safety for hers."

The world spun around him as he realized what she'd done. "It's not here." Boba looked over at Cody, shoulder deep in a tiarek bush and covered in mud, and felt panic claw at his insides like he'd swallowed a wolf. "Cody, it's not fucking here! She just wanted us out of the bunker! She's going to kill them!"

Ahsoka's lekku were twitching, curled up on themselves unnaturally. The capillaries and veins closest to the surface of her skin had turned dark blue, eerily mirroring the image that was still forever burned into Obi-Wan's brain of her curled up on herself in a crumpled heap, tainted with Dark Side corruption.

At least the manax root hadn't affected her eyes. He didn't have to stare down at his little girl and see yellow glaring back. Her pupils were so blown that he could see the reflection of firelight in them and she twitched constantly, her jaw clenched in pain.

"Bobi…" Ahsoka said weakly, still tucked against his chest like a child.

"Easy, mo nighean," he said soothingly, scratching little circles at the root of her rear lek and rocking her.

"Cràdh mo chnàmhan," she mumbled. Her brain couldn't seem to decide on a language to speak, but she didn't understand anything but Basic whenever Obi-Wan replied. He feared her brain was beginning to swell.

"All of your bones hurt, or a specific place?" He kept scratching her lek. Her chest vibrated with a weak purr.

"All."

"Hurt only worse from now on," Kaisa said quietly. Cody had tied her wrists together tight enough for her hands to turn red, and she held her wounded knee at an unnatural angle. Blood had begun to pool under her boot. "Bring Boba back, and leave. She may live if you hurry."

Obi-Wan glared at her while Ahsoka shivered in his arms. "K'uur," he said icily.

"Bic cuyi ner yaim, chakaar."

"Ni ne'baati."

Ahsoka laughed into his robes. "Thas' rude," she mumbled. "There are other ways of… altering speech. Instead of shut up."

Obi-Wan craned his head to look down at her. "What?" he asked.

"Shut up. Ndi zoipa kunena. Plo sakonda." She nuzzled deeper into his robes. "You used to call me a tick," she said through a mouthful of linen.

"Call you…" Obi-Wan laughed softly as he remembered. "Oh. Oh, that's right, I did call you that, didn't I? I'd forgotten." He smiled and hugged her tighter. "My little tick."

If only she was still as small and easy to hold as she had been back then. A remarkably portable little creature, by four Ahsoka had mastered the skill of clinging to him while bearing enough of her own weight so that he would barely even notice he was holding her until she shifted dramatically, or if he needed to change his robes. He'd walked into more than one fresher with her sneakily hanging off his back.

"Am I dying?" Ahsoka asked softly. Questing fingers danced over the back of his head, seemingly searching for a long-gone Padawan braid to tug on.

Obi-Wan's heart raced hard enough to burst from his ribcage. He forced it to calm, then refocused the healing trance he had laid upon her. "No," he answered immediately. "You are not dying, Ahsoka. I've slowed down the absorption of the poison. You are going to be fine." He kissed her sweaty forehead; she was boiling hot to the touch from a dangerously high fever. "You'll be just fine, mo nighean," he continued over her purring. "We need to keep your heart rate nice and slow until Cody returns. There we go. Take a little rest. You're safe. I've got you."

Ahsoka's breathing slowed and deepened. The room went silent except for the crackling of the firepit. "Tion'solet gar kar'tayli kaysh?" Kaisa asked after a minute.

"What makes you think I know her?" Obi-Wan asked sarcastically. "I've obviously never met this girl in my life." Ahsoka stirred and whimpered in his arms, twitching pitifully. "I'm sorry, little one. Keep resting." Ahsoka's breaths turned slow and even again. She wasn't sleeping but not quite awake, instead lingering in the twilight between the two.

Kaisa watched him with a thoughtful expression. "Gar ori'canara, ni mirdi," she said quietly.

Obi-Wan heaved a long sigh. "Yes, a long time," he whispered.

Kaisa rolled her eyes. "Boba speak you know Mando'a."

"Yes, I'm fluent."

"So speak it," Kaisa said with a resentful look on her face.

"I'm not in the mood to make anything easy on you, actually, so no." Obi-Wan gave her a brittle smile. "It seems like you could use the practice anyway."

Kaisa snorted. "My Basic enough."

"Tion'vaii Boba?" Ahsoka mumbled.

"He's outside, dear. He and Cody'll be back soon. Don't worry."

Ahsoka sniffled loudly. "I'm sorry."

Obi-Wan craned his neck down. "Whatever for?" he asked, bewildered.

"Za kale." She nuzzled further into his robes. "Bha mi eas-urramach."

"Don't you worry about that." Obi-Wan continued to rock her and closed his eyes, regretting every complaint he'd made about her attitude. He had to focus on the moment and not dwell in the past. For now, he had done everything possible. He had reached out with the Living Force to dissolve as much of the poison in her bloodstream as he could and slowed her metabolism, but she had absorbed so much already. It was ravaging her system like a rancor in a glass factory. There was nothing he could do but watch her suffer, and the one person who knew exactly where the antidote was wasn't about to share its location more specifically than over by bush.

Force suggestions wouldn't work on her, he could already see that, and trying too hard would only break her mind. There was nothing else to do except maybe beat it out of her. It was a more tempting proposition than he was comfortable admitting, sitting there with Ahsoka twitching in his arms as she faded slowly like a spider who'd been sprayed with insecticide. The urge to put his hands around the Mandalorian's throat and squeeze the answer out of her grew stronger with each passing moment.

"You hold her in your heart," Kaisa said suddenly, breaking the silence.

Obi-Wan glared at Kaisa. You love her is what she meant; holding someone in your heart was how it was stated in Mando'a. "Of course I do," he said quietly. "I've known her since she was three. I've watched her grow from a sweet, curious child into a strong, talented young woman with a heart filled with endless compassion. When her training is complete, she will be a far greater Jedi than I could ever hope to be."

A crash echoed from the hallway that led to the bedrooms, followed by a loud sob. Kaisa flinched in her chair and looked at her feet.

"Cassus?" Ahsoka mumbled.

"Presumably," Obi-Wan answered. "He's been crying in his room since you fell ill. I got the impression that he was terrified to use the Force in front of two Jedi."

"Not your Force," Kaisa snarled. "Cassus manda'laarii. Not jetii."

Obi-Wan paused. "Manda singer?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Kaisa sighed loudly. "You know why beskar is urman'la par Mando'ade, 'lek?" she asked. "Or story not before speak to jeti'kase?"

"I don't really care," Obi-Wan said stonily.

"Copaani sulusu," Ahsoka murmured against his shoulder.

Kaisa smirked. "Long, long before memory, enemy of Manda'yaim does attacking. Manda sees suffer, pain, death of ade. Manda'laariise call out, beg for it help. Many day, many night, they sing until they voice break. Manda cry for it ade, reach into… into it haalas, squeeze heart for blood. Blood harden and change, later become beskar in ground. Manda tells manda'laariise, dig for blood, for beskar, and song will guide hammer when does forging. But only manda'laariise does forging, other ade not hear song."

"Armorers?" Obi-Wan asked. "Mandalorian armorers are Force sensitive?"

Kaisa bared her teeth. "No. You not does listening. Manda not your Force."

Obi-Wan had spent almost a year at Satine's side. While she had never spoken of this specific story, they'd had many philosophical discussions about the nature of his Force and her Manda, and they'd eventually agreed – for once – that they were almost certainly the same thing. "I've heard differently," he said blithely.

Kaisa snorted. "Who speak it?"

"An old friend."

"Satine?" Ahsoka murmured.

Obi-Wan smiled against her montral. "Indeed."

"Satine Kryze?" Kaisa's eyes suddenly blazed with disgust. She spat on the ground. "Hut'uunla chakaar. Dikut'la ad, kaysh ru'trika–"

"Yes, yes, we get it, you are not a fan of House Kryze," Obi-Wan said irritably.

Ahsoka patted his chest. "Is that why your people believe their souls live in their beskar?" she asked Kaisa.

"Our soul live in beskar because beskar is our soul, our Manda. Manda shed blood for it ade. Manda'laariise let song guide hammer, forge first beskar'gam and defeat enemy. Wear time always, our family live in beskar always." She suddenly chuckled, low and slow. "I before know one Jedi. Kiffar, brown big eyese, stripe, ah… shi'yayc, what it…"

"Yellow."

" 'Lek, yellow. He have yellow stripe on eyese."

"Wait." There was no mistaking that description. "Quinlan Vos? You know Quinlan Vos?" he asked sharply.

" 'Lek. He very good man. More good for jetiise, you not deserve him."

Obi-Wan's eyes bugged out and he made a mental note to comm his old friend the second they were back at the Temple. "How do you–"

"It is my business, jetii." Kaisa chuckled again. "He before speak about it, call it, ah, attachment. Ke'gar ne'kartayli, or it will make you evil." She snorted. "Shabla dinii'la jetiise. How it will make you evil?"

"It's a vast oversimplification, to start," Obi-Wan said flatly. "I could just as soon say that winning a duel for the Darksaber automatically endows you with the wisdom and knowledge to be a competent ruler."

Kaisa threw her head back and laughed. "Strong Mand'alor make strong kingdom. But our heart, I already speak, it beskar. We wear it on our beskar'gam, not hide it. Jetiise hide it. Mando'ade not afraid to wear our heart."

"Jedi are not afraid to love," Obi-Wan shot back. "Love and compassion are intrinsic to our very being. Following the will of the Force is impossible without love. What we forego is attachment to that love, to individuals and possessions alike. We understand that all things are temporary, and that we must be prepared to let them go at any moment for the greater good."

Kaisa scoffed. "Never let go of your child, real buir know. You have weak jetii heart. Kyber will shatter. Beskar, never. If she your child, you would not allow me live when she does dying."

Obi-Wan's heartbeat quickened. "So you believe that because I am not torturing you, I don't care about her?" he asked frostily. Ahsoka shivered.

"Revenge for your ad'ika, 'lek? Look at her. Her blood on fire. She not can breathe, her brain swell. She will die crying for you, and you do nothing."

There was a tug on Obi-Wan's robes. He startled and looked down into a pair of the biggest, bluest eyes he'd ever seen. There was a tiny orange Togruta youngling at his feet, barely coming up to his knees, with stubby blue-and-white lekku framing her face. She whimpered, eyes brimming with unshed tears, and held up two fat little arms in the universal request for up.

"Tha i a’ feuchainn ri do dhèanamh feargach, Bobi," Ahsoka murmured. A soothing warmth settled over him; even now, poisoned and fading, she was still comforting him with her Empathy.

Obi-Wan tucked his face into the crook between Ahsoka's lekku for a few moments and breathed in her warm, spicy, pollen scent while he centered himself. "You should be thankful that revenge is not the Jedi way," he said softly, pressing a kiss there. He had to trust that the Force would guide Cody and Boba and they were close to finding the buried antidote. The alternative was unacceptable.

Kaisa clicked her tongue. "Is mine. She make my son hate me, shoot me. She use her magic and change his brain. Take your revenge or no, but I have mine."

"You poisoned her long before Boba ever raised his blaster," he snapped.

"I could be… serim'shya. But not now. Not after she make him hate me."

"I didn't make him do anything," Ahsoka said quietly, but he could feel her agitation leaking through their Force bond. Being accused of manipulating emotions was the last thing Ahsoka needed with poison flooding her bloodstream; Obi-Wan rubbed a soothing circle on her back and sent the feeling of calm through their Force bond.

"Never my son does shooting at his Mama. Nu draar. Neret'yc. She hurt his mind."

"You hurt his mind when you abandoned him," Ahsoka growled, surprising Obi-Wan. "Both of them. You made them believe that you loved them, and then you left them behind and ran."

Kaisa's eyes nearly bugged out of her head. She opened her mouth to reply but Ahsoka beat her to it.

"You made sure you took the son you bore, though, didn't you?" Ahsoka laughed an ugly little laugh. "So much for a heart of beskar. Gar ne buir, gar hut'uunla dalgaan."

"Ke'shab!" Kaisa snarled. "You not know. I leave because I have no choice, not if I keep Cassus safe. Kaminiise–"

"And Boba's safety? Tiarek's safety?" Ahsoka raised her voice. "Do you know what Jango did to them because you left?"

Kaisa's face crumpled and she looked away. "No," she whispered. "No, you lie. Jango know our ade. He never hurt them. Neret'yc."

"He shot down a ship with his son inside of it," Ahsoka hissed, struggling to get out of Obi-Wan's shocked arms. Her eyes were unnaturally bright. "Do you really think he wouldn't hurt Boba and Tiarek, too?"

"No," Kaisa whispered miserably. "No, he not does thinking. He hold B–"

"He hurt them." Ahsoka tried to push herself up, but Obi-Wan kept his arms firmly circled around her. "And it's your fault. You left them unprotected with a fucking psychopath!"

"Calm down, Ahsoka, please," Obi-Wan said desperately, struggling to keep his hold on her.

Kaisa's face twisted into an ugly mask of guilt and grief before she started to cry. "I have no choice!"

"You could have taken them too!" Ahsoka snarled. "First Jango nearly beat Tiarek to death–"

"No," Kaisa sobbed.

"Yes. He smashed him upside the head with a metal lockbox full of your things." Ahsoka growled like a raxshir and Obi-Wan's hair stood up. "He split his head open, and then when he was done beating him with it, he put him back into rotation and had him reconditioned!"

Kaisa turned her face away, heaving ugly, gulping sobs.

"Stop!" Obi-Wan begged her, trying not to panic at the way her veins were rapidly darkening.

"I can't stand hypocrites," Ahsoka snarled. "She wants to sit there and say she has a beskar heart, that a real parent would never give up on their child? She gave up on two of them!" Her voice escalated into a shriek that pierced his eardrums.

"You not understand," Kaisa wept. "If kaminiise know Cassus does singing, they want… want yo'baare, val ru'hokaani bal hibii par eyayade–"

"Enough!" Obi-Wan barked. "Both of you, stop!"

"B…" Ahsoka's eyes rolled back into her head and she went stiff in his arms, violently convulsing.

"No, no–" Obi-Wan sank to the ground with her stiff in his arms and carefully lowered her onto her side. "You're alright, you're alright, little one, you're alright," he said frantically, She twisted and shook on her side, her jaw clenched so tight that he feared she'd crack her teeth. He slipped his outer robe under her head as a pillow and sank back, holding his breath and helplessly waiting for it to be over.

"I not want this," Kaisa began, still crying. "You go, this not–"

"Shut up!" Obi-Wan snarled.

Her lip trembled. "I protect–"

"Shut up!" he roared, on his feet before he knew it. "I don't care who you're protecting, she's dying! She's dying for nothing!"

"I not let you take him," Kaisa said, trembling. "I will protect my ade, any price I pay. Horrible price, but I will pay."

"Who– who do you think we came here to take?" Obi-Wan asked in disbelief. "Cassus? He's nearly thirteen! The oldest human child that has ever been admitted to the Order is nine, and the Council's arm had to be twisted to allow it!"

Kaisa shook her head. "I not believe you. You take my boy, I know jetii lie."

"We're not here to take your child, we brought Boba here to be reunited with you!"

Kaisa stared at him. "Tion'meg?" she whispered.

"If she dies…" Obi-Wan turned, choking on his rage, his hands clasped on the top of his head so he didn't wrap them around her neck.

"Booo…" Ahsoka slurred, then whined like a kicked shunka.

"I'm here." Obi-Wan dropped to the ground and immediately pulled her into his lap. He pressed his face against her boiling hot lek and squeezed her tight against his chest. "I'm here, I'm here. You're alright, mo nighean, you're alright. Cody's on his way back now. He's almost back, little one, just hold on a little longer."

She shuddered and clung to him, in visible pain.

His mind raced for anything, anything to soothe her. There was nothing he could think of, but a memory returned to him. "Qui…" Obi-Wan cleared his throat. "Quietly while you were asleep, the moon and I were talking…"

Ahsoka, even in her agony, stirred at the lullaby he had made up for her as a youngling. He felt her pulse race weakly in the lek pressed against his face.

"I asked that she'd always keep you protected." His voice cracked. He didn't care; not if he was in tune, or if Kaisa was watching, only that he could give Ahsoka even a tiny bit of comfort. He rested his head between her montrals. "She promised you her light, which you so gracefully carry… You bring your light, and shine like morning."

Ahsoka's breathing slowed and evened; she was asleep, or more likely unconscious. "And as you so gracefully give, her light as long as you live…" He carefully lifted her up to the padded bench and laid her on her side, just in case she began to seize again. "I'll always remember this moment."

Obi-Wan stroked her forehead for a few seconds and watched the rise and fall of her chest with paranoid eyes, afraid it would stop if he looked away. "If she dies, you will rot in a Republic prison for the rest of your life," he finally said, trembling from rage, or fear, or grief; he didn't know anymore. He could see small puffs of his breath in the air as he spoke. "Do you truly think that we'll walk away with our tails between our legs, content to leave you alone after you've murdered her?"

"Bunker has lock," Kaisa said quietly. "Only I know code. Not Cassus, not Gotika. Without code, door not unlock until after one Corella rotate. Not you does leaving unless I allow."

Obi-Wan slowly turned to look at her.

"Cassus room, different air," she continued, and gave him a watery smile. "Gotika have… command. Ret'lini. I protect my ade, any price. Even me."

Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut and turned back to his little girl. He couldn't watch her die senselessly like this right in front of him while he did nothing to stop it.

"Please, p-please Bobi, open your eyes, open your… no, no, no, please no, Bobi please–"

Obi-Wan opened his eyes and reached for his saber with a shaking hand.

"Mama!" Cassus sat at the mouth of the hall leading to his quarters, his face red and puffy from crying. Gotika lumbered ominously behind him, but the boy had a hypospray in his lap. "Tion'vaii cuun ijaat? Bic cuy ori'dushla, Mama, gar kar'tayli bic ori'dushla."

Kaisa squeezed her eyes shut and silently shook her head.

"Cassus, please," Obi-Wan begged, ripping the hand away from his saber and holding it out to the boy instead. "Please don't let her die."

The boy tossed the device to him over Kaisa's head. She dissolved into loud sobs that flew in one ear and out the other as Obi-Wan dove for Ahsoka and jammed the hypospray directly into her neck. He watched her without blinking for ten solid seconds, nearly collapsing in relief when the sickly blue in her veins finally began to recede from the injection site. "Oh, mo nighean," he murmured, tugging Ahsoka into his arms. He kissed her forehead and whispered it into her skin over and over, rocking her like she was three again.

"General, come in. You need to get out of that bunker right away, do you copy? General!"

Obi-Wan's commlink blinked at him. He slapped the channel on. "Cody," he managed.

"General, I've torn up this entire grove and there's nothing. She just wanted to separate us. You need to get out of there, now!"

Obi-Wan stared at Kaisa, feeling sick. "It was never out there, was it?" he asked softly.

"Kenobi, get the fuck out of there before that crazy bitch kills you both!"

Kaisa's lip trembled. "You before should go. Not Boba."

"And you would have shot us in the back as we left and left no witnesses as to where you were hiding." Obi-Wan closed his eyes. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no emotion there is–

"General? General, we're coming back now, just hold on. I've got a thermal detonator, I can–"

"Come back, Commander," Obi-Wan said quietly. "I've just administered the antidote. Ahsoka's going to make it. I'll explain everything when you get here." He distinctly heard a child's relieved sob before he disconnected the channel and went back down to his knees. He gently stroked Ahsoka's forehead and took his first deep breath since the ambush. "And then the wind pulls the clouds across the moon, your light fills the darkest room, and I can see the miracle that keeps us from falling…"

Notes:

MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS Udesii, Cas'ika. Mama ven'cabuo cuun, ner ad'ika. Ni kar'tayli darasuum: Easy, little Cassus. Mama will protect us. I hold you in my heart, always Ke'cuyoli gar haav'yamika. Ke'hiibi Gotika bal beskar'ade. Tion'jate?: Stay in your bedroom. Take Gotika and the droids. Okay? Beskar'ade be'Cassus ne ru'leneda gar, bic du'cari: Cassus' droids didn't lock onto you, they delayed. Tabiriise'tatugirii: lit. Marchers' litany, the repetition of names of the dead (it took me 250k to realize that it didn't have it's own proper name? Wtf Karen) Gar cuy dar'buir, shabla dalgaan: You are no longer my mother, fucking bitch. Tion'solet gar kar'tayli kaysh?: How long have you known her? Gar ori'canara, ni mirdi.: You've known her a long time, I think. Urman'la par Mando'ade: holy to Mandalorians Copaani sulusu: I want to hear Ke'gar ne'kartayli: You must not hold in your heart/you must not love Jeti'kase: Little Jedi/Padawans Hut'uunla chakaar. Dis'ne. Dikut'la ad, kaysh ru'trika: Cowardly asshole. Person who spits on their heritage. Stupid child, she will regret Serim'shya: More accurate Gar ne buir, gar hut'uunla dalgaan: You're no mother, you're a cowardly bitch Yo'baare, val ru'hokaani bal hibii par eyayade: Cells, they would cut and take for clones Ret'lini: Just in case/plan b Tion'vaii cuun ijaat? Bic'cuy ori'dushla, Mama, gar kar'tayli: Where is our honor? This is evil, Mama, you know it's evil TOYDARIAN TRANSLATIONS Ndi zoipa kunena. Plo sakonda: It's bad to say. Plo doesn't like it Za kale: For before Gwiritsani ntchito ubongo kuphulika zinthu: We use our brains to blow things up MAOR-GRASTA TRANSLATIONS Mo nighean: My girl Cràdh mo chnàmhan: My bones ache Bha mi eas-urramach: I was disrespectful OTHER NOTES Me: how do I write a conversation between two characters fluent in Mando'a in a way that readers can understand? Oh make Obi-Wan a bitch?? Okay. anyway that song has had a gorilla grip on my heart for months and I finally got to use it ayyyy Also yes I'm a Cody≠kote truther sorry lmfao

Taglist: @starwarsficnetwork, @soliloquy-of-nemo Dividers: @saradika-graphics

It was easy to forget that Corellia wasn't the ecumenopolis that Coruscant was when all that was ever spoken of were its urban shipyards and corrupt cities. Ninety percent of the global population resided in one of the five massive urban sprawls, but there were still a great many rural settlements on the planet. After they arrived at the spaceport, the group took two subtrams and a turbo-train and finally arrived in Bockrin; a rural village nestled in the warm, temperate rainforest an hour east of Coronet City. Demographic reports stated it was primarily populated by Mandalorians, and not the kind that ascribed to Satine's philosophy; Ahsoka heard the gentle vibration of the locals' beskar'gam ringing in the Force even before stepping off the turbo-train.

The village looked simple enough, with several blocks of wooden buildings and gravel roads that crunched pleasantly under their feet. Ahsoka could smell spicy, curried meat coming from the nearby cantina and ignored the way her stomachs rumbled. The locals looked at them suspiciously, their typical Mandalorian prejudice on clear display towards the two obvious Jedi in robes with lightsabers and clearly concerned for the young boy with two black eyes they escorted. Boba had changed into his flight suit but he had kept the black canvas jacket, which was short enough for the WESTAR-34 in his new holster to show.

Ahsoka made sure to hold his hand and stake a claim on her vod'ika lest he be forcibly adopted by one of the many well-meaning strangers in beskar who eyed them suspicously.

According to Kal Skirata's intel, Kaisa's homestead was about a fifteen-minute walk from the turbo-train station. The sun shone in their faces as they set off towards the treeline and walked the use-trail through the dense forest. Ahsoka had never seen anything quite like what was in the Bockrin valley; their trunks were skinny and covered in a thick layer of green moss with tiny red blossoms, and the leaves were large and five-pointed, plump like succulents, and hung in cascading strings from the trunk's crown like ribbons on a maypole that danced in the strong wind. The moss was incredibly prolific, as it grew down off the trees and onto the ground surrounding it, leaving only blue-striped ferns as the only other visible vegetation. Ahsoka heard the rumble of thunder in the distance, unfortunately in the direction they were heading, followed by a high pitched whine in her montrals with the change in air pressure. Insects buzzed in the moss, a high-pitched vibration that was almost mechanical.

"Did you hear the thunder?" Ahsoka asked the group. "Due west, probably a hundred kilometers."

"Great. We're walking right into it. And with this wind, it'll be here sooner rather than later." Cody had his bucket on but she knew the exact face he was making. His aura vibrated with chartreuse annoyance.

"Well, let's hope Kaisa will invite us to stay for latemeal," Obi-Wan quipped.

Ahsoka gritted her teeth. The wind was blowing the scent of Taarak's greasy little scent mark on Obi-Wan right in her face, as if she wasn't annoyed enough. Little biter had certainly gotten around, hadn't he?

Boba glanced over his shoulder at Ahsoka, his aura teal with concern-protection. He slowed down to pace her, a little over three strides back from Obi-Wan and Cody.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

Ahsoka raised a brow marking. "Nothing? Just trying to think of how to approach your mom without getting gutshot before we can introduce ourselves."

Boba snorted. "Yeah, right. You've been a bitch all day. Spill, ori'vod."

Ahsoka laughed quietly and shook her head. Boba's base aura was as vibrant green as she'd ever seen it, but it was staticky white around the edges with anxiety. She checked the wind again and verified that it would keep their conversation away from Obi-Wan and Cody. "I have to admit, I expected you to be more nervous about meeting her," she replied.

"Don't change the subject." Boba bonked her in the hip with his satchel. Robert nearly fell out of the flap he was peeking out of.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'm… I'm trying to get over it with Obi-Wan. Move on, be the bigger person. It's hard." It was a massive understatement, but not a lie.

"Kick him in the dick." Boba mimed the motion with a grin, his aura flaring gold with humor.

"No, Boba."

"I'll kick him for you?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. My Master actually told me to yell at him and get it out of my system, but I can't." Ahsoka shook her head.

"What do you mean, you can't?" he snorted. "Pussy."

"Ke'pirimpir gaht tay'briik," she retorted.

"Naysh gar." Boba stuck his tongue out at her.

"I… there's just no point." Ahsoka sighed. "I'm not like Anakin, that's not how I make myself feel better. Sometimes, yes, because even I can only take so much before I explode, but screaming at him almost a month later about how much he hurt my feelings isn't going to change anything. He already knows what he did. We just… have to keep walking forward, let the wound close. No looking back."

"Well, what'll help that happen, then?" Boba asked.

She opened her mouth to answer, then felt a tingle of warning slap her on the back of the head a half-second before the sound of a distant crack! rang out, far closer and sharper than the rumbling thunder. Obi-Wan's lightsaber ignited immediately and he swatted at the projectile.

It didn't deflect, it exploded. The sniper was using a slugthrower, and the shrapnel from the bullet flew everywhere.

Ahsoka and Cody leapt into action. She shoved Boba to the ground out of the line of fire and tossed her own saber forward, cutting through half a dozen skinny trees that didn't fall until after she recalled the saber to her hand. Cody unleashed a barrage of cover fire, crouching over his stunned General's prone form to protect him with his own body. Ahsoka lifted the trunks with the Force, pulled them towards the foursome, then dropped them in a pile on the path to give them cover. Cody moved off of Obi-Wan and fired over the logs towards the direction of the sniper, ducking often to keep his head out of range. Boba dove towards the log and backed him up, extending an arm up over the log and firing blindly.

Bright red blood bloomed above Obi-Wan's heart through his robes. Ahsoka ripped her outer robe off and pressed it down on the wound with shaking hands. "No, no, Bobi you're alright, it's okay, it's okay, you're okay–" She was whimpering like a wounded animal and didn't know how to stop, barely able to see him through the panicked sheen of tears welling up in her eyes. The coppery smell of his blood was so sharp that it overpowered everything else.

"Ahsoka," Obi-Wan coughed, his aura pale orange with pain-surprise. "Ahsoka, I'm–"

"It's okay, you're okay!" she said frantically. "Cody, Cody he needs a– he needs a plug and a patch, d-d-do you have, have a patch, he's–"

"Ahsoka!" Obi-Wan stared at her, his beautiful, gray-blue eyes round with shock. "It's just shrapnel, I'm fine!"

"Cody, help!" she sobbed. She pushed down harder. He couldn't die, not again, not again not right in front of her again, he couldn't he couldn't he couldn't–

"Ahsoka!" Obi-Wan gripped her face and rubbed hard at her temples with his thumbs, just like he had when she was a baby screaming at akul lilies. "I'm alright, mo nighean, I'm alright. Just breathe. Breathe deep, there we go. Shhh. I'm alright. It's just a flesh wound. I'm fine."

She shakily matched Obi-Wan's calm, deep breaths and saw that for the first time since his return, his aura was flush with a miserable shade of purple guilt-grief-shame. Another sharp crack! rang out; the bark directly above Cody's head exploded.

Ahsoka spun her head at the return of the mechanical whirring noise she'd mistaken for insects and realized that it was emanating from a small, hovering drone that had been painted the same green as the verdant moss. A small, rotating barrel unfolded from the drone and began to spin up. She lifted one hand and crushed it with the Force before it could start firing, then ignoring Cody's cry for her to wait, vaulted over the logs.

She moved her head to the side and avoided the next shot that came their way, thanking the wind for its help in throwing the sniper's shots off, then dropped to all fours and sprinted. Her vertebrae popped and loosened as she gained speed, and she dug her hands and feet into the soft moss to push faster and further than she could've on two legs. Another shot popped the moss just beside her hand. The wind blew an acrid trail of sodium nitrate from Kaisa – for who else would be taking potshots with a slugthrower but the Jedi-hating dalgaan – straight to Ahsoka's nose for her to follow.

The mechanical buzzing of more drones surrounded her on both sides as she ran, and seconds later they began to spin up and fire blue blaster bolts. She jumped to her feet and did a front flip, igniting her sabers as she leapt. She deflected the bolts, destroyed the little pests, and followed her nose to the sniper's tree blind. She threw her sabers on her belt while still running, then took a mighty leap at the tree and clawed her way up the rest of the trunk like a gundark, reaching the perch before Kaisa could shoot her off. She peeked over the edge and nearly went deaf from the booming shot Kaisa fired at her at the same time another drone swooped her face. Anakin would have called it luck that she barely avoided both. She rolled up and kicked Kaisa off the edge of the blind, drawing on the Force for an extra boost of strength.

Kaisa went flying off the side. Her jetpack fired and softened her fall, giving her just enough of an extra push to avoid Ahsoka's pursuing lunge. She ignited her sabers midair and sliced the Mandalorian's rifle in half before she could fire again. Kaisa threw the rifle at her face in response and loosed a jet of flame to force her back.

Ahsoka sprung back on her hands to avoid it, cutting black scorch lines into the moss with her lit sabers. She fell into the opening Shien stance and hissed, walking in a slow circle opposite of the other woman. Her lekku stung and swayed on her chest, undulating like snakes at the predator in front of her. Her rear lek thumped her back with a loud, angry slap.

Kaisa was tiny, shorter than Boba even. The armor she wore over a wine-colored flight suit had been painted a deep, matte gray just a hair too light to be called black, and it had been tinted with olive green to be the perfect camouflage for a mossy forest. The wind blew her scent right at Ahsoka's nose; sodium nitrate and spicecake, with a sharp undertone that she didn't recognize. She drew a DE-10 blaster pistol with her right hand and a kal dagger with her left and matched Ahsoka step for step.

Ahsoka swallowed hard and tried to bring her heartbeat to heel. The last time she'd seen one of those was when Dol Sylen had buried it to the hilt in her thigh. "Kaisa Skirata?" she said in a voice tinged with a growl, her montrals still ringing from the rifle going off so close to her resonance chambers.

"Jetii." Kaisa practically spat the words at her, managing to sound venomous even through the vocabulator of her helmet. "No welcome for you." Her voice was heavily accented, rounded and almost musical with a pitch that went up and down like a rolling hill. Her coral base aura was covered in a brittle line of teal, protection-wariness-determination shining like a sheet of stained glass.

"Ahsoka!" Boba cried out for her in the distance. Blaster fire from the buzzing drones sounded to Ahsoka's left and Cody roared to take cover. She stupidly turned to look, fear for her vod'ika overpowering common sense; Kaisa fired and it was only the reflexes honed by hundreds of hours of Anakin's training that stopped the blaster bolt from taking Ahsoka's head off. She deflected it and dodged Kaisa's follow-up dagger to her ribs. Her shoto swung over the top of Kaisa's helmet and cut her rangefinder off.

Kaisa suddenly dropped and swept at her legs with the dagger, catching Ahsoka's right calf almost like the Mandalorian knew where she would plant it. She opened a thin, burning line across the back of Ahsoka's knee. She collapsed and brought up her sabers to block the dagger swinging for her head, cutting it off at the hilt and nearly taking Kaisa's head with it from her own momentum. The Mandalorian rolled over the crossed sabers and spun in a crouch with her blaster raised.

Adrenaline screamed through Ahsoka's veins. She shoved the other woman back with the Force so hard against a tree that her blaster popped out of her hand and her jetpack emitted a shower of ominous steam and sparks. Ahsoka lunged, her mind blank except for the hindbrain urge to protect her clan. She'd tried to kill Obi-Wan. She'd almost shot Cody. Boba was pinned down by her drones.

Ni ven'kyramu ad kebbur.

Kaisa crossed her beskar gauntlets and braced herself for the blow just in time. Ahsoka dropped her shoto and beat down on her with a two-handed grip on her main saber like it was a scramball bat, trying to break through the Mandalorian's guard with brute force. She came down over and over again, she had to destroy her destroy her destroy her–

A wide hand snatched her wrist with a vice grip before she could bring the saber down again and held it still. Obi-Wan pulled Ahsoka backwards and wrapped his strong arms around her in a firm wampa hug, the smell of his blood and the juniper incense he favored for meditation sharp and intense in her nose. "Enough," he ordered, deactivating her saber. "You've beaten her, Padawan. Enough."

Ahsoka trembled in his arms and tried to remember how to breathe. A high-pitched, animalistic whine escaped from her. Obi-Wan planted his chin firmly between her montrals and pressed down hard; his stubble pricked her uncomfortably but the pressure point worked, and she slowly matched the rise and fall of his chest.

Boba and Cody flanked the dazed Kaisa and pointed their blasters at her on the ground. Cody leaned forward and ripped her helmet off.

"Don't fucking move, sleemo," Boba seethed, his aura screaming red with anger-fear. He shoved the barrel of his hot blaster against her silver-streaked temple.

Ahsoka smelled burning flesh and hair. Kaisa's stormy gray eyes, shining like polished beskar around pinprick pupils, glared up at her with undeniable hatred. Her aura mirrored Boba's with the same vivid red shade of rage-fear. "You won't find him," she snarled, her teeth bared. "He does hiding. I will kill anyone who tries."

Ahsoka kicked Kaisa hard in the chin before she could stop herself. Her head snapped up, smacked hard against the mossy tree trunk with a sharp crack, then fell to her chest. She was knocked out cold.

"Ahsoka!" Obi-Wan snapped, dragging her backwards. "Stop it, now."

Ahsoka clenched her jaw and took a deep, shuddering breath. Her lekku throbbed and she closed her eyes tight, the scent of Obi-Wan's blood still overwhelming her other senses. She spun in his arms and buried her face in his neck, unblocking her side of their bond so she could feel his life force roaring through it for the first time in weeks. Her hands roamed for hair to run her fingers through but found only velvety stubble. She could hear his pulse, taste his sweat, smell his skin, feel him shining and vibrant in the Force. He wasn't dead. He wasn't dead. He wasn't dead.

Obi-Wan crushed her against him and petted her rear lek soothingly as she bawled like a baby, his aura quietly clouded with deep violet guilt-remorse-love.

Obi-Wan tried not to wince too obviously as Ahsoka picked shrapnel out of his chest with a tiny pair of forceps and a miniscule magnet she had commandeered from Cody's currently-disassembled sidearm. He'd been lucky, truly; it was a careless mistake to have tried to deflect a bullet. He had spent far too much time on the battlefield these past three years, he was becoming… not lazy, but thoughtless, relying too much on muscle memory instead of the memories of his Master's teachings.

He hissed softly as Ahsoka removed a rather jagged shard of shrapnel; she winced at the size of the piece. "No wonder you bled so much. Did any of them manage to miss you?" She removed one more piece, then began gently wiping the blood away with a sanicloth.

"I believe Cody caught a few pieces for me," he joked weakly. Cody shot him a look that he felt rather than saw.

"Very funny." Ahsoka rolled her eyes and started cutting the bacta patch to size.

"Yes, well, please heed my example and don't ever try to do that. It was a novice mistake."

"Then why'd you do it, General?" Cody asked grumpily, snapping a second pair of binders around the Lady Skirata's petite wrists. Cody had laced her feet through them so she'd not only be hobbled, she wouldn't even be able to stand. Force, the woman was small, so short that Obi-Wan wondered if she had some sort of dwarfism or if she was just stunted. Her speech cadence as well… she spoke Mando'a as a first language. That was rare in this day and age.

Boba didn't seem to trust that the binders would hold. He stood over her with his father's blaster pointed at her head, stone-faced and iron-eyed, his hands shaking almost too subtly to see. Obi-Wan thought it a bit ironic that the woman had escaped death by Jango's hands once, only to find herself with his gun to her head a decade later in the hands of his clone.

"Because I'm an idiot, obviously." Obi-Wan glanced at Ahsoka to see if she'd smiled. The poor thing's eyes were still bloodshot and swollen from crying. Her guttural reaction had hit him like a runaway turbo-train. Pure panic, begging him not to die, screaming for Cody to help while she nearly broke his ribcage pressing on a bullet hole that didn't exist…

And she'd called him Bobi. He had never felt like more of a bastard in his life than he did in that instant, staring up at her terrified face as she thought he was dying in her arms again.

"We all make mistakes." Ahsoka carefully smoothed the patch on and readjusted his robes. "All done." She tossed the magnet back to Cody and brushed her hands against her leggings.

"Thank you." Obi-Wan grabbed her gently by the wrist before she could escape and pulled her down next to him on the fallen log. He had to duck to catch her eyes. "Are you alright?" he asked her softly, stroking her hand with his thumb.

She stiffened, visibly embarrassed with her dark stripes and burning cheeks. "I'm fine, Master Kenobi. I'm sorry that I lost my head. It won't happen again."

She was hiding again, retreating behind her icy facade. His heart ached anew. "I'm sorry that I scared you so, my dear." He wiped a bit of blood off of her cheek with the sleeve of his robes.

She gave him a tight smile and tugged her hands away. "I'm fine. It's… fine."

Obi-Wan knew it wasn't, but now wasn't the time to say everything that needed to be said to bridge the rift between them. He instead turned to look at the tiny Mandalorian cuffed on the ground. "Shall we give her Ladyship a stim to wake her up and ask what we did to earn such a welcome?"

Cody shook his head. "Not with a concussion, Sir. We've got to wait it out, unfortunately."

Ahsoka tilted her head, then looked behind her and stood. "Someone's coming," she warned, drawing her sabers. She retreated to Boba's side and put herself in between him and whatever was coming.

Obi-Wan retrieved his own hilt and nodded at Cody, who aimed in the direction Ahsoka was looking. Boba kept his blaster trained on the unconscious Kaisa.

" …hello, please don't shoot! Hello! Hello, do not shoot, please, I am not armed!" A protocol droid with feminine programming waddled over the crest of the hilly path, waving a large white handkerchief tied to a stick. "I have come to parley! Please do not shoot!"

Obi-Wan nodded at Cody, who lowered his blaster. "Hello there," Obi-Wan called to the droid, tucking his arms in his sleeves with his saber still in hand. "Parley, you say? On behalf of whom?"

The minty, matte-green protocol droid came to a stop a few paces away. "Greetings. I am TC-35, but you may call me Gotika. I am here on behalf of Master Cassus Skirata, who would like to discuss your terms for the safe return of his mother."

"Our terms?" Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. She is your hostage, after all." Gotika peered around him at Kaisa, unconscious on the ground. "Goodness, Mistress, are you alright?"

"She's alive," Boba snapped. "And she's not a fucking hostage. She's lucky to be alive after she tried to kill us."

"Oh dear," Gotika said, dismayed.

"Why'd he send you and not come himself?" Cody asked.

"Bucket of bolts wants to lead us into a trap." Boba turned his blaster on Gotika.

"Please don't!" Gotika squealed, raising her hands in surrender. "I am here to escort you to Master Cassus and to provide medical attention to any who need it, no more!"

"A protocol droid with medical programming?" Ahsoka asked, her rear lek swishing suspiciously.

"A Teecee unit such as myself would normally not support such a module, but Master Cassus has made upgrades to my base programming that allow me to perform a plethora of roles that would seem unconventional for a protocol droid. Please follow me. There is a storm rapidly approaching." Gotika spun on her heel and began to toddle down the path, still waving her white flag in one stiff hand.

Obi-Wan exchanged a look with Ahsoka and shrugged. "Let us go meet with Master Cassus, then."

Cody slung the hobbled, unconscious Kaisa over his shoulder like a purse; an undignified position, but given that she'd just shot him and stabbed his Grand-Padawan, Obi-Wan was having trouble mustering up too much pity for her. Ahsoka tucked her fallen blaster into the back of her belt and laced her fingers with Boba's, then gave Obi-Wan a nod. They took off down the path together, heading straight in the direction of the rumbling storm. Obi-Wan felt a raindrop smack against his cheek and looked up at the dark sky warily. "How much further?" he asked Gotika.

"Just ahead, Master Jedi, just ahead." Gotika waved cheerily over her shoulder. "Come, come. Watch your step, please, this hill is steep."

They awkwardly clambered down a hillside to a dried-up creek bed. Gotika's metal feet clanged loudly on the colorful pebbles.

"This is a fucking killbox if I've ever seen one," Boba growled from behind him.

"I agree, General," Cody muttered quietly. "What's the plan for when things go south?"

"We keep our eyes open and weapons ready," Obi-Wan replied. "We have what young Master Skirata wants, and we shall not give up our leverage until we know it's safe to do so."

"So she is a hostage," Ahsoka said wryly.

Obi-Wan shrugged. "From a certain point of view, perhaps, but I prefer to think of her as our honored guest."

Ahsoka glanced back at Kaisa, still hanging from Cody's shoulder like a freshly-slain boar roba, and clicked her tongue. "Honored. Right."

Obi-Wan frowned and suddenly realized that she was limping. "Ahsoka, what happened to your leg?" he asked, peering around her back at it.

"She cut me a little. It just stings, I'm fine."

Obi-Wan's frown intensified. "Why didn't you say anything before?"

"We only had one bacta patch. I'm fine." Her lek thumped again.

Obi-Wan tried not to sigh. "Then you should have–"

"Here we are!" Gotika called back cheerily at them. Before them, at the end of the dry creek bed, loomed a massive, mossy hill with a metal door embedded into its side that had been painted with mossy camouflage. Strings of star-shaped succulents from the trees on the hillcrest trailed over the front, rendering the door virtually invisible from more than ten meters away.

Thunder boomed overhead. The sky felt moments away from opening up in a downpour.

"Master Cassus! We've arrived, Master, can you hear me?" Gotika dropped her flag and waved her arms at the bunker door.

Obi-Wan stopped and crossed his arms, with Ahsoka mirroring him moments later. "I have a bad feeling about this," she muttered.

Obi-Wan glanced at her. "I don't sense anything."

Ahsoka tilted her head, opened her mouth, and clicked quietly. "Can you hear the buzzing, or is it too high a frequency for human hearing?" she asked a few seconds later.

"It must be." Obi-Wan tried not to look around too obviously. Cody and Boba both put anticipatory hands on their holstered blasters and turned so that they stood back-to-back to him and Ahsoka, keeping all angles covered.

"Oh dear, the uplink must have gotten wet again. We have had nothing but storms for the past week. One moment." Gotika waddled quickly up the side of the hill and opened a panel built into a false log, then extended a scomp from a compartment in her wrist. "Just one more moment, please."

"Something isn't right," Ahsoka whispered urgently. "I hear metal moving, servos… some sort of mechanism."

"It may be the door." Obi-Wan readied his saber anyway, as did Ahsoka. Rain finally began to fall in earnest and he tightened his grip.

"There we go!" Gotika announced cheerfully. "Now, esteemed guests, may I have the privilege of introducing you to Clan Skirata!" She began to laugh a bit maniacally.

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka exchanged a confused look, then everything happened all at once; the wind picked up and the sky opened up in a deluge, dirt and moss exploded from the ridge of the steep hills alongside them as a line of laser-guided turrets emerged and fixed their sights on them, thunder crashed directly above, and Gotika made a mighty leap straight up into the air and landed behind the group with two miniature ion cannons glowing in her palms.

Well then. She had said that Master Cassus had upgraded her with some unconventional upgrades, but that wasn't what he had expected.

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both ignited their sabers and shoved Boba between them, while Cody drew his carbine and aimed at the droid's head. He made sure that the unconscious Kaisa was fully blocking his chest, inadvertently upgrading her from hostage to human shield.

"You have five seconds to put my mother down and run before Gotika disintegrates you," A child's voice boomed from a loudspeaker, thick with the same mountainous Mandalorian accent that Kaisa bore. "Five…"

Gotika cackled. Her eyes matched the glowing light from the cannons in her hands as they both intensified. "Four, three.." she began to count gleefully.

"Cassus!" Boba shouted, wide-eyed and ashen. "Tion'gar olaro gar vod ti tracy'uure? Gar sa Jango ori'shya ni'cuy!"

"Two…" the droid continued.

"Gev, Gotika, gev!"

Both Gotika's hands and eyes dimmed and she lowered them, visibly disappointed.

A small hatch opened above the bunker door and a little drone flew out. It hovered above their heads for a moment, scanning them, then cautiously buzzed down to Boba's eye level. "Boba?" the speaker from the drone asked.

"Yeah," Boba replied; Obi-Wan could feel him shaking like a leaf both against his back and in the Force, but his voice was as tough as bronto hide.

"Why now?" The voice sounded painfully young.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Boba asked harshly. "And you've got something of mine. Let us in and we'll talk."

Gotika shifted miserably from side to side. "Master Cassus," she whined, "May I remind you that nobody is allowed inside the bunker without your mother's express–"

"I know!" Cassus' drone said irritably.

"Then allow me to–" Obi-Wan tightened his grip as Gotika's hands began to glow again.

"I said stop!"

"Either let us in, or let us go!" Boba barked. "It's raining like Tipoca City out here and I'm not in the fucking mood for wet drawers."

Lightning flashed across the sky again and the resounding boom of thunder made them all flinch. "Just you. The jetiise and the eyayad stay outside."

"I'm a shabla eyayad too, remember?" Boba snapped; at the same time a guttural, terrifying growl escaped from Ahsoka and sent a shiver up Obi-Wan's spine.

Her rear lek slapped against her back so hard that it sent a spray of water into the air from her sodden robes. "He goes nowhere without me." She bared her fangs in a very unJedi-like display of aggression.

"Let us in, ner vod, before we fucking drown down here," Boba ordered the drone.

It hovered for a few moments more, then the bunker door slid open behind them silently. The drone flew up and into the hand of a small, seated silhouette in the doorway, from which warm yellow light poured out and illuminated the heavy rain like drops of gold. Gotika sighed loudly. "Follow me, please," she said disdainfully, then waddled towards the steps with a recalcitrance Obi-Wan couldn't remember ever seeing in a protocol droid before.

Boba pushed past them and bravely led the way.

Over the last ten years, Boba had fantasized about Mama and Cas still being alive. Maybe they were dug in deep on Mandalore, up high in the Kyrimorut mountains; somewhere near the old homestead she'd grown up on, maybe, back before Tor Viszla had massacred most of her clan and burned the place to the ground. As time went on, he'd envisioned wilder and wilder scenarios. They were on Canto Bight, living large off the sabacc earnings she made as a high roller. They had their own pirate fleet and ran circles around Hondo Ohnaka's crew. They were exploring Wild Space, charting hyperspace routes that would make them a fortune.

He'd never considered his fantasies anything more than just that, though. They had to be dead. Jango Fett had killed them, he'd shot them right out of the sky into the Kaminoan ocean, and Jango Fett never left a job half-done.

Except he had, somehow, and Boba didn't really know how to actually believe that it was all actually happening. Mama was alive and more ornery than ever; Kenobi's new paint job was proof of that. And Cassus, well…

He sat awkwardly in his hoverchair as they passed him by in the bunker's vestibule, a crocheted blanket the color of maize folded over his lap. Ten years on and they still had almost the same face; even being an honest, good old-fashioned, fifty-fifty organic blend of Kaisa and Jango, Cassus' bone structure made him instantly clockable as a Fett. His nose was thinner, his eyes were bright gray like their mother's, and he had about ten kilos on Boba, but otherwise they could still pass as twins. He wore his hair long enough to cover his ears, hanging heavy in ringlet curls that matched Kaisa's. He was chunky on top, soft and round with a double chin and shy eyes like he wasn't used to making contact with anyone, but his legs were skinny and folded off to the side of his footrest.

He was clearly paralyzed, but why? When? Was it when Dad had shot them down? Boba felt like throwing up. Dad… he'd made mistakes and he'd regretted them, but if he had known that he had paralyzed his own son he would have…

He would have done nothing, actually. Boba's anxiety quieted into an aching, hollow emptiness in his belly as the realization settled. He'd tried to kill Mama and Cas. He wouldn't have done anything but get drunk and weep about what a horrible person he was if he'd found out Cas had survived.

The burn of alcohol stings Boba's nose as he tosses the empty tihaar bottle into the trash compactor. Dad sits swaying on the couch, splotchy-cheeked and red-eyed. He stares at his hands. Boba brings his father a blanket. "Dad?" he asks softly.

"I should've just let them go. I… I'm so selfish, Boba. I should've just let her go and kept all of you safe." Jango flexes his big hands. "S-safe here, with us. All of us. You, me, Tiarek… I… I could've…" His bloodshot eyes flood with tears.

"It's okay." He doesn't know what else to say. He doesn't like it when Dad cries, but at least tonight he's just sad, not angry too. Dad sniffs, wipes his eyes, then smiles at Boba and cups his face. His hands are warm and rough, calloused but gentle, able to dole out love and pain in equal measure.

"I'm sorry Boba. I'm sorry for a lot of things." He pulls Boba close and presses their foreheads together. "Be better than me, Boba. Gar ne'ente eyayti ner dunare."

Boba jumped as a skinny orange hand squeezed his. Ahsoka smiled down at him. "I'm right here with you," she whispered.

Boba rolled his eyes. "Fucking obviously," he sniffed, his nose suddenly runny for some reason.

"Gotika, take Mama to her room and treat her injuries," Cassus ordered the droid.

"Right away, Cas'ika." Gotika waddled at top speed towards Cody and flashed the lights in her eyes at him menacingly. She held her arms out like she was going to hug him whether he wanted her to or not and tilted her head. "My Mistress, please," she said in a singsong voice that promised unimaginable violence if denied.

Cody handed off the cuffed, unconscious Kaisa like she was a belt of live grenades to the droid.

"I will be right back." Gotika scampered away, her stiff legs moving far faster than they should have been able to.

Cody shuddered. "That's one creepy clanker," he muttered to Kenobi as she disappeared into a small hallway.

Kenobi hid a smile. "I don't think we actually introduced ourselves," he said, then held a hand out for Cassus to shake. "I am Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. This is Padawan Ahsoka Tano, and that's Marshall Commander Cody of the Grand Army of the Republic."

Ahsoka gave him a smile and a little wave. Cody took his helmet off. "Nice to meet you."

Cassus blanched and looked away, visibly unnerved. Boba felt a little sympathetic. It had to be weird to see your dead father's face on a stranger if you weren't used to it.

Boba wondered how weird it was going to be to look into the mirror in a few years.

"Y-You too," Cassus mumbled at his lap. "Are, um, are any of you hurt?" He blinked at the group, his eyes lingering on Kenobi's bloodstained chest.

"Only a little shrapnel. I'm fine. But Ahsoka's leg needs attention." Kenobi smiled a flat, brittle smile.

Ahsoka shifted her weight guiltily. "It isn't–"

"If you're pretending nothing is wrong, then it's far worse than you're letting on," Kenobi said sharply. "Young man, I'd appreciate Gotika taking a look once she's done with your mother."

"Gotika is far more likely to cut my leg off than treat it." Ahsoka glowered at Kenobi.

Boba sighed loudly. "If it were me, would you be arguing about it or sitting on me until I let the droid look at it?" he asked her flatly.

Ahsoka blinked at him a few times, obviously trying to come up with a counterargument and failing.

Boba smirked at her. "That's what I thought. Now." He stepped forward with his arms crossed and examined the bunker; it had been built like a traditional Mandalorian vheh'yaim, with one big, central living chamber and a few hallway offshoots to an armory, bedrooms, and hopefully a fresher. A large, plascrete firepit smoldered in the center of the sunken seating area, colorful rugs had been thrown all over the hard floors to take the chill of the stone away, and all of the furniture was low to the ground, overstuffed, and had plenty of gaps in between pieces so Cas could move around easily. He spotted three different weapons caches right away, but knew there had to be more. There was a mural painted on the octogonal wall; all nature scenes, dragonflies flying low over a pond where shatuale fauns froclicked, giant tiarek flower bushes, sunshine over a field of maize with strill pups playing in the foreground. "Nice place," he finally conceded.

"Thank you," Cassus said meekly. "Do you, um, would you like something to drink? Pinky can make cocoa."

"Pinky?" Cody asked. His voice sounded a little choked through the helmet, like he was trying not to laugh. "Who is–"

A pink-plated astromech zoomed out of a hallway on the left, beeping. "Pinky, make some cocoa, please," Cassus asked politely, navigating around the furniture and disabling his repulsors once he had reached what had to be his usual spot in between a very comfortable-looking orange beanbag and a small, wooden table with a little doily and a coaster on it. A bag of yarn sat on the floor next to the table, knitting needles poking out of the top. "You all can sit, if you like," he said over the beeping of the droid zooming away to the furthest hallway on the left.

"Don't get visitors much, do you?" Boba asked, plopping down on the beanbag. Ahsoka took a seat on a padded bench beside him and Kenobi slid next to her before she could protest. She bit the inside of her cheek and made a face like she'd just smelled something rotten.

"No. We go into town once a week to get food and supplies, but nobody comes out here except for Illippi." Cassus whistled, and a BD unit scampered out from underneath a low sofa opposite of the firepit. "Hey, Buddy," he said fondly, patting the droid's head.

Boba raised an eyebrow. "What's with all the droids?" he asked.

Cassus' smile fell off his face and he looked embarrassed. The BD climbed up to his shoulder and settled into a loaf like a tooka. "I, um, I like to work with them. Rebuild them." His cheeks were getting darker by the second. "I have a lot of free time when Mama goes on jobs. She salvaged them for me and I repaired all of them." He looked up shyly. "I made my chair, too."

"Wizard." Boba drummed on the tops of his legs. Fuck, this was awkward. How had they gone from a standoff to talking about droids while waiting for cocoa?

"So, um, you said Kal told you where we were?" Cas finally asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah. You said Illippi comes out. Were you talking about his dar'riduur?"

Cassus nodded. "Yeah. She lives in Coronet City, but she visits. Or she used to, anyway. She hasn't been by in a while."

Boba sank deeper into the beanbag and stared at his brother, sick already of small talk. "Okay, fuck it, I'll ask. What happened?"

Cassus looked like he wasn't sure if he should be offended or scared. "What?" he asked.

"Last time I saw you, you could definitely walk, so what happened?" Boba crossed his arms and waited as Cassus wrung his hands nervously. Fucking hell, he really didn't get visitors often, did he? He was more nervous than a Gedonian ground weevil in a room full of hungry tookas. Had Mama kept him locked up in the bunker all this time in case Dad had come looking for them?

"It was when we… left." Cassus looked relieved at the sound of Pinky's beeping getting louder as he reapproached the karyai, a tray with a copper kettle and six little ceramic cups on top of his dome. Cassus spoke while the droid started distributing the cocoa. "Mama wanted you and Tiarek to come too, but Dad wouldn't let you leave. He kept telling her that he couldn't go and she wasn't allowed to either because of the clause in her contract. Ten years, that was the deal."

"I'm sorry, I can't have chocolate." Ahsoka gently waved the offered cup away with an odd, unfocused look on her face.

Cas looked embarrassed again. "I should have asked, I'm sorry. Do you want some tea?"

Ahsoka shook her head and blinked a few times. "No, no. I'm, um, I'm fine. But why did she want to leave?"

Cassus' face shuttered. "We just had to," he muttered, and nodded at Pinky once the cocoa was all distributed. The droid zoomed back to what Boba presumed was the kitchen. Cassus blew on his drink and took a little sip.

"So it happened when Dad shot you down?" Boba asked.

Cassus shrugged, his chubby cheeks getting dark again. "No. It was before. That's… that's why we couldn't take you, too."

Boba felt his heart jump into his throat and try to escape from his mouth. "What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

"You didn't…" Cassus looked surprised. "You don't know?"

"Know what?" Boba nearly spat, hearing his pulse pound in his ears. "That you left us? Do you even know what happened to Tiarek? Do you even give a fuck about him, or was he just–"

"Of course I do!" Cassus protested, his eyes going shiny with tears almost immediately. "What happened to Tiarek? Is he… is he dead?" His voice was so small and pitiful that Boba wanted to hit him. Why was he so weak? Because his legs didn't work? Big fucking deal, plenty of people's legs didn't work. Ahsoka's teacher was missing his fucking arm, bum legs didn't mean Cas had to be such a snivelling little bitch, wringing his hands in his hoverchair with a scared look on his face like he had a reason to be afraid of him.

"Why'd you leave us behind?" Boba demanded. "Tell me, and I'll tell you what happened to Tiarek."

Cassus looked like he was about to piss himself. "Ni ne'vegyc johaar'i par jetiise olar," he said, glancing at Ahsoka and Kenobi nervously.

"Jetiise johaar'i shabla Mando'a, di'kut, now fucking tell me!" Boba threw his cup of cocoa against the wall and started pacing, forcing down the bile surging up in his throat.

"Mama tried to take all of us." Cassus looked as sick and miserable as Boba felt. "Dad wouldn't let her. He said you were his… his property. You and Tiarek both. You were his payment for being the template, and he'd bought Tiarek fair and square. She wasn't walking away with his property."

Boba bit through the inside of his cheek and tasted blood. That's all he ever was to him, wasn't he? Jango's property. His payment for being the template. He was never Jango's son, not really.

"Boba!" Ahsoka caught his shoulders and spun him. "Okay, Bo'ika. Alright? Yes. Okay. Don't, don't–" she swallowed hard. Sweat had beaded up on her forehead and she smiled a weird, forced smile. Her lips and eyelids twitched. "Don't. It's inde. Chan e coire do bhràthar… bhràthar…" Boba had no idea what fucking language that was but something was very, very wrong with her. She wasn't breathing normally and her pupils had practically swallowed up her irises. She fell to one knee, shaking, her jaw trembling and gaping open and shut like a koi fish.

"Ahsoka!" Kenobi shoved Boba to the side and caught her before she hit the ground. "No, no, look at me, mo nighean, what's the matter? What's wrong, what's happening to you?" He twisted her and yanked her legging up above her knee; on the back of her calf, right above the edge of her boot, there was an angry-looking blue gash weeping thick, foul-smelling fluid.

Boba heard a soft laugh from behind them; the bitch herself was leaning against the entryway, a sharp, ruthless gleam in her eyes and a tiny smirk on her lips. Her curly black hair, streaked with silver and wet from bacta spray, hung just above her shoulders. She'd grown older, had lines around her eyes and had gained a little weight, but she still looked almost exactly like what Boba saw in his memories when he let himself think about her. "Manax root," she said softly. "It does growing in forest. It work more fast with humans. Togrutiise has big liver. I forget, take more long to start."

Kenobi hoisted the twitching Ahsoka into his arms, rage burning in his blue eyes like cold fire. "Where is the antidote?" he asked icily.

"Outside. I before bury." She smiled a wide, unnerving smile. "Leave my boy, jetii, go out my home. She will live if you find it in time." She met Boba's eyes, her expression softening. "Bo'ika. Mhi–"

"Don't you dare fucking call me that," Boba snapped. "You don't get to call me that, not anymore. Not after what you've fucking done. What you just did."

Something shattered in her eyes, then they hardened like winter ice over a river. She huffed a loud sigh. "My boys stay. You will find antidote, and after find you will leave."

"B-Bobi," Ahsoka managed to get out through her chattering teeth.

A shiver went down Boba's spine and the temperature of the room dropped like someone had opened a door into a blizzard. "Cody, I need to concentrate on slowing this poison down," Kenobi said silkily, laying Ahsoka down on the padded bench like she was made of glass. He took a knee beside her. "I shall leave the acquisition of the antidote to you. I unfortunately will not be able to supervise."

"Understood sir," Cody growled, then aimed his carbine at his mother.

"Please don't hurt her," Cassus begged, his terrified eyes darting between the two of them.

She flinched; a motion almost too small to see, but Boba noticed. "Been a while since you saw a clone, hasn't it?" he asked her softly, and the way she wouldn't look at Cody's face told him that he was right. "Tell me where it is or it'll be the last time you ever see one." He drew his blaster – Jango's blaster – and aimed it right between her silver eyes.

They went wide. "Oro'nas, Bo–"

He fired; the bolt stopped a foot away from her face and hovered there for a few seconds, then flew straight up and burned a black scorchmark in the ceiling.

Cassus, red-faced and shaking, lowered his hand and dissolved into tears.

Notes:

MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS ori/vod/ika: big/sibling/little Ke'pirimpir gaht tay'briik: go piss up a rope Naysh gar: No you Tion'gar olaro gar vod ti tracy'uure? Gar sa Jango ori'shya ni'cuy!: You greet your brother with blasters? You are like Jango more than I am Gev: stop Gar ne'ente eyayti ner dunare: You must not echo my mistakes. Ni ne'vegyc johaar'i par jetiise olar: I shouldn't say with the Jedi here Jetiise johaar'i shabla Mando'a, di'kut: The Jedi speak fucking Mando'a, idiot Togrutiise: Togrutas Oro'nas: Stand down TOYDARIAN TRANSLATIONS inde: yes MÁOR-GRASTA TRANSLATIONS Chan e coire do bhràthar a th' ann: It is not your brother's fault OTHER NOTES Oh look who finally showed up! Kaisa speaks the way she does because she's a native Mando'a speaker who translates everything in her head to Basic first. Hopefully that was explained well enough in text but if not then uhhhh yeah this is me telling you 😃🤙 Also Cassus is baby

Taglist: @starwarsficnetwork, @soliloquy-of-nemo Dividers: @saradika-graphics

Ahsoka had lathered up three times already but the water still swirled pink around her feet. She squeezed more gel soap into her hands from the dispenser and scrubbed at her montrals and lekku again. The soft, stretchy skin was going dry and scaly from the harsh GAR formula, but the damn water was still pink. She wasn't sure if it was only Jesse's blood or if Aurra had splattered on her too, but it was certainly reluctant to wash away.

She scrubbed underneath her rear lek and tried not to think about the way the side of Aurra's head had exploded like a rotten melon. She'd forgotten how different a firearm worked than a blaster. They were even more uncivilized in somebody's opinion, so the only experience she'd had with one before Kal Skirata's sniper was when she'd gone through the standard projectile-weapon safety course that all Initiates had to take before undergoing their Gathering.

She hadn't fired one, then, but she did remember being amused by what it had done to the sǫnkë squash that her instructor had used as a target. Strings of the vegetable's magenta guts had flown out like confetti and stuck to the rock wall behind it as Master Skoll had grimly explained the third law of motion and what happened when a bullet came to a very sudden stop against organic material. At the time it had been funny, but Ahsoka hadn't expected a humanoid skull to explode so similarly to a squash.

She realized now that that was probably the point of using it. Master Skoll was a very practical man.

She rinsed off one last time, choosing not to look at the water again, then shut the water off. She was as clean as she was going to get, though the barracks shower was a far cry from the hot soaking bath she longed to indulge in at the Temple. She wandered out to the wall of sinks and gently patted her montrals and lekku dry with the scratchy towel. She tried not to wince at how tender they were from all of their activity – the reflexive swelling, the aposematic undulating, and especially the spine-bongo she'd been playing with her rear lek had taken a toll on the normally languid organs – then she massaged the preen glands at the base of her lekku tenderly, trying to spread a little bit of her natural oil back into her skin.

She needed some caara spray or she was going to crack right open, she could feel it. She fought the urge to scratch at her montrals. The skin felt tight there, too tight and too dry and it stung and–

"Ahsoka?" Anakin called from the locker room, and she felt a warm tingle go down her spine from his little reassuring nudge in the Force.

"Almost done!" Ahsoka called back and began to pull on her clothes, still warm from the laundry pod. She took a deep breath and breathed her anxiety out into the Force. She was hyperfixating on how uncomfortable she was so she couldn't linger on the emotional baggage, her brain so exhausted and wired at the same time that it couldn't stop racing. She had to calm down before she resorted to stealing Anakin's t'bac sticks.

It wasn't like he could tell her not to if he was smoking again.

Anakin sat on a bench in the locker room, guarding the door against any wayward troopers that might wander in so she could shower undisturbed. He looked up from the message he was typing on his commlink to smile at her as she turned the corner. "Better?" he asked, closing his message center and patting the bench beside him.

"Much." Ahsoka plopped down beside Anakin and rested her head on his damp shoulder. His hair was still wet from his own shower. "What time is it?"

"Just after 0100." Anakin scratched between her montrals and she started purring. "You doing okay?"

Her purr stuttered and she raised her head. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" she asked after clearing her throat.

"Big night. And what happened with Aurra Sing." He glanced down at her. "I already told you, you made the right call. She's been arrested dozens of times. Clearly the Republic is incapable of keeping her in custody."

"Yeah." She picked at her cuticle. Anakin gently separated her hands before she drew blood. "I don't feel bad for ordering her death, but I feel bad that I don't feel bad," she admitted. "And… she had surrendered. It wasn't the Jedi way."

Anakin took her hand and squeezed it. "When Obi-Wan trained me, we were keepers of the peace. To make sure that you survived this war, I had to train you as a soldier." He smiled sadly, and that wine-dark stain of guilt was back around his aura. "The way you fearlessly called Kal Skirata's bluff, then charged off to save Boba with Jesse's blood still wet on your hands… You're a magnificent Jedi, Ahsoka, but you're also the soldier I trained you to be. Sing may have only planted a few pipe bombs, but the place was packed. You didn't just protect Boba, you prevented a massive amount of civilian casualties. You made a Commander's call."

"I'd already destroyed the detonator," she confessed, feeling conflicted. She'd been a soldier for so long that it almost felt more natural than what her lifelong teachings told her.

"Do you know for sure that she didn't have a backup? Or that she couldn't have rerouted the command to her commlink?" Anakin watched her carefully, his aura muted green with sympathy-pride. "I'm telling you that you chose correctly, Ahsoka."

The endless compassion that her Jedi upbringing had instilled in her was arguing with Anakin's logic. On one hand he was completely right, she had eliminated a dangerous and immediate threat to not just Boba, but all of the innocent people at the fairgrounds. Aurra Sing wasn't just a bounty hunter or even just a monster, she was a terrorist, and a repeated one at that. She'd tried to turn Boba into one too. She needed to be put down, but Ahsoka would be lying if Aurra's history of terrorism was anywhere near the forefront of her mind when she'd raised her fist and signaled for Skirata's sniper to fire. It had been about protecting Boba from her, forever.

Ni ven'kyramu ad kebbur.

"It was the right call," she agreed quietly. "Even if it wasn't… wasn't what I was thinking about at the time."

"And that's exactly what I'm going to tell the Council in the morning." Anakin smiled down at her. "The first part, anyway. Somehow I have to make time to testify about it first thing, even though we're deploying at 1100."

"We're deploying?" Ahsoka squawked in alarm. "Kriff. I guess Boba can stay in my quarters on The Resolute, but I didn't even get a chance to tell Rex about my cuirass yet so it's still–"

"Ahsoka." Anakin interrupted her with a very pointed look. "You are not bringing Boba into an active warzone."

Ahsoka's shoulders sagged. She didn't even know how Master Plo's dinner with the headmaster had gone yet, what if he had said Boba could shove off? She'd seen advertisements for luxurious boarding houses for pets on the holonet, did they have something like that for children? Would Boba even stay in one of those, or would he run away? What if–

"Commander." Anakin snapped his fingers to get her attention. "You're not going with us. You can't be deployed until you find a place for Boba to stay."

"Oh," Ahsoka said, dismayed. "Can… is he even allowed to stay at the Temple?"

"Not long term. But you're going to Corellia to find Kaisa Skirata, so hopefully it won't be necessary."

"I don't know if I want to leave Boba with the woman who abandoned him," Ahsoka said, biting her lip. "I need to meet her first and get an idea of who she is, and see if I can even trust her with him."

"Well, she is his mother." He rolled his eyes at her giggle. "You can't blame me for thinking you meant she was his biological mother without context, brat."

She giggled again. "It was still funny."

Anakin shook his head and dug a little leather pouch from his pocket, flipping it over in his hands. "I got you a present," he finally said, then handed it to her.

It made of soft, black leather that smelled strongly of chandanam oil, and it had a little marg sabl flower embossed on the front of it. The top had a drawstring closure and was on a cord so it could be worn around the neck or tied to a belt. Something rattled around inside of it. "This is pretty," she said, examining it. It felt like mosasaur leather, which was surprising. He had to have gone to a Togrutan artisan to get it. She opened the top curiously and let the contents spill into her hand.

Her soul fell out of her body and straight down to the planet's core at what she saw.

"It's Aurra's." Anakin's hands fidgeted in his lap in stark contrast to the way she'd frozen. "I thought you might want to do that ceremony thing with Boba." He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, his aura suddenly vibrating with pale orange anxiety-indecision-unease.

She stared at the long, bloody tooth in her hand. It had been rinsed off but was far from clean, and had a gold filling in it. "How…" she asked, barely able to wrap her mind around it.

"Well, it was a pretty long fall, and the coroner didn't get there right away." Anakin shrugged and looked at his knees.

Ahsoka carefully put the tooth back into the bag and pulled the drawstring shut. "You were furious when I took Krell's teeth," she said after her brain rebooted and she remembered how to speak out loud. "You glued them back into his head because you said I had mutilated his corpse. Why would you–"

"I was never angry about you taking his teeth, Ahsoka. Hell, I almost told you to go get a shotgun so we could blow his face off and cover it up that way, but they'd already submitted the autopsy report." His lip twitched. "It was because you took so many." Anakin's aura went soft gold with humor. "Aurra's tooth was sort of an… impulsive grab," he continued quietly. "The pouch is the real gift, even if the purpose is the same. I got it for you to keep Krell's tooth in."

Ahsoka slowly met her Master's eyes.

"You thought I didn't see you snag that molar?" he asked wryly.

Ahsoka felt her stripes go black. "No," she admitted.

Anakin smirked. "I know everything, Snips."

She almost snorted. If that were true, then Rex would have been transferred to another battalion by now before she could do something stupid, like obey her stupid heart and tell him how she felt. "Well, you didn't know that I lost it on Geonosis," she said glumly. "I think it fell out of my belt when Boba used it as a sling for my arm. It must be still down there, but if it's the will of the Force that it rests there, then so be it."

"Really?" Anakin looked very surprised. "You could just… give it up like that?"

Ahsoka shrugged. "It's a shame, considering how long I've been carrying it, but it was never for me. It was for Dogma, for whenever he returns to us."

Anakin's face softened and his aura darkened a redder shade of violet with grief. She knew he didn't believe that Dogma would ever return, but she refused to give up hope. "You have a very, very big heart, Ahsoka." Anakin took her hand. His flesh one shook a little. "And I'm so sorry. You have every right to hate me–"

"Master, no!" Ahsoka immediately protested. "You made a mis–"

"You need to let me say this, because it's all I can think about and I'm going to explode if I don't get it out," Anakin interrupted her.

She shrank. "Okay."

"I messed up. I completely betrayed your trust and I left you swinging in the wind when you needed me the most, and then I broke your kriffing arm because you wouldn't abandon me to rot in my own self-pity. It doesn't matter if I meant to or not. I still did it." He looked away, his aura deep green with disgust-regret-guilt at his own actions. "You know… you know how I grew up," he continued quietly. "That was the kind of thing Watto would do, and later say he didn't mean to go that far when my mom was splinting my fingers or begging him to let me see a medical droid. And I did it to you." His aura was one thing, but it was the self-loathing in his voice that killed her.

She threw her arms around his neck so he couldn't see the tears welling up in her eyes, but she could do nothing about the sound of her heart breaking clean in half. "You're forgiven, Master," she said softly, breathing in the warm, clean smell of his neck. "But I haven't forgotten about that Gungan shaak roast. You're still taking me to Naboo."

Anakin laughed quietly and squeezed her in a wampa hug that pushed the air out of her lungs. "I'll make sure Jar-Jar clears his schedule. But not until I get back from Goran, and you from Corellia." He squeezed her one more time and then let her go. "I promise, Ahsoka, it will never happen again."

"I trust you, Master." Ahsoka watched his aura lighten like a sunrise at hearing her say it out loud. "As for Corellia, I have no idea what to expect there, and I hate that."

'"Skirata said she really hates Jedi, so you'll need to be on guard. Expect the standard Mando gear– flamethrower, whipcord, all of that."

"Well, Master Plo will hopefully have some ideas on how to deal with–"

"Master Plo is providing air support on Goran." Anakin bit his lip and looked down, going taupe with apprehension. "But you are not going to Corellia without an escort."

"Hm." Ahsoka paused and tried to think who was at the Temple and could go with her. Maybe Master Billaba? She was pretty busy with her own Padawan, though, maybe Master Beq could get away from the crèche long enough to…

Ahsoka looked at Anakin with a sudden feeling of dawning horror, realizing he'd already chosen an escort for her. "Nooo," she said, whining like a youngling.

"Yep."

"No, not Obi-Wan!" She almost kicked her feet.

"Yes, Obi-Wan," Anakin smiled. "This will be good, Snips. You'll have a chance to talk it out."

"Is that who you were messaging?" she asked him crossly.

"Maybe."

She did kick her feet at that. "Well, I don't wanna," she complained. Her rear lek swished irritably across her shoulders.

"Well, too bad."

Ahsoka crossed her arms and glared at the floor.

"Don't be like that. It's time to release your anger at him and move on." Anakin's aura faded to a light green with curiosity-apprehension. "How can you forgive me so easily and not him?" he asked softly.

She stared at the floor and counted the tiles instead of answering. "Master Plo said it's like a wound I'm refusing to let close up," she finally said. "But I feel like every time I do, something happens to rip the scab off. We meditated together on the way home, and he helped me release a great deal of my pain about it, but then we ended up in that alley again and…" She bit her lip. "I smelled his blood and everything came rushing back. It feels like it just happened all over again."

Anakin nodded and thought for a moment. "You need to yell at him," he said decisively.

Ahsoka gaped at her Master. "I can't yell at him," she said after a few moments of staring.

Anakin shrugged. "Always helps me."

"He's a Jedi Master, he's on the Council, I can't just yell at him–"

"Ahsoka, he used to change your diapers." Anakin rolled his eyes. "You can yell at him. I promise, he'd actually prefer it if you did. He thinks you hate him."

"First of all, I was potty trained by the time I came to the Temple," Ahsoka said defensively, and her Master started snickering. "And second, second–" she said loudly over Anakin's laughter, " –the problem is I don't hate him. If I hated him, I wouldn't care."

Anakin wrapped an arm around her shoulders and shook her. "Snips, listen. Boba just saw his molester's brains get blown all over a roller coaster, and tomorrow you're taking him to go meet the mother who abandoned him. You need to pull it together for him, and if that means yelling at Obi-Wan and getting it out of your system once and for all, then that's what you are going to do."

His words reached inside her chest and squeezed the blood from her heart like a hand around a jogan fruit. He was right, again. She was being selfish. Boba needed her support now more than ever, and to be there for him properly she needed a clear head. "Fine, I'll yell at him," she grumbled. "And then when he grounds me to the Agricorps for ten years, you can explain to him why I was so insubordinate."

"Good girl." Anakin squeezed her and gave her a cheery peck on the forehead, his aura a deep, rich orange with pride-affection-humor. "Let's get going."

"Okay." Her heart sank a little, knowing she wouldn't see him again until they were both back. "Thanks for the talk, Master. I know you're eager to get out of here and go to… well, you know." Ahsoka stood up and fidgeted with her new pouch.

Anakin goldened with amusement and he stood with her. "I'm not going anywhere, Snips."

Ahsoka blinked at him in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah. I haven't seen you in almost two weeks," Anakin said easily, pulling her back under one arm. "Come on. Let's go see if that pillow fort is done yet."

She tried and failed to hide her smile. Anakin choosing to spend time with her over Padmé? She almost peeked out of the hallway window to see if the sky had fallen.

"It sounds like they're having a good time," Anakin said with an eyebrow up and an aura like burnished gold. She recognized the Toydarian drumbeats vibrating through the rec room walls from Anakin's podracing hologame and there were at least a half-dozen loud, raised voices that were either really excited, or really angry.

That was fairly par for the course for that specific podracing game. Anakin had programmed in features capable of fracturing even the deepest of friendships.

"I'm glad," Ahsoka said. "He needs the distraction." She keyed the door open and felt the wave of bright yellow-orange excitement from the boys practically blow her lekku back like a strong wind. The pillow fort had been rebuilt and was even more elaborate than before. They'd propped up the sheets high enough to encapsulate the couch, where Jesse and Tup had been left elevated in places of honor given their injuries. Fives, Boba, and Kix were all cross-legged in the front of the tent, hollering over one another and debating the race, while Rex and Cody laid back on their elbows and were eating from a massive bag of caramel bang-corn, their auras bright gold with humor-amusement at the ruckus.

"I would have won if you hadn't thrown that hydrospanner, you little–"

"Don't blame me!"

"Oh I'm blaming you, you didn't have to–"

"Ahsoka!" Boba tossed his controller down and darted across the room, nearly knocking the wind out of her as he hit her like a meteor. His aura resonated with blue relief as his arms snagged around her waist and squeezed her tight.

"You okay?" she asked him softly, wincing at his two purple eyes. His nose was fine but he still looked like he'd gone three rounds with a rancor, and his aura was practically vibrating around him. He was overtired, but she sensed he didn't want to go to sleep and face his dreams quite yet.

"Obviously," he scoffed. "You look like shit."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks. Having fun?"

He shrugged. "Fives is being a bitch because I beat him four times in a row."

"He threw a hydrospanner at my podracer five meters before the finish line!" Fives whined.

Behind her, Anakin chuckled. "I distinctly remember you doing that to Echo and him not speaking to you for a full week after."

Fives rubbed the back of his head and pouted. Ahsoka made eye contact with Rex over Boba's head; his aura had gone a brilliant copper with affection-happiness and his smile was soft enough to make her pulse quicken.

Boba had his head on her chest; he glanced behind him at Rex, then flared bright orange with smugness-validation. He glanced up at her with the sneakiest, shittiest little smirk she'd seen on him yet.

"Ne'johaa," Ahsoka mumbled into his ear, making him cackle and flare gold, then crossed the room and gently plopped down between Tup and Jesse. She gave Tup a sympathetic kiss on the cheek next to the bacta patch plastered over his stitches first, then stretched out between Jesse and the sofa back and hugged him tightly, careful of the IV still sticking out of his arm. "Thank you," she said into his thick neck, too aware of the fact that she knew what it looked like on the inside. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend the smell of his blood didn't still linger in her nose. She'd nearly lost Jesse before; breaking his neck on Carmexa, splitting up on Xior-Cal to blow the spaceport, the nightmare that was Umbara, but this time was the closest call. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She punctuated every sentence with a rub of her lek against his cheek.

"Anytime, Commander," Jesse said drowsily, his aura deepening with copper and blue. He scratched between her montrals and made her purr. Her arm snaked over Jesse's chest and pulled him closer.

"That's a good time." Anakin stood with his arms crossed, looking at the scoreboard on the hologame. He gave Boba a friendly smile. "You play a lot of racing games?"

Boba shrugged and looked at his feet, his aura pale yellow with anxiety-embarrassment. "I guess," he mumbled. "I like this one though. It's funner than most."

Skywalker's smile widened. "Thank you." Boba raised a confused eyebrow at him and he laughed. "I made it. It was my final project for my advanced programming module."

"You made the game?' Boba asked, bright blue with surprise.

"Yeah." He smirked down at Boba. "Wanna race?"

"Please put him back in his place, General, he's been kicking my shebs for the last hour," Fives whined.

"We should go to sleep," Ahsoka said, a wave of exhaustion suddenly hitting her like a speederbus. She was warm, clean, had a belly full of meat, and was surrounded by clan. She was safe.

"One game, then we'll tuck in. What do you say?" Anakin tilted his head at Boba.

"You're on," Boba grinned, going bright orange with excitement-competition.

"No offense, Commander, but I've got a bruise the size of you on the side you're laying on." Jesse kissed her on the forehead then rolled her over him and off of the sofa before she could react, letting her fall directly into Rex's lap with a surprised squeak. "Special delivery, Captain."

"Oh." Ahsoka blinked up at Rex, disoriented from the new and unexpected position. "Hi."

"Evening, Commander," Rex said stoically, then broke into a grin.

She smiled back like her heart wasn't broken. She couldn't help but think about what had been done to him. He deserved to know that he had parents who loved him, that he had not just one but two little brothers – or big brothers, technically – who had meant the world to him, but if there was any chance of getting through whatever the Kaminoans had done to his mind to make him so resistant to even thinking about the truth, then it had been stolen and sent to Corellia in the datafiles of Boba's armor. Those holopics were all they had outside of their word to convince him. They'd even taken the kriffing tooka doll. It would have to wait until she got back from Corellia. Whether or not Boba came back with her, she'd at least have the holos to show–

Her eyes snapped onto a small orange stone on a string around his neck that smelled like the Togruta who had left the scent mark on him. A small growl escaped from her before she could stop it.

Rex's eyebrows went up and his aura turned yellow with caution-unease. "What?" he asked her warily.

"What is that?" She flicked the stone.

Rex's aura went almost neon yellow with embarrassment. "It's uh, a good luck charm?"

"Helps enhance his fertility, too," Anakin quipped with a grin and an aura bright gold with humor.

Ahsoka blinked a few times and resisted the urge to rip it off his neck.

"Do you want it for your rock bowl?" Rex asked hesitantly, untying the string and handing it to her.

"Thanks," she said stoically. She tucked the stone into the pocket of her leggings and resolved to throw it off the nearest rooftop at the first opportunity.

Cody moved the giant bag of bang-corn so she could properly nestle between them. She ended up with her head on Rex's chest and her legs strewn across Cody's lap, watching the hologame through half closed eyes. "Take it easy on him, Master," she murmured sleepily.

Anakin sat down on the floor next to Kix and relieved him of his controller. "Absolutely not," he said with a wink at Boba. "Did you do the Canto Bight track yet?"

"No." Boba plopped down on the floor next to him.

"Perfect." Anakin's smirk only grew as he quickly thumbed through the maps. "This one is fun. You have to avoid running into the fathiers."

"What happens if you do?"

"You explode." Skywalker wiggled his eyebrows and grinned. "Ready?"

"Just one game," Ahsoka reminded them. Her eyes were already fighting to stay open, Rex's chest far too comfortable and familar of a pillow for her to stay awake on.

"Yep." Anakin winked at her over his shoulder.

She lost her battle with sleep before they'd finished their first lap.

Boba blearily blinked his eyes open at the sound of something falling to the floor and the whispered exclamation of kriff. He focused enough to make out Skywalker's lumbering silhouette in the door of the tent, making a face at his fallen lightsaber and standing with only one boot on.

Sorry, he mouthed apologetically to Boba, then pulled on the other boot, picked up his lightsaber, gave a little wave, and tiptoed out of the room. The chrono above the doorway was barely visible, but it looked like it was right after 0500.

"Skyguy," Ahsoka mumbled into Boba's forehead. She snuggled her face closer to his in favor of waking up, her lek warm and dry against his cheek. Tiarek lay at his back, an arm thrown across them both. Boba didn't actually remember falling asleep; his mind had been spinning and anxious, but Ahsoka's ba'jurur had been more than happy to play hologames with him until everyone else was asleep and he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. He vaguely remembered falling asleep sitting up during the Bespin level, then nothing. He had been too exhausted to even dream.

He laid very still so he didn't wake either Tiarek or Ahsoka. He wanted to just listen to their breathing for a minute and pretend that everything wasn't about to change. His mother was alive, and she had his armor. He didn't understand how it was possible. Had the Geonosian shaman somehow known with his Force powers, or was it just a coincidence that he'd told him that his mother and Cassus were alive?

He didn't want to go to Corellia. He didn't want to see her. His mother had left him behind, why did Ahsoka think that she wanted him anymore? She'd clearly made her choice, been willing to fucking die for it. She hadn't taken him or Tiarek with her, she'd taken her biological child. Jango's vat scum obviously didn't mean the same to her.

He didn't want to ditch Ahsoka but he definitely couldn't live with the fucking monks, and he wasn't stupid enough to think that he could tag along on a warship. Maybe he could find a job? Something that would be safe and wouldn't take him off world, since that would definitely give the overgrown tooka a panic attack. He could fix things, he was a good slicer, and while he had a feeling that she'd have a lot to say about him using his blaster to make money, once he was thirteen and had gone through his verd'goten she wasn't allowed to tell him no.

'Course she probably would anyway, since she wasn't Mandalorian and had a decent-sized stick up her ass; even if she did have more mando'kar than Kal and all of his sons combined, she was still a Jedi.

"Rise and shine, boys." Cody sat up and yawned. "You too, Commander."

Ahsoka and Boba made protesting grunts and snuggled closer. Tiarek's arm tightened around both of them.

"Oi." Cody took Tiarek by the shoulder and shook him. His brother's arm popped up and whacked Cody right in the face. "Chakaar!" Cody protested as Tiarek wrapped his arm back around them and snickered.

"We've got a few minutes," Tiarek rumbled, his voice an octave lower from sleep.

"Mm." Cody snaked an arm around Tiarek's neck and wrapped his legs around his waist, putting him into a headlock from behind. "Wake up, vod'ika," he said sweetly over Tiarek's surprised choking noises.

Ahsoka wrapped her arms protectively around Boba and rolled them away from the chaos. "Di'kute," she mumbled, then yelped as Tiarek accidentally kicked her in the shebs. "Will you two knock it off–"

"What's happening?" Tup asked sleepily from the sofa above them; his hair was still in its usual bun, but now hung on the left side of his head like a saggy ear.

"Stay out of it until I check your stitches," Kix grumbled, still face-down on the blanketed floor.

"Commander," Tiarek wheezed, and Boba wasn't sure if he was asking Ahsoka for help or begging Cody to stop, but regardless his ori'vod rolled her eyes and slunk over Boba like a big cat to join the spontaneous wrestling match.

Boba crawled up to the sofa and took refuge with Jesse, who snickered and gave him a hand up. "Who usually wins these?" Boba asked, wincing as Ahsoka shoved her bony knee into Cody's spine.

"It's pretty even odds, actually." Jesse shrugged. "They're obviously bigger, but she's bendier and has the Force."

"Ke'day'duumi, chakaar!"

"Make me, vod'ika–"

"Gar dushne, Cody, you overgrown shabla thimiar–"

"L…language…"

"What in the world is going on here?" Plo sighed from the doorway. He held a large, brown paper bag with handles and stood with the posture of a disappointed father.

Cody blanched and immediately let Tiarek go. "Atten-tion!" he barked, causing the room to explode into motion as the half-asleep troopers all leapt to their feet on pure reflex. Boba was accidentally thrown off the couch by Jesse as he popped to his feet and saluted.

"Hi, Master," Ahsoka said sheepishly, getting to her feet last. She held out a hand to help up Boba, who accepted it with a wince. Jesse had tossed him right onto a hologame controller.

Plo chuckled. "At ease, gentlemen. And koh-to-yah, little 'Soka." He accepted the kiss she planted on his cheek. "I am very relieved to see all of you in one piece." He nodded at Boba. "Especially you, young man. By all accounts, you handled yourself bravely last night."

Boba blushed and looked down. He'd ended up in Ahsoka's lap crying like a fucking baby again, but maybe Plo didn't know that.

"Why is it that the moment I leave you alone, you get into trouble?" Plo teased Ahsoka.

She shrugged. "Trouble seems to find us, Master."

Plo shook his head. "I regret that I cannot stay longer, I must hurry to the Council chambers and then to The Triumphant. But I wanted to let you know, Ahsoka, that if things do not work out with Lady Skirata then contact Yeen Lah at the Tabori Academy in the Mah-Lo-Dahn district. Tuition has been taken care of."

Boba furrowed his brows and let Jesse reach behind him to retrieve a wayward plastoid gauntlet. "What are you talking about?"

Plo gently maneuvered his way through the dressing troopers and sat beside Boba on the sofa. "I have an old friend who is the headmaster of a boarding school here on Coruscant," he told him gently. "He has agreed to allow you to enroll on a probationary basis. As long as you behave yourself, you may attend on a scholarship."

Boba stared at Plo. "You're not worried I'll run away?" he asked bluntly.

Plo shrugged. "I would hope not. It would reflect quite poorly on Ahsoka and myself."

Boba almost asked why he should care on reflex, but bit his lip and nodded instead. It was time to grow up and stop slapping away help when it was offered genuinely. Not everyone was out to get him.

Most people, yes. But not everyone.

"I was very unhappy to learn of what had transpired regarding your armor, but I still wanted you to have these." Plo handed him the bag.

On top was a brand-new leather holster for a WESTAR. Boba picked it up, grinning, and examined it. It was buttery soft and a few shades darker than the ones his father used to have. "Wizard," he murmured.

"Is that bantha leather?" Fives asked, slipping on his pauldrons. Boba handed it to him to see, and he let out a low whistle.

"Indeed." Plo nodded. Next, Boba pulled out the package wrapped in plain brown paper that had been underneath the holster; inside was a dove-gray flight suit meant to be worn underneath his beskar plates.

"Cin vhetin," Plo said with a good-natured rumble. "A fresh start, yes?"

Boba nodded, staring speechlessly at the flight suit. He could feel the roughness of the armor weave embedded into the top layer of canvas, and it had several snaps on the arms and legs that would allow the length to be adjusted. Clearly, it was a garment meant to grow with him. "Why?" he finally asked Plo softly.

Plo's weird face squinched up in a smile. "We all deserve a second chance," he said, then patted him on the shoulder and stood. "Unfortunately, I must hurry, as I believe I'm already late for the Council meeting." He bowed at Boba. "I hope this is not the last time we meet, Boba Fett, but if it is, then let me tell you what a privilege it has been to know you."

"Koh-to-yah," Boba mumbled, his cheeks burning at all of the attention.

Plo's face squinched up even further. "Koh-to-yah," he bowed one more time, excusing himself.

"Hey," Ahsoka said softly after the door slid shut, placing a hand on his knee. "No matter what happens with Kaisa, we're getting your armor back. I'll bite her if I have to."

Boba nodded and tried to smile. "Are Togs really venomous?" he asked in a small voice.

Ahsoka burst into surprised laughter. "Some of us, yes. It's a recessive trait, almost exclusive to Togrutas from the southern continent. I had my glands removed when I was five."

"Really?" Fives asked, crestfallen. "Why?"

"I bit another Initiate," she said with a grin. "Our venom doesn't do anything but cause pain, but I was still deemed too big of a bite risk for them to remain."

"Lame." Fives helped haul Tup and Kix up to their feet. "Let's grab a transport before the lines start, 'lek? See you later, Commander." He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek punctuated with a snozzberry. "And as for you ad'ika," he began, an evil twinkle in his eye.

"Don't fucking kiss me," Boba warned, leaning away.

"I was going to say don't let your dinii'la buir hurt my Commander," Fives snickered.

"I won't," Boba promised. "I don't even know that she's my buir anymore. She'll have to prove it."

"Don't go easy on her. Make her work for it." Fives rubbed his scalp roughly, then gave him a little salute and followed Kix and Tup out the door.

"You're not actually dropping in this condition, are you?" Ahsoka asked Jesse, frowning.

He made a face. "I have no doubt Kix will chain me to a cot in the medbay. You know what a ba'buir he is." He leaned over and gave Ahsoka a hug, then winked at Boba. "See you around, squirt."

"See you." Boba watched him go with an unexpected longing heavy in his chest. His eyes turned on Cody, who was lazily lounging in halvsies. "You're not going?" he asked.

"Nope." Cody smirked at him. "I'm your escort to Corellia."

"Oh good, I'll have a buffer," Ahsoka sighed, then dramatically leaned against Tiarek. "Don't suppose I can commandeer you?" she asked teasingly, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

He laughed and wrapped his arms around her. "Some of us have to work for a living."

Boba rolled his eyes so hard that they nearly fell out of his head. We're not like that, she's my Commanding officer; Boba almost laughed out loud. Ahsoka clearly knew what was happening – the way her heartbeat had jumped like a blaster bolt had gone by her big head last night the second he smiled at her proved that– but she was a Jedi. She was ignoring it until it became background noise, like the way Dad's knee would ache in the rain that never stopped on Kamino. Tiarek, on the other hand, was just a fucking idiot and didn't realize he was in love with her. He probably thought it was totally normal to look at his little sister like she had invented sunshine.

Boba glanced over at Cody, who looked as exasperated as Boba felt. He gave Boba a weary nod of acknowledgement and crammed a handful of caramel bang-corn in his mouth.

"I guess we do at some point. Pretty convenient that we all had shore leave at the same time, though." Ahsoka scrunched her nose and giggled. "The 501st, 212th and 104th? Wild odds."

"Will of the Force," Tiarek deadpanned, then looked over at Boba. He frowned. "What?"

Oblivious says fucking what. Boba readjusted his face so he wasn't looking at his brother like he was the stupidest motherfucker in the galaxy and smiled. "Nothing."

Tiarek let go of his Commanding Officer and yanked him into a hard hug. "You be careful and watch her back, 'lek?" he said sternly.

"What I've been doing, vod," Boba said, his voice muffled by plastoid. He knew they had to let go at some point, but he was willing to wait for Tiarek to do it first.

Given Corellia's proximity to Coruscant, it had been deemed prudent for Obi-Wan and Cody to escort Ahsoka and Boba to the planet on a commercial transport rather than try to beg a ship off of a benefactor. The transport was surprisingly empty, with only a Twi'lek family with a set of very hyperactive little girls running up and down the aisles screaming play songs in Ryl, and a trio of very strongly-scented Chagrians in the aisle nearest the door. All in all, he'd certainly been forced to travel under worse conditions.

He had once had to stow away with Qui-Gon and Satine on a nerf transport. Sometimes he could still smell it in his dreams.

Ahsoka wasn't quite as frosty with him, but she was still quite stiff. She was making an active effort to act normal with him, Obi-Wan could see, but it was almost worse than the cold shoulder. He didn't like that she had to try.

Boba, in contrast to how they'd left Coruscant the first time, was now glued to her side. Every few minutes he'd throw Obi-Wan an unnerving glare before going back to watching something on the datapad he had propped on top of a rancor plush. It appeared that the two had become quite close during their short journey together.

He shouldn't have been that surprised. She had done a great deal for him, and clones seemed to be drawn to Ahsoka, regardless of age.

He finished up the last stitch in the sleeve of her robe, tied off a square knot, and snipped the thread. "Good as new," he said, smiling as he handed them to her.

"Thank you very much, Master." Ahsoka tucked them into her satchel and gave him a small nod and smile, then returned to her homework.

Obi-Wan met Cody's eyes and silently pled for his help. Cody's cheek twitched and he cleared his throat. "What're you working on?" he asked Ahsoka.

Her eyes flicked up. "Trigonometry Three." She looked back down.

Cody looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

"You're on the third module already?" Obi-Wan asked, seizing his opening gratefully. "I was under the impression you were still on the second."

"Started it a month ago." Ahsoka gave him a flat smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, like he was a stranger she was about to ask to squeeze behind in a crowded shopping aisle.

Boba glanced between them, working his jaw. "Gar'copaani ni rejorhaa'i ke'shab?" he asked her.

Ahsoka's eyes went wide. "Boba, no."

"Tion'meg? Ne'baati. Kaysh ne'vegyc chaabi gar. Gett'se'kovid ni ne'chaabi." The boy was looking at him like he was deciding whether or not to bite him.

"Boba, kaysh johaar'i Mando'a," Ahsoka sighed.

Boba met Obi-Wan's eyes fearlessly and dared him to say something.

"My Huttese is quite passable if you'd prefer to swear at me in that," Obi-Wan couldn't help but quip.

"Or I could just tell you to leave her the fuck alone in Basic," Boba snapped.

"Okay." Ahsoka yanked the datapad out of Boba's lap and put it and her homework on the empty seat opposite of them. "Let's go get a snack, 'lek? I know I saw a vending droid."

"Do you need money?" Obi-Wan dug in his pocket and offered her his credit chit.

"No, I–"

"I insist."

Ahsoka took it reluctantly. "Would you like anything?" she asked.

"I'm fine, thank you. Get whatever you'd like."

"I wouldn't say no to a biscuit," Cody added, moving his feet out of the way as she shuffled across the seats. Boba kept direct eye contact with Obi-Wan as she dragged him down the aisle.

"Well, this is going well." Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"I agree."

Obi-Wan turned his head to look at Cody. "I was being sarcastic, Commander."

"She let him curse you out to his heart's content before, didn't she?" Cody asked, smirking. "I'd say that was an improvement."

"True," Obi-Wan said. "But still." He watched Boba scroll through the menu, all the way to the bottom where the most expensive snacks were usually listed, then repeatedly press a button until Ahsoka smacked his hand away.

"Just give her a bit more time, Sir. She…" Cody made sure the duo was still far enough away to not overhear them. "That Null she chased down led her straight to the alley. I think it's all a bit fresh for her again."

"Which alley?" Obi-Wan asked, confused.

He got the sense that Cody was actively refraining from rolling his eyes. "The alley, Sir."

"The–" Obi-Wan trailed off, crestfallen. The alley in which he'd faked his death. "Oh."

"Yep."

Obi-Wan crossed his legs and frowned. "Why would he lead her there?"

"His exact words were 'I thought I could use the advantage.' "

"Why would that give him an advantage?"

Cody blinked at him. "Sir."

Obi-Wan enjoyed the expression Cody was making when it was directed at clueless shinies, but certainly didn't appreciate it being turned on him. "What?" he asked, trying not to sound offended.

"He did it so she'd be distracted, Sir," Cody patiently explained.

Obi-Wan busied himself with an invisible thread on the end of his sleeve so he didn't have to look at Cody's exasperated face. "Did you ever find out what happened to her arm?" he asked.

"I–" Cody started, but made a quick motion of head at the aisle. "They're coming back."

Ahsoka shuffled back into her seat with an armful of snacks, closely followed by Boba. He had an armful of a luxury brand of Pantoran chocolate treats and he kicked Obi-Wan in the shin as he scooted carelessly by.

Ahsoka tossed a sleeve of chocolate biscuits to Cody, a packet of shortbread cookies to Obi-Wan, then a can of tea to both of them before opening her pouch of jerky. "Thank you, Master." She handed him his chit. "I'll repay you for Boba's hyunakadi. He misunderstood the instructions on the droid."

"No I didn't," Boba said, shoving a chocolate-coated cookie into his mouth. "If you ask me nice I'll let you smell my breath when I'm done."

"Boba!" Ahsoka snapped. "Gev, vod'ika, tayli'bac? Chak'miit'la ne'gaat'tayli. Ni ru'tioni cuy'ehn. Ni nari dar'tioni'an."

Boba frowned and chewed his chocolate with a sour look on his face.

"How much longer to Corellia?" Ahsoka asked, biting the insides of her cheeks and hugging herself tightly. Her knee jiggled at hyperspeed. She looked like she wanted to jump out of the airlock.

"Two hours," Obi-Wan answered.

"Great." She stared out the window into hyperspace.

Obi-Wan watched her silently for a moment. She was stressed, clearly, it didn't take the Force to sense that. Her lekku lay limp and lifeless down her chest and her eyes were tight at the corners. She had forgone her Shilian sash and had chosen a set of dark-brown robes instead of the white and red she usually favored; Obi-Wan knew for a fact that the set he had just repaired weren't her only ones, so it had to be a conscious choice. There was a little black pouch on her belt that he'd never seen before. Despite snapping at the boy only a few moments earlier, she snuck her hand over to Boba's least-chocolatey one and laced their fingers together tightly.

"Do you remember the crèchetale about the purrgil and the oswaft?" Obi-Wan asked her softly.

Boba's expression shifted from hostile to curious for the first time in his presence.

Ahsoka glanced at Obi-Wan without moving her head, and her lip twitched just a tiniest bit at the corner. "I believe that's one of Huyang's favorites," she said quietly.

Cody put his boots up on the empty seat across from him. "How's it go?" he asked.

Obi-Wan looked back at Ahsoka. "Care to do the honors?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure I remember it right. Maybe you should."

Obi-Wan recognized an olive branch when he saw one. He tried not to smile too wide, then cleared his throat. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…"

Notes:

MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS Ni ven'kyramu ad kebbur: I will kill anyone who tries Ne'johaa: shush Mando'kar: a zest for life, big metaphorical balls Ba'jurur*: teacher Chakaar: general insult, used like asshole Ke'day'duumi: Let go! Ori/vod/ika: big/sibling/little Gar dushne: you're the worst Ad'ika: Little child, kiddo Dinii'la buir: Crazy mom Gar'copaani ni rejorhaa'i ke'shab?: Want me to tell him fuck off? Ne'baati. Kaysh ne'vegyc chaabi gar. Gett'se'kovid ni ne'chaabi.: I don't care. He shouldn't scare you. Scrotum head doesn't scare me. Boba, kaysh johaar'i Mando'a: Boba, he speaks Mando'a. Gev, vod'ika, tayli'bac? Chak'miit'la* ne'gaat'tayli. Ni ru'tioni cuy'ehn. Ni nari dar'tioni'an: Stop, little brother, understand? Assholery doesn't help. I asked three times. I am no longer asking. OTHER NOTES Sǫnkë squash: A medium sized, hard-skinned squash with a light blue background, dark blue stripes, light pink freckles, and magenta flesh. Native to Felucia and very bitter, but sweetens with fermentation. Often grown as feed for domesticated tamtam birds Mosasaur: large marine reptile native to the equator of Shili, invasive on the Aagani coast of the northern continent Caara: An evergreen tree with needled leaves, native to Shili's southern continent but widely cultivated off world, visually similar to a pine but with a brighter smell like ragweed. Produces between 10-20, 100-lb stonefruits that take a full summer to mature. Caara butter and oil is a popular skincare export from Shili Shunka: Small canid native to Shili (the dogs from Ahsoka's village in TOTJ) Hyunakadi: crispy Pantoran cookie, basically yakgwa but dipped in chocolate Oswaft: Legends creature, similar to a purrgil but resembling a manta ray instead of a whale. Native to the ThonBaka nebula Preemptively for nitpickers: I know that The Triumphant was destroyed at Abregado, Plo's Venator is The Triumphant II Electric Boogaloo Back on my random Togruta anatomy bullshit again ✌️

Taglist: @starwarsficnetwork, @soliloquy-of-nemo Dividers: @saradika-graphics

Weequay Independence Week came around once a year; a year on their home planet Sriluur, that is, not a Galactic standard year, and Ahsoka was fairly certain that the holiday was actually just a massive in-joke played by Weequays that were wholeheartedly committed to the bit. Not only were there an inconsistent number of days between "years," but Sriluur had been under occupation by the Hutt Cartel for almost half a millennia and didn't have anyone to celebrate independence from. Fireworks in every color, including several she couldn't see, boomed over their heads; if she wanted to see them she had to wear the special glasses that simulated a Weequay's fourth ocular cone, and she wasn't willing to trade pretty colors for the ability to spot Kal Skirata or any of his sons creeping up on Boba.

The Cuy'val Dar sergeant had certainly told the truth when he had described the place as hopping. There had to be thousands of Coruscantis at the fairgrounds eager to forget the banality of war and lose themselves in good old-fashioned, pay-to-play fun. There was a different holoradio station blasting from every game booth, screaming constantly echoed from the nearby drop tower, the smell of a thousand different deep-fried foods battled for dominance in Ahsoka's nose, and most distractingly of all, the crowd of people meant that there were hundreds of auras for her to tune out.

If she hadn't already been struggling with her Ordo-induced headache, she might have been able to enjoy herself, but instead her skin crawled with overstimulation. She wanted nothing more than to go back to the barracks and tuck herself into a pile of her brothers with some silkworm puffs and a holoprojector. She was so behind on Princess For A Year that it wasn't even funny.

A montral-splitting victory bell started ringing from Boba's game booth. "Fucking right!" he crowed, his aura glowing soft gold with triumph. He threw his pellet gun down, raised his fists in the air, and bounced excitedly off of Jesse's side. "Three clears in a row, bitch! I'm getting that fucking bantha."

Jesse went chartreuse with annoyance and gave Ahsoka an exasperated look over Boba's shoulder. She shrugged and sent him a tendril of copper gratitude-affection. He'd somehow managed to squeeze twelve half-toasted members of the 501st into a single taxi – along with a nervous shiny from the 400th named Sterling, who was the poor soul who had been in the taxi when Jesse commandeered it and had been given no choice but to come along for the ride – and had made it to the fairgrounds ready to fight whoever had dared lain hands on his Commander before she and Anakin had even arrived. She'd spent a half hour talking him down from slaughtering Ordo where he stood cuffed at her side in his blacks, Rex and Cody had managed to pacify him by ordering him to stand guard over her and Boba, then they'd divided his entourage – including Sterling, who was very excited about his kidnapping/adoption and had already solicited Vaughn to help him transfer to the 501st – to scour the place for any sign of Skirata. Her hyper-competent boys had been scouting the place for an hour using the gridded holomap Ridge and Appo had rigged up on the way over from 79's, but so far there was no sign of the Mandalorian anywhere.

"He never used to swear that much," Ordo said hoarsely beside her, watching Boba pick up the pellet gun again and start a new game. The Zeltron gamemaster in his dark blue, crushed velvet top hat was looking increasingly disturbed by both Boba's mouth and aim. Jesse gave Ordo a silent promise of extreme violence with his eyes before turning back around to watch Boba.

Ahsoka heaved a huffy sigh. "I guess being thrown into the penitentiary at the age of eleven will do that to you," she snapped, rubbing at the bridge of her nose.

"Why'd you do it, then?" Ordo asked. His aura was still in that flat red box around him, resisting her passive Empathy and unreactive to her occasional prod in the Force. It was very annoying.

"I–" Fireworks loudly popped overhead and Ahsoka glared at him. "I didn't put him in there, I just arrested him. I had nothing to do with his sentence."

Ordo cocked his head. "Why didn't you follow up?"

Ahsoka stared at the Null. "Because I've been a little preoccupied with this thing they're calling a galaxy wide war?" she said sharply, trying to ignore the squirming worm of guilt in her stomach that enthusiastically agreed with him.

Ordo shrugged and cleared his sore throat. Despite applying a healthy glob of bacta gel to his neck after he had been stunned by Cody – because while Ahsoka wasn't in a mood to be nice to the shabuir who'd led her on a wild bantha chase so one of his brothers could steal Boba's beskar'gam, she wasn't a total jerk, either – the swelling hadn't completely gone down yet.

If Skirata cried about it, then tough. He was lucky Ordo was still breathing at all with how furious Anakin had been. Ahsoka was surprised it hadn't started thundering; storms seemed to manifest more and more whenever Anakin lost control.

Thunder cracked in the window behind her, even louder than her whine of pain at Anakin's hand tightening on her arm–

Ahsoka shook her head and breathed out her anxiety to the Force. Smelling Obi-Wan's blood and then gleaning the darkness that had been circling around Anakin had put her brain in a bad spot, but like Master Plo had said, she had to close up her wounds and not continue to linger on the pain. "Jesse!" she called. "We'll be right back. Don't let Boba out of your sight."

"Where are you going?" Jesse asked sharply, his aura roaring up like a bonfire with teal protection-wariness. He gave Ordo another death glare.

"Grabbing us a bite. We'll just be a minute." Ahsoka crossed her arms and gave him her best Commander eyes.

Jesse pursed his lips, gave her a disgruntled thumbs up, and continued to watch Boba annihilate a whole herd of blurrg holotargets. Tup stood on the other side of her vod'ika, grinning and practically bouncing on his heels in neon-blue joy-fun-delight.

"Come on," Ahsoka said, tugging on Ordo's cuffs. He shuffled after her, unable to walk properly with the second pair around his ankles. She was fairly sure that he could get out of them at any time and he was just humoring her, which only added to her annoyance.

The discordant organ music blasting from the nearby carousel of gilded varactyls felt like a bunch of razor-coated marbles bouncing around in her resonance chambers. She spotted a shaved ice stand and dragged Ordo to the front of it, then handed the Quarren behind the till her credit chit. "Five with shuura syrup, please," she said.

Ordo looked confused and surprised and maybe a little constipated, though that may have just been his face. She took her credit chit back and led him back down the midway towards Jesse, Tup, and Boba with the tray of shaved ice in hand, and handed him a cup.

"Thank you," Ordo said politely after he'd taken a bite.

"Yeah, you're welcome." Ahsoka wrinkled her nose at the sickly-sweet syrup and decided to save the rest of hers for Anakin. She didn't really like shuura, but the boys all did.

"Why'd you get me one?" Ordo asked curiously.

"Your throat hurts, right?" she asked shortly. "It'll help."

"But why would you care if my throat hurts?" Ordo asked. He was watching her curiously, like she was a zoo animal he'd never seen before. It was unnerving.

Ahsoka bit the inside of her cheek. "Because unlike you, I'm a nice person."

"I'm not not a nice person," Ordo frowned.

"Yeah, well." Ahsoka shrugged. "I don't like to see suffering when I can stop it."

"Because of your Empathy," Ordo nodded sagely.

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes. "No, that's not why," she said sharply. "You don't know anything about me. Don't act like you do."

"You're Ahsoka of Clan Tano, granddaughter of Nita, born on Shili in the Cigonaa'agan Mountains under three moons," Ordo said. "You've been the Padawan learner of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker for almost three years. You're a natural-born Empath and have aural synesthesia. You primarily practice the Djem So variant of Shien form, wield two green lightsabers, and are trained in Fáng Shìlóng, Chambara, and Echani."

Ahsoka gaped at him. He knew her grandmother's name. He knew her moons. Even Anakin didn't know her moons.

"So is it because your buir is the reason my throat hurts, then?" he asked.

Ahsoka snorted, picturing Anakin's face at being called her father, and ducked away from a white Twi'lek in purple sequins spitting flames into the air. "You're the reason it hurts, di'kut. You're the one who decided to shoot Rex and run for it, remember?"

Ordo shrugged. "Just following orders. Nothing personal."

Ahsoka stiffened. "Why were those your orders?" she stopped and asked him, turning in the middle of the thoroughfare. "Why did Kal take the armor, why would he do that to Boba? Does he have some sort of grudge against Jango that he's taking out on him?"

Ordo looked offended. "No," he said stiffly. "He's not petty. Don't talk about him like that."

"I can't think of any other reason for him to let you beat on Boba all the time," Ahsoka snapped, barely resisting the urge to slap the shaved ice out of his hands.

"What did Boba tell you?" Ordo asked, his nose scrunched up in the universal expression of Fett annoyance. "I didn't beat on him. We fought, yes, but it wasn't any worse than what my brothers and I did to each other, and he was a spoiled brat. Everyone else was too afraid to put him in his place because he was the Prime's son. I wasn't."

"You tried to drown him in a toilet!" Ahsoka growled.

Ordo snickered. "You mean I gave him a swirly."

"I don't care what you call it, you shouldn't have picked on him!" Ahsoka crossed her arms and glared at him.

"Look, I'll admit that I have a short temper sometimes, but I eased up on him once Kal told me it wasn't fair. I was a child, too." Ordo turned away and took a big bite of his ice while Ahsoka gaped and tried not to drop her tray.

I was a child, too. Five little words that hit her like a scramball bat. Their bodies and minds may have developed twice as fast, there was no genetic tampering or flash training that could give them twenty years of social skills in only ten. Mental maturity didn't mean social maturity, they had to learn that the old-fashioned way. It had never occurred to her that someone wouldn't know that it was wrong to pick on someone so much smaller than them without being told that it was. It seemed like one of those things that a person should just… know. Rex certainly understood that.

But Rex had been raised alongside two brothers that were the same age as him and half his size. He would have been told to be careful with Boba and Cassus before he could even walk, and as both a first generation clone and a natural leader, he would have passed that on to the brothers who hadn't figured it out. It didn't make what was done to Boba acceptable or his trauma as a result of it any less valid, but Ordo treating him the exact same as his bigger brothers because he just didn't know any better did make more sense than him torturing Boba for no reason at all.

And she knew firsthand what a little brat he could be, so she couldn't even argue the point.

"Osik," she mumbled, walking again. Jesse made eye contact with her from where he stood vigilant and motioned at her to hurry up. "Why'd you go after Rex whenever he tried to stop you, then?"

Ordo shrugged. "Because he stepped up to me and I don't back down."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. She handed a cup to Jesse and Tup, then kissed Boba's stubbly head without interrupting his game. "Having fun?" she asked warmly.

"Two more games and that bantha is mine," Boba said, his aura dark blue with focus, very pointedly ignoring Ordo and doing his best to not let his hands tremble. He missed his next three shots.

She put the cup on the counter for whenever he was done and led the Null a safe distance away before Boba's streak was ruined. "When's your dad planning on showing up?" she asked Ordo irritably. She gave him a little shove towards a picnic table near the game booth then plopped down on the bench opposite of him.

Ordo shrugged. "When he wants you to see him you'll know."

"So he's already here?" Ahsoka asked sharply. "And he's what, just watching us and biding his time?"

"Probably. Like I said, you'll know." Ordo finished his cup of shaved ice and tossed it over his shoulder into a wastebasket ten meters away without looking. "You were right, that helped," he said with an appreciative nod.

Ahsoka felt a warm tingle on the back of her neck, smelled the citrus degreaser soap Anakin used on everything from his tools to his hair, then spotted him a few booths over carrying a paper bowl in one big hand and two drinks in the other. She also caught a whiff of t'bac smoke which made her frown, since as far as she knew he hadn't smoked in over a year.

"Quasar doesn't count as dinner," Anakin said, putting the bowl in front of her. It held a pile of ground bantha meat with spicy green oil and black vinegar drizzled over the top, and she could smell green tea through the drink's straw.

"I'm not hungry," she said automatically, pushing the bowl away.

Anakin's aura darkened to violet-red with hurt-guilt and his shoulders fell a little.

Ahsoka sighed and pulled the bowl back. "Thank you," she said, bumping her Master's shoulder once he sat down. She put the half-melted cup of shaved ice in front of him. "Trade you."

"Oh hey, shuura," Anakin said after taking a bite, perking up a little. He put an arm around her shoulders and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. "Thanks, Snips."

Ahsoka smiled and scooped up a bite of bantha with two fingers, her chest going warm and fuzzy.

"You two are very physically affectionate compared to other Jedi," Ordo quipped once both of their mouths were full.

They gave him matching glares. "She's a Togruta," Anakin said, swallowing first; he flushed pink in his cheeks and yellow in his aura. "Togrutas need physical affection or they get depressed."

"She gets depressed without forehead kisses?" Ordo's eyes flicked between them.

"Yes," Ahsoka snapped through a mouthful of bantha.

Ordo watched them curiously for a few more seconds, then shrugged. "Alright." He turned around in his seat to watch Boba.

"Thank you, by the way," Ahsoka said quietly once she'd swallowed. "For catching my saber. And me. But mostly my saber."

Anakin's eyes went soft and his aura flooded with copper and gold. "That's what I'm here for," he said with a small smile. "And thank you, too. For, well… all of it."

"That's what I'm here for," Ahsoka said fondly.

"No." Anakin looked away and went violet with guilt. "It's not, Ahsoka. That…" he glanced at the back of Ordo's head, then at her. "It wasn't the Jedi way," he continued in a low voice. "I need to be a better example for you. I will be better. I promise." He leaned his head against her montral and closed his eyes. She could both see and feel his exhaustion. If she was in a better frame of mind, she might have tried to ease it with the Force the way Barriss had shown her once, but as tired as she was she was more inclined to join him in a powernap and let Ordo shout when Sergeant Skirata finally decided to grace them with his presence.

"I'm a little offended you didn't offer to chew my meat for me," she said quietly after a few seconds, making Anakin snort. "No, really. I know I'm not as adorable as Taarak–"

"Oh, don't start–" Anakin laughed softly.

"No, I get it. He's all fresh and squishy and sweet. I'm a dried up old stick compared to him."

"You're sixteen!" Anakin laughed, flaring bright gold with humor.

"And a teen mother," Ahsoka sighed and rubbed her lek on his cheek to cover up the baby's annoying scent mark. "Taarak would never."

"Jealous, jealous, jealous," Anakin teased. He tipped his cup up and drank the melted ice. "You're gonna love him, Snips. He's from the south, like you."

"Oh yeah?" She raised a brow marking and her drink. "What's his clan name?"

"Na'Hane."

Ahsoka spat out her tea.

Anakin stared at her, his aura gone bright gold with humor-shock. "You've heard of it?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Ahsoka nodded with a grimace. Oh, fierfek, should she tell him or just let him live in blissful ignorance? Poor Taarak didn't deserve to be legally saddled with that clan name. Regardless of how not-miffed she felt about Anakin's clear fondness for the kid, she would have spoken up if she had known that the toddler was Na'Hane. He would never be able to go back to Shili with that–

She clapped a hand over the back of her neck as a shiver went down her spine. Ordo's head turned ever so slightly to the left, then returned to its original position. Over at the game booth, Boba raised a bantha plush that was the size of Artoo over his head and bellowed triumphantly like a Tusken Raider.

"What is it?" Anakin asked, his aura flaring with turquoise concern as she stood and started looking around. It took her a few seconds, but she spotted him; Skirata was sitting alone at a picnic table about twenty meters away, using a spoon to eat a massive, flat donut covered in powdered sugar and had blue custard oozing out of the center. She could just barely see his golden beskar'gam peeking out from underneath a brown leather jacket. His face was well-lined, shaved, and tanned from the sun, and his silver hair was cropped short in the same regulation cut shinies shipped out with.

Taarak's unfortunate clan history would have to wait. "Skirata's here," Ahsoka said softly, nodding in his direction.

Anakin followed her line of sight and his eyes hardened. "Let's go have a chat," he growled, moving to stand.

Ahsoka put a hand on his shoulder. "Master, let me speak to him alone," she said quietly. She wouldn't get the answers she wanted with Anakin glowering and dominating the conversation. "I don't want to give him Ordo right away, and you're the only one capable of keeping him in custody if he actually tries to get loose."

"She's right," Ordo said with a chuckle over his shoulder.

Anakin's aura went a sickly teal with concern-affection-protection but he nodded. "All units return to Lucky's position," he said into his commlink. "Target has been located. I want all eyes on him within the next sixty seconds."

Jesse spun on his heel and stared at her, asking her – or rather begging her – with his eyes to take him with her as protection. She shook her head and looked pointedly at Boba.

A chorus of Sir, yes Sir! overlapped on Anakin's audio. He put a sticky commlink disc on her montral. "Go," he nodded. "I'll watch you from here, but just say the word and I'll come and back you up. Be careful."

Ahsoa walked slowly towards the old Mandalorian while her heart did its best to escape from her chest. She wasn't sure what exactly was making her so nervous; he was just sitting there eating a donut, but he was menacing in a way she couldn't pinpoint. His pale lavender aura was locked down tight around him in a box the same as Ordo, but despite his easy smile and casual veneer, Skirata vibrated with danger in the Force. She felt like she was about to shove her head inside of an akul's mouth.

"Commander Tano," Skirata greeted her with a wide smile and a small double take, like he'd only just noticed her. He wiped his hands on a handkerchief that he tucked into his jacket pocket then offered her a hand to shake.

Ahsoka didn't take her eyes off of his face as she squeezed his hand. His eyes were mild – kind, even – but there was a predatory shrewdness behind them masquerading as pleasantry. It made her want to smack him.

"Grab a spoon and help me out with this," Skirata offered, sitting back down. "Plenty to go around."

Ahsoka let her fangs poke out from under her lips. "I'm a carnivore," she said frostily, taking a seat and crossing her arms. "Where's Boba's beskar'gam?"

"Straight to the point, eh? I told you, it's safe," said Skirata, giving her an up-and-down. Not for the first time that night, Ahsoka wished that she'd thought to stop by the Temple and get a change of clothing before going to the fairgrounds. He dug back into his donut. "I see you brought Ordo."

"You can have him back when Boba has his armor," Ahsoka replied.

"You really think you can hold him?" he asked, smirking a little.

"My Master can," Ahsoka answered, resisting the urge to add by the throat, at least.

"I was surprised to see that Skywalker had tagged along," Skirata said.

Ahsoka cocked her head. "Why wouldn't I?"

Skirata shrugged, took a bite of custard, and pointed at her with his spoon. "Well, you're a tough cookie, no doubt about that. Leading from the front as a Padawan Commander since you were fourteen, ye Manda. We let ours join the battlefield at thirteen, once they've passed their verd'goten, but not on the front lines. Not unless there's no other choice."

"And?" Ahsoka asked. "What does that have to do with my Master?"

"Well, ad'ika, it speaks to a lack of confidence on your part," Skirata shrugged again.

Ahsoka threw her head back and laughed out loud. "Really?" she grinned. "See, Sergeant, if you actually knew me as well as you think you do, you'd realize that bringing my Master speaks to a lack of ego on my part. What I care about is walking away tonight without losing any of my men and getting Boba's armor back, not proving that I have a bigger dick than you. I already know that I do."

She could feel Anakin radiating pride at her through their Force bond. Skirata's eyes changed, something in them cracking like spring ice floating on a river. "Did some research on you after you sprang Boba," Skirata changed the subject, wiping his hands on the handkerchief again before picking up his datapad. "Your service history is one thing – very impressive, by the way – but what I was surprised to see was how extensive your media presence was." The screen was tilted towards him, Ahsoka couldn't see what he was flicking through. "A real darling, you were."

Ahsoka felt something cold start to leak into her chest.

"Ah. This one's cute." Skirata smiled at the screen and flipped it; it was an early holopic from the campaign on Nacime, if she remembered right. She sat on her haunches between Rex and Denal in front of the ruins of a bombed apartment building. She was stapling a gash on the side of Rex's head shut, her tongue sticking out in concentration. Denal had her lightsaber in hand and was using it to light a t'bac stick.

Ahsoka smiled fondly at the holopic. "Denal," she said quietly. "We got in so much trouble for that."

Skirata's smile stayed on his face without reaching his eyes. He flicked through an assortment of propaganda pics taken by the GAR's publicity department; dragging Echo through a hip-deep mud pit back on her first Felucian deployment, perched on Cody's shoulders with a pair of macrobinoculars on Dantooine, following Anakin eagerly into battle with her single saber and her brand-new baby chestplate, arm wrestling with Rex in front of a campfire while a dozen of her brothers egged them both on. "So many of these," he said softly. "Holopic after holopic of you and the boys on… hell, at least twenty different planets. You, Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi… the camera loved you. Then they just stopped. There's nothing after this one. Why's that?" Skirata stopped on the last propaganda picture she'd ever unwittingly posed for; she was wrapped in her oversized brown robe and asleep on Rex's shoulder, both of them leaning up against a munitions crate. Rex's mouth hung open in shock at a small pink songbird that had landed on her propped-up knee.

That was after extracting the royal family on Nylkoor before the Seppies could invade. The Nylkoor mission was a week before her sixteenth birthday; a week before Dol Sylen had kidnapped her and Jesse, taken them to Xior-Cal, then tried to rape her. A week before she'd beaten his face in with a set of to'bevikse until there was nothing left of his head except his teeth and a few bits of brain tissue stuck to the chained sticks.

The spicy bantha meat she'd just eaten threatened to make a second appearance. Sylen had become obsessed with her because of those pics. He'd stalked her on the holonet for months before kidnapping her on the way home from her birthday dinner with Anakin, Padmé and Jesse. After she returned to duty, Anakin had made it very, very clear to the GAR's publicity department that she would never be used for a campaign again, and if he so much as spotted her profile on the edge of a holopic he'd be breaking both the holocam and the fingers of whoever took it.

"Just say the word, Snips," Anakin said quietly through the audio disc, sensing her anxiety. The fireworks booming overhead suddenly reminded her uncomfortably of thunder, of a hurricane strong enough to shake an island like an earthquake.

There is no emotion, there is peace. Ahsoka took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. "We both know why," she answered Skirata after steeling herself. "Just stop. I have no interest in playing mind games with you."

Skirata nodded and scrolled again to a paused video. Ijaan Sylen, the only member of Clan Sylen to survive Xior-Cal, stared at her through the screen with hatred burning in his eyes. His long, gray braid had been cut off and he looked like he was in spice withdrawal. The Mandalorian throne room and several royal guards were visible behind him. "Did you see his sentencing?" Skirata asked. "I had to pull some strings to get the vid, but I thought you might want to watch–"

She shuddered at the unexpected eyes of a Sylen and her montrals started ringing like a flash grenade had gone off. "I said stop," Ahsoka snarled, smacking the datapad out of his hands and sending it flying to the ground.

"Say the shabla word, Commander," Jesse snarled.

She took another deep, shaky breath and brought her energy back to heel.

"You should be proud. The Sylens were all demagolkase. They deserved everything they got." He steepled his hands and watched her for a few seconds. "You came here tonight with a very… definite opinion of me."

"You're not doing much to improve it," Ahsoka snapped. Her skin felt like it was too small for her body. Her right lek throbbed where she had crushed the slave chip that Sylen had implanted in her.

Skirata shifted in his seat. "I became aware of you after you wiped out the Sylens, but in my peripheral. I never imagined you would take on Boba as your own."

"Somebody had to," she said bitterly.

Skirata paused. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Why didn't you take him after Geonosis? Or at least break him out of prison?" she asked harshly. "We both know Ord'ika could have done it over a midmeal break, so why didn't you help him?"

Skirata laughed. "Are you suggesting I should have broken the law, jet'ika?" he asked mockingly.

Disgust punched Ahsoka in the gut with a cold fist. Her fangs came out from under her lips instinctively. "What's wrong with you?" she snapped. "I may have been the one to arrest him, but the second I found out he was in supermax I started making plans to get him out. You knew he was there the whole time and you left him. And what happened to him before that, after Geonosis… you just let him drift. Do you know what he went through before prison? Do you care?" She wanted to hit him so badly that her hands trembled with it, but if she made a move, Anakin would be on them both and she knew damn well that Skirata hadn't come here alone. She had no idea how many Nulls were out there.

Skirata shrugged. "He's tough. Jango taught him how to survive. I knew he could handle it."

Ahsoka's vision went red around the edges. "You had no right to decide what he could or couldn't handle! He is a little boy! He watched his dad die, and then the people he tried to find safety with hurt him! What's the real reason, was it too inconvenient to have a kid around who didn't have all of the special snowflake Null skills? Was it because he's Jango's son and not yours, and this was one last way of sticking it to him? Keeping him in fucking prison? You abandoned him at every turn!"

The old Mandalorian didn't flinch. "Calm down before your Master does something stupid, kid," Skirata said softly.

"Or what?" Ahsoka snarled, and slapped her hands down on the table.

Skirata smiled coldly. "You know, the great thing about a carnival is how many vantage points there are," he said, then scooped up a spoonful of custard and held it in the air above his head with his thumb extended to the side. The spoon disappeared with a tiny clink! a second later. Not a single one of the hundreds of civilians that passed by them flinched; Ahsoka glanced upwards at the fireworks and tried not to tremble. A slugthrower used ammunition with the same propellant that was used in fireworks. It was impossible to hear where the shot originated from with the colorful explosions constantly going off overhead, and a bullet would explode into shrapnel if she tried to deflect it with her lightsaber unlike bouncing like a plasma bolt. It was a deliberate choice to use a slugthrower, one that sent a very, very specific message: I'm not afraid to kill a Jedi.

Ahsoka took a very deep, slow breath. There is no emotion, there is peace. All eyes were supposedly on her, and though the boys were doing a good job of staying out of obvious line of sight – with the exception of Sterling, whose foot was sticking out from behind a balloon wall – at least one of them would see her signing to get Boba to cover. She lowered her right hand behind her and rapidly tapped out /BOBA/ in dadita.

"Copy, Commander," Rex growled. "Jesse, Tup, get Boba under a roof immediately."

"You don't think–" Appo started, sounding horrified.

"Copy that," Jesse said grimly. "Come on, kid." She heard Boba's squawking protest and something about not being a fucking baby for fuck's sake over comms as Jesse led him away.

"Why didn't you help him?" she asked again. Frustrated tears burned in the corners of her eyes. "Do you truly care that little?"

Skirata glared at her and his fingers twitched. "I did help him!" he snapped, "I'm the reason he wasn't getting mounted every night, why he wasn't beaten to death the first week he was locked up. Maybe he wasn't having fun, but he was safe in there. I could keep my eye on him and not have to worry about him jumping systems the second I looked away."

"You're a bastard," Ahsoka whispered.

"I am. I am a bastard, but I'm a bastard who can see the bigger picture." Skirata leaned back and crossed his arms, visibly irritated. "Jango and I… we have a history. Had a history. And I've known Boba almost his entire life, but there's just too much bad blood there from Jango for him to trust me. So unfortunately he had to stay in prison, yes, but trust me when I say that it would have been a whole lot worse for that boy had I left him swinging in the wind like you think I did."

"What about before that?" Ahsoka asked heatedly. "Why didn't you do anything for him after Geonosis? Did you even look for him?"

"I had a lot going on at the time, kid," Skirata nearly spat.

"So no." Ahsoka shook her head. Her jaw ached with the desire to bite him. "Unbelievable. Boba was right. You really don't give a shit about anything other than your Nulls."

"Keep telling yourself that, ad'ika," Skirata snapped. "Like I said, Boba was safe in prison because of me. So imagine my surprise when I got the word that a Jedi waltzed into the Chancellor's office, got him a full pardon, and then took custody of him all in a single afternoon. Do you know how much I had to drop to come running back here? You think I would have done that if I didn't, in fact, give a shit?"

"Thank you for rescheduling your assassinations on such short notice," Ahsoka snapped. Her mouth was going cottony with the desire to bite and her lekku were starting to twitch and swell. Every second she sat there knowing there was a slugthrower pointed at either hers or Anakin's head she felt her nerves tie themselves up a little tighter.

Skirata snorted. "You're welcome," he said, shaking his head. "But when I saw that it was the Jedi that had wiped out Clan Sylen, I was intrigued. I could have had him taken that first night you were all snuggled up in the barracks, you know, but I gave you a shot."

"How gracious," she said bitterly. "Not to mention ironic, considering we're apparently the baby-stealers."

"I've been at this a lot longer than you, little girl." He picked up the extra spoon and dug back into his donut. "Let's cut the banthashit. You didn't bring your Master to handle Ordo– well, not just to handle Ordo. We both know that you brought him to protect you. You're scared, you're outmatched, you're in over your head and you know it."

Ahsoka fought to keep her lip from trembling. She was in over her head, damn it, she had known that since the moment she'd walked into the penitentiary and she hated Skirata for saying it out loud.

It'd never stopped her before, though.

"Don't get me wrong, kid. You're no coward, but you're young. Too young to take on a foundling." Skirata's eyes softened and went sympathetic. "I'll take it from here, ad'ika. Boba leaves with me tonight. He'll get his armor back, a safe place to rest his head with three squares, and you go back to being a Jedi and fighting your war. Everyone wins."

Ahsoka knew Boba couldn't stay with her forever; even now, she knew that the 'business' Plo was attending to was dinner with an old Dorin acquaintance of his who happened to be the Headmaster of a boarding school on Coruscant, but even the thought of Boba being taken away from her by a man like Skirata made her limbs seize up in panic, and she fought the urge to hold her breath. "And where are you going to put him this time?" she bit out. "Supermax again? Or will he get a room with a window?"

Skirata shook his head, exasperated. "A two-bedroom on Corellia, actually. He'll have to share a room, but I have a feeling they'll get along."

Something about the way he said it made Ahsoka pause instead of immediately telling him to go kriff himself. "A Mandalorian family?" she asked, her voice a lot steadier than she expected.

Skirata nodded.

Ahsoka bit her lip and thought for a moment. "I need to discuss it with Boba first," she said. "And I want to meet them before he does."

Skirata's spoon paused mid air. "That… might be a problem. They're not very fond of Jedi."

"Too bad," Ahsoka said coldly. "Boba's not staying with anyone I haven't personally checked out."

Skirata chuckled. "Kid, maybe I wasn't clear. I wasn't asking. This is me informing you of what's going to happen."

A feeling smacked Ahsoka on the back of her head, something that screamed wrongwrongwrong like a siren. "Is it now?" The words dripped out of her mouth like mercury, burning her tongue along the way. "Then I hope that your sniper is aiming for my head, because that's the only way I'm letting you take him."

"Ahsoka!" Anakin barked so loud that she heard it in the air and over the comm disc.

"You're not going to kill me, Kal'buir," Ahsoka said, watching the sharp edges of his guarded aura flex like a wiggling plastic sheet. "Not only because you would have done it already, but because even if you do take me out, your sniper isn't fast enough to take out Master Skywalker and all of my men, too. If they have to defend me, they might not kill you. But if they have to avenge me, then there's nowhere you'll be able to hide."

"I'm required to remind you that revenge is not the Jedi way," Anakin said wryly.

"Didn't think that revenge was something Jedi were much interested in," Skirata parroted softly a few moments later.

Rex stepped out from where he'd been watching over her behind the edge of a game booth. One by one, the clones showed that they'd arranged themselves in a wide circle surrounding her and Skirata, surrounding them – him – completely. "Ner vode ne'jetiise," Ahsoka said cooly.

She was pleased to see a flicker of shock dance across Skirata's eyes.

"Listen, kid–" he began.

The feeling of something very, very wrong hadn't left her, and she suddenly was afraid that it had nothing to do with Skirata. "Jesse, come in," Ahsoka spoke over him, turning her head away with a hand to her montral. Her heart began to pound.

"What's up, Commander?" Jesse answered immediately.

"Where are you? Do you see anyone suspicious?" Ahsoka glanced at Skirata, who looked genuinely puzzled. She still put one hand on her lightsaber. If he thought that he could pull the same trick on her twice…

"Drunk tent. Nobody's around, just a few–" Jesse's comms cut off, and seconds later the sound of blaster fire and screaming cut through the obnoxious organ music.

Ahsoka was already up and off the bench, with Anakin dragging a confused Ordo behind him in a sprint to the tent. Rex, Appo, Kix and Cody all converged as they pushed through the crowd streaming towards them, the scent of blood heavy in the night air. What should have been a distance covered in ten seconds took more than thirty because of the stampede; Ahsoka broke through first by pushing forward with the Force, then ripped open the tent flap. Jesse sat on the ground, blood streaming from his neck and quickly going pale, surrounded by a pile of dead Weequays and Niktos with long, ugly knives on the ground near their limp hands. Tup's cheek was gushing, sliced open from his lip to his ear, and he had his finger plugging Jesse's artery.

Ahsoka sank down next to Jesse and fluttered her hands around the gash, unsure of how to hold the sides of his neck together. Kix chucked a wad of sanicloths in her direction. "Keep pressure on it!" he barked.

She pressed down and made desperate eye contact with Jesse over Kix's frantic hands. "You're going to be fine, vod," she reassured him, wiping blood out of his eyes with a soothing smile while trying not to scream. Her heart felt like it might explode from the way it pounded. She pushed her fear away and surrounded Jesse's aura, a weak orange that throbbed in pain, with a warm copper blanket of safety-comfort.

"Stay," she heard Anakin order, then he shoved Ordo in Appo's direction and sank to his knees. He held his hands on either side of Jesse's throat and closed his eyes. "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me," he murmured, sinking into a focused trance.

Ahsoka put a hand on Anakin's shoulder and let calm-focus flow like a river through their bond. Anakin needed to have a clear, centered mind if he was going to save Jesse's life. Her Master had training in basic wound healing as all Jedi did, but he would be the first to admit that his battlefield healing had room for improvement.

And as Ahsoka could attest, if he wasn't focused, his results were less than optimal.

The troopers lined up around them shoulder-to-shoulder in a worried, plastoid wall, their auras all staticky and bright white. Tup's finger was forced out of the artery as Anakin sealed it. The skin and muscles knitted together and Ahsoka finally took a breath once she could no longer see the meat on the inside of Jesse's throat. Anakin lowered his hands and sank back on his heels once the skin had completely closed over, breathing hard like he'd just sprinted the length of The Resolute.

"Well done, General," Kix barked, his hands quickly moving over Jesse to check his vitals and for any other wounds. "He still needs a transfusion as soon as possible. Tup, how're you hanging?"

"Oh, you know," Tup said feebly, like the right side of his face wasn't cut in half. Ridge frowned and pressed his own wad of sanicloths down harder over the gash.

Jesse snatched Ahsoka's bloody hand and held it. "Aurra Sing," he croaked as soon as he could, pale from blood loss and clammy with his own cooling blood and sweat. "It… it was Aurra Sing."

Ahsoka's eyes bulged out. "She's here?" she asked, her voice cracking.

Jesse nodded weakly. "She… she had eight men with her. She dragged Boba off while they jumped us. He shot two before… before she disarmed him." Jesse looked past Ahsoka at something on the ground; she nearly sobbed to see Boba's WESTAR-34 lying next to the stuffed bantha in a puddle of black Nikto blood.

"Last time I checked, Aurra Sing was an ally of his," Skirata remarked, coming up behind Ordo and putting a claiming hand on his shoulder. "Why would she attack like this?"

"I thought you knew everything," Ahsoka snapped at him bitterly. "She's also a predator, and apparently she wants her favorite toy back."

The last ounce of warmth in Skirata's eyes leaked out and was replaced by granite. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" he asked her, quietly seething. The edges of his guarded aura were fit to burst with the rage leaking through.

"Good thing he's tough and could handle it," Ahsoka snapped, taking a very un-Jedi-like pleasure from the guilt that suddenly swamped up in his eyes. She kissed Jesse's forehead before shoving her way past Skirata and out of the tent; he was stable and Kix had moved onto Tup, there was nothing more she could do and she was losing precious time.

Aurra Sing was back, and she had Boba. The worst possible scenario had somehow come to life and she didn't know how the odds could possibly have worked, but Ahsoka would turn herself inside out before she allowed that monster to ever lay a hand on Boba again.

"Men, spread out!" Rex bellowed from behind her. "Do not let Sing leave!" He put his hand on her shoulder. "We will find him, Commander," he said with complete conviction, his aura deep blue-green with determination-focus-protection, but around him was a narrow, staticky line of fear. He was afraid for his little brother. Ahsoka's heart broke at the painful reminder that he didn't even know why.

She couldn't think about it now. She closed her eyes and focused. She tuned out the frantic crowd peering around her to see what had happened in the tent, the noise of the rides and smell of Jesse's blood all over her hands and robes, and looked for her vod'ika in the Force. She knew his aura well enough to pick it out of the terrified tangle of colors overlapping and feeding off of each other in the crowd. He was a survivor; he would be scared but not panicked, rapidly forming a plan of attack and looking for any way out he could take from Aurra.

"Ahsoka?" Anakin asked warily, having followed her. He was sweating and still breathing heavily; without either decades of experience or a natural talent for it, Force healing was as strenuous as a three-hour saber spar.

Ahsoka ignored him and climbed a balloon stand to search the panicked, running crowd for Boba's aura. "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me," she murmured out loud repeatedly as she let her eyes and aura roam across the midway. She flowed between the ankles of panicking civilians, droids, and security guards, disregarding each as she passed. She turned her aura left at the corner down the thoroughfare where hundreds of people walked in complete, blissful ignorance of what was going on in their section of the fairgrounds, and rapidly caught up to a pair of gray leather boots soaked in blood scuffling their way below the beams of a roller coaster.

"Get off of me, you fucking hag!" Boba snarls, trying to wriggle free from the larval-pale hand wrapped around his arm like a vice. There are scratches and cuts all the way up to Aurra's shoulder, and Boba's fingernails are broken and jagged.

She turns and slaps him hard, the sharp crack of a slap echoes off of the beams of the roller coaster she's dragged him underneath. "Keep your fucking voice down or I'll blow it, understand?" Aurra hisses, and holds up a detonator.

Ahsoka gasped and pulled her aura back, then jumped down and turned to Anakin. "She's planted explosives," she whispered in horror. "I have no idea how many or where, but she has a detonator."

Anakin blanched to a bleach-gray unease-shock and swore under his breath. Behind him, Kal Skirata cleared his throat. "General Skywalker, I'd like to offer my boys' assistance in finding those explosives while Commander Tano secures Boba," he said.

Anakin raised his eyebrows at him, then turned to Ahsoka. "You got this?" he confirmed, and she nodded. "Then go. Be quiet, and be careful. Get that detonator away from her first. She will try to use Boba against you, so stay focused and don't let her make you angry." After a second of hesitation he looked at Rex. "Go with her," he ordered him.

Ahsoka nearly fainted with relief, and judging by Rex's vibrant blue aura, he was right there with her. "Yes, Sir," he said, snapping to attention.

Ahsoka turned and sprinted through the crowd, her Captain at her back, praying she wouldn't be too late.

"Get – off – me – bitch!" Boba dug his heels into the gravel like a stubborn orbak and pounded his fist against Aurra's wrist, trying to break the joint.

She backhanded him with a long-fingered hand and made him see stars. "Whiny little shit," she growled, and yanked him forward. "You're more trouble than you're worth."

"Then let me go!" Boba punched her in the liver. Aurra hissed and wrapped her fingers around the back of his neck, then slammed his face into the support beam of the rollercoaster. He fell to the ground refusing to scream, blood streaming from his nose.

"No." Aurra crouched down, all long-limbed and long-toothed like a big white spider under a log. "I told you, Boba, you're mine." She wiped her thumb through the blood coming out of his nose and put it in her mouth with a smirk. "I carved my mark into you. You'll always belong to me, no matter how far apart we are."

Boba spat a clod of bloody spit right in her eyes, his heart pounding. The knife. He'd completely forgotten about the knife in his pocket. Her fucking knife too, the same she'd used to carve her fucking mark.

She hoisted him up by his neck and shoved him up onto a pylon. "Climb," she growled.

Boba let himself go limp. "Fuck you," he snapped again, refusing to help her.

Aurra's lip curled up and she punched him hard in the kidney. "Climb, or I blow your new girlfriend up," she hissed over his wheeze of pain, sounding like a snake.

Boba reluctantly began to climb, cursing under his breath and going as slow as possible. "The fuck we climbing a ride for?" he snapped once they were twice Aurra's height off the ground.

"Tobias is picking us up at the top," Aurra said shortly. "Keep going."

Boba's foot slipped off the cyan-painted metal. "This is ridiculous," he panted, trying not to panic.

"Shut. Up," Aurra screeched at him. "This is happening. Either climb, or I cuff you and carry you. You prefer that?"

"No," Boba said sullenly.

"Then move your ass, you ungrateful little bastard." Aurra scoffed and slapped his ankle. "After everything I did to help you… everything I'm doing right now, you have the gall to act like this. Your daddy should have traded you in for a better model like you said the longnecks wanted him to."

Boba bit down the sob before it could escape. Of course she'd use anything he'd ever confided in her about against him, why wouldn't she? "Yeah, he should've," Boba choked out. "Cause I wouldn't be stuck here with your crazy ass."

Aurra laughed meanly. "You love my crazy ass," she simpered at him from below, then reached up and squeezed his thigh. "You still do. You missed me, didn't you?"

Boba slapped her hand away and almost fell in the process. "Don't!" he said, kicking at her head.

She caught his foot and held it, violence in her eyes. "You know, you'll survive a fall from this height, but you'll never be right again," she said, grinning evilly. Her eyes shone with her need to hurt someone, him, anyone. "Think your pecker will still work if your spine's broken?"

Boba shuddered and started climbing again while Aurra cackled. A brief streak of orange dipped in the corner of his left eye and immediately disappeared. He fought the urge to look, unwilling to draw Aurra's attention if it was what he hoped it was.

"So how'd you survive the crash?" Boba asked, forcing himself to sound as normal as he could.

"Oh, you know me," Aurra purred. "I never know when to stay dead."

"Tell me about it," Boba mumbled to himself. They were almost at the top, and the knife was burning a hole in his pocket. If he thought he could get it out and open it before Aurra could take it away from from, he would have put it in her throat like Jesse–

He choked down a sob. The last thing he saw before Aurra dragged him out of the tent was the last Nikto alive, slicing Jesse's throat in half. He'd thrown himself in front of Boba even though he hated him, all because Ahsoka had asked him to. Maybe he should just go with Aurra instead of trying to fight it. She'd never forgive him for getting her favorite cl– no, her best friend killed.

Boba pulled himself over the edge and his hand hovered over his pocket. He could stab Aurra right in the eye and shove her off, and then afterwards Ahsoka would probably give him to Kal and say good riddance. He was a fuckup who got everyone killed, even when he was just trying to win a fucking stuffed animal for her. It didn't matter, why try to fight it? Aurra would at least keep him from dying, and he could probably get away from her at a pit stop without too much trouble if he let her do what she wanted on the way.

A flash of orange darted across the right side of his vision around the bend of the neon cyan-magenta rollercoaster chassis. "Are we gonna get hit?" Boba asked Aurra warily as she clawed her way over the edge.

"It's out of order," Aurra rolled her eyes and slapped him on the back of the head. "Obviously. So you finally accept it? That your little experiment on the up-and-up side of things was a colossal failure?"

It hadn't been. He hadn't done anything wrong except for fucking exist, which he already knew was a mistake from the start. "Yeah," he forced out, and let his hand drift away from his pocket. "I shouldn't… I shouldn't've been such a pain. I'm sorry, Aurra."

"Oh, Boba." He closed his eyes and tried not to shudder as her long fingers wrapped around his neck. She crouched down behind him and licked a long, wet stripe along his bloody jaw before turning his head and kissing him.

His hand drifted to his pocket again. His breathing sped up and so did his heart, and not in the good way, not the way she tried to tell him was a good thing, it wasn't fucking right and Dad would have killed her for it–

The detonator in Aurra's loose hand was yanked away, flying through the air into an orange one. "Dalgaan," Ahsoka growled in two octaves, standing upright with her fist in the air. Her lekku had swollen up and started wiggling like snakes, and the one in the rear thumped against her back like a drum. She was covered in blood, her fangs were completely bared, and she fucking roared at Aurra like a raxshir as she crushed the detonator with one hand. "I will destroy you," Ahsoka snarled, drawing her sabers.

"I had a feeling you would be here, tailhead," Aurra grinned at her, pulling a cylinder Boba didn't recognize from her belt. "I brought this, just in case. It's been a while since I had to use it, but I think the occasion calls."

Boba gasped at the orange light blade that erupted from either side of the cylinder. "A lightsaber?" he asked faintly, backing up on his hands.

Aurra threw a smirk over her shoulder. "Didn't I tell you that I was raised as a Jedi?" she cooed at him mockingly, then shrugged. "Ah well. Surprise."

Ahsoka brought her longer saber up by her face and her shorter one in a reverse grip in front of her. "You won't find any complaints from me," she said, her bloodied lip curling.

Aurra lunged. Ahsoka parried it and sliced across Aurra's waist, nearly cutting her in half. Boba kept backing up, desperate to stay out of the way, and jumped a foot in the air when his hand touched a plastoid hand. Tiarek hauled himself over the edge, breathing heavily. "You alright?" he asked Boba, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of lightsabers clashing. His eyebrows went up. "A lightsaber?" he asked in disbelief, then shook his head and drew his deeces.

The narrow track meant that any shot Tiarek missed might hit Ahsoka. He aimed for Aurra's feet, driving them both towards a sharp bend that had a dropoff right behind it. Ahsoka caught one side of Aurra's blade in a crossed guard, kicked Aurra so hard in the crotch that Boba heard something pop from where he was, then cut the double-sided laser sword in half. One side went flying off the edge, but the wheezing Aurra managed to keep hold of the other. She pushed behind her at Tiarek with an open palm and a snarl, sending him skidding backwards. He spun his hands and tipped over the edge.

"No!" Ahsoka and Boba both cried out at the same time; Ahsoka reached out with her powers to catch him but was immediately forced to block Aurra's swing. Boba lunged for Tiarek and got his fingers around his belt just as he started to fall. He yanked him forward almost too hard and pulled them both down to a heap on the track.

"You okay?" Boba wheezed, pushing his brother off of him.

"Am I–" Tiarek laughed in disbelief, already firing at Aurra again. "Yes, Bo'ika, I'm okay. Good job." He fired a volley at Aurra's lower half and finally hit her skinny leg right below the knee. Aurra collapsed, howled, then dodged Ahsoka's strike and rolled towards them with her saber above her head.

Boba pulled the knife from his pocket, unflipped the corkscrew blade, and buried it deep in her guts as she came to a kneeling stop with the mutilated laser high above her head, ready to strike. It deactivated and fell to the track with a clunk. "Boba," she whispered accusingly, falling backwards. She landed hard on her ass and looked at her abdomen, more confused than anything. "Boba, why… why would you choose her?" she asked. Bright red blood bubbled up from her lips.

"Because she's not a fucking dickhead," Boba said, then spat at Aurra.

"I… I…" Aurra looked around desperately for the getaway that was obviously not coming. "I surrender!" she said frantically, then put her hands up. Blood dripped down her chin and stained her teeth red. "I surrender. Y-You're a Jedi, you can't kill an unarmed prisoner who is surrendering to you."

"She can't," Tiarek snarled, raising his blasters.

Ahsoka put a hand up to stay Tiarek's fire. "If you shoot her from this range it'll look like an execution," she said coldly, staring down at Aurra without an atom of pity in her eyes. She slowly raised a fist in the air, then extended her thumb out to the side.

Aurra grinned with what she thought was victory and started to cackle, then the side of her head blew out in an explosion of bloody chunks like a dead aiwha that had been floating in the sun. Her corpse slumped to the side and slid off the edge of the roller coaster without a sound.

Boba leaned over and stared at her crumpled body wordlessly. That… that was it? Just like that, Aurra was gone?

Ahsoka put her sabers on her belt and slowly crossed the distance between them. She sank down across from him onto her knees. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly, reaching out a hand.

Boba swallowed hard and stared at it. It was covered in dried blood. He knew there could only be one source. "I'm sorry," he whispered after what felt like an eternity of silence. "About… about Jesse, I'm… I… I'm so sorry. I promise, I didn't mean for any of this to happen–"

Ahsoka's mouth opened in a surprised little o. "Jesse's alive," she interrupted with a watery smile, "Tup too. They're okay, vod'ika, we got there in time."

Boba shuddered. "He's alive?" he whispered, his eyes burning with tears that refused to fall.

Ahsoka nodded. Her own tears fell freely and left streaks in the dried blood on her face. She rolled back to sit cross-legged and opened her arms in an invitation; Boba dove into her lap and realized for the first time why she kept doing that. She was giving him the choice. She was letting him decide if he wanted to be touched.

"They're okay?" Boba asked Ahsoka's neck, trying not to shake and failing. "They– he didn't–"

"I swear Jesse's okay." Ahsoka rubbed a firm circle on his back. "I would never, ever lie to you about that. He's okay."

Boba took a deep shuddering breath, trying not to cry again, and thought that he might actually hold it together until Tiarek's arms wrapped around the two of them and crushed them both against his plastoid chest. Ahsoka's chest vibrated so hard in a purr that he could barely hear himself bawling like a baby, but for the first time, he wasn't embarrassed about it. "I swear, it's like I never left Shili with the way you mother me," Ahsoka growled at Kix with no real venom.

"Yeah, yeah." He dabbed at a nick on her chin with an alcohol swab, then looked down his nose at Boba. "Well, the bone's fine but you're going to have a nice set of shiners," he informed him, tilting Boba's chin up with a finger. "Bacta gel won't help since it's from your nose, not your eyes. That's just where the blood pools."

Boba shrugged and rested his head against Tiarek's chest. "I don't really give a shit."

"I do," Ahsoka said wryly, looking him up and down. "I feel like I'm going to get the Bureau of Youngling Protection called on me if we go out to dinner now."

Boba snickered. The ambulance door swung open and Skywalker heaved his oversized ass into the brightly-lit vehicle, squeezed by to sit between Ahsoka and the wall, then held up a large, brown paper bag with handles. "Guess what I got," he deadpanned.

Ahsoka eyed the bag warily. "I'm afraid to, considering that you said you were meeting the coroner to take care of Sing's body," she said with a raised brow marking.

"Yeah, for like five minutes. Now guess." Skywalker gently shook the bag at her with a shifty little grin.

Ahsoka's stomach rumbled. "Please say food," she said hopefully.

"So much food." Skywalker started rifling through it. "I want you to thank me right now, because I'm the best Master ever."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes and snorted, then froze. "Do I smell–" she whispered.

"Raw kybuck backstrap?" Skywalker tugged out a small polystyrene container that had something red dripping from the side. "Yes, you do."

"Master!" Ahsoka squealed happily in a pitch that could break glass; the entire ambulance winced.

"Don't worry, boys, ours is cooked. And I got some sides." Skywalker yanked a handful of fried tato rings out from the bag and shoved a handful in his mouth.

"Don't mean to keep you all from dinner, but, ah–" Boba almost knocked himself out on Tiarek's chin, jumping as he did at the sound of Kal Skirata's voice. He met the old man's eyes; they were older than he remembered. "Su'cuy gar, Bob'ika," he said to Boba quietly. "Ni ceta. Ni ru'nibra gar."

Boba swallowed hard and nodded, looking at his knees. He felt Tiarek's arms tighten around him.

"Where is his armor, Sergeant?" Ahsoka asked calmly, pushing Kix's hands away from her face. Her hand went down to her belt where her lightsaber hung.

Kal smiled and looked at Boba. "I sent it to your mother," he said gently.

Boba blinked for a few seconds, and it wasn't until Tiarek gently jostled him that he realized that he wasn't breathing. "She… she's alive?" Boba whispered. "But–"

"I expect that you have a lot of questions, and while I'd love to answer them for her, I think it's a chat the two of you need to have face-to-face," Kal continued. "But Cassus is also with her. They both made it out. They've been in hiding, and I expect you'll discover the reason why fairly quickly."

Ahsoka crossed the ambulance and went to her knees in front of Boba. "Just breathe, vod'ika," she murmured, lacing their fingers together.

Boba nodded wordlessly, his eyes burning with tears that he was afraid to let Kal see.

"You knew about Kaisa, didn't you," Kal stated more than asked, watching Ahsoka closely.

Ahsoka met his eyes without blinking. "Yes," she said calmly. "Why would you send the armor to her?"

"Well, as his widow, technically it goes to her until his children come of age," Kal said with a glance at Boba.

Children. Children. Boba clenched his fists so tight that he felt his nails cut into his palms. Cassus was the oldest of the three of them; technically, it belonged to him unless he passed on it, which Boba couldn't imagine happening.

He couldn't imagine that he was fucking alive until a few seconds ago either, though.

"Why are you telling me this now?" Ahsoka asked coldly.

Kal shrugged. "You know, my old man used to say that if you want to see what color a man's blood is, then you back him into a corner first. I needed to see who you really were. Not the jetii, the ori'vod."

Ahsoka slipped an arm protectively over Boba's shoulders. "And what color's mine?" she asked, her voice dripping with disdain.

Kal smiled. "Red as can be, ad'ika, not a trace of yellow to be found." His eyes flicked over to Tiarek. "I'll forward you her coordinates. Be prepared for a fight when you land. She really doesn't care for Jedi, and if I warn her you're coming, she'll disappear and I'll never hear from her again." Kal gave Ahsoka a final once-over before his eyes flicked to Tiarek again – and was that regret he saw in his eyes? – and finally rested on Boba. "Take care of yourself, little man," he said, quiet and sad, then turned. "You too, Reks'ika," he added over his shoulder, bridging the chasm that existed between the two names for the briefest of seconds.

Kix closed the ambulance door, and Skywalker's eyes darted between Ahsoka and Boba. "So, was anyone going to tell me that Boba had a mom and wasn't a clone, or was I supposed to just wait until I overheard it from a random Mandalorian?" he finally asked the silent cab.

Notes:

MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS Jet'ika: little Jedi/Padawan Ad/Ad'ika: Kid/Little kid (fond) Vod: brother To'bevikse: Mando nunchaku Ner vode ne'jetiise: my brothers are not Jedi Su'cuy gar: A greeting, but lit. 'You Are Alive' Ni ceta. Ni ru'nibra gar: I'm sorry (ultra grovel version). I failed you.   OTHER NOTES Say it with me everybody: death sticks = space crack, they are not cigarettes. Elan Sleazebaggano is not out there risking his life every night for you to think he is slinging tobacco in the club Also Anakin (all Jedi actually) canonically knows Force healing, it's in the comics 🤪 You didn't think I was actually going to let the pedo live, right? (I officially have the hc that Tobias' story about pushing Aurra off a ledge and it being the fall that killed her is from him seeing her body fall off the coaster and him nyooming tf out of there, later taking credit for her death because he can lol)

Taglist: @starwarsficnetwork, @soliloquy-of-nemo Dividers: @saradika-graphics

Boba gave the turbolaser cannons one last, wistful look. "Shame we didn't get to actually use them."

Ahsoka helped hoist Boba's rucksack up onto his shoulders. He hoped the twenty kilos of beskar plates didn't yank him backwards once she let go. "Use what?" she asked.

"The cannons. You should have let me shoot the weather matrix." Boba squeaked once Ahsoka let go of her share of the weight. He adjusted the ruck and rolled his shoulders.

Ahsoka snickered. "I'm pretty sure we're in enough trouble as is for threatening to do it."

"I thought Koon smoothed it over with the Council," Boba said, trying not to wheeze. Beskar was fucking heavy.

"He gave his report to Master Windu." Ahsoka made a face. "I received… several messages about it from my Master. We'll see."

"Have we remembered everything?" Plo asked them as they joined him in the airlock.

Ahsoka shrugged. "I couldn't find the robes that I wore on Geonosis anywhere."

"I have them. I will repair the sleeve for you tonight." Plo lowered the docking ramp. "I must report back to the Temple, and I have some business to attend to first, but I will have it done by morning."

"What kind of business?" Boba asked before he could stop himself.

"Jedi business." Plo patted him on the head.

"If you're too busy I can ask Master Kenobi to fix it. His stitchwork is a lot neater than mine or Anakin's." Ahsoka said it casually and picked at her cuticles.

Boba raised an eyebrow and resisted the urge to remind her that she wasn't talking to the old fart.

"That is an excellent idea." Plo's face crinkled up in a smile. He fished out the bundle of her ruined robes from his satchel and handed them over.

She tucked them into her own bag. "See you in the morning, then?" She hugged Master Plo goodbye.

"Bright and early." Plo squeezed her one last time, then winked at Boba. "Remember, young man, no burning the barracks down."

Boba rolled his eyes. "Whatever." Robert's head stuck out from under his arm and the tooka doll was being strangled in the zipped-up top of his rucksack. "Where is everyone?" he asked, looking around after Plo had reboarded The Babasta.

"Well–" Ahsoka checked her chrono. "It's just after 1900. They'll have all headed out to the bars by now. This place is dead when they've got any sort of shore leave, they like to milk it." She guided him towards the interior. "Let's lock up the beskar'gam in Rex's office, then we can head out and grab some food."

"In your jammies?" Boba asked, eyeing the red linen sleeping robe she wore like a tunic over her gray leggings. With long sleeves and a tie enclosure at the waist, it looked more or less like the same Jedi osik she had started the trip wearing, but thinner and a lot shorter.

"Everything's covered up," she replied. She stuck her tongue out at him.

"You got your own ride?" Boba asked stiffly, readjusting the heavy strap.

"My Master messaged a few minutes ago to say that he'll be here as soon as his strategy meeting is over with." She pushed him forward a little when he tilted backwards on the short ramp leading to the interior. "How's Biscuit Baron sound?"

"Sweet," Boba squeaked. He staggered down the hall and did his best impression of a human that didn't need oxygen. Ahsoka patiently guided him towards Tiarek's office, unlocked the door, and flicked on the lights.

"We'll close it up in the locker," Ahsoka said, helping slide the sack from his shoulders. Boba held his composure for a few more seconds before he let out a long, shuddering breath, dropped his shebs on Tiarek's rack, then gave up the fight and started panting from the exertion.

Ahsoka snickered and secured the locker after entering in the twenty-digit passcode and dropping the bag inside. "Do you think someone will steal them?" Boba panted.

She scrunched her nose up in amusement. "Nobody would steal them, but the odds of someone borrowing them to take a few holopics in is pretty high." She pinged something on her commlink. "Oh, good, Rex is still here. Let's go say hi."

Boba's anxiety returned and hit him like a speederbus. He never should have shown her the holopics, he knew that, but it just… it had felt like the right thing to do, and Dad had taught him to never ignore his gut when it spoke that strongly to him.

"What's the matter?" she asked, frowning.

"Are you going to tell him what I said?" Boba asked, nervously fidgeting with Robert's claws.

"I planned on talking about it with him, yes." Her eyes darted around his head for a few seconds, like she was tracking an insect, then she took a seat next to him. "Why does that make you nervous?" she asked gently.

"Every time I try, he argues with me over it. He was so sure that it never happened that he even had me doubting it." Boba sighed. "I don't know. Maybe you should just leave it alone."

"Is that what you want, or are you afraid of what might happen if I do?" she asked softly.

"Fuck, I don't know. I never should have said anything, I just…" Boba trailed off miserably.

"You just want your brother back," Ahsoka finished for him. "That's why you were so upset about the lockbox going missing, right?"

Boba nodded. "Maybe the holopics will be enough." He doubted it. Tiarek would find some way to rationalize it, or just flat out deny that it was him. If he had the art they made, or the journal that Mama had left behind, maybe he would have at least accepted it instead of flat denying everything. "I just wish it never happened. That there was just some Force osik that could undo it."

"Tell me about it." Ahsoka said wryly. "Unfortunately, that's not how the Force works. I wish it did, trust me. I know what it's like to wish that you could just go back to before the bad thing happened, but you can't. You just have to keep going forward and not look back." She went misty eyed and distant for a few moments, then she bumped his shoulder and smiled. "If it eases your mind, I'm not going to bring it up to Rex just yet. He deserves to know, but I need to meditate about it before I can make the decision on how to approach it with him." Her stomach growled loudly. "And maybe eat a nerfburger or six," she added with a snicker, and he huffed a little laugh in return. "It looks like Rex is in the officer's lounge. You remember where that is, right?"

Boba scooted forward off of the mattress with Robert under his arm and scowled, repeating yourememberwherethatis? in a whiny voice under his breath.

Her face went oddly vacant for a second and she clapped a hand over the back of her neck.

"What?" Boba asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Just a chill," she assured him, then put him in a headlock.

"Oi!" Boba squawked.

"Come on, Bo'ika, race you to the turbo-lift," Ahsoka teased, dragging him out into the hall. "And no throwing elbows this time."

Boba twisted out of her loose grip. "You need a head start?" he asked innocently, eyeing the hallway for obstacles. If he was going to beat her and her long fucking legs, he was going to need an advantage.

"Do you?" Ahsoka taunted back. She backed up to the end of the hallway and crouched down into a starting squat, planting her heel against the wall. "Ready?"

Boba mimicked her, smirking. "On three?"

"One," she began, tilting her rump towards the ceiling.

"Two." Boba grinned fiercely and vibrated with anticipation.

"Three!" They both shoved off the wall and sprinted towards the turbo-lift. A shiny happened to wander out of the first-floor fresher at the exactly the wrong moment… for Ahsoka, at least. Boba hip-checked her towards the trooper and ran for it, cackling like a po'ackster.

"Boba!" Ahsoka shrieked. He heard a kerfuffle and a frantic apology, then he tripped over his own feet as she scampered past him on all fours like a giant orange tooka. He landed hard and slid a few feet, wheezing with laughter.

Ahsoka reached the elevator first and spun on her heels, spread her legs out like a spider, then started skittering back towards Boba.

"Oh, fuck off!" he shrieked, laughing hysterically. He tried to push up to his feet and run but didn't make it before Ahsoka reached him and started tickling him, laughing devilishly.

"N-n-n-n-" Boba gasped, still laughing but not because it was funny. He hated being tickled. Ordo used to pin him down and do it until he would struggle for air or wet himself, whatever happened first. Ahsoka immediately stopped and backed away so he could breathe.

"You good, vod'ika?" she asked, tilting her head.

Boba nodded after a few seconds and caught his breath.

"Come on." Ahsoka grabbed his hands and dragged him on his back to the turbo-lift. She spared a glance for the shiny still at the end of the hall, frozen at their antics. "Welcome to the 501st!" she called to him with a wave, then summoned Robert to her hand and closed the doors with a mad giggle.

Rex leaned back and looked at the black line he'd just poked into Cody's skin with a critical eye.

"You fucked it up, didn't you?" Cody drawled, his voice muffled from being face-down on the sofa.

"I never fuck it up, shabuir." Rex flicked his brother's ear and started the second run on the angular sunburst he was forever adding to on Cody's back. He was going to run out of room soon; he was already out to Cody's shoulders and the vain little baby didn't want him poking his shebs like he would with a proper Mando sal'gam.

"I'm surprised you let the boys out tonight, given that you're shipping out tomorrow."

"We don't leave until midday." Rex dipped his needle into the pot of black ink and adjusted his knees on the ground next to Cody.

"Still."

"If they're still hungover by the time we get to Goran then that's on them." Rex wiped away excess ink and kept poking. He'd come a long way from hiding in Cody's tube at night with steel filaments and ink balls stolen from the practice range, both of them practicing patterns that they'd seen on their Mandalorian trainers on each other until late into the night.

Cody chuckled. "What're you going to do with Boba?"

Rex shrugged. "That's up to Ahsoka. She's his guardian."

"Speaking of which…" Cody glanced at Rex and waited for him to say something, and when he didn't he let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't like sitting on this, vod'ika."

"I believe Skywalker," Rex said firmly. He had to. He couldn't go into battle beside a man he didn't trust, so he had made his decision and would stick with it until it bit him in the shebs and everything went to hell.

"So do I. The di'kut doesn't know his own strength, it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be reported," Cody retorted.

"If Ahsoka wanted it reported then nothing could stop her from shutting up about it, we both know that." Rex wiped more ink away. "I'm going to have a chat with her about it when she gets back and we'll go from there."

"So she can convince you to let Skywalker off the hook?" Cody asked sharply. "Even if it was unquestionably an accident, that doesn't mean it should be swept under the rug and you know it."

"I'm not going to throw my general to the shabla akul because his hand malfunctioned!" Rex exclaimed. "Since the kid is the one who this affects, the kid is who decides what happens next, 'lek? You already gave your word."

"Ugh." Cody buried his glaring face in his folded elbow. "Shabla dalgaan."

"Ni cuy shabla dalgaan?" Rex raised an eyebrow and pointed to his chest, offended. "Ni salgorani gar shabla shebs bal ni cuy shabla dalgaan? Ke'haa'tayli at troan'tay, ori'vod."

"Gar ne'salgorani ner shebs, vod'ika, bal meh bev tigaanur ner shebs ni ven'shuku gar cere."

Rex rolled his eyes and continued poking. "Then you'd have to get Bly to do this," he reminded his brother. "And after what you did to his cheeks, I don't think it'll look half as nice as how I do it."

"I gave him what he wanted," Cody said into his elbow.

"I can't believe you did that to your own batchmate." Rex wiped his line and gathered more ink.

"I gave him exactly what he asked for, bev'kovid!" Cody exclaimed, offended.

"As his vod it was your job to talk him out of two giant shabla golden tickets on his cheeks, Codes!" Rex said loudly. "Jesse wanted his cog dead center and I ignored him and did it on the side so he didn't look like a di'kut."

"Ke'pirimpir gaht tay'briik," Cody scoffed.

"Nayc gar." Rex poked his brother's ass cheek with the dull end of the needle and snickered evilly as he jumped and yelped, looking at his shebs with paranoid eyes.

"Little shit," Cody sniffed and laid back down. "You want me to do yours after this?"

"Might as well while we've got the time." Rex finished off the last diamond, completing the diamond-dash dadita spelling of Ponds along the underside of a sun ray. "Ni suc'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc," he said quietly, wiping away the last of the ink.

"Ni partayli, gar darasuum," Cody finished. "Ponds."

"Ponds." Rex lifted his beer from the floor and took a sip. "Now," he said, carefully placing the bottle on the floor where he wouldn't knock it over, "I can squeeze either Waxer or Apex in before I get to the edge, or you can man up and let me start a new one on your–"

"Stop!" Cody whined, smacking the hand with the needle in it away from his shebs.

"Stubborn chakaar," Rex snickered under his breath.

There was a gasp from the doorway. "Language, Captain!" Ahsoka said, pressing a dramatic hand to her heart. She was dressed in her short red sleeping robe instead of her normal Jedi robes and had Boba right behind her, his oversized rancor plushie tucked tight under one arm.

Rex put his needle down with a grin and opened his arms. Boba crossed the room in two strides and wrapped his arms around Rex's neck. "Su cuy'gar," he murmured in Boba's ear, and got to his feet still holding him. "Well done, Boba. Very well done."

Boba's cheek warmed up where it pressed against his own. "Your vod'ika is insane," he mumbled back.

"I could have told you that," Rex chuckled, meeting Ahsoka's big blue eyes. "Should have warned you about it, actually."

"Rude," Ahsoka said with a smile. She leaned down to touch foreheads with Cody. "Are we good, vod?" she asked him quietly.

Cody's face softened. "Of course we are, Os'ika," he reassured her, using her to pull himself to his seat.

Rex threw him a questioning look over Boba's head, and Cody meaningfully looked at her arm.

"Alright, enough of this mushy shit," Boba mumbled, pushing away to look at Cody. "Let me see your sal'gam."

Cody snickered and released Ahsoka, who immediately walked into Rex's arms for her own hug.

"Hi, vod'ika," Rex said fondly.

"Ori'vod," Ahsoka said back, purring happily.

"Heard you ran into some trouble on Geonosis," Rex said. He rubbed the root of her rear lek and made her purr rev up like a luxury speeder engine.

"Yeah, we–" she went stiff in his arms and leaned back, her eyes narrow and suspicious. A muscle in her jaw twitched.

Rex raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"There's something on your face," she mumbled after a few seconds of consternated silence. Her lek thumped with an irritated thwack! against her back, stripes so dark that they looked nearly black even in fluorescent lighting.

Rex swiped at his cheek, confused. "Should I go wash?" he asked, bewildered. Had he rubbed against something in the market that she didn't like? Was it that tooka that had tried to come home with him and Skywalker, or maybe some of that soup was–

Ahsoka yanked his head down and buried her nose in the meat of his cheek. She snuffled him like a hound trying to catch a scent then growled, sounding eerily like Grizzer when someone got too close to his slop bowl, with a primal undertone that sent his hair standing straight up.

"Littl'un?" Rex asked faintly. Behind her, Boba and Cody exchanged confused looks.

"Come here," Ahsoka said darkly, then started furiously rubbing her soft lek against his cheek.

"Easy kid, easy," he chuckled, holding her back a little so she didn't knock him over.

"Hold still," she snapped, still bunting her head all over him and purring like a territorial tooka.

Rex barely restrained himself from giggling when she migrated to a ticklish spot on his neck. "What's got you in a mood?"

Ahsoka growled instead of answering and moved onto his right cheek.

"Alright, alright, that's enough." He gently pushed her away from his head after a few more seconds of rubbing. She crossed her arms and pouted. "Hey," he said, chuffing her under her chin. "We need to have a talk, you and I."

Her eyes shot up and lost their attitude. "About what?" she asked warily.

Rex reached out and gently squeezed her left bicep, watching her closely for a reaction.

"Oh." She took a deep, huffy breath and turned accusing eyes on Cody.

Cody met them unapologetically and finished his beer without blinking.

"Step out with me." Rex pulled her gently towards the door and closed it for the illusion of privacy, knowing full well that Boba and Cody were already pressed up against the vent.

"Listen, I don't know what Cody told you–" she began.

"He told me something different than what the General said,'' Rex cut her off, fixing her with his best stern ori'vod look. "I'll give you a chance to tell me your side of all of this, then we'll go from there."

Ahsoka's lips thinned. "I could just order you to drop it, you know," she grumbled, crossing her arms.

"Don't you dare." Rex mirrored her.

She heaved a deep sigh. "It was an accident. His mech–" she shivered and clapped her hand over the back of her neck, looking around with a frown.

Rex narrowed his eyes. "Don't try to get out of answering with some made-up Force nonsense right now, vod'ika."

"I'm not," she replied, annoyed. Her rear lek thumped again. "I sensed something for the first time in your office. I just felt it again. It's like I'm being watched."

Rex frowned. "Klem, come in," he said into his commlink.

"Yes, Captain?" the gate guard replied immediately.

"Anyone come into the barracks tonight that wasn't a clone?"

"Just Commander Tano and the runt, Sir. General Koon was here for a few moments but left right away."

Ahsoka rubbed her arms like she was cold. "Something's not right," she said, looking at the door to the officer's lounge worriedly.

"Don't let anyone in or out other than troopers," Rex ordered Klem, then closed the channel. His eyes locked onto a trooper at the end of the hall. "Private!" he barked.

The trooper stopped short and stood at attention. Rex jerked his head for him to approach.

"Have you seen anyone enter the barracks in the last few hours that wasn't a clone?" Rex asked once the shiny was close.

"No, Sir!" The trooper clicked his heels together.

Rex nodded. "Keep an eye on the entr–"

"What's your name, Private?" Ahsoka interrupted.

"Falin, Ma'am," he immediately responded.

Ahsoka's hand shot up to her neck again. "Bucket off, Falin," she ordered.

Falin's visor turned to Rex, who narrowed his eyes; didn't he know who he was talking to? "As Commander Tano ordered, Private Falin," Rex reiterated, crossing his arms.

"Yes, Sir." The clone reached up to his helmet with his left hand, slowly, then his right darted to his holster and drew in Ahsoka's direction. Rex immediately shoved her to the side and took the bolt directly to his unarmed chest–

Ahsoka caught Rex before he hit the ground, instantly out cold from the blue stunner bolt. She gently lowered him and kept his head from hitting the tile. "Cody, k'akaan'jori!" she bellowed, taking off in a sprint. The shiny was already at the end of the hall, halfway through the emergency staircase door.

Ahsoka felt her brain slow down and speed up at the same time, blocking out any stimulus other than her prey. She locked on to his naturally red aura like a beacon, tracking him through the floors with a hunter's focus, even as he got out of what her normal range of Empathy allowed. Following a tingle down her spine, she ripped off a vent cover with the Force and slid into the ventilation shaft beside the turbo-lift, taking a more direct route to the ground floor. She hit the ground hard on her heels and bounced forward, straight through the closet door and in front of him.

She didn't bother ordering him to stop, she spun in a high rear kick and clotheslined him with her leg. The way his helmet popped off and the squeak of surprise he let out would have been comical if the shabuir hadn't just shot Rex.

The surge of hormonal rage she was fighting off after smelling an unknown Togruta female's scent mark on Rex's cheek didn't help her mood either.

She kicked the clone's blaster away – and he was a clone, though the lines around his eyes said he hadn't been shiny for a while – and put him in a headlock, seething and spitting with anger. "Who the hell do you think you are?" she snarled, squeezing his neck just hard enough to not break it. "What do you want? Why are you here?"

The clone, quickly turning purple, shot a jet of fire from his wrist. She let go just in time to duck and felt the flames heat the air above her montrals. She rolled and shot her leg out as she regained her feet, going for a sweep that he barely jumped over.

Ahsoka looked up just in time to catch the clone's returning punch and turn it away, bringing her long leg up in a wheel kick with the same motion. It connected and he went stumbling forward. She used the Force to shove him onto his face, but almost as if he had anticipated it he used the momentum to roll and pop back up to his feet. He shot a length of whipcord at her to bind her arms to her sides and ran for it.

"Zisiyeni," she snarled. She awkwardly pulled her sabers into her hands and cut the whipcord, but by the time she'd freed herself he had already made it to the line of speederbikes near the entrance of the hangar. "Oh no you don't," she growled. She pulled on the Force and leapt. The clone gunned the thrusters and she landed in the exact spot he had been in only moments before. She kicked the neighboring speederbike to life and jetted out of the hangar after him into the nighttime traffic.

The clone shot south through three lanes of traffic and down a half-dozen levels. Her speederbike whined as Ahsoka strained the repulsors. As she brought it up to level, the clone's bike in front of her made a small sparking pop and shuddered.

Ahsoka realized that in their rush, they'd both hopped onto the bikes in the maintenance lineup. Her repulsors were solid, just noisier than a nest full of narchlings, but it appeared by the lavender smoke and constant popping that the clone was riding a speederbike with a tibanna leak. He was going down quickly, and she wasn't going to let him get away into the undercity if she could help it, not after shooting her kriffing Rex.

The clone's bike sputtered three more times and then he started slowly dropping, and even over her whining repulsors Ahsoka could hear him cursing up a streak that would make Boba blush. She sped up with renewed fire in her blood. A first-gen clone disguised as a shiny in her barracks armed with Mandalorian gadgets like a flamethrower and whipcord? She had an idea of who was slowly crashing down in front of her, or what at least. Her brain was putting the pieces together rapidly even as she wove in and out of rush-hour traffic, collecting honks like they were Monomoko badges, too used to having to rapidly plot out a plan of attack while under fire to not multitask.

She'd wager every stupid, overpriced couch that Padmé had ever bought that there was a Null on that speederbike.

Another tingle on the back of her neck told her to draw her saber just in time to deflect a concussion round from a far-off rooftop. She batted it away but the vibration of the bolt blasted her saber clean out of her hand and sent it flying into the undercity below.

"Oh, you are dead!" she snarled, straining the thrusters to get ahead of the clone. She jackknifed and drew her shoto at the same time, slicing downward as he sped below her speederbike. She disabled his rear repulsors completely with the blow. He dropped like a rock and skidded to a sparking stop on top of a Quarren buffet. Ahsoka dove, then turned to get ahead of him. She spun to face him and ducked immediately to avoid a grapple to the face. It hit the seat behind her and the clone came flying along the rope feet first, hitting her in the chest and knocking out both her wind and her shebs from her seat right as they both cleared the edge of the roof.

Ahsoka fell, and fell, and she watched the clone's aura go staticky-gray with fear-dismay-regret as she went. She gasped for air that her spasming diaphragm couldn't pull in, and when she clipped a speeder three lanes down with her foot she was sent into a disorienting spin. She tried not to panic, but the inability to breathe while spinning and falling at terminal velocity robbed her of the ability to center herself. Honking speeders swerved around her falling body and she still couldn't stop spinning or even breathe and she was falling faster and faster and she was going to–

A warm, familiar presence covered her skin like a tingling blanket and calmed her panic. The Force cradled her, slowed her flailing spin, then flipped her over so she could see where she was going. Newly-centered, she focused on the turquoise and white speeder below her and carefully aimed for the passenger seat. She grabbed Anakin's outstretched hand and let him yank her to safety.

"Hello, Snips," he said pleasantly. He held up the saber that had been blasted out of her hand with a bemused look.

"Hi, Skyguy," Ahsoka panted. She took her saber back, a little embarrassed. "You're late."

"Yeah, well, you know–"

"Couldn't find a speeder you liked?" she couldn't help but joke.

"Actually, I was getting you Quasar." He shook a plastic cup full of creamy pink tea with orange balls at the bottom. "Hibiscus with triple cream and meiloorun boba. You're welcome."

Ahsoka snickered and took a sip. "You're the best, Master."

"I know." Anakin swerved below a blinking speederbus and sped under the line of traffic stopped at the light. "So who are we chasing?"

"A clone. He identified himself as Falin, but I doubt that's his real name. He was creeping around the barracks disguised as a shiny." A wave of anger rose up hot and bitter in Ahsoka's chest. "He shot Rex when I told him to take his bucket off."

"He shot Rex?" Anakin's aura flared white with staticky fear.

"Stunner bolt. He's okay."

Anakin sighed with blue relief. "You think this clone was after Boba?" he asked, narrowly avoiding rear-ending a police droid.

The clone got off on the exit to Coco Town. Ahsoka cursed under her breath. "I'm not sure, but I can't think of any other reason he'd be there."

Anakin reached over her and fastened her seatbelt without taking his eyes off of traffic, then did a barrel roll through four levels of packed speeders and shot down the center of a descension tunnel. "Uh, Master?" Ahsoka asked, confused. "Isn't this the opposite direction? He's going to get away!"

Anakin rolled his eyes. "Watch and learn, Padawan," he said, somehow managing to sound exasperated and smug at the same time, then leveled out and reversed into a maintenance tunnel. Without any traffic to worry about, he gunned the thrusters and throttled up until the needle topped out at 200/kmh while still in reverse. He picked up his own drink – something iced that smelled like chocolate and kokanini – and slurped it loudly.

Ahsoka chewed her boba and took a moment to subtly examine him while she had a chance; though his aura had lightened to a vivid orange with excitement-anticipation, there was a yellow-violet line of guilt-shame like a bruise along the edge. He was still affected by what he'd done to her. His eyes shone and his energy was manic, borderline feral. He was practically vibrating like a pent-up racing fathier and it didn't have anything to do with the caf; she felt his desire to protect her, to redeem himself, to prove that she could trust him again echoing across their bond.

Anakin finished his drink, tossed it over the edge, shot his arm out over her chest to stop her from bruising herself on her seatbelt, then braked hard. He shot up forty levels in five seconds and practically broke the sound barrier leaving the ascension tunnel, then flew back into traffic behind the clone close enough for her to see the blue relief battle it out with the red anger and chartreuse annoyance in his aura.

The clone was… grateful that he hadn't killed her? Ahsoka was surprised, to say the least.

"You ready?" Anakin asked loudly. He was gaining on the clone quickly now that he wasn't hobbled by the civilian traffic of the main drag. A speederbike with lame repulsors was no match for an engine rebuilt by a podracing gearhead whose only real hobby was making things go way faster than they needed to.

Ahsoka undid her seatbelt, crouched on the seat, and readied her saber with a nod.

"I'll be right behind you!" Anakin yelled. He slid underneath the speederbike and popped up a few inches in front of it. Ahsoka immediately leapt for the clone with her saber ignited and jammed it into the repulsors before he could so much as say papurgaat. The speederbike started sputtering and jerking, and the clone struggled to keep his stolen speederbike from going into a tailspin. Ahsoka did a backflip off the seat, pushing off extra hard to lessen his control.

The bike came to a spinning crash into an alley two blocks west of where she landed. She sprinted towards the smoke with a curse, hoping that Anakin had blocked off whatever exit he could. A dizzying sense of deja-vu hit her like a cold winter wind off the mountains when she turned the corner, and after she slid into the alley–

No. No.

It was the alley that Obi-Wan had pretended to die in. The crates were still toppled over, the pavement still dark where his blood had pooled. That was where she had held him after he crashed through the crates like a meteor. She'd gently turned him over, carefully minding his neck and back in case he had damaged his spinal cord, Obi-Wan's eyes are shut tight like he had been bracing himself for the fall. His beautiful, glacial-blue aura like the sky above the mountains is gone. His heart is silent, his chest doesn't move, her leggings are sticky and warm with blood. "Please," she whispers. "P-please Bobi, open your eyes, open your… no, no, no, please no, Bobi please–" People approach and whisper amongst themselves. Someone approaches her from the side and quickly retreats when she bares her fangs at them. Frantic footsteps echo through the alley, Anakin comes skidding to a halt seconds later. "How is he?" he asks, his aura blinding white with sheer panic. She looks up at him, unable to say it out loud and make it true, barely able to see Anakin's face through her tears.

The Force screamed a warning through her fugue just in time for her to dodge the clone's swing. She cartwheeled to the side and dodged his leg sweep, then jumped at him with a flying roundhouse kick. He ducked underneath it and shoved her away from him.

She grabbed for her sabers and found only air at her sides. The clone smirked at her and held up the belt he'd managed to rip off, then chucked it into the dumpster behind him.

Shabuir. Ahsoka dropped down into a Fáng Shìlóng stance, turning her toes out and straightening her back before bringing her hands up. The clone smirked at her and sank into Echani.

Ahsoka eyed the remaining blaster at his waist and briefly wondered why he wasn't using it before blocking his first strike; a hard, straight-armed punch to the face that would have broken her nose had it connected. Ducking the next three strikes that whistled in the air around her montrals, she eased out of Fáng Shìlóng and switched to match his Echani. She elbowed the clone in the gut, dropped, then turned on her knees to try and throw him over her shoulder the same way she did Blitz, but instead of letting her get an arm around his neck he rolled into the toss and then threw her forward with his considerable strength. She crashed into the crates and rolled to a stop face-first on the dark stain.

Please Bobi, open your eyes…

The scent of Obi-Wan's blood had her brain in the same spinning, panicked state that it was that night. The clone kicked her in the stomach with his plastoid boot and sent her rolling to the side in a tumbled heap. He straddled her waist, pinning her with his heavy weight, then raised a fist. With no other recourse, she protected her face with her arms and turned to the one move she wasn't allowed to use during sparring; she slammed a knee up between his legs as hard as she could and scrambled the gett'se behind his codpiece. His aura flashed neon orange with shock-anger and he rolled off of her, swearing a blue streak of Mando'a under his breath.

Ahsoka struggled to her feet and hopped backwards a bit, dragging the knee that was still tingling from smacking into plastoid. "Enough!" she snarled, holding her hands up to summon her sabers.

The clone panted and shook his head, his face sweaty and bright red from exertion and pain, and struck at her chest with his elbow before her weapons reached her. She caught his elbow with her palms and pushed outwards, following with a high kick that missed his chin by a hairsbreadth. He feinted forward, her punch went wide, and he pinned her arms at her sides in a wampa hug.

"Get off of me!" she snarled. She headbutted him, used the wall to walk up and over his head to break the hold, then kneed him hard in the spine. The blow sent him stumbling forward, only for him to turn and kick her in the chest and propel her towards the opposite wall.

She smashed into it hard and saw stars, the fatty padding of her rear lek the only thing saving her skull from being cracked open. He took advantage of her daze by dragging her to the ground and pinning her again. He brought a fist up to finish her off and went still; his eyes bugged out of his head and he clawed at his throat. He rose up in the air with lips quickly going blue and was dragged off of her like he had an invisible noose around his neck, plastoid boots scraping helplessly at the concrete.

Anakin stood at the opposite end of the alley with an outstretched hand, his aura a tornado of ivory terror spinning with ribbons of crimson fury and teal protection, all surrounded by a hungry, creeping darkness that Ahsoka recognized all too well. He dragged the clone towards him by the throat and watched him struggle for air with dark, wild eyes.

Ahsoka scrambled to her feet and stumbled towards Anakin. "Master," she called, then screwed her eyes shut as the alley tilted around her. Her head felt like someone had taken a hydrospanner to the back of it. "Master, we… we need him alive." She projected weak green calm and the smell of rain on the desert wind as best as she could manage with her head spinning, praying it would be enough to blow away the terrifying, sticky darkness that she had worked so hard to glean away from him before.

Anakin didn't answer her, too lost in his rage. He recognized the alley, too. It was distracting him like it had her, making it too hard to focus on control. He was panicking from what he'd seen, a clone twice her size pinning her to the ground, about to knock her lights out. His hand tightened and the clone's aura went glowing white with fear-pain.

"Anakin!" Ahsoka yelled, but it was no good; he was too far gone, his aura spinning too violently to accept the pitiful calm she projected at him. She braced herself against the wall and took a deep breath, trying to center herself as best she could before she gleaned it off and brought her Master back to his right mind.

I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me. Ahsoka let her aura flow outwards and folded it around Anakin's, drenching him with peace like a spring thunderstorm. The shadow slipped and slid unnaturally around the edges of their joined aura, hungrily sniffing the fresh blood coming from wounds in the heart newly reopened. His grief-rage-guilt hit her with the force of a crashing starfighter, almost throwing her to the ground with its intensity. She box breathed and controlled the spin of the storm around them.

There is no emotion, there is peace. Ahsoka reached out to the darkness and wrapped it around her fists like spiderwebs, tearing the black away from where it choked Anakin's bright red. She had gleaned it away before, she could do it again. She opened herself up to the Cosmic Force, listened to it roar in her montrals like river rapids before going suddenly silent, and let it scour away the darkness surrounding them both.

"Easy, Skyguy," she whispered. "Let him go. You did it. You saved me. You can let him go now."

Something clicked in him, lightened just like it had the night he had broken her arm; it sent the hungry shadow fleeing and lucidity returned to Anakin's eyes. He immediately let the clone fall to the ground and stumbled backwards, wallowing in pale yellow shock-distress at what he'd almost done.

She detangled their auras gently and slid down the wall, as exhausted as if she'd just done a twelve-mile ruck in a blizzard.

"Ahsoka!" Anakin ran to her side and skidded to a stop, dropping to the ground in front of her. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you? How bad–"

"I'm okay." Ahsoka pulled herself together and gave him a wan smile before eyeing the limp body of the clone. He was still alive, thankfully. Anakin hadn't… he hadn't.

Anakin nodded and swallowed hard, looking sick. "Let's get going." He slung her arm around his neck and helped her walk back to his speeder, dragging the clone's unconscious body behind them with the Force.

The clone had no tattoos or unique scars, no holotags, not even an identification chip in his wrist. Rex had been conscious for a whole five minutes by the time they returned to the barracks but he wasted no time in helping Cody and Anakin tie him up in a chair in the officer's lounge.

Poor Boba was shaking like an aktipan that lived in a rich woman's purse, his aura trembling and pale violet with shock-guilt. Ahsoka held him on the couch, rubbing his back soothingly and willing her headache to go away.

"I'm sorry," he said for the fiftieth time. "I should have helped. I–"

"You stayed safe. That's all I care about." Ahsoka pressed her forehead against his.

"We have any stims in here?" Anakin barked, throwing open the cabinets of the kitchenette like he expected them to be stored next to the caf concentrate and ration bars. His aura was a tightly-controlled ball of deep red anger-frustration and a little yellow embarrassment, and his mech hand kept clenching with the desire to hit something.

Rex shook his head. "Should be a pack of 'em in my office, Sir." He made for the door. "I'll–"

"I'll get them," Ahsoka offered. Rex still looked a bit unsteady; she'd been stunned enough times during dance practice to know exactly how fuzzy his head was. "Where are they?"

"The top shelf of my locker." Rex nodded at her gratefully.

Ahsoka kissed Boba's cheek. "Stay here, vod'ika," she murmured into his ear before standing.

Rex and Cody both froze and turned to her with staticky-white shock rippling around them.

"You're not actually surprised, right?" she asked them wryly over her shoulder, leaving before they had a chance to respond.

The barracks were still almost empty of troopers and nobody stopped her on the way to Rex's office. She unlocked the door, stepped inside, and stopped dead.

The locker was open. The rucksack, the beskar'gam, even the tooka doll was gone.

She didn't need to call Inspector Divo to help her solve this mystery. There was only one person who could have taken it; or rather, there was only one person who would have ordered it taken.

Kal shabuirla Skirata.

Ahsoka snatched the box of stims and marched to the stairwell, her brain working faster than her feet. Obviously the clone had led her away from the barracks so the armor would be easy pickings. The only thing she wanted to know, though, was which one of Skirata's little angels of death was currently tied up in the officer's lounge, and how badly Skirata wanted him back. Had he intended to be caught, or was he just trying to keep her as far away from the barracks for as long as possible?

She was still glad she had stopped Anakin from killing him if for no other reason than that they now had leverage to get the beskar'gam back. She slid the door to the lounge open with the Force, removed a stim from the box, and jammed it into the clone's neck without a word. A chorus of protesting shouts sprang out from the men in the room.

"Ahsoka!" Anakin yanked her away from the clone with a bolt of teal concern. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Waking him up." She tossed the box on the table. She was spitting mad, nearly vibrating with it, her lek smacking against her back like a drum. She pushed Anakin's arm down and slapped the clone's cheek. "Hey. Eyes open, shabuir."

"Ahsoka!" Rex exclaimed, shoving himself between her and the tied-up man.

The clone's eyes opened into slits and he worked his jaw. Cody, still shirtless with a large, clear burn bandage over his new ink immediately drew on the clone and held steady, ready to stun him.

"What's going on?" Anakin asked harshly. "You were fine a minute ago, what happened to make you so angry?"

"Where is it?" she spat at the clone. She shoved past Rex and slapped him again, leaving a pink handprint on his cheek. "Where the hell is it?"

Rex yanked her back and held her in a wampa hug.

"Ow," the clone said mildly. His red aura sharpened and hardened into a box around him, keeping any emotions he had guarded and hidden.

"It's gone," Ahsoka snapped, trying and failing to push past Rex. "Someone took Boba's beskar'gam while this sleemo was leading us on a snipe hunt around Coruscant, and he's going to tell us what happened or I'm going to gut him like a Rokarian dirt-fish!"

"What?" Boba was crouched on the couch with Robert under one arm, puppy-eyed and rolling with violet grief-shock that quickly blushed into red anger. "He… he…" Boba got to his feet, trembling with all of the emotions rioting across his aura, and threw Robert behind him. "Tion'vaii ner beskar'gam, gar ne'tom'osik?" he demanded, eyes shining and fists clenched at his sides.

The clone slowly dragged his eyes over to Boba. "Jate, Bob'ika," he drawled. "Ner gett'se shi'jii dayngaanir?"

Boba's face and aura went white and he took a step back. "Ordo?" he whispered, horrified.

Everyone turned to look at the tied up clone. "I should've known," Rex said grimly, backing up with Ahsoka in his arms. His aura was fogged with bright turquoise protection-wariness. "What's going on, Ordo?"

A muscle worked in Anakin's jaw. "Ordo's the captain of the commando squad you told me about on the way here?" he asked Ahsoka quietly, to which she nodded.

"You were a decoy?" Cody asked, frowning severely. His aura went chartreuse with annoyance. "Seems beneath you, Captain."

Ordo rolled his shoulders. "I follow orders, Cody, you know that." He frowned. "Where's your shirt?"

"And did your orders include kicking my Padawan off a rooftop?" Anakin asked, soft and dangerous. He walked forward with a straight back, drawing up to his full height. "Beating her face in?"

"You led us to that alley on purpose, didn't you?" Ahsoka snapped, trying to get out of Rex's very firm hold again.

"I figured I'd need the advantage," Ordo shrugged. "Take it as a compliment. Sorry about the roof, though. That was bad timing on my part."

"Ke'epa osik," Ahsoka said contemptuously.

"Enough, vod'ika." Rex physically turned her towards the couch, where Boba sat frozen and silent like a newborn kybuck in the grass, and gave her a little push.

She swallowed her rage, sat next to Boba, and tucked him under her arm. "It's okay," she murmured into his ear, sending little green bubbles of calm to his aura. "Ni ven'kyramu ad kebbur. I'll rip his throat out if he tries anything."

Ordo raised an eyebrow. "Why would I hurt him?" he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

"Why'd you hurt him any other time?" Ahsoka snapped, a growl coloring her tone.

"Because he was being a brat?" Ordo's eyes flicked between her and Boba. "Boba's always been a spoiled kih'osik. Someone needed to keep his head from getting too big."

"Fuck off!" Ahsoka and Boba snapped in unison.

Anakin tilted his head at Ordo. The air around him felt charged, staticky, like lightning about to strike. "I would like to know why you thought you could put hands on my Padawan and walk away with them still attached," he said quietly.

Ordo met his eyes, wary, but more curious than afraid. "She got me good a few times. You should be proud."

"Oh I am. I am very, very proud of her." Anakin said silkily, leaning down. "So answer my question."

Ahsoka's commlink started flashing with an incoming holocall. She looked at Anakin, who nodded at her before she accepted it. A hologram of a plain man in his fifties wearing gold-painted Mandalorian armor popped up on her wrist.

"Ahsoka Tano." The hologram nodded. "Kal Skirata. Pleased to meet you."

"The pleasure's all yours, I assure you," Ahsoka snapped. "Where is Boba's beskar'gam? What game are you playing?"

Skirata chuckled. "It's safe. I presume my boy is as well?"

"He won't be if I don't get a very good reason for your attack on my Padawan and Captain tonight," Anakin snapped, striding forward to get into visual range.

"General Skywalker. Your reputation precedes you." Kal crossed his arms. "I'd rather have this chat in person. Why don't you all come down to the fairgrounds? It's Weequay Independence Week, the place is hopping tonight."

Ahsoka translated it: Lots of civilians, neutral zone. "When?" she asked harshly.

"As soon as you can. Bring my boy, and yours. He's a good shot, I bet he can win you a stuffed bantha while we talk."

Ahsoka looked at Anakin again, who pursed his lips and nodded. "If you try anything funny, you'll regret it," he promised.

"No funny business, I swear." Kal laughed again. "See you soon, ad'ika." He closed the channel before Ahsoka could.

Rex immediately started dialing a frequency on his own commlink. "Jesse, how drunk are you right now?" he asked over the loud music.

"Just getting started, Cap– hey, di'kutla, watch where you're going–"

"Grab everyone who's still walking in a straight line and get down to the fairgrounds." Rex paused, then quirked the corner of his mouth. "Someone tried to kill Ahsoka tonight. I–"

"WHAT?!" Jesse shrieked. "Kix! Where the hell is Tup, go grab him and Fi– I don't care if she's here, we need to go, now! Rex, we're leaving. Tell us where to meet you."

"One way to motivate him," Anakin said, biting down his laughter as Rex gave Jesse directions.

"Clearly." Ahsoka rubbed the bridge of her nose. She was still resisting the urge to smack Ordo, who looked far too blase about the situation for her liking. Gleaning took a toll on her. She'd have what she could only describe as an emotional hangover for at least a day. She took Anakin's mech hand and squeezed it.

It was worth it.

"You're sure about this?" Anakin asked her quietly.

She nodded and pulled Boba close to her with her other arm. "Absolutely." She gently rubbed her lek over the top of Boba's head. "We're going to get it back if I have to ransom Ordo back one limb at a time," she murmured.

Ordo raised an eyebrow. "I'd prefer you didn't," he said.

"Not up to you." Ahsoka met Cody's eyes. He raised his blaster with a smirk.

Notes:

MANDOA TRANSLATIONS Sal'gam*: tattoo (lit color+skin) Atawai'la*: kindness Shabla dalgaan: fucking bitch Ni cuy shabla dalgaan? Ni salgorani gar shabla ass bal ni cuy shabla dalgaan? Ke'haa'tayli at troan'tay, vod: I'm a fucking bitch? I'm tattooing your fucking ass and I'm a fucking bitch? Go look in the mirror, bro Gar ne'salgorani ner shebs, vod'ika, bal meh bev tigaanur ner shebs ni ven'shuku gar cere: You're not tattooing my ass, little brother, and if that needle touches my ass I will break your fingers Ke'pirimpir gaht tay'briik: Go piss up a rope Nayc gar: No you Os'ika: Little shit (affectionate), a pun on Ahsoka's normal diminutive of Ahs'ika Ka'akaan'jori: Sound the alarm! Papurgaat: lit. 'fruit,' in this context it's like "before he could say diddly" Shabla bev'kovid: Fucking dickhead Tion'vaii ner beskar'gam, gar ne'tom'osik?: Where is my armor, you piece of shit? Ner gett'se shi'jii dayngaanir: Your balls finally drop? Ke'epa osik: Eat shit Kih'osik: Little shit (not affectionate) TOYDARIAN TRANSLATIONS Zisiyeni: Damn it OTHER NOTES Gleaning: Empathically sharing another person's emotions and releasing them to the Force Po'ackster: A hyena-like creature native to Jedha, known for its wide grin and hysterical laughter-like bark Aktipan: that wee little elephant creature from the Fifth Element. I've been obsessed with him for 20 years you're goddamn right he's crossing over to the SW verse

Taglist: @starwarsficnetwork, @soliloquy-of-nemo Dividers: @saradika-graphics

"This errand should not take long." Plo folded his arms and tucked his hands into his sleeves. "The Baleen travel depot has a wide array of electronic repair stores. We should be able to easily find this…" Plo turned to Boba.

"Seabreeze data filter," Boba supplied. "If you want to get the data off of that gauntlet without triggering the self-deletion protocols, we need to hook a Seabreeze up to it."

"Don't you know the codes?" Wolffe asked, exasperated and slightly sweaty from the warm Tog blanket he was trapped under. Ahsoka lay borderline unconscious on his chest, still out cold from a second dose of painkillers given after her arm was set.

Plo had done something with his powers to her broken bone so it had healed up solid, but the nerve regeneration sleeve hooked around her bicep was going to hurt like a dalgaan for the next eight hours. Togrutas being so damn touchy-feely meant that she would heal faster with full-body contact, though, so as soon as they'd made it into hyperspace Wolffe had shucked down to his blacks and settled onto the salon pod sofa with her on his chest before anyone could tell him otherwise.

"Obviously I know the codes, but if you want to do anything more than just look at the intel then we need a fucking Seabreeze," Boba snapped.

"I just don't see why it can't wait until we're back at Coruscant," Wolffe glowered.

"Because, Commander, time is of the essence." Plo's voice held an undertone of no more backtalk that Boba immediately recognized and snickered at. "We will be an hour at most, and then we will be able to start extracting the data while still in transit instead of having to wait many hours upon our return."

"Yes, General," Wolffe went a darker shade of bronze and he pillowed his chin on the back of Ahsoka's squishy headtail. She nuzzled him in her sleep and purred louder.

"Setting down now," Comet announced over the intercom from the cockpit. "Docking fee is paid by the hour, General."

"Excellent, Comet. One shall be enough. Boba, with me," Plo said genially.

"Sure thing." Boba stuck his tongue out at Wolffe before he followed Plo off the ship.

Baleen wasn't bad for a deep space fuel station. Certainly nicer than Eburnea, it was built into the side of a mined asteroid and reminded him more of the Coruscant undercity more than that neon-coated rust bucket.

"You said the Seabreeze is not a Mandalorian specific gadget, yes?" Plo verified, walking slow enough towards the shopping district for Boba to keep up.

"It's industry standard. Almost any electronic place should have a basic model," Boba replied. He kept a hand on the WESTAR in his pocket and an eye on Plo's back. Plenty of shitheads in a place like this wouldn't mind throwing a suckerpunch at a Jedi just for the sake of being a prick.

Ironically, he would have been one of them only a few weeks ago. He just had to go and get adopted by an overgrown tooka with a lightsaber, didn't he?

"I admit, Boba, there is a reason that I asked the men to stay on the ship," Plo suddenly said.

Boba glanced at him, instantly suspicious. "And why's that?" he asked.

"I owe you an apology," Plo replied. "More than one, in fact."

"Why?" Boba asked. He spotted a Falleen that had a shotgun dangling from his waist watching Plo closer than the average passerby. Boba hardened his stare and waited for the big lizard to make eye contact with him. When he did, the lizard at first snorted, blanched when he didn't drop his gaze, then started walking in the opposite direction. Fucking right, keep walking. Boba kept glaring at his back until he disappeared into the crowd.

Plo hadn't missed the exchange and had his face squinched up in amusement. "I should have followed up with your case instead of assuming that justice had been served." Plo stopped suddenly and bowed his head. "You have my sincerest apology for your imprisonment, Boba Fett."

"Oh." Boba felt his cheeks go hot. "Yeah. Uh, thanks." Boba looked around and patted Plo's side. "Bloody look up before you get jumped, will you?"

Plo straightened, chuckling. "I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but I can take care of myself," he rumbled, then resumed walking. "The second apology that I owe is to your family, not you specifically."

Boba felt a weird tingle on the back of his neck. He turned around and squinted at the crowd but saw no one in particular. "Why's that?" he finally asked, looking up at the towering jetii.

"For Galidraan," Plo said softly.

Boba could have sworn that gravity reversed itself. His stomach did a backflip and his heart stopped at the name of the planet that had ruined his father's life.

Galidraan had been a shitshow. Back then Dad had led a sect of supercommandos that refused to bow to the pacifistic Kryze dynasty, but unlike the kriffing Death Watch they had morals and a code of ethics. They actually followed the Resol'nare instead of just talking about it and they'd stayed loyal to the real Mand'alor; Boba's ba'buir, Jaster Mereel.

After Jaster died fighting Death Watch, his father had taken command of the True Mandalorians. A few years later he'd responded to the Governor of Galidraan's call for aid to help put down an extremist uprising on his planet, but it was a trap. Death Watch had been running around commiting all of the acts that the fascist Governor was blaming on protestors, and he'd secretly contacted the Jedi to beg for help in stopping Jango Fett and the True Mandalorians' attacks on innocent political activists.

The Jedi had slaughtered almost every single True Mandalorian to a man and the Death Watch had taken care of any allies they had left on the planet. Dad had once told him when he was at the bottom of a bottle of tihaar that out of the eleven Jedi he'd killed that day, six of them were with his bare hands.

Back then, Boba had wondered if he would have killed all of the Jedi if he had known that Death Watch had already killed Gavin and captured Mama, or if he would have just let himself die.

"I was not present for the massacre," Plo said solemnly. "And it was a massacre by both parties, do not think that the Jedi are ignorant of their own responsibility. A horrible mistake was made that day by both sides."

Boba didn't dare move his feet. His locked knees were the only thing keeping him from falling up into the rafters.

"After Master Dooku returned to the Temple and gave his report, I made for the planet with a small task force in order to provide burial rites for the fallen and to return their beskar'gam to their families," Plo continued. "I was denied by the Governor, but I want you to know that I did try." Plo sank to one knee and placed a hand on his arm. "And you should know, Master Windu was the first to volunteer to accompany me."

Boba stared at Plo. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I believe that the time you have spent with Ahsoka and I has opened your mind enough for you to understand that we Jedi are but people, trying our best to follow the will of the Force," Plo said softly. "You have scars on your heart not just from what you have experienced, but from what your father endured at our hands." Plo stood and began to walk slowly again, keeping an encouraging hand on Boba's back. "I remember a True Mandalorian survivor of Galidraan that approached the Council a year after the battle. Her name was Kaisa Skirata, if I recall. A relative of Kal Skirata, who you do not seem to remember with any sort of fondness."

Boba balled his fists at his sides and tried to breathe normally.

"She informed us that the Governor of Galidraan had sold both of them into slavery after the Jedi departed, though she was able to escape. She wanted help in retrieving your father, but after the scandal the Council was hesitant to interfere in any more affairs outside of Republic space." Plo looked sadly down. "The Council voted against it, but I secretly asked a Jedi Shadow to assist her in her search. They scoured the galaxy together for about a year, if I am not mistaken, before parting ways. I was told that Lady Skirata returned to Mandalore, but the Shadow, Quinlan Vos, did not give up. He did eventually find your father, and he arranged for a group of pirates to attack the spice freighter he had been enslaved on. Jango Fett was able to escape, but I don't believe he ever knew of Quinlan's involvement."

"So the Jedi got him locked up and then freed him," Boba murmured to himself. "Fucking ironic, that." He felt that tingle on the back of his neck again and looked behind him; this time he was almost sure that he saw a glimpse of ghostly white skin and red armor.

He shook his head. He was imagining things. He had to accept that Aurra was long dead, and even if she'd survived the crash he wanted nothing to do with her. His eyes were open, now. She had never given a damn about him, she'd just wanted what he represented. She'd told him she loved him and then hurt him whenever he had reached out for her.

He'd been such a sniveling, needy baby after Dad had died that he'd latched onto the first thing that made him feel wanted. He was older now, he knew better. The conked-out tooka back on the ship had helped him remember the difference.

"Indeed," Plo agreed. "But I thought you should know. I always felt that I could have done more for your father. I hope that by ensuring that you are taken care of, that generational wound may begin to heal."

"That's, um," Boba cleared his throat and shook his head. He couldn't keep an eye on their backs if his head was in Cloud City. "Thanks. That's good to know."

Plo paused in front of a Proton Diva storefront that had a shimmering set of ray bars projected over its windows to keep out burglars. "I believe we are here," he said pleasantly.

Boba nodded. "I'll watch the exit," he said, turning to stand guard over the doorway.

"You may accompany me inside, Boba," Plo said, his face crinkling up again in a smile.

Boba shook his head. "We don't need to both go in," he pointed out. "I'll stand watch. It's fine."

"As you wish. I will be quick." Plo walked into the store humming under his breath while Boba kept an eye on passersby.

The mercs on the street were easy to spot from a hundred paces, they all walked with a little kick from the sidearm universally kept in their boots and had a look on their face like they held a grudge against the universe. Most of the people on the street seemed to be civilians, though, and mostly unarmed. Neon seemed to be the favored light source on this street, and it made an annoying buzzing sound–

"Hey, Boba."

Boba immediately spun and drew at the pleasant man standing in front of the Biscuit Baron next door. He kept the blaster under his jacket so the civvies didn't get spooked but the man could clearly see it.

"Keep fucking moving, chakaar," Boba growled. "We've got no business."

"Sure we do." The man slowly reached into his left jacket pocket and retrieved a small, folded pocket knife, maintaining eye contact and revealing the butt of an RSKF-44 heavy blaster in his holster. "I'm a friend of a friend. Name's Tobias Beckett." He grinned, showing off the gap between his teeth. "She asked me to give you this. Said you'd recognize it."

He tossed the knife to Boba, who caught it one-handed and glanced down. Thin, red, and with a wickedly twisted blade like a corkscrew, he recognized it immediately. Aurra had used it to carve her initials into his body a long time ago.

"You didn't cry this time," Aurra murmured into his skin, licking up the blood between whispers. "You're my good boy, aren't you Boba?"

"Now's your chance to dump your Jedi," Tobias continued, still smiling. "Come on. I'll take you to her."

Boba slipped the knife into his pocket and kept the blaster under his jacket aimed at the merc. "I'm good," he said flatly. "Now fuck off."

"Come on, Boba, don't make this difficult." Tobias took a step towards him. "The fuck have the Jedi ever done for you? You belong with your people, kid, not the goodie-goodies with laser swords." He took another step. "Let's get out of here. She's waiting for you."

"She ever fucking comes near me again and I'll skin her alive, you got that?" Boba snarled. The scar on his ass pulsed. "She's a fucking psychopath and a nonce. I don't want anything to do with her."

Tobias tilted his head. "Now now, kid, you don't mean that." He took another step.

"Take one more step and I'll put a new asshole in you," Boba snapped. "Fuck. Off."

Tobias sighed. "You're really gonna make me–"

The Proton Diva door behind him chimed and Boba turned around. Plo had a medium-sized box in his arms and when Boba had spun back around, Tobias was gone.

"What's wrong?" Plo quickly put the box down at his feet and put a protective hand on Boba's shoulder, looking around for the threat. "What happened?"

"Just a creep," Boba mumbled, slipping the WESTAR back in his pocket after switching the safety on. "I handled it."

Plo searched the street, then picked up the box with a sigh. "Stay close to me," he said quietly.

"Don't need to fucking tell me twice." Boba kept his hand on Plo's elbow and his head on a swivel as they walked back to the dock, just in case he saw red armor again.

Still tacky with sweat from two hours of PT and trying to ignore the throbbing ache in his temple, Rex reclined on his elbows and took a moment to appreciate the warm sun on his bare upper body. After a decade of black skies and crashing thunder, sunlight almost felt like a forbidden luxury.

"You up here, vod?" he heard Fives call out.

Rex sighed. He didn't resent his brother, but was it really too much to hope for just a few minutes of quiet? "East side," he called back, not moving.

Plastoid bootsteps echoed on the concrete, loud on their journey from the rooftop's turbo-lift to where Rex had sprawled himself in the sun. "Copaani kov'pelid?" Fives snickered, then tapped Rex on the head with the datapad before putting it on his bare chest. "I'll have you know that I had to cash in three separate favors for this. Blackout says hi, by the way."

Rex sat up and nodded, not really listening, and opened the uncensored report for the Hardeen op. He scrolled past the irrelevant osik to get to the crash that Ahsoka and Skywalker had been in while chasing down Cad Bane's ship.

On [32:04:980] at [01:40 GST], I and General Skywalker arrived at the Orondia Fuel Depot and positively identified Cad Bane entering a HCT-2001 Dragonboat-class Reugeot 905 type freighter. We engaged in a high-speed chase over the fuel lines [Ref: Page 14-21 for detailed damage report] that lasted approximately 15 minutes. General Skywalker left The Twilight to attempt to forcibly land the Reugeot 905 of Bane and his associates, Rako Hardeen [Obi-Wan Kenobi] and Moralo Eval. The chase ended after Hardeen [Kenobi] performed a pit maneuver that forced me to crash land The Twilight and threw Bane and General Skywalker from the Reugeot 905. I hit my head on impact and was unconscious for an estimated 5 minutes. Upon awakening I evaluated my injuries, determined I was able to safely continue, and immediately left The Twilight in pursuit of General Skywalker. I witnessed him unconscious on the ground and was able to repel Bane, Hardeen [Kenobi], and Eval, but was not able to take them into custody without putting General Skywalker at risk of immediate bodily harm. Bane, Hardeen [Kenobi] and Eval fled the chase location, and after General Skywalker regained consciousness, we determined that the suspects had fled the planet. We solicited repairs [Ref: Page 28 for itemized expense report] at the fuel station and left for Coruscant at [04:12 GST].

He read the pitifully brief section three times and let the datapad fall to his lap with a frustrated huff.

"Bad news?" Fives asked, peering over Rex's shoulder.

"Not exactly." Rex fished the top half of his blacks out from his pile of armor and slipped his arms inside. He'd been hoping that she hurt it in the crash, and because the mission was unsanctioned they were covering it up. There went that theory.

Fives raised an eyebrow. "Then why do you look like you just bit into a citron?" he asked wryly.

"It's–" Rex smoothed out the flat seam of his top half. "It's complicated."

"This have anything to do with her arm?"

Rex's head twisted like a parakeet to look at him. "What do you know about that?" he asked sharply.

"She's favoring it. Wasn't sure why, didn't get a chance to ask." Fives put his hands on his hips. "You think something fishy happened to it. Something went down on that mission that she doesn't want anyone to know about."

Shabla osikett'se, Fives was too smart for his own good. He had a light heart and a wicked sense of humor, which made it easy to forget that he was also sharper than the edge of an akul tooth. They didn't make ARCs out of idiots. "I didn't say that," Rex said quickly. He reached for his plastoid to keep his hands busy.

His brother rolled his eyes and sprawled on the concrete beside him. "Then why not just ask her about the report that she wrote? Obviously something happened that she doesn't want you to know about."

Rex flushed and kept kitting up. "Keep it to yourself for now, until I can find out more," he told him quietly. "If I'm going to investigate this–"

"Investigation implies a sanctioned action," Fives smirked. "You're not investigating, Rex, you're mad that your vod'ika didn't tell you that she was hurt and you want to know why."

Rex huffed and snapped his cuirass on. "Whatever you say, Fives." He punched him in the shoulder and stood. "I'll be back later. I've got a meeting with the General."

Fives put his hands behind his head and tilted his head back. "Have fun. Shab, I can never get enough of this. Sunlight."

"You're late!" Skywalker waved at him from beside a roofless speeder. "Let's get out of here, we've got a long flight ahead of us."

"General?" Rex checked his chrono and couldn't believe it. He was one minute late, yes, but more importantly, Skywalker had been early.

"How're we doing, Captain?" Skywalker asked genially.

"I'm doing well, Sir." Rex tried to ignore the anxious knot in his stomach. "Are, you, um, doing alright?"

"I'm great." Skywalker flashed a slightly manic grin. "You're going to like where we're going."

"Where's that, Sir?"

Skywalker vaulted over the edge of his speeder and started it up. One side was turquoise and the other was white, and it looked like it had been welded together from two different bodies. Rex had to wonder if it was actually sky-worthy, but he supposed he was about to find out. "You ever hear of Thirumagal?" Skywalker asked.

"Uh, no, Sir." Rex strapped in and braced himself for a Skywalker takeoff.

"It's a district about an hour away from here," Skywalker said, hitting the thruster hard enough to slam Rex back against his seat. "Biggest population of Togrutas anywhere in the galaxy outside of Shili."

"Oh." Rex thanked the tides that he had skipped breakfast since an hour of his General's driving was enough to turn the stomach of a rancor. "Why're we headed there?"

"I want to get a present for Ahsoka." Skywalker flashed him another grin. "Yeah, I know, we're not really supposed to do material possessions, but she's had a rough week."

"Can't argue that, Sir," Rex agreed.

Skywalker took a sharp right turn and dove through six vertical lanes of traffic to get to their exit. "Let's put some music on," he said pleasantly. Something with a heavy drumbeat, electric quetarras and Huttese lyrics started blaring out of the speakers. Skywalker took to the upper skylanes and hummed under his breath.

Rex alternated between looking at the city below and looking at his General as they passed over districts he'd never seen before. Now was obviously the perfect time to ask about Ahsoka's injury, so why wouldn't the words come out? He opened his mouth every few minutes to ask but immediately lost his nerve every time.

On some level, Rex knew half the reason was because he didn't actually want to know. He trusted Skywalker more than almost anyone else in the galaxy. As far as he was concerned, Skywalker was as much of a vod as Ahsoka was, though as their General he did have to keep a bit more distance from them for propriety's sake. The thought of that trust being betrayed in such a way turned his stomach.

On top of that, it just didn't make sense. Skywalker adored Ahsoka and she idolized him in return. He would never hurt her on purpose. Whatever had happened had to have been a terrible accident, and all Rex could figure was that it had been Skywalker's fault for them to both be so shifty about it.

He didn't like the way the general was avoiding his eyes, though. For all his smiling and joviality, Rex had noticed that he hadn't looked him in the eyes once since he'd picked him up.

Skywalker turned down the Huttese skonk music that he'd had blaring for the past hour and squinted over the side of his speeder. "I think that's it," he said casually before cranking their speeder out of the skylane and descending in a sharp diagonal through six lanes of traffic.

Rex closed his eyes and pretended he was in a simulation until the speeder evened out.

They flew over brightly-painted walkways that were lined with hundreds of free-roaming tookas. Vivid green and blue birds twittered down at the cats, safely out of reach on balconies and rooftops. Hibiscus and marg sabl flowers in every shade of the rainbow hung on garlands surrounding painted doors.

Skywalker parked in a cramped lot and hopped over the side of the speeder. He glanced back at Rex and snorted. "We've got to see about getting you guys some civvies for leave. People are going to think you're my bodyguard."

"Aren't I, Sir?" Rex asked wryly, getting out of the speeder.

"No, Rex." Skywalker clapped him on the pauldron. "That's not why you're here."

Rex felt sweat bead up on his temple.

"Come on. Let's find her something nice and then we can talk." Skywalker patted him twice then started walking.

Rex gave a sleepy orange tooka on the wall of the parking lot a scratch before following Skywalker around the corner and into walking traffic. The General took a sharp right down a flight of stairs that opened up to a crowded bazaar. There were countless stalls set up on either side of the labyrinthine walkway; artisans selling hanks of brightly-colored yarn, incense pressed into dozens of different shapes, intricately beaded caftans, colorful plants that Rex didn't recognize in handmade pots, and giant baskets of spices that made his eyes water when he leaned over to smell them. They walked by a kettle large enough to boil a blurrg in that smelled strongly of spiced meat and was manned by an ancient, hunchbacked Togruta man with no shoes.

"Hey, soldier boy!" a Togruta woman dressed in red silk crooned at him from a table full of crystal and stone beads. "Want a good luck charm?"

Rex smiled awkwardly and shook his head.

"No charge," she said, smiling flirtily. She had yellow skin, white markings like vines around her eyes, and violet-striped lekku that reached her knees. Tiny chips of quartz lay tied to a braided red net around her montrals.

Rex glanced at Skywalker, who was grinning. "Never say no to good luck," he snickered traitorously, then gave Rex an encouraging pat on the back and pushed him towards the table.

"Ma'am," Rex greeted her with a nod. He threw a begging look back at Skywalker, who gave him a double thumbs up.

"You got a sweetie, sweetie?" the woman asked, tilting her head at him with a smile. Her hand slowly stroked her left lek.

"No." Rex had no idea what to do with his hands.

"Well, then. Let's change that, shall we?" She fished through a pile of colorful stones and picked out a bright orange bead. "Do you know what this is?"

"A bead, ma'am." His hands were sweating inside his gloves.

He shot Skywalker another pleading look over his shoulder. The Jedi crossed his arms, smirked like a lothcat, and shook his head.

"Yes, it's a bead," she laughed softly. Her accent was soft and lilting. "Orange carnelian." The woman snipped off a length of red string and tied a complicated knot on either side of the stone, then sauntered around her table. "Our ancient armies used to wear it around their necks as a token to endow them with great physical strength so they could overcome their enemies."

"Oh," Rex said. "That's good."

She circled behind him, chuckling throatily. "It inspires bold energy and energizes the spirit." Her lek rested against his face as she brought the string around his neck and tied it. "It also stimulates passion and enhances fertility," she breathed into his ear.

Rex jumped a foot forward like he'd been poked with a nerf prod. "Thank–" he cleared his throat. "Thank you, ma'am. That's very kind of you."

She looked amused. "No, thank you for your service." She patted him on his chest before swaying back behind her table with a wink. "Stay safe, soldier boy. And good luck."

"Do you feel more fertile yet?" Skywalker deadpanned after Rex had practically run back to his side, feeling like he'd just been a part of something borderline obscene.

"I'll keep you updated," he replied, flushing puce. He had doubts about a bead undoing the surgery that the Kaminoans performed on the troopers to protect their intellectual property before shipping them out to war. Logically, Rex knew it was for the best; it probably was a bad thing to flood the galaxy with genetically identical men who could father tens of millions of half-siblings in a single generation, but he still resented the hell out of it.

"I'll be honest, I don't have anything specific in mind." Skywalker thumbed a silk scarf as they passed a stall. "Feel free to shout out if you see something."

I saw nothing in the Hardeen report that would explain her arm. Rex swallowed the words before they could leave his lips, though he could tell by the way Skywalker's shoulders stiffened that he heard him anyway. He needed to ask. Why couldn't he just shabla spit the words out?

"Did Ahsoka ever tell you the akul creation myth?" Skywalker asked suddenly.

"I don't think so, Sir," Rex replied.

"It's pretty sad." Skywalker trailed his hand over a collection of delicate copper chains hanging from a wall of hooks. "So it starts with Ashla and Bogan, right? The creator gods of Shili. They had four daughters. Sara, Aditi, Kali, and Tara. They've all got different… jobs, I guess, but Tara was the youngest and in charge of making different animals for Bogan to hunt."

Rex nodded without a single inkling of where the hell his general was going with this.

"So Tara comes up with all of these amazing animals – all of them have four eyes for some reason, I don't remember why that's important – and Bogan hunts them, but none of them are a real challenge. He's getting bored, she's getting frustrated because she's his favorite daughter and she's afraid he'll stop loving her if she doesn't impress him, so she asks her sister Kali what to do." Skywalker moved on to a new stall and started examining a rack of leather belts. "Kali tells her to make something terrifying that even a god would have trouble taking down, and then he'll appreciate her other creations more." Skywalker suddenly smirked. "Kali is the goddess of wildfires and change, she's a little volatile. And I think she was jealous of Tara, if I remember right."

Rex almost tripped over his own feet trying not to step on an ancient shunka that had fallen asleep in the middle of the crowded street.

"But Tara takes it to heart and creates the akul. In the myth it's as big as a mountain, so on top of having four eyes and a meat grinder for a mouth it also blocks out the sky. Problem is, it gets hungry and starts eating Togrutas while Bogan is on his way to hunt the thing. And Ashla, her mother, she made the Togrutas so she's upset, and when she intervenes the akul injures her and she has to run away and hide. She gives some of the Togrutas snakes to wear on their heads to scare it away in the meantime, and they're the only ones that survive the rampage. That's where their lekku come from." Skywalker leaned down to pet a black tooka bunting against his boots. "Once Bogan gets there, he rips the akul into a million pieces – that's why they're not mountain-sized any more, I guess – but he's so amped up from the fight and so pissed that Ashla got hurt that he punches Tara right in the mouth. He knocks all of her teeth out with one hit and sends her back to the stars. That's why Tara's moon is that little white one with the crater on it."

"Is that who Taarak is named after, Sir?" Rex asked. He stopped in front of a stall that had a selection of little leather pouches strung on cords, clearly intended to be worn around the neck. One with a lily stamped on the front caught his eye, though he knew Ahsoka didn't care much for them. They had some biochem that he couldn't pick up that smelled off to her.

"Yeah, I think so." Skywalker joined him in looking at the pouches. A friendly-looking Togruta man babbled something in Aagani that neither of them understood. Skywalker picked up a pouch with a marg sabl flower embossed on it. "This is nice."

Rex waited for him to continue, still confused.

Skywalker handed the Aagani man his credit chit and smiled at the pouch. "Bogan always regretted hurting Tara, though. He still loved her. He kept one of her teeth to make fangs for the Togrutas but he threw the rest in the ocean to make that island chain by the equator to apologize to her." He looked up at Rex and finally met his eyes. "How am I doing with this allegory thing?" he asked wryly.

Not well, since Rex had no idea what the hell his point was. "Sir?" he asked.

"Bogan loved his daughter. He didn't mean to hurt her, he just lost his temper." Skywalker accepted his credit chit back and pocketed the pouch. "She'll like this."

"I'm sure she will, Sir," Rex agreed.

Skywalker stilled and gave Rex a thin smile. "What happened between Ahsoka and I is private, but the important thing that you need to know is that it was an accident. I would never, never hurt her on purpose."

Rex felt a trickle of sweat trail down his spine like a cold finger. "General–"

"It was an accident," Skywalker repeated, and this time his voice cracked. "It will never happen again, Rex. I'll rip this fucking thing off before it does." He stared down at his mech hand, clenched in a fist.

"You gave me an order to protect her, Sir," Rex said quietly. "To watch her back when you couldn't."

"Not from me." Skywalker put his hand – his living hand – on Rex's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I swear to you, you don't need to protect her from me."

Rex hesitated. He wanted to believe him more than anything, but something just didn't feel right.

Skywalker's eyes were hollow, desperate. Whatever he'd done, it was haunting him. "Akay karase dar'hettir," he said quietly. "I swear, Rex."

"As you say, Sir," Rex said, making his choice with a nod.

Plo's lap was a comfortable pillow. It always had been, especially back when Ahsoka was still small enough to curl up into a little ball on him like he was a lilypad while he'd do his floating meditation.

Coming to the Temple had been hard. She didn't know who or what anyone was, the smells were foreign and intense, and she didn't understand the colors that she saw so vividly around people in the Force. She was accustomed to the ones around her clan, but once she got to the Temple it was a tidal wave of overstimulation that she had no idea how to turn off. Plo had understood that, correctly pegging her Empathy almost immediately and shielding her constantly, and he'd let her caretakers know that they needed to do it for her until she was old enough to do it herself. Nobody else had thought to shield her besides Plo and Obi-Wan. His was the other lap that she'd practically lived in, as the Geonosian shaman had unfortunately reminded her. It was Obi-Wan who had found her when she ran out of quarantine, scared and hungry and alone and searching for anything familiar.

She had thought that she'd found it when she finally reached the aura that was the same color as her father's.

"Are you awake, little 'Soka?" Plo's talons scratched delicately between her montrals.

"Mm." She nuzzled his knee and spared a moment to wonder if Wolffe had eaten all the nerf jerky yet.

"Your commlink has been going off for the better part of an hour. I believe your Masters have become aware of my report on Geonosis."

Her eyes cracked open and focused on the flashing white light of her commlink, sitting on the holoconsole in the center of the salon pod. "Did you take that off of me?" she croaked. The words scratched her dehydrated throat on the way out.

"You needed to rest." Plo held up a hand and summoned the commlink. "But you should assuage your Masters. You know how they worry."

Ahsoka sat up on the sofa and took the commlink reluctantly, not missing the way he had emphasized Masters.

Her message center had exploded into shabla madness. She had messages from Anakin, Rex, Jesse… half the damn 501st actually, Cody, Wooley, even Fox wanted to know if she'd gotten Boba killed.

And of course, the bane of her current existence.

– [𝟶𝟺.𝟶𝟻.𝟿𝟾𝟶} – [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟷] 𝙹𝙶𝟽𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟹𝟷𝟶𝟹!𝙺𝙴𝙽𝙾𝙱𝙸> 𝙸 𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝. 𝙸 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚜𝚊𝚠 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚢𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚎 [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟸] 𝙹𝙶𝟽𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟹𝟷𝟶𝟹!𝙺𝙴𝙽𝙾𝙱𝙸> 𝙰𝚑𝚜𝚘𝚔𝚊, 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚜𝚊𝚏𝚎. 𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚛 𝚗𝚘.

Ahsoka felt a stabbing pain like a nail being driven through her heart. She'd been firmly blocking their bond since his dramatic return, but now she could feel frantic energy beating at his side like it had closed fists. She bit her lip and started typing.

[𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟺] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙸'𝚖 𝚊𝚕𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝, 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛. 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚛𝚗. 𝙼𝚢 𝚒𝚗𝚓𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚕𝚢.

She saw his typing ellipsis and quickly backed out before she saw his response, then went to Anakin's thread.

– [𝟶𝟺.𝟶𝟻.𝟿𝟾𝟶] – [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟹] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝙷𝙰𝙿𝙿𝙽𝙴𝙳 𝙰𝚁𝙴 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝙾𝙺 [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟹] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁>~ [𝟷𝟶:𝟶𝟺] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁>~

She scrolled down thirty more pings, wincing the whole time.

[𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟻] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙸'𝚖 𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚢. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚑𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙰𝚁𝙵 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚗𝚘 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚔𝚗𝚎𝚠 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝. 𝚆𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚗𝚘 𝚏𝚊𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜. 𝙸 𝚒𝚗𝚓𝚞𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚊𝚛𝚖 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙿𝚕𝚘 𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚞𝚙.

Anakin's ellipsis immediately started flashing.

[𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟻] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝚆𝙸𝙲𝙷 𝙰𝚁𝙼 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟻] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙻𝚎𝚏𝚝 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚞𝚜. 𝙸 𝚏𝚎𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚊 𝚑𝚘𝚕𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙰𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚝. [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟼] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝙱𝚁𝙾𝙺𝙴 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟼] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> ? [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟼] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝚈𝚎𝚜, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙿𝚕𝚘 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚎. 𝙸𝚝'𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚎.

She could feel motes of his distress and guilt leaking through their bond, even over all of the light years that separated them.

[𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟽] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝙸𝙼 𝚂𝙾𝚁𝚁𝚈 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟽] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙸'𝚖 𝚘𝚔𝚊𝚢, 𝙸 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚎! 𝚆𝚎'𝚕𝚕 𝚋𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚘𝚗. [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟽] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝙾𝙺 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟽] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝙱𝙴 𝙲𝙰𝚁𝙴𝙵𝚄𝙻 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟾] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙶𝚞𝚗𝚐𝚊𝚗 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚊𝚔 𝚛𝚘𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚙𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗? [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟾] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> 𝚈𝙴𝚂 [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟾] 𝙹𝙲𝟽𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟻𝟶𝟿!𝚃𝙰𝙽𝙾> 𝙴𝚡𝚌𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚝. 𝙱𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚘𝚗. :) [𝟷𝟷:𝟷𝟾] 𝙹𝙶𝟾𝟷𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟿𝟶𝟺!𝚂𝙺𝚈𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙺𝙴𝚁> :)

"I do believe Master Skywalker is taking me to Naboo," Ahsoka smirked, closing her message center and crossing her legs underneath her. She'd have to get to the boys' messages when her eyes were less blurry, but Skyguy could at least update them.

"How delightful." Plo's aura flared out in rich copper affection-encouragement and he helped her slide the nerve regeneration sleeve off of her arm. "Master Kenobi very much enjoys the botanical gardens in Theed. Perhaps the three of you could visit one while you're there."

Ahsoka looked away. "I should go check on Boba," she said, getting up.

Plo hooked a talon in her belt and gently tugged her back down. "In a moment," he rumbled goodnaturedly.

Ahsoka picked at her cuticles until Plo pulled her hands apart.

"Boba told me that the shaman imitated his father's voice in order to lure him out of the sunlight," he said gently. "And that you had been trapped in some sort of Force vision. I presume it was to keep you pacified until they could insert one of those worms."

Ahsoka shuddered. "That makes sense," she mumbled, feeling her skin crawl.

"May I ask what your vision entailed?" His aura was still copper, giving nothing away.

She opened her mouth to answer and then closed it. Plo rubbed the hand he'd captured. "Was it Master Kenobi?"

She shrugged.

"I sense a great deal of turmoil in you, little 'Soka," Plo said softly. "What happened in your vision?"

I fear that his darkness is infecting you. The memory tasted like vinegar. What a damn joke. That bug knew nothing about her Master, nothing, and it had the gall to wear Obi-Wan's face while insulting him–

"Ahsoka." Plo's firm voice interrupted her thoughts. "I must be blunt with you. You should not have fallen prey to that trap so easily."

Her eyes snapped onto his face. It was steady, serious, and his aura had gone firm silver with trust-authority. "You are unbalanced, off-center, and you risked everyone's lives by going down into the catacombs in such a state."

"Master?" she asked, as stunned as if he'd slapped her across the face.

"I am saying this because I care for you, Ahsoka." Plo gently stroked a talon down her cheek. "But you have lost sight of the bigger picture."

Ahsoka's breath caught in her chest and she dropped her gaze, humiliated.

"It was unfair for Master Kenobi to have involved you in such a way in his mission. I have never disagreed with that. But Ahsoka, you are acting as though his one and only motivation was to cause you and Anakin as much pain as possible for no reason at all. His goal was to save the life of the Chancellor."

"But–" she tried.

"No buts," Plo said firmly. "You must not continue to obsess over this. You cannot release the anger and pain it has caused you because you refuse to close the wound for a reason I can't comprehend. What good does it do you to hold onto this anger? All I see is it compromising you. You need to be better than this. If not for your own sake, for Boba's. You are his guardian. He is depending on you to protect and support him."

Ahsoka stared at her knees and tried not to cry.

"I am not saying that you must forgive him for what he did, though I do encourage it. But you must move on. What is done cannot be undone, though I am quite sure that he wishes it could be." Plo opened his own commlink and showed her his message center. "Forty messages from Master Kenobi over the last hour," he said softly. "He's been frantic with worry over you because whether or not you want to believe it, he loves you very much."

How could he do that to me if he loved me? She choked on the question before it could escape, but Plo's aura went a deep purple with sadness-sympathy and she knew he'd heard it anyway.

Plo's aura lightened to orange with determination. He squeezed her hands and brought his legs up on the sofa to match her cross-legged pose. Facing her now, he took a deep breath. "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me," he said softly.

She repeated the mantra dutifully, following his lead into meditation.

"There is no emotion, there is peace," he continued. His thumbs stroked the tops of her hands. "What does that mean, Padawan?"

"That we cannot feel the will of the Force if we allow our emotions to distract us, Master," she replied.

"Yes. I want you to gather up all of the hurt that is festering inside of you and look at the source. Let the memories flow by you but look at them, Padawan. Truly examine them. What is the true root of this pain?"

She obeyed, watching the moments pass by her like she was skipping through a holoprojector. The blood from Obi-Wan's heart soaking through her leggings. Anakin howling and dropping to his knees. A raw hurricane of black-crimson agony-despair spinning across their bond that sucked the air from her lungs and blinded her with its intensity. Obi-Wan's head flopping on his neck when Anakin silently tugged him from her arms.

Cold, wet sand against her legs and Aada's head in her lap, staring at her with sightless eyes and blue lips.

She turned away. She'd seen enough.

"There is a wind within you, Padawan," Plo rumbled. His rich, warm smell intensified as she sank further into a state of meditation. "The tide of the Cosmic Force flows through us all. It is what makes our cells divide, it carries starlight on its waves. Open yourself up to it, dear Padawan, and let it bear the burden for you."

"There is no emotion, there is peace," she murmured. Her body tingled and her heartbeat slowed. The memories fluttered like they had wings and the flow of the Force guided them up and away from her. She watched them spin off into the distant glow of the galaxy and felt calm fill her up like warm water. They were not forgotten, but their distance made them easier to bear.

Plo was right. Plo was always right. She was poisoning herself and she had to be better. Her vod'ika needed her; now that she was more centered, she could feel Boba's quiet sadness echoing in the Force like a bruise. She'd been too caught up in her own self-pity to notice his distress.

"Good, Padawan. Very good." She matched Plo breath for breath and they quietly surfaced out of their meditation in tandem. "I am proud of you. We will do this as many times as it takes for you to heal. The hurt runs too deep for this process to happen overnight."

"Thank you, Master," Ahsoka whispered. She wiped at her wet cheeks, though she wasn't sure if the tears were from sadness or relief.

"It is my honor to guide you, little 'Soka." Plo leaned forward and embraced her. "Boba is in the hangar with the Wolfpack. They've been helping him refit the armor."

She sniffled. "Has Wolffe broken through the encryption yet?"

"There was no need," Plo smiled and leaned back. "Boba knew all of the passwords. We made a brief stop to acquire a data filter, but have made much progress since then."

"Have they found anything on the Cuy'val Dar?" she asked, hopeful.

"Wolffe is still analyzing the data, but not yet," Plo said regretfully. "We… we will need to discuss Boba's future if there is nothing to find, Ahsoka."

She nodded sadly. "I know. I'm not under the illusion that he can stay with me forever, Master."

Plo went green with sympathy-pride. "I know you aren't. You have been very mature and responsible throughout this journey, Ahsoka, even on Geonosis. I am impressed at how successful you have been in coaxing him out of his shell in such a short time."

"Thank you, Master. I'll go see him now." She got to her feet, bowed, and exited the pod, her heart somehow lighter and heavier at the same time.

Ahsoka was surprised by the music playing in the hangar. Not that there was music, no, but Wolffe usually just played whatever Master Plo enjoyed. This was music she'd heard before, but only from Rex.

"Is this skiffle?" she asked Boba, approaching on bare feet.

Her vod'ika's aura spiked out with white surprise and he jumped a foot in the air. He'd spread a blanket down and sat cross-legged with naked beskar plates in front of him, polished to a mirrored shine. He was in the process of rewiring something in the front of the cuirass. "Fucking tooka," he grumbled, going yellow with embarrassment before fading into bronze affection-humor. "Yeah, it's skiffle. My dad had a few mixes saved on his drives."

"Nice." She sank down onto her haunches beside him. Robert the Rancor and the little crocheted tooka doll had been propped up on a crate so they could watch him work.

"How are you feeling, Commander?" Mangle called from across the hangar on his own little blanket island.

"Shabla hold still, di'kut," Wolffe snapped, slapping the medic's arm in annoyance. He held a gray-tipped brush and looked to be carefully painting wolf teeth along the edge of Mangle's plastoid jawbone.

"Perfect, vod, thank you." She sent a tendril of russet gratitude in his direction. "Where are the others?"

"Comet's in the cockpit with Arseven going through metadata, Sinker and Boost are asleep in the bunkroom." Wolffe pointed at a beskar gauntlet plugged into a small, blue-green box that fed into a field data extractor. "I've got alerts set up for all the names we can remember. Between us and the other CCs we've got most of them keyed, but we don't know anything more than that and for all we know the names they used were fake."

"Good point." She turned back to Boba. "Plo said you opened up the drives for Wolffe."

"Yeah, well," Boba shrugged. "The cost of getting the beskar'gam back, 'lek? I kept my end of the bargain."

"Boba, that was never a requirement," Ahsoka said gently, then leaned in closer. "If I'm being honest, it was just an excuse to go get it," she continued in a conspiratorial whisper.

He flushed a dark, rich blue that was veined with copper, affection-contentment-happiness flowing equally together like three streams at the lip of a lake. "What kind of fucking Jedi are you?" he snickered.

"An unconventional one," she grinned, bopping his shoulder. "Runs in the lineage."

"Odd way to pronounce a disaster," Wolffe grumbled under his breath.

"What was that?" Ahsoka called.

"Nothing," Wolffe said innocently.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Ahsoka bit her lips and waited.

"Is it now?" Wolffe carefully put the paintbrush down and got to his feet, his aura going vivid orange with excitement-humor.

Ahsoka blinked porg eyes at her vod as he approached. "Need something, Commander?" she asked sweetly.

Wolffe bent in half at the waist and touched her forehead in a gentle kov'nyn. Her grin grew. This wasn't a delicate brain-kiss of affection, it was the opening salute of a spar.

"Please don't fuck up my soldering," Boba said tonelessly, his aura vibrating with golden humor.

"Wolffe, Ahsoka, I believe I made myself quite clear on our way to Kamino," Plo said mildly from the entrance of the hangar. He carried a small meal tray piled with meat sticks, grasser cheese curds, pink-shelled eggs, and a tea kettle. "If either of you damage this vessel because of your incessant need to wrestle, you will be writing a personal letter of apology to the Dorin Ambassador."

"Yes, Sir," they both mumbled, separating foreheads.

"Now, Wolffe, how is the data extraction going?" Plo carefully placed the tray down and took a seat beside Ahsoka.

"Haven't run into any deletion traps yet, and we're 95% complete." Wolffe plopped back down and picked up his brush again, a little gray with disappointment. Mangle patiently held still and let him continue his art project. "The Seabreeze panned out."

"No shit," Boba deadpanned, then put his soldering gun down and stretched his back like a tooka.

Ahsoka shelled a pink tam-tam egg and bit it in half. She offered the other half to Boba, who took it after giving it a curious sniff.

"I thank you again for your help, Boba." Plo reached around her and squeezed his shoulder.

Boba smiled at his boots. "How's your arm?" he asked Ahsoka, poking it.

"All better." She didn't let the jolt of lightning that shot up her arm from his poke show on her face.

"That's good." Boba fiddled with the cuff of his canvas pants and looked at the datapad plugged into his helmet, his aura flooding a pale yellow-orange with anxiety-anticipation-indecision.

Ahsoka bit her lip, thinking, then glanced at Plo and silently projected a request to be alone with Boba through the shimmering thread of their Force bond.

"Wolffe, would you assist me in beginning the data transfer to the Jedi Temple?" Plo asked pleasantly.

Wolffe put his paintbrush down immediately. "Of course, General. Come on, vod, you can do my Geonosis report while you dry."

"I can?" Mangle raised an eyebrow that disappeared into the curls hanging over his forehead.

Ahsoka, who'd been wondering when the hazing would begin for Mangle, stifled a snicker.

Wolffe hauled the gauntlet and extractor into his arms. Plo winked at her and followed the troopers out.

"What's got you all fidgety?" Ahsoka asked softly once they were gone, falling from her haunches onto her rump.

Boba snorted. "You reading my mind again, Tano?"

"No, di'kut, I'm an Empath. I can see that you're anxious about something." Ahsoka watched him calmly and waited for him to take the first step.

Boba opened his datapad and turned off the music. "Wolffe doesn't have everything," he mumbled. "Not– I'm not trying to hide anything, it's not intel, it's… private."

"Okay." She sent a cool green wave of serenity in his direction until his aura slowed its nervous vibration. "You don't have to share anything that you don't want to, vod'ika. As long as it's not something that'll end the war, you're entitled to keep it to yourself."

Boba opened up a folder and brought up a holopic. In it was Jango and a dark-haired woman, both of them laughing out loud at something. The perspective was almost from the floor, like it'd been taken by an Ugnaught.

Or a child.

"That was my mama," Boba said quietly, going soft purple with sadness. "Kaisa Skirata."

"Your–" Ahsoka leaned in closer and stared at the holopic. She was pretty, with curly black hair that went to her shoulders and skin almost the same shade of copper as Jango. "But I-I thought you were a clone," she finally managed after a few moments of stunned silence.

"I am a clone, di'kut." Boba rolled his eyes. "She was Dad's riduur. She adopted me."

"Oh." Ahsoka stared at her. She was short, barely coming up to Jango's shoulder, but she could see how muscular she was under the close-fitting flight suit she wore. The woman was a warrior, there was no doubt about that.

Boba flicked to a new holopic, one with a toddler that Ahsoka would have pegged as a chubby clone cadet if not for his bright gray eyes shining through the screen like polished beskar. "And that's Cassus," he continued. The purple sadness in his aura deepened. "He was my brother. He was a month older than me. He wasn't a clone, he was Mama's."

And Jango's, clearly; his round little face spoke to the strength of those genes. "I had no idea he had a natural-born son," Ahsoka said softly, examining the holopic curiously. "What happened to them?"

"They died." Boba flicked to a new holo before she could ask how. Jango lay asleep on the couch, his head tilted back over the arm and his jaw wide open in a snore she could almost hear with two small babies and a third, larger baby asleep on his chest. All three of them wore matching pajamas with little fluffy banthas on them. The oldest baby was bald but the two little ones both had thick, luscious mops of black curls. Boba glanced at her and waited for her reaction.

"Who's that?" Ahsoka asked, pointing to the oldest. He was twice the size of the littles but he slept just like them, with his feet tucked under his body like a frog.

Boba bit his lip and scrolled to a new holopic. This one was of the woman, Kaisa, in full Mandalorian armor minus her bucket with a grinning baby Cassus tied to her chest and the bald now-toddler clinging to her back. He held the silver tooka doll in his hand that stared at them from the crate next to Robert the Rancor.

Ahsoka squinted at the boy and realized he wasn't bald, he had an almost invisible layer of white-blond curls sticking up from his head like a halo. Her heart skipped a beat; she knew exactly who he was, now. "Rex," she whispered.

"Tiarek, back then." Boba said quietly. "Mama named him that 'cause he was blond. She made the doll for him, too." He scrolled again. In the next holopic, Jango sat at a table with Rex on his lap behind a dense, nutty cake topped with two candles. Rex's cheeks were puffed up, preparing to blow them out.

Ahsoka gripped Boba's hand, feeling dizzy despite sitting down. "It wasn't just a few weeks, was it?" she asked.

"Three years." Boba flipped to a picture of the three boys on a sofa that had a large bite mark taken out of one leg. Boba was in Rex's lap and had a wailing Cassus's arm between his teeth. Kaisa sat off to the side, reaching for Boba with a stern look on her face. Boba smiled. "Mama stopped the kaminiise from gassing him and raised him with us. They euthanized the rest of his batch for coming out blond but she grabbed him before they could get him."

Ahsoka gaped for a few seconds like Hinata begging for pellets, too stunned to do anything else. "For being blond?" she managed after a few seconds. "They were going to… to kill him for being blond?" She was going to be sick. They'd killed his batchmates, and would have killed him all because of his hair color.

"Yep." Boba flicked to a new picture. Kaisa was holding up Rex and kissing his neck. Rex had his eyes closed and his mouth open in what she imagined was a tickled shriek of laughter.

"Why… why did he never say anything?" she whispered. "Why does he keep saying there was a training accident and–"

"Mama tried to leave with Cas when we were two." Boba shut the datapad off and flipped it.

"Why?"

Boba's shoulders slumped. "I don't know," he said quietly. "But something happened with her and Dad. They had a big fight. She tried to take us with her but…" Boba trailed off and shook his head. "I don't know, I was only two. It was storming and there was screaming and I don't remember what happened, just that it was bad, and then she left us and got on her ship with Cas." He was trembling. "Dad shot it down."

Ahsoka took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.

"After that it was just me and Tiarek." Boba smiled sadly to himself. "Reks'ika."

Reks'ika… Rex. Ahsoka put her face in her hands. "Oh Force, Rex," she murmured, overwhelmed.

"After Mama and Cas died, Dad put all of their things in a lockbox and kept it on the top shelf of his closet," he said. "He came home from a job and found us looking at them and he got mad." Boba's eyes welled up with tears and his aura bloomed deep violet again with the bruised tone of grief-regret. "I don't think he meant to hurt him like that but he… he smashed Tiarek in the face with the box." Boba touched his chin. "That's how he got that."

"It doesn't matter how angry he was," Ahsoka snapped. "He never should have–" she cut herself off and stifled her anger. Boba needed her compassion, not her outrage. She was his guardian and she had to be there for him, as Plo had reminded her.

There is no emotion, there is peace. She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, surrendering her rage to the Force at the same time.

"And then after, he wasn't my brother anymore," Boba continued. "He forgot me."

Ahsoka had asked Rex about his scar once and he said he couldn't remember, just that he was young. "Rex has hit his head plenty of times," she said after a few moments of spinning, trying to make sense of it all. "It's not like in the holos where you just get amnesia from bonking your head."

His tears finally lost their fight and fell from Boba's eyes. "I think they reconditioned him," he whispered. "He doesn't know because they made him forget. I… I don't know why. Kal told him that osik about the training accident while he was getting better and Dad told me to forget him because he was going to be a soldier again." His face crumpled and his shoulders slumped. "They took my brother from me and I don't know why."

"I'm sorry," Ahsoka whispered, knowing it wasn't nearly enough. She wrapped her aura around him like a warm copper blanket of safety-comfort and opened her arms.

Boba climbed into her lap like the child he pretended he wasn't and tucked his face into her neck, shuddering silently. His aura was throbbing like a wound with purple grief but there was also a thin blue ribbon of relief around the edges, and Ahsoka couldn't help but wonder how long he'd been holding that secret in.

Notes:

MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS Resol'nare: Mandalorian code Mand'alor: Leader of Mandalore (not just the planet but all Mandalorian space) Ba'buir: Grandfather Chakaar: asshole Osik: shit Copaani kov'pelid: need a pillow? Shab/la: fuck/fucking Osikett'se: shitballs ori/vod/ika: big brother/brother/little brother Akay karase dar'hetti: until the stars no longer burn (mandalorian oath) Di'kut: dummy OTHER NOTES I don't plan on going very deep into the Galidraan/Jango being technically the heir to Mandalore thing outside of a few infodumps for context, but just as an fyi, timeline's been adjusted to make it a little more logical. Jango was in his 20s when he took over the True Mandalorians (because like… this isn't Game of Thrones, a 14 year old ain't taking over a battalion of supercommandos, sorry), Galidraan happened 11 years before Geonosis, not 22, and he wasn't enslaved as long as he was in Legends. Legends canon time again 😎 so apparently the Kaminoans did try to genetically engineer infertility into the clones, but "clone prototypes displayed much higher rates of mental instability, poor unit cohesion, an inability to adapt and think creatively, and decreased aggressiveness in battlefield simulations." so in this AU they give them vasectomies instead to prevent the proliferation of their superior genome into the disgusting normie galaxy 😃 but of course, vasectomies are only 99% effective *coughs* DARMAN *coughs* INTRODUCING KAISA AND CASSUS WOOOOOO. Both are ocs created by Squid_Ink, she is letting me play with them because she is lovely and you should all go check out her fic on Kaisa's backstory Tam-tam: a blue and pink quail-like bird native to Felucia known for laying up to 8 eggs a day depending on the moon cycle Shunka: canid species native to Shili (the dogs in Ahsoka's village from TOTJ)

Taglist: @starwarsficnetwork, @soliloquy-of-nemo Dividers: @saradika-graphics