Chapter 14: Ahsoka iiChapter TextBail pours himself a cup of tea and talks. For hours.
He starts with what Ahsoka already knows: Anakin and Padmé, and their child. Ahsoka didn't know about the pregnancy at the time, first too distracted by the war effort and then by her trial and unceremonious departure from the Jedi Order, and then too far away even to guess. But she knew from the subsequent news coverage, much of it sickening. To be honest, she wasn't surprised.
What does surprise her is that Padmé's pregnancy at death was an illusion. She had already given birth to twins and died shortly after.
"Died in childbirth ?" she exclaims. "But -"
Bail is already nodding. "Vanishingly rare," he says. "I know."
"In the Core," Jyn points out, the third sentence Ahsoka's ever heard her address to Bail. Bail is visibly intrigued by her speaking up at last, but he confines himself to a graceful nod.
"In the Core," he repeats. "Twin births do have a higher rate of complications, and if Padmé sought any prenatal care at all, none of us know about it. None of her handmaidens are willing to talk." He hesitates. "It seems Anakin feared this outcome."
Ahsoka blinks. Anakin was always almost crushingly solicitous towards Padmé, sometimes overly so in a way that makes Ahsoka uncomfortable as an adult, but he was never given to visions. "He said nothing to me about it."
"He said nothing to anyone, except apparently Master Yoda."
The name hits Ahsoka like a body blow: like another body blow, and she finds herself too numb to respond. She swallows. Senior members of her Order. It makes sense. "So Master Yoda escaped Kashyyk?"
Bail nods. "Although he was unable to reach Master Luminara before getting off planet. Her status remains unknown. She may be a prisoner of the Empire."
That is very unlikely. The clones took no prisoners. Unknown is still not dead, though. "To return to the point," Ahsoka says. "Anakin believed Padmé was going to die?"
Bail nods. "And ultimately, neither Obi-Wan nor Master Yoda believed Padmé's death was natural. There was no ultimate… cause of death, that the medical personnel were able to determine." He shakes his head. "One of the droids suggested she died of a broken heart."
The noise that comes from Jyn is more of a breath than anything, but Ahsoka hears it as a derisive snort. Going by the grim twitch of Bail's lips, so does he.
"I don't believe it either," he says.
Ahsoka shakes her head. "Twins." She takes a deep breath. "Separated on Master Yoda's advice, I assume? One is Leia. The second is…?"
"I thought you'd guessed," Bail says, which is not an answer, "when I saw you look at her earlier."
"She does look like Padmé," Ahsoka admits, and thinks but does not say that the features that threw her off are clearly and obviously like Anakin's, now she knows. "I always thought it was just… a chance resemblance."
Bail shakes his head. "I assumed you already knew," he said, "in truth. Obi-Wan said it was obvious to him who the twins' parents were; there was a close affinity."
Ahsoka pinches the bridge of her nose. "Obi-Wan knew them from birth," she says. "Maybe he was even present at the birth. The affinity was so clear to him because he already knew about it . And you raised Leia. Her presence in the Force is as likely to show an affinity to yours or Breha's as to Anakin's or Padmé's." She sighs. "The other twin?"
"A boy," Bail says. "Luke. According to Master Yoda, they were both extraordinarily strong in the Force, and playing off each other like a pair of amplifiers. Together, they would never have escaped the notice of the Sith."
Ahsoka winces at the thought. "So. Obi-Wan took charge of him, I assume."
Bail nods. He has stopped hesitating over whether telling Ahsoka these things in front of Jyn is acceptable. "He intended to entrust Luke to Anakin's remaining family."
"Anakin didn't have family left on Tatooine," Ahsoka says. "He hated it there."
"According to Obi-Wan, he had a brother," Bail says. "For the rest, I couldn't say. But I believe Obi-Wan hoped Anakin's distaste for the place would serve as some protection for Luke. An argument against his presence there."
Ahsoka rubs her forehead. "I understand you thus far." She takes a deep breath. "So what happened to Anakin? I haven't been able to trace him after his return to Coruscant. I assumed he went with the Council to arrest the Sith, or remained at the Temple to defend it." She swallows hard. It's something she has tried to avoid thinking about: if Anakin did remain at the Temple, he was most likely killed by the 501st. Once, she would have said that was impossible. But her boys almost killed her, and even Jesse turned on Rex as a result. Yes, they could have killed Anakin.
Ahsoka takes a few slow and difficult bites of food, forces herself to chew and swallow. Bail is taking a long time to answer.
"I don't know for sure," he says, at last. "Indeed it may not be possible to know for sure. So much has been lost. But I do know that Padmé, in her last days, was afraid of… certain influences over Anakin."
Certain influences. It hasn't escaped Ahsoka that even here they talk around Palpatine, rather than speaking of him. It's true Palpatine had an outsized hold over Anakin: even Ahsoka was aware of the blind trust Anakin placed in his old mentor, a legacy of years of work on Palpatine's part.
Ahsoka worries at her lip with her teeth: has to force herself to stop when she tastes blood. "If he went to the Senate to arrest the Sith lord, and the Sith was able to sow enough doubt to make him hesitate…"
She doesn't know how many Jedi went to fight Palpatine, but they will have been the best of the best and Palpatine will have used every tool available against them. That will have included Anakin's trust.
There's a sick pit in the depths of her stomach. She puts her plate aside. "I felt a terrible burst of - of pain and horror from Anakin, as Order 66 was enacted. From Coruscant all the way to Mandalore . I wasn't able to reach him in return, and then… my boys turned on me. By the time I'd secured Rex and we'd reached a degree of safety, I couldn't reach Anakin at all. Our bond was gone. Severed. There are causes other than death, but the most likely is death. The Force was - darkened. Screaming. I couldn't sense anything."
There is a long pause.
"As I say," Bail replies. "I don't know what happened to him. I fear the Sith lord may have been able to make use of him in the end."
A lot of good people Ahsoka knew have been twisted against their will and nature. She thinks not just of the clones but of the Inquisitors, some of whose faces she can still recall. She thinks of Barriss, that first painful loss, the harbinger of so many more to come.
She thinks, unbidden, of Maul, convinced that the Sith lord intended Anakin to be his apprentice. There may have been a grain of truth in his lies. Ahsoka still cannot believe that Anakin Fell, or that he survived the end of the Clone Wars; she is convinced she would know for certain if either had come to pass.
"In any case," Bail says, "if Anakin confided in… such a close confidant about the pregnancy, the Sith knew that he had a child. Leia has been protected by the illusion that Padmé died still pregnant, but that may not last, especially since her election means she spends more and more time on Coruscant."
"What possessed you to allow her to run for office?"
Bail winces. "She made so compelling a case, and was so clearly the favourite, that had we not consented… it would have been notable." He pauses. "She does have a gift. Her grasp of legislation is exceptional, and she has already achieved far more than was expected of her."
Ahsoka can hear the weight of expectation on Leia's slender shoulders. She rubs her temples and makes no reply.
"There are reports that Vader wishes to expand the Inquisitorius," Bail says very quietly. "Leia would be…"
An extraordinary prize , Ahsoka thinks. "Yes," she says aloud, and sighs again. "Well, if we must move her, we must. Try to convince her she may be in danger. Overconfidence has killed more than one Force-sensitive even in less dangerous times than these."
Bail looks as if he has grave reservations. Ahsoka bites her lip again to hide a smile. Leia has always had a bold soul.
"Where is Master Yoda?" Ahsoka says. "Are there other Jedi you know of, living?"
"I don't know where Master Yoda is," Bail replies. "Obi-Wan likely does so - and he likely knows the location of other Jedi, if there are others living. I have chosen not to know, in the event that…"
Ahsoka nods. Bail's shielding is good, but there is always someone better. And Bail is obliged to spend much time on Coruscant.
Ahsoka leans back into her seat, suddenly exhausted. Jyn foists a glass of water on her.
"So," Ahsoka says. "The expansion of the Inquisitorius. The possible creation of a clone army. What other… footsteps towards war are we looking at?"
Bail is watching her, looking worried. "Hard to know," he answers. "There are several possibilities, including provocation of some of the… ongoing insurgencies… into an attack that the Imperials could use as cover for much greater sabotage, providing an excuse for them to ramp up recruitment or even outright conscription."
Jyn raises her eyebrows, and Bail nods in acknowledgement. "Not that conscription is far from where we are now, or that all stormtroopers enlisted of free choice. But at least in the Core the armed forces that answer to the Senate remain a volunteer force, officially speaking."
Officially speaking isn't saying much.
"I'm also watching Tarkin," Bail admits. "He's a favourite of the Emperor's. Ostensibly he's not currently leading on strategic planning - he's on special portfolio, not a member of the Joint Chiefs. But there's some project he's working on that's unknown to the Senate, and is regularly approved large sums of money without oversight. Very large sums of money." He clasps his hands together. "We have no clarity."
Ahsoka sips her glass of water. There's a long pause.
"I am sorry," Bail says, on a deep sigh. "Had I known you were not aware of Obi-Wan's survival, I would have told you. The other matters I might still have kept to myself, but I sincerely believed you knew."
His voice rings with truth. Ahsoka's head hurts, and she aches.
"Don't take responsibility for Obi-Wan's decisions," Ahsoka says. "We neither of us know what led him to make them."
"But I know I have caused you pain," Bail says gently, and a weak smile finds its way to Ahsoka's lips.
She lays a hand on top of his clasped hands, and grips. "I forgive you," she says.
"I am grateful for your forgiveness," Bail says, and though he smiles he looks old and tired. It has been a long twenty years of fighting Palpatine. Bail has earned his retirement.
He glances off to one side. "I am glad you brought Liana with you. I would be… concerned… for you alone."
Jyn nods awkwardly.
"Even Rex thinks Liana keeps me out of trouble," Ahsoka says, that smile still edging around her lips.
"A true vote of confidence," Bail says.
Ahsoka doesn't mention all the other things Rex thinks about her and Jyn.
Jyn leaves no room for argument when Bail escorts them back to their suite; she loops her arm around Ahsoka's waist and pulls Ahsoka's arm over her shoulders, and silently dares anyone to comment. No-one says anything, though Bail's shrewd eyes flash to Ahsoka's. For herself, Ahsoka leans into Jyn's support with gratitude. She hadn't realised how much the afternoon's revelations had taken out of her. Bail seemed relieved to have told the whole tale rather than relying on half-truths and assumptions, but Ahsoka feels like the galaxy has been rearranged around her.
Bail leaves them at the door to the suite; extracts a promise of breakfast the following day, before they leave and after he has provided the verbal response to Mon Mothma's messages. Ahsoka thinks, too, that he wants to arrange a reintroduction to Leia. She wouldn't be averse. Now she knows who Leia is, now the first shock has abated, there's part of her that longs to see Padmé and Anakin's daughter, to know more about her.
Jyn is as focused on the moment as ever. When she releases Ahsoka, it's only to leave her on one of the comfortable sofas near the fireplace. A hologram burns there in place of real wood, but it gives off heat too. Ahsoka kicks off her boots and curls up, resting her tired head against the cushions and closing her eyes. In Jyn's rooms, she can hear a tap start to roar with water.
Jyn comes back through.
"Use my tub," she says. "You liked it better."
Ahsoka opens her eyes and blinks at Jyn, slightly taken aback. For all the quick glances she and Jyn have shared today, this feels like the first time Ahsoka has actually, properly looked at her. She almost wants to laugh, and yet laughing wouldn't be right for this moment, and in any case there is no space for laughter as sunshine wells up in her heart.
Jyn looks almost truculent; stubborn, brows lowered, ready to argue Ahsoka into caring for herself. The false firelight glows over her face and hands, scarred and battered but shining porcelain in the light - the same hands that cradled her in the Great Garden, the same hands that turned aside blows when they fought, the same hands that for two years have caught Ahsoka whenever she stumbled. Her set mouth, the wiry muscle that leads each confident step.
Ahsoka's mouth has gone dry. "Will you sit with me a minute?"
Jyn's eyes wander over her face. The truculence has gone out of her now she knows Ahsoka won't fight being cared for, and there's something else in her grey-green eyes instead; an uncertainty, a tentativeness that reminds Ahsoka of the way she touched Ahsoka's montrals earlier. She joins Ahsoka on the sofa, and when Ahsoka offers her a hand, she takes it and grips tight even as she glances away. Leaning forward, her other elbow braced on her knee, Ahsoka can see only her profile - the sweep of generous lashes, the somehow-unbroken line of her nose and that immovable jaw.
Ahsoka can't think quite what to say; she opens her mouth and the words trip out so fast they fall over each other, and she shuts her mouth again red-faced and cursing herself.
"My life would be so much emptier without you."
Jyn's head flies up and jerks round so she can look Ahsoka in the eye, so fast it must have burned, but she doesn't reach to her neck or react to the pain. Her eyes have gone as wide as saucers, and there's a pink tinge climbing in her cheeks.
"I mean," Ahsoka begins, and the way Jyn's fingers close tightly on her hand stops her.
"Don't take it back if you meant it," Jyn says, and pink turns to rose.
"I did mean it," Ahsoka says helplessly. "I did. I - Jyn."
"Good, because - I mean it. I mean it, too." Jyn's eyes burn into Ahsoka's, and her grip is tight enough to bruise, and Ahsoka sees herself once again through Jyn's eyes: the slide of muscle under dyed skin when they fought on the lakeshore at Takodana, the elaborate dance of a lightsaber katana she would never have guessed Jyn remembered in so much detail, her hooded blue eyes flicking over a star map, the flash of all her sharpest teeth smiling a warning at Bib Fortuna. And all of it wreathed in a warmth Ahsoka has seen in Jyn's eyes, and not recognised.
I mean it , she thinks, I mean it , and croaks aloud in a voice almost too scared of this last step to speak: "Can I hold you?"
Jyn nods, sharp and jerky, and Ahsoka yanks to pull Jyn forward into her lap, every awkward bony edge and every curve of muscle, and wrap her arms around her and think, as loudly as she can, of all the bright moments that make up Jyn in her head. Her reckless smile in a fight, the broken-open look on her face on Lah'mu when she trusted Ahsoka with her identity; her willingness to take up arms for Filyns, the trail of awed and terrified Cloudriders she left behind her, the protein in the galley that never runs out, her scowl as much as her laughter. The trust Ahsoka has worked so hard to win: the most precious gift Ahsoka has ever been given.
Whether Jyn catches some of it or all of it, her fingers curl around Ahsoka's bicep and grip tight.
"Can I kiss you," she says into Ahsoka's throat, somewhat muffled.
"Yes," Ahsoka answers, and melts helplessly back into the sofa as Jyn sits up in her lap, takes her face in both hands, and kisses her like Jyn wants to devour her. Ahsoka's hands land on Jyn's hips, and she feels Jyn's breath stutter when she grips tight. Jyn's tongue catches against the edge of one of Ahsoka's canines, and Ahsoka tilts her head to gentle the kiss before blood can spill, kisses Jyn back until Jyn is pink and gasping under her hands.
Which, Ahsoka is rapidly coming to realise, is where she should always be.
"We forgot about the bath," Jyn remarks, dazedly.
"Not a problem," Ahsoka says, "Bail's plumbing is better than that."
They stare at each other for several long moments, and then laugh.
They keep quiet, for the rest of the evening. Ahsoka takes her bath, floating in a sea of florally scented bubbles; Jyn, it turns out, doesn't see the point of baths, and showers instead.
"You're wrong," Ahsoka says, eyes closed, soaking up pure warmth and ease, "but that's up to you."
"Fuck off," Jyn says, and wraps herself up in an enormous fluffy bathrobe before dragging over a giant cushion and sitting down on the floor next to the tub, where she can rest her head on a folded towel and listen to an audiodrama. As when Ahsoka was injured, it seems Jyn prefers to stay close. She doesn't stare, though her eyes linger over Ahsoka's bare shoulders and limbs that emerge from the bubbles, but she stays within arm's length, and when Ahsoka reaches out and runs soft fingers through her slowly drying hair Jyn shivers and leans into her touch. She watches, too, when Ahsoka eventually climbs out of the tub and wraps herself in a towel, and Ahsoka lets heat slide through her veins, catches that unfamiliar smile on Jyn's lips and hoards it like it's precious.
Bail has a light dinner sent down by droids, though they've eaten so much over the last twelve hours Ahsoka has no idea where she's putting it all; Bail has fed her periodically over the last twenty years, and is too used to seeing her half-starved, which explains the clear determination to provide regular meals that don't just meet Alderaan's high standards of luxury but also fulfil the nutritional profiles his guests need. Neither of them are able to finish the entire meal. They bypass the fancy dining table that's been laid out for them and eat on the sofa with their feet up, speaking little. Ahsoka still feels worn out - though the hot bath helped, her eyelids are heavy and when her thoughts stray from Jyn they walk down dark and painful paths about Obi-Wan's choices - and Jyn seems content to be quiet, still listening to her audiodrama. Fiction seems to have been even harder to get hold of than cake, for most of her life - or at least, she had less money to spend on it.
Eventually, Jyn turns off her audiodrama and leans into Ahsoka's shoulder and says: "Next stop Tatooine?"
Ahsoka's surprised to realise she doesn't have to think about her reply, even though it answers only one of Jyn's questions - only the one which was explicit.
"Next stop Mon Cala," she says. "By previous arrangement. And then…"
Jyn waits.
"We'll see," Ahsoka says finally.
She needs time, she knows. She needs time to think about the choices that Obi-Wan's made, and to meditate, and to centre herself in what she has. She's built a useful, meaningful life, and though she isn't a Jedi among Jedi, she isn't alone either. She can thank Jyn for that.
"If I got the chance to see Saw again…" Jyn begins, and then stops, shakes her head, is silent for a moment. Then she shakes herself and says instead: "You're going to fall asleep on the sofa if you don't go to bed."
"I am not," Ahsoka says, on a yawn.
Jyn snorts. "You are." She gets to her feet and almost stumbles - strange, with her brutal grace, but they're both tired. Ahsoka can feel it in the heaviness around them. Jyn holds out her hands to Ahsoka. "Come on."
"I might have nightmares tonight," Ahsoka warns.
"So?" Jyn rolls her eyes. "I managed before."
"We don't have to share. There are two rooms -"
"I'm not sleeping half a mile away from you," Jyn says definitely, and Ahsoka shuts up and stops arguing. She's guiltily aware that Jyn has walked through her nightmares more than once since Lah'mu; Jyn usually knocks on the bunkroom wall until she wakes up, tap-tap - tap-tap-tap, all clear . Ahsoka can shield to keep her out of them, but sometimes it isn't a perfect solution. And Jyn can often guess when she's been dreaming badly anyway.
"If you're all right with it," she says, following Jyn along. The temperature in the suite has cooled to an optimum for sleep, and even with her warmer metabolism Ahsoka has goosebumps. Jyn threw a jumper over her sleep pants and shirt.
"I'm fine with it," Jyn says, "I already told you so," and when Ahsoka wakes from a nightmare of Steela falling from the cliff on Onderon - except it's her not Steela falling, and Obi-Wan choosing to let her drop - it's because Jyn has shaken her shoulder and parked a sleepy kiss on her forehead.
"It's fine," Jyn murmurs thickly, "it's all right, it's fine."
Ahsoka hums her agreement in one of few Togruta phrases Jyn can recognise, and Jyn slides back down into the bed and is almost instantly asleep. Ahsoka buries her face in Jyn's soft loose brown hair, and dreams of the dawn instead.
Waking up with Jyn was pleasant on Lah'mu. Now that Ahsoka can hold her, now that Jyn presses into her touch like a lothcat seeking warmth, it's luxury. Jyn is still not wakeful when Ahsoka is, but she rouses to Ahsoka's movement, and settles when Ahsoka strokes her hair.
Ahsoka can't lie still for long, not even here. She gets up and does some katas without a sabre, stretching out sore muscles. She knows almost immediately when Jyn wakes; the weight of her sleepy gaze is a heavy thing, like a velvet blanket.
She turns, and finds Jyn watching, her smile half-creased into the pillow.
"Don't stop on my account," Jyn says, and Ahsoka laughs, and finishes the kata.
When she's done she glances at the clock; she woke slightly before the dawn, like she usually does - most Togruta are crepuscular; Ahsoka's sleep patterns are most kindly described as eccentric - and there's still a good hour and a half before either of them might be expected at the breakfast table. "It's still early," she says.
"Good," Jyn says, yawning and stretching. "I don't want to get up."
"Core luxury has its moments," Ahsoka observes, flexing her feet and stretching out both legs and arms.
"Tell me about it." Jyn cracks her eyes back open, and looks at Ahsoka through half-lidded eyes. "Are you going to come back to bed all by yourself, or are you going to make me ask?"
Ahsoka grins. "I like the way you ask. It's so unusual to hear you talk about what you want and need; it's a treat."
"Like you can talk," Jyn says, rolling her eyes, but she sits up in bed, props herself on her hands, and fixes her eyes on Ahsoka.
"What are you," Ahsoka begins, but the words die in her mouth. When she first started teaching Jyn to project her thoughts, some time ago, Jyn needed to close her eyes in order to get across complex ideas. She trained herself out of that quickly, seeing it as an obvious weakness; now, she has almost no external tells at all when she's telling Ahsoka something with her mind, and since she started meditating regularly, the images she can convey are richer and more nuanced than ever.
Jyn's been having a lot of ideas. Some are very complex. Some are deliciously simple. Ahsoka goes back to bed.
Thanks mostly to dumb luck and the protocol droid who shows up to fetch them, they're on time for breakfast. Queen Breha is not present; she is resting, according to Bail. Princess Leia is. She's seated next to Jyn, who has gone from relaxed, self-satisfied confidence to stiff formality in under thirty seconds, and after ten minutes of laboured conversation they eventually land on the subject of bacta smuggling and manage to have an actual discussion. Ahsoka can feel Leia's curiosity coming off her in waves, constrained by the formal manners Bail and Breha taught her, and the fact that Bail is talking to Ahsoka, and it would be rude to leave Jyn out.
Much of what Bail's saying is going in one ear and out the other. He seems to know it, because he's sticking to light small talk. Ahsoka finds it hard to keep her attention away from Leia; now she knows that Leia isn't an anonymous Jedi orphan, every resemblance she dismissed as chance is twice as vivid. The tilt of Leia's head and the sharpness of her eyes as she listens to Jyn concisely outlining supply line problems in Corellia is pure Anakin, listening to a tactical plan he didn't (for once) interrupt. Her delicate hands, her colouring, the precise questions she puts to Jyn are all Padmé to the life. At the same time, gesture after gesture and the expressions that chase across her mobile face are Bail's and Breha's. It's strange to see. It's even stranger to feel through the Force; Leia's Force presence doesn't resemble Anakin's at all, though there's a banked ferocity that brings him to mind. It reminds Ahsoka of nothing so much as Bail's shields, which are carefully trained, though not the shields of a Jedi.
There have been no repeats of whatever strange flash in the Force happened when Jyn and Leia first looked each other in the eye. Ahsoka will have to meditate on that later.
"It's good to see you happy," Bail says delicately.
"Thank you," Ahsoka says. She catches Bail's eye for a second, and then changes the subject to the state of the Senate. Orn Free Taa is begging Imperial aid to unstick the Syndullas from their Rylothi strongholds; Ahsoka doubts he will be successful, since Palpatine rarely has a use for him these days, and since the bias towards human-majority worlds is becoming more and more obvious.
Leia slips into the conversation; newly elected, she doesn't have much of the history but she does have interesting insights. There's a lot to be said for a fresh pair of eyes, and Leia's obvious popularity among the junior senators means she has picked up a lot of useful information. As smoothly as Leia stepped in, Bail turns to talk to Jyn, asking for her impressions of the Cloudriders. Jyn tenses up again, but she'll relax when she's talking to Bail - people always do, sometimes to their grave detriment - and Ahsoka takes a moment to focus on Leia.
Leia is watching her equally intently. Ahsoka knows from last night's discussion that Leia knows she was adopted, but doesn't know her true parentage. Some things are better concealed, Bail says, kept to as small a circle as possible; he plans to tell her before he sends her to Obi-Wan, who will be able to answer her questions about Anakin. Ahsoka isn't sure of the logic there, but she understands Bail's concern for keeping information as carefully guarded as possible. The informant who led indirectly to Riyo's exile was forced to give up their secrets by an Inquisitor.
Still, it's clear Leia knows Ahsoka has the answer to something, or that she has some idea that she has seen Ahsoka before. Possibly she now recognises Ahsoka in the robed and disguised figure who taught her basic control all those years ago. Her questions are discreetly phrased, given her nature and age; she asks about Ahsoka's day to day life and involvement with the Rebellion, and although Ahsoka sees her eyes flicker as Ahsoka blends truth with cover story, she doesn't otherwise react.
It's strange talking to her, knowing who she is. It was strange enough when she was talking to Jyn, but being the focus of her full attention is something else. It feels, in the nicest possible sense, like being beneath a very bright searchlight. The precise way she talks reveals a sharp mind; Ahsoka is unsurprised that Mon speaks highly of her abilities. She only hopes that the Alliance don't see Padmé come again in Leia; this tenacious girl is entirely different.
Sometimes Ahsoka thinks the words Jyn reported from Saw - making a martyr of an unlucky dead woman - are close enough to the truth to sting.
Breakfast feels like it lasts forever, but it doesn't; Bail slips a tiny data chip into Ahsoka's pocket, Leia says with a strange weight to her words that she looks forward to seeing Ahsoka and Jyn again, and a droid escorts them to their rooms to collect their things and then out to the Lady Luck, as if they really are just bacta smugglers. Ahsoka starts take-off; Jyn dumps her duffel bag and heads purposefully for the bacta vats. By the time Ahsoka has been cleared for takeoff, Jyn has climbed up and settled into her usual seat.
"Any problems?" Ahsoka says, without taking her eyes from her pre-flight checks.
Jyn collapses into her seat and shakes her head. "Nothing," she says. "They look fine. We good to go?"
"Whenever we're ready to leave. Breha keeps an efficient staff." Ahsoka engages the engines and eases the ship gently off the landing pad, retracting the landing gear and lifting high above the sharp columns of rock that surround the landing pad. Within fifteen minutes they're clear of the mountains and into the stratosphere; within an hour, they're in hyperspace.
Chapter 15: Ahsoka iiiChapter TextThey don't talk about their next steps on the journey to Mon Cala; Ahsoka doesn't file a flight plan, Jyn doesn't breathe a word that could be construed as commentary on Ahsoka's newly relevant past. It's strange enough adjusting to their changed reality in the same space they have shared together for so long, relearning their way around each other's tricks and tells. For a while, they try sleeping in the same bunkroom; but neither really wants to give up her space permanently, and the bunks are designed for single people, not big enough to share forever. If Ahsoka were slighter, or Jyn less prone to moving in the night, it might be easier. As it is, Jyn wakes herself up by falling out of bed more than once.
The payoff from her visit to Bail will be enough for them to enlarge the bunks, at the very least. Ahsoka would like to spend full nights with Jyn more regularly without the constant threat of Jyn rolling onto one of her lekku or tumbling off the bed, and she would also prefer the height and breadth of the bunks to be less of a brake on their creativity.
What's stranger is how, with a single kiss, the ways she knows Jyn have changed. She thought she understood Jyn, inside and out; she thought she knew all the things she won't ever be told about in full, and had a detailed understanding of the rest. After years of sparring with her and fighting alongside her, she thought she knew Jyn's movements, her tells, her strengths. But loving her, and knowing Jyn loves her back, is different. It lays different shades of meaning on each action. It changes how she sees each movement in Jyn's presence. She thinks of the peculiar expression on Rex's face when he saw her and Jyn move in sync, and she has to laugh at herself. The impression of the perfect team they must have given is a sad contrast to how Ahsoka finds herself now: stumbling over her words when Jyn smiles at her sideways, flushing when Jyn slides past her and doesn't trouble to leave space between them, losing her breath when Jyn manages to pin her when they spar. She's pretty sure Jyn's not doing any better - the twitch of her smile, the brightness of those sea-glass eyes; Ahsoka keeps getting hung up on them - but they're currently showing the whole galaxy their feelings. Neither of them is going to be okay with that for long.
It's fine for now, though. The whole galaxy isn't onboard the Lady Luck, and the warmth that curls around Ahsoka's bones is new enough to set her alight and familiar enough that she revels in it. This is what has always lain just beyond her fingertips. This is what she's been missing.
Mon Cala goes past quietly; the Mon Calamari are efficient, and Jyn and Ahsoka have dealt with them before. This time they are received by more senior people, and Jyn is treated with more respect and consideration. Ahsoka doesn't think Bail chose to report back about them already; it's not news that merits such priority treatment, and in any case he can only have guessed. It's more likely, she tells Jyn, that the greater length of their association is inspiring greater respect. The Mon Calamari value endurance and keeping faith with your sworn word above almost anything else. It's why they are the Alliance's greatest stalwarts.
Ahsoka meets with Gial Ackbar personally, in a quiet and highly deniable side room, while Jyn handles the handover of the bacta vats. Mon Calamari has many secret places, most of them inaccessible to air-breathing humanoids without mechanical assistance, but this particular hangar is meant for the Alliance's visits and exchanges. It's so humid Jyn's hair sticks to her face in dark tangles, and she's stripped down to a vest and shorts because the warmth combined with the humidity is too much, but Gial has courteously turned down the temperature so that Ahsoka herself won't boil alive.
Like all of the Mon Calamari-built ships Ahsoka has served on, the nondescript conference room is well-lit, well soundproofed, and pale. The light is better adjusted for Ahsoka's eyes than the Kaminoans' preferred blinding range of ultraviolet, but it lacks the warmth of red-spectrum sunlight, or the lights onboard the Lady Luck which are supposed to mimic it - Shili wasn't in the settings, but Ryloth was, so the Lady Luck is permanently set to Ryloth, which is comfortable for both Jyn and Ahsoka. Here she feels out of place, washed out, in a way that she didn't on Alderaan, but when Admiral Ackbar enters the room he comments how well she seems. Unsurprising - the last time he saw her was before she had started flying with Jyn, and together they make more money and eat better than they ever managed to do separately.
"Thank you," she says composedly, and slips him the datachip Bail slipped her, and adds a few details out loud that Mon Mothma entrusted to her personally, while Jyn dealt with some minor repairs and exchanged barbs with Cassian Andor and his droid.
Admiral Ackbar looks grave. There are a few long moments of silence as he takes Ahsoka's message in, and he turns the datachip over and over in his hand. It catches the light under the slight sheen of his coral fingers.
"There is movement," he acknowledges at last, bulbous dark eyes staring thoughtfully past Ahsoka. "I haven't made it this far without trusting Senator Organa's judgement. Yes, there is movement. But none of us knows in which direction the Empire will dart." His eyes return to Ahsoka. "If you had some definite insight into the Emperor's preferences you would have shared it already. Your master was close to him before the Emperor killed him; did he have preferred tools, preferred methods, to your knowledge? Do any of these… battle plans strike you as fitting to his choices?"
Something rings a slightly false note in Ahsoka's mind, but it's not what Admiral Ackbar's just said, or why he's just said it. It's something about Anakin - she can't be more specific than that. Ahsoka files the thought away to meditate on later; now she's acknowledged and embraced her feelings for Jyn even meditation is easier, but some things are still too hard to look at directly. She still sees Anakin as the smiling Jedi who had handed her her lightsabers - with a few improvements; liar, they had been tuned up and refined and perfected until she hardly knew them for her own painstaking work, hundreds of hours' worth of tinkering - and left her in command of her boys, and whose bond with her had been torn asunder in that first burst of pain and terror that heralded Order 66. Like most of the frightened children ripped loose from their padawan bonds, the few who survived, Ahsoka struggles to think about the end of the Jedi Order. It's hard to think about Anakin dying in battle, afraid and in pain.
Ahsoka realises she's been quiet too long. "People," she says, before Admiral Ackbar can ask a follow-up question. "His favourite tool was always people." She taps her fingers along the table. "But - I knew very little of him. The Emperor's interest in Anakin was specifically in Anakin. He had his preferred protégés, but the people around them were... irrelevant, and I think he enjoyed toying with them, more than anything else." She falls silent, thinking of what Bail had said about Padmé, and her unnatural death. Thinking of Padmé, who, unlike Anakin, hadn't trusted Palpatine. "Tarkin is worth watching. He has a vicious streak."
He's also on Ahsoka's personal list, remembering Glarean: the armour debt she found inscribed on Chatter's vambrace, and the body of Hila Martha, cradled in her clone commander's arms. But that's not something she intends to discuss with anyone other than Jyn and Rex. Perhaps the rest of Rex's surviving brothers, if they want to talk about it.
"He's not in favour right now."
"He doesn't look like he's in favour," Ahsoka counters. "The Emperor still uses him."
"I know you have personal experience of his conduct."
That brings Ahsoka up short. Admiral Ackbar is blunter than most people are willing to be, bringing up her trial and temporary expulsion from the Jedi Order. She assumes Jyn knows, since Jyn knows her real name, but they've never talked about it. Rex talks around it; he never believed she was guilty. Wolffe looked her in the eye like it was a challenge the only time it came up, and Ahsoka knows that he did believe she was guilty, like Fox, easily convinced that any Jedi but Master Plo could have a secret rotten streak, could turn on the clones.
Ahsoka taps her fingers on the table again. "He was doing what he considered to be his duty," she says, careful and measured. It's true, as she sees it, and she's had many years to come to terms with it. Tarkin didn't hate her particularly - he dislikes women, people who disagree with him, Jedi, and aliens too much ever to have seen her as a person he could particularly hate. He disdained her for all of those things, and was willing to believe in her guilt on flimsy circumstantial evidence because of it. But he didn't hate her personally, and in return, Ahsoka doesn't hate him personally.
He's a stain on the galaxy and she's going to wipe him out, but not because of what he did to her.
"Hmm," says Admiral Ackbar.
Ahsoka shrugs. "Men who don't need to be given orders to be cruel are sometimes the most dangerous of all," she says lightly, as if it doesn't touch her deeply. "He sees it as his duty. The cruelty is the point. An easy tool for the Emperor to use, if what he requires is ruthlessness."
"Hmm," Admiral Ackbar repeats. "Like the Quarren and Dooku."
Ahsoka keeps silent. She wasn't on Anakin's mission to Mon Cala, the one where he accompanied Padmé and no doubt made everyone's life difficult by saying the blindingly obvious aloud when he would have done better to keep quiet. He returned to the Temple with marks still on his face and hands from the diving kit, complaining about Mon Calamari internal security. Ahsoka had been fighting with her civics coursework at the time, and had paid no attention except to ask if now she could comm Padmé with her questions.
The galaxy is full of things Ahsoka would have known more about if she'd been more diligent as a padawan. She has learned not to waste her time on regretting them.
There's a bell-like sound, which indicates that someone outside is waiting for Admiral Ackbar's attention. His eyes flick to her, and then he calls: "Come in!"
The Mon Calamari who lets herself in is smaller than Admiral Ackbar, younger; she doesn't have the same mottling, but her skin has similar undertones. One of his spawn, perhaps, but all Mon Calamari young are raised communally, and Admiral Ackbar hasn't acknowledged any of his children since his oldest daughter was assassinated off-planet, a thinly veiled murder under the guise of a Coruscanti traffic accident. Mon Calamari representation in the Senate remains unresolved, two years later; Ahsoka doesn't think that's an accident, either. She also doesn't believe that Ackbar's determination to stand alone will save his descendants, but that's not her decision to make.
"Admiral Ackbar, sir," the Mon Calamari says. Ahsoka reads her rank with some difficulty. Quartermaster's assistant, she thinks. "The human smuggler is ready to depart."
And that's my cue, Ahsoka thinks, getting to her feet.
"Until we meet again," she says to Admiral Ackbar.
"May the Force be with you," Admiral Ackbar says, and adds: "I will watch him. I haven't got this far by ignoring your judgement, either."
"And also with you," Ahsoka replies. "You do me too much credit."
"Or not enough," Admiral Ackbar says. He's always hard to read, but now, Ahsoka thinks, he's frowning.
The quartermaster's assistant shows Ahsoka back to the Lady Luck with respectable alacrity, and Ahsoka finds Jyn doing the pre-flight checks.
"Keen to be on your way?" Ahsoka says, taking the co-pilot's seat for once. It isn't comfortable; she keeps squashing her third lek and the headrest doesn't fit her montrals. But Jyn needs the practice.
"They kept talking over my head," Jyn says.
"They're all shorter than you."
Jyn rolls her eyes. "You know what I mean."
Ahsoka nods, and straps herself in.
They're out and idling through the system at quiet sub-light before Jyn sits back in the pilot's chair and looks expectantly at Ahsoka. Ahsoka doesn't need to ask what she's thinking; even if she didn't have the Force to lean on, even if Jyn didn't speak to her through her mind, she'd know. The question is written all over her face.
"We'll set course for Tatooine," she says. She is slowly coming to terms with Obi-Wan's choice; slowly absorbing that first brutal shock, letting go of the spasm of anger and hurt that comes from a terrified and lonely seventeen-year-old on the run, not her balanced and secure adult self. The galaxy no longer feels like it's turned upside down, and she has let go of that first visceral sense of betrayal. No doubt he had reasons for choosing as he did: the man she knew wouldn't have made this choice lightly, or with any intention to hurt her. Initially he may not even have realised she survived Order 66, though he must know now. But she still has questions, and she thinks she's earned a few answers.
Jyn nods.
Chapter 16: Jyn iChapter TextThe route between Mon Cala and Tatooine is long and tortuous. They are well paid up, so don't trouble to take any further jobs to work their way across the galaxy: nonetheless, their route is meandering, partly to baffle any possible pursuit and partly because Ahsoka says she wants to resupply before they hit Tatooine again. She doesn't intend to pass through Mos Espa or Mos Eisley. Neither of them wants this visit to come to the attention of Jabba the Hutt. Besides, even Jyn thinks it's worth taking the time to move slowly. She can see their time on Alderaan dealt Ahsoka a blow that she has yet to come to terms with: her very own abandonment, unknown until now. The thought tastes bitter on Jyn's tongue, batters at the inside of her ribs. She remembers Ahsoka thin and sallow on Takodana - probably looking no worse than Jyn herself had on Glarean, but still. Stripped down to less than the essentials, and rootless in a way that Jyn recognised. This Kenobi, whoever he is (and Jyn thinks she recognises the name, but she's not sure where from; if he was a famous Jedi, then she might have known of him when she was a child on Coruscant, but she took little interest in the outside world as a little girl, and her mother spoke little of her religion when she was older) is going to get a smack in the face when Jyn gets hold of him. He left her to that. He left her alone.
Jyn finds it harder to meditate than she used to. 'Used to'; she only started doing it a few months ago. But now that whenever her mind wanders it spirals around Ahsoka, alone, hunted, and terrified, from the age of seventeen -
It's not just hard, it's almost impossible. She tries to listen for her crystal or focus on her breath, but anger bubbles up every time she tries, and she opens her eyes to find that Ahsoka has cracked one eye open and is watching her, every time.
At least, Jyn sighs, and says "I'm trying," but it quickly gets to the point where Jyn doesn't even have to speak for Ahsoka to reply "I know."
"You have to let go of your anger," Ahsoka says, the last time Jyn tries to meditate with her. "Or it'll poison you."
"Banthashit," Jyn says. "Anger is fuel."
"Anger has fuelled you," Ahsoka says, closing her eyes again. "But aren't you happier and stronger now that it doesn't?"
Jyn gets up, and walks off to make caf. After that she stops trying to meditate with Ahsoka, which she knows disappoints her; but it's obvious that Jyn getting mad every time they sit down together is impairing Ahsoka's inner peace or whatever. She doesn't know how Ahsoka handles her anger - she has a lot more to be angry about than Jyn does - but she seems to be able to let things go in a way Jyn just… can't, quite. Jyn can set aside her anger at Saw, the old familiar sting of being left behind, if it doesn't serve her in the moment. But a spiteful determination to stay alive regardless of how many people let her down has been the saving of her.
And letting go something that was done to Ahsoka is - it's different. It's harder to contemplate. Ahsoka has bowed her head and borne so much pain that Jyn wants to beat the living daylights out of anything that thinks to inflict more on her. Her feelings for Ahsoka are sometimes too big to think about clearly, to pin down and name, but she knows that she'd do whatever she had to for Ahsoka. It's not like the blind loyalty she has felt before: she can trust absolutely that Ahsoka won't ask her for anything she can't give, and walk in with open eyes.
It's still hard for Jyn to see Ahsoka take a deep breath and let go of her teacher's decision to leave her to wander the galaxy alone, and to acquiesce in that letting go. She's vaguely aware that the meditation is supposed to help with this or some shit, so she doesn't stop trying, she just stops trying with Ahsoka, who clearly needs all the available peace she can get.
She's in the cockpit alone because Ahsoka is having one of her random Togruta naps, sitting cross-legged in her seat and trying once more to empty her mind and let her thoughts pass, when the comm squawks with an incoming message. It's not the straightforward ship-to-ship comm, either, it's the one discreetly tucked into the side of the cockpit that requires heavy encryption to use, most of which Jyn wrote. It's the one Ahsoka's Alliance messages come through, and it's so secretive it can't support a holomessage. Jyn swears, and gets up to jam the associated headphones into the jack and provide the respondent code. She'll get a prerecorded message, she'll write it down and give Ahsoka the details when Ahsoka's awake, they'll -
To her extreme surprise, a live transmission begins.
"Fulcrum copy," says a familiar voice. Last time she saw him he was going by Willix, but whatever name he uses, he is monumentally irritating. Jyn wishes Ahsoka was awake; Ahsoka can manage Willix. Likes him, even. Trained him, apparently. He belongs to an elite cell of spies Ahsoka originated, codename Fulcrum - a morsel of information Jyn absolutely isn't supposed to know, but Ahsoka didn't prevent her from piecing together.
"Hallik on the comm," Jyn says, tapping her fingers against the bulkhead irritably. "She's not available."
There's a pause. Jyn fills in Willix's snotty facial expressions. "Bring her to the comm."
Jyn bristles. That had the snap of a command. "When last I checked you couldn't give me orders. She's asleep. Leave a message."
"This isn't message material and it can't wait , Hallik."
"Banthashit. You don't even know where we are." Ahsoka, N-8, and Jyn have all been over this ship with a fine-toothed comb; the Alliance cannot track them. "Whatever it is can't be that urgent if you're assuming we can get there. And we take selective jobs anyway."
Willix's teeth grind audibly, even over the encrypted connection, and Jyn can hear his bastard droid mouthing off. "A child's life is hanging in the balance. Hallik -"
That cuts Jyn to the quick. "Fine," she says, drops the headphones, and goes to wake up Ahsoka.
Ahsoka wakes the moment Jyn stops in her doorway and says her name; she's gone back to sleeping with her lightsabers under her pillow again, at least when she isn't sleeping with Jyn. (Jyn refuses to sleep with one lightsaber in the bed, let alone two.) A bar of white light from the shorter one - the shoto, allegedly - fizzes into being, and lights up Ahsoka's sleepy, wary face.
"It's Willix," Jyn says. "Him out of the Rebellion with his snooty manners."
Ahsoka switches off the lightsaber and rolls to her feet, pushing back the light blanket that seems to be all she ever needs to stay warm. Part of Jyn takes the time to appreciate the view. "He left a message?"
"No, it's a live transmission," Jyn says, and watches Ahsoka's jaw drop.
"Is he out of his mind?" Ahsoka says, pulling a shirt on. She sounds urgent, but not shocked.
"He says a kid is in serious danger." Jyn folds her arms. "I don't know about that shit, but something has him scared." She hesitates. "I did wonder if it was…"
She noticed, at breakfast with the Organas, the way Ahsoka was drawn to Leia; she noticed the wistfulness in her face when Senator Organa talked of the mysterious Luke Skywalker, growing up oblivious on a backwater desert planet. Her teacher's and her friend's children are precious to Ahsoka, but - and perhaps this is Jyn's bias showing - Jyn isn't sure they are young enough for Willix to refer to one of them as 'a child'.
It doesn't matter. Any child deserves better than to disappear into the Empire's meatgrinder, and even if Willix has chosen to be an arse about it, Jyn will throw in to get a kid out of their clutches. But it will matter to Ahsoka if Anakin and Padmé's children die, and if it matters to Ahsoka, it matters to Jyn.
"I doubt it," Ahsoka says, pushing hurriedly past. Jyn follows her back up to the cockpit and sits back down as Ahsoka takes back the headphones and adjusts them before putting them on. She watches the line of Ahsoka's back and the tension in her shoulders for a while, and then she tries to go back to what she was doing, because this is obviously going to be a long conversation. As difficult as it was to meditate in the previous slight whirring and occasional bleeping of the cockpit, pushing off thoughts about how badly Ahsoka's been treated to try to empty her mind, it's infinitely harder with Ahsoka standing there, a grim, silent presence radiating purpose.
Jyn bites her lip hard and tries anyway.
After a while, Ahsoka says with her most conscious calm: "Understood. We'll intervene. May the Force be with you."
She ends the transmission. Jyn, bursting with curiosity, uncrosses her legs and sits forward; Ahsoka drops into the pilot's chair, calls up their course, and starts recalculating it.
"So there actually is something up," Jyn's unable to resist saying.
"I'm glad you woke me," Ahsoka says diplomatically, which means 'yes'. "Do you remember what I discussed with Senator Organa?"
"Which bit?" Jyn says, unable to retain a huffing breath. They covered about twenty years of covert galactic history; how is Jyn supposed to pick?
"The threat to Leia Organa of remaining within the Senate. Vader's Inquisitorius?"
"Oh," Jyn says. "Yes." She knows next to nothing of the Inquisitors. Saw didn't encounter them directly, not while she was with him, though he was aware of the paths of destruction they trailed through the galaxy, the fear and evil they inflicted, all while the stormtroopers - replaceable and anonymous - remained the face of the Empire's security. If Vader was the bogeyman every child feared, the Inquisitors were the nightmares he trailed after him. Few, Jyn thinks, know anything about them at all.
"They are… Dark-side Force users. Like Sith, but…" Ahsoka screws up her face. "There are only ever two Sith - a Master, and an Apprentice. Mind you, Count Dooku took as many apprentices as he liked, some of them without their consent - but none of them were considered true Sith, because they didn't fall within the rule of two."
"Sounds circular," Jyn observes.
Ahsoka wrinkles her nose. "If you consider the Sith as a specific religious branch of Dark side use, the way the Jedi are a specific branch of Light side use -"
"Anything but theology," Jyn interrupts, which at least makes Ahsoka smile fleetingly.
"The Inquisitors are Dark-side Force users, as I said, and one of the next steps we fear from Palpatine is that he's given Vader permission to expand their ranks massively. The Sith were already trying to kidnap children for that purpose during the Clone Wars - Anakin and I broke into a facility once, rescued the children, but we never found out who was doing it, not until it was too late."
Jyn's heart turns into a tight cold knot. "So this call Willix sent -"
"General Draven has intelligence that an Inquisitorius strike is expected on Jedha," Ahsoka says. "In the Terrabe sector. Draven's tried to reach every operative within two sectors, we're the only ones that are close enough."
Jyn's heart sinks, deep, deep down in her chest. Saw spent little time on Jedha when she knew him, but… "The Pilgrim Moon," she says aloud. "I know it."
"Your mother take you to the Holy City?"
Jyn doesn't know if Lyra Erso ever even got to see the Holy City. It seems like the kind of thing that would have been important to her, the little that Jyn knows of her. Jyn shakes her head.
"Well," Ahsoka says. "I know I said 'we' would intervene, but -"
"You're not doing this without me," Jyn interrupts, before she can finish her sentence. "Dream on, Ahsoka."
There are worried lines at the corner of Ahsoka's eyes that weren't there before, but she still smiles.
"Set course for Jedha, then," she says, punches in the coordinates, and jumps to hyperspace.