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When Ahsoka Tano opens her eyes, all she sees is smoke. Sirens blare from all around her, their lights flashing in heartbeats of red, but she cannot see the light through the thick smoke that has consumed the hallway. From the ceiling to the floor, smoke is everywhere.
She coughs as she tries to breathe, tries to move, the movement making her aware of the hard, cold, floor she lies on. She cannot sense a single familiar soul near her, and her lightsabers lie just out of reach. She tries for them, but her fingers fall short, and she voices her frustration with a sharp whine.
She sits herself up slowly, covering her mouth the best she can with her shirt, which isn’t much. Her back hurts like nothing else, her legs feel like jelly, and every second she spends upright sends shooting pain through her skull. She holds her head for a moment, closing her eyes and trying to breathe through the pain that has taken her mind.
She needs…she needs to save them. Who? She doesn’t remember, but she’s supposed to be saving someone from the ship. She remembers other padawans and cloaked figures, but it ends there. No matter. She can stand, and she knows she has to do something. Grabbing her sabres, she stands shakily, pressing through the thick smoke.
After a minute of mindless wandering, the smoke begins to clear, and she hears voices. They overlap with one another, the unmistakable sound of an argument, growing higher and shriller with each passing breath.
Ahsoka rounds a corner and sees three others, huddled together, rags tied around their faces. Their clothes, while dirty, are unmistakably Jedi in nature, and when they see her, all their faces light up. They rush to her side, and although she cannot remember their names, she remembers that she trusts them, leaning heavily against one of them, despite the child being a head shorter than her.
“Ahsoka?” A voice drifts past her, “Where is Barriss?”
“I…” she says, and the memories crash over, one by one, like rogue waves. She and Barriss had been investigating the disappearances of multiple Padawans from right under their master's noses. Young padawans, ones not involved in the war effort, whose masters weren’t even Generals.
The track had led them to this ship, and the memory goes hazy there. Barriss and her had engaged someone in combat, but she cannot remember who. Ahsoka looks around wildly for her best friend, shaking her head, “I don’t know.”
“Right here,” a familiar voice calls weakly, and Ahsoka nearly gasps in relief as Barriss’s voice signature washes over her. Barriss seems to be as injured as she is, limping heavily, her twin sabres clutched loosely in each hand. Ahsoka drifts to her side, trying to hold her up, but she is staved off. “I’m okay. We need to get out of here.”
Ahsoka nods, squeezing Barriss’s hand once, before mustering all her strength and saying, “We’re near the hangar, right? Let's just get to the ship.”
“Ahsoka…” Barriss says, confusion lacing her voice, “We’re missing five people.”
“Oh,” Ahsoka says weakly, clutching her head as the headache only gets worse. Barriss runs a hand over Ahsoka’s head, her brows knitting together in concentration. She clicks her tongue, her eyes dark as she meets Ahsoka’s. Pressing their heads together, Barriss closes her eyes, and Ahsoka does too, leaning forward to brush her lips against Barriss’s.
Barriss laughs a bit, but it sounds weak and airy. “Go back to the ship. I’ll get the rest. Get us a way out of here,” Barriss says, causing Ahsoka to shake her head. Barriss ghosts her lips against Ahsoka’s, smiling shakily at her. “I’ll be okay. Take them with you. I promise.”
Ahsoka doesn’t have the strength to argue anymore.
“Go! Go! Go!” Barriss shrieks as she runs onto the ship, dodging blaster fire all the way up. “Get us out of here!” She tells Ahsoka over her shoulder, the padawans she rescued securing themselves down as the shift begins its shaky assent.
She doesn’t let herself breathe until the ramp closes, glancing back at the cockpit as she disengages her sabres. Walking quickly, she enters the cockpit to see Ahsoka, her eyes wide with panic as she attempts to fly them out of the ship, blaster fire heavy all around them.
Remembering the pain that had radiated from Ahsoka’s temple when she had placed her hand upon it, she immediately sits down in the other chair, taking over control of the ship before Ahsoka can say otherwise. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ahsoka slump in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Are you okay?” Barriss asks.
“Get us to The Tribunal, ” is Ahsoka’s only reply, and Barriss nods, sending a hopeful glance towards where The Tribunal looms nearby. It had arrived as they began their raid, spreading the mercenary gang thin as they attempted to stave off the two Jedi Knights in their halls and the full force of a Star Destroyer. Their fleet and men were good, but there was only so much one could do.
“Wow,” a voice says from the doorway, and Barriss sends a warm smile over her shoulder at the padawans crowding the door. Having been as removed from the war as they were, they had never seen a clone, let alone a Star Destroyer.
“Back in your seats,” she tells them, listening to them scramble back to their chairs.
The momentary distraction, however, proves to quickly be a mistake. There is only a second warning as the force screams around her, and Barriss jerks to avoid the shot, but it’s too late, hitting the side of the ship.
There is a moment where everything is still, and then the ship begins to freefall towards the moon whose atmosphere they have chosen as their battleground. Barriss tries to breathe as the moon pulls closer, gritting her teeth, her fingers flexing on the steering.
She jerks it up, right before they are about to crash. There is a horrible shriek, and her head is thrown back, immediately plunging the world in darkness.
Rex coughs as he approaches the smoking wreck, motioning silently for his men to spread out and begin to quell the flames. He himself presses through the flames fearlessly, ignoring Kix’s side eye, calling out softly as he enters the ship's wreckage. “Commanders? Ahsoka? Barriss?”
He startles as he sees the grimly little Jedi cadets, slumped over in their chairs. He activates his comm, “Found the kids. No sign of the commanders yet, heading to the cockpit next. All seem scraped up but alive. How soon can we get more people in here?”
“Two minutes, tops, for the flames” Jesse replies. “Kix will have medical up in five or so, at most. Can they hold tight till then?”
“Affirmative,” he tells them, “But hurry. The smoke is thick, and I don’t want them breathing it in too long.”
One of the kids stirs, a young Twi’lek by the looks of it. Her eyes drift around the wreck until they land on Rex, whereupon they widen to a panicked size. He holds his hands out placatingly as she begins to struggle in her chair. He remembers, distantly, it being mentioned that these little ones had not been involved in any portion of the war. He’s probably the first clone she’s ever seen.
“Easy, easy, kid,” he says, drawing his switchblade and gently cutting her out of her seatbelt. “My name is Captain Rex. Are you hurt?” She shakes her head, falling forward into Rex’s arms as the last of the ruined belt falls away.
Patting her back gently, he helps her lean against the wall, handing her the blade, ignoring the voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Kix’s incredulous screaming. “Careful with that,” he tells her. “It’s sharp. Do you think you could help your friends? My men will be here soon enough to help you out of here?”
She nods, a familiar resolve burning in her eyes. She reminds him of Ahsoka, and the reminder causes him to stand, heading forward to the cockpit. The door creaks open halfway, before stopping and he is forced to strong-arm it the rest of the way open.
The sight that greets him, while not ideal, is better than anything his traitorous mind has been conjuring up since he first watched their ship take that hit. Ahsoka and Barriss are both unconscious and bleeding in their seats, but clearly breathing. They both look worn out, their breaths nasally, probably from smoke inhalation.
He comes to Ahsoka’s side first. The seatbelt comes away easily, and he doesn’t waste time scooping her up into his arms. She may be 17 now, a Jedi Knight, and a young woman in her own right, but she’s also his littlest vod still, something that will always be worth protecting.
Familiar footfall fills the wreckage, accompanied by warm voices, reassuring and soothing the terrified young children that lie beyond. Rex doesn’t even have to look at who steps into the cockpit beside him. Gree is just as loyal to Barriss as he is to Ahsoka, and it shows. He’d been right beside Rex, Skywalker, and Unduli as they all watched in horror as their little Commander’s ship hurtled towards the ground.
Unduli and Skywalker, however unwilling the latter may have been, had stayed behind to man the ship, and keep some command present on The Tribunal. He knows for a fact it tore Anakin apart not to rush to Ahsoka’s side, and it hurt Luminara in her own way, but he’s grateful for the moment to himself as he steps through the smouldering ruins, Ahsoka in his arms.
He’s fussing, and Padmé, ever the diplomat, tells him so with a long look and a single raised eyebrow that has him wilting. Sitting heavily on the chair that still gives him a perfect view of where Ahsoka is asleep on her bed in the guest bedroom of their apartments, he runs a hand through his hair and sighs heavily.
“I’m just worried about her,” he says simply, not glancing at Padmé as she perches herself on the arm of the chair, gently running his fingers in his hair in a way that makes him feel like she’s scratching the deepest itch inside of him. “She inhaled a lot of smoke, and her bruises are no joke–”
“–She’s stronger than you give her credit for, Anakin,” She gently reminds him. “And fussing over her at every waking moment will not be the thing to heal her faster. You heard Kix: she will be okay. She just needs rest.”
“But what if she’s sleeping too much?” He shoots back, “She’s barely been awake for the past three days.”
“Because she barely slept for the week leading up to them.”
He sighs again, shaking his head, “I hate it when you’re right.”
“Get some sleep,” is Padmé’s reply, her lips kissing the crown of his head before she leaves the room, the door quietly sliding shut behind her. The silence becomes oppressive after a few minutes, and Anakin stands, coming to sit at the end of Ahsoka’s bed, laying a hand on her sleeping form.
She stirs and he pulls away immediately, afraid to have woken her. But the ship has already sailed, apparently, her eyes sluggishly blinking open, and he manages to say, “Hey, Snips.”
“Anakin?” she asks, her voice muddy with tiredness.
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m here. How do you feel?”
“Tired, but–The padawans…” she says, reaching out for something. He catches her hand in his and guides it back to where it was. “Are they…?”
“They’re all okay. Already back to their studies, with plenty of stories about you and Barriss’s duelling capabilities to go along with them. That is, if Yoda is to be believed, and you know how that old gremlin is.”
She snickers a bit, her eyes closing again. Her chest rises and falls in an even pattern, like ocean waves, lulling him into comfort. He runs the pads of his flesh fingers over the curve of her montrals, smiling as she laughs a bit.
“You did good, Ahsoka,” he tells her because he too was once her: a young Jedi Knight, desperate for the approval of others. Now he is a Master, and she a Knight. Long gone are the dynamic Padawan and Knight duo they once were, General and Commander. Here, in this room, it’s just Ahsoka and jus Anakin. “They’ll all be okay. Barriss wants to see you.”
“Can she come over tomorrow?” Ahsoka asks sleepily, already clearly drifting back into unconsciousness.
“Yea,” Anakin says as her breaths even out, smiling down at her. Now, he understands what it must have been like to be Obi-Wan, watching him grow into a promising young man. She’s done so much, for someone so young. She’s even younger than he was when he became a Knight, and that’s saying something.
But for now, she rests in a bed given to her by he and his wife, dreaming of her own love and with the knowledge that her actions didn’t entirely go up in flames. The padawans were rescued. The mercenaries were defeated. And they’ll all be okay, in the end.