Work Text:
Ahsoka groaned for the millionth time, staring down at her water canteen like it had personally offended her.
“What’d it do?” Fives asked, incapable of fighting back his grin. “Beat you at sabbaac?”
“Shut up! You beat me one time!” Ahsoka wailed, shoving him. He cackled when his stance didn’t waver in the slightest, but the sound dwindled when a spark lit up her eyes.
“Commander no—”
Fives’ stomach bottomed out as he soared straight up into the sky, flailing and hollering before he could choke back his voice. His limbs jerked aside as his path changed, and the ground raced at him. Fives screamed, dignity gone with his voice, and halted violently just before he hit the ground.
Ahsoka laughed as he dragged himself to his feet, swaying.
“You little— I’ll get you back for that.” Fives stabbed an accusing finger at her with no real bite in voice or action. He took up his post once more.
“You and what army, Fives?” Ahsoka teased. “The boys would beg me to do it again if you told any of them. And I’m pretty sure you don’t have the Force.”
“I can lie,” Fives pointed out, but his voice had pitched higher than normal. “I can think of all sorts of things that would get them on my side.”
“Okay, whatever helps you sleep at night, Fiveo.”
Fives snorted at that. “IF I get to sleep tonight. Night watch is the worst.” He sighed, then ticked his head at Ahsoka, grinning under his bucket. “Hey— what is this, young lady? We’re on night watch and you’re distracting me! Get back to work and stop toying with the Grand Army of the Republic.”
“Aye Aye, soldier who I outrank.” She threw him a mock salute.
Silence enveloped them once more, save for the sounds of the night, their eyes scanning the shadowed horizon. They weren’t really expecting any attacks tonight— it would be nearly impossible for the Separatists to pull such a thing off, and they weren’t going to waste their troops like that— but they would be idiots not to have watches as a precaution at the very least.
Ahsoka groaned yet again, dropping her illuminated eyes to her water canteen.
“Seriously, Commander ‘Soka, is the thing spreadin’ rumors behind your back or somethin’?”
“No, I just… my throat hurts and the water’s not helping that much, but it is a little, but I can’t drink a whole lot right now,” Ahsoka said, a frown puckering deeper between her eye markings with every word. “That sounds really dumb now that I’ve said it aloud.”
“Nah, it’s just the air,” Fives said. “My throat’s killin’ me too, Commander. The air quality here is off the charts in a bad way.”
“You think? ‘Cause something’s been going through everyone in the temple and I really don’t want it.”
“Just the air,” Fives assured her. “And honestly, my throat probably hurts more because you made me scream.”
Ahsoka grinned. “Nobody made you scream, Fives, you did that yourself.”
“That’s what people who don’t want to take responsibility of their actions say.”
“Right back at ya.”
“You know what? I’ve had enough of your mouth. Gimme your water. I deserve it more.”
“No! I’m the one who brought my canteen! If you want water, bring your own!” Ahsoka shrieked, scooping up the canteen and folding it against herself protectively.
Fives grappled for it. “I don’t see you drinking it!”
“Because I’m not gonna.”
“Then why not let me have it? Help a poor soul out, won’cha?”
“You’re not a poor soul, you’re a lazy freeloader.”
“Freeloader?” Fives gasped, jumping back from Ahsoka as if she’d stung him. “Now commander, that’s a strong word.”
“My teachers in the temple are always telling me to use ‘strong vocabulary.’”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what they mean.”
“How would you know? You never—”
“Will you two shut up?”
Fives and Ahsoka whirled around to see Echo hunched in the doorway, and Ahsoka didn’t need to see his face to know he was scowling something fierce under his bucket.
“Can’t a man get any sleep around here?” Echo grumbled, head swiveling between the two. “I can sleep through just about anything but your insistent yammering. Tano, you’re off for the night.”
“Hey!” Fives whined as Ahsoka snatched up her canteen, poking a tongue out at him. “Why not me?”
“Because you’re more annoying. If you keep me from sleeping, I keep you from sleeping. Kano’s supposed to relieve you in an hour anyway.”
“A whole hour!” Fives wailed, as Ahsoka disappeared into the tent.
Ahsoka woke slowly to the sound of shuffling sometime around dawn. She drew at a breath that wouldn’t fit through her nose, instead letting it in through her mouth. It washed over her tongue like something sticky and tore at the scratchy edges of her tonsils.
Stars, the air was truly horrid here.
Ahsoka rubbed her crusty eyes with frigid fingers and reached up to her aching montrals. She considered the idea that someone had pressurized her montrals and brain.
“Morning, Commander,” said one of the clones as she squinted open her eyes. He sounded far off, muffled. Great, her hearing was shot.
“Morning,” came her crackled, drippy reply. She sniffed, rolled over, and pushed herself up to her feet. Stars, she would be glad when this all was over, so she could get off this stupid planet with its stupid air and feel normal again.
As the sun rose on the cloudy horizon, the 501st packed up camp, organized themselves, and began to move out for battle. Time here moved too slowly, Ahsoka decided, as she dragged herself after Anakin and Rex, wishing she could have Padme’s tea for her throat and mint for her sinuses. She’d been tracing the sun (red from whatever was in the air) across the horizon for what felt like hours, but had apparently barely reached one.
“Alright, ‘Soka,” Anakin said as the troops slowed to a stop. “I don’t sense anything over these hills, but they could just have clankers. Do you hear anything?”
Ahsoka blew a breath through her chapped lips and shut her sticky eyes. The Force swirled strangely inside her, around her. It felt cushioned from her, maybe too far. She opened her ears, cast out with both physical hearing and the Force.
“I… I don’t hear or sense anything. But something’s definitely wrong,” Ahsoka replied. “The Force feels funny.”
“You think so?” Anakin said, shutting his eyes to investigate for himself. “I don’t feel anything too off…” He snapped his eyes open and turned to the battalion. “Listen up, men! I need one man from each of the groups we organized this morning to go up and scout out the land. Prioritize stealth. Each man look out for what your group is assigned to do, make sure the conditions are right. Understood?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“You go with them,” Anakin said, patting Ahsoka on the shoulder with enough firmness to make her stumble. “Easy, Snips. Don’t get yourself worked up, okay? Since you can feel the wrongness, you’ll be better at seeking it out. I’m staying here to meditate, see if I can find anything. Sound good?”
“Yeah, sounds good, Master,” Ahsoka said with a half-hearted solute. “Squad up, search team!” she hollered at the soldiers who were sent forth by each group.
They scaled the hill for a while, cautious and in search of cover, then crossed over. Something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong, chanted her mind every time the reached out to the Force and it felt like sun-bleached cotton. But from what Ahsoka saw, everything was in order. The separatists were set up exactly as they’d predicted.
“Commander, look at this,” said one of the clones, nudging her. She peered through his binocs and scanned the rows of droids that greeted her eyes. “They’re covering the east side,” cursed the clone before she could register exactly what the droids being there meant.
“Easy fix,” Ahsoka said, clearing her throat. She stood behind cover to face the men and the motion had her brain bouncing around in her skull. “We take from our strongest squads and form a diversion group to draw them away.”
“How’re they gonna get there?” Someone spoke up, not unkindly. “We’d have to penetrate their forces to get to them, and by then they’ll be alert to other attacks and the diversion would be no good.”
“Oh… um…” Ahsoka squinted down at the rows of clankers again, grasping desperately at the threads of her fraying thoughts and memories. “Anakin and I can be the diversion, then,” she decided. “Two Jedi dropping in isn’t anything unusual.”
“But then they’ll know the troops are nearby.”
“They won’t know where.”
“Exactly, so they’ll cover everything.”
“We… could pretend to be after something else,” Ahsoka tried. “We could attack a different line and…. And… um, have troops approaching from other sides. It won’t be a surprise attack anymore, but it’s our best shot, right?”
The clones were silent for a few moments too long, or maybe it was the hair and her boggling brain and this whole stupid planet’s messed up time that made it feel that way.
“Alright,” one of them finally said, “let’s get back, yeah? Alert the General, see what he thinks.”
Ahsoka nodded and led them in the direction the others were still waiting, only vaguely annoyed that her perfectly-fine battle plan needed Anakin’s opinion.
“Commander, is there something else you need to see?” one of the men behind her asked. None of them had moved to follow her, she realized, when she turned around.
“No, we’re going back to report to Anakin,” Ahsoka said as she rubbed her nose. Stars, her throat hurt so bad.
“The General is the other way.”
“Oh.” Ahsoka, montrals burning, turned on her heel and slunk off in the right direction.
Time did it’s weird warpy thing again and Ahsoka ended up in front of Anakin and Rex, her and the clones explaining the dilemma and it’s fixes in turn. Rex’s helmet didn’t move, so he was probably thinking hard, and Anakin reached up to pick at an invisible beard as his brow furrowed into familiar deep lines.
Anakin eventually agreed that the best plan of action was having him and Ahsoka drop in to divert the sources on the east side, but he tweaked the plan a bit. Ahsoka hadn’t paid much attention to it, but she was pretty sure her role wasn’t changing much, so she didn’t try to comprehend. Thinking too hard made her montrals ache.
The troops moved out again. Ahsoka and Anakin looped around, ready to hear the boys were in position and leap right into the middle of a separatist formation.
“Something’s still wrong,” Ahsoka said from where she was crouched, eyes shut against the cushion of the Force. Anakin told his comms something about keeping eyes peeled and alerting him of anything even slightly off. Ahsoka’s eyes throbbed, and she let them stare at absolutely nothing until Anakin’s hand on her shoulder started her back to reality.
“This sure is bugging you, huh?” Anakin said, searching Ahsoka’s eyes. “You’ve been pretty out of it all morning. Half in the Force, half with us.”
Something stopped Ahsoka from telling him that she hadn’t been half-meditating just then. He nodded at her, asked her if she was ready, and helped hoist her to her numb feet.
“We’ll be alright, Snips,” Anakin promised, before leaping grandly away.
Ahsoka blinked, then realized she was supposed to be following him and flung herself gracelessly after him. She landed hard, staggering and tweaking her ankle as she whipped out her lightsabers. Blaster shots berated her and she scrambled with the slippery Force, swinging wildly until she could get a grip and predict the shots as she’d been taught.
The boys took entirely too long to make their appearance but showed up right on time. The battle blurred into a memory fractured by an aching ankle long blinks. With each blink, they drove the separatists further and further back, plan unfolding more perfectly than they could hope for any plan.
Something’s wrong, repeated Ahsoka’s mind again and again as the Force wrapped sluggishly around her brain. She stepped on her ankle wrong, yelped, and stumbled. In the seconds she took to right herself, a blaster shot that previously escaped her attention came hurling at her face, aiming right before her eyes, and no matter how fast she could swing her sabres, she would never deflect it in time and—
And an arm on her shoulder yanked her back into some brush, hiding her from the clankers. She twisted to find Kix staring at her through his visor.
“Thanks for the save,” Ahsoka breathed, already shifting her arms under herself to get back to the battle.
“Hey, where are you going?” Kix scolded, sweeping her arms out and laying her on the leaf-cushioned ground in one smooth motion. “You’re not fit for battle.”
“It was just a tweak!” Ahsoka whined. “Really, my ankles have survived way worse—”
“Your ankle? What’ve you done to your ankle?” Kix interrupted, sitting back to examine her boots. “Which one is it, Commander?”
“Neither, it was a joke,” Ahsoka said quickly, shoving herself upright. “Wait— why am I not fit for battle if it’s not my ankle?”
“You’re sick, that’s why,” Kix said, and it startled her into stilling for long enough for him to grab her arms again.
“I’m… sick?” Ahsoka said, vaguely aware of the swaying world as Kix lowered her gently onto the leaves again. “No, I’m not sick, it’s just the air. Fives said his throat hurt too ‘cause the air sucks.”
“Yeah, well, Fives isn’t stumbling around like a delirious monkey lizard.”
“Neither am—”
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for half an hour, Kid,” Kix deadpanned. “And you’d’ve been dead a dozen times if the men hadn’t been watching your back. You’ve got a fever that Tatooine would envy.”
Ahsoka stared stupidly at him. “Tatooine?”
“Yeah, I can feel your warmth through my gloves.”
“But my skin feels cold to humans.”
“Exactly my point,” Kix said, shuffling in his med kit. “I’ve got to get your temperature down before you start seizing on me or something.”
“But I’m not sick—” Ahsoka tried, and she was pretty sure Kix would’ve interjected if her own body hadn’t betrayed her first, sending her sneezing over Kix’s visor so violently it tore at her throat. She winced. “Sorry…”
“You’re sick,” is all Kix said in reply.
And honestly, maybe she was. Ahsoka tipped her head back and shut her eyes, facing the full force of the throbbing in her brain. She did feel awful. Stupid planet. Stupid air.
“Fives is right about the air,” Kix said, as if reading her mind. He might be. Ahsoka had a hunch medics could do that sort of thing. “The air here is worse quality than Skywalker’s ‘secrets,’ so it’s not doing you any favors.”
Ahsoka hummed.
“Have you been drinking much water? I’m thinkin’ you’re gonna need an IV drip.”
Ahsoka didn’t have the energy to lie. She shut her eyes and stared at the swirling grey. “No. I can’t if I don’t wanna pee every thirty minutes and that’s not good for battle.”
“We’re gonna work on that, then,” Kix said with a hint of amusement. Or maybe that was from the fever. Did medics get amused? Ahsoka couldn’t remember. It hurt something horrible to think.
“C’mon, kid, let’s get you outta here. I already called a medevac,” Kix said, taking her arms. “You wanna try walking?”
“Yeah,” Ahsoka said, indignant that it was even a question. “But the battle…”
“It’s over, kid,” Kix assured her. “Everyone’s filtering back this way now. Republic victory.”
“Yay,” Ahsoka said flatly as Kix hauled her gradually to her feet. “Let go, I’ll walk.”
“I don’t think you can stay upright yourself, Tano.”
“Yes I can,” Ahsoka protested, just before she fell flat on her face.
Ahsoka woke up to light in her eyes, blankets weighting her down, and the ghost of a deep seeded chill still lingering in her joints. She was stiff and aching, and when she tried to sit up, warm hands kept her down. She squinted around at her room, and didn’t try to imagine how she got in here.
“Hey, Snips,” Anakin’s voice trickled into her montrals, and it wasn’t too muffly or far off or anything. “You wanna try water again?”
“Water sounds good,” Ahsoka said, running her dry tongue over her even drier lips. Anakin helped her up to sitting and offered her a cup with a lid and a straw, raising her eyebrows in something akin to surprise when she took it out of his hands. Ahsoka watched him as she swallowed the water in greedy gulps, which both hurt and felt amazing at the same time.
“What?” she said at last. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re back,” Anakin said simply, grinning as he took the emptied cup away from her. “All of you.”
“What do you mean all of me?” Ahsoka said, irritation eating away at her.
“You don’t remember?” Anakin’s grin shifted, for better or for worse, Ahsoka couldn’t tell. “You’ve been sick for days, Ahsoka, and even though you kept waking up, you weren’t really here. You kept talking about water canteens and air.”
“Oh,” Ahsoka said. “Oh.”
Anakin laughed. “Yeah, oh. Kix’ll want to know you’re lucid.”
Ahsoka burrowed under her blankets. “This is a dream.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes it is. And I’m going back to sleep, and when I wake up, none of it happened. Okay?”
“Whatever you say, Snips.”
It was, indeed, not a dream.