Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

August starts with a road trip.

There’s a lot Ahsoka doesn’t miss about the minors, and a lot she hopes, against all odds, she’ll never have to do again. Most rookies bounce up and down a handful of times, and there’s no reason to think she won’t. She thinks she can go back to not having three Jacuzzis just fine, and she can live without waffles.

But the team plane. The team plane.

In Bandomeer, the team had traveled on smelly buses, often overnight, and then had to play the next day. But even if that weren’t the case, Ahsoka thinks she would still be blown away by her first private jet experience.

Not having to go through airport security is pretty damn nice. Walking out to the plane itself, following the rest of the team in a single-ish file along the actual runway, is surreal. It’s early. There’s no one on the tarmac as far as she can see, other than people affiliated with the team, and the odd person in a high-visibility vest. The plane itself looks huge – a full sized jet – not that Ahsoka’s been on a huge number of those in her life.  The guys ahead of her jostle and shift their carry-on luggage as they start to bottleneck at the plane steps. Ahsoka’s sure her eyes must be the size of saucers. Bonteri sends her a knowing smile, but she can’t find it in herself to care. Local rookie is impressed by team plane, news at 11.

Maybe it’s that she’s always seen so many photos of players walking up the steps of the team plane. But taking her first step onto them feels momentous.

“Ahsoka!”

And clearly, team PR agrees, because Ahsoka looks up to see Barriss, one of the team PR staffers, standing a few feet back from the staircase, holding a camera.

“Smile for the team Insta!” Barriss calls out.

Ahsoka flashes her widest grin, and finds that she completely means it.

On the plane, every seat is the cushy first-class kind. There are clear sections, with the front office people sitting at the very front, then the coaches, then the players. Rex is sitting toward the back of the coaches, and he gives her a smile and a little wave. She’s tempted to break convention and just sit with him. But she pushes down the impulse – probably better to wait until at least her second time on the team plane before she breaks its unwritten rules. Although she’s pretty sure she saw Kanan Jarrus in the cockpit, looking cozy with a woman in a pilot’s uniform, so what’s that about?

Kenobi has claimed a whole row to himself, as have most of the veterans, and he’s already curled up like a cat and gone back to sleep. Skywalker has his big bulky headphones on and his laptop out. Vos is… knitting? Ahsoka continues past the veterans without asking, no matter how much she wants to. She finds an empty row near the back and  settles herself into the window seat.

Bonteri eventually settles next to her as the rest of the plane starts to fill. She’s a little nervous he’ll be chatty the whole way, but he pretty much immediately puts on his headphones and goes to sleep. So Ahsoka gets to spend her first team flight exactly the way she wants to: wide awake, cocooned by quiet, watching the clouds go by.

They start the road trip in Florrum. It’s a pretty city that Ahsoka’s never been to, all bridges and rivers. She pitches well against the Pirates. It helps that they’re not very good this season. But still, it’s a major league team, and they’re not squaring her up at all, and it feels good. Every night she goes to sleep in the team hotel, she’s a little less convinced they’ll be sending her back down to Bandomeer the next morning.

She's starting to feel good about her teammates, too. As usual, a lot of them still aren’t sure what to make of a girl in their midst. But for all that they’re unsure, they do include her in their road trip activities. She spends multiple evenings drinking beer and playing card games on Sleazebaggano’s hotel room floor, goes out for a run with Bridger and Kestis one morning, joins in on a food delivery order with most of the infield.

After they win their rubber match neatly, besting the Pirates 7-1, Gerrera announces to the locker room at large that they’re going out. Apparently it’s Friday, which Ahsoka hadn’t realized.

She also hasn’t really packed anything to wear for a Friday night out in Florrum. Ahsoka dithers in her hotel room for a while, finally settling on a maroon sleeveless top and leggings as Bonteri bangs on her door and bellows that they’re leaving without her. A few wolf whistles ring out when she finally appears in the lobby. It’s the first time most of them have seen her out of athletic wear, so she can’t even be mad, though Bonteri and Gerrera both look thunderous.

The drive to the club is boisterous, some of the guys in the car with her clearly having started their night already. Ahsoka is squished against Gerrera, who seems to be taking his responsibility as the organizer of their night out seriously, and is pointing out various Florrum landmarks to her out the window.

“How do you know so much about Florrum?” Ahsoka asks curiously, a few minutes into the drive.

“My sister Steela lives here. She went to college here, stuck around after she graduated last year.” Gerrera’s usually stoic face lights up when he says his sister’s name. “She and some of her friends are actually meeting us.”

“So you’ve visited her here a lot?”

Gerrera nods. “Every offseason, I spend as much time with her as I can. She’s all the family I have left. You know?”

Ahsoka does know.

When they get to the club, Gerrera has clearly called ahead, because he says something to the guy at the door, and there’s a lot of nodding and clapping each other on the shoulder. Even so, the bouncer seems to be stopping everyone and inspecting IDs. Some of them grumble about it, but dig through wallets good-naturedly. Kenobi, a few people ahead of her, seems to be laughing and gesticulating at the grey at his temples.

Ahsoka tries to look casual as she hands over her license. Maybe this place is only 18+?

A raised eyebrow from the bouncer dashes her hopes.

“Sorry, Miss Tano,” he says politely, “but I can’t let you in. Come back in six months and we’ll be happy to have you.”

The rest of the guys, other than Gerrera, have already disappeared inside. Gerrera leans over and squints at Ahsoka’s license. “Shit, Tano, you’re 20?”

“Yes?” Ahsoka squeaks. “I thought you knew that!”

“I assumed you’d have a fake ID,” Gerrera mutters in her ear. Then he turns back to the bouncer. “Look, she’s here with the whole team, we’ll vouch for her, okay? Shirley Temples all night. I promise.”

The bouncer shakes his head. “Sorry, kids. Not worth my job or our liquor license.”

Ahsoka’s heart is sinking until it’s somewhere in the vicinity of her shoelaces. It’s not like she’s had much time to try to go out to bars. Not like there were any particularly appealing ones in Bandomeer, anyway.

“Excuse me,” comes a clipped voice from behind her. “Is there a problem?”

Gerrera and Ahsoka turn to see Kenobi, wearing an expression of polite curiosity, and Skywalker, wearing a storm cloud on his face.

“I was just taking a look at your friend’s ID – ”

“You don’t need to see her ID,” Kenobi interrupts smoothly. He plucks Ahsoka’s license out of the bouncer’s hand and passes it back to her. “We can go about our business.”

“What?” The bouncer’s hand is still in the air where he’s been holding Ahsoka’s license. Skywalker reaches out and clasps it, briefly. Ahsoka can see the bills he leaves behind when he lets go, but only because she’s looking for it; it’s clearly a practiced motion on Skywalker’s part. The bouncer glances downward for a split second, gauging the value of what he’s holding, then slips his hand into his pocket.

“I don’t need to see her ID,” he parrots. “You can go about your business.”

Skywalker looms, holding the door open, and doesn’t move until Ahsoka is safely through it and catching up with the others.

Gerrera gives her a little shove as she slides into a seat at one of the tables they’ve claimed. “Tano! Just for that, you really are sticking to Shirley Temples all night.”

“Come now, surely she could have a ginger ale!” Kenobi calls out across the table from where he’s squeezing in next to Vos.

“Chocolate milk,” Skywalker says gruffly, suddenly right behind her. Ahsoka twists around in her seat to try to see his face.

“Hey, thanks for your help – ”

“Don’t mention it,” he cuts her off quickly, already starting to move away. She can’t read his expression at all.

“Can I pay you back for – ”

“Absolutely not.” And then he’s gone, off to the bar, without another look at her.

A few minutes later, Ahsoka is attempting to follow Sleazebaggano’s extremely convoluted story about a bar fight he once witnessed, when a fizzy pink drink with at least eight cherries in it appears next to her elbow. She’s just opening her mouth to shout after Skywalker’s retreating back, when the door opens, and the most beautiful woman Ahsoka’s ever seen walks in.

She’s wiry but looks like she works out, muscular arms highlighted by the blue tank top she’s wearing, and her hair is in shoulder-length twists that are pulled back with a white headband. From here, she looks like she’d be about Ahsoka’s height. Long eyelashes, high cheekbones, and a piercing gaze that seems to be pointed… Ahsoka’s way?

“Steela!”  a voice rings out, and Ahsoka turns to see Gerrera standing up and beaming.

Oh, of course the most beautiful woman Ahsoka’s ever seen is Saw Gerrera’s sister.

Saw gets up and pulls Steela over to their cluster of tables. She has a few friends with her, too, though Ahsoka doesn’t even hear their names when Saw says them.

“You know Elon,” Saw is saying to Steela somewhere a million miles away, “this is Bonteri, I don’t think you guys met last year. And this is Tano.”

Ahsoka stands, pushes her face into an expression she really hopes is a smile. “Ahsoka, Ahsoka Tano,” she jumps in.

Steela smiles back, and Ahsoka’s no poet, but she could write sonnets about the curve of her lips.

Steela extends a hand to shake, and Ahsoka takes it. Firm grip – short fingernails. She manages to let go without clinging. She thinks.

“You remember Skywalker,” Saw continues, drawing Steela back into re-introductions. Ahsoka flees.

At the bar, she waffles for a moment before deciding not to push her luck. “Uh – water please?”

Ahsoka’s so focused on staring at Steela across the room that she doesn’t notice who she’s standing next to until he nudges her. She turns to see Kenobi, with a knowing expression and a shot of whiskey. He pushes the latter toward her, flicking his eyes toward the bartender, whose back is turned for the moment.

“You look like you need this more than I do.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice. The shot burns going down, but it settles warm in her stomach and she thinks she can feel her face again.

“How do I – how can she – I’m just so – what am I supposed to do with that?” Ahsoka manages. She’s aware she makes absolutely no sense, but. Steela’s just. She’s too. “God, I’m too queer for this,” Ahsoka says plaintively.

Kenobi throws back his head and laughs.

She’s pitching pretty well, until she isn’t.

Windu’s been using her in middle relief a fair amount, and she's been effective. Maybe it’s that hitters still underestimate her, despite the scouting reports they must have read – it’s been conventional baseball wisdom for long time that no woman will ever be able to throw harder than about 80 miles an hour. Ahsoka’s long since proven that wrong with her mid-90s fastball, but it’s still satisfying to watch opposing batters swing late the first couple times they see it.

Every new call-up has a honeymoon period while the league adjusts to their pitching. Every honeymoon period comes to an end eventually. Ahsoka was just hoping hers would last more than a week.

She gets her first official loss against Dathomir. It’s on a good pitch, is the thing – her slider, well-located, low and inside. Maul still digs it out and sends it screaming out to left, high and long, a no-doubt homer the whole way. They lose the game by exactly the three runs Maul bats in. Ahsoka’s mad in the clubhouse afterward, though she thinks she manages not to show it. Repeats the usual platitudes about working on her location.

Skywalker is rattling off the same tired sentiments a few feet away, since it was his start. A few times during the media scrum, Ahsoka thinks she feels his eyes on her, but she can’t make out what he’s saying.

The next game is a little better, mostly because Maul is on the bench. Ahsoka gets called in to face one batter, Savage Opress. She goads him into a broken-bat double play to end the inning. Then she’s done, Windu giving her a pat on the shoulder and calling for Chun to start warming. Ahsoka watches herself on replay on the TVs in the clubhouse and thinks, I could’ve stayed in.

Sadly, Maul is back in the lineup the next day, since Kenobi is starting. Ever since Kenobi struck out Maul to eliminate Dathomir from the playoffs a few years ago, Maul has played in every single game Kenobi has started against Dathomir. The media is starting to call it a rivalry, although Ahsoka’s pretty sure it’s a one-sided one.

Windu doesn’t call for Ahsoka to start warming up at all that night. She can’t exactly blame him. They ultimately win 1-0. Kenobi is brilliant for 7 shut-out innings. Gerrera gets the two-inning save. Ahsoka doesn’t feel too bad that bad she’s watching from the bench, given that the entire rest of the bullpen is watching with her. Still. She’d like another crack at Maul, sometime.

After Dathomir, they head back to Coruscant to play four games against Mandalore.

It’s amazing how the Knights’ ballpark is already starting to feel like home. For all that Ahsoka’s still sleeping in the same hotel room as when she arrived, the clubhouse and the bullpen are starting to feel more than comfortable. It’s a dangerous way to feel, and she knows it. But… she’s made it through a whole road trip, now. Is it so wrong to imagine she might stay?

The first game back is disastrous.

Vos doesn’t have it from the first pitch of the game, and the Warriors are all over him. It’s a hot night, the park is playing small, and the ball is flying. Windu pulls Vos after four and a third. He’s still swearing into his glove as he stomps off the field. Ahsoka’s glad she’s not in the dugout – the sound of Vos taking it out on the Gatorade bucket echoes all the way out to the bullpen.

The Knights’ offense is hot, too, but not hot enough. Chun goes out, allows two runs. Bonteri goes out and allows three.

Then it’s Ahsoka’s turn.

With Mandalore already leading by five runs, there shouldn’t be much pressure on her. But her hands are sweating in the humidity, and the rosin bag isn’t helping. She manages to hit Saxon with a cutter too far inside, walk Vizsla, and then Priest clears the bases with a ringing double.

Windu pulls Ahsoka without her recording an out.

She’s not sure what she says to the media that night, but thankfully there’s enough blame to go around that they don’t dwell on her. She does go home without showering at the park, to stare out the window her hotel room in a funk of frustration and sweat, and watch the headlights blur on the street below.

Her funk seems to follow her back to the field the next day. For some reason, all she can think of is finding Rex – that Rex can fix this, fix her. But when she gets to the bullpen, Rex isn’t alone.

Of course. It’s Skywalker’s day to throw a side session.

Ahsoka tries to duck out unseen, but before she can, Skywalker stops throwing. She doesn’t know how he knows she’s there. But he turns around, spinning the ball in his glove, and calls out, “Tano, wait.”

His hair looks damp where it sticks out the sides of his dark blue cap, like maybe he’s been out there a while already, for all that it’s early.

“You wanna throw?” Skywalker offers. “Rex and I are about done.”

She does and she doesn’t, is the thing.

A buzzing sound comes from the gear bag on the bench, and Rex pops up from his squat, jogs over, and pulls out his phone.

“Fives, what’s up?” He listens for a long moment, then sighs heavily. “Okay. Okay, calm down. I’ll call Cody. Stay put, okay? I’ll call you back.” Rex hangs up the phone and looks over at Ahsoka and Skywalker. “Family shit. I’ll be back in a few.”

He disappears through the door Ahsoka just came through.

Skywalker looks at Ahsoka, and it feels like he’s measuring her up somehow.

“Well,” he says finally, “if you were just gonna take your anger out on your fastball, it wouldn’t have helped anyway.”

“What?”

“That’s what you came here for, right? To throw hard at something until you felt better.”

He’s not wrong, is the thing, although she was hoping Rex would have more than that for her. But still – “You have no right! You don’t even know me.” The words tumble out of Ahsoka’s mouth, more heat behind them than she intends.

Skywalker seems unperturbed. “Look, I get it. I get mad – a lot. You’ve – well, you’ve seen it.”

It’s the first time he’s explicitly acknowledged yelling at her on her first day, for all that they’ve talked around it once before, barefoot on the outfield. Somehow it surprises her.

“Yeah, and you’re a beacon of handling it well,” Ahsoka snaps. “Please tell me how you do it.” She knows she’s baiting him. Knows it isn’t a good idea. But it’s only frustrating her more that it doesn’t seem to be working. Skywalker just shrugs and drops down into a seat on the bench.

“I tried punching stuff – broke my hand once. Wound up out for the season. Tried smoking weed, but it made me too paranoid. Tried therapy, or as the team calls it, mental skills conditioning, but the team guy reminded me way too much of my middle school soccer coach.”

Ahsoka laughs in spite of herself.

“Tried bullying rookies,” Skywalker adds, quietly, “but it just made me feel like an asshole.”

It isn’t an apology, really, but it feels enough like one that it takes some of the wind out of Ahsoka’s sails.

She sits down on the ground and hugs her knees to her chest. “So what helps? Meditating with Rex? Navel gazing?” She leans her head against her knees, briefly. “I just – I just wanna pitch better.”

“Are you telling me,” Skywalker asks sardonically, “that no part of you wants to wipe that dumb little smirk off of Dred Priest’s face?”

Ahsoka sighs and lifts her head. “Yes, okay, that too.”

Skywalker looks at her, considering. “Let’s go inside.”

He brings his glove with him, so she brings hers. She has no idea where they’re going – knows there’s a bunch of underground pitching tunnels, which they seem to be heading towards, but doesn’t know what they have there that isn’t in the actual bullpen.

The answer, as he leads her into the last one in the line, seems to be a white hanging tarp with the strike zone marked on it, and a projector set up behind it.

Skywalker fiddles with a laptop, and all of a sudden, there’s a picture of Dred Priest’s face in the middle of the strike zone.

“Skywalker,” Ahsoka demands, “what the hell is this?”

“You wanted to wipe the smirk off his face.” Skywalker shrugs and comes to stand behind her. He hands her a ball. “So hit him.”

Ahsoka stares. “How is this supposed to help me with my anger issues? I’m not the kind of pitcher who throws at batters. And I don’t want to be.”

“No, no.” Skywalker raises his hands and waves them at her. “Wait. Let me explain.” He stares at the projection for a moment, then looks back at her. “It’s not about throwing at them. Not really. It’s about… taking away their power over you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Anger…” Skywalker sighs. “At least for me, it’s about feeling helpless. Feeling like someone else is in control. This…” He gestures toward the projection. “This helps me feel like the batter isn’t in control of me. I can put my pitches where I want them. They can do their worst. But I’m gonna locate and that’s all there is to it. Like that pitch against Maul, Tano – it was a good pitch. A really good pitch. You put it exactly where you should’ve.”

“But he still got to it,” Ahsoka says dully.

“Yeah, he did.” Skywalker takes the ball back from her. “He beat you on your best pitch. It’s baseball. Sometimes that happens. It’s your job to go back out there and throw him your best pitch again tomorrow.” He winds up, rears back, and throws. The ball thunks right into Priest’s face. “The batter’s just a batter. He’s not your nemesis or a genius. He’s just a guy you’re facing. But if you get mad at him, you give him all the power.”

He pulls a bag of baseballs off a shelf on the wall and offers her a new one. “Take that power back from him. It’s not his. It’s yours.”

Ahsoka considers the projection. Considers the ball in her hand. Arranges her hand into her cutter grip. Winds up.

She spikes her first pitch six feet before the tarp.

“See, that’s what I mean!” Skywalker exclaims. “That’s what you were doing last night. You’re lucky you didn’t hit more than one batter.”

“You’re not helping!” Ahsoka snarls, picking up another ball. This pitch thuds into the tarp, at least, but it misses Priest, and the strike zone, by about a foot.

“You’re better than this.”

“I know I am!” Foregoing her cutter grip, Ahsoka throws her four-seam fastball, as hard as she can. The projection of Priest’s face shudders with the impact.

“Better. Do that five more times.”

She does, though she’s really not sure why she’s listening to him. Isn’t sure why she’s doing any of this.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

The baseballs she’s thrown are starting to roll around on the floor in front of the tarp. Priest’s face is unchanged, still staring out at her.

Skywalker hands her a new ball. “Now sliders. I want one on each corner of the zone, and then put one where his neck should be.”

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

Neither of them hears the door click open behind them as she’s throwing her second one.

“Well,” Kenobi says primly from the doorway, “this is slightly more twisted than I expected of you, so early in your career. Slider looks good, though.”

Ahsoka turns wildly toward Skywalker. He shrugs, unrepentant. “What are you doing here, Obi-Wan?”

“Cody told me Rex had to leave. I came to check on the two of you, make sure Ahsoka was all right.” Kenobi eyes the projection of Priest, as though he’s not sure whether she is or isn’t.

“I think I’m getting there,” Ahsoka says slowly. Weirdly enough, she is starting to feel better.

“Good. Now show me the cutter,” Skywalker orders.

Ahsoka picks up a ball. Stares down at her hand as she arranges her fingers into her well-worn cutter grip.

“No, stop.” Skywalker reaches out and covers her hand with his own. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Close your eyes. If you’re looking at your hand, you’re overthinking it.”

Ahsoka glances over at Kenobi, who seems content to watch in silence. “Do I have to pitch with my eyes closed?”

“You can open them when you start to wind up.”

She isn’t sure, but she has no reason not to try. Eyes shut, she slides her fingers over the seams she knows so well. When she starts to lift her foot, she opens her eyes.

Her cutter goes exactly where she puts it, starting somewhere around Priest’s right ear and moving across his face – across the strike zone –to his left ear, at the very last moment before it impacts on the tarp.

“Nice!” Skywalker crows. “Now do that five more times.”

Breathe. Eyes closed. Thunk.

Breathe. Open them. Thunk.

Breathe. Thunk.

Breathe. Thunk.

Breathe. Thunk.

Skywalker doesn’t hand her another ball after the fifth one. Just stands and looks at the tarp. Ahsoka looks, too.

The picture of Priest just looks like a picture of a man. Not a nemesis. Not a genius. Just another ugly batter.

Skywalker eventually breaks the silence. “How do you feel?”

Ahsoka considers the question. “Lighter, I think.”

“Do you want to know what I saw?” Kenobi asks gently from behind her. Ahsoka turns around.

“Sure.” As if she'd ever turn down pitching advice from a for-sure Hall of Famer.

Kenobi strokes his beard. “Last night, you were throwing every pitch like you had no idea where it’d end up. Your release point was different every time. On the nights you’ve pitched well – and I do include the home run Maul hit in Dathomir, by the way – you’ve kept your release point perfectly consistent, as you should. It was consistent again, just now.”

Skywalker switches off the projector from a wall switch. “See? My methods are a little unorthodox, but they work.”

Kenobi snorts. But before he can say anything, Ahsoka muses, “It’s not that different from Rex’s exercises, really. Breaking everything you see into its component parts, so everything is small enough it can’t hurt you. It’s all about taking away the hitter’s ability to get into your head. So all you have to do is throw the next pitch.”

A quizzical look appears on Kenobi’s face – like maybe he’s never been afraid of a batter in his life, or angry enough at one that it hijacked his ability to pitch to them. But Skywalker smiles like he knows exactly what she’s talking about.

The game that night is tight, tight and chippy. When Windu calls for a relief pitcher after the sixth inning, the Knights are up, 3-1. But Mandalore is playing dirty. Saxon slides into second base spikes-up to drive in the Warriors’ only run so far, and Bridger needs a few minutes to walk off the impact into his leg, white pants covered in the dirt Saxon’s cleats have left behind.

Chun gets the call for the seventh. It seems like a good match-up, because he’s faced the Warriors so many times in his career. But the reverse, of course, is also true. They play small ball against him and they play it well, and by the third batter, Chun is frustrated enough that he misplays a bunt, badly, air-mailing his throw way past first base. Two runs score as the ball rattles around the tarp roller. Jarrus finds it, eventually, throws home to end the inning and limit the damage. But the score is already tied. Chun thunders his way into the dugout and down the tunnel, and doesn’t come back.

The Knights don’t score in the bottom of the seventh.

Piell has Ahsoka and Bonteri both warming. When the phone rings for the top of the eighth, he points to Ahsoka.

The run out from the bullpen to the pitcher’s mound is long. Ahsoka takes it one stride at a time.

Saxon is up. Ahsoka is prepared for this – knows where the holes in his swing are. So does Garen Muln, squatting behind the plate.

Her cutter goes exactly where she puts it. Strikeout swinging. One down.

Korkie Kryze, the only player Ahsoka’s faced so far who’s younger than she is, comes up next. She knows better than to underestimate him – he’s got remarkable plate discipline, already leads their team in walks. She’ll have to give him something that looks good enough to hit.

Fastball, outside. Kryze lays off.

Fastball, further outside. He still doesn’t bite.

Cutter, in the zone until it isn’t.

Kryze hits it off the handle of his bat. He runs hard, even as the ball rolls back to the mound. Ahsoka scoops it up and fires it back to Jarrus. Two down.

The third batter is Dred Priest, because sometimes baseball is like that.

He sneers at her from sixty feet away, and that’s all it takes for Ahsoka’s heart to start hammering in her throat.

Muln puts down two fingers. Priest waggles his bat.

Ahsoka closes her eyes.

The sound of the crowd arches over and around her. Some feminine-sounding voices on the third base line have started a “LET’S GO, TANO” chant. Vos is shouting something from the dugout, though she can’t make out the words.

In her mind, Ahsoka sees Rex, sitting cross-legged in the grass, telling her to go smaller. She sees Biggs Darklighter’s terrible porn star mustache. She imagines the projection of Priest’s face in the middle of the strike zone. But that’s not what she wants, not really. Skywalker’s face replaces his in her mind’s eye, staring at her intently. His voice echoes in her memory.

“If you get mad at him, you give him all your power.”

Ahsoka runs her fingers over the stitches on the ball. Lifts her foot. Opens her eyes.

The ball arcs toward the batter – who is, at the end of the day, just a batter.

Priest pulls his hands in, at the last minute, a defensive swing. The ball skyrockets straight up.

Muln pulls off his catcher’s mask and sends it flying onto the ground behind him. He dances around the infield dirt, for one breath and then two. Finally, he reaches out and snags the pop-up in foul territory.

Three down. Inning over. Score still tied.

Ahsoka meets the sea of high-fives in the dugout with her head held high. There’s an empty spot on the bench next to Skywalker, and it feels right to take it. He’s working on a bag of sunflower seeds, and he offers her a handful, which she takes.

The Warriors take the field for the bottom of the eighth.

The first two Knights batters can’t make much happen, though they don’t go down without trying. Zeb Orrelios hits a fastball hard to right, but Saxon manages a spectacular catch at the wall. Cal Kestis very nearly legs out an infield single. But he gets thrown out by half a step, and trots back to the dugout, frustrated.

Garen Muln steps into the batter’s box.

Ahsoka looks down, momentarily, to brush sunflower seed shells off the front of her shirt.

Crack.

Skywalker is jumping up next to her, and Ahsoka jumps, too, at that sound, the perfect sound that can only mean a ball hit hard off the sweet spot of the bat. The stands around them are exploding with noise, but the crack of the bat is still ringing in Ahsoka’s ears.

The ball seems to float, high and deep to straightaway center, and Muln is definitely admiring it from the batter’s box.

The ball clears the outfield wall, and Muln starts to jog around the bases.

4-3, Knights, in the bottom of the 8^th.

The dugout erupts around Muln when he trots back down the steps. He just grins at them all and goes to strap on his catcher’s gear for the next inning.

Another unremarkable out, and then “Ready or Not” starts to play over the stadium speakers. Saw Gerrera begins his long, slow run in from the bullpen.

Ahsoka knows she watches every pitch Gerrera throws. She can’t look away. But afterward, she won’t remember a single one. All she can remember when she looks back on that inning later is a realization, burning in her mind like the jinx that it is. She was still the pitcher of record when Muln scored what should be the Knights' winning run. If Saw can close this one out, Ahsoka will officially credited with her first major league win.

Pitcher wins, with the nonsense way they’re assigned, are meaningless statistics. She knows this intellectually, and believes it. Will take that belief to the grave.

She really, really wants this win.

On the field, Vizsla whiffs satisfyingly over Gerrera’s fastball for strike three.

Somewhere in the tumult, between the many hands slapping her on the back and the bro-hugs everyone pulls Muln into, a cameraman pushes through the dugout toward Ahsoka.

“They want you out on the field,” he says urgently, giving her a push.

The Knights’ sideline reporter, Oola, is waiting there with two microphones.

“Knights fans,” Oola exclaims into one microphone, as she hands Ahsoka the other, “give it up for Ahsoka Tano, who officially earned her first major league win tonight!”

“Thank you so much,” Ahsoka says into her mic, hearing her voice echo a split-second later, almost drowned out by the crowd.

“Tell us, Ahsoka, how does it feel to be – ”

But before Oola can finish her question, she lets out a shriek of alarm and ducks. Ahsoka turns to see Skywalker and Rex, clutching the huge orange Gatorade bucket between them, and the only thing she has time to do is close her eyes.

The freezing-cold liquid hits her like a tidal wave.

Sputtering, she opens her eyes, blinking Gatorade out of them. Skywalker’s already running away, the very image of glee, and Rex is bent over at the waist, laughing.

Ahsoka looks up at herself on the scoreboard. The movement lets a bunch of ice cubes drop down the back of her jersey, and she jumps, barely suppressing a squeak.

The image that looks back at her from the scoreboard is drenched in blue Gatorade, her white uniform probably permanently stained. Her hat is lopsided, and there are sunflower seeds stuck to her jersey.

A grin splits Ahsoka’s face.

Oola, nearby, seems to be still recovering from getting hit with the edge of the Gatorade bath.

Ahsoka knows an escape opportunity when she sees one.

Skywalker is still on the dugout steps, his back to her.

Ahsoka reaches down the back of her neck and pulls a handful of ice cubes out of her jersey.

The shriek Skywalker lets out when she jumps on his back and shoves the ice cubes down the front of his shirt is almost sweeter than the win.

W: Tano (1-1) S: Gerrera (21)

Final