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“Master, the surface is getting awfully close—”
“I know, Ahsoka—”
“Master—”
“I know, Ahsoka!”
Ahsoka looks out the viewport, wide-eyed and white-knuckled as she grips onto the dashboard of hers and Anakin’s ship. With every second, the icy terrain of the planet gets nearer and nearer, and even the knowledge that her Master is the best pilot in the galaxy offers no reprieve.
“Master, pull up, pull up!”
Anakin’s hands tighten on the controls, blood rushing in his ears, his face scrunched up with tension as he aims the ship to crash land as gracefully as possible onto the frigid surface quickly creeping up to him and his padawan. Despite his intentions, the landing is anything but graceful.
Ahsoka groans and rubs at the spot on her head where her montrals hit the back of her seat. Looking over at her side, she sees her master breathing heavily, hands still tightly gripping the controls. He blinks, and looks towards his padawan with a lopsided grin.
“Hey, we’re alive!”
“Barely,” Ahsoka grumbles.
“This hunk of junk, I could’ve landed much more smoothly if—”
“Don’t even think about blaming the ship, Master. Every time you fly, we crash. Every time.”
Anakin gets up from his seat with a humph . He glances out the viewport at the seemingly endless sheet of ice and snow before them.
“Well,” he states, “I know you wanted to get away from the Temple for a while, but I’m not exactly sure this is what either of us had in mind.”
Ahsoka sighs. “I was hoping for someplace I could find a gift for Master Kenobi before Life Day.”
“Maybe he’d appreciate a good old-fashioned snowball to the face.” Anakin says with a grin, fiddling with the buttons on the dashboard.
Ahsoka rolls her eyes, failing to resist the small smile creeping onto her cheeks. It is then that the lights of the ship’s dashboard flicker once, twice, before going completely dark. That can’t be good.
Anakin begins to fiddle with the buttons and levers on the dashboard — checking life-support systems, the engine, heating capabilities — but there is no give. The buttons stay unlit, the ship remains eerily quiet.
“It’s all dead,” Anakin exhales. “Everything. I didn’t think my landing was that bad.”
A beat of silence. Ahsoka shivers, rubbing her bare arms in a futile attempt to generate warmth.
Anakin opens his mouth to speak—
“Don’t,” Ahsoka stops him. “If I had known you were going to strand us on this icy rock, I’d have brought my cloak, okay?”
“Hey, my flying was excellent,” Anakin scoffs. “It’s the—"
“—The ship’s fault. Whatever you say, Master.” Ahsoka smirks.
Anakin smiles down at her. “C’mon. Let’s go see if we can find you a blanket or something before we find a way off this rock,” he states, walking from the cockpit.
The two Jedi begin rummaging through the ship’s onboard storage units, hoping the Weequay they stole it from had kept a spare cloak, a generator, anything that would help them keep warm as the distant sun began to set against the icy backdrop. Despite the growing cold and their shipwrecked status, the padawan and her master keep up easy conversation (even if Anakin does catch the occasional chatter of Ahsoka’s teeth).
It’s been a couple hours of digging around and attempting (and failing) to comm for rescue when Anakin turns, forced out of his trance by a distant crash.
“Ahsoka,” he says concernedly, “Are you—"
Ahsoka is no longer behind him like he swore she was just a second ago. How long had he been rummaging? He only just now registers just how cold the ship has become — if he can feel the chill through his layers, his young apprentice certainly can. And she, he reminds himself, didn’t bring her cloak.
He makes his way back to the cockpit to find his padawan on the floor in front of the co-pilot seat, curled in on herself.
“Ahsoka!” He exclaims, rushing to her side. The first thing he notices as he touches her arm is the freezing temperature of her skin.
The girl’s eyes flutter. “M-master,” she mumbles, chattering, “‘M c-cold.”
Anakin begins shedding his outer layer of clothing, draping the material over his padawan’s shaking shoulders. Her fingers grip the fabric weakly.
“Ahsoka,” Anakin says sternly, “You have to stay awake. Stay awake.”
“‘M t-trying,” she whispers, her breath visible.
How could he have let this happen? Anakin looks up, and though he can feel the cold start to stiffen his mechanical hand, his thoughts are only for his apprentice. He maneuvers his way around Ahsoka’s small form, enveloping her in what he hopes is a warm enough embrace to keep her warm.
Anakin glances past the viewport at the now-darkened sky. His shivers now match those of his padawan. Reaching for his comm, he makes one final effort to reach someone, anyone — preferably someone he knows to somehow always have his back, someone who, Anakin thinks fondly, can go from chuckling with him to chastising him within a matter of minutes.
Looking back to his padawan, he feels his insides fill with ice as he notices her closed eyes, her shallow breathing.
“C’mon Ahsoka,” Anakin pleads, ignoring the chatter of his own teeth. “S-stay with m-me...”
Anakin’s arm drops with effort before he can confirm if his message went through.
His head lolls as his vision slowly fades to black.
___
A horrible screech of tearing metal forces Anakin from his slumber. What is going on? He blinks his eyes open slowly, disoriented, when he notices the absence of his padawan’s cold but comforting weight.
“Ahsoka—"
“—is currently being taken care of. It’s time to go, Anakin.”
Anakin glances upwards from his position on the floor to see Obi-Wan offering a hand and a parka to his former apprentice.
“Obi-Wan? Wha’s goin’ on?” Anakin slurs.
Obi-Wan allows a small, tired smile to cross his worried features. “I received your comm. I must admit, I did not expect to find the two of you in such a dire situation when I went searching after you went missing from the Temple—”
“‘Soka wanted t’find a gift—”
“—but here we are.” A beat. “I’m glad you’re alright, Anakin. Let’s go home.”
___
Later, the three Jedi find themselves in Obi-Wan’s quarters, Anakin and Ahsoka wrapped in blankets and sipping on hot chocolate (despite Obi-Wan’s insistence that tea is superior), arguing playfully over which holo to watch. Obi-wan gives up early and settles instead on watching his two padawans bicker from afar. It is rare that he lets his composure slip, yet he cannot help but hastily wipe away a single tear as he thinks about how close his family had just come to a frosty demise.
But I was able to save them, he reassures himself, and always will be.