The Unchronicled Adventures Of Ahsoka Tano, Book Ten

Chapter Seventeen: One As Much As The Other

AHSOKA TANO

It was nearly five weeks before Ahsoka was officially called back to the fleet.

With the sudden attack on Garel a week prior, Ahsoka had wanted to return sooner. She knew she Phoenix Squadron needed all the help they could get. But Commander Sato had made it clear that while her assistance would have been welcome, they needed to consider her safety before anything. It would be risky to have her get involved again so soon after an attack that had come out of nowhere.

If something so crucial to the Rebellion as their intelligence network was compromised because Ahsoka decided to be in the right place at the wrong time... she didn't even want to think of the consequences.

She agreed that this was the best course of action they could possibly take, but that definitely didn't mean she had to like it.

"A scouting mission? Really?" Lux said as he consulted the datapad she had given to him, drawing her back to the present. "Phoenix Squadron must be really short-staffed, otherwise they would never assign you to something so trivial as this."

"This isn't my first scouting mission, and it's not going to be my last. Garel as a base was only a temporary solution, but nevertheless, it's one more thing that I–" Ahsoka paused, taking a deep breath to compose herself, "–we need to worry about."

"Okay." Lux's voice was softer this time – less disparaging. He knew his comment had been out of line, and he had the wisdom to know when to drop it.

Ahsoka nodded, and gestured towards the door into their room. Aeja, Aluxso and Enarion were at their lessons with the other children their age, and she had left Anakin there twenty minutes before to go to talk to the maintenance droids about fixing the faulty 'fresher tap. She had met up with Lux on her way back. Now, the cartoon broadcast he was watching on the Holo was probably nearing its end, and she had to check up on him.

But as soon as she opened the door and caught sight of her youngest son, all of her worries evaporated away into nothingness. She smiled serenely, and Lux wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into a hug.

Anakin lay fast asleep on the bed. The handheld holoprojector he had been watching from lay overturned on the bed, one side of the end credits splayed out at awkward angles over the sheets and the other being projected into the air.

"Look at him," Ahsoka whispered, and Lux held her a little tighter, placing a kiss on her forehead. "Isn't he just the sweetest thing...?"

"That's us, Ahsoka," he said, pointing towards their son. "You and me. Nothing can take that away from him."

Ahsoka pulled his face down and kissed him tenderly on the lips. "Exactly. He'll always have you... his smart, loving, kindhearted father."

"And he'll always have his beautiful, brave mother, too." Lux butted his nose against hers, and she closed her eyes, smiling. Their lips met in another quick kiss before Ahsoka pulled away and walked over to the bed to pick Anakin up.

Even in his sleep, as soon as she had him securely in her arms, the little boy began pulling at the collar of her grey tunic. It was a reflex he had retained from babyhood to tell her he wanted to nurse, and even if she had stopped breastfeeding him nearly a year before, every now and then, he still did it when he was drowsy or sleeping. Ahsoka found it sweet.

She planted a kiss in the middle of all his downy golden-brown curls, rubbing his back soothingly. His hair was getting long, but she didn't have the heart to cut it. With his hair long, if she looked at him right, she could see Anakin Skywalker smiling up at her through her son's bright blue eyes.