Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

…Where was she?

Kark.

Alright, analyze. Quick and practical, the way Rex had taught her.

The blast had knocked her off of her feet, and the entire battlefield was a mess of smoke and debris. She couldn’t see anyone. She could hear the sounds of battle only faintly, and her montrals were ringing too much for her to pinpoint the direction. Everything looked the same- all mud and scrap. There was no way to tell which way she’d come, or which way was the rendezvous.

She couldn’t help but feel like she was forgetting something.

Ahsoka reached up to probe at the back of her head.

Pain lanced down her spine like lightning. She likely bit her tongue to keep herself from crying out, but it was hard to tell, because she’d definitely already done that- ever since she had woken up, there had been a dull pain in her mouth and the taste of coppery credits over her teeth. She had probably done it when she’d hit her head.

She resettled her fingers, lower down this time, and probed gingerly at the tacky, hot blood she found there.

Alright. Head injury. That would explain the unconsciousness, and the gaps in her memory. Not ideal, but bacta worked wonders. If she could just make it to the rendezvous, then one of the medics could fix her up.

…And there would be medics there, because everyone was there. Ahsoka had split off from the others. Why had she done that?

She resettled her hands, this time over her hips. No lightsabers.

Karking, kriffing- shit.

Ahsoka, generally, wasn’t stupid enough to go wandering around while disoriented. But she also wasn’t stupid enough to lounge around a minefield unarmed. She swept deft fingertips up and down her body. Finding no other injuries, she rolled onto her belly, then moved to kneel.

She regretted it instantly.

Ahsoka doubled over, retching. Her stomach lurched- probably from the concussion- and taking deep breaths only flooded her mouth and nose with the acrid smell and taste of blood.

Her vomit was a grainy, off-white. Just a ration bar. No sign of blood. That was a good thing.

Once the minefield stopped spinning around her, Ahsoka started to crawl in the direction that she had probably been thrown from. Since she’d been lying on her back, she assumed that she must have been facing it. So it was most likely…

Ahsoka really, really hoped she hadn’t gotten turned ar- there.

A glint of metal, half embedded in the mud. With a hiss of victory, Ahsoka pulled her lightsaber free. She returned it to the hook on her belt. She needed her hands for crawling, after all.

Force, she hated minefields. Things could get bad fast. It was a good thing that Anakin had stayed behind- his hearing wasn’t as sharp as her’s. To her, footsteps on dirt-with-something-buried-in-it sounded different from regular-dirt. It meant that she could safely steer clear of explosives, and she often could lead some of the troopers through too. She had done it with Rex countless times. But never Anakin. She’d never even tried with Anakin. He was too reckless.

…This mud, though. It made it harder. Must’ve tripped her up, this time.

Even then, clearly she’d managed to get away… Mostly. She’d rather get roughed up a bit than have someone die.

…That was why she was here, yes! That was the mission! She was retrieving the codes to deactivate the mines!

And there was her other lightsaber, right there. She snagged it, feeling awfully triumphant- now she just needed to get back to the rendezvous- when it hit her.

She didn’t have the codes.

Why didn’t she? Ahsoka couldn’t quite remember. Fuzzily, she could recall slipping in and out through a duct. Fuzzily, she knew she’d succeeded. So why didn’t she have them now? Surely, the Separatists hadn’t found her unconscious body and stolen them back. They would have killed her or captured her, if they had the chance. She knew she had a nice bounty on her head. And she hadn’t noticed any gaping holes in her clothing where a pocketed data chip might have been lost.

No, the problem was Ahsoka couldn’t remember ever carrying the codes. So why was the mission still a success if she didn’t have them?

Ahsoka came upon the still-smoking crater where she’d probably nearly lost her legs, or something, and she froze.

That wasn’t a mine meant for tanks.

That mine was made for soldiers.

She knew that kind of bomb. She knew it was loaded with shrapnel. She knew from experience- the pockmarked scars twisting along her shoulder and back ached with the memory. That wasn’t the sort of weapon she could forget.

So why hadn’t she been torn to pieces this time? 

So why-

Something, in the back of her muddled mind, finally clicked.

That. That was what she had forgotten about.

No concern for other mines, no concern for snipers, no concern for moving too quickly with a concussion- Ahsoka staggered to her feet.

“Denal! Denal!”

For one terrible, awful moment- Ahsoka thought he might’ve been decimated entirely. That maybe the mud seeping into her robes was wet with blood as well as water- it was mostly clay, red already, she wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. That maybe some of the smoking wreckage around her was bits of shattered bone and melted plastoid, all smudged black and unrecognizable from soot.

But when she reached for the Force, a life flickered into focus nearby. Weak and faint, but still there. Ahsoka could have wept, but she didn’t have the energy for it. Only a few tears slipped free.

She staggered, and then she collapsed. And then she clawed the rest of the way there. She let the Force guide her- the Force, and the heavy blows she beat against the ground as she crawled. She didn’t need to drag herself right on top of another mine. She couldn’t help Denal, then.

Ahsoka came to some piece of wreckage- some bit of metal from some Separatist machine. It was half-sunken, half scattered into pieces. It looked rough, but when she drummed her forearm into the mud, the dirt on either side of her was off. Something buried. Something bad.

Over, then.

She chose the most horizontal part and got to it. She dug into it with her claws, scrabbled at it with her boots so she wouldn’t slide down and lose what little she was able to gain.

She needed to get to Denal. That was her only priority. He was her only priority. She was his commanding officer, and he’d trusted her to lead him through a minefield.

She had failed him once. She repeated the thought in her mind, again and again, whenever she struggled to pull herself forwards. She would not fail him again.

Bit by bit, she scuttled and clambered her way up and across it like an animal. When she got to the top, her fingers met only slick mud, and she lost her grip. That was fine, though, because her tumble sent her down the way she was heading, not the way she’d come.

Ahsoka pushed herself up onto her elbows, spitting out mud, then propped her hands beneath her, one-by-one, then-

“...Commander?”

Denal’s voice was faint and wheezy. Ahsoka swung her head to look at him. And-

Her heart seized.

It would have been better if the mine had blown him to meat.

Ahsoka, with the crippling certainty of a soldier, knew that Denal was going to die.

The rendezvous was too far for him to travel with his injuries. Ahsoka was too injured herself to carry him. They were in too dangerous of a position for the medics to come to him. And, by the time that Ahsoka was able to take the codes from him, head to the rendezvous, wait for Anakin to shut down the mines, then lead help back over here- it would be too late.

His legs were gone. One at the knee, the other at the hip. He was missing an arm as well, to the elbow. The plastoid of his armor was cracked all over, and blood had seeped out through the gaps- the worst along his remaining thigh. At some point, he’d pulled off his helmet, which was lying badly damaged next to him. Ahsoka knew- in the same way that she knew that he wasn’t going to make it- that when the filters in a helmet were destroyed, it would become impossible to breathe and the trooper would suffocate.

She’d seen it happen, twice.

So… He had enough of his wits about him to know that he needed to violate the deep-set instinct drilled into all troopers- never remove their helmets in the field- which meant that he was going to be very aware of what was going to happen.

Denal shifted, squirmed really, his surviving arm reaching out to her. “You’re bleeding.”

Ahsoka crawled over to him. “It’s nothing, soldier. I’m alright.”

She wasn’t lying. From the instant she knew Denal was injured, her head injury had sunk to the back of her mind. Ahsoka had gotten good at releasing her pain into the Force so she could focus on helping her troopers.

Sometimes that meant ignoring her own wounds during a battle. Just as often, it meant providing comfort, like this.

When she reached him, she grasped onto his forearm. His glove was slick with blood. Resolutely, she did not shudder.

She needed to be brave. She needed to be strong.

Ahsoka knew exactly what she needed to do.

He squeezed her hand. “You don’t look fine to me. Sir.”

“I swear, I will be. Soon.” Ahsoka’s mouth felt dry. Her stomach felt awful. This was awful. “...Why did you step in front of me, Denal?”

“Just doing my duty.” His head lolled, but his eyes were still sharp. And he really wasn’t slurring his words, even though they came out gritted and quiet.

Force. Was Ahsoka a bad Jedi, a bad Commander, a bad person for wishing that he’d be just a bit more incoherent? For wishing that he wouldn’t suffer so badly? “I never ordered you to do that.”

“Still my duty.” His dark eyes squeezed halfway shut, then opened again. They were heavy with tears. An automatic reaction from the pain? Fear? Some kind of self-grief? “Can I… Can I ask something of you, Commander?”

“Of course.” Ahsoka whispered, bowing her head down. She didn’t let herself cry with him. She couldn’t let herself cry. She didn’t dare reach out for the Force, didn’t dare try to feel Denal’s emotions. She wouldn’t be able to keep it together if she did. “Whatever you want.”

“Anything?” The word was, somehow, more strained than everything he’d said before. Maybe from emotions. Desperation?

Expecting to pass a message along to one of his brothers, or maybe to a lover on Coruscant, or maybe for his body to be dealt with a certain way, Ahsoka gave him a tense, tight smile. She had done these things before. “Anything.”

Denal slipped his hand out of her’s and reached to paw at her waist. He fumbled, grasping one of her lightsabers, still caked with mud, and pulled it away. And then, shakily, he held it up. Almost in offering. But his eyes-

“Please.”

When it was done, Ahsoka let go.

She sobbed, arms curled around his body, until she got sick again- this time only bile and water. She took that as her cue to leave. That she’d spent too much time wallowing in grief.

More people would die if she didn’t hurry.

She slipped her hand inside the internal pocket where Denal- brilliant, clever Denal- had stowed the datachip that held the codes. Just in case he’d take a blow. And he’d guessed right. The datachip was, miraculously, undamaged.

It seemed the troopers under her command were always willing to reckon with the fact that they might die any day.

…And it seemed Ahsoka couldn’t bring herself to do the same.

Three days later, it was over.

It wasn't often that the 501st got to properly celebrate a victory. But when they did, it was… Nice.

The planet wasn't very populated. The capital had, perhaps, 10,000 people living in it. And every bar in town, nearly all of them clustered along a bustling canal, had thrown open their doors to celebrate the Republic and the GAR.

Troopers walked up and down along the water, laughing. Chatting. Bottles in hand, with free arms thrown over the shoulders of their brothers. Sometimes, they'd poke their heads into the other small, cozy establishments sandwiched between the bars- shops for pastries, for candies, for trinkets.

The shopkeepers would smile, big and bright, and offer discounts steep enough for soldiers who weren’t actually paid, the only credits in their pockets being gifts from some other grateful civilians on some other planets. Or, sometimes, they'd just let them have it for free. Like the bars.

Ahsoka couldn't quite enjoy any of it.

For one thing, this settlement was entirely human, and they made things for humans to enjoy. The drinks and snacks that the troopers were eagerly scarfing down would make Ahsoka awfully sick, and she didn't need to be taking up space in the medbay. Even if they did have milk wine, any trooper who spotted her trying to indulge would probably haul her off for a scolding from Anakin.

…Which. They might have trouble with. Considering that he was in the wind. As usual.

So, she was alone.

Alone, and awfully sober, with nobody to talk to about-

…Had they been friends? They ate together, sometimes. They trained together. They'd fought together before. Denal had liked her, or so she'd thought.

Or was it just respect? Was she just his superior officer, his Commander, nothing more?

Did she deserve to grieve for him?

To wander these streets, clutching onto her own wrist where he'd grasped her with a blood-slick hand. Can I ask something of you, Commander?

Her montrals were ringing. She was blinded by tears. The entire galaxy was spinning around in her in a sick, off-color orbit.

She was disoriented.

Later on, that would be the only excuse she could offer for how she'd found herself standing in front of a secondhand shop. Nowhere near the bars, the canal, or the troops.

It didn't look anything like the other buildings in town. For one thing, it was practically an antique itself, made of dark wood and ruddy brick with a genuine hinged door. For another, it wasn't packed into a row. It stood alone. Very alone. Ahsoka couldn't hear the revellers.

And she…

She couldn't quite bring herself to look over her shoulder. To see everyone celebrate their own survival, to celebrate the lives of those who hadn't made it. Even if Ahsoka deserved to mourn, she couldn't find it in her to mourn like that.

The troopers were Mandalorian, at heart. Ahsoka was every bit a Togruta. If she was going to grieve Denal, she would need to do it in her own way. She'd need to wear red, the color of mourning, for two weeks. More importantly, she would need to take a vow of silence for two days. Two was the appropriate length of time for a friend. It would be one week of red and a single day of silence if she decided that they weren't friends after all. That was good for a close acquaintance.

But, either way, that would be impractical for a battlefield.

And it would keep coming. Again and again and-

Anything?

Her montrals split with ringing.

Ahsoka flinched.

Without realizing, she'd wandered up the steps to the antique shop and opened the door. There was a silver bell tied to a tether above her head.

There was a Twi'lek at a desk near the door. He looked up when she came in, smiling. Not… Quite in the same way the other shopkeepers smiled. It wasn't gratitude. Ahsoka couldn’t place it. He was probably just glad to see another non-human. She knew she was. He was the first she’d seen in… Two weeks, maybe?

“Come in, come in.” He beckoned with one pale hand. “We have a collection unlike anywhere else in the galaxy.”

“Like what?” Ahsoka breathed deeply and couldn’t smell the lingering stench of blood, steel, and smoke. Actually… Was that incense? It was very, very quiet in here, and there was no sign of the war. The other shops had all prepared for the possibility that the fighting could come down their street- boarding up windows, tucking anything fragile into straw-lined boxes. She couldn’t see anything of the sort, in here, and there was far too much delicate, breakable stuff for him to have re-shelved it all in a few short hours.

“Why don’t you take a look around?” He looked a bit sick, actually, now that Ahsoka had gotten close to him. Some kind of pallor to his skin. She figured it was probably the consequences of living in a town where his dietary needs couldn’t be met. He smiled brightly, anyway. “I can hardly keep track of what comes and goes.”

“...Alright.” She folded her hands into the front of her robes and turned away.

The place seemed larger on the inside, probably because of the sheer quantity of things. She could see why the shopkeeper couldn’t recall what he did and didn’t have- it was very… Eclectic.

Glassy-eyed taxidermy, cluttered together against a wall, which she speed-walked past. Creepy.

An ornate flower pot, still filled with dark, crumbling soil, even though there was no sign of any plant.

A flimsi book of puzzles and brain teasers, with an octagonal maze on the cover, titled: Made to Drive you Mad!

A rack of knives and ancient-looking blasters. She paused next to those.  Rex loved weapons. There was nothing he liked more than learning how to use an unfamiliar one. Would he enjoy any of them?

She very nearly traced her fingertips along the barrel of some old rifle, then drew back. No. Rex wouldn’t be interested. She wasn’t sure why she was so certain of that fact.

Anakin would like them.

The thought slipped into her mind like a wet lizard, slithering about in the mud before she could catch it and sink her teeth in. She shook her head to clear it.

…No. That made no sense at all. Anakin only ever used his lightsaber. Why would he care about this? Ahsoka shuddered, rubbed her arms, and continued on.

A cigarra lighter, which, in her opinion, probably didn’t belong in an antique shop- it looked identical to the ones a person could buy at any fuel port in the galaxy.

A white cloak, smelling remarkably damp.

She paused again.

Was that…

It was!

A real, Akul-tooth Togruta headdress, propped up against a glass case with a two-headed bird skeleton inside. It was, truly, beautiful- made from shimmering bloodstones and rubies and gold the color of a feline’s eyes in the dark. The Akul-teeth were the biggest she’d ever seen.

Ahsoka drew closer, fingertips running along the old, wooden shelves.

It was a work of art. There was such detail. It must have been owned by a Queen, or someone else so incredibly important, to be able to afford it- the sweeping, branching bits of gold, the precious gems expertly weaved in, looking like either leaves or drops of blood, depending on the angle.

And what sort of Hunter could kill an Akul so large?

It was brilliant, absolutely magnificent. How had it wound up here?

She should take it with her- give it a good home, at least. She could appreciate it properly, rather than letting it collect dust in here. She could even-

…Maybe she shouldn’t touch it. Togrutas could only wear the teeth of their own kills, like Master Shaak Ti with her Akul teeth. 

But surely it couldn’t hurt just to pick it up, right? Just to feel it beneath her hands, heft the weight of it, run her fingers along those wicked fangs-

A noise behind her. Clattering. Movement.

Ahsoka snapped backwards, away from the headdress, grasping for her ‘sabers, but-

…Nobody was there. She was alone.

Still, she’d heard something, hadn’t she? The shelves were so cluttered, something could have fallen when she brushed by. And it would be rude not to clean up after herself.

Ahsoka couldn’t see anything on the floor, so she dropped to her knees and pressed her belly against the smooth, cool wooden planks. The shadows beneath the shelves were as thick as mess hall slop. She couldn’t see a thing.

Weird, but… Whatever. This whole place was weird.

She should probably leave, if it was so weird. If she decided, in an hour or so, that it was weird in a fun way, she might pull Rex in here. If she decided it was weird in a bad way, then she’d try her best to never think about it again. Either way, if she was going to leave…

Surely, a Jedi would find the thing that she’d dropped, right?

She swept her hand out underneath the shelves. Her fingers disappeared, then her hand, then her wrist, then half of her forearm.

Nothing, absolutely nothing. Nothing except open-

Her fingertips brushed something, just barely. There! Ahsoka flattened herself out more and reached deeper. It felt silky. Some kind of scarf, maybe? Or a-

Something with far too many legs jumped into her open palm.

“Ack!”

Ahsoka managed not to brain herself on the bottom shelf, only because there was still a thick, semi-protective pad placed over her earlier injury. She scrambled backwards, hissing and spitting like a startled tooka.

Spiders! Of course there would be spiders in a place like this! 

She was no arachnophobe, but that didn’t mean she liked touching things that could kill her with a single bite. She didn’t know if any spiders on this planet could do that, because she hadn’t had time for the Flora and Fauna briefing. Anakin had insisted that she needed to work on her meditation instead.

…Not that missing it would have mattered anyway. The shop had antiques from all over the galaxy. It could’ve stowed away in any old box.

…Ugh. She couldn’t pick out any new injuries among the many scratches wreathing her bare skin. So it probably hadn’t bit her. Probably.

Ahsoka dragged her eyes away from her pockmarked hand and- oh!

All her flailing had knocked something else out from under the shelves.

She picked it up, then grimaced.

No. This couldn’t possibly be what she had knocked over. It was too dusty, coated in a thick layer of Force-knew-what like mud on armor that hadn’t been cleaned in a week. 

Despite the sheer magnitude of the shop’s collection, everything was clean. She figured that it probably took the poor old Twi’lek hours upon hours to do that. She hadn’t seen any cleaning droids in here.

This thing- which looked an awful lot like one of Senator Amidala’s makeup compacts- must have been under the shelves for quite a while.

…Well! There was her good, Jedi-ish deed for the day. No more poking spiders.

It took Ahsoka an embarrassingly long time to make her way back to the front of the shop. She hadn’t noticed- not with how she was wandering aimlessly earlier- but the entire interior was set up in some kind of bizarre grid. It was difficult to find her way. She kept making turns, thinking she was about to see the entrance, only to find a dead end. 

Each time, her wrong turns her face-to-face with more fascinating old things that she was itching to touch. To take. Either for herself, or someone else she knew.

By the time she had reached the front door, she felt even more awkward and uncomfortable than she already had been.

“Excuse me?” She stuttered, hoping the shopkeeper couldn’t see how she was flushed with mortification. Ahsoka held out the compact. “I-”

“Ah! Excellent choice.” The Twi’lek clapped his hands. His lekku curled. “I was wondering when someone would pick that up.”

Ahsoka opened her mouth to tell him that she was just looking to return it to him, and she most certainly did not have any credits-

“I’ll tell you what.” The Twi’lek grinned very, very wide. “It’s on the house. For all the good you’ve been doing out there in the galaxy.”

“Oh!” Ahsoka cupped her hand around it. She couldn’t get a good look at it, since it was covered in a layer of dust and cobwebs and strange, crumbling grime, but it felt very heavy. Fancy. “...Are you sure?”

“Positive! Well.” He paused. “To be honest, I thought you’d choose something else. You didn’t look like the type to enjoy that sort of thing. But that just goes to show what little I know!”

“Well.” Ahsoka gave him a big, grateful smile. Even if he was right. She really, genuinely didn’t care about makeup. At all. Whatsoever.

…Well. Even if she wasn’t interested in makeup, some of the troopers really liked natborn things. She could give it to one of them. If it had a mirror, like Senator Amidala’s compacts, then they could use it for tattoos or bleaching their hair or something.

She slipped it into one of her outer pockets, since it was so dirty. It settled, heavy and cold, against her heart. “I really do appreciate it, sir.”

“Of course.” He waved dismissively. “Well, you can see that it really has been collecting dust for a while! I’d love to see it back out in the galaxy again. Really, you’re doing me a favor. And hey-”

He leaned in, conspiratorial. Ahsoka leaned in too.

“If you like it… Or if you don’t.” He whispered. “You’re free to come back and pick out something else. As you can see, we have plenty to offer.”

“Would it be alright if I bring some of my friends?” Out of everyone she knew, Barriss- notorious nerd- would probably enjoy it the most, but the last time they’d commed she’d been in another sector. Rex might like it in here. Some of the others, though… She probably shouldn’t bring Hardcase. Or Anakin, if he decided to show up. They’d probably break something.

“Of course! Of course. The more the merrier.” His smile widened. He had very pale gums. “Say, if you can get them in here, I’ll let them pick something out too.” 

Ahsoka brightened.

Something fun she could share with the troops! Sure, she might not be able to go into any of the bars around town, but she could take them in here! And she could lead them around through the confusing shelves, since she sort of knew where she was going.

“Okay!” Ahsoka turned towards the door. “I’ll be right back, then!”

The Twi’lek murmured a goodbye as she opened the door and stepped outside- the bell chiming overhead.

As it turned out, the antique shop was at the very end of a narrow street that broke away from the main road along the canal. From the main road itself, the street looked more like an alleyway, so it was no wonder that nobody else had found it.

…Also, most of the troopers were quite drunk. She spent a while wandering in search of anyone sober enough not to walk straight into one of the shop’s displays.

In the end, she didn’t find anyone. They found her.

“Where have you been, Commander?” Rex stepped up to bump shoulders with her. She was grateful that he’d called out before touching her. She’d been getting jumpy, lately. “We’ve been looking for you.”

We meant Rex, Cody- Master Kenobi was on the other side of the planet, otherwise Ahsoka might have spent her day with him instead of wandering- and a shiny, Mischief.

His name was ironic. He was one of the most quiet, reserved people she’d ever met.

…So he’d definitely get something out of a bunch of old stuff.

“Finding something actually worth our time.” Ahsoka smirked, jerking her head in the direction of one of the bars- where some of their comrades were singing a bawdy song, loudly and poorly. Half the town could probably hear them. “I found the coolest little antique shop. Want to come see?”

Rex seemed to relax a little, some tension bleeding out of his shoulders. “That sounds alright. Better than… This, at any rate.”

“Much better than this.” Ahsoka giggled, grabbing Rex by the wrist to pull him along. “That’s not much of an achievement, though.”

“I was worried you’d joined them.” He admitted.

“Seriously?” She snorted. Then paused- until they were neatly tucked away in the narrow, empty road that led to the shop. They had a bit more privacy, here. Ahsoka spoke more softly after that.” Come on, Captain, who do you take me for? What’s next, I go and start chatting up some of the ladies hanging around?”

“Ahsoka!” Rex jerked back and stopped walking. “That’s not appropriate!”

“I’m not blind and deaf, Rex.” She rolled her eyes, then peered over their shoulders, back into the main street. “Hey, look who’s going down that alleyway right n-”

“What would your Master say?” He crossed his arms over his chest. Behind him, Cody looked amused. Mischief looked mortified.

“I dunno. I’ll have to ask him next time he and the Senator are having a staring contest.”

Rex made a very strangled noise. Cody laughed. Mischief… Looked like he’d bitten into a citrom. Hey! This was pretty fun! The four of them balanced each other out pretty well. Ahsoka stuck her tongue out at them. Rex and Mischief’s horrified expressions deepened. Cody went into hysterics.

“Commander.” Rex didn’t seem to think it was funny. He elbowed Cody, who didn’t stop laughing, so instead he focused entirely on her. “There’s nothing going on between the General and Senator Amidala. And you shouldn’t speak so loudly about things like that.”

“Okay, Rex, a few notes.” Ahsoka held up three fingers, then put one down right away. “Firstly- I didn’t mention the Senator by name, so why would you assume it was her?”

Rex flinched. Cody had to brace his hands on his knees. Mischief was becoming one with the nearest wall.

“Secondly…” Another finger down. “If it’s not happening, then why do I need to shut up about it? I mean, the holonews cycles between theoretical Senator-Jedi relationships all the time, and everyone knows none of that’s true. Why should it matter if they turn to Amidala and Anakin?”

Rex put a hand on his forehead. Cody and Mischief were both gradually sinking to the ground.

“And finally.” Her last finger went down. She shook her fist for emphasis. “Everyone knows. I bet the whole Senate knows. I bet the Separatist Senate knows. I bet the mouse droids on Serenno know. They are the least subtle people alive.”

…

It took about five whole minutes for everyone to calm down after that.

Cody was still wiping tears away as they moved further down the road. “Heh- hey. Heh. Rex…How’s it feel to know that you spent the last year fighting a pointless battle?”

“Shut up.”

“Captain Rex versus every pair of eyes in the galaxy…”

Before the brotherly scrap behind her could escalate any further, Ahsoka stopped.

And stared.

In front of her, there was an empty lot. Nothing but a small, rock-strewn field.

What the kark?

“It was right there.” She hissed. “I swear it was! Right next to the house with the blue shingles. The one with the graffiti!” 

“Commander are you… Sure this is it?” Rex peered at the waist-high grass.

Oh, great! Now everyone thought she was crazy. She’d heard a rumor about a Padawan-Commander who’d been sent away from the front because he’d started hallucinating. She knew Rex had too, since the Resolute had been murmuring about it for weeks. She could so clearly see the gears in his head turning in that direction.

“I definitely went into an antique shop. Look-” Ahsoka fumbled for her pockets, then pulled out the compact. “Look what I got!”

…It really did look like a hunk of trash, actually. Like she might’ve found it in a hole, somewhere. Holding it up probably didn’t help her sanity argument.

…It probably looked nicer on the inside. Surely? 

She ran her fingertips around its edges until she found a small, mechanical button, which she pressed. It opened like a clamshell- like she’d expected it to. The mechanism was perfectly smooth, despite its obvious lack of upkeep.

…A lack of upkeep which also showed on the inside.

Rather than having space for one of Senator Amidala’s makeup sponges, both sides were mirrors. Very, very bad mirrors. Ahsoka’s face was nothing but a vague, orange-ish blob. Rex, a hodge-podge of brown and blond, swam in next to her.

“I guess it makes sense that he was so eager for me to take it.” She admitted. “If it’s such a piece of junk.”

Rex only huffed. Clearly- blessedly, Ahsoka silently thanked the Force that he didn’t think she’d gone mad- amused. “Maybe he mistook you for the garbage collector?”

She elbowed him in the gut, squarely in a gap in his armor. He wheezed, and wrapped an arm tightly around her neck.

“We must have walked down the wrong alleyway.” Cody was being the reasonable one, as usual. He took a few steps into the grass, trying to peer past the cluster of houses. “They all look the same.”

“Can I see?”

Ahsoka blinked.

Mischief was standing there like a youngling who’d been caught sneaking sweets, his hands tucked awkwardly in front of him. He was looking at the busted compact- or was it just a mirror- with poorly contained wonder.

Of course! Mischief was new. This might be his first time seeing a civvie, natborn thing. Ahsoka grinned at him indulgently. “Sure thing, soldier! Come on in!”

“Not much to see.” Rex took a step back and to the side, so Mischief could squeeze in next to Ahsoka.

That didn’t seem to dissuade Mischief. He settled in next to her, their shoulders brushing. Ahsoka peered over his head- just last year that would have been impossible, but she’d officially hit the growth spurt part of Togruta puberty, and now she had a couple inches on almost everyone, including Anakin- to watch Cody in the grass. Maybe he could find the antique shop? Hopefully her troopers could find something more interesting than this piece of garbage. Force- if Mischief was so excited about the mirror thing, then he’d lose his mind seeing the inside of that building.

“Oh.” He did sound a bit disappointed, at least for now. Well! Never fear. Ahsoka would see him excited again.

“You’ll like the other antiques better.” She said, injecting as much chipperness into her words as she could. She turned to look back into the foggy surface of the mirror. “All kinds-”

Ahsoka was still a blob. Rex- or at least what little she could see of him- was still a blob.

Mischief was not.

She could see his shoulders and his neck.  She could see the lower half of his face.

And she could see the gaping chasm of meat, blood, and bone that used to be the dome of his skull.

Chapter Text

The galaxy narrowed to a pinprick.

Sniper. Must be.

She dropped the mirror to grab her lightsabers. To protect Cody and Rex. To avenge Mischief-

She never got that far.

“Commander?” Rex’s brow was furrowed in concern.

Mischief blinked owlishly next to him.

“I thought…” Her mouth went dry. “I thought I saw something in the reflection. That’s all.”

This time, Rex’s expression didn’t soften. The lines around his brow, his eyes, his mouth- they remained, tense and uneasy. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright? Have you been to the medbay to check on your concussion?”

“I got bacta.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t need to see them again. They’re busy.”

Her excuse didn’t impress him. Rex’s eyes narrowed. “They can make time, Commander.”

“I feel fine!” Ahsoka ducked her head. Great, this was just great! She really didn’t need anyone thinking that she’d lost it- especially Rex. “I’ve just been jumpy since-”

…Well. The truth was, Ahsoka had been jumpy ever since Christophsis.

But it had gotten worse.

It got worse in little bits. Gradually. But…

Denal was-

Denal was the first- and only, please let it be the only- time she'd needed to do something like that.

Technically, it was against the Jedi code.

Technically, it was against the rules and regulations of the GAR.

Technically, it was against the laws of the Republic.

But what other choice did she have? He was going to die anyway. She'd spared him from a worse fate. He'd asked her to.

The Jedi code, the GAR regulations, the Republic's laws- she doubted that any of them had been written by people who'd fought in a war like this one.

But what was the point of all this if she was violating the very tenets of the things she was fighting for-

“...Commander.”

…Right. Rex.

Ahsoka rubbed her face, hoping Rex hadn't noticed the fact that she'd been about to cry. He definitely had.

“I'm just twitchy.” She tried to give him a reassuring smile. It probably didn't work. “I mean, well. Better to be on edge than not, right? ‘Means I'll be quicker to notice an ambush, or something.”

Rex opened his mouth to say something- from the look in his eyes, probably nothing good- when he was interrupted by all of their comms going off simultaneously.

After all, the fighting never really did stop.

Ahsoka was just grateful that they were just heading back to the Resolute, to head off to some other disparate corner of the galaxy. It would give the drunk troopers some time to sober up.

After the message went through, Ahsoka bent over to pick up the mirror. Mostly just because she didn’t want to litter. And, even if the Twi’lek was just using her as a convenient way to get rid of old, unwanted stock, she would feel bad about leaving it in the dirt, just a few streets away from his shop. 

She’d probably toss it into a garbage chute the first chance she got, though. It really was a hunk of trash.

As soon as she’d stepped onto the Resolute, Anakin reappeared, whisking her off for more training. So she hadn’t had much time to rest- not that it would have done much. She was never able to sleep after ugly things happened.

She didn’t tell Anakin about Denal.

She hadn’t told anyone about Denal.

It was better that way. Obviously, her decision was partially selfish- it kept her from being court-martialed. But it was for his sake, too. She let all his brothers think that he’d died honorably, in the heat of battle. Risking his life to save theirs, to save the Republic. Standing proud until his last moment. Unafraid to die.

Not with his Commander’s lightsaber sticking through his brain. Dead like an animal, like livestock. Bolt, meet cerebrum.

It was her fault that he’d died, that she hadn’t been able to lead him safely through the minefield. So she would bear the burden of the truth on her own.

That didn’t mean that Anakin didn’t notice that something was wrong.

“You could have blocked that.” He crouched down next to her, sweaty hair hanging in front of his eyes. “Credit for your thoughts?”

She could have blocked that. He was right. Ahsoka needed to get a hold of herself before their next real engagement. “I’m okay.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, probably in imitation of Master Kenobi. It wasn’t as effective, but it got the point across. He didn’t believe her.

Alright, half-truths then. “I can’t forget about Denal.”

The gentle, teasing look on his face evaporated.

It hadn’t been difficult to hide Denal’s real cause of death, mostly because- with the state his body had been in- what was one more wound? Nobody had wanted to look closely enough at the gaping hole in his face to tell what had caused it. 

She’d told everyone that, when she found him, he was already gone.

Really, considering the extent of his injuries, that wasn’t even much of a lie.

“There wasn’t anything else you could have done for him, Ahsoka.” Anakin said, having no clue just how wrong- or maybe just how right- he was. “He probably died instantly, if that helps at all.”

It did help. She’d tried to make it as quick and painless as possible. “I just wish I’d done a better job guiding him through the minefield. If I had found that bomb…”

A warm, reassuring hand clasped onto her shoulder. “Ahsoka…”

“If you’re going to tell me that it’s the will of the Force.” She hissed. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” Anakin dropped down onto the ground next to her, letting his training ‘saber clatter to the ground. “Can you just hear me out?”

Ahsoka didn’t say anything, but she leaned into Anakin’s grasp on her. He took that as his cue to continue on.

“You can do everything in your power to save the lives of the people around you- and that’s what you should do- you shouldn’t let anyone or anything stop you from protecting the people that you love.” He trailed off, eyes going a bit distant. “But once someone’s dead, they’re gone. There’s no point in lingering on how things might have gone differently.”

“So that’s it?” Ahsoka looked down at her hands. She’d washed up, since, but she could almost see blood on her palm- from when they’d clasped forearms. From when she’d held his hand, when she did it. “There’s nothing I can do?”

“No!” He threw his hands up. “No. It’s just… Don’t linger, believe me. You don’t want to linger.”

Ahsoka rubbed a thumb over her knuckles. This felt like a lesson. Like Anakin would want her to guess the next step. What else were Jedi supposed to do? “...And… Try to move on?” 

Then again, Anakin had never been a conventional Jedi. “Then, you make the ones who killed him pay.”

Guilt coiled in her guts. A physical, painful thing. Thorny vines, pressing against her innards.

“Come on.” Anakin pushed himself upright. “Let’s go wash up, alright? Then you can try and get some sleep.”

She let him pull her up next to him. She didn’t say anything when he laughed about their recently reversed height difference- he still hadn’t gotten over it, mostly because she’d gained the last few inches while they were apart- and she let him haul her off to the mess hall. She ate enough to make him happy. She vomited it back up when he couldn’t see her.

It wasn’t until later, alone in her quarters- battle-stained clothes a hastily abandoned mound on the floor, curled up in her bunk with the sheet over her head, failing to score a couple hours of sleep before the oncoming battle- that Anakin’s advice finally clicked against the truth that only she knew.

She should do everything that she could to save her troopers, but once they were already dead, there was no point in lingering on it.

Really, Denal had died the second the bomb had gone off. There had been no saving him. She’d known that as soon as she’d seen his injuries. 

So- what she’d done. That didn’t really matter, did it? What had happened when Denal was, for all intents and purposes, already a dead man, didn’t really matter. There was nothing that she could have done to bring him back.

From the stretch between them triggering the mine, to her killing Denal, his fate was already sealed. He was already gone.

His death was inevitable.

In the darkness of her quarters, Ahsoka let out a long, shaky breath.

It was inevitable.

There was nothing that she could have done to change it.

Another planet. Another hasty briefing. Another battle.

It was less than twenty-four hours since they’d destroyed the final vestiges of Separatist forces on the agricultural planet. It was a good thing that the Republic was fighting this war with Jedi and clone troopers- they needed less sleep than standard humans.

Ahsoka had managed to catch a few stray hours. More than she was usually able to get, between tight, desperate engagements like these.

She still felt tired. She thought that was stupid, and tried to will it away.

This time, they- a small force, only a dozen troopers, plus Ahsoka and Anakin- were in a city. It was quite large, but didn’t have many of the trappings of a settlement its size- outside the city limits, there was nothing else for klicks. It sat alone, on the top of a mesa. A sole sentinel over the vast, unending desert.

The entire planet was similar. The lower desert beneath them was completely inhospitable. People were only able to survive at higher elevations. The only thing that made this one unique was its isolation.

Despite the climate, it looked more like Coruscant than Christophsis. Not even the authorities of the planet had a complete map of the streets. They did for the main roads- but for the complex web of dead-ends, of alleyways, of narrow paths? Nothing. Skyscrapers rose high above their heads, clustered with windows like cells in a honeycomb.

Any one of them could hide a sniper. Any unknown street, too.

Ahsoka didn’t like this.

There was a low dread, hanging over her. She could feel it almost physically, pressing against her spine and lungs between her shoulderblades. Her blood felt too-slow, sticky in her veins.

“We should stick together.” She craned her neck to peer up the side of an especially tall building. “It would be easy for people to get lost.”

“We could all get lost together, too.” Anakin, as usual, didn’t seem to have any sense of caution.

“I’d rather get lost together than get lost separated, sir.” Rex cut in. She shot him a grateful look over Anakin’s shoulder. “Maybe if we’d brought more than one medic with us… But I don’t like the idea of a trooper being wounded and unable to make his way to Kix.”

“That’s a good point…” Anakin sighed. “Alright. Fine. No splitting up.”

“Besides.” This city really was entirely too quiet for her liking. If someone was invading Coruscant, Ahsoka would bet all of her nonexistent credits that there would still be some noise from the civilians- fleeing, boarding up their windows, trying to contact their loved ones, fighting back. But here? It was like the galaxy’s largest ghost town. “More eyes peeled. That’s a good thing, right?”

“I’d rather we had eyes on more parts of the city.” Anakin griped a bit, but he didn’t continue with it.

While they moved through the streets, Ahsoka made her usual rounds.

When she was with a very small group, where she was the only commanding officer, she tended to take point and stay there. When she was with other Jedi, and no clones, she tended to take the rear and stay there.

But in a group like this? A bit larger- albeit not by much- with Anakin and Rex at the helm? She moved about.

Ahsoka weaved through and circled around the group, keeping her head permanently tilted to the side. She strained her montrals for any sound- besides the noise the troopers and Anakin were making, of course.

Ahsoka liked to think that she was very quiet, herself.

There was nothing. No humming of engines. No distant, mechanical marching.

She rubbed her arms, tilted her head the other way- still nothing. No sounds catching on the concave space of her montrals. Creepy. Creepy.

She swallowed, tried to calm her racing heart, then settled next to Mischief. “Looking good, soldier.”

He tilted his head at her, seemingly confused. She made a gesture down the length of her own nose.

“Oh!” Mischief made an aborted movement with his hands, as if he was about to reach for his freshly-painted helmet, then abruptly remembered that he was carrying a blaster. “Do you like it? I was worried that the lines were too wobbly.”

“I can’t tell at all.” She reassured him. “Looks nice and sleek.”

“Thank you.” His smile was audible, clearly shaping his words even through his helmet. “It means a lot coming from you, Commander.”

Ahsoka huffed, reaching out to elbow him in the gut. “Wait until you have Commander Cody saying something nice about you. It took me three months to experience it- and I was still riding that high for just as long.”

Mischief chuckled nervously. Ahsoka gave him a fanged, sideways grin, then started to loop back around.

And then she came back to him again.

And again.

And again.

She didn’t usually linger by the side of a single trooper this much- usually she only did it with Anakin or Rex, when she had something she needed to talk about with them, or if it was a low-stakes mission and she wanted to bug them.

This was different.

Ahsoka could say that she didn’t know why she was doing this- but that would be a lie. She knew exactly why she didn’t want to leave Mischief alone.

The question was more…

Why was she letting this bother her?

It had been nothing. A trick of the light on a busted, terrible mirror- some smudge of red that played right into her lingering anxieties and grief over poor, poor Denal. Clearly Mischief was alive. He was fine! He was right next to her!

It hadn’t been a vision. Ahsoka knew what visions were like. What they felt like. How to deal with them. How to save and protect the people at the center of them- she’d done it with Senator Amidala. It had been nothing- completely and utterly benign.

She had just been jumpy. And now she was still jumpy, even after she should have had time to cool down.

Well- even if she was trying to think more rationally…

Mischief was the shiniest trooper on this mission- chosen for his remarkably level head, rather than his experience-so really she was just protecting their most vulnerable member. There, that was it. Everything was fine. She was fine. This was normal. She was normal.

They marched on.

There was no sign of the Separatists or the city’s inhabitants. The further they went, the worse Ahsoka felt about that.

This was supposed to be a stealth mission. They were supposed to slip in and out. They should have scaled the city walls undetected, then crept past the expected waves of droids, to make their way to the center of the city and steal the Separatists’ sonar device. They’d used it to get the first detailed, accurate map that the city had in years. It was how they’d been able to capture it- since they knew it better than anyone else. With the map in the Republic’s hands, they’d be able to take it back.

That’s why they’d chosen the team that they had- two Jedi, Rex- who Ahsoka figured was probably the most trustworthy, steady man in the GAR, if not the entire galaxy- and a small group of other troopers who could be trusted to stay quiet and stay low, who could focus on the mission and nothing else.

…But there was no stealth to be done.

There were no droids. There was nobody here.

She’d thought that they’d just had an especially easy time climbing up the walls, but once they were inside the city, it became obvious that there hadn’t been any guards in the first place.

The deep, sinking feeling in Ahsoka’s guts wouldn’t go away, no matter what. She felt the urge- for the first time since she was a very small youngling, to cling onto someone. To snag Anakin, or Rex, or- still strangely, Mischief, who she didn’t know particularly well- and press so close that nobody and nothing could separate them without great effort.

According to the biology classes of her youth- since abandoned in the face of the war- this was a natural instinct for her species, nothing to be ashamed of, even if her Crèchemates thought it was strange . But it was still something that a Jedi should suppress. Same as a human’s tendency towards forming quick attachments.

Which was why it was insufferable that it came up again now- after she hadn’t felt that desire in a decade. In the middle of a suspiciously-quiet battlefield no less.

If she’d started itching for contact on the Resolute, that would have just been annoying and embarrassing. Here, it was dangerous.

Ahsoka looped to the back, so nobody could see her trying to shake her head to clear it.

“Maybe we should fall back.” Rex spoke softly. Ahsoka was very glad that somebody else agreed with her. “Something isn’t right here. What if it’s a trap?”

“Then we’ll just have to take them by surprise, won’t we?” Typical, typical Anakin. She loved her Master, she really did, but at times like this- when Ahsoka could feel the dread beneath her skin like a living thing- she wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have been chosen for this mission.

It was like a minefield, again. She trusted him- but she also trusted that he’d probably act a bit like an idiot.

“I don’t know, General.” Rex shifted his shoulders around a bit, the closest that a trooper as well-trained as him could get to fidgeting. “If all these civilians had been evacuated, we would have seen some sign of it- they would have had to flee to the nearby cities, and fast. Force- even if the Separatists had massacred them, we would have seen that too. Bodies, ash, blaster marks, something. But… It’s like, one day, they all just… Flew off into the sky. And we would have noticed that, too.”

“They’re probably just hiding in their homes- in the cellars, or something.” Anakin waved him off. Ahsoka wondered just how much food they could stock in those cellars.

“Something about this…” Rex stopped dead in his tracks.

Anakin too, a moment later, as he stared past Rex’s shoulders- down an alleyway.

The uneasy feeling spiked. Ahsoka shifted around, tilted her head to the side again, then to the other side- and, hearing nothing moving behind them, hurried back to the front of the group.

Finally, there it was- the first sign that this city had been inhabited sometime in the last decade. The first sign that the Separatists had been here.

Slumped in the alleyway were four deactivated battle droids.

There were no signs of a fight, at least that Ahsoka could see. And the droids were whole and undamaged. They didn’t look like they’d been deactivated- they hadn’t assumed that curled, hunched position. It was like they’d abruptly collapsed, their metal fingers still grasping the triggers of their weapons.

Something here smelled familiar. Ahsoka couldn’t place it. But she knew that she’d smelled it before.

Something damp. Something out of place in the middle of a desert mesa. Maybe a water pipe had burst nearby? But she couldn’t imagine what that might have to do with a couple of droids dropping dead.

“What in the Sith Hells?” Anakin murmured. And if Anakin- who was probably the Republic’s best expert on droids- was unsettled, then Ahsoka took that as a sign that this time, at least, she wasn’t just being jumpy. “Cover me.”

They did just that, weapons at the ready, as Anakin walked down the alleyway and knelt besides one of the droids. He turned it over, ran his fingers over the seams of its head, then forced it open with a twist of his metal hand.

He leaned back with a cough, face wrinkling at the stench- which, ugh. There went any attempt at trying to figure out where that watery smell was coming from. As soon as the droid’s metal head was open, all Ahsoka could pick up was the ugly reek of burning inorganic matter. “They’re completely fried. I’ve never seen computers melt like that- just… Gone all over.”

“Maybe that’s why we haven’t seen any droids?” Rex said. “Maybe something- some kind of electric pulse- took them all out?”

Ahsoka was struck with the image of the city’s civilians, equally affected, lying dead in their homes from heart attacks.

But no- she certainly would have smelled that. In this heat? In the couple of hours that they’d spent wandering the maze of this city…

No. She would have noticed if they were dead. Instead they were just… Gone.

And it couldn’t have been something which completely obliterated organic matter- Ahsoka narrowed her eyes at a potted plant at the end of the alleyway. It showed no signs of being damaged. And- hey, maybe that’s where the damp smell had come from?

“...I don’t like this.” Rex took a step back. “Something happened here. We shouldn’t be here- or at least we should come back with backup.”

“Since when have you been so nervous?” Anakin raised a brow at Rex, who ducked his helmeted head awkwardly. Ahsoka was firmly on Rex's side, here- they should leave as quickly as possible. But Anakin did have a point- sort of. She never would have expected Rex to suggest a retreat because of vibes. “Don’t you see? Whatever this is… It could change the shape of the war! We need to find it before it’s too late.”

“...Yes, sir.” Rex agreed, after a moment. Ahsoka knew him well enough- or maybe her montrals were just sharp enough- that she could pick up on his well-concealed displeasure. And… Was that fear? “But under no circumstances should we split up. I’m… It gives me a bad feeling. For all we know, whatever did this could attack us, too. We don’t need to be picked off one by one.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Anakin stood up and stepped past the cracked-open droid without another look. “Let’s move.”

Anakin seemed to have given up on their earlier mission, and their half-slapped together map of the city’s major streets, as he proceeded to follow the trail of collapsed droids instead. It got easier the further they progressed into the winding guts of the city. There were more of them. Most of them face-down, their heads pointed in the same direction- they’d been fleeing, not defending.

After a series of anxious loops around the group, Ahsoka settled next to Rex- who was now bringing up the rear, his head on a swivel. She leaned in to whisper to him. “If it helps, I totally agree with you.”

“I don’t know what’s bothering me so badly about this place.” He whispered back. “I’ve been in frightening situations before… But this? It’s something different.”

“Way worse than the brain worms.” Ahsoka agreed. “Something definitely happened here. It’s too empty. Too quiet.”

“And the rest of them… Why aren’t they as nervous?” Rex tilted his head towards the group in front of them.

“Anakin’s Anakin.” She shrugged. “You know how he is. But the troopers… I don’t know. Maybe the two of us are just a bit twitchier.”

“I can’t help but…” Rex trailed off, shaking his head. “I don’t know. This might sound a bit strange, a Force-null saying this to a Jedi- but it’s the air here. The energy. On Kamino, before a lightning strike, you could almost feel lightning before it struck. It’s not quite the same, but… Something similar.”

“I know exactly what you mean.” Ahsoka gave in to her desire for comfort, just a little bit, and strayed far enough into Rex’s personal space to bump their shoulders together. “I feel the same way. But it’s not the Force. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

The two of them stuck close together, after that. Ahsoka lost any interest in straying from Rex’s immediate side, once they started to reach the center of the city.

Clustered around the city hall- the goal of their original mission- were more downed droids than Ahsoka had ever seen in one, single place. From every mainline Separatist model, they completely blanketed the ground, limbs tangled together. The team had to step carefully, spotting narrow gaps between mechanical limbs so they could make their way across. One step at a time, single-file. Like when she’d once led Rex and a couple other troopers through a minefield.

Force, damn- she really needed to keep her mind off of minefields.

Ahsoka brought up the rear. Her heart hammered so hard that she could feel it in her montrals and fingertips. It wasn’t until she was able to brush up against Rex again that she could calm down.

The carnage only seemed to make Anakin more eager, more sure of what they were doing. Ahsoka tried to tug on the training bond between them-trying to get him to feel her steadily building unease- but the connection felt difficult to reach. It was…

It was strange. Just like everything else here. It was still there, still strong, still close- but it was like trying to spot something directly in front of you while in the deepest fog. It didn’t matter if it was close enough to touch- you still had trouble seeing it.

Ahsoka gave up on trying to convince Anakin to get out of here- and maybe glass the place while they were at it- and just hunched her shoulders, stuck close to Rex, breathed, and tried to wait it out.

They didn’t have to wait long.

Every piece of technology inside the city hall was fried, too. Several droids, every terminal- and the map that they’d come here for in the first place.

There was no sign of any weapon, either.

Still no people.

While Anakin tore the room apart behind her, Ahsoka stared at a shattered glass, expensive-smelling wine pooling on the floor. Whatever sentient Separatist had been leading this battalion- that must have been theirs’ right? Clearly, they’d dropped it in a hurry.

She squatted down, touched the puddle of  wine, then a dull slope of once-fine crystal. Both were cold to the touch.

If the glass had been chilled- it must have happened recently. Very.

Sometime during the fog that had kept them from approaching as soon as they’d landed, maybe? Ahsoka hadn’t paid much attention, at the time, mostly happy to be able to get some extra rest and a few bites of a raion bar.

The settlements on this planet didn’t go more than a couple days without fog, it was part of why they could survive, but supposedly this time it had been unusually thick. Anakin had wanted to use it to their advantage. The local partisans had shot him down, refusing to provide the cover they needed until it cleared.

Maybe it had hidden the Separatist- and civilian- retreat from the city? That was Ahsoka’s best guess.

“Let’s just check the hangar, General.” Rex was the only one willing to try and get Anakin to listen to reason. Ahsoka would be sneaking him every bite of dessert she got in the mess hall for the next two months, at least. “They likely fled in that direction, whatever they were running from. If it’s clear, then we’ll call in some specialists to take a look at things. Maybe they’ll find the weapon?”

“The hangar.” Anakin agreed- noticeably saying nothing about the second half of Rex's statement. He set off anyway, leaving everyone else to trail behind.

“Maybe we should stun him?” Ahsoka suggested, keeping her voice low. It didn’t matter much if anyone heard her, anyway. Anakin was too far away, and at this point the other troopers had been unnerved a bit, too. Clearly not to the same extent as Rex and Ahsoka, though- they kept muttering about ‘the General acting strange, again’ and ‘all those destroyed droids’ rather than the city’s energy or whatever the kark.

“I don’t think it’s gotten to that point, yet.” Rex shook his head. “Again- if we’re just going off of feelings… It doesn't feel… Actively dangerous? Whatever happened is over. Like we’re wandering through the ashes after a fire, not like we’re in the middle of one. You know?”

Again- she did know. She knew exactly what Rex was talking about. But why only them?

Clearly it wasn’t the Force. It didn’t feel like it to her- this strange, prickling unease down her back- and Anakin hadn’t felt anything at all. Besides, she’d measured Rex’s midichorian count once, out of curiosity. Hilariously, he had a count of seven. He was the first person she’d ever met to have a single-digit level. Rex was about as Force-sensitive as algae.

So it wasn’t the Force, but…

What else could it possibly be?

Maybe it was just their intuition.

Maybe, at birth- or at Rex’s decanting, she supposed- they’d been chosen by some otherworldly force to be able to peek beyond the veil.

Maybe Ahsoka really had lost it, sometime after killing Denal, and now she’d gone and infected Rex.

The hangar only made things worse.

The vulture droids were still in their resting position- inactive at the time that they had been fried. 

All the ships were still there, packed into neat rows. None of them even had their ramps down. Whatever had happened here- nobody had fled off-planet.

For a moment, silence reigned.

“Come on… It has to be here somewhere.” Anakin started to make his way across the hangar.

That’s when everything went sideways.

The vulture droids, as it turned out, were not fried.

At the sound of an intruder’s voice, they clanged to life, swinging into attack positions. Ahsoka heard them coming online before anyone else noticed. She activated her lightsabers, stepped into a defensive position, tried to shield the troopers-

Not fast enough.

For all that they were soldiers, they just walked through a field of downed droids. Nobody had been expecting these to be any different from their destroyed brethren outside.

There was exactly one heartbeat- one short span of time, where Ahsoka looked at Anakin and four troopers who weren’t behind cover- and before she could use the Force to push them to safety, one of the droids fired.

Mischief’s head was nearly blown clean off.

Ahsoka watched him drop in slow-motion.

Then everything got fast, after that.

Ahsoka reflected each bolt that came their way- each time destroying the droid that had sent it. Vulture droids weren’t especially clever, and they had nowhere to maneuver in the hangar. It was probably the shortest firefight she’d ever been in.

All the same-

All the same-

Ahsoka dropped to her knees beside Mischief, when it was over. Her hands shook. Or maybe everything was shaking? The entire room was spinning around her- around them, the two of them.

She stared down at him- at the body. The feeling that had been creeping down her spine all day now lit up across every inch of her skin like liquid fire. Horror burned, swirled in her guts.

Oh Force, oh shit- Sith-spitting hells…

It wasn’t the fact that he was dead. Ahsoka had lost plenty of troopers. It wasn’t the fact that he’d died in front of her- because she’d long-since grown numb to that. In her first week on the front, she’d watched an ARC be torn in half.

It was the fact that she’d already seen him like this.

She dug her claws into his shoulder and hunched her head, staring into the gaping maw of blood, brain matter, and splintered bone.

A hand grasped her shoulder, tugged, then let go. A pair of arms wrapped around her and tried to haul her off, but Ahsoka snapped her teeth and spat. They let go again.

It hadn’t been a vision. She’d known that. She was still certain of that.

But she'd still known this was going to happen.

Chapter Text

The next thing Ahsoka remembered was waking up in the medbay.

She blinked up at the blinding lights overhead, then tried to roll over. She succeeded, barely. It hurt. Her muscles ached, every last one of them- from her eyelids to her toes- the way that her legs were sore after a long march. The telltale effects of the Republic’s preferred field sedative.

“How are you feeling, Commander?”

Her head felt like it was stuffed full with hay, the Force vague and swimmy around her. Between that, and the fact that she didn’t want to turn her head again, she couldn’t tell which clone was talking to her.

“Thirsty.” Her voice cracked around the words.

Ahsoka had only needed to be sedated once before. She’d been ashamed for weeks afterwards, but after more time on the front, she had realized that everyone who’d taken Seppie shrapnel needed to be knocked out. Otherwise, all the writhing and clawing could twist the shards deeper into their body- because that was their intention. The Separatists’ anti-personnel bombs were specifically designed to cause more damage to organic beings than droids.

So, no, being sedated the first time was nothing to be ashamed of.

This was different.

This was something worth being ashamed over.

She’d acted like a youngling flung into a trench. Like she’d never seen someone die before.

Like she hadn’t already kn-

Oh Force, Sith Hells, fucking-

Ahsoka sat bolt upright. She pressed the pain back- the way she usually did when injured in the field- and swung her legs over the edge of the cot.

The lights were still blinding. They spun now, swinging in loops around the room like carrion birds circling dead and dying soldiers.

Nausea bubbled up. Nearly got out. Ahsoka swallowed down the bile. Vomiting would only make this more mortifying.

Before she could stumble onto her feet, a hand pushed her back onto the cot.

“You Jedi!” Kix hissed. “You never know when to take it easy.”

Ahsoka couldn’t reply. She was trying very hard not to get sick all over Kix.

Kix kept one hand pressed to her chest, keeping her sitting on the cot with very little effort. With the other, he picked up a cup placed on the small bedside table next to them. Some of it had spilled- obviously, he’d set it down in a hurry- pooling across the metal and making the room flush with a damp, metallic smell eerily similar to blood.

The room still smelled like actual blood too, of course. It always did.

That was why Ahsoka avoided the medbay.

“Come on.” Clearly, Kix didn’t trust her to hold the cup herself. He held it up to her mouth.

Ahsoka took a small, obedient sip.

Instantly, her head stopped pounding. The pain in her muscles stayed, though- that wouldn’t go away for a couple more days. Her stomach settled, a little bit. Or maybe it just helped to wash away some of the taste of vomit.

That let her get her thoughts in order.

The mirror- Mischief.

How had it done that? It wasn’t a vision. It sure as the Sith Hells wasn’t the Force at all. It hadn’t felt anything like the Force- not like the Light, and not like the brief glimpses of the Dark that she’d gotten from her brushes with Ventress and Dooku either.

It felt…

It felt like nothing. Completely and utterly Force-null, like any other object that didn’t involve a kyber crystal. Besides-

…Besides the dull, itching dread that had begun to crawl under her skin again. It felt like bug bites. Like a rash from some plant, poisonous on contact.

Before she knew it, the cup was empty. Ahsoka licked her lips, then her teeth, running her tongue over every fang in turn.

“Do you want me to schedule an appointment with a Jedi Mind Healer?” Kix took the glass away from her and crossed the room. She watched him refill it.

“Anakin hasn't already?”

Kix shook his head as he turned back around. “He actually told me not to. But…”

“Medic outranks everyone.” Ahsoka parroted. She'd had the phrase drilled into her brain very thoroughly.

“Exactly.” Kix huffed, then dropped down in front of her again. “Don't decide now. Finish the water first.”

The second glass was even sweeter than the first. Not to mention full. Kix still wouldn't let her hold it, though, and he wouldn’t let her take more than small, baby sips.

Ahsoka definitely didn't need to see a Mind Healer, she decided.

She was perfectly and utterly sane. It wasn't like she'd balked at a bit of battlefield blood. She'd only reacted that way because Mischief's death had aligned with something she'd already seen.

It had taken her by surprise. That was all.

She'd need to talk to Anakin, obviously. He'd want to talk to her. And then… She could just tell him! She trusted Anakin more than anyone else in the entire galaxy- barring Rex, of course, but Rex wouldn't be much help with something like this.

More importantly- Anakin trusted her. If she told him about the bizarre not-vision, then he'd believe her.

He could help her find out why it had happened! And of course he'd be able to figure it out. Anakin was the most powerful Jedi that had ever lived- no mystery of the Force could elude him. And if he was having any trouble, then he could recruit Master Kenobi- who was better at the fancy, smart-Jedi stuff that neither Anakin nor Ahsoka really understood.

Anakin would help her. She knew he would. And then, once they figured out how her not-vision had worked, they could save people! They could save the lives of countless troopers, countless Jedi. With that mirror- a portable premonition of death- they could go wherever they needed to go and rescue whoever needed rescuing.

Force. If she could get the mirror to work again…

This would change the tides of the war.

There was Anakin's new super-weapon- stuffed inside the pocket of her dirty robes, sitting on the floor of her quarters.

And yet-

How could she not have taken the premonition to heart? If she had stuck with Mischief instead of Rex, could she have saved his life?

No. No. She couldn't let herself get caught up in this. It was… It was like Denal.

She hadn’t- she couldn’t have… She couldn't have done anything. Or at least she couldn’t do anything now. There was no point in getting twisted up over it. Not when there were troopers she could still save.

…Besides.

What had happened with Denal meant that she could never go to the Mind Healers, anyway, even if she wanted to see them. They'd know, once they looked inside her stupid, rattling skull. And then it would all be for nothing. The sacrifice he'd made, ensuring that the datachip made it back to others, would be for nothing. The quick death he'd earned would be for nothing.

In a roundabout, awful way- Ahsoka would have never found the mirror if Denal hadn’t died. If he hadn’t died that way.

She owed that to him. She would make sure that nobody else needed to suffer his fate.

Her mind made up, and the glass drained, Ahsoka licked her teeth again and told Kix as much. “I don't want to see a Mind Healer.”

His brow creased. He didn't even need to say anything. His Disappointed Face ranked third in her personal tier list, behind Master Kenobi and Rex. She wriggled awkwardly, twisting her claws into the sheets, then gave in.

Anakin couldn't keep his kriffing mouth shut, anyway. Especially about things that made him happy. The entire ship would probably know about the mirror before the next cycle.

“I panicked about what happened to Mischief because I'd had a vision about it happening, but I hadn't recognized it as a vision because it wasn't anything like the ones I've had before.” Ahsoka watched Kix's brow steadily rise. It returned to its natural position, then went higher. “I'm perfectly stable. Nothing like this will happen again.”

“Wouldn’t that mean you should definitely go to the Mind Healers?” Kix's brow dropped back down again. Sith-spit. “They’d know best about that sort of thing. Jedi osik.”

“I'm going to talk to Anakin about it instead.”

Kix's brow, by some miracle of the Force, dropped lower. It wasn't disappointment this time, though.

…Or at least, she wasn’t the focus of his ire.

“...What?”

“I broached the possibility of a Mind Healer… Largely because the General is on Coruscant, so he isn't around to question me.” He looked apologetic. “He didn't want to leave you, but… The Chancellor insisted.”

Well.

Shit.

Anakin would probably never listen to her over the Chancellor. Like, ever. And if Ahsoka commed him claiming that she had a magical, never-before-seen mirror, he'd think that she'd sustained permanent brain damage from that concussion. She'd need proof. She'd need to show him it in person.

Needing to wait while that mirror could have been saving lives immediately…

“I know.” Even though Kix didn’t know the depth of why Anakin fucking off on a favor for the Chancellor again was ruining her life- he must've been able to get a read on her expression, anyway. Probably because he agreed with her. He clasped a hand on her shoulder. “I've given you sick leave for two days. Go wash up, eat, meditate. Relax. Give the aches some time to pass.”

Kix was framing this as being solely for her physical benefit- which wasn't wrong, exactly, pushing too hard after a field sedative only made the effects a million times worse, she'd learned that the hard way. And, like all GAR medics- and most clones in general- his shields were pure beskar. But. She did see this sad little twinkle in his eye.

Also he'd just been pushing the Mind Healers on her, like, two minutes ago. And she wasn't a complete idiot. 

“I'll be fine, Kix.” Ahsoka reached up to her own shoulder and clasped their hands together. “I'll take it easy. And I'll report in to you and Rex so you know I'm really doing it.”

That made Kix crack a little half-smile. “You think the Captain can hold you to account?”

“I think the Captain could hold an actual demon from the Sith Hells to account.”

Her joking made Kix relax a bit.

Which… She supposed, from the outside looking in, might seem strange.

He wasn't discomforted by her joking around so soon after losing a trooper. But, of course, that happened all the time. The 501st had one of the lower casualty rates in the GAR and she'd still watched hundreds of clones die.

That was the way it was, she supposed. They were at war. People died.

And it hurt. It hurt every time. Like daggers, needles, thorns- digging into her lungs and throat and eyes. But what else could she do?

Anakin was right. There was no point in dwelling on it. She'd adopted that stance a long time ago. Denal's death had been different, so she'd needed a reminder, but she'd long-since accepted the loss of her soldiers. She'd learned it from copying Rex and Cody and everyone else- especially Fives and Echo, two-out-of-five.

…Didn't mean she needed to accept more of them, though.

Kix bid her farewell from the medbay, and she did not go get something to eat and she did not go wash up and she did not speak to Rex. When she got to her quarters, she did not go to bed.

Instead, she dropped to her knees and fished the mirror out of the pocket of her discarded robes.

It was just as she’d remembered it. Heavy, and- ugh. Filthy.

Ahsoka picked herself back up- sliding the mirror into the wide sleeves of her sleep shirt- someone must have changed her, probably Kix or one of the other medics- and ducked out into the hall. Then, she went into Anakin's quarters. They were right next to hers, so there was little risk of someone seeing her smuggling a suspicious lump through the ship.

It would probably be better if she could clean it up a bit before showing it to Anakin. Her claims about visions might seem more believable if it didn't look like any old heap of battlefield trash.

Anakin had a private ‘fresher attached to his quarters. Ahsoka didn’t. She usually used his. So… Where else would she do this, anyway?

And, well… Served him right. For running off.

The shower was a sonic, so that was a bust, but the sink wasn't. She turned the water on, tested it with her fingers to make sure it wouldn't get the metal too hot to handle, then stuck the mirror under.

It didn't get clean immediately. The dirt and Force-knew-what-else that was caked on- it turned sticky and gummy beneath the flow. She needed to scrub at it with her aching, miserable fingers to get it off. Again and again and again. Whenever she'd drag her nails over it, she'd feel more, so she just kept going. 

By the end, the small ‘fresher was too steamy to see clearly, her arms hurt even worse than they had before- from her shoulders to her fingertips, it felt like she'd been tenderized with a mallet- and the entire front of her sleeping robes were soaking wet. Gross. She'd need to get changed.

…But she couldn’t feel any more dirt! Or much of anything, actually. Her hands weren't processing much other than heat and stiff pain.

Victorious, anyway, she turned off the water and took a couple steps backwards.

It took a minute for the room to clear of steam, and when it did-

Oh Force was that creepy.

At the center of the mirror case- on both sides, she turned it over to check- there was a skull. A human one- and she could tell that it was human because it was alarmingly detailed for something so tiny.

A Togruta's skull looked more like the faceplate of some armors, since the montrals and lekku were cartilage, not bone. Here, she could clearly see that the skull wrapped all the way around. It was about the size of her thumbnail, with tiny, painstakingly-skulpted eye sockets and individually shaped teeth. 

…Maybe she wouldn’t be quite so disturbed if she hadn’t seen so many human skeletons.

Surrounding the skull, making up the bulk of the mirror's case, were various other bones. It was hard to pick out any single piece of human anatomy. Not because they weren't detailed- they were very detailed- but because the design wasn't geometric- the bones were interwoven with each other like reeds in an intricate basket.

…

Well.

At least it was thematically appropriate? For what it was?

…

Still.

After she showed Anakin, they'd see about maybe getting a plastoid case to fit over the existing case. She didn't like looking at the pattern. It made her head spin.

After that, it was a waiting game.

Ahsoka tucked the mirror under her pillow, shielded by her body and her ‘sabers, and she sent Anakin a message over com.

Got something important. Your eyes only.

Force knew when he'd come. Force knew when he'd even read it.

Not soon, apparently, because Ahsoka fell asleep and slept for thirteen whole hours. Anakin was not there when she woke up.

Anakin was not there when she washed up- mirror sitting on the sink in the ‘fresher. She never took her eyes off of it.

Anakin was not there when she ate in the mess hall. Rex kept his arm thrown around her shoulders the whole time- oblivious that his hand was only a few inches away from the secure inner pouch where she'd stashed the mirror.

Ahsoka checked her comm.

He still hadn't even viewed the message.

She wanted to hit him.

“Everything alright?” Rex murmured, leaning in to knock their heads together.

“Anakin won't even check his comm.” Ahsoka was quick to turn it off. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Rex with knowledge of the mirror- of course she did, it was Rex- but…

Well, he'd been pretty scared back there, too. She didn’t want to shake him up even more with knowledge of a weird, freaky Force-but-not-thing. Rex was always easily unnerved by things that were esoteric- things that were difficult to explain. He didn’t even like the Force particularly much. She pinned his unease on his unusually low Midichlorian count- nothing to soften the blow between the dream logic of the Force and the hard logic of his brain.

She'd tell him about the mirror after she and Anakin got it all figured out, once they understood how it worked.

…If he ever got back to their sector.

Rex sighed- but didn't say anything- and squeezed her gently. She let herself be nudged closer.

She liked cuddling with Rex, a lot more than she liked her few failed attempts at cuddling with Anakin. For one thing, Rex tended not to smell like Senator Amidala's perfume and beauty products, and any reminders of the Republic's worst-kept secret made her a bit uncomfortable- even now, there was a faint, queasy feeling in her stomach. For another, he was actually warm. Togrutas and clones ran at about the same temperature- both a few degrees hotter than standard humans. So, to her, Anakin was… A bit of an icicle.

Besides, Anakin could get… Clingy. He cycled between that and these disappearing episodes. Either he was never ever leaving her alone, or he wasn't there at all- off sneaking around with the Senator, or doing favors for the Chancellor. Rex didn’t get like that. Rex was steady. Close, but not enough to suffocate.

…She didn’t know what she'd do if something happened to him.

The mirror suddenly felt very, very heavy.

Ahsoka ate the rest of her soup in silence.

Ahsoka found an excuse to slip away from the others.

Then, she doubled back.

She was good at things like this. She was very good at it. It was similar to how she’d navigate a minefield- relying on the subtle, blurry echoes picked up by her montrals to figure out where things were, where people were- finding anomalies among otherwise smooth, near-featureless hallways.

She’d done exactly this for training more times than she could count. It was Rex’s idea, modeled after Anakin’s habit of having her practice evading blaster bolts by having the troopers fire at her. She would creep around wherever they were- sometimes a ship, sometimes a base, sometimes a city- and try to get the drop on her troopers. If they spotted her, they won. If she was able to tag them before they noticed her, she won.

It was fun. And it was good practice for all of them. It honed Ahsoka’s skills at getting around unseen, and it helped the troopers get better at noticing if someone was trying to sneak up on them. The 501st had a much better track record when it came to catching infiltrators, and Ahsoka liked to think that they could thank the training.

Now, though, this wasn’t practice. This was serious.

Ahsoka pressed her back to the wall, inching closer towards a small cluster of talking troopers- Rex among them. They were just around the corner, hopefully oblivious to her approach.

Her heart was hammering in her chest. It was too loud. She couldn’t hear the echoes anymore. She had to take a moment- squeezing her eyes shut, breathing deeply, releasing her nerves into the Force- to get it to quiet down. 

Then, she fished the mirror out of her pocket.

She was glad, abruptly, that this thing was a hand-held mirror, and not a… comm, or holocron, or something. And that Rex had taught her how to use mirrors tactically.

Ahsoka popped it open. Her reflection was the same as it had been before- blurry. Then, she checked her angles- making sure that she would be able to see around the corner but they wouldn’t be able to see her or the mirror- and rotated it.

Nothing. Rex and the others- Jesse and ‘case and Fives and Echo- were indistinct, white-and-blue blobs among a background of fuzzy silver. The mirror didn’t have anything to show her.

That meant that they were safe, right? It had to- right?

Mischief had died the day after she’d seen his reflection. Rex and her hadn’t been visible, and they had survived that mission. So… Either the vision with Mischief was a one-off, or everyone that she was currently looking at would survive the next engagement.

…Or was it a thing with time? Would she need to check everyone every day?

“...What are you doing?”

Ahsoka nearly jumped out of her skin.

Vaughn was staring at her. He’d come the same way that she had- and now he was looking at her like she’d grown a second head.

“Just…” Ahsoka tucked the mirror into her chest before Vaughn could get a good look at it. It was a creepy thing. “...Practicing.”

Vaughn stared some more.

Then he shrugged. “Alright. I don’t want any part of it, though. At least not right now. I’m getting dinner. Maybe later?”

“Alright!” She tried to give him a bright, I’m-so-normal-right-now smile. Shit, now she’d probably need to actually train later- and then Rex and Kix would get mad at her for not resting. Ugh- and would Vaughn notice if she used a different mirror, later, because this one really wasn’t any good for actually looking around corners-

Just a glimpse out of the corner of her eye. The mirror, held half to her chest. Still a bit of its glossy surface peeking out.

Vaughn’s retreating back caught in the reflection.

Something dropped in Ahsoka’s stomach. Chest. Heart. Head. Something. Some anatomy. She fumbled the mirror with shaking hands.

He’d stopped to talk to Rex, probably telling him about Ahsoka’s impromptu training. She couldn’t tell, though. She couldn’t hear them. Her pulse was roaring too loud.

And there it was.

There he was.

The shape of Vaughn’s body was clearly visible, in contrast to the blobs of the troopers standing right next to him. And, and, and-

It was worse than Mischief. At least Mischief had been quick.

He looked like he’d been stabbed through in several places. Right shoulder. Left thigh. Stomach, three times- there, there, there. Each one had caught a gap in his armor and pried it open, the way she had to crack open some shelled animals to get to the meat. There was too much blood to tell if there were any smaller injuries. Or if the individual plastoid plates had held.

The plastoid had parted, warped like an opened tin of govath sausages or pear-in-syrup. His flesh had done much the same. Glittering, off-white bone pushed aside. Tender organs pierced, instead, in the way they often were. They shined a kaleidoscope of colors. Deep-red, pink, almost-purple, off-white. Liver, stomach, spleen, gallbladder. Yellow fat strewn throughout.

Blood, everywhere. On everything. Splattered across the whole of his armor, running in rivulets across the few spots where it was mostly clear.

He would die lying on his back.

“Ahsoka!”

She snapped backwards, as if shocked by an electric charge. Her hands were shaking so bad that she nearly dropped the mirror as she snapped it closed, then tucked it away.

Rex looked, so- so disappointed in her. He’d crossed his arms, and he was glaring- these days, he had to glare up at her, but it was no less effective.

“You’re supposed to be resting.” He unfolded his arms, just to jab her in the chest. Not too hard. Gently. But still- he’d gotten the point across.

“I was…” Her tongue was fat and thick and dry and stupid in her mouth.

Vaughn, still alive, poked his head around the corner, then beat a hasty retreat.

Her tongue grew even fatter, even thicker, drier, stupider.

Rex’s anger evaporated.

“What’s the matter?” The hand on her chest moved to her shoulder. “What’s happened?”

Force- stars. Kriffing- she could never fool Rex, could she?

When she wrapped her trembling arms around him, she could feel the heat of his body beneath the bare skin of her hands. When he tucked his arms around her neck, she could feel the pulse in his wrist thrumming against her throat. He was alive- alive, still. 

But- the mirror hadn’t shown her anything happening to Rex, had it? He was fine. He was going to be fine. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Frankly, imagining Rex dying was like imagining the whole Jedi Temple sinking into the ground, was like imagining Coruscant swallowed up by a black hole. It was impossible. He was constant. He was always there.

But what if he wasn’t?

What if that changed?

The vision hadn’t been about him.

Ahsoka hiccuped a sob into his shoulder, anyway.

“It’s okay.” He was murmuring gentle words into her chest, then into her shoulder, then into the curve between her montrals as she sunk, melted- collapsed into him. She only heard bits of it, small snatches. “Udesii, vod’ika. Shh. Shhhh.”

Where was Anakin? Was he dead? Was the reason he wasn’t answering her messages because- she’d never checked him in the mirror! She wouldn’t know! And she’d never checked Master Plo, or Master Kenobi, or Cody, or-

And Vaughn! Where was he? She’d just seen him alive. But she’d just seen him dead, too.

Gloved fingers gently rubbed at her temples, at the curved tips of her montrals, her brows. “Is this about Mischief? It’s alright. He’s- taab’echaaj’la. Marching.”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Ahsoka’s skin was crawling, crawling- like she was being swarmed by insects. Like she was being tortured with electricity, again, but on the lowest setting. Like in that horribly empty city, before-

Oh.

That’s when she realized it, what she was feeling.

This wasn’t some kind of… Pre-grief. This wasn’t even panic. This was deeper, raw- wrenched straight out of the stupid, animal bits of her brain.

This was fear.

Jedi weren’t supposed to be afraid. Fear led to anger and anger led to hate and hate led to the Dark Side. But there wasn’t anything her fear was directed towards. She wasn’t afraid of the Separatists or the Sith or anyone else-

This was something else. This was just like that city.

Ahsoka tried to send her fear to the Force, the way she’d done her anxiety, just a few minutes before.

The Force wouldn’t come to her. It was still there- but, again. Distant, foggy. Out of reach. Just like her bond with Anakin had been. There was nowhere for her fear to go. It twisted up in her guts like thorns, choking around her intestines.

“I feel- I feel the way I did in that city, before it all went to the Sith Hells.” Ahsoka hissed the words into the crux of Rex’s neck and shoulder. He stiffened. “Do you remember?”

Then steady, always-steady Rex-

His voice trembled. His grip on her tightened, just a bit. “Yeah- yes, I do.”

“Something’s awful and wrong.” Ahsoka could swear that she could taste her heart. “And I don’t know what.”

Ahsoka considered it a very good thing that she could remain calm in a crisis.

Like, for instance- when they received an emergency transmission, asking them to hurry off to some small, nothing corner of a small, nothing planet. And, technically- Ahsoka was supposed to be indisposed. But Anakin still wasn’t here, and they didn’t know what they were walking into. She couldn’t leave her troopers to face it alone.

So- despite everything, she could compartmentalize. She could pack it all up and seal it away. She needed to focus on current threats, current problems.

She considered that to be an objectively useful skill. She was a Commander, after all. She had lives depending on her.

That was never more true than now.

This strange, abstract fear-

It must be connected to what was happening, somehow- to the visions she was having of her trooper’s deaths. It had to be. She’d felt it in that city, she’d felt it over Vaughn. Was it the lead-up? The warning that she needed to act fast?

Alright, so be it. All the more reason to get it together and get herself on a gunship.

Ahsoka changed out of the loose, well-worn robes she’d been wearing and into her kit. She decided to go with her first set- the one that had been left abandoned and filthy on the floor of her quarters. She didn’t know where her other robes were.

They were probably covered in Mischief’s blood. She’d bet that Anakin had them incinerated, or something. That would’ve been stupid, if he did do it. She knew how to get blood out of robes. She did it all the time.

But somebody had returned her armor- left it in a bundle at her door- so she put it on. The magnetic clasps were familiar. Nearly meditative.

It was the closest she could get to meditation, these days.

She checked her ‘sabers, and the knife in her boot, and the blaster she hid behind the back panel of her gorget.

Ahsoka would need everything. There was no telling what they’d be dealing with- except for one thing:

There was a very real and serious threat that Vaughn was going to die a slow, painful death.

Ahsoka intended to prevent it.