Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They’re on the run for almost six full months, jumping from planet to planet trying to stay ahead of the Empire. Most of that time is spent on their little ship, only stopping planet-side long enough to restock supplies—with maybe an extra rotation or two so that they can regain their sanity. 

They’re stopped by the Empire often, but not as often as Ahsoka would have thought. The checks are random: they’re not stopped while entering or exiting a system, only when they’ve been in one place for more than a few hours or days. It’s almost like they’re being tracked, but whoever is doing the tracking isn’t sure what they’re looking for.

After four surprise ‘inspections’, two planetside and two in-space, Master Obi-Wan figures that they’re probably looking for Anakin. He doesn’t tell her Master, only her, Rex and Kix, because he doesn’t want Anakin to “do something drastic, like give himself up for our safety.”

(It's always Ahsoka, Rex, or Kix answering questions anyway—they’re the only ones who weren’t public figures. Ahsoka has to laugh because during the war she’d almost resented how Anakin was the poster child of victory and she was barely a footnote despite being right there . How the tables have turned.)

After six stops, maybe one month in, Rex changes his look. He’d been keeping his hair tied, unwilling to cut it without a proper razor, then suddenly there’s wavy blond locks falling to his ears. He grows a beard which is also blond but feels so different that it shocks her awake from where she’d been falling asleep on his shoulder. (Upon further inspection, Master Obi-Wan’s beard is also different from his head hair and Ahsoka feels somehow cheated.) And then Rex takes the final step and shaves his eyebrows. If they hadn’t been flying through space with no way in or out of the ship, Ahsoka would have drawn her lightsaber at the first sight of him. 

Sufficient to say, he looks different enough from Jango Fett that no one looks twice at him.

Kix decides for something much more subtle: hair just shorter than Rex’s and dyed to match, fake glasses he picked up from...somewhere, and pierced ears. Ahsoka is beyond thankful that he’s not as unrecognizable, and if she buys him a pair of blue-fang earrings as soon as she finds ones that suit him, it’s her business. 

Both clones look convincingly like brothers, and that piece of normalcy is soothing. 

Anakin and Obi-Wan functionally switch appearances: Obi-Wan shaves his beard and Anakin grows one, Anakin shaves his head and Obi-Wan grows his hair out. It’s like walking into an alternate universe, and for a few days, Ahsoka has to find them in the Force to be sure she hasn’t fallen into some wormhole. 

Padme stops wearing makeup, puts her hair up for practicality instead of elegance, and switches out her standard wardrobe for a few plain outfits. It’s the simplest disguise excepting Ahsoka’s, and yet she’d managed to go shopping without being recognized so it’s clearly effective. 

(Granted, Senator Amidala hadn’t had children, hadn’t even been pregnant or married. Two babies strapped to one’s body is a pretty convincing disguise all on its own.)

Ahsoka...doesn’t change. Well, her outfit changes slightly—she keeps the blue but purchases a short-sleeved shirt and pants that Anakin says make her look like a mechanic. She switches her akkul-tooth headdress for a brown leather one, and Padme helps her find a pair of matching fingerless gloves and a belt similar to what she wore when she first started as Padawan. 

She doesn’t have any hair to change, to colour or cut or grow, and at first, she feels...naked. All around her, people are changing drastically and she...can’t. She can’t even put on makeup to disguise her markings—trying to alter them symmetrically is too hard, and she can’t just hide them entirely since Togruta are born with the distinguishing streaks. It’s frustrating, and even though no one recognizes her the anxiety plagues her whenever anyone stares for a second too long. 

Two or three months in (Ahsoka begins to lose count) Obi-Wan compliments her and randomly congratulates her on growing up. Then Padme pipes up to say she likes how Ahsoka’s face has started to change, and Rex says “I’m still going to call you Cadet”, so Ahsoka takes a closer look at her face in the mirror. And does a double-take. Her facial markings, which have been the same for years, have started to change. The streaks on her cheeks are longer and sharper. The ones above her eyes are thicker and just barely starting to curl around the bottoms of her eyelids. Even her lekku are beginning to lose their solid chevrons and move into the more abstract bolts. It’s subtle, her adolescent markings are only just starting to morph into her adult ones, but it’s there.

(She doesn’t feel so out-of-place anymore)

Luke and Leia grow so fast it shocks her.

Leia is more obviously fussy, projecting her wants and needs directly into the air around them, but is also much more easily calmed. Once she gets what she’s after, she’ll settle down into the sweetest baby Ahsoka has ever laid eyes on. As soon as she senses any kind of sadness/tiredness/upset , she won’t settle until she feels she’s fixed the negative emotions.

Luke is not quite opposite. He rarely fusses, but when he does it can be hard to tell what’s wrong. He projects less—something no one is sure is normal or not—and tends to have specific preferences. More than once they have to pass him around until they find the person he wants to be held by. His smile is infectious and freely given; Ahsoka can already tell he has a generous heart. 

Both children are good-tempered, playful and energetic. Luke is the first one to cut a tooth, but Leia is the first to reach for a bottle. They cry when the other is out of their sight, which at first is sweet but soon grows exasperating. Eventually, Anakin manages to plant a very rough bond—reinforcing the threads naturally tied between the twins so that they’re aware of each other almost always. It’s fragile enough that they’ll be able to break it naturally when they’re old enough to develop their own shielding but strong enough that it won't accidentally unravel. 

(Ahsoka loves them both enough to travel to the ends of the galaxy and back, and promises herself that they’ll grow up safe, loved, and surrounded by family)

Jessie contacts them maybe an hour before they get stopped for the who-knows-how-many-eth time. He talks to Kix and Anakin while Ahsoka deals with the soldiers. 

The news is revealed at the same time, although Ahsoka has the bigger shock. 

This time, it’s not some nameless, foreign human that demands to see her identification— it’s Voca. 

Ahsoka knows Voca, he’d been part of the 501st. He’d been under Appo, somewhat shiny before everything went sideways but nowhere near fresh-out-the-tube. The two of them had shared a meal during battle, he’d asked if her rations were as bad as his, and they’d each swapped a little of each other's to check (they hadn’t swallowed any, just tasted. Both species' rations were equally terrible.) 

She almost smiles, relaxes, and hugs him. Almost shifts her weight so that she’s not ready to incapacitate him at any moment, almost starts telling him that everyone’s okay and invites him in.

Almost.

She doesn’t, because this is nauseatingly wrong.

Ahsoka knows Voca, and she recognizes him even after the distance of time. She knows his eyes and his stance, and she knows that it’s him standing in front of her with his arm outstretched waiting for her to hand over a datapad for him to read. 

This is him, and yet it’s not . Voca is clearly here in body, but he’s not there in the Force. She can see him, hear him, even smell the chemical he used to clean the paint off his armour. But she can’t feel him, and that scares her.

As she hands over the datapad, her mind goes to Tup, how he’d flickered in and out of the Force right before his chip had gone haywire. Thinks of the 212th firing on Obi-Wan, almost an entire company suddenly acting totally out of character

She holds her breath while he scans the files. 

All the men of the 501st are resistant to Force-suggestions, but even if they weren’t Ahsoka doesn’t think she has the heart to take away the will of any of her family.

But...can she incapacitate him? Can she willingly hurt a vod? 

What if...what if she has to kill him?

Would she be able to do that, if it means keeping those under her protection safe?

(She would, she knows she would, but the thought makes her sick.)

He doesn’t recognize her, not even a little. He just hands the datapad back, says “you’re good to go, Ma’am” and watches as she climbs back into the ship. 

She doesn’t release her breath until she’s back on the ship, the doors secure behind her and the telltale whirrs of the engine starting up buzz in her montrals.

Voca hadn’t recognized her.

He hadn’t existed in the Force, despite being right there.

He hadn’t even tapped out a code, which she knows he knew, to let her know that things were okay. 

...Voca hadn’t had his chip removed, they hadn’t had time.

Anakin bumps into her just as Ahsoka puts the pieces together.  Their words tumble over each other in their rush to share the information.

“It’s the chip’s—”

“The Clones have all been—”

Both of them stop, take a deep breath, and wait awkwardly for the other to begin again. After several seconds, Ahsoka gestures for Anakin to continue.

“Remember how the 212th turned on Obi-Wan? Jessie managed to find out why. It’s the biochips, the one—”

“The one we found in Tup,” Ahsoka rushes, “I know!”

Anakin closes one eye, “You know?? How?!”

“Voca was the one doing our ‘random inspection’.”

“Voca?!”

“Yeah,” Ahsoka runs a hand down her lekku, willing the emotions darkening her stripes to lessen, “he didn’t recognize me, and I couldn’t find him in the Force.”

Anakin runs a hand over his fuzzy scalp and lets out a sigh. His emotions are careful as they run between their bond, mindful of the highly-sensitive babies with no shielding sleeping not far away. Regret/guilt/pain floats across, and Ahsoka echoes them.

They’d lost one of their own. If they’d had more time if they’d looked into it more, or requested time off...

“Did...did Jessie say anything else?” Ahsoka puts as much false normalcy in her voice as she can, desperately trying to ease the tension of ‘what-ifs’.

“Yeah. The galaxy is basically sithspawn right now—wherever things aren’t in outright anarchy, Sidious has a durasteel grip on everything.”

She can’t help the primal growl that crawls instinctively out when she hears that name. 

“Padme is considered dead, the funeral is set for next week. It’s going to be holo-vised apparently, with a parade and everything. You’re also considered dead, although there’s a bounty on your body that doubles if it turns out you’re alive.”

“What, I don’t get a parade? I’m offended.”

Anakin rolls his eyes, “I’m on the top of the wanted list, directly above Obi-Wan. Which may be the first time I’ve ever been listed above him for anything.”

“Not true, my young apprentice,” Obi-Wan interrupts, “you were at the top of the Council’s list of ‘most consistent padawans’”

“How did I manage that?!”

“Simple,” Obi-Wan tucks his hands into the dark sleeves of this overcoat, “you were consistently causing trouble.”

Ahsoka bursts out laughing, humour doubling when the younger human throws her a half-hearted glare. 

“Don’t be so smug, Snips,” he punches her lightly, “I’m pretty sure you’re second on that list.”

Obi-Wan exhales sharply, “Third, actually.”

“Who...who’s the second?” Ahsoka manages as the last of her laughter fades.

“Me.”

Anakin and Ahsoka gape at him. He doesn’t elaborate, just turns with a smirk towards Anakin and Padme’s room, where Leia has just begun to cry. 

“Wait... What?!”

The first five months are spent losing their Imperial tail, but the last month is spent trying to find a way to avoid acting on Anakin’s idea.

Not because it’s a bad idea. It’s an excellent idea—which is why they ultimately have to take it. 

When Anakin first suggests hiding on Tatooine, Obi-Wan and Padme react with outrage.

“You cannot go back there—”

“I know you still have nightmares—”

“It can’t be healthy for you to live there again—”

“And Sidious knows your past with the planet—”

“Exactly!!” Anakin is tired/resigned/exasperated, running his hands down his face and interlocking his fingers behind his neck, “Shee—Sid—He knows how much I hate that place. He knows I won’t ever return willingly or bring the people I care about there. It’s the last place he’d ever think to look, and even if he does...”

Anakin shrugs, “It’s nearly impossible to find anything there if you don’t know exactly where to look.”

Obi-Wan’s presence shimmers just under the surface, frustration/fear/desperation threatening to bubble over. Padme is almost vibrating, Ahsoka recognizes her ‘Senator Face’ but can’t discern the cyclone of emotions within her. 

Leia kicks and wiggles from her place in Anakin’s arms, and all three Jedi feel her attention shift to Padme—the only one not shielding her distress. (Not that she can’t but Ahsoka suspects that she doesn't want to . The elder woman is probably not shielding out of spite) Anakin hands his daughter to her mother wordlessly, shoulders dropping their tension as he makes the transfer. He doesn’t move away, putting his arms around his wife’s shoulders and holding her close. 

Seated on Ahsoka’s lap, Luke lets out a glowing laugh when Anakin forcefully exhales peace into the room. 

“Ahsoka?” Anakin calls after a moment, not taking his eyes off his daughter as she pats Padme’s face and babbles knowingly, “You’ve been uncharacteristically quiet, what do you think?”

Ahsoka shifts Luke so that she’s supporting him with one arm, and holds up a finger. The baby reaches for it so she gives it to him, flicking her lekku more obviously instead to let the waiting humans know she needs to gather her thoughts. 

“I...can see the logic in it,” she starts, locking down her fear/uncertainty in the Force but letting her stripes darken, “but maybe we should try and find somewhere else first? We can keep Tatooine as a backup if we can’t find anywhere else that’s safe.”

So they try. They fly all over the Outer Rim and even revisit the outskirts of the Mid-Rim. Not everywhere is Empire-Controlled just yet, and they consider several of the more hospitable planets. But every time they make plans to stay, Luke kicks up a fuss. Screaming and crying his lungs out, he even manages to float tools and small pebbles around. The very Force around him seems to contort and spoil whenever he discovers they’re thinking about laying down a homestead. 

They try not telling him, not speaking about it in front of either Twin (Ahsoka swears they’re communicating somehow). Then they try not moving the nursery out until everything else is off the ship. Even staying in one place without moving things off for a rotation or two, just to let him get used to not being in motion.

It doesn’t take—the second Luke discovers that they’ve decided to settle down, he makes his indignation very known. 

No one wants to, but they end up on Tatooine anyway. 

They’re all ready for Luke to start his usual antics, braced for the tears and sense of WRONG from the infant. 

It never comes. 

Luke decides that this is where he wants to be, squealing with delight and grabbing at the twin suns. Leia, not to be outdone, projects her contentedness/happiness/pleasure for all the world to feel, and snuggles into Obi-Wan’s chest. 

After an extra day, just to make sure neither twin was going to change their mind, they decide it’s permanent. No one older than six months is particularly happy, but they manage to make it work. 

Ahsoka gets to meet Anakin’s family —his brother and sister-in-law that she didn’t know existed—and is absolutely floored . Completely speechless, and for a second she’s fourteen again and struggling to read the strange humans in front of her. Her lekku twist and flick nervously, but Kix and Rex look out for her as always: tapping subtle patterns so that she can follow along with the flow of the conversation. 

When Owen lets them know about a homestead not far from the edge of his farm, one that’s for sale , Ahsoka labels it down to coincidence. Or luck. She doesn’t actually believe in either of those things, but the world is so upside-down that she figures they’re just as likely explanations for how there’s a large property available just as they come planet-side... and one that’s close to the only people they know as an added bonus.

Then it turns out the seller, some laserbrain with delusions of grandeur wanting to “make it big in the Empire”, is only accepting Republic Credits . Obi-Wan mumbles “Will of the Force strikes again,” and Ahsoka is inclined to agree. Anakin manages to haggle the price down significantly, which is impressive to everyone watching. She’s seen him do this before, but never for something this big and never this much.

(Obi-Wan may be the negotiator, but Anakin can barter with the non-negotiable)

Luke laughs as they hand over the credits, and his presence is blindingly bright. 

They fix up the house, Owen and Beru help them set up the vaporators and agree to teach the non-desert-raised to use them. Beru comes back the next day with a proper crib, a dozen baby slings in assorted colours and sizes, and some kind of weird machine Ahsoka doesn’t recognize. 

Padme’s tears of gratitude envy Anakin’s. 

Owen and Beru also help them choose new names, vetoing any that seems too unusual or unpopular on Tatooine. Anakin chooses Kinaan fairly easily, claiming it comes from the same family of names as his real one. Padme chooses Pyla out of a list of popular girls' names because it “feels right”. They decide to keep the name Skywalker mostly because neither of them is willing to part with it—Anakin refuses to give up his heritage completely and Padme expresses that she wants to use it as her last name after so long keeping it a secret. Rex raises the strongest objections, but Owen calms him down by informing them that it’s a popular enough name to not raise any eyebrows. 

“People use it when they don’t have another name to go by—mostly slaves to be honest, but it’s not uncommon for freed people to keep the name either.”

(Anakin’s mouth squishes and his shoulders come back lightsaber hand twitching, but Padme squeezes his hand and the anger in him starts to fade.)

Obi-Wan decides to go by “Ben” for reasons he refuses to share. “Just Ben,” he says, “and if someone needs a last name, I’ll figure something out.”

Rex and Kix don’t change. Their names are too deeply embedded in their identities, too personal to give up. No one pushes the issue.

Ahsoka is given free rein to choose—as a non-human, her name can be as obscure as she wants it to be. She chooses “Ashla”: the name of the Light-Side of the Force in Togruti when written out and pronounced like Basic.

(Of course, they keep Luke and Leia’s names the same. No one knows they exist, so they can’t be recognized.)

After a month on Tatooine, they manage to have a speeder, working electricity, plumbing, and a couple of decent sources of income. There’s the moisture farm, which is hard and exhausting but profitable nonetheless. Kix ends up working as a mobile doctor mostly by accident—word somehow spreads that he was a medic in the Clone Wars and before anyone can blink he becomes very popular. An extra comlink later has him travelling to different homesteads, 3-PO tagging along as a translator more often than not. 

Jessie and Cody are the only ones allowed to have access to their secure comm channels, so naturally, they become their off-world contacts. Padme and Anakin both try to find a way to help the rebellion with mad desperation, practically begging their clone confidants to find a way for them to help. They get shut down by everyone, including Bail Organa and Mon Mothma. 

It’s not that the others don’t want to help, Ahsoka is practically dying to go out and fight the Hutt-spawn ruining the galaxy. But...

“Patience in the face of Injustice has never been a strong suit of yours,” Obi-Wan advises them all, “That’s why we’re here, to keep you grounded until the right time.

“Then, we take back what’s rightfully ours.”

(Not long after Mothma becomes the unofficial leader of the unofficial rebellion, Cody caves. Or rather, Bail caves and sends the work through Cody. Padme ends up proofreading speeches, Obi-Wan and Rex look over their covert-ops strategies, and Anakin points out engineering flaws in both Rebel and Imperial schematics. Ahsoka keeps the channels secure and tests their cyber-security. Everyone breathes a little bit easier and sleeps a little bit better.)

(They find their footing, keep their eyes and ears—and montrals— out for the Empire, and watch the Galaxy move.)

(They do it all together)

It doesn’t matter that it was Ahsoka’s idea, or that the Force becomes jarring and jagged when she almost breaks her rule. Not knowing the fate of the other Jedi—the Younglings, Elderly, Injured, and the few Knights that made the journey away from Coruscant—is torture. It doesn’t help that a good portion of the 501st were sent to escort them to safety, because now she’s worried about both of her extended families. 

She gave Jessie the contact info—the one with both Appo and Master Yoda’s com numbers on it. It was safer considering Ahsoka, who was a fugitive being actively hunted, was in far more danger than Jessie, who could pretend to be on the Imperial’s side.

 Appo will have to give updates to his brother, not her. And she trusts Jessie to let her know if something had—or has—happened. 

Like if the ships had been attacked.

Or if the safe houses were found.

Or if they’d accidentally assigned some of the chipped clones to escort them, and the chips have been activated again—or maybe they just received the order late, and are only acting on it now. 

The Force-shielding alloy they’d been developing had been more theory than fact when they had to evacuate, what if they weren’t able to build a hidden shelter at all? Then Sidious would be able to find them and hunt them all down, and Jessie might not even have the time to tell her!

...

...Ahsoka has the numbers memorized, she could easily just call. As a check-up. The line is secure, she’s been working on buffing it all week. She’ll be quick, just call to see if she even really did anything—if her half-formed visions and hastily constructed plans had saved lives. 

The Force jabs at her, a gentle but insistent prodding trying to nudge her away. 

But...she’ll be quick. It probably won’t even matter! Just a check-in, on a secure channel...

The Force pushes her again, harder this time. Ahsoka ignores it—she’s been meditating for almost a half-hour on this and is no closer to answers! If the Force won’t tell her the difference she made, she’s going to find out herself!

“No!”

Luke, who’s been sitting on the floor between her crossed legs quite contentedly for the last 10 minutes of her meditation, slaps his small hands on the backs of hers. “No!”

“...No?”

“No!” The 10-month-old pushes himself up and turns around, reaching his pudgy hands to squish her cheeks, “No!”

“...You think it’s a bad idea too?”

“Bad! No!”

Ahsoka sighs, feels her stripes warm up as they darken and flicks her back lek dramatically. “Well...alright. What do you think we should do instead?”

“Fly!” Luke punctuates his demand by lifting his hands straight up, “Fly!”

Ahsoka has, in the few months since they’ve made their home here, become the go-to Twin-sitter. Watching the ‘precious cargo’ (Rex’s code name hasn’t yet faded from her mind) is the job she’s... “best suited” for isn’t the right word... 

When they’d first arrived at Tatooine, Anakin had explained to them that desert life requires a certain kind of delegation different from living almost anywhere else. 

“We have to play to our strengths, and stick to them,” he’d bled serious/dire/command so heavily Ahsoka had stretched out her senses to look for oncoming attackers, “Even the environment here wants to kill us, which means we have to play it smart.”

“Divide and conquer,” Rex nodded.

“Yes and no,” Anakin clarified, “No: we have to teach each other because we all have to be able to do everything. Yes: there’s no use in doing things you’re terrible at either. For example, Obi-Wan will not be cooking unless absolutely everyone—including Luke and Leia—are unavailable.”

The ginger man rolled his eyes so hard Ahsoka thought they might get stuck. 

“By the same vein,” Anakin smirked, patting his former Master on the shoulder, “I will not be going to sell our harvest. The people we need to sell to are...not the kind of people I get along with.”

“The kind of people you’ll yell and fight with, you mean.”

“Yes, Ahsoka, thank you for your contribution. Obi-Wan’s strengths mean that he can actually talk to those sleemos and get us a good deal, and mine will ensure that we don’t all die of food poisoning.”

“That was one time!”

“At least ‘ one time’ every year !”

So they’d split the tasks into pairs. Padme and Obi-Wan meet the higher-status locals and do their business. Obi-Wan also paired with Kix to manage the house—which mostly consists of making Anakin clean up after himself. Anakin and Padme cook, an arrangement Ahsoka’s almost positive is code for “flirt and make out in the kitchen”. She’s definitely walked in on them eating candied fruit in secret “where the kids can’t see”. ...Or, well, she hadn’t seen it on account of the slice of pear she’d been offered in exchange for her silence. Rex paired with Anakin to work on the vaporators, and Ahsoka will tag along sometimes to learn the skill too. (They’ll all learn it eventually, Ahsoka just managed to wiggle her way in first.) Once a week, Ahsoka and Rex go to the market. Anakin came with them at first, to teach them the language and the “art of the haggle”, but now it’s uniquely their time.

Kix has his medical practice, and the extra income more than makes up for his singular household duty. 

And Ahsoka watches the kids. Often with Padme and Anakin, when they can spare the time (more often than they should, she knows). Between her enhanced hearing helping find the very mobile and surprisingly quiet pair of infants, her empathic abilities in the Force, and her experience in the creche, it just kind of...fits. 

 And, of course, they spend most of the day distracting “Uncle Obi, Uncle Rec, and Uncle Kick”.  

“Fly!” Luke yells again, Leia making her way over to join in. 

“Hmm...that doesn’t sound like the magic word...”

“Fly...Thanks?”

Ahsoka laughs when Leia’s annoyance/exasperation/impatience leaks into the room. She looks at her brother, who frowns at the change of atmosphere, and then stands to mimic his pose. 

“Fly Peas!” she exclaims, and shrieks when Ahsoka obediently lifts her off the ground with the Force. 

“Me! Me! Peeeeeas!!!” Luke amends, and their shared joy as they drift slowly through the air — just high enough that their feet don’t touch the floor—  is nearly blinding. 

Booted feet have barely landed when Luke bolts from the room as fast as his little legs can take him. Leia pauses for a moment, tilts her head like she’s listening, and then crawls speedily after him. 

Ahsoka, who can feel Anakin’s presence coming closer and knows exactly where the younglings are headed, follows at a slower pace. 

“DADDY!” 

When Ahsoka turns the corner, Anakin has both his son and daughter securely in each arm. He’s radiating contentedness , but Ahsoka can feel the tired/annoyed/weary lurking just underneath. She can also hear the grind of sand in his mech-arm and see the telltale scratches from where he’s scrubbed his face too hard in an attempt to be free of the pesky grains. 

“What a pleasant surprise,” she says, and her lekku twist with concern. “Are you okay?” they ask silently. 

“Well, I wanted to see my favourite minis,” he responds with a smile. Ahsoka interprets his answer: a big fat ‘no’.

Leia reaches across to her brother and pats him on the foot. They make eye contact, seem to come to an understanding, and Leia reaches back to Ahsoka. 

“Hunt?” she asks when the Togruta has her securely. 

“Make, Daddy? Peas?” Luke asks simultaneously, using the same hopeful tone as his sister. 

With every passing rotation, the twins’ personalities break through a little more clearly and their interests become a little more obvious.

Luke had walked in on Anakin and Ahsoka tinkering with R2 one day and was instantly enamoured. He could watch someone fix, upgrade, or make something mechanical contentedly for hours, and Rex had made some wooden tools for the little boy to use. It was a common occurrence for Luke to waddle over and ask someone to “make” with him, which mostly consisted of handing the youngling spare parts and watching him stack them together and hit them with his wooden wrench. 

Leia, on the other hand, loved to accompany Ahsoka on her hunting trips. The elder girl had taken both twins separately, but Luke hated not being able to run and explore. Leia loved being carried through the tall, dry grass of Tatooine. She would be entirely silent, and sometimes even point to a creature she wanted to stalk. Ahsoka would occasionally take her out even when they had enough meat, just because it seemed to give the little girl a sense of peace. 

(Padme had, at first, been concerned about nightmares. But Ahsoka had explained—verbally and through demonstration—that Togruta were capable of killing without violence. “It’s our specialty. We have a reputation of being venomous since we keep kills so clean.” And Leia always came home full of quiet joy, so Padme had given her permission)

Former-Master and Former-Padawan exchange a look, surprise/curiosity/amusement passing through their unbroken bond. It’s also not unusual for the twins to decide to ‘cheer up’ their adult caregivers, by typically splitting up and requesting activities they know are enjoyed by all. How they manage to read past the carefully constructed shields, communicate, and then enact their plans is still a mystery, but it’s also very sweet. 

Anakin shrugs, “Obi-Wan took my place with Rex, Padme is still working on that paper for Mothma, and Kix is in town, so I have nothing else to do. It's okay with me if it’s okay with you.”

Ahsoka flicks her lekku forward in agreement and instructs Leia to “blow a kiss bye-bye” to her father and brother.

Their life certainly isn’t ideal, and it’s not what Ahsoka envisioned for the end of the War. She’s almost more tired now, constantly on guard for when the Empire finds them. She’s scared of losing more than she already has, and not a day goes by without her mourning the dead and worrying about the living. Her Padawan Beads rest with her Lightsabers in a pouch designed only to open when it recognizes a sequence in the Force only she knows, something she’d designed with Anakin while they were travelling. The symbols of her former life are too dangerous now to wear, but she can’t bear to be without them all the same. 

Her life at eighteen is nothing like she planned, and not even in the same solar system as what she wanted.

But the sparkling aura of their homestead—drowned in Light despite the Darkness that has tried to smother them—makes her certain that the path they chose was Right.