𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐃 | Snips & Skyguy Oneshots

With Me, Always

Like much of the rest of the Coruscant underworld, today felt bleak. It was nothing new for Ahsoka, just another day of fending for herself.

Her comm beeped at 0500 on the dot as per usual, rousing her from a light sleep, but while she couldn't yet place it, something felt different about this morning's alarm.

She let it ring a few more times, montrals perking up slightly in search of the difference.

Ah, there it was.

Instead of only the alarm sounding, the notification of a new holomessage was blended in with the shrill rhythmic ticking.

She never normally opened them because more often than not, they were some kind of scam or location tracker, and being found — or worse, leaking her true identity — she couldn't afford.

One could never be too careful here.

Nonetheless, the Force surrounding this message felt safe and inviting, and her gut sense backed the feeling up, so she decided to take a chance.

The comm was placed on the floor of her shabby apartment, and when activated, the glowing blue figure of a very familiar someone popped up.

"Ahsoka!" Anakin Skywalker smiled. "I'm so glad you opened this. I was afraid you wouldn't bother and I'd never get to tell you."

He was different, she noted. He'd grown his hair out and the shadowy circles beneath his eyes were starkly contrasted against his pale skin. He was exhausted and the creases on his forehead that Ahsoka could swear hadn't been there before made him look so much older than he actually was, but the sparkle of kindness in his eyes had never disappeared.

"How are you? Are you doing okay? I hope you're taking care of yourself, wherever you are. Listen, um," he glanced around before focusing back on her. "I don't have much time before Obi-Wan comes knocking; we've got to go on a mission in about ten minutes. But I was digging around a few days ago, looking for spare droid parts, and look what I found."

He reached for something off-screen, and once his hand was visible again, in it he held a beautiful wooden guitar. "Recognize this?"

The air seemed to catch in Ahsoka's throat. Of course she recognized it. She'd recognize that guitar anywhere. 

Skywalker's expression turned thoughtful. "When you'd just become my Padawan, I remember you having trouble adjusting to the new sleeping quarters, so I brought out my guitar and played some songs until you drifted off."

Fond memories of a much younger Anakin singing a fourteen-year-old Ahsoka to sleep surged out, floating before her very eyes. Her eyes burned, suddenly — oh, how she wished she could go back to simpler times, where it was just him and her facing the world together. Leaving him had been the hardest choice she'd ever had to make.

Anakin's voice jerked her out of her reverie. "Then, Kadavo happened. In the aftermath of that mission, you told me how heavily everything had been weighing on you, and you'd begun to question the Order. Wondered if the end really did justify the means."

She remembered, all right. She remembered far too vividly the devastation that followed, the same devastation neither she, Anakin, Obi-Wan nor Rex had ever managed to shake. 

"I remember I hummed this song to you in the hopes that it would bring some comfort and light in the ever-present darkness in the world. And, in all honesty," he said, a quiet sort of hurt in his voice, "that darkness has only gotten worse in the months after you left." 

A shaky breath escaped his lips. In this moment, he was no esteemed Jedi General, was not the renowned Hero With No Fear. He was just Anakin; someone who openly wore his heart on his sleeve, and, tough exterior aside, was more vulnerable than anyone could know.