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The days after Mortis, Ahsoka’s whole body feels like a bruise, and her soul. Well, her soul feels burned , like her Force presence is crispy around the edges. She tucks it in close behind the strongest shields she can muster, and hopes it goes away.
She’s exhausted, and at first she’s so tired she feels just like a proper Jedi; numb to everything around her. She knows her Masters worry, that clones keep tripping over her when she falls asleep in odd places--sprawled out in the mess, curled up in random ships in the hangar. A panicked search party found her in an air vent in the lower levels, on the second day--but she just can’t bring herself to care enough to change her behavior. She tries to type up her report for the Council, but her hands shake too much, and Anakin finds her two hours later in one of the ship’s consoles, its previous contents of wires half-stripped and spread across the floor of their quarters. She doesn’t even remember what she was trying to do with it, so she ignores him when he asks her.
He tries to talk to her about It , but so much of the past few days are either a bleeding wound or a gaping hole for Anakin--in her flashes of emotion, bitter and sore, Ahsoka wishes she was as ignorant of her time on the Dark side as he is--and he has no wisdom and acceptance to share. He is as much walking wounded as she is, his bones a little older, a little heavier. Just as hard to carry.
If Ahsoka sleeps too much, then Anakin sleeps too little. Always restless, Mortis changed him; made him more paranoid of her safety again. She knows he checks on her several times through the night, after he jolts awake from nightmares that he shrugs off come morning. If she were a better apprentice, if she could just summon the energy to care again, she’d press him for the details, but Ahsoka can only fake a personality for so many hours a day. She just can’t manage putting in any more effort than is absolutely necessary, and she decides that reassurance and normal behavior rank somewhere below avoiding confrontation.
After a few days, of course, the apathy fades, and cruel feeling creeps back in. Exhaustion and odd aches turn into nervous energy and frantic productivity, and the circles under her eyes that never fully faded come back in stark definition. Suddenly she sleeps almost as little as Anakin, and instead of being found asleep in odd places the clones work out a rotation to try dragging her away from endless work and exercise.
She’s disappointed that the negative emotions are the first to come back, but at first anything seems better than nothing. Ahsoka can’t seem to prevent her temper flaring, though, no matter how little the offence. She rides the ensuing guilt, another motivator to keep her awake. This is how she should feel, for the horrible things she did, Ahsoka thinks, and then the doubt creeps in. She remembers the pain, and then the shadow, but it had felt good . The darkness was cool, and soothing, and the light that had followed was blinding and burning. Ahsoka had never felt so confident, or powerful, or happy . Is that what the Jedi denied her from birth? But shame soon overcomes her again, and she draws away from people even more, lashes out to keep them at a distance. Where they’re safe from her and that awful feeling of bliss.
Instead of drifting passively away from the concern pouring in from all sides, as she did before, now it infuriates her. Rex had set a roster of clones to follow her around, to make sure she’s eating properly and not falling asleep in dangerous places. When sleep deserts her they become even more mother-hen-ish, demanding she take breaks and trying to ply her with food laced with sedatives. After the first shift of her anger, the volunteers don’t dry up , so much as they become more cautious about how long they’re asked to stay on for. Ahsoka tests out her newfound skill for cruel words and soon the only ones willing to keep her company are Artooie and Torrent Company, and even they keep their distance.
Obi-Wan tried talking to her, too, and at first she had smiled and thanked him and told him she was fine, like he couldn’t feel the cracked, shaky emptiness inside her for himself. But the more he pushed, telling her to trust the Force to guide her (which part? Ahsoka thinks. Both scream so loudly now that she can barely drown them out), the more she pushed back. Gone was the respect, and out poured belligerence and disdain. As soon as the words escaped Ahsoka longed to take them back, but she just kept on going until he left her alone, too. The less time Obi-Wan spends with her, the safer he is from that black pit of emotion slowly bleeding outwards, infecting the rest of her.
And though the emptiness grows with each step her mentors and comrades take away from her--each cold silence that forms as she walks into a room, each frown and averted eye--she tells herself she’s doing the right thing. Distance, Ahsoka thinks, is better than death.
***
After a week of this, Rex has had enough. Enough of Ahsoka stomping around like a sulking youngling, enough of the Generals avoiding each other’s eyes, neither of them brave enough to press the subject with her after the first disastrous attempts--enough of the lot of them, every kriffing Jetti he’s ever met, never willing to talk about their feelings.
So when Ahsoka has driven off even her friends, all but him and the droid (who, Rex feels, is too used to the General and his moods to be bothered by the Commander in her little tantrum), Rex takes care of it.
“So. Are you going to keep treating everyone like bantha poodoo, or are you going to actually talk ?” he demands one afternoon, watching her fiddle with a ship’s innards. Rex isn’t altogether sure if Ahsoka is taking it apart or putting it back together, but he’s never devoted his time to mechanics. He hadn’t quite realized her Master had rubbed off on her this much, the action familiar only from the many times he’s seen General Skywalker doing the same thing after a bad campaign.
“I wouldn’t snap if people would just listen . I told you to leave me alone,” she says coldly, never looking up.
“Alright,” Rex sighs, putting his bucket down next to her and taking a seat on the floor, legs crossed. “I should’ve said it the way I meant it. You have two options, kid. Either you get over whatever this is on your own, or you tell me what the kriff is going on and I sort it for you.”
“I’m not a kid.” Ahsoka considers two parts, eventually tossing one aside and screwing the other into place. Ah . Probably putting it back together then. “I’m your Commander, in case you forgot.”
“And that’s not an answer.”
“This isn’t something you can fix , Captain. This is just how things are now,” she says, and he frowns. Her casual tone of voice is shaking, and her jaw works as she hooks things back together.
“Now that I don’t believe, Commander . I know you lot said I wouldn’t believe you, but it can’t be any worse than the poodoo coming out of your mouth right now,” Rex says sharply. He feels bad about pushing when her hands stall out and her shoulders shake, but he steels himself to keep going. Still she turns away from him, but he doesn’t miss the hitch in her breath as she fights some strong emotion.
“ Stop ,” Ahsoka wheezes, slamming the parts down before her with a loud crack of metal on metal. “Just stop. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“And I told you that wasn’t an option, so why don’t we skip to part where you give up on driving me away? You may have scared off the rest of ‘em, but you’re stuck with me,” Rex says, avoiding the sirs and Commanders he would normally drop in. Reminding her of her rank again won’t help her open up to him now that she’s faltering.
Cautiously, he reaches out a hand, resting it on her knee. She stares down at the gloved hand before scrubbing her face roughly, smearing engine grease on her white cheek marking.
“I died,” she says finally. Rex’s face remains impassive, but his hand clenches on her leg before he can stop it. He had expected something bad, with the Generals too cut up about it to handle her, but this was…
“I died, and Anakin figured out a way to bring me back, and it hurt . Stars, it still hurts, and I don’t know how to make it stop, and I don’t know if it will stop, and. And. And I’m tired , Rex, I am so kriffing tired ,” Ahsoka says, turning towards him at last. Her eyes are wide, and so much older than normal. The tears he expected are missing, but her face is drawn, and her lekku pale and still. Her words speed up as she goes along, as if now she’s started she can’t stop until it’s all out in the open.
“And when I’m not tired I’m angry, and I shouldn’t be, but I can’t help it. I just keep hurting people, and no matter what I do they come back for more, and one day it’s going to get them killed!” Ahsoka’s voice goes high and shrill, before she stops and swallows. She opens her mouth as if to keep going, then closes it, bowing her head.
Rex isn’t entirely sure what the protocol is for this, so he just goes with what feels right. His hand shifts from her knee to her shoulder, and he pulls her into an awkward hug. Between his armor and the way he has to crane his neck to avoid her head tails, it’s the most uncomfortable he’s been in a while, but he sits there and lets her shake. The tears never come, but the emotions pour out regardless, until she slides away, putting herself together again.
It takes him a few minutes to realize that the closed eyes and odd breathing pattern are an attempt to meditate, but once he does Rex shuts his own and tries to match her. He knows nothing about Jedi meditation, can’t feel a thing if she’s messing around with the Force, but he knows how to sit down and think; knows how to breath like a sniper and let the calm spread through him.
He breathes through the storm of confusion and fear she stirred up in him, letting it die down, and Ahsoka grabs one of his hands suddenly and squeezes tightly. Her grip gentles as he squeezes back, and Rex lets that ground him. He can’t feel her pulse or the warmth of her skin through his armor, but she’s solid and strong and holding on. She may have died, but she’s still here , as alive as ever. It’s his job, after all, to keep her that way. He’ll do it till the day he dies, and then he’ll hope his brothers can keep up with her and the General in his absence.
She releases his hand with one last squeeze, and offers a brief smile before she stands up and turns to leave. He lets her get to the ramp out of the ship before he finds the words he wants to say.
“You won’t get them killed, y’know!” he calls after her. “Any risks we take, we take with our eyes open. Don’t push your friends away for doing our jobs.”
She pauses at the the top of the ramp, hand drifting along the wall. Ahsoka’s head bows, and she shudders once, before nodding. “Thanks, Rexter.”
Rex’s mouth twists, worrying he undid all that not-crying and meditation with a few sentences, but when he looks down he smiles. His glove is coated in noxious grease, and his chest plate is smudged with the stuff where her stained face pressed against it, creating odd black patterns over the blue paint. It’ll take ages to get it all off, he knows; but it was well worth it.
***
The first person Ahsoka apologises to is Master Obi-Wan. Well. If you translate a hesitant smile and a request to meditate together as an apology. His surprised happiness says he got the message, and with his help she’s able to achieve her first true meditation since. Since. Even with Rex, it had been a bare imitation of her normal peaceful connection to the Force. Obi-Wan seems less tense afterwards, too, and it occurs to her to wonder how his meditation has been going in the aftermath. How did it feel, to watch two of his students Fall within hours of each other? She feels even guiltier about the way she’s treated him in the wake of that thought, and resolves to be less snippy with him.
The second person she apologises to is Anakin, and she doesn’t actually speak the words to him either. Ahsoka finds him pacing in their quarters and asks him to join her for lunch in the mess, like it’s any other day. Like she hasn’t been avoiding him for the last three. Normally she’d ask him to spar, but she doubts either of them are ready for that. The last thing she wants to do is bring up memories of the last time they clashed blades. She does her best to get back to her normal teasing, and even manages to get a soft laugh out of him when he loosens up a bit.
What she doesn’t manage is getting him to call her ‘Snips’ again, and the hesitation every time he slips up and starts to say it, only to switch awkwardly to her name, bothers her. She can tell by the frown on Rex’s face when he joins them that he’s noticed it too.
It takes her another two days to snap and confront him, and in that time Ahsoka carefully reaches out to the many friends she so stubbornly drove away. They welcome her back, one and all, with open arms, and she’s never felt more grateful. She has the best bunch of troopers a Jedi could ask for.
She still feels a lingering sadness, and an anger that never rests, but like pus drained from a wound the worst is gone. If she keeps applying bacta in the form of forgiveness, perhaps eventually it’ll be gone altogether. Of course, it might scar. Too soon to tell, Ahsoka supposes.
“Okay, Master, what’s up with you?” Ahsoka demands. They’re still not sparring, but they’ve progressed to doing katas together in the gym. Anakin’s been watching her practice the Jar’Kai forms of several of her old favorites, offering corrections as she goes. He’s deliberately used her name each time, sometimes pausing to change the word before he speaks it.
“What’dyou mean?” he asks nonchalantly, circling her. “You’re dropping your left elbow again.”
Ahsoka sighs and readjusts her elbow for the fifth time. “You haven’t called me Snips, not once. You keep starting to and then stopping yourself.”
For a second this gives her Master pause, and he frowns. “I… just thought it was time I stop using that silly nickname. It’s not a big deal, Ahsoka.”
“Is this a hint for me to stop calling you Skyguy?” she asks, unexpectedly insecure. It hadn’t occurred to her that the nicknames might seriously bother him, that he might now think them childish and unnecessary. For Ahsoka, they had long since become terms of endearment, and she’d thought he felt the same.
“No! No, that’s not it at all. I thought you might prefer it, that’s all,” Anakin explains, avoiding her eyes. Ahsoka drops out of her form to peer up at him, head tilted. She deactivates her lightsabers and hooks them onto her belt so she can cross her arms. It adds, she feels, to the overall effect.
“Of course I don’t, Skyguy. What got that into your head in the first place?”
“I--nothing. Just something you said on…”
“On Mortis,” Ahsoka finishes, her voice small. She tries to look more confident than she feels. “Well, you can ignore everything I said on that stupid planet. It never--I didn’t mean it, of course I didn’t mean it. Not any of it.”
“Of course,” her Master echoes with the hint of a smile. “How silly of me.”
“Damn right. Now, how was that last run-through?”
“Better, but watch that elbow, and on the second block you keep forgetting to brace both sides equally. You’re still acting like you only have pressure coming from one side, and you need spread out your strength or one of your wrists will collapse and let them past your guard...”