After the party was over and most of their friends had gone home for the night, the Naberrie family decided they should probably head home as well. However, one slight problem with that arose. Now that the family had two speeders, Anakin and Luke couldn't resist the opportunity to race home once they got out of town. There were a few kilometers between the edge of the city and the Naberrie driveway, and nobody enforced the speed limits out there. Obi-Wan, Padmé, and Sola strapped in, not wanting to take chances with Anakin's erratic flying, and Leia was instructed by Luke not to fall out (she decided she didn't need the seatbelt). A very entertaining race ensued, and despite Luke's impressive flying, Anakin won with nearly a second to spare.

Everyone attempted to hold onto their dinner as they settled down for the night. In front of her mirror, Leia let down the elaborate braids woven into her hair. Her mom loved braiding her hair when she was little, and when she got old enough, Leia asked Padmé to teach her. She didn't like wearing big headpieces, though. Leia had seen pictures of her mom with huge accessories larger than her actual head, some of which had to weigh over five kilograms. Padmé didn't wear those as often these days (at least, not the big, cumbersome ones), but she still liked to use them. Leia, on the other hand, had sworn off them for eternity. She would learn the complex hairstyles, but no headpieces. Besides, she was a Jedi. They would just get in the way.

Knock, knock, she heard Luke think in her head, and she opened the bathroom door with a wave of her hand. Her twin brother appeared in the doorway, leaning on the frame. "There's a podrace on channel 12. Dad and I are going to watch. You in?"

"Give me a minute," she answered, nodding.

"Hurry!" Luke warned her, taking off down the hallway. In no rush whatsoever, Leia returned to her work. She ran a wet comb through her hair, getting rid of the static. When she was satisfied, she put everything away and turned out the light. Sola was nitpicky about things like turning the lights off after you leave the room.

When she got to the lounge, Luke and her dad were already sitting on the couch, watching HoloNet channel 12. Her brother scooched over to make room for her. "Come on, it's already started."

"No, it hasn't," she argued, pointing at the screen. "They haven't even gotten in their pods yet."

"Yeah, but you missed the racer introductions."

"Oh, no, I missed the introductions of the same racers we've been watching for the past five years," she said sarcastically, shaking her head. "What a tragedy."

From the other side of Luke, her dad looked over at her. "There's actually a new racer that looks promising," he told her, pointing at the lineup. "Kylee Fletcher, starting in sixteenth position."

This was interesting. Her dad usually didn't like podracers, having been one himself. He had told Luke and Leia about the toxic environment racing tended to have, and only like a select few racers. If he was pointing out a rookie, that meant she didn't have an overly proud, cutthroat attitude and seemed to know a thing or two about podracing. That was the other thing that annoyed her dad: most rookies had no idea how to race. They could fly, sure, but racing, he had taught them, was an art form.

To be completely honest, Leia didn't care too much about podracing. Luke was a better flyer than her and always had been. However, Leia was competitive and could get excited about a race when the time came. The closer she was to the action, the better. That's why she loved riding shotgun when Luke challenged their friends to races.

The main official called for the racers to get into their pods. The camera feed switched between most of the racers, showing their vehicles. Their dad tutted. "Looks like Ulrigg fixed that left engine."

"Did you see it happen?" Luke asked, temporarily diverting his attention from the screen. "I didn't know if you would get to see it while you were working."

"Oh, I saw it," he assured his son, leaning forward on his knees in anticipation. "Jensen absolutely destroyed it with that grenade. I couldn't watch it live, but I saw the recording." Shaking his head, Anakin grumbled, "Dirty racing."

Both twins laughed. Their dad hated dirty racing. According to him, if you couldn't win without sabotaging your opponents, you weren't actually that good of a racer, and you didn't deserve to win. Unfortunately, the rules of podracing didn't outlaw tricks like throwing grenades or anything else that damaged an opponent's vehicle (or the opponent themselves, for that matter).

Obi-Wan walked in with a mug of coffee, saw the three of them dialed into the screen, and assumed they were watching yet another race. When the one-day rule was created, Anakin used podracing to distract the twins from asking about work. If there was a live race, they would tune in and watch it together. If there wasn't, they would find a recording of a race that had happened earlier that week. If the racing season wasn't in session, they would find old recordings of their favorite races. Once, they had actually found a recording of Anakin's race and watched that. Luke and Leia got a kick out of watching their nine-year-old dad win his one and only podrace.

He sat down to watch. He didn't plan to watch the race, necessarily, but rather Anakin and the twins. To him, it was just as entertaining.

The green light lit, and the racers took off. Well, most of them. Two of the pods had been sabotaged. The first one sputtered out and barely moved a centimeter. The second promptly burst into flames as soon as the racer tried to accelerate. Fortunately, neither of them was Fletcher.

"How much do you wanna bet Jensen set up one of those?" Luke groaned.

"No, look!" Leia realized, pointing at the pod that had exploded. "That is Jensen!"

All three of them reacted, a mixture of laughter and surprise. They started theorizing, wondering if the sabotage had been Ulrigg trying to get revenge. Obi-Wan grinned and took another sip of his drink. Now, this was quality entertainment.

Anakin, Luke, and Leia alternated between analyzing raw flying techniques and booing the sabotage attempts. Their favorite was when a racer tried to sabotage an opponent, but the attempt backfired. Anakin, in particular, got very excited and would jump out of his seat when that happened.

In other parts of the house, Padmé and Sola heard the rest of the family (minus Obi-Wan) making a racket in the lounge and wandered over to watch the commotion. They, too, ended up sitting down, half to watch the podrace and half to watch Anakin and the twins. By the end of the last lap, the whole family was invested in the outcome of the race.

Fletcher had done well. She was smart enough to steer clear of the nasty racers unless she had to. When she could pull it off, she made sure to pass them when two racers were so busy trying to hit each other that they ignored her. She was a decent flyer, too. Not extraordinary, as Luke and Anakin pointed out, but good. While Fletcher never sought out to target her opponents, she wasn't above a neat trick or two in retaliation. To their delight, when Ulrigg tried to ram her into the wall of a canyon, Fletcher pulled a buzz droid out of her cockpit and threw it at one of Ulrigg's engines. Anakin and Obi-Wan wondered where she had found a stray buzz droid lying around, but nevertheless, they all cheered when it started prying into Ulrigg's pod and disabled one of the engines. Fletcher pulled out in front, and Ulrigg ended up not being able to finish the race.

Unfortunately, Fletcher never caught up to the lead racer, who finished eighteen seconds before her. She came in second. Still, for a rookie, it was admirable. Anakin commented that if she continued to race and improved her skill, she could easily start pulling out in front within the next year or so.

Sola, who had watched the second half of the race, raised an eyebrow at Anakin. "For someone who hasn't raced in thirty years, you certainly judge those racers very harshly."

"Just because I'm not racing doesn't mean I don't fly," he objected, gesturing with his hands. "I just don't fly to win a cash prize."

Padmé joined her husband and kids on the couch, who rearranged themselves so that Anakin and Padmé were sitting in the middle, and Luke was next to his mom, and Leia was next to her dad. While they reclined the couch seats, Obi-Wan sat on the other side of Leia, and Sola sat on the other side of Luke, and just like that, they were in sleep-pile formation.

It had become another sort of tradition over the years. Anakin loved snuggling the twins when they were little, and Padmé would often join him when she was home. Obi-Wan would sleep next to Anakin if it was a bad night, and Sola would sit next to her sister because she didn't get that chance very often anymore. The twins grew older and taller, but they never grew out of snuggling with their parents. On the first night after Anakin and Padmé had been away for a long time, everyone slept on the couch together instead of sleeping in bedrooms.

Anakin flicked his wrist and shut off the lights, and the Naberrie family relaxed as starlight streamed through the windows behind them. Padmé leaned her head on his shoulder, and Leia was nestled into his side. Obi-Wan was facing the rest of them, somehow trying to watch over them while falling asleep at the same time. Luke was curled up into his mother's side while she stroked his hair, and Sola had an arm around him too. All six of them, tired but very satisfied with the day.

In the next room over, Artoo realized that they were falling asleep and started playing a familiar recording. The same lullaby that had soothed the twins as infants rang out softly. It was sung by the other aunt in the family, the one that the twins had only met once when they were born. Despite being dead, Auntie Soka still sang them to sleep on nights like these.

As she kept singing, Anakin felt her warm wind blow softly around the whole family. He glanced over at Obi-Wan, who made eye contact with him silently and smiled. They didn't need to worry tonight. Ahsoka was watching over them. Anakin grinned and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. He and the rest of his family fell asleep to the sound of a singing Togruta, and although it was playing through Artoo's recording, Anakin could have sworn he heard her real voice in his head as he drifted into unconsciousness.