i'm having so much fun writing this let's pray i don't burn out-

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When he first sees it, he can feel his heartbeat quicken.

It's shaped like a diamond, like the markings on her forehead. The light in the little shop reflects off of the iridescent, golden charm, the chain the exact same color. It's a choker, he thinks. He hasn't had much experience with jewelery, so he's not entirely sure. All that matters to him is that it's a locket, and it's in his very limited price range, way on the high end, but affordable nevertheless.

He already knows what picture he's going to put in it. Well, he has two options, actually. The first one is just the two of them, when she was a baby. They're at his mom's apartment, and she's learning how to walk. He's sixteen in it, standing behind her with a finger in each of her chubby fists as she tilts her head back to babble up at him while balancing on shaky legs, looking like the happiest little togruta in the galaxy. The look on his face is nothing less than absolute adoration. He's smiling down at her like she's the most precious gift he's ever been given.

And she is.

The second photo is one that he isn't as fond of, but he wants to give her the option to include her mother in the locket, depsite her complaints about the woman the night before. Ahsoka is about two or three in it, he guesses (it's difficult to tell her age in the pictures where her montrals haven't begun to develop into anything more than tiny bumps at the top of her head yet), and sitting on her mother, Dunayra's, lap, him behind the both of them with a hand on each of their shoulders. The crimson togruta has her lips pulled in a tight smile while he and Ahsoka are both fully showing their teeth, or, lack of, in Ahsoka's case. It's a formal photo—one that Ayra had insisted on having taken. They'd gone to get it printed just a few months before splitting up.

The two had never been married. In fact, they had broken up when Ayra was two months into her pregnancy, not that either of them had known that yet. After discovering that she was expecting a child—Anakin's child—she had told him immediately. Spending so much time together at healer's appointments, and living together after Ayra's parents had kicked her out and Shmi, his mother, had taken her in, their relationship had grown stronger. Two weeks before Ahsoka had been born, they'd begun dating again, only to break up for good, three years later.

"Can I help you?" a nautolan man asks from behind the counter, a pearl necklace around his neck.

"Yes," Anakin replies, letting his thoughts fade away as he focuses his eyes on the man, rather than the necklace. "I'd like to buy this locket," he says, pointing at the choker, careful to not let his finger touch the transparisteel and smudge the display.

The nautolan nods and flips the case open from the other side, taking the delicate object off of its display.

He doesn't know what it is about the necklace, but Anakin can just feel that this is as close to the perfect gift for her that he's going to get. The perfect gift would be tickets to the topside speeder bike races next week that she hadn't stopped talking about for the past month and a half. He'd looked into it and found that it would probably take him a whole year to make enough money for two tickets.

He still hasn't told her that it's not happening. He knows that she'll understand, but he wishes, more than anything, that he could give her what she really wants.

But he's put a lot of thought into the locket and he knows that, to her, that's all that will matter.

"Here you go," the man says, handing the boxed necklace to him.

"Thank you," Anakin replies, smiling down at the maroon, velvet case in his hands. "Thank you so much."

He makes his way over to the line in front of the cash register, standing behind a twi'lek lady while she pays for a set of lekku ringlets. A human woman steps behind him in line.

He reaches into his pocket to retrieve his spending credits, counting the sticks as he slides them across his fist with his thumb. It's enough for what was on the sign in front of the locket—barely.

He can only hope now that there aren't any additional charges or taxes.

"Next," the young, togrutan man at the counter says, waving him forward.

Anakin places the box on the surface with a grin.

"Just this?" the man asks.

"That's it," he says back, placing his credits beside it.

He watches the man scan it for the price, and tuck it into a thin bag with the store's logo on it, written in gold letters.

He's already imagining the expression on Ahsoka's face when she opens it. Her eyebrow markings furrowing, head tilting to the side, lips widening into a smile that grows and grows and grows and—

"Alright, your total is eighty-seven credits."

He feels his heart plummet.

That's nearly ten credits more than what the sign says—nearly ten credits more than he has.

"No," he begins, his chest suddenly feeling tight. "There has to be a mistake. The sign by the necklace said eighty."

"Ah, but with tax and the box, it's eighty-seven."

He tries to swallow but his throat hurts too much.

"Then take it out of the box, I just want the locket. Please, it's a gift for my daughter."

"I'm afraid that I can't do that, Sir. The two come together so that we aren't responsible for any charges if the jewelry is damaged."

"But that's... that's," stupid, he wants to say, but he knows that it will get him nowhere, "that's too much. I'm sorry, I can't afford that."

He lets out a shaky sigh, trying to fight the tears burning at the brim of his eyes as he hastily shoves the credits back into his pocket, watching the man place the bag on the back counter.

He feels his lip tremble involuntarily, and he hates himself for it. He's better than this. His money struggles are nothing new. He should be used to this by now—the humiliation, the shame.

"Thanks," he mutters before turning on his heel and exhaling shakily, eyes focused on his feet as he walks toward the door, embarrassed and guilty because he can't afford a stupid locket for his daughter for her birthday.

It's horrible—he's horrible.

He feels a tear slip down his cheek as soon as he steps outside, and his throat is aching when he pulls the door to his speeder open.

How can Ahsoka even love him still? He can hardly afford to raise her and she still finds a reason to hug him as soon as she wakes up, every morning. She deserves better, so much better than him.

"Hey!" someone is calling from behind him before he's able to sit fully into the driver's seat of the vehicle. "Wait, I have something for you!"

He looks up and catches sight of the human woman, the one who had been behind him in line, jogging toward him, a small bag clutched in her hand.

He furrows his eyebrows at her, meeting her dark, brown eyes.

"Do I know you?" he asks slowly, swallowing hard to keep the tears down.

"No, I just," she begins, breathing heavily, "I was behind you in line and I thought that you could use a hand. For your daughter's gift, you know." She hands the bag to him, a tentative smile on her face.

His lips part slightly in disbelief when he pulls the velvet box out, eyes wide.

"I..."

"I hope that she likes it," the woman says. "It's beautiful."

"She's beautiful," he huffs softly, looking down at the little box in admiration before squeezing his eyes shut and pursing his lips. No crying yet, he tells himself. "How can I repay you?" he asks, shaking his head and opening his eyes once again.

"Oh, you don't have to do that, it's—"

"No," he says firmly. "You just..." he lets out a wet laugh, hoping that she passes his sniffling off as a response to the cold air, "you just made my whole year. I want to pay you back, once I have the money."

"Here's my name and number," she replies with another bright smile, pulling a pen out from somewhere in her bun of intricately twisted, thick hair, somehow messy and neat at the same time, and scribbling her information down on the tiny slip of paper that he hands her, eyes still wide, in wonder.

"Thank you," he says softly, taking the paper back. He looks down at it, letters blurry from the tears in his eyes. "Thank you, Padmé."

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hope you enjoyeddd! have a good fRIDAY WOOWOOOOO