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“I cannot,” he says sullenly, still rubbing at the still sore back of his head, “Believe you pulled my hair.”
“It was long and stringy,” Ahsoka defends, shrugging.
How would you like getting your lekku pulled, he wants to snap back, but catches himself on the reminder that the youngling behind him is fourteen. She’s just a child. And so, so small at that – way too small and everything to be with him in the middle of a warzone, or probably with him at all. He couldn’t keep his mother safe, how could he protect her?
But. He’s trying, for Ahsoka. So if that means being goofy and trying to get his padawan warming up to things that he wouldn’t do normally… sure. It’s not like he’s ever had friends at the Temple. This is just… relieving.
Okay. Hanging out with a child is actually a little bit fun. Sometimes.
He certainly can’t all complain about her being here.
“My hair is not stringy,” Anakin halfheartedly complains.
“Uh, yes, it is,” Ahsoka replies flatly. “Humans are so weird.”
He’s about to start off with, at least I have ears, but actually, fur a creature that hears with weird organs on the top of her head, that would be even weirder.
“I mean, earlier I saw Senator Amidala take her hair off, and it was horrifying!”
“What?!” Anakin yelps on bordered hysteria.
“You heard me,” Ahsoka grumbles, “I saw Senator Amidala take her hair off after going to some Senate meeting. It was horrifying.”
It’s ridiculous how long his five-second panic phase lasts, and then he can only laugh. “You probably just saw her wig. Padme – I mean, uh,” he trails off fumbling, “Senator Amidala is very big on her looks when she goes into the Senate.” There’s a bunch of political stuff for ‘how that’s necessary’ that she tried explaining once, but he never understood. Anakin thinks she’s exactly perfect as she is.
“That was still horrifying,” Ahsoka whines. She looks sulky.
Which is how they end up in Padme’s apartment later… being here and feigning formality in front of Ahsoka is hard, but he’s glad enough to be here that he’ll try to not let it bother him.
Right now.
Padme is changing into her normal attire, and she’ll join them in… a few minutes.
“See?” Ahsoka complains, pointing at Padme’s Senate wig sitting on one of the side tables. “That’s the Senator’s hair.” She shudders violently.
“It’s just a wig,” Anakin repeats to his poor padawan.
He settles onto the couch to wait. Ahsoka stays standing. Yeah, he definitely feels a lot more at home here than she does… well, naturally.
Ahsoka carefully tiptoes closer to the thing, delivering a single tentative poke.
“See? It’s not alive.”
The girl shivers. “But why does she have to wear it?” she asks, sounding both intrigued and disgusted.
“I told you. She puts it on for the look or… whatever she has to do in the Senate. It’s part of the look she wears when she’s Senator Amidala.” Instead of Padme – oh, those names have a lot more meaning than he can ever explain aloud. How she’s Amidala in the Senate and Padme when she comes home, but she’s his wife, and… an entirely different person.
“Does that mean wearing this thing means you’re a Senator?” Ahsoka asks, picking the thing up.
“No.”
“Didn’t you say something about how her handmaids used to play queen, when she was queen, when they dressed up like her/”
“Yes.” Wait. He does not like where this is going. Because Ahsoka is very seriously pointing this conversation somewhere –
“Great!” Ahsoka says cheerfully, and the next thing he knows, the ridiculously shaped object is thunking onto his head. “Wow. You look exactly like her.”
“What is – what are you doing?” Padme asks, blinking in confusion as she surfaces in the doorway.
Amusing our first kid, Anakin catches himself from blurting out. “Ahsoka has a lot of questions about hair,” he says, in perfect sync with Ahsoka’s completely chipper “meet the new and improved Senator Amidala!”
“What?” Anakin yelps and yanks the thing away, setting it onto the couch. “No. Absolutely not. I’m never becoming Senator! The Senate is –” boring, a nightmare, a lot of things I’m not saying because I’m not going to insult my wife.
Ahsoka cackles. She’s giggling hard enough she has to grab the back of the couch to stay on her feet. “You should’ve seen your faces!”
Padme continues watching with extreme incredulousness, but lets out a little laugh. “Okay. Since you’re here, I might as well explain some about the Senate, right?”
“Sure!” Ahsoka agrees cheerfully. “Can we start with why you wear fake hair? Humans are so… weird.”
Okay, yep, his Snips has already inherited his complete lack of tact. Should he be proud of that? Probably not.
Oh, wait. Oh, no. Here they are, talking about politics. He’s gonna be stuck here all night listening to this, won’t he?
…raising a child is hard.