She had just received the promotion every young initiative accepted into the Jedi Order dreams of accomplishing one day: Knighthood. He was there, along with his fellow masters and saw how proud of herself she was. And he of her, too. But he also saw the way she hugged herself and went into a reserved stance, walking out of the Council chambers and heading hastily to her quarters at the close of the ceremony. Obi-Wan had caught word from Luminara that other fellow recent Knight graduates were going to throw her a celebratory gathering at some swanky restaurant down at the Coruscant entertainment district. He had been invited, but wasn't sure if he would show up. After all, the cause for celebration was for her finally getting away from his watch.

Here in the Temple's chilly gardens, he was able to grasp just how far from shore the last couple of months had swept him away.

Obi-Wan was likely going to put in a request for yet another Padawan now with the ceasefire freeing up time. Ahsoka was indeed originally meant to be his - how crazy things seem when they fall in a completely different order.

Padmé had accepted the nomination for Supreme Chancellor and was well on her way to take on the Rotunda, despite hailing from the very same green globe the evil they had just defeated sprouted from. But it only gave her all the more grit in her resolution to earn a majority vote in the Senate.

Still, even with her heavy workload and heaps of responsibilities to attend to, in any event that they would run into each other, it proved to be too heavy of a weight on his heart at the moment. They were turning over a new leaf in their relationship; as friends. Eventually, they would get there. But the climate was much too murky to even attempt to navigate it, for they both believed they could foster in a new friendship that could prove beneficial for the dialogue between the incoming Office of the Chancellor and the Council.

The clones were caught between a most unpleasant saga of cunning politicking, as the Senate endlessly debated the reallocation of their services for the Republic. It had taken shape as a hot button issue in the upcoming election of the next Supreme Chancellor.

He was left with just his Snips, and now she too was heading for a future where he existed, but not in the omnipresent manner he had grown so used to as her Master. He would be there for her, no matter what, and it was better to exist in some space of hers than none at all. But he was Anakin Skywalker, and he made a promise long ago to never perceive his ties to his heart in any measure as inferior to those of his mind; they both came with him and spoke equally loudly when one called him over for insight, whether it be on the battlefield or the comfort of a home.

Now out of the garden's shadowy archway and climbing up the stairs to join him, he could sense an equilateral accumulation of fear, humor, and carelessness emitting from her.

Truth is, she was afraid as ever to confess to him her feelings. Every time he saved her life, it was equal amounts of joy and gratitude, as well as frustration and repression. She said her thank you's, bowed her head, and nonchalantly went on to discuss how to improve the strategies for the next battle approaching. But the nights during the war campaigns were often long and tiresome, especially if they shared sleeping space. It always helped to have Rex and the other clones to stay up late with and chat away till their eyes shut on their own, but it wasn't always a guarantee they'd put off sleep any longer in going to bed than the hilariously-early sleeper in Anakin.

Thus she was forced to live in her head more times than she cared for, recounting and rewinding events endlessly to figure out if he saw the way her eyes lit up when he would purposefully position himself right at her side to her amongst their flank of clone troopers whenever they were mounting a defense from the clankers, or how much she loved watching him banter with his men. How in a state of war, he managed to keep her sane with his playful recklessness, jokes, and extreme displays of compassion.

She was a Jedi - she had wanted nothing more but to become a Knight after so much bloodshed, victories and losses played out before her young eyes during such a destructive conflict. And now she found herself discovering that even more than that, she wanted to not just forever live with him, but like him.

Yet there was a small desire within to have a laugh at the whole ordeal of it all, too. Along with her fellow recent Knight grads, she had entered adulthood and was experiencing the commonplace urges and desires that come with the age. It was routine to hear gossip from her companions about how so and so new Knight had ventured out into the more seedy, lower-level neighborhoods of Coruscant to take care of these biological nuisances by employing professionals with plenty of expertise in that particular field. They preferred for these things to be dealt with much rather sooner than later, to keep the disciplines and doctrines of the Order, specifically the selflessness of having no attachments, intact. She was teased when she would turn down her classmates' incites for her to take a walk down those lustful paths.

Nevertheless, she didn't judge or look down on any of her friends and acquaintances for employing such services. She was happy that they were looking out for each other; that they confided in one another to share their experiences of longing for and seeking out bodily intimacy, all in an effort to find strength when they needed it the most confronting the altruistic nature of their lifestyle. It wasn't all so one-sided; after tireless efforts to get her to crack and admit maybe she was a bit curious about what exactly they'd offer her down at those underground districts of Coruscant, she told them the truth. It simply couldn't be something she could get done with in a mere night and never look back at in much regard besides that it happened. That couldn't occur, because she wanted it to be with him. The entire concept wasn't what she was fixated on, for she had never been one to ponder too long on certain guarantees of life. Rather, the fact that he was already so inexplicably hers enveloped her with the same ray of light in the constant dark she had been experiencing since he first told her maybe she could indeed come to make it as his Padawan.

Admittedly, he too yearned to spend the rest of his life with her, and had proven it to her several times throughout the war. His attachment to her had surpassed that of a Master and Padawan long ago, to the point where she attempted to take a step back from his immediate circle of loved ones in the fear she was becoming a bothersome interloper in his dealings with Senator Amidala, whom she knew was more than just a friend of his, only how much more, she remained was unaware of. She had come to snap out of her precautionary daze after realizing that neither he, nor Padmé had ever wished to see her cast off. While she understood Padmé's point of view, for as she didn't get to see the busy politician nearly as much as her Jedi peers, Anakin's perception revealed just how far his need to experience everything with and in relation to her went. The time had come to act on the shifting tectonic plates beneath them, for she couldn't stand risking having to watch him from an entirely different ridge.

"Snips, shouldn't you be getting ready for your celebration?" Anakin asked her with a mild tinge of embarrassment and regret in his tone. Sometimes she thought she embarrassed him far too much for a man of his stature.

A soft smile with adverting eyes met his gaze. "I will be going soon. However, knowing Barriss, I doubt she even booked a proper reservation. We might end up dining at Dex's."

Anakin laughed, feeling relieved that this wasn't going to be a conversation in a purely-confrontational manner. She's still Snips, after all. "So, what's on your mind? How does it feel to finally be a Jedi Knight? One of us?"

This time, a forced smile and abrupt swallow was all she could offer. "It's weird," she shakily said trying her hardest to gain her composure. "It feels more like the end of a race, rather than the beginning of something new. Probably because... in my mind... I have been envisioning another potential future. And I'm always going to have one there - in my imagination. In fact, I've had several of them. They start off as little seeds I think my mind plants itself just to try to trick me, or amuse me. Yet, this time... I can't shake it off. Because it's not a matter of mind. It's my heart."

Anakin rested his gloved hand on her shoulder. "Then what does your heart tell you?"

She tilted her head away from him and shut her eyes in agony. "That I should be looking at what's right in front of me. But, in order to do that, I need to look at what's been behind me too. Geonosis, Wasskah, Mortis. Each and every one of those times, I just narrowly escaped death. And it wasn't simply coming back out breathing that instilled the life in me. It was seeing you, Mas- Anakin. It was seeing you, Anakin. I'm a Jedi Knight now, and that means having to lift up even more darkness and death than I could have possibly done as a Padawan, because I have the next generation of Jedi to watch over, protect, and one day - even instruct. But I don't know if I can do it, not without you there to show me the very way to keep going."

"Ahsoka, I will be there. We'll all still be here. You're not going to be doing it all alone. Master Obi-Wan and even me, will have to continue to pass on our teachings to new learners."

"I might just be growing out of it, that's all," she said with a disillusioned expression that finally expressed just how hard saying all of this to him was. "And not my beliefs! The Jedi - we won this war, we took down the Sith, we're committed to rebuilding our doctrine and this fragmented Republic. I'm proud of us. But the Temple, and the Order, it's simply no longer where I wish to reside. To be honest, I don't care if I'm back on a Trandoshan moon for the Force's sake - as long as I'm with you."

She finally titled her head in his direction and looked at him in the eyes. He retracted his arm from her shoulder, letting out a long sigh, looking down at the pavement.

She continued, raising her voice. "I know you feel the same way! You've risked more for me than I could have ever possibly dreamed of under the tutelage of a Master. And not just on the battlefield! Here, Anakin. I've seen it here. In the Council chamber, in the corridors, and everywhere in between. Anyone privy would learn just as much by eavesdropping on your conversations with the other masters. You're a good person, and you'll never be able to resist helping others. In fact, there's so much more good you secretly hope to do without the approval of the Council. This, I put all my faith in. But I know you long for more than this."

Now she lowered her tone and began curling her lips to form a soft, empathetic smile. "You don't have to race from your quarters to mine every morning with a platter from the cafeteria before I even wake up. You didn't have to cut yourself off from being intimate with other girls after you ended whatever it was that you had with Senator Amidala. Those pair of tickets I found for the Galaxies Opera weren't for friends; most of your friends here either can score those easily or are Jedi simply not interested."

Pink hues overtook his face as he hunched in an embarrassed pose.

Leaning forward into his chest, directly under the purview of his eyes, she confessed. "Our duty is over. We can be, Anakin, if we wanted to. If we... stop making a big deal out of the little things. We've got an entire life to worry, as well as one to do some good in the galaxy in any way that we see fit. I'm calling you mine, I'm yours."

Leaving the Order and startling life anew among the stars wasn't exactly something that had her staying up writing over and over in her holojournal. But it was what her rebel heart commanded her to do at this moment. She had always come with a certain rebellious streak; the youngling that didn't have many friends in her lightsaber training class, overseer of the Onderon guerilla, the apprentice of Anakin Skywalker.

Anakin stood with fists clenched and a defeated face. It was after all, so easy for Ahsoka to embarrass him. For a moment, Ahsoka thought she had completely humiliated the Chosen One. Yet again. Are they back on the battlefield? He quickly relaxed and squatted to lift her into the air in a majestic spin. Ahsoka let out a series of giggles that seemed powered by chirpy Kiros birds.

As they concluded their circle of joy, her feet came back down and they embraced in a passionate kiss, Anakin massaging her rear lekku with his hand. They pulled back and he traced her facial markings with his gloved fingers while remarking in an emotional and husky tone. "Ever since after Kadavo, when I told you: that after the war, let's get together to eradicate slavery and other horrors from the galaxy... not a day has gone by where I hope you hadn't forgotten that promise. As a boy, I wanted to be the first pilot to visit all the star systems. But I never wanted to do it alone. Now with you by my side, I no longer have to. Thank you, Ahsoka Tano."

"Now, which Star System do we conquer first, Lady Tano?" he playfully inquired Ahsoka, who had her hands locked behind his neck.

"I think Dex's Diner. Barriss is almost for sure picking a fight with the staff already."

They shared a laugh without any pretense of awkwardness or suppression of feelings for the first time in what seemed an eternity, and made their way down the stairs of the Jedi Temple, their old home, in pursuit of the stars beyond that would host their new home, hand in hand.