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Ahsoka has been missing for six weeks.
Or, she thinks it’s been six weeks. That’s how many marks she’s scratched with her fingernail into the soft stone floor of her cell, the number of day cycles she’s watched go by out of the little window near the ceiling. But without any sort of chronometer, how can she truly know? She has no way of knowing how long the day cycles are here, not really, and the pain and exhaustion she feels constantly only confuse her internal clock further. Plus, she woke up here after being unconscious for an indeterminate amount of time--she can’t even be sure she’s on the same planet she last remembers visiting with Anakin.
Ahsoka can’t tune into her surroundings, or the universe around her. She’s not sure how, but they’ve managed to cut her off from the Force, and for a while, she felt a sense of grief akin to losing a limb. Over time, though, she forced herself to grow numb to the emptiness in her soul.
She can’t show weakness.
She thinks her captors want to sell her. Or ransom her, she’s not quite sure. Sometimes, they’ll drag her out of her cell and demand to know Republic secrets. They hurt her when she refuses to comply (always refuses, she was trained well), but they never go too far. Of course, Ahsoka wouldn’t call cuts, bruises, and the occasional broken finger pleasant—
(and her lek, but she can’t think about that, she can’t—)
—but it could be so much worse. They seem to restrain themselves only because they seem convinced she’s worth more to them alive than dead. She supposes she should be grateful for that.
Instead of reflecting on her gratitude, she finds herself curled up on the thin mattress on the floor, shivering against the cold of her cell. The light from the window tells her it’s probably close to the middle of the day, but it’s always frigid and damp down here. Her head is pounding with a headache that’s hardly left her since she woke up, and for once, she wishes she could meditate. Even disregarding her lack of connection to the Force, though, she’s too exhausted to muster up the focus required.
Her captors have been strangely absent today. They haven’t even stopped by to give her the usual meagre rations of gruel and water.
She thinks she should be worried about that, but instead, she drifts in and out of non-restful sleep.
Ahsoka wakes when she hears a commotion outside of her cell.
She struggles to sit up and wraps her arms around her knees in a protective gesture. There’s really not much she can do if they’re back, she learned that quickly, but--
--that looks like a lightsaber cutting through the hinges on the door.
She watches, wide-eyed, as the door falls to the ground, and standing behind it are Anakin, Rex, and Kix. She can hear a few other troopers out in the hallway, but can’t identify them on sound alone.
“Master?” she asks, hating how her voice seems to tremble.
“Ahsoka!” Anakin is in front of her in an instant, scanning her up and down, assessing her condition. In the back of her mind, she notes that she can’t feel their bond, and though that’s technically expected, it still feels alarmingly wrong. “Are you okay? Can you stand? C’mon, we’re gonna get you out of here.”
He wraps an arm around her back and helps her to stand before she can even really think about it. He urges her toward the cell door, but she finally gets enough wits about her to plant her feet firmly in the ground.
“Wait.”
“Snips, we don’t have time--”
“They put a chip in me,” she says, watching him freeze at her words. “It’ll explode if I leave the compound.”
She hears Rex let out a harsh breath beneath his helmet, and Anakin looks at her gravely. “A slave chip.” Then, her master crouches down, gently grabbing her shoulders as an unreadable expression flickers across his face. “Where?”
In response, her hand ghosts over the raised scar on her rear lek. She has no memory of it being implanted, but ever since waking up here, it’s been the source of a steady, throbbing pain and her constant headaches. It hadn’t taken long before one of her captors tormented her with the knowledge that the scar was in fact evidence of a chip that was triggered to explode if she tried to escape.
Anakin spins her around, and she can feel the burn of his and the clones’ scrutinizing gazes on the back of her head. Then, he speaks, not to her, “Can you remove it?”
“Yes,” Kix answers without hesitation. His voice is grim as he continues, “but I don’t have any numbing agent left.”
Her shoulders stiffen, and her heart leaps to her throat at the thought. She knows Anakin can’t Force suggest her to sleep, either. She needs to stay alert for their escape. He turns her back around and forces her to hold his gaze. It’s unspoken, but she knows he’s giving her the choice.
Lekku and montrals are the most sensitive part of a togruta’s body. They have countless nerve endings, so if any damage is done to them, the pain feels amplified a thousand-fold. She was thankfully unconscious when the chip was implanted, but to remove it awake, without painkillers...it would be agony.
Ahsoka takes a deep breath and tries to muster up all the courage she has.
“Do it.”
A quick succession of orders follow. Rex gives her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before exiting to the hall to help the shinies keep watch while the operation takes place. She’s guided down to lay on her front on the floor, and the filthy mattress in her cell is bunched up and propped under her chest so she can breathe comfortably while face down. She hears Kix run a scanner over her lek, and then he prods the area gently with his fingers. On the ground, the chill of the stone floor seeps into her bones, and her whole body trembles.
“It’s very important she stays still,” he says after his cursory examination, “General, can you…?”
Anakin settles down above her head, placing his hands on either side and gently but firmly holding her in place while giving Kix access from her side. Ahsoka tries to take deep breaths, but it does little to abate her growing anxiety.
She is hyper-aware of every sound in the small cell. The clatter of plastoid as Kix sets his kit down on the ground, the rustling as he digs through his tools, the buzz as he activates the laser scalpel. She feels cool antiseptic on her lek as the medic disinfects the area, and the sharp smell of it overwhelms her nostrils. Her heart beats faster, faster until its rhythm is the only thing she can hear. Her chest is so tight, she can’t sense Kix in the Force and she can’t see him, but she can feel him coming closer and closer and--
“I can’t,” she gasps before he can make the first incision. “I can’t do it, I…”
“Does she have to be laying down?” Anakin asks suddenly. She can’t hear Kix’s answer beyond her heart pounding in her ears, but suddenly, she’s being lifted onto Anakin’s lap, her face pressed into his shoulder. He’s warm. He wraps one hand around her back, and the other around her head, palm pressed against her temple, keeping her still.”
“You can do this Ahsoka,” he murmurs reassuringly, thumb stroking gently across her temple, “you’re one of the strongest people I know.”
Her bond with Anakin is still silent, but she doesn’t need it to hear the sincerity in his voice. He waits until she calms down, until her heart doesn’t feel so constricted in her chest. “You ready?” he asks quietly.
She takes a shuddering breath and nods.
“Once it’s out, we need to get out of here and to the infirmary as soon as possible,” Kix instructs, “These conditions are less than sanitary, and I’ll slow the bleeding, but it’ll be a deep wound, and I won’t have time to stitch her up.”
“Understood. Do what you need to, Kix,” Anakin says in a steady voice.
“Okay, Commander. I’m going to start now. Deep breaths.”
Then he makes the incision.
Fire licking up her body. Blaster bolts ripping through her skin. Thousands of needles invading her flesh. She doesn’t have the words to properly describe the pain that overcomes her. For a moment, her vision flares white, and she thinks she might pass out, but the universe isn’t so forgiving. She instinctively wants to scream, but bites back the impulse, terrified that doing so might move her head and trigger the chip to explode. Instead, she grips Anakin’s tunic, broken fingers and all, and silently begs for it to be over.
“You’re doing so good, Snips,” he encourages softly, as if she were a youngling instead of a military commander. She’s desperately thankful for the comfort it brings her. “Almost done.”
For a moment, she thinks she hears blaster fire in the distance. “I’m there. Inserting the forceps now,” Kix says, a tense edge to his voice. Anakin doesn’t stop stroking her temple.
She feels every millimeter of the forceps entering her lek. It’s agonizing, and she struggles to obey Anakin’s gentle encouragements to keep breathing. She’s a Jedi. She’s a teenage war commander. She’s fought General Grievous himself, for Force’s sake, but this has to be the most difficult thing she’s ever done.
“It’s out,” Kix announces suddenly, and it feels like a dam exploding. The Force returns to her in a wave, and she realizes the chip must have also been what had been suppressing it in the first place. Immediately, Anakin envelops her in his blinding presence, holding her in the Force just like he’s holding her in real life. He can’t completely erase her pain, but he takes as much of it as he can, and she feels cradled in his projections of love and comfort and safety .
“Okay, that’s the best I can do for now. We need to get out of here,” the medic says as he finishes patching her up, and now that she isn’t completely overwhelmed by pain, Ahsoka realizes that it is indeed blaster fire she’s been hearing. Anakin helps her to her feet, keeping one arm around her shoulders the entire time. He pulls out her lightsaber, and though she’s not sure she can really use it right now, she feels better having it clipped to her belt again. She opens her mouth to say something, and suddenly notices a coppery taste on her teeth. It must show, because Anakin’s eyebrows furrow as he looks at her face.
“Kix?” he asks with concern. The medic comes over and puts his hand on her chin as he shines a light into her mouth.
“Just a bitten tongue,” he assures them, and Anakin lets out a relieved breath. In the haze of pain from her lek, Ahsoka hadn’t even noticed she’d bitten her tongue, but now she can feel a deep wound bisecting it. “Spit if too much blood collects, but we’ll have to worry about that at the ship.”
The journey back to the ship is a blur. Ahsoka remembers her head pounding as they ran, and begging the Force to give her enough strength to make it back on her own two feet. They can’t afford for her to be carried. Anakin and the clones are fighting off enough opponents as it is—she doesn’t want to be a bigger liability.
At one point, the Force screams at her, and she somehow manages to pull out and ignite her lightsaber just in time to deflect a blaster bolt flying straight for Anakin’s head. She doesn’t have energy for anything more. Her fingers ache. Her whole body aches.
It’s only when they reach the metal of the ship’s landing platform that her knees finally give out. She doesn’t fall far—Anakin hasn’t let go of her since they started running. He lifts her into his arms now, projecting safety and reassurance. She can feel her whole body trembling.
“It hurts, Master,” she confides to him in a whimper. She can feel two of his fingers pressed to her neck, and then they shift to her forehead.
“I know, Snips,” he says sympathetically. She closes her eyes against the bright, harsh light of the ship, but she soon smells the sterile chemicals that make up the med-bay. She’s set down on a cot that feels as soft as a cloud compared to the mattress from her cell, though she knows from past experience they’re not actually that comfortable. She quickly curls up on her side, any pressure to the back of her head being agonizing.
“I need a drip started stat, painkillers and fluids!” Kix ordered, “and prep the imager, as soon as I finish with her lek, I want to see about those hands”
Anakin doesn’t leave her side as they prick her arm with an IV, and soon, her world goes numb as the pain meds kick in. She feels a jolt of anxiety as Kix peels the bacta patch off her lek to continue working, but her Master soothes her mind with his presence, his signature coating their bond with calm.
Soon, her lek is stitched up, her hands are splinted and wrapped, and her cuts and bruises are tended to. Anakin pulls a blanket up over her shoulders, and she starts to feel truly warm and safe for the first time in weeks. She looks up at her master, the drugs making her brain feel kind of floaty.
“Ma’thter?”
“You shouldn’t try to talk, Snips,” he says, reminding her of the bacta patch that’s been awkwardly wrapped around her tongue. But he can’t help but smile at the stubborn look she gives him, and he helps her remove it—just for a minute.
“Thank you for saving me.”
His face softens. He pulls the chair that’s been left by her bedside closer and then sits, reaching out to settle his hand over hers. “Of course. You don’t have to thank me for that.”
“I was so scared,” she admits. “But Jedi aren’t supposed to be scared.”
She feels something sympathetic flicker across their bond. “It’s okay to be scared, Snips. Can I tell you a secret?”
She starts to nod, then stops when she feels the gauze wrapped around her head start to shift. He leans forward and says in a low voice that only she can hear,
“I was scared too.”
She stares at him, her addled mind scarcely able to believe it. “Really?”
“Really. But it’s how we respond to fear that makes us strong. And you were so, so strong today.”
She feels warmth run through her, and she clumsily tries to project her gratitude toward him. He responds with a wave of affection, and his hand moves to rest on her forehead.
“Get some sleep now, Snips.”
Her eyes instantly feel heavy at the Force suggestion, but she manages to say one last thing. “You’ll be here?”
“Always.”
His promise settling over her like a blanket, she finally drifts off to sleep.