Mutual Feelings

Reunion

When RAS Bothawui dropped out of hyperspace, it was mid-morning in the Coruscant region in which the Jedi Temple was located.

Ten minutes later, Anakin launched his starfighter from the main docking bay, and spiralled down towards the planet. In the cockpit, he had his various possessions, along with a shapeless canvas bag.

The planetary orbitals were still clogged with combat debris. The hulks of star destroyers, cruisers, battleships and dreadnoughts formed a swirling mass around the planet. In amongst them, he could see the transponder codes of thousands of search and rescue craft. The crews of those craft were using life sign scanners, and listening carefully to every frequency in the vicinity of their craft. Hundreds of drones were swarming through passages, searching for sealed compartments in which survivors might remain.

Anakin knew that dozens of Jedi would be with the search and rescue teams. The Force was a powerful tool for search and rescue. They could take the place of heavy lifting equipment. They could find life signs even sensors would balk at. A single Jedi could often lift twelve tons of wreckage in a one G environment. In zero G, they could often shift ten times that amount of loose debris, held in place by marginal acceleration.

It was a reassuring sight. Even in a system that had faced an all-out engagement less than a fortnight before, these people were searching for every organic survivor. Even aboard a Star Destroyer destroyed under way, there would usually be survivors in sealed compartments.

Re-entry was fairly typical. Despite the aeons that had passed since the invention of spaceflight, craft entering an atmosphere were still often surrounded by a plasma sheath, unless they came in very slowly. Anakin rarely did. There was something atavistic about the glow of re-entry, the shuddering of the craft and the bloom of bright plasma outside the cockpit.

At about fifteen thousand feet, he merged into the high altitude traffic lanes. The diminutive size of his starfighter, which was just six metres long, eased the process. In his socket on the left wing, Artoo glanced around; occasionally screeching when his owner's driving came close to causing a mid-air collision.

The final few miles, once he reached the temple district, were less boring. Anakin jogged the starfighter around, taking the occasional shortcut to avoid the worst of the traffic. He could feel Ahsoka in the distance, almost back to her usual self, although there was a heaviness to her Force presence.

She and Shaak-Ti were waiting for him in the hangar bay when he made his landing.

He wasn't entirely surprised that Ahsoka was in a hoverchair. He could feel her joy at seeing him, but the hoverchair seemed to leave her despondent.

Stepping out of his starfighter, he waited while Artoo detached himself, before both of them headed across the hangar to the pair of togruta.

This time, Anakin didn't worry about propriety. He dropped down to his knees, wrapped an arm around Ahsoka's shoulders, and kissed her. There was a moment of hesitation, and then she responded, her own arms wrapping around his shoulders, and pulling him close, although not with anything like her usual strength. Her tongue infiltrated his mouth after a few intangible seconds, almost shyly.

Where her left hand pressed down, holding him close, he could feel the simple ring he'd made for her pressing into his left shoulder blade.

Neither of them could really think of any words to say. All of their talking was done with actions, in those first few moments.

Artoo, Anakin noticed, out of a mental corner, was taking advantage of the distraction to argue with the hoverchair's processor.

Reluctant to let go of Ahsoka, Anakin nonetheless broke away after a couple of minutes, crossing over to his starfighter again, and extracting both his kitbag and the smaller, indistinctly shaped canvas bag.