Chapter Text
Rex should have known something was up after seeing his General with that little Twi’lek girl, and he kicks himself now thinking about how he thought it was just jetti voodoo.
The raid on a Separatist droid factory on some planet so deep in the Mid Rim that it was basically an Outer Rim planet was going well except for one unforeseen complication: Slaves.
Those Separatist scum were using slaves as human shields and hostages, and Rex would have been nervous had it not been for the way his General started taking down Seppies with an extreme type of prejudice that was definitely frowned upon by other jetti.
But it got the job done, because in near record time, the factory was safe in the hands of the Republic. All that was left to do now was get the slaves that were lucky enough to hide themselves in whatever crevice they could find out and to safety.
Almost all of them were in the safe hands of the 501st and 212th medics, save a few that were still being coaxed out by various troopers. However, there was one little Twi’lek girl that stoutly refused to come out for anything. They tried Basic, Ryl, and even Huttese, but the little girl didn’t respond to anything.
“Let me try,” General Skywalker slowly took the place of the frustrated shiny that was having a go at coaxing her out.
Anakin sat down with little regard to the dust and dirt that would surely coat his pants and ducked his head down to see where the little girl had wedged herself in a carved out hole in the wall, nearly imperceptible.
Rex watched as his General held his hand out, far enough away that the little girl wouldn’t be able to snap at him with her sharp fangs, a lesson the other troopers learned the hard way, and wriggled his fingers aimlessly.
Anakin didn’t say anything for a while, only staring at the girl with a furrowed brow, an expression that the girl readily returned.
His General has never been a patient man, Rex thought absently as he prepared himself for the Jedi to call it quits and pass off extraction duty to some poor shiny. Rex frowned; not even Waxer could get the girl out, and Waxer was practically known amongst the Vode for being unnaturally good with kids.
A sharp sound shook Rex out of his thoughts. He focused on his General, who’s face softened despite the red flush creeping up his cheeks. He was speaking to the girl, Rex realized, in a language he had never heard before.
The girl said something in response in that same harsh, clicking language and whatever she said made his General’s lips quirk up.
They spoke for some time in the strange language that no trooper knew, not even Obi-Wan, and every time the girl would inch closer to the mouth of the hole in the wall, a trooper would breathe a silent sigh of relief.
Finally, Anakin slowly brought the hand that was still resting inside the cave up and tapped his own chest twice.
“Skywalker,” Was all he said.
Any other time, Rex or Obi-Wan would give him a hard time about thinking he was so important that just his name would be enough to get this little girl out of the cave, but something was different. Something in the way that he said it, like it was a title more so than his last name, and in the way that the little girl gasped sharply from inside the cave.
“Sky-walker?” The girl repeated, and fast as a speeder her hand shot out to grasp Anakin’s and yank it into the cave.
Rex jolted at the sudden move, instinct and years of battle training him to pull out his blaster at the slightest threat, but his General only had to shoot him a hard look over his shoulder to stop him in his tracks.
“Ekkreth?” The little girl whispered from the cave, drawing Anakin’s attention back to her.
Anakin’s mouth opened like he wanted to say something but nothing would come out. Finally, he nodded in a jerky way you only saw from shell-shocked shinies coming back from battle. “Ekkreth,” He echoed in confirmation.
The little Twi’lek barreled out of the cave and threw herself into Anakin’s arms. Her little purple hands gently pressed against the star-struck Jedi’s cheeks as she searched his face for something.
Now that she was out of the cave, Rex got a good look at her. Her clothes, if you could call them that, hung off of her in tatters. Her hands that rested on his General’s cheeks were caked in dirt and were sure to leave smears on his skin. She was skinny enough that Rex could see her ribs trying to press through her skin from a rip in her baggy shirt.
One of her hands slid off Skywalker’s cheeks to yank at his sleeve. Once. Twice. A third time until Anakin finally got the hint.
Rex spared a glance at General Kenobi, who looked just as mystified.
Anakin let the little girl lean against his chest as he pushed the sleeve up on his flesh arm while she watched, and when the fabric got high enough the girl grabbed at his arm with unshy hands and twisted it this way and that until-
The little girl made a soft cooing sound and her little nubby lekku twitched as her equally little hands reverently traced one of the many scars on General Skywalker’s arms. This one was on his upper forearm and was honestly unassuming, most likely one that came from his many years on the front lines. A scar so unimportant that no one ever thought to ask about it when they all sat around a fire and traded stories.
However, the little girl seemed to think differently. She ran a single finger over it one more time before finally looking back up at Anakin.
“Ekkreth?” She repeated one more time, and Rex realized with a sick feeling that she was about to cry.
Anakin nodded once, his bare arm wrapping around her slight frame as she began to shake, and that was all it took for her to bury her face in the crook of his neck and sob.
Instantly, the General enveloped his body around her as if to shield her in her moment of vulnerability. Her slight frame almost disappeared underneath his numerous layers of clothes, only the barest hints of purple visible beneath various folds of fabric.
Rex turned his gaze to the crowd that had formed, “Let’s clear out, men,” He ordered softly, and only glanced over his shoulder once before following the trail of soldiers leaving the area.
~
Obi-Wan fell into step easily with Anakin as he carried the little girl, Tann Anakin had said her name was, to where the medics had set up camp.
Tann, while content to leave her face buried in Anakin’s shoulder, would occasionally look up at Obi-Wan before burrowing deeper into his former padawan like she was trying to absorb into him.
“You weren’t speaking to her in Ryl,” Obi-Wan noted as they approached Kix’s station.
Anakin didn’t so much as look at him before prying Tann off of him to set her down on the cot, “No, it wasn’t.”
“Generals,” Kix greeted before Obi-Wan could say anything else, “Another chip removal?” The medic seemed slightly disheveled, probably from the countless identical procedures he was overseeing. His hands moved on autopilot to grab the usual sedatives before Anakin stopped him.
“No anesthetics,” Anakin shook his head but didn’t take his eyes off the little girl who seemed to be trying to disappear into herself under the scrutiny of so many new people. He reached out with a hand that Tann instantly latched onto, “Just numb it, Kix.”
“Sir?”
Even Obi-Wan frowned, fully prepared to pull rank. She was much too young to see someone cutting into her, even if she wouldn’t feel anything. What was Anakin thinking?”
“She needs to see it.” The whispered words barely carried over the sounds of chatter in from the other patients and various troopers in the medic’s station.
Kix’s eyes flickered between his General and the little girl who was cradling his hand to her chest with her eyes clenched tight before doing as he said.
As Kix prepared the area with the numbing cream and grabbed a scalpel from a nearby tray, Anakin gently tapped the girl with his free hand on her forehead.
Tann’s eyes slid open, and a moment passed where all time stood still and the only movement was the silent conversation that she was having with Anakin, both of them giving meaningful looks that only they could understand.
Finally, Anakin sat next to her and pulled her into her lap. One of his hands reached out and grasped her right hand and outstretched her arm towards the clone medic.
“Alright, Kix,” He nodded up at the medic who, to his credit, only hesitated a little bit before making an incision he’d made nearly a hundred times that day.
Tann stared with a wide, unwavering gaze as blood welled up and was quickly cleared away with a single swipe of a bandage. Her breathing remained the same throughout the entire, extremely quick procedure, and it wasn’t until Kix finished the last of her stitches that she released a shuddering breath.
Anakin reached over and took, with deft fingers, the neutralized slave chip that was in Tann’s arm not three minutes ago. He wordlessly offered it out to Tann, who took it with shaky fingers and stared down at it.
Tann, with one hand holding the transmitter like it could still blow at any second, reached over to Anakin and placed an impossibly small hand on the same spot that she traced when she pulled Anakin’s sleeve up to look at his scars. She looked up at Anakin, who nodded reassuringly at her.
Oh.
Obi-Wan felt his gut twist as he finally realized what was happening.
This wasn’t Anakin The Jedi reassuring the little slave girl he just helped free. This was Anakin From Tatooine, who worked at a junk shop and carried his own personal bomb everywhere he went, letting Tann know that she was free.
The small, unassuming chip that likely haunted this girl’s every move tumbled from her fingers and fell to the dirty floor in her haste to wrap her scrawny arms around Anakin’s neck and burrow herself into him again.
Obi-Wan met Kix’s misty gaze and nodded once in thanks before leaving to give Anakin and his new shadow their privacy.
~
The next time anyone saw Anakin was back on the ship. After missions like these it was almost guaranteed that Anakin Skywalker would spend the rest of the trip attempting to meditate whatever un-Jedi like feelings that followed him. (Or breaking shit in his private quarters.)
However, Obi-Wan found his former padawan sitting cross legged on the ground in the mess hall with a lapful of Twi’lek, who in turn had a lapful of food.
A broad smile was stretched across the young man’s face as he gave Tann broken off chunks of bread, careful not to feed her too much new and unfamiliar food so it wouldn’t make her sick. Anakin had learned that lesson the hard way when he first arrived at the Jedi Temple all those years ago.
“Tann,” Anakin shifted her slightly so that she would look up and see Obi-Wan, “This is my friend, Obi-Wan,” He looked glanced up at his old Master with sparkling eyes and a broad smile.
Tann shifted bashfully in his lap, her hands tightening on the bread as if to make sure Obi-Wan wouldn’t get any ideas about taking it, “Hi,” She whispered, cheeks flushing dark and immediately burying her face in Anakin’s chest.
“Hello, Tann,” Obi-Wan said softly, coming closer and sitting on a nearby bench, “It’s very nice to meet you.”
~
Life went, relatively, back to normal after that. The newly freed slaves were helped acclimate to free life and given accommodations by Chancellor Palpatine, who made sure to make a big spectacle of it.
Obi-Wan didn’t think much more about the little Twi’lek girl named Tann that had latched onto Anakin. Except of course, when he saw her in the Senate building, trailing after Senator Amidala, looking significantly more well fed and better dressed.
And if Obi-Wan noticed how Anakin would disappear for hours on end when they were on leave just to come back, feeling happier and more at peace with himself than he had in years, then he didn’t say anything.
Obi-Wan also didn’t say anything when he noticed a little smudge of red lipstick at the corner of Anakin’s mouth, or when the wall of children’s drawings featuring a small purple blob, a tall blonde blob, and a brunette curly blob above Anakin’s bed would have new additions almost every time Anakin came back from his hour-long disappearances.